Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site. 0108263 License for publishing multimedia online Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349 The Royal Netherlands Navy is set to acquire two new support vessels equipped with modern weapon systems and specialized equipment. Dutch shipbuilder Damen has been awarded the contract to construct these vessels. These multifunctional support vessels will follow closely with the Air Defense and Command Frigates (LCF), offering additional defenses for them. The frigates will control weapons launched from the support vessels. The vessels will carry new weaponry and equipment in standard ISO containers, utilizing innovative designs and smart integration of existing systems to operate with a small crew. Key features include additional long-range air defense missiles to counter mass attacks from anti-ship missiles or drones, long-range precision munitions for amphibious operations, and electronic warfare equipment to disrupt enemy radar systems and drone communications. Additionally, the vessels will be equipped with underwater drones and sensors to gather intelligence on potential threats and secure critical infrastructures in the North Sea. The acquisition, valued between 250 million and 1 billion, depending on the content of the vessels, aligns with the Dutch governments policy to strengthen the national Maritime Manufacturing Industry and contribute to Europes strategic autonomy. The first vessel is expected to be operational for North Sea missions by 2026, with both ships fully operational by 2027. Naval Group Launches Second FDI Frigate for Hellenic Navy Naval Group has launched the HS Nearchos, the second Defence and Intervention Frigate (FDI HN) for the Hellenic Navy, at its shipyard in Lorient, France. Designed to meet the evolving needs of modern naval warfare, the new multipurpose warship has a placement of 4,500 tonnes. It is equipped to conduct naval operations, including anti-air, anti-surface, and anti-submarine warfare. The frigates advanced capabilities and versatile design make it an asset for the Hellenic Navys maritime defense strategy. The launch of HS Nearchos follows the successful construction of the first frigate in the series and precedes the ongoing development of the third vessel, HS Formion, whose keel was laid on April 15, 2024. This project is part of a broader collaboration between the Naval Group and the Greek industry, including constructing frigate blocks in Greece under the Hellenic Industrial Participation (HIP) plan. KONGSBERG to Upgrade Norways Ula-class Submarines Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (KONGSBERG) has secured a contract worth approximately NOK 436 million (about $41.5 million) from the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency to upgrade Norways Ula-class submarines. The agreement aims to extend the operational life of these submarines until the introduction of new 212CD submarines in the 2030s. The scope of work includes upgrades to the combat systems software and hardware components onboard the Ula-class submarines. KONGSBERG, which initially supplied the combat system for these submarines, has previously conducted upgrade programs for the fleet. This latest modernization effort will ensure the Ula class remains operational for the next decade. The update program will maintain the Ula-classs operational capability until the next generation of submarines arrives. KONGSBERG also supplies the combat system for future 212CD submarines, which will be delivered to Norway and Germany. Norwegian Shipbuilder Advocates for US-Designed Constellation-Class Frigates Norways Vard shipyard, a subsidiary of the Italian Fincantieri group, has recently hosted senior Norwegian officials to showcase its capabilities and argue for adopting the US-designed Constellation-class frigate for Norways future naval needs. Aurora Unveils WIG Seaplane Concept for DARPAs Liberty Lifter Program Aurora Flight Sciences, a Boeing company, has released a new video showcasing its Liberty Lifter seaplane concept, designed for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program. The Liberty Lifter aims to introduce new heavy-airlift capabilities from the sea by combining a ships transport scale with an aircrafts speed. The proposed X-plane demonstrator features a 65-meter (213-ft) wingspan and can carry up to 22.5 tons (50,000 lbs) of cargo. It is designed to operate at altitudes up to 10,000 ft in standard flight and utilize wing-in-ground-effect flight close to the ocean surface to extend its unrefueled range. Aurora has partnered with Gibbs & Cox, a Leidos company, to develop a flying boat capable of operating in challenging sea conditions, including taking off and landing in up to Sea State 4 and operating in ground effect up to Sea State 5, and that employs low-cost manufacturing techniques from the shipbuilding industry to demonstrate affordability. In Phase 1B of the program, Aurora is conducting various testing activities, including tow tank testing and propeller performance characterization. The subsequent phases will involve continued development, manufacturing of the demonstrator, and flight testing, which is projected to begin in 2028. Return to: Defense-Update Weekly News Summary 26.9.2024 https://sputnikglobe.com/20240927/israel-eliminates-several-senior-hezbollah-fighters-in-beirut-idf-1120311725.html Israel Eliminates Several Senior Hezbollah Fighters in Beirut - IDF Israel Eliminates Several Senior Hezbollah Fighters in Beirut - IDF Sputnik International The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has eliminated some senior Hezbollah fighters, including the deputy head of movement's missiles and rockets force, following a strike on Beirut, the IDF said on Friday. 2024-09-27T10:08+0000 2024-09-27T10:08+0000 2024-09-27T10:08+0000 military israel beirut middle east israel defense forces (idf) hezbollah lebanon israel-lebanon tensions https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/105730/08/1057300894_0:164:3136:1928_1920x0_80_0_0_33e4834367d9ac02d902d793e34481af.jpg "Following the IDF strike in the area of Beirut on Tuesday (24.09.2024) in which Ibrahim Muhammad Qabisi, Head of Hezbollah's Missiles and Rockets Force was eliminated, it can now be published that additional senior terrorists were killed alongside him. The eliminated terrorists include Qabisi's deputy, Abbas Ibrahim Sharaf Ad-Din," the IDF said on Telegram, adding that a senior operative in Hezbollah's surface-to-surface missile unit, Fuad Shafiq Khazal Khanafer, was also eliminated by an IDF strike. The situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border aggravated after the start of Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip in October 2023. The Israeli military and Hezbollah fighters exchange fire almost daily in areas along the border. Israel began carrying out massive strikes on southern and eastern Lebanon on Monday. IDF Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi labeled the offensive operation in Lebanon "Northern Arrows." The death toll from the bombardments exceeded 1,500, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. Hezbollah, in turn, fired dozens of rockets toward northern Israel. This escalation was preceded by a series of explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon from September 17-18, which killed over 40 people and injured nearly 3,500 others. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240926/idf-says-carrying-out-precision-strikes-on-beirut-1120301048.html israel beirut lebanon Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International israel, lebanon, israel-lebanon tensions, israeli strikes on beirut, hezbollah, idf eliminates hezbollah fighters https://sputnikglobe.com/20240927/italys-salvini-on-russias-nuclear-doctrine-dont-want-to-even-think-about-using-nuclear-weapons-1120308632.html Italy's Salvini on Russia's Nuclear Doctrine: Don't Want to Even Think About Using Nuclear Weapons Italy's Salvini on Russia's Nuclear Doctrine: Don't Want to Even Think About Using Nuclear Weapons Sputnik International Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said that he is in favor of developing his country's nuclear power industry but does not want to think about using nuclear weapons. 2024-09-27T03:27+0000 2024-09-27T03:27+0000 2024-09-27T04:41+0000 world matteo salvini vladimir putin italy russia ukraine northern league lega nord https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/106802/90/1068029004_0:0:2399:1350_1920x0_80_0_0_5616a05eb0824e1047fcde275ed0696e.jpg "I can only reiterate the position, which is not only mine, but also the Italian government's, which is to support the Ukrainian people and its defense and to disagree with the use of weapons sent to Ukraine for defense on Russian territory," Salvini said when asked by Sputnik whether the new version of the doctrine would serve as a warning to the West, which provides military support to Kiev. Salvini, who also serves as minister of transport and infrastructure, said Italy is developing the nuclear industry for civilian purposes. On September 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed discussing the issue of updating the principles of state policy in the field of nuclear deterrence at a meeting of the Russian Security Council. Putin said Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression, including if the enemy, using conventional weapons, creates a critical threat to sovereignty. He also said Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against Belarus. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240926/whats-behind-putins-move-to-change-russias-nuclear-doctrine-1120297331.html italy russia ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International italy stance on ukraine, nuclear weapons in europe, italian nuclear program https://sputnikglobe.com/20240927/lavrov-calls-on-un-officials-not-to-be-drawn-into-pseudo-peace-initiatives-on-ukraine---moscow-1120308385.html Lavrov Urges UN Officials Not To Be Drawn Into Pseudo-Peace Initiatives on Ukraine Lavrov Urges UN Officials Not To Be Drawn Into Pseudo-Peace Initiatives on Ukraine Sputnik International Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to not allow UN officials to be drawn into pseudo-peace initiatives on Ukraine. 2024-09-27T03:03+0000 2024-09-27T03:03+0000 2024-09-27T06:52+0000 world sergey lavrov antonio guterres ukraine moscow russia the united nations (un) un general assembly new york https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/09/19/1120284178_0:0:2799:1575_1920x0_80_0_0_acb8db35c403efad27596bc4c42d6e32.jpg Lavrov held a meeting with Guterres on the sidelines of the High-level Week of the UN General Assembly session. Lavrov also brought up the issue of the US violating its obligations under the UN Headquarters Agreement."Sergey Lavrov drew the attention of the Secretary-General to the ongoing violations by the US of its obligations under the 1947 UN Headquarters Agreement. He noted that the current situation dictates the need for A. Guterres to promptly launch an arbitration procedure against the US, which has been repeatedly stated in relevant resolutions of the UN General Assembly," the ministry said. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240925/lavrov-has-very-busy-schedule-at-unga-many-seek-meeting---russian-deputy-fm-1120284339.html ukraine moscow russia new york 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 ukraine peace initiatives, sergey lavrov at un, russia at un https://sputnikglobe.com/20240927/libyan-resentenced-to-28-years-for-role-in-benghazi-attack-that-killed-us-ambassador-1120308218.html Libyan Resentenced to 28 Years For Role In Benghazi Attack That Killed US Ambassador Libyan Resentenced to 28 Years For Role In Benghazi Attack That Killed US Ambassador Sputnik International Libyan national Ahmed Abu Khatallah was resentenced to 28 years in prison by a US federal judge for his role in the attack on the US Special Mission in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. 2024-09-27T01:07+0000 2024-09-27T01:07+0000 2024-09-27T01:07+0000 americas us christopher stevens sean smith us justice department cia benghazi libya war on terror https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/08/1f/1100245335_0:321:3071:2048_1920x0_80_0_0_4755a3da472f7aae7e04068980864817.jpg "Ahmed Abu Khatallah, aka Ahmed Mukatallah, 53, a Libyan national, was resentenced today to 28 years in prison on federal terrorism charges and other offenses stemming from the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi, Libya," the release said on Thursday. US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, US diplomat Sean Smith, and CIA operatives Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty died in the attacks carried out at the US Mission and a nearby Annex in Benghazi. Khatallah was captured in Libya in June 2014 and brought to the United States to face trial. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison in November 2017 after a federal jury found him guilty of one count of conspiracy to provide material support or resources to terrorists, one count of providing material support or resources to terrorists, one count of maliciously destroying and injuring dwellings and property and placing lives in jeopardy within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, and one count of using and carrying a semiautomatic assault rifle during a crime of violence. Khatallah was acquitted on 12 other charges, including that his actions led to the deaths of the US Stevens, Smith, Woods and Doherty.The release said Khatallah appealed his conviction, and the government cross-appealed the sentence imposed. In 2022, a US appeals court affirmed the conviction, but determined that Khatallah's sentence was unreasonably low, so it reversed the sentence and remanded for resentencing, the release said. americas benghazi libya 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 benghazi attack leader sentenced, ahmed khatallah https://sputnikglobe.com/20240927/project-22350-frigates-to-form-bulk-of-russias-northern-pacific-fleets-1120315084.html Project 22350 Frigates to Form Bulk of Russia's Northern, Pacific Fleets Project 22350 Frigates to Form Bulk of Russia's Northern, Pacific Fleets Sputnik International Frigates of Project 22350 will form the bulk of Russia's Northern and Pacific fleets' far sea zone, Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief Alexander Moiseyev said on Friday. 2024-09-27T12:47+0000 2024-09-27T12:47+0000 2024-09-27T12:47+0000 military russia russian navy soviet union russian pacific fleet russian northern fleet russian navy fleet naval forces naval vessel russian armed forces https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/09/1b/1120315546_0:131:2751:1678_1920x0_80_0_0_e78fe7b493b714bb8dc3591df01124d3.jpg "Frigates of Project 22350 will form the basis of the far sea zone of the Northern and Pacific fleets. The first three ships are currently serving with the Northern Fleet, while the Admiral Isakov frigate will join the Pacific Fleet. We assume that under the existing program [the frigates will be deployed in the two fleets] in approximately similar numbers. In the future, fleet formations of the Project 22350 frigates will be in every fleet," Moiseyev told journalists. Earlier in the day, Moiseyev took part in the launch of a Project 22350 frigate, dubbed Soviet Union Fleet Admiral Isakov, in St. Petersburg. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240822/photos-russias-pacific-fleet-conducts-sea-and-shore-drills-1119873759.html russia soviet union 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's northern fleet, russia's pacific fleet, russian navy, russian fleets, russian naval forces, russian ships, russian frigates https://sputnikglobe.com/20240927/rahdit-hacker-group-doxxes-ukraine-militants-who-attacked-russias-kursk-region----1120309996.html RaHDit Hacker Group Doxxes Ukraine Militants Who Attacked Russias Kursk Region RaHDit Hacker Group Doxxes Ukraine Militants Who Attacked Russias Kursk Region Sputnik International The Russia-based RaHDit hacker group has leaked data on over 800 Ukrainian Armed Forces militants who attacked the Kursk region. 2024-09-27T06:52+0000 2024-09-27T06:52+0000 2024-09-27T09:33+0000 ukraine nazis kursk region mercenaries video russia's special operation in ukraine https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/09/1b/1120311040_0:0:1920:1080_1920x0_80_0_0_ef2c6b072e55673b1808075ebe64d9d0.jpg The Russia-based RaHDit hacker group has leaked data on over 800 Ukrainian Armed Forces militants who attacked the Kursk region. Among the identified individuals are members of the 82nd Airborne Assault Brigade, the 61st Mechanized Brigade, and UAV operators, as well as some 200 foreign mercenaries from Armenia, Israel, Georgia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Turkiye, Moldova, Syria, and other countries. The hacker group RaHDit, which specifically launched its NemeZida project to denounce 21st century Nazis and their crimes, issued an appeal to Ukrainian troops to surrender, adding a reminder to use the special "Volga" radio frequency established by Russian forces for Ukrainian soldiers wanting to surrender. The Russia-based hackers have previously doxxed everything from Ukrainian intel agents and drone operators to thousands of foreign mercenaries fighting in the ranks of Ukraines military. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240828/rahdit-hackers-release-data-on-fighters-of-renewed-azov-battalion-1119936258.html ukraine kursk region Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Svetlana Ekimenko Svetlana Ekimenko News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Russian hacker group RaHDit doxxes Ukraine militants who attacked Russias Kursk border region Sputnik International Russian hacker group RaHDit doxxes Ukraine militants who attacked Russias Kursk border region 2024-09-27T06:52+0000 true PT1M38S 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Svetlana Ekimenko hackers release data, russia-based rahdit hacker group, leaked data on over 800 ukrainian armed forces militants who attacked the kursk region. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240927/russia-carries-out-hypersonic-strikes-on-ukraine-liberates-key-villages-in-donetsk-1120312319.html Russia Hammers Ukraine With Hypersonic Strikes, Liberates Key Villages in Donetsk Russia Hammers Ukraine With Hypersonic Strikes, Liberates Key Villages in Donetsk Sputnik International Units of the Russian Tsentr Battlegroup liberated the village of Marinovka in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), according to the weekly update from the Russian Defense Ministry. 2024-09-27T10:46+0000 2024-09-27T10:46+0000 2024-09-27T14:13+0000 russia's special operation in ukraine russia ukraine donetsk russian defense ministry russian armed forces https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/09/1b/1120311971_0:0:1787:1006_1920x0_80_0_0_9f346597f0615e86244de079572462bb.jpg Russian forces conducted 33 precision strikes over the past week, including with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, targeting Ukraine's military-industrial facilities and armed forces, Russia's Defense Ministry reported on Friday."Additionally, production sites and storage areas for drones and unmanned boats, arsenals, ammunition and fuel depots, temporary deployment points, and areas where Ukrainian forces, nationalist formations, and foreign mercenaries were concentrated were also targeted," the Defense Ministry added.Other Developments Over the WeekTsentr Battlegroup:Sever Battlegroup:Yug Battlegroup:Zapad Battlegroup:Vostok Battlegroup:Dnepr Battlegroup: https://sputnikglobe.com/20240926/russian-forces-liberate-key-settlement-in-donbass-strike-ukrainian-military-infrastructure-1120294980.html russia ukraine donetsk Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International russian special military operation https://sputnikglobe.com/20240927/s-african-energy-head-expects-brics-states-to-deepen-energy-cooperation-at-kazan-summit-1120318177.html S. African Energy Head Expects BRICS States to Deepen Energy Cooperation at Kazan Summit S. African Energy Head Expects BRICS States to Deepen Energy Cooperation at Kazan Summit Sputnik International South African Minister of Electricity and Energy Kgosientsho Ramokgopa told Sputnik on Friday that he expects the BRICS member states to deepen energy cooperation and to discuss climate change issues during the upcoming summit in Russias Kazan on October 22-24. 2024-09-27T15:39+0000 2024-09-27T15:39+0000 2024-09-27T15:39+0000 world kazan russia china brics rosatom brics summit south africa russian energy week https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/09/1b/1120318017_0:157:3082:1891_1920x0_80_0_0_7b57cffa59a7560d6f3e2239059b91be.jpg "I cannot anticipate what the leaders will agree on. But I think that deepening cooperation in the areas of energy is going to be part of some of the decisions that ought to be taken. The issues around our commitment to climate change, our contribution to greening, if you like, the economy of the world and making sure that we address challenges associated with climate change, I guess is going to be part of that contribution," Ramokgopa said on the sidelines of the Russian Energy Week international forum. The minister also expressed hope that the summit would "have a bigger focus" on energy and climate change issues. Minister Ramokgopa also told Sputnik that he will attend the BRICS summit in Russias Kazan in October with a "very big" delegation from the African country headed by President Cyril Ramaphosa."Oh, yes, yes," Ramokgopa said when asked whether he will attend the BRICS summit in Kazan, adding that "the president will take a very big delegation."The BRICS summit will have "a bigger focus on the issues of energy," the minister said, adding that issues of climate change will also be on the agenda.He also confirmed to Sputnik that the construction project to build a new nuclear power plant with Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom is on the table now and expressed hope that the company would respond to the bid."Oh yes, absolutely on the table. Like I said, as our IRP, our integrated resource plan, suggests that we should look at about 2,500 megawatts and the expert team is helping me just to design what that would look like from an affordability scale and pace and then also on the procurement framework. Yes, you are absolutely right. That is what is on the table now," Ramokgopa said on the sidelines of the Russian Energy Week international forum when asked to confirm the talks with Rosatom on the plant.The minister also expressed the hope that Russias Rosatom, along with companies from China, South Korea, the US and France, will respond to the bid. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240927/african-energy-chamber-calls-western-funding-withdrawal-from-key-projects-immoral-1120313482.html kazan russia china south africa 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 brics enlargement, brics expansion, ethiopia joins brics, ethiopia in bricks, ethiopia becomes brics member, what countries are in brics, new brics members, what's brics, what does brics do, brics currency, brics payment system, brics summit, russian presidency over brics, russias presidency at brics https://sputnikglobe.com/20240927/turkiyes-cooperation-with-brics-asean-does-not-mean-abandoning-nato---erdogan-1120308512.html Turkiye's Cooperation With BRICS, ASEAN Does Not Mean Abandoning NATO - Erdogan Turkiye's Cooperation With BRICS, ASEAN Does Not Mean Abandoning NATO - Erdogan Sputnik International Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that his country's cooperation with BRICS and the Association of Southeast Asian Countries does not mean it is abandoning NATO. 2024-09-27T03:13+0000 2024-09-27T03:13+0000 2024-09-27T03:14+0000 world recep tayyip erdogan turkiye nato asean brics https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/0a/01/1113844013_0:0:3073:1730_1920x0_80_0_0_d6776fbd1e77037f87f3f7938d5d744f.jpg "We cannot ignore the fact that we have ties with continental Europe and America to the same extent as we do with Central Asia, Russia, the Baltic region or the Far East. Likewise, we have a deep history with the Arab geography and the Persian Gulf countries, and we have close relations with Africa ... Just because we are a NATO country, we cannot sever our ties with the Turkic and Islamic worlds. BRICS and ASEAN are structures that provide us with opportunities to develop economic cooperation. Participation in these structures does not mean abandoning NATO," Erdogan told reporters on Thursday. Turkiye does not believe that these alliances and organizations are alternatives to each other, the president added. At the beginning of September, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said that Turkiye had applied for full membership in BRICS, which would be considered by the member-states. President Erdogan also accepted an invitation to participate in the BRICS summit in Kazan on October 22-24. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240906/lavrov-on-turkiyes-movement-toward-brics-rules-do-not-ban-simultaneous-nato-membership-1120051674.html turkiye 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 turkey joins brics, turkey joins asean, turkiye joins brics, turkiye joins asean, will turkey leave nato, will turkiye leave nato https://sputnikglobe.com/20240927/us-should-put-pressure-on-netanyahu-to-establish-ceasefire-with-hezbollah---macron-1120309083.html Macron Says US Needs to Pressure Netanyahu Into Ceasefire With Hezbollah Macron Says US Needs to Pressure Netanyahu Into Ceasefire With Hezbollah Sputnik International The United States should put pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to establish a ceasefire between the Jewish state and Lebanese movement Hezbollah, French President Emmanuel Macron said. 2024-09-27T05:35+0000 2024-09-27T05:35+0000 2024-09-27T06:47+0000 world benjamin netanyahu emmanuel macron lebanon israel hezbollah european union (eu) israel-lebanon tensions https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/09/17/1120258262_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_35e979ef5fc7e985dd766d873c6da251.jpg On Thursday, the leaders of the United States, the European Union, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other countries called for an immediate 21-day ceasefire on the border between Israel and Lebanon. At the same time, both Israel and Lebanon stated that no agreements had been reached within the framework of this initiative. "I do believe that we still have some hours during which the prime minister can commit and give a chance for peace during these 21 days, and I do believe that the US now has to increase the pressure on the prime minister of Israel to do so," Macron told Canadian broadcaster CBC News on Thursday. Macron added that the whole world is waiting for Netanyahu's decision, since Hezbollah has expressed its readiness for a ceasefire. He also noted that a ground operation by the Israeli army in Lebanon would be "a huge mistake, a huge risk of escalation." Israel commenced extensive airstrikes on Monday targeting southern and eastern Lebanon. IDF Chief of the General Staff, Herzi Halevi, named this operation "Northern Arrows." According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, the death toll from the bombardments has surpassed 1,500. In turn, Hezbollah launched scores of rockets toward northern Israel. This latest escalation followed a string of explosions involving pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon from September 17 to 18, which killed over 40 and left nearly 3,500 injured. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240925/idf-preparing-for-all-options-in-lebanon-including-ground-operation--representative-1120284009.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20240920/russian-fsb-vet-doesnt-buy-us-fairy-tales-that-pager-attack-took-15-years-to-set-up-heres-why-1120225658.html lebanon 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 israel-lebanon tensions, macron on israel-lebanon escalation, netanyahu, hezbollah, un, us New Legacy claimed the third leg of the Island Oceans Trot Challenge, presented by Burkie By The Bay Stables, during a Jennifer Doyle training triple on Thursday evening, Sept. 26 at Red Shores Racetrack and Casino at the Charlottetown Driving Park. In the $5,300 Island Oceans Trot leg, the Doyle-trained New Legacy launched from post two and lead through splits of :29, :59.1, 1:29.4 and 1:59.1 for a 1-3/4-length win over Irish Ray (Adam Merner) and third-place Chasin Dreams (Marc Campbell). Jason Hughes had the lines of New Legacy for owner Danny Birt of Earnscliffe, P.E.I. Write The Rules (Hughes) was another Doyle-trained winner in the Race 5 Town Of Stratford Pace, stopping the clock in 1:56.3 for the lion's share of a $2,450 purse. Shake N Blake (David Dowling) topped the featured $3,200 fillies and mares pace from the Doyle stable in 1:55.2 to complete the training triple. Adam Merner was a popular sight in the winners circle during the 12-dash program with three driving wins and a training victory on the card. Merner drove Downtown Tonight (1:55.2) to her third straight win for trainer Tom Weatherbie, as well as Woodmere Lizzie (1:58.3) to victory for trainer David OBrien and Lady Hess (1:56.2) for a lifetime-best score from the Jamie Smith barn for her third straight win. The race 12 finale was more Merner with Ms Moyse and catch-driver Corey MacPherson rallying up for a neck decision in 1:57.4 for the Charlottetown trainer. Live harness racing continues on Saturday, Sept. 28 at 6 p.m. at Red Shores Charlottetown. To view Thursday's harness racing results, click the following link: Thursday Results - Charlottetown Driving Park. (Red Shores) Nationwide, the number of hospitals and clinics searching for physicians and providers has increased significantly in the past decade, particularly in certain specialties and rural areas like western Nebraska. With the shortage has come intensified competition among healthcare organizations to attract and retain qualified physicians and providers. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) predicts that by 2036, the United States will face a shortage of up to 86,000 physicians. Lisa Steele, Regional West director of physician recruitment, said that the organization has adapted its recruitment strategies to appeal to providers changing preferences, including highlighting benefits like loan repayment programs, relocation assistance, professional development opportunities and supportive practice environments. Speaking from her 24-plus years of physician recruitment experience at Regional West, she said todays physicians and providers often prioritize factors beyond compensation, such as work-life balance, job satisfaction, and professional development opportunities. They seek roles that align with their personal and career goals, including flexible scheduling, reduced administrative burdens and access to advanced technology. Regional West utilizes a number of strategies for recruiting physicians and providers, including using recruitment firms and social networking. When recruiting, Steele often looks for providers who have ties to the area, a rural background or family living in the region. Regional West is working hard to not only attract excellent physicians and providers, but to also integrate them and their families into the community. Increasingly, providers are placing greater emphasis on achieving a healthy work-life balance. They seek roles that allow them to pursue personal interests, spend time with family and avoid burnout. Organizations that offer supportive work environments and resources for physician and providers well-being are more attractive in this competitive market, she said. We find out what is important to providers and their families, then connect them with community members, churches, activities or schools to make them feel more at home. Janel Harkins and Allison Hertzler, whose husbands are local physicians, recently formed a group called Providers Connect, which provides ongoing support to new providers and their families by holding events throughout the year and integrating them into the community. Hertzler recalled her experience of moving to the area and not knowing anyone, and how it would have been helpful to have a way to connect to other provider families who have lived here awhile. Scottsbluff is a wonderful place to live and raise a family. We believe that Regional West is the backbone of our city, and if we want to see it thrive, we need to invest in our hospital and our providers, she said. Creating opportunities for providers and their families to gather, connect, and form relationships will show they are appreciated and help them to grow roots here. To increase physician/provider stability and consistency, Regional West is using fewer physicians and providers who work at Regional West on a temporary basis. Called locum tenens, they fill vacant positions until a full-time provider is found. In addition to a sizeable cost to our organization, patients have expressed concern about the lack of continuity of care with physicians and providers who are here for such a short time. We are working diligently to change that, Steele said. The financial impact of using locums is significant. The cost of locums has doubled in most specialties since COVID-19 and is not sustainable from either a financial or quality perspective. With the recruitment of 20 physicians and providers in 2023 and 23 so far in 2024, Regional Wests locum usage has decreased by 66% since January 2023, with a cost savings of $400,000 per month. Recruiting permanent, quality physicians and providers creates continuity of care for our patients that is what they expect and deserve, Steele concluded. The Second Annual Western Nebraska Trauma Symposium will be held Friday, Oct. 4 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Hampton Inn and Suites in Scottsbluff. The symposium is designed for physicians, advanced practice clinicians and nurses who desire to further their knowledge and understanding of trauma related topics. The guest speakers are experts in their disciplines and represent a wide range of trauma subject matter. Trauma symposium facilitator Rommie Hughes, MD, FACS, RPVI, a surgeon with Regional West Physicians Clinic-Surgery, Vascular Diagnostics, serves as the medical director of Regional West Trauma Services. Last years trauma symposium was a huge success, he said. Our guest speakers are physicians from across Nebraska and out of state who look forward to sharing current information and innovative approaches to trauma care. There is no cost to attend the symposium, but advanced registration is required. Seating is limited. Please RSVP by Sept. 30 by emailing Alyssa Andrew at education@rwhs.org, or call her at 308-630-1786. Regional West Trauma Services offers the regions most technologically advanced, complete emergency and trauma care. As Nebraskas only Level II Trauma Center west of Kearney, our expert surgeons and specialists are available 24/7. Regional Wests Trauma Services team works closely with the region's critical access hospitals, as well as pre-hospital services, including volunteer basic life support services, Emergency Medical Services and the Air Link flight service. Summary: Multilevel marketing (MLM), also known as network marketing, involves a hierarchical structure where salespeople, often unpaid, sell products directly to consumers. Major MLM companies like Amway, Avon, and Forever Living have entered the Indian market, targeting direct sales. MLM representatives earn commissions based on sales and recruitment, with opportunities for substantial income. The MLM business model includes various roles, such as sales representatives and recruiters, who often operate independently. While MLM has seen growth, especially in industries like health, beauty, and electronics, it is sometimes confused with illegal schemes like pyramid and Ponzi schemes. These schemes focus on recruiting investors rather than selling legitimate products, leading to legal issues. Pyramid schemes, where recruits pay entry fees with promises of high returns, are illegal in India, as per RBI guidelines. The MLM sector, though offering opportunities for self-employment, faces scrutiny due to its association with such schemes. Judicial cases like State of West Bengal vs Swapan Kumar Guha and M/S Apple FMCG Marketing Pvt. Ltd. vs Union of India have set important legal precedents, emphasizing the need to distinguish between legitimate MLM practices and fraudulent schemes. MLM continues to be a growing yet controversial business model globally and in India. Abstract In an effort to increase direct sales, Amway, Avon, MaryKay, Forever Living, and other outstanding MLM companies have entered the Indian market. Many outstanding MLM firms have entered the Indian market to increase direct sales, including Amway, Avon, MaryKay, Forever Living, and others. Several outstanding MLM companies in India have entered the Indian market to increase direct sales. MLM companies such as Amway, Avon, MaryKay, Forever Living, and others have entered the Indian market to increase direct sales. The MLM industry has seen several outstanding companies enter the Indian market with the objective of increasing direct sales. One example is Amway, Avon, MaryKay, and Forever Living. Direct selling companies like Amway, Avon, MaryKay, Forever Living, and others in the Indian market are trying to gain a competitive edge in this market. In an effort to increase direct sales, prominent MLM firms have entered the Indian market, including Amway, Avon, Mary Kay, and Forever Living Introduction Multilevel marketing (MLM) is a business model in which an unpaid hierarchical sales team sells products directly to customers by employing additional corporate salespeople. Multi-level marketing is also known as or network marketing. Existing MLM companies sell and market their services to a network of potential customers. new employees are often requested to be recruited to support the companys ever-increasing income levels there will always be a hierarchy of roles and levels within a multi-level marketing organization, which can be enhanced by effective sales and recruiting, appropriate compensation, and employee development.. 1.1 Working in a Multilevel Marketing B2C enterprises provide items or services to individual salespeople who frequently operate as small company owners in multi-level marketing. These people offer items and services directly to customers, often without the use of physical storefronts. Independent distributors serve as brand ambassadors or micro-influencers. An MLM companys structure may have flat hierarchies. This implies that there are minimal tiers of separation between senior management and new recruits. CEO, Distributor, Sales Representative, Sponsor, and Recruiter are all roles in the MLM business paradigm. A compensation strategy is normally in place. When the lowest salesman makes a sale, everyone above them usually gets a cut of the profits. MLM salespeople are not paid by the hour, but rather by fixed commissions at each level. Although the emphasis is on recruiting new distributors, distributor representatives also earn money by selling the companys products. MLM sales teams are frequently made up of women, young moms, or those searching for alternative employment. MLM firms sell previously pleased consumers, offering independence and new business chances. Customers are more inclined to trust a friend or acquaintance serving as an agent than a stranger selling a product, according to one of MLMs techniques. Representatives who utilise the community as a consumer base may discover that their friends and family are eager to support their commercial endeavours. 1.2 Growth Of MLM Companies In The Current Scenario[1] MLM companies operate in all areas, including health and nutrition, beauty and skin care, tableware, cutlery, and consumer electronics. The best thing about this business is that it continues to grow and has no chance of going down. Each member earns a certain amount based on sales and downline people. MLMs provide a fair return for all employees in the pyramid, and those at the top of the downline can undoubtedly have strong income opportunities. With this business, you can also earn unlimited income, but it all depends on how wisely you invest your time, money and work. When you work for an MLM company, you automatically become an independent entrepreneur, a self-made successful person, and you subconsciously put a lot of effort into shaping your personality. Communicating with people, speaking up in meetings, managing your downline, maintaining dignity, generating leads, managing your email and website will automatically develop your personality and improve your communication and management skills. , discipline, consistency, focus, confidence, and more. 1.3 Multi-level Marketing in Globall and in India[2] Despite its massive presence in retail, MLM is a less well-known concept in mainstream marketing practises in India due to poor awareness and a small network of individuals participating. is. Pyramid schemes are also occasionally mistaken with it (Sudhir, 2014). This practise is widely condemned and illegal in many nations, including India. There is a scarcity of marketing literature concentrating on this form of product sales. Several publications have highlighted the dangers of relegating MLMs to criminal Ponzi schemes. However, it accounts for a significant share of Indias retail commerce and is predicted to develop at a quick rate of -13% (Shenoy, 2018), offering self-employment chances to 5 million individuals in India. (KPMG, undated)), a practise description is critical at the beginning. When selling things directly, the corporation looks for direct salespeople (consultants) who would buy products at a discount (wholesale). Goods are bought for personal consumption and then sold to other consumers at market pricing. The direct sellers profit is the difference between the wholesale and market prices. Another component of the sales approach makes the business proposition particularly appealing to consultants. Most MLM models incorporate a referral mechanism to convince potential advisor customers to become advisors, allowing wholesale purchases from firms at wholesale costs rather than buying at market prices from advisors for consumption. You may purchase immediately. It also introduces the method of purchasing and selling things directly and profiting from the sales. In Malaysia[3], the direct selling business is expanding rapidly. According to the Ministry of Domestic Trade, Cooperatives, and Consumerism, direct sales volume would increase by 20% in 2012. To protect potential clients, the Direct Selling Act of 1993 has been tightened. With Malaysias real incomes declining and unemployment growing, particularly among the young , there may be a greater desire to pursue multilevel marketing (MLM) to supplement their income and maintain their desired modern lifestyle. In the past, however, the MLM scheme has suffered in the form of an unethical pyramid and Ponzi schemes that seek quick profits but are not sustainable.. The goal of this study is to investigate the influence of MLM business perception and agent attributes on young interest in MLM as a career. Researchers that employ ambulatory assessment methods and other forms of diaries are increasingly (almost always) analyzing their data using some type of multilevel methodology. This is because the data acquired in such investigations is inherently multidimensional. A random sample of people contributes data on a regular basis, resulting in a multilevel data structure in which people are one level of analysis, and the repeated measures they offer are another level, or layers, of analysis.[4] 1.4 Legality of Multilevel Marketing in India [5] In India, network marketing is legal. Multi-level marketing schemes are also unlawful, with the exception of some enterprises that are done to deceive unsuspecting customers into investing in MLM schemes and are sold directly by investors. There is also no genuine service or promoter trade. Rather, there is just a guarantee that the investment will receive a return. However, such promises are seldom fulfilled, resulting in massive losses for investors. The MLM India schemes listed below are unlawful : Pyramid-based schemes According to Indian law, a pyramid scheme is one in which the organiser creates a pyramid structure, starting with one individual who symbolises the pyramids tip. Someone appoints someone else to work for him. Additionally, this person is obligated to contribute a set sum, which goes to the recruiter who first brought them on board. A pyramid chain of investors must be recruited by the new member in order to receive a return on their investment. Investors are being cautioned by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) against pyramid scheme scams that demand exorbitant membership fees in exchange for unrealistically high profits. MLM, Chain Marketing, and Pyramid Structure Schemes Allegedly Promise Easy or Quick Money Upon Enrollment, Per the RBI Scheme for Money Circulation Members. The Multi-Level Marketing firms running Pyramid Structure Schemes, Network Marketing, Chain Marketing in India have been advised not to mislead the public with claims of large profits, according to the Reserve Bank of India. Ponzi schemes Ponzi schemes are deceptive investment schemes that promise enormous returns on their investors funds.The cash flows from new investors are utilised to give rewards to present investors. Thus, the plan is dependent on a continual supply of new investments and collapses when that stream of investors ceases.It is critical to understand the differences between a pyramid structure and other forms of multi-level marketing schemes, such as ponzi scams. A Ponzi scheme includes one person running the fund and just shifting money from one person to another without really investing it. When the investor gains confidence and additional investors begin to invest. Literature Review Multilevel Marketing (MLM) A Futuristic Concept?[6] Staggered promoting organisations (MLMs) are a rapidly increasing hierarchical type, otherwise known as network promoting, alluding to the act of disseminating, offering, or supplying goods or administrations through several levels of free specialists (workers for hire, merchants, and so on.). These professionals are compensated in the form of commissions, rewards, restrictions, earnings, or other sorts of thought in kind for selling things or administrations and also for picking other specialists. The MLM Organisation might be a human, a company, a partnership, or another type of commercial entity. MLMs include Avon, Amway, Equinox Worldwide, and Tupperware. MLMs may be both legal and illegal. Marketing Fraud: An Approach for Differentiating Multilevel Marketing from Pyramid Schemes [7] Multilevel marketing (MLM), a type of direct selling, had substantial international expansion throughout the 1990s, aided in part by the emergence of the Internet. During the same time period, there was an upsurge in the investigation and punishment of illicit pyramid schemes. These concurrent operations caused ambiguity among marketing executives who utilised or desired to employ the MLM method. The authors compare the multilevel marketing method to actions connected with criminal pyramid schemes. Based on prior pyramid scheme trials and current US legislation, a mathematical model is utilised to distinguish between the two. The models results reveal critical elements that marketers interested in MLM should consider when creating this sort of distribution channel. A Review of the Multilevel Marketing Phenomenon[8] MLM is a moderately new and rapidly growing peculiarity. These organizations are many times known as immediate advertisers (direct selling associations) or organization advertisers. The essential qualification between Direct Promoting, genuine DSOs (what we characterize as organization showcasing), and MLMs is that in network advertising, the item is prevailing and item deals are accentuated, while in MLMs, the item is much of the time immaterial or optional, and the accentuation isnt on selling item however on selecting different salesmen to enlist even more. At the point when the accentuation shifts from offering product to selecting extra salesmen, a DSO turns into a MLM. The scholastic local area presently cant seem to completely explore the MLM peculiarities. This study examines the Staggered Advertising peculiarity and its suggestions. Judicial Precedents State Of West Bengal & Ors vs Swapan Kumar Guha & Ors 2 February1 982 AIR 949, 1982 SCR (3) 121 [9] Sanchita Speculations, an enrolled organization firm with an offer capital of INR 7,000/ -, started its tasks in money and interests in the Territory of Bengal v. Swapan Kr. Guha. In light of the Business Duty Officials report, an FIR was documented with the charges that the business had been promising a 48% premium, which was then sliced to 36%, and that it was subsequently captivating in a cash dissemination plan for producing speedy or income sans work. The business and its accomplices documented two writ petitions in the Calcutta High Court looking to excuse the FIR under Article 226 [10]of the Indian Constitution. The High Court allowed the writ request and upset the FIR, and West Bengal documented an allure. M/S Apple FMCG Marketing Pvt. Ltd. v. Union of India For this case, the High Court led an inside and out assessment of Area 2(c) of the Demonstration, inferring that all movement to bring in fast or pain-free income wouldnt fall inside Statement (c) of Segment 2 of the Demonstration and that bringing in such speedy or pain-free income should be dependent upon any occasion or possibility related or appropriate to the enrolment of individuals into the plan. Having analyzed the idea of a cash dissemination conspire, the High Court applied it to the allegations in the FIR and dismissed the declaration that the program was dependent upon the prerequisites of Segment 2(c) of the Demonstration. In M/S Apple FMCG Promoting Pvt. Ltd. v. Association of India, the candidate looked for a writ of statement pronouncing that selling items through the Organization Showcasing Framework is legitimate and doesnt disregard the arrangements of the Award Chits and Cash Flow Plans (Prohibiting) Act, 1978[11] or some other regulation. M/s Apple FMCG Promoting Private Restricted was integrated under the Organizations Demonstration of 1956[12] . Through network showcasing, it advanced various things including as cleanser, tea, espresso powder, face ointment moisturizer, etc under the brand name Satisfaction Timeless. The advertising methodology was done straight by employing merchants of the things and administrations. There was no help cost for turning into a wholesaler. Any individual who communicated an interest was offered an item at a foreordained cost. The wholesalers More wholesalers were encouraged to join. Commissions were just paid in view of how much deals delivered by the specific wholesaler and his group. The Court expressed that the framework creates a chain of clients, and the essential merchant gets extra commission just when the chain go on without a break in any of the associations. Assuming the chain is broken anytime, the significant wholesalers bonus will be sliced relatively to that sum. Subsequently, it is mistaken to guarantee that there is no client chain simultaneously. The case that no help cost was gathered seemed to be off base, considering that each client who buys a pack is expected to pay a help charge of each unit is INR 50. The way that 65% of the returns are saved for commission installments to merchants shows that the items worth is just 35% of the deal cost. That occasion, when items are sold for R550/, the genuine worth of the things sold is just INR 188. It proceeded to say that the advancement of the client chain would ultimately become soaked, and the merchant who bought the things would not be able to find any buyer/sub-merchant to sell or join over again. By then, attributable to the chains movement in the technique depicted above, such people wont track down new individuals in the lakhs. Kuriachan Chacko v. State of Kerala, (2008) 8 SCC 708 [13] In the wake of gathering advance cash, M/s LIS, Ernakulam, an organization concern engaged with the matter of selling lottery and distributions. They proposed a framework called the LIS Deepasthambham Plan. The Plans guideline was clear. An individual should pay Rs 625 to the advertisers to obtain one unit of lottery. The advertisers would utilize Rs 350 to purchase 35 lottery tickets from the Kerala State Government, every value Rs 10 for the accompanying 35 weeks. On an early date, the unit-holder will be repaid (paid) the Rs 625 he at first positioned, yet additionally twofold his speculation, for example Rs 1250 (short Rs 100 as administration costs for the advertisers and lawful allowances for charge, and so on.). The High Court In passage 34, the court said that both the fundamentals of Segment 2(c) are available in the moment case. The Plan offers for (I) fast or modest cash, and (ii) it is dependent upon an event or circumstance connected with or pertinent to part enlistment in the Plan. The RBI warns the public about multi-level marketing activities. [14] In order to safeguard investors against unethical businesses, the Reserve Bank of India has issued a warning to the general public about Multi-level Marketing (MLM) activities.The Reserve Bank described the operations of these businesses, claiming that MLM/Chain Marketing/Pyramid Structure scams provide easy or quick money upon member enrollment. Instead of from the sale of the goods they provide, such schemes make the majority of their money by enrolling ever-increasing numbers of members, from whom they get significant monthly fees. Since a portion of the subscription fees are sent to the members at the top of the pyramid, all members are required to sign up more people. The pyramid collapses once the chain is broken. The Reserve Bank has urged individuals to avoid being duped by firms that claim to have made significant profits utilising Pyramid Structure, Chain Marketing, and Multi-level Marketing Schemes. The Reserve Bank has issued a warning that falling for such proposals might result in rapid financial losses, and that customers should avoid reacting to such solicitations in any form. Accepting money through pyramid schemes such as multi-level marketing or money circulation is also a serious criminal under the Prize Chit and Money Circulation (Banning) Act of 1978, according to the Reserve Bank. Anyone who comes across such solicitations must immediately call the State Police and file a report. Analysis In the current scenario Multilevel Marketing is in a boom and is growing rapidly despite having some legal flaws. It can be denied that each and everywhere in the world MLM has its impact but as long as customers are aware of the goods and services offered by the company and are confident that it is not a scam, MLM business will boom in the near future, especially since the demand for high-quality products is increasing and people are seeking more independence in their careers than ever before. In network marketing, your chances of success are higher. Yes, some individuals struggle with it. In MLM or network marketing, it is common for 20% of the individuals to make 80% of the money. Conclusion The Multilevel Marketing is in a booming phase despite having some legal flaws. In Finally, network marketing is more than just a company; it is a chance to grow and progress as an individual. If all the individuals and organisations take effective steps then all challenges can be overcomed and it would flow more efficiently [1]Nishtha Malhotra, Growth Of MLM Companies In The Current Scenario, by BWBUSINESSWORLD(August 4 ,2023) [2] Abhishek Banerjee, Multi-level Marketing in India: Business Prospect Versus Social Interactions? Some Identified Research Issues for Marketers, by SAGE JOURNALS (15th December 2022) [3] Joyce Koe Hwee Nga (School of Business, Sunway University, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia) Soo Wai Mun (Taylors Business School, School of Accountancy and Finance, Taylors University, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia) The influence of MLM companies and agent attributes on the willingness to undertake multilevel marketing as a career option among youth by Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing (29th March 2011 ) [4] Nezlek, J. B Multilevel modeling analyses of diary-style data. In M. R. Mehl & T. S. Conner (pp. 357383) (2012). [5] Akansha Upadhyay, Is Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) Legal in India? eStartIndia (2023- 03-10) [6] Multilevel Marketing (MLM) A Futuristic Concept? Conference proceeding of the National conference on Paradigm for Sustainable Business: People, Planet and Profit held at DOMS, IIT Roorkee (8-9th March 2013) [7]Peter J. Vander Nat and William W. Keep, Marketing Fraud: An Approach for Differentiating Multilevel Marketing from Pyramid Schemes, Sage journal (2002) [8]Paul Herbig & Rama Yelkurm A Review of the Multilevel Marketing Phenomenon, Journal of Marketing Channels (1997) [9] State Of West Bengal & Ors vs Swapan Kumar Guha & Ors 2 February1 982 AIR 949, 1982 SCR (3) 121 [10] Constitution of India 1950 [11] Award Chits and Cash Flow Plans (Prohibiting) Act, 1978 [12] Companies Act 2013 [13] Kuriachan Chacko v. State of Kerala, (2008) 8 SCC 708 [14] Alpana Killawala, Principal Chief General Manager RBI cautions Public against Multi Level Marketing Activities, Reserve Bank of India (01/01/2015) This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Britain's competition watchdog said Friday that it's clearing Amazon's partnership with artificial intelligence company Anthropic because the $4 billion deal didn't qualify for further scrutiny. The Competition and Markets Authority approval comes after it started looking into the deal, part of wider global scrutiny for the wave of investment from Big Tech companies into leading startups working on generative AI technology. The watchdog found that San Francisco-based Anthropic's revenue and its combined market share with Amazon in Britain were not big enough to require an in-depth investigation under the country's merger rules. "We welcome the UK's Competition and Markets Authority decision acknowledging its lack of jurisdiction regarding this collaboration," Amazon said in a statement. "By investing in Anthropic, we're helping to spur entry and competition in generative AI." Under the deal, Anthropic is using Amazon Web Services as its primary cloud provider and Amazon's custom chips to build, train and deploy its AI models. The British regulator has previously cleared Microsoft's partnership with French startup Mistral AI as well as its hiring of key staff from another startup, Inflection AI. The watchdog is still scrutinizing a partnership between Anthropic and Google. Anthropic was founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, who previously worked at ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The company has focused heavily on increasing the safety and reliability of AI models. The AI deals are also facing scrutiny across the Atlantic, where the Federal Trade Commission is looking into whether they're helping tech giants gain an unfair advantage in the booming market for AI services. 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain OpenAI is discussing giving Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman a 7% equity stake in the company and restructuring to become a for-profit business, people familiar with the matter said, a major shift that would mark the first time Altman is granted ownership in the artificial intelligence startup. The company is considering becoming a public benefit corporation, tasked with turning a profit and also helping society, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The transition is still under discussion and a timeline has not been determined, one of the people said. OpenAI is mulling the changes against the backdrop of an exodus of senior managers. Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati said on Wednesday she is leaving, a surprise move that marks the latest high-profile departure from the startup. In the months after it suddenly fired and then rehired Altman last year, OpenAI has been in a state of fluxlosing multiple managers and shifting the structure of some of its teams. OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit research organization with the goal of building artificial intelligence that would be safe and beneficial to humanity. In keeping with those origins, Altman had not taken equity, stressing the company was meant to broadly benefit society and that he had enough money. Yet as the value of the business soared, it's been increasingly difficult to stick with those ideals. In 2019, the company created a for-profit subsidiary to help fund the high costs of AI model development, and has since drawn billions in outside investment from Microsoft Corp. and others. OpenAI is currently working to raise $6.5 billion at a $150 billion valuation, which would make it one of the most valuable startups in the world, Bloomberg reported this month. That boost on top of the possible new equity could add more than $10 billion to Altman's net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, vaulting him into the ranks of the world's richest people. In a statement, a spokesperson said OpenAI remains "focused on building AI that benefits everyone," adding, "the nonprofit is core to our mission and will continue to exist." The possible equity holding, which is still under negotiation and could change or not materialize, would give Altman an ongoing financial stake in the success of OpenAI. Many investors favor the idea of a founder owning at least part of the businesses they run. Altman has also occasionally said in interviews that he wished he had taken equity so that people would stop asking him about it. Reuters earlier reported on OpenAI's plan to restructure and give Altman equity for the first time. Altman said the executive departures were not related to the restructuring. "I saw some stuff that this was related to a restructure, that's totally not true," Altman said on stage at the Italian Tech Week in Turin on Thursday. "This is just about people being ready for new chapters in their lives." In a statement on X, Murati said she was "stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration." In response, Altman expressed "tremendous gratitude" for Murati's contributions, writing, "It's hard to overstate how much Mira has meant to OpenAI, our mission, and to us all personally." He also said that he would share more with employees about transition plans soon. Murati does not yet have a exit date at the company, according to a person familiar with the matter. She is still speaking with OpenAI's leadership about plans for her replacement, including the timeline. In the post, she wrote, "For now, my primary focus is doing everything in my power to ensure a smooth transition, maintaining the momentum we've built." Representatives for OpenAI and Murati declined to provide further comment. On Wednesday, many employees were shocked by the announcement of Murati's departure. On the company's internal Slack channel, multiple OpenAI employees responded to the news with a "WTF" emoji, according to a person familiar with the matter. Murati, an Albanian-born Dartmouth-educated engineer, played a key role in shepherding major product releases, including OpenAI's popular ChatGPT chatbot, its DALL-E image generation software, and its recently released advanced voice mode that lets users talk to ChatGPT in essentially real time. This spring, Murati came under fire for saying in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that she wasn't sure whether Sora, a text-to-video generator that OpenAI has showed off but not yet released, was trained on user-generated videos from YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Such a use of YouTube content would be an infraction of the platform's terms of service, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan later told Bloomberg. After Altman's ouster, Murati gained a higher profile when she was appointed as interim CEObut she quickly joined a group of executives pushing for Altman to be reinstated. Her departure marks the latest executive exit at OpenAI since Altman's firing and rehiring last year. Ilya Sutskever, the company's chief scientist, left in May. In August, co-founder Greg Brockman said he would go on leave until the end of the year and researcher John Schulman left for AI rival Anthropic. The departures leave only two members of OpenAI's original founding team at the startup: Altman and Wojciech Zaremba. In her post on X, the text of which she earlier sent to employees at the company, Murati said she was grateful to have worked with the OpenAI team. "Together we've pushed the boundaries of scientific understanding in our quest to improve human well-being," she wrote. The company currently has about 1,700 employees, more than double the roughly 770 it had in late 2023. Altman subsequently announced additional changes to OpenAI's management. In a memo to OpenAI he also posted to X on Wednesday, he wrote that Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew is leaving, along with Barret Zoph, a vice president of research who worked on products like ChatGPT. In his own post on X, Zoph said it was a "very difficult decision" to leave and he plans to "explore new opportunities" outside the company. "OpenAI is doing and will continue to do incredible work and I am very optimistic about the future trajectory of the company and will be rooting everybody on," he wrote. Altman also named six existing employees who will now report directly to him, some in new roles, including Matt Knight as chief information security officer. "I have over the past year or so spent most of my time on the non-technical parts of our organization; I am now looking forward to spending most of my time on the technical and product parts of the company," the CEO wrote, adding that there will be an all-hands meeting Thursday to answer employee questions. "Leadership changes are a natural part of companies, especially companies that grow so quickly and are so demanding," Altman wrote. "I obviously won't pretend it's natural for this one to be so abrupt, but we are not a normal company." 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. AGL Energy (OTCMKTS:AGLNF Get Free Report) and Pampa Energia (NYSE:PAM Get Free Report) are both utilities companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, dividends, institutional ownership, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations and earnings. Earnings & Valuation This table compares AGL Energy and Pampa Energias revenue, earnings per share and valuation. Get AGL Energy alerts: Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio AGL Energy N/A N/A N/A $1.02 6.90 Pampa Energia $1,991.73 billion 0.00 $302.00 million $7.81 7.45 Pampa Energia has higher revenue and earnings than AGL Energy. AGL Energy is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Pampa Energia, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks. Profitability Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets AGL Energy N/A N/A N/A Pampa Energia 20.96% 12.59% 6.76% Analyst Ratings This table compares AGL Energy and Pampa Energias net margins, return on equity and return on assets. This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for AGL Energy and Pampa Energia, as provided by MarketBeat.com. Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score AGL Energy 0 0 0 0 N/A Pampa Energia 0 2 2 0 2.50 Pampa Energia has a consensus price target of $57.75, suggesting a potential downside of 0.77%. Given Pampa Energias higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Pampa Energia is more favorable than AGL Energy. Insider and Institutional Ownership 15.3% of AGL Energy shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 12.8% of Pampa Energia shares are held by institutional investors. 55.5% of Pampa Energia shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term. Summary Pampa Energia beats AGL Energy on 9 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks. About AGL Energy (Get Free Report) AGL Energy Limited supplies energy and other essential services to residential, small and large businesses, and wholesale customers in Australia. It operates through three segments: Customer Markets, Integrated Energy, and Investments. The company engages in retailing of electricity, gas, broadband, mobile, voice, solar, and energy products and services; and operates power generation portfolio and other assets including coal, gas and renewable generation, natural gas storage and production, and development projects. It also offers renewable energy schemes; and controls dispatch of owned and contracted generation assets, gas offtake agreements, and associated portfolio of energy hedging products. In addition, the company offers coal and gas-fired generation; and renewable energy sources, such as wind, hydro and solar, batteries and other firming technology; and gas production and storage assets. AGL Energy Limited was founded in 1837 and is based in Sydney, Australia. About Pampa Energia (Get Free Report) Pampa Energia S.A. operates as an integrated power company in Argentina. The company operates through Electricity Generation, Oil and Gas, Petrochemicals, and Holding and Other Business segments. It generates electricity through thermal plants, hydroelectric plants, and wind farms with a 5,332 megawatt (MW) installed capacity. The company also explores for and produces oil and gas in the provinces of Neuquen and Rio Negro. In addition, it produces petrochemicals, such as styrene, synthetic rubber, and polystyrene. Further, the company operates and maintains a 22,391 km high-voltage electricity transmission network in Argentina. Additionally, it holds a concession for the transportation of natural gas with 9,248 km of gas pipelines in the center, west, and south of Argentina; and processes and sells natural gas liquids in Bahia Blanca in the Province of Buenos Aires, as well as offers related advisory services. The company was formerly known as Pampa Holding S.A. and changed its name to Pampa Energia S.A. in September 2008. Pampa Energia S.A. was incorporated in 1945 and is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Receive News & Ratings for AGL Energy Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for AGL Energy and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Avidbank Holdings, Inc. (OTCMKTS:AVBH Get Free Report) was the target of a significant decline in short interest during the month of September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 100 shares, a decline of 66.7% from the August 31st total of 300 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 900 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.1 days. Analysts Set New Price Targets AVBH has been the subject of several research reports. Janney Montgomery Scott began coverage on shares of Avidbank in a research note on Friday, July 12th. They set a neutral rating and a $21.00 price objective for the company. Stephens lowered their price target on Avidbank from $24.00 to $23.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Get Avidbank alerts: View Our Latest Report on Avidbank Avidbank Stock Performance AVBH remained flat at $19.75 on Friday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $19.29 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $19.02. Avidbank has a fifty-two week low of $18.16 and a fifty-two week high of $22.00. The stock has a market capitalization of $154.45 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.50 and a beta of 0.69. Avidbank (OTCMKTS:AVBH Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, July 22nd. The company reported $0.46 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.68 by ($0.22). The business had revenue of $37.30 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $20.56 million. Research analysts forecast that Avidbank will post 2.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Avidbank Company Profile (Get Free Report) Avidbank Holdings, Inc operates as a bank holding company for Avidbank that provides financial products and services to businesses and individuals in the Santa Clara, San Mateo, and San Francisco counties. The company offers business and personal deposit products, such as checking, money market, and savings accounts; and certificates of deposit. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Avidbank Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Avidbank and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Bunker Hill Mining Corp. (OTCMKTS:BHLL Get Free Report) was the target of a large growth in short interest in September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 54,800 shares, a growth of 249.0% from the August 31st total of 15,700 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 570,900 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 0.1 days. Bunker Hill Mining Stock Performance Shares of OTCMKTS BHLL traded down $0.00 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $0.12. 171,630 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 204,573. The company has a market cap of $41.37 million, a P/E ratio of -1.23 and a beta of 1.58. Bunker Hill Mining has a twelve month low of $0.07 and a twelve month high of $0.15. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is $0.12 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $0.11. Get Bunker Hill Mining alerts: Bunker Hill Mining (OTCMKTS:BHLL Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 30th. The company reported ($0.01) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. Bunker Hill Mining Company Profile mining of mineral properties in Canada and the United States. It focuses on exploring for zinc, lead, and silver ores. Its flagship asset is the 100% owned Bunker Hill mine located in the Silver Valley, Idaho. The company was formerly known as Liberty Silver Corp. and changed its name to Bunker Hill Mining Corp. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Bunker Hill Mining Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bunker Hill Mining and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Canadian National Railway (NYSE:CNI Get Free Report) (TSE:CNR) has been given an average rating of Hold by the eighteen brokerages that are presently covering the firm, MarketBeat reports. Fifteen research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating on the company. The average 12 month price target among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $121.41. A number of equities analysts have issued reports on CNI shares. Scotiabank upgraded shares of Canadian National Railway from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 10th. Sanford C. Bernstein downgraded Canadian National Railway from an outperform rating to a market perform rating and cut their price objective for the stock from $146.25 to $130.67 in a research report on Monday, July 8th. Benchmark reiterated a hold rating on shares of Canadian National Railway in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Susquehanna dropped their price target on Canadian National Railway from $135.00 to $130.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, Barclays upped their price objective on Canadian National Railway from $120.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a research report on Wednesday. Get Canadian National Railway alerts: View Our Latest Stock Report on Canadian National Railway Canadian National Railway Stock Performance CNI opened at $116.78 on Friday. Canadian National Railway has a 1-year low of $103.96 and a 1-year high of $134.02. The stock has a market cap of $73.54 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.63, a P/E/G ratio of 2.50 and a beta of 0.88. The stocks 50 day simple moving average is $115.88 and its 200 day simple moving average is $121.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.93, a current ratio of 0.63 and a quick ratio of 0.48. Canadian National Railway (NYSE:CNI Get Free Report) (TSE:CNR) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The transportation company reported $1.84 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.93 by ($0.09). The firm had revenue of $4.33 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.40 billion. Canadian National Railway had a net margin of 32.00% and a return on equity of 23.58%. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 6.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $1.31 EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Canadian National Railway will post 5.58 EPS for the current fiscal year. Canadian National Railway Cuts Dividend The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 27th. Investors of record on Friday, September 6th will be given a dividend of $0.614 per share. This represents a $2.46 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.10%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 6th. Canadian National Railways dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 39.08%. Hedge Funds Weigh In On Canadian National Railway Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Capital International Investors raised its position in shares of Canadian National Railway by 63.2% in the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 7,623,561 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $957,845,000 after buying an additional 2,951,506 shares during the period. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board raised its holdings in shares of Canadian National Railway by 92.4% in the 1st quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 4,505,860 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $593,911,000 after purchasing an additional 2,163,820 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its holdings in shares of Canadian National Railway by 9.6% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 21,868,740 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $2,761,473,000 after purchasing an additional 1,907,938 shares during the period. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp lifted its stake in shares of Canadian National Railway by 4,614.6% in the 2nd quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 1,336,027 shares of the transportation companys stock valued at $157,896,000 after purchasing an additional 1,307,689 shares in the last quarter. Finally, FIL Ltd grew its holdings in shares of Canadian National Railway by 7.2% during the 4th quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 19,189,809 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $2,412,032,000 after purchasing an additional 1,280,726 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.74% of the companys stock. About Canadian National Railway (Get Free Report Canadian National Railway Company, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the rail, intermodal, trucking, and marine transportation and logistics business in Canada and the United States. The company provides rail services, which include equipment, custom brokerage services, transloading and distribution, business development and real estate, and private car storage services; and intermodal services, such as temperature controlled cargo, port partnerships, and logistics parks. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Canadian National Railway Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Canadian National Railway and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Shiseido (OTCMKTS:SSDOY Get Free Report) and Acura Pharmaceuticals (OTCMKTS:ACUR Get Free Report) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, profitability and dividends. Risk and Volatility Shiseido has a beta of 0.34, suggesting that its share price is 66% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Acura Pharmaceuticals has a beta of 1.43, suggesting that its share price is 43% more volatile than the S&P 500. Get Shiseido alerts: Analyst Ratings This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for Shiseido and Acura Pharmaceuticals, as reported by MarketBeat. Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Shiseido 0 0 0 0 N/A Acura Pharmaceuticals 0 0 0 0 N/A Valuation and Earnings This table compares Shiseido and Acura Pharmaceuticalss revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation. Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Shiseido $6.94 billion 1.59 $153.49 million $0.17 162.18 Acura Pharmaceuticals $1.56 million 0.20 -$880,000.00 N/A N/A Shiseido has higher revenue and earnings than Acura Pharmaceuticals. Profitability This table compares Shiseido and Acura Pharmaceuticals net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Shiseido 1.03% 1.54% 0.77% Acura Pharmaceuticals N/A N/A N/A Institutional & Insider Ownership 0.0% of Shiseido shares are owned by institutional investors. 20.2% of Acura Pharmaceuticals shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term. Summary Shiseido beats Acura Pharmaceuticals on 7 of the 9 factors compared between the two stocks. About Shiseido (Get Free Report) Shiseido Company, Limited engages in the production and sale of cosmetics in Japan and internationally. The company offers fragrances; and skincare and makeup products. It also engages in the restaurant and food, and retail businesses; and operates beauty salons. In addition, the company operates and supports SABFA, a professional hair makeup training school. Further, it offers childcare facilities. The company sells its products through department, specialized cosmetic, drug, and general merchandise stores. Shiseido Company, Limited was founded in 1872 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. About Acura Pharmaceuticals (Get Free Report) Acura Pharmaceuticals, Inc., an innovative drug delivery company, engages in the research, development, and commercialization of technologies and products to address safe use of medications in the United States. It offers Oxaydo tablets, a Schedule II narcotic indicated for the management of acute and chronic moderate to severe pain; and Nexafed products, which are pseudoephedrine and acetaminophen tablets that are used as nasal decongestants in various non-prescription and prescription cold, sinus, and allergy products. Acura Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has collaboration and license agreements with Egalet US, Inc. and Egalet Ltd. to manufacture and commercialize Oxaydo products worldwide; and development and commercialization agreement with Abuse Deterrent Pharma, LLC to develop LTX-03, an immediate-release tablets utilizing LIMITx technology. The company was formerly known as Halsey Drug Co., Inc. The company was incorporated in 1935 and is based in Palatine, Illinois. Acura Pharmaceuticals, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Abuse Deterrent Pharma, LLC. Receive News & Ratings for Shiseido Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Shiseido and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Eaton Vance New York Municipal Bond Fund (NYSEAMERICAN:ENX Get Free Report) saw a large increase in short interest during the month of September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 13,900 shares, an increase of 256.4% from the August 31st total of 3,900 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 25,700 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 0.5 days. Eaton Vance New York Municipal Bond Fund Trading Up 0.2 % Shares of NYSEAMERICAN ENX traded up $0.02 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $9.88. 57,959 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 22,894. Eaton Vance New York Municipal Bond Fund has a one year low of $7.84 and a one year high of $10.14. Get Eaton Vance New York Municipal Bond Fund alerts: About Eaton Vance New York Municipal Bond Fund (Get Free Report) Further Reading Eaton Vance New York Municipal Bond Fund is a close-ended fixed income mutual fund launched and managed by Eaton Vance Management. The fund invests in the fixed income market of United States. It invests primarily in high grade municipal obligations comprising of various industries, such as general obligations, hospital, electric utilities, transportation, water and sewer, public education, and private education. Receive News & Ratings for Eaton Vance New York Municipal Bond Fund Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Eaton Vance New York Municipal Bond Fund and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. First BanCorp. (NYSE:FBP Get Free Report) has been assigned an average recommendation of Moderate Buy from the five research firms that are covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating on the company. The average 1-year target price among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $20.83. A number of research firms have issued reports on FBP. Hovde Group increased their target price on shares of First BanCorp. from $21.00 to $25.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Raymond James assumed coverage on First BanCorp. in a report on Tuesday, July 9th. They set an outperform rating and a $21.00 price objective for the company. Piper Sandler assumed coverage on First BanCorp. in a research note on Monday, August 26th. They issued a neutral rating and a $22.00 target price on the stock. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on First BanCorp. from $19.00 to $20.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Get First BanCorp. alerts: View Our Latest Report on FBP First BanCorp. Stock Performance Shares of FBP stock opened at $21.03 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $3.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.02, a P/E/G ratio of 1.45 and a beta of 1.10. First BanCorp. has a 1-year low of $12.72 and a 1-year high of $22.12. The company has a current ratio of 0.77, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is $20.68 and its 200-day simple moving average is $18.69. First BanCorp. (NYSE:FBP Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The bank reported $0.46 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.41 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $304.28 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $230.26 million. First BanCorp. had a return on equity of 21.86% and a net margin of 25.91%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.37 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts predict that First BanCorp. will post 1.76 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. First BanCorp. Announces Dividend The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 13th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 29th were issued a $0.16 dividend. This represents a $0.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.04%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 29th. First BanCorp.s dividend payout ratio is presently 36.57%. Insider Buying and Selling at First BanCorp. In other news, COO Donald Kafka sold 50,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $21.81, for a total transaction of $1,090,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 174,589 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,807,786.09. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, COO Donald Kafka sold 50,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $21.81, for a total transaction of $1,090,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 174,589 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $3,807,786.09. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, EVP Michael Mcdonald sold 7,612 shares of First BanCorp. stock in a transaction on Monday, August 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $21.65, for a total transaction of $164,799.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 89,420 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,935,943. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 82,452 shares of company stock worth $1,790,066 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 2.50% of the companys stock. Institutional Trading of First BanCorp. Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in FBP. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of First BanCorp. by 69.3% during the first quarter. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC now owns 77,452 shares of the banks stock worth $1,359,000 after buying an additional 31,692 shares during the last quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC boosted its holdings in First BanCorp. by 239.7% in the 1st quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 96,145 shares of the banks stock valued at $1,686,000 after purchasing an additional 67,844 shares during the period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its position in First BanCorp. by 6.3% in the 4th quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 1,860,790 shares of the banks stock worth $30,610,000 after purchasing an additional 110,797 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in First BanCorp. by 2,172.9% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,039,557 shares of the banks stock worth $17,101,000 after purchasing an additional 993,819 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Jupiter Asset Management Ltd. bought a new position in shares of First BanCorp. during the 1st quarter worth about $16,719,000. Institutional investors own 97.91% of the companys stock. About First BanCorp. (Get Free Report First BanCorp. operates as a bank holding company for FirstBank Puerto Rico that provides a range of financial products and services to consumers and commercial customers. The company operates through six segments: Commercial and Corporate Banking, Mortgage Banking, Consumer (Retail) Banking, Treasury and Investments, United States Operations, and Virgin Islands Operations. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for First BanCorp. Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for First BanCorp. and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Ensurge Micropower ASA (OTCMKTS:ENMPF Get Free Report) and Benchmark Electronics (NYSE:BHE Get Free Report) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, analyst recommendations, profitability, dividends, earnings and valuation. Valuation & Earnings This table compares Ensurge Micropower ASA and Benchmark Electronicss gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation. Get Ensurge Micropower ASA alerts: Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Ensurge Micropower ASA N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A Benchmark Electronics $2.75 billion 0.59 $64.32 million $1.83 24.65 Benchmark Electronics has higher revenue and earnings than Ensurge Micropower ASA. Analyst Recommendations Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Ensurge Micropower ASA 0 0 0 0 N/A Benchmark Electronics 0 2 2 0 2.50 This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Ensurge Micropower ASA and Benchmark Electronics, as provided by MarketBeat.com. Benchmark Electronics has a consensus price target of $41.33, indicating a potential downside of 8.37%. Given Benchmark Electronics higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Benchmark Electronics is more favorable than Ensurge Micropower ASA. Insider & Institutional Ownership 92.3% of Benchmark Electronics shares are held by institutional investors. 2.1% of Benchmark Electronics shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth. Profitability This table compares Ensurge Micropower ASA and Benchmark Electronics net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Ensurge Micropower ASA N/A N/A N/A Benchmark Electronics 2.45% 7.17% 3.45% Summary Benchmark Electronics beats Ensurge Micropower ASA on 8 of the 8 factors compared between the two stocks. About Ensurge Micropower ASA (Get Free Report) Ensurge Micropower ASA provides energy storage solutions for wearable devices, connected sensors, and other applications in Norway. The company offers solid-state lithium battery technology that enables it to produce rechargeable batteries. It serves hearables, medical and sports/fitness wearables, and home and industrial devices sectors. The company was formerly known as Thin Film Electronics ASA and changed its name to Ensurge Micropower ASA in June 2021. Ensurge Micropower ASA was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in Oslo, Norway. About Benchmark Electronics (Get Free Report) Benchmark Electronics, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, offers product design, engineering services, technology solutions, and manufacturing services in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. The company provides engineering services and technology solutions, including new product design, prototype, testing, and related engineering services; and custom testing and technology solutions, as well as automation equipment design and build services. It also offers electronics manufacturing and testing services, such as printed circuit board assembly and test solutions, assembly of subsystems, circuitry and functionality testing of printed assemblies, environmental and stress testing, and component reliability testing; component engineering services; manufacturing defect analysis, in-circuit testing, functional testing, and life cycle testing services, as well as environmental stress tests of assemblies of boards or systems; and failure analysis. In addition, the company provides precision machining and electromechanical assembly services; and subsystem and system integration services, including assembly, configuration, and testing for various industries. Further, it provides value-added support systems; supply chain management solutions; direct order fulfillment; and aftermarket non-warranty services, including repair, replacement, refurbishment, remanufacturing, exchange, systems upgrade, and spare parts manufacturing throughout a products life cycle. The company serves original equipment manufacturers in the aerospace and defense, medical technologies, complex industrials, semiconductor capital equipment, telecommunications, and advanced computing industries. It markets its services and solutions primarily through a direct sales force. The company was formerly known as Electronics, Inc. Benchmark Electronics, Inc. was founded in 1979 and is headquartered in Tempe, Arizona. Receive News & Ratings for Ensurge Micropower ASA Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Ensurge Micropower ASA and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Manulife Financial (NYSE:MFC Get Free Report) and Discovery (OTCMKTS:DCYHF Get Free Report) are both finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, risk, institutional ownership, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations and valuation. Institutional and Insider Ownership 52.6% of Manulife Financial shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 16.9% of Discovery shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.0% of Manulife Financial shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth. Get Manulife Financial alerts: Profitability This table compares Manulife Financial and Discoverys net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Manulife Financial 9.18% 16.16% 0.79% Discovery N/A N/A N/A Earnings & Valuation Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Manulife Financial $43.17 billion 1.23 $4.05 billion $1.72 17.23 Discovery N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A This table compares Manulife Financial and Discoverys top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation. Manulife Financial has higher revenue and earnings than Discovery. Analyst Ratings This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Manulife Financial and Discovery, as reported by MarketBeat.com. Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Manulife Financial 0 1 6 1 3.00 Discovery 0 0 0 0 N/A Manulife Financial currently has a consensus target price of $35.67, suggesting a potential upside of 20.35%. Given Manulife Financials higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Manulife Financial is more favorable than Discovery. Summary Manulife Financial beats Discovery on 9 of the 9 factors compared between the two stocks. About Manulife Financial (Get Free Report) Manulife Financial Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides financial products and services in the United States, Canada, Asia, and internationally. The company operates through Wealth and Asset Management Businesses; Insurance and Annuity Products; and Corporate and Other segments. The Wealth and Asset Management Businesses segment offers investment advice and solutions to retirement, retail, and institutional clients through multiple distribution channels, including agents and brokers affiliated with the company, independent securities brokerage firms and financial advisors pension plan consultants, and banks. The Insurance and Annuity Products segment provides deposit and credit products; and individual life insurance, individual and group long-term care insurance, and guaranteed and partially guaranteed annuity products through multiple distribution channels, including insurance agents, brokers, banks, financial planners, and direct marketing. The Corporate and Other segment is involved in the property and casualty reinsurance businesses; and run-off reinsurance operations, including variable annuities, and accident and health. The company also manages timberland and agricultural portfolios; and engages in insurance agency, investment counseling and dealer, portfolio and mutual fund management, property and casualty insurance, and mutual fund dealer businesses. In addition, it provides integrated banking products and services. The company was incorporated in 1887 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. About Discovery (Get Free Report) Discovery Limited provides various insurance products and services primarily in South Africa and the United Kingdom. It operates through Health South Africa, Life South Africa, Invest South Africa, Vitality South Africa, Insure South Africa, Bank South Africa, Health United Kingdom, Life United Kingdom, and All Other segments. The company offers health, life, car, travel, business, and home insurance products; motor, building, household content, and portable possessions insurance products; private medical insurance products; and commercial short-term risk insurance products. It also provides managed care services; financial solutions; investment products; retail banking solutions, including deposits and loans and advances; and Vitality, which offers health and lifestyle benefits. The company was formerly known as Discovery Holdings Limited and changed its name to Discovery Limited in December 2012. Discovery Limited was founded in 1992 and is based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Receive News & Ratings for Manulife Financial Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Manulife Financial and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Laboratory Co. of America (NYSE:LH Free Report) had its target price reduced by Evercore ISI from $250.00 to $240.00 in a research report report published on Tuesday morning, Benzinga reports. Evercore ISI currently has an in-line rating on the medical research companys stock. A number of other research firms have also recently weighed in on LH. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Laboratory Co. of America from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 20th. Barclays upped their price objective on Laboratory Co. of America from $213.00 to $249.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. Robert W. Baird raised their target price on Laboratory Co. of America from $278.00 to $282.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Friday, September 20th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price target on Laboratory Co. of America from $220.00 to $230.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on Laboratory Co. of America from $261.00 to $243.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a report on Thursday, May 30th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $254.50. Get Laboratory Co. of America alerts: View Our Latest Research Report on LH Laboratory Co. of America Stock Performance Shares of LH opened at $220.28 on Tuesday. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $223.22 and a 200 day moving average of $211.61. The company has a market capitalization of $18.57 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 44.32, a PEG ratio of 1.74 and a beta of 1.06. Laboratory Co. of America has a 12 month low of $191.97 and a 12 month high of $238.46. The company has a current ratio of 0.88, a quick ratio of 0.77 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39. Laboratory Co. of America (NYSE:LH Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The medical research company reported $3.94 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.78 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $3.22 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.19 billion. Laboratory Co. of America had a return on equity of 15.39% and a net margin of 3.60%. The businesss revenue was up 6.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $3.42 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Laboratory Co. of America will post 14.61 earnings per share for the current year. Laboratory Co. of America Announces Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 13th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, August 29th were given a $0.72 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 29th. This represents a $2.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.31%. Laboratory Co. of Americas dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 57.95%. Insider Buying and Selling In other Laboratory Co. of America news, EVP Der Vaart Sandra D. Van sold 2,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Monday, August 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $227.05, for a total value of $454,100.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 3,670 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $833,273.50. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In related news, EVP Lance Berberian sold 12,093 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $229.10, for a total value of $2,770,506.30. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 15,921 shares of the companys stock, valued at $3,647,501.10. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Der Vaart Sandra D. Van sold 2,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Monday, August 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $227.05, for a total transaction of $454,100.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 3,670 shares in the company, valued at approximately $833,273.50. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 29,679 shares of company stock valued at $6,716,306. Company insiders own 0.85% of the companys stock. Institutional Investors Weigh In On Laboratory Co. of America Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Industrial Alliance Investment Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Laboratory Co. of America during the 2nd quarter valued at $27,000. Pathway Financial Advisers LLC bought a new stake in Laboratory Co. of America in the 1st quarter worth $30,000. Innealta Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of Laboratory Co. of America in the second quarter valued at about $32,000. Family Firm Inc. bought a new position in shares of Laboratory Co. of America during the second quarter valued at about $37,000. Finally, McClarren Financial Advisors Inc. lifted its holdings in Laboratory Co. of America by 313.2% in the 1st quarter. McClarren Financial Advisors Inc. now owns 219 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $48,000 after buying an additional 166 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 95.94% of the companys stock. About Laboratory Co. of America (Get Free Report) Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings operates as a life sciences company that provides vital information to help doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, researchers, and patients make clear and confident decisions. It operates in two segments, Labcorp Diagnostics (Dx) and Biopharma Laboratory Services (BLS). See Also Receive News & Ratings for Laboratory Co. of America Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Laboratory Co. of America and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Beazer Homes USA (NYSE:BZH Get Free Report) and Lennar (NYSE:LEN-B Get Free Report) are both construction companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, dividends, institutional ownership, risk, earnings, profitability and analyst recommendations. Analyst Recommendations This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Beazer Homes USA and Lennar, as provided by MarketBeat. Get Beazer Homes USA alerts: Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Beazer Homes USA 1 0 3 0 2.50 Lennar 0 0 0 0 N/A Beazer Homes USA currently has a consensus price target of $39.67, suggesting a potential upside of 21.64%. Given Beazer Homes USAs higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Beazer Homes USA is more favorable than Lennar. Earnings & Valuation Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Beazer Homes USA $2.17 billion 0.47 $158.61 million $5.18 6.30 Lennar N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A This table compares Beazer Homes USA and Lennars top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation. Beazer Homes USA has higher revenue and earnings than Lennar. Institutional & Insider Ownership 85.7% of Beazer Homes USA shares are owned by institutional investors. 7.0% of Beazer Homes USA shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth. Profitability This table compares Beazer Homes USA and Lennars net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Beazer Homes USA 6.63% 12.61% 5.81% Lennar N/A N/A N/A Summary Beazer Homes USA beats Lennar on 8 of the 8 factors compared between the two stocks. About Beazer Homes USA (Get Free Report) Beazer Homes USA, Inc. operates as a homebuilder in the United States. It designs, constructs, and sells single-family and multi-family homes under the Beazer Homes, Gatherings, and Choice Plans names. The company also sells its homes through commissioned new home sales counselors and independent brokers in Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas, Indiana, Delaware, Maryland, Tennessee, Virginia, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Beazer Homes USA, Inc. was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. About Lennar (Get Free Report) Lennar Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a homebuilder primarily under the Lennar brand in the United States. It operates through Homebuilding East, Homebuilding Central, Homebuilding Texas, Homebuilding West, Financial Services, Multifamily, and Lennar Other segments. The company's homebuilding operations include the construction and sale of single-family attached and detached homes, as well as the purchase, development, and sale of residential land; and development, construction, and management of multifamily rental properties. It also offers residential mortgage financing, title, insurance, and closing services for home buyers and others, as well as originates and sells securitization commercial mortgage loans. In addition, the company is involved in the fund investment activity. It primarily serves first-time, move-up, active adult, and luxury homebuyers. Lennar Corporation was founded in 1954 and is based in Miami, Florida. Receive News & Ratings for Beazer Homes USA Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Beazer Homes USA and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. 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. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. Following our 17-day summer special session, Gov. Jim Pillen considered calling a second special session to attempt to pass the winner-take-all bill. Facing a certain filibuster in the legislature, the governor invited many of the state senators to the Governors Mansion to listen to one last pitch for this legislation. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham was at the meeting to discuss the national and international consequences of Nebraskas currently split electoral votes. Gov. Pillen did not want to call a special session unless he had assurances from 33 senators that they would vote in favor of the bill. However, that effort did not bear fruit. There will be no special session this year on the topic. However, this is too important an issue to let die and I will be carrying this bill again next legislative session. With that in mind I am including below the arguments that have been made for and against this bill in past years. The Electoral College has 538 total votes, so 50% plus one brings us to the magic number of 270 votes needed to win the presidency. Each state has two electoral votes for its two U.S. senators and one vote for each of their U.S. representatives, the number of which is determined by population (Nebraska has three). Forty eight states are winner-take-all with their electoral votes, meaning that the candidate who wins the statewide popular vote gets all of that states electoral votes. But in 1972 Maine adopted whats known as the District Plan to give third party candidates for president a voice. Maine has four total electoral votes, of which two are winner take all, and two are split up according to whomever wins their congressional districts. In recent elections (2008 and 2020) electoral votes ended up split in both Maine and Nebraska. In Nebraska the District Plan was proposed in 1990 and again in 1991 and failed both times. But then in 1992 it passed by a simple majority of 25 votes. Just three years later, in 1995 and again in 1997 the legislature decided to reverse course and voted to return to winner-take-all, but both times the bill was vetoed by Democrat Gov. Ben Nelson. Attempts have been floated in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2014 and 2015 but have failed each time. The arguments for winner-take-all include the following: *Nebraska adopted the district plan because leaders thought it was a trend and did so as an experiment, however, it did not catch on. No other states have joined the district plan. If it was such a good idea, historically blue states like California and New York would have joined but they dont because they know large portions of their states are red. So, the experiment failed and is over. What resulted was a policy decision, not an experiment and it has left Nebraska out of step with the rest of the nation in the Electoral College process. *The district plan gives the voter the feeling that their vote counts and gives them a voice. This question is, does the voter only get this feeling if the election goes his/her way? How does one measure a feeling? As past Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Vince Powers said, Votes count as long as your vote is cast. *The district plan will encourage presidential candidates to visit Nebraska. Since our state has only five electoral votes, candidates tend to visit Omaha, with its large population, while ignoring the more rural parts of the state. The district plan actually discourages candidates from addressing issues that appeal to the entire state while attracting visits to congressional districts with higher populations and income levels. *The District Plan encourages third party candidates to capture their share of electoral votes, which increases the likelihood that no single candidate will receive the needed 270 electoral votes to win. In that event, the House of Representatives would decide the presidency. (Note: If the entire nation joined the district plan, in the 2012 election, Mitt Romney would have become president with 277 votes vs. Obamas 260 votes. The district plan can favor either party but what we need is uniformity of the electoral process. The arguments in favor of winner-take-all are many. One argument is that our state governor, secretary of state, attorney general, auditor, treasurer and both U.S. senators serve the entire state and are elected by the whole state, so the president, who also serves the whole state, should be elected that way also. Secondly, if the district plan existed throughout the whole country it would guarantee massive gerrymandering manipulating the boundaries of an electoral constituency so as to favor one party. Also the Electoral College was built to keep small states, like Nebraska, relevant and make it easier for candidates to campaign. Consider the fact that the six cities of Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco equal the population of 14 rural states which include Nebraska and North and South Dakota. New York City alone has a population of 8.2 million which is more than 39 individual states. The Electoral College prevents tyranny of the majority (sometimes called a mobocracy). In that same spirit of equal representation, winner-take-all spreads out representation and prevents pockets of power in population centers, ensuring that less populated areas are heard and are fairly represented in the electoral process. The nation needs to be either all winner-take-all, as it is in 48 states, or the district plan as in Maine and Nebraska. Our current situation puts us out of step with the majority of other states and puts us at a disadvantage. A South Carolina man faces hundreds of years behind bars after being indicted on multiple charges related to a multi-million dollar fraud involving a government agency in another state, the U.S. Attorneys Office said in a news release. Brandon Lamont Swain, a 53-year-old Columbia resident, was charged with eight counts of bank fraud, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office based in the Middle District of Florida. According to an indictment, Swain fraudulently obtained millions of dollars from Delawares Division of Child Support Services, Positive Pay bank account. Delaware used the Division account to distribute child support payments to custodial parents, the U.S. Attorneys Office said in a news release. Information about how Swain had access to the account and money was not available. In connection with the scheme, Swain transferred more than $2.7 million from the Division account to various businesses and financial institutions, for his personal gain, according to the release. Swain used the Divisionaccount to purchase more than $2 million in timeshare interests in resort properties in Orlando and elsewhere, the U.S. Attorneys Office said. There was no word about how Swain spent the rest of the money. If convicted, Swain faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison on each count, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office. There is no parole in the federal system. This case was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service. The South Carolina Chapters of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., will convene its 64th District Conference on Oct. 3-5, 2024, on the campuses of Claflin University and South Carolina State University. Themed SC Brother Embracing the Alpha IMPACT: Voter Registration! Voter Education Voter Mobilization! the three-day conference plans to make a huge impact in the Orangeburg community and provide strategies and initiatives that the South Carolina Chapters of the historic Fraternity can implement in all communities statewide. Leaders of the South Carolina Chapters of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., have planned educational and fellowship opportunities for the attendees. Business sessions are closed to the public and are only open to registered members of the Fraternity. Community outreach events include an HBCU college fair for high school students, free community breakfast (sponsored by Dennys Mobile Relief Diner), a graduate school and career fair, and a blood drive (sponsored by The Red Cross). Founded on Dec. 4, 1906, at Cornell University, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. has supplied voice and vision to the struggle of African Americans and people of color around the world. The Fraternity initially served as a study and support group for minority students who faced racial prejudice, both educationally and socially. Famous fraternity members who have been in the forefront of civil rights include W.E.B. DuBois, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Edward Brooke, Martin Luther King Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Andrew Young, William Gray, and Paul Robeson. Today Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. is comprised of more than 750 active chapters located in the United States, Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean. Get The Times and Democrat app today Local news has never been this personal. Free to download. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access. There are a total of 33 chapters in South Carolina representing the cities of Aiken, Anderson, Beaufort, Bennettsville, Clemson, Columbia, Conway, Charleston, Denmark, Florence, Fort Mill, Georgetown, Greenville, Orangeburg, Rock Hill, Spartanburg, Summerville, and Sumter. This also includes chapters at higher education institutions including Allen University, Benedict College, Charleston Southern University, Claflin University, Clemson University, The College of Charleston, Coastal Carolina University, Francis Marion University, Morris College, South Carolina State University, University of South Carolina (Columbia), University of South Carolina (Aiken), University of South Carolina (Upstate), Voorhees University, and Winthrop University. HBCU IMPACT College Fair Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, 8:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Claflin University | Jonas T. Kennedy Health and Wellness Complex Auxiliary Gym 400 Magnolia St., Orangeburg During the HBCU College Fair, local high students will visit with admissions counselors from more than 20 HBCUs, participate in a workshop to learn more about applying for scholarships, and have numerous opportunities to receive scholarships from attending colleges, universities, and education nonprofits from across the south. This event is free and open to the public especially high school juniors and seniors. Fraternity aids Samaritan House Members of Alpha Phi Alpha donated to Samaritan House, volunteering to assist with cleaning, maintenance, and community service, including beautification efforts at local church. Free Community Breakfast sponsored by Dennys Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, 10:30 a.m.-noon Claflin University | Jonas T. Kennedy Health and Wellness Complex Parking Lot 400 Magnolia St., Orangeburg The Mobile Relief Diner is a 53-foot tractor trailer with a fully functional commercial kitchen. Equipped with ovens, grills, a walk-in cooler, and a commercial coffee maker, the Mobile Relief Diner was designed to travel virtually anywhere in the U.S. and can serve thousands at each stop. Now its our turn: Sellers addresses 35th Annual MLK Unity Breakfast The Delta Zeta Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated held their 35th annual MLK Unity Breakfast to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Free Community Breakfast sponsored by Dennys Friday, Oct. 4, 2024, 8 a.m.-noon Claflin University | Jonas T. Kennedy Health and Wellness Complex Parking Lot 400 Magnolia St., Orangeburg The Mobile Relief Diner is a 53-foot tractor trailer with a fully functional commercial kitchen. Equipped with ovens, grills, a walk-in cooler, and a commercial coffee maker, the Mobile Relief Diner was designed to travel virtually anywhere in the U.S. and can serve thousands at each stop. Orangeburg fraternity chapter marks 75th anniversary The Delta Zeta Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated has celebrated the 75th anniversary of its chartering. The chapter, located in Orangeburg, is also the home of the Beta Delta chapter from South Carolina State University and Delta Alpha chapter from Claflin University. Alpha University Workshop - Reclaiming Our Power Friday, Oct. 4, 2024, 10:30-11:30 a.m. Claflin University Student Center, Ballroom A 400 Magnolia St., Orangeburg While galvanizing brothers to mobilize and vote, this workshop will feature a discussion regarding the opportunity to reclaim Black Power in the Southeastern United States through a re-migration of Black and Brown individuals. This workshop will also feature evidence-based strategies for advancing our A Voteless People is a Hopeless People Program. Alpha University Workshop - A Basic Estate Plan Friday, Oct. 4, 2024, 10:30-11:30 a.m. Claflin University Student Center, Movie Theater 400 Magnolia St., Orangeburg Death is a certainty and we as a people are gaining more and more wealth that we need to protect for our families and even for our Fraternity. This workshop will discuss the basic steps brothers (and their families) should take to effectively plan what happens to their assets upon death. Brothers will also explore the possible consequences of insufficient planning. Fraternal and Recognition Luncheon Friday, Oct. 4, 2024, 1-3 p.m. Claflin University Student Center, Ballroom B 400 Magnolia St. Keynote address by Brother Dr. J.R. Green. Dr. J.R. Green has dedicated over 30 years to K-12 education, serving in various key roles throughout his career. He has been a teacher, administrator, assistant principal, principal, assistant superintendent, and superintendent. For the past 12 years, Green has led the Fairfield County School District (FSCD) as superintendent. Under his leadership, the FSCD has seen significant improvements, including enhanced curriculum offerings, the construction and renovation of multiple facilities, and revisions to the salary schedule for both certified and classified staff. The district has also earned numerous state and federal recognitions, including the 2020 South Carolina State Teacher of the Year award, the 2022 National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence designation, and the 2021 South Carolina Superintendent of the Year award. In June 2024, Green was honored with the prestigious SCASA Lifetime Achievement Award, making him the youngest recipient in its history. Green is deeply committed to inspiring and working with young people. One of his notable initiatives is the Griffin Bow Tie Club, a comprehensive mentoring program for middle and high school boys. The program emphasizes the "5 Wells of Leadership"Well-Read, Well-Spoken, Well-Traveled, Well-Dressed, and Well-Balanced. Early in his tenure, Green oversaw the construction of the Fairfield Career and Technology Center, a state-of-the-art facility featuring traditional classrooms, laboratories, an automotive center, barber and cosmetology suites, as well as Mechatronics and Project Lead the Way programs. This center serves as a hub for career and technical education for students across the county. Green holds a Bachelor of Science, a Master of Arts, a Master of Education, and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of South Carolina. A Riley Leadership Institute Fellow, he is actively involved in numerous civic and professional organizations, including the Omicron Iota Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., Alpha Iota Boule of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Board of Trustees, the South Carolina Hospital Association Board of Trustees, the Board of Directors for the Midlands Education & Business Alliance, and the United Way of the Midlands Board of Directors. Additionally, Green serves as a Deacon at Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church in Ridgeway. A proud native of South Carolina, Green resides in Columbia with his wife, Tonya, and their three daughters: Jamara, Janelle, and Jacia. He consistently emphasizes to students that education is the foundation of their future. Known for leaving a lasting impression, Green enriches the lives of others through his leadership and service. His guiding philosophy is simple: "Do your best." During the luncheon, the Fraternity will commemorate the Emanuel Nine who were tragically slain on June 17, 2015, at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church, in Charleston, South Carolina. This will be done by honoring individuals and organizations that embody their spirit and service to others. Honorees include: Brother Dr. James R. Blassingame, Retired Truancy Director for the Orangeburg County School District (Educational Support) Brother Rev. Archie R. Fair, Greater St. James AME Church, Summerville, SC (Faith) The Honorable Latisha Walker, Orangeburg County Council District 7 (Political Activism) Chief Charles P. Austin, Chief of Police, City of Orangeburg (Safety) Ms. Dianna E. Richburg, Teacher, Denmark-Olar Elementary School (Volunteerism) Additionally, the Fraternity will recognize and honor three new South Carolina Living Legends from Alpha Phi Alpha chapters in the Orangeburg area. Honorees include: Brother Frank L. Loadholt, Adjunct Instructor, South Carolina State University, (initiated 11/1/70) Brother Carl A. Oliver, Enterprise Applications Manager/Administrative Computing Manager, South Carolina State University, (initiated 11/26/85) Brother Adrian H. West, Vice President of Student Affairs, Voorhees University, (initiated 10/18/97) Graduate School and Career Fair Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, 9 a.m.-noon Claflin University | Jonas T. Kennedy Health and Wellness Complex Auxiliary Gym 400 Magnolia St. Recruiters from various universities will be on hand to answer questions about admissions for their graduate school programs. Organizations participating in the Career Fair include Blue Cross Blue Shield, Honeywell, Chester School District, Charleston Police Department and more. This event is free and open to the public. Blood Drive Event with the Red Cross Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Claflin University Student Center, Ballroom C 400 Magnolia St. One of the main principles of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. is community outreach and mentoring initiatives. The Conference will host a Blood Drive with the American Red Cross. The goal is to collect 30 pints of blood. Anyone is welcome to register to give blood. Make an appointment at www.redcrossblood.org. Sponsor code: AlphaSouth Alpha University Workshop - The Influence of Media on the Uneducated Voter: Embracing Your Influence Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, 9:30-10:30 a.m. Claflin University Student Center, Conference Room A 400 Magnolia St. This voter education workshop examines the impact of media outlets (news, music, social media, etc.) on voters. This workshop will explore evidence-based approaches to support voter education through the usage of multiple media platforms. Alpha University Workshop - Mastering Roberts Rules of Order: Elevating Meetings and Decision-Making Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, 9:30-10:30 a.m. Claflin University Student Center, Ballroom A 400 Magnolia St., Orangeburg, SC 29115 Join us for an engaging and practical workshop on Robert's Rules of Order at the District Conference. This session is designed to equip participants with the essential knowledge and skills needed to conduct meetings with efficiency, fairness, and clarity. Whether you're a seasoned leader or new to parliamentary procedure, this workshop will provide you with the tools to confidently navigate and lead meetings using Robert's Rules. Alpha University Workshop - Navigating Career Success: Strategies for Landing and Advancing Your Career Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, 9:30-10:30 a.m. Claflin University Student Center, Conference Room B 400 Magnolia St. This career development workshop is designed exclusively for the SC Alpha Brothers who are ready to excel in their professional journeys. Whether youre in the early stages of your career or looking to advance to the next level, this workshop provides the tools and strategies to help you stand out in todays competitive job market, the Alpha Way. Belford V. Lawson Oratorical Luncheon/Competition Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, 1-2:30 p.m. Claflin University Student Center, Ballroom C 400 Magnolia St. The purpose of the Belford V. Lawson Oratorical Competition is to identify problems or special topics of interest within society and determine how the problem or topic relates to the goals and objectives of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated. The Oratorical Contest provides College brothers the opportunity to enhance and display their communication skills through oration. Dr. John Hope Franklin Collegiate Scholars' Bowl Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, 5-6 p.m. Claflin University Student Center, 3rd Floor Student Lounge 400 Magnolia St. The Dr. John Hope Franklin Collegiate Scholars' Bowl provides a public forum through which undergraduate collegiate scholars demonstrate academic and intellectual knowledge and skills, implemented to highlight scholastic excellence among college members of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Dr. Hobart S. Jarrett Debate Competition Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, 5-6 p.m. Claflin University Student Center, Conference A 400 Magnolia St. The purpose of the Brother Dr. Hobart S. Jarrett Debate Competition is to develop the skills of fraternity members in argumentation and research, persuasion, oral and written communication, and critical thinking. Miss Old Gold and Black Scholarship Competition Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, 8-10 p.m. South Carolina State University | Fine Arts Center The Miss Old Gold and Black Scholarship Competition is an event whose primary purpose is to highlight and foster the inextricable connection between success and etiquette among young women. This competition spotlights the young women's poise, self-confidence, communication skills, intelligence, and beauty. Contestants are provided scholarships to assist with the financial obligations associated with post-secondary studies. Senate District 26 will have a new senator after Novembers election. Its a race that features a first-time candidate and a longtime state representative hoping to succeed state Sen. Nikki Setzler, D-Lexington, in a district that was drawn to be competitive with a partisan lean towards Democrats. Jason Guerry, a Lexington County Republican who works in construction doing home remodels, won the GOP nomination in June out of a three-person field. State Rep. Russell Ott, D-Calhoun, is a farmer, has served in the House since 2013 and defeated state Sen. Dick Harpootlian in Junes primary. Based on previous voting patterns, Ott comes into the general election race with an advantage. The candidates are running in a newly drawn district that President Joe Biden would have won 52-46% against former President Donald Trump in 2020. District 26 will be one of the few legislative districts that will be competitive in Novembers election. The district has precincts in Calhoun, Lexington and Richland counties. According to an analysis of vote totals from 2020, Biden ran up the score in the Richland County precincts, carrying 72% of the vote. Trump won the Calhoun and Lexington county precincts, but only carried 50% of the vote in both of the counties. Although the Republican Primary had more voters in District 26, more Democrats voted in Calhoun County during the June primary. For both candidates, theyll have to reach out to more voters than they did in the primary race to introduce themselves to the electorate. Ott, who is 46 and has two teenage sons, said he plans not to focus on Guerry during the campaign and just work on introducing himself to voters across the district and discussing solutions to issues facing South Carolina. When youre talking about 40,000 plus voters, then youre going to have to rely on other ways to talk with voters, which is mailers, social media, telephone calls. So were trying to deploy all of it, but Im still trying to go everywhere I can go, Ott said. Ott learned that as he got farther away from Calhoun County, fewer people were familiar with him. Im certainly trying to be strategic, and Im trying to make sure that I get in front of people that dont know me, Ott said. Guerry, 51, who has three grown sons, has never run for office before but has political connections in his family. His wife, Tina Guerry, is the Lexington County register of deeds, and she faces no opposition in Novembers election. His father, Art, previously served on the Lexington County Council, and as the elected county auditor. Jason Guerry said hes not worried about focusing on Ott when hes talking to prospective voters. Ive learned its best not to let your opponent dictate your campaign, Guerry said. Im more concerned about what the people want and need. Thats what drives me to where I go. Abortion issue may return to Senate In the Senate, Republicans are in a position to gain seats with only up to seven of the 46 seats truly competitive. And all seven of those seats are held by Democrats. If Republicans are able to make gains, they may try to pass further abortion restrictions as the Senate is expected to have fewer members who oppose banning abortions at conception. State law now bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected. That six-week law, which has been in effect since August 2023, includes exceptions for rape, incest, a fatal fetal anomaly and to protect the life of the mother. Guerry said he wants to let the current law stand for a while. We have to remember it was just passed, and we need to give it time to see how it works out, Guerry said. I think if were going to revisit this, it may be time to think about letting the voters decide. When asked directly how he would vote if a total abortion ban came before him, Guerry said he had not made a decision. Im free to listen to the concerns of everybody. I would want to do more in my Senate district and make sure that Im getting the full benefit of their opinion on it before I commit to it, Guerry said. Im 100% pro-life, but I do fall on the side of there needs to be some exceptions. Ott, who voted for a six-week ban in 2021, opposed the 2023 version after lawmakers put forward a more restrictive bill. He also said he would vote against further restrictions. Ott also has voted to put the question of abortion access before voters, a move that can only be done as a proposed state constitutional amendment and requires lawmakers to place the question on the ballot, a move Republican leadership indicated they oppose. Regardless of what happens, youre still going to see extreme legislation, I think, ultimately pushed, whether it comes from the House or it comes from the Senate, Ott said. If an abortion bill is proposed, Ott said he would try to make legislation better, even if he disagreed with it. Ott said he expects some sort of abortion-related legislation to come up next year. Im sure that itll be much more restricted than what we even have on the books, I would not be surprised to see a total abortion ban bill introduced by someone, Ott said. I will not vote for a total abortion ban. To be very clear. I didnt vote for the last one. Either candidate would lack state Senate seniority With neither candidate being an incumbent senator, whoever is elected will lack seniority in the upper chamber, which gives deference to those who have served in the Senate longer. Lexington County is losing two senators after this years election: Setzler, a Democrat who joined the chamber in 1977, and Katrina Shealy, a Republican, who joined the chamber in 2013. Both served on the Finance Committee and had sway on where state dollars are spent through the budget process. Setzler opted not to run again and Shealy was ousted by a primary challenger in June. Ott points to his 11 years of experience in the state House in a chamber dominated by Republicans and how he is able to work with them despite being a Democrat. I get that seniority is very important, but I still dont think that it matters as much as the relationships that you build with people, Ott said. Ive got great relationships with senators in both the Republican and the Democratic Party, because Ive worked on legislation with them in the past. For Guerry, he will have to form those relationships if hes elected. I think the best way is to reach out to the senior leadership and make sure that youre there to support them and what theyre trying to do. And if you show that youre there to help them, theyll help me, Guerry said. Another issue that may come before lawmakers next year is an energy bill to meet the growing states electricity needs. The House passed a massive energy bill earlier this year, but it stalled in the Senate. The upper chamber now has a special committee examining how to best address the states energy needs as it crafts legislation that could be considered next year. Guerry said addressing the states electricity needs will require creativity to avoid the possibility of rolling outages, but acknowledges there is no perfect solution. Weve got to make sure were doing what we can to make sure we have the availability of power, and we take it for granted, Guerry said. I think its good that theyre moving forward to looking (at) what we can do. So Im all for it, because we need it. That is essential. Ott said any approach with energy needs to focus on reliability, affordability and sustainability. He said he believed the version that passed out of the House was too broad, but lawmakers need to keep in mind what happened with V.C. Summer when making a decision to prevent a similar debacle from happening again. I think everything that was included in that bill is important and worthy of discussion and worthy of work, but when you lump it all together into like an 81-page bill that gives a lot of people concern, Ott said. A new Global Research Initiative based in Clemsons College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences (CAFLS) that is working to help solve some of the worlds most urgent food security challenges has appointed its first director. Food supply Jagger Harvey (second from left) will use experiences he gained while leading international teams to work on agricultural challenges across th Food systems expert Jagger Harvey has been appointed to spearhead the innovative programs and partnerships needed to help solve current and future food security problems. Get The Times and Democrat app today Local news has never been this personal. Free to download. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access. As director of the initiative, Harvey will develop a research strategy that addresses key challenges and drives agriculture- and forestry-led economic development in South Carolina and worldwide. He also will work to expand international efforts, increase funding sources, develop new research and food system partnerships, and promote CAFLS faculty. In addition, Harvey will coordinate the development of new global agriculture and sustainability research programs. South Carolina has a diverse agri-food system that models many threatened communities around the country and across the globe. Both its geographic location and the Universitys strong research portfolio uniquely position Clemson to drive innovative solutions to some of the most urgent food security challenges the world faces today. Through this initiative, we will expand University and CAFLS resources, successes, and prominence in global research and student experience to make a global impact, Harvey said. We will partner with business, institutions and individuals across the globe to determine solutions to address todays food security challenges. This initiative is just one example of global research and experiences available at Clemson University. For information about these programs, contact the Clemson Office of Global Engagement. Leading Clemsons Global Research Initiative Paula Agudelo, CAFLS associate dean and Clemson University Experiment Station director, led the charge to develop the Global Research Initiative. We are very excited to have Dr. Harvey direct this program, Agudelo said. He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience that we believe will position Clemson University and South Carolina at the forefront of global research. Growing up in Haiti and Washington state, Harvey began to see the effects of global agricultural challenges and a need for solutions at a young age. In college, he studied under prominent plant scientists David Gilchrist at the University of California Davis and Sir David Baulcombe at Cambridge University and The Sainsbury Laboratory in the United Kingdom. Harvey is now a food systems expert with over three decades of research experience and 15 years of experience leading international teams. He has worked on agricultural challenges in Africa, Asia and the Americas. His research focuses on determining how to grow nutritious, safe and affordable crops that benefit both human health and the environment, as well as involving stakeholders to address global issues. The global population growth, primarily in developing countries, will increase demand for food production by over 50% by 2050, Harvey said. Failure to meet that need will worsen food insecurity, fuel social unrest, and further erode global and U.S. security. A new era for the land-grant system Harvey comes to Clemson from Kansas State University, both land-grant universities. At Kansas State he led two U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Feed the Future Innovation Labs: Reduction of Post-Harvest Loss (PHLIL), and Climate Resilient Cereals. Under his leadership, PHLIL supported research to identify post-harvest loss issues and develop innovations to boost food and nutritional security. Harvey and his teams worked in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Senegal and Nepal. He views the Clemson position as a chance to introduce a new era to the land-grant system by fostering expanded collaborations with other countries. The global research programs will draw from the three-fold mission of the Land-Grant University System teaching, research and Cooperative Extension. The land-grant system has historically contributed to global food security and holds vast untapped potential to contribute so much more, Harvey said. Working across global food systems, I want Clemson to pioneer new models for the next generation of partnerships, especially with developing countries. South Carolina produces many of the same crops and livestock, in a similar climate, as many African, Latin American, and Asian countries. This makes it an ideal place for research to address critical food security challenges abroad and benefit state the state as well. It starts with the farmers, Harvey said. Farmers create the foundations for our food systems. South Carolina and regional farmers will be key partners in this endeavor. This is where the Clemson Cooperative Extension Service plays a key role. Clemson Extension agents work with South Carolina residents every day, Harvey said. I will talk to the Extension agents to learn what theyre doing and how theyre engaging different actors across the food systemfrom farmers to consumers. Together, we will create a plan that will raise Clemson and South Carolina as a leader in global food security and sustainability research and bring benefits back home to our state. Legislative leaders in South Carolina have decided not to challenge a state supreme court decision that invalidated parts of the states school voucher program. South Carolina Senate President Thomas Alexander, R-Oconee, and House Speaker Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, said Wednesday they will not request a rehearing from the state Supreme Court on a case that ruled portions of the 2023 Education Scholarship Trust Fund Act violate the state constitutions prohibition against using public funds for the direct benefit of private schools. Get The Times and Democrat app today Local news has never been this personal. Free to download. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access. Alexander and Smith said their first priority during the next legislative session will be to modify and reinstate the program. Despite the major flaws in the courts judgment, it is now the legislatures responsibility to address the consequences of the Courts opinion and correct the course, the statement read. Our highest priority when the General Assembly reconvenes in January is to ensure that families have educational choice and that funding for other educational programs that have been relied upon by so many South Carolinians for decades are secured for the future, the statement read. The Eidson case was brought by a group of public school parents along with the South Carolina NAACP and the South Carolina Education Association. Defendants included Gov. Henry McMaster, Alexander, Smith, state Education Superintendent Ellen Weaver and State Treasurer Curtis Loftis. Alexander and Smith said that while they adamantly disagree with the courts decision, they believe seeking a rehearing will not alter the cases outcome. Further delays caused by continuing this litigation will not help the students for whom the legislature intended to provide hope and opportunity, the statement said. The education scholarship law established an education scholarship trust fund that grants $6,000 vouchers to qualified families who pull their children out of local public schools and enroll them in private schools or public schools outside of their zoned districts. To qualify, a student must have been enrolled in a South Carolina public school during the previous school year, and their family must meet certain income requirements. When arguing that the law was constitutional, state officials said that while the funds originate as public, they become private after the monies are transferred by Loftis to a trust fund, where qualified families then own the funds. Those families are governed by rules that limit the use of the money for direct payment to educational institutions only, whether private or public. The court rejected the states argument, saying it was skeptical, in the first place, of whether the act included a true trust fund because the law fails to identify a trustee something required under state law before a trust is considered valid. Their ruling was based on the constitutions section known as the no-aid clause. The Supreme Court has issued its decision, and though we firmly believe they unnecessarily employed inflammatory language to denigrate those who support parental choice and utilized an outcome-driven approach to interpreting the constitution, we must accept their ruling, the statement read. Because the school voucher law was only partially struck down, families are still permitted to use scholarship funds to send their children to another public school outside of their zoned district. But thousands of children that used the voucher to attend a private school this school year may soon be displaced, according to the lawmakers statement. An independent oversight agency with sweeping powers to probe the operations of state government will open an investigation into the Charter Institute at Erskine, South Carolinas largest charter school district. The Legislative Audit Council, whose board voted Tuesday to launch the investigation, will have unfettered access to all Charter Institute records, with the exception of tax returns, during its legislatively-requested inquiry and will publish its findings and recommendations when it finishes. The Charter Institute, a taxpayer-funded affiliate of Erskine College that oversees 26 charter schools throughout the state, came under legislative scrutiny earlier this year after reporting by The State Media Co. raised questions about its spending, operations and ability to provide objective oversight of the schools it regulates. Get The Times and Democrat app today Local news has never been this personal. Free to download. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access. While charter school authorizers have historically served the circumscribed role of evaluating new charter school applications and providing oversight and accountability to existing charter schools, the Erskine Institute has operated more like a start-up business with an eye toward expansion and adding new revenue streams. Former SC education superintendent has died Barbara Nielsen Former SC State Superintendent of Education, first woman elected. Championed education laws, including Accountability Act of 1998. Legacy impacts state education today. While none of the Charter Institutes known pursuits are explicitly illegal under the states decades-old charter schools law, the districts propensity for pushing the laws boundaries has attracted critics among state lawmakers who argue it creates serious conflicts of interest that invite corruption. Rural SC HBCU registers to regulate charter schools as legislative crackdown looms A third private South Carolina college, Voorhees University, joins Erskine and Limestone in authorizing charter schools amid legislation considerations for accountability. In May, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers wrote the Legislative Audit Council to express their concerns that the Charter Institutes financial entanglements could compromise its ability to perform its duties under the (Charter Schools) Act with fidelity and/or may cause Erskine to apply inconsistent standards of accountability to different charter schools that it sponsors. The lawmakers, led by education committee Chair Shannon Erickson, R-Beaufort, asked the legislative watchdog to look into Erskine with a special focus on its financial connections to vendors and the for-profit management companies that operate many of the schools it oversees. The group asked the audit council to probe specifically whether Erskine had invested in a for-profit education management company, taken money from vendors that do business or seek to do business with its charter schools or had close ties with any related entities that posed conflicts of interest. Following the Legislative Audit Councils decision Tuesday to launch its probe, a Charter Institute spokeswoman released a statement saying the district welcomed the review and looked forward to its findings. It is our hope that the LAC report will address common questions about the Institutes structure and work while providing an opportunity for Institute schools and boards to share their experience working with us over the past seven years, spokeswoman Ashley Epperson said in the statement. Once completed, the audit will likely form the basis of any legislative action taken to more tightly regulate charter school authorizers and reform South Carolinas charter schools law, which many stakeholders agree is in need of an overhaul. Passed in 1996 and amended roughly a decade ago so that Erskine College and other universities could authorize charter schools, the law has not been updated to address many of the complications that have emerged as a result. While lawmakers inserted several stopgap measures in this years budget bill intended to address specific concerns with the Charter Institute, they put off any comprehensive charter school reform until at least 2025. Todays students proud to don the traditional blazers just as their counterparts of long ago. The St. Vincent Grammar School celebrated 116 years of service to young men in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, with a church service at the Kingstown Methodist Church and a march through capital Kingstown, Monday 23rd September, 2024. In a feature address at the Church Service, Pastor Michael Sayers, a 1992 graduate of the School, appealed to the student population of 633 strong to, "Be the best for God. Ensure that you know what it is all about. He encouraged the young men to "train yourself to be the best at every task God wants you to do, and warned them about trying "to fit in. There was no room for complacency, the Pastor advised and reminded the students that their "best days are ahead. He strongly suggested that they "stand firm and make your mark, and cautioned that "the mark must not be on their desks. Sayers, with a physique not unlike that of a heavyweight boxer, spoke of his experiment with alcohol, trying to be "part of the crowd. He confessed that he had to do something that was right for him, nor for the crowd. There will be battles each one will face in life, Sayers pointed out. "Choose wisely. Choose the things that are right, he recommended, adding, "Spend time getting to know the Creator. Dont let anyone tell you cant do it. He left the following for the student to ponder, "Remember who you are. Never lose sight of your relationship with the Lord. Maintaining the legacy Principal Colin Sam expressed confidence that the schools legacy will prevail, and called for all concerned to ensure that the schools symbol of excellence is maintained. He beckoned the students to "Rise to the occasion. Former Head Master, current Education Minister Curtis King, . while satisfied with the schools achievements. reminded the current cohort of students not to take for granted the privilege of learning in an environment like the Grammar School, but to always be mindful of the many who had to overcome obstacles to gain an education. The students, accompanied by units of the Police Band and the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Cadets, paraded through the streets of the city in a display of celebration, and proud to carry the torch of an institution built on the motto Per Aspera ad Astra, i.e. Through rough ways to the stars. It is not usual to hear the police say that they have launched an investigation into a traffic collision/vehicular accident. Usually, it is expected that police will confirm that they will launch an investigation into a traffic collision/accident when there is at least one fatality. In this situation, the police confirmed on the morning of Wednesday 25th September, 2024, not long after the collision had taken place on the Leeward Highway along the section stretching from the temporary Lewis Punnett Home to the Jaycees Building that they had launched an investigation into the collision involving three minivans, with one being extensively damaged. There were obvious varying accounts of what transpired but it was certain that several passengers incurred injuries, with an early unconfirmed report saying that one of the drivers might have been the only serious casualty. This has since appeared to have been corrected to read that it was a police officer who had sustained serious injuries and was listed as being in "critical condition warded at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital (MCMH). And while there were no fatalities, several passengers were treated at the MCMH for various degrees of non-life threatening injuries. The majority were treated and immediately discharged but there were some who had been referred for further tests and examination. A police source told THE VINCENTIAN that the minivans involved in the collision all plied the Vermont to Kingstown route. It didnt take long to invoke widespread reaction to the accident, with at least two male owners/drivers of vehicle to lament that the frequency of vehicular accidents and this one involving minivans, will redound in higher insurance premiums for all vehicle owners. Another person commented about the age of minivan drivers and their passengers, disclosing that he had recently engaged such a duo who didnt appear to be a day over 18 years old. "We have to do something about the young men who are allowed to drive these minivans and the conductors who seem to have influence over the drivers, the person suggested. The sequence of pictures show the student falling out of the open door of the moving van in an incident which occurred on September 12 at Fern-Side. (Editors Note: The following is a News Release, dated September 26 from the Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force. The release is carried verbatim.) The Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force (RSVGPF) has swiftly responded to an incident captured in a video circulating on social media, where a student fell from a moving minivan along the Fern-Side public road, in the vicinity of the St. Josephs Convent Kingstown. The incident, which has raised significant public concern, reportedly occurred on September 12, 2024, as the door of the vehicle remained open while in motion. Upon investigation, the RSVGPF laid several charges against the individuals involved. Jerden Jacobs, a resident of Green Hill and the driver of the minivan, was charged with multiple traffic violations, all in breach of the Motor Vehicle and Road Traffic Regulations, Chapter 483 of the Revised Edition of the Laws of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 2009. His charges include: driving without a licensed conductor on board; driving in a manner dangerous to the public; permitting a conductor to ride elsewhere other than inside the vehicle; playing a musical instrument in a public place without written permission. Joelando Browne, the conductor of the vehicle, also a resident of Green Hill, was similarly charged with offences under the same regulations, including: acting as a conductor without the proper permit; riding the vehicle in an unsafe manner, outside of the designated area. Following the laying of charges, the Commissioner of Police, serving as the Licensing Authority in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and vested with the authority to suspend licenses, exercised this power and suspended the drivers license of Jerden Jacobs with immediate effect, in accordance with Section 48 (1) of the Motor Vehicle and Road Traffic Regulations, Chapter 483 of the Revised Edition of the Laws of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 2009. The Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force is fully committed to ensuring that our roads remain safe for all users. Incidents of reckless or negligent behavior will not be tolerated. This incident serves as a stern reminder of the dangers posed by non-compliance with road safety regulations, especially where the safety of children and passengers is concerned. We would like to assure the public that the RSVGPF will continue to take decisive and uncompromising action against anyone who flagrantly disregards the laws of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The safety of our citizens is paramount, and we are resolute in enforcing the law to its fullest extent. The RSVGPF encourages all road users to strictly comply with the traffic laws to prevent incidents of this nature and ensure the safety and well-being of all members of the public. We also urge the public to report any traffic violations or suspicious activity they may observe. By working together, we can promote a safer and more orderly nation. The Embassy of the Republic of China (Taiwan) in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, in collaboration with the Taiwan Tzu Chi Foundation provided two containers of relief supplies (1,000 family packs of food items)) for distribution to people who were displaced and suffered losses because of Hurricane Beryl, which left a trail of destruction across mainland St. Vincent and moreso, the Southern Grenadines Mayreau, Canouan and Union Island. Five volunteers of the Taiwan Tzu Chi Foundation St. Maarten Branch arrived in St. Vincent and the Grenadines on September 4, 2024 and the next day, along with the Director of NEMO Michelle Forbes and her team, Embassy staff, technical mission volunteers, journeyed to Union Island where they distributed 300 relief family packs. Prime Minister Hon. Ralph Gonsalves during a visit to Union Island welcomed and to expressed thanks to Tzu Chi for embodying the spirit of compassion, and continuing to assist St. Vincent and the Grenadines in its reconstruction period, and recognized the quick assistance provided by the Taiwanese government immediately after the passage of Hurricane Beryl. The Tzu Chi Foundation was established by Master Cheng Yen in Hualien in 1966. In the 1970s and 80s, Tzu Chi expanded its charitable efforts from Eastern Taiwan to the entire island, establishing a free clinic in Hualien and officially opening Tzu Chi Hospital. A police report made available earlier this week, said that investigations have found no evidence of foul play in the death of a ten-year-old female student of C. W. Prescod Primary school. The report stated that an autopsy for the 10-year-old from the community of Glen who died on 14 September, revealed that she died as a result of anoxia (lack of oxygen), due to Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) in both lungs. "Police received a report that a family of four had been found in distress at their residence in Glen. Upon arrival, officers discovered four females, including the 10-year-old, inside the house. Three of them were breathing, while the 10-year-old appeared motionless. The District Medical Officer was summoned and later pronounced her (child) deceased at the scene, the police report said, adding that the other occupants of the house were taken to hospital. Notwithstanding the result of the autopsy, there has been no real indication, even after inquiries, as to whether the child had shown any signs of ARDS. And the closest indication to a possible cause of the child dying from a "lack of oxygen, was speculation by Education Minister Curtis King, who was quoted by a local Online News Service as saying a day after the discovery of the child, "They were saying that there was some gas leakage and it might be poisoning. I dont know, so I couldnt say whether it was murder or not. What I do know is that the young lady died under tragic circumstances. ARDS as per the website of the renowned Mayo Clinic, USA, "Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) occurs when lung swelling causes fluid to build up in the tiny elastic air sacs in the lungs. These air sacs, called alveoli, have a protective membrane, but lung swelling damages that membrane. The fluid leaking into the air sacs keeps the lungs from filling with enough air. This means less oxygen reaches the bloodstream, so the bodys organs dont get the oxygen they need to work properly. "ARDS usually occurs in people who are already critically ill or have major injuries. People usually are severely short of breath the main symptom of ARDS within a few hours to a few days after the injury or infection that caused ARDS. Lawrence Duprey, who died in August 2024, was the former Executive Chairman of CL Financial (CLF), the parent company of BAICO, which attracted over 25,000 people to invest billions and when CLF collapsed, left many of those investors the poorer for what they had entrusted to companies like BAICO. The discrimination that set Trinidad and Tobago apart and "above the Eastern Caribbean citizens who had invested their hard-earned savings and pension was being made even more pronounced and unfair since the majority of the consumers and businesses that are nationals of Trinidad and Tobago were largely bestowed favourable and large remuneration and rescue from financial ruin, versus the consumers and business who are nationals of the Easter Caribbean bloc were not. Some consumers are afforded redress, others, comparably situated, are not. If only one out of thousands of Eastern Caribbean policyholder was not compensated while thousands of citizens of Trinidad and Tobago were, it would still be an egregious case of discrimination. In this case, we are talking about thousands of Eastern Caribbean policyholders left uncompensated and destitutea tremendous dent to the economies of the small island Member States. The factual elements of discrimination are made plain. Trinidad and Tobago takes control Additionally, later in February 2009, the Central Bank solidified the full-scale control and ownership plan with the publication of a regulatory notice well-known to the legal and business community in CARICOM. The CCJ can hardly find that The Government of Trinidad and Tobago or its Central Bank (a) had no hand in the discrimination and (b) did not use the assets of the entire BA International group of companies to compensate its citizens and reimburse itself at a later stage. In that regard, the CCJ has had a front row seat to evidence that has long been known throughout the legal and business community for nearly a decade. Indeed, everyone in the Caribbean legal Community, as far as Belize and all the way up to the Bahamas, had full sight of the Central Bank rescue plan. According to a regulatory notice published in February 2009, by virtue of the authority given to it under s.44D and 44E of the Central Bank Act , Chap 79:02, the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago would "assume control of and carry on the affairs of BA and take over all the property and undertakings of that institution, without limitation,.including properties, contracts, shares and securities. and further, that the Central Bank would "acquire or sell or otherwise deal with the property, assets and "restructure the business So, the evidence is clear that they used the entirety of BA and its affiliated companies assets in accordance with decisions sanctioned by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago. Any collateralisation or commercial use or just the mere ownership and control of the assets that could have given the merest of compensation to the policyholders of the Eastern Caribbean clearly benefited and contributed to the enrichment of the Trinidadian business, its consumers and by reimbursement- to the Government of Trinidad and Tobago too. Over to the CCJ There can be no doubt that the facts of the case establish a clear case of commercial discrimination, where Eastern Caribbean businesses and Eastern Caribbean customers may be treated as less than entitled to the fair treatment meted out to the customers of Trinidad and Tobago. Indeed, if we are to engage in a hierarchical single market where an oil-rich Trinidad and Tobago or Guyana can exert its influence and flout the commercial non-discrimination and equality principle that is a bedrock of commercial and trade treaties and which runs throughout the Single Market and Economy Treaty, how are smaller Member States, businesses originating in those smaller Member States, and their consumers expected to participate in contributing to the growth of businesses in the Single Market? Clownishly too, imagine our CARICOM citizens having better consumer redress from the United States, China, Amazon, or Temu than they do in the CSME! Any decision by the CCJ that fails to recognise the obligation of a Member State to operate fairly and non-discriminatorily in commercial cross-border dealings with businesses and consumers originating from other CSME Member State countries would be catastrophic not just to policyholders who have been left destitute but also to the families of those policyholders who committed suicide. What a Single Market indeed, if we cannot hold firm to the principle of equal redress of any small island citizen in the context of commercial dealings too! The CCJ will have nullified the Myrie decision to rule in favour of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago. Minister of Tourism Carlos James was elated to report growth in the tourism sector and encouraging projections for the immediate future. The 2024-2025 cruise season opens here on October 21, 2023 with a cruise call scheduled for Mayreau. Port Kingstown will welcome its first call on November 8. This is part of what Minister of Tourism Carlos James disclosed as a projected record year, 2024/25, for cruise ship calls, with 378 visits scheduled, compared to 326 in 2023/24 and 311 in 2022/23. Minister James was obviously elated to report on three years of consecutive growth in cruise ship calls to this country. He did so while addressing a press conference hosted by the ST. Vincent and the Grenadines Tourism Authority (SVGTA) on Wednesday 25th September, to celebrate the inaugural JetBlue flight to this country. "The continued growth in cruise arrivals is a testament to the hard work and collaboration of everyone involved in our tourism sector, said Minister James Services expanding The Minister also took delight in announcing a 30% year-over-year (YOY) increase in stay over visitors/overnight arrivals to St. Vincent and the Grenadines, during the first six months of 2024. He linked the rise in arrivals to increased air transport service to the country, and projected further enhancement to connectivity to SVG with the arrival of four new airlines: LIAT 2020 commencing flight on October 4; JetBlue on October 9; Sunrise on October 28, and Winair on November 15. "The introduction of these airlines is a game-changer, providing more options for travellers and further boosting our tourism sector, Minister James noted. James projected further growth in the industry bolstered by expanded air connectivity and an increase in hotel rooms. SVGTA to collaborate Annette Mark, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the SVGTA, joined James in support of the thrust to create a year round product. The atmosphere, diversity of culture, range of events the multi-island state provided, rendered it an all year destination, Mark posited, and cited Nine Mornings, Carnival and Independence as occasions that come to mind. In fact, Mark called for the SVGTA Marketing Officer to be appointed to the Board of the Carnival Development Corporation. She highlighted her Authoritys readiness to collaborate with national players as part of the Tourism enhancement drive. In this regard, there will be a Sip into the Blue campaign in partnership with the St. Vincent Brewery, coordination with the Ministry of National Mobilization, and joint operation with the National Parks Rivers and Beaches Authority designed at rebranding some of the nations sites. Reference as also made to the Sandals Foundation Charity Run set for October 11 to 14, and which is expected to attract local participants well as from the UK. The Charity Run will comprise a number of events - including a 15-mile run in Bequia, a run from Wallilabou Bay in Central Leeward, kayaking in Buccament Bay, Hike to La Soufriere - and is expected to raise $100,000 to be donated to the Paediatric Ward of the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital. Minister James, in concluding the conference, emphasised Governments thrust in Tourism saying, "We are dedicated to providing exceptional experiences that will encourage visitors to return and explore all that our beautiful islands have to offer. (TBTCO) - ap ung nhu cau i lai cua nguoi dan dip Tet Nguyen an 2025, Vietnam Airlines Group (gom cac hang Vietnam Airlines, Pacific Airlines va VASCO) mo ban som gan 1,5 trieu cho tren toan mang bay noi ia cho giai oan i lai tu ngay 13/01 - 12/02/2025 (tuc ngay 14 thang Chap en ngay 15 thang Gieng). (TBTCO) - Theo so lieu Tong cuc Thong ke, tong san pham trong nuoc (GDP) 9 thang nam 2024 tang 6,82% so voi cung ky nam 2023. Trong o, khu vuc nong, lam nghiep va thuy san tang 3,20%, ong gop 5,37% vao muc tang tong gia tri tang them cua toan nen kinh te; khu vuc cong nghiep va xay dung tang 8,19%, ong gop 46,22%; khu vuc dich vu tang 6,95%, ong gop 48,41%. (TBTCO) - Toi 28/9, Tong Bi thu, Chu tich nuoc To Lam va Phu nhan cung oan ai bieu cap cao Viet Nam a ve toi san bay quoc te Noi Bai, thu o Ha Noi, ket thuc tot ep chuyen cong tac tham du Tuan le cap cao ai hoi ong Lien hop quoc Khoa 79, lam viec tai Hoa Ky va sau o la tham cap Nha nuoc toi Cuba theo loi moi cua Bi thu thu nhat Ban Chap hanh Trung uong ang Cong san Cuba, Chu tich nuoc Cong hoa Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez cung Phu nhan. You have reached a premium content area of Transitions. To read this entire article please login if you are already a Transitions subscriber. Not a subscriber? Subscribe today for access to: Full access to the website, including premium articles videos, country reports and searchable archives (containing over 25,000 articles). Emrill, a leading UAE-based integrated facilities management services provider, has announced the significant enhancements in operational efficiency and safety achieved through its Techsphere platform since its launch in 2022. Developed to streamline operations, improve service delivery, and strengthen client relationships, Techsphere has become a pivotal tool in transforming facilities management (FM) for Emrill and its clients. The platform has delivered significant achievements in the last 12 months, including the completion of over 2,562 security patrols, scheduling 753,616 planned preventative maintenance (PPM) tasks for 2024, and managing 549,497 reactive work orders, with an impressive 93.16% closure rate within the agreed service level agreement. Asset tracking Additionally, Techsphere has tracked 561,022 assets and handled a total of 1,198,934 reactive maintenance tasks and 2,103,910 planned maintenance tasks since its launch, all contributing to a more efficient and safer operating environment for Emrills clients and employees. The platforms role in managing 900 incidents has further reinforced its impact on improving safety standards across all contracts. With more than 2,500 active users, including 1,883 technicians, Techspheres wide adoption demonstrates its value in enhancing FM processes. The platform is now integrated into 308 of Emrills contracts, showcasing its adaptability and ability to meet diverse client needs. Stuart Harrison, CEO of Emrill, highlighted that Techspheres development marked a significant milestone in the companys journey toward improving operational efficiencies and ensuring higher levels of safety. He explained: By moving beyond conventional systems, Techsphere provides tailored solutions that allow clients to manage their facilities more effectively, while also delivering cost savings. The platforms ability to enhance operational safety and improve efficiency has made it an indispensable asset for Emrills clients, enabling them to achieve their business objectives with greater confidence. The success of Techsphere has been further driven by continuous innovations designed to meet evolving industry standards. Recent developments include the introduction of the Performance Management System (PMS) module, which automates contract performance monitoring and penalty management, ensuring accurate compliance and minimising risks. PMS module In addition to being used by Emrill, the PMS module can also be used by clients to manage other contractors and subcontractors working on projects. The energy module, linked to external APIs, enables clients to monitor electricity, water, and solar usage, supporting sustainability initiatives while tracking utility consumption. In 2024, Emrill also launched a new training module, designed to enhance workforce efficiency by introducing real-time employee data updates, virtual training options, and comprehensive attendance tracking. Providing a holistic view of training, this module ensures every employee has completed the training required to comply with client requirements and complete tasks safely. The audit and inspection module has provided Emrill with an advanced quality control tool, streamlining audits and inspections from initiation to closure, further ensuring that safety protocols are rigorously adhered to. Hussain Saifuddin, Head of ICT at Emrill, said: Techsphere has been central to Emrills digitalisation efforts, allowing us to streamline operations and deliver increased efficiencies. The platforms automation of performance management, inspections, and other key processes has not only reduced costs but also improved safety outcomes for clients. By offering customisable workflows, Techsphere allows Emrill to tailor solutions that meet each clients specific needs, enhancing service delivery and safety protocols across the board. Looking to the future, Emrill is committed to further enhancing Techspheres capabilities, particularly relating to energy management and sustainability. Planned updates to the energy module will support greener FM practices. Emrill also plans to integrate generative AI into the platform, which will improve customer response times and generate detailed summaries of work orders and technical actions, ensuring timely communication and further enhancing safety and operational efficiency.--TradeArabia News Service UBS has announced the launch of its Female Founders Award 2024, marking the fourth consecutive year of its dedication to fostering gender diversity in the fintech and enterprise tech sectors. The award celebrates visionary female founders, co-founders, and C-level executives who are shaping the future of technology and redefining leadership in innovation. UBS is calling on all female founders and C-suite leaders in fintech and enterprise tech who are pushing the boundaries of innovation to apply for the 2024 Award. Breaking through barriers We are committed to helping female founders break through the barriers that still exist in todays entrepreneurial landscape, says Emma Wheeler, Head of Womens Wealth at UBS Global Wealth Management. Through the Female Founder Award, we are not only recognising their incredible achievements but also offering them resources and opportunities to reach new heights. We believe that female founders represent a largely untapped source of innovation and investment potential. The 2024 award process is now underway with a nomination and application period that runs until 20 October. The award ceremony, where the winner and the Rising Star will be announced, will take place on 13 December. The award winner will receive a $10,000 prize and finalists will gain access to a year-long mentorship programme and networking opportunities. Additionally, they will get the chance to participate in Project Female Founder 2025, a one year-long, global investor readiness, networking and mentorship program sponsored by UBS, designed to help early-stage founders gain access to aligned capital. Moreover, finalists will be introduced to key industry players, including leading venture capitalists, giving them a unique platform to scale their businesses. Investor teams For the first time in the awards history, UBS is partnering with institutions from venture capital and the broader investment community, including Anthemis, Tenity, European Women in VC, Epic Angels, and AMAM Ventures. These investor teams will play a central role on the jury, offering a diverse and global perspective. Supporting female entrepreneurs isnt just about diversity its about unlocking incredible potential. Were thrilled to be part of this initiative, offering guidance and resources to help these women scale their businesses globally, said Andrea Fritschi, Managing Partner at Tenity. Female entrepreneurs receive significantly less funding than their male counterparts, despite often outperforming them when they do secure investment. These findings are from UBSs The Funding Gap Investors and Female Entrepreneurs 2021 report, which provided the starting point for UBS to address this imbalance, offering a platform to recognise, support, and propel women entrepreneurs towards greater success while also addressing the missed opportunities for investors.--TradeArabia News Service Emirates Global Aluminium, the largest industrial company in the UAE outside oil and gas, has offered jobs to more than 150 young UAE Nationals at Ruya Careers UAE. EGA conducted more than 200 interviews at the career fair, mostly for positions on the companys long-running National Training and Graduate Training programmes. During the Ruya Careers UAE, EGA signed a collaboration agreement with the UAE chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to support Emiratisation and gender diversity in the industrial sector. IEEE is the global technical professional association for these fields of engineering and related disciplines. EGAs National Training programmes EGAs National Training programmes develop high school leavers for technical roles in the companys industrial operations and administration. More than 5,000 UAE Nationals have graduated from these programmes since they were first established in 1982, with many then having long and successful careers with EGA. Some 52 UAE Nationals, including 28 women, have joined EGAs National Training programmes so far in 2024. New recruits from the Ruya Career Fair are expected to start from November 2024. EGAs Graduate Training programme provides university graduates with an approximately 18-month training programme enabling them to assume permanent, leading roles in the organisation. Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Global Aluminium, said: EGA has focused on the recruitment and development of talented young Emiratis for decades to secure the people we need to grow our business and contribute to our nations sustainable economic development. I am pleased to see many young talented UAE Nationals engage with our team at Ruya Careers UAE and I look forward to welcoming our new colleagues to our company. Highest Emiratisation rate EGA already has one of the highest Emiratisation rates of any major company on a like-for-like basis accounting for the high proportion of blue-collar roles in heavy industry. EGAs in-focus Emiratisation rate was 42.6% at the end of 2023. EGA aims to accelerate in-focus Emiratisation, targeting that the number of UAE Nationals rises as a proportion of the in-focus workforce by two per cent every year to reach 48% by 2026. This means EGAs goal is to create 500 additional opportunities for UAE Nationals over the next three years. More than 1,200 UAE Nationals now work at EGA. Over 700 of EGAs Emirati employees are under the age of 35. EGA has participated in 12 career fairs so far in 2024, including both major fairs and EGAs own recruitment drives, such as those conducted with Dubai Government Human Resources Department, Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology, Department of Government Enablement, HR Department of RAK Government, HR Department of Fujairah Government. These events have taken place in every Emirate.--TradeArabia News Service Sharjah Sustainable Citys Discover Your UrbanFarm initiative has been selected by Project Management Institute (PMI) as one the top three Most Influential Projects. PMI unveiled its 2024 Most Influential Projects list, honouring 20 projects across industries and regions that have achieved significant milestones in alignment with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within the last 18 months. Along with it, they also released their Most Influential Projects Regional Spotlights. PMI made the announcement at the Concordia Annual Summit in New York City with all projects mentioned addressing clear outcomes that drive project success beyond budget, scope, and schedule. Sana Jardin Womens Cooperative Sana Jardin Womens Cooperative that made it to the 20 Most Influential Projects list is credited with creating sustainable employment and products in an industry noted for its waste. The luxury perfume company, known as the world's rst socially conscious luxury fragrance house created a cooperative for rural Moroccan women who harvest flowers for the perfume brand, leading to a 128% increase in annual income for members of the supply chain in 2023 alone. By driving a sustainable model that incorporates repurposing natural and organic waste into a beauty product, the Co-Op empowers women the additional benefit of keeping 100% of the profits. This years Most Influential Projects are strong examples of the important work needed to address our worlds most pressing challenges, from rising ocean temperatures and food insecurity, to gender inequality and inadequate education, said Pierre Le Manh, PMP, President & CEO of PMI. We celebrate these projects and the passionate individuals leading them because they are dedicated to creating a better human existence for all. They exemplify the power of effective project management and its ability to lead transformation, drive meaningful change and elevate the world around us. The Mena regions strong presence in the Regional Spotlight list reaffirms the local governments robust leadership in initiating and incorporating innovative methodologies to achieve global sustainable goals. The UAEs notable achievements in implementing and encouraging a sustainable model for all has got a boost with Sharjah Sustainable Citys Discover Your UrbanFarm initiative making it to PMIs Top 3 Most Influential Projects Regional Spotlight from the Mena region. The sustainable community created by the Sharjah Investment and Development Authority (Shurooq) and Diamond Developers is a family-friendly initiative that has aided to further reduce the citys carbon footprint, while creating awareness of the food-energy-water nexus, waste management and promoting health and wellbeing. The Discover Your UrbanFarm initiative underscores the significance of community engagement to drive the way forward for a greener more sustainable world for all. Capital Med Medical City Egypts Capital Med Medical City also find an honourable mention from the Mena region with its aim to provide high quality integrated and personalised healthcare services at a regional and global level. The largest international medical entity was established through an investment consortium including the Egyptians for Healthcare Services (EHCS) with the aim of attracting medical professionals and patients from all over the world. Hanny Alshazly, PMI Mena Regional Managing Director, said: The significant presence of projects from the Mena region in Project Management Institute (PMI)s 2024 Influential list is a testament to the regions rising prominence in achieving global sustainable goals. PMI plays a key role in the worlds ongoing efforts to mitigate the impact of environmental damage and inequity. These key projects, encompassing climate action, healthcare, and sustainability, showcase the transformative power of project management to create positive change in our world. The UN Womens Oasis Programme, the third in PMIs Mena Spotlight list, that has been benefitting women and children in Jordan since its inception in 2012, is testimony to the effectiveness of holistic, gender-responsive humanitarian action. The Oasis model draws clear links between womens empowerment, sustainable development and Jordans security and stability, demonstrating how to leverage operational activities to contribute to UN Womens normative and coordination mandates. The unique model was developed by UN Women to respond to the urgent needs of Syrian refugee women and girls in Zaatari and Azraq refugee camps as well as poverty-stricken areas of Jordan. Since introducing the SDGs in 2015 to address the world's most urgent environmental, political, and economic challenges, millions of people, nonprots, collectives, and companies have come together to generate robust, creative ideas about improving the world and creating progress. SDG targets Progress, however, has been slow, with only 17% of the SDG targets on track, with nearly half showing minimal or moderate progress, according to The Sustainable Development Goals Report, 2024. At the same time, PMI research just revealed that projects with some degree of social benefits are more likely to be rated a success. Through empathy, teamwork, innovation and outstanding project management this years honorees represent transformative initiatives that advance the United Nations SDGs. The projects recognised implement solutions and comprehensive approaches that rethink the world as we know it rather than putting a bandage on problems. They're critically assessing their performance to develop replicable best practices that can create exponential positive change. The list highlights project teams' progress on innovative projects in education, climate action, architecture, technology, healthcare and more.--TradeArabia News Service SSAB and Alstom have entered a partnership for the supply of steel made with close to zero fossil carbon emissions. The first delivery of SSAB Zero will take place already this year and be used in Alstoms first Traxx Shunter locomotives, a new platform designed for shunting and trackwork operations. We are very glad to sign this partnership agreement with SSAB, says Christophe Gourlay, Alstom Chief Procurement Officer. By supplying steel with low carbon emission footprint for our Traxx Shunter locomotive, SSAB will contribute in the delivery of Alstoms sustainable procurement strategy, which includes the reduction of the carbon emissions of Purchased Goods & Services by 30% by 2030. SSAB Zero is the worlds first commercial steel made of recycled steel and produced with fossil-free electricity and biogas. By using SSAB Zero instead of traditional steel, Alstom will significantly reduce the embodied carbon footprint in the material of their new locomotive platform. Innovative shunting solution The Traxx Shunter platform is compatible with hydrogen, battery and catenary systems. The Traxx Shunter H hydrogen locomotive is an innovative shunting solution designed by Alstom, with funding from France Relance, France 2030 and NextGenerationEU, as part of the IPCEI Hy2Tech programme. It combines the latest hydrogen fuel cell and battery technologies to achieve zero direct carbon emissions. Together with SSAB Zero steel, it underscores Alstom's commitment to minimising its environmental footprint. We are proud to work with companies like Alstom that prioritise reducing fossil carbon emissions in their materials with a clear and ambitious target to decarbonise, says Huy Nguyen, Sales Director for SSAB in Southern Europe. At SSAB, we are committed to largely eliminating CO2 emissions from the steelmaking process and to create a fossil-free value chain with our customers and partners.--TradeArabia News Service Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority (Jafza) and Global Surfaces, a leading maker of engineered quartz surfaces, have unveiled the largest engineered surfaces manufacturing facility in the Middle East and the first of its kind in the UAE. Representing an investment of approximately $27 million (AED100 million), the sprawling facility spans across nearly 40,000 sq m and marks a significant milestone in the expansion of Global Surfaces' operations in the Gulf region. Having commenced commercial production in February 2024, the facility is equipped with advanced SCADA-controlled machinery and multiple CNC machines to produce high-quality engineered quartz surfaces that replicate the aesthetics of natural stones. Production capacity of 620,000 sq m With an annual production capacity of more than 620,000 sq m, Global Surfaces is poised to meet the growing demand for premium surfaces in the Gulf and key international markets, including the US and Canada. The event celebrating the facility was attended by Abdulla Bin Damithan, CEO & Managing Director, DP World GCC, Mayank Shah, Managing Director, Global Surfaces, and senior representatives from the two organisations. Abdulla Bin Damithan, CEO & Managing Director, DP World GCC, said: "We are delighted to welcome Global Surfaces to Jafza, where they join a thriving community of businesses. The establishment of this advanced manufacturing facility will provide the construction sector with locally produced high-quality surfaces which previously had to be imported to the UAE. We are committed to growing the UAEs manufacturing base, providing companies with state-of-the-art infrastructure and paving the way for a more resilient and diversified economy. Key milestone Mayank Shah, Managing Director, Global Surfaces, said: "The new facility is a significant milestone in our global growth strategy, allowing us to capitalise on Jafza's strategic location and world-class infrastructure to enhance our logistics capabilities. This improved connectivity enables efficient exports to key markets across the Gulf, US and Canada, and is essential to strengthening our market presence and meeting the growing demand for high-quality engineered surfaces. Our focus is on reaching full capacity utilisation within the next year while exploring further expansion opportunities to continue setting new standards in the industry." During the event, Global Surfaces introduced its new product series, Quartzites, a premium, nature-inspired collection crafted from the finest raw materials and cristobalite, which replicates the look of natural stone. Equipped with advanced patented technology licensed by Florida-based SQIP, Global Surfaces is also set to launch its futuristic Marquartz collection. Additionally, the company is also prioritising eco-friendly production by using renewable energy, recycled materials, and an advanced water treatment system that reuses 80% of water, aligning with the UAE's Net Zero 2050 targets and supporting broader sustainability goals.--TradeArabia News Service Edge Group, one of the worlds leading advanced technology and defence groups, has signed a Letter of Intent with the Azerbaijan Ministry of Defence. Signed at the Azerbaijan International Defence Exhibition (ADEX) in Baku, being held from September 24 to 26, the collaboration will support the countrys industrial growth, national capabilities, and self-sufficiency in critical defence domains. Under the LoI, Edge and the Azerbaijan Ministry of Defence will establish a collaboration on smart weapons systems production and integration. The LoI underscores Edges commitment to offering world class solutions for the regions dynamic operational environment and to address Azerbaijans specific mission requirements.--TradeArabia News Service Huawei Connect 2024 provided a valuable platform to benchmark Bahrains AI initiatives against global standards. Dr Jassim Haji, Executive Advisor for AI and Data Science at Nasser Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Centre and President of the International Group of Artificial Intelligence, brought Bahrain's perspective to the global stage as a key participant and panelist in the "Amplify Intelligence, Advance Industry" session. His contributions highlighted Bahrain's innovative approach and ambitions in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. At the event, Huawei and IDC jointly released the inaugural Global Digitalisation Index (GDI), which includes new indicators that examine digital infrastructure, including computing, storage, cloud, and green energy. It also quantifies the value of each country's ICT industry and its impact on their national economy. Bahrain ranked 41st on the Global Digitalisation Index and scored well in crucial parameters like Ubiquitous Connectivity, Policy & Ecosystem, and Digital Foundation. Landmark event Huawei Connect 2024, which was held from September 19 to 21 at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Centre, proved to be a landmark event for the global AI revolution. Under the theme "Amplify Intelligence," the conference explored how industries can harness digital and AI technologies to drive innovation and efficiency, focusing on strategy, industry development, and ecosystems. The event, aligning with Huawei's long-standing AI strategy, showcased the cutting-edge ecosystem of products, frameworks, and solutions supporting diverse AI models and applications. In his opening keynote speech, Huawei Deputy Chairman and Rotating Chairman Eric Xu shared Huawei observations, thoughts, strategies, and experiences on AI becoming the most impactful technology for industries, envisioning the future of enterprises in the age of AI, Advancing Huawei's All Intelligence Strategy, and much more. Huawei also released the new Intelligent World 2030 and Striding Towards the Intelligent World reports. The Intelligent World 2030 describes Huawei's outlooks for the future ICT industry, including future scenarios, industry spaces, and technological characteristics. The Striding Towards the Intelligent World provides innovation paths for ICT industry development. Huawei's AI offerings In addition, Huaweis Director of the Board and President of ICT Products & Solutions, Yang Chaobin, discussed Huaweis AI offerings during his speech. These include Ascend AI hardware and software products that partners can combine with their own different-sized models to develop out-of-the-box, scenario-based enterprise AI solutions. Huaweis AI offerings also consist of AI frameworks, fine-tuning kits, toolchains, and inference engines. Over 20 partners have already used these offerings to develop more than 100 enterprise AI solutions for different scenarios. As AI continues to reshape industries worldwide, Huawei Connect 2024 served as a crucial forum for leaders to navigate the complex interplay of technology, strategy, and ecosystem development in this transformative era.--TradeArabia News Service The Malaysian national oil and gas company, Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) has been granted a new oil and gas exploration concession in Onshore Block 2, located within the Al Dhafra region of Abu Dhabi. The Onshore Block 2 concession is the third exploration concession awarded to Petronas, which underlines Abu Dhabis position as a trusted and attractive investment destination for global investments in the energy sector, as a result of its advanced infrastructure. The agreement grants Petronas 100% of the exploration concession rights in Onshore Block 2, which spans an area of 7,320 sq kms. The exploration operations will utilise advanced technology and artificial intelligence solutions, which will contribute to maximising the potential benefits derived from Abu Dhabi's energy resources. Successful completion of bid rounds This concession award from the Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs (SCFEA) comes after the successful completion of Abu Dhabis first and second exploration concession bid rounds launched in 2018 and 2019, resulting in the award of 11 blocks to leading international partners in the energy sector. The award comes in line with the Emirates financial, investment, economic, petroleum, and natural resources policies which fall under the supervision of SCFEA which it is tasked with the mandate of instilling rigorous performance monitoring and precise policy implementation. SCFEA remains actively engaged in direct collaboration with key strategic investment entities in Abu Dhabi to realise the objectives of Abu Dhabis vision and ensure a bright and sustainable future for generations to come.--TradeArabia News Service Woman reports suspected child porn stash to police A Natrona County man faces a dozen counts of sexual exploitation of children. On July 26, a woman called the 911 dispatch center and reported she had found potential child pornography on a compact disc belonging to Matthew Nick Leslie, according to an affidavit filed in district court. She told the dispatcher she believed the children were between 11 to 12 years of age. Natrona County Sheriffs Office Investigator Jessie Kler and Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Drew Cotton were dispatched to Leslies home and briefly interviewed him in his yard. The DCI Computer Crimes Team and Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force assisted in the investigation. Leslie, born in 1976, faces 12 felony counts of sexual exploitation of children, each punishable by not more than ten years in prison and a fine of not more than $10,000. According to the affidavit, Leslie told Cotton that the majority of the CDs from his basement probably contained child pornography and that while the discs were from years ago, he had viewed them about a month prior. According to the affidavit, the files had been downloaded from newsgroups between 2008 and 2009. Leslie denied sharing the files or ever having hands-on sexual contact with a child. While Leslie faces only a dozen charges, authorities say the 50 CDs, 29 USB drives, SD cards and MicroSD cards, desktop computer, iPhone and tablet seized from his residence contained at least 27,000 Category 1 images, categorized as child pornography showing sexual acts, and 143,000 Category 2 images, described as child erotica showing lascivious exhibition. According to the affidavit, authorities continue to forensically examine Leslies devices. Man accused of sexually assaulting child A Natrona County man is accused of sexually assaulting a young teen over a period of years, possibly beginning when she was just five years old. Christopher Denis Debyah, 21, is charged with two counts of third-degree sexual abuse of a minor. Each charge carries a possible 15-year sentence. On March 5, the victim reported the abuse to a Wyoming Department of Family Services employee who met with her at her school as she was investigating another matter. The victim told the investigator that she had previously told her parents and a friend; however, authorities did not become aware of it until she spoke to a counselor who contacted Family Services. She further alleges that Debyah raped her older sister, who was thirteen at the time of the assault, and demanded oral sex from her when she was not yet a teen. According to the investigator, one of the victims parents stated they had threatened Debyah and attempted to scare the living hell out of him. According to a forensic interview, the abuse occurred while the victims parents were both out of town. The specific charges Debyah faces stem from an incident investigators believe occurred in 2019 when Debyah was at least 17 and the victim was less than 13 years old. In the incident, he is accused of exposing himself and sexually touching the victim as he masturbated in a camper. THE topic of Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley being replaced as political leader of the Peoples National Movement (PNM) is not an issue currently up for consideration, said Foster Cummings, Member of Parliament (MP) for La Horquetta/Talparo yesterday. There are strong processes in the PNM. There is a leader in office in the PNM. That is the leader that we support and who will take us into the next general election, he said. The continuing decline in tertiary education enrolment is cause for concern, but no reason to panic. According to the 2025 Social Sector Investment Programme (SSIP), student enrolment in 2024 dropped by 5.3%, while in 2023 the decline was 8.3% compared to 2022. In interviews published in yesterdays Sunday Express, chief executive of The UWI Arthur Lok Jack Global School of Business, Mariano Browne, and former education minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh identified some common factors that could account for this decline. These included less funding for the Government Assistance for Tuition Expenses (GATE) programme, lower confidence in the countrys economic prospects, and bad policies by tertiary institutions. A woman convicted in a DUI crash that killed her 2-year-old daughter has been sentenced to more than 20 years in prison, authorities say. Andrea Raeann Crespin was sentenced Monday by Pima County Superior Court Judge Kellie Johnson to 12 years in prison for manslaughter and 10 years for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon or instrument. The sentence is consecutive, meaning they must be completed back-to-back. Crespin was also sentenced to four months for aggravated driving under the influence, and driving the wrong way on the highway. Court officials said it will also be served consecutively. She received credit for 342 days already served behind bars. Crespin initially faced a second-degree murder charge, but it was reduced to manslaughter as part of a plea agreement. In August 2023, Crespin was driving a 2016 Mazda sedan the wrong way on the Interstate-10 when she collided head-on into a car. Crespins daughter, who was in the front passenger seat and not wearing a seatbelt, was killed, authorities have said. As of right now, people in Arizona can legally sell and you can legally buy homemade tamales. Also home-cooked empanadas, pupusas and a host of what are known as cottage foods that had been off limits for selling. On Thursday, Gov. Katie Hobbs overruled her own Department of Health Services, ordering the agency to immediately begin enforcing a new law, HB 2402, as written. The Democratic governor signed the law earlier this year to remove most restrictions on the commercial sale of home-made products. State health officials acknowledge the law took effect on Sept. 14. But they have been refusing to process applications, telling people that cant happen until they enact a series of rules and regulations. They said that process could take a year or more. The governors action to overrule them came just hours after Capitol Media Services inquired about the legality of the health department refusing to implement the law, an issue raised by Paul Avelar, an attorney for the Institute for Justice. Gubernatorial press aide Christian Slater said Hobbs acted as soon as the issue was brought to her. He also said it is in line with the governors thinking. Gov. Hobbs signed HB 2402 to cut red tape for small businesses and will continue working to ensure they have the freedom to operate without onerous regulations, he said is a prepared statement. In overriding the health department, Hobbs avoided what could have been lengthy and expensive litigation. Avelar told Capitol Media Services his national law firm was considering filing suit. Political fallout It also avoids what could have been a second political black eye for the governor on the issue. The first came in 2023 when Hobbs vetoed the measure, complete with comments that such a law would open the door to items being cooked in home kitchens with rodent or insect infestation. That is offensive, responded Sen. Alma Hernandez, D-Tucson, a major proponent of the legislation, at the time. And I would be glad to put my nanas kitchen or my moms kitchen up against anyones kitchen. Sen. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge, whose mother and grandmother are Mexican immigrants, took it a step farther. Not only was the veto outrageous, but to continue to push racial tropes of homes riddled with insect or rodent infestation, it will just not be tolerated in the year 2023, he said. The veto led to threats of an override, though that did not materialize. Hobbs did finally sign the 2024 version, which in most respects is identical to the one she found unacceptable. Arizona first approved the sale of certain items known as cottage foods in 2011. The law allowed people to make limited items at home baked and confectionery foods and sell them as long as they did not facilitate the growth of bacteria. That produced sales at farmers markets of breads, sweets, fruits, jams and jellies. Details of the new law The new law adds to that list but with restrictions. First, it restricts which ingredients can be used. So, for example, no shellfish. Producers need to register with the health department and take a state-approved course in food handling. Anything with meat or dairy has to be delivered in person. And no item can be transported more than twice, with a total limit of two hours in transit. Perhaps most significant are disclosure provisions on the label, including the producers name and state registration number and a statement that says this produce was produced in a home kitchen that may process common food allergens and is not subject to public health inspection. Like hundreds of other news law, it took effect Sept. 14. But anyone seeking a permit was told by the health department it was not in effect and would not be until the agency crafted rules. Avelar told Capitol Media Services that is legally wrong. HB 2042 doesnt leave any room for the agency to pick and choose which foods it will allow or not, he said. It sets out a complete definition of what is allowed in cottage food and what is not and that bill has become effective. The statute controls and the statute says what foods are allowed as of the effective date, he continued. And people are allowed to use them. Avelar, talking about the issue before Hobbs acted, rejected the claim by health officials that they need to enact rules to provide more specifics. This is not an area where Department of Health Services needs to do significant rule making, Avelar said. The only two things that it needs to do is put out guidance on acquiring ingredients and, essentially, punishment steps. Avelar said late Thursday that Hobbs action ends the issue. We are glad to hear that the governor intervened, he said. A needed source of income Homemade food is safe, there is public demand for it, Avelar said. And, for many people, its a needed source of income that plays a key role in providing for themselves and their families. Rep. Travis Grantham, who wrote the legislation, told colleagues during debate that all this does is recognize what already was occurring. People already do this, the Gilbert Republican said then. Some people, unfortunately, who do this to supplement their income are doing it illegally because state law has not properly addressed this. This shouldnt be a crime. Cooking dinner should not be a crime. Hernandez, in supporting the law, said the issue is personal for her. The only reason Im here and have made it so far in life is because of the support of my parents and how hard they worked to get me where I am now, she said. In her case, Hernandez said, her mother baked cakes. We sold them out of our house to be able to make a living so that we all had an opportunity, she said. I dont forget where I come from. One change that came between the 2023 bill and the final version was brought at the request of the Arizona Restaurant Association. Gone is a provision that would have precluded anything prepared in a home kitchen from being used in what is served in a restaurant. Lobbyist Dan Bogert said he heard from one supporter of the measure whose home kitchen produces salsa. It sounds like that would be a great product to be able to include in some of our dishes at our restaurants, Bogert said. And wed very much like the opportunity to do that. The production prototype of Bayraktar KIZILELMA, Turkiyes first indigenously developed unmanned combat aircraft, has completed its maiden flight. This was the third production prototype of Bayraktar KIZILELMA, with tail number TC-OZB3. In July, the Bayraktar KIZILELMA PT-3 was transferred to the AKINCI Flight Training and Test Center in Corlu, Tekirdag. Before the flight, the prototype passed critical ground tests, including the engine run-up test, automatic taxi tests, run tests, and lift-off tests. The Bayraktar KIZILELMA project, initiated in 2021 with 100% equity by Baykar, achieved its first flight in record time. After rolling off the production line on November 14, 2022, the prototype completed ground tests and took to the skies on December 14, 2022. The project continues to make rapid progress. The development of Bayraktar KIZILELMA continues at full speed, with significant advancements integrated into the production prototype. Structural improvements, alongside enhancements in avionics architecture, have been implemented. The flight was conducted with an afterburner engine, which enables the aircraft to approach the speed of sound. With improved aerodynamics, KIZILELMA will perform better at high speeds and maneuvers. The AESA radar will ensure high situational awareness, allowing the aircraft to execute complex missions effectively. Kodiak and Textron Launch RIPSAW M3 Autonomy Kit Kodiak and Textron Systems have unveiled the autonomous RIPSAW M3, integrating Kodiaks advanced self-driving system into Textrons fully uncrewed vehicle platform. This collaboration marks the first time Kodiak has equipped a tracked vehicle with its autonomous technology, specifically designed for military operations. The RIPSAW M3 is engineered to perform a variety of high-risk missions, including reconnaissance and tactical maneuvers, across diverse terrains. It features four Kodiak modular DefensePods, which provide 360-degree visibility. DefensePods are an adapted version of Kodiaks modular, swappable SensorPods designed for military use. They are pre-calibrated, pre-built hardware enclosures with sensors necessary for autonomous driving. DefensePods can be swapped in the field in 10 minutes or less using standard tools and minimal training. The vehicle also employs an advanced perception system to navigate autonomously using Assisted Autonomy technology. This feature enables remote human control when necessary, enhancing mission flexibility and safety by reducing the risk of vehicle disablement in unfamiliar settings. DEFTECH LLC Unveils Advanced Tandem-Wing UAVs at ADEX 2024 Azeri defense company DEFTECH introduced a new tandem-wing Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) designed for military reconnaissance and surveillance missions this week at the ADEX 2024 exhibition in Baku. The tandem-wing UAS features a unique design combining fixed-wing and multirotor aircraft advantages. The DT-101 system uses hybrid propulsion, with an internal combustion engine driving a pusher propeller and four electrically powered lift rotors for vertical takeoff and landing. It boasts a flight endurance of up to 10 hours. Another variant, DT-001, can carry two loitering weapons, weighing seven kilograms each, under the fuselage. The UAV and the loitering weapons utilize DEFTECHs Tande-Wing concept, optimizing aerodynamic efficiency and endurance. (Read more) Combat Realities Drive Drone Innovation on the Eastern Front Ukrainian FPV drone recently demonstrated a carriage under a fixed-wing VTOL UAV and mid-air release as it detached from the mother drone at a high altitude. Telegram channel Clash Report explains the new method can be used for long-range FPV drone deployment (using the UAV as a relay) and self-protection against enemy FPVs. The Russians have also begun equipping their UAVs with rear-view cameras triggered by signals typically associated with FPV drone communications. This technique helps alert the UAV pilot and enables taking evasive actions. Another new adaptation by the Russian designers is the use of Starlink high-speed communications systems on Geran-2 One Way Attack (OWA) UAV, the Iranian-designed and manufactured Hesa Shahed-136. This is the first known instance of Russia using a Shahed UAV with Starlink. Such a link allows the Russians to designate targets for the new versions of those drones, equipped with EO seekers, from hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away. Utilizing a satellite link, Geran-2 extends its flight range of up to 2,000 km, according to the Clash Report. Russia Secretly Established Drone Production in China Russia reportedly established a secret weapons program in China to develop and produce long-range attack drones for use in the Ukraine war. The program taps Chinese-based Russian subsidiaries that manufacture essential components and complete drones for Russia. For example, IEMZ Kupol, a Russian state arms manufacturer Almaz-Antey subsidiary, produced more than 2,500 Garpiyas between July 2023 and July 2024 under an order worth over US$10 million. Sources claim this drone, similar to the Iranian Shahed 136, has a flight range of 2,000 km and a payload weight of 50 kg. Another design, called REM-1, has a payload capacity of 400 kg. Chinas foreign ministry told Reuters it was unaware of such a project, adding that Beijing had strict control measures on exporting drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The exposure of this cooperation at such an early stage by Western intelligence sources was likely aimed at preventing Chinese open support for this cooperation. Reuters first published this story. Return to: Defense-Update Weekly News Summary 26.9.2024 Ride-hailing and delivery apps in Vietnam, such as Grab, Be, and Xanh SM, continue to compete for subscribers amid rising costs. These platforms are creating innovative consumer trends to help users save significantly. Popular packages like GrabUnlimited, BeLoyal, and Xanh SM's offerings are gaining considerable attention, with low-cost subscription plans emerging as a valuable tool. Many office workers share tips on maximizing these memberships and the promotional codes that lead to additional savings. The pricing of these membership plans is quite reasonable, ranging from VND25,000 ($1) to VND49,000 ($2) a month. Benefits include discounts of VND15,000 ($0.6) for each delivery order and a 10-percent discount on rides. Successful case studies include the Be app, which has attracted a large Gen Z customer base through its BeRewards program, allowing users to earn points from rides that can be exchanged for promo codes. A notable package is the 'BeBike tha ga di chuyen' (Enjoy unlimited rides with BeBike) for VND39,000 ($1.6), which offers a 25-percent discount on up to 99 rides. The 'Eat your fill and do not worry about delivery fees' meal package costs VND49,000 and provides a discount of VND15,000 on orders over VND100,000 ($4). Ngoc Lan, an office worker in Ho Chi Minh City who previously spent around VND2.8 million ($115) monthly on transportation and food delivery, has seen significant savings after subscribing to a membership plan costing VND49,000. Her commuting costs dropped from VND100,000 daily to VND90,000 ($3.7), leading to a monthly transportation expense reduction to VND1.98 million ($81) from VND2.2 million ($90). Her food delivery costs decreased to VND600,000 ($24.5) from VND1 million ($41), resulting in total monthly savings exceeding VND700,000 ($29). "Im taking full advantage of the discounted membership while developing better spending habits," Lan said. GrabUnlimited is also competitive with promotions across its GrabCar, GrabBike, GrabFood, and GrabMart services to encourage frequent use. Meanwhile, Xanh SM differentiates itself by focusing on sustainability with its electric taxi service. Its membership packages, particularly the postpaid taxi cards for businesses, help customers manage transportation costs effectively. Apps like Grab and Be help users easily find meals at lower prices due to promo codes. For example, a box of fried chicken rice priced at VND52,000 ($2.1) can be purchased for only VND40,000 ($1.6) with a membership plan. Engagement strategies The competition among Grab, Be, and Xanh SM for customer loyalty is intense and each platform continues introducing new features and attractive promotions. According to Nguyen Hanh Linh, director of Grab Mobility in Vietnam, the firm's family account feature is an innovative solution for effective expense management while connecting family members through shared benefits. The feature allows multiple members to share payment methods and manage travel routes collectively. Nguyen Ngoc Luan, CEO of Global Trade Links Company Limited and founder of the Meet More Coffee beverage company, highlighted that during times of rising prices, optimizing living expenses is crucial in retaining young clients. The membership packages offered by these apps not only provide savings but also enhance user experiences, while fostering innovation and delivering numerous benefits to consumers. All three of the apps are contributing to the development of a smart spending ecosystem that encompasses transportation, shopping, and food delivery, with Luan anticipating that this trend will continue to grow as a popular financial solution. Expanding membership options In response to competitive pressures, even conventional taxi companies like Vinasun are adapting by launching membership cards linked with banks that offer discounts ranging from two percent to 17 percent. These cards cater not merely to individuals but also to businesses looking to manage travel expenses more effectively. Airlines are not being left behind as they begin to roll out membership packages relying on frequent flyer miles or flight counts versus participation fees. Vietnam Airlines runs the Lotusmiles program with tiers based on accumulated miles -- from Classic (free) to Silver, Gold, and Platinum levels -- allowing customers to purchase miles at approximately VND550,000 ($22.5) per 1,000 miles accumulated quickly. Vietjet has introduced the free SkyJoy program where customers can earn points from ticket purchases or spending that can be redeemed for flight tickets or gifts. Similarly, Bamboo Airways offers the Bamboo Club package with perks such as additional baggage allowances and access to VIP lounges for top-tier members who meet mileage requirements. Like us on Facebook or follow us on X to get the latest news about Vietnam! U.S.-based SpaceX, owned by American billionaire Elon Musk, plans to pour US$1.5 billion into Starlink satellite Internet services in Vietnam. Tim Hughes, senior vice-president for global business and government affairs, presented the plan to Vietnamese Party General Secretary and State President To Lam in New York on Wednesday, on the sidelines of the United Nations Summit of the Future and the General Debate of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly. During the meeting, Hughes said that SpaceX which designs spacecraft, provides satellite launch services, and hosts satellite communications has hosted satellite Internet services for five years using a system of 6,000 satellites which currently operate in low earth orbit and have the capability to provide Internet services almost anywhere on the planet. Given Vietnams potential as a key market for SpaceXs expansion, Hughes shared plans to invest $1.5 billion in order to provide Starlink satellite Internet services in the Southeast Asian country in the near future. The project aims to assist the Vietnamese government in realizing its policy to universalize Internet access to all citizens, Hughes said, adding that he hopes to have relevant Vietnamese agencies' back. Emphasizing that Vietnam considers digital transformation as a key driver of the countrys development, the Vietnamese leader expressed support for the SpaceX initiative and shared his expectation that it would lead to further SpaceX investment in Vietnam. Lam also extended thanks to SpaceX for its offer of support for the northern Vietnamese localities devastated by super typhoon Yagi, which made landfall in northern Vietnam on September 7, and expressed his hope that the groups satellite Internet services would support Vietnam in responding to future natural disasters. During a meeting with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on September 6, Hughes commended Vietnam's investment climate and expressed SpaceX's readiness to invest in providing Starlink satellite Internet services to enhance the country's education, training, and disaster prevention efforts. Hughes suggested that Vietnam ready its infrastructure to support Starlink in contributing to the nations efforts to provide Internet coverage to 100 percent of its population. SpaceX launched Starlink satellite Internet services in the U.S. in October 2020. It currently serves three million customers in more than 100 countries around the world. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The administration in Long An Province, southern Vietnam has allocated VND2.45 billion (US$99,212) for trade promotion in 2024. According to Huynh Van Quang Hung, director of the provincial Department of Industry and Trade, the province has green-lighted 16 trade promotion programs at a total cost of over VND2.2 billion ($89,086). In January-September, 13 programs were completed at a cost of over VND1.5 billion [$60,718]," said Hung. "These programs have contributed significantly to expanding the markets for local products. Our digital transformation in trade has helped us access a larger market and serves as the motivation for the expansion of goods production and circulation. More Long An goods promoted on e-commerce platforms At present, the Long An Department of Industry and Trade is tapping enterprises to be introduced on https://txng.longan.gov.vn/ so that consumers can trace the origin of their purchases and give feedback on the provinces most sought-after products, creating a whole new dimension of transparency in the market. Hung shared that the website, together with the establishment of the administration board of the provinces e-commerce platform (http://longantrade.com/) connected with the Ministry of Industry and Trades e-commerce platform (https://sanviet.vn/), has contributed to boosting trade activities in Long An. To date, consumers have scanned more than 3,300 product codes on the website https://txng.longan.gov.vn/. As many as 76 stores selling 312 products have joined the provinces e-commerce platform, the official reported. From January through September, the Long An Department of Industry and Trade cooperated with telecom service providers Viettel and VNPT to pilot cashless payment points at a trade center, seven supermarkets, 279 convenience stores, and 41 traditional markets. The department coordinated with Long An Power Company to increase the number of enterprises using electronic contracts to over 7,600, accounting for some 57 percent of the total number of companies in Long An. The department signed a memorandum of understanding with Thailands Central Retail and OSB Investment and Technology JSC, the authorized agent for the cross-border e-commerce platform Alibaba.com in Vietnam. This deal is meant to study and implement projects in Long An, as well as promote trade cooperation and the consumption of the provinces goods through these enterprises. Twenty-four enterprises in the province have collaborated with Central Retail Vietnam and 22 businesses have joined Alibaba. In 2024, the Long An Department of Industry and Trade will support five additional companies as they move their services to Alibabas platform. Partnering with Ho Chi Minh City Since early this year, the Long An Department of Industry and Trade has supported 157 enterprises in taking part in fairs and 61 companies in connecting with international partners. The province has maintained a close connection with Ho Chi Minh City and other provinces, with more than 280 contracts to supply goods to these localities. It holds five to 10 trade promotion activities with Ho Chi Minh City each year. The Binh Dien Wholesale Market in District 8, Ho Chi Minh City and the Hoc Mon Wholesale Market in the namesake district receive some 200 and 160 metric tonnes of goods from Long An each day, respectively. Long An also provides hundreds of tonnes of goods to supermarkets, restaurants, and convenience stores in the southern metropolis. The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Industry and Trade works hard to connect businesses in Long An Province with those in the goods consumption and logistics sectors in other localities and abroad, Hung said. He added that the Ho Chi Minh City authorities are supporting Long An's enterprises in participating in market stability programs and are committed to promptly providing information about food control regulations in the city. Many large enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City have invested in factories and production and distribution facilities in Long An, helping boost their connectivity and cooperation. Long An is now home to 279 Bach Hoa Xanh, Winmart+, Co.op Food grocery stores, Dien May Xanh and The Gioi Di Dong electronic stores, San Ha food stores, and other private convenience stores. The Long An Department of Industry and Trade has proposed the provincial administration and the Ministry of Industry and Trade organize a conference on connecting good supply chains in the province in 2024, opening up opportunities for bolstering goods consumption locally and abroad, according to Hung. At the end of this year, the department will launch two venues for the introduction and sale of Long Ans OCOP (One Commune One Product) products and typical merchandise, with funding sourced from the new rural construction program. The agency will also continue to develop a project aimed at building Long An product brands and connecting with more domestic and foreign regions to enhance product consumption, Hung said. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! TOKYO -- Former Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba was set on Friday to become Japan's next prime minister after winning a closely fought contest in his fifth and final attempt to lead the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. The 67-year-old prevailed over hardline nationalist Sanae Takaichi in a run-off vote in what was one of the most unpredictable leadership elections in decades with a record nine candidates in the field. The leader of the LDP, which has ruled Japan for almost all of the post-war era, is essentially assured of becoming the next premier because of its majority in parliament. The scramble to replace current premier Fumio Kishida was sparked in August when he announced his intention to step down over a series of scandals that plunged the LDP's ratings to record lows. "We must believe in the people, speak the truth with courage and sincerity, and work together to make Japan a safe and secure country where everyone can live with a smile once again," an emotional Ishiba said in a brief speech to lawmakers after the result. Ishiba must quell anger at home over rising living costs and navigate a volatile security environment in East Asia fuelled by an increasingly assertive China and nuclear-armed North Korea. His approach to diplomacy with Japan's closest ally, the United States, will be in focus given he has repeatedly called for a more balanced relationship. In his campaign, he also called for the creation of an Asian NATO, an idea that could draw ire from Beijing and has already been dismissed by a senior U.S. official as hasty. U.S. ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, congratulated Ishiba in a post on X saying he looked forward to working with him to strengthen the U.S.-Japan alliance. Ishiba entered parliament in 1986 after a short banking career, but his outspoken views have earned him enemies in the LDP. He was sidelined by outgoing prime minister Kishida, instead becoming a dissenting voice in the party who enjoyed broad support from the public and rank-and-file members. He has rebelled on policies including the increased use of nuclear energy and has criticised his party for not allowing married couples to use separate surnames. His contrarian views and spats with colleagues contributed to four previous failed leadership bids. He has said this was his "final battle". JAKARTA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The 15th Motorcycle Grand Prix (MotoGP) kicked off on Friday at the Mandalika International Circuit in Central Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) province, Indonesia, with the opening day featuring a free practice session. The highly anticipated international event has brought together the world's top motorcycle racers, including Jorge Martin, Francesco Bagnaia, and Marc Marquez, competing in a thrilling race set to run through Sunday. Samsul Purba, deputy general manager of the Mandalika Grand Prix Association (MGPA), stated that 70,000 of the 125,000 available tickets have been sold, with the audience expected to increase as the final day approaches. "We are glad to see people eager to get tickets. The first day may record 20 percent of the total audience, but by Sunday, we expect to see 95 percent in attendance," Purba said. Mandalika, a special economic zone located in the southern part of Lombok, is hosting the international race from September 27 to 29. The 2.68-mile (approximately 4.3 km) circuit, featuring 17 corners, also showcases various Mandalika tourism spots. Twelve ambassadors to Pakistan, including the ambassador from Vietnam, were safe after their convoy was attacked with an improvised explosive device on September 22, the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs' spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said on Thursday. The convoy, which included police escort vehicles and vehicles carrying ambassadors from 12 countries, was en route to the Swat Tourism Development Forum when it was attacked in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. The explosion killed one police officer and injured four others. All vehicles carrying the ambassadors were unharmed. Following the incident, police escorted the ambassadors back to Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, safely. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has condemned the attack, NBC News reported. Hang said that Vietnam strongly condemns the attack and extends its deepest condolences to the families of the victims. She stressed that Vietnam expects the Pakistani authorities to ensure the safety and security of diplomatic missions and foreign communities, including the Vietnamese nationals living, studying, and working in the country. The administration in Khybe Pakhtunkhwa Province said on Wednesday that they had established a committee to investigate the attack targeting the convoy of foreign diplomats, according to Arab News. Militant attacks in Pakistan have increased over the past few months, including incidents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which borders Afghanistan. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A high-ranking Vietnamese delegation led by Party General Secretary and State President To Lam visited the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZEDM), the first free trade and export processing zone of Cuba, on Thursday morning (local time) as part of his ongoing state visit to the Caribbean nation. First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and President of Cuba Miguel Diaz Canel Bermudez joined his Vietnamese counterpart during the visit. ZEDM general director Ana Teresa Igarza Martinez briefed the top Vietnamese and Cuban leaders on the zones operations. Established in November 2013, the zone spans some 465 square kilometers across the Port of Mariel in Artemisa Province. The initial funding of approximately US$900 million for ZEDM was mostly backed by Cuba and Brazil, with $600 million coming from Brazilian credit. As a natural deepwater port, the Port of Mariel is capable of receiving some of the largest vessels in the Caribbean region and handles around 300,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) annually. As of 2022, ZEDM had granted investment licenses to 62 businesses with pledged capital surpassing $3 billion. Among the projects, 56 with a combined investment of over $1 billion were put into operation, creating more than 15,000 jobs. The zone is working on offering more attractive incentives to foreign investors while adopting measures to remove obstacles in terms of production materials, transportation, and payment systems. Party General Secretary and State President of Vietnam To Lam (in a dark-color shirt) and First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and President of Cuba Miguel Diaz Canel Bermudez visit the Mariel Special Development Zone in Cuba, September 26, 2024. Photo: Vietnam News Agency ZEDM encourages investment in a wide range of sectors, such as biotechnology, pharmaceutical research and production, packaging, renewable energy, agriculture, food processing, general industries, IT, communications, tourism, real estate, and infrastructure development. Products from these investment projects can serve the domestic market and be shipped to other countries in the region. With its modern and well-connected infrastructure, ZEDM is expected to open up significant opportunities for foreign investors, particularly those from Vietnam. ZEDM now hosts companies from 21 countries and territories such as Mexico, Spain, Brazil, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Vietnam. Vietnam is the second-largest investor in ZEDM, with the Vimariel Industrial Park being the first and only Vietnamese-invested economic zone in this Caribbean nation. Cuban First Secretary and President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez praised the Vietnamese businesses operations in ZEDM, stressing that their presence highlights the special traditional friendship between Vietnam and Cuba. The top Cuban leader expressed his hope for further cooperation among enterprises of both countries. First Secretary and President Bermudez expressed gratitude to the Party, state, and people of Vietnam for their strong support for Cuba and hoped that both countries would achieve more significant milestones in the upcoming time. Party General Secretary and State President of Vietnam To Lam (L) addresses a meeting with investors in the Mariel Special Development Zone in Cuba, September 26, 2024. Photo: Vietnam News Agency Party leader and President Lam praised ZEDM as a promising economic model which is piloting new, specialized policies before implementing them on a wider scale. He said that these policies could provide a strong boost for Cubas economy as it seeks to overcome current difficulties. Lam emphasized that Vietnam will never forget Cubas solidarity in the past, while reaffirming the Vietnamese Party, state, and investors desire to contribute to Cubas national construction and development. After being briefed on the zones general information, the two leaders toured several projects within ZEDM, including the ViMariel Industrial Park. The two leaders also attended a ceremony during which two Vietnamese companies, Thai Binh Global Investment JSC and ATG Fertilizer Company, were granted investment licenses to operate in the zone. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The Climateworks Center under Monash University in Australia and the Ho Chi Minh City Institute for Development Studies signed a memorandum of understanding at the Fifth Ho Chi Minh City Economic Forum on Wednesday, aiming to transform the southern metropolis' industrial zones into net-zero emission areas. The forum opened in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday and lasts through Friday, featuring 40 delegations from 16 countries and territories, including Laos, Cambodia, China, Cuba, the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Russia, India, Australia, and others. The cooperation is meant to help the city attract green investment while advancing Vietnams 2050 net-zero emissions goal, according to the centers recent press release. With the industrial sector consuming 54 percent of the nations energy and emissions rising 140 percent over the past decade, decarbonizing industrial zones is vital. Vietnam, home to 422 industrial precincts and planning 153 more by 2030, relies heavily on coal and oil. Coal alone accounts for nearly 48 percent of Vietnams energy mix and its consumption is not expected to peak until 2030, despite the growth of renewable sources like wind and solar, the press release said. Comprehensive transition plans are essential to attract large-scale investment, reduce emissions, and thus draw the interest of global investors and manufacturers looking for decarbonized supply chains. This transformation is key to establishing net-zero industrial precincts that align with Vietnams climate ambitions. In the next twelve months, Climateworks will work with Ho Chi Minh City to develop a road map for the establishment of net-zero industrial precincts. By drawing on its experience from industrial decarbonization initiatives in Australia and Indonesia, Climateworks will help facilitate capacity building, policy development, and the mobilization of investment. The collaboration matches Vietnams broader climate and economic strategies. National policies, such as the National Green Growth Strategy and the Power Development Plan 8, emphasize the need for low-carbon production processes, green industries, and renewable energy adoption. The Resource Mobilization Plan to implement the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), launched in late 2023, also highlights efforts in achieving national climate goals. The partnership between Climateworks and the Ho Chi Minh City institute marked a significant step in Vietnams industrial decarbonization journey, offering a model that can attract green investment and support the countrys long-term net-zero commitments. Climateworks Center is a not-for-profit founded by Monash University and the Myer Foundation to bridge the gap between research and climate action. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Read what is in the news in Vietnam today: Politics -- General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam and State President To Lam and a high-ranking delegation of Vietnam on Thursday morning (local time) visited the Mariel Special Development Zone, the first free trade and export processing zone of Cuba, as part of his ongoing state visit to the Caribbean country. -- Cuba organized a welcome ceremony for Party General Secretary and State President To Lam at the Revolution Palace in the Cuban capital city of La Habana on Thursday afternoon (local time). -- The Vietnamese Embassy in Egypt and Lebanon on Thursday continued to recommend Vietnamese citizens living and working in Lebanon leave the country, amid an escalating conflict in the Middle East. Society -- Vietnam has leaped two places in the Global Innovation Index (GII) in 2024, ranking 44th out of 132 countries and territories, heard the 2024 GII announcement ceremony held by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Switzerland on Thursday. -- The standing board of the Party Committee in Dong Nai Province, southern Vietnam has decided to preserve a 100-year-old villa, situated in Buu Long Ward, Bien Hoa City, to promote its cultural, historical, and architectural values, the provincial Party Committee Office announced on Thursday afternoon. -- A public charging station for electric vehicles, located in Deutsches Haus (German House) Ho Chi Minh City, which is home to the Consulate General of Germany, was put into service on Thursday. Business -- Hundreds of customers, including residents of Ho Chi Minh City and other neighboring provinces, and foreigners, started lining up at shops in the southern metropolis at midnight on Thursday to get the new iPhone 16 before it went on sale across Vietnam at 0:01 on Friday. -- A series of exotic bicycle models are being showcased at the Vietnam Cycle Expo 2024, which kicked off in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday. Lifestyle -- Dao, Pho and Piano has been chosen to represent Vietnam in the pre-qualification round of the 2024 Oscars in the U.S., which will take place in March next year. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A foreign tourist trapped in a restroom of a hotel in downtown Ho Chi Minh City in a state of panic was rescued by the 115 Emergency Center in mid-September. Dr. Nguyen Duy Long, director of the center, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Friday that the center had saved a female foreigner stuck in a bathroom on September 13. The center received an emergency call from a foreigner, who spoke English, at 9:00 am on that day. She was terrified as she got trapped in a restroom of a hotel in District 1 for more than 30 minutes. Her fear of being locked up made her forget the hotel address, but after speaking with the nurses and doctors at the center, she calmed down and was able to provide the hotel name. The medical team quickly located the hotel and reached out to hotel employees to rescue the foreigner. She was freed 15 minutes after her call. Throughout the case, a caller number locator and English language speaking software played a key role, according to the 115 Emergency Center. It is vital to popularize emergency numbers, including 113 for criminal emergencies, and 114 and 115 for fire and medical emergency reports, respectively, at hotels, tourist areas, and public places to guarantee the safety of tourists. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A public charging station for electric vehicles, located at Deutsches Haus (German House) in Ho Chi Minh City, which houses the Consulate General of Germany, was put into service on Thursday. The charging station features four AC charging posts, each with a capacity of 22 kW. According to the investor, the charging posts offer power adjustments, smartphone connectivity, and the ability to schedule charging via the EV ONE mobile app, allowing users to initiate the charging process simply by scanning a QR code. Each charging post is equipped with emergency stop buttons and safety features such as lightning protection and leakage warnings. The advanced fire suppression systems and comprehensive fire safety measures incorporated into the system ensure optimal operational safety. The newly opened charging stations also features electric bicycle charging infrastructure. Elmar Dutt, general director of Deutsches Haus Ho Chi Minh City, stated that the launch of the electric vehicle charging station promotes green mobility and green energy transition, as well as supports Vietnams goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. This initiative reflects Deutsches Hauss commitment to leveraging advanced technology and encouraging the use of environmentally friendly transportation solutions for residents, tenants, and visitors. Huynh Tien Dat, CEO of EV ONE Charging Solutions & Equipment Joint Stock Company, explained that developing the charging station required a rigorous evaluation and testing process. Every aspect from design and material selection to equipment quality and operational capability had to meet strict standards set by Deutsches Haus. In the first half of 2024, statistics show that approximately 17,536 electric cars were in operation in Vietnam, with 17,482 having been domestically produced and assembled. The Ministry of Science and Technology has developed eight Vietnamese standards related to electric vehicle charging stations and three standards for sockets. A comprehensive electric vehicle charging infrastructure consists of electrical systems, control and communication networks, as well as charging ports and plugs that meet various standards. Like us on Facebook or follow us on X to get the latest news about Vietnam! Vietnam's Ministry of Health has recently approved Takeda's dengue vaccine, making it the first to be approved in the country, adding a new and innovative prevention method as part of an integrated prevention strategy in Vietnam to combat the rising public health threat of dengue. Dr. Derek Wallace, President of the Global Vaccine Business Unit at Takeda, led the successful dengue vaccine development project at the global pharmaceutical company. During his visit to Asia with a stop in Vietnam in September, Dr. Derek Wallace, President of the Global Vaccine Business Unit at Takeda, a global pharmaceutical company, and one of the key leaders of the vaccines development, shared insights into the research and production journey of this dengue vaccine, designed to protect against all four dengue virus serotypes. Takeda has recently made headlines for its innovative efforts in dengue prevention globally, including in Vietnam. As an instrumental figure in this development process, could you share the inspirations behind what prompted you to join and commit to this mission? I have always believed that vaccines are a cornerstone of public health, with the ability to make an incredible impact on people's and families lives over generations. After witnessing first-hand the severe impacts of the dengue outbreak in Thailand in 2009, my commitment to this cause deepened. That experience became the driving force behind my passion to lead Takeda's team on the development of this dengue vaccine, aimed at providing a proactive measure against this infectious disease. Takeda's dengue vaccine is approved for the indication of protection against dengue fever. Could you share the journey of developing this vaccine? As you know, dengue is a complex disease caused by four different virus serotypes, DENV-1, 2, 3, and 4, making vaccine development particularly challenging. The development of Takedas dengue vaccine has a long and intricate history, dating back nearly 60 years. While efforts to find a dengue vaccine began as early as the 1920s, significant progress remained elusive for many decades due to various obstacles. Our dengue vaccine journey traces back to 1978 at Mahidol University in Thailand. The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Southeast Asia proposed a project for dengue vaccine research. Mahidol University was selected as a partner. The university led the dengue vaccine research and development and later in 1986, the university discovered a live-attenuated vaccine that prevents DENV-2. This became the crucial foundation for our current tetravalent vaccine. After 12 years of research, this effort culminated in creating a tetravalent vaccine capable of providing broad protection against all four dengue virus serotypes. Over the past 11 years, under Takedas leadership, the vaccine has successfully completed a clinical development program involving 19 clinical trials, along with a total of 28,000 participants across 13 dengue-endemic and non-endemic countries. Recently, our vaccine has been recommended by WHOs Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) for introduction in countries with a high dengue burden and high transmission intensity to maximize public health impact. In addition to that, the vaccine has been included in the WHOs List of Prequalified Vaccines, underscoring its quality and reliability as an important dengue prevention method suitable for public programs. We are proud that our dengue vaccine is approved and endorsed for the protection of communities and people against dengue, including those that have had dengue previously and those that have not. These global recommendations of Takedas dengue vaccine represent a major step forward in our mission to develop innovative vaccines that address the toughest public health challenges. The WHOs recommendations affirm the vaccines potential as an important tool within an integrated strategy to help reduce the global threat of dengue. Researchers in the laboratory at Takeda's Singen plant in Germany What are the key challenges you and your team have faced during the development phase and production of this dengue vaccine? How did Takeda overcome these barriers? There were numerous challenges throughout the research process, one of which was the highly complex nature of the dengue virus, with its four distinct serotypes. Achieving an immune response that provides protection against all four serotypes without increasing the risk of severe disease due to antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) was a significant challenge which we were able to overcome. Additionally, the vaccine needed to ensure efficacy and safety across diverse populations. Beyond the research phase, the production, especially the large-scale manufacturing required for commercializing the vaccine globally, was no simple task. The tetravalent dengue vaccine demands a high-tech, complex, and modern process for production, storage, preservation, and transportation. That is why we have been working closely with partners in Vietnam and other countries to devise efficient transportation and storage strategies that can ensure smooth management of the dengue vaccine administration. Could you provide more details on Takedas high-quality standards throughout the entire dengue vaccine manufacturing process, including production, supply chain management, and global distribution? Takedas first dengue vaccine manufacturing facility in Singen, Germany opened in November 2019. The facility supports the formulation, filling, finishing, and secondary packaging of our dengue vaccine. In 2023, we expanded these capabilities with a state-of-the-art drug substance manufacturing building, making Singen the only Takeda facility worldwide capable of producing both the drug substance and drug product for our dengue vaccine. Inside Takeda's vaccine manufacturing plant in Singen, Germany The WHOs List of Prequalified Vaccines inclusion of Takedas dengue vaccine on their prequalified list confirms its quality and suitability for public vaccination programs. This is an important step in broadening global access to Takedas dengue vaccine, especially in regions heavily impacted by the disease. Recognizing the need for an integrated, multi-pronged response to this global health threat and the current demand for dengue vaccines, Takeda is committed to working closely with partners, along with governments and health authorities in countries where the dengue vaccine has been licensed to maximize the impact of our available vaccine supply. Building upon existing manufacturing capabilities in Germany, Takeda forged a strategic partnership with Biological E. Limited in India last year to accelerate access to Takedas dengue vaccine in multi-dose vials, which will be available for government procurement in dengue-endemic countries to support National Immunization Programs. We are on course to significantly boost our supply year over year, with a goal of reaching an annual capacity of 100 million doses by 2030 through a combination of in-house production and strategic external investments to meet the growing demand posed by this escalating public health threat. With millions of dengue vaccine doses distributed globally, we are dedicated to ensuring our vaccines meet the highest safety and efficacy standards. At Takeda, we maintain strict quality controls at every step of our medicine and vaccine production process. What impact do you anticipate the dengue vaccine will have on public health outcomes, especially in dengue-endemic countries like Vietnam? The dengue vaccine is expected to have a significant impact on public health outcomes, especially in endemic countries like Vietnam. Dengue vaccine can help protect people who have never had dengue before, reduce new infections in people that have previously caught dengue, and lower hospitalization, which can result in significant economic benefits by alleviating the financial burden on healthcare systems and families, contributing to greater economic stability. The WHOs Dengue Vaccines Position Paper underscores the importance of prioritizing all available dengue prevention methods, including vaccination. To effectively prevent dengue and enhance public health outcomes, it is essential that integrated dengue management encompassing vector control, case management, and community education works in tandem with the introduction of the dengue vaccine. Based on its assessment, the WHO has recommended that Takedas dengue vaccine will have the greatest public health impact in areas with a high dengue transmission rate. The vaccine introduction should be accompanied by a well-designed communication strategy and community engagement. Individuals will still need to take additional steps to protect themselves and their loved ones, thereby improving the implementation of preventive measures, strengthening public health efforts, and reducing the impact of dengue on communities. Thank you for your time! * At the end of this September, Dr. Derek Wallace, President of the Global Vaccine Business Unit at Takeda, and Dion Warren, Area Head of India & Southeast Asia (I-SEA), will be in Vietnam. During their visit, Dr. Wallace and Warren will engage with Takeda's local team to officially launch the dengue vaccine in Vietnam, following its approval by the Vietnamese Ministry of Health in May 2024. Takeda is currently the only manufacturer and importer of dengue vaccine to Vietnam. The presence and participation of the global leaders underscore Takeda's effort to provide solutions that help address the significant global burden of dengue, especially in endemic nations like Vietnam. Khanh Hoa Province in south-central Vietnam will begin welcoming tourists from Warsaw, Poland from January next year. Nguyen Duc Tan, general director of Anex Vietnam Travel and Trading Co. Ltd. headquartered in Khanh Hoa, said on Thursday that the company had cooperated with Ukrainian air carrier SkyUp Air Line to transport travelers from Poland to Cam Ranh International Airport in Khanh Hoa. The initiative was made despite ongoing economic crisis in the European market, Tan said, adding that the company needs support from management agencies and partners in the aviation, transport, and hotel sectors. The flights from Poland will be the first-ever charter flights from Europe to Cam Ranh International Airport. Khanh Hoa expects to welcome at least three such flights with a combined 500-531 passengers each month. Passengers on these flights will stay at three- to five-star lodging facilities in the province for nine days on average. In related news, Nha Trang City in Khanh Hoa Province is scheduled to welcome 150 travel agents from Kazakhstan and the Commonwealth of Independent States early next month. They will come to the city to attend tourism seminars, survey local travel companies and tourist destinations there to learn about the citys tourism potential, and then build appropriate cooperation plans. Khanh Hoa Province welcomed some nine million tourists in January-September this year, surging 57.9 percent year-on-year and meeting the full-year target. The province brought in over VND44.1 trillion (US$1.8 billion) in tourism revenue during that period, soaring 61.9 percent over the same period last year and exceeding the 2024 target by 10 percent, director of the provincial Department of Tourism Nguyen Thi Le Thanh said at a meeting on Thursday. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A bride from Ho Chi Minh City, a proud member of the BTS fandom known as Army, took her love for the world-famous South Korean boy band to the next level by incorporating a BTS theme into her wedding. The wedding of Nguyen Minh Ngoc, a 1991-born bride from Ho Chi Minh City, was a vibrant celebration filled with purple the signature color of BTS. BTS, formed in 2013, is a South Korean boy band that has achieved global success, breaking records with chart-topping albums and singles. They became the first all-South Korean act to top the Billboard Hot 100 and have won numerous awards, including Billboard Music Awards and American Music Awards. Their influence extends beyond music, promoting messages of self-love and mental health awareness. Held on September 21, Ngocs wedding featured guests dancing to the bands music, showcasing her deep love for the K-pop sensation. A South Korean band BTS-themed welcome board at a wedding in Ho Chi Minh City, September 21, 2024. Photo: Supplied As a dedicated Army member, Ngoc had dreamed of a BTS-themed wedding long before she got married. She aimed to create unforgettable memories that celebrated her journey with BTSs music on her special day. In just 20 days, she meticulously planned every detail, from decorations to performances. Everything at the wedding was inspired by BTS, including the purple wedding flowers and a playlist exclusively featuring BTS songs for theme music, greeting music, and DJ tracks. The weddings theme line, 'I Purple You,' is a famous phrase associated with the band. A couple gets married in a South Korean band BTS-themed wedding in Ho Chi Minh City, September 21, 2024. Photo: Supplied Ngoc reflected on her love story, which is intertwined with significant moments related to BTS attending BTS concerts, eagerly waiting for album releases, and watching idol movies together. While my groom may not be a K-pop fan, he fully supports my passions, she shared. Both families encouraged the couple to make the day meaningful and personal. Guests were amazed by the creativity of the BTS-themed celebration, many of whom knew the wedding songs by heart, from the party entrance to the bouquet toss. One guest even congratulated the couple by renting a billboard, initially planning to display it near where BTS member Jungkook performed. When that fell through, the guest chose Times Square in New York City instead. A couple gets married in a South Korean band BTS-themed wedding in Ho Chi Minh City, September 21, 2024. Photo: Supplied The wedding was filled with personal touches reflecting our love story, Ngoc said, noting that many guests were moved to tears during the couples vows. In addition to the purple decor and BTS music, the wedding featured a stage inspired by the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris, where the couple shared sweet moments. The photobooth resembled an art exhibit, and instead of traditional rituals, the couple opted for unique activities like watering plants and lighting candles. As videos and pictures from the wedding circulated on social media, Ngoc felt immense joy seeing her special day celebrated by friends who share her passion for BTS. Like us on Facebook or follow us on X to get the latest news about Vietnam! Legendary Dame Maggie Smith, whose career spanned seven decades on stage and screen, has died aged 89. A statement from her sons Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin said: It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith. She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27th September. An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days. We thank you for all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time. Her career began in theatre, as an assistant stage manager in 1952 before performances in Twelfth Night, Cinderella, Rookery Nook, Housemaster, W Somerset Maughams Cakes and Ale and The Letter and Nikolai Gogols The Government Inspector. In 1956, she went to New York City to make her Broadway debut in the revue New Faces of 56. Her real breakthrough was an invited by Laurence Olivier to join his company at the National Theatre where she would for eight years. Film roles would follow in Nowhere to Go, Go to Blazes, The Pumpkin-Eater, The VIPs, Young Cassidy, The Honey Pot, Hot Millions, O What a Lovely War! and 1969s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, delivering her an Academy Award for Best Actress. Further films would include Hedda Gabbler, Travels with My Aunt, Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing, Murder By Death, California Suite (collecting her second Oscar), Death on the Nile, Evil Under the Sun, Clash of the Titans, n A Private Function, A Room with a View, The Lady in the Van, Tea with Mussolini, Ladies in Lavender, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Sister Act, The First Wives Club, Gosford Park, and as Minerva McGonagal in the Harry Potter franchise. On Television she was memorable as the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey given such famed quips as whats a weekend? and collecting three Emmy Awards. She also featured in the American broadcast of Tennessee Williamss Suddenly, Last Summer, a BBC dramatisation of Charles Dickenss David Copperfield and the TV films My House in Umbria and Capturing Mary. Smith received eight BAFTA awards, was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1990 and was named a Companion of Honour (CH) in 2014. She once said, I am deeply grateful for the work in Potter and indeed Downton, but it wasnt what youd call satisfying. I didnt really feel I was acting in those things. I wanted to get back to the stage so much because theatre is basically my favourite medium, and I think I felt as though Id left it all unfinished. Source: BBC, Independent Rescue personnel transfer an injured villager after a landslide at an unlicensed gold mine in Nagari Sungai Abu of Solok regency, West Sumatra, Indonesia, early Sept. 28, 2024. A landslide in the Indonesian western province of West Sumatra on Thursday afternoon killed at least 15 workers at an unlicensed gold mine and 25 others went missing, local disaster mitigation agency reported on Friday. (Photo by Andri Mardiansyah/Xinhua) JAKARTA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- A landslide in the Indonesian western province of West Sumatra on Thursday afternoon killed at least 15 workers at an unlicensed gold mine and 25 others went missing, local disaster mitigation agency reported on Friday. The landslide reportedly occurred in Nagari Sungai Abu in the province's Solok regency. Solok Disaster Mitigation Agency Chief Irwan Efendi told local media that 15 miners were killed in the disaster, with three others suffering injuries and 25 others missing, he added. According to him, more rescuers with heavy equipment have been deployed to evacuate victims in the location. Unlicensed mines are common across the archipelagic country and a number of accidents have occurred in the past years. In July, more than 20 people died and over 10 were still missing in a landslide at an unlicensed gold mine in the eastern province of Gorontalo. Rescue personnel transfer the body of a victim after a landslide at an unlicensed gold mine in Nagari Sungai Abu of Solok regency, West Sumatra, Indonesia, early Sept. 28, 2024. A landslide in the Indonesian western province of West Sumatra on Thursday afternoon killed at least 15 workers at an unlicensed gold mine and 25 others went missing, local disaster mitigation agency reported on Friday. (Photo by Andri Mardiansyah/Xinhua) Religious leaders and legal experts have faulted a bill before Kenyas Senate that proposes to regulate religious organisations. The Religious Organisations Bill, 2024, drafted by Tana River Senator, Danson Mungatana aims to regulate and oversee the management of religious organisations. Religious leaders have taken issue particularly with some parts of the bill that forbid forcible or fraudulent evangelism, which could be misused to criminalize legitimate evangelism. Part VII of the draft prohibits anyone from converting or attempting to recruit into their religion or convert any person from one religion to another by misrepresentation, force, undue influence or coercion. It also criminalizes any attempt to recruit or convert a child from one religion to another without the consent of their parent or guardian. Allan Jomba of Open Heavens Ministry said that pastors will be in trouble with the law if anyone under 18 years old attends church and is converted without the consent of the parents. It also means that school gospel missions will be banned because if a student is preached to and gets converted and the parents decide to take you to court, you risk 5 years in jail or a Sh10 million ($78,000) fine, said Jomba on a social media post. Pentecostal Voices of Kenya, an umbrella body of independent pentecostal churches, opposed the bill arguing that some sections are ambiguous and that it infringes on the freedom of worship enshrined in the constitution. The chair of the association, Apostle Peter Manyuru argued that Christian evangelism might be misrepresented as coercion as phrased in the bill. The body further said that it would be unthinkable for the church to be overseen and managed by politicians. Stay informed with The Christian Daily Newsletter Sign up An office of the Registrar of religious organisations, which will be tasked with issuing, suspending or revoking the licenses, will be established by the proposed law. It also proposes a two-tier system to ensure compliance. A county executive committee member, who in most cases are political appointees, will liaise with the registrar to ensure enforcement of the provisions for religious organisations operating under their jurisdiction. The bill proposes a Sh5 million ($38,800) fine, three years in jail or both for anyone who operates an unregistered religious organisation. It sets stringent requirements for applications to be considered including proof of at least 25 people who profess the same faith, endorsement by an umbrella religious organisation, a management staff where at least one religious leader has a degree, diploma or certificate in theology, among other requirements. The problem with this section is that it gives so much power to the county executive committee member in charge of social services and culture in a county. He/she can oversee elections, enforce good governance, and mediate disputes in religious organizations operating within their respective counties, commented Cephas Doc, a Christian lawyer. Senator Mungatana justified the regulation of religious organizations in Kenya following the discovery of hundreds of shallow graves in Shakhahola forest in Kenyas South Coast in April 2023. The bodies, a majority of whom were children and women, were faithfuls of Good News International Church, a cult that coerced congregants to starve to death purportedly to purify themselves for eternal life. The church was led by Paul Mackenzie who is still in police custody together with other leaders. Many forget that the number of people who died in Shakhola exceeds the casualties in several terrorist attacks. The exact number of deaths is still unknown, with bodies continuing to emerge, said Mungatana. In a memorandum of objects and reasons attached to the bill by Mungatana noted that Kenya has operated without religious regulation for a long time which has resulted in the emergence of extremist and predatory religious organisations. He argued that regulation is fragmented across different statues which makes enforcement difficult. There is therefore a need to enact a single all-inclusive legislation, a strong enforcement agency vested with sufficient resources to monitor the registration of religious organisations, their activities and their returns, said Mungatana. The draft bill comes weeks after a task force set up by Kenyas president William Ruto recommended a hybrid religious organizations regulation framework. The report by the taskforce proposed a Religious Affairs Commission whose composition would be religious leaders and state officers. The commission will work in tandem with umbrella religious associations to strengthen self-regulation. In July, Rwanda closed over 7,700 churches that had failed structural inspection standards while many were operating without a license in contravention to regulation that came into place in 2019. HA NOI Vietnamese traders have many opportunities to promote agricultural exports to India, although they still face challenges. India is a populous market that has a big demand for many kinds of farmed products, particularly fruit and vegetables. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) said that Viet Nam and India both have strengths in agriculture, the export of agricultural, forestry and fishery products. However, the import and export of agricultural products between the two countries is still not large. In 2023, Viet Nam's agricultural exports to India remained modest at US$507 million, accounting for about 1.5 per cent of India's total agricultural import turnover. This figure is not commensurate with Viet Nam's potential and strengths. In addition to dragon fruit, India now has a great demand for importing other agricultural products such as pepper, coffee, cashew nuts, tea, vegetable oil, juice, sweet potatoes and passion fruit. However, many cooperatives and enterprises think that approaching Indian customers and partners is still difficult, because they do not know how to search and establish business relationships. They also lack information about quality standards in this market. Experts say that the quality standards for exporting agricultural products to India are not as strict as for the European or Chinese markets. Chairman of Thuan Tien Dragon Fruit Cooperative in Binh Thuan Province, Tran inh Trung, said that India's population is about 1.4 billion people and the country's demand for dragon fruit is nearly 50 million tonnes each year. Indians are mainly vegetarians, so the demand of vegetables and fruits is high, not only for daily consumption, but also for religious ceremonies. So there are opportunities for local traders to approach this market. In particular, Vietnamese dragon fruit is highly appreciated by Indian customers for its quality. Many Indian delegations have recently studied the Thuan Tien Cooperative at national and foreign fairs and followed with visits to growing and packaging areas, eventually signing export contracts. However, according to Trung, the amount of dragon fruit to India is still modest, due partly to the remote geographical location. Founder and CEO of Ago Import-Export Co, Ltd, Chi Anh, said that in the process of exporting dragon fruit to India, the company has faced problems caused by the distance, leading to quality being reduced. The long geographical distance also makes the cost of transporting goods higher than exporting to some countries in the region, reducing the competitiveness of Vietnamese agricultural products. Chi Anh said that India has high demand of importing some items such as turmeric, cinnamon and pepper, but cooperatives and enterprises must export products which are competitive compared to agricultural products from other countries. To save costs, they can participate in online fairs or send information about their business and products to agricultural fairs and trade promotion conferences. They can also approach Indian customers through social networks. Thuan Tien Cooperative and Ago have approached Indian customers and had long-term contracts thanks to posting information about their business and products at international fairs. Following initial contacts, customers have been in direct contact and visited the businesses in Viet Nam. Indians typically use social networks to work and connect with partners. So, the important things for customers in India are the businesses' core values and whether they carry out sustainable production or not, said Chi Anh. Many foreign firms keep their eyes on Indian market to look at investment and business chances, said Rocky Ngoc Thach, CEO of Smart Link Logistics. India is also known as a future market with high demand for business cooperation. Therefore, many shipping lines are now operating routes, with about 47 direct ships, on average, from Viet Nam to India every week. He also said that, beside ensuring the quality of agricultural products, exporters need to pay attention to building brands. This will help them attract new customers, thereby increasing revenue. They must select suitable customers and need to anticipate difficulties in transportation to have appropriate and safe preservation plans. VNS HA NOI The Financial Services Industry (FSI) is at the forefront of innovation, often leading the way even in highly regulated sectors, said Eric Yeo, country general manager for Amazon Web Services (AWS) Vietnam. Generative AI is a particularly hot topic right now. Many banks such as VPBank and Techcombank, are utilising generative AI to drive innovation and improve productivity and efficiency. The use cases are vast and impactful. Visa's 2023 Consumer Payment Attitudes report noted that 89 per cent of respondents are already using e-wallet payments, which is impressive. Additionally, 40 per cent of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Viet Nam now accept cashless payments, and 80 per cent of these businesses have reported that it has led to increased revenue. According to a recent McKinsey report, the global banking industry is expected to create substantial value through generative AI - estimated between US$200 billion and $340 billion annually. This trend is true in Vietnam and makes FSI one of the highest spenders on generative AI, underscoring its potential to drive significant economic growth in Viet Nam, said Yeo. The Vietnamese economy is growing rapidly, driven by digital transformation that is benefiting all industries, not just financial services, he added. For example, IDC estimates that in 2024, companies in Viet Nam will spend $803 million on public cloud services. We believe that this momentum can be further accelerated by offering tailored solutions. Whether customers want to develop their own large language models or choose from existing ones, (AWS) has the right support to meet their needs, Yeo said. Additionally, since 2017, AWS has enabled over 50,000 workers in Viet Nam with cloud skills. Companies like Techcombank and VPBank are actively upskilling their employees, with Techcombank having already training over 2,800 people and VPBank and VIB also investing in cloud skills development. Yeo said that another positive aspect is Viet Nam's strong entrepreneurial spirit. Many people are eager to learn about generative AI and explore new technologies. For instance, two startups in Viet Nam have been nominated for AWS Global Accelerator programme, reflecting this entrepreneurial drive. This strong spirit is crucial for driving the adoption of generative AI and cloud technologies. With its vibrant entrepreneurial environment and increasing investment in cloud services and AI, I am confident that Viet Nam has the potential to become a significant player in the AI industry, he said. With over 14 million customers and diverse retail and business banking products, the Chief Product Officer at TymeX, Daniel Stacey, said: Generative AI is the next significant advancement in our technology strategy, similar to the impact of cloud technology in previous years. At TymeX, we are adopting an AI-first culture that influences how we build products, how our developers work, and how we engage with our customers. For example, we use AI to enhance recommendations for lending products, determine loan approvals, and manage repayment cycles. We are pleased to be supported by AWS, our main partner in these initiatives. One example of how were integrating generative AI is through AI-driven chat interfaces in our mobile banking apps. These interfaces provide a user experience similar to popular social media platforms, ensuring that our customers find interactions with our apps as intuitive and engaging as those on (other) apps. "Internally, weve developed a custom chatbot, powered by Amazon Bedrock, to assist our employees. This tool facilitates daily tasks such as sharing documents, writing code, and performing testing, all through an AI-enhanced interface, he added. As one of the largest commercial banks in Viet Nam, VPBank is at the forefront of applying generative AI to drive innovation. Augustine Wong, Chief Information Officer at VPBank said: Generative AI transforms the landscape by providing immediate, game-changing solutions. This doesnt mean that staff will no longer be needed. Instead, their roles will evolve to address questions and tasks that were previously unconsidered. As we learn from these interactions, the AI becomes more effective in assisting future queries. Change will come rapidly. In the FSI sector, with increasing investment in Viet Nam, demand and expectations will rise significantly. Reflecting on my experiences growing up in Singapore, its clear that adaptation is essential for survival. My advice is to proceed with caution: start slowly, assess thoroughly, and then accelerate. At VPBank, we began cautiously, and once we established a culture of change, the demand surged. My team frequently asks when they can see results because increasing customer interactions requires us to adapt quickly. Ultimately, we must do whats necessary to keep pace, Wong said. At VPBank, theyve been implementing AI solutions, particularly focusing on chatbots powered by generative AI for their retail customers. This has been crucial for their 24/7 customer service operations. Previously, their agents were inundated with calls around the clock, handling a variety of issues ranging from product inquiries to system outages. Often, they had to call customers back, which negatively impacted the customer experience. However, many customers have concerns about data security when using generative AI and large language models (LLMs). Specifically, there's worry about whether their data will be used to train or develop models. Yeo said that AWS addresses this concern by allowing companies to bring their proprietary data to services like Amazon Bedrock, where the data remains with the customer and is not used to develop the base models. This ensures that data privacy is maintained, which is a crucial aspect of their approach. Wong affirmed this, noting it was a key reason why VPBank decided to host their workloads on AWS. Security concerns are a common issue when discussing generative AI. We chose AWS because of their expertise and security measures. AWSs extensive experience across various industries reassures us about data safety. They continuously stay ahead of potential threats, which is crucial given the global nature of cybersecurity risks. We trust that their robust security will protect our data, Wong said. VNS HA NOI The Ministry of Construction has proposed tax to be imposed on owners of more than one real estate property in an effort to prevent speculation, according to the ministrys recent report to the Government Office about real estate prices. The proposal was raised as real estate prices have been increasing dramatically since the beginning of this year. In some recent land auctions, winning prices were several times higher than initial prices, which significantly affects socio-economic growth and the healthy development of the real estate market. In Ha Noi, prices of apartments or independent houses in several districts like Tay Ho, Hai Ba Trung, Ba inh and Hoai uc also skyrocketed compared to the market demand. Prices of apartments were reported to increase by up to 6.5 per cent in the second quarter of this year. Some projects saw strong increases in prices of around 28 to 33 per cent over the same period. However, the ministry said that the increase was only short term and started to slow down in the second quarter, because the number of transactions fell by 30 per cent on high prices as home-seekers kept watching rather than making purchase decisions. The ministrys report pointed out that speculation by some investors, speculators and brokers pushed up real estate prices recently. Buying and selling for illegal profit is becoming more common, along with many other tricks that are distorting the market, the ministry said. This is not the first time the idea of taxing those who own more than one real estate asset has been raised. The Viet Nam Association of Real Estate Brokers recently proposed imposing tax on owners with more than one real estate property or those who own abandoned properties. The Ministry of Finance said that it is studying a draft law on real estate tax. To stabilise the real estate market, the Ministry of Construction also proposed a pilot project to create a State-managed centre for real estate and land ownership transactions to prevent real estate trading companies and brokers from distorting the market. Management and inspections will also be tightened, the ministry said. VNS Photo HCM CITY New memoir Khac iKhac en (Letting Go of the Old, Embracing the New) by female documentary filmmaker and award-winning author Xuan Phuong has been released in HCM City. The 226-page book features the 95-year-old Phuongs journey to bring Vietnamese fine arts to the world since she established Lotus Gallery, one of the very first private galleries in the city, in 1991. The gallery has displayed numerous artworks, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, and photography by emerging and established Vietnamese and Southeast Asian artists. It has also held hundreds of both domestic and international exhibitions. After 30 years of promoting Vietnamese fine arts, Phuong decided to retire. The memoir tells stories of the gallery's early days and her overseas trips with friends and partners to bring Vietnamese artworks to exhibit in Asia, Europe, and America. Author Bich Ngan, chairwoman of the city Writers Association, said at the book introduction on Tuesday that the memoir Khac iKhac en let readers know about Phuongs journey to bring Vietnamese culture and artworks to the world. Ngan added that as a filmmaker, a writer, and an art collector, Phuongs life was full of twists and turns, reflecting the beautiful colours of passion, love, happiness, and sadness in human life. Phuong quit school to join the resistance in Hue City in 1945. She served as a dynamite maker and a doctor, before being assigned by President Ho Chi Minh to become an interpreter and guide to foreign journalists and filmmakers in 1967. In 1968, she became a documentary director and war correspondent for the Television Department (now Viet Nam Television). She has made a series of documentaries about the countrys historical events such as Khi Tieng Sung Vua Tat (When Gun Sound Ends) (1975), Khi Nhung Nu Cuoi Tro Lai (When Smiles Return) (1976), and Hai Tieng Que Huong (My Homeland) (1978). In 2011, she was conferred the Ordre national de la Legion d'honneur (National Order of the Legion of Honour), the highest French order of merit, both military and civil, for her contributions to developing Viet Nam - France relations. Phuong released her first memoir Ganh GanhGong Gong (Burden of Life), which includes stories about the ups and downs of her life since 1945, in 2020. The work won awards for best literary work by the Viet Nam Writers Association, and the HCM City Writers Association. Khac iKhac en is published by the HCM City General Publishing House and is available at bookstores nationwide and on e-commercial platforms. VNS HA NOI A drone show intended to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Ha Noi's Liberation Day on October 10 is cancelled, the Chairman of the Ha Noi People's Committee Tran Sy Thanh announced on Thursday. This comes after a decision on Wednesday to cancel the city-wide fireworks display, which was also meant to celebrate the big anniversary. The Committee stated that eight celebration activities are also being cancelled, and seven others will be changed due to the aftermath of Typhoon Yagi. Specifically, eight events planned for the 70th anniversary will be cancelled. This includes the fireworks display initially scheduled for the evening of October 10 at 30 locations across the city, as well as a drone light show intended to celebrate the anniversary. The scale and timing of seven other events will also be adjusted. For example, the special art programme 'City of Peace - City of Flying Dragon' on October 10, initially planned for My inh National Stadium, will now take place at the Thang Long Imperial Citadel. The city will ensure the necessary infrastructure, equipment and security for the 'Cultural Festival for Peace' to commemorate both the 70th anniversary of Ha Noi's Liberation and the 25th anniversary of the city's recognition as a 'City of Peace.' State-level celebration events As for the State-level commemoration of the 70th Anniversary of Ha Nois Liberation, o inh Hong announced that the event will be held on the morning of October 10 at the National Convention Center, with around 3,000 delegates expected to attend. The Ha Noi People's Committee has developed a draft plan for national-level celebrations. The city has also completed a draft plan, which will be submitted to the Party Central Committee's Propaganda Department, the Secretariat and the National Steering Committee for Major Events for 2022-2025. In his directive, Chairman Tran Sy Thanh emphasised that the events and programmes commemorating the 70th anniversary must highlight Ha Noi's significant role as the capital of the country. He stressed that communication and promotion efforts surrounding the anniversary must be elevated to reflect the importance of the event. The chairman also asked all 30 districts in Ha Noi to ensure cleanliness, decorate the streets and create a festive atmosphere to welcome the anniversary, while also remaining mindful of the local context. On September 24, the Ha Noi Party Standing Committee had decided to cancel all fireworks displays in the city's 30 districts and towns for the 70th anniversary to focus on recovery efforts following Typhoon Yagi. VNS Located about 20 kilometres south of downtown Ha Noi, Ha Thai Village in Duyen Thai Commune, Thuong Tin District, is renowned for its lacquerware craftsmanship. Over the centuries, artisans in this village -- one of seven craft village tourist attractions near the capital city -- have continuously innovated to create exquisite handicrafts that meet the demands of consumers both domestically and internationally. Ha Thai villagers are uncertain about the exact origins of their lacquerware craft, but it has been present since at least the 17th century, as evidenced by two lacquered and gilded couplets displayed in the village's communal house. At that time, Ha Thai was primarily known for its decorative lacquer work and was valued for its many skilled artisans. Because they specialised in crafting items for the royal court, the village earned the nickname "the village that serves the king." In the 1930s, Ha Thai's lacquer art experienced significant changes during the cultural exchange between East and West. The first Vietnamese painters trained at the Indochina Fine Arts School began to incorporate new materials such as eggshells, seashells and bamboo cores. Notably, they introduced polishing techniques, leading to the development of a distinctive lacquerware style. According to the local artisans, each lacquerware product, whether as small as a bowl or as grand as a painting, requires meticulous craftsmanship and skill at every stage of production. Through the deft hands of these talented craftsmen, the natural beauty of Viet Nam is vividly captured while maintaining the charming and gentle essence of rural life. The lacquerware features elegant shapes and vibrant ethnic patterns, depicting scenes such as water wharves with banyan trees, bamboo boats, the One Pillar Pagoda, and Ha Noi's Old Quarter, making them particularly popular among both domestic and international consumers. The lacquer paintings from Ha Thai Village feature traditional materials such as cockroach wing lacquer, silver leaf, mother-of-pearl and gold leaf, primarily painted on a black background. The incorporation of polishing techniques has contributed to a unique lacquerware style, leaving a distinct mark that has established a brand identity for Ha Thai lacquerware as a renowned art form. The village was officially recognised as a craft village tourism destination in Ha Noi in 2020. According to Nguyen Van Chi, Head of the Hanoi Rural Development Sub-department, this recognition marks an important milestone in strengthening the brand of local craft products and aligns Ha Thai with recent development trends. Since its designation as a tourist craft village, local authorities have shown increased interest in developing this 'smokeless industry', he added. With support from the local authorities, Ha Thai villagers have expanded their business models to enhance visibility and boost the village's economy. By showcasing Viet Nam's unique painting materials, Ha Thai has established itself as a reputable destination for both local and international customers, with its products now available in many countries, including the UK, France, Russia, the US, Spain, Australia, Italy, Japan and South Korea. According to the head of the Hanoi Rural Development Sub-department, Ha Thai lacquerware and its over 300-year tradition has now gained new vitality, firmly establishing itself among the renowned craft villages in Viet Nam. The lacquer products of the village have been showcased and admired by visitors at numerous craft fairs and exhibitions both domestically and internationally. Speaking about the preservation and development of the craft village, Nguyen Thi Hoi, Chairwoman of the Ha Thai Lacquerware Craft Association, emphasised the need for continuous innovation to adapt to changing times. "We are aiming to develop the craft village into an attractive and professional tourist destination. Workshops are collaborating to train the younger generation, while also equipping villagers with knowledge about tourism. "We plan to enhance facilities at the production workshops to provide visitors with hands-on experience of various stages in the lacquerware production process," she added. VNS This article is written in collaboration with the Hanoi Rural Development Sub-department. Party General Secretary and President To Lam was in New York, the USA, from September 22 to 25 to attend the United Nations Summit of the Future and the High-Level General Debate of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly. On the sidelines of the summit, he had meetings with a number of world leaders, marking a significant milestone in Viet Nam's expanding engagement with the international community. President Lam's trip also focused on enhancing multilateral cooperation and strengthening the Viet NamUS Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, highlighted Viet Nam's growing role in global diplomacy and its dedication to promoting a sustainable future. Viet Nams commitment to multilateralism President Lam's presence at the UN headquarters holds special significance as it is the first time since Viet Nam's accession to the UN in 1977 that a Party General Secretary and President of Viet Nam has attended the UN General Assembly. It highlights Viet Nam's growing emphasis on multilateral diplomacy, with the UN playing a central role in fostering global cooperation. At a time when some nations are prioritising their own interests and undermining international law, Viet Nam's participation at the highest level reaffirms its commitment to being an active and responsible member of the global community. Viet Nam has consistently positioned itself as a "friend and trusted partner", making notable contributions to the UN and its specialised agencies. Its involvement in peacekeeping operations and its recognised success in poverty alleviation have set an example for other nations, demonstrating its proactive role in shaping global development. At a recent meeting in Ha Noi of the Viet Nam Communist Party Central Committee, President Lam presented a vision for Viet Nams future, saying that the 14th Party Congress next year will "usher in a new era of Viet Nam on the rise", one marked by both domestic development and international contributions. During his address at the UN Summit of the Future, President Lam called for technology to be used for cooperation rather than conflict, urging the global community to invest in medical research, education, and digital transformation, while moving away from the development of weapons of mass destruction. His vision for the future is one of peace, stability, and equality, where scientific progress benefits all nations. He also emphasised the importance of international solidarity, cooperation, and adherence to international law. Major powers, he stressed, must act responsibly and share their scientific advancements for the benefit of all. He called on the UN and regional organisations like ASEAN to lead efforts in addressing global challenges, seizing opportunities presented by technological advancements, and shaping a better, more equitable world. Addressing the General Debate of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, President Lam shared Viet Nams vision for a more peaceful, stable, cooperative, prosperous, and sustainable future by emphasising the importance of adhering to international law and fostering cooperation among nations. He called on all states, particularly major powers, to act responsibly, uphold peace, resolve disputes peacefully, and respect national sovereignty. President Lam stressed the need for equitable development, prioritising resources for the Sustainable Development Goals, especially in developing countries. He advocated for global governance frameworks for emerging technologies like AI and highlighted the importance of digital and green transitions for building resilience. He also urged reform of multilateral institutions to ensure fairness and transparency, with people, particularly the youth, at the centre of all policies to drive progress and development. Deepening US-Viet Nam bilateral ties President Lams presence in New York came at a crucial moment, as Viet Nam and the US marked the first anniversary of their upgraded Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Although not an official state visit, his meetings with US leaders and business partners played a significant role in reaffirming Viet Nams foreign policy. This policy prioritises relations with major powers, including the US, which remains a key partner and a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Lam had a meeting with US President Joe Biden, where both leaders agreed that the two sides need to work closely to effectively carry out the joint statement adopted last year, including enhancing discussions at all levels, bolstering cooperation across economy, trade, investment, high technology and semiconductor and capitalising collaboration potential in high-quality human resources training, seeing it a key and a breakthrough in their partnership. In a policy address at Columbia University, President Lam reflected on the remarkable journey that Viet Nam and the US had taken since normalising relations nearly 30 years ago. From former adversaries to comprehensive strategic partners, both countries had overcome historical challenges through a spirit of reconciliation, mutual respect, and understanding. He noted that President Ho Chi Minh had initially expressed a desire for full cooperation with the US, but it took 50 years for the two nations to normalise relations. President Lam credited the compassion of the Vietnamese people and the strong leadership of the Communist Party of Viet Nam as key factors enabling the bilateral relationship to flourish. He also acknowledged the critical support from American leaders such as President Bill Clinton, Senators John McCain, John Kerry, and Patrick Leahy, whose efforts helped the partnership grow in a stable, sustainable, and practical manner. Reflecting on Viet Nams journey and its relationship with the US, President Lam stated that building a better shared future required continued respect for each others independence, sovereignty, and political systems. He also underscored the importance of cooperation in addressing war wounds, which had formed the foundation of trust and deepened relations between the two countries. "Few could have imagined the extraordinary strides that the two countries have made in nearly 30 years, transitioning from former enemies to comprehensive strategic partners," he said. Strengthening investment and innovation Speaking at Columbia University, the Party General Secretary and President of Viet Nam highlighted that, after nearly 80 years of independence and almost 40 years of oi moi (Renewal), under the comprehensive leadership of the Communist Party, Viet Nam was now on the cusp of a new historical milestone and entering a new era an era of national resurgence. The significant, historical achievements of oi moi served as a foundation for the Vietnamese people to have faith in the future ahead. Viet Nam would continue to accelerate its renewal efforts, promote openness, and deepen comprehensive international integration. The country would remain a stable, reliable, and attractive destination for investors, businesses, and international tourists. With a focus on furthering economic cooperation, President Lam attended a seminar on enhancing US-Viet Nam collaboration in the semiconductor and AI industries. Leaders and experts from world-leading technology groups, including AMD, Google, Marvell, and the US Semiconductor Industry Association, participated in the seminar. The discussions underscored the potential for Viet Nam to become a key player in these advanced sectors, which would be essential to the nations long-term growth strategy. President Lam also met with members of the Viet Nam Innovation Network and Vietnamese experts in the US, emphasising the countrys commitment to attracting high-tech investment. He said that Viet Nam prioritised selective investment in areas such as semiconductors and AI research and development, noting that these fields are key to future cooperation with US investors, who are global leaders. President Lam expressed his appreciation for the contributions of these experts, noting their significant role in enhancing Viet Nams capacity in science, technology, and innovation. He emphasised the need for continued collaboration to help Viet Nam advance further in these fields. He said Viet Nams ability to train a high-quality workforce would be key to its future growth, especially in the context of digital and green transformation. He urged the Viet Nam Innovation Network in the US to continue expanding its membership and enhancing cooperation between Vietnamese and international experts, saying their efforts would be vital in helping Viet Nam achieve its goal of becoming a leader in science, technology, and innovation. VNS General Secretary of the Communist Party of Viet Nam Central Committee and State President To Lam and a high-ranking delegation of Viet Nam attended the United Nations Summit of the Future, the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, and working sessions in New York, the United States, from September 22-25. The trip continued demonstrating Viet Nams contributions to the worlds largest multilateral organisation, as well as the countrys proactive and active engagement in the settlement of regional and international issues. President Lam brought forward important messages in strong support of multilateralism, with the UN playing the central role in promoting global peace, cooperation, and development. During his stay in New York, President Lam took part in some 40 important functions, spreading the message of a peace-loving Viet Nam, focusing on sustainable development and looking to the future. Among them, the highlight is the leader's speaking and conveying Viet Nam's message to the world at the Future Summit and the UNGA 79's High-Level General Debate. President Lam also held bilateral meetings with leaders of a number of countries, including India, Ukraine, and the United States, and received leaders of the United Nations and some of its agencies and investment funds. He attended and delivered remarks at events towards the 30th anniversary of Viet Nam-US diplomatic relations, and the first anniversary of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, and had other meetings with the participation of US officials, businesspeople, experts, and academics. President Lam also took time to meet Vietnamese intellectuals in the US, representatives of members of the Vietnam Innovation Network, and American experts and scholars interested in Viet Nam. Many Vietnamese and American businesses also signed cooperation agreements in his presence. VNS During the morning of Tuesday, September 24 at the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Incheon, Korea, Denise-Margaret Thompson spoke about the unique challenges and opportunities that this Generation Z brings. The Trinidad and Tobago native highlighted their immersion in the digital world, their concern for social justice and climate change, their hunger for authenticity and community, and their resistance to organized religion. Thompson's academic ministry is multifaceted as she seeks to transform academia by witnessing in communities of disciples through her roles at InterVarsity USA and the Caribbean Fellowship of Evangelical Students. Thompson expressed her concerns about how local churches should engage with Gen Z, the generation of those who are born between 1997 and 2012. We will need to consider collaborating to engage, equip and support these young people, including ordaining and commissioning them to reach their generation thanks to increased lifespans. We have seven distinct generations alive today. And given the historical events influencing each, they talk, think, and communicate in distinctly different ways, she said. A particular datapoint that she emphasized was that these 12- to 27-year-olds past millennials in 2019 is the single largest generation. Roughly 32% of the global population, 60% of Africa is under the age of 25, of the almost 2 billion Gen Zs worldwide, one quarter live in South Asia. India's Gen Z population alone is nearly three times the number across Europe. And there are more Gen Zs in India than there are people in the US. And if we don't figure out how to reach them, we will never achieve the Great Commission. The concern how to reach the new generation with the message of salvation is a central issue of this congress. The visualization of the unreached, plus the world's demographic growth, are pressing the need to take the message of Christ to the ends of the earth. Stay informed with The Christian Daily Newsletter Sign up They are the first fully global and digital youth generation, molded in the 21st century, connected by digital devices. Ninety-five percent of Gen Z have a smartphone and 83 percent own a laptop. They are shaped by social media, the internet, the omniverse, terrorism, war and gun violence. They are the first generation trained from elementary school onwards to deal with mass shootings in the US and UK, as well as kidnappings and crime in Nigeria and Kenya. Pandemic and mental health challenges have devastated them. Does the Church know that, worldwide, between 2020 and 2023, reported youth suicide rates tripled during that time? Yes, both inside and outside our churches, she lamented. As Thompson explained, Tech savvy Gen Z's prefer collaborative workspaces, demand healthy balance and value, mentorship, authenticity and transparency from supervisors. Their spiritual awareness is quite high. In one study, 77% self-reported as spiritual ones, some as young as 11 years. They embrace practices including tarot cards, astrology mediation, spiritual healing. Gen Zs, however, reject organized religion, including those raised in the Christian faith with more than half identifying as atheists. They sense there's more going on than they can see with their eyes and are interested not only in whether Christianity is true, they want to see it as good. They are hungry for what Jesus offers: belonging, leadership, peace, authentic and transparent relationships, and community, she said and continued,according to McKinsey reports, Gen Z in primary, secondary and tertiary academic institutions are more homogenous in their motivations and concerns than you might think. As the global marketplace grows, technology brings them together. Recent youth consultations and local dialogue efforts revisited the United Nations 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Although the 2021 data comes from the Latin America and Caribbean region, the concerns show remarkable consistency around the world... Is the Church taking note? Gen Zs walk through our university doors more in a single day than they walk through our church doors in an entire year. However, Thompson noted that among their concerns are racial inequity, corruption, climate change, extreme poverty and justice. They also identify human trafficking, mental health, and sexual abuse concerns. All is not lost. The Holy Spirit is at work across the 180 national movements of IFES as he is in our 220 Lausanne countries celebrating years of high school and tertiary academic ministry around the world. She referred to some examples of transformation that members of Generation Z are experiencing. She specifically focused on three: at this small, historically black college in Alabama, Tuskegee University, over the past year, over a hundred students meet weekly for prayer and worship, leading their peers to Christ, The Jackson State and Mississippi students have also been leading their peers to Christ with permission given for baptisms in the fountain at the center of campus at Harvard University, students meet weekly for the public reading of scripture across several of those university departments. The second example she gave was that in the Caribbean, in Trinidad and Tobago, evangelistic bus tours have been organized with music, drama, counseling and prayer. University students and alumni visit high schools all over the island, and hundreds make decisions for Christ on each visit. Students reaching other students with the gospel, visible signs of miracles, deliverances and an observable reduction in subsequent truancy. And the third hopeful example was what happened in Martinique: Gen Z, disenchanted with traditional evangelical and Pentecostal full-gospel structures, have been gathering on their own, with dozens of people coming to faith and doing regular baptisms of other young people professing their faith in Christ. And we the Church. How will we make space and develop systems to engage and equip these student leaders who will embody Christ's culture and values to study, pray, and make disciples? she asked. The church culture I grew up in requires first believing and then being discipled. They must belong before they believe, as Jesus did with his disciples. He invited them to be in community with Him before asking them, 'Who do you say that I am?' Some Scripture passages for our Gen Zs: 'Study to present yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth' (2 Timothy 2:15). They are in school, and as a teacher, I demand excellence. We also need to teach them to pray: 'Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus' (Philippians 4:6-7). Next, we are to commission them to make disciples of all nations, sending them out as they move through the educational system and into the job market. The Holy Spirit will teach them to observe all things, and He will be with them always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:19-20). Let us pray boldly as we approach His throne of grace with confidence (Hebrews 4:16). We, the followers of Jesus, are concerned about engaging, equipping, motivating and mobilizing Gen Z toward the fulfillment of the Great Commission across all generations. That is why we are here in Seoul this week. God has not changed His mind. He will bring His revival as His people pray, rooted in a sense of His deep love, guided by the Holy Spirit, noted Thompson. As the first fully global generation, these Gen Z's will follow Jesus. Black and brown Gen Z populations around the world: will we welcome and disciple them on their own terms? she challenged participants. First published by Diario Cristiano, Christian Daily International's Spanish edition. HAVANA Party General Secretary and State President To Lam met with staff members of the Vietnamese Embassy and representatives from the Vietnamese community in Cuba in Havana on September 26 (local time) on the occasion of his State visit to Cuba. Ambassador Le Quang Long reported to the Party and State leader that the Vietnamese community in Cuba, although few in number, have recorded certain achievements winning the recognition of the Cuban Party and State. Vietnamese firms have invested in several domains in Cuba, and Vietnamese students, mostly recipients of Government scholaships, have made outstanding academic performance. The diplomat expressed his belief that following the historic visit of Party General Secretary and President Lam, the relationship between Viet Nam and Cuba will enter a new period, with the traditional special friendship maintained while investment and cooperative ties growing substantively, helping Cuba rise over difficulties. The Party and State leader commended the Embassy and other Vietnamese representative missions in Cuba for the good performance in implementing their tasks, thus contributing to Cubas development and bilateral relations. He highlighted that the traditional ties between Viet Nam and Cuba, built on the foundation of the two nations unyielding struggle for independence, freedom, sovereignty and the right to self determination, and fostered by President Ho Chi Minh, Leader Fidel Castro and generations of leaders, have weathered fluctuations and ups and downs in history over the past more than 60 years. He emphasised that it is the responsibility of Viet Nam to support Cuba as well as the progressive movement in the world, which is also the wish of President Ho Chi Minh. Lam affirmed that the traditional solidarity and support, and the comprehensive cooperation between Viet Nam and Cuba has constantly been strengthened and developed across all fields, and his visit this time again reiterates the importance that the Party, State and people of Viet Nam attaches to the special ties with Cuba and the wish to strongly develop and elevate the Vietnam-Cuba relationship in the new period. The top leader informed the Vietnamese community on the situation in the home country, and stressed that the Party is conducting a review in both theory and practices of the 40 years implementing oi Moi (renewal), which will serve the development of the theory on oi Moi and the path to socialism in Viet Nam. The review will be the foundation to outline major guidelines and policies for the countrys new strategic development phase ahead, he said. The leader expressed his wish that Vietnamese, wherever they live, will uphold national tradition and unity, support each other and contribute to the special friendship and cooperation between Viet Nam and Cuba. He urged the Vietnamese Embassy and other Vietnamese representative missions in Cuba to work harder in their role as the bridge in bilateral ties, promoting the implementation of bilateral agreements and commitments thus taking the Viet Nam-Cuba relationship to a new phase. VNS HAVANA First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and President of Cuba Miguel Diaz Canel Bermudez presided over a grand welcome ceremony at the highest protocol for heads of states for General Secretary of the Communist Party of Viet Nam and President of Viet Nam To Lam on September 26 afternoon (Cuba time). After the ceremony, the two leaders held talks to assess the outcomes of the cooperation between Viet Nam and Cuba in the recent past and outline orientations to enhance cooperation effectiveness in all aspects, towards taking the bilateral relationship to a new stage with increasingly substantive and sustainable development in the interests of the two peoples. Following the talks, they are expected to witness the signing of cooperative documents between ministries, sectors and businesses of the two countries. The state visit of Party General Secretary and President To Lam to Cuba bears historic significance, opening up a new phase in the cooperation and special friendship between the two countries. VNS MOSCOW A delegation of the Viet Nam Women's Union (VWU) led by Party Central Committee member and VWU President Ha Thi Nga had meetings with representatives from major womens unions in Russia on September 26 aiming to strengthen their cooperation as part of the delegations working visit to Russia. Receiving the Vietnamese delegation, Nina Ostanina, chair of the public movement "All-Russian Women's Union - Hope of Russia" and head of the State Duma Committee on Family Protection, Fatherhood, Motherhood and Childhood, said that Russia and Viet Nam share many views on family, women and children, emphasising the importance of protecting traditional values, the role of the family nucleus in society, gender equality, and protecting children from negative influences. She welcomed the co-operation between the two women's organisations for the goal of promoting women's participation in the cause of national construction and development and hoped that such cooperation will grow more practical, especially in 2024 which has been chosen as the Year of the Family in Russia. For her part, VWU President Nga expressed the affection and gratitude of Vietnamese people in general and Vietnamese women in particular for the assistance that the Soviet Union in the past and Russia today have given to Viet Nam during the countrys national protection, construction and development. She also thanked Russia for sending aid to help Viet Nam overcome the consequences of Typhoon Yagi. Nga expressed her impression with the results that Russia has achieved in gender equality, and informed the host on the achievements in the field that Viet Nam have made in recent years, highlighting that female deputies account for over 30 per cent of the total deputies in the 15th National Assembly of Viet Nam. Noting that the two women's unions have maintained cooperative relations mainly through events held in Russia, she suggested the two unions establish a regular cooperation mechanism such as a Viet Nam-Russia Women's Forum, to further enhance the effectiveness of cooperation, contributing to the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries. The same day, the Viet Namese delegation met with a delegation of the Women's Movement of United Russia of the ruling party United Russia. Welcoming the Vietnamese guests, Daria Lantratova, deputy chair of the Women's Movement of United Russia and Deputy Chair of the Federation Council Committee on Social Policy, said that the Communist Party of Viet Nam is a long-standing and trustworthy friend of Russia. The relationship between the two countries has stood the test of many difficulties and challenges, particularly during the wars to defend the Fatherland, to which women had made great contributions, she said. The host said that with over 170,000 members, the Women's Movement of United Russia has engaged more and more women in politics, business and social activities. Lantratova said she hopes that her union will soon establish a cooperative relationship with the WVU. VWU President Nga agreed, affirming that based on the similarity in core traditional values, practical cooperation between the two unions should be strengthened, contributing to promoting the good relationship between the two Parties, the two States and the people of Viet Nam and Russia. VNS HAVANA General Secretary of the Communist Party of Viet Nam Central Committee and State President To Lam, his spouse and a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation laid a wreath at the monument to Jose Marti, a Cuban national hero, in Havana on September 26. The event was also attended by Roberto Morales Ojeda, Politburo member and permanent member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and several leaders of Cuban ministries and sectors. They observed a minute of silence in memory of the Cuban hero, who sowed the seeds of friendship between the two nations in the late 19th century. The Vietnamese leader, his spouse and the delegation arrived in Havana on September 25 evening (local time), beginning a state visit to Cuba. The visit, made at the invitation of First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee (PCC) and President of Cuba Miguel Diaz Canel Bermudez and his spouse, serves as evidence of the traditional solidarity and special friendship between Viet Nam and the Caribbean nation, which have consistently been viewed as a precious asset that the two Parties, States, and peoples have exerted their utmost efforts to nurture. It also shows that Viet Nam attaches great importance to Cuba along with the latters position in its foreign policy. VNS NEW YORK The United Nations (UN) Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix has highly evaluated Viet Nams practical contributions to the organisation, including its peacekeeping activities, not only for what has been achieved but also for the potential to enhance cooperation between the two sides. In an interview granted to the Vietnam News Agency in New York following Party General Secretary and State President To Lams attendance at the UN Summit of the Future and the 79th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 79), Lacroix noted that Viet Nam has deployed forces to UN peacekeeping missions, including a Level-2 field hospital in South Sudan and, more recently, an engineering unit to the UN mission in Abyei. The number of the Vietnamese personnel in peacekeeping missions is steadily increasing, including both men and women as well as police officers, both in the field and at the headquarters. He spoke highly of the quality of Vietnam's peacekeepers, adding that these developments reflect the excellent level of cooperation between Viet Nam and the UN. Affirming the UNs desire to expand and intensify cooperation with Viet Nam, the UN official said that on the sidelines of the UNGA 79, he met the Vietnamese Ministers of National Defence, and Public Security to discuss orientations to further promote the bilateral relations, including personnel training and capacity building. As a ministerial meeting is expected to take place in the coming time, focusing on future peacekeeping activities, the UN hopes that by then, participants will contribute good ideas to implementing peacekeeping missions effectively and in line with the current international context. It is conducting an assessment of peacekeeping operation methods to adapt to current global challenges, Lacroix said, looking forward to Viet Nam's co-operation in this common effort. VNS HAVANA General Secretary of the Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV) Central Committee and President of Viet Nam To Lam held talks with First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) Central Committee and President of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez in Havana on September 26 afternoon (local time). The host stressed that the first state visit to Cuba by Lam as the top leader of the Vietnamese Party and State holds special significance as it reflects the great respect for relations and the revolutionary solidarity between the two Parties and the two countries, helping intensify the trust and make practical improvements in the bilateral ties in the coming time. The Party, State, and people of Cuba extremely treasure the traditional relationship as well as the special and faithful friendship with Viet Nam, and will maintain the s olidarity with the latter during the socialist-oriented national development cause, he affirmed. Lam said his visit to Cuba once again demonstrates that the Party, State, and people of Viet Nam attach importance to and are strongly determined to enhance and improve the effectiveness of the two sides close-knit comradeship and fraternal relationship that is exemplary in international relations, along with the special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between the two Parties and the two countries. Miguel appreciated the precious support and assistance from the Vietnamese Party, State, and people for their Cuban counterparts during national construction and protection, including the aid in terms of food security. He also informed his guest about the recent situation of Cuba. The Vietnamese leader affirmed that Viet Nam always pays attention to and follows each development step of Cuba. It respects the PCCs enormous and constant efforts in implementing the resolution of the 8th National PCC Congress. It also highly values the policies and measures Cuba has taken, including the ideological work, the struggle for peace, the update of the socio-economic development model, and the settlement of difficulties and challenges. The two leaders compared notes on the relations between the two Parties and two countries, and expressed their delight at the fruitful development of the bilateral ties at all levels and in all sectors. They emphasised similarities between Viet Nam and Cuba in history, spirit, and the path toward socialism, as well as the close relationship founded and nurtured by President Ho Chi Minh and Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro. Both leaders affirmed their resolve to advance the Viet Nam-Cuba traditional solidarity, special friendship, and comprehensive cooperation to a new height, making the relationship more comprehensive, practical, effective, and sustainable, in the spirit of companionship, cooperation, and mutual development, for the cause of development, socialism building, for the sake of the two nations' people, and for peace, cooperation, and development in each region and the world at large. In that spirit, they agreed to enhance mutual understanding, exchange, and coordination in political and strategic issues, and stressed the need to raise the efficiency of visits and exchanges, especially those at the high level and through flexible forms. The leaders shared the view that the relationship between the two Parties serves as the political foundation that strategically orients the bilateral relations in other spheres. They also concurred to strengthen cooperation and exchanges between the advisory bodies of the two Parties in the sharing of experience and theory on socialism and Party building. The two leaders concurred to coordinate with each other to well organise the 6th theoretical symposium between the two Parties and the second international conference on the revolutionary visions of President Ho Chi Minh and Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro as well as many other cooperation activities in the time ahead. They laid stress on improving the efficacy of the Viet Nam-Cuba Intergovernmental Committee and other mechanisms in the areas of defence, security and foreign affairs. The two sides reached consensus on strengthening and deepening economic cooperation, and joining hands to study new cooperation methods, remove roadblocks and capitalise on the trade agreements between the two countries so as to raise their two-way trade revenue to US$500 million in the next five years. They also agreed to create necessary conditions for sustainable business activities of Vietnamese firms in Cuba in accordance with the Caribbean nations policy on investment attraction for economic development. The leaders said they support competent agencies of both sides to bolster coordination in researching an agricultural production cooperation model, helping Cuba improve productivity and production capacity while ensuring food security. Additionally, they were unanimous about promoting and expanding collaboration across the fields of energy, biotech, healthcare, tourism, telecommunications and construction as well as bolstering cooperation between localities and people of the two nations. The two leaders agreed to continue actively assisting and supporting each other at international organisations and forums. They highlighted the significance of maintaining peace, stability and development; agreed that international disputes must be settled by peaceful measures on the basis of respect for international law and the UN Charter, and held that relations among nations must be built on the basis of respect for independence, sovereignty, equality, self-determination of peoples and the fundamental principles of international law, including respect for each other's territorial integrity and non-interference in each other's internal affairs. The Vietnamese and Cuban leaders concurred to direct agencies, organisations and localities of the two countries to widely popularise and effectively implement common perceptions and results of the visit, and soon turn them into specific results. Lam invited Miguel to visit Viet Nam in 2025 on the occasion of the 65th founding anniversary of diplomatic relations between Viet Nam and Cuba (December 12, 1960 - 2025) and the 50th anniversary of the Southern Liberation and National Reunification of Viet Nam (April 30, 1975 - 2025). The Cuban leader accepted the invitation with pleasure. On the occasion, Party General Secretary and President Lam informed his host that the Vietnamese Party, State, and people have donated 10,000 tonnes of rice to the Cuban people, the CPV Central Committee has presented 500 computers to the PCC Central Committee, the Viet Nam General Confederation of Labour has sent gifts to the Central Union of Cuban Workers, and several Vietnamese localities have also given presents to the Cuban people. After the talks, the two leaders witnessed the signing of seven cooperation agreements between ministries and localities of the two countries. They include a coordination plan between the CPV Central Committees Commission for External Relations and the PCC Central Committees Department for External Relations; a cooperation agreement between the CPV Central Committees Economic Commission and the PCC Central Committees economics and production department; a cooperation agreement between the Communist Review of Viet Nam and the Cuba Socialist Magazine; a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation between the State Bank of Viet Nam and the Central Bank of Cuba; an agreement to establish friendly and cooperative relations between Vinh Phuc Province and Cubas Mayabeque province; an MoU of cooperation between the People's Committee of Quang Tri Province and the Ministry of Public Health of Cuba; and a cooperation document between the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Viet Nam and the Ministry of Agriculture of Cuba. VNS HAVANA General Secretary of the Communist Party of Viet Nam Central Committee and State President To Lam met with Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz in Havana on September 26 afternoon (local time). Manuel affirmed that Lams visit is a historical event in the relationship between the two countries. He thanked the Party, State and people of Viet Nam for their close sentiments as well as valuable support and assistance to the Party, State and people of Cuba. The PM also congratulated the Party, State and people of Viet Nam on their great achievements during the countrys renewal process over the past nearly 40 years, and highly evaluated its efforts in overcoming the consequences of Typhoon Yagi. For his part, Lam emphasised that the Party, State and people of Viet Nam are deeply grateful for and always remember the wholehearted support of Cuban Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro, generations of leaders and people of Cuba for the cause of national liberation, construction and protection of the Vietnamese people. He also thanked the Party, State and people of Cuba for supporting Vietnamese people in storm recovery efforts. The top leader expressed his respect and appreciation for the achievements that the Cuban people have made on the path to socialism amid many difficulties and challenges. Lam said he firmly believed that with the great determination and efforts, the heroic Party, State and people of Cuba will continue to overcome difficulties and challenges and gain new victories. He affirmed the consistent stance of the Party, State and people of Viet Nam to unite and strongly support the just struggle of the heroic Cuba people. Lam and Manuel Marrero looked back at the cooperation between the two countries in recent times, expressing their delight that the bilateral relationship in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, and defence continues to be strengthened and grow substantial, effective, trustworthy, and sustainable. The two sides discussed in depth measures to improve the effectiveness of Viet Nam - Cuba collaboration in all fields. They underlined that the two governments need to continue optimising existing cooperation mechanisms, including the intergovernmental committee on economic, sciencetific-technological cooperation, consider establishing new mechanisms and actively implement the existing agreements while expanding collaboration between ministries, agencies, and localities in various fields, in flexible forms. Highlighting that Viet Nam is currently the second largest trading partner and the largest investor from Asia and Oceania in Cuba, Lam and Manuel Marrero agreed to promote and enhance the effectiveness of economic cooperation, emphasising that both sides need to continue to pay attention to agricultural collaboration projects, and explore new orientations for effective and sustainable cooperation. The Cuban PM affirmed that he will create favourable conditions for Vietnamese enterprises to operate and contribute to the Caribbean nations economy. Lam suggested that both sides actively make use of the bilateral trade agreement in order to raise bilateral trade turnover to US$500 million in the next five years. The two sides also consented to promote research and expand cooperation in agriculture and food processing, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical services, telecommunications, justice, tourism, construction, transportation, high technology, digital transformation, innovation and other fields. They agreed to continue to exchange and closely coordinate on international issues, supporting each other's legitimate interests. VNS HAVANA General Secretary of the Communist Party of Viet Nam Central Committee and President of Viet Nam To Lam was decorated with the Order of Jose Marti, the highest honour of the Cuban Party and State, at a ceremony chaired by First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) Central Committee and President of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez in Havana on September 26 (local time). The order was granted in recognition of Lams priceless contributions to the development of the solidarity, friendship, and faithful relations between the two Parties, States, and peoples. Miguel Diaz-Canel directly presented the order to the Vietnamese leader. In his remarks, Lam, now on a state visit to Cuba, expressed his honour to receive the noblest accolade of the Cuban Party and State, showing his sincere and profound gratitude to the Cuban Party, State, and people for their sentiment and recognition. He said the presentation of the Order to him is a vivid demonstration of the importance the Cuban Party, State, and people attach to the special friendship and solidarity between the two countries which have been nurtured by preceding leaders such as Jose Marti, Ho Chi Minh, and Fidel Castro, generations of subsequent leaders, along with people of both countries; and stood the test of time. The Vietnamese leader affirmed that he always keeps in mind and appreciates the strong support and wholehearted assistance that the Cuban Party, State, and people have given to Viet Nam during the struggle for national independence in the past and the national construction and safeguarding at present. He noted with satisfaction that over the past years, the traditional solidarity and special friendship have continued to be reinforced. The two Parties and countries have also expanded and deepened comprehensive cooperation on their paths of socialist-oriented national construction and safeguarding. Lam once again affirmed the Vietnamese Party, State, and peoples consistent stance of staying united with and supporting the heroic Cuban peoples just struggle, and demanding the US administration implement the United Nations resolutions on the immediate and unconditional end to its embargo, sanctions, as well as other hostile policies and actions against Cuba. He voiced his belief that the Cuban people, under the PCCs leadership, will definitely surmount every challenge, firmly protect their revolutionary achievements, and reap even greater victories in their revolutionary cause for the goal of building prosperous and sustainable socialism. VNS HAVANA General Secretary of the Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV) Central Committee and State President To Lam and President of the National Assembly of People's Power of Cuba Esteban Lazo Hernandez shared the view on contributions of the legislatures to relations between the two Parties, States, and people of Viet Nam and Cuba at their meeting in Havana on September 26 afternoon (local time). Esteban Lazo affirmed that Lams ongoing state visit holds great significance to the bilateral ties, contributing to strengthening the traditional solidarity, special friendship and comprehensive cooperation between Viet Nam and Cuba in the new period. Lam used this occasion to thank Esteban Lazo who led a high-ranking delegation of Cuba to attend the funeral of late Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. The top leader stressed that his visit demonstrates the special, unwavering solidarity of the Vietnamese Party, State, and people towards their Cuban counterparts, as well as the importance Viet Nam attaches to consolidating, deepening, and promoting the bilateral relationship. Esteban Lazo congratulated Viet Nam on the great socio-economic achievements it has recorded and expressed his belief that the country, under the leadership of the CPV, will reap more fruits in national development and socialism building. Lam also said he believed that the Cuban people, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and with significant contributions of the NA, will soon overcome difficulties and complete development targets, advancing Cubas role and position in the region and the world. They reviewed the relations between the two Parties, States, and people of Viet Nam and Cuba since the establishment of the bilateral diplomatic ties 64 years ago, saying they have stood side by side during the most challenging times, and worked together to consolidate the exemplary and special relationship founded by President Ho Chi Minh and Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro. Lam said Viet Nam always keeps in mind the solidarity and wholehearted support of the Cuban Party, State and people during its past struggle for national defence and reunification, as well as the present cause of renewal, construction, and defence. He also reiterated Viet Nams consistent stance of maintaining solidarity with Cuba and strongly supporting its revolution, and calling for an end to the embargo against the Caribbean nation. Esteban Lazo thanked the Vietnamese Party, State, and people for their solidarity, fraternal sentiments, and sincere support to the Cuban revolution in national defence, construction, and development. Cuba always attaches importance to and wants to deepen the traditional solidarity, special friendship and comprehensive cooperation, he emphasised. The host and guest spoke highly of the fine development of the bilateral legislative ties, and agreed on a number of major orientations to promote the cooperation in the time ahead. Accordingly, the two legislatures will continue to effectively implement their cooperation agreements; work harder to remove obstacles to the Vietnam-Cuba relationship and advance it to a new development period in a more efficient and sustainable manner; carry forward their roles in law making and supervision to accelerate the implementation of agreements between the two Parties and countries; and promote the role of NA deputies in enhancing the special relationship and mutual understanding, in expanding people-to-people exchanges and cooperation between localities, and in raising public awareness of the Viet Nam-Cuba ties. Committees and agencies of the two NAs will also step up the exchange of experiences in law making and perfecting socio-economic management policies, and boosting their cooperation at multilateral mechanisms and forums. The Vietnamese leader suggested Esteban Lazo, together with the Cuban NA, further support measures to raise the efficiency of the comprehensive cooperation between the two Parties and countries. VNS BUENOS AIREAS Officials and staff of the Vietnamese and Cuban Embassies in Argentina gathered at an exchange in Buenos Aires on September 26 to strengthen their friendship and solidarity, heading to the celebration of the 64th anniversary of the Viet Nam -Cuba diplomatic relations (December 12, 1960-2024). Addressing the event, Vietnamese Ambassador Ngo Minh Nguyet hailed the meaning of the exchange, which coincided with Vietnamese Party General Secretary and State President To Lams state visit to Cuba. The diplomat affirmed that the traditional solidarity and special friendship between Viet Nam and Cuba, initiated by President Ho Chi Minh and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, is a priceless common asset that is nurtured by the Parties, States and people of the two countries. This is an exemplary relationship, a symbol of brotherhood, comradeship and pure international communist solidarity, she emphasised. Together with the international community, Vietnam has called on the US to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and completely lift its embargo against the Caribbean country, she said, pledging that the Party, Government and people of Vietnam will always stand shoulder to shoulder with Cuban people in the revolutionary process and in the process of updating the Cuban people's socio-economic model. For his part, Cuban Ambassador Pedro Pablo Prada extended greetings to Viet Nam on the 79th National Day, noting that the exchange takes place on the occasion of the 61st founding anniversary of the Cuban Committee for Solidarity with South Vietnam, the predecessor of the Cuba Viet Nam Friendship Association. The diplomat highlighted the traditional exemplary relationship between Vietnam and Cuba, which has been forged and tested over the past decades. The two countries have always support each other in the common struggle against foreign invaders and in the current cause of building socialism, he noted. The Cuban ambassador affirmed that the two nations will continue to stand side by side to advance on the path of building socialism in accordance with the characteristics of each country. He said that a delegation of Cuban experts is ready to depart for Viet Nam to support Vietnamese people in overcoming the consequences of Typhoon Yagi. At the event, staff members of the two embassies watched a film about the solidarity between the people of Vietnam and Cuba, including the latest images of the visit to Cuba by Party General Secretary and President To Lam, as well as the evening news programme on September 26 of the Cuban television reporting on the visit of the high-ranking Vietnamese delegation. VNS Leaders and advocates engaged in ministry with children lament the lack of focus on children at the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization (Lausanne 4). While appreciating some expressions of interest in the younger generation, none of the key collaboration groups feature an intentional focus on including children in their strategizing, they say. In response, they wrote brief informational papers highlighting how children are affected by issues related to each of the 25 mission gaps Lausanne identified. Lausannes Children-at-Risk Issue Network, which was formed after the Congress in Cape Town in 2010, responded to Lausannes State of the Great Commission report expressing concern about the silo approach that ignored the impact of the various issues on children. Speaking on behalf of the group, Dr. Susan Greener, formerly Lausanne's catalyst for children-at-risk, said, By placing numerical emphasis on the Middle Class and aging populations, the Church is ignoring the commands of Jesus to care for the least of these, the same children who are Jesuss model of His Kingdom. She points out that the U.N. population report released in June 2024 indicates that though there may be fewer children in richer countries, population growth worldwide by 2050 is predicted to be in the poorest regions (sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia) with the most challenges. Why are we pitting the young against elders and the middle class? A world that is fit for children is one that is good for all people and sustainability. The Lausanne Cape Town Commitment (2010) contains a strong statement in support of children, she says, as it challenges the Church to take children seriously, reflecting theologically on Gods love and purpose for them. It also calls on the Church to train people and provide resources to meet the needs of children worldwide, wherever possible working with their families and communities. It emphasizes that this kind of holistic ministry is a vital component of world mission. Stay informed with The Christian Daily Newsletter Sign up And thirdly, it points to the need for the Church to expose, resist, and take action against all abuse of children, including violence, exploitation, slavery, tracking, prostitution, gender and ethnic discrimination, commercial targeting, and willful neglect. She recounts that Lausannes Children-at-Risk Issue Group was formed following the Congress and worked on equipping the Church to fulfill these tasks. She commends the groups efforts and commitment to Gods mission serving children, but wonders why, despite 14 years of eort, the Church-at-large and the Lausanne Movement have yet to embrace full inclusion of children in the Church and on mission? We are grateful and rejoice in how the Global Listening report demonstrates widespread interest in younger generations. The analysis states that the following terms are frequent and consistently mentioned in global input: youth, the young, younger generation, GenZ, etc, she said. While recognizing that listening to the younger generation emerged as an important theme and that involvement signaled the need for actual engagement, she lamented that the term children is used far less often and the risks, particularly that of poverty, which is the foundation of nearly all serious risk for children and their caregivers, is mentioned only once. We once again call upon the global Church, and especially participants in Lausanne 4, to lament our shortcomings and repent of the ways the Church has not fullled its responsibility to children; for the suering and exploitation of children-at-risk; for how our mission eorts have undervalued children as co-laborers with us, she concludes. Echoing her concern, Phil Green, Lausannes Catalyst for Children-at-Risk and CEO of VIVA Together for Children commented to Christian Daily International that the opening session provided a wonderful example of the importance of children in Jesuss ministry, with the reference to the critical role a child played in the feeding of the 5,000. However, we are concerned about the lack of attention given to children in general, and children at risk specifically. Especially given that the majority of Christians in the world today made their decision to follow Christ as a child. And, also, given the focus on looking forward to 2050 a child born today, will be 26 then, he said Menchit Wong reminded us during the celebration of Lausannes 50th anniversary that we must not only talk about children, but we must be listening to their voices. He emphasized that it is essential that children be part of the conversation in every single gap, especially as the conversations are being framed about imagining the world in 2050. We cant silo children they are an integral part of our churches, and the topic of every gap has implications for them. And, children should have a voice into every gap. Therefore, a team led by Lucy Hefford, VIVAs researcher of theology and practice, researched each topic, considering the current realities of children around the world, and how each of the Lausanne 4 Gaps intersects with children-at-risk. They then wrote up briefing papers for each gap that they hope will inform the discussions of each of the collaborative groups. We presented a call to action for each briefing paper, which calls those who are working on each gap to keep children at risk on the agenda as they discuss and collaborate together, Hefford says. Their hope is that children will not be seen as an add on, and optional extra, but that participants would understand Gods heart for children and recognize their centrality in mission, and how critical they are for the future of the Church and fulfilment of the Great Commission. If the Global Church wont champion and support the worlds most vulnerable children, who will? she asks, and adds: We have a clear mandate from Jesus to care for those marginalized in society to miss this at the Fourth Lausanne Congress is a grave omission from the Great Commission. The 25 briefing papers can be accessed here. HCM City Vice chairman of the HCM City Peoples Committee Duong Ngoc Hai hosted a reception on September 27 for a visiting delegation from Cubas Santiago de Cuba province led by Vice Governor Waldis Gonzalez Peinado. Hai affirmed that HCM City attaches great importance to and has active cooperation with the Cuban Government and localities, especially in the fields of education, health care, trade, and people-to-people exchange. He noted that trade between HCM City and localities in Cuba reached nearly US$8 million in the first eight months of this year. The two sides have regularly organised delegation exchanges at all levels, he added. The municipal leader said that HCM City is a regional connection centre and an international trade hub, owning Tan Son Nhat International Airport and Cat Lai Port, the largest port in the country, while Santiago de Cuba is the second largest province in Cuba, with strengths in agriculture, industry, tourism and culture. Santiago de Cuba's seaport plays an important role in international trade, serving as the gateway connecting Cuba to the world, he noted, holding that the two localities share many similarities on potential, strength and development need. In 2007, HCM City and the Administration of Santiago de Cuba signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on promoting their friendly and cooperative relations. However, to date, bilateral collaboration activities have not been carried out. Therefore, Hai proposed that the two sides resume exchanges and take steps towards the signing of a MoU to establish a new friendly and cooperative relationship, which clearly states priority areas and includes specific co-operation programmes. For his part, Waldis Gonzalez Peinado said that this HCM City trip to attend the HCM City Friendship Dialogue and Economic Forum has provided the delegation with many practical experience, and enabled them to seek potential for cooperation with HCM City. Santiago de Cuba province has an important strategic position, not only for Cuba but also for the Caribbean region. It is an industrial hub for important industries, he said, asserting that the province and HCM City have many similarities on potential and strength for cooperation. Affirming the provinces readiness to restart the signed MoU, Waldis Gonzalez Peinado suggested that the two sides quickly sign specific co-operation contents and implement them drastically, while grasping advantages from similarities and potentials to soon put co-operation into practice. He said he hopes that HCM City will send a delegation to the 2025 Caribbean Expo in Cuba, and help connect more provinces and cities in the southern region of Viet Nam with Santiago de Cuba to explore cooperation opportunities. VNS HA NOI Member of the Central Military Commission and Deputy Minister of National Defence Sen. Lieut. Gen Pham Hoai Nam hosted a reception in Ha Noi on September 27 for President of the National Defence Academy of Japan Kubo Fumiaki. Nam highlighted the major strides in defence cooperation between the two nations, noting regular visits by leaders from the two countries' defence ministries, armies and national defence forces, as well as engagements at multilateral forums. He underlined practical results in personnel training, cybersecurity, and post-war recovery efforts among armed forces, with education and training being a standout area of collaboration. Expressing gratitude to the Japanese Ministry of Defence for providing annual scholarships to the Vietnamese counterpart at the National Defence Academy, Nam said Vietnamese trainees who return home after their study in Japan have successfully applied their knowledge, effectively fulfilling their duties and becoming a bridge to foster the friendly cooperation between Viet Nam Japan. As the Vietnamese Ministry of National Defence has a growing demand for undergraduate and postgraduate training, particularly in high-tech fields such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, short-term training and research, Nam urged Kubo Fumiaki to pay attention to these areas. The Vietnamese ministry consistently supports and facilitates increased exchanges and training collaboration between the military academies and schools of both countries in the future, he affirmed. The Japanese guest briefed his host on the outcomes of his delegation's meeting with the Military Technical Academy, stressing that both sides agreed to submit a report to their superiors regarding future cooperation. This includes continuing to promote the training of Vietnamese students at the National Defence Academy of Japan. VNS HA NOI Typhoon Yagi has left many serious consequences in the northern region with flooding not just claiming lives but also destroying livelihoods and it happened in many diverse areas, regardless of whether they were in the mountains or on lower ground. Experts said that climate change was becoming more and more complex and flooding in large cities was occurring more frequently, both in the rainy and dry seasons, affecting peoples life. In spite of many flood prevention projects worth trillions of ong (VN1 trillion equals US$40.5 million) those plans were not able to save the city from being submerged when heavy rains last for a long time. The requirement for urban construction and development to adapt to climate change and prevent flooding is becoming increasingly urgent. However, it is very difficult to immediately have a solution that can fully do away with the problem. Architect Ngo Viet Nam Son believes that in addition to urbanisation not being synchronised with flood prevention solutions, many natural rivers and canals are being encroached and filled in to build houses and create urban areas, narrowing the natural drainage space, so creating areas prone to flooding. To combat floods in a sustainable way, city authorities need to be consistent in planning and licensing urban projects, especially areas along rivers, canals and ditches. Ultimately, drainage will not be effective if the river and canal systems are encroached upon or filled. HCM City is cited by Son as having filled in canals for decades to make box culverts, which have a large and strong drainage capacity, allowing for easier dredging and maintenance. But, he said, in essence nothing would ever replace the canals, which in addition to being able to hold a large amount of water, can also take away groundwater, effectively becoming a very large water reserve. Similarly, in Ha Noi, many streets turn into rivers whenever there is heavy rain, proving a major headache for management agencies. According to the municipal Department of Transport, there are currently 30 'black spots' in the capital city that predictably become inundated when heavy rains occur, such as Nguyen Khuyen Street, Hoa Bang Street, Phan Boi Chau-Ly Thuong Kiet intersection, Minh Khai Street, and Thang Long Avenue. Deputy President of the Viet Nam Urban Planning and Development Association ao Ngoc Nghiem said that the reason why the capital flooded every time it rained was because the sewer and drainage system had many limitations. Ha Noi is divided into three areas for drainage, the north Ha Noi area, the left ay River area and the right ay River area. However, the pumping stations to pump water downstream have not been built. In addition, the downstream pumping stations do not have enough capacity. Nghiem shared the experience of countries around the world in preventing and combating flooding, showing that from 3 to 5 per cent of the land surface must be used as regulating lakes. But, Ha Noi now only has about 2 per cent, equivalent to 6,000ha of lakes. Although the capital city has many canal systems, many of them have been filled in and the systems full potential has not been exploited. It can be seen that flood prevention projects in urban areas across the country are very necessary but not enough, especially with the present extreme weather changes. Solutions Solving the flooding situation requires a strategy and a sustainable vision. For HCM City, experts advise that it is necessary to re-evaluate the effectiveness of flood prevention projects implemented in the past, both to draw lessons for future projects and to control the work results. At the same time, the city should strengthen cooperation and share experiences with other cities around the world. From there, it is possible to minimise the impact of flooding and move towards a more sustainable future for the people and community. As for Ha Noi, Nghiem said that the best way was to quickly adjust drainage projects. In addition, it is necessary to regularly maintain and repair the system of canals, ditches and sewers. In particular, the capital city needs a policy to comprehensively study the river system flowing through Ha Noi. At present, Ha Noi is conducting a number of projects, such as drainage systems, regulating lakes, upgrading and building pumping stations, improving the drainage system in the western area. Along with that, a series of projects are being prepared for investment, such as the rainwater drainage system in the left basin of the Nhue River and the drainage system in Ha ong District in the right basin of the Nhue River. Three drainage projects invested by the Long Bien District People's Committee have all been approved by the Ha Noi People's Committee. Climate change and flooding do not only occur in central cities but has spread throughout all regions. To prevent natural disasters, Viet Nam has issued many related policies, strategies and programmes, aiming to respond to climate change and develop sustainable urban areas. However, adaptation to climate change in urban planning still has limitations. Director of the Department of Science, Technology and Environment under the Ministry of Construction Vu Ngoc Anh said that to be resilient to climate change, urban areas should have moderate size and have sufficient adaptive capacity. Viet Nam will be soon needing to approve the urban and rural planning system for the 2021-30 period, with a vision to 2050. At the question-and-answer session before the National Assembly in June this year regarding flooding in urban areas, Minister of Construction Nguyen Thanh Nghi also proposed a number of solutions. The first one is to improve the laws related to drainage and wastewater treatment, including developing the Law on Urban and Rural Planning, the Law on Water Supply and Drainage, and the Law on Urban Development Management. He also affirmed that it was necessary to improve the construction planning and urban planning management quality. VNS Khanh Duong NINH THUAN Hailing from the south-central province of Ninh Thuan, one of the fastest-expanding areas of renewable energy in Viet Nam, Doan Huu Hiep grew up surrounded by solar panels and windmills. He wished that one day he could stand on the top of a wind turbine or work at a local solar farm as a maintenance engineer. Hiep has decided to study mechatronics at the Ninh Thuan Vocational College for exactly this reason. Hiep said students taking renewable energy-related majors can learn theories in the class and then sharpen their skills on practical models at school and businesses. Now Hiep is studying for a second year at the college and is excited to have the chance to practise by visiting factories and businesses next year as a senior. Training while studying has been a popular choice of young people in Ninh Thuan Province as many of them believe that enrolling in a three-year college course at a vocational school is the shortest route to earning a job. Given a special mechanism by the National Assembly to develop renewable energy, Ninh Thuan Province boasts high potential for wind power, solar power and is poised to become a renewable energy hub of the country. The goal of local authorities is to produce a highly skilled renewable energy workforce by 2030. Ninh Thuan Vocational College is the only college of its kind in Ninh Thuan Province. It has provided basic and advanced training for 3,000 students, in 14 majors including electrical and mechanical engineering, wind power and solar power. The colleges principal, Nguyen Phan Anh Quoc, said preparing students for careers in the renewable energy sector does not always include teaching them only about solar or wind power. Even though they may receive training in automation and mechatronics, graduates can pursue careers in the renewable energy industry. We provide training in majors that lay the foundation for renewable energy, he said. Our long-term courses are now targeted at local students within the province. In addition, we have started offering short-term training for labourers and lecturers on renewable energy in other nearby provinces, with plans to expand this programme in the future," he said. Approximately 80 per cent of the schools graduates secure employment, while students majoring in renewable energy have an even greater employment rate, he said. "We use a cooperative training model and train the workforce as needed by businesses. Together, the school and businesses create the curricula, offer instruction and evaluate students, he said. Quoc said students will be trained so that, after graduation, they can meet skill requirements at work. Graduates can begin working immediately at the company where they now practise, saving money on recruitment, retraining and training costs, he said. Lecturer Ngo Thi Kim Hong said since 2020, Ninh Thuan Vocational College lecturers have received training from the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), that has equipped them with knowledge and abilities related to renewable energy. Also thanks to the GIZ support, the school has been equipped with practical models of wind power and solar power. Thanks to the coordination between the college and local enterprises, students can visit businesses and take apprenticeship programmes. Many graduates are currently employed as maintenance engineers and installation workers at local wind and solar power factories. Many of them have become solar power projects managers, she said. I believe there should be more opportunities for students to gain experience in factories. While practising on models in classrooms might help them learn new skills, more practice in workplaces is necessary for them to completely comprehend labour safety. They can then close the gaps between theory and practice at that point, she told Viet Nam News. Preparations for a green labour force Principal Quoc said: We cant stand alone but need cooperation with other schools and enterprises. Training quality is determined by cooperation with businesses. We also have gaps between theories and practice. How can the gaps be closed? As technologies keep evolving, just after half a year or one year, students need to be retrained and we need new technologies assisted by enterprises, he said. The school, GIZ and enterprises have compiled a survey to determine what competencies are needed for students and labourers in the renewable energy sector. We hope that it can better forecast demand for renewable energy human resources in Viet Nam, Quoc said. As Viet Nam aims to increase the localisation rate of renewable energy content, experts believe that training local human resources plays a key part in promoting domestic market localisation. Project Director of the Clean, Affordable and Secure Energy for Southeast Asia under the GIZ Energy Support Programme, Vu Chi Mai, said when renewable energy accounts for the majority of the total power diagram in Viet Nam in the future, a lot of human resources are required. "Our current reliance on foreign specialists for the design, management and upkeep of renewable energy projects has risen the cost of producing electricity and increased our dependence on the third parties. We must invest in human resources if Viet Nam is to boost the localisation rate in the renewable energy sector," she said. Human resource development takes time and requires cooperation between the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Education and Training, Ministry of Science and Technology, and training schools, with a roadmap of at least five years, she added. Mai proposed that short-term human resource training programmes be implemented to fill in the capacity gaps within factories. VNS CA MAU The Mekong Delta province of Ca Mau plans to spend about VN860 billion (US$34.4 million) from its budget for land clearance and to expand and upgrade Ca Mau Airport. The provincial director of the Department of Planning and Investment, Nguyen uc Thanh, said that the project will start this year and be completed next year. It is expected that the province will reclaim about 105 hectares of land in Ward 6 and Tan Thanh Ward in Ca Mau City to implement the airport upgrade project. The province estimates that there will be five organisations and about 742 households and individuals affected. From now to the end of the year, the department will develop a plan for compensation and resettlement support, and hand over part of the site to Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) to begin construction. The province will continue to carry out compensation and resettlement support, striving to hand over the entire remaining construction site to ACV in early 2025. To achieve that goal, the provincial People's Committee has directed relevant agencies to promptly and fully implement compensation policies and resettlement support for affected organisations and individuals. Along with that, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment will advise and propose to the committee on a land clearance plan with criteria of creating favourable conditions for affected households to have a better life. In addition, the province will also ensure adequate supply of construction materials to keep the project on schedule. In recent times, the shortage of sand and stone supply has greatly affected the investment cost and construction progress of investment and construction projects in Ca Mau Province. According to the People's Committee, this project will need about 1.8 million cubic meters of various types of sand. The current capacity of Ca Mau Airport is 200,000 passengers per year. It is expected that from now until 2030, Ca Mau will increase airport capacity to 1 million passengers per year. Currently, this airport only operates one flight route, Ca Mau - HCM City and vice versa, with a frequency of four flights per week. VNS CAN THO All departments and sectors of Can Tho City were told to swiftly implement proactive measures to cope with expected flooding and high tides anticipated at the end of September and the beginning of October. The move came after Deputy Chairman of the Peoples Committee of the city Nguyen Ngoc He signed a document to cope with flooding and high tides in the city on Friday. According to forecasts from the citys Meteorological and Hydrological Station, water levels in the Hau River and local canals are expected to rise significantly from September to November, influenced by a combination of tidal surges and upstream flooding. The highest tidal levels during this period are projected to reach approximately 20 to 30 cm above the third alert level. The high tides will likely cause extensive flooding in low-lying areas and riverside streets within the city. The committee has ordered the local meteorological station to monitor and update information on weather and hydrological conditions. Timely and accurate forecasts regarding peak tide levels and rainfall should be provided to the citys Disaster Prevention and Search and Rescue Committee, district-level authorities and media to ensure the public remains informed and prepared. The Department of Transport was tasked with reviewing all national and provincial roads vulnerable to flooding across the city. The department was required to proactively arrange personnel and equipment to manage traffic and provide assistance as necessary. In cases where water levels become dangerously high, the department must implement temporary road closures and collaborate with relevant forces to organise and regulate traffic appropriately. The citys police force was assigned to enhance staffing and resources to manage traffic flow and respond to any incidents, ensuring the safety of pedestrians and vehicles on heavily flooded routes and intersections affected by high tides. The Department of Education and Training was ordered to lead efforts in collaboration with district authorities to implement measures to prevent drowning during the flood season, particularly safeguarding children and students. Based on tidal forecasts, the department adjusted school schedules to ensure the safety of pupils and teachers in flood-prone areas. In central districts, especially Ninh Kieu, it must conduct inspections of roadways, particularly covering drain openings and surface conditions to mitigate risks posed by deep holes. A review of street lighting and traffic signals was also required to prevent electrical hazards and ensure public safety. Once the tides recede and water levels drop, local authorities were told to organise the collection of debris at drainage outlets to facilitate swift water drainage, thereby restoring normal traffic conditions. For other districts, the committee requested prompt inspections and immediate responses to any damage to embankment systems, especially in upstream districts such as Vinh Thanh and Thot Not. Local authorities must urgently implement flood prevention measures, reinforcing and elevating weak or low embankments at risk of overflow and proactively manage water pumping to protect rice fields and crops. During the recent full moon tide in September, the highest recorded water level at the Can Tho station on the Hau River was 2.08m, exceeding the third alert level by 8cm. From 2004 to 2024, Can Tho experienced the highest water level at the station at 2.27 metres occurring on October 12, 2022. VNS HA NOI The Ministry of Transport (MoT) recently sent an official document to the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the HCM City Peoples Committee outlining options for implementing the HCM City Ring Road 4 Project. MoT agreed to study the various options in order to choose the best approach and promptly propose solutions to accelerate the projects progress. Specifically, regarding implementation plans, the ministry said that one major proposal is to merge the five component projects across five localities into one comprehensive project for submission to the investment approval process. This differs from a previously approved plan outlined in the Prime Ministers Directive No. 1263/TTg-CN, dated 29th September 2021. The transport ministry recommended that the Ministry of Planning and Investment coordinate with the HCM City Peoples Committee and relevant localities to clarify the advantages and feasibility of this approach before reporting to the Prime Minister for a final decision. As for merging the projects into a comprehensive plan, MoT recognised that assigning the HCM City Peoples Committee the responsibility of finalising the pre-feasibility study report is a similar approach to that taken in implementing the Ring Road 4 Project for Ha Noi and Ring Road 3 for HCM City. MoT also agreed that the project's investment application should be expedited, with a goal of submitting the investment approval to the National Assembly during its session in October this year. The ministry urged HMC City, along with the provinces of Ba Ria - Vung Tau, ong Nai, Binh Duong and Long An to mobilise their resources to meet this timeline. The transport ministry has asked the Ministry of Planning and Investment to coordinate with HCM City and relevant localities to review and reconstruct the projects implementation plan. This should take into account the actual progress of recent similar projects and the procedures for project evaluation under the Law on Public Investment to ensure a feasible and practical timeline for reporting to the Prime Minister. As for the allocation of central government funds, the MoT emphasised that this project requires substantial investment, with a preliminary total investment of more than VN128 trillion (US$5.27 billion), making the combination of central and local government budgets crucial, especially considering the financial challenges of certain localities. The Ministry of Planning and Investment should report to the Prime Minister to ensure a balanced allocation of central government funds for the project, according to MoT. The funds should be proportionate to the financial resources available and be reported to the National Assembly in October. The HCM Ring Road 4 Project has a total length of 207km, of which the section passing through Long An Province is over 78km. The sections in Binh Duong Province is 47.5km, ong Nai Province is 45.6km, Ba Ria - Vung Tau Province is 18.1km and HCM is 17.3km. The preliminary total investment is more than VN128 trillion ($5.2 billion), of which construction costs stand at nearly VN77 trillion ($3.1 billion) and land clearance at over VN51 trillion ($2 billion). The project is proposed under the public-private partnership (PPP) model, specifically a build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract. The project is set to be completed before 2030. VNS HA NOI uc Giang General Hospital has successfully performed its first three kidney transplants, mastering techniques trained and transferred from the experts of the Military Medical Hospital 103. The hospital has become the second medical facility under the Hanoi Department of Health (after Saint Paul General Hospital) to be named on the organ transplant map of Viet Nam. The first case was N.T.B.H, 26, living in Tuyen Quang Province who was diagnosed with end-stage chronic kidney failure in early 2022 and required dialysis three times a week. The patient was donated a kidney by his biological mother. The special thing about this transplant pair is that the mother is older and her body is smaller than her child's, so the risk of graft kidney function is difficult to achieve as expected. However, with careful preparation of human resources and medical equipment, the transplant was carried out successfully on September 8, 2024. After transplantation, the health of both the donor and recipient was completely stable. The second case was L.B.C, 19, living in Thanh Hoa Province. In April 2024, he was hospitalised after showing signs of fatigue, dizziness, lightheadedness and frequent rashes. Examination and diagnosis results showed that he had end-stage kidney failure and required dialysis three times a week. Luckily, through screening tests of family members, his biological mother's kidney was suitable for transplantation to the patient. On September 11, the hospitals medical team performed surgery to remove a kidney from the mother and transplant it to her son. After more than six hours of surgery, the transplant was successful beyond expectations. After the transplant, the health of patient C and his mother both improved. The third case was P.T.H, a 24-year-old man living in Nam inh Province. He was diagnosed with glomerulonephritis in 11th grade. To maintain his health, H always took medicine regularly following the doctor's prescription. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, H did not go to the doctor regularly for a long time, leading to end-stage kidney failure. In August 2024, H's mother registered for her son to receive an organ transplant when she learned that uc Giang General Hospital would carry out an organ transplant programme. After testing with highly compatible results between mother and child, the transplant was conducted successfully on September 13. Currently, the health of both mother and H is progressing well. Dr Nguyen Van Thuong, Director of the uc Giang General Hospital said that after the success of the first three transplants, the hospital will introduce kidney transplant techniques into routine implementation. It is expected that next week, the hospital will carry out two more kidney transplants. So, in just one month, the hospital will be able to transplant five cases and will eventually transplant kidneys from brain-dead donors," said Dr Thuong. Dr Nguyen Van Tuyen, Head of the Department of Nephrology - Urology, uc Giang General Hospital said that to maintain life, kidney failure patients must go to the hospital for dialysis once every other day. Currently, the department has nearly 180 patients with end-stage chronic kidney failure on dialysis. Dr Tuyen said: Every day there are 80 patients undergoing dialysis divided into three shifts. This makes patients and their families tired, has to travel a lot, and is expensive. "Mastering kidney transplant techniques at uc Giang General Hospital will contribute to improving the quality of life for kidney failure patients. VNS PARIS Mayor Pierre Garzon bestowed the title of "Honorary Citizen of Villejuif," the city's highest honour, upon Tran To Nga, an 82-year-old French-Vietnamese who has fought tirelessly for justice for millions of Vietnamese Agent Orange (AO)/dioxin victims. Speaking to a Vietnam News Agency reporter, Garzon said Nga grew up during the war in Viet Nam and has continually fought for peace. An AO victim herself, Nga has led a historic struggle to make US chemical corporations accountable for the ecological devastation they caused, bringing their actions to light despite countless obstacles. Nga's efforts have inspired people worldwide, amplifying the voices of those often forgotten in the aftermath of war, he said, adding that recognising her contributions is not just for her, but for the broader struggle for peace and justice, Villejuif shares these profound values with her. Vietnamese Ambassador inh Toan Thang affirmed that the honorary citizenship awarded to Nga symbolises the strong solidarity and friendship between Viet Nam and France. This gesture also reflects the compassion and commitment of Villejuif to those who fight for a better and more equitable future. He underscored the devastating impact of AO/dioxin, with 3 million ha of forests destroyed and 4.8 million people directly affected, suffering from severe illnesses such as congenital disabilities, cancer and neurological disorder. "Thanks to those like Nga, this tragedy is not forgotten", he said. Although the Paris Court of Appeal upheld the ruling of the Crown Court of Evry City, rejecting Nga's lawsuit, he stressed that the reality of the suffering and the urgency of justice remain unchanged. According to him, the Vietnamese Government, in collaboration with organisations like the Viet Nam Association of Victims of AO/dioxin, continues to provide financial and medical support for the victims. Decontamination efforts in the most polluted areas, such as Bien Hoa and a Nang airports, are ongoing with assistance from the US. He expressed a hope that this distinction will send a powerful message to the world: The fight for justice continues, and together we can make a difference. VNS The first disciples were mainly workers in various trades and the workplace still offers a holy ground to be a priestly presence to witness for Jesus, delegates heard at the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Incheon, Korea. These were the views of Julia Garschagen, a Bible expositor at Lausanne 4 and director of Pontes Institute for Science, Culture and Faith, also a guest lecturer at the Evangelistenschule Johanneum in Wuppertal and co-leader of truestory, a digital youth outreach event in Germany. How did the gospel spread so quickly and so widely in a time without the internet? asked Garschagen, before saying it was due to an often overlooked, very diverse missionary force, which is the people in the workplace who gossip the gospel. Garschagen pointed out that the gospel initially spread quickly, as recorded in the book of Acts, through working people such as the Ethiopian eunich, a politician occupied as a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure (Acts 8:27), or a saleswoman called Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth (Acts 16:14), or Aquila and his wife Priscilla, who were craftspeople the apostle Paul was a tentmaker as they were. (Acts 18:3). The gospel traveled in the suitcases of politicians like the Ethiopian eunich. It was passed on with the goods of sales women like Lydia, said Garschagen, who believed that the importance of workplace missionaries today often goes unnoticed. Stay informed with The Christian Daily Newsletter Sign up However, in her opinion, the first Christians accepted a synergy between work and gospel witnessing to the extent that Paul didnt even bother to write a chapter on evangelism and the workplace. For Garschagen, the witness of people in the workplace is mentioned all over the place. Its woven into the DNA of the mission of the early church. The significance of this fact is a valuable prototype for evangelistic strategy today because 99 percent of church members spend their lives in the workplace, she said. When the first believers gathered in Jerusalem for Pentecost, Garschagen again noted they were people from different career backgrounds: fishermen, tax collectors, political activists and food industry workers. They become the new temple of the living God, Garschagen said, referring to 1 Corinthians 3:16. She used the phrase heaven and earth people to describe this spiritual identity underpinning working Christians. Garschagen then examined how Paul and Silas were imprisoned in Acts 16 with the jailer doing his normal job looking after the two prisoners. Yet these two men carried the presence of God, as part of the temple of the living God, embodiments of heaven and earth. As a consequence, the jailer becomes a believer and carries on his work but his workplace becomes holy ground. What we can learn here in Philippi is that we carry the presence of God wherever we go, said Garschagen. And if the workplace of the jailer, a prison, can become a holy ground because of the presence of two Christ followers, surely your workplace can become a holy place too. The division between the secular and sacred was removed, said Garschagen, reiterating the point: Here in Philippi, we see that just like this prison of the jailer, your office, your workshop, your company can become holy ground. You carry the presence of God to a meeting on a Monday. You bring the power of God to your business on a Tuesday, you embody Christ while you cut people's hair, while you teach, while you cook, while you do your scientific research, wherever you travel on a business trip or as a work migrant, you take the presence of God with you, just like Paul and Silas did. This brings a different dimension to the workplace and a new dignity, according to Garschagen. She referenced a friend, working as a business consultant, who saw that her colleagues were not believers with no one praying or pastoring them. This acquaintance understood her workplace as a mission field with responsibility to witness for the gospel through prayer and caring for co-workers. Every workplace is different and there may not be scenarios to openly sing worship songs, or talk openly about the Christian faith, but Garschagen said opportunities abound to seek direction from the Lord for the organization itself, as well as pastorally caring for colleagues as a priestly presence. Ask the Lord for wisdom, for creativity, for courage and for sensitivity, and ask him to help you lead life so that people will ask questions because they see your integrity. Garschagen gave a personal illustration of a Zambian hairdresser in London she knew, who would pray over peoples heads as she cut their hair and got to know them personally. I have seen quite a few people leaving her saloon transformed, not just because they had a new haircut, but because they had also gotten a taste of the love of Christ through her priestly presence. Garschagen acknowledged before the delegates that being a priestly presence in workplaces brings various challenges. Integrity requires a level of courage. She referred to a story about another friend involved in a hedge fund who refused to agree to funding the weapons industry, despite the large amount of money offered. His business partners saw him as a traitor for refusing the business opportunity. Being a priestly presence at work is thus a tough calling. It can come at the cost of your salary, of your reputation, maybe even of your whole career, said Garschagen. And it can feel silly and naive like [Paul and Silas] singing hymns in a prison cell, but it's got transforming power in your workplace. Garschagen believed that Paul did more than just earn money when he joined Aquila and his wife Priscilla tentmaking, or possibly leather making in Corinth, as recorded in Acts 18. She hypothesized that Paul got to know personally but professionally the Jews and Greeks noted as being present in the Synagogue when he preached each Sabbath. Garschagen questioned why there were Greeks in the Jewish Temple and pondered the thought that Paul became familiar with them as customers through his secular work. Maybe they were his customers and his business partners, conjectured Garschagen. Knowing Paul, he would gossip the gospel wherever he was and while selling his goods. She offered imaginative perspectives on this possibility, such as Paul inviting customers to an evangelistic business lunch to talk about integrity in the business world or an evening dinner to discuss the meaning of life beyond careers. Garschagen said Paul showed flexibility in his working life as a whole: one moment working a trade and using it as an opportunity and the next moment dedicating the majority of his time to preaching the gospel, once Silas and Timothy joined him. Paul was flexible as long as Christ was being displayed and declared. And I think that is a guiding principle for the mission of the early church throughout the whole book of Acts. We see there is no division between the sacred and the secular. And that means there's also no distinction in calling between lay people, full-time workers, part-time workers, whatever you may be. There are no second class citizens in the kingdom of God. Garschagen speculated that the early Christians did not divide working life from other missional activities: Maybe they would have said something like, well, if we are the temple of God, then we are all full time for the Lord anyway in our work and in our life, wherever that work may be and wherever this life and the Holy Spirit may lead us. The pressing point made by Garschagen, called the incarnational principle, is that Paul learned from Christ to become like others, in order to win them for the Lord, echoing 1 Corinthians 9:22b: I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. A leather worker to the leather workers, a lawyer to the lawyer, a cook to the cook, a teacher to the teachers, said Garschagen. Programs are not going to win people's hearts. People will. For the Church today, an exciting actuality is that Christians are already working in these different spheres: as pilots, politicians, pharmacists and other occupations. The key question is whether the church realizes this as a calling. Garschagen told delegates that this is a word to church workers with the labels of pastors, theologians, evangelists and preachers. We need to be humble. The church is not church. We are not the amazing guys who run the show. The church exists to train and love and equip and send out the 99% of Christians who faithfully serve their Lord and master every day in their offices, their classrooms and their shops. Garschagen further suggested that churches reorient the emphasis on gospel witness to learn from professionals, whom she called workplace priests. She suggested giving them space to be interviewed about their work, and hold regular prayer meetings for them. Again, she offered a personal illustration of a friend who had many praying for him as a church pastor but no one praying for him when he changed direction and became a businessman. The new scenario was more challenging and he met more non-Christians but sadly no one prayed for him anymore. How about we get people of the same occupation together in one space to think and pray about what it means to be a Christian salesman or Christian nurse or Christian biologist? And how about the pastors just sit there and listen? Garschagen encouraged churches to consider developing a liturgy to commission people in their workplaces as priests and reassuring them of their value even if they dont volunteer in traditional church activities because they carry out God's mission in another part of the kingdom. At the end of her talk, Garschagen invited delegates involved as work priests to stand and receive prayer. Praying over them, she said: Lord Jesus, we are so thankful that we as a church have got so many different members, different cultures, different career paths, different callings, but we all united in the calling to follow you and to serve you. And today we especially want to commit our brothers and sisters to your hands who faithfully work every day in the secular world. We honor them Lord, just like you honor them, we pray. Would you anoint them? Would you bless them? Would you give them courage? Would you give them stamina? Would you give them opportunities, Lord? And would you give them love and patience? And would you radiate through them Lord, so that indeed other people would ask questions? At a healthcare conference hosted by VIR on September 25 in Hanoi, experts pointed out that the market holds many unique characteristics, with a 10 per cent growth rate and an increasing GDP, positioning Vietnam as a key market of interest for foreign healthcare and pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Nguyen Viet Nhung, vice chairman of the Vietnam Medical Association Vietnam has two highly promising areas for international cooperation, which are diagnostic technology and new treatment drugs, including chemical drugs, cellular products, gene therapies, and biological products, said Dr. Nguyen Viet Nhung, vice chairman of the Vietnam Medical Association. Dr. Nhung noted that Vietnam has huge advantages in its healthcare data system, but the data has not been fully exploited. Vietnam may not have advanced technology yet, but it has a large market, with 93 per cent of the population covered by health insurance. We can partner with foreign entities to develop this further, said Nhung. Vietnam should create healthcare collaboration programmes to attract investors, producing significant outcomes not only for Vietnam but also for humanity, because to 'go far must go together. For foreign pharmaceutical companies that need to conduct clinical trials, Vietnam is fully capable, with the necessary infrastructure and human resources, as we have patients, an essential group for clinical trials, especially for the latest innovations, added Nhung. Luke Treloar, head of infrastructure, government, and healthcare at KPMG Vietnam Luke Treloar, head of infrastructure, government, and healthcare at KPMG Vietnam, emphasised that to attract investment and realise Vietnam's potential as a regional healthcare innovation hub, a priority heatmap highlighting resource attraction is necessary. Vietnam has the opportunity to learn from other markets and apply our domestic technologies to address issues like fraud in production. In terms of manufacturing, Vietnam is starting to develop certain local products. The next step is technology transfer to jointly develop both global and local technologies, followed by entering the research and development stage, conducting clinical trials, and generating intellectual property, said Treloar. The ultimate goal of a market is to reach the final stage where you generate by-products and intellectual property that deliver higher returns than the initial investment. Vietnam needs to study global cases to shorten this cycle and take multiple steps simultaneously, he added. However, Vietnam's journey to attract investment in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sector still faces challenges due to restrictive policies. Bui Thi Viet Lam, Vietnam's country representative for USABC Bui Thi Viet Lam, Vietnam's country representative for USABC, said, The lengthy process for pharmaceutical companies to invest and access the market significantly reduces the market's appeal. In reality, it takes nearly four years for a new drug to enter the Vietnamese market after its global debut, and an additional 2-3 years to be included in the list of drugs covered by health insurance. On average, it takes 5-7 years for Vietnamese patients to access new medicines, making it difficult to attract corporate investment. Therefore, I expect amendments to the 2016 Law on Pharmacy will address these bottlenecks. The USABC representative also pointed out two key trends that foreign companies are focusing on, which could serve as catalysts for opening pharmaceutical manufacturing plants in Vietnam. First, policy planning. A consistent and predictable domestic policy environment is of utmost importance to foreign healthcare and pharmaceutical companies, as planning in this industry is medium- to long-term. Commitments to creating a transparent investment environment need to be clearly outlined in circulars, decrees, and policies. Second, the simplification of administrative procedures. Bolder steps could be considered, since ambitious goals require greater courage and different approaches. Vietnam might consider adopting a reference or recognition mechanism for licensing and renewing drugs to facilitate the quicker acceptance and circulation of pharmaceutical innovations. The characteristic of the healthcare and pharmaceutical market is that no one waits for anyone, and the environment evolves rapidly. Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia are hurriedly introducing incentive policies to attract investment in healthcare and pharmaceuticals. Thus, we need to carefully assess whether what Vietnam is doing is attractive enough to draw in investors, said Lam. Innovation and biotechnology lead Vietnam's healthcare development Unlocking the power of health innovation and biotechnology will help Vietnam keep pace with global trends in healthcare research and development, providing a golden opportunity for healthcare and pharmaceutical startups to rise and thrive. VIR conference highlights innovation in Vietnam's healthcare sector A conference organized by Vietnam Investment Review (VIR) themed "Empowering Innovation for Vietnam's Sustainable Healthcare" was held on September 25, offering an opportunity for retained and companies to discuss innovation in Vietnam's healthcare sector. Businesses from across Vietnam have mobilised to ensure affected areas can get the right support In the week following the typhoon, the private sector mobilised considerable donations to assist affected communities. Vingroup and its partners announced a VND250 billion ($10.4 million) donation to support those impacted by the typhoon and floods. The amount was raised from the group, its subsidiaries, and voluntary contributions from over 130,000 Vingroup employees. According to Vingroup, the funds will be allocated for emergency relief activities, including the rebuilding of around 2,000 collapsed houses, financial support ranging from $6,200-12,500 for families who lost loved ones, and the reconstruction of damaged infrastructure. Masan Group has also been significantly impacted, with its subsidiaries suffering losses from the typhoon. Nearly 700 establishments in the WinMart+ supermarket chain across the north were damaged, with merchandise spoilage due to flooding, power outages, and damaged equipment. In the agricultural sector, Masan faced near-total losses at its WinEco farms in Tam Dao area in Hanoi, and in Ha Nam, Quang Ninh, and Haiphong, but the Meatlife plant in Ha Nam and a poultry farm in Bac Giang were isolated by the storm. Despite these challenges, Masan quickly resumed operations and rolled out support policies for affected areas, providing 16,000 gift packages worth an estimated $292,000. Masan High-Tech Materials, a subsidiary of Masan Group, also mobilised volunteer teams to visit and assist communities in flooded areas in Thai Nguyen province. The company provided 1,000 gift packages, consisting of essential consumer goods, to residents in Dai Tu district and continues to raise funds to support storm-affected communities. Meanwhile, to expedite the delivery of relief goods from the central and southern regions to the north, four airlines Vietnam Airlines, Bamboo, Vietjet, and Vietravel along with Vietnam Railways Corporation and several road transport companies agreed to transport relief supplies free of charge. Vietjet CEO Dinh Viet Phuong said, All of us at Vietjet extend our heartfelt encouragement to those affected by the typhoon and floods. We believe that, with solidarity and community support, people will overcome these difficulties and stabilise their lives. Vietjet also pledged to contribute a portion of each ticket sold until September 30 to recovery efforts, with the initiative expected to raise over $208,000. As of September 16, the Central Relief Mobilisation Committee received $51.5 million in donations, including contributions from the business community. The committee has allocated $27.08 million to support localities in the second round of funding, bringing the total disbursed to $43.1 million. Elsewhere, Singaporean businesses operating in Vietnam have come together under a community cares initiative to provide essential support to the communities affected by Typhoon Yagi. In a demonstration of solidarity and compassion with the Vietnamese people, the companies pledged over $79 million in coordination with the Singapore Embassy to Vietnam. Keppel Ltd. is among the Singapore companies contributing to the cause, alongside CapitaLand Development, Mapletree, Sembcorp Industries, United Overseas Bank, YCH Group, and others. Jaya Ratnam, Ambassador of Singapore to Vietnam, said, I am very proud to see Singapore businesses come together to lend support to Vietnam at a difficult time. Typhoon Yagi has had a devastating impact on so many lives across northern Vietnam. Singapore stands in solidarity with our friends in Vietnam. SABECO steps up to serve society in times of strife Saigon Beer-Alcohol-Beverage Corporation has come to the aid of people struggling after Typhoon Yagi through a series of initiatives. Power ensured after Typhoon Yagi damagse The damage caused by Typhoon Yagi to supply chains and power supply has been revealed, with Vietnam Electricity having pledged to ensure recovery following Asias most powerful storm this year. This partnership will enable VNPT to implement cases used by global telecom operators, while integrating local applications and devices to enhance service quality and user experience. Ericsson and VNPT will also work together in defining new cases based on new network components from VNPT, on top of existing API/network functions and connect to global platforms for collaborative opportunities with the aim to open up 5G networks to applications developers. This will make it easy for developers to consume API services, fostering innovation and expanding market opportunities. Rita Mokbel, head of Ericsson Vietnam said, The emergence of programmable networks and the exposure of network capabilities to application developers presents an exciting opportunity for growth for VNPT. VNPT will have an opportunity to transform the network into a platform for innovation by making advanced 5G network capabilities available to the global developer community through open network application programming interfaces (APIs). According to VNPT, network APIs are the way to easily access, use, and pay for network capabilities. The collaboration with Ericsson to build network APIs will enable the developer community in Vietnam to access VNPTs network through open API and develop new, innovative use cases for 5G. Ericsson and VNPT have been long-term partners across generations of mobility. As part of the transition to the cutting-edge 5G era, Ericsson successfully conducted a 5G trial with VNPT in 2020, showcasing its commitment to advancing connectivity in Vietnam. We look forward to working with VNPT to deliver the full benefits of 5G to customers in Vietnam, as well as develop the innovation ecosystem in the country, Mokbel added. Leveraging the power of artificial intelligence in telecoms A lot is being said about AI and how it is impacting human life, as it is being leveraged in telecoms and radically transforming how mobile networks are being managed and deployed. Revolutionising healthcare through 5G The rise of 5G represents a new era in mobile technology, with the potential to accelerate the digital transformation of industries through a range of innovative services, technologies, and ecosystems. Among the sectors poised for significant change is healthcare, where integrating cutting-edge technology with medical expertise opens up unprecedented possibilities. The proposal was submitted by Fukang Technology, a subsidiary of Foxconn, for the installation of emissions treatment systems at its expanded MacBook and iPad production line in the province, as part of a $500 million investment. Foxconn, Apples primary manufacturing partner, has been steadily increasing its investments in Vietnam. According to the report, several assembly lines have already been completed, but the emissions treatment systems still need to be installed. These additions are a requirement from Apple to meet environmental protection standards and must be approved by local authorities. The project was granted a production licence for tablets, laptops, and motherboards in February. The Fukang Technology factory, situated in Quang Chau Industrial Park (IP) in Bac Giang, represents an investment of over VND12.5 trillion (approximately $500 million). The facility is expected to produce over 16 million tablets and laptops annually. Most of the raw materials for these products are imported from China, the United States, Japan, and South Korea, with Vietnam supplying smaller components such as screws and front-facing lenses. Foxconns presence in Vietnam dates back to 2007, when it launched its first factory in Que Vo IP in Bac Ninh province. Since then, the company has expanded its footprint, with factories in Que Vo, Dai Dong, Hoan Son, and several VSIPs in Bac Giang and Quang Ninh. Foxconn now operates across five provinces in Vietnam, employing 80,000 workers and with a total investment of approximately $4 billion. In a report to the Government Office, the Ministry of Construction (MoC) has recommended taxing those who own or use multiple properties to curb speculation and short-term trading for profit. Speaking at a press conference, Chi said the MoF supports the proposal. "This is a very compelling suggestion. The Ministry acknowledges the importance of this and will study the policy," said Chi. However, Chi stressed that any policy must be comprehensive. "A tax policy alone cannot achieve the full picture," he said, adding that other policies related to land use and planning must also be coordinated to ensure transparency in the real estate sector. The MoC had earlier called on the financial sector to collaborate on drafting tax policies for second homes or unused properties, as property and housing prices have skyrocketed since the start of the year. In some suburban land auctions, winning bids have soared to as high as hundreds of millions of VND per square metre, significantly above starting prices, distorting the healthy development of the market. Besides land, the condominium market has also experienced steep price increases. Data from the Vietnam Association of Realtors (VARS) shows that in the second quarter, apartment prices in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have surged 58 per cent and 27 per cent respectively since 2019. More than 80 per cent of this years new supply is priced above VND50 million ($2,000) per sq.m. In suburban areas, prices range from VND40-80 million ($1,600-$3,200) per sq.m, while in central areas, prices exceed VND100 million ($4,000) per sq.m. This is not the first time a tax on second properties has been proposed to cool the housing market. VARS recently recommended a real estate tax targeting buyers of second homes and owners of idle projects, with increasing rates for transactions where properties are held for short periods. Last year, voters in Ho Chi Minh City called for taxes on second homes and higher levies on vacant land or properties that arent generating value. At the time, the MoF said it was working on a draft of the Real Estate Tax Law, which would include such measures. Authorities plan to introduce the law in the 2024 legislative agenda, but for now, the proposals remain under consideration. Green capital flowing into industrial real estate in Vietnam With billions of US dollars poised to invest in green industrial real estate projects, Vietnam has a significant opportunity to stand out and attract these green capital flows. At a press briefing on September 27, Dang Ngoc Minh, deputy director general of the General Department of Taxation (GDT) announced that the revised draft of the Law on Tax Administration includes a proposal requiring e-commerce platforms to declare and pay taxes on behalf of sellers. This measure aims to strengthen the effectiveness of tax management in the growing digital economy. Minh pointed out that the current Law on Tax Administration already mandates collaboration between various agencies, such as the State Bank of Vietnam, to assist tax authorities in collecting taxes. For instance, e-commerce platforms are currently required to provide seller information to the tax authorities. He also noted that this proposal aligns with international practices. "Foreign suppliers, even without a physical presence in Vietnam, already declare and pay taxes on behalf of sellers. As of now, 108 foreign suppliers, including Google and Facebook, are complying with this requirement," Minh stated. He further highlighted that extending the same obligations to domestic platforms is essential for ensuring fairness. "If foreign suppliers can manage this process, there is no reason why local e-commerce platforms cannot do the same." Executives from domestic e-commerce platforms have expressed confidence in their ability to comply with the proposed regulations. They confirmed that they are ready to declare and pay taxes on behalf of individual sellers, provided the policy is enacted. Deputy Minister of Finance Nguyen Duc Chi also commented during the press conference, acknowledging the rapid expansion of e-commerce recently. He stated, "With the explosive growth of e-commerce, it is only natural that we update our tax management methods." However, Chi emphasised that any new policies, "must be thoroughly evaluated." The Ministry of Finance will continue to gather feedback from businesses to fine-tune the proposed adjustments. The Ministry of Industry and Trade reported that Vietnams e-commerce retail market has grown consistently at 20-25 per cent annually over the past five years. Around a decade ago, the market was valued at approximately $2.2 billion. By 2023, this figure had skyrocketed to $20.5 billion, accounting for 8 per cent of the nations total retail sales of goods and consumer services. The GDT also noted that tax revenue from e-commerce has risen steadily, with contributions from both domestic businesses and international platforms such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon. In the first seven months of this year, e-commerce tax revenue has already exceeded VND78 trillion ($3.12 billion). Tobacco and aircon units lead excise tax discussions While there is some agreement with the Ministry of Finances excise tax hike on tobacco to protect public health, there is debate about whether a tax on air conditioning products needs to be restricted. Typhoon Yagi caused widespread damage to many northern locations. In addition to the tragic loss of life, millions of families have suffered damage to their homes and property, agricultural devastation, and significant infrastructure destruction. Several localities of Cao Bang, Lang Son, Lao Cai, Quang Ninh, and Haiphong were among the hardest hit, facing severe flash floods and landslides, making recovery efforts and helping residents rebuild their lives after the disaster a top priority for the public and private sectors. Trinh Thi Van Giang, director of Corporate Affairs, Communications and Sustainability at Pernod Ricard Vietnam, and Timo Fell, the company's finance director, expressed their concern and desire to assist people in the Northern region in rebuilding their lives and recovering from the disaster. Trinh Thi Van Giang and Timo Fell, presenting the donation to the Vietnam Fatherland Front on behalf of Pernod Ricard "Supporting the northern localities in these challenging times is an integral part of our commitment. With responsibility and compassion, we hope that this support will help people overcome immediate difficulties and assist them in restoring their lives," said Giang. The cash donation will be distributed to the most affected localities in Cao Bang, Lang Son, Lao Cai, Quang Ninh, and Haiphong, with the relief efforts carried out by the Vietnam Fatherland Front and the Red Cross. Representatives of Vietnam Fatherland Front and Pernod Ricard Vietnam discuss relief efforts Pernod Ricard Vietnam also announced that it will continue to play an active role in community support initiatives such as disaster relief, environmental protection, and raising awareness of social responsibility through various long-term projects aimed at promoting the countrys sustainable development. Pernod Ricard is a global wine and spirits producer and distributor operating in over 160 countries and territories, and came to Vietnam more than 12 years ago. Since then, the company has become renowned for its brands such as Chivas Regal, Royal Salute, Martell, and Absolut Vodka, among others, and for its commitment to community and social contributions. Government resolution to support recovery after Typhoon Yagi The government issued Resolution No. 143/NQ-CP on September 17, outlining key tasks and solutions to urgently overcome the aftermath of Typhoon Yagi, which includes support policies for the tourism sector. Dutch Lady supports flood victims after Typhoon Yagi The Dutch Lady milk brand under FrieslandCampina Vietnam has extended its assistance to those affected by Typhoon Yagi in the northern provinces of Ha Nam and Yen Bai. This is the company's sixth animal feed factory in Vietnam. Covering 3.8 hectares in Nhut Chanh Industrial Park, the plant is designed with a capacity of 300,000 tonnes per year, bringing Aboitiz Foods' total annual feed production in Vietnam to 1.1 million tonnes. The Gold Coin Feedmill Long An will produce a range of feed products for livestock and poultry. The plant applies cutting-edge technologies in production and has invested in a modern laboratory to control of the quality of raw materials and finished products quickly and accurately, while promoting the research and development of new products. Tristan Aboitiz, president and CEO of Aboitiz Foods, said, "The inauguration of the Gold Coin Feedmill Long An marks a milestone underscoring our commitment to nurturing growth in Asia, especially the Vietnamese market. Vietnam plays an important role in our development. We have set up our base in Vietnam with the largest number of employees the company has globally, and Vietnam will remain a key market for our business." Ha Van Minh, general director of Gold Coin Vietnam, said, "As part of the development strategy for the past 10 years, the company has secured a footprint from north to south through the construction of six factories. Among them, the factory in Binh Duong will reach maximum capacity in 2025. The Gold Coin Feedmill Long An will add production capacity as well as act as a gateway to the Mekong Delta region. The company also plans to build a new factory in the central region." Aboitiz Foods is a member of the Aboitiz Group, with 100 years of development and major investments in power, banking and financial services, food, infrastructure, and real estate. Masan denies mobilising investment in animal feed segment Local food giant Masan denied news about its $1 billion capital mobilisation in animal feed published on Bloomberg recently. Animal feed groups travel demand-driven M&A route Animal feed producers are stepping up their mergers and acquisitions in Vietnam as they are pinning their hope on the resilience of the market. Ramla Khalidi, resident representative United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Vietnam I would like to congratulate Vietnam Investment Review on its 33rd anniversary. VIR has consistently played a crucial role in fostering constructive dialogue on Vietnams socioeconomic development and its pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Your coverage of government initiatives, business development, and industry trends ensures that essential information reaches a diverse array of stakeholders, enabling informed decision-making. As a trusted information source, VIR has been instrumental in highlighting key themes such as green growth, climate resilience, and the transition to a low-carbon economy. Your reporting on renewable energy, the circular economy, and sustainable business practices has helped shape public discourse and accelerated action towards environmental protection and climate change mitigation in Vietnam. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is proud to collaborate with VIR in supporting the Government of Vietnams green and sustainable development goals. Our joint efforts on programmes and roundtables, particularly those focused on reducing plastic waste and fostering a just energy transition, have contributed to advancing the national dialogue on these critical issues. We look forward to continuing our partnership in the coming years as we work together to promote sustainable and inclusive growth in Vietnam. The UNDP wishes VIR continued success and prosperity in the future. Lon Taranaki, country director Vietnam Blackstone Minerals VIR is not just a trusted source of information for socioeconomic and investment activities, but is also an ideal channel for us to promote our activities. For example, as an Australian investor in Vietnam since 2019, the company is now progressing the Ta Khoa project with a vision as a future focused business that produces battery precursor products for the globally growing lithium-ion battery industry. The project involves mining nickel sulfide deposits for the upstream part and processing the mined ore to produce a concentrate suitable for the downstream part, the refinery. This vertically integrated mining and refining business model is being developed with environmental, social, and governance performance integrated into our overarching green nickel strategy. VIRs events held annually, such as investment forums and sustainable development publications, have continuously proven itself to be a reliable source of information for many industrial sectors and also bring updated trends of international business over the world to Vietnam. Congratulations to VIR for its valuable achievements. We look forward to its continued growth and contributions as a credible source of news for readers, investors, and entrepreneurs. Nguyen Thi Tuong Vi, communications manager FrieslandCampina Vietnam VIR has been a great vehicle of dissemination of government policies, as well as the latest developments in the Vietnamese economy. Being one of the first newspapers targeting readership in the business/economic community, VIR has provided readers with truthful, insightful, and up-to-date information. It has become an indispensable part of the media landscape in Vietnam, and a faithful companion to many international organisations and businesses, including FrieslandCampina Vietnam, as well as foreign other enterprises and investors doing business in the country. Over many years, I have often read VIR to seek information and update my knowledge, especially information on how the Vietnamese government is managing the economy and improving policies. The newspapers image has also been increasingly promoted, with many articles cited by consultancy firms and organisations in their reports. Sami Kteily, executive chairman Pebsteel For 30 years, VIR and Pebsteel have accompanied each other throughout our development. The newspaper was the first bridge for us to convey information to the public and our customers. VIR has also been an important pillar in the business and investment community in Vietnam for more than three decades. We believe in the useful information that VIR brings to the business community, and its development over the years proves its relentless commitment to providing valuable information and analysis. I wish VIR and everyone here good luck and health in the coming journey, above all achieving even greater success in developing the platform and supporting the business community. Le Hong Linh, vice president Vietnam Independent Directors Association I have had the privilege of witnessing first-hand the critical role VIR plays in advancing discussions on corporate governance and the growing importance of independent directors in Vietnams evolving corporate landscape. Independent directors are increasingly recognised as key to promoting transparency, accountability, and long-term sustainability in Vietnams boardrooms. As foreign investment continues to flow into the country, the demand for stronger corporate governance practices is more urgent than ever. Independent directors, with their objectivity and oversight, are vital in ensuring companies adhere to best practices, protect shareholder rights, and meet international standards. VIR has been a leading voice in covering these developments, and I encourage your team to dive even deeper into these topics. More coverage on the challenges and opportunities independent directors face in Vietnam, the evolving regulatory framework, and global governance trends will greatly benefit the corporate and investment communities. VIR is uniquely positioned to lead these important discussions, helping to elevate corporate governance standards and support Vietnams ambition to become a more transparent, competitive, and investment-friendly market. Your dedication to providing insightful and timely content is a true asset to Vietnams business community. I look forward to seeing more of your in-depth analysis on corporate governance and independent directors, which will undoubtedly continue to drive progress in Vietnams corporate sector. Manoj Mishra, general manager TBC-Ball Beverage Can Vietnam For over three decades, VIR has been an indispensable resource in Vietnams business and economic landscape, offering valuable insights and reliable information to companies like ours. Your commitment to high-quality, balanced reporting, and in-depth analysis has been critical to fostering a transparent and informed business environment. Through your dedicated coverage, youve empowered companies and investors to make well-informed decisions that contribute to the growth and development of Vietnams economy. We have always appreciated our partnership with VIR, and we greatly value the professionalism, integrity, and passion your team brings to every piece of work. Your dedication to highlighting the business landscape, emerging opportunities, and investment trends has been instrumental to the success of businesses across the country. We wish VIR continued success and growth. We look forward to many more years of collaboration and to seeing VIRs ongoing contributions to Vietnams vibrant business community. Tran Manh Hung, managing lawyer, BMVN In a rapidly evolving world driven by multimedia channels and the prevalence of fake news, mainstream media continues to play a crucial role in reflecting facts and investment trends. This is vital for both local and international investors making decisions about expanding their businesses. VIR is one of the trusted mainstream outlets where my colleagues and I work diligently to highlight pressing legal issues affecting both local and international investors. These issues are regularly published and communicated to the relevant authorities and regulators, including legal drafting teams, proving to be an effective form of legal advocacy during these challenging times. My personal experience working with VIR reporters has been exceptional, thanks to their transparent feedback and detailed input on my publications over the years. VIR is now transforming itself strongly with new products such as special assorted publications, organisation of many events including talk shows, conferences, and seminars, with an aim to become a multimedia group. This will help VIR grow from strength to strength, with new ways of transporting information to the audience. I truly believe that with its legacy and impactful voice in conveying the most up-to-date news to investors, VIR will continue to be a trusted channel for many years to come. Kent Wong, partner and head of Banking & Capital Markets VCI Legal I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to VIR on this significant milestone. As a frequent contributor and a lawyer specialising in foreign investment and financial markets, it has been an honour to collaborate with a publication that consistently upholds high standards of journalism in Vietnam. For the international business community, VIR serves as an essential resource, delivering expert analysis and comprehensive updates that allow investors to make informed decisions. The depth and precision of your reporting help readers stay ahead of trends and understand the strategic opportunities in Vietnam. In tandem, Bao Dau tu has become the most credible source of business news in the Vietnamese language, further reinforcing your impact on both local and international audiences. Together, the publications play a vital role in fostering confidence and transparency in the investment environment. Kenneth Atkinson, founder and senior advisor Grant Thornton Vietnam I remember collecting my first copy of VIR outside the Billabong Bar, the Australian Embassy watering hole, on a Friday, in 1991. I think it may have been the first edition. The early editions primarily focused on introducing Vietnams economic policies to a wider audience. If I recall correctly, content was heavily centred on attracting foreign direct investment and explaining the new market-oriented economic landscape. VIR is still as relevant today for both foreign and domestic investors as it was in 1991. It has evolved and now covers a broader range of topics, including detailed analyses of various sectors like technology, real estate, and finance. It also includes in-depth reports on global economic trends, policy changes, and their implications for Vietnam. This reflects Vietnams significant economic achievements, and its greater involvement in regional and world affairs. VIR has also extended its reach through having digital versions online, not just print, though the older generation like myself do like the old print version. In terms of the future, there are a number of areas that VIR could focus on to consider staying relevant, particularly to business and foreign investment. These include an enhanced digital presence to include webinars and podcasts, and providing more in-depth data analytics and market reports to offer insights for investors and businesses. You could also highlight corporate social responsibility activities of businesses and their impact on the community and environment; consider partnerships with industry leaders, academic institutions, and think tanks to enhance the quality and depth of content; consider organising more workshops and seminars on topics such as investment strategies, economic policies, and market trends; and allow more engagement with government on important issues. Vlad Savin, partner, Acclime Vietnam In an era where digital media consumption is rapidly increasing, VIR should continue to enhance its online presence. This includes optimising its website for mobile devices, leveraging social media platforms to engage with a broader audience, and utilising data analytics to understand reader preferences and tailor content accordingly. In addition, to cater to the preferences of its audience, it can expand its content formats. This could include podcasts, video interviews, infographics, and interactive articles. The publication should continue collaborating with industry experts and thought leaders to enhance the credibility and depth of VIRs content. At the same time, adapting to regional and global trends should be a focus, and staying abreast of regional and global media trends is crucial. It should continuously monitor and adapt to changes in the media landscape, such as the rise of AI in journalism, the growing importance of sustainability reporting, and the increasing demand for localised content. Partnering with research institutions and think tanks, VIR can publish collaborative research papers and reports on key economic and development issues. This can enhance the publications credibility and provide readers with in-depth, research-based content. VIRs affiliation with the Ministry of Planning and Investment also provides it with unique advantages that can be leveraged to further enhance its position. As a bridge between the government and the business community, it can facilitate dialogues and discussions on key issues. Organising forums, roundtable discussions, and webinars that bring together policymakers, business leaders, and experts can position VIR as a central platform. It can focus on how government policies and plans are impacting various sectors and regions within Vietnam. By highlighting success stories, challenges, and real-world applications of government initiatives, VIR can provide valuable context and relevance to its readers. VIR could also look at developing educational content that explains government processes, planning mechanisms, and investing tactics. Binh Le Vandekerckove, founder & CEO ASART Deal Advisory As a long-time participant and speaker at the Vietnam M&A Forum over the years, I have witnessed firsthand the evolution and growing sophistication of merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions in Vietnam. Despite the market in the country still being in its nascent stage, many transactions have already become notable and complex. M&A activities require a wide range of expertise and disciplines, making it challenging to consolidate and disseminate comprehensive information. In addition, the confidential nature of these transactions adds another layer of complexity. VIRs initiative to organise the annual M&A Forum since 2009 has provided a crucial and leading platform for industry professionals to gather, share insights, and discuss the latest trends and developments. We are proud to contribute practical and useful content to both the forum and various publications by VIR. To make this years forum even more successful, I would like to see it cover the latest trends in the M&A market, including emerging sectors, regulatory changes, importance of sustainability, and economic impacts. It also should consider using live polls and Q&A platforms for audience questions and comments during sessions to gauge audience opinions and foster connection. Having speakers from regional or global markets to share international best practices and insights would also be useful. To continue leading the way in business journalism and providing unparalleled value to its readers, VIR can consider embracing digital platforms to make information more accessible and engaging, incorporating interactive content with podcasts and live Q&A sessions/interviews with industry experts, and offering exclusive content and in-depth reports that are not available elsewhere. We congratulate the entire team on the occasion of VIRs 33rd anniversary and I look forward to continuing my participation and contribution to the development of VIR and the M&A Forum for many more years to come. Alexander Ziehe, chairman German Business Association VIR is today the go-to source for newcomers as well as established business leaders in the fast moving, dynamic environment of Vietnam. I am personally proud as chairman of the German Business Association here to see many German companies contributing with their knowledge and achievements to VIR, ranging from established companies like BASF, B Braun Bosch, and Siemens to many newcomers like Karcher, Tesa, Viessmann and Ziehl-Abegg. Their stories and contribution to the future of Vietnam inspire us and set important examples for potential investors to understand how to succeed. We thank VIR for our long-standing partnership and believe together we shall keep creating high-quality content with stories to attract interest and drive others in their ideas for Vietnam. By taking the excellent foundation into the next generation of tailored social media formats and linking them across different digital platforms, we believe VIR will increase its impact further in the upcoming years. Dao Thu Trang, business development director Evonik Vietnam As a regular reader, I highly value the direction the newspaper has taken over the years. It has played a crucial role in amplifying the voice of the German and European business community to the Vietnamese government and lawmakers, particularly in terms of policy recommendations. The information I have gathered has been beneficial for my work. I see VIR diversifying its operations by organising events with international participation and utilising live broadcasting through platforms like Facebook and online news outlets. This has proven to be a reliable information channel for businesses, policymakers, and experts. I hope it continues to serve as an effective multimedia platform, bridging communication between the business community and state agencies. Ben Ding Khoon Yew, director Soilbuild International (Vietnam) Soilbuild International acknowledges the crucial role that VIR plays in shaping the business landscape and providing valuable insights and analysis to the business community. We are able to leverage on VIRs platform to reach out to our intended stakeholders and expand our business network. As one of your readers and partners as well, we have some recommendations to help VIR continue to thrive and expand its influence. Digital transformation should be prioritised to stay ahead at this media era. This includes enhancing your online presence through more convenient channels like YouTube and mobile apps, optimising for search engines and leveraging social media platforms to engage with a broader audience. Hosting webinars, virtual roundtables, and live Q&A sessions with industry leaders can foster direct interaction with readers. Adopting AI to customise content searching may also make for a better user experience. VIR can attract and retain readers by diversifying content and presentation. This could involve multimedia elements such as podcasts, video interviews, and interactive infographics. Collaborating with global and local industry experts for weekly guest articles topic provides fresh perspectives and enhances credibility. Building a strong community around VIR is essential for long-term success, not only domestically but also internationally, engaging with business communities on the issues and interests in crafting contents and events. VIR, under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, can also act as a platform in reflecting businesses burning issues to the ministry. Minh Truong, deputy general director KCN Vietnam For more than three decades, Vietnam Investment Review has steadily solidified its reputation as a trusted and leading authority mouthpiece in investment and economic development. Its sharp analyses, timely updates, and in-depth features have played a vital role in shaping the direction of the business community, investors, and key stakeholders. As a professional industrial property developer, KCN Vietnam deeply appreciates VIRs contributions in building a crucial bridge of information between businesses, investors, the government, and audiences both at home and abroad. This role has been instrumental in fostering a transparent, equal, and business-friendly investment environment one that is safe and conducive to sustainable growth. It has also significantly enhanced the effectiveness of state management over business and investment activities. From our perspective at KCN Vietnam, we believe VIR still has vast potential for further growth. There is a valuable opportunity for the newspaper to lead the way in Vietnam by hosting forums and seminars that bring together experts, businesses, and policymakers to tackle key challenges such as planning, infrastructure, incentive policies, and particularly strategies for greening and sustainable development. These initiatives will help uncover solutions to obstacles and accelerate the growth of industrial property and the broader Vietnamese economy. Most importantly, we look forward to VIRs continued evolution, working in close partnership with businesses and contributing to Vietnams economic progress for years to come. We extend our best wishes to the newspaper, to all the dedicated editors and journalists may your passion and creativity continue to drive forward Vietnams vibrant media landscape. Trang Bui, country head, Cushman & Wakefield Vietnam From the perspective of a real estate expert, as well as a reader, who has worked with VIR for nearly 20 years, I recognise the vital role the newspaper has played in providing accurate and timely news about business activities in Vietnam. VIR has been a trusted companion for the real estate community, not only reflecting the market's fluctuation but also giving deep analysis that helps investors and businesses see a more comprehensive and strategic view. My expectation for VIR is to continue to upgrade the quality of its content, especially in-depth articles about market trends, legal policies, and prominent projects. The publication also needs to swiftly update new policies, laws, and stories about the market to ensure readers can adapt. In addition, organising events, specialised symposiums, and domestic online discussions should provide opportunities for experts, businesses, investors, and the government to meet, and share knowledge and experience. VIR should also focus on developing content on social media to expand its reach and attract global investors. At the same time, VIR has to strengthen its position as a strong voice for businesses, reflecting opportunities and also difficulties, challenges, and their recommendations to ministries. This will help create a favourable business environment and foster the sustainable development of Vietnam's real estate market. Paul Fisher, country head, JLL Vietnam In Vietnam's rapidly evolving business landscape, the collaboration between JLL and VIR has been of significant value, raising awareness and fostering dialogue around important industry issues. VIR's events have served as platforms for innovation, networking, and knowledge sharing. These gatherings, particularly the Vietnam Industrial Property Forum, where JLL is proud to be an ongoing sponsor, have provided opportunities for sector leaders to share their latest thinking and perspectives as part of thought-provoking discussions. Vietnam is increasingly coming into focus for regional and global players. As this trend continues, VIR is likely to see its potential audience broaden, providing an opportunity to develop into an international gateway for Vietnam's economic narrative, whilst maintaining its position as a national leader in business journalism. Alex Crane, managing director of Knight Frank Vietnam As VIR celebrates its 33rd anniversary, it is important to recognise the significant role it plays as a partner to businesses in the real estate and property leasing sector. The publication has long been recognised as a vital resource for international businesses operating here, international businesspersons working here, and foreign investors with an eye on the market. VIRs analysis and insights help navigate the complexities of the Vietnamese market, and its coverage of economic trends and regulatory changes has long proven invaluable for us all. In an ever-evolving market, VIR addresses critical challenges such as regulatory hurdles and market volatility, bridging information gaps for foreign businesses. Looking to the future, there is an opportunity for VIR to further enhance its impact by hosting more interactive events, such as roundtable discussions or perhaps podcasts, focused on sectors like real estate, the development of the regulatory framework across a variety of sectors, and the sustainable development of the nation. Additionally, expanding content to include case studies of successful ventures of international businesspersons working in Vietnam could provide valuable insights and inspire confidence among potential investors. The dedication of VIR to fostering a more informed investment landscape in Vietnam is commendable, and Knight Frank looks forward to our continued collaboration with the publication in the years to come. Angus Liew, chairman of Gamuda Land Vietnam Warm congratulations to Dau Tu/VIR on its 33rd anniversary! Having lived and worked in Vietnam for over 15 years, I can confidently say that Dau Tu has been my most reliable and valued source of information throughout this time. The newspaper has consistently delivered timely, accurate, and insightful reports on the Vietnamese market, which have been particularly valuable in understanding new government policies and strategic recommendations for businesses. Its ability to offer clarity and guidance through complex regulatory changes has proven invaluable, especially for those of us working in industries where policy decisions can have a profound impact. Over the years, I have had the privilege of witnessing Dau Tu's significant evolution and growth. The newspaper has continually adapted to the shifting media landscape, introducing innovative platforms and products that cater to the diverse needs of the business community. From its insightful talk shows to its thought-provoking conferences, Dau Tu has successfully established itself as not just a news source, but also a forum where business leaders and policymakers can come together to exchange ideas, debate strategies, and explore opportunities. The level of engagement that these events foster within the business community is testament to the paper's forward-thinking approach and commitment to adding value beyond traditional reporting. One of the areas where Dau Tu has particularly excelled is in its comprehensive coverage of sustainable development and green initiatives. The newspaper has consistently highlighted the importance of low-carbon projects and environmental stewardship, providing in-depth analysis on these critical topics. This resonates deeply with the mission of Gamuda Land, where we strive to integrate urban development with the goal of minimising environmental impacts. Dau Tus dedication to these pressing global issues has helped raise awareness and drive action in both the public and private sectors, contributing significantly to Vietnams progress in sustainable development. As Dau Tu celebrates this 33-year milestone, I would like to extend my sincere congratulations to the entire editorial team, including its leadership, reporters, editors, and support staff. Your hard work, dedication, and vision have made Dau Tu a beacon of trust and a guiding force in connecting government authorities, investors, the international business community, and global organisations. I look forward to seeing the continued success and influence of the newspaper in the years to come. Gamuda Land has been proud to serve as a key partner of the M&A Forum. The logistics and preparation behind the event have always been impressive. The organising team ensured that every aspect, from setup to the smooth progression of sessions, was meticulously planned and executed. The venue selection consistently fostered productive discussions, while the technical arrangements, such as audiovisual systems and time management, were handled with a high level of professionalism. Additionally, the registration process and participant coordination were highly efficient, allowing attendees to focus on meaningful networking and fully engage with the event's content. Looking ahead, VIR could further enhance the M&A Forum by incorporating more technology-driven features. Introducing an event app for real-time updates, virtual networking, and interactive audience participation during panel discussions would elevate engagement. Furthermore, organising sector-specific sessions or thematic breakout rooms could create more tailored networking opportunities, ensuring that participants extract even greater value from the event. Edwin Tan, deputy CEO, Frasers Property Vietnam On behalf of Frasers Property Vietnam, we extend our warmest congratulations to Vietnam Investment Review (VIR) on your anniversary. As a long-standing developer in Vietnam, operating across diverse assets from industrial and logistics to commercial and residential, we've found VIR to be an invaluable partner. Leveraging VIR's extensive network, we have successfully extended the reach of our high-quality developments to a broader audience, enhancing our access to key markets. VIR's creative content, insightful perspectives, and timely updates have become a trusted partner of the business community, especially for foreign direct investment enterprises like ours. VIR is not only an information channel, but also a crucial bridge connecting businesses and facilitating cooperation. Thank you, VIR, for your continuous support and companionship. As a long-time partner of VIR's merger and acquisition (M&A) events, we greatly appreciate the value these events bring. To contribute to the even greater success of future events, we would like to propose a few ideas. Firstly, expanding the scale of the event and organising a major event in a large northern city would create an attractive platform for businesses and investors. Additionally, collaborating with professional event organisers would enhance the quality and efficiency of the event. Furthermore, increasing hands-on experiences such as site visits, in-depth discussions, and business networking activities would generate more opportunities for collaboration and learning. Lastly, inviting more industry leaders and startups would diversify the participant base and create a vibrant M&A ecosystem. We believe these suggestions will help make M&A events even more successful and provide greater value to the business community. The contribution from UNIQLO Vietnam will be handed over to the Hope Foundation to implement aid and help those affected by the floods quickly return to normal life. The relief efforts focus on education, including the renovation of damaged classrooms, as well as rebuilding dams and retaining walls to ensure the safety of schools. Additionally, the support includes providing textbooks, school supplies, and clothing that were swept away or soiled by the floods. Nishida Hideki, general director of UNIQLO Vietnam, said, "Typhoon Yagi has caused significant damage. UNIQLO aims to provide support in collaboration with the Hope Foundation, helping residents overcome difficulties and enabling students to return to a safe, clean learning environment where they can focus on their studies. This is also a crucial part of UNIQLOs long-term commitment to contributing to the people and society of Vietnam." Nguyen Xuan Tu, executive director of the Hope Foundation, said "This timely intervention from UNIQLO Vietnam will help the community recover from the aftermath of the floods, particularly students and teachers. In addition to cash, the clothing items donated through the RE.UNIQLO programmes are essential, not only in the post-flood period but also in the upcoming winter." The RE.UNIQLO initiative has donated more almost 40,000 clothing items to disadvantaged people in provinces such as Dien Bien, Son La, Ha Giang, Yen Bai, and Thanh Hoa. During the pandemic, UNIQLO, in partnership with the Hope Foundation, donated 4,000 AIRism shirts and 1,000 masks to Frontline Healthcare Workers such as doctors and healthcare personnel. Additionally, at the beginning of 2024, UNIQLO contributed VND1 billion ($40,600) to the Hope Foundation to build a new school in Trong Trai Village, Ho Bon commune, Mu Cang Chai district, Yen Bai province, enhancing educational infrastructure and quality for students and teachers. UNIQLO Vietnam never stop evolving to serve Vietnamese people After more than three years of presence in Vietnam, UNIQLO has quickly become one of the most beloved fashion brands in the country thanks to its contributions to the community and honouring of Vietnamese culture and rhythm of life base on the LifeWear philosophy. UNIQLOs strong commitment to bring core values to customers The Japanese global fashion retailer UNIQLO opened its 18th retail store in the southern province of Binh Duong on June 28. VIRs Bich Ngoc had a discussion with Hideki Nishida, newly appointed general director of UNIQLO Vietnam, about the corporations business strategy in Vietnam. A state civil servants angry halt to her Christian neighbors home worship on Sunday (Sept. 22) near Jakarta, Indonesia led to an uproar that resulted in her apologizing, according to local media. The head of the Tourism Marketing Unit at the Bekasi Municipal Tourism Office, identified as Masriwati, stopped the worship service at the Christians house at Perumahan Nasional 2, Jalan Siput Raya No. 102, South Bekasi, Bekasi, about 17 miles outside of Jakarta. You have no permit [to hold worship], she shouted at worshippers, according to a video of the incident that appeared on X and other social media. The video shows a man at times restraining her from going nearer to the Christians. When a church member told her they had a right to worship, Masriwati, clad in a yellow hijab, responded, Yes, but it is not the place to worship. A place of worship must have a permit. A place of residence does not have a permit to hold worship, the video shows. A neighbor is seen saying that that praying (worshipping) does not require permission and called Masriwatis actions a form of intolerance. Several residents are seen in the video trying to calm the situation and restrain Masriwati. Stay informed with The Christian Daily Newsletter Sign up After objections to the religious freedom violation grew on social and mainstream media, Masriwatis supervisor helped mediate the dispute, resulting in Masriwati apologizing at a press conference in the presence of the parties and the caretaker mayor of Bekasi, Raden Gani Muhamad, Bekasikinian.com reported. On behalf of myself and my family, on this occasion I would like to apologize for my actions and statements, Masriwati said. To the Bekasi city government, the people of Bekasi and especially the people in my neighborhood, to the pastor and her congregation, for my unpleasant actions and statements to be forgiven. The churchs female pastor, who goes by the single name Maria, accepted her apology, and the agreement called for the church to worship at another location. As a pastor, I also accept Mrs. Sris [shortened form of Masriwati] apology, we forgive you, Pastor Maria said. On this occasion, I would like to thank the mayor, the commander of the military district, the chief of police for apologizing, and all parties I cant mention one by one. I am grateful that this could happen, and once again we forgive you. The mayor stated that the problem between the two parties had been resolved, and that each side forgave the other. The parties agreed that the congregation would worship at another location a church building at Perumnas 2, Kayuringin Jaya, South Bekasi as facilitated by the Bekasi city government and the Interreligious Harmony Forum (Forum Kerjasama Umat Beragama, or FKUB) and the South Bekasi Sub-District, according to kilat.com. Among those who had objected to Masriwatis interference on social media was Herry Tjahjono, who posted on Facebook that the case was just one of many in Indonesia. And we know that the incident in Bekasi was just the tip of the iceberg of various intolerance actions representing many broken home families in various [parts] of this country, Herry said. It is the face of our country. It is unpleasant to see it. Also voicing objections were religious freedom activists, government officials and writers. Account X @nimas31 wrote on X, The worship was carried out and did not disturb her or other residents at all. The Christian congregation prayed solemnly in one of the congregations houses without even using a loudspeaker. Account X @nimas31, wrote, according to VIVA. Com., There is a mother who is angry with people praying in their homes?! Using no noisy loudspeaker, and blocking no roads for the worship, where is the justification for prohibiting rights and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution? This woman is a civil servant, at least she should be aware of regulations, if shes intolerant, fire her. Indonesias Joint Ministerial Decree of 2006 requires a permit only for worship venues used on a permanent basis, excluding family places of worship, rights activists say. According to The Joint Decree of the Two Ministers, Chapter 1, Article 3, what needs a permit is the construction of a church, rights activist Permadi Arya, known as Abu Janda, wrote in 2023. Holding worship at home, shop-houses and cafes needs no permission. Such homes, cafes and shop-houses can be equated with Muslim traditional prayer-rooms (musholla), and since Muslims need no permission for those, Christians should receive equal treatment, he said. Islamic extremists have been largely responsible for using lack of building permits as a pretext for closing or attacking churches since the passage of Indonesias Joint Ministerial Decree of 2006, which made requirements for obtaining such permits nearly impossible for most new churches. Even when small, new churches were able to meet the requirement of obtaining 90 signatures of approval from congregation members and 60 from area households of different religions, they have often met with delays or lack of response from officials. Muslims account for 83.3 percent of Indonesias population, while 11.43 percent identify as Christian, with the evangelical population estimated at 3.23 percent, according to the Joshua Project. Indonesia ranked 42nd on Christian support organization Open Doors 2024 World Watch List of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. Indonesian society has adopted a more conservative Islamic character, and churches involved in evangelistic outreach are at risk of being targeted by Islamic extremist groups, according to the WWL report. The collaboration aims to pave the way for Vietnam to host world-class music stars, while simultaneously elevating the country's tourism and cultural image to a global audience. These strategic partnerships were formalised during the Vietnam Tourism - Cinema Promotion Programme, an initiative spearheaded by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism in Hollywood, California. Under the terms of the agreements, Vingroup will collaborate with Warner Music Group and Indochina Productions to amplify awareness of its key products, while also showcasing Vietnamese culture to a global audience through film, music festivals, and music videos. The collaboration aims to position Vietnam as a premier destination for international filmmakers and music video producers. Vingroup has pledged its support to Warner Music Group and Indochina Productions, offering the use of its Vinpearl resorts and VinWonders amusement parks as filming locations. Furthermore, Vingroup will provide VinFast electric vehicles to enhance the production capabilities of these partners in their music and film endeavours. A key outcome of this partnership is the potential for world-renowned music stars managed by Warner Music Group to grace the stage at events such as the 8Wonder International Music Festival and other Vinpearl-organised music gatherings. Lisa Nguyen, managing director of Warner Music Vietnam, shared, "Vietnam's breathtaking natural beauty makes it a potentially ideal location for film productions and concerts. Some of our artists, such as Charlie Puth, have performed here. By partnering with Vingroup, Warner Music Group hopes to have more opportunities to expand our operations in Vietnam." Nicholas Simon, general director of Indochina Productions, said, "Indochina Productions has a proven track record of operating to the highest international standards throughout the region. With the support of government agencies and industry stakeholders, we've played a pivotal role in establishing Thailand and the Philippines as Hollywood film hubs. These factors brought the 'Kong: Skull Island' film crew to Vietnam. With Vingroup's backing, we're confident that Vietnam will become a sought-after location for numerous international blockbusters in the future." Ngo Thi Huong, a representative of Vingroup, shared, "We are honoured to partner with Warner Music and Indochina Productions in promoting Vietnam's rich culture, vibrant tourism, and groundbreaking innovations. This collaboration offers us a unique platform to showcase Vingroup's brand and products to a global audience, while also bringing world-class artists, actors, and film crews closer to Vietnamese audiences. By fostering these connections, we aim to elevate Vietnam's cultural identity and showcase its beauty to the world." The strategic partnership between Vingroup, Warner Music, and Indochina Productions underscores the global influence and reach of Vietnam's premier multi-industry corporation. This collaboration also demonstrates Vingroup's vision and commitment to showcasing Vietnam's rich cultural heritage, stunning landscapes, iconic landmarks, and economic prosperity to the world. By highlighting these unique attributes, the collaboration aims to position Vietnam as a leading tourist destination in Asia. Vingroup establishes new company to trade in used EVs Vingroup has launched a new company with a vision to develop the used electric vehicle market and offer VinFast owners peace of mind regarding resale value Vinpearl bags $150 million from international bonds in Singapore Vinpearl JSC, the hospitality arm of Vingroup, raised $150 million from bonds in Singapore on August 20, according to the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX). PERRY, Fla. (AP) Hurricane Helene left an enormous path of destruction across Florida and the southeastern U.S. on Friday, killing at least 44 people, snapping towering oaks like twigs and tearing apart homes as rescue crews launched desperate missions to save people from floodwaters. Among those killed were three firefighters, a woman and her 1-month-old twins, and an 89-year-old woman whose house was struck by a falling tree. According to an Associated Press tally, the deaths occurred in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. The Category 4 hurricane knocked out power to some hospitals in southern Georgia, and Gov. Brian Kemp said authorities had to use chainsaws to clear debris and open up roads. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph) when it made landfall late Thursday in a sparsely populated region in Floridas rural Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where the state's panhandle and peninsula meet. Moodys Analytics said it expects $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage. The wreckage extended hundreds of miles northward to northeast Tennessee, where a dangerous rescue situation by helicopter unfolded after 54 people were moved to the roof of the Unicoi County Hospital as water rapidly flooded the facility. Everyone was rescued and no one was left at the hospital as of late Friday afternoon, Ballad Health said. In North Carolina, a lake featured in the movie Dirty Dancing overtopped a dam and surrounding neighborhoods were evacuated, although there were no immediate concerns it would fail. People also were evacuated from Newport, Tennessee, a city of about 7,000 people, amid concerns about a dam near there, although officials later said the structure had not failed. Tornadoes hit some areas, including one in Nash County, North Carolina, that critically injured four people. Atlanta received a record 11.12 inches (28.24 centimeters) of rain in 48 hours, the most the city has seen in a two-day period since record keeping began in 1878, Georgia's Office of the State Climatologist said on the social platform X. The previous mark of 9.59 inches (24.36 cm) was set in 1886. Some neighborhoods were so badly flooded that only car roofs could be seen poking above the water. Climate change has exacerbated conditions that allow such storms to thrive, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and turning into powerful cyclones sometimes in a matter of hours. When Laurie Lilliott pulled onto her street in Dekle Beach, Florida, after Helene plowed through, she couldnt see the roofline of her home beyond the palm trees. It had collapsed, torn apart by the pounding storm surge, one corner still precariously propped up by a piling. It took me a long time to breathe, Lilliott said. As she surveyed the damage, her name and phone number were still inked on her arm in permanent marker, an admonition by Taylor County officials to help identify recovered bodies in the storm's aftermath. The community has taken direct hits from three hurricanes since August 2023. All five who died in one Florida county were in neighborhoods where residents were told to evacuate, said Bob Gualtieri, the sheriff in Pinellas County in the St. Petersburg area. Some who stayed ended up having to hide in their attics to escape the rising water. He said the death toll could rise as crews go door-to-door in flooded areas. More deaths were reported in Georgia and the Carolinas, including two South Carolina firefighters and a Georgia firefighter who died when trees struck their trucks. Video on social media showed sheets of rain and siding coming off buildings in Perry, Florida, near where the storm hit land. A news station showed a home that was overturned, and many communities established curfews. Also in Perry, the hurricane peeled off the new roof of a church that was replaced after Hurricane Idalia last year. When the water hit knee-level in Kera ONeils home in Hudson, Florida, she knew it was time to escape. Theres a moment where you are thinking, If this water rises above the level of the stove, we are not going to have not much room to breathe, she said, recalling how she and her sister waded through chest-deep water with one cat in a plastic carrier and another in a cardboard box. President Joe Biden said he was praying for survivors, and the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency headed to the area. The agency deployed more than 1,500 workers, and they helped with 400 rescues by late morning. In Tampa, some areas could be reached only by boat. Officials urged people who were trapped to call for rescuers and not tread floodwaters, warning they can be dangerous due to live wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris. More than 3 million homes and businesses were without power in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas as of late Friday, according to poweroutage.us. The site also showed outages as far north as Ohio and Indiana due to Helene's rapid northward movement throughout the day. In Georgia, an electrical utility group warned of catastrophic damage to utility infrastructure, with more than 100 high voltage transmission lines damaged. And officials in South Carolina, where more than 40% of customers were without power, said crews had to cut their way through debris just to determine what was still standing in some places. The hurricane came ashore near the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) northwest of where Idalia hit last year at nearly the same ferocity. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the damage from Helene appears to be greater than the combined effects of Idalia and Hurricane Debby in August. Its tough, and we understand that. We also understand that this is a resilient state, DeSantis said at a news conference in storm-damaged St. Pete Beach. Soon after it crossed over land, Helene weakened to a tropical storm and later a post-tropical cyclone. Forecasters said it continued to produce catastrophic flooding, and some areas received more than a foot of rain. A mudslide in the Appalachian Mountains washed out part of an interstate highway at the North Carolina-Tennessee state line. Another slide hit homes in North Carolina and occupants had to wait more than four hours to be rescued, said Ryan Cole, the emergency services assistant director in Buncombe County. His 911 center received more than 3,300 calls in eight hours Friday. This is something that were going to be dealing with for many days and weeks to come, Cole said. Forecasters warned of flooding in North Carolina that could be worse than anything seen in the past century. Evacuations were underway and around 300 roads were closed statewide. The Connecticut Army National Guard sent a helicopter to help. School districts and universities canceled classes. Florida airports that closed due to the storm reopened Friday. Inspectors were examining bridges and causeways along the Gulf Coast, the states transportation secretary said. Helene also swamped parts of Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula, flooding streets and toppling trees as it brushed past the resort city of Cancun this week. It also knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses in western Cuba. Helene was the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures. Payne reported from Tallahassee, Florida, and Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri. Associated Press journalists Seth Borenstein in New York; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Russ Bynum in Valdosta, Georgia; Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Andrea Rodriguez in Havana; Mark Stevenson and Maria Verza in Mexico City; and Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, contributed. The following people were indicted Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024 by a McLennan County grand jury. The District Attorneys Office no longer furnishes the age or city of residence of the people on this list. Charles Earl Ervin murder (habitual), aggravated assault (habitual) (2 counts) Cecil Lee Ballentine theft of less than $2,500 with two or more priors Selena Beatrize Barrientos unauthorized use of a vehicle Selena Beatrize Barrientos unauthorized use of a vehicle, theft of $750 or more but less than $2,500 Michael James Batot retaliation, criminal mischief Adrian Bautista possession of a controlled substance: methamphetamine, evading arrest or detention James Earl Brown evading arrest or detention with a prior (enhanced), cruelty to non-livestock animals (3 counts) Alicia Butcher possession of a controlled substance: methamphetamine Manuel Antonio Carranza unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon Emmitt James Crane tampering with physical evidence (enhanced), possession of a controlled substance: cocaine count ii Lademeon Dashawn Davis engaging in organized criminal activity Tracy Vaughn Davis theft of less than $2,500 with two or more priors (enhanced) Raymond Dale Finch theft of less than $2,500 with two or more priors (enhanced) Dontrell Alan Foster evading arrest or detention with a vehicle Foster Anthony Foytlin driving while intoxicated - felony Michael Allen George assault family violence with a prior Greg Lance Girtman Jr. aggravated assault, tampering with physical evidence Martin Goins possession of a controlled substance: methamphetamine Shawn Henry Adrian Gomez trafficking of persons Ulises Ismael Gonzalez evading arrest or detention with a vehicle Yohan Gonzalez unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon Christopher James Gray aggravated assault Breanna Lorrain Griggs possession of a controlled substance: methamphetamine Nathaniel Guerra hindering secured creditors of $30,000 or more but less than $150,000 Jamie Christian Hampton possession of a controlled substance: codeine Brandy Gail Maddison possession of a controlled substance: codeine Steven Lee Hancock failure to comply with sex offender registration Vincent Clyde Hendrix Jr. assault against a public servant, assault (2 counts) Dontrell Lamar Hubert possession of a controlled substance: methamphetamine (habitual) Devin Antwane White tampering with physical evidence (enhanced), possession of a controlled substance: methamphetamine, possession of a controlled substance: psilocin Daniel Matthew Perez possession of a controlled substance, to-wit; methamphetamine Brittany Ann Jefferson possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver: fentanyl Calvin Jamal Jones possession of a controlled substance: cocaine, evading arrest or detention with a prior conviction Leon Jones III possession of marihuana (enhanced) Bonnie Kent theft of less than $2,500 with two or more priors John Ashley Bruyere theft of less than $2,500 with two or more priors Bonnie Kent theft of less than $2,500 with two or more priors John Ashley Bruyere theft of less than $2,500 with two or more priors Demonetray Dwayne Leno-Lewis repeated violation of condtion of bond Jodi Ann Lillard possession of controlled substance: methamphetamine Joel Andres Martinez retaliation (2 counts), resisting arrest Trisha Ann McCoy possession of a controlled substance: methamphetamine (habitual) Trisha Ann McCoy possession of a controlled substance: methamphetamine in a drug free zone (habitual), possession of a controlled substance: cocaine in a drug free zone zone (habitual) Trisha Ann McCoy possession of a controlled substance: methamphetamine (habitual) Alexander Alton McDavid assault family violence with a prior (enhanced) Emmnauel Barnicle Mii assault against a pregnant person Cesar Monsivais-Vanegas possession of a controlled substance: cocaine Jonathan Nino possession of a controlled substance: cocaine Anthony Odiong sexual assault (4 counts) James Marcel Parks assault family violence with a prior (enhanced) James Marcel Parks repeated violation of court order (enhanced) Jose Luis Perez tampering with physical evidence, possession of a controlled substance: methamphetamine Susan Perez possession of a controlled substance: methamphetamine (enhanced) Richard Vernard Phillips assault family violence by occlusion with a prior, assault family violence with a prior, unlawful restraint Joshua Steven Ransom exploitation of an elderly individual Stephanie Dianne Rhodes driving while intoxicated - felony John David Ritter assault family violence by occlusion Devontae Cheofuss Rivers unlawful possession of a firearm by felon Darius Jamal Robinson assault family violence with a prior, theft of less than $2,500 with two or more priors Ricardo Enrique Romero unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon Courtney Deshun Russell possession of a controlled substance: methamphetamine Armando Daniell Senicero aggravated assault (habitual) Noah Lee Walker aggravated sexual assault of a child, indecency with a child by contact Noah Lee Walker indecency with a child by contact (2 counts) Chad Ray Weber unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon (habitual), possession of a controlled substance: methamphetamine (enhanced) Mark Everett Webster Jr. possession of a controlled substance: methamphetamine Jill Rebecca York fraud use or possession of credit or debit card information, theft of less than $100 with a prior WATERLOO A former Waterloo police chief was terminated from his job as police chief for a Colorado transit system, according to state certification records. Joel Fitzgerald, who left the Waterloo Police Department in August 2022 to head the Denver Regional Transport District, was terminated for cause from the district Sept. 20, according to a law enforcement certification database. Fitzgerald had been on leave from the RTD since July 2024 amid a probe into unspecified policy violations. His departure was announced to staff in a September memo that didnt specify if he quit or was fired. A review by Colorado Public Radio found Fitzgerald regularly sped in his district-owned vehicle between the Denver area and his home in Colorado Springs about 70 miles away, according to media accounts. The RTD police division is responsible for customer safety and security across the eight counties and 40 cities of the Denver metropolitan area. Fitzgerald who started as a Philadelphia city officer and served as police chief in Missouri City, Texas, Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Fort Worth, Texas, and was chief deputy for the Philadelphia County Sheriffs Office began as the police chief in Waterloo in June 2020. Earlier this year, Fitzgerald received a $5.2 million settlement in a whistleblower lawsuit against the city of Fort Worth, where he was terminated in 2019. In 2020, an administrative law judge with Texas State Office of Administrative Hearings ruled Fort Worth city officials should have classified Fitzgeralds departure as an honorable discharge with the state law enforcement commission. Photos: Hurricane Helene As more than 5,000 Christian leaders from more than 200 countries and territories gathered in Incheon, Korea for the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, Christian Daily International sat down with Chris Wright to talk about the theological dynamics that have influenced Lausanne over the past 50 years. Talking about his journey to becoming the chief architect of the 2010 Cape Town Commitment, Wright also highlights what he considers to be key issues for the Church today, and what he hopes to see come out of Lausanne 4. I was first involved with Lausanne by going to the 1989 second Lausanne Congress in Manila. But that was very much just as a participant, he says. His close relationship with John Stott who had been the lead theologian behind the Lausanne Covenant of 1974 meant that Wright always had some awareness of what Lausanne stood for. I was particularly struck with the way the Lausanne Covenant and John Stott himself were so passionately committed to the integration of evangelism and social action, he says. And in the 1970s and 80s, there was a whole bunch of us who were younger evangelicals in the UK who were very passionate about that ourselves. They believed it is important for believers to be involved in society, in culture, in the arts, in business, and so on, he says. And John Stott was our guru really. He was playing that tune very loudly. So, Lausanne resonated with my own theological assumptions. In the years after the Manila event, there was less activity surrounding Lausanne, Wright recalls, also because of a variety of evangelistic initiatives by personalities like Luis Bush during the big decade of evangelism in the nineties. Stay informed with The Christian Daily Newsletter Sign up It was only after Doug Birdsall took on the leadership and organized the 2004 conference in Pattaya, Thailand, that Wright was again invited to participate. He admits that at the time, he was not sure what the future would hold for Lausanne because there was not as much theology as he would have hoped for. But then at that conference, Doug Birdsall took me for a meeting with him over a cup of tea and said that he and his senior committee were unanimous that they wanted to invite me to take on the chair of the Theology Working Group, Wright recalls. He was so astonished that he excused himself to the bathroom so he could pray. And I said: Lord, what are you saying? It took more than a year for him to eventually accept the role, with the permission of his employer, the Langham Partnership, which had been founded by John Stott and in which he was still influential. With their agreement, he took on the role and began building a team. It included several Langham scholars and others who shared the kind of integrated holistic theology of mission that went back to John Stott and previous centuries of evangelicals. And from 2007 up to the 2010 Cape Town Congress, Wright facilitated theological consultations. One of the first tasks the group took on was looking at Lausannes vision that speaks about the whole Church taking the whole gospel to the whole world. We thought, it's a lovely slogan, but what does it mean? What is the whole church? What is the whole gospel? And what do we mean by the whole world? Because we don't mean those things in a purely kind of numerical sense. They must have some qualitative meaning as well, Wright recalls. Several conferences were held, including a gathering of twenty different theologians from all around the world who met for three days in December 2009. They were tasked with coming up with a fresh statement of evangelical belief for the global Church, but almost as expected with a bunch of theologians for three days, it just got nowhere, Wright says. Following the consultation, the Lausanne leadership asked him if he could take some time over the winter months to try to write something that could ultimately lead to a statement. Only very reluctantly, he took on that task. I mean, how can you write a theology for the whole global Church? he wondered. And looking at church history, there are the Creeds and the great Confessions of the Reformation, he thought, so who am I to start putting anything together? Then in January 2010, less than a year before the Third Lausanne Congress was due to take place in Cape Town, Wright drove for about five hours to spend a week at John Stotts writing retreat place in Wales. And as I was driving, I was praying: Lord, what on earth? How do I start this? What's the most important thing? What really has primacy? he recalls. And it was almost as if I heard a voice in the car saying: The first and greatest commandment is, love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul. And the second is, love your neighbor as yourself. There's no other commandment greater than these. And he remembers thinking: Ah yes, Lord, You actually did tell us what the first thing was! Continuing to reflect on these verses, he then pondered about his own faith, Why am I a Christian? Why am I engaged in mission? Because I love the Lord Jesus. Because I love the Bible. I love God's people. I try to love the world. It's because of these love commitments that I believe the gospel and so on. He wondered if it would be possible to frame a statement in a way that expresses this love for God and everything that has to do with God, similar to the passage in Deuteronomy. He began thinking about different phrases like love God's Word, love God's people, love God, love God's Son, love the gospel. And after reaching the retreat place, he decided to call John Stott to ask him whether he thought this might be a good way forward. And John Stott said, yes, Wright says, adding that Stott hadn't thought of any evangelical statement of faith that used that kind of language. It was always we believe or we affirm or we deny or we denounce, and then usually followed by a series of abstract nouns. After that phone call, he remembers thinking, Well, if I've heard from the Lord and John Stott agrees, it's probably not a bad idea. So, Wright spent the whole week praying and crafting what would eventually become the first draft of part one of the Cape Town Commitment. He sent it back to the working group and received helpful comments, and at their March 2010 meeting in Beirut, they went through it line by line with a fine-tooth comb, while retaining the basic structure of the love commitments. The legacy and impact of the Cape Town Commitment is in Gods hands, Wright says Asked what he thought of the impact of the Cape Town Commitment on evangelicalism in general and global missions in particular, Wright expressed hesitation about trying to somehow measure it. I do get encouraging emails from time to time from people saying that they're using Cape Time Commitment part one as a statement of faith for their organization or their church, he says. He also mentions that Seoul 2024 Congress Co-Chair and senior pastor of Onnuri church Rev. Jae-Hoon Lee made his elders work through the document paragraph by paragraph in the lead up to the event in Incheon. He is also encouraged when he hears of churches and believers affirming the Commitments integrated theology of word and deed, saying if this is what we believe, then biblically this is how we must live. In other words, like Jesus said, covenantal love means: if you love me, you keep my commandments. This is the one who loves me, the one who obeys me, he says. So, you can't claim to love God and not do the things He said. Wright sees this as an anecdotal sign of the documents impact on the Church but leaves the wider question up to God. He is generally wary of trying to numerically or statistically measure impact of what he does and recalls Stotts response to similar questions. Whenever people would ask John Stott how many books he had written, he would always say, well, I've never really counted, because look what happened to King David when he counted his soldiers, Wright says. There's a certain danger in doing a census of your own capacities, so I take that sort of seriously. There never was any division between proclamation and social action: we separated it Asked about a speech by fellow theologian Valdir Steuernagel in the lead up to the Fourth Congress where he called on Lausanne to keep the gate open for new emerging voices and to hold onto the legacy of a theology of holistic mission, Wright struck a hopeful tone. He remembers working alongside Steuernagel and others in the Theological Working Group and then also the Statement Working Group for the Congress in 2010, saying, We had made sure that the theological work was being done by people who actually believed in an integrated gospel. They wanted to avoid a tension between strategy and theology and rather see them as one, he recalls. And he believes that the heart of Lausanne still is an integrated understanding of holistic mission. Looking at the core documents, including the recently released State of the Great Commission Report, he says that evangelism, proclamation and church planting will always need to be an utterly essential, non-negotiable part of mission. There's no way, in which one could ever say that's simply marginal. It is part of the very centrality of the gospel, Wright says. But the centrality of the gospel is also the reason why we do all the other things, he adds, pointing to the various sessions and collaboration groups that cover a wide range of issues, such as disability, poverty, justice and creation, all of which are valid expressions of a Lausanne theology of integrated mission. We engage in all those ways precisely because there is good news about the God who created the world, loves the world, and has redeemed the world through Christ. That is the center that holds everything else together thats what integration means, Wright says. He laments the tension that arose between the emphasis on proclamation versus social action and hopes that they could be reunited again, emphasizing that we wouldn't have to relate them if we hadn't separated them in the first place. The dichotomy largely goes back to the early years of the 20th century when liberals went off in a very social gospel direction and stopped believing in evangelism and the power of the cross and the need for conversion and so on. Evangelicals then reacted against that saying they needed to concentrate on evangelism, which resulted in this bifurcation, Wright says. Before then, it was definitive of evangelicals that they were engaged in social action. You look back to 18th and 19th century evangelicalism: they were notorious for the number of societies they founded for the relief of poverty, for care for children. The Royal Society for the Protection of Animals was founded by evangelicals as well, he says. Evangelicals were engaged in society until the early years of the 20th century. They didn't have to relate [the two]. They were evangelists: they preached the gospel, and they got engaged in society. Wright hopes that the Church would find its way back to seeing itself as one body with multiple gifts. When he teaches about the five marks of mission (an expression that was coined by the global Anglican Communion in 1984), including evangelism, discipling, works of compassionate mercy, seeking justice and caring for creation, there's always somebody who will say: Well, that's an awful lot of things to be doing, and there's only one of me. And I say: Oh yeah, I think God probably thought of that too, which is why he created the Church. Everybody doesn't have to do everything, Wright says, but everyone should be intentional in using their gifting. No one would criticize the Langham Partnership for not building hospitals and curing the sick. They are called to focus on theological education, which is part of the mission. Equally, they wouldnt criticize the leprosy mission for not running seminaries and teaching theology, because they should do what they are called to do, Wright argues. When it comes to local churches, he believes they should do something like a missional audit and ask themselves if they are ready as a body to commit themselves to multiple dimensions of mission, with the gospel at the center. If we've lost the good news of the cross and resurrection of Christ, then we might as well give up. There's no hope for the world, Wright emphasizes. It's because there is good news that we can legitimately and with authority go to serve the poor and the homeless and the sick and the needy and seek justice and all of that. It's all part of mission provided you keep the gospel at the center, which is where I would put the Great Commission, he says, pointing out that the Great Commission does not begin with go and make disciples of all nations, instead it begins with Jesus saying, all authority in heaven and earth is given to me. The gospel is central because it is the good news of what God has done through Christ, and every aspect of the Churchs obedient response to Christ flows from that center, as we participate in what God is doing in the world for His ultimate mission of reconciling the whole creation through the blood of the cross, Wright says. Therefore, it all revolves around the Lordship of Christ, which essentially is the gospel, he says. Jesus is Lord of the kingdom of God. So that's why in my theology, I don't like this constant question about whether he is more for proclamation or more for social action, Wright says. I don't recognize those distinctions. I'm committed to holistic mission, the fulfillment of the Great Commission, which must include bearing witness to the gospel and being engaged in society, by obeying all that Jesus commanded which is a lot! Environment, migration, human sexuality as todays key issues For Lausanne 4, Wright highlights three areas he sees as especially relevant and urgent for todays Church to address, also because they have become much more public at least in the western world where he lives. Other issues, he realizes, will be painfully dominant in other places. The first is the issue of the environment, creation care and climate change. He believes the Lausanne Creation Care Network has become much stronger as a result of the Cape Town Congress. They've had several conferences, they put out statements, and they are here in Seoul, he says, and emphasizes that nowadays, the issue is seen as culturally and publicly important. The whole world is talking about climate change, and Christians are now taking it much more seriously than they used to. Thank God they are. The second issue is the whole question of migration, asylum seekers, displaced person that Lausanne 3 already touched on. Today, however, there is a much greater awareness of the massive numbers in diaspora, old diasporas and new diasporas, and migration from not just the south to the north, but even from south to south. Huge numbers of people, millions and millions of people, he says. Therefore, the question arises how the Church will missionally respond to that reality: both in terms of the responsibility towards displaced people, migrants and refugees, but also considering how God engages with migration and diaspora peoples, especially those who migrate from cultures where Christianity is strong and move to other places. The third issue, which was also mentioned briefly in the Cape Town Commitment, is the pressing need to respond to the whole identity and sexuality issue, Wright says. Of course, we know that in the West, this has become almost a criterion of belonging to society at all, he says. The societal view has become the idolatry of the self, that you make your own identity. You can construct what you want to be, and that includes your gender as well as everything else. This stands somewhat in contrast with the majority world where there has been a much stronger reaction against this ideology due to the more traditional cultures. This does not only include traditional Christian cultures, Wright says. There are generally more traditional perspectives and hierarchies that constrain the issue of sexuality, and in some cases, this includes biblical ways of thinking about what it means to be male and female, and more generally to be human. According to Wright, the issue is both serious biblically, but also very sensitive because of its pastoral nature and the importance of treating all people with dignity and love and honor and acceptance, while at the same time upholding the standards that God teaches in the Bible. And it's almost impossible to do both, he says, because if you try to uphold what the Bible says about sex, you are accused of being judgmental and homophobic and everything else, even if you're not. But if you say that we need to be loving and accepting towards those who are same sex attracted, then you're being accused of being gay-affirming without biblical teaching, which again is not true. Wright likes to refer to Jesus role model in dealing with these kinds of issues, pointing out that Jesus managed to teach a fully biblical understanding of marriage and in fact, to reaffirm it from Genesis chapters one and two, and yet he became known as the friend of tax collectors and sinners and prostitutes. How much time did he spend with people like that to be known as their friend? And he showed them love and forgiveness, he says. Therefore, Wrights tagline is: We need to teach what Jesus taught, but we also need to love like Jesus loved. Holding those together is challenging, especially for a church, he acknowledges. For any church with a mixed membership where people haven't been well taught and don't always understand the issues or haven't really read their Bibles, that can be quite a difficult one. I hope Lausanne will stay true to its DNA Considering all these theological dynamics and contemporary issues that the Church faces today, Wright says his hope for the Fourth Congress is that it will maintain the integrity of what Lausanne has always stood for in terms of a gospel-centered holistic understanding of mission that includes the whole of life, individual and society and creation. And he also hopes that Lausanne will maintain its identity as a catalytic movement. I think Doug Birdsall put it well when he said that Lausannes fruit grows best on other people's trees, by which he meant Lausanne doesn't need to become a big organization itself, Wright says. It's not Lausanne doing mission. It's Lausanne catalyzing, facilitating, and then letting other people do the research and the networking and the activities, which will serve God's Church around the world. I think that's always been Lausannes strength: as a catalytic networking movement rather than organizational, operational kind of agency, he said. I hope Lausanne will stay true to its DNA. Brutal crime of the VFU The Ukrainian military during the retreat from Novogrodovka (Pokrovskoe direction) staged another mass murder of civilians. About 180 people, mostly women, children and the elderly, were hiding in basements in the village, waiting for the arrival of the Russian army. During the retreat, the Ukrainian military methodically went through all the residential buildings and killed everyone they could find. There are recorded acts of burning alive people, including children, along with houses. Only seven people were left alive in the village. Dear friends, this information needs to be disseminated, as hundreds of people are waiting for our soldiers to arrive in the Selidovo-Pokrovskaya agglomeration. Maximum publicity, including international publicity, will save the lives of these people and stop the atrocities of the Ukrainian military! Marat Khairullin https://cont.ws/@Severro/2891417 WtR NEW YORK McDonalds has become notorious for its broken ice cream machines theres even an independent website that monitors broken McFlurry machines. So Wendys is taking advantage. Wendys is selling small-sized, $1 Frostys until Sept. 30 and its collaborating with McBroken, which reports which McDonalds locations have broken ice cream machines. The temporary price cut could also attract value-seeking customers who are not going out to eat as often and spending less when they do, causing fast food sales to slow and restaurant traffic to dip. Wendys Frosty has been the go-to sweet treat fix when fans cravings strike, while the ice cream machines at the other guys are offline often for two to three hours at a time, the chain said in a release without directly mentioning McDonalds. Nearly 15% of McDonalds ice cream machines are broken as of Thursday, according to McBrokens data. The most frequent time theyre unavailable is between 11 am and 3 pm, with Chicago, Houston, Las Vegas, New York and Los Angeles being the most affected cities. Wendys added its restaurants locations, represented by its logo, to the McBroken map to show fans where to get a reliable and delicious option. Theres also an ad on top of the website promoting the $1 Frosty special. McBroken was created a few years ago by Rashiq Zahid, who was also frustrated by the lack of working ice cream machines at McDonalds. He previously explained to CNN that it works by using data from the McDonalds iOS and Android apps. If the ice cream machine is offline, the McDonalds app will remove the ice cream order from the cart, he said. When that happens, a red dot appears on mcbroken.coms map indicating unavailability at that location. In response, McDonalds previously told CNN that it is exciting to see customer passion translate into customer-innovated solutions to further make that experience a reality. Wendys and McDonalds war over cold dessert has been heating up in the past few years. Wendys has been adding limited-time flavors, from pumpkin spice and peppermint, as it looks to expand Frostys popularity. McDonalds also often promotes new flavors for its McFlurry but recently added a miniature size as customers keep searching for value. ___ 10 popular international fast food chains that are growing in the US 10 popular international fast food chains that are growing in the US Jollibee Pret A Manger Le Pain Quotidien Tim Hortons Pollo Campero Beard Papa's TKK Fried Chicken El Pollo Loco Yashinova Nando's After some participants at the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization took offense with a plenary speakers comments on the Gaza war on Monday, Lausanne issued an official apology two days later distancing itself from the statements. Now, Valdir Steuernagel, a senior figure in the movement spoke up on behalf of Palestinian participants, articulating their anguish of feeling abandoned by the global Church and calling on the Lausanne leadership to take notice and action. It was the fourth day of the Congress, and what was latent surfaced with pain and the force of institutional endorsement. Incredible, Steuernagel begins a letter he shared with Christian Daily International, which he had been circulating among leaders at the Congress. A problematic email, sent by the director of the L4 Congress, distanced itself from one of the most impactful presentations of the event. Referring to Ruth Padilla DeBorsts speech, he says, Gods justice was affirmed and the violence of the war in Israel and its thousands of deaths, especially in Gaza was highlighted. Steuernagel points to the word forgiveness that struck him when reading the apology letter, lamenting that the events organization had not paid due attention to the content of the presented text, and there were things that went unnoticed. Of course, there were theological details at play, which the author of the presentation herself would acknowledge, Steuernagel says. But what about the war? The deaths? The lives? And the churches? What about the Christians who live and suffer this cruel reality? Are there no words? No gesture? Will they, once again, simply be abandoned? Stay informed with The Christian Daily Newsletter Sign up A speech, a response, an apology As Christian Daily International reported earlier, the statements in Padilla DeBorsts presentation that triggered responses referred to colonialist theologies that justify and finance oppression under the guide of some dispensational eschatology. Later in the Micah 6:8-inspired speech, she also called on the global Church not to ignore the suffering of those who face injustice. There's no room for indifference towards all who are suffering the scourge of war and violence. The world around the uprooted and beleaguered people of Gaza, the hostages held by both Israel and Hamas and their families, the threatened Palestinians in their own territories. All who around the world are mourning the loss of loved ones. Their pain is our pain, she said. The two passages led to strong reactions by some participants who accused Padilla DeBorst of blaming violence in the Holy Land on dispensational eschatology, a theological view that holds to a literal interpretation of Old Testament prophecies that speak about the nation of Israel. Further objections pointed to her assertion of Israel holding hostages and the lack of mention of Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, among others. The Lausanne leadership also became target of criticism as it had reviewed all speeches before the Congress but had not taken action. Two days later, Congress Director David Bennett sent an email to all participants. He acknowledged the diversity of views represented at the Congress and among the speakers but distanced himself from the remarks and apologized for the offense that Padilla DeBorsts speech had caused. We have become aware of significant pain and offense experienced at this Congress from those in dispensational theological contexts, those who are Jews, and those engaged in ministries to Jews and/or in Israel. Our Lausanne team, including me, failed to review the wording of the presentation carefully enough in advance, or to anticipate the hurts and misunderstandings it would cause. As your brother in Christ, and on behalf of our Lausanne leadership, I ask for your forgiveness, he said in the email. Christians have a responsibility to speak up When Christian Daily International approached Padilla DeBorst for comment, she first pointed to the time constraints of talking about the vast topic of injustice within the allocated 15 minutes. She also stated that her remarks were not in any way a blanket dismissal of dispensational theology and, even less, of sisters and brothers who subscribe to that stance. For the pain my statement might have caused, I am sorry, she added, and clarified that what she referred to in her speech was the troubling theological rationale sustained by some people to perpetrate injustice against certain other people. Regarding why she was specifically naming the war in Gaza, she commented that she believes that Christians have a particular responsibility to speak up. Truly, the Hamas attack almost a year ago was abhorrent and absolutely reprehensible, and truly people who live in Israel, Jewish, Palestinian and others are being threatened as I write. Their pain is our pain, she said. At the same time, she highlighted the suffering of the Palestinians, tens of thousands of whom have been killed, including many children. And she pointed to the Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank that have been on the rise in recent months. Their pain is our pain or it should be, she said. The reason why she believed this issue was important to raise at the Congress is because far too many evangelicals around the world a-critically stand with Israel, and remain oblivious to the suffering Palestinians. This injustice must be named. Seeking to be seen and heard by the global Church While Lausannes apology sought to quiet down criticism from some corners, it stirred up greater controversy as participants expressed concerns about the leaderships selective judgment by singling out these two particular issues while ignoring others. In my view this apology was totally against the ethos of Lausanne, said Tim Adams, General Secretary of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students in comments sent to Christian Daily International at that time. He expressed his dismay about the lack of maturity of those who took offense, as global events should be spaces for robust debate. He was also concerned that the apology risked causing greater division. Steuernagel, however, points to another lamentable effect the apology had: that Palestinians, including those participating in the Congress, were given the impression that they did not matter. The day was marked by the tears of the brothers and sisters of the Palestinian churches. Attention! Steuernagel says. They are present, and despite the thousands of tears they have shed over these long months, once again they came and went hot. They arrived while surrounded by thousands of Christians from the most diverse places who, once again, rarely noticed the tears of a suffering, persecuted, and declining Church. The feeling of abandonment cannot be deeper, more painful, or more incredible, he bemoaned. Incredible among others because it happened on the same day when the Congress highlighted the plight of the persecuted Church around the world. The silence around the Palestinian church spoke loudly. A silence that said the global Church did not care. Did not need them, he says, referencing a phrase that had been presented as the most dangerous words for the global Church in the opening session of the Congress. Speaking for those who came as participants to Incheon and had an opportunity to be in fellowship with brothers and sisters around the world, he says the Palestinian believers had already become a familiar with the sense of abandonment, but they did not know it hurt so much to live it alongside those who passed by. Recognizing the existence of Palestinian Christians Earlier this month, Christian Daily International reported about a meeting of more than one hundred evangelical Christians from Israel, the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, Lebanon and Jordan who came together for three days in Amman under the theme That They May Be One. Hosted by the Alliance of Evangelical Councils in Jordan and the Holy Land, the extraordinary meeting was overshadowed by the ongoing war in Gaza, the mourning for fellow Christians killed in the conflict and the struggle with the reality that many in the global Church seem ignorant or indifferent to the suffering of their brothers and sisters in Christ in the region. Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab, who reported about the rare gathering of Christians from the four countries, wrote that the war in Gaza and the international response over the past year has alienated and angered many Palestinian Christians, who feel their co-religionists around the globe are oblivious to the suffering the war has brought. While Gaza is overwhelmingly Muslim, the small Christian community has been caught in the crossfire: a fact that some Christians in the Middle East feel is not understood or recognized by fellow believers in other parts of the world. Churches and a Christian-run hospital have been hit by Israeli shells with hardly a word from Christian leaders, they lament, amid reports that at least 23 Christians were among those who died in Gaza. Especially painful are news headlines of politicians who publicly flaunt their Christianity like last January when former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence approvingly signed his name on Israeli bombs destined for Palestinian and Lebanese communities. What Christians in the Middle East bemoan most, however, is that fellow believers in many parts of the world seem to forget that they even exist, let alone that they understand their daily reality. Kuttab wrote that during the gathering in Amman difficult stories were told about the war in Gaza and the dislocations caused by the Israeli occupation in the West Bank. He describes how participants shed tears as they looked at photos of Palestinian Christian families who died in Gaza and listened to stories of the difficult life in the West Bank. Then they prayed for a ceasefire in Gaza and for the conflict and suffering to come to an end. It is this context that both Padilla DeBorst in her speech and now Steuernagel in his letter sought to highlight. (An op-ed published on Christian Daily International last February captured some of the dilemmas of different perspectives on the conflict.) Toward a day of embrace through repentance and listening In his poetically written letter, Steuernagel points to what he believes to be the right way forward. Desiring to move from the Day of Abandonment to the Day of Embrace, he expresses his hope for what could ultimately lead to comfort and unity. I saw it! I saw that there were also other tears. Tears that sprang from other tearful eyes and, born from the depths of the soul, wanted to express repentance and solidarity, he says. It is a fact. There are many others who have tears to shed. There are many other souls who, in solidarity, have space to cry. Let us move our bodies in search of the painful tears of these brothers and sisters, in search of transforming the day of abandonment into the day of embrace. He cautions that it is necessary to go slowly because before embracing, it is necessary to recognize the abandonment, and even the neglect, to which we subjected these churches and these brothers. It is necessary to do what this event has called us to: repentance. Repentance is not something abstract but real, he says. It is necessary to listen to our brothers and sisters from Palestine so that we can internalize their cries. The cry to be recognized and not forgotten and ignored. The cry of not being victims of a theology that has no place for them as participants in the Israel of God. The cry for participation in the reconstruction of both the church and their communities, as a sign of a God who does not abandon but is present and does so through His body. Then, and only then, can the day of abandonment be followed by the day of embrace. An embrace that, with true eschatological hues, can begin with the exchange of tears, Steuernagel says, and concludes his letter with a question. Can we expect another email? Update: The Friday evening plenary at the Congress featured a Palestinian Christian as panelist who spoke on reconciliation. An article on the session will follow. Robert F. Kennedys name will stay on Wisconsins presidential election ballot, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday, ending the former independent presidential candidates hopes of not competing with former President Donald Trump in the battleground state in November. In a unanimous decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court dismissed Kennedys lawsuit, which he filed in August against the Wisconsin Elections Commission. The lawsuit sought to either remove his name from the ballot or require clerks to place a sticker on each ballot to cover it up. In an unsigned ruling, the court decided the case on the narrow grounds that Kennedy failed to demonstrate the Dane County Circuit Court judge who first considered the case erred in ruling last month that it was simply too late for Kennedy to have his name removed from the ballot. We emphasize that we are not making any legal determinations on our own regarding the claims made by Kennedy and we are not agreeing with the circuit courts legal conclusions on those claims, the decision states. We simply are unable to make such determinations, given the inadequate briefing presented to us. Consequently, because there is no basis in this appeal on which we could determine that the circuit court erroneously exercised its discretion, we must affirm the circuit courts order denying Kennedys motion for a temporary injunction, the court concluded. Chief Justice Annette Ziegler and Justice Rebecca Bradley, both conservatives, concurred with the decision, with Bradley noting that Kennedys constitutional arguments are insufficiently developed. But Bradley also criticized the tight timeline Kennedy faced in appealing the elections commissions decision and decried the potential ramifications of putting a noncandidates name before voters in November. Voters may cast their ballots in favor of a candidate who withdrew his candidacy, thereby losing their right to cast a meaningful vote, Bradley continued. Ballots listing a non-candidate mislead voters and may skew a presidential election. In this case, the damage to voter participation in electoral democracy is real. Kennedy, who has suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump, has chosen to leave his name on the ballot in other states where votes cast for him are unlikely to change the outcome of the election. Right to top The high court last week agreed to bypass Wisconsins appellate court and take up the case directly, citing strict state and federal deadlines that Wisconsins more than 1,800 local clerks must follow to mail absentee ballots out to voters. More than 425,000 absentee ballots had already been mailed or were prepared to be mailed as of Thursday, according to the elections commission, while more than 42,000 have already been returned to local clerks. Our elections shouldnt be disrupted by last-minute challenges to Wisconsin law, Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul said in a statement following the courts ruling. This decision ensures that an election that has already begun will be able to be conducted in an orderly manner. The push to remove Kennedy from the ballot comes after polling by the Marquette Law School found more Republicans than Democrats were considering voting for Kennedy an outcome that could threaten Trumps hopes in the battleground state given Wisconsins notoriously close statewide elections. President Joe Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin in 2020 by fewer than 21,000 votes, while Trump won the state by fewer than 23,000 votes in 2016 the same year Green Party candidate Jill Stein secured more than 31,000 votes. Earlier ruling Dane County Circuit Judge Stephen Ehlke ruled last week that Kennedys request to be removed from the ballot had come too late. Party-affiliated candidates had until 5 p.m. Sept. 3 to certify their presidential nominee, while independent candidates like Kennedy do not have the option to withdraw after they file nomination papers on Aug. 6. Attorneys for Kennedy argued in court filings that the states deadlines hamstring independent candidates, while giving Democrats and Republicans a greater opportunity to disassociate from a candidate or for a candidate to dissociate from the campaign. Ehlke also sided with the election commissions reading of state law that, once a candidate files nomination papers and a declaration of candidacy, the only way to be removed from the ballot is to die. Wisconsin statute states, Any person who files nomination papers and qualifies to appear on the ballot may not decline nomination. The name of that person shall appear upon the ballot except in case of death of the person. Kennedy is not asking for much, Kennedys attorney wrote in court filings. Hes seeking equal treatment under the law thats it. That equal treatment cannot be washed away by simply ignoring his rights or adopting a once you declare, youre forever there reading of the statute. A local nonprofit called Strengthen Our Community is trying to put a spotlight on chronic absenteeism in the Washoe County School District. Superintendent Joe Ernst says there's are variety of reasons why students are missing school but at the end of the day when they're not there, they're not learning. "What happens is when you're continuously getting absenteeisms in the classrooms, it can really kind of slow down the learning, not just for the individual but for the whole going forward," he said. According to New FutureEd Research, Nevada is top three in the nation for greatest surge in chronic absenteeism from 2019 to 2023. The school district's 2024 chronic absenteeism rate in high school is over 35%. That is double the rate pre-pandemic. And chronic absenteeism can lead to more students dropping out of school. "When kids drop out, they can't get a job, a minimum wage job, and therefore they turn to crime," said Mike Kazmierski, executive director of Strengthen Our Community. A 2001 Coalition for Juvenile Justice report found that 82% of the inmates in adult prisons had dropped out of high school. Kazmierski says an increase in dropouts results in consumption of social services, "The cost of society of one dropout is $800,000." It also increases crime, poverty, homelessness, and overall quality of life in our community. Right now, the school district and the nonprofit are focusing on improving all aspects that could lead to an absence such as transportation, childcare, family engagement, and community awareness. One of their goals is to have a prevention specialist at all 17 middle schools in the district by 2025. "Community of schools has a great model where that trusted adult will meet with the student and family to determine their needs and then go to the community to solve the problem," says Kazmierski. Ernst says, "We want to see that we're decreasing absenteeism every year and certainly as quickly as possible getting chronic absenteeism below pre-pandemic levels." Ernst says this is a community-wide issue and not just a school issue. So, any help is appreciated including just spreading the word. Israel rejects U.S. ceasefire proposal, launches extensive strikes in Lebanon for 4th consecutive day Xinhua) 08:07, September 27, 2024 A man is seen in a building after an Israeli airstrike in Dahieh, southern Beirut, Lebanon, on Sept. 26, 2024. (Xinhua/Bilal Jawich) JERUSALEM/BEIRUT, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Israeli warplanes continued their deadly airstrikes across Lebanon for the fourth consecutive day on Thursday, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a clear rejection of a ceasefire proposal advanced by the United States and France. The Israeli military stated that its drones targeted rocket launchers in southern Lebanon responsible for attacks on Israeli targets. Fighter jets struck "dozens" of Hezbollah targets, including militant cells, launchers, and weapons storage facilities in various areas of southern Lebanon. The Lebanese Health Ministry reported that at least 60 people were killed and 81 others injured in Israeli airstrikes on Thursday across various regions in Lebanon. Lebanese soldiers are seen at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahieh, southern Beirut, Lebanon, on Sept. 26, 2024. (Xinhua/Bilal Jawich) Israel conducted 115 attacks on Thursday, the ministry noted, adding that the large-scale airstrikes, which began on Monday and have previously focused on the south and east of Lebanon, have now spread to include regions in the Mount Lebanon Governorate. According to the Israeli military, Hezbollah forces launched approximately 150 rockets toward northern Israel. Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service stated that no casualties resulted from the rocket attacks. Some rockets were intercepted, but others struck communities in northern Israel, where most residents have been displaced due to ongoing cross-border fire. In Rosh Pina, located in the Upper Galilee, a rocket hit a residential home, causing extensive damage. Fires broke out in Rosh Pina, Safed, and Birya as a result of the strikes. An Israeli anti-missile system intercepts rockets fired from Lebanon, as seen from Safed, northern Israel, on Sept. 26, 2024. (Xinhua/Chen Junqing) Hezbollah confirmed the rocket attacks, stating that the bombings and raids were "in defense of Lebanon and its people, and in response to the barbaric Israeli invasion of cities, villages, and civilians." During a situational assessment, Israel's military chief, Hertzi Halevi, rejected the U.S.-led ceasefire call at a UN Security Council emergency meeting. "We must continue to attack Hezbollah," Halevi said. "We have waited for this opportunity for years." Netanyahu echoed this sentiment, stating that Israel "will continue to strike Hezbollah with full force" until all objectives are achieved, including the safe return of northern residents to their homes. Rescuers work at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahieh, southern Beirut, Lebanon, on Sept. 26, 2024.(Xinhua/Bilal Jawich) Also on Thursday, Israel's Defense Ministry announced an 8.7-billion-U.S.-dollar aid package from the United States to support Israel's military efforts. The package includes 3.5 billion dollars for "urgent wartime procurement," which has already been transferred to Israel, and an additional 5.2 billion dollars earmarked for air defense systems, including the Iron Dome, David's Sling, and an advanced laser defense system. "This substantial investment will significantly strengthen critical systems like Iron Dome and David's Sling while supporting the continued development of an advanced high-powered laser defense system, currently in its later stages of development," the ministry stated. The United States has been supporting Israel since the beginning of the conflict with Hamas on Oct. 7 last year, sending at least 700 cargo planes with weapons, bombs, and ammunition, according to official Israeli sources. Israel and Hezbollah, a Lebanese armed group and political party, have been trading fire across the border since Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah launched rockets in solidarity with Hamas' deadly attack on communities in southern Israel the previous day. A displaced baby sleeps in a temporary shelter at a school in Beirut, Lebanon on Sept. 26, 2024. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said Wednesday that Israel's bombardment had displaced over 150,000 residents over the past 72 hours. (Xinhua/Bilal Jawich) As of Thursday, the total death toll from the Israel-Hezbollah clashes since last October has reached 1,540, with injuries totaling 5,410, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Since Monday, Israel has conducted extensive airstrikes across Lebanon, resulting in over 650 deaths and more than 2,000 injuries. The Israeli military reported that it has targeted over 2,000 locations during this period. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin noted on Wednesday that the bombardment has displaced more than 150,000 residents this week. This sharp escalation has raised concerns about a potential full-scale conflict between Israel and Lebanon, with fears that other regional powers could also become involved. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) A Zachry Holdings Inc. subsidiary has agreed to pay $7 million to settle allegations that it failed to follow federal law when it laid off thousands of workers as a result of its exit from the Golden Pass LNG terminal project in Sabine Pass. A bankruptcy judge is scheduled to hold a Monday hearing on a motion to approve the settlement. Shown is construction underway on the project in 2023. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer A Zachry Holdings Inc. subsidiary has agreed to pay $7 million to settle a potential class-action lawsuit brought by a former employee who alleged the company failed to follow federal law when it laid off thousands of workers as it exited the Golden Pass LNG project south of Port Arthur. A Thursday court filing in Zachrys Houston bankruptcy case shows that nearly 3,500 former Zachry Industrial employees will share almost $4.7 million after about $2.3 million in attorneys fees are paid. The employees stand to receive about $1,336 each, assuming none opt out. The settlement requires the approval of U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur, who is scheduled to hear an emergency motion Monday morning. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Avis Lamotte, a Port Arthur resident who was among the workers terminated in May, sued the company for failing to provide notice 60 days in advance of mass layoffs as required under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. Lamotte will receive $2,000 for serving as the named plaintiff, subject to the judges approval. A spokesman for Zachry said Friday it had no comment on the settlement. The San Antonio company denied all liability and asserted a range of defenses in the court filing asking the judge to approve the settlement. Among them: that circumstances resulting in the layoffs were unforeseeable in the 60-day period preceding the layoffs and that it was pursuing measures that would have avoided the need for layoffs. The company added that it gave as much notice to employees as was practicable under the circumstances. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Zachry said the settlement allows it to avoid protracted and costly litigation. It also limits its potential liability, with the company saying it cannot discount the prospect of a significant adverse judgment if the case were to go to trial. At the time the lawsuit was filed, Zachry said it believed it was in compliance with requirements under the WARN Act. The layoffs occurred around May 21, the day Zachry and 20 subsidiaries including Zachry Industrial filed for bankruptcy protection. Zachry blamed difficulties related to the construction of the liquefied natural gas export terminal in Sabine Pass. In the filings wake, the company slashed more than 4,000 in Sabine Pass and another 338 jobs combined from operations in Baytown, Beaumont and Orange. The laid-off employees included electricians, carpenters, ironworkers, pipe fitters and riggers. Zachry blamed the bankruptcy on a dispute over terms with Golden Pass LNG that halted construction on the terminal. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In July, the parties reached a settlement allowing Golden Pass to resume work while Zachry exited the project. Houstons McDermott International Inc. and Japans Chiyoda International Corp., Zachrys joint venture partners on the project, are finishing the work. Golden Pass is owned QatarEnergy and Exxon Mobil Corp. SEOUL, South Korea (AP) South Korea announced plans Thursday to compensate farmers and others in the country's dwindling dog meat industry before a formal ban goes into effect in 2027, a move that is drawing opposition from both farmers and some animal rights activists. South Koreas parliament passed a landmark bill in January that will ban slaughtering, breeding or selling dog meat for human consumption after a three-year grace period. It will be punishable by 2-3 years in prison. The Agriculture Ministry said that farmers would receive compensation starting from 225,000 won ($170), and rising up to 600,000 won ($450) per dog if they agree to shut down their businesses early. An association of farmers rejected the offer, saying in a statement that they cannot relinquish their dogs for such low prices. Farmers earlier called for 2 million won ($1,505) per dog. Theyve said the ban infringes on their right to choose their own jobs and will aggravate their economic difficulties. The association said that farmers will keep fighting even if they end up being jailed. Earlier in the week, they called for the law to be amended to extend the grace period and add appropriate compensation plans. Sangkyung Lee, a campaign manager at the Korean office of the anti-animal cruelty group Humane Society International, called the South Korean announcement an important milestone in this historic ban that will see the ban through to completion and end our countrys dog meat era for good. But Lee said his office is disappointed at the South Korean plan because it would pay farmers based on the number of dogs they have, potentially increasing dog breeding to get more money from the scheme and more puppies being born into suffering. The Korean Animal Welfare Association, a Seoul-based animal rights group, said that local governments must strictly monitor farms to prevent them from increasing their number of dogs through breeding. It praised the government for trying to take reasonable steps to phase out the industry but criticized farmers for seeking excessive compensation. Dog meat consumption is a centuries-old practice on the Korean Peninsula. It's also eaten in China, Vietnam, Indonesia and some African countries. But South Koreas dog meat industry has drawn more attention because of the countrys reputation as a cultural and economic powerhouse. Its also the only nation with industrial-scale dog farms. South Koreas anti-dog meat campaign received a big boost from the countrys first lady, Kim Keon Hee, who repeatedly expressed her support for a prohibition. She was subjected to withering criticism and crude insults during demonstrations by farmers. Surveys have found that around one in three South Koreans opposes the ban, though most people now dont eat dog meat. Vice Agriculture Minister Park Beomsu told reporters that government studies found that about 466,000 dogs are currently being raised for food across South Korea. He said officials will try to convince farmers to voluntarily phase out dog breeding ahead of the ban. After the ban comes into force, Park said, the government plans to facilitate adoptions for the remaining dogs or move them to care facilities rather than euthanize them. The agriculture ministry said butchers will also be compensated, while local authorities will be responsible for dismantling dog farms and slaughterhouses. Former farmers and butchers will also get low-interests loans if they pivot to other agricultural businesses. The ministry said authorities will also offer financial assistance to traders and restaurant owners to shut down their businesses and find new jobs. Fast-moving Hurricane Helene made landfall in the Big Bend area of Florida's northwestern coast as a Category 4 storm Thursday evening, threatening a catastrophic storm surge as well as damaging winds, rains and flash floods hundreds of miles inland across much of the southeastern U.S., forecasters said. Authorities in Georgia reported two people killed in a possible tornado in south Georgia as the storm approached, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said one person died while driving on Interstate 4 when a sign fell onto their car. The storm knocked out power to over 1 million homes and businesses in Florida and over 50,000 in Georgia as it approached and came ashore, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us. States of emergency were declared in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia and Alabama. In the Pacific, former Hurricane John strengthened Thursday morning back into a hurricane as it threatened areas of Mexicos western coast with flash flooding and mudslides. It was then downgraded to a tropical storm as it crept along the coast of the Mexican state of Michoacan.. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Isaac formed Wednesday in the Atlantic Ocean and was expected to strengthen as it moves east away from the U.S., possibly becoming a hurricane by the end of the week, forecasters said. Follow APs coverage of tropical weather at https://apnews.com/hub/hurricanes. Here's the latest: 1 person dies in Florida while driving on Interstate 4, governor says Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said there was a report of one person dying when a sign fell onto their car as they were driving on Interstate 4 in Tampa. It just shows you that its very dangerous conditions out there. You need to be, right now, just hunkering down, he said at a news conference late Thursday. DeSantis said more fatalities were possible as the storm advances and that 3,500 National Guardsmen were standing by to help respond. When Floridians wake up tomorrow morning, were going to be waking up to a state where, very likely, theres been additional loss of life. And certainly, theres going to be loss of property, he said. Youre going to have people that are going to lose their homes because of this storm. So please keep those folks in mind, keep them in your prayers. Helene makes landfall in northwestern Florida Hurricane Helene made landfall Thursday in northwestern Florida as a Category 4 storm as forecasters warned of catastrophic flooding along the Gulf Coast. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Helene roared ashore around 11:10 p.m. EDT near the Perry, Florida, in the Big Bend area of the state's Gulf Coast. It had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph). Officials have forecast storm surges of up to 20 feet (6 meters) and warned they could be particularly catastrophic and unsurvivable in Floridas Apalachee Bay. Hurricane warnings and flash flood warnings extended far beyond the coast up into northern Georgia and western North Carolina. Power outages continue to rise in Florida As of 11 p.m. EDT, more than 885,000 customers in Florida were without power, according to tracking site poweroutage.us. The sites map showed multiple counties in Floridas Big Bend area where Helene is expected to make landfall where a majority of customers did not have power. John is no longer a hurricane. The tropical storm is moving slowly along Mexicos coast John was downgraded to a tropical storm Thursday evening as the slow-moving storm crept along the coast of the Mexican state of Michoacan, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The former hurricane was sustaining wind speeds of 70 mph (110 kph) and still threatened coastal areas with severe flash flooding, the center said. John initially hit Mexico late Monday when it made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane in Acapulco on the countrys southern Pacific coast. It blew tin roofs off houses, triggered mudslides and toppled scores of trees. After weakening inland, it reemerged over the ocean, reforming as a tropical storm Wednesday and strengthening back into a hurricane Thursday. The hurricane center said the storm is expected to weaken Thursday night and into Friday. 2 killed in Georgia in possible tornado as storms from Hurricane Helene hit Two people have died after a possible tornado struck a mobile home in south Georgia on Thursday night, Wheeler County Sheriff Randy Rigdon told WMAZ-TV. The damage was reported as heavy thunderstorms from Hurricane Helene raked much of the state. Wheeler County is about 70 miles (113 kilometers) southeast of Macon. Tropical Storm Isaac will likely become a hurricane soon, forecasters say Tropical Storm Isaac in the mid-Atlantic Ocean strengthened Thursday night and was expected to become a hurricane soon, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The storm was moving east away from the U.S. at 12 mph (19 kph) and was 910 miles (1,470 kilometers) northeast of Bermuda. Its maximum wind speeds were 65 mph (100 kph). There were no coastal watches or warnings associated with the storm, but the hurricane center said Bermuda was experiencing swells that could lead to life-threatening rip currents. Helenes turbulent eyewall begins to move ashore Hurricane Helenes eyewall has begun moving ashore in the Big Bend area of Floridas northwestern coast, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The Category 4 storm is expected to produce catastrophic winds in the area over the next few hours, the center said. This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation, the hurricane center said. Persons should not leave their shelters and remain in place through the passage of these life-threatening conditions. The center warned when the storms eye comes ashore, conditions will temporarily calm, but the eyes other side will quickly arrive and produce hazardous winds again. As of 10 p.m., the storm was 65 miles (105 kilometers) south of Tallahassee, Florida, with sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph). Power outages rapidly increase along Floridas west coast More than 500,000 homes and businesses had lost power in Florida as of 8:30 p.m., and that number is rising quickly, according to tracking site poweroutage.us. Most outages were along the state's west coast, where Hurricane Helene was approaching. Duke Energy, a major energy provider serving west-central Florida and the Panhandle, and Florida Power & Light Company, the state's largest energy provider, were reporting over 150,000 outages each. Tornado watch issued for much of Florida and southeastern Georgia A tornado watch was issued late Thursday for much of Florida and southeastern Georgia, the National Weather Service in Tallahassee said. Floridas Gulf Coast, including Tampa and the Big Bend area, where Helene is expected to make landfall, were under the watch, as was the states Atlantic coast, including Orlando. The tornado watch will be in effect through early Friday morning. Florida sees mass power outages ahead of Helenes landfall More than 340,000 homes and businesses were without power in Florida shortly as of 7:30 p.m. local time, according to tracking site poweroutage.us. Among them were 120,000 customers of Duke Energy, a major energy provider serving west-central Florida and the Panhandle. The utilitys outage map showed most of its affected customers some 105,000 were concentrated in the Tampa area on the states Gulf Coast. While Tampa is south of where Helene is expected to make landfall, the area was still under a storm surge warning and a tropical storm warning, with forecasters expecting dangerous surges of up to 15 feet (4.5 meters) and winds topping 40 mph (64 kph). This entry has been updated to correct the name of a major Florida utility to Duke Energy, not Duke Power. Rain picks up near the Florida-Georgia border VALDOSTA, Ga. Heavy rains began falling and winds were picking up in Valdosta, Georgia, near the Florida state line shortly before 7 p.m. ET. The National Weather Service said more than a dozen Georgia counties could see winds exceeding 110 mph, including Lowndes County where Valdosta is located along Interstate 75. Other inland cities in rural southern Georgia where the hurricane threat was highest included Thomasville, Moultrie and Tifton. Biden declares state of emergency for Alabama WASHINGTON President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in Alabama on Thursday ahead of Hurricane Helene's landfall in nearby Florida. The U.S. National Hurricane Center has said Hurricane Helene is unusually large and expected to have far-ranging impacts beyond Florida's Big Bend, where the storm is expected to make landfall Thursday evening. The governors of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia already declared emergencies in their states. Florida governor says there's still time for residents to evacuate but not much TALLAHASSEE, Fla. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that models have Hurricane Helene making landfall most likely in a rural coastal county of almost 22,000 people in the states Big Bend area. The fast-moving storm will likely reach Taylor County, Florida late Thursday, DeSantis said at an evening news conference at the states emergency operation center in Tallahassee. Youre going to have hurricane force winds for probably 50 miles outside the eye of the storm, and then youre going to continue to see surge, particularly in that Big Bend area, DeSantis said. About five hours before the expected landfall, the governor said residents of vulnerable areas of northern Florida still have time to evacuate but that the window was shutting quickly. The governor warned residents they would likely lose power and that intercoastal bridges across the state were being closed to traffic. North Carolina officials warn of severe flooding from Helene ASHEVILLE, N.C. As night falls in the North Carolina mountains, emergency officials are asking anyone who lives in a place that has ever flooded to find safety at higher ground as Hurricane Helene nears land. Flooding has already started in some areas after 7 to 10 inches (18 to 25 centimeters) of rain fell from a storm unrelated to the hurricane. Forecasters predict an additional 9 to 14 inches (23 to 36 centimeters) of rain could fall as what remains of Helene moves across the area Thursday night into Friday. A storm like this, were seeing flooding where we have never seen it before, said Jimmy Brissie, emergency services director for Henderson County south of Asheville. Already the Swannanoa and French Broad Rivers are predicted to reach levels not seen since the benchmark flood of 1916 in western North Carolina that killed 80 people and isolated Asheville for weeks. Emergency officials also fear mudslides as rushing water could pick up dirt and boulders and send them all cascading down mountainsides. Helene strengthens to a Category 4 hurricane Helene strengthened into an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane ahead of its expected landfall on Floridas northwest coast Thursday night, forecasters said. The hurricane was about 120 miles (195 kilometers) west of Tampa and had sustained winds of 130 mph (215 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Category 4 hurricanes have sustained winds over 130 mph (209 kph) that can severely damage homes, snap trees and down power lines. Strong winds have already cut power to over 250,000 homes and businesses in Florida, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us. Storm surge: Deadlier than a hurricanes winds TALLAHASSEE, Fla. In 2005, Hurricane Dennis landed near the Alabama-Florida state line as a Category 3 hurricane. Far to the east, Floridas Big Bend where Hurricane Helene is expected to come ashore never even felt tropical storm strength winds, but it was still hit with a mass of water that devasted coastal communities. Thats storm surge. Its more deadly and destructive than wind and can make a significant impact far from the center of a storm. While wind can tear off roofs, knock down trees and snap power lines, storm surge can push buildings completely off their foundations, can trap and even drown people in their homes, wash out roads and bridges, toss boats inland and hammer anything in its path. The leading cause of death from hurricanes is water, not wind, said Craig Fugate, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And in the case of Hurricane Helene, predicted storm surge as high as 20 feet could be devastating in the coastal areas of the states Big Bend. Read more about the destructive power of storm surge Atlanta's usually bustling roads are deserted in anticipation of Helene ATLANTA What is normally evening rush hour for metro Atlantas more than 6 million residents revealed a city that had already gone home to button up for Hurricane Helene. The citys downtown office district was nearly deserted, and normally traffic-choked freeways were all flowing freely. Most areas of metro Atlanta received 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 centimeters) of rain during the day Thursday, atop heavier rain Wednesday. Forecasters extended hurricane warnings even farther north, pushing them into Atlantas southern exurbs, as officials continued to warn that the area is likely to see significant storm winds. Vice President Harris urges people in Helenes path to heed local orders WASHINGTON Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday urged people in Hurricane Helene's path to heed the orders of local officials. We urge everyone who is watching at this very moment to take this storm very seriously, she said during a gun violence prevention event in the East Room of the White House. Orlando International Airport remains open despite impending storm ORLANDO Floridas busiest airport remained open Thursday despite Hurricane Helene being on a path to make landfall in the northern part of the state. Orlando International Airport had a total of 65 flight cancellations, as of Thursday afternoon. Other Florida airports were closed in Tampa, Clearwater and Tallahassee because of the storm. Passengers with canceled flights were urged to contact their airlines for information on rebooking, the airport said in a news release. Orlando International Airport was the seventh busiest airport in the United States, and Floridas busiest, with more than 28 million passengers boarded last year, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Backup batteries, solar microgrid trailers and generators headed to Florida NEW ORLEANS In New Orleans, members of the nonprofit Footprint Project have spent the day preparing solar microgrid trailers, backup batteries and atmospheric water generators for deployment to county emergency departments and relief organizations in Florida in anticipation of widespread and prolonged power outages. More than 160,000 people in Florida have already lost power according to Poweroutage.us. The zero-emission equipment is meant to offset the need for gas and diesel-powered generators, which pollute the air and can be costly to fuel. Some of the equipment was being transported from southeast Louisiana where it was used during power outages caused by Hurricane Francine. Its clean, its quiet, its safer, said program director Jamie Swezey. Our goal is to offset use of traditional gas and diesel generators that are always in the field and that exacerbate extreme weather events. Overnight curfews imposed in south Georgia ATLANTA Several cities and counties in south Georgia have imposed overnight curfews in advance of Hurricane Helenes expected arrival Thursday evening, including Albany, Valdosta and Thomasville the largest cities in the region. Students at 2 Florida universities moved into shelters TALLAHASSEE, Fla. Students who remained in the dorms at Florida State University and Florida A&M University in Tallahassee have been moved into shelters for the duration of Hurricane Helene. At Florida State, university officials assisted students in moving from their dorms to the Augustus B. Turnbull Conference Center, which opened Thursday morning. The conference center has been upgraded to withstand extreme conditions, university officials said. At nearby Florida A&M, students who remained in on-campus housing were also asked to shelter at the Al Lawson Center until the storm passes. Rural sheriff's office offers dire warning to anyone who didn't evacuate PERRY, Fla. Officials in mostly rural Taylor County, along Floridas Big Bend region where Hurricane Helene is expected to make landfall, offered a very dire warning on Facebook for anyone who didnt evacuate: Please write your name, birthday, and important information on your arm or leg in a PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified. The sheriffs office further asked residents to email them vital information including the location of their home, and the number of people and animals who live there. They also asked residents who followed evacuation orders to have patience when its time to return home. They noted that there will likely be many impassable roads, downed trees and power lines. Taylor County has a population of about 22,000. Georgias governor: This is one of the biggest storms weve ever had Georgia officials are urging people to stay home while emergency teams disperse to manage Helenes impact as the storm moves swiftly across the state. This is one of the biggest storms weve ever had, Gov. Brian Kemp told reporters on Thursday. It may not be the strongest category, but from a wind field perspective and the amount of damage it has the potential to do statewide, its better to be safe than sorry. Extended power outages across the state are likely tonight and tomorrow, especially in South Georgia, Kemp said. The storm is expected to move through South Georgia from around sunset Thursday to sunrise Friday, and through middle Georgia between 10 p.m. Thursday and 10 a.m. Friday, and through North Georgia from midnight to noon Friday. There are currently eight emergency shelters and 30 American Red Cross teams ready to set up shelters if more are needed.I can assure you we will respond with every asset that we have available as soon as its safe to do so, Kemp said. There will be no place for you to go if things get bad CEDAR KEY, Fla. Lumber and other debris from a fire in Cedar Key a week ago were crashing ashore in the rising water Thursday afternoon, well ahead of Hurricane Helenes arrival along the Big Bend region on Floridas Gulf Coast. Officials with Cedar Key Fire Rescue posted on Facebook a video of the debris-filled waves. They advised people to stay away from the waters edge to avoid being hit by debris that was crashing ashore. The fire along Dock Street damaged several buildings on Sept. 19, officials said. On Wednesday afternoon, the agency pleaded with residents to evacuate the island, which is southwest of Gainesville. There will be no place for you to go if things get bad, the post said. We do not have shelters on the island. There will be no food, no water or sewage and more than likely you will lose power. It could possibly be days before its restored. This is going to be a life-threatening surge. It is nothing to take lightly. They offered a dire warning: If you choose to stay and things change for the bad, you are putting your first responders life in danger unnecessarily. Flooding in North Carolina from Helene could be historic, forecasters say ASHEVILLE, N.C. Forecasters responsible for much of the North Carolina mountains say flooding in the region from Hurricane Helene could be worse than anything seen in the past century. The National Weather Service in Greer, South Carolina, said 7 to 10 inches (18 to 25 centimeters) of rain have already fallen the past two days along a front before Helene-related storms arrive. They predict an additional 9 to 14 inches (23 to 36 centimeters) of rain could fall as what remains of the hurricane moves across the area Thursday into Friday. This will be one of the most significant weather events to happen in the western portions of the area in the modern era, forecasters said in a statement Thursday. They said it could be the worst flooding since 1916 when two decaying tropical systems rained themselves out over the region causing widespread floods and mudslides that killed 80 people, wiped out dozens of miles of railroad tracks and brought down boulders that still sit in fields today. Asheville and other mountain towns were cut off for weeks. Helene also could bring hurricane force wind gusts to the highest peaks in North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina and gusts over 60 mph (97 kph) to the rest of the region. Some intersections in St. Pete Beach are already underwater ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. Some intersections in St. Pete Beach along Floridas Gulf Coast were underwater by Thursday afternoon. Photos posted by the Pinellas County Sheriffs Office showed roads underwater in a commercial district of the beachside city located about 30 miles southwest of Tampa. We are already seeing concerning conditions, the sheriffs office posted. Hurricane Helene is unusual but its not an example of the Fujiwhara Effect The National Weather Services hurricane center warned Thursday that Hurricane Helene will penetrate well inland across the southeastern United States after making landfall in Florida. Tropical storm warnings were posted as far north as North Carolina. The unusual reach as far north and inland as forecasters expect and the potential impacts is raising questions about the Fujiwhara Effect, a rare weather event where two storms rotate around a shared midpoint. But Hurricane Helene isnt interacting with another tropical storm at surface level, so its not technically an example of the Fujiwhara Effect. Instead, Helene is feeling the effects of a low-pressure weather system in the upper levels of the atmosphere. The potential impact is still severe: The hurricane center has warned of prolonged power outages, downed trees and dangerous flooding miles away from the Florida coastline in parts of Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee. Helene becomes a major Category 3 hurricane Helene strengthened into a major Category 3 hurricane Thursday as it barreled across the Gulf of Mexico on a path to Florida. The hurricane was about 195 miles (315 kilometers) southwest of Tampa and had sustained winds of at least 111 mph (179 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. The huge storms center is expected to make landfall in the Big Bend area of Floridas northwestern coast Thursday evening. Hurricane warnings and flash flood warnings extended far beyond the coast up into south-central Georgia. The governors of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia have all declared emergencies in their states. Helene became a tropical storm Tuesday in the western Caribbean Sea and became a hurricane Wednesday. Coastal conditions near Sarasota are beginning to deteriorate, officials say SARASOTA, Fla. Conditions along the coastal areas near Sarasota were beginning to deteriorate early Thursday afternoon, officials said. The Sarasota County Sheriffs Office posted photos on social media showing water lapping over a road at Nora Patterson Park, which is on the northern tip of Siesta Key. Sarasota is about 60 miles (96 kilometers) from Tampa on Floridas Gulf Coast. Its a wakeup call for everybody VALDOSTA, Ga. Some businesses began closing early Thursday afternoon in Valdosta, Georgia, near the Florida line. The inland city was under a hurricane warning, with forecasters predicting dangerous winds late Thursday as Helenes center churns northward through southern Georgia. Employees of a Walmart in Valdosta were turning away customers in the parking lot before 1:30 p.m. Red and blue pallets stacked high blocked the stores entrances. Margaret Freenman, 67, and her two grandchildren found the store closed when they showed up to buy a few extra snacks before Helene arrives. Freeman said shed already stocked up on essentials. Freeman has lived in Valdosta her entire life and said hurricanes have only seemed like a real threat in recent years. Hurricane Idalia uprooted a tree that punched a hole in Freemans roof and broke some windows when it tore through Valdosta a year ago. Tropical Storm Debby knocked out electricity for thousands in August. Its a wakeup call for everybody, said Freeman, who planned to ride out the latest storm again at home. Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay closes ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. The Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay has closed as wind gusts have reached 60 mph, the Florida Highway Patrol said Thursday afternoon. Florida sheriff says his community is in for a rough 24 hours CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla. The sheriff of a coastal Florida county in the path of Hurricane Helene said Thursday that his community is in for a rough 24 hours and a long recovery. Wakulla County Sheriff Jared Miller said the county likely has a long road ahead of it once the storm passes after making an expected landfall Thursday night. The storm could grow to a Category 4 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico before landing in the Big Bend area where Wakulla County is located, with a storm surge up to 20 feet (6 km). I have lived here my entire life and have never witnessed some of the storm predictions we are currently seeing, Miller said in a social media post. I hope that I am mistaken. The sheriff urged residents to stay off local roads, including evacuees who may be itching to return to see the conditions of their homes after the storm passes through. This is not a maybe this is on track to happen ASHEVILLE, N.C. Emergency officials in the North Carolina mountains are warning that heavy rains before Hurricane Helene even arrives have set the stage for potentially historic flooding. The French Broad River and Swannanoa River, which run in and around Asheville and then south, are already predicted to break 100-year-old records Friday into Saturday. The flooding could be worse than in 2004 when water rose to car rooftops in Biltmore Village just outside the gates of the historic Biltmore estate built by George Vanderbilt. This is a potentially historic event with catastrophic, deadly consequences. This is not a maybe. This is on track to happen. So please, please take every precaution to take yourself out of harms way, Buncombe County Emergency Services Director Taylor Jones said. Seven inches (18 centimeters) of rain has already fallen in Asheville while some other areas have seen even more. All of the water is flowing downhill out of the mountains. Mudslides are also a danger as swiftly flowing rivers and runoffs cut their own channels and bring down rocks, trees and other debris, said Andrew Kimball, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Greer, South Carolina. Pre-landfall emergency declarations help states get needed resources ahead of Helene, FEMA head says WASHINGTON The Federal Emergency Management Agencys administrator Deanne Criswell said Thursday that the pre-landfall emergency declarations for Hurricane Helene are important to help states have the resources they need to open shelters and get people to safety. She also noted changes to Small Business Administration policies to make it easier for people including those who work from home to qualify for help. FEMA deployed more resources ahead of Helene due to increased severity of extreme weather WASHINGTON The Federal Emergency Management Agencys administrator Deanne Criswell said the increased severity of extreme weather has led her agency to put more resources in place ahead of landfall by Hurricane Helene. The FEMA head warned about flash flooding from rain and said its better to have more search and rescue teams ready to help people than to have too few teams. FEMA head anticipates Helene will be a multi-state event WASHINGTON The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Deanne Criswell said her agency has been preparing for Hurricane Helene for a number of days and they began moving resources into Florida on Monday. Speaking at Thursdays White House briefing, Criswell said she anticipates the storm will be a multi-state event with impacts from Florida to Tennessee. She added that there are 1,100 people distributed across the federal government to address any damage from Helene and that an additional 700 personnel are ready to provide support after the storm hits. She added that people in the hurricanes path should listen to local government officials about whether to evacuate or shelter in place. Criswell said she will travel to the region on Friday at President Joe Bidens direction to assess the situation. North Carolinas governor warns residents to prepare for heavy rain and flooding North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper warned residents in western and central counties to prepare for heavy rain and potentially catastrophic flooding Thursday night and Friday from Hurricane Helene. Speaking at a Thursday morning briefing, Cooper said the mountains also likely will see landslides, river flooding and debris flows. And cities not necessarily in Helenes direct path, like Charlotte and Asheville, could see flash flooding, he said. The impacts of Helene should not be ignored and all North Carolinians should remain informed, said state emergency management director Will Ray. Areas of western North Carolina could receive from 9 to 14 inches (23 to 36 centimeters) of rain, with amounts reaching 20 inches (51 centimeters) possible, Ray said. Cooper said some shelters were already open and 175 National Guard service members were activated to help in the storm response. Additionally, he said people in the mountains and foothills who dont have to travel shouldnt, the governor said. Im concerned about our mountain areas, seeing the amount of rain thats already on the ground and this storm coming, he said. Ive seen firsthand the devastation that it can cause. Death toll from Hurricane John rises to 5 Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador raised the death toll from Hurricane John to five Thursday as the communities along the countrys Pacific coast prepared for the storm to make a second landfall. State parks and 9 shelters open to evacuees in Georgia The Georgia Emergency Management Agency said nine shelters were opening for Hurricane Helene, mostly in the southern parts of the state. The state has also opened its state parks to evacuees, saying its welcoming people and pets, including horses. Parks officials say they are currently housing 15 evacuees. Biden declares an emergency in North Carolina President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for North Carolina on Thursday, according to the White House. The approval follows one issued for Georgia earlier in the day and one issued for Florida earlier in the week. Federal Emergency Management Agency teams were already deployed to Florida and Alabama to support local first responders. Federal authorities have positioned generators, food and water, along with search-and-rescue and power restoration teams. This has been my livelihood ST. MARKS, Fla. As Hurricane Helene barreled toward Floridas Big Bend, Philip Tooke sat in a rocking chair on the back deck of his fish house overlooking the St. Marks River, watching and waiting. A commercial fisherman who took over the business his father founded in the town of St. Marks, about 5 miles (8 kilometers) north of Apalachee Bay, Tooke plans to ride out this storm like he did Hurricane Michael and others on his boat. This has been my livelihood. This is what pays my bills, Tooke said of his boats. If I lose that, I dont have anything. Tooke said hell wait until the water is about knee-deep and then he, his brother Richard and some of their employees will hunker down on the La Victoria, the Jenny Lee and the Susan D, loosening the lines that fasten the boats to the dock as the water rises, in the hopes they wont be battered apart. St. Marks sits at the confluence of the St. Marks and Wakulla Rivers and is known to flood during storm events. On Thursday morning, water was already beginning to cover Riverside Drive, which runs through downtown. Filling sandbags in Clyattville, Georgia VALDOSTA, Ga. Rain drizzled Thursday morning outside a fire station where residents filled sandbags in the unincorporated Clyattville community outside Valdosta near the Georgia-Florida line. Helene was forecast to pass nearby as a hurricane Thursday night. Jose Gonzales and his 14-year-old son, Jadin, shoveled sand into bags and piled them into the back of a pickup truck. Though their home is inland, Gonzales said heavy rains during Hurricane Idalia a year ago got blown under his doors and cracked a window. Some of the carpet inside got so wet he had to replace it. For Helene, he planned to fortify his doors in hopes of preventing it from happening again. If it blows sideways, we might get more water inside the house, Gonzales said. Its just mother nature. Biden approves emergency declaration in Georgia President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Georgia on Thursday morning after issuing one for Florida earlier in the week. Federal authorities have positioned generators, food and water, along with search-and-rescue and power restoration teams. And Florida officials have sent more than 130 generators to gas stations to ensure that people will be able to fill their cars after the storm, and extra fuel has been shipped into Florida, DeSantis said. John again pelts the coast of Mexico with rain MEXICO CITY As John became a hurricane for the second time, rain continued to pelt the Pacific coast state of Guerrero in Mexico where the storm caused three deaths in its first landfall earlier this week. Authorities in Guerrero reported flooding in some low-lying neighborhoods in Acapulco. Soldiers and National Guard officers were posted outside stores in Acapulco to prevent the kind of widespread looting that broke out in the resort after Hurricane Otis hit last October. This old house was built in 1903 I think itll hold up VALDOSTA, Ga. Joe Overby, 67, and his family were preparing Thursday to ride out the hurricane at their home in the unincorporated Clyattville community outside Valdosta, Georgia, where Hurricane Idalia a year ago toppled trees and damaged about 1,000 homes. Overby boarded up the open front of a large storage building next to his house. He had a generator to power his refrigerator and freezer and planned to move cars to his neighbors yard across the street where there were no trees. He said Idalia last year bent some sturdy oaks in his backyard, exposing the roots. Im afraid this time theyre going to come down, Overby said, adding that he planned to hunker down at home overnight with his wife, two children and four dogs. This old house was built in 1903, he said. I think itll hold up. You cant even pull the nails out, the wood is so hard. Florida officials warn residents of hazards they may face even after Helene hits State officials warned Florida residents of the potential risks they face even after Hurricane Helene rips through the northern part of the state, which was expected Thursday night. Driving on roadways and tree branches falling on homes were the two biggest hazards during storms, said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at a news conference in Tallahassee. Drivers should stay off roads because of potential flooding and people should stay in the interior parts of their homes if they hear tree limbs snapping, which sounds like fireworks or a gun being fired, officials said. It will likely be dark by the time this storm passes, DeSantis said. Do not try to do any work in the dark. You dont know what hazards are out there. The sun is going to come out. Youre going to have time to take stock of this. State emergency officials have sent more than 130 generators to gas stations to ensure that people will be able to fill their cars after the storm, and extra fuel has been shipped into Florida, DeSantis said. We havent seen fuel shortages, only some lines, the governor said. So we feel good about the fuel situation. Associated Press journalists are stationed across Florida and Georgia to report on Helene Associated Press journalists are stationed across parts of Florida and Georgia to report on Hurricane Helene and the storms aftermath. Photographer Gerald Herbert and videographer Stephen Smith are in Crawfordville, Florida, which is south of Tallahassee in whats known as the Big Bend region. Reporters Brendan Farrington and Kate Payne are reporting from Tallahassee, the states capital. The AP also has photographer Mike Stewart, video journalist Sharon Johnson and reporter Russ Bynum reporting from Valdosta, Georgia, which is about 72 miles northeast of Tallahassee, just across the state line. Helene knocked out power and forced evacuations in western Cuba Helene knocked out power in western Cuba as it brushed past the island, affecting some 160,000 customers in the province of Artemisa and another 70,000 in the neighboring province of Pinar del Rio. The hurricane also forced some 800 people in the region to evacuate flood-prone zones, according to Guerrillero, a local newspaper. Pictures posted on social media showed overflowing rivers that turned some streets into creeks as people traveled by boat with their personal belongings. On the Isle of Youth, some 25 hectares (62 acres) of tobacco seedbeds of export quality were damaged, said Raul Fernandez, director of a local company, adding that an anticipated planting schedule for October could be delayed. In addition, some 3,000 customers, about 12% of the municipality, were without power. The Cuban government was still assessing overall damage on Thursday. Airports across multiple states see flight delays and cancellations Airports in the Florida cities of Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed Thursday, while more than half the flights to airports in Sarasota and Fort Myers were canceled Thursday morning, according to flight tracking service FlightAware. More than a hundred flights in and out of the worlds busiest airport in Atlanta had also been canceled while more than 100 others were delayed, but thats a relatively small fraction of flights there. Airports in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the Florida cities of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando were seeing a smaller number of delays and cancellations Chances for a direct hit on Tallahassee have slightly lessened, DeSantis says TALLAHASSEE, Fla. A shift in models nudging Hurricane Helenes projected landfall further east lessens the chances for a direct hit on Floridas capital city if that trajectory holds, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday morning. The shift placed the storm closer to the sparsely-populated Big Bend area where two hurricanes in the past year made landfall Idalia in August 2023 and Debby last August. The Tallahassee metro area has a population of almost 393,000 residents. Helene was expected to make landfall Thursday night, possibly as a Category 4 storm. Thats significant when you are talking about Tallahassee because yesterday we were talking about an eye wall thats on the western part of the city, DeSantis said at a news conference from the states emergency operations center in Tallahassee. The Tallahassee area hadnt seen a major hurricane of Helenes expected magnitude at landfall in recent memory, the governor said. The more the track shifts east, the better off for Tallahassee, DeSantis said. Floridas emergency operations building will be tested when Helene hits the state Even the building where Floridas emergency response to Hurricane Helene is organized will be put to the test when the fast-moving storm plows through Tallahassee late Thursday, possibly as a Category 4 hurricane, state officials said. The building that houses the states emergency operations center in Tallahassee has walls that were built to withstand a Category 5 hurricane. But during construction in the 1990s, there wasnt enough money to ensure the roof could withstand a hurricane that strong, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a news conference Wednesday afternoon. Backup plans were in place should there be any problems with the building. It should be fine, but well see, DeSantis said. Weve taken precautions just in case something happens to be able to continue the continuity without any major interruption. John strengthens into a hurricane again near southwestern Mexico MEXICO CITY Former Hurricane John restrengthened into a hurricane on Thursday morning as it threatened areas of Mexicos western coast with flash flooding and mudslides. Officials posted hurricane warnings for southwestern Mexico. John hit the countrys southern Pacific coast late Monday, killing at least two people, triggering mudslides, and damaging homes and trees. It grew into a Category 3 hurricane in a matter of hours and made landfall east of Acapulco. It reemerged over the ocean after weakening inland. Rain is falling and the roads are empty near where Helene is expected to make landfall PANACEA, Fla. Rain was beginning to blow in the predawn darkness Thursday along coastal U.S. Highway 98, which winds through countless fishing villages and vacation hideaways along Floridas Big Bend. Shuttered gas stations dotted the two-lane highway, their windows boarded up with plywood to protect against the storm. The road was largely empty at first light, with what drivers there mostly heading northeast, towards higher ground. This stretch of Florida known as the Forgotten Coast has been largely spared by the widespread condo development and commercialization that dominates so many of Floridas beach communities. The sparsely populated region is loved for its natural wonders the vast stretches of salt marshes, tidal pools and barrier islands; the dwarf cypress trees of Tates Hell State Forest; and Wakulla Springs, considered one of the worlds largest and deepest freshwater springs. Helene upgraded to Category 2 hurricane as it barrels toward Florida MIAMI Helene was upgraded Thursday morning to a Category 2 storm and is expected to be a major hurricane meaning a Category 3 or higher when it makes landfall on Floridas northwestern coast Thursday evening. As of early Thursday, hurricane warnings and flash flood warnings extended far beyond the coast up into south-central Georgia. The governors of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia have all declared emergencies in their states. Tropical Storm Isaac forms in the Atlantic and is expected to strengthen, forecasters say MIAMI Tropical Storm Isaac formed Wednesday in the Atlantic Ocean and was expected to strengthen as it moves eastward, possibly becoming a hurricane by the end of the week, forecasters said. Isaac was about 690 miles (1,115 kilometers) northeast of Bermuda with top sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. It was moving east at about 12 mph (19 kph). Isaac is the ninth named storm in what is predicted to be a busy hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 in the Atlantic. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts between 17 and 25 named storms, with as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes. An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes. The U.S. announced an agreement with the Iraqi government Friday to wrap up the military mission in Iraq of an American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group by next year, with U.S. troops departing some bases that they have long occupied during a two-decade-long military presence in the country. But the Biden administration refused to provide details on how many of the approximately 2,500 U.S. troops still serving in Iraq will remain there or acknowledge it will mark a full withdrawal from the country. I think its fair to say that, you know, our footprint is going to be changing within the country, Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Friday without providing specifics. The announcement comes at a particularly contentious time for the Middle East, with escalating conflict between Israel and two Iranian-backed militant groups Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza threatening a broader regional war. Bases housing U.S. forces and contractors have been regularly targeted by Iran-backed militias over the last several years, and those attacks intensified late last year and early this spring after the Israel-Hamas war broke out nearly a year ago. For years, Iraqi officials have periodically called for a withdrawal of coalition forces, and formal talks to wind down the U.S. presence in the country have been going on for months. U.S. officials who briefed reporters Friday said the agreement will bring about a two-phase transition in the troops assigned to Iraq that began this month. In the first phase, which runs through September 2025, the coalition mission against ISIS will end and forces will leave some longstanding bases. Following the November election, American forces will start departing from Ain al-Asad airbase in western Iraq and from Baghdad International Airport, according to Iraqi government officials who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. Those forces will be moved to Hareer base in Erbil, in northern Iraq's Kurdistan region. In the second phase, the U.S. will continue to operate in some fashion from Iraq through 2026 to support counter-ISIS operations in Syria, a senior Biden administration official and a senior defense official said on the condition of anonymity on a call with reporters to provide details ahead of the announcement. Ultimately, the U.S. military mission would transition to a bilateral security relationship, the U.S. officials said, but they did not indicate what that might mean for the number of American troops who remain in Iraq in the future. The Iraqi officials said some American troops may stay at Hareer base after 2026 because the Kurdistan regional government would like them to stay. We have taken an important step in resolving the issue of the international coalition to fight ISIS, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani said in a speech this month. He noted the governments belief in the capabilities of our security forces that defeated the remnants of ISIS. The continued presence of U.S. troops has been a political vulnerability for Sudani, whose government is under increased influence from Iran. Iraq has long struggled to balance its ties with the U.S. and Iran, both allies of the Iraqi government but regional archenemies. We thank the government for its position to expel the international coalition forces, Qais Khazali, founder of Asaib Ahl al-Haq an Iran-backed Iraqi Shia militia that has conducted attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq said last week. The agreement marks the third time in the last two decades that the U.S. has announced a formal transition of the military's role there. The U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003 in what it called a massive shock and awe bombing campaign that lit up the skies, laid waste to large sections of the country and paved the way for American ground troops to converge on Baghdad. The invasion was based on what turned out to be faulty claims that Saddam Hussein had secretly stashed weapons of mass destruction. Such weapons never materialized. The U.S. presence grew to more than 170,000 troops at the peak of counterinsurgency operations in 2007. The Obama administration negotiated the drawdown of forces, and in December 2011, the final combat troops departed, leaving only a small number of military personnel behind to staff an office of security assistance and a detachment of Marines to guard the embassy compound. In 2014, the rise of the Islamic State group and its rapid capture of a wide swath across Iraq and Syria brought U.S. and partner nation forces back at the invitation of the Iraqi government to help rebuild and retrain police and military units that had fallen apart and fled. After ISIS lost its hold on the territory it once claimed, coalition military operations ended in 2021. An enduring U.S. presence of about 2,500 troops stayed in Iraq to maintain training and conduct partnered counter-ISIS operations with Iraq's military. In the years since, the U.S. has maintained that presence to pressure Iranian-backed militias active in Iraq and Syria. The presence of American forces in Iraq also makes it more difficult for Iran to move weapons across Iraq and Syria into Lebanon, for use by its proxies, including the Lebanese Hezbollah, against Israel. (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.) Jennifer Silver, a dentist in Calgary, Canada, became alarmed after her 62-year-old father started getting forgetful and confused earlier this year. He had trouble recalling recent conversations and would often ask the same questions repeatedly, she says. There were also instances where he forgot where he had parked his car or struggled to remember the way home from places he had visited regularly. Fearing the worst, Silver and her family had her father evaluated for cognitive decline. A neurologist discovered the real culprit: clonidine, a blood pressure medication that can trigger dementia-like symptoms in rare cases. After a switch to a different hypertension drug, lisinopril, her fathers mental state quickly improved. Members only While the symptoms that plagued Silvers father were particularly dramatic, minor memory lapses forgetting a persons name or why you walked into a room can also lead to worry that you or a loved one is sliding toward dementia. Thankfully most of the time these fears are unfounded. True, the older you get, the greater the risk that some cognitive abilities will decline. In the Alzheimers Association's estimate, 1 in 9 Americans 65 and older is living with Alzheimers, the most common cause of dementia. But flip that statistic on its head for an overlooked reality: Most of us do not develop dementia, said Robert Klitzman, M.D., professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, Irving Medical Center at a September presentation, Well+Being: Brain Health & Aging, at The Washington Post, supported by AARP. And there are things we can do to improve our odds. That's news to people worldwide, according to a 2024 survey of more than 40,000 people reported in the World Alzheimer Report 2024 by Alzheimer's Disease International. Eighty percent of the general public think dementia is a normal part of aging. And 65 percent of health care professionals believe the same. Normal aging vs. cognitive decline Accumulating evidence suggests that cognitive decline extensive enough to affect daily living is not inevitable. But that doesnt mean your brain will always work as well as it did in your 20s. Cognitive function improves through early adulthood, and then, over time, certain aspects of cognition begin to decline, says Thomas M. Holland, M.D., a physician scientist at the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Holland studies the impact of lifestyle modifications on aging and is an advisor on the U.S. POINTER study, which stands for U.S. Study to Protect Brain Health Through Lifestyle Intervention to Reduce Risk in people 60 to 79. Normal age-related changes in thinking Recovery may involve several types of therapy: Declines: thinking speed, attention, multitasking, holding information in mind, word-finding Remains the same or improves: vocabulary, reading, verbal reasoning Source: University of California San Francisco Memory and Aging Center Certain abilities processing speed, for example slow down [around] the age of 20 or so, when processing speed peaks, to age 70 or 80, when processing speed can be down as much as 50 to 70 percent, says Howard Fillit, M.D., clinical professor of geriatrics, medicine and neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, and chief science officer of the Alzheimers Drug Discovery Foundation. (On the plus side, vocabulary and decision-making improves with age.) Not remembering where you put your keys or your glasses is usually no cause for concern, Holland says. As we get older, [many people] get distracted more easily, he says. More worrisome is not being able to perform the activities of daily life, such as bathing yourself, doing the laundry, cooking and cleaning things that you were normally able to do but now find challenging, but not because of a physical impairment, Holland says. For instance, it might be worrying, if you were able to balance a checkbook and now youre having trouble doing it, for instance. I get concerned when someone is not remembering how to get home. Coffee lovers have a reason to celebrate this weekend: Its National Coffee Day on Sunday, September 29! And that means your usual brew (or your favorite coffee treat) might be free or discounted if you know where and when to look. So whether you prefer your coffee hot or iced, want a barista to prepare it or prefer to brew it at home, heres where to get your caffeine buzz on National Coffee Day. Members only Dunkin If youre a Dunkin Rewards member, you can get a free medium-sized hot or iced coffee with a purchase on National Coffee Day. Claim the deal in the Dunkin app. Limit one freebie per member. Shipley Do-Nuts Do-Happy Rewards members who purchase a cup of coffee at any of the doughnut chains more than 350 locations throughout the U.S. on September 29 will get a glazed donut. Tim Hortons Tim Hortons is turning National Coffee Day into a weekend-long celebration. From September 27 to 29, all Tims Rewards Members can enjoy a medium-sized hot or iced coffee with any purchase at any of their participating U.S. locations. Peets Coffee On National Coffee Day, satisfy your caffeine craving with a free drip coffee or cold brew at any participating Peets location throughout the U.S. Members of the Peetnik rewards program can up-size their beverages for free from September 23 through September 29. Prefer to brew Peets coffee at home? The national coffee retailer is offering 25 percent off Peets Coffee beans, K-Cups or capsules at participating coffee bar locations or you can get 25 percent off any items on their website with promo code NCD2024 from September 23 through September 29. Starbucks Skip the line at your favorite Starbucks location and have coffee delivered to your door. Starbucks has partnered with Amazon to offer exclusive National Coffee Day deals, including $10 off Pike Place Medium Roast ground coffee, Starbucks K-Cup Coffee Pods and other eligible Starbucks coffee at-home products when you spend $50 on participating Starbucks products. The deal is available until September 30. Steeped Coffee The eco-friendly brand that sells coffee in convenient tea baglike single-serve, compostable brew bags is offering 15 percent off when you use the discount code COFFEEDAY15 from September 25 to October 5. With its rich history, culture and natural beauty, Europe is a perennial favorite among travelers. Although throngs of tourists crowd its famous landmarks and cities in the peak summer months, theres an often-overlooked alternative: the winter offseason. Demand for Europes cool low season is a hot trend. Since 2023, the Avalon Waterways company has increased its offseason river cruises by 88 percent to keep up with demand. When Windstar Cruises redeployed a ship to the Mediterranean last winter, the itinerary proved so successful that the small-ship line offers more this season. Members only Visiting Europe during the off-peak period of late November through late March is a quieter, more authentic experience without the crowds and with shorter lines, when Europe can be awash in yuletide cheer and winter wonderland scenery (Christmas markets, anyone?). Its the chance to experience a more European Europe, writes Rick Steves, founder and owner of Rick Steves Europe, on the website of his tour company. Were leading more tours in the off-season than ever. Whats more, its not as cold as you think. Global warming is keeping the Mediterranean warm, says Janet Bava, chief commercial officer for Windstar Cruises. Its a lot warmer, though not as intense as the summer heat. Especially in southern Europe where air-conditioning is not as common, older travelers will find that traveling in the winter is a more comfortable experience due to the milder temperatures in popular countries including Italy, Spain and Portugal, says Melissa DaSilva, interim CEO of TTC Tour Brands, parent company of Trafalgar Tours. Trafalgar offers escorted tours worldwide. As an antidote to the scourge of over-tourism, winter travel is more responsible and sustainable, alleviating the strain of high-season crowds on many destinations. Best of all, it offers savings over high season at a time especially suited to older travelers and retirees with more flexible schedules. Just ask Geralyn Rock, 67, a retiree from Collingswood, New Jersey, who has taken five winter trips to Europe with Road Scholar, an educational tour company for travelers over 50. The companys attractive prices were paramount, she says. Plus, these places have mild weather. Its not crowded at all, she says. And youre still contributing to the local economy that depends on tourism. Europe is popular with older travelers. According to AARPs 2024 Travel Trends survey, Europe topped the list of international destinations people 50-plus wanted to visit this year, with 41 percent choosing it. From river and ocean cruises to guided, land-based tours, here are six companies that offer winter trips in Europe often less expensive than summer travel. (All listed prices are per person, double occupancy, unless otherwise noted. They were accurate at time of publication.) Budapest, Hungary, is one of Avalon Waterways destinations during the low season. Courtesy Avalon Waterways Avalon Waterways The offseason presents milder temperatures, fewer crowds and generally better deals including airfare, says Pam Hoffee, president of Avalon Waterways. And now cruisers especially those with a flexible schedule and kids out of the house are getting on board to see Europe in a new light and a new season. Annasofia Scheve covers trending news for the Express-News. She can be reached at Annasofia.Scheve@express-news.net. Annasofia has bachelor's degrees in journalism and political science from the University of Missouri. She is an Ohio native, and wrote for Cincinnati Magazine and the Cincinnati Enquirer before joining the Express-News in 2023. Update on Binding Acquisition of Mineral Rights Toronto, Sep 27, 2024 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Resouro Strategic Metals Inc. ( ASX:RAU ) ( CVE:RSM ) ( 8TX:FRA ) ( RSGOF:OTCMKTS ) is pleased to announce an update to the press release provided to you on September 9, 2024 (September 10, 2024 ASX). Resouro's subsidiary, Tiros Minerais Estrategicos Mineracao Ltda ("TMEL" or the "Buyer"), has completed the due diligence required to finalize the contractual arrangement whereby Resouro entered into a Binding Agreement with Mr. Marcelo Augusto Martins Neto ("Seller") to acquire 100% ownership and title over three (3) mineral rights contiguous with the Sao Gotardo block of Resouro's Tiros Rare Earths and Titanium Project, located in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil ("Tiros Project" or the "Project"). Highlights - Three (3) minerals rights ("Mineral Rights") totaling 4,744 hectares located south of, and contiguous with, the Sao Gotardo block of the Tiros Project. - The Capacete Formation, associated with the Tiros Project, covers most of the Mineral Rights associated with this Binding Agreement. Commenting on the Binding Agreement, President, CEO, Director and Founder, Chris Eager commented: With this acquisition, we are consolidating our presence in the highly prospective Capacete Formation, securing assets for future development. This highly strategic acquisition gives us a greater footprint in a highly prospective area and the contiguous nature of the assets adjacent to Resouro's Sao Gotardo block could prove highly beneficial in the event of a future discovery." Acquisition Terms The terms of the Binding Agreement have been modified to include a floor price for use in the calculation of the number of common shares that will be issued upon successful completion of Milestones 2 and 3. Material terms of the Binding Agreement include: - Initial Payment: Within 5 days from the date of confirmed acceptance of this transaction by the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV"), or up to 30 days from the purchase confirmation, whichever comes first, payment of (1) CAD 50,000 in cash and (2) CAD 50,000 in Resouro shares based on the 20-day VWAP of Resouro shares which occurred immediately prior to the date of acceptance of the transaction. The VWAP is CAD $0.35; therefore, 142,857 common shares of Resouro will be issued. - Milestone 1: After the purchase confirmation, the Buyer shall drill at least six (6) holes within the mineral rights perimeter. The drilling campaign should report at least three (3) holes showing a minimum of 20 continuous meters of intercepts with over 2,000 ppm Total Rare Earth Oxides ("TREO") within two (2) years of the purchase confirmation date. o The payment for Milestone 1 will consist of (1) CAD 50,000 in cash and (2) CAD 50,000 in Resouro shares based on the same 20-day VWAP as that used for the Initial Payment. The VWAP is CAD $0.35; therefore, an additional 142,857 common shares of Resouro will be issued. o If the drill holes are not completed in the two (2) years from the purchase confirmation date, the Buyer must pay the amount stipulated under this Milestone, in full. - Milestone 2: After the Buyer completes sufficient exploration work to issue a JORC Compliant report with an inferred resource of 100 million tonnes of at least 2,000 ppm TREO within three (3) years from the purchase confirmation date, the Buyer will make the following payment: o Consisting of (1) CAD 50,000 in cash and (2) CAD 50,000 in Resouro shares based on the 20-day VWAP of Resouro shares which occurred immediately prior to the date of the milestone 2 deadline. A floor price of CAD $0.24 has been established; therefore, a maximum of 208,333 common shares of Resouro will be issued. o If Milestone 2 is not met within the three (3) years from the purchase confirmation date, the Buyer must pay the amount stipulated under this Milestone, in full. - Milestone 3: After the Buyer has completed a JORC Mineable Compliant Report, or up to one (1) year after the payment related to Milestone 2 is made, the final payment to complete the acquisition of the mineral rights will be made by the Buyer, as follows: o Consisting of (1) CAD 100,000 in cash plus (2) CAD 100,000 in Resouro shares based on the 20-day VWAP of Resouro shares which occurred immediately prior to the date of the milestone 3 deadline. A floor price of CAD $0.24 has been established; therefore, a maximum of 416,666 common shares of Resouro will be issued. - Conditions precedent: o Presentation by the Seller of: - The mineral rights acquisition contract; and - Completion by the Agencia Nacional de Mineracao ("ANM") of the mineral rights transfer to the Seller; o Signature by the Parties of the Mineral Rights transfer contracts from the Seller to TMEL; and o Execution by the Buyer and Seller of all customary agreements and contracts associated with transactions of this kind in Brazil. - Guarantee from the Seller: o The Seller warrants and guarantees that in the event that any of the mineral rights related to this transaction are impacted by judicial or administrative procedures and/ endorsements, the transaction will be terminated, in full, and the Seller will reimburse the Buyer the full amount of all cash paid, and all shares issued by the Buyer. Resouro will fund the acquisition price from its existing cash reserves. *To view tables and figures, please visit: https://abnnewswire.net/lnk/MGCO820L About Resouro Strategic Metals Inc. Resouro Strategic Metals Inc. (ASX:RAU) (CVE:RSM) (OTCMKTS:RSGOF) (FRA:8TX) is a Canadian-based mineral exploration and development company focused on the discovery and advancement of economic mineral projects in Brazil, including the rare earth elements and titanium Tiros Project and the Novo Mundo and Santa Angela gold projects. The Tiros Project, located in northern Minas Gerais, Brazil, is an exploration project focused on rare earth elements and titanium covering an area of approximately 450 km2. The Tiros Project comprises 17 exploration permits, and one exploration permit application held by the Company's Brazilian subsidiary; and 6 exploration permits and one exploration permit application that have been validly assigned to the Company's Brazilian subsidiary and are awaiting ANM approval. The Company holds, via its wholly owned Brazilian subsidiary, a 90% interest in the Tiros Project and the remaining 10% interest in the Tiros Project is held by RBM Consultoria Mineral Eireli (RBM), an unrelated third-party vendor. The Novo Mundo Project is located in the Alta Floresta Gold Province close to the northern border of the state of Mato Grosso, central Brazil. Within the licensed area is the small town of Novo Mundo, which is 30km west from the larger town of Guaranta do Norte. It comprises three exploration permits. The Company also has another interest in an exploration permit, being the Santa Angela Project, which is not considered material to the Company's operations. Interests in the Novo Mundo Project and Santa Angela Project are held via the Company's wholly owned subsidiary. Related Companies Altilium Sighter Test Work Update on the Tiros Project Toronto, Sep 27, 2024 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Resouro Strategic Metals Inc. ( ASX:RAU ) ( CVE:RSM ) ( 8TX:FRA ) ( RSGOF:OTCMKTS ) is pleased to provide details on the sighter test-work completed by Altilium Projects (Australia) Pty Ltd ("Altilium"), on samples from the Tiros Titanium and Rare Earth Elements ("REE") Project in Brazil ("Tiros Project" or "Tiros" or "Project"). Highlights - Sighter test-work performed by Altilium demonstrated that over 96% of Magnet Rare Earth Oxides ("MREO") can be extracted from the ore, this result represents the world's highest REE extractions on non-selective ore intervals. - The next phase of the Altilium test-work has commenced and will focus on the optimization of leaching parameters and downstream elements. - Altilium's technology delivers an environmentally friendly leaching process which does not produce any waste products. - Offtake enquiries received and initial discussions commenced. - Second Phase of Altilium test-work commenced On 13th August 2024 (TSXV 12th August 2024), Resouro announced the results of the sighter test-work completed by Altilium. The aim of this test-work was to achieve maximum extraction of REE and titanium minerals by applying Altilium's patented technology. This process includes acid regeneration with minimal acid loss as well as zero waste, with the aim of producing the world's lowest environmental footprint titanium dioxide ("TiO2") and Rare Earth Oxides ("REO") from pit to product. Sighter test-work establishes whether metals can be extracted easily or not from the ore and is a critical upfront benchmark to prove the concept. Extensive additional test-work is required to determine a final process flow sheet and optimise the leaching conditions, such as acid concentration. As previously announced, the sighter test-work demonstrated that the Altilium Ti/REE Process(TM) can extract over 96% of the MREO from representative samples taken from the Tiros full ore horizon homogenous material, corresponding to the world's highest REE extractions on non-selective ore intervals. Two samples of ore were received at Core Resources Laboratory in Queensland. These samples were crushed to a nominal top-size of 3.35 mm. The crushed samples were then representatively split into sub-samples which were then combined to produce a representative composite. The composite samples were then ground to a nominal top-size of 600 um before being rotary sample divided to produce five aliquots with masses of approximately 400 g. One sample was randomly selected for head characterisation while the remaining four were set aside for leach test work. LT1 / LT2 - Sighter Tests Results from test LT1 showed low extraction of aluminium and intermediate extractions for iron and magnesium. High extractions of REE were achieved, typically around 70% with results for total rare earth elements plus yttrium ("TREY") and light rare earth elements ("LREE") being virtually equal likely due to the high contribution of LREE to the TREY in the feed material. In test LT2, using a higher acid concentration and acid/ore ratio, extraction surprisingly decreased across the board for impurities and REEs. The cause of this is not currently clear, although the test appeared to go according to plan. The LT3 test involved a pre-leach heating and leaching at the standard acid concentration (68% Wt.% Nitric Acid ("HNO3")) used in the Altilium Ti/REE Process(TM). Test LT3 showed high extractions for aluminium and REEs. This test involved heating feed material to 600degC to convert kaolin to metakaolin, increasing its leachability and facilitating the release of aluminium and rare earths. The results indicate that the conversion was successful allowing significant improvements to the extraction of the target metals. Of significant note is that the extraction of Magnet REE appears to increase substantially more than the Light REE and Heavy REE. This demonstrates that pre-heating of the material increases the extraction of REEs. The temperature of this sighter test was high (600o C) to prove the concept. The actual temperatures and conditions for pre-heating will be optimised in the next phase of test-work. These results were obtained under closed-circuit temperate conditions designed to minimize losses on the target metals and on the hydroelectricity network associated with the project. Therefore optimizing extraction rates and minimizing energy costs to enhance overall sustainability of the project. Altilium - Key Next Steps Resouro has now commissioned Altilium to commence the next phase of test-work, consisting of optimization of leaching parameters and downstream elements. This work is a scaled-up version of the sighter test, adjusting each condition until the optimal parameters are achieved over the Tiros Project's 1.7 bn tonne resource. For a full break down of the Company's maiden JORC resource, refer ASX announcement of 18th July 2024 - TSX Announcement of 17th July 2024. Altilium have also commenced leach test-work on a 45 kg sample remaining at the Core Laboratory. The objective of this program is to generate residue from the leaching process to then produce TiO2 concentrate that can be sent to potential off-takers for the Titanium product. Phase two of the Altilium test-work involves shipping a 200 kg Representative Composite Sample, that has been prepared and is awaiting shipment. This sample will undergo a full range of tests to optimise each component of the Altilium Ti/REE Process(TM). The entire test-work program is scheduled to take 30 weeks with periodic updates as test-work progresses. Results from this next phase will allow Resouro to update its financial model for inclusion in the Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA"). This phase of the test-work will include the processing of saleable REE and TiO2 products to be used with potential off-takers with whom Resouro is in preliminary discussion, whilst exploring the markets for other potential saleable elements in the orebody. Key benefits of the Altilium Ti/REE Process(TM) include: - Zero waste, sustainable, environmentally friendly closed-circuit leach process. - World's leading consistent representative rare earths leach extractions. - Nitric acid produces the world's first TiO2 product with low niobium, phosphate and zirconium. - No tailings dam required. - Minimal acid consumption with the Altilium patented technology recovering and reusing nearly 100% of the nitric acid employed. - A technology disruptor for the rare earth and TiO2 industry. - Potentially, a fully automated process with minimal fluctuation in material production rates, recoveries and consumables providing reduced risk from operating perspectives. Metallurgical Test-Work at CIT Senai CIT Senai in Brazil is working through the test-work program and is nearing completion of the first phase of the ore characterisation studies. These studies assess the density, sizing and chemical characteristics of the orebody to allow the project team to leverage this knowledge and produce a likely flowsheet. Concurrently, CIT Senai are working on the next leaching tests using sulphuric and hydrochloric acids and a range of other reagents. Following the receipt of further results currently in the laboratory under various conditions (concentration, residency times, temperatures and pH), Resouro will continue to progress its dual-pronged metallurgical testing framework and update the market accordingly. Initial discussions with off-take partners Subsequent to the announcement of Resouro's 1.7 billion tonne high grade REE and TiO2 JORC resource, numerous unsolicited enquires from large industrial companies in Asia, Europe and North America have been received. The first stage of the Altilium test-work is to produce trial samples of TiO2 concentrate from a 45 kg sample already at the Core Laboratory in Brisbane and to send these to potential off-takers. An additional 200 kg representative composite sample has been sent to the Core Laboratory to commence test-work on rare earth leaching and TiO2 concentration. President, CEO, Director and Founder, Chris Eager commented: "The initial sighter test-work results completed at the Core Laboratories in Queensland provide a proof of concept and indicate that Resouro can achieve high Rare Earths Extraction from Tiros Ore. The Altilium Ti/REE Process(TM) has many advantages over conventional leaching and has the potential to produce a clean TiO2 product. This gives us confidence to take the next step of detailed test-work with Altilium. Resouro is also continuing to explore conventional leaching, a range of other reagents and leaching protocols. We are focussed on finding the optimal leaching method that will provide the most environmentally friendly process with high Rare Earths and TiO2 recoveries at the lowest cost." *To view tables and figures, please visit: https://abnnewswire.net/lnk/QA4E9CB6 About Resouro Strategic Metals Inc. Resouro Strategic Metals Inc. (ASX:RAU) (CVE:RSM) (OTCMKTS:RSGOF) (FRA:8TX) is a Canadian-based mineral exploration and development company focused on the discovery and advancement of economic mineral projects in Brazil, including the rare earth elements and titanium Tiros Project and the Novo Mundo and Santa Angela gold projects. The Tiros Project, located in northern Minas Gerais, Brazil, is an exploration project focused on rare earth elements and titanium covering an area of approximately 450 km2. The Tiros Project comprises 17 exploration permits, and one exploration permit application held by the Company's Brazilian subsidiary; and 6 exploration permits and one exploration permit application that have been validly assigned to the Company's Brazilian subsidiary and are awaiting ANM approval. The Company holds, via its wholly owned Brazilian subsidiary, a 90% interest in the Tiros Project and the remaining 10% interest in the Tiros Project is held by RBM Consultoria Mineral Eireli (RBM), an unrelated third-party vendor. The Novo Mundo Project is located in the Alta Floresta Gold Province close to the northern border of the state of Mato Grosso, central Brazil. Within the licensed area is the small town of Novo Mundo, which is 30km west from the larger town of Guaranta do Norte. It comprises three exploration permits. The Company also has another interest in an exploration permit, being the Santa Angela Project, which is not considered material to the Company's operations. Interests in the Novo Mundo Project and Santa Angela Project are held via the Company's wholly owned subsidiary. Related Companies IP Geophysics Program Starts at Rosario Copper Project, Chile Singapore, Sep 27, 2024 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Battery and critical metals explorer and developer, Pan Asia Metals Limited ( ASX:PAM ) is pleased to advise that geophysical contractor, Quantec Geoscience, is on site at the Rosario Copper Project and will commence the Induced Polarisation (IP) geophysics this evening (Australian time). Highlights - Quantec Geoscience on site, IP program starts today. - Initial IP lines focusing on the historical Salvadora and Royal copper mines - Testing for sub-surface conductors associated with fresh copper mineralisation Pan Asia Metals' Managing Director, Paul Lock, commented: "As previously announced, this is the first ever IP survey at Rosario. Given the presence of small scale historical mines, in conjunction with the high grade rock chip and channel samples, and Rosario's proximity to the famous El Salvador mine 10km to the south, we have a high level of confidence that the IP survey will produce interesting results. The IP survey will be closely followed by an inaugural drill program. Of further appeal is the fact that access is very good." Quantec will start work at the southern end of the Rosario East Trend (RET) and continue north on eastwest lines spaced around 400m apart (See Figure 1*). The RET hosts the old Salvadora and Royal Mines, and previous work has delineated numerous rock chip samples with strong copper grades (see Figure 2*). On completion of the IP survey on the RET, work will then progress to the Rosario Central (RCT) and Rosario West trends (RWT). The objective of the program is to map and detect Manto Style Copper mineralisation within the survey area for drill targeting, delineation and structural control identification, specifically: - Detect and discriminate targets related to potential mineralisation, alteration, lithology; - Discriminate between large, potentially greater tonnage targets and smaller targets; and - Compliment near surface information for integrated drill targeting. The program will employ conventional Direct Current Induced Polarisation (DCIP) using a Pole-Dipole array (P-DP Array) survey which will provide high resolution resistivity and chargeability imaging to the desired depth of investigation for the Project from surface to ~300m. At present, the survey proposes 19 IP lines for a total of ~27 line km. Field Work PAM has started geochemical exploration at Rosario with Pan Asia's Chief Geologist David Hobby on the ground, leading the program. Further details of the program to follow. Forward planning The IP survey is scheduled to take approximately 2 weeks to complete with a final report shortly thereafter, after which full results will be presented. Pan Asia has been in contact with drilling companies in Chile, in preparation for an RC drilling program of approximately 2500m to commence in November. *To view tables and figures, please visit: https://abnnewswire.net/lnk/AMB014S1 About Pan Asia Metals Ltd Pan Asia Metals Limited (ASX:PAM) combines its proven track record in Southeast Asia with the promising prospects of its lithium initiatives in South America. PAM is cost focused, understanding that in the global metals market the leading factor of distinction is a projects position on the cost curve. Why? While commodity prices go through cycles, project operating costs do not. Therefore there is only way to survive the commodity price cycle, and that is to be at or near the bottom of the cost curve. PAM's projects are located in Thailand and Chile, both low cost regions which have established and emerging lithium chemical and electric vehicle manufacturing clusters, and which have Free Trade Agreement (FTA) protections. Related Companies 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 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. Candace Sanchez, the paternal aunt of Benjamin "Benji" Cervera, testifies during the trial of her brother Brandon Cervera, on Friday. Cervera is accused of starving his 4-year-old son Benji to death. Josie Norris/San Antonio Express-News Defendant Brandon Cervera, the father accused of starving his 4-year-old son Benji to death, appears in court during his trial on Friday. Josie Norris/San Antonio Express-News Judge Kristina Escalona listens to prosecutor Michael Villarreals objection during the trial of Brandon Cervera, the father accused of starving his 4-year-old son to death, on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in San Antonio, Texas. Josie Norris/San Antonio Express-News Amy Flores Cepeda, Benji Cervera's maternal aunt, testifies during the trial of Brandon Cervera on Friday. Josie Norris/San Antonio Express-News Prosecutor Michael Villarreal, left, and defense attorney Jodi Soyars, right, speak out of the presence of the jury during the trial on Friday of Brandon Cervera, the father accused of starving his 4-year-old son Benji to death. Josie Norris/San Antonio Express-News Prosecutor Michael Villarreal questions pediatrician Dr. James Lewis Lukefahr as he testifies in the trial on Friday of Brandon Cervera, the father accused of starving his 4-year-old son Benji to death. Josie Norris/San Antonio Express-News A photo of Benjamin Cervera, showing abnormal hair growth on his back, is shared with the jury during the trial of Benjis father Brandon Cervera on Friday. Josie Norris/San Antonio Express-News A relative of the 4-year-old whose father is accused of starving him to death testified that she was so concerned about her nephew that she called Child Protective Services. Brandon Cervera, 31, is accused of starving Benjamin "Benji" Cervera to death on Aug. 17, 2021. Cervera is charged with injury to a child causing serious bodily injury. Candace Irene Sanchez, Benji's paternal aunt, testified Friday at her brother Brandon Cervera's trial that she took care of the boy for about six months in 2020, when Benji was about two years old. Advertisement Article continues below this ad He had been living with his biological mother, but in 2019, he began living with his father. Sanchez testified that she remembers Benji was eating and growing normally back then. But she hadn't seen Benji in months, and what her brother told her about her nephew worried her. In the months before Benjis death, Sanchez said her brother told her that Benji was injuring himself. He told her Benji was putting things in his ears, hitting his head against the wall and biting his fingernails. My reaction was, Something is wrong. It put me in mama bear mode. I was concerned. She said her brother told her that "Benji was eating a lot. Like a man. Eating big meals. Always trying to get into the refrigerator or the pantry to get more food after he had just eaten. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Sanchez said she began questioning her brother, asking him, 'Why was he looking for more food, if he was being fed? Why was he looking for more food?'" She told her brother he needed to take Benji to the doctor. When Sanchez called Child Protective Services, she told them about her concerns for her nephew, which were based on what her brother told her. He wouldnt get full. He would want to eat like if he hadnt eaten before and I didnt find that to be normal, she said. While she hadnt seen Benji in person in some time, Cervera had shown her a photo of Benji. He looked thin. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "I was concerned about my nephew," Sanchez said. She said Benji had no issues with being potty trained when he was younger and was able to grow out of using diapers, Sanchez said. She said she was surprised to find out that Benji had gone back to using diapers. She wanted to take Benji to a doctor herself, but she was told that she couldnt because she didnt have a letter signed by his biological mother giving her permission to take him to the doctor. During the trial, a timeline has been built using testimony, photos and videos of Benji in the months leading up to his death. Police said Cervera purposefully withheld food from Benji. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In one of the videos, Benji can be seen crying and begging for bread and water on the day of his death. At the apartment where Benji lived with his father and stepmother, detectives observed locks on the refrigerator, kitchen cabinets and pantry door. There were also locks on his bedroom door. If convicted, Cervera faces up to life in prison. Benji's stepmother, Miranda Casarez, was convicted in the childs death in April and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Amy Flores Cepeda, Benji's maternal aunt, also testified. She described a younger Benji as being a healthy toddler with an appetite. She said he would ask her to taste her food and drink. He liked to climb, and had strong legs, she said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "He was really sweet, he was funny, like adventurous, he liked to be carried around a lot," she said. "He was a light." Flores said she could not recognize the photos shared in court of Benji that were taken just before his death. Dr. James Lukefahr, a pediatrician, child abuse expert and director for the Center for Miracles, established that Benji had been healthy in the beginning. He said that although he was born premature, Benjis growth chart shows he had no difficulty growing during the early stages of his life. However, after Benjis fourth birthday, his weight began to drop dramatically, Lukefahr said. (Children) should be continuing to gain weight steadily and consistently, Lukefahr said. When we see a pattern like this, where a child is having a very dramatic loss in weight, that indicates a very significant problem. While referring to Benjis autopsy report completed by Bexar County Chief Medical Examiner Kimberley Molina, Lukefahr pointed out several of Molinas findings that informed his opinion that Benji was starved. He mentioned that Benji was described as being cachectic at the time of his death, and that he had little to no body fat. He also had no thymus gland, which is typically seen in children of his age but can disappear if a child is under extreme stress. Benjis BMI, which was 12.9, should have also been either 15 or 16 for his age, Lukefahr said. My opinion is that there was substantial evidence that Benji had been a victim of starvation leading up to his death, Lukefhar said. Police body-worn camera footage seen by the jury of police responding to Cervera and Casarez's apartment for a welfare check on July 21, 2021 showed Benji begging Cervera for food several times. Police also observed Benji with two black eyes. At the time, Casarez told police that Benji's injuries were self-inflicted. Child Protective Services notified the Center for Miracles, which provides medical assessments to children suspected of being victims of abuse or neglect, about Benji's two black eyes after police reported it. The next day, Benji was taken to an emergency room to get treatment for his eyes. Jodi Soyars, Cerveras defense attorney, said no medical professionals, including the ones who saw him during the EMS visit, reported Benji looking cachectic or starved. They also never recommended Benji see a nutritionist or receive IV fluids, Soyars said. Zurich Kotak General Insurance Company (India) Limited (formerly Kotak Mahindra General Insurance Company Limited) has made the announcement of the appointment of Ajey Hegde as its new Head of Commercial Insurance. After the majority stake acquisition by Zurich Insurance Group in June 2024, the company intends to bolster and scale up its commercial insurance portfolio, given the growing demand for commercial insurance coverage and solutions in the market. Zurich Insurance Group, one of the largest commercial insurers globally, has a demonstrated track record in offering differentiated services and solutions to commercial customers backed by strong underwriting capability, leading claims servicing standards, and deep risk management expertise. Suresh Agarwal, MD & CEO, Zurich Kotak General Insurance said: I am delighted to welcome Ajey to Zurich Kotak General Insurance at such a pivotal moment in our growth journey. With his extensive experience and leadership in the commercial insurance sector, Ajey will play a crucial role in scaling our portfolio and delivering tailored solutions that meet the evolving needs of Indian businesses. Backed by Zurichs global expertise, we are committed to setting new benchmarks in the industry, providing our commercial clients with world-class risk management and commercial insurance solutions that will enable their sustainable growth and success. Ajey Hegde is an accomplished professional in the insurance industry with extensive experience spanning over two decades. Prior to this, he was the the Executive Vice President Property & Energy at Tata AIG General Insurance Company Limited. He was responsible for overseeing the Direct and Broking SBU within the Property and Energy Product Tower. Earlier, Mr Hegde held various roles of increasing responsibility at Marsh India Insurance Brokers Private Limited, Future Generali India Insurance Co. Ltd., SBI General Insurance Co. Ltd. and Pioneer Insurance Brokers. Sean Walker, Head of Commercial Insurance & Chief Technical Officer, APAC said, As Indian businesses continue to grow, Zurich Kotak is well-positioned as a key risk management partner, helping commercial customers better understand and navigate current and emerging risks. We will look to work closely with customers and brokers, providing comprehensive insurance solutions, risk management advice and resilience support, including engineering and climate risk strategies. Our goal is to empower small, mid-market, large and global Indian companies to support their growth as they achieve success on the international stage. BigCash, one of Indias fastest-growing real money gaming platforms, proudly announces its collaboration with acclaimed Bollywood actor Mr. Nawazuddin Siddiqui as its new celebrity brand endorser. Known for his authentic persona and relentless drive, Siddiqui embodies the spirit of BigCashs latest campaign, Bade Kaam Ka Khel. The Bade Kaam Ka Khel campaign, currently live across TV, radio, social media, and digital platforms nationwide, taps into the aspirations of everyday Indians. With Mr. Nawazuddin Siddiqui leading the way, the campaign is about more than just playing gamesit's about using strategy, sharpening skills, and seizing opportunities to win in a safe and secure gaming environment. Commenting on this significant partnership, Ankur Singh, CEO of BigCash, said, Mr. Nawazuddin Siddiquis journey from humble beginnings to becoming a national icon is a story that resonates deeply with the millions of players on our platform. His authenticity and relatability, especially with audiences from India's heartland, make him the perfect ambassador for BigCash. Were excited to have him represent our brand as we continue to grow and deliver an unparalleled gaming experience. Through this nationwide campaign, BigCash aims to connect with millions of gamers across the country, particularly in emerging regions, reinforcing its position as the go-to platform for skill-based real money gaming. The campaign features a powerful narrative, with Mr. Nawazuddin delivering the message Zindagi me kuch bada karne ke liye bus khoon paseena ek nahi karna padta hai but on BigCash, playing skill-based games is one of the best ways to achieve something big. This messaging reflects the hard work, strategy, and dedication that BigCash players bring to their gaming experience. The collaboration captures the essence of individuals who, like Mr. Nawaz, come from modest beginnings but possess a fierce determination to succeed. The campaigns centrepiece, including the TV commercials and media strategy, was conceptualized and executed by Green Giraffe Media Agency. Celebrated for his compelling performances in Indian cinema, Mr. Nawazuddin Siddiqui brings authenticity, grit, and versatilityqualities that align perfectly with BigCashs brand ethos. Expressing his excitement about the partnership, he said, BigCash represents a new era in gamingone that combines skill, strategy, and the thrill of competition. Im excited to be part of this journey and connect with millions of gamers across the country who share my passion for winning. BigCash continues to lead the real money gaming space in India, offering popular games like poker, rummy, ludo, and fantasy cricket, while ensuring secure transactions, user safety, and fair play. With over 5 crore players and counting, the platforms partnership with Nawazuddin Siddiqui marks a new chapter and underscores the apps commitment to providing an engaging, high-quality gaming experience that appeals to both casual players and gaming enthusiasts alike. As Indias real money gaming market continues to thrive, BigCashs collaboration with Mr. Nawazuddin Siddiqui is set to deepen its connection with players, particularly in Indias heartland, while reinforcing its commitment to delivering an unmatched experience built on trust, skill, and fair play. Previously, Kishore Chatterjee was heading sales and business development for Dainik Bhaskars radio division My FM. He has 20 years of experience in retail, B2B, and content IP selling. At KathaVersse He will be heading brand partnerships for Content Ips across the companys fiction and non-fiction brands. KathaVersse Media Network, a premium content IP company, has appointed Kishore Chatterjee as Head of Brand Partnerships, strengthening its brand partnerships team to amplify content IP sales across its fiction (Antenaaa Studios) and non-fiction (Digital Commentary) brands. Kishore brings over 20 years of diverse experience in content selling across retail, B2B, newspapers, and FM radio, making him a valuable addition to the KathaVersse leadership team. In his new role, Kishore will lead brand partnerships for KathaVersses content IPs, focusing on delivering value across the companys fiction and non-fiction offerings. His extensive background in sales and business development, most recently at Dainik Bhaskars radio division MY FM, positions him well to drive the growth of KathaVersses content IP portfolio. Kishore began his career at Getit Infomediary Ltd. and subsequently moved to Dainik Bhaskar's newspaper division. He later joined Next Radio Ltd, where he played a key leadership role at Radio One, overseeing advertising sales. Most recently, he spent seven years as Sales Head at MY FM, where he was responsible for driving sales for the radio division of Dainik Bhaskar Group. Reflecting on his decision to join KathaVersse, Kishore commented, KathaVersse Media Networks vision of creating long-lasting content IPs tailored for the Bharat audience, particularly in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, inspired me to step out of my comfort zone. Im excited to work alongside media visionaries like Roshan Abbas, Gaurav Kapur, and Samit Garg. I am confident that my network and experience in selling branded content will play a key role in driving the growth of video content IPs, an area ripe for expansion. The massive distribution network KathaVersse is building is something I intend to leverage fully. KathaVersses non-fiction brand, Digital Commentary, currently garners over 100 million monthly views and has built a robust community of over 700K+ across YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Aakash Kumar, Co-Founder and CEO of KathaVersse Media Network, emphasized the rising importance of branded content, citing a recent EY report that projects the market to grow to Rs 2,334 crore by the end of 2024 and Rs 3,375 crore by 2026. There is a tremendous opportunity for KathaVersse to become Bharats leading branded content IP company, enabling advertisers to reach the vast audiences in tier 2 and tier 3 cities through our content IPs, Kumar said. Kshitiz Sudhakar, Co-Founder and COO of KathaVersse, added, Kishores proactive approach and deep understanding of content and storytelling are exactly what we need. I am confident that he will not only forge breakthrough brand partnerships but also help us build a dynamic brand partnerships ecosystem within the company. The appointment of Kishore Chatterjee underscores KathaVersses commitment to expanding its brand partnerships and continuing its trajectory as a key player in the content IP industry. Loom Crafts, one of the oldest and biggest manufacturers of all-weather luxury outdoor furniture in India, has roped in Bollywood actress Urvashi Rautela as its brand ambassador. As part of the collaboration, the actress has been featured in various marketing, ad and endorsement campaigns of the outdoor furniture brand. Aimed at amplifying brand visibility especially across digital and social media space, the collaboration is a natural unison as both Loom Crafts and Urvashi embody an elite and luxurious lifestyle. Sharing his thoughts on announcing Urvashi Rautela as a brand ambassador, Loom Crafts MD & CEO Rahul Jindal said, Loom Crafts has over the decades adhered to the motto of luxury meeting nature, prioritizing comfort with eco-friendly outdoor set ups. While we have a robust offline presence with exclusive franchise stores across key cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Jaipur, Coimbatore, Chennai, Dehradun etc, we intend to further bolster our online presence. This is in sync with our vision of catering to consumers directly and fulfilling their most pertinent outdoor needs. We are elated that Ms Urvashi Rautela is amplifying our message to a wider audience. Notably, Loom Crafts manufactures all its products at its own state-of-the-art manufacturing unit located in Ghaziabad. The company has a state-of-the-art manufacturing unit in Ghaziabad, which focuses on crafting handmade, sustainable products with bespoke high quality & international designs. The facility has a production capacity of 20,000 pieces annually, including loungers, dining sets, daybeds, and much more. Its extensive range of products caters to every corner of exteriors, from patio to terrace, poolside to open courtyards and balconies extended verandah. While initially the company focused primarily on the luxury furniture segment, it has over the years evolved itself to introduce mid-priced as well as affordable world-class furnishing options for exteriors. Also Read: Pot & Bloom unveils "Gifts that Grow, Smiles that Last" Constance Faith Seinwill was arrested on Sept. 25 in connection with the killing of Ronald Seinwill the previous day. She has been charged with murder. Courtesy, Bexar County Sheriff's Office A 61-year-old woman accused of killing her husband in a Universal City home had confessed to her neighbor, officers said. Constance Faith Seinwill has been charged with murder in the death of her husband, Ronald Seinwill, 64. On Wednesday, a neighbor called Universal City police to report a dead body in the 100 block of Rising Star, near Kitty Hawk Middle School. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The neighbor told the emergency dispatcher that Seinwill told her she killed her husband, according to an arrest affidavit. A patrol sergeant arrived at the home and found Ronald Seinwill lying on the living room floor. They noted signs of trauma to the head and torso. He observed the 64-year-old to be "pale in color, cold to the touch," saw that "post mortem lividity had set in." The sergeant noted that the man had no pulse, the affidavit stated. Police said the woman told them she got into an argument with her husband on Tuesday and struck him, causing him to fall on the ground. She said she continued to strike her husband after he fell to the ground, according to the affidavit. Seinwill told police that she could not remember what she used or where she had placed the item she used to hit her husband with, but admitted to killing him. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Furthermore, the affidavit states she admitted to staying inside the residence for "prolonged period of time" without calling police or emergency services. A search of Seinwill's residence was conducted to collect any and all items that could be used to cause trauma resulting in an individual's death. Signs of a disturbance and blood evidence were found inside the home, the affidavit states. The 2024 edition of CMOs Charcha Bengaluru Chapter, on September 25, brought together the countrys top marketing leaders to chart a transformative course for India Inc. This years summit revolved around the theme, Revolutionizing Marketing: The Fusion of Data, Creativity, and Technology. Among the key highlights of the event was an insightful keynote address by Saurabh Garg, Co-Founder & Chief Business Officer, NoBroker.com, who spoke on Marketing in Times of AI, offering a comprehensive view of how AI is reshaping the marketing landscape. Garg began by reflecting on the widespread adoption of AI. He said, Everybody is talking about AI these days. So, well just try to cover whats happening, what we are doing at NoBroker.com, he said. Sharing how AI plays a pivotal role in NoBrokers operations, he highlighted its application in customer recommendations, whether its pricing strategies or finding the ideal locality to live in. A lot of things at NoBroker happen with AI. Whether it is recommending the right price, the best locality to live in, or understanding customer needs AI is actually changing everything, including the way we live and work, Garg said. He emphasized how AIs influence is pervasive, from smartphones with advanced features to autonomous cars in the US. He also stressed on the need for companies to embrace AI fully to remain competitive. He pointed to Intels missed opportunity in the AI space compared to Nvidia, stating, Intel, which was much bigger than Nvidia till almost three years back, missed the entire AI wave. Now, Nvidia is three times the size of Intel. This underscores the importance of AI as a game-changer across industries. Garg underscored that every company must have an AI strategy. If we dont use AI to make our processes more efficient and faster, well lose, he warned. Explaining AIs role in marketing, Garg emphasized that it extends across the entire marketing funnel, from customer insights to execution. One of NoBrokers standout AI-driven tools is ConvoZen, which was originally developed to enhance call center efficiency. We realized that it was a very powerful technology and could be used for more than just call center operations, he added. ConvoZen captures insights from conversations across multiple platforms like LinkedIn, email, and calls. All that insight is filtered by AI and presented to us, Garg explained. The tool has become so integral that other companies have started adopting it to boost customer satisfaction and other business metrics. Addressing the unique customer life cycle in the real estate market, Garg shared that AI models at NoBroker are designed to predict customer needs at various stages, whether its finding a home, acquiring home loans, or requiring moving services. We use AI models to predict when the customer will need a packer, removal services, or rent agreements, he said. This predictive model helps NoBroker offer relevant services precisely when customers need them, thus increasing the lifetime value of each customer. Continuing further, Garg also discussed the drastic changes AI has brought to performance marketing, where AI has become far more efficient than manual targeting. In the past, we focused on whom to target and what creatives to put on. Now, its more about just the creative, he said, adding that AI has optimized targeting to a degree where human intervention is becoming obsolete. The AI tools at NoBroker continually optimize ad bidding, targeting, and creative variations, drastically improving the Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). Our ROAS has grown drastically, and AI helps us focus more on the creative rather than who to target, Garg shared. Despite AIs growing role, he emphasized that human insight remains irreplaceable. AI can help you get a lot of insights, but its your human connection that can give the best results, he maintained. While AI is a powerful tool for improving efficiency and ROI, human intervention is crucial for driving deeper customer understanding. Garg concluded by urging marketers to embrace AIs potential while balancing it with human expertise. AI is changing the world and how everything happens for us. We should maximize its use for our own advantage, he emphasised. Also Read: Wondrlab announces sixth acquisition with OPA The 2024 edition of CMOs Charcha Bengaluru Chapter successfully brought together the countrys top marketing leaders to chart the future course for India Inc. Since its inception, CMOs Charcha has evolved into a respected forum, with chapters in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Bengaluru. This years edition, held onSeptember 25, around the theme, Revolutionising Marketing: The Fusion of Data, Creativity, and Technology. The summit explored how the integration of data, creative innovation, and advanced technology is transforming the marketing landscape. In an engaging panel session moderated by Akshaara Lalwani, Founder and CEO of Communicate India, industry leaders gathered to discuss the evolving dynamics of public relations (PR) and crisis management in todays digital era. Featuring prominent voices from real estate, fintech, fashion, and alcoholic beverage sectors, the session delved into the critical balance between traditional and digital media, with a focus on crisis management, audience engagement, and brand narrative building. Poornima Gulati, Associate Director of PR and Corporate Communications at NoBroker.com, emphasized on the importance of preparedness in crisis management. Although NoBroker.com has avoided major crises, she drew parallels with the infamous Maggi noodles controversy. She highlighted how Nestles initial silence allowed the crisis to escalate. One clear example weve all read about is Maggi. For one and a half weeks, nobody from their team interacted with the media. That silence amplified the controversy, Gulati pointed out. In todays digital-first world, she noted, communication is no longer one-way. Social media has created a two-way dialogue, where consumers can voice their experiences good or bad instantly. A positive experience may reach ten people, but a negative one could reach hundreds, making it crucial for brands to be responsive and transparent. Nanda Padmanabhan, Head of Corporate Communications at BankBazaar.com, addressed the importance of consumer education in fintech. With financial products being both a necessity and an aspiration, consumer trust is paramount. BankBazaar focuses heavily on educating its diverse demographic about the safety and efficacy of its products. For us, its about detailed audience segmentation and reaching them with the right information, in the format they prefer to consume, said Padmanabhan. The company uses both traditional and digital media, ensuring they cater to Gen X through print and older formats, while Gen Z and future generations like Gen Alpha require entirely new communication approaches. Sipika Khandaka, Director and Head of Corporate Communications at Myntra, shared her insights on how traditional PR remains central to building narratives, even as digital platforms gain prominence. She emphasized the need to understand the target audience and where they consume content, and how those preferences dictate PR strategy. "For instance, for Gen Z you may need to go to the digital spaces they frequent, even if those platforms are niche, and use content formats they resonate with the best" Sipika said. She elaborated on Myntras approach to blending the two worlds. "Our focus is to create an emotional connection with our consumers. While traditional media helps in shaping broader narratives and perceptions, digital media enables brands to be more agile and experimental. Social media, for example, allows brands to communicate directly with the audience and respond to feedback instantly. It's an opportunity to humanize the brand, show personality, and stay relevant." Sipika emphasized that balancing traditional and digital media is key to ensuring that a brands message resonates with different segments of its audience, depending on the context. "The key is to create a symbiotic relationship where both contribute to the overall brand narrative." Representing Bosch, Shakambhari Thakur, General Manager of Corporate Communications, explained the complexities of managing a brand with multiple business divisions, from mobility to consumer appliances. For Bosch, reaching varied stakeholders requires a multi-channel strategy, particularly when launching new initiatives, like their smart campus. During our 100-year celebration, we used cross-pollination strategies, engaging nano-influencers to lend credibility to our smart solutions. By leveraging both traditional media and nano-influencers with high engagement rates, Bosch created a deeper connection with their audience, Thakur shared. Puja Asopa, Head of Corporate Communications at United Breweries Ltd., tackles the unique challenges of marketing in the highly regulated alcohol beverage industry. With restrictions limiting direct consumer engagement, United Breweries has found innovative ways to create buzz. She cited the launch of their new beer, Queen Fisher, which combined traditional PR efforts with celebrity influencers and social media. Despite the challenges, we created significant buzz through a red-carpet-style event, complete with social media influencers and paparazzi. It wasnt just about traditional media, but the amplification through digital channels that created a lasting impact, Asopa explained. Concluding the session, Tinu Cherian Abraham, Director and Head of Global PR & Media Relations at UST, underscored the need for collaboration between traditional and digital media. He dispelled the misconception that the two are in competition, stating that they are, in fact, complementary. Abraham shared a compelling example from his time at Ola, where a humorous tweet by a popular influencer led to a creative, personalized response from the brand. The tweet went viral and was subsequently picked up by traditional media, demonstrating the synergy between digital engagement and traditional coverage. Wrapping up the session, Akshaara Lalwani posed an intriguing question: Is PR a part of your content strategy, or is it the other way around? This left the audience reflecting on the changing role of PR in shaping not just media conversations but the overall brand narrative. The session highlighted the importance of agility, innovation, and collaboration in todays PR landscape, where both traditional and digital channels play vital roles in shaping public perception and driving business success. Also Read: Signify onboards cricket legend Rahul Dravid as their brand ambassador Turkish Airlines, the flag carrier of Turkey, is set to transform the air travel experience with the worldwide rollout of its New Distribution Capability (NDC). In a strategic move to enhance distribution capabilities, Turkish Airlines has chosen Verteil Technologies as the launch NDC Aggregator, solidifying its commitment to innovation and passenger satisfaction. NDC is a state-of-the-art data transmission standard developed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), enabling airlines to provide a more personalized and seamless booking experience for both travel agents and passengers. Turkish Airlines' decision to implement NDC on a global scale underscores its dedication to staying at the forefront of the aviation industry. The airline aims to streamline the booking process, provide real-time information on flight availability, and offer a more tailored and efficient booking experience. Verteil Technologies, as the chosen NDC Aggregator, is poised to play a crucial role in supporting Turkish Airlines' global NDC initiative. Mr. Jerrin Jos, Founder & CEO at Verteil Technologies, expressed enthusiasm about the partnership: "We are honored to be selected by Turkish Airlines as the launch partner for global NDC rollout. Verteil Technologies is dedicated to providing cutting-edge solutions for the travel industry, and we look forward to supporting Turkish Airlines in delivering a superior booking experience globally." Key highlights of Turkish Airlines' global NDC rollout includes enhanced global reach via direct connect with Travel Agencies, possibilities of dynamic offer personalisation, and wider range of ancillary services being available for superior passenger experience. Turkish Airlines' global NDC rollout is a testament to its commitment to providing passengers with an elevated and personalized travel experience. The airline remains dedicated to embracing innovation and leveraging technology to meet the evolving needs of the modern traveler. Over the past two years, WARC, the definitive voice on global marketing effectiveness, and The Times of India Group, the country's leading media house, have facilitated an industry-wide dialogue by engaging leaders and driving conversations in the marketing and advertising ecosystem. This initiative has brought together experts, driven insightful discussions, and contributed to the growth of marketing as a discipline in India. In the first year, The Times of India and WARC explored the theme of Unlocking Creative Effectiveness through a panel discussion with industry experts. Last year, the focus of the evening was on the "Creative Catalyst," accompanied by a lively debate on whether long-term brand building is an unnecessary indulgence in the age of digital. Building on these past successes, this years knowledge series saw Cannes Lions also joining hands to promote the cause of creative effectiveness even further. This year's event was all about celebrating creativity, with an emphasis on sharing insights and inspiration from some of the most celebrated campaigns featured in this year's Cannes Lions Awards. The evening commenced as Ed Pank, SVP Lions, APAC, took the stage, igniting the crowd with unforgettable campaigns from this years festival of creativity and some of the key themes that resonated across the most memorable work. From how brands made the most of humour to connect with consumers to the significance of incorporating culture into brand communication, it was a session filled with memorable work from India and around the globe. Next, the excitement continued as Rica Facundo, Managing Editor APAC, WARC, and Biprorshee Das, India Editor, WARC, dived into "Lessons in Creative Impact." This insightful session presented the audience with a deep-dive into the latest trends in effectiveness while busting some common misconceptions on what makes creativity effective. As the session progressed, the speakers presented case studies from some of the most beloved brands in India and globally, showcasing pioneering work in the field. Following this, Partha Sinha, President & Chief Brand Officer, BCCL, The Times of India, and Sudhanshu Vats, Managing Director, Designate of Pidilite Industries Limited, engaged the crowd in a lively discussion on "The Influence of Marketing in the Boardroom." Partha brought up several provocations about the role of marketing, and the discussion enlightened everyone present with unique perspectives on how the CMO and marketing in general navigate the complexities of the boardroom. The night left attendees inspired and thinking about how to maximize their marketing campaigns in inspiring and effective ways. Also Read: Festive frenzy: Advertisers gear up for record-breaking spend The Federal Council Bern, 27.09.2024 - At its meeting on 27 September 2024, the Federal Council took a decision concerning the final instalment of the credit for humanitarian operations in the Middle East. A total of CHF 13 million will be used to support national and international organisations working in the region. The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) has been instructed to consult the foreign affairs committees. In this context, the FDFA informed the Federal Council about how it intends to implement Parliament's decision to reduce the humanitarian credit for 2024. The Federal Council reiterates its call for a diplomatic solution that upholds international humanitarian law and leads to de-escalation and peace in the Middle East. As decided by Parliament in December 2023, disbursements for the Middle East under the 'Humanitarian operations' credit for 2024 will be made in instalments and only after consultation with the chambers' foreign affairs committees. For the third and final instalment in 2024, the Federal Council has decided to allocate around CHF 13 million to organisations from Switzerland, the International Committee of the Red Cross, United Nations organisations and international NGOs. The humanitarian aid payments are intended to alleviate hardship, particularly in the areas of water, food, health, education, income and social cohesion in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, the occupied Palestinian territory and Syria. The decision regarding this final instalment will be submitted to the foreign affairs committees for consultation. The total budget for humanitarian operations in the Middle East this year amounts to around CHF 79 million. On 24 April 2024, the Federal Council approved around CHF 56 million for the first instalment. On 8 May, the Federal Council decided to disburse CHF 10 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This funding was restricted to an appeal for humanitarian aid from UNRWA and to the most pressing basic needs of the people in Gaza. The foreign affairs committees were consulted and approved these funds. As a result of Parliament's decision to cut the 2024 humanitarian credit by CHF 10 million, in view of the humanitarian situation worldwide (including possible natural disasters) and the related need to maintain a certain degree of financial flexibility until the end of the year, as well as the ongoing parliamentary deliberations on UNRWA, the CHF 10 million contribution to UNRWA approved by the Federal Council in May will not be increased within the 2024 budget. The Federal Council emphasises that only dialogue, de-escalation and adherence to international humanitarian law can bring about peace in the Middle East. Regarding Gaza, it reiterates its call for a ceasefire, the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages and unimpeded humanitarian access. The Federal Council also reaffirms that the two-state solution is the only basis for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. In light of the ongoing violence in the Lebanese-Israeli border area and the resulting, a diplomatic solution is essential to enable the Lebanese and Israeli populations to live in peace and security. Address for enquiries For further information: FDFA Communication Tel. Press service +41 460 55 55 kommunikation@eda.admin.ch Publisher The Federal Council https://www.admin.ch/gov/en/start.html Federal Department of Foreign Affairs https://www.eda.admin.ch/eda/en/home.html Dharmaveer 2: The Myth and Politics of Anand Dighe 2 Since Eknath Shindes realignment with the BJP, he has been determined to elevate Anand Dighes stature to that of a widely revered political figure in Maharashtra, seeking to position him alongside leaders like Balasaheb Thackeray. The Dharmaveer movie series has played a crucial role in propagating this myth, extending Dighes influence beyond his home base of Thane. Before these films, Dighe was relatively unknown outside of Thane, with limited recognition in Maharashtras broader political landscape. Through the Dharmaveer series, Shinde aims to solidify his connection to Dighe, portraying himself as the true inheritor of his political legacy. However, this cinematic portrayal raises questions about whether it is more myth-making than an accurate historical record, as Dighes legacy is amplified far beyond its original scope. Shindes Political Ambitions and Dharmaveer Presently, Eknath Shinde is being positioned as the Maratha face of the NDA alliance in Maharashtra. To maintain his relevance on a national level, Shindes public relations are managed by various agencies, crafting an image of him as a heavyweight in state politics. The first Dharmaveer film played a significant role in shaping this narrative, emphasizing Shindes rise to power through his hard work and the goodwill earned under Dighes mentorship. The movie frames Shindes political ascent as a natural extension of Dighes legacy, reinforcing his role in Maharashtras political corridors and extending his influence beyond the state. Dharmaveer 2: Cinematic Projection vs. Historical Accuracy Dharmaveer 2 continues the saga by delving into Anand Dighes life, offering an emotionally charged narrative that highlights his impact on ordinary people. The film attempts to present his life as a realistic depiction, connecting his legacy to present-day politics. However, the second installment leans more towards cinematic projection than a serious documentation of history. Directed by Praveen Tarde, whose ideological leanings are closely aligned with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the film presents a selective narrative. Much like the first part, it resonates with audiences drawn to its ideological undertones, prioritizing myth over a balanced exploration of Dighes historical role. Dighes Conflict with the RSS and the Political Landscape The first Dharmaveer film largely downplays Dighes real political conflicts. His primary struggle wasnt with the Congress or Vasant Davkhare, as portrayed. In reality, Dighes deeper battle was with the RSS itself. At the time, Thanes political powerincluding its MP and the Kalyan-Dombivli mayorshipwas held by BJP loyalists and RSS unionists. Dighes significance lies in how he expanded the Hindutva narrative beyond the BJPs control, channeling it into Shiv Sena and reshaping Maharashtras political landscape. His ability to push Hindutva further to the right and challenge the status quo could easily inspire a compelling web series, showcasing his complex political maneuvering. The Complex Relationship Between Dighe and Balasaheb Thackeray While Dharmaveer 2 glorifies Dighes reverence for Balasaheb Thackeray, portraying him as a devoted disciple, the reality was more complicated. Dighe had significant differences with Thackeray, his political mentor and Hindutva flag-bearer. However, openly depicting this conflict might not resonate well with Shindes voter base, especially ahead of elections. The film carefully avoids these sensitive aspects, focusing instead on narratives that unify and bolster Shindes political image, appealing to undecided voters torn between the two factions of Shiv Sena. Caste Politics: CKP vs. Chitpavan Brahmins Anand Dighes political rise also reflected the caste dynamics in Thane, where the rivalry between the CKP (Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu) caste, to which Dighe belonged, and the Chitpavan Brahmins played out in local politics. Dighes ascent challenged the dominance of Chitpavan Brahmin leaders, who were closely aligned with the RSS. Leaders like Joshi and Prakash Paranjpe attempted to retain their grip on power, but Dighes political acumen disrupted this balance. His ability to assert himself within this caste rivalry allowed him to rise above the Sanghs control, aligning Shiv Senas Hindutva narrative more closely with local politics. Shindes Struggle to Carry Dighes Legacy Eknath Shinde, Dighes political protege, has struggled to fully carry forward the complexity of Dighes legacy, particularly the social consciousness that defined his leadership. While Shinde maintains Dighes traditions, such as holding night courts, his grasp of the ideological differences between Shiv Senas and BJPs Hindutva appears limited. Dighe understood the nuances between the two brands of Hindutva, but the film downplays these ideological subtleties, focusing instead on portraying Shinde as Dighes rightful heir. The film also emphasises Dighes loyalty to Balasaheb, but in reality, Thackeray ensured that Dighes influence remained localised to Thane. To maintain balance within the party, Balasaheb promoted other leaders like Satish Pradhan and Anant Tare in Thane, and Ganesh Naik and Sabirbhai Sheikh in the district. Despite his ambitions, Dighe was never granted a formal leadership position in Shiv Senas central organisation. Dharmaveer 2: Myth vs. Reality When watching Dharmaveer 2, one should be aware that it presents a selective narrative, catering to a specific political ideology. The film highlights only certain aspects of Dighes life while glossing over the deeper, more intricate political struggles and caste dynamics that shaped his career. The real story of Anand Dighe, including his internal conflicts within Shiv Sena, his tension with the RSS, and his strategic navigation through a complex web of alliances, is far more nuanced than the cinematic portrayal. Understanding Dighes true legacy requires looking beyond the myth constructed in the film and delving into the multi-layered political realities of Maharashtra. In a Shocking Incident, a 11-Year-Old Boy Sacrificed in Hathras School for Fame and Success 2 In a horrifying incident, an 11-year-old boy, Kritarth Kushwaha, was brutally murdered in a suspected human sacrifice ritual aimed at bringing success and fame to a school in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh. The incident occurred at DL Public School in Rasgawan village, under the jurisdiction of Sahapau Police Station. The young boy, a Class 2 student, was found strangled in the school hostel, with his body later discovered in a vehicle owned by the school management. Kritarth, a resident of Tursen village, had been missing for several days, causing widespread panic among locals. An investigation was launched following a complaint from the boys father, Krishna Kumar, on September 23. Evidence uncovered by the police suggested that the killing was orchestrated as part of a tantric ritual to bring success to the school. Authorities have arrested five individuals linked to the crime, including Ramprakash Solanki, Dinesh Baghel (the school manager), Jashodhan Singh (father of the school manager), Laxman Singh, and Veerpal Singh alias Veeru. According to CO Himanshu Mathur, Jashodhan Singh is considered the mastermind behind the sacrificial plan. The Superintendent of Police ordered the immediate arrest of the suspects, and further legal action is being taken by Sahapau Police. The tragic event has shocked the local community, leaving many in disbelief that such a gruesome act could take place in a school setting. A woman and a man from Tennessee were killed and a 12-year-old child was among two people injured Thursday morning in a single-vehicle wreck in Alabama, authorities said. Ronnie G. Smith, 66, and Teasha S. Biggs, 44, both of Dickson, Tennessee, were passengers in a 2005 Toyota Tundra when the truck overturned on I-65 in Chilton County around 9:33 a.m. Thursday, said Lt. Jeremy Burkett with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. Smith an Biggs, who were not using their seat belts, were pronounced dead at the scene of the wreck about a mile south of Verbena. The driver of the Tundra was injured and taken to Ascension St. Vincents Chilton Hospital in Clanton for treatment. A 12-year-old child, who was a passenger in the Tundra, was also injured and was transported to an undisclosed local hospital for treatment. Further information was available as state troopers continued investigating the wreck. The State Board of Medical Examiners paid a total of $288,000 to five former employees under separation agreements, confidential deals the agency had no legal authority to make, according to a state audit released this week. The Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts said the attorney general is the only state official with the authority to settle lawsuits against state agencies. Only the Attorney General is empowered to settle litigation matters, including the settlement of administrative cases before they result in actual litigation, auditors wrote in the report. Additionally, it is noted, the separation agreements with the former employees contained a Non-Disparagement and Confidentiality clause, which required the employees to maintain the confidentiality of the terms, amounts, facts, and existence of the agreements. Read the audit report. The State Board of Medical Examiners regulates doctors in Alabama in conjunction with the Medical Licensure Commission. Top officials with the board defended the decision to enter the confidential agreements during a hearing before the Legislatures Joint Sunset Committee on Thursday, a panel that reviews the finances and operations of state agencies. They said the board consulted with the attorney generals office first. At the time they were signed, we very definitely did think that it was OK, Dr. Max Rogers, an obstetrician and gynecologist who is chair of the board, told the Sunset Committee. We thought it was preferred. There was communication with the attorney generals office, not with the attorney general himself, that said that that is a very common business practice and, compared to years of litigation, a cost-effective manner. Now, weve come to learn that that is not the favored route to take. And as a result I can assure you it will never happen again. In a statement today, Carla H. Kruger, public information officer for the Board of Medical Examiners, said, As we said to members of the committee, the agreements were made in order to avoid the much higher costs of litigation caused by frivolous lawsuits filed by former employees. Separation agreements are a common business practice. Compared to the potential for years of litigation, we believed it was in the best interests of our licensees and the taxpayers to avoid these higher costs. The board declined to release the names of the five former employees who received the settlements, which were for $150,000, $50,000, $36,230, $32,800, and $18,708. The audit report does not give specific dates of the settlements, but the report covered the boards activities from October 2019 through September 2023. You can see the video of Thursdays Sunset Committee hearings on The Alabama Channel, which records legislative meetings. The Board of Medical Examiners hearing starts at about the 3-hour mark. The Alabama Channel is a project of the League of Women Voters of Alabama Education Fund. Lawmakers on the Sunset Committee were mostly complimentary of the Board of Medical Examiners and its leadership during the hearing. They particularly noted that the board had resolved all the issues cited in the last Sunset report from four years ago. I just want to say it certainly seems like youre doing a wonderful job over there and I appreciate your efforts, Sen. Will Barfoot, R-Montgomery, co-chair of the Sunset Committee, told William Perkins, the boards executive director. But Rep. Chris Pringle, R-Mobile, asked pointed questions about the confidential settlements. Pringle said he did not believe Attorney General Steve Marshalls office would have approved the agreements and asked if that was in writing. Those NDA (non-disclosure) agreements are illegal, Pringle said. They should never have been signed. And I want to know who got em. Wilson Hunter, general counsel for the board, said the board did not have a letter from the attorney general authorizing the agreements. But Hunter said he did not agree that they were illegal. Perkins, the boards executive director, said the agreements were conceived as a way to control legal costs after the board spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending several nuisance lawsuits from former employees. Agreements such as this are common and prudent in all businesses and industries, Perkins said. But Pringle pointed out the State Board of Medical Examiners operates with public dollars, unlike a private business that can choose to spend its own money to settle a lawsuit confidentially. The boards money comes from fees and other costs paid by its licensees, as authorized by the Legislature. It just gives the appearance of impropriety over there, Pringle said. So heavy-handed to try to shut down any information coming out of that board. Hunter, the general counsel for the board, said that message was received. Yes, sir. I hear you, Hunter said. And Im not arguing that point. Thats not our intention nor was that part of our calculus. So, thats why we stopped. We understand what youre saying that thats a bad look. We dont want to have a bad look. We want to do things by the book. We want to follow the rules. In August, the Sunset Committee grilled the State Board of Pharmacy over what lawmakers said was a troubling report from the Examiners of Public Accounts. The Sunset Committee drafts bills that the Legislature will consider during the next regular session, which starts Feb. 4. Alabama is eligible for federal disaster funding after President Biden approved an emergency declaration for the state due to weather conditions from Hurricane Helene. The Presidents action authorizes FEMA to coordinate all disaster relief efforts to alleviate the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population and to provide appropriate assistance to save lives, to protect property, public health and safety and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe, the White House said in a statement. The declaration covers any response efforts from Helene since Sept. 22. Helene is still expected to be very big and moving very fast when it makes landfall, which could spread strong winds and heavy rain to places well inland -- including Alabama. The funds are available to state, tribal and eligible local government and certain private nonprofits for emergency protective measures limited to direct federal assistance and reimbursement for mass care including evacuation and shelter support in 26 Alabama counties: Barbour; Bullock; Calhoun; Chambers; Cherokee; Clay; Cleburne; Coffee; Covington; Crenshaw; Dale; DeKalb; Etowah; Geneva; Henry; Jackson; Lauderdale; Lee; Limestone; Macon; Madison; Marshall; Morgan; Randolph; Russell; and Tallapoosa counties. Houston County is eligible for for emergency protective measures including direct federal assistance while eight counties have federal funds available for emergency protective measures limited to direct federal assistance: Baldwin; Butler; Clarke; Conecuh; Escambia; Mobile; Monroe; and Washington. Defendant Constantino Tristian-Coronado is pictured during his trial on Sept. 19. A jury found him guilty for causing the death of April Levine's unborn child in a crash that happened in 2021. Tristian-Coronado, 73, was sentenced to 180 days in a state jail and 10 years of probation. Sam Owens/San Antonio Express-News Defendant Constantino Tristian-Coronado, 73, is pictured during his trial on Sept. 19. A jury found him guilty for causing the death of April Levine's unborn child in a crash that happened in 2021. He was sentenced to 180 days in a state jail and 10 years of probation. Sam Owens/San Antonio Express-News Judge Frank J. Castro addresses the prosecution and defense during Constantino Tristian-Coronados trial on Sept. 19. Sam Owens/San Antonio Express-News A Bexar County jury found a 73-year-old San Antonio man guilty of manslaughter for causing the death of an unborn child in a crash. Jurors sentenced Constantino Tristian-Coronado to 180 days in a state jail and 10 years of probation for killing April Levine's unborn child on May 28, 2021. He faced up to 20 years in prison. The jury deliberated for nearly six hours before reaching the verdict on Wednesday. Advertisement Article continues below this ad It also found Tristian-Coronado guilty for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault against a public servant, which are both second-degree felonies. State District Judge Frank J. Castro had imposed directed verdicts of not guilty on two first-degree felony charges of aggravated assault against a public servant. He allowed the proceedings to continue on the second-degree felony offenses. Tristian-Coronado fled the scene of a minor crash near South Zarzamora and Interstate 35 before crashing into Levine's vehicle, causing her vehicle to be hit head-on by the ambulance, prosecutors said. Levine had pulled over for the ambulance. She was eight months pregnant and had a 1-year-old child in the back seat. Levine, the 1-year-old and a paramedic in the ambulance were also injured in the crash. Advertisement Article continues below this ad I was hoping the nurses would do something to bring him back to life, Levine said on the witness stand. I feel horrible because (my daughter) wont have a brother to play with. Levine said her daughter had developmental issues that were related to the crash, including difficulty crawling and walking. Tristian-Coronado told police that he stepped on his pickup's breaks prior to hitting the woman's SUV but the pickup did not stop. The truck skidded because the road was wet, he said. Cole Mattison, a mechanical engineer and human factors expert for accident reconstruction, walked the jury through crash data pulled from Tristian-Coronado's Dodge Ram. He testified that Tristian-Coronado's reaction time was in the normal range during the crash. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Defense attorneys also argued that evidence from the San Antonio Fire Department proved that Levine's vehicle did not have its tail lights on, which would have made it difficult for Tristian-Coronado to see her. Witness testimony from police established that Levine's vehicle was so crumpled up from the crash that police could not immediately determine its make or model. Police said Tristian-Coronado's Dodge Ram pickup truck rear-ended Levine's vehicle, pushing her into the path of the ambulance. Police arrested Tristian-Coronado at the scene. The jury watched body-worn camera footage from one of the first officers who responded to the crash. It showed the officer breaking the vehicle's back window to rescue the toddler. Hundreds of tips have poured into Birmingham police about the mass shooting in Birminghams Five Points South, but the chief said investigators still need more information. Homicide investigations are sifting through photos and videos sent through a QR code established for information in the Saturday shooting that killed four and wounded 17. Chief Scott Thurmond on Friday afternoon encouraged the public to keep them coming. Weve got to work through those (tips), Thurmond said. Some are better than others, and then we have to piece them all together. You may get some things from one and some things from another, and then we put that together to see how it helps, Thurmond said. All of it helps. Crime Stoppers of Metro Alabama through Friday morning had received 101 tips. Thurmond said that many more have also been sent to police directly. The chief said investigators meet daily to discuss developments and strategize. Im very happy with the direction its going, he said. It just takes some time unfortunately, Thurmond said. I wish we already had individuals in jail, but we dont. We are moving in a great direction though. Police Chief Scott Thurmond said investigators are still working on the theory that the barrage of automatic gunfire was a hit -- a murder-for-hire targeting at least one of the men killed in the shooting. Authorities said they have identified the types of guns used but have not publicly released that information. Saturday will mark one week since the unidentified shooters unleased more 100 bullets into a crowd gathered near Hush, hookah bar and cigar lounged on Magnolia Avenue. Roderick Lynn Patterson Jr., 26, Anitra Holloman, 21, Tahj Booker, 27, and Carlos McCain, 27 were killed in the shooting. Thurmond said he would not yet identify who investigators believe was the targeted victim in Saturdays mass shooting, and said police are still trying to determine whether a second victim was also targeted. Authorities are still working on the theory that the barrage of automatic gunfire was a hit -- a murder-for-hire targeting at least one of the men killed in the shooting. The FBI and ATF are working with Birmingham police on the investigation. A $100,000 reward remains in place. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777. Alabama U.S. Sens. Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville are among 14 Republican senators proposing an act they say would close what they describe as a loophole in immigration law that allows immigrants overstaying their visas or entering illegally without inspection to remain. The Visa Integrity Prevention Act is aimed at changing what the Republicans say is a loophole in current law that the Biden-Harris administration took advantage of to grant amnesty to illegal aliens. Britt calls the policy an abuse of parole that is wrong, irresponsible, and puts the safety and security of all Americans at risk, while Tuberville said, horrible policies yield horrible results. By turning U.S. law on its head to protect illegal aliens over U.S. citizens, the Biden administration is creating perverse incentives causing the influx of people flooding into this country to get even worse, Tuberville said. Joining the two senators as sponsors are John Cornyn (R-Texas), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). The act appears aimed at a Biden Administration initiative announced in June that the White House said would keep families of citizens and non-citizens together. It allows certain noncitizen spouses and children to apply for lawful permanent residence without leaving the country. To be eligible, a person must have lived in the United States for 10 or more years and be legally married to a U.S. citizen, while satisfying all legal requirements. According to the White House, those eligible for the process have on average resided in the U.S. for more than 20 years. Immigration law does not allow a person who overstays their visa to reenter the U.S. for up to 10 years if they leave or allow anyone who illegally enters to come back. Temporary visa applicants must interview abroad at a U.S. consulate before they can receive their visas, but this program waives the interview. The bills supporters say the administrations waiving of this policy encroaches on Congresss authority. Instead, the bill would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to clarify that aliens who have entered the U.S. illegally or overstayed a visa for more than 180 days are not eligible for a waiver of the in-person consular interview requirement and would instead be required under all circumstances to depart the U.S. for an interview before they could receive a nonimmigrant visa. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin posted a social media apology on Friday, apparently for his previous social media dig at a state lawmaker. I messed up, Woodfin said, in a statement posted on Facebook. In a human moment, I took my eyes off the 99 percent of our local and state and federal partners and Birmingham residents who have been nothing but supportive and put too much focus on the one percent who were not. That was an apparent reference to State Rep. Juandalynn Givan, who called Birmingham unsafe, said the Birmingham Police Department was dangerously understaffed, and said in the event of another catastrophic event, Gov. Kay Ivey may need to send in the National Guard to maintain public safety in Birmingham. Woodfin responded with a social media meme featuring mugshots of state legislators and thanking them for their support, with Givans mugshot in the center over the words, Not you. Woodfins apology on Friday seemed to be addressing his criticism of Givan in the aftermath of a mass shooting. It was a mistake, and I own it, Woodfin said in his video apology. Addressing gun violence It's been a difficult week for our city. But my primary goal is the pursuit of justice and healing the hurt. Gun violence will not be our new normal. Posted by Randall Woodfin on Friday, September 27, 2024 Woodfin just made matters worse, Givan said. I am happy that he felt a need to apologize to the citizens of Birmingham, said Givan, who noted she worked for the administrations of previous mayors Richard Arrington, William Bell, Bernard Kincaid and has been in the Legislature for 14 years. But the apology was not to her, she said. To say the one percent, thats to slight me, and its very unfortunate, Givan said. You didnt apologize to me, and then you cut me in the apology. By saying she was unsupportive, it was simply another dig, she said. When you then say the one percent, who is the one percent? Givan said. Its another jab, its another attack, and another attempt to target me. You are the leader of this city, and you yet again offer on social media an apology or whatever it is, to attack me in a very subliminal way, if that is the best he has to offer, God bless the city of Birmingham. Givan announced today that she plans to sponsor a bill in the next Legislative session prohibiting possession of a bump stock in a Class 1 municipality, which refers to Birmingham. I want to unify the citizens of Birmingham, Givan said. I have no problem with the mayor of Birmingham. I never have. Ive always held him in high regards. Ive always tried to give him advice. Ive been a protector, in Montgomery, of this mayor, for those who have wanted to open up the mayor-council act, to give consideration to stripping power away. The situation on Monday was very unfortunate, however, the mayor did not target the city of Birmingham with a meme. He purposefully targeted me as a Black female seasoned elected official. I would certainly have preferred that the mayor pick up and the phone and say to me, Juandalynn, can we talk? Major Hurricane Helene was downgraded to a tropical storm this morning as it made its way farther inland, its center of circulation splitting Georgia from south to north. Read weather stories here. Todays Alabama news report follows. Thanks for reading, Ike A second nitrogen execution Alabama carried out its second nitrogen-hypoxia execution Thursday evening, reports AL.coms Ivana Hrynkiw. 59-year-old Alan Eugene Miller used his last words to say he didnt do anything to be on Death Row. After the state began applying the nitrogen, he took deep breaths and lifted his head up several times, then shook and trembled for a couple minutes. He gasped on and off for about six minutes. The shaking is something that was also witnessed during the first nitrogen execution, but Miller didnt shake as often or as violently as the first inmate did. Later, Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said: Theres going to be involuntary body movements as the body is depleted of oxygen, so that was nothing we did not expect. Miller shot and killed three people in two Pelham businesses in August 1999, reportedly alleging that his current and former co-workers were spreading rumors about him. The latest from D.C. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin was at the White House Thursday to speak on gun violence and introduce President Biden, reports AL.coms John Sharp. The president was signing an Executive Order that creates a federal task force to analyze devices that convert semiautomatic guns into machine guns, although the devices, including so-called Glock switches, are already banned on the federal level. The devices are inexpensive and are being confiscated by police at an increasing rate. A Glock switch was found on a firearm that was used in last weekends Birmingham mass shooting. Which probably accounts for Woodfins presence. Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris also spoke at the event. Adult stuff If earlier this week your significant other expressed frustration at his or her cell phone, then suddenly stopped looking at it all the time and started engaging with the family, then listen up. Im not saying this story is necessarily related to your situation. But AL.coms Howard Koplowitz reports that the online site Pornhub has blocked access to Alabama users over a new state law here that requires adult sites to verify users ages. Pornhub argued in a notice on its site (that someone other than me verified by the way) that complying with the law would put children and users privacy at risk. The law requires adult websites to use a reasonable age-verification method. It also requires warnings on their landing pages. Pornhubs parent company, Aylo, said in a statement that it prefers age verification to take place on the device being used to access the site, not the site itself. Texas has a similar law that may soon go before the Supreme Court. More Alabama News Born on This Date In 1927, blues harp player Earring George Mayweather of Montgomery. On the podcast A listener takes the weekly Alabama news quiz. You can find Down in Alabama wherever you get your podcasts, including these places: Pornhub has blocked access to its website in Alabama in response to a state law that goes into effect Tuesday requiring adult sites to verify its users ages. Users who visit Pornhub from Alabama are met with a message explaining why the site has gone dark in the state. As you may know, your elected officials in Alabama are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website, the message reads. While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk. The Alabama law, passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Kay Ivey in April, requires adult websites to use a reasonable age-verification method to verify its users are old enough to view pornography. The legislation mimics laws passed in other conservative states, including Texas, which is being challenged and is set to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. It also mandates porn sites display several warnings from Alabama Health and Human Services on the sites landing pages, including Pornography is potentially biologically addictive, is proven to harm human brain development, desensitizes brain reward circuits, increases conditioned responses, and weakens brain function; Exposure to this content is associated with low self-esteem and body image, eating disorders, impaired brain development, and other emotional and mental illnesses.; and Pornography increases the demand for prostitution, child exploitation, and child pornography. Instead of complying with the state law, Pornhub is blocking access to its website from within Alabama. Aylo, Pornhubs parent company, said in a statement to AL.com that while it agrees with the states effort to ensure children do not access pornography, Alabamas methods for doing so are ineffective. The best solution to make the internet safer, preserve user privacy, and prevent children from accessing adult content is performing age verification at the source: on the device, Aylo said. The technology to accomplish this exists today. What is required is the political and social will to make it happen. We are eager to be part of this solution and are happy to collaborate with government, civil society and tech partners to arrive at an effective device-based age verification solution. In addition, many devices already offer free and easy-to-use parental control features that can prevent children from accessing adult content without risking the disclosure of sensitive user data. The company said user safety is our number one concern. We will always comply with the law, Aylo said, but we hope that governments around the world will implement laws that actually protect the safety and security of users. Alabamas law goes into effect Oct. 1. State Rep. Juandalynn Givan, a Democratic lawmaker from Birmingham who has been outspoken about the need to respond to gun violence, said today she is introducing a bill to ban bump stocks in Birmingham. Givans bill would make it a Class C felony to possess a bump stock, which enables semi-automatic rifles to fire more like automatic weapons. Punishment could be up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $15,000. Bump stocks serve essentially the same purpose as Glock switches, or trigger activators, which convert semi-automatic firearms to machine gun-like weapons. Police say a weapon with a Glock switch was used during last Saturday nights shooting outside Hush, a hookah and cigar lounge in the popular Five Points South district of Birmingham. Four people were killed and 17 others wounded. At least 100 shots were fired in Five Points, Givan said in a news release. Thats not a crime scene, thats a war zone. A bump stock has one purpose and one purpose only; to kill or wound as many people as possible. In 2017, a gunman used rifles equipped with bump stocks when he killed 58 people and wounded 850 at an outdoor country music festival in Las Vegas. That led to a ban on bump stocks by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives under the Trump administration. But the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the ban in June, ruling that the agency had overstepped its authority. Givan said she brought the bill in response to a call from local officials for local legislators to take action. Givan had previously pre-filed a bill to ban bump stocks statewide. Her new bill is a local bill and would apply only to Birmingham. Because it is a local bill, it has to be advertised for four weeks. Givan said that period starts today. The legislative session starts Feb. 4. Theres an urgency that something needs to be done now, she said. Read more: Can Five Points South recover after mass shooting? Historic Birmingham neighborhood faces another tragic turning point Rep. Phillip Ensler, D-Montgomery, has pre-filed a bill to ban Glock switches and other trigger activators that convert handguns to automatic fire. Republicans control the Alabama Legislature and have generally opposed new gun restrictions. But there is bipartisan support for Enslers bill, which passed the House last year but did not come up for a vote in the Senate. Law enforcement officials came to the State House earlier this year to support the bill. Givan said earlier this week that the National Guard might be needed to help prevent violence in Birmingham because of a shortage of police officers. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin called that idea whack. Gov. Kay Iveys spokesperson said the governor had no plans to deploy the National Guard to Birmingham but said the state stands ready to help with the crime problem, as it has in Montgomery. Givan later told AL.com that her National Guard comment was misinterpreted and that she meant that guard would be available should the city need it. The question is simple: do we have backup plan if there is a need and we cannot fill a need locally. The answer is, simply, yes, Givan said. Read more: Nearly a week after Birminghams 5 Points South mass shooting many questions still unanswered and no arrests Biden to sign Glock switch executive order after Birminghams 5 Points South mass shooting Tropical Storm Helene was located over Georgia on Friday morning but was still spreading havoc across the Southeast. The extent of the damage from Helene in Florida was unknown on Friday morning. Helene made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane with 140 mph winds about 10:10 p.m. CDT Thursday near Perry, Fla., in the Big Bend area. Significant flash flooding was ongoing into Georgia and the Carolinas on Friday. The National Hurricane Center was not only monitoring Helene but was tracking another hurricane, Isaac, and a new tropical storm, Joyce. Neither storm was a threat to the U.S. However, forecasters will be watching for a new disturbance to form in the Caribbean and possibly move into the southwestern Gulf of Mexico about a week from now. Its too soon to say if that disturbance could eventually threaten the U.S. Isaac became the sixth hurricane in the Atlantic this season early this morning. As of Friday morning Isaac was a Category 1 hurricane with 75 mph winds. Isaac is far away in the north-central Atlantic and will likely not threaten any land areas. Isaac is expected to remain a hurricane for a few days.NHC Then theres Joyce. The hurricane center said Joyce strengthened to a tropical storm on Friday morning in the central Atlantic. Heres the forecast track for Joyce, which should stay out in the open Atlantic and away from land: Tropical Storm Joyce isn't expected to become a hurricane.NHC Attention could turn back to the Caribbean in a few days, however. The hurricane center said an area of low pressure could form in the western Caribbean Sea by the middle of next week. It is expected to track to the northwest and enter the Gulf of Mexico by the end of next week. It has a 30 percent probability of becoming a tropical depression in the next seven days. And farther to the east, a disturbance could form in the eastern Atlantic by the middle of next week. It has a 20 percent probability of becoming a depression in the next week. Helene weakened to a tropical storm on Friday morning over Georgia after making landfall late Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane on Floridas Big Bend. The extent of the damage from Helene is unknown, but the National Weather Service office in Tallahassee, located very close to the landfall point, has gotten numerous reports of storm surge and freshwater flooding, trees on homes and impassable roadways before daylight. Helene made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane around 10:10 p.m. Thursday with 140 mph winds near Perry, Fla., according to the National Hurricane Center. Alabama has been spared the worst of Helene, and all tropical storm warnings have been dropped for the state. The National Weather Service offices that cover the state have gotten several reports of heavy rain and flooding in east Alabama overnight, but there were no active flash flood warnings in the state. That wasnt the case to the east with multiple flash flood warnings across Georgia and the Carolinas: Tropical Storm Helene was bringing lots of flash flooding to Georgia and the Carolinas. Areas in green were under flash flood warnings on Friday morning.NW According to the National Hurricane Center, as of 7 a.m. CDT, the center of Tropical Storm Helene was located about 35 miles south-southwest of Clemson, S.C., or 80 miles east-northeast of Atlanta, and was moving north very fast at 30 mph. Helene had winds of 60 mph. The hurricane center expects Helene to continue to weaken and become a non-tropical storm this afternoon or tonight. The hurricane center expects the storm to turn more toward the north this morning, then it could turn more to the northwest and slow down over the Tennessee Valley later today into Saturday. Helene is not done, however. Flash flood warnings were proliferating across Georgia and the Carolinas on Friday morning, and the storm could bring a total of 6 to 12 inches of rain to the Southeast. That much rain could bring significant flash flooding and even landslides across the southern Appalachians. A few tornadoes will continue to be possible in eastern Georgia, the Carolinas and into southern Virginia. Many of the coastal watches and warnings have been dropped as of Friday morning, but a storm surge warning remains in Florida from Indian Pass to the middle of Longboat Key and Tampa Bay. A tropical storm warning is still in effect from Altamaha Sound northward to Little River Inlet. A storm surge of 5 to 10 feet will still be possible in parts of the storm surge warning area. Like clockwork, every time there is a shooting, the cry rises up from the left that we need gun control. This demand occurs whether its a tragic school shooting or a couple of failed assassination attempts on their least favorite presidential person in the whole wide world. The logic of a gun-free zone from coast to coast seems to suggest that without any firearms, school shootings and feisty ex-presidents would never be targets. Apparently, it is the very existence of the weapon itself that lures a person to wield it for nefarious purposes. I grew up hearing the Rights counterpoint to this logic, summed up in one particular mantra: When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. However, when I used this gun-grab argument twenty years ago on a liberal relative of mine, he flipped the logic on me. He said, Well, yes, of course. That means anyone possessing a firearm would then be considered a criminalwhether they are an actual criminal or just an ordinary citizenboth would be equally guilty. My relative was right. He was also ahead of his time. Todays progressives have sought to criminalize those who use their weapons in self-defense. Recent examples include Kyle Rittenhouse, Mark and Patricia McCloskey, and Jake Gardner. All these citizens protecting their life and property reached varying degrees of national notoriety. And one, Jake Gardner, met a very tragic end. Author and pundit John Zmirak, in the powerful closing argument to his new book, No Second Amendment, No First, recounts in detail what an anonymous person who knew Gardner exceedingly well wrote about his death. It is the heartbreaking story of a Marine and Iraq and Haiti combat veteran. Gardner faced a grand jury after having to defend himself. He fatally shoot a man who was choking him from behind during a mostly peaceful BLM riot in Omaha, Nebraska. Gardner pleaded several times for the man to stop, but the man, a violent, previously convicted criminal, continued his vicious attack. A couple of quotes from the horrific incident and subsequent grand-jury indictment leading to Gardners tragic end sum up the narrative: Jake faced possible terms of 94 years in prison for unjust charges. This for having the courage to defend his own life [as well as his property] from a violent multiple felon who was actively trying to choke him to death, all of which was captured on high resolution video. [snip] After the corrupt decision of the grand jury based on falsified evidence was revealed, Jake lost all hope in the legal system and tragically ended his own life on September 20, 2020. The anonymous author of this short bio of a wonderful patriot concludes: [Jake] was a man that fought valiantly against terrorism and violent extremism in Iraq, Haiti, and Omaha. He was, truly, a Superman. In Zmiraks well-researched book, with a foreword by Eric Metaxas and an opening quote from Tulsi Gabbard, Zmirak makes the case for self-defense, an inherent right underlying all other rights. Self-preservation is inherent in life itself, within every living creature, but foremost in human beings. In chapter after chapter, Zmirak points out how this simple fact of lifeand of preserving life itselfeventually morphed from a proper, Biblical worldview to an anti-life, Progressive hive mind. On a larger scale, Zmirak covers the historical patterns of how entire nations were able to enslave and control their populations, from the Soviet Union to Venezuela to Cuba to Cambodia to China to North Korea to many, many other countries. The pattern always began by disarming the citizens. Once the government had the guns, what they ordered was obeyed. Opposing speech would be censoredand lethally, when necessary. How do you think the Soviets managed to send some twenty million people to the Gulag? Zmirak asks. Zmirak outlines how gun confiscation can start small and, perhaps, initially target only select groups. Invariably, it leads to total populations being left defenselessand speechless. In one chapter, Zmirak sees the Harmony of the Old Testament and the New with this issue of proper defense. Within that harmony Zmirak shows how many progressive Christians have accepted antithetical reasoning, including championing [c]onfiscating citizens guns, rendering them completely dependent on Caesar for protection against violent crime and defenseless against any mob violence and possible future tyranny. (Do we hear echoes here of the Jake Gardner story?) A pastor once said that a person can become so open-minded that his brains fall out. Ultimately, Zmiraks goal in No Second Amendment, No First is to show that the Christian view of the person, correctly understood, demands broad rights of self-defense for ordinary citizensagainst both illegal violence and the prospect of tyrannical governments. Zmirak warns that we must fight against impatient innovators [who] kick aside the tenets of Natural Law, Christian morality, the dignity of man, and the rights of the individual. There is certainly a reason our wise Founders followed up the First Amendment, protecting free speech, with the Second, the right to bear arms. Zmirak explains: The Founders protected the right to keep and bear arms not simply because they saw it as the last defense against tyranny. They did so also because they viewed the Second Amendments protection of private firearms ownership as essential to preserving all the other liberties guaranteed in the Constitution. No Second Amendment, No First is an excellent way to garner the intellectual weaponry necessary to fight the good fight for these crucial life-and-death issues. Albin Sadar is the author of Obvious: Seeing the Evil Thats in Plain Sight and Doing Something About It, as well as the childrens book collection, Hamster Holmes: Box of Mysteries. Albin was formerly the producer of The Eric Metaxas Show. Fair Use Image. Lacaya Bell, who is pregnant, has been reported missing since Monday, the Bexar County Sheriff's Office said. Bexar County Sheriff's Office A search is underway for a pregnant woman who has been missing for several days. According to the Bexar County Sheriff's Office, Lacaya Bell, 34, was reported missing on Monday. Bell's vehicle, with license plate TX TBL6608, was last spotted in the Houston area. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Bells family said the 34-year-old has not answered the phone, and phone calls to her have gone straight to voicemail. Lacaya Bell, who is pregnant, has been reported missing since Monday, the Bexar County Sheriff's Office said. Bexar County Sheriff's Office Additionally, the sheriffs office said Bell has not reported to work or attempted to pick up her paycheck. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Bell is 5 feet 8 inches tall with shoulder-length brown hair, a tongue piercing, and a chest tattoo. The Bexar County Sheriff's Office is asking anyone with information regarding Bells whereabouts to call 210-335-6000 or email missingsperson@bexar.org. Lets make this clear from the get-go. The Israelis were entirely justified in getting boobytrapped pagers and walkie-talkies into the hands of Hezballah terrorists and blowing them up. Lets add that the Israelis were damned clever. Hezballah ditched handhelds because of geo-tracking dangers. More rudimentary technology was deemed safer. Reports the Times of Israel, September 21: Interviewed in the [television] report, Ronen Bergman, an investigative reporter for The New York Times and Yedioth Ahronoth, says the whole scheme was dreamed up by a brilliant female intelligence operative, aged less than 30, somewhere in the Middle East. If youre dating or married to the young lady who originated this mission, best not get on her wrong side. Some may think its morbid to marvel, but it was an amazing operation. It took ingenuity, sophistication, means, and oodles of patience to accomplish it. Reports are inexact, but hundreds of Hezballahs finest were killed. Scores were blinded or had their cojones dispatched to Allah. That means fewer terrorist babies. A couple of CodePink droolers harassed U.S. rep. Harriet Hageman for backing the Israelis. Hageman is a tough lady and cool customer. All she said to the droolers was Do you have your pagers on you? Of course, she was messing with their delicate little psyches. No sensible person owes fools an explanation. Were innocents injured or killed in the attacks (collateral damage in wars vernacular)? Likely is the best answer, but the Israelis went to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties. Back to the Times of Israels report: Each of the pagers that exploded on their Hezbollah owners across Lebanon on Tuesday, injuring thousands of the terror groups operatives, was individually detonated, with the attackers knowing who was being targeted, where he was, and whether others were in close proximity, Channel 12 claims. While any innocent injured or killed in war is truly unfortunate, wars are brutal affairs. The best war is the one that doesnt happen. But when it does happen, its unavoidably about breaking things and killing. People who think they can cuddle polar bears or pet bison may shrink, but, hey, reality bites harder than bears. Every war that we Americans have fought -- from the Revolution onward -- has had collateral damage. The advent of modern total war with Shermans March to the Sea accounted for civilian casualties. Germany and Japan were area bombed in World War II. That the Israelis built into the mission technology to target Hezballah irregulars while seeking to prevent civilian casualties speaks to the Israelis humanity. It was Hamas Hezballahs cousin -- that exhibited its inhumanity by perpetrating the gruesome October 7 attacks on Israeli civilians. Hezballah is firing rockets indiscriminately into northern Israel now. The Israeli operation was a smashing success, so you can bet your handheld that governments and militaries -- lets throw in paramilitary outfits and terrorist groups -- are now on high alert. Theyre scrambling to implement stringent protocols pertaining to procurements for electronic devices. Authenticating source-origin for electronics and rigorous screenings of devices before distribution to military and government personnel is necessary. Hezballah, undoubtedly, once blown up is now twice shy. The Israeli operation was precedent in terms of operational scale and sophistication. It has definitely set off alarms. Ordinary consumer technology can be weaponized. The extent and level of sophistication may vary. The purposes for doing so may differ. But the fact is that if the Israelis can build electronic devices to maim and kill Hezballah terrorists, terrorists and enemy nations will find ways of exploiting the same means. Getting there is easier said than done, however. Israel surely isnt alone in eyeing weaponizing electronics. State players like of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and -- yes, indeed -- the U.S. must have or are developing their own mission capabilities. Asymmetry is intrinsic to modern warfare. Joshua Phillip on his Crossroads program at the Epoch Times (September 24) discusses the possibility that the PRC might weaponize consumer electronics. Theyd do so as a means of spreading terror. Wrote Phillip: There are growing concerns over Chinese technology, and whether it could be weaponized. [snip] And now, the United States is proposing a ban on Chinese hardware and software in vehicles, amid concerns over national security. Phillip cited a September 19 article from the Washington Examiner: Take the ubiquitous iPhone. Despite Apple being an American company, key components of almost every iPhone, including the battery, processor, and camera, are made in China. It isnt that Xi Jinping is looking to boobytrap electronics exported to the U.S. now. China maiming or killing its customers customers isnt good business. Trading Economics reports that in 2023, Chinese exports to the U.S. topped $500 billion. Electrical and electronic equipment alone accounted for a quarter of total exports ($124.5 billion). That doesnt account for products like optical, photo, technical, and medical apparatus or bigger industrial items: machinery, nuclear reactors, and boilers. Much of what the PRC ships to the U.S. relies on some sort of electronics. If a Sino-American war appeared imminent, the PRC could find ways outside of conventional distribution chains to get rigged electronics into consumers hands. Mexican cartels use black markets to get illicit drugs to U.S. consumers now. Per Brookings (March 21), the Chinese are implicated in providing precursor chemicals for fentanyl. The PRC is suspected of prepositioning sleeper cells (saboteurs) here in the event of conflict, so Chinese subterfuge isnt unheard of. Ongoing, rising tensions over Taiwan and disputes over the South China Sea (international waters claimed by the PRC) are obvious flashpoints for war. Whether or not China would embed explosives and other necessary technology to detonate consumer devices -- doing so en masse -- is speculative. But that tactic, whether undertaken by the Chinese or other possible belligerents, will now register as a national security concern. Since most Americans no longer carry pagers or have much use for walkie-talkies, rigging handhelds to explode are obvious targets. There are reasons why thats a taller order than engineering simpler electronic devices to blow up. As Wired reported, September 19, there are plenty of challenges getting explosive-rigged handhelds into consumers hands. A noteworthy consideration: There are other more practical reasons, too, that the attacks in Lebanon are unlikely to portend a global wave of exploding consumer electronics anytime soon. Unlike portable devices that were originally designed in the 20th century, the current generation of laptops and particularly smartphones are densely packed with hardware components to offer the most features and the longest battery life in the most efficient package possible. [Italics added.] The report quotes Alan Woodward, a professor of cybersecurity at the University of Surrey: When you open up a smartphone, I think the only way to get any sort of meaningful amount of high explosive in there would be to do something like replace one of the components, he says, such as modifying a battery to be half battery, half explosives. But replacing a component in a smartphone would compromise its functionality, he says, which could lead a user to investigate the malfunction. So, there are practical obstacles to weaponizing handhelds. But theres a slew of other electronics to consider. And, remember, that obstacles are challenges for bright, ingenious people. Theres a young, female Israeli intelligence operative who can attest to that fact. J. Robert Smith can be found at X. His handle is @JRobertSmith1. At Gab, @JRobertSmith. He blogs occasionally at Flyover . Image: AT via Magic Studio Rasmussen Reports just dropped a new American Thinker-sponsored poll covering likely voters in North Carolina, Michigan, and Virginia. Each has a different outcome on the presidential ticket, with Trump holding a three-point lead in North Carolina, Harris with a three-point lead in Virginia, and the two candidates tied in Michigan. However, perplexingly, on almost every issue, sometimes by significant margins, voters are dissatisfied with the status quo and trust Trump more. In all three states, voters agree: The economy is the most pressing problem (NC=42%, MI=35%, and VA=32%). Their second greatest concern is the southern border (NC=17%, MI 15%, and VA=17%). These remain their concerns when asked what the next president should view as his or her most important priority. Image by AI. When asked whether they view the candidates favorably or unfavorably, North Carolina voters like Trump more, while Michigan and Virginia voters prefer Harris. All three states see voters believe that Harris has the better character. However, when it comes to opinions about who will be the more effective candidate on the issues that voters identify as most important, it does not appear that favorability or character strongly affects their positions. Where the likely voters in the three states converged is on their feelings about their overall well-being, threats to America from foreign nations, the border, the economy, and the question of the sexual binary. Only on energy policies was there a slight difference. In all three states, voters do not believe they are better off now than they were four years ago. In North Carolina, 58% say theyre not better off versus 32% who say they are, while 53% in Michigan say theyre not better off, while 36% say they are. Only in Virginia, home to the federal government, are the numbers closer, with 47% percent saying theyre not better off but a high of 43% saying they are. In all three states, though, voters say that their children will not do well in the future and that, as a general matter, they do not believe that America is safer now than it was four years ago. In all three states, the responding likely voters view Harris and the Democrats as the greatest threat to democracy. In North Carolina and Michigan, the voters also saw Democrats as more likely to govern tyrannically, while Virginia voters disagreed. When they were asked about Americas greatest enemy, all three sets of likely voters ranked Democrats as the biggest threat. In North Carolina, poll respondents saw China as the second biggest threat, with Republicans as the third greatest threat. Meanwhile, in both Michigan and Virginia, Republicans came in second in the threat assessment. In all three cases, when asked only about foreign enemies (China, Iran, Russia), likely voters said that Trump was the more trusted candidate to deal with these threats. On the border, voters in the three states all leaned in the same direction. They prefer deportation to amnesty by wide margins, believe that the Biden administration has done too little to address border problems, and trust Trump to fix the border. The same pattern holds true for the economy. When voters view the current administrations economic policies, those policies make them less favorably inclined toward Harris. They also all believe that Trump is best suited to fix the economy. On that issue, the spread between opinions in the three states is large, with North Carolinians giving Trump a seven-point advantage. In contrast, Virginians give him only a one-point advantage. The only outlier in terms of trust to solve a problem comes with energy policies. By wide margins, the poll respondents want to see the new administration address energy prices rather than carbon emissions. However, on the general question of energy policy, only North Carolinians believe Trump is more trustworthy. In Michigan, voters favor Harris by one point, and, in Virginia, they favor her by two points on energy policy. Finally, in all three states, a huge majority of voters believe that there are only two genders, and a substantial majority of voters oppose giving surgical and chemical treatments to minors to alter their sexual characteristics. You can read more from Rasmussen Reports, which also provides the specific data. Hell is empty and all the devils are here. William Shakespeare Is there a person on the planet that does not know that Hillary Rodham Clinton is the most bitter, angry and hostile political person in the country? Probably not; even those who may have supported her in the past have to know that shes gone round the bitter bend. Trumps victory in 2016, despite all the cheating the left had in place, rendered her permanently damaged, deranged with fury; how could anyone vote for Trump over her she wondered. Trump broke her so badly that she remains thoroughly deranged. Now she wants to jail anyone who opposes her Saul Alinsky version of Marxism. She worshiped Alinsky, and wrote her college thesis about him. He was an evil entity who dedicated his little book to Lucifer. But since he wrote that little book, the left/Democrat party has embraced and followed his Rules for Radicals. It is a nasty little treatise, something akin to Maos little red book that laid out his cultural revolution that led to more deaths than Stalin or Hitler. In short, Hillary Clinton and her Marxist pals are still trying to sell their evil ideology to the increasingly easily indoctrinated generations that have been taught to not think for themselves, or even to vote in their best interests, but in the interests of their self-appointed betters. The dumbing down of two or maybe three generations of Americans has done horrific damage to our country. Hillary is still so enraged at Trump and his supporters, she penned an op-ed in the Washington Post in order to double down on her basket of deplorablesslur. She accuses them of being drawn to his racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia. Of course, Trump supporters are not drawn to any of those things. Trump is none of those things. In fact, it is a safe bet that among his vast number of friends, there are far more people of color than HRC has ever had on her rolodex. But now she says her deplorables comment did not go far enough, that it was an important truth. Then she invoked the thoroughly debunked Charlottesville lie and, of course, January 6th which was, as most people have concluded by now, a set-up to stop any recounts in disputed states before certification of the 2020 election. The left trafficks in lies, over and over and over again. It is their political currency and they spend it irresponsibly. Kamala Harris, if possible, is a worse liar than Hillary. Why do they do it? They assume we are stupid; that we dont know the truth from their lies. Aside from her mean and nasty personality, (guarding her was a punishment assignment for the Secret Service), Hillary is far more likely to suffer from all the -ism and phobias that she so cavalierly accuses others of harboring. And we know she is an antisemite. Even Bill once told a story from their Arkansas days about her refusing to get out of the car at a home with a Menorah. Like Harris, her secret service guards were not allowed to look her in the eye or speak to her. One of her early successes was to get a man cleared of rape. He had so violently raped a twelve-year-old girl that she was never able to have children. There is a recording of her laughing about that. It was Hillary who managed the bimbo eruptions that plagued Bills presidential campaigns. Then there is what the Clintons did to Haiti. They are hated in that island nation of despair. The money raised by the Clinton Foundation for Haiti did not go to rebuild that country. And now? Now she wants to imprison people who express views or opinions she finds disagreeable. She has, in the past, called for the formal de-programming of persons with unacceptable views; can we say re-education camps? She apparently cant wait to become part of a Harris administration. Im very optimistic about a Harris-Walz administration because I think it not only has the capacity to deal with all the problems we know but maybe to lower the temperature in the country. Lower the temperature? It is Hillary and those like her in the Democrat party who have spent nine years using violent rhetoric to attack Trump. It is their words that very likely led to two attempts on Trumps life. Just the other day, Gina Raimondo said he must be extinguished. Whoopie Goldberg on that ABC show that fries the brains of those who watch called Trump a bug, then Joe Biden, their guest, gestured squashing it. These are hate-filled people. Many of them are simply ignorant; others of their ilk are Marxists who, like Barack Obama and now Harris, want to transform the U.S. into an authoritarian nation like China. Tim Walz is on record thrilling at the communist nation. Most thinking Americans realize that the Democrat party is no longer the party of JFK, but too few realize how much damage it has done to the nation over the last fifty years. The party likes to call itself progressive but it is actually frighteningly regressive. Hillary and her pals are the architects of this regressivism that is reaching for Orwellian totalitarianism. Our young people do not know the Pledge of Allegiance or The Star-Spangled Banner let alone the Constitution. They dont know the difference between the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, WWI, WWII, the Korea or Vietnam wars. They are more likely to support Hamas than Israel; how depressing is that? If they know of the Holocaust, theyve been taught to minimize it. Too many young people do not know the difference between right and wrong, good and evil. Theyve been brainwashed by decades of leftist propaganda, propaganda that has infected them to the point that they are unable to discern the difference between the truth and blatant lies. Try and tell them they are misguided and suffer their all-knowing wrath like those Hamas-loving college students throughout the country who were, shockingly, supported by their university administrations! This is the Democrat party today, remade by people like Obama, Biden, Harris, and yes, Hillary, their queen of mean. Americans are sick of her narcissistic, hateful rants. She just may be one of the worst people in the world. Image: DonkeyHotey, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr, unaltered. John Kirby, a top figure in the Biden-Harris administration, has issued a serious warning to American citizens in Lebanonget out while you can, because after the exploding pagers and now airstrikes, things are rapidly deteriorating into a full-scale war. From a report at the Middle East Monitor: American citizens in Lebanon should leave now while flights are still available, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday, Reuters has reported. Now, Kirbys word carries quite a bit of weight, because hes got insider knowledge. In less than four years, Kirby, as one of the top dogs at the Department of Defense, has participated in a decision-making process thats seen countless Americans (and allies) abandoned in foreign countries under chaotic circumstancesthink Afghanistan, Israel, and Haiti. Hes a key advisor to the people with executive authority, so hes at least partially liable for leaving all the times our people have been left behind. While the American government telling American citizens around the world to get out of active war zones is not out of the ordinary, what is relatively new is the reality that the American government will now straight up desert American citizens or slow-roll evacuation efforts or tell us were on our own and to be safe when gang violence erupts and a nation crumbles into anarchy. Im of course referring to Afghanistan, Israel, and Haiti, respectively. Afghanistan needs no refresher. On October 12, 2023, five days after the massacre in Israel, Kirby revealed that there were still no plans to offer stranded Americans evacuation flights, even as Hamas intensifie[d] its attacks against civilian populations. From Politico: Some foreign airlines are still operating flights, but U.S. carriers have halted service in Israel, with hundreds of flights canceled until at least months end. The State Department would not comment on how many U.S. citizens are looking to return stateside given the fluid situation, said spokesperson Vedant Patel. But pleas for help from Americans stranded in Israel have surfaced on social media, and some other countries militaries such as Poland, Spain and others have already evacuated at least some of their citizens. Some lawmakers are calling for the administration to do the same now. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) said hes been asking for a military airlift for days, saying that hundreds of his constituents are in Israel currently and want to come home. [snip] So far the U.S. does not have plans to activate whats called the Civil Reserve Air Fleet program, where U.S. airlines under Defense Department direction are used to help ferry passengers from conflict zones, an administration official told POLITICO. So Florida congressman Cory Mills quickly organized a team, flew over, and rescued 96 Americans; Mills acknowledged that the Biden-Harris administration had no plan, no strategy to get our people out, adding that Biden was simply going to leave Americans behind to fend for themselves. Fast forward to Haiti in March of this year when Barbecue the gang banger threatened civil war and genocide of civilians if acting president Ariel Henry didnt resign; Henry was out of there faster than a rat up a drainpipe, but things devolved into anarchy just the same. The help offered from the Biden-HarrisKirby camp? Be safe amid the neverending gunfire and rotting corpses strewn in the streets. These cheap words didnt do any good for the family of Missouri lawmaker Ben Baker; Bakers daughter Natalie and son-in-law Davy, who were serving as missionaries when the violence erupted, were murdered when gang members looted their home, tied up and beat Davy, and eventually shot the couple, along with a church colleague. With Democrats like these, no one is coming to save you. Image: YouTube video screen grab. With just 40 days until Election Day, Kamala Harris finds herself in a precarious position: no Democrat has ever won the presidency while trailing in the final stretch, and only one Democrat -- Barack Obama in 2012 -- has ever won when the race was within the margin of error. Now, with Harris holding a slim 2.7% lead, she faces a historic challenge. If history is any guide, Harriss lead may not be enough to secure victory, as even Democrats with larger advantages have gone on to lose. The 64-Year Polling Curse Since 1960, Democrats have never won the presidency when trailing in the final weeks of the campaign. On top of that, when the race has been within the margin of error, Democrats have gone 1 for 6, with only Barack Obama in 2012 managing to secure victory in a close race. Every other Democrat who has found themselves within the margin of error in the final stretch has gone on to lose. Democrats Who Trailed in the Final Stretch and Lost 1. Hubert Humphrey (1968) Trailing Richard Nixon. Lost. 2. George McGovern (1972) Trailing Nixon by a wide margin. Lost in a landslide. 3. Jimmy Carter (1980) Trailing Ronald Reagan. Lost. 4. Walter Mondale (1984) Trailing Reagan by a large margin. Lost in a landslide. 5. Michael Dukakis (1988) Leading after the convention but trailing George H.W. Bush in the final months. Lost. 6. John Kerry (2004) Trailing George W. Bush in the final weeks. Lost. Only One Democrat Has Won When the Race Was Tight Kamala Harriss current 2.7% lead places her in dangerous territory. As history shows, Democrats are 1 for 6 in races that are within the margin of error in the final weeks. Barack Obama in 2012 is the only Democrat to defy this trend, narrowly defeating Mitt Romney by relying on an aggressive voter turnout strategy and dominating key swing states. Obama's win is the sole example in the last 64 years where a Democrat has managed to hold on to a small lead and secure victory. Democrats With Bigger Leads Who Still Lost For Harris, even her slim lead may not be enough. History shows that Democrats with much bigger leads have gone on to lose. Here are a few examples of candidates who had significant advantages but still lost the presidency: 1. Al Gore (2000) -- Held a narrow lead in national polls but lost the Electoral College to George W. Bush after a contentious recount. 2. Hillary Clinton (2016) -- Led by 3-4 points nationally, but key swing states flipped to Trump, leading to her loss in the Electoral College. 3. Michael Dukakis (1988) -- Once led by double digits but saw his lead evaporate after a series of missteps, losing to George H.W. Bush. Republicans Have Thrived in Close Contests While Democrats have struggled to win when the race is tight, Republicans have repeatedly thrived in these conditions. Five times since 1960, Republicans have entered the final stretch either trailing or with a small lead and gone on to win. Donald Trumps 2016 victory is a prime example of turning a national polling deficit into a decisive Electoral College win. Other notable Republican successes include: 1. Richard Nixon (1968) Trailing or tied in the polls but won against Hubert Humphrey. 2. Ronald Reagan (1980) Trailed Jimmy Carter early on but surged ahead to win in a landslide. 3. George H.W. Bush (1988) Initially trailing Dukakis but came from behind to win decisively. 4. George W. Bush (2000) Running neck-and-neck with Al Gore, Bush won the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote. Can Harris Defy the 64-Year Curse? With only 40 days to go, Kamala Harriss narrow 2.7% lead places her in a historically dangerous position. If she falls behind in the coming weeks, history shows that no Democrat has ever recovered from trailing in the final stretch. But even if Harris holds on to her small lead, Obama is the only Democrat in 64 years who has won under similar circumstances. The next 40 days will be critical. Harris must find a way to either widen her lead or execute a flawless voter turnout strategy like Obamas 2012 campaign. Otherwise, she risks repeating the fate of past Democrats who saw their narrow leads slip away. Image: AT via Magic Studio Below are five news nuggets that will make your blood boil. *CNN reporter Elle Reeve recently asked a boat-owning Trump supporter why he was so concerned about the economy. The clear inference was that he must be doing pretty well himself, so why should he care? Amazing. This doesnt speak well of her. The boat owner gave a pretty good answer, but he should have asked CNNs ditz: Gee, I dont know, why do healthy people care about health care? *While making an appearance in a grocery store recently, Donald Trump handed a woman $100 to help pay for her groceries. This drove liberals nuts, as most things do. They characterized his act of kindness as attempting to buy a vote. One person? Democrats try to bribe everybody to vote for them, through various promises and programs! With other peoples money! *The titularand ever-tiredpresident of the United States, Joe Biden, recently asked his unelected wife Jill to take over a cabinet meeting for him. The mainstream media were mostly fine with this. Can you imagine what they would have said if, say, Ronald Reagan had asked Nancy to do the same?! *Students at several Toronto area middle schools were made to participate in a field trip cum protest recently. They were also forced to wear blue shirts to mark them as settlers and colonizers. At this point, why not just have them commit ritual suicide? (Harakiri if the colonizers would rather appropriate a Japanese term.) *Speaking of Toronto, an alleged classroom resourcein the form of a glossaryhas as its first listing Alhamdulillah, which means All Praise is to Allah. I would suggest another glossary term for the Toronto school system: FUBAR. Image: Free image, Pixabay license. In the five-plus years since Forbes published an article about the decline in customer service, the situation has worsened. Humans have been replaced with artificial intelligence (AI) bots that have the same empathy as a paper bag. The opening of a Forbes May 2019 article: Customer service isnt what it used to be. Across the United States, there seems to be a steady decline in the customer service levels of nearly every type of business. Companies just arent paying enough attention to providing adequate levels of customer service by phone, online or in person. For the American consumer, substandard service has become the new normal. Most everyone agrees that customer service has gotten much worse. My recent experience highlights what many of us go through when calling a company. Heres what I had to go through: Image by AI. Thank you for calling Widget Supplies, where we care about our customers. We also care about our employees, which is why they undergo an extensive 10-day training program called White People Stink. For Spanish, please press 1. For Arabic, please press 2. For French, please press 3. For German, please press 4. For Dutch, please press 5. For Swahili, please press 6. For Russian, please press 7. For Zulu, please press 8. For English, please press 9. Please listen carefully as our menu has changed. To better serve you, tell us in a few words why you are calling. For instance, The order I placed six months ago as an overnight shipment has not yet arrived. Or, The glass broke because the package was shipped in a manila envelope. Our customers are very important to us, and our representatives are busy serving other callers. We appreciate your patience. If you want to return a shipment, press 1. If you want to return a shipment and think we owe you a credit, press 2. If you received the wrong shipment, press 3. If you received the right shipment at the wrong time, press 4. If you want to place another order, press 5. If you want to cancel an order, press 6. If you want to ask about an order that hasnt arrived, press 7. If you want to ask about an order that has arrived, press 8. To hear this menu again, press 9. Remember, you can easily contact us by visiting our website at www.WidgetSupplies.com.* Then click on registering my account. After printing the three-page form, filling it out, scanning it, and uploading it, click on customer service. Use the drop-down menu to determine the assistance required. Then, indicate in what country this purchase originated. Be sure not to confuse purchases from the United States with those made in the United Arab Emirates. Click okay and follow the five easy prompts. As a reminder, this portal only works with Windows 4. Otherwise, please stay on the line, and a representative will be with you shortly. Your call will be answered in the order in which it was received. If you would like for us to call you back, please leave your phone number, including the area code and the best time we can contact you. Remember, Pakistan is nine hours ahead of the east coast. We appreciate your patience while we assist other customers. If you prefer to wait on hold, please enjoy Beethovens 4th Symphony during your wait. (Music) Thank you again for calling Widget Supplies, where we care about our customers. A representative will be with you soon. Please enjoy Beethovens 5th Symphony during your wait. (Music) While on hold, take the time to like us on Facebook as you listen to Beethovens 6th Symphony. (Music) A good review on Yelp is always appreciated as you hear Beethovens 7th Symphony. (Music) Thank you for your patience. You are next in the queue. Your wait time is an estimated 34 minutes, which will go fast as you hum along to Beethovens 8th Symphony. (Music) Following your call, please stay on the line for a brief survey about your customer service experience as we play Beethovens 9th Symphony. (Music) Call is disconnected __________________ * As a heads up, because this is a satire, thats not a real website. Robin M. Itzler is a regular contributor to American Thinker. She is the founder and editor of Patriot Neighbors, a free weekly national newsletter. Robin can be reached at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com. The U.S. will probably be in a major war by 2025, according to General Mike Minihan, head of the air mobility command. Former vice chief of staff for the U.S. Army General Jack Keane says the U.S. is outgunned and outmanned by the Chinese, and the Commission on the National Defense Strategy recently came out with a report that gives many reasons why we are likely to lose any contest vs. an alliance of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and other bad actors. So what would such a war look like? An optimistic viewer might think goals are limited. China just wants Taiwan, Russia just wants Ukraine, and Iran just wants to get rid of Israel. However, leaving aside these obvious targets, the following are clues that the goals are not limited. Russia and China had joint exercises near Japan recently, and a Russian aircraft went into Japanese airspace three times in one day. China is sharply increasing its violent attacks against Philippine vessels and sailors in disputed waters off the Philippine coast. With so many Chinese vessels in the area, it might be difficult to tell what is just harassment and what is an actual full blown attack until it is too late. Likewise, Taiwans defense minister, Wellington Koo, said Chinas increased military activity around Taiwan makes it harder to spot potential acts of war. Russian and Chinese incursions into U.S. zones off Alaska have become an increasingly frequent occurrence as well. China has enough advanced missiles not only to destroy nearly every U.S. military base in Asia quickly, but also to target and attack most U.S. Navy warships in the region. Beijing has specialized satellite-killer missiles created to go into space and knock out military satellites, as well as commercial satellites that provide GPS data. Russia has developed advanced military bases in the Arctic, housing strategic missile defense systems and submarines. A Chinese company runs the Panama Canal, which means if there is war, our ships could be blocked from moving quickly from the Atlantic to the Pacific. So the worst-case scenario might go like this: Chinese hypersonic missiles wipe out American ships in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and elsewhere. Simultaneously, Chinas ally North Korea invades the South. Russian and Chinese forces invade Alaska, creating a corridor for men and material to get into North America. (Russian troops are already in Nicaragua.) A Fifth Column in the U.S. might help seize critical infrastructure at the same time. Tens of thousands of Chinese of military age have come into the U.S. due to our open border, and, says Gordon Chang, the Communist Party is using that open border to infiltrate people who look like saboteurs, and theyre linking up with these secret Chinese facilities like that lab in Reedley, California, that had at least 20 pathogens, including Ebola, and almost a thousand mice that have been genetically engineered to spread disease. He adds that there is a sabotage risk, which is exceedingly high, and its not just the Chinese, its the Iranians and Syrians and Venezuelans. So in a few hours, the United States might be under serious challenge by an axis of evil. Its true we have nuclear weapons in a triad land-based silos, subs, and bombers. However, our subs are sometimes shadowed by Russian subs; our silos were probably photographed by the various Chinese spy balloons that have passed over the U.S.; and perhaps a first strike, even a non-nuclear one, could take out most of our nuclear forces. Moreover, if nuclear weapons were not employed against us, we might be reluctant to use them. I do not have a military background, and no doubt a real war would unfold differently. But the basic point that China and Russia and their allies could mount a global, sudden, coordinated attack is a possibility that we should prepare for. Image: CristianIS via Pixabay, Pixabay License. Qualcomm has yet to announce the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip, which reportedly offers a significant boost in performance compared to last years Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip. The OnePlus 13, Xiaomi 15 series, Oppo Find X8 Ultra, and the vivo X200 Ultra are some of the devices that will equip the upcoming flagship chipset from Qualcomm. A recent rumor also suggests that the name of Qualcomms next flagship mobile SoC will be Snapdragon 8 Elite. Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 could offer a massive performance improvement to the Galaxy S26 Ultra A rumor out of China has revealed some information about the performance gains of the companys 2025 flagship smartphone chipset, reportedly named the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. It will be the first Snapdragon AP built using TSMCs third-generation 3nm (N3P) process node technology. According to rumors, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset will continue to use a 2 + 6 core architecture. Notably, this years Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip also uses the same core architecture. The tipster claims that the performance cores can reach a clock speed as high as 5GHz. They add that the six efficiency cores will have a clock speed peaking at 4GHz. That being said the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset could offer a massive performance improvement to the Galaxy S26 Ultra. Rumors also claim that the phone could include an advanced facial scanning feature. However, its important to mention that these speeds only represent the variant of the chipset built by TSMC. According to a previous report, Qualcomm has decided to dual source the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 from both TSMC and Samsung Foundry. Not to mention, there are concerns about the yield rate of Samsung Foundrys 3nm and 2nm process nodes. It is reported that Samsung Foundry will manufacture the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 using its SF2 2nm process node. Unfortunately, the clock speed of Samsungs version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 has not been revealed yet. Nonetheless, the companys 4nm-based Exynos 2400 chipset suggests that they have made some progress lately. Qualcomm has again decided to work with Samsung Foundry To recall, the company partnered with Samsung in the past for the production of its Snapdragon 888 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chips. Both the chips suffered from major heating issues. The production of both chips also suffered from lower-than-expected yield rates. The lower yield rates and power efficiency issues were enough for Qualcomm to switch back to TSMC again. As a result, the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 showed much improved power efficiency. It also enabled Samsung to offer a major performance improvement with the Galaxy Z Fold 4. Since then, the company has produced its chips from TSMC and has offered performance and power efficiency improvements in each generation. Samsung has ensured that the latest Galaxy Tab S10 accessories are cross-compatible with the previous generation. Accessories for the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 will also work on the new tablets. Theres however, one minor but glaring limitation. Galaxy Tab S10 and Tab S9 accessories are cross-compatible Samsung officially announced the Galaxy Tab S10 series on Thursday. Just as predicted in the leaks, Samsung is offering just two variants of the tablet this year: the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus and Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra. Whats surprising, other than the pricing of the tablets, is the fact that their accessories can reportedly work with the previous generation of the Galaxy Tab, and vice versa. In other words, Galaxy Tab S9 users can slap their accessories onto the new Tab S10. So, those who upgraded to the latest Galaxy Tab S10 can continue using the Tab S9 accessories. This is an important decision consideration from two perspectives. First, the Galaxy Tab S9 accessories neednt be discarded. This is a win for reducing e-waste. Secondly, Samsung may follow this design philosophy for future generations of its premium tablets, and perhaps smartphones as well. This wasnt the case with the previous generation of Samsung Galaxy tablet models. Specifically speaking, accessories made for the Galaxy Tab S8, such as Book Covers and Book Keyboard Covers, are incompatible with the Galaxy Tab S9 series. Whats concerning is that Samsung could have ensured cross-compatibility between the Tab S8 and the Tab S9 accessories. However, the company altered the location of the camera as well as the S Pen on the newer tablet models, eliminating the possibility of reusing accessories. Should Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 users reuse their Tab S9 accessories? The Galaxy Tab S9 launched just last year, so its accessories might not have experienced severe wear. It makes perfect sense to continue using them. It is, however, important to note that theres no base Galaxy Tab S10 model. Galaxy Tab S9 accessories are too small to fit the larger Galaxy Tab S10+ and Tab S10 Ultra. So, if youre moving to a Galaxy Tab S10 model from the base Galaxy Tab S9, then youre going to have to buy new accessories. Whats the caveat? Theres one more minor, but quite noticeable, limitation. The older Galaxy Tab S9 Keyboard Cover has a Lang key. Samsung replaced this key with a new Galaxy AI button on the 2024 Keyboard Covers. Pressing this key brings up Google Gemini or Samsung Bixby. What this means is that swapping the Keyboard Cover will render this key useless. Samsung might release an update that could switch the function of the key depending on the model of the tablet the Keyboard Cover is attached to. But for now, the Galaxy AI button wont work on the older Galaxy Tab S9 models. Body camera footage of a welfare check on Benji Cervera is shown in court. Benjis father, Brandon Cervera, is on trial, charged with injury to a child causing serious bodily injury. His stepmother, Miranda Casarez, was found guilty and sentenced her to 25 years in prison for a similar charge. Jessica Phelps The names of 4-year-olds usually arent known to the public unless theyre the children of British royalty or American pop stars. An unfortunate exception is when children die from abuse. Today, we know the name of Benjamin Benji Cervera because of the horrible way he died, which stemmed from the horrible life he endured. Benji died on Aug. 17, 2021, weighing only 28 pounds. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In April, his stepmother, Miranda Casarez, 25, was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison for injury to a child by omission causing serious bodily injury. His father, Brandon Cervera, is on trial, charged with injury to a child causing serious bodily injury. On July 20, 2021, San Antonio police and emergency medical personnel arrived at the familys apartment in response to a welfare check about Benji. The first time the child appeared on police body camera footage, he was shirtless and had two black eyes that his stepmother claimed were self-inflicted, saying he was prone to banging his head on the ground and walls. One of the more disturbing things about viewing the body camera footage today is seeing an apartment full of family, police and emergency medical providers, knowing that less than a month from then, the one person who would be gone is the child someone cared enough about to request a welfare check. We see a 4-year-old who wont live to see his fifth birthday. During that welfare check, police observed that everyone in the apartment had a bed except Benji, who slept on a mattress with a blanket covered in urine. There were locks on the refrigerator and kitchen cabinets, and a lock on Benjis door to keep him confined. Advertisement Article continues below this ad They also saw an undernourished child with two black eyes and bruising on other parts of his body. In his stepmothers trial earlier this year, video from her phone, taken the day Benji died, shows him in the car crying and saying, I want bread. The medical examiner ruled that Benjis death was due to the purposeful withholding of food. Its impossible to watch the video of Benji and not think of another 4-year-old from more than 20 years ago. On Christmas morning 2003, Jovonie Ochoa died from starvation and neglect. He weighed 16 pounds, his ankles and wrists had been duct-taped together, and his mouth had been taped. Several members of his family, including his grandmother, were convicted. Advertisement Article continues below this ad During his grandmothers trial, autopsy photos of Jovonie showed how a beautiful child had been made to appear monstrous, his face emaciated, his cheeks hollowed and his teeth missing. This may have been the most infamous child abuse offense in San Antonio history, and it would lead to the establishment of a statewide Blue Ribbon Task Force bill to launch a new, sustained effort to combat child abuse and neglect in Texas. In 2022, according to the Texas Department of Family Protective Services, 19 children in Bexar County died because of abuse or neglect, with more than half of the victims younger than 2. In 2023, Family Protective Services investigated 690 possible child abuse- and neglect-related fatalities. As disturbing as these numbers are, what should haunt each of us are the abuse and neglect cases not reported. What about the children we dont see, whose names we dont yet know but will eventually? What about the voices we dont hear? Advertisement Article continues below this ad The video from the welfare check on Benji in July 2021 shows police taking Benji into the bathroom so he can look in the mirror and explain his black eyes. On the way in, they pass a poster of Spider-Man. A little while later, in a hallway, police take pictures of Benji. At one point he smiles. This hungry, thirsty, malnourished child with two black eyes, bruises on his body and the knowledge of what his life is like, smiles, and youre reminded that you cant always trust a smile. When officers ask him to show them his muscles, Benji flexes his puny arms, and all you can think is you wish he had the muscles to defend himself. Or that Spider-Man had come to his rescue. The AI rat race is more like a game of cat and mouse. Big companies are constantly chasing down and capturing bright minds that will push their AI forward. A good example has to deal with Googles most recent major purchase. According to a report, Google paid $2.7 billion to get one of its best AI minds back. The person in question is Noam Shazeer. He was one of the earliest employees of Google back in the year 2000. He became an influential force in Googles development, but his tenure at the company ended just a few years ago. Back in 2021, he left the company. He left because Google didnt want to release a chatbot that he developed. Well, after leaving Google, he went and founded his own AI company. You might be familiar with Shazeers company, Character.ai. Google paid $2.7 billion to get one of its top AI employees back So, to clear up any confusion, Google didnt write a $2 billion check for Shazeer to pocket. Rather, the company paid this gross amount to basically acquire Character.ai without actually buying the company. The money went toward licensing Character.ais technology. Also, it went towards getting Shazeer and his team to work at Google. This not-acquisition will basically function like an acquisition, letting Google use Character.ais technology as if it were its own. Nipping the companys CEO is the icing on the cake. This way, Google can basically control the company without having to go through the legal process of an acquisition. However, this doesnt mean that this deal is immune from the FTC. Whether Google owns the company or not, theres always the chance that the FTC or some other regulatory body will see this as a thinly veiled acquisition. Could Google get away with this? This is similar to something that Microsoft did with a company called Inflection AI. It didnt buy the company per se, rather, it just hired the mass majority of its employees and paid it $650 million to license its technology. Its not an acquisition on paper, but it is in spirit, and it was enough for the FTC to open a probe into the company. Google is already in hot water with the DOJ suing it in a massive antitrust lawsuit (its THIRD antitrust lawsuit in a year, mind you). One of the reasons why its in the hot seat is because of its tendency to throw its money around to get its way. Should the company really be pulling sneaky moves like these at this point? Only time will tell. Googles vast catalog of services also covers the mapping and navigation segments. Every so often, services like Google Maps, Waze, and Earth receive new features to make them more useful or even entertaining. Now, the company has announced that Google Maps Street View is reaching more countries. Additionally, Google Earth will let you travel back in time. Google Maps Street View now supports 80 countries; getting AI-powered sharper images Street View is a Google Maps feature that provides virtual tours of streets in multiple locations around the world. On supported locations, Street View allows you to virtually walk between streets in a multi-directional navigation system. To develop the feature, Google is sending its own cars equipped with advanced cameras to take 360 images of the location. Now, the company has revealed that Google Maps Street View experience is now available in more countries. Google is adding new imagery to existing countries, as well as bringing Street View tours to others for the first time. The feature is currently live in 80 countries, with virtual tours of such iconic landmarks as the Great Barrier Reef and the International Space Station. Street View currently has an impressive gallery of more than 280 billion images. Google also revealed that its using AI technology and new cameras in its cars to offer sharper imagery during Street View explorations. So, the experience should be more immersive than ever, especially on AR/VR headsets. The company began rolling out the improvements to Street View on September 25, so you might want to check it out. Google Earth will get time travel Google Earth is also getting some love from the company. The service will allow users to take time travels that allow them to see firsthand the changes the planet has experienced over the decades. To do so, Google will use satellite and aerial imagery collected over the past 80 years. In some locations, the Mountain View giant claims that you will be able to go back in time to the 1930s. Lastly, Google Earth will soon support the creation of custom maps by researchers and companies. According to a new report, HONOR could actually launch its first tri-fold smartphone at IFA next year. This information comes from Teme, a tipster who shared it on X. HONOR could launch its very first tri-fold smartphone at next years IFA Thats not all he said, however. He also added that neither OPPO nor Vivo have plans to launch a tri-fold smartphone at the moment. Thats not to say things wont change quickly, but as things stand now, dont expect to see one such device from them anytime soon. Many of you know that Huawei launched the worlds first tri-fold smartphone earlier this month. The Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design is its name. It launched in China, and its coming to global markets in Q1 2025. With that being said, HONOR is looking to compete with its ex-parent company. HONOR is actually rumored to be preparing a tri-fold smartphone that is only 10mm thick. Were not sure if thats even possible, but thats the rumor. The Huawei Mate XT is 12.8mm thick when fully folded. That seems unrealistically thin for a tri-fold, but there you go. That makes this smartphone only barely thicker than the Galaxy Z Fold 6. The HONOR Magic V3 is currently the thinnest & lightest book-style foldable One of HONORs smartphones is currently holding the title of the thinnest book-style foldable smartphone. The devices name is the HONOR Magic V3, and it launched globally at this years IFA. That phone is 9.2mm or 9.3mm thick when folded, depending on the model. That is very, very thin for a foldable, needless to say. Well, if todays rumor is true, HONOR could up the ante once again at next years IFA, a year after the Magic V3s launch. Both Samsung and Xiaomi are also rumored to be working on a tri-fold smartphone. Were not sure when their offerings will arrive, however. Its not clear whether HONOR will be second in line after Huawei, or will one of these two companies manage to trump it. Back in May, Microsoft unveiled one of its most controversial features called Recall. The company then recalled the feature as it faced some massive backlash from the tech community. Well, Microsoft doesnt want to give up this feature, as it announced that Recall will return, and it will be safer. If you dont remember, Recall was a feature that would basically take screenshots of everything you do on your computer. If you ever needed to retrace your steps and recall something that you did online, you could ask the tool. It will use AI to find what you were doing. For example, if you created a file on your computer, and you forgot where you put it, you can ask the tool about the file, and it will be able to remember where you put that file and help you surface it. This is the gist of Recall. So, it seems like a useful feature to help you recall files, folders, applications, webpages, and so on when you cant seem to remember them. Its a useful feature in and of itself, but thats not to say that it didnt have its fatal flaws. Windows Recall was a privacy nightmare, and the tech community picked up on it quickly. Users found out that the files that Recall stored, which had snapshots of EVERYTHING you did on your computer, were stored in an easily accessible location in an easily readable format. If someone gains access to your computer, theyd be able to find these files and have a play-by-play of everything you do on your computer. Windows Recall will return with some safety improvements Microsoft was quick to take this feature down, but that didnt mean that it was finished with it. Today, Microsoft announced that Recall is not dead, and it will be landing on Microsoft Copilot+ PCs in November. The company wants to extinguish any worries that people might have, so it made a lengthy blog post about what it plans to do to make it more secure. Going forward, the screenshots that the feature produces will be encrypted, which was one of the biggest gripes that people had. Microsoft will encrypt the screenshots, and protect those keys using VBS Enclaves. This is a secure software-based trusted execution environment (TEE) inside a host application. The keys will basically be stored away in an environment separate from the rest of your system. Next, Recall will only be active if you opt-in to it. Youll have the option to opt-in when setting up your computer. If you decide that you dont like the feature, then youll be able to disable it altogether. Protecting what matters most Since Recall took a snapshot of everything you did on your computer, people wondered about sensitive information like passwords. Well, Microsoft stated that Recall will not store any sensitive data like passwords. Itll filter this information so that, just in case someone does access your snapshots, they wont have access to it. The feature also wont save your data across different browsers. Microsoft wants to do it right this time So, its clear that the company wants to make Recall as air-tight as a Ziploc bag. As such, it had the feature looked at by a third-party company, but it didnt tell us what company it tapped. This company did a penetration test to see how easy it is to access the encrypted data. Along with that, the companys internal research team MORSE (Microsoft Offensive Research and Security Engineering) tested it out. These are all security measurements that the company should have implemented from the get-go, to be honest. The security measures that the company initially used were laughable. It almost seems like Microsoft rushed the feature to the market to keep pace with the competition. Hopefully, thats not the case, as privacy and security are much more important than the latest and shiniest AI features. Yesterday, Samsung announced a slew of new products, including the Galaxy S24 FE, Galaxy Tab S10 series and the Galaxy Watch FE LTE. The former two we were completely right, with our leaks, but nots the topic of discussion today. Something that really stood out to me from this announcement from Samsung was, the lack of Qualcomm. Samsung has almost always used Qualcomms Snapdragon processors in its products, particularly here in the US. Very rarely do we see Exynos chipsets in products sold in the US mostly only on super cheap devices. But this year, the Galaxy S24 FE is running the Exynos 2400e, and the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus and Ultra are running the new MediaTek Dimensity 9300+ chipset. Meanwhile the Galaxy Watch FE LTE is using the Exynos W920, but thats not a big surprise, seeing as most recent Samsung smartwatches have been Exynos-based. Could Samsung ditch Qualcomm in more products? But the real question here is whether this is a sign of things to come. Weve heard rumors that the Galaxy S25 series (sans the Ultra) could be sporting Exynos chipsets worldwide, while the Galaxy S25 Ultra would stick with the latest and greatest Snapdragon chipset. Samsung has almost always used two different chipsets in the Galaxy S series, worldwide. Sticking with Qualcomm in most LTE markets, thanks to Qualcomms patents, and using Exynos in other markets mainly Europe. However, Exynos has been ridiculed for years. Many in Europe have complained about how much slower and laggy the Exynos version of the Galaxy S series has been over the years. So this rumor isnt one that was met with excitement. But weve heard both Snapdragon worldwide and Exynos worldwide, so who knows until Samsung actually announces it in January. Is MediaTek a real downgrade from Snapdragon? For years, MediaTek has been seen as a cheaper and less powerful (and efficient) chipset compared to what Qualcomm offers with the Snapdragon series. Of course, a big part of that is due to the fact that it is based in China. But is it that really true? Well, according to benchmarks, it does appear to surpass the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in terms of performance and efficiency. Which you might think, wow big deal, Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is being announced next month. True. But so is MediaTeks newest flagship processor on October 9. Of course, well be putting it through its paces once we get our hands on the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra in the next few days, and see if its really a downgrade from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy that was packed into the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra last year. MediaTek has quietly been taking more and more market share away from Qualcomm. Thats not a good sign for Qualcomm, but a great sign for consumers. With MediaTek gaining market share from Qualcomm, its making them a bigger competitor and forcing Qualcomm to be more innovative and competitive. Qualcomm used to completely own the mobile market, especially in the US, but thats starting to change. Not to mention, many OEMs are unhappy with Qualcomm, because of the way they charge for their processors. Instead of simply charging a company to buy so many Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chips, Qualcomm also charges royalties to use the chipset and the technologies included in it. Apples been very vocal about this, having to pay about 5% in royalties to Qualcomm just to use their modem, and on top of that there was a large CDMA tax that Apple had to pay Qualcomm too. This is the kind of thing Qualcomm can do when they own the market, especially when it came to CDMA. Qualcomm owns the majority of patents for CDMA networks, which is why US versions of phones typically came with a Snapdragon chipset versus those sold in Europe. Should Samsung continue diversifying their chipsets? Theres only one thing wrong with selling devices running three different company chipsets Exynos, Dimensity and Snapdragon. And that is software. You see, software needs to be optimized for each of these platforms, so Samsung running One UI 7 on now three different platforms, is going to mean quite a bit of work needs to go into making this run efficiently across the board. But on the business side, this means that Samsung isnt relying on a single company to make its chipsets for its products. Apple does this quite a bit actually. It relies on two suppliers for almost every part of its iPhone. One thing that Samsung does very well is, choice. It has a phone at nearly every price point, and now youll be able to choose a product based on the chipset inside. Apple has been trying to reduce the production cost of its iPhones for some time now. To achieve this, they have tried to turn to alternative suppliers for certain key components, such as displays. However, a new move by the US government could put Apples plans in jeopardy. A US representative requested that display suppliers from China, such as BOE and Tianma, be blacklisted. BOE would be the main OLED display supplier of the iPhone SE 4. BOE is a Chinese display supplier that works with multiple big brands in the smartphone industry. Apple has been in talks with the company to use its panels in iPhone devices. According to reports, BOE has failed Apples quality tests for high-end iPhone displays, but the Cupertino giant would commission them to produce the majority of the iPhone SE 4s displays. US representative suggests blacklisting display suppliers from China Apple may have to reconsider its plans regarding the displays of the next budget iPhone following a request from John Moolenaar, the Chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. Moolenaar requests the addition of BOE to the US trade blacklist in a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The letter also mentions Tianma Microelectronics, another Chinese display supplier. The representative cites national security concerns as the main reason for the BOEs potential blacklisting. The letter cites Chinese suppliers outsized market share growth in the LCD and OLED segment thanks to Chinese government funding. These suppliers have gone from 1% of the global OLED market share in 2014 to more than 52% today. They have also taken over 72% of the LCD market. Chinese suppliers have reportedly taken advantage of government funding to sell displays at cost, affecting competitors. Previous reports suggested that BOE would manufacture 70% of the iPhone SE 4s displays. Samsung was among the companies vying to supply the component. However, the deal fell through because Apple was willing to pay too little per unit. Indeed, reports suggest that Apple requested BOE to reduce the specifications of the display candidate to secure a lower price. There are no details on which specs would be reduced to save costs. However, we can imagine things like maximum brightness or resorting to older OLED technologies. LG would be another candidate for the iPhone SE 4s OLED screens According to reports, Apple has also negotiated with LG to supply the displays for the iPhone SE 4. Reports suggest that the company is seeking to pay a maximum price of $40 per unit. The iPhone SE 4 would hit the market in 2025 for a price of $499. The possibility of a BOE blacklisting would force Apple to turn to more expensive suppliers, potentially increasing the estimated price for the next-generation budget iPhone. Samsungs Galaxy S24 FE is the latest device from one of Androids most popular brands, and like most popular Galaxy devices, Verizon will be selling it. However, one of North Americas most popular wireless carriers wont just be selling the latest phone from one of the most popular Android brands. Its also going to be selling all of the new products that Samsung announced today. This includes the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus and the Galaxy Watch FE. Verizon does not list the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, however. Verizon doesnt say when these devices will all be available. That being said, it should be soon. Samsung already has all of these devices up for pre-order on its own website, and some of its retail partners like Amazon and Best Buy are already selling them as well. So, with that in mind, it isnt likely to be too long before Verizon has them available. At the time of writing, they arent listed on Verizons online store. Which means they may not pop up until tomorrow or later. Verizon is offering a few promotions for the Galaxy S24 FE and other new Samsung devices While Verizon hasnt listed availability dates for any of the new devices, it has confirmed that there will be promotional offers. Starting with the Galaxy S24 FE, the carrier will be selling all four colors, and if you sign up for an Unlimited Ultimate, Unlimited Plus, or Unlimited Welcome plan, you can get the Galaxy S24 FE 128GB model for free. This may be after bill credits, as thats how these promotions usually go. With that said, Verizon says customers can get the phone on us. So theres a possibility its just free outright when you sign up for one of those plans. If youre looking to get into a new tablet, Verizon has two offers for Samsungs latest. If you buy any 5G Android phone, you can pick up the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus for $25 a month for 36 months. The other offer pertaining to the tablet is to trade in your old tablet and get the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus for as little as $27 a month for 36 months. Lastly, those seeking the Galaxy Watch FE can get it for $5 a month for 36 months with the purchase of any 5G Android phone. All things considered, these arent too bad when it comes to promotions. Verizon will also sell the Galaxy Ring and the Meta Quest 3S The Galaxy Ring wasnt available outside of Samsung and AT&T when it launched earlier this Summer. However, it turns out that Samsungs smart ring wont be exclusive to AT&T after all. Verizon has just confirmed that it will sell the Galaxy Ring at a starting price of $399.99. Itll be available in Silver, Black, and Gold. Theres no listed availability date for this product either, but its probably not too far off. In addition, Verizon says it will soon be selling the Meta Quest 3S Mixed Reality headset as well. This starts at $299.99, but its unclear if this is the model that Verizon will offer. Were still waiting for Android 15 to make it to the stable channel. Google hasnt pushed the update to its Pixel phones yet, but that doesnt mean that the rest of the Android OEMs need to wait. In a surprising move, Chinese phone maker Vivo just released Android 15 to its flagship devices. Ironically, the two companies that release updates the earliest are taking the longest time to give us Android 15 this year. Samsung, the company that usually releases its updates first has shelved the One UI 7 update until who knows when? And Google, the company that actually develops Android, has been mum on when its going to push the update to the masses. So, were all sitting patiently waiting for this update to come out. Weve been following rumors about what Android 15 is going to bring. While there are some fun goodies coming, were not expecting a massive overhaul like what we saw with the transition to Android 12. So, were wondering why its taking so long. Vivo is launching Android 15 first Its important to mention that Vivo is launching Android 15 in a stable version. Pixel phones as old as the Pixel 6 have been able to test out the Android 15 developer preview and beta so far. However, Vivo is pushing the official stable version to the masses, according to Ishan Agarwal, and Alvin, Vivo is actually delivering the update before well Vivo. The company originally planned to push the update on September 30th. However, it looks like it just couldnt contain itself. Vivo phone users are already starting to get the update to FunTouch OS 15. Just like OxygenOS and HIOS, the number in FunTouch OS represents the version of Android that its running over. Android 15 is making it to phones like the Vivo X100 phones and the fantastic Vivo X Fold3 Pro. The update is even making it to the iQOO 12. Its making it to this phone because Vivo owns iQOO. What is Vivo bringing? Vivo will bring some neat features. There are features like partial screen sharing, satellite connectivity, AI Eraser for photos, and Private Space. So, if youre using one of Vivos flagship phones, then you should be on the lookout for the new update. You should get a notification about the update once it hits your device. To manually check, go to your settings and tap on the System update button. This will automatically do a search for the update. If it detects the update, it will prompt you to download and install it. A Southwest Airlines plane takes off from San Antonio International Airport. A reader implores Southwest and the airport to settle their differences. Sam Owens/Staff file photo Make Southwest happy I dont agree with a lot of the assertions in Greg Jefferson's column concerning negotiations between the city of San Antonio and Southwest Airlines. The solution is easy. Southwest should embrace Terminal A and make it the Southwest Terminal in San Antonio. We love Southwest Airlines, and it would make it much simpler than having flights split between terminals. Advertisement Article continues below this ad It wont be as grandiose as a new terminal, but San Antonians would love to see Southwest in one place. The city should support this move by helping fund the renovations Southwest wants. Lets make Southwest feel at home. They do carry 40% of the passengers that fly in San Antonio. Alexander McLeod, Bulverde Character before budget Advertisement Article continues below this ad Dear District 10 Council Member Marc Whyte, I think you may have something with zero-based budgeting. But theres something more important, and thats a City Council with 100% commitment: commitment to the idea that council is a full-time gig; commitment that council members should exemplify the highest level of citizenship by following the law (particularly laws relating to putting other drivers and riders in danger by poor driving choices); commitment to the idea of not expecting special treatment by law enforcement because of their positions. Character matters, and there are many of us who listen a lot more closely to those we perceive have character. Ted Peck Advertisement Article continues below this ad Austin's MetroRail commuter line along Airport Boulevard near 45th Street. Ralph Barrera/Austin American-Statesman Awaiting high-speed rail I first rode the Japanese bullet train in 1969 and have been reading about high-speed rail in Texas since moving to San Antonio in 1977. Im so glad Robert Moreno and the San Antonians for Rail Transit board still support high-speed rail in the long term. Advertisement Article continues below this ad I can hardly wait! Two Just Stop Oil activists have been jailed for pouring soup over Vincent van Goghs Sunflowers, after they came close to destroying the masterpiece. Phoebe Plummer 23, and Anna Holland, 22, caused as much as 10,000 worth of damage to the artworks gold-coloured frame when they targeted it at Londons National Gallery. Plummer received a two-year jail term, while Holland was handed 20 months. The protesters, wearing Just Stop Oil T-shirts, threw two tins of Heinz tomato soup over the 1888 work in October 2022, before kneeling down in front of the painting and gluing their hands to the wall beneath it. Staff at the gallery inspected the painting and frame for damage while the women were still attached to the wall, and were worried the soup may have dripped through the protective glass. The frame was purchased by the gallery in 1999, the court heard, and was valued at 28,000 before it suffered the estimated 10,000 worth of damage. Sentencing the women, Judge Christopher Hehir said the cultural treasure could have been seriously damaged or even destroyed. Judge Hehir, who previously jailed the co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion for five years, continued: Soup might have seeped through the glass. You couldnt have cared less if the painting was damaged or not. A Just Stop Oil activist holds up a banner of Phoebe Plummer outside Southwark Crown Court (James Manning/PA) You had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers. The judge told Plummer, who was also handed a criminal behaviour order: You clearly think your beliefs give you the right to commit crimes when you feel like it. You do not. Raj Chada, defending Holland, said the women did check that the painting was protected by a glass cover before throwing the soup. Plummer, representing herself, told the hearing: My choice today is to accept whatever sentence I receive with a smile. It is not just myself being sentenced today, or my co-defendants, but the foundations of democracy itself. The protesters knelt in front of the painting and were later seen being bundled into a police van (Just Stop Oil/PA) Judge Hehir said it was offensive for Plummer to portray herself as a political prisoner when you think of the people in dungeons around the world. We dont have political prisoners in this country, he added. Plummer was also handed a three-month sentence for her part in a slow march which caused long tailbacks in west London in November 2023. Holland and Plummer were found guilty of criminal damage by a jury after three hours of deliberation in July, after which Judge Hehir said they came within the width of a pane of glass of destroying one of the most valuable artworks in the world. Painted in Arles in the south of France in August 1888, van Goghs painting shows 15 sunflowers standing in a yellow pot against a yellow background. The priceless work was the second from the National Gallery to be selected as a target for protest action by Just Stop Oil in 2022. Two supporters glued themselves to John Constables The Hay Wain in July of that year. In 2022, Plummer said in front of the painting: What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people? The cost-of-living crisis is part of the cost-of-oil crisis. In July, just five days after her guilty verdict, Plummer was arrested for spraying paint on departure boards at Heathrow Airport. A number of Just Stop Oil supporters gathered outside the court, some of whom held posters of historical figures jailed for activism. BREAKING: 2 VAN GOGH PAINTINGS SOUPED HOURS AFTER PHOEBE AND ANNA SENTENCED 3 Just Stop Oil supporters have thrown soup over 2 of Van Gogh paintings in the 'Poets and Lovers' exhibition at the National Gallery. Support people in resistance: https://t.co/Rh65arOwa1 pic.twitter.com/Tc3Bvd10OB Just Stop Oil (@JustStop_Oil) September 27, 2024 Later on Friday, three activists from the group poured soup over two van Gogh paintings at the National Gallery in protest against the ruling. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Just Stop Oil said: BREAKING: 2 VAN GOGH PAINTINGS SOUPED HOURS AFTER PHOEBE AND ANNA SENTENCED. 3 Just Stop Oil supporters have thrown soup over 2 of Van Gogh paintings in the Poets and Lovers exhibition at the National Gallery. The post featured a video of the activists vandalising the artwork before telling a crowd: There are people in prison for demanding an end to new oil and gas, something which is now government policy after sustained, disruptive actions, countless headlines and the resulting political pressure. Future generations will regard these prisoners of conscience to be on the right side of history. Hollywood star George Clooney borrowed a professional camera and snapped photographs of his wife Amal Clooney posing with Donatella Versace and Charlotte Tilbury on the carpet of a Clooney Foundation For Justice fundraiser. Stars arrived in their droves at The Albies, an awards ceremony created by the Clooneys to shine a protective spotlight on courageous justice defenders who are at risk, sending a message to those who abuse human rights that the world is watching. The Clooneys posed at the New York Public Library event in a matching black tie ensemble, before greeting guests including acting stars Emily Blunt and her husband John Krasinski; Oscar-winners Cate Blanchett and Ariana DeBose; and The Fault In Our Stars Shailene Woodley. Amal Clooney, left, Donatella Versace and Charlotte Tilbury attend The Albies hosted by the Clooney Foundation for Justice at the New York Public Library (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) George was also filmed hugging British rock band Mumford & Sons upon their arrival, before US music star Doja Cat, talk show host Jimmy Fallon and actress Gabrielle Union appeared on the carpet. Other British stars included music star Sting and his actor wife Trudie Styler, record producer Mark Ronson and comedian John Oliver. Trudie Styler, left, and Sting attend The Albies hosted by the Clooney Foundation for Justice at the New York Public Library (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) As his wife posed alongside fashion designer Versace and British beauty guru Tilbury, George asked a photographer which one is it pointing to the camera buttons, before taking some shots and handing the camera back in a video circulating on social media. It comes after the 63-year-old helped a photographer back to his feet after tripping at the Venice Film Festival in Italy earlier this month, at the premiere of his latest film Wolfs alongside Brad Pitt. George Clooney, left, Emily Blunt and John Krasinski attend The Albies hosted by the Clooney Foundation for Justice at the New York Public Library in New York (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) The Albies are named after anti-apartheid hero Justice Albie Sachs, who received a lifetime achievement award at the charitys inaugural fundraiser in 2022, according to the Clooney Foundation For Justice website. The event comes a day after Amal received a Legal 500 award in recognition of her work and contributions to the field of international law. The government has been pressed to hold an independent inquiry into the murder of journalist Martin OHagan. Mr OHagan was killed by loyalist paramilitaries in Lurgan, Co Armagh in 2001. No-one has ever been successfully prosecuted for his murder. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) general secretary Michelle Stanistreet and assistant general secretary Seamus Dooley have written to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Secretary of State Hilary Benn, First Minister Michelle ONeill, deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly and Taoiseach Simon Harris calling for an independent inquiry into the killing. Seamus Dooley, assistant general secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ/PA) The NUJs Mr Dooley said there are many unanswered questions and issues to be resolved around the murder of Mr OHagan. He contended there are suspicions of collusion and that police had prior knowledge of the intention to kill Mr OHagan. For many years the NUJ has marked the anniversary of the vile murder of Martin OHagan with calls for an independent investigation, he said. Polite acknowledgements have not been followed up by action but we continue to demand an external investigation into the murder and the failure to properly investigate it. There are so many unanswered questions, so many issues which remain unresolved, despite the fact that the identity of those suspected of ordering and carrying out the assassination of Martin OHagan is well known, with names being published in the media with impunity. Since last years anniversary we have had a new Northern Ireland Secretary, a new British Prime Minister, a new Taoiseach along with a new First Minister and deputy First Minister. In that context, we are seeking support for a new investigation, led by an international figure and independent of those who have so far failed to properly investigate the murder. He added: The strong suspicion of collusion with the security forces and the suggestion that the PSNI may have had prior knowledge of the plan to murder Martin OHagan must be thoroughly interrogated. The murder of Martin OHagan was a watershed moment for journalism in the UK and Ireland. The failure to properly investigate it has cast a long shadow and continues to embolden those who seek to silence journalists. Amnesty International has backed the call for a fresh investigation into the killing. Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty Internationals Northern Ireland director, said Mr OHagans killing was designed to send a clear message to journalists in Northern Ireland that they are not safe. It is simply unacceptable that, in the 23 years since Martin OHagan was shot dead, not a single person has been held accountable, he said. This failure has created an environment of impunity for those who continue to threaten journalists in Northern Ireland today. It is notable that, in 2024, threats of serious violence continue to be directed at journalists from the very same sort of armed groups which killed Martin OHagan. We support calls from the National Union of Journalists for a fresh investigation into the killing. Press freedom must be resolutely defended. A UK Government spokesperson said: A free, independent media is one of the foundations of our democracy. It is vital that journalists are able to continue their work without the fear of attack or threat. We are committed to the safety of journalists, and to bringing to justice those responsible for crimes against journalists. We continue to work closely with the Northern Ireland Executive in their efforts to tackle the threat and harm caused by paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. The Scottish Parliament has placed itself at the very heart of the nation, First Minister John Swinney will say as he joins the King and Queen at a ceremony to mark 25 years of devolution at Holyrood. Charles and Camilla will be at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh for Saturdays anniversary event. Mr Swinney, who earlier this year became the seventh first minister since the devolved Parliament convened in 1999, will respond to a speech by the King. The First Minister is expected to say that in such a short space of time in the rich voyage of Scotland, the Scottish Parliament has placed itself at the very heart of the nation. He will describe Holyrood as a vessel of enlightenment, invention and creativity, adding it is all made possible by the service of members of Parliament, working at the very heart of Scotland. First Minister John Swinney will address Holyrood after the Kings speech (Jane Barlow/PA) The King has made six visits to the Parliament since 1999 while his mother the late Queen made 10 visits during her lifetime. Mr Swinney is one of a number of MSPs who have been at Holyrood since the start of devolution, representing first the North Tayside constituency and then Perthshire North. Fellow SNP politician Christine Grahame, who was also part of the first intake of MSPs in 1999, said: The Scottish Parliament has transformed the lives of the people in Scotland for the better we should all be proud of that. She said devolution has allowed Scotland to chart a different, better course for our country, pointing to policy successes. Ms Grahame said: Free tuition, free prescriptions, game-changing policies to tackle child poverty, the ban on smoking, the baby box, ScotRail back in public ownership none of this would have been possible without the Scottish Parliament and the strength of our commitment to self-determination. The crew of a Royal Navy warship have released six rare turtles that washed up on UK shores back into the wild in their original Atlantic habitat. Portsmouth-based patrol vessel HMS Medway transported the loggerhead turtles to the Azores, as it was heading towards the Caribbean, where they were released having been cared for by Newquays Blue Reef Aquarium and Anglesey Sea Zoo. The juvenile turtles were swept from the Caribbean or Eastern Seaboard of the USA by strong winds and Atlantic currents and had become cold-stunned in the cold waters around the UK. It is believed they would have died if they had not been found washed up and rescued. Two of the turtles, named Jason and Perran, were found at Perranporth, Cornwall, Gordon was discovered at Bude in Cornwall, Hayle was found in Hayle, Cornwall, Holly on Putsborough Beach, Devon, and Tonni was rescued at Moel-y-Don beach, Anglesey. One of the six rare loggerhead turtles found by the crew of a Royal Navy warship after washing up on UK shores (Royal Navy/PA) Steve Matchett, group curator for Blue Reef Aquarium, said: All the turtles arrived in a weakened state in many cases we were unsure if they were going to make it overnight. All were dehydrated and emaciated. This is due to being too cold for a long period and being unable to feed/function properly. They have all prospered once we got them past the initial stages. We are very grateful to the Navy for stepping in to repatriate these rescued turtles. The six loggerhead turtles being removed from their crates to be dropped back into the Atlantic (Royal Navy/PA) The turtles dropped into the Atlantic off the Azores and were seen past by the ships crew which had gathered on the flight deck to watch. Rod Jones, the Royal Navys Senior Maritime Environmental Protection Adviser, said: As professional mariners, many of us are keen to do what we can to reduce the loss of biodiversity at sea. Encountering marine wildlife is one of the great joys of seafaring and if we can assist, even in a small way, to make that more likely in the future we are pleased to be able to do that. One of the six rare loggerhead turtles found by the crew of a Royal Navy warship after washing up on UK shores (Royal Navy/PA) Assisting turtles to return to warmer waters may not be the Royal Navys primary role but as a government body we are very pleased to be able to support the UKs ambition for more healthy and diverse seas. Frankie Hobro, owner of Anglesey Sea Zoo which cared for Tonni Welsh for wave since the turtle was washed up next to the aquarium 20 months ago, said: In one way theres going to be this little bit of you swimming off into the Atlantic. In another, this is what we have been aiming for since day one. Were excited and a little bit emotional in a happy way. Medway sailed from Plymouth last week to relieve its sister ship HMS Trent, supporting international counter-drug smuggling operations across the Americas, and assisting island communities should they be hit by storms during the hurricane season. Keith Allen as OBrien in 1984 - Simon Annand Most people will remember him as a hellraiser with an incendiary comic talent from the 90s but Keith Allen has been steadily crafting a portfolio of theatre roles over the years, including Pinters brutal patriarch Max in The Homecoming here in 2022. His latest harnesses the explosive energy that fuelled his past notoriety into a mesmerisingly sinister turn as a bespectacled OBrien, Big Brothers apparatchik in 1984, Ryan Craigs adaptation of George Orwells dystopian novel warning against the extremes of government control. In these times when populist authoritarianism, attacks on freedom of speech and the manipulation of objective truths into alternative facts are on the rise, Orwells bleak tale feels like more than just a cautionary tale 75 years on. The clarity and rigour of Craigs adaptation deftly sketches this world although sometimes it can feel a little expository rather than dramatic. The spare ingenuity of Justin Nardellas set and video design counteracts this, driving home the point that Big Brother, the mysterious leader of the superstate Oceania to which all citizens pledge allegiance, is always watching, unblinking and omnipresent via a telescreen. Its the same screen through which news and propaganda are delivered via pre-recorded messages and takes the shape of an eye spanning the backdrop onto which live CCTV images of the audience waiting for the play to begin are projected from four cameras above the stage. We meet the protagonist Winston Smith (Mark Quartley), working as a censor at the Ministry of Truth in an imaginary future where War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength and 2 + 2 = 5. Its Winstons job to distort the truth, rewriting history to match the States agenda. But Winston is secretly a rebel, a Thought Criminal who keeps a diary, a heretical act that eventually lands him in the Ministry of Love, a torture chamber housing Room 101 in its basement. Here, he is subjugated until he is forced to betray Julia (Eleanor Wyld), the woman with whom he has been romantically and sexually involved. Separately, Quartleys Winston is the right degree of hapless and Wylds Julia owns her sexuality without apology but its a shame that they are miscast as lovers - theres just no heat coming off these two. David Birrell steals the show with his portrayal of Winstons neighbour Parsons, an everyman who exemplifies the annihilation of individuality that is central to 1984. But one of the more immediate horrors that this play highlights is the systematic stripping from language of all but its functionality. In America right now, a right-wing policy manifesto called Project 2025 proposes to eliminate terms such as sexual orientation, gender equality, abortion and reproductive rights from laws if Trump is elected. Trump has disavowed the document yet, even so, a form of Newspeak (the neologism Orwell coined for this process of attrition by language) has become a focal point of the 2024 US election. At Theatre Royal Bath until Sept 28; then touring The former prime minister was forced to admit it would be nuts to invade a Nato ally - Tolga Akmen/REUTERS Boris Johnson considered invading the Netherlands to seize Covid vaccines during the height of the pandemic, he has revealed. Writing in his memoirs, to be published next month, the former prime minister said he commissioned the Armed Forces to consider whether an aquatic raid on a warehouse in Leiden was possible. The building contained five million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which Mr Johnson believed were rightfully British because they were developed in the UK. But he was told the plan was unlikely to succeed and was forced to admit that the idea of effectively invading a Nato ally was nuts. In his book, Unleashed, Mr Johnson also reveals that he nearly died from Covid, saying that without the round-the-clock effort of two dedicated nurses he would have carked it. The former prime minister also addressed the partygate row, denying he had used his evenings in Downing Street partying with my cronies from the Covid Taskforce and the Cabinet Office, He also described Sue Grays report into pandemic rule breaches as a witch hunt. Boris Johnson receives his AstraZeneca vaccine at the height of the pandemic, when he was prime minister - Matt Dunham The release of the book, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail, threatens to dominate the Conservative conference, which starts on Saturday, taking the spotlight away from the four candidates vying to lead the party. Mr Johnson is not planning to attend. Mr Johnson wrote that he had been infuriated that supplies of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which were pioneered with British Government support, had been kidnapped. The five million doses were stuck at the Halix plant in the Netherlands because it was a long-standing part of AstraZenecas supply chain. After five weeks of negotiations, in March 2021 he brought in military top brass to ask whether it might be technically feasible to launch an aquatic raid on a warehouse in Leiden, in the Netherlands, and to take that which was legally ours and which the UK desperately needed. Lt Gen Doug Chalmers, the deputy chief of the defence staff, told him that such action was certainly feasible. He explained how we could do it, Mr Johnson wrote. We would send one team on a commercial flight to Amsterdam, while another team would use the cover of darkness to cross the Channel in ribs [rigid inflatable boats] and navigate up the canals. They would then rendezvous at the target; enter; secure the hostage goods, exfiltrate using an articulated lorry, and make their way to the Channel ports. But I have to warn you, PM and they all looked at me meaningfully that it will not be possible to do this undetected. He pointed out that there were lockdowns in place in Belgium and the Netherlands, and the local authorities might observe our movements If we are detected we will have to explain why we are effectively invading a long-standing Nato ally. The former prime minister concluded: Of course, I knew he was right, and I secretly agreed with what they all thought but did not want to say aloud: that the whole thing was nuts. He said he had been desperate because he believed it was his paramount duty to secure vaccines while people in my country were dying of Covid. Mr Johnson accused the EU of treating us with malice and with spite [because] we were vaccinating our population much faster than they were, and the European electorate had long since noticed. Jabs prove Brexit was a success By March 2021, Britain had vaccinated about 30 per cent of the UK population, while the European Union had only managed 8 per cent. The EU, where countries were having trouble with their vaccine rollouts, launched a legal case against AstraZeneca to stop them exporting the vaccines to the UK despite Britain signing a bomb proof contract to secure the first 100 million doses. They had kidnapped our vaccines but that wasnt the real outrage, he wrote, saying his pencil-snapping, bin-kicking rage was aimed at the EU, which he claimed wanted to block access to the vaccines but not use them itself. Mr Johnson said he was flabbergasted when Emmanuel Macron, the French president, claimed that the British AstraZeneca vaccine was quasi-ineffective for the over 65s. The frustration of EU governments was, of course, being aggravated by the success of Brexit Britain, he said. Mr Johnson said he was glad that he did not violently seize the vaccines, admitting it would not have improved relations with the EU. But it still enraged me in fact, it still does that they were actually willing to let British people die rather than acknowledge the possibility that there might be an upside to Brexit, he added. Harrys pep talk Mr Johnson also claims in his book that he was asked to give Prince Harry a pep talk in an attempt to persuade him not to leave the UK. The pair enjoyed an informal 20-minute meeting, which took place behind closed doors on the margins of a UK-Africa investment summit in Londons Docklands, on Jan 20, 2020. Sources close to the Duke of Sussex confirmed that the then prime minister did suggest that both he and Meghan remain in the UK. However, multiple sources with intimate knowledge of such meetings at the time insisted that the Palace did not ask Mr Johnson to intervene. A day later, the Duke walked away from his royal duties and flew to Canada to be with the Duchess. State Representative John Lujan speaks with supporters and volunteers during a kickoff event for the campaign's southside headquarters Saturday morning. Robin Jerstad San Antonio state Rep. John Lujan, a Republican locked in one of the most competitive reelection bids this cycle, came under attack from his Democratic opponent this week over comments he made supporting the state abortion ban. In an interview with Texas Public Radio on Thursday, Lujan said that if he had a daughter who was raped and became pregnant, he would tell her to carry the baby to term. As a Christian man, Im very pro-life, but man, I struggled with the rape and incest, he said. Because, you know, I think if it was my daughter I dont have any daughters, but if I had a daughter and that would have been a rape, I think we, personally, I would say no, were going to have the baby. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The states abortion ban on contains an exemption for pregnancies that endanger the life of the patient but not a carve-out for women who are pregnant as a result of rape or incest. On Friday, Lujans campaign consultant Craig Murphy clarified that Lujan was speaking only of his personal beliefs and that he was not endorsing the position as state law. He said Lujans longtime position has been to support exceptions for rape, incest or danger to the life of the pregnant woman. The state abortion ban was passed before Lujan joined the Legislature in fall 2021. He faces faces Democrat Kristian Carranza in Nov. 5 election. Carranza, who is running on a platform of restoring abortion access, criticized Lujan's remarks. Texas women are dying, fleeing the state and being forced to carry rape and incest-related pregnancies because of extreme politicians like John Lujan, Carranza said in statement after the Lujan interview was made public. This glimpse into Lujans lack of awareness of this nightmare facing everyday Texans is exactly why were going to defeat him in November. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Other Republicans facing competitive elections in recent years have also said theyd be open to adding rape and incest exemptions to the abortion ban. The GOP-led Legislature did not pass any such proposals when it last met in 2023. READ MORE: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sues to block Austin from funding out-of-state abortion travel Public opinion polls have shown 80% of Texans believe abortions should be allowed in cases of rape and incest. Texas women have sued the state over the ban, saying the law is so vague that doctors are afraid to terminate dangerous pregnancies that put patients health and fertility at risk. NBC News reported this week that the maternal death rate in Texas jumped after the abortion ban was enacted in 2021. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Lujan suggested in the public radio interview he could be open to re-visiting the law to strengthen the exception for protecting a womans health. Andy Davey cartoon Labour has a tax problem. During the election campaign, the party was only willing to own up to raising those taxes that most people dont pay. Sir Keir Starmer was happy to state that the 6 or 7 per cent of parents who pay school fees would be hit with a VAT bill, that private equity firms would face a tougher tax regime, and that the remaining benefits of non-domiciled tax status would be scrapped. The legendary working people that the Labour leader likes to wax lyrical about were promised they would avoid any pain. The VAT raid, Labour declared, would raise 1.5 billion per year and the toughened regime for wealthy foreigners would bring in another 1 billion. This sum was said to be in addition to the 2.7 billion outgoing Tory chancellor Jeremy Hunt promised would be brought in by 2028 from his own clampdown on non-doms. But what if these tax hikes in fact raise little or nothing? Higher school fees will mean that more parents will be forced to transfer their children to the state sector, at a cost to the taxpayer of roughly 7,690 per pupil per year. And now the Office for Budget Responsibility, whose forecasts Labour treated in Opposition as sacrosanct, are reported to be warning that the scrapping of non-dom status could bring in no extra money, or even leave the Treasury worse off. At the end of the 2023 tax year, there were roughly 74,000 people claiming non-dom status in the UK. Contrary to the impression one might have from listening to much of the Left-wing commentariat, these people already pay a great deal to the UK exchequer in income and capital gains tax, both on what they earn here and on funds they bring into this country. They only avoid paying UK taxes on their overseas income. By definition, non-doms are a highly mobile group of people who can easily up sticks and move to countries that will welcome their entrepreneurialism and their investment. Even within the European Union, Italy, Portugal and Austria all have fiscal regimes designed to encourage rich foreigners to locate themselves there. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some who were working in finance in London have already moved to Milan, and many more are planning to do so. The Treasury and Britain as a whole will be the poorer for it. In 1974 American economist Arthur Laffer sketched out his famous curve, showing that raising taxes could actually reduce the total tax take. Higher marginal tax rates would act as a disincentive and the entrepreneurial would slacken their efforts, move abroad, or invest all their energies in creative schemes to avoid the worst excesses of the states demands. This argument helped to underpin the 1980s tax reforms of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher over here. The debate has continued as to how far tax rates have to rise before revenues start to drop. But it seems clear that this breaking point is set to be reached in the UK not just in terms of non-doms, but of taxing the well-paid generally. Already the highest earning 1 per cent are paying 29 per cent of all income tax and this is after 14 years of Tory rule, which rhetorically extolled the virtues of low taxation and deregulation whilst in truth cranking up both. Starmers Labour has made a virtue of publicly espousing a stronger, interventionist state. The pace of the ratcheting up of the size of the state and, its necessary corollary, higher taxes will inevitably only speed up. The Conservative Party is embarking on its annual conference this weekend. This year its main event will be the four remaining Tory leadership candidates presenting their wares to the party faithful. What the candidates must do is show that they have an alternative vision for the country, which would mark a departure not just from Starmers programme but from recent decades of Conservative policy. The candidates will want to set out how they intend to reduce the levels of immigration and how robust a stance they will take on the culture wars. But even more important than these issues is that they show they understand the depth of the economic crisis facing the UK. The current model of ever increasing levels of government spending, resulting in ever higher levels of both taxation and government debt, is broken. The prosperity that Britain clings on to is to a significant degree the heritage of Mrs Thatchers reforms of the 1980s. The next Tory government must come to office with a similar zeal to return this country to a path of competitiveness, economic growth and rekindled prosperity. Shawn Seesahai was stabbed to death in the machete attack in Wolverhampton Britains youngest knife murderers could be free by the time they are 20 years old. The two boys were 12 years old when they attacked Shawn Seesahai, 19, stabbing him in the heart in a Wolverhampton park in November last year. On Friday, a judge jailed the pair for life with a minimum of eight years and six months. They were the youngest people to be convicted of murder since Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were detained over the torture and murder of James Bulger in 1993. Mr Seesahais killers, both now 13, cannot be named because of a court anonymity order. The judge said that naming one of the 12 year-olds who had extremely complex needs would be detrimental to his welfare and treatment, which outweighed the arguments that it was in the public interest. The Attorney Generals Office confirmed on Friday evening it had received a request for the sentence to be considered under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme. The scheme allows anyone to ask for certain Crown Court sentences to be reviewed by the office. The Law Officers either the Attorney General or Solicitor General will have 28 days from Friday to consider the case and make a decision on the sentence. If they decide the sentence is unduly lenient, they can ask the Court of Appeal to review it. Both youths were allowed to leave the dock and sit in the back row of the court benches on Friday as High Court judge Mrs Justice Tipples described their attack as horrific and shocking. She said: When you killed Shawn he was 19 starting out on his adult life with everything to live for. His parents have lost their son, his sister has lost her brother... that loss will be with them all the time and their lives have been changed forever. What you both did is horrific and shocking. You did not know Shawn, he was a stranger to you. Mr Seesahai, from Anguilla, had come to Britain for eye surgery and was discussing plans for Christmas with a friend when he was attacked. He died at the scene after being stabbed by the nearly 17in-long (42.5cm) blade. The fatal wound to his back was more than 20cm deep and went through his heart, almost coming out of his chest. His parents have spoken of their anger and criticising the boys sentences, saying they were too lenient. Maneshwary Seesahai, his mother, told the BBC: Im not happy. All the children in the UK will see that they only get eight years [and six months] and they will do the same thing. Suresh Seesahai, his father, added The police did a good job, but Im not satisfied with the justice system. Fifteen years would have been better, because they will come out and still have a life at the age of 20. His father told of how Mr Seesahai had begged daddy, help me, as the two killers stabbed him to death. Explaining her reasons for the length of the minimum terms after the boys were taken down to begin their sentences of detention, Mrs Justice Tipples said the murder was aggravated by the fact it was an attack involving two offenders. Mitigating factors included the fact the spur-of-the-moment attack was not premeditated, and the young age of the defendants, who were told they would remain in separate secure units where they were held on remand during their trial. The extremely vulnerable first defendant, who admitted buying the murder weapon from a friend for 40 about a month before the attack, had been groomed and exploited by others, the court heard. The two boys were flanked by specialist intermediaries throughout the trial during which they both blamed one another for the murder - Helen Tipper The judge said the first defendant had had very many adverse childhood experiences including falling victim to exploitation by criminals and multiple traumas in childhood for which he was not responsible. I agree with the authors of the (pre-sentence) report that he does not at this stage have the maturity to fully appreciate the consequences of his actions, the judge added. The court heard the second defendant had a supportive and loving relationship with his parents and was not previously known to the police. After refusing to answer police questions in the aftermath of the murder, the boys both gave evidence to jurors, blaming each other for inflicting the fatal blow. The court was shown the 17-inch (42.5cm) long machete which the killers passed between them on the day of the murder - Helen Tipper As well as failing to summon help for Mr Seesahai, the youths showed no remorse for what they had done in the 24 hours before their arrest, with one cleaning the machete with bleach and hiding it under his bed. They told the court they both played video games in the hours after the killing, claiming they did not know Mr Seesahai had died until the following day. Jurors heard one of the defendants posed for a photograph with the murder weapon, wearing a mask, hours before the killing. He was found to have 11 areas of blood staining on his clothing. The boy was also seen with blood on his hands in the aftermath of the murder, while his friend had a small area of blood staining on his right trainer. One of the killers posed up with a machete before the killing - West Midlands Police The youth who owned the black-bladed machete was incriminated by his heavily bloodstained clothing and bag. He said he bought the machete for 40 from a friend of a friend who he refused to name, but police said there was evidence he had searched for knives online. His hoodie, found by police inside out and mixed in with other clothes in a washing basket, was bloodstained on the front of the right sleeve, the front and back of the left sleeve, the right chest and the lower left front. Officers searched a storage space under a bed and recovered a machete. A tracksuit with apparent blood stains on it was also seized from a laundry basket at one of the schoolboys homes. Jonathan Roe, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: As prosecutors, we often deal with harrowing cases, but this case is particularly distressing due to the complete senselessness and devastating consequences of the defendants actions. The defendants at the age of 12 should have been enjoying their childhood rather than arming themselves with a machete and killing an innocent person. Shawn Seesahai and friend Deron Harrigan seen on CCTV getting the tram from Winson Green stop in Handsworth to Priestfield tram stop in Wolverhampton - West Midlands Police On Friday, Shawns family told of their heartbreak in a moving impact statement read to the court by Dorothea Hodge, the UK representative for Anguilla. It read: Mentally it has been hard for any of us to function normally, none of us have had an unbroken nights sleep since Shawn was taken from us, every time I close my eyes all I can think about is what his last moments were, and how scared he must have been, it continually breaks my heart. As well as the emotional and mental anguish we are going through, we have also suffered financially. No one expects to have to bury their child, and we were not prepared for this. In order to repatriate Shawns body back home from the UK, we had to use all of our savings. And in order to then fly back over to the UK to attend the trial, we had to take out a loan to fund the flights and accommodation. The impact on us as a family is devastating, its hard to believe that we will ever come to terms with what has happened. We will never get to see Shawn get married or have a family of his own, these things have been taken from us for what appears to be no reason at all. Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, has said he was shocked by the murder. In a post on X, Sir Keir said: When I read about Shawn Seesahais murder last November, I was shocked to my core. In my five years as director of public prosecutions, I never encountered a case like this. That a murder so brutal could be carried out by 12-year-olds is hard to believe. Young children should not have access to knives. We need to tackle the crisis head-on. My Government is committed to halving knife crime and taking back our streets. Mohamed Fayed, who owned Harrods, died aged 94 last year - KIERAN DOHERTY The Crown Prosecution Service considered bringing charges against a female co-conspirator while investigating Mohamed Fayeds alleged sex abuse, The Telegraph can reveal. The Metropolitan Police passed on a full file of evidence on the billionaire businessman and an alleged enabler to the CPS while investigating allegations against the former Harrods owner in 2015. However, after considering the evidence for a year, prosecutors deemed it did not pass the legal threshold and no charges were brought against the pair. It comes as the Met announced it was looking into any other people who could be pursued for criminal offences over sexual abuse allegations against Fayed, who died aged 94 last year. Lawyers have compared the tycoon to Jeffrey Epstein, who used his associate Ghislaine Maxwell to groom underage girls. Fayeds alleged offences are said to have taken place between 1979 and 2013 - Matt Writtle Nineteen women have made allegations against Fayed to the Metropolitan Police, the force has revealed. The reports, made between 2005 and 2023, included three allegations of rape, 15 reports of sexual assault and one related to trafficking. The offences are said to have taken place between 1979 and 2013. Between 2005 and 2023, the Met approached the CPS on five occasions two of these, in 2009 and 2015, were to pass full files of evidence. However, in all 19 allegations that were reported to police, no further action was taken against Fayed. It is important to make clear at this stage that it is not possible for criminal proceedings to be brought against someone who has died, the force said in a statement. This means there is no prospect of any conviction relating to Fayed himself. However, we must ensure whether any other individuals could be pursued for any criminal offences. As such, we are carrying out full reviews of all existing allegations reported to us about Al Fayed to ensure there are no new lines of enquiry based on new information which has emerged. It comes as The Telegraph revealed an enabler for Mohamed Fayed sought out young women in pubs and clubs for the Harrods billionaire to prey on. The young blonde associate, who cannot be named for legal reasons, would visit pubs in Surrey looking for pretty young girls and promise them a job at Harrods, a woman whom she procured has claimed. She would befriend the women by boasting of her wealth and designer bags before asking if they would like to meet her boss, the billionaire Egyptian businessman. She would then arrange a date to meet the girls, drive them to Fayeds Park Lane penthouse apartment in a white Range Rover, and hand them over to the alleged sex abuser. Girls would be allegedly driven Fayeds Park Lane penthouse apartment - Clive Howes/Evening Standard/Shutterstock At least four women in Surrey were approached by the glamorous executive around 2011 and taken to see Fayed, The Telegraph understands. One woman, who wished to remain anonymous, said she was approached by Fayeds associate when she was a university graduate while drinking at a pub in Cobham. She was driven to London to meet Fayed, who greeted her wearing silk pyjamas and asked: Would you stay with me tonight?. Refusing, she was allowed to leave untouched after accepting 350 in cash and a promise that he would get her a job at the department store. Speaking for the first time, she said: He rang me up all the time. He would just be like you need you to come and see me, you need to come and work at Harrods. It was like having a chit-chat with a dirty grandpa. It was very odd. He was a man of few words but I knew straight away what he wanted. There is no suggestion that this is the same woman passed onto the CPS by the Met. A CPS spokesperson said: It is very concerning to hear of so many women coming forward with a series of very disturbing allegations against Mr Al-Fayed. The prosecutors who looked at the files of evidence that were received in 2008 and 2015 concluded at that time that there was no realistic prospect of conviction and no charges were brought. We are working to build a full picture around these serious allegations and want to reassure the public that alongside our criminal justice system partners, we are determined to secure justice in as many rape and serious sexual offences as possible. Ursula von der Leyen has been warned by officials to resist any attempt by Sir Keir Starmer - JOHN THYS/POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock EU officials have told Ursula von der Leyen to reject British efforts to get a better deal for UK bands touring in Europe. The Prime Minister, who said the talks would not be easy, will meet Mrs von der Leyen in the Belgian capital on Wednesday for talks over revamping post-Brexit relations, including on cutting costly Brexit red tape, which critics including Sir Elton John say makes touring for young British bands impossible. Brussels wants a new youth mobility deal with the UK but officials have warned the European Commission president to resist any attempt from Sir Keir Starmer to tie that to his demands on touring and better recognition of professional qualification for workers in the City and elsewhere. Sir Keir also wants to improve the Brexit trade deal, sign a security pact with the EU and strike agreements to help stop the boats as part of his reset with the EU. Im not going to pretend its easy, Sir Keir said in New York where he briefly met Mrs von der Leyen on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. The Prime Minister was tight-lipped on what he would be asking of Mrs von der Leyen in their first substantive meeting in Brussels, saying it would be a big mistake to talk publicly about specifics before what would be a long process. EU still willing to compromise on scheme Labour rejected the Commissions April offer to negotiate an agreement allowing EU and UK citizens aged 18 to 30 to stay in a country for up to four years to study. Britons would also be able to move to the EU, but would have to choose one specific member state and would not enjoy residency rights across the bloc. The EU is still willing to compromise on how exactly the scheme would work and has consulted with member states on possible changes to the proposal. But European Commission officials believe that a quid pro quo on touring artists or professional qualifications is out of the question. Countries including France and Germany have made it clear that agreeing some form of scheme will be key to unlocking wider improvements to the Brexit trade deal. Sir Keir did not completely close the door on signing up to a youth mobility deal a key EU demand only saying he had no plans to agree to one. But European Commission officials believe that a quid pro quo on touring artists or professional qualifications is out of the question. EU documents reveal officials have ruled out linking a youth mobility deal to other post-Brexit travel rules, for example, the 90 day in 180 day visa-free travel limit for UK citizens. The provision of services is governed by the UK-EU trade deal, which Brussels has said it is not prepared to overhaul and which it sees as weighted in its interests. The Commission has already rebuffed Labours call for a revamp of the agreement, insisting it sees a 2026 review as a chance for tweaks and nothing more ambitious. Sir Elton John said the EU measures had made touring for British musicians impossible - Erika Goldring The provision of services is exhaustively addressed in the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement and not within the scope of the envisaged agreement. It would not deal with the entry and temporary stay of natural persons to provide services, one commission document states. The Telegraph understands that some officials, veterans of the first painful years of talks, are still sticking to the inflexible approach of the Brexit negotiations from 2017 to 2021. But other European sources said that Mrs von der Leyen could ignore her officials advice and make a political decision to get a deal done. That is unlikely to happen in this first formal meeting but would not be unprecedented. In February, Mrs von der Leyen ignored her officials advice to facilitate the signing of a cooperation agreement between EU border agency Frontex and the UK to fight illegal immigration. Diplomatic sources were divided over whether EU capitals would agree to link the two issues if Mrs von der Leyen was to overrule her officials. Some suggested a deal could work but others suggested there was zero interest in changing the terms of a free trade agreement that was weighted in the EUs interest. Labour need to put their money where their mouths are All put pressure on the Prime Minister to bring details on exactly what he wanted from the next generation of Brexit negotiations in his talks with Mrs von der Leyen. We keep hearing all the chatter about a reset. But if the Labour government really is serious about a reset, they need to put their money where their mouths are, one EU diplomat told The Telegraph. A reset isnt some fairy tale thing where you say it seven times and click your heels three times and you get a deal. You need to do the work. There need to be proposals and frankly, on the EU side, the sense is that the UK needs to make the first move on this. Sources said they thought Mrs von der Leyen would bring up British failures to implement provisions in the Windsor Framework treaty covering post-Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland. Changes to how parcels are sent from Britain to Northern Ireland were due to kick in on October 1 but will now be delayed until March. That will frustrate Brussels which has long-standing concerns over the non-implementation of the Irish Sea border treaty. The ongoing Brexit negotiations over Gibraltar could also be discussed. A spokesman for the EU executive told The Telegraph: The EU is committed to a positive agenda with the UK, based on the full respect, and the faithful and timely implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement, including the Windsor Framework, and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which are the cornerstone for the EU-United Kingdom relationship. Asked if the Commission would reject improved touring terms for British artists, the spokesman said, We do not comment on speculation. This GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken at 5:46pm US EDT on Thursday and provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows Hurricane Helene in the Gulf of Mexico moving towards Florida - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration via AP The extremely dangerous Hurricane Helene made landfall in the US state of Florida on Thursday night, with officials warning of unsurvivable conditions and a potentially catastrophic storm surge high enough to swamp a two-storey house. More than a million people were without power and roads were already flooded ahead of what is expected to be one of the largest Gulf of Mexico storms in decades. The degree of devastation in Florida was not expected to be known until after daybreak. Helene hit Florida packing sustained winds of around 130mph (209kph). Forecasters warned that the enormous system could create a nightmare storm surge and bring dangerous winds and rain across much of the southeastern US. The governors of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, the Carolinas and Virginia all declared emergencies in their states. Helene was downgraded to a strong Category 2 hurricane on Friday, hours after it slammed into the southeastern US coast as a Category 4 storm, US forecasters said. Hurricane Helene is now a strong Category 2 hurricane, the National Weather Service in Floridas capital Tallahassee posted on X, after the latest National Hurricane Centre bulletin put maximum sustained windspeeds caused by the storm at 110kph (175kph) , downgrading it on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale. Helene continues to produce catastrophic winds that are now pushing into southern Georgia, the hurricane centre said in an update at 1am lcoal time on Friday. Persons should not leave their shelters and remain in place through the passage of these life-threatening conditions. Helene had swamped parts of Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula on Wednesday, flooding streets and toppling trees as it passed offshore and brushed the resort city of Cancun. In western Cuba, Helene knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses as it brushed past the island. Marine police prepare for a rescue as Hurricane Helene approaches in Fort Myers Beach, Florida - Lee County Sheriff's Office via Reuters Fast-moving Helenes eye hit near the town of Perry at about 11:10pm local time (4.10am BST Friday), the NHC said earlier. Were expecting to see a storm surge inundation of 15 to 20 feet above ground level, NHC director Mike Brennan said. Thats up to the top of a second-storey building. Again, a really unsurvivable scenario is going to play out here in this portion of the Florida coastline. The accompanying waves can destroy houses, move cars, and that water level is going to rise very quickly, Mr Brennan added. 11:20pm EDT 26th September -- #Hurricane #Helene has made landfall in the Florida Big Bend region at around 11:10pm EDT just E of the mouth of the Aucilla River. Max sustained winds at landfall were estimated at 140 mph & a min pressure of 938 mb. Info: https://t.co/1OTHyJkqja pic.twitter.com/WWohcTqpBa National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) September 27, 2024 President Joe Biden urged people to heed official evacuation warnings. I urge everyone in and near the path of Helene to listen to local officials and follow evacuation warnings, he said. Take this seriously, and be safe. One person was killed in Florida when a sign fell on their car and two people were reported killed in a possible tornado in south Georgia as the storm approached. When Floridians wake up tomorrow morning, were going to be waking up to a state where very likely theres been additional loss of life and certainly theres going to be loss of property, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday night. Helene was moving rapidly inland after making landfall, with the centre of the storm set to race from southern to northern Georgia through early Friday morning. The risk of tornadoes also would continue overnight and into the morning across north and central Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and southern North Carolina, forecasters said. Later Friday, there would be the risk of tornadoes in Virginia. Across the northern Florida coast, most small towns were deserted on Thursday, with stores closed and windows boarded up to protect against the high winds and potentially devastating storm surge When the hurricane was about 115 miles south of Tallahassee, Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico, it had sustained winds of 130mph, according to the NHC on Thursday night. A pile of sandbags for preventing floodwater in downtown Tallahassee - Octavio Jones/Reuters The almost deserted streets in downtown Tallahassee on Thursday - Octavio Jones/Reuters Federal authorities were staging search-and-rescue teams as the National Weather Service office in Tallahassee forecast storm surges of up to 20 feet (6m) and warned they could be particularly catastrophic and unsurvivable in Apalachee Bay. Please, please, please take any evacuation orders seriously! the office said, describing the surge scenario as a nightmare. ...#HELENE SLIGHTLY STRONGER AND INTENSIFYING AS ITS EYE APPROACHES COAST OF THE FLORIDA BIG BEND... 9:00 PM EDT - Tower located on Cedar Key reported a sustained wind of 55 mph & wind gust of 73 mph. A NOAA tide gauge at Clearwater Beach reported water level of 5.07 feet. pic.twitter.com/jbxDp9yWye National Hurricane Center (@NWSNHC) September 27, 2024 Helene arrived barely a year since Hurricane Idalia slammed into Floridas Big Bend and caused widespread damage. Idalia became a Category 4 in the Gulf of Mexico but made landfall as a Category 3 near Keaton Beach, with maximum sustained winds near 125mph. The storms wrath was felt widely, with sustained tropical storm-force winds and hurricane-force gusts along Floridas west coast. Water lapped over a road in Siesta Key near Sarasota and covered some intersections in St. Pete Beach. Lumber and other debris from a fire in Cedar Key a week ago crashed ashore in the rising water. Amber Hardin, 27, with her dog Ducky while taking shelter from Hurricane Helene at Leon High School near downtown Tallahassee - Octavio Jones/Reuters Beyond Florida, up to 10 inches (25cm) of rain had fallen in the North Carolina mountains, with up to 14 inches more possible before the deluge ends, setting the stage for flooding that forecasters warned could be worse than anything seen in the past century. Heavy rains began falling and winds were picking up in Valdosta, Georgia, near the Florida state line. The National Weather Service said more than a dozen Georgia counties could see hurricane-force winds exceeding 110mph. This is one of the biggest storms weve ever had, said Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. Governor DeSantis said on Thursday that models suggest Helene will make landfall further east than earlier forecast, lessening the chances for a direct hit on the capital city of Tallahassee, whose metro area has a population of around 395,000. Flooded streets in Madeira Beach, Florida, on Thursday - Max Chesnes/Tampa Bay Times via AP The shift had the storm aimed squarely at the sparsely-populated Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Floridas Panhandle and peninsula meet. Please write your name, birthday, and important information on your arm or leg in a PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified, the sheriffs office in mostly rural Taylor County warned those who chose not to evacuate in a Facebook post, the dire advice similar to what other officials have dolled out during past hurricanes. Still, Philip Tooke, a commercial fisherman who took over the business his father founded near the regions Apalachee Bay, planned to ride out this storm like he did during Hurricane Michael and the others on his boat. If I lose that, I dont have anything, Mr Tooke said. Michael, a Category 5 storm, all but destroyed one town, fractured thousands of homes and businesses and caused some $25 billion in damage when it struck the Florida Panhandle in 2018. A satellite image shows Hurricane Helene churning through the Gulf of Florida before landfall - NASA via Reuters Many, though, were heeding the mandatory evacuation orders that stretched from the Panhandle south along the Gulf Coast in low-lying areas around Tallahassee, Gainesville, Cedar Key, Lake City, Tampa and Sarasota. Among them was Sharonda Davis, one of several gathered at a Tallahassee shelter worried their mobile homes wouldnt withstand the winds. She said the hurricanes size is scarier than anything because its the aftermath that were going to have to face. Crashing waves as Hurricane Helene passes offshore at St Petersburg, Florida - Joe Raedle/Getty Images This stretch of Florida known as the Forgotten Coast has been largely spared by the widespread condo development and commercialisation that dominates so many of Floridas beach communities. The region is loved for its natural wonders the vast stretches of salt marshes, tidal pools and barrier islands. You live down here, you run the risk of losing everything to a bad storm, said Anthony Godwin, 20, who lives about a half-mile from the water in the coastal town of Panacea, as he stopped for gas before heading west toward his sisters house in Pensacola. School districts and multiple universities cancelled classes. Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed on Thursday, while cancellations were widespread elsewhere in Florida and beyond. Flood waters wash over Guy Ford Road bridge on the Watauga River as Hurricane Helene approaches in the North Carolina mountains - Jonathan Drake/Reuters While Helene will likely weaken as it moves inland, damaging winds and heavy rain were expected to extend to the southern Appalachian Mountains, where landslides were possible, forecasters said. The hurricane centre warned that much of the region could experience prolonged power outages and flooding. Tennessee was among the states expected to get drenched. Helene had swamped parts of Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula on Wednesday, flooding streets and toppling trees as it passed offshore and brushed the resort city of Cancun. In western Cuba, Helene knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses as it brushed past the island. Waves crash against a building ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Helene in Cedar Key, Florida - MIGUEL J. RODRIGUEZ CARRILLO/AFP via Getty Images Atlanta fears worst storm in decades Areas 100 miles north of the Georgia-Florida line expected hurricane conditions. Most of Georgias public school districts and several universities cancelled classes. The state opened its parks to evacuees, and their pets, including horses. Overnight curfews were imposed in many cities and counties in south Georgia, including Albany, Valdosta and Thomasville. For Atlanta, Helene could be the worst strike on a major Southern inland city in 35 years, said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd. Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures. People observe a house damaged by Hurricane Johns passage in Acapulco, Mexico, on Thursday - David Guzman/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock In further storm activity, Tropical Storm Isaac formed on Wednesday in the Atlantic and was expected to strengthen as it moves eastward across the open ocean, possibly becoming a hurricane by the end of the week, forecasters said. Officials said its swells and winds could affect parts of Bermuda and eventually the Azores by the weekend. In the Pacific, former Hurricane John reformed on Wednesday as a tropical storm and strengthened on Thursday back into a hurricane as it threatened areas of Mexicos western coast with flash flooding and mudslides. Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador raised Johns death toll to five as the communities along the countrys Pacific coast prepared for the storm to make a second landfall. Chappell Roan performs during her Midwest Princess Tour in London on 21 September. Photograph: Jim Dyson/Getty Images Happy Saturday! And happy AFL grand final day to all who celebrate. To calm pre-game nerves, why not read about the Swans pride connecting fans across two states, or take a look back to the last time the Lions and Swans met in a decider: 125 years ago, when the match took a strange turn before it even began. But first, sip on your morning brew and enjoy your scroll. 1. I dont feel pressured to endorse someone Pop star of the moment Chappell Roans interview was a look at how the 26-year-old lesbian drag artist has been handling her meteoric rise to fame. But one quote, about choosing not to endorse Kamala Harris, overtook and outshone any discussion about her diagnosis of severe depression, being anti-celebrity or how politics can be nuanced for young Americans. People online have been calling Roan a closet Republican, so she has since had to come out to say she wont be voting for Trump. Here is the original story, without the clickbait but with the talent, struggles and colourful pizzazz I fell in love with when I heard the first bars of The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. Further reading: After the backlash, Jeffrey Ingold has praised the pop star for taking a stand for critical thinking. Its refreshing to hear a pop star talk about politics with conviction and nuance, he writes. How long will it take to read: six minutes. 2. If you would like to travel to Europe Please add this number on WhatsApp Zhang* is living in a temporary centre for migrants in Bosnia. He made the journey there from China with his two young children. It is a route so difficult and dangerous that many struggle to understand why someone would embark on it. In September, the Guardian met a growing number of Chinese people trying their luck to cross into the EU by travelling to the Balkans. Some leave with little more than the contact details of a mysterious WhatsApp message promising we can help you and a map downloaded on a smartphone. Why the Balkans? Bosnia, like its neighbour Serbia, offers visa-free travel, making it an attractive staging post for Chinese migrants. How long will it take to read: nearly six minutes. 3. Elizabeth Taylor as seen by her son Its surreal to read about one of the worlds biggest stars through the eyes of their children. To the world, Hollywood actor Elizabeth Taylor was larger than life, so famous and infamous at being sexy and scandalous. But to Chris Wilding, she was just Mom. Taylor was someone who embarrassed him when she turned up at school for parents day, and someone he shared a birthday with. Above all amid the movie deals, the marriages and addictions he loved her deeply. *** Her whole life, she rebelled, and thats what was so great about her. I hope she continues to inspire women and girls to take the risk of: fuck it, do things your way, stand up for yourself. As my ex-wife says in the film, she was the Queen of Fuck You. Chris Wilding Cleopatra eyes: Wilding as a child watching his mother apply makeup on set of the 1963 film is mesmerising. How long will it take to read: nine minutes. *** 4. Who is the real Giorgia Meloni? Giorgia Meloni has stumped the world. Italys first female prime minister has been described as a closet fascist with hard-lined immigration policies. But, as Alexander Stille points out, she is also viewed as a conservative democrat, staking out territory on the centre-right, cosying up to EU leaders. Meloni is a shapeshifter, Stille writes, presenting different sides of herself for different audiences. So while we might never quite know the real Meloni, we should study her closely, as this story does. Fun fact: At 15, Meloni joined the Movimento Sociale Italiano a political party of diehard former fascists. The group held hobbit camps, and Meloni even dressed up as the hobbit Samwise Gamgee. She is quoted as once saying I dont consider The Lord of the Rings fantasy. How long will it take to read: fourteen minutes. 5. Cupid strikes again And finally, a sweet dessert to finish. Meet Emily and Sophie: the couple set up six years ago by the Guardian, who are still together and have even entered a marriage of sorts. Stories such as this are the reason we watch romcoms, we swipe and cry at weddings! I really did save the most heartwarming read for last. It gets even better: You can read their original Blind Date column from 2016. Other success stories? The magic of OG matcher Nina Trickey has led to five Blind Date weddings so far, plus at least two Blind Date babies. How long will it take to read: five minutes. Sign up If you would like to receive these Five Great Reads to your email inbox every weekend, sign up here. And check out out the full list of our local and international newsletters, including The Stakes, your guide to the twists and turns of the US presidential election. A resident helps free a stranded car as Helene strikes Boone, North Carolina. Photograph: Jonathan Drake/Reuters Helene left a dizzying path of destruction as it raged across the south-east United States on Friday, killing at least 40 people across four states, causing dangerous flooding and leaving millions without power. The storm which registered maximum sustained winds of 140mph crashed ashore late on Thursday in north-western Florida as a potent category 4 hurricane. It weakened to a tropical storm and then to a depression as it moved across Georgia as well as the Carolinas on Friday afternoon, when residents whose communities experienced Helenes peak effects more directly were only just beginning to fathom the recovery process ahead. The storm sparked lethal damage. At least 17 people died in South Carolina, including two firefighters who were killed when their vehicle was struck by a tree before sunrise, officials said. Another 15 people were killed in Georgia, said Garrison Douglas, a spokesperson for the states governor, Brian Kemp. Five people were killed in Floridas Pinellas county, which includes the Tampa Bay area, with two of those deaths occurring by drowning. A number of the deaths involved trees falling on residences. Among the dead were several children: a four-year-old girl who died in Claremont, North Carolina, in a car accident in heavy rain; and a seven-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl who died when a tree fell on their home in Washington county, Georgia. Tornadoes hit some areas, including one in Nash county, North Carolina, that critically injured four people. Authorities had predicted danger even as the storm weakened, as it continued to produce catastrophic flooding. Some areas received more than a foot of rain. Rescuers were racing on Friday to save people from the waters. One dramatic scene in Tennessee reportedly involved more than 50 patients and staff at the states Unicoi county hospital, who were stranded on the roof while surrounded by rising floodwaters. Emergency vehicles were washed away as they attempted rescues, while helicopters that had initially been held back by high winds were evacuating people on Friday afternoon. The patients and staff were eventually brought to safety. Officials in several states warned people who were stuck to await rescue crews, as floodwater could contain live wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris. Some areas had become only accessible by boat. At several points on Friday afternoon, officials urged residents to evacuate over concerns that local dams would not sustain the pressure. In western North Carolina, near the border with Tennessee, Rutherford county emergency officials warned residents near the Lake Lure Dam just before noon to immediately evacuate to higher ground, saying: Dam failure imminent. And on Friday afternoon, North Carolinas Cocke county mayor, Rob Mathis, warned people in the vicinity to evacuate immediately after the Walters Dam in the community of Waterville suffered a catastrophic failure. In a post on Facebook, officials later assured that there had not been a catastrophic failure at the dam, adding that the false alarm had come from the emergency management agency. Meanwhile, millions of people across the country were out of power. As of early Friday evening, about 1.1m households and businesses in Florida were without power, though later the number had fallen to about 708,000. South Carolina was reporting 1.2m power outages, Georgia had about 920,000, and North Carolina had approximately 870,000, according to poweroutage.us. Large swaths of Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and Ohio were also out, and the Virginia governor said 241,000 customers in his state were out of power. 5am EDT Friday Key Messages for Tropical Storm #Helene: Catastrophic, life-threatening, record-breaking flash & urban flooding. As Helene continues moving inland, damaging wind gusts will continue, particularly over high terrain southern Appalachians. https://t.co/XtkxtGDQLT pic.twitter.com/IayaD7DaAW National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) September 27, 2024 Helene made landfall at about 11.10pm in Floridas sparsely populated Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where the states Panhandle and peninsula meet. Social media site users watched in horror as video showed sheets of rain lashing Perry, Florida, near Helenes landfall. Winds tore siding from buildings in almost complete darkness. One local news station recorded a home as it flipped over. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) conducted a preliminary assessment of Helenes storm surge in Florida, and it indicated that water levels reached more than 15ft above normal where the storm came ashore. Drone video from the storm chaser Aaron Rigsby showed residences that had collapsed and been damaged amid storm surge in the Florida community of Steinhatchee. Floridas Tampa Bay took on about 10ft of storm surge and was among the states badly inundated communities. The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, urged residents to prepare themselves for the likelihood that Helenes death toll would rise as communities complete damage assessments in the storms aftermath. But he also said the states rescue crews had ultimately kept that number as low as possible by performing thousands of missions overnight. In Georgia, Brian Kemp, the governor, warned residents Helene had left a very dangerous environment in its wake. One of our finest has lost his life trying to save others, Kemp said, referring to a first responder who died while clearing downed trees and power lines. Vernon Leon Davis was a part-time assistant fire chief in Blackshear who was killed when a tree fell on his truck, Jacksonville-based First Coast News reported. Atlanta was drenched, leaving some neighborhoods so flooded that only car roofs could be seen poking out of the water. The city had been under a rare flash flood emergency warning. A Georgia electrical utility group warned of catastrophic damage to the states utility infrastructure, with more than 100 high-voltage transmission lines damaged. In Valdosta, Georgia, a city of 55,000 near the states border with Florida, Rhonda Bell and her husband spent a sleepless night in the downstairs bedroom of their century-old home. She told the Associated Press that an oak tree smashed through the roof of an upstairs bedroom and collapsed on to the living room below. I just felt the whole house shake, said Bell, whose neighbors had roof shingles torn away and fence panels knocked down. Thank God were both alive to tell about it. Beyond Florida and Georgia, up to 10in of rain fell in the North Carolina mountains. This is one of the worst storms in modern history for parts of North Carolina, the states governor, Roy Cooper, said. Our hearts are heavy. A mudslide in the Appalachian mountains washed out a section of an interstate at the North Carolina-Tennessee state line. Meanwhile, occupants of homes hit by another mudslide in North Carolina had to wait more than four hours to be rescued, said Ryan Cole, the emergency services assistant director in Buncombe county. His 911 center received more than 3,300 calls in eight hours Friday. Florida is no stranger to hurricanes, but authorities and residents had been warned Helene would be a disaster of epic proportions. One sheriffs office in the state, in Taylor county, asked residents who chose not to evacuate ahead of Helene to write their names, birthdays and other identifying information on their limbs in permanent marker. So that you can be identified and [your] family notified, the agency wrote in what was grim advice ahead of the storm. Im going to stay right here at the house, the state ferry boat operator Ken Wood, 58, told Reuters from coastal Dunedin in Florida, where he planned to ride out the storm with his 16-year-old cat Andy. Afterwards, he told the agency: Ill never do that again, I swear. It was a harrowing experience. It roared all night like a train. It was unnerving. The house shook next time, we leave. Helene on Wednesday had swamped parts of Mexicos Yucatan peninsula. It was the ninth major hurricane category 3 or higher to make landfall along the USs Gulf coast since 2017. Experts attribute such a high rate of powerful, destructive storms to the climate change crisis, which is spurred in part by the burning of fossil fuels. Its as if something has changed, the Texas meteorologist Matt Lanza said in a widely shared X post. As for this Atlantic hurricane season, which began 1 June and does not officially end until 30 November, Helene was the eighth named storm. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) predicted this Atlantic hurricane season would be above average because of record high ocean temperatures. Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting Hurricane Helene strengthened to a catastrophic category 4 storm as it barreled toward Floridas Gulf coast, making it one of the most powerful storms to hit the US this year. The storm is expected to make landfall on Thursday night. Forecasters warn the enormous storm could create a nightmare scenario, with a potentially life-threatening storm surge that could reach 15-20ft (4.6-6.1 meters) in the Big Bend area of Floridas Panhandle region. Related: What is a storm surge, and what is the threat from Hurricane Helene? Much of Hurricane Helenes gathering strength comes from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, which have reached unprecedented high temperatures in recent years. In general, the ocean waters around Florida have also seen rising temperatures, making the state more susceptible to catastrophic storms. By Thursday afternoon, the storm had already strengthened into a category 3 hurricane in the Gulf waters and was expected to become more powerful before it made landfall. It was about 200 miles south-west of Tampa at midday and slightly gained speed, moving at 16mph (26km/h). Before its arrival, floods from a storm surge were already hitting some cities and communities like Fort Myers Beach, where water was already 2ft above normal. The winds have already left 600,000 homes and businesses in Florida without power, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us. Early on Thursday, the storms maximum sustained winds were near 110mph with higher gusts. Hurricane-force winds extended as many as 60 miles (95km) outward from the center of the storm. Much of the state is under a state of emergency. Though the storm is expected to weaken once it makes landfall, the storm is moving fast and could spread up to 400 miles. A catastrophic and deadly storm surge is likely along portions of the Florida Big Bend coast, where inundation could reach as high as 20ft above ground level, along with destructive waves, the National Weather Service warned on Wednesday evening. Preparations to protect life and property should be completed by early Thursday before tropical storm conditions arrive. The hurricane is expected to travel up the south-eastern coast once it makes landfall, moving from Florida up to North Carolina. Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina have been put under emergency declaration. At least 50 million people are under hurricane and tropical storm warnings. School districts along Floridas Gulf coast and in Georgia, including in Atlanta, will be closed on Thursday in anticipation of the hurricanes arrival. Joe Biden declared a state of emergency on Tuesday, ordering federal assistance to Florida. Mandatory evacuations in the state started to go into place earlier this week. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) is expecting the storm to inflict damage across several states. This is going to be a multistate event with potential for significant impacts from Florida all the way to Tennessee, Deanne Criswell, the Fema administrator, warned during an appearance at the White House press briefing. Cities as far north as Asheville, North Carolina, were seeing heavy rain starting Wednesday night as the furthest edges of the storm moved north. Roy Cooper, the North Carolina governor, told residents in a new conference Thursday that the storm cold bring heavy rain and potentially catastrophic flooding tonight and tomorrow for central and particularly western North Carolina. Ron DeSantis, Floridas governor, warned residents across the state of the impending damage the storm is expected to deliver. Its not a matter of whether were going to get effects, its just a question of how significant those effects will be, DeSantis said on Wednesday. State officials warned residents on Thursday that time to evacuate was running out. You do have time to evacuate, but that time is now, Kevin Guthrie, the Florida division of emergency management director, said on Thursday morning. Officials in Tallahassee, the states capital, said the storm could be the worst in the citys history. If our community remains central in Helenes path, as forecasted, we will see unprecedented damage like nothing we have ever experienced before as a community, Tallahassees mayor, John Dalley, said at a news conference on Wednesday. Early Thursday, the National Weather Service said the impacts of the storm would depend on its track, though widespread power outages, damage to infrastructure including power lines, blocked roads and damage to structures are all possible. Related: A brutal hurricane razed their town. Five years later, theyre still searching for home Power outages will likely last days, if not weeks, near where it makes landfall, the National Weather Service said on Thursday. The hurricane will be the fourth to make landfall in the US this year. This is the second major hurricane to hit the state this year. In August, Hurricane Debby, a category 1 storm, brought power outages and flooding to the north-western part of the state. The impact of the storm will be felt far from the Gulf coast. Cooper, warned of the intense rains it was likely to bring as it moved inland. This is an unusually dangerous storm that threatens to bring heavy rain and potentially catastrophic flooding tonight and tomorrow for central and particularly western North Carolina, he said. He added that major cities in the state such as Charlotte and Asheville could see flash flooding despite not being directly in Helenes projected track. In Asheville, more than 7.5in of rain had already fallen since Wednesday night, and only another 2in were needed to make the storm a once-in-1,000-year rain event for the area, according to the Southeast Regional Climate Center. Meanwhile in Georgia, Atlanta issued a rare top-level flood warning: a level four on a scale of four for a high risk of flooding rainfall. The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has urged his Israeli counterpart to listen to the international community amid fears of an escalating conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, also declared that the world cannot allow any party to obstruct peace in the Middle East as she pressed for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon. Speaking hours after the Israeli government rejected growing international calls to agree to a three-week ceasefire with Hezbollah, Albanese had a sharp message for Benjamin Netanyahu. I say to prime minister Netanyahu that he needs to listen to the international community, just like the other players in that region need to listen to the international community, he told reporters in Melbourne. The calls are very clear when you have the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, other nations all calling for a de-escalation of this conflict. In New York, Wong addressed the UN security council and emphasised the urgent need for de-escalation and dialogue. Hezbollah are terrorists that have not complied with security council resolution 1701, but Lebanese civilians should not pay the price, Wong said. Lebanon cannot become the next Gaza. Just as in Gaza, Australia calls for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon. Related: People feel helpless: Lebanese Australians watch Israels bombardment in horror In a pointed message to Israel, Wong said: War has rules even when confronting terrorists; even when defending borders. Wong said 1,200 Israelis had been killed in the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October last year, representing the worst loss of Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust, and the group continued to hold hostages. In Israels response, over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed more than 11,000 children. And more than 300 aid workers since this war began. After reiterating that the world demands a ceasefire in Gaza, Wong said hostages must be released, aid must flow and this humanitarian catastrophe must end. She also repeated the Australian governments position that a Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel was the only hope to finally break the endless cycle of violence for a secure, prosperous future for Palestinians and Israelis. The international community including this security council must work together to pave a path to lasting peace, Wong said. We cannot wait for the parties to do this themselves; we cannot allow any party to obstruct the prospect of peace. She did not elaborate on which parties she believed were obstructing peace and there is no sign that Australia is about to recognise Palestine unilaterally. For months the Australian government has been swapping notes with other countries about how to build momentum for a two-state solution, and has said recognition of Palestinian statehood need not wait until the end of a peace process. Palestine is already recognised as a state by more than 140 UN member states, including Spain, Norway and Ireland, which each took the step in May this year. The Albanese government rebuffed calls from the Greens to immediately follow suit at the time, a delay that culminated in the former Labor senator Fatima Paymans defection to the crossbench. In a separate ministerial meeting in New York, Wong said individual country actions alone were not moving the dial so a more coordinated effort may be needed. [That] is why Australia wants to engage on new ways to break the cycle, including the role of the UN security council in setting a pathway for two-states, with a clear timeline for the international declaration of Palestinian statehood, Wong said. Wong made broader comments about widespread civilian suffering around the world, including in Sudan, where tens of thousands of people had died and more than 700,000 children faced severe or acute malnutrition. She said civilians in Ukraine continued to suffer because of Russias senseless invasion. President [Vladimir] Putins use of the veto to protect his own illegal actions is the act of a coward, Wong told the security council, with the Russian representative watching on and taking notes. Wong called for reforms to the UN security council to meet the challenges of today, including ensuring greater permanent and non-permanent representation for Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Asia-Pacific. Australia is not a security council member at present but was contributing to an open debate on the maintenance of international peace and security. It is seeking a non-permanent seat on the UN security council for 2029-30. The oppositions foreign affairs spokesperson, Simon Birmingham, urged Israel to engage with their closest partners especially the US government to prevent regional escalation. He told Sky News: I heard the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations this morning being clear that they dont wish to see an all-out war or all-out conflict. And if their desire is to avert that, then that requires engagement to try to find diplomatic solutions. Israel has launched its heaviest air attack on Beirut in almost a year of conflict with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, levelling a number of buildings in a southern suburb in an apparent attempt to kill Hezbollahs leader and a key ally of Iran, Hassan Nasrallah. Six loud explosions were heard across the Lebanese capital late on Friday afternoon, and vast plumes of smoke were visible from as far as Batroun, a city an hours drive away. Several apartment blocks in the predominantly Shia neighbourhood of Haret Hreik were reduced to rubble, and footage from the scene showed huge slabs of concrete topped by piles of twisted metal and wreckage. Several craters were visible, into one of which a car had fallen. The Lebanese health ministry said six people had died and 91 were injured, while some early estimates put the number of dead at 300. More casualties are expected as rescue workers clear rubble. Video of the strikes suggested they were carried out with ground-penetrating munitions known as bunker busters. In some footage, a vertical jet of flame was visible as a bomb appeared to explode beneath the ground. Israeli media reported that Nasrallah was the principle target and that the military was checking whether he had been hit. Other media outlets quoted Hezbollah sources saying he was alive and well. The strikes came shortly after the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told the UN general assembly in a bellicose speech marked by the walkout of dozens of diplomats that Israels campaign against Hezbollah would continue despite international efforts to secure a three-week ceasefire. Related: Israels strike on Hezbollah leader is an alarming escalation in conflict The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, condemned the attack as a flagrant war crime. The attacks perpetrated by the Zionist regime in the Dahiya neighbourhood of Beirut constitute a flagrant war crime that has revealed once again the nature of this regimes state terrorism, he said in a statement carried by the official Irna news agency. Targeting Nasrallah even if he was not harmed would mark a staggering escalation on the Israeli side. He represents Irans most important regional asset and has long been seen as linchpin in the so-called axis of resistance. The presence of Hezbollahs large rocket arsenal on Israels northern border has long acted as a deterrent to an Israeli attack on Iran and its nuclear programme. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson, R Adm Daniel Hagari, said the strikes had hit the main Hezbollah headquarters, which he said was underground beneath residential buildings. Hagari said the IDF was still assessing the result of the attack, which he described as very precise, and warned that Israel would attack other Hezbollah targets in the coming hours. Israels Arabic-language military spokesperson Avichay Adraee posted a map showing three buildings in Dahiya in south Beirut and warned nearby residents to evacuate. Shortly after midnight, fresh explosions were heard and smoke rose over the city as Israel said it was attacking the three sites. Hezbollah issued a statement denying there had been weapons in the civilian buildings targeted. Further Israeli strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut were reported before 4am, after a similar warning from Adraee. Early on Saturday the IDF also claimed to have killed Muhammad Ali Ismail, the commander of Hezbollahs missile unit in southern Lebanon, and his deputy, Hossein Ahmed Ismail. The claims could not be independently verified. The British embassy reiterated its warning to UK citizens, posting: British nationals in Lebanon should leave now. You should take the next available flight. As night fell in Jerusalem, Netanyahus office said he had personally approved the strike allegedly targeting Nasrallah, issuing a photograph of Netanyahu with his military secretary and chief of staff on the phone in his New York hotel. His office also announced that he had cut short his US visit and would return immediately to Israel. Late on Friday night, Hezbollah launched fresh rocket salvoes against the north Israeli cities of Safed, Karmiel and Saar, which it said were carried out in response to Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians. Underlining the significance of the strike, Israeli media reported that the operation was watched as it unfolded by the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, in the command centre of the Israeli air forcein Tel Aviv, along with the Israeli chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, and other top commanders. Although some Israeli media suggested that the US had been informed minutes before the attack, that was emphatically denied by US president Joe Biden who told reporters the US no knowledge of or participation in the strike. The explosions were so powerful that they rattled windows and shook houses in settlements 18 miles north of Beirut. Nearby witnesses quoted by the Lebanese daily LOrient-Le Jour described seeing substantial fissures open in the ground. Ambulances were seen heading to the scene of the explosions, sirens wailing. Not long before the attack, thousands of people had gathered in Dahiya for the funeral of three Hezbollah members, including a senior commander, killed in earlier strikes. Lebanons prime minister, Najib Mikati, who is also in New York, was following developments as information arrived, according to a statement from his office. The statement said Mikati was in touch with the commander of the Lebanese armed forces, Joseph Aoun, and had ordered the full mobilisation of emergency resources after reports of a large number of victims. This new aggression demonstrates that the Israeli enemy is mocking all the international appeals in favour of a ceasefire from the international community, Mikati said. Earlier in the day, Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon killed about 25 people, taking the death toll this week to more than 720, health authorities said. The Israeli military said it had carried out dozens of strikes over the course of two hours across the south of Lebanon on Friday, including in the cities of Sidon and Nabatieh. It said it was targeting Hezbollah rocket launchers and infrastructure. It said Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets toward the northern Israeli city of Tiberias. A year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has escalated sharply this week, raising fears of an even more destructive conflict. More than 90,000 people have been reported as newly displaced in Lebanon this week, according to the UN, adding to more than 111,000 already uprooted by the conflict. Hezbollah began firing at Israel on 8 October last year as the Gaza war began, declaring solidarity with the Palestinians. Hezbollah has said it will cease fire only when Israels Gaza offensive ends. On Friday, the Moodys credit rating agency downgraded Israels credit rating to Baa1 and maintained its rating outlook at negative amid the escalation of the conflict. Additional reporting by Quique Kierszenbaum Global guests taste "sweetness" of China's ice cream exhibition Xinhua) 08:25, September 27, 2024 This photo shows ice cream products at the Ice Cream China 2024 in north China's Tianjin Municipality, Sept. 26, 2024. Ice Cream China 2024 opened Thursday in Tianjin, attracting more than 450 companies from home and abroad. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue) TIANJIN, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Ice Cream China 2024 exhibition kicked off in north China's Tianjin Municipality on Thursday, showcasing new products and technologies in the ice cream industry. The three-day exhibition has attracted more than 450 domestic and international companies and over 1,000 business people from over 50 countries, with activities including new product releases, professional seminars and business matchmaking. With an exhibition area of over 45,000 square meters, the event displays ice cream and its ingredients, as well as refrigeration facilities and other machinery. Zhang Xiaohong, head of the organizing committee of Ice Cream China, said the fair shows the vitality of China's ice cream industry and the new trends in the huge market, such as rising health and environmental protection consciousness. Albert Vega Duran with IBK Tropic, a Spanish ice cream ingredients supplier who has exhibited in the fair for over 10 years, said that China is a big producer and consumer of ice cream and still has growth potential. "We visit this exhibition to meet clients and see more orders. We try to improve our product," said Duran. Held since 1998, the exhibition facilitates international exchanges within the ice cream industry. People visit the Ice Cream China 2024 in north China's Tianjin Municipality, Sept. 26, 2024. Ice Cream China 2024 opened Thursday in Tianjin, attracting more than 450 companies from home and abroad. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue) People visit the Ice Cream China 2024 in north China's Tianjin Municipality, Sept. 26, 2024. Ice Cream China 2024 opened Thursday in Tianjin, attracting more than 450 companies from home and abroad. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue) Foreign customers seek cooperation opportunities at the Ice Cream China 2024 in north China's Tianjin Municipality, Sept. 26, 2024. Ice Cream China 2024 opened Thursday in Tianjin, attracting more than 450 companies from home and abroad. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue) An exhibitor shows ice cream products at the Ice Cream China 2024 in north China's Tianjin Municipality, Sept. 26, 2024. Ice Cream China 2024 opened Thursday in Tianjin, attracting more than 450 companies from home and abroad. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue) People visit the Ice Cream China 2024 in north China's Tianjin Municipality, Sept. 26, 2024. Ice Cream China 2024 opened Thursday in Tianjin, attracting more than 450 companies from home and abroad. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue) This photo shows ice cream products at the Ice Cream China 2024 in north China's Tianjin Municipality, Sept. 26, 2024. Ice Cream China 2024 opened Thursday in Tianjin, attracting more than 450 companies from home and abroad. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue) (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Jen Rice is a reporter for the Houston Chronicle covering Harris County government. She can be reached at jen.rice@houstonchronicle.com. A native Houstonian, Jen graduated from Barnard College at Columbia University and earned a master's degree from University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs. Before coming to the Chronicle, Jen spent three years covering City Hall for Houston's NPR station. Her reporting has aired nationally on NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Here & Now. Shigeru Ishiba speaks before a runoff vote in the Liberal Democratic partys leadership race. Photograph: Hiro Komae/EPA Shigeru Ishiba, a veteran moderate, will next week be installed as Japans prime minister after he was elected leader of the governing Liberal Democratic party (LDP). The 67-year-old, a former defence minister, beat his rightwing rival Sanae Takaichi, who was attempting to become the countrys first female prime minister, by 215 votes to 194 in a runoff election at the LDP headquarters in Tokyo on Friday. The vote was triggered when the outgoing prime minister, Fumio Kishida, announced he would not seek re-election as LDP president amid damaging fundraising scandals and low approval ratings. Citing the need for new blood after a bruising few months for his party, Kishida had said that his successor must lead a new LDP. In brief comments to lawmakers before the runoff, Ishiba, who had described the contest as his final political battle, called for a fairer and kinder Japan. We will put an end to the widespread distrust in the LDP, he said. Once the election is over, we will put our hearts into protecting Japan, local areas, rules and the people of Japan. Despite his popularity among the public, another candidate, Shinjiro Koizumi, who at 43 would have become Japans youngest postwar prime minister, was knocked out of the race in the first round of voting, along with six others. Koizumi, the son of the former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, may have spooked the party with a promise to hold a snap election if elected leader. Having been chosen to steer the party out of the doldrums, Ishiba must address growing anger over rising living costs and navigate a volatile regional security environment fuelled by an increasingly assertive China and nuclear-armed North Korea. A defence expert who builds plastic models of warplanes and ships in his free time, Ishiba has proposed an Asian version of Nato and voiced strong support for Taiwanese democracy. He has also called for the creation of a disaster-management agency in a country that is often struck by powerful earthquakes and typhoons. The result has dealt a significant blow to the political legacy of the assassinated former leader Shinzo Abe, with whom Ishiba often disagreed. Takaichi was a disciple of Abes economic programme and shared his revisionist views on Japans wartime history. Tobias Harris, the founder of the Japan Foresight political risk advisory firm, described the race as a battle for the soul of the LDP, pitting Takaichi, Abes intellectual successor on economic and foreign policy, against Ishiba, an idealistic reformer who fundamentally rejects not just Abenomics but much of his foreign policy thinking and his approach to politics. Takaichis stock had risen in the years since her first unsuccessful bid for the LDP leadership in 2021 a contest won by Kishida. She attempted to fill the ideological vacuum left by Abes violent death in 2022, and benefited in Fridays vote from securing the support of Taro Aso, an influential former prime minister. But the wait for Japans first female prime minister continues. Women comprise just 10.3% of the lower house of parliament, ranking 163rd for female representation among 190 countries in a report by the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union in April. Agencies contributed to this report Volodymyr Zelensky met Joe Biden in the White House this week in his effort to persuade the president to let him use long-range missiles - AP/Susan Walsh Joe Biden is preventing Ukraine from firing British Storm Shadow missiles at targets inside Russia over fears of retaliatory attacks on Western military bases. The US president has resisted pressure from Ukraines Volodymyr Zelensky and Sir Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister, to relax restrictions on Kyivs use of Western long-range weapons. US intelligence believes that Vladimir Putin would likely respond to such strikes by ordering attacks on US and European military bases, The New York Times reported. He could also step up sabotage efforts on Western soil. One intelligence assessment seen by the president said the rewards of allowing Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia were comparatively slim as it is unclear how many more missiles the West can provide. A building near Moscow believed to have been damaged by a Ukraine drone. Kyivs strike capacity is diminished because it is not allowed to use Western missiles to strike targets within Russia - Reuters/Maxim Shemetov Sir Keir suggested he would press Mr Biden to grant permission for Storm Shadow strikes when the pair met at the UN General Assembly earlier this week. The Prime Minister believes that the US and the UK should move as a coalition on the issue. It is understood that the pair have not yet held an official meeting on the issue. The US president could still change his mind and lift the constraints on targeting Russia and has yet to come to a final decision, The New York Times said. Plan to end war Mr Zelensky laid out his victory plan to end the war with Russia on Thursday when he met Mr Biden at the White House. A key element of the plan is long-range strikes against Russia, targeting its supply lines, air force, and fuel and ammunition storage sites. A White House spokesman said on Friday there was not anything new to announce at this time regarding missiles after their meeting. However, in his nightly video address on Friday, Mr Zelensky said the issue of long-range capabilities was being considered by the Americans. Ukraine has already received American Atacms, British-made Storm Shadow and French-supplied Scalp EG missiles. All three types have been used by Kyiv to strike Russian military targets inside Crimea, the peninsula illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014. Mr Zelensky has repeatedly lobbied for permission to use the weapons in cross-border attacks into Russia. A Western official said it was in Ukraines interest to apply as much pressure as possible on its allies to sanction the strikes. The Telegraph has previously reported that Ukrainian officials have presented a map of potential targets that could be hit with Western missiles to their allies. Sir Keir has privately signalled he is supportive of the move, while Emmanuel Macron, Frances president, has given his public backing. However, Mr Biden has an effective veto over the process because the Anglo-French missile system relies on a classified targeting system developed by the US. His administration has so far spurned making a decision because of fears it could spark a wider war between Russia and the West. Putin recently adapted Russias nuclear doctrine to consider any strike supported by a nuclear power as a joint attack, in a perceived threat to Ukraine and its Western backers. Under the reform, Moscow could respond with nuclear weapons to an attack with Western-supplied conventional missiles such as Storm Shadows fired at its territory by Ukraine. Moscow would also likely step up arson attacks against facilities supporting Ukraine and expand its shadow operations into more overt attacks on European and US military bases, The New York Times reported. US and European officials say Russias Gru military intelligence agency has been behind a string of acts of sabotage in Europe since the start of the war. Putin has so far avoided carrying out more blatant operations to avoid sparking a wider conflict with the West. As well as its concerns about the limits on deliveries of more long-range missiles to Ukraine, US intelligence also believes that Russia has moved its most valuable equipment out of the 190-mile range of both Storm Shadow and Atacms. Climate activists have thrown tomato soup over two Sunflowers paintings by Vincent van Gogh, just an hour after two others were jailed for a similar protest action in 2022. Three supporters of Just Stop Oil walked into the National Gallery in London, where an exhibition of Van Goghs collected works is on display, at 2.30pm on Friday afternoon, and threw Heinz soup over Sunflowers 1889 and Sunflowers 1888. The latter was the same work targeted by Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland in 2022. That pair are now among 25 supporters of Just Stop Oil in jail for climate protests. Future generations will regard these prisoners of conscience to be on the right side of history, Phil Green, one of those taking part in Fridays action, told visitors to the gallery. Ludi Simpson, 71, who also took part, said: We will be held accountable for our actions today, and we will face the full force of the law. When will the fossil fuel executives and the politicians theyve bought be held accountable for the criminal damage that they are imposing on every living thing? The protest came almost exactly an hour after Plummer, 23, was sentenced to two years in prison for causing an estimated 10,000 of damage to the frame of Sunflowers 1888. Her co-defendant, Anna Holland, 22, received 20 months for the same offence. Passing sentence at Southwark crown court on Friday, the judge, Christopher Hehir, told them: You two simply had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers, and your arrogance in thinking otherwise deserves the strongest condemnation. The pair of you came within the thickness of a pane of glass of irreparably damaging or even destroying this priceless treasure, and that must be reflected in the sentences I pass. The defendants embraced and blew kisses to the public gallery from the dock before they were led down to the cells. In October 2022, Plummer and Holland had gone to room 43 of the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square and hurled two tins of soup over the 1888 painting, one of Van Goghs most famous works, before glueing themselves to the wall beneath it. In July, they were found guilty of criminal damage by a jury after three hours of deliberations. Judge Hehir told them at the time to be prepared, in practical and emotional terms, to go to prison. Plummer was further sentenced to three months in jail for interfering with national infrastructure by taking part in a slow march along Earls Court Road in west London in November 2023. Her co-defendants in that case, Chiara Sarti and Daniel Hall, received community orders. Plummer gave a 20-minute address to the judge in mitigation, in which she cited Emmeline Pankhurst, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela as examples of people who had been criminalised while fighting for justice. On 14 October 2022 and in November 2023 I made the choices to take actions that I knew would likely lead to my arrest and prosecution, she said. I made those choices because I believe that non-violent civil resistance is the best, if not the only, tool that people have in order to bring about the rapid change required to protect life from the accelerating climate emergency and the political decisions being made that pour fuel on the flames and which sentence us all to a catastrophic future. Whilst of course there are reasons why my life and the lives of people I love and care for would be easier if I dont receive prison sentences today I dont intend to go into detail about these, my choice today is to accept whatever sentences I receive with a smile, knowing that I have found peace in doing what I can to defend countless millions of innocent people suffering and dying. She added: I chose to peacefully disrupt a business-as-usual system that is unjust, dishonest and murderous. In passing his sentence, Hehir said he took into account not only the damage caused to the frame but the potential for even greater damage to be caused to the painting had the soup seeped behind the glass that covered it. Hehir told them: Section 63 of the sentencing code requires me, in assessing the seriousness of your offending, to consider not only the harm your offence caused, but also the harm it might foreseeably have caused. For the reasons I have explained, that foreseeable harm is incalculable. Your offending is so serious that only custodial sentences are appropriate. Hehir noted that gallery staff had immediately taken the painting away to examine it and ensure it had come to no serious harm. The 138km Kokoda track has been closed off by Mount Kodu landowners. Photograph: Newscom/Alamy The historic Kokoda track has been closed indefinitely as local landowners demand outstanding payments from the Papua New Guinea government. Earlier in the month, Australians walking the 138km Kokoda track had treks cancelled while others were stalled for long periods as protests by landowners closed sections of the trail. Mount Kodu landowners have now closed off the track and are petitioning the PNG prime minister, James Marape, to pay the outstanding commitment the government made to them of 40m PNG kina (A$14.8m). In 2008, the landowners forwent a A$12bn Mount Kodu mine project at the PNG governments request in order to preserve the Kokoda track. They signed an memorandum of understanding with the PNG government in 2010 as compensation for foregoing the mine project, including K430m in loyalties to the Kodu and Kokoda track landowners, and another K152m to the Kokoda Track Authority for community livelihood development projects and programs. The PNG government committed to paying K5m every year from 2010 until 2020, when the memorandum of understanding would be reviewed. However, the government only paid K10m and K5m in 2011 and 2012 respectively. Kodu Resource Owners Association deputy chairman, Chillion Biloi, said the organisation felt forgotten despite the fact that we have forgone the mine with major infrastructure developments and revenues in the billions of kina. He said the track will remain closed until the PNG government responds to the demands in the petition which was supported by all track corridor communities, the Hiri Koiari district and the Central Province government. Charlie Lynn, the owner of tour company Adventure Kokoda, said the track was closed without any notice at all. He has had to cancel six trips over the last two weeks, and airlift 10 stranded trekkers out of the jungle, leaving the company A$50,000 out of pocket. Lynn said those who had their tours cancelled will be disappointed, with many trekkers having taken time off work to physically prepare for the hike. But he was also concerned about the impact on local tour operators. More than 3,000 trekkers walk the Kokoda track each year to pay tribute to Australian and PNG soldiers who died in the second world war. In April 2024, the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and Marape walked the track. According to Lynn, the situation is due to gross mismanagement since the Australian government took control of the track in 2009. If the track is not opened up today tourism for the rest of the year is shot, Lynn said. The PNG prime ministers chief of staff, Andy Hetra, said the government would respond to the petition this week. A spokesperson for Australias Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the department wants to see an early resolution, but the reopening of the track is ultimately a matter for the PNG government. The PNG Tourism Promotion Authority could not be reached for comment. A rendering of the Lower Thames Crossing junction with the M25 in Essex, a project that campaigners have criticised. Photograph: Highways England/PA Campaign groups have urged the government to cancel major road building schemes including the Lower Thames Crossing, amid growing speculation that ministers could divert money earmarked for new roads into rail and other public transport. The transport secretary, Louise Haigh, is due to decide in a week whether to sign off a development consent order [DCO] for the 9bn road crossing linking Essex and Kent. Labour has already made clear that it is looking to fill what the chancellor has described as a 22bn black hole in the nations finances. While Rachel Reeves has said she backs building infrastructure, the road schemes are poor value for money according to Treasury calculations, and could free up funding for rail projects. The campaign groups have both highlighted huge savings from axing parts of what the Conservative government had billed as the biggest road building scheme in a generation when it launched its road investment strategy a decade ago. The Campaign for Better Transport said the government could save 10.5bn from cancelling the Lower Thames Crossing along with the A66 Northern TransPennine upgrade, a project championed by Rishi Sunak. Reeves has been considering private finance options to fund the construction of the crossing. The chancellor cancelled two significant and long-planned road schemes on taking office in July: the dualling of the A303 with a new tunnel at Stonehenge, and the A27 Arundel bypass. Haigh is also conducting a review of the Department for Transports (DfT) capital spending, ahead of the October budget, having announced that she had inherited almost 3bn in unfunded commitments at the DfT. The Transport Action Network last week submitted a report to Haigh recommending 16 schemes to be axed or paused, with a total value of more than 15bn. Comments by the rail minister, Lord Hendy, in a parliamentary debate and in a video address at the Labour party conference suggested that spending across all transport modes would be reviewed against each other potentially diverting road funds to rail. In a letter to Haigh, the campaigners urged her to cancel the large and unnecessary road projects, by not granting a DCO for the Lower Thames Crossing on 4 October, and to revoke DCOs already signed off for road building by the previous government. They argue that rather than increasing road capacity for lorries, the government should spend money on maintaining and repairing Britains existing, pothole-ridden roads, and on upgrading rail freight routes freeing up road space for a fraction of the cost. National Highways argues that its planned 14-mile, six lane road tunnel under the Thames is needed to meet the demands of traffic east of London, where the Dartford Crossings tunnels and bridge are struggling to cope. It estimates that congestion on the existing crossing costs the UK more than 200m a year. Related: A tunnel too far? Debate intensifies over need for Lower Thames Crossing However, Michael Solomon Williams of Campaign for Better Transport, said: Spending 9bn on a road that cant even carry a bus is utterly nonsensical and if approved by the transport secretary would completely undermine the governments net zero commitments. Building new roads doesnt cut congestion, it does the opposite. Chris Todd, the director of Transport Action Network, said: If we are to improve productivity and kickstart growth we need to make sure were investing in infrastructure that delivers. Many schemes in the roads program simply dont, they make things worse. We need to repurpose that funding to drive modal shift, accelerate decarbonisation, protect nature and improve health and wellbeing. Among proposed rail freight schemes are upgrades from the Channel tunnel to Wembley that would allow rail freight trains to run directly from Europe to the Midlands; and electrification of 60 miles of track that would enable electric trains to run to London Gateway, Felixstowe, and Liverpools Seaforth ports, and terminals in Leeds and Birmingham, which together would only costs 142m. Maggie Simpson, the director general of Rail Freight Group, said: Investing in rail freight is key to meeting governments targets for economic growth and climate change keeping HGVs off the road and reducing transport carbon emissions. The DfT was approached for comment. Simon Clarke feels there is space for the Conservatives to recover if they acknowledge public anger over recent failures. Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian The former cabinet minister Simon Clarke has urged his party not to retreat into blocking housebuilding, saying the party should consider backing Labours planning reforms. Clarke, who was a key backer of Liz Truss and one of the few MPs who called for Sunak to resign before the election defeat, said the partys landslide defeat had partly been down to exacerbating the housing crisis and a failure to take intergenerational fairness seriously. He cited shameful recent byelection campaigns that had centred on blocking housing and infrastructure and said the party would face oblivion if it went down that path. The former communities secretary and Treasury minister lost his red wall seat in Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, which he had won in 2017 in his early 30s. He said the next Conservative leader should not be afraid to back Labours plans on housebuilding later this autumn and said he was angered to see some new Tory MPs immediately begin campaigns to block energy infrastructure such as pylons and solar farms. Some of what Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner said on this, I could have said. I think weve all got to look beyond partisanship here and say, there is a very fundamental issue of supply. It is quite right to say that parts of the green belt are, in fact, gray belt. I dont think we should embark on some kind of campaign to mischaracterise this as being the death of the countryside. Related: Net zero or not: will the next Tory leader embrace green agenda or oppose it? Clarke was one of the most vehement critics in parliament of a successful campaign by Tory MPs to end mandatory local housebuilding targets and launched his own push to lift the onshore wind ban in response backed by Truss and Johnson though he said he disagreed with Labours decision to end oil and gas licences. However, he said he was dismayed by some of the objections that a number of Tory MPs have leaped on in terms of building green energy infrastructure. I understand it because Ive been there and I felt those pressures, but if we dont fix it, then we are going to see a continued, real-terms decline in living standards, because the UK is just becoming a country where you cant do things, and that is just woefully unsustainable. Clarke said though the scale of the Conservative defeat had been traumatic, he felt vindicated in his decision to call for Sunak to resign early in 2024, saying he was responsible for the scale of the defeat. I think the campaign could not have gone worse. I lost by 200 votes. If it hadnt been for the launch in the rain or the D-day fiasco or the betting shambles, almost any one of those incidents probably cost me votes, he said. It wouldnt have been the difference between winning and losing, but it would have been the difference between near 200 seats and 120. Our weakness encouraged Farage back, and meant that the whole flank of our support just caved in. I do not pretend it was all his fault. Some terrible mistakes were made by Liz [Truss], and sadly, bad mistakes were made under Boris [Johnson] as well. But I just wish that more colleagues had listened to me, because most of them privately knew it. Clarke said he had recognised some of Labours early issues with briefing wars in government from his time serving as a minister and cabinet minister. I have lived this movie, and I recognise some of the dysfunctionality that Im seeing, and it doesnt tend to end well when you have these very obvious schisms within No 10, this inability to reset a message day after day which were seeing over what is a comparatively minor issue about expenses. I think it does show that there is a space for the Conservatives to recover if we can get our own act together. Its not a given though, it will not be enough just for us to let the pendulum swing back. Clarke said he had been torn over whether to support Robert Jenrick or Kemi Badenoch, but said he had decided to back Badenoch because of her commitments to change the system, including key institutions that many more radical Conservatives believe obstructed their time in power, like the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. It is going to be very important that we enter government, not just with a set of ideas, but with the system reform in mind to allow us to govern as Conservatives, he said. Kemi goes down well in those red wall seats. And were going to need that toughness of approach, if were going to frankly convince people that we understand just how furious they are about some of the failures of the state that Ive seen over recent years. Clarke is celebrating his 40th birthday this weekend and said he did not want his political career to be over, saying he will almost certainly seek to come back to keep making the case on housing and intergenerational fairness. The thing about 40 is that theres enough time for several more acts. I look back on the last seven years, and a lot happened when I was still really very young, and theres a lot more time to contribute, he said. A new BBC documentary explores how social media theorising affected the family of Nicola Bulley as they waited to find out what had happened to the mother-of-two - BBC The disappearance of Nicola Bulley in St Michaels on Wyre in Lancashire last January quickly became a news story that gripped Britain. The smiling face of the 45-year-old mother of two girls, aged six and nine, featured on every front page and every news bulletin. In the days that followed, the mystery behind how Bulley seemed to have vanished into thin air after the school drop-off her phone left on a bench, her spaniel Willow found wandering off the lead soon became what felt like a TV crime drama. As one week rolled into two, then three, and with no new information, Lancashire Police revealed that TikTokers who were playing their own private detectives were hindering the investigation. Later, TikTok sleuths sparked fury after filming themselves digging up woodland close to where Bulley vanished. Arrests were made, dispersal orders issued. It was the world of social media gone wild. Bulleys body was discovered at 11.36am on February 19, about a mile down the River Wyre from where she had gone missing. By then, Paul Ansell, her partner of 12 years and father of her children, had become subjected to irrational, unfounded conspiracy theories that he was both his wifes murderer and sleeping with her best friend. Four months later, an inquest ruled Bulleys death accidental. She had drowned as a result of cold water shock after falling into the river. Nicola Bulley, 45, was last seen on the morning of January 27, when she was spotted walking her dog on a footpath by the River Wyre - PA But by this point, Ansells demeanour had been picked over and analysed by social media sleuths, who judged him as too detached, and who had seen their views rise by the millions. Have a watch of this. Now why is he smiling? Get that guy in for questioning. Theres something wrong there, said Lisa on Tiktok. It was just one of many such comments. For the first time since Bulleys disappearance, her family Ansell, parents Dot and Ernest, sister Louise Cunningham and her husband Stephen are telling their side of the story in a groundbreaking BBC documentary, The Search for Nicola Bulley. A year in the making, it explores how the phenomenon of social media blogging impacted police work and caused considerable emotional harm to the family. We see Ansell at home in his kitchen, a widower now bringing up their children alone, still trying to compute what he calls the bats--- crazy things said about him online. You release something to try and squash something and all it does is spiral into something else. Youve got reality going on. But then theyre watching it like a soap opera, Ansell says. Social media users were treating Bulleys disappearance like a soap opera, says Ansell - PA When you experience something like this, you realise what a huge monster social media can be. I remember us thinking at the time, It needs to be kept in the media spotlight to keep the pressure on the police. And then, of course, anything that gets out on mainstream media gets out on social mediaso the two go hand in hand. The documentary has been made by Rogan Productions, the company behind the BBCs award-winning Stephen: The Murder That Changed the Nation, which was made with the cooperation of Doreen and Neville Lawrence. The victims are put at the centre of its films. A big part of making this film was to try to understand what happened, and how the social media content creators found it interesting, explains Xinlan Rose, the documentarys producer. They were key people who changed the course of that three-week period. At the beginning, the family were quite happy [with Nikkis story being shared on social media (including by the police)] because it helped generate attention. But then it started to impact the actual police investigation, and when the TikTokers started coming down to the site it became a really big problem and just made that incredibly traumatic period in the familys life even worse. We live in a world where news feeds from social media. Were all looking for engagement, but we do need to think about the people who are at the other end of that scrutiny. I was getting direct messages from people Ive never met, remembers Ansell. They dont know me. They dont know us. They dont know Nikki. They know nothing about us. Just messages like, You b-----d. We know what you did. You know you cant hide, Paul. There were some I felt like replying to. But then if you reply to that, theyll just take a screenshot your reply which will end up on social media. And so, youre literally silenced. You cant do anything about it on top of everything else, on top of the trauma of the nightmare were in. To think that all these horrendous things were being said about me, towards Nikki. Everyone has a limit, dont they? Whats the tail and whats the dog? says the documentarys director, Rachel Lob-levyt, of the way social media conspiracies began to filter into how the mainstream tabloids, the press and television networks were reporting the story. A conspiracy theory about a bloody ski glove, for example, made the front page of The Sun, who reported it as a dramatic twist and that it had been taken away in an evidence bag. Another TikToker chipped in: I dont know how they would do this because the area is being watched. But I feel like shes being moved. The result was that the family themselves started to become influenced, considering abduction theories, even though the police had told them at the end of week one that their belief was that Nicola was in the river. Shed done that walk a lot, her mother Dorothy recalls of their thought process then, understandably clinging onto hope that she was still alive: You dont [know] whos looking. You dont know if somebodys two screams were heard. With no new lines of inquiry, speculation took a dark turn. There werent really any developments, so by this point there was an unstoppable train of public intrigue in the story, and so people will focus on anything new that comes out, explains Lob-levyt of the hysteria. Nicolas body was eventually discovered after Jason Rothwell, a self-styled spiritual medium, reported that he had seen something in the water about a mile downstream from where she had disappeared (he claimed his gift had led him to her). By this point, the world had been told that Nicola had struggled with the menopause and had issues with alcohol. Seventeen days before she had gone missing, Ansell and her sister had called 999 requesting help from a mental health nurse. A police officer assisted during that emergency visit. There was national outrage when information about her mental and physical health was released in a press conference by Lancashire Polices investigating officer, Detective Superintendent Rebecca Smith. Rishi Sunak, then prime minister, expressed his concerns about the revelation and Lancashire Constabulary launched an internal review. The family themselves felt betrayed. We were sat in the living room going through the statement, Ansell says, and we were like, it doesnt have to say that, it doesnt have to say this. And then before we knew it theyd released it. But what the documentary highlights is that after some of the sleuths turned on Ansell, it put Det Supt Smith on the back foot. Panicking about rumours of stories about Ansell that were imminently going to appear in the mainstream press, interpreting the police home visit as a so-called domestic violence incident, she decided to reveal more detail than was necessary. Speaking for the first time since the inquiry, she says: I was made aware that there were other stories being posted on social media regarding Nikki and Paul, and some possible involvement with the police I was really concerned [about] the damage that this would have on the family and particularly Paul. Of the menopause statement, she explains: I understand in hindsight it might seem we didnt need to do that. But in the moment, when you are being told that people are threatening to publish stories that you know will damage the family, you have to take some action. Bulleys family members, including her parents Ernest and Dot, say they felt betrayed by the police releasing personal information about Bulley to the public - BBC It makes your skin crawl. What would Nikki think of all of this? says Ansell. I mean shed be Bless her, she would be mortified about whats happened and how its all come about. And you know, its horrible to think that. There was also the fact that, at first, the TikTokers echoed what the family wanted to hear Nicola was not in the river. Social media was like a Greek chorus to the familys natural disinclination to accept the worst. It fractured their relationship with the police. Smith explains of the climate at large: It was almost as if people didnt want to believe the police, didnt want to believe what we had to say. I think [Rebecca Smith] took part in the documentary because the family were taking part. It was important for the family to be telling the definitive account of what happened and that would have been hard without the police. So I think that tells you something about their relationship [now]. says Lob-levyt. The police were trying to get some sort of control on the information that was out there and put it into context. Bulleys sister Louise Cunningham (pictured here with her husband Stephen): There doesnt always have to be something sinister linked to what has happened - BBC There were other setbacks too, fed by the media hysteria. Claims by an independent searcher called Peter Faulding who does not take part in the film received extensive coverage in parts of the media. In archive footage you see him criticising the police, proclaiming: We could have scanned this river with our equipment within a day. He vowed Bulley was not in the river. The family commissioned him to conduct an independent search. Bulley was not found. Following a review into the polices handling of the case that criticised Fauldings part in the search, he said: Although I thought I had found a very credible target, I conceded that maybe I was wrong and later that afternoon I made a statement to the media saying that there was no sign of Nicola and that I did not think she was in the river. I didnt want to get bogged down with any of it, remembers Ansell, so I came off whatever [social media] platforms I was on. But we have friends and relatives online and [saw] stuff that was being said [about her not being in the river]. We were like, Yeah, we agree with ya. What the heck has happened? If there is a wider lesson to be learnt from the Nicola Bulley case, it is to think more of the victims. What would Nikki think of all of this? says Ansell. Bless her, she would be mortified about whats happened and how its all come about Hopefully, the documentary will open up a conversation, Lob-levyt says. When you share something online, what is the impact of that? Its not a conversation that youre having at home or in the pub or in the cafe. Youre sharing that with other people online and that may influence how they think. It would probably be reductive to say everyones just doing it for money, although that is an element of it. As Nicolas body was lifted from the river that morning of February 19, the TikToker Curtis Arnold, who was arrested three weeks later, was filming. That video was viewed nearly one million times. That same day, reporters from both Sky and ITV contacted the family directly despite their request for privacy, which led to Ofcom questioning the broadcasters actions. More than 18 months on, the family is trying to heal. Cunningham says, It was just an accident. There doesnt always have to be something sinister linked to what has happened. Sometimes bad things just happen. I just wish it hadnt happened to us. Were just a normal family thats had a really tough time. Ansell sees his wife in his girls every day: I see all these little mannerisms. And then I just stop sometimes and Im like, flipping heck, that was Mummy, you know? And that is worth everything Nikki was so beautiful. She didnt know it. There were no airs and graces about her. We were all about the little things. The beautiful little things that made us who we were. The Search for Nicola Bulley airs at 9 pm on Thursday October 3 at 9pm on BBC One Jacob Elordi The advertisement is going out soon: Calling all Lascars! A chance to star in the hearthrob blockbuster of all time Wuthering Heights. Liverpudlian background essential. No experience in wuthering required. Spawn of Beelzebub welcome. Cruelty to animals an advantage. This week saw a confected row over the casting of a new film of Emily Brontes overheated (though well ventilated) Yorkshire Gothic classic. Margot Robbie from Barbie will play Catherine Earnshaw, but its her fellow Australian Jacob Elordi who has been denounced as not dark enough to play Heathcliff. It could have been worse; the pale Ryan Gosling from Barbie might have been chosen. In 2011 a film came out with James Howson, who was the first black actor to play Heathcliff. I dont quite know what has become of him since. If we did want a film true to the deep Victorian fantasy novel, wed need someone with a Liverpool accent, since thats where the boy Heathcliff was found and kidnapped for a life of agricultural labour, an act regarded in Yorkshire as a favour, at least in those days. As the novel specifies someone black-haired, Derek Hatton, the one-time Trotskyist deputy leader of Liverpool Council would fit the profile, though at 76 he might be a trifle old. As for Lascar it is one of the tantalising clues that Emily Bronte gives for the Byronic Heathcliffs ethnic affinities. A Lascar was an ordinary term for an able seaman from the East Indies. The East Indies were a bit vague, running from India east. The word comes from an Urdu term for a military camp and there is no reason to take it as derogatory. Nor is there with gipsy, the word frequently associated in the book with Heathcliff. Joseph, the most Yorkshire character in the novel, calls him a flaysome divil of a gipsy (flaysome meaning dreadful), and the gipsy references must be to a sort of swarthiness. Even in windburnt Yorkshire, however, anyone of a Mediterranean appearance would have counted as sallow. A hellish complexion, however, is one that comes over strongly in the book. The infant Heathcliff is called as dark almost as if it came from the devil and an imp of Satan. Emily Brontes novel may not make much sense psychologically, but it is stuffed full of Gothic horror: hauntings, opening coffins and mundane madness on the moors. Im afraid its this aspect added to romantic love that attracts such adulation for the book. At best Catherine and Heathcliff are chthonic forces, moulded from volcanic rock. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be, she declares. I am Heathcliff! At worst Wuthering Heights is like a holiday let of the Manson Mansion. So perhaps someone with horns and a tail might be found for the part. Except that its all nonsense limiting actors to roles that resemble their home life. Remember that Heathcliff has to hang a dog, and not many actors would want to admit to that in auditions for fear of a jail term. If Heathcliff is dark-haired and gipsy-like, could that not be achieved by hair dye and uh, hem make-up? Yet that would set aside the attractions of radical blind casting. If Bob Dylan could be played by Cate Blanchett, why not have a woman play Heathcliff? Or Heathcliff could be played as a woman, even if that makes it harder to explain the existence of his son Linton. Though now I come to think of it, Linton is described as a pale, delicate, effeminate boy, unlikely if Heathcliff is, as some literary experts now appear to believe, black or mixed-race. So perhaps his biological father was someone else. Whatever happens, most of the complicated, generation-jumping book wont make it to the screen. Perhaps, then, a film Wuthering Heights is best taken lightly, at a level far below Kate Bushs interpretation. But in the name of all that wuthers, keep away the diversity quota police from this and every other screen drama. Richard Cant (as Edward Jenner) in Pins and Needles, at the Kiln - Richard Cant After 12 years spent revitalising Kilburns Kiln Theatre which was named the Tricycle when she took it over Indhu Rubasingham has left to become the National Theatres new artistic director. Her successor is Amit Sharma, whose first production is a chatty, getting-to-know-you piece, breaking the fourth wall at regular intervals, and grappling with the trustworthiness of science in a lively spirit of debate. The subject is vaccines yes, in 2024, not 2021 and no, Covid isnt the only thing on the mind of playwright Rob Drummond, who has written himself into the play as an emcee, Rob. Played by an earnest and cheery Gavi Singh Chera, he navigates us through this still-contentious topic, on a stepped stage with a climbing-frame backdrop. The ladders and swings are red and blue in Frankie Bradshaws design, like the pills you can choose between in The Matrix. About a third of Drummonds text is an imagined interview with Edward Jenner, the Georgian physician who invented the smallpox vaccine, when he experimentally injected an eight-year-old boy with cowpox (hence vaccine, from the Latin for cow) and observed the resulting miracle of immunity. Jenner, jauntily embodied by Richard Cant with a flute to hand, is our closest character to comic relief he insists on lavishly signing a release form, despite having been dead for two centuries. But he also expresses horror that his life-saving methodology has become so controversial in the present day, and prods away impotently (to repeat: hes a dead, flute-playing Georgian doctor) at various strains of anti-vaxx rationale. Rob speaks with two people on that embattled side of the fence today, in what purport to be verbatim exchanges, the truth of which will be intriguingly muddied later. One is Mary (poignant Vivienne Acheampong), a mother of two hoodwinked by Andrew Wakefields discredited 1998 case study in the Lancet, which linked the MMR vaccine to autism. She admits withholding the jab from her second boy with deeply tragic consequences to prevent him growing up with autism, as the first had. Gavi Singh Chera (as Rob) and Richard Cant (as Edward Jenner) in Pins and Needles, at the Kiln - Mark Senior Then theres the brutally disaffected Robert (Brian Vernel), whose story is more commonplace: his mother was fine, then he urged Pfizer upon her, and now blames himself (and every institution he believed) for the myocarditis that killed her. Rob tries to commiserate with the sheer bad luck of these scenarios, while Jenner mutters correlation is not causation. The play makes a basic show of both-sides-ing while planting both feet squarely in the camp of consensus: Drummond doesnt let such outliers shake anyones core certainties for long. But he does raise valuable questions about the science were fed as gospel, and how assuming the truth of it, whatever profit motives may be in play, is a blind habit we all share. For an encore, the artifice of the piece itself is deconstructed wigs come off and the author leaves us on shaky ground about the very nature of authority. At a brisk 80 minutes, its more of a chewy snack than a full meal, but the witty layering is welcome. Until Oct 26; kilntheatre.com Joe Gow pictured during one of his videos - @SexyHappyCouple A university professor has been sacked after making pornography with his wife. Dr Joe Gow, 63, claims the loss of his job at the University of Wisconsin-La Cross is a violation of his freedom of speech. The professor was forced to leave his post as university chancellor in December, after the institution discovered he had filmed vegan-themed pornographic videos with his wife, Carmen Wilson, and posted them online. The former chancellor was placed on leave but continued collecting his salary as a tenured communications professor, despite posting the sex clips under the username Sexy Happy Couple. A disciplinary panel has now unanimously voted to fire Dr Gow, arguing that his actions have damaged the universitys reputation. However, the professor has claimed that the decision breaches his constitutional right to free speech. Mr Gows attorney Mark Leitner said: We need the First Amendment precisely when the danger of stifling controversial, unpopular speech is at its highest. And thats what we have here in this situation. Dr Gow and his wife have appeared in multiple publicly available pornographic videos, where they host adult film stars as guests and have sex afterwards. The couples OnlyFans web page describes videos where top adult video stars cook, converse and shoot sex scenes with a plant-powered couple. They have also published two books under the pseudonyms Geri and Jay Hart, titled Married with Benefits: Our Real-Life Adult Industry Adventures and Monogamy with Benefits: How Porn Enriches Our Relationship. Dr Joe Gow and his wife Carmen Wilson The universitys lawyers warned that Dr Gows continued employment could have a negative effect on the institutions reputation, claiming he had used his teaching position as marketing opportunity to sell adult content. Dr Gow just doesnt get it, or is unable to acknowledge that his conduct has been harmful to the UWL campus community and a distraction from its core mission, said Wade Harrison, senior legal counsel for the university. Dr Gow has largely gotten what he wants through this process, a large media presence that continues and a great marketing opportunity for his cooking and adult content, he added. Enough is enough. Dr. Joe needs to go. In documents submitted prior to Fridays hearing, lawyers argued that retaining Dr Gow on the faculty risked jeopardising the universitys finances. At least one donor has stated publicly that he would kill a planned scholarship gift if Gow were not terminated, the lawyers wrote, referring to a statement from Republican Senator Rob Hutton who put pressure on the university to fire him. Senator Hutton has made clear that he, a member of the legislature that provides some of the Universitys funding, is opposed to Gows returning to teach. Dr Gow argued that his right to share his and his wifes pornographic content with his wife is protected by the First Amendment. Gow has previously maintained that he and his wife produced the pornographic content in their own time, and that neither the books nor the videos ever mentioned the university or his role as part of the faculty. Dr Gow, who maintained he never mentioned the university in his videos - AP/University of Wisconsin-La-Crosse Speaking on Friday, he said he was initially drawn to Wisconsin-La Cross for its commitment to academic freedom, adding that hes eager to return to the classroom. I genuinely love teaching, and Im not ready to just retire and sit at home, he told Wisconsin Public Radio. He added that hes not currently creating explicit content, but wouldnt want to give up the right to in future. We certainly wouldnt want to give up the right to be able to do that if we choose to, he said. We live in 2024. We have access to all kinds of material. Its up to us to choose what we, as adults, what we want to access. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expressions Faculty Defense Fund (FIRE), who have supported Dr Gows legal defence, said the decision to sack the professor over making adult videos is a major blow to academic freedom and faculty free speech rights. FIRE has said time and time again: public universities cannot sacrifice the First Amendment to protect their reputations, the foundations legal defence counsel Zach Greenberg said. Were disappointed UW caved to donors and politicians by throwing a tenured professor under the bus. You may not like Joe Gow or his videos, but the principles that protect him also protect countless dissidents, freethinkers, artists, and others who speak truth to power. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was seen giving remarks to republican delegates from Texas on the first day of the Texas GOP Convention on May 23, 2024, in San Antonio, Texas. Christopher Lee Republican?Texas Attorney General Ken?Paxton sent a strong warning late Thursday after Travis County Judge Maya Guerra Gamble handed down a temporary restraining order allowing a Kate Cox to have an abortion.? Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing to stop the city of Austin from covering travel expenses for residents who seek abortions out of state. In a lawsuit filed Friday, Paxton argued that the Texas Constitution prohibits gifts without a public benefit. He said there is no public benefit to the city initiative and therefore the policy is illegal. Through passing laws that generally prohibit elective abortion, Texas has established public policy negating any argument that funding abortions procured out of state can serve a clear public benefit - the two are mutually exclusive, the suit states. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Texas law bans abortion in nearly all instances except to save the mothers life. The city of Austin passed a budget last month that allocates $400,000 in grants to help cover the costs of airfare, gas, hotel stays, rides, childcare, companion travel and food for people leaving the state for abortions, according to the suit. City officials have said the policy is necessary to support Texans facing barriers to abortion access. More than 35,000 Texans went to another state to get the procedure in 2023, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health access. Austin Mayor Kirk Watson defended the city's policy in a statement Friday and said Paxton was exploiting the power of his office to "score a few political points." Advertisement Article continues below this ad Im proud the Austin City Council is supporting Austin women as they make their own decisions about their body, their family, their health, their happiness, and their quality of life," Watson said. "Texas women deserve better than to have their state and Ken Paxton attacking their fundamental freedoms. Paxton is joined in the suit by private citizen Mary Ann Teel, who claims she will be harmed if her taxpayer dollars are allowed to go toward the grant program. Teel is represented by prominent anti-abortion lawyer Jonathan Mitchell, who is known for being the architect of Texas six-week abortion ban that is enforced by private citizens, rather than the government, making it nearly impossible to challenge in court. In a statement Friday, city spokesperson David Ochsner said Austin has "successfully litigated this issue in the past and, similar to another lawsuit that raises this issue, will respond to the recent allegations through the appropriate court channels." This is not the first lawsuit over the Austin policy. The Texas Supreme Court in December 2022 revived a lawsuit filed by Republican Don Zimmerman, a former Austin city council member, after he asked for reconsideration in light of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade that year. A trial court had dismissed Zimmerman's original 2019 suit and a state appeals court had affirmed. At the time, the city had made a similar allocation of $150,000 for logistical support for abortion after the state banned local governments from using taxpayer money to fund abortion services, providers or affiliates, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Pesticides being sprayed on a cotton field in Arizona. Photograph: mvp64/Getty Images In 2017, two United Nations experts called for a treaty to strictly regulate dangerous pesticides, which they said were a global human rights concern, citing scientific research showing pesticides can cause cancers, Parkinsons disease, Alzheimers and other health problems. Publicly, the pesticide industrys lead trade association dubbed the recommendations unfounded and sensational assertions. In private, industry advocates have gone further. Derogatory profiles of the two UN experts, Hilal Elver and Baskut Tuncak, are hosted on an online private portal for pesticide company employees and a range of influential allies. Members can access a wide range of personal information about hundreds of individuals from around the world deemed a threat to industry interests, including the US food writers Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman, the Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva and the Nigerian activist Nnimmo Bassey. Many profiles include personal details such as the names of family members, phone numbers, home addresses and even house values. The profiling is part of an effort that was financed, in part, by US taxpayer dollars to downplay pesticide dangers, discredit opponents and undermine international policymaking, according to court records, emails and other documents obtained by the non-profit newsroom Lighthouse Reports. It collaborated with the Guardian, the New Lede, Le Monde, Africa Uncensored, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and other international media partners on the publication of this investigation. The efforts were spearheaded by a reputation management firm in Missouri called v-Fluence. The company provides services that it describes as intelligence gathering, proprietary data mining and risk communications. The revelations demonstrate how industry advocates have established a private social network to counter resistance to pesticides and genetically modified (GM) crops in Africa, Europe and other parts of the world, while also denigrating organic and other alternative farming methods. More than 30 current government officials are on the membership list, most of whom are from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Elver, who is now a university research professor and a member of a United Nations food security committee, said public money would have been better spent on scientific research into the health impacts of pesticides than on profiling people such as herself. Instead of understanding the scientific reality, they try and shoot the messenger. It is really hard to believe, she said. Author Michael Pollans profile portrays him as an ardent opponent of industrial agriculture and a proponent of organic farming. His profile includes a long list of criticisms and details such as the names of his siblings, parents, son and brother-in-law. Its one thing to have an industry come after you after publishing a critical article. This happens all the time in journalism, Pollan said. But to have your own government pay for it is outrageous. These are my tax dollars at work. Records show that Jay Byrne, a former Monsanto executive and founder of v-Fluence, led the effort. Byrne advised US officials and attempted to sabotage opposition to products created by the worlds largest agrochemical companies. He and v-Fluence are named as co-defendants in a case against the Chinese-owned agrochemical firm Syngenta. They are accused of helping Syngenta suppress information about risks that the companys paraquat weedkillers could cause Parkinsons disease, and of helping neutralize its critics. (Syngenta denies theres a proven causal link between paraquat and Parkinsons.) In an emailed statement, Byrne denied the allegations in the lawsuit, citing numerous incorrect and factually false claims, made by plaintiffs. When asked about the findings of this investigation, Byrne said that the claims and questions you have posed are based on grossly misleading representations, factual errors regarding our work and clients, and manufactured falsehoods. The company sees its role as an information collection, sharing, analysis, and reporting provider, Byrne said. He said the profiles were based on publicly available information. Our scope of work that you are questioning is limited to monitoring, research, and trends reporting on global activities and trends for plant breeding and crop protection issues, Byrne said in his emailed response. Under attack Byrne joined Monsanto in 1997 amid the companys rollout of GM crops designed to tolerate being sprayed with its glyphosate herbicides. As director of corporate communications, his focus was on gaining acceptance for the controversial biotech crops. He previously held various high-level legislative and public affairs positions at the US Agency for International Development (USAid). The founding of v-Fluence in 2001 came amid growing public policy battles over GM crops and pesticides commonly used by farmers and other applicators to kill insects and weeds. Mounting scientific evidence has linked some pesticides to a host of health risks, including leukemia, Parkinsons, and cancers of the bladder, colon, bone marrow, lung, blood cells and pancreas, as well as reproductive problems, learning disorders and problems of the immune system. The concerns about various documented health impacts have led multiple countries to ban or otherwise restrict several types of pesticides. In a speech Byrne delivered at an agricultural industry conference in 2016, he made his stance clear. He characterized conventional agriculture as being under attack from what he called the protest industry, and alleged that powerful anti-pesticide, pro-organic forces were spending billions of dollars creating fears about pesticide use, GM crops and other industrial agriculture issues. Were almost always cast as the villain in these scenarios, he told conference attendees. And so we need to flip that around. We need to recast the stories that we tell in alternative ways. v-Fluences early clients included Syngenta and Monsanto. Later, it secured funding from the US government as part of a contract with a third party. Shocking and shameful Public spending records show the USAid contracted with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a non-governmental organization that manages a government initiative to introduce GM crops in African and Asian nations. In turn, IFPRI paid v-Fluence a little more than $400,000 from roughly 2013 through 2019 for services that included counteracting critics of modern agriculture approaches in Africa and Asia. v-Fluence was to set up the private social network portal that would, among other things, provide tactical support for efforts to gain acceptance for the GM crops. The company then launched a platform called Bonus Eventus, named after the Roman god of agriculture whose name translates to good outcome. The individuals profiled in the portal include more than 500 environmental advocates, scientists, politicians and others seen as opponents of pesticides and GM crops. USAid did not respond to a request for comment. Details in the profiles appear to be drawn from a range of online sources, and many of them include disparaging allegations authored by people funded by, or otherwise connected to, the chemical industry. Early versions of the profiles were compiled by Academics Review, a non-profit created with the involvement of Monsanto and Byrne. Today Bonus Eventus is invite-only and counts more than 1,000 members. They include executives from the worlds largest agrochemical companies and their lobbyists, as well as academics, government officials and high-profile policymakers such as the Trump administrations ambassador to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and an agricultural research adviser to USAid. When contacted by reporters, some said they had not signed up to be members of the portal themselves, or were not aware of the content. One said they would cancel their membership. A profile of a London-based research professor who has spoken out against agrochemical companies and GM crops contains several deeply personal details of his life unrelated to his positions on crops or chemicals. The profile describes a wife who died of suicide-related complications after discovering an extra-marital affair by her husband and following a 23-year struggle with depression and schizophrenia A profile of a prominent US scientist that is laden with critical commentary includes details about a 33-year-old traffic violation and the scientists spending on political campaign contributions, along with a personal phone number (that has one digit wrong) and the scientists former home address. An Indiana pediatric health researcher who studies pesticide impacts on babies is also profiled. The information lists a home address, along with the propertys approximate value, and the names and other details of his wife and two children. A profile of former New York Times food writer Mark Bittman, a critic of industrial agriculture, is 2,000 words long and includes a description of where he lives, details of two marriages and personal hobbies, and an extensive criticisms section. Its filled with mistakes and lies, Bittman said of the profile about him. Still, he said, the fact that he is profiled is far less of a concern than the larger context in which the profile exists. Bittman said that it was a terrible thing for taxpayer dollars to be used to help a PR agency work against sincere, legitimate and scientific efforts to do agriculture better. Related: These farmers have Parkinsons disease and claim a weedkiller is to blame The fact that for well over a century the government has steadfastly supported industrial agriculture both directly and indirectly, at the expense of agroecology is a direct roadblock in the face of efforts to produce nutritious food thats universally accessible while minimizing environmental impact. Thats sad, tragic, malicious and wrong. Both Lighthouse Reports and an author of this article, Carey Gillam, are also profiled on the platform. Collecting personal information about individuals who oppose the industry goes way beyond regular lobbying efforts, said Dan Antonowicz, an associate professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada who researches and lectures about corporate conduct. There is a lot to be concerned about here. CropLife International, the pre-eminent advocacy group for agricultural pesticides, said it would be looking into the issues raised in this piece, after reporters asked about the dozens of CropLife employees around the world who are listed as members of Bonus Eventus. Actions in Africa v-Fluence and Byrne personally have developed extensive connections with government officials who he has advised on attempts to introduce pesticides regulations outside the US. In 2018 Byrne attended a meeting with the US trade representative to discuss concrete and actionable ways to assist the agency in its pesticide policies. Following the meeting, Byrne was invited to meet with the governments chief agricultural trade negotiator. Around the same time, Byrne was invited by the USDA to advise an interagency group tasked with limiting international rules that would reduce pesticides. Byrne instructed the group on efforts to enact stricter pesticide regulations, and referred to a politicized threat from the agroecology movement. A key region for v-Fluence work has been Africa. According to the government contracts, v-Fluence was to work with USAids program to elevate pro-GM crop messaging in Africa and counter GM opponents. It focused in particular on Kenya. Byrne denies that v-Fluence has any past or current contracts with the US government. He said the US funds other organizations with whom we work, and over more than 20 years weve had multiple projects funded by the US and other governments. Opposition to GM crops and pesticides has been strong in Kenya, where approximately 40% of the population works in agriculture. Kenyan farm workers use many pesticides that are banned in Europe and are routinely exposed to these products, often without adequate protective equipment or access to healthcare. About 300 African individuals and organizations, mainly in Kenya, are profiled on Bonus Eventus. Bonus Eventus lists more than 30 Kenyan members with access to its private network, more than any other country outside North America. Members from Kenya include a high-ranking official at the ministry of agriculture, livestock and fisheries, and a former chief executive of the National Biosafety Authority. As part of its Kenya campaign, Byrne and v-Fluence were involved in efforts to undermine a conference that was to be held in Nairobi in June 2019, organized by the World Food Preservation Center, an organization which provides education on agricultural technology in developing countries. Scheduled speakers included scientists whose work has exposed the health and environmental impacts of pesticides, and it came as Kenyan lawmakers were about to launch a parliamentary inquiry into hazardous pesticides. Records show that in early February 2019, Byrne sent his weekly newsletter to members of Bonus Eventus. The newsletter warned that speakers of the upcoming conference included anti-science critics of conventional agriculture, and that promotional materials include claims that GMOs and pesticides may cause cancer and other diseases. The email mentioned the conferences sponsors and linked to the Bonus Eventus profile of the World Food Preservation Center. The day after he sent the email, prominent members of the Bonus Eventus network took action. Margaret Karembu, an influential Kenyan policymaker and early member of Bonus Eventus, sent an email alert to a group that included agrichemical employees and USDA officials, many of whom were also members of Bonus Eventus. [The pesticides conference] is a big concern and we need to strategize, Karembu wrote, starting lengthy discussions about how they could neutralize the negative messaging of the conference, as one participant described. Just days later, the organizers of the conference received emails informing them that their funders were pulling out. Dr Martin Fregene, director of agriculture and agro-industry at the African Development Bank (AfDB), wrote to them: I am afraid the aforementioned conference is one-sided and sends a wrong message about the AfDBs position on agricultural technologies approved for use by regulatory bodies. The next week, Byrne sent a news alert to his network telling them AfDB and another sponsor had withdrawn their support of the conference. He later shared the information personally with select employees at USAid and USDA. Byrne said he had no involvement in the loss of funding for the conference. We had no role in any donor withdrawing support of this conference, he said. Neither USDA nor USAid responded to questions about the conference. A spokesperson for AfDB said that the banks senior management had taken the decision to withdraw funding from the conference after they were contacted by Syngenta, which expressed concerns that the conference was one-sided. The director of World Food Preservation Centre, Charles Wilson, who is a former research scientist at the USDA said he had felt unseen forces operating against the conference, but was surprised to learn the details. By targeting certain speakers as anti-science, this firm appears to be borrowing from an old industry playbook to attempt to squash legitimate areas of scientific inquiry before they take root, he said. Dr Million Belay, general coordinator of the Ugandan non-profit Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), who was scheduled to speak at the conference, said the findings were deeply concerning, describing them as a blatant attempt to silence and discredit movements advocating for Africas food sovereignty. Bonus Eventus has created profiles on both Belay and AFSA. In addition to attempting to undermine the conference, v-Fluence associates and Bonus Eventus members have sought to spread disputed claims about pesticides and attempts to limit their use. In 2020, a petition to ban hazardous pesticides was resubmitted to the Kenyan parliament. At the same time, a stream of articles authored by Bonus Eventus members started circulating about the supposed devastation that the proposed ban would wreak on Kenyas food security. In February 2020, for instance, James Wachai Njoroge, who is currently listed as senior counsel on v-Fluences website, published an article on the European Scientist website with the headline, Europes anti-science plague descends on Africa. He argued: European activists are putting lives at risk in East Africa, turning a plague of insects into a real prospect of widespread famine. Njoroges articles were reposted on several leading climate denial websites, and articles authored by Bonus Eventus members making the same claims were published in US papers including the Wall Street Journal and Town Hall. Hans Dreyer, a former head of crop protection at the Food and Agriculture Organization, said that in his view the Njoroge articles were utterly biased and highly misleading and appeared to be attempts to discourage new pesticide regulation. Byrne said Njoroge was not under contract with v-Fluence at the time and that the firm had never engaged him to produce content, publish articles, or other activities. The Kenyan parliament ordered several government agencies to conduct a wide-ranging review of the countrys pesticides regulations, but the process stalled. More than 20 pesticides banned in Europe remain common in Kenya. Defend or be damned A lawsuit naming Byrne and v-Fluence as co-defendants with Syngenta was filed in Missouri by a woman and her son, Donna and James Evitts, who both suffer from Parkinsons disease and claim it is linked to decades of use of the herbicide paraquat on their family farm. The suit contains specific allegations about the role of v-Fluence in hiding the dangers of paraquat, which has been banned in the EU, the UK, China and dozens of other countries, though not in the US. There have been several studies linking paraquat to Parkinsons; one of the most recent was published in February in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Epidemiology. The Evitts lawsuit is one of thousands of cases brought by people alleging they developed Parkinsons from using Syngentas paraquat products. Originally filed in Missouri, the case is pending in the US district court for the southern district of Illinois, where thousands of paraquat cases have been consolidated. The first US paraquat trial is scheduled to get under way in February. Donnas husband, George Evitts, also had Parkinsons and died in 2007 at the age of 63. He had sprayed paraquat around his farm from 1971 to shortly before his diagnosis and death, according to the lawsuit. Donna was diagnosed with Parkinsons two years after her husband died. Their son, who grew up on the farm, was diagnosed with the same disease in 2014. The lawsuit cites sealed court records in alleging that Syngenta signed a contract with v-Fluence in 2002 to help the company deal with negative information coming to light about its paraquat herbicides. The lawsuit alleges v-Fluence went on to help Syngenta create false or misleading online content that was Paraquat-friendly, used search engine optimization to suppress negative information about paraquat in internet searches, and investigated the social media pages of victims who reported injuries to Syngentas crisis hotline. According to the lawsuit, Byrne traveled to Brussels in September 2003 to meet with Syngenta executives, where they agreed to protect paraquat products from mounting concerns and regulatory actions. The meeting participants agreed to adopt an approach of defend or be damned, the lawsuit alleges. One of the alleged v-Fluence jobs was to develop a website called the Paraquat Information Center at paraquat.com that carried a reassuring message about the safety of paraquat and asserted there was no valid scientific link between the chemical and Parkinsons. The site had various featured articles encouraging paraquat use, such as one headlined: Why Africa needs paraquat. The website did not have a Syngenta-branded logo as its other web pages did, and it operated with a domain that was separate from Syngenta. It was only identified as affiliated with Syngenta in a small font at the very bottom of the website. It was not until this year as litigation against the company accelerated that Syngenta brought the website under its company web address and added its logo to the top of the page, making it clear the information was coming from Syngenta. In a letter sent by Byrnes lawyer to Evittss lawyers as part of the ongoing litigation, the lawyer confirmed that v-Fluence had done work for Syngenta for more than 20 years, but said: Syngenta never engaged v-Fluence to perform any work on Paraquat other than to monitor publicly available information, provide benchmark assessments of content and stakeholder sources, and to provide supplemental contextual analysis. Byrne said he would not respond to questions about the pending litigation, which he broadly characterized as containing manufactured and false claims. When asked for comment, Syngenta denied the allegations made in the lawsuit and said scientific studies do not support the claim of a causal link between exposure to paraquat and the development of Parkinsons disease. The company did not answer questions about Bonus Eventus and v-Fluence, saying it would address those claims in court. The New Lede and the Guardian have previously revealed that Syngentas internal research found adverse effects of paraquat on brain tissue decades ago but the company withheld that information from regulators, instead working to discredit independent science linking the chemical to brain disease and developing a Swat team to counter critics. In its response to the stories, Syngenta did not comment on these specific claims. It asserted that no peer-reviewed scientific publication has established a causal connection between paraquat and Parkinsons disease. The 2020s v-Fluence had new prospects with the US government in the 2020s. In 2020 the USDA contracted with a strategic communications firm called White House Writers Group (WHWG) for up to $4.9m. It was part of a USDA strategy to undermine Europes Farm to Fork, an environmental policy which aimed to reduce pesticide use by 50% by 2030. v-Fluence was to provide data services as part of the WHWG contract, which also included access to Bonus Eventus, according to records obtained from the USDA. Records do not specify how the money was to be divided between the firms. The contract was planned to last until 2025 but public spending reports suggest that only one payment has been made under the contract for $50,000 to WHWG. The USDA said that it was reviewing the agreement. Related: Revealed: The secret push to bury a weedkillers link to Parkinsons disease Clark Judge, managing director of White House Writers Group, said his organization had tried to revive the contract, to no avail. He stated: Bonus Eventus was, and I presume still is, an online community for scholars, journalists, and the like who share perspectives and information on agricultural topics. When asked about the findings of this investigation, Byrne said: There is no unethical, illegal, or otherwise inappropriate outreach, lobbying or related activities by our organization of any kind. Some experts say they are disturbed by the US governments association with v-Fluence. I dont think most people realize the degree of corporate espionage and USDAs complicity with it, said Austin Frerick, who served as co-chair of the Biden campaigns agriculture antitrust policy committee and recently authored a book about concentration of power in the food system. The coordination here the fact that USDA is part of this is really scary. Bonus Eventus has been active in recent days. Five days before this story was published, after reporters asked Byrne and others for comment, the Bonus Eventus portal alerted members to the upcoming investigative reporting project. They provided members with an article describing the project as an ethical trainwreck with no concept of journalistic integrity. Russell Findlay has been elected as the new leader of the Scottish Conservatives - Andrew Milligan/PA Russell Findlay has appealed to the Scottish Tories warring factions to unite behind him and focus on beating Reform UK after he was convincingly elected as the partys new leader. The West Scotland MSP said the Scottish Conservatives needed to get our house in order following a fractious leadership campaign marred by bitter infighting and allegations of dirty tricks. In a direct challenge to his internal critics after he was elected with 61.7 per cent of the votes cast, he demanded that they respect his mandate and said that they had more in common than divided them. With barely 18 months to go before the 2026 Holyrood election, Mr Findlay argued they needed to focus instead on winning back thousands of voters who had deserted the party for Reform UK. Mr Findlay made a direct appeal to Scots who are scunnered with the mainstream parties and backed Nigel Farages party in the recent general election, saying he was not a career politician. In a direct appeal to Reform voters, the former investigative journalist said: I understand your frustration and your sense that nobody really represents your views or speaks up for you. Mr Findlay said that would change under his leadership, adding: We will work hard to earn your trust by doing things differently. Russell Findlay (right) with Murdo Fraser and Meghan Gallacher after he is announced as new Scottish Conservatives leader - Andrew Milligan/PA But Dame Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labours deputy leader, said: Rearranging the deckchairs will do nothing to stop the Tories downward slide after 14 years of letting Scotland down. Mr Findlay comfortably beat Murdo Fraser and Meghan Gallacher in the three-way fight to succeed Douglas Ross, who announced his resignation as Scottish Tory leader during the general election campaign. He secured 2,565 votes compared with Mr Frasers 1,187 votes and Ms Gallachers 403. A total of 4,155 Scottish Tories cast their ballots, 60 per cent of the 6,941 party membership. Mr Fraser pledged to unite behind Mr Findlays leadership but repeated his accusation that the party establishment had worked to ensure a convincing margin of victory. However, this was ridiculed by Mr Findlay, the former shadow justice secretary, who said he was looking forward to meeting this establishment. Robert Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat - the four candidates for the UK party leadership - sent their congratulations to Mr Findlay and said they looked forward to working with him. They were joined by Rishi Sunak, the outgoing UK leader and former prime minister. He will now travel to the UK party conference in Birmingham, where he will address a Scottish fringe meeting on Sunday and join a panel on the main conference stage. In his victory speech at an event announcing the result in central Edinburgh, Mr Findlay said: Now, everyone in our party must come together as one united team. Lets start the hard work right now today to win back public trust. And I want to deliver a message directly to people across Scotland who dont feel anyone represents them. Who are scunnered by the divisive policies and fringe obsessions of the Scottish Parliament. Who feel let down and failed by politicians of every party including ours. Who think politicians are all the same. If you feel that way, I get it. In a message to Reform voters, he said: We will be a voice for decent, mainstream Scotland and for the values of hard work, self-reliance and fairness for taxpayers. Well spend all our time and energy on your concerns, your hopes and your needs. We know you dont expect miracles from politicians. We know you just want some common sense, for a change. Rebuild as a team Mr Ross was heavily critiicised for listening only to a small circle of advisers and Mr Findlay said he would try to rebuild as a team the partys group of MSPs at Holyrood. Although he refused to guarantee senior positions in his shadow Cabinet for Mr Fraser and Ms Gallacher, he said he would start listening to our colleagues, to our members, respecting them. Reform UK won 7 per cent of the popular vote in the general election in Scotland, despite holding only one press event, and is predicted to win seats at Holyrood in 2026. Most of its support came from the Scottish Tories, whose vote share almost halved to only 12.7 per cent, its worst-ever performance. Reform has continued to poll strongly in council by-elections, attracting 6 per cent and 10.2 per cent support in two Perth and Kinross Council seats contested on Thursday. Mr Findlay said: We are acutely conscious of their vote share in the general election, and as leader, its our job to reconnect with those people who feel, frankly, scunnered by a lot of politicians, and persuade them that what we stand for represents their interests. But Mr Fraser warned against chasing Nigel Farages agenda, arguing the Scottish Tories should instead bring forward policies that will attract these people back. He said the party had to draw a line under whats happened over the last few weeks, and recognise, as Russell Findlay said, the real enemy is out there, and we need to unite and move forward. Mr Fraser admitted he was disappointed with the result. He said it was clear to me from the outset that Mr Findlay has had major establishment backing perhaps as long as a year ago, so Im not surprised that he had a comfortable victory. Mr Ross resigned as leader after replacing David Duguid at the last minute as the partys candidate for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East breaking his promise not to stand again for a Westminster seat. Mr Duguid was seriously ill at the time with a spinal injury but has insisted he would have held his seat from his hospital bed. Mr Ross failed to win the constituency. Partys candidate The Telegraph also disclosed allegations that in July 2023 Mr Ross tried to persuade Kathleen Robertson to let him take her place as the partys general election candidate for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey. It was alleged that he told Ms Robertson, the leader of Moray council, that he would quit immediately as party leader and he wanted Mr Findlay to replace him. However, she was said to have rejected his proposal. Mr Fraser argued the leadership contest should be suspended pending an investigation, and Ms Gallacher resigned as the partys deputy leader over her concerns about the claims. The Telegraph also disclosed earlier this month that she had tabled a formal complaint with the party accusing the shadow Scottish secretary of threatening her political career. Ms Gallacher lodged a complaint alleging that John Lamont warned that her future in the party was at risk following allegations he was involved in dirty tricks targeting her campaign. Mr Lamont, who endorsed Mr Findlay, vehemently denied any wrongdoing and warned her he would take legal action if she refused to withdraw her allegations. Kevin Stewart, an SNP MSP, said: The face of Tory politics in Scotland may have changed, but Russell Findlays track record shows he has no desire to stand up for Scotlands interests. The Tories head into their party conference totally divided and distracted by infighting. Keir Starmer Sir Keir Starmer has come clean on why he called for the return of the sausages rather than Israeli hostages in his Labour conference speech. Were you hungry? Was it in the autocue?, I asked him this week when I was covering his visit to New York City for GB News. The PM replied: I just mangled the beginning of the word, I think. Have you never done that? Well no, actually. But then I have never addressed a Labour Party conference. These things are there to give you all the opportunity to rib me, he added. Just a gentle grilling, Prime Minister. Look back with teddy John Osbornes teddy bears are being put up for sale next month. It turns out the Angry Young Man of British theatre was a devotee of bears and and the arts trust that bought his home wants to raise funds to pay for repairs. The Look Back in Anger playwright, who died in 1994 at the age of 65, liked to project a curmudgeonly image, but a small part of his heart belonged to teddies. The Olympia Auctions sale will include other bric-a-brac from Osbornes life, down to a pair of his sunglasses and his sporran. Not that he was Scottish. His father had Welsh blood and his mum was a Cockney. Too much information! Childrens author Dame Jacqueline Wilson has been talking to the Bath Chronicle about writing sex scenes in adult-orientated fiction and the impact on her 57-year-old daughter Emma. Shes sophisticated she knows perfectly well, what you write as fiction is not whats happened to you. But it is a bit weird your mum writing sex scenes. Royal salute Broadcaster Dame Jenni Murray has been recalling a BBC documentary she made with the King, when he was plain Prince Charles and his elder boy was still young. She tells Saga magazine: Charles introduced me to his son very formally and Williams response, to the horror of his father, was to stick out his tongue and make a gesture with his fingers. Charles told him off. I said, Dont worry I have one of those at home. Random Starmer Spare a thought for James Starmer, a software engineer from Baltimore in the United Stares whose handle on X, formerly Twitter, is @starmer, and is frequently the butt of jibes aimed at the Prime Minister (@Keir_Starmer). James has had to field an attack from Labour MP Diane Abbott over the PMs meeting with Italian premier Giorgia Meloni to discuss cracking down on illegal migration. Little wonder that James hasnt posted in years, when he said: Im a random dude, not Keir Starmer. Jackies put down Author Kathy Lette has been fondly recalling her late friend and fellow author Jackie Collins, sister of Dame Joan, author of racy tomes such as Hollywood Wives and The World is Full of Married Men. Lette said Jackie was just as sassy as Joan: Over lunch a few years ago, she told me about being ambushed, age 15, by a flasher. Jackies sanguine response deflated more than his ego. Cold today, isnt it? was her withering response. Allegras space-bound Intriguing job move of the week. Short-lived Boris Johnson adviser Allegra Stratton has joined the board of Shetland Space Centre Ltd. Reaching for her space suit, Stratton tells me: We hope to start test flights sometime next year. To infinity and beyond, Allegra! Divisive fruit Finally an explanation from ex-Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg on why he has a strong dislike of bananas. They are smelly and have a revolting taste so lead to despair, he tells me. Trifle has the same effect on me. Warming rhymes Thanks to readers who sent in limericks inspired by Sir Keir Starmers decision to remove the winter fuel allowance from millions of pensioners, while accepting free clothes, spectacles and use of a millionaires flat. Stephen Doble offered: Said Lady Vic and Sir Keir/ Clothes for work are incredibly dear/ Luckily Lord Alli/ With whom were quite pally,/ Covers the cost of our gear. Brian Stanton added: Oh dear, oh dear , oh dear/ Spare a thought for Sir Keir/ With unions getting bolder/ Pensioners getting colder/ Hes now having to buy his own gear. But my favourite was from Graham Jones: The new Prime Minister Sir Keir/ Said to pensioners Youve nothing to fear/ But as you dont vote for us/ Just stop all this fuss/ And put on a warm cardie, Dear! Peterborough, published every Friday at 7pm, is edited by Christopher Hope. You can reach him at peterborough@telegraph.co.uk Sky had hoped for exclusive rights to distribute the news Harry Potter series in Europe Sky has launched legal action against Warner Brothers after allegedly being cut out of its new Harry Potter series. According to Skys legal complaint, the companies a greed they would co-fund the production in a 2019 deal that would have given Sky the exclusive rights to market and distribute the Harry Potter series throughout Europe. Instead, Sky claims, its longstanding partner decided to keep the series for itself for the launch of its new HBO Max streaming service. Sky is now seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages after allegedly being brazenly cut out of the show, which is expected to be released in 2026 or 2027. Warner has brazenly denied Sky its right to partner on Warners highly valuable decade-long, tentpole television series adapting JK Rowlings iconic Harry Potter novels, it argued in its complaint, filed in a New York court on Friday. Instead, Warner has largely disregarded the parties agreement and sought to keep the Harry Potter content for itself so that Warner can use it as the cornerstone of the launch of its Max streaming service in Europe. Sky also claimed that Warner Brothers had consistently breached the 2019 agreement, with the US media giant said to have failed in its obligations to provide it with at least four series per year to partner on. Misconduct Warner was obligated to present Sky with at least four shows per year across 2021, 2022, and 2023 but undisputedly fell far short of that mark, in certain years offering barely a single qualifying series, the complaint states. It also withheld critical, contractually required information necessary for Sky to evaluate any potential options that it did receive, Sky claimed. This misconduct has deprived Sky of its bargained-for opportunity to co-fund, co-produce, and subsequently exploit exclusively in UK and European territories all manner of top-end Warner content. A Sky spokesman said in a statement: Warner Brothers. Discovery is a longstanding partner to our business. In the course of our work together, we have been unable to resolve a dispute over a specific agreement. As a result of exposure to harm and losses we have initiated proceedings to safeguard our interests and enforce our rights to partner in the production and distribution of highly valuable content. We look forward to achieving a swift and conclusive resolution of the matter. The new Harry Potter series launched a casting call for actors earlier this month, seeking children between the ages of 9 and 11 who live in the UK or Ireland to play Harry, Ron, and Hermione. According to the notice, the production team is committed to inclusive, diverse casting. A spokesman for Warner Brothers Discovery claimed that Sky was deeply concerned about the viability of its business and that its legal action was a negotiating tactic. The HBO and Max licensing agreements expire at the end of 2025, and this lawsuit is a baseless attempt by Sky and Comcast to try and gain leverage in its negotiations for our programming beyond that date, he said. We know HBO-branded shows are critical to Sky, as evidenced by their desire for over a year to find a way to renew our agreements, and this lawsuit makes it clear that Sky is deeply concerned about the viability of its business were it to lose our award-winning content. WBD will vigorously defend itself from this unfounded lawsuit as we move forward undeterred with plans to launch Max, including the new HBO Harry Potter series, in the UK and other European markets in 2026. Police dropped their investigation in 30,000 stalking cases - iiievgeniy/E+ Police are failing to protect stalking victims because they are not catching perpetrators, watchdogs have warned. The group of official watchdogs found that police were not identifying, investigating or prosecuting potentially violent stalkers. They found cases where officers had failed to spot that the victim was at risk of serious violence and even being killed. The watchdogs demanded that legislation be rewritten to make it easier to prosecute stalkers and urgent action by police to improve the way they tackled the crime. Around one in seven people aged 16 and over in England and Wales has been a victim of stalking at least once, but only 5 per cent of reports of the offence to police result in a charge by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Police dropped their investigation in 30,000 cases a quarter of the total because of evidential difficulties even though the victim supported action against the perpetrator. The report by the heads of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), inspectorate of police and College of Policing is the result of their investigation into a super-complaint raised two years ago by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust (SLT) on behalf of the National Stalking Consortium. Their super-complaint a process by which charities can seek redress for police failings reported flawed investigations, instances where stalking was not being properly identified, officers minimising or trivialising such behaviour and the risk of victims being seriously hurt or killed not being recognised. The watchdogs 159-page report said they found clear evidence supporting the concerns raised and, despite examples of good practice, in too many cases the police response was not good enough and victims were being let down. They said police were failing to identify and record cases as stalking, not recognising and responding to the risk of harm, lacking empathy for or underestimating the psychological impact of harassment on victims and not deploying skilled investigators to cases. They found police were failing to use their powers to protect victims such as stalking protection orders (SPOs). These ban a perpetrator from approaching a victim with a maximum penalty of five years in jail if breached. They said the use of SPOs was worryingly low. At the same time officers were also failing to arrest suspects when appropriate, which could protect victims from harm. IOPC director general Rachel Watson said stalking victims needed to have confidence to come forward, knowing they would be listened to and supported by those whose role it is to keep them safe. But she added: Sadly, we also saw too many cases where police failed to recognise stalking or take the necessary steps to protect victims and policing must act now to improve this. Andy Cooke, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, said the seriousness of stalking should not be underestimated and police forces must do all they can to tackle it with the utmost urgency. Despite previous calls for improvement, he added: It is concerning that we are still not seeing change as quickly as we should; investigations are often not effective enough and all the risks to victims are not being identified. While examples of positive practice were found, this progress is not significant enough to achieve the outcomes all victims deserve. Change is needed, and todays report must be a springboard for action. According to the report, too often their investigation uncovered examples of the police not taking stalking seriously enough. The watchdogs found it especially concerning that in some cases they reviewed police had not identified risk of serious harm or homicide to a victim. Sir Andy Marsh, the chief executive of the College of Policing police should explore how emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) could be used to spot stalking risks in cases at the earliest opportunity to allow offenders to be targeted and victims supported and protected from harm. Mr Marsh urged victims of stalking to come forward as he admitted it was under-reported. While 1.6 million were said to be victims, only 120,000 offences were reported to police. He said: We know that actually, victims of crime tend not to report stalking until it has become such a psychological trauma for them, or they feel so fearful theyre going to come to the police for help. We want them to come to the police earlier. Emma Lingley-Clark, the SLT charitys interim chief executive, welcomed the findings, describing it as a pivotal moment for police forces to demonstrate their commitment to improving the criminal justice experience and outcomes for victims of stalking. She said it is not enough to just say we will do better, instead now we need to see a real commitment to preventing the numerous failures encountered by stalking victims. Claire Waxman, the Londons Victims Commissioner, said the report demonstrated the need for urgent reform so stalkers were brought to justice and victims were better protected as she called on the Government to overhaul legislation so there is a single offence which recognises the severity and impact of this crime. Deputy Chief Constable Paul Mills, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) lead on stalking, said: We remain committed to doing everything possible to improve the policing response for victims of stalking. We are carefully working through the recommendations made for policing and will work closely with our partners across the criminal justice system and beyond to further improve and standardise the service victims receive. A Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) spokesman said: We are continuing to work closely with police to build a picture of a suspects manipulative behaviour and actions to present a robust case in court while utilising protective orders to safeguard victims from repeat offending. Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, said: Behind the findings in this report are heart-breaking testimonies from victims. Stalking is an insidious crime that can leave survivors traumatised. It also sets out important recommendations for how the whole justice system can better tackle this awful crime. We are already actively considering these, looking at how we can work with the police to overhaul how we respond to this crime and put more perpetrators behind bars. We thank the Suzy Lamplugh Trust for this report and we will respond fully in due course. Donald Trump was due to meet Keir Starmer, but the British PM said he would not be meeting Kamala Harris Donald Trump shared a two-hour dinner with Sir Keir Starmer after heaping praise on the popular Prime Minister. The former president said that Sir Keir had run a great election campaign before they met for the first time at Trump Tower in New York. The Prime Minister asked for the meeting as he looks to build ties with the Republican candidate ahead of the US election in November. He had also hoped to meet Kamala Harris, the Democrat candidate, but said that diary challenges had meant it was not possible to do so. He ran a great race Asked what he thought of Sir Keir, Trump joked: Well, Im going to see him in about an hour so I have to be nice! He then added: I actually think hes very nice. He ran a great race, he did very well, its very early, hes very popular. The Republican candidate also praised Nigel Farage and said his Reform party deserved to win more seats. Reform won 14.3pc of the vote in Julys election, which was the third highest proportion nationwide, but because its support was spread out it only translated into five MPs. In contrast the Liberal Democrats, who won 12.2pc, clinched 72 seats because their vote was heavily concentrated in parts of the south. Mr Trump said: I think Nigel is great, Ive known him for a long time. He had a great election too, picked up a lot of seats, more seats than he was allowed to have actually. They acknowledged that he won but for some reason you have a strange system over there, you might win them but you dont get them. Sir Keir was in New York for the UN General Assembly, where he gave a major speech denouncing Russias invasion of Ukraine. His meeting with Mr Trump was scheduled to come just hours after the Republican nominee gave his strongest signal yet that he would scale back support for Kyiv. Ahead of the talks, Sir Keir said: Itll be really to establish a relationship between the two of us. Im a great believer in personal relations on the international stage. I think it really matters that you know who your counterpart is in any given country, and know them you know personally, get to know them face to face. Obviously, I still want to speak to Harris as well. But you know, the usual diary challenges, but its good that this one now has been fixed. Sir Keir was asked whether he would be prepared to stand up to Trump if he becomes president again on global issues including Ukraine. The Republican candidate criticised Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday and said Kyiv should have given up a little bit to appease Vladimir Putin. We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal, Zelensky, he said at a campaign event in North Carolina. Asked whether he would confront Trump over his views, Sir Keir said: The first thing I think is important to say in relation to this is weve obviously had a special relationship with the US for a long time, forged in really difficult circumstances. That always sits above whoever holds the particular office, either in the US or the UK, and it is really important. I think its probably as strong now as its ever been, in relation to the Middle East and Ukraine. He added: The US people will decide who they want as their president, and we will work with whoever is president, as you would expect. Im not going to speculate on what any particular issues may be the other side of the election. The talks, held at Trump Tower in New York, were the first between Sir Keir Starmer and Donald Trump - Adam Vaughan/Justin Lane/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock No pictures will be released of Sir Keir Starmer and Donald Trump after their first meeting on Thursday night. The British Government hailed it as a diplomatic coup when the former US president agreed to meet the Prime Minister in New York. But despite this, both governments have declined to release a photograph of the two-hour dinner. The decision has been made even though Trump has in the past been pictured with a number of foreign leaders. It will raise suggestions that Sir Keir wants to make the meeting as low-profile as possible to avoid him being tainted by too close a relationship with the Republican contender, who is unpopular with Labours Left-wing supporters. There is also an issue around embarrassing comments made about Trump by David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, who was at the dinner. Six years ago, when he was an opposition backbencher, he branded the former US president a woman-hating neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath and a tyrant in a toupee. The Prime Minister had also hoped to meet Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, but she was too busy campaigning. Longstanding friendship The talks, held at Trump Tower in New York, were the first between Sir Keir and the former US president as they aimed to boost relations with each other before the US election. Downing Street released few details at all about the two-hour dinner. A spokesman said: They discussed the longstanding friendship between the United Kingdom and the United States and the importance of continuing to develop the strong and enduring partnership between our two countries. It is not known what they ate, although it is believed Trump usually eats well-done steak at such events. The Prime Minister was in the city for the UN General Assembly, where he gave a major speech denouncing Russias invasion of Ukraine. His meeting with Trump came hours after the Republican nominee gave his strongest signal yet that he would scale back support for Kyiv. Before the talks, Sir Keir said: Itll be really to establish a relationship between the two of us. Im a great believer in personal relations on the international stage. I think it really matters that you know who your counterpart is in any given country, and know them you know personally, get to know them face to face. Obviously, I still want to speak to Harris as well. But you know, the usual diary challenges, but its good that this one now has been fixed. As strong as its ever been Sir Keir was asked whether he would be prepared to stand up to Trump if he becomes US president again on global issues including Ukraine, after the Republican candidate urged Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, to give up a little bit to appease Vladimir Putin. The first thing I think is important to say in relation to this is weve obviously had a special relationship with the US for a long time, forged in really difficult circumstances, he said. That always sits above whoever holds the particular office, either in the US or the UK, and it is really important. I think its probably as strong now as its ever been, in relation to the Middle East and Ukraine. He added: The US people will decide who they want as their president, and we will work with whoever is president, as you would expect. Im not going to speculate on what any particular issues may be on the other side of the election. Storm damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Asheville, North Carolina, on Saturday - Sean Rayford/Getty Images Heavy rains from powerful Hurricane Helene left people stranded, without shelter and awaiting rescue on Saturday, as the cleanup began from a tempest that killed at least 64 people, according to the Associated Press, caused widespread destruction across the US Southeast and left millions without power. Ive never seen so many people homeless as what I have right now, said Janalea England, of Steinhatchee, Florida, a small river town along the states rural Big Bend, as she turned her commercial fish market into a storm donation site for friends and neighbours, many of whom couldnt get insurance on their homes. Helene blew ashore in Floridas Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday with winds of 140mph (225kph). From there, it quickly moved through Georgia, where Governor Brian Kemp said Saturday that it looks like a bomb went off after viewing splintered homes and debris-covered highways from the air. Weakened, Helene then soaked the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains, sending creeks and rivers over their banks and straining dams. Western North Carolina was isolated because of landslides and flooding that forced the closure of Interstate 40 and other roads. All those closures delayed the start of the East Tennessee State University football game against The Citadel because the Buccaneers drive to Charleston, South Carolina, took 16 hours. There have been hundreds of water rescues, none more dramatic than in rural Unicoi County in East Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff were plucked by helicopter from a hospital rooftop on Friday. And the rescues continued into the following day in Buncombe County, North Carolina, where part of Asheville was under water. To say this caught us off guard would be an understatement, said Quentin Miller, the county sheriff. With at least 25 killed in South Carolina, Helene is the deadliest tropical storm for the state since Hurricane Hugo killed 35 people when it came ashore just north of Charleston in 1989. Deaths also have been reported in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. Updates from the height of the hurricanes passage on Thursday and Friday follow. 04:54 PM BST Pictured: Scenes of wreckage in the wake of the storm Atlanta citizen rows through flood waters from Peachtree Creek - ERIK S LESSER/Shutterstock Flood waters inundate the main street in Tarpon Springs, Florida - Joe Raedle/Getty A toppled petrol station in Perry, Florida - AFP/Chandan Khanna 04:47 PM BST Pictured: The wreckage left behind after Helene hit Florida A home in Tampa Bay left in ruins in the aftermath of hurricane Helene - Tampa Bay Times 02:45 PM BST South Carolinians warned against trying to reach home of storms seventh victim A seventh person has died as a result of Storm Helene after a tree fell on a home in South Carolina. Anderson County coroners office urged residents to hold off from trying to reach the scene of the incident to avoid putting themselves in danger. Due to the weather, we do not recommend anyone taking a chance on trying to go to the scene at this time, we do not want anyone to put themselves in danger, a spokeswoman said. It is the first death reported in the state of South Carolina as a result of the storm and the seventh overall. 02:32 PM BST Significant landslides expected in southern Appalachians Landslide warnings are in place across the southern Appalachians as storm Helene migrates north. Numerous significant landslides are expected in steep terrain across the southern Appalachians, the National Hurricane Centre said. This rainfall will likely result in catastrophic and potentially life-threatening flash and urban flooding, along with significant and record river flooding. The region includes parts of the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. 02:28 PM BST Pictured: Rescue missions in Georgia Rescue efforts are under way in Georgia as storm Helene moves north - Twitter/@TODAYshow 02:21 PM BST Power outage at Atlanta mayors home Power lines are down across Atlanta, including at the mayors own home, as flood waters uproot trees in Georgias capital city. Andre Dickens, the mayor of Atlanta, issued a warning to residents to stay at home. He told CNN: Were telling people to stay in the house, stay safe, and let us make sure that the emergency vehicles can get what they need to get to deal with these emergencies. 02:18 PM BST Tampa Bay residents escape floodwaters Residents in Crystal River, Florida, are rescued from floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene - Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times Jamir Lewis wades through floodwaters with his two daughters, Nylah and Aria, in Crystal River, Florida - Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times 02:12 PM BST Falling tree kills one in Florida A second person has been killed in Florida this morning after a tree fell on a house, Governor Ron deSantis told reporters. Theres been another fatality in Dixie County due to a tree falling on a home during the storm, he said in a press conference. The total death toll from storm has reached at least six people so far. 02:09 PM BST Storm moving north at 30mph amid tornado warnings Tropical storm Helene is currently located about 80 miles north east of Atlanta and moving to the north at 30 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. Sustained winds have reduced to 60 mph, but hurricane-force gusts can still occur. Tornadoes are also possible this morning over eastern Georgia, and throughout the afternoon in the Carolinas and southern Virginia. 01:56 PM BST Pictured: Felled oak tree flattens home Ronda Bell looks on after an Oak tree landed on her 100-year-old home in Valdosta, Georgia - Mike Stewart/AP 01:52 PM BST Storm surge reaches 10 feet in Florida Parts of Florida are 10 feet under water as a result of Hurricane Helene. A record storm surge - meaning the rise in ocean water above dry land - was measured in Floridas Big Bend area, topping levels set last year by Hurricane Idalia. Water levels also reached a new record of eight feet in Tampa Bay. 01:40 PM BST Watch: Man and dog rescued by coast guard 01:34 PM BST Tree falls on home killing one A fifth person has been killed in tropical storm Helene after a tree fell on a home in Charlotte, North Carolina, reports suggest. The incident occurred at around 5am this morning after strong winds caused the tree to keel over, the citys fire department said. Another adult trapped with the person who died was rescued, the fire department added. Their condition is unclear. The minor children in the home were not physically harmed, the department posted on Facebook. 01:04 PM BST Flash flood emergency issued in Atlanta A flash flood emergency has been issued for Atlanta until 1pm EST. The warning is understood to cover the downtown area of the city as well as the airport. It is the most severe flood alert the National Weather Service can use and indicates a life-threatening situation. Residents have been warned to move immediately to higher ground. Flash Flood Emergency including North Atlanta GA, Tucker GA and Lilburn GA until 1:15 PM EDT pic.twitter.com/Z7nj2sBmI4 NWS Atlanta (@NWSAtlanta) September 27, 2024 12:24 PM BST Pictured: flooded street in Florida A residential street is flooded as Hurricane Helene moves through Florida - @SiliconBassist/X via REUTERS 12:11 PM BST Three million customers to wake up without power Around three million energy customers will wake up without power on Friday morning because of storm Helene. That includes nearly one million Americans in Georgia, 723,000 in South Carolina and 252,000 in North Carolina. 11:57 AM BST Two more killed after Hurricane Helene Two more deaths have been reported after Hurricane Helene swept through Florida and into Georgia. A firefighter was killed by a tree falling on his car, according to NBC News, while another person was killed when a tree fell on their house in North Carolina. 11:12 AM BST Catastrophic and life-threatening flooding expected Catastrophic, life-threatening, record-breaking flash flooding is expected as storm Helene moves inland on Friday. The National Hurricane Centre said it would continue to wreak havoc in Georgia, the two Carolina states, before moving towards Tennessee and Kentucky. Residents in these areas should be prepared for the possibility of long-duration power outages, it said. Americans have been warned to expected catastrophic flooding - REUTERS 11:02 AM BST Five states affected by Helene Five states have been hit by Helenes strong winds and heavy rain. It made landfall in Florida before moving on to Georgia, North and South Carolina, and is now making its way to Tennessee. 10:31 AM BST More than two million customers left without power More than two million customers have been left without power after Hurricane Helene. Around 1.2 million of those live in Florida, though the number of customers without power in Georgia and South Carolina is rising. 10:30 AM BST Helene weakens again to tropical storm Helene has been weakened to a tropical storm with winds of around 70 mph over Georgia, according to the National Hurricane Centre. It warned that life-threatening storm surge, winds and heavy rains continue. It reached landfall in Florida as a Category 4 storm - just one below the most dangerous. It is is considered to have been one of the most devastating storms in the region in US history. Donald Draughon and his wife Vicki wait for the arrival of Hurricane Helene at Lincoln High School, which was opened as a shelter in Tallahassee, Florida on Friday - REUTERS 10:19 AM BST Watch: Hurricane Helene wreaks havoc 10:04 AM BST Do not be riding around sightseeing! One Florida sheriff has issued a stark warning to local residents, warning them not to ride round sightseeing as sunrise approaches along the east coast. As Hurricane Helene makes its way out of Suwannee County we cannot stress this enough: STAY OFF THE ROADS... DO NOT BE RIDING AROUND SIGHT SEEING!, the sheriffs office for Suwannee County wrote on Facebook. Were fearing the worst when the sun comes up, it added. Streets across Florida, including near St. Pete Beach, flooded as Hurricane Helene made landfall - Getty Images North America 09:38 AM BST Georgia residents told hurricane remains dangerous Hurricane Helene may have been downgraded from Category 1 to 4 but residents in Georgia have been warned the situation remains dangerous and life-threatening. According to the National Hurricane Centre, the hurricane is moving further into the state at a speed of around 30mph. Meanwhile, two weather stations in Georgia have recorded wind gusts over 90 mph. Persons should not leave their shelters, the update read. 09:17 AM BST Watch: Man takes refuge in kayak in flooded living room A Florida resident was forced to take refuge in a kayak in his living room as Hurricane Helene made landfall on Friday. 08:54 AM BST Two million customers without power The number of people without power has risen to nearly two million across four states, with the majority in Florida. 08:43 AM BST Two people killed in Georgia Two people in Wheeler County, Georgia, have died, the county coroner has told CBS News. It takes the total confirmed death toll from Hurricane Helene to three after one person died in Florida. Marty, the girls, and I are saddened to learn of the loss of two lives in Wheeler County this evening. As we join their families in mourning their deaths, we urge all Georgians to brace for further impact from Helene, remain vigilant, and pray for all those affected. https://t.co/LRo0jV7w6Z Governor Brian P. Kemp (@GovKemp) September 27, 2024 08:41 AM BST Watch: DeSantis tells Florida residents to hunker down Ron DeSantis, Floridas governor, urged residents to hunker down as Hurricane Helene made landfall as a Category 4 storm. 08:31 AM BST Which areas have been affected by Helene? Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida in the early hours of the morning, wreaking havoc along the Gulf Coast in cities such as Tampa. It has been making its way to Georgia, though with weakened wind speeds of around 90 mph. A catastrophic and deadly storm surge is occurring along portions of the Florida Big Bend coast, where inundation could reach as high as 20 feet above ground level, along with destructive waves. There is also a danger of life-threatening storm surge along the remainder of the pic.twitter.com/JJBcVlAQI9 National Weather Service (@NWS) September 27, 2024 08:19 AM BST In pictures: Helene causes severe flooding in Cuba Jesus Hernandez guides his granddaughter Angelina via a container through a street flooded in the passing of Hurricane Helene - AP Residents wade through a street flooded in the passing of Hurricane Helene, in Batabano, Cuba - AP A woman wades through a flooded street in Batabano, Mayabeque province, Cuba - AFP 08:12 AM BST Pictured: Sailor and dog in water after boat breaks A US coast guard air station rescued a sailor and his dog after his 36ft boat became disabled off Sanibel Island, Florida. The man called Channel 16, the emergency channel for marine radios, after coming into trouble. A sailors boat was disabled as Hurricane Helene made landfall - REUTERS 07:58 AM BST Helene downgraded to category one Hurricane Helene has been downgraded to a Category 1 storm with wind speeds of around 90 mph. It made landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane, and was downgraded to Category 2 around an hour ago, but has continued to lose power as it moves into the neighbouring state of Georgia. Further weakening is expected as it continues to move north-northeast, the National Weather Service in Tallahassee said. 07:44 AM BST Atlanta fears worst storm in decades Most of Georgias public school districts and several universities have cancelled classes as areas 100 miles north of the Georgia-Florida line anticipated hurricane conditions. Overnight curfews have also been imposed in many cities and counties in south Georgia, including Albany, Valdosta, and Thomasville. Officials in Atlanta, Georgia, fear Helene could be the worst strike on a major Southern inland city in 35 years. Hurricane Helene in the Gulf of Mexico before it moved to Florida and on towards Georgia - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 07:37 AM BST Whats the difference between category two and four? Hurricane Helene has been downgraded from a category four to two in the last hour. Hurricanes are given categories between one and five, depending on their sustained wind speed. Category one and two storms are classified as dangerous, while any higher are considered major hurricanes because of their potential for significant loss of life and damage. 07:29 AM BST Storm made landfall near Keaton Beach Helene arrived barely a year since Hurricane Idalia slammed into Floridas Big Bend and caused widespread damage. Idalia became a Category 4 in the Gulf of Mexico but made landfall as a Category 3 near Keaton Beach, with maximum sustained winds near 125mph. The storms wrath was felt widely, with sustained tropical storm-force winds and hurricane-force gusts along Floridas west coast. Water lapped over a road in Siesta Key near Sarasota and covered some intersections in St. Pete Beach. Lumber and other debris from a fire in Cedar Key a week ago crashed ashore in the rising water. People are splashed by churning surf from Tampa Bay as Hurricane Helene passes offshore in Florida - Getty Images North America National Guard personnel walk through a street flooded due to Hurricane John in Acapulco, Mexico - Shutterstock 07:28 AM BST Joe Biden warns people to evacuate President Joe Biden urged people to heed official evacuation warnings. I urge everyone in and near the path of Helene to listen to local officials and follow evacuation warnings, he said. Take this seriously, and be safe. The governors of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, the Carolinas and Virginia all declared emergencies in their states. One person was killed in Florida when a sign fell on their car and two people were reported killed in a possible tornado in south Georgia as the storm approached. When Floridians wake up tomorrow morning, were going to be waking up to a state where very likely theres been additional loss of life and certainly theres going to be loss of property, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday night. 07:27 AM BST Hurricane a Category 2 system Helene was downgraded to a strong Category 2 hurricane on Friday, hours after it slammed into the southeastern US coast as a Category 4 storm, US forecasters said. Hurricane Helene is now a strong Category 2 hurricane, the National Weather Service in Floridas capital Tallahassee posted on X, after the latest National Hurricane Centre bulletin put maximum sustained windspeeds caused by the storm at 110kph (175kph) , downgrading it on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale. Helene continues to produce catastrophic winds that are now pushing into southern Georgia, the hurricane centre said in an update at 1am lcoal time on Friday. Persons should not leave their shelters and remain in place through the passage of these life-threatening conditions. Satellite image shows Hurricane Helene churning through the Gulf of Florida - REUTERS 07:26 AM BST More than a million without power More than a million people were without power and roads were already flooded ahead of what is expected to be one of the largest Gulf of Mexico storms in decades. The degree of devastation in Florida was not expected to be known until after daybreak. Helene hit Florida packing sustained winds of around 130mph (209kph). Forecasters warned that the enormous system could create a nightmare storm surge and bring dangerous winds and rain across much of the southeastern US. 07:24 AM BST Welcome to our live coverage Were bringing you the latest updates as Hurricane Helene hits Florida on Friday. Unicoi Hospital in Tennessee after Hurricane Helene passed through. Photograph: Virginia State Police via X More than 50 hospital patients and staff were airlifted from the roof of the building in Tennessee on Friday afternoon in a dramatic rescue operation after flash flooding overwhelmed the area. An urgent evacuation was launched as the storm effects of Hurricane Helene were felt far and wide, with the state emergency agency and the national guard responding to the situation that quickly unfolded at Unicoi hospital in Erwin, Tennessee, about 100 miles outside Knoxville. The hospital chain Ballad Health, which oversees Unicoi hospital, said afternoon they received notice of a need to evacuate the hospital just after 9.30am on Friday, due to unusually high and rising water from the Nolichucky River. Eleven patients were at the hospital when the evacuation efforts started, but while the hospital deployed ambulances, the flooding of the property happened so quickly the ambulances could not safely approach the hospital, the company said. Local authorities then decided to deploy boats to help evacuate people, hospital officials said, but unfortunately, the water around the hospital, which had also begun intruding inside the hospital, became extremely dangerous and impassable and prevented the boats from safely being able to evacuate. And in the immediate hours, helicopters could not safely fly because of high winds. By early afternoon, 54 people were stranded on the roof of the building awaiting rescue, while seven were in rescue boats, hospital officials said. The hospital has been engulfed by extremely dangerous and rapidly moving water, the statement read, adding: The situation at the hospital is very dangerous. The statement from hospital officials added: We ask everyone to please pray for the people at Unicoi county hospital, the first responders on-scene, the military leaders who are actively working to help, and our state leaders. On social media, photos were being shared of the patients and hospital employees on the roof of the building, surrounded by water. Unicoi County Hospital right now.. Dozens of staff and patients stuck as water continues to rise!!! No words Brittany Renfro pic.twitter.com/ATETKUaDqI Tri-Cities WX/ALERTS (@wxnotifications) September 27, 2024 Erwins police chief, Regan Tilson, told the local news station WCYB on Friday that no one had been injured in the flooding. The station also reported that several patrol cruisers and ambulances had been lost to the flood waters. At 2.36pm, Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger, who represents Tennessees first congressional district, said that helicopters had arrived and were evacuating the stranded people. But by 4.17pm, Tennessee US senator Bill Hagerty had tweeted about the operations success. Everyone has been rescued safely from the roof of Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin. More trouble on the horizon for East Tennessee communities. Please stay safe and thank you for your prayers! he posted. Keir Starmer Donald Trump says that Sir Keir Starmer is very nice and popular. Without denying the pleasant personal qualities of our new prime minister, I venture to suggest that the sage of Mar-a-Lago is behind the curve of British opinion. The polls do not say that Sir Keir is popular. Indeed, for someone whose party has just won the largest parliamentary majority since the Second World War, he has become quite decidedly unpopular, quite unusually fast. One reason for this is the abolition of the winter fuel payment. In my opinion, he is right that the payment has always been a wasteful electoral bribe (though he would not put it thus). But by targeting it alone and so early in his premiership, he makes people scrutinise him more unfavourably. Thanks, in part, to the crazed net-zero policies of both parties, all voters and especially the elderly, because they are the most often at home face the prospect of ever-rising energy costs. So the abolition of the winter payment hurts more. People also notice that its abolition pays for or rather, contributes a fraction towards enormous pay rises for junior doctors and train drivers. Two powerful groups of key workers are being rewarded for their selfish strikes. Voters begin to think Sir Keirs heart might be in the wrong place. The next reason for unpopularity has been the revealed munificence of Lord Alli, and the light it has shed on the court of King Keir. Again, the new government deserves more sympathy than it is getting for the need for busy politicians, especially campaigning ones, to get a little help from their friends. But also again it seems blind to how this looks. Like some secular monk, Sir Keir takes vows of service to others intending to contrast himself with the sleazy Tories while wearing a suit given him by a multi-millionaire. And when Sue Gray, the former civil service head of Propriety and Ethics, having improperly and unethically defected to be his chief of staff, demands a salary larger than his own, Sir Keir gets furious with the journalists who ask him about it. I dont believe my staff should be the subject of political debate like this, he told the BBC. Though Prime Minister, he seems not to know that it is the first duty of our elected Parliament to question how and why public money is spent. In this questioning, it can be highly relevant to focus on the pay and rations of the most powerful public servants. And when, as at present, Parliament is not sitting, it particularly falls to journalists to ask the questions. Sir Keirs tone of moral outrage in response reminds me of Jeremy Corbyns notorious dismissal of the idea that Labour could possibly contain anti-Semites. How dare anyone suggest that his associates are not pure and holy? Then comes this weeks Labour conference in Liverpool. Although rhetorically a reasonably competent effort to raise Labours head above the recent squabbles, the Prime Ministers speech was really quite haughty. Not for him the noisy performance (think Boris, think Farage) of populism. All that was mere glitter off a shirt cuff, he said, sounding like Shakespeares Coriolanus. His little anecdote about revisiting the Lake District incognito centred on the fact that the police, not he himself, were driving his car. Nor was he good at spreading the joy he briefly invoked. We will turn our collar up and face the storm, he declared. In his speech, Sir Keir advertised the new duty of candour. We all have a duty of candour in our dealings with others, of course, but, as is typical of Labour in general and Sir Keir, the stern legal eagle, in particular, this is seen as something to enforce by legislation (a law for Liverpool). Without the help of any law, Sir Keir did in fact fulfil his duty of candour in his speech. He revealed how he sees the world. He set out the measures Labour had already set in train planning reform, creating Great British Energy, ending Ofsted one-word judgments, starting a National Wealth Fund, stopping no-fault evictions, re-nationalising the railways, the levelling up of workers rights and several more. All these measures increase the power of the central state over the citizen. That, in Sir Keirs candid view, is a good thing in itself. He has wrenched from its original setting the famous Leave slogan Take back control. Instead of referring, as it did in the Brexit referendum, to control by the British people, it now, in his mouth, means control by the British state. Markets dont give you control that is almost literally their point. So if you want a country with more control, you must embrace this Labour government, he told his audience. Such control is antithetical to the freedom he ignores and the economic growth he says he craves. At the Conservative Party conference next week, for the first time since the then prime minister Harold Macmillan announced his resignation from his hospital bed in 1963, there will be no Leaders speech. Instead, the four candidates to replace Rishi Sunak Badenoch, Cleverly, Jenrick and Tugendhat will be separately interviewed. I hope they will all have studied Sir Keirs speech before they appear on stage: it clarifies the difference between a socialist and a conservative view of the world. The would-be Conservative leaders urgently need to define this difference. Unfortunately, it has been almost effaced by most of the past 14 years in which the Conservatives have governed the country. Let me take an example whose sheer triviality is telling. I have before me the new Kept Bird Registration Form Keeper of less [shouldnt it be fewer?] than 50 Poultry or Other Captive Birds. This four-page document insists that you give the address of where the birds are kept, their Country Parish Holding (CPH) number, map references, your own details and the number of birds, their species, such as chickens, ducks, ostriches, psittacines and cassowaries, and the purposes for which you keep them, eg. releasing for racing, display, growing pullets up to point of lay. Even if you have but one solitary hen, you are breaking the law if you do not register, which you must do by Tuesday. It is argued that registration is made necessary by recent bird flu. Serious though bird flu has recently been, it seems reasonable to believe that this extension of the criminal law is excessive, and more than reasonable to believe that, in a country where goodness knows how many people keep a few chickens, ducks or geese, enforcement will be preposterously expensive. I cite this example for two reasons. The first is to show how minutely invasive regulation has now become. The second is to remind people that this silly little measure and no doubt hundreds like it was invented under the Tories. Just like Labour now, they lamentably failed to stand up for the capacity of ordinary citizens to make the right decisions in their own sphere of life. From the very particular to the almost abstract: one of the words favoured by Tory ministers in recent years has been equality. Yet, when seen as a goal of economic policy, equality is a word only a socialist should use. The conservative words that fit that space include fairness, opportunity and prosperity. If the Conservative Party cannot voice and renew those conservative modes of thought, others will. A French court on Monday began hearing the cases against six new defendants as the mass rape trial that has sparked horror in the country moved into its fourth week. Dominique Pelicot, who has admitted to the allegations, is accused of enlisting dozens of strangers to rape his drugged wife over nearly a decade. The 71-year-old has been on trial since the start of the month along with 50 other men aged between 26 and 74, many of whom have denied the accusations -- including one who is alleged to have raped his own wife. On Monday, Pelicot was in court in the southeastern French city of Avignon, but he was not due to speak until later this week. His former wife Gisele Pelicot, 71, arrived in court to applause from the public, who once again turned out in large numbers to watch the proceedings. She listened impassively to details of the personality assessments of six of her alleged attackers. Among them was Joan K., the youngest of the 50 co-defendants who was 22 at the time of the alleged assaults. He is suspected of having visited the couple's home in the town of Mazan to rape Gisele Pelicot on two occasions. Born in French Guiana, he joined his brother in Avignon when he was 16, before enlisting in the army. Joan K. was in a relationship with a woman he met on the internet, but their time together was marked by "numerous" conflicts and "extramarital relations", the court heard. At the time of their separation, Joan K.'s partner was pregnant. In November 2019, he was absent for the birth of his own daughter on one of the occassions he is accused of sexually assaulting Gisele Pelicot in Mazan. Described by investigators as a man with depressive tendencies, Joan K. was expected to be heard at the end of the week. The court will also be considering the charges against Andy R., 37, Hugues M., 39, Husamettin D., 43, Mathieu D., 62 and Fabien S., 39, each of whom visited the Pelicots' home once. Gisele Pelicot has become an overnight feminist icon and received praise for demanding the trial be open to the public to raise awareness about the use of drugs to commit sexual abuse. Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets to support her. Donald Trump met Volodymyr Zelensky at Trump Tower as the Ukrainian president continues to try to gain more support for his war with Russia - AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson Donald Trump has praised Volodymyr Zelensky for helping him to escape an impeachment hoax . Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives in 2019 after he was accused of blackmailing Mr Zelensky to investigate the Biden family in exchange for weapons to fight Russia. At the time, Mr Zelensky claimed there was no blackmail and Trump was subsequently acquitted. The former US president has now thanked the Ukrainian leader for his public comments that helped put a stop to the allegations, as the two met to discuss how to end Ukraines war with Russia. The 2019 scandal centred around Hunter Bidens time on the board of a Ukrainian firm - Olivier DoulieryAFP via Getty Images After welcoming the Ukrainian president to Trump Tower, the Republican candidate said: Ive never told you this, to be honest, but he was like a piece of steel. He could have grandstanded and played cute, and he didnt do that. He said President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong. It has been widely reported that he had misquoted Mr Zelensky as saying he had done nothing wrong. The scandal centred around a 2019 phone call during which government officials claimed Trump urged Mr Zelensky to look into Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who once worked for a Ukrainian gas company. The ex-president has promised to broker a good deal to stop the fighting between Ukraine and Russia if he is elected for a second time. Trump said he was a friend of both Mr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin, pictured meeting in 2017 - Mikhail Klimentyev / Sputnik/ AFP) Mr Zelensky had sought the meeting with Trump to pitch his Victory Plan for Ukraine ahead of the election. We have a very good relationship, and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin. And I think if we win, were going to get it resolved very quickly, Trump told reporters ahead of the talks. Mr Zelensky interrupted, saying: I hope we have more good relations between us. Oh, I see, Trump continued. It takes two to tango, you know, and we will were going to have a good meeting today. And I think the fact that were even together today is a very good sign. Fridays surprise meeting was announced amid public squabbling between the pair. Trump has regularly criticised Mr Zelensky on the campaign trail in recent weeks. On Wednesday, Trump said that the Ukrainian leader refuses to make a deal with Vladimir Putin, and that the country had been demolished because of that refusal to negotiate. He added: The president of Ukraine is in our country, and hes making little nasty aspersions toward your favourite president: me. During the same speech, Trump said: Any deal the worst deal wouldve been better than what we have now, adding of Ukraine the people are dead and the country is in rubble. Mr Zelensky has tried to remain positive about Trump in public, but used an interview with the New Yorker to say that his feeling is that Trump doesnt really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how. He also branded Trumps running mate, JD Vance, too radical. Donald Trump has met Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York in a high-stakes meeting at which the Ukrainian leader hoped to repair ties with the former US president. The two men met at Trump Tower on Friday amid a growing feud between Zelenskyy and Republicans that Ukraine fears could sabotage further US military aid if Trump wins in November. We have a very good relationship, and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin, Trump said as he stood next to Zelenskyy before the meeting. And I think if we win, I think were going to get it resolved very quickly I really think were going to get it but, you know, it takes two to tango. Going into the meeting, Zelenskyy noted he and Trump last met in person five years ago. I think we have common view that the war in Ukraine has to be stopped, and Putin cant win, and Ukraine has to prevail, the Ukrainian leader said. And I want to discuss with you the details of our plan. That last meeting came before Trump was impeached for asking Zelenskyy in a 2019 phone call to investigate Joe Biden and his son in an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2020 US presidential election. He was acquitted in the Senate. In his opening remarks, Trump thanked Zelenskyy for what he said was his support during that scandal. One of the reasons we won it so easily is that when he [Zelenskyy] was asked he could have grandstanded and played cute, and he didnt do that, Trump said. He said President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong. He said it loud and clear, and the impeachment hoax died right there. Zelenskyy told reporters in October 2019 as Congress was launching its impeachment inquiry that there was no blackmail from Trump. The sit-down which lasted less than an hour could be Zelenskyys last chance to head off a growing conflict with Trump, who has frequently made complimentary remarks about Vladimir Putin and has also at times said he would cut off aid to Ukraine in order to force Kyiv to negotiate a truce under any terms with Moscow. It has to end, Trump said of the war in Ukraine. At some point, it has to end. [Zelenskyys] gone through hell. This country has gone through hell like few countries have ever Nobodys ever seen anything like it. Zelenskyy later described the meeting as very productive. He wrote on X: I presented our Victory Plan, and we thoroughly reviewed the situation in Ukraine and the consequences of the war for our people. Many details were discussed. We share the common view that the war in Ukraine must be stopped. Putin cannot win. Ukrainians must prevail. The meeting took place after Zelenskyys visit to the UN general assembly and the White House to meet Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. During their meeting, the vice-president indirectly attacked Trumps policy on Ukraine by saying some in my country would pressure Ukraine to cede territory to negotiate a peace with Putin. These proposals are the same as those of Putin, and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace, Harris said. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable. The feud between the two men reignited this week after Zelenskyy said in an interview he did not believe Trump knew how to end the war in Ukraine and that his running mate, JD Vance, was too radical for endorsing a peace deal that would result in Kyiv giving up large swaths of occupied land to Russia. The Republican candidate has grown extremely critical of Zelenskyy on the campaign trail, attacking him in public speeches this week for making little nasty aspersions toward your favourite president, me. I watched this poor guy yesterday at the United Nations, Trump had said of Zelenskyy in a campaign speech in North Carolina. He just didnt know what he was saying. He added: Any deal the worst deal wouldve been better than what we have now. If they made a bad deal it wouldve been much better. They wouldve given up a little bit and everybody would be living and every building would be built and every tower would be aging for another 2,000 years What deal can we make? Its demolished. The people are dead. The country is in rubble. Before the meeting on Friday, Trump posted on the Truth Social social media platform what appeared to be a private message from Zelenskyy requesting a meeting with the former president. The message, which was sent by text, was transmitted through Denys Sienik, Ukraines deputy ambassador to Washington. The decision to post the message online with little explanation will heighten concerns that any frank negotiations about the war and what aid the US government would be willing to provide could be made public at any time by Trump. Days ago, we requested a meeting with you, and I really want to hear your thoughts directly and firsthand, the message read. I believe its important for us to have a personal contact and to understand each other 100%. Let me know if you are in the city at that time I would really like for our meeting to take place. It was signed Volodymyr. Flooding at Wellington station in Shropshire after heavy rain in the early hours of Friday. Photograph: Network Rail/PA The Met Office has issued a weather warning for strong winds on Sunday as parts of the country recovered from heavy rain and flooding. Flooding disrupted rail services in England and Wales on Friday morning and led to the closure of the M5 motorway in both directions in Gloucestershire. The Environment Agency told drivers their cars could be swept away in as little as 30cm (12in) of water as more than 60 flood warnings were issued in England after heavy rain overnight, with further downpours to come. About 385 properties were flooded in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Kent and the home counties, the EA said. An amber rain warning for parts of the Midlands and the south of the country, and a yellow rain warning for large parts of England and Wales, both ended on Friday. But the Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning of strong winds, which may cause disruption across the south-west of England and Wales on Sunday. Gusts of up to 55mph (90kmph) are likely in places, with wind speeds exceeding 60mph in the most exposed areas. Commuters in parts of England faced disruption on road and rail networks on Friday. Images posted on social media showed the tracks at a train station in Shropshire completely submerged, and abandoned cars on an empty motorway in Gloucestershire. The floods minister, Emma Hardy, met the Environment Agency chief executive, Philip Duffy, on Friday afternoon to discuss the response to the flooding seen in recent days. She said: Any flooding event is devastating for the people it affects and while we respond to this incident, we must learn quickly from it so we can better protect homes and businesses. Emergency responders and volunteers across the country are to be praised for the efforts they have put in, but with more rain expected in the weeks ahead, I urge the public to sign up for flood advice. Duffy said: My thoughts are with the people affected this week and we will continue to do what we can to help with their flood recovery. I want to thank teams from the Environment Agency and our partners for their tireless efforts this week. We are redoubling efforts to repair and maintain our flood defences and work with communities across the country to prepare for more wet weather this autumn. Caroline Douglass, the EAs executive director for flood and coastal erosion, advised motorists not to drive through submerged patches of road. Speaking on BBC Radio 4s Today programme, she said: Dont take a risk and drive through flood water, because it only takes 30cm to float your car Its probably about half the height of your tyres. Douglass said drivers tended to underestimate the risk: They think a car is very heavy object and hard to move. But 30cm is not much water. And many of these waterways are much more fast-flowing than people will realise. Douglass said the agency was particularly concerned about flooding in the Midlands. Over the last week or so, weve seen heavy thunderstorms and downpours, which have saturated particular areas. And then, as we move over the weekend and into next week, well see more traditional winter rainfall that is more widespread and, unfortunately, thats then going to be landing on already saturated ground. According to the Met Office warning, wet conditions could lead to difficult driving conditions and road closures, homes and businesses are likely to be flooded and some communities could be cut off by flooding. There will continue to be localised flooding. A lot of these areas have been hit by rain in the past few weeks, which means the ground is already saturated, the meteorologist Greg Dewhurst told the PA news agency. The National Pest Technicians Association, a pest control body, said flooding could lead to an increase in rodent activity. It advised people to keep food and waste secure, and to check properties for any gaps, cracks or holes where rodents scavenging for food could enter. Rats and mice will often live in burrows underground, and rats will also live in drains and sewers, the NPTAs technical manager, Grahame Turner, said. Floods can cause these spaces to become waterlogged and lead to the rodents being flushed from their normal habitat. They will seek refuge in drier, elevated areas such as homes, offices and commercial properties including, of course, food businesses. This increases the likelihood of infestations in places that might not typically experience rodent problems. Avon fire and rescue service said it was working with National Highways: South-West to rescue people stranded on the M5 in Gloucestershire after heavy rainfall flooded the motorway. National Highways said the M5 was closed northbound between J16 and J14 and the southbound carriageway was shut between J14 and J15 as emergency services worked to clear the flooding. Councils and emergency services in Northamptonshire and Hertfordshire confirmed a number of road closures and reassured residents they were working to keep people safe overnight. Tewkesbury borough council, in Gloucestershire, has been handing out sandbags to local people to help protect their homes against flooding. Rail services between Shrewsbury in Shropshire and Wolverhampton in the West Midlands were cancelled after severe flooding at Wellington station and a tree on the line. Trains between Peterborough in the East Midlands and London Kings Cross were also delayed because of flooding. The Marston Vale line in Bedfordshire, which operates services between Bedford and Bletchley, has been suspended until Monday because of standing water on the track. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, addressed a half-empty room at the UNs headquarters in New York. Photograph: Stephani Spindel/EPA Benjamin Netanyahu shrugged off global appeals for a ceasefire in a defiant speech to the United Nations that was delivered barely an hour before massive airstrikes targeting Hezbollahs leader levelled several apartment blocks in Beirut. Addressing the general assembly in New York, Israels prime minister presented his country as a champion of peace and prosperity for the Middle East, even as its security forces prepared an attack that spread terror in the streets of the Lebanese capital and heightened fears of an all-out regional war. Israel seeks peace. Israel yearns for peace. Israel has made peace and will make peace again, he said, but made no mention of the ceasefire deals for Gaza and Lebanon that have been championed by the US. Instead he threatened more attacks in a campaign against Hezbollah that began last week with exploding pagers, and this week expanded to airstrikes that have killed more than 700 people and displaced at least 90,000. We will continue degrading Hezbollah, he told a half-empty hall. Many national delegations had walked out in protest when Netanyahu took the podium. It was a clear retreat from plans for a 21-day ceasefire across the Lebanese border that had been backed by the US and France and drawn up in close collaboration with the Israeli government. Soon after he finished speaking, huge explosions ripped through southern Beirut, reducing six buildings to rubble, reportedly in an attempt to assassinate Hezbollahs leader, Hassan Nasrallah, by taking out an underground bunker. Netanyahus office said he would fly home immediately, breaking a usual rule against travel on the Jewish Sabbath. It released a photo of the prime minister ordering the strike, apparently from a landline in a makeshift command centre in New York. World leaders gathered in New York for the UN general assembly this week repeatedly used their moment in the global spotlight to plead for a halt to the war in Gaza and across the Lebanese border. Before Israel was given the podium on Friday morning, the Slovenian prime minister, Robert Golob, demanded: Mr Netanyahu, stop this war now, and Pakistans prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, described attacks in Gaza as the systematic slaughter of innocent people. Netanyahu responded by denouncing the UN as an antisemitic swamp, and insisted that Israel was committed to military victory. We are winning, he said, adding that since the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October, Israel had shown that if you strike us, we will strike you. Netanyahu said the campaign against Hezbollah would continue until Israelis could return to their homes in the north of the country, and the war in Gaza would stop only when Israel claimed total victory or Hamas laid down its arms. The Biden administration clearly thought it had brokered the outline of an agreement to halt the conflict in Lebanon earlier this week, and was angry about Netanyahus last-minute decision to back away from that plan. Washington is Israels most important ally, offering diplomatic protection in the UN as a permanent member of the security council and critical weapons for the military, but has struggled to leverage that support into influence over Netanyahus political decisions. The US national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said pointedly that a statement about a 21-day pause wasnt just drawn up in a vacuum. It was done after careful consultation, not only with the countries that signed on to it, but Israel itself. Related: Israel says heavy air attack on Beirut targeted Hezbollah HQ Netanyahu said Israel was fighting an existential seven-front war against Hamas and its allies, from the Houthis in Yemen, to militias in Iraq and Syria, militants in the occupied West Bank and Hezbollah in Lebanon. My country is at war, fighting for its life, he said, adding that he had left Jerusalem reluctantly, to set the record straight in New York. Nearly a year into a war that has reshaped politics in the region, his speech defiantly ignored those profound shifts. He called for a historic peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, something that was on the table a year ago with strong backing from Washington. Now, though, Riyadh has ruled out normalisation without the recognition of a Palestinian state, and its delegation did not hear Netanyahus proposal because they had left the room. He also urged global action to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. This has been a long-term US preoccupation, but frantic efforts to stave off a full-blown conventional conflict with Iran have forced nuclear concerns down the diplomatic agenda. He ended with an awkward adaptation of two lines from the Welsh writer Dylan Thomas poem about confronting mortality, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, using them to insist that Israel would outlast its enemies. To paraphrase a great poet: Israel will not go gentle into that good night, we will never need to rage against the dying of the light, because the torch of Israel will forever shine bright, Netanyahu said. Eric Adams, the New York mayor, has claimed the corruption case against him is based on the allegations of one lying staffer. Mr Adams pleaded not guilty in a New York courtroom on Friday, after being charged with counts of wire fraud, bribery and conspiracy, as well as two counts of receiving campaign contributions from a foreign national. If convicted of all charges, he could face up to 45 years in prison, it is understood. Alex Spiro, Mr Adams lawyer, gave a statement outside the courtroom in which he dubbed the indictment the airline upgrade corruption case, in an attempt to minimise the charges against the mayor. There are no emails, text messages or any corroboration whatsoever that the mayor knew about anything having to do with these campaign donations, he said. The entire body of evidence is one staffer. One staffer that says there was a conversation. What you have not learned is that that staffer has lied. The mayor is accused of exploiting a years-long relationship with people tied to the Turkish government, who allegedly funnelled money into his mayoral campaign and supplied him with cut-price flights and hotel stays in exchange for influence. After listening to Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker describe the charges against him, Mr Adams said: I am not guilty, your honour. A court sketch of Mr Adams and his lawyer - Reuters/jane Rosenberg The mayor, 64, was released on his own signature on the condition that he does not contact any witnesses or individuals in the indictment. He is due back in court on Wednesday for a conference before the judge, when the mayors lawyer has said he will file a motion to dismiss. The indictment, unsealed on Thursday, accused Mr Adams of taking a variety of improper gifts from Turkish officials and businessmen, including free hotel stays and luxury flights to destinations including France, China, Sri Lanka, India, Hungary, Ghana and Turkey. In return, prosecutors said, Mr Adams did them favours, including pressuring fire department officials to sign-off on a high-rise building for the Turkish embassy despite safety concerns. Mr Spiro has said it was neither unusual nor improper for a government official to accept travel perks. The mayor has denied ever knowingly accepting an illegal campaign contribution and said any help he gave people navigating city bureaucracy was just part of doing his job. I will fight this with every ounce In public remarks on Thursday, Mr Adams asked New Yorkers to avoid making any judgments until they heard his defence. I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target and a target I became, he said in a statement to The New York Times. If I am charged, I am innocent and I will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit. In a speech recorded at his official residence, Mr Adams acknowledged that some New Yorkers would question his ability to manage the city while he fights the charges, but he vowed to stay in office. I have been facing these lies for months ... yet the city has continued to improve, Mr Adams said. Make no mistake. You elected me to lead this city and lead it I will. Mr Spiro told reporters that the travel perks and seat upgrades Mr Adams accepted were commonly offered to VIPs and members of Congress. Eric Adams appears with his attorney, Alex Spiro, outside Manhattan federal court - AP/Julia Demaree Nikhinson Thats what airlines do, he said, noting that many of the charges related to trips Mr Adams took years ago when he was Brooklyn borough president. The mayor has so far weathered calls to resign from his critics, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democratic representative. She wrote on X: I do not see how Mayor Adams can continue governing New York City. The flood of resignations and vacancies are threatening gov function. Nonstop investigations will make it impossible to recruit and retain a qualified administration. For the good of the city, he should resign. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 25, 2024 However, a number of senior Democrats have so far refrained from passing judgement, including Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, and Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader. Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who has the power to remove Mr Adams from office, appeared to issue a warning to a mayor she has often sought to portray as a close ally. While I review my options and obligations as the governor of New York, I expect the mayor to take the next few days to review the situation and find an appropriate path forward to ensure the people of New York City are being well served by their leaders, Hochul said. We must give New Yorkers confidence that there is steady, responsible leadership at every level of government. It is unclear whether Mr Adams indictment is the final word on federal investigations involving the administration. Mr Adams continued to organise meetings in his capacity as mayor on Friday with senior city officials despite the charges he is facing. Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca fears the added pressure which accompanies large transfer fees can be a big problem for players. The Blues enjoyed another summer of big spending as they brought in the likes of Pedro Neto, Joao Felix and Jadon Sancho to strengthen their squad. Since the Todd Boehly-led Clearlake consortium took over the club in 2022, they have broken the Premier League transfer record twice on Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo. Maresca believes large fees can weigh heavily on players. Speaking generally, he said: The price does not have to be a problem for them, its something that the players can do nothing about. Sometimes players feel under pressure because the club pay too much, but this is a big problem and is a weight on the shoulders which does not help the players. Marc Cucurella joined Chelsea for a reported 62million in 2022. The versatile Spaniard, who initially struggled to adjust to life in west London, has witnessed a resurgence under Maresca, who lauded his ability to learn. I think Marc is a very intelligent player, hes very clever, Maresca said. Against Bournemouth he played as an attacking midfielder and West Ham as a holding midfielder and a full-back without the ball. Hes versatile and can give us different options. Since day one, I dont want the players to do things without them understanding why they do that, so I dont ask them just to run, I think its nice to help the players know why they do things. Marc is one of the guys who, once we explain the reasons why, he immediately understands. Saturdays Premier League clash with Brighton will be a chance for Cucurella, Caicedo, Robert Sanchez and Levi Colwill to face their former club. Both Cucurella and Caicedo were booed during the Blues 2-1 victory over Brighton at the Amex Stadium in May. Asked about the reaction his players will get on Saturday from the travelling fans, Maresca said: The Brighton fans are not happy, but the Brighton owners probably are happy. The reason why Chelsea paid money for them is because they did fantastic at Brighton. Moises, Robert and Marc, even Levi who was there on loan, theyre all fantastic players and Im happy to have them. British scientists have hailed the US approval of a new drug for schizophrenia, saying it has the potential to change the lives of millions of people. The major advance in treatment offers a completely new drug approach to treating the condition, which can cause terrifying hallucinations, delusional thoughts and social withdrawal. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the new drug Cobenfy, which is owned by pharmaceutical firm Bristol Myers Squibb, overnight into Friday. The FDAs approval was based on data from two studies showing patients experienced fewer schizophrenia symptoms. The drug is the first approved antipsychotic to target receptors in the brain and body associated with the cholinergic neurotransmitter system, which has a key role in learning and memory, digestion, control of heartbeat, blood pressure, movement and other functions. In the UK, the University of Oxford has said it will start a trial on the compound next year. A spokesperson for Bristol Myers Squibb told the PA news agency it had only submitted the drug to the FDA so far but continued to evaluate our opportunities outside of the US. Pharmaceutical companies frequently apply to the FDA for approval before other countries, including the UK. Dr Lynsey Bilsland, head of mental health translation at Wellcome in the UK, which funded early studies into Cobenfy, said: It works in a completely different way from any other currently used schizophrenia drugs. It has the potential to change the lives of millions of people. Schizophrenia is commonly treated with antipsychotics. While these can be effective in managing symptoms like hallucinations and delusions, they do not address other life-limiting symptoms such as social withdrawal and memory problems. Cobenfy has the potential to address all of the above symptoms and also has fewer side-effects such as sleepiness and weight gain and therefore could be game-changing, especially for those for whom other drugs do not work. Wellcome supports mental health research to drive transformation in early intervention for anxiety, depression and psychosis. Cobenfy is an outstanding example of how science can drive forward more effective mental health treatments in our lifetimes. Dr Robert McCutcheon, from the department of psychiatry at the University of Oxford, said: This is a major advance it is the first treatment for schizophrenia with a novel target for 70 years. Current treatments are ineffective for many of the symptoms of schizophrenia we need compounds with novel mechanisms of action. All other treatments work by targeting dopamine receptors. This is the first treatment that has a different target. We hope this may mean it can help people who dont respond to standard treatments. We will be running the first UK trial of this compound in Oxford, starting in 2025. Dr Sameer Jauhar, senior clinical lecturer in affective disorders and psychosis, and consultant psychiatrist at Kings College, London and the Maudsley NHS foundation trust, said: Schizophrenia can be a devastating illness for people and their families, and the effects on society are significant. We do have effective treatments, and the pharmacological treatments are a foundation for holistic care (which includes psychosocial interventions). Unfortunately, currently available antipsychotics have significant side-effects, which include weight gain and movement effects, and this can affect peoples concordance with treatment. All currently licensed antipsychotics exert effects on the dopamine system, and this has been the case for at least 50 years. We have had false dawns before, despite significant efforts in the field (with significant financial investment), phase three trials of newer compounds have so far been disappointing. This novel treatment is the first of its kind, which does not act directly on the dopamine system, with good phase three trial data. In my opinion, as a clinician and researcher, this is possibly one of the most exciting developments in our field, and I am very excited about this. Schizophrenia is a severe, long-term mental health condition that affects about one in 300 people across the globe. During her career, actor Dame Maggie Smith shone in roles as varied as a maverick schoolteacher, a witch in the Harry Potter film series, and Downton Abbeys Dowager Countess of Grantham, a part which won her three Emmys. The theatre, film and TV star, who has died aged 89, was one of the few performers to achieve the so-called triple crown of acting, winning two Oscars, four Emmys and one Tony. Here is a round-up of her most famous roles. Dame Maggie won two Oscars during her career (Matt Crossick/PA) Professor Minerva McGonagall From 2001 to 2011, Dame Maggie played Hogwarts Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series, who was the head of the house of Gryffindor. She was also the schools deputy headmistress under Professor Albus Dumbledore, played by Richard Harris and, after his death, by Michael Gambon. Sir Michael died a year ago to the day. The role saw her reunite with Daniel Radcliffe having previously starred alongside him in 1999s David Copperfield. Despite the quick-witted, kind and formidable professor of transfiguration becoming a prominent character in the series, Dame Maggie had regularly said she did not find her role in the films fully satisfying, but said they had allowed her to bond with her grandchildren. Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham From 2010 to 2015, Dame Maggie played the quick-witted matriarch Violet Crowley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, becoming central to the success of ITV series. The role won her three Emmy awards and she continued to play the character in spin-off films Downton Abbey (2019) and Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022). During Dame Maggies time playing the character, Violet found her influence on Downton Abbey under threat, as social norms changed, from Isobel Crawley, with whom she regularly argued, and her daughter-in-law Cora, with both being more forward-thinking. Jean Brodie Dame Maggie won her first Oscar for best actress in 1969s The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie. The film saw her play the unrestrained teacher at an all-girls school in Edinburgh during the 1930s, who had a tendency to stray from the schools curriculum, to romanticise fascist leaders such as Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco, and believed herself to be in the prime of life. In the film, the teacher devotes her energy and attention to girls she sees as special or mouldable, eventually seeing her lead them into disastrous situations. Diana Barrie The actor won her second Oscar for best supporting actress in 1978s California Suite, where she played actor Diana Barrie. In the film her character is a first-time nominee for the Academy Award for best actress in an independent British film, an honour that could revive her faltering career, but she knows she has no chance of winning. Throughout the movie Diana is in denial about the nature of her marriage of convenience to Sidney Cochran, a gay antiques dealer who becomes increasingly open about his sexuality. As she prepares for her moment in the spotlight, her mood fluctuates from hope to panic to despair. Mary Shepherd In 2015, Dame Maggie played the role of Mary Shepherd in The Lady In The Van, a mostly true story about Shepherd, who was an elderly woman who lived in a dilapidated van on a driveway in north London for 15 years. The film was based on a memoir by the playwright Alan Bennett, whose driveway Shepherd lived on from the 1970s to the 1980s. At the end of the movie Bennett eventually finds out, after Shepherds death, that she had fled her home after she was involved in an accident when her van was hit by a motorcyclist. Shepherd blamed herself for his death and lived the rest of her life in fear of arrest. Sir Keir Starmer met with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during the Prime Ministers visit to New York. On Thursday, Sir Keir visited Trump Tower for talks ahead of Novembers US election. Sir Keir said he wanted to meet Mr Trump face to face because Im a great believer in personal relationships on the world stage. The meeting has the potential to be diplomatically awkward, not just because of Mr Trumps bombastic style but also because Sir Keir has not been able to schedule a similar appointment with Democratic candidate and vice president Kamala Harris. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York (Leon Neal/PA) Ahead of the meeting, Sir Keir told reporters: Ive said a number of times, I want to meet both candidates. Weve now got the opportunity to meet Trump, which is good. Obviously, I still want to speak to Harris as well. But you know, the usual diary challenges, but its good that this one now has been fixed. Itll be really to establish a relationship between the two of us. Im a great believer in personal relations on the international stage. I think it really matters that you know who your counterpart is in any given country, and know them personally, get to know them face to face. Foreign Secretary David Lammy who called Mr Trump a racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser in 2017 and promised to protest on the streets if he visited the UK also attended the Trump Tower meeting. Re: Daily Mail story today. Yes, if Trump comes to the UK I will be out protesting on the streets. He is a racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser. David Lammy (@DavidLammy) September 26, 2017 Speaking at a press conference before they met, Mr Trump said he thought Sir Keir was very nice. He said: I actually think hes very nice. He ran a great race, he did very well, its very early, hes very popular. The presidential candidate added praise for Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. He said: I think Nigel is great, Ive known him for a long time. He had a great election too, picked up a lot of seats, more seats than he was allowed to have actually. They acknowledged that he won but for some reason you have a strange system over there, you might win them but you dont get them. (PA Graphics) Sir Keir said the UK embassy team, led by ambassador Dame Karen Pierce, has got good relations with both camps and has had for a long time. So its not the sort of start of something, its the continuation of those good relations that have been there with both camps, and thats a really good thing that the embassy has been doing. US vice president Kamala Harris (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Asked whether he would be prepared to stand up to Mr Trump on issues such as support for Ukraine, Sir Keir said: The first thing I think is important to say in relation to this is weve obviously had a special relationship with the US for a long time, forged in really difficult circumstances. That always sits above whoever holds the particular office, either in the US or the UK. And it is really important. I think its probably as strong now as its ever been, in relation to the Middle East and Ukraine. And youve seen how closely Ive been working with the US in relation to both of those issues. The US people will decide who they want as their president, and we will work with whoever is president, as you would expect. Im not going to speculate on what any particular issues may be the other side of the election. TikTok and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have announced a collaboration to promote mental health education content including the work of an Oxford University professor. The social media platform said the year-long collaboration seeks to promote reliable mental wellbeing content and fight misinformation through WHOs Fides Network, a community of healthcare professionals who are also TikTok creators. This network of creators from the UK, US, France, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil will create and promote evidence-based content on TikTok, spanning mental wellbeing and related topics. Dr Kirren Schnack is one of a number of healthcare professionals included in the programme who has been creating healthcare content on TikTok (PA) TikTok is also making an approximately 2 million donation to support WHOs global work in destigmatising mental health issues and creating an informed and supportive online community. Dr Kirren Schnack is one of a number of healthcare professionals included in the programme who has been creating healthcare content on the app. Dr Schnack, who makes TikToks focused on mental health, has over 20 years of experience and holds a Practitioner Doctorate (PsychD) in Clinical Psychology from the University of Oxford. Topics covered by Dr Schnack on her TikTok include anxiety symptoms and loneliness, which she has shared with her 588,000 followers. She told the PA news agency: Im so excited and pleased to be part of this project. I think for Tiktok and WHO to be able to bring such a large number of healthcare professional creators together to make mental health content is so empowering. It really excites me, because I feel like it demonstrates such a huge potential for Tiktok, as a social media app, to be a real force for positive change in public health, mental health across the world. In lots of corners of the world, people dont have access to help or cant get help and sometimes it is apps like TikTok where they get that information from, so its really exciting to be part of something like this. Dr Schnack said there will be lots of different kinds of campaigns under the partnership, which will look at topics like loneliness, depression, and suicide. Asked about social medias impact on mental health, she said: I do think that (social media) does benefit people. I think sometimes it is a mental health problem in itself if you are not able to regulate your use or youre misusing. I think if the use of the app becomes a problem, or people are using it too much and its affecting that mental health, I see that as a mental health problem in itself that we could address by using the platform as well. Dr Kirren Schnack makes TikToks focused on mental health (Dr Kirren Schnack/PA) Dr Schnack is also an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society (AFBPsS), a title given as recognition of several years of experience and contribution to the field of Clinical Psychology. Dr Jeremy Farrar, Chief Scientist at WHO, said: This collaboration can prove to be an inflection point in how platforms can be more socially responsible. By working with TikTok, we are helping people access credible information and engage in scientific discourse that cumulatively helps shape a healthier future. Global head of trust and safety outreach and partnerships at TikTok Valiant Richey said: Millions of people come to TikTok everyday to share and find community in all areas of their life, including their wellbeing, and we strive to ensure they can find reliable information on this important topic. Thats why today we are delighted to be partnering with the World Health Organisations Fides network of healthcare content creators, to further strengthen this commitment by bringing engaging and authoritative mental wellbeing content to our community. REA Group, the Australian online property website majority-owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp empire, said Monday it has made a third multi-billion-pound offer to buy British peer Rightmove. The latest proposal, worth GBP6.1 billion (US$8.1 billion), comes after Rightmove rejected REA's previous two bids made this month. "We are genuinely disappointed at the lack of engagement by Rightmove's Board," REA CEO Owen Wilson said in a statement published on the London Stock Exchange. Rightmove confirmed in a statement that it had received a third proposal that was "unsolicited, non-binding and highly conditional". Rightmove chairman Andrew Fisher said the board rejected the first two proposals as they "were uncertain, highly opportunistic and unattractive". He added: "The Board will continue to act on behalf of our shareholders and respond to the most recent proposal in due course." Shares in Rightmove were up 2.8 percent in early deals on London's FTSE 100 index. REA made public its interest on September 2, noting "clear similarities" between the pair "in terms of their leading market positions in the core residential business". The first offer was worth GBP5.6 billion. Rightmove rejected a second proposal on September 18. REA reiterated that should it succeed in buying Rightmove, it would apply for a secondary stock market listing in London, in addition to its current trading on the Australian Securities Exchange. "This would provide the opportunity for a wider pool of investors to gain exposure to a global and diversified digital property company on the London Stock Exchange," it said. Sophie Turner stars as Joan Hannington in ITV drama Joan opposite Frank Dillane. (ITV) Sophie Turner is Joan Hannington in ITV's new true crime drama, Joan, which is inspired by the life of the infamous criminal. The six-part series is based on Hannington's 2002 memoir I Am What I Am, which recounts her experiences of abuse as a child, and her hardships as an adult, that led to her becoming Britain's most notorious jewel thief in the 1980s. Hannington became a prime figure in London's criminal underworld, and she even became know as "The Godmother" in her time. Created by Ann Symon, the series begins with Hannington's experience with first partner Gary who she shared her daughter Kelly with. When he crosses the wrong people Hannington is forced to put their daughter into foster care for protection, with her subsequent delving into crime a result of her desire to get her child back. Whilst trying to make ends meet to get her daughter out of foster care she meets Boisie Hannington (Frank Dillane), an antiques dealer who had dealings in the criminal underworld, and the pair instantly hit it off, fall in love and get married. But what is the true story behind the drama? Read on to learn more. The series is based on Joan Hannington's 2004 memoir I Am What I Am, which recounts her experiences as a child and into adulthood that led to her becoming Britain's most notorious jewel thief. (Alamy) (Matt Crossick) In her memoir, Hannington explained that stealing diamonds was something of a thrill: "Swallowing diamonds was my life, my buzz, my drug". She explained it was her way of messing with the system after "the system f**ked [her]" by taking her daughter away from her. Hannington would steal diamonds through a complex sting operation where she'd go in disguise to visit a jeweller and learn all she could about a ring before getting an exact replica made, it would be a fake diamond in a real gold or platinum band. Her elaborate ruse would continue as she'd travel to a high-end hotel, book a room for a night and call the jewellers pretending to be looking for a ring. Read more: Sophie Turner says playing ex-thief Joan Hannington was the 'thrill of her career' Disguising herself as a high-class American through expensive clothes and an elaborate accent, Hannington wrote she would take a limousine to the shop to establish her cover and when inside would flirt up a storm with staff whilst examining different rings. With the staff distracted by her demeanour she would ask to try a ring and would surreptitiously swap out the real ring with a fake, and would pretend to sneeze as she swallowed the jewel. Joan Hannington became a prime figure in London's criminal underworld in the 1980s, and she even became know as 'The Godmother' in her time. (ITV) (SUSIE ALLNUTT) "Best bank in the world, is your tummy. Best safety-deposit box invented," Hannington wrote. Some names have been changed in the series, for example Hannington's first husband was named Ray, while her daughter's name was Debbie not Kelly. But, Hannington did put her daughter into the care of social workers after being threatened by people Ray had crossed. When Hannington stole a car in order to visit her daughter she was arrested and sent to Holloway Prison, this prison stint led social workers deciding to keep Debbie where she was rather than let Hannington take her back when she did have the income to support them both. Her inability to get her daughter back is what led Hannington to become a jewel thief, her memoir reveals. Joan Hannington explained in her memoir that stealing diamonds was something of a thrill, saying: 'Swallowing diamonds was my life, my buzz, my drug'. (ITV) Hannington's first time stealing diamonds came when she had a job at a jewellers and, during a stock take, she decided to swallow a handful of precious stones that were being kept in a safe and weren't recorded in the system. "I didn't know at the time, but I'd swallowed about 800,000 worth of stones," Hannington recalled of the incident. It was several months after this that she met Boisie Hannington, who she describes as being "the best fence, the best thief, the best jeweller, antiques dealer". The pair were together for eleven years, nine of which they were married, and it was during this time that Boisie taught Hannington the antiques trade, as well as what it took to be a professional thief. Hannington and her husband worked closely together, with Hannington doing jobs with Boisie at nighttime and in the day "working dodgy cheques and credit cards" for herself, a period that the retired thief says was like being "Robbery Incorporated". Joan Hannington and her husband Boisie were a criminal duo for eleven years until his death, the pair were married and share a son, musician Benny Banks (left). (Alamy) (Matt Crossick) She served multiple short prison sentences in the early days of her relationship with Boisie, but wrote that their criminal partnership thrived in the 1980s. "Probably we had millions several millions going through our hands. That's not a lot of money in this day and age, nothing on the drug deal. But in the Eighties we were among those early criminals to be in the millionaire league without getting it over the pavement," she wrote, referencing crimes like armed robbery. The pair remained together until Boisie's death after he was caught in an explosion when an arson attack went wrong. It was shortly thereafter that Hannington retired from criminal life, the couple share a son together, Benny, who is a musician known by his moniker Benny Banks. Joan continues on Monday, 30 September at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX. This article originally appeared on Yahoo TV UK at https://uk.news.yahoo.com/joan-sophie-turner-itv-true-story-140505261.html The UK has issued a warning about the threat from cyber attackers working on behalf of the Iranian state. In an advisory published with US partners, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) part of GCHQ shared details of how cyber attackers working for Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are using social engineering techniques to gain access to victims personal and business accounts online. According to the NCSC, the malicious activity is targeted at individuals with a link to Iranian and Middle Eastern affairs, including current and former senior government officials, senior think tank personnel, journalists, activists and lobbyists. The US has also observed the targeting of people associated with domestic political campaigns. Has your account been compromised? Navigate the recovery process with confidence using this guidehttps://t.co/Viz2ZgpkbR NCSC UK (@NCSC) September 26, 2024 The advisory said the attackers often impersonate contacts on email and messaging platforms, building a rapport with targets before soliciting them to share user credentials on a false email account login page. The attackers can then gain access to the victims accounts, exfiltrate and delete messages and set up email forwarding rules. This activity poses an ongoing threat to various sectors worldwide, including the UK, the NCSC said. To reduce the chances of being affected, the organisation advised at-risk individuals to follow the mitigation steps in the advisory. The NCSC also suggested following its guidance and taking advantage of its free cyber defence tools. Paul Chichester, NCSC director of operations, said: The spear-phishing attacks undertaken by actors working on behalf of the Iranian government pose a persistent threat to individuals with a connection to Iranian and Middle Eastern affairs. With our allies, we will continue to call out this malicious activity, which puts individuals personal and business accounts at risk, so they can take action to reduce their chances of falling victim. I strongly encourage those at higher risk to stay vigilant to suspicious contact and to take advantage of the NCSCs free cyber defence tools to help protect themselves from compromise. More than 90,000 council and school workers in Scotland will be balloted for strike action in a pay dispute, a union has said. Unison has rejected the latest pay offer from local government umbrella body Cosla of an hourly increase of 67p or 3.6%, whichever is higher. On Friday, council leaders voted to impose the deal despite Unisons opposition, saying GMB and Unite members have accepted it. Council leaders argue the deal is at the absolute limit of affordability given the tight financial situation. Unison Scotlands local government lead David OConnor said: To say this is a bitter disappointment is an understatement. Just two days ago, Coslas lead negotiator councillor Katie Hagmann and the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Finance Shona Robison MSP assured the union they were committed to a negotiated settlement. Now, theyve resorted to some of the worst employment practices by imposing this deal. They should be utterly ashamed of themselves. Its both upsetting and infuriating to see that theyre once again so undervalued. Politicians have enjoyed pay rises upwards of 6.7%, but theyre telling dedicated workers to limit their expectations. Coslas resource spokeswoman Ms Hagmann said: We are disappointed that Unison have not agreed the current good pay offer from Cosla. Council Leaders have agreed that the Scottish Joint Council pay offer, which has been accepted by GMB and Unite members, should be implemented to ensure employees receive their pay uplift and backpay without further delay Read morehttps://t.co/B3YKQFH2Pj @KatieHagmannSNP pic.twitter.com/BoqLOBTq90 COSLA (@COSLA) September 27, 2024 Leaders made the decision to implement the offer because it was clear after further discussions this week that there was no additional funding available from within local government or from Scottish Government. Taking account of that, leaders decided it was important to get the pay uplift into workers pockets without delay. The decision to implement does not end the negotiation and we are keen that the talks can be concluded by agreement. We are concerned by the threats of industrial action which is in the interests of no one and will place vulnerable service users at risk and inconvenience citizens across our communities. This reaction from Unison is disappointing considering that the offer is well above the rate of inflation and aligns exactly with the pay requests of all Trade Unions made in their letter of July 31. The pay offer is worth an average 4.27% which is the same value as that accepted by our teaching negotiation group and the same value for all other Local Government workers. We respect all our unions for their important work in protecting their members best interests. Nonetheless we urge Unison not to progress with this damaging industrial action. (The offer) is at the absolute limit of affordability in the extremely challenging financial context we face. Finance Secretary Ms Robison said: The decision made by council leaders to implement the local government pay offer will halt any further delays and get pay in the pockets of valued workers including those who need it most before Christmas. While this Government fully respects the decision by Unison members to reject the offer, no-ones interests will be served by industrial action. I hope that Unison members recognise the strength of this offer which has already been accepted by GMB and Unite. The pay offer is better than that made to local government workers in the rest of the UK. It will see the lowest-paid workers, including Unison members, receive a 5.63% pay increase and most local government workers receive more than 4%. This delivers what GMB, Unite and Unison asked for from councils at the end of July. The Scottish Government has provided 77.5 million to support this offer and I confirmed to Cosla and unions when we met that we have utilised all available funding to support local government pay. Although the Scottish Government has no formal role in these negotiations, I know that Cosla remains committed to the negotiation process with an ambition to reach a collective agreement with all three unions if possible. Conservationists are celebrating after white-tailed eagles bred in Northern Ireland for the first time for more than 150 years. Two first-time breeders in Co Fermanagh successfully fledged one chick. It has been hailed by the Northern Ireland Raptor Study Group (NIRSG) and the RSPB as correcting a multi-generational absence. White-tailed eagles, described as a native component of Irish wildlife, became extinct in Ireland from the late 19th century. Also known as the sea eagle, they are termed as the UKs largest bird of prey, standing at almost one metre tall, with a wingspan of up to 2.4 metres and a distinctive white tail, and the birds are often described as a flying barn door. A white-tailed eagle hunting for fish off the Isle of Skye (Alamy/PA) They were reintroduced to Ireland by the Golden Eagle Trust (GET) and National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) between 2007 and 2011, with the aim of establishing a viable population. One hundred eagle chicks were brought from Norway and released in Killarney National Park, Co Kerry, and in 2020 more young birds were released at a number of sites across Ireland to bolster the population. Released birds were wing-tagged, with tag colours relating to their year of birth and codes to identify individuals, and many were fitted with satellite tags to provide accurate details of their locations. The two that have bred in Northern Ireland are just four years old and were released on the shores of Lough Derg, Co Tipperary in 2020, having been brought from Norway in phase two of the Irish reintroduction programme. Co Fermanaghs wetlands, woodlands and farmlands of have been described as providing the ideal habitats for this species. Dr Eimear Rooney from NIRSG said she felt a rush of adrenaline when she spotted the chick earlier this year. The confirmation of this eagle species breeding in Northern Ireland corrects a multi-generational absence, symbolising the restoration of a once extinct species and highlighting the importance of wetlands, woodlands and farmland habitats on which many of our raptors depend, she said. From reviewing satellite data provided by NPWS we had an idea that the birds were nesting, but with young eagles nothing is guaranteed. I cant describe the adrenalin rush the moment I saw the chick earlier this year and confirmed that the birds were not only nesting but had successfully reared a chick. Dean Jones, investigations officer from RSPB NI added: The return of breeding white-tailed eagles to Northern Ireland is a true testament to the power of conservation and really showcases the awe-inspiring resilience and adaptability of our natural world. The poisoning of the two white-tailed eagles in Glenwherry in May 2023 was devastating, however, to have this pair breeding successfully, under the protection of a caring local farmer, really illustrates how humans and birds of prey can exist in harmony. Gregory Woulahan, operations director from RSPB NI praised the efforts of the local farmer whose actions to keep the site private and minimise disturbance created the conditions for these young birds to rear their first chick. It is hoped this chick will reach adulthood and return to breed in four to six years boosting the population of these birds alongside creating tourism opportunities for the rural economy and the implementation of further efforts to boost and restore spaces for nature, he said. The world of theatre has been paying tribute to Dame Maggie Smith, with Sir Cameron Macintosh remembering her as a brilliant original who was the master of the zinger. Dame Maggie, who died today aged 89, has been remembered for her roles in the Harry Potter films and ITVs Downton Abbey series, but she also had a significant career in theatre working with Lord Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic during the National Theatres first season in 1963. To pay tribute to the actor, theatres in Londons West End will dim their lights for two minutes at 7pm on October 1 in her memory. Queen Elizabeth II being presented to Dame Maggie Smith by Lord Laurence Olivier (PA) Her defining performances on the stage included the National Theatres 1970 production of Hedda Gabler in which she played the title role, Noel Cowards 1964 production of Hay Fever, where she played Myra Arundel, and 1965s Miss Julie, which saw her play the title character. The audience was said to have been reduced to hysterics during her performance in Hay Fever, during the second acts Adverb Game, which saw her wear a black dress with a fish-tail train, which she attempted to sabotage by sitting on it. Paying tribute to Dame Maggie, Sir Cameron, who owns a number of venues including Londons Sondheim Theatre which has a box dedicated to her, told the PA news agency: It is with enormous sadness that today, British theatre has lost one of its greatest stars the incomparable Dame Maggie Smith. Many of Maggies finest performances have been on the stages of theatres now in my care one of the dress circle boxes in the Sondheim Theatre is proudly named after her. Over the decades, I have been privileged to see many of her unforgettable performances from her early days in revue, in the late 50s. Whatever she was in, every line was electric she was the master of the zinger. I, and everyone at Delfont Mackintosh Theatres, salute a truly great artist. Maggie was a brilliant original who can never be replaced or ever forgotten. National Theatre director and co-chief executive Rufus Norris hailed Dame Maggie as one of the greatest actors this country has had the inestimable pleasure of witnessing. In a tribute, he told PA: She will forever be remembered as one of the greatest actors this country has had the inestimable pleasure of witnessing. Her deep intelligence, effortless dexterity, sublime craft and sharp wit were simply legendary. The National Theatre is reeling today and we send our deepest condolences to Maggies family and her legions of admirers across the world and in every generation. Hannah Essex, co-chief executive of the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre which has arranged next weeks dimming of the lights, said the theatre world and the nation had lost an icon. She said: Today the theatre world, and the nation, have lost an icon. Throughout her 71 years on stage and screen, Dame Maggie Smith was a magnificent talent and will be remembered as one of the most significant performers British theatre has ever seen. Our deepest condolences are with her family and loved ones, and we are proud to be able to honour her remarkable career in some small way. During her time on the stage, Dame Maggie received a Tony award for her performance as Lettice Douffet in 1990s Lettice And Lovage, along with six Olivier Award nominations, and was the recipient of the 2010 Special Award. Other performances which starred Dame Maggie included her role as Halina Rodziewiczowna in 1986s Coming In To Land, 1966s Black Comedy, where she played Clea, and playing Beatrice in the National Theatres 1965 performance of Much Ado About Nothing. In a statement, the Old Vic theatre said it is deeply saddened to hear of the death of Dame Maggie. A titan of the stage and the screen, she spent eight years performing on our stage as part of the newly formed National Theatre Company, it said on X. An Arkansas couple tried to sell their baby for $1,000 and some beer with a twisted self-made contract that said no changing yalls mind, according to court documents. The childs parents, Darien Urban, 21, and Shalene Ehlers, 20, signed a letter granting custody and then handed him off to another person, lead investigator Detective Wes Grube said in an affidavit cited by WREG News Channel 3. The contract read: I, Darien Urban and Shalene Ehlers, are signing our rights over to [Cody Martin] of our baby for $1,000 on 9/21/24. Darien Tyler Urban, 21, and his fiance allegedly signed a letter granting custody of their baby for a $1,000 cashiers check. Benton County Sheriff's Office Shalene Faith Ehlers, 20, is also accused of trying to sell the baby boy to a man she and Urban met at a campground. Benton County Sheriff's Office The document, signed by both parents, included a disclaimer stating, After signing this there will be no changing yall twos minds and to never contact again. Urban and Ehlers were arrested by the Benton County Sheriffs Office on Sept. 21. Both face felony charges of endangering the welfare of a minor and attempting to negotiate the relinquishment of a minor for adoption. Their arrests came after a Hide Away Campground manager contacted the Benton County Sheriffs Office on Saturday, September 21, to report that Urban and Ehlers were trying to sell their baby boy to a resident onsite. Police responded before calling emergency medical services, which transported the infant to Childrens Hospital for evaluation. At that time, Urban and Ehlers were not present. Urban allegedly told investigators the baby was undergoing an adoption. Facebook / Shalene Ehlers When deputies arrived, Ehlers and Urban were nowhere to be found, according to 4029TV. Facebook / Shalene Ehlers Witnesses reported that Ricky Crawford, a resident of the campground, had earlier visited the couple and offered to take their baby for the night in exchange for beer to which they agreed, according to court documents. Crawford later told cops he took the baby from the duo, then gave him to Martin who was staying in a camper onsite because he was concerned about the welfare of the child. According to court documents, Urban and Ehlers then approached Martin and offered to sell the baby for $1,000, the Kansas City Star reports. Martin allegedly agreed to the deal on the condition they signed a contract that he then drew up which outlined their intention to surrender the baby for $1,000 the following Monday, when he was supposed to have the money. Urban and Ehlers signed the document. In the meantime, the campground manager caught wind of the deal and alerted authorities. Urban and Ehlers were arrested before the deal was finalized and no money was exchanged. Deputies spoke with several witnesses, including Ricky Crawford, who they said smelled heavily of alcohol, was slurring his words and was struggling to maintain his balance. Beaver Lake Hide-A-Way Campground Police allege that Crawford appeared heavily intoxicated slurring his speech and struggling to maintain his balance when approached by authorities, according to court documents. Court papers claim Urban then told investigators the child was with Martin and undergoing an adoption. Urban was released on a $5,000 bond on Tuesday, Sept. 24. Ehlers remains in custody in Benton County Jail on a $30,000 bail. Both have criminal records, KNWA reports. The baby boy is in the care of the Arkansas Department of Human Service, according to prosecutors. Last year, Urban created an online fundraiser saying he and Ehlers were struggling after the birth of their first child, a daughter. My daughter Rosa was born on May 20, 2023 and Im super happy to be a dad, but I keep getting beat down every time I think life starts turning around, it read. Im trying to make this fundraiser because we live out of a motel right now and its taking all of my money from my paychecks from work. I work for Uber Eats. Any funds we gain from this will be used to get a better roof over my family. Its unclear whether the couple in fact has a daughter and, if so, what her status is. Swaggy Wolfdog has lost something very valuable and is willing to offer a "big reward" to get it back. A cash reward was advertised on social media Tuesday to anyone who could ensure the safe return of the celebrity canine's missing $100,000 chain. Swaggy Wolfdog pictured on the 2024 iHeartRadio Music Festival red carpet in Las Vegas on Sept. 20, 2024. "Can't believe this happened to Swaggy, he lost his brand new $100k chain at an event this past Saturday," Swaggy Wolfdog's people wrote in the caption. Anyone who found the customized chain, which has Swaggy's name and a Swaggy pendant, was encouraged to reach out. The details surrounding the missing diamond necklace weren't immediately clear, but Swaggy Wolfdog did make an appearance at the iHeart Radio Music Festival in Las Vegas over the weekend. Swaggy Wolfdog's spokesperson reportedly told local affiliate ABC7 that a police report was filed in connection with missing diamond necklace. USA TODAY has reached out to Swaggy Wolfdog's people and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department for additional information. Who is Swaggy Wolfdog? Genevieve Parisi, Swaggy Wolfdog, and Victoria Fuller arrive at the 2022 iHeartRadio Music Festival at T-Mobile Arena on September 23, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Swaggy Wolfdog is a doggy influencer that creates content across multiple social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, according to Fandom. He has over 10 million followers across Instagram and TikTok alone. He has attended numerous A-List events and spends time cozying up to celebrities like Victoria Justice, DJ Snake and most recently, Taylor Swift. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: $100,000 reward offered for return of Swaggy Wolfdog's lost chain [Reuters] The US and China are the two largest economies in the world. They have the two most powerful militaries in the world. The US-China rivalry, in the view of many international analysts, will be the defining global theme of the 21st Century. But at the moment, only one of the two major party presidential candidates is regularly talking about US-China policy - as he has done consistently for years. According to a review by BBC Verify, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has mentioned China 40 times in his five rallies since the presidential debate earlier this month. In just one hour at a town hall forum last week in Michigan, he brought up the country 27 times. And when he talks about China, Trump focuses on matters of tension between the two global powers, painting the country and the worlds second-largest economy, as a kind of economic predator. He has talked about the new tariffs he plans to impose on imports from Chinese companies and those from other nations - should he return to the White House. He has said he wants to prevent Chinese-made cars from being sold because he believes they will destroy the American auto industry. He has warned China not to attempt to replace the US dollar as the worlds reserve currency. And he has blamed the Chinese government for the Covid pandemic. Many economists question the effectiveness of Trumps tariff plans and warn that they would ultimately be harmful to US consumers. The Biden-Harris administration, however, has maintained, and even at times increased, the more narrowly focused tariffs that Trump imposed on China during his first term in office. Trumps protectionist message is tailored to blue-collar voters in the key industrial Midwest battleground states who have felt the impact of increased competition from Chinese manufacturers. Meanwhile, BBC Verify finds, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris did not mention China at all in her six rallies since the 10 September debate. Although, in a speech on the economy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday afternoon, she made a handful of references to the country. I will never hesitate to take swift and strong measures when China undermines the rules of the road at the expense of our workers, communities, and companies, she said at that event. Asked for comment, an aide to the vice-president told the BBC that even if Harris does not talk about China regularly, she has a record of working to counter what they described as Chinas efforts to undermine global stability and prosperity. But when it comes to discussing China, the contrast between Trump and Harris on the campaign trail is unmistakable. On Monday afternoon, at a barn in Smithton, a small town in rural western Pennsylvania, Trump sat down with a group of local farmers and ranchers for a roundtable discussion specifically about China. The town may be just an hour outside of Pittsburgh, a Democratic Party urban stronghold, but this was decidedly Republican territory. Cows grazed peacefully on grasslands lined with dozens of Trump for President signs, while Trump supporters decorated two donkeys in Make America Great Again gear. The topic of the event, hosted by the Protecting America Initiative, a conservative think-tank, was the Chinese Communist Party's growing threat to the US food supply. The forum ended up being a more open-ended conversation about the threat of China, full stop. The farmers, ranchers and business executives on the panel complained about having to compete with heavily subsidised Chinese imports and about the low quality of Chinese goods. While the former president didnt spend much time discussing the perceived dangers of Chinese ownership of US farmland he instead promised that he would convince Chinese President Xi Jinping to buy more US agriculture exports he again emphasised that he would use tariffs to shield the American economy from China. At one point, he spoke of the need to protect the US steel industry - in order to prepare for a hypothetical war with China. If were in a war, and we need army tanks and we need ships and we need other things that happen to be made of steel, what are we going to do, go to China and get the steel? he asked. Were fighting China, but would you mind selling us some steel? Some of the heavier lifting on China during the forum was left to Richard Grenell, a roundtable panelist and senior advisor for the Protecting America Initiative. He warned the country has quietly but strategically worked against the US particularly when Americans were distracted by other global issues. They go after our local and state politicians; they go after our manufacturing, he said. There is no question they are looking to, at some point, leverage that investment and activity. Grenell, who served as US ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence while Trump was in office, is considered a possible secretary of state - Americas top diplomat - if Trump wins another term in November. If Harris wins, on the other hand, there may not be a significant change from the current Biden administration, even if the current president has frequently deployed sharper rhetoric to describe the US-China rivalry. Donald Trump has been campaigning on an economically protectionist message in key Midwestern states [Reuters] [BBC] More on the US election Since the start of his presidency, Joe Biden has identified China as one of the autocracies competing with the worlds leading democracies in what he describes as a historic global inflection point. According to public opinion surveys, China ranks low on the list of issues American voters care about dwarfed by the economy, immigration and healthcare. In a recent National Security Action survey of voters in key electoral battleground states, only 14% listed China as the top national security priority for the next president. Immigration led the list at 38%, followed by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, both at 28%. That could in part explain Harriss seeming lack of interest in talking about China. In this abbreviated presidential campaign for her, she has a shorter timeframe to define herself in the eyes of voters, so focusing on America's main economic competitor may be less of a priority for the Democrat. After the Trump event in Smithton, Bill Bretz, chair of the local county Republican Party committee, said that while China may not be at the top of voter concerns in Pennsylvania, it was important for Trump to talk about it. As the largest up-for-grabs electoral prize, Pennsylvania is perhaps the pivotal state in the 2024 presidential election. Both Trump and Harris will be hard-pressed to win the White House without it in their column. Polls currently show the two candidates in a dead heat there. The majority of people have already picked the camp that they're in, but there are those group of people that are undecided, he said. If China is a straw that sways the scale one way or another, I think it's a great thing to bring up. Additional reporting by Jake Horton and BBC Verify [BBC] North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here. Collaboration and philanthropy will be pursued to boost funding for the arts sector in Northern Ireland, which has been described as operating on a shoestring. The region continues to fall behind neighbouring nations in terms of public spending on the arts. According to figures released by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI), Northern Ireland spent 5.07 on arts funding per head of population in 2023/24 compared with 10.51 in Wales and 21.58 in the Republic of Ireland. Communities Minister Gordon Lyons was pressed to act by leaders and influencers from the arts sector during a meeting at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast on Thursday. Those at the meeting included Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody, Arts Council chairman Liam Hannaway, Auveen Sands from Ulster Orchestra and Mimi Turtle from Strand Arts Centre. Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol speaking at the Lyric Theatre meeting (Liam McBurney/PA) Lightbody described the meeting as positive, but said the fall in funding for the arts has left it operating on a shoestring, and that any further cuts will place the arts in real jeopardy. He said they will reconvene in six to nine months to discuss progress. Mr Lyons said despite the challenges the arts sector has faced in recent years, the mood of the meeting was quite positive. With the Stormont budget under pressure, he said he wants to explore collaboration with other public bodies, and philanthropy, to invest in the arts. We had a really good conversation about how the arts can help in healthcare, help in education and help in the justice system as well. We discussed that as well as the funding challenges, how we can increase investment but also source investment from elsewhere, he said. There are a few things we are going to explore, for example, how we can collaborate with other public sector bodies, with universities, how we can look at philanthropy to try and help tackle some of the issues that are faced. But I think the strongest message that came across for me was that this is an investment, when you invest in the arts you invest in people, you invest in society, you invest in the economy and thats the message that I have been taking to Executive colleagues and will continue to take to Executive colleagues in the time ahead because I believe it can make a real difference. He added that when they next meet he wants to be in a position where we are improving the situation. I had extra money left at the end of last year to reallocate, I was able to put that into the arts. Ive secured an additional extra half a million pounds this year for the arts. I want to continue that, I want to put us back up to where it was a number of years ago, he said. Obviously were in a constrained budgetary environment, thats the difficulty. In the absence of being able to do more there, I want to make sure were looking at these other sources of funding as well as the overall structure and support for the arts in Northern Ireland. Mr Lyons described some fantastic ambassadors for Northern Ireland, adding he wants to make the most of that. I want to get that message out there, what a great place this is and how much talent we have and how with a little bit of investment we can go even further, he said. Mr Lightbody said he appreciated the pressures on the Stormont budget, particularly around housing and homelessness, that he said we care deeply about. Obviously there are huge priorities in any society, education, infrastructure, healthcare, but the way I see it is that the arts are something that make life worth living and can bring so much joy to life, he said. Its not just about the things that sustain our lives, but the things that sustain our souls and I feel very strongly about that. He said it was impressed strongly on the minister how extraordinarily underfunded the arts is in Northern Ireland, and that it needs to be looked at. The minister listened to all our comments and said he would do his best to bring our comments to the Executive. I thought it was a positive meeting but it remains to be seen. We will continue to advocate for the arts and put pressure on. He talked about having another meeting in six to nine months. We realise it is probably going to be an incremental change but at the moment the way the Arts Council see it, is that the budget for arts is now operating on a literal shoestring, its gone down 10% every year for the last ten years. If that trend continues we will be in real jeopardy. Other places in the UK and Ireland support the arts considerably more financially and generally as well. Northern Ireland is lagging behind in that. Sen. Sherrod Brown and the Democrats are getting outspent this month in the Ohio Senate race by Republican Bernie Moreno and his allies. CLEVELAND Republicans are dominating the airwaves in Ohios Senate race this month, erasing an advantage that Sen. Sherrod Brown and his Democratic allies enjoyed all spring and for much of the summer in a battle that could tip control of the Senate. GOP nominee Bernie Moreno and the outside groups supporting him have spent double what Brown and the Democrats have on TV, radio and digital advertising since Sept. 1 roughly $70 million to $35 million through Wednesday, according to the tracking firm AdImpact. By comparison, from Ohios March primary through August, Democrats held the edge, dropping $78.5 million on ads to Republicans $59 million. Red flashing lights have to be blinking all over [Browns] campaign headquarters, said Jai Chabria, a GOP strategist in Ohio who helped run Sen. JD Vances successful 2022 campaign. The Republican money has just started to be spent, and they are going to take this seriously because this is the race they need for the majority. The onslaught, which comes amid a shakeup of the Senate battleground map, coincides with a rough week for Moreno, whose hard-line positions on abortion have brought new scrutiny to his campaign. Bernies special interest allies are dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into this race to try and defeat Sherrod because they know Sherrod will always stand up to them to do whats right for Ohio, Brown spokesperson Matt Keyes said in a statement. Democrats, who hold a one-seat majority in the Senate, are growing increasingly nervous about Sen. Jon Testers re-election bid in Montana. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on Thursday announced investments in races in Florida and Texas, two GOP-held seats seen as heavier lifts. Republicans, meanwhile, have more paths to a majority. West Virginias open seat is widely expected to flip their way. And along with Montana and Ohio, they have pickup opportunities in the battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as deep-blue Maryland, where popular GOP former Gov. Larry Hogan is running. We need to continue to invest in Ohio, the DSCC chairman, Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, said Thursday at an event at the National Press Club in Washington. Were not done investing in Ohio, and it will take more money. But right now ... we have a lot of outside groups that are dumping tens of millions of dollars against Sherrod, trying to prop up another highly flawed candidate. Philip Letsou, a spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, countered that Brown had sold out his working-class base to toe the Democrat Party line, voting in lockstep with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. After 50 years in politics, Ohio voters are ready to send him home, Letsou added. Brown, seeking a fourth term, is the only Democrat other than former President Barack Obama who has won more than one statewide election over the last quarter-century in Ohio. Former President Donald Trump, who is on the ballot again this year and has endorsed Moreno, twice won the state by 8 percentage points. The few recent public polls in the state indicate a close Senate race. It is an unprecedented level of spending against Sherrod, said a Democrat who works on Senate races and was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the uphill battle. It speaks to his resilience that this is still a toss-up, because most people would be done. Early voting begins Oct. 8. Both sides are fighting as if the race is close and can be altered by a single error. While Brown and Moreno have each expressed passing interest in having a debate, neither has demanded one an unusual dynamic in a state where Brown debated each of his previous general election opponents multiple times. As of this week, nothing was close to being scheduled, officials with both campaigns said. Democrats had a clear advertising advantage coming out of a contentious March primary that cost Morenos campaign millions of dollars to win. Brown, who through July had outraised his GOP opponent considerably even after the independently wealthy Moreno lent his campaign more than $4 million, tapped into his cash lead and began airing ads to define himself positively as an apolitical friend of the working class. Eventually, Brown and outside groups unleashed spots that depicted Moreno as a ruthless businessman and untrustworthy car dealer. But the Republican barrage intensified in mid-August and, by September, the Democratic edge had evaporated. Sherrod acted like the true liberal he is and spent and, frankly, wasted an entire summer doing God knows what with his money, said Chris Grant, Morenos general campaign consultant. So whatever cash advantage they had, its gone, and they didnt move anything. The Republican ads have been a mix promoting Morenos background as a businessman and characterizing Brown as a career politician beholden to Harris and President Joe Biden. Defend American Jobs, a pro-Moreno group tied to the cryptocurrency industry, and the GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund have each spent more than $25 million on ads in Ohio this month, making them the races two biggest players, according to AdImpact. Close behind is WinSenate, a political action committee affiliated with the Democrats Senate Majority PAC, which has spent more than $22 million this month. Democrats have been able to stretch their money a bit more than the spending disparity shows, in part because candidates can buy ads at lower rates than super PACs and Browns campaign has outspent Morenos on the airwaves. Browns campaign on its own has spent $10.5 million on ads this month, while Morenos has joined with the National Republican Senatorial Committee to spend about $5 million. As of Thursday, ad reservations placed through Election Day were on more equal footing, with Republicans booked to spend $64 million to Democrats $58 million. Reservations can be modified, though, as groups and campaigns can cancel airtime or buy more of it. Bernie is headed in the right direction and has momentum, said Scott Guthrie, a GOP strategist who has worked on Senate campaigns in Ohio but is not affiliated with Morenos team. Several polls have shown him either tied or ahead going into the last few weeks before the election, and the overall spending over the final six weeks is overwhelmingly in Bernies favor. Peters declined Thursday to specify how much money the DSCC will spend in Texas and Florida, but he stressed to reporters that the new investments will not divert resources from other states, like Montana and Ohio. There is no world that I, that you can conceive of, that Im not going to be in Montana right to the very end, Peters said. Jon Tester will have everything that he needs to win. Peters was also bullish on Ohio: Theres no way Im losing Ohio. Ohio Democrats plan to call more attention to Morenos recent disparaging comments about women who base their votes on access to abortion. Moreno described the idea of being such a single-issue voter as a little crazy especially for women that are, like, past 50. Moreno spokesperson Reagan McCarthy said the remarks were a tongue-in-cheek joke meant to chastise Brown and the media for their heavy emphasis on the abortion issue. But it could be a significant one in Ohio, where last year voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative that preserved abortion rights in the state constitution. Moreno was a prominent opponent of the measure and has continued to express support for federal abortion restrictions. WinSenate debuted an ad Thursday in which Mary Ann, a Toledo woman, recalls an emergency abortion performed years ago during her ectopic pregnancy. She says her doctors would have had to let me die if a federal abortion ban had been in effect at the time. Its about my granddaughter and all the women that I know and love and future generations, Mary Ann says in the ad. Our lives dont belong in Bernie Morenos hands. Chabria, the Vance strategist, argued that last years successful ballot initiative has made the abortion issue a moot point in Ohio. The electoral ramifications, he added, will be marginal. A line of customers wait outside cannabis dispensary Everest Apothecary in Las Cruces, N.M. on the first day recreational cannabis is legal for purchase on Friday, April 1, 2022, the first day of recreational sales in New Mexico. (Algernon D'Ammassa/The Las Cruces Sun News via AP) Algernon D'Ammassa, MBR / Associated Press Austin De La O, assistant manager at Everest Cannabis Co., shows off all the different flower strains the dispensary offers on Friday, April 1, 2022, in Las Cruces, N.M. (Miranda Cyr/The Las Cruces Sun News via AP) Miranda Cyr, MBR / Associated Press A pre-rolled joint and cannabis flower are pictured at Organ Mountain Cannabis, a new dispensary on Lohman Avenue in Las Cruces, N.M. on April 1, 2022, the first day of recreational sales in New Mexico. (Michael McDevitt/The Las Cruces Sun News via AP) Michael McDevitt, MBR / Associated Press Grocery story worker Antonio Rodriguez, 38, buys various cannabis products for the first time at a store in New Mexico on Friday, April 1, 2022, at the Everest dispensary in Santa Fe. It became legal Friday for anyone 21 and older to purchase and possess up to 2 ounces (57 grams) of marijuana for personal use -- enough to roll about 60 joints. Rodriguez says he'll not longer travel to neighboring Colorado, where the drugs has been legal for years. He says he's happy to pay taxes in state to support education and other state spending. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio) Cedar Attanasio, STF / Associated Press FILE - A store worker poses for a photo with his shirt at the Ultra Health medical cannabis dispensary on Tuesday, June 29, 2021, in Santa Fe, N.M. Marijuana producers and aficionados are bracing for the April 1, 2022 start of retail marijuana sales across New Mexico to adults 21 and over. Among 18 states to fully legalize cannabis sales, New Mexico is ushering in a new era for cannabis as big business with implications for law enforcement, state finances and cannabis tourism along the state line with Texas. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio, File) Cedar Attanasio, STF / Associated Press Tia Angie Villescaz, a Democratic candidate for House District 45, talks about her support for putting cannabis decriminalization on the November ballot for San Marcos residents on the Quad of Texas State University, Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022. Sam Owens, Staff Photographer / San Antonio Express-News Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra, front, and his son Cristian Becerra sign a petition to put cannabis decriminalization on the November ballot for San Marcos residents on the Quad of Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022. Before signing the petition, Judge Becerra spoke to students at a press conference held by Mano Amiga, an organization that fights for criminal justice and immigration reform, about his support for the initiative. Sam Owens, Staff Photographer / San Antonio Express-News Texans are driving for hours and waiting in long lines in New Mexico, while others visit doctors in Oklahoma, where they are all trying to outmaneuver state law. They are not obtaining abortions; they are buying weed. Take a stroll on Saturday evening through my EaDo neighborhood in Houston or along the Riverwalk in San Antonio or Sixth Street in Austin, and marijuana perfumes the air. So many people are toking on pipes and vaporizers police would need a fleet of paddy wagons to haul everyone away. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Those looking for a different kind of high can legally buy gummies infused with Delta-8, Delta-9 or other synthetic drugs that trigger a similar high. The sandwich boards advertising Delta-8 outside pipe and smoke shops in almost every town mock Texass farcical prohibition on marijuana. Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has pledged never to legalize marijuana, could redeploy state troopers from the Mexican frontier to search cars and trucks crossing the New Mexican border. But busting potheads doesnt have the political cache of harassing refugees. Thirty-seven states have legalized medical cannabis, and 18 allow sales for recreational purposes, but not Texas. Legislation passed last year only allows cannabinoid oil or medicines with less than 1 percent THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. Possessing up to two ounces of marijuana is a misdemeanor punishable by 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine. More than four ounces is a felony. Radio station KTEP recently reported on how visitors to the border town of Anthony can buy marijuana on the New Mexico side and get arrested a block away in Texas if they walk in the wrong direction. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Police may still make marijuana arrests, but employers are becoming less concerned and testing for pot less when screening job candidates. Testing for THC went down 6.7 percent from 2020 to 2021, Quest Diagnostics Dr. Barry Sample told the Wall Street Journal. The percentage of results positive for THC, meanwhile, has risen 50 percent since 2017. As pot becomes socially acceptable, employers must question why they are testing for THC in the first place. Workers who use THC, meanwhile, will avoid applying at companies that test for it, making it harder for employers to fill jobs. Like alcohol prohibition from 1920-1933, anti-pot laws are not only useless in preventing consumption, but they encourage organized crime and prevent responsible business people from offering safe, tax-paying alternatives. New Mexico retailers sold more than $9.9 million of product during the first week of April when recreational pot became legal, KTEP reported, citing the New Mexico Cannabis Control Division. More than 60 percent was for recreational use, and dispensaries near the Texas border did well. Advertisement Article continues below this ad It is absolutely amazing that in 2022 we have a multi-billion-dollar industry and an entire ecosystem around it, and at the same time, were still arresting almost 600,000 people a year for simple possession, Toi Hutchinson, president and CEO of the Marijuana Policy Project, said in launching a report listing best practices for legalizing pot. Congressional Democrats passed a bill in the House of Representatives on April 2 to decriminalize marijuana. Democrats would also expunge prior convictions and authorize a 5 percent tax on marijuana that would gradually increase to 8 percent. Congress would spend the money on job training, legal aid, substance abuse treatment and loans to help disadvantaged small businesses get into the marijuana industry. The bill will likely die in the Senate, where a measure to lower marijuana on the federal schedule of controlled substances died two years ago. More than two-thirds of Americans support legalizing marijuana, according to the Gallup polling firm, but two groups are dubious and holding up progress, Republicans and religious people. While most Democrats (83 percent) and political independents (71 percent) support legalization, Republicans are nearly evenly split on the question (50 percent in favor; 49 percent opposed), Gallup reported. Weekly and semiregular attendees of religious services are split on the issue as well, while those who attend infrequently or never are broadly supportive of legalizing marijuana. Numbers like that will make legalization a strong wedge issue in the November elections. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto ORourke has already proclaimed his support for legalization, while Republicans are fearmongering a drug whose prohibition laws have wrecked more lives than theyve saved. Advertisement Article continues below this ad A liberty-loving government should not force Texans to cross state lines to buy pot, law enforcement should not waste time pursuing them, and politicians should encourage businesses to bring the industry above ground. Prohibition wastes time, money and resources. In the meantime, I know people who go to Colorado and New Mexico every summer, and they are friends indeed. Happy 4-20. Chris Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and politics. twitter.com/cltomlinson chris.tomlinson@chron.com George and Amal Clooney stayed up all night when they met for the first time Marilla Sicilia/Archivio Marilla Sicilia/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images American actor and director George Clooney and his wife, Lebanese lawyer Amal Clooney, at the 81st Venice International Film Festival in 2024. George Clooney wasn't expecting to meet his wife, Amal Clooney, when he invited a friend over for dinner in 2013. When the friend asked if he could bring someone else to George's Lake Como home, the actor agreed and met his now-wife for the first time. In a 2018 interview on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman, George called their first meeting "the wildest thing." Amal also opened up about meeting George for the first time in her 2018 Vogue cover interview. I always hoped there could be love that was overwhelming and didnt require any weighing or decision-making, Amal said. Its the thing you have the least control over. Are you going to meet this person? I was 35 when I met him. It wasnt obvious that it was going to happen for me. And I wasnt willing or excited about the idea of getting married or having a family in the absence of that. Related: George Clooney and Amal Clooney's Relationship Timeline The pair are more intertwined than ever since getting married in 2014. Two years later, they established the Clooney Foundation for Justice, which works to hold perpetrators of mass atrocities accountable for their crimes, and to help victims in their fight for justice, per their website. And in 2017, they became parents, welcoming twins Ella and Alexander. George told The Hollywood Reporter in 2017 that he knew Amal was the one almost immediately. "We were a team from right off the bat. Immediately, we felt we were just happy, and we have been happy ever since," he said. George and Amal celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary in September 2024 and a few days before, at the couple's annual charity event, the actor told PEOPLE about their special plans. Im taking her somewhere tonight, but she doesnt know where," George teased with his wife by his side. So, how did the couple initially kick off their relationship? Heres everything to know about how George Clooney met his wife, Amal Clooney. Amal and George Clooney met at his home in Italy Andrew Goodman/Getty Images Amal Alamuddin and George Clooney attended the Celebrity Fight Night in Italy benefiting The Andrea Bocelli Foundation and The Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center Gala on September 7, 2014, in Florence, Italy. On My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman, George explained that when he met Amal, she had been visiting Italy. During her stay in July 2013, a mutual friend of Amal and Georges brought her to Georges villa in Lake Como. "It's the wildest thing, George said. A mutual friend of ours said, 'I'm stopping by and can I bring my friend?' And I was like, 'Of course.' " He added, "I got a call from my agent who called me and said, 'I met this woman who's coming to your house who you're gonna marry.' The funniest thing was my mom and dad were visiting, so my parents were there, and we just talked and we stayed up all night talking. In 2017, George told The Hollywood Reporter that he was immediately taken with Amal. I thought she was beautiful, and I thought she was funny and obviously smart, he said, jokingly adding that she probably thought he was "old." After meeting, Amal and George Clooney became penpals Neil Mockford/GC Images Amal Clooney and George Clooney attend The Tender Bar premiere during the 65th BFI London Film Festival at The Royal Festival Hall on October 10, 2021, in London, England. In a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter in 2017, George said, [Amal] sent some pictures from when she was here, and we were writing each other, emailing, talking, mostly about what was going on in each others lives. He continued, saying that over a period of time, it became clear we were more than just friends. Now, letter writing is a tradition the Clooneys maintain. As the actor told Drew Barrymore in 2022, I started writing her a bunch of letters ... We still write letters. We leave them on the pillow. Amal and George Clooney went on their first date in London Jacopo Raule/Getty Images Amal Clooney and George Clooney attended the DVF Awards 2023 on August 31, 2023, in Venice, Italy. George told the story of his first date with Amal on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2022. She was living in London and I went to London to score a movie. And I thought, if youre ever gonna impress anybody, its at Abbey Road with a 150 piece orchestra," he said of their October 2013 date. "I called her up and said, You want to come see and visit over at Abbey Road? George went on to explain Amals response: Shes like, Yeah, Im at a meeting at the Muslim Brotherhood right now and Ill come right over. Because she was in the middle of trying to re-do a constitution ... Her life and my life are very different. The Wolfs star told The Hollywood Reporter that the date went well and their relationship grew quickly. That was a good first date. Then we went for dinner," he said. "It was one of those places that was incredibly hip and chic. And when we came out, there were 50 paparazzi there. But she handled it like a champ. And pretty quickly, things escalated once I was in London. Five months after meeting, Amal and George Clooney traveled to Kenya together Joe Maher/Getty Images George and Amal Clooney are present at the Ticket To Paradise event on September 07, 2022 in London, England. In early 2014, George and Amal took a trip to Kenya where they went on a safari. Amal loves giraffes; they're her favorite animal, George told The Hollywood Reporter. She went to this place called Giraffe Manor, where the giraffes stick their heads through the windows and kiss you. He told the outlet that once he returned to Los Angeles, he showed a photo of Amal to his friend, Ben Weiss. I had a picture of her, looking back, smiling at these giraffes, he explained, And I said, I think Im going to ask her to marry me. In September 2024, right before their 10th anniversary, George and Amal held their annual foundation charity event and told PEOPLE about their deep connection. I would support anything my wife is involved in, George said. Shes always on the right side of history, and Im always so proud to be in the same room with her no matter what." George Clooney proposed to Amal after less than a year of dating Cindy Ord/Getty Images Amal Clooney and George Clooney attend the Clooney Foundation for Justices The Albie Awards on September 28, 2023, in New York City. Although he planned the whole evening, George said on The Drew Barrymore Show that his proposal to Amal was a "disaster. Ive got a playlist with my Aunt Rosemary singing, he explained, before telling Drew that he had placed the ring in a small drawer behind Amal. The pair had been having dinner that George cooked when the song by his aunt started, so he said, You know, I think theres a lighter [in the drawer] to relight the candle, which I blew out. When Amal reached for the lighter, she saw the ring and said, according to George, Theres a ring in there, not picking up on the fact that he was proposing. But, as George told Drew, We pulled it off. Amal and George Clooney married in 2014 Robino Salvatore/GC Images/Getty Images George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin sighting during their civil wedding at Canal Grande on September 29, 2014 in Venice, Italy. George and Amal returned to the site of their first meeting and were married in Italy at the historic Aman Canal Grande Venice on Sept. 27, 2014. The newlyweds were surrounded by approximately 100 of their closest family and friends. George wore a Giorgio Armani suit, while Amal wore an off-the-shoulder Oscar de la Renta gown made in French lace and hand-embroidered with pearls and diamante accents. George and Amal radiated love all night, Amal's mother, Baria, told PEOPLE. The wedding was so unbelievably special, it was legendary. These three days the friends, the families, the atmosphere, everything will stay with me all the rest of my life. In 2018, Amal delivered a speech at the American Film Institute Awards to commemorate George, who was being given a Life Achievement Award. Throughout her speech, Amal spoke to her husbands character, making it clear why she continues to be so smitten with him: He is a gentleman in every sense of the word and in a way that seems so rare these days and, perhaps, even outdated. Congratulating him on the honor, she continued, I am so proud of you, my love. Amal and George Clooney became parents in 2017 Kevin Winter/Getty Images Executive producer and director George Clooney and his wife, Amal Clooney, arrive at the premiere of Suburbicon at the Village Theatre on October 22, 2017, in Los Angeles, California. Three years after their wedding, on June 6, 2017, Amal gave birth to twins, Ella and Alexander Clooney. On raising two children at the same time, George said on Good Morning America in 2023, "When you have twins and you're raising [them] the same time, the same way, and they're completely different human beings, you realize how little say you have in who they are. In her American Film Institute Awards speech, Amal shared that seeing [George] with our children, Ella and Alexander, is the greatest joy in my life. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Mahmood Shah Habibi, a senior official in the previous Nato-backed Afghan regime, was reportedly arrested by the Taliban in 2022 (Photos sourced/The Independent) The family of one of three Americans held prisoner by the Taliban in Afghanistan is urging Washington to confirm his whereabouts amid online rumours of his impending execution. Afghan-born US citizen Mahmood Shah Habibi, 37, was working with an American telecommunications company when he was arrested by the Taliban in August 2022 after a drone strike killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Taliban likely assumed Mr Habibis former employer, the US Federal Aviation Administration, was involved in the strike, but did not charge him. Sarah Adams, a former American spy employed by the CIA, recently claimed without providing evidence that Mr Habibi had been transferred by the Taliban to al-Qaeda and would likely be executed soon. His family say they have received no such information from Kabul or the US State Department. I dont agree with reports that the Taliban have handed over my brother to al-Qaeda. As per my information, the Taliban have him. They took him in August 2022 and they still have him. The US government should verify such reports and confirm if the Taliban has handed over my brother to al-Qaeda, Mr Habibis brother Ahmad Shah Habibitold The Independent. In the history of the Talibans rule, we have not seen any case where they have handed over a detainee to any other group. We have not received any official information from the US government or from the Taliban. I am hoping it is just a rumour. The FBI last month issued a notice seeking information about Mr Habibis disappearance in Afghanistan. It is believed that Mr Habibi was taken by Taliban military or security forces and has not been heard from since his disappearance, it said. Taliban Hands Over Captured American to Al-Qaeda: Imminent Execution Awaits Im here today to update you on one of the three Americans I discussed during my last visit to the @shawnryanshow. This American, Mahmood Shah Habibi, was captured by the Taliban some time ago. Despite Sarah Adams (@TPASarah) September 20, 2024 Mr Habibiurged the US government to redouble efforts to free his brother, noting that the Taliban had indicated a willingness to exchange the American prisoners. The Taliban claim they only hold two Americans, Ryan Corbett and George Glezmann, allegedly for violating the countrys laws. They are keeping them, Taliban spokesperson Zabiuhllah Mujahid indicated earlier this year, to exchange for Afghans imprisoned by the US in Guantanamo Bay. The Taliban denies having Mr Habibi in custody. I think the Taliban want three people. One is in Guantanamo Bay and two in the US. I dont know who they are asking for in the US, but the American government has to put in more effort in getting my brother released, Mr Habibisaid. He said the family has had no communication with Mr Habibi since he vanished in Afghanistan. I dont know the reason why they are not acknowledging my brother when they actually detained him on 10 August 2022. Mahmood Habibi with his young daughter a few weeks before he disappeared in Afghanistan in August 2022 (Sourced/ The Independent) Mr Habibi served as director of civil aviation and deputy minister of civil aviation in the Nato-backed Afghan government that was overthrown by the Taliban in 2021. There is a possibility that he was arrested because he worked for the previous regime and also with the US embassy in Afghanistan between 2011 to 2013. We think his work for the US government and his American citizenship put him in trouble, his brother told The Independent. Mr Habibis detention was flagged in March by the US Congress in a resolution seeking his release. Mahmood Habibis family believes his work with the US government led to his alleged arrest by the Taliban (Sourced/ The Independent) His brother denied that Mr Habibi was in any way involved in the American strike that killed Mr Zawahiri. My brother had nothing to do with that, he said. When the strike happened, my brother was not even on Afghan soil. Mr Habibi said some workers of his brothers company told them they had been interrogated by the Taliban about two towers near the location of the drone strike. My brother worked with a telecommunication company with towers all over Afghanistan, around 600 in total. There were cameras installed on the towers for their security and not for civilians. My brother didnt decide where to install the towers or the cameras. He was just one of the 1,200 employees, working as an adviser. The pro-Trump cable outlet Newsmax and voting technology company Smartmatic settled a major defamation lawsuit Thursday in a last-minute agreement, averting a high-stakes trial over the airing of false 2020 election claims. The terms of the settlement were not immediately known. The deal comes hours after jury selection got underway in a Wilmington, Delaware, courtroom ahead of opening statements scheduled for Monday. The parties, and a court official, announced the settlement Thursday afternoon. Newsmax is pleased to announce it has resolved the litigation brought by Smartmatic through a confidential settlement, the network said in a statement. Smartmatic lawyer Erik Connolly said in a statement that the company was very pleased to have secured the completion of the Newsmax case. Lying to the American people has consequences, Connolly said. Smartmatic will not stop until the perpetrators are held accountable. The closely watched trial would have been the first of several high-profile lawsuits filed against right-wing media companies in the wake of the 2020 election to reach a jury and was set to determine whether Newsmax defamed Smartmatic by airing false claims the companys machines had rigged the results against Donald Trump. Newsmax denied wrongdoing and said its coverage was protected by the First Amendment. After previous negotiations fizzled out, settlement talks heated up Thursday morning. While jury selection was underway, members of both sides legal teams were notably not in the courtroom as they privately hammered out a deal, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. A loss at trial could have put Newsmax on the hook to pay tens of millions of dollars to Smartmatic, putting the small cable channel in financial peril. This is a case that is a bet-your-company case for Newsmax, Howard Cooper, an attorney for the network, said at a recent pretrial hearing. But in the run-up to the trial, Smartmatics hand weakened significantly, further raising the possibility of a settlement. Smartmatic has claimed that the lies promoted by Newsmax, Fox News, and other Trump allies destroyed its reputation and cost the company billions of dollars. However, as the Newsmax trial approached, Smartmatics lawyers reduced the companys damages claim to approximately $370 million, lowering their demands by about $1 billion, according to statements from both parties. This drop was spurred in part by Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis, who ruled Monday that Smartmatic could only seek compensation for provable losses, eliminating the possibility of additional punitive damages that might result in an eye-popping damages award. Smartmatic also voluntarily abandoned efforts to seek damages for potential losses after 2023, because it would open the door to potentially devastating testimony about its executives being charged this year in an unrelated Philippines bribery scheme. (Smartmatic denies criminality.) Settlements are a common outcome in civil lawsuits, particularly just as the trial proceedings are about to begin, said Eric Robinson, a media law expert who teaches at the University of South Carolina. This is also true of defamation cases such as this one. It often makes sense to settle rather than pay the expenses of a trial and possible appeals. The settlement is the latest in a string of 2020 election defamation cases to reach an out-of-court agreement before trial. Fox News famously settled with Dominion Voting Systems last year for a record $787 million, and the far-right channel One America News settled with Smartmatic earlier this year. Newsmax still faces a separate defamation lawsuit over similar claims that was filed by Dominion. Newsmax denies all wrongdoing in that case. But perhaps the biggest lawsuit still looming over a media outlet for its repeated airing of 2020 election lies, is Smartmatics case against Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corporation, which is scheduled for trial next year. We are now looking forward to our court day against Fox and Fox News for their disinformation campaign, Connolly, the Smartmatic lawyer, said in his statement Thursday. Fox News denies wrongdoing, A network spokesperson called Smartmatics lawsuit unsupported by the facts and intended to chill First Amendment freedoms. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Vice President Harris is narrowly leading former President Trump in six critical battleground states, while the candidates are tied in Georgia, according to new polling. The survey, published late Thursday by Bloomberg News/Morning Consult, found the Democratic nominee has the edge over Trump in Nevada, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Harris has a 7-point lead over Trump in Nevada 52 percent to 45 percent and a 5-point lead in Pennsylvania, 51 percent to 46 percent. In Arizona and Michigan, the vice president has a 3-point edge over the GOP nominee, 50 percent to 47 percent. Her lead is much smaller in North Carolina, 50 percent to 48 percent, and Wisconsin, 51 percent to 48 percent. The two White House contenders are tied in Georgia with 49 percent support apiece, the survey found. The majority of Harriss leads, with the exceptions of Nevada and Pennsylvania, are within the surveys margin of error. With Election Day less than six weeks away, Harris has an overall 3-point advantage over the former president among likely voters in all seven swing states bringing in 50 percent support to Trumps 47 percent. When third-party presidential candidates were added to the survey, the vice presidents lead expanded to 4 percentage points. Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver was at 2 percent and Green Party candidate Jill Stein was at 1 percent. Pollsters also found that on the topic of handling costs of everyday goods, the party nominees were nearly tied, with Trump getting 47 percent support compared to Harriss 46 percent. Still, Harris had an 11-point cushion on who likely voters trust to help out the middle class. On immigration, one of the most important topics for 2024 election voters, the GOP nominee still has the upper hand, holding a 14-point lead over Harris, according to the survey. The Democratic hopeful has a 24-point gap on abortion, 56 percent to 32 percent, one of her strongest issues, the survey shows. The poll also indicates that Harris has done more to introduce her policy stances to battleground state voters, with 43 percent of likely voters in the battlegrounds saying as much. Around 40 percent said the same about the GOP nominee. Nationally, Harris has a 4.1 percentage point lead over Trump, garnering 49.9 percent support to his 45.8 percent, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQs latest aggregate of polls. The Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll was conducted Sept. 19-25 among 6,165 registered voters in seven battleground states. The margin of error was 3 percentage points in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and 4 percentage points in Nevada. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 Harris has a slight lead over her political rival, former President Trump, in the battleground state of Georgia, but she trails the ex-president in Arizona by the same margin, according to new polling released Thursday. Harris outpaced Trump in Georgia by 3 percentage points, 51 percent support to 48 percent, among likely and registered voters, maintaining her narrow lead from August in the Peach State, according to a new poll from Fox News. The Democratic nominees lead was within the margin of error. The vice presidents largest lead over Trump was on the issue of abortion, garnering 57 percent support while the ex-president earned 39 percent. Trump fared better with the economy and immigration, seen as one of the top issues for 2024 election voters. The former president had a double-digit advantage on immigration, with 56 percent support to Harriss 41 percent, while having a narrow lead on the economy, 51 percent to 47 percent, according to the survey. Around 52 percent of surveyed Georgians said Harris would do more to help the middle class, while 45 percent chose Trump. The same gap, in favor of the vice president, was present on the issue of protecting democracy. Trump has a 0.4 percentage point lead in Georgia, the state he narrowly lost in the 2020 election, according to the latest The Hill/Decision Desk HQ aggregate of polls. The former president leads Harris by 3 percentage points in Arizona among likely voters, 51 percent support to 48 percent, a gap within the polls margin of error. Trumps lead remained intact when third-party candidates were included, according to the new Fox News poll. In a match-up with Trump last month, Harris had a 1-point lead over Trump, 50 percent support to 49 percent, among registered voters in the Grand Canyon State, according to the August iteration of the survey. Since that poll, the vice presidents advantage with Hispanic voters dropped to 11 points. She also had a double-digit lead over the former president among voters under the age of 30. Now she trails by 12 points. Trump also had a 5 percentage point lead, 51 percent to 46 percent, with new voters in the state, or those who have not cast a ballot in the last four White House elections. Harriss widest lead was on abortion, with 56 percent support to 41 percent. She also had a narrow advantage in protecting democracy, 3 percentage points, and fighting for the middle class, 2 percentage points, according to the survey. The ex-president had the upper edge on immigration among Arizonas registered voters, with 56 percent support to 41 percent. He also topped the vice president on the economy, getting 53 percent support to Harriss 45 percent, the poll found. Trump has a 0.9 percentage point lead over the vice president in Arizona, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQs aggregate of polls. Fox Newss Georgia poll was conducted Sept. 20-24 among 1,006 Georgia registered voters. The margin of error was 3 percentage points. The Arizona poll was conducted Sept. 20-24 among 1,021 Arizona registered voters. The margin of error was 3 percentage points. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. A staff member removes the Iranian flag from the stage at Austria International Centre in Vienna in 2015. An American journalist who runs an independent newsletter published a document Thursday that appears to have been stolen from Donald Trumps presidential campaign the first public posting of a file that is believed to be part of a dossier that federal officials say is part of an Iranian effort to manipulate the U.S. election. The PDF document is a 271-page opposition research file on former President Donald Trumps running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio. For more than two months, hackers who the U.S. says are tied to Iran have tried to persuade the American media to cover files they stole. No outlets took the bait. But on Thursday, reporter Ken Klippenstein, who self-publishes on Substack after he left The Intercept this year, published one of the files. If the document had been hacked by some anonymous like hacker group, the news media would be all over it. Im just not a believer of the news media as an arm of the government, doing its work combating foreign influence. Nor should it be a gatekeeper of what the public should know, he wrote. Publication of the document reflects how a shifting media ecosystem featuring more high-profile independent journalists on platforms like Substack can influence the ability of state-sponsored hackers to carry out election influence operations. In an interview, Klippenstein said: Its been a vibes election. They are so vague on policy. Theres so few specifics, and something like this can give you some sense of what the campaign thinks. At least three major news outlets and two independent journalists previously received a document described as a JD Vance dossier but did not publish it, citing what they have described as a lack of newsworthy information in it. The dissemination of the Vance file appears to be a hack-and-leak operation akin to how Russian intelligence leaked files from Hillary Clintons presidential campaign in 2016. Those emails got significant media attention at the time, a decision that prompted much media criticism. Politico, which says it began receiving unpublished Trump documents on July 22, was the first news outlet to report that it had received them. The Trump campaign acknowledged last month that it had been hacked and accused Iran, but it has not shared details, and it did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. Research published by Google and Microsoft indicates the hack occurred in June. Three U.S. agencies have publicly attributed the hack and the subsequent distribution of the files to Iran. Iranian officials have denied involvement with the hack. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Irans vice president for strategic affairs, told NBC News on Tuesday that the country has no interest in changing the results or affecting the results of this election and that the government and official agencies of Iran have not hacked anybody. People working for us havent, either. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has repeatedly said since July that Iran seeks to damage Trumps candidacy. As president, Trump authorized the assassination of military leader Qassem Soleimani. Intelligence officials have also briefed Trump on what they say are ongoing Iranian attempts to assassinate him. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Reporters who have received the documents describe the same pattern: An AOL account emails them files, signed by a person using the name Robert, who is reluctant to speak to their identity or reasons for wanting the documents to receive coverage. NBC News was not part of the Robert personas direct outreach, but it has viewed its correspondence with a reporter at another publication. One of the emails from the Robert persona previously viewed by NBC News included three large PDF files, each corresponding to Trumps three reported finalists for vice president. The Vance file appears to be the one Klippenstein hosts on his site. X, formerly known as Twitter, appears to have taken the strongest initial stance against Klippenstein following his Substack post, blocking accounts that share links to his post and suspending his account. Elon Musk, who owns the site, was a staunch critic of how Twitters previous leadership limited access to an October surprise story in the New York Post about scandalous material found on a laptop belonging to President Joe Bidens son Hunter. Former intelligence officials at the time cautioned that the laptop was consistent with the work of Russian intelligence, though no direct connection has been publicly substantiated. An X spokesperson told NBC News that Klippenstein was temporarily suspended for violating our rules on posting unredacted private personal information pertaining to Vance. Klippenstein wrote an additional post on Substack on Thursday defending his decision to post the file while acknowledging that it did appear to violate Xs rules. Did I make a mistake in not redacting the private information on J.D. Vance? If I wanted a Twitter account, apparently so. But on principle? I stand by it absolutely, he said. Representatives for Substack did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Senior US officials were practically triumphant Wednesday night: The United States and a large number of its allies had nailed down a proposal after days of feverish talks that would put in place a ceasefire across the Israel-Lebanon border. In a hastily arranged call with reporters just moments after the release of a joint statement, top administration officials hailed the framework as an important breakthrough. The 21-day pause in fighting that the nations were proposing would give time for diplomacy and could prevent a full-fledged war from breaking out between Israel and Hezbollah. Those officials were clear: The question was not if Israel and Hezbollah would accept the ceasefire proposal, but precisely when. Both Israel and Hezbollah were familiar with the text, one official said, and the US felt comfortable going public with the framework, with the understanding that both sides were ready to sign on. But only hours later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would throw cold water on the multi-national proposal. First, the prime ministers office released a statement saying any reports of an imminent ceasefire was incorrect and that the IDF would continue fighting with full force. Then, the prime minister himself told the press as he got off his plane in New York City: My policy, our policy, is clear: We continue to hit Hezbollah with all our might. We will not stop until we achieve all our goals. Some 24 hours after the White Houses announcement of the ceasefire proposal, there has still been no indication that Israel and Hezbollah are ready to agree to it. Israels initial response was clearly not the reaction the White House had anticipated, and it raised immediate question of why, if Israel was on board with the proposal, its leader appeared so eager to dismiss it. We are shocked, said one US official, underscoring deep frustration after they had hoped Israel would accept the proposal. Not a complete surprise, but also not helpful, a second US official said. There were quiet rumblings in Washington that domestic politics could be at play for Netanyahu, as right-wing Israeli ministers whom Netanyahu had depended upon to maintain his governing coalition expressed indignation at reports of a US-backed ceasefire. One US source who suggested that the Israeli government was being swayed by the negative reaction to the proposal at home expressed frustration, saying the US would not have come out with such optimism had there not been strong private indications that the Israelis were prepared to accept the framework. The source said they did not expect negotiations to wrap up in the coming days, saying they expected the process to be long. And as long as Israel does not publicly accept it, they added, Hezbollah wont feel pressure to either. American officials confidence in announcing the proposal on Wednesday had been derived, in part, because they were dealing with Ron Dermer, one of Netanyahus closest confidants, as they wrote and revised the statements text. Discussions on the ceasefire began with a conversation Monday between Dermer and Jake Sullivan, Bidens national security adviser. The impression the US officials received was that Netanyahu would support a pause in fighting, and they were encouraged to work with French officials to complete a statement that urged a 21-day ceasefire. Speaking Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron said it would be a mistake for Netanyahu to reject the ceasefire, but added the United States would need to increase pressure on Israel to accept its terms. Netanyahus apparent reversal amounted to a major disappointment, but for some officials it also underscored a reality that has existed for months: Netanyahus willingness to break publicly and openly with Biden, particularly when he faces internal political opposition in Israel. In a statement released Thursday night, the prime ministers office said that Israel shares the aims of the U.S.-led initiative of enabling people along our northern border to return safely and securely to their homes. Israel appreciates the US efforts, the statement said, and promised that discussions would continue in the coming days. Meanwhile, White House officials had been left confronting a barrage of questions from reporters throughout the day on Thursday and had no good answers. Asked about the apparent disconnect between the US and Israel, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the multi-nation statement was indeed coordinated with the Israeli side. Discussions between the negotiations parties in New York are ongoing, she continued, but failed to explain why Netanyahu and his office appeared wholly uninterested in agreeing to the temporary ceasefire. White House spokesman John Kirby was even more blunt in acknowledging that he had no good explanation for Netanyahus comments. I cant speak for Prime Minister Netanyahu, I cant answer the question why he said what he said, he told reporters. What I can tell you is that statement we worked on last night wasnt just drawn up in a vacuum, Kirby added. It was done after careful consultation, not only with the countries that signed on to it, but Israel itself. Kirby even acknowledged that the plan would not have been released Wednesday night had the US not believed Netanyahu and his government was on board. For now, administration officials continue to insist that discussions are ongoing and expressed hope that news could come within hours. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with top Israeli officials in New York Thursday afternoon, even as many US officials were open to the possibility that Netanyahu may not get on board. Dermer and Israeli Ambassador Michael Herzog demurred when asked by CNN ahead of that meeting if they are going to accept the ceasefire proposal between Israel and Hezbollah. Dermer quipped that less is more when speaking as a diplomat, and pointed out that their day of meetings was only just getting started. This story has been updated with additional details. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com I wouldn't plan trips around some of the major US tourist attractions. Emily Hart I've visited all 50 states and most major US tourist attractions some of which I found overrated. I wouldn't plan trips around the Four Corners Monument or Mount Rushmore. I'd also recommend avoiding Salem, Massachusetts, in October due to the immense crowds. I love visiting kitschy or unique tourist landmarks on a road trip or weekend getaway. In fact, after visiting all 50 states solo, I've enjoyed my short visits to nearly all the major tourist attractions in the United States. However, in retrospect, I've found some to be overrated and not places I'd plan an entire trip around. Here are the seven tourist attractions I think are overrated. The Four Corners Monument doesn't offer much beyond a photo opportunity. At Four Corners Monument, visitors can stand in Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico simultaneously. Emily Hart For geography enthusiasts, the Four Corners Monument where visitors can stand in Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico simultaneously is likely a bucket-list attraction. However, although the quick stop makes for a fun photo opportunity, there's not much more to do in this relatively remote area. It's worth visiting this unique attraction once, but I'd much rather stick to the nearby Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, known for its tall sandstone buttes. In New Orleans, I'd recommend visiting Frenchmen Street over Bourbon Street. Bourbon Street is one of New Orleans' most famous attractions, but it can be overwhelming. Emily Hart New Orleans is one of my all-time favorite cities, and the iconic French Quarter neighborhood is always a must-see when visiting. Despite that, I don't recommend a trip to the city just to see Bourbon Street. While it can be interesting to walk along in the morning or pop in quickly at night, the overwhelming crowds of tourists do not, in my opinion, best represent the city or its culture. If I want to escape the hustle and bustle of the French Quarter, I prefer the more low-key Frenchmen Street which some tour guides call a "local's Bourbon Street." Although Frenchmen Street has become more popular over the years, I still don't find it as overwhelming as Bourbon Street. South Dakota's Black Hills region offers more than just Mount Rushmore. I wouldn't plan an entire trip around visiting Mount Rushmore. Kurt Nichols/Shutterstock Like most spots on this list, I'd revisit Mount Rushmore if I were in the Black Hills area of South Dakota, but I wouldn't center an entire trip around it. The monument is impressive, but in its immediate vicinity, there isn't much more to do than hike a couple of very short trails. I'd instead plan a trip around the entire Black Hills Region, with stops at Crazy Horse Memorial, Custer State Park, and Badlands National Park. The Las Vegas Strip is near the top of my list of overrated destinations. I prefer Fremont Street over the Las Vegas Strip. Paparacy/Shutterstock Although the Las Vegas Strip is a sight unlike any other, its artificiality puts it near the top of my list of overrated tourist destinations. Despite that, I've enjoyed my time on the nearby Fremont Street and in the surrounding natural areas near the city, such as the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. I wouldn't visit Times Square more than once on a New York City trip. When it comes to New York City attractions, I prefer the High Line or Little Island over Times Square. Benjamin Lebrun/Shutterstock Similar to the Las Vegas Strip, Times Square is one of the most iconic US landmarks. Although I'd visit if I were nearby, there are so many other spots in New York City that I prefer. In my opinion, spending time walking around smaller neighborhoods in Manhattan or Brooklyn gives visitors a much better understanding of the local culture. For those looking for a more touristy experience, I recommend checking out The High Line, which offers great views of Manhattan, or Little Island, which is an artificial island within Hudson River Park. The line for photos at the Southernmost Point of the US in Key West, Florida, is often extraordinarily long. Key West, Florida, has incredible culture, museums, and outdoor recreation. Emily Hart Key West, Florida, is one of my favorite cities in the US. Despite all the city has to offer, many visitors first make a beeline for the Southernmost Point. As the title implies, it's a simple monument that marks the southernmost point of the US, just 90 miles north of Cuba. Although I visited the point and thought it was a fun photo opportunity, the line for pictures was extraordinarily long. There are many other places in the area where I'd rather spend that time, with Key West's exciting culture, museums, history, food, and excellent outdoor-recreation opportunities. I recommend avoiding Salem, Massachusetts, in October. Beware of the Halloween crowds visiting Salem, Massachusetts, in October. Heidi Besen/Shutterstock I first visited Salem, Massachusetts, on a whim while traveling nearby one October. However, I didn't realize the city is inundated with visitors throughout the entire month not just on Halloween. Infamous for the Salem Witch Trials, the city has become a tourist destination for lovers of everything spooky, especially as Halloween approaches. Most of my visit was spent finding a parking spot, with the hoards of crowds limiting the appeal for me. I'd love to visit outside October and recommend only spooky-season fanatics plan a trip during that timeframe. Read the original article on Business Insider Anadolu - Getty Images Prince Harry is back in New York! The Duke of Sussex was in the city this week for a series of engagements tied to the UN General Assembly High-level Week and Climate Week. "The Duke of Sussex, will be in town to advance a number of his patronages and philanthropic initiatives," a spokesperson for Prince Harry said last month. "He will participate in engagements with African Parks, The HALO Trust, The Diana Award, and Travalyst. In addition, he will be furthering the work of The Archewell Foundation, the nonprofit organization he co-founded with his wife Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex." Many members of the British royal family have visited New York City over the yearsand Prince Harry has been in the Big Apple numerous times since relocating to the U.S. in 2020. Here, see all the best photos of his September 2024 solo trip: Sunday, September 22, 2024 On Sunday evening, Prince Harry attended the Every Child Protected dinner hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO). "The Duke is proud of the global initiatives aimed at protecting children and emphasized the urgent need to address online safety," Sussex.com shared. Here, he's pictured with Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, World Health Organisation WHO director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Queen Mathilde of Belgium, actor Forest Whitaker, actor Will Poulter and United Nations International Children's Education Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director, Catherine Russel. Shutterstock Monday, September 23, 2024 Prince Harry spoke on a panel at the Concordia Summit. Anadolu - Getty Images "I applaud you for certainly, [at] your age, to be on this stage, to have the confidence that you do, and to be able to speak as clearly and as passionately as you do," Harry said to his co-panelists. "And I know that my mom would be incredibly proud of you guys, not just you, but all of the award winners." John Nacion - Getty Images "The younger generation are, not putting too much pressure on you guys, you are what give me hope," he said near the end of the event. "The courage that you have gives me hope, because every single one of us need courage in order to really move the dial and create positive change in today's world, probably more so now than ever." Anadolu - Getty Images Dr. Tessy Ojo (right), the CEO of the Diana Award, said Harry's "dedication to this cause strengthens our mission." Anadolu - Getty Images In the afternoon, he joined The HALO Trust to celebrate Angola's progress in landmine clearance and conservation. Jenna Jones "The HALO Trust work in Angola meant a great deal to my mother," the Duke of Sussex said. "Carrying on her legacy is a responsibility that I take incredibly seriously." Read more ANGELA WEISS - Getty Images Tuesday, September 24, 2024 Prince Harry kicked off his Tuesday with an address at the Clinton Global Initiative, where he spoke about The Archewell Foundation's Parents' Network. "Through trauma-informed practices, our Network helps parents come together to forge strong bonds, offering healing support through community. This safe and free-to-access peer-support not only offers invaluable resources and advice, it is guided by a licensed facilitator, ensuring that no one has to navigate this journey alone. Our platform provides opportunity for parents to turn their pain into purpose, ultimately changing the very system that stole their child," he said. Alex Kent - Getty Images Prince Harry also revealed his lock screen photo features his children, Prince Archie and Princess Lili. Craig Barritt - Getty Images After, Prince Harry headed to the United Nations, where he spoke at an event hosted by the Lesotho delegation to the UN. "I would like to start by extending my deepest gratitude to Their Majesties for their continued friendship," Harry said. "The Lesotho royal family, as well as Lesotho itself, has been a pillar of strength for me over the last 20 years, welcoming me with open arms and such kindness." Read more Jenna Jones He joined Queen Masenate Mohato Seeiso and King Letsie III at the intimate event. Jenna Jones On his last engagement of the day, Prince Harry celebrated the five year anniversary of Travalyst. Nick Leavelsey After giving a ten-minute speech, he socialized with the attendees over cocktails. Nick Leavelsey You Might Also Like A pod of orcas has been spotted for the first time feeding on dolphins off Chiles coast, shedding light on newly discovered hunting skills of killer whales in the southern hemisphere. The orcas were previously documented skillfully leveraging local fishing boat movements to capture sea lions. Now, drone footage has shown the killer whales successfully hunting dusky dolphins and sharing the food within the pod. The discovery, detailed in a study published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, sheds new light on the eating habits of orcas and may help better conserve their populations in the southern hemisphere. The study suggests orcas near Chiles coast could be increasingly feeding on other marine mammals like dolphins. Orcas are intelligent apex predators with an impressively varied diet and unique behaviours. Previous studies have shown certain populations of orcas harassing and killing porpoises, but without consuming them. Matriarch orca Dakota propels dolphin into air while hunting (Maikol Barrera) Recent studies have attempted to explain the strange behaviour of orcas ramming into boats in several parts of the world. Scientists last year documented a killer whale off the coast of South Africa hunting and eating alive a great white shark, which itself is considered a ferocious apex predator. Orcas have even been found to hunt and kill blue whales. Populations of orcas seem to vary in their behaviours, preferred foods, acoustics, and genetics, making it important to understand each pod to tailor conservation efforts specific to them. For instance, in the southern hemisphere, populations like Type A and Type B1 orcas, focus on marine mammals, while others prefer fish. In the latest study, researchers assessed a population of killer whales in the Humboldt Current System of the Southeast Pacific coast. Map of northern Chile indicating two locations of orca sightings (Ana Garcia Cegarra et al., Frontiers in Marine Science) They examined data from their own surveys as well as from amateur scientists tracking orcas during whale-watching and fishing vessel trips. Researchers also took pictures and videos to help cross-reference the data with catalogues of known individuals. The new data combined with drone photos and videos helped scientists build a map of orca presence in the area. Orcas share meat of dusky dolphin among pod (Luis Aguilar, CETALAB) In a series of videos, researchers found evidence of the Menacho pod of orcas catching dusky dolphins, a species no population of killer whales in the area has ever successfully hunted. The footage shows the pods matriarch, Dakota, tossing a dusky dolphin into the air. Food sharing from this matriarch first to the juvenile male, later the lone adult male, and finally the adult female who also shared with her presumed offspring, scientists wrote. Food sharing among orcas is a behaviour previously recorded among many populations of the species. Matriarch Dakota shares dolphin with juvenile male (Ana Garcia Cegarra et al., Frontiers in Marine Science) Female orcas of some groups are often seen sharing meat with members, allowing closer relations to eat first, scientists said. The fact that we have observed newborn calves is important because it indicates that they are having offspring, but we dont know their survival rate, study co-author Garcia Cegarra said. Thanks to citizen science, we can follow the presence of killer whales along thousands of kilometres of the coast of northern Chile, but most orca sightings are opportunistic. Products containing delta-8 THC are displayed next to the snacks and candies they resemble. Hannah Meisel/Capitol News Illinois Army veteran Ty Cobb, shops for CBD gummies, which he says helps reduce his anxiety, in February 2023 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer A woman walks by a display of hi Seltzer at a Spec's Wine, Spirits & Finer Foods store in Houston. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer Products advertised as containing synthetically derived delta-8 THC are offered for sale at a smoke shop. Gene Johnson/AP I dont always use cannabis, but when I do, I smoke marijuana. Admittedly, I am an extremely infrequent user. I dabble when I visit places where recreational marijuana is legal or when my delinquent college friends show up. But I had never sampled products made with delta-8, a psychoactive form of hemp-derived THC, before I wrote about proposals to ban it. After much reader feedback, I sampled hemp-derived delta-8 and delta-9 gummies sold in retail stores and compared them to marijuana gummies. I did this for you, dear reader, to understand why Republican leaders and marijuana growers are so upset over hemp products, which generate more than $6 billion in legal revenue for Texas farms and businesses. Advertisement Article continues below this ad First, lets review how Texas retailers came to sell hemp-derived THC. Hemp and marijuana are the same plant. The legal difference is the amount of THC found in different varietals. Less than 0.3% on a dry weight basis is legal hemp under federal and state law; anything more is illegal marijuana. Cannabis chemistry, though, is far more complicated than the law recognizes, and entrepreneurs are exploiting the ambiguity. As one retailer incorrectly claimed: As long as the plant is under 0.3%, we can do anything we want with it. For example, I previously wrote that two forms of THC are at issue: naturally occurring delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol from marijuana, which makes you high, and hemp-derived delta-8-tetrahydrocannabinol, which makes you not so high. Delta-9 can land you in jail, while delta-8 is legal. But thats not the whole story. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Texas law allows doctors to prescribe stronger, marijuana-derived products under the Compassionate Use Program. Medical marijuana growers are frustrated, though, because they say people arent getting prescriptions because they are getting high from hemp. Hemp manufacturers have stepped up the competition by extracting delta-9 from hemp plants. The U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that all consumable hemp products contain less than a 0.3% concentration of THC, but youll still feel something. Cannabis plants have 113 cannabinoids that have potential applications. One of them is THCA, a substance abundant in raw cannabis that will not make you high but reportedly helps with inflammation. THCA, in small amounts, is considered legal. If you heat THCA in a vape pen or bong, though, it turns into delta-9 THC through a process called decarboxylation. Some hemp manufacturers are isolating THCA crystals and adding them to hemp flowers so that when smoked, the weed gives a high like marijuana. Heres the kicker. If law enforcement finds someone with a product that looks like marijuana, even if it is labeled a hemp product, the lab test could decarboxylate the THCA and show an illegal level of delta-9. North Texas police have started charging shop owners and consumers with possessing illegal marijuana, even if the products were sold as hemp. Advertisement Article continues below this ad THC purveyors are angry, the police are frustrated, and conservatives want to ban it all. But what is the consumer experience? I have chronic back pain and sometimes experience insomnia. So, I purchased delta-8 gummies manufactured by an approved hemp company from a smoke shop. I chose an Indica strain to promote relaxation before bed. I definitely felt intoxicated by the 5-milligram dose and would not have tried to drive a car. The sensation was stronger than I expected, but it relieved my pain, and I slept well. The next morning, I woke up before the alarm and felt fine. A few nights later, I took a similar dose of delta-9, also in gummy form, from another Texas hemp company. The experience felt the same as the marijuana gummy I had taken five days before. I was intoxicated, and my mind wandered in that cliche way portrayed in movies. The delta-9 eased my back pain but, like marijuana, triggered insomnia. Lastly, I tried a hemp-derived THC beverage, and I felt a mild buzz that helped me sleep well. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The hemp products I tested justified the marijuana industrys complaints that hemp is getting a pass on regulation. But the intoxication is only slightly different from when I drink alcohol. I did not hallucinate, lose control or blackout. The problem is anyone can legally buy hemp products. California Gov. Gavin Newsom this month issued a controversial emergency ban on hemp THC because there is currently no restriction on selling it to people under 21. Some of the packaging is also misleading. Nationally, Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, has introduced the Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act to direct the Food & Drug Administration and the Alcohol Tax Tobacco & Trade Bureau to regulate intoxicating hemp products, including age, marketing and content rules. Texas should regulate all intoxicants, whether alcohol or pot, but banning THC is next to impossible now. Thoughtful legalization of all cannabis products, preferably at the federal level, is the only feasible answer. NICOSIA (Reuters) -A sharp escalation in border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon has sent Western nations scrambling to update contingency plans for evacuations from the region. Cyprus, the closest EU member to the Middle East, is a likely hub, having processed around 60,000 people fleeing the Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006. Neighbouring Turkey has offered facilities as well. Operations-wise, most contingency planning seems to be by sea, enabling movement of larger groups, but that will be defined by the security situation, a source familiar with the process told Reuters. It takes about 10 hours to Cyprus by sea, or 40 minutes by plane from Beirut. Here are some details on contingency planning: AUSTRALIA Authorities have made contingency plans that could include evacuation by sea, though it has urged an estimated 15,000 of its citizens in Lebanon to leave while Beirut airport remains open. CANADA News reports from Canada suggest it will cooperate with Australia in evacuating nationals by sea. The plan involves contracting a commercial vessel to transport 1,000 people out each day, The Toronto Star reported. FRANCE France, which has been urging citizens not to travel to Lebanon, has had evacuation plans in place for several months but has not issued an evacuation order. Present contingency plans centre around Cyprus and Beirut airport, while it is also discussing evacuations via Turkey. France has a warship in the region, and a helicopter carrier in the southern French town of Toulon, which would need several days to travel to the area. GREECE The Greek foreign ministry on Tuesday urged its citizens to leave Lebanon and avoid any travel to the country. A frigate is on standby in case assistance is needed. UNITED KINGDOM Britain has called for its nationals to leave immediately. It has moved around 700 troops to Cyprus, bolstering its presence in the area where it already has military assets, including two Royal Navy ships. It also has two military bases on the island. UNITED STATES The U.S. has ordered the deployment of dozens of troops to Cyprus to help prepare for scenarios, including an evacuation of Americans from Lebanon. PORTUGAL Prime Minister Luis Montenegro on Wednesday advised against travel to Lebanon. The country has a plan to evacuate Portuguese citizens living there in cooperation with partner countries in the EU, he said. (Reporting by Reuters bureaux, writing by Michele Kambas, editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Sharon Singleton) NEW YORK - In the indictment against Eric Adams, federal investigators detail the alleged conspiracy they say the Democratic New York City Mayor constructed and engaged in dating back to 2014. Adams is accused of securing bribes from foreign nationals and illegal campaign contributions in exchange for favors. Prosecutors say Adams started exploiting foreign relationships years before becoming mayor while serving as Brooklyn Borough President. Track live updates on Adams' indictment here. Here is an expanded timeline of alleged "overt acts" committed by Adams along with other key moments in his political tenure from 2014 to 2022. The information below was taken from the indictment, and all parties are innocent until proven guilty. *The indictment lists at least five accomplices, dubbed "Businessman" 1 through 5, who are referred to as "businessperson" throughout the timeline. Allegations timeline 2014: Eric Adams becomes Brooklyn Borough President. 2015: August : Adams takes his first trip to Turkey, arranged by the Turkish Consulate and a for-profit Turkish university. He receives free business-class flights and accommodation. Adams meets key figures, including a Turkish official and a Turkish business person, both of whom later provide illegal campaign contributions. December : Adams makes a second trip to Turkey, organized by the Turkish official and a Turkish promoter. Again, he receives luxury benefits, including upgraded business-class flights on Turkish Airlines. Adams discloses his trips in 2015 but later conceals similar benefits received after this period. NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 10: Brooklyn Borough President, Eric L. Adams speaks onstage during the Captain America statue dedication ceremony and community event honoring 75 years of Captain America at Children's Corner of Prospect Park on August 10, 2016 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo by Desiree Navarro/WireImage) 2016: Adams begins receiving free or heavily discounted luxury travel benefits without reporting them, marking the start of a pattern of concealment. October : Adams and his domestic partner receive free upgrades to business class for a trip to India. The true cost of the tickets is over $15,000, which Adams does not disclose. Adams uses Turkish Airlines for multiple trips, including to India, France, Turkey, Sri Lanka, China, and Nepal. The Turkish official and the airline manager continue to arrange these benefits in exchange for influence over Adams. Adams does not report these benefits on his financial disclosures, despite the legal requirement to do so. The Turkish House (Adams indictment) 2017: July through August : Adams travels to France, Turkey, Sri Lanka, and China, again using free Turkish Airlines tickets worth more than $35,000. Adams stays in luxury hotels, including the Bentley Suite at St. Regis Istanbul at a significantly discounted rate. The suite's cost would have been $7,000 but Adams pays less than $600. Adams creates fake paper trails to make it appear he paid for these trips, but the benefits were actually provided by Turkish nationals. October : Adams travels to Nepal with free business-class tickets on Turkish Airlines, valued at over $16,000. Adams continues to conceal these benefits from his financial disclosures, and he begins planning for his 2021 mayoral campaign. Bentley Suite Bathroom (Adams idictment) 2018: Adams formally begins fundraising for his 2021 mayoral campaign. He allegedly starts soliciting illegal contributions, including from foreign nationals and a Turkish businessperson, while concealing the true sources of these donations. April : Adams asks his contact with Turkish Airlines to organize fundraising efforts for his campaign, leveraging his relationship with the Turkish official. June : Adams attends a fundraiser organized by the Turkish Airline manager, where illegal donations are made through straw donors. Adams continues to benefit from free travel and luxury accommodations, including a trip to Hungary, which he does not report on his disclosure forms. Bentley Suite Bedroom (Adams indictment) 2019: January : Adams travels to Turkey, Jordan and Oman, receiving free hotel stays, meals, and transportation, again facilitated by Turkish nationals. During this trip, Adams allegedly solicits illegal campaign contributions from Turkish business people, despite knowing foreign nationals cannot legally contribute to U.S. elections. The promoter arranges luxury benefits for Adams, including a free stay in the Cosmopolitan Suite at St. Regis Istanbul, valued at $3,000. Adams continues to use straw donors to funnel foreign donations into his campaign, despite warnings from his staff about the legal risks. Adams maintains a close relationship with a Turkish official and promoter, who promised further contributions toward his campaign. Cosmopolitan Suite Bedroom (Adams indictment) 2020: Adamss alleged illegal fundraising activities ramp up as the 2021 mayoral election approaches. December : Adams solicits and receives straw donations from a business operating a construction company in New York City. The business person reimburses his employees for donations made to Adamss campaign. Adams personally attends a fundraiser where illegal contributions are made, further expanding his corrupt fundraising network. He continues to benefit from foreign contributions, despite federal laws prohibiting such donations. His campaign receives fraudulent public matching funds based on these illegal donations. 2021: May : Adams attends a fundraiser organized by a Turkish official and accepts more straw donations from members of the Turkish community in New York. July : Adams wins the Democratic primary for NYC Mayor. He continues accepting bribes, including luxury travel and accommodations, from the Turkish official in exchange for political favors. September : Adams intervenes with the FDNY to facilitate the opening of a Turkish consulate skyscraper without proper fire inspections. In return, he receives luxury travel benefits. November : Adams is elected Mayor of New York City. The day after his victory, Adamss Turkish benefactors celebrate, believing they have gained significant influence over the future mayor. Adams continues to hide these transactions, instructing his staff to delete messages and create false records. 2022: Knickerbocker Commons in Brooklyn, New York, is the states first 100% affordable multi-family building to be built and certified to the Passive House standard. Photograph: Danielle Amy/The Guardian The US sweltered under record-breaking heat this year, with new research suggesting that air conditioning is no longer enough to keep homes cool. Spiraling energy demands and costs of indoor cooling now have planners looking to alternative ways to keep buildings cool some fresh out of the lab, others centuries old. The amount of buildings we expect to go up in the next couple decades is just staggering, says Alexi Miller, director of building innovation at the non-profit New Buildings Institute (NBI). If we build them the way we built them yesterday, were going to use a phenomenal amount of energy. There are lots of ways we could be doing this better. Its not all fancy, emerging technology theres some basic stuff we dont do nearly enough. The Guardian spoke with architects, designers and developers about how they are building homes for a warmer planet. Affordable passive housing Homes built to passive housing standards with airtight enclosures and thick insulation are widely considered the gold standard for energy efficiency and indoor comfort, Miller said: Basic efficiency stuff can get us nearly all the way there in terms of decarbonization. Passive home design got its start in Germany in the 1980s and has caught on in the US in recent decades, with more than 16,000 units built or under construction as of last year, according to the Passive House Network. In April, developers in New York City completed what is now the countrys largest residential passive building: a 709-unit affordable housing complex. Passive homes typically use 80% to 90% less energy, Miller said. Though this type of building is growing in popularity, it is not yet mainstream. One way that we have seen a lot of growth is through policy and financial levers, like energy codes with stricter efficiency standards, and incentive programs that offer benefits like better zoning treatment or attractive finance rates, Miller said. He added that passive housing is especially promising as a way to lower energy costs for families struggling to pay their bills. Living exteriors Green exteriors have been used to insulate buildings going back to ancient Mesopotamia, and can lower indoor temperatures by as much as 7F (3.8C). The more green we can bring back, whether its on a roof or on a wall, it helps keep cities cool, said Bruce Dvorak, a landscape architect at Texas A&M, who built his first green roof on Chicagos city hall back in 2001. A typical green roof doesnt absorb heat the way black, tarry shingles of conventional roofs do, and can help cool not just the buildings they cover but surrounding areas. They also absorb rainwater, preventing runoff that contributes to flooding. An ideal green roof is covered in lightweight soil and local vegetation, Dvorak said. In arid Texas, that might mean planting prickly pear and red yucca, whereas in woodsy Massachusetts you might use a native meadow. Similar planning goes for living walls: a frame is arranged against an exterior wall and covered with climbing plants, like yarrow and lavender, which can reduce energy costs by 23%. Green exteriors are growing in popularity as cities including New York and Chicago offer tax incentives for transforming asphalt and other non-porous surfaces into green spaces. Even the retail giant Walmart has built green roofs in Portland, Oregon, and Chicago. Dvorak sees enormous untapped potential: You think of schools, shopping centers, buildings that have massive rooftops, he said. The federal government can really help support these initiatives Its the kind of thing that drives us crazy, because there is no reason not to do it. Solar chimneys and chilled beams Some builders are looking to built-in features to cool homes. Solar chimneys are dark-painted shafts attached to the sides of buildings. The chimney absorbs heat, and when that hot air rises, the suction forces cooler air to ventilate through the house. Combined with other passive cooling strategies, solar chimneys can reduce indoor temperatures up to 14F. Solar chimneys have been used for centuries in the Middle East, and started being used in the US around the 1960s, said Corey Saft, an architecture professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In 2018, Harvards Center for Green Buildings and Cities installed a solar chimney on its headquarters as part of retrofit aimed at making the building require almost no energy for heating, cooling, ventilation or daytime electric lighting. Solar chimneys build on more widely used strategies of increasing airflow: Before we had real careful building science, says Saft, referring to hot places like Louisiana, they would build leaky, because that would allow ventilation. Another feature growing in popularity are chilled beams, which circulate cool water through ducts that are usually attached to the ceiling, which then radiate cool air. First developed in the 1970s, they are quiet, inexpensive to operate and easy to maintain, and can reduce energy use by about 30%. Miller, the NBI director, said that because the financial benefits of chilled beams only accrue over time, local and state governments need to create incentives to include these features to encourage widespread adoption. We need to make the people planning the [building] project think about things in the longer term, he said. Light-deflecting fabrics This summer, researchers at the University of Chicago unveiled a new fabric that reflects sunlight as well as thermal radiation emanating from buildings, asphalt and other surfaces. Professor Po-Chun Hsu said that in tests, a wearable version of the fabric stayed 16F cooler than silk, and 3F cooler than cotton. He and his team are working on making the material more durable, so it can be used on building exteriors. When you put [this] material under the sun, it wont be heated by the sun, but it will also keep radiating, or losing heat, to the sky, he said. Thats how we can do the cooling. He said his team was working on bringing the material to market and that it can be engineered to be eye-catching which could be an added bonus as the material becomes a part of the cityscape. By playing with the optical properties, at certain angles youll see different colors, he said. By Jaspreet Kalra MUMBAI (Reuters) - The overseas arm of India's National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) will build a digital payments system for Trinidad and Tobago, modelled after India's United Payments Interface (UPI), according to a statement on Friday. The NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) said its deal with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Trinidad and Tobago is to build a payments platform for both person-to-person and person-to-merchant transactions. The NPCI, a quasi-regulator under the central bank, is a public non-profit organisation that oversees India's retail payment systems, including UPI, the country's most popular mode of digital payments. Earlier in the year, NIPL had agreed to develop digital payments systems for Peru and Namibia, using UPI as a blueprint. The NPIL, carved out of the NPCI to promote the adoption of India's payment systems overseas, is also in talks with African and South American countries to help them build payments systems, Reuters reported earlier this week. (Reporting by Jaspreet Kalra; Editing by Savio D'Souza) The general counsel for Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is calling for the resignation of a sheriff who faces murder charges in connection with the fatal shooting of a district judge at a courthouse last week. In a letter Wednesday, Beshear's office and Kentucky General Counsel S. Travis Mayo asked Letcher County Sheriff Shawn "Mickey" Stines to resign by the end of Friday. The letter noted that, under state law, Stines will be removed from his position if he does not resign. "We ask that you tender your resignation as the Letcher County Sheriff to the Letcher County Judge/Executive by the end of Friday, September 27, 2024," the letter reads. "If you do not tender your resignation, the Governor will move forward with removal." Stines, 43, is accused of fatally shooting District Judge Kevin Mullins, 54, on Sept. 19 at the Letcher County Courthouse in Whitesburg, Kentucky. The shooting occurred after an argument, according to authorities. The question haunting a Kentucky town: Why would the sheriff shoot the judge? The sheriff faces one count of murder, authorities said. Stines made his first court appearance virtually on Wednesday as he remains jailed in Leslie County and pleaded not guilty to the charge, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network. Stines is expected to appear in court on Oct. 1 for his preliminary hearing. The shooting shocked the community of Whitesburg, a small city in southeastern Kentucky near the Virginia border. Both Stines and Mullins had deep ties to the community, The Courier-Journal previously reported. Letcher County Commonwealth's Attorney Matt Butler previously said he would recuse himself from the case due to his "close personal relationship" with Mullins and his "close professional relationship" with Stines. Kentucky district judge shot multiple times inside courthouse Authorities said Stines shot and killed Mullins, who had been a judge in Whitesburg since 2009, in his private chambers at the Letcher County Courthouse just before 3 p.m. on Sept. 19. Authorities discovered Mullins with "multiple gunshot wounds," according to Kentucky State Police spokesperson Matt Gayheart. Emergency personnel attempted lifesaving measures but were unsuccessful, Gayheart previously said. Mullins was pronounced deceased at the scene by the Letcher County Coroners Office. A preliminary investigation found that Stines fatally shot Mullins after an argument inside the courthouse, according to Gayheart. Stines was taken into custody shortly after without incident. Stines, who has served as the Letcher County sheriff since being elected in 2018, is being held at the county jail, about 50 miles east of Whitesburg. Officials have not yet revealed a motive for the shooting. Contributing: Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA TODAY; Lucas Aulbach, Louisville Courier Journal This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kentucky judge shooting: Gov. Andy Beshear calls for sheriff to resign Several Kentucky school districts, including a private school in Lexington, canceled in-person classes Friday as Hurricane Helene is expected to make landfall in Florida and drench much of the southeastern U.S. Rain was expected to move into Lexington around 8 p.m. Friday and continue until early next week. Some parts of Kentucky may receive 2-4 inches of rain by the end of the weekend. Lexington Christian Academy and Harrison County Schools canceled classes altogether on Friday. Dan Koett, spokesperson for LCA, said Friday was an inclement weather day, and Harrison County said in a statement that the area is prone to flooding in low-lying areas and projected to experience extremely high winds on Friday. The University of Louisville also announced that classes were canceled and offices would be closed on Friday. Among the school districts that canceled in-person classes and moved to remote learning were Floyd County, Bell County, Rowan County, Middlesboro Independent, Lewis County and Lawrence County. Harlan County also canceled in-person classes, but it was not immediately clear if it would move to remote learning. Fayette Superintendent Demetrus Liggins said shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday that the district has no plans to cancel classes at FCPS schools. In Harlan County, the district said in a social media post: Substantial rain has fallen in the area, causing creeks to rise. Significant rain is expected, prompting a flood watch throughout the area as the remnants of Hurricane Helene move through tonight and Friday. We are also under a high wind warning, with winds expected to reach 60 miles per hour. The safety of our students continues to be our top priority, the post said. We appreciate your understanding the decision to close on Friday. In Bell County, the district posted on social media: Due to the warning of dangerous weather, Bell County Schools will operate remotely. The top staffer to Mark Robinson, North Carolinas embattled lieutenant governor, is set to resign following a CNN KFile report that Robinson made inflammatory and racist remarks on a pornography websites message board. Brian LiVecchi, Robinsons chief of staff and general counsel, will resign in the coming week, according to a source familiar with the matter. His departure is the latest in a series of high-profile resignations of Robinson staffers in the wake of CNNs report last week. Robinson, who is the Republican nominee for governor in North Carolina, already lost most of his campaign staff when they resigned on Sunday, including his campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, finance director, and senior advisor and general consultant. The New York Times and WRAL reported on Wednesday that Robinsons policy director, communications director, and director of government affairs had also resigned. CNN reached out to those staff members but has not heard back. Robinson announced a new chief of staff on X on Thursday morning, saying he had elevated Krishana Polite, his deputy chief of staff, to the top position. Robinsons lewd comments included describing himself as a black Nazi, describing how he used to go peeping on women at a public gym when he was 14 years old and expressing support for reinstating slavery on the pornographic website Nude Africa. Robinson listed his full name on his profile for Nude Africa, as well as an email address he used on numerous websites across the internet for decades. In an interview with CNN on last week, Robinson repeatedly denied that he made the comments on Nude Africa. This is not us. These are not our words. And this is not anything that is characteristic of me, Robinson said. Presented with the litany of evidence connecting him with the user name on Nude Africa, Robinson said, Im not going to get into the minutia of how somebody manufactured this, these salacious tabloid lies. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com 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 day after the execution of Marcellus Khaliifah Williams, the Republican nominee for Missouri governor wouldnt say whether he supported or opposed the execution, leaving in doubt how he would approach the death penalty if elected. Republican Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoes campaign dodged questions from The Star about whether he supported Gov. Mike Parsons decision to deny clemency for Williams. The campaign vowed to uphold the rule of law when asked about potential changes to the death penalty. Meanwhile, Democratic House Minority Leader Crystal Quades campaign was sharply critical of Williams execution, calling it a disgrace. Her campaign said the states current use of capital punishment was flawed and that she would support legislation to abolish the death penalty. The decision to move forward with Tuesdays execution of Williams, who maintained his innocence in a 1998 killing, has renewed focus on the states use of the death penalty. Parson has rejected every clemency application in a death penalty case that has come across his desk since becoming governor in 2018, totaling 12 applications. Parson terms out of office in January and voters will elect his successor on Nov. 5, raising questions about how Missouris next governor would handle death penalty cases. Whoever wins would wield significant influence over how the state would carry out capital punishments. Kehoe and Quade secured their partys nominations in the August primaries, setting up a showdown for governor in the November general election. Republicans hold every statewide office in the state and Quade faces an uphill battle. A spokesperson for Republican Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe did not directly answer questions from The Star on Wednesday about whether he supported Parsons decision and whether he would support any changes to the states use of capital punishment. Lt. Gov. Kehoe recognizes that weighing the facts and judgments involving capital punishment cases is one of the most difficult and consequential responsibilities of the role of governor, spokesperson Gabby Picard said in an emailed statement. Picard added that, as governor, Kehoe would always uphold the rule of law and respect the integrity of the judicial system. Parson appointed Kehoe as lieutenant governor in 2018 after Kehoe previously served in the state Senate. Kehoe won election to a full term in 2020. A spokesperson for Quade, first elected to the Missouri House in 2016, criticized the decision to move forward with Williams execution, specifically pointing to Parsons move to dissolve a board tasked with looking into Williams innocence claim. There were serious concerns that Marcellus Williams may have been innocent, as the prosecutor argued, and Governor Parsons refusal to pause the execution and his dismantling of the review committee examining Mr. Williams innocence is a disgrace on Missouri, Quade spokesperson Andrew Storey said in an emailed statement. Storey added that the current system of capital punishment was flawed, pointing to more and more examples of innocent lives that are taken by our government. Unlike the current administration, which has let political pressure influence clemency decisions, when elected governor, Minority Leader Quade will always make decisions by reviewing the individual details of each case, Storey said. In a follow-up email, Storey said that Quade would support legislation to abolish the use of the death penalty in favor of life without chance of parole. Democrat Crystal Quade and Republican Mike Kehoe. Michelle Smith, co-director of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty, implored citizens to know who they are voting for because these people make decisions that affect life and death, as weve seen with Marcellus Khaliifah Williams case. Smith went on to say that she hopes Kehoe, who is Catholic, would adhere to Catholic beliefs that oppose the death penalty and added that voters should consider his non-statement on the death penalty when they go to the polls. Lora McDonald, executive director of the social justice organization MORE2, said it was difficult to conceive that anyone claiming to be Christian would support an execution when there is even a remote possibility that the person is innocent or just period. The criminal justice system, she continued, has too many flaws and pointed to exonerations from death row. Four people with death sentences have been exonerated in Missouri, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. She also said she interprets Kehoes support of the rule of law to mean that he is OK with putting someone to death. Executions ramp up in Missouri Williams execution on Tuesday was the third this year in Missouri. One more is planned for Dec. 3. Williams was convicted in 2001 of killing Felicia Gayle, a former St. Louis reporter. His execution faced widespread opposition, including from the St. Louis County Prosecutors Office, and no forensic evidence linked him to the crime. He was convicted primarily on the word of two witnesses who testified that he had confessed to them. One of them later led authorities to Williams vehicle, where some of Gayles belongings were found. Parson defended his decision to deny clemency, saying no jury nor court including at the trial, appellate, and Supreme Court levels, have ever found merit in Mr. Williams innocence claims. Missouri is one of 27 states that have the death penalty, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, or DPI, a national nonprofit that analyzes capital punishment. Governors in six of those states Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee have placed a hold on executions. In several others, the death penalty is still on the books but it has not been used in decades, including Kansas, which saw its last execution in the 1960s. Eight states have executed people this year. Gwen Grant, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, said that the next governor of Missouri must take a strong stance against the death penalty, calling it a system that is fundamentally flawed and disproportionately harms African-Americans. Williams execution, she said, highlighted the deep injustices inherent in this process. Far too many innocent people have been executed, eroding public confidence in our justice system, she said. I urge the next governor to prioritize truth and fairness over finality and to work toward abolishing the death penalty in Missouri. Missouri has ramped up its use of the death penalty in recent years. The state recorded one execution in 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2021. Two executions were conducted in 2022 and four people were executed last year, according to the DPI. Nine men remain on death row in the state, the Missouri Department of Corrections said. Missouri uses lethal injections in its executions, which are carried out at a prison about an hour south of St. Louis. When asked whether Quade would grant any of those men clemency or place a hold on executions altogether Storey said she would approach each case individually, taking the necessary time and energy to fully vet each case. Kehoes spokesperson, Picard, did not respond to two follow-up emails asking to clarify his stance on capital punishments and whether he would grant clemency to the nine people on death row. OSLO (Reuters) -Norwegian police have issued an international search request for Rinson Jose, a Norwegian-Indian man linked to the sale of pagers to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah that exploded last week, they said on Thursday. Jose, 39, disappeared while on a work trip to the U.S. last week. He is a founder of a Bulgarian company that was reportedly part of the pager supply chain. Asked what they were doing to find Jose, police said in an email to Reuters: "Yesterday, Sept. 25, the Oslo police district received a missing person report in connection with the pager case." "A missing persons case has been opened, and we have sent out an international warrant for the person," it added. The Norwegian criminal police, Kripos, which handles international requests, confirmed to Reuters that the request has been sent, declining to elaborate. When a person is missing abroad, Kripos would normally issue a global alert, or so-called "yellow notice", but could also contact its foreign counterparts directly depending on circumstances, its spokesperson told Reuters earlier. Interpol was not immediately available for comment. Jose declined to comment on the pagers when reached by phone last Wednesday, Sept. 18, and hung up when asked about the Bulgarian business. He did not return repeated calls and text messages. Jose's Norwegian employer, DN Media Group, said he left for a conference in Boston on Sept. 17, and the company has not been able to reach him since Sept. 18. He works at the group's sales department. In 2022, Jose founded Sofia-based company Norta Global Ltd, Bulgaria's corporate registry shows. Bulgaria has investigated the company's role in the supply of booby-trapped pagers, but has found no evidence that they were made or exported from the country. Norway's security police (PST) also launched a preliminary investigation earlier this week into reports that a Norwegian-owned company was linked to the sale of the pagers. Over a two-day period last week, thousands of pagers, as well as walkie-talkies, used by Hezbollah operatives, blew up in Lebanon, killing at least 39 people and wounding thousands. The attacks were widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement. (Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; Editing by Kevin Liffey, David Gregorio and Sharon Singleton) My sister, Kate Banks, with her sons, on the day she died via physician-assisted death in Basel, Switzerland. Death is a part of life, death is a part of life, death is a part of life. That was the mantra that pounded in my brain as I drove to New York City, boarded a flight to Zurich with my sister Nancy to be at the bedside of our beloved sister Kate when she ended her life by voluntary assisted death. It was not a surprise to be going to Pegasos, a voluntary assisted dying nonprofit in Basel, Switzerland, for Kates death. She and I had discussed this day and her desire to be in control of her own death process since her diagnosis of stage 4 neuroendocrine cancer in April 2022. Our conversations were heartbreaking and beautiful, poignant, real, scary and often just funny. When she was first diagnosed, she declared in a matter-of-fact, isnt-life-strange tone of voice, Amy, I think I am needed elsewhere. She was telling me as clearly as possible that she knew in her bones where this was heading. Her words were plump with the mysterious wisdom reserved for shaman, medicine people, energy workers and healers. I shared Kates belief that our human bodies are simply vehicles, temporary containers needed in this world so that our souls can learn and grow. But still, I loved my sister Kate in this body with the long, graceful fingers, the eyes filled to the brim with wisdom, the thick head of blond hair the perfect topping that barely tethered her to the Earth. My sisters Kate (center) and Nancy (right) and me (left), shortly after Kate's diagnosis. My sister Nancy and I purchased business class tickets knowing full well the impossibility of being emotionally present at this sacred ritual with no sleep. However, sleep did not come easily five glasses of champagne, 20 mg of THC and 1 mg of Ativan later, I was still wide awake. I could not knock myself out of the awareness of what the next 36 hours would bring. As Nancy and I were rushing from the United States to be at Kates side when she died, she was saying goodbye to her beloved home in Menton, France, and driving with her husband to join their adult sons, Peter (with his partner, Marion) and Max, in Lausanne. We all arrived in Basel around the same time. Nerves were frayed, tears were overflowing, but so was laughter. This was a time to rejoice and grieve to celebrate this sister, mother and wife who had just turned 64. Before we gathered in Kates hotel room to meet with the doctor, we joined Kate in getting her hair washed and combed out at a local salon no leaving this Earth with a flat top! My sister was always the most effortlessly stylish person in any group. We also stopped at a cosmetics store for the right eye shadow that would cover the dark circles that went hand in hand with her striking, deep-set, blue eyes a gift from our mother. While getting her hair done, she sent her husband out for adult diapers, not wanting to soil her final outfit (comfortable white linen) when she finally passed. No stone was left unturned. She gave us each homeopathic remedies for grief. In this she failed not understanding that the pain we would each feel at her death could not be mitigated by ignatia amara. Kate began letting go the minute she was diagnosed with cancer. She knew that most of the treatments recommended for her cancer would be impossible, perhaps even lethal, given her severe mast cell activation syndrome. At the time of her diagnosis, we were two years into the COVID pandemic and the world was a mess. The state of the world was a frequent topic of conversation in our daily conversations. The chronic violence, severe climate change, people turning away from nature and books and being devoured by technology. It often felt like she had an inside view into the demise of the world and part of her was quite happy to be getting out before things got even worse. If not for her beloved boys, she no doubt would have left much earlier. She was not ambivalent. The day she died we had breakfast together at the hotel dining room it is hard to know what to eat when someone so dear is about to die. While eating her final meal, she began shedding her belongings for the final exit. She handed Peter a small tin container with Peter Rabbit on it and then took off a stunning Japanese earring to put in it. The other earring went directly from her ear to Maxs hand. She handed me the watch she was wearing, a delicate rectangular piece of jewelry with small diamonds surrounding the watch face, which now has replaced my bulky smartwatch. She handed me her down jacket and elegant navy blue pants to pass on to my daughter. We arrived at Pegasos mid-morning. It was a tastefully decorated warehouse building with two rooms. Mostly I remember the white walls and ceiling, and the plants, as if we had walked directly into heaven. In the first room, the business of death was managed. For at least an hour, Kate and her husband, Pier, filled out the paperwork while Peter, Max, Nancy, Marion and I lounged on a couple of couches, unable to contain our anxiety, worry and grief. The prelude to Kates death unfolded in slow motion. She had asked me to pick out a couple of poems from her yet-to-be-published collection of poetry to read aloud. I tried to pick poetry that captured not only Kates essence but also her belief system the one that argued that death with dignity was not only her human right but the only effective way of freeing her soul from this now sinking ship. Saying goodbye to Kate before she left her physical body on her own terms, just as she wanted. Kate knew what she had and how severe it was. During the almost two years she lived with neuroendocrine cancer she did everything possible. She and her husband researched and tracked down every study, every fact about the disease and its treatment. She sought out traditional and alternative healers all over Europe. Cryotherapy, rife machines, supplements, herbal remedies, a personalized vaccine regimen and even peptide receptor radionuclide therapy, a treatment she was quite sure pushed her immune system over the edge, causing symptoms that were simply unlivable. As her body shrank, the tumors in her liver kept growing, pushing her diaphragm up against her lungs, making it hard to breathe. By the end she was not sure where the myriad of symptoms were coming from the cancer or the treatments, carcinoid crisis or mast cell activation. In her mind none of it mattered. What she cared about was that her life had shrunken down to a dot days filled with breathing and not a lot else, nights often spent in terrible pain, vomiting, fainting on the floor. In the last week of her life, she told me she was already partly gone maybe a third. And I felt it. She was hanging on for her boys, but even that became too much. She could no longer garner the energy to meet them in this life. It was time. Kate, the image of an angel in white linen, in her death bed. We joined her in a second room with a large bed. Kate, sitting up with an IV in her foot, was the image of an angel, dressed in white linen against a light blue sheet, with a large smile on her face. We gathered at the bedside each of us moving in and out until eventually she cradled both boys heads in her arms as they laid down beside her. Their faces were contorted in the deepest grief imaginable. While the peaceful, slightly haunting music she had picked out played in the background, I read her poems the last of them, Into the Ether, perfectly capturing her belief in what we were all doing and where she was headed. Will it hurt you ask, When Body bellows its last few breaths and Soul stirs, Preparing to take leave of the dense moorings of skin and bone, Struggling to detach from the shreds of Body That still cling to Life, The taut tether of earthly existence. Once again that spiteful sting of separation. Have you forgotten that youve done this again and again? Perhaps death is not what you think. Take heart. The lingering soul is not yesterdays lover, slipping off at dawn, Or the setting sun, turning its back on day. There is no haste, no harsh good-byes, Nothing, but a tender longing as Soul hovers over Body, Contemplating its wounds with tender regard, Casting a quiet dignity on the ache of ages. The journey towards wisdom is long and hard. Its a time of reckoning As soul tends to the chores of packing up, Mapping memories, cataloging regrets, Words unsaid, deeds undone. Speak heart Of your comings and goings, A treasured child, Bodys rewards for the searing pain of birth At the service of soul, The death of a beloved. There is a merging and melting of boundaries As Soul bows before its temple to bid it goodbye. Thank you, Body And maybe, for the first time, Body feels embraced by love. The Body is cast off gently, An item of well worn clothing, soiled and scarred, And Soul leaves home, closing the door. At last Body is free to begin its own exodus, And Soul left to lift its wings and fly into the ether, Homeward bound. Its good to be home where Soul Meets Self And finally is told, you did well. After saying individual goodbyes to each of us, Kate opened the cannula, self-administering a dose of pentobarbital directly into her vein. She was literally surrounded in a cocoon of love. Her two boys, on either side of her, repeatedly telling her they loved her. Her husband by her side, hands clasped in prayer. Marion to the left of her, hand on a leg. Nancy at her feet and me on the right side of her body. The end was rather anticlimactic. Within a minute, her head and neck extended and she was gone. I sat holding her hand for another few minutes knowing full well her soul had already moved on. My sister's upcoming book. An hour later, after the police and coroner came to verify the death, we were free to go, to start a life without this incredible person who was at the center of all our lives. We went to lunch, popping our grief remedies, and were left to digest the courage we had witnessed alongside the unspeakable grief we were all feeling. I struggled to imagine how to take the next step in life with only my memories and Kates words to guide me on this Kateless path. Her last poem in Into the Ether, her memoir-in-verse that will be posthumously released in October, What Do I Leave Them, captures the dilemma of sharing this surreal experience: How can I catch a corner of a cloud, Or a patch of blue sky, The song of a sparrow, The blink of a lizard, Or one of those stars that nosedive across the night sky curdling My tummy? I could press a leaf or a wildflower into One of my favorite books, Or pilfer a feather or a tree pod From the forest floor. But the trouble is, They perish, And things that dont, Well, theyre not worth it. Sure, there are memories, But they fade too, And Im left with the same dilemma. How do I leave them a snippet Of the beauty and wonder I see Each time I look out at a world. Kate marched to her own drummer throughout life, and it is no surprise that when her time was finally done, she took control of her dying process. She believed that life extends well beyond death and had the courage to step off the medical roller coaster that, from what Ive seen, too often promotes quantity over quality of life. For those of us still here, the gift of allowing us to intimately witness and support her in her transition from this Earth is breathtaking and complicated. The grief and loss remain profound but the lesson she gave of how to die with dignity is both universal and timeless. And for that I am grateful. Do you have a personal essay you want to share with TODAY? Email TODAYEssays@nbcuni.com. This article was originally published on TODAY.com FILE - British actress Dame Maggie Smith poses in London on Dec. 16, 2015. Smith, who won an Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1969 and won new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, has died at 89. Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP FILE - Actress Maggie Smith holds her Oscar for best supporting actress in the film "California Suite" in Los Angeles, April 9, 1979. Smith, who won an Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1969 and won new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, has died at 89. Reed Saxon/AP FILE - Make up and hair artists add the finishing touches to British actress Maggie Smith before she faces the camera with Peter Ustinov in the comedy 'Hot Millions' being filmed at Elstree Studios, England, Jan. 12, 1968. Smith has died aged 89. Bob Dear/AP FILE - Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, right is introduced to Maggie Smith by Laurence Olivier, center, during the charity premiere for the film Othello, at the Odeon Theatre, London, May 2, 1966. Smith has died aged 89. (PA via AP, File) PA/AP FILE - Maggie Smith, who is in rehearsal on new show "Night and Day" appears at Minskoff Rehearsal Studios on Sept. 27, 1979. Smith, who won an Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1969 and won new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, has died at 89. Ray Howard/AP FILE - Tony Award winners, from left, James Naughton, best actor in "City of Angels," Maggie Smith, best actress for "Lettice and Lovage," Tyne Daly, best actress for "Gypsy," and Robert Morse, best actor for "Iru" pose at the Tony Awards in New York, June 3, 1990. Smith, who won an Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1969 and won new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, has died at 89. Richard Drew/AP FILE - ACtress Maggie Smith appears at the World Premiere of "The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" at a central London cinema in Leicester Square, on Feb. 17, 2015. Smith, who won an Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1969 and won new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, has died at 89. (Photo by Joel Ryan/Invision/AP, File) Joel Ryan/Joel Ryan/Invision/AP FILE - Actress Maggie Smith appears at the Evening Standard British Film Awards in London on Feb. 7, 2016. Smith, who won an Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1969 and won new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, has died at 89. (Photo by Joel Ryan/Invision/AP, File) Joel Ryan/Joel Ryan/Invision/AP FILE - Actress Maggie Smith who is in the film "Ladies in Lavender," appears at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York on April 23, 2005. Smith, who won an Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1969 and won new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, has died at 89. Stuart Ramson/AP FILE - Maggie Smith appears at the premiere of the film "The Lady In The Van", during the London film festival in London on Oct. 13, 2015. Smith, who won an Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1969 and won new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, has died at 89. (Photo by Joel Ryan/Invision/AP, File) Joel Ryan/Joel Ryan/Invision/AP FILE - British actress Maggie Smith, the British actress, appears on the stage of the Old Vic in London, on April 8, 1970, during an intermission of rehearsal of "The Beaux' Stratagem." Smith, who won an Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1969 and won new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, has died at 89. L Brown/AP LONDON (AP) Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for the 1969 film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89. Smith's sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother, they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with two Oscars, a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies. She made her film debut in the 1950s, won Oscars for work in the 60s and 70s and had memorable roles in each subsequent decade, including an older Wendy in Peter Pan story Hook (1991) and a mother superior of a convent in Whoopi Goldberg's comedy Sister Act (1992). A commanding stage actor, she played Shakespearean tragedy 1965 adaptation Othello and voiced Shakespeare-inspired animation in Gnomeo & Juliet (2011). She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that when you get into the granny era, youre lucky to get anything. Smith drily summarized her later roles as a gallery of grotesques, including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: Harry Potter is my pension. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of Suddenly, Last Summer, said she was intellectually the smartest actress Ive ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith. "Jean Brodie," in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well. Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for California Suite in 1978, Golden Globes for California Suite and A Room with a View, and BAFTAs for lead actress in A Private Function in 1984, A Room with a View in 1986 and The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne in 1988. She also received Academy Award nominations as a supporting actress in Othello, Travels with My Aunt, A Room with a View and Gosford Park, and a BAFTA award for supporting actress in Tea with Mussolini. On stage, she won a Tony in 1990 for Lettice and Lovage. From 2010, she was the acid-tongued Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in hit TV period drama Downton Abbey, a role that won her legions of fans, three Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe and a host of other awards nominations. Advertisement Article continues below this ad But she chafed at television fame. When the show's run ended in 2016, Smith said she was relieved. Its freedom," she told The Associated Press. Not until Downton Abbey was I well-known or stopped in the street and asked for one of those terrible photographs," she said. She continued acting well into her 80s, in films including the big-screen spinoff to Downton Abbey in 2019, its 2022 sequel Downton Abbey: A New Era and 2023 release "The Miracle Club." Smith had a reputation for being difficult, and sometimes upstaging others. Richard Burton remarked that Smith didnt just take over a scene in The VIPs with him: She commits grand larceny. However, the director Peter Hall found that Smith wasnt remotely difficult unless shes among idiots. Shes very hard on herself, and I dont think she sees any reason why she shouldnt be hard on other people, too. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Smith conceded that she could be impatient at times. Its true I dont tolerate fools, but then they dont tolerate me, so I am spiky, Smith said. Maybe thats why Im quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies. Critic Frank Rich, in a New York Times review of Lettice and Lovage, praised Smith as the stylized classicist who can italicize a line as prosaic as Have you no marmalade? until it sounds like a freshly minted epigram by Coward or Wilde. Smith famously drew laughs from a prosaic line This haddock is disgusting in a 1964 revival of Noel Cowards Hay Fever. She repeated the gift for one-liners in Downton Abbey, when the tradition-bound Violet witheringly asked, What is a weekend? Advertisement Article continues below this ad King Charles III and his wife Queen Camilla paid tribute to Smith, who was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire, the equivalent of a knight, by the late Queen Elizabeth II in 1990. As the curtain comes down on a national treasure, we join all those around the world in remembering with the fondest admiration and affection her many great performances, and her warmth and wit that shone through both off and on the stage," they said in a statement. Fellow actors paid tribute to her on Friday. Hugh Bonneville, who played the son of Smith's character in Downton Abbey, said anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent. She was a true legend of her generation and thankfully will live on in so many magnificent screen performances," he said in a statement. Rob Lowe, who co-starred with her in Suddenly, Last Summer, said the experience was "unforgettable ... sharing a two-shot was like being paired with a lion. She could eat anyone alive, and often did. But funny, and great company. And suffered no fools. We will never see another. God speed, Ms. Smith! Lowe wrote on X. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called Smith a true national treasure whose work will be cherished for generations to come. Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford, on the eastern edge of London, on Dec. 28, 1934. She summed up her life briefly: One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, ones still acting. Her father was assigned in 1939 to wartime duty in Oxford, where her theater studies at the Oxford Playhouse School led to a busy apprenticeship. I did so many things, you know, round the universities there. ... If you were kind of clever enough and I suppose quick enough, you could almost do weekly rep because all the colleges were doing different productions at different times, she said in a BBC interview. She took Maggie as her stage name because another Margaret Smith was active in the theater. Laurence Olivier spotted her talent, invited her to be part of his original National Theatre company and cast her as his co-star in a 1965 film adaptation of Othello. Smith said two directors, Ingmar Bergman and William Gaskill, both in National Theatre productions, were important influences. Alan Bennett, preparing to film the monologue A Bed Among the Lentils, said he was wary of Smiths reputation for becoming bored. As the actor Jeremy Brett put it, she starts divinely and then goes off, rather like a cheese. So the fact that we only just had enough time to do it was an absolute blessing really because she was so fresh and just so into it, said Bennett. He also wrote a starring role for Smith in The Lady in the Van, as Miss Shepherd, a redoubtable woman who lived for years in her vehicle on Bennetts London driveway. However extravagant she may have been on stage or before the cameras, Smith was known to be intensely private. She never wanted to talk about acting. Acting was something she was terrified to talk about because if she did, it would disappear," said Simon Callow, who performed with her in A Room with a View. Smith married fellow actor Robert Stephens in 1967. They had two sons, Christopher and Toby who both grew up to be actors and divorced in 1975. The same year she married the writer Beverley Cross, who died in 1998. ___ If youre already thinking about next years summer travel plans Virgin Voyages can help make it easy. The adults-only cruise line is again offering its Summer Season Pass aimed at remote workers in 2025, enabling guests to cruise for weeks at a time. The month-long adventure at sea is the definition of work-life balance, allowing travelers to keep up with projects and deadlines, all while exploring incredible ports across Europe and the Caribbean and enjoying the suite life aboard our Lady Ships, Virgin said in a news release. Heres what travelers should know, including how they can snag a spot onboard. Virgin's Valiant Lady ship. What are the terms of the Summer Season Pass? Passengers can choose from several options on Virgins ships between June and September, each made up of multiple back-to-back cruises: Scarlet Lady: June 1-22, July 27-Aug. 30 or Sept. 5-25 Valiant Lady: June 1-29, July 4-27, Aug. 1-29 or Sept. 3-26 Resilient Lady: June 8-29, July 10-27, Sept. 7-21 Scarlet Lady and Resilient Lady will sail in and around Europe while Valiant Lady will offer Caribbean cruises. Destinations include Rome, Italy; Casablanca in Morocco; Reykjavik, Iceland; Costa Maya, Mexico; Grand Turk in Turks and Caicos; Santorini in Greece and more. Cruise embarkation day guide: How to start your sailing off smoothly How much does the Summer Season Pass cost? The passes start at $14,999 per cabin. The cost includes accommodations in a Central Sea Terrace cabin; premium Wi-Fi; two specialty coffees per room each day; wash-and-fold laundry service and more. The first 25 reservations per month will also receive access to Richards Rooftop, which is typically reserved for suite guests. Travelers interested in booking can fill out a form online, call Virgin at +1 (954) 488-2955 or reach out to their travel advisor. 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: Season cruise pass: Virgin brings back month-long deal for 2025 The president of Haitis transitional council, Edgar Leblanc Fils, addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, thanking those who have shown solidarity toward migrants in Springfield, Ohio. The city has experienced bomb threats following false claims from former President Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), that Haitian immigrants in the city are eating residents pets. The AP reported Monday that schools, government buildings and city officials in Springfield have experienced more than 30 bomb threats. On behalf of the entire Haitian people, I would like to extend a brotherly greeting to all friends of Haiti that have shown solidarity towards the migrants from our country and, in particular, those living in Springfield, Ohio, in the United States, Fils said. The active participation of Haitian migrants at various levels of life in the United States is tangible and significant, he added. In this regard, the passions that naturally arise during an election campaign should never serve as a pretext for xenophobia or racism in a country such as the United States, a country forged by immigrants from all countries which has become a model for democracy for the world. Trump falsely claimed that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were eating pets during the presidential debate against Vice President Harris earlier this month. Trump and Vance have repeatedly amplified the now-debunked theory, fueling a media firestorm and growing fears in the city, particularly among its Haitian population. The city has taken different precautions following the unfounded claims. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) sent state Highway Patrol officers to monitor schools and Mayor Rob Rue issued an emergency proclamation allowing the city to address public safety concerns more quickly. Last week, DeWine wrote an op-ed in The New York Times, in an attempt to paint a different picture of Springfield and its rich history than the one portrayed by the false claims. Some Springfield schools had also temporarily closed in-person and moved class online amid the bomb threats. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. By David Alire Garcia (Reuters) -The U.S. is closely studying imposing new sanctions on individuals in Venezuela as well as potentially revoking licenses for oil companies working there, a senior U.S. official said on Friday, in response to what it dubs a fraudulent election result. Brian Nichols, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America, made the remarks during a webcast briefing with reporters, two months after Venezuela's bitterly disputed July 28 presidential election. "The use of either individual sanctions or the revocation of licenses related to sectoral sanctions are something that we're studying very closely," said Nichols, after he was asked about the possibility of imposing new visa restrictions on individuals as well as terminating existing oil licenses. OPEC-member Venezuela is one of Latin America's major oil producing countries, but its crude output has fallen sharply during Maduro's more than decade in power, mostly due to under-investment as well as five years of U.S. sanctions on the industry. The country's oil production has slightly rebounded in recent years. Following the election, some in Venezuela's opposition have asked that U.S. officials amend or withdraw oil licenses that provide income to Maduro's government. Nichols, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs, emphasized that Washington will work with "our friends and allies" as it seeks a democratic transition in Venezuela. Electoral officials and the country's top court have proclaimed socialist President Nicolas Maduro the winner of the contest with 52% of the vote. But authorities, many with close ties to Maduro's ruling party, have failed to disclose ballot box-level vote tallies, even though they repeatedly said they would and are required by law to do so. Venezuelan officials have said a computer hack prevented them from disclosing the tallies. Just days after the election, however, the country's opposition uploaded to a website scanned copies of thousands of voting machine receipts that their observers obtained and that they say show a landslide win for their candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez. Earlier this month, Gonzalez fled to Spain where he was granted political asylum. The United States, like most governments in the Americas as well as the European Union, have not recognized Maduro as the winner of the July 28 election. "The United States and our partner countries continue to refuse to accept Maduro's claim to victory without evidence," Nichols said, adding the U.S. government instead vouches for "the publicly-available evidence" that shows Gonzalez won. He stressed that Caracas has not lived up to its promises. "They've repeatedly said that they would provide information. They've never done so to prove any element of their claim that Maduro won. It's obvious that he didn't," said Nichols. The diplomat also called for the release of those "arbitrarily" detained" in the aftermath of the election and an end to political violence against the opposition. (Reporting by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Anthony Esposito, Leslie Adler and AListair Bell) By John Irish and Michele Kambas UNITED NATIONS/NICOSIA (Reuters) - Western nations were weighing their options on Thursday on how to safely get nationals out of Lebanon if a full-scale war breaks out, diplomats said, with Cyprus and possibly Turkey seen as offering sanctuary to tens of thousands of people. Cyprus is the closest European Union member state, some 264 km (164 miles) from Lebanon. It has been at the forefront of maritime aid efforts for Gaza and in the past was used to coordinate evacuations from Lebanon. Cyprus processed around 60,000 people fleeing the Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006, and a potential Israel ground invasion into southern Lebanon with a response from Iran-backed Hezbollah of ballistic missiles and drones could mean mass evacuations from both Lebanon and Israel. "We have requests from a number of countries, not only from the European Union but also from other third countries. We are ready to play this role in case of a need," Cyprus' President Nikos Christodoulides told Reuters on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. "We did it back in 2006 and we are ready to do it again," Christodoulides said. "It is difficult but also it is our moral responsibility." Several countries, including the United States, France, Britain and Germany, have thousands of nationals living or travelling through Lebanon. All have worked in recent months to prepare plans with Cyprus in case of a full-scale war. Diplomats said other nations without the needed military infrastructure in the region would also need help evacuating their citizens. It takes about 10 hours from Beirut to Cyprus by sea and 40 minutes by plane. Until now, commercial airlines have been flying from Beirut, although some airlines like Air France have suspended operations, reducing options for people to leave. Diplomats say that not only are Lebanese defiant and unwilling to heed travel advice to leave, but many Lebanese and dual nationals abroad have also been filling planes to Beirut. Negotiations for a temporary ceasefire were under way at the United Nations in New York, but neither Israel nor Hezbollah indicated they were ready to cease hostilities and Israel stepped up its strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs on Thursday. Key to evacuations will be the use of Britain's two military bases on the island. Britain, which has about 10,000 citizens in Lebanon, said this week it was moving troops to Cyprus and had naval ships in place to help evacuations. Western states were also working with Turkey to make preparations for the possible evacuation, most likely by sea from the port of Tripoli in northern Lebanon to Mersin in southern Turkey, if Lebanon's airports cannot be used, Turkish and European sources said. No evacuation order has been given yet and it was unlikely unless Israel amassed troops on the Lebanese border, diplomats said. France has about 20,000 citizens in Lebanon and 1,000 troops as part of a U.N. peacekeeping mission. France's defence ministry declined to comment on specific planning, but said it has had robust plans in place since October 2023. European diplomats said France has been liaising with the United States, which has about 50,000 citizens in Lebanon, and with Britain and Germany, to coordinate with Cyprus. Washington has urged U.S. citizens to leave Lebanon, but the State Department has not ordered an evacuation of U.S. personnel nor requested assistance from the U.S. military to evacuate Americans, U.S. officials say. U.S. troops newly deployed to the region could help in the event of an evacuation, officials told Reuters. Paris has a warship in the region that could evacuate about 150 people and a helicopter carrier on stand-by that could take 10 times that many, but it would take several days to reach the region from southern France, two French diplomats said. The French, Cypriot, Greek and Italian navies carried out drills in the region from Sept. 14-18, including for evacuating citizens, according to the French defence ministry. One challenge will be to secure a quick air bridge out of Cyprus given the large numbers of people arriving on the island in a short space of time, diplomats said. "The real challenge in all this is that it is going to take a number of days, weeks even, to shift most foreign nationals out of Lebanon, excluding the possibility of Israel too, which means people in Lebanon may end up being told 'hang tight' while Israeli F-35s and Hezbollah missiles zoom above skies," said one European diplomat. (Reporting by John Irish at the United Nations and Michele Kambas in Cyprus; Additional reporting by Jonathan Spicer and Simon Lewis; Editing by Howard Goller) Former congresswoman Barbara Comstock, former Trump administration official Olivia Troye and former congresswoman Denver Riggleman took part in a Republican voters for Harris event. (Eric Garcia/The Independent) Barbara Comstock wants people to know that she is still very much a Republican despite the fact she is voting for Kamala Harris. Tonight, I'm going to a Larry Hogan event, the former Republican congresswoman told The Independent, in reference to the former governor and Republican Senate nominee in Maryland. But she said that former president Donald Trump was damaging the GOP, and in particular slammed Trumps running mate, JD Vance. While Republicans probably, certainly look to gain the Senate [in general], they are going to lose a number of winnable Senate seats, she said, adding that Vance is such a non-starter for me because of his misogyny. On Thursday, Comstock led an an event in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia to convince her fellow Republicans to vote for Harris, too. She was joined by former Republican congressman Denver Riggleman and former Trump administration official Olivia Troye, both of whom have emerged as major critics of Trump in the past few months. Throughout the event, each of the speakers emphasized their conservative credentials. Comstock talked about how she grew up in a family of Massachusetts Democrats, but was convinced to join the Republican Party when she interned for Ted Kennedy. She worked for numerous Republican administrations before serving in Congress. Riggleman discussed his time in the House Freedom Caucus, the group of right-wing hellraisers who often accuse other Republicans of being insufficiently conservative. Meanwhile, Troye spoke about her four years in the GOP. Harris has actively courted Republicans throughout her campaign, receiving the backing of some elected officials, as well as former staffers for the Bush and Reagan administration and staff for the late John McCain. Troye even spoke at the Democratic National Convention. What we're saying is, we don't have to be in agreement with everything when it comes to Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. But we can agree on fundamental things, like: we want to preserve our democracy, she told The Independent. We want to be strong on national security. We don't want someone that's cavorting with dictators and lauding praise on dictators like Donald Trump did during the debate. Troye also noted that she is neighbors with JD Vance, who she referred to as anti-women. Attendees at the event talked up their Republican credentials while explaining their decision to vote for Harris. Faith Rodill, who brought her young daughter along to the event, told The Independent that she had worked with numerous Republican members of Congress but I'm worried about the future of my children, especially my daughters, and having an example of the former president who's trying to get his job back is just absolutely unacceptable. I'm really jazzed to have my daughter see that justice needs to prevail, she added. Specifically, Rodill expressed her concern about reproductive rights being taken away from women. It shouldn't even be a question that, at the end of the day, these conversations need to be with a woman, her partner or her religious leader, not by the government whatsoever. I don't want that taken away from my girls, Rodill said. Steve Devine said that he had worked on Richard Nixons re-election campaign, but called Nixon quaint by comparison with Trump. Donald Trump is a convicted felon, and guess what? He's going to be convicted of a whole lot more if he doesn't get elected and make sure the charges are dismissed, he said. This guys a bad guy. He is not interested in representational, constitutional democracy. Riggleman said that Harriss campaign has been incredibly welcoming to Republicans, which is a good sign for how she should govern. I think there should be, literally, Republicans at the White House with her after she's elected, just to talk to her about what we've seen, what we've done, he told The Independent. For her part, Harris expressed openness to hiring a Republican in her administration during her first sitdown interview with CNN. Many other notable Republicans such as former members of Congress Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both of whom voted to convict Trump for his actions on January 6 and worked on the select committee investigating the riot, as well as former vice president Dick Cheney have all indicated they will vote for Harris. Comstock noted that while Virginia is seen as a state that will likely vote Democratic, she was also going to push for her relatives in Pennsylvania and North Carolina to break for Harris, particularly her Catholic family members. Im proud of my family, my Catholic family, who [Trump] said shouldnt be voting for Harris, she said, referencing a recent speech during which Trump said Catholics considering voting for Harris should have their heads examined. Most of my Catholic family is [voting for Harris], Comstock added. Particularly the ones in the swing states. A previous version of this story misspelled Steve Devines name as Steve Devaine. This has been corrected Authorities on Friday successfully airlifted over 50 people stranded by fast-moving floodwaters from the roof of a hospital in Erwin, in eastern Tennessee, as the remnants of Hurricane Helene bring torrential rains to the state, hospital administrators and officials said. "All hospital personnel and patients have been rescued from Unicoi County Hospital. As of 4:40 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 27, no one remains at the facility," hospital chain Ballad Health said in a statement. Virginia State Police and the Tennessee National Guard conducted the rescue, Ballad Health said, and a spokesperson for VSP confirmed aviation units out of Abingdon had assisted with the rescue. The Tennessee National Guard deployed three Blackhawk helicopters for the operation, a military spokesperson said in a statement, and the patients and staff members were taken to a local high school. The "dangerous rescue operation" began earlier Friday after the hospital became "engulfed by extremely dangerous and rapidly moving water" from the Nolichucky River, Ballad Health said. County officials deployed ambulances to evacuate 11 patients from the hospital, but the property flooded "so quickly the ambulances could not safely approach," Ballad Health said. Boats were brought in to assist with the evacuation, but were unable to safely navigate the water around the hospital. Ballad Health also said that high winds prevented the helicopters from flying in to evacuate those stranded, but by 2:30 p.m., the helicopters had arrived to conduct the operation, Rep. Diana Harshbarger said on X. There were 54 people on the roof and seven people in rescue boats, Ballad Health said. Hurricane Helene crashed ashore in Florida's Big Bend area late Thursday night as a dangerous Category 4 storm. It has since been downgraded to a tropical depression. The storm has caused dozens of deaths in several states after inundating areas with what the National Hurricane Center described as historic and catastrophic flooding. Hurricane Helene makes landfall over Florida's Big Bend area as a Category 4 storm From the archives: Maggie Smith Hassan Nasrallah & Hezbollah | 60 Minutes Archive Rudy Giuliani, ballots Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was disbarred in Washington, DC, Thursday over false claims about the 2020 presidential election when he represented former President Donald Trump. The DC Court of Appeals order stripping the 80-year-old former mayor and prosecutor of his law license in the nations capital follows a July ruling by a New York appeals court which banned Giuliani from practicing law in his home state. The three-judge panel in DC noted that Giuliani did not respond to an order offering him a chance to explain why he should be allowed to continue as a member of the DC Bar after being disbarred in New York. This is an absolute travesty and a total miscarriage of justice, Ted Goodman, a spokesman for Giuliani, said in a statement. Giuliani was disbarred in New York in July. REUTERS Members of the legal community who want to protect the integrity of our justice system should immediately speak out against this partisan, politically motivated decision, Goodman added. The people coming after Mayor Giuliani cant take away the fact that he remains the most effective prosecutor in American history, who did more to improve the lives of others than almost any other American alive today. The DC court had previously suspended Giulianis law license in 2021 and a review panel last year recommended that he be disbarred over claims he made in a Pennsylvania lawsuit seeking to overturn Trumps 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. Giuliani claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence, the panel wrote, accusing the former mayor of being involved in an effort to undermine the integrity of the 2020 presidential election that helped destabilize our democracy. The misconduct here sadly transcends all his past accomplishments, the panel of judges argued. The disbarment stems from Giulianis alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. AP Giuliani, once hailed as Americas Mayor for his leadership in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, has been mired in legal woes since the 2020 election. He has been hit with criminal indictments in Georgia and Arizona related to his alleged work to overturn the 2020 election results in those states. He was indicted on nine felony counts in Arizona and 13 in Georgia. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges in both cases. The former mayor also filed for bankruptcy last December after being hit with a $148 million judgement in a defamation case after falsely accusing two Georgia poll workers of trying to cheat Trump out of votes in the Peach State. Giulianis New York bankruptcy case was dismissed in July after a judge ruled that he had repeatedly been evasive about his assets. Salesforce is closing its office in Hillsboro, Oregon. Gary Hershorn / Getty Images Salesforce has announced that it's closing its office in Hillsboro, Oregon. Some staffers must relocate or take severance, while others are set to continue working remotely. In July, Salesforce issued a return-to-office mandate for its corporate HQ in San Francisco. Salesforce is closing its office in Hillsboro, Oregon, and asking many of its employees there to either relocate or accept a severance package. In virtual meetings Thursday afternoon, the cloud software giant notified staffers who report to its Hillsboro office, thirty minutes outside of Portland, of its decision. Customer-success employees, who account for much of the Hillsboro office's staff, were given until November 26 to decide whether to take a severance package or relocate to Indianapolis, Atlanta, or Seattle, where Salesforce also has offices. Other employees were told they could continue to work for Salesforce remotely. "Like any healthy business, we continuously assess whether we have the right structure in place to best serve our customers and fuel growth areas. In this case, it led to adjustments in our real estate footprint. Local employees are either going remote, being offered relocation or will receive a generous severance package in line with the location strategy of their team," a spokesperson for Salesforce wrote in an email to Business Insider. Salesforce opened its Hillsboro office in 2013. The company agreed to create at least 205 new jobs and keep people employed for two years with average wages of $67,500 in exchange for $1.45 million in tax incentives, The Oregonian reported at the time. As of June 2024, Salesforce had 99 offices in 87 cities globally. The company, according to its annual report filed in January, employed 72,682 people, with 51% in the US. Nearly two years ago, the company announced a major restructuring plan that included shedding some of its real-estate portfolio and commercial leases. Since then, the company has shuttered one of its offices in San Francisco and another in Seattle. The Hillsboro office was Salesforce's only location in the Portland metro area. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has wavered in his public opinion on remote work. In the early days of the pandemic, he embraced it, and he said in 2022 that return-to-office mandates would 'never work.' Later, he blamed the company's weakening sales on workers it had trained remotely during a pandemic-era hiring spree. In July, Salesforce called most workers at its global headquarters in San Francisco back to the office for four to five days a week. The Hillsboro office closure has also come as Salesforce, which makes and sells cloud-based software for customer relationship management, attempts to rebrand as a company powered by artificial intelligence. Earlier this month, Salesforce unveiled its most ambitious AI strategy to date Agentforce, a platform to build and manage AI bots to perform customer service tasks or improve employee productivity. Got a tip for this reporter? Contact Ellen Thomas on Signal at 929-524-6964 or ethomas@insider.com. Read the original article on Business Insider Former President Trump dodged on whether he would retract his endorsement of North Carolina GOP gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson following the explosive report about Robinsons inflammatory online comments. I dont know the situation, Trump said in response to a question from a reporter following a press conference he gave Thursday in New York City. Republicans have been reeling for the past week since CNN reported that Robinson, North Carolinas lieutenant governor, made a wide range of comments on the message board of a pornography website more than a decade ago. The comments included calling himself a black NAZI, wishing for slavery to be reinstated and sharing his pornography preferences. Robinson has denied the report and vowed to continue in the race, but supporters have distanced themselves in recent days. Three GOP governors have withdrawn their endorsement, while the Republican Governors Association, which works to elect Republicans to governorships, revealed that it does not have plans for additional ad buys for the race. But Trump has yet to pull his endorsement of Robinson. The former president had been an ardent supporter of Robinson for years and endorsed him during the primary before Robinson won the nomination for governor. Democrats pounced on Trump after the report, pointing to many comments Trump has made praising Robinson and sharing photos and videos of the two appearing together. Trump has called Robinson Martin Luther King on steroids and one of the great leaders in our country. Following the report, the Trump campaign did not directly address the allegations against Robinson in its statement but instead emphasized the importance of North Carolina in the presidential race, calling it a vital part of Trumps plan to win back the White House. Trump appeared in the state last weekend at a rally that did not include Robinson, who was present at a rally Trump gave there last month. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. An investment company created by two of Truth Social's cofounders has unloaded more than 7.5 million shares in Donald Trump's social media company, marking the first insider transaction since the company's lockup agreement expired last week. United Atlantic Ventures -- which was created by former "Apprentice" contestants and Trump Media cofounders Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss -- sold 7,525,000 shares of the social media company, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. MORE: Facing a $2 billion decision, Trump says he will keep his Truth Social shares Based on the company's current stock price, the 5.5% stake in the company was worth more than $100 million. Litinsky and Moss were key players in the creation of Trump Media, the parent company of Truth Social, but they have been embroiled in legal battles with the company over the last year. Both men argued that the company tried to deprive them of their shares, while Trump Media accused them of mismanagement that delayed the merger in March that took the company public. In September, a Delaware judge ruled in favor of United Atlantic Ventures, clearing the way for it to eventually sell its shares. PHOTO: In this photo illustration the icon of the app TruthSocial is pictured on a smartphone display on Aug. 22, 2024 in Berlin. (Florian Gaertner/Getty Images) The SEC filing listed Litinsky as the managing member of United Atlantic Ventures. A lawyer for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News. Shares in Truth Social have hovered around $14 in the week following the expiration of the company's lockup provision, which prevented Trump and other early investors from selling any of their shares for the six months following the company's public offering. Investors have so far shown little reaction to the news of the 7.5 million shares being sold. Trump himself -- who has vowed not to sell his shares -- has so far stuck to that promise. Truth Social cofounders sell $100 million of their shares in the company originally appeared on abcnews.go.com A Cypress resident who started making hoodies to help fund her daughter's brain surgery now sells them to help Houstonians experiencing homelessness. Hoodies 4 Healing A Cypress resident who started making hoodies to help fund her daughter's brain surgery now sells them to help Houstonians experiencing homelessness. Hoodies 4 Healing A Cypress resident who started making hoodies to help fund her daughter's brain surgery now sells them to help Houstonians experiencing homelessness. Hoodies 4 Healing A Cypress resident who started making hoodies to help fund her daughter's brain surgery now sells them to help Houstonians experiencing homelessness. Hoodies 4 Healing A Cypress resident who started making hoodies to help fund her daughter's brain surgery now sells them to help Houstonians experiencing homelessness. Hoodies 4 Healing founder Rosemary Tucker said a boutique first started selling apparel to represent customers' faith, but when her daughter Dyanna Tucker got sick in 2018, the business had shift gears. Tucker started Hoodies for Healing, designing hoodies that said IM HEALED to encourage her daughter and raise money for her brain surgery. Advertisement Article continues below this ad I told Jesus, 'if you heal my daughter and dont let her die, Ill come to you being a blessing to your children the way Im asking you to be a blessing for my child'" Tucker said. PICKLEBALL COURTS COMING TO CYPRESS: Three new pickleball courts to open in northwest Houston suburbs by end of 2024 Tucker said she believes her daughter is a miracle and is the reason she pushes to help more people. She then turned her Hoodies 4 Healing business into a nonprofit and continued to sell hoodies to help people in Houston. The nonprofit started giving away free food to unhoused Houstonians in 2020 and now has provided more than 70,000 meals. As Houstonians wake up to get their Sunday started, Tucker and her crew are already setting up preparing hot meals. They give out food every Sunday from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at 2001 Commerce Street. Advertisement Article continues below this ad I wake up at 4 a.m. in the morning and start cooking for 300 homeless Houstonians, said Tucker. I love it, it helps me sleep at night, it helps me move closer to God and it helps me keep a relationship with him. Hoodies 4 Healing also pays unhoused individuals $10 per hour to help with distributing food, clothes or other items on Sundays. Its like family, its like being at your grandmothers house on a Sunday morning and they know you're coming, and they know youre going to bring some good food, said Tucker. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Lake Lure Dam in North Carolina. A structural engineer assessed the Lake Lure dam Friday evening and determined its failure is not imminent, a town official said. The Lake Lure dam in western North Carolina overtopped Friday after Hurricane Helene inundated the area, forcing evacuations and prompting warnings from officials early Friday morning that the dam could fail. Olivia Stewman, the Lake Lure town manager, said a structural engineer "found it in stable condition," despite damage that had been reported earlier Friday. The dam lost power early Friday, but that has been restored. Stewman said residents who evacuated might not be able to return to their homes for now because it was difficult to travel through the area, with downed trees and other hazards. The area still did not have cell service, Stewman said. The Friday evening update was the second piece of positive news. Another warning of a potential dam failure in the state at the Walters Dam less than 100 miles from Lake Lure had also prompted warnings of failure that did not come to fruition. Although the dam was not breached, residents of Newport, Tennessee, downstream from the Walters Dam, were still asked to evacuate because of flooding. Concern about the Lake Lure dam, which is located about 25 miles east of Asheville, grew early Friday morning, when officials sent out urgent warning messages. RESIDENTS BELOW THE LAKE LURE DAM NEED TO EVACUATE TO HIGHER GROUND IMMEDIATELY!! the Rutherford County Emergency Management department wrote in a Facebook post at about 11 a.m. ET on Friday. It said dam failure was imminent. As of 1:30 p.m., water was overtopping the dam, the emergency management agency said. Structural supports have been compromised but the Dam wall is currently holding, the agency wrote on Facebook. Emergency personnel are working with the structural engineers and are going house to house to ensure all citizens have been evacuated. The 124-foot tall hydroelectric dam, which is on the Broad River, about 25 miles from Asheville, is operated by the town of Lake Lure, according to the National Inventory of Dams. Its maximum storage is 44,914 acre-feet, roughly equivalent to the volume of water in 22,500 Olympic swimming pools. Lake Lure in North Carolina as seen from Chimney Rock National Park. On Friday afternoon, Stewman said water was flowing around the dam on one side. The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality said on its website on Friday morning that the 480-foot long dam was eroding on one side. An update posted earlier in the day said that dam operators had lost power but were able to operate floodgates manually. Southern Appalachia has been under deluge for several days, after a precursor storm brought rainfall that should be expected only once every 1,000 years to some areas. Then, the remnants of Hurricane Helene struck overnight and into Friday morning. Jared Klein, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said the area near Lake Lure has been hammered by extreme rainfall over the past three days. Youre looking at 8 to 16 inches of rain in the area of the lake, Klein said. Lake Lure is considered a high hazard dam, according to the National Inventory of Dams a classification that means failure or malfunction is likely to cause loss of life. The dam was described as in fair condition in a March 2023 inspection, the inventory said. The town of Lake Lure has been trying to replace the aging dam. As of June 2023, it had received at least four grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency designed to help rehabilitate or replace high-hazard dams. It also received $16.5 million for the project in 2022 from the state of North Carolina. Earlier this year, the water level was lowered in the lake to replace key infrastructure, according to the city website. Over the summer, contractors were working on a project to install a reservoir drain, described as an emergency preparedness feature that would allow the lake to be lowered before a storm. Meanwhile, confusion reigned in Newport, Tennessee, on Friday afternoon, after local officials announced that the Walters Dam also known as the Waterville Dam had suffered a catastrophic failure. However, Kristin Coulter, communications director for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, said later in the day that it was a false alarm, but that the town of Newport remained at risk. Its not failing, Coulter said. Officials have asked residents to evacuate. United States Geological Survey stream data showed that the Pigeon River downstream of the dam was experiencing major flooding. Valerie Patterson, a Duke Energy spokeswoman, said the dam and its floodgates were performing "as expected" and that the company "has all gates open at the Waterville Dam and continues to pass water through the dam." The statements about the dam's failure came from Cocke County Mayor Rob Mathis, who later declared a state of emergency for the county, according to a Facebook post. The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency shared the warning from Mathis. In an email Friday evening, Mathis said he did not refute Duke Energy's account, but that water levels remained concerning. "The evacuation is still on effect," he wrote. "Water levels continue to rise and are expected to rise several more feet." As a whole, Americas dams more than 92,000 in total are aging and many need costly restoration. Few dams were designed for todays climate, with a warmer atmosphere that can hold and deliver more intense rain. Meanwhile, more people have moved into inundation zones below these dams. In a report last year, the Association of State Dam Safety Officials estimated that it would take $157.5 billion to bring nonfederal U.S. dams up to par. From 2013 to 2023, 283 dams in the U.S. experienced some kind of failure, according to data provided by the Association of State Dam Safety Officials and analyzed by NBC News this summer. Most dam failures didnt ultimate cause public safety problems, but in 2019, a dam failure in Nebraska drowned a man whose home washed away. Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was among the prominent political figures that Iranian hackers sought to impersonate as part of their efforts to target people associated with former President Donald Trump, according to court documents and law enforcement officials briefed on the matter. US federal prosecutors on Friday unsealed criminal charges against three Iranian government-linked hackers in connection with a hacking operation aimed at Trump. The three are accused of a multi-year hacking effort aimed at current and former US officials and journalists, including the breach of the Trump campaign this summer, according to an indictment unsealed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar (Yaser) Balaghi are accused of aggravated identity theft and wire fraud for their hacking efforts on behalf of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Between June and August, the hackers used access to a Trump campaign officials personal email account to steal debate preparation material and information on potential vice presidential candidates, according to the indictment. The leak of some of that material to US media outlets was part of an Iranian effort to stoke discord during the election, the Justice Department alleged. The defendants own words make clear that they were attempting to undermine former President Trumps campaign in advance of the 2024 US presidential election, Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters Friday. These authoritarian regimes, which violate the human rights of their own citizens do not get a say in our countrys democratic process, Garland said. The indictment doesnt identify Ginni Thomas by name, but it states that between April and May 2024, the hackers used the persona set up in the name of the justices spouse to send spearphishing emails to a former homeland security adviser to a former US president, among other targets. The hackers had set up a fake email account in Ginni Thomas name in April 2020, according to the indictment and law enforcement officials, but it wasnt until four years later that they used that account in their efforts. From left to right, Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar Balaghi. - Department of Justice The US Supreme Court did not respond to a request for comment. According to the indictment, the hackers were also trying to steal information held by current and former US officials that could be used to help ongoing efforts to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani, the former IRGC Quds Force commander whom the US killed in a Trump-authorized strike in January 2020. Prosecutors say that hours before the June 27 debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, the hackers impersonated a Trump campaign official to send internal debate preparation documents. The email went to a personal email account of someone associated with the Biden campaign and the indictment says the email account owner didnt respond. The campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris has said the people who received the emails thought they were spam or phishing attempts. Separately, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on seven people, including Jalili, as part of a sweeping response to Iranian efforts to influence or interfere in the 2020 and 2024 US presidential elections. The alleged Iranian hack threw a twist in the presidential campaign in August when multiple news outlets reported receiving emails from a pseudonymous email account peddling documents stolen from the Trump campaign. None of the alleged hackers have been arrested The aggressive soliciting of the stolen information which included a vetting file on Trumps running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance to media outlets immediately drew comparisons to 2016, when Russian intelligence officers used WikiLeaks to launder emails stolen from the Hillary Clinton campaign. None of the alleged Iranian hackers have been arrested. The indictment is one of several US government efforts to blunt the impact of Iranian and Russian influence operations on the November presidential election by publicly exposing the activity. The indictment includes photos of an office building in Tehran affiliated with at least one of the alleged hackers, along with a photo of Balaghi smiling with computers behind him. Iranian operatives are working to undermine Trumps presidential bid through covert social media operations, while Russia is trying to undermine Harris campaign through similar means, according to US intelligence assessments. China has largely been focused on influencing down-ballot races rather than the presidential contest, according to US intelligence. US officials quickly concluded that individuals affiliated with the IRGC were behind the hack, stealing the internal Trump campaign documents to try to sow discord around the presidential election. That particular IRGC hacking group has a long history of targeting the email accounts of senior officials from the Trump and Biden administrations for espionage and surveillance purposes. The hacking group breached an ex-Trump administration official in 2022 around the same time that the IRGC was trying to kill former national security adviser John Bolton. The hacking operation aimed at the Trump campaign began in May, according to the indictment. The alleged IRGC-linked hackers targeted longtime Trump ally Roger Stone and used access to his email account to target campaign staff. The hackers also attempted to target the Biden-Harris campaign, the FBI has said. Iran has denied US allegations that it is trying to meddle in the US election. US intelligence officials have warned the public that foreign operatives will likely ramp up their efforts to undermine confidence in the voting process in the final weeks before the presidential election. US officials have in turn tried to burn some of their operations through indictments, sanctions and press conferences. The Justice Department this month announced criminal charges against two employees of Russian state-run media outlet RT for covertly funneling nearly $10 million into a US company to create and amplify content that aligned with Russian interests. The department also seized 34 internet domains that Russian front companies were allegedly using to disseminate anti-Ukraine propaganda by impersonating prominent US news outlet like The Washington Post and Fox News. Garland defends releasing would-be Trump assassin letter Speaking to reporters Friday, Garland defended the Justice Departments decision to release a letter allegedly written by the man charged in the second assassination attempt against Trump, saying that prosecutors had to ensure the would-be assassin remained in jail. The letter was released in court documents as part of an effort to keep the man, Ryan Wesley Routh, detained before trial. The letter was addressed to The World and read, This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I am so sorry I failed you. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job. Republican lawmakers, including Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, have criticized the DOJ over the release of the letter, saying its release put Trump in more danger. Our first job, with respect to Routh, was ensuring that he be detained, Garland said on Friday. And when you file a detention motion, the prosecutors have to make the most reasonable judgment they can about what evidence is necessary to ensure detention. This story has been updated with additional developments. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com By David Shepardson (Reuters) -U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor said Friday he will hold a hearing on Oct. 11 to consider objections from relatives of those killed in two Boeing 737 MAX crashes to the planemaker's agreement to plead guilty to criminal fraud conspiracy. On July 24, the planemaker finalized an agreement to plead guilty to conspiring to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration and pay up to $487 million after breaching a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement. Family members of some of the 346 people killed in two Boeing 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 argue the fine is too low and raised other objections to the plea deal. O'Connor will also consider objections to the agreement filed by Polish national airline LOT before he decides whether to accept the plea deal. LOT previously argued it should have the same rights in the case as victims' families, and said it sustained at least $250 million in damages related to the 14 737 MAX aircraft it owned and leased at the time that model was grounded worldwide in March 2019 following the two crashes. Boeing and the Justice Department did not immediately comment on O'Connor's announcement. The Justice Department in August urged the judge in Fort Worth, Texas, to accept the deal it says "is a strong and significant resolution that holds Boeing accountable and serves the public interest." Family members have cited O'Connor's statement in a February 2023 ruling in seeking harsher penalties: "Boeing's crime may properly be considered the deadliest corporate crime in U.S. history." The planemaker allowed potentially risky work at its factories and did not ensure key airplane record-keeping was accurate or complete, the Justice Department said in July in outlining why it believed Boeing violated the 2021 agreement. The finding followed a January in-flight panel blowout on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX that exposed continuing safety and quality issues at Boeing, just two days before the 2021 agreement shielding it from prosecution expired. The plea deal requires Boeing to spend $455 million to strengthen its compliance, safety and quality programs over three years of court-supervised probation. Boeing will also face oversight from an independent monitor for three years. O'Connor can also decide to require Boeing to pay restitution, which could include compensation to victims' families beyond what many have already received in settlements or as part of $500 million for relatives under the 2021 agreement. (Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jonathan Oatis) COLUMBUS, Ohio - Sen. JD Vance will face his biggest test yet Tuesday when he meets Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on the debate stage, an opportunity for both vice-presidential candidates to move the needle in a hotly contested race for the White House. And this won't be Vance's first time going toe-to-toe with a fiery Midwestern Democrat. Vance twice debated then-U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan when they ran for an open Ohio Senate seat in 2022. Back then, the "Hillbilly Elegy" author was a well-spoken political newcomer who came with plenty of baggage for Ryan to air on stage. Much of that from Vance's past criticism of former President Donald Trump to his quip about "childless cat ladies" is fair game for Walz as he seeks to paint the Trump-Vance ticket in a bad light. More: What's it like to debate Tim Walz? This time, however, Vance has nearly two years in the Senate and several months of a vice-presidential campaign under his belt. He's accepted more media interviews than anyone at the top of the ticket, including Trump, and often fields reporter questions in front of rally-goers in battleground states. GOP strategist Mark Weaver said that experience made Vance a sharper, more confident politician. Even Ryan acknowledged his former opponent has strengths that could serve him well during Tuesday's debate. For Walz to be successful, Ryan said, he must hold Vance's feet to the fire and not "let him get away with anything." "He's able to semi-articulate some kind of intellectual underpinnings of Donald Trump's rants," Ryan said in an interview. "He's very smart. I don't think there's any doubt about that. I would never call him dumb by any means." Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, speaks at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix on Sept. 5. Race, crime dominate heated Vance-Ryan debates Vance will debate Walz at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York with no audience and unmuted mics, although CBS News said Friday that moderators reserve the right to cut them off. In 2022, he and Ryan often interrupted each other and traded personal attacks during their two, hour-long Senate debates. "I've got three little kids, including a 2-year-old," Vance said during one debate. "One of the things that's true of toddlers and is also apparently true of career politicians is that they accuse you of doing the very thing that they do themselves all the time." Vance and Ryan discussed issues that will likely come up Tuesday, such as abortion and crime. Much like he does now, Vance recounted his mother's struggle with a substance use disorder as he argued in favor of tighter border security to crack down on the flow of illicit drugs. He also invoked the 2020 racial justice protests while attacking Ryan on law enforcement, a tack he's sure to revive as Walz faces criticism for how he handled demonstrations in Minneapolis after the police murder of George Floyd. Ryan's counter: "Can you imagine one guy saying out of one side of his mouth he's pro-cop and out of the other side of his mouth he's raising money for the insurrectionists who were beating up the Capitol Police?" But the most heated moment came during the pair's second debate, when Ryan accused Vance of supporting the great replacement theory. The conspiracy stokes fear about nonwhite immigrants coming into the United States to diminish the political power of white Americans. Vance told Fox News in 2022 that Democrats were bringing new voters into the country to win reelection, the Associated Press reported. Vance was openly angry about Ryan's comment, noting he married and had children with an Indian American woman. "Heres exactly what happens when the media and people like Tim Ryan accuse me of engaging the great replacement theory: My own children, my biracial children, get attacked by scumbags online and in person because you are so desperate for political power that you'll accuse me, the father of three beautiful, biracial babies, of engaging in racism," Vance said. "We are sick of it. You can believe in a border without being a racist." How is Vance preparing for the debate against Walz? Allies of Vance know all too well that his past comments could be fodder for Walz on Tuesday. The Trump campaign tapped Walz's fellow Minnesotan, U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, to play the governor during mock debates with Vance, according to a source familiar with the preparations. Usha Vance and senior Trump adviser Jason Miller, along with other top advisers in Vance's orbit, are also helping him get ready for debate day. Vance hopes to use the debate to "expose Walz's radical record and policy positions," the source said. Ryan believes Walz will come off as "way more likable and way more pragmatic" than Vance, who is seen by both supporters and detractors as a policy wonk. A September USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll found 48% of likely voters had a favorable view of Walz, compared to 36% for Vance. The Ohio senator was also less popular with independent voters. With just five weeks left in the presidential race, both Vance and Walz must do everything possible to serve as a boon for their tickets. The key to this election is which side is viewed as the status quo, and which side is viewed as the change?" Weaver said. "To the extent these candidates can affect that balance, that could be impactful." (This story has been updated to add new information.) Haley BeMiller is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: A history of JD Vance's strategy ahead of 2024 VP debate Renderings of the new hotel located in Marfa, Texas reveal a sprawling pool and luxury bath house also offered at the site ICON El Cosmico 2.0 Construction for the worlds first 3D-printed hotel and development has officially begun! El Cosmico, a campground hotel located in Marfa, Texas, is currently being relocated and expanded on a new 60-acre plot of land in order to accommodate the first 3D-printed hotel in history. The innovative property, designed by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, will include a pool, bathhouse, restaurant and private residences as well. Thanks to construction company ICONs massive 3D printer, El Cosmico 2.0 will showcase entirely new architectural approaches made possible by large-scale 3D-printing, according to a press release. These unique design features include domes, arches, vaults and parabolic curves, as well as reflecting the natural elements from the site's terrain. ICON Rendering of the pool at El Cosmico 2.0 The creator of El Cosmico, Liz Lambert, has teamed up with ICON to launch the reimagined accommodation, with construction expected to be completed by 2026. Hotel rooms are slated to cost $200 to $445 per night, a spokesperson for the project confirmed to PEOPLE. Related: These 3-D Printed Homes Cost Thousands Less and Are Being Built for the Homeless in Texas ICON ICON's massive 3D printer I am so happy about breaking ground at the new El Cosmico site. Its the realization of a longtime dream of mine. Its also very meaningful to me in that we will be able to do more of what weve done in the community of Marfa over the past 12 years create economic opportunity, add high quality jobs, and contribute to the cultural fabric of Marfa, Lambert says in a press release. ICON The bath house She continues, Ive been coming to Marfa since I was a kid spending summers at my family's ranch, and Im proud and honored to be a part of this community. Marfa is a magical place. Related: Chip and Joanna Gaines' New Hotel in Waco, Texas Is Officially Open and Reservations Are Booked Out ICON Construction of El Cosmico 2.0 Of the inspiration behind the hotels unique architectural design, founder and creative director of BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, Bjarke Ingels, said it is a conversation between El Cosmicos past and future. "By testing the geometric boundaries of ICONs 3D-printed construction, we have imagined fluid, curvilinear structures that enjoy the freedom of form in the empty desert, says Ingels. By using the sand, soils, and colors of the terroir as our print medium, the circular forms seem to emerge from the very land on which they stand. ICON Rendering of the hotel in Marfa, Texas 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. In addition to the hotel, residential accommodations called Sunday Homes will also take shape on the new site. These properties will feature three to four bedrooms and offer stunning views of Texas Davis Mountains. Guests can still book a stay at the original El Cosmico hotel currently located on a 21-acre campground until 2025. The old site will soon be home to 3D-printed affordable housing units as part of the projects mission to give back to the community in Marfa. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. ORANGEBURG Norvin McClure and Edmund Lewis joined a recent tour of the place known as Last Stop, USA. But the two special visitors had been to Camp Shanks before they were among the soldiers of the 65th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army to ship out from Camp Shanks to France in January 1945. McClure is now 100 years old. Lewis is 99. They joined a visit Sept. 26 with the 65th Infantry Association, which offers such reunion tours, mostly joined by children and grandchildren of veterans. This year's tour visited the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where they paid respects to lost members of the 65th, before the Camp Shanks stop. McClure is a native Hoosier who still lives in Indiana. Lewis grew up in Philadelphia and now lives in Port Charlotte, Florida. Camp Shanks was the largest World War II port of embarkation. Members of the 65th were among more than 1.3 million soldiers, sailors and airmen who passed through the camp on their way to fight in Europe. The camp also held prisoners of war. After the war ended, it housed GIs and their families for a period of time. Heroes return to Camp Shanks Both recalled spending a couple weeks at Camp Shanks prior to embarkation. A group of guys would go into New York City many nights to catch a show, Lewis said. When it was time to ship out, the division traveled via train down to New York City. The 65th's return to Camp Shanks, after VE Day, took them up the Hudson where their ship docked at the Piermont Pier. Family members of the 65th Infantry Assoc. visit the Camp Shanks Museum in Orangeburg on Thursday, September 26, 2024. They received a much-deserved heroes' welcome, with a band playing and the Red Cross handing out coffee and doughnuts. But they couldn't disembark. So many returning from war created a bottleneck at the pier and Camp Shanks. "We were on that ship all day," Lewis recalled, saying they were stuck aboard their ship until after dark and they didn't get to Camp Shanks until around 1 a.m. The next day, the members of the 65th were moved to other bases and then discharged within days. Lewis headed back home, to Philadelphia at the time. He spent his career as an industrial engineer. 'The end was near for Hitler' Their reminiscences of their 55 days in Europe were far from halcyon. "They were in the cleanup," Camp Shanks Museum director John Gray said of the 65th, known as the Battle Axe Division. "They got there when Battle of Bulge was done, and the end was near for Hitler." The 65th pushed through France and across Germany, capturing towns along the way. McClure demurred when asked about memories of his service. Camp Shanks was a relatively relaxing time. The war service in between, he said, was not what he chose to remember. Lewis described, in exacting order, the push through France and into Germany. "Bodies everywhere, American and German." For such intense fighting, Lewis said the 65th had relatively few casualties, but his voice quivered remembering the ones they lost. Someone handed out pins with the 65th's insignia, a white halbert, or sharp-pointed battle axe on a blue shield. Lewis pointed to his with pride. This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: World War II vets return to Camp Shanks in Rockland NY share memories Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskys visit to the White House on Thursday may have been his final chance to convince a receptive American president of his countrys war aims. And just weeks before a US presidential election that could have a profound impact on his countrys future, Vice President Kamala Harris used the moment to draw a stark contrast between her and former President Donald Trumps approach to the conflict. The wide divide was the backdrop to Thursdays meetings at the White House. During an appearance alongside Zelensky, Harris suggested her Republican opponent would force Ukraine into ceding territory to its Russian invaders, falling in line with demands from President Vladimir Putin. In candor, I share with you, Mr. President, there are some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality and would require Ukraine to forego security relationships with other nations, she said outside her ceremonial office next to the White House. These proposals are the same of those of Putin, and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable. While Harris did not specify who she was talking about, the implication was clear. And though Zelensky has sought to cultivate relationships with Republicans, including Trump, during his visits to the United States, it was not lost on him or anyone watching that Novembers election is providing fresh urgency to his search for a way to position Ukraine for victory. History reminds us, and history is so clear in reminding us, the United States cannot and should not isolate ourselves from the rest of the world, Harris said. Isolation is not insulation. Zelensky was in Washington on Thursday to try and convince the Biden administration his country can still win its war with Russia, so long as the United States and other nations significantly and quickly ramp up their military assistance. Trump says he and Zelensky will meet Trump told reporters Thursday that he would be meeting with the Ukrainian president in New York on Friday. President Zelensky has asked to meet with me, and I will be meeting with him tomorrow morning at around 9:45 in Trump Tower, Trump said during remarks at Trump Tower. Earlier Thursday, Trump cryptically posted on Truth Social what appeared to be a private communication between the Ukrainian deputy ambassador and an aide to the former president asking to pass along a message from Zelensky requesting a meeting. Trump did not indicate in the post whether he would do so. Zelensky had been expected to depart the United States but was prepared to stay an extra day to facilitate a meeting, a source familiar with his plans said. The anticipated meeting comes after the Ukrainian president recently told The New Yorker that he believes Trump doesnt really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how. With this war, oftentimes, the deeper you look at it the less you understand, Zelensky told the magazine prior to his Washington trip. On Thursday, Trump told reporters that he looks forward to the planned meeting with Zelensky but disagreed with his assessment, saying, I believe I will be able to make a deal between President Putin and President Zelensky quite quickly. But the former president declined to delve into the specifics of his plan and left things open-ended when asked whether he believes Ukraine should cede territory to Russia as a means of ending the war. Ahead of Zelenskys arrival in Washington, President Joe Biden ordered a surge of assistance to Ukraine, directing the Pentagon to allocate all remaining funding already approved by Congress before he leaves office in the hopes of positioning Kyiv for victory no matter the winner of Novembers US presidential election. Speaking to reporters next to Zelensky just before the pair met privately in the Oval Office, Biden said This will strengthen Ukraines position in future negotiations. On post-war recovery efforts, Biden said the US and allies have to support Ukraine on its path to membership to both the EU and to NATO, and to continue to make reforms to counter corruption, while ensuring the country is able to repel any future Russian attacks. And he pledged continued US support for recovery and reconstruction efforts in the country, in some cases using Russian assets as well. Biden is usually apt to take his time making decisions about providing Ukraine new capabilities. But with Novembers election potentially portending a major change in American approach to the war if Trump were to win, Ukrainian officials and many American ones believe there is little time to waste. Trump has claimed he will be able to settle the war upon taking office and has suggested hell end US support for Kyivs war effort. Those cities are gone, theyre gone, and we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal, Zelensky. There was no deal that he could have made that wouldnt have been better than the situation you have right now. You have a country that has been obliterated, not possible to be rebuilt, Trump said during a campaign speech in Mint Hill, North Carolina, on Wednesday. Comments like those lent new weight to Thursdays Oval Office talks, according to American and European officials, who have described an imperative to surge assistance to Ukraine while Biden is still in office. Biden orders surge of assistance Anxiety over the future of American support has colored many of Zelenskys visits to Washington. When he visited the White House last year, it was meant in part to apply pressure on Republican congressional leaders to approve billions of dollars in new assistance. The aid was eventually passed, but support for Ukraine among Trump allies is not high. While Zelensky visited Capitol Hill Thursday, he did not meet Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. During his more than hourlong meeting with senators before his visit to the White House, Zelen sky made his case for increased US support for his war-weary country while laying out the plan he would later present to Biden. He was emphatic he needs permission to strike deeper into Russia, which many senators on Capitol Hill have supported and something that continues to be a major priority for Ukraine. Some lawmakers in the meeting said they also lent Zelensky suggestions on how he could be more persuasive with Biden. Biden said ahead of his meeting with Zelensky that he was directing the Department of Defense to allocate all of its remaining security assistance funding that has been appropriated for Ukraine by the end of my term in office. He also said he was approving new long-range weapons, Patriot missiles and the US military will expand training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots, taking on an additional 18 pilots next year. The US president said he plans to convene Western leaders next month in Germany to coordinate their efforts toward helping Ukraine achieve victory. Whether that is enough to help defeat Russia remains to be seen. And, at least publicly, Biden has stopped short of granting Ukraine permission to fire Western provided long-range weapons deeper into Russian territory, a line Biden once was loathe to cross but which hes recently appeared more open to as he has come under growing pressure to relent. Even if Biden decides to allow the long-range fires, its unclear whether the change in policy would be announced publicly. Biden said hed decided to provide Ukraine with a Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) long-range munition to enhance Ukraines long-range strike capabilities, though his statement did not specify whether he planned to lift restrictions on firing the long range weapons deep inside Russian territory. Previewing Zelenskys visit to the White House a day beforehand, Biden declared on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly his administration was determined to ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to prevail in fight for survival. Zelensky looks to develop Harris relationship Zelenskys separate meeting with Harris on Thursday which took place after the Ukrainian leader wraps up with Biden signaled his desire to further develop what would be his most important leader-to-leader relationship should she win. In the weeks since taking the political baton from Biden, Harris and her aides have gone to great lengths to insist that on major matters of foreign policy, there is no daylight between the vice president and the outgoing president. The ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia is no exception, they say, insisting that Ukraine would continue to have the USs unwavering support against Russian aggression under a Harris presidency. The vice presidents face time with Zelensky on Thursday marked their sixth meeting since the war broke out in February of 2022. Just several days prior to the start of Russian attacks in February 2022, the vice president also saw Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference, where the two discussed Russias military build-up around Ukraine and the possibility of the start of a war. In her remarks at the Democratic National Convention last month, Harris was deliberate in taking credit for the USs response. Five days before Russia attacked Ukraine, I met with President Zelensky to warn him about Russias plan to invade. I helped mobilize a global response over 50 countries to defend against Putins aggression, she said. And as president, I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies. Advisers to the vice president say Trumps public statements about the war in Ukraine could not make more clear the starkly different foreign policy worldviews of the vice president and the former president. (Trump appears unlikely to sit down with the Ukrainian leader, despite saying last week they would probably meet.) Harris has insisted that if she were to become president unlike under Trumps watch Ukraine would be able to count on unwavering US support. Trumps campaign has been blasting Zelensky over an interview with the New Yorker published Sunday in which Zelensky called vice presidential nominee JD Vance too radical. His message seems to be that Ukraine must make a sacrifice. This brings us back to the question of the cost and who shoulders it. The idea that the world should end this war at Ukraines expense is unacceptable, Zelensky said in the interview. For us, these are dangerous signals, coming as they do from a potential Vice-President. Trump alluded to the comments in North Carolina on Wednesday. The President of Ukraine is in our country. Hes making nasty little aspersions toward your favorite president, me, he said. There is quiet recognition even inside the Biden administration that any reassurances Zelensky may receive from Biden and Harris this week on the USs commitment to supporting Ukraine could all be for naught under a different American president. At the signing of a new US-Ukraine defense pact on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Italy in June, Zelensky was asked what contingency plan he might have for precisely such a scenario. If the people are with us, any leader will be with us in this struggle for freedom, Zelensky responded. This headline and story have been updated with additional developments. CNNs Michael Williams, Lauren Fox, Morgan Rimmer, Ted Barrett, Donald Judd, Sarah Davis and Kit Maher contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com 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. Otis Mallet, left, with his attorney Troy Locklear, right, leave from the 482nd District Court at the Harris County Criminal courthouse after Otis testified against former Houston police officer Gerald Goines Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Houston. Mallet was declared innocent after being wrongly convicted in a case built by Goines. Goines was found guilty of felony murder in the 2019 deaths of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer Former Houston police officer Gerald Goines appears in a Sept. 25, 2024, booking photo from the Harris County Jail after a jury found him guilty of felony murder. Harris County Sheriff's Office Former Houston police officer Gerald Goines, second from left, with his defense attorneys Reagan Wynn, Nicole DeBorde Hochglaube and Mac Secrest, right, are shown in the 482nd District Court at the Harris County Criminal courthouse after he was found guilty Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, in Houston. Goines was found guilty of felony murder in the 2019 deaths of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer Houston Police Sgt. Richard J. Bass enters the 482nd District Court at the Harris County Criminal courthouse to testify in the sentencing phase of the trial of former Houston police officer Gerald Goines Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Houston. Goines was found guilty of felony murder in the 2019 deaths of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer Prosecutor Keaton Forcht speaks during closing arguments in the trial of former Houston police officer Gerald Goines in the 482nd District Court at the Harris County Criminal courthouse Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Houston. Goines faces two felony murder charges in the January 2019 deaths of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer Judge Veronica M. Nelson talks with a bailiff as they wait for the jury to return for the verdict in the murder trial of former Houston police officer Gerald Goines in the 482nd District Court at the Harris County Criminal courthouse Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, in Houston. Goines was found guilty of felony murder in the 2019 deaths of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer One witness had known Gerald Goines for 20 years as his confidential informant. Another searched his messy, drug-filled duty car as the embattled officer lay wounded in a hospital after the Harding Street raid. The last one, Otis Mallet, was declared actually innocent in 2020 after crossing paths with Goines decades earlier. When prosecutor Keaton Forcht asked Mallet to identify Goines and describe his clothing he skipped over that and characterized the former officers demeanor instead as a man who is going through something right now. The cast of witnesses on Thursday kicked off the punishment phase of Goines felony murder trial for jurors to hear evidence to determine how to punish the retiree convicted a day earlier in the deaths of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas in the 2019 narcotics raid. The proceedings allow prosecutors to air allegations of misconduct outside of the raid, while his own attorneys can ask jurors for leniency. Advertisement Article continues below this ad He was convicted Wednesday of two counts of felony murder and faces anywhere from five years to life imprisonment with parole for the felony murder charges. He entered the courtroom Thursday morning pointing at his loved ones after spending a night in jail. Mallet paused his testimony as jurors were excused for the evening and told to return Wednesday. He is expected then to be questioned by Goines lawyers. The 69-year-old exoneree fretted about remembering aspects of his 2008 arrest by Goines, who looked ahead, appearing exhausted at times as he watched Mallets testimony. Ive been trying to get this out of my life, Mallet said in court. This has traumatically disturbed my life. Ive forgotten most of the stuff youve asked me. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Mallet was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to eight years in prison. He was paroled after more than two years behind bars. The state's highest court overturned his conviction in 2020, citing the former officers "deceit" and "perjury" as Goines arrested him and his brother, Steven Mallet. An earlier witness, a former confidential informant for Goines, said she had worked for him on at least 84 buys over 20 years. She positioned herself away from Goines as she sat down at the witness stand. She testified to having taken payments for work she never did buying drugs at homes that she had never been to. She signed several payment slips for the purchase of marijuana and crack cocaine at homes on Jutland, Nagle, Tuam, Goforth, Napoleon, Mcilhenny, Fuqua, Drew and Nettleton most of which she testified to never having visited. She visited the Napoleon home at least once and bought marijuana but the alleged dealers at the residence never let her inside, during her account of the drug buy. The search warrant, however, stated the home had at least one semi-automatic weapon, something she testified to having never seen and never having the opportunity to. The warrant also showed the confidential informant had purchased crack cocaine, a drug she never bought or used. Prosecutors showed her a photo of Tuttle and Nicholas home but she did not recognize the residence. Advertisement Article continues below this ad A Houston police investigator, Sgt. Rick Bass, underscored that several search warrants Goines obtained in the months and years before the Harding Street raid gave the appearance of a thorough narcotics investigation but testimony showed otherwise. Bass walked jurors through nearly a dozen search warrants most of which involved Third Ward homes where Goines claimed he and another officer observed a confidential informant buying drugs and spying firearms in the home to get a no-knock warrant. Goines received overtime pay while carrying out the warrants, Bass testified. Several people arrested at the homes in question had their cases dismissed after the Harding Street raid, with prosecutors writing in court records that circumstances in this case impacted the credibility of material witnesses and made further prosecution problematic. The same informant appeared to contradict herself at times as one of Goines lawyers, Reagan Wynn, questioned her. She denied that Goines paid her out of generosity for work never conducted but she had told a Harding Street raid investigator that Goines handed her extra money to help her out. She also denied receiving large payments low sums ranging from $25 to $50 was the norm but then verified that Goines had paid her $500 on at least one occasion and $600 during another investigation. The judge allowed the woman to leave the courtroom out a side door after her testimony. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Another investigator, John Snooks, described digging through a mess of old papers and pill bottles in Goines duty car parked at HPD headquarters after the raid. Defense attorney Mac Secrest focused his questions to suggest that Goines vehicle was a depository for forgotten documents, highlighting unfilled evidence submission forms from 2016 and a coupon for Houston rodeo carnival tickets from 2013. One prescription pill bottle belonged to a man who Snook wasn't sure if anyone contacted. We dont know who it belongs to we just know its not the citys, he said. Aussie Broadband has committed to reviewing its processes following an outage on 27 September that affected its customers in Victoria and Tasmania. The internet provider announced on social media website X that it was experiencing a network issue in the two states, with the first mention of the outage at 9:48am Australian Eastern Standard Time for Victoria. An update was then provided 13 minutes later to include Tasmania. However, customers on both X and social media website Reddit claimed they had been affected hours earlier, with some stating their connection was affected from as early as 3am. Aussie was aware of the lag in informing its customer base as it provided its first apology at 11:01am. We apologise for the delay in notifying the outage here on [socials] this morning[;] due to a [Victoria] public holiday the team werent available as early as we would normally be. But, no excuses, we should have been here sooner and for that we do apologise, the companys X account wrote. After 1pm, Aussies X account claimed the issue was resolved on its end and issued a second apology. We want to take this opportunity to deeply apologise once again for the inconvenience and the confusion during todays outage, the provider posted. There are a lot of learnings from today and we will be reviewing our processes to make sure we are living up to our promises and your expectations. Your trust and support drive everything we do, and we do not take it lightly. Thank you for your understanding and candid feedback[;] we hope to make it up to you. When approached for a statement, Aussie sent ARN the text in the second apology. Despite claiming the issue was resolved, some customers on social media still claimed their service had not been fixed. Senate committee recommends telco outage communication overhaul Aussies internet outage comes as the Senate committee set up to look into the national Optus network outage that took place in November last year released its report about incident. The report provided a particular focus on Optus and its manifestly inadequate communications, which it claimed were lacking in timeliness and comprehensiveness as the first public interview by then-CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin took place more than six hours after the outage started. Prior to this point, social media and statements to the media were used as the main means of communication. However, the report saw the former method seen as largely useless as affected customers were unlikely to be able to access social media. As such, the the committee provided a range of recommendations that would affect all telecommunications carriers during widespread outages. This includes the development of an enforceable communications standard to make communication with the government, emergency services and the public during national outages an obligation. This display of poor public communication has highlighted to the committee that there are currently no standard requirements for how carriers are to communicate with stakeholders during a mass service disruption, the report said. It seems evident that the internal approaches of telecommunications carriers to public communications may not be reliable. Other recommendations included the government to work with carriers to examine large-scale network roaming and mutual assistance arrangements for major outages, the expedition of the development of a tailored dispute resolution mechanism to make sure appropriate compensation for mass telecommunications outages takes place and to review the Consumer Service Guarantee that is applicable to fixed broadband and mobile telecommunications services. Three Places in New England by Charles Ives a visual rendering by Peter Bogdanoff Of the masterpieces of American classical music, among the least appreciated and least performed is Three Places in New England by Charles Ives. There is an obvious reason: the piece fails in live performance unless its contextualized. In particular, the first movement The St. Gaudens in Boston Common makes little impression unless an audience gleans its inspiration: Augustus St. Gaudens bas relief of Colonel Robert Gould Shaws historic Black Civil War regiment, most of whose members perished in a heroic assault on Fort Wagner in South Carolina. Ives here singularly produces a ghost dirge suffused with weary echoes of Civil War songs, work songs, plantation songs, church songs, minstrel songs. It is an intense patriotic tribute eschewing the stentorian. Movement two Putnams Camp uncorks a rambunctious July 4 celebration, as processed by an eagerly imaginative child. Movement three The Housatonic at Stockbridge is the most majestic, most eloquent American musical rendering of the sublime in Nature. Its all iconic Americana, never glib, never touristic. But it risks sounding esoteric. A remedy: Peter Bogdanoffs ingeniously poetic visual presentation for Three Places in New England, which premieres on October 5 at the Ives Sesquicentenary Festival at Indiana University/Bloomington as part of an Ives concert by the Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Arthur Fagen. The same concert will incorporate commentary and source tunes for Three Places and Ivess Symphony No. 2. The visual presentation will next be seen Feb. 22 at an Ives Sesquicentenary concert given by the Chicago Sinfonietta conducted by Mei-Ann Chen. For The St. Gaudens, Ives furnished a poem reading in part: MovingMarchingFaces of Souls! Marked with generations of pain, Part-freers of a Destiny, Slowly, restlesslyswaying us on with you Towards other Freedom! . . . MovingMarchingFaces of Souls! Ivess own program note for Putnams Camp reads: Once upon a 4th of July, some time ago, so the story goes, a child went there on a picnic. Wandering away from the rest of the children past the camp ground into the woods, he hopes to catch a glimpse of some of the old soldiers. As he rests on the hillside of laurel and hickories, the tunes of the band and the songs of the children grow fainter and fainter;whenmirabile dictuover the trees on the crest of the hill he sees a tall woman standing. She reminds him of a picture he has of the Goddess Liberty,but the face is sorrowfulshe is pleading with the soldiers not to forget their cause and the great sacrifices they have made for it. But they march out of camp with fife and drum to a popular tune of the day. Suddenly a new national note is heard. Putnam is coming over the hills from the center,the soldiers turn back and cheer. The little boy awakes, he hears the childrens songs and runs down past the monument to listen to the band and join in the games and dances. (At the forthcoming IU performance, The St. Gaudens will be preceded by a reading of Ivess poem by William Sharp; Putnams Camp will be preceded by a reading of Ivess note, again by Bill; The Housatonic at Stockbridge will be preceded by a performance of the song by Bill and Steven Mayer. In the video above, Ivess note is read by Wendy Bricht, and Ivess song is performed by Bill and Paul Sanchez.) Supported by the NEH Music Unwound consortium, the Indiana University Ives Sesquicentenary Festival (Sept. 30 to October 8) is curated by J. Peter Burkholder and myself. Participants include pianists Steven Mayer, Jeremy Denk, and Gilbert Kalish, the Pacifica String Quartet, university ensembles, and scholars from a variety of disciplines. All concerts are free. For further information and a 50-page Program Companion click here. After years away from their homeland, some Syrian refugees are forced to return because of Israels war against Hezbollah. In the last 48 hours, almost 30,000 people have been displaced. Lebanese authorities report that "15,600 Syrian citizens and 16,130 Lebanese citizens" have crossed the border. Syrians who return face a triple dilemma: arrest, military draft, or loss of refugee status. Damascus (AsiaNews) For the past several years, Syrians were the ones fleeing their war-torn country, seeking refuge in neighbouring Lebanon. Now we are seeing the opposite: thousands of Lebanese (and Syrians) are trying to cross into Syria, which seems safer at present than Lebanon under Israeli bombs, this despite its persistent instability after more than a decade of a brutal war that failed to unseat Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. A desperate exodus is underway as Israeli planes roam Lebanons skies, causing over 700 deaths and thousands of wounded, including women and children. For days, humanitarian NGOs and international groups have been denouncing the emergency, including the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which has increased its assistance to the displaced. According to Lebanese authorities, almost 30,000 people have been displaced in the past 48 hours, with many abandoning their homes in a hurry, this in a country hosting about 1.5 million Syrian refugees, plus 11,000 from elsewhere. This bloodshed is extracting a terrible toll, driving tens of thousands from their homes, said Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees It is yet another ordeal for families who previously fled war in Syria only now to be bombed in the country where they sought shelter, Grandi stressed. We must avoid replaying these scenes of despair and devastation. The Middle East cannot afford a new displacement crisis. Still, hundreds of vehicles are queuing up at the Syrian border, with many people arriving on foot, carrying whatever they can. As temperatures begin to drop, groups of women with small children or babies wait in line after spending the night outdoors. Some people carry fresh wounds from the recent bombings, asking for the help of UNHCR workers present on the ground and at border crossings. The UN agency together and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent are providing food, water, blankets, and mattresses. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees notes that the humanitarian situation in Syria is still dire because the 2023 earthquake and the countrys drawn-out civil war have left critical infrastructure in tatters and millions in need of assistance. Lebanese authorities recorded the crossing of 15,600 Syrian citizens and 16,130 Lebanese citizens into Syrian territory". Syrian security sources told AFP add that this week more than 22,000 people, including more than 7,000 Lebanese, crossed the border between the two countries using the only two available entry points. In an interview with The National on Wednesday, Lebanon's Economy Minister Amin Salam said all families fleeing the Israeli shelling, Lebanese or Syrian, are eligible for aid, but that priority is being given to Lebanese people. The status of Syrians in Lebanon remains a very delicate issue, especially since 2019 when the country slid into what the World Bank described as one of the worst economic crises in centuries. Since Monday, loads of buses and cars have formed long queues that stretch several kilometres ahead of the border with Syria while some families have embarked on the long journey on foot. Once in Syria (where five soldiers were killed in an Israeli attack today), people waited another few hours to be registered by overburdened border officials, while relief workers handed out food, water, mattresses, and blankets non-stop. Some of the people are returning refugees like Emad al-Salim, who fled Aleppo in 2014. He was living in the southern coastal city of Tyre when the bombing began. Quickly, he picked up his wife and six children and fled again. Some houses [were] destroyed in front of me as we were coming out, he told the Associated Press. It took us three days to get here. Nada Hamid al-Lajji, her husband and their children are also making the journey back after seven years in Lebanon. Originally from eastern Syria, they still don't know where to go because I don't even have a home anymore. Many Lebanese families are also fleeing. Mahmoud Ahmad Tawbeh, from Arnoun, a village in the south, would like to stay with his extended family of 35 people in a rented house in a suburb of Damascus. We left with difficulty, there were a lot of bombs dropping above our heads, he said. Five or six houses in the village were destroyed and several neighbours were killed, he added. For many in Lebanon, particularly those in the Bekaa Valley, in the east, Syria appears to be the fastest route to safety. In addition to those who fled the civil war, many Syrians had come to Lebanon for work or family reasons and are used to crossing the border regularly. Finally, many of the Syrian refugees are reluctant to return to their homeland for fear of arrest on charges or suspicion of links with the opposition to Assad, of being forcibly drafted into the army, or losing their refugee status. For the first time, guidelines are drafted to provide industry-specific rules for companies and content creators. Videos must contain an "explicit" label. Experts foresee difficulties in application. Beijing (AsiaNews) China is planning new legislation to ensure that contents generated by artificial intelligence (AI) are clearly labelled; its goal is to stem the tide of fraud related to the use of this new technology. Published on 14 September, the draft guidelines, which are open to public comments for a month, would require all AI-generated images, videos, and audios to be clearly labelled with an electronic watermark and embedded metadata. This is the first time that Chinas Cyberspace Administration proposes specific rules to define and oversee AI-generated content. Under the guidelines, generated videos must contain an "explicit" label displayed at the start of the clip, which must be visible at all times in a corner of the screen. One major recommendation calls for flashing up a label at appropriate moments during the video. Metadata recording the files source and copyright information referred to in the guidelines as an implicit label must also be logged at the time of creation. The rules would apply not only to AI companies, but also to individual content creators, online platforms, app stores, and any other content distributors. Going one step further, the guidelines would require content distribution platforms to label files suspected of being AI-generated in case metadata are missing. Finally, app stores must ensure that content providers correctly label AI-generated content. These proposals are the latest effort by Chinese authorities to combat the rise in fraud cases linked to the new technology. According to Chinese start-up RealAI, more than 185 million yuan (US$ 26 million) were stolen in China in the first five months of 2024 using AI, compared to just 16.7 million yuan in the whole of 2023. Deepfake technology, text-to-speech, and AI chatbots are listed as "typical high-risk application scenarios" in the guidelines, highlighting their potential use to defraud users. Still, analysts and experts point out that the new directives may not be so easy to apply in practice. Ma Ce, a lawyer with the Zhejiang Kinding Law Firm and a specialist in Internet law, is one such critical voices. In his view, the guidelines lack a clear definition of what constitutes "AI-generated content requiring watermarking". The obligation for creators and online platforms to properly add metadata to generated files will pose technical challenges, he added. The guidelines also do not specify penalties for creators and distributors of content who violate the rules. China is not the only country that is trying to ensure that AI-generated content is clearly labelled. The European Union, the United States, Singapore, and Canada are moving in the same direction. Several questions remain, though, about how the rules requiring watermarking online content can be implemented. Today's news: Israel intercepts Yemen-launched missile, new air raids and deaths also in Gaza; Fiji protests at UN over intercontinental ballistic missile test launched by China into the Ocean; At least 46 dead including many children in India from ritual bathing at a Hindu festival despite swollen rivers; Work accidents rise in South Korea with immigrants as victims. HONG KONG One year and nine months in prison has been handed down to the former editor-in-chief of Hong Kong's independent news organization Stand News for publishing "seditious" material, while a second editor was immediately released only because of a rare illness. Former Stand News editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen, 55, and former acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam, 36, were sentenced by the Wan Chai District Court after being found guilty last month of "conspiracy to publish and reproduce seditious publications." These are the first convictions of journalists since the former British colony returned under Chinese rule in 1997. ISRAEL-LEBANON-YEMEN Israeli air defense said it intercepted this morning a ballistic missile launched from Yemen headed toward Tel Aviv. The missile was reportedly shot down "outside the country's borders." Alongside the conflict in Lebanon, meanwhile, Israeli raids on Gaza also continue: according to Palestinian sources, 36 people have died in the Strip in the past 24 hours as a result of shelling. INDIA At least 46 people-including 37 children and seven women-drowned during the celebration of a Hindu religious festival in several districts of the Indian state of Bihar. The victims reportedly died while performing ritual bathing in rivers and ponds swollen by recent floods. The three-day Jivitputrika festival celebrates the welfare of children every year. According to local functionaries, many people allegedly ignored dangerous water levels in the rivers to celebrate it. FIJI-CHINA Fiji's President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere called for "respect for our region" and an end to missile testing in the Pacific Ocean after China returned after more than 40 years to carry out a launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile that sank near French Polynesia's Special Economic Zone. Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Katonivere recalled the Pacific Ocean's history as a testing ground for nuclear weapons and called for "respect for our region and an end to such actions." SOUTH KOREA Workplace accidents affecting migrant workers, especially at small manufacturing and construction sites, are increasing in South Korea, and are expected to hit 10,000 cases this year, according to a Ministry of Labor report released. From January to August, 6,715 applications for injury recognition were filed. South Korea has seen a steady increase in workplace accidents involving foreign workers, with 8,054 cases in 2019, 8,062 in 2020, 8,555 in 2021, 8,886 in 2022 and 9,543 in 2023. RUSSIA The Russian government has drawn up a "Security Infrastructure Development" plan to spend more than 11 billion rubles (more than 100 million euros) to protect Russia's 31 major civilian airports, 20 state-owned and 11 private, from drone attacks, for which specific regulations and highly complex technological solutions are needed. KAZAKISTAN Kaspi Bank, Kazakhstan's second-largest bank, suffered a drop of more than 20 percent in the value of its shares on financial markets after the publication of an investigation by the Culper Research project into its dealings with Russian oligarchs who are under Western sanctions, although authorities deny the allegations against the bank. by Melani Manel Perera Following his election victory in Colombo among the new president's priorities are negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and a commitment to a country that "embraces diversity." After the swearing-in of Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya, dissolved Parliament with elections set for Nov. 14. Colombo (AsiaNews) - Plans to negotiate the criteria imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a commitment to respecting diversity-ethnicity, religion, class and caste-in the country, and the need to recompose Parliament (where Dissanayake's JVP party had only three seats), were the main topics addressed by Anura Kumara Dissanayake in his inaugural address as Sri Lanka's ninth president. Leader of the leftist National People's Power (NPP) coalition, he was sworn in on Monday after his victory in the weekend's presidential election: he emerged victorious among 38 candidates, garnering more than 5.6 million votes, or 42.3 percent of the vote. On Tuesday, September 24, the new prime minister, MP Harini Amarasuriya, was also sworn in in his presence, while the following day the nine governors and the new cabinet were sworn in. In her speech, Anura Kumara Dissanayake expressed deep gratitude to the citizens of Sri Lanka. "Let us unite to create a prosperous country that embraces diversity," he urged. "Let us aim to build a country where citizenship is a source of pride for all." Indeed, speaking to a diverse audience, including Maha Sangha and other religious leaders, he dedicated his victory to all citizens. "Let us honor and remember the brave men and women of previous generations who sacrificed," he said, acknowledging the historic sacrifices that paved the way for the present. He went on to say that the current administration is ready to take responsibility by thinking of the nation as a united team determined to meet the people's expectations. He had said during the election campaign that he would launch an investigation into the 2019 Easter bombings precisely to shed light on the government's responsibilities. Outlining immediate plans to negotiate with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the expressed goal is to stabilize the economy and pursue efforts to deal with debt. Then, motivated to eliminate negative features of political practice, Dissanayake highlighted the peaceful conduct of the recent presidential election as a testimony to the confidence placed in his administration. He also urged all citizens, regardless of ethnicity or religion, to unite under the banner of Sri Lanka, promising reforms for an inclusive environment. Addressing the importance of national identity, he envisioned a Sri Lanka where every citizen is proud of their citizenship, saying, "We aim to build a country where citizenship is a source of pride for all." He concluded his speech by stressing the need for a parliament that accurately reflects the will of the people, announcing the dissolution of the current parliament and the appointment of a cabinet in line with constitutional guidelines. Anura Kumara Dissanayake notified the dissolution of the Sri Lankan Parliament as of midnight on Tuesday 24, which will be followed by elections. The initiative calls for the new Parliament to convene on November 21, 2024, and sets November 14, 2024 as the date for the election of new parliamentarians. The nomination period will run from October 4 to 12 noon on October 11, 2024. Since 9 September, about a thousand workers have been asking for higher salaries and their own union. The southern Indian state has been an important industrial hub for hi-tech production since the 1990s; unlike other states where economic growth dominates, it has seen social progress as well, due especially to policies that do not take into account caste or religion. Chennai (AsiaNews/Agencies) Indian workers at the Samsung plant in the southern state of Tamil Nadu have been on strike for about three weeks to demand higher wages and union recognition. More than a thousand workers out of 1,800 are involved in the labour action. In a letter addressed to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, Union Labour Minister Mansukh Mandaviya urges the state government to solve the situation in an "early and amicable" matter, this according to a source. Workers at Samsung India, who earn an average of 25,000 rupees (US$ 300) a month, are demanding this to rise to 36,000 rupees (US$ 430) over three years; they also want the company to recognise that their recently formed union, the Samsung India Labour Welfare Union, is their representative in the negotiations. The Chennai facility is one of Samsung's two plants in India, producing mainly home appliances and contributing to a third of the South Korean company's US$ 12 billion in annual revenue in India. Samsung said that wages are already high, almost twice as much as those paid by other companies in the same area (like Foxconn and Dell). "Since the factory was founded, employees have worked without complaints and without a union. But things have gotten worse in the last two years and now we need the support of a union," one protester told the BBC. The strike in Tamil Nadu is backed by the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), which in turn enjoys the support of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Several multinationals with a presence in India oppose workers' membership in external unions supported by local left-wing parties. To prevent this, they ensure rotation among workers, hiring unskilled young people from rural areas on a temporary basis, some CITU members explained. The labour protests, which began on 9 September, are seen as an obstacle to the ambitions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is pushing for India as an alternative to China, and aiming to triple electronic production to US$ 500 billion in six years. Tamil Nadu is one of India's top manufacturing hub. Last year, Foxconn, one of the largest manufacturers of electronic components for other electronics companies, primarily Apple, invested US$ 1.5 billion in the southern Indian state. Experts agree that India still lags far behind China in terms of mass producing electronic goods, but Tamil Nadu is the first Indian state in terms of factories, which number almost 40,000. The states growth in manufacturing has been possible thanks to the application of the so-called Dravidian model, which inspires the state government, in contrast with the Gujarat model, much vaunted by Prime Minister Modi, who served as Gujarats chief minister for many years during which the state enjoyed rapid economic growth. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party, which has been in power in Tamil Nadu for decades, promotes sustainable industrial development and equality as key elements for prosperity. The Dravidian movement emerged in the 1920s in order to dismantle Brahmin hegemony, revitalise Dravidian languages (spoken mainly in South India), promote gender equality, and abolish the caste system. Several studies seem to confirm the success of this development model. In the early 1960s, Tamil Nadu had one of the highest poverty rates and lowest per capita growth rates in India. In 2011 the situation was reversed. With GDP per capita 2.5 times higher than the rest of the country, high school enrolment, and 4.5 per cent poverty level compared to 18 per cent in Gujarat, the state is unique in India. The other highly industrialised Indian states, Gujarat and Maharashtra, have been ruled by the Bharatiya Janat Party (BJP), but socio-economic data show that, in terms of social development, they lag behind the southern states, such as Kerala, even though it lacks competitive industries. In 2022-2023, Tamil Nadu's economic growth was over 8 per cent compared to 7.2 per cent for India as a whole. Experts note that the states progress was facilitated by an information technology policy implemented in 1996, which led the state to be, last year, one of the main exporters of technological products with a turnover of more than US$ 9 billion. And that is not all. Unlike Gujarat and Maharashtra, manufacturing plants have been decentralised across the state, not concentrated in a few large cities. Tamil Nadu is also the state with the highest number of entrepreneurs from disadvantaged backgrounds, such as Dalits, thanks to programmes that distribute resources without taking into account ethnicity, caste or religion. The states female employment rate is also the highest in the country, thanks to a programme that guarantees a thousand rupees to girls who continue their studies, regardless of their socio-family background. INDIAN MANDALA IS THE ASIANEWS NEWSLETTER DEDICATED TO INDIA. WOULD YOU LIKE TO RECEIVE IT EVERY FRIDAY? TO SUBSCRIBE, CLICK HERE. by Vladimir Rozanskij The region's main river flows through Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and finally empties into the languishing Aral Sea. Its flow is steadily decreasing due to climate change but also due to intensive exploitation for agricultural purposes, aggravated by competition between individual countries. But according to experts, with bottom-up initiatives it would still be possible to snatch it from its decline. Astana (AsiaNews) - Central Asia's ecosystem is largely dependent on the region's main river, the Syrdarja, which flows into the languishing Aral Sea. The director of the EcoMind Centre for Ecological Decisions, Arman Utenov, believes that despite everything the system can be saved if the river is freed of all unnecessary hydrotechnical structures, which he likens to thrombi in the veins of a living organism. In an interview with Azattyk, he explains why it is urgent to save the water resources of Kazakhstan and the entire region. In fact, the Syrdarja river flows through four countries, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, and at the end of its course it empties into the Aral Sea. On its banks live many people of popular extraction, fishermen, traders, farmers, but for some time experts have been consulting to solve the obvious problems of the most important water basin in all of Central Asia. The level of the northern part of the Aral depends on its waters, and in recent years the flow has steadily decreased. Utenov explains that at present, the Syrdarja is unable to fulfil its natural functions, being blocked by bridges and various types of equipment that serve the agricultural needs of various areas. On the territory of the Kyzylorda region in Kazakhstan alone, there are 90 thousand hectares of rice cultivation, the extent of which is growing year by year. The natural flow in the territory of Kazakhstan is conditioned along the entire course of the river by a regime of intense exploitation, especially around the Sardara reservoir in the Turkestan region on the border with Uzbekistan. Lower down is the Koksaraj hydro-regulator and the Aklak aqueduct, all the way down to the Aral Sea, constructions that are too limited in height, which do not allow the waters to flow back adequately and restore the natural regime of the river course. Another problem that needs to be solved is the sectoral subdivision and competition between the countries that have access to the rainwater, so that even though the main basin is on the territory of Kazakhstan, coordination of the use of the resource between the various countries is necessary. This concerns above all the use of water in agriculture, for which about 70 per cent of the water is discharged, half of which is in fact lost due to inefficient infrastructure. The ecosystem must be updated, Utenov insists, water is not just for the economy, it is for life, and its shortage can be devastating for everything. The effects intersect with climate change, interrupting the water cycle and causing the soil to lose its ability to absorb water, and destroying biodiversity. Water is a natural filter that solves all problems, recalls the expert, and the restoration of the hydrogeological regime of the surface must be carried out by remodelling the natural processes of the area, as is already happening in other Asian regions and also in Russia, for example in Chuvashia, where they have managed to create a hundred or so artificial ponds to regulate the surrounding waters, doubling the yields of agricultural crops and even bringing back deer. The ecosystem greatly influences the quality of life, Utenov explains, and attracts the population to the proper use of natural resources. Experts call for grassroots initiatives, in basin councils, rather than relying on the directives of governmental centres far away from the affected areas, whereas now they are limited to bureaucratic control functions. The risk is that the water conditions will worsen to the point of provoking conflicts between the people of the area and eventually between the Central Asian states themselves, leading to water wars within a few years, such as the one that is foreseen with Afghanistan, which is digging a large canal to exploit the resources of the Amur Darya, the other great river of Central Asia, forcing Uzbekistan to pour into the waters of the Syrdarja. The University of Houston Downtown is shown Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Houston. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer University of Houston-Downtown will begin its 25-year campus expansion project with an acquired space in a skyscraper, more than 1 mile down the road in the business district. The tenth floor at 1801 Main will house programs that focus on post-college success, helping students and alumni in a location near many of the places they hope to gain employment, UHD President Loren J. Blanchard said Thursday at a State of the University address. Leaders hope that more acquisitions will follow around the existing campus, as well as building renovations and purchased land that could double the universitys footprint by 2050. Expansion is inevitable if we are to reach our full potential as an institution, Blanchard said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The announcement came near the end of UH-Downtown's 50th anniversary year, which Blanchard launched in January with a master plan to expand into the Warehouse District. The details offered Thursday revealed three phases, the first of which would prop up buildings by 2030 on land already owned by the university. Those include student housing, a police department and academic building, a convocation center, and a building for performing arts and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Over two phases through 2050, the university has also pinpointed 16 other spaces it could renovate, build or acquire through partnerships. A rendering shows a master plan for expansion on University of Houston-Downtown's campus. The purple buildings already exist. Courtesy of University of Houston-Downtown The new space at 1801 Main could kickstart that growth. Dubbed "The Launchpad," the 17,000-square-foot floor will house a career center annex, a continuing education office and the Office of Alumni Relations. The arrangements are in the final stages, but UHD will have use of the floor through a six-year partnership with the Downtown Houston Plus development nonprofit, spokeswoman Marie Jacinto said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad University officials are also eyeing space for a new Idea Hub and Entrepreneurship Center and are asking the Texas Legislature to fund a Crime & Urban Issues Data Analysis Center that would aggregate police agencies' data. Growing but landlocked University of Houston-Downtown currently has eight buildings split between both sides of Interstate 10 at the intersection of White Oak and Buffalo bayous. Enrollment has nearly doubled at UHD over the past 25 years, but the space constraints have prevented wide-scale physical expansion and kept the campus without residence halls in recent decades. The Texas Department of Transportations 20-year project to reconstruct the downtown freeways should erase many of those limitations. The project will relocate Interstate 10 slightly north through a different part of campus, freeing up space for future development and allowing the university to stretch east without requiring students to cross under major highways to walk from building to building. The building expansions are meant to come with more academic offerings and build off a shorter-term plan to grow the campus from around 14,000 students to 16,000, Blanchard said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In the last year, UHD launched new graduate programs with a master's of educational leadership and a business intelligence graduate certificate, the president said. Approvals are underway for a Bachelor of Arts in translation and a Master of Social Work, and more than 10 academic degree plans, many of them in STEM, are designated as potential additions. Blanchard on Thursday also celebrated growing alumni engagement and recent rankings as the 27th best university for social mobility in the western region, according to U.S. News & World Report. More immediate work continues on the university's efforts to boost the success of its population, known for having many part-time or older students, Blanchard said. Last year was challenging for financial aid advisers, who processed thousands of student applications manually because of problems with the federal rollout of the new FAFSA form. Six-year graduation rates also remained steady, around 33%, though UHD is on its way to increasing the rate from 29% in 2021 to 40% in 2027. "You are the reason we exist, the reason we serve, and the reason we continue to press forward with new initiatives, organizations, partnerships, and academic programs," Blanchard told students at the event Thursday. "We are here to ensure you achieve your dreams. Champion local news. Join our community of readers who value daily beat reporting and in-depth stories alike. Your membership allows us to continue the legacy of local, independent journalism in the Roaring Fork Valley. With your support, we can remain a free and accessible source of news for everyone, always without paywalls or corporate influence. Together, we can ensure that vital local stories are told. Chinese state councilor meets chairperson of Uzbekistan's Senate Xinhua) 08:28, September 27, 2024 BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor Shen Yiqin met with Tanzila Narbayeva, chairperson of the Senate of Uzbekistan, in Beijing on Thursday. Noting that the development of China-Uzbekistan relations has entered a new stage, Shen, also president of the All-China Women's Federation, said that the two sides should thoroughly implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, deepen exchanges and cooperation in various fields including women, and contribute women's strength to enhancing the friendship between the two peoples. Narbayeva offered congratulations on the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, as well as great appreciation for the great achievements China has made under the leadership of President Xi Jinping. Narbayeva said that Uzbekistan is willing to jointly promote the high-quality Belt and Road cooperation with China, and further enrich cooperation on women and other fields to make new contributions to the development of Uzbekistan-China relations. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) The Historic Oaks of Allen Parkway Village, a public housing project that has been converted to what's known as the rental assistance demonstration program, is photographed on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024 in Houston. Because of insufficient federal funding to maintain public housing, the Houston Housing Authority is looking to move its public housing portfolio to public-private partnerships. Yi-Chin Lee/Staff photographer Larry Lingle, 85, talks about his life Thursday, June 9, 2022, at his apartment in Allen Parkway Village in Houston as he's about to be displaced so that the public housing could be converted to the rental assistance demonstration program. So here I am, almost 11 years Ive lived here, and hell they want to uproot me, he said. Now the rest of the Houston Housing Authority's portfolio is set for similar conversions. Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer A housing plan approved by the Houston Housing Authority board in its September meeting signaled its taking dramatic steps to move away from the traditional form of public housing that has long served as a federally-funded safety net for low-income residents. The plan, combined with previous votes, would impact the authoritys entire portfolio of public housing. Heres what this means for taxpayers and residents: Advertisement Article continues below this ad Why the shift? The housing authority is a public agency, largely funded by the federal government, that provides affordable homes and services to more than 60,000 low-income Houstonians. About 4,200 families live in the housing authoritys 19 public housing and tax credit developments, according to its website, although those numbers seem to include public housing that has already been phased out. At its September board meeting, the housing authoritys board approved a plan that veers away from the usual methods of funding public housing that primarily relies on taxpayers, and seeks to find more sources of private funding. The shift in policy is in line with trends nationally as Congress has chronically starved public housing of the money needed to make repairs according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the backlog for necessary repairs to public housing nationally is around $115 billion. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Because of the budget squeeze, housing authorities are converting public housing to other programs, which partner with private companies to renovate or rebuild the aging buildings. The move has been greeted by a mix of optimism and concern by housing advocates, researchers and renters. They see the conversions as much-needed investments but are watching to see whether the transition which can involve temporarily displacing tenants and moving responsibilities from the government to an outside company goes smoothly. Whats the plan? In public housing, a fund set aside by Congress pays the difference between rents tenants can afford and the governments costs to operate the building. Since housing authorities do not need to turn a profit, costs remain low, but many buildings are now in dire shape because Congress has not given the program sufficient funding for repairs. The housing authoritys plan involves redeveloping Cuney Homes and Irvinton Village through the Choice Neighborhoods program, an initiative that would combine federal and outside dollars to redevelop both the public housing and the surrounding communities. The plan to redevelop Cuney Homes and the surrounding Third Ward is slated to cost around $500 million; the plan for Irvinton Village is still in the works. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The housing authority also plans to demolish Ewing and the portion of the Kelly Courts that has not already been impacted by the I-45 expansion and redevelop them. In the process, those projects will change from public housing to projects subsidized by vouchers. Project-based vouchers are a different type of federal subsidy that can go to private companies instead of public housing authorities. A voucher covers the difference between the rents a tenant can afford and the market rate. Since developers receive market rate rents, they are responsible for maintenance. Irvinton Village would also be torn down and redeveloped with project-based vouchers if it is not selected for the Choice Neighborhoods program. Independence Heights Apartments, finished in 2018, will not be torn down, but the housing authority plans to transition it to project-based vouchers. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The authority also plans to convert Bellrive, Lyerly, Kennedy Place, Lincoln Park, Fulton Village, Oxford Place and Heatherbrook to whats known as Rental Assistance Demonstration projects. RAD partners with outside real estate developers and makes the apartments affordable through the use of project-based vouchers. The housing authority did not make anyone available to speak about the ongoing conversion of public housing. But Cindi Herrera, development advisor with the Houston Housing Authority, said in an emailed statement that the authority had determined that converting existing public housing properties was important to ensure their long-term sustainability. Its important to note that tenants are fully protected throughout this process, she said. They are guaranteed housing, rent protection, and will not be subject to rescreening during relocation. An increase in project-based vouchers The authority also voted to increase the share of its vouchers that can be tied to a specific project. Now 50% of the housing choice vouchers, which are traditionally tied to tenants and can be used at the apartment of their choice, can be used instead as project-based vouchers, which are tied to a specific apartment complex. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Herrera said that tying vouchers to specific properties is crucial for helping us redevelop mixed-income communities. She pointed out that only 60% percent of tenants with vouchers are able to successfully find a unit in the tenant-based program. This is in part because Texas law allows landlords to discriminate against voucher holders, which is common because of a combination of red tape involved with participating in the program and a stigma against low-income households. By contrast, the (project-based voucher) program guarantees that units are available to residents, which helps them secure housing opportunities, Herrera said. She said that after a year in a project-based voucher unit, tenants will have the ability to receive a tenant-based voucher through whats known as the choice mobility program. Such choice would hopefully ward off the situation faced by project-based voucher programs in the past, in which many families felt trapped in unhealthy living conditions because they would lose their subsidy if they moved elsewhere. However, a report by the nonprofit Urban Land Institute found that the challenges of finding a unit through the choice mobility program has made it difficult for tenants to leave public housing that has been converted to RAD. What are the concerns? Taylor Laredo, a community navigator at the nonprofit Texas Housers, welcomed the new investment into what has long been public housing. A study led by the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, for example, found that residents of three RAD conversions in Central California associated the redeveloped apartments with better heating and cooling systems and appliances. But he cautioned, While a lot of these folks are presented with a great opportunity to live in renewed housing, rehabilitated housing, to even move their family to housing of their choice with the voucher, that doesnt take away from the disruption that takes place during the renovation process. That totally upheaves a familys life. He hoped that as the housing authority converts its public housing portfolio, it listens to families and makes sure that they are able to navigate the process with minimum stress. He also hoped that resident councils a hallmark of public housing that allows for tenant organizing persist after public housing is converted to another type of affordable housing. Additionally, he noted that accountability can become murkier when a building is operated by an outside company, rather than the government. For example, a tenant-led survey of the residents of Ocean Bay Houses, a 2019 RAD conversion in New York, found that, while about a third of residents noticed improvements like painting, new cabinets, new floors and repairs, an equal number also noted negative changes including high staff turnover and increased fees, such as a $500 fine for breaking a rule. 27 September 2024 00:01 (UTC+04:00) By AzerNEWS September 27, 2020, is one of the most important days in the history of the national heroism of Azerbaijan. That day, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan began responsive measures to counter another military provocation from the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia. How did the counter-offensive start? After the Republic of Azerbaijan regained its independence for the second time in the early 1990s, its territories were subjected to Armenian occupation. Armenia, which has been eyeing the territories of Azerbaijan from time to time, took advantage of the collapse of the Soviet empire and began to invade the Garabagh region of Azerbaijan and then the surrounding regions. For 30 years, Armenia illegally settled in Garabagh, ignoring 4 UN resolutions on Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, and carried out terror and genocide against the peaceful population of Azerbaijan. The years 1991, 1992, and 1993 were consecutively marked as the year of invasion and tragedies in the history of Azerbaijan. During the First Garabagh War in 1991-1994, Azerbaijan gave nearly 12 thousand martyrs, and in the end, more than 20 percent of the territories were occupied by Armenian military units. After the ceasefire agreement reached with Armenia at the initiative of National Leader Heydar Aliyev in 1994, Azerbaijan appealed to international institutions and organizations. At that time, Armenia was protected by both Russia and Western organizations, and, taking advantage of this opportunity, Yerevan tried to legitimize the occupation of Garabagh and other Azerbaijani territories. Many organizations tried to freeze the Garabagh conflict in favour of Armenia and always stood by Armenia on the issue of the conflict. Finally, in 2020, Armenia continued its 30-year-old mood of invasion and launched provocative attacks against Azerbaijan. After a long ceasefire, the Armenian side against Azerbaijan initiated the first offensive in July. In order to advance further, Armenia started firing towards some of Azerbaijan's former contact lines, and as a result, on September 27, the Azerbaijani army launched a counter-offensive operation. The self-defence operation initiated by Azerbaijan was written down in history as the Patriotic War 2908 military servicemen of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces were martyred, and 6 are considered missing in the Patriotic War. Unable to withstand the triumphant march of the Azerbaijani Army, the enemy resorted to provocations and committed war crimes by targeting innocent civilians. The second largest city of Azerbaijan, ancient Ganja with numerous historical and cultural monuments, Mingachevir (Water Power Station) and Yevlakh (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline), where strategic facilities are located, Beylagan, Barda, Tartar, Gabala, Goranboy, Agjabedi, Absheron, Khizi, and other regions were fired from ballistic missiles and other heavy artillery devices. On September 27, 2020, as a result of the fall of a cannon shell on the house of Elbrus Gurbanov, in Gashalti-Garagoyunlu village of Naftalan city, a family - of 5 people was completely destroyed. On October 4, 5. 8, 11, and 17, as a result of missiles and heavy artillery, 26 people died, 175 people were injured in the city of Ganja, and civil infrastructure facilities and vehicles in the city were heavily damaged. As a result of missile and heavy artillery attacks by Armenian armed forces, 29 people died, 112 people were injured in the Barda region, and civilian infrastructure facilities and vehicles in the region were heavily damaged. Totally, as a result of Armenias military aggression, 93 civilians were killed, including 12 children and 27 women, 454 civilians were injured, 12 292 residential and non-residential settlements in total, 288 vehicles were damaged, and 1,018 farms were found to be damaged. In the period from September 27 to November 10, 2020, Armenia shelled Tartar, Agjabedi, and Goranboy districts, located both on the battlefield and outside the conflict zone, using prohibited and extremely dangerous phosphorus bombs 5 times at different times. On October 8, November 3, 4, and 8, the armed forces of Armenia in the occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as the persons leading the military units located in the territory of the Republic of Armenia and the criminal organizations created by them, grossly violating the requirements of Geneva Convention, dated 1949, on the protection of civilians during armed conflicts, using war methods leading to large scale destructions, to cause extensive, long-lasting and serious damage to the settlements located in the territories of Fuzuli and Tartar districts, where the civilian population or individual civilians who did not participate in the hostilities live, as well as to the environment in violation of the basic principles of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, containing 3.6 kilograms of P-4 chemical composition (white phosphorus) in each of the forests with valuable and perennial trees, which are considered a natural resource of the Republic of Azerbaijan, located in the territory of the city of Shusha, situated in the village of Arayatli, Alkhanli, Tartar district of Fuzuli district in order to intentionally kill people. By firing at least 6 D-4-type 122-millimeter cannon shells and deliberately burning the natural resources located in those areas, Armenians caused a large amount of damage, planned and carried out an aggressive war against Azerbaijan, and committed terrors and heavy crime. Despite all of these, the Azerbaijani Army, under the leadership of Supreme Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev, liberated its lands from the occupation in 44 days of the Iron Fist operation, and the territorial integrity of our country was ensured. We commemorate with deep respect and esteem the memory of all our Martyrs who died for the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan on September 27, which is celebrated as the Commemoration Day in our country by order of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 27 September 2024 12:55 (UTC+04:00) Elnur Enveroglu Read more I remember this day when the liberation of Garabagh from occupation began. Unfortunately, thousands of soldiers and many innocent civilians died as a result. But despite all this, it was necessary to liberate Garabagh from Armeniansso that this beautiful land is not occupied by foreign forces again. I commemorate the dear memory of martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the revival of Garabagh, and I thank them. Henri Van Rens, the Dutch writer and author of the book about Garabagh and Armenian vandalism, in his comment to Azernews regarding September 27Remembrance Day. Henri Van Rens is a European research writer who visited Garabagh quite several times after the occupation. There were many reasons that attracted him to Garabagh, and while talking about it, he said that he got acquainted with many facts that Garabagh is really the ancient land of Azerbaijan. "Garabagh is Azerbaijan, and there are many facts that can confirm this. While I was in Garabagh, I visited a number of villages, including Edilli village of Khojavand, where I came across human remains buried alive by Armenian vandals. Indeed, it is extremely unbearable to imagine that scene. The last time we witnessed such brutality was the crimes committed by Nazi forces during World War II. When I witnessed the crimes committed by Armenians in Garabagh, I was once again convinced that they are more barbaric than nazis," Van Rens said. The Dutch writer said that Armenians have nothing to do with Garabagh. He emphasised that Armenians are enemies not only of humanity, but also of nature. "A person who belongs to Garabagh, who grew up in this land, can never behave in such a cruel and vandalistic manner towards those territories. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Aghdam. It really looked like a ruin. It was as if a meteor had hit the ground from space. But when I learnt that all these are part of the "masterpiece" of Armenians, then an idea came to my mind: Armenians cannot be attributed to Garabagh! Unfortunately, Armenians are enemies not only to humanity, but also to this beautiful nature. In addition to killing people, the damage they cause to nature and ecology is immeasurable," he added. Henri Van Rens described September 27 as follows: "The aggressor is always the aggressor, and it is impossible for him to change and take a humane step. Armenian military units have been eyeing Azerbaijani territories for more than thirty years. It was impossible for them to return those lands willingly. I have always followed the news about the South Caucasus, and the last time I read the news was in July that the Armenians again resorted to military provocations. It turned out that this was already their last attempt..." Recall that September 27, 2020, is one of the most important days in the history of the national heroism of Azerbaijan. That day, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan began responsive measures to counter another military provocation from the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia. The counter-offensive operation initiated by Azerbaijan was written down in history as the Patriotic War. As a result, 2908 military servicemen of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces were martyred, and 6 are considered missing in the Patriotic War. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 27 September 2024 19:45 (UTC+04:00) Akbar Novruz Read more The United Nations, often criticised for its inefficacy, remains a vital platform for shaping global politics through the speeches of world leaders. While discussions of reform surround the organisation, the statements made during the General Assembly still play a crucial role in reflecting national interests and global issues. It is from this podium that leaders attempt to balance domestic priorities with international responsibilities. Recently, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan took the stage, offering his perspective on Armenias position, but beneath his diplomatic rhetoric lies a deeper, more troubling agenda. The Illusion of Peace: Hypocrisy in Action Pashinyan attempts to frame himself as a sincere advocate for peace, claiming that Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed on 80% of a proposed peace treaty. However, he conspicuously avoids mentioning the remaining 20%. What lies in this unresolved portion? The glaring omission may point to Armenias reluctance to remove the preamble from its constitution that claims Garabagh. This is a classic case of "shadow politics," where Pashinyan avoids transparency about critical issues that could derail his peace narrative. If he is indeed committed to peace, why not discuss the full details? This undermines his credibility and raises suspicion about his real intentions. The Crossroads of Peace Fiction: Sabotaging the Zangazur Corridor In addition, funny enough, Pashinyan proposed world leaders at the UN General Assembly "Crossroads of Peace" project. This mentioned project during his speech, is nothing more than a fantasy meant to distract from real obligations. In reality, Azerbaijan has already taken the Zangazur Corridora key provision of the 2020 Tripartite Declarationoff the negotiation table to advance peace. Yet Pashinyans introduction of the "Crossroads of Peace" is an attempt to revoke past commitments and derail the ongoing peace process. There, I may say he is seeking to gain Iran's attention and support in this so-called project. His willingness to push imaginary projects instead of fulfilling real obligations demonstrates his lack of sincerity in pursuing genuine peace. While Pashinyan speaks of peace at the UN, Armenias lobbying efforts paint a much darker picture. Armenian-controlled circles, media, and human rights organisations engage in relentless disinformation campaigns against Azerbaijan. The Armenian diasporas influence in legislative bodies, particularly in the United States, leads to resolutions and events aimed at demonising Azerbaijan and sabotaging any attempt at peace. These coordinated efforts show that Armenias real agenda is to undermine Azerbaijan on the global stage while pretending to seek diplomatic solutions. Pashinyans silence on these efforts further demonstrates his insincerity. Pashinyans speech can be seen as an attempt to consolidate his international support by portraying himself as a peace-loving leader. Within Armenia, he has cultivated an image of the father of the nation and even resorted to theatrics, such as threatening to take his own life. For nearly three decades, Armenia ignored multiple UN Security Council resolutions that called for its withdrawal from Azerbaijani lands. Despite this history, Pashinyan now stands before the world, offering philosophical musings on the future of the UN while conveniently ignoring his governments history of defiance against the organisation. His role in maintaining the occupation of Azerbaijani territories cannot be forgotten, no matter how smartly he presents himself from the UN podium. Armenia's leadership has remained inactive over the past 34 years, with Pashinyan attempting to consolidate his power by crafting a misleading narrative at the UN. Despite projecting himself as a peace-loving statesman, Pashinyans actions show otherwise. His portrayal as an "innocent" leader, willing to sacrifice everything for his people, is part of a well-coordinated propaganda strategy. By playing the victim and promoting ideas like "he will take his own life" for the sake of his country, Pashinyan manipulates international perceptions. For Azerbaijan and the international community, it is clear that Pashinyans vision of peace is nothing more than an illusion crafted for international consumption. So Mr. Pashinyan we offer you to see the picture from a more real, peaceful frame! --- Akbar Novruz is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @ykwiua Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 27 September 2024 08:30 (UTC+04:00) Akbar Novruz Read more Azerbaijan's Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov had some meetings in Serbia, Azernews reports, citing the ministry. In the meeting with the Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Environmental Protection, Irena Vujovic, it was noted that the friendly and partnership relations of the heads of state of both countries boosted the development of bilateral relations in all areas, including the energy sector. Besides, the current state of energy cooperation between our countries was highly appreciated. The recently signed agreement between Azerbaijan and Serbia on cooperation in the field of environmental protection was mentioned. It was stated that cooperation with Serbia in the field of "green" energy will contribute to energy transition and climate goals. The meeting also discussed the reduction of carbon emissions, the use of new technologies in this direction, and cooperation within the framework of COP29. The global initiatives of the COP29 Presidency were discussed and Serbia was invited to join the global promises made by Azerbaijan. Furthermore, in the meeting with Serbian Economy Minister Adrijana Mesarovic, discussions were held on the development of bilateral cooperation. It was noted that 32.3 million cubic meters of gas were supplied from Azerbaijan to Serbia in January-August of this year, and cooperation on gas supply has expanded with the new contract. At the meeting, Serbia's joining the "Caspian-Black Sea-European Green Energy Corridor", the construction of a gas power plant, the supply of crude oil, and the possibilities of cooperation in gas transit were considered. There was also an exchange of views regarding the Business Forum planned to be held in Azerbaijan in December. --- Akbar Novruz is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @ykwiua Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 27 September 2024 13:56 (UTC+04:00) Nazrin Abdul Read more The regional climate seminar on "Strengthening Climate Measures in the Agro-Food Sector of European and Central Asian Countries" continues its work with panel sessions, Azernews reports. The Ministry of Agriculture informed that in the panel session, Deputy Minister of Agriculture Ilhama Gadimova presented the work done in preparation for the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP29) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which will be held in November this year. She expressed confidence that the Baku Harmony Climate Initiative for Farmers, one of the 14 initiatives on the Action Agenda of COP29, will make an important contribution to global efforts to transform agro-food systems into a more sustainable model by bringing together stakeholders to build climate-resilient agricultural systems. Deputy Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Vugar Karimov stated that the initiatives of the COP29 Action Agenda cover various aspects of climate change negotiations, including finance, trade, energy, peace, food, water, agriculture, science, technology, health, urbanization, and transport. He added that the decisions made at COP29 will be crucial in reducing the impacts of climate change. Firudin Taghiyev, head of the Department of Land Use Control at the Ministry of Agriculture, discussed the effects of global climate change on agriculture and food security, as well as the efforts made to minimize these effects. He highlighted the preparation of a Strategy Plan by the Ministry based on international experiences, aimed at promoting the countrys policy on climate change adaptation and mitigation. He added that the document envisions the implementation of regular climate-proof projects in agriculture between the state and the private sector. Noting that the agricultural sector is particularly sensitive to the effects of climate change, Anar Azimov, the deputy chairman of the Agrarian Services Agency, reminded participants that global productivity is likely to decrease by 2050 due to climate change. He emphasized the importance of taking immediate action to ensure food security. Leyla Jabbarli, Deputy Chairman of the Agrarian Credit and Development Agency, spoke about the opportunities provided by the Harmony Climate Initiative. She referred to this initiative as a platform that fosters inclusive cooperation among different sectors and stakeholders. The agency official emphasized that the Harmony Climate Initiative offers significant advantages for interested parties, such as facilitating investment for the transformation of agricultural systems, providing real-time monitoring, and ensuring the comprehensive development of value chains up to global markets. Martial Bernoux, Chief Natural Resources Specialist of FAOs Office of Climate Change, Environment and Biodiversity, and Liva Kaugure, Natural Resources Specialist of the same office, emphasized the importance of cooperation within the framework of initiatives such as Harmony and "Sustainable Transformation for Food and Agriculture" (FAST) in their speeches. Foreign experts noted that Azerbaijan contributes to this cooperation as a member of the Management Board and co-chair of the FAST initiative. Speaking at the event, FAO experts addressed topics such as the Sustainable Development Goals, "Digital Solutions for Climate-Resilient Agricultural Systems," "Agricultural Loss and Damage Assessment: European and Central Asian Experience," and FAO's climate change planning for increasing resilience, implementation, monitoring, and reporting activities. --- Nazrin Abdul is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: Nazrin Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 27 September 2024 15:55 (UTC+04:00) Nazrin Abdul Read more Deputy Economy Minister of Azerbaijan, Anar Akhundov, discussed energy cooperation issues with his Slovakian counterpart, Kamil Shashko, Azernews reports, citing a post shared by the Slovak embassy in Azerbaijan on "X." "We are satisfied with the results of the bilateral consultations between the deputy ministers," the embassy stated. It should be noted that Azerbaijan and Slovakia maintain a growing economic relationship characterised by cooperation in energy, trade, and investment. The two countries have also engaged in discussions to enhance collaboration in sectors like tourism, transport, and regional development. Bilateral consultations aim to explore new opportunities for investment and trade, fostering a stronger economic bond. Very pleased with the outcome of bilateral consultations between deputy ministers of on #Energy #regionaldevelopment #tourism #transportation pic.twitter.com/naKgOuYtOJ Embassy of Slovakia in Azerbaijan (@SKEmbBaku) September 27, 2024 --- Nazrin Abdul is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: Nazrin Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 27 September 2024 16:54 (UTC+04:00) Nazrin Abdul Read more Within the framework of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, the "High-Level Forum on Climate Transparency" was held on September 25 in New York, initiated by Azerbaijan as the COP29 chair, Azernews reports. In total, high-level officials from approximately 80 countries and international organisations participated in the event. The main purpose of the forum was to support the preparation of Biennial Transparency Reports (BTR), which are a key component of the Extended Transparency Framework (ETF) established under the Paris Agreement, and to strengthen cooperation among the party countries, donor organisations, and other interested parties in this area. Mukhtar Babayev, the president of COP29, highlighted the importance of climate transparency in his opening speech and informed participants about the work accomplished by the COP29 Presidency in this field as well as upcoming action plans. He noted that the BTRs, which will be presented for the first time this year, play a crucial role in objectively assessing the efforts made in addressing climate change. In this context, the COP29 Presidency emphasised the importance of training seminars organised in Baku and various regions worldwide on preparing BTRs in collaboration with other partners. During the event, the "Baku Global Climate Transparency Platform" (BTP) was presented, which is considered the main legacy of COP29 regarding climate transparency. It aims to build trust among the party countries and enhance their capacity in preparing BTRs. In his speech, Yalchin Rafiyev, Chief Negotiator of COP29, emphasised that the BTP will serve as an important platform for global climate transparency. He noted that the primary goal of the BTP is to foster trust among party states, support developing countries in preparing and finalising BTRs, and continue the transparency agenda post-COP29 by promoting universal participation in the ETF. During the event, Zulfiyya Suleymanova, Advisor to the President of Kazakhstan and Special Representative for International Environmental Cooperation, and Francesco Corvaro, Italy's Special Envoy for Climate Change, who are the appointed high-level representatives of COP29 on climate transparency, presented the presidencys roadmap for climate transparency and BTRs, as well as upcoming action plans. In the panel discussions held during the event, ministers and deputy ministers from Japan, Egypt, Samoa, the USA, Turkiye, Switzerland, Germany, France, Georgia, and Hungary, along with chief climate negotiators and representatives from UNFCCC, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), expressed the significance of the COP29 Presidency's contributions to climate transparency and their support for the Baku Global Climate Transparency Platform (BTP). --- Nazrin Abdul is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: Nazrin Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Tuesday nights full moon shown through the WADL sign in Eado neighborhood of Houston on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. Tuesday nights full moon not just a full moon, but SuperMoon, a Harvest moon and a corn moon, that also featured a partial lunar eclipse. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer The moon will soon be joined by a new dance partner around the Earth's gravitational pull. But its new pal will stay for only a song or two before returning to the dark of the night. An asteroid, named 2024 PT5, is set to temporarily enter Earth's orbit on Sept. 29. It will remain orbiting the Earth on a horseshoe path before leaving Nov. 25. The asteroid will become a mini-moon, which refers to an asteroid or comet captured by a planet's orbit for a select period of time. Advertisement Article continues below this ad However, 2024 PT5's nearly two-month orbit won't be recognizable in the night sky. Rice University astronomer Pat Hartigan said the mini-moon, which he described as the size of a house, will not be visible to the naked eye to those in Houston. Those with a high-powered telescope won't have a much better chance to see it either. Carlos de la Fuente Marcos and Raul de la Fuente Marco, two researchers from Spain, announced the discovery of the space object in the American Astronomical Society's publication "Research Notes of the AAS" this month. In their paper on the discovery, they write about the difference between temporarily captured orbiters and temporarily captured flybys. Temporarily captured flybys never complete a full rotation around the Earth while temporarily captured orbiters complete at least one orbit. Advertisement Article continues below this ad When it completes its journey, 2024 PT5 will be the third known temporarily captured flyby in recorded history, according to the paper. While 2024 PT5 won't be visible during its 57-day orbit, there will be other things to see in the night sky. There will be two full moons one on Oct. 17 and another on Nov. 15. Both are Supermoons. The Taurids and Leonids meteor showers are both scheduled to peak during November. Additionally, Oct.2 is the 2024 Annular Solar Eclipse. Advertisement Article continues below this ad 27 September 2024 12:34 (UTC+04:00) Laman Ismayilova Read more Jafar Jabbarli Republican Youth Library has presented traditional and virtual book exhibition on the occasion of Memorial Day (September 27), Azernews reports. The virtual exhibition presents photo and video images of the first days of the war, and fragments from President Ilham Aliyev's television speeches. The exhibition prepared by library staff features over 20 books published from 2020 to the present about the 44-day Patriotic War, which is one of the brightest and most glorious pages of Azerbaijani history. It includes short annotations for works such as "The Chronicles of Victory," "Our Victory History," "Chronicles of Heroism," "Patriotic War: Ganja Martyrs," "Lessons in Diplomacy from 44 Days," "The History of the Patriotic War: The Factor of Personality," "44 Days in Real-Time," "Victory Memoirs," and "The Great Return," among others, as well as samples from periodicals. Moreover, a traditional book exhibition titled "September 27- Remembrance Day" has been organized at the Republican Youth Library. The exhibition displays books about the 44-day Patriotic War and features a bulletin prepared by library staff titled "The Brightest Page of Our Statehood History." The bulletin titled "The Brightest Page of Our Statehood History" includes images and annotated bibliographic descriptions of 43 publications (30 in Azerbaijani, 6 in Turkish, 4 in Russian, 3 in English) that have been published regarding the 44-day Patriotic War, official documents, and descriptions of 207 articles (125 in Azerbaijani, 83 in Russian) published in the periodical press, as well as a collection of poems about the Patriotic War. The book descriptions are arranged in alphabetical order, while the periodical materials are presented in reverse chronological order. To explore the exhibition closely, you can follow the link. Memorial Day in Azerbaijan is a public holiday for honoring and mourning the military personnel, who died while defending the occupied Azerbaijani lands during the 2020 Second Garabagh War. Established under President Ilham Aliyev's decree, Remembrance Day is held in Azerbaijan on September 27, the day when the war with Armenia broke out. The day honors the memory of martyrs, soldiers, and officers, who heroically fought in the Second Garabagh War and liberated territories from the Armenian occupation. ---- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @lmntypewriterrr Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Jafar Jabbarli State Theatre Museum has hosted an event titled "You have sons who have died and risen again, Motherland!" dedicated to Memorial Day, Azernews reports. First, a moment of silence was observed in memory of the martyrs. The event was organised jointly by the Jafar Jabbarli State Theatre Museum and the Culture Centre operating under the Ireli Public Union. Umida Hajiyeva, the head of the Scientific and Public Relations Department, addressed the event. She spoke about the 44-day Patriotic War and provided information about the significance of the event. Then, the documentary film "Hadrut, you are free!" produced by the Baku Media Centre and AzerbaijanFilm Studio on the order of the Culture Ministry was screened. The Executive Producer of the film is Arzu Aliyeva. After the film screening, discussions were held with the audience about the plot. The film features the liberation of Hadrut settlement of Khojavand district from enemy occupation on October 9. The liberation of Hadrut is considered one of the key turning points in the Second Garabagh War. ---- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @lmntypewriterrr Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 27 September 2024 10:00 (UTC+04:00) Akbar Novruz Read more On September 26, 2024, during the 79th session of the UN General Assembly in New York, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan held a meeting under the initiative and with the participation of U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, Azernews reports. According to a statement from Azerbaijan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, both sides agreed to intensify their efforts to conclude the Agreement on Peace and Establishment of Interstate Relations in the shortest possible period. The Azerbaijani and Armenian delegations expressed their gratitude to Secretary Blinken for facilitating the meeting and supporting the peace process. For information, the last meeting between the parties was held on the sidelines of the NATO 75th Anniversary Summit in Washington D.C. this July at the initiative of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. --- Akbar Novruz is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @ykwiua Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 27 September 2024 16:13 (UTC+04:00) Fatima Latifova Read more The COP29 event, which will take place in November, is not only of great significance for Azerbaijan but for the entire Caucasus region. Discussing a topic as crucial as the climate crisis in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, carries its own special meaning. The gathering of world leaders to seek solutions to this issue, which is more critical than war, peace, and economics, naturally conflicts with the interests of many organisations. Azerbaijans hosting of COP29 stems from its unique progress and achievements in the Caucasus region. Given that 95% of its economy advances through oil and gas revenues, Azerbaijans boldness and determination in taking on the difficult commitment of transitioning to green energy displeases those who oppose Baku. Despite four years passing since the 44-day Second Garabagh War, in which Azerbaijan's military achieved victory with great heroism, individuals and groups who still promote the fake republic of artsakh, ignoring international law, history, and humanity, include Nubar Afeyan, co-founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative. He expressed regret that COP29 is being held in Baku while "artsakhs" former "leaders" are imprisoned in the city, calling Azerbaijan's hosting of the conference a "terrible irony." It is curious that many politicians and pro-Armenian organisations, following Afeyan's example, are particularly trying to tarnish and discredit COP29. They cannot hide the deep sense of envy they harbour. Those demanding the release of the separatists imprisoned in Azerbaijan should first explain why those separatists tried to establish their own state on Azerbaijani territory. Those who remain silent about the looting of Azerbaijani lands by Armenians for 30 years, the desecration of monuments and religious sites, the displacement of 1 million Azerbaijanis from their homes, and the massacres like Khojaly and Meshali, still shamelessly attempt to protect the so-called "Republic of Artsakh." Despite the torture and humiliation inflicted on Azerbaijanis by Armenians, today, Azerbaijan is still willing to sign a peace agreement with Armenia under the simplest conditions. However, as of last night, the Armenian army, by shelling Azerbaijans borders, once again demonstrated its approach to peace and humanity. Those who ignore all these facts and hastily claim that Azerbaijan is incapable of hosting COP29 should first consider the damage Armenia is causing to the environment. Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant Since 1976, Armenia's Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) has been operating with outdated technologies. The uncertainty in Yerevans economy, politics, and governance makes the operation of the NPP even more dangerous, and despite being deemed unfit for use, it continues to function, further exacerbating regional tensions. Given that the world is still grappling with the consequences of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and the 2011 Fukushima NPP accident in Japan, the continued existence of the Metsamor threat paints a frightening picture. While Azerbaijan is currently striving for a green energy transition, the ill-informed opinions of several pro-Armenian businessmen, and even accusations against the state are laughable. As for the separatists whose release is being demanded, the Azerbaijani government cannot treat individuals who occupied its lands and tried to establish a fake state, only to play the victim when cornered, in a more humane manner. Given that the fate of around 4,000 Azerbaijanis has remained unknown since the First Garabagh War, the separatists, who have been repeatedly visited by International Red Cross Committee (ICRC) representatives and live in safe conditions in Bakus prisons, are in far better conditions. After all, the children, women, and elderly who were captured 30 years ago, and never desired war, committed none of the crimes that these separatists did. Yet again, particularly on September 27th, the Remembrance Day marking the start of the Patriotic War, there are provocations aimed at Azerbaijan on the border, in the media, and in politics. However, these attempts at provocation, as always, end in failure. The reality is that Azerbaijan has liberated its lands from occupation and is currently carrying out various infrastructure projects in Garabagh. The reality is that COP29 will take place in Azerbaijan after being held in Abu Dhabi. The only thing that pro-Armenian organisations and individuals can do about this is to make absurd statements to the media and try to garner attention by using Azerbaijans name again. --- Fatima Latifova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @fatimalatifova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 27 September 2024 18:40 (UTC+04:00) By Alimat Aliyeva Perhaps the first female prime Minister of Japan, Azernews reports. The ruling party of the deceased will choose between Sanae Takaichi, currently serving as Minister of Economic Security, and former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba. The race for leadership in Japan has moved into the second round, and the ruling party is likely to elect the country's first female prime minister. None of the nine candidates vying for the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) managed to gain a majority of votes. The LDP leadership race will now move into the second round with fierce competition between Minister of Economic Security Sanae Takaichi and former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba. Takaichi was one of two female candidates in the leadership race, along with Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa. The politician who will be elected leader of the LDP will become the 101st Prime Minister of Japan after Fumio Kishida. There has never been a female prime minister in Japan. The LDP has a majority in parliament along with its junior coalition partner, the Komeito Party. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 27 September 2024 20:47 (UTC+04:00) By Alimat Aliyeva The European Commission gave Turkiye and Germany six months to clarify the cooking method and recipe of doner kebab, as well as to determine whose national dish it is, Azernews repors. Earlier, representatives of Turkiye asked the EU authorities to protect the traditional method of doner preparation. Ankara insists that the dish must be prepared from specially pickled and sliced meat. Also, certain types of it should be used for the dish - only chicken, beef and lamb, but not turkey and veal. At the same time, in Germany, where the dish was popularized by Turkish migrants, doner is served not in pita bread, but in a pit, and with the addition of cabbage or lettuce, and it is also poured with garlic sauce. In the homeland of the dish, on the contrary, a rice substrate is used, and cheese, French fries, tomatoes and hot peppers are also added. If Turkiye manages to consolidate its doner cooking standards, Germany will have to serve the dish familiar to Germans under a different name. According to the publication, doner sales in the EU bring in about 3.5 billion euros per year, 2.3 of them in Germany itself. If the parties do not reach an agreement in six months, Brussels will independently make a decision for them. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz A Harris County woman filed a lawsuit against Sean "Diddy" Combs alleging the rapper who recently became the target of a federal indictment for sex trafficking and racketeering, drugged and violently raped her in the summer of 2001. Renown Houston attorney and former mayoral candidate Tony Buzbee said his law firm plans to file a lawsuit against Combs, according to an announcement on Instagram. Willy Sanjuan/Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP Defense attorney Tony Buzbee objects to a prosecution question during day seven in suspended Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton impeachment trial in the Senate Chambers at the State Capitol in Austin in 2023. Renown Houston attorney and former mayoral candidate Tony Buzbee said his law firm plans to file a lawsuit against recently-indicted rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs, according to an announcement on Instagram. Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News Renown Houston attorney and former mayoral candidate Tony Buzbee said his law firm plans to file a lawsuit against recently-indicted rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs, according to an announcement on Instagram. Buzbee said his firm is currently representing more than 50 individuals who were allegedly sexually assaulted by Combs and his associates. A large portion of the plaintiffs were minors when the alleged assaults occurred, Buzbee claimed. The Buzbee Law Firm will be holding a press conference next week, during which additional information will be shared with the public, Buzbee said. "This group of brave individuals include both men and women; many were minors when the abuse occurred. Some of these brave individuals reported the incidents to the police, others did not," Buzbee said. "The acts complained of occurred at hotels, private homes and also at the infamous Diddy 'Freak Off' parties. The violations against this group of individuals are mind-boggling and can only be described as debauchery and depravity, exacted by powerful people against minors and the weak." Advertisement Article continues below this ad Buzbee called on any other victims who would like to speak out to contact his firm. He said he expects the cohort to continue to grow as more people come forward. Buzbee's is the just the latest suit in a flurry of litigation filed against Combs. Earlier this week, another Harris County resident announced she had filed a suit against Combs for allegedly sexually abusing and extorting her. Combs, who recently became the target of an indictment for sex trafficking and racketeering, is currently in jail awaiting a federal trial. Prosecutors have accused the media mogul of acting as the head of a criminal enterprise that sought to extort, coerce and sexually abuse women from as far back as 2008. Combs allegedly used his business empire to facilitate and conceal a more than decades-long pattern of abuse toward women. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and has continued to publicly insist on his innocence. Wednesday, his lawyers issued a statement labelling a recent memoir allegedly written by Kim Porter, Combs' ex-wife, as a "shameless attempt to profit from tragedy." Combs has been denied bail twice and is expected to remain in custody. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, issued a statement the day of Combs arrest calling on other victims to come forward. The very violent Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua, sometimes compared to the violent El Salvador criminal gang as MS13 on steriods, has become a huge problem in New York City. It has also spread rapidly across much of the country with major operations in Colorado, Texas, Illinois, and Florida, among others. Now a New York Post article details how this violent criminal gang of illegal aliens built its criminal empire in New York City, networking through the city's migrant shelters. https://nypost.com/2024/09/23/us-news/how-tren-de-aragua-used-nyc-migrant-shelters-to-build-a-criminal-empire-hiding-in-plain-sight/ It is clear that Tren de Aragua is now concentrating on the United States because they have moved their headquarters from their home country of Venezuela to far northern Mexico, just across the Rio Grande from the US. Meanwhile, BIden and Harris let many thousands of Venezuelan migrants unvetted into our country.One One of the criminal activities of Tren de Aragua is forcing migrant women into prostitution. They are known to be running major prostitution operations in at least eight states. https://nypost.com/2024/09/23/us-news/tren-de-aragua-linked-to-migrant-sex-trafficking-in-8-states-leaked-memo/ The Haitian criminal gangs are even more violent than Tren de Aragua, and with almost half a million unvetted Haitians allowed into the US under Biden - Harris, it is likely some of those gangs are also putting down roots in our country. The only way to stop this madness is to return President Trump to office. A Florida surgeon's license has been suspended after he dissected the wrong organ during what was supposed to be a splenectomy Aug. 21, resulting in the patient's death, the Miami Herald reported Sept. 26. Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky continued dissecting the wrong organ during surgery at Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Hospital in Santa Rosa Beach, Fla., as the patient was bleeding out on the operating table. According to the report, he placed a "readily identifiable liver" on the table, shocking OR staff when he said it was the patient's liver. One staff member felt "sick to their stomach," according to a Sept. 24 emergency order to suspend Dr. Shaknosvky's license issued by Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, MD. The patient, William Bryan, a 70-year-old man, was visiting his rental property in Florida when Mr. Bryan felt pain on the left side of his body. He repeatedly refused surgery, asking to be released to drive to see his own physician in Alabama after being admitted to Ascension on Aug. 18, according to the report. Dr. Shaknovsky and another physician encouraged surgery due to an issue with Mr. Bryan's spleen. That evening, OR staff members "had concerns" that Shaknovsky "did not have the skill level to safely perform" a splenectomy, a procedure that is not "regularly performed at Ascension" according to the suspension order. Mr. Bryan started hemorrhaging during surgery, and Dr. Shaknovsky said he decided to complete the procedure in a "last-ditch effort," firing a "stapling device blindly into the abdomen and removed an organ that he believed to be a spleen," the order says. According to Dr. Ladapo, Dr. Shaknosvky then lied in medical records, insisting he removed Mr. Bryan's spleen and told staff to label the removed liver as a spleen. Dr. Shaknosvky is also licensed to practice in Alabama. Ascension Sacred Heart told McClatchy News on Sept. 3 the hospitals leadership team was investigating William Bryans surgery. Dr. Shaknovsky did not immediately respond to McClatchy News' request for comment Sept. 26. A similar event occurred in May 2023, when Dr. Shaknovsky was supposed to remove a 58-year-old man's adrenal gland but removed part of his pancreas instead, according to the suspension order. Dr. Shaknovsky then documented that he removed the adrenal gland before a pathologist identified it as pancreatic tissue. A few days later, the patient returned to Ascension with "leakage and pain," and was vomiting, according to the order, which also says he is now permanently injured. "Dr. Shaknovsky's continued practice as an osteopathic physician presents an immediate, serious danger to the health, welfare, and safety of the public," Dr. Ladapo said in suspending his license. The Bryn Mawr, Pa.-based reproductive endocrinologist group, Main Line Fertility, was the busiest and highest revenue-producing ASC in the Philadelphia area in 2023, according to a Sept. 26 report from the Philadelphia Business Journal. Main Line Fertility saw an estimated 16,104 patient visits and earned $31.7 million in revenue, according to a report from the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council. The report contained fiscal and volume data at 292 Pennsylvania outpatient surgery centers for the fiscal year ending June 30. Net patient revenue at ASCs in Pennsylvania increased 14.1% to $1.9 billion in fiscal 2023 from $1.67 billion in fiscal 2022. The five largest operating profits in fiscal 2023 were reported by ASCs in Philadelphia's suburbs. Bucks County Surgical Suites in Warrington, Pa., posted the highest operating income in the region at $7.6 million. It was followed by Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Bucks County surgery center in Chalfont, Pa., at $7.3 million; Main Line Fertility at $5.8 million; CHOP's Brandywine Valley surgery center with $5.4 million; and Crozer Health's Crozer Endoscopy Center in Upland, Pa., with $4.4 million. Of the 104 ambulatory centers in the region, 88 posted an operating profit in fiscal 2023. Physicians Care Surgery Center in Royersford, Pa., posted the largest operating loss at $3.9 million, and shuttered in December 2023. The next largest operating loss was Ambulatory Surgery Center of Bala Cynwyd, Pa., at $2.3 million, followed by Doylestown (Pa.) Surgery Center's deficit of $1.6 million. After Main Line Fertility, the region's second-highest outpatient center for revenue was Penn Medicine Radnor (Pa.) at $28.1 million. Main Line Health's Orthopedic Surgery Center in Bryn Mawr was next at $23.4 million. West Chester (Pa.) Endoscopy was the second busiest at 11,983 patient visits, followed by DelVal ASC Eye Surgery Center in Wayne, Pa., with 11,429 visits. No other centers topped 10,000 visits, according to the report. Site-neutral payments are a policy proposal that many ASC and physician groups have long supported in an effort to even out payments between ASCs and HOPDs. ASCs historically receive lower reimbursements for the same procedures performed in HOPDs, despite no evidence that care quality is different between the two settings. Hospitals generally argue in opposition to site neutrality, reasoning that their services cost more to provide and that they face more regulations than other providers. Here's where industry groups stand on site neutrality: Oppose: 1. The American Hospital Association. The AHA represents nearly 5,000 hospitals, health systems, networks and other providers. The AHA was part of an effort to establish exceptions for certain off-campus HOPDs that were in construction at the time of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, which enacted site-neutral payments for off-campus HOPDs. They have urged Congress to reject calls from other advocacy groups for additional site-neutral payment policies. "Instead of considering flawed policies that put patient access to care in jeopardy, Congress should focus on ways to make sure hospitals and health systems have the resources they need to continue providing 24/7 care to all patients in every community," AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack wrote in March. 2. The Federation of American Hospitals. The FAH represents over 1,000 tax-paying community hospitals and health systems. "FAH and its member hospitals agree with the goal of ensuring patients receive the right care, at the right time, in the right setting," reads a statement on the FAH's website. "However, blunt site-neutral payment policies, such as the current reduction for clinic services performed in hospital provider-based departments ignore fundamental functional and cost structure differences between hospitals and physician offices, among other settings, and the unique, mission-critical services communities rely on hospitals to provide." 3. Center for Medicare Advocacy. CMA is a nonprofit, public-interest law firm advocating for Medicare access and quality. They have opposed site neutrality, specifically citing negative impacts on patients seeking intensive or inpatient rehabilitation services. "Site-neutral payments would result in patients who need intensive inpatient rehabilitation being diverted inappropriately to less intensive settings based solely on their diagnosis, despite their clinical needs," This is clearly a mistake, and could endanger vulnerable beneficiaries. 4. In May 2023, a number of hospital groups co-signed a letter to the House of Representatives opposing site neutrality, saying it would "negatively impact facilities that provide essential drug administration services for our communities most vulnerable patients, many of whom require a higher level of care than may be offered in other health care setting." Signatories included America's Essential Hospitals, AHA, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Catholic Health Association of the United States, the Children's Hospital Association, the FAH, the National Association of Behavioral Healthcare, Premier and Vizient. Support: 5. The American Medical Association. The AMA represents more than 190 state societies and medical specialty associations. The AMA has long stood in support of site neutrality. It supports increasing payment parity without lowering total Medicare payments and believe that payments should be based on the actual costs of providing services. They also say that updated practice expense data is needed and that cost-effective care should be incentivized. "The AMA does not believe it is possible to sustain a high-quality health care system if site neutrality is defined as shrinking all payments to the lowest amount paid in any setting. Additionally, the AMA urges CMS to pay physicians fairly for office-based procedures and, where clinically appropriate, shift more procedures from the hospital to office setting, which is more cost-effective." 6. American Health Insurance Plans. AHIP represents 1,300 health insurance benefits and services organizations. They advocated for site-neutrality in a May 2022 news release. "Advance site-neutral payments to defend consumers against having to pay more for the same services depending on the site of care." 7. Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. The BCBSA represents 24 independent BCBS companies. "[Research] suggests that a site-neutral payment policy could drive substantial cost savings for patients, employers and employees. Site-neutral means you pay the same amount for the same medical service no matter where that service takes place," the organization published on it's website in September 2023. "To tackle this issue, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association supports common sense, bipartisan legislation to advance site-neutral policies, including The SITE Act and The FAIR Act. This would save Americans nearly $500 billion over the next decade. Medicare's move to expand site-neutral payments would pave the way for private insurance plans to also implement these payment policies, ultimately increasing access to high-quality and affordable care." 8. Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. MedPAC is an independent federal body that advises Congress on the Medicare program. They vocalized their support for site-neutrality in a June 2023 report to Congress. "In general, the Commission maintains that Medicare should base payment rates on the resources needed to treat patients in the most efficient setting. If the same service can be safely and appropriately provided in different settings, a prudent purchaser should not pay more for that service in one setting than in another." 9. Ambulatory Surgery Center Association. ASCA represents the interests of more than 5,600 Medicare-certified ASCs nationwide. In March 2023, The ASCA Journal uplifted research in support of making "Medicare a more cost-conscious program that better aligns payment with patient services," with the caveat that it was aware that such policies must be carefully implemented as they "might cause issues of patient access, especially for sicker patients who might require a higher level of service." 10. Other groups who have voiced support for site neutrality include the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Family Practice, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the American Benefits Council, America's Health Insurance Plans, Amgen, Community Oncology Alliance, Digestive Health Physicians Association, Infusion Providers Alliance, Large Urology Group Practice Association, Men's Health Network, National Brain Tumor Society, The OrthoForum and The US Oncology Network. While still a largely independent field, consolidation is on the rise in the ASC industry, with a few major players building out substantial ASC chains. Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare, parent company of United Surgical Partners International, began reducing its debt profile and shifting focus to its ASC portfolio five years ago. Now they are the largest in the U.S., with 7.1% of the ASC market share. Tenet capitalized off outpatient migration by offloading some assets while investing in ASCs. The health system sold nine hospitals in California and South Carolina for a total of $3.9 billion and plans to sell its majority stake in five more Alabama hospitals for $910 million this fall. The company acquired 45 new centers in the first quarter and quietly purchased ASC chain Covenant Physician Partners. "Of all the ASC platforms and [their] recovery USPI had the strongest recovery in 2023 from a volume perspective," CEO and Chair Saum Sutaria, MD, said Sept. 9 during the Wells Fargo Healthcare Conference. "But we look at that as a measure of strength and as a measure of preference of the USPI platform." UnitedHealth Group's Optum is another major player in the race to acquire ASCs through their ASC branch Surgery Ventures. In 2023, Optum added nearly 20,000 physicians to its payroll, bringing its total to at least 90,000 affiliated physicians. The company operates 2,200 primary and specialty care offices in 16 states. On Sept. 24 Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare, which owns ASC chain HCA Surgery Ventures, received approval from the Santa Clara (Calif.) County's board of supervisors to sell off its 252-bed Regional Medical Center in East San Jose, Calif., for $315 million. Of the $315 million allocated, $175 million will go to the acquisition of the hospital. An additional $80 million will fund the first few months of hospital operations while awaiting reimbursements. Up to $30 million is designated for acquiring independently owned medical office buildings near the hospital, $20 million for purchasing and implementing an electronic health record system and $10 million for broker fees and inspections. HCA is one of the largest ASC operators in the country. The company finished 2023 with 124 ASCs and 24 endoscopy centers, and posted $17 billion in revenue and $1.8 million in income in the first quarter of 2024. The American Gastroenterological Association, which represents more than 16,000 physicians nationwide, spent Sept. 26 working with Congress to make changes to GI patient care. AGA brought together 100 members and patient advocates from 28 states for its annual Advocacy Day, according to a Sept. 26 news release sent to Becker's. AGA focused on five key issues that are mainly affecting surgeons, including prior authorization, guardrails on step therapy, blocking Medicare reimbursement cuts, stopping efforts to restructure the National Institutes of Health and increasing digestive disease funding to the NIH. Over the last year, there have been several major changes in the field of gastroenterology, especially when it comes to colonoscopies and colorectal cancer screenings. From new blood- and stool-based screening options, to changes in colonoscopy age and quality recommendations, here are what seven leaders have told Becker's about major colonoscopy screening changes since the beginning of the year. Hitesh Chokshi, MD. Gastroenterologist at Atlanta Gastroenterology: Colonoscopy is still the gold standard and, compared to DNA based stool and blood tests at their current pricing, still most cost-effective. However, I believe there will be a shift to the noninvasive tests, especially if their costs come down. Also, they may be favored over screening colonoscopy based on patient, comorbidities and resource availability. If there is a shortage of anesthesia personnel, or of G.I. personnel, such that gastroenterologists are unable to provide care for patients with illnesses either as inpatient or outpatient due to the time burden of doing colonoscopies, non-invasive screening tests may be utilized in order to free up those resources to help take care of the general population. Jeffrey Fine, MD. Gastroenterologist at Fine Digestive Health. (Irving, Texas): I think optical colonoscopy will still have a role as it has the highest level of sensitivity and specificity to identify polyps and cancers. Cologuard and other tests continue to be used, but they have lower sensitivity and specificity. Cologuard [costs] around $600. Recently, Ive seen several patients with positive Cologuard and stool DNA which subsequently needed colonoscopies, which identified both polyps and one rectal cancer. Recently, Ive also had two patients with negative Cologards and both ended up being diagnosed with colon cancer. Those are the patients Im concerned about. I do recommend Cologuards for patients who decline colon cancer screening. Unfortunately, none of the noninvasive tests yet have [the same] sensitivity and specificity as cancer screening via colonoscopy. Benjamin Levy III, MD. Gastroenterologist at University of Chicago Medicine: I am very excited about the new Shield circulating tumor blood test, which screens for colon cancer-related DNA markers in the blood. There are many patients who would prefer blood-based screening instead of a colonoscopy or stool-based testing. The convenience of screening for colorectal cancer with a simple blood draw is pretty amazing. Lauren Bleich, MD. Gastroenterologist with Miami-based Gastro Health: The new FDA approval of the Shield test for colon cancer screening highlights the ongoing efforts to prevent or identify early colon cancers, which seem to be more prevalent in our younger population than ever before. While it highlights the need for colon cancer screening, as well as may allow us to reach a broader audience, especially with the long wait times for colonoscopy patients encounter, it should not be used in place of colonoscopy, which is the gold standard for colon cancer screening and prevention. Omar Khokhar, MD. Gastroenterologist at Illinois GastroHealth (Bloomington): I would love to see payers and clinicians sit down at a table and have a conversation about the benefit of early endoscopy for diagnosis and screening. In particular, how EGD/colonoscopy can potentially prevent patient morbidity and decrease downstream cost to the healthcare system. Yes, endoscopy isn't cheap, but cancer is a bad diagnosis and is more expensive. Mel Ona, MD. Chair and Medical Director of Gastroenterology at Pali Momi Medical Center. (Aiea, Hawaii): The smartest decision we made was implementing an artificial intelligence-assisted polyp detection device during screening colonoscopy. We were the first private practice in Hawaii to use an AI module in July 2022. Since then, my adenoma detection rate increased from mid-40% to over 50%. We have also diagnosed over 60 colorectal cancers at our ASC since October 2020, many of which have occurred in younger patients (ages 20 to 45). We look forward to more innovations in the field of gastroenterology to assist in the detection and prevention of colorectal cancer. Shakeel Ahmed, MD. Gastroenterologist and CEO of Atlas Surgical Group. (St. Louis): I think that screening a colonoscopy in a healthy patient in an inpatient hospital setting should be malpractice. Over time this will become mainstream. People will realize what a huge expenditure we're wasting by keeping simpler electives and I'm not talking about necessary procedures but I'm talking about colonoscopies and other minor surgeries on healthy patients. These need to 100% move to the outpatient setting. Lucille Coates, center, speaks to the Rev. F.N. Williams II after she helped unveil an honorary street marker honoring her father, the Rev. Dr. Edward Erias Coates, on May 13, 2024 in Houston. Mayor John Whitmire joined community and faith leaders to unveil the marker next to the former home of the historic Wesley Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where the Rev. Coates pastored for 37 years. Brett Coomer/Staff photographer The Rev. Floyd Nathaniel Williams of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, died Friday at 95, according to sources close to him. Williams, who took over as pastor of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in 1968, was a powerhouse in the Houston civil rights community. Among other accomplishments, Williams worked for Martin Luther King Jr. as a part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a group dedicated to raising money for civil rights causes across the southern U.S. Mayor-elect John Whitmire, left, and the Rev. F.N. Williams, pastor of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, make the rounds during the reverend's 95th birthday party 95th birthday party on Dec. 10, 2023 in Houston . Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer OLD CHURCH, NEW LOOK: Antioch Church awarded part of $4M grant to repair stain glass windows Advertisement Article continues below this ad "Rev. Williams' passing leaves an unfillable void in my life and a great loss in the community he served so faithfully, Mayor John Whitmire said in a statement Friday. Over the years, he introduced me to the Acres Homes community, showing me the value of service, leadership and faith. His work with the SCLC led him to play a key role during Kings visit to Houston in 1967. Low initial enthusiasm led Williams and other organizers to bring together several prominent musicians, including Aretha Franklin, to help bring in a crowd for Kings visit. In 2023, Williams' contributions to spirituality and human rights were recognized by the Texas Senate, which passed a resolution commending his work. Friends, family and churchgoers took to social media after Williams death in an outpouring of support for the late reverend. My entire upbringing centered around Antioch Baptist Church, said Mia Primes-Williams in a post on Facebook." Reb (as we affectionately called him), thank you for tireless dedication to the parishioners and to your community. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Whitmire and Williams were political allies. Williams previously endorsed Whitmire ahead of the mayoral election, and Whitmire was seen at his 95th birthday just days before he took office. Houston Mayor-elect John Whitmire chats with the Rev. F.N. Williams, pastor at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, at the reverend's 95th birthday party on Dec. 10, 2023 in Houston. Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle Physician autonomy has become a core concern as the workforce faces growing consolidation, with large healthcare systems, corporate entities and insurance companies increasingly influencing clinical decision-making and operational practices. Around 108,700 physicians left private practice for employment between 2019 and 2021, according to a report from Avalere. And in 2022, just 44% of physicians owned their practice, compared with 76% in the early 1980s, according to a report from the American Medical Association. Six physician leaders joined Becker's to discuss how physicians can get their autonomy back. Question: Amid the erosion of physician autonomy, how can doctors get their power back? Editor's note: These responses were edited lightly for clarity and length, Michael Gomez, MD. NICU Medical Director of Pediatrix Medical Group (Orlando, Fla.): Physicians get their power back by outperforming, outworking and staying current on developments in their specialty and in medicine in general. It's easy to get overwhelmed or lost in the duties of clinical practice, but physicians must find time and resources to develop all the other skills needed to perform well in health care. It's certainly not for the faint of heart. James Lee Krantz, MD. Family Medicine Physician at Catoctin Medical Group (Frederick, Md.): I think the main source of erosion of physician autonomy is the entry of businesspeople into medicine, which we physicians very much facilitated several decades ago. One very doable strategy to empower physicians is to make it more economically feasible to run a private practice. A change that could immediately affect this is to give physicians in private practice the same facility fee that hospital-owned practices routinely receive. Evan Pollack, MD. Internist in Westchester, Pa.: I do not feel that physicians strive to have their practices taken over by corporate entities. If one follows the trajectory, most of the practices that are taken over are struggling financially; some are on the verge of going out of business. I would say that it is mostly out of necessity that physicians sell their practices and become salaried employees. Presently, over 70% of physicians are employed, and physicians coming out of training are comfortable with that arrangement. In order for physicians to regain their power, they would need to be in control of their own practices once again. Often, we see that the priority in healthcare is not patient care but profit. Almost all commercial payers employ physicians, and United is the largest employer of physicians. What is needed, I feel, is a public option government health plan to reduce some of the reliance on commercial payers and increase the possibility of success for physician-run practices. Alternative payment models, which are already being tried, are certainly an important component as well. Healthcare should be reimbursed based on the ability to care effectively for patients, not just on generating profits. Reducing physician debt as they come out of training would also help allow physicians to concentrate more on patient care and less on reimbursement. Marc Shelton, MD. Associate Professor of Cardiology at the University of Missouri Health System (St. Louis): The most important factors to hospital systems from a physician relationship standpoint are, of course, quality, but also size and essentiality: the size of the individual practice or service, margins to the hospital for the efforts and whether the service is needed 24/7 for the hospital to continue its mission. Ideally, physicians and hospital systems would work together to find win-win solutions that improve quality, service and margins simultaneously. I believe that physicians will regain autonomy when trust is built with the systems in that way, as opposed to through more adversarial negotiations or union-like standpoints. Neither hospitals nor physicians can get everything they want unless they work together. The inevitable, looming and worsening physician shortages will force hospitals to be more open to collaboration, and physicians could leverage that moving forward more than they have in the past Sheldon Taub, MD. Gastroenterologist at Jupiter (Fla.) Medical Center: Doctors need to become more politically active, and they need to organize in a way that garners public support. Society needs to understand the importance of a strong, accessible and affordable healthcare system. Physicians need the support of the government without a financial obligation to repay that support. Unfortunately, there is no national organization of physicians that is politically strong enough to do this. Grace Terrell, MD. Chief Medical Officer of IKS Health (High Point, N.C.): Physician autonomy is misunderstood. It shouldnt be seen as a "lone-actor doing whatever she wants" paradigm. Rather, it is about having the authority and capability to act in the best interests of another human being her patient in providing medical care. That can be done in private practice, group practice, academic practice or as part of a giant integrated delivery system. Physicians regain our power by doing whats best for patients and holding those who get in the way accountable. For me, that means practicing medicine based on the best evidence as part of a team focused on whole-person care. It also means working to redesign clinical and administrative workflows that are efficient and human-centered, rather than built to accommodate the tyranny of inadequate clinical and administrative technologies. Additionally, it means working as a leader in advocacy and policy to harmonize care models and payment models for the best patient outcomes. From commercial payers to physician organizations, six physician leaders joined Becker's to discuss the healthcare power players they are watching. Question: Who are the healthcare power players you're keeping an eye on and why? Editor's note: These responses were edited lightly for clarity and length, Michael Gomez, MD. NICU Medical Director of Pediatrix Medical Group (Long Branch, N.J.): I avoid letting myself be dazzled by anyone as best I can. However, I try to keep my eye on those coming up in medicine who will generate the largest impact five to 10 years from now, rather than those currently "in charge." The life span of a hospital leader, clinical or administrative, is fleeting and fragile. I look to those who show clinical promise and have the wherewithal to demonstrate a higher purpose and direction in medicine, putting in the time to develop it. These individuals typically maintain a positive outlook in their own careers, relish the development of sound clinical systems and promote the growth of individuals who will perform well in them perhaps a future servant leader. Medicine requires a strong, committed team working together to be successful. I'm most impressed when I see individuals encouraging others to address the most difficult problems in the clinical or administrative parts of medicine. Clyde Jones, MD. Oncologist in Memphis, Tenn.: I think the major problem was the assumption by Medicare that commodifying medical care by turning it over to corporations would be cheaper. Certainly, in some respects, it gives them more control, but at the cost of paying facility fees instead of compensating the providers of medical care. Medicare has never been willing to pay for cognitive effort, preferring procedure-based care. We're moving away from procedures and into the realm of knowledge-based care. At least in oncology, we're turning cancer into a chronic disease, which will require long-term care and expenditure. Studies in Ireland have shown, however, that treating cancer is much cheaper than repeated hospitalizations. Organizing physicians is historically difficult, and our professional societies have not been strong advocates. The major player is Medicare. At the state level now, and hopefully at the federal level later, better regulation of private insurance could help significantly. If Medicare returns to physician-led outpatient care, they could actually experience cost savings, and private insurance would follow their lead. To think that private equity or hospital corporations are dedicated to the individual patient is naive. James Lee Krantz, MD. Family Medicine Physician at Catoctin Medical Group (Frederick, Md.): The main source of erosion of physician autonomy is the entry of businesspeople into medicine, which we physicians facilitated several decades ago. One very doable strategy to empower physicians is to make it more economically feasible to run a private practice. A change that could immediately affect this is to give physicians in private practice the same facility fees that hospital-owned practices routinely receive. Evan Pollack, MD. Internist in West Chester, Pa.: Unfortunately, this country relies on commercial payers, and as long as that is the case, they will remain the major players. As noted, the payers are now employing the majority of physicians. Reducing that reliance with a government health plan and reducing physician debt would allow physicians to once again own their own practices, make patient care the priority and give back autonomy to physicians. Sheldon Taub, MD. Gastroenterologist at Jupiter (Fla.) Medical Center: DocNation, a newly organized organization, may be the healthcare power player that can improve physician autonomy. Grace Terrell, MD. Chief Medical Officer of IKS Health (High Point, N.C.): I always keep an eye on the American Medical Group Association, whose positive influence on healthcare policy through the years has consistently punched above its weight class. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation continues to drive much healthcare innovation through its various models over the years, even in the private sector. All of us need to continue paying attention to where technology is focusing its healthcare investment. We are riding high on the AI hype cycle right now, but real solutions are being developed both clinically and administratively with machine-learning technologies. Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida's Big Bend region as a Category 4 storm Sept. 26, resulting in flooding and widespread power outages across the state. As hospitals across the Southeast continue to assess the damage and prepare for an influx of patients, the storms' death toll has climbed. As of mid-day Sept. 27, at least 42 deaths were reported across the region, according to The New York Times. Seven updates: 1. Given the severity and breadth of the storm, 64 out of 67 counties in Florida were under a hurricane or tropical storm warning, leaving much of the state vulnerable to flooding. In total, eight Florida hospitals evacuated ahead of the storm, and four hospitals switched to back-up generators the night of Sept. 26. As of noon ET on Sept. 27, nearly 900,000 Florida residents didn't have power, according to poweroutage.us. 2. Most hospitals in the South Atlantic states that did not evacuate before the storm remain operational. However, Ballad Health's Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, Tenn., was forced to commence an emergency evacuation Sept. 27 amid flooding from a nearby river. Due to rapidly rising water levels, ambulances and rescue boats were not able to safely reach the facility to evacuate patients. High winds also prevented helicopters from airlifting out patients. As of 3:30 p.m. CT, 54 people were relocated to the hospital's roof, awaiting rescue from the National Guard, Highlands Emergency Air Rescue & Transport helicopter and Virginia State Police, according to a news release shared with Becker's. All staff members and patients were successfully rescued, and patients were transferred to Johnson City (Tenn.) Medical Center. Unicoi County Hospital is temporarily closed due to flooding, Ballad said Sept. 28. 3. Mary Mayhew, president and CEO of the Florida Hospital Association, said it's still too soon to understand the full extent of the storm's impact on hospitals, employees and healthcare services. The association is not aware of any major supply disruptions, and Ms. Mayhew said she is optimistic that there will not be widespread hurdles in accessing inpatient hospital care. "I've communicated with many of the hospitals in areas most impacted by the storm," she told Becker's Sept. 27. "They're ready to deal with the continued focus on their existing patients and any of the individuals that may be in need as a result of the storm." 4. Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital, the region's only level 1 trauma center, said its power remained on throughout the storm and that it has adequate supplies to support continued operations. In addition, the AquaFence constructed around its main campus perimeter effectively prevented flooding during the hurricane. "I am grateful to all the physicians and team members who remained on-site through the hurricane, and for the exceptional care they continued to provide here while their families sheltered safely at home or away," Tampa General CEO John Couris said in a Sept. 27 news release. "Because of these efforts, patients at Tampa General are safe, and we are preparing to care for Floridians in the hardest-hit communities." 5. Before the hurricane's landfall, Ms. Mayhew warned that the storm-related flooding could disrupt outpatient healthcare services for millions across the Southeast. Emergency response teams and first responders are assessing the degree of flooding in communities and bridge or road closures, which will offer a better view into potential disruptions. 6. The other main focus for hospitals in the coming days will be understanding the extent of the hurricane's impact on employees and their homes. "It is still too soon to know the impact," Ms. Mayhew said. "The closer you are to the coast, the more we will see significant damage to homes, particularly because of the surge." Hospitals will be highly focused on supporting their teams and ensuring adequate staffing to meet future healthcare demands, she added. 7. Hurricane Helene is the fourth hurricane to hit the Gulf Coast this year, according to CBS News. Ms. Mayhew credited the effective response of hospitals and health systems to their thorough preparation efforts throughout the year, which include comprehensive emergency preparedness training, collaboration with emergency management officials and contingency staffing strategies. Rockledge, Fla.-based Health First is one of 19 new health systems moving to an Epic EHR. Here are six things to know. 1. The four-hospital system signed a five-year deal with Epic in 2024. 2. The implementation is estimated to cost $160 million. That doesn't include ongoing costs to operate the EHR once it's live. It marks the largest technology investment in the health system's history and one of the organization's biggest spending projects overall (its new hospital, by comparison, has a price tag of $400 million). 3. Epic is expected to be fully operational in January 2026. Health First will use two instances of the EHR: Epic for the patient side and the vendor's Tapestry platform for the health system's payer arm, with hospitals and clinics going live in June 2025 followed by health plan enrollment in October 2025 and claims three months later. 4. The health system currently uses Altera Digital Health (formerly part of Allscripts) and athenahealth for its EHRs. 5. Why did Health First choose Epic? "We needed a modern platform that would give us efficiencies, that would make it easier to access data," Health First CIO Michael Carr told Becker's. "And we want to dramatically improve both the clinician and patient experience. We believe that MyChart and the Epic capabilities are in a class of their own in terms of their ability to really provide that patient-, member-centric experience that we're driving for. "We believe we can take a lot of the administrative burden off our clinicians, through standardization, through consolidation assistance, and through the additional technology, the capabilities that Epic brings, some of their AI capabilities as well as their integrated platform in terms of getting the data, using data." Health First also serves many people who live or move from outside its primary market of Brevard County, Fla., so since Epic is the most ubiquitous EHR, this will allow them to more easily share their health information, he said. Epic also has a "foundation model," where only about 5% of the EHR has to be customized, allowing for a faster implementation (about 18 months from the contract signing), he said. Mr. Carr said the implementation cost is actually lower than he would have expected but that the investment will pay off regardless. "Right now, we're at 122 different applications that are going to be turned off. We pay a lot more for that current portfolio of systems than we're going to pay for Epic once we're live," he said. "But really we're reinvesting in our physicians, our nurses giving them the tools to grow and be effective. Not just from a financial perspective, but from a quality, from an experience, from an efficiency perspective, this is going to yield enormous returns in the future." 6. Of its IT staff of about 350 people, Health First has roughly 85 people dedicated full time to the Epic implementation and another 65 from project management, operations and clinical. The heatlh system has engaged about 1,000 employees in the project, from clinicians to revenue cycle staff. Mr. Carr estimates the project will entail at least "a couple hundred thousand hours" of work. Two studies released days apart explore nonprofit hospitals' tax-exempt status; one study focuses on the benefits hospitals receive, the other on the benefits hospitals provide. In a study published Sept. 26 in JAMA, researchers from Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University and Fort Worth-based Texas Christian University found that nonprofit hospitals received at least $37.3 billion in tax benefits during 2021. The study questions whether these tax benefits are justified given the practices of nonprofit hospitals, which increasingly resemble for-profit hospitals in areas such as debt collection. Conversely, an EY report prepared for the American Hospital Association found that tax-exempt hospitals provided $10 in benefits to their communities for every dollar's worth of federal tax exemption in 2020. Data represents an increase from $9 in benefits versus 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Eleven things to know: JAMA study: "Estimation of Tax Benefit of US Nonprofit Hospitals" 1. Tax benefits varied widely by state, with 55% coming from state and local taxes, and a small number of hospitals receiving most of the benefits, according to researchers. For example, Massachusetts had the highest tax benefit per bed ($159,464), while Delaware had the lowest ($25,098). 2. Overall, just 7% of nonprofit hospitals accounted for half the total tax benefits, according to the study. 3. The $37.4 billion in benefits that nonprofit hospitals received in 2021 includes federal income tax benefits ($11.5 billion), sales tax benefits ($9.1 billion) and property tax benefits ($7.8 billion). This is substantially larger than a KFF analysis published last year that estimated that nonprofit hospitals received $28 billion in tax benefits in 2020 using a different methodology. 4. "The methodology we developed here can be used for future tax-benefit estimates, from the national level down to individual nonprofit hospitals," said study co-author Ge Bai, PhD, who is a professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, with a joint appointment in the Bloomberg School's Department of Health Policy and Management. 5. In an interview with Becker's, Dr. Bai argued that policy tends to favor nonprofit hospitals, leading to tax exemptions and other advantages that create an uneven playing field. Nonprofit hospitals also benefit from programs such as 340B, which spur consolidation and limit competition by incentivizing hospitals to acquire independent physician practice to expand the reach of the drug pricing program. To level the playing field, Dr. Bai suggested reforms that eliminate tax exemptions and unfair advantages for nonprofit hospitals, encouraging open competition. "One can imagine that nonprofit hospitals in the future might conduct their own annual estimates and disclose them to inform the public and policymakers," Dr. Bai said. 6. The study covered the 2,927 U.S. hospitals identified as nonprofits in standard Medicare Cost Reports in 2021, the latest year for which such data are available. Benefits were defined as corporate taxes that would otherwise have been payable under for-profit status, interest expense savings from being able to issue tax-exempt bonds and the fair-market value of donations received. Click here for more details on the JAMA study. EY report: "Estimates of the value of federal tax exemption and community benefits provided by nonprofit hospitals, 2020" 7. Nonprofit hospitals' tax exemptions amounted to $13.2 billion in 2020, stemming from federal income tax, tax-exempt bond financing and unemployment tax exemptions, according to EY. 8. In comparison, these hospitals provided $129 billion in community benefits, nearly 10 times the value of the tax exemptions. 9. Financial assistance, community-building, Medicare shortfalls and bad debt attributed to charity care make up the bulk of the $129 billion in community contributions, according to the report. 10. The analysis estimates federal tax revenue forgone in 2020 using Medicare hospital cost reports from 2,432 nonprofit hospitals. Data is scaled up using AHA survey information. Not all tax rules could be applied to the available data, so some estimates involve assumptions and additional data. 11. "All of America's hospitals and health systems are cornerstones of their communities delivering not only around-the-clock care and essential services but a broad range of critical health, social and other programs that advance community health," AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack said. "Nonprofit hospitals have a special obligation to those they serve and this new analysis from EY shows these efforts are more than a worthy investment and that improving the health of their communities remains at the heart of the mission of the hospital field." Click here for more details on the EY report. New Jersey state Attorney General Matt Platkin filed a lawsuit on Sept. 26 against Virtua Health and its network of hospitals in Voorhees, Mount Holly and Camden, alleging that the Marlton, N.J.-based health system's drug-testing policy for pregnant patients is discriminatory and violates patients' privacy. Here are six things to know: 1. Since 2018, Virtua has allegedly had a policy requiring universal drug testing of pregnant patients who are admitted to its labor and delivery or high-risk obstetrics units, and it has regularly administered tests without obtaining informed consent. 2. Mr. Platkin also alleged that when pregnant patients receive a positive test result, Virtua automatically reported them to state officials for possible child abuse or neglect "even when the positive test occurs only because the patient ate a poppy seed bagel." The filing further states that Virtua's drug-testing policy only applies to pregnant patients admitted for inpatient care in the labor and delivery and high-risk obstetrics units, and that the health system does not require universal drug testing for any other category or class of patients admitted to its hospitals. 3. The lawsuit alleges that Virtua's drug-testing policies discriminate based on pregnancy and sex in violation of state law and that its policy inflicts substantial harm to pregnant patients. 4. "We hold the safety and well-being of each patient paramount, especially our newborns," said Virtua spokesperson Daniel Moise in a statement shared with Becker's. "We have a relentless commitment to evidence-based, equitable care for every family, additionally meeting the highest standards of regulatory compliance. "While it's our policy to respectfully withhold comment on ongoing legal matters, we are steadfast in continuing to create safe, exceptional maternity experiences for thousands of South Jersey families each year." 5. The complaint follows an investigation conducted by New Jersey's Division of Civil Rights in response to complaints filed by pregnant women who gave birth at Virtua Voorhees Hospital. It specifically describes the experience of two individuals, listed in the complaint as K.K. and B.C. 6. The plaintiffs said in a news release that they seek to stop Virtua from requiring universal drug testing for pregnant patients, as well as civil penalties against the organization. Read the full complaint here. Starting Oct. 1, a new North Carolina law will require hospitals to have an armed law enforcement officer in emergency departments, The Carolina Journal reported Sept. 26. The new law was passed amid a trend of growing violence in healthcare settings and is seen as a response to that trend. Here are four things to know about the new law: 1. Among its anti-violence provisions, the new law requires hospitals to implement de-escalation training, the North Carolina Healthcare Association told the Journal. Hospitals that cannot immediately comply with the law must submit a request for extension or explain why an officer is not required. 2. Hospitals must also submit annual reports to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services that include the number of assaults in and on hospital grounds that required law enforcement involvement, and the number of incidents where patient behavioral health or substance use issues resulted in violence. The first reports must be submitted by Dec. 1, 2025. 3. Many systems, like UNC Health in Chapel Hill and Greenville-based ECU Health, have been actively preparing to comply with the new law. The North Carolina Healthcare Association has also expressed support for the law. "Creating safe environments for patients, staff and visitors is a top priority for North Carolina hospitals," Senior Director of Communications Stephanie Strickland told the Journal. 4. A 2024 poll from the American College of Emergency Physicians found 91% of emergency physicians said they or a colleague were a victim of violence in the past year. Physicians indicated that the top reasons for violence were inadequate punitive consequences for the attacker, behavioral health patients and inadequate protective mechanisms for staff. Physicians said that the top solution to prevent violence was to increase security, including security guards, cameras and metal detectors. In recent years, debates over scopes of practice and titles have intensified among associations representing physicians, advanced practice providers and other healthcare professionals. For three decades, the American Medical Association has advocated against what it calls "scope creep," or efforts to broaden the scopes of practice for advanced practice providers, pharmacists, psychologists and other nonphysicians. In recent years, national associations for these healthcare roles have fired back. The debates over scope of practice and professional titles are highly complex, featuring various arguments on both sides. Here is a brief synopsis of the main arguments, which is not meant to be comprehensive. Three things to know: 1. The case for broader scopes of practice Advocates for expanding scopes often cite the nation's growing physician shortage especially in rural areas rising patient volumes and an aging population with high-acuity needs. To address these challenges, national associations for pharmacists and APPs say they can increase healthcare access in shortage areas while delivering the same high-quality care as physicians. "I don't want to replace physicians. I believe we should all be able to practice to the full extent of our education and training for the benefit of patients," Janet Setnor, MSN, CRNA, president of the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology, told Becker's. Some organizations also say expanded scopes reduce healthcare costs. In a national study, states with full NP scopes of practice regulations had 17% lower outpatient costs than states with reduced scopes of practice, according to findings published in the Journal of Nursing Regulation. Patients seem favorable toward APPs having broader scopes. In April 2022, a poll of 2,210 American adults found that 82% of recent healthcare patients are in support of nurse practitioners providing the full extent of care. Patients have similar trust in and positive associations with physician associates, according to research. 2. The case against broader scopes of practice The AMA says expanding scope of practice can harm patients and increase the cost of care, pointing to an AMA-produced survey that found 95% of voters say it is important for a physician to be involved in diagnosis and treatment decisions. Another argument lies in the differences in education and training. Physicians often log more hours of clinical education and training than APPs, according to the AMA. AMA President Bruce Scott, MD, told Becker's in June that expanded scopes are not the answer to physician shortages and healthcare access issues. Nurse practitioners and physician assistants "tend to practice in the same areas of the country, and they're drawn to specialty care even though they typically have no additional training when they switch from one specialty to another specialty," he said. "There is certainly room for improvement in the U.S. health system, but allowing nonphysicians such as nurse practitioners or physician assistants to diagnose and treat patients without any physician oversight is a step in the wrong direction," the association's website says. 3. What's in a name? A similar controversy involves what healthcare workers call themselves. Can a practicing APP who has a doctorate legally call themselves a doctor? Multiple state legislatures are looking at this exact question. Some regulations and laws currently bar certain healthcare workers from presenting themselves as a doctor. For example, a California nurse practitioner who had a doctorate was fined about $20,000 for marketing herself as "Dr. Sarah," implying she was a medical doctor. In January, a Massachusetts physician was fined $25,000 for improper supervision of the NP. Changing titles have also led to scuffles. When the American Academy of Physician Associates voted to replace the term "physician assistant" with "physician associate" in 2021, the organization said it was to reflect their experience and roles. The American Osteopathic Association and AMA rebuked the decision, saying the change would confuse patients. In 2023, AAPA CEO Lisa Gables told Becker's the rebranding effort will take at least a decade to enter state laws and hospital policies. The organization does not recommend PAs refer to themselves as physician associates with patients. Somerville, Mass.-based Mass General Brigham has built the biggest hospital-at-home program in the country by getting buy-in from leadership and clinicians and through tech partnerships, executives said at a recent conference. The health system now has a capacity for acute hospital care at home of 70 patients, and is currently treating about 50 to 60 a day. The goal is to move to 10% of Mass General Brigham's overall capacity, or about 200 to 300 patients. "I'm really thrilled we are the largest home hospital in the country," Mass General Brigham President and CEO Anne Klibanski, MD, said Sept. 23 at the health system's World Medical Innovation Forum in Everett, Mass., covered by Becker's. She cited the program as a way the health system could stay afloat and thrive amid financial challenges affecting the industry, with lower costs and better outcomes for patients at home. She also said it's a benefit of partnering with tech companies; Best Buy Health provides the in-home technology. "That's what they do. They bring technology into the home," she said. "That's what they're known for." The program, which Mass General Brigham calls Home Hospital, typically treats patients with conditions like COPD flare-ups, heart failure exacerbations, acute infections and complex cellulitis, according to Mass General Brigham Chief Integration Officer O'Neill Britton, MD. "It's not typically comfortable to be cared for in the emergency room," Dr. Britton said at the conference. Beyond that, Mass General Brigham, like many of its peers, deals with capacity strains. He said Sept. 24 that the health system had 185 patients in the emergency department without a bed. Heather O'Sullivan, APRN, president of Mass General Brigham Healthcare at Home, said it's been estimated that 30% of inpatient care will move to the home in the next five years, representing $82 billion in revenue. "This is a tremendous opportunity," she said at the panel. Patients are set up with tablets and internet by Best Buy Health, and get other needed medical equipment for their "stay" as well. Best Buy purchased remote patient monitoring company Current Health in 2021 for $400 million. "Technology is our expertise," Best Buy Health COO Chemu Lang'at said during the session. "Healthcare is fragmented. The technology doesn't always connect." Uncertainty hangs over the future of the care model. The CMS waiver to provide acute hospital care at home expires at the end of 2024; a bill to extend the program recently passed a House committee. Jatin Dave, MD, chief medical officer for the state's MassHealth Medicaid program, said at the forum that he hopes the home will one day provide a "single infrastructure" for all levels of care: from primary to inpatient care to skilled nursing. He said early research results on ED at home have been "bumpy" while skilled nursing at home looks "fairly optimistic." "The home is where, in the long run, we can have this full continuum," he said. Clinicians have also described getting an "extra level of joy" from treating patients at home, meaning it could be a recipe for solving healthcare burnout, he said. Mass General Brigham has been aiming to expand the program for surgery, oncology and pain management patients, recently admitting its first colorectal surgery patient, Dr. Britton said. He reminded the audience that the model is not "new." From the dawn of hospitals, wealthy patients would have physicians and nurses come to their homes before technology got so big that those individuals had to come into brick-and-mortar facilities like everyone else, he said. Now, that tech is shrinking in size, from smart devices to wearables. Australia has also been providing about 10% of inpatient care at home for decades, Dr. Dave said. But the program requires a lot of logistics, from having vehicles for the nurses to drive to the home visits to getting payers on board. It's "extraordinarily difficult" to scale, Ms. O'Sullivan said. A man who suffered temporary paralysis after having spine surgery received a $23.87 million verdict, Fox 43 reported Sept. 27. James Spangler had a laminoplasty at WellSpan York (Pa.) Hospital in October 2019. During the procedure his neurosurgeon, Joseph Krzeminski, MD, mistakenly put a screw into the patient's spinal cord, according to the report. When Mr. Spangler woke up, he couldn't move, and more than 10 hours passed before he had an MRI and another 12 hours before he had another surgery. He underwent years of physical therapy before being able to regain some mobility, Fox 43 reported. A jury awarded the unanimous verdict after an eight-day trial. It is the largest medical malpractice verdict in York County's history. In a comment to Fox 43, the hospital said, "We are disappointed in the verdict given the evidence that was presented. Options for appeal are being reviewed and therefore we will not comment further on active litigation. WellSpan Health remains fully committed to providing safe, high-quality care for all of our patients." A damaged 100-year-old home is seen after an Oak tree landed on the home after Hurricane Helene moved through the area, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart) Mike Stewart/Associated Press Hurricane Helene made landfall Thursday night in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane. Days later, communities across Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina were grappling with high flood waters as the storm's death toll surpassed 100. The powerful storm tore through the Big Bend area in Florida after coming ashore on the state's western side before moving into Georgia. The maximum winds recorded were in the 140 mph range, according to the National Hurricane Center. The Associated Press reported that at least 107 people were killed across six states as a result of the storm. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said he expects the death toll to rise in the coming days as disaster relief efforts reach isolated areas of the state. Advertisement Article continues below this ad MORE ON THE STORM: Helene is a major hurricane and almost as big as Texas. Heres why its size matters to Florida The full extent of the hurricane's damage remains to be seen, but there are ways to help people in impacted areas. Here are some organizations that have mobilized to help victims of Helene. Salvation Army The Salvation Army had 14 mobile feeding units on the ground in Florida Friday morning, with five more coming from Texas later in the day, according to a news release. "This hurricane is more than 500 miles across and will impact as many as eight states within our territory," Jeff Jellets, territorial disaster coordinator for The Salvation Army Southern Territory, said before landfall. "In my more than 20 years of disaster experience, I cant think of a time when such a large area was at risk and The Salvation Army could be called to support so many people." Advertisement Article continues below this ad The organization expanded its reach into South Carolina and Tennessee with multiple feeding sites in each state. In North Carolina, the Salvation Army said it would set up feeding stations as roads become passable. The organization is currently accepting donations to aid its disaster relief efforts. American Red Cross Representatives with the American Red Cross announced Thursday that more than 2,500 people had already come to stay at one of the organization's evacuation shelters before the storm. The organization also brought in 45,000 snacks and ready-to-eat meals, in addition to other supplies already on hand. The organization is urging those in unaffected areas to donate blood and platelets, as the storm forced the cancellation of several blood drives in Georgia and the Carolinas. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Donations can also be made to support those affected by the storm. Heart to Heart International Heart to Heart International, an organization focused on providing healthcare, started with an advance team arriving Friday to assess the needs of the people in the area with medical personnel joining later in the day or Saturday. Americares Americares, which has a relief fund strictly for Hurricane Helene, has sent a response team to Florida to restore health services and get people the treatment that they need. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Save the Children Save the Children's website states the organization is ready to help Florida's youth by providing mental health services and helping to re-open schools and childcare centers. Direct Relief Direct Relief set up 11 preparedness modules in Florida ahead of the storm and has already given out $10.7 million in requested medical aid in Florida since the start of hurricane season. Volunteer Florida Volunteer Florida runs the Florida Disaster Fund, which is the state's official private fund dedicated to helping people after hurricanes and other such events, according to the organization's website. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Feeding Florida The Scoliosis Research Society and North American Spine Society honored multiple spine surgeons in the third quarter of 2024. Nine things to know: 1. Addisu Mesfin, MD, was awarded NASS' annual Henry Farfan Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions in spine-related basic science research. 2. Charles Reitman, MD, was awarded the David Selby Award in recognition for outstanding contributions in spine-related basic science research. He has been a NASS member since 2001, and served on the board of directors from 2009 to 2022. 3. Nicholas Theodore, MD, was awarded the Leon Wiltse Award in recognition for excellence in leadership and/or clinical research in spine care. He has been a NASS member since 1998, pioneering research in the realms of brain and spinal cord injury, robotic surgery and advocacy. 4. Philip Schneider, MD, was awarded the Spine Advocacy Award, which recognizes members of the North American Spine Society who have made exceptional contributions to the federal advocacy efforts on behalf of patients and members of the society. He has been a NASS member for 33 years and served as advocacy council chair since 2018. 5. Christopher M. Bono, MD, was awarded the NASS Past Presidents award. He has been a NASS member since 2002 and since 2018 has been The Spine Journals editor in chief. 6. Charles Johnston, MD, and Dr. Oheneba Boachie-Adjei earned the SRS Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Johnston is a professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and a reviewer for The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery and the Journal of Children's Orthopaedics. 7. Dr. Boachie-Adjei earned his Doctor of Medicine Degree from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed his residency at Hospital for Special Surgery, both in New York City. He's won multiple national and international humanitarian and philanthropic awards. 8. Richard Hodes, MD, earned the Walter P. Blount Humanitarian award. He started a spine practice with Dr. Oheneba Boachie-Adjei and has lived and worked in Ethiopia for more than 35 years. Since, the practice has seen more than 1,600 surgeries. 9. Marcus Mazur, MD, earned the 2024 Biedermann Innovation award for research on robotic cervical management. He was awarded $50,000 over two years. The company says it is aware of the problem Staff at the former Belfast Tony Macaroni restaurant have not received pay they are owed for four months Former staff at a former Belfast location of a major restaurant chain are still waiting on wages they are owed almost four months after it closed. Around 14 former employees of the Tony Macaroni site at Victoria Square said they have not received any of the outstanding money owed to them by the company despite repeated assurances that payments were imminent. Megan Foreman, who is aged 20 and from Bangor, worked for Tony Macaroni for three years. She currently lives in Belfast, where she is a university student. She told Belfast Telegraph it is completely unacceptable that the company is attempting to ignore the fact they owe us outstanding wages. Miss Foreman said she is owed just over 1,700 by the company for work done at what was her primary employment. But she added that she is aware of some former colleagues who are due even higher sums than she is. She said that many of the staff had been left stranded by losing their jobs, and the loss of wages owed to them has made it difficult to ensure we could pay bills and everyday costs. Miss Foreman added: This situation has brought financial hardship to us and its been a struggle to make ends meet. In a statement, Tony Macaroni told the Belfast Telegraph that the payments issue has been brought to our attention and outstanding payment will be brought to date in the next few weeks. The business added that it intends to reopen in Belfast, and says it will offer positions to all of their former staff. Staff at the Tony Macaroni restaurant in Victoria Square told Belfast Telegraph they were already missing several weeks worth of pay before June 1. That day, the 14 staff members received an email from the company which read: With regret, the company has no alternative but to close the business due to a downturn in business. It is with regret, therefore, that your position with the company will become redundant on June 1. The email informed staff that they were entitled to various types of pay, including statutory redundancy pay, holiday payments and the wage arrears. After the closure of the restaurant, staff waited each week in June for the payment to arrive in their accounts, but each week no money was sent to them. Staff told the Belfast Telegraph that they began to contact people they knew who worked at Tony Macaronis head office to inquire about the delays to the payments. They say they were assured that the money would be paid the following week, but this did not happen. Staff added that they began to feel ignored by the company. Staff at the former Belfast Tony Macaroni restaurant have not received pay they are owed for four months The matter continued over the summer months without further word from the company until August 26 when staff were sent another email. That message acknowledged payments were owed to staff members and said: We want to assure you that we are committed to resolving this matter promptly. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused and greatly appreciate your understanding and patience during this period. Tony Macaroni then proposed a six week payment plan for the staff, beginning on Thursday September 5. But at this point, staff are still yet to receive any payment from the company, and have not had further communication explaining the reason for the delay to the payment schedule outlined at the end of August. In a response to the Belfast Telegraphs request for comment, Tony Macaroni said the issue had been brought to its attention and that outstanding payments will be made in the coming weeks. Tony Macaroni is a chain of Italian restaurants, headquartered in Motherwell. According to its website, it operates 14 locations in Scotland. Aldis beans looked good and had an appealing aroma, the panel said (Nick Ansell/PA) Aldis own-label baked beans have beaten well-known brands Heinz and Branston in a blind taste test by consumer group Which? Aldis Bramwells Baked Beans In A Rich Tomato Sauce costing 41p for a 410g can achieved a top score of 76% from 66 tasters selected by the watchdog to rate 10 versions from supermarkets such as Asda, Sainsburys and Tesco alongside their branded counterparts. The chosen writer will create a script to be pitched to broadcasters A company founded by the producer who commissioned Blue Lights (pictured) is launching a scheme to support an NI writer. An independent film studio co-founded by a producer who commissioned hit NI drama Blue Lights is launching a writer in residence scheme for Northern Irish writers. The co-founders of Conker Pictures, Kim Varvell and Tommy Bulfin, say they are excited to nurture the next generation of talent. Conker Pictures was founded last year, and has recently opened an office in Belfast, from which Mrs Varvell will be based. The selected writer must either be from or have lived and worked in Northern Ireland, and must have one script produced for TV, radio, film or theatre. It is targeted at emerging writers, with the ideal candidate having no more than one credit in broadcast or film. The successful applicant will be given an inside look at how the TV and film industry works in the UK and Ireland. They will have access to writers rooms, development meetings and mentoring workshops. The scheme will culminate in an in-house script, which will be pitched to broadcasters to try and get it out on TV. Applicants can apply before the Friday, October 18 deadline by emailing Conker Pictures with a bio and writing sample. The successful candidate will be paid to write their script. Mrs Varvell and Mr Bulfin said: Were delighted to be launching this writer in residence scheme out of our new Northern Irish base for Conker Pictures. Northern Ireland has such a long history of talented creatives from screenwriters, authors, playwrights and poets. Were really thrilled to be nurturing the next generation of screenwriting talent from the region and cant wait to get started. The pair have extensive experience in film and TV. Mrs Varvells production and development credits include Apple TVs Hijack and the ITV drama Des. Mr Bulfin worked on hit BBC shows including Line of Duty, Blue Lights and the adaptation of Sally Rooneys novel Normal People. The producers wanted Tom Cruise. The creek in its most famous scene was toxic. And barely anyone saw it upon release. So why, Tom Fordy asks, did Frank Darabonts seemingly doomed Stephen King adaptation grow into one of the most celebrated films of all time? I remember well my introduction to The Shawshank Redemption. Someone I once knew a true Nineties lads lad handed me a VHS copy and told me it was a beautiful film. He was not the sort of bloke who ordinarily talked about beautiful art. But he was right. Beneath the stone walls, the brutality, and the tragedy of an innocent man condemned to a life term, The Shawshank Redemption was that very thing: a story of profound beauty. This was a miracle, says executive producer David Lester. This story was so human. Its incredible no, criminal that the film flopped when it was released on this day 30 years ago. But just as Tim Robbinss Andy Dufresne crawled through a river of s*** and came out clean on the other side The Shawshank Redemption emerged as one of the great cultural touchstones of its decade, if not the entirety of cinema history. Its ranked on the Internet Movie Database as the greatest film ever made. All I know, Robbins told Mark Kermode in 2004, is that there isnt a day when Im not approached about that film approached by people who say how important that film is to them, who tell me that theyve seen it 20, 30, 40 times, and who are just so... thankful. Based on a Stephen King novella and directed by Frank Darabont, it tells the story of Forties banker Andy, whos jailed for murdering his wife and her lover. Inside Shawshank State Prison, he befriends Red (Morgan Freeman) and whiles away the years by chiselling rocks, rehauling the prison library, and finding a creative use for pin-up posters. The cast and crew, of course, knew how good it was from Darabonts script alone. Its really quite a remarkable piece, Lester says, talking from Los Angeles via Zoom. I never read a better script in my life, right from the jump. Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption It was something of a redemption story for Darabont, too. At the time, he was a jobbing screenwriter whose biggest credits included A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 and The Fly II. Hed previously adapted one of Kings stories, The Woman in the Room, for a 1983 short. Darabont had bought the rights to that story for just $1 (King had a longstanding offer that allowed aspiring filmmakers to adapt his short stories for a single dollar), and came back to King to purchase the rights this time for a reported $5,000 (3,750) to Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. The novella was a part of Kings Different Seasons collection that also included The Body, which was adapted as the nostalgic favourite, Stand by Me. King himself was unsure about how Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption could work as a movie. Filmmaker Rob Reiner, though, knew exactly what Darabont had achieved when the script landed on the desk of his production company, Castle Rock. Reiner who directed Stand by Me and another previous King adaptation, Misery offered Darabont a rumoured $3m if Reiner could direct it himself. That Darabont declined the mega-money deal is one of modern cinemas great gambles. Reiner became a mentor to Darabont. But as executive producer Liz Glotzer told Vanity Fair in 2019, Reiner would jokingly grumble that despite directing Stand by Me and having a copy of Different Seasons on his desk for years hed never thought to read any of the other stories in the collection. Reiner had Tom Cruise in mind for the role of Andy Dufresne. But eventual stars Robbins and Freeman are so integral to the film the heart and soul of Shawshank State Prison. Neither one of them I could find fault with, says Lester. And I looked at every second of the dailies. Its one of the films that made Freeman an elder statesman of Oscar-worthy Hollywood fare. The friendship between Andy and Red is gradual and palpable. Cautious at first, Red spends two decades trying to unpick the mystery of who Andy Dufresne is. Their bond forms and solidifies an organic relationship that somehow draws you in, too. But Shawshank also boasts supreme villainy: Clancy Brown as the brutal, brilliantly terrifying prison guard captain Byron Hadley, and Bob Gunton as corrupt, merciless prison warden Samuel Norton, who far from his bible-thumping image uses Andys accountancy skills to launder money. Part of Shawshanks irony or, indeed, its beauty is that the worst people are the ones controlling the prison from the perimeter, the institution personified. The men doing hard time are the ones with heart, like its a byproduct of being locked in there. Every prisoner maintains his innocence (Didnt do it! Lawyer f****d me!), though for the most part theyre just victims of their younger selves stupidity. One especially pure-hearted prisoner, Brooks (James Whitmore), cant cope with the outside world when hes released and takes his own life this was one of Darabonts additions to Kings story. Shawshank itself is crucial to the film. The prison is set in Maine, though they filmed at the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield. The prison began construction in 1886 and was in use until 1990. It was worse than foreboding, says Lester. The courts closed it a few years before for inhumane conditions. Then it had been left to Ohios winters. It was a devastating environment when we looked at it already one of the most depressing pieces of architecture conceivable, and completely in ruin inside. I walked around, contemplating what it would take just to get it back to being a s****y prison. Though cast and crew look back on The Shawshank Redemption as a generally harmonious experience, Lester recalls that the gloom of the prison walls made it a gruelling shoot at times. It had the prevailing ambience of a building that had seen so much misery in it for so very long, he says. It was a penitentiary for almost a century. Those walls didnt forget they let that angst and karma leach out so that the whole crew working in that environment was depressed. Im not a New Age-y person but everyone who walked into that penitentiary felt the same thing. There were also some tensions over the working days an often-discussed point about the films production. Darabont, effectively learning on the job as a feature film director, requested multiple reshoots which could be tough on the actors. At times, Freeman refused to keep shooting. Anytime you have a first-time director, you have a learning curve, says Lester, whose CV also includes Star Wars and Bull Durham. That was true in Franks case, and you cant hold it against anybody. He had every right in the world to figure it out as he went along and he certainly didnt blow it! Indeed, within the films two-hour-plus runtime, Darabont crafts scenes that stand up to almost anything from Hollywood history, such as Andy playing The Marriage of Figaro to the stunned prison yard. For this writer, however, the real spirit of Shawshank is captured in an earlier scene, when during a days work tarring a roof Andy smartly negotiates a case of cold beers for his fellow prisoners. Its one of those small glimpses of humanity the prisoners clenching the rare moments that make them feel like ordinary men. The film is so effective that you can almost taste that beer and feel the chill and condensation of the bottles. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman In terms of the films legacy, its most obviously iconic moment comes when Andy (30-year spoiler warning incoming) escapes. He crawls through a 500-yard sewage pipe, spills out into a creek, and with his arms out Christ-like stands in the rain a free man. Cinematographer Roger Deakins has claimed to hate the scene because he lit it too brightly. That image, however, stands triumphantly. Not just as a great movie moment, but a cinematic goliath instantly recognisable as the summation of everything thats made The Shawshank Redemption resonate for 30 years. A massive helping of hope and sentimentality. Thirty years on, the escape has been parodied so many times and become such a cultural staple that the element of surprise is long gone. Though it still makes you squirm when he squeezes into that pipe as if this viewing is the one when he wont make it out. One great irony is that while the sewage in the pipe was perfectly sanitary, the creek was, in fact, toxic. That f*****g creek says Lester. It was perfectly sited, just beautiful right there by the penitentiary. But we tested it and followed it it went to a sewage treatment plant. There was no way we could use that creek as it was. They had to build dams to make it usable, though Robbins remembered that the crew had a shower ready for me at all times. The Shawshank Redemption opened on 23 September 1994. Test screening reactions and reviews were strong but from a budget of $25m made a measly $18m in its first run. The films title, which now rolls off the tongue as a well-recognised classic like Citizen Kane or Its a Wonderful Life has often been blamed for the films initial failure. Castle Rock wanted to put on a contest for anyone who worked at the company to come up with a better name for the movie and nobody could, nobody won the prize! says Lester, laughing. It was nominated for (but didnt win) seven Academy Awards, though the films popularity really spread through reruns on Americas TNT network, home video, and through personal recommendations blokes telling one another how beautiful it is, for instance. Word, eventually, got out. The Independent Dame Joanna Lumley has sent a message of love to Phillip Schofield as he returns to TV for the first time in nearly two years with a Channel 5 survival show. The Absolutely Fabulous actress, 78, was cast away off the coast of Madagascar in Girl Friday, a 1994 BBC programme that took its name from a character in Daniel Defoes island-set adventurer novel Robinson Crusoe. Schofield is taking part in a similar show on Channel 5, after being out of the limelight following his admission of an affair with a younger colleague, which he said was unwise but not illegal, and leaving ITV and This Morning in 2023. As he prepares to arrive on the island for Phillip Schofield: Cast Away, Dame Joanna sent him a message saying: Listen, Phil these are the tips Ive got, keep your knives sharp, spend much of the day trying to find wood otherwise you wont be able to eat anything. Phillip Schofield on an island off the coast of Madagascar (Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited/Burning Bright Productions/Paramount/PA) When I was on the island I made a pair of shoes out of my bra and I would love to think that you could do something a bit challenging, and bring it back so we could all look at it. I shall be thinking of you all the time Phil, and actually Im a little bit jealous, lots of love. Schofield, 62, said: Oh you darling, thank you so much, thats amazing. When comedian Ruby Wax was left on an island in the Indian Ocean for 10 days, and had to document her own story with body and hand-held cameras, in the first series of the show, she was sent a letter from Dame Joanna. In the three-part show, Phillip Schofield: Cast Away, the former presenter will be in a similar situation, trying to find his own food and shelter to survive. Phillip Schofield: Cast Away begins at 9pm on Monday on Channel 5, and will continue on Tuesday and Wednesday at the same time. An easyJet passenger who was wrongly charged baggage fees at Belfast International Airport has called for an investigation into the airlines practices at departure gates. It comes after the low-budget operator apologised to a Belfast couple who were incorrectly charged almost 100 to carry two small backpacks onboard an aircraft at the same airport over the weekend. World Trump suggests migrants who commit murder do so because its in their genes NCA warns couriers expendable to drug gangs A Dublin teenager has been charged after nearly 1m worth of cannabis was seized at Belfast City Airport. Stella Doyle-Daly (18), from Hanover Street in Dublin, was arrested by officers from the National Crime Agency after she was stopped at the airport on Tuesday. The National Hurricane Center is watching five areas for tropical storm activity over the next seven days. Remnants of Helene are expected to weaken over the eastern United States. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Joyce formed Friday morning and Hurricane Isaac is on track to spin out into the North Atlantic. National Hurricane Center As the remnants of Hurricane Helene degraded into flooding thunderstorms over the southeastern United States, Tropical Storm Joyce formed in the mid-Atlantic early Friday and the recently formed Hurricane Isaac continued to spin out eastward into the cooler waters of the North Atlantic. Two other areas in the Atlantic basin, including the same part of the western Caribbean that spawned Helene, were also considered hot spots for tropical storm development on Friday by the National Hurricane Center. Thomas Chaves, left, and Vinny Almeida walk through floodwaters from Hurricane Helene in an attempt to reach Chaves's mother's house in the Shore Acres neighborhood Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson) Mike Carlson/Associated Press Workers clear debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Cedar Key, Fla., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) Gerald Herbert/Associated Press A Citrus County Firefigher carries 11-year- old, Michael Cribbins, while conducting rescues from floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Crystal River, Fla. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP) Luis Santana/Associated Press An American flag sits in floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in the Shore Acres neighborhood Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson) Mike Carlson/Associated Press A damaged 100-year-old home is seen after an Oak tree landed on it after Hurricane Helene moved through the area, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart) Mike Stewart/Associated Press Advertisement Article continues below this ad The quick escalation in tropical activity comes after months of forecasts and warnings about an extremely active hurricane season because of increased sea-surface temperatures and favorable conditions triggered by La Nina emerging in the eastern Pacific. Heres a status check of the areas being monitored by the National Hurricane Center and what we in Houston and along the Texas Gulf Coast should know: Western Caribbean Sea In the area closest to Texas, forecasters expect a system of low atmospheric pressure to form over the western Caribbean Sea by the middle of next week. This is the same moisture-rich region where hurricanes Francine and Helene had their origins. Environmental conditions are expected to be conducive for slow development thereafter while the system moves generally northwestward, potentially entering the Gulf of Mexico by the end of next week, the hurricane center said Friday. Forecasters gave this potential low pressure system a 30% chance of developing into a tropical cyclone over the next seven days. Advertisement Article continues below this ad What weve seen happen already is how once a tropical system garners enough heat energy and moisture from the warm waters in this region, it can organize into a cyclone with stronger winds that rotate counterclockwise. As the winds grow stronger, the system is designated a tropical storm, which can pack sustained winds of 39 to 73 mph. The cyclone attains hurricane status once its maximum sustained winds reach and exceed 74 mph. Eastern tropical Atlantic The hurricane center also expects an area of low pressure to form over the eastern tropical Atlantic by the early to middle part of next week. Although storm development would be slow, the system was likely to move northwestward at 10 to 15 mph. Forecasters also gave this potential system a 30% chance of forming a tropical cyclone over the next seven days. Tropical Storm Joyce's projected path Friday. National Hurricane Center Tropical Storm Joyce Tropical Storm Joyce formed early Friday as the tenth named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. It was meandering in the middle of the tropical Atlantic and unlikely to encounter any land anytime soon. Advertisement Article continues below this ad As of 4 p.m. Friday, the rotating center of the storm was about 1,250 miles east of the northern Leeward Islands, which lie on the eastern edge of the Caribbean. Joyce was churning with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph. Joyce is moving toward the northwest near 13 mph and this general motion is expected to continue through Sunday with a gradually slower forward speed, the hurricane center said. On Monday, a gradual turn to the north is forecast. Forecasters said Joyce would gradually strengthen into Saturday but then start weakening into early next week. Hurricane Isaac's projected path Friday. National Hurricane Center Hurricane Isaac While all eyes were on Helenes approach to the Florida Gulf Coast on Thursday, Tropical Storm Isaac formed in the North Atlantic. By Friday, the storm strengthened into a low-end Category 1 hurricane but it was expected to continue spinning eastward into the open waters of the Atlantic toward the Azores. Advertisement Article continues below this ad As of 4 p.m. Friday, the rotating center of the storm was about 990 miles west of the Azores, which lie about 1,000 miles west of Portugal. Isaac was churning with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph. Isaac is moving toward the east near 16 mph, the hurricane center said. A gradual turn to the east-northeast is expected with a slight decrease in forward speed over the next day or so. He said hed kill me: Woman shot at with crossbow by Belfast MMA fighter tells of domestic abuse horrors Domestic abuse victims speak out in the hope it will encourage others to come forward Chelsea Hamilton Jessica Rice Fri 27 Sep 2024 at 07:15 A victim of domestic violence has told about the moment she thought her partner was going to kill her. A Dublin man has been charged with hijacking a car and abducting a five-month-old baby who was inside at the time. Noel Ryan (47) appeared in Dublin District Court yesterday after being arrested over the taking of the car in the city centre earlier this week. It is alleged he got into the vehicle and drove off while the mother was outside taking a buggy from the boot and the child was still in the back seat. The car was found around two hours later with the child unharmed. Judge Gerard Jones remanded the accused in custody after no bail application was made on his behalf. Mr Ryan, of no fixed address, is charged with abduction by taking a child from the lawful control of her mother at Mountjoy Square West on September 23. He is also charged with unlawful seizure of a car at the same time and date. Detective Garda Paul Griffin said he arrested the accused for the purpose of charging him at Mountjoy garda station yesterday. He was charged at 3.11pm, made no reply to either count after caution and was handed copies of the charges sheets. Det Gda Griffin said he was objecting to bail. However, defence solicitor Eoin Lysaght said the accused was not making a bail application at this time. Judge Jones asked the garda for an outline of the allegations. Det Gda Griffin said it was alleged the accused unlawfully seized a vehicle at 1.45pm on the day. It was taken by force from the mother of a five-month-old child who was in the rear seat, he said. She was at the rear of the vehicle taking the buggy out of the boot, Det Gda Griffin said of the mother. The woman was outside the car and it was alleged the accused entered it and drove off. The car was recovered at 4pm and the child was present, unharmed, Det Gda Griffin said. Judge Jones remanded the accused in custody to appear in Cloverhill District Court on October 3. Police were alerted to a device on the beach at around 9.30am Police have carried out a controlled explosion after sealing off a section of a north coast beach on Friday morning. Some residents reported hearing a loud bang during the operation, which was prompted by the discovery of a live maritime flare on Portstewart Strand at around 9.30am on September 27. The beach was closed to allow Army Technical Officers (ATOs) to attend the scene and make the flare safe. It is understood a controlled explosion was carried out on the device. The beach has now reopened. Sergeant Purvis said: Our primary aim was to protect the public and I would like to thank the community for their patience and understanding. The Enterprise service is currently facing disruption due to the suspended train lines in Belfast Translink is engaged in discussions with Irish Rail over concerns an early morning Belfast to Dublin service is causing delays for commuters in the Republic. The fears were highlighted in a letter from an Irish government minister. Joe OBrien, who is a TD for Dublin Fingal, wrote to the Taoiseach, Tanaiste and the Irish transport minister Eamon Ryan, saying the new timetable changes over the summer had impacted rail routes serving north Dublin and Louth. The timetable change, made on August 26, means the Dublin Enterprise service is due to leave Belfast at 6am, which requires the Drogheda to Dublin line to alter. While the timetable has changed, the service has yet to be fully implemented as currently those travelling from Belfast to Dublin on the Enterprise service have to board a bus to Newry, where the journey can continue via train. However, last week the first Enterprise train testing took place at the new transport hub. Translink said that the flagship service to Dublin will run hourly and will see 15 trains leave the travel hub for the Republic every day a total of 30 running in both directions. However, they have yet to confirm when the train services will operate from Belfast Grand Central station. Earlier this year, the Belfast-Dublin service was impacted following line closures in Northern Ireland linked to the new 340m station. In his letter, Mr OBrien said: What is especially problematic is a 30-minute gap at the peak morning period where there is no commuter service. "This not only leads to a significantly decreased level of service but existing services have been concentrated over a shorter time, causing capacity issues on some trains and long delays. The changes have also reduced through-services, impacting commuters who travel south of the Liffey. With all trains now terminating in Connolly or Pearse, this adds to journey times and increases the risk of delays. He claims the new 6am service for the Enterprise has meant commuter trains operating from Drogheda to Dublin have had to move lines, causing delays. A delay or cancellation of the 6am Belfast service would go some way to alleviate some of these issues, while the [Belfast] Enterprise service is important, the knock-on effect on Dublin commuters is unacceptable, he added. "It is important to note that the previous first service out of Belfast was 6.50am. I am also led to believe that currently the relevant Enterprise service is starting in Newry (not Belfast) and it will be later in the year before it actually serves Belfast. In my 20 years using the commuter line I have never seen such a poorly implemented change and would request an immediate intervention to resolve the ongoing issues. To sum up, we are simply trying to squeeze too many services on to a single train track. We ultimately need additional track space. Irish Rail has apologised following the delays. Speaking on RTEs Prime Time last night, Barry Kenny, the corporate communications manager of Iarnrod Eireann (Irish Rail) said the timetable changes havent been working the way it should have been. We are sorry to our customers for what has happened, he added. A spokesperson for Translink confirmed they are currently in discussions with Irish Rail about the impact. Passengers in the Republic were previously advised that departure times were proposed to change on many DART, Northern Commuter and Maynooth Commuter services in order to accommodate the extra Enterprise services. Police have warned motorists to expect traffic disruption in east Belfast this weekend with a planned parade due to take place during major resurfacing works. The A2 Sydenham Bypass is to shut tonight at 10pm and will not reopen to motorists again until 6am on Monday. The closure is part of a major 3.8m project, which began on Wednesday, and will see work along citybound lanes, between Tillysburn junction and the start of the M3. Diversions will be put in place via Holywood Road, Newtownards Road and Middlepath Street. An alternative route will also be available via Holywood Exchange, Airport Road, and Sydenham Road with Queens Island, SSE, TEC and TSB sites signed. Meanwhile, a 36th (Ulster) Division Memorial Association parade is due to begin at 11am on Saturday in east Belfast with around 500 participants. The parade will start on Circular Road, and will proceed along Sydenham Avenue, Belmont Church Road and Belmont Road where there will be a pause for a service. Participants will then head along Holywood Road, Newtownards Road, Albertbridge Road, Templemore Avenue , Castlereagh Street and Castlereagh Road to Willowfield Street where there will be a further short service. The final leg of the parade will then move down Woodstock Road, Beersbridge Road, Templemore Avenue, Castlereagh Street and Albertbridge Road towards The Mount, where the parade will disperse at around 1pm. A diversion will be in place on Holywood Road, at Park Avenue; however diverted traffic will only be permitted to flow cityward for the duration of the parade. Meanwhile, Glentoran will play Glenavon at The Oval for their NIFL Premiership fixture at 3pm on Saturday. A spokesperson for the PSNI said: Where possible, seek an alternative route for your journey. If you need to travel in the area, please note the above route and allow additional time for your journey, particularly if you are travelling to George Best Belfast City Airport. Motorists should also be aware that resurfacing works on the Sydenham Bypass mean that its citybound lanes will be closed this weekend, between Tillysburn and the M3. This is likely to cause further delay in the area. 'Backwards step': Belfast peace gate closed in evening over anti-social behaviour One community worker described a partial closure of one gate as a backwards step The peace gate on Flax Street, which was opened to traffic in 2022 after being closed in the 1980s following a series of attacks Liam Tunney Fri 27 Sep 2024 at 07:48 A peace gate at a north Belfast interface was closed last night in the aftermath of a spate of recent anti-social behaviour. Diana Armstrong, the daughter of former UUP leader Harry West, has been returned as an MLA in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency. On Friday, it was announced that the Ulster Unionist councillor will fill the vacancy of her party colleague Tom Elliott, who has resigned from the position after being appointed to the House of Lords in July. Sinn Fein vice president said the jury is out on the new UK Government (Gareth Chaney/PA) The jury is out on whether the new UK Government will live up to the commitments of the Good Friday Agreement, Michelle ONeill has said. Sinn Feins vice president also told her partys Ard Fheis that it is ready to fight the general election in Ireland, pointing to its historic success in emerging as the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Ard Fheis is taking place in Athlone amid increased speculation that Irelands coalition Government could be poised to call a Dail election. As it attempts to recover from a recent slide in the polls in Ireland, Sinn Fein will focus over the next two days on housing and supporting workers and families. Delivering her keynote speech, Ms ONeill said things can ebb and flow in politics. She said: In the lead-up to the (Northern Ireland) Assembly election, with many challenges and unpredictability, the political situation was very uncertain. We refused to be defined by that. We rallied our support and communicated our vision. And a few weeks later we witnessed historic success at the polls. This demonstrates that Sinn Fein can reaffirm our mission and that change can happen. Sinn Fein is the catalyst for change across this island. We are going into our Ard Fheis ready to fight the general election. Ms ONeill pointed to her position as the first nationalist First Minister at Stormont. She said: My election was a moment of equality and progress. For the first time in the history of the north, an Irish nationalist, a republican, is First Minister. What was unthinkable to my parents and grandparents generation is now a reality. The Sinn Fein vice president said the Stormont powersharing Executive is committed to delivering an ambitious agenda for change. She added: Over the past eight months I have been working across key sectors and with local communities from Pomeroy to the Shankill Road, from Newcastle to the Bogside, to ensure their voices are heard in the corridors of power and that the Executive responds to their needs. The four Executive parties are working with a unity of purpose. We are determined to deliver the public services, good governance, economic growth and strong communities that we all depend on. Our work aims to improve lives, build prosperity and create hope and opportunity. Ms ONeill said the change of government in London offered an opportunity in Irish-British relations. She added: However, the jury is out on how this new British Government will live up to commitments set out in the Good Friday Agreement. Their initial actions demonstrate more of the same: failed austerity and broken promises. This is simply not good enough. Cutting winter fuel payments for older people is wrong and the Executive is united against it. We will continue fighting for investment in public services decimated by 14 years of British austerity. She said financial limitations restricted the Executives ability to act, adding: Further financial powers are required. Only through governing ourselves can we build a better future. All powers and all decisions should be taken here on this island. Ms ONeill repeated her insistence that Casement Park in Belfast would be rebuilt and said the Legacy Act must be repealed in full. The Sinn Fein vice president also referenced a rise in racist incidents. She said: Over the summer, there were racist attacks and intimidation on our streets. This is totally unacceptable. As political leaders we will continue to face down division, sectarianism and racism and will not be deterred from building an inclusive future for all who live here. Hope will always win over hate. Remarks by former taoiseach Leo Varadkar that immigration numbers have risen too quickly in Ireland have been criticised (Brian Lawless/PA) Remarks by former taoiseach Leo Varadkar that immigration numbers have risen too quickly in Ireland, have been described as a new low. Labour leader Ivana Bacik criticised the comments, saying they were deeply inappropriate and unhelpful. In an interview with the University of Notre Dames college newspaper this week, Mr Varadkar said that people have a right to think that immigration numbers have risen too quickly. Mr Varadkar, who was visiting the United States earlier this week, told The Observer: The majority of people think that the numbers have been too big in recent years, and theyre right. Leo Varadkar made the remarks in an interview with a US college newspaper (PA) A country of five million people seeing its population rise by 2% a year, which is whats happening at the moment, is too fast. The former Fine Gael leader pointed to the economic benefits of high migration, but warned against the rising prejudice in Ireland. His comments were condemned by Ms Bacik. Clearly, Leo Varadkar is enjoying life after politics, and Im sure Taoiseach Simon Harris is delighted to get all the free advice hes been given by the former taoiseach, she said on Friday. On a serious note, I think its deeply inappropriate and unhelpful and indeed, a really new low in political narrative to see Leo Varadkar making such a statement, that suggests that there has been too much immigration. That doesnt take into account the horrific war in Ukraine, that doesnt take into account the need to provide shelter for so many fleeing war, that doesnt take into the account the fact that around the country, employers and communities are crying out for labour. Every hospital, every healthcare facility, every school, every childcare facility, is looking for staff. I think these comments were deeply unhelpful. It is a new low. We saw the Taoiseachs comments last week again appearing to conflate homelessness and inward migration. Really unhelpful. I criticised those. Irish Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik criticised Mr Varadkars comments (Damien Storan/PA) Then just this week, we see the main opposition party doubling down and coming out with some very strong rhetoric that was really anti-Ukraine and cannot be put any other way. For Labour, weve always stood for a fair and effective immigration system. We want to ensure that communities around the country are acknowledged for the welcome thats been given to those whove come here, that the small number of hostile events have been a minority and an exception, and the reality is, Ireland is a welcoming country, and for Labour, well always stand for an inclusive, tolerant and a diverse society. Asked about Mr Varadkars comments, Minister for Housing Darragh OBrien said he had not yet read the full interview, but said that the rise in population has added to the challenges of the housing crisis. I havent read the full interview. Ive only heard the sort of snippets of it, he said on Friday in Co Dublin. I think undoubtedly immigration poses challenges and has brought about challenges to the state, but like Ive welcomed that, I think its good that we have a population thats growing. I was in Beaumont Hospital yesterday, for arguments sake, and the vast majority of our healthcare workers are people whove come from overseas and who have decided to make Ireland their home. I welcome that. I think the comments the former taoiseach made with regard to what pace that has happened, thats reality that were dealing with. I suppose one of the issues, if you take on housing, has really been the main issue there, is that we didnt have enough homes built for a 10-year period before this government came into office. Minister for Housing Darragh OBrien (Brian Lawless/PA) Were playing catch up there, and we are trying to be making progress in that regard. But you know, weve full employment in our economy right now. Weve been 2.75 million people working when you talk across the sectors, be that construction, be that retail or hospitality, you see the challenges that businesses have actually getting staff to fill roles that are there. We need people actively engaged in our economy, when we need people coming into our country. Im glad that our population is growing. Minister for Housing Darragh O Brien said there was a slight increase in the number of people accessing emergency accommodation (Brian Lawless/PA) The number of people in emergency homeless accommodation has reached a new record high of 14,486 in Ireland, according to the latest figures from the Department of Housing. Data released on Friday afternoon shows that 10,067 adults and 4,419 children were accessing emergency accommodation during the last week of August. The latest figures also reveal that there were a total of 2,099 families accessing such services the highest ever figures for adults, children and families. 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 The figures do not include people sleeping rough, those that may be couch surfing or homeless in hospitals or prisons, those in a shelter for asylum seekers or domestic violence centres. The figures show that in the 12 months since August 2023, there was an increase of 1,795 people in emergency accommodation. There were 2,099 families in emergency accommodation, marking an 11% increase; 4,419 were children, showing a 14% rise since 2023;1,740 people were aged between 18 to 24, marking a 14% increase over the year. Focus Ireland called for urgent Government action on social housing. Focus Ireland chief executive Pat Dennigan said: We know that housing and homelessness are key concerns for Irish voters, and all political parties must put forward ambitious yet realistic proposals to meet the significant challenges ahead. We urge both Government and opposition parties to focus on solutions, rather than casting blame on vulnerable groups. Minister for Housing Darragh OBrien said the numbers represent a a very, very slight increase in people in emergency accommodation. That is still no consolation, indeed, to anyone who is in emergency accommodation, he added. Im always acutely conscious that while we talk about numbers, behind those numbers are families and individuals and kids. My biggest challenge is to exit more people out of emergency accommodation that are entering into it. He added: If we can continue the upward production of homes and the trajectory that we are on to deliver more social homes again this year, I think that will really help us in levelling off the numbers of people in emergency accommodation then start to decrease. Asked when the public will start to see a drop in the number of people in emergency accommodation, the minister said he could not give a date or month. What we have seen in the last couple of months is quite a significant reduction in new entries, he added. I am pleased to see too that those in emergency accommodation are spending less time in it and are exiting it quicker than we have done before. Thats why it is so important we have the solutions for it, the housing stock, to assist people in exiting out. Wayne Stanley, executive director of the Simon Communities of Ireland, said: Throughout Simon Week (this week), we have been travelling the country discussing the solutions to homelessness. What stands out from those discussions is that we need to put a clear focus on outcomes. The solutions are there but what we are missing is the investment in those solutions and the supply of homes that are required. In that context, the figures released today are an outrage and should be viewed in those terms. The foundations for both of these elements must be set out in next weeks budget and must form a central plank of any new programme for Government. A giveaway or election budget that does not have the investment to turn the corner on homelessness would be a shameful abdication of duty by Government. Hubert Vo is a candidate for Texas House of Representatives, District 149 shown Thursday August 25, 2016. Jeremy Carter / Houston Chronicle Hubert Vo gave Texas a thriller of an election back in 2004. A refugee turned millionaire businessman, he campaigned hard for House District 149 on issues important to the growing immigrant community in the Alief area. Vo won by a mere 32 votes. The ousted Republican, chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, demanded a manual recount. The margin shrank to 16 but Vo still prevailed. Democrats felt hopeful: As the Texas electorate diversified, they thought the state would soon flip back their way. Twenty years later, Republicans have retained control of all three branches of state government. As for Vo, the thunder from his lightning strike has long faded. In 2021, Texas Monthly listed him as one of the inconsequential lawmakers they deem Furniture. He didnt pass any legislation of note that year. When we spoke with him in 2022, he was so out of touch he wasnt aware that the state had a massive budget surplus. Advertisement Article continues below this ad At 68 and with ten terms under his belt, Vo ought to be a master of legislative sausage making and have a catalog of accomplishments. Instead, every two years, he tells us once again about his one greatest hit: creating the International Management District in 2007. Sure, he deserves credit for enhancements to the area often referred to as Houstons Asiatown. Extra landscaping, marketing and security for the district anchored by Bellaire Boulevard are nice. But what has he done since then? In the 2023 legislative session, Vo did manage to get off the Furniture list. He authored a bill signed into law that created a new penalty of up to $10,000 for businesses that violate child labor laws, and established a clearer process for investigations and appeals. He also helped pass a bill that allows military veterans who are permanent residents to become police officers. Previously, only citizens could become cops. Though it was the Senates version of the bill that Gov. Greg Abbott ultimately signed, Vo played a key role in its passage. He told us that hed refile his other bills that didnt quite pass the finish line, though he had trouble recalling any of the policies hed champion. Still, were recommending Vo because we dont think his challenger would get more done. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Republican Lily Truong is making her third attempt to topple Vo. She lost in the last two election cycles by a margin of 20 percent. She didnt respond to our requests for a meeting and her website still states that shes running in the 2022 election. Her priorities in the past have been ending abortion, warding off socialism and reducing crime. Like Vo, she fled communist Vietnam and struggled with poverty before making it in America. Also like Vo, she struggled to name specific policy ideas when we met with her two years ago. Her strength is in understanding public education. She serves on the board of trustees for Alief Independent School District and voiced some skepticism on vouchers, a taxpayer-funded subsidy for private schools. Vo told us hed continue to oppose vouchers outright. We havent funded public education, why fund vouchers? he told us. He wants teachers to get a raise and, this time, he knows theres a budget surplus to pay for one. Former Conservative Party co-chairwoman Baroness Sayeeda Warsi has resigned the partys whip in the House of Lords, as she said the party is hypocritical and moved too far to the right. Lady Warsi, who served in the cabinet during David Camerons premiership, said the party no longer resembled the one she represented in government. She was Britains first Muslim cabinet minister. She claimed a Conservative Party investigation over alleged divisive language was because of her support for a teacher cleared of a racially aggravated public order offence during a pro-Palestine protest in November last year. Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Jemima Khan, and David Baddiel attend the British Podcast Awards 2024 at HERE at Outernet, London (Ian West/PA Wire) Marieha Hussain had been photographed holding a placard with Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman surrounded by coconuts. Announcing her resignation in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Baroness Warsi said: It is with a heavy heart that I have today informed my whip and decided for now to no longer take the Conservative whip. This is a sad day for me. I am a Conservative and remain so but sadly the current party are far removed from the party I joined and served in Cabinet. 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 My decision is a reflection of how far right my party has moved and the hypocrisy and double standards in its treatment of different communities. A timely reminder of the issues that I raise in my book Muslims Dont Matter. She said she was prompted to resign over comments from some in the Conservative Party over the acquittal of Ms Hussain, who was found not guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence on September 13. She said: I will not be gagged on a point of principle. And I am not prepared to play games behind closed doors. If Rishi Sunaks party wants to retry and replay the coconut trial despite the acquittal of Marieha Hussain, the clear legal findings and the overwhelming expert witness testimonies then I wish to do so publicly and transparently. It would be unfair to do this whilst continuing to take the Conservatives whip. I realise I have the privilege of platform and I have decided to exercise that privilege by speaking truth to power. She added: A court of law found Marieha Hussain not guilty. Whatever Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman think of that decision, that is the rule of law and they are not above the law. I applaud the courts decision and judgement of Judge Vanessa Lloyd, the overwhelming evidence of multiple academics and other expert witnesses. It was the right decision and I rightly congratulated Marieha on her acquittal. I was subsequently asked to delete my public support for Marieha I refused to do so. That is the basis of the complaint. No other comments or language is the basis of the complaint. The case was due to be conducted in private behind closed doors, I was not told who the complainant was and this is material considering the detail of bad faith practice the court heard about during the trial. I was also told I could not discuss the matter with others. It was effectively to be a secret retrial of the Coconut Trial, I was not prepared to accept this. I felt it appropriate in the circumstances to resign my whip and look forward to dealing with these issues openly and transparently in the coming weeks and months. 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 Later, Lady Warsi posted a picture of herself at the British Podcast Awards in central London with comedian David Baddiel and Jemima Khan, whose Instinct Productions produces the podcast A Muslim & A Jew Go There, presented by Warsi and Baddiel. She said: Thank you for all the lovely messages and the concern Im not taking calls tonight but genuinely Im OK. They make us tough in #Yorkshire. A Conservative Party spokesperson said: Complaints were received regarding divisive language by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi. Baroness Warsi was informed an investigation was about to begin earlier this week. We have a responsibility to ensure that all complaints are investigated without prejudice. Shadow housing secretary Kemi Badenoch told the Sun that complaints had been made to party officials about the peer. Lady Warsi was appointed to the House of Lords in 2007. She first served in government as a Minister without Portfolio from 2010 until 2012. She later became a foreign minister and held a faith and communities brief until 2014. She resigned in disagreement with the partys policy on the Israel-Gaza war in August that year. Lady Warsi later became a critic of the Conservative Party while representing the party in the Lords. Earlier this year she told current Conservative leadership contender Robert Jenrick to reflect on your language after his comments during the riots in August. Commenting on a social media video in which Mr Jenrick spoke of sectarian gangs in some cases attacking white Britons, Lady Warsi said: Use this awful moment to reflect on your language and conduct and what impact its had on where the country finds itself. Former prime minister Boris Johnson considered launching an aquatic raid on a warehouse in the Netherlands to retrieve Covid vaccine doses amid a row with Europe, according to an extract from his memoir. Mr Johnson convened a meeting of senior military officials in March 2021 to discuss the plans, which he admitted were nuts, according to an extract from his Unleashed book published in the Daily Mail. At the time, the AstraZeneca vaccine was at the heart of a cross-Channel row over exports, with the EU lagging behind the pace of the rollout in the UK. The extract says the deputy chief of the defence staff (military strategy and operations), Lieutenant General Doug Chalmers, told the prime minister the plan was certainly feasible, using rigid inflatable boats to navigate Dutch canals. Lieutenant General Doug Chalmers (Ben Birchall/PA) They would then rendezvous at the target; enter; secure the hostage goods, exfiltrate using an articulated lorry, and make their way to the Channel ports, Mr Johnson wrote. But the senior officer said it would not be possible to do this undetected, with lockdowns meaning the authorities might observe the raid, meaning the UK would have to explain why we are effectively invading a long-standing Nato ally. Writing in his book, Mr Johnson said he had commissioned some work on whether it might be technically feasible to launch an aquatic raid on a warehouse in Leiden, in the Netherlands, and to take that which was legally ours and which the UK desperately needed. The former PM admitted: Of course, I knew he was right, and I secretly agreed with what they all thought but did not want to say aloud: that the whole thing was nuts. He described the Halix plant as holding millions of doses of the vaccine which AstraZeneca was trying, in vain to export to the UK. He believed the EU was treating the UK with malice and with spite due to the European rollout being slower than in the UK. They wanted to stop us getting the five million doses, and yet they showed no real sign of wanting to use the AstraZeneca doses themselves, Mr Johnson wrote. He said that around that time, out of the blue, the European Commission launched a kind of legal war against AstraZeneca, claiming that the company was failing to honour its contract with the EU. However, he said the EUs complaints were nonsense as a result of Kate Bingham, the chairwoman of the UKs vaccine taskforce, signing a bomb-proof contract with AstraZeneca. In March 2021, Mr Johnson told a Downing Street press conference: Well continue to work with European partners to deliver the vaccine rollout. All I can say is we in this country dont believe in blockades of any kind of vaccines or vaccine materials. Its not something that this country would dream of engaging in and Im encouraged in some of the things Ive heard from the continent in the same sense. The Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, shine over the Sycamore Gap tree at Hadrians Wall in Northumberland (Owen Humphreys/PA) The demise a year ago of the eponymous tree at Sycamore Gap near the remains of Hadrians Wall robbed the people of Northumberland of a natural landmark with a world profile. PA news agency photographer Owen Humphreys had been a regular visitor to the tree, which stood in isolation in a dip in the Roman fortifications that link the Irish Sea and North Sea. It was a perfect focal point for amateur and professional photographers in daytime, night-time or during the Northern Lights and Mr Humphreys work ensured it was seen around the world. People take an evening walk at Sycamore Gap in Northumberland (Tom White/PA) The eponymous tree could be found at Sycamore Gap at Hadrians Wall (Owen Humphreys/PA) Rare noctilucent clouds appear over the famous Sycamore Gap tree (Owen Humphreys/PA) The tree was famously used as a location in the 1990s film Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, with the title character, played by Kevin Costner, evading enemies with the support of Morgan Freeman playing his Moorish ally Azeem. Amid the ancient remnants of Hadrians border wall, it was a popular visiting spot. With the Northern Lights often visible in the remote part of Northumberland, it would regularly return to the spotlight, with photographers such as Mr Humphreys sharing its attractions with a wider audience. Light shines through the tree (Owen Humphreys/PA) Stars and the Northern Lights are seen above the Sycamore Gap tree (Owen Humphreys/PA) The tree at Sycamore Gap, Northumberland, taken (clockwise from top left) in daylight, with noctilucent clouds, the Milky Way and the Northern Lights (Owen Humphreys/PA) A clear night under the Milky Way at Sycamore Gap (Owen Humphreys/PA) Stars fill the night sky above Sycamore Gap (Owen Humphreys/PA) Colours of the Northern Lights behind the Sycamore Gap tree (Owen Humphreys/PA) The Northern Lights work their magic (Owen Humphreys/PA) The felling of the tree prompted a police investigation. Johnny Depp has surprised children on a hospital ward dressed in his Pirates Of The Caribbean costume. The Hollywood star reprised his Captain Jack Sparrow character to the delight of children at the Donostia University Hospital in Spain, amid his appearance at the San Sebastian Film Festival. Depps directorial film titled Modi Three Days On The Wing Of Madness premiered at the festival on Tuesday. According to social media posts from the hospital, Oscar-nominee Depp appeared to interact with patients as they lay in hospital and posed for photographs with young fans. 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 From all the staff of the Donostia University Hospital, we would like to express our infinite gratitude to Johnny Depp for his time, his support and his energy, as well as to @sansebastianfes for having facilitated this visit, the hospital wrote on X. It is not the first time 61-year-old Depp has visited children in hospital dressed in his costume. Depp once described his daughter Lily-Roses nine-day stint in Londons Great Ormond Street Hospital, where she received treatment for kidney failure caused by E.coli poisoning in 2007, as the darkest period of my life. 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 Speaking to Graham Norton in 2015 about returning to the hospital to cheer up patients dressed as his Pirates of the Caribbean character, he said: For me its a gift. They give me the gift. When my daughter was ill in Great Ormond Street it was the darkest period of my life. Id always done these visits but after that experience the visits became more and more important. The kids are so courageous but to be able to bring a smile or a giggle to the parents means everything in the world to me. One of the six rare loggerhead turtles which was found by the crew of a Royal Navy warship after washing up on UK shores being released and dropped back into the Atlantic by the crew of the Portsmouth-based patrol vessel HMS Medway (Royal Navy/PA) The crew of a Royal Navy warship have released six rare turtles that washed up on UK shores back into the wild in their original Atlantic habitat. Portsmouth-based patrol vessel HMS Medway transported the loggerhead turtles to the Azores, as it was heading towards the Caribbean, where they were released having been cared for by Newquays Blue Reef Aquarium and Anglesey Sea Zoo. The juvenile turtles were swept from the Caribbean or Eastern Seaboard of the USA by strong winds and Atlantic currents and had become cold-stunned in the cold waters around the UK. It is believed they would have died if they had not been found washed up and rescued. Two of the turtles, named Jason and Perran, were found at Perranporth, Cornwall, Gordon was discovered at Bude in Cornwall, Hayle was found in Hayle, Cornwall, Holly on Putsborough Beach, Devon, and Tonni was rescued at Moel-y-Don beach, Anglesey. One of the six rare loggerhead turtles found by the crew of a Royal Navy warship after washing up on UK shores (Royal Navy/PA) Steve Matchett, group curator for Blue Reef Aquarium, said: All the turtles arrived in a weakened state in many cases we were unsure if they were going to make it overnight. All were dehydrated and emaciated. This is due to being too cold for a long period and being unable to feed/function properly. They have all prospered once we got them past the initial stages. We are very grateful to the Navy for stepping in to repatriate these rescued turtles. The six loggerhead turtles being removed from their crates to be dropped back into the Atlantic (Royal Navy/PA) The turtles dropped into the Atlantic off the Azores and were seen past by the ships crew which had gathered on the flight deck to watch. Rod Jones, the Royal Navys Senior Maritime Environmental Protection Adviser, said: As professional mariners, many of us are keen to do what we can to reduce the loss of biodiversity at sea. Encountering marine wildlife is one of the great joys of seafaring and if we can assist, even in a small way, to make that more likely in the future we are pleased to be able to do that. One of the six rare loggerhead turtles found by the crew of a Royal Navy warship after washing up on UK shores (Royal Navy/PA) Assisting turtles to return to warmer waters may not be the Royal Navys primary role but as a government body we are very pleased to be able to support the UKs ambition for more healthy and diverse seas. Frankie Hobro, owner of Anglesey Sea Zoo which cared for Tonni Welsh for wave since the turtle was washed up next to the aquarium 20 months ago, said: In one way theres going to be this little bit of you swimming off into the Atlantic. In another, this is what we have been aiming for since day one. Were excited and a little bit emotional in a happy way. Medway sailed from Plymouth last week to relieve its sister ship HMS Trent, supporting international counter-drug smuggling operations across the Americas, and assisting island communities should they be hit by storms during the hurricane season. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told world leaders at the UN that his nation will continue degrading Hezbollah until it achieves its goals along the Lebanon border. The move further dims hopes for an internationally backed ceasefire to halt the spiral into an all-out regional war. He said his government would no longer tolerate daily rocket fire from the area. Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safely. And thats exactly what were doing well continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met, Mr Netanyahu said. Just imagine if terrorists turned El Paso and San Diego into ghost towns How long would the American government tolerate that? he said, shaking his fist in emphasis. Yet Israel has been tolerating this intolerable situation for almost a year. Well, Ive come here today to say: Enough is enough. Mr Netanyahu, armed with visual aids as he has been in the past, defended his nations response to the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas on Israel that triggered an Israeli military operation that has devastated the Gaza Strip. He said he travelled to the United Nations to refute the untruths he had heard from other leaders on the same rostrum earlier in the week. I didnt intend to come here this year. My country is at war fighting for its life, Mr Netanyahu said. But after I heard the lies and slanders levelled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight. He insisted that Israel wanted peace but said of Iran: If you strike us, we will strike you. He once again blamed Iran for being behind many of the problems in the region. For too long, the world has appeased Iran, Mr Netanyahu said. That appeasement must end. Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the United Nations General Assembly (Richard Drew/AP) Israels campaign in Gaza has killed more than 41,500 Palestinians and wounded more than 96,000 others, according to the latest figures released on Thursday by the Health Ministry. The ministry, part of Gazas Hamas government, does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but more than half the dead have been women and children, including about 1,300 children under the age of two. Israel has maintained its military operations are justified and are necessary to defend itself. This war can come to an end now. All that has to happen is for Hamas to surrender, lay down its arms and release all the hostages, Mr Netanyahu said. But if they dont if they dont we will fight until we achieve total victory. Total victory. There is no substitute for it. He said Israeli forces have destroyed 90% of Hamas rockets and killed or captured half of its forces. In recent days, Israel has turned its attention to the border with Lebanon, where it is targeting Hezbollah militants and has inflicted civilian casualties as well. Hezbollah began attacking Israel almost immediately after the Hamas invasion, and ongoing fighting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group have driven tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border. Israel is vowing to step up its attacks on Hezbollah until its citizens can return safely to their homes. Late Wednesday, the United States, France and other allies jointly called for an immediate 21-day ceasefire to allow for negotiations as fears grow that the violent escalation in recent days following 11 months of cross-border exchange of fire could grow into an all-out war. The United Nations says more than 90,000 people have been displaced by five days of Israeli strikes on Lebanon, bringing the total to 200,000 people who have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas after it stormed into Israel, sparking the Israel-Hamas war. New York City mayor Eric Adams has pleaded not guilty to federal bribery charges and other counts that have struck the city after months of investigations, searches and subpoenas. Mr Adams, a Democrat, entered the plea before a packed courtroom gallery in Manhattan a day after prosecutors revealed charges alleging that he accepted overseas travel and illegal campaign donations from people looking to buy his influence in city government. The mayor is accused of exploiting a years-long relationship with people tied to Turkey, who funded his travel and fuelled his run for mayor with donations that helped him qualify for more than 10 million dollars in public campaign funds. People who are not US citizens are banned by law from donating to US political candidates. New York City mayor Eric Adams with his attorney Alex Spiro (Yuki Iwamura/AP) Mr Adams pleaded not guilty to all five charges in the indictment: wire fraud, bribery, two counts of receiving campaign contributions from a foreign national, and conspiracy. If convicted of the most serious charge, wire fraud, he faces up to 20 years in prison, federal prosecutors said. The mayor maintains that he did nothing wrong and has vowed to stay in office, rebuffing calls to quit from a growing chorus of officials, including some members of Congress and some likely challengers in next years mayoral election. Mr Adams, 64, is due back in court on Wednesday for a case conference. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has arrived for a meeting with Donald Trump as public tensions have been rising between the two over Ukraines defence against Russias invasion. I think we have a common view that the war in Ukraine has to be stopped and Putin cant win, Mr Zelensky said referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. After arriving together at a conference room on Friday, Mr Trump said: The fact that were even together today is a very good sign. The visit is taking place at Trump Tower in New York, a day after Vice President Kamala Harris, Mr Trumps Democratic opponent, met with the Ukrainian leader and expressed unwavering support. Donald Trump meets with Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky at Trump Tower (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP) The meeting is highly anticipated and comes as Election Day nears, with Mr Trump and Ms Harris taking sharply different positions on backing Ukraine in the third year of its war with Russia. Mr Trump has in recent days praised Russias historic military victories and insisted the US needs to get out and end its involvement with Ukraine. Fridays meeting almost was not scheduled despite Mr Zelenskys office saying something had been planned during the Ukrainian leaders visit to the UN General Assembly, during which he is making his endgame pitch to allies. In an interview with The New Yorker that was published earlier this week, Mr Zelensky implied Mr Trump does not understand and oversimplifies the conflict. The Ukrainian leader said Mr Trumps running mate JD Vance was too radical and had essentially advocated for Ukraine to make a sacrifice by giving up its territories. Mr Trump attacked Mr Zelensky and Ukraine on two separate occasions this week. Speaking in North Carolina, Mr Trump referred to Ukraine as demolished and its people as dead. Any deal the worst deal wouldve been better than what we have now, Mr Trump said. If they made a bad deal it wouldve been much better. They wouldve given up a little bit and everybody would be living and every building would be built and every tower would be ageing for another 2,000 years. Meanwhile, Ms Harris on Thursday stood alongside Mr Zelensky and said Mr Trumps push for Ukraine to quickly cut a deal to end the war were not proposals for peace, but proposals for surrender. Mr Trump on Thursday said he was not advocating for a surrender. While Mr Trump and Mr Vance have been critical of US backing for Ukraine, other Republican allies of the former president have backed Kyivs defence against Moscows invasion and argue supporting Ukraine is in Americas interest. A banner has been placed over the Columbia Street gate When we should be doing all we can to break down barriers between communities, its depressing that consideration is being given to putting one back up again. Residents living close to the Crumlin Road interface between Ardoyne and Woodvale have endured sustained anti-social behaviour. In 2022 the Department of Justice said it was hoped the reopening of the Flax Street peaceline gate would contribute to wider improvements in the area. That appears to have been a forlorn ambition. The question has to be asked: have we really done enough to break the grip of community tensions and tribal politics to truly let go of the past? This was also a week when Education Minister Paul Givan came in for criticism for meeting the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) a body that includes representatives of paramilitaries urging him to block an Irish language school in east Belfast. Perhaps if he had told the LCC children should be encouraged to get into school, rather than onto the streets to cause trouble, that would have been worthwhile. Talking can be good, but those who do the talking need to be listening too. Over 25 years ago the Good Friday Agreement was signed. The majority of those born after 1998 have still not had the opportunity to vote in an election. Perhaps, when they have their say, society can finally move forward. The first peace baby of the new era, Erin McArdle from Co Antrim, met Senator George Mitchell, the man who brokered the deal that ended the Troubles, for the first time this week at Queens University in Belfast. Erin said she was able to live in a more inclusive society thanks to the Agreement. She added: I have grown up in the most loving, caring community. I have been able to do anything that I wanted. I have never felt that I couldnt do anything. She is part of a new generation who know little of the 30 traumatic and painful years of the Troubles, and have a brighter future to look forward to. This place has changed since 1998. But there is still a long way to go. Young people can see the opportunities ahead and want to grasp them. It would be a shame if the older generation persisted in maintaining those old barriers that kept us apart. Hope, not hurt, must shape the future. Abby Church is a City Hall reporter for the Houston Chronicle. She can be reached at abby.church@houstonchronicle.com. Before coming to the Chronicle, Abby covered Tarrant County government at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. As an Air Force brat, she spent her childhood everywhere, but she claims Virginia as home. She graduated from James Madison University with a bachelor's degree in journalism and creative writing. 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. Stephanie Winn stays on the phone with another hotel as she moves her stuff out of the hotel she and her family had been staying at since her apartment was damaged by the derecho on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024 in Houston. Winn, who was planning on spending the day back to school shopping for her daughter, was told in the morning she had to be out of the room. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer A proposed affordable housing project is drawing fresh criticism at City Hall after a new report revealed the developer could receive over $800,000 in tax breaks each year while offering little rent relief to low-income residents. Houston-based developer Texas Group is seeking a 100% property tax exemption for a 270-unit apartment complex, Orem Circle, proposed for Southeast Houston. The project would use a state program called public facility corporations (PFCs), which allows developers to avoid property taxes for up to 60 years in exchange for making some units affordable and paying the local housing authority a fee. Advertisement Article continues below this ad By law, half of the project's units must be designated as affordable, meaning the developer is expected to lower rents to make them more accessible for local families. However, a legally required report commissioned by the developer found that most of the complex's units would already meet the affordability standard without any tax breaks. This means the developer may not have to offer rent cuts for many units or forgo much rental income, if any, in exchange for the hefty tax savings. I'm not going to rubber stamp these deals, said Council Member Julian Ramirez, who has been pushing for more transparency around the project. I want to know that the process has been a good one where the housing authority has vigorously advocated for affordable housing. The Houston Housing Authority is in charge of negotiating these agreements. The agencys president, David Northern, defended the project, saying rents will likely fluctuate by the time the complex is built and starts accepting tenants. At this point in time, the rent prices mentioned for Orem Circle are only forecasts, said Northern, adding that rents will be adjusted in the future. We recognize that there is more work to be done to ensure everyone in Houston has access to safe, affordable housing, and we are steadfast in our commitment to make that a reality. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Some advocates question why the city should approve decades of tax exemptions without clear evidence that the project will deliver meaningful rent reductions for Houstonians. Ben Martin, research director at Austin-based nonprofit Texas Housers, said the Orem Circle project encapsulates housing advocates yearslong concerns about the misuse of the PFC program. Its not really providing much for low-income people or taxpayers in return for an incredible benefit to private developers, Martin said after reviewing the assessment report. This really distorts what this tool is supposed to be used for. Texas Group did not respond to repeated requests for comments. A boost for affordability or a bad real estate deal? The PFC program is a relatively new affordable housing tool that came into existence less than a decade ago. It has come under heightened scrutiny in recent years over concerns that it defined affordability too loosely and lacked accountability. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Last year, the Texas Legislature introduced a series of changes, including a new requirement that local elected officials approve such projects. In reality, the deals are all but decided by the time they reach City Council, according to city officials. AUSTIN STEPS IN: New law reforms big tax cuts for not-so-affordable housing Orem Circle is one of the first three PFC proposals that the Houston Housing Authority is pursuing since last years legislative changes. Under the proposed agreement, half the 270 units would be rented at market rates, allowing developers to set prices without any limits. Of the remaining units, 81 are set aside for households earning less than 80% of Houston's Area Median Income (AMI), and 54 are reserved for those earning less than 60%. For a two-person household, this means their income would be capped at about $60,560 for the 80% AMI units and $45,420 for the 60% AMI units. The unit breakdown represents the minimum rent restrictions required by law. Altogether, current estimates show the developer will lose little to no rental income compared to charging market rates for all the units. The developer, will, at the same time, receive a tax break of over $800,000 per year. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Despite the absence of significant rent cuts for tenants, the report argues the tax break is still justified because the area lacks market-driven development activities and the project would not be financially feasible without government intervention. The area around the location of Oren Circle is one of aged and aging housing stock or tax credits that facilitated new construction, the report said. The market is limited, and market forces are insufficient to address the housing needs in the surrounding area. Martin, however, said the tax incentive would then essentially subsidize a bad real estate deal that would not have attracted investors on its own. The vague promise of adjusting rents in the future does not convince him, either. They're asking us to roll the dice on whether this is a good investment of public dollars or not, he said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Mayor Whitmire warns of more leadership overhaul if necessary Earlier this month, Houston Housing Director Mike Nichols discussed the three projects at a committee meeting and recommended City Council approve them. But when asked by the Chronicle about the rent estimates in Orem Circles report, Nichols said he found the numbers concerning. It's surprising that (the housing authority) approved that, Nichols said. After further discussions with Northern, Nichols said he was reassured that Orem Circle is a fair deal and will contribute to the citys affordable housing goals, ensuring the rent-restricted units remain affordable for decades. He also acknowledged that reopening negotiations at this point would be difficult and said he plans to get involved earlier in future PFC negotiations to help secure greater public benefits. Supporting the current three projects would allow him to maintain a cooperative relationship with the housing authority and better influence the process with the next batch of proposals. I'm a believer in if you want to impact the process, you tell people what you want and then you begin impacting the process, and I have not done that with these transactions," Nichols said. Were going to be damn careful going forward." Nichols said he aims to push for more PFC housing inside the loops and along major transit lines, advocate for deeper rent cuts to make more units affordable for families earning less than 30% AMI, and prioritize those units for those most at risk of homelessness. He said he also wants to start charging developers a modest fee to help fund city staff time spent thoroughly reviewing these agreements. When asked about Nichols desire to give city officials a seat at the negotiating table, Northern said he values his collaboration with the city but prefers the current approach. We believe our existing processes are better aligned with our overall objectives and resources and remain the most suitable for our city's needs at this time, Northern said. This response did not sit well with Mayor John Whitmire. The proposal was initially scheduled to appear before the City Council this week, but the mayor removed it from the meeting agenda at the last minute. Whitmire, with the power to appoint members to the housing authoritys board, overhauled the agencys leadership earlier this year. His office told the Chronicle he would make further changes if needed. CITY SHAKEUPS: All the major leadership changes made by Houston Mayor Whitmire as he shakes up City Hall BENNINGTON A midday raid on a single-family residence on South Street in Bennington Wednesday culminated in the arrest of several individuals on charges ranging from drug and gun possession, distribution, manufacturing, and several outstanding warrants. Eight individuals were arrested on the scene by members of the Bennington Police Department and agents from Homeland Security. Police entered the single-family home at 527 South Street by force on a court-ordered search warrant after information revealed ongoing drug activity at the location less than a mile from the Four Corners section of Downtown Bennington. The team of armed police entered the building at 2:52 PM after officers closed off a section of South Street to approaching southbound traffic. Bennington Police canine Gracie could be heard barking loudly at the side of the residence as an unidentified individual pointed a handgun outside a second-floor window and then retreated inside. Moments later, several school-aged minors exited the front door of the single-family residence with their hands up. The minors were immediately escorted to a safe area away from the home by multiple officers. According to a Bennington Police Department press release and the state's informing charging document, officers encountered Jordan Feliciano on the second floor of the residence during the warrant execution. He was armed with a Glock 17 pistol with a 27-round extended magazine. Feliciano tossed the firearm away from his person after making contact with law enforcement Officers. Feliciano and seven other offenders were taken into custody without further incident. The first of those exiting the building in handcuffs was Feliciano, the reported ringleader of the suspected drug operation and the individual who pointed the weapon out of the window. Feliciano, 31, is a fugitive from justice from Hartford, CT. He is currently charged with several counts, including Fentanyl trafficking, conspiracy, manufacture or cultivation of regulated drugs, weapons possession during the commission of a felony, cocaine possession, possession of a large capacity ammunition feeding device, cruelty to children, and a violation of being a person prohibited from possessing firearms. A vehicle in Jordan Feliciano's control was seized at the scene and impounded pending an application for a search warrant. The search warrant resulted in the recovery of a loaded 50-round drum magazine for a Glock 17. A replica pistol was also located in the vehicle, resembling an actual firearm. Feliciano is a Fugitive from Justice in the State of Connecticut. He is wanted for parole violations related to drug and weapons offenses there. Feliciano is also wanted in Windham County, Vermont, for weapons and drug related offenses. Reina Sosa, age 19, of New Britain, CT, was also arrested at the scene. Sosa is charged with Fentanyl trafficking, cocaine possession, conspiracy, manufacture or cultivation of regulated drugs, possession of a large capacity ammunition feeding device, and cruelty to children. Arraignments for Feliciano and Sosa were held Thursday at the Bennington Superior Court. Bennington Judge Jennifer Barrett did not find probable cause to charge Feliciano with cruelty to a child. He pleaded not guilty to all other charges and is currently held without bail. A weight of evidence hearing is currently scheduled for October 10. Sosa was also arraigned Thursday. Bennington Judge Jennifer Barrett did not find probable cause for the child cruelty charge for Sosa as well. He was released on 24/7 curfew at his home in Hartford, CT. Also arrested at the scene was Darren Dwyer, age 33, of Bennington. He is charged with conspiracy, cruelty to children, and possession/control of regulated drugs. Dwyer was released on a citation and an order to appear at a later date. Amanda Gibbons, 40, of Bennington is charged with conspiracy, cruelty to children, and possession/control of regulated drugs. Gibbons was released on a citation to appear. Tia Woodin, 40, of Bennington was arrested on an in-state Vermont Warrant. Woodin was taken into custody. On Thursday, Woodin appeared in front of a Bennington Judge on her outstanding arrest warrant. She was released without bail. Kayla Willette, 34, of Bennington, is charged with violating her Conditions of Release on a prior charge. She was released on a citation to appear on the new charge. Willette faces numerous other charges Bennington, including petty larceny, unlawful trespass into an occupied dwelling, unlawful trespass-land, burglary, domestic assault, unlawful mischief, and cocaine possession. Willette is currently released on an unsecured bond. Billie Jean Adams, 30, of Pownal is charged with Fentanyl sale and cocaine possession. Adams was released on a citation to appear. Nathan Silva, 33, of Bennington, was charged with cocaine possession and Fentanyl sales. Silva was released on a citation to appear. Silva pleaded guilty to unlawful restraint in 2022. He pleaded guilty in 2022 to simple assault and unlawful mischief, as well as living the scene of a crash and false info to a police officer. Police recovered several drugs at the scene, including Fentanyl, cocaine, and prescription pain medications. They also recovered digital scales, approximately $5,000.00 US currency, a Glock 17 pistol with two loaded 27-round magazines, and manufacturing and packaging materials. In a seized vehicle parked next to the property, police found the 50-round drum magazine. Members of the Bennington Police Department continue to work diligently at keeping our community safe, said Bennington Police Chief Paul Doucette in a statement to the Banner after the raid. These investigations take time, and I want to remind community members experiencing this type of activity to work with the police department and provide as much information as possible. These investigations are complex and require cooperation from many sources. Receiving information from the public is highly encouraged and assists us with criminal investigations. The investigation and search warrant executed at 527 South Street is another example of how drugs and addiction affect families and the community. The Bennington Police Department was assisted in the raid by Homeland Security Investigations, the Vermont National Guard Counterdrug operation, the Bennington County States Attorneys Office, the Bennington County Sheriffs Office, and the United Counseling Service. The New England State Police Information Network Intel Unit also provided real-time assistance in identifying out-of-state offenders. They were in contact with North Carolina and Florida Fusion Centers through the investigation. During the search of 527 South Street, officers were able to safely remove three children under the age of 10 from the residence and bring them to a safe location. The children met with a crisis clinician while waiting for a family member to arrive. If you observe or know of any suspected drug activity in and around Bennington, please call 911 or the Bennington Police Department at 802-442-1030. The Banner will update this story as more information becomes available. Jim Shulman, a Pittsfield native and retired Psychologist living in Ohio, is the author of "Berkshire Memories: A Baby Boomer Looks Back at Growing Up in Pittsfield." If you have a comment about this story, please write the Berkshire Eagle at letters@berkshireeagle.com and if you have a memory of a Berkshire baby boom landmark, business or event you'd like to see in a column, write Jim at jesjmskali@aol.com. This Story in History is selected from the archives by Jeannie Maschino, The Berkshire Eagle. You are the owner of this article. When Gov. Maura Healey signed into law the historic housing bond bill last month, it included a provision aimed at encouraging the development of accessory dwelling units to help communities struggling with a lack of housing. But what it did not include was specific guidance for how municipalities should go about implementing the law. And while the state is aware of the calls for more information as the Feb. 2 implementation date approaches, Housing Secretary Ed Augustus says he wants to ensure that municipalities have input into the process. We could go fast, but we will leave out that comment period [when] the Berkshires or some other part of the state [could] say, Hey, this doesnt work for us, he said. The new legislation provides a generic definition of an ADU and removes some restrictions that many municipalities had previously leveraged to oversee, and sometimes limit, the construction of ADUs. But the broad nature of the legislation has left municipalities with questions about what restrictions they can continue to enforce. An ADU, more commonly known as an in-law suite or granny flat, is an accessory dwelling that accommodates sleeping, cooking and sanitary facilities on the same lot as a principal dwelling. ADUs take many forms and, until recently, it was up to municipalities to determine whether they could be built and to decide on restrictions, including size, occupancy and whether to require a special permit. Augustus said the state is aware of requests from housing advocates, lawyers and local officials for further guidance, and will be releasing guidelines in draft form hopefully close to Feb. 2 when the provision goes into effect. A finalized version will come later, after the state has gathered feedback from municipalities. As town officials and regional officials, youre going to have a lot of opinions, a lot of ideas, Augustus told the audience at Berkshire Regional Planning Commission's annual meeting Wednesday night. Participate in that process because we will make changes based on the feedback that we get. Its an iterative process, but its only as good as the folks who take advantage of that process. So as youre thinking about it, as youre talking about it in our communities, come up with those good ideas and share them with us. Among those guidelines may be a model bylaw that municipalities can refer to, Augustus said. But those guidelines will come late for municipalities looking to begin writing and reworking their bylaws in advance of the implementation date. Municipalities are not required to adjust their existing ADU bylaw or write a new one by that deadline because state law supersedes local law; local regulations that do not comply with the provision simply will become unenforceable. But not amending bylaws could impact municipalities' ability to leverage the restrictions the Affordable Homes Act does allow, including requiring a site plan review and restrictions on short-term renting ADUs. In Berkshire County, 29 of the 32 municipalities must make some amendment to their bylaw if they wish to comply with state law. Municipalities that choose to move forward without the states guidance wont be doing so entirely in the dark, though. Berkshire Regional Planning Commission will be sharing its own guidelines with municipalities in the county by the end of October, said Cornelius Hoss, community planner and development program manager at the commission. Id like to make sure that whether its from the state or us, communities have guidelines about how to best move forward by the end of October, Hoss said. What exactly those guidelines will look like is still unclear, but municipalities can expect something similar to the informational pamphlets the commission has issued in the past. We know that everyone is in different situations so [well] probably lay out multiple scenarios and develop advice depending on what best fits that scenario, Hoss said. Besides guidelines, the state is also exploring funding sources for ADUs. MassHousing is currently in conversation with banks and lenders across the state about how to best finance the construction of ADUs, Augustus said. "Our hope is to roll out some special financing mechanisms that would be made available to homeowners across the state," Augustus said. "Its going to cost money to build out these spaces above your garage, your basement, the attic or even in the backyard. So we want to make sure that its accessible to as many people [as possible]." Donald Morrison is an Eagle columnist and co-chairman of the advisory board. The opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of The Berkshire Eagle. Dallas police block an entrance to the State Fair of Texas after a shooting, Oct. 14, 2023, in Dallas. Elias Valverde II/AP Big Tex, the 55-foot-tall symbol of the State Fair of Texas, is installed on Sept. 20, 2024, at Fair Park in Dallas. Shafkat Anowar/TNS Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, here during a February 2024 campaign rally, plans to appeal to a higher court after a Dallas County district judge on Sept. 19, 2024, denied his office's request to temporarily halt a new State Fair of Texas policy prohibiting firearms on its fairgrounds. Smiley N. Pool/TNS The Texas Supreme Court on Thursday denied a request by Attorney General Ken Paxton to block a new no-gun policy at the State Fair of Texas, which is set to begin Friday. In a scathing evening ruling denying Paxtons emergency motion, the justices ruled that the state had not made the case for why the private nonprofit that operates the fair lacked the authority to institute the ban, which includes concealed firearms. The policy does not apply to law enforcement officials, qualified retired officers or those with credentials verified by the Dallas police. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The decision comes after a shooting at the fairgrounds last year injured three people, causing an evacuation. The city of Dallas leases the fairgrounds to the nonprofit operator. Paxton, a third-term Republican, had argued in recent weeks that the policy infringes on license-to-carry holders rights under the Second Amendment and state law that allows the carrying of firearms in places owned or leased by government entities unless the law otherwise forbids it. The fair nonprofit had responded by saying that it was within its right to set its own policy as a private organization that is separate from the city of Dallas. The city has agreed the decision was up to the group. Instead of arguing that the State Fair lacks the authority to prohibit guns at the Fair, the State instead argues that the City of Dallas may not promote or enforce the State Fairs prohibition on guns, wrote Justice Jimmy Blacklock, who penned a concurring opinion. Even if that is trueand it may well bethis would not mean that handgun owners are entitled by law to carry their weapons at the State Fair despite the State Fairs contrary policy. On that pivotal question, the States filings are conspicuously silent. Paxton in a statement Friday morning was disapproving of the courts decision and said hed push for a legislative change to prevent this situation from reoccuring.. Advertisement Article continues below this ad This case is not over, Paxton said. I will continue to fight this on the merits to uphold Texans ability to defend themselves, which is protected by State law. While Texas clearly prohibits this type of gun ban, I will be working with the Legislature this session to protect law-abiding citizens Second Amendment rights on public property. Karissa Condoianis, a spokesperson for the State Fair of Texas, meanwhile applauded the ruling. We thank the Texas Supreme Court, Fifteenth Court of Appeals, and the Dallas District Court for their quick rulings ahead of the Fair, Condoianis said in a statement. We look forward to Opening Day and providing a safe environment for our millions of fairgoers, as well as our staff, vendors, and volunteers. Blacklock, as well as Chief Justice Nathan Hecht and Justice Evan Young who joined the concurring opinion, blasted Paxton for, as the case was unfolding, withdrawing a nonbinding legal opinion from 2016 that seemed to contradict his argument. If the AG Opinion was wrong, then surely the party seeking a result at odds with its own publicly stated opinion must at least explain why its opinion was wrong, he wrote. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Blacklock also railed against Paxton's argument that Dallas police could be blocked from enforcing the ban, making it unenforceable altogether. Law-abiding gun owners might then think they could carry at the fair, only to face penalties from outside law enforcement agencies, he pointed out. I recently read an article that said most Americans will vote in the upcoming election based more on their fear of what one candidate might do, if elected, than their confidence in their chosen individual. Whats more, over seventy percent of us fear AI will use social media to influence the presidential outcome. Many worry that they can no longer tell fake content from real. They hold even less confidence in other peoples ability to differentiate between authentic and fictitious material. When one considers all these factors, and the increasing hostility and division within our country, its no wonder so many of us feel anxious and unsettled. But no matter how out of control our country appears, our all-powerful, all-knowing, loving, and ever-present God remains on the throne. No one who occupies the Oval Office, fills the Senate, or sits on the Supreme Courts bench can or will thwart His hope-filled plans for the world or us, His children. Scripture validates this divine promise again and again: Nations and rulers rise and fall, but the Lords love and grace reigns supreme. Well see this truth revealed as we consider the circumstances surrounding four Old Testament kings, their successes and failings, and Gods faithfulness to His own. When Gods People Act Foolishly For around 450 years, the Lord led the Israelites through a series of judges. During this time, Scripture records a sad cycle of rebellion and wickedness, national oppression, desperate cries for mercy, Gods intervention and a season of divinely orchestrated peace, followed by the peoples rebellion. This period ended when the last judge, a just and honorable prophet named Samuel, became old and appointed his sons to take on his role. However, these men lacked their fathers integrity. According to 1 Samuel 8:3, They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice. Understandably, this concerned the elders of Israel, and so, together, they approached Samuel to ask for a king. Although the Lord warned them against this, they remained firm in their demands. And so, God told Samuel to give the people what they wanted. Yet, despite their blatant disregard for the Lords guidance, He remained intimately involved in selecting their king. He used a series of seemingly mundane circumstances to bring a man named Saul to Samuel, told Samuel to anoint him, and then empowered Saul with His Holy Spirit. What evidence of grace. Whats more, even after Saul disobeyed God and spiraled into moral decay and insanity, the Lord still protected the nation and molded their next king, a man named David. The Lords faithfulness over a thousand years ago reminds us of His consistent care for us, even when we, or our fellow Americans, make foolish choices or feel theres no wise option from which to choose. In Times of Great Danger Later, Davids son Solomon rose to the throne and began his reign well. Soon, however, his lust for women turned his heart increasingly wicked. After his death, the people rebelled against his son and made Jeroboam, a man whod served Solomon, their king. At this point, the nation became divided, with Jeroboam over the northern king of Israel while Solomons son Rehoboam ruled over the southern kingdom of Judah. Jeroboam became an evil king who built pagan shrines and high places in the land and instituted idolatrous festivals. Not long after, these two nations went to war. 2 Chronicles 13:3 tells us Abijah of Judah went into battle with an army of four hundred thousand able fighting men, and Jeroboam drew up a battle line against him with eight hundred thousand able troops. But notice what Abijah said, when he gathered his troops. Standing atop a mountain, he proclaimed: As for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not forsaken him. The priests who serve the Lord are sons of Aaron, and the Levites assist them. Every morning and evening they present burnt offerings and fragrant incense to the Lord. They set out the bread on the ceremonially clean table and light the lamps on the gold lampstand every evening. We are observing the requirements of the Lord our God. But you have forsaken him. God is with us; he is our leader. His priests with their trumpets will sound the battle cry against you. People of Israel, do not fight against the Lord, the God of your ancestors, for you will not succeed (2 Chron. 13:10-12). God came through. When Israel ambushed Judah from the front and rear, they cried out to the Lord, the priests blew their trumpets, and the men raised the battle cry. Scripture states, The Israelites were subdued on that occasion, and the people of Judah were victorious because they relied on the Lord, the God of their ancestors (2 Chron. 13:18). Humanly speaking, they were outmanned 2-1. But as Romans 8:31 states, If God is for us, who can be against us. This means we can stand confident, regardless of the threat before us or how ill-equipped our leaders appear to fight it, knowing the Almighty Commander of Heavens Armies stands beside us. When Evil Advances One doesnt need to read much of Scripture to realize that the forces of darkness have long attempted to thwart Gods plans and destroy His people. According to Scripture, this relentless battle rages beneath every external conflict, big or small. As Ephesians 6:12 states, For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. From the Bibles earliest pages, God promised to one day redeem the mess humanity created and to crush the serpents power. As time progressed, He revealed more details regarding His plans. In Genesis, we learned Hed bless all the earth through the offspring of a man named Abraham. His sons in turn birthed the twelve tribes of Israel, from which God would establish an everlasting reign through the Messiah, or Anointed One. While I doubt the devil understood Gods plan to bring salvation through the Son, biblical history reveals how fiercely he fought the Lords redemption story. At one point, he and his minions probably thought theyd won. Mid-ninth century BC, when king Ahaziahs mother, Athaliah learned her son had been assassinated, she usurped the throne and attempted to destroy the dynasty of Judah. But a princess acted quickly and saved the infant who stood next in the royal line. Of this event, we read: When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she proceeded to destroy the whole royal family of the house of Judah. But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Jehoram, took Joash son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the royal princes who were about to be murdered and put him and his nurse in a bedroom. Because Jehosheba, the daughter of King Jehoram and wife of the priest Jehoiada, was Ahaziahs sister, she hid the child from Athaliah so she could not kill him. He remained hidden with them at the temple of God for six years while Athaliah ruled the land (2 Kings 11:1-3). In the seventh year, the priest rose up, gathered the nations commanders, Levites, and heads of families, crowned the seven-year-old king, and destroyed the evil queen. Thus, through them, God saved the Messianic line. Not even a vicious tyrant spurred by battalions of demons can thwart Gods plans. In Christ, His every promise is yes and amen, as good as done. Help through Surprising Means I have a tendency to view my circumstances through human limitations rather than through the lens of Gods power and grace. When events dont play out as I anticipate or hope, I can feel stuck and discouraged. But Im learning, when it comes to God, to expect the unexpected. The Bible demonstrates again and again that He is not bound by time, location, circumstances, or world powers. One of my favorite examples of His providence comes from Ezra 1. Gods people had spent seven decades living in a foreign land. But through a prophet, God assured them their exile would eventually end. In Jeremiah, speaking of Israel, we read: This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt, declares the Lord, and will make it desolate forever (Jeremiah 25:11-12). This is what the Lord says: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place (Jeremiah 29:10). Ezra tells of the time when God began to make good on His promise: In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing: This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them. And in any locality where survivors may now be living, the people are to provide them with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem (Ezra 1:1-4). God didnt just bring His people back to their homeland. He also lavished them with provisions at the hand of a pagan king! Ezra 1:11 states, In all, there were 5,400 articles of gold and of silver. Sheshbazzar brought all these along with the exiles when they came up from Babylon to Jerusalem. This reminds us that God can use anyone, including the most unlikely leaders, to further His hope-filled, restorative story and provide for His people. Throughout Scripture, leaders have risen and fallen, some good, others incredibly evil. Yet, Gods plans remain as immovable as His heart for His children. Therefore, while its normal to feel unsettled when our world seems chaotic and the political climate uncertain, we can confidently speak this truth to our timid hearts: Our God will not fail, and darkness will never win. For more discussion on viewing political uncertainty through a biblical lens, catch the Faith Over Fear podcast episode titled Faith-filled Faithfulness in Political Uncertainty. Photo credit: Getty Images/anthonyjhall Jennifer Slattery is a writer and speaker who co-hosts the Faith Over Fear podcast and, along with a team of 6, the Your Daily Bible Verse podcast. Shes addressed womens groups, Bible studies, and taught at writers conferences across the nation. Shes the author of Building a Family and numerous other titles and maintains a devotional blog at JenniferSlatteryLivesOutLou d.com . Shes passionate about helping people experience Christs freedom in all areas of their lives. Visit her online to learn more about her speaking or to book her for your next womens event, and sign up for her free quarterly newsletter HERE and make sure to connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and GodTube. BillOReilly.com is not available in this country. We apologize for any inconvenience. Dedicated bus route helps farmers sell fresh food in urban markets Xinhua) 08:48, September 27, 2024 A farmer carrying bags of agricultural products for sale heads towards a market after getting off a dedicated bus in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Sept. 3, 2024. (Xinhua/Wu Zhizun) WUHAN, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Before sunrise, more than a dozen farmers gather at He Station in a suburb of Wuhan, in central China's Hubei Province, waiting for a special bus, together with baskets and bags filled with fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables. "People like eating fresh lotus seeds, so we pick them at around 3 a.m.," said Tu Jixing, adding that he can earn more than 300 yuan (about 42.73 U.S. dollars) a day by selling about 10 kg of lotus seeds. Tu is one of many passengers along the bus route who catch the bus every morning, carrying bags and baskets filled with fresh food, including peppers, tomatoes, fish and eggs. Taking the dedicated bus for vegetable transportation, farmers are able to sell agricultural and sideline products in a large wholesale market in the urban area of the city, more than 40 km away from He Station, the departure point of the route. The bus fare is 5 yuan for a single trip. "It's much more convenient now, and it doesn't cost much for a round trip," said Tu. Tu recalled that in the past, various areas around his village were not covered by public transport. Most people didn't want to rent vehicles or call a taxi to transport vegetables, as the cost was too high. So they would feed the surplus vegetables to livestock. The problem faced by farmers attracted the attention of the local public transportation company. At the end of 2020, it established a new bus route to meet the needs of villagers selling goods. The company has arranged staff to provide assistance at the stations where vegetable farmers gathered, and to clean the stains from soil, water and vegetable leaves, so that other types of passengers would not be affected. Hu Simin, a driver on the dedicated bus route, said it has become an important mode of transport for people living in about 30 surrounding villages. "On average, over a hundred villagers take the bus line to the urban area to sell vegetables a day," said Hu. Hu has gradually become familiar with the farmers. Before the bus departs early in the morning, he always helps the elderly villagers move their goods, and sometimes farmers give him a handful of vegetables as a gift. Some passengers have also become friends with each other. After selling their vegetables, they often hang out together in the urban area, then take the bus home and have a rest. In China, many regions, such as Nanchang and Qingdao, have attempted to extend and open bus routes to suburbs in recent years, making it more convenient for farmers to commute between remote villages and urban areas, and making it easier for residents to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. Farmers are pictured on a dedicated bus in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Sept. 3, 2024. (Xinhua/Wu Zhizun) A farmer boards a dedicated bus with baskets of fresh vegetables in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Sept. 3, 2024. (Xinhua/Wu Zhizun) (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) The brother of Sophie Toscan du Plantier has said that he agrees with Tanaiste Micheal Martin, who recently criticised a decision by the DPP not to prosecute the late Ian Bailey for the murder of the French woman. The Fianna Fail leader said that there were significant questions that remained unanswered in relation to the death of Ms Du Plantier at her remote holiday home in Toormore on the outskirts of Schull in West Cork on December 23rd, 1996. Advertisement In an interview with the Opinion Line, on Corks 96FM, Bertrand Bouniol said that he was disappointed with the Irish criminal justice system. During these 27 years, the Garda and the justice was not able to bring someone to a trial. That's not normal. And I agree with (the Tanaiste) about that. I totally agree with what he said about that. I don't think that the Irish justice is worse or better than the French justice system. "I don't accept that in Ireland, there is no one who has killed my sister. If I look at the 27 years, all the investigations arrive at the same conclusion. But I am not a specialist of the Irish justice, I'm not a specialist of the French justice, but what I have seen is, as you said, the Irish justice was not able to bring this man to a trial," he said "But when I spoke with the Irish police, with the Garda, all the people we have met during these 27 years arrived at the same conclusion. Well, what we have seen in the last 27 years, all the work done by the Irish police, by the French police, by the Irish justice, by the French justice, are arriving at the same conclusion, that it was Bailey. Advertisement Mr Bailey was on two occasions detained by Gardai for questioning in relation to the murder of 39-year-old Sophie Toscan du Plantier. Mr Bailey always denied any wrongdoing in relation to the murder of the film producer. The former journalist was convicted in absentia after a trial in France in 2015. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. However, officials in France were unable to extradite the British man to Paris to serve the sentence handed down by the courts. Advertisement Mr Bouniol said that the French decision in 2019 was important for his elderly parents. Because for the first time there was a first conclusion for them. But with all the information coming regularly for them, it's a new difficulty for them to understand. As you can understand, my mother, if you met her, you know that she cant speak English. "The French justice would define that he was the murderer. That was the decision of justice, not my decision. For the French justice, yes, (the case) is closed. There was a decision of justice, he was guilty, and now, because he is dead, no more. "It's closed for the French justice. But if I understand the Irish people, the case is still open. Who killed my sister? From the Irish point of view. There is no other suspect in Ireland. Advertisement "My parents are now very old and very sick. And that's 27 years later. Imagine. No conclusion from the Irish. Im not angry. I'm disappointed, yes. Disappointed that 27 years later, soon it will be 28 years later. Mr Bouniol added that Sophies home in Toormore remains a special place for him and his family. Because when my sister bought this house, it was a place where she can think, write, work. And when you enter in this house, you find my sister's spirit. And that's important for us because when we are in the house and everyone who knew my sister that entered in the house can say the same thing." "Oh, I recognize Sophie. On that picture, on that armchair, on that bed, and so on, and so on, and so on. And so each time we came, we had the same feeling. It's a place where you want to have peace, where you want to have quietness. And we have also the history of that terrible night. So it's important for us to come. It's a beautiful place. A father of two accused of taking part in violence and a "scuffle" with a journalist at an immigration protest outside the former Crown Paints site in Dublin has been sent forward for trial. Christopher Byrne, 27, of Marigold Crescent in Darndale, Dublin, was accused of violent disorder with others on the same occasion at the disused factory on Malahide Road in Coolock on April 6th last. Advertisement There has been turmoil in the area in response to the government's decision to use the disused factory to accommodate hundreds of international protection applicants. The landscape and construction worker was denied bail. He appeared again at Cloverhill District Court to be served with the prosecution's book of evidence. Judge Mark O'Connell noted the DPP directed the case to be dealt with on indictment in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, which has broader sentencing powers. He agreed to grant a return-for-trial order and told the accused the case would be listed on November 21st next. Advertisement Legal aid has been granted to Mr Byrne, who was warned to notify prosecutors if he will rely on alibi evidence in his defence. Gardai must also hand over copies of video evidence to his legal representatives. Earlier, Detective Garda Katie Lennon objected to bail, telling the court the journalist went to Coolock Garda station on April 6th to report the theft of his phone. She alleged footage appeared on social media of a person "in a scuffle with the Newstalk journalist". Gardai also obtained CCTV footage, the court heard. The offences carry a maximum sentence of ten years, but Mr Byrne has yet to indicate a plea, and the case will go to a jury trial if he contests the charges. Belgiums prime minister has blasted the Pope for the Catholic Churchs horrific legacy of clerical sex abuse and cover-ups, in a blistering welcome at the start of Franciss visit. Prime Minister Alexander De Croo demanded concrete steps to come clean with the past and put victims interests ahead of those of the institution. Advertisement The speech was one of the most pointed ever directed at the pope during a foreign trip, where the genteel dictates of diplomatic protocol usually keep outrage out of the public speeches. Pope Francis meets King Philippe and Queen Mathilde in the Castle of Laeken, Brussels (Andrew Medichini/AP) But even King Philippe had strong words for Francis, demanding the Church work incessantly to atone for the crimes and help victims heal. Advertisement Their tone underscored just how raw the abuse scandal still is in Belgium, where two decades of revelations of abuse and systematic cover-ups have devastated the hierarchys credibility and contributed to an overall decline in Catholicism and the influence of the once-powerful Catholic Church. Francis applauded at the end of Mr de Croos speech, and was expected to meet victims in private later. Today, words alone do not suffice. We also need concrete steps, Mr de Croo said. Victims need to be heard. They need to be at the centre. They have a right to truth. Misdeeds need to be recognised, he said in front of an audience of royals, church officials, diplomats and politicians at Laeken Castle, the residence of Belgiums royal family. Advertisement When something goes wrong we cannot accept cover-ups, Mr de Croo said. To be able to look into the future, the Church needs to come clean on its past. Revelations of Belgiums horrific abuse scandal have dribbled out in bits over a quarter of a century, punctuated by a bombshell in 2010, when the countrys longest-serving bishop, Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, was allowed to resign without punishment after admitting he had sexually abused his nephew for 13 years. Pope Francis with King Philippe and Queen Mathilde in the Castle of Laeken, Brussels (Andrew Medichini/AP) Advertisement Francis only defrocked Vangheluwe earlier this year, in a move clearly designed to remove a lingering source of outrage among Belgians before his visit. Outrage about Church sex abuse was reignited last year, when a four-episode Flemish documentary showed Belgian victims telling their stories on camera. Godvergeten (Godforsaken) aired on public broadcaster VRT in the weeks surrounding a royal visit to the Vatican during which Francis was invited to Belgium. Advertisement For the first time, Flemish viewers at home saw victims explain the scope of the scandal in their community, the depravity of the crimes, and the systematic cover-up by the Catholic hierarchy. Amid the public outrage that ensued, both a Flanders parliamentary committee and Belgiums federal parliament opened official inquests and heard months of evidence from victims, experts and the Catholic hierarchy. Their testimonies cast new attention on a scandal that had already been blamed for a steep decline in the Catholic Church over a generation in Belgium, where church authorities have stopped publishing weekly Mass attendance figures as the monthly rate sits in the single digits. The pope also referred to abuse in his remarks, insisting that the Church was addressing firmly and decisively the problem by implementing prevention programmes, listening to victims and accompanying them to heal. But after the astonishing dressing down by the prime minister and king, Francis went off-script to express the shame of the Church for the scandal and voice his commitment to ending it. Pope Francis listens to King Philippes address in the Grande Galerie of the Castle of Laeken, Brussels (Andrew Medichini/AP) The Church must be ashamed and ask forgiveness and try to resolve this problem, and put all the possibilities in place so that this doesnt happen again, Francis said. For even one (victim), we must ask forgiveness. Victims, however, have demanded the Church do far more, including implementing robust reparations programmes to compensate them for their trauma and pay for the lifelong therapy many need. Some penned a letter demanding such a reparations programme, which they planned to deliver to Francis in their private meeting. Boris Johnson had a manly pep talk with Britain's Prince Harry to try to persuade him not to leave the UK and move to the United States. According to the then-prime minister, Downing Street and Buckingham Palace asked him to talk to Harry in January 2020, hours after his speech announcing that he and his wife Meghan planned to step away from royal life. Advertisement Mr Johnson writes in his forthcoming memoir that there was a ridiculous business when they made me try to persuade Harry to stay. Kind of manly pep talk. Totally hopeless, The Daily Mail reported, ahead of a serialisation of the book. The men met for 20 minutes on the sidelines of a UK-Africa investment summit in Londons Docklands, according to the newspaper. Prince Harry (left) with Boris Johnson at the the UK-Africa Investment Summit (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Advertisement The serialisation of his book comes as the Conservative Party conference begins on Sunday, during which the four leadership candidates, Kemi Badenoch, Tom Tugendhat, Robert Jenrick and James Cleverly, will pitch themselves to the partys members. In his memoir, Mr Johnson will set out his views on the Tory machinations that brought about his exit from office in 2022 and give his opinions on his successors Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. The book will cover years in politics, including the run-up to the Brexit referendum and negotiations with the EU on the UKs divorce deal, the Covid-19 pandemic and the Partygate scandal. Mr Johnson became the first UK prime minister to receive a criminal penalty while in office, over Partygate, before the Chris Pincher scandal brought an avalanche of ministerial resignations and his exit from Downing Street. Advertisement In a video clip teasing the release, Mr Johnson said readers could also look forward to discovering which senior politician looks like a bullock having a thermometer shoved unexpectedly up his rectum and how I became obsessed with the weirdly shaped nostrils of a certain prime minister. The governor of Georgia says at least 11 people in his state have been killed and dozens are still trapped in homes damaged by Hurricane Helene. Governor Brian Kemp made the statement on Friday at a news conference. Advertisement He said authorities believe there are 115 structures with people trapped inside. Hurricane Helene will be a statewide event. For the next several days, keep devices charged with the sound on, be mindful of weather alerts and updates, and follow the links below for up-to-date emergency information. Governor Brian P. Kemp (@GovKemp) September 26, 2024 Advertisement The storm made landfall late on Thursday in Floridas sparsely populated Big Bend area, which is home to fishing villages and holiday homes. It is where the Panhandle and peninsula meet. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris holds a narrow lead over Republican rival Donald Trump in six US swing states and is tied in a seventh, according to a Bloomberg poll of likely voters released on Friday. Her leads in individual states are within the poll's statistical margin of error, underscoring that the November 5th contest could be decided by the narrowest of margins, it said. Advertisement The Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll shows Ms Harris leading by 7 percentage points in Nevada, 5 points in Pennsylvania, 3 points in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin, and 2 points in North Carolina. The two are tied in Georgia. Across the seven states, Ms Harris is ahead by 3 percentage points among likely voters, a lead that is 2 points higher than last month. In a sign of her recent momentum, some 47 per cent of likely voters think she will win the election, regardless of whether they back her, compared with the roughly 40 per cent who said Mr Trump would win. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll earlier this month showed Mr Trump's campaign vow to increase tariffs on imported goods has the support of a narrow majority of voters, illustrating his economic advantage over Ms Harris. Advertisement A New York Times poll of battleground states released on Monday showed Mr Trump was narrowly ahead in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. The Bloomberg poll said Mr Trump still maintained an advantage over Ms Harris on who would be better at handling the economy, but his lead is narrowing. His advantage was just 4 percentage points in the latest poll, down from 6 points in August. On the question of immigration, Mr Trump enjoys a 14-point trust advantage among likely voters, even though during a September 10th debate he amplified a false claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents' pets. The poll surveyed 6,165 registered voters in seven swing states and was conducted online from September 19th to September 25th. Likely voters totalled 5,692. For both registered and likely voters, the statistical margin of error is plus or minus 1 percentage point across the seven states. For the individual states, the margin of error was 3 percentage points in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and 4 points in Nevada. The Israeli military said it has carried out a precise strike on the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut. Army spokesman Daniel Hagari made the announcement in a televised address after the explosion in Beirut sent massive clouds of orange and black smoke billowing in the skies. Advertisement Ambulances were seen heading to the scene of the explosions, sirens wailing. Three major Israeli TV channels said Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target of the strikes. But the unsourced reports could not immediately be confirmed by The Associated Press, and the army declined comment. But given the size and timing of the blast, there were strong indications that a high-value target may have been inside the buildings struck. The strike came an hour after thousands of people attended the funeral of a top Hezbollah commander who was killed the day before. Advertisement Hezbollah members carry the coffin of drone commander Mohammed Hussein Surour (Bilal Hussein/AP) Earlier in the day, an Israeli airstrike killed a family of nine in a Lebanese border village, authorities said, as Lebanon struggled to deal with a rising death toll, a wave of tens of thousands fleeing their homes and the possibility of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah. As the two sides continued to trade fire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed world leaders at the UN, vowing continue degrading Hezbollah until Israel achieves its goals along the Lebanon border, further dimming hopes for an internationally backed ceasefire. Advertisement Israel dramatically intensified its airstrikes in Lebanon this week, saying it is determined to put an end to more than 11 months of Hezbollah fire into its territory. The scope of Israels operation remains unclear, but officials have said a ground invasion to push the militant group away from the border is a possibility. Israel has moved thousands of troops toward the border in preparation. Emergency workers use excavators to clear the rubble at the site of Fridays Israeli strike in Beiruts southern suburbs (Bilal Hussein/AP) Advertisement That has Lebanese fearing a repeat of the last Israel-Hezbollah war, in 2006, which lasted a month and wreaked heavy destruction over parts of their country. Or worse, they fear, Lebanon could suffer devastation on the scale wreaked in Gaza by Israels nearly year-long campaign against Hamas. At least 25 people were killed in Israeli strikes early on Friday, health minister Firass Abiad said, bringing the death toll in Lebanon this week to more than 720. He said the dead included dozens of women and children. Advertisement The Israeli military said it carried out dozens of strikes over the course of two hours around the south on Friday, including in the cities of Sidon and Nabatiyeh. It said it was targeting Hezbollah rocket launchers and infrastructure. It said Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets toward the northern Israeli city of Tiberias. New York, US (PANA) - The call for a more inclusive and representative Security Council resonated loud and clear at the UN General Assembly on Thursday, as African leaders demanded global powers address the longstanding inequity in the Councils composition Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his leadership strained by conflicts on two fronts, took to the UN General Assembly podium and said he was there to refute the untruths he had heard from other leaders on the same rostrum earlier in the week. Mr Netanyahu, armed with visual aids as he has been in the past, defended his nations response to the October 7 2023 attacks by Hamas on Israel that triggered an Israeli military operation that has devastated the Gaza Strip. Advertisement I didnt intend to come here this year. My country is at war fighting for its life, Mr Netanyahu said. Israelii Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (Richard Drew/AP) But after I heard the lies and slanders levelled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight. Advertisement He insisted that Israel wanted peace but said of Iran: If you strike us, we will strike you. Mr Netanyahu once again blamed Iran for being behind many of the problems in the region. Israels campaign in Gaza has killed more than 41,500 Palestinians and wounded more than 96,000 others, according to the latest figures released on Thursday by the Health Ministry. The ministry, part of Gazas Hamas government, does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but more than half the dead have been women and children, including about 1,300 children under the age of two. Advertisement In recent days, Israel has turned its attention to the border with Lebanon, where it is targeting Hezbollah militants and has inflicted civilian casualties as well. Hezbollah began attacking Israel almost immediately after the Hamas invasion, and ongoing fighting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group has driven tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border. Israel is vowing to step up its attacks on Hezbollah until its citizens can return safely to their homes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the UN General Assembly (Pamela Smith/AP) Advertisement Late on Wednesday, the United States, France and other allies jointly called for an immediate 21-day ceasefire to allow for negotiations as fears grow that the violent escalation in recent days following 11 months of cross-border exchange of fire could grow into an all-out war. The United Nations says more than 90,000 people have been displaced by five days of Israeli strikes on Lebanon, bringing the total to 200,000 people who have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas after it stormed into Israel, sparking the Israel-Hamas war. Israel has maintained its military operations are justified and are necessary to defend itself. Advertisement As Mr Netanyahu took to the stage, there was enough ruckus in the audience that the presiding diplomat had to shout: Order, please. The two speakers who preceded Mr Netanyahu on Friday each made a point of calling out Israel for its actions. Mr Netanyahu, stop this war now, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said as he closed his remarks, pounding the podium. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, speaking just before the Israeli leader, declared of Gaza: This is not just a conflict. This is systematic slaughter of innocent people of Palestine. He thumped the rostrum to audible applause. Justin Johnson was found guilty of murder in the death of rapper Young Dolph on Thursday after the jury heard testimony from a co-defendant that the killing was part of a feud between rival record labels. Jurors deliberated for just under four hours before finding Johnson guilty of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and being a felon in possession of a gun. Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Jennifer Mitchell sentenced him to life in prison. Advertisement Johnsons co-defendant Cornelius Smith said that rapper Yo Gottis brother, Anthony Big Jook Mims, had put out a 100,000 dollar hit on Young Dolph and had also put bounties on all the artists at Young Dolphs record label, Paper Route Empire. Smith said he and Johnson set out on the morning of November 17 2021, looking for somebody and didnt know who we were going to catch. They knew that Young Dolph and some of his artists were participating in a Thanksgiving turkey giveaway, so they were heading in that direction when they saw Young Dolphs car. They followed him to a Memphis cookie shop and opened fire in broad daylight, Smith said. Young Dolph was hit 22 times and died at the scene. Advertisement Rapper Young Dolph was shot 22 times in broad daylight and died at the scene (Paul R Giunta/Invision/AP) Deputy District Attorney Paul Hagerman, in opening statements, told jurors that Young Dolph, whose real name was Adolph Thornton Jr, was determined to make it on his own as an artist and also with his own label. Trying to make it on your own can create enemies, Mr Hagerman said. Advertisement He noted that Cocaine Muzik Group (now known as Collective Music Group), a rival record label founded by Yo Gotti, wanted Young Dolph to work for them, but he turned them down. Young Dolph later wrote diss tracks directed at the label, its artists, and its number two person, Big Jook. Big Jook was shot and killed outside a restaurant earlier this year. Smith is also charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder and has pleaded not guilty. Advertisement In addition to Smiths evidence, prosecutors presented a mountain of circumstantial evidence, including from surveillance cameras and Johnsons own cell phone. Johnson had pleaded not guilty, and defence attorney Luke Evans said in closing arguments that the videos only prove that someone wearing similar clothing to Johnson shot Young Dolph. Mr Evans told the jury that Smith would say anything to try to save himself. Defendant Justin Johnson was sentenced to life in prison (George Walker IV/AP) Advertisement Cornelius Smith is lying from start to finish, Mr Evans said. Mr Evans also noted that Smiths fingerprints were found in the getaway car but Johnsons were not. He said there was no proof that Justin Johnson got a penny, while Smith testified he received 800 dollars before he was arrested and his defence attorney later received another 50,000 dollars. Mr Hagerman countered that the video and mobile phone evidence corroborated Smiths story. They included calls between Smith and Johnson shortly before the killing and a call between Johnson and Big Jook immediately after. Also testifying was Jermarcus Johnson, who pleaded guilty in June 2023 to three counts of serving as an accessory after the killing by helping Smith and Justin Johnson, his half-brother. Jermarcus Johnson has acknowledged helping the two communicate by mobile phone while they were on the run from authorities. He has not been sentenced. Hernandez Govan, whom Smith identified as a go-between with Big Jook, has pleaded not guilty to organising the killing. Young Dolph began his career by releasing numerous mixtapes, starting with 2008s Paper Route Campaign. His multiple studio albums include his 2016 debut King of Memphis and he also collaborated on other mixtapes and albums with fellow rappers Key Glock, Megan Thee Stallion, TI, Gucci Mane, 2 Chainz and others. He had three albums reach the top 10 on the Billboard 200, with 2020s Rich Slave peaking at number four. Sir Keir Starmer met with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during the UK prime ministers visit to New York. On Thursday, Mr Starmer visited Trump Tower for talks ahead of Novembers US election. Advertisement Mr Starmer said he wanted to meet Mr Trump face to face because Im a great believer in personal relationships on the world stage. The meeting has the potential to be diplomatically awkward, not just because of Mr Trumps bombastic style but also because Mr Starmer has not been able to schedule a similar appointment with Democratic candidate and vice president Kamala Harris. UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York (Leon Neal/PA) Advertisement Ahead of the meeting, Mr Starmer told reporters: Ive said a number of times, I want to meet both candidates. Weve now got the opportunity to meet Trump, which is good. Obviously, I still want to speak to Harris as well. But you know, the usual diary challenges, but its good that this one now has been fixed. Advertisement Itll be really to establish a relationship between the two of us. Im a great believer in personal relations on the international stage. I think it really matters that you know who your counterpart is in any given country, and know them personally, get to know them face to face. UK foreign secretary David Lammy who called Mr Trump a racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser in 2017 and promised to protest on the streets if he visited the UK also attended the Trump Tower meeting. Advertisement Re: Daily Mail story today. Yes, if Trump comes to the UK I will be out protesting on the streets. He is a racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser. David Lammy (@DavidLammy) September 26, 2017 Advertisement Speaking at a press conference before they met, Mr Trump said he thought Mr Starmer was very nice. He said: I actually think hes very nice. He ran a great race, he did very well, its very early, hes very popular. The presidential candidate added praise for Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. He said: I think Nigel is great, Ive known him for a long time. He had a great election too, picked up a lot of seats, more seats than he was allowed to have actually. They acknowledged that he won but for some reason you have a strange system over there, you might win them but you dont get them. (PA Graphics) Mr Starmer said the UK embassy team, led by ambassador Dame Karen Pierce, has got good relations with both camps and has had for a long time. So its not the sort of start of something, its the continuation of those good relations that have been there with both camps, and thats a really good thing that the embassy has been doing. US vice president Kamala Harris (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Asked whether he would be prepared to stand up to Mr Trump on issues such as support for Ukraine, Mr Starmer said: The first thing I think is important to say in relation to this is weve obviously had a special relationship with the US for a long time, forged in really difficult circumstances. That always sits above whoever holds the particular office, either in the US or the UK. And it is really important. I think its probably as strong now as its ever been, in relation to the Middle East and Ukraine. And youve seen how closely Ive been working with the US in relation to both of those issues. The US people will decide who they want as their president, and we will work with whoever is president, as you would expect. Im not going to speculate on what any particular issues may be the other side of the election. Sir Keir Starmer said he was prepared to be ribbed over the sausages gaffe in his Labour conference speech. The UK prime minister butchered a call for Hamas to release the hostages in Gaza, instead demanding the return of the sausages before swiftly correcting himself. Advertisement Asked about the mistake he told reporters: I just mangled the beginning of the word. Advertisement He added: These things are there to give you all the opportunity to rib me. The blunder in his conference speech on Tuesday was swiftly picked up on social media. Keir Starmer uses his first big speech as Prime Minister to call for the return of the sausages pic.twitter.com/kl99t6z4nK Advertisement Conservatives (@Conservatives) September 24, 2024 The Conservatives posted on X: Keir Starmer uses his first big speech as Prime Minister to call for the return of the sausages. Securing a closer trading relationship with the European Union will not be easy but it is possible, Sir Keir Starmer said. The UK prime minister will head to Brussels next week for talks with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen as he pushes for a reset in the UKs relationship with the EU. Advertisement Mr Starmer also believes more can be done on defence and security and tackling the migrant crisis. Dear @Keir_Starmer, good to see you in the margins of @UN General Assembly. Looking forward to welcoming you at the @EU_Commission in Brussels next week to discuss the reset of EU-UK relations. pic.twitter.com/IdRsYwd6vV Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) September 25, 2024 Advertisement I want to ensure that weve got a closer trading relationship if we can, the UK prime minister said. I think its possible. Im not going to pretend its easy, but I think its possible. Advertisement Asked what he wanted to achieve, he told reporters: This is the beginning of quite a long process and therefore its far too early to get into any specifics. But look, can we do more on defence and security together? Yes, I think we can. Can we do more on border security? Yes I think we can. That needs to be done and can be done in a closer relationship with the EU in addition to the bilateral work that Ive already started with France, Germany and Italy, and of course a closer trading relationship. I want to make it easier for businesses to trade because I think that is in the interest of the UK. Advertisement I want to reset our relationship with the EU and make Brexit work for the British people. Looking forward to visiting Brussels next week to start discussions with @vonderleyen. pic.twitter.com/WZ2TQWZato Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) September 25, 2024 Advertisement The EU has proposed a youth mobility scheme for 18-30-year-olds as part of a deal with the UK, but Mr Starmer has resisted anything that could be seen as the reintroduction of free movement. Reports have suggested the EU could water down its initial proposals to make them more acceptable to Mr Starmer. But the prime minister said: Weve no plans for a youth mobility scheme. Its previous peak volume for the past 12 months was 2.09 million shares swapping hands on May 14. With such whopping volume on the day, it was no surprise to see the stock burst out of the blocks after the halt was lifted, hitting an intraday high of 48c. After closing last week at 21.5c, that made for a stellar weekly gain of more than 123 per cent. The companys plan is to ship manganese ore produced at its Butcherbird mine in the south of Western Australias Pilbara region, to the Louisiana facility for processing. The award negotiations process begins once DOE notifies a successful applicant of their projects selection. Negotiations allow the DOEs Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations and the selected applicant to develop an understanding of the scope of the project, the projects budget, the requirements of the agreement and to ensure the applicant has the necessary financial systems and policies and procedures in place to manage such an award. Now, if you loyal readers thought we could go a week writing this column without mentioning the pin-up metal of the month antimony you would be mistaken. At least that appears to be the case while it remains front-and-centre in many company announcements. And it certainly gave junior mining company West Cobar Metals a decent shot in the arm this week. The company disclosed on Tuesday that recent diamond drilling at its Bulla Park project, which sits some 110km west of the mining town of Cobar in central-western New South Wales, encountered a 190m-thick intersection grading 0.08 per cent antimony and 0.23 per cent copper from 128m. Cobar is also known as the copper city as it was once Australias biggest producer of the red metal. Selected hits from West Cobars latest program included 1m at 0.55 per cent antimony and 1.04 per cent copper from 204m, in addition to 66m running 0.13 per cent antimony, 0.34 per cent copper and 7 grams per tonne silver from 200m. The impressive hits followed previous results of 33m going 0.15 per cent antimony and 0.47 per cent copper from 229m, bolstering managements confidence in the presence of a sizeable antimony-copper system at the site. Market punters seemed to agree, propelling the shares that were priced at 2.7c at last Fridays close to an opening price of 5c. They then ran to 5.5c, producing a gain of more than 103 per cent from Fridays close. Volumes set an all-time high for the companys stock, with 26.6 million shares changing hands, followed by solid trading numbers on Wednesday of 2.3 million units. After China imposed export restrictions on the military-use alloy, which is known for strengthening bullets and other equipment, the lustrous grey metal has taken off on a run like a stallion let loose from its paddock. The latest pricing has antimony trading near US$23,000 (AU$33,400) per tonne, a gain of more than 100 per cent for the year. Junior gas hopeful Emperor Energy also had the market sitting up and taking notice when it revealed a double-banger of an announcement that it had raised $1.25 million from three of Australias leading small-resources investment funds and appointed broking firm Argonaut to bring a consortium of heavy-hitters together to develop the companys 100 per cent-owned Judith-2 well within the Judith Gas Field exploration permit area in Victorias Offshore Gippsland Basin. Emperor Energy is seeking a consortium of heavy-hitters to help fund the development of its prospective permits in the Judith Gas Field in the Offshore Gippsland Basin in Victoria. Regal Funds Management, Perennial Value Management and Nero Resource Fund will assume substantial shareholder status with their investments, post approval of the second-tranche placement, taking them past the 5 per cent share ownership threshold. All three will be licking their lips at securing shares for a slightly-discounted 0.7c, after the news sent the stock that closed on Friday at 0.8c to a high of 1.7c on Thursday, for a mighty leap of 112.5 per cent. Market punters must have also been tickled pink, as unlike many small companies which see share prices shoot skywards only to watch them then plummet to earth just as quickly after a big announcement, Emperors price has continued to rise since its latest disclosure. At a price of 1.4c at Mondays close, after its highest daily volume for more than two years with a huge 22.1 million shares changing ownership, the price reached 1.5c on the next two trading days before touching 1.7c on Thursday. It was still trading at the same level Friday morning at the time of writing. Management believes the Judith-2 well and the greater Judith Gas Field has the potential to supply south-eastern Australia with a new source of gas supply. The price of gold has continued to surge in the past week, up almost three per cent at one stage, in addition to its stellar gain this year of nearly 30 per cent. So, when you declare a big exploration target for a project that previously focused on other commodities, the markets gold bugs will raise an eyebrow in interest. Aspiring goldie Neometals did just that this week and caught the wave of positive sentiment for the shiny yellow metal, rising a solid 80.23 per cent from last weeks 8.6c close to touch 15.5c on Thursday on good volumes. It came after management revealed it had dusted off historical data to unveil a new WA gold strategy at its Barrambie project that previously produced 27,000 ounces at 27.8g/t. The regions rich titanium and vanadium reserves has left the areas potential for gold largely unexamined. However, the company says recent rock-chip samples that threw up grades from 5.1g/t to as high as 44g/t, has prompted it to pivot back to the yellow metal and it now views it as the companys priority commodity. Neometals believes the results, corroborating historical grades, indicate camp-scale potential where multiple deposits across the belt could contribute to a much bigger, untapped gold resource. It has delineated an exploration target for Barrambie ranging between 8 million tonnes at 1.3g/t of gold to 10.5Mt at 2.3g/t, translating to a potential of between 335,000 and 775,000 ounces. Still, punters need to be aware it is only a conceptual target, with more exploration required to establish a formal resource. A further positive for Neometals share price was that the European Union (EU) recently delivered a crucial endorsement for its vanadium recovery project (VRP) in Finland, co-funding part of the companys bid to become Europes first vanadium producer. The funding deal for the project that refines waste from steelmaking into the valuable vanadium battery metal was executed with Germanys EU-backed EIT RawMaterials and could be worth up to some AU$42.3 million. In closing, it is fair to say that we here at Runners love to see a company going back-to-back and securing consecutive appearances in our esteemed weekly column. After appearing in both our Runners and Big Hits columns last week, Mithril Silver and Gold has once again captured the markets full attention this week, taking another giant leap forward with its share price climbing again, this time from 37c to hit a high of 81.5c. The magnitude of Mithrils run in the past few weeks justifies the high level of interest that is maintained in the small-cap resources sector. Sitting at 12.5c on September 13, a series of announcements from the company sent its share price on an absolute tear to hit the 81.5c on Wednesday, eight trading days later. The 552 per cent increase in the share price within such a short timeframe proves there is money to be made if you put it into the right companies, before and even shortly after their game-changing reveal. Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au The big threes unwanted mines have ended up in the hands of billionaire Indonesian families, a rich Czech businessman, Chinese state-controlled enterprises and a former Wesfarmers coal salesman sometimes selling cheaply because of a paucity of buyers. But they are still producing greenhouse gases under their new owners who dont have to deal with shareholders, arent necessarily concerned about climate change or the stigma of trading fossil fuels, and are intent on wringing large profits from their investments in what time remains for the industry. The fact that coal is moving into often more costly private markets shows the success in making it a toxic investment. Axel Dalman, head of research with activist investor group Market Forces South32, a $13.6 billion ASX behemoth spun off from BHP in 2015, last month finalised a $2.48 billion deal to sell its Illawarra Metallurgical Coal business. It was a milestone, as Illawarra was the last coal mine in its portfolio. South32s boss Graham Kerr has previously stated the miner was selling its coal assets to cut its carbon- emission profile mines leak coal seam gas into the atmosphere and focus on commodities critical to the decarbonisation and electrification of the worlds economies, such as zinc and copper. He told analysts several weeks ago: I do believe absolutely that Illawarra has been a very good deal for us in terms of reducing complexity, lowered our sustaining capital intensity, [and] strengthened our balance sheet. A Stanmore Coal mine at Moranbah, inland of Mackay in Queensland. Credit: Glenn Hunt The black rock dug out of Illawarra that supplies Bluescopes Port Kembla Steelworks, the countrys largest manufacturer and supplier of flat steel, is now owned by Golden Energy and Resources and M Resources. Golden Energy and Resources is controlled through a number of entities by Indonesias wealthy Widjaja family, who also have other coal interests in Australia. M Resources is headed up by Queenslander Matt Latimore, a Ferrari-collecting father-of-six, avid wildlife photographer, and former Wesfarmers coal salesman. Latimore, with an estimated wealth of $450 million, runs the hugely successful metallurgical coal marketing and trading business, M Resources, and is behind a string of transactions involving the former coal assets of major Australian miners. Latimore has stakes in multiple coal mines, the underground mining company Metarock and a substantial portion of One Rail, an east-coast coal haulage business. Loading The Widjaja familys company also has a 60 per cent stake in Stanmore Resources, an ASX-listed coal miner where Latimore is a board member while also holding an interest of almost 5 per cent. Stanmore snapped up BHP Mitsuis three coal mines in Queenslands Bowen Basin two years ago, buying out the resource giants 80 per cent share of the joint venture for about $1.8 billion. That deal left the worlds biggest miner with seven high-grade metallurgical coal mines in the Bowen Basin, despite having substantially whittled down its exposure. BHP has since divested another two Australian mines. We continue to focus our steelmaking coal operations on high-quality product and have one of the lowest greenhouse gas emission production intensities of benchmarked export steelmaking coal mines. We believe a wholesale shift away from the blast furnace process for steelmaking is decades in the future, the company said. BHPs deal with Stanmore made the Indonesian conglomerate one of the largest global producers of metallurgical coal, said Fuganto Widjaja, whose interests span forestry to financial services. And Widjajas business has grown since then. The company added more Bowen Basin coal to its portfolio in February when it took over South32s half share in the Eagle Downs mines. Rio Tinto, too, has made a string of sales to Indonesian interests. Its Mount Pleasant thermal coal mine passed into the hands of MACH Energy Australia in 2016 for $244 million, a company ultimately owned by the Salim family, who made their fortune from instant noodles. Two years later, PT Adaro Energy, a major Indonesian coal company majority-owned by the Thohir and Soeryadjaya families, took a hefty chunk of Rios Kestrel Coal Mine, alongside the resources-focused private equity firm, EMR Capital. Indonesias wealthy families are not the only acquisitive billionaires sniffing big profits in Australias coal sector who are willing to go where other investors fear to tread. Coal soared above $US430 ($625) a tonne in late 2022, generating bumper profits for miners as Europes energy crisis boosted sales at inflated prices. It has since settled lower at current rates around $US135 a tonne. A little know Czech businessman, Pavel Tykac, is also quietly building a coal empire. Czech entrepreneur and investor Pavel Tykac. Credit: Michaela Pollock Tykac rose from obscurity as a computer distributor to rapidly accumulate a billion dollar fortune in the Czech energy sector by taking advantage of the 1990s privatisation era through his investment company Sev.en Global Investments. His wealth, valued about $12 billion by Forbes, has been generated by running cut-price coal mines and energy firms. More recently, Sev.en has pushed into Australia, buying Vales Point coal-fired power station and Chain Valley mine in NSW, the Lake Way potash project in Western Australia, and holding minority stakes in Queenslands Callide C and Millmerran power stations. Loading But an ambitious bid by Tykac to get control of $1.65 billion ASX-listed coal miner Coronado Global Resources fell over in June after he failed to get Foreign Investment Review Board approval within time to acquire 51 per cent of Coronados shares owned by Houston-based private equity firm, Energy & Minerals Group. We deploy our private capital into higher risk opportunities offering strong risk-adjusted returns, the company states on its website. Australia remains at the centre of our interest, Sev.en said in response to questions from this masthead. Coal remains an essential commodity, without which the energy system is currently unable to function. Latimores deal making isnt slowing either. He has already passed on two thirds of his Illawarra coal stake to Indias top steelmaker JSW Steel for $175 million, a transaction that secures the Indian giant access to a future stream of coking coal. JSW is controlled by its 60-year-old reclusive billionaire chairman Sajjan Jindal. The Queensland trader says he is not a climate sceptic. Producing steel using metallurgical coal is critical to an orderly energy transition, he said. Advertisement Eating outFood The exciting Brisbane restaurants and bars still to open in 2024 Theres a stack of openings to come before the end of the year. Heres what were looking forward to ticking off. Matt Shea September 27, 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 Its almost October, but theres still a stack of restaurant and bar openings to come in 2024, from glitzy, elevated diners at The Star, to a homely neighbourhood eatery in West End. Heres what were most looking forward to. Central A Hong Kong-themed dumpling restaurant from the team behind Southside and Rick Shores should be enough to get your attention the fact its hidden underground in the middle of the CBD and has been designed by Jared Webb (Gerards Bistro) only helps seal the deal. Centrals Maui Manu, Benny Lam and David Flynn Morgan Roberts On the menu will be dim sum, wok and barbecued dishes. Advertisement For drinks, there will be a wine list that leans into interesting drops by the glass and half bottle (via Coravin), and a cocktail list that twists the classics. Southside team to open Hong Kong-inspired dumpling spot in heart of CBD Central will open in October and seat 80 diners. Azteca From Potentia Solutions Leisure (Soko, Lina) comes Azteca, which will open mid-to-late October and fuse Latin American and Asian cuisine. Advertisement The 126-seat Azteca will be located on the Queens Wharf developments fourth-floor Terrace. Supplied The 126-seat restaurant will sit on Queens Wharfs fourth-floor Terrace and feature fabric and tiled walls, mosaic and Aztec-inspired artwork, live greenery, custom-made brass tables, and semi-private circular dining booths. Exclusive First look: Soko team unveils an Aztec-inspired eatery for Queens Wharf Drinks will centre around a cocktail list that matches Latin American spirits to Asian spices and flavours. Stans Advertisement Stans will permanently take over the upper floor of hit Cantonese restaurant Stanley at Howard Smith Wharves. Stanley chef and co-owner Louis Tikaram. Supplied Expect a glamorous, dark and moody lounge bar decked out in rich jewel tones, timber accents, antique mirrored wall panels and dark emerald velvet curtains. For cocktails, there will be modern interpretations of the classics, including a signature martini menu, powered by a backbar stocked with rare and vintage spirits. Co-owner and chef Louis Tikaram has written a menu of Cantonese-inspired snacks and the venue will feature a vintage JBL sound system, with DJs spinning most nights of the week. Its set to open next week. Dark Shepherd Advertisement Tassis Group (already on a march this year, having opened Longwang and Fat Cow) will in late October unveil Dark Shepherd a lamb-focused, Mediterranean restaurant on The Terrace at Queens Wharf. Dark Shepherd will open in late October at Queens Wharf. Supplied Seafood will also be an integral part of the menu, with most of the dishes prepared over wood fire. Go-to Tassis designer Clui has drawn up a restaurant that will feature a sunken dining area, a private dining room and live oyster shucking station. Accompanying the food will be a 150-bottle wine list focussing on Mediterranean drops. Pompette Advertisement Also from Tassis Group at Queens Wharf will be Pompette, a French champagne bar and restaurant. Pompettes Michael Tassis and chef Jean-Luc Morcellet. Pompette's Michael Tassis and chef Jean-Luc Morcellet. It will feature Parisian-inspired interiors with a champagne and oyster bar, plus a leafy al fresco area and three private dining rooms. Pompette will serve modern interpretations of traditional French dishes such as escargot and steak au poivre. The French-focused wine list will run close to 300 bottles, and include between 40 and 50 bottles of champagne. August Advertisement Former Bar Francine chef Brad Cooper is teaming up with his partner Matilda Riek to create August, an intimate Euro-focused diner set inside a heritage church on Dornoch Terrace in West End. Matilda Riek and Brad Cooper inside the 19th-century church that will become August in November. Markus Ravik Once complete, expect a 60-seat restaurant with a small bar in the corner for walk-in counter dining. There will also be works by local artists on the walls. For food, Cooper says he doesnt want to be locked into any particular cuisine but to expect a mostly European-driven menu with plenty of meat and seafood proteins, plus offal. Exclusive One of citys best young chefs to open restaurant in heritage church Advertisement Drinks will involve a short wine list between 30 and 50 bottles that mix local and international drops and a clutch of classic, simple cocktails and mixed drinks. Luc Lac Opening in by the end of the year at Queens Wharf is Luc Lac, a 159-seat, an Indochine-inspired restaurant and bar from Ghanem Group (Donna Chang, Blackbird et al). Luc Lac will open on The Terrace at The Star by the end of the year. Supplied A menu inspired by Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore will be served in a subtropical themed dining room that features booth seating for up to 58 guests, with another 46 guests accommodated outside. Advertisement There will also be counter dining at the bar for 55 diners. For drinks, there will be classic cocktails twisted with Asian ingredients and a globe-trotting wine list. Mademoiselle Harry Ohayon and Maxime Bournazel, best known for Rise Bakery at Portside Wharf, are opening another venue in the precinct, Mademoiselle, which will be unveiled towards the end of the year. Mademoiselle owners Harry Ohayon and Maxime Bournazel. Supplied The fit-out will involve bold colours, plenty of marble and stone, and booth seating. There will also be 100 square metres of al fresco space for outside dining. Advertisement As you might expect, Mademoiselle will serve French cuisine with a particular focus on rotisserie meats and gourmet salads. Wines will favour French drops with plenty of champagne. Cucina Regina Set to be one of the jewels in The Stars Terrace dining precinct is Cucina Regina, a sister venue to Cucina Vivo on the Gold Coast and Cucina Porto in Sydney. Cucina Regina is due to open in November. Supplied Food will be elevated Italian comfort food such as antipasto, woodfired pizzas and homemade pasta, with drinks focusing on Italian wines and cocktails. The venues Tom Mark Henry design will feature bold textiles, pops of colour and local art on the walls. The 160-seater is due to open in November. LOUISE FLETCHER, 1934-2022 Louise Fletcher gained cinematic immortality through her portrayal of the terrifyingly cold and manipulative Nurse Ratched in Milos Formans 1975 adaptation of Ken Keseys novel One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, in which she was memorably opposed by Jack Nicholson as RP McMurphy, a small-time crook incarcerated in a mental hospital who attempts to lead a rebellion against her authority. Louise Fletcher holds the Academy Award she won for her leading role in One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest in 1976 Credit: AP While the film proved an enormous success it became only the second film to make a clean sweep of the five most prestigious prizes at the 1976 Academy Awards, including that of best actress for Fletcher it also proved the sole high point in a career which saw her talents sadly wasted by an industry that seemed to have no place for her. Estelle Louise Fletcher was born on July 22, 1934, in Birmingham, Alabama, the daughter of an Episcopalian minister and his wife. Both her parents were deaf and Louise was taught to speak by an aunt who also encouraged her interest in acting. On graduating from the University of North Carolina, she travelled in the late 1950s to Los Angeles, where she took an office job while studying acting at night. Meanwhile, worldwide, rhesus macaques are poisoned with a brain-damaging toxin to simulate Parkinsons in the hunt for a cure. Mice are electrified, starved, turned transparent, hooked on meth, spliced with cancerous tumours and infected with flesh-eating ulcers. Zebrafish are given melanoma and mental disorders, while the lungs, hearts and kidneys of pigs have been transplanted into baboons (the Sydney colony is involved in such experiments). Although the details can be confronting, the vast majority of life-saving medical triumphs, from cancer treatments to the curtailing of HIV, are built on such work. But fear of backlash keeps many scientists from speaking openly about their methods, blunting the publics chance to understand why animal research is needed and hampering open debate. Activists hold a monthly vigil out the front of RPA hospital opposing forms of animal research including xenotransplantation. Credit: Rhett Wyman Transparency: A fairly crazy state of affairs Its never easy, where you have a culture of people feeling that the best way to protect themselves and their work and their livelihoods is to keep quiet and hope that nobody pays them too much attention, said Bella Lear, chief executive of Understanding Animal Research Oceania, which advocates for the role of animals in research. One of the things that I think is really important is to have national statistics around the use of animals in research that are actually meaningful. Currently, everything is done on a state-by-state basis, so Australia doesnt even really know how many animals it uses in research. Thats a fairly crazy state of affairs. In NSW, nearly 2.3 million animals were killed between 2010 and 2022 in research procedures (of which 91 per cent were anaesthetised beforehand). About 680,000 underwent some kind of surgery, and 545,000 were subjected to a moderate or large degree of distress, including pain or isolation. According to the latest annual figures for NSW, 42 primates underwent surgery during experiments in 2022. Just under 50,000 animals (mostly fish, guinea pigs and mice) fell under the animal unconscious without recovery category, which includes those euthanised for dissection and others anaesthetised, experimented on and then killed before they regain consciousness. About 6500 animals, mostly mice, were part of death as an endpoint experiments, where animals die as part of the procedure. Lethality testing, for example, involves exposing animals to a substance and seeing how many die to determine its toxicity. The 2021 inquiry heard evidence that animal testing was crucial to life-saving treatments including gene therapies and the fast-tracking of COVID-19 vaccines, which were tested on monkeys early in the pandemic. But it also led to the banning of two types of experiments involving rats and mice due to cruelty concerns. One was the forced swim test, where rats or mice are placed in a tank of water to see how long they struggle until becoming immobile (about six minutes for mice, 15 for rats) to model depression, with the idea that treatment with antidepressants should see the animals swim for longer before giving up. The other ban targeted experiments where animals are restrained and forced to inhale smoke. Rats, mice, guinea pigs and zebrafish are all commonly used animals in the lab. Credit: iStock Lear believes the NSW ban, which went through in March, was unnecessary given the National Health and Medical Research Council had already issued a statement last December banning the use of the swim test as a model of human depression and most forced smoke inhalation experiments. My problem with the particular legislation that went through in NSW was that it overrode that guidance and brought in a legislative ban on top of the guidance. So essentially, it overrode the scientific decision, and it took a political decision that trumped it, she said. Sydney research centre the Centenary Institute told Cosmos in January it was disappointed by the NHMRC ban, which affected its research into respiratory diseases such as emphysema, asthma and pulmonary fibrosis. Smoke tests are warranted, in some cases, as a mechanism for studying one of the biggest drivers of cancer in humans, said Professor Brian Oliver from UTS and the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research. Testing tobacco on mice was banned in his native UK more than two decades ago. But in the same breath, they freely allow cancer models in mice, Oliver said. So youre allowed to pump a mouse full of carcinogens to induce a cancer they wouldnt normally get, and thats okay, but the smoke exposure isnt. So you have a bit of a paradox there as to whats allowable and what isnt. Oliver, a respiratory researcher, recently studied the effect of vape smoke on pregnant mice and found the pups were born with chronic lung inflammation, bad kidneys and livers, and neurological issues. The research posed an important challenge to obstetricians in Britain and Europe, who urged women who smoked to swap to vaping during pregnancy. Whether youre doing research on animals or humans, youve got to ask yourself whether what youre doing is ethical and whether the risks that are taken are justified, he said, adding scientists were not without empathy for the animals in their experiments. If something happens and an animals suffering, Ive seen researchers cry. Ethics, organoids, and sci-fi tech Ethics committees made up of a vet, researcher, animal welfare expert and a layperson approve all animal experiments in NSW. Theyre tasked with ensuring research adheres to the triple R maxim, which urges scientists to reduce animal testing, refine experiments to minimise pain and distress, and replace animal use where possible. Those goals should become easier with a new $4.5 million program launched in July by Medical Research Minister David Harris called the Non-Animal Technologies Network (NAT-Net), a group of research institutions working towards boosting the development of new models such as organoids. These blobs of human tissue grown from stem cells mimic brains, hearts, livers and lungs in miniature. Organoids are used in a range of medical research these are tiny bundles of brain cells. Credit: The University of Queensland/AIBN The NAT-Net came off the back of a CSIRO report that found such technologies could generate $1.5 billion and 5000 jobs. Testing directly on human cells offered scientific advantages, not just ethical, said Greg Williams, who leads the CSIROs health and biosecurity consulting portfolio. The potential quality of these new technologies is enough to stand on its own as a reason to pursue it, Greg Williams, who leads the CSIROs health and biosecurity consulting portfolio, said. They can be better than animal models. They can, in theory, be cheaper and faster. Associate Professor Adam Hill from the Victor Chang Institute one of the foundational partners of NAT-Net studies heart arrhythmia using human tissues grown from stem cells along with computational or in silico models to predict which drugs might induce heart flutters as a side effect. Associate Professor Adam Hill mapping arrhythmias using engineered heart tissue grown from stem cells. Credit: The Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute Both of those toolboxes, if you will, fall under the umbrella of non-animal technology, he said. Hills team grows segments of heart tissue into centimetre-wide sheets large enough to study the spiral of electrical activity that induces heart arrhythmia. Associate Professor Anai Gonzalez-Cordero from the Childrens Medical Research Institute, another NAT-Net partner, plans to take Hills heart tissue organoids and add blood vessels. Bit by bit, the network hopes to graft different organoids together to create multi-system models of human biology. The first scientific question the groups that form the network will address is: can we evolve this technology even further and put organs together? Gonzalez-Cordero said. Another option was organ on a chip technology the most sci-fi advance, Williams said. The devices resemble computer chips with channels carved into them that host human cells, and researchers can use them to simulate the chemistry of organs and tissues. Looks like a USB, acts like an organ: the blood vessel on a chip unveiled by Sydney scientists earlier this year that could be used to test new drugs for heart disease. Credit: Charles Perkins Centre/University of Sydney Nano Institute. University of Sydney scientists unveiled a blood vessel on a chip in July, for example, that mimics high blood flow and inflammation, the early stages of heart disease. The chip could allow detailed cellular observations a biopsy of a lab rat or monkey artery couldnt glean. Are new drugs possible without lab rats? But there are realms of research that cant happen without animals, including pregnancy studies. The basic problem is that organoids, whilst they are increasing in complexity, dont fully replicate the complexity of a human, Oliver said. You cant make an organoid copulate and reproduce. Its just not going to happen. Animals are also used for toxicology screenings to ensure experimental drugs are safe to advance to human trials. Organoids can accelerate this process, but in most cases, data from animal tests is sought before testing in people. If I was going to be given an experimental drug, and the only safety protocols have been applied to were organoid or cell models, Id be really scared about whether that drug truly is safe, Oliver said. I dont want to be the guinea pig of working out whether somethings safe or not when that could easily be done in an animal and quite reasonably predict the likely response in humans. A brain organoid produced by the Childrens Medical Research Institutes Stem Cell & Organoid Facility. Credit: Children's Medical Research Institute There is, however, movement in this space. In 2022, the Food and Drug Authority in the US removed the mandate that demanded drugs be tested on animals before human trials. Part of NAT-Nets scope is regulatory, and it aims to improve the TGAs acceptance of data from non-animal models to support new drug approvals. I think theres a lot of work in providing clarity on those TGA guidelines and aligning with changes in the US, Rachel Smith, chief executive of Animal-Free Science Advocacy, said. The TGA said it does accept evidence from cell-based and in silico, or computer, models but was working with the FDA on a more consistent approach. Smith was heavily involved in the NSW inquiry, which found a lack of transparency around animal research and the way data was reported in the state was hampering public debate. Since 2019, the fate of dogs and cats must be reported. But getting specific information about the types of tests conducted was challenging, she said. Zebrafish: the unassuming aquarium dwellers that can regrow hearts, fins and spinal cords and are one of the most-tested lab animals. Credit: iStock Despite the push to move away from animal research, the number of animals used in experiments in NSW hasnt fallen since 2010, although in 2021 and 22, there was a decrease in those killed or subjected to significant distress or pain. The broad consensus is that animal models will, for the foreseeable future, still be a really important part of medical research, Williams said. This isnt a short-term complete replacement story. This is, how can we be more sensible about where and when we use animals? Improving human health depended on using all the tools available, Oliver said. New York, US (PANA) - World leaders, senior government officials and civil society representatives joined forces at UN Headquarters on Thursday to reaffirm commitment to nuclear disarmament as a global priority An angel sent down from heaven to look after her mum has now returned home too soon. Thats how the heartbroken parents of 12-year-old Charlotte, the Santa Sabina student who took her own life earlier this month, have remembered her. Hundreds of mourners packed into the Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Bossley Park, many wearing touches of pink, to say goodbye to Charlotte. Her mother Kelly and her father Mat, along with Charlottes aunties and uncles, carried her coffin decorated in butterflies and purple flowers. Northcote Plaza hadnt opened at the former Northcote Brick Co site. The billionaire who built the platform for its 17,000 Facebook fans on The Northcote Plaza Appreciation Society page was not even born. Aussie boys sported Beatles dos when he set up shop among Melbournes largest Greek community in 1975. The only one to remain the same in this street is me, Apostolopoulos confirms. Karmis has watched them come and go through the barbers window near the busy Separation Street intersection for 20 years practically a Northcote newbie compared with his father-in-law Frank Apostolopoulos. Since Ive been here its probably changed hands about 10 or 12 times, barber George Karmis says over the buzz of clippers. Theres a new shop setting up next door to Franks Hairdressing in Northcote. In a series, The Age profiles Victorian suburbs and towns to reveal how theyve changed over the decades. Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Manager Emily Ferris, who was there at the start, greets a man in his 60s wearing sandals and nursing a midday pot as she sits down. The Northcote Social Club turns 20 next year, still under two of the same three owners who transformed the Commercial. Northcote Social Club manager Emily Ferris has worked for the same hospitality group for 20 years. Credit: Wayne Taylor Across the street, the Northcote pub that replaced the working-class Commercial Hotel is busy. Thats why were getting some of the young kids come in, he says. They dont want to pay the hipster prices. At $20 for a cut or traditional-style shave we dont believe in inflation its no surprise Karmis is too busy to stop and chat. Short back and sides think buzz cut, but with a blade or egg haircuts were preferred options at Franks this week. Lady Gaga even partied with staff on American Independence Day on her 2012 tour of Australia. If it werent for a few, since deleted, photos of a leopard-print Gaga, that night might have lived on only in memories. Danzal Baker, aka Baker Boy, performed there on his debut headline tour in 2018. Indie rock legend Courtney Barnett worked the bar and performed songs from her EP Ive got a friend called Emily Ferris there in her early 20s. Inspired by the original Punters Club in Fitzroy once owned by a Northcote Social Club partner the High Street band room has been the big stage for many homegrown international stars. People have a lot of ownership over it, and it hasnt really changed that much. The reason its stuck it out for so long is because it is such a part of the community, Ferris says. The Eighty-Six festival debuted last year and was heralded a success by live-music operators. In the past two years, High Street has received two big cash injections from the state that predominantly benefited live-music venues. I worked a shift once where we had a baby shower function on the deck and a death metal band playing in the band room, she says. Its such a melting pot. From an over-50s crowd for a Toto cover band on Sunday to 18-year-olds packing out the venue for Wet Denim the night before, Ferris says theres no typical customer. The pushback against change and recognition of it is perhaps why it has survived gentrification. The Northcote Social Club underwent renovations in 2015, a spruce up not exactly embraced by regulars. For decades the more than 100-year-old building sat largely unused in the heart of Northcote, the dust swept away for the odd wedding reception, after it stopped operating as a cinema. Thompson is inside the grandiose Northcote Theatre, across the road from the social club, just up Ruckers Hill towards the city. We have lost the High Street festival when everyone would just go out on the street and get loose and have a good time, music venue booking manager Ben Thompson says. And, pitched as a return to Melbournes best street party, the Northcote Rise festival was held on High Street in 2023 after a 13-year hiatus. Having moved north from Fitzroy 15 years ago, Thompson was once among the passersby who peeped through the closed double-door windows at the auditorium inside. The top mezzanine, where Thompson sits above the theatre stage this week, had become a boarded up home for pigeons when he stepped inside for the first time four years ago. I love seeing peoples faces as they come in here, he says. So many people have walked past with no idea it opened up into such a great, big, wide, beautiful, old theatre. Thompson says the social club showed patrons, promotors and artists that gigs sold out in Northcote. A lot of the artistic community moved out to Northcote and Brunswick and the northern suburbs when Fitzroy and Collingwood and Richmond all became a bit too expensive, he says. I think they realised after a while that it has that population. In 2020, the Darebin Council perhaps surprisingly approved a licence for the 1500 capacity live-music venue, smack bang in the middle of a dense residential area. Opening with a sold-out Spiderbait show in July 2022, the Northcote Theatre has since put on about 200 shows. Ive seen Northcote grow in the last 20 years into a really dynamic, exciting centre for artistry, Thompson says. Its really buzzing. Northcote sits on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri-willam people, a clan of several extended families that were the original occupants of what are now Melbournes northern suburbs. Despite the federal electorate of Cooper being held by Labor in all but two elections in the past century, the suburb is likely named after a British conservative. Henry Stafford Northcote, a conservative member for Exeter in the House of Commons, was sworn in as governor-general of Australia in 1904 and served until 1908. Back then Cooper was known as Batman but the seat swapped the name of the man who founded Melbourne, and massacred Indigenous Australians, to the name of the Indigenous man who led the fight for Indigenous rights, William Cooper. The first government land sales were for farming in 1839. South of Westgarth Street, the land reserved for the township, was not sold until 1850. By the 1880s Northcote had become the second-largest municipality for brick production in Victoria, making use of large sedimentary clays beds that lay just below its surface. Shops and houses began appearing on High Street after it became the main transport route to farms in the Plenty Valley. Nowadays along High Street, youll find real estate agents. Fewer cake shops, but lots of real estate agents. If you visit their websites, youll see them spruiking Northcotes top-performing public school zone. Former Northcote High School principal Kate Morris has helped make it a selling point. A really good public school is worth a lot of money, Morris says. You can buy a more expensive house if you dont have to send your kids to private school. Northcote High opened as an all-boys school in 1929 and while girls were accepted in the 1980s, male students still outnumbered them when Morris took the reins in 2008. Families concern over the gender imbalance was self-perpetuating: parents opted to send their girls where they wouldnt be outnumbered. Former Northcote High School Principal Kate Morris at Tinker cafe. Credit: Penny Stephens Morris says the school struggled to shake its all-boys reputation. That was more a vibe more folklore than fact that we werent a school for everyone, she says. The world was changing rapidly and we needed to change with it. And so began a community engagement project that sought buy-in from Northcote families. My goal was to get the confidence of the community in the fact that our school could deliver a really top quality education for their child, no matter girl, boy or anything else, she says. It hasnt been all smooth sailing. In 2016, the school was accused of attempting to rebrand itself as an elite state school when it responded to dwindling numbers in its Greek and Italian classes by phasing them out. Morris was forced to backflip after a backlash from the Greek Orthodox Community. She can laugh about it, now. We had a lot of argy-bargy with the Greek community, Morris says. At which point everyone rallied, signed up for Greek and Greek continues. For now... The City of Darebins Greek community remains the second largest in Victoria, but the 2021 census showed only 3.5 per cent of Northcote residents were born in Greece. The wave who arrived after World War II reached retirement age, and many of their families have been priced out during Northcotes seemingly boundless boom. Jane Morton purchased an old boarding house for $45,000 on a rundown street near Merri Creek in the early 80s. At the time, more than 40 per cent of Northcote houses sold were in the lowest Melbourne price quartile. The houses on this side were all nice Edwardian and the houses on that side are all California bungalows, Morton says. Jane Morton at her home in Northcote. Credit: Wayne Taylor It was all Greek and Italian, pretty much and people like me ... just starting work. Morton saved a deposit after two years working as a psychology graduate at what was then the Mont Park Psychiatric Hospital. She paid it off a few years later with one of Jeff Kennetts redundancy packages. In the past 10 years, Northcotes median house price rose from $820,000 to $1.66 million. Just as the children of the Italian and Greek settlers of the 60s have been priced out, so too have the children of the hippies who arrived in the 70s. Loading In the 2000s, after being shown a graph of the Arctic ice melt, Morton became a climate activist. Throughout her 50s and 60s, Morton has blockaded Adani mines, climbed atop trucks to stop Melbourne traffic and been arrested seven times. Looking out over the yard that first attracted her to the house that became a home for her blended familys five children, Morton considers what they think of her activism. Well, they think Im wasting my time because were already f---ed, and they dont think Im going to change it, she says. Sometimes Im not sure either, but on the other hand, I think you never quite know. Morton was part of the reason Darebin was the first council in the world to declare a climate emergency. Her climate action group had been active for eight years by then but, other than change, werent clear what it was asking for. The idea of the emergency declaration came just ahead of a Darebin council election. The group pressured candidates to declare publicly their stance on declaring an emergency. Many candidates signed on, several were elected. Credit: Matt Golding An activist was in the car park as they were going into the first council meeting, and just said, Well, right, you guys are going to declare an emergency then, Morton says. They just did and it was the first in the world. The idea spread through local councils, state and federal government in Australia, and has reached thousands of countries around the world. Beginning in the 70s, the restoration of Merri Creek took it from an industrial dump site to its current glory. Flowing the length of the border with Brunswick, the Merri Creeks bike and walking trails near Mortons house have made it a Northcote landmark. While Northcote is clearly quite white and fairly rich, its known to be a bit gay. The number of same-sex couples living in Northcote on Census night in 2021 was 4.9 per cent, well above Greater Melbournes 1.6 per cent, with lesbians amounting to 2.9 per cent, making Northcote one of the suburbs with the highest percentage of lesbians behind Brunswick, Collingwood and Brunswick East. Northcote Social Club manager Scout Tester says the queer community in the north is welcoming. Credit: Wayne Taylor Back at the Northcote Social Club, manager Scout Tester is not surprised. The queer community is definitely vibrant here, says Tester, who prefers the gender-neutral pronoun they. It sticks out like a beautiful sore thumb. Tester puts the high percentage of queers in the north down to a natural migration process. They said seeing people you recognise as like you in the streets is a drawcard to members of any community. Theres something about Melbourne that were lucky to get to live freely. People naturally gather and I think Northcote has that vibe it has a piece for everyone, not just the queer community but the Greek community that has been here forever and the Italian community that has been here forever. Get the days breaking news, entertainment ideas and a long read to enjoy. Sign up to receive our Evening Edition newsletter. The first person from Gaza to challenge his cancelled Australian visa in court has been refused information about why he was knocked back on security grounds, and is now stuck in Cairo without recourse. Hosni Imad is one of a small group of Palestinians to have their visa cancelled by ASIO after the Albanese government granted almost 3000 tourist visas to help people with strong connections in Australia flee the conflict in Gaza. The 45-year-old painter had already fled to Cairo, and his wife and child had arrived in Sydney two months earlier, when authorities told him in early March that his visa was cancelled because of an adverse security assessment, which found he was likely to promote or facilitate political violence in Australia. Imad claimed to have no idea why agencies had come to that conclusion, months after his visa was issued in November. He launched legal action in the federal court to compel ASIO to produce its reasons, arguing he was denied procedural fairness because he was never interviewed by security officials nor provided an opportunity to respond to the case against him. Below is our guide to this incredibly diverse, beautiful and culture-rich country, soon to be the most popular place on Earth. Its about seeing the best of Spain, in the best way. Because done right, theres nowhere better. Because as attractive as Spain is, theres already a downside to its mass tourism appeal. Anti-tourist protests have rippled through the country in recent months , making it more important than ever to see Spain in the right way. Everyone wants to go to Spain. More and more people, in fact. So, whats the big deal? What makes this country so great? And if youre going to join the crowds, how do you visit Spain in a way thats sustainable and low-impact? A new report co-produced by Deloitte and Google, NextGen Travellers and Destinations, predicts that by 2040 the worlds most popular tourism destination will be Spain. Thats just a small jump for Spain from its current second place, still, any country able to topple France is big news. In fact, France has been the worlds most popular tourism destination for so long, weve almost stopped thinking about it losing its mantle. But that may happen. Everyone wants to go to France. Thats been the case for some time: France is regularly the worlds most visited country for tourism, with an estimated 100 million visitors in 2023, up from almost 80 million the year before. Check out Hondarribia, Getaria and Tolosa in the Basque Country, Ribadesella in Asturias, Albarracin in Aragon, Mogarraz in the community of Castile and Leon, Ujue in Navarra, Vielha in Catalonia, A Guarda in Galicia, and Mijas in Andalusia: all gorgeous and enjoyable. This is just the beginning though, and a slow exploration of any of Spains 50 provinces will reveal many more. Spains true beauty, you could argue, is in its picturesque towns and villages, spread throughout the country from mountaintop to coast. These settlements are often historic and charming, and though some can feel tourist-heavy clifftop Ronda in Andalusia or coastal Cudillero in Asturias, for example plenty retain their local vibe. One of the most surprising things visitors usually find in Spanish cities is that, despite their large reputation, theyre quite small. Madrid and Barcelona, at six million people and five million respectively, are the only truly large bases; only two more cities, Valencia and Seville, have populations of more than a million. That makes Spanish cities generally approachable and charming with easy access and few no-go zones; most are centred around historic old towns that contain all of their main attractions in a walkable area. Something to bear in mind when visiting Spanish cities, however, is your accommodation (short-term rentals have become an issue in Barcelona in particular, with hotels much preferred) and also your choice of destination, given theres a huge concentration of tourists in Barcelona, Malaga and Seville but relatively fewer in the likes of Madrid, Valencia, Zaragoza and Vigo. Those searching for beachy good times could also try the Costa de la Luz, the stretch of coastline from Huelva to Tarifa in Spains south. Its far less crowded than the likes of the Costa Brava and the Costa del Sol, and includes Cadiz, one of the countrys true gems. Those big-hitters, however, are suffering under the weight of over-tourism, so its worth looking further afield. Theres plenty of fun to be had in La Gomera and El Hierro in the Canary Islands, Ons Island off the coast of Galicia, and Formentera in the Balearics. There are plenty of household names floating in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic: Ibiza, Mallorca, Lanzarote, Tenerife. These are some of the most popular travel destinations on the planet, party islands, sunshine islands, places to see a few sights and then rub shoulders with boozed up Brits or cashed up Euros at the local bars. This makes Spain a fascinating and invigorating place to explore, with new norms to get your head around in almost every province. Theres geographical diversity too, from the vast plains of the south, to beaches on both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coastlines, to the lush, soaring mountains of the north, to the vine-strewn foothills of the east. Probably the least appreciated aspect of Spain and its tourism experience is its diversity. This country is not so much a cohesive whole, but rather a collection of related cultures that have somehow been united. Spain is made up of 17 autonomous communities, many of which have their own language, their own festivals and traditions, their own food, their own architecture and a strong sense of their own identity. Begin in the Picos de Europa, a range in Asturias and Cantabria that offers some of the most spectacular scenery in Europe. Then move on to the limestone cliffs and whitewashed villages of the Sierra de Grazalema in Andalusia, the monasteries and rock formations of Montserrat in Catalonia, and the abundant birdlife and local cured meats in the Sierra de Villuercas in Extremadura. See spain.info Most people picture Spain and see either arid plains or golden beaches, so it can be a surprise to visit somewhere like Vielha, high in the Pyrenees, and feel like you could be in Switzerland. Theres some gorgeous alpine terrain in Catalonia in particular, where the Pyrenees are riven with hiking trails and picturesque villages, but there are further heights to explore. It also has a host of high-quality galleries and museums for art lovers to enjoy, most notably the Prado in Madrid, though also the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Fundacio Miro in Mallorca, the Dali Museum in Figueres, and the Museu dArt Contemporani in Barcelona. As a quick refresher, Spain has produced the following artists: Diego Velazquez, Francisco Goya, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro and Salvador Dali and thats for starters. In other words, the country has a rich artistic culture. Remnants of this incredibly long and diverse history can be found in Roman ruins in Tarragona, Segovia, Merida and Cordoba; Moorish palaces in Granada and Seville; royal palaces in El Escorial, Madrid and Aranjuez; and towering cathedrals in Valencia, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca and more. Spain has a complicated history. Over the centuries, parts of the country we now know as Spain have been ruled by Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Germanic kingdoms, the Moors, various Christian kings and queens, the military, the fascists and, now, a democratically elected government. If street art is more your thing, Madrid and Barcelona are the two best cities to wander, with plenty of walls featuring work by locals and visiting artists. Theres also the Museu Banksy in Barcelona. See museodelprado.es; museupicassobcn.cat; guggenheim-bilbao.eus; miromallorca.com; salvador-dali.org; macba.cat; museobanksy.es The architecture Inside the mosque-cathedral of Cordoba. Credit: iStock Perhaps one of the worlds most famous architect, Antoni Gaudi, was Spanish (though, of course, he would have described himself as Catalan). Gaudis legacy lives on in his home city of Barcelona, highlighted by the magnificent La Sagrada Familia, though his works can also be found at Park Guell, Casa Batllo, Casa Vicens and Casa Calvet. Loading Aside from Gaudi, meanwhile, theres plenty more for architecture buffs to discover in Spain. For tradition and history, see the Alhambra in Granada, the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, Torre Giralda in Seville, and the Alcazar of Segovia. For modern works check out the sprawling City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim in Bilbao, and the Metropol Parasol (known as Las Setas, or the mushrooms) in Seville. See sagradafamilia.org; mezquita-catedraldecordoba.es; catedraldesevilla.es; alcazardesegovia.com; setasdesevilla.com; cac.es/en/ The food Theres only one reason you need to visit Spain, and this is it. Food in this country is just so delicious, so accessible, so diverse, and so steeped in joyous tradition that you cant help but fall hopelessly in love with it. You probably know about tapas, the small plates of food that range from a few slices of Manchego to a tiny work of gastronomic art. But theres much more to food in Spain, from the delights of high-end tinned seafood, to the art of grilling meat and fish over coals, to the absolute joy of a Catalan calcotada (a seasonal celebration of fire-roasted onions), to hearty home cooking, to incredibly creative and expensive cuisine at the likes of Disfrutar and DiverXO. The trick to eating well in Spain is to leave as much time as possible for its enjoyment, to linger over lunch, to make an event of dinner, to sit or stand with friends and family and just have fun. See disfrutarbarcelona.com; diverxo.com The wine Rioja is one of Spains many highlights for wine lovers. Credit: iStock Most people are familiar with Rioja, and perhaps Rias Baixas, but Spain has more than 60 distinct wine regions, vines spread from the rain swept coast of the Basque Country to the sunny warmth of the Canary Islands. Wine culture in Spain is easy to tap into: theres at least one bar on every city block, which will have a selection ranging from basic Rioja and whatever is local, to a full suite of artisanal drops. Given the widespread nature of the growing regions, however, theres a good chance you will be close to the wineries themselves, many of which will be open for a visit. The Jerez-Sherry region in Andalusia is one of the best set up for tourists, though Priorat and Penedes in Catalonia, Ribera del Duero in Castile and Leon, Getariako Txakolina in the Basque Country, and of course Rioja, offer great experiences. See spain.info Viva Espana: 10 things worth knowing Fiesta The Spanish absolutely love a festival. Every city and every town in Spain will have at least one unique, annual celebration, along with the provincial celebrations, the regional celebrations and the countrywide holidays. Jump online and look up the fiestas or ferias wherever youre visiting. Youre highly likely to find some sort of event to attend. Siesta Plenty of Spaniards swear that the idea of a siesta is an outdated stereotype thats not really practised any more. And thats true of certain people in larger cities. But whats also true is that you will find most small shops do close from 2pm to 4pm or 5pm every day, and particularly in the south during summer everyone seems to disappear from the streets around those hours. Eating late Spaniards famously eat late, though there are a few things to consider. One is that theres always time for snacking beforehand, whether during la hora del vermut, or merienda (see below), or with a few tapas in the evening. Another thing to realise is that Spain is effectively in the wrong time zone geographically, it should be an hour behind so the eating schedule matches up with the sun, rather than the clock. Ir de tapas Heres another of the great joys of Spanish life, and of course it revolves around food. Ir de tapas means a tour of tapas (known as txikiteo in Basque Country) and its where you spend the evening hopping from bar to bar, taking a drink and a small plate of food at each. Sometimes, a tapa is just a snack before a large, sit-down meal; other times, this tour of the bars is the main event. Sobremesa You know those times after a beautiful, long meal when you just dont want the whole thing to end, so you wind up sitting around the table for hours nursing the last of your drinks and chatting to your family and friends? Thats such a common, cherished occurrence in Spain that they have a word for it: sobremesa, or upon the table. Merienda Those who look at Spains late dining times and wonder how they go so long before having dinner clearly havent heard of merienda. Merienda is a late afternoon snack, usually taken between about 5pm and 8pm. Merienda treats are often sweet, which is why you will see bakeries start to fill up in the late afternoon as people pile in for a pastry and a coffee. La hora del vermut This may just be the best of Spains many unique cultural quirks and traditions. La hora del vermut, or vermouth hour, in Catalonia in particular is the period before a long lunch when everyone goes out to their favourite bar to drink vermouth and eat a light snack. This is the transition from morning to lunch, the first boozy drink of the day, and its celebrated with gusto. Canas and boquerones You may have learnt the words for certain things to eat and drink in Spain, but you will discover their meaning can be reversed, depending on your location. For example, in most of Spain, a cana is a small beer. In the Basque Country, a cana is a large beer (a zurito is a small one). If youre eating anchovies in the north of Spain, fresh or salt-cured fish are anchoas, and vinegar-cured are boquerones; in the east and south, boquerones are fresh or fried anchovies, while anchoas are only salt-cured. Loading Churros for breakfast You probably think of churros as the ultimate dessert: sticks of fried dough dusted in sugar and dipped in rich, liquid chocolate. Delicious. Only, churros arent a dessert in Spain. Theyre breakfast. Theyre typically eaten early in the day, sometimes with coffee, though youll occasionally see them consumed for merienda. (Bad) coffee Two important things to know about Spain: people there love coffee, and its often bad coffee. That is, at least, for Australian tastes. Spanish coffee tends to be overly bitter and served very hot. And though theres a growing movement towards smoother Italian or Australian-style coffee, do prepare yourself to be underwhelmed. How to be the model tourist in Spain Stay local but in hotels Short-term rentals are clearly an issue in Spain right now, which makes hotels more attractive. However, Casey Merwood, founder of Spanish tour experts Biznaga, says even there you have a few decisions to make. Dont stay in a big five-star chain, she says. Find a hotel thats owned by a Spanish company, or even better a Spanish family, and support them. Stay somewhere new When you choose your hotel, steer clear of traditional tourist areas. We stayed in Gracia, in Barcelona, recently, and every place we went to was awesome, Merwood says. The store owners there were all young people giving it a go, lots of artisan jewellery, ceramics, sustainable fabrics. If youre supporting people like that, while at the same time going to La Sagrada Familia, its not only better for the country, but a much more fulfilling experience. Loading Steer clear of hotspots Dont just go to the places that are on Instagram, Merwood says. In Spain there are so many amazing places. I guarantee you almost no one will know where the Costa de la Luz is, and its amazing. But I would say to people, in the way you dont just walk down Las Ramblas, you step off Las Ramblas and look in the backstreets, its the same for Spain. Dont just go to Barcelona. Look at whats around Barcelona. Pop out to the Priorat or have a look at the Delta de lEbre. Think twice about souvenirs Dont go and buy [mass-produced] souvenirs, have a think about what youre buying, Merwood says. Buy slow clothes made by locals from sustainable fabric. Go and talk to the people who made them. Buy jewellery from some young design kid. Support those people, and then youre a much better tourist. Be considerate When I was in Spain recently, says Merwood, I spoke to every restaurant owner, every taxi driver, every cafe owner, every hotel owner, and all said that tourists who do the right thing who immerse themselves in the place, buy locally and support local are the people they want. Its the tourists who live their lives the same way as they always have, who are just there for a good time and not care what that means to the locals, thats not OK. See biznaga.co London: Russian authorities are investigating two Australian journalists for reporting in parts of the Kursk region occupied by Ukrainian forces earlier this month. State-run news agency TASS reported on Friday that the ABCs Europe correspondent Kathryn Diss and camera operator Fletcher Yeung were the subject of a criminal investigation by Russias Federal Security Service, the successor agency to the Soviet Unions KGB. Residents leave an apartment building damaged by shelling in Kursk in August, 2024. Credit: AP The report said the pair - incorrectly identified as US citizens - had illegally crossed the border earlier this month to report from Sudzha, a Ukrainian-held town in the Kursk region after being escorted by a Ukrainian military unit on August 31. Ukraine claims it has captured dozens of towns and villages in the Kursk region, including Sudzha, following a surprise incursion by its forces on August 6, while Moscow asserts its forces have gradually regained control of the territory during counteroffensive operations. She has served as an ambassador for The Forgotten Women and was a former board director of the Sycamore School. Her work includes advocacy for a sustainable real estate market, support for proptech innovations, and efforts to tackle homelessness. Passing a new record in settled loans this year and helping over 8,000 business owners, its fair to say the lender has become a force to be reckoned with in its space. New York, US (PANA) - The UN agency that supports Palestine refugees, UNRWA, is the only outpost of hope left in the hellscape that is Gaza, the UN Secretary-General told a high-level ministerial meeting on Thursday in New York Eric Adams Accused of Accepting $123K in Luxury Perks and Fraudulently Obtaining $10M in Campaign Funds Amid Corruption Probe (Photo: New York City Public Schools Press Office/CC-BY 2.0 ) New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted in a historic federal case, accused of engaging in a decade-long corruption scheme that allegedly involved taking bribes, enjoying luxury international travel, and fraudulently obtaining millions in campaign funds. The five-count indictment, unsealed by Manhattan prosecutors, marks the first time a sitting NYC mayor has faced such charges and could expose Adams to significant prison time if convicted. The 57-page indictment details the mayor's alleged acceptance of over $123,000 in luxury perks, including first-class flights and stays in five-star hotels, all of which went undisclosed. The document also claims Adams, who was Brooklyn Borough President before his election as mayor, fraudulently acquired $10 million in public campaign funds through the city's matching funds program, a scheme allegedly orchestrated by leveraging straw donors and falsifying documents. According to U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, Adams' corruption involved foreign nationals, including Turkish businesspeople and officials, who provided these illegal benefits in exchange for political favors. "This was a multi-year scheme to buy favor with a politician on the rise: Eric Adams," Williams said at a press conference. Adams allegedly received gifts from Turkish officials, including first-class flights to various international destinations, as well as luxury accommodations. In one instance, Adams reportedly paid just $600 for a two-night stay at the St. Regis hotel in Istanbul, a stay that should have cost $7,000. The indictment accuses him of creating fake paper trails to conceal the true nature of the benefits he received, falsely suggesting he had paid for the travel expenses himself. Year after year, Adams allegedly accepted tens of thousands of dollars in free travel, including trips to destinations such as India, France, China, and Ghana. Despite warnings from New York City fire safety officials, Adams is also accused of pushing through approvals for a Turkish Consulate building in Manhattan, after which he solicited more perks from Turkish business leaders. In exchange for these gifts, Adams is said to have exerted influence on city officials to waive safety inspections and accelerate construction approvals. The indictment claims Adams continued this behavior through his 2021 mayoral campaign, which received significant financial backing from these foreign nationals. "Adams knowingly and repeatedly relied on illegal contributions," the indictment states, suggesting that his campaign received substantial sums from foreign sources funneled through straw donors. These illegal donations were used to trigger the city's matching funds program, allowing Adams' campaign to amass over $10 million in public funds. The charges against Adams include conspiracy, wire fraud, solicitation of contributions by a foreign national, and bribery. If convicted, Adams could face up to 45 years in prison. In response to the indictment, Adams has maintained his innocence, addressing the media outside Gracie Mansion shortly after the charges were made public. "It's an unfortunate day. And it's a painful day. But I look forward to defending myself," Adams said. "My attorneys will handle this case so I can focus on running the city." Adams' attorney, Alex Spiro, criticized the federal investigation, referring to it as a "spectacle." He noted that federal agents arrived at Gracie Mansion early Thursday to seize one of Adams' phones, despite the mayor's willingness to cooperate. "They send a dozen agents to pick up a phone when we would have happily turned it in," Spiro said, insisting that Adams had not been arrested and emphasizing that his client looks forward to his day in court. The indictment is the culmination of months of federal investigations, including raids on the homes of Adams' top aides and close allies. These raids sought evidence of kickbacks and illegal campaign contributions, much of which allegedly came from Turkish officials and business leaders. Several of Adams' confidants were not directly charged in the indictment but were mentioned throughout, raising the possibility of further developments in the case. Despite calls from some city officials for Adams to resign, the mayor has vowed to continue his duties while fighting the charges. "My day-to-day will not change," he declared at the press conference, asking New Yorkers to withhold judgment until his defense is heard. Prince Harry's mental health documentary series, "The Me You Can't See," is streaming on AppleTV+. (Photo: ) Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, added a bit of fun to his busy schedule in New York City with a surprise appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Instead of participating in a traditional interview, Harry, 40, teamed up with Fallon for a spooky adventure through the host's "Tonightmares" haunted maze at Rockefeller Center. The light-hearted segment aired on September 26, providing viewers with a glimpse of the Duke's sense of humor amidst his packed itinerary of charitable engagements. The haunted maze experience, a part of the Halloween-themed attraction Fallon introduced earlier this year, features ten rooms filled with frightening surprises. In a preview clip from the episode, Harry and Fallon are seen navigating the eerie set, facing off against zombies, wolverines, and a creepy band. At one point, Harry's candid reaction to a sudden scare-grabbing Fallon's chest in surprise-became a highlight of the segment. "That actually got me," Fallon admitted after one particularly frightening encounter, providing a comedic break in the intense atmosphere. The duo's humorous interactions and shared frights lightened the mood and gave audiences a different perspective on Harry. This appearance on Fallon's show is not Harry's first foray into late-night TV. Earlier in 2023, while promoting his memoir Spare, the Duke of Sussex appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he answered Colbert's signature "Colbert Questionert." Harry's light-hearted responses included saying he believes we turn into animals after death, joking that he'd return as an elephant. Though Harry enjoyed his time in the haunted maze with Fallon, his trip to New York City was primarily focused on his ongoing philanthropic efforts. His week in the city was filled with appearances at various events for causes he passionately supports. Harry kicked off his visit by attending a dinner hosted by the World Health Organization, where he and Queen Mathilde of Belgium discussed the impact of violence on children's mental health. On September 23, Harry was involved in several key events. He attended the Concordia Summit with The Diana Award, an organization named in honor of his late mother, Princess Diana. There, he shared the stage with The Diana Award CEO Dr. Tessy Ojo and two award recipients, Chiara Riyanti Hutapea Zhang from Indonesia and Christina Williams from Jamaica. During his remarks, Harry emphasized the importance of youth empowerment, saying, "The courage that you have gives me hope because every single one of us need courage in order to really move the dial and create positive change in today's world." Later that day, Harry delivered a speech at an event supporting The HALO Trust, a humanitarian organization focused on clearing landmines and debris of war-a cause Princess Diana famously supported during her lifetime. Reflecting on his mother's legacy, Harry said, "Carrying on her legacy is a responsibility that I take incredibly seriously." The Duke of Sussex also participated in a panel discussion led by journalist Katie Couric on behalf of African Parks, an organization he has been involved with since 2016. His commitment to environmental conservation and wildlife protection remains central to his global activism. On September 24, Harry addressed the Clinton Global Initiative, delivering powerful remarks on the dangers of social media and its impact on young people. He shared a personal moment with the audience, revealing that his phone's lock screen features a photo of his children, Archie and Lilibet. Harry has long been vocal about online safety and the harmful effects of social media, particularly in his work with the Archewell Foundation's Parents Network. Following his talk, Harry attended the five-year anniversary celebration of Travalyst, a sustainable travel initiative he founded in 2019. The organization, which seeks to promote eco-friendly tourism, has garnered significant industry support, representing a combined market value of nearly $3 trillion. "This is a massive force for good," Harry said, emphasizing the initiative's role in ensuring that tourism not only sustains communities but helps them thrive. Prince Harry's whirlwind trip to New York City underscored his dedication to the causes he champions, while his appearance on The Tonight Show offered a glimpse of his lighter side. Though Meghan Markle did not accompany him on this visit, the Duke's spokesperson confirmed that his work with the Archewell Foundation remains a top priority. The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon airs on NBC at 11:30 p.m. ET. Israel Targets Hezbollah Commander in Beirut After Deadly Golan Heights Attack (Photo: Israel Defense Forces /Flickr /CC-BY-SA 3.0 ) Israel's missile defense systems intercepted a ballistic missile launched by Yemen's Houthi rebels on Friday, marking the latest escalation in the ongoing regional conflict. The Houthis, backed by Iran, claimed responsibility for the attack, which targeted Tel Aviv and Ashkelon, as part of their broader campaign of support for Palestinians and Hezbollah. While Israel successfully intercepted the missile before it reached its intended target, the attempted strike represents a growing threat from Yemen's Houthis in their involvement in the conflict. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed the interception of the surface-to-surface missile with an "Arrow" interceptor, which took place outside Israeli territory. This came after air raid sirens were triggered in central Israel, prompting residents to seek shelter. While there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, the attack marked another effort by the Houthis to extend their reach and align themselves with Iran's regional strategy. The Houthis, an Iran-aligned group, have become increasingly active in their military campaigns against Israeli targets since the war between Israel and Hamas began in early October. Their attacks, which have included missile and drone strikes, are framed as acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree confirmed that the missile targeted Tel Aviv, and a drone was also launched at Ashkelon, a coastal city. Saree promised more attacks would follow until Israel ceased its operations in Gaza and Lebanon. The Houthis have also been accused of launching numerous assaults on Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, aiming to disrupt maritime traffic in a critical region. Their attacks have contributed to heightened tensions and concerns about broader regional instability, especially as Israel faces ongoing threats from Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups. In a televised statement, Saree reiterated the Houthis' commitment to continue their military operations against Israel. "We will carry out more military operations against the Israeli enemy in victory for the blood of our brothers in Palestine and Lebanon," he said, underlining their stance against what they see as Israeli aggression. This is not the first time the Houthis have successfully targeted Israel. In July, the Houthis launched a drone strike on Tel Aviv, killing one person and injuring several others. In response, Israeli airstrikes hit Houthi military positions near Yemen's port city of Hodeidah, causing a significant fire and resulting in multiple casualties. Iran's influence over the Houthis has long been a concern for regional stability. The Houthis have benefited from material support from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hezbollah in Lebanon, and other groups in Iraq. Despite a United Nations arms embargo imposed on the Houthis since 2015, the group continues to gain access to increasingly sophisticated weaponry, including ballistic and hypersonic missiles. This has raised concerns in Israel and among its allies about the potential for more destructive attacks. French President Emmanuel Macron has been one of the leading voices in urging Israel to exercise caution in expanding its military operations into Lebanon, warning of the broader consequences. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls for a cease-fire, instructing his military to continue operations with full force against Hezbollah and other militant groups. In addition to Hezbollah's involvement, Houthi leaders have explicitly tied their military actions to events in Gaza and Lebanon. Hezbollah has lost several key figures in Israeli airstrikes, including senior commander Mohammed Srur, who was killed in a recent air raid. Srur had been instrumental in coordinating Hezbollah's operations with the Houthis, providing them with training and logistical support. News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism. Blog Archive: Oct 2024 (35) 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) Jordan Parker is a breaking news reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle. He graduated from Sacramento State University in May 2022 with a degree in journalism. During his time there, he spent three years as a reporter and editor for the university's award-winning student newspaper, The State Hornet. He spent his senior year of college serving as The Hornet's first Black editor in chief, leading the organization to two Pacemaker awards and several other national honors from the Associated Collegiate Press. When he's not chasing down a story, he likes watching movies, traveling and trying new restaurants. A Mill Valley man was wanted by Roseville police after he was identified during an undercover sting operation meant to target internet child predators. Rafe Swan/Getty Image A Mill Valley man identified by police in Placer County as being an internet child predator was arrested and found in possession of several unlawful weapons, authorities said Thursday. The man, who authorities did not name, was arrested in Mill Valley by Roseville police Thursday morning while leaving his home for work, the Marin County Sheriffs Office said. The man had been convicted of a felony in 2019 and was not allowed to possess guns or ammunition, the sheriffs office said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad He was identified as being a child predator during a four-day sting operation conducted by Roseville police, the sheriffs office said. Roseville police contacted the Marin County Sheriffs Office, which assisted in the arrest. During the mans arrest and the ensuing search of his Mill Valley home, authorities said, they found 11 unregistered guns and several hundred rounds of ammunition. Roseville police did not respond to a request for comment regarding the allegations the man faces. In addition to the child predator accusations in Roseville, the man was booked into Marin County Jail on suspicion of being a felon in possession of a firearm, felon in possession of ammunition, possession of an unregistered assault weapon and possession of an unserialized firearm, according to the Marin County Sheriffs Office. His bail was set at $550,000. 1. What's the Exide Industries Ltd share price today? Exide Industries Ltd share price was Rs 480.50 at 04:01 PM IST on 7th Oct 2024 . Exide Industries Ltd share price was down by 4.33 % from the previous closing price of Rs 502.25 . Exide Industries Ltd share price trend: Last 1 Month: Exide Industries Ltd share price moved down by 0.52 % on BSE Last 3 Months: Exide Industries Ltd share price moved down by 15.40 % on BSE Last 12 Months: Exide Industries Ltd share price moved up by 85.52 % on BSE Last 3 Years: Exide Industries Ltd price moved up by 160.93 % on BSE 2. How can I quickly analyse the performance of the Exide Industries Ltd stock? The performance of the Exide Industries Ltd stock can be quickly analysed on the following metrics: The stock's PE is 46.70 Price to book value ratio is 3.17 Dividend yield of 0.42 The EPS (trailing 12 months) of the Exide Industries Ltd stock is Rs 10.29 3. What is the market cap of Exide Industries Ltd ? Exide Industries Ltd has a market capitalisation of Rs 40,843 crore. 4. What is Exide Industries Ltd 's 52-week high/low share price? The Exide Industries Ltd s 52-week high share price is Rs 620.00 and 52-week low share price is Rs 241.60 . 5. Is the Exide Industries Ltd profitable? On a consolidated basis, Exide Industries Ltd reported a profit of Rs 279.57 crore on a total income of Rs 4,326.91 crore for the quarter ended 2024 . For the year ended Jun 2024 , Exide Industries Ltd had posted a profit of Rs 220.75 crore on a total income of Rs 4,452.14 crore. 6. Which are Exide Industries Ltd s peers in the Auto sector? Exide Industries Ltd s top 5 peers in the Auto sector are Bosch, Uno Minda, Sona BLW Precis., Exide Inds., Endurance Tech., Sundram Fasten., Motherson Wiring . 7. Who owns how much in Exide Industries Ltd ? Key changes to the Exide Industries Ltd shareholding are as follows: Palestinian leader Abbas urges efforts to stop Israeli occupation, "genocide" at UNGA 08:51, September 27, 2024 By Xia Lin, Gao Shan ( Xinhua Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delivers a speech during the General Debate of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN headquarters in New York, on Sept. 26, 2024. Abbas received a long round of applause as he addressed the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Thursday, insisting that "we will not leave, Palestine is our homeland," and "if anyone were to leave it would be the occupier." (Xinhua/Li Rui) UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas received a long round of applause as he addressed the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Thursday, insisting that "we will not leave, Palestine is our homeland," and "if anyone were to leave it would be the occupier." He proceeded to accuse Israel of perpetrating a "full-scale war of genocide," dismissing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that Israel didn't kill civilians in Gaza. "I ask you, who is it then that killed more than 15,000 children?" he said. "Stop this crime. Stop it now. Stop killing children and women. Stop the genocide. Stop sending weapons to Israel. This madness cannot continue. The entire world is responsible for what is happening to our people," Abbas said. SANCTION AND EXCLUSION During his speech, Abbas called on the international community to impose sanctions on Israel and also its exclusion from the United Nations following the "genocide in Gaza." "We call for sanctions against Israel. Israel does not deserve to be part of this organization. I don't know how the United States can insist on depriving us of our rights," Abbas said, adding that Israel must be stripped of United Nations membership for failing to accept a two-state resolution to the conflict and allowing the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes. "We are going to submit an application to the UNGA on this matter," he said. "We regret that the U.S. administration -- the largest democracy in the world -- on three occasions obstructed draft resolutions at the Security Council demanding Israel to observe a ceasefire," Abbas said, accusing the United States of encouraging Israel's military actions by repeatedly using its veto power and supplying Israel with weapons used in the conflict. "This is the United States -- the same country that was the only member in the Security Council that voted against granting the state of Palestine full membership in the UN," Abbas said, expressing disbelief over what he sees as the U.S. consistent opposition to Palestinian statehood and rights. He also touched upon the situation with settlers in the West Bank, specifying that 600,000 settlers currently live there. "We want ICJ (the International Court of Justice) ruling on Israel to be implemented," he noted. CRIME AND GENOCIDE Highlighting that Palestinians have endured nearly a year of what he described as one of the most heinous crimes of the time, the leader said that "it is the crime of a full-scale war of genocide that Israel is perpetrating. A crime that has killed more than 40,000 martyrs in Gaza alone, and thousands remain under the rubble. A crime that has injured more than 100,000 to this day." He pointed out that whole Palestinian families have been annihilated, their family names completely erased, stressing that amid the onslaught, diseases are spreading, clean water and vital medicines are in scarce supply, and over two million Palestinians have been displaced, many forced to flee multiple times in search of safety. The deaths and injuries continue unabated, not only in Gaza but in the West Bank and in Jerusalem. Abbas underscored that he was not speaking today "to respond to the lies" of the Israeli prime minister, who claimed before the U.S. Congress in July that Israeli forces did not kill innocent civilians in Gaza. "I ask you, who is it then that killed more than 15,000 children of the 40,000 and an equal number of women and elderly persons. And who is it then that is continuing to kill them, I ask you?" he said. "Palestine will be free, despite anyone who objects. Our people will live in the land of their fathers and grandfathers ... The occupation will end," concluded Abbas. STRIKE AND CEASEFIRE Right after Abbas, Gambian President Adama Barrow addressed the UNGA that "the Israeli occupation, expansion of settlements, blockade of Gaza, and restrictions in the West Bank, together with the threat of intensifying the war to a regional conflict, continue to worsen the ongoing tensions in the Middle East." "Accordingly, I call on the United Nations, the international community, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Member States to join forces and urgently bring about permanent peace in Palestine," he said, adding that "we call on the international community to prioritize support for the post-conflict reconstruction of Gaza and the improvement of economic conditions in the West Bank. Even though the situation in that region is extremely serious, the intense destruction of lives and property continues." In the meantime, Netanyahu instructed his military to keep fighting "with full force" on Thursday, as high-stakes international diplomatic efforts were underway to pause the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. Netanyahu is heading to New York for the UNGA, as members of his government dismissed a ceasefire proposal that the United States, European allies and several Arab nations put forward. Israel's military carried out new strikes in Lebanon, including one in Beirut, the capital, that targeted the commander of Hezbollah's drone unit. The UNGA adopted a resolution on May 10 supporting the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member and recommending that the Security Council "reconsider the matter favorably." The resolution was adopted with 143 votes in favor and nine against, including the United States and Israel, while 25 countries abstained. China voted for the resolution. The resolution states, "The State of Palestine ... should therefore be admitted to membership" and "recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favorably." Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delivers a speech during the General Debate of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN headquarters in New York, on Sept. 26, 2024. Abbas received a long round of applause as he addressed the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Thursday, insisting that "we will not leave, Palestine is our homeland," and "if anyone were to leave it would be the occupier." (Xinhua/Xie E) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (at the podium and on the screens) delivers a speech during the General Debate of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN headquarters in New York, on Sept. 26, 2024. Abbas received a long round of applause as he addressed the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Thursday, insisting that "we will not leave, Palestine is our homeland," and "if anyone were to leave it would be the occupier." (Xinhua/Xie E) (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) From left, San Francisco police Sgt. Joelle Harrell, 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall and San Francisco General Hospital surgeon Dr. Lucy Kornblith are photographed during a game between the 49ers and Jets at Levis Stadium on Sept. 9. Harrell was the first officer to assist Pearsall after he was shot, while Kornblith was one of the surgeons who treated him at the hospital. Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle An Arizona man who owned the gun a teenager allegedly used to shoot San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall through the chest in Union Square has told authorities that the weapon was stolen and that he last saw it months ago. The man, who legally bought the semiautomatic pistol from a shop in Phoenix in February, filed a theft report this week in nearby Tempe, where he lives, said Sgt. Ryan Cook, a spokesperson for the Tempe Police Department. Cook said the man, whom the Chronicle is not naming because he has not been accused of a crime, reported a pair of guns stolen. He remembered seeing the guns about three months ago, Cook said, while stating that the buyers memory was unclear and that the figure was a guess. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Pearsall was shot Aug. 31, with the gun recovered soon after. Tempe police acquired both guns serial numbers and started an investigation into their whereabouts. Cook declined to provide details about the two firearms, other than to say that both were bought legally. However, a source with knowledge of the case told the Chronicle that the gun used in the Pearsall shooting was a .40-caliber Glock 23, a handgun popular among police agencies that retails for about $500. The gun was purchased Feb. 2 at MMP Guns, part of the huge Mo Money Pawn Shop north of downtown Phoenix, according to the source, which the Chronicle is not naming in accordance with its confidential sources policy. Its still unclear how the gun made it from southern Arizona to San Francisco, where police say a 17-year-old from Tracy used it to shoot Pearsall through the right side of his chest. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Police said the boy confronted Pearsall outside luxury boutiques in Union Square and tried to rob him as he carried shopping bags back to a Tesla he was driving. Pearsall fought back, investigators said, and was shot during the struggle. Police said the boy was also struck and wounded by a bullet from his own gun. The teenagers attorney said he obtained video evidence of the shooting that shows an extended struggle between his client and Pearsall, suggesting a lesser charge should apply for the teen. He said his client should be charged with attempted robbery but not attempted murder. Pearsall, who grew up in Arizona and attended Arizona State University, survived and is expected to play later this season. San Francisco police have not commented on the gun or what they have learned about it. Prosecutors have charged the teen with attempted murder, attempted second-degree robbery, assault with a semiautomatic firearm and other weapons violations in connection with the shooting. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has not said whether she will attempt to try him as an adult, which would lead to a hearing and a decision by a judge. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The young defendant appeared in court for a procedural hearing Thursday, and is expected to return for a another hearing in November. Stolen guns are commonly used in crimes in the U.S. A recent study by researchers at UC Davis found that guns reported stolen were nine times as likely to be used in crimes as guns that werent. Between 2017 and 2021, private citizens reported more than 1 million stolen guns to law enforcement, according to a report released last year by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The ATFs 2023 report found that more than half of traceable guns recovered by California police in 2021 were tracked to dealers in other states, with Arizona one of the most frequent origin points. On Monday, Superintendent Matt Wayne, shown in 2022, and school board President Matt Alexander announced the city Controllers Office would perform an independent review of what happened and provide recommendations on how to improve the system so it doesnt happen again. Scott Strazzante/The Chronicle 2022 The San Francisco school district is scrambling to bring on board scores of special education teachers and aides after officials bungled their hiring, leaving hundreds of vulnerable students in the lurch. Now, San Francisco Unified School District officials, who had sought to save money by not hiring the legally required staff, are facing additional costs such as legal fees, more staff time and costly learning remedies. The price tag doesnt include the costs the district could face if families wind up leaving the district over the error. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Beyond the financial burden is the human toll: Hundreds of children with the greatest needs showed up to classrooms in August without the 252 legally required teachers, aides and other staff necessary to help them succeed in school. Not only were the educators not hired, but district officials also failed to allocate funding for them or create the positions and only realized that two weeks before the start of school on Aug. 19. Many of those special-needs students are still waiting for their mandatory services and staffing. The district finally entered the last of the positions into the system on Monday, a required step for hiring, which will likely continue for many more weeks. Im heartbroken, said one parent who the Chronicle agreed not to name under its anonymous sources policy. The parent said they did not want to be identified because they worried about retaliation from the district. Im heartbroken for my own child. Im heartbroken for the district. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The special education budget and hiring debacle has created more waves in the weeks since the Chronicle highlighted the issue earlier this month. Families have filed official grievance complaints and Supervisor Ahsha Safai scheduled a Board of Supervisors hearing on Tuesday to look into the matter. On Friday, Superintendent Matt Wayne and school board President Matt Alexander announced that the city Controllers Office would perform an independent review of what happened and provide recommendations on how to improve the system so it doesnt happen again. What happened at the start of this school year under my watch is unacceptable, Wayne said in a statement. We had qualified educators ready to work and support our students, who were not able to be in the classroom with them because of our bureaucratic roadblocks. Our systems are meant to support our students. We cannot allow bureaucracy to stop our students from getting the resources they need. The timing of the blunder worsens a reputational crisis unfolding in the district. Officials are simultaneously working to address a fiscal mess that may soon prompt a state takeover while also soon unveiling a plan to close schools, which has already upset staff and families. The district has been plagued by dysfunction and chaos recently. An emergency school board meeting last Sunday was called to discuss the superintendents performance. To try to quell the upheaval, Mayor London Breed sent a rescue team of top city officials into the district this past week to help it get its house in order. District officials, so far, have offered little information on why they failed to budget enough money for special education services resulting in the understaffing. The district said 148 of the 252 special education positions are paraeducators, aides who provide individual or small group support to students. That help is required by each students education plan, which specifies legally required support. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Affected families said they had never been told about the budgeting shortfall. Some parents said they thought the lack of staff was caused only by an ongoing teacher shortage, which had left positions vacant at the start of previous years while the district looked for candidates. But because the positions never were created, the schools couldnt hire substitutes to cover for the educators who should have been there. Instead, educators said, staff at each school site scrambled to fill in when necessary. Im frustrated. The district certainly hasnt told us why it happened, said Jessica, who requested anonymity to protect the privacy of her special needs child. Its just this black hole. About 13% of the districts 48,000 students require special education services, with federal and state laws dictating how those services are funded and provided. An internal memo that state advisers sent to district officials said that the special education department in April requested an increase of $60 million for the 2024-2025 budget, but administrative staff was not able to obtain any supporting documentation or information to support the increase. Advertisement Article continues below this ad On Aug. 7, the advisers said it came to their attention that schools needed 252 special education positions that werent included in the budget. Nearly a month later, on Sept. 4, $30 million was added back to the budget to pay for the educators, the advisers said. While it was necessary to make reductions to balance the budget, all budget expenditures need to be reviewed, said Elliott Duchon and Pam Lauzon in the letter. If a department is asking for an increase to their budget, especially in this instance of $60 million, time needs to be spent to determine that the budget is appropriate. You do not want to be under budget, especially in positions. Jessica said her sixth grader hasnt had a resource specialist teacher to provide extra support in English and math class. That adds up to hundreds of hours of special education services that her child has not received because of the district error. By law, the district is required to compensate families for that loss, but families have to request it. Its unclear how much that might cost the district. Are they going to advertise that? Jessica said, adding she worried about families who dont have the time or knowledge to fight for compensatory services. That takes a fair amount of advocacy and time to do that on the parents part. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The other parent, who also requested anonymity, said families have been kept in the dark. It is already so difficult for our families to navigate the system, the parent said. The parent said some families could file lawsuits, which are already costing the district more every year. ZAPI GROUP, a global leader in electrification headquartered in Italy, aims to grow the North American awareness of its brands solutions at the upcoming Battery Show North America, in Detroit (October 7-10). The full range of ZAPI GROUP's on-board (OBC) and off-board charging solutions, from 350 W to 36 kW, will be featured and supported by technical personnel from ZIVAN Srl (ZIVAN), Delta-Q Technologies (Delta-Q) and ZAPI GROUP. "We are committed to delivering electrification enablement to our customers, said Rod Dayrit, Global Director, Business Development for ZAPI GROUPs charging solutions. Our comprehensive charger lineup is designed for seamless integration with other electrification system components and battery technologies offered through our extensive partner network. With our global presence, we streamline sourcing, manufacturing, logistics, compliance, and OEM support across various industries, ensuring that our customers receive the best possible service no matter where they are." The new 9 kilowatt ZIVAN-branded SG9 industrial charger will be on display at the ZAPI GROUP booth 5622. This highly flexible off-board fast charger can be configured for a variety of AC input sources for global deployment (both single and three phase voltages) and offers multiple charge voltages (36 to 96 volts DC) to support a wide array of battery packs. "We are thrilled to showcase our latest product, a portable, powerful, and ruggedized off-board charging solution, distinct in the market at The Battery Show North America," said Simone Paterlini, Chief Operating Officer of ZIVAN. "The SG9 charger is IP-rated to withstand the harshest environments, providing portable high-power opportunity charging at construction and other outdoor industrial sites." ZAPI GROUP invites The Battery Show attendees to booth 5622 tosee the SG9 and explore its broader portfolio of battery charging solutions, including the recently released 3.3 kW on-board chargers offered under the Delta-Q and ZIVAN brands. The team will also showcase other electric drivetrain solutions, including electric motors and motor controllers. This event is an excellent opportunity for engineers, designers, and product managers to engage with our technical experts, discuss challenges, request samples, and explore ideas for their electrification projects. For more information about Delta-Q Technologies or ZIVAN and their respective products, visit https://info.zapigroup.com/charging-solutions. About ZAPI GROUP ZAPI GROUP is engineering the transition to an all-electric future with a highly integrated product portfolio including motion controllers, electric motors, high-frequency battery chargers and autonomous navigation software for application in full electric and hybrid vehicles. As a global electrification leader with deep systems experience, leading innovations, and an obsession with driving customers' success, ZAPI GROUP now counts more than 1700 employees worldwide with total annual revenue of more than 700 million dollars. For more information, visit www.zapigroup.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240926701891/en/ A banana slug makes a slow commute on a mossy log in the Fall Creek Unit of Henry Cowell State Park in Felton (Santa Cruz County). Hannah Hagemann/The Chronicle California has officially designated three new state symbols, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday. The state now recognizes the Dungeness crab as its official crustacean, the banana slug as its official slug, and the black abalone as its official seashell. California has some of the most biodiverse environments in the world with over 5,500 plants, animals, and other life forms, Newsom said in a statement. From the majestic California redwood down to the delicate California quail, every organism matters here and its time we celebrated our less cuddly friends before they get too crabby. Advertisement Article continues below this ad AB797, introduced by Assembly Member Jim Wood, D-Healdburg, acknowledges the Dungeness crabs integral role in Californias commercial fisheries and coastal economy. AB2504, put forth by Diane Dixon, R-Newport Beach, designates the black abalones shell (Haliotis cracherodii) as the official state seashell. Valued for its iridescent mother-of-pearl interior, the black abalone holds significant cultural and historical importance to coastal California Native American tribes. Once plentiful, black abalones are now considered endangered. AB1850, sponsored by Assembly Member Gail Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz, establishes the banana slug (Ariolimax) as the official state slug. Neon yellow banana slugs that are synonymous with UC Santa Cruz make their home in the regions lush redwood forests. The slugs, which can grow to 7 inches and longer, have both male and female reproductive organs. This gives them unique mating abilities, including the option to reproduce asexually, though extremely rare. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Banana slugs are omnivores, and detritivores, that eat decaying and waste matter; theyve even been documented eating the highly poisonous death angel, or Amanita verna mushroom. The slugs unfussy eating abilities are just one reason they are critical stewards of healthy redwood forests. 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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 Flood waters from Hurricane Helene inundate the main street of Tarpon Springs, Fla. California also could face immense flooding risks if numerous atmospheric rivers hit back-to-back. Joe Raedle/Getty Images A person kayaks down a street flooded by Hurricane Helene in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Friday. Few Californians have flood insurance for their homes. Mike Carlson/AP The number of flood insurance companies in California, and the U.S. overall, is growing but one company plans to leave the market. American National Property and Casualty Company plans to discontinue its private flood insurance in California early next year, according to a filing submitted this month to the California Department of Insurance. Earlier this year, the insurer also began the process of exiting Californias market for home insurance. More on home insurance: Californias insurance crisis is so bad that home sellers are letting buyers back out of deals Advertisement Article continues below this ad Typical homeowners insurance policies do not cover damage from flooding or mudslides even though 90% of natural disasters in the U.S. involve flooding, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The first of American Nationals 271 flood insurance customers to be dropped will be those whose policies expire on or around Feb. 7, 2025, with nonrenewals lasting through February 2026. Wildfires may be the most front-of-mind natural disaster for most Californians, but floods can also inflict immense property damage. Last year, flooding caused $90 million in insured losses in the state, according to the Department of Insurance. And climate experts have warned that a barrage of atmospheric rivers could, at some point in the future, cause a disaster akin to the Great Flood of 1862, when both downtown Sacramento and parts of the Central Valley were submerged. Estimates suggest approximately one quarter of the taxable real estate in California was destroyed by flood waters that year, according to the California Historical Society. But few California homeowners purchase flood insurance. As of last month, just 187,000 state residents had flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program the nations largest flood insurer compared to more than 1.7 million Floridians, according to the programs data. And private flood insurers wrote just $71 million in premiums in California compared to more than $13 billion in home insurance premiums, Department of Insurance data shows. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Flood insurance can provide coverage for both damage to the contents of a home and the home itself caused by flooding either directly or indirectly such as a flood causing a sewer backup. The National Flood Insurance Program, which is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, offers policies both directly and through partnerships with private insurance companies. In 2022, the NFIP insured just under 70% of the flood insurance market in the U.S., according to the Insurance Information Institute. But that percentage has been shrinking. From 2016 to 2022, private insurers offering their own flood insurance policies which include Liberty Mutual and Allstate grew from just 12% of the national market to 32%, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In California, the number of private flood insurers has also increased, possibly because the National Flood Insurance program recently updated its pricing. In 2023, 60 insurers offered private flood insurance policies compared to just 17 in 2016, according to the California Department of Insurance. Most American homeowners are not required to purchase flood insurance unless they live in a FEMA-defined special flood hazard area zone and have a federally-backed mortgage. American National continues to offer auto and commercial insurance, among other lines, in California. A spokesperson declined to comment further on the companys decision. By Jonathan McCambridge, PA A domestic abuse survivor has spoken out about the violence she suffered to encourage other women who have been attacked to seek justice. A victim of stalking has also described how she was left mentally tortured after an older man persistently contacted and followed her over six months. The two women have told about their experiences as the PSNI publishes a revised framework to align its response to violence against women and girls (VAWG) to that of terrorism and serious and organised crime. Three women have been murdered in Northern Ireland in the last month, taking the total to 30 women and girls killed by men in the region from 2019. The former partner of Chelsea Hamilton was jailed last year. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA. The former partner of Chelsea Hamilton, 32, was jailed last year for assault, threats to kill and possession of an offensive weapon. Ms Hamilton was subjected to three years of coercive control and physical abuse in her relationship and when she tried to leave, she was shot at with a crossbow that narrowly missed her and physically assaulted for a number of hours. Her ex-partner, who was training to become a professional MMA fighter at the time, left her with multiple injuries. She said: I developed a stutter when speaking to people and began feeling like I wasnt even a real person. There are so many women out there who I know feel the same and are silenced, living in fear. Its not right. Through the polices action plan, they want more women to come forward and put their trust in them to put their perpetrator in jail. Thats what they did for me. She added: No woman should live their life in constant fear, walking on eggshells and isolated from family and friends. It is no life. They make you feel like what they are doing is your fault in some twisted way and that there is a chance you wont be believed. Well, I was believed and it does get easier. Jane was stalked by an older man for six months. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA. Jane, 23 (not her real name) joined a band in the summer of 2022. Within the band was a 50-year-old man, who for the next six months persistently contacted her online, followed her and her family members, gave her unwanted gifts and threatened to kill himself if she didnt speak to him. This year he was charged with stalking and the PSNI secured a Stalking Protection Order, whereby if he made contact with or came near Jane again he would go to jail for the maximum term of five years. She said: I was mentally tortured by this man, there was no escape from him. When I blocked him, he found another way to contact me online. I worked in a local shop at the time and he would follow me there and spend ages in the shop, watching me. He was everywhere. She added: I dont think enough people understand how this crime affects victims, knowing someone is that obsessed and fixated on you, a person that could be capable of anything, its absolutely terrifying. He would not take no for an answer. I lived my life in fear, constantly looking over my shoulder, terrified even just getting a notification on my phone. In September 2022, the PSNI launched its first Tackling Violence against Women and Girls Action Plan using the then national framework for delivery. Two years on, officers have made 3,025 arrests under new legislation (domestic abuse, stalking and non-fatal strangulation). They have also put in place two stalking protection orders using new legislation. Since the VAWG Action Plan was launched, 80 arrests have been made on average each month for the domestic abuse offence, there have been an average of 17 arrests each month for the offences of stalking and threatening and abusive behaviour, with 77 arrests each month for non-fatal strangulation. In the 12 months to July 2024 there were 22,403 VAWG offences recorded. A revised framework for the next five years has now been published. This includes a commitment to a number of actions including a review of previous cases of sexual impropriety and misconduct alleged against PSNI personnel to ensure appropriate investigative actions were taken and developing scrutiny panels for rape no prosecution outcomes. DCS Anthony McNally said violence against women and girls is an epidemic. Photo: UK Parliament/PA. Detective Chief Superintendent Anthony McNally said: Violence against women and girls and femicide across Northern Ireland and indeed the world is an epidemic, it would be remiss of us as a police service to not fully acknowledge and appropriately respond to that. Too many women and girls in Northern Ireland have lost their lives at the hands of men and it has been publicly acknowledged by the Chief Constable and our senior leadership as a whole, that pre-dating our action plan there were shortcomings in our response which is unacceptable. Over the last two years we have worked extremely hard at building relationships with key partners, bolstering our training and challenging our own thoughts and behaviours in this space. As a result of targeted resourcing and relentlessly pursuing perpetrators we have seen a reduction in VAWG offences and an increase in outcome rates for victims. He added: There is no doubt that we have made significant progress in our efforts but there is more work to be done. We know that policing only sees the tip of the iceberg and that there are women and girls out there who are still suffering in silence. My message through this action plan would be, please report to us. If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can contact Womens Aid (24-hour freephone helpline at 1800-341 900, email helpline@womensaid.ie) or Mens Aid Ireland (confidential helpline at 01-554 3811, email hello@mensaid.ie) for support and information. Safe Ireland also offers a number of local services and helplines at safeireland.ie/get-help/where-to-find-help/. In the case of an emergency, always dial 999/112. Maliya Ellis, originally from New Haven, Conn., is a recent graduate of Harvard University, where she studied Social Studies and edited the Harvard Crimsons weekly news magazine. Her summer newsroom internships on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazettes features desk and the Boston Globes metro team have confirmed her passion for deeply reported local news. In her free time, Ellis enjoys long runs and word games. She is excited to explore a new coast and a new city. Eva Osborne Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys, has announced funding of over 1 million to support and improve 517 walking trails across the country. Under the initiative, some 203 community groups will receive grants ranging from 1,500-35,000 for the development and upgrade of their local trails. Funding is also being provided under the scheme to support groups to promote their trails as tourist attractions. Among the Community Groups being approved funding today include: Co Cork : Sheeps Head Way Limited; Co Kerry: Dingle Way Committee; Co Mayo: North Mayo Heritage Committee; Co Offaly: Moneygall Development Association; Co Tipperary: Tipperary Trails Group; Co Wexford: Kiltealy Walking Trails; Co Wicklow: Glenmalure PURE Mile Group and Glens of Lead Group. Cork will receive the most funding for its walking trails with 176,167, followed by Co Kerry with 147,000 and Co Tipperary with 128,167. Announcing the funding on Friday, Minister Humphreys said: Our walkways and outdoor trails really do showcase all that is good about our rural towns and villages. So today, Im delighted to announce over 1 million for 517 trails right across the country. This funding will be used to upgrade and maintain these trails but also to promote them from a tourism perspective. I know we are coming into winter and the evenings are getting darker but getting out for some fresh air, to clear the head, is so important. I want to finally thank all the community groups and Trail Management Organisations that keep our trails in good condition. You do wonderful work, and Im delighted to support you. Olivia Kelleher The brother of Sophie Toscan du Plantier has said that he agrees with Tanaiste Micheal Martin, who recently criticised a decision by the DPP not to prosecute the late Ian Bailey for the murder of the French woman. The Fianna Fail leader said that there were significant questions that remained unanswered in relation to the death of Ms Du Plantier at her remote holiday home in Toormore on the outskirts of Schull in West Cork on December 23rd, 1996. In an interview with the Opinion Line, on Corks 96FM, Bertrand Bouniol said that he was disappointed with the Irish criminal justice system. During these 27 years, the Garda and the justice was not able to bring someone to a trial. That's not normal. And I agree with (the Tanaiste) about that. I totally agree with what he said about that. I don't think that the Irish justice is worse or better than the French justice system. "I don't accept that in Ireland, there is no one who has killed my sister. If I look at the 27 years, all the investigations arrive at the same conclusion. But I am not a specialist of the Irish justice, I'm not a specialist of the French justice, but what I have seen is, as you said, the Irish justice was not able to bring this man to a trial," he said "But when I spoke with the Irish police, with the Garda, all the people we have met during these 27 years arrived at the same conclusion. Well, what we have seen in the last 27 years, all the work done by the Irish police, by the French police, by the Irish justice, by the French justice, are arriving at the same conclusion, that it was Bailey. Mr Bailey was on two occasions detained by Gardai for questioning in relation to the murder of 39-year-old Sophie Toscan du Plantier. Mr Bailey always denied any wrongdoing in relation to the murder of the film producer. The former journalist was convicted in absentia after a trial in France in 2015. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. However, officials in France were unable to extradite the British man to Paris to serve the sentence handed down by the courts. Mr Bouniol said that the French decision in 2019 was important for his elderly parents. Because for the first time there was a first conclusion for them. But with all the information coming regularly for them, it's a new difficulty for them to understand. As you can understand, my mother, if you met her, you know that she cant speak English. "The French justice would define that he was the murderer. That was the decision of justice, not my decision. For the French justice, yes, (the case) is closed. There was a decision of justice, he was guilty, and now, because he is dead, no more. "It's closed for the French justice. But if I understand the Irish people, the case is still open. Who killed my sister? From the Irish point of view. There is no other suspect in Ireland. "My parents are now very old and very sick. And that's 27 years later. Imagine. No conclusion from the Irish. Im not angry. I'm disappointed, yes. Disappointed that 27 years later, soon it will be 28 years later. Mr Bouniol added that Sophies home in Toormore remains a special place for him and his family. Because when my sister bought this house, it was a place where she can think, write, work. And when you enter in this house, you find my sister's spirit. And that's important for us because when we are in the house and everyone who knew my sister that entered in the house can say the same thing." "Oh, I recognize Sophie. On that picture, on that armchair, on that bed, and so on, and so on, and so on. And so each time we came, we had the same feeling. It's a place where you want to have peace, where you want to have quietness. And we have also the history of that terrible night. So it's important for us to come. It's a beautiful place. By Rebecca Black, PA The UK government has been pressed to hold an independent inquiry into the murder of journalist Martin OHagan. Mr OHagan was killed by loyalist paramilitaries in Lurgan, Co Armagh in 2001. No-one has ever been successfully prosecuted for his murder. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) general secretary Michelle Stanistreet and assistant general secretary Seamus Dooley have written to British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, Secretary of State Hilary Benn, First Minister Michelle ONeill, deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly and Taoiseach Simon Harris calling for an independent inquiry into the killing. Seamus Dooley, assistant general secretary of the National Union of Journalists. Photo: NUJ/PA. The NUJs Mr Dooley said there are many unanswered questions and issues to be resolved around the murder of Mr OHagan. He contended there are suspicions of collusion and that police had prior knowledge of the intention to kill Mr OHagan. For many years the NUJ has marked the anniversary of the vile murder of Martin OHagan with calls for an independent investigation, he said. Polite acknowledgements have not been followed up by action, but we continue to demand an external investigation into the murder and the failure to properly investigate it. There are so many unanswered questions, so many issues which remain unresolved, despite the fact that the identity of those suspected of ordering and carrying out the assassination of Martin OHagan is well known, with names being published in the media with impunity. Since last years anniversary we have had a new Northern Ireland Secretary, a new British Prime Minister, a new Taoiseach along with a new First Minister and deputy First Minister. In that context, we are seeking support for a new investigation, led by an international figure and independent of those who have so far failed to properly investigate the murder. He added: The strong suspicion of collusion with the security forces and the suggestion that the PSNI may have had prior knowledge of the plan to murder Martin OHagan must be thoroughly interrogated. The murder of Martin OHagan was a watershed moment for journalism in the UK and Ireland. The failure to properly investigate it has cast a long shadow and continues to embolden those who seek to silence journalists. North Americas largest and longest-running animation film festival, the Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF), starts today in Ottawa, Canada, and as always, its short film selections are an eclectic and intriguing crop of films. Sixty-nine short films are competing across seven categories, selected from a total of 2,308 entries representing 93 countries. Overall, 124 projects are in the official selection, including panorama shorts, feature films, and series. Films such as Annecy grand prize winner Percebes (Alexandra Ramires and Laura Goncalves) and Oscar-winning animator Torill Koves latest film Maybe Elephants are competing in the Narrative category, while Annecys Off-Limits prize winner Glass House (Boris Labbe) is presented in the Non-Narrative category. But Ottawa also offers its own unique selections and there are always plenty of surprises in its competition line-up, as well as the films that end up as winnners. Remarkably, the last three editions of Ottawa have presented the grand prize for a short film to a Japanese production, starting with Honami Yanos A Bite of Bone in 2021, followed by Atsushi Wadas Bird in the Peninsula in 2022, and Ryo Orikasas Miserable Miracle last year. Heres our pick of nine shorts that reflect the richness and diversity of this years edition. Trailers have been included when available. Confetti (Amanda Bonaiuto, United States, 2024) Bonaiuto has built her career between commissioned animation and her own studio practice, filled with twisted characters, dark humor, and weird settings. She returns to Ottawa with Confetti after having received the festivals best student film award in 2018 for her Calarts graduation film Hedge. A tale mixing separation, fever dreaming, and snails, Confetti makes its world premiere at OIAF in the Narrative category. Freeride in C (Edmunds Jansons, Latvia, 2024) The slopes of white tranquil mountains slowly get populated with red-and-blue winter enthusiasts in this catchy and rhythmic non-narrative film by Latvian filmmaker Edmunds Jansons. A former student of Estonian animation vet Priit Parn, Jansons is an animation director and founder of Riga-based Atom Art studio, which has grown to be one of the busiest animation studios in the country. Jansons is also a guest tutor at French animation film school La Poudriere, and brings Freeride in C to OIAF for its world premiere. Keep Out (Tan-Lui Chan, Hong Kong/Czech Republic, 2023) Showcased at Animafest Zagreb earlier this year, Keep Out is the first student short by Hong Kong-based animator and illustrator Tan-Lui Chan, whose interest about European art and culture led to study animation at Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art in the Czech Republic. In her dystopian world where being approved by social media likes is a matter of life and death, a boy discovers that his ordeal might not be as hopeless as it seems. A cynical yet beautifully animated tale of our modern culture where content is a merciless king. Moral Support (Vuk Jevremovic, Croatia, 2024) Inspired by the eponymous song by Slovenian band Laibach, Moral Support depicts historical events from the beginning of last century with a harsh and brutally vivid style. Using all of Jevremovic skills, the film is a whirlwind of colored strokes fighting with blurry shades and ominous figures mirroring the sorrows of humanitys bloody past. Showcased at Annecy in June, OIAFs selection marks the beginning of the films North American career. It can be viewed in its entirety below: Samaa (Ehsan Gharib, Canada, 2024) Following up on his directorial debut (Deyzangeroo) in 2017, Gharib explores new variations of his approach combining photographic and animation techniques. In Samaa, a hand-painted bird fights to find freedom from his cage, questioning our very own perception of what it means to be free. Accompanied by a strong and visceral percussion soundtrack by artist and composer Ziya Tabassian, the film by this Canada-based filmmaker captivates with its striking visuals, creating life and animation alike from its at-first motionless colors. Society of Clothes (Dahee Jeong, France/South Korea/Canada, 2024) With her decade-spanning career, Jeong is a key figure in art-house Korean animation. The international recognition started with her debut film Man on the Chair (2014), which was featured in the Directors Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Cristal for best short at Annecy. Since then, she has received numerous awards for her films The Empty (2016) and Movements (2019) and comes to OIAF this year not only as a competing filmmaker, but as a member of the Feature Competition Jury. Society of Clothes, a touching metaphor of how clothing both defines and imprisons each human being, also marks a rare French-Korean-Canadian co-production between Miyu Productions, Between the Pictures, and the National Film Board of Canada. Stampfer Dreams (Thomas Renoldner, Austria, 2024) Austrian animation authority and self-taught artist Thomas Renoldner brings back Simon von Stampfers optical experiments from the 19th century on screen with Stampfer Dreams, both an homage to the scientists work and a wondrous experimental film. Von Stampfer, a pioneer in the research to achieve the depiction of moving pictures, premiered his Optical Magic Discs in Vienna in 1833, only a year after Joseph Plateau showcased his Phenakistoscope in Belgium. In a quiet and peaceful Austrian Alps setting, Stampfers animations bring life and movement to forgotten characters and crafts, before Renoldners mandalas and techno-like soundtrack transcends them into fascinating figures. There Will Be No Other End (Piot Milczarek, Poland, 2024) Milczareks There Will Be No Other End will make its international premiere in Ottawa this year, following up on his acclaimed debut film Deszcz (Rain) which was awarded the Special Jury Prize in Hiroshima four years ago, along with over 125 festival selections. Painting a picture of society in all its weirdness acoss five chapters, his new film is a beautiful white-and-blue short filled with cynical and humorous interconnected skits. Blue is definitely not the warmest color in this film where all it takes to counter a protest is a small pebble, and where a flying baby can captivate an audience. youve got a friend in me (Peter Millard, United Kingdom, 2024) Millards quippy film may not be to Disneys utmost pleasure. To the tune apparently sung by Millard himself of Randy Newmans Youve Got a Friend in Me, we are presented with a peaceful setting of white clouds on a blue sky. Only to be ripped from this sight a minute later to witness a childishly drawn Buzz Lightyear pummeling Woody to death before blowing his own head off. The two-minute short is as enjoyable and disturbing as it sounds, and brings back joyous memories of Marv Newlands Bambi Meets Godzilla, though it might have taken a significantly larger amount of time for Millard to animate this effort than Newlands iconic classic. A San Francisco jury convicted a man accused of breaking into a San Francisco synagogue. seng kui Lim/500px/Getty Images A 43-year-old man was found guilty of burglarizing a synagogue in San Franciscos Lower Pacific Heights neighborhood last year, a bizarre caper in which he at one point pretended to be a security guard. Deon Vonzell Brimmer was arrested on Aug. 12, 2023, five days after he broke into Congregation Sherith Israel on California and Webster streets a giant Beaux-Arts sanctuary built during the Gold Rush. At Brimmers trial, prosecutors said that he entered the building through a back window, triggering an alarm that he then tried to disable damaging pieces of equipment in the process. After scouring the building for items to steal, he swiped a suit coat and Sherith Israel badge from a closet, then accosted a synagogue employee, requesting payment for security services. Advertisement Article continues below this ad When that effort proved unsuccessful, Brimmer fled. Police apprehended him five days later, about a mile away from the synagogue. On Friday, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins announced his conviction for second-degree burglary and vandalism, following a jury trial in which prosecutors rolled out security footage to corroborate their narrative of the crime. The jurys verdict holds Mr. Brimmer accountable for his crimes and sends a message that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated in San Francisco, Jenkins said. Assistant District Attorney Abigail Adams, who led the prosecution, maintained that places of worship are sacred, and praised the jury for holding Brimmer accountable. Brimmers attorney, Deputy Public Defender Alex Lilien, disputed prosecutors version of events. While Brimmer had behaved erratically, Lilien said, he was not targeting a religious institution, nor was he casing the building. Lilien noted, moreover, that although the jurors convicted Brimmer of misdemeanor vandalism for breaking a window and parts of the alarm system, they acquitted him of a more serious felony charge for vandalism of a synagogue. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Ultimately, Lilien described Brimmers crime as relatively benign. According to witness testimony, he appeared committed to his role as a security guard, opening the door for police who initially responded to the burglary alarm and remaining posted at the front desk to greet others before asking when he would be paid for his shift, Lilien said. Upon leaving, the public defender added, Brimmer returned the blazer he had grabbed to its owner. He is out of jail and set to be sentenced on Oct. 29. Cemex recognised for social impact ICR Newsroom By 27 September 2024 Cemex announced that it has been included in Fortunes 2024 Change the World list for the fourth time. The list showcases businesses out of about 250 companies that are having a positive social impact through activities that are part of their core business strategy. Fortune recognised the company's work with VeryNile in cleaning the Nile River, developing a more sustainable solution for the collected waste. VeryNile is an initiative supported by the Ministry of the environment in Egypt that develops eco-friendly solutions to remove inorganic waste from the river. Plastics recovered are up-cycled and non-recyclables are used as alternative fuel in Cemexs Assiut cement plant, alleviating pollution issues in the local ecosystem and improving water quality for the community while also providing 150 alternative jobs and income for fishermen and women affected by Nile contamination. Fernando A Gonzalez, CEO of Cemex, said, We are once again honoured by Fortunes recognition of our sustainable business model, which aligns environmental conservation with social empowerment. The VeryNile initiative exemplifies how companies can collaborate with NGOs and society to change the world for the better. In 2020 Fortune recognised the company for building mobile hospitals with antibacterial concrete modules in record time during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Our Growing Platform initiative was awarded in 2017 for collaboratively addressing the challenges of housing and inequality in vulnerable communities. Two years earlier, in 2015, Cemex was honoured for its Patrimonio Hoy programme, which provides low-income families with access to building materials, micro-financing, technical advice and logistical support to help them build their homes. The Fortune Change the World list highlights companies that use their innovative capabilities to tackle social challenges, leveraging business success to pursue goals that are as crucial as, or even more important than, financial gains. This year, companies were clustered into four groups, with some falling into multiple categories: environmental impact, economic opportunity, public health and human rights. In assessing the nominees, the most critical factors considered were measurable social impact, business results and the degree of innovation. Published under Kyrgyzstan lawmaker urges government to lift ban on Uzbek imports ICR Newsroom By 27 September 2024 A Kyrgyz lawmaker has called for the removal of the countrys ban on importing cement from Uzbekistan, highlighting the potential benefits for consumers and the local construction industry. Speaking at the parliamentary fuel and energy complex committee on September 24, MP Alisher Kozuyev argued that the ban is fostering local monopolies and driving up cement prices domestically. He noted that, prior to the ban, Uzbek cement was priced between KGS0.60-1 (US$0.01) cheaper per unit compared to locally produced alternatives, offering Kyrgyz consumers a more affordable option. The import ban, which has been in effect for nearly three months, was originally implemented to protect local manufacturers. However, Kozuyev emphasised that allowing Uzbek imports would increase market competition, lower prices and improve the quality of building materials. Choro Seyitov, Kyrgyzstans deputy minister of economy and commerce, defended the ban, stating that the influx of cheaper Uzbek cement could severely harm domestic producers, particularly in regions like Osh, where local plants struggle to compete. Mr Seyitov warned that lifting the ban could lead to factory closures, job losses and a reduction in tax revenues. He also noted that some Uzbek cement products fail to meet Kyrgyzstans certification standards and accused certain exporters of engaging in price dumping. Meanwhile, the construction of Kyrgyzstans new 1Mta Tash-Kumyr cement plant in Jalal-Abad region is progressing, with completion expected by 2025. Additionally, President Sadyr Japarov recently inaugurated a US$160m clinker plant in Kemin, Chuy region, further boosting the countrys cement production capacity. This debate comes as Kyrgyzstan continues to develop its local cement industry, balancing the need for competitive pricing with the protection of its domestic manufacturers. Published under UTC officials said two students suffered burns in an incident on Wednesday. Officials said, "The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is aware of an isolated incident in which two students were injured on-campus during the early morning hours of September 25, 2024. No further information can be shared at this time as this is an active, ongoing investigation. "Additionally, no Timely Warning or Emergency Notification message was sent as the incident did not relate to a Clery Act crime, nor did it constitute an emergency on campus. Additional information will be released as appropriate and permitted under federal and state laws. "The campus community is deeply saddened by this unfortunate incident and wishes our students a swift and full recovery." Former Chattanoogan.com staff writer Jen Jeffrey Billington has released her tenth book, "Honoring the FallenA Fathers Story," co-authored with Chad Cartledge of Running 4 Heroes and Forward written by Jonathan Hickory of Break Every Chain. Launched on Friday, this work has quickly achieved rankings: #1 in New Releases under the Non-profit category and #2 in Best-sellers, with the potential to reach #1 today. Ms. Billington and Mr. Cartledge joined forces in 2022 to narrate the inspiring true story of Zechariah Cartledge, Chad's son, who, at only 10 years old, founded the Non-profit Running 4 Heroes in 2019. Zechariah gained national attention after being interviewed on Fox News with Steve Doocy. Driven by a passion for honoring first responders, he would run a mile for each law enforcement officer and firefighter who lost their lives in the line of duty. As part of his tribute, he carried a blue line or red line flag, which he would send to the families of the fallen. He also raised funds to support these families and injured first responders while establishing a Youth Runners program to provide student scholarships. Now 16, Zechariah will be retiring from his role as a Youth Runner at the end of this year. Ms. Billington has long supported law enforcement, with both a son and granddaughter serving in the field. She has written two books on Birding, a Collection of Poetry, and a devotional. Along with her husband Jason, she also writes and illustrates a children's book series called Pengdom Living, which caters to children and adults with special needs. This series has two storybooks, with a third set to be released soon. In addition, Pengdom Living offers two joke books, all available on Amazon. Ms. Billington is planning a book signing event in Chattanooga, with the date yet to be determined. "Honoring the FallenA Fathers Story" communicates how the mission evolved into a national non-profit and provides a personal look into the lives of surviving family members and a law enforcement officer who survived a shooting and received support from Running 4 Heroes. The authors aim to highlight the critical importance of supporting our first responders. A percentage of the author's royalties will be donated to the Running 4 Heroes organization. You can find the book available now at Amazon Books online. jenjeffreybillington@gmail.com Second Missionary Baptist Church will celebrate nine years of spiritual leadership under the pastorage of Dr. Ernest L. Reid, Jr., senior pastor, on Sunday, Oct. 20 at the 10:45 a.m. service. The guest speaker will be Dr. Carlos Williams, senior pastor, Pilgrim Rest Missionary Baptist Church, Dallas, Tx.The community is invited to worship in person at 2305 E. Third St. in Chattanooga, or to live stream virtually at www.mysmbchurch.org, or @2ndMBChurch on Facebook.A reception with light refreshments will follow the service. For more information, call the church office at 423-624-9097. The GLBT Museum and Historical Society is seen at its current location on 18th Street in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco in 2021. The museum will soon expand to a much larger venue on Market Street after city officials secured $17.5 million to fund a new home. Stephen Lam/The Chronicle The exhibit, Queer Past Becomes Present, is displayed at the GLBT History Museum in San Francisco. Sarahbeth Maney/Special to the Chronicle The nations first LGBTQ museum may soon have a permanent home in the heart of San Franciscos Castro District. Mayor London Breed and Supervisor Rafael Mandelman plan to introduce legislation next week to facilitate the purchase of 2280 Market St., transforming it into a permanent base for the GLBT Historical Society Museum and Archives. Known as the Queer Smithsonian, the museum boasts an expansive collection of LGBTQ artifacts and is currently housed in a smaller venue. Advertisement Article continues below this ad A display on gay leather culture is shown at the GLBT History Museum in San Francisco. Sarahbeth Maney/Special to the Chronicle The proposed location, formerly a Tower Records store, will offer 22,330 square feet of space, including an 11,165-square-foot area dedicated to the museum. It will be adjacent to the recently renovated Fisch & Flore restaurant. The Castro is the heart of LGBTQ culture in this City and this country, and it is the perfect place for a museum that will preserve and celebrate LGBTQ history, culture, and arts for generations to come, Breed said in a statement. Funding for the acquisition began in 2021, with Breed allocating $12.5 million. State Sen. Scott Wiener secured an additional $5.5 million in state funding for the project in 2022. From left: Gerard Koskovich, a queer historian and founding member of the GLBT Historical Society, shares the history of the Castro District with Queen Maxima of the Netherlands as she visits the museum in San Francisco on Sept. 6, 2022. Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle Founded in 1985, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Societys museum opened to the public in 2011. But efforts to find a permanent home have been underway for more than two decades. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Finding this site took years of work and commitment, but we did not waver in finding a home that would honor San Francisco as a place that elevates our LGBTQ community and celebrates those who paved the way for us to have the freedoms we enjoy today, Breed added. The museums current one-level, 1,660-square-foot space at 4127 18th St. will be replaced by the new, much larger premises, enabling more extensive displays and research. The GLBT Historical Societys archives comprise hundreds of manuscripts, thousands of periodicals and countless photographs and memorabilia, serving as a critical resource for scholars. Matchbook covers from local gay clubs are on display at the GLBT history museum in the Castro in San Francisco. Liz Hafalia/The Chronicle The purchase and sale agreement will be introduced on Oct. 1, subject to the Board of Supervisors approval. Upon acquisition, the property will be leased to the GLBT Historical Society and CAST, an organization supporting affordable spaces for nonprofit arts and culture entities. This investment is more than the purchase of a building; it is about creating a home to share the lessons of LGBTQ and allied history, Roberto Ordenana, executive director of the GLBT Historical Society, said in statement. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Former Supervisor Bevan Dufty previously advocated for the museums inclusion in the Eureka Valley/Harvey Milk Memorial Branch Library in 2005, emphasizing, Thousands of people come to the Castro, and they want to know about our history. The Harvey Milk display in the GLBT History Museum in San Francisco. Sarahbeth Maney/Special to the Chronicle City officials, including Breed, Mandelman and Wiener, are expected to join GLBT Historical Society leaders for a community celebration at 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 27, ahead of the Board of Supervisors meeting. We wouldnt have reached this historic milestone without the support of Mayor London Breed and so many community leaders who have long recognized the importance of creating a permanent home for the nations first museum of LGBTQ history and culture in the United States, Ordenana said. Southern Adventist Universitys School of Music invites the community to Songs for All Seasons, a concert by the Wind Symphony under the direction of Ken Parsons on Sunday, Oct. 13, at 7:30 p.m. in Collegedale Church of Seventh-day Adventists, 4829 College Dr. East in Collegedale.The repertoire for the free event on the university campus will include Alfred Reeds The Hounds of Spring, William Grant Stills Summerland, Eric Whitacres October, and Andrew Boysen, Jr.s December Dance.For more information, visit southern.edu/musicevents or call 423-236-2880. What do you do with a student who makes threats to shoot, kill, blow-up, burn or destroy the school? As a retired assistant principal in charge of discipline from the Hamilton County Schools, I know what I would do. I would send every case of this to the School Board for an expulsion hearing, not a one-year suspension. Of course, now you have to go thru several highly paid individuals, that don't teach a student and insulate the super from all of the mud and dirt circulating under his feet. What a job. Why risk the wellbeing, health and safety of the majority of our students? Let these few individuals that are making these threats go to online schools or one of the other options available to get an education. This way their parents have to deal with them. I can almost guarantee that they won't be going to any of our private schools. Don't send them to another HCDED school after a semester or a year. These people need help. They need the kind of help that takes a long time. They need a psychiatrist at the least, not a counselor. They have forfeited their right to attend public schools. They should not be allowed on any HCDED campus or event ever again. If you think this sounds harsh then think of your child and their wellbeing, or your neighbor's child. If the school board doesn't want to do this, recall them. It's the thing that will save your child or someone else's child. This is serious business. I understand there is a movement by some board members to modify the punishment for "threats." I bet they don't have children at HCDE. They probably send them to private schools, just guessing for safety reasons, I don't blame them, because if you make those kinds of threats at a private school, you are out, plus you lose your money! Better be glad I am not in charge, we would be short 20 or 30 students. Be careful what you say, little children. Don't say it if you don't mean it. We shall take you for your word. Ernie McCarson Home News Evangelicals for Harris spends over $1M on anti-Trump ad campaign featuring Billy Graham The political action committee Evangelicals for Harris rolled out an over $1 million ad campaign Thursday that features footage of the late evangelist Billy Graham and suggests former President Donald Trump exhibits the character of evil men in the last days. The ad, which will play out over the next three weeks in battleground states, features a sermon Graham preached from 2 Timothy 3:1-5, in which Paul describes the terrible nature of the last days and warns "men will become utterly self-centered and greedy for money, full of big words." The ad interspersed brief clips of Trump making comments that the PAC implied are indications he possesses the sinful characteristics of the End Times evildoers Paul was describing. 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 Our newest ad has dropped. 2 Timothy 3:1-5 But you must realize that in the last days the times will be full of danger. Men will become utterly self-centered and greedy for money, full of big words. They will be proud and abusive without any regard for their parents. They will pic.twitter.com/4NMgvbILFc Evangelicals For Harris (@Evangels4Harris) September 26, 2024 After Graham reads about greed, the ad shows a clip of Trump joking about how he is "greedy, greedy, greedy" and "grabbed all the money I could get." When Graham reads about Paul writing against men who are "proud and abusive," the ad then shows the famous clip of then-Fox News host Megyn Kelley asking Trump during a debate in 2015 about the derogatory comments he has made about women. The ad suggests Trump is also "uncontrolled and violent," citing a speech when he said he wanted to punch someone in the face. Trump's joke in 2019 that he was "the chosen one" regarding trade with China is evidence that he is "treacherous, reckless, and arrogant," the ad implies. The ad then claimed Trump loves pleasure more than God by citing the leaked "Access Hollywood" tape that featured prominently in the waning weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign, during which he said, "I just started kissing" beautiful women. The ad ended by suggesting Trump maintains "the facade of religion" but that his life denies the truth, using a 2015 clip showing pollster Frank Luntz asking Trump if he had ever asked for God's forgiveness. "I am not sure I have. I just go on and try to do a better job from there. I don't think so. I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don't bring God into that picture. I don't," Trump replied at the time, though he later backtracked. The Christian Post has reached out to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assocation for comment. The ad marks the second time the PAC has attacked Trump using footage from Billy Graham's sermons, prompting pushback from Billy Graham Evangelistic Association CEO Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son. Franklin Graham, who has been an outspoken supporter of the former president's policies and has claimed there is a "demonic power" behind the attacks against him, asserted that Trump was the last presidential candidate his father voted for before he died in 2018 and suggested that attempts to imply his father would not support Trump are deliberately misleading. "The liberals are using anything and everything they can to promote candidate Harris," Graham said. "They even developed a political ad trying to use my father [Billy Graham's] image. They are trying to mislead people. Maybe they don't know that my father appreciated the conservative values and policies of President [Trump] in 2016, and if he were alive today, my father's views and opinions would not have changed." The liberals are using anything and everything they can to promote candidate Harris. They even developed a political ad trying to use my father @BillyGrahams image. They are trying to mislead people. Maybe they dont know that my father appreciated the conservative values and pic.twitter.com/LZe3SEm9Al Franklin Graham (@Franklin_Graham) August 14, 2024 Franklin Graham's niece Jerushah Duford is at odds with her uncle over Trump, recently suggesting during an "Evangelicals for Harris" Zoom call that Trump supporters are causing people to turn away from Christianity. She expressed support for his opponent in the 2024 election, Vice President Kamala Harris. "Voting Kamala, for me, is so much greater than policies," Duford said. "It's a vote against another four years of faith leaders justifying the actions of a man who destroys the message Jesus came to spread, and that is why I get involved in politics." Since his two recent assassination attempts, Trump has spoken more openly about God, claiming he thinks about Him more often and attributes his narrow escapes from death to divine providence. Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, visited the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Monday to pay his respects at the graves of the late evangelist and his wife. He mentioned how Graham's Gospel message cuts across class and racial divides. Home News Jordan Peterson slams 'trans-butchery of minor children' as 'a crime against humanity' Psychologist and podcaster Jordan Peterson suggests that doctors who perform "trans-butchery" on children with gender dysphoria are "butchering sadists" who should face life sentences for "crimes against humanity." Peterson, a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, discussed his concerns about gender transition procedures for minors in an appearance on "Piers Morgan Uncensored" last week. "I think that every single medical professional and psychological professional who has played a role in facilitating the trans-butchery of minor children should be put in prison for the rest of their lives for crimes against humanity," he said. Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe "It is the worst medical and certainly psychological scandal that I've ever seen in my entire life and the only things that I've seen that rival it is the medical experiments that were conducted by the Nazis and the Japanese running up to World War II," Peterson asserted. "It's absolutely 100% unforgivable." Peterson's comments condemning the promotion of gender transition procedures for minors came in response to billionaire Elon Musk's assertion on the psychologist's podcast that "I lost my son" because he was "killed by the woke mind virus." Musk noted that medical and psychological professionals informed him that his trans-identified son "might commit suicide" if he did not embrace the child's stated gender identity as a woman. The psychologist condemned the aforementioned "lie" told to Musk. "That has no grounding whatsoever in empirical fact; it's an absolute bloody lie," Peterson said. "It's pathological beyond belief." Peterson elaborated on the implications of what he called the "trans epidemic" in the United States, saying that "At least 8,000 young women have been subjected to double mastectomies." He identified the proposition that "those children are all now free to show their true identity" as "another complete bloody lie." The psychologist delivered a message to left-leaning politicians in his native Canada, the U.S. and the United Kingdom: "If you people are behind this identity politics and you think that it's a good idea to free up young women in particular to find their true identities as men, there is something seriously sick about you. It's inexcusable; it's absolutely inexcusable." "There is no evidence whatsoever for any of those gender transformation identity claims," he maintained. "It's experimental medicine conducted by butchering sadists at its absolute worst. What they do to people to transform them into malfunctioning pseudo-members of the opposite sex is far beyond brutal." "Sadists are overrepresented in the profession of surgery," he said, adding, "all you have to do is think for about 15 seconds before you can figure out why that might be." He reiterated his belief that "sterilization and mutilation of children," which he described as "involuntary" because of their lack of ability to give consent for the procedures, constitutes a "crime against humanity in accordance with [United Nations] definitions." "To call it reprehensible is to barely scrape the surface," he continued. "I don't think it will stop until there are the right length of prison sentences for the people who have been involved in it," he predicted. Peterson mentioned the "Cass Report," commissioned by the U.K.'s National Health Service, which determined that there is "no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress." He noted how the "Cass Report" led the NHS to rethink the performance of gender transition procedures on minors while lamenting that similar developments have not occurred in Canada or the U.S. Concerns about the long-term impacts of gender transition procedures on minors have prompted 26 U.S. states to implement bans on the performance of some or all of them: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming. While Peterson did not give any specific examples of individuals harmed by undergoing the life-altering procedures, Chloe Cole has emerged as one of the most outspoken detransitioners, a term reserved for individuals who once experienced gender dysphoria but saw their discomfort with their biological sex subside as they got older. In a lawsuit filed against the professionals who prescribed and encouraged her to seek such treatment, Cole attributed the suicidal thoughts she experienced as a minor to the double mastectomy she received, adding that the gender transition procedures she underwent left her with "deep physical and emotional wounds, severe regrets, and distrust of the medical system." Home News Rick Warren at Lausanne 4: Part of finishing the task is re-evangelizing the Church INCHEON, South Korea Ahead of his speech Saturday at the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, Rick Warren, founder of Saddleback Church in California, warned believers must re-evangelize nominal Christians to fulfill the Great Commission, adding that some Christians have traded "spiritual power for political influence." Speaking to a select group of delegates about the obstacles impeding Christians from fulfilling the Great Commission, the 70-year-old Warren said the Great Commission can be fulfilled, but it first requires "the great collaboration." And there are two obstacles faithful believers must overcome to finish the task. Christians, said Warren, are great at fellowshipping and networking, but they're terrible at collaboration and unity a word that has been at the heart of Lausanne 4 this week. 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 purpose of unity is not for unity's sake. The purpose of unity is for evangelism," said Warren, who retired from Saddleback in 2022 and has committed to focusing the next 10 years of his life on helping younger generations reach more people for Christ. Warren emphatically stressed to the delegates gathered at the "Finishing the Task" breakout session on Tuesday afternoon that there "will be no Great Commission fulfilled until we actually get this unity thing figured out." Unity was immensely significant to Jesus as well, he added. In Jesus' final prayer before He goes to the cross, do you know what Jesus was most concerned about? That we be unified. Twice in his final prayer, John 17, He prays this: 'Father, I pray that they will be one so that the world may know.'" Other than occasional collaborations on events, the structure currently in place for evangelism entails Christian denominations and organizations working independently of one another. "Nobody's ever going to be able to do it on their own," he added. "You can't do it on your own. I can't do it. Your denomination, your agency can't do it on their own." Just as the Lausanne Movement Global Executive Director Michael Oh said in his message to the 5,000 delegates gathered Sunday night, the inability or refusal to collaborate hurts the Christian witness and the fulfillment of the Great Commission. The second reason why Christians aren't collaborating with one another to urgently finish the task, according to Warren, is because they "really don't believe Jesus is coming back" in their lifetime. Warren admonished this type of thinking, noting that first century Christians believed Jesus could come back at "any moment," and because of this urgency, it spurred them to action, and the Church witnessed exponential growth. "If you really thought that Jesus could come back in your lifetime, you would be collaborating with everybody," Warren said, pointing to Jesus' words in Matthew 25, where He says three times to "be ready." Imploring believers to get a conviction about the Second Coming of Christ, he warned, "If you're not ready now, you are disobeying the Lord Jesus Christ." Another reason why the first century Church quickly grew was because they were suffering persecution. But once Christianity became legal and popularized in the Roman Empire, then "political power replaced spiritual power," he said. "Christian churches actually grow faster under persecution," Warren explained. "We were illegal during the fastest period of growth. The fastest period of growth of Christianity was the first 330 years of the Church. We went from 120 people in the upper room to, by [the year] 360 AD, half of the Roman Empire had been saved 30 million out of 60 million people. Sharing an example of Christianity's rise to prominence and what he described as a monumental cultural shift, Warren said the Roman denarius from the year 87 had Caesar on the coin. By the year 300, Chi Rho, the first two letters of Christ in Greek, was on the coin. By 340, Jesus was on the denarius, and by 360, the cross of Jesus Christ was on the coin. "Now, that's culture change," he said. Reflecting on how, once "Christianity became an acceptable political power" in the Roman Empire, "miracles, signs and wonders" declined, Warren surmised that "all of the signs and wonders of the first 300 years were because we had no political clout." "I wish I could say this to the people in my country, in America, because they've switched spiritual power for political influence," he lamented, warning Christians not to "hitch their wagon" to any politician because that kind of power is fleeting. Re-evangelizing the Church Warren said another highly significant part of fulfilling the Great Commission is re-evangelizing the Church. What this means is reaching out to nominal Christians to get them on fire for God so they can, in turn, be prepared and ready to reach and disciple others. Listing statistics on the number of Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews and Christians worldwide, Warren underscored that there are some 2.6 billion people worldwide who identify as Christian, and many of them need to be re-evangelized. "There are nominal Christians just like there are nominal Muslims who don't know what they believe," he said. "But the bottom line is it's a whole lot easier to evangelize and reawaken a nominal Christian in name only than it is to win a Hindu who you're trying to convince the guy who believes in 10,000 gods to just believe in one. "So part of finishing the task, completing the Great Commission, is evangelizing the Church. If we were to evangelize and activate those people, if everybody who already claims to believe in the Trinity and the cross of the resurrection shared their testimony with somebody who'd never heard three times in the next 10 years [] we'd cover the entire world. It's not rocket science." Following Jesus' model Highlighting the numerous ministry success stories of Saddleback Church, which includes being the "only church in Christian history to plant a church in every nation (197 countries)," Warren said he didn't follow an American model or a strategy of his own making, he followed Jesus' model. One thing Jesus does, Warren said, is He meets people where they are, not where He wants them to be. But He also doesn't "leave them there." He added that Christians must first learn how to "make friends" before they can share their faith and win people for Christ. "So, as a pastor, as a leader, you have to teach people how to build friendships before you teach them how to share their faith," continued Warren, who said it has been the "privilege" of his lifetime to "train over 1 million pastors in 165 nations." "My definition of evangelism is you build a bridge of love between your heart and theirs, and then Jesus walks across. [] Before people trust Jesus, they've got to trust you. And if I can't trust you, why should I trust your Savior." Using himself as an example of gaining people's trust through actions and character, Warren stated earlier in his talk that he's among the pastors who have "never had a scandal" in his life. He shared that he was able to stay scandal-free by doing three things: living life with integrity, humility and generosity. "Those three things, he said, have been the "antidotes to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life." Following Jesus' model, he continued, is simply following 2 Timothy 2:2, which is about teaching and passing down what was learned to successive generations of faithful men and women who are obedient to sharing the Gospel. Another crucial aspect of modeling Jesus is prayer. As the disciples watched Jesus, "they realized that the secret to His power was His prayer life," Warren explained. "They never said, 'Lord, teach us how to heal people.' They said, 'Lord, teach us to pray.' Why? Because they recognized that's where the power came from." Warren added that it's about "moving from member of the Body of Christ to maturity in the Body of Christ to ministry in the Body of Christ to mission in the world." Home News Most Catholics in US, Latin America support ordaining women to the priesthood: survey A new report reveals that most Catholics in the United States and Latin America support ordaining women to the priesthood despite their faiths clear teaching on the matter. The Pew Research Center released the results of a survey Thursday based on responses collected from 3,655 Catholics in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru from Jan. 22-April 27 and 2,051 Catholics in the U.S. collected from Feb. 13-25. The report documents a divergence between the beliefs of Catholics in these countries and the teachings of their faith. When asked if they supported ordaining women to the priesthood, majorities of Catholics in nearly every country surveyed answered in the affirmative. Support for female priests among Catholics was strongest in Brazil (83%) followed by Argentina (71%), Chile (69%), Peru (65%), the U.S. (64%) and Colombia (56%). Only in Mexico did a majority of Catholics (51%) oppose ordaining women to the priesthood. 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 Catechism of the Catholic Church declares that Only a baptized man (vir) validly receives sacred ordination. According to Church teaching, The Lord Jesus chose men (viri) to form the college of the twelve apostles, and the apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry. The college of bishops, with whom the priests are united in the priesthood, makes the college of the twelve an ever-present and ever-active reality until Christs return. The Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord himself, the Catechism explains. For this reason the ordination of women is not possible. Mexican Catholics are also an outlier when it comes to support for allowing Catholics to receive communion even if they're living with a romantic partner they're not married to. Just 45% of Mexican Catholics thought the Church should allow cohabitating Catholics to receive communion in contrast to 52% of Colombian Catholics, 56% of Peruvian Catholics, 59% of Brazilian Catholics, 73% of Chilean Catholics, 75% of American Catholics and 77% of Catholics in Argentina. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that those obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion. A separate passage of the Catechism explains that Carnal union is morally legitimate only when a definitive community of life between a man and woman has been established. Church teaching stresses that Human love does not tolerate trial marriages, but rather demands a total and definitive gift of persons to one another. The report showed wide support for allowing Catholics to use birth control in every country surveyed. Eighty-six percent of Catholics in Argentina expressed support for changing church teaching on the matter along with 83% of American Catholics, 80% of Chilean Catholics, 76% of Colombian Catholics, 75% of Peruvian Catholics, 69% of Mexican Catholics and 63% of Brazilian Catholics. Paragraph 2370 of the Catechism states that every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible is intrinsically evil. When it comes to allowing priests to get married, support was highest among U.S. Catholics (69%), followed by Chilean Catholics (65%) and Argentine Catholics (64%). Around half of Catholics in Colombia (52%) and Brazil (50%) thought the Church should permit priests to get married, while significantly smaller shares of Catholics in Mexico (38%) and Peru (32%) said the same. According to Paragraph 1579 of the Catechism, priests are normally chosen from among men of faith who live a celibate life and who intend to remain celibate for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Called to consecrate themselves with undivided heart to the Lord and to the affairs of the Lord, they give themselves entirely to God and to men. Celibacy is a sign of this new life to the service of which the Churchs minister is consecrated; accepted with a joyous heart celibacy radiantly proclaims the Reign of God. Only the issue of allowing same-sex couples to marry registered opposition from most Catholics in a majority of the countries surveyed. While most Catholics in Argentina (70%), Chile (64%) and the U.S. (54%) thought the Church should recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples, less than half of Catholics in Mexico (46%), Brazil (43%), Colombia (40%) and Peru (32%) had the same feeling. Church teaching proclaims that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered, adding, Under no circumstances can they be approved. 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 "Regarding the terms' sexual and reproductive health,' the Holy See considers these terms as applying to a holistic concept of health, which embrace, each in their own way, the person in the entirety of his or her personality, mind and body, and which foster the achievement of personal maturity in sexuality and in the mutual love and decision-making that characterize the conjugal-relationship between a man and a woman in accordance with moral norms," he said. Parolin stressed that "The Holy See does not consider abortion or access to abortion or abortifacients as a dimension of these terms." The Pact for the Future, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly last week, contains a section expressing a commitment to "ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights." The terms "reproductive health" and "reproductive rights" are often used as euphemisms for abortion. Parolin also told U.N. members that "with reference to 'gender,' the Holy See understands the term to be grounded in the biological sexual identity that is male or female." In recent years, the definition of "gender," a term frequently used in the Pact for the Future, has often been expanded to include an individual's stated gender identity as opposed to their biological sex. The Vatican diplomat began his speech by stating that the U.N. summit was taking place "against a backdrop of apparent crisis in the multilateral system," which he attributed to "the erosion of trust between nations, as evidenced by the growing prevalence and intensity of conflict." "The future should be constructed on a foundation of principles, including the inherent, God-given dignity of every individual, the promotion of integral human development, the equality and sovereign dignity of nations, and the establishment of trust between them," Parolin stated. He suggested that to achieve such a future, "there is a need to rethink actions in a number of areas." "It is imperative that a dignified future is guaranteed for all, ensuring the provision of the requisite conditions including a nurturing family environment to facilitate flourishing, while simultaneously addressing the myriad challenges that impede this, including those resulting from poverty, conflict, exploitation and addiction," he added. Parolin's address does not mark the first time the Vatican has pushed back against the promotion of gender ideology. In an interview published last year, Pope Francis declared that "gender ideology, at this time, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations." Francis expressed concern about how gender ideology "dilutes differences between men and women," adding that "growing through the tension of differences" between the sexes constitutes an important part of humanity. "There are somewhat naive people who believe that it is the path of progress and do not distinguish what is respect for sexual diversity or various sexual options from what is already an anthropology of gender, which is extremely dangerous because it annuls differences, and that it annuls humanity, the richness of humanity, personal type, as cultural and social, the differences and the tensions between the differences." Home Opinion People are tired of Church drama The decline of Christianity in the United States has been a significantly reported trend over the past few decades. Several major studies and surveys have illustrated this decline. I think that what has contributed to this trend the most in the United States is that most Christians are tired of church drama. In 2007 the Pew Research Center reported that about 78% of American adults identified as Christian. By 2021, that figure dropped to around 63%, marking a significant decrease in Christian affiliation. At the same time, the percentage of Americans who identify as religiously unaffiliated, often called nones (atheists, agnostics, or nothing in particular), rose from 16% in 2007 to 29% in 2021. Gallup Poll data shows a similar trend in church membership, with the percentage of Americans belonging to a church, synagogue, or mosque falling below 50% for the first time in 2020. In 1999, 70% of Americans reported being members of a religious congregation, but by 2020, only 47% did. 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 Barna Group has also reported on the decline of practicing Christians. In 2000, 45% of Americans identified as practicing Christians, while by 2020, that number had dropped to 25%. This indicates not only a decline in identification but also a decrease in regular engagement with Christian practices, like attending church. So why is this happening in the United States? Its not because the global church is on the decline. Adherence to Christianity is on the rise in many places around the world, for example in Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia. And, according to the Pew Research Center, Christianity remains the world's largest religion, and its global population is expected to grow from 2.3 billion in 2015 to 2.9 billion by 2050. In contrast, Western Europe, North America, and Australia are experiencing a decline in Christian affiliation and overall church attendance. Many hypothesize that secularization and cultural shifts are to blame for the decline. And while these and other reasons should be considered, I dont think that the church universal can underestimate the power of one not-so-silent church killer manufactured drama. If youve been to churches in the U.S., you'll know exactly what I am talking about. Church decline isnt a result of the Church not being fashionable enough. Its not that the Church doesnt have enough ministry programs or missional outreach. Its not that the music isnt the right style. It is that the Church often is a completely toxic environment. From gossiping and henpecking, publicly aired ecclesiastical divisiveness, unthinkable abuse cases, country club-type elitism, to snarky commentary about literally everything churches are often self-fulfilling prophecies of self-destruction. Whether it is the businessperson who has come to project their failed professional leadership onto an unsuspecting church council or the taker who simply wants to feed off the churchs resources like a parasite, churches often attract a motley crew. After all, the church is supposed to be the place where self-professed sinners gather. But what people often seem to forget is that, in a healthy church atmosphere, intentional sinning is supposed to stop. As someone who has become a conflict-management expert in the church (which, in many ways, I think all pastors are), Ive come to realize that churches do not grow in size and spiritual depth when there is conflict among the staff of the lay leadership. A new person walking in the door can almost immediately sense conflict and will want nothing to do with it. If they wanted drama they could just go to social media or the nearest comment section online. This is why, before any church can grow, it has to eliminate the drama from its midst. The ministry of the Apostle Paul as articulated in the New Testament provides us several examples of how to deal with church drama. Paul often urged churches to prioritize unity over division. For example, in his letter to the Corinthians, Paul addressed factions within the church that were based on allegiances to different leaders. He emphasized that Christians should be united in Christ, not divided by personal loyalties. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:10: I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. In the church at Philippi, Paul dealt with personal conflicts between two leaders, Euodia and Syntyche. Rather than ignoring the issue, Paul urged them to reconcile, showing the importance of resolving interpersonal drama in a way that preserves peace. Paul writes in Philippians 4:2-3: I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Additionally, Paul often encouraged forgiveness as a way to heal divisions and move beyond conflict. For example, in Colossians 3:13, he exhorted the believers to forgive as the Lord forgave them. Paul consistently emphasized love and humility as solutions to conflict and drama. One of the most well-known examples is in 1 Corinthians 13, where he describes the importance of love in the Christian community. He presents love as patient, kind, and not easily angered - qualities that can diffuse church drama. Similarly, in Romans 12:10, Paul calls believers to Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves, advocating for an attitude of service and humility that helps prevent conflicts. It is also important to note that Paul did not shy away from calling for accountability when necessary. He believed that proper church discipline was vital for addressing wrongdoing and preserving the churchs spiritual health. In Galatians 6:1, Paul provides guidance on how to deal with those caught in sin: Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. Jesus himself addresses a similar issue in Matthew 18:15 saying: If your brother or sister sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If you are listened to, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If that person refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a gentile and a tax collector. In other words churches sometime need to realize that not every church is for every person. All of us have drama because we are human. But if a person refuses to stop bringing manufactured drama to your congregation at some point leadership will either deal with it directly or your membership will ultimately, most certainly, face decline. Kakigori beverages, made with fresh shaved ice, will be one of the main draws at Lilah, a new cocktail bar opening in San Franciscos Marina this weekend. Courtesy of Nicola Parisi Lilah, which opened in late September in the Marina, may have the most intimate seating area in San Francisco: Its bar has only two seats. The cocktail and food destination which seats a total of 40 at tables near the diminutive bar from the team behind smashburger and brunch destination Causwells, offers low-proof drinks that include refreshing spritzes and novel riffs on martinis. Kakigori cocktails, inspired by Japanese snow cone treats, are one of the main attractions, poured and shaved within splashing distance of customers. Whoever gets those seats will definitely get a show and, maybe, an occasional ice chip, said beverage director and partner Elmer Mejicanos, a veteran of the San Francisco bar scene who was the longtime beverage director at Tonys Pizza Napoletana. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Lilah is a natural extension of Causwells, which is just a few steps away, said Adam Rosenblum, Causwells co-owner and chef. Both he and Mejicanos, who formerly co-owned Red Window in North Beach, said they had been looking for a chance to expand beyond Causwells when the location, formerly eyeglass shop the Ocularium, became available on the opposite side of the longstanding Presidio Theater building. Chef Adam Rosenblum, left, and beverage director Elmer Mejicanos pictured at their previous venture, Red Window. Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle We already know and love this neighborhood, so we wanted to grow nearby, Rosenblum said. While the team sees Causwells as a restaurant with a cocktail bar inside, they view Lilah as the opposite. Mejicanos developed an inventive cocktail list featuring 24 libations using shrubs, tinctures, powders and syrups. Staff also incorporate ingredients like a single-origin Ugandan chocolate from local Dandelion Chocolate and trendy Graza olive oil, a hit among aesthetically minded millennial home cooks. Like Red Window, Lilah has only a beer and wine license, so it cant serve liquor. Mejicanos said hes most excited to show off the shaved ice-like kakigori cocktails. He begins each beverage with a base of pebble ice dropped into a wide margarita glass adorned with an eye-catching gold rim. Then he shaves down a block of clear ice made in-house on a hand-cranked cast iron ice shaver that yields a fluffy pile of ice. (The icy cocktail style is a timely one, with ice starring in some of the Bay Areas best desserts. See Chronicle restaurant critic MacKenzie Chung Fegans take on icy desserts below.) Advertisement Article continues below this ad White poke kampachi at Lilah, a new cocktail bar opening in San Franciscos Marina neighborhood on Saturday. Courtesy Nicola Parisi It definitely adds another step to the cocktail, Mejicanos said. But you basically have a two-for-one situation, where you can drink the cocktail and eat the kakigori on top. The Key Lime Pie ($18) begins with a low-proof vodka infused with tonka bean, mixed with a key lime cordial, lime leaf aperitif, vanilla bitters and a coconut spirit. It comes with a Nilla wafer wedged atop. The Watermelon Crayon ($18) inspired by scented crayons is an over-the-top mix of low-proof rum, watermelon cordial, Lillet rose and a powder made from watermelon rind and basil. It is studded with watermelon rind candies made in-house. Lilah beverage director Elmer Mejicanos prepares a kakigori cocktail, made with fresh shaved ice and a variety of shrubs, bitters and low-proof spirits. Courtesy Nicola Parisi The sour cocktail Easy Tiger ($17) is a blend of Cappelletti aperitivo, passion fruit, salted vanilla and egg white, with homemade passion fruit boba providing a punch of tropical flavor. The house Bloody Mary ($17) features white pepper-infused low-proof vodka and smoked olives, making it a natural pick for brunch. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Mejicanos believes every cocktail list needs an espresso martini, and Lilahs Souffle Espresso Martini ($17) puts a new look on the staple. It begins with low-proof rum, walnut bitters and burnt sugar, topped with a cloud of whipped coffee cream thats poured tableside then finished with a bit of black salt and sesame. Outside Lilah, which replaced an eyeglass shop. Courtesy Nicola Parisi It has a slightly creamy texture at first and then you get the martini after that. It definitely acts like a souffle, Mejicanos said. The drink is an evolution of the popular espresso martini served at Causwells last year, which also had a foamy head. To munch alongside cocktails, Rosenblum wrote a menu featuring Asian-inspired dishes. The white poke ($18) combines white kanpachi, pickled watermelon radish and white shoyu on a plate with a mango-ginger gelee. Korean pork ribs ($19), served with a side of kimchi slaw, come glazed, steamed and coated in a peanut crunch. There is also morning brunch Friday through Sunday with items such as the hangover rice ($17), a congee-style porridge with shredded chicken, a grated egg and herbs; and a scallion pancake wrap with Chinese sausage ($15). Chef Adam Rosenblum prepared dishes that tap Asian influences for incoming Marina bar Lilah. Courtesy Nicola Parisi Because the bar is named after Mejicanos daughter Delilah, he led the design. The cozy space has been transformed with coral pink walls, lighting sconces shaped like birds and wooden tables with a herringbone pattern, which Mejicanos and Rosenblum built themselves. Delilah picked the wallpaper that covers the walls highest reaches, depicting critters like lions and macaws in dapper attire enjoying a drink. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The whole concept is childlike in a way, Mejicanos said. Its playful, but thoughtful too. Home Opinion The Reagan movieA great reminder of what a president should be I am one of the fortunate Americans who has had the privilege of viewing the movie Reagan. If you have not seen it, gather your family and friends and go see this movie. It is a truly great movie and does President Reagan justice in portraying him as one of our truly great presidents. The media and movie critics have panned the movie, but moviegoers have loved it. In fact, Reagan has recorded the greatest disparity between critics positive ranking (18%) and the publics positive (98%) reaction. As I left the theater I was flooded with a variety of emotions. First, I felt deep affection and admiration for Mr. Reagan, clearly a fundamentally decent man who loved his country and was very aware of how fortunate he and his fellow countrymen were to be Americans. I was 33 years old when Ronald Reagan was elected and I was frankly astounded at the positive change he wrought both internationally and domestically. Quite literally, he led America and the West to victory in the Cold War. 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 second emotion I felt surging within me was nostalgia and admiration for the basic decency and genuine patriotism of the man himself. As I watched the movie, I was reminded of a remarkable little book I read many years ago, How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life by Peter Robinson, published in 2003. Robinson is the host of Uncommon Knowledge, an interview program sponsored by Stanfords Hoover Institution. Robinson was hired as a chief speechwriter for Vice President George H. W. Bush and then became a speechwriter for President Reagan. Robinsons chief claim to fame is that he wrote the speech President Reagan delivered at the Brandenburg Gate, June 12, 1987. That speech contained the now famous line, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! Robinson relates the story of how Secretary of State James Baker and others tried to get that line excised from the speech up to, and including, when Reagan was in the limo on the way to the speech. Various officials explained to Robinson, We have to protect the President from himself, to which Robinson responded, Let Reagan be Reagan! As history records, President Reagan delivered the line and it electrified the world. In Robinsons book, he explains how working for Reagan literally changed his life. He explained that working for Reagan made him a better employee, a better husband, a better son, and a better American. The whole book is a tribute to the truly basic decency of Ronald Reagan, regardless of policies. Reagans example of how he treated his wife, his employees, his job responsibilities, all tremendously impressed Robinson. In summation, Robinson himself described his book as nothing less than a love story an account of the profound respect and affection that one young man came to feel for the President who changed his life forever. That basic decency springs forth from the screen in Reagan. And one of the Presidents most sterling attributes was his deep and abiding love for his country. Reagan was definitely not afflicted with what Roger Scruton, an important contemporary philosopher, called oikophobia, from the Greek words oikos = home and phobia which means fear. Oikophobia is hatred or denigration of ones home and is used by Scruton to refer to those who denigrate America and the West. No one could ever accuse Reagan of such feelings. This was the President who declared it is morning in America and that the Soviet Union was the evil empire headed for the ash heap of history. I suspect many Americans join me in longing for a Reaganesque presidential candidate again. If America can produce one Ronald Reagan, surely she can produce another. If and when she does, will we recognize and acknowledge him? I pray so. Home News Chris Wright talks Lausanne 4: Top issues facing the global Church today INCHEON, South Korea As more than 5,000 Christian leaders from more than 200 countries and territories gathered for the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, Christian Daily International sat down with Chris Wright to talk about the theological dynamics that have influenced Lausanne over the past 50 years. Talking about his journey to becoming the chief architect of the 2010 Cape Town Commitment, Wright also highlights what he considers to be key issues for the Church today, and what he hopes to see come out of Lausanne 4. I was first involved with Lausanne by going to the 1989 second Lausanne Congress in Manila. But that was very much just as a participant, he says. His close relationship with John Stott, who had been the lead theologian behind the Lausanne Covenant of 1974, meant that Wright always had some awareness of what Lausanne stood for. 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 I was particularly struck with the way the Lausanne Covenant and John Stott himself were so passionately committed to the integration of evangelism and social action, he says. And in the 1970s and '80s, there was a whole bunch of us who were younger Evangelicals in the U.K. who were very passionate about that ourselves. They believed it is important for believers to be involved in society, in culture, in the arts, in business, and so on, he says. And John Stott was our guru, really. He was playing that tune very loudly. So, Lausanne resonated with my own theological assumptions. In the years after the Manila event, there was less activity surrounding Lausanne, Wright recalls, also because of a variety of evangelistic initiatives by personalities like Luis Bush during the big decade of evangelism in the '90s. It was only after Doug Birdsall took on the leadership and organized the 2004 conference in Pattaya, Thailand, that Wright was again invited to participate. He admits that at the time, he was not sure what the future would hold for Lausanne because there was not as much theology as he would have hoped for. But then at that conference, Doug Birdsall took me for a meeting with him over a cup of tea and said that he and his senior committee were unanimous that they wanted to invite me to take on the chair of the Theology Working Group, Wright recalls. He was so astonished that he excused himself to the bathroom so he could pray. And I said: Lord, what are you saying? It took more than a year for him to eventually accept the role, with the permission of his employer, the Langham Partnership, which had been founded by Stott and in which he was still influential. With their agreement, he took on the role and began building a team. It included several Langham scholars and others who shared the kind of integrated holistic theology of mission that went back to Stott and previous centuries of Evangelicals. And from 2007 up to the 2010 Cape Town Congress, Wright facilitated theological consultations. One of the first tasks the group took on was looking at Lausannes vision that speaks about the whole Church taking the whole Gospel to the whole world. We thought, it's a lovely slogan, but what does it mean? What is the whole church? What is the whole Gospel? And what do we mean by the whole world? Because we don't mean those things in a purely kind of numerical sense. They must have some qualitative meaning as well, Wright recalls. Several conferences were held, including a gathering of 20 different theologians from all around the world who met for three days in December 2009. They were tasked with coming up with a fresh statement of Evangelical belief for the global Church, but almost as expected with a bunch of theologians for three days, it just got nowhere, Wright says. Following the consultation, the Lausanne leadership asked him if he could take some time over the winter months to try to write something that could ultimately lead to a statement. Only very reluctantly, he took on that task. I mean, how can you write a theology for the whole global Church? he wondered. And looking at Church history, there are the Creeds and the great Confessions of the Reformation, he thought, so who am I to start putting anything together? Then in January 2010, less than a year before the Third Lausanne Congress was due to take place in Cape Town, Wright drove for about five hours to spend a week at Stotts writing retreat place in Wales. And as I was driving, I was praying: Lord, what on Earth? How do I start this? What's the most important thing? What really has primacy? he recalls. And it was almost as if I heard a voice in the car, saying: The first and greatest commandment is, love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul. And the second is, love your neighbor as yourself. There's no other commandment greater than these. And he remembers thinking: Ah yes, Lord, You actually did tell us what the first thing was! Continuing to reflect on these verses, he then pondered about his own faith, Why am I a Christian? Why am I engaged in mission? Because I love the Lord Jesus. Because I love the Bible. I love God's people. I try to love the world. It's because of these love commitments that I believe the Gospel, and so on. He wondered if it would be possible to frame a statement in a way that expresses this love for God and everything that has to do with God, similar to the passage in Deuteronomy. He began thinking about different phrases like love God's Word, love God's people, love God, love God's Son, love the Gospel. And after reaching the retreat place, he decided to call Stott to ask him whether he thought this might be a good way forward. And John Stott said, yes, Wright says, adding that Stott hadn't thought of any Evangelical statement of faith that used that kind of language. It was always we believe or we affirm or we deny or we denounce, and then usually followed by a series of abstract nouns. After that phone call, he remembers thinking, Well, if I've heard from the Lord and John Stott agrees, it's probably not a bad idea. So, Wright spent the whole week praying and crafting what would eventually become the first draft of part one of the Cape Town Commitment. He sent it back to the working group and received helpful comments, and at their March 2010 meeting in Beirut, they went through it line by line with a fine-tooth comb, while retaining the basic structure of the love commitments. The legacy and impact of the Cape Town Commitment is in Gods hands, Wright says Asked what he thought of the impact of the Cape Town Commitment on evangelicalism, in general, and global missions, in particular, Wright expressed hesitation about trying to somehow measure it. I do get encouraging emails from time to time from people saying that they're using Cape Time Commitment part one as a statement of faith for their organization or their church, he says. He also mentions that Seoul 2024 Congress Co-Chair and Senior Pastor of Onnuri church, the Rev. Jae-Hoon Lee, made his elders work through the document paragraph by paragraph in the lead up to the event. He's also encouraged when he hears of churches and believers affirming the Commitments integrated theology of word and deed, saying, if this is what we believe, then biblically this is how we must live. In other words, like Jesus said, covenantal love means: if you love me, you keep my commandments. This is the one who loves me, the one who obeys me, he says. So, you can't claim to love God and not do the things He said. Wright sees this as an anecdotal sign of the documents impact on the Church but leaves the wider question up to God. He is generally wary of trying to numerically or statistically measure impact of what he does and recalls Stotts response to similar questions. Whenever people would ask John Stott how many books he had written, he would always say, well, I've never really counted, because look what happened to King David when he counted his soldiers, Wright says. There's a certain danger in doing a census of your own capacities, so I take that sort of seriously. Never was division between proclamation and social action: we separated it Asked about a speech by fellow theologian Valdir Steuernagel in the lead up to the Fourth Congress where he called on Lausanne to keep the gate open for new emerging voices and to hold onto the legacy of a theology of holistic mission, Wright struck a hopeful tone. He remembers working alongside Steuernagel and others in the Theological Working Group and then also the Statement Working Group for the Congress in 2010, saying, We had made sure that the theological work was being done by people who actually believed in an integrated Gospel. They wanted to avoid a tension between strategy and theology and rather see them as one, he recalls. And he believes that the heart of Lausanne still is an integrated understanding of holistic mission. Looking at the core documents, including the recently released State of the Great Commission report, he says that evangelism, proclamation and church planting will always need to be an utterly essential, non-negotiable part of mission. There's no way, in which one could ever say that's simply marginal. It is part of the very centrality of the Gospel, Wright says. But the centrality of the Gospel is also the reason why we do all the other things, he adds, pointing to the various sessions and collaboration groups that cover a wide range of issues, such as disability, poverty, justice and creation, all of which are valid expressions of a Lausanne theology of integrated mission. We engage in all those ways precisely because there is good news about the God who created the world, loves the world, and has redeemed the world through Christ. That is the center that holds everything else together thats what integration means, Wright says. He laments the tension that arose between the emphasis on proclamation versus social action and hopes that they could be reunited again, emphasizing that we wouldn't have to relate them if we hadn't separated them in the first place. The dichotomy largely goes back to the early years of the 20th century when liberals went off in a very social gospel direction and stopped believing in evangelism and the power of the cross and the need for conversion and so on. Evangelicals then reacted against that, saying they needed to concentrate on evangelism, which resulted in this bifurcation, Wright says. Before then, it was definitive of Evangelicals that they were engaged in social action. You look back to 18th and 19th century evangelicalism: they were notorious for the number of societies they founded for the relief of poverty, for care for children. The Royal Society for the Protection of Animals was founded by Evangelicals as well, he says. Evangelicals were engaged in society until the early years of the 20th century. They didn't have to relate [the two]. They were evangelists: they preached the Gospel, and they got engaged in society. Wright hopes that the Church would find its way back to seeing itself as one body with multiple gifts. When he teaches about the five marks of mission (an expression that was coined by the global Anglican Communion in 1984), including evangelism, discipling, works of compassionate mercy, seeking justice and caring for creation, there's always somebody who will say: Well, that's an awful lot of things to be doing, and there's only one of me. And I say: Oh yeah, I think God probably thought of that, too, which is why he created the Church. Everybody doesn't have to do everything, Wright says, but everyone should be intentional in using their gifting. No one would criticize the Langham Partnership for not building hospitals and curing the sick. They are called to focus on theological education, which is part of the mission. Equally, they wouldnt criticize the leprosy mission for not running seminaries and teaching theology, because they should do what they are called to do, Wright contends. When it comes to local churches, he believes they should do something like a missional audit and ask themselves if they're ready as a body to commit themselves to multiple dimensions of mission, with the Gospel at the center. If we've lost the good news of the cross and resurrection of Christ, then we might as well give up. There's no hope for the world, Wright emphasizes. It's because there is good news that we can legitimately and with authority go to serve the poor and the homeless and the sick and the needy and seek justice and all of that. It's all part of mission, provided you keep the Gospel at the center, which is where I would put the Great Commission, he says, pointing out that the Great Commission does not begin with go and make disciples of all nations, instead it begins with Jesus saying, all authority in heaven and earth is given to me. The Gospel is central because it is the good news of what God has done through Christ, and every aspect of the Churchs obedient response to Christ flows from that center, as we participate in what God is doing in the world for His ultimate mission of reconciling the whole creation through the blood of the cross, Wright says. Therefore, it all revolves around the Lordship of Christ, which essentially is the Gospel, he says. Jesus is Lord of the Kingdom of God. So that's why, in my theology, I don't like this constant question about whether he is more for proclamation or more for social action, Wright says. I don't recognize those distinctions. I'm committed to holistic mission, the fulfillment of the Great Commission, which must include bearing witness to the Gospel and being engaged in society, by obeying all that Jesus commanded, which is a lot! Environment, migration, human sexuality as todays key issues For Lausanne 4, Wright highlights three areas he sees as especially relevant and urgent for todays Church to address, also because they have become much more public at least in the Western world where he lives. Other issues, he realizes, will be painfully dominant in other places. The first is the issue of the environment, creation care and climate change. He believes the Lausanne Creation Care Network has become much stronger as a result of the Cape Town Congress. They've had several conferences, they put out statements, and they are here in Seoul, he says, and emphasizes that nowadays, the issue is seen as culturally and publicly important. The whole world is talking about climate change, and Christians are now taking it much more seriously than they used to. Thank God they are. The second issue is the whole question of migration, asylum seekers, displaced person that Lausanne 3 already touched on. Today, however, there is a much greater awareness of the massive numbers in diaspora, old diasporas and new diasporas, and migration from not just the South to the North, but even from South to South. Huge numbers of people, millions and millions of people, he says. Therefore, the question arises how the Church will missionally respond to that reality: both in terms of the responsibility toward displaced people, migrants and refugees, but also considering how God engages with migration and diaspora peoples, especially those who migrate from cultures where Christianity is strong and move to other places. The third issue, which was also mentioned briefly in the Cape Town Commitment, is the pressing need to respond to the whole identity and sexuality issue, Wright says. Of course, we know that in the West, this has become almost a criterion of belonging to society at all, he says. The societal view has become the idolatry of the self, that you make your own identity. You can construct what you want to be, and that includes your gender as well as everything else. This stands somewhat in contrast with the majority world where there has been a much stronger reaction against this ideology due to the more traditional cultures. This does not only include traditional Christian cultures, Wright says. There are generally more traditional perspectives and hierarchies that constrain the issue of sexuality, and in some cases, this includes biblical ways of thinking about what it means to be male and female, and more generally to be human. According to Wright, the issue is both serious biblically, but also very sensitive because of its pastoral nature and the importance of treating all people with dignity and love and honor and acceptance, while at the same time upholding the standards that God teaches in the Bible. And it's almost impossible to do both, he says, because if you try to uphold what the Bible says about sex, you are accused of being judgmental and homophobic and everything else, even if you're not. But if you say that we need to be loving and accepting towards those who are same sex attracted, then you're being accused of being gay-affirming without biblical teaching, which again is not true. Wright likes to refer to Jesus role model in dealing with these kinds of issues, noting that Jesus managed to teach a fully biblical understanding of marriage and in fact, to reaffirm it from Genesis Chapters 1 and 2, and yet he became known as the friend of tax collectors and sinners and prostitutes. How much time did he spend with people like that to be known as their friend? And he showed them love and forgiveness, he says. Therefore, Wrights tagline is: We need to teach what Jesus taught, but we also need to love like Jesus loved. Holding those together is challenging, especially for a church, he acknowledges. For any church with a mixed membership where people haven't been well taught and don't always understand the issues or haven't really read their Bibles, that can be quite a difficult one. I hope Lausanne will stay true to its DNA Considering all these theological dynamics and contemporary issues that the Church faces today, Wright says his hope for the Fourth Congress is that it will maintain the integrity of what Lausanne has always stood for in terms of a Gospel-centered holistic understanding of mission that includes the whole of life, individual and society and creation. And he also hopes that Lausanne will maintain its identity as a catalytic movement. I think Doug Birdsall put it well when he said that Lausannes fruit grows best on other people's trees, by which he meant Lausanne doesn't need to become a big organization itself, Wright says. It's not Lausanne doing mission. It's Lausanne catalyzing, facilitating, and then letting other people do the research and the networking and the activities, which will serve God's Church around the world. I think that's always been Lausannes strength: as a catalytic networking movement rather than organizational, operational kind of agency, he said. I hope Lausanne will stay true to its DNA. Originally published at Christian Daily International Home News Trinity Bible Church elders stress 'discipline' following Steve Lawson's removal: 'A God of order A Dallas church best known for the preaching of former Pastor Steven Lawson continues to grapple with fallout over Lawson's alleged romantic relationship with a reportedly younger woman. Elder Mark Becker addressed the congregation at Trinity Bible Church on Sunday, just days after the 73-year-old Lawson was removed from ministry over an alleged "inappropriate relationship" with an unidentified woman. Acknowledging what he called a "difficult week," Becker said that while a number of questions remain about Lawson's alleged conduct and subsequent removal, the congregation should focus on "how this church, this local body, is going to move forward together." Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe "It has been a difficult week for all of us. I know that it has been a very emotional week in many ways; it's been sobering, and a lot has happened," he said. "There have been many questions, and I think there will continue to be many questions. Speaking to you as an elder right now, the questions we need to focus on are how this church, this local body, is going to move forward together. I think those are the important questions we should be considering." Becker pointed to what he said as the foundation of Trinity Bible Church. "When this church was founded in January of 2018, we were charged with three things to be a New Testament church. The first was that we had to preach God's word faithfully," said Becker. "We've done that from the very beginning, preaching verse by verse to the best of our ability, with different men filling the pulpit week after week, including some of the elders. The Holy Spirit has woven these sermons together to bless all of us, and we will continue to do that as we move forward. In addition to observing the ordinances of baptism and communion, Becker said it's essential for Trinity Bible to "practice church discipline." "God is a God of order and holiness, and if you have been called, your charge and my charge is to be holy," he added. Becker added that "just like parents discipline their children out of love and concern for their well-being, the Lord disciplines His children because He loves them and wants what is best for them," and that disciplinary acts are God's ways of "preparing us to be with him in Heaven." He reminded church members they shouldn't be attending church solely for any one man's preaching. "If you came this morning to see a man, I hope that man is the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the head of His church, and I could name all the elders and those who have preached, but ultimately, the Lord Jesus Christ is the head of this church," he said. Lawson, who holds a master of theology from Dallas Theological Seminary and a doctor of ministry from Reformed Theological Seminary, was removed from the leadership page of the church's website as recently as Sept. 20. Lawson and his wife, Anne, have been married for over 40 years. They have four adult children. Lawson's resignation is the latest in what's been a year of scandal for pastors in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. In June, Tony Evans, pastor of the 11,000-member Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship church in Dallas, stepped down from his pastoral duties due to an undisclosed sin. Days later, Robert Morris, founding pastor of Gateway Church based in Southlake, resigned as lead pastor following allegations of sexual misconduct decades ago involving a minor. Morris founded the congregation in 2000. Over the summer, Lead Pastor Josiah Anthony of Cross Timbers Church resigned over sexual messaging with women and other inappropriate behavior, which sparked a chain of resignations from other Cross Timbers leaders. Home News Episcopal diocese still without bishop due to row over candidate's views on LGBT issues An Episcopal Church diocese remains without a bishop following the refusal to confirm a candidate due to his conservative views on LGBT issues and questions over the election process. The Episcopal Diocese of Florida has faced an uncertain future regarding its leadership since 2022 due to controversies surrounding the election of the Rev. Charlie Holt, who failed to receive the necessary support to be installed as head of the regional body. The diocese's standing committee recently informed Episcopal News Service that they remain without a diocesan bishop even after they held a convention last week, which is almost a year after their previous bishop retired. 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 Florida Standing Committee told ENS that it was "continuing to lead a very productive process of healing and strengthening of our diocesan body" and that although some delegates supported calling for a new bishop, "the larger body of delegates sees the opportunity for further healing and strengthening." In May 2022, Holt was elected bishop of the diocese, with him slated to replace the retiring Florida Bishop Samuel J. Howard. However, several clergy and lay leaders claimed that the election process had been tainted. The Episcopal Church's Court of Review filed a report in August 2022, concluding that "irregularities" created "seeds of uncertainty that call into question the integrity of the process." In response, the diocese held a second bishop coadjutor election in November of 2022, where Holt defeated two other candidates, getting the votes of 56 clergy and 79 laity. The minimum needed to win the election was 56 clergy and 67 laity. However, a group of 29 clergy and lay delegates involved in the second election disputed the results, arguing that it was "fundamentally unfair" and wrongfully excluded certain delegates. The 29 delegates protesting the second election results exceeded the 25-delegate minimum required to file a formal objection. In addition to questions about the process of his election, some within the diocese expressed concerns over how Holt, an opponent of gay marriage, would treat LGBT individuals. According to Episcopal Church canon law, dioceses must allow for the blessing of same-sex unions, with conscience protections given to clergy morally opposed to performing such rites. Holt released a statement in December 2022 promising to allow "each parish" to decide whether to bless same-sex unions, making it "a matter of conscience and context." "The pastoral conscience of clergy will be respected across theological difference. No one, progressive or traditional, will be forced, coerced or manipulated to hold or change a matter of conscience," stated Holt. In March of last year, the LGBTQ+ Caucus of The Episcopal Church released an open letter objecting to having Holt become bishop. "We fear that the Reverend Holt's election is the intended result of a system designed in the exclusion of LGBTQ+ voices and votes," the caucus argued. "Furthermore, we are forced to wonder whether this culture would continue under a Bishop Holt due to his previous offensive comments on gender and sexuality." In July 2023, the Florida Diocese Standing Committee announced that Holt failed to receive the necessary support from The Episcopal Church standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction to be installed as bishop. "We know this news will evoke many responses, especially among the delegates who voted for Charlie Holt, those who have worked hard to obtain consent to the election and those who objected to it," stated diocesan officials. "Upon Bishop Howard's retirement, the Standing Committee will be the ecclesiastical authority of the diocese, as prescribed in Article IV of the Constitution of The Episcopal Church." The diocese standing committee went on to note that "although our path forward is not yet clear, our hope is in knowing who holds our future." "While our current circumstances are difficult and uncertain, we can rest this day knowing God is with us and will not desert us. Because Jesus Christ is Lord, we have a hope that can and will see us through these challenging times," they added. Home News Group demands investigation of MorningStar Ministries in wake of sexual abuse allegations A group of more than 100 former members and people affiliated with MorningStar Ministries in South Carolina have signed a petition calling for an investigation of allegations that leaders in the ministry founded by Rick Joyner enabled the sexual abuse of multiple minors. "We the undersigned publicly and emphatically stand in solidarity and support for the victims of sexual abuse at MorningStar. Each of us had some level of experience with the many facets of MorningStar ministries, whether their K-12 school, the ministry school MSU, or the Sunday morning congregation. We were students, church attendees, MorningStar staff, CSCL teachers, and volunteers," the petition published on Monday said. "Many of us live in different places now, and we approach this statement with a spectrum of beliefs about God, religion, and our time at MorningStar. One thing we share is a firm belief that corruption, negligence, and abuse of power has gone on at MorningStar and its affiliated organizations for decades. We believe it is this corrupt and toxic leadership culture that enabled various forms of abuse to take place, including a child predator being able to abuse children for years," it continued. 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 petition comes less than a week after officials at MorningStar Ministries suggested they shouldn't be blamed for the sexual abuse former volunteer and ex-police officer Erickson Douglas Lee, 25, allegedly committed against multiple young boys who participated in one of its youth programs. Two more alleged victims filed lawsuits against the ministry. In the initial lawsuit filed in August, one of the victims and his parents accuse founder Joyner, along with several top officials of the organization and multiple other staff members, of gross negligence for allegedly engaging in the cover-up of multiple incidences of sexual abuse in the ministry. Joyner and his team argued earlier this month that they should not be blamed for what Lee did to the boys who were left under his care. "We are aware that several young men have filed lawsuits against the ministry. While we don't know at this point what more we could have done to have vetted Officer Lee in advance to ensure that he would not have taken advantage of these young men, we hold no malice or anger towards the young men or their parents who have chosen to file suit," a statement the ministry provided to The Christian Post reads. "Some of these families remained active in our church even for months after Officer Lee's arrest, and they are always welcome at MorningStar." The former ministry workers and affiliates say Joyner's and his board's response to the allegations is "inadequate." They want reforms and an investigation. "We strongly condemn the MorningStar Board, its leader Rick Joyner, and other executive church leaders for their inadequate response to grave allegations. Their attempts to ignore, downplay, and discredit victims and the severity of their claims are not only morally reprehensible but also betray the trust placed in them," the petition said. The group called for Joyner's immediate resignation from the ministry and suggested that he "hold no further positions of authority in the future." "His comments on the allegations demonstrate a lack of empathy, conviction, and commitment to protect the most vulnerable among us," the petition says. The Christian Post reached out to MorningStar Ministries for comment on the petition. A response is pending. The group also called for an independent audit of the MorningStar Ministries Board as well as their child protection practices while urging those who continue to support the ministry to reconsider their commitment to do so. "We encourage current members, supporters, students, staff, and volunteers to review all available information regarding the allegations made against MorningStar's leadership and to carefully reconsider your continued support (financial or otherwise) to MorningStar," the petition notes. "Absent significant MorningStar actions toward ensuring transparency, accountability, and prevention of abuse in the future, continuing to support this organization may contribute to continued abuse." Home News Community upset over high school's handling of teacher accused of grooming LGBT club students Parents, students and faculty are demanding answers following a private school's handling of accusations against a former English teacher who led an LGBT club, which he allegedly used to target and sexually harass his favorite students. Members of the University School of Nashville community have called for the removal of certain administrative officials amid objections about how they handled the sexual misconduct allegations. The community feels the school was not transparent about its investigation into Dean Masullo, an English teacher and the former Gender and Sexuality Alliance faculty club sponsor. 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 Over 250 alumni, parents and students have already signed a letter agreeing to withhold financial donations to the school until changes are made, reported The Nashville Scene. The University School of Nashville did not respond to The Christian Post's request for comment. In August, attorney Alex Little sent a letter to USN's board of trustees outlining a former student's allegations against the teacher. Little sent the letter because the board did not respond to a request for a meeting. The former student claimed she was "groomed and sexually harassed" by Masullo. She also alleged that "administrators and lawyers" mistreated her to preserve the school's reputation. According to the letter, the student took a class with Masullo, and her friends joked that she was the "class favorite." At first, the girl did not notice anything strange about the teacher's treatment of her, but that changed when she turned 18. In January, the victim started feeling stressed and distant from her parents, and the letter accused Masullo of taking advantage of her state of mind. The teacher encouraged the girl to take an independent study course on modern cinema, which required her to watch movies with Masullo. The teacher also took her to the movies and a Bob Dylan concert in Louisville. After isolating the teenager from her parents, Masullo's attention toward her escalated to gift-giving and, eventually, touching, according to the letter. The teacher would kiss the girl on the forehead and find other ways to get away with touching her inappropriately. "He would pick favorite female or gay male students, text them in inappropriate ways, touch and hug them inappropriately, and take students to see movies outside of school and unrelated to school activities," the letter said. "In nearly every case, the target of his behavior was a female or gay student, often a member of the GSA, and he would attempt to estrange these students from their parents." Following an incident in April where Masullo forcibly kissed the student and pressed his body against her, she sought help from USN teachers Michael Hansen, Justin Karpinos and Jeff Edmonds. At first, USN's response seemed promising, but the letter alleged that the school did not communicate further with the victim until it arranged for her to speak with attorney Marie Scott with the Fisher Phillips law firm. The firm represents "employers in labor and employment matters," according to the letter. While the school dismissed Masullo over the summer following an internal investigation, the Nashville Scene reported parents, students and faculty members have sought answers about the conditions of Masullo's termination. Unnamed parents who spoke with the outlet said that they fear the school may have paid Masullo a financial settlement and signed a nondisclosure agreement preventing USN Director Amani Reed and other officials from discussing the situation. "Nothing the school has done over the past few months reflects any awareness that this matter involves something more than an employment issue," Little's letter stated. "And so, when you hire a hammer, that person treats everything like a nail. The so-called independent investigation of Mr. Masullo was, in fact, an investigation to help the school justify firing him and a tool to keep the school out of hot water." In a Sept. 10 letter to USN's board of trustees, 20 faculty members expressed concern about how the school handled the sexual misconduct allegations, feeling that administrators prioritized the school's reputation. The faculty also felt that the school's investigation did not align with the practices outlined in a 2018 document released by the Independent School Task Force on Educator Sexual Misconduct. In addition, the faculty members took issue with the school using the term "third-party investigation" when communicating with families and the press. As the staff noted, the school should clarify that it is referring to its legal counsel when using this phrase. "Transparency and accountability in addressing these issues are critical to rebuilding trust in the governance of our school," the faculty letter stated. "We urge the Board to act swiftly and decisively to restore our confidence in USN's leadership and to ensure that the safety and well-being of all students remain paramount, as the administration repeatedly claims in communications to the community." Home News Planned Parenthood sex ed for minors promotes prostitution, says abstinence is 'unrealistic' Planned Parenthood's sexual education curriculum for children under 10 teaches that commercial sex work is an example of an "interpersonal relationship" and includes small group activities that encourage children to "walk in [the] shoes" of a woman considering abortion, describing it as a "human right." Earlier this month, the pro-life activist organization American Life League highlighted an International Planned Parenthood Federation toolkit that provides guidelines for teachers to educate children under age 10 and over 10 about "Comprehensive Sexual Education." In a section outlining questions about CSE, the toolkit asserts that it is "unfair and unrealistic" to teach children to wait until marriage to have sex. 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 "Not everyone will choose to get married, and many countries have restrictions on who is able to get married (for example, members of same sex relationships)," the toolkit states. Katie Brown, American Life League's national director, highlighted the absence of topics like chastity, expectant motherhood, fetal development or parenting from Planned Parenthood's curriculum. The pro-life advocate asserted that the nation's largest abortion provider is teaching children to be sexually promiscuous, so they'll come to the corporation for abortions and birth control one day. "Public schools are allowing the organization that killed almost 393,000 preborn children by abortion in 2023 unfettered access to thousands of elementary, middle, and high school students in their classrooms, and it is spending taxpayer dollars to do so," Brown said in a statement last Wednesday. Planned Parenthood did not immediately respond to The Christian Post's request for comment. Pro-life groups have frequently objected to public schools implementing sexual education curricula designed by Planned Parenthood. One of the main objections is that Planned Parenthood's lesson plans for minors promote harmful behaviors. In an interview with The Christian Post, Michele Hendrickson, Students for Life of America's director of strategic initiatives, urged parents whose children attend schools using Planned Parenthood's curriculum to advocate for their children. "The most important thing you can do is be active at your school board," Hendrickson said. "Those are open meetings for a reason; they want to hear from parents." One section of the toolkit explains how to teach children under 10 about "interpersonal relationships," stating that this sometimes results in sexual activity. The toolkit lists dating, marriage or commercial sex work as examples of relationships that often result in sexual activity. Another part teaches children ages 10 to 18 about abortion and encourages them to demand "recognition of sexual and reproductive rights for all" by voting. A small group activity related to abortion for children under 10 titled "Walking in her shoes: the decision to end a pregnancy" involves analyzing abortion cases to understand why women and girls have abortions. American Life League also highlighted other examples of Planned Parenthood's sexual education material, including the "Sex Ed To-Go" abortion curriculum. Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest offers the material for children as young as 9, and it discusses how to overcome "barriers" to having an abortion and how to be a "strong advocate for abortion." "What does it look like when Planned Parenthood presents sexual education?" Brown asked. "Unfortunately, it's not about how God created our bodies uniquely male and female to bring children into the world." "No, Planned Parenthood's top services are abortion and birth control, clearly illustrating this organization's complete lack of respect for the life that God created and total disregard for His plan for procreation and families," the pro-life leader stated. "This is not an entity that anyone should ever trust to care for and instruct our precious children." Planned Parenthood's presence at schools throughout the country has been a frequent source of controversy. Hendrickson, herself a former schoolteacher, highlighted the various ways SFLA works to counter Planned Parenthood on school campuses. To combat the abortion vendor's presence at Christian schools, SFLA will usually start online petitions and contact donors. Even if public schools are not expected to uphold biblical values, Hendrickson argued that they should still aspire to provide their students with "quality resources." The Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement, a project of SFLA, released the findings of its 2024 Christian Schools Project, which assigned a letter grade to 732 Christian schools based on their relationships with the abortion vendor. While the report found that many Christian schools had increased their support of Planned Parenthood by 10% each year since 2022, it noted that 12 schools removed ties with the corporation after initial contact with researchers. As Hendrickson explained, SFLA reaches out to Christian schools to see if they are aware they are promoting Planned Parenthood, as sometimes a professor or a department will bring the abortion vendor to the school without the administration's knowledge. "We investigate all of these universities, and then we approach the schools," the SFLA director said. "If it's their first infraction, we'll say, 'Hey, you probably weren't even aware. We just wanted to alert you.' We try to give them the benefit of the doubt. And then we'll remind them that Planned Parenthood is the nation's number one abortion vendor and that this definitely does not uphold biblical values." SFLA also provides schools with alternatives to Planned Parenthood, according to Hendrickson, such as Standing With You. The initiative is an SFLA project that helps women facing an unexpected pregnancy locate support and understand their rights on campus. "We work with student groups to help them go into their health center Standing With You materials and say, 'Hey, let's do this instead. This is a more holistic, healthy approach for our students,'" the SFLA director said. Settlement talks with Johnny Hunt fail, SBC and former president likely headed to trial Court-ordered mediation between a former Southern Baptist Convention president and lawyers for the nation's largest Protestant denomination failed last week meaning the dispute between the two parties is likely headed to a trial in November. Johnny Hunt, a former Georgia megachurch pastor and denominational official who served as SBC president from 2008 to 2010, sued the denomination in 2023, alleging defamation. Hunt was named in the Guidepost report on abuse in the SBC for allegedly sexually assaulting another pastor's wife. He initially denied the incident and has since said it was consensual. Lawyers for Hunt have claimed the former SBC president's misconduct was a private matter and the SBC ruined his reputation by making it public. On September 19, the two sides met for a court-ordered mediation, which ended in an impasse, according to a report filed Tuesday with the U.S. District Court of the Middle District of Tennessee. The lawsuit has cost the SBC's Executive Committee about $3 million in legal fees so far. Those legal fees, along with about $9 million in fees related to the Guidepost report, led the Executive Committee to put its Nashville, Tennessee, office building on the market. Last week, current SBC President Clint Pressley tweeted that no settlement had been reached. The possibility of a settlement was raised during a recent Executive Committee meeting. "Despite what you may be hearing, there is no settlement with Dr Johnny Hunt," Pressley tweeted on Thursday, the same day as the mediation. The trial for the lawsuit is set to begin November 12 in Nashville. Hunt's lawyer recently petitioned the court to block the SBC from calling several witnesses, including Kevin Ezell, the president of the denomination's North American Mission Board, at the trial. After stepping down as pastor of First Baptist Church in Woodstock, Georgia, Hunt served as a vice president at NAMB. His resignation from NAMB was announced following the release of the Guidepost report in 2022. No details of the settlement discussions were made public. However, earlier this year, lawyers for Hunt claimed more than $75 million worth of damages. Those damages, according to court documents filed in the case, include a loss of $610,000 in annual income and benefits, a loss of $360,000 a year in book sales, a loss of $350,000 in speaking fees and an additional $80,000 in other lost income, for a total of $1.4 million a year. The lawyers also claim that Hunt intended to work for 11 years or until he was 80 when the Guidepost report was publishedfor a total alleged loss of $15.4 million. No supporting documents were included to substantiate those claimed losses. The court filing also claims at least $30 million in reputational harm and at least $30 million in emotional distress. Religion News Service The future of faith: reaching a new generation around the world What comes to mind when you think of the typical human being? Whose face do you imagine? What language do they speak? How old are they? To accurately picture the "average" human being in terms of the global population, it's essential to consider population sizes around the globe. Easily, the two most populous countries in the world are India (with a population of around 1.45 billion) and China (around 1.42 billion). These countries far outpace the United States, which comes in third place with around 345 million. While the most commonly spoken language around the world is unsurprisingly English, the language with the most native speakers is Mandarin, which is almost double those of the second-highest natively spoken language, Spanish. Massive economic surges have contributed to China and India becoming the giants they are today. Now experts predict another surge: Africa. Although Africa made up just one-tenth of the world's population in 1950, it is expected to make up one-quarter by 2025, with one-third of its people between the ages of 15 and 24. While birthrates plummet to historic lows elsewhere, bringing the challenges of aging and shrinking societies, Africa is expected to nearly double its population of 1.22 billion in the next 25 years. The median age of the entire continent is just 19, decades younger than the median ages in Italy (47), Germany (48), Japan (48) and Monaco (55), and much younger than even those of India (28) and China (38). If projections bear out, the implications will be major and far-reaching. Africa is the world's most rapidly urbanizing continent, with tens of millions of new consumers each year, most with cell phones and the economic flexibility they provide. Meanwhile, as the United States has proven, Africa's skyrocketing cultural influence might be just as consequential as its increasing economic and political power. For example, West African 'afrobeats' songs were streamed more than fourteen billion times on Spotify in 2023, with London and Paris among the top five cities listening. Alongside this sociopolitical growth, Africa is at the forefront of a global religious shift. According to recent research, the largest Anglican community in the world by population is in Nigeria, with "more Anglicans in church on Sunday morning in Nigeria than in all the British Isles and North America combined," according to The Future of Orthodox Anglicanism, by Gerald McDermott. Looking far beyond just Anglicanism, Gina Zurlo, an American researcher into global Christianity, reports in World Christianity and Mission 2020: Ongoing Shift to the Global South, that two-thirds of all Christians live in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania, a group that, combined, made up only 18% of the world's Christians in 1900. Influential and traditionally Christian nations (sometimes referred to as the 'global North') cannot ignore this transformation. Approaching the future with wisdom and integrity means acknowledging the church's movement southward and the corresponding future of young believers. Christians should take note when Zurlo says in The World as 100 Christians that the typical Christian today is a young, non-white woman in the Global South. This also means accepting the southward movement of the global population in general, especially given the youth of the Global South. Effective communication with the burgeoning Southern demographic will be crucial for Christianity, a religion with evangelism at its core. Effective evangelistic content must be presented in new ways that appeal to the collective personality of growing populations like Africa. Every region is complex, and Africa's immensity, history, and diversity make it especially so. Sadly, while endowed with diverse natural resources, the continent's industrialization has not followed its population growth. While Africa makes up 18% of the global population, it only makes up 3% of trade. Access to education and the internet outpaces access to jobs. One-third of South Africa is unemployed, with youth unemployment at 45%. Predictably, tensions are rising between young populations and their leaders. These ongoing struggles produce unrest, often expressed through protesting, violence and asylum-seeking. The Sahel region of Africa leads the world in two things: birthrates and extreme violence. Countless teenagers join militant groups linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and according to a United Nations study, the primary reason many join is simply for employment. In groups like 'Anger Without Limits,' disillusioned youths engage in street battles and support populist military coups. The result? Millions of young people worldwide are desperate for change, discouraged by their options and eager for a cause. What they desperately need is peace, hope, and salvation. It is up to Christians to enter this space, offering the good news and hope they carry in ways that speak to these diverse and growing cultures. An immense opportunity lies in the upcoming animated JESUS film, which is currently in production by the same ministry that released the 1979 film, JESUS. Effectively releasing this new film will mean presenting the story of Jesus in over two thousand native languages, as they have done with the original film, and in a format that appeals to these blossoming young populations. This new film, produced by industry-leading animators, will enable even more people to experience the gospel story in a way that will be relevant for ages to come. Like the original film, which over three billion people have seen across almost every country, its storyline comes directly from the New Testament gospels. Whether in the established global North or the emerging Global South, this animated film will present the story of Jesus to new generations in their native tongues. The opportunities for impact have never been greater. The question is: What will the global church offer to Africa and other exploding populations of young people? Jesus Film Project, with a history of delivering the Christian story faithfully and powerfully to a global audience, is up to the challenge, and this animated film might be the perfect medium for young audiences desperate for a better story. David Wataba is Africa Regional Strategy Leader for the Jesus Film Project. To find out more about the JESUS film, visit jesus.film. Destruction to the Faraway Inn Cottages and Motel is seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Cedar Key, Fla., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. Stephen Smith/AP Dustin Holmes, second from right, holds hands with his girlfriend, Hailey Morgan, while returning to their flooded home with her children Aria Skye Hall, 7, right, and Kyle Ross, 4, in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Crystal River, Fla. Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP Residents work together to push a vehicle stuck on a street flooded by the passing of Hurricane John, in Acapulco, Mexico, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. Bernardino Hernandez/AP Jill Rice looks over the damage to her store caused by flooding from Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Gulfport, Fla. Mike Carlson/AP In this image made from a Fox Weather broadcast, meteorologist Bob Van Dillen rescues a woman stuck in floodwaters caused by Hurricane Helene in Atlanta, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (Fox Weather via AP) AP This photo provided by U.S. Coast Guard District Seven (USCGSoutheast) shows a man and his dog being rescued after his sailboat became disabled during Hurricane Helene approximately 25 miles off Sanibel Island, Fla., on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (U.S. Coast Guard District Seven via AP) AP Dustin Holmes, rear, his girlfriend Hailey Morgan, and her children Aria Skye Hall, 7, left, and Kyle Ross, 4, right, arrive to their flooded home in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Crystal River, Fla. Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP MJ Hodges, left, and her mother Jill Rice look at the damage caused to their store from the floodwaters of Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Gulfport, Fla. Mike Carlson/AP A Citrus County Firefigher carries 11-year- old, Michael Cribbins, while conducting rescues from floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Crystal River, Fla. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP) Luis Santana/AP This satellite image from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration taken at 6:11pm ET shows Hurricane Helene, which weakened into a post-tropical cyclone, over the United States on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (NOAA via AP) AP A dog wades through floodwaters near collapsed homes in Dekle Beach on the coast of rural Taylor County, Fla., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. Kate Payne/AP Capt. BJ Johnston, a law enforcement officer from the Florida Fish Wildlife and Conservation Commission surveys destruction from a high water buggy in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Cedar Key, Fla., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. Gerald Herbert/AP This photo provided by Venice Police Department rescue crews assist residents after conducting door-to-door wellness checks, in coastal areas that were flooded by Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Venice, Fla . (Venice Police Department via AP) AP Thomas Chaves, left, and Vinny Almeida walk through floodwaters from Hurricane Helene in an attempt to reach Chaves's mother's house in the Shore Acres neighborhood Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. Mike Carlson/AP A damaged 100-year-old home is seen after an Oak tree landed on it after Hurricane Helene moved through the area, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. Mike Stewart/AP Foundations and steps to buildings that were destroyed by the storm surge from Hurricane Helene are seen along the shoreline in the aftermath of the storm, in Cedar Key, Fla., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. Stephen Smith/AP Leslie Sturmer, a University of Florida employee, and John Rittenhouse, general manager of the Cedar Key Water and Sewer District, both residents, talk in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Cedar Key, Fla., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. Gerald Herbert/AP An airboat transports residents rescued from floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Crystal River, Fla. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP) Luis Santana/AP A caravan of Army vehicles make their way through a street flooded by the passing of Hurricane John, in Acapulco, Mexico, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. Bernardino Hernandez/AP Destruction to the Faraway Inn Cottages and Motel is seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Cedar Key, Fla., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. Gerald Herbert/AP Hailey Morgan, right, surveys the damage to their flooded home after returning with her children, Aria Skye Hall, 7, left, and Kyle Ross, 7, in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Crystal River, Fla. Morgan stayed with her grandmother and her children in Hernando, Fla., as the storm made landfall. Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP Torrential rain from Hurricane Helene has caused lake levels to rise on Lake James, resulting in flooded docks and gazebos, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Morganton, N.C. Kathy Kmonicek/AP Andy Slone and his wife, Vickie, sit outside their home in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Crystal River, Fla. Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP An American flag sits in the floodwaters from Hurricane Helene in the Shore Acres neighborhood Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. Mike Carlson/AP PERRY, Fla. (AP) Hurricane Helene left an enormous path of destruction across Florida and the southeastern U.S. on Friday, killing at least 44 people, snapping towering oaks like twigs and tearing apart homes as rescue crews launched desperate missions to save people from floodwaters. Among those killed were three firefighters, a woman and her 1-month-old twins, and an 89-year-old woman whose house was struck by a falling tree. According to an Associated Press tally, the deaths occurred in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. The Category 4 hurricane knocked out power to some hospitals in southern Georgia, and Gov. Brian Kemp said authorities had to use chainsaws to clear debris and open up roads. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph) when it made landfall late Thursday in a sparsely populated region in Floridas rural Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where the state's panhandle and peninsula meet. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Moodys Analytics said it expects $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage. The wreckage extended hundreds of miles northward to northeast Tennessee, where a dangerous rescue situation by helicopter unfolded after 54 people were moved to the roof of the Unicoi County Hospital as water rapidly flooded the facility. Everyone was rescued and no one was left at the hospital as of late Friday afternoon, Ballad Health said. In North Carolina, a lake featured in the movie Dirty Dancing overtopped a dam and surrounding neighborhoods were evacuated, although there were no immediate concerns it would fail. People also were evacuated from Newport, Tennessee, a city of about 7,000 people, amid concerns about a dam near there, although officials later said the structure had not failed. Tornadoes hit some areas, including one in Nash County, North Carolina, that critically injured four people. Atlanta received a record 11.12 inches (28.24 centimeters) of rain in 48 hours, the most the city has seen in a two-day period since record keeping began in 1878, Georgia's Office of the State Climatologist said on the social platform X. The previous mark of 9.59 inches (24.36 cm) was set in 1886. Some neighborhoods were so badly flooded that only car roofs could be seen poking above the water. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Climate change has exacerbated conditions that allow such storms to thrive, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and turning into powerful cyclones sometimes in a matter of hours. When Laurie Lilliott pulled onto her street in Dekle Beach, Florida, after Helene plowed through, she couldnt see the roofline of her home beyond the palm trees. It had collapsed, torn apart by the pounding storm surge, one corner still precariously propped up by a piling. It took me a long time to breathe, Lilliott said. As she surveyed the damage, her name and phone number were still inked on her arm in permanent marker, an admonition by Taylor County officials to help identify recovered bodies in the storm's aftermath. The community has taken direct hits from three hurricanes since August 2023. All five who died in one Florida county were in neighborhoods where residents were told to evacuate, said Bob Gualtieri, the sheriff in Pinellas County in the St. Petersburg area. Some who stayed ended up having to hide in their attics to escape the rising water. He said the death toll could rise as crews go door-to-door in flooded areas. Advertisement Article continues below this ad More deaths were reported in Georgia and the Carolinas, including two South Carolina firefighters and a Georgia firefighter who died when trees struck their trucks. Video on social media showed sheets of rain and siding coming off buildings in Perry, Florida, near where the storm hit land. A news station showed a home that was overturned, and many communities established curfews. Also in Perry, the hurricane peeled off the new roof of a church that was replaced after Hurricane Idalia last year. When the water hit knee-level in Kera ONeils home in Hudson, Florida, she knew it was time to escape. Theres a moment where you are thinking, If this water rises above the level of the stove, we are not going to have not much room to breathe, she said, recalling how she and her sister waded through chest-deep water with one cat in a plastic carrier and another in a cardboard box. Advertisement Article continues below this ad President Joe Biden said he was praying for survivors, and the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency headed to the area. The agency deployed more than 1,500 workers, and they helped with 400 rescues by late morning. In Tampa, some areas could be reached only by boat. Officials urged people who were trapped to call for rescuers and not tread floodwaters, warning they can be dangerous due to live wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris. More than 3 million homes and businesses were without power in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas as of late Friday, according to poweroutage.us. The site also showed outages as far north as Ohio and Indiana due to Helene's rapid northward movement throughout the day. In Georgia, an electrical utility group warned of catastrophic damage to utility infrastructure, with more than 100 high voltage transmission lines damaged. And officials in South Carolina, where more than 40% of customers were without power, said crews had to cut their way through debris just to determine what was still standing in some places. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The hurricane came ashore near the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) northwest of where Idalia hit last year at nearly the same ferocity. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the damage from Helene appears to be greater than the combined effects of Idalia and Hurricane Debby in August. Its tough, and we understand that. We also understand that this is a resilient state, DeSantis said at a news conference in storm-damaged St. Pete Beach. Soon after it crossed over land, Helene weakened to a tropical storm and later a post-tropical cyclone. Forecasters said it continued to produce catastrophic flooding, and some areas received more than a foot of rain. A mudslide in the Appalachian Mountains washed out part of an interstate highway at the North Carolina-Tennessee state line. Another slide hit homes in North Carolina and occupants had to wait more than four hours to be rescued, said Ryan Cole, the emergency services assistant director in Buncombe County. His 911 center received more than 3,300 calls in eight hours Friday. This is something that were going to be dealing with for many days and weeks to come, Cole said. Forecasters warned of flooding in North Carolina that could be worse than anything seen in the past century. Evacuations were underway and around 300 roads were closed statewide. The Connecticut Army National Guard sent a helicopter to help. School districts and universities canceled classes. Florida airports that closed due to the storm reopened Friday. Inspectors were examining bridges and causeways along the Gulf Coast, the states transportation secretary said. Helene also swamped parts of Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula, flooding streets and toppling trees as it brushed past the resort city of Cancun this week. It also knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses in western Cuba. Helene was the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures. ___ 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. China's top political advisor meets chairperson of Uzbekistan's senate Xinhua) 09:05, September 27, 2024 Wang Huning, chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, meets with Tanzila Narbayeva, chairperson of the Senate of Uzbekistan, in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 26, 2024. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China's top political advisor Wang Huning met with Tanzila Narbayeva, chairperson of the Senate of Uzbekistan, on Thursday in Beijing. Wang, chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, said that under the guidance of the two heads of state, the development of China-Uzbekistan relations has entered a new stage with fruitful cooperation in various fields. Following the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, China is ready to work with Uzbekistan to push for steady and long-term growth of the bilateral ties, Wang said. Wang noted that the CPPCC National Committee is willing to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with Uzbekistan to better serve the construction of their respective countries and the development of bilateral relations. Narbayeva congratulated China on the 75th anniversary of the founding of the CPPCC and hailed China's remarkable achievements in development. Noting that Uzbekistan adheres to the one-China principle, Narbayeva said the country is willing to strengthen mutual support and synergize its development strategies with China, as well as jointly build the Belt and Road with high quality. Uzbekistan stands ready to learn from China's successful experience in poverty alleviation, and push for greater development of bilateral relations for the benefit of the two peoples, Narbayeva added. Wang Huning, chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, meets with Tanzila Narbayeva, chairperson of the Senate of Uzbekistan, in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 26, 2024. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Camryn Frick, left, and Jillian Sternick, both 22, and of Tampa, hold hands as they cross a flooded street together along Bayshore Boulevard on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (Jefferee Woo/Tampa Bay Times via AP) Jefferee Woo/AP Guests at the Magic Kingdom break out ponchos at Cinderella Castle as bands of weather from Hurricane Helene move through Walt Disney World in Bay Lake, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. All four of Disney's Florida theme parks remained open Thursday as the storm passed to the west in the Gulf of Mexico. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP) Joe Burbank/AP A man in a kayak uses a makeshift paddle as he travels through a street flooded in the passing of Hurricane Helene, in Batabano, Mayabeque province, Cuba, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Ramon Espinosa/AP The St. Pete Pier is pictured among high winds and waves as Hurricane Helene makes its way toward the Florida panhandle, passing west of Tampa Bay, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024 in St. Petersburg, Fla. (Martha Asencio-Rhine/Tampa Bay Times via AP) Martha Asencio-Rhine/AP Bobby Joe Edwards, Sr., and his wife Lillie Edwards, of Walkalla, Fla., and their grandson Tavarrious Dixon, right, rest inside a hurricane evacuation shelter at Fairview Middle School, ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Leon County, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Gerald Herbert/AP Jose Gonzales and his son Jadin Gonzales, 14, fill sand bags ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall Thursday evening, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Clyattville, Ga. Mike Stewart/AP Louis Ward, 57, rides his bike along the the Gulfport waterfront as it takes on water as Hurricane Helene makes its way toward the Florida Panhandle, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024 in Gulfport. (Martha Asencio-Rhine/Tampa Bay Times via AP) Martha Asencio-Rhine/AP A Sam's Club employee wraps wraps fuel pumps ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall Thursday evening, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. Mike Stewart/AP Mary Tanner Jerome Tanner, of Tallahassee, sit inside an evacuation shelter ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Leon County, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Gerald Herbert/AP Charles Starling, a lineman with Team Fishel, is pelted with rain as he walks by a row of electrical line trucks stage in a field in The Villages, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in preparation for damage from Hurricane Helene. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel via AP) Stephen M. Dowell/AP Vera Kelly, of Tallahassee, lies on a cot after evacuating to a hurricane shelter with her grandchildren and great grandchildren, at Fairview Middle School, ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Leon County, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Gerald Herbert/AP Surfers take advantage of heavy winds along Higgs Beach in Key West, Florida, on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Despite passing the Florida Keys by hundreds of miles, sustained winds over 40 mph churned up the usually calm, nearshore waters. (Rob O'Neal/The Key West Citizen via AP) Rob O'Neal/AP People traverse a flooded street on a boat after the passage of Hurricane Helene in Guanimar, Artemisa province, Cuba, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. Ramon Espinosa/AP Katoria Harvey, of Tallahassee, sits with her niece Ny'Year Harvey, 3 months, inside a hurricane evacuation shelter at Fairview Middle School, ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Leon County, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Gerald Herbert/AP This GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken at 5:46 p.m. EDT and provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Hurricane Helene in the Gulf of Mexico moving towards Florida, Thursday, Sept. 26 2024. (NOAA via AP) AP Sharonda and Victor Davis, of Tallahassee, sit with their children Victoria background left, and Amaya, background right, inside a hurricane evacuation shelter at Fairview Middle School, ahead of Hurricane Helene, expected to make landfall here today, in Leon County, Fla., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Gerald Herbert/AP Flooded streets after the Hurricane Helene are seen in Madeira Beach, Fla.,Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (Max Chesnes/Tampa Bay Times via AP) Max Chesnes/AP Jesus Hernandez guides his granddaughter Angelina via a container through a street flooded in the passing of Hurricane Helene, in Batabano, Mayabeque province, Cuba, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Ramon Espinosa/AP A man floats in a container on a street flooded by the passing of Hurricane Helene, in Batabano, Mayabeque province, Cuba, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Ramon Espinosa/AP CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla. (AP) Hurricane Helene made landfall Thursday night in northwestern Florida as a Category 4 storm as forecasters warned that the enormous system could create a nightmare storm surge and bring dangerous winds and rain across much of the southeastern U.S. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Helene roared ashore around 11:10 p.m. EDT near the mouth of the Aucilla River in the Big Bend area of Floridas Gulf Coast. It had maximum sustained winds estimated at 140 mph ( 225 kph). That location was only about 20 miles northwest of where Hurricane Idalia came ashore last year at nearly the same ferocity and caused widespread damage. Helene prompted hurricane and flash flood warnings extending far beyond the coast up into northern Georgia and western North Carolina. More than a million homes and businesses were without power in Florida and more than 50,000 in Georgia, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us. The governors of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, the Carolinas and Virginia all declared emergencies in their states. Advertisement Article continues below this ad One person was killed in Florida when a sign fell on their car and two people were reported killed in a possible tornado in south Georgia as the storm approached. When Floridians wake up tomorrow morning, were going to be waking up to a state where very likely theres been additional loss of life and certainly theres going to be loss of property," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday night. The National Weather Service in Tallahassee had issued an extreme wind warning for the Big Bend as the eyewall approached: Treat this warning like a tornado warning, it said in a post on X. Take shelter in the most interior room and hunker down! Even before landfall the storm's wrath was felt widely, with sustained tropical storm-force winds and hurricane-force gusts along Florida's west coast. Water lapped over a road in Siesta Key near Sarasota and covered some intersections in St. Pete Beach. Lumber and other debris from a fire in Cedar Key a week ago crashed ashore in the rising water. Beyond Florida, up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain had fallen in the North Carolina mountains, with up to 14 inches (36 centimeters) more possible before the deluge ends, setting the stage for flooding that forecasters warned could be worse than anything seen in the past century. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Heavy rains began falling and winds were picking up earlier Thursday in Valdosta, Georgia, near the Florida state line. The weather service said more than a dozen Georgia counties could see hurricane-force winds exceeding 110 mph (177 kph). In south Georgia, two people were killed when a possible tornado struck a mobile home on Thursday night, Wheeler County Sheriff Randy Rigdon told WMAZ-TV. The damage was reported as heavy thunderstorms raked much of the state. Wheeler County is about 70 miles (113 kilometers) southeast of Macon. Forecaster Dylan Lusk said the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Wheeler County at 8:47 p.m. on Thursday. He said its one of 12 tornado warnings the office near Atlanta issued for parts of Georgia between 1 p.m. and 11 p.m. The storm made landfall in the sparsely-populated Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Floridas Panhandle and peninsula meet. Please write your name, birthday, and important information on your arm or leg in a PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified, the sheriff's office in mostly rural Taylor County warned those who chose not to evacuate in a Facebook post, the dire advice similar to what other officials have dolled out during past hurricanes. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Still, Philip Tooke, a commercial fisherman who took over the business his father founded near the regions Apalachee Bay, planned to ride out this storm like he did during Hurricane Michael and the others on his boat. If I lose that, I dont have anything, Tooke said. Michael, a Category 5 storm, all but destroyed one town, fractured thousands of homes and businesses and caused some $25 billion in damage when it struck the Florida Panhandle in 2018. Many, though, were heeding the mandatory evacuation orders that stretched from the Panhandle south along the Gulf Coast in low-lying areas around Tallahassee, Gainesville, Cedar Key, Lake City, Tampa and Sarasota. Among them was Sharonda Davis, one of several gathered at a Tallahassee shelter worried their mobile homes wouldnt withstand the winds. She said the hurricanes size is scarier than anything because its the aftermath that were going to have to face. Federal authorities were staging search-and-rescue teams as the weather service forecast storm surges of up to 20 feet (6 meters) and warned they could be particularly catastrophic and unsurvivable in Apalachee Bay. Please, please, please take any evacuation orders seriously! the office said, describing the surge scenario as a nightmare. Advertisement Article continues below this ad This stretch of Florida known as the Forgotten Coast has been largely spared by the widespread condo development and commercialization that dominates so many of Floridas beach communities. The region is loved for its natural wonders the vast stretches of salt marshes, tidal pools and barrier islands. You live down here, you run the risk of losing everything to a bad storm, said Anthony Godwin, 20, who lives about a half-mile (800 meters) from the water in the coastal town of Panacea, as he stopped for gas before heading west toward his sisters house in Pensacola. School districts and multiple universities canceled classes. Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed Thursday, while cancellations were widespread elsewhere in Florida and beyond. While Helene will likely weaken as it moves inland, damaging winds and heavy rain were expected to extend to the southern Appalachian Mountains, where landslides were possible, forecasters said. The hurricane center warned that much of the region could experience prolonged power outages and flooding. Tennessee was among the states expected to get drenched. Helene had swamped parts of Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula on Wednesday, flooding streets and toppling trees as it passed offshore and brushed the resort city of Cancun. In western Cuba, Helene knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses as it brushed past the island. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Areas 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of the Georgia-Florida line expected hurricane conditions. The state opened its parks to evacuees and their pets, including horses. Overnight curfews were imposed in many cities and counties in south Georgia. This is one of the biggest storms weve ever had, said Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. For Atlanta, Helene could be the worst strike on a major Southern inland city in 35 years, said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd. Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures. In storm activity in the Pacific, former Hurricane John reformed Wednesday as a tropical storm and strengthened Thursday back into a hurricane as it threatened areas of Mexicos western coast with flash flooding and mudslides. Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador raised Johns death toll to five as communities along the countrys Pacific coast prepared for the storm to make a second landfall. ___ Disasters Emergency Committee Concerns over an increasingly conservative culture at the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) have been highlighted in a new report by the umbrella organisation. This week, DEC published its strategic review of 2019 to 2024, which also identified that it had put resources towards some of the already best-funded crises during the five-year period. The organisation whose members are 15 major aid charities including British Red Cross and Save the Children said the past five years had been an intense period of transformation for itself and the wider humanitarian sector. Its report highlighted key learning points such as DECs flexibility in funding, working with local partners and civil society groups, navigating ethical dilemmas, discussions around anti-racism and legacies of colonialism within traditional aid structures. Meanwhile, DECs income fell from 215m the previous year to 32m for the year ending March 2024, according to its latest annual report . Underfunded crises DEC launched six appeals Cyclone Idai, Coronavirus, Afghanistan Crisis, Ukraine Humanitarian, Pakistan Floods and Turkiye-Syria Earthquake over the past five years, with programmes that took place across more than 15 countries and raised more than 500m. The report says that that DECs appeals over the past five years had largely reflected global trends. It states: Aside from the Covid-19 appeals, during this strategic period, the DEC has put resources towards some of the already best-funded crises with the most media attention. Internally, the DEC recognises and regularly wrestles with this problem, with one interviewee calling it painful. Although goal four of the DEC strategy addresses this, DEC members noted the organisation could go further in educating the UK public about this disparity, capitalising on its very strong brand recognition and pointing out the disparities of aid globally. Risk-aversion concerns The report says that some humanitarian directors felt that DECs internal culture had become increasingly conservative and bureaucratic with complaints about the high level of questioning when agencies submitted their proposals. This was felt by some to be disrespectful given the competencies and experience in member agencies, the report states. However, procedures are likely to become even more rigorous because of the scale and very high levels of funding for the Ukraine crisis which have created higher expectations for accountable donorship and an increased need for scrutiny. As a result, the DEC has had to hire additional staff in the secretariat to cope with rising demand. Concerns about risk-aversion centred on perceived reluctance for the DEC to experiment with new ideas and innovation for fear of failure although the new ambidextrous strategy may be a significant first step in raising the risk threshold. Strategy for the next five years The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated inequality globally and led to a sharp increase of people in need by 2023, the report states. It says that climate crises will be a leading driver of humanitarian needs in the future, and DEC needs to prepare in this area such as disaster risk reduction, financial safety nets, insurance and anticipatory actions. The DEC and its members may need to be creative in achieving this, and find partners better equipped to tackle these issues, given the short spending time frames, the report states. The umbrella organisation has also launched its next five-year strategy . Madara Hettiarachchi, DECs director of programmes and accountability, said: The emergencies we respond to are ever more complex and impacted by geopolitics and climate change, technology is advancing, media consumption is shifting, and new audience needs are emerging. The new strategy underpins our mission to raise as much money as possible to save, protect and rebuild the lives of people impacted by major disasters in countries without the ability to respond at scale. The DEC aims to ensure we remain a thriving, sustainable organisation, able to launch the right appeals at the right time, and build trust with our audiences. DECs monitoring process can be found here . 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, Visa Inc. said it allocated $1.5 billion to cover litigation costs. The global payments firm authorized the deposit of the money into a litigation escrow account thats used for covered litigation, it said in a filing Thursday, without specifying any particular legal matters. Related: U.S. Accuses Visa of Monopolizing Debit Card Swipes Visas ongoing lawsuits include a long-running dispute over credit-card swipe fees. The firm and rival Mastercard Inc. agreed to cap the fees in a $30 billion deal with retailers, but a federal judge in Brooklyn formally rejected the settlement in June. Related: Visa, Mastercard to Pay $197 Million to Settle Consumer ATM Fee Lawsuit The firm also faces litigation from the US Justice Department, which alleged in a lawsuit this week that Visa illegally monopolized the debit card market. The newly authorized funds in the escrow account wouldnt apply to any costs related to the Justice Departments antitrust lawsuit. Top photo: A Visa debit card arranged in New York, US, on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. The US Justice Department sued Visa Inc., alleging the global payments giant illegally monopolized the debit card market, in the Biden administrations first major antitrust case in the financial services industry. Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg. Copyright 2024 Bloomberg. Dear Eric: I have a friend Ive known since high school. We are now in our 30s. Although we are different and have different interests, we have enough common ground to maintain our friendship. Ive traveled extensively outside the country and she wants us to go on an international trip together. I do not want to, but I dont know how to say it without hurting her feelings. I can only make excuses for so long. Shell find out Ive traveled with other people. Our travel styles are different, our financial abilities are different and she embarrasses me in social situations. She also lacks common sense. Think Cousin Eddy from National Lampoon. How can I politely let her know a trip isnt in the cards? Solo Traveler Dear Traveler: One of the most empowering lessons of my 30s was that some friends are simply at-home friends. An at-home friends sleep schedule or capacity for random adventure or Duolingo level are of little concern when were just chilling at a coffee shop, but the minute a passport comes out, all bets are off. Have a conversation with your friend about your different travel styles. This is the least loaded of your objections to her. If youre an early riser who likes to hike all day and she sleeps late and wants to lay on a beach, then youre not aligned. Its fine to point that out. The other objections are a tad concerning why are you friends with someone who embarrasses you socially and has no common sense? Could some of this travel anxiety also be about whether you want to be friends at all? Something to consider. But back to the matter at hand: ask her what she was hoping to get out of a trip together. Maybe what she really needs is advice on how to plan. But even if shes envious of your social media posts from far-flung locales and wants to join, its perfectly acceptable to set a boundary in this friendship. It just so happens that, when it comes to traveling with her, your boundary is the border of the United States of America. (Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.) James Wilder, 55, of New Port Richey, Fla., walks along a flooded street from Hurricane Helene at Green Key Road near US 19 Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in New Port Richey. (Chris Urso/Tampa Bay Times via AP) Chris Urso/AP Vehicles move slowly around trees that have fallen after of Hurricane Helene moved through the area, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. Mike Stewart/AP A man walks out of a street with water flooded from Hurricane Helene Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in New Port Richey, Fla. Mike Carlson/AP Residents wade through a street flooded in the passing of Hurricane Helene, in Batabano, Mayabeque province, Cuba, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Ramon Espinosa/AP An airboat transports residents rescued from floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Crystal River, Fla. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP) Luis Santana/AP Jamir Lewis wades through floodwaters with his two daughters, Nylah and Aria, in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Crystal River, Fla. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP) Luis Santana/AP This photo provided by U.S. Coast Guard District Seven (USCGSoutheast) shows a man and his dog being rescued after his sailboat became disabled during Hurricane Helene approximately 25 miles off Sanibel Island, Fla., on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (U.S. Coast Guard District Seven via AP) AP This GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken at 5:46 p.m. EDT and provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Hurricane Helene in the Gulf of Mexico moving towards Florida, Thursday, Sept. 26 2024. (NOAA via AP) AP Vehicles move slowly around trees that have fallen after Hurricane Helene, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. Mike Stewart/AP A Citrus County Firefigher carries 11-year- old, Michael Cribbins, while conducting rescues from floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Crystal River, Fla. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP) Luis Santana/AP Vehicles move slowly around trees that have fallen after Hurricane Helene moved through the area, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. Mike Stewart/AP A man floats in a container on a street flooded by the passing of Hurricane Helene, in Batabano, Mayabeque province, Cuba, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Ramon Espinosa/AP This photo provided by Lee County Sheriff's office shows floodwaters by Hurricane Helene in Fort Myers Beach, Fla., on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (Lee County Sheriff's Office via AP) AP Clarissa Lucky gives a tour of her home that flooded from Hurricane Helene near DeSoto Park, Fla., on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Tampa. (Jefferee Woo/Tampa Bay Times via AP) Jefferee Woo/AP Andrew Lucky, 54, speaks about the water damage to his house caused by a flood from Hurricane Helene near DeSoto Park, Fla., on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Tampa. (Jefferee Woo/Tampa Bay Times via AP) Jefferee Woo/AP Floodwaters surround a structure Friday, Sept 27, 2024, in Atlanta. Jason Allen/AP Residents wade through a street flooded in the passing of Hurricane Helene, in Batabano, Mayabeque province, Cuba, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Ramon Espinosa/AP A boat rests on a street after being relocated during flooding caused by Hurricane Helene Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Hudson, Fla. Mike Carlson/AP This satellite map provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Hurricane Isaac on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (NOAA via AP) AP A damaged 100-year-old home is seen after an Oak tree landed on it after Hurricane Helene moved through the area Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. Mike Stewart/AP Hurricane Helene weakened into a post-tropical cyclone on Friday after making landfall overnight in northwestern Florida as a Category 4 storm. The storm has been blamed for at least 44 deaths, including 19 people in South Carolina, as it plowed its way north through several southeastern states. Authorities continue to rescue people trapped by floodwaters and millions were without power across much of the southeastern U.S. Helene came ashore amid warnings from the National Hurricane Center that the enormous system could create a nightmare storm surge. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Tropical Storm John made its second landfall along Mexicos Pacific coast Friday, while in its wake authorities in the resort city of Acapulco called for help from anyone with a boat to deal with the flooding. It has since dissipated over Mexico. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Isaac strengthened Friday into a hurricane in the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean and could cause dangerous waves in parts of Bermuda, forecasters said. Tropical Storm Joyce formed on Friday morning in the Atlantic Ocean and wasn't threatening land, forecasters said. The storm was expected to strengthen gradually through Sunday before weakening early next week. Follow APs coverage of tropical weather at https://apnews.com/hub/hurricanes. Here's the latest: Advertisement Article continues below this ad Vice President Harris urges residents affected by Helene to heed local officials DOUGLAS, Ariz. Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday urged residents impacted by Hurricane Helene to pay heed to local authorities as the storm continues to wreak havoc on a significant swath of the southeast. The storm continues to be dangerous and deadly, and lives have been lost and the risk of flooding still remains high, Harris said at the start of a campaign speech in Douglas, Arizona. So, I continue to urge everyone to please continue to follow guidance from your local officials until we get past this moment. 1 dead in Virginia from a falling tree, governor says RICHMOND, Va. In southwestern Virginia, one person died after a tree fell and a building collapsed in Craig County, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The death toll from Hurricane Helene has reached at least 44 across five states: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. Dam near North Carolina-Tennessee border not experiencing catastrophic failure, officials say NASHVILLE, Tenn. Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said Friday that a catastrophic failure was not taking place at Walters Dam, also known as the Waterville Dam, which sits in North Carolina close to the Tennessee border. A local mayor had urged residents to evacuate due to the dam potentially breaking, but TEMA said in a statement that the dam has not failed after talking to Duke Energy, which owns the nearly 100-year-old dam. Mother and her two infant twins are among those dead in Georgia ATLANTA Among people who have died in Georgia are a 27-year-old mother and her two 1-month-old twins, who were killed when trees fell on their house in Thomson, just west of Augusta, said McDuffie County Coroner Paul Johnson. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The coroner said an 89-year-old woman was killed when trees fell on her house elsewhere in the same county. EVs could catch fire if inundated with saltwater from Hurricane Helene, officials warn Electric vehicles can catch fire if they are inundated by saltwater, so owners who live in the path of a major storm like Hurricane Helene should take precautions. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been researching this problem since it was first seen after Hurricane Sandy struck the Northeast in 2012. But no one seems to have detailed statistics on just how often this happens. Two years ago, Hurricane Ian compromised the batteries of as may as 5,000 electric vehicles, and 36 of them caught fire. Several more electric vehicles caught fire in Florida last year after Hurricane Idalia. Advertisement Article continues below this ad It happens often enough that Florida officials were worried about the possibility before Hurricane Helene arrived because they were expecting a potentially devastating storm surge up to 20 feet deep in the northwestern part of Florida. These fires do seem to be linked specifically to saltwater because salt can conduct electricity. Similar problems havent been reported after freshwater flooding in California that was driven by heavy rains early this year. Read more about electric vehicles catching fire from flooding Weather reporter interrupts live broadcast to help a woman stranded in her car ATLANTA A weather TV reporter in Atlanta interrupted his live report about Hurricane Helene on Friday to rescue a woman from a vehicle stranded by rising floodwaters. Standing in the rain with the submerged vehicle behind him, Fox reporter Bob Van Dillen described how the woman drove into a flooded area. In the footage, he said he called 911 and she can be heard screaming as he tries to assure her that help was on the way. Then, he told the camera, Its a situation. Well get back to you in a little bit. Im going to see if I can help this lady out a little bit more you guys. Read more about the reporters water rescue Death toll in South Carolina rises to 19 COLUMBIA, S.C. The death toll from Hurricane Helene in South Carolina is 19 people, with many of the deaths happening from falling trees as the storm moved through early Friday, authorities said. In Saluda County, two firefighters were killed when a tree fell on their truck while they were answering a call, the Highway Patrol said. Five people were killed in Spartanburg County, according to Coroner Rusty Clevenger who planned to release details about the deaths later. In Greenville County, four people were killed by falling trees, Senior Deputy Coroner Shelton England said. Four people were also killed in Aiken County by trees falling on homes, including a 78-year-old husband and his 74-year-old wife, Coroner Darryl Ables said. Two people died in Anderson County when trees fell on their houses, the Coroners Office said. And in Newberry County, a married couple died when their car slid on a wet highway and ran into a tree, Coroner Laura Kneece said. Helene is the deadliest tropical storm in South Carolina since Hurricane Hugo killed 35 people when it came ashore just north of Charleston in 1989. The deadliest recent hurricanes to hit the US Recent major hurricanes that made landfall in the U.S. have left hundreds dead and caused billions of dollars in damages. Since 2020, not including Helene, there have been seven major destructive hurricanes: Laura, Delta, Zeta, Ida, Ian, Idalia and Beryl. Hurricane Beryl was the first of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Exceptionally warm ocean temperatures caused it to strengthen into a Category 5 storm rapidly in early July. When hurricane Beryl hit Texas, it had dropped to a Category 1 storm. Beryl has been blamed for at least 36 deaths. The storm caused an estimated $28 billion to $32 billion in damages, according to AccuWeathers preliminary estimates. Read more about recent destructive hurricanes Rainfall from Helene breaks Atlanta's 48-hour record ATLANTA Atlanta received 11.12 inches (28.24 centimeters) of rain in 48 hours, breaking the citys all-time record since record keeping began in 1878, Georgias Office of the State Climatologist said on X. The previous record of 9.59 inches (24.36 cm) in 48 hours was set in 1886. Hurricane Helene leaves deeps scars where it made landfall PERRY, Fla. The windswept beauty of what residents claim is one of Floridas longest stretches of undeveloped coastline was left deeply scarred after Hurricane Helene crashed ashore in rural Taylor County along the states Big Bend. Its a part of the state where salt marshes and pine flatwoods stretch unspoiled into the horizon, a region that has largely avoided the crush of condo developments, strip malls and souvenir shops that has carved up so much of Floridas coastlines. Its a place where Susan Sauls Hartway and her four-year-old Chihuahua mix Lucy could afford to live within walking distance of the beach on her salary as a housekeeper. At least until her home was carried away by Helene. I knew it would be bad, but I had no idea it was going to be this bad, she said. This is unbelievable. Friday afternoon, Hartway and Lucy wandered around their street near Ezell Beach, searching for where the storm may have deposited her home. Its gone. I dont know where its at. I cant find it, she said. Born and raised in Taylor County, Hartway said there is nowhere in the world she would rather be, even after Helene. But shes watched as wealthier residents from out of state have bought up second homes here. She wonders how many of them will sell out and what will happen to the locals who have nowhere else to go. Theres so many people down here, they dont have any place to go now. This was all they had, Hartway said. Some people, theyll just make do down here. Rough it. Insurers could pay $5B to cover losses from Helene ATLANTA Insurance data provider A.M. Best on Friday estimated that insurers will pay $5 billion or more to cover losses from Hurricane Helene. Thats not the total amount of loss, some of which is uninsured and some of which may be repaid with federal aid. Instead, it's the amount that insurance companies are on the hook for. A.M. Best said insurers paid $2.5 billion to $4 billion in losses for Hurricane Idalia last year, and it expects losses from Helene to be more severe given its broader wind field and a path that hit more urban areas inland. Curfew issued in western North Carolina community hit hard by Helene ASHEVILLE, N.C. Officials in a western North Carolina town have issued a curfew due to safety risks from flooded streets and downed power lines from what remains of Hurricane Helene. Its very dangerous out there, Asheville Police Chief Mike Lamb said. If you dont have to be out, dont go out. Lamb said the curfew would occur over a 12-hour period starting at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. No fatalities have been reported, although officials said any death count wont be released until family notifications have been made. Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder said hundreds of residents were forced to seek safety at shelters. The countys 911 center received more than 3,300 calls over an eight-hour period Friday, and more than 130 swift-water rescues have been conducted, said county Emergency Services Assistant Director Ryan Cole. He said it took crews more than four hours to reach several homes that were hit by a mudslide. This is something that were going to be dealing with for many days and weeks to come, Cole said. So please be patient. Former Tropical Storm John dissipates over Mexico MEXICO Former Tropical Storm John has dissipated over Mexico, but its remnants will continue to produce rain over the Mexican states of Guerrero and Michoacan. The storm made landfall twice in Mexico, first as a hurricane Monday and a second time as a tropical storm Friday. Helene downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone MIAMI The U.S. National Hurricane Center has downgraded Helene from a tropical depression to a post-tropical cyclone. Helene, a Category 4 hurricane when it made landfall in Florida late Thursday night, was 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Louisville, Kentucky, at about 5 p.m. EDT. It was moving northwest at 17 mph (28 kph), according to the hurricane center. The storm was expected to continue producing heavy rain in the area and cause severe flash-flooding as a result. Isolated tornadoes Friday evening were possible in Virginia and North Carolina, the hurricane center said. Thousands ordered to evacuate after catastrophic failure of a dam in eastern Tennessee NASHVILLE, Tenn. In eastern Tennessee, a catastrophic failure of Waterville Dam spurred Cocke County Mayor Rob Mathis to hand down evacuation orders for all of downtown Newport, according to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. Newport is a city of about 7,000 people roughly 60 miles (97 kilometers) southwest of where dozens of people were being rescued from the roof of a hospital. Over 1 million customers are still without power in South Carolina COLUMBIA, S.C. More than 1 million customers remained without power in South Carolina several hours after the remnants of Hurricane Helene left the state and the sun started to come out. Utility officials warned power could be out for many for a long time. Crews were still assessing the damage and in some cases needed to cut their way through debris just to determine what was left standing. You will be frustrated. Tomorrow its going to be 86 degrees and clear. Youre going to say Why cant I watch the football game? Why cant my life be back to normal? Lifes not going to be back to normal until probably the middle of next week, Dominion Energy South Carolina President Keller Kissam said Friday. The 1.2 million South Carolina customers without power represent more than 40% of homes and businesses in the state. Gov. Henry McMaster said the storm moved east of where it was forecast and gave the state a bigger blow than expected. We urge everybody to be patient and keep your neighbors in your prayers, McMaster said. 4 people critically injured after a tornado touches down in North Carolina ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. Four people were critically injured and numerous others sustained minor injuries after a tornado touched down in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, officials said. Three buildings received significant damage, including two restaurants and an auto service center, while a fourth building, a cafeteria, received minor roof damage, Nash County Communications Director Jonathan Edwards said Friday. The damage appeared to be concentrated on Wesleyan Boulevard and Tiffany Boulevard. An 18-wheel tractor-trailer truck also flipped over in that area, but the driver was not hurt, Edwards said. Death toll in Georgia rises to 15 ATLANTA At least 15 people have died in Georgia from causes related to Hurricane Helene, according to Garrison Douglas, a spokesperson for Gov. Brian Kemp. The word that just keeps coming to my mind is just devastated PERRY, Fla. Taylor County, Florida has had a rough couple of years. Since August of 2023, the rural community along Floridas Big Bend has taken direct hits from three hurricanes and seen the closure of its local paper mill, which for decades had been one of the economic lifelines for a county where one in six residents lives below the poverty line. The word that just keeps coming to my mind is just devastated, said Aaron Portwood, publisher of Perry Newspapers, which is based in the county seat of Perry. You get hit with one thing. And you think, This is bad. And you recover from that. And then another one hits, and youre like, ok that stings. But after about four or five, it starts to feel pretty overwhelming. Portwoods house in Dekle Beach on the countys long undeveloped coastline was gutted by Hurricane Helene, though the structure still stands. Beyond his own home, Portwood said hes worried about the future of this county that is steadily having its tax base wiped off the map. 2 firefighters killed in South Carolina were struck by a tree COLUMBIA, S.C. Two firefighters killed during Hurricane Helene in South Carolina were struck by a tree, authorities said. The tree hit their firetruck around 6:30 a.m. Friday about 4 miles (6 kilometers) west of Batesburg-Leesville, South Carolina Highway Patrol Cpl. David Jones said. The Saluda County Coroners Office has not released the names of the firefighters. At least 17 people have been killed in South Carolina as Hurricane Helene tore through the western part of the state. A mudslide and floodwaters wash out interstate at the North Carolina-Tennessee state line A mudslide and record floodwaters from the remnants of Hurricane Helene washed out a section of an interstate highway at the North Carolina-Tennessee state line, transportation officials said. Photos and video posted on social media showed at least one lane of I-40 had collapsed above the swollen Pigeon River. The Tennessee Department of Transportation said the interstate was closed in both directions. The National Weather Service said a flash flood warning continued for the Pigeon River, which crested Friday morning about 3 feet (1 meter) above its previous record level set by the remnants of Hurricane Ivan in September 2004. Georgia Power to make an emergency water release from a dam near Lake Rabun ATLANTA Georgia Power Co. is making an emergency release of water from a northeast Georgia dam following heavy rains from Hurricane Helene. Georgia Emergency Management Director Chris Stallings said no residents who live near Lake Rabun in the states mountainous northeast corner were in danger of being flooded. But he said the water release would likely flood roads and bridges that some residents use to access their homes. If they dont leave now, theyre going to be stuck there for at least a day or multiple hours, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp told reporters at a morning news briefing. The dam is the third in a series owned by Georgia Power along the Tallulah River, which cuts a deep gorge through part of the area. Weve got to get water out so it doesnt cause dam failure, Stallings said. He was unable to say how long the water release would last, saying that would be up to technical experts. Georgia Power didnt immediately respond to phone calls, emails and texts seeking information. Dozens rescued by helicopter from a flooded Tennessee hospital inundated by Helene NASHVILLE Dozens of people were being rescued by helicopter from a flooded Tennessee hospital inundated by Helene. Some 54 people were moved to the roof of the Unicoi County Hospital while water rapidly flooded the facility, according to Ballad Health. The company said on social media that county officials had ordered an evacuation of the hospital Friday morning due to rising water in the Nolichucky River, including 11 patients. Boats ordered up by the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency were unable to safely evacuate the hospital, which was taking on flood water, the company said. As of midday, Ballad reported that an additional seven people remained in rescue boats as the hospital was engulfed by extremely dangerous and rapidly moving water. Tornado damages businesses in North Carolina ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. A tornado was confirmed Friday in northern Rocky Mount, North Carolina, along U.S. Route 301, city communications specialist Robin Cox said. There was damage to businesses in the area, but the city did not yet confirm if there were any injuries. Cox said there were emergency workers on the scene as of 2:30 p.m. DeSantis: We are going to bounce back ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday that even communities hardest hit by Hurricane Helene would get back on their feet, though it wont happen overnight. The governor said its extremely difficult when someone loses a home with photos and family keepsakes that dont have a dollar value. But he vowed, We are going to bounce back. Its tough and we understand that. We also understand that this is a resilient state, DeSantis said at a news conference in storm-damaged St. Pete Beach, not far from where he grew up in Dunedin, Florida. Were going to get people back on their feet, DeSantis said. Its not easy to go through this. Its not going to be easy in the immediate future, but theres going to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Tropical Storm John hits Mexicos Pacific coast a 2nd time MEXICO CITY Tropical Storm John made its second landfall along Mexicos Pacific coast Friday, while in its wake authorities in the resort city of Acapulco called for help from anyone with a boat to deal with the flooding. John came ashore near Tizupan in Michoacan state with sustained winds of 45 mph (75 kmh) after making its initial landfall farther east on the coast on Monday as a Category 3 hurricane. It blew tin roofs off houses, triggered mudslides and toppled scores of trees. After weakening inland, it reemerged over the ocean, reforming as a tropical storm Wednesday and eventually regaining hurricane strength. At least eight people have died as a result of the storm. At least 17 people have died in South Carolina COLUMBIA, S.C. At least 17 people have died after Hurricane Helene moved across South Carolina overnight Friday. The dead included two firefighters responding to calls in Saluda County, Gov. Henry McMaster said at a Friday news conference. Two additional deaths were reported in Newberry County, according to McMaster, who didnt provide details. Coroners reported 13 other deaths four in Greenville County, four in Aiken County, three in Spartanburg County and two in Anderson County. Were asking keep all of those families and friends in your prayers, McMaster said. The death toll from Hurricane Helene has reached at least 30 across four states The death toll from Hurricane Helene has reached at least 30 across four states. According to an Associated Press tally Friday, the deaths occurred in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Dangerous rescue situation unfolding at a northeast Tennessee hospital NASHVILLE A dangerous rescue situation was unfolding in northeast Tennessee on Friday as 54 people were moved to the roof of the Unicoi County Hospital while water rapidly flooded the facility, according to Ballad Health. The company said on social media that county officials ordered an evacuation of the hospital Friday morning due to rising water in the Nolichucky River, including 11 patients. Boats ordered up by the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency were unable to safely evacuate the hospital, which was taking on flood water, the company said. As of midday, Ballad reported that 54 people were relocated to the roof and seven remained in rescue boats as the hospital was engulfed by extremely dangerous and rapidly moving water. The situation at the hospital is very dangerous and TEMA and National Guard resources are engaged in what can only be described as a dangerous rescue operation, Ballad wrote, asking for prayers. Some bridge lanes connecting Florida barrier island communities reopen ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. Some bridge lanes connecting barrier island communities on Floridas Gulf Coast started reopening on Friday. The northbound lanes of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge connecting the St. Petersburg area to the Bradenton area were opened Friday afternoon, though southbound lanes remained closed for cleaning up debris and assessing damage, according to the Florida Department of Transportation. Southbound lanes of the Howard Frankland Bridge connecting the Tampa area with the St. Petersburg area also were opened to traffic, while northbound lanes were still being inspected and cleared of debris. The Courtney Campbell Causeway connecting Hillsborough and Pinellas counties remained closed because of debris. The bridge took on heavy debris, washout, and roadway damage, the agency said in a statement. Bridge inspectors and maintenance clean-up crews are still on-site doing their best to clear the roadway and open it back up to motorists. Helene downgraded to a tropical depression MIAMI Tropical Storm Helene was downgraded to a tropical depression by forecasters on Friday afternoon. The storm was located about 125 miles (201 km) southeast of Louisville, Kentucky, and was moving toward the north-northwest at about 28 mph (44 kph). The center said the storm was forecast to stall over the Tennessee Valley Friday night and through the weekend. Maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 35 mph (55 km/h) with higher gusts. Forecasters said Helene was expected to become extratropical later in the day. North Carolina dam overtopped is not expected to fail, officials say RALEIGH, N.C. People living on about 30 streets in a western North Carolina county were ordered Friday to evacuate as water from Tropical Storm Helene overtopped the entire length of a dam in a town best known for the 1980s movie Dirty Dancing. There is no indication, however, that the Lake Lure Dam is about to fail, state Department of Environmental Quality spokesperson Kat Russell said Friday. Russell didnt know how many people lived on the 29 streets within what she called the dam inundation area within Rutherford County, where Lake Lure and the town of the same name are located about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Asheville. The lake flows into the Broad River and was created nearly 100 years ago. The dam is listed as 480 feet (146 meters) long and about 120 feet (36.6 meters) high. Russell said there is some erosion on one side of the dam caused by the overtopping. Town officials are monitoring it, she said. Downstream communities have been made aware of the overtopping but have been told they would have several hours to alert residents to their own evacuations if needed, Russell said. The North Carolina and South Carolina state agencies also have received emergency action plans if conditions worsen. Waters in the iconic lake used to film scenes for the movie Dirty Dancing, transforming Lake Lure into upstate New Yorks Catskill Mountains. Helene severely damaged Georgias utility infrastructure, electrical group says ATLANTA An electrical utility group is warning of catastrophic damage to Georgias utility infrastructure by Hurricane Helene. The Georgia Electric Membership Corp., which represents the states electric cooperatives, says that the hurricane damaged more than 100 high-voltage transmission lines and that more than 60 substations were out of service Friday morning. Without transmission lines and substations, the cooperatives cant feed electricity to homes and businesses. The group warned Friday that there will be extensive delays in total restoration and told customers, especially those who rely on electric power for medical needs, to make temporary arrangements. Of the more than 1 million Georgia electricity customers without power on Friday afternoon, more than 400,000 were customers of cooperatives. Restoration for customers of those utilities in rural areas can take much longer because customers are far apart. Rain from Helene has helped reduce autumn forest fire risks in West Virginia, governor says CHARLESTON, W.Va. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice was thankful Friday that several days of rain, including Fridays arrival of the remnants from Hurricane Helene, helped reduce the risk of autumn forest fires during an exceptional drought in much of the state. Im tickled to death that we finally have gotten this amount of rainfall, Justice said during his weekly news briefing. This will surely, surely assist us in many, many ways in regard to this terrible potential that we had for forest fires. Hurricane Ian remembrance event canceled in Fort Meyers Beach West Palm Beach, Fla. The town of Fort Myers Beach has canceled its Hurricane Ian Remembrance and Resiliency Ceremony due to cleanup efforts from Hurricane Helene. In a post on the social platform X, the town said it had to cancel the ceremony and did not say if it would be rescheduled. The town planned the ceremony for Saturday morning to mark when Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida. A residential street near the Chattahoochee River is completely flooded ATLANTA A residential street near the Chattahoochee River in Atlanta and the parking lot of a shopping center across the street is completely flooded. Flooding in the area is expected to get worse. John Swalm, 17, lives part-time with his dad whose house is on the flooded street. His dad is not in the state and his house is on stilts, but Swalm anticipates devastating damage to the houses yard and wooden patio. He also believes his dads cars are submerged and his kayaks have floated away. Rainfall in parts of the Carolinas and Tennessee reached at least half a foot Preliminary data shows rainfall in parts of northwest South Carolina, southwest North Carolina and southeast Tennessee reached at least half a foot between Tuesday and Friday, according to the National Weather Service office for Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina. Some parts of the region saw more than a foot of rain. Widespread airport delays and cancellations persist ATLANTA Even as Helenes wind and rain move northward, air travel snarls remain at many airports in the southeast. The airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, a major hub for American Airlines, saw nearly 400 inbound and outbound flights canceled through 1 p.m. Thursday, with another 500 inbound and outbound flights delayed, according to flight tracking software FlightAware. Thats nearly half of all flights to the airport. The larger Atlanta Airport saw nearly 200 inbound and outbound flights canceled, while more than 400 were delayed. Thats nearly a quarter of all the flights at that airport. Problems also lingered at airports in Florida including in Tampa, Tallahassee and Jacksonville, while smaller airports in Asheville, North Carolina and Augusta, Georgia saw a majority of flights canceled. Water rescues underway in Morristown, Tennessee NASHVILLE - The National Weather Service in Morristown, Tennessee, said late Friday morning that several water rescues and evacuations were happening near the mountains in the northeastern part of the state, with thousands of trees down in the area. Local officials had ordered people in locations such as Embreeville and Roan Mountain to evacuate. 5 people have died in Pinellas County after disregarding evacuation warnings CLEARWATER, Fla. Five people have died in Pinellas County in Florida after Helene blew threw the area overnight, county officials said Friday. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said the deaths all occurred in neighborhoods where residents were told by authorities to evacuate, but many chose to stay and then found themselves trapped by 8 feet of storm surge an unprecedented event in the county. Gualtieri said survivors told them they didnt believe the warnings after other residents told them the surge wouldnt be that bad. He said people wound up hiding in their attics to get away from the water. We made our case, we told people what they needed to do and they chose otherwise, Gualtieri said. He added that his deputies tried overnight to reach those who had been trapped, but it just wasnt safe. I was out there personally. We tried to launch boats, we tried to use high-water vehicles and we just met with too many obstacles, Gualtieri said. He said the death toll could rise as emergency crews go door-to-door in the flooded areas to see if anyone remains. Multiple people are trapped in 115 heavily damaged buildings in Valdosta ATLANTA Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp gave staggering numbers to describe the early damage from Helene Friday morning: 1 million meters without power, 1,300 traffic signals out of commission, 1,100 people in shelters across the state, 152 road closures and 2 interstate closures. In one south central city, Valdosta, 115 buildings were heavily damaged with multiple people trapped inside. One shelter temporarily housing Georgians lost its roof. A tree fell on one hospitals generator, cutting the facilitys power. App State cancels football game against Liberty in North Carolina due to Helene BOONE, N.C. Appalachian States home football game against Liberty in Boone, North Carolina, scheduled for Saturday has been canceled due to severe weather in the area from Tropical Storm Helene, the school announced Friday. Heavy rains in the North Carolina mountains brought flooding to Boone and the town was placed under a state of emergency Thursday. The nonconference game was scheduled for a 3:30 p.m. EDT kickoff and will not be rescheduled, the school said. App State also canceled a home field hockey game against Bellarmine that was slated for Friday. Tropical Storm John is causing severe flooding along Mexicos Pacific coast MEXICO CITY Tropical Storm John has caused a total of eight deaths in southern Mexico, and five days of heavy rains have generated severe flooding and mudslides in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco. John, in its second incarnation, was lingering off the Pacific coast just short of a second landfall early Friday. It hit further east on the coast Monday as a Category 3 hurricane. The flooding is so bad in Acapulco which still hasnt recovered from Hurricane Otis last October that the head of the municipal civil defense agency said authorities were starting to use boats inside the city to rescue people from low-lying neighborhoods. Residents posted videos and photos of cars floating away in floodwaters, and people rescued from raging waters using lifelines. We are getting boats to start carrying out more effective evacuations, Efren Valdez, civil protection coordinator for Acapulco, told the Milenio Television station. The situation is very complicated. Several Ballad Health facilities closed across multiple states NASHVILLE In northeast Tennessee, Unicoi County Hospital was closed Friday due to the weather and its 11 patients were being moved to other hospitals, according to parent company Ballad Health. The company urged people who need care to go to the nearest hospital or call 911. Meanwhile, every Ballad Health facility postponed all elective surgeries, including those in southwest Virginia, northwest North Carolina and southeast Kentucky. Some of its clinics and urgent care offices were also closed. Atlanta firefighters rescue a half-dozen people in Hanover West ATLANTA Atlanta Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Ronald Slatton said rescue efforts Friday morning helped about half a dozen people who didnt feel safe in their homes in Hanover West, a neighborhood in north Atlanta. A creek behind some of the residences had risen to about four or five feet, he said. Were just here standing by if they need us, he said of his expectations for the rest of the day. Shattered storefronts and mangled awnings dot downtown Valdosta VALDOSTA, Ga. In downtown Valdosta, Georgia, Hurricane Helene ripped the sheet metal roof from a large brick building that houses a furniture and antiques store and blew out the back wall. Bricks, plywood and twisted metal covered the grass outside, exposing old lamps, cabinets and other knickknacks in the stores inventory. Many shops and businesses along the tree limb-covered sidewalks of the downtown area appeared unscathed. But a few had shattered storefront windows and mangled awnings. Electricity was out across the city and traffic moved slowly on many roads, with stoplights blacked out and trees blocking several streets. My neighbors across the street got the full brunt of all of it ATLANTA Stacy Quiros noticed early indications of flooding at her home in Hanover West, a neighborhood in north Atlanta, when she woke up Friday morning. She and her husband went to their basement to move important items to higher ground before it took on four inches of water. Across the street, on lower ground, she pointed out underwater mailboxes and cars with just their roofs peeking out to an Associated Press journalist. She watched as her neighbors with flooded first floors climbed into rescue boats that took them to safety. My neighbors across the street got the full brunt of all of it, she said. Connecticut National Guard unit deploys to North Carolina HARTFORD The Connecticut Army National Guards 1-169th Aviation Regiment is providing one CH-47 Chinook helicopter and a five-soldier flight crew for approximately one week to assist North Carolina as Helene moves through the area. The unit mobilized and deployed to North Carolina on Friday morning. At least 11 people have died in Georgia ATLANTA A spokesperson for Gov. Brian Kemp says 11 people have died so far in Georgia from causes related to Hurricane Helene. Spokesperson Garrison Douglas could not immediately provide a breakdown of where and how all the deaths occurred. Florida officials warn residents to take safety precautions as they clean up TALLAHASSEE, Fla. Just because Hurricane Helene has passed Florida doesnt mean that dangers are over, the states top emergency management official said Friday. Hazards abound from flooded roadways, downed power lines and debris blocking roads, said Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. Guthrie urged Floridians to take safety precautions as they clean up. Hold off cleaning up debris where power lines are down, wear goggles when operating a chainsaw and put on a hard hat if available when cleaning up in a damaged building, Guthrie said. Just make sure you are being safe if youre out there, Guthrie said. These are all preventable deaths and injuries. We can 100% prevent that. The priority now is saving lives RALEIGH, N.C. North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper said in a briefing Friday morning that there had been two storm-related deaths in the state and he expected more to come. Close to 300 roads were closed and over 100 swift-water rescues had occurred so far, Cooper said. He added that the storm, particularly in western North Carolina, is causing life-threatening flash flooding, numerous landslides and power outages from downed trees. The priority now is saving lives, Cooper said, telling people to stay off the roads unless they were seeking higher ground. With the rain that they already had been experiencing before Helenes arrival, this is one of the worst storms in modern history for parts of western North Carolina, Cooper said. Portions of Interstates 40 and 26 were closed due to flooding, officials said. Emergency workers in Florida are focused on search and rescue efforts TALLAHASSEE, Fla. Around 1,500 emergency workers are focusing their efforts during the first 24 hours after Hurricane Helenes landfall on search and rescue efforts, Floridas top emergency management official said Friday. In the two days following, their efforts will concentrate on securing and stabilizing affected communities, said Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. As those sorts of rescue missions happen today, and continue, please do not go out and visit the impacted areas, Guthrie said Friday morning at a news conference in Tallahassee. I beg of you, do not get in their way. Rows of homes gone, a gaping hole in the post office and a supermarket wall missing CEDAR KEY, Fla. After spending the night riding out the storm and checking in on his neighbors, Michael Presley Bobbitt, 48, woke to find his town of Cedar Key littered with debris with rows of houses gone, a gaping hole clear through his post office and the wall to his local mom-and-pop supermarket missing. Were feeling pretty gut-punched here in Cedar Key, he said. When we were fighting this in the night, however bad we thought it would be, its much worse in the light of day. Despite orders to evacuate, Bobbitt, who has lived in Cedar Key for five years, said he stayed behind to help out those who could not leave with his rescue boat and document the storm. All of those people that left are desperate to hear about their homes, he said. Im delivering the most devastating news that they have ever got in their lives. Tropical Storm Joyce forms in the Atlantic MIAMI Tropical Storm Joyce formed Friday in the Atlantic Ocean and isnt threatening land, forecasters said. The storm is located about 1,325 miles (2,130 kilometers) east of the northern Leeward Islands and has maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph). It was moving northwest at about 13 mph (20 kph). There were no coastal watches or warnings in effect, the Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The storm was expected to strengthen gradually through Sunday before weakening early next week. More than 50 swift-water rescues conducted in western North Carolina county ASHEVILLE, N.C. In North Carolina, more than 50 swift-water rescues were conducted from floodwaters in Buncombe County. This is the most significant natural disaster that any one of us has ever seen in western North Carolina, said Ryan Cole, the countys assistant emergency services director. Cole said during a briefing that road washouts and closures prevented authorities from responding to some emergency calls. In Asheville, crews were trying to get to a mudslide involving four homes and an undetermined number of people were unaccounted for, he said. Historic building collapses in downtown Savannah ATLANTA A historic building partially collapsed in downtown Savannah as Helene moved through the city. The Savannah Fire Department says the third story of the three-story brick building collapsed into the second floor after 2 a.m. Friday morning. The top two floors hold apartments, while the bottom floor is home to the Ordinary Pub on Broughton Street, one of the main commercial streets in the citys historic downtown. No injuries were reported, but fire officials declared the building unsafe to enter. A falling tree kills a 2nd person in South Carolina ANDERSON, S.C. Authorities are reporting a second death in South Carolina from Helene. A second person was killed Friday morning by a tree falling on a home in Anderson County, the Coroners Office said in a statement. I was so sad, its my first apartment ATLANTA Jalen Cruz woke up around 1 a.m. thankfully at the right time, he said. Water was just starting to trickle into the kitchen of his Atlanta apartment. What started as a little puddle swelled to ankle-high flooding at his ankles within 30 minutes, so he gathered some of his valuables to bring to his neighbors upstairs. At its peak, the water rose to his calves, the 25-year-old painter said, meaning he has furniture thats damaged, unfinished art submerged underwater and paint bubbling formed on his walls. It couldve been a lot worse, he said. Still, I was so sad, its my first apartment. Physical stuff can be replaced but just to see the state of my first home, submerged in water, he said, looking back as brown water rushed downstream. This is my baby. Iconic lake from Dirty Dancing overtops the North Carolina dam holding it back RUTHERFORDTON, N.C. Waters in the iconic lake used to film scenes from the movie Dirty Dancing are overtopping the dam holding them back in North Carolina. Emergency officials in Rutherford County have started evacuating people downstream from Lake Lure and are sounding emergency sirens. Water has been periodically released from the dam this week, but there has been too much rain to keep up, officials said. Authorities did not indicate if the dam itself was in danger. Lake Lure was transformed into upstate New Yorks Catskill Mountains for several of the scenes in the 1987 film, including the dance scene where actor Patrick Swayze lifts Jennifer Grey out of the water. Florida airports will reopen as state inspectors work to clear roadways TALLAHASSEE, Fla. Airports in Florida that closed due to Hurricane Helene will be reopened on Friday, and inspectors were out examining bridges and causeways along the Gulf Coast to get them back open to traffic quickly, the states transportation secretary said. Airports in Tampa, St. Pete, Lakeland and Tallahassee planned to reopen for flights, and 2,000 miles of roadway have been cleared of debris so far, Jared Perdue, secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation, said Friday morning at a Tallahassee news conference. Some of the causeways were underwater, so we have to inspect them and make sure they are safe to pass, Perdue said. We had a lot of storm surge up and down the west coast. We had a lot of roads underwater. A late-night evacuation in Atlanta with a newborn ATLANTA A neighbor knocking woke Marcus Benson on Thursday night after the rain outside and exhaustion from a newborn baby had lulled him to sleep. The water level was inching closer to the front door of their apartment, about eight steps up from ground level and high enough that he decided it was time to evacuate. Benson said it took focus to get himself, his wife and his three-month-old baby through a flooded parking lot to get to the other side of their Atlanta apartment complex. You have your son in your arms above water trying to keep him up and you just push and try to get to safety, Benson said. Benson doesnt know the status of his familys home but is glad they are safe. Now they just have to let Mother Nature take its course, the Atlanta native said, adding that his hometowns really changed as far as weathers concerned. Georgia Power expects outages to rise ATLANTA Kim Greene, the CEO of Georgia Power Co. told reporters Friday she feared outages would continue to rise for the 2.6 million customers of Georgias only private electrical utility. All of that rain is leading to very saturated ground, and trees, unfortunately, will continue to fall, Greene told reporters during a news conference in Atlanta. So we do expect the number of outages to continue to rise. I assure you that we want to get your power back on just as safely and as quickly as possible. A Florida congregation must rebuild again after Helene PERRY, Fla. The congregation at Potters House Ministries church in Perry, Florida, was just weeks away from moving back into their newly renovated sanctuary after rebuilding in the wake of last years Hurricane Idalia. Then Hurricane Helene peeled back the brand-new roof, scattering sheets of aluminum across the church grounds. Its really heartbreaking, said parishioner Stephen Tucker, moved to tears as he surveyed the damage the morning after Helene made landfall. I know its in Gods will for this to happen. And its by the grace of God that were still here. Tucker said its been one blow after another for the community hes lived in all of his 51 years a one, two, three punch from Idalia last August, then Debby a year later and now Helene, all making landfall within about 30 miles (48 kilometers) of each other in one county in this rural stretch of Floridas Big Bend. Its like it never stops, he said. Why Taylor County? Multiple hospitals without power in south Georgia ATLANTA Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said multiple hospitals in south Georgia are without power after Helene knocked out both their primary power and their generators. Kemp said trees had fallen densely in the eastern part of the state. We know we still have people trapped in homes that were trying to cut our way into right now, Kemp told Fox News. We have a lot of resources that we have on the ground already, Kemp added. Were calling up additional National Guard, and were going to throw everything we got at it. Kemp said wind damage is less severe in metro Atlanta. The storm really stayed straight or either moved to the east a little bit, which spared some of our state from being on the dirty side of the storm. So if theres any blessing in disguise, thats probably it. Were blessed it's still standing' VALDOSTA, Ga. The hurricanes winds stripped away the siding from the steeple in front of Union Cathedral in Valdosta, Georgia, exposing its metal frame and littering the parking lot with shredded foam and plaster. The storm also smashed plate glass windows by the front doors. Inside the entryway, the floor was strewn with thick glass shards, religious booklets and offering envelopes. Pastor Wade McCrae, who preaches to 250 congregants in person most Sundays with hundreds more watching online, said the sanctuary was undamaged. Deacons were running errands to bring plywood and tools to cover the broken window. McCrae hoped to be able to hold services this Sunday. Were blessed its still standing, he said. 20 people in Atlanta rescued overnight by firefighters ATLANTA Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens tells reporters that firefighters rescued about 20 people overnight from cars or apartments imperiled by swiftly rising floodwaters. Residents in Floridas Big Bend region wake up to widespread power outages PERRY, Fla. Residents of Floridas Big Bend region woke up to widespread power outages Friday morning after Hurricane Helene made landfall overnight near the mouth of the Aucilla River. Helene slammed ashore in the largely rural stretch of Florida as a Category 4 hurricane, becoming the third hurricane to batter that swath of the state in a little over a year. As the sun rose over U.S. Highway 27 outside of Perry, cars dodged and weaved among downed pine trees that blocked portions of the road, some ensnarled in power lines. Emergency workers were already on hand clearing debris before 8 am. The air smelled of pine needles and fresh wood from the staggering trees shattered by the storm, some snapped in half like toothpicks. Heres the latest on Hurricane Helene Authorities rescued people trapped by floodwaters and more than 3 million customers were in the dark across much of the southeastern U.S. as Hurricane Helene weakened to a tropical storm over Georgia early Friday after making landfall overnight in northwestern Florida as a Category 4 storm. Helene came ashore amid warnings from the National Hurricane Center that the enormous system could create a nightmare storm surge. There were at least four storm-related deaths. Video on social media sites showed sheets of rain coming down in Perry, Florida, near where Helene made landfall, and siding being torn off buildings. One local news station showed a home that had flipped over. The community and much of surrounding Taylor County were without power. An October credit to be issued to PG&E customers stems from the mandated California Climate Credit, a state program enacted over a decade ago that requires power plants, natural gas distributors and other significant greenhouse gas emitters to purchase carbon pollution permits. Smith Collection/Gado via Getty Images Pacific Gas and Electric Co. announced Thursday that millions of residential and small business customers in California will receive a credit on their electric bill next month. Residential customers with active accounts will receive a credit of $55.17, the same amount they received in the spring. Initially issued in April alongside an $85.46 annual natural gas credit, this twice-a-year credit totals $195.80 for residential customers in 2024. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Eligible small business customers will also receive an October credit, bringing their total annual credits to $110.34. But the credit is not necessarily a gift from PG&E. The savings stem from the mandated California Climate Credit, a state program enacted more over a decade ago that requires power plants, natural gas distributors and other significant greenhouse gas emitters to purchase carbon pollution permits, according to the California Public Utilities Commission. The state redistributes these funds to consumers through utility bills, offering electricity credits in April and October and a single natural gas credit in April. The credit is a win-win for our customers, PG&E Senior Vice President Vincent Davis said in a statement. The California Climate Credit helps reduce customers energy bills and our states greenhouse gas emissions. Advertisement Article continues below this ad U.S. President Joe Biden in the Oval Office at the White House, in Washington, U.S. September 23, 2024. Lawmakers averted a government shutdown 40 days before the election, but they'll face another funding crunch right before the holidays and a new Congress and president take office. Bipartisan negotiators have been trying to make progress on the 12 bills needed to fund federal agencies for the 2025 fiscal year. Yet there's little time to pass those bills during the lame-duck session; House members and senators are scheduled to be in Washington for only five weeks between Election Day and the end of the year, and the two chambers haven't reached agreement on any of the dozen measures, known as appropriations bills. A more likely scenario is that Democrats and Republicans would strike an end-of-year deal on a massive, catchall omnibus spending package or punt the issue once again with another continuing resolution, or CR, that would extend funding into the new year on a short-term basis. They'll need a new funding agreement before federal funding runs out on Dec. 20. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., insisted this week that the days of the just-before-Christmas omnibus loaded up with legislative priorities from both parties are over. "We are not going to return to the Christmas omnibus spending tradition, and that's the commitment I've made to everyone," Johnson told reporters after the House passed a stopgap funding measure Wednesday. Pressed about whether he would promise not to put an omnibus on the floor in December, Johnson wouldn't answer directly: "We've worked very hard to break that tradition ... and we'll see what happens in December." Senior appropriators said Congress are likely to end up where they have before when they've faced a lame-duck, year-end funding deadline: with a sweeping omnibus spending package. "I expect that we'll negotiate an omnibus," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., a member of the Appropriations Committee, noting that Johnson had said there would be no more CRs, then a new CR passed Wednesday. "The speaker, respectfully, doesn't have the ability to draw lines in the sand when he can't even control his own caucus. They continually need Democrats to actually get anything done, and we are governing from the minority," she continued. "And so I'm pretty confident that at the end of the day, we're going to make sure that we pass omnibus funding." Far more House Democrats than Republicans voted for Wednesday's CR that will prevent a shutdown from starting next week, continuing a pattern of the minority's carrying must-pass legislation through the lower chamber this Congress. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., predicted that the two parties could come to a deal and avoid a shutdown in December. But he said the results of the election will dictate what eventually happens. Continued divided government could lead to tense negotiation, while, for example, if Republicans sweep the House, the Senate and the White House, they may push for another short-term funding patch into 2025, after they take the reins of power. China's CSI 300 stock index, which just had its best week since 2008 , could rise 10% in the near term, according to Morgan Stanley's Laura Wang. The CSI 300, which tracks major stocks on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges, on Friday closed at 3,703.68 points, up 15.7% for the week. Wang, chief China equity strategist at Morgan Stanley, told CNBC's " Street Signs Asia " Friday that the index could rise by another 10%. But she cautioned that more details on Beijing's recent economic stimulus measures were needed for a sustained rally. "Well, we actually think that there is a further leg to go for the rebound," she said. "As we have being doing analysis on the recent relending program and the other market stabilization facilities we realized that for most of the companies [that have] qualified for the program, to tap into these facilities, [the] CSI 300 could have another 10% upside in the near term from a technical perspective," she added. Investors have piled into Chinese stocks after China's central bank this week announced a slew of measures to shore up economic growth, including cutting the reserve requirement ratio of cash banks by 50 basis points. Hedge funds on Tuesday spent the most money on Chinese stocks since March 2021 , according to Goldman Sachs, noting it was the second-highest day of such purchases in 10 years. Chinese stocks rose further after Beijing on Thursday called for halting the real estate slump and a strengthening of monetary and fiscal policy. They also affirmed the previously announced stimulus measures. U.S. billionaire hedge founder David Tepper told CNBC's " Squawk Box " on Thursday that he saw China's latest policy moves as major shift in the wake of the Federal Reserve's rate cut last week. He said he's bought more Chinese stocks since. Still, it remains to be seen whether the rally can run higher in the longer term. Chinese stock markets are only open for one more trading day before the country takes off Tuesday for its seven-day National Day holiday, also known as "Golden Week." Wang said it's "very, very critical" for the government to share specifics on a stimulus execution plan given the upcoming holiday. "After the break, we would really like to see as soon as possible the execution details on the physical spending and on the market stabilization measures," Wang said. "All of these need to take place very, very quickly in the coming weeks or in a couple of months, to make this more sustainable into a real recovery rally." Extreme temperatures are driving travelers to seek cooler destinations. And there's a term for the trend: "coolcations." Heat waves which are increasing in frequency, duration and intensity, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are affecting where people are choosing to vacation, especially during the hot summer months. "Often, when we think of vacation, beaches and tropical escapes come to mind," a spokesperson for Expedia told CNBC Travel. "Coolcations however, are all about opting for destinations where the temperatures are more moderate, where you're packing a light sweater instead of a sun hat." From January to June 2024, flight searches increased 705% to Lapland, Finland, according to Expedia. The online travel agency said flight searches are also up to Canada, specifically Banff (65%) and Lake Louise (55%), its data showed. The home rental website Vrbo reported that cooler places emerged among the top 40 most booked destinations this summer, a list which included Breckenridge, Colorado; White Mountains, New Hampshire; and Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania. Californian Stephanie Greitzer said she planned a family trip to Whistler this summer. "We live in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles where we experience extreme heat for most of the summer, reaching highs well above 100," she said. "We want to be comfortable when we are traveling to experience all a city has to offer and take a break from the extreme heat at home." Charlie Ergen is getting close to selling the pay-TV business he founded more than 40 years ago. EchoStar is in advanced talks to sell satellite TV provider Dish Network to rival DirecTV, the closely held pay TV operator owned by private-equity firm TPG and AT&T, according to people familiar with the matter. While the sides hope to complete a deal by Monday, no deal is assured, and the talks may still fall apart, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. The combination of Dish and DirecTV has been rumored for years and nearly happened in 2002 until it collapsed under regulatory pressure. This time, the deal is being driven by EchoStar's desire to pay off $1.98 billion of debt that matures in November, said two of the people familiar with the process. EchoStar had just $521 million in cash and cash equivalents and marketable investment securities as of June 30 and forecast negative cash flows for the remainder of 2024, according to public filings. The prospect of a future EchoStar bankruptcy and deal approval from creditors make the completion of a deal complicated. Dish attempted to refinance some of its debt earlier this week with bondholders, but the negotiations failed, according to a Sept. 23 filing. The company said in public filings it remains in discussions with other debtholders. A potential DirecTV-Dish transaction is being structured as all cash, with DirecTV paying EchoStar for the satellite TV business, its digital business Sling and associated liabilities, said people familiar with the matter. All in, the transaction may be worth more than $9 billion, according to one of the people. A spokesperson for DirecTV declined to comment. A spokesperson for Dish couldn't immediately be reached for comment. "The bottom line is that we now see bankruptcy in the next four to six months as the most likely outcome [for EchoStar]," MoffettNathanson's Craig Moffett said in a note to clients in August. "They will need to raise new capital." EchoStar has a total enterprise value of about $31 billion and a market capitalization of about $7.6 billion. There is no wireless spectrum involved in the proposed deal, which Dish Network has spent the past decade accumulating in its quest to transition into a wireless company, the people said. Satellite TV, once some of the biggest distributors of the TV bundle, has been declining for years often at a faster rate than cable competitors as consumers switch to subscription streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video. Dish ended its last quarter with 6.1 million satellite subscribers and 2 million customers for Sling TV, Dish's over-the-internet package of linear networks. DirecTV has also felt the pain, losing millions of subscribers since AT&T bought the company in 2015 for $67 billion with debt. AT&T spun it out in 2021 and sold a portion of the company to TPG. At that time, DirecTV had approximately 15.4 million subscribers. It has about 11 million today, CNBC previously reported. The company has recently been focused on building out its streaming business, centering its latest ad campaign around dispelling the belief that DirecTV is only available through a satellite dish. MoffettNathanson estimates DirecTV added more than 20,000 streaming customers earlier this year. The bulk of its customers still use satellite dishes. Most recently, DirecTV was in a distribution fight with Disney, which saw networks including ESPN go dark for nearly two weeks for the satellite TV company's customers. The two companies reached a deal that gives DirecTV the ability to offer skinnier, genre-specific bundles. CNBC's Lillian Rizzo contributed to this report. Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump stands with Republican vice presidential nominee U.S. Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH), as he holds a rally for the first time with his running mate, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S. July 20, 2024. An American journalist who runs an independent newsletter published a document Thursday that appears to have been stolen from Donald Trump's presidential campaign the first public posting of a file that is believed to be part of a dossier that federal officials say is part of an Iranian effort to manipulate the U.S. election. The PDF document is a 271-page opposition research file on former President Donald Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio. For more than two months, hackers who the U.S. says are tied to Iran have tried to persuade the American media to cover files they stole. No outlets took the bait. But on Thursday, reporter Ken Klippenstein, who self-publishes on Substack after he left The Intercept this year, published one of the files. "If the document had been hacked by some 'anonymous' like hacker group, the news media would be all over it. I'm just not a believer of the news media as an arm of the government, doing its work combating foreign influence. Nor should it be a gatekeeper of what the public should know," he wrote. Publication of the document reflects how a shifting media ecosystem featuring more high-profile independent journalists on platforms like Substack can influence the ability of state-sponsored hackers to carry out election influence operations. In an interview, Klippenstein said: "It's been a vibes election. They are so vague on policy. There's so few specifics, and something like this can give you some sense of what the campaign thinks." At least three major news outlets and two independent journalists previously received a document described as a JD Vance dossier but did not publish it, citing what they have described as a lack of newsworthy information in it. The dissemination of the Vance file appears to be a hack-and-leak operation akin to how Russian intelligence leaked files from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2016. Those emails got significant media attention at the time, a decision that prompted much media criticism. Politico, which says it began receiving unpublished Trump documents on July 22, was the first news outlet to report that it had received them. The Trump campaign acknowledged last month that it had been hacked and accused Iran, but it has not shared details, and it did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. Research published by Google and Microsoft indicates the hack occurred in June. Three U.S. agencies have publicly attributed the hack and the subsequent distribution of the files to Iran. Iranian officials have denied involvement with the hack. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's vice president for strategic affairs, told NBC News on Tuesday that the country has "no interest in changing the results or affecting the results of this election" and that "the government and official agencies of Iran have not hacked anybody. People working for us haven't, either." The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has repeatedly said since July that Iran seeks to damage Trump's candidacy. As president, Trump authorized the assassination of military leader Qassem Soleimani. Intelligence officials have also briefed Trump on what they say are ongoing Iranian attempts to assassinate him. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Reporters who have received the documents describe the same pattern: An AOL account emails them files, signed by a person using the name "Robert," who is reluctant to speak to their identity or reasons for wanting the documents to receive coverage. NBC News was not part of the Robert persona's direct outreach, but it has viewed its correspondence with a reporter at another publication. One of the emails from the Robert persona previously viewed by NBC News included three large PDF files, each corresponding to Trump's three reported finalists for vice president. The Vance file appears to be the one Klippenstein hosts on his site. X, formerly known as Twitter, appears to have taken the strongest initial stance against Klippenstein following his Substack post, blocking accounts that share links to his post and suspending his account. Elon Musk, who owns the site, was a staunch critic of how Twitter's previous leadership limited access to an "October surprise" story in the New York Post about scandalous material found on a laptop belonging to President Joe Biden's son Hunter. Former intelligence officials at the time cautioned that the laptop was consistent with the work of Russian intelligence, though no direct connection has been publicly substantiated. An X spokesperson told NBC News that Klippenstein "was temporarily suspended for violating our rules on posting unredacted private personal information" pertaining to Vance. Klippenstein wrote an additional post on Substack on Thursday defending his decision to post the file while acknowledging that it did appear to violate X's rules. "Did I make a mistake in not redacting the 'private' information on J.D. Vance? If I wanted a Twitter account, apparently so. But on principle? I stand by it absolutely," he said. Representatives for Substack did not immediately respond to a request for comment. San Francisco Drag laureate DArcy Drollinger, center, officiates the marriage of Jorge Jimenez, left, and Scott Wilson at San Francisco City Hall on Feb. 14, 2024. Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle Proposition 3 on the November ballot would remove a now-unenforceable ban on same-sex marriage from the state Constitution, and declare marriage to be a fundamental right in California. What that means, claims a leading opponent of Prop 3, is that the state could also allow polygamy and child marriage. As well as marriages between humans and plants, or animals. Or robots. Proposition 3 could legitimize nearly any marriage configuration imaginable, attorney Dean Broyles, president of the National Center for Law & Policy, a conservative Christian nonprofit, declared in an online letter to Dear Citizens of California on Sept. 12. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Among the examples he listed were group marriages with multiple spouses, unions between children and adults or other children, and marriages between humans and machines including holograms or AI, animals, or objects, including plants. Or even a marriage with oneself. California law now bans polygamy and requires parental consent for marriage of a youth under 18. But Broyles said those laws could be superseded by a state constitutional amendment like Prop 3. And the California Family Council, which signed the ballot arguments against Prop 3, agrees with Broyles interpretation, the groups vice president, Greg Burt, told the Chronicle. It left legal analysts scratching their heads. There is no chance a California court would interpret Proposition 3 in the extreme, non-contextual manner suggested by Mr. Broyles, said J. Clark Kelso, a professor at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and former court-appointed overseer of health care in California prisons. Advertisement Article continues below this ad He noted that the states nonpartisan legislative analyst had concluded in the information guide sent to voters that Proposition 3 would not change who is allowed to marry in California. Prop 3 incorporates what has been accepted and uncontroversial language for decades, said Margaret Russell, a law professor at Santa Clara University. She said the U.S. Supreme Court has defined marriage as a fundamental right, or in similar wording, in 14 cases since 1888, including: Boddie v. Connecticut, a 1971 ruling saying poor people could not be denied the right to marriage or divorce even if they couldnt pay court fees, because marriage is a fundamental human relationship. Zablocki v. Redhail, a 1978 decision overturning a Wisconsin law that limited marriage rights of a parent who was behind on child support. The right to marry is of fundamental importance for all individuals, the court declared. Turner v. Safley, a 1987 ruling rejecting Missouris restrictions on prisoners right to marry. The decision to marry is a fundamental right, the justices said. A somewhat different view came from Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor who has described himself as a libertarianish conservative. The right to marry, he said, could be interpreted to include having more than one spouse. My guess is that courts probably wont interpret Prop 3 as allowing polygamous marriages or child marriages, Volokh said by email. But there is some possibility that a future court may surprise us by reading the right to marry as including the right to marry several people. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Prop 3 would remove from the state Constitution a ban on same-sex marriage that Calfornia voters approved, as Proposition 8, in 2008. Federal courts declared Prop 8 unconstitutional, and after state officials including then-Attorney General Kamala Harris refused to defend the measure. The ruling became final in 2013 when the Supreme Court said the measures private sponsors had no right to defend it in court. Two years later, the court issued a nationwide ruling saying same-sex couples had a constitutional right to marry. But the court has swung rightward since then, and when it overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022, Justice Clarence Thomas, in a separate opinion, said the justices should also overrule their 2015 marriage decision. Because such a ruling would presumably reinstate Californias 2008 law, supporters of same-sex marriage rights asked lawmakers to seek removal of Prop 8 from the state Constitution. ACA5 by Assembly Member Evan Low, D-Sunnyvale, sailed through the Legislature with no opposing votes although many Republicans abstained from weighing in and was placed on the Nov. 5 ballot as Prop 3. Proposition 3 reinforces Californias commitment to civil rights and protects personal freedom, a sponsoring group, Equality California, proclaimed in the states official Voter Information Guide. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In this article JPM Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT JPMorgan Chase CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon gestures as he speaks during the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee oversight hearing on Wall Street firms, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 6, 2023. Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters Buried in a roughly 200-page quarterly filing from JPMorgan Chase last month were eight words that underscore how contentious the bank's relationship with the government has become. The lender disclosed that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could punish JPMorgan for its role in Zelle, the giant peer-to-peer digital payments network. The bank is accused of failing to kick criminal accounts off its platform and failing to compensate some scam victims, according to people who declined to be identified speaking about an ongoing investigation. In response, JPMorgan issued a thinly veiled threat: "The firm is evaluating next steps, including litigation." The prospect of a bank suing its regulator would've been unheard of in an earlier era, according to policy experts, mostly because corporations used to fear provoking their overseers. That was especially the case for the American banking industry, which needed hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts to survive after irresponsible lending and trading activities caused the 2008 financial crisis, those experts say. But a combination of factors in the intervening years has created an environment where banks and their regulators have never been farther apart. Trade groups say that in the aftermath of the financial crisis, banks became easy targets for populist attacks from Democrat-led regulatory agencies. Those on the side of regulators point out that banks and their lobbyists increasingly lean on courts in Republican-dominated districts to fend off reform and protect billions of dollars in fees at the expense of consumers. "If you go back 15 or 20 years, the view was it's not particularly smart to antagonize your regulator, that litigating all this stuff is just kicking the hornet's nest," said Tobin Marcus, head of U.S. policy at Wolfe Research. "The disparity between how ambitious [President Joe] Biden's regulators have been and how conservative the courts are, at least a subset of the courts, is historically wide," Marcus said. "That's created so many opportunities for successful industry litigation against regulatory proposals." Assault on fees Those forces collided this year, which started out as one of the most consequential for bank regulation since the post-2008 reforms that curbed Wall Street risk-taking, introduced annual stress tests and created the industry's lead antagonist, the CFPB. In the final months of the Biden administration, efforts from a half-dozen government agencies were meant to slash fees on credit card late payments, debit transactions and overdrafts, among other proposals. The industry's biggest threat was the Basel Endgame, a sweeping plan to force big banks to hold tens of billions of dollars more in capital for activities like trading and lending. "The industry is facing an onslaught of regulatory and potential legislative change," Marianne Lake, head of JPMorgan's consumer bank, warned investors in May. JPMorgan's disclosure about the CFPB probe into Zelle comes after years of grilling by Democrat lawmakers over financial crimes on the platform. Zelle was launched in 2017 by a bank-owned firm called Early Warning Services in response to the threat from peer-to-peer networks including PayPal. The vast majority of Zelle activity is uneventful; of the $806 billion that flowed across the network last year, only $166 million in transactions was disputed as fraud by customers of JPMorgan, Bank of America and Wells Fargo , the three biggest players on the platform. But the three banks collectively reimbursed just 38% of those claims, according to a July Senate report that looked at disputed unauthorized transactions. Banks are typically on the hook to reimburse fraudulent Zelle payments that the customer didn't give permission for, but usually don't refund losses if the customer is duped into authorizing the payment by a scammer, according to the Electronic Fund Transfer Act. A JPMorgan payments executive told lawmakers in July that the bank actually reimburses 100% of unauthorized transactions; the discrepancy in the Senate report's findings is because bank personnel often determine that customers have authorized the transactions. Amid the scrutiny, the bank began warning Zelle users on the Chase app to "Stay safe from scams" and added disclosures that customers won't likely be refunded for bogus transactions. JPMorgan declined to comment for this article. Dimon in front The company, which has grown to become the largest and most profitable American bank in history under CEO Jamie Dimon, is at the fore of several other skirmishes with regulators. Thanks to his reputation guiding JPMorgan through the 2008 crisis and last year's regional banking upheaval, Dimon may be one of few CEOs with the standing to openly criticize regulators. That was highlighted this year when Dimon led a campaign, both public and behind closed doors, to weaken the Basel proposal. In May, at JPMorgan's investor day, Dimon's deputies made the case that Basel and other regulations would end up harming consumers instead of protecting them. The cumulative effect of pending regulation would boost the cost of mortgages by at least $500 a year and credit card rates by 2%; it would also force banks to charge two-thirds of consumers for checking accounts, according to JPMorgan. The message: banks won't just eat the extra costs from regulation, but instead pass them on to consumers. While all of these battles are ongoing, the financial industry has racked up several victories so far. Some contend the threat of litigation helped convince the Federal Reserve to offer a new Basel Endgame proposal this month that roughly cuts in half the extra capital that the largest institutions would be forced to hold, among other industry-friendly changes. It's not even clear if the watered-down version of the proposal, a long-in-the-making response to the 2008 crisis, will ever be implemented because it won't be finalized until well after U.S. elections. If Republican candidate Donald Trump wins, the rules might be further weakened or killed outright, and even under a Kamala Harris administration, the industry could fight the regulation in court. That's been banks' approach to the CFPB credit card rule, which aimed to cap late fees at $8 per incident and was set to go into effect in May. A last-ditch effort from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and bank trade groups successfully delayed its implementation when Judge Mark Pittman of the Northern District of Texas sided with the industry, granting a freeze of the rule. Actress Dame Maggie Smith arrives at the Royal Film Performance and World Premiere of the film, "The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", at Leicester Square, London February 17, 2015. "Jean Brodie," in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well. Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of "Suddenly, Last Summer," said she was "intellectually the smartest actress I've ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith." Smith drily summarized her later roles as "a gallery of grotesques," including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: "Harry Potter is my pension." She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that "when you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything." Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with two Oscars, a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies. "She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother," they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs. Smith's sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital. Maggie Smith , the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for 1969 film "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in " Downton Abbey" and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89. English actress Maggie Smith, UK, 8th March 1974. She is appearing in the stage comedy 'Snap!' at the Vaudeville Theatre on the Strand in London. Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for "California Suite" in 1978, Golden Globes for "California Suite" and "A Room with a View," and BAFTAs for lead actress in "A Private Function" in 1984, "A Room with a View" in 1986, and "The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne" in 1988. She also received Academy Award nominations as a supporting actress in "Othello," "Travels with My Aunt," "Room with a View" and "Gosford Park," and a BAFTA award for supporting actress in "Tea with Mussolini." On stage, she won a Tony in 1990 for "Lettice and Lovage." From 2010, she was the acid-tongued Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in hit TV period drama " Downton Abbey," a role that won her legions of fans, three Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe and a host of other awards nominations. She continued acting well into her 80s, in films such a 2022 big-screen spinoff "Downton Abbey: A New Era" and 2023 release "The Miracle Club." Smith had a reputation for being difficult, and sometimes upstaging others. Richard Burton remarked that Smith didn't just take over a scene in "The VIPs" with him: "She commits grand larceny." However, the director Peter Hall found that Smith wasn't "remotely difficult unless she's among idiots. She's very hard on herself, and I don't think she sees any reason why she shouldn't be hard on other people, too." Smith conceded that she could be impatient at times. "It's true I don't tolerate fools, but then they don't tolerate me, so I am spiky," Smith said. "Maybe that's why I'm quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies." Critic Frank Rich, in a New York Times review of "Lettice and Lovage," praised Smith as "the stylized classicist who can italicize a line as prosaic as 'Have you no marmalade?' until it sounds like a freshly minted epigram by Coward or Wilde." Smith famously drew laughs from a prosaic line "This haddock is disgusting" in a 1964 revival of Noel Coward's "Hay Fever." She repeated the gift for one-liners in "Downton Abbey," when the tradition-bound Violet acidly asked, "What is a weekend?" Fellow actors paid tribute to her on Friday. Hugh Bonneville, who played the son of Smith's character in "Downton Abbey," said "anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent." "She was a true legend of her generation and thankfully will live on in so many magnificent screen performances," he said in a statement. Rob Lowe, who co-starred with her in "Suddenly, Last Summer," said he "had the unforgettable experience of working with her; sharing a two-shot was like being paired with a lion." "She could eat anyone alive, and often did. But funny, and great company. And suffered no fools. We will never see another. God speed, Ms. Smith!" Lowe wrote on X. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called Smith "a true national treasure whose work will be cherished for generations to come." Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford, on the eastern edge of London, on Dec. 28, 1934. She summed up her life briefly: "One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, one's still acting." Her father was assigned in 1939 to wartime duty in Oxford, where her theater studies at the Oxford Playhouse School led to a busy apprenticeship. "I did so many things, you know, round the universities there. ... If you were kind of clever enough and I suppose quick enough, you could almost do weekly rep because all the colleges were doing different productions at different times," she said in a BBC interview. She took Maggie as her stage name because another Margaret Smith was active in the theater. The OPEC+ alliance is once more cracking down on group compliance with oil output cuts, as it presses ahead with a three-pronged plan of formal and voluntary production trims. Two OPEC+ delegates, who could only comment anonymously because of the sensitivity of the talks, told CNBC that the coalition has sharpened its focus on the conformity of its members with their output pledges, amid repeat overproduction from heavyweight members such as Iraq and Kazakhstan. Russia, whose barrels are sanctioned in the West and transported with lower visibility across a shadow fleet, has also at times exceeded its assigned quota under the alliance's formal policy, one of the sources said. Eight OPEC+ members, including kingpin Saudi Arabia, were due to begin returning 2.2 million barrels per day of voluntary cuts to the market starting in October. Earlier this month, they postponed this phaseout to start in December instead. OPEC+ nations are operating two other production declines: under official policy, they will produce a combined 39.725 million bpd next year. The same aforementioned eight members are separately curbing their output by another 1.7 million bpd throughout 2025, also on a voluntary basis. Undercompliance has been a repeat bane of the OPEC+ alliance, casting a shadow over the credibility of its intentions to cut output at a time of market uncertainty exacerbated by war in the hydrocarbon-rich Middle East, recent stock sell-offs and a fragile post-Covid recovery in the world's top crude importer, China. Oil prices have remained subdued for the better part of the year and dropped sharply on Thursday, following a Financial Times report stating that OPEC+ de facto leader Saudi Arabia was prepared to suffer through a low-price environment and abandon an unofficial $100 per barrel price target to bolster its output after December. OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, expects about $5 billion in losses on $3.7 billion in revenue this year, CNBC has confirmed. The company generated $300 million in revenue last month, up 1,700% since the beginning of last year, and expects to bring in $11.6 billion in sales next year, according to a person close to OpenAI who asked not to be named because the numbers are confidential. The New York Times was first to report on OpenAI's financials earlier on Friday after viewing company documents. CNBC hasn't seen the financials. OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft, is currently pursuing a funding round that would value the company at more than $150 billion, people familiar with the matter have told CNBC. Thrive Capital is leading the round and plans to invest $1 billion, with Tiger Global planning to join as well. OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told investors in an email Thursday that the funding round is oversubscribed and will close by next week. Her note followed a number of key departures, most notably technology chief Mira Murati, who announced the previous day that she was leaving OpenAI after six and a half years. Also this week, news surfaced that OpenAI's board is considering plans to restructure the firm to a for-profit business. The company will retain its nonprofit segment as a separate entity, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC. The structure would be more straightforward for investors and make it easier for OpenAI employees to realize liquidity, the source said. OpenAI's services have exploded in popularity since the company launched ChatGPT in late 2022. The company sells subscriptions to various tools and licenses its GPT family of large language models, which are powering much of the generative AI boom. Running those models requires a massive investment in Nvidia's graphics processing units. The Times, citing an analysis by a financial professional who reviewed OpenAI's documents, reported that the roughly $5 billion in loses this year are tied to costs for running its services as well as employee salaries and office rent. The costs don't include equity-based compensation, "among several large expenses not fully explained in the documents," the paper said. WATCH: OpenAI has a lot of challengers, says Madrona's Matt McIlwain As the International Longshoremen's Association port workers move closer to a strike at East Coast and Gulf Coast ports, the union is warning that major importers such as LG Electronics, Walmart, Ikea, Samsung, and Home Depot will find no options to divert trade to Canada or the West Coast as other unions close ranks in support of its labor battle. These companies are among the leading importers at the 14 major ports that an ILA strike would impact, according to ImportGenius. Overall, between 43%-49% of all U.S. imports and billions of dollars in trade monthly are at stake as the union moves closer to the Oct. 1 deadline for a new contract, over which talks between the union and ports management broke down in June and have not resumed. Cruise operations at ports would continue. "To stop trade entering the U.S. on such a large-scale, even for short period of time, is highly-damaging to the economy so government intervention will be needed to bring the matter to a resolution for the good of the nation," warned Peter Sand, chief shipping analyst at Xeneta. "A strike lasting just one week will impact schedules for ships leaving the Far East on voyages to the U.S. in late December and throughout January." While some logistics managers say Canada and the West Coast are options for vessels to divert to and unload cargo, the ILA has union chapters at the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes ports in Canada. The ILA is North America's largest longshoremen's union. Out of the 85,000 members, 50,000 would go on strike at the 14 ports that are subject to a master contract that has not been negotiated. "You can be sure the ILA's 85,000 members will be supporting their Sisters and Brothers," said James McNamara, spokesman for the ILU. Separately, the Port of Montreal union affiliated with the Canadian Union of Public Employees issued a 72-hour notice that its own three-day strike starts on Monday, Sept. 30. Mia Ginter, director of North American ocean shipping at C.H. Robinson, tells CNBC this strike could exacerbate the U.S. port strike disruption. "With Canada being a main contingency route, an overlapping strike at the Port of Montreal, even with some terminals remaining operational, will significantly weaken this as a contingency route," she said. Additionally, Ginter noted that Hurricane Helene's impact on the U.S. Southeast means fewer trucks are heading to those ports, which could affect importers trying to move their freight out before an ILA strike begins. The last time the ILA went on strike, in 1977, the ILWU union at West Coast ports supported it by allowing ILA members to go to the Port of Los Angeles to stop the unloading of a diverted vessel. Its president Harold Daggett has cited this historical example in recent communications with rank-and-file members, which voted unanimously to authorize a strike. "We'll shut them down," Daggett said in a recent video message to union members. ImportGenius compiled the Bills of Lading for 2024, the digital receipts of the containers which has shipper and product information, at the ports of New York/New Jersey, Baltimore, Savannah, Houston, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and New Orleans. LG Electronics topped the list with 54,363.57 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units). Walmart was second with 47,680.10 TEUs, followed by Ikea at 42,938.74. Other top importers are Bob's Furniture, Samsung , Home Depot, Hyundai, General Motors , Dollar General , and Amazon . Tire companies Michelin, Goodyear , and Continental Tire were also top importers. The top importers for New York and New Jersey, the largest port on the East Coast, was General Motors, Glovis America, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, and Bob's Furniture, in that order, according to William George, director of research for ImportGenius. IKEA is No. 1 importer at Baltimore. In Savannah, the largest port in the South, Hanwha Q Cells Georgia, a division of South Korean company which makes solar cell components, Walmart, and automotive logistics company Glovis America, are the top importers, according to its data. Massive stimulus from central banks in the U.S., China and elsewhere is driving bubble-like stock returns and could head off a global recession, according to Bank of America. "It's the bubble dream," BofA chief investment strategist Michael Hartnett wrote in his weekly "Flow Show" breakdown of where investors are putting their money. "Fed slashing, oil crashing, China inflating and if this China stimulus don't work then geopolitical risks [are] going to soar." The observation comes a week after the Federal Reserve slashed benchmark rates by 50 basis points , and the same week China launched a bevy of stimulus efforts that Hartnett estimates could equate to $560 billion. With concerns rising over a moribund real estate market and consumer confidence on the wane, the People's Bank of China emulated the Fed move with its own 50 basis point cut to its reserve requirement ratio for banks and is injecting cash into the financial system by selling sovereign bonds. The PBOC also will implement measures to support the stock market. Those measures come with other central banks also easing, helping to push the value of stocks globally to $123 trillion, their highest since October 2021, Hartnett said. Investors in turn are pumping money into stocks, with equities taking in another $10.9 billion and the annualized rate running at $363 billion, the second-largest ever. Under other circumstances, such aggressive measures might be viewed as desperation stimulus to fend off a recession. But while some indicators do point to a slowing in global growth, the abundant forecasts for recession have eased. "Fed cutting into recession is negative for risk assets, but Fed cutting with no recession is positive and investors firmly of view Fed + China is sufficient policy easing to short-circuit recession risk," Hartnett wrote. Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the press at Trump Tower in New York City, U.S., September 26, 2024. REUTERS/David Dee Delgado Donald Trump on Friday called for Google to be criminally prosecuted for what the Republican presidential nominee called the company's bias toward his election opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, in online search results. Trump in a social media post wrote that if the Department of Justice does not prosecute Google "for this blatant interference of Elections" he would request its prosecution "when I win the election and become President of the United States!" He seemed to be reacting to a new study by the right-leaning Media Research Center, or MRC, which purportedly found that Google search engine results tended to show news articles that supposedly were positive to the Democrat Harris ahead of Trump's own campaign website when a user searched for "Donald Trump presidential race 2024." In his post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: "It has been determined that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris." United States Capitol building and an Iranian flag are seen at the photo exhibition organized by the Iranian-American community and supporters of the Iranian Resistance at the National mall in Washington D.C., United States. Federal prosecutors on Friday announced criminal charges against three Iranian nationals in connection with a recent hack of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's campaign and other cyberattacks. The three "malicious cyber actors," who were employed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, engaged in "a wide-ranging hacking campaign" that also targeted current and former government officials, media figures and non-governmental organizations, according to an indictment filed in Washington, D.C., federal court. The U.S. designates the IRGC a foreign terrorist organization. "There are few actors in this world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran," U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference Friday. "The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by Iran, or by any foreign power, to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy." The 37-page, 18-count indictment charges the three men, Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar Balaghi, with hacking conspiracy, computer fraud, wire fraud, identity theft and conspiring to support terrorism. Their hacking campaign began as early as January 2020, and involved spearphishing and other "social engineering techniques," the prosecutors alleged. In May 2024, the Iranians allegedly gained access to the personal accounts of officials on the Trump campaign, which is described in the indictment as "U.S. Presidential Campaign 1." The alleged hackers stole emails and other non-public documents, and then tried to leak the materials to the media and campaign officials for President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee at the time. The hack was a deliberate effort to undermine Trump's campaign in advance of the 2024 presidential election, prosecutors alleged. Garland said Friday that the DOJ has "no evidence" that anyone on the Biden campaign replied when contacted by the alleged hackers. Biden withdrew from the presidential race in mid-July and was replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris, the current Democratic nominee. The charges come amid heightened scrutiny about how foreign actors, especially Iran, China and Russia, are trying to influence the U.S. presidential race. U.S. intelligence officials said Monday that those foreign interference efforts include using artificial intelligence to spread disinformation and manipulate public opinion, NBC News reported. Officials have said that Iran is working to hurt Trump's campaign, while Russia prefers Trump, who has declined to say he wants Ukraine to win its war against invading Kremlin forces. China, meanwhile, has pushed anti-democracy influence operations but has not clearly sided with either the Republican or Democratic tickets, officials have said. "These authoritarian regimes, which violate the human rights of their own citizens, do not get a say in our country's democratic process," Garland said at Friday's presser. Supporters of Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland protest in front of Southwark Crown Court on September 27, 2024 in London, England.] Three Just Stop Oil activists threw soup at two of Vincent van Gogh's "Sunflowers" paintings in London's National Gallery on Friday, just hours after two other members of the protest group were jailed for doing the same thing in 2022. The activists threw tomato soup at the "Sunflowers" owned by the London Gallery, and another from the series that is on loan from Philadelphia Museum of Art for a temporary exhibition. The National Gallery said three people had been arrested and the paintings were unharmed. The stunt came just a few hours after Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were sentenced for throwing tins of tomato soup on the London-based artwork in October 2022, before gluing themselves to the wall below the painting. The soup caused up to 10,000 pounds ($13,385) worth of damage to the frame in 2022, prosecutors said, though the painting which was behind a protective screen was unharmed and went back on display later the same day. Plummer and Holland pleaded not guilty but were convicted after a trial at London's Southwark Crown Court, where Plummer was sentenced to two years in prison for the criminal damage charge. Holland was sentenced to 20 months in prison. Judge Christopher Hehir said Plummer and Holland "came within the width of a pane of glass of irreparably damaging or even destroying" the painting, which he said was "probably priceless in a literal sense". Plummer said she took part in the protests knowing she could be arrested and jailed, saying she was being made a political prisoner. The judge said this was ludicrous and self-indulgent. "It is offensive to the many people in other parts of the world who are suffering persecution, imprisonment and sometimes death for their beliefs," he said. Plummer was also sentenced to an additional three months in prison on Friday, having been separately convicted of the relatively new offence of interfering with the use of key national infrastructure. Friday's sentencing comes amid a wider crackdown on protest movements in Britain and across Europe. Activists from Just Stop Oil have staged a number of eye-catching protests in recent years, including disrupting sporting events, theatre performances and road traffic. Five members of the group, including co-founder Roger Hallam, were jailed in July for at least four years for a conspiracy to block London's M25 motorway, marking the longest sentences ever imposed for a non-violent protest in Britain. Audience members listen to Cantonese translation of a mayoral town hall hosted by Asian Pacific Islander Council at the Hilton San Francisco Financial District in San Francisco on Thursday. Minh Connors/The Chronicle Boba drink orders of mayoral candidates sit in ice during a mayoral town hall hosted by Asian Pacific Islander Council at the Hilton San Francisco Financial District in San Francisco on Thursday. Minh Connors/The Chronicle The five major candidates for San Francisco mayor made their pitches Thursday to the citys Asian American voters, a hotly-courted group that could swing this years election. At a town hall hosted by the Asian Pacific Islander Council, the candidates laid out their plans to address problems that acutely affect Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. About 250 people mostly Asian American community members attended the town hall, which was the only mayoral candidate forum this election season to offer live Cantonese language interpretation. Mayor London Breed and her four main challengers, former mayor and supervisor Mark Farrell, nonprofit founder and Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie, Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin and Supervisor Ahsha Safai, sought to win over Asian American voters. The town hall was moderated by MSNBC news anchor Richard Lui and NBC Bay Area reporter Gia Vang. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Asian American voters played a decisive role in recent elections, particularly the 2022 school board recall, and helped Breed get elected in 2018. Mayor London Breed answers questions from moderators during a mayoral town hall hosted by Asian Pacific Islander Council at the Hilton San Francisco Financial District in San Francisco on Thursday. Minh Connors/The Chronicle This year, Asian American voters have been split among the leading candidates, with some former Breed supporters switching to support Lurie or Farrell. Peskin, the longtime progressive Chinatown district supervisor, faces the challenge of winning over the citys Asian voter base, which leans moderate. Ensuring Asian American representation at all levels of government, affordable housing, particularly for low-income seniors, public safety and food insecurity were among the issues discussed. Representing the AAPI community Advertisement Article continues below this ad San Francisco used to have more Asian American elected officials but representation has declined in the past decade as Chinese American voters moved away from supporting Chinese American candidates. Both Lurie and Farrell said the city needs better representation from the Asian American and Pacific Islander community, who make up 37% of the citys population. Mayoral candidate Daniel Lurie answers questions from moderators during a mayoral town hall hosted by Asian Pacific Islander Council at the Hilton San Francisco Financial District in San Francisco on Thursday. Minh Connors/The Chronicle That will be represented at every level of my administration, Lurie said. He has opened a Chinatown campaign headquarters, as has Peskin. Breed said she has been aggressive in appointing Asian Americans to city leadership, including City Attorney David Chiu and City Administrator Carmen Chu. Advertisement Article continues below this ad I always ensure that there is access and opportunities, she said. Peskin said he agrees that Asian American representation in government is important, which is why he is supporting three Asian women running for district supervisors: Connie Chan in District 1, Sharon Lai in District 3 and Chyanne Chen in District 11. Affordable housing and poverty Candidates addressed the high poverty rate among Asian Americans, with an estimated poverty rate of almost 11% among San Franciscos Asian Americans in 2022, by discussing the affordable housing shortage and other measures to support low-income families. Lurie said the problem underlying the affordable housing shortage is the citys long permitting process, pointing to how the White House sent a letter to City Hall in August slamming its permitting process and stating that it takes longer to get housing built in San Francisco than in any other city in the country, at 33 months. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Breed said the city has worked closely with organizations like the Chinatown Community Development Center to move families from Chinatown single-rental occupancy housing units into stable housing. Farrell slammed the Breed administration for not building enough housing. Former San Francisco mayor Mark Farrell answers questions from moderators during a mayoral town hall hosted by Asian Pacific Islander Council at the Hilton San Francisco Financial District in San Francisco on Thursday. Minh Connors/The Chronicle We have failed miserably to build enough housing, he said, stating that he wanted to streamline the permitting process of building housing and support families who wanted to raise children in the city. Peskin said the city must preserve affordable housing and pointed to his efforts to raise $300 million from housing bonds to help build homes on the ballot last March through Proposition A, which passed. Advertisement Article continues below this ad This is actually a big difference between me and the other candidates for this race who all prefer luxury housing and think that were going to be able to build our way out of the affordability crisis that were in, Peskin said. Mayoral candidate Ahsha Safai answers questions from moderators during a mayoral town hall hosted by Asian Pacific Islander Council at the Hilton San Francisco Financial District in San Francisco on Thursday. Minh Connors/The Chronicle Addressing how he would help low-income families, Safai, who is running on a platform of empowering working- and middle-class residents, pointed to his efforts to implement Free City College, the program that lets every city resident take classes at City College of San Francisco free of charge, and to develop more affordable housing for low-income seniors. Public Safety Since the COVID-19 pandemic rise in anti-Asian violence, older Asian community members have been afraid for their safety. Although anti-Asian hate crimes dropped in 2023 compared to their peak in 2021, community members say the numbers dont tell the whole story. To address community safety, Lurie said he supported community policing and that the city needs fully staffed police and sheriffs departments. He touted endorsements of his campaign by former San Francisco Police Department commander Paul Yep. We need to recruit officers that look like the communities that they serve and speak the language of the communities that they serve, Lurie said. An audience member listens to Cantonese translation of a mayoral town hall hosted by Asian Pacific Islander Council at the Hilton San Francisco Financial District in San Francisco on Thursday. Minh Connors/The Chronicle Breed touted low crime rates in San Francisco, with homicides projected to be at the lowest level in 60 years, though experts have said that many factors outside local policy decisions influence crime trends and that its too soon to say if the drop in crime is attributable to her policies. The incumbent mayor also touted her successful championing of Proposition E, the ballot measure passed by voters in March to enable police to use technology such as license plate readers and drones. She also gave a nod to the work of Chinatown police beat officers. However, Breed acknowledged, I understand numbers are one thing but how you feel is something else. Farrell went on the offensive and said police staffing is down since he left office. A spokesperson for San Francisco police said in May that the department is short 504 officers, and needs about 2,074, according to an independent consultant in 2023. Farrell said public safety, unfortunately, is the No. 1 issue in San Francisco right now. He said he believes the city needs a new police chief and a fully-funded police department. Food insecurity Low-income Asian Americans in California suffer from high levels of food insecurity, a 2023 report on the California Health Interview Survey from 2011 to 2020, found. Breed said the citys human services agency funds community organizations that provide meals to those in need, including the Bay Area nonprofit Self- Help for the Elderly, which provides culturally competent meals to Chinese American older residents. Mayoral candidate Aaron Peskin shows off his boba order during a mayoral town hall hosted by Asian Pacific Islander Council at the Hilton San Francisco Financial District in San Francisco on Thursday. Minh Connors/The Chronicle Peskin added that community members tend not to utilize food programs if culturally appropriate foods are not provided. San Francisco in June opened its first-ever city-funded community market, providing free groceries to eligible families in the Bayview-Hunters Point district. Farrell once again turned the issue into an attack on the incumbent mayor, accusing her administration of mismanaging the citys budget, which grew from $10 billion in 2018 to $15.9 billion for the next year. He said inefficient spending means the city doesnt have enough to spend on addressing food insecurity and other core issues. We do not have a revenue problem in San Francisco, he said. We have a spending problem. Nonprofit founder Daniel Lurie listens during a San Francisco mayoral candidate debate at KQED hosted by the station and the San Francisco Chronicle in San Francisco on Sept. 19. Carlos Avila Gonzalez San Francisco mayoral candidate Daniel Lurie recently crossed a threshold in his bid to unseat incumbent London Breed: He now has spent more money than all candidates combined did during the citys last closely contested mayors race six years ago. Luries campaign reported in a filing to the citys Ethics Commission on Wednesday that it has spent about $6.3 million to date, far outstripping all of his major rivals in the race, including Breed. Lurie, a nonprofit founder and an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, has eschewed San Franciscos public financing program and instead drawn on his personal wealth to help fund his campaign. The staggering spending by Lurie appears to be unprecedented among mayoral candidates in recent San Francisco history. In the open mayoral race in June 2018, a total of about $6 million was spent by all candidates, excluding funding raised by third-party political action committees. Breed won that costly election, which was held to fill the remaining term of the late Mayor Ed Lee, who died in office. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Luries use of his personal wealth has drawn criticism from opponents who say hes trying to buy his way into City Hall, despite having never served in government before. But Lurie has stridently defended both the spending and his qualifications for office, saying he has invested heavily to boost his name recognition and explain to voters why he can run the city better than his top rivals. All of the other leading mayoral candidates are current or former elected officials. As he campaigns to unseat Breed and defeat three other top contenders, Lurie has leaned heavily on his background at Tipping Point Community, the antipoverty nonprofit he founded in 2005. Tipping Point has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on initiatives to help educate, employ and house Bay Area residents. Lurie also chaired the committee that brought Super Bowl 50 to Levis Stadium in 2016. In an interview with the Chronicle on Thursday, Lurie contrasted his background with what he described as a broken, dysfunctional, corrupt City Hall bureaucracy from which the other leading mayoral contenders hail. He said he has the right experience to lead San Francisco and noted that while he hasnt had a government job before, he has worked with City Hall officials in the past. I'm running against a City Hall machine. I'm running against people that have been in office for, in terms of an incumbent mayor, for 12 years, Lurie said in reference to Breed, who first assumed office as a city supervisor in January 2013. People need to know what their records are. And people need to know me, and that has required me investing my money. Lurie also said his campaign had received contributions from more than 3,000 donors. Still, Luries personal wealth has been a major factor. This week, he reported putting another $925,000 of his own money into his campaign, which had amassed a total of about $7.2 million from Lurie and individual donors as of Wednesday. Thats more than three times as much money as Breed has reported raising for her reelection bid. She disclosed in a recent filing that she has pulled in about $2.1 million, including public matching funds. Lurie is also benefiting from a political action committee that has raised millions to boost his candidacy, including a $1 million contribution from his mother, the billionaire businesswoman Mimi Haas. She is the widow of the late Peter Haas, a longtime CEO of Levi Strauss & Co. and a great grandnephew of the denim companys namesake founder. Luries spending on his campaign has drawn the ire of fellow mayoral contender Mark Farrell, a former interim mayor. In a fundraising email to his supporters on Sunday, Farrell said Lurie had been using his inherited wealth to relentlessly attack me and my family with a toxic smear campaign. Luries campaign has paid for advertisements and mailers criticizing Farrells record. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Instead of presenting a positive vision for San Francisco, hes resorting to dirty politics, trying to deceive voters and distract from his lack of experience, Farrell said of Lurie in the Sunday email. Dont let Daniel Lurie buy this election with his millions. San Francisco deserves better a Mayor with real experience, not smear tactics. Ten years ago, just a tiny minority of police wore body cams. But a series of high-profile incidences of abusive police officers in the mid-2010s triggered political pressure for police to use body cams. Thats why they are now standard equipment for police officers. Studies measuring their efficacy have been mixed. A 2014 pilot program in Orlando, FL, showed a 53% reduction in use-of-force incidents and a 65% drop in civilian complaints. But a large-scale study in Washington, D.C., in 2017 found no significant effects. Members of the public might believe that body cams exist to protect civilians from police abuse, and popular demand for cameras is almost entirely based on the belief that theyll reduce overly aggressive police tactics. But, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), police and sheriffs departments deploy body cams to improve officer safety, increase evidence quality, reduce civilian complaints, and reduce agency liability. Intel is on the verge of finalizing an $8.5 billion funding deal with the US government, under the CHIPS and Science Act, as part of an effort to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing amid growing global competition, a Financial Times report said. The deal, which has been in negotiation for months, would represent the largest subsidy package awarded to date under the act, which aims to reduce US reliance on foreign chip production and strengthen the countrys semiconductor supply chain. According to the report, the deal could see a closure by the end of the year as the discussions were at an advanced stage. However, there was no guarantee it will be finalized before the end of the year, the report said citing two sources. With more and more companies wanting to bring employees back to the office, I pointed out last week the ill-kept secret that theres a widespread aversion to open office floor plans or activity-based workplaces, as they have often evolved into today and that it partially explains why many employees want to continue remote and hybrid work. This is not rocket science. For many years, it has been the consensus in the research community that open office landscapes are bad for both the work environment and employee performance. (Theres really no need for research at all just talk to workers. They hate it.) To be honest, open office environments are not downright bad. But it takes the right business, and the right type of people, for them to work. For example, I work in an industry where the ideal image is a teeming newsroom, where creative angles and news hooks are thrown back and forth, just as you see in a movie. People rally in support of abortion rights in Sacramento in 2019. Leaders of the Northern California chapter of Planned Parenthood face criticism over their endorsement of men in supervisor races in San Francisco. Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press 2019 A constellation of San Francisco leaders is criticizing the Northern California chapter of Planned Parenthood for endorsing only male candidates for four open supervisor races. A statement signed by more than 50 prominent women, labor organizations, city leaders and candidates most of whom are progressive questioned the organizations endorsement decisions in light of the presence of qualified pro-choice women running in the same races. It also called the endorsement decisions an opaque process that undermines the organizations credibility. Planned Parenthood did not immediately return a request for comment. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The Planned Parenthood of Northern California Action Fund the reproductive justice nonprofits political arm endorsed Danny Sauter for District 3 supervisor, Bilal Mahmood for District 5, Trevor Chandler for District 9 and Ernest E.J. Jones for District 11, according to its website. The organization made no endorsements for District 1 and District 7, where Supervisors Myrna Melgar and Connie Chan both women who support reproductive rights are seeking to keep their seats on the Board of Supervisors. While reproductive rights are mostly not legislated at the local level, a November ballot measure in San Francisco would make protection of abortion and contraception official city policy. One critic questioned whether the organizations decision could also be related to its current struggle with workers seeking to have a new union recognized. Planned Parenthood also endorsed Mayor London Breed, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins and City Attorney David Chiu. Nearly all the candidates endorsed by Planned Parenthood are moderates. In the joint statement, critics of Planned Parenthoods decision said reproductive rights cannot be achieved with only men at the decision-making table, adding that womens rights to make decisions for their own bodies has not been honored through your most recent round of endorsements. Advertisement Article continues below this ad It is impossible to miss the fact that NO WOMEN were endorsed in any of the Supervisorial district races, especially when there are viable and pro-choice women candidates in each, the statement says. This glaring omission of representation of your key constituency is not a coincidence. Signatories are demanding that Planned Parenthood release all of its candidate questionnaires and provide transparency into their endorsement decision process and justify why it chose only male candidates. The letter was signed by several prominent progressive organizations, including the Planned Parenthood NorCal Workers union organized under the SEIU Local 1021 the San Francisco Womens Political Committee, SF Young Democrats and the San Francisco Working Families Party Democratic Club. Supervisors Melgar, Aaron Peskin, Hillary Ronen and snubbed female candidates including District 3 hopeful Sharon Lai and District 9 candidate Jackie Fielder signed it. Melgar said she believes Planned Parenthoods decision was based on its fight with its workers over their efforts to form a union. Melgar has supported the union and has written letters to the head of Planned Parenthood NorCal urging the organization to recognize the union and bargain with it in good faith. Ronen told the Chronicle in an interview that she was disappointed by Planned Parenthoods ridiculous decision to endorse completely inexperienced men. She said she was shocked that the organization chose not to endorse in races for District 1 and District 7 because Chan and Melgar have long supported reproductive and womens rights. What the hell is going on at Planned Parenthood? she said. Normally you support incumbents who have been perfect on your issues. Meanwhile, Fielder said she was shocked by the organizations decision to endorse Chandler over her. Its hilarious given that Trevor was a former Republican who campaigned against Obama in a swing state and has been a lobbyist for an organization that has regularly helped re-elect MAGA Republicans that are not pro-choice, Fielder said in reference to Chandlers work at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. It is very peculiar for an organization as prominent as Planned Parenthood NorCal to have a non-transparent process with such shocking outcomes. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The Molotov cocktail is an absolute icon of improvised weaponry. Its become a symbol synonymous with uprising or unrest, and its flaming bottle, though not nearly as tactically-styled as traditional weaponry, holds a pretty unimpeachable status at the intersection of effectiveness and sheer cool. I mean, theres a reason that mollys are in any FPS game worth its salt. For all that fame, though, it feels like surprisingly few people, including me until now, were unfamiliar with its origins, or who exactly this Molotov character was outside of someone who was, presumably, pretty pissed off a lot of the time. I have to admit that when I found out the country that first cooked them up, it hadnt even been among my top ten guesses. Thanks to the Molotov cocktails reputation, I assumed that it had been invented in one of the countries that hops from coup to coup in record time. I definitely didnt expect such an ostentatious, flame-riddled improvised explosive to come from Finland. Don't Miss Up until now, the main Molotov connection I would have expected out of Finland was its use in Counterstrike by the surprisingly high number of Finn esports pros. A Finn showing proper molly-hurling form. I also would have assumed that the Molotov cocktail, following the usual rules of etymology, would be named for its inventor. Its not, although a man named Molotov is involved. Back in 1939, during World War II, Finland was being invaded by the Soviet Union, the foreign minister of which was a man named Vyacheslav Molotov. Advertisement So why is a weapon named after an enemy? Well, it was a bit of humorous retribution in response to Molotovs own incredibly cruel joke. The Soviets were dropping cluster bombs on the Finns, cluster bombs that Molotov referred to, in true supervillain fashion, as food parcels. The comparatively under-armed Finns, putting up a very respectable resistance, instead looked to state distillery Oy Alkoholiliike Ab, which began manufacturing the improvised grenades. Given that Molotov was calling his bombs food parcels, the Finns jokingly dubbed their fiery new innovation cocktails, the ultimate accoutrement to Molotov's meals. It should be said that while these were the first Molotov cocktails, the idea of bottles filled with explosive contents and set ablaze wasnt all that new. It was just the Finns who managed to perfect them as well as cap them off with the perfect name. It must be a blessing and a curse to have your name forever immortalized as a Saturday Night Live character. On the one hand, youre famous! On the other hand, well, youre famous, and maybe for character traits that are funny in a comedy sketch but not in real life. Here are five real people who often without their prior knowledge became household names thanks to SNL 1 Matt Foley The real Matt Foley is a priest and long-time friend of Chris Farley. He had no idea he was about to become an iconic comedy character when he showed up for a Second City show in the early 1990s. I was in the audience that night, Foley remembered in The Chris Farley Show: A Biography in Three Acts. When he said, My name is Matt Foley, and I am a motivational speaker! I was probably as red as a beet. I smiled and slid down a little further in my chair. After the show, Foley met up with Farley at a bar. Chris told me that he was never going to change the name, that it was always going to be Matt Foley. Im honored by it still. 2 Jodi from Bronx Beat Play Maya Rudolph, Amy Poehler and writer Emily Spivey used to riff on characters in their office, occasionally doing our girlfriend Jodi, who still runs the hair department at SNL, Rudolph said on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. It was the loosest we ever were, and it came out of years of being on that show, years of being friends, years of loving each other and finishing each others sentences. The goofs became a sketch, and SNL hair stylist Jodi Mancuso didnt mind the mocking homage. I just remember laughing about it because the Irish in me didnt care because were very sarcastic, she told the Television Academy Foundation. Once the sketch was written, Mancuso would help Poehler perfect her Bronx accent. 3 The Olympia Play Don (Fr. Guido Sarducci) Novello was the writer behind the Cheeseburger Cheeseburger sketches in SNLs early seasons. He based the diner with the extremely limited menu on Chicagos Billy Goat Tarvern, a local dive in which many of the towns newspaper writers would gather to drink. At John Belushis request, the restaurant was dubbed the Olympia, the name of his fathers restaurant in the 1960s. That didnt stop the Billy Goat Tavern from posting a John Belushi, Saturday Night Live sign. Noted a-hole Jim Belushi wasnt having it. I went to John: Hey, man, this son of a bitch is marketing his restaurant as Cheeseburger! Cheeseburger! Lets go rough him up, he told Chicago Magazine. John looked at me and said, He wouldnt have done it if he didnt need it. Im still trying to live by that. 4 Richard Feder of Fort Lee, New Jersey Roseanne Roseannadanna was one of Gilda Radners first breakout characters, appearing on Weekend Update to answer letters from Richard Feder of Fort Lee, New Jersey. Once he wrote in to ask for advice after he quit smoking. Now Im depressed, he said. I gained weight, my face broke out, Im nauseous, Im constipated, my feet swelled, my gums are bleeding, my sinuses are clogged, I got heartburn, Im cranky and I have gas. What should I do? Roseannadannas response: Mr. Feder, you sound like a real attractive guy. You belong in New Jersey. Thats where the real Richard Feder lived. He was the brother-in-law of Radners SNL writing partner Alan Zweibel, who decided to use his relatives name as a joke. The recurring bit made Feder a temporary celebrity. I went down to get diapers and milk like every other father, and I spent 40 minutes talking to people, Feder told the Seattle Times. My wife thought I was having an affair. Fans of Gilligans Island love to joke about the earliest version of the shows theme song, which shouts out most of the cast before resorting to an And the rest! lyric to refer to the Professor and Mary Ann. In fact, it didnt change until star Bob Denver lobbied for it to include everyone. One cast member, however, would have preferred to keep it the original way Tina Louise, the Movie Star who closed out the original version of the credits. Part of Louises dissatisfaction with the series was that she had expected to be the star of the show, according to a 1965 issue of TV Guide, as reported by MeTV. TV Guide wasnt much of a gossip rag but even the publication responsible for channel listings couldnt ignore the bad blood between Louise and everyone else in the cast. Denver, who played Gilligan, will not say why he and the glamorous Tina do not get along, nor will any of the castaways they just ignore her, and she ignores them. Between scenes, while the other six principals chat and tell jokes together, she sits off by herself. And recently when Denver was asked to pose for pictures with her, he adamantly refused. Don't Miss Cold-blooded! But Denver refused to talk specifics about Louise to anyone. The San Bernardino County Sun tried to get his side of the story, asking Denver about the rumbles on Gilligan's Island, especially Bobs problems with Tina Louise. It had been rumored for months that they were waging their own private Vietnam. Advertisement The Gilligan actor took the high road, though its not hard to read between the lines. When youve got a big cast like ours, theres bound to be personality clashes. After all, you cant like every human being you meet, even if you want to, he said. The best thing you can do is overlook someones problems. I dont believe in using someones unprofessionalism to get my name in the papers. While Denver wouldnt spill the dirt on his problems with Louise, Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann, was more accommodating. Tina thought she was a movie star, and I dont think she realized what it was that there were seven of us, Wells told interviewer Kevin Renick. She was never part of the company. Even since then I have tried to kind of contact her. And she doesnt even want to admit she was in it. Advertisement Louise didnt get along any better with the shows creative leads. It was a little bit confusing in the beginning when John Rich was directing, Louise said in The Unofficial Gilligans Island Handbook. I had been told Ginger was a Marilyn Monroe/Lucille Ball character, and he sort of wanted to make it Eve Arden. And I didnt want to go in that direction. So there was a difference of opinion. Advertisement Conflict with the cast and crew is probably why Louise refused to participate in Gilligan made-for-TV movies and reunions. When the castaways were finally rescued in the 1970s, Judith Baldwin stepped in as Ginger Grant. These days, Louise is the last living cast member of Gilligan's Island and finally acknowledges the show that made her a household name. In 2019, she told Closer Weekly that she was happy to have been part of something that was so special to American television. Bob Denver would have loved to hear it. Adams at home (unverified). Photo: Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock Just when you think youve got a bead on this mayoral race, it takes a new turn: It is vaguely possible that the front-runner lives in another state. Well, thats overstating the case, but heres the recap of a wild couple of news cycles. Eric Adams, according to a somewhat hard-to-follow but irresistible Politico report, owns or co-owns three properties. One is the house on Lafayette Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant that he lists as his principal residence. The second is part of another townhouse in Prospect Heights, although his campaign says he has signed that one over to his co-owner. (He has been sleeping at Borough Hall intermittently but frequently for the past year, crashing in his office during the pandemic. Lately, he says, hes staying there two or three nights a week.) But the curious item among his real-estate holdings is the third one: a condo in Fort Lee, New Jersey, which he co-owns with his longtime partner, Tracey Collins. Politico stops well short of saying thats where he lives, but the even the manufactured prospect of a New York City mayor who is secretly commuting from Jersey is too hilarious not to inspire comment. And comment people did. (Wiley herself was the subject of a stakeout a couple of days ago, appearing in photos outside her house that inspired no noteworthy comment beyond hey, thats a pretty nice porch.) At least one reporter noted in May that Adams hadnt been picking up his mail at the house in Brooklyn for days at a time. When I visited Adams Bed Stuy property for a @CityLimitsNews story, no one was home, the mailbox was stuffed (including Maya Wiley lit) and there was an Amazon package on the doorstep. When I went back a few days later, mail and package were still there https://t.co/TQKbdym313 https://t.co/xlnbnaB8Ij pic.twitter.com/NxuqoJoDXz David Brand (@DavidFBrand) June 8, 2021 Adamss response was to clear the air with a tour of the Bed-Stuy house, accompanied by about a dozen reporters and TV cameras. He walked them past a small modest bedroom and a small modest bathroom, plus a couch where his son Jordan crashes and plays video games. He even opened the fridge. Its a one-bedroom duplex, including the ground floor of the building; the upper floors are rented out, giving Adams some rental income. It is certainly no Master of the Universe apartment: That sort-of-sleigh-bed headboard paired with uncarpeted granite flooring is not a room thats really tied together. The tour was revealing, but (as you could probably predict) it brought up more rather than fewer questions. Whats that Buddha head doing on the kitchen counter? (Souvenir from a trip to Thailand, he explained.) Given Adamss veganism, whats that salmon doing in the refrigerator? (Its Jordans.) Refrigerated croutons?! (Well, every New Yorker knows the answer to that one: It keeps the bugs from getting them.) Why isnt that the larger fridge Adams claimed to have in Bed-Stuy a few years ago? (Unknown; we await paparazzi photos of the Jersey condos kitchen.) One Twitter user even did a little forensic work and came up with a theory that the sneakers lined up in the bedroom belong to Jordan. not to go full conspiracy but here is his son wearing what looks like the red and black shoes in the background of this pic pic.twitter.com/qWOnHMSL1o Eric Krebs (@ericjohnkrebs) June 9, 2021 Does any of this matter? Only if the wildest reading of it all turns out to be true, which seems unlikely. Apply Occams razor, and you will probably come to the conclusion that this is a basement crash pad belonging to a single guy on the go, and that he spends regular nights crashing at the office and at his girlfriends house. Apply your most skeptical Pepe Silvia filter, though, and you can pretty easily persuade yourself that it belongs to his son. And if youre running against him, well, your position is clear: Photo-Illustration: Curbed; Photo: Adriane Quinlan Was there anything else to talk about today in New York City? As prosecutors prepared to publicize the mayors indictment, the Eavesdropper was at City Hall listening to cops, security guards, and AV techs prepping for a council hearing, business as usual. Then, as prosecutors opened their doors for a press conference, the Eavesdropper rode the elevator at 26 Federal Plaza. Finally, we strolled down to the offices of the City Council and the Assembly to linger at the revolving doors as politicians, staffers, and constituents gossiped on their way to lunch. Hey, guys, what a day! I know. Of course, it had to happen today. Are they not letting us in? He was meeting with the administration every week. I would never take that risk. I dream about it. Well, you have such a great story. Youre a guy who worked hard. Some people would have quit. Well, I was on a visa for years. It keeps you close to the family. Im surprised how many people showed. I am not surprised, given the news. A Where were you when? Exactly. I mean, who has something better going on? That man did not know how to just take a nibble. I saw the thing on Twitter and went, Oh shit. Im business as usual. Dont worry about tomorrow. Have you spoken to X? It could just be one overseas person. Im hearing this affects human services and infrastructure. Is he going to prison, then, or back here? Im just here checking it out there have been some power issues in this room. I heard the other day in Immigration the camera went out. Theres always something, right? Its not easy. Hey hey, New York! Fuck Eric Adams! Fuck Eric Adams! You hear that Eric Adams is getting arrested? All right! Well thats how youll finally meet him. Haha. Strange world. If it happens. They said its serious. Did they? I just glanced at it, but its prolonged. Its so widespread. Its so prolonged. I dont know how you defend this. Sorry, who was that? Thats Rob Holden, City Council. More moderate, conservative very pro-Adams. Its totally unprecedented. This could be going back decades back to Brooklyn borough president. There are pictures in the indictment of fancy hotel rooms, all of it paid for by foreigners. This portrays the mayor as someone who Whats up? Are we still sort of rotating chicken? Everybodys out today. Did he go to headquarters? He doesnt even want this position. Theyre just taking his job. Ideally, we would broaden it to just encompass all of DOJ Hows it going, man? Couldnt be better! Im not gonna get into the machinations of the peoples theater Theres no more space in there. Do you have an overflow room where we can watch it? I dont think we do. We were having trouble with our livestream earlier. Im with the X. Its a major news service all over Europe and South America Oh man. This is ridiculous. We were waiting all day for this thing. I shouldnt have left. Im so sorry. You went out? Well, it was raining and I had to pee. Ill talk to you later. I dont wanna vent here. The fact that hes relatively famous in Turkey I was like, What? I guess now he is. But before? Man gets around, I guess. What a day. What a freaking day. Were you surprised? I wasnt surprised, but yeah, the shoe dropped. They have trackers in those cars, so I cant even speed in them. Yes, I heard. Where did you hear? I have a big antenna. You have friends in high places. He had, like, a Trump hat and was like, Theyre lying! Theyre telling a lie! Where we going? The one we went to the other week. I just have so many questions. All these referendums he had consolidating executive power it seems strange. Rikers no, thats jail. Excuses, excuses, excuses. Im just thinking, from a prosecutors standpoint, what a beautiful picture of evidence. What a fucking scumbag. I mean, its really unbelievable. Its really big Im outside Im wondering if theres a place I can sit down No, okay, go finish it Good-bye Good-bye. Can you believe that state board of ethics thing I took last week, no, two weeks ago? What was he saying, God aint asking for no apology? Its eye-opening. I didnt even see it until today. What!? What were you doing?! They get money for money. He was pushing this narrative that hes different. Its like snow falling. You know its coming, but its still pretty to look at. The person you want to call is under indictment right now. He can still call me back! San Francisco Mayor London Breed, seen returning from China in April, has pushed hard to get pandas for the San Francisco Zoo. They are expected to arrive sometime next year. Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The Chronicle Mayor London Breed proposed using artificial intelligence and creating a panda smart home in letters she sent to tech leaders like Marc Benioff and Sam Altman this summer, even floating the idea that they could have a say in naming the animals. The letters were part of an appeal for funding of the citys $25 million project to bring giant pandas from China to the San Francisco Zoo next year. They were obtained in a public records request by a zoo critic and shared with the Chronicle. Breed has been working to fund the project since announcing a deal reached with China in April to bring a pair of giant pandas to the city zoo by next year. It would make San Francisco one of a handful of U.S. cities, including San Diego, to have the beloved black-and-white bears on loan. Breeds office also sent fundraising pitches to Dominic Ng, CEO of East West Bank, and Greg Sarris, chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, in which she emphasized the positive and FUN nature of the program as well as the importance of giant pandas to the Chinese American community. But in her letters to Benioff and Altman, she described an idea she said was proposed by the zoo to monitor panda behavior using AI and machine learning, technologies that could be developed and then applied to animals in the wild. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Another plan she shared from the zoo: to create a smart home for the pandas with automated systems that would allow the animals to tailor their environments to their individual preferences. She ended the letters to Altman and Benioff by saying, Who knows? Maybe we could even talk to the Chinese government about giving you the opportunity to have input on the names of the Giant Pandas! The letters were obtained by animal rights activist Justin Barker, a frequent critic of the zoo who published an opinion piece about its leadership Thursday in the San Francisco Standard. None of the people contacted in the letters agreed to send money, a spokesperson for Breed told the Standard, which also wrote a separate article about the letters. Though Breeds goal is to raise $25 million for the pandas, one zoo official said the total cost could reach $70 million. Though they initially bring in extra visitors, giant panda programs have proved to be too expensive for some zoos to support. On Tuesday, a Finland zoo announced it would return giant pandas on loan from China eight years early because of the high cost of the bears upkeep. The planned arrival of the pandas comes amid a period of turmoil for the San Francisco Zoo. In April, a Chronicle investigation revealing allegations of safety issues for animals and workers at the zoo was published around the same time the zoos union held an overwhelming vote of no-confidence in the zoos CEO and executive director, Tanya Peterson, leading to an internal investigation of zoo leadership. Last week, the zoos nonprofit board announced that the investigation was complete and expressed continued confidence in Petersons leadership. Photo: Shutterstock Eric Adamss indictment was unsealed on Thursday and included charges of bribery, conspiracy, fraud, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. The federal investigation, which focuses on his interactions with the Turkish government, outlines many alleged bribes, which include but are not limited to the mayors apparent penchant for luxury hotels. A photo of the bedroom at the Bentley Suite that Eric Adams allegedly stayed at is included in the indictment in all its grainy glory. Photo: Eric Adams Indictment/Southern District of New York The suite, which would have run Adams $7,000 for two nights, cost him less than $600, according to the indictment. Photo: Eric Adams Indictment/Southern District of New York According to the indictment, in 2017, Adams accepted a heavily discounted stay in the Bentley Suite of the St. Regis Istanbul a collaboration between the hotel and Bentley motors paying less than $600 for a room that would have cost $7,000 for a two-night stay. (The trip was arranged by a promoter who was hoping to leverage Adams considerable fame in Turkey to benefit the Promoters clients, per prosecutors.) Adams did not disclose these trips, as legally required. Its among the fancier accommodations in an already fancy hotel: 1,345 square feet with a balcony and a garish, in my opinion, black marble bathroom. It is, per the Bentley executives involved in the project, a room for a discerning audience of travellers who prefer an environment of exceptional materials and finishes. Two years later, Adams also allegedly solicited and accepted a free two-night stay in the Cosmopolitan Suite of the St. Regis Istanbul, a similar-size room with a white marble bathroom and bidet in addition to a poshly furnished living room and king bed. The suite also comes with complimentary ironing services limited to two garments. (Apparently he got downgraded the room would have cost $3,000 for two nights.) The room is also depicted in the indictment in all its grainy glory: The bedroom of the Cosmopolitan Suite, which is just a tad cheaper $3,000 for a two-night stay. Photo: Eric Adams Indictment/Southern District of New York The indictment includes a photo of the Cosmopolitan Suites living room. Photo: Eric Adams Indictment/Southern District of New York In 2021, Adams also allegedly sought to get a free stay at the Four Seasons from a Turkish official. The itinerary was supposed to include a three-day stay at a luxury beach resort and a car and driver. The trip was eventually canceled, but the indictment outlines a text exchange between an Adams Staffer and Airline Manager that basically sums up the whole vibe. Its too expensive, the staffer says, when the manager suggests Adams stay at the Four Seasons. The manager replies: Why does he care? He is not going to pay. His name will not be on anything either. The staffer responded, Super. ROUND LAKE Assemblymember Carrie Woerners campaign claims GOP rival Jeremy Messina is more interested in holding a dog and pony show than a debate. The Democratic campaign late Wednesday night issued a statement calling out Messina for creating a three-ring circus by hosting what likely will become an empty chair debate while dodging a Zoom forum invitation from the Saratoga County League of Women Voters. Instead of agreeing to a quality, bi-partisan debate, her opponent is creating a political stunt, the Woerner campaign wrote. He either lures her into a room filled with his supporters and a moderator that was hand-picked by him if she accepts or gives him a photo of an empty chair for his campaign mail and TV if she declines. Messinas campaign earlier this week sent out two invitations to debate Woerner, D-Round Lake, at the Malta Community Center. He plans on holding a town hall-style event moderated by NYVT Media on Tuesday regardless of his opponents plans. The Republican contender initially planned to host his own series of debates across the district, but couldnt find enough moderators willing to attend if Woerner didnt show up. Messina has denied that his efforts are part of a political stunt. He said his campaign was genuinely organizing a debate. The rhetoric and assertion that an in-person debate with Q&A from voters is a circus says a lot about how Assemblywoman Woerner views her constituents, Messina wrote in response to Woerners statement. Woerner spokesperson Mark Streb, a seasoned Democratic political operative, described Messinas actions as basic 101 stuff for challengers. To have a candidate forum, you need ground rules and decorum, he said. And when the opponent sets up the debates themselves and unilaterally declines another debate, it's a political stunt. LWV event organizer Virginia Fletcher hasnt heard back from the Messina campaign since Sept. 10. Shes reached out to the group both via email and phone. Fletcher gave the GOP campaign a Friday deadline to agree to a debate, but told The Daily Gazette Family of Newspaper that shell provide leeway if Messina has a change of heart. If they were to call me tomorrow, next week early next week as long as we can get it done and have enough time to get the word out and get questions from the public, yes, Fletcher said. The Messina campaign has argued that the Leagues proposal will fail to engage voters in the purple district. Theyve repeatedly pooh-poohed the Zoom forum as a cop-out for Woerner to engage with voters over contentious issues in person. Its not unusual for the regional LWV to host debates in the 113th District. Woerner last faced Republican David Catalfamo in a debate last election cycle. Currently, the League is working on setting up a debate in the race for Saratoga County treasurer between Democrat Michele Madigan and Republican JoAnn Kupferman. They have two dates set up for candidate forums in the 112th Assembly District race and the 44th State Senate District race after early voting. Still pending is a request for Republican incumbent Scott Bendett to attend a debate with Democratic challenger Chloe Pierce in the race for the 107th Assembly District. While the LWV doesnt endorse candidates or parties, and members are forbidden from political committee involvement, Republicans nationwide have increasingly snubbed League-moderated debates based on qualms with the groups progressive platform. Recently, newly minted Saratoga County Republican Chairman Joseph Suhrada claimed that LWV has been unfavorable towards Republicans, especially when it comes to taking a stand on issues like voter ID. They were always in league and have been partisan with the Democratic Party and again, that's completely fair, he said. They just don't want to admit it because that would blow their cover, but they are partisan. Streb called Suhradas lack of trust in LWV unfortunate. Fletcher said that she wasnt surprised to hear anti-LWV sentiments, but still doesnt understand the conservative paradigm. I don't know why they don't trust us, she said. We're impartial, nonpartisan and the questions come from the public. They're not shared with anybody. - SARATOGA SPRINGS Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc., which invents and manufactures medicines for serious diseases, will be moving into the former Quad Graphics locations in Saratoga Springs, expanding one of the region's largest employers, the company said. Regeneron is pleased to confirm the successful acquisition of the former Quad Graphics site in Saratoga, a company statement said. Founded and headquartered in New York, Regeneron proudly maintains the largest manufacturing employee base in the Capital Region. This acquisition underscores our commitment to growing together with the local community by investing in local economies and creating high-quality jobs in the area and across New York State. The site will immediately be used for production support activities, the company said. The company did not immediately provide details on how many people it plans to employ at the site, but the company currently employs over 13,400 people in 12 countries. It will be the companys first location in Saratoga County. We are excited by this investment by Regeneron as it demonstrates their ongoing efforts to support and grow our local economy, said Todd Shimkus, president of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce. Regeneron is headquartered in the Capital Region and is the areas largest manufacturer with 4,500 employees. This is great news for Saratoga Springs, Saratoga County, our regions and New York state. The company has not disclosed the purchase price of the one-million-square-foot plant located at 56 Duplainville Road in the WJ Grande Industrial Park. The site wasnt on the market long after Quad Graphics closed over the summer after first announcing the decision in January. The company employed 435 people at its Saratoga Springs facility. Saratoga County Economic Development Corporation President and CEO Greg Conners said the company has not made any application regarding a potential Payment in Lieu of Taxes agreement but said there are various economic incentives available to companies that come to Saratoga County. Conners said the Regeneron announcement is exciting as it marks the second international company to open a facility in Saratoga Springs recently. Canadian water management company Soleno held a grand opening of its 45,000-square-foot plant in the industrial park Thursday. We work hard every day at SEDC promoting not only the quality of life here in Saratoga County, but the economic development opportunity, Conners said. We do that on a national basis and an international basis, and we've had some success over SEDCs 45-year history with bringing that opportunity to the county. We're very proud of the quality of life. It's a great place to live and work and raise a family, and our job is to encourage people and organizations and companies like Regeneron to make their next capital investment here. We've had some success over that time doing just that, and today is evidence of that as well. Saratoga County Board of Supervisors Chairman Phil Barrett is happy to see the company decide to expand to Saratoga County. Regeneron recognizes the tremendous opportunity to invest in Saratoga County and we welcome the company and its employees, he said in a statement. The Board of Supervisors is proud of our record of maintaining a low cost county to conduct business and live which has led to offering great jobs and vital services close to home. - Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive. Sir Walter Scott coined that couplet, but some will consider it very appropriate for Sir Keir Starmer. In opposition, he portrayed himself as the holier-than-thou scourge of Tory venality and avarice. How hollow that rings now. The embattled Prime Minister faces serious questions over his voracious appetite for freebies from friends in high places and taxpayer-funded expenses. Why, after it emerged he had recorded a hypocritical work-from-home message from Labour donor Lord Alli's 18 million luxury penthouse during Covid, did he say his visit was a 'one-off'? We know it wasn't. Why didn't he declare this perk to the parliamentary authorities (he also failed to declare Lord Alli's donation of clothes for Lady Starmer)? Was this a mere oversight or an attempt to conceal the gift? In opposition, Sir Keir Starmer portrayed himself as the holier-than-thou scourge of Tory venality and avarice. How hollow that rings now Labour peer Lord Alli (pictured) paid for thousands of pounds of suits and spectacles for the Prime Minister among more than 500,000 in donations to Labour And was it really necessary, when Director of Public Prosecutions, to rack up three times more in travel expenses than his successor? Despite his denunciations of others, he himself looks disreputable. It is revealing that Sir Keir will not apologise or admit doing anything wrong. Everything, he says, was 'within the rules'. To him, everything is about procedure the classic barrister's mindset. But as PM, shouldn't moral considerations come first? Time for diplomacy The human reaction to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah must be horror at the suffering of the innocent. Too many have been killed, injured or displaced. Some instinctively condemn the Jewish state for unleashing its hugely sophisticated arsenal even in the most targeted way against the Lebanese-based terror group. But what if Britain found itself in Israel's position, under relentless and unprovoked bombardment from rockets fired by a militia committed to our annihilation? Would it then seem so outrageous for our government to use every means to end the attacks on our towns and villages? If diplomacy fails, the Middle East could tip into all-out war. Smoke is seen over the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Siddiqin yesterday While the UN warns 'hell is breaking loose', Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing for a possible ground invasion against Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy. If diplomacy fails, the Middle East could tip into all-out war. Britain has now joined calls for a 21-day ceasefire to allow talks, plus a suspension of hostilities in Gaza. It is vital that any truce is honoured by all sides and not simply used by Hezbollah and Hamas to re-group and re-arm. Cost of class war As A former Bank of England employee, Rachel Reeves casts herself as the competent and experienced politician who can rebuild Britain's finances. But will the Chancellor learn the hard way the pitfalls of Labour's populist tax plans? Treasury officials fear a crackdown on non-doms could persuade the super-rich to flee the country with their fortunes. That would reduce, not increase, the tax take. Meanwhile, so many private school children could be driven into state education because of the vindictive tax on fees that it would also cost the UK money. And the Government's plan for ever more punitive windfall taxes on oil and gas firms is forecast to decimate jobs and investment. Talk about economic illiteracy. But as ever, the politics of envy blinds the Left to the potentially disastrous consequences of their actions. Yes, Britain's tax system needs urgent reform but class-war policies that actually lose the Exchequer money help nobody. Living Nostradamus who predicted the Microsoft outage in April - now warns of a potential war between China and the US. Athos Salome, 36, from Brazil, is often referred to as a psychic due to the accuracy of his insights and predictions, after previously foreseeing the coronavirus pandemic, Elon Musk buying Twitter and even Queen Elizabeth's death.' With tensions rising around the world, the psychic previously warned that we are teetering on the edge of WWIII, saying 'the worst is yet to come'. Speaking exclusively to Femail his latest prediction is just as frightening, as he claimed that America and China might be heading for conflict, saying two significant events may lead to escalations. He said: 'One instance, the South China Sea can turn volatile since this area is characterised by tensions over territory and military presence. Living Nostradamus Athos Salome, 36, from Brazil , who predicted the Microsoft outage in April - now warns of a potential war between China and the US 'On the other hand, a major cyber-attack that can incapacitate such structures or attack a country's security could perhaps be the unforeseen trigger to a war.' Salome said such threats are real and he warns of a more insidious threat, saying China is an emerging market that is 'increasingly collaborating with Russia'. He said: 'This alliance born of deep-seated self-interest and common spirit of anti-western imperialism is capable of transforming regional conflict into total world war. 'Peculiarly, Asia with fast rates of economic development and great geopolitical significance is viewed as an unstable region and as a hotspot capable of igniting the international conflict.' One of the most outspoken Chinese analysts of foreign policies, Zheng Yongnian pointed out that due to the increasing measures being taken in international relations, and given the conflict between China and the United States especially, Asia is rapidly approaching the critical point. 'Despite the US claims to achieve peace in Asia under its leadership, the reality is quite the opposite - Asia, under US dominance, is rapidly sliding towards war,' he wrote in an article on the WeChat public platform, according to Yahoo. When talking about the signs of the wars, Zheng drew attention to the military buildup in Asia due to the tensions connected with such territories as the South China Sea and Taiwan. Salome said: 'This situation is exacerbated by the US's presence, seen by China as a containment measure; more countries such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are strengthening their capabilities, fuelling an arms race and Zheng stated that the conditions indicate that the region is a 'powder keg' which can lead to a war even by a relatively minor clash. Speaking exclusively to FEMAIL his latest prediction is just as frightening, as he claimed that America and China might be heading for conflict, saying two significant events may lead to esculations 'The main focus of the present conflict is the competition with China that is being disguised by the United States' attempts to preserve dominance in the Indo-Pacific arena, while China sees American partnerships and military forces as threats to its dominance. 'This competition is aggravated by China's action in the South China Sea were it has turned disputed islands into military installations and thus escalating tensions among neighbors. 'Thus, the case of Asia could be considered as one vivid example of how regional conflicts may affect the entire world.' Zheng also noted that in the absence of any diplomatic intervention or even attempts to diffuse tensions Asia is capable of hosting the next world war. Salome said: 'There is nothing to prevent a large scale incident in the South China Sea or a sophisticated cyber attack from taking the world by surprise.' He predicted the Microsoft outage earlier this year and claimed it may lead to an 'escalation of confrontation' and eventually cyber war. Speaking to FEMAIL, Athos said: 'Microsofts global shutdown, according to the analysed outcome, may affect essential infrastructure with the escalation of inter-state confrontation and lead to Cyber War. 'For the short term there will be inquiries and remedial action to get services back on line and to plan against future attack. 'Businesses will have to improve the protection of cyberspace, and society might gain concerns over the use of internet services, led to discourses regarding intensive regulation. This event may result in shifts in political actions and military tactics on an international level, and the threat of an international war is real.' Salome, who predicted 'three days of darkness' in 2024, said his forecast was 'misunderstood' when it was previously linked to a coronal mass ejection (large expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun's corona). He explained that this blackout alluded to escalating tensions between Israel and Iran potentially paving the way for large scale conflict akin, to a Third World War. EMP, a specialised tool designed to destroy information systems, is a weapon that can render electronic devices useless, without harming people or buildings. Typically triggered by explosions at altitudes EMP interacts with the Earth's magnetic fields to create pulses that can disrupt and damage electronic equipment and infrastructures. During the Cold War both the USA and the Soviet Union viewed EMP as a tool for disabling enemy infrastructure without causing harm directly. In 1962, the US detonated a 1.4 megaton nuclear warhead, in an experiment known as Starfish Prime, high in the atmosphere 400 kilometres (250 miles) above the Pacific Ocean. The explosion the worlds most powerful high altitude nuclear test created an EMP strong enough to disrupt global radio communications, which led to the failure of the UKs first satellite, Ariel-1, and it even blow out streetlights on the ground in Hawaii. Non-nuclear localised EMP devices do exist, and work by releasing a burst of energy in the radiofrequency or microwave spectrum, which can overload and damage electronic components and systems. But these are only effective on a small scale, disrupting a small city. However the significance of EMP remains substantial as it has the potential to destabilise defense and communication systems. Salome shared his perspective on the role of artificial intelligence in conflicts, such as the one between Israel and Iran, highlighting its potential to revolutionise strategies and warfare tactics. The parapsychologist foresees a moment in 2024 when both countries may adopt AI technologies for defense and offensive purposes. He said: 'AI again emerges as a factor possibly serving as both a peacekeeping tool and an instigator of fresh confrontations. 'Advanced nations, including the United States have been quietly advancing EMP technologies for security purposes. 'The US has been exploring EMP capabilities since Operation Prime tests in the 1960s aiming to use this technology to neutralize threats with minimal physical damage. Similarly Russia and China are investing in EMP technologies as tools to disrupt infrastructures of potential foes. 'Even North Korea despite its limitations is showing interest, in EMP technology as part of their preemptive strike tactics. 'This shift, in adoption signifies a growing trend where EMP is not merely viewed as a weapon. As an essential element of upcoming military endeavors having the potential to disrupt critical systems significantly and swiftly.' When you imagine a sex addict, what do you think of? Is the person suave or seedy? The ultimate player or unashamedly predatory? A smooth, sophisticated James Bond type, or a rapacious lothario like Russell Brand? Chances are that whoever springs to mind, they'll most likely be male. Well, cast aside all those preconceptions and any others you might have, and look at me. I am a sex addict currently in recovery. That's right: I'm a 41-year-old mother with an eight-year-old daughter who's been happily married for a decade to a husband I adore. I'm middle class and live a pretty ordinary life filled with school runs, children's activities and work meetings like many people reading this. But what you won't know by looking at me is that I spent more than 20 years in the grip of a destructive sex addiction. Erica Garza is a 41-year-old mother who has spent more than 20 years in the grip of a destructive sex addiction and is now in recovery Only after thousands of pounds of therapy, steely determination and the unwavering support of my husband am I now, thankfully, in control of the compulsive sexual behaviour, as it is formally known which I know now was rooted in early puberty. In my 20s, I spent hours compulsively watching hardcore pornography and putting myself in unspeakably dangerous situations with men, sabotaging every meaningful relationship I had. I ruined a three-year one with a wonderful man I thought I'd marry, after some sleazy encounter with an ex-boyfriend on a solo trip to Hawaii after graduating. Although he probably never would have found out, I broke up with him because I felt so guilty and disgusted with myself. I always felt bad about my behaviour, during and especially afterwards, but I just couldn't stop. If sex was proffered, I didn't care what format it came in, I was compelled to seize it. What does a sex addiction feel like? It's a question I've often been asked. Well for a start, sex addiction is never sexy. I describe it as an urge that's out of my control; to be constantly consumed with the desire for the physical release of orgasm, and also for affection. Sex made me feel valuable, a feeling I was addicted to, but didn't know how to find without intercourse. Orgasm was a sensation so powerful that it obliterated worry, anxiety, self-loathing, fear and insecurity for a short while. And something all addicts will identify with as soon as it was over I'd immediately be craving the next hit. Having scrutinised my sexual history through therapy, I've realised I always sought comfort in sex when I was stressed, fearful, bored or anxious because it was easier than dealing with the feelings themselves. I know inevitably people will ask how many men I've slept with, and while I do understand their curiosity, I don't believe the number is relevant or helpful. Before I met my husband more than 11 years ago, there were times I'd sleep with a new guy every week when I was single but, more typically, I'd jump from one monogamous relationship to the next (ranging from three months to three years) with sex always the focus. Also, the 'how many' figure is just one of a number of elements that make up this complex disorder. It's one of the reasons I'm so open when documenting my experiences in my memoir, because compulsive sexual behaviour is frequently misunderstood. Difficult to officially diagnose after all, how do you differentiate sex addiction from someone with a strong sexual appetite and weak willpower? It's defined by relationship charity Relate as 'any sexual behaviour that feels out of control. It's not the behaviour itself that defines it as a compulsion but rather the dependency on it to numb out negative emotions and difficult experiences.' Like most other adolescents with raging hormones, my enthusiasm for sex began perfectly normally when I discovered masturbation aged 12. Raised by Catholic parents, I went to an all-girls' religious school where sex was taboo and only ever mentioned at home and in the classroom in relation to procreation. This meant that very early on I associated sex with shame, not least when, also aged 12, I was diagnosed with scoliosis curvature of the spine and immediately assumed it was God's way of punishing me for touching myself 'down there'. This was the point at which normal, healthy sexual exploration became a compulsion, though I didn't realise this at the time as I was too young to make sense of my behaviour. Bullied at school for wearing a back brace to correct my spinal condition, masturbation was an escape and orgasm my primary release and coping mechanism. This was all happening around the time that the internet was becoming more accessible. I started with viewing and downloading pornographic images, then videos, before moving on to streaming porn and graduating to cyber-sex with strangers. All this was going on in my parents' house, late at night with my bedroom door locked, the fear of being interrupted part of the thrill. I'd feel sick with shame afterwards and vow never to do it again. But I always did, often within hours. I lost my virginity, aged 17, to a man who was ten years older than me and a regular customer at the restaurant where I worked after school. I can't say it was a particularly pleasurable experience for me as I was focused on pleasing him but the thrill, shame and self-disgust was still there. When I went to college to study English literature aged 18, I suddenly had much more access to men, flitting between casual sex and relationships. Privately, porn remained a constant, giving me the combination of pleasure and shame I craved. Only now can I see that the most destructive part of my addiction was this ever-present aspect of shame. If I'd known as a young person that it was normal and healthy to be interested in sex, I probably wouldn't have developed an addiction. Shame was the driving force. Though I only cheated on boyfriends a handful of times, I would often fantasise about doing so and was always flirtatious with other men. Relationships would end at the same sad place: with me walking away if I felt a man was getting too close, because emotional intimacy felt too risky and alien. I felt too dirty and shameful for anyone to love and feared they'd reject me once they knew me properly. In my late 20s, a boyfriend who was a successful film director and much older than me planted the seed that my insatiable sexual appetite wasn't healthy. I constantly pestered him for sex even when he said 'no' because I didn't know how to connect with him, or anyone else, any other way. After I'd pestered him for the umpteenth time one day, he yelled at me: 'You're a sex addict, you need to get some help!' We separated, and although it was a few years before I started therapy, it had alerted me to the fact that something wasn't quite right with my attitude to sex. Just before I turned 30, I'd broken up with a man I loved but cheated on and I realised I wanted the next decade of my life to be different. If I was going to change, I needed to be single for a while and abstain from sex until I was mentally healthier. Sex made me feel valuable, a feeling I was addicted to, but didn't know how to find without intercourse, writes Erica Garza On a mission to become a better version of myself, I went on holiday to Bali where I spent my time doing yoga, meditation and reflection classes. That's where I met my husband, River, an Australian who was working in Shanghai at the time. When we spoke after a yoga class I was scared of the attraction I felt for him due to my determination to be single for a while. Still, when I bumped into him again a few days later I agreed to go out for drinks. We had sex on our second date, after which I was filled with a mixture of fear that I'd fall back into my destructive ways, along with excitement and infatuation. We swapped numbers and emails and, two weeks later, back home, I decided to do something I'd never done in any relationship I told River everything: that I suspected I was a sex addict. Convinced he would simply cut me off at that point, I was amazed when he didn't. Determined this relationship wouldn't follow the same destructive pattern, I went to a few Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) meetings to learn how to have healthier relationships, establish new patterns of behaviour, and meet other people having similar experiences. Like Alcoholics Anonymous, SLAA is a 12-step programme where people share experiences of addiction and support one another in sobriety, with meetings available all over the UK. My biggest fear for years had been of being found out, that people might think I was sick and depraved and I'd be alone for ever. The realisation that my compulsive sexual behaviour didn't mean I was a terrible person was a relief, as was the hope that meeting other addicts gave me. Many had gone on to have healthy relationships, so maybe I could, too. Therapy taught me that revealing the darkest thing about yourself to other people is empowering because it takes the power away from the addiction. So I kept confessing, going to more meetings and therapy. River and I reunited in Thailand before going travelling together for several months. No matter what I confessed, he never judged me or backed away. it brought us closer. He was warm and had an understanding borne of his own demons, being newly sober from alcohol and drug use at the time. Over the past decade, I've realised the triggers that lead me to seek comfort in sex and porn are stress, fear and anxiety. I learned to go for a walk, meditate and talk or write about my feelings. It's important to be clear that being triggered doesn't mean feeling like I'll cheat on my husband. It's more that something triggers the urge to use sex as a self-soothing mechanism for example, watching porn to shut out a feeling. If I get this urge, I'll ask myself: am I running away from something, or do I just feel like watching it? Very occasionally, I do watch porn. But only because I want to, not because I need to. There's a healthy and unhealthy way to approach the same activity and being in recovery means knowing the difference. In 2013, River and I wed. Sex remains a focus of my marriage but it's healthy and loving. I'm very much a recovering sex addict as my impulses and activities are no longer out of control, risky or secretive. You can be a healthy and empowered sexual person who practises safe sex with hundreds of people and not necessarily be addicted to sex. You just like sex, but you don't lie to people or use sex as an escape or a coping mechanism because you can't face issues in your life. On the other hand, you can be in a monogamous marriage and compulsively watch porn in secret or have sex with strangers behind your spouse's back and feel ashamed and out of control. My therapy is ongoing and has helped me realise I'd been using sex to mask feelings of rejection and self-hatred I first felt aged 12. It also taught me that instead of running from complicated feelings, I can now talk about them and trust they will pass. I am in a healthy place now. It's more than ten years since I felt the desire to blow up my life, lie, cheat, or destroy my relationship and for that I can only be proud and grateful. As told to Sadie Nicholas. Getting Off: One Woman's Journey Through Sex And Porn Addiction, by Erica Garza, is available now. Phillip Schofield wants redemption and he wants to be loved again. Not just by his family and friends, not just by the television colleagues who deserted and dumped him as if he were a contagion, back in 2023. He wants to be loved by you, dear readers. All of you. That is why the disgraced This Morning presenter is putting himself back on television in a make-or-break attempt not just to restore his reputation, but to bask once more in the hot glow that only being a popular celebrity can bring. One can understand how addictive that must be. The adulation, the idolisation, the chummy veneration that he took as his due during an unrelenting three-decade reign on the small screen. Phil needs it. He wants to breathe that fire again. So here he is, starring in a three-part soul-searching pilgrimage called Cast Away (C5) in which he has been abandoned on an island in the Indian Ocean for a whole ten days. As odysseys go it is much more Simpson than Homeric, but even in the trailers for the show, Phil is giving it his epic all. 'I know what I did was unwise but is it enough to absolutely destroy someone?' he whines, filming himself sitting by a campfire on the beach. Phillip Schofield is putting himself back on television in an attempt to not just restore his reputation, but to bask once more in the hot glow that only being a popular celebrity can bring Listen. People who are 'absolutely' destroyed are rarely given 180 minutes of prime-time by a major broadcaster over three consecutive days. A chunk of unchallenged airtime in which to exquisitely detail their suffering, like someone pegging out a tent of torment on their own personal campsite of despair. A show in which 'I can say whatever I want about whatever I want. It is my chance to tell my side of my story.' Schofield is dressing this up as some kind of heroic endeavour, but he is not exactly exposing himself to the likes of Emily Maitlis, if you will pardon the expression. Perhaps the truth is that in the current pantheon of shamed men, in this sordid post-Huw and apres-Prince Andrew world, the presenter saw this faint chance of salvation and grabbed it with both hands. It is utterly astonishing, something only a hard-boiled narcissist would ever dream of doing, so here we are. And instead of accepting scrutiny and possible criticism, Schofield will instead be providing a meta-commentary on his own situation and critiquing his bad decisions. Marking his own homework, in other words. I can't wait to hear how he justifies it all, or how many gold stars he awards himself. To recap, as we must, Schofield came out as gay in 2020 and then separated from his wife of 27 years the couple have two adult daughters together. In May 2023, amid mounting gossip and rumour, he admitted that while still with his wife he had carried on an extramarital affair with a much younger male co-worker. He had lied about this affair to ITV's management, to his colleagues, to co-presenter Holly Willoughby, to his lawyers, his agents, to his friends and family but not least of all to the one million-plus viewers of This Morning. Onscreen and off, he was living a lie. The former This Morning presenter is starring in a three-part soul-searching pilgrimage called Cast Away in which he has been abandoned on an island in the Indian Ocean for ten days To make matters worse so very much worse he first met his lover when the boy was a 15-year-old drama student. Schofield later arranged a job interview for the boy at This Morning, where he was hired as a production assistant. Dear God. The optics are utterly terrible, then and now. It makes Schofield look like the head groom in a grooming salon for showbiz groomers, but he has always denied any grooming accusations and insisted that the sexual relationship only began when the co-worker was 20 years old and he himself was in his mid-50s. If what he says is true, if we are to take him at his word, then Schofield has committed no crime except giving in to middle-aged lust and stupidity. He won't be the first or last celebrity to have indulged in an inappropriate relationship with a pulchritudinous younger colleague dazzled by their fame. However, I'd feel a lot sorrier for Phillip Schofield if he didn't feel quite so sorry for himself. Always convinced of his own virtue, Schofield said he believed homophobia was a factor in the coverage of the affair look at him, still trying to blame others. He stated his belief that if he'd had an affair with a young woman, it would not have created such a scandal. He was right and also wrong. It would have been much, much worse. The star's self-pitying remarks in this trailer for Cast Away are an echo of what he said to Amol Rajan, during their BBC television interview back in 2023. 'Do you want me to die? Because that is where I am. I have lost everything,' he said dramatically. Yet here he is now, almost chipper, wandering on a sandy beach, growing some photogenic stubble, chin set in a determined jut. Poised on the edge of deliverance, Schofield is neither evil nor innocent but, on first glance at least, trying and failing not to look aggrieved about his loss of popularity. Despite the fact he only has himself to blame for his own downfall. Is it too much, too soon? Is being famous really all that matters to him? Perhaps this is the case, otherwise he would be at home quietly atoning for his sins instead of thrusting himself into the limelight and cosplaying Robinson Crusoe on this self-filmed odyssey of bleating nonsense. He would be thinking about his mother, who has seen one famous son implode on the public stage and another son recently jailed for 12 years for sexually abusing a child over a three-year period. He would be thinking about the young man at the centre of this drama, who just wanted to get on with his life, but is now thrust back into the headlines, which must be the last thing he wants. Yet Phillip Schofield can only think about himself, which is how he got himself into this mess in the first place. So while he is ready to make a big comeback, are the public ready for him? We will find out soon enough. How does Kate look so great? Kate Moss was at Paris Fashion Week, looking sensational, as always. She was also looking very refreshed, as they say in the business of show. Well, as refreshed as any millionairess seemingly with Dr Tweakment and Professor Pin Tuck on her speed-dial can and should look. Friends, I hate to pry, but has Kate had some work done? At the age of 50 she is, like a pine cabinet in need of an upcycle, in prime refresh territory. And her glowing appearance this week is proof of my pet theory that there is no point in having a face lift or similar! unless you are beautiful to start with. Right now, Missy Mossy appears to be in the cosmetic sweet spot, post-procedure but pre-Nicole Kidman. Doesn't she look great? Kate Moss, 50, at Paris Fashion Week, on Tuesday Don't pass me the posh sauce Brooklyn Beckham has launched his special secret hot sauce, an upmarket bottle of chilli-fused fire called Cloud 23. 'It's my favourite number,' the dork told Bon Appetit magazine. The 25-year-old nepo-entrepreneur started experimenting with making sauces when he was drunk in the kitchen with his wife. It 'stunk out the house' and burnt their eyes, apparently. 'Such a laugh' he said. This is the first product (27 for two bottles) in what Brooklyn promises will be a 'luxury line of condiments' which makes one wonder how posh sauce can be. Answer: not very. The brand already has 'millions of dollars in backing'. But who is going to buy it just because Brooklyn a man who can barely bring his fork to his mouth without falling over supposedly invented it? Like the purpose of the third condiment shaker in a cruet set, it is one of the mysteries of the modern world. Brooklyn Beckham, 25, has launched his special secret hot sauce, an upmarket bottle of chilli-fused fire called Cloud 23 This is the first product (27 for two bottles) in what Brooklyn promises will be a 'luxury line of condiments', which makes one wonder how posh sauce can be Some people give charity a bad name, and Naomi Campbell is one of them. The supermodel has been banned from being a charity trustee for five years after an investigation unearthed financial misconduct at the poverty relief charity she founded in 2005 and has fronted ever since. Fashion For Relief claims to have raised more than 13 million and helped victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans that same year, children affected by Covid and many other worthy causes around the world. Yet it has been discovered that the charity only passed on a fraction of the millions it raised. The rest went on hotels, spas treatments, personal security and even on Naomi's cigarettes. I wish I was more shocked by this than I am. Naomi Campbell should hang her head in shame. How appalling that this happened under her watch. It serves as another reminder to all of us to be very, very careful about the charities we choose to support. Naomi Campbell has been banned from being a charity trustee for five years after an investigation unearthed financial misconduct at the poverty relief charity she founded Was this a ghoulish PR stunt, Meghan? The Duchess of Sussex is reeling once more from accusations of being a bad boss and the kind of office dictator who 'reduces grown men to tears'. In a damage limitation exercise aimed at negating these claims, former Archewell president Mandana Dayani informed US Weekly magazine that this was not the Meghan she knew, no way. She told the publication of how she had personally accompanied the Duchess on her self-imposed mission to Uvalde, Texas in 2022, following the tragic school shooting in which 21 people were killed and 17 injured. 'For hours, Meghan sat in a room with grieving families, going one by one to each person hugging them and crying with them,' Dayani told the magazine, adding that Meghan had since kept in touch with the families affected by the tragedy. Was this all said for no other reason than to burnish the Duchess's tarnished image? If so, how absolutely disgusting. That the suffering of these bereaved parents, the heartbreak of these dead children and their teachers, that the ongoing ripples of these wrecked lives might be summoned up as part of a cheap PR exercise would be reprehensible and wrong. Is there no tragedy on earth that these PR performative ghouls won't use for their own ends? They make me sick. Sitting at my kitchen table this morning, counting out all the supplements I like to take on a daily basis, I was overcome with a wave of exhaustion. It's not that I'm sick. (I should hope not, the number of vitamins and minerals I take). It's more that there are just so many things I need to take to stay well. There's vitamin D, because obviously I am not risking the sun I slather myself from head to toe in factor 50, even in darkest winter. Iron, because I don't want to eat too much red meat. Omega 3, for heart, brain and eye health. Turmeric I've heard it's good for the old joints. Vitamin B, because... well, I'm not quite sure, but why the hell not at this stage, eh? Then there's a probiotic, because these days it's not about how good your face looks, but how varied your gut microbiome is. My husband likes to joke that he can hear me coming because I rattle with all the pills I take. But I know I'm not alone in my obsessive quest for good health. Whenever I meet up with friends, we're forever discussing the 'biohacks' that have changed our lives (read: made us feel briefly in control of our health). We compare the smart rings that measure the quality of our sleep, the blood sugar monitors that tell us what to eat, the collagen that we put in our stress-busting adaptogenic chai superlattes that have replaced our morning coffee (the caffeine is really bad for anxiety, OK?) It's all a very long way from the spoonful of cod liver oil my grandmother would shove down my throat in the Eighties. Was I surprised, then, to learn this week that 61 per cent of us are suffering from 'wellbeing burnout', whereby the quest to stay healthy is actually making people feel less well? No I wasn't. And I think I know why so many of us are driven half mad in the name of wellness. It's because for centuries, women have been medically dismissed. While you'd hope attitudes towards female health might have improved since the days of locking women up in Victorian asylums for displaying physical symptoms unique to the fairer sex, sadly, that just isn't the case. There is not only a gender pay gap, but a gender pain gap. A 2018 study found that women were more likely than men to have their experiences dismissed as exaggerated or even imaginary, existing only in their heads. 61 per cent of us are suffering from 'wellbeing burnout', whereby the quest to stay healthy is actually making people feel less well The study revealed that terms such as 'sensitive', 'malingering', and, yes, 'hysterical' (the word 'hysteria' actually derives from the Greek word for womb) were more frequently attached to pain reports from women. I was only ten when I first had a health concern dismissed. A stomach ache had rendered me unwell enough to ask my teacher for help, but it was only after several hours of being told I was 'putting it on', that my mother was called. 'If you're faking this to get a day off school...' she said, as she drove me to the doctor. A few hours later, I was being wheeled into surgery, my infected, ruptured appendix extracted in an operation that left me off school for two weeks, and in paediatric intensive care for one. To be fair to my mum, she apologises about it to this day, and it's not as if anybody ever took her health seriously either she'd still rather spend three weeks in bed, incapacitated by flu, than 'trouble' the doctor. The next time it happened, I was 32, pregnant, and bleeding heavily. I went to A&E, where I spent six or seven hours waiting to be told I was probably having a miscarriage, but that they wouldn't be able to tell me for sure for a few days, when there was availability to be scanned. Their advice, delivered with an apologetic shrug? 'Head home via Tesco Express, get some sanitary pads, and go to bed for the next few days.' I did as I was told, waiting four days in misery. Thankfully I wasn't having a miscarriage. This distressing episode of bleeding was dismissed as 'just one of those things', and I was too relieved to question what might have caused it, feeling I had already taken up enough of the maternity unit's resources. It was almost ten years before I would, in the words of my mother, 'trouble' my GP again for a non-routine physical health issue. I'd been having palpitations that left me feeling as if my heart was trying to escape my chest, but it was only when I collapsed that I felt emboldened to see a doctor. He listened to my concerns, and my pulse, before handing me a pamphlet about healthy eating. He suggested I try losing weight my 'problems' were probably caused by stress, or a lack of exercise. (No matter that I was running three or four times a week, and doing two sessions of strength training). I left feeling worse, convinced I was making a fuss and wasting precious NHS time in the process. It was another two years before I'd get an explanation for the palpitations, after fainting one morning while making breakfast. I was rushed to hospital and diagnosed with an arrhythmia I now manage with medication. I suppose I'm lucky, because this week, a group of heart experts in the UK demanded action from the NHS to improve cardiac care for women. 'Many treatments are mainly investigated in men and then applied to women,' wrote the 33 experts affiliated with the British Cardiovascular Society. 'Unfortunately, women are underdiagnosed, undertreated and under-represented in all areas.' I'll keep taking all the supplements. But I know what would really make me feel better: knowing that every time a woman speaks to her doctor, she's actually being listened to. Ever feel like life is a bittoo much? Bestselling author and journalist Bryony Gordon is here to ditch the shame and dive headfirst into lifes messier bits. Search for The Life of Bryony wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes released every Monday and Friday. Earlier this month, the Princess of Wales reflected on how her cancer journey has given her a 'new perspective on everything' - and it would appear she's focusing on what she loves as she makes her gentle comeback to public life. Last night, Kate Middleton, 42 - a known fan of the ballet - appeared to be in the audience for a performance of Akram Khans Giselle at Sadler's Wells theatre in London. Taking to X to share a photo of the performance, the royal mother-of-three wrote: 'Congratulations and thank you to [English National Ballet] and [Sadler's Wells' for the wonderfully powerful, moving and inspiring performance of Akram Khans Giselle. Creativity at its best!' The Princess, who recently remarked that her health struggles have 'above all reminded William and her to reflect and be grateful for the simple yet important things in life, which so many of us often take for granted', has long enjoyed dance performances. She has been spotted in the audience at performances such as The Nutcracker over the years; both alone and with her daughter. Earlier this month, the Princess of Wales reflected on how her cancer journey has given her a 'new perspective on everything' - and it would appear she's focusing on what she loves as she makes her gentle comeback to public life Elsewhere, Kate has also revealed that her daughter Charlotte also enjoys dance - tap and ballet in particular. Vanity Fair had even dubbed the royal 'The Queen of Dance' last year, after a social media video compilation of her dance moments - which included her showing off her moves during a trip to Belize, as well as a waltz with Paddington Bear. The royal is also a known 'huge fan' of Strictly Come Dancing, as revealed by Prince William in a Telegraph interview in 2019. The same year, she was treated to a private performance of the romantic ballet The Two Pigeons during a visit to the Royal Opera House in London. Kate, who plays the piano, is also known to be a big fan of musical performances, especially shown by her annual carol services. Speaking to People, a royal source revealed: 'Music was very important to the [then] Duchess during the lockdowns. She also recognizes the powerful way in which music brings people together especially during difficult times.' Yesterday's ballet visit appears to signal that Kate is prioritising causes and events near and dear to her heart in her recovery. After the Princess was spotted at Crathie Kirk Church in Balmoral last weekend, the Mail revealed she and Prince William enjoyed a child-free getaway to the Royal Family's estate in Scotland while Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis remained in Berkshire. Last night, Kate Middleton , 42 - a known fan of the ballet - appeared to be in the audience for a performance of Akram Khans Giselle at Sadler's Wells theatre in London Taking to X to share a photo of the performance, the royal mother-of-three wrote: 'Congratulations and thank you to [English National Ballet] and [Sadler's Wells' for the wonderfully powerful, moving and inspiring performance of Akram Khans Giselle. Creativity at its best!' This brief appearance came less than a week after the Princess of Wales hosted her first work meeting in over nine months, which marked the start of her slow and measured return to public duties. Last Tuesday, the royal held a meeting at Windsor Castle with those involved in her 'Early Years' project, which delves into the crucial role the first few years of a person's life plays in the adults they become. Earlier this month, the future Queen revealed she has completed chemotherapy and is now 'focused on staying cancer-free' as she released a touching new video of William and their three children. In the family video, the Princess told viewers that her cancer experience has taught her to appreciate the 'simple yet important things in life [...] of simply loving and being loved'. The royal then went on to briefly outline her plan to return to royal duties - acknowledging that she does not want to rush back into things. The royal is also a known 'huge fan' of Strictly Come Dancing, as revealed by Prince William in a Telegraph interview in 2019. The same year, she was treated to a private performance of the romantic ballet The Two Pigeons during a visit to the Royal Opera House in London Pictured: Kate, in 2019, watching Royal Ballet dancer during her visit to the Royal Opera House in London She continued: 'Although I have finished chemotherapy, my path to healing and full recovery is long and I must continue to take each day as it comes. 'I am however looking forward to being back at work and undertaking a few more public engagements in the coming months when I can. Before this, Kate made a fleeting appearance in an Instagram video to congratulate Team GB on their Olympics effort, which was posted on their official page. In the short clip, Kate said: 'From all of us watching at home congratulations to Team GB.' The Prince of Wales, wearing an official blue Team GB top, then briefly added: 'Well done to Team GB you've been an inspiration to us all.' Just weeks after King Charles announced that he had been diagnosed with cancer, his daughter-in-law revealed in an emotional message in March that she was also receiving treatment for the disease. Since then, the mother-of-three has only been seen in public a handful of times - including Trooping the Colour and the Wimbledon's men's singles final. A beaming Princess of Wales has sent a heartfelt message to British Olympians ahead of the end of the Paris Olympics , which will be formally closed last month Before appearing at Trooping the Colour in June, the royal released a statement saying that she hoped to attend the occasional engagement over the summer but urged the public to bear with her as, like many cancer patients, she has 'good and bad days'. After spending much of the year coming to terms with the diagnosis and receiving ongoing chemotherapy, Kate relaxed as she smiled and waved to the delighted crowds - making a triumphant comeback to public life in a carriage procession for the Trooping the Colour ceremony. Ahead of the Wimbledon's men's singles finals in July, officials had remained 'hopeful' that Kate may feel well enough to hand out trophies. Thankfully, their hope proved to be right and in her role as patron of the All England Club, which hosts the annual tournament, the royal handed Alcaraz the champion's trophy after the Wimbledon men's final. After leaving the court following the trophy ceremony, the princess and Alcaraz had a conversation in a room inside the tournament's main stadium. 'You played so well,' Kate told him. 'Enjoy the win.' Earlier, Kate went from the stands down to the playing surface to present the trophies, and shook hands with some of the ball kids who worked at the tournament. Although future public engagements have yet to be announced, the Princess does reportedly hope to attend Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph. However, she will not accompany her husband to his Earthshot Prize awards in Cape Town in November. The Duchess of Sussex has comes under fire for treatment of her staff Meghan Markle's former staff have revealed insights into the way the duchess communicates through email, including her signature sign off message. The Duchess of Sussex, 43, has been subject of her employees' scrutiny this week after staff accused her of being difficult to work with, including allegations she sent 'angry emails at 5am to employees'. Amid claims that Meghan's staff call her 'Duchess Difficult' and claim that she 'belittles people' and 'doesn't take advice,' some staff has also come forward to defend the former royal, arguing she only offers 'clear direction and is solution-oriented'. In particular, Meghan was slammed for sending 'angry emails at 5am,' acocrding to the Hollywood Reporter. However, one ally has leaped to her defence, telling according to OK! Magazine, that the Duchess apparently writes at the end of every single email: 'My working day may not be your working day. Please do not feel obliged to reply to this email outside your normal working hours' Meghan Markle's (pictured) former staff have revealed insights into the way the duchess communicates through email, including her signature sign off message.= The Duchess of Sussex , 43, has been subject of her employees' scrutiny this week after staff accused her of being difficult to work with A spokesman for the Sussexes declined to comment when approached by MailOnline. But a source close to Harry and Meghan rejected the claims last week, saying the allegations were false. 'These quotes were fabricated by someone lacking knowledge of our company. The Duke and Duchess work from Montecito, and were based in Hollywood. They likely think were all in the same office and that this quote would fly, but the circumstances dont even allow for it. If shes marching around and barking orders no Archewell employee could factually claim that. Its total nonsense', they said. 'And the source said on the emails: 'Who hasnt sent an email when they cant sleep or are awake early? 'Ive never once ever gotten an email from either of them at that hour and even if I did, The Duchess specifically notes in her email signature that everyone has a different working day and to not feel obligated to respond outside of normal business hours. These source quotes dont make any sense'. It comes after one palace courtier who is claimed to have worked for the Duchess of Sussex, said they 'witnessed people being chewed up in person and over the phone and made to 'feel like s**t', according to a report in the Daily Beast on Wednesday. It was claimed that another former aide said they 'always thought she was a classic narcissist' and she was 'lovely when it is all going her way but a demon when the worm turns'. Harry and Meghan pictured in 2020. One in the latest stream of staff confessions has cast doubt on allegations that Meghan sent fiery emails first thing in the morning, revealing the sentence she signs off every email with Another source told the Daily Beast that a florist was 'screamed at down the phone' after posting a detail about a bouquet they were working on for her - without identifying Meghan as the client The report on Wednesday followed two major articles - with one in the Hollywood Reporter criticising her as a 'dictator in high heels', and another in Us Weekly praising her management style. One courtier who was said to have worked for Meghan and Harry when they were still senior royals was quoted by the Daily Beast as saying: 'I do think that after the ill-feeling of Megxit, Meghan's bad moments were amplified and distorted and blown out of proportion. 'That said, there definitely were bad, very bad... moments. I witnessed people being chewed up in person and over the phone and made to feel like s**t. 'But it was an incredibly fraught time and I'm inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. She has said herself she was suicidal at times.' Another source told the Daily Beast that a florist was 'screamed at down the phone' after posting a detail about a bouquet they were working on for her - without identifying Meghan as the client. This source said: 'They vowed never to work with her again, despite the prestige of having her as a client. If you were working for her, you were often treated like a tradesman who could be treated like s**t.' A report from Hollywood Reporter on September 12 called Meghan 'Duchess Difficult' and accused her of reducing grown men to tears and that she 'barks' out orders. A day later, loyal staff of the Sussex' gave an opposing account, offering a positive account of their working lives to Us Weekly. The controversy has come as Meghan's husband, Prince Harry, has been attending events in New York while Meghan and their children Archie and Lilibet are at home in Montecito, California. Other accounts have defied characterisations of the duchess as a 'dictator in high heels', including one from Josh Kettler, formerly Harry's chief of staff, who revealed details of his three year tenure working for the Prince, Speaking to US Weekly, Josh gushed about his stay with the couple and said he was 'warmly welcomed' by the couple. Discussing their work ethic, he said: 'They are dedicated and hardworking. It was impressive to witness.' Another positive account came from Ashley Hansen, the Sussexes' current global press secretary, who said Meghan treated her to care packages, regular check-ins, and flowers, following a surgery she had undergone. Ashley even compared Meghan's level of care as akin to a parent looking out for their child. Josh Kettler, Prince Harry's former chief of staff, who left after just three months in August Meghan with former Archewell president Mandana Dayani, who has spoken in support of her She said: 'Most profoundly to me, Meghan would personally reach out to my husband daily to make sure that we both were OK and had support. It meant so much to him and even more to me. You don't realise how much that kind of kindness and thought means until you need it.' Ben Browning, Archewell's former head of content who was responsible for their tell-all Netflix documentary but then left before the end of his contract said his experience at the company, and with Meghan and Harry in general, 'was positive and supportive'. Another anonymous source told Us Weekly: 'This is the first company I've worked [where I] liked every person. Harry and Meghan picked the best of the best from every field and watered the seeds for them to flourish. We have an enormous microscope on us. But good things are happening.' They said Harry asks on work Zoom calls about what staff have done at the weekend and as a team they plan events such as karaoke nights and 'holiday parties'. A former staff member said the Sussexes heard they had adopted a dog, and 'the next day, I had a luxury-brand leash and new collar on my doorstep'. Expectant parents are also given 'brand-new gifts and top-notch second-hand stuff from the couple themselves 'like unused car seats and baby items they no longer need', it was said. 'They want to take care of us,' one current employee said. 'Meghan will do things like, 'You mentioned on the call your skin is bothering you. I put together a kit for you'.' 'Whenever staff go to their house, they leave with a basket with fresh flowers, fresh fruit, fresh eggs,' one staffer said. 'Best bosses I have ever had,' another current team member insisted. My parents met in the 1980s, locking eyes on a train before swapping (landline) phone numbers. Growing up, I always dreamed of a love life that would be equally romantic and serendipitous. But, alas, at 30, Im part of a millennial generation who has come of age on dating apps. Tinder launched when I was at university in 2012, with others quickly following. Theres Hinge (serious relationships), Bumble (women in control) Breeze (blind dates without messaging) Feeld (anything goes). You name them, Ive tried them. Dating apps have allowed me to date whenever I want, explore my bisexuality and have several fulfilling relationships. But, hundreds of dates later, Im still single and what was once a fun novelty has become a slog. People like me are feeling a sense of burnout, having been promised love but now stuck in a loop of swiping and ghosting. With zero accountability and a constant illusion of choice, dating has become about as romantic as ordering a Deliveroo. Florence Scordoulis, a Pisces, says she is a prime candidate for dating by the stars Indeed, last month, Bumbles shares crashed by 30 per cent and Match Group, which owns several dating apps and sites, has seen a steady decline in paying users. It seems singletons are looking for a new way to meet partners. Could astrology dating which promises to inject some mystical magic back into the dating scene be the answer? Enter Co-star, an app that has become something of a phenomenon. It describes itself as the astrology app that deciphers the mystery of human relations through Nasa data and biting truth. Since launching in 2019 its clocked up 30million mostly Gen Z and Millennial users. It generates an astrological birth chart, combining this with real-time star data to create personalised daily horoscopes. Its important to note that Co-star, which is free to sign up to, is not a match-making app, rather a social network that can be utilised to help find more like-minded matches on actual dating apps by running compatibility tests with potential suitors. This might sound bonkers, but 83 per cent of millennials believe in astrology and 81 per cent have or would consult it for relationship guidance, according to a 2024 Harris Poll. Its even more popular in the LGBTQ+ community: a third of users on queer womens dating app HER said they wouldnt date someone because of their star sign, and Hinges LGBTQ+ users are 86 per cent more likely to put their sign on their profile. Astrology connects people with no separations based on gender and sexual orientation. Thats why so many queer people take an interest, explains Moe Ari Brown, Hinges love and connection expert. For anyone looking for love, it can offer an insightful, fun way to explore commonalities and strengths that, when utilised well, can support a lasting healthy relationship. Being millennial, queer and Pisces (making me, to quote Co-star, fundamentally dreamy), Im a prime candidate for dating by the stars. And, although sceptical, I see the appeal. Four of my exes were Pisces: unrivalled emotional depth, always doomed. Then there was the free-spirited French Sagittarius, who told me all about his commitment issues, on our first date (I should have listened). To join Co-Star you need to provide the exact time, date and location of your birth So, could astrology apps save me a lot of time and finally help me find love? To join Co-star you need the exact time, date and location of your birth. This is used to create your unique chart, a snapshot of the sky showing the precise location of all the planets and constellations (zodiac signs) at the moment you arrived in the world. Its our sun or star sign that dictates your core sense of self but its our moon sign that reveals our more emotional side (mines Sagittarius, making me independent). Your ascendant, the zodiac on the eastern horizon at birth, influences how you present to the world: Gemini means Im chatty, eclectic and fun. Plus, theres the position of eight planets: for example, Venus determines your approach to love (mines in Pisces, making me sentimental) and Mars is about taking action, including in the bedroom mine is Aquarius which means I apparently assert myself in a way thats eccentric and unconventional. The chart also divides the sky into twelve houses, representing different areas of life such as money and possessions and career and goals again corresponding to zodiac signs. While the birth chart is free, to put it to any use means spending money. I brave the you in love test (9.99) which analyses how you do relationships based on your chart. Im told I run at the first sign of trouble, want my relationships to feel all-consuming and cant set boundaries. Deep down youre terrified of being close. You correct this by falling in love with a fantasy. Wow. I sound like a walking red flag! Co-star also has an AI programme called the void where, for 2.99, you can ask up to five questions, with a specific section that prompts on love matters. Who am I really looking for? I ask. With your ascendant in Gemini, and Mercury and Mars in Aquarius, youre attracted to individuals who match your quick-wittedness and enjoy intellectual conversations, comes the reply. With everything to play for I re-download Hinge, using my newly gleaned astrological insight to help choose a match. First on my list of star-driven dates is Jon*, 34, a cyber-security whizz from east London. His profile, with talk of travel, art and salsa dancing providing bait for this dreamy Piscean. Hes late to the pub, so Im a G&T down when he declares that he doesnt drink. But his rather sexy leather jacket and disarming questions (describe your relationship with men) charm me. When I enquire about his star sign, like most straight men, he has to google it (Capricorn). To really test our compatibility I need to run Co-stars crush report function (4.99 per report) where I feed his details into the app and get a verdict on our love potential. Despite saying this is wild about ten times, Jon is up for the compatibility test, and, gamely texting his mum to ask his birth time, he jokes: Do you want my mothers maiden name and national insurance number too? Our crush report lands and its like a Black Mirror episode. Soulmates: every love song is about you, it reads. We score full marks on physical attraction, emotional connection, communication styles and long-term potential. And feel like home to each other because our moons are in Sagittarius. I start seeing him in a much more promising light. Could this be it? However, it has the opposite effect on Jon. Damn, this app has a lot to say he replies. Except, when our second date rolls around, he cancels on the day, offers a booty call instead, then says hes not looking for anything serious. A few weeks later, he pops up on another app, with the tagline: monogamy: low-key looking for a starter wife proving that no matter how good someone looks in the stars, it doesnt always translate. Suspecting that a woman might be less star-spooked, I plough on with Cara*, a 35 year old community worker with a big grin, tattoos and a tongue piercing. Shes not a dating app match. Instead we get chatting in the smoking area of a queer club and hit it off discover were both Co-star fans swap numbers and agree to meet again. A few days later, over rooftop margaritas she confesses: I was engaged to a Virgo once, too similar, adding that shes sworn off Scorpios (after being cheated on by two). But, when we do the crush report, it transpires that her ex was also a Pisces: she makes faces, murmuring spot-on, as Co-star labels us a romantic whirlwind, warns it can be a challenging match. Co-star was right. After two drinks its clear theres no real spark and we part ways as friends. Encouraged nonetheless, I try my luck with Alex*, 30, a south London tech founder. It turns out hes bisexual, too our chat about Saturn returns should have been a giveaway. He asks my star sign ten minutes in, and we download our crush report with gusto. It likens us to the old married couple, we score highly on long-term potential due to my ascendant and his Venus being in Gemini. Our minds excite each other with my Uranus in Capricorn and his Mercury in Taurus. Tick. But Co-star warns, hes not easily caught and doesnt like labels. Afterwards, we go for a walk under the stars, and he remarks: But why does whats going on up there mean anything about us? No clue, Alex. And, maybe thats the appeal, in a world where we have all the answers. Co-star certainly added to the romance, but when I ask him out again, he says work is hectic, before ghosting me: so much for all that Gemini promise. Did astrology app dating help me find love? Not yet. Indeed, every crush report has a disclaimer that it wont always feel like this: the only one with the power to decide is you. But, using Co-star did interrupt Groundhog Day-style dates with fun conversational prompts that accelerate the getting-to-know-you process. I enjoyed it as a test of how open-minded (or queer-friendly) someone is and, yes, sometimes its scarily accurate! Yet, I dont think this is about astrology itself: rather, its a container for us to reflect on ourselves through what resonates, and to communicate that to others, with more social acceptability. And, if Ill take anything from the stars: maybe being single right now is exactly where Im destined to be. *Names were changed. Four more astrology apps to revamp your love life The Pattern The Pattern can tests your compatibility with up to six friends or lovers Like Co-star, this AI app, with 15million users and celeb fans including Lena Dunham and Channing Tatum, creates a free birth chart. It also tests your compatibility with up to six friends or lovers called bonds (thepattern.com). Sanctuary This app offers a romantic compatibility calculator and costs from 49.99 for one year Link with 140+ on-demand astrologers, tarot or crystal experts for personalised readings on your love life. Plus theres a romantic compatibility calculator (from 49.99 for one year, sanctuaryworld.co). Stars Align This dating app checks your compatibility scores out of ten before swiping An astrology-fuelled dating app where you can read someones birth chart and check compatibility scores out of ten before swiping (starsalign.co). Oromoon Oromoon calls itself 'the first astrologically informed dating app of its kind' View a handful of stars (potentially compatible dates) per day, on this dating app which reveals sun, moon and rising signs (oromoon.com). The future Queen of Norway's troubled son reportedly laughed that 'there was almost a guard who didn't make it' as a result of his reckless driving. Local media say that Marius Borg Hiby - who was arrested in August for assault, and again in September - was last year reported to the authorities for speeding up the driveway to Skaugum, Crown Princess Mette-Marit and Crown Prince Haakon's official residence. He was allegedly reaching 91 kilometres in what was likely a 50 km per hour zone. Marius had posted a video of himself on Instagram, and along with a series of laughing and crying emojis joked about the danger of the situation, according to Se og Hr. The outlet also claimed that police had categorised it as 'reckless driving', but the case was dropped after four days due to insufficient evidence. Local media say that Marius Borg Hiby (pictured in 2022) - who was arrested in August for assault, and again in September - was last year reported to the authorities for speeding up the driveway to Crown Princess Mette-Marit and Crown Prince Haakon's official residence FEMAIL has contacted the Norwegian Royal Household for comment. One Instagram photo, obtained by Se og Hr and understood to have been taken by a friend of Marius's, also shows a car smashed into a wire fence, captioned: '.....AND Marius is out!' It comes following reports that Skaugum was raided after Marius, 27, threw a 'wild party'. The Crown Prince and Princess's home was burgled, according to Norwegian news outlet Se og Hr. This reportedly occurred after Mette-Marit's son, who was arrested in August for assault, and again in September, held a party at the lavish property. Shortly after the get-together, a motorcycle gang reportedly stole private items from the Norwegian Royal Family. Items, including silverware, are alleged to have been taken and then attempted to be sold via an auction house. Marius, who is Mette-Maritt's son from a previous relationship, is said to have thrown parties known as 'Skaugum festival' for his friends at the residence, which the Crown Prince and Princess have called home since 2003. One Instagram photo, obtained by Se og Hr , also shows a car smashed into a wire fence, captioned: '.....AND Marius is out!' The Crown Prince and Princess have renovated the palace since moving in, turning it into luxury apartments. During the pandemic, they shared a glimpse inside their modern home, including in one photograph from inside their dining room (pictured) The home of Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway. The couple lives in Skaugum, an estate in the municipality of Asker One video, obtained by Se og Hor, shows a person using a Segway to navigate around the royal couple's private apartment, which appears to have been ransacked. Footage shows clothes thrown across the floor. MailOnline contacted The Norwegian Royal Household for comment at the time. The Crown Prince and Princess have renovated their home since moving in, turning it into luxury apartments, reported Hello! magazine. During the pandemic, they shared a glimpse inside their modern home, including in one photograph from inside their office during a video call. The room boasted a stylish blue colour scheme, with wooden panelling on the bottom half of the walls. Artwork and a gold-framed mirror decorated the space. Meanwhile, their dining room features grey sofas and a chic dining table, as well as more chic artwork. Earlier this month, the stepson of Crown Prince Haakon, often referred to as the 'black sheep' of the royal family of Norway, was taken into custody after breaching a restraining order. The restraining order in question was for the protection of Rebecca Helberg Arntsen, whom Borg Hiby admitted to assaulting, in a booze and drug-fuelled attack on 4 August, which saw him arrested for the first time and held in a police cell overnight. The order was not made immediately after the attack, but after Borg Hiby reportedly contacted the victim on several occasions following the assault. According to Norwegian tabloid Se Og Hor, Borg Hiby, 27, allegedly contacted his victim, whom he has previously referred to as his 'girlfriend', on Saturday, September 7, from a hidden telephone number. In a statement via his lawyer, Borg Hiby has strenuously denied the claim. Defender yvind Bratlien slammed the arrest as being made on 'thin' evidence and accused the police of 'reverse discrimination'. As reported by The Telegraph, on September 13 Marius was arrested once again, for allegedly allegedly violating an imposed restraining order. He was said to have been released the following day. Meanwhile the charges against Borg Hiby have expanded to also include three more victims, after other women came forward in the wake of his arrest. One of the further victims has not been named. However, two have been named as Borg Hiby's exes Juliane Snekkestad and Nora Haukland. The Norwegian royal family was rocked by Borg Hiby's first arrest at the beginning of August, after Rebecca Helberg Arntsen was left in hospital with her injuries following the attack. A week after his arrest, Borg Hiby sensationally admitted to the assault on Rebecca, whom he referred to as his 'girlfriend' (her lawyers have refuted this claim). The son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit from a previous relationship last month admitted to assaulting his 'girlfriend' in a booze and drug filled rage Borg Hiby, a former motor mechanic, has been previously labelled the 'black sheep' of the Norwegian royal family Borg Hiby (pictured with Prince Haakon in 2017) is under suspicion for causing bodily harm and criminal damage When he turned 20, the royal court announced Marius was stepping away from public life and his profile was removed from the family's official website Marius pictured with other members of the Norwegian royal family, including the King, Queen, and heir to the throne in June 2022 In a statement issued via his own lawyer, Borg Hiby said he suffers from 'several mental disorders' and has 'struggled with substance abuse for a long time', which he said he is resuming treatment for. The statement read: 'Last weekend something happened that should never have happened. I committed bodily harm and destroyed objects in an apartment in the intoxication of alcohol and cocaine after an argument. 'I have several mental disorders which mean that throughout my upbringing and adult life, I have had, and still have, challenges. I have struggled with substance abuse for a long time, something I have been in treatment for in the past. 'The drug use and my diagnoses do not excuse what happened in the apartment at Frogner on the night of Sunday last weekend. I want to be responsible for what I have done, and will explain myself truthfully to the police. 'For me, the most important thing is to say sorry to my girlfriend. She deserved neither what happened that night, nor the extreme pressure from both the Norwegian and foreign press afterwards.' Mette-Marit's eldest son also apologised to his family for his actions that have 'greatly affected you'. Borg Hiby, son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit from a previous relationship, was raised by his mother and stepfather with his half-siblings, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, 20, and Prince Sverre Magnus, 18, but unlike them he has no official public role. The arrest and his admission cast a shadow over the recent royal wedding in Norway as Princess Martha Louise wed American Shaman Durek Verrett on August 31 in Geiranger Fjord. Ahead of the nuptials, the Norwegian palace confirmed Borg Hiby would not be attending the wedding with his mother, stepfather and half-siblings. Norwegian media later reported that the former motor mechanic had turned down the invitation to attend an Italian wedding of the son of a billionaire and an influencer. However, when news of the assault and arrest came to light, Borg Hiby was uninvited from that wedding after guests threatened to pull out if he was in attendance. Marius arrived in Pisa ahead of the wedding of Karianne Vilde Spetalen and Kristian Spetalen, both 30. It is believed that guests thought Norwegian press would travel to Italy to document the wedding if Marius was present, a circumstance some did not feel comfortable with. Sources told Se og Hr that Norwegian influencer Karianne also faced backlash from her family regarding Marius's planned attendance. The scandal of the Norwegian royal family's 'black sheep' Borg Hiby's arrest has damaged some Norwegians' affection for their monarchy, MailOnline previously revealed. Traditionally the people of Norway are even more fervent royalists than Brits, but we found that young people in particular were less forgiving of Borg Hiby's behaviour. The touching letter is for sale at International Autograph Auctions Europe A touching letter from a five-year-old King Charles expressing his love for his 'dear Papa' has sold at auction for 5,700. The young prince wrote to Prince Philip in 1954 while he and the Queen were away on a Royal tour of Australia. They were away for nearly two months and it is clear how much Charles missed his father. He wrote on Buckingham Palace headed paper in block letters: 'Dear Papa, I am longing to see you in the ship. Love from Charles.' The back of the second page is covered in a series of crosses, representing affectionate hugs and kisses. A early letter from a young King Charles expressing his love for his 'dear Papa' has come to light 70 years on (pictured) The five year old wrote to Prince Philip in 1954 while he was on a Royal tour to Australia with the Queen The Queen was undertaking her first Royal tour of Australia, the first time a monarch had visited the far-away territory. She and Philip arrived in Sydney Harbour on board the SS Gothic in February 1954 and they travelled the country for 58 days. Charles and Princess Anne, who was aged three at the time, remained 10,000 miles away at home in London. The letter emerged for sale from a private collection at International Autograph Auctions Europe in Malaga, Spain. An undisclosed buyer paid a hammer price of 4,600 (5,500euros), with auctioneers fees taking the final figure to 5,740 (6,875euros). Pictured: Charles being lifted up by his father Philip, in the grounds of Windlesham Moor, the country home in Surrey Auctioneer Richard Davie said: 'It is quite extraordinary for letters of British monarchs written at such a young age to appear at auction. 'The only other similar example that I have offered previously was a letter written by Queen Victoria at the age of seven. 'The letter is particularly charming as it demonstrates how much the future King was missing his father, the Duke of Edinburgh, and, as has been well documented, Charles and Prince Philip did not always enjoy the warmest and closest of family relationships. 'The letter does at least show that in his early years Prince Charles did hold his father in affectionate regard, and he closes with a series of circles and crosses drawn beneath his signature, representing hugs and kisses.' In 1970, the Queen and Philip were accompanied by Charles and Anne on an Australian tour to mark the bi-centenary of Captain James Cook sailing up the east coast of Australia in 1770. Pictured: Philip and Charles during a visit to Dorset in October 2016 In 1988, Royal biographer Penny Juror said that Philip and Charles 'didn't speak to each other as normal father and son'. Addressing their different personalities in a 2016 interview with Gyles Brandreth, Philip said: 'Charles is a romantic - and I am a pragmatist.' In 1970, the Queen and Philip were accompanied by Charles and Anne on an Australian tour to mark the bi-centenary of Captain James Cook sailing up the east coast of Australia in 1770. In 1988, Royal biographer Penny Juror said that Philip and Charles 'didn't speak to each other as normal father and son'. Addressing their different personalities in a 2016 interview with Gyles Brandreth, Philip said: 'Charles is a romantic - and I am a pragmatist.' The sale of the letters is set to take place later this month on September 25. Speaking to the Radio Times, Gyles Brandreth previously revealed comments the Duke made to him about reported differences with his eldest son Prince Charles. Recalling the conversation, which took place some years ago before Charles married Camilla, he revealed: '"He's a romantic," he said, "and I'm a pragmatist. That means we do see things differently". 'He paused before adding, with a shrug, "And because I don't see things as a romantic would, I'm unfeeling".' However, Mr Brandreth noted that the relationship between father and son appeared to have grown closer in Philip's later years. He noted that the Duke seemed particularly grateful to Charles for arranging a family party at Windsor Castle to celebrate the Queen's 90th birthday and made a point of congratulating him for how successfully it went. Mr Brandreth also opened up about the secrets of the Queen's enduring partnership with the Duke of Edinburgh, saying that the key to their lasting union was the fact he makes her laugh. However, the writer who had been following the couple for more than 40 years revealed that their personalities are very different. The Duke was more outgoing than his wife, while she was the more patient one in the partnership. Their marriage certainly stood the test of time, since their wedding day in 1947, considering the family track record. Only one of the Queen's children, Prince Edward, has managed to maintain a successful marriage that hasn't ended in divorce. Prince Charles divorced his wife Lady Diana in 1996, four years after they separated. Prince Andrew's union with Sarah Ferguson ended in 1996 after a decade of marriage and Princess Anne split from her first husband Captain Mark Phillips when their daughter Zara was 11-years-old. Gritty student housing in the UK is predicted to become a thing of the past Renowned for their gritty digs and lack of cleanliness, bleak student houses will become a thing of the past as young people increasingly opt for luxury new builds. University goers will turn their backs on reputationally grotty uni accommodation and instead choose purpose-built accommodation, which come equipped with cinema rooms, pools and coffee bars, according to a new survey. According to study by Knight Frank/UCAS Student Accommodation Survey, by the end of the decade, second and third year students will mostly be selecting to live in, purpose-built student accommodation (known as PBSA) - or 'private halls'. But they aren't cheap, with some of the purpose-built accommodations costing more than the average UK annual wage, per year. Parents can expect to fork out more than 34,963 per year for their children to live in expansive complexes that come fully equipped with coffee bars, bean bag filled study areas, cinema rooms and onsite gyms. Posh university halls Hayloft Point (pictured) provides a gym, outdoor social space and even a cinema, for those willing to pay from 395 for a bed The average accommodation cost for a student in the UK is currently 166 a week while in London, the average is even steeper 212 for university accommodation and 259 for rooms in the private sector. Students hoping to escape the grim dwellings today have to spend roughly 7,356 per year to live in private halls. According to the latest Student Accommodation Survey by SaveTheStudent, private halls are the most expensive student accommodation in the UK. However, accommodation costing less than 200 will become a thing of past, according the the study, as young people increasingly choose well-located homes with gyms, cinemas, and fully kitted amenities. According to students who answered the survey, the biggest selling point in an accommodation now is one that supports their 'wellbeing' and 'mental health', which they put down as being important or very important. One example of the opulent new student housing market is at St Mary's in Bristol, where university goers can expect to pay 417 a week for access to work rooms with trendy industrial exposed walls and boardroom style tables. And the 'expensive room' costs an even more eye-watering 513. Rooms at St Mary's boast fully kitted kitchens - a faraway dream for most 18-year-olds - a concierge service, and the building is perched side-by-side with some of the best shops, restaurants, and even a nature reserve. And well-to-do students won't need to worry about their MacBooks and designer regalia as the cost of the room even includes contents insurance. Unite Students student accommodation Aberdeen Causeway (pictured). Parents can expect to fork out more than 34,963 per year for their sweethearts to live in expansive complexes that come fully equipped with coffee bars, bean bag filled study areas, cinema rooms and onsite gyms A room at Hayloft includes a stylish interior with built in shelves on the wall, a huge desk and even a posh suede chair A slightly cheaper alternative is on offer for students in Edinburgh, with studios costing 347 to 387 a week for the luxury of their chic interior including a slatted timber roof terrace with a shadow of Edinburgh Castle. Another is Hayloft Point in London - which is offered to students at Kings College London and Queen Mary University of London - that provides a gym, outdoor social space and even a cinema, for those willing to pay from 395 for a bed. The central London accommodation, located just outside Aldgate Tube Station, comes with a posh outdoor area from students to socialise, as well with an 'exhibition area' and self-described 'stylish common areas'. Another luxury home offering is in Aberdeen, where students can get access to an onsite gym, common area and communal study spaces. A fraction of the price of bedrooms in England, the Scottish dwelling offers en-suite rooms for just 138, with studio rooms costing 221. The former school offers chic loft-style studios with mezzanine floors, and a communal rooftop terrace for students to gather at the end of a long day of studying. One kitchen at St Mary's in Bristol. Students needn't worry about pots and pans since the accommodation comes with fully kitted kitchens Rooms at St Mary's boast fully kitted kitchens - a dream for most 18-year-olds - a concierge service, and is perched side-by-side with some of the best shops, restaurants, and even a nature reserve And well-to-do students at St Mary's won't need to worry about their MacBooks and designer regalia as the cost of the room even includes contents insurance A trendy looking room from the expensive St Mary's halls in Bristol. One example of the opulent new student housing market is at St Mary's in Bristol, where university goers can expect to pay 417 a week for access to work rooms with trendy industrial exposed walls and boardroom style tables Hayloft Point in London (pictured) comes with a posh outdoor area from students to socialise, as well with an 'exhibition area' and self-described 'stylish common areas' While most universities promise to house all of their first year students in halls, recent years have seen instances of students struggling to find beds. Attempting to remedy the problem is the UWE Bristol, who built a 900-bedroom student village at their Frenchay campus. Though young people will have to cough up far more than the average price of 166 a week, with rooms starting from 187.91 a week for an eight-bedroom shared flat - with one bathroom to be shared between two students. Those hoping for some peace and quiet should look no further than a self-contained studio or four-bed premium en suite flat - costing a nail-biting 274.80. One reason for the increased demand in posh property, is that young people are increasingly using social media to search for their future student digs. According to research from eWord, students have increasingly turned to their favourite apps to find housing with 80 per cent of them saying they used Instagram for housing research. Another luxury home offering is in Aberdeen, (pictured) where students can get access to an onsite gym, common area and communal study spaces A fraction of the price of bedrooms in England, Causeway View in Aberdeen (pictured) offers ensuite rooms for just 138 and studio rooms costing 221 UWE Bristol built a 900-bedroom student village at their Frenchay campus, complete with free gym memberships and an outdoor area A glamorous looking interior of a student bedroom at St Mary's in Bristol - included modern decor One fully kitted kitchen in Hayloft Point, pictured, reveals a modern grey interior and appliances Kitchens in Hayloft Point - pictured - come fully kitted with swanky new amenities and double ovens A significant 60 per said had used TikTok while 45 per cent had used YouTube, a far cry from the former days spent flicking through the accommodation pages of prospectus leaflets. The chief investment officer at ESP, Will Atkinson, told The Times that there are broadening gaps between what different calibers of students need in their homes. He said: 'There is a deep pool of demand from domestic and international students for well-located accommodation at higher price points in the UK's leading university towns and cities, provided PBSA operators can provide value for money through exceptional amenity spaces, customer service and an extensive student experience package.' The ongoing tussle to claim the title of the world's richest woman once again shifted this week, when LOreal heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers leapfrogged Walmart scion Alice Walton. Reclusive Madame Bettencourt Meyers saw herself the top of the financial tree once more, reported Forbes, thanks to a surge in luxury stock in Europe, which propelled her estimated wealth to a staggering net worth of $93.1 billion (around 69.3million). Meanwhile, Walton has seen her inherited wealth dip a little in recent days, to a more modest $90.4 billion (around 67.3million), after a dismal day's trading yesterday. It has been a short-lived reign as the world's richest female for the supermarket chain heiress, 74; she held the title for just three weeks - but things could change again with the markets; Walmart stock has performed well this year. Bettencourt Meyers - the granddaughter of L'Oreal founder Eugene Schueller - has generated much of her wealth, currently at around $93.1 billion, from her 35 per cent stake in the French beauty giant which she owns with her husband and their two sons The 71-year-old this week became the world's richest woman once more; pictured with her husband Jean-Pierre Meyers Meyers will wear her status lightly, preferring to spend her days playing her beloved grand piano and immersing herself in Greek mythology. While there is very little that is flashy about the French beauty mogul, it's proving an impossible task for any other billionaire to dethrone the 71-year-old long-term. Bettencourt Meyers - the granddaughter of L'Oreal founder Eugene Schueller - has generated much of her wealth from her 35 per cent stake in the French beauty giant which she owns with her husband Jean-Pierre Meyers and their two sons. Jean-Pierre is the grandson Rabbi Robert Meyers who was murdered at Auschwitz in 1943 and the couple's children, Jean-Victor and Nicolas Meyers, were raised Jewish. Their marriage sparked controversy as her L'Oreal founding grandfather was put on trial for 'economic and political collaboration' with the Nazis during the Second World War - although he was later cleared by a post-war court. Francoise Bettencourt Meyers has been crowned the richest woman in the world for the fourth year running She may not flaunt her wealth, but this stunning mansion was one of her childhood homes Francoise Bettencourt Meyers pictured with her socialite mother Liliane and cabinet minister father Andre As L'Oreal's share price shot up 20 per cent this year, it was Bettencourt Meyers that came out on top as she enhanced her fortune by a staggering $19billion, according to the annual Forbes rich list. The L'Oreal heiress is no stranger to the rich list, first making an appearance in 2018 when she was estimated to be worth $42.2billion following the death of her mother, Liliane Bettencourt, the year prior. In the last six years, L'Oreal's share price has soared 150 per cent - paving the way for Bettencourt Meyers - who has served on L'Oreal's board of directors since 1997 - to double her fortune. Despite her vast wealth, the beauty tycoon does not indulge in the same glamorous lifestyle that her socialite mother and former cabinet minister father were famed for. Liliane - who inherited her father's wealth and was previously the richest woman in the world - and her husband Andre Bettencourt were known for throwing exclusive parties. Bettencourt Meyers instead shuns the spotlight, choosing to live a quieter life where she is said to play piano for several hours a day. She owns two grand pianos, a Steinway and a Yamaha, which take pride of place in her elegant two-storey apartment in the wealthy Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. Her vast wealth is also reflected in her million-dollar mansions and her car collection which is said to include a Bentley Continental GT and a Porsche 911 Cabriolet. She began playing the piano as a child, having lessons from Yvonne Lefebure - a woman who counted the composers Faure and Ravel among her friends - at the exclusive Marymount School, in Paris, run by American nuns. Raised a strict Catholic, she is also a respected bible scholar and has written and published two books - a five-volume study of the Bible and a genealogy of the Greek gods. In his 2017 book The Bettencourt Affair, journalist Tom Sancton reflects that she was never comfortable with her status as heiress and rich girl, and could not have been less like her enthusiastic socialite mother. But she always insisted they were once a very 'close-knit family'. Francoise's marriage caused controversy as her grandfather Eugene Schueller (pictured), a pharmacist who invented a hair dye called L'Oreal in 1908, was put on trial for 'economic and political collaboration' with the Nazis during the Second World War Raised a strict Catholic, Francoise (pictured in 2011) is a respected bible scholar and has written books on topics ranging from Greek mythology to Jewish-Christian relations. Francoise also serves as the president of her family's philanthropic foundation, which supports French endeavours in the sciences and arts She owns two grand pianos, a Steinway and a Yamaha, which take pride of place in her elegant two-storey apartment in the wealthy Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine (pictured) Her vast wealth is also reflected in her million-dollar mansions and her car collection which is said to include a Bentley Continental GT (pictured) and a Porsche 911 Cabriolet Pictured: Francoise's socialite mother Liliane Bettencourt and former Cabinet minister father Andre Bettencourt are seen in 1997. The pair were known for throwing exclusive parties Pictured: Francoise Bettencourt Meyers (left) and mother Liliane Bettenourt leave the RITZ hotel on October 21, 2016 in Paris, France - a year before Liliane passed away making her daughter the richest woman in the world Sancton's book quotes childhood friend Arielle Dombasle: 'Francoise doesn't like luxury. She likes her Labrador. She adores her children and she loves her husband.' She is also known for her charity, serving as the president of her family's philanthropic foundation, which supports French endeavours in the sciences and arts. She pledged 173 million to repair efforts after fire that ravaged Notre Dame cathedral in 2019. But while she may not sing and dance about reigning over such a high-profile empire, Bettencourt Meyers could not avoid the headlines in the late-2000s when her inheritance became the subject of a sensational trial in France. The trial culminated in a longtime family friend and celebrity photographer being being convicted and jailed for three years after manipulating her ailing mother to access her extraordinary fortune. Bettencourt Meyers alleged that Francois-Marie Banier had manipulated her mother out of more than $1billion in art, cash, real estate and other gifts. On appeal, Banier received a four-year suspended sentence and was ordered to pay around $420,000 - but the trial sparked a public rift between the L'Oreal mother and daughter. French photographer and author Francois-Marie Banier explaining his works to Liliane Bettencourt (left) at Hans Lange Museum in Krefeld, Germany. In 2016, Banier was eventually convicted of 'abuse of weakness' of Francoise's elderly billionaire mother. He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and ordered to pay 158 million euros in damages 'My daughter could have waited patiently for my death instead of doing all she can to precipitate it,' Liliane said in a TV interview. In 2011, a court appointed Bettencourt Meyers as her mother's legal guardian following the late heiress' Alzheimer's diagnosis. The case had far-reaching consequences in French politics. The tape recording made by her butler also suggested that Liliane and her financial advisor were avoiding paying taxes by keeping cash hidden away in Swiss bank accounts. The tapes also allegedly captured a conversation between Liliane and Eric Woerth (then the French Minister of Labour) who was soliciting a job for his wife managing Bettencourt's wealth - all while acting as the country's budge minister and heading up a campaign to catch wealthy tax avoiders in the country. Her mother also received a 30million euro tax rebate while Woerth was the French budget minister. The scandal eventually embroiled other French politicians, including President Nicolas Sarkozy, over an envelope of cash given towards his 2007 campaign. Bettencourt Meyers married Jean-Pierre, a former director of Nestle, in 1984 but their marriage caused controversy because her grandfather was accused of siding with Nazis. Bettencourt Meyers married Jean-Pierre (pictured together), a former director of Nestle, in 1984 but their marriage caused controversy because her grandfather was accused of siding with Nazis. Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers pictured during a high-profile trial involving the manipulation of her ailing mother Although Schueller was cleared of 'economic and political collaboration' with the Nazis, he is known to have given financial support and held meetings for the La Cagoule group - a violent French fascist-leaning, antisemitic and anti-communist group whose leader formed a political party Mouvement Social Revolutionnaire. During the Second World War, MSR in occupied France supported the Vichy collaboration with the conquerors from Nazi Germany. After the war, he hired several members of the group as executives - a topic that was extensively researched by Israeli historian and author Michael Bar-Zohar in his book, Bitter Scent. Despite his history, the head office of the cosmetics company in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine is named Centre Eugene Schueller. Schueller founded L'Oreal in 1909 as he wanted to manufacture and market a hair dye that he had invented. L'Oreal is now one of the world's largest cosmetics companies, with $44billion in revenue last year from three dozen brands, including Maybelline, Kiehl's and Lancome. Celebrities such as Cindy Crawford, Beyonce and Penelope Cruz have helped advertised the brand, often using its slogan: 'Because I'm worth it'. It has banned customers from tipping and instead upped prices A New York City coffee shop has banned customers from giving gratuity amid growing frustrations about 'tipflation'. The Three Legged Cat is a well-loved coffee shop in the heart of Brooklyn that has had enough of turning an iPad towards customers for a tip and has bid farewell to gratuity. The cafe, which is located in East Williamsburg, opened over the summer and made it clear that it wouldn't be accepting any tips. On the bottom of its menu, the cafe notes that prices include tax and tip - adding that it is 'proud to guarantee every member of our team a living wage.' It reignited the fiery conversation surrounding tipping culture as people across the globe have been taking to social media to lament about 'tipflation,' including one man claiming the U.S. should be more like Italy, where customers aren't 'forced' to leave gratuity. A New York City coffee shop has banned customers from giving gratuity amid growing frustrations about tipflation (seen) And while some customers can't get enough of the removal of tip culture, others have blasted the cafe for raising prices. Anu Mohan, 34, works at a cancer hospital and often visits the Three Legged Cat. Speaking to the New York Post, he said: 'I dont have to decide how much to tip, I dont have to do math.' However, while he praises the removal of tipping culture, his wife, Cassandra Mohan, 37, doesn't agree with him - admitting that the pair often have debates about gratuity. She told the outlet: 'We have debates as a couple. For example, should you tip on the baked goods? I think you should [just] tip on the coffee because that is what they make, and Anu tips on the total as a percent [of the whole bill] no matter what.' And while being free to ditch giving gratuity is saving customers the hassle or awkwardness that comes with being faced with a tipping screen on a monitor, it's not saving them money. At the Three Legged Cat, a drip coffee rings in at $4.50 while a latte costs $7.50, which is about $1 more than other shops in the area, according to the New York Post. Meanwhile at Gowanus, Brooklyn coffee shop Principles GI, owner Katie Bishop revealed that after bidding farewell to tipping, many customers found it 'refreshing.' The Three Legged Cat is a well-loved coffee shop in the heart of Brooklyn that has had enough of turning an iPad towards customers for a tip and has bid farewell to gratuity The minimum wage in New York City for food service workers is $16 an hour. Employers may provide a $10.65 cash wage as well as a $5.35 tip allowance. 'Tipflation' seems to have recently reached its breaking point as new data showed that Americans are cutting back on gratuity out of frustration over being bombarded with tipping prompts. Data from payroll provider Gusto shows tipping for service workers in non-restaurant leisure and hospitality jobs is down seven percent from last year, The Wall Street Journal reported. As of November, those workers made on average $1.28 an hour in tips, a decrease from the $1.38 an hour they made the year before. Nearly three quarters of Americans say tipping is now expected in more places compared to five years ago, according to a poll by Pew Research Center. The cafe, which is located in East Williamsburg, opened over the summer and made it clear that it wouldn't be accepting any tips (stock image) Touch screens in taxis and coffee shops now suggest gratuities of 20 percent, 25 percent and even more. Meanwhile, at a bridal shop in Connecticut called A Little Something White, brides-to-be are encouraged to leave tips, and must hit custom amount and enter zero on the screen to decline, according to The Wall Street Journal. In one extreme example, a trader was left outraged when an Alaska restaurant presented him with the option to tip 100 percent. People have turned to social media to make satire out of their frustration with tip screens seemingly popping up everywhere. The $8 lip gloss case from Kmart is a 'perfect' dupe of Rhode's $50 lip case Kmart fans are racing into stores to snap up an $8 version of a celebrity created 'cult' item that was an instant sell out all over the world. The iPhone Lip Gloss Case from Kmart bears a striking resemblance to Hailey Bieber's $50 Rhodes brand lip case which is an 'it' fashion accessory. Jarnah McMillian couldn't wait to share the new release which is already flying out of stores across the country, with her video attracting more than 865,000 likes. 'Um, okay Kmart...$8,' she captioned the clip, followed by a folded hands emoji. 'Literally, what do Kmart not sell?' The handy and 'chic' design features a built in lip gloss compartment which allows for easy touch ups of lip colour and moisture throughout the day. The bargain cases are made to fit iPhone models 12/12 Pro, 13/14 Pro and the 11 and come in brown, nude and a pastel purple, with lip gloss not included. Scroll down for video The iPhone Lip Gloss Case ($8) from Kmart is near identical to Hailey Bieber's cult skincare brand Rhode's lip case which retails for $50 and has sold out several times Shoppers wasted no time in coveting the new release and said they couldn't wait to purchase it for themselves, even congratulating Kmart for 'working overtime'. 'OMG, running now,' one said. 'It's not a want it's a need,' another added. But many were left devastated after discovering that there were no pink or white cases, and that the popular new product didn't suit their phone size or band. 'I'm crying into my 15 plus,' one said. The bargain Kmart case ($8) has a built in lip compartment for holding gloss and comes in a range of sizes and colours, but doesn't fit all iPhone shapes such as the 15 and 15 Pro 'I'm crying into my android,' another added. One shopper advised people who couldn't fit their phones into the bargain lip case to purchase the Lanolips add on which fixes onto any size case. 'It acts like a phone grip, you just stick it on,' she said. This comes after Kmart wowed fans with the release of their summer-inspired beauty range that smells just like a celebrity perfume. The OXX Fragrance Summer Season Summer Solstice Body Mist ($8) is said to be near identical to Ariana Grande's Thank U Next perfume which retails for up to $70. The 'stunning' scent has notes of candy floss, vanilla and coconut is also available in the a body cream ($8). 'If you like Thank U Next from Ariana Grande, this is exactly what it smells like,' one said. 2024 China-ASEAN International Consumption Season kicks off People's Daily Online) 09:14, September 27, 2024 The 2024 China-ASEAN International Consumption Season kicks off in Nanning, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Sept. 24, 2024. (Photo courtesy of the event organizer) The 2024 China-ASEAN International Consumption Season was officially launched during the 2024 China-ASEAN Silk Road (Cross-border) E-commerce Open Cooperation Promotion Event held in Nanning, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Sept. 24, 2024. The consumption season is slated to run from September to October this year. It features five major sections, with each highlighting a distinctive aspect of consumption, such as convenient payment, high-quality and cost-effective consumption, enjoyable consumer experiences, delicious food and recreational activities, as well as specialty products from the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Over 500 promotional activities have been scheduled for the consumption season, aiming to facilitate global exchanges and cooperation, expand the domestic market supply with high-quality international goods and services, promote consumption upgrading and unleash consumption potential. Vietnam and northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, as the guest country of honor and guest provincial-level region of honor, respectively, of the 2024 China-ASEAN Silk Road (Cross-border) E-commerce Open Cooperation Promotion Event, are allowed to showcase their featured products and local specialties at themed exhibition halls dedicated to them during the consumption season. Specialty products from Vietnam and Xinjiang are expected to be introduced to online consumers via a livestreaming promotion campaign that will last a week. During the livestreaming promotions, consumers will be invited to vote for their favorite products and make purchases online, while enjoying the unique charm of exotic cultures. As the only province-level region in China that is connected to ASEAN by land and sea, Guangxi is at the forefront of and serves as a window for the open cooperation between China and ASEAN. ASEAN has been Guangxi's largest trading partner for 24 consecutive years. In recent years, Guangxi has leveraged its geographical and resource advantages to boost digital trade with ASEAN, promoting foreign trade transformation and upgrading, facilitating the steady growth of cross-border e-commerce, and creating new opportunities for international trade cooperation. (Web editor: Hongyu, Du Mingming) You're getting ready to give a big presentation at work, when suddenly nature calls. Your nervous bathroom trips can be explained by the invisible thread connecting your head to your intestines, Dr Nicole Cain, who is based in Arizona, said. Doctors have only recently begun examining the complex relationship between the brain and the digestive system. 'The gut and the brain, they communicate on a bi-directional axis and that's called the gut brain microbiome, or the gut brain microbial axis,' Dr Cain told DailyMail.com. 'And we have found that the gut bugs actually do a lot more talking than the brain.' The stomach sensations you might feel when nervous are evidence of the gut-brain axis Her advice is to practice deep, slow breathing, when you feel the anxiety building. Avoiding foods high in fiber and caffeine can also limit the effects. Dr Cain started focusing on the gut-brain connection in medical school after seeing a patient with a crippling case of Crohn's disease and anxiety. The patient would spend days lying on the bathroom floor, with joint pain and chronic diarrhea, and no treatments were working. Eventually, targeted treatment helped her get her GI symptoms under control, and at the same time, her anxiety seemed to miraculously disappear. This, Dr Cain said, made her think: 'There is something profound to this connection.' Before a first date, big test or public speech, our brain may begin shooting off stress and anxiety signals. These tell the body to release chemicals like cortisol, serotonin and adrenaline. These messengers travel throughout the body, sending your heart rate and blood pressure into overdrive and attaching to receptors in the gut. This causes a 'tight, or churning' feeling,' stimulating your intestines and creating waves of contractions that tell you you need to head to the porcelain throne. You might find that when the anxiety ceases, you don't have to go anymore. Other times, your body actually works something up in this storm, and only releases it when you're able to relax, and your body is able to let go of the stool. 'Immediately after the adrenaline rush is when everything may start to hit you at once,' gastroenterologist Dr Christine Lee told the Cleveland Clinic. On the flip side, depression can also impact the gut. For some people dealing with depression, the condition is caused by an imbalance in chemicals called neurotransmitters. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter which helps control sleep, sex drive, mood and digestion. Between 90 and 95 percent of it is manufactured in the digestive system, according to the University of Pennsylvania. Dr Cain became attuned to the gut-brain axis after a patient with a severe case of Crohn's disease and anxiety seemingly had both cured simultaneously This has caused researchers to theorize that for some depression patients, the problem could originate in gut dysfunction - since its possible their digestive system just isn't manufacturing enough serotonin to keep the brain running smoothly. In addition, serotonin itself makes changes within the gut. 'There are more serotonin receptors in the intestinal tract than in the brain. Because of this, serotonin has just as big of a role in the intestinal tract as it does in the brain' Dr Lee said. In the the GI tract, serotonin helps control how fast food moves through your intestines, how much fluid is produced to help break down and move food and how sensitive you are to sensations like fullness and gut pain. Research has found similar, odd links, between gastrointestinal health and depression. Implanting stool samples from people with depression into rats without bacteria led them to developing symptoms of depression, like disinterest in their normal activities, a 2016 University College Cork study found. A large 2023 study which reviewed fecal samples from over 1000 people found that those with depression all had low levels of a bacteria called Eubacterium ventriosum, compared to individuals without depression. This suggested that the lack of this bacteria could be contributing to the condition. One final way the gut and brain connection is on display is through the Vagus nerve, Dr Cain said. The hormones and neurotransmitters released during a stress response have many receptors in the gastrointestinal tract The Vagus nerve is one of a set of 12 large nerves that extend directly from the brain into the body. It controls a whole host of functions that you can't control by sheer will, including digestion, heart rate and the immune system. One of its most important roles is to shift your body from stress to decompress. After leaving a situation you're stressed in, your vagus nerve activates, steadying your heart rate, reducing anxiety and stimulating your immune system. This also sets your gut back to rest, working on processing food and delivering energy at a calm speed. Some naturopaths, like Dr Cain, say that this system can be 'hacked' to your benefit. If you notice yourself becoming anxious or stressed in a situation that doesn't require it, you can try to activate your vagus nerve, setting your body, and gut, into a hard reset. Deep breathing exercises, mindfulness, cold exposure and meditation can switch your vagus nerve back 'on' - calming you down, Dr Cain said. Whether its through anxiety, depression or simple vagus nerve simulation, each of us has to deal with the odd interaction of the gut and brain, Dr Cain said, 'instead of feeling shame and embarrassment about it, is understanding that this is your body giving you information. 'We are, by and large, the products of our gut.' Doctors are warning about the rise of a dangerous trend among children that sees them inhale toxic fumes from nail polish and marker pens to get 'high'. Videos showing people 'chroming', or 'huffing', have racked up tens of millions of views on TikTok with many users talking about being 'addicted'. In one clip posted to social media, a girl can be seen sniffing the fumes from a a roll-on deodorant while walking around her home. The concerning trend among teenagers was reported by doctors at the American Academy of Pediatrics annual conference in Orlando, Florida. They are urging other doctors and parents to be sure they are aware of the trend in order to better protect children. The above shows a young girl sniffing on a roll-on deodorant. She appears to be trying chroming Esra Haynes, pictured, suffered from a cardiac arrest after inhaling aerosol deodorant fumes - called chroming - and died days later from irreparable brain damage In rare cases, the habit could also be fatal with a 13-year-old girl in Australia having died last year after inhaling chemicals from a deodorant can. In March this year, an 11-year-old boy from the UK went into cardiac arrest and died after trying chroming while at a sleepover at a friend's house. Dr Keerthi Krishna, a pediatric researcher at Cohen's Children's Medical Center who led the research, said: 'What is particularly concerning about chroming is that it uses everyday household items that are easily accessible to teens. 'The covert nature of these items means that parents and teachers are less likely to detect the behavior, significantly increasing the risk of repeated usage and addiction among adolescents.' In their research, to be presented at the conference, the team analyzed 109 videos from social media of chroming which had 25million views. They found that permanent markers were the most common chroming item, appearing in 31 percent of the videos. Air dusters were the second most common, in 17 percent of videos, followed by nail polish, 12 percent, paint thinner, gasoline and spray deodorant, 11 percent for each. About six percent of the videos analyzed also showed users sniffing hair spray. More than half of the videos referenced repeated usage or addiction. Permanent markers contain chemicals which evaporate rapidly once the pens are used in order to help ink dry quickly. If someone inhales the fumes from the marker, however, these chemicals can enter the bloodstream and then the brain causing feelings of dizziness and euphoria. Scientists have suggested that this happens because the chemicals 'slow down' the nervous system giving someone a 'high'. Tommie-lee Gracie Billington, 11, (pictured) died in an incident at a home in Greenset Close, Lancaster, UK, after trying chroming while at a sleepover They warn users could also suffer from slurred speech, hallucinations, nausea and vomiting as a result of the inhalation. In some cases, it could also cause a heart attack or permanent damage to organs like the brain if someone has trouble breathing. The National Survey on Drug Abuse and Health suggests that half-a-million children aged 12 to 18 in the US have used an inhalant. The National Institutes of Health says online that chroming is 'deliberate inhalation of volatile substances and can cause serious harm to the integrity of the central nervous system and disrupt normal trajectories of psychological, emotional and neurobiological development'. In their presentation, the authors are set to conclude that parents and pediatricians need to be aware of this trend and its dangers and say social media companies should do more to prevent the spread of such harmful content. They will present their findings Saturday at the Orange County Convention Center during the American Academy of Pediatrics 2024 National Conference and Exhibition. Babies born through IVF are up to twice as likely to suffer potentially deadly heart defects, a major study has found. Those conceived through assisted reproductive technology such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF) have a significantly higher chance of congenital heart issues. This risk rises further if they were born a twin, research involving more than 7.7 million people found. Experts said the discovery could help clinicians make faster diagnoses, with babies often requiring immediate surgery. Researchers studied health records of all liveborn children born in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden over a period spanning between 20 and 31 years. Babies born through IVF are up to twice as likely to suffer potentially deadly heart defects, a major study has found Those conceived through assisted reproductive technology such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF, pictured close-up) have a significantly higher chance of congenital heart issues They compared data on babies born following assisted reproduction, including IVF, intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and embryo freezing, with data on babies conceived naturally. They assessed how many liveborn children in each group were diagnosed with a major heart defect or with a serious heart defect either in the womb or in the first year of life. Factors such as child's year of birth, country of birth, mother's age at delivery, if the mother smoked during pregnancy, or if the mother had diabetes or heart defects were taken into account. Heart defects were around 36 per cent more common in babies born after assisted reproduction, compared to babies naturally conceived, with the risk similar regardless of the type used. Twins or other multiple birth babies were more than twice as likely to have a major heart defect than the rest of the population, at 2.47 and 1.15 per cent, respectively. Scientists said the findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal Heart, may indicate that there is some common factor underlying infertility in parents and congenital heart disease in their babies. Heart defects were around 36 per cent more common in babies born after assisted reproduction, compared to babies naturally conceived Professor Ulla-Britt Wennerholm, of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, said: 'Congenital heart defects can be extremely serious requiring specialist surgery when babies are very young, so knowing which babies are at the greatest risk can help us diagnose heart defects as early as possible and ensure the right care and treatment are given. 'More and more people are conceiving with the help of assisted reproductive technology, so we might expect to see increases in cases of congenital heart defects worldwide.' Almost 400,000 have been born in the UK using IVF since 1991, according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Scientists said it was important couples undertaking the procedure were aware of the potential risks, such as other birth defects or lower birth rate. In an accompanying editorial, Dr Nathalie Auger, from University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre in Canada, said: 'While most neonates born after assisted reproductive technology are healthy, these procedures are not without risks. She added: 'Patients who use assisted reproductive technology tend to differ from the general population. 'These patients may have underlying morbidities that affect both fertility and the risk of heart defects.' One of Britain's most senior medics fought back tears as he recalled scenes 'from hell' on intensive care wards during the Covid pandemic, including dying patients 'raining from the sky'. Professor Kevin Fong, who was tasked with helping to direct an emergency response to the crisis, said hospitals were dealing with the equivalent of daily 'terrorist attacks'. Addressing the Covid Inquiry which runs until 2026 he also detailed how other units were so overwhelmed they ran out of body bags. The consultant anesthetist said he made more than 40 visits to intensive care wards on behalf of NHS England to report back from the frontline. But the 'scale of death' was 'very difficult to capture' in these reports, which were sent to officials including England's chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty. Professor Kevin Fong, who was tasked with helping to direct an emergency response to the crisis, said hospitals were dealing with the equivalent of daily 'terrorist attacks' Addressing the Covid Inquiry, he also detailed how other units were so overwhelmed they ran out of body bags At least 235,000 Brits are thought to have been killed by the virus since the pandemic began, with further fatalities caused by the disruption to the NHS and regulars screening for health issues like cancer. Describing his first visit in April 2020, Professor Fong told the inquiry: 'I was greeted at the entrance by one of the intensive care registrars. 'I asked him immediately what things had been like. I'll never forget he replied: "It's been like a terrorist attack every day since this started, and we don't know when the attacks are going to stop". 'The scale of death experienced by the intensive care teams during Covid was unlike anything they had ever seen before. 'They're no strangers to death they are the intensive care unit. 'They look after some of the sickest patients in the hospital, but the scale of death was truly, truly astounding.' He added: 'We had nurses talking about patients raining from the sky, where one of the nurses told me they just got tired of putting people in body bags. '[One hospital] said that sometimes they were so overwhelmed that they were putting patients in body bags, lifting them from the bed, putting them on the floor, and putting another patient in that bed straight away because there wasn't time.' In another hospital, nurses took to wearing adult nappies because they were so stretched they could not take toilet breaks, he told the probe. Others went to Screw Fix to buy visors for their own protective equipment. Professor Fong was giving evidence to the inquiry's third module assessing the impact of the Covid pandemic on healthcare systems in the UK. This has consisted of three weeks of public hearings to date and will run until the end of November. The former national clinical adviser in emergency preparedness, resilience and response at NHS England, who repeatedly broke down in tears, also said he was on the scene of the Soho bombing in 1999 and worked in A&E during the 7/7 attacks. 'Nothing I saw during all of those events was as bad as really Covid was every single day for every single one of these hospitals through the pandemic surges,' he added. 'I worked on a shift where we had six deaths in a single shift. Another hospital told us that they had 10 deaths on a shift, two of whom were their own staff. 'We went to another unit where things got so bad they were so short of resources, they ran out of body bags and instead were stuck with nine-foot clear plastic sacks and cable ties.' The human and financial cost of the Covid pandemic was much worse than it should have been because the UK was not adequately prepared for it, a scathing report has concluded. Pictured the National Covid Memorial Wall Your browser does not support iframes. He described Covid as the 'biggest national emergency this country has faced since World War Two'. It comes as the Inquiry's first report in July concluded that the UK Government's failure to prepare for a 'forseeable' pandemic led to mass death, 'untold misery' and 'economic turmoil'. Chair Baroness Heather Hallett said a 'damaging absence of focus' on measures that would be needed to deal with a fast-spreading disease was to blame for 'the tragedy of each individual death'. The 240-page document also called for 'radical reform' in order to safeguard against future pandemics and warned: 'It is not a question of 'if' one will strike but 'when'.' In her moving 2,000 word foreword, Baroness Hallett concluded that 'never again can a disease be allowed to lead to so many deaths and so much suffering'. 'Had the UK been better prepared for and more resilient to the pandemic, some of that financial and human cost may have been avoided,' she added. Families, communities and businesses were torn apart by a series of paralysing lockdowns ministers brought it in an attempt to curb Covid's spread. Your browser does not support iframes. Preparedness for a civil emergency must now be treated in 'much the same way as we treat a hostile state', she recommended. Responsibility for the strategy fell to three successive Conservative health secretaries: Andrew Lansley, Jeremy Hunt, who was in charge from 2012 to 2018, and Matt Hancock, health secretary during the pandemic. The report questioned the failure of ministers, including former chancellor Mr Hunt, the longest serving health secretary in modern times, to challenge 'group think' that overlooked the threat from a coronavirus, such as Covid. This first inquiry module, examining pandemic preparations before Covid struck, consisted of 23 days of public hearings held in central London during June and July last year. Other modules include examining the decision-making process in the pandemic across the UK, vaccines, PPE procurement, the care sector, the pandemic's effect on children and the economy. Beautician and TV star Jordan James Parke has been thrust into the limelight this week following the death of Alice Webb who died hours after having a non-surgical BBL procedure. It is reported that Ms Webb, a 33 year-old mother-of-five, underwent the procedure at The Studio 23 clinic in Gloucester, which is run by beautician Jemma Pawlyszyn and Parke, 32, dubbed the 'British Lip King'. Earlier this week, Parke told MailOnline he'd been arrested in relation to the death, but has since been released. Now, MailOnline can reveal shocking images of the plastic surgery obsessive that show what he looked like before undergoing a series of cosmetic treatments. Jordan James Parke's plastic surgery 'obsession' was born out of a desire to look like reality star Kim Kardashian. Parke, who appeared on US reality show Botched in 2019, is said to have had more than 50 procedures, including eyelid surgery, a lip lift, a chin implant, several rounds of liposuction and four nose jobs. In a 2016 interview he said: 'Plastic surgery is like sex. You can't have it once. You have to have it over and over. 'And if the surgeon's good, you keep having it with the same guy.I was once a lip disaster, but now I'm known in England as the Lip King.' But images dating back to his school days reveal a plumper face, natural smile and a much smaller pout. Prior to his first cosmetic tweak aged 19, Parke is seen with seemingly little cosmetic tweaks apart from plucked eyebrows. His desire to transform his looks was rooted in an obsession with the aesthetic of the Kardashian family, he told The Mirror in 2016. Parke, who grew up in Birmingham, is pictured in his early days. The beautician is said to have undergone his first procedure aged 19. Pictured as a younger man, Jordan James Park appears to have a much more natural look 'It's the whole family [I take inspiration from], but mainly Kim. But I love them all, their looks, the way they dress, they're just an inspiration. 'I wanted my chin like Kylie Jenner's, with a really defined jawline. I love her jawline and she's got such a sharp chin.' In the same year the then 24 year-old, who grew up in Birmingham, flew to Poland for a second nose job, as well as a chin implant and jaw line and neck liposuction. He said: 'I just thought, you know what, I wanted it all done, so just get it done in one op.' Ms Webb died on Monday, just hours after having the procedure which is thought to have involved the injection of chemical fillers, known as a 'liquid BBL'. She had travelled to the Gloucester clinic from her home in Wotton-under-Edge. Later on Monday evening, Alice was rushed to hospital but died in the early hours of Tuesday morning. It is the first time a person has died in the UK from the procedure and comes after campaign group Save Face called for tighter controls in the cosmetic market warning that 'people could die'. Parke is a Kim Kardashian fan who has spent more than 130,000 on cosmetic surgery Jorden James Parke, 32, has undergone more than 50 procedures to totally transform his face. Parke first came to the public's attention in 2015, when he appeared on US reality TV Botched asking doctors if they could help fix his 'leaking lips'. Then 23, he'd had more than 50 lip-filling procedures and regular Botox injections, which he funded via his own business and family loans. Doctors on the show refused him a second nose job due concerns that his desired 'pinched' nose would affect his ability to breathe. He appeared on the show again in 2019 when he was also rejected for surgery to reshape his nose. It would involve taking a piece of his rib and inserting it into the nose, doctors said a procedure that would be far too risky. They also advised against any future plastic surgeries warning he'd land himself in a 'vicious cycle'. A liquid Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) is designed to make buttocks bigger, more rounded or lifted and sees fat or dermal filler injected into the buttocks to change size or shape. A GoFundMe page set up for Alice Webb, where tributes have been shared to the much-loved mother-of-five Alice Webb, 33, died just hours after having the liquid BBL procedure earlier this week This is different from surgical BBLs that involve extracting fat from other areas of the body and then transferring it to the buttocks. While non-surgical BBLs are not illegal in the UK, last year Wolverhampton City Council barred a company from carrying out the procedure after identifying risks associated with their processes, including blood clots, sepsis, and the potential for the death of body tissues. Five local authorities in Essex and Glasgow followed suit and have banned certain companies from carrying out liquid BBLs in their area. Unlike with facial fillers where complications can be managed by skilled injectors, these procedures often require hospital settings, intravenous drugs, and surgical intervention to rectify. A Save Face survey of more than 2,200 health professionals who practice aesthetic medicine also saw 98 per cent of them say they do not offer liquid BBLs, given there is 'high risk of multiple complications'. The organisation has long called for the Government to ban the procedure. The Studio 23 sign could be seen at the property when MailOnline visited it in Gloucester Save Face Registrant and Plastic Surgeon Dr Paul Baguley said: 'There is nothing about the way this treatment is currently offered that is either safe, moral, or ethical. 'The only outcome from this procedure is an unquestioningly poor result which comes at great cost to the patient who is drawn in by false advertising into a shockingly dangerous environment with a very real potential of death from complications.' In March, a mother-of-one also called for a ban on liquid BBLs after a botched procedure left her buttocks with leaking black holes and in pain 'worse than childbirth'. Traditional BBLs, meanwhile, are one of the most dangerous types of cosmetic surgery available. The risk of death is higher than most operations, currently estimated at one in 15,000. Surgeons can accidentally inject the fat into the bloodstream which can cause a potentially deadly blood clot. Such a complication is what killed Leah Cambridge, 29, a British mother who died in August 2018 after paying 6,500 to get a BBL in Turkey. Alice Webb is the first person to die from a liquid BBL procedure on British soil. The UK Government's plan to add a chemical to tap water poses a 'an unreasonable risk to human health', according to a US court ruling. Earlier this year ministers announced the upcoming launch of a scheme to add fluoride into the drinking water supplies of another 1.6million Brits in a bid to improve the nation's oral health. But concluding a seven-year legal battle between environmental health chiefs and water safety campaigners, a Californian judge stated that higher levels of the chemical are 'hazardous', particularly to children. The judge ordered the US Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate the levels of flouride in American tap water. A Californian judge has ruled that flouride in tap water should be monitored due to its 'unreasonable' risk to childrens' health The court heard 'substantial and scientifically credible evidence' about the health harms, including findings that suggest flouride exposure can lower IQs in children. Judges in the US have set the safe level of flouride in water to 0.4 mg/L. The UK Government wants levels to be twice this. While once thought of as a tin-foil hat theory, scientists are increasingly warning of the dangers of exposure to high doses of the naturally-occurring mineral over the course of a lifetime. Stephen Peckham, professor of health policy at the University of Kent, told The Telegraph: 'The ruling is important because it is forcing the regulatory authority in the US to take action, and it is pretty clear that beyond a particular level there is an unacceptable risk. 'The view of the judge is that the evidence is overwhelming. 'Fluoridation has brain implications and my personal view is that the weight of the evidence is very much against community fluoridation.' This map shows areas in the England and Wales where fluoride is directly added to drinking water supplies. Some areas of the UK have naturally high levels of the mineral in the water and are not represented in this map Several studies published over the last few years have raised concerns about high levels of flouride and links to health problems. Earlier this year, American experts examined a group of 230 mother and child pairs, and found those with higher fluoride levels in pregnancy had increased odds of having child with a neurobehavioral issue by the time their infant turned three. These issues included symptoms of anxiety and emotional regulation. Children born to women with higher levels of fluoride in their urine were also more likely to report suffering headaches and stomach pain, the authors noted. Other studies have linked excessive quantities of the mineral to babies being born with Down's syndrome, as well as kidney stones and some cancers. Just 6.1million Britons around 10 per cent of the population currently receive water with fluoride levels sufficient to benefit oral health, according to the British Fluoridation Society. These areas include Hartlepool, Easington, parts of North Hampshire and South Berkshire However, the NHS and experts like the Government's chief medical officer Sir Chris Whitty say these claims are not backed up by evidence. Professor Whitty has previously described them as 'exaggerated and unevidenced'. Health bosses have estimated that adding fluoride to more water supplies in the UK could prevent two-thirds of hospital admissions for tooth decay, an issuing costing the NHS, and by extension the taxpayer, millions. Some 5.8million Britons live in areas where fluoride also added to toothpastes and mouthwashes is placed in tap water, about a tenth of the population. However, there are Government plans to expand this to another 1.6million people in the North East. The 5.8 million figure doesn't include areas in the UK where water supplies are naturally high in fluoride, about 300,000 people drink supplies naturally fluoridated by rocks in the ground. Fluoridation is much more common in the US, with about 73 per cent of the population having the mineral added to their water supply at a concentration of about 0.7 mg per litre. If you've ever been tempted to scroll though your own social media profiles, imagining what others might think of your life, you're not alone. According to author and psychotherapist Eloise Skinner, it's a perfectly natural phenomenon that many people indulge in. And the explanation why is intriguing. Essentially, it's all rooted in our desire to learn more about who we are as a person. 'The desire to understand how we're perceived has been present in human instinct for generations,' said the mental health professional. 'As we try to understand ourselves answering the timeless question of who am I? we often draw on the opinions and reflections of others to guide us.' Looking at our own social media is a way of attempting to understand our identities, a psychologist explained. And when this feedback isn't immediately available, Ms Skinner explained to Mashable, we try to imagine what it may be by examining what others would see when looking at our social media profiles. This need for social acceptance and status has been shaped over the years by evolution, added psychologist Zoe Mallet. As a result, all humans have a deep-seated need for social approval that's only amplified by social media. 'It's a subconscious attempt to enhance our social standing, increase our chances of belonging and create a positive self-image, which is part of our survival coping mechanisms as humans,' said Mallet. Stalking one's own social media is just another way to control others' perception of oneself, she explained. The act can also be a way of trying to make sense of the past, leaving us unable to get on with the present. For others, however, self-stalking can be rooted in perfectionism. '[It] could stem from a feeling of insecurity about our sense of identity, how we appear to others, or even a critical feeling about what we post and where we should improve,' said Ms Skinner. 'There's a greater awareness of how we compare to others online in other words, it's easier to hold up our digital lives against someone else's, to see what we like or don't like.' For most, this is harmless, but for some, it can become a damaging preoccupation. 'Social media can act as a storage unit for older versions of ourselves and our identities, so reflecting with appreciation, nostalgia or thoughtfulness can be a supportive, beneficial activity,' Ms Skinner added. But if self-stalking leaves you overly wrapped up in the past, be wary. 'If it makes us more self-conscious, self-absorbed or distracted from whatever we'd like to use social media for, it's worth rethinking the habit,' she said. 'When we post, we're validated by the responses we receive and get a hit of dopamine,' added Dr Mallet. 'We want that hit again and again, so of course we'll head back to the source where we experienced it before. 'It's not that we're addicted to looking at our own Instagram. We're addicted to the feeling we get when we do.' A whopping 56.2 million people in the UK are active on social media, and spend an average of one hour and 49 minutes on different platforms each day. But experts have warned that too much time spent on social media can have negative effects on mental health, particularly among young people. A number of studies have found a strong link between heavy social media use and an increased risk for depression. And recent data from the US shows that adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media have double the risk of anxiety symptoms. As of 2023, the average daily usage of this age group was 4.8 hours. More than half of adolescents also say routinely scrolling through social media makes them feel bad about their bodies, according to studies. A Polish heart doctor working in the NHS has been suspended after failing a tenth attempt to pass English exams. Astonishingly, it's the fifth time in 18 years Dr Tomasz Fryzlewicz, 65, has been punished for his poor grasp of the language. Yet, between suspensions, he's been employed as a heart specialist at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Essex, University College London Hospital, Royal Stoke University Hospital and the Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield. Despite being repeatedly reprimanded and branded a danger to patients the medic, who moved to the UK in 2006, claims he has been the victim of a 'witch hunt'. Dr Fryzlewicz was first reported to the General Medical Council (GMC) in 2014 for his language issues. Dr Tomasz Fryzlewicz, 65, has been barred from treating patients in the UK after failing a tenth attempt to pass language exams. it's the fourth time as been suspended for poor English In 2021 the cardiologist was branded a risk to patients having failed seven language tests and was laid of for ten months yet was permitted to return to work He was ordered to report to the doctors' regulator on an annual basis, and later insisted he watched TV and listened the radio in a bid to pick up better English. Initially Dr Fryzlewicz, from Plymouth, was allowed to work in hospitals under supervision. But at his third employment tribunal in 2017 he was suspended from practise for six months after failing to improve his English. He was readmitted under supervision in 2018 but was banned again in 2020 for 12 months. In 2021 the cardiologist was laid off for a further ten months. Dr Fryzlewicz was allowed back to work in 2022 with a condition he successfully passed an English exam within the next 18 months. But by 2023 he was banned again for 12 months and given a ninth opportunity to take them again after failing the tests twice in eight months. At his latest tribunal Dr Fryzlewicz was suspended for a year and offered another chance to pass his exams. He cannot be struck off over language issues but will face a hearing next year. Some colleagues who worked with Dr Fryzlewicz have claimed they weren't always sure he understood what they said. Dr Simon Woldman, clinical director of specialised cardiology at Barts NHS Trust told a tribunal in 2014: 'When I spoke to Dr Fryzlewicz, I was never really sure that he had understood the instructions he was being given... 'When [he] spoke, you had to concentrate quite hard to understand what he was saying.' Earlier Fryzlewicz had condemned GMC investigators as 'un-humanitarian bureaucrats' and also claimed he was a victim of 'indirect discrimination' due to his nationality. He said 'revenge was being sought' as he was 'a Polish, Catholic cardiologist consultant earning money in UK hospitals'. A colleague told a tribunal in 2014: 'When I spoke to Dr Fryzlewicz, I was never really sure that he had understood the instructions he was being given' He declined to the attend the most recent hearing and emailed health chiefs claiming he could not afford a barrister to represent him. In his missive Fryzlewicz wrote: '[The] accusation that my English language skills were insufficient to work in NHS has been recognised as false by many consultants of medicine who worked with me in many hospitals. 'All documents proving this have been many times shown by me to [medical employment tribunal body] the MPTS.' Dr Fryzlewicz had initially been fired from the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow and University College London Hospital due to concerns about his language skills. Counsel for the GMC Miss Emma Gilsenan told the hearing: 'Dr Fryzlewicz's attitude towards the regulator and the requirement that he must attain the minimum standard of the English language to practise medicine in the UK, is concerning. 'His communications show he is more focused on what he believes to be political and religious persecution by the GMC, rather than on addressing the concerns in this case. 'There has been no progress since the case was last reviewed in 2023 and there was no evidence of insight and remediation. 'The requirements upon him are no different to any other doctor despite his feeling that he was being persecuted by the GMC.' Counsel for the GMC Miss Emma Gilsenan told the hearing: 'Dr Fryzlewicz's attitude towards the regulator and the requirement that he must attain the minimum standard of the English language to practise medicine in the UK, is concerning Dr Fryzlewicz had initially been fired from the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow and University College London Hospital due to concerns about his language skills MPTS chairman Mr Sean Kyne said: 'There is no evidence before the Tribunal that Dr Fryzlewicz has a good command of the English language, in the form of satisfactory test scores. 'The Tribunal was disappointed Dr Fryzlewicz has not provided any evidence to demonstrate what he had done to address the matters giving rise to the concerns in this case. 'To progress and move forward positively, he will need to change his focus to the present and his future opportunities to practise.' Previously, only doctors from outside the EU could have their language skills tested by the GMC. This was reviewed following the case of a Nigerian-born German doctor who injected a patient with a lethal dose of morphine, in part due to his poor English whilst on his first shift as a locum doctor in 2008. Doctors are warning against bringing baby oil in the bedroom amid reports it was used to fuel Diddy's wild sex parties. Among the sordid details to emerge since the 54-year-old rapper's arrest on sex charges is that he hosted sexual 'freak offs' which allegedly lasted days and included flying in sex workers. Investigators confiscated about '1,000 bottles' of baby oil, which were allegedly used as lubrication for 'elaborate and produced sex performances'. Urologists told DailyMail.com that using baby oil during sex could lead to broken condoms, painful rashes and deadly infections. Baby oil is generally used to help soften skin, primarily for infants (stock) Baby oil is generally used to help soften skin, primarily for infants, though it can also help remove makeup and remove stains on surfaces. It's typically made from mineral oil, a colorless and odorless byproduct of petroleum. Though it can be safely used on skin, experts warn against trying to turn it into a sexual lubricant. Dr David Shusterman, a urologist at Modern Urology in New York City, told DailyMail.com: 'Using oil as a lubricant for certain activities is a big no.' 'Oil can be super irritating to the tissues of your genitals. Using it a lot or in large amounts can cause redness, itching, and just overall discomfort.' Your browser does not support iframes. Additionally, baby oil has been shown to break down latex, which is found in about 80 percent of condoms. In fact, research suggests that within 60 seconds of baby oil getting on a condom, the condom became about 90 percent less effective. Dr Kanwal Bawa, a sexual wellness doctor in Florida, told DailyMail.com: 'Just as baby oil can degrade condoms, sex toys made from rubber or silicone also degrade faster when used with oil.' 'Not only does it make toys more difficult to sanitize afterward, it will also reduce their lifespan.' Additionally, Dr Lauren Streicher, an associate professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University, told Women's Health that getting baby oil near the vagina can increase the risk of a yeast infection. One study in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, for example, found that getting baby oil inside of the vagina helped the yeast bacteria Candida albicans colonize. While small amounts of this bacteria already live in the body, an overgrowth can lead to a yeast infection, which affects about three in four women at some point in their lives. Dr Bawa said: 'The vagina has a very sensitive microbiome. Baby oil can disturb the pH balance inside the vagina and cause irritation and infection.' Leonardo DiCaprio was among the guests at Diddy's party in 1998 Most yeast infections go away with a course if antifungal medications like creams and ointments. But left untreated, the bacteria may develop into invasive candidiasis, a potentially life-threatening fungal infection that can spread to the bones, eyes, brain, and heart. The CDC estimates that invasive candidiasis kills about one in three patients. Additionally, one 2016 study found that men who used baby oil as a lubricant during anal sex had a higher risk of developing rectal infections. Experts also recommend against ingesting baby oil. Though it's 'minimally toxic' if swallowed, according to the National Capital Poison Center, Dr Shusterman notes that it could lead to gastrointestinal issues 'such as feeling sick, vomiting, or having diarrhea.' It can also lead to more serious effects. Dr Eric Margolis, urologist and medical advisor to Maskad and Revivv wellness brands, told DailyMail.com that 'the primary risk' of ingesting baby oil is aspiration pneumonia, This occurs when food or another substance enters the lungs instead of the stomach. Dr Margolis said: 'This can occur easily because of the chemical composition of baby oil, which makes it slippery and can be inhaled while swallowing.' Aspiration pneumonia leads to shortness of breath, chest pain, and extreme fatigue, which Dr Margolis should be treated as a medical emergency. The condition leads to about 58,000 US deaths per year. When it comes to choosing a safe lubricant, Dr Bawa recommends a water-based product. 'Water-based lubricants are far safer to use with latex condoms, sex toys and oral sex,' she said. 'They are formulated specifically for sexual activity and have far fewer risks when it comes to infection or irritation.' 'Silicone-based lubricants are not recommended with sex toys because they break down the material.' The Unknown Warrior by John Nichol (Simon & Schuster 22, 400pp) The Unknown Warrior is available now from the Mail Bookshop War. Closure. Two words seemingly impossible to reconcile. Nothing illustrates that more perfectly than the tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey. Alongside the graves of many monarchs lies the remains of an unidentified serviceman killed in the First World War. More than one million British Empire soldiers were killed during the conflict and over half a million of them have no known grave. The casket, lowered in place in the autumn of 1920, held a somebody who was nobody to represent all the missing, writes the historian and former RAF officer John Nichol. Nichol attempts to describe the reality of life in the trenches. The place stank of death, wrote Anthony French, a young soldier in the Civil Service Rifles. Trenches were cleaved through corpses. From the side of one there hung a hand and a forearm. An account of Frenchs friendship with his comrade Bert Bradley is unbearably touching. Bradley a generous, funny, pipe-smoking man with a fine tenor voice was killed during an offensive. I saw Bert pause queerly in his stride and fall stiffly on his side and slither helplessly into a hole, recalled French. Berts body was never recovered. At the heart of this story is the extraordinary figure of Reverend David Railton, a vicar from Kent. The Grave of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey At the beginning of the war, Railton left his parish in Folkestone to become a military padre, serving on the Western Front, where he won a Military Cross for saving three men under fire. While attempting to give solace to men about to die, he conceived the idea for the Unknown Warrior. Nichol chronicles the warriors repatriation like a bank heist in reverse: a crew of crack experts ministers, clergy, undertakers, army and naval officers worked together to put the valuables into a vault. Secrecy about the chosen body was paramount in order that, as the Dean of Westminster noted, any mourner be encouraged to imagine that it is her own sacred dead upon whom this great honour has been bestowed. But the body also had to be sufficiently identifiable to ensure that the King and the British people were not interring a blown-up French civilian or, perish the thought, a German, by mistake. Four unidentified bodies were exhumed from the key battle areas of Aisne, Somme, Arras and Ypres. One was chosen at random and brought back with barrels of French soil to cover his coffin. Nichol also talks to wives who lost husbands more recently in Falklands Islands and Afghanistan, and draws on his own experience as a RAF navigator during the Gulf War. He very nearly joined the sombre roll-call himself when his Tornado was shot down and he was captured, and tortured, by Iraqi forces. Nichols writing style is as engaging as it is erudite. He is forensic in his research but never dispassionate, keeping his interest firmly fixed on the human story. At the state funeral on November 11, 1920, the second anniversary of the end of the war, the tone was one of unity in grief, rather than military pomp. Westminster Abbey filled up with mourners, including relatives of the lost mothers, fathers, wives and children. Not everyone could be included: 20,000 applications were received for just 1,600 spaces. State Funeral: Field Marshal Douglas Haig and Field Marshall John French, first Earl of Ypres beside the coffin of the unknown warrior One 12-year-old wrote to the authorities pleading to be let in, declaring the man in the coffin might be my daddy. In the Abbey, one group stood out in the ranks of the bereaved, notes Nichol: A pitiful band of 99 mothers distinguished by an almost unfathomable depth of loss. They had been selected for seats of honour because each one had lost her husband and all her sons. Most business eyes this autumn are focused on October 30 and Labours first Budget. At Anglo Americans headquarters on the fringes of the City and in Pretoria, South Africa, the month of November is sharply in view. By then half-a-year will have elapsed since May when Sydney-quoted mining behemoth BHP tried to win control of Anglo and in particular its copper assets, with a 34billion opportunistic bid. Under City takeover rules BHP will be free to have another go. Anglo showed nerves of steel and fought off BHP with a self-help plan. Diamond cutting: Anglo American has pledged to demerge its most high profile asset - the diamond miner De Beers That involved easing the financing burden of the Woodsmith polyhalite fertiliser scheme in north Yorkshire, demerging De Beers, selling down its stakes in South African-quoted mining interests and disposing of coking coal assets for steel. Chinese co-investors have been found for the fertiliser scheme and the group has been selling down its stake in Anglo American platinum. It has been a tense ride for shareholders but worthwhile in that the stock is up 23.8 per cent year to date, although there was a nervy moment in August when the shares briefly dropped below 2000p (20) before zipping up again. Speculation about a return bid by BHP boss Mike Henry is wide of the mark. Various ideas for pressing home BHPs advantage have been looked at by advisers, such as removing preconditions regarding the sale of the quoted South African assets. There should be relief at Anglo that the BHP threat is receding for the time being. That should be no excuse for Anglo failing to execute the plan which chief executive Duncan Wanblad pledged to investors. A big part is disposing of high-profile asset De Beers with a potential split and listing to existing shareholders. Mined diamonds have come under threat from almost indistinguishable lab copies. That shouldnt be a problem. After all, cultured pearls have proved no substitute for the real thing. Nuclear winter Government is all about process and when it comes to nuclear power, given the industrys history, it is understandable that there is a degree of caution. Nevertheless, the time it is taking to launch a fleet of British-engineered small modular reactors (SMRs), using technology pioneered by Rolls-Royce in nuclear powered submarines, is shameful. The word nuclear has barely emitted from Energy Secretary Ed Milibands lips even though it gets a desultory mention in the launch document for Great British Energy. It is terrific that, finally, the Government has picked four companies to advance to the next stage of negotiations, including Rolls. The difficulty is that with every passing day the first mover advantage which Rolls has in terms of regulation and design is eroded an advantage to competitors. When Rolls first unveiled the designs there was nobody else in the race. Now a joint venture between GE and Hitachi is snapping at its heels. Westinghouse, one of the other candidates, previously enjoyed UK ownership, but was sold to Toshiba for 3.4billion by Gordon Brown in 2006. That looks to have been another bit of industrial sabotage. Rolls has ploughed 280million into the enterprise alongside partners including Qatar. It also received 210million of Government support from the Tories. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should bulldoze through the auction process and license it for the job. SMRs represent the best opportunity for creating those new, greener UK jobs Labour talks about. Going low As the West recovered from Covid and confronted Russia after Ukraine, Saudi Arabia sought to maximise its oil revenues by limiting supply in the belief it would keep prices high. It hasnt quite worked. Diminishing Chinese demand and Americas fracking energy surpluses have turned the market upside down. Even major conflagration in the Middle East failed to stem the tide of sliding prices, currently at $70 a barrel. The Kingdom needs income to fund its transformational mega projects. It now plans to pump more oil, to encourage overseas demand and bolster revenues. Thats encouraging for motorists and industrial users if not terribly green. Some electric cars are massively less efficient than others, a study has shown. What Car?s latest real-world test highlights the vast difference in electric car range efficiency, and how drivers could be forking out hundreds of pounds in charging costs by choosing an inefficient model. We reveal which electric cars are the most and least efficient - the one's to snap up and the ones to avoid, and how to calculate efficiency if you're shopping for an EV. SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM TO FIND OUT WHICH NEW EV IS THE MOST EFFICIENT New ranking: We reveal the most efficient EVs that will save you the most money on charging The measure of how efficient an EV is is the miles per kWh figure. This is the equivalent to miles per gallon, for fuel cars, so the higher the score the more efficient the EV is. What Car? drove a selection of EVs from fully charged to flat to see how far they could really travel on a full charge, and how well they use the electricity stored in their batteries a real-world test of EV efficiency. Not only did the results demonstrate which EVs had the best battery efficiency, but they also revealed that choosing the wrong model thats not efficient can end up costing you a staggering 838 extra every 10,000 miles. 11. Audi Q6 e-tron Launch Edition The Audi Q6 e-tron Launch Edition was the least efficient EV tested by What Car? The least efficient EV was the Audi Q6 e-tron which only had a calculated efficiency of 3 miles per kWh. The Q6 e-tron has a usable battery capacity of 94.9kWh and an official range of 344 miles. But during the test What Car? Found it only travelled 289 miles on a full charge a shortfall of 16 per cent. 10. Kia EV9 RWD Air The massive Kia EV9 - which is over 5m long - was the second-worst of 11 new EVs The second worst performing EV was the Kia EV9. The Kia EV9 is the South Korean brands flagship luxury new electric SUV, with the Air costing from 64,245, but its calculated efficiency doesnt stack up to the official figures. The calculated efficiency was only 3.3 mi/kWh. While its 96.0kWh battery is supposed to allow it to travel 349 miles on a single charge, in reality it only travelled 314 miles a shortfall of 10 per cent. 9. Renault Scenic E-Tech Long Range Techno The Scenic E-Tech comes in joint place with the Cupra Born - both on 3.7 miles per kWh The Scenic E-Tech comes in joint place with the Cupra Born - both on 3.7 miles per kWh. The Scenic E-Tech has a usable battery capacity of 87.0kWh and an official range of 379 miles. When What Car? Drove it to exhaustion it managed 322 miles a shortfall of 15.2 per cent. The E-Tech is significantly cheaper than the Kia EV9, costing from 40,995. 8. Cupra Born VZ The sporty hatchback Cupra Born VZ managed to be around the midfield in efficiency ratings As mentioned, the Cupra Born electric hatchback had the same calculated efficiency as the Renault Scenic E-Tech 3.7 mi/kWh - when tested by What Car? The Born has a 79.0kWh battery and can theoretically manage 334 miles on a full battery. But the real-world test found it managed 294 miles instead. That meant its range shortfall was 11.9 per cent. 7. Volvo EX30 Single Motor Extended Range Ultra The EX30 is Volvos cheapest electric offering, with the SUV starting from 32,850. After undergoing the What Car? Test the 64.0kWh battery car managed 242 miles before it ran out of juice. Its claimed range however was 295 miles. That puts its shortfall at 17.9 per cent and its calculated efficiency at 3.8 miles per kWh. 6. BMW i5 eDrive40 M Sport Pro Weve got another joint entry, with the BMW i5 and Volvo EX30 battling for 7th and 6th place. Weve put the BMW i5 in 6th place because its range shortfall was less than the Volvos. The i5 has an 81.2kWh battery and a claimed range of 338 miles. When driven until the battery died, the i5 managed 310 miles a shortfall of just 8.1 per cent. The calculated efficiency was also 3.8 mi/kWh. 5. Hyundai Kona Electric Ultimate The Hyundai Kona is a very well-known electric car and is one of the more affordable ones. With its 65.4kWh hour battery, the Kona should manage 282 miles on a single charge. However, after being tested it managed 255 miles instead a shortfall of 9.7 per cent. Its calculated efficiency is 3.9 mi/kWh. 4. Peugeot e-308 SW GT Near the top of the table, the Peugeot e-308 had an calculated efficiency of 4.2 miles per kWh Now were jumping up into the 4 mi/kWh-plus groupings. And theres another tie. So, in fourth place is the Peugeot e-308. With a 50.8kWh battery its official range stands at 254 miles. But the test found it managed only 212 miles a shortfall of 16.7 per cent. This puts the e-308's calculated efficiency at 4.2 mi/kWh. 3. Polestar 2 Long Range Single Motor The Polestar 2 Long Range also had a score of 4.2 miles per kWh, but it won the range test Also managing a calculated efficiency of 4.2 mi/kWh was the Polestar 2 Long Range Single Motor. The claimed range on the revised 2 is a massive 406 miles. However while it didn't manage this it covered 333 miles, which is a shortfall of 18 per cent it did go further than any other electric car on the testing day. And to show how far electric battery technology has come, and how quickly it is improving, the Polestar 2s result is also the furthest any EV has managed during the history of What Car? range testing. The 333 miles is enough to drive from London to Nottingham and back without having to stop to charge. 2. Mini Cooper SE Exclusive (Level 2) In second place is the Mini Cooper SE Exclusive. The EV has a 49.2kWh battery and a claimed range of 242 miles. During the test it covered 211 miles which leaves it with a shortfall of 13 per cent. The calculated efficiency is 4.3 mi/kWh. 1. Tesla Model 3 RWD The new version of Tesla's Model 3 is now available in the UK with prices from 39,990 In first place, taking the efficiency trophy is the Tesla Model 3 RWD. The former best-selling EV in the UK has a calculated efficiency of 4.4 mi/kWh. To claim its crown the 57.5kWh battery car drove 255 miles of its 318-mile claimed range a shortfall of 19.7 per cent. 11 new EVs ranked in terms of efficiency and the Tesla Model 3 RWD comes out the winner! How much will the disparity cost you? Based on its real-world test results What Car? worked out that if you charge at home on a standard tariff and pay 22.4p/kWh (the current Ofgem electricity price cap) then you'd spend roughly 508 on electricity every 10,000 miles in the Tesla Model 3. However if you get the far less efficient Audi Q6 e-tron you'd be paying a heftier 745 every 10,000 miles. Alternatively, if you did all your charging at a much more expensive public rapid charger, you could pay around 79p per kWh. This would mean that the bill for a Tesla Model 3 would rise to 1,795, but for the Audi Q6 e-tron it would be a whopping 2,633. This shows that buying an EV with the best efficiency score is one of the best ways to save money on running costs. What Car? editor Steve Huntingford commented: 'Only a few years ago, when electricity was cheap and any electric car cost far less to run than an equivalent petrol or diesel model, efficiency didnt seem to matter that much. However, with energy prices high and due to rise further, its now an important consideration.' How were the new EVs tested in real-world conditions? The What Car? test saw cars driven around a 19.2-mile route, which included 2.7 miles of stop-start urban driving, 5.5 miles at a steady 50mph and 11 miles at a constant 70mph What Car? used the Horiba-MIRA proving ground in Warwickshire, where it could run EVs out of charge in a safe environment. In each test case, the climate control system was set to 21 degrees and Eco (or the closest equivalent) driving mode was selected. Then, the cars were repeatedly driven around a 19.2-mile test route, which included 2.7 miles of simulated stop-start urban driving, 5.5 miles at a steady 50mph and 11 miles at a constant 70mph. The rationale for the high percentage of high-speed cruising is that drivers who want to travel long distances in one hit are likely to be using the motorway network. Driver changes and a switch in running order were carried out at the end of each loop. And the temperature during testing ranged from 17 to 23 degrees Celsius. How do you calculate your EV's efficiency? There are many cars these days that have very long ranges but to work out the miles per kwh or your EV's fuel efficiency then you need to dive the range figure by the car's battery size As the nation gradually transitions to EVs there are already more than a million on UK roads fuel MPG is becoming less and less relevant as a new figure takes over: miles per kWh. So, what is miles/kWh and how do we calculate it? You can read our full guide to working out economical an EV is, but here's a quick overview: The calculation you need to know: Divide the combined range figure by the usable (net) battery size to get the mile/kWh of your EV. For miles/kWh: divide the combined range figure by the usable (net) battery size to get the mile/kWh of your EV You can find the combined range figure in the specifications and will usually have WLTP (World Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure) alongside it, which represents the real-world range test all new EVs are required to take. KWh refers to the battery size of the EV, and is equivalent to engine size in a fuel car. The kWh figure is a 'net' capacity figure because manufacturers keep some battery power in reserve to protect the cells, so make sure this is the figure you use to calculate efficiency rather than the 'gross' number. Is battery degradation a real concern? To help answer this What Car? also tested a nine-year-old Tesla Model S with 258,000 miles on the clock. The test was set out to to see if concerns around battery longevity are justified. And the answer was overwhelmingly no. Despite the Model S still being on its original battery and having covered a staggering almost 260,000 miles (effectively travelling to the moon), the test showed the Model S had lost just 8 per cent of its original capacity. This is Money recently reported that Geotab - a leading firm in fleet and business telematics - had found EV batteries show slower signs of degradation than components used in internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. The company says it has carried out analysis of the battery health of almost 5,000 fleet and private EVs, using 1.5 million days of telematics data to explore how the latest battery technology holds up to the rigours of daily use. The data suggested that EV batteries in current models degrade, on average, by 1.8 per cent annually. When it carried out the same study back in 2019, it found that the efficiency of batteries was declining at a rate of 2.3 per cent per year on average, suggesting advances have been made in the last five years to extend the lifespan of the technology. The report went on to say that EV batteries now 'generally degrade more slowly than internal combustion engine drivetrain components'. I bought this brooch at a car boot around 30 years ago for 2. It was originally sold to me as costume jewellery that belonged to a deceased family member of the stall holder. But I recently dug it out and starting to think I may have something valuable. I can see an 18 on the back. Is my car boot jewellery find worth money? Sara, via email. Brooch buy: I bought this in the 1990s for 2... and have started to believe they could be worth a tidy sum. Am I right? Dan Hatfield (pictured) replies Dan Hatfield, expert valuer, replies: Regular readers of my column will know my fondness for a car boot. As I always say, I was born in Sheffield but forged at the car boot. I love the potential to find weird, wonderful, and sometimes valuable items. Your brooch is an interesting find but in general are precarious investment because they go in and out of vogue so often that their value rises and plummets accordingly. The marmite of the jewellery world, they are loved and loathed equally. I have always loved them as a wonderful way to add that something special to an outfit. Regardless, the good news is brooches are back in vogue and deemed hot accessories. There are jewellery designers around the world embracing this comeback with brands like Armani and Stella McCartney using brooches as central points of their designs. Some would argue that hit shows such as The Crown and Bridgerton have helped fuel a new wave of popularity. The 50m brooch There's are some truly wonderful brooches worth eye watering figures but none as much as the exquisite Cullinan Broach. Gifted to the late Queen Elizabeth II by her grandmother, it bears the third and fourth largest stones cut from the Cullinan diamond, the largest ever discovered. Fondly known as 'granny's chips' by her majesty, the broach weighs in at a total of 158 carats. The two stones are flawless and colourless, making them two of the most perfect diamonds in the world. It is estimated to be worth a staggering 50million. Historically in Europe, we can trace the brooch back to around 400BC when Celtic craftsmen first started making them. I mentioned I found your brooch of interest because funnily enough, I currently have an almost identical one stocked in my pawnbrokers. I really appreciate the wonderful design of it. Jewellery depicting stars and crescents became extremely popular in the mid to latter parts of the 19th century. As a species we were trying to understand the world around us, so as we made advances in science and our understanding of how our planet played a part in the universe people developed a keen interest in astrology and astronomy. From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne was a novel published in 1865 which told the story about a cannon being built powerful enough to launch a rocket to the moon. Such was the fascination with this story that many Victorian jewellers started to create wonderful pieces that depicted the moon and stars. As your brooch is a crescent design, I would be confident that it was made between 1865 and 1880. Your brooch is adorned with pearls, something that the Victorian's embraced and used widely in their jewellery. This is because the pearl was considered less flashy, less ostentatious than the coloured stones that the Georgians had been so fond of using previously. The pearl was a more subtle decoration for jewellery, in keeping with Victorian modesty. They were also permitted to be worn during periods of mourning as if was believed that pearl represented tears. I'm sure that Queen Victoria, who was in perpetual mourning after the loss of her Prince Albert, approved whole heartedly. You mention that you can see an 18 on the back of the brooch and looking at your picture I would agree that it certainly appears to be the case. 18ct is now worth around 47 a gram so the metal work alone would mean this brooch is worth a considerable amount. Gold has increased tenfold over the last 25 years, so your 2 investment is going to secure you a considerable return. Often with precious metals the value is in melting them and selling for the price per gram, but this isn't the case for you because the pearls look in good condition and with brooches being back in vogue, you could easily sell this on, as it is. I'm going to value your brooch at about 600. Whilst beautiful it's not unique and there are many others on the market but it's still a sought-after item and rare enough to warrant a hefty price tag. This is why I always wax lyrical about car boots, you never know what return you are going to get on such a small original outlay. Your 2 investment has served you well and if you'd like to reap your rewards, I suggest selling a brooch like this on Etsy where you'll find loads of keen enthusiasts for this type of jewellery. Chunky: This tanzanite ring caught my eye a decade ago - has it grown in value? I bought a tanzanite ring in 2014 - what's it worth now? I bought this tanzanite ring while on holiday a decade ago for just under 6,000. Has it grown in value? Elaine, via email. Dan replies: This dazzling ring has a vibrant, almost hypnotic stone, that was only discovered 57 years ago. It creates plenty of intrigue and curiosity. Tanzanite is a stone that mystifies many and is probably second in line to diamonds for stones that people ask me about most frequently. This stone was discovered in 1967 by the Maasai Herders tending to their livestock at the Merelani Hills, Tanzania. Upon discovery they informed a prospector named Manuel d'Souza who very quickly registered with the Government so they could begin mining for what he believed to be sapphires. But, it was soon discovered these gemstones were in fact a blue variety of zoisite, which was discovered at the start of the 19th century. Very quickly, Tiffany & Co caught wind of this find and recognised they could utilise this to rival other gemstones but there was a problem with the name. Originally named, blue zoisite, the bosses at Tiffany & Co felt it sounded far too much like, 'blue suicide' and would ruin their campaign before it had even started. So, they decided to rename the stone and call it tanzanite in honour of its East African origin. This stones popularity soared and was titled the 'gem of the 20th century' with two million carats being mined by 1971. Tiffany succeeded in making this a household name and with such a prestigious jewellery house adopting it as their signature precious stone, it was clear to understand how it achieved prestigious status and why it was in demand by the rich and famous. Currently this stone can only be found in Tanzania within an area that is 2km wide and 4km long. It is therefore estimated the ground will be emptied of this mineral within 10 to 25 years. Due to its scarcity some say that tanzanite is 1000 times rarer than diamonds but before you run off to buy a superyacht, that unfortunately doesn't equate to its value. Tanzanite's are pleochroic, meaning the colour varies depending on the direction the light hits it. These stones can be anything from a light lilac, soft blue up to the most sought after and thus most valuable, intense sapphire colour. I would say yours is a blueish violet, which isn't the deep blue that is worth the most money, but it probably sits bang in the middle of the colour spectrum for this stone. The certificate you provided me with also states that is weighs an impressive, finger aching 15.74ct, which will add to its value. As it's a cushion mixed cut, you could divide opinion and some people prefer a simpler style cut. What we shouldn't ignore either is the two diamonds on your ring that frame the tanzanite. The paperwork you provided has them a smidge over half a carat each and they're certified by GIA, in my opinion, one of the best diamond graders in the world. The certification has graded them at D, which is the best you can get and many diamond graders, me included, agree that colour always wins out on clarity when informing the value of the stone. Speaking of clarity, yours are VS1 which is a very food standard. So overall, these are impressive diamonds with great quality which will all add to the value of the ring. Finally, I need to ascertain the value of the ring which I can't tell if it is set in 18ct white gold or platinum, but I'll hazard a guess at the latter. As always, societal popularity drives up value and at the moment buyers seem to be investing more in traditional stones like diamonds. Therefore, tanzanite's aren't selling for the eye watering amounts they once did but I do believe this will change over the next decade. With all of this considered, I would value your ring between 7,000-9,000. If you were keen to sell it, the best place would be an internationally acclaimed auction house such as Tennants or Bonhams - although always check auction fees and how much this will eat into the price. Exposing this ring to international buyers will create a livelier auction and hopefully secure a higher price. However, I think the golden years for tanzanite are ahead of us. Should no further mines be discovered, when the earth has been depleted of this stone, demand will naturally increase which also drives up the value. Of course, this is my prediction and as always, does not constitute financial advice but I will say that tanzanite has become a part of my personal investment portfolio. OpenAI boss Sam Altman is set to become a multibillionaire under plans to hand him an 8billion stake in the company. The artificial intelligence (AI) start-up behind ChatGPT is looking to become a for-profit business after years of non-profit status. It will now aim to make a profit for its owners rather than for a social cause. Cashing in: OpenAI boss Sam Altman (pictured) is set to become a multibillionaire under plans for it to become a for-profit business after years of non-profit status The restructuring will mean co-founder and chief executive Altman will receive equity for the first time, with talks under way to hand him a 7 per cent stake worth around 8billion, adding to his estimated personal fortune of 750million. OpenAI, which has around 1,700 staff, is looking to raise about 5billion of fresh investment, giving the company a valuation of 112billion. It is thought the new structure will help attract investors. Microsoft has pumped in more than 7billion, in exchange for 49 per cent ownership. OpenAI said: We remain focused on building AI that benefits everyone, and were working with our board to ensure that were best positioned to succeed. The non-profit is core to our mission and will continue. The overhaul comes at a time of huge change at the top. Chief technology officer Mira Murati is to leave after six and a half years. Bob McGrew, chief research officer, and Barret Zoph, vice-president of research, have also recently quit. Last year the board fired Altman but he was rehired days later after huge backlash. Only two of 11 founders remain. Altman yesterday said: Leadership changes are a natural part of companies, especially companies that grow so quickly and are so demanding... I obviously wont pretend its natural for this one to be so abrupt, but we are not a normal company. OpenAI was founded in 2015, seeking to build AI that would benefit society, and won notoriety in 2022 when Chat GPT was released. The software can pass exams and write poems, books and software code. It has the potential to make billions of dollars for its creators and investors. Ed Miliband is under pressure to accelerate the roll out of mini-nukes in the UK after the Government whittled down a shortlist of firms in contention to press ahead with the project. The Energy Secretary was urged to move faster to approve small modular reactors (SMRs), which are cheaper and faster to build than full-sized nuclear power stations, amid fears Britain is being left behind. The calls come after Rolls-Royce was named alongside three rivals for the next stage of the competition to develop mini-nukes in the UK. American firm NuScale was knocked out of the running this week while French giant EDF has withdrawn. Energy security: Energy Secretary Ed Miliband (pictured) has been urged to move faster to approve small modular nuclear reactors Companies were initially told the shortlist would be reduced to four by late August, but the election delayed this. The hold-up has fuelled fears Britain is dragging its heels. Rolls-Royce last week was chosen by the Czech Republic as a preferred supplier of SMRs to state-owned power group CEZ. The Mail on Sunday then revealed Rolls was also in talks with Sweden and the Netherlands. Shadow energy minister Claire Coutinho said: Its clear that Labour are not putting the same emphasis on nuclear energy as the Conservatives. You cant build an energy policy based on wind and solar alone as Ed Miliband seems to want to do, so he must move faster to make sure other countries dont steal a march on Britain when it comes to the next generation of nuclear. Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the Nuclear Industry Association, said: Other countries are getting on with choosing their technologies and we need to be moving at pace too, and that includes selecting the sites and the number of units so we can provide certainty to the supply chain and to host communities. We look forward to seeing swift progress being made over the next few months on SMRs as well as large-scale projects. Rolls-Royce communications spokesman Dan Gould last week urged Labour to move faster. Wed like to see the Government make a decision by the end of the year, he said. The company has been shortlisted by Vattenfall, the Swedish multinational power company, to meet rising demand for electricity. In the Netherlands, Rolls-Royce has signed an exclusive agreement with Dutch development firm ULC-Energy to work together to deploy SMRs. Rolls is awaiting government approval from both countries. US-Japanese alliance GE-Hitachi and American firms Westinghouse and Holtec are still in the running in the UKs design competition, which was first announced in 2015 by then chancellor George Osborne. It was not until 2023 that Government agency Great British Nuclear launched the official design competition. Six contenders were announced in October 2023, with bids submitted in July. It is hoped a winner will be selected later this year or early 2025. A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesman said: We are reversing a legacy of no new nuclear power being delivered, ensuring the long-term security of the nuclear sector. SMRs will play an important role in helping the UK achieve energy security and clean power while securing thousands of good, skilled jobs. Four companies, confirmed by Great British Nuclear, will move to the next stage of the small modular reactor competition and will be invited to enter negotiations. Punters who were eager to sample Jeremy Clarkson's The Farmer's Dog pub have given their verdict on everything from the beers and food to long queues and the prices. The former Top Gear presenter has drawn in huge crowds to his new pub in Asthall, Oxfordshire, which opened its doors on August 23. The pub seeks to support British farmers by using only local produce - for everything from meat and beers to salt and pepper. And despite his recent admission that his latest venture is losing him a huge amount of money, punters visiting the venue seem largely impressed with their experience. Posting a review online, TikTok user Alice Griggs wrote: 'It was really cool. Everything was provided by British farmers so that's why there's no ketchup or Coca-Cola because you can't get that from a British source.' But while some took a liking to the new pub, others were not as thrilled with their experience - particularly the prices and the wait for a pint of beer. Jeremy Clarkson pictured turning up to his new pub The Farmer's Dog in the Cotswolds during its first week of opening People queuing outside at the opening of Jeremy Clarkson's new pub, The Farmer's Dog on August 23 The new pub near Burford in Oxfordshire has attracted large crowds of people The popularity of the new pub has seen some people wait 11 minutes to get a pint of beer The Farmer's Dog pub in Asthall, Oxfordshire Toby Inskip, who posts to social media under the handle @eatingwithtod, shared a TikTok of his experience. One customer claimed: 'It's definitely not an authentic pub experience. It feels like a Clarkson theme park.' Some punters revealed how the price for two pints is 17.50 - including 2.50 on reusable cups - and the queue to get them took just over 11 minutes. The popular food reviewer remarked on how the beer was 'cold, light, not too hoppy and went down a treat on a hot summer's day'. However, when it came to his review of the burger, he was less than impressed with its 14 price despite it tasting nice. Overhead views of the pub from show the queues were still extremely long almost a month into its opening Commenting on the taste of sausages and mash for 19, he said it was 'underwhelming' because of 'lukewarm sausages and a lack of butter in the mash'. Responding to his review on social media, one person commented on Instagram: 'I mean it's basically a Jeremy Clarkson branded pub, you pay for the novelty not the taste. Still a shame though.' Meanwhile, others praised the former Top Gear presenter for the 'beautiful' pub which supporting local farmers. One reviewer, Ali in the Cotswolds, was nothing short of praises for Clarkson's new pub which boasts 'incredible views of the countryside.' She said in a TikTok post: 'The queue was long to get in but there was absolutely no traffic getting in, you'll be pleased to know. 'The pub inside is absolutely beautiful. They've done such a good job. How stunning is this bar. And of course they even have a tractor suspended from the ceiling. 'Here's me enjoying my well-deserved drink with a beautiful view. 'It's a really traditional English menu with pork pies, sausage rolls, apple crumble, and on the weekends they're going to be doing carvery, which I just can't wait for.' Taking to TripAdvisor, many also raved about their day out at the pub. One wrote: 'Travelled down from Glasgow to visit The Farmers Dog on Saturday 7th September. There have been some mixed reviews on social media 'Once in, the carvery lunch was sublime. Portions were great, everything tasted fantastic and thought good value for money at 20 + 3 subcharge per head. 'My only minor criticism is that the food could have been hotter - maybe if plates were heated before food put on. 'After lunch we spent time out on the terrace and then in the pub and finished off back in the tent. Great selection of Hawkstone cider and beer in all locations and great setting with big open landscape views and brilliant atmosphere to spend a day.' Jeremy Clarkson at the opening of his new pub, The Farmer's Dog, in Asthall, near Burford in Oxfordshire The former Top Gear presenter is opening amid fears the venture may bring more traffic problems following the success of his Diddly Squat farm shop Residents have previously expressed concerns about traffic problems because the pub is located next to the busy A40 road Clarkson is pictured behind the beer taps in his new pub, The Farmer's Dog On TripAdvisor, one person also complained: 'Charged 2 to park your car in a field. 18.50 for a Cold Burger and a few fries served on a Paper Plate.' However, another wrote: 'We had to stand in line for 90 minutes on a cold day but once inside the service was fantastic. The food and drinks were served politely and promptly. 'The steak pie was piping hot with mash and fresh vegetables. I enjoyed my pint of Hawkstone zero lager. 'Several of us chose the syrup sponge and custard for pudding. Dogs are welcome and the views across the Cotswolds are magnificent. 'We were impressed by how well the staff worked - the entire operation was very slick - and yet we did not feel rushed. Full marks!' Another wrote: 'My summary of a wonderful experience is as follows The Food Absolutely outstanding. 'To me the sign of a truly great meal is when I put the first mouthful in and forget what I'm talking about, as the taste buds in my mouth suddenly take over my brain, with the pure delight of the flavour and texture. Large numbers of people have come to the new pub. Pictured: an overflow car park at the venue A look at the menu inside his new pub, which some have criticised as being too expensive 'A carvery, superb cut of beef, cooked to perfection, likewise the vegetables were just as they're meant to be and full of flavour. All with out of this world horseradish and apple sauce. Divine. Good value too in my view, costs me the same to cook a decent roast at home. 'The most striking thing is how very pleasant and professional all the staff are. That started with having a laugh with the nice man working in the car park. 'All the way through I observed the perfect balance between them being both helpful and attentive to customers, though not in anyone's face or OTT with it. Spacious inside with a very farm feel lots more space and fun to be had outside.' Another also wrote on TripAdvisor: 'Travelled from Stoke to the Cotswolds to see Diddly Squat and The Farmer's Dog. The pub is lovely, the beer is great and the prices are reasonable too, I've seen other reviews moaning about the prices, really?? This isn't Wetherspoons!' MailOnline has contacted Clarkson's representatives. Walk into any cafe in the UK and chances are a remote worker has set up shop on one or more of its tables, their headphones in, laptop out and a half-drunk latte next to it. The explosion in working from home, triggered by the pandemic, has left a lasting legacy - with offices closing for good and employees opting for social spaces to do their work and get out of the house. But for many cafes, what might seem like a business opportunity has turned into a nightmare, with precious seating taken up by customers who are there to focus on their Zoom meetings and spreadsheets rather than enjoying coffee and pastries. Business owners have told MailOnline how they are losing money because of 'table hoggers', who buy as little as one bottle of water or eke out a singular hot drink for as long as they can in order to keep their spot. In an attempt to tackle the practice and deter the WFH crowd, many have brought in tough new measures - refusing to offer free WiFi, limiting the hours laptops can be used in, and even banning them altogether. Business owners have told MailOnline how they are losing money because of 'table hoggers', who buy as little as one bottle of water in order to keep their spot Chris Chaplin and Freya Lynch, owners of the Milk & Bean cafe in Newbury, say laptop users don't buy as much as customers who are there to relax For many cafes, precious seating taken up by customers who are there to focus on their Zoom meetings and spreadsheets rather than enjoying coffee and pastries (pictured: a remote worker in Barista on The Other Side in north London) Driton Budakova and wife Adelina brought in measures to tackle laptop usage at Barista on The Other Side in North London In a retail area as in-demand as Finchley Road in north London, cafe owner Eric says he is losing money for each seat occupied by a laptop user rather than a paying customer. Speaking at his shop, Local Coffee & Grocery in West Hampstead, a cozy spot which doubles as an organic food store, he said the problem got so bad and the cost so high that they stopped offering customers WiFi altogether. Poll Do YOU think remote workers should use cafes? Yes No Do YOU think remote workers should use cafes? Yes 155 votes No 2651 votes Now share your opinion Eric said: 'We had to set boundaries. Usually, when people see there's no WiFi they change their minds and leave. 'Before, we had issues with people who would sit down and use the WiFi without even ordering anything. 'Small businesses like us, we need to pay our rent, our rates, everything. I've calculated that every seat costs us 5 an hour. One coffee is not covering that. 'Sometimes they don't even buy coffee, they buy something like a bottle of water from the shop which costs 1 or 1.50 and want to sit here. He said he and his staff have had to start asking people to leave if they only buy one item, telling them that they need to at least have a hot drink if they want to sit. 'But when you take that risk, these kind of people bully you through Google reviews. We don't have control over them,' he said. 'You're trying to protect your business, to keep it alive, and some people just post and make things up. They get aggressive, especially if you don't allow them to sit without buying anything.' Local Coffee & Grocery in West Hampstead, a cozy spot which doubles as an organic food store, has stopped offering customers WiFi altogether The explosion in working from home, triggered by the pandemic, has left a lasting legacy - with offices closing for good and employees opting for social spaces to do their work and get out of the house (pictured: A remote worker in Local Coffee & Grocery cafe) He added that while it is costing him to host people, those 'using the space for work are saving their own money on electricity and heating at home.' He added that big chains have money to tackle the problem - sometimes using software which only allows someone 30 minutes free WiFi before they have to pay. But this is something his small business can't afford. 'Especially now, we're counting the pennies. Everyone is on survival mode now.' Milk & Bean is a popular high street in Newbury, described by its owners as an 'intimate' space. Despite its size, it has a welcoming ambience which encourages customers to sit-in rather than takeaway. But with just four small tables inside and a handful outside - British weather permitting of course - the cafe needs to have a high turnover, with its co-owner Chris Chaplin saying that he finds laptop users don't buy as much as customers who are there to relax. 'Generally the spend of someone on a laptop is lower than a customer without. If people are in a social setting they are usually happy to spend more,' he said. 'We're very lucky that we have a set up which lends itself to takeaways, but we still rely on our regulars.' Chaplin, who runs the independent with his partner Freya, said the worst thing about the cafe being filled with laptop users was the impact it had on the otherwise friendly ambience, as well as the 'lack of awareness' displayed by some remote workers. 'Sometimes they don't care that there are people around them, especially if they're on a call or something like that and speak out loud, it's not nice. 'Other times you come in here and everyone's on laptops and it's dead quiet. You think 'what's going on in here?' Milk & Bean is a popular high street in Newbury, described by its owners as an 'intimate' space Milk & Bean's owners Chris and Freya have now put stickers on each of the tables asking that laptop users be considerate that they have limited space, and warning them of their rules Nese, who works in tech for a social media company, said that having meetings out loud in cafes is not only disrespectful, but also not discreet The couple have now put stickers on each of the tables asking that laptop users be considerate that they have limited space, and warning them of their rules. 'Most people are understanding when we ask them. There's a way about approaching it. It's about mutual respect.' The barista said it can be tough on staff when the cafe is silent, with a lack of social interaction often taking the enjoyment out of their shifts and 'ruining the vibe' of the cafe, which he wants to be a welcoming meeting space for people. 'That's what coffee's all about right? Socialising. I feel like it's replacing the pub - chatting over a coffee rather than a beer.' Nese, who works in tech for a social media company and was busy typing on her laptop on the cafe's smallest table, agreed with the establishment's owner. 'I was an office space employee but now I work from home all the time. So from time to time I need a change of scenery. 'I keep it really short because I'm usually really busy with my meetings, and I don't want to disturb anyone.' She said that having meetings out loud in cafes is not only disrespectful, but also not discreet. 'What I'm discussing in my meetings can be really confidential, and I don't want anyone to hear it. I never do meetings outside, I wouldn't feel comfortable.' 'People are chatting, they're chilled, they just want to have a coffee!' The 36-year-old said one way for people to avoid awkward encounters was to ask for permission before setting down their laptops. 'I ask for permission as well, I ask them if I can work here for a bit. Because these cafes are small businesses and they always have people coming and leaving, the rotation needs to be really high. In Common Ground, a popular coffee lounge with a takeaway hatch in Finsbury Park, laptops are banned completely - with a sign at the door warning wannabe web users that this is not the place for them. Fin, who works in PR, was having a coffee while scrolling on his phone. 'I quite like it because I regularly meet colleagues and stuff here and it stops us going on our laptops. 'I like that its chilled and not an office space. Small independent cafes around here get swarmed by people who want to work here all day. 'So it's nice to be able to nip in and out and know there's going to be a space. He added that he'd pick Common Ground over Gails and other big coffee franchises anytime. 'It's nicer than going to the big chains, this is a lot more of a relaxing space.' Common Ground is a popular coffee lounge with a takeaway hatch in Finsbury Park The coffee shop has banned laptops completely - with a sign at the door warning wannabe web users that this is not the place for them Nadine, who has been a barista at Common Ground for two years, says sometimes it's awkward to ask people not to use their laptops. 'Some people are really nice about it, really understanding. But some throw absolute tantrums when you tell them. 'We try to get everyone who walks in alone with a bag, you can tell they're planning to, and say 'I'm so sorry, we're actually a laptop free space'. 'But when they've already sat down, been there for a little bit, they tend to be a bit more standoffish. Like if they've already bought something, that's when they get a bit upset. 'It's awful if we're really quiet, and they're the only person there, then it's really hard to turn people away. 'It's really awkward sometimes saying no to people when it's not busy. How do you decide whether to let them in or not? It's just easier to have a blanket policy.' She added that for her: 'It makes it a nicer place to work. There's another cafe nearby where loads of people are on laptops and I go in and I just think "I'd hate to work here".' Driton Budakova, who owns Barista on The Other Side in nearby Finchley with his wife Adelina, told MailOnline that before bringing in measures to tackle laptop usage, their cafe was being treated 'like an office' by some customers. Back in May, Adelina posted on Google to complain of the one-star reviews being left by disgruntled customers who had been asked to move to a smaller table, designated for remote workers, while using their laptops. She said that many felt entitled to bigger tables of four or six seats 'and when we offer them the tables assigned friendly for laptop users, they reject'. The business owner said that regardless of how staff explained to these people about why they had such table rules in place, they would often become angry, and go on to leave negative Google reviews. All of the negative reviews on their profile were from laptop users, Adelina said. The buzz inside her cafe, which was full of people eating, socialising, and working on the correct tables earlier this week, suggested that such reviews don't reflect the reality. Driton said that before they introduced the signs: 'We had people who would get one coffee and stay all day. 'We have people who walk around speaking loudly on calls and treat it like their own personal workspace.' 'The signs have pretty much solved the problem,' he said. 'They see that and think they should buy more or not spend too much time.' Driton Budakova, who owns Barista on The Other Side in north London with his wife Adelina, told MailOnline that their cafe was being treated 'like an office' by some customers Adelina said that many felt entitled to bigger tables of four or six seats 'and when we offer them the tables assigned friendly for laptop users, they reject' (pictured: a remote worker on a designated table for laptop users in Barista on The Other Side) Driton said people would buy one coffee and then stay all day before they introduced the signs Adelina posted on Google to complain of the one-star reviews being left by disgruntled customers who had been asked to move to a smaller table, designated for remote workers, while using their laptops The buzz inside the cafe, which was full of people eating, socialising, and working on the correct tables earlier this week Cafes with more space - like Vegivores in Caversham - say they have no problem with people using laptops. Kevin Farrell, who runs the vegetarian eaterie, said the spaciousness of the restaurant means they are happy to encourage people with laptops. 'Tables used to be very scarce, but since we've got more space we now have plenty of seating - so laptop users doesn't trouble me as much now. He said the diner turns into a restaurant in the evening, and that when candles are put out on tables customers generally get the message that it's not the time for work. 'We're very hospitality focussed, we want this to be a home away from home for people, so if they want to sit here for a couple of hours I'm fine with that,' said Kevin. But the bustling spaces are not always ideal for people who want to work remotely either. One university student, who was working on his dissertation in a cafe in the town, said: 'I don't think working in cafes is a great practice. I'd rather not if I had the choice, but the local libraries are closed three days a week. 'This is the next best place. But it's really loud in here, I'd rather be in the library, and you have to buy something.' Tree Elven, a freelance writer and journalist, who regularly goes to Barista On The Other Side, says she thinks cafes need to be preserved as a space for both socialising and work Cafes with more space - like Vegivores in Caversham (pictured) - say they have no problem with people using laptops Kevin Farrell, who runs Vegivores, said the spaciousness of the restaurant means they are happy to encourage people with laptops Tree Elven, a freelance writer and journalist, who regularly goes to Barista On The Other Side, says she thinks cafes need to be preserved as a space for both socialising and work. She was sat on one of the cafe's three high tables designated for laptop use - but was busy working with two notepads without a device in sight. 'I really appreciate the fact that some cafes now say 'we're laptop free',' she said, laughing that some she had been to are like 'battery hen farms'. 'I appreciate both sides of the picture,' she added diplomatically. 'People are lonely, trying to earn a living, often working from someone else's kitchen table - it's tough. You go to a cafe for the human interaction. 'But on the other hand, I come in here to see other people chatting and social interactions. 'As a society, we're just ignoring each other more - touch screen is not the same as touch.' Life's a beach even when you're on strike! A striking Boeing machinist found a way to wait out stalled labor negotiations from the comfort of a Mexican getaway, posting images from his vacation on social media. Rob Sharpe, who a source told to DailyMail.com works in equipment services at a company plant in Puyallup, Washington, can be seen laying back on a lounge chair while holding a small 'ON STRIKE' sign. Another picture shows him flexing his biceps while wearing a t-shirt and flip flops on a beach, with thatched umbrellas in the background. 'I'm speechless,' said a source familiar with the high-stakes talks who had heard anecdotally that some strikers were skipping town while management and labor are in a standoff in contract negotiations. 'You've got hunting season. You've got the salmon jumping and the halibut out in Washington State ... They're sitting on their offer from March and going on vacation.' 'On strike in Puerto Villarta, Jalisco Mexico,' said the post, with the hashtags '#iam751' and '#boeing', in reference to the aerospace machinists local union. A striking member of the machinists union posted an image on a Boeing employees message board. Union members have yet to weigh in on the latest contract offer from the company The images appeared on a Facebook group for striking Boeing Employees that is promoting the labor action. The union represents 33,000 striking workers. It came as rank-and-file union members are so far rejecting what the union says is a 'best and final offer'. The strike has halted production of the 737 Max and other aircraft during a year when Boeing has suffered a series of setbacks. The company says it is losing $100 million a day amid the strike. Both sides are facing pressure to move. The total cost of the strike on the company and its workers and suppliers hit $1.4 billion by September 27, according to an analysis by the Anderson Economic Group. The union complained that the company released its offer publicly rather than bringing it directly to union negotiators. Workers went on strike Sept. 13 after rejecting a deal The strike is the latest obstacle for the company, which has suffered mechanical difficulties over the past year The latest offer includes salary increases and an increased 401(k) contribution by the company Nice catch: Other striking workers posted about hauling in salmon on a Facebook site for striking workers The latest offer includes 30% pay raises over a period of four years, an increase from an earlier 25% offer but below the 40% sought by the union over three years. It also includes a $6,000 ratification bonus, doubled from $3,000 in an earlier tentative agreement. A 401(k) match would have the company meet 100% of an employee's first 8% in their own contribution, in addition to a 4% company contribution that is automatic. The union said the proposal doesn't go far enough and that the company 'missed the mark.' It said it would survey its membership about how to respond to the offer. DailyMail.com has reached out to local machinists union 751 and the company as well as Sharpe. A prolonged strike could be a headache for Vice President Kamala Harris, who is hoping for improved views of the economy to get voters to back her in a close race with Donald Trump. A looming dockworkers strike next week poses another challenge. The Biden administration issued a balanced statement when the strike began saying administration officials were in touch with both sides. 'Administration officials are in touch with Boeing and the Machinists. We encourage them to negotiate in good faith toward an agreement that gives employees the benefits they deserve and makes the company stronger,' White House spokeswoman Robyn Patterson told DailyMail.com. A union statement Monday blasted the latest offer. 'This offer was not negotiated with your Union; it was thrown at us without any discussion. 'This proposal does not go far enough to address your concerns, and Boeing has missed the mark with this proposal. They are trying to drive a wedge between our members and weaken our solidarity with this divisive strategy.' The negotiating committee called it a 'blatant show of disrespect' and put the question to its members. Internal survey results were 'overwhelmingly clear, almost as loud as the first offer: members are not interested in the companys latest offer,' the union said Tuesday. A source familiar with the strike indicated it was a notable image. 'Mexico, picture strike - Ill give you that,' said the source, but said there was nothing wrong with getting away while the strike is underway. 'People can choose to go on vacation a lot,' said the source, noting that strikers can draw pay from a strike fund and that some trade their strike time to others, swapping cash for picket hours. 'Were all in this together collectively.' A woman who was hounded for sex by her ex-police officer landlord has revealed how he wouldn't even let her lock her door at night. Terry Cooke, 49, was last week handed a restraining order over a 'persistent' five-month campaign of harassment against lodger Lin Eriksen. It came just 18 months after he was sacked as a PC with Hampshire Constabulary for using his position to pursue vulnerable women. Miss Eriksen has now revealed the sickening texts Cooke would send her, constantly badgering her for sex and suggesting that they shower together. The therapeutic practitioner, 29, detailed how sharing a home with him became so uncomfortable, she even began staying at her ex-partner's house in a desperate bid to avoid him. Cooke also refused to let Miss Eriksen have a lock on her door because he wanted his cat to be able to roam freely around the house. Speaking exclusively of her ordeal to MailOnline, she said: 'I told him so many times this was inappropriate, we need to have this tenant and landlord relationship. Lin Eriksen, 29, was pestered by Terry Cooke, 49, who she had rented a room from in Basingstoke in November 2022. In April 2021, Cooke was struck off Hampshire Constabulary for using his position to pursue vulnerable women MailOnline has seen some of the Whatsapp messages Terry sent Lin Eriksen 'It was a nightmare living there. My friends told me they were scared on my behalf.' Cooke was found guilty of a 'persistent' campaign of harassment that lasted for five months and was handed a restraining order for two years at Portsmouth Crown Court last week. Miss Eriksen, a live-in nanny in London, was looking for a room to rent in Basingstoke over the weekends when she wasn't working in October 2021 for her and her then-partner when they came across Cooke's advert on the website, Spareroom. She said: '[Cooke] would send messages like 'What are you up to this weekend?'. He obviously knew I was in a relationship, but it still felt a bit too personal. 'But my partner and I just both thought, 'Oh, he's just a friendly guy who wants to make sure that the people he potentially will rent the room to will be on the same wavelength'.' At the time Cooke declined to rent the room, and it was more than a year later in November 2022, when she messaged him back, now single, to enquire about it and ended up renting it. She said: 'The agreement was that I would stay there on the weekend because I worked and was living in London from Monday to Friday, and then would live in Basingstoke Friday to Sunday.' Miss Eriksen resigned from her job in London around December 2022 and moved into the Basingstoke home full-time. She recounted the messages: 'To begin with, I thought, he's just over friendly, he's complimenting me, but it got progressively worse.' The messages became more intrusive from that point onwards as he started asking her if she wanted to have no-strings-attached sex. 'All the conversations when I came downstairs, even if only to get a drink, would be: 'Oh by the way, have you seen my text? [about having sex] And 'what do you think about it, it would be so cool, and it would be so easy, and it would be lovely'. And all these things. 'I told him so many times this was inappropriate, we need to have this tenant and landlord relationship. 'But it just kept getting worse, and it was at the point when I was living there that I would never go downstairs unless he was out because I felt so unsafe and uncomfortable.' Miss Eriksen said: ''I told him so many times this was inappropriate, we need to have this tenant and landlord relationship' Cooke, pictured, was arrested and following a trial, he was found guilty of one charge of harassment without violence Miss Eriksen, pictured, describing living with Cooke as a 'nightmare' One message shared with MailOnline read: 'We could have a shower together maybe. That would be so hot. Sorry I'm horny today lol and I so want this with you.' Another read: 'I would love to get a message from you saying you're really horny and going to have a shower.' Leaving the house crossed her mind, but she claims it wasn't as easy to find alternative accommodation because she is from Denmark and a lot of paperwork is involved. She said: 'It was a nightmare living there', adding, 'It got to the point where I even stayed at my ex-partner's house because I was so uncomfortable'. She added: 'My friends told me they were scared on my behalf'. The campaign of harassment, which lasted for five months, culminated on March 1, 2023, when Cooke knocked on her door at midnight. She said: 'One night I had been staying in my bedroom for the majority of the day and went to bed at 10 or 11pm and woke up to a knock on the door. 'And I didn't say anything, because I was obviously scared that the next thing that he would do was come into my bedroom. He refused to have any lock on the door due to his cat.' She described: 'I was in shock because I was scared of what was going to happen to me. 'Then he knocked again and again. I didn't say anything, just stayed there still and then I heard him going to his own bedroom.' Miss Eriksen said: 'It's terrifying that someone who's supposed to protect and serve is actually doing the exact opposite.' She rung the police the following morning and Cooke was then arrested and following a trial, he was found guilty of one charge of harassment without violence. Mitigating, Martin Kessler said the former police officer was of 'good character' adding: 'He has learnt his lesson and the chances of this happening again are very slim indeed. This came after in April 2021, Cooke was struck off Hampshire Constabulary for using his position to pursue vulnerable women. This involved a number of incidents including when he asked the victim of a car crash on a date at the scene of the accident and called her friend the next day to repeat the offer. The misconduct panel at the time said his behaviour was 'troubling' and he had 'systematically abused' his position. Reacting to this, Miss Eriksen said: 'It's terrifying that someone who's supposed to protect and serve is actually doing the exact opposite.' Cooke was sentenced to a 12-month community order with 25 rehabilitation days, a fine of 120, a victim surcharge of 114 and ordered to pay court costs of 650. They are the warring former lovers whose sensational testimony electrified the 1993 murder trial of Beverly Hills rich kids Lyle and Erik Menendez. Now the brothers' therapist Dr. Jerome Oziel, 78, and his former mistress Judalon Smyth, 72, have been photographed for the first time in 31 years in exclusive DailyMail.com pictures. The former couple's story is back in the headlines thanks to the smash-hit success of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. The series stars Javier Bardem and Chloe Sevigny as Jose and Kitty Menendez the parents the brothers shot dead at their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989. Oziel and Smyth are played by Dallas Roberts and Leslie Grossman in the hit drama which includes scenes showing the pair testifying at trial. Judalon Smyth, 72, at her door in the quiet Colorado town of Pueblo, 31 years after she gave sensational testimony at the Menendez brothers trial Smyth on the witness stand during the Menendez trial in 1993 Smyth lives in this modest $189,000 four-bedroom home and, like her former lover, lives alone Their testimony descended into a circus thanks to its lurid content and the couple taking the stand on opposite sides. The ex-lovers once lived glamorous lives in Los Angeles, with Oziel running a successful psychotherapy practice in the ritzy LA suburb of Calabasas and Smyth enjoying a lengthy career as an EMT in Beverly Hills. According to her LinkedIn page, she also ran a tourism consultancy called Travel Secrets that shut down in 2012 and had a side role dispensing beauty advice for a second consultancy called Youth Secrets. But DailyMail.com can reveal both have now moved away from Los Angeles and are living quietly in cities 300 miles apart. Oziel now lives alone in a $875,000 five-bedroom home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after his wife Laurel divorced him in 2014 according to court records seen by DailyMail.com. Jerome Oziel, 78, moved to Albuquerque after his marriage broke up. He gave evidence at the Menendez trial in 1993 With his wife Laurel looking on, Oziel denied claims he had Smyth eavesdrop on therapy sessions in which the Menendez brothers confessed to killing their parents, at a press conference in 1990 Oziel now lives in this $875,000 five-bedroom home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, about 300 miles from Smyth The couple appear to have split shortly after the trial, with Laurel moving to Arizona and then Oregon while Oziel moved to New Mexico. Despite their lengthy separation, Laurel didn't end their marriage until September 2013 with the divorce finalized the following year. In 1997, Oziel was struck off by the California Board of Psychologists as a result of his testimony at the Menendez trial and had his medical license revoked. Nonetheless, he remains listed on the website of a company called the Marital Mediation Center which has an address in Albuquerque and says he is employed there as a therapist. When DailyMail.com visited, the premises appeared to be an ordinary suburban home with a black pick-up parked on the driveway, although no one would answer the door. A family photo of Lyle Menendez, Kitty Menendez, Jose Menendez and Erik Menendez The famous picture recreated with actors Nicholas Chavez as Lyle, Chloe Sevigny as Kitty, Javier Bardem as Jose and Cooper Koch as Erik Dallas Roberts plays Jerome Oziel while Leslie Grossman depicts Judalon Smyth in Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story Smyth lives 336 miles north of Albuquerque in the quiet Colorado town of Pueblo in a modest $189,000 four-bedroom home and, like her former lover, lives alone. Both declined to comment on their reignited fame when approached by DailyMail.com. Despite Smyth's reticence to talk about the Menendez case, she has long been active on social media where she has spoken frequently of her support for former President Donald Trump and her congresswoman firebrand Republican Lauren Boebert. The 72-year-old has also shared bizarre conspiracy theories, including one that accuses the Rockefeller dynasty of killing millions with shoddy vaccines during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic and another that claimed the real British king is a man named John III and not the real monarch Charles III. In 1989, the year that the Menendez brothers gunned down their parents inside the sitting room at their Beverly Hills home, the pair were lovers. Oziel and Smyth met when she approached him looking for relationship therapy sessions a lucrative business for Oziel who charged $150 an hour. After realizing she couldn't afford the fees, Smyth and Oziel began a sexual relationship, and the now-72-year-old testified during the trial that she presented him with a 'sex IOU' that included pawprints from her two cats Shanti Oz and Ishi Kitty, whom she enlisted as witnesses. Both brothers were convicted of first-degree murder and in July 1996, the pair were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole The courtroom scene recreated in the Netflix series She also admitted that she briefly moved in with Oziel and his wife Laurel, her stay lasting three months with Oziel's wife later saying she had felt her family 'had been held hostage by this woman in our own home'. Smyth, in contrast, claimed she felt like a 'prisoner of war' during her stay and said Oziel threatened to have her committed if she moved out. Whatever the truth of the claims, both agree their involvement with the Menendez brothers began months after the August 1989 murders when Oziel was contacted by younger sibling Erik who told the therapist he was having suicidal thoughts. During a taped meeting at Oziel's office, the pair admitted to killing their parents with the 48-minute confession later presented in court as critical evidence for the prosecution. Despite pledging to keep the confession coonfidential, Oziel told Smyth about the tapes. Five months later in a fit of rage after they split, she called in the cops and told them that the Menendez brothers had confessed to her ex-lover. The brothers, who had gone on a $700,000 spending binge following their parents' murder, were arrested in March 1990 Lyle first on March 8 and Erik three days later after turning himself in following a trip to Israel. The brothers, who had gone on a $700,000 spending binge following their parents' murder, were arrested in March 1990 Chilling crime scene photos showing the blood-soaked couch where Jose Menendez was shot five times by his own sons became central to the prosecution In August 1990, Judge James Albrecht ruled the tapes could be used at trial due to Lyle's threats against Oziel which he decided violated patient-doctor privilege. The brothers appealed but in 1992, the California Supreme Court ruled for Oziel with the siblings eventually indicted on murder charges in December the same year. That teed the Menendez brothers up for a sensational trial that began in July 1993 with the defense arguing the brothers were sexually abused by their father while the prosecution said the murders were over money. But one of the most explosive parts of the trial came when Oziel took to the stand as a witness for the prosecution with Smyth lined up as a witness for the defense. The Menendez's defense counsel Leslie Abramson vowed to discredit the psychologist after failing to get the tapes struck out of court and to that end, she employed Smyth, who memorably when asked if she wanted children with Oziel, snapped: 'I would not want children that looked like Dr Oziel.' Despite dramatic developments in court, the first trial ended with a hung jury. A retrial was announced immediately afterwards, although unlike the first trial, the second in 1995 was not televised. Lyle, now 56, (left) and Erik, 53, posed for mugshots in 2023. They are now banged up together at the RJ Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego The moment of the murder depicted in the Netflix series Erik Menendez, left, and his brother Lyle, in front of their Beverly Hills home before their arrests Both brothers were convicted of first-degree murder and in July 1996, they were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. The brothers are now banged up together at the RJ Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego also home to RFK's killer Sirhan Sirhan. They have repeatedly appealed their convictions, most recently filing a new appeal based on the claims of Puerto Rican pop star Roy Rossello, 54, who claimed he had been raped by Jose Menendez at the family's New Jersey home aged 14. Erik Menendez slammed the Netflix series as an inaccurate portrayal of the brothers. 'I believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle, creating a caricature of Lyle rooted in horrible and blatant lies rampant in the show. I can only believe they were done so on purpose,' he wrote on Facebook. 'It is with a heavy heart that I say, I believe Ryan Murphy cannot be this naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent.' EQS-Ad-hoc: Neon Equity AG / Key word(s): Investment/Miscellaneous NEON EQUITY AG plans to acquire First Move! AG as part of a non-cash capital increase to enter the automated parking and parking garage technology market 27-Sep-2024 / 11:30 CET/CEST Disclosure of an inside information acc. to Article 17 MAR of the Regulation (EU) No 596/2014, transmitted by EQS News - a service of EQS Group AG. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Publication of inside information pursuant to Article 17 of the Market Abuse Regulation NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION, PUBLICATION OR TRANSMISSION, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION IN WHICH SUCH DISTRIBUTION, PUBLICATION OR TRANSMISSION WOULD BE UNLAWFUL. NEON EQUITY AG plans to acquire First Move! AG as part of a non-cash capital increase to enter the automated parking and parking garage technology market Extraordinary General Meeting of NEON EQUITY to decide on capital increase in kind and change of name to DN Deutsche Nachhaltigkeit AG Frankfurt am Main, September 27, 2024 - The Management Board of NEON EQUITY AG (NEON EQUITY, ISIN DE000A3DW408) today decided to convene an Extraordinary General Meeting of NEON EQUITY and to propose to it the resolution on the acquisition of 88% of the shares in the Swiss company First Move! AG (First Move) by way of a capital increase against contribution in kind under exclusion of shareholders' subscription rights (Transaction). First Move has a patented parking and parking garage technology that achieves an increase in parking garage space productivity of over 100% compared to a conventional parking garage. The solution - which is also suitable for retrofitting - significantly reduces pollutant emissions and space requirements and also significantly increases the capacity for charging electric vehicles. The Management Board sees the opportunity to develop NEON EQUITY into a leading player in the rapidly growing market for automated parking in the medium term with this business model. The strategic focus of its business model on sustainable investments will be accompanied by the renaming of NEON EQUITY to DN Deutsche Nachhaltigkeit AG. The resolution was immediately preceded by an agreement with the shareholders of First Move on the key points and the implementation of the transaction. SP 1 Equity GmbH, Frankfurt am Main (SP 1), which is also a major shareholder with a stake of more than 25% in NEON EQUITY, currently holds 88% of the shares in First Move to be contributed as a contribution in kind. The intended capital increase against contributions in kind is to be carried out in return for the granting of 30,000,000 new NEON EQUITY shares to SP 1. The exchange ratio is to be approx. 340,909:1, i.e. SP 1 is to receive approx. 340,909 new NEON EQUITY shares for each First Move share. The exchange ratio is based, on the one hand, on an expert valuation of First Move of around EUR 118.8 million, whereby a lower valuation of EUR 89.1 million was agreed with SP1 of First Move for the transaction. On the other hand, the exchange ratio is based on a valuation of the new NEON EQUITY shares of EUR 2.50, i.e. a premium of around 58% percent on yesterday's closing price of NEON EQUITY shares in XETRA trading. The implementation of the capital reductions resolved at the Annual General Meeting of NEON EQUITY on May 28, 2024 under agenda items 12 and 13 is uncertain due to an action for rescission. If the capital increase against contributions in kind is resolved by the Extraordinary General Meeting of NEON EQUITY, the aforementioned capital reductions would be canceled. Stalking victims remain at serious risk of harm or murder due to police forces not 'sufficiently understanding' the offence, a damning report has found. Campaigners are demanding action over safeguarding failures two years on from a 'super-complaint' which launched a major review. Organisations which make up The National Stalking Consortium say police are failing to identify suspects, properly investigate crimes and implement protection for victims, 'putting many at risk'. Today's report found it is common for stalking to be mischarged as different types of crime such as malicious communications, criminal damage or domestic abuse. This in turn means victims aren't given Stalking Protection Orders (SPOS) which can help shelter them, in a similar way to a restraining order. In some cases, these failings have led to the death of a victim and sometimes the suicide of the suspect. Edward Vines (pictured) was jailed for stalking Emily Maitlis. He breached his SPO repeatedly Stalking needs to be renamed as it is too closely associated with glamour and celebrities, ex-Newsnight presenter and stalking victim Emily Maitlis (pictured) has said previously Seven million people in England and Wales have been victims of stalking - one in five women and one in 10 men. There have been several high profile cases, mainly where the victim has been a woman, such as former Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis. Her stalker breached his order 20 times, continuing to harass her even from prison. In 2022, Yasmin Wafah Chkaifi, 43, died after the 'terrifying' attack by stalker ex-husband Leon McCaskie, 41, in Maida Vale, West London. McCaskie was already wanted by police for breaching a restraining order which Ms Chkaifi had taken out against him for being abusive. Today's findings pinpointed a lack of an effective strategy by officers to support stalking victims such as these, and recommended an overhaul of the law. The Committee - made up of His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, the College of Policing and the Independent Office for Police Conduct - also found that there is poor risk assessment and safeguarding being carried out across forces, which is potentially leaving some victims at serious risk. It found that in 297 cases there was risk of serious harm or homicide to the victim, but this was only identified in 66 of them. The report read: 'The police had not identified risk of serious harm or homicide to a victim in many of the relevant cases that were part of our fieldwork case file review. This finding is especially concerning. 'Our review of IOPC stalking cases included some cases where police officers or staff had taken advantage of their position to pursue a sexual or improper emotional relationship with a member of the public and which also involved stalking behaviours. 'However, it was not common for these cases to be recorded and dealt with specifically as stalking offences by either the IOPC or the police force professional standards departments who investigated them. Yasmin Chkaifi was killed by her ex husband who she warned police about two years before Yasmin Wafah Chkaifi (left), died after the horrific attack by Leon McCaskie (right), 41, in Maida Vale, West London A body bag is taken away by private ambulance on Chippenham Road in 2022 Her friend Adele-Sara Richards, who knew her as Yaz, said that in April 2020, Ms Chkaifi messaged her to say: 'He's had cameras in my house recording me for months' 'This means that the risk to victims may not have been properly identified and managed, including through stalking-specific protections such as SPOs. Victims would also be unlikely to be referred to specialist stalking support services.' It found that the laws and guidance for police are 'confusing and inconsistent' and there is a lack of understanding by police of the scale and types of stalking in their area. There are issues with the quality and resourcing of some investigations, it added. Some officers failed to search for and seize evidence belonging to suspects, along with not arresting them. 'Most' case files were also missing evidence of the psychological impact on victims. 'In many cases, we did not think officers had recognised this impact at all,' the report found. It quoted one stalking victim who said the officer joked about the crime she was reporting. It read: 'We had a victim that was having the ice scraped off her car for her every morning. And the response from the officer was, 'Wow, that sounds great. I need a stalker'. The police super-complaints system is designed to consider complaints about systemic issues in policing. Only organisations that are designated by the Home Secretary can make a super-complaint. This includes The Suzy Lamplugh Trust, which is demanding for 'immediate action' in the form of a National Stalking Plan for different authorities and agencies to work together. The organisation is also calling for 243,810,000 in funding for specialist stalking support services which would occur across all criminal justice agencies. It noted that applications of Stalking Protection Orders (SPOs) are worryingly low, and police training on stalking is inconsistent. SPOs are meant to protect victims, but only half of the breaches reported to police end in a charge or conviction, MailOnline can reveal. It is a civil order to protect a victim of stalking, and breaching one is a criminal offence which can result in up to five years in prison. They were introduced in 2019 to shield people subject to intrusive and obsessive unwanted behaviour while the police investigate. But Rachel Horman-Brown, a lawyer who specialises in stalking cases, told MailOnline that getting an SPO in the first place is 'as rare as hen's teeth'. She said: 'The police hardly ever obtain one despite victims asking and sometimes begging them to obtain one. This to me is the far bigger issue than simply enforcement of a handful of orders 'Whilst the police will say that they are there for victims of stalking the experience of the vast majority of victims is that the police just don't seem to care about stalking and give negligent advice such as 'just come off social media' or 'change your number'. 'This actually increases the risk to the victim as a stalker then has to find another means of getting to the victim such as turning up at their place of work.' Recently, the legislation was updated to make it easier for SPOs to be granted after it emerged they were being severely underused by forces. But data obtained by MailOnline has revealed that when a stalker ignores this order and continues to harass their victim, half of the time they face no consequences. The orders are meant to protect victims, but when MailOnline sent Freedom of Information requests to the MoJ and the forces, it emerged that only 53 per cent of reported breaches end in a charge/conviction (of the 25 which responded). For offences in general, this is significantly higher, at around 81 per cent. Of those that are sentenced for breaching an order, last year the average prison time was 79 months, and the average fine 304. MailOnline asked all of the police forces in England and Wales how many breaches of SPOs were reported in the last five years. Examining the forces which provided data between 2019 and 2024, the areas with the lowest rate of charges/convictions for breaches are North Wales at 30 per cent, Cleveland at 33 per cent and Thames Valley Police at 57 per cent. Lucy was left fearing for her life after he send her a picture of a table full of knives Of the forces which responded, Cumbria Police has the highest rate - 78 per cent - of reports ending in a charge. This is for the three years it held the data for. Second best is West Mercia, which has a 73 per cent charge rate from 2022 to April 2024. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust said they are 'sadly not surprised' by MailOnline's findings, adding that there is a 'systemic lack of understanding' in the police about SPOs. In one case, a woman who feared being murdered by her stalker said it took nine months from the date she requested a Stalking Protection Order for it to be put in place. In that time, she received death threats and suffered a breakdown. Emma Lingley-Clark, Interim CEO of Suzy Lamplugh Trust, said: 'This is a pivotal moment for police forces to demonstrate their commitment to improving the criminal justice experience and outcomes for victims of stalking. 'However, it is not enough to just say we will do better, instead now we need to see a real commitment to preventing the numerous failures encountered by stalking victims. 'Ensuring that every victim receives the best possible response requires a mammoth effort across all criminal justice agencies. 'We welcome these robust recommendations and want to support police forces to urgently implement them. But there is a vital need for these interventions to be resourced. 'Police alone will not be able to achieve the whole system reform that is needed to address the widespread systemic issues identified in this report. Now is the time for all agencies, including the Government, to join forces against stalking'. Stalking victim Rhianon Bragg said: 'I was lucky to survive being stalked, I nearly didn't. I know that what I endured could had been prevented if the police and CPS had responded differently. Action must be taken before more lives are needlessly destroyed by stalking.' Deputy Chief Constable Paul Mills, National Police Chief's Council Lead for Stalking and Harassment, added: 'We welcome the recommendations made in the super-complaint and remain committed to doing everything possible to improve the policing response for victims of stalking. 'Stalking and harassment can have a devastating impact on victims. Our criminal justice system must recognise the damage and harm perpetrators cause and protect victims at the earliest opportunity. 'To effectively do this, policing must respond as part of a wider system approach. As the report highlights, Police forces that have integrated multi-agency models to respond to reports of stalking have seen the best success at disrupting perpetrator behaviour and safeguarding victims. 'We must continue to drive best practice nationally across forces and ensure that police officers and staff have the right skills and resources to identify and investigate reports and provide support for victims through the criminal justice process.' CAPURGANA, Colombia 'Hey! Hey you! Alto! Stop!' three Colombian cartel soldiers shouted at me and my translator as we ducked into a small shop and pretended not to hear their commands. I'd come to Capurgana, a dusty seaside village on the northwest coast of Colombia to investigate international efforts to shut down one of the world's most notorious human smuggling routes the Darien Gap. It's a 70-mile stretch of dense jungle connecting South America and Panama through which 1.5 million migrants from 170 countries have passed from 2021 to August 2024. Capurgana is one of the last major stops before these travelers enter Central America seeking a new life further north, invariably in the U.S. What I discovered shocked me and, for a heart-pounding moment, I thought I'd never make it out with the story. Instead of finding any progress toward reining in a historic illegal immigration crisis here, I uncovered the opposite. I'd come to Capurgana, a dusty seaside village on the northwest coast of Colombia to investigate international efforts to shut down one of the world's most notorious human smuggling routes the Darien Gap. Capurgana (above) is one of the last major stops before these travelers enter Central America seeking a new life further north, invariably in the U.S. Migrants arrive in Capurgana daily by the hundreds from all over South America and places as far-flung as Africa, the Middle East and China. They're met on the docks by foot soldiers of the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a powerful paramilitary drug-trafficking cartel that rules the region's smuggling routes. The migrants pay hundreds of dollars each for passage and permission to travel north through the Darien Gap to Panama and beyond. I'd been warned that the cartel kept a close watch on everything here, so I posed as a tourist. For a full day, I'd been flying a drone out the window of my hotel room filming the Gaitanistas shuttling men, women and children from the docks to the Darien Gap to begin their journey. But when I began documenting the operation from the ground, I was spotted and chased into a convenience store by three Gaitanistsa goons. 'Hand over the camera,' one of the hulking men demanded. I backed up against the cash register. On my phone was the damning footage of their activities. It felt that keeping it secret could be a matter of life or death. I'm just a 'gringo,' I told them through my translator, an 'adventure tourist.' They weren't buying it. I briefly considered an escape, thinking of the taser I carry in my front pocket. But even if we got away, there was only one way out of Capurgana the boats controlled by the Gaitanistas. When I began documenting the operation from the ground, I was spotted and chased into a convenience store by three Gaitanistsa goons. 'Hand over the camera,' one of the hulking men demanded. (Above) Author Todd Bensman They're met on the docks (above) by foot soldiers of the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a powerful paramilitary drug-trafficking cartel that rules the region's smuggling routes. I raised my hands in surrender. 'Okay, I'll tell you the truth about everything,' I said. Around a cheap plastic table in a restaurant next door, I explained that I was an American journalist. Thankfully, even the Gaitanistas are not so bold as to harm a Yankee. They let me leave on the condition that I take the first boat out of town the next morning and, in the meantime, I was instructed to stay out of their way. They had work to do. And they've never been busier. For decades, fewer than 10,000 migrants a year passed through towns like Capurgana to cross the Darien Gap. But after President Joe Biden came into office, demolished his predecessor's security measures and essentially opened the U.S. southern border, that number increased to 133,000 immigrants in 2021. Then, the seven-day crossing was still notorious for rapes, robberies and murders. Indigenous inhabitants on the Panamanian side routinely killed migrants for their money and valuables. Women ran the risk of sexual assault from fellow migrants and cartel guides. Flash floods along the river were known to sweep away entire families camping in the middle of the night. The weak and injured were routinely left by the trailside to die. Now, nearly everything has changed. No longer a torturous seven-day trek, the current passage through the Darien Gap is a two or three-day walk along trails heavily patrolled by Panamanian border police. Why? In April 2022, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas signed an agreement with Panama to help ease the humanitarian disaster - that the White Hoyuse helped create by throwing open America's gates. The administration declared its commitment to 'safe, orderly, and humane migration,' worldwide. In 2023, U.S. State Department agencies further increased contributions to the United Nations's International Organization for Migration to a staggering $1.4 billion, according to a database that tracks federal spending. Hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars began flowing into Panama. No longer a torturous seven-day trek, the current passage through the Darien Gap is a two or three-day walk along trails heavily patrolled by Panamanian border police. The nation built new migrant processing centers and welcomed dozens of non-governmental agencies to provide aid to the illegal travelers. So much was the investment that the once dangerous passage now resembles an American-built migrant 'super-highway.' As a result, illegal immigration in the Darien Gap has exploded even further. Crossings grew to 250,000 by the end of 2022. In 2023, 520,000 traversed the Gap. Midway through this year, nearly a quarter million had made the trip. The migrant flow is so overwhelming now that Panama's National Border Service chief told me his country screens less than one percent of the migrants. They used to question up to 90 percent about their criminal histories and potential ties to terrorism. It was no wonder that Panamanians have had enough. Panama's new president Raul Jose Mulino has pledged to close the crossing and, at least in writing, the Biden administration has agreed to help. On July 1, DHS Secretary Mayorkas said the U.S. would help fund deportation flights of illegal migrants from Panama back to Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. But that help hasn't yet materialized, according to President Mulino. 'I will never tire of reiterating my position before the international community,' he posted on Twitter this week. 'Darien will no longer be the path through which thousands of illegal immigrants continue to cross to the United States; this humanitarian crisis will come to an end.' On Tuesday, Biden's Treasury Department announced sanctions for a handful of leaders of the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia calling the cartel, 'one of the country's largest drug trafficking organizations and a key contributor to human smuggling through the Darien Gap.' Some may see the move as progress, but others in the region know that sanctions won't change the situation on the ground. It is difficult for critics to see this as anything less than a feeble response to a humanitarian crisis of the administration's own making. As long as this Biden-build migrant 'super-highway' remains open, misery and the criminality that feeds on it will continue. Kimberly Guilfoyle seems committed to standing by her man after he was recently caught up in a cheating scandal with a much-younger socialite. The former Fox News host, 55, has been pictured at fiance Donald Trump Jr.'s side after joining him on his surprise visit to the Balkans this week. Don Jr., 46, traveled to Serbia and Romania to deliver the message that a second Trump presidency would ensure an end to Russia's war in Ukraine. The unannounced trip comes at a critical time in both the Trump campaign and Don Jr.'s personal life after his recent intimate lunch date with Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson sparked speculation that he and Guilfoyle are on the rocks. The couple and Anderson are yet to publicly address the scandal, but Guilfoyle's recent social media post suggest she's focused on projecting an image of togetherness. Kimberly Guilfoyle shared a series of snaps standing by her fiance Donald Trump Jr's side during his trip to the Balkans this week The former Fox News host and Trump advisor took the stage with Don Jr in Bucharest on Wednesday during a 'Trump Vision 2025' conference The ex California prosecutor has shared a series of snaps from the their Euro travels on Instagram, where she can be seen posing closely alongside her boyfriend-of-six-years in every shot. On Monday she joined Don Jr. for a campaign dinner in Belgrade, where the couple met with Serbian businessman Slavko Caric. She has since shared snaps from their trip to Romania on Wednesday where they took the stage together at a 'Trump Business Vision 2025' conference in Bucharest. The couple's united front comes as rumors continue to swirl over Don Jr's dalliance with the 37-year-old philanthropist. Last week DailyMail.com revealed Anderson had been featured in a recent video schmoozing with the former president's son, his ex-wife and their daughter at a party in Florida, with Kimberly nowhere in sight. Sources close to the couple insisted Kimberly had been invited but had a speaking engagement that night. 'Don and Kimberly are very happy and very much together, totally focused on helping elect President Trump,' one of those sources said at the time. Don Jr.'s trip to Serbia and Romania was ostensibly to take the message that his father would end Russia's war in Ukraine, but it also gave him an escape from the scandal surrounding the couple's relationship The couple posed for photos after campaign dinner in Belgrade where they met with Serbian businessman Slavko Caric A photo obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com shows Don Jr. having brunch with Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson, 37, in mid August with fiancee Kimberly Guilfoyle nowhere in sight DailyMail.com revealed that Anderson and Don Jr. were spotted at lunch at The Honor Bar in Palm Beach on August 17. Witnesses said they kissed and at one point she put her hand on his thigh. 'She seemed totally smitten with Don and he with her,' said one person who saw them. 'They weren't exactly making out, but the kisses were romantic, and you could tell they were intimate with each other.' They were also heard telling their waiter they were planning a trip to Islamorada in the Florida Keys. DailyMail.com also revealed that Anderson's life as a leading light in the millionaire enclave of Palm Bech was almost derailed before it began. She was a passenger aboard her brother's private plane flying back into the country in 2015 when customs officers found Psilocybin or magic mushrooms concealed in one of three cigarette cartons on board, court filings obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com show. Harry Loy Anderson III, now 47, was piloting the aircraft back from a trip to Eleuthera in the Bahamas and Bettina was among three passengers on board when a search of her brother's bags revealed his apparent attempt to smuggle the controlled substance into the country. According to the criminal complaint, 'On August 9, 2015, Harry Loy Anderson III, a licensed pilot, entered the United States Customs and Border Protection Private Aircraft facility at Palm Beach International Airport after piloting a private aircraft to West Palm Beach, Palm Beach County from North Eluthra (sic), Bahamas.' Loy, as he is known to his family, told officers he had nothing to declare, claimed to have presented all his luggage for inspection, and denied having any alcohol or tobacco aboard. But, the subsequent criminal complaint states: 'A search of a tan in color leather bagrevealed three packages of cigarettes located in the tan bag. Two of the packages contained cigarettes. Anderson was revealed to have got caught up in a drug bust involving her brother Harry Loy Anderson III (left) in 2015. Harry, now 47, was piloting the aircraft back from a trip to the Bahamas and his younger sister (pictured together with brother Kent) was among three passengers on board Photos and video later emerged on Instagram showing Bettina Anderson, 37, close to Don Jr. and his former wife Vanessa at a party in Jupiter, Florida, in August The footage suggests the Palm Beach socialite also has a very friendly relationship with Don Jr.'s kids and their mother Vanessa, with whom she was seen sharing a seat on a patio chair and chatting intimately 'The third package, however, contained a silver metallic lining containing what appeared to be Psilocybin Mushrooms (a Schedule 1 Controlled Substance). 'When asked about the mushrooms, . Anderson became very nervous and stated that those were not his; that he did not smoke or drink.' He was then asked if he was carrying the narcotics for anyone else 'to which he answered in the negative'. A field test revealed the substance to be magic mushrooms. Loy was arrested and his Miranda rights read at which point agents attempted to interview him but he 'invoked his rights and was unwilling to talk to with agents'. Loy was charged on three counts importation and attempted importation of a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance on board an aircraft arriving in the United States, and aiding and abetting. Ultimately Loy pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of one count of possession of a controlled substance and received a sentence of four years' probation. He was also forced to surrender his pilot's license and fined $5,000. A Michigan judge who had a 15-year-old girl handcuffed on a field trip to his courthouse has been demoted upon his return to court. Judge Kenneth King has returned to courtroom duties following his suspension in August after he ordered 15-year-old Eva Goodman into jail clothing and handcuffs while she was on a field trip in Detroit, Michigan. King is now being sued for $75,000 by Goodman and her family and is accused of violating her civil rights. Judge King holds 'no reservations' for his actions and believes he acted in such a way to teach the children a valuable lesson Eva was on a trip organized by the non-profit organization she works with, Greening of Detroit The teen was also threatened with time in a juvenile center, because she fell asleep in the courthouse and the judge believed she was showing 'attitude' while she was an informational trip organized by the nonprofit organization she works for, the Greening of Detroit. Her mother, Latoreya Till, told Detroit Free Press: 'My daughter is hurt. She is feeling scared. She didn't want to go to work. She feels like as if her peers went against her. She was real nervous and intimidated.' Footage of the incident, caught on the court's live stream, captured the moment King raised his voice to wake her up and said, 'You fall asleep in my courtroom one more time, I'm gonna put you in the back, understood?' Judge King then ordered the teen be handcuffed and threatened her with juvenile detention in front of the field trip group, saying: 'I'm gonna go to sleep tonight while you're sitting in the juvenile detention facilities.' He ordered 15-year-old Eva Goodman into jail clothing and handcuffs while she was on a field trip in Detroit, Michigan Judge King has returned from his suspension with a demotion after his 'extreme and outrageous' discipline toward a teen on a field trip He also told the group: 'One thing you'll learn about my courtroom, is that I am not a toy, I am not to be played with.' Till explained that the teen was likely tired due to her family not currently having a permanent place to live, as well as Goodman's job at the nonprofit organization keeping her busy, reported Detroit Free Press. She added: 'We have to bounce around currently because we don't have a permanent address. And so, that particular night, we got in kind of late. And usually, when she goes to work, she's up and planting trees or being active.' The judge later told WXYZ-TV: 'That's not something that normally happens but I felt compelled to do it because I didn't like the child's attitude... I haven't been disrespected like that in a very long time.' He also told the outlet that he realistically wasn't going to put her in any juvenile detention center, saying he wouldn't want to do that to a kid on a field trip, but easily could have. Goodman and her family are now suing the judge for $75,000 for 'violating her civil rights' Goodman's mother, Latoreya Till, said their living situation contributed to the teen falling asleep in the courtroom and the judge's actions only made her feel worse A week later, her mother says she continues to struggle going outside or interacting with anyone outside of their family as well as struggling to sleep at night, according to the New York Post. Her mother told WXYZ-TV through tears that the treatment of her daughter was belittling, she added that the judge telling her to sleep in her bed and not in the courtroom only made her daughter feel worse about their family's living situation. King's actions, according to the lawsuit, were considered 'extreme and outrageous' and intended to incite fear and emotional distress, reported the outlet. The 36th District Court Chief Judge William McConico said King had resumed his duties after attending mandatory social-emotional training, reported the Telegraph. The nonprofit's chairman, Marissa Wood, released a statement to WXYZ-TV saying: 'Although the judge was trying to teach a lesson of respect, his methods were unacceptable...the young lady was traumatized by the judge's unnecessary disciplinary treatment and scolding.' King's return to work also came with a demotion where he would no longer be handling major felony hearings but instead working in the traffic division, handling speeding tickets, reported the outlet. McConico also explained in a statement that he wasn't able to remove King from the bench, although the temporary suspension and training were approved by the State Court Administrative Office. King said: 'That's not something that normally happens but I felt compelled to do it because I didn't like the child's attitude... I haven't been disrespected like that in a very long time' Till said her daughter 'gets good grades, she don't get into no problems' and had barely gone outside and struggled to sleep since the incident King made no comment regarding his return other than he was 'glad to be back'. According to WXYZ-TV, he has 'no reservations' and does not think he was 'heavy-handed', saying actions were his way of helping children not be in his courtroom later in life. He added: 'That was my own version of scared straight.' Till made it clear she didn't think her daughter needed to be taught any lessons, and further said: 'My baby's been struggling, but she been holding on tight, she's been going to school, she get good grades, she dont get into no problems.' King reportedly reached out to the family and offered mentorship to Goodman, which was declined. Goodman's mother set up a GoFundMe in August following the incident with a goal of $1,000 that has currently received over 200 donations. Fake screams were blasted from a speaker in a South Philadelphia neighborhood as part of a test for a civil case against the city - a controversial move that woke up residents and left them terrified. Locals were awoken by a series of loud shrieks that echoed through the area early Monday morning. Unaware that the screams were part of a test, the residents were filled with panic and dread. 'It was so upsetting, like very loud shrieking screams,' Rachel Robbins, a South Philadelphia resident, told WPVI. Fake screams were blasted from a speaker in a South Philadelphia neighborhood as part of a test for a civil case against the city Resident Allison Sacks (left) called the scream 'blood-curdling.' Rachel Robbins, a neighbor, called the event 'so upsetting' 'It was this blood-curdling scream,' Allison Sacks, a neighbor, added. Sacks then noted that there was a series of 'four or five' screams. She said that the event lasted 'a good hour.' According to the city solicitor's office, the shrieks were part of a sound test in the civil case of Termaine Hicks. In 2001, Hicks was convicted of rape at 15th and Mifflin streets. For the crime, he served 19 years until a judge vacated his conviction in compliance with a request from the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office in 2020. In 2001, Hicks was convicted of rape at 15th and Mifflin streets. DNA evidence later exonerated him DNA evidence had revealed that Hicks was not the rapist and questions abounded as to whether or not the evidence had been planted. 'I feel for the plaintiff in this case,' Sacks said. 'I think there are other ways to prove the case.' The resident directed her frustration at the attorney who requested the test. Sacks said that she was upset that the lawyer did not 'take into consideration the impact it would have.' Robbins observed that 'there is such a long list of reasons it's unethical.' Upon receiving complaints from Robbins and other residents, the federal judge overseeing the case demanded an explanation. Early Monday morning, locals were awoken by a series of loud shrieks that echoed through the area 'I feel for the plaintiff in this case,' Sacks said He ordered the plaintiff's attorneys to demonstrate why they needed to conduct the scream test and why they should not be obligated to apologize to people in the neighborhood. In an official statement to Action News, Philadelphia's solicitor's office - who had an attorney present for the sound test - said that they would have sought a court order to prevent it if they had known it would involve fake screams. The statement added that the city 'had limited control over and advanced knowledge of the conditions of the testing.' It further noted that when the 'city attorneys became aware of the use of simulated screaming sounds,' they did not 'intervene because a necessary court order would not have been able to be obtained at the early morning hour.' Neufeld Scheck Brustin Hoffman & Freudenberger, LLP, the New York law firm representing Hicks, released a statement apologizing to residents. In an official statement to Action News , Philadelphia's solicitor's office- who had an attorney present for the sound test- said that they would have sought a court order to prevent it if they had known it would involve fake screams 'We conducted a test in connection with an important civil rights case and did not intend to cause harm to anybody,' the statement explained. 'We understand why residents are upset, and we want to sincerely apologize to the community, and anybody affected.' They continued: 'We feel terrible about the negative impact on the community.' But the law firm refrained from disclosing any further information about the test. 'We cannot talk with more specificity about the details given ongoing litigation,' the statement concluded. A distraught stepdad has revealed the final Father's Day letter written by his daughter before she took her own life under the weight of relentless bullying. Charlotte O'Brien, a Year 7 student at Santa Sabina College at Strathfield in Sydney's inner-west, took her own life earlier on September 8 after two years of misery where she said students had used confidential information to bully her. Charlotte's former primary school, Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Bossley Park, has allowed a pupil-free day to allow for her funeral at its church on Friday. Hundreds of friends, students and teachers are expected to attend to support the mourning family. Her stepdad, Mat, revealed his speech to the funeral will include a Father's Day letter written by Charlotte just a week before her tragic death. He said her words reflect how much of a 'remarkable, caring and thoughtful girl she was'. It was just one of a number of letters written by the young girl to her parents and those she cared for in the lead-up to taking her own life. In the final letter to her mother, Kelly, Charlotte asked her to 'please share my story to raise awareness' about bullying at the school. The father of Charlotte O'Brien (pictured), a year 7 girl student who took her own life after being relentlessly bullied, will read her final Father's Day letter to him at her funeral on Friday Her parents found the notes left in small pink handwriting after their daughter had taken her life in the upstairs bedroom of the family home. In a letter to Mat, Charlotte described her dad as 'more than a captain; you are also like the sea. You can be calm and powerful. Strong when you have to be', according to the Sunday Telegraph. She added that he inspires 'abundance, achievement, and infinite possibilities' while describing herself as a 'surfer, riding your waves of support, while you teach me to trust, enjoy the ride and go with the flow'. 'Dear Dad, I will always cherish you as I sow my seeds and become the captain you taught me to be.' Hundreds of friends, students and teachers are expected to attend Charlotte's funeral and support her heartbroken family at her primary school on Friday (pictured, her funeral booklet) Pictured: A poem on the back of Charlotte's funeral booklet Another note encouraged her parents to inform the school about her bullying experience in order to help other students receive better support in the future. Mat and Kelly believe Santa Sabrina College could have done more to stop the bullying inflicted on Charlotte received. 'I'm not after retribution for these girls, I'm looking for the schools to step in, to act when things arise for the first time,' he said. 'I know these are tough conversations for us all but we need to have these conversations today.' Emails between Charlotte's mother and the school reveal Kelly believed the bullying was having 'severe ramifications' on her daughter's mental health. Her parents, Mat and Kelly, believe her high school Santa Sabrina College could have done more to stop the bullying inflicted on Charlotte (pictured with her family) Mat claimed other parents had also raised the 'toxic' culture of the school and that the school needed to just step in as adults and seperate children. Kelly claimed after their GP called what was happening to Charlotte 'harassment' the school reject the term and said it was 'juvenile behaviour'. Kelly said on some days Charlotte would burst into tears as they approached school drop-off wailing that she 'had no friends', that everyone hated her and she was 'a monster'. Santa Sabina College has defended its handling of bullying, saying their anti-bullying policy was available on their website. 'In the past week, I have been overwhelmed by the number of emails and messages from our families that talk about their children feeling safe and cared for at Santa Sabina College,' principal Paulina Skerman said. She said parents 'objected to the portrayal of our College as failing to deal with matters that cause distress among our students'. Police have charged two Sydney men after they allegedly committed acts of bestiality on farm animals and secretly filmed a child. NSW detectives launched an investigation into the making of bestiality material in September. An online group chat was identified during the investigation, with members allegedly discussing and sharing bestiality material and child abuse material. A search warrant was executed following extensive investigations, with a property at Windsor in Sydney's north-west searched about 6am on Thursday. Detectives found and seized electronic devices that allegedly contain bestiality material. The material allegedly includes farm animals as well as footage of a child being filmed without their knowledge. Two dogs were also found during the warrant that have since been seized by the NSW RSPCA. A search warrant was executed following extensive investigations, with a property at Windsor in Sydney's north-west searched about 6am on Thursday. Two men were arrested and have been charged Detectives have arrested a 38-year-old man and a 42-year-old man from Windsor Police released video over the arrests, showing the two men being led in handcuffs from their homes and taken to Windsor police station and RSPCA inspectors seizing two dogs. Detectives have arrested a 38-year-old man and a 42-year-old man from Windsor. The 38-year-old has been charged with two counts of bestiality and use carriage service to access child abuse material, while the 42-year-old was charged with two counts of peep or pry and possess bestiality material. Both men were refused bail and fronted Penrith Local Court on Thursday. The 38-year-old was then further refused bail, while the older man was granted conditional bail. They are both set to front the same court on November 22. Police urge anyone with information to come forward. Nissan managing director said there are too many car brands The boss of Nissan Australia has claimed some car brands will soon pack up and leave the country because the market is overcrowded. Japanese, American and South Korean car makers dominate sales in the country, but a raft of new Chinese brands have either already launched or are gearing up to over the next few years. 'It's not sustainable to have, within five years, 100 brands in the market,' said managing director of Nissan Oceania, Andrew Humberstone, reported Car Expert. He pointed to the US and UK markets 'which have 40 and 42' brands available 'though depending on the data source some say it's 53' and how this was far fewer sellers despite a much larger population than Australia. 'We're at 69 or 70 already and 12 more coming in. They're saying 100 brands in the country within the next five years, that's a very, very complex marketplace. 'The business case does not fly, simple. It doesn't work.' Mr Humberstone said Australians who buy new cars, particularly of non-established brands, could be at risk of being left in the lurch should the venture collapse. He said car parts might become no longer available for specific models and residual sales value could plummet if the brand no longer had a presence in the country. Nissan Oceania boss Andrew Humberstone said there is likely to be 100 car brands in Australia within five years and that it was almost double what the US and UK had Nissan, which is the 12th biggest-selling car brand in Australia, said it had no plans to exit the country Mr Humberstone said while new car brands might be at risk of exiting the country should they be unable to establish a foothold, there's also the potential for well known car makers to leave. Las month French car manufacturer Citroen announced it would pull out of Australia after 100 years. 'Whilst we acknowledge and celebrate Citroen's rich history in the Australian market, we must look to the future and consider the rapidly evolving, dynamic, and competitive nature of the industry and local market, alongside changing consumer demands,' General Manager David Owen said. Mr Humberstone said Nissan had no intention to leave the country but was concerned about new car makers competing for sales. 'We're a very strong brand. But actually, if you look at where we are, in terms of our market share, it raises a number of questions because arguably, we should be in a better position.' Chinese brand Great Wall Motors (pictured is its Tank 300 model) has been selling cars in the country since 2009 but it will soon be joined by a raft of new Chinese car makers The XPeng G6 is among the range of EVs set to flood the Australian market Nissan sold 39,376 vehicles in Australia in 2023, putting it as the 12th biggest-selling car brand. Among the Chinese brands now competing in Australia are Chery, BYD, MG, JAC and Xpeng, with even more to launch. Swinburne University future urban mobility professor Hussein Dia said upcoming electric vehicle launches had the potential to change Australia's automotive mix. EVs from little-known Chinese brands are set to compete with existing models from Tesla and Volvo 'This is what we have been waiting and calling for - more variety across electric vehicle models and sizes and across a range of prices as well,' he said. 'It will be good for consumers because it means lower prices, more competition and, from what I have seen, they are quality vehicles.' Prof Dia said some may be budget options, but others would be luxury vehicles as many Chinese automakers had teamed with European brands to refine their products. 'They have been working on this for a long time in China,' he told AAP. 'They launched joint ventures with international car makers and now they're reaping the benefits.' The EVs will also launch about the same time as the federal government's New Vehicle Efficiency Standard, which will put a cap on emissions designed to force an increased supply of electric vehicles beyond demand levels so as to push down their prices. Car makers who sell too many utes and SUVs face hefty fines that could add more than $13,000 to the price of diesel and petrol vehicles. That could force more motorists into buying a fully-electric car as part of a Labor and Greens push to slash carbon emissions by 43 per cent by 2030. The Climate Council wants Australia to go further and ban sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035, which would include hybrid vehicles because only 'zero emission' vehicles would be allowed. The Electric Vehicle Council estimates Australian motorists will buy more than 100,000 new battery-powered cars in 2024 Evie Charging chief executive Chris Mills said the growing competition was likely to significantly impact drivers, particularly those who had been driving an EV bargain. 'In this next calendar year, into 2025, we're going to be flooded with a bunch of new cars and new models,' he said. 'And I think it's true when people say 50 per cent of people considering new cars are considering an EV for their next new car.' Mr Mills said the company was expanding its public charging sites and planned to have 840 bays operating by Christmas. The Electric Vehicle Council estimates Australian motorists will buy more than 100,000 new battery-powered cars in 2024, up from 87,000 in 2023, despite the pace of increase in sales slowing down this year. Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen's New Vehicle Efficiency Standard, coming into effect in January 2025, will aim to slash average new car emissions by 60 per cent in just four years US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency executive director Brandon Wales has warned Australia to be wary about Chinese espionage, from the use of Chinese-built cranes to cars. 'It should receive - and deserves - a higher degree of scrutiny,' he told The Australian Financial Review. Nationals senator Matt Canavan said China couldn't be trusted with electric vehicles if Chinese companies like Huawei were banned from installing the 5G mobile network. 'Given that we have banned China from building our 5G network, it seems strange to me that there's not greater scrutiny on allowing China to control the vehicles that we drive,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'There's at least great risks in a 5G network as there would be in a vehicle that travels a hundred kilometres an hour.' Pictured is BYD Americas executive Stella Li with a BYD Dolphin electric vehicle ELECTRIC AUTO BRANDS TO CHARGE INTO AUSTRALIA Zeekr: This Chinese brand, with a name that stands for 'zero, evolving, electric and krypton', has pledged to bring three electric cars to Australia by the end of 2025. The Zeekr X compact SUV will cost less than $60,000 and is expected in October. Geely: The Chinese car giant might attract plenty of attention when it launches its Radar electric ute in Australia late this year. Called the Riddara R6 in other markets, the electric Toyota HiLux rival could feature a range of up to 571km. XPeng: Three electric cars from this car maker are expected in Australia in the next three years, with the first model, the G6 SUV, due in October. Pricing for the vehicle, which promises to reach 100km/h speeds in 6.2 seconds, will be released in September. Aion: The electric arm of automaker GAC, or the Guangzhou Automobile Group, has committed to launching a battery-powered hatchback, similar in size to a Toyota Corolla, in 2025. Jaecoo: A luxury spin-off of the brand Chery, Jaecoo is expected to bring a mid-sized SUV called the J7 to Australia this year. The vehicle has styling similar to a Range Rover and will be available in two-wheel and four-wheel drive configurations. Leapmotor: Expect to see two cars from this Chinese brand in Australia late in 2024. Its C10 mid-sized SUV and T03 small car, also known as a mini-car, will announce its arrival. Skywell: A competitively priced SUV is expected from this brand in 2024. Known as the Skywell ET5 overseas, it will be sold as the EVA 5 locally and promises a range of up to 489km and a price of less than $50,000. One of the men accused of killing Memphis rapper Young Dolph appeared stone faced as a jury declared that he was guilty of murder and was sentenced to life in prison. Jurors took just under four hours on Thursday to reach a verdict in Justin Johnson's four-day murder trial, before ultimately returning a unanimous decision that he was guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, Local Memphis reports. Johnson stood still as the verdict was read in court, even when Judge Jennifer Mitchell sentenced him to serve life in prison for Young Dolph's November 17, 2021 murder. Prosecutors had argued during the trial that Johnson and another man, Cornelius Smith, opened fire outside of Makeda's Cookie Shop, where the rapper- whose real name is Adolph Thornton Jr. - was buying treats for his mother. They would be paid $40,000 each to carry out the hit from Anthony Mims, also known as Big Jook, the brother of Dolph's rival, Memphis rapper Yo Gotti, Smith testified on the first day of the trial. Justin Johnson was found guilty of murder on Thursday in the shooting death of Memphis rapper Young Dolph The rapper, whose real name is Adolph Thornton Jr., was shot and killed while buying treats for his mother at a local cookie store on November 17, 2021 Smith, who is also facing first-degree murder charges, went on to identify himself and Johnson as the two men who were caught on surveillance footage opening fire on the bakery just moments after Dolph walked in. The 36-year-old rapper could be seen briefly talking to an employee to purchase cookies. He was seemingly waiting for his order when a stolen white Mercedes Benz pulled up and two men fired through the window, striking him in broad daylight. The suspects then sped away in the Mercedes Benz, and video played in court showed the stolen vehicle pulling into Johnson's apartment complex and then showed the suspect walking throughout the building. He appeared to be wearing the same clothes as one of the shooters in the surveillance footage from the bakery - a black hoodie, gray sweatpants and a Bass Pro Shops hat. The Mercedes was found the next day at the house next door to that of a third suspect, Hernandez Govan, Fox 13 reports. Footage presented in court shows the rapper (pictured right) walking into the Makeda's Homemade Cookies that day Two men were then seen exiting a stolen Mercedes Benz and opening fire Jermarcus Johnson, Justin's half-brother, also acknowledged in court that he helped the two shooting suspects communicate by cellphone while they were on the run from authorities, and helped one of them communicate with his probation officer. Jermarcus pleaded guilty in June 2023 to three counts of serving as an accessory, but has not yet been sentenced. Other witnesses testified that they saw a man give Johnson the stolen Mercedes ahead of the shooting, and cops claimed that Johnson's cellphone was in the area of Makeda's bakery at the time of the shooting. Assistant District Attorney claimed that Govan put Johnson and Smith in touch with Mims, and they formed a deal under which Mims would give both gunmen $50,000 for carrying out the hit and they would in turn give Govan $10,000 of their earnings. He noted that Yo Gotti-founded rival record label Cocaine Muzic Group (now known as Collective Music Group) and wanted Young Dolph to work for them, but he turned them down. Young Dolph later wrote diss tracks directed at the label, its artists, and its 'number two person,' Big Jook, who was killed outside of a restaurant in January 2024. The suspects were seen in surveillance footage fleeing in the stolen Mercedes Benz Following three days of the prosecution's arguments, defense attorney Luke Evans asked for an acquittal - claiming that the prosecutors failed to make their case of a conspiracy - but the judge denied the motion. Evans then focused his defense on the fact that Johnson's DNA was never recovered from the Mercedes and the guns used to kill Young Dolph were never found. He also rebutted the video showing the Mercedes pulling into Johnson's apartment complex, arguing that only proved that the Mercedes and Johnson were at the apartment complex at the same time, and said that just because his phone was in the area of the bakery does not mean that Johnson was. Evans then went on to push back against the argument that Johnson was wearing the same clothes as the man seen shooting into the cookie shop, arguing 'similar is not the same.' Jemarcus Johnson, Justin's half-brother, acknowledged in court that he helped the two shooting suspects communicate by cellphone while they were on the run from authorities But Johnson has had a lengthy criminal history, dating back to the age of 17, when he was charged with aggravated rape and aggravated robbery at gunpoint for assaulting a woman at an Econo Lodge. He was found delinquent - equivalent to a conviction - and placed in the custody of the Department of Children's Services until his 19th birthday. He was also placedon the juvenile sex offender registry. Two years later, in 2017, Johnson was sentenced to five years in prison after shooting three people with an assault rifle during a brawl at a Memphis bowling alley. Police said at the time that a fight broke out at the bowling alley just before midnight, according to Tennessee station WJHL. Johnson grabbed an assault rifle from outside and fired into a crowd, hitting three people and escaping with his girlfriend. Officers found him a month later in a home with marijuana, an assault rifle and active warrants for the January shooting. He was listed as a gang member. In May of that year, Johnson pled guilty to several charges of aggravated assault, but served only five months of a five-year sentence when a judge approved his release. Shelby County court records also show that unrelated drug and weapons charges against Johnson were dropped in 2018. Then, prior to turning himself into authorities in Young Dolph's murder, Johnson released a music video which saw him sing about opening fire on his enemies. Holding a stack of $100 bills and rapping in front of a gas station, he says: 'The only time he see my face when I'ma blam him.' Other lyrics in the largely hard-to-decipher video include 'dead on fire,' 'killing sh**' and 'I can't let no man get on me, they're too close to dyin'.' Johnson has a lengthy criminal history dating back to when he was just 17 years old Following Thursday's guilty verdict, Dolph's family released a statement thanking the public for their support. 'On November 17, 2021, our lives changed forever,' his sister Carlissa Thornton said. 'A son, a father, a brother, a friend, a businessman, a music artist, a philanthropist and life partner are among just some of the titles that my brother Adolph Robert Thornton Jr held. Titles that have now left a missing piece in the lives of so many. 'I want to thank the jury for their service and decision in this case to bring us one step closer to justice for our family, friends , supporters and the community that has supported us during this time,' she said, before also thanking the District Attorney's Office, the Memphis Police Department and investigators. 'We realize this act of violence has impacted so many outside of our family and friends. Your outpouring of love and support throughout this process does not go unnoticed. 'We ask that instead of focusing on those who committed this crime, you focus on that man that Adolph Robert Thornton was,' Carlissa continued. 'Regardless of the name that you may know him as, such as Adolph, Dolph or Young Dolph, we ask you to remember the man that enjoyed being a father and spending time with his family. 'We ask that you remember the man who enjoyed giving opportunities to those who were overlooked and counted out. We ask that you remember the man who enjoyed giving back to others and being an inspiration to those who come from less than ideal backgrounds, and knowing that they are seen and can change their outcomes and the lives of others by doing something positive.' Dolph's family released a statement after the verdict asking the public to remember him as a generous man and father Mia Joye, Dolph's partner, also posted on Instagram: 'Today's verdict brings relief and restores my confidence in the justice system. 'On behalf of my children, family, and myself, I would like to thank law enforcement, the prosecution and everyone involved for their diligent work in presenting the facts that led to this conviction. We are also grateful to the public for standing with us and advocating for accountability throughout this process. 'The past three years, marked by the loss of Adolph and the events leading to the trial, have been incredibly frustrating,' she continued. 'My faith has been tested, but Adolph's tragic execution has only strengthened my resolve to fight for justice - not only for him, but all black men. 'This is just the beginning of our journey toward achieving full justice for Adolph, and we will patiently support the unfolding of that process.' Smith is scheduled to appear in court for his own trial on November 15, and Govan is scheduled for a hearing on October 9. A domestic abuse survivor was left fearing for her life after the man who assaulted her was wrongly freed from prison. Duane Meggitt, 32, had been jailed for nine months in August for common assault and breaching a restraining order. But just weeks into his sentence, Meggitt was erroneously freed under Sir Keir Starmer's early release scheme because he had not been recorded as a domestic abuser. Meggitt was one of 37 inmates, all jailed for breaching restraining orders and including stalkers and domestic abusers, who were mistakenly released. Five are still yet to be put back behind bars. A domestic abuse survivor was left fearing for her life after Duane Meggitt, 32, the man who assaulted her, was wrongly freed from prison Meggitt's victim said she 'feared he was going to turn up at my house to kill me' An 'urgent' police operation is currently underway to return the missing prisoners and all victims have been contacted, the Ministry of Justice has said. In Meggitt's case, he was recalled to HMP Leicester on September 16, four days after his release. But in the time it too to put him back behind bars, his victim said she lived in mortal fear. She told The Sun: 'I was constantly having panic attacks and feared he was going to turn up at my house to kill me or he was going to kidnap my son. 'I kept us locked in with the blinds and curtains shut because I didn't want him turning up and seeing that we were there.' The MoJ has since apologised to the woman for 'any upset or anxiety this may have caused' and said they would review the circumstances of Meggitt's release. Meggitt had been released because his offence had been logged under outdated legislation. People who breached restraining orders used to be charged and sentenced under the Protection for Harassment Act 1997. However, this was later replaced by the Sentencing Act, meaning that some prison records were incorrect. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood had promised domestic abusers would be excluded from the early release scheme, but Meggitt, like others, was able to slip through the net. Abigail Ampofo, interim chief executive of Refuge, previously told the Mirror: 'This is already an incredibly worrying time for survivors, and the continued failings of the justice system to prevent the release of domestic abuse perpetrators under this scheme are truly disappointing. 'We are all too aware of the grave repercussions that occur when the criminal justice system fails to recognise the real risk abusers pose to survivors' safety, and we urge the Government to take greater precautions in ensuring that no more offenders who have breached restraining orders are released. ' People spray a man with sparkling wine after he was released early from HMP Nottingham on September 10 under Labour's new early release scheme An inmate leaving HMP Liverpool on September 10 under the scheme A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: 'Public safety is our first priority. 'That is why we took decisive action to fix the broken prison system we inherited and keep the most dangerous offenders locked up. This included blocking the early release of domestic abuse offences such as stalking and controlling behaviour. 'We are working with the police to urgently return a very small number of offenders - who were charged incorrectly and sentenced under repealed legislation - to custody. 'The convictions remain valid with offenders monitored since their release and will soon be back behind bars.' Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's spokesman said: 'Clearly public safety is always the Government's first priority. 'When the Government came into office we were facing a paralysis of the criminal justice system and the Government had to take action. 'There were exemptions and safeguards put in place in relation to blocking the earlier release of offenders. 'We're working with the police urgently to return the people that you refer to who were sentenced using outdated legislation. They've all been monitored since their release so they will be brought back into prison.' Liberal Democrat justice spokesman Josh Babarinde described the mistake as 'deeply shocking news' and called on the Government to develop a 'plan to reduce reoffending and tackle the prison backlog without delay'. He said: 'The public deserves immediate action so that all those who were mistakenly released from prison are swiftly returned, and to prevent this from happening again. More than 5,000 prisoners are to be set loose over the next six weeks, with everyone eligible for release apart from violent criminals jailed for more than four years 'The Conservatives have neglected our criminal justice system, and now the chaos of their actions is showing.' More than 5,000 prisoners are to be set loose over the next six weeks, with everyone eligible for release apart from violent criminals jailed for more than four years. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced the plans back in July, saying that overcrowding had pushed jails to the 'point of collapse'. Downing Street said the policy had to be brought in to avoid 'unchecked criminality' where the police and courts are unable to lock anyone up. The policy does not apply to those convicted of sex offences, terrorism, domestic abuse or some violent offences. But campaigners and charities have warned that the scheme may come at the expense of women and children's safety, while others raised concerns that it would push probation services to breaking point. September 26, 2024: Russian railroads are at the point of collapse. This process began before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. This process was underway before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The covid-19 pandemic disrupted ball bearing production worldwide. When production was back to normal, there were problems providing customers with all the ball bearings they requested. Another problem is that Russia has always imported most of its ball bearings, usually from American and West European manufacturers. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, most western suppliers of ball bearings ceased filling Russian orders. This caused a major shortage of the things in Russia as it was in the process of shifting all of its trains to relatively new coil bearings, none of which were produced in Russia. Since ball bearings are used in automotive equipment, which includes tanks and other armored vehicles, these vehicles received priority because Russia needed weapons for its troops in Ukraine. This was a higher priority that supplying Russian railroads. This ball bearing shortage for Russias state owned and operated railroads has, in the last few years gradually reduced service. By 2024 the Russian railroads were much less capable of moving people or freight over the vast Russian railroad system. These disruptions were also felt by essential long-distance routes like the Trans-Siberian line. The net result of all this is a sharp reduction the ability of the Russian military to move men, weapons, equipment and supplies by rail. Trucks, canal boats, high seas shipping and airfreight could not make up for the loss of railroad capacity even if they had enough ball bearings, but they dont because they now suffer from ball bearing shortages too. Meanwhile, the railroad situation in sanctions free Ukraine is not ideal. One of the transportation difficulties between Ukraine and the NATO countries is the different gauge railroads used in Europe and Ukraine. Europe uses what is known as Standard Gauge. Gauge means the distance between the two rails. Standard gauge rails are 1,455mm apart. The Russian gauge is wider with the rails 1,524mm apart. In other words, Standard gauge tracks are four feet 8.5 inches wide while Russian Gauge tracks are five feet wide. Since Ukraine was until 1991 part of the Soviet Union, all the Ukrainian railroads are Russian gauge. To deal with this problem, Ukraine is building a transshipment point in the west Ukraine town of Uzhhorod which is on the border with Slovakia and near the Hungarian border. Here there are cranes that will quickly lift standard cargo containers from Russian gauge flatcars and load the containers onto European Standard Gauge flatcars. Passenger trains have a similar arrangement where passengers can disembark and walk a short distance to trains with a different gauge. Until the Ukrainian military drove the Russian Black Sea Fleet away from the west coast of the Black Sea in 2023, the main Ukrainian port of Odessa was unsafe for commercial shipping. Now the Black Sea route from Odessa to the world is open, via the Turkish Bosphorus strait. Before that the best way out was via rail, and that required a transshipment facility where cargo could be transferred between rail cars using different rail gauges. Ukraine plans to build some European Gauge rail lines to major transportation centers in several Ukrainian cities. Eventually Ukraine wants to convert all its major rail lines to Standard gauge. This will make it easier to handle trade with Europe and, if theres another war with Russia, the Russians will not have all those Russian gauge rail lines available to quickly move troops and supplies into Ukraine on Russian gauge railroads. Instead, the Russians will have to use roads or capture Ukrainian railroad engines along with passenger, cargo, and flatcars so they can use Ukrainian European Standard gauge railroads. Converting Ukrainian rail lines from Russian to European gauge is not only necessary economically, but also militarily to deter the Russians from invading again or cripple their logistics if they do. Array of supercars to be auctioned online A fleet of luxury supercars previously owned by tax fraudsters will go to auction in a bid to recover some of the mammoth $105million lost to the conspiracy. Thirty race cars, motorcycles and luxury vehicles seized from instigators of the infamous Plutus Payroll tax evasion scandal are being auctioned online by the Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA). Included in the convoy of supercars is a Porsche Cayenne GTS, which retails for $300,000, a Porsche 911 GT3, two Wolf GB08 Tornado racing cars, and a replica Ford GT40 coupe. There will also be four go-karts, two Ducati motorcycles and a Glastron GT180 power boat available to the highest bidder. Adam Cranston, the son of former Australian Tax Office deputy commissioner Michael Cranston, spent his criminal earnings on a Cirrus SR22 single-engine aircraft and a truck to transport his GT40. He was last year sentenced to a maximum of 15 years behind bars with his sister, Lauren Cranston, handed eight years for her lesser role in the scam. Plutus Payroll collected money from legitimate clients and funnelled it through a web of second-tier companies instead of paying it to the tax office, siphoning a loss of $105million between 2014 and 2017. The AFSA estimates the total value of items auctioned will exceed $700,000. Adam Cranston, the son of former Australian Tax Office deputy commissioner Michael Cranston, was sentenced to 15 years behind bars for his role in the tax evasion scheme A Porsche Cayenne GTS, which retails for $300,000, a Porsche 911 GT3, two Wolf GB08 Tornado racing cars, and a replica Ford GT40 coupe will be auctioned online Thirty race cars, motorcycles and luxury cars once belonging to fraudsters will be auctioned There will also be four go-karts, two Ducati motorcycles and a Glastron GT180 power boat (pictured) available to the highest bidder Confiscated high-end jewellery, watches, designer handbags and other luxury goods will also be auctioned. An Australian Federal Police (AFP) investigation known as Operation Elbrus, also known as the Plutus Payroll fraud, busted the fraudsters in 2021. Police confiscated five properties, three vehicles, funds from multiple bank accounts, investment accounts and shareholdings as well as several luxury items worth almost $16million from Plutus Payroll founder Simon Anquetil. Mr Anquetil laundered more than $28million, $12million of which he kept for himself, and was sentenced to seven and a half years in jail in 2020. Dev Menon, 39, was also found guilty of conspiring to dishonestly cause a $11million loss to the Commonwealth and sentenced to a total of 14 years with a non-parole period of nine years. The ATO taskforce worked with the AFP to investigate the large-scale tax fraud. Christopher Guillan, a former finance manager, was the last of 14 offenders to be sentenced and was given four-and-a-half years behind bars in February this year. The proceeds of the auction will go to the government's Confiscated Assets Account which will then be distributed for crime prevention, intervention or diversion programs, or other law enforcement initiatives. READ MORE: Locals slam plans to build waterfront mansion in Sydney A worrying trend with new builds in Australia has been exposed by a building inspector as he slams a half-finished home as a 'complete shemozzle'. Victorian construction worker Jim Zacharias shared a clip of two homes in Sunbury, in Melbourne's northwest, with just centimetres between the garage walls. An incredulous Mr Zacharias questioned how builders would fit bricks and a gutter on the roof with such little space between the properties. 'I'm just looking at these two garages side by side. They've framed it up. But how do you brick it?' he asked in a video posted to TikTok. 'How do you put anything on it between that little gap? Seriously? What's happening here? This is a common practice in Melbourne, it is disgusting.' The 'TikTok Building Inspector' Zeher Khalil questioned if the home was compliant. 'That builder stuffed the process up, most likely to get paid for the frame stage,' Mr Zhalil told Yahoo News. 'It's a complete shemozzle, it's going to be difficult to achieve compliance now.' Jim Zacharias (pictured with TikTok influencer daughter Adele) slammed the new build Mr Zacharias told the publication his video highlighted a growing problem with building practices on major housing estates in Australia. In another video, the tradie showed another home with a similarly tiny gap between it and the house next door. He stuck his camera into the crack to show there was rubbish in the space, peeling on one of the walls, and nothing to facilitate water run-off. Aussies were quick to share their thoughts on the bizarre building practice. 'Because Australia is so small, we need to build houses on top of one another,' one person joked in the comments. 'Might as well just join the houses together at this point,' another said. 'I couldn't live that close to someone,' a third shared. Construction workers had left just centimetres between the new build and the house nextdoor A nearby home in the same estate had a tiny gap between its neighbours garage (pictured) One carpenter said he had never understood how bricklayers finished the house once he had done the frame. 'We've framed so many houses like that and I've always wondered that,' he said. A former bricklayer explained they normally lay the bricks from the inside of the framework on similar jobs. 'You'd lay it "overhand" which is from the inside, certainly not fun to do, but that's the only way,' they said. Australia is pushing to hold the Taliban to account for its crackdown on freedoms for Afghan women since seizing control. It joins Canada, Germany and the Netherlands in spearheading a challenge to the Taliban under an international convention on eliminating discrimination against women, to which Afghanistan is a party. The formal notification under the convention, supported by more than two dozen nations, officially demands the Taliban come to the negotiating table. It's the first step ahead of further action being launched, which could include taking it to the International Court of Justice if the request isn't settled within six months. The nations would not stand by and allow girls to be denied education and banned from speaking in public, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said, as human rights in the Asian nation deteriorate. 'The Taliban has demonstrated contempt for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of women and girls in Afghanistan, through a campaign of sustained and systematic oppression,' she said. 'We have heard the calls of Afghan women and we are committed to defending their human rights and amplifying their voices.' Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong (pictured) says the Taliban has demonstrated contempt for the human rights of women and girls and needs to be held to account A couple who took a Tesla out for a test drive found themselves in a terrifying ordeal when their 10-month-old child got locked in the car. Tesla allows customers to take their car for an overnight test drive to experience 'living with the car'. But the couple found themselves regretting their decision after the car automatically locked when it 'shut off' with the key card still inside as well as their 10-month-old baby once they hopped out. Video footage, captured by the baby's mother, showed emergency services arriving on the scene while her partner attempted to call Tesla roadside assistance and dealerships for advice. They explained that they took the Tesla X for a 'demo' test drive and took it home for a day to see if they liked the car, the mother added: 'We don't like it' The baby's cries could be heard after EMS workers shattered the driver's side window and pulled it out of the car They explained that they took the Tesla X for a 'demo' test drive for a day to see if they liked the car, with the mom ultimately concluding: 'We don't like it.' Emergency services were seen shattering the driver's side window for it to be pulled out as baby cried still trapped inside. The father was heard muttering 'F*** you Elon' off camera as the EMS workers reached inside for the key card to open the door. 'Luckily it was around 6pm & the temperature was no longer 90+ but needless to say i will NEVER put my babies in a Tesla,' the mom wrote. The couple said they got out and planned to immediately get their child from the backseat, when the Tesla locked itself and shut off Comments on the video were turned off, but the couple received plenty of questions on separate videos as to why they left the key card or the child in the car. The mother responded to many saying that they had no intention of shutting the car off. When they had got out, she said they closed the doors and had been planning to get their child from the backseat. But before they could, the car locked itself and shut off, she added in her response video: 'There's a spot where you leave the card, and it basically tells the car that the car should be on... so that's where the key was left.' One commentor wrote: 'Forget the card why did you leave the child inside?' She reiterates in another video that they had planned to get their child from the back seat and leave the car on to continue looking at the car. 'Remember, this is a car that we were planning on buying... it turned itself off and locked instantly,' she said. @yazmeenlea Beware of Teslas!!!! We took this brand new tesla x home before planning to buy it the next day & our worst nightmare surfaced. The car locked & shut off with the key card inside & our 10 month old in the back seat. Demos do not have the app, Tesla roadside was unable to help & tesla dealerships were not answering the phone!! Luckily it was around 6pm & the temperature was no longer 90+ but needless to say i will NEVER put my babies in a tesla. #tesla #teslamodelx #florida #beware original sound - yazmeenlea Comments went back and forth, questioning how they managed to get in this situation. One wrote: 'Still doesn't explain why you left the key card inside... I have gotten out of my car while on and when wanting to open the back doors, I take the key out with me or make sure at least one window is down' To which she responds saying: 'I will answer this for the sake of others that will ask the same thing. Lol. They key was in the 'ignition' slot that keeps the car on. Hope this helps'. However, other viewers have said this is not a one-off incident, and other stories have allegedly surfaced encountering the same problem. 'It's crazy because you're not the first mom this happens to - I literally saw a news story about a mom who's Tesla also locked while charging with her baby in the backseat,' one wrote. The couple wanted to return the car that night, but even after calling many times were unable to, and hadn't bothered covering the window after suffering 'enough trauma'. Tesla, however, were 'very apologetic' despite being returned without a window as suffering more damage from storm during the night. A commentor asked if the couple were held responsible for the window, to which their account responded saying: 'No we weren't. They felt awful about the situation and could care less about the car or the window.' The mother said that this situation is where it 'becomes a manufacturers safety problem' but she added: 'I don't wanna say I'm completely blaming Tesla because yeah there are ways that you can prevent this from happening.' She continued: 'But when you have a demo car, and you don't have the app - that's not available - there's not many options that you have and it's just ridiculous.' For years, it has been a tragedy waiting to happen. The awful news of the death of Alice Webb, a 33-year-old mother of five, after complications following a non-surgical Brazilian butt lift procedure known as BBL, has left me horrified but not, I am sorry to say, as shocked as most people might be. Why? Because, frankly, the dire lack of regulation around who can legally perform such treatments in the UK has long left people at risk of harm. For years, there has been a simmering anxiety among the Botox doctors and cosmetic surgeons that something terrible like this would happen. Behind this tragedy lies a complex mesh of factors. They include injectable fillers and equipment thats too easily available to non-medics; a blase public attitude towards fillers, which sees them as beauty treatments rather than medical procedures; and continued indifference at government level despite the warning over a decade ago that dermal fillers were a disaster waiting to happen, in the words of surgeon Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, who produced a report for the Government after the PIP breast implant scandal. Moves towards licensing of cosmetic practitioners and the premises they work from are finally in motion, but will not take effect for a couple of years. As procedures go, the BBL which amplifies and reshapes the backside with injections of either fat or dermal fillers is highly contentious (it is thought to have been dermal filler that was injected into Alice Webb). Alice Webb, a 33-year-old mother of five, died after complications following a non-surgical Brazilian butt lift procedure known as BBL Mother-of-five Alice Webb. There has been an ever-growing interest in cosmetic tweakments, ranging from Botox and fillers to body-reshaping injections yet the need for proper regulation of the whole industry has repeatedly been brushed away. Having a big, shapely bum has become a popular goal ever since Kim Kardashian first flaunted her curves, and many young women see a BBL as a quick way to achieve this. It sounds easy just a few injections of dermal filler or your own fat, extracted from your thighs or stomach and injected into your bottom and, hey presto, better curves. But the potential for problems is huge, even if the procedure is carried out by a well-trained medical expert. There could be infection, problems from the quantity of local anaesthetic used or, more likely, an embolism caused by the injected fat or filler migrating into one of the big blood vessels in the buttocks and working its way up, via the heart, to the pulmonary arteries and blocking them. If the procedure is done by a non-medic, the risk dramatically increases. Save Face, which offers a register of UK practitioners, has helped 500 women who have suffered complications after BBLs done by non-medics. We have become almost inured to hearing about complications and indeed deaths from cosmetic surgical procedures carried out abroad, by unscrupulous surgeons at shady clinics. But this first death from BBL in the UK shows just how bad things have become. Over the past 25 years that I have been reporting on aesthetic medicine, there has been an ever-growing interest in cosmetic tweakments, ranging from Botox and fillers to body-reshaping injections yet the need for proper regulation of the whole industry has repeatedly been brushed away. Theres no law against who can offer cosmetic procedures in the UK, says Dr Catherine Fairris, president of the British College of Aesthetic Medicine, an organisation of medical doctors and dentists which has campaigned for regulation for over 20 years. Its illegal to practise veterinary medicine if youre not a qualified vet. Its not illegal to practise medicine if youre not a doctor, as long as youre not claiming to be a doctor. That fundamentally is the problem. Theres also a degree of misogyny involved. Aesthetic and cosmetic treatments are often perceived as trivial or superficial and not taken seriously. The lack of regulation has meant they can be offered alongside beauty treatments and, as such, their seriousness is dumbed down. And yet when they go wrong, we see just how very seriously they should be taken. Dr Sophie Shotter, a specialist aesthetic doctor, has been concerned about BBLs for years. Kaydell Brown, 38, (pictured) is one of several Brits who have died abroad following BBL surgery. She died last month having paid 5,400 for a 'mummy MOT' in Turkey Kaydell had hoped the surgery would get her life 'back on track' after she put on weight due to breaking her ankle, according to her sister Demi Agoglia, 26, of Salford, Greater Manchester, died in January just days after having a Brazilian bum-lift in Turkey Whenever Im asked about treatments I would never have, buttock filler is top of the list, she says. The idea that non-medics are doing this is terrifying. The problem is, people dont know what they dont know and beauticians clearly dont have any issue with doing procedures like BBL as they dont realise the risks. BBL is not the only procedure Dr Shotter has found non-medics offering. There are beauticians offering liposuction, and advertising this on social media. At least [the ones I found] were using surgical tools. But there is currently a woman in hospital, in intensive care, after liposuction from a non-medic using a sputum suction catheter. This piece of equipment, easily available online, is in fact used for removing secretions from the respiratory tract. It beggars belief anyone would think it could work on soft tissue. Ive seen so many things like this online, she adds. Theres a beauty therapist in London doing blepharoplasties surgical eye lifts and showing this online, and patients are ending up with severe complications. For me for most people these are clearly surgical procedures that should only be performed by plastic surgeons, in clinical settings. Dr Sabika Karim is a specialist aesthetic doctor and fully qualified GP who offers body-shaping injections, and who works as a global trainer and lecturer in face and body injectables. She helps write the protocols for safe treatment and works for companies that only make their products available to specially trained medical practitioners. Shes offered buttock-shaping injections for a decade though what she offers now are not injections of dermal fillers, but of a substance that stimulates natural collagen growth in the area to provide more volume. I take scrupulous care over who I treat and how I treat and Ive not had a single complication, she says. But dermal fillers, which are used to add volume to lips and cheeks and are usually made from hyaluronic acid gel, are easy to get hold of. I went to one site online to test this out, says Dr Karim. They didnt ask for any credentials and the products arrived the next day in packaging with writing that wasnt in English. Goodness knows what they contained and whether they were sterile and no, I wouldnt dream of injecting them into anyone. It is all too easy for anyone to start injecting fillers. The girl washing my hair at the hairdressers told me she wanted to learn to do lip fillers, says Dr Karim. I asked why she didnt learn a specialism like hair extensions. She said, I cant learn to do extensions, I dont have my level 2 in hairdressing yet but I can book on a half day course and learn lip fillers. I dread to think The Government still doesnt think this is a problem, adds Dr Karim. I spoke to two different health secretaries in the past few years and each told me that the situation was fine. They have no idea. The new Government must move fast on this. Problems caused by non-medical practitioners also place a sizeable burden on the NHS. How sizeable? Its hard to say because many complications are never attributed to cosmetic procedures. One doctor at my practice who also works in A&E told me of a patient who came to hospital with heart failure, says Dr Karim. From his medical history, the doctors couldnt work out what might have caused this heart failure, until it emerged that he had been having intravenous vitamin drips, from a non-medic which can overload the kidneys with fluid. That man is now left with a non-reversible, life-changing condition. Melissa Kerr, 31, from Norfolk, was on holiday in Istanbul when she had a BBL procedure She paid 3,200 for the surgery (Pictured is Ms Kerr and her partner Skye Birch) Fat is first harvested from the hips, lower back, abdomen, thighs and other areas via liposuction . Special equipment is used to prepare it for transfer before it is injected directly into the glutes at specific points, giving the buttocks a bigger, curvier appearance One organisation that has been campaigning to raise awareness of the potential perils of BBLs for years is the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS). It was its annual conference in London yesterday and the sad issue of Alice Webbs death was widely discussed. We the BAAPS have been warning of the perils of medical tourism, particularly BBL, for years, and now here it is on our doorstep, says Nora Nugent, BAAPS President. No non-surgeon should be doing this procedure. The stakes are too high and so are the consequences. As she points out, even the best-trained surgeons can have complications with buttock enhancement, even when operating using ultrasound imaging to show them precisely where the fat they are injecting is going. Were in a very regulated healthcare environment in the UK, but theres this huge blind spot where fillers are not regulated properly, so that people who shouldnt be offering procedures like BBL are just flying under the radar. The hope across the aesthetic industry is that now the new Government is getting its feet under the table, it will move the issue up the agenda. As Dr Shotter and others pointed out to me, this tragic incident may add impetus. Lets hope. If you need support, contact Lifeline 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue 1300 224 636 The mother of a 12-year-old Sydney school girl who took her own life following a severe case of bullying has broken down at her daughter's funeral, saying: 'I will grieve the life you never had.' Charlotte Frances O'Brien, a Year 7 student at Santa Sabina College in Strathfield, made the decision to end her own life on September 9 after relentless harassment at the hands of her classmates. Students had a pupil-free day on Friday so they could attend the funeral at her primary school, Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Bossley Park. Hundreds of loved ones started gathering at the church from about 10am, many with pink ribbons in their hair because it was her favourite colour. As the service began, her parents Mat and Kelly tried to hold back their tears as they carried their daughter's casket - decorated with lavender and butterflies - through the church. But as Kelly said her final goodbye to her daughter, she was overcome with emotion and broke down, barely able to speak as she fought back her grief. There wasn't a dry eye in the church as she spoke. 'The first moment I held her in my arms will always be the best day of my life,' she said through tears. 'I knew within a moment of being her mother that I had met my soulmate - my best friend, she was wise beyond her years.' At the end of the service, as she stood to follow the casket out of the church, she was overwhelmed by the heartbreak and cried in pain, with her head in her hands. Hundreds of friends, students and teachers attended Charlotte's funeral on Friday Charlotte's mother broke down after the funeral, clutching stuffed toys given to her by her daughter's friends Charlotte O'Brien's mother, Kelly, can be seen crying over her daughter's coffin Charlotte's parents, Mat and Kelly, carried their daughter's coffin into the church (pictured) During her speech, Kelly said her daughter loved swimming and would joke that she was going to 'be like Moana and never leave the ocean'. 'I will miss everything about you, baby. I will miss our hugs, your kisses, your love, your beautiful smile, and how every day you would ask me how my day was. 'I will always grieve the life you never had. I will miss you every day that ends in Y. I will never be OK without you, not even for a day. 'Now, my Angel, I can't wait to go to sleep so I can see you in our dreams.' At times, she had had to force her words out. Charlotte's stepfather Mat said: 'I love you. Thank you for being you. 'Thank you for being so thoughtful, so kind, thank you for being so brave. 'Thank you for letting me take your mum out on our first date - I was under strict instructions that I needed Charlotte's approval and I received it. 'Thank you for giving me the greatest honour to be your dad'. He then read the last Father's Day card where she describes him as 'more than a captain'. Mourners gathered around the hearse after the service on Friday (pictured) Charlotte's parents (pictured at their daughter's funeral) cried as they delivered her eulogy Charlotte O'Brien's parents are pictured, centre, in front of the hearse after the funeral on Friday Charlotte had written: 'Dear Dad, I will always cherish you as I sow my seeds and become the captain you taught me to be. 'You are also like the sea. You can be calm and powerful. Strong when you have to be.' A slideshow of photos and videos played before the church towards the end of the service, along with the song, You Are Not Alone. Family albums showed Charlotte smiling, laughing and dancing with friends, looking embarrassed as loved ones sung her Happy Birthday, and cuddling her newborn brother. When the service concluded, Kelly left the church with her daughter's coffin, clutching a stuffed penguin toy. Once outside, everyone gathered around, hugged Kelly and threw petals onto the hearse before it left for the cemetery. During the service, Charlotte's parents did not mention the years of harassment their daughter struggled through at school. However, the priest pointed out that one in three children are bullied and asked mourners to be mindful. 'One in three children are bullied in communities all over the world,' he said. 'There is a responsibility in the world. starting at home and in our communities. Where we do we go from here? How are we going to move forward from here? We all experience good and bad. Charlotte's friends wore pink ribbons in their hair, which was her favourite colour Mourners gathered at the church for Charlotte O'Brien's funeral on Friday (pictured) Mourners covered the hearse in petals before it left for the cemetery after the funeral service 'At these times we must grow our heart and minds in god's work, we must continue to move forward.' Earlier, Charlotte's mum shared the final message she sent to the school after her daughter's death. 'My beautiful girl took her own life last night because of the relentless friendship issues she faced,' she wrote. 'She didn't deserve to go to and from school crying almost every day. She didn't deserve girls to bark in her face or scream out her name and run away, to purposely hit her with their bag and say "whoops". 'She didn't deserve the pain she was in. She deserved love and kindness. She deserved to be treated with dignity and respect.' Her parents found her suicide notes in her bedroom - written in small pink handwriting, she urged them to share her story to raise awareness about the impact of bullying. She asked them to 'tell the school' about the torment she went through, saying her life had become 'too hard'. Another note referred to her infant brother, Will. She wrote: 'Please, Mama, live for Will because I can't anymore.' Her father previously told media one of the more troubling aspects of her death was how happy she appeared to be on her final day. 'We had such a great last day with her,' he said. 'I hadn't seen her that happy coming home from school in a long time.' Charlotte O'Brien's casket was covered with painted butterflies and lavender (pictured) Charlotte O'Brien (pictured) tragically took her own life after saying persistent bullying by classmates was making her school-life a living hell On the night she died, Charlotte seemed to be overly happy and making plans for the future He said Charlotte was bubbling as she ate her favourite dish, creamy chicken pasta, for dinner, got every question right in her math homework and was doing 'little happy dances'. She also baked banana bread and took a piece to her father, still in a good mood. After playing with her mum and little brother she said good night and 'literally skipped to the shower'. 'That's the last time we saw her alive and we could not understand what had happened,' Mat said. Police told the couple that people can appear happy before taking their own life because they believe their problems will be solved, but Charlotte's parents have strongly rejected that explanation. Mat said the family had discussed their upcoming holiday, Charlotte had wanted to do a road trip, and planned math problems to work on together the next day. 'This is not a girl that was planning on doing this. Something happened when she went to her bedroom,' he said. Police are searching Charlotte's phone to see what messages she was receiving in her last hours. Her mother, Kelly, was wracked with guilt and regret, asking why her daughter didn't just come 'and get me to give her a hug that night'. She described her daughter as the 'sweetest, kindest, toughest, strongest little diva you've ever met in your life'. If this has raised any issues for you, contact Lifeline 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue 1300 224 636 A released killer murdered a woman before dismembering her body with power tools in a bid to avoid going to jail again. Steven Sansom, 45, admitted murdering Sarah Mayhew, 38, before chopping her up and disposing of the remains in a river and parkland over a nine-mile radius, the Old Bailey heard yesterday. It can now be revealed that Sansom stood in the same court 25 years ago to plead guilty to his first murder after he stabbed a taxi driver in the neck for 25. Then just 19, he was jailed for life in May 1999, serving 20 years before being released on licence in December 2019. The builder was under the supervision of the Probation Service when he attacked Ms Mayhew earlier this year. The victim was last seen alive on the evening of March 7 when she met Sansom and went to his home. Police were called on April 2 after a dog in Rowdown Fields in New Addington, Croydon, returned to its owner carrying a human bone. Police later found Ms Mayhews head, arms and legs. Steven Sansom, 45, admitted murdering Sarah Mayhew, 38, before chopping her up and disposing of the remains in a river and parkland over a nine-mile radius Sansom was under the supervision of the Probation service when he attacked Ms Mayhew earlier this year Further remains were found nine miles away in the River Wandle on May 21. The victim had suffered bruising to her skull and her head had been shaved. Sansom, who has never provided an explanation for the attack, was arrested four days later. He showed no emotion as he appeared via video link from HMP Belmarsh to plead guilty. Wearing glasses and a grey T-shirt, he admitted perverting the course of justice by dismembering Sarah, disposing of body parts in various locations and cleaning up the crime scene. Prosecutor Joel Smith KC said: On 2 April a gentleman was walking a dog across the field in Croydon. The dog discovered a human bone and the police were called. A pair of arms and legs were found and the head which has been cut up using power tools. He said of Sansom: This defendant has a previous conviction for murder to which he pleaded guilty in 1999 and received a minimum term of 20 years. In that attack, Sansom pounced on cabbie Terrence Boyle, 59, on Christmas Eve in 1998 after telling friends he wanted 300 to buy Christmas presents, adding: I dont care how I get the money. He knifed the popular father of five in the throat and back before running off laughing with 25 he had stolen from him. Mr Boyle managed to stagger into a flat doorway where he bled to death. Described as a gentle and a quiet, unassuming family man, he had only been working overtime to buy his own family Christmas presents. Police at Rowdown Fields park in Croydon, south London, where Ms Mayhew's were discovered by a man walking a dog Police set up a forensic crime scene with tents and taped of areas of woodland as they search an area in southwest London after the limbless torso was found in the River Wandle In April, police were called to Rowdown Fields in New Addington, Croydon, where they discovered Sarah's arms, legs and head, believed to be sawed off with power tools Covered in blood, Sansom ran to a friends house boasting that he had stabbed him six times and nicked his money. He later admitted murder, telling the court: I would like to say I realise what Ive done is wrong. Mr Brian Baker KC, defending, said: He cannot explain to this day why a tide of anger came over him. He was short of money and wanted to provide his girlfriend with a Christmas present. When Sansom was released from jail he posted messages on social media about meeting his daughter and son for the first time, saying: Spoken to my little girl today for the very first time... my baby girl called me Dad for the first time. Shes 23. Within a short time, the builder started posting sexual messages. The court heard that he had been charged with three counts of making indecent images in the days after the murder, but these matters will lay on file. Sansoms girlfriend Gemma Watts, 49, has also been charged with murdering Ms Mayhew, but is yet to enter a plea. As Lady Starmer rethinks how she pays for her frocks, she might learn a lesson from Labour's last first lady Sarah Brown. Eyebrows were raised when the then PM's wife wore a collection of expensive frocks at a G2 summit. No one was funding her fashion habit. She had rented the outfits at a fraction of the cost of buying, from her preferred designers including Amanda Wakeley. A spokesman at the time, confirming the arrangement, said, 'She has no income of her own, having given up all paid work when her husband was chancellor to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. She is not allowed to receive gifts, nor to borrow clothing.' How times change. Victoria Starmer, wife of Keir Starmer, arrives at Edeline Lee at Millbank Tower during London Fashion Week Eyebrows were raised when the then PM's wife wore a collection of expensive frocks at a G2 summit. (Pictured, Sarah Brown, wife of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown) How did Dame Mary Archer upset the PM? Blackballed as new chairman of the Royal Parks, what has Dame Mary Archer done to upset Sir Keir Starmer? She has also been stood down from leading a much-needed review of the Arts Council. Widely regarded as dysfunctional and responsible for catastrophic funding cuts to both English and Welsh National Operas, there were high hopes the fragrant Mary would sort it out. The whole review has been shelved indefinitely. Dame Mary will be hoping that Starmer hasn't noticed that earlier this year she was appointed non-executive director in Ed Miliband's Energy Security and Net Zero department. What has blackballed Dame Mary Archer (pictured) done to upset Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer ? Home Secretary scuppered husband's Strictly plans Yvette Cooper scuppered Strictly contestant husband Ed's plan to portray Jerry Lee Lewis perfoming Great Balls of Fire with a flaming piano. Ed tells podcast Walking The Dog that Yvette rang him at 2am after rehearsals. 'She says, 'You know this movie where you're going to assume the lead character... you do realise that in the biopic it's based on he's in an affair with his 12-year-old cousin? I think it's a bad idea!' Panicked Ed hastily changed plans, instead performing as Jim Carrey in The Mask. Withnail And I star braces for university students Withnail And I star Paul McGann braces himself for the stampede of new university students keen to discuss the movie. 'It's about now they'll be going to their freshers dos where they screen the film,' he says. But Withnail is only a small respite from intrusion by Doctor Who fans. 'The Who world is another life entirely,' he adds. 'It ain't like any other job.' Tom Parker Bowles chides father for not purchasing painting Tom Parker Bowles (pictured) gently chides his father Andrew for not purchasing Lucian Freud's 2004 painting Tom Parker Bowles gently chides his father Andrew for not purchasing Lucian Freud's 2004 painting of him entitled The Brigadier, telling the Rosebud podcast that his dad turned down Lucian's offer of the canvas for 2million because he would have had to mortgage his home. Tom adds: 'He's not a huge risk-taker, my father. The last valuation was 55million. So my sister Laura and I are asking, 'Why didn't you buy it?' Does Peter Morgan have any fantasies? With Gillian Anderson revealing her sexual fantasy in a new collection of erotic dreams, has screenwriter boyfriend Peter Morgan any fantasies he'd like to share? Some members of the Royal Family might describe The Crown, while hardly X-rated, as Morgan's six-season fantasy. A former Scotland Yard chief superintendent claims Mohamed Al Fayed's Harrods store's close relationship with the Met Police 'felt corrupt'. Stephen Otter alleges he was told by another officer in 1999 that the 'special relationship' with the department store 'benefits both us and them'. He told Sky News of a culture where officers were given hampers and had 'lots of drinks paid for' them after providing 'additional resources' at Christmas. But the security boss at Harrods started making 'quite a lot of complaints' about cops coming 'in here again, asking for freebies'. Asked if he felt the Met Police officers were corrupt, Mr Otter said: 'I think they probably were.' Disgraced businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed can be seen grinning from behind the wheel of a blue and white police marked Rover that Harrods sponsored Former Scotland Yard chief superintendent Stephen Otter said he tried to return the car but was told by a security boss this 'arrangement' had 'been going on for a long time' Mr Otter tried to return the police car that had been sponsored by Harrods but was told by the security boss this 'arrangement' had 'been going on for a long time' and: 'When you've been here a bit longer, you will have a better understanding of this relationship.' He later conducted a review when he became borough commander for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and found policing at the luxury store was like a Premier League game. 'The risk just literally didn't support the resources and the attention they got,' he said. Mr Otter also raised fears that the relationship with Harrods would have played a 'very negative part' in police investigations into allegations about Al Fayed. He added: 'I just felt deeply uncomfortable with the relationship. It was a relationship in which this department store had huge amounts of power over the leaders of the areas of policing around them. 'It felt like a corrupt relationship on both sides.' The Metropolitan Police declined to comment when approached by Sky News. A spokesperson said: 'Given the length of time since the events... we aren't able to provide a response.' MailOnline revealed last week that Al Fayed sponsored a Metropolitan Police car a year after he was publicly accused of raping and sexually assaulting dozens of women, MailOnline can reveal. Asked if he felt the Met Police officers were corrupt, Mr Otter (pictured) said: 'I think they probably were' Mohamed Al Fayed dons a Victoria emerald and diamond tiara as he launches Harrods' New Year sale in 2001 In pictures likely to cause major embarrassment to Scotland Yard, the depraved billionaire grins from behind the wheel of the blue and white marked Rover wearing a police-issue peaked cap. The driver's door bears the inscription, 'This car is sponsored by Harrods', in the store's distinctive script. MailOnline discovered the long-forgotten photos days after a BBC documentary showed the Egyptian-born businessman and TV star to be a prolific sexual predator who for more than three decades used wealth and status to abuse girls and women on his payroll. More than 20 told the Corporation how he'd assaulted them, with four saying they'd been raped. It comes as a former Metropolitan Police officer who was recruited to work as a Harrods security guard reveals the uncomfortably close relationship Fayed had with law enforcement. Deborah Bull, 64, said: 'I would say the car would be sat outside Harrods most days and the officers in the vehicle would come into security or the store. I saw them on a couple of occasions having a cup of tea in the security office. 'If it wasn't his idea Al-Fayed was certainly on in, his head of security John MacNamara was an ex-Met copper and they would've laughed at something like this.' In a statement during the 1996 publicity stunt, Fayed said he was gifting the vehicle because 'we all have a stake in making our city a safer and better place'. Two years before the picture was taken, MacNamara, dubbed 'Mac the Knife' - a former Met Superintendant - allegedly had a woman arrested after learning she planned to accuse Fayed of sexual assault at a tribunal. MacNamara was allegedly at the heart of Al Fayed's chilling campaign to silence his victims. He was described by one former Harrods colleague as a 'nasty piece of work'. The ex-security guard told the BBC: 'He would threaten people and use his power as an ex-copper. I know for a fact MacNamara knocked on someone's door personally and threatened a girl.' Deborah Bull, 64, was a member of Harrods' 'Green Team' between 1996 and 1997 Mohamed Al Fayed is accused of raping multiple women during his time as Harrods owner from 1984 to 2010 Mohamed Al Fayed with the Queen in 1997. His business connections and charity work saw him mixing with high society despite his complaints about what he saw as establishment bias In 1995 - a year before Fayed bought the police a car - Vanity Fair published an article alleging racism, staff surveillance and sexual misconduct by him against Harrods staff. Deborah told MailOnline that she first started working at the department store in 1996 after she was headhunted by a security recruitment firm. She said: 'I was approached by a recruitment agency called Met Shield, which are ex police officers that recruit that sort of work. They approached me and said: 'look, we think you'd be amazing for this job'. 'They wouldn't tell me what the company was, but they said: 'look, when you agree to come for an interview, then we'll tell you where it is'. 'The money was amazing, and it looked good on paper, from what I could see. So I went for the interview, and obviously I found out it was Harrods security. 'I got the job the following week, and it happened very, very quickly, which was good in a way, but I was sort of taken aback.' She described her time working for the Egyptian billionaire as a 'living hell' during which she was physically abused by other security staff, '99% of which were men'. Deborah told MailOnline about the 'sinister and horrible' atmosphere at Harrods, recalling one incident where a woman was allegedly 'indecently assaulted' by Al-Fayed inside his soundproofed office. The mother-of-three quit in 1997, the year after joining and re-joined the Met from 2002 to 2009. She decided to take the company to a tribunal, after seeking advice from lawyers who told her had a claim for sexual harassment and discrimination, following the physical and verbal abuse she received from male colleagues. It was only years later that she appeared in court for the tribunal hearing, during which, she claimed Al-Fayed and his team had put her under surveillance. 'During that time, I found out that they'd been following me, taking photographs of me and my daughter, and bugged my house phone.' She claimed she was also tailed by members of the security team who also took photos of her and her family when they went to the supermarket. Late billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed has been described as 'a monster' amid claims he raped multiple women working for him at Harrods Some the sexual assaults Fayed is accused of took place inside his office in Harrods (pictured) Some are also said to have been carried out at his Park Lane property in London (pictured) 'So many of us lived in fear and we kept it secret for so long as nobody thought we were telling the truth,' she said. 'I have never gone back into Harrods since I left in 1997, I was too terrified to go back there. 'But thank goodness we are now in a position to be able to talk about it.' Serious questions are already being asked over how Harrods, the CPS and the Met missed opportunities to stop the alleged serial predator. The late billionaire is believed to have used the Knightsbridge store, which he sold in 2010, to systematically procure, groom and abuse dozens of women. Harrowing testimony from survivors suggests he was aided by a network of people including security guards, other staff and doctors who conducted sexual health checks on victims. Current Harrods managing director Michael Ward yesterday apologised and said the business failed our colleagues. He added it is clear Al Fayed presided over a toxic culture. Lawyers for the Justice for Harrods Survivors group said they now represent 60 alleged victims and have received 200 enquiries, including several relating to Fulham Football Club under the period of Al Fayeds ownership. Mr Ward said an independent review was under way into issues arising from the allegations. He added: We failed our colleagues and for that we are deeply sorry. As someone who has worked at Harrods since 2006, and therefore worked for Fayed until 2010, I feel it is important to make it clear that I was not aware of his criminality and abuse. While it is true that rumours of his behaviour circulated in the public domain, no charges or allegations were ever put to me by the police, the CPS, internal channels or others. Had they been, I would, of course, have acted immediately. Mr Ward said Al Fayed operated Harrods as his own personal fiefdom, adding: It is now clear he presided over a toxic culture of secrecy, intimidation, fear of repercussion and sexual misconduct. This was a shameful period in the businesss history. He said a settlement process has been established, designed in consultation with independent experts in personal injury litigation. Fulham has said it is in the process of establishing whether anyone at the club was affected. Former flight attendant Ms MacDonald has alleged she was sexually assaulted by Al Fayed at 30,000ft as his bodyguards looked on. Waiving her right to anonymity, she said flying with him on his 35million jet scared the hell out of me as it was impossible to escape his clutches while everybody else turned a blind eye. On a flight from London to Paris in 2007, Ms MacDonald, then 28, said Al Fayed molested her and made lewd comments. She said: He grabbed my crotch and started shouting at me, your suit is too tight, I can see your p****. The latest search for the body of missing Victorian mother Samantha Murphy has failed to turn up anything of interest and has been called off. State and federal police endured wet conditions on Tuesday as they set out on another search in Grenville, south of Ballarat, which wrapped up on Thursday. The 51-year-old mother-of-three was last seen alive when she went for a run on the morning of February 4 from her Ballarat home. In March, police charged 23-year-old tradesman Patrick Orren Stephenson with Ms Murphy's murder. The most recent search was focused on the Enfield State Forest at Grenville. The location is approximately a 15-minute drive from Buninyong, where Ms Murphy's phone was found buried in the mud on the edge of an agricultural dam in May. 'Police have concluded their current search of the Enfield State Forest and no items of interest were located,' a police spokesperson said. 'The investigation remains ongoing and is focused on locating Samantha's body.' Samantha Murphy (pictured) went missing on February 4 while on a morning jog near her Ballarat home State and federal police battled wet conditions on Tuesday as they began another search in Grenville, south of Ballarat, which wrapped up on Thursday He said police are 'not in a position to supply further specific details of operational activity at this time.' Ms Murphy's disappearance led to an outpouring of grief in the Ballarat community and the nation, with an influx of volunteers joining multiple earlier searches. Stephenson is due to next front court in November after prosecutors asked for a delay to go through an extensive evidence brief including reams of CCTV footage. Ms Murphy's husband Mick (pictured) and their three children are desperate for answers Stephenson is the son of Orren Stephenson, who played 15 AFL games for Geelong and Richmond between 2012 and 2014. He is not speaking to detectives and they have yet to piece together the chain of events following Ms Murphy's alleged murder and what has happened to her body. Criminal psychologist Tim Watson-Munro told Daily Mail Australia that several factors could explain why it is taking so long to locate her body. 'Ms Murphy disappeared seven months ago, which seems like a long time but it's not really, all things considered, and detectives wouldn't disclose publicly a lot of what they're doing. 'If this happened in Melbourne CBD, for example, there would be a lot more people around - potential witnesses, less places to dispose of evidence. 'We're talking about a vast rural area, there's dense forests and farmlands. It really is like trying to find needle in a haystack.' But Dr Watson-Munro said the fact that an arrest was made quite quickly - along with the discovery of Ms Murphy's phone in excellent working condition on the bank of a dam in May - showed police had intelligence they were acting on. 'That phone was found near a muddy dam and had no degradation and the suspect has been in custody, so that raises the question of whether someone, a third-party, put that phone there,' he said. 'The fact they haven't located Ms Murphy yet doesn't mean they're not moving forward on the case, they could be working on covert intelligence and so on,' he said. Dr Watson-Munro also said it was not unusual that a suspect was not talking to police. Police on trail bikes searched for the remains of Samantha Murphy, who disappeared without a trace after going for a run last summer, in Ballarat, Victoria 'Without going into specifics about the suspect, who must be presumed innocent until proven otherwise, generally those arrested have a right to maintain silence,' he said. 'Most suspects act on legal advice. More often than not, a suspect will maintain the right to silence.' He also added the Australian Federal Police joining the effort to locate Ms Murphy showed police were determined to uncover what happened to her. 'Bringing in the AFP clearly shows a strong motivation to find her, to get this solved,' he said. 'In terms of the expertise they bring, they would have a broader resource base but also it could be as simple as a fresh perspective to look at the case.' Police earlier this year charged then 22-year-old tradesman Patrick Orren Stephenson with the murder of Ms Murphy Police with dogs searched an area around Enfield State Forest in Victoria. The search concluded on Thursday September 26, 2024: On August 6, 2024, Ukraine sent about a thousand troops and over thirty tanks and other combat vehicles into the Russian Kursk region. As of August 13th the Ukrainians had advanced more than 35 kilometers into Russia while surviving, and arriving, Russian forces were only trying to block further advances rather than counterattacking. Ukraine then sent in several thousand more troops as reinforcements in case there was a major response from the Russians. At first the Russians could not believe that Ukrainians were invading Russia. This should not have been a surprise because the Russian offensive into Ukraine has been stalled for over a year. The Russians were unable to counterattack for a number of reasons, including fear of failure and too many soldiers who did not want to be in Ukraine. There are other reasons for the different Ukrainian and Russian attitudes towards war. Ukrainian troops follow the rules while the Russians are expedient. Russian troops consider themselves as warriors while the Ukrainians strive to send trained soldiers into combat. Russia does have some well-trained and experienced troops in airborne and special operations units. These professionals will still slip into warrior mode when it suits them, or when ordered to do so. For the other ninety percent of Russian troops, warrior mode is often the default mode. By late 2023 there were few of Russian airborne and special operations troops left. Heavy Russian losses in Ukraine since 2022 are one of the reasons Russia was unable to move many troops and armored vehicles towards the Kursk incursion. Russian President Vladimir Putin did not expect such a bold Ukrainian attack into Russia and had little to say publicly. Instead he went off on a planned visit to another part of Russia while a few troops were sent to block the Ukrainian advance. Russian media were ordered to report little or nothing about the incursion. The media did publish vague reports of something happening in Kursk province, and most Russians were more afraid of their own government than they were of Ukrainian troops inside Russia. Putin enacted laws that punished critics of his policies in Ukraine. A few Russians were sent to prison and that was sufficient to frighten any other Russian critics of Putins policies. Meanwhile Putin has his own problems dealing with the invading Ukrainians. Over two years of fighting in Ukraine have severely depleted the Russian armed forces. There were not enough troops available to block the Ukrainian advance, This was what the Ukrainians expected because Ukrainian military intelligence has monitored Russian soldiers using cellphones and interviewed Russia prisoners. Ukraine knew that there were not many Russian troops left in Ukraine and Russian morale was low. Russia has not resorted to extreme measures to motivate their soldiers. In World War II methods were used to motivate reluctant troops that Russian does not believe will work 80 years after World War II. During World War II Russia resorted to ancient traditions when deadly force was necessary to encourage reluctant Russian soldiers. In 2022 Russian officers were expected to use deadly force on their own troops in order to ensure obedience. This was often used during World War 2. During some major offensives NKVD (secret police) personnel would be brought in to operate machine-guns behind the troops who were taking part in a major offensive. The NKVD machine-gunners fired on any Russian troops leaving the front-line forces. Many nations consider desertion in the face of the enemy to be treason, but they dont usually execute the traitorous deserters on sight. After 2022, Russians in Ukraine found that they could not get away with using NKVD methods. This meant there was no motivation to get reluctant Russian troops to move forwards. After more than two years fighting in Ukraine, Russian troops are often unable to motivate themselves into attacking. Even defending Russian troops will flee. The Ukrainians in Kursk are taking advantage of that and Vladimir Putin is receiving bad news he does not want to hear or deal with. Meanwhile there are still manifestations of this ruthlessness with Russian recruits. For example, when there is time and medical personnel are available, new recruits will get their health checked to ensure they are physically able to fight. This exam often includes dentists to check for dental problems that can be taken care of before training begins. This often includes extracting problematic teeth that will progressively cause more pain until dealt with. These teeth are promptly extracted without painkillers. Its just another way to remind these civilians that they are now in the mighty Russian army. They are expected to act as warriors, not armed civilians in uniform. Until some overdue reforms are made, these flaws will not go away. The fighting in Ukraine reminded Russian military and political leaders that the long delay is already working on needed reforms so, they hope, that the next time Russian troops are in combat they perform better and perhaps even win. There have been several rounds of unsuccessful military reforms since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. One of the major causes of that collapse was their unaffordable and largely ineffective armed forces. In post-Soviet Russia there are far fewer restrictions on criticizing the military. Most Russians have a very negative attitude towards conscription and the reforms underway because of the Ukraine War disaster are typical of several previous efforts to remedy problems that continue to resist any fundamental change. Rachel Reeves is ready to water down her planned crackdown on non-doms amid Treasury fears it will bring in no extra cash and cost the country money. Officials have warned that closing the loopholes could leave a 1billion hole in the Governments planned spending for schools and hospitals. But last night sources said that the Chancellor would change course if the numbers do not add up. We are looking at the details of our proposals. We will be pragmatic, not ideological, an official told the Financial Times. We wont press on regardless, but we are not going to abandon this completely. The Tories spiked Labours guns earlier this year by scrapping the non-dom status, but Ms Reeves vowed to go further by closing loopholes. Rachel Reeves may water down her planned raid on non-doms if the numbers don't add up, sources have said Former Bank of England economist Andy Haldane warned Labours plans for non-doms could hamper efforts to grow the economy Labour estimated it would raise 2.6billion over the course of this Parliament, including 1billion initially. The party said the money raised would be used to bring down NHS waiting lists and introduce breakfast clubs in every primary school. But senior Government sources told the Guardian they feared the Office for Budget Responsibility may forecast the measure as a cost, because it would lead to non-doms spending less time in the UK. However Ms Reeves is said to be minded to press ahead with the tax changes, the paper reported. Yesterday former Bank of England economist Andy Haldane warned Labours plans for non-doms could hamper efforts to grow the economy. He told LBC: Is this really garnering us any extra tax revenue? Thats the point. What is that doing to sentiment about UK plc? Does that make it more or less likely people will park their money, set up businesses here and therefore generate growth? It would give you cause for pause, weve seen that in terms of business confidence in the UK, which has been heading south over the last six weeks or so. This is a time where we need more private finance to fuel growth and recovery. If it were me, Id be a bit careful in not deterring the flow of finance we need to get growth going. If it indeed is not helping fill whats sometimes called the black hole then well need to look elsewhere, and thatll be a difficult decision. Non-domiciled status allows people who live in the UK, but who have a permanent home elsewhere, to only pay tax on the money they earn in the UK. It can be used to shield any overseas income and profits from UK taxes, unless they are transferred into the country. Jeremy Hunt faced a backlash when he announced he would scrap the non-dom status in the March Budget over fears it would push wealthy people abroad. He pledged to replace it with a fairer residency-based system an action predicted to raise an extra 2.7billion a year. From April next year, new arrivals to the UK will pay the same tax as everyone else after four years. Shadow Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said that Labour 'fail to understand the importance of globally competitive tax rates to our economy' Last night, Shadow Chancellor Mr Hunt said: It will be no surprise if Labours policy raises no money, because, as always, they fail to understand the importance of globally competitive tax rates to our economy. I only hope that they drop their plans which turn non-dom tax policy from something that does raise money to something that may well not. A Treasury spokesman said: These reports are purely speculation. The Independent Office for Budget Responsibility will certify the costings of all measures announced at the Budget in the usual way. We are committed to addressing unfairness in the tax system. A spirited West Virginia woman flashed a smile in her mugshot after she was arrested in connection with a shooting that involved an assault rifle. Dominique Marie Ely, 30, was taken into custody in relation to an incident that occurred in Kanawha County in late August, according to WCHS. After the shooting, investigators hurried to the crime scene, where they discovered two victims. One of them, Andre Jenkins, suffered a gunshot wound to the arm. Jenkin was rushed to the Charleston Area Medical Center, where he received treatment. Dominique Marie Ely, 30, flashed a smile in her mugshot after she was arrested in connection with a shooting that involved an assault rifle Detectives were able to review footage of the shooting, and by doing so, they learned that Ely was allegedly present for the incident. In the video, investigators saw that she was with the male suspect who wielded the assault rifle. From the footage, authorities discovered that the suspect had some kind of altercation with the victims, after which he fired several rounds at them. After this, Ely could supposedly be seen climbing into a vehicle. A few moments later, the suspect joined her and the two of them fled the scene. According to WCHS, investigators were able to determine that the vehicle was registered in Ely's name. Later, authorities conducted a series of interviews with her and identified her as a suspect. After she was arrested, Ely posed for her mugshot, in which she flashes a stolid smirk. West Virginia Mugshots posted a picture of it on their Facebook page, where many users unabashedly announced their infatuation with the 30-year-old. 'I don't even care what the charge is. This woman is beautiful,' one person wrote in the comments section. 'She's very pretty,' another user stated. Other people criticized Ely for smiling. After the shooting, investigators hurried to the crime scene, where they discovered two victims. One of them, Andre Jenkins, suffered from a shot in the arm 'What are you smiling about?' someone wrote. 'Hope she smiles and laughs all the way to prison' another person commented. Ely is accused of abetting the male suspect in the shooting and his subsequent escape. She faces charges of being an accessory, as well as malicious or unlawful assault and endangerment with a firearm. An Alabama death row inmate gave a chilling eight-word final statement in the moments before his execution by nitrogen hypoxia. Alan Eugene Miller, 59, became the second person to die from the controversial method on Thursday night. He had been on death row for decades for killing three people in back-to-back workplace shootings in 1999. Protesting his innocence until the end, his final words were: 'I didn't do anything to be in here.' He added: 'I didn't do anything to be on death row.' Alabama corrections officials then pumped nitrogen gas into a mask that covered Miller's face from his forehead to his chin, forcing him to shake and tremble on the gurney for about two minutes. Alan Eugene Miller, 59, became the second person to die of nitrogen gas asphyxiation on Thursday His left hand shook and clenched into a fist several times, and he was forced to lift his head from the gurney. That was followed by about six minutes of periodic gasping breaths before he finally went still. Miller was finally pronounced dead at around 6.38pm, Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said at an ensuing news conference, noting the two minutes of shaking was to be expected. 'There's going to be involuntary body movements as the body is depleted of oxygen, so that is nothing we did not expect,' Hamm said. 'Everything went according to plan and according to our protocol, so it went just as we had planned.' But Hamm later admitted that a corrections officer had to adjust the inmate's mask before the gas started to flow. 'That's just making sure the mask is fitted,' he said. The execution was the second to use the new method Alabama first employed in January, when Kenneth Smith was put to death. The method involves placing a respirator gas mask over the inmates face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death by lack of oxygen. He was arrested in August 1999 after he shot and killed three of his former co-workers Miller had selected the option to die by asphyxiation in a 2018 form distributed to Alabama death row inmates, AL.com reports. But the state was still not prepared to use nitrogen hypoxia as a form of execution when officials received a warrant for Miller's execution in September 22, and opted to instead try to execute him by lethal injection. That attempt was then called off when state officials said they could not access Miller's veins before the execution warrant expired at midnight. The inmate later filed a lawsuit against the prison, claiming that prison workers poked him for ninety minutes while trying to start an IV and left him hanging vertically as he laid strapped into a gurney, the Montgomery Advisor reports. State prosecutors ultimately settled the suit, and agreed not to execute Miller using any method other than nitrogen hypoxia. The method of execution was finally used earlier this year at Smith's execution, at which the inmate was seen shaking, writhing and thrashing up and down on the gurney for two minutes after the nitrogen gas started filling up his mask. That was followed by five to seven minutes of heavy breathing and slight gasping. Miller was previously set to be executed by lethal injection in 2022 In the aftermath, Miller challenged the state's nitrogen hypoxia protocol, claiming it could cause him undue suffering, thus violating his Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment. His attorneys argued that the state did not offer any proof for their claims that Smith held his breath, and instead 'hang[s] their hat exclusively on the self-serving testimony of a witness who claims to have remembered Smith's oxygen levels nearly seven months after the execution.' The witness, an execution team captain, did not write down the oxygen levels, nor did he tell anyone about the oxygen levels the night of the execution, Miller's lawyers argued, according to AL.com. Attorney General Steve Marshall touted a settlement with Miller as proof that Alabama's nitrogen gas execution method is constitutional '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. Smith's execution... undercuts [the state's] entire argument,' they argued. Miller also said in a deposition he was worried that the state will fail to secure his gas mask because they're 'incompetent.' 'I don't think y'all know what you're doing,' he told a state attorney. And these guys can't even open a cell door sometimes.' The suit was ultimately settled last month, and the terms of the settlement were confidential. But Attorney General Steve Marshall touted the settlement as proof that Alabama's nitrogen gas execution method is constitutional. 'The resolution of this case confirms that Alabama's nitrogen hypoxia system is reliable and humane,' he said at the time. Then, following the execution on Thursday, Marshall said: 'Tonight, despite misinformation campaigns by political activists, out-of-state-lawyers and biased media, the State proved once again that nitrogen hypoxia is both humane and effective. 'Miller's execution went as expected.' Miller shot each of the victims - Lee Holdbrooks, 32, Scott Yancy, 28, and Terry Lee Jarvis, 39 - multiple times before he was arrested Miller, a delivery truck driver, was convicted of capital murder in 2000 for the August 5, 1999 shootings that claimed three lives and shocked the city of Pelham, a suburban city just south of Birmingham. He had worked with each of the three victims - Lee Holdbrooks, 32, Scott Yancy, 28, and Terry Lee Jarvis, 39 - and had accused them of spreading rumors about him. Police say he entered Ferguson Enterprises and fatally shot Yancy three times, leaving him unable to move after the first shot 'traveled through his groin and into his spine, paralyzing him.' Holdbrooks was also shot about six times and tried to crawl down a hallway to escape before Miller shot him in the head 'causing him to die in a pool of blood,' according to court documents obtained by CNN. Miller then headed to his previous employer Post Airgas, where Jarvis worked. He walked in and said, 'Hey I hear you've been spreading rumors about me.' Jarvis replied that he had not been spreading any rumors, a witness said, but just moments later Miller shot Jarvis 'a number of times.' He was later captured on the highway with a Glock pistol with one round in the chamber and 11 rounds in an ammunition magazine, police said. Miller had initially pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but later withdrew the plea. A psychiatrist hired by the defense said that Miller was mentally ill but his condition wasnt severe enough to use as a basis for an insanity defense, according to court documents. Jurors convicted Miller after 20 minutes of deliberation and recommended by a vote of 10-2 that he receive the death penalty. 'Just as Alan Miller cowardly fled after he maliciously committed three calculated murders in 1999, he has attempted to escape justice for two decades,' Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement Thursday. 'Tonight, justice was finally served for these three victims through the execution method elected by the inmate. 'His acts were not that of insanity, but pure evil,' the governor said. 'Three families were forever changed by his heinous crimes and I pray that they can find comfort all these years later.' Family members of the three victims did not witness the execution and did not issue a statement to be read to reporters, state officials said. READ MORE: Man fighting for life after fire erupts in abandoned warehouse They were due to get married in less than a month A heartbroken bride-to-be didn't put 'two and two together' after she saw flames and thick black smoke coming from the direction of her wedding venue. The 99-year-old heritage listed event venue 'The Lussh' was destroyed after a massive fire spread from an abandoned warehouse in Brisbane on Wednesday. Nurse Madison Sullivan, 33, and several of her colleagues had been keeping a close eye on the flames coming from Woolloongabba, in the city's inner-south. 'It made sense, but I just didn't think it would be that,' she told Daily Mail Australia. She and her partner of over five years, Nathan Crawford, 37, had been ready to welcome 105 guests for their wedding at the venue on October 26. Ms Sullivan told Daily Mail Australia that after planning her perfect wedding for over a year she is now worried they won't be able to afford a new vendor. '(I'm) just very overwhelmed and hoping for the best. It's so fresh and in the early stages following the fire,' she said. 'I'm hoping and praying that we will have a vendor and financially we can pull it off.' Brisbane couple Nathan Crawford, 37, and Madison Sullivan had planned their perfect wedding for over a year before their wedding venue burnt down on Wednesday The 99-year-old heritage listed event venue 'The Lussh' was destroyed after a massive fire ripped though the Brisbane warehouse on Wednesday afternoon (pictured) Mr Crawford said they knew of at least ten couples who had been planning to host their nuptials at The Lussh before it was destroyed this week. Trying to find a replacement venue on a major time crunch is proving difficult despite help from friends 'People book these things a year in advanced like us and to try and fit everyone into a new venue it's like trying to squeeze blood out of a stone,' Mr Crawford explained. 'There's quite a lot of guests that will only be able to make the 26th of October, there's a lot flying from internationally and interstate. 'They have hotel bookings and flights already arranged, changes to the dates around that time would come at a premium with a number of high-profile concerts in town. 'I got off work and saw a few notifications on my phone, one popped up in real time from my best man's mate just saying 'please give me a call', we did a FaceTime. He saw my face and said, "has anyone spoken to you yet". 'He just told me: "There's no way to put this to you, my mate's just driven by The Lussh it's on fire, it's going to burn to the ground".' The fire started started in a warehouse before spreading to nearby buildings on Wednesday The couple are worried they won't find a replacement vendor for their nuptials on October 26 He quickly called his fiancee to break the bad news but couldn't get through to her as she works on a busy hospital ward. 'I just told her that our wedding venue's burned down. She just kept saying "no, no", she was devastated,' Mr Crawford said. The couple yet to hear from The Lussh but understand the team is working with clients who were scheduled to be married this weekend. 'Well, this sucks,' The Lussh team wrote on social media. 'We are devastated by the events of this afternoon and extremely thankful that our team is safe. Our hearts go out to our Woolloongabba community and all those affected by the fire that broke out from a neighbouring building earlier today. 'We appreciate your patience and understanding as we prioritise reaching out to events booked in the coming days and weeks.' The couple are yet to hear from The Lussh but understand the team is working with clients who were scheduled to be married at the venue this weekend The fire in the abandoned warehouse was reportedly accelerated by a number of mattresses inside with one man suffering 'significant smoke inhalation'. The flames caused roofs to collapse in affected buildings with police declaring an exclusion zone over fears there were chemicals stored inside the warehouse. The Lussh - which is listed as 'temporarily closed' online - is described as a 'bespoke renovated warehouse wedding nestled into the cliffs of Woolloongabba'. You have to love the irony of politicians - who let's face it mislead for a living - wanting to ram through new 'misinformation laws' that won't apply to them but do apply to the average Australian. While the political class can continue to speak freely, including in parliament - excluded from the new laws - pedalling false narratives that suit their purposes whenever they like, the rest of society risks being hauled before a specially convened star chamber to prove their innocence when accused of spreading falsehoods. The 'one rule for us, another rule for the rest of you' nature of this newly proposed Labor law doesn't end there. The elite end of the country are also given special exceptions from this free speech-limiting legislation. Academics and artists can say things which you might not be allowed to respond to under the proposed law. They could take aim at something you've said or done and your right of reply would be limited by law, forcing you to sit in silence as they dismantle you or an issue close to your heart. It is a shocking case of stifling the dissent of the masses while protecting the elites. Ordinarily I would consider putting this badly drafted legislation's perverse outcomes down to the well trodden 'law of unintended consequences'. Anthony Albanese's government is proposing a new 'misinformation' law Human rights groups are worried the proposed legislation could clamp down on free speech (a protester is pictured in Sydney in November, 2021) In other words, good intentions that sometimes lead to bad outcomes by mistake. Except that this legislation is a wolf in sheep's clothing. There is nothing unintended in the outcomes it will lead to. I believe the design of these proposed laws is deliberate. This Labor government wants to stifle the free speech of the masses, because it neither respects nor tolerates the opinions of the mainstream. The same way the Prime Minister looked down on any Australian who opposed his Voice to Parliament, for example. Advocates during that debate regularly accused opponents of being guided by racism rather than fair-minded concerns about the drafting of what was being proposed. These new misinformation laws are nothing short of an attempt to prevent average voters expressing opinions that might challenge the woke establishment view, or take on the increasingly stifling nature of political correctness in this country. Australia has little by way of free speech protections already. An implied political freedom of speech in constitutional interpretation, but no bill of rights enshrining the principle. Yet here we are, bearing witness to a government seeking to further curtail free speech proactively via new laws that can be subjectively applied to some but not others. No wonder the opposition opposes it and civil liberties advocates are raising the alarm. Adding to the dysfunction, this government is in an unnecessary rush to legislate the new laws, demanding they are passed by the parliament this side of the new year. What is the urgency? Is it a coincidence they face re-election soon after? Will these laws help Labor shut down commentary critical of its performance? These are fair, as yet, unanswered questions. Nobody wants to see hate speech or abusive rhetoric permeate online, much less when it is also defamatory in nature. So in principle there is nothing wrong with looking to add to existing laws preventing such behaviour. Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland would have sweeping powers under the proposed laws However, this proposed law goes so much further than that. It even gives the communications minister of the day extraordinary powers to personally order misinformation hearings or investigations. It sounds more like a plot line to a documentary on the Stasi regime in East Germany during the Cold War than a new set of rules Labor is seriously in support of in the 21st Century. The biggest problem with clamping down on political commentary that might be classed as misinformation is the highly subjective nature of making such assessments. Both the left and the right often claim their political opponents are spreading lies. Fancy giving a minister the power to endlessly probe their opponents under the protection of such a new law. The movie 1984 might be an oldie but its relevance is on the rise when the political class seeks to curtail rights in the way this new law is designed to do. We therefore end where we started: The irony of any politician who twists and contorts the facts for a living to suggest new 'misinformation laws' that apply to the rest of us but not to them is hypocrisy on stilts. However, the extreme lack of self awareness when doing so means that Labor won't even realise how hypocritical they are in arguing for this new law. The Harley Street doctor accused of carrying out invasive sexual health checks on Mohamed Al Fayeds alleged victims said she does not regret working for the disgraced billionaire. Breaking cover for the first time at her west London home yesterday, Dr Ann Coxon denied carrying out medical examinations on young women on the behest of the late Harrods boss. The 84-year-old tersely refused to apologise to his victims and when asked if she regretted working for the alleged sexual predator, she replied: No, I dont. The comments were the first she has made since being accused of carrying out the tests and sharing the results with Al Fayed who then allegedly preyed on the same women. The Justice for Harrods Survivors group said they have reported the doctor, who still has a licence to practice and operates out of her Harley Street clinic, to the General Medical Council (GMC). Dr Ann Coxon, who has been accused of performing STD tests on Mohammed Al Fayed's employees, has been seen today leaving her home in Notting Hill, west London Five women have alleged they were raped by Mohamed Al Fayed, who died last year aged 94 A general view of the Harrods department store in Knightsbridge in London last Friday - Fayed is said to have carried out many of the alleged assaults while owner of the business One of Al Fayeds victims, a former Harrods worker known only as Natacha, says she felt that the examinations carried out on her by Dr Coxon were wholly unnecessary. She said she was sent to the doctor for AIDS and STD testing without consent, adding that she felt that she was being checked for her purity and was later repeatedly abused by Al Fayed. Natacha said the doctor, who was also the private physician of disgraced PR man Max Clifford, had questions to answer over the sexual health checks. She said the examinations carried out by Dr Coxon...resulted in many employees, including my own, confidential medical information being inappropriately shared within Harrods. But Dr Coxon, who has run her medical practice on Harley Street since 1982, was still taking calls at her clinic yesterday. Dr Ann Coxon has not commented since the claims were made in a BBC investigation last week She allegedly carried out 'wholly unnecessary' medical tests on Al Fayed's staff An Al Fayed survivor known only as Natacha says Dr Coxon now has questions to answer Natacha hugs American lawyer Gloria Allred at a press conference in London last Friday A new BBC documentary says the Egyptian-born businessman - who died in London aged 94 last August - carried out the attacks while Harrods boss between 1984 and its sale in 2010 The corporation says more than 20 female former workers at Harrods have come forward to accuse Al Fayed (pictured) of sexual abuse Mohamed Al Fayed pictured with his wife Heini Wathen in 2016. The couple had four children Mohamed Al Fayed pictured alongside Diana, Princess of Wales at a charity event held at Harrods in London in 1996 Mohamed Al Fayed, former owner of Harrods and Fulham FC, is seen here in 2018 The Egyptian tycoon, who died aged 94 last August, was said to have been so paranoid about STDS he allegedly sent staff to be tested before he would prey on them. Another physician he is said to have used was Dr Wendy Snell, the Knightsbridge stores in house doctor, who died two years ago aged 64. A GMC spokesperson was unable to confirm if any reports had been received about Dr Coxon but said: If we identify any potential fitness to practise concerns about individual doctors, we will thoroughly examine all relevant information and take action as appropriate. An Arkansas couple signed an insane contract in a twisted effort to pawn off their two-month-old baby to strangers at a camp site for $1,000 and some beers. Darien Tyler Urban, 21, and Shalene Faith Ehlers, 20, were trying to trade their baby boy to a man they met at a campground near Beaver Lake on Saturday when the manager called police, KNWA reports. Deputies arrived on the scene learned that the couple had signed a letter granting custody to a man named Cody Martin in exchange for a $1,000 cashier's check. The duo had earlier passed their baby off to another man who was noticeably intoxicated for some beer, according to the Benton County Sheriff's Office. The contract read: 'I, Darien Urban and Shalene Ehlers, are signing our rights over to [Martin] of our baby for $1,000 on 9/21/24. 'Disclaimer: After signing this there will be no changing y'all two minds and to never contact again.' Shalene Ehlers, 20, (pictured) and Darien Urban, 21, were arrested for allegedly trying to sell their two-month-old baby boy to a stranger for $1,000 Urban (pictured) and Ehlers had signed a letter granting custody to a man named Cody Martin in exchange for a $1,000 cashier's check. When deputies arrived on the scene, Ehlers and Urban were nowhere to be found, according to 4029TV. Deputies then spoke with several witnesses, including Ricky Crawford, who they said 'smelled heavily' of alcohol, was slurring his words and was struggling to stay upright. Crawford told deputies he approached the young couple earlier and offered to take their baby for the night in exchange for a six-pack of beer, according to KNWA. Crawford also said he was 'concerned about the welfare' of the child, and brought the infant with him to Martin, who was staying in a camper. Urban and Ehlers then went to Martin's camper with the offer to sell the baby for $1,000, the Kansas City Star reports, citing court documents. Martin said Ehlers told him it was difficult for her to take care of the infant because of her pets, saying it 'was not working having three dogs and a baby.' Martin agreed to pay for the baby, but told the couple he wanted to have it in writing. So he drew up the crude contract for the couple to sign. He also took a video of Urban and Ehlers signing the paper for additional proof they agreed, with the couple saying they planned to 'legalize' the adoption that Monday. But Martin did not have the money, and told Urban and Ehlers he would bring them a $1,000 cashier's check the next day. Instead, though, Martin took the signed agreement to the manager of the campground and explained what happened - prompting the manager to call 911. When investigators ultimately did find Ehlers and Urban, they asked the coupe if they knew where their child was, to which they replied that he was undergoing an adoption. Another women deputies spoke with reported that the infant 'had a bad ammonia and fecal odor.' She said she changed his diaper and saw a 'heavy rash, blisters and swelling on the baby's buttocks and genitals.' The couple were staying at a campground near Beaver Lake in Arkansas The couple were taken into custody and charged with endangering the welfare of a minor and attempting to commit consideration for relinquishing a minor for adoption The woman also claimed that the diaper was also full of dog hair, and she gave the baby a bath. 'Urban and Ehlers created a substantial risk of death or serious physical injury by abandoning their minor child initially with an obviously intoxicated male and ultimately with someone they did not know,' court documents say. The couple were then taken into custody and charged with endangering the welfare of a minor and attempting to commit consideration for relinquishing a minor for adoption. Urban was released on a $5,000 bond on Tuesday, while Ehlers remained in custody on a $30,000 bail, according to KNWA, which reports that they both had prior criminal histories. Urban was previously convicted on two counts of felony theft by receiving in Bentonville in 2024, and a battery charge in Rogers in 2023. He was still serving a three year probation at the time of his arrest. Ehlers, meanwhile, was arrested for misdemeanor shoplifting in Fayetteville in 2024. Last year, Urban also created an online fundraiser saying he and Ehlers were struggling after the birth of their first child, a daughter. 'My daughter Rosa was born on May 20, 2023 and I'm super happy to be a dad, but I keep getting beat down every time I think life starts turning around,' it said. 'I'm trying to make this fundraiser because we live out of a motel right now and it's taking all of my money from my paychecks from work. I work for Uber Eats. 'Any funds we gain from this will be used to get a better roof over my family.' The fundraiser only netted $150 for the family. It is unclear what happened with the older child, but prosecutors said the baby boy is now in the care of the Arkansas Department of Human Service. A Haitian leader made a major flub at the UN General Assembly Thursday when he spilled water on himself while speaking about migrants from Haiti supposedly eating cats and dogs. The president of Haiti's transitional council Edgard Leblanc Fils first spoke to world leaders gathered about gang violence in the country, as its capital Port-au-Prince has been the site of an ongoing gang war between two major groups and their allies Fils bemoaned the large number of citizens fleeing due to the unrest, before getting into the false claims about Haitians living in Springfield, Ohio, eagerly eating pets. He expressed concern that Haitians in the US and worldwide might face prejudice as a result of the claims, which were first made by former president Donald Trump. As Fils was about to field a question, he could be seen picking up the massive jug and trying to drink from it, instead of pouring it in a glass. He proceeded to miss his mouth, creating a moment to remember. The president of Haiti's transitional council Edgard Leblanc Fils spilled water on himself while speaking about migrants supposedly eating cats and dogs Thursday He expressed concern that Haitians in the US and worldwide might face prejudice as a result of the claims, which were first made by former president Donald Trump at the presidential debate on September 10 'I would like to extend a brotherly greeting to all friends of Haiti that have shown solidarity towards the migrants from our country - and in particular those living in Springfield, Ohio,' Fils said at a point. The history of U.S-Haitian ties 'enables us to say with confidence that the American people reject any incitement to hate against our community,' he added. 'The passions that naturally arise during an election campaign should never serve as a pretext for xenophobia or racism in a country such as the United States, a country forged by immigrants... which has become a model of democracy for the world.' While fielding a fellow delegate's question about the dignity of Haitians, he made the now viral mistake. He then tried to play down the apparent slip, setting the pitcher down before quickly wiping his mouth. Footage of the slip-up continues to make rounds on social media, as do the ex-presidents claims about Haitians living in Springfield. During the debate with Harris, Trump specifically honed in on the small town, As Fils was about to field a question, he could be seen picking up the massive jug and trying to drink from it, instead of pouring it in a glass. He proceeded to miss his mouth, creating a moment to remember. He then tried to play down the apparent slip, setting the pitcher down before quickly wiping his mouth 'They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there,' Trump said a few weeks ago - paving the way for memes like this 'They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there,' he said - producing no evidence to support his claims. They appeared to stem from a Facebook post from Springfield resident Erika Lee, who wrote about a neighbor's cat that went missing, before adding that a neighbor told her she thought the cat was the victim of an attack by her Haitian neighbors. 'It just exploded into something I didn't mean to happen,' Lee told NBC News earlier this month, just days after the September 10 debate . A photo of a man holding a dead goose that was taken in Columbus further fueled the speculation, as did graphic video of a woman who allegedly killed and tried to eat a cat in Canton. The latter bore no connection to the Haitian community, and police in Springfield say they have found no evidence to support Trump's sensational claims. The U.S. State Department, meanwhile, is urging tourists to avoid visiting Haiti, due to an ongoing state of emergency. Pictured, an image of a man holding a dead goose in Columbus, Ohio - one of the pieces of media that seemingly started the rumors They wrote: 'Kidnapping is widespread, and U.S. citizens have been victims and have been hurt or killed. Kidnappers may plan carefully or target victims at random, unplanned times. Kidnappers will even target and attack convoys. 'Kidnapping cases often involve ransom requests. Victims' families have paid thousands of dollars to rescue their family members.' Since the carnage began, 8,400 people have been killed, injured or kidnapped, the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect reported. Five million Haitians are facing acute hunger, 1.6 million are at risk of starvation and more than 580,000 people are currently displaced. The mother of a schoolgirl who was bullied to death broke down as she spoke at her daughter's funeral, but she made no mention of the years of torment the 12-year old suffered at the hands of her peers. Charlotte O'Brien, a Year 7 student at Santa Sabina College in Strathfield, was farewelled by friends and family at Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Bossley Park, Sydney's west, on Friday. She took her own life in her bedroom on September 9 because the torment inflicted upon her by her classmates became unbearable. Emotions spilled over as Mat and Kelly, Charlotte's mum and step-father, addressed hundreds of mourners at the start of the service - talking about what a thoughtful, caring, and kind person she was. Kelly moved everyone to tears as she said: 'I will grieve the life you never had ... I can't wait to go to sleep so I can see you in my dreams.' While the parents have been vocal about the impact of bullying since Charlotte's death, they chose not to focus on it during the service on Friday. Instead, they thanked their daughter for the joy she brought to their lives. After the service, Charlotte's coffin was taken to Rookwood Cemetery where her biological father had a private funeral with his partner and family. Charlotte O'Brien (pictured) took her own life on September 9 due to severe bullying Charlotte O'Brien's mother is pictured crying next to her partner at the funeral on Friday Charlotte's mother, Kelly, kissed her daughter's coffin during the service on Friday The priest was the only person during the service to talk about the trigger her family have blamed for Charlotte's death. 'One in three children are bullied in communities all over the world,' he said. 'There is a responsibility in the world, starting at home and in our communities. Where we do we go from here? How are we going to move forward from here? 'We all experience good and bad.' He urged mourners to be mindful of their actions. During her speech, Kelly said: 'I will miss everything about you, baby. I will miss our hugs, your kisses, your love, your beautiful smile, and how every day you would ask me how my day was. 'I will always grieve the life you never had. I will miss you every day that ends in Y. I will never be OK without you, not even for a day.' At times, Kelly had difficulty talking. Hundreds of friends, students and teachers attended Charlotte's funeral on Friday Charlotte's mother, Kelly, is pictured during her daughter's funeral on Friday Charlotte's mother broke down after the funeral, clutching stuffed toys given to her by her daughter's friends Charlotte's stepfather said: 'I love you. Thank you for being you. 'Thank you for being so thoughtful, so kind, thank you for being so brave. 'Thank you for letting me take your mum out on our first date - I was under strict instructions that I needed Charlotte's approval and I received it. 'Thank you for giving me the greatest honour to be your dad.' When the service concluded, Kelly left the church with her daughter's coffin, clutching a stuffed penguin toy. A hearse then took Charlotte's coffin from the church to another service held by her biological father's family. As the coffin arrived, 'Behind Blue Eyes' by Limp Bizkit could be heard through loudspeakers. Earlier, Charlotte's mum shared the final message she sent to the school after her daughter's death. Charlotte's parents, Mat and Kelly, carried their daughter's coffin into the church (pictured) Mourners covered the hearse in petals before it left for the cemetery after the funeral service 'My beautiful girl took her own life last night because of the relentless friendship issues she faced,' she wrote. 'She didn't deserve to go to and from school crying almost every day. She didn't deserve girls to bark in her face or scream out her name and run away, to purposely hit her with their bag and say "whoops". 'She didn't deserve the pain she was in. She deserved love and kindness. She deserved to be treated with dignity and respect.' Her parents found her suicide notes in her bedroom - written in small pink handwriting, she urged them to share her story to raise awareness about the impact of bullying. She asked them to 'tell the school' about the torment she went through, saying her life had become 'too hard'. Another note referred to her infant brother, Will. She wrote: 'Please, Mama, live for Will because I can't anymore.' If this has raised any issues for you, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636 Sir Keir Starmer had a two-hour meeting with Donald Trump as the pair met for the first time. The Prime Minister visited the Republican presidential candidate at his Trump Tower in New York on Thursday evening. They had a two-hour dinner before Sir Keir had to leave to fly back to the UK, with the PM said to have welcomed the opportunity to meet the former President. The pair discussed the longstanding friendship between the United Kingdom and the United States as well as the importance of continuing the strong and enduring partnership between our two countries. It came after Mr Trump praised the PM at a press conference before the meeting. Sir Keir Starmer speaks at the United Nation in New York Asked what he made of Sir Keir, he joked: Well Im going to see him in about an hour so I have to be nice! He went on: I actually think hes very nice. He ran a great race, he did very well, its very early hes very popular. Sir Keir visited Trump Tower after speaking at the United Nations General Assembly. However in a blow to Downing Street, he was unable to arrange an introduction to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, whom he has not met before, before his return to the UK. She was in Washington DC seeing Ukraines leader as he presented his victory plan to the White House and it is unclear if Sir Keir will now be able to meet her before the US election in just over a month. Former president Donald Trump speaking at the Trump Tower in New York Speaking ahead of his first encounter with Mr Trump, Sir Keir told reporters: As you know, I've said a number of times, I want to meet both candidates. We've now got the opportunity to meet Trump, which is good. Obviously, I still want to speak to Harris as well. But you know, the usual diary challenges, but it's good that this one now has been fixed. Asked what his message would be to Mr Trump, the PM replied: It'll be really to establish a relationship between the two of us. I'm a great believer in personal relations on the international stage. I think it really matters that you know who your counterpart is in any given country, and know them you know personally, get to know them face to face. But he added: I should probably add that, I mean that our camp, our embassy, has got good relations with both camps and has had for a long time. So it's not the sort of start of something, it's the continuation of those good relations that have been there with both camps, and that's a really good thing that the embassy has been doing. September 27, 2024: In Ukraine the use of numerous different missiles in large quantities has led NATO military planners to reexamine the state of their own missile arsenal, as well as BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense) systems. What is going on in Ukraine is a demonstration of what World War 3 would be like if Russia tried to attack nations of the NATO alliance. That is unlikely because the population of NATO without the United States and Canada is still over 600 million people and larger military forces than Russia can deploy. Ukraine, a nation with a population of 40 million, stopped the invading Russian force. Russia has a population of 140 million but was unable to muster sufficient forces to defeat Ukraine and now Ukrainian troops have invaded Russia. NATO military planners realize that the Ukrainians outfought the Russians and defeated the invasion. Military planners always examine the worst case situation, just to be on the safe side of things. NATO planners assume a competent Russian could do a lot of damage to unprepared NATO countries. NATO exists to protect all its members and, if NATO members cannot muster a sufficient defense, it means some NATO nations are going to suffer lots of casualties and damage as well as civilian casualties to people caught in the crossfire. Whats worse, the situation in Ukraine could have happened even if Ukraine were a NATO member. Some NATO officials have pointed out that the NATO alliance does not mandate NATO member nations sending troops. They could just send weapons and other supplies. This is what NATO has done for Ukraine, in addition to the United States, the largest NATO member, placing restrictions on how Ukraine can use NATO supplied weapons. The U.S. government doesnt want Ukraine firing American or NATO long range weapons deep into Russia. The U.S. government fears that might trigger a nuclear war. This is nonsense because no one wants an actual nuclear war because it would mean the destruction of Russia, and possibly some NATO nations that supplied the long-range weapons. Two European NATO members, France and Britain, have built and deployed strategic nuclear weapons on effectively invulnerable ballistic missile submarines. For the Russians, that means the threat of nuclear retaliation does not have to come from the Americans. Angry European nuclear powers are scarier to the Russians than threats from the United States. Faced with all these threats, NATO nations assume there wont be a nuclear war because it will be one of mutually assured destruction. Instead Russia might use its growing arsenal of missiles armed with non-nuclear warheads. NATO nations can obtain weapons, like Patriot missiles, to defend themselves from Russian missile attacks. Currently, obtaining Patriot missiles has been difficult because Ukraine has used hundreds of them to deal with incessant Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian military and civilian targets. NATO nations fear future threats from Russia and seek to upgrade their air defenses, especially their supply of Patriot missiles. The American manufacturer of these missiles is increasing production and those increases will continue after the Ukraine war is over in order to replace depleted NATO country stockpiles. There is also demand from Middle Eastern Patriot users to increase their Patriot stockpiles to deal with the growing Iranian threat. Persian Gulf Patriot users have their oil extraction and shipping operations near the coast and are vulnerable to an Iranian attack. Iran has to smuggle its oil out because of long-standing economic sanctions. The success of Patriot in Ukraine has attracted new customers seeking to buy Patriot batteries and missiles. One reason Patriot is so popular with new users is that the manufacturer has increased the shelf life of missiles to over 22 years. That means missiles in storage can be kept useful for decades via periodic upgrades and replacement of expendable parts like batteries. Until the Ukraine War came along the U.S. Army, the initial and still primary owner of Patriot systems, was seeking designs for a Patriot replacement. The success of Patriot in Ukraine put the replacement program on hold. That means Patriot will remain the air defense missile of choice for at least another decade. Two young boys are fighting for life after a car crash in Brisbane left four children injured, Paramedics were called to Vincent Street in Auchenflower, in Brisbane's inner-west, at about 1.15pm on Friday after a car collided with a pole. Two primary school aged boys were taken to Queensland Children's Hospital in life-threatening conditions, one with abdominal injuries and the other with head injuries. Two other boys were taken to the same hospital to be treated for minor injuries. A Queensland Ambulance Services spokesperson said paramedics treated a man at the scene for injuries but he declined further care in hospital. The extent of his involvement in the crash is unknown. A legal bid which forced the closure of an art gallery's controversial 'Ladies Lounge' has been overturned by the Tasmanian Supreme Court. The lounge, inside Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, was closed in April after NSW man Jason Lau complained to the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal that he had been unfairly denied entry to the installation. The tribunal found the ladies lounge, a small exhibition space in the museum only open to women, was in breach of Tasmania's Anti-Discrimination Act 1998. MONA was ordered by the tribunal to 'cease refusing entry to the Ladies Lounge to persons who did not identify as ladies'. The gallery was made to consider their options, including allowing men access to the lounge or reforming the installation. Curator Kirsha Kaechele decided to close the ladies lounge completely. On Friday, the decision was overturned following an appeal publicly spearheaded by Ms Kaechele, with MONA's lawyers successfully arguing the lounge addressed ongoing disadvantages faced by modern women. In the Supreme Court appeal, MONA argued the exclusion of men was permitted under section 26 of the state's anti-discrimination act 1998. Ladies Lounge curator Kirsha Kaechele (pictured) said her legal team 'smashed the patriarchy' MONA curator Kirsha Kaechele and her supporters are seen at the Supreme Court on Friday Ms Kaechele, who is also the wife of MONA owner David Walsh, said her lawyers had 'smashed' the patriarchy on Friday. 'It's a day of triumph for us, and we're very excited,' she said outside court. 'The patriarchy (has been) smashed and the verdict demonstrates a simple truth, women are better than men,' she said outside court. Ms Kaechele revealed plans were 'in the works' for the future of the lounge. 'Something will happen with the ladies lounge. There are plans in the works... some kind of celebration,' she said. In his ruling, Acting Justice Stephen Marshall found the tribunal had been mistaken in claiming the lounge only addressed past disadvantage experience by women. '[The lounge's] intention was to promote equal opportunity by drawing attention to present and past societal disadvantage to women by providing them with the concept of a 'flipped universe',' he said. '(It provides) women with a rare glimpse of what it is like to be advantaged rather than disadvantaged.' Justice Marshall said the tribunal failed to properly consider a report on the status of women in Australia which referenced structural discrimination. Mr Lau's lawyer Greg Barns argued the lounge's purpose was solely to reflect on the historical disadvantage of women. The Ladies Lounge was enclosed by a curtain and was supervised by an attendant who only allowed people who identified as female to enter. In the decision, Justice Marshall provided a clearer definition for the space, noting the lounge was a 'participatory installation'. 'The process of being admitted or refused admission and the participation in the ladies' lounge is part of the art itself,' he said. MONA curator Kirsha Kaechele said the ladies lounge (pictured) was mostly about women 'drinking champagne, having a laugh, sitting on a sofa' Ms Kaechele (pictured outside the Supreme Court on Friday) is now legally able to reopen MONA's Ladies Lounge but remained tight-lipped about her plans for the future Ms Kaechele previously considered a number of ways to skirt the tribunal's original ruling; including trying to reopen the space as a 'church' or a 'bathroom'. The curator posted on social media about her all-female legal team's day at the Supreme Court of Tasmania on Friday. 'Tasmania's Supreme Court, 9:30 this morning. We piled in (the ladiesred lips, navy, pearls). It took 30 seconds to deliver the verdict,' she wrote. 'The judge's verdict demonstrates a simple truth: women are better than men. Yes, the men, understandably, are a little grumpy about this. They may even appeal. 'I believe in and love the Ladies Lounge. It is a uniting force, has brought women from all sides of the political spectrum together- hallelujah! The art has melded with the world, dissolved the barriers between art and life.' Hundreds of workers have been been sacked after the discovery of a virus that could devastate Aussie crops and force farms to close. Three properties in South Australia were placed in quarantine after the highly contagious tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) was detected last month. The virus has forced the state government to shut down three tomato farms in the Northern Adelaide Plains region, stopping all tomato production indefinitely. The southern hemisphere's biggest grower Perfection Fresh announced the news to around 500 workers on Wednesday after the company's Two Wells property was cordoned off by authorities. Gawler River Tomatoes and South Australia Tomatoes have also been locked down. The virus was initially detected on two properties in the Northern Adelaide Plains region on August 5. A third infected property was confirmed on August 30 after the tracing of plant materials. This is the first time the virus has been confirmed in Australia. Hundreds of workers (pictured) have been given the sack after the highly contagious tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) was detected in South Australia last month ToBRFV is a highly contagious plant virus that affects tomatoes, capsicums and chilies ToBRFV is a highly contagious plant virus that affects tomatoes, capsicums and chilies and is seen as a major threat to Australia's $5.8billion vegetable industry. 'The disease can result in a loss of yield of up to 75 per cent so that would have a very significant impact on South Australian and Australian growers more broadly, if that was to occur,' SA's Primary Industries Minister Clare Scriven said. 'Other states, if we were not to get on top of this or were not to put this quarantine in place, they would potentially close the doors to South Australian tomatoes.' Queensland and Western Australia have already moved to ban tomato imports from South Australia. In a statement, South Australia's Department of Primary Industries and Regions (PIRSA) said it is responding to the virus and had implemented quarantine measures on infected properties to reduce the risk of it spreading. ToBRFV is seen as a major threat to Australia's $5.8 billion vegetable industry The virus spreads easily through contaminated tools, hands, clothing and direct plant-to-plant contact. ToBRFV can also be seed-borne and transmitted through irrigation water, grafting, and cuttings. The virus was first detected in the Middle East in 2014 and has since been reported in China, Mexico, the USA and Europe. The current outbreak in South Australia has prompted increased vigilance across Australia's tomato growers, with other states conducting follow-up testing due to the potential spread of infected seeds. Sir Keir Starmer had a two-hour meeting with Donald Trump last night as the pair met for the first time. The Prime Minister visited the Republican presidential candidate at his Trump Tower in New York on Thursday evening. David Lammy previously called Trump a 'woman-hating, neo-Nazi sympathizing sociopath', 'a tyrant in a toupee', a 'dangerous clown' and 'a racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser'. They had a two-hour dinner before Sir Keir had to leave to fly back to the UK, with the PM said to have welcomed the opportunity to meet the former President. The pair discussed the longstanding friendship between the United Kingdom and the United States as well as the importance of continuing the strong and enduring partnership between our two countries. It came after Mr Trump praised the PM at a press conference before the meeting. Sir Keir Starmer (pictured during his UN Assembly address) had a two-hour meeting with Donald Trump last night as the pair met for the first time The Prime Minister visited the Republican presidential candidate at his Trump Tower in New York on Thursday evening. Pictured: The former President at Trump Tower yesterday Asked what he made of Sir Keir, he joked: 'Well I'm going to see him in about an hour so I have to be nice!' He went on: 'I actually think he's very nice. He ran a great race, he did very well, it's very early he's very popular.' Sir Keir visited Trump Tower after speaking at the United Nations General Assembly. However in a blow to Downing Street, he was unable to arrange an introduction to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, whom he has not met before, before his return to the UK. Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs of the United Kingdom David Lammy speaks at the United Nations Security Council meeting in New York on September 25 She was in Washington DC seeing Ukraine's leader as he presented his 'victory plan' to the White House and it is unclear if Sir Keir will now be able to meet her before the US election in just over a month. Speaking ahead of his first encounter with Mr Trump, Sir Keir told reporters: 'As you know, I've said a number of times, I want to meet both candidates. We've now got the opportunity to meet Trump, which is good. Obviously, I still want to speak to Harris as well. But you know, the usual diary challenges, but it's good that this one now has been fixed.' Asked what his message would be to Mr Trump, the PM replied: 'It'll be really to establish a relationship between the two of us. I'm a great believer in personal relations on the international stage. I think it really matters that you know who your counterpart is in any given country, and know them you know personally, get to know them face to face.' But he added: 'I should probably add that, I mean that our camp, our embassy, has got good relations with both camps and has had for a long time. So it's not the sort of start of something, it's the continuation of those good relations that have been there with both camps, and that's a really good thing that the embassy has been doing.' Further torrential rain across Britain caused more travel chaos today as flooding left rail lines underwater, drivers stranded on submerged motorways and schools closed. Trains going through Shropshire were blocked by flooding at Wellington station, which was left looking more like a Venice canal after heavy rain deluged the tracks. Flooding also blocked services to and from Aberystwyth in West Wales, as well as on the Chiltern Main Line in Oxfordshire between Banbury and Bicester North. Trains between Peterborough and London King's Cross were delayed due to flooding - while London Northwestern Railway trains between Bletchley and Bedford were axed until at least next week following severe waterlogging on parts of the route. Further torrential rain across Britain caused more travel chaos today. Here caravan site in Cogenhoe, West Northamptonshire, has flooded Tanker trucks work to remove floodwater covering the A421 dual carriageway in Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire Sight-seers watch on as they wait for the water to be cleared from the road in Marston A drone shot captured the extent of the flooding from above A car navigates a flooded road in Northampton as many roads have closed due to torrential downpours In Gloucestershire, Avon Fire and Rescue Service worked with National Highways to rescue people stranded on the M5 after heavy rainfall swamped the motorway. The road was shut northbound between J16 and J14 and southbound between J14 and J15 this morning as emergency services tried to clear the deluge. And the A421 in Bedfordshire was expected to remain closed today between the A6 and M1 near Marston Moretaine, as floodwater continued to be pumped out. Several schools in Bedfordshire and Birmingham were closed today; the pitch at AFC Telford's Seah Stadium in Shropshire was left underwater and the Bristol South Swimming Pool was closed after heavy rain damaged the roof. Fire crews evacuated 20 flood-hit residents from Hitchin in Hertfordshire, while a driver was rescued after his BMW became submerged in Hall Green, Birmingham. In Northamptonshire, 35 people were rescued from rising flood waters at a caravan park in Yarwell. The Environment Agency had 63 flood warnings in place for England this morning, meaning flooding is expected, and 113 flood alerts, meaning flooding is possible. In addition, a new warning has been issued for Sunday for strong winds of up to 60mph which may cause disruption across the South West of England and Wales. Waves crash against the lighthouse in Seaham Harbour in County Durham this morning People walk with their dogs during a downpour on Wimbledon Common in London today Staff clean the floodwater and mud away at AFC Telford's Seah Stadium this morning Flooding by the boundary at the Cloud County Ground in Chelmsford, Essex, this morning A man's umbrella is blown inside out during a downpour on Millennium Bridge in London today Vehicles negotiate debris from a tree on the North Circular road in London during heavy rain A tree has been blown onto a car and van in the West Sussex village of Sompting this morning Tankers are removing floodwater from the A421 near Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire, today A person jumps over a puddle on Euston Road in London today following more heavy rain Trains going through Shropshire are blocked by flooding at Wellington station this morning Slide me Met Office maps show today's temperatures (left) and the 'feels like' temperatures (right) Parts of England continued to be lashed by heavy rain this morning with a yellow rain warning in place for southern England, the Midlands and Wales in place until 9am. School closures in England today Bedfordshire Marston Vale Middle School, Stewartby Sharnbrook Academy, Sharnbrook Lincroft Academy, Oakley Hockliffe Lower School, Leighton Buzzard West Midlands Bournville School, Birmingham St Laurence Church Junior School, Northfield Victoria School, Northfield Longwill School for Deaf Children Advertisement The Met Office warned of cancelled trains, power cuts, flooded homes, spray on roads, communities becoming cut off and 'fast flowing or deep floodwater causing danger to life'. It comes after an amber warning for central areas of England expired at 6am. Areas affected by the amber warning - including Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire and the West Midlands - were struck by flash floods as the Met Office warned the regions could see up to 40mm (1.6in) of rainfall within three hours. Cambridge has an average monthly rainfall of 47.61mm for September. But the wet weather is expected to finally ease into this afternoon. Meteorologist Greg Dewhurst said northern and central parts of England and Wales had been hit hardest by the downpours. He said: 'There will continue to be localised flooding. A lot of these areas have been hit by rain in the past few weeks which means the ground is already saturated. 'The amber warning is in place until 6am and the wider yellow warning will be lifted at 9am. We're expecting it to then ease up and become a bit drier. 'But rivers often take time to respond so we're expecting disruption to continue in central and southern parts throughout the morning. The pitch at AFC Telford's Seah Stadium in Shropshire was left underwater this morning A BMW driver was rescued after his became submerged in the Hall Green area of Birmingham People walk with their dogs during a downpour on Wimbledon Common in London today A man walks in the rain near Tower Bridge in London this morning during a torrential downpour Tankers are removing floodwater from the A421 near Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire, today Waves crash against the lighthouse in Seaham Harbour in County Durham this morning A flooded treatment room at AFC Telford's Seah Stadium this morning after heavy rainfall Floodwater on Euston Road in London today following more heavy rain in the capital A car is driven through a flooded country lane in Dunsden, Oxfordshire, today after more rain Waves crash against the lighthouse in Seaham Harbour in County Durham this morning A van is driven through a flooded country lane in Dunsden, Oxfordshire, today after more rain A man walks in the rain near Tower Bridge in London this morning during a torrential downpour Horse riders brave a torrential downpour on a waterlogged Wimbledon Common today A person walks through a puddle on Euston Road in London today following more heavy rain Waves crash against the lighthouse in Seaham Harbour in County Durham this morning A tree has been blown onto a car and van in the West Sussex village of Sompting this morning Tankers are removing floodwater from the A421 near Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire, today A cyclist rides through a puddle on Euston Road in London today after more heavy rain A man's umbrella is blown inside out during a downpour Central London this morning 'Those planning to travel on Friday should factor this into their journey times.' Councils and emergency services in Northamptonshire and Hertfordshire confirmed a number of road closures and told residents they were working to keep people safe. Tewkesbury Borough Council in Gloucestershire has been handing out sandbags to residents to help protect their homes against flooding. At least four schools closed in Bedfordshire today - Hockliffe Lower School in Leighton Buzzard; Marston Vale Middle School in Stewartby; Lincroft Academy in Oakley; and Sharnbrook Academy. A message on the latter's Facebook page said: 'URGENT - SCHOOL CLOSURE TODAY - We have made the decision to close Sharnbrook Academy to all students today. Trains going through Shropshire are blocked by flooding at Wellington station this morning Flooded tracks at Wellington station in Shropshire this morning which has blocked the line Trains going through Shropshire are blocked by flooding at Wellington station this morning Avon Fire and Rescue Service worked with National Highways to rescue people stranded on the M5 in Gloucestershire this morning after heavy rainfall flooded the motorway The M5 in Gloucestershire was shut northbound between J16 and J14 and southbound between J14 and J15 this morning as emergency services tried to clear the flooding 'Three out of the four routes into the village are currently closed and there are extensive road closures in operation on local routes. 'A significant number of staff and students are unable to safely get to school. Rain continues this morning and flood warnings remain in place. 'We will be in touch later this morning with further updates. We are very sorry for the inconvenience and disruption this will cause.' And Lincroft Academy said on X that the school was closed 'due to extensive local flooding making travel routes into Oakley unsafe and impassable to staff and students with some on site flooding', adding: 'The area is on red alert for flooding with continued rain expected.' Meanwhile Marston Vale Middle School tweeted: 'An urgent announcement is now going out to all pupils, parents and carers and staff. Due to flooding, our school will be closed today. 'Unfortunately the bus company has already cancelled the buses and Stewartby is fairly inaccessible, as are parts of our school.' In the Birmingham area, at least four schools were closed - Bournville School and then another three in the nearby Northfield area: St Laurence Church Junior School; Victoria School; and Longwill School for Deaf Children. It comes after flooding in Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire this week has brought widespread travel disruption and damage to properties. Parts of the country saw twice the monthly average rainfall in 48 hours earlier this week, with flash flooding damaging homes on Monday and disrupting travel. AFC Wimbledon were due to play Newcastle in the third round of the Carabao Cup on Tuesday but it was called off and rescheduled after the Cherry Red Records Stadium in South West London was hit by flooding and appeared to have a sinkhole in the pitch. Firefighters and police also worked late into Tuesday night to evacuate residents after flooding at the Billing Aquadrome holiday park. There were further downpours on Wednesday evening. The Environment Agency said about 385 properties were flooded in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Kent and the Home Counties. Woburn in Bedforshire has had its wettest month on record with more than four times the average September rainfall - 227mm (8.9in) so far against an average of 55mm (2.2in). But the rain is expected to clear during today, leaving conditions much colder on Saturday. READ MORE: Perth rapist accused of drugging and sexually assaulting victims learns his fate A former nurse will spend at least three-and-a-half years in jail after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a student and patients under his care at two private hospitals. Ali Khamis Moh'd molested three separate women at Sydney's Norwest and Nepean private hospitals between December, 2018 and March, 2022. He was working as a clinical nurse specialist at the time, attending to patients scheduled to have surgeries in intensive care and coronary care units. The 44-year-old was sentenced to five years and two months behind bars on Friday with a non-parole period of three-and-a-half years. Judge Ian Bourke said Moh'd 'manipulated and abused his position of authority for his own sexual gratifications'. 'The (victims) speak in clear terms of the fear, confusion, shock and sense of violation the victims experienced at the time of the incident,' he told Parramatta District Court. After 14 hours of deliberations in August, a jury found Moh'd guilty on one charge of rape and three counts of aggravated sexual touching. He was found to have grabbed a 21-year-old student nurse's underwear, pulling it away from her skin to see her genitals as he taught her how to listen for bowel sounds using a stethoscope. Ali Khamis Moh'd abused his power as a nurse for 'his own sexual gratification', a judge found Jurors accepted further complaints by a 25-year-old patient that Moh'd had asked to inspect a surgical wound on her groin area, just after her heart operation. He massaged her groin before touching her vagina with his fingers. During the trial, Crown prosecutor Sarah Beaumont told jurors the patient started crying after Moh'd left the room. The 25-year-old later filed a complaint with the hospital and went to the police. Moh'd was also found to have touched a 67-year-old woman's breasts while replacing heart-monitoring stickers to her body after she had a pre-operation shower. In the trial, the prosecution alleged Moh'd told her: 'you have nice breasts for someone your age'. During the trial, Moh'd's barrister Linda Barnes said her client denied sexually touching or having intercourse with any of the complainants. 'In short, Mr Moh'd's case is that any contact he had with the complainants was for medical purposes, that is for health or hygiene purposes or for educational purposes,' she told the jury. Moh'd took abused patients and a student nurse while working in two private hospitals including Nepean Private Hospital (pictured) On Friday, Ms Barnes argued he should receive a lesser sentence as he did not seem to gain obvious sexual gratification from his offending. 'We often see before the courts evidence from complainants along the lines of the observations that a person was visibly aroused, had erections, were ejaculating,' she said. 'There was no evidence from any of the complainants that Moh'd demonstrated anything reflecting sexual gratification.' But Judge Bourke said the offending was serious and he was unsatisfied with that argument. 'The absence of such elements does not reduce the seriousness,' he said. Moh'd's wife sat at the back of the court silently during sentencing. He will be eligible for release in 2028. 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028 Sadiq Khan has hinted that he could model a pedestrianised version of Oxford Street on Times Square in New York. The Mayor of London is on a four-day trip to the Big Apple to 'promote the capital', and was shown around Manhattan by former New York transport commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan. For the last fifteen years, Times Square has seen several pedestrian blocks and changes which have removed car access. Despite many concerns at the beginning, the changes are said to be an 'unmitigated success', and Khan may look to do the same with London's iconic shopping zone. Earlier this month, the government gave the Labour mayor new powers to force through a 150million pedestrianisation of Oxford Street. London Mayor Sadiq Khan is considering modelling a pedestrianised version of Oxford Street on Times Square in New York Crowds gather in Times Square for the New Year's Eve celebration in New York. Over the last few years, several pedestrian blocks have been put in place The government has given the Labour mayor new powers to force through a 150million pedestrianisation of Oxford Street Mr Khan wants work to start within two years to remove all vehicles from the famous shopping street - despite warnings it could become a crime-ridden 'no-go area'. The proposal is part of a wider regeneration project which Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner claimed will give the popular shopping district 'the boost it needs'. This latest visit to the US by Khan is his fourth in eight years. In 2022 he was blasted after pictures emerged of him in the US - on what he called a trip to 'bang the drum' for London - visiting a legal drug farm and shop. Mr Khan was so impressed with the cannabis outlet and production line he announced the formation of a new group to look at decriminalising the drug in Britain. But the photoshot - which featured him looking serious surrounded by the plants - prompted utter disbelief in some quarters. Mr Khan walking through cannabis plants in LA, May 11, 2022, as he visited the licensed factory during his American tour Mayor of London Sadiq Khan walks through cannabis plants which are being legally cultivated at 'Traditional' a licensed factory in Los Angeles, Wednesday May 11, 2022 Last month, Khan revealed that he is 'not safe' as a Muslim politician in Britain and revealed how he feels 'triggered' by the recent far-right riots. In the wake of widespread violence after the Southport stabbing attack, the London mayor reflected on how he experienced the National Front and BNP as he grew up. He admitted it was 'heartbreaking' that his children's generation had also now lived through what he had to deal with in the 1970s and 1980s. Mr Khan urged the Government to bring in tougher rules for social media firms, as he branded current regulations 'not fit for purpose'. He said recent riots were the 'direct consequence' of misinformation being spread 'very quickly' online following the Southport killings. Nicola Bulley's partner has revealed the sickening messages online trolls sent him during the search for the missing mother-of-two. Ms Bulley vanished on January 27 last year while walking her dog Willow along the River Wyre in St Michael's on Wyre, Lancashire, shortly after dropping her daughters off at school. Her disappearance sparked intense speculation online and became one of the most high-profile modern missing person searches. After a frenzied three-week search, which threatened to be derailed by internet sleuths, her body was found by a member of the public on February 19. Now, in a new documentary Paul Ansell, Ms Bulley's partner of 12 years and father to their two children, has revealed how he was subjected to a barrage of unfounded online conspiracies online. Speaking during a clip, he said: 'I was getting direct messages from people that I've never met. They don't know me, they don't know us, they don't know Nikki. They know nothing about us. Just messages like "you b******". "We know what you did". "You know you can't hide Paul", that kind of stuff.' Paul Ansell, pictured in the BBC's new documentary, has shed light on how social media 'became a monster' for him and his family Paul (L), Nicola's partner, will appear in BBC documentary The Search For Nicola Bulley The father-of-two was sent a series of abusive messages from online trolls, above The mysterious disappearance of Nicola Bulley gripped the nation for months in 2023, as both speculation and scrutiny surrounded the case of the missing mother Discussing the impact social media had, he went on to say: 'It wasn't a huge part of our lives. But yeah, when you experience something like this, you realise what a huge monster it can be, I guess.' On top of dealing with social media abuse, Paul said he had to remain strong in the search for Ms Bulley for the sake of his two daughters. He added: 'The nights were the hardest. In the morning the hope would be strong. It used to go dark at like 4pm. It used to get to about 3pm and then I'd start panicking that I knew it would start going dark in an hour. So we had an hour to find her. 'And then obviously I'd have the girls. The first they'd do when they came out of school was run over and say 'have we found mummy?' Friends of the couple were even forced to beg online trolls to stop making 'disgusting allegations' and 'vile theories' online. Ms Bulley's sister, Louise Cunningham, along with her parents Ernest and Dorothy Bulley and partner Paul Ansell all participated in the documentary as they reveal the impact of the public scrutiny on their lives. Reliving the moment the family was informed about Nicola's body being found, Louise said: 'I'll never forget dad coming into the kitchen. Just, like, completely breaking down and Paul being out in the garden. Just in a complete state.' Ms Bulley's sister, Louise Cunningham, fights back tears as she relives her sister's disappearance Ring doorbell footage shows Ms Bulley, her partner Paul and their children outside their home on the morning of her disappearance Ms Bulley's sister, Louise (L), participated in the documentary along with her parents Ernest and Dorothy Bulley Friends and family of the couple were forced to beg online trolls to stop making 'disgusting allegations' and 'vile theories' online Nicola Bulley's partner Paul Ansell speaks to the media during the search for the mother-of-two Discussing online 'detectives', she added: 'It doesn't always have to be something sinister linked to something that happens. 'Sometimes bad things just happen. I just wish it didn't happen to us. We're just a normal family. We've had a really tough time.' The Search For Nicola Bulley will air on BBC1 on October 3 and digs deep into Ms Bulley's disappearance and tragic death. The family said it was 'emotionally draining' to film the documentary, but did it to 'ensure she has the legacy she deserves'. Rachel Lob-levyt, the director behind the BBC documentary, said it was 'nerve-racking' to put the partner of the Lancashire mother back into public focus, but she felt it was 'the right thing to do'. She added: 'We had a viewing with the family. It was difficult - obviously emotional for them. They feel the documentary really honours their experience, and honours Nikki. 'At the time she went missing, Paul was subject to a really difficult level of scrutiny. 'The idea of putting himself back in the public eye is nerve-racking but ultimately, he thought it the right thing to do. 'The social media sleuths felt entitled to say whatever they wanted. In the past we'd have talked about these things in the pub, whereas now people broadcast it online and everything is accelerated. Opinion takes on similar weight to verified information.' Paul Ansell has agreed to the documentary to tackle 'entitled' social media sleuths, its director has suggested Candles are lit around a photo of Nicola Bulley (left) and her partner Paul Ansell on an altar at St Michael's Church in St Michael's on Wyre, Lancashire Paul Ansell, (right) visiting the riverside with Peter Faulding, the underwater search expert called in by the family to help with the search in the River Wyre A coroner recorded Ms Bulley's death as accidental, and said she fell into the river and suffered 'cold water shock', and there was 'no evidence' to suggest suicide. Police had accused 'TikTokers' of 'playing private detectives' in the area amid her disappearance, and said they were 'inundated with false information, accusations and rumours' relating to the case. People on social media made false accusations about their being third-party involvement, and rumours were spread about a derelict house on the other side of the River Wyre, a red van in the area, a fisherman seen nearby and a glove belonging to Ms Bulley, which were all dismissed by police. Her family have previously hit out at 'wildly inaccurate speculation' after the 45-year-old's death. An independent College of Policing review of the investigation into her disappearance found the relationship between police and the media 'to be fractured', and urged for it to be rebuilt. It also criticised the disclosure of personal information about Ms Bulley's health struggles as 'avoidable and unnecessary'. Ms Bulley's body was found in the River Wyre on February 19, about a mile from where she vanished. Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to crush any hopes of a ceasefire in his address to United Nations leaders today after Israel vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah militants 'until victory'. Britain joined the United States, France and other allies in proposing a 21-day truce on Wednesday, with Sir Keir Starmer urging both sides to 'step back from the brink' in his UN speech. But speaking as he landed in New York last night, the Israeli prime minister flatly rejected the proposal, saying that his troops would continue to hit Hezbollah positions 'with full force' and would not stop until their goals are achieved. His address will be a stark contrast to his speech at the UN almost exactly a year ago - made before the horrific events of October 7 - in which he triumphantly hailed a new era of peace for the Middle East. A year on from the bloody cross-border attacks by Hamas on Israel, which triggered a war which has left tens of thousands dead, the region appears to be closer than ever to all-out war. Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted southern Lebanese villages, as seen from Marjaayoun, southern Lebanon, 25 September 2024 The Israeli prime minister flatly rejected the proposal, saying that his troops would continue to hit Hezbollah positions 'with full force' Prime Minster Keir Starmer has called for Israel and Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire, saying 'escalation serves no one' Addressing UN leaders in New York, Sir Keir warned fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has the potential to spill into a wider war 'that no one can control'. Israeli bombing of Iran-backed Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon has killed hundreds of people this week, while the militant group has retaliated with rocket barrages. The White House expressed frustration at Israel's rejection of the truce after hopes were raised early on Thursday that it might be adopted, saying the truce proposal had taken 'a lot of care and effort'. 'We wouldn't have made that statement, we wouldn't have worked on that if we didn't have reason to believe that the conversations that we were having with the Israelis in particular, were supportive of the goal there,' National Security spokesman John Kirby said in a statement Thursday. Macron said later it was 'a mistake' for Netanyahu to refuse a ceasefire and that he would have to take 'responsibility' for a regional escalation. Speaking in Canada where he met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau - who also backed the ceasefire - Macron noted that the ceasefire plan had been prepared with Netanyahu himself. The joint ceasefire statement said the situation in Lebanon has become 'intolerable' and 'is in nobody's interest, neither of the people of Israel nor of the people of Lebanon'. Israeli soldiers work on tanks in northern Israel on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 Lebanese army soldiers secure the area of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an apartment on al-Qaem street in Beirut's southern suburbs on September 26, 2024 Lebanon's National News Agency reported that Israel carried out air raids early Friday on several cities in southern Lebanon, with injuries recorded. The country's health ministry said late Thursday that Israeli strikes had killed 92 people in the country and injured 153 in the past 24 hours. More than 1,500 people have been killed since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah erupted last October, with Thursday's toll bringing the number of people killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since Monday alone to more than 700. According to the International Organization for Migration, about 118,000 people have been displaced by the fighting in Lebanon over the past week. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israel's strategic affairs minister in New York on Thursday, telling him the ceasefire would 'allow civilians on both sides of the border to return to their homes'. 'Further escalation of the conflict will only make that objective more difficult,' his spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. The Israeli defence ministry meanwhile announced it had secured a new $8.7 billion aid package from the United States to support the country's ongoing military efforts, underlining Washington's unwillingness to use its military aid as leverage for a ceasefire. For the fourth time this week, Israel carried out a strike on Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold, which it said killed the head of the group's drone unit. Hezbollah said in a statement that the strike killed Mohammed Srur, born in 1973. The Israeli military earlier said in a statement that its fighter jets had 'targeted and eliminated' Srur, identifying him as 'the commander of Hezbollah's air unit'. The Israeli military said it was carrying out 'precise strikes' in the capital. Lebanon's health ministry said in a statement that two people were killed in the attack and 15 wounded, 'including a woman in critical condition'. Israeli troops gather at the site of a rocket attack on Sa'ar settlement on Wednesday Israel's ongoing bombardments in Lebanon have raised fears of an all-out regional war in the Middle East. Israel said earlier this month that it was shifting its focus from the Gaza Strip, where it has been fighting a war with Hamas since the October 7 attack, to its border with Lebanon. Israel's military chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, has told soldiers to prepare for a possible ground offensive, according to an army statement. The Israeli military said Thursday it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen. The leader of Yemen's Huthi rebels, Abdul Malik al-Huthi, said in a televised address earlier Thursday that the Iran-backed group would 'not hesitate to support Lebanon and Hezbollah'. Since November, the Huthis have targeted Red Sea shipping with drones and missiles, saying the actions are in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war, which was sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel. Diplomats have said efforts to end the war in Gaza were key to halting the fighting in Lebanon. But despite months of mediation efforts involving the United States, a Gaza ceasefire is as elusive as ever. At the UN General Assembly in New York, Saudi foreign minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud announced a new international coalition to seek a two-state solution in Gaza. Hamas's October attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity. Of the 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead. Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,534 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable. A British YouTuber was taken to hospital in tears after indulging in traditional marijuana-infused Indian street food. Sam Pepper wept from his hospital bed after drinking Bhang Lassi, a psychoactive milk drink, during his trip to Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, India. Sam enjoyed the drink but said it was not long before he started burning up in bed with fever - all of which he filmed. The YouTuber called for a doctor, but said the medication he prescribed 'kickstarted the bacteria into overdrive', causing painful diarrhoea. After hours in agony, his friends rushed him to hospital with a 39C temperature and green diarrhoea. He was given antibiotics but started passing blood - and hit out at his doctors for leaving his IV open, lamenting that he was not being treated 'safely'. Sam was in agony after he took the marijuana-infused drink in India He shared video of himself after being taken to hospital with a high fever and sickness He complained staff had left his IV valve open The traditional lassi drink was being sold by a street vendor Sam said it left him with green diarrhoea and a fever reaching 39C (102.5F) Sam blamed the vendor, who he said he trusted as a 'holy man', for using his bare hands to add spices to the drink before ladling it into cups left out on a filthy floor. Sam shared footage of the vendor, who was also a local shopkeeper, preparing Bhang Lassi with used cups positioned upside down on the floor. The man used his bare hands to add the spices and pour the milk through an expanded cheesecloth. Sam said: 'The issue is not the marijuana, it could have been a typical lassi. He had black fingernails and was seated on the ground. He was rubbing his hands all over it. 'They all used the same cups. They use something like unpasteurised curds. 'I did the worst thing you could do in India, and I ended up in the hospital. The food that you should never, ever touch, and I tried myself some of that finger milk, bhang. 'This guy's been on the street for more than 17 years making this. The guy making the drink was a holy man, so I had a bit of trust in him, but I probably shouldn't have.' Sam shared grim footage of his trouble in the bathroom as his excrement turned green and he began passing blood. Sam said he had some trust in the vendor as he was a 'holy man' But he later said the lassi drink was being made in filthy conditions, blaming the vendor The drink was pressed through a gauze by hand He fears he became sick because of the lack of hygiene at the store Footage shared on his social channels showed Sam crying while speaking to the nurses, blasting them for leaving the IV drip's valve open. 'I'm done with blood going everywhere,' he said. 'Like, how do you not know to close this? It must be the most basic training.' 'I don't want to be here. Because someone has left my valve open. Like, it's simple. I don't feel safe here. 'I don't feel like you know what you're doing because this is very simple. I don't feel like I'm being treated safely.' After the unpleasant experience in the hospital, Sam flew to Bangkok to have his blood tests and continue his medication. The hospitals in the neighbouring country are ranked among the best in the world. Bhang Lassi is a cannabis treat mixed with curd, leaves, buds, and parts of the marijuana plant, used medicinally as early as 2800 B.C. This drink is commonly consumed during religious rituals, festivals, and prayer ceremonies in India. Many Indian street food vendors continue to face backlash for their lack of hygiene, causing consumers to fall ill and experience food poisoning. Research has found that the majority of sellers lack access to clean water and don't use appropriate personal protective equipment, such as hairnets, aprons, and gloves. Their carts are also often positioned next to open canals where insects and rats can be found. He was taken to hospital after medicine prescribed by a doctor made him feel worse The illness caused fever, diarrhoea and sickness In the hospital he started passing blood In hospital he said people took photos of him while he was writhing around in pain Arpita Sharma, the author of Microbiological Analysis of Street Vended Food in West Delhi, said: 'It was shown that the food handling practices of the vendors were very poor, and the presence of coliform indicated faecal contamination of the processing water as well as the prevailing unhygienic conditions related to the location of food preparation.' The Food and Safety Standards Authority of India has been initiating 'Project Clean Street Food' across the country to prevent illnesses from consuming street food. This initiative focuses on skills training and hygiene-related education. Some of the government's project goals are to raise the health and safety standards of street food and reduce the incidence of street food-borne diseases. UNICEF, originally the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, reported that India has made rapid progress in ending open defecation across the country, which has significantly impacted improving water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). It was for many the most memorable part of Sir Keir Starmer's first speech to Labour party conference as Prime Minister but for all the wrong reasons. Now he has spoken for the first time about the unfortunate moment when he mistakenly called for 'the return of the sausages' instead of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas. On his trip to New York this week the PM was asked by reporters how the slip of the tongue had come about and if it had been because he was hungry. He replied: 'I just mangled the beginning of the word. Have you never done that?' Making light of the gaffe, he went on: 'These things are there to give you an opportunity to rib me.' On his trip to New York this week, the PM was asked by reporters how the slip of the tongue had come about and if it had been because he was hungry In his keynote speech to Labour's conference in Liverpool on Tuesday, Sir Keir had been discussing the situation in the Middle East when he made the mix-up In his keynote speech to the party faithful in Liverpool on Tuesday, Sir Keir had been discussing the situation in the Middle East when he made the mix-up. 'I call again for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the return of the sausages the hostages and a recommitment to the two-state solution: recognised Palestinian state alongside a safe and secure Israel,' he said. His error quickly went viral, triggering a wave of jokes and puns on social media. Some said 'the wurst is yet to come' while many shared mocked-up Star Wars film posters imagining a new instalment called The Return of the Sausages. The mayor of the French village where the Monster of Avignon encouraged dozens of strangers to rape his unconscious wife has quit following an outcry after he tried to play-down the sex case that has shocked France. Louis Bonnet last night announced he was 'leaving public life' and would stop representing Mazan in the rolling hills of Provence by November 11 'at the latest'. Bonnet, 74, sparked outrage with his comments about the systemic rape of resident Gisele Pelicot by her more than 50 men that her husband Dominique had invited into their home over ten years, claiming 'it could have been worse'. In a number of interviews including with MailOnline earlier this month, the retired businessman claimed that the abuse and betrayal suffered by Madame Pelicot 'could have been worse'. Bonnet said: 'It could have been far more serious. The mayor of the French village of Mazan where the Monster of Avignon encouraged dozens of strangers to rape his unconscious wife has quit after receiving death threats Gisele Pelicot, 71, arrived yesterday at the Palais de Justice, Avignon France for the trial of her ex-husband Dominic Pelicot Dominique Pelicot is accused of recruiting men online to assault his wife repeatedly over 10 years 'There were no children involved. 'After all, no one died. 'It would have been a lot worse if he [Dominique Pelicot] had killed his wife. 'But that's not what happened in this case.' Speaking to MailOnline in the week that Pelicot and 50 accomplices went on trial for rape in nearby Avignon, the mayor claimed no one had any idea of the horrors that took place in this quiet community that is surrounded by vineyards. Bonnet said he often came across the serial rapist as he played boules in the square in front of his town hall office. Bonnet is now under the protection of police officers in the south of France, at an unknown address far away from Mazan, where he was elected Mayor in 2020. I've been threatened, I've been insulted, he said on Friday. The last thing I had to file a complaint about was someone asking the town hall for my address so that they could raid my home with a gang. Bonnet said he had also been receiving threats on social media, and by phone, since speaking to the BBC early this month. He originally claimed to have received a lot of emails and messages from Mazanais the name for people from Mazan who supported him. Bonnet said: The bottom line is that at some point when our village is seen as a breeding ground for rapists, people have to speak out. If there was a slip-up with Mr and Mrs Pelicot, it does not represent the whole village. Stephane Claudon, an opposition councillor in Mazan, said Bonnets conduct was typical of ongoing sleaze in the town. The Pelicot home in the village of Mazan, now known as the house of horrors Abuse took place in the town of Mazan, south of France, where the mayor quit after receiving death threats Dominique Pelicot, who has allegedly drugged and raped his wife Gisele Pelicot, appears during his trial with 50 co-accused at the courthouse in Avignon, France, September 17, 2024 There are too many things piling up, he said, pointing to the case of another elected official who was still in office, despite being found guilty of assaulting a child three years ago. Two local police officers have also filed a legal complaint against Bonnet, saying they were illegally filmed while working in the Mayors office. The courage of Gisele Pelicot, who has waived her right to anonymity to highlight the terrible abuse she suffered and has attended court every day of the trial, has been heralded by women's rights campaigners. She has become a hero for many rape victims and a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France. However Bonnets comments sparked outrage among his constituents as well as women across the country. Mass demonstrations have been held across France in support of Madame Pelicot. Last week Bonnet issued a public apology for his remarks. He said: 'I have been criticized for minimizing the seriousness of the heinous crimes of which the defendants are accused. 'I understand that those remarks are shocking and I sincerely apologise.' And last residents of Mazan gathered at the first town hall meeting following publication of his ill-chosen words to confront him. But Bonnet failed to attend the public event and his assistant told the crowd he had received death threats. The mayor later told the Vaucluse Matin local newspaper that he was retiring from public life. Bonnet said: 'The security services informed me that I am the subject of a number of [death] threats. 'People want to come to my house and have been asking for my address. 'I have made a formal complaint about a man from Normandy. Madame Pelicot has become a hero for many rape victims and a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France In a separate case, Pelicot has been charged with raping and murdering a 23-year-old estate agent in Paris in 1991 'The gendarmes are protecting me but my safety is not 100 per cent guaranteed. Neither that of my family. 'So I prefer not to put myself in danger.' Bonnet's critics last night condemned his comments as 'inhumane, reckless and ill-prepared'. Dominique Pelicot was first arrested in September 2020 for secretely filming up womens skirts at a supermarket in Carpentras. His devices were searched, and there were hundreds of pornographic videos and photos of women. It was while in custody that Pelicot reported a hard drive, hidden under a printer, which contained a file called Abuses. There were some 3,800 photos and videos of Madame Pelicot being raped, between 2011 and 2020. Detectives have listed a total of 92 rapes committed by 72 men, 51 of whom have been identified. Pelicot sex ring involved advertising on a site for swinger partners on an online forum called Without Her Knowing on the coco.fr site. Of the 83 men involved, 51 aged between 26 and 73 were identified and arrested by the police. Pelicot is said to have sedated his wife by putting Temesta a powerful anxiolytic into her evening dinner. Alleged rapists involved in the case include civil servants, ambulance workers, soldiers, prison guards, nurses, a municipal councillor, and truck drivers. In a separate case, Pelicot has been charged with raping and murdering a 23-year-old estate agent in Paris in 1991. He has admitted one attempted rape in 1999, after DNA testing proved a case against him. The Avignon aggravated rape case is due to last until December 21. Fourteen of the other defendants have also admitted rape, while the rest deny any wrongdoing. Two 12-year-old boys were today ordered to be detained for eight years each after hacking an innocent teenager to death with a machete in a completely random and unprovoked attack. The youths were found guilty of hacking teenager Shawn Seesahai to death with a 16-inch machete in a Wolverhampton park last November. Shawn's friend told how they were threatened as they sat discussing their plans for Christmas. As the youth reached for his blade, Shawn shouted: 'Run, bro.' He told the court: 'The dude took it out of its sheath. We started to run but Shawn tripped. I was running for my life I couldn't stay there and watch.' The pair, who became Britain's youngest convicted murderers since the killers of James Bulger but Britain's youngest ever knife killers will be kept in secure accommodation at His Majesty's pleasure for a total of 17 years. After fleeing the scene they went to one of the boy's homes where they played the video game Fortnite while Mr Seesahai lay dying. One later said on Snapchat: 'Everyone's talking abt (sic) it, literally everyone knows.' His accomplice responded with the note: 'It is what it is.' They then shared more messages, saying: 'I'm scared man' before the other says 'I'm not', followed by the acronym 'IDRC' which means 'I don't really care'. One of the defendants had an obsession with knives even posing for a picture with a machete tucked into the top of his trousers hours before he committed murder. Mr Seesahai, 19, who was from Anguilla and had been in the UK for six months, was stabbed with such ferocity the the 16-inch blade almost passed through his body. His grief-stricken parents said he called for them as he lay dying, and had been excited to start a new engineering course the next day. Locals told of how one of the tearaways was a 'nasty piece of work', who posted fireworks through letterboxes, damaging streetlights and stealing scooters in a reign of terror that plagued the neighbourhood. The judge said he lived in a refuge, and posed a high risk of serious harm to others. She said the other boy had loving parents and 'felt remorse' for what he had done. After the pair were sentenced, we can now reveal how: Shawn Seesahai, 19, was stabbed in the heart and suffered a skull fracture last November One of the boys posed for a picture with a machete tucked into his trousers hours before he committed the murder. He will not be named after a judge rejected a media application Officers searched a storage space under one of the boy's beds and recovered a machete Your browser does not support iframes. The boys are believed to be the youngest defendants convicted of murder in Britain since Jon Venables (left) and Robert Thompson (right), both aged 11, were found guilty in 1993 of killing two-year-old James Bulger Venables and Thompson tortured and killed two-year-old James Bulger (pictured) in 1993 One neighbour said the killer would ride across the playing fields on his mountain bike and hang around at night outside shops and alleyways, where he would cut the wires on lamp posts. At Nottingham Crown Court today, Mrs Justice Tipples ordered each boy to be detained at His Majesty's pleasure for a minimum of eight years and six months meaning they will remain in custody until they are at least 20. The sentence includes time spent living in secure accommodation where they have been since the offence last November. Family of Shawn Seesahai describe their pain at his `senseless machete murder The family of Shawn Seesahai said they are haunted by thoughts of how scared he must have been when he was killed. In a victim impact statement read to the, relatives of Mr Seesahai described the Anguilla-born 19-year-old's killing as tragic, unexpected and senseless, and having been committed 'for no reason at all'. Relatives of Mr Seesahai, who were forced to take out a loan to travel to the UK to view the 20-day trial, have been watching the sentencing hearing via a videolink. The family's statement read: 'We make this statement in relation to the tragic, unexpected and senseless murder of our beloved son and brother Shawn, who was tragically taken from us in November last year. 'As a family we are struggling in so many ways since Shawn was taken from us, especially in the horrific way in which he was taken. 'Losing a child is a parent's worst nightmare. To put it all down in a statement on how it has impacted our lives would take more than a day to read. 'It has left a huge hole in the pit of our stomach which nothing can fill, we are devastated as a family, totally heartbroken and confused.' The statement added that Shawn was incredibly close to his younger sister, who had always dreamed of being there for his wedding and him being there for hers. The family members, including parents Suresh and Maneshwary and sister Shana, added: 'Mentally it has been hard for any of us to function normally. None of us have had an unbroken night's sleep since Shawn was taken from us. 'Every time I close my eyes all I can think about are what his last moments were and how scared he must have been. It continually breaks my heart. 'The impact on us as a family is devastating, its hard to believe that we will ever come to terms with what has happened. 'We will never get to see Shawn get married or have a family of his own. These things have been taken from us for what appears to be no reason at all.' Advertisement Their unanimous murder convictions in June made the pair the youngest defendants convicted of murder in the UK since Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, then both 11, were found guilty in 1993 of killing two-year-old James after they abducted the toddler from a shopping centre in Bootle, Liverpool. At Nottingham Crown Court today, the judge told the boys: 'What you both did is horrific and shocking. You both killed Shawn in an attack that lasted less than a minute when he asked you to move from where you were on a park bench. 'Shawn did not deserve to be attacked. He did not deserve to die It's clear that the sentence I have decided to pass cannot make that right.' She added: 'What you did in those few short moments has also changed your life forever. You will have to live with the consequences. I cannot be sure which one of you stabbed Shawn. Only you know that, but you acted together.' The boys, both wearing shirt and ties and one in a waistcoat, were allowed to sit in the well of the court as they had throughout the trial. The judge also told the boys, who are now 13: 'When you killed Shawn he was 19, starting out in his adult life with everything to live for. 'His parents have lost their son. His sister has lost her brother. 'What you did is horrific and shocking. You did not know Shawn, he was a stranger to you. You both killed Shawn in an attack that lasted less than a minute when he asked you to move (from a bench). 'I am sure you intended to kill him.' The judge added that she could not be sure which of the boys had inflicted a 23cm-deep wound which almost passed all the way through Mr Seesahai's body. During the brief sentencing remarks, one of the boys nodded throughout with his hands held towards his face. As he was taken away, the youth was allowed to hug his mother. The other boy was seen biting his lip as the judge spoke and appeared shocked as the sentence was handed down. Six members of the jury returned to Nottingham Crown Court to see the boys sentenced. Mr Seesahai's family watched proceedings on a live videolink from their home in Anguilla. Ahead of the hearing today, the judge warned that the sentence would not bring them comfort, but would at least bring legal proceedings to a close. The 12-year-olds' trial heard that one of the defendants had an obsession with knives even posing for a picture with a machete tucked into the top of his trousers hours before he committed murder. The picture sent from the youth's mobile phone and showing him masked near railings in the street is believed to have been taken at around 1am. Jurors were told the image was forwarded to the boy's girlfriend and his co-defendant, captioned Prison Freestyle, the name of a track by a drill rapper he idolised. The rapper, SJ, is currently serving life for a machete murder committed in Wood Green, north London, in 2019. Jurors were told Mr Seesahai was shoulder-barged by the smaller of the two defendants, who 'often' carried the machete, before being punched, kicked, stamped on and 'chopped' at with the weapon. The Snapchat messages the two killers sent to each other after they killed Shawn Seesahai Shawn Seesahai stumbled as he tried to flee from the boys in Wolverhampton, the court heard Forensics and police officers stand at the murder scene in Wolverhampton last November An image retrieved from the phone of one of the boys showed long knives and swords on a bed Mr Seesahai and a friend had been killing time in Wolverhampton's Stowlawn playing fields last November while another friend visited his girlfriend at her nearby home. Bloodstains, phone evidence and witness accounts exposed young machete killers One of the 12-year-olds found guilty of murdering Shawn Seesahai had an obsession with knives even posing for a snap with his machete tucked into the top of his trousers hours before he committed murder. The picture sent from the youth's mobile phone, showing him masked near railings in the street, is believed to have been taken at around 1am. Jurors were told the image was forwarded to the boy's girlfriend and his co-defendant with rapper SJ's Prison Freestyle track attached to it. During the youth's evidence to the court, he claimed he had accidentally attached the song to the photo and denied knowing SJ's real name or that the singer is currently serving life for a machete murder committed in Wood Green, London, in 2019. The boy was also asked by prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC to demonstrate to jurors how he concealed the murder weapon, which had a 42.5cm-long blade, inside his left trouser leg. In the hours after the murder, on Wolverhampton's Stowlawn playing fields, the same youth who admitted unlawful possession of the machete but denied any other wrongdoing was given a lift home by a family member, bleached his machete and hid it under his bed. In social media exchanges involving his co-defendant and a girl witness who later attended a police station with her mother to make a statement, the boy said of the stabbing: 'It is what it is.' He also wrote that he was not scared and added 'idrc' text message shorthand for 'I don't really care.' After going to his home to arrest the boy on the night after the killing, police found him in the lounge watching television. He was then given a formal caution advising him of his rights by a detective constable and responded: 'What murder? Why would I kill someone?' and 'I haven't done anything.' Both defendants wore a shirt and tie to give their evidence accompanied by intermediaries, having been allowed to sit in the well of the court near relatives rather than in the dock. Court sessions were shortened during the trial to mirror school lessons, a small courtroom was chosen so they would not be intimidated by their surroundings and they were given permission to use so-called fidget aids to calm their nerves. The youth who owned the black-bladed machete which he said he bought from someone he would not name for 40 was incriminated by his heavily bloodstained clothing and manbag. His hoodie found by police inside out and mixed in with other clothes in a washing basket was bloodstained on the front of the right sleeve, the front and back of the left sleeve, the right chest and the lower left front. A small amount of blood was also found on the inside of the right cuff, while a sample of the blood from the right sleeve, which in the opinion of a forensic scientist was caused by contact with a blood wet object, was submitted for DNA profiling. A complete DNA profile matching that of Mr Seesahai was obtained from the sample, meaning it was one billion times more likely the blood originated from the victim rather than an unknown unrelated person. Similar tests were also conducted on the boy's jogging bottoms after areas of bloodstaining, including areas of light contact bloodstaining, were present on the upper left front. A small heavy bloodstain was present on the left calf area, and 'light contact bloodstaining' was present on the inside front of the waistband and on the inside of the left pocket. There were a number of small spots of blood on the upper right front which, in the opinion of the forensic scientist, were caused when airborne droplets of blood landed on this area of the joggers. One of the spots of blood was submitted for DNA profiling and was found to match Mr Seesahai. Defence lawyers in the trial did not dispute the opinion of a forensic scientist that the stains on the clothing were 'in keeping with the items being in contact with and in close proximity to a source of Shawn Seesahai's blood such as Shawn Seesahai when he was bleeding'. Bloodstaining was also found on the murder weapon which had a 6cm-wide blade near its tip and swabs taken from the manbag also matched Mr Seesahai's DNA. Forensic tests were also carried out on the clothing of the other defendant, seized from a bedroom washing basket after his arrest around 25 hours after the stabbing. No blood and no DNA matching Mr Seesahai were found on the clothing or the boy's left trainer, but a small ill-defined bloodstain measuring 3mm by 5mm was found on the front of the right trainer, matching Mr Seesahai. Witness evidence from a teenage girl who knew the boys and Mr Seesahai's friend Derron Harrigan also helped to convict the boys. In evidence to the trial via a video link, Mr Harrigan said he and Mr Seesahai were threatened shortly after sitting on a bench, where they had been discussing their plans for Christmas. After shoulder-barging Mr Seesahai, Mr Harrigan said the shorter youth 'reached for his blade and Shawn shouted 'run bro''. 'The dude took it out of its sheath,' the witness told the court. 'We started to run but Shawn tripped. I was running for my life I couldn't stay there and watch.' Neither boy has any previous convictions, cautions or reprimands, but police said after the case that the youth who hid the murder weapon had been 'dealt with' previously in relation to an incident of theft not related to knives. Advertisement The victim's friend told the trial he was forced to run for his life but Mr Seesahai stumbled as he tried to flee from the boys. CCTV has captured the chilling last moments of Mr Seesahai's life before he was brutally murdered. The footage shows Mr Seesahai leaving Handsworth with two friends at around 5.30pm, before arriving in Wolverhampton park. It follows him as he and a friend killed time in the area by walking around the streets and visiting a petrol station while another friend visited his girlfriend at her nearby home last November. But Mr Seesahai is last seen alive at around 7pm when the footage comes to end as they enter Stowlawn playing fields. Ambulances were called to the scene there at 8.30pm after the two youths hacked Mr Seesahai to death with a 16-inch machete, but his friend managed to escape. The two schoolboys blamed each other for the attack but jurors unanimously convicted both of them of murder. One was also found guilty of possessing a bladed article. The court heard the younger of the two boys bleached the murder weapon and hid it in his bed frame following the murder. During the trial the boys dressed in shirts and ties and looked studious in the spectacles each donned to give evidence. Their clean-cut appearance was a far cry from the image one of the boys presented on social media where he could be seen making shooting gestures. Police only realised their suspects were barely of high school age the day after the killing, when a girl they had been with that evening told a parent, who called police. Both boys, who had been friends for at least two years and were each known to police, lived near the murder scene. In July, the judge rejected a request from media organisations including the Mail to strip the boys of their automatic right to anonymity due to their age. Mrs Justice Tipples said the welfare of the boys outweighed the wider public interest and open justice principles. On Thursday the two-day sentencing hearing was told budding engineer Mr Seesahai's 'senseless' murder had 'devastated' his parents, Suresh and Maneshwary Seesahai who had to exhaust their savings to fly his body home and sister Shana. In a heartrending victim impact statement from the family, read to the court by Dorothea Hodge, the UK representative for Anguilla, they said: 'Losing a child is a parent's worst nightmare, and to put it all down in a statement on how it has impacted our lives would take more than a day to read. 'It has left a huge hole in the pit of our stomach which nothing can fill, we are devastated as a family, totally heartbroken and confused.' They said they had not had an unbroken night's sleep since the murder and were tormented by 'how scared' Mr Seesahai 'must have been' in his final moments. Mr Seesahai, who was living in Handsworth, Birmingham at the time of his death, had cataracts that he had been unable to get treatment for in Anguilla. After successful surgery in the UK he was 'able to start planning for the future and think about getting an education', prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC said. However, his life was brutally cut short after he and his friend encountered the boys near a bench in the park. Ms Heeley told jurors that despite the fact he had 'offered no violence, nor done anything to offend', he became the victim of a savage attack after one of the boys deliberately 'shoulder-brushed' him then pulled a machete from his trousers. Mr Seesahai ended up on the floor where jurors heard he was punched, kicked and knifed struck so hard on the skull with the machete that a piece of bone came away. Mrs Justice Tipples was told on Thursday by Ms Heeley there was 'little precedent' for the case and the boys are thought to be the country's youngest ever knife murderers. However, Ms Heeley said that for convicted murderers under the age of 14, the starting point for the minimum term was 13 years - although this could go up or down depending on aggravating or mitigating factors. The youths were also convicted of possession of a bladed article - with one admitting the offence before the trial and the other found guilty by jurors. The court heard pre-sentence reports said both boys continue to deny the offence of murder, but both 'recognised the impact' and had 'regret' for the suffering of Mr Seesahai's family. The boy who admitted owning the machete lived with his grandmother and had been known to social services since he was a baby. In the months preceding the killing, police had recovered blades from his home and he was so fixated with them that even following his arrest for the murder, the boy was found drawing pictures of knives while in custody. His barrister, Rachel Brand KC, said it was an 'important feature' that the crime was not premeditated, and claimed evidence showed it was his co-defendant who delivered the fatal blow with the blade. She added: 'Your Ladyship is dealing with a child who according to doctors is immature when compared to others the same age. 'He lacked, as a child, foresight of the consequences of his actions, and he lacked the ability to regulate his behaviour in the same way adults do. 'He wishes that they hadn't gone to the park and this hadn't happened.' She said he had been 'groomed, exploited and trafficked by older youths and young men' locally, who had 'encouraged him in criminality and the possession of knives.' The court also heard he came from a 'deprived home with experience of offending from family members.' Paul Lewis KC, defending the second boy, said it wasn't accepted that he was the one who stabbed Mr Seesahai. He added: 'There is not one word of evidence to suggest he ever previously carried a knife. 'He has had real difficulties in his upbringing. There have been changes in accommodation including living in a refuge, and repeated changes in schooling.' CCTV footage revealed the last moments of Shawn Seesahai as he headed to the park Mr Seesahai can be seen leaving Handsworth, an inner-city area of Birmingham, with two friends at around 5.30pm, getting onto a tram at Winson Green station At 6.34pm, Mr Seesahai and one friend then leave the park to go to a local petrol station However, Mrs Justice Tipples said reports showed there had been no children's services involvement with the boy, and he had a 'good relationship' with his parents and sibling. The boy who owned the machete told jurors he bought the deadly weapon for 40 from a 'friend of a friend'. But police suspect he sourced it online, where websites sold such blades for as little as 20. That defendant had previously been arrested for theft and violence-related offences. But neither child had previously been charged with any offence, or dealt with for knife crime-related matters. Meanwhile speaking from his native Anguilla, the heartbroken father of Shawn Seesahai, Suresh Seesahai, held back tears as he recounted the moment he learned his son had been murdered in Britain, where he had come for a better life. Mr Seesahai told how Shawn had begged 'daddy, help me' as two 12-year-old boys chopped and beat him to death. Revealing the heartbreaking moment he learned of his son's murder, Mr Seesahai said: 'I took the phone and asked 'what happened to Shawn'? I said 'is Shawn ok' and they said 'no, Shawn passed away'. Shawn's parents reveal the heartbreaking moment they learned their son had been murdered ahead of his killers' sentencing Mother Maneshwary Seesahai explained how Shawn's sister had been deeply affected by the ordeal Paying an emotional tribute, he added: 'He will always will be remembered because he has a father a mother and a sister.' Shawn's mother Maneshwary Seesahai also revealed how their daughter had been traumatised by the ordeal. She said: 'She's crying that he doesn't have a brother anymore - and that affects us a lot when she says things like that. I can't see my son married. I can't see any grandchildren it's very hard. 'Shawn you must remember we always will remember you until God is ready for us. One day we will see each other. I love you Shawn.' Detective Inspector Damian Forrest added: 'Shaun was a 19-year-old man with his whole life ahead of him. 'What was shocking for the investigation was that those two suspects were 12 years old.' The minimum tariff was described as a 'joke' by anti-knife campaigner Laura Hughes, who described the minimum tariff as 'a joke'. Ms Hughes set up campaign charity kNOw Knife Crime in 2019, to mark what would have been her brother Coline McGinty's 40th birthday. He was just 21 when stabbed to death in a case of mistaken identity in 2001 in Liverpool. She said that while it was difficult to comment on a case without knowing the full facts, 'a minimum term of eight years and six months is not a proper deterrent. Murder is murder, they have taken a life. 'It is so shocking that children of that age could carry out such a violent crime. My heart breaks for the victim's family. It's a really distressing case.' Detective Inspector Damian Forrest added: 'Shaun was a 19-year-old man with his whole life ahead of him.' On Tuesday, new legislation came into effect making it illegal to possess zombie knives and machetes. Amendments to the Criminal Justice Act 1988 also make it an offence to manufacture, import, sell or supply these items. Speaking after today's sentencing, a senior West Midlands Police officer has said the murder of Mr Seesahai was both 'shocking and saddening'. Chief Superintendent Kim Madill said: 'Shawn was only 19 when his life was taken at the hands of two boys, then aged just 12, who had armed themselves with a machete. 'That reality has had a huge impact on us all, it is both shocking and saddening. The impact of knife crime is devastating no matter where you live in the country, this is an issue that affects us all. 'Much work has been done and we have had successes in some areas, however, this is clearly not enough. 'We are listening to families affected by knife crime and acting on their feedback to see what more we can do with partners to stop the devastation caused by knife crime. 'Our responsibility is to work together with partners to understand why children and young people think it is OK to carry weapons and take further action to stop this extremely dangerous behaviour.' And Jonathan Roe, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said today: 'As prosecutors, we often deal with harrowing cases, but this case is particularly distressing due to the complete senselessness and devastating consequences of the defendants' actions. 'The defendants at the age of 12 should have been enjoying their childhood rather than arming themselves with a machete and killing an innocent person. 'Shawn Seesahai lost his life in a horrifically cruel way. I hope today's sentencing serves as a reminder of the dangers of carrying machetes. 'Shawn's family have shown remarkable strength and dignity in the aftermath of such a tragedy and our thoughts are with them at this difficult time.' The girlfriend of a far-right figurehead whose online chat handle is said to have made a nod to Hitler will spend nearly 20 years behind bars after she plotted to 'completely destroy' Black areas in the city of Baltimore. Sarah Beth Clendaniel, 36, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to damage an energy facility and one count of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. Clendaniel, who faced a maximum sentence of 35 years in prison, will spend 18 years behind bars. It comes as the 36-year-old from Maryland and her partner Brandon Clint Russell, 28, of Florida, were charged in February of last year with planning to target the city's energy grid, with the plot said to have been driven by 'racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist beliefs.' Images of the Maryland woman show her dressed in full tactical gear bearing swastika insignia, while Russell is allegedly a well-known neo-Nazi figure. Authorities said the couple had a documented 'personal as well as online relationship.' Sarah Beth Clendaniel will spend 18 years behind bars after plotting to 'completely destroy' Baltimore Sarah Beth Clendaniel, pictured, has been seen dressed in full tactical gear with swastika insignia and holding a rifle Clendaniel and her partner Brandon Clint Russell planned to target the city's energy grid, with the attack believed to stem from 'racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist beliefs' According to Law&Crime, court documents showed how Clendaniel and her boyfriend planned their attacks on various substations across Baltimore, which has a large Black population, via online chat. In those chats, Clendaniel's handle was 'Nythra88' . The number is used as a code among the far-right, because the 'H' is the eight letter of the alphabet, therefore meaning that 88 becomes 'HH' which stands for 'Heil Hitler', synonymous with the Nazi salute. Clendaniel's plan was unearthed after she was recorded by an FBI informant revealing the plot to destroy five substations across the city, according to an affidavit filed by an FBI agent. She revealed that if she and Russell hit all of their targets in the same day, they believed their plot would 'destroy this whole city' and that a 'good four or five shots through the center of them' was all it would take. She further added the attack 'would probably permanently completely lay this city to waste if we could do that successfully.' During their investigation, the FBI obtained a manifesto written by Clendaniel about the extremist plot, where she allegedly references notorious individuals including Hitler and the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. Erek L. Barron, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, said in a statement: 'This planned attack threatened lives and would have left thousands of Marylanders in the cold and dark. 'We are united and committed to using every legal means necessary to disrupt violence, including hate-fuelled attacks.' Brandon Russell, pictured, is a founding member of neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division, and he previously served time in prison for possessing bomb making materials Clendaniel reportedly conspired to secure weaponry as part of the extremist plot to leave Baltimore in the dark The thwarted attack saw the two extremists aim to use numerous weapons to destroy several Baltimore substations instantaneously Clendaniel had previously served a prison sentence for robbing convenience stores, while Russel had previously been convicted for possessing bomb making materials in 2018. The two ex-convicts then hatched their extremist plot following their release from prison while on probation. Russell is one of the founders of neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division, which plans on 'ushering in the collapse of civilization', according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The far-right figurehead caused controversy just six months into his prison sentence when he released a statement to his followers, who he thanked for their 'undying loyalty.' In his prison statement, he warned: 'The sword has been drawn. There is no turning back.' The new leader of the Scottish Conservatives is set to be announced this morning following a 'toxic' contest to replace Douglas Ross. Russell Findlay, Murdo Fraser and Meghan Gallacher were all on the ballot paper to succeed Mr Ross. Polls closed for Scottish Tory members of which there are believed to be around 7,000 at noon yesterday, ahead of today's announcement of a winning candidate. Earlier this month, a senior party grandee questioned whether the Scottish Conservatives are on the verge of falling apart amid the bitter leadership battle. Jackson Carlaw, who was Scottish Tory leader between 2019 and 2020, said there was a 'genuine concern' that the party would not be able to unite behind the winning candidate. He claimed the leadership contest was turning 'toxic' amid the divisions in the party and called for supporters of the three contenders to 'wind their necks in'. Russell Findlay (left), Murdo Fraser (middle) and Meghan Gallacher (right) were all on the ballot paper to succeed Douglas Ross Whoever succeeds Douglas Ross will inherit a difficult legacy from their predecessor, who was driven out of the role Whoever succeeds Mr Ross will inherit a difficult legacy from their predecessor, who was driven out of the role. It followed his decision to stand in the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East seat at July's general election, in place of former MP David Duguid, who was recovering from a spinal stroke. The decision irked MSPs and party members after Mr Ross had previously said he would stand down from Westminster to focus on Holyrood. He was forced to announce in the middle of the general election campaign that he would quit as leader after polling day. The newly-elected Scottish Tory leader will also face a punishing first few days in the role. As well as an intense media round following the announcement today, a ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of devolution is being held at the Scottish Parliament on Saturday, with the new leader due to join others in making a speech before the King and Queen. Within 24 hours, they will need to head to the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, where they will undertake a number of engagements. Appointments of their frontbench team are expected to take place next week. Elections expert Professor Sir John Curtice told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland radio programme that the leadership election had been 'fractious', after a period when the party has seen its support fall away in the two years running up to the election. Sir John said: 'We're talking about a party that has got just over 12.5 per cent of the vote in the general election, its worst performance ever.' The Conservatives won five seats in Scotland at the general election, down from six in 2019. This saw them finish fourth, in terms of seats won, behind Labour (37 seats), the SNP (nine seats), and Liberal Democrats (six seats). Two 12-year-old boys who hacked an innocent teenager to death in a park have joined a grim roll call of Britain's youngest child killers. The teens, who cannot be named, became the UK's youngest knife killers after attacking 19-year-old Shawn Seesahai with a machete in Wolverhampton last year. The harrowing attack has put them in the history books as the youngest children to murder since Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. In 1993 the pair abducted and killed toddler James Bulger at a Liverpool shopping centre, in a crime that shocked the nation. From the killing of Brianna Ghey to the murders of Martin and Brian Howe by Britain's youngest female killer Mary Bell, some of the most dreadful crimes have involved shockingly young perpetrators. MailOnline takes a look at some of the country's youngest, and most depraved, killers - and what drove them to murder. Shawn Seesahai - murdered by two 12-year-olds in November 2023 Shawn Seesahai, 19, was stabbed to death in Wolverhampton with a machete by two 12-year-old boys A pair of 12-year-old boys who became Britain's youngest convicted murderers since the killers of James Bulger were ordered to be detained in secure accommodation at His Majesty's pleasure for a total of 17 years. The youths were found guilty of hacking teenager Shawn Seesahai to death with a 16-inch machete in an unprovoked attack in a Wolverhampton park last November. After fleeing the scene they went to one of the boy's homes - where they played the violent video game Fortnite and took part in a Snapchat voice call while Mr Seesahai lay dying. Mrs Justice Tipples sentenced both boys at Nottingham Crown Court to a total of eight years and six months meaning they will remain in custody until they are at least 20. The sentence includes time spent living in secure accommodation where they have been since the offence last November. Their unanimous murder convictions in June made the pair the youngest defendants convicted of murder in the UK since Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, then both 11, were found guilty in 1993 of killing two-year-old James after they abducted the toddler from a shopping centre in Bootle, Liverpool One of the killers, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was pictured with a machete just hours before the murder The 12-year-olds' trial heard that one of the defendants had an obsession with knives - even posing for a picture with a machete tucked into the top of his trousers hours before he committed murder. The picture - sent from the youth's mobile phone and showing him masked near railings in the street - is believed to have been taken at around 1am. Jurors were told the image was forwarded to the boy's girlfriend and his co-defendant, captioned Prison Freestyle, the name of a track by a drill rapper he idolised. The rapper, SJ, is currently serving life for a machete murder committed in Wood Green, north London, in 2019. The month-long trial at Nottingham Crown Court heard Mr Seesahai, 19, had travelled to the UK from the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla in the Caribbean for medical treatment. He was stabbed with such ferocity with the 16-inch blade that it almost passed through his entire body. Jamie Bulger - murdered by two 10 year-olds in Liverpool in 1993 In February 1993, the toddler was snatched from his mother at New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, Merseyside, after she took her eyes off him for a matter of seconds Perhaps the most high-profile murder case involving youngsters was that of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who were found guilty of killing two-year-old James Bulger more than 30 years ago. In the case that shocked the nation, Thompson and Venables, both aged ten at the time, abducted, tortured and murdered two-year-old James Bulger in 1993. The toddler was snatched from his mother at New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, Merseyside, after she took her eyes off him for a matter of seconds. Thompson and Venables, then aged just ten, subjected James to a series of horrifying assaults before dropping a 22lb railway fishplate on his head. They then dumped his body on a train line, where it was found two days later. The savage murder of James Bulger in 1993 by Jon Venables and Robert Thompson was a crime that horrified the nation and left the two-year-old's family utterly broken A police van carries Jon Venables and Robert Thompson to Preston Crown Court on the first day of their trial Venables, who is now in his 40s, was initially freed in 2001 but has since been returned behind bars twice for possessing indecent images of children. Thompson, who was also released in 2001, was at the time considered to be the ringleader in James's murder. He has not reoffended. Although the pair had their anonymity orders lifted, shortly after they turned 18, the High Court made an injunction preventing the media from publishing their new identities. This effectively gave them life-long anonymity. Martin and Brian Howe - killed by 11-year-old Mary Bell in 1968 Britain's youngest female killer, on the other hand, is Mary Bell, who at the age of 11 became notorious after being convicted of strangling two small boys Britain's youngest female killer is Mary Bell, who at the age of 11 became notorious after being convicted of strangling two small boys. Bell was found guilty of manslaughter in December 1968 for suffocating Martin and Brian Howe, three, in Newcastle. Martin was found dead in a derelict house, while Brian's body was discovered on waste ground two months later with the letter M carved into his stomach with scissors. Bell's fellow accused, Norma Bell, 13, a neighbour, who was not related to her, was acquitted. During the trial Norma gave evidence describing how Mary had ignored her pleas to stop hurting Brian Howe as she strangled him. The jury ruled Bell was suffering from diminished responsibility and therefore not guilty of murder. She was sentenced to life but was released at the age of 23 and given a fresh identity to protect her daughter when she was born four years later, on 25th May, 1984. Alfie Lewis - murdered by 14-year-old Bardia Shojaeifard in November 2023 Alfie Lewis, 15, was stabbed to death outside a school in Leeds, West Yorkshire Knife-obsessed killer Bardia Shojaeifard was described in court as appearing to be a completely normal teenager before he stabbed 15-year-old Alfie Lewis to death with fatal wounds to the heart and leg. Chilling footage showed the defendant in school uniform minutes before he launched an unprovoked attack on Alfie, who was walking to meet with friends. The killer is then seen fleeing the scene and returning home after stabbing the teenager in broad daylight in front of other schoolchildren. The court heard the killer, who was 14 at the time, had 'no interest' in crime, drugs or gangs, but horrifying images show the teenager posing with knives. Bardia Shojaeifard, who was 14, at the time of the murder must serve a minimum of 13 years for the killing Dr Murphy said Shojaeifard probably fled home simply because it was 'familiar', but added she believes he 'would not have appeared normal' due to his obsession with weapons. She said: 'Our homes should be our place of safety, and even if his home wasn't that safe place it's familiar. My guess is that he's in shock at what he's done and he goes into automatic pilot and then just goes home. 'I don't know if he would have seemed normal. That's quite a titillated fascination with knives which would suggest to me a preoccupation with trying to be powerful to defend against vulnerability. 'I would expect that this is someone who has probably felt quite physically threatened at points in his life so carrying weapons will make him feel more powerful. 'Brandishing them about and boasting effectively, it's not that different to older generations beefing it up down the gym and walking round with massive biceps on show. 'A knife is the way that younger people would do that to depict I'm hard, don't mess with me.' Shojaeifard claimed one picture had been edited to superimpose a blade in his hand because it was 'funny' Another photo shown to the court had the boy holding a knife and wearing a scarf around his face whilst on holiday Shojaeifard claimed one picture had been edited to superimpose a blade in his hand - an alteration he said was made because 'it was funny.' Another photo shown to the court had the boy holding a knife and wearing a scarf around his face whilst on holiday to his family's ancestral home of Iran. He said his uncle was a craftsman who made knives and he wanted to show his friends the cultural differences from England, while Shojaeifard's father, a car mechanic, said it was a 'model'. The teen denied murder, claiming he feared for his life when he pulled out the weapon, which police said had a black-painted handle. He was found guilty by a jury after a trial in April. Brianna Ghey - murdered by 15-year olds Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe in February 2023 Brianna Ghey, 16, was stabbed 28 times in Linear Park, Cheshire in March 2023 in a crime which shocked the nation Schoolgirl Brianna Ghey was murdered by 15-year-olds Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe in a killing motivated in part by Brianna's transgender identity. Jenkinson and accomplice Ratcliffe lured the schoolgirl to Linear Park, Culcheth, where she was stabbed 28 times to the head, neck, chest and back. At her trial, it was revealed Jenkinson had a fascination with violence, torture, and murder and falsely claimed to have killed two victims already, talking of a desire to take body parts as sick souvenirs. Both Jenkinson and Ratcliffe were found guilty of murder and were sentenced to life in prison at Manchester Crown Court, and the judge permitted that the teenagers be named publicly for the first time. Both appeared emotionless during much of the proceedings. Scarlett Jenkinson, who was 15 at the time of the crime, had watched torture videos on the dark web and fantasised about taking body parts as trophies Eddie Ratcliffe, who was also 15 at the time of Brianna's death, played with fidget toys or completed puzzles during the trial They were allowed to play with fidget toys or do crossword books throughout, and Ratcliffe was allowed to type his answers instead of answering after the court heard he had stopped speaking to anybody except his mother after being charged. Dr Murphy said the apparent detachment of the killers post-murder was a 'defence' as they avoided the reality of the heinous crime they had committed. She told MailOnline: 'It's not actually in anyone's interest to be harming other people so people are actually traumatised by their offending behaviour as well, so people go into a state of detachment after committing offences. 'Often it's that same detachment from humanity that's enabled them to harm others in the first place. There is a detachment, it's kind of like a dissociative state that people get into.' Describing the pair's behaviour in court, she said: 'If people have a fidget toy, for instance, it gives you displacement activity, it's a bit like adults might want a cigarette. 'If you are doing something with your hands it allows you to get away from what's in your head. It serves as a distraction.' Speaking about Jenkinson's online history of watching sadistic videos on the dark web, she said this alone would not have caused the teenager to kill. 'I don't think that online material would produce that level of disturbance in a child, I think they would already have to have been harmed to be disturbed enough to do that. 'But if somebody is spending a lot of time online engaged in fantastical material, even sadistic fantastical material, then obviously they are building up more of a picture in their head of behaviour they could act out,' she concluded. Muhammad Ali - murdered by a 15-year-old in January this year Muhammad Ali, 17, from Birmingham, was murdered by a 15-year-old seeking revenge for an attack on his friend Muhammad was entirely innocent and had no idea what the 15-year-old was talking about - but was stabbed in the heart In a case of mistaken identity, teenager Muhammad Ali, 17, from Birmingham, was murdered by two teenagers out for revenge after an attack on a friend. Muhammad had met with a friend at the Bullring on January 20 and was enjoying a hot chocolate when the two teenagers, who have not been named, approached the pair and accused them of attacking a friend. Neither Muhammad or his friend knew anything about the attack, and were not responsible. The pair continued to quiz Muhammad and his friend, until Muhammad told the pair to go away because he didn't know what they were talking about. One of the boys then pulled out a large knife and stabbed him in the heart before fleeing. Muhammad was taken to Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital, but the damage to his heart was too severe and he was pronounced dead at around 6.40pm. One 15-year-old boy was convicted of murder and possession of a knife. The other was convicted of manslaughter and possession of a bladed article, after a court heard he had 'encouraged' the stabbing. They will be sentenced in October. Holly Newton - murdered by a 16-year-old in January 2023 Holly Newton, 15, suffered 36 wounds after a teenager who had been reported to police for allegedly stalking her attacked her in the street with a kitchen knife Holly was followed for 45 minutes by her killer, who claimed in court he had only meant to kill himself Schoolgirl Holly Newton, 15, was stabbed to death in an alleyway by a 16-year-old boy who a court heard was 'stalking' her on her way home from school in January 2023. The teenager and keen dancer had been shopping with friends in Hexham, Northumberland, when the boy - now 17 - followed her for 45 minutes before launching a savage attack with a kitchen knife in which he stabbed her 'many, many times'. When a 16-year-old boy she was with at the time attempted to intervene, he was also stabbed and required surgery to wounds to his shoulder, arm and thigh. Holly was left with 36 injuries after the boy stabbed her 12 times, slashed her 19 times, and caused five 'defensive' injuries in a frenzy which snapped the knife. The killer - who cannot be named because of his age - claimed in court he had only wanted to kill himself and had no memory of stabbing the schoolgirl. He admitted manslaughter, but was convicted of murder by a jury. Chillingly the court heard that before the murder the teenager had become obsessed with Holly, and was effectively 'stalking her'. Holly's killer (right) then confronted her at a bus stop before stabbing her 36 times, and injuring a friend she was with at the time The night before she was killed, her mother was so worried that she contacted the police about the boy at 9:40pm, as he had turned up uninvited at their home in Haltwhistle. Officers arranged to go and meet the mother and daughter at 4pm the next day, but the appointment was pushed back to 8pm as Holly 'pleaded with her mother to let her go out with friends' after school. The circumstances were so severe that it was agreed Holly shouldn't leave school if the teenager was outside. She had texted a friend to say the boy was 'basically stalking' her, adding: 'He's gonna follow me until I talk to him'. Mikey Roynon - murdered by 16-year-old Shane Cunningham in June 2023 Mikey Roynon was stabbed to death at a party - three teenagers, who took knives to the event, were charged with his murder Mikey Roynon, 16, from Bristol, was knifed in the back of the neck with a zombie knife at a house on Eastfield Avenue, Bath on 10th June last year. Three teenagers, all 16, were arrested and it was found that all three took knives with them to a schoolgirl's 16th party. One of the boys admitted stabbing Mikey but claimed he was acting in self defence. He said the victim had swung a knife towards his friends. A jury found Shane Cunningham, who stabbed Mikey, guilty of murder and his two friends Leo Knight and Cartel Bushnell guilty of manslaughter. All three had initially been charged with murder. Sean Cunningham, 16, who stabbed Mikey, was found guilty of his murder by a jury Cartel Bushnell , 16, was found guilty of manslaughter but not guilty of murder after a trial earlier this year Bus CCTV footage shows the boys travelling to the party, with a weapon at one point being clearly visible through Cunningham's trousers. Footage of Cunningham's police interview showed how he remained staring into space and unresponsive throughout. Not even answering with 'no comment', the teenager appeared to be pretending the interview was not going ahead. Dressed in grey joggers and a t-shirt, he refused to give any answers to police questions, although the court he did later admit stabbing Mikey. The other boys acted similarly, either remaining silent or responding with no comment, police footage shows. Leo Knight, also 16, was found guilty of manslaughter but not guilty of murder Dr Murphy said this is an unusual tactic that suggests the boys were 'really damaged' individuals. She told MailOnline: 'That is quite a hard strategy to use with the police. It's quite hard to even do a no comment interview where you're saying no comment. 'To sit there ignoring and not answering, that's individuals who are able to muster up defences to not engage with material that's upsetting or difficult or painful, and again I would say that, that isn't something that a healthy child is able to do. 'That's a child that's already had to toughen themselves up and push through. 'What's really sad is we're look at those and they'll look like monsters because of their inability to be remorseful. Actually that's a really damaged person to be able to behave like that. 'My experience is that people act out brutality to the degree that they've experienced themselves. So if they are able to be that brutal, if they are able to get pleasure out of somebody else's pain, they've experienced that themselves probably.' Justin McLaughlin - murdered by 16-year-old Daniel Haig in October 2021 Justin McLaughlin, 14, died in October 2021 after being stabbed in the heart after a fight broke out at a station in Glasgow Justin McLaughlin, 14, died in October 2021 after being stabbed in the heart by Daniel Haig, who was 16 at the time, at Glasgow's High Street station. Haig stabbed Justin after a fight broke out between a group of young people on the platform. During the trial at the High Court in Glasgow, the court heard Haig had become involved in a scuffle with Justin and a group of his friends at the railway station on 16th October. The teenager pulled a knife out of his bag and was seen on CCTV chasing the group. Justin tripped and fell before Haig caught up and stabbed him. Haig told the trial he had a knife in his rucksack for 'protection' after claiming to have been attacked the day before. He also said he had not intended to kill the 14-year-old. He was given a life sentence for the crime by judge Lord Clark at the High Court in Edinburgh in August 2023. Dr Murphy told MailOnline many young killers may have issues at home, including being brought up in situations where extreme violence is commonplace. Daniel Haig, now 18, was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 16 years, but this has now been reduced to 13 years An appeal against Haig's lengthy sentence revealed how he grew up surrounded by criminals in a family in which violence, including with weapons, was 'normalised'. The judge, reducing his 16-year minimum term by three years, said: 'The information now available to the court shows exposure to extreme domestic violence from an early age, first as a witness, later as a victim, and thereafter as a perpetrator. 'The appellant's mother is reported to have stabbed his father and, on a later date, to have threatened the appellant with a knife while he was holding his younger sibling. 'The older relative, association with whom seems to have triggered an escalation in the appellant's behaviour, is alleged to be involved in criminal behaviour in the east end of Glasgow and to have links to serious and organised crime. 'His father and uncle are currently serving lengthy prison sentences for violence, and an older maternal cousin is serving a prison sentence for murder. 'It is clear that the appellant has grown up in a familial environment in which the use of violence, including the use of weapons, has been normalised.' Charlie Cosser - murdered by 16-year-old Yura Varybrus in July 2023 Charlie Cosser was murdered by someone he had never met before after a disagreement broke out at a party Charlie's killer Yura Varybrus, who will be 18 this November, was jailed for life with a minimum of 16 years earlier this month A 17-year-old boy was stabbed to death at an end of term party in West Sussex on 22nd July last year. Charlie Cosser was murdered by someone he had never met before after a disagreement broke out after his killer was asked to leave the event. Charlie's killer Yura Varybrus, who will be 18 this November, was jailed for life with a minimum of 16 years earlier this month - and the judge at Brighton Crown Court ruled his identity could be revealed. He stabbed his victim three times in the chest, and Charlie had a cardiac arrest on the way to hospital caused by internal bleeding. He died two days later. The teenager was found around ten to 20 minutes after the stabbing, sitting on a pallet complaining his 'chest and back really hurts' and was rushed to hospital. Varybrus showed no emotion as the verdict, finding him guilty of murder, was read. He claimed he had no memory of the incident, having drunk 'heavily' throughout the night. The killer, who gave no evidence, burnt his clothes in a fire pit at a friend's house and went for a carvery lunch with his parents the day after the murder. Ronan Kanda - murdered by two 17-year-old boys in a case of mistaken identity Ronan, 16, was brutally attacked with a machete by two 17-year-old boys in a case of mistaken identity Ronan, 16, was brutally attacked with a machete by two 17-year-old boys in a case of mistaken identity. Prabjeet Veadhesa and Sukhman Shergill, both 17, were involved in the attack on Ronan from behind as he walked to a friend's house to buy a PlayStation controller in Wolverhampton last year. Sukhman Shergill, 17, has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 16 years over the killing Prabjeet Veadhesa, 17, was also jailed for life by a judge and must serve a minimum of 18 years behind bars The two teenagers attacked Ronan from behind after he was seen leaving another boy's house, where the target of the assault lived Ronan, who was not the intended victim of the attack but knew Veadhesa, of Walsall, and Shergill, of Willenhall, was yards away from the home he shared with his parents and sister when he was set upon on Mount Road on the evening of 29th June 2022. In what judge Mr Justice Choudhury called a 'tragic coincidence', Veadhesa and Shergill had seen Ronan leaving the house where their intended victim lived and assumed he was the boy they were looking for. The court heard Ronan was followed and stabbed twice with a 'vicious' Ninja knife that Veadhesa had bought online, leaving him with a 20cm deep wound in his back and hip area and a 17cm deep wound in his chest. He was left to die in the street from the injuries inflicted by Veadhesa, who, along with Shergill, fled the scene after realising they had stabbed the wrong person and disposed of the weapons and the clothing they had been wearing. Hurricane Helene is barreling through the southeastern US after smashing the Florida coastline with 140mph winds and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. But one heartwarming story has already emerged from the chaos - the moment the US coastguard pulled off a daring rescue of a stranded sailor and his loyal dog. Dramatic footage has emerged of the rescue mission after the companions found themselves in a perilous situation when their 36-foot vessel became disabled and began taking on water in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday. Facing the wrath of the approaching hurricane, the sailor sent out a distress call that was picked up by the vigilant USCG Air Station Clearwater, before they were forced to jump into the raging seas. With the storm bearing down, Coast Guard crews raced against time to reach the man, located roughly 25 miles offshore from Sanibel Island near Fort Myers. Despite the mounting waves and violent winds, the skilled crew executed a flawless rescue, hoisting both the sailor and his faithful friend to safety - but not before one rescuer managed to snap a remarkable image of the pair in the water as the chopper soared overhead. The coastguard subsequently released a clip of the successful rescue mission on social media. A U.S. Coast Guard Air Station crew rescues a man and his dog during Hurricane Helene after his sailboat became disabled and started taking on water off Sanibel Island, Florida, U.S. September 26, 2024 Their 36-foot vessel became disabled and began taking on water in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday The sailor gives the camera a thumbs up as the coastguard come to the rescue A coastguard diver is winched down to rescue the pair Parts of a road are overrun with deluge Beachfront in Florida is submerged by oncoming waves Homes and buildings have been partially submerged Hurricane Helene made landfall in northwestern Florida as a Category 4 storm, battering the coast with torrential rain and punishing gusts as residents across the southeastern US braced for what forecasters warned would be a 'nightmare storm'. Helene roared ashore around 11:10pm CDT last night with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph. It hit near the mouth of the Aucilla River in the Big Bend area of Florida's Gulf Coast - just 20 miles northwest of where Hurricane Idalia came ashore last year at nearly the same ferocity and caused widespread damage. Helene prompted hurricane and flash flood warnings extending far beyond the coast up into northern Georgia and western North Carolina. More than 1.2 million homes and businesses were without power in Florida, more than 190,000 in Georgia and more than 30,000 in the Carolinas, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us. The governors of those states and Alabama and Virginia all declared emergencies. At least three people have been killed so far - one person died in Florida when a sign fell on their car and two people were reported killed in a possible tornado in south Georgia as the storm approached. 'When Floridians wake up tomorrow morning, we're going to be waking up to a state where very likely there's been additional loss of life and certainly there's going to be loss of property,' Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday night. Helene was early Friday downgraded to a Category 2 storm but has already left a trail of destruction in its wake - and the risks are not over. Dr Steven Godby, an expert in natural hazards in Nottingham Trent University's School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences, said: 'The impacts of Helene will not be restricted to the Florida coastline. 'Despite being downgraded to a tropical storm, inland areas of the southeastern United States will now experience strong, damaging winds and heavy rainfall. 'As Helene passes over the high ground of the Southern Appalachian mountains rainfall totals of 15 to 30 centimetres (6-12inches) are expected, perhaps as high as 50 centimetres (20 inches) in places. 'This rain is likely to result in significant flooding along rivers, the possibility of catastrophic and life-threatening flash-floods and an expectation of significant landslides where the terrain is steep.' A view of the hurricane via satellite is seen with state lines and coastlines enhanced Some who chose to remain in their homes watched on as waves climbed their windows and floodwater surged into their houses Hurricane Helene batters coast of Florida as Category 4 storm nears landfall with massive flooding and devastating 140 mph winds Marine deputies prepare for a rescue as Hurricane Helene approaches in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, U.S., September 26, 2024 A man's house narrowly avoids being smashed by a fallen tree Your browser does not support iframes. Helene was moving rapidly inland after making landfall, with the center of the storm set to race from southern to northern Georgia through early Friday morning. The risk of tornadoes also would continue overnight and into the morning across north and central Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and southern North Carolina, forecasters said. 'Helene continues to produce catastrophic winds that are now pushing into southern Georgia,' the hurricane center said in an update at 1 a.m. Friday. 'Persons should not leave their shelters and remain in place through the passage of these life-threatening conditions.' Even before landfall, the storm's wrath was felt widely, with sustained tropical storm-force winds and hurricane-force gusts along Florida's west coast. Water lapped over a road in Siesta Key near Sarasota and covered some intersections in St. Pete Beach. Lumber and other debris from a fire in Cedar Key a week ago crashed ashore in the rising water. Beyond Florida, up to 10 inches of rain had fallen in the North Carolina mountains, with up to 14 inches more possible before the deluge ends, setting the stage for flooding that forecasters warned could be worse than anything seen in the past century. Heavy rains began falling and winds were picking up earlier Thursday in Valdosta, Georgia, near the Florida state line. The weather service said more than a dozen Georgia counties could see hurricane-force winds exceeding 110 mph (177 kph). In south Georgia, two people were killed when a possible tornado struck a mobile home on Thursday night, Wheeler County Sheriff Randy Rigdon told WMAZ-TV. Wheeler County is about 70 miles southeast of Macon. The storm made landfall in the sparsely-populated Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Florida's Panhandle and peninsula meet. In an unsettling post on Facebook, the sheriff's office in rural Taylor County warned residents who had not evacuated: 'Please write your name, birthday, and important information on your arm or leg in a PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified.' Federal authorities staged search-and-rescue teams as the weather service forecast storm surges of up to 20 feet and warned they could be particularly 'catastrophic and unsurvivable' in Apalachee Bay. 'Please, please, please take any evacuation orders seriously!' the office said, describing the surge scenario as 'a nightmare.' People are splashed by churning surf from Tampa Bay as Hurricane Helene passes offshore on September 26, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Florida Florida weather map, Hurricane Helene, September 26, 2024 Amber Hardin, 27, spends time with her dog Ducky while taking shelter from Hurricane Helene at Leon High School near downtown Tallahassee Floridians wait for the arrival of Hurricane Helene at Lincoln High School which was opened as a shelter in Tallahassee, Florida, U.S., September 26, 2024 Youtuber Mark Peyton holds a US flag as he poses for his brother Matt Peyton on the shoreline ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Helene in Alligator Point, Florida, on September 26, 2024 Residents wade through a street flooded in the passing of Hurricane Helene, in Batabano, Mayabeque province, Cuba, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024 Locals stand outside their homes in a flooded area of Batabano, Mayabeque Province, Cuba, on September 26, 2024 This stretch of Florida known as the Forgotten Coast has been largely spared by the widespread condo development and commercialization that dominates so many of Florida's beach communities. The region is loved for its natural wonders - the vast stretches of salt marshes, tidal pools and barrier islands. 'You live down here, you run the risk of losing everything to a bad storm,' said Anthony Godwin, who lives about a half-mile from the water in the coastal town of Panacea, as he stopped for gas before heading west toward his sister's house in Pensacola. School districts and multiple universities canceled classes. Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed Thursday, while cancellations were widespread elsewhere in Florida and beyond. While Helene will likely weaken as it moves inland, damaging winds and heavy rain were expected to extend to the southern Appalachian Mountains, where landslides were possible, forecasters said. Tennessee was among the states expected to get drenched. Helene had swamped parts of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on Wednesday, flooding streets and toppling trees as it passed offshore and brushed the resort city of Cancun. In western Cuba, Helene knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses as it brushed past the island. Convicted killer Justin Stein will battle allegations he was in possession of child abuse videos when he faces a 10-day trial in a Sydney court next year. Stein was earlier this year found guilty by a jury of murdering his then-partners nine-year-old daughter, Charlise Mutten. Justice Helen Wilson last month handed Stein a life sentence after he was found to have shot Charlise at his familys Mount Wilson property before he wrapped her body and dumped it in a barrel near the Colo River. Months after he was arrested in January 2022 over Charlises death, Stein, 33, was also charged with two counts of possessing child abuse material. He is alleged to have been in possession of videos which portrayed child sexual abuse. It is not alleged the material related to Charlise Mutten. Stein was scheduled to face a jury starting next month however his lawyers on Friday appeared before the Penrith District Court where they made an application to vacate the trial date. The application wasnt opposed by the Crown prosecution and Judge Craig Everson gave the matter a new trial date of March 17 next year. Convicted killer Justin Stein will battle allegations he was in possession of child abuse videos when he faces a 10-day trial in a Sydney court next year Stein was earlier this year found guilty by a jury of murdering his then-partners nine-year-old daughter, Charlise Mutten (pictured with her mum Kallista) The court was told the trial is expected to last 10 days. Vladimir Putin's new 'red line' for using nuclear weapons is intended to strike fear in the West and could lead to a 'very unpleasant surprise', experts have warned. The Russian leader expanded his list of scenarios that could provoke Russia into using nukes on Wednesday, including Western leaders allowing Ukraine to use their long-range missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia. Nikolai Sokov, a former Soviet and Russian diplomat, said the 'red line' was intended as a 'very clear message': 'Don't make a mistake - all these kind of things may mean nuclear war.' 'I'm really concerned about all the loose talk,' he said, with actors in Ukraine dismissing the threats as a bluff. 'We run head-on into a situation which is completely unfamiliar to us ... If you do not factor in the risks, you are likely to have a very unpleasant surprise.' Russian media recently portrayed a nuclear blast on London, estimating 850,000 casualties Putin extended his conditions for using nuclear weapons on Wednesday (pictured Sep 25) A firefighter works at a site of a Russian drone strike in Izmail, Ukraine on September 27 A Russian Yars intercontinental ballistic missile system on parade in Moscow in 2022. File Andreas Umland, an analyst at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, took a different view. He said that the new 'red line' was just a 'a psychological PR operation, by the Kremlin, without much substance'. 'It is designed to scare leaders & voters of countries supporting Ukraine.' Ukraine dubbed the threat 'nuclear blackmail', but assured that Putin would not risk alienating himself by using nukes on the West. 'In my opinion, this is yet another bluff and demonstration of Putin's weakness,' Anton Gerashchenko, a former adviser to Ukraine's internal affairs minister, said on X. 'He will not dare to use nuclear weapons because that will make him a complete outcast.' Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral research fellow and defence expert in Oslo, said he did not believe Putin's comments could be ignored, but that it was important not to overreact. 'Russian nuclear use is not imminent,' he said on X. 'Concern is warranted only when Russia signals actual preparations.' Hoffmann said next steps could be removing warheads from storage and pairing them with delivery vehicles for a tactical strike, before ratcheting up preparations for large-scale nuclear use by readying silos and putting bombers on alert - all of which U.S. intelligence agencies would detect. And Russia security expert Mark Galeotti wrote: 'Talk is easy and has political impact, but evidence of actual willingness to use nuclear weapons is both absent and something we can detect if it ever happens.' Nevertheless, Putin was more specific than in the past about the circumstances that could prompt nuclear use. His spokesman said on Thursday that his comments were meant as a signal to Western countries that there would be serious consequences if they participated in attacks on Russia. A Russian nuclear-capable Iskander-M missile launching, undated The Belgorod submarine is designed to carry Moscow's super weapon - the nuclear-powered drones named Poseidon - which Russia claims are capable of causing nuclear tsunamis Russian Yars intercontinental ballistic missile launchers parade through Red Square during the Victory Day military parade in central Moscow on May 9, 2022 Ukrainian servicemen fire mortars towards Russian positions in the Donetsk region, Ukraine War-displaced people spend time in a centre for displaced people in undisclosed location in Kursk region on August 29, following Ukraine's cross-border offensive Damage to residential buildings in Toretsk, eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, on June 25 At the same time, the announced changes fell short of what some hawkish commentators have been calling for. The best-known of them, Sergei Karaganov, has argued for a limited nuclear strike in Europe that would 'sober up' Russia's enemies and make them take its nuclear deterrent seriously. In practical terms, the changes extend Russia's nuclear umbrella to cover neighbouring Belarus, a close ally. They lower the threshold for nuclear use by stating, for example, that it could happen in response to a conventional strike that posed a 'critical threat to our sovereignty'. Previously, the nuclear doctrine talked about a threat to 'the very existence of the state'. Russia could now strike in response to a major cross-border conventional attack involving aircraft, missiles or drones. A rival nuclear power that supported a country attacking Russia would be considered a party to that attack. Both those criteria apply directly to the situation that would arise if the West allows Ukraine to strike deep inside Russian territory with Western long-range missiles such as U.S. ATACMS and British Storm Shadows, something Putin has said would need Western satellite and targeting support. Bahram Ghiassee, a London-based nuclear analyst at the Henry Jackson Society think-tank, linked the timing of Putin's remarks to Ukraine's lobbying of the West for long-range missiles and the fact that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is making his case to U.S. President Joe Biden this week. 'Putin is saying: just stop it right there,' Ghiassee said. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Putin's warning was irresponsible and poorly timed, and that it was not the first time he had been 'rattling the nuclear sabre'. The effects of a 500kiloton nuclear bomb - a large device but certainly not the largest in Russia's arsenal - being dropped on London are illustrated above. Everything inside the yellow and red circles would be completely destroyed, with an almost 100 per cent casualty rate for anyone inside. Third degree burns are possible up to the edge of the orange circle Russia tests its deadly hypersonic 208-ton 15,880 'Satan-2' intercontinental ballistic missile Russian hardline MP Andrei Gurulev sneered 'swim, swim, swim' as he demanded the use of Moscow 's unique Poseidon high-speed underwater atomic drone on Britain The expansion of the policy came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in the US to present his 'victory plan' and press the case to use long-range missiles on targets inside Putin's territory Putin announced the new conditions in a four-minute video in which he was seen addressing the nine members of a security council that meets twice-yearly to discuss nuclear deterrence. He said nuclear use was an extreme measure and Russia had always approached the issue responsibly. Ministers and intelligence chiefs listened intently, occasionally fidgeting or shuffling papers. One participant - Alexei Likhachev, head of state nuclear corporation Rosatom - took detailed notes. But the real addressees of Putin's message were in Kyiv, Washington and London. Yevgeny Minchenko, a Russian political consultant, said the thrust of the revised doctrine was a blunt message to Ukraine and the West not to escalate the war further into Russia. 'If you try to kill us with your proxy's hands, we will kill both your proxy and you,' was the message, he said. Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, said the changes opened the door to Russia using tactical nuclear battlefield weapons in certain scenarios, namely against Ukraine. 'The threshold for the use of nuclear weapons has been lowered. Now it will be easier for Russia to use nuclear weapons,' Markov said on his official blog. 'The reason for changing the nuclear doctrine was the threat of a full escalation by the West. 'The West is sure that Russia will not use tactical nuclear weapons first. Russia is now saying it is ready to do so.' Markov suggested Russia could use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine, or air bases in Romania or Poland if Ukrainian warplanes flew sorties from there and if Kyiv - backed by U.S. or British satellite support - used the jets to strike Moscow itself or parts of central Russia. A Ukrainian serviceman drives a British FV103 Spartan armoured personnel carrier in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, March 30 Ukrainian servicemen drive in a military vehicle on a road near the town of Chasiv Yar in March Russian special forces training to repel the invasion of sabotage groups in Novaya Zemlya Igor Korotchenko, a military analyst who often appears on state TV, said the changes were necessary because the West had ignored a slew of previous warning signals against further escalation, including Russian exercises in the summer rehearsing the use of tactical nuclear arms. 'We see that Western adversaries no longer respect any 'red lines', believing that any acts to arm Ukraine and Western-assisted strikes against facilities deep inside Russian territory will not be met with nuclear escalation,' Korotchenko told the daily Izvestia newspaper. Vladimir Avatkov, who sits on an official body that offers advice to Putin on international relations, said announcing the changes to the doctrine had allowed Moscow to get ahead of any Western decision on missiles for Ukraine. 'Let them think now,' he said on Telegram. 'This is an attempt to not just warn them, but to give them back the fear that they have completely lost. And perhaps even some strategic thinking.' The changes were strongly welcomed by Russian nationalists and war bloggers, some of whom have long advocated Moscow use nuclear weapons to force a Ukrainian capitulation, and led to a discussion about what could trigger a nuclear response. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council and a former president, warned that Putin's words should give Ukraine and the West pause for thought. 'The very change in the regulatory conditions for our country's use of nuclear components may cool the fervour of those opponents who have not yet lost their sense of self-preservation,' he said in a statement. Sokov, the former Russian diplomat, said there was a palpable sense of frustration in Moscow that the West appeared deaf to its many nuclear warnings. Kamala Harris joins Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on September 26 A model of a nuclear test at the museum of the Semipalatinsk Test Site Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a shelling on a high-storey residential building in Kharkiv on September 24 Members of emergency services stand at the site where a hotel was hit by a missile in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region on August 25 He said that when Russia staged three rounds of exercises this year to simulate preparations for the launch of tactical nuclear missiles, there were complaints in the media and among experts that Western countries were not paying attention. 'So now they decided to strengthen the signal,' Sokov said. 'Putin decided the West is like small kids, and you have to explain every small thing because they just don't get it.' Sokov said he was concerned about 'loose talk' among politicians and commentators who argue that the West has crossed a series of Russian red lines with impunity - by supplying Ukraine with tanks and F-16 fighter jets, for example - and that Moscow's warnings can therefore be ignored. In fact, he said, the West had yet to breach two red lines that Russia had spelt out clearly: sending NATO troops to fight in Ukraine, and letting Ukraine fire Western long-range missiles into Russia. 'How can we say how (Putin) is going to react, if so far we have not actually crossed any Russian red lines?' he said in a phone interview, arguing that such an approach was based on guesswork, not data. TV veteran Georgie Gardner was absent from her newsreading slot on Friday night. The Channel Nine presenter reads the news every Friday and Saturday night for the network but was missing from her post this Friday to attend her son's high school graduation. She was instead replaced by Mark Burrows but will return to report the news on Saturday evening. Her absence comes after a fiery in-studio clash between the 54-year-old and a junior female producer last month. The star newsreader - who earns $600,000 a year to present the news twice a week - blew up at the junior colleague over the Saturday night news bulletin on August 31. A TV source told Daily Mail Australia the alleged incident was sparked over the way Gardner's scripts had been prepared prior to going on air. 'Georgie turned up in a terrible mood,' they said. 'She didn't think the rundown was satisfactory or the way the intros (to news stories) were written - and basically said it was s***. 'The mood was tense and she insisted on rewriting the intros herself. TV veteran Georgie Gardner was absent from her newsreading slot on Friday night 'The junior producer (who Daily Mail Australia has chosen not to name) said she wasn't finished with them yet, prompting Georgie to walk behind her and snap at her to ''grow up''.' According to the source, the heated argument continued into the studio as the scripts were loaded into the teleprompter. At least part of the exchange was allegedly recorded and handed over to management for an internal inquiry following an official complaint. 'It was intense but a lot of people were there and witnessed the argument,' the source said. Gardner disappeared from her regular weekend newsreading duties for two weeks following the alleged altercation. However, she was reportedly on scheduled leave and returned to work last Friday evening. Nine has refused to publicly comment on the complaint made against Gardner. However, the network's director of news and current affairs, Fiona Dear, said in a statement: 'Georgie Gardner is a highly regarded longstanding member of our Nine News team. 'We offer no further comment.' It is not suggested that Gardner engaged in any improper conduct, only that a complaint has been made and an investigation is taking place. The videos were viewed thousands of times A young woman who posted flirty videos of herself trawling the aisles of Bunnings warehouses looking for 'single tradies' has been banned from all of its stores in Western Australia. Cynthia Lin, 20, from Perth, has been barred from entering Bunnings stores in the state after filming dozens of clips where she approached men and asked them out. Ms Lin, who also makes content for Only Fans, posted several videos to TikTok of herself making sexual innuendos to male shoppers, many unaware they were being filmed. In one video of herself holding up a shovel at a Bunnings store, Ms Lin captioned the clip 'To all my single tradie daddies out there: I have a shovel'. 'I want a daddy in Perth who will fix my pipes,' she said in another clip. But in a recent video, Ms Lin revealed she'd been 'escorted' out of a Bunnings store and subsequently banned from entering any other branches. 'So I am actually banned from Bunnings now. I got escorted off the premises,' she said. The hardware company had received complaints about Ms Lin filming customers and staff without their permission. Cynthia Lin, 20, (pictured) who lives in Perth, has been barred from entering Bunnings stores in WA after she filmed dozens of clips where she approached men and asked them out 'Like many retailers, we generally ask people who wish to film content in our stores to seek permission before they visit,' a Bunnings spokesperson said. 'Our store leaders can choose to ban people from our stores if they harass team or customers.' Ms Lin has racked up thousands of views on social media in her pursuit to find an 'older' boyfriend. Some of the men in her videos appear to be taken aback by her requests to go out on a date, many politely rejecting her advances. Bunnings is understood to have taken the drastic step after customers made complaints about Ms Lin (pictured Ms Lin filming a video inside a Bunnings store) Fellow TikTok users were divided by Ms Lin's videos, some supporting her endeavour to find love, while others branded her behaviour 'weird'. 'It's so uncomfortable,' one wrote. 'Deserve it you weirdo,' said another. 'Was only a matter of time before this happened,' someone commented. 'Sorry to hear that. Was a good laugh while it lasted,' one wrote Others suggested she try out supermarkets next. Daily Mail has contacted Ms Lin for further comment. With 39 days to go until Election Day, a new Fox News poll revealed Kamala Harris is taking the lead in the state of Georgia, one of the key swing states. The vice president received 51 per cent of support from registered and likely voters in the southern state, while Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received 48 per cent. Harris was up 50 per cent to 48 percent among registered voters. The poll also revealed that more Georgians see Harris as the candidate who will help the middle class and protect democracy by a three point margin each at 52 percent to 45 per cent. In regards to the issue of abortion, Harris takes the lead with 18 points. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris received 51 per cent of support from registered and likely voters in the southern state of Georgia, while Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received 48 per cent Republican Donald Trump is ahead of the vice president when it comes to handling immigration, with 15 points Trump, however, is ahead of the vice president when it comes to handling immigration, with 15 points. As for party loyalty, by a four-percentage point margin, more Democrats support Harris than Republicans back Trump, with one in five non-MAGA Republicans rooting for Harris. Independents also favour Harris by 13 points. According to Fox News, Harris gets her support in Georgia from Black voters, urban voters, people under 30 and women. It comes as a poll by Harvard University on Tuesday showed a widening gap among young voters choosing between Harris and Trump. Numbers showed that Harris was beating Trump by 31 points among people aged 18-29 who are likely to vote in the upcoming November 5 election - a dramatic switch from Harvard's survey from this spring, which had President Biden leading Trump by just 13 points among likely youth voters. That was alarming news for Democrats at the time, who generally do better among young voters, and likely reflected the age of the then-Democratic candidate for president, Biden, 81. After Biden dropped out of the race in July to be replaced by the much younger Harris, 59, things changed dramatically for the race and that is reflected in the young voter results. 'This poll reveals a significant shift in the overall vibe and preferences of young Americans as the campaign heads into the final stretch,' longtime IOP polling director John Della Volpe told Fox News. 'Vice President Harris has strengthened the Democratic position among young voters, leading Trump on key issues and personal qualities.' Foreign secretary David Lammy met Donald Trump for the first time last night in an awkward two-hour dinner six years after he called the former president a 'woman-hating neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath' and a 'tyrant in a toupee'. The tense encounter took place at Trump Tower in New York on Thursday evening where the pair were joined by Sir Keir Starmer to discuss the longstanding friendship between the UK and the US. No photographs from the meeting have been published, but it is expected the air might have been awkward for Lammy who was one of Trump's most vocal critics during his term as president. Trump, who is known to respond angrily to criticism and hold personal grudges, has made no public comment yet on how the dinner went but praised Sir Keir as 'very nice' at a press conference before the meeting. Lammy has made dozens of critical comments about Trump, the bulk of which were made when he was in opposition during Trump's first term from 2016-2020, but has since changed his tone to a far more collaborative one. Foreign secretary David Lammy (pictured at Labour Party conference on September 22) met Donald Trump for the first time last night in an awkward two-hour dinner Trump, who is known to respond angrily to criticism and hold personal grudges, has made no public comment yet on how the dinner went yet The tense encounter took place at Trump Tower in New York on Thursday evening where the pair were joined by Sir Keir Starmer to discuss the longstanding friendship between the UK and the US In May he rejected calls from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan for Labour leaders to end a Republican charm offensive and call Mr Trump out as a 'sexist' and 'a homophobe.' He said at the time Labour would work with whoever occupies the White House. But in August former U.S. Ambassador Woody Johnson warned Trump would 'remember' the host of highly-charged statements made by Lammy. He told The Spectator: 'I think people will remember all those comments. Its a question of how do you recover from them.' Lammy's recent behaviour is a marked change from his previous attitude to Trump, who he campaigned loudly against then PM Theresa May inviting with his wife Melania to the UK for a state visit in 2017. Trump eventually declined the invitation in June of that year, because of the reaction among the British public against the proposed visit. And in the aftermath of the London Bridge terrorist attack, Lammy responded to Trump's tweet criticising London Mayor Sadiq Khan's response with 'You are truly beneath contempt. Sir Keir Starmer (pictured during his UN Assembly address) also met Trump for the first time in the two-hour meeting In May Lammy rejected calls from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan (pictured) for Labour leaders to end a Republican charm offensive and call Mr Trump out as a 'sexist' and 'a homophobe' Former U.S. Ambassador Woody Johnson (pictured) warned Trump would 'remember' the host of highly-charged statements made by Lammy Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs of the United Kingdom David Lammy speaks at the United Nations Security Council meeting in New York on September 25 'You are just a troll. Show some bottle please PM. Cancel the state visit and tell Trump where to get off.' Then the Tottenham MP said that he would protest against Trump coming to the UK, adding: 'If I have to chain myself to the door of No 10 this black man will do it.' Another instance of Lammy's abuse of Trump was when he slammed Trump for cancelling a visit to a US war cemetery in France to mark the centenary of Armistice Day in 2018 because of bad weather. He wrote on Twitter: 'A liar and a coward. A man who wants to see Europe divided once again. Trump is not fit to lick the boots of our fallen soldiers.' When he was a backbench MP in 2018, he wrote in Time magazine: 'Trump is not only a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath. 'He is also a profound threat to the international order that has been the foundation of Western progress for so long.' And in a 2018 Times article ahead of Trump's first visit to the UK, Lammy committed to be one of 'tens of thousands on the streets, protesting against our government's capitulation to this tyrant in a toupee.' Lammy campaigned loudly against then PM Theresa May inviting with his wife Melania to the UK for a state visit in 2017. Pictured: Trump on a state visit in June 2019 The Tottenham MP previously said that he would protest against Trump coming to the UK. Pictured: The Baby Trump balloon being inflated at Parliament Square David Lammy has made a slew of anti-Trump tweets over the years Lammy then waded into a Twitter row between Trump and Macron on Nato funding, commenting: 'We should remember that by alienating our neighbours in Europe, we fall into the tiny palm of America's wannabe despot. 'To continue on this path would be a tragic mistake.' And when Trump said four Democrat congresswomen of colour who had criticised his immigration policies should 'go back' to their countries, an enraged Lammy commented: 'A cult of white supremacists chanting 'send her back' in support of Donald Trump's racist attack on Ilhan Omar. 'Fascism spreads like wildfire. Especially when it comes from the President of the United States of America. Chilling to my core.' But since becoming shadow foreign secretary to Keir Starmer, Lammy has been far more careful with his language and changed his tone to a far more collaborative one. In May he said he would find 'common cause' with the de-facto Republican nominee for president. He highlighted past instances where Labour prime ministers had worked with Republican US presidents, such as Harold Wilson and Richard Nixon, Tony Blair and George Bush. Lammy has also expressed the hope that Trump would overlook his long list of critical comments, telling the BBC in July 'Donald Trump has the thickest of skins' His first meeting with a member of Trump's team was in May when he met Trump's campaign manager Chris LaCivita. He has also previously met with Mr Trump's vice presidential nominee, JD Vance, and said that they have been able to find 'common ground'. Lammy claimed: 'We're both from poor backgrounds, both suffered from addiction issues in our family which we've written about... both of us Christians. 'And now I've met him on a few occasions, and we have been able to find common ground and get on.' Although he said he did not recognise the comments Vance made that suggested that the UK could be the 'first Islamist nation with nuclear weapons' under Labour. Lammy has also expressed the hope that Trump would overlook his long list of critical comments, telling the BBC in July 'Donald Trump has the thickest of skins'. He said: 'You're going to struggle to find any politician who has not had things to say about Donald Trump in his first term.' Lammy has also previously met with Mr Trump's vice presidential nominee, JD Vance, and said that they have been able to find 'common ground' Lammy pointed out that almost every politician has had something to say about the former US president, including Foreign Secretary David Cameron who called him 'xenophobic and misogynistic' in his autobiography. His own running mate, JD Vance, a 39-year-old former venture capitalist and senator from Ohio, once compared Trump to Hitler. The meeting came after Trump praised the PM at a press conference before the meeting. Asked what he made of Sir Keir, he joked: 'Well I'm going to see him in about an hour so I have to be nice!' He went on: 'I actually think he's very nice. He ran a great race, he did very well, it's very early he's very popular.' Sir Keir visited Trump Tower after speaking at the United Nations General Assembly. However in a blow to Downing Street, he was unable to arrange an introduction to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, whom he has not met before, before his return to the UK. Lammy pointed out that almost every politician has had something to say about the former US president, including Foreign Secretary David Cameron who called him 'xenophobic and misogynistic' in his autobiography She was in Washington DC seeing Ukraine's leader as he presented his 'victory plan' to the White House and it is unclear if Sir Keir will now be able to meet her before the US election in just over a month. Speaking ahead of his first encounter with Mr Trump, Sir Keir told reporters: 'As you know, I've said a number of times, I want to meet both candidates. We've now got the opportunity to meet Trump, which is good. Obviously, I still want to speak to Harris as well. But you know, the usual diary challenges, but it's good that this one now has been fixed.' Asked what his message would be to Mr Trump, the PM replied: 'It'll be really to establish a relationship between the two of us. I'm a great believer in personal relations on the international stage. I think it really matters that you know who your counterpart is in any given country, and know them you know personally, get to know them face to face.' But he added: 'I should probably add that, I mean that our camp, our embassy, has got good relations with both camps and has had for a long time. So it's not the sort of start of something, it's the continuation of those good relations that have been there with both camps, and that's a really good thing that the embassy has been doing.' Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick has set out plans to slash foreign aid for countries that don't take back failed asylum seekers from Britain. The ex-immigration minister, one of four Conservative MPs vying to replace Rishi Sunak, demanded the Government go 'much further' in removing illegal migrants. Mr Jenrick called on Labour to end aid handouts and severely restrict visas to countries who refuse to cooperate with the UK on returns. He claimed his plans would see a fivefold increase in deportations of people living illegally in the UK to more than 100,000 removals a year. The former minister also said countries such as Vietnam, Turkey and Brazil, which have accounted for tens of thousands of asylum requests over the past few years, should be added to a list of 'safe' nations. This would allow Britain to strike new agreements with these countries, similar to Mr Sunak's deal with Albania, in order to speed up the return of illegal migrants and foreign criminals, Mr Jenrick added. Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick has set out plans to slash foreign aid for countries that don't take back failed asylum seekers from Britain Mr Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch (top right), James Cleverly (bottom left) and Tom Tugendhat (bottom right) will use the upcoming Conservative conference to woo party members Your browser does not support iframes. 'Illegal migration is placing intolerable pressure on our communities and the taxpayer,' he said. 'While the number of people here illegally has ballooned over the last 20 years, deportations have plummeted. 'As immigration minister I increased removals by over 50 per cent. But that system is broken - we need fundamental change. 'Anyone who arrives illegally from a safe country should be removed immediately. 'The Government must stop other countries exploiting our generosity by imposing severe visa restrictions and restricting foreign aid to countries that do not take back their nationals here illegally. 'We must leave the ECHR [European Convention on Human Rights] so we can deport dangerous foreign criminals. 'And we must declare countries like Turkey, Brazil and Vietnam safe in law - these are holiday destinations, not war-torn hell-holes. 'This would secure our borders, protect the public and save the taxpayer tens of billions of pounds in the years ahead.' Mr Jenrick cited research showing 14,884 migrants from Iraq arrived in Britain on small boats between 2018 and 2023. This compared to the UK returning 150 people to Iraq in 2023, while the Middle East nation has received more than 400million in foreign aid from the UK over the last decade. He also pointed to statistics revealing Vietnamese nationals were the third largest group crossing to Britain in small boats in the year to June 2024. Over the same period, 18,908 UK visitor visas to Vietnam were granted, while 153 Vietnamese nationals in Britain illegally were returned last year. Mr Jenrick and fellow leadership contenders Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat will use the upcoming Conservative conference in Birmingham to try and woo fellow MPs and party members. It's a case which has exposed in stark detail the disturbing underbelly of French society - but of all the evidence given at the so-called Monster of Avignon trial, few has been stranger than the defence of the oldest man accused of raping a drugged grandmother: that he is a deeply religious man who respects women. Jacques Cubeau - at 72 the only man of the dozens on trial for raping Gisele Pelicot who is older than the victim herself - told the court in Avignon that he had been drawn into the twisted world of sex with strangers because he had promised himself a 'good retirement'. Cubeau, a retired firefighter, recounted how he had come across Pelicot's twisted husband Dominique - who has admitted drugging his wife repeatedly over a decade and inviting strange men to rape her while he filmed them - after he broke up with his wife and became estranged from their adult children. This abrupt shift in Cubeau's previously apparently conventional lifestyle also saw him quit his job as a fire-fighter and became a lorry driver. Newly single and lonely, and routinely driving alone across great swathes of the continent for days at a time, Cubeau began trying to find hook-ups with strangers some 20 years ago. Pictured: Retired marine fire-fighter Jacques Cubeau, who is accused of raping Gisele Pelicot Gisele Pelicot, 71, was routinely sedated without her knowledge by her depraved husband Dominique at their retirement chalet in Mazan. She is pictured arriving at court yesterday Dominique Pelicot has admitted drugging his wife repeatedly over a decade and inviting strange men to rape her while he filmed them And as he was drawn into this seedy world, soon it wouldn't be just one person but threesomes with couples he was engaging in - and which was how he apparently found a shared interest with Dominique Pelicot. Cubeau met him after he moved to the same historic village in Provence to which the Pelicots too had retired. There by day he undertook voluntary work for a local charity, acting as a driver for disabled children - but by night he continued to trawl for sexual encounters with strangers. He told the court; 'I had a religious education in which you are taught to do good. I believed I should take care of myself in my retirement.' He added: 'I have always respected women and tried to give them pleasure.' Grey-haired and walking with a cane, the overweight Frenchman issued an apparently emotional apology to Gisele Pelicot when he gave evidence in court in the case that has horrified France. Turning to face her, he said: 'Madame, when I discovered what you had suffered, I was devastated. 'Having participated in all of this destroyed me. I hope that you, your family, will overcome all of this.' Ms Pelicot didn't appear to react or acknowledge this. Dominique Pelicot appears during his trial with 50 co-accused at the courthouse in Avignon, France, September 17, 2024 Perhaps this was because the apology didn't extend to being an admission fo guilt: like the great majority of his 50 co-accused, Cubeau denies rape, maintaining that he believed he had been taking part in a consensual sex game when he walked naked into Madame Pelicot's bedroom in February 2020. However this defence of consent came with a peculiar footnote: he did admit that Pelicot had told him from the outset that his wife Gisele would be drugged up when he came for sex: 'Pelicot told me early on in our conversation, 'my wife takes sleeping tablets. And when she is asleep, I bring in men,' he claimed. Cubeau is one of seven men accused of raping Gisele Pelicot at her husband's command who have been unmasked for the first time. Abuse took place in the town of Mazan, south of France, and was only uncovered after the man was caught up-skirting women in a local supermarket, prompting officers to search his home Coming from all ages, lifestyles and social classes, these men revealed appear to have little in common but will be forever linked by their shared desire for sex with a stranger in the most disturbing circumstances. These men are motorcycle mechanic and amateur racer Huge Malago, 39, alcoholic farm-worker Andy Rodriguez, 37, odd-job worker Mathieu Dartus, 53, supermarket worker turned IT consultant Lionel Rodriguez, 44, painter and decorator Husamettin Dogan, 43, and Thierry Parisis, 54, a local businessman. They have been at great pains to conceal their identities during the high-profile trial, wearing masks and hoods and using back entrances to court to avoid scrutiny - but MailOnline has now unmasked them. The seven men are part of the group of 50 who were recruited online by retired electrician Dominique Pelicot now known as the Monster of Avignon to rape his wife after he had rendered her unconscious with powerful sedatives. Gisele Pelicot, now 71, was routinely drugged by her husband of 50-years at their retirement home in Mazan, a quiet village in the shadow of Mont Ventoux, in Provence in the south of France. On the very day in December 2021 that I was first learning about a new and worrying variant of Covid Omicron Jack Doyle, my comms supremo, came to see me. I was in the middle of scribbling a speech I had to make about an exhibition of British food then taking place in Downing Street. Have you got a tick, PM? Of course, I said, still scribbling away since I was expected to give the speech in the next few minutes. Jack explained that the Daily Mirror had a story about a breach of lockdown rules in No 10 during the pandemic. They were accusing the press department of having a party on December 18, 2020 almost exactly a year previously. Boris giving evidence at the Partygate privileges committee inquiry last year Jack said the story was nonsense, because it was traditional for the press department to have a glass of wine at their desks on a Friday evening. I looked at him blankly. So no rules were broken? No, PM, he said firmly, no rules were broken. Fine, I said, and carried on. It sounded like a load of old cobblers probably some desperate nonsense being peddled by embittered former advisers and I forgot about it. I was most surprised when it was raised at PMQs the next day as Labours main line of attack. The other day I saw Ian Hislop my old sparring partner from Have I Got News for You being interviewed on TV and talking about the so-called Partygate scandal, or rather a dramatised reconstruction produced by Channel 4. He was red-faced with fury. His jowls quivered. It was the first time, he said, that he had actually seen what went on Boris Johnson, dancing drunkenly with his advisers. I was amazed. Nothing of the kind actually happened. Drunkenness, dancing all completely untrue; but you know what they say a lie goes halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on. Here is what actually happened. All you really need to know about this miserable and wildly inflated affair. Over the course of about two years of fighting Covid, there were about 15 occasions when officials in Downing Street briefly slackened the tempo of their work and raised a glass to a departing colleague, or held a quiz, or marked a birthday in the way that all offices do. Most of them then got on with trying to get the country through Covid. At the time we believed that these events were in accordance with the rules and I still think they were. I only went to a handful almost always to make a quick speech of thanks. Even in the brief time I was there I saw enough to say parties is simply too festive a word for what went on. These events were not common, but then again they were not thought to be odd, or unusual, let alone reprehensible. Remember, we are talking about thousands of Whitehall officials meeting in hundreds of rooms over a period of about 600 days, in a country where it is still acceptable in the workplace to break off, very occasionally, for a glass of alcoholic drink of some kind. I was so confident of our fundamental innocence that never once did I think that the story would really endanger the Government. And actually, I think we could and should have got through it far better if I had been less naive and less trusting. Without belabouring this weary business, I think I made several catastrophic mistakes in the handling of the story. l I should have been far more robust at the outset. I tried to defuse public anger by a series of rather pathetic apologies, even when I knew zero about the events for which I was apologising. My grovelling just made people even angrier and made it look as though we were far more culpable than we were. l I should not have sanctioned a ridiculous and unfair witch-hunt led by a senior civil servant, Sue Gray, who was to become unbelievably chief of staff to Keir Starmer, and whose evidence collation was overseen by a Labour-supporting QC who had publicly called on Twitter for me to be removed from office. I should simply have asked anyone with evidence of wrongdoing to go to the police. l I should have realised that my old amigo Dom Cummings still scorched by Barnard Castle was behind it all, and that he had a grid of grossly exaggerated stories that he and his sidekick Lee Cain were feeding to the media. Boris and Rishi Sunak during a cabinet meeting in 2022 I was sitting at my desk in Chequers one Sunday in 2022, working on plans for Britains energy security, when I heard a really mind-boggling piece of news. The Metropolitan Police had decided to fine me for a breach of lockdown rules. My first reaction was that this must be some form of practical joke. Then I heard they had fined Rishi too. It really must be a joke, I thought. Some readers, influenced by the media coverage, may believe that I was indeed partying during lockdown: spending my evenings in wassail with my cronies from the Covid Taskforce and the Cabinet Office. It simply wasnt true. I didnt party with anyone. In fact, given how hard we were all working to stop a pandemic, I find the whole suggestion nauseating. Nor was I aware of any illicit socialising by anybody else. As for this event on June 19, 2020 for which I was now, almost two years later, being fined it had never occurred to me or Rishi, either then or since, that it was in some way against the rules. Here is what actually happened that day. I stood briefly at my place in the Cabinet Room, where I have meetings throughout the day, while the Chancellor and assorted members of staff said happy birthday. I saw no cake. I ate no blooming cake. If this was a party, it was the feeblest event in the history of human festivity. I had only just got over Covid. I did not sing. I did not dance. I ate a salad but then it was lunchtime, and I do normally eat at my desk. I did not meet anyone that I dont meet in the course of the working day. We then got on with another meeting. I do not for one moment believe that this so-called birthday gathering in any way constituted a breach of the rules. The event was thought to be so innocent that it was actually briefed out to the media at the time. People read about it in the Times (actually a slightly exaggerated version) without batting an eyelid. It says a lot about the change in mood in the country and the desire some people had for revenge that this was now turned against me. I have no idea what version of events people gave the police. But I very much doubt that it was fair. I was obviously vulnerable to the testimony of some who were determined to bring me down. And I relied upon Sue Gray, who (though I did not know this) had already been approached to be the chief of staff to Ed Miliband, former Labour leader, and who was to go on to be the chief of staff to Keir Starmer, my number one political foe. Some of the allegations in her report vomiting, fights and so on turned out to be untrue, and had to be withdrawn. As for all the other fines that were issued more than 120 fixed penalty notices the answer is of course that I dont know. I wasnt there, or didnt see anything that looked illegal. If the fines were like mine, they must have been a bit puzzling. But what could I do? I paid the fine and got on with the job. I had a lot on. Adapted from Unleashed by Boris Johnson (William Collins, 30), to be published on October 10. Boris Johnson 2024. To order a copy for 25.50 (offer valid until October 12, 2024; UK P&P free on orders over 25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937. Boris Johnson will be in conversation with Beth Rigby at Cheltenham Literature Festival on October 10. Starmer, the surprised bullock The new Labour leader, Keir Starmer incautiously took up the complaint from teachers that it was not safe to re-open schools closed by Covid. I hammered him in the Commons. He would stand up and point out that lockdown had been hardest for the poorest and greatly damaged their academic chances. He is right, I would tell him. We both agree that the best place for kids is in school. So why wont he go against his masters in the teaching unions and say what the country needs to hear from him that schools are safe? At this point Starmer would do his puzzled/irritable face, like a bullock having a thermometer unexpectedly shoved in its rectum, and I would bash him again and again. He wont say it, Mr Speaker, he cant say it. A great ox has stood on his tongue etc etc. Starmer failed to stick up for parents, kids and common sense (never mind the scientific evidence, which also said schools were safe), and his mistake blunted his attack on the Government in what might otherwise have been a thoroughly wobbly period for us. The Metropolitan Police took no action against Mohamed al-Fayed despite 19 sex assault and rape reports, the force has admitted. There were allegations from 19 different women, with three allegations of rape, 15 of sexual assault and one related to trafficking. Yet despite this, the force admitted that for every allegation, no further action was taken against the then-Harrods owner. It came as a former Scotland Yard chief superintendent claimed Harrods's close relationship with the Met Police 'felt corrupt'. Stephen Otter alleged he was told by another officer in 1999 that the 'special relationship' with the department store 'benefits both us and them'. Disgraced businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed can be seen grinning from behind the wheel of a blue and white police marked car that Harrods sponsored Mohamed Al Fayed is accused of raping multiple women during his time as Harrods owner from 1984 to 2010 The Metropolitan Police took no action against Mohamed al-Fayed despite 19 sex assault and rape reports, the force has admitted Former Scotland Yard chief superintendent Stephen Otter said he tried to return the car but was told by a security boss this 'arrangement' had 'been going on for a long time' The Met said: 'Between 2005 and 2023 we approached the Crown Prosecution Service on five occasions two of these, in 2009 and 2015, were to pass full files of evidence. The remaining three approaches were for early investigative advice. Commander Stephen Clayman said: 'We recognise the significance of the allegations made against Mohamed Al Fayed and the impact this has had on those affected. 'It is vital that any victims have a voice and are able to report any allegations if they have not done so before, and know that they will be taken seriously. 'We have specialist teams to ensure all those victims who make contact with us are supported in the best way possible. 'I understand that for many years many people have sought answers in relation to this case. 'We will do everything possible to update on our progress when we can, but it is crucial we do this thoroughly and we do it right.' Mr Otter told Sky News of a culture where officers were given hampers and had 'lots of drinks paid for' them after providing 'additional resources' at Christmas. But the security boss at Harrods started making 'quite a lot of complaints' about cops coming 'in here again, asking for freebies'. Asked if he felt the Met Police officers were corrupt, Mr Otter said: 'I think they probably were.' Mr Otter tried to return the police car that had been sponsored by Harrods but was told by the security boss this 'arrangement' had 'been going on for a long time' and: 'When you've been here a bit longer, you will have a better understanding of this relationship.' He later conducted a review when he became borough commander for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and found policing at the luxury store was like a Premier League game. 'The risk just literally didn't support the resources and the attention they got,' he said. Mr Otter also raised fears that the relationship with Harrods would have played a 'very negative part' in police investigations into allegations about Al Fayed. Asked if he felt the Met Police officers were corrupt, Mr Otter (pictured) said: 'I think they probably were' Mohamed Al Fayed dons a Victoria emerald and diamond tiara as he launches Harrods' New Year sale in 2001 He added: 'I just felt deeply uncomfortable with the relationship. It was a relationship in which this department store had huge amounts of power over the leaders of the areas of policing around them. 'It felt like a corrupt relationship on both sides.' The Metropolitan Police declined to comment when approached by Sky News. A spokesperson said: 'Given the length of time since the events... we aren't able to provide a response.' MailOnline revealed last week that Al Fayed sponsored a Metropolitan Police car a year after he was publicly accused of raping and sexually assaulting dozens of women. In pictures likely to cause major embarrassment to Scotland Yard, the depraved billionaire grins from behind the wheel of the blue and white marked Rover wearing a police-issue peaked cap. The driver's door bears the inscription, 'This car is sponsored by Harrods', in the store's distinctive script. MailOnline discovered the long-forgotten photos days after a BBC documentary showed the Egyptian-born businessman and TV star to be a prolific sexual predator who for more than three decades used wealth and status to abuse girls and women on his payroll. More than 20 told the Corporation how he'd assaulted them, with four saying they'd been raped. The black magic ritual sacrifice of a seven-year-old boy has sparked fury in India after it was revealed the child was killed to bring good fortune to a school. The victim was found dead in his bed on Sunday night at the hostel where he lived in the city of Hathras, not far from the country's famed Taj Mahal. Police said Friday the owner of the school, Jasodhan Singh, his son, Dinesh Baghel, who was the director of the school, and three teachers, have been arrested in the case. Instead of alerting authorities, cops said that Baghel hid the body in the trunk of his car. Police officer Himanshu Mathur revealed that the boy was killed before a black magic ceremony conducted by Baghel's father. A seven-year-old boy from India was killed in a ritual sacrifice to bring good fortune to a school Police said five people, including a teacher and his father, have been arrested in northern India over the killing 'The boy was meant to be taken to an altar as part of a ritual, but got killed before the ceremony could be completed,' he said. Baghel and his father were arrested along with three other teachers at the school, Mathur added. Mathur did not give further details on how the child had died and local media reports said the body was undergoing a post-mortem examination. India's National Crime Records Bureau lodged 103 cases of human sacrifice in the country between 2014 and 2021. Ritual killings are usually conducted to appease deities and are more common in tribal and remote areas, where belief in witchcraft and the occult is widespread. Last year police arrested five men for the 2019 murder of a 64-year-old woman who was killed and decapitated with a machete after visiting a temple in India's remote northeast. Police said the alleged ringleader had been conducting a religious rite to mark the anniversary of his brother's death. A wife tried to fight off her tree surgeon husband as he strangled her and stabbed her to death with a hammer before taking his own life, an inquest into her death heard. 'Ray of sunshine' Suratchanee 'Lat' Parks, 53, was found dead beside Richard Parks, 63, in the first-floor bathroom of their Tunbridge Wells home in Kent, a year before they planned to retire and move to Thailand. When police arrived at the house on February 23 this year, they discovered a large pool of blood in the kitchen, bloodstains on the stairs and in every room of the house. The couple's neighbours said they were quiet and 'kept themselves to themselves,' Kent Online reported. Mrs Parks, who worked at a nail bar and Thai massage parlour, was found in the bath with her legs up in a pool of blood. 'Ray of sunshine' Suratchanee 'Lat' Parks, 53, (pictured) was found dead beside Richard Parks, 63, in the first-floor bathroom of their Tunbridge Wells home in Kent, a year before they planned to retire and move to Thailand Mrs Parks, who worked at a nail bar and Thai massage parlour, was found in the bath with her legs up in a pool of blood Her husband, who was a decade older than her, was found on the floor with his legs sticking into the hallway and covered in blood from a stab wound to his neck. Pathologist Dr Virginia Fitzpatrick-Swallow said Mrs Parks had minor injuries that suggested she fought back. However, she had neck wounds consistent with strangling and her skull had been fractured. She had deep cuts on her wrists, had been stabbed in the neck and had been hit a number of times on her head, most probably with a claw hammer found near her body. Pathologist Dr Virginia Fitzpatrick-Swallow said Mrs Parks had minor injuries that suggested she fought back Coroner Roger Hatch ruled that Mrs Parks was killed unlawfully and her husband Richard Parks had taken his own life Detective Constable Jessica Summers, who investigated the case, said their marriage had been called 'happy and without problems'. Yet a large HMRC tax bill seemed to have affected the couple's financial stability and it meant they may have had to push back their retirement. Mrs Parks' employer the London Nail Company said: 'It is with an extremely heavy heart that we have to announce the passing of our lovely Lat. 'We are all deeply saddened by this loss. Lat was the most gentle, kindest soul, and she will be sorely missed. 'We are beyond saddened at this news and our hearts are truly broken. Lat was a little ray of sunshine and she put a smile on many people's faces. 'She will be missed beyond words.' Coroner Roger Hatch ruled that Mrs Parks was killed unlawfully and her husband Richard Parks had taken his own life. A British Airways flight has made an emergency landing after the cockpit reportedly 'filled with smoke and fumes'. The flight took off from Heathrow at 8.45am and was due to land in Aberdeen at 10.15am, but it was forced to make an unscheduled landing in Manchester. A Flight Emergency social media account wrote: 'British Airways flight BA1306 diverted to Manchester a short time ago under emergency conditions due to smoke and fumes in the cockpit.' FlightRadar tracking appears to show that the plan changed direction while over Northamptonshire before heading north west, the Mirror report. A Manchester Airport spokesman told the publication the issue was 'not serious' after the crew experienced 'a technical issue on board' and diverted. A British Airways flight was forced to land in Manchester this morning after the cockpit reportedly 'filled with smoke' he flight path of the BA1306 that was forced to make an emergency landing This comes after a passenger died after falling ill on his way back to Liverpool from Bulgaria. Father-of-two Chris Neill was travelling back from Bourgas with sons Reece, 19, and eight-year-old Archie when he felt unwell on the Jet2 flight. The plane made an emergency landing in Cologne, Germany, where he was led off the plane to the awaiting emergency service. But as the 40-year-old walked down the steps from the plane to the runway, he collapsed and later died from a suspected heart attack. A GoFundMe has since been set up by Chris's parents, Malcom and Lesley, who are raising funds to bring their son's body back to the UK and organise a funeral for him. The flight took off from Heathrow at 8.45am and was due to land in Aberdeen at 10.15am. Pictured: stock image of a British Airways airbus on Manchester Airport tarmac Last week, another emergency landing was made by a plane on a flight from Oslo to Malaga in Spain after a rodent was found in the passenger's meal. Rodents on board aircraft can pose a safety risk as they are able to chew through critical wiring. Airlines usually have procedures to prevent such an incident occurring. Passengers on the disrupted Scandinavian Airlines flight were then flown on to Malaga on a different plane. One passenger on the plane, Jarle Borrestad, told BBC News that people remained calm and 'were not stressed at all' by the unusual discovery. A BA spokesperson said: 'Our aircraft was diverted as a precaution because of a suspected technical issue. Were sorry to our customers for the disruption to their journeys and our teams are working to get them on their way again as quickly as possible.' MANANGA Yet another man has died following the dangerous high-speed pursuit of dagga robbers initiated by enraged farmers, which was later picked by the police. Following Tuesdays violent incident, another man was found dead in a sugar cane field yesterday. Preliminary investigations suggested that his death mirror the circumstances of the initial reported death on Tuesday, where a 34-year-old man of Kudzeni died in the aftermath of the dramatic occurrence, which played out at Nhlanguyavuka, around Mananga. The suspected dagga robber reportedly died when the police, who were called by the angry dagga farmers to assist, fired shots during the pursuit, which ended near Mananga Border Gate on Tuesday. The victim was later identified as a 34-year-old man of Kudzeni, outside Manzini. The latest victim was identified as a 45-year-old man of Bhunya. Little is known about his final moments, except the dramatic encounter, where eight dagga thieves were pursued by enraged farmers, after they had ambushed peddlers and robbed them of a van loaded with a dagga consignment, valued at close to E1 million. Four of his accomplices had to be admitted to a nearby health facility, with serious injuries after they were heavily assaulted by an angry mob. This, after they were found hiding in the sugar cane fieldsm where they had sought refuge after abandoning their getaway cars. The suspected dagga robbers led farmers on a chase, stretching over 45 km on Tuesday, before coming to a stop after evading two attempted blockades by the enraged farmers, ending in the eventual death after police fired shots. Capture Initially, there were eight suspected thieves, but the farmers were later able to capture only four, who were subjected to a heavy beating by the angry mob, numbering close to 100 farmers. The victims were brutally assaulted, paraded naked and humiliated in front of over 100 people. This was disclosed by an interviewed resident of Nhlanguyavuka, who witnessed the spectacle. The pursuit attracted quite a number of motor vehicles (over 20, according to witnesses), which were driven by angry dagga farmers and peddlers, who all wanted to deal decisively with the robbers, who were described as habitual criminals, who had robbed different community members on several occasions. An eyewitness informed the Times of Eswatini that the robbery was initially reported at a place around Mhlangatane at around 2pm, when the suspected rogues allegedly hijacked a van, loaded with multiple bags of dagga, at gunpoint. It all started when farmers who were conveying several bags of dagga in a van were allegedly intercepted by robbers, who fired shots in the air. Getaway The occupants of the van were able to escape unhurt, while the robbers, who were using three motor vehicles, as their getaway cars, drove off with the loaded van. But the victims were able to raise the alarm with local growers and community members, who ganged-up in an attempt to recover the stolen dagga consignment and the motor vehicle. According to the witness the dagga peddlers were ambushed by the suspected robbers around Mawombe, in the Mhlangatane precinct of northern Hhohho. Farmers who responded to the call for help were initially involved in the pursuit of the suspected robbers. The farmers were coming from around Mhlangatane and neighbouring areas. Witnesses said the robbers were eight in total and were driving in different getaway cars; a Toyota VVTI, a VW Amarok and a VW Golf GTI, which were all foreign registered. The robbers reportedly took the direction towards Mananga Border Gate, in an attempt to flee with the loot, possibly to neighbouring South Africa, where they may have had a readily available market. Britain's top brass filed into my office in No 10, bearing with them hundreds of years of collective operational experience, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. It was about 6pm, at the very end of March 2021, and after several days of deliberation they had reached a verdict. They had seen sieges, firefights, hostage rescues and hairbreadth 'scapes in the imminent deadly breach. It was clear from their manner, however, that they did not like the look of this one, Sarge. It fell to the deputy chief of the defence staff (military strategy and operational), Lieutenant General Doug Chalmers, to act as their spokesman. 'Well, PM,' he coughed, 'it's certainly feasible.' He explained how we could do it. We would send one team on a commercial flight to Amsterdam, while another team would use the cover of darkness to cross the Channel in ribs (rigid inflatable boats) and navigate up the canals. Lieutenant General Doug Chalmers and then Defence Secretary Philip Hammond in 2012 The Halix plant in the Netherlands was a long-standing part of AstraZeneca's supply chain They would then rendezvous at the target; enter; secure the hostage goods, exfiltrate using an articulated lorry, and make their way to the Channel ports. 'But I have to warn you, PM' and they all looked at me meaningfully 'that it will not be possible to do this undetected.' He pointed out that there were lockdowns in place in Belgium and the Netherlands, and the local authorities might observe our movements. I considered this. It did not seem an insuperable objection. OK, I said: so what if our movements are detected? 'Well, PM,' he said, 'if we are detected we will have to explain why we are effectively invading a long-standing Nato ally.' Of course, I knew he was right, and I secretly agreed with what they all thought but did not want to say aloud: that the whole thing was nuts. I beg you to forgive my desperation. It was in the best possible cause. I had commissioned some work on whether it might be technically feasible to launch an aquatic raid on a warehouse in Leiden, in the Netherlands, and to take that which was legally ours and which the UK desperately needed. Boris receives his Covid booster Jab at London's St Thomas' Hospital in December 2021 A nurse holds a phial of the Pfizer BioNTech Covid vaccine at Guy's Hospital in London as the immunisation programme begins in December 2020 We had the people who could do the job special units that we had stood up in early 2020, as soon as it became clear that there was going to be a global contest for life-saving kit such as PPE and ventilators. We knew exactly where the target was: I could see it on Google Earth. It looked pretty easy to burgle, if you know what to do. It was the plant where the EU had stowed five million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine doses that the company was trying, in vain, to export to the UK. As long as people in my country were dying of Covid, which I am afraid they still were in substantial numbers, I believed it was my paramount duty to secure those doses, which belonged to the UK, and use them to save UK lives. I was angry enough to contemplate this clandestine operation, because after two months of futile negotiation I had come to the conclusion that the EU was treating us with malice and with spite; not because we had done anything wrong we had not, far from it; but because we were vaccinating our population much faster than they were, and the European electorate had long since noticed. Let me remind you that Oxford AstraZeneca was a vaccine that was pioneered in the UK, with UK government support. The only reason that five million doses had been waylaid at the Halix plant in the Netherlands was that Halix was a long-standing part of AstraZeneca's supply chain, and indeed the Dutch plant had been part-financed to the tune of 21 million by the UK government. They had kidnapped our vaccines but that wasn't the real outrage. The real cause of my pencil-snapping, bin-kicking rage was that the EU was playing dog in the manger. They wanted to stop us getting the five million doses, and yet they showed no real sign of wanting to use the AstraZeneca doses themselves. We worked our way through the UK population with a tightly organised plan by immediately protecting those most likely to die those over 90, then those over 80, and so on; so that bit by bit, day by day, we were shrinking the numbers at risk. People came forward in droves, rolling up their sleeves, taking off their shirts, fearlessly and proudly determined to protect themselves and everyone else. The British don't seem to have much fear of needles it was Julius Caesar who noticed our love of tattoos and soon the hypodermics were jabbing up and down across the country with the rapidity of a gigantic sewing machine. By the end of January 2021 we had vaccinated about 10 per cent of the entire UK population, and a noticeable gap had opened up between the UK and the rest of Europe, who at this stage had done about 2 per cent. The pace of the continental roll-out was not exactly helped, on January 29, when French president Emmanuel Macron announced that in his view the British AstraZeneca vaccine was 'quasi-ineffective' for anyone over 65. I don't know where he got this idea, but it simply wasn't true as the European Medicines Agency confirmed. Like Pfizer, Astra was about 80 per cent effective on dose one, and two doses gave you a very high degree of protection. I was flabbergasted by Macron's outburst. Why was he knocking confidence in our vaccine, when vaccine confidence was so precious and so vital across all our countries? At the same time, out of the blue, the European Commission launched a kind of legal war against AstraZeneca, claiming that the company was failing to honour its contract with the EU. Why, asked Brussels, are you giving priority to the Brits? Why are you giving them so many vaccines? Well, said Pascal Soriot, the chief executive of AstraZeneca, it's very simple. It's because Kate Bingham (chair of the UK Government's Vaccine Taskforce) signed a bomb-proof contract with us, and that contract makes it very clear that we have to supply the UK with the first 100 million doses. I knew that the EU's complaints were nonsense, and that their real anxiety was political. The problem was that after their initial slowness in approving both vaccines they were about a month behind us on both their roll-out was further hampered by the hesitancy of their public. I don't know why this was (I think I heard someone say that in general the French prefer suppositories, hence Macron's attitude), but whatever the cause of the delay, the frustration of EU governments was, of course, being aggravated by the success of Brexit Britain. So they announced that until AstraZeneca gave them more doses of a vaccine they themselves disparaged as 'quasi-ineffective' for the people who needed it they were going to stop the company from shipping its supplies to Britain. Their purpose was not to use the vaccine themselves; clearly not, since they continually disparaged it. Their purpose was to stop us from using it and driving forward our roll-out. On January 30, having already announced their blockade on the export of AstraZeneca vaccines to the UK, they went further. The Commission had noticed a chink in their perimeter fence. Under the terms of the Northern Ireland protocol there was, of course, no barrier to trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic. This was essential, as we all agreed, so that communities on both sides could continue to move and trade freely, with no new impediment as a result of Brexit. Mindful of sensitivities in Northern Ireland, we in the UK Government had made it clear that we would never impose checks in Northern Ireland. So on the evening of January 30, there was complete astonishment when the Commission invoked Article 16 of the protocol an emergency clause designed for use in case of disaster or civil unrest to impose a border in Northern Ireland. They were going to impose checks at the border, to stop AstraZeneca from using the Northern Irish loophole to send us our drugs. In other words, they were making a mockery of the Anglo-Irish peace process and violating the sanctity of a border-free island of Ireland in order to try to stop elderly and vulnerable people in Britain from getting hold of life-saving medicines. Not because they really wanted those Halix doses themselves (I am not sure they ever got round to using them, not when they were in real demand), but because they wanted to do something, no matter how egregious, to put a spanner in the works of the British vaccine roll-out. Why did they do it? They did it because they (and above all, I suspect, Macron) could not abide the impression in the continental media that the UK was doing better than them, not in spite of Brexit but because of Brexit. When I rang Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, to remonstrate, she was deeply embarrassed, and it was clear that she was acting under orders from the major member states. 'Why are you stopping us from using our own vaccines?' I asked. 'It's not our fault that the UK public is very keen to get vaccinated, and that our roll-out is going so fast.' 'Yes,' she said, 'but you must not say that this is because of Brexit.' 'Why not?' I replied. 'Everyone can see that Brexit has at least been helpful. Why can't I say it?' We both knew the answer to that. It was because for the past five years continental leaders, mainly Macron, had said that Brexit was a disaster, that it was based on lies, that I was a liar, that the British should be punished for Brexit, and that it should be made clear to the insolent Brits, over and over again, that they were worse off outside the EU than within and then what happened? Almost as soon as we were outside the EU, we were able to do something a little bit different in the regulation of medicines a variation which, in that particular context, was able to make a huge difference to the survival prospects of a significant number of people in Britain. The German population was so fed up with their glacial vaccine roll-out that Bild-Zeitung had run a front-page splash saying 'Dear British, we envy you'. That was why Macron, Merkel and co were freaking out; that was the politics of the row. It wasn't about the Halix doses. It was about the prospect so noisome to the EU that we might actually be able to make a go of Brexit. By the end of February, we had vaccinated 30 per cent of the UK population as against 8 per cent in the EU. By the end of March, we had done 45 per cent, as against 10 per cent in the EU. I am, of course, glad that we did not violently seize the Halix supplies, even though they were ours. The EU are our friends, and it would hardly have improved relations. But it still enraged me in fact, it still does that they were actually willing to let British people die rather than acknowledge the possibility that there might be an upside to Brexit. Their conduct was cynical, shameful and dangerous to human health. I said as much to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who seemed to take the point. She then had the decency to get an AstraZeneca jab herself. But they never did give us those Halix doses, and in the end we had to make do without. Why I was fixated with Theresa May's nostrils I didn't dislike Theresa May, not remotely. I enjoyed her schoolmarmy self-righteousness and watching her roll her eyes when I said something outrageous. It seems weird, but I was particularly fixated upon her nostrils immensely long and pointy black tadpole shapes, like a Gerald Scarfe cartoon, and the way she would twist her nose, as if to show them off. What did it mean, this nose-twisting? Was it disgust? Or just reflection? What was she thinking? One day she announced, in breathy vicars-daughter tones, that Penny Mordaunt had something very important to talk about. At which point Penny began a long disquisition about gender recognition, and the problems of British transsexuals in changing sex. I didnt catch all the details, but it seemed fairly harrowing stuff, and at one point I heard Penny claim: This is the most important issue of our times. I didnt always agree with Phil Hammond, but I happened at that moment to catch his eye and to see that he like me was struggling to contain his amusement. I mean: I could see that this was an issue of huge importance to some people (though surely not that many?) and I could see that it needed to be handled with tact and sensitivity. But the most important issue of our times? Really? There was Theresa, nodding away enthusiastically at what was clearly a presentation organised and approved by No 10. So was she a Right-winger, or was she woke? And as for Europe, to what extent to borrow the language of Pennys presentation had she transitioned? Was she still a Remainer, wrapped in Brexiteer clothes, or had she surgically altered her beliefs? Was she some kind of cross-dresser and could she switch back? I started to worry. In the days and weeks that followed my bout of Covid there was quite a lot of indignant internet chatter about the exact severity of my illness. Some said that I was shamming; others that I was indeed ill but that I never needed to go into hospital, let alone occupy an intensive care bed. All I can say is that I felt truly lousy: the scratchy, breathless exhaustion that is familiar to Covid sufferers. I also know that at one stage my oxygen levels dropped to 72 per cent, and that below 70 per cent some nasty things start happening to your body. That night in April 2020, the doctors and nurses of St Thomas' Hospital were preparing, if necessary, to intubate me spike a hole in my trachea and stuff a tube down my windpipe to force-feed oxygen into my lungs. They mentioned the possibility, as they prepared to wheel me downstairs. Is that necessary? I said. March 27, 2020: Boris announcing he has tested positive for Covid April 2: He claps for carers after refusing to go to hospital April 3: 'Slight hitch, folks. I'm not recovering' Oh yes, they said, and made it sound like a routine procedure. What they didn't explain is that, at that stage in the pandemic, patients who were intubated had about a 50 per cent chance of survival. Then I was being wheeled on a gurney into ICU the intensive care unit. Just ten days earlier I had been in Downing Street with colleagues, watching apprehensively as the daily death toll from Covid went on up. At the beginning of March it had been in single figures; now it was well over 200. After one meeting, Chris Whitty, the Government's chief medical officer, took me aside. He had noticed I was coughing and spluttering and red in the face. He suggested I test for the virus. 'Are you sure?' I said, knowing that tests were hard to come by. I didn't want one wasted on me when it could be used for an elderly or vulnerable person. 'Completely,' he said. Later that afternoon I went into the Cabinet Room where a doctor in a kind of nuclear waste hazmat suit stuck a probe down my throat. I tested positive. Oh well, I thought. It was a nuisance. It might slow me up. But, as I kept telling everyone in those early days of the pandemic, it was generally a mild disease. On the other hand, I also remembered my Athenian history. 'Pericles died of the plague,' I had earlier reminded my old friend Michael Gove, and his spectacles seemed to glitter at the thought, like the penguin in Wallace & Gromit. As soon as I was diagnosed on March 27, I had gone into self-isolation in the No 11 flat. Carrie had sequestered herself away from me since she had not yet tested positive in the No 10 flat, which still awaited the new Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and his family, and where camp beds had been laid out in rows in the expectation (correct) that people in the building would soon be working round the clock. I had carried on doing my job as best as I could. I had no choice. The country was facing the worst pandemic for 100 years. There was no way I could stop. I began by issuing what I hoped was a fairly jaunty video bulletin. Since no one could stand near me, I made it myself, talking into my phone. Hi folks, I said, I just wanted to let everyone know that like so many others I had tested positive for Covid and, like so many others, I was now working from home; but be in no doubt, I said, that I was continuing to lead the national effort against the disease and that I was deeply grateful to everyone for what they were doing. Together, I said, in the resolute tones of my recent press conferences, we would beat it. I looked bullish, rubicund, as though flushed from a good lunch. Perhaps I sounded a little short of breath, but only if you were listening for it. Over the days that followed, as I waited for the disease to go away, I sat hunched over my laptop in my office obsessively watching the data and trying to direct the UK response. The next day the number of deaths was up again to a horrifying 463. It was still doubling. When would our measures start to make a difference? When would the curve turn? Deep in my lungs, an allegorical struggle was taking place. Malign little creatures were wreaking havoc in the lining of my airways. Horrible purple or green spheres... they were burying themselves in the soft tissue The news was getting to me lowering my spirits, and perhaps lowering my resistance. Perhaps, I wondered blackly, it was some kind of cosmic judgment on me, on my whole worldview founded as it was on a boosterish faith that our country could get through anything. By Wednesday, April 1, the daily death toll had soared again, to 826, and when I went outside to clap for the NHS and social care workers, everyone looking after the sick, it was noted that I looked pretty groggy. Next day Nick Price the doctor came round to see us both me because I felt so grim, and Carrie because she was pregnant. He took one look at me and said that I should really get into hospital,as a precaution. No, no, I said. I knew exactly what pressure the hospitals were under. It was ridiculous. I was sure I was on the mend. Boris, with terrier Dilyn, recuperating at Chequers in 2020 after being discharged from hospital He shares a joke with nurses Luis and Jenny, who cared for him in hospital, in July 2020 A cyclist with a poignant message as she makes her way through Westminster in April 2020 By the following day Friday the 3rd I should have been recovering, according to the usual pattern of the disease. I still had a temperature. So I composed another breezy video message. Slight hitch, folks, I said: I have still got Covid but rest assured that the fight goes on. This time I was tie-less, had a face the colour of mayonnaise and was slouching in an armchair. The overall effect was a bit like that character by Paul Whitehouse Rowley Birkin QC who always concludes his incomprehensible clubland monologues with the payoff line, 'I was vey, vey drunk'; except in this case I wasn't drunk. I remembered my Athenian history. 'Pericles died of the plague,' I had earlier reminded my colleague Michael Gove, and his spectacles seemed to glitter at the thought, like the Penguin in Wallace & Gromit By that weekend I was finding it exhausting even to walk. I couldn't read. I could hardly think. Music grated. All I wanted was for another hour to go by so that I could officially have another couple of paracetamols and that the throbbing in the skull would at least temporarily abate. After a while, Carrie came back in with the painkillers, and though I felt pathetically grateful, I also felt it was ridiculous. I should be caring for her, not the other way round. Not only did she also have Covid, but she was more than eight months pregnant with our first child. Ooof, I said, and tried to take a long breath through the nose. No worst, there is none, said Gerard Manley Hopkins, but then he hadn't been banjaxed * by Covid while trying to steer a G7 country through a pandemic. That was the trouble that was why I think I felt so rotten. It wasn't just the physical distress; it was the guilt, the political embarrassment of it all. I needed to bee-oing-oing back on to my feet like an India rubber ball. I needed to be out there, leading the country from the front, sorting the PPE, fixing the care homes, driving the quest for a cure. By Sunday, April 5, there were more than 1,000 daily fatalities across the country. I was still flat out, floating in and out of consciousness, waiting for my fix of paracetamol, when Carrie came in like a ministering angel. 'Come on,' she said. 'You need to get something to eat.' I said that the kitchen really felt a long way away. So she brought up some apple and cheese. I looked at that cheese with such complete apathy that I knew after a lifetime as a functioning cheese-oholic that something was definitely awry. Carrie rang Dr Price and explained things, and then passed the phone to me. He wanted me to come in right away, to St Thomas' Hospital. No, no, I said. There would surely be people who were far worse off than me people who really needed the bed. He wasn't having it. You have got to come in, he said. You have now spent too long getting worse, and it has got to the stage where it could go either way. There are people who recover from your position, he said, but then there are also plenty who get suddenly and markedly worse. We need to get you into hospital, because we need to be able to get you oxygen if you need it. Shortly thereafter, Carrie and I were staggering out of the back entrance to No 10, trying to look inconspicuous. We got into a big blacked-out people-carrier, and within a few minutes we had crossed the river and were being wheeled the doctors insisted on wheelchairs into the bowels of St Thomas'. As soon as I was upstairs and had an oxygen mask on, I started to feel better, though I was still worried about Carrie. At that stage we had no idea whether Covid could be harmful for an unborn child. But the doctors were confident. Her symptoms were much milder, and after a while she went back to No 10. With the oximeter on my finger, we could see that my oxygen levels started slowly to creep up again, and I began to feel sleepy. Before I folded, there was one thing I had to do. I rang Dominic Raab. 'First Secretary of State,' I said. 'PM,' he said. 'You know I said that you might have to deputise for me,' I said. 'Yes, PM.' 'Well, that moment has come.' 'No problem, PM,' he said. 'Get well soon.' He didn't sound remotely rattled in fact, he went on to do an outstanding job. The following morning, having been pumped with a lot of oxygen, I felt possibly slightly improved and more guilty than ever about occupying NHS bed space. I didn't want to stay there a second longer than I had to, but by the afternoon I seemed to be back to where I was. The oxygen levels kept sinking, and by the early evening I was conscious of a group of gowned and masked doctors, clustered around the doorway. On the whole, they said, they thought that I had better get down into intensive care. The atmosphere in the ICU was eerie, the light dim and yellow-greenish. As I was pushed to my section at the end of the ward, I glimpsed my fellow sufferers. Some had already been intubated and the place was very quiet apart from the wheezing and beeping of the machines. It was like one of those sci-fi movies where a complement of passengers is being transported cryogenically through space. There were about a dozen of us, and we all seemed to be middle-aged men. Some were black, some were Asian, and all, like me, were at least a touch overweight. Then I was being manoeuvred off the gurney and on to the ICU bed and I met the two nurses whose job it was, that night, to get enough oxygen into my lungs: Jenny from New Zealand and Luis from Portugal. They were both masked up, and it was hard to see their expressions, but they sounded a bit nervous. Which wasn't surprising. Whatever your politics, no one wants to be the nurse in charge when your prime minister's vital signs monitor starts emitting that monotonous flatlining beeeeep. Luis fiddled around with the oximeter, to check that the levels really were as low as they seemed. Then he instructed me exactly how to lie slightly over to one side and propped some cushions beneath me to get it right. I concentrated very hard on breathing. By now, Carrie had alerted my family that I was in the ICU. She was explaining things to my kids, and then I talked to them, too, and to Marina, my ex-wife. Lara, my eldest daughter, resourcefully located some Tintin books to entertain me, but after a while even Tintin was too much. I started to doze, but didn't want to sleep partly in case I never woke up, or in case they decided to perform some stealthy tracheotomy without letting me know. So Jenny the nurse handed me an iPad full of films, and I watched a pretty gut-wrenching revenge movie called The Revenant, in which Leonardo DiCaprio is a fur-trapper in Canada who gets badly mauled by a bear and survives. As the night went on, deep in my lungs, an allegorical struggle was taking place. Malign little creatures were wreaking havoc in the lining of my airways. I could visualise them: horrible purple or green spheres, with inverted bog-brushes of protein stuck all over them. They were burying themselves in the soft tissue, using my cells to reproduce. But that night the bear wasn't Covid. The bear was me. My body, as it was later explained to me, had never encountered Covid before, and my immune system was so appalled by this alien life form that it went into a frenzy a 'cytokine storm', in which the immune system fires ack-ack indiscriminately at friend or foe alike and the body is under attack from itself. It was a rough night, but by daybreak it felt as if the storm had broken. Luis and Jenny had been at it more or less constantly shifting me by a couple of inches, checking the oximeter, tilting me so that the oxygen could get where it needed. Now my numbers were better not exactly Olympic, but better. I was amazed by how weak I was, physically wrecked, as though I had been in a car crash. I could hardly move, and the doctors were insistent I should stay another couple of days in ICU. From my bed I looked out of the window on to a building site. Part of this great and ancient hospital was being rebuilt a project I'd had a hand in when I was mayor of London. I stared down at this hole in the ground and reflected how I had come within an ace of having a hole dug for me. Why had I got so damn ill? The way particular people can be badly affected by a new virus is partly genetics. But it didn't help much that, like so many of us Brits, I was fat. I had also been exposed I suspect to a very large viral load: that is to say, I had been in many meetings with people who may have had Covid, but who did not necessarily have symptoms. I was also exhausted, emotionally shattered by watching the disease roll in, wave after wave, and knowing that there was relatively little I could do. I didn't realise it, as I languished, but my fate was being watched with fascination around the world. Donald Trump dispatched representatives of the US pharmaceutical industry, to revive me with drugs not licensed or approved in the UK. Congregations were apparently praying for my good health, and it may sound weird, but I am truly grateful for all such intercessions. I expect that some people were of course praying that one way or another the disease would mean the end of me, at least politically. One thing is for certain: at the moment it was announced I was going into ICU, when there was therefore believed to be a genuine chance that I was about to die, my popularity figures were higher than any PM in history. I left hospital on Easter Monday and drove to Chequers with Carrie BBC helicopter overhead for a two-week convalescence. Here I sat for much of the first few days, slumped in a chintzy armchair in front of a fire, going through my red box or asleep. On Thursday evenings, as a goodly chunk of the population were by now standing outside their homes, clapping and banging saucepans in honour of those working in healthcare. Carrie and I turned out too, on the steps of Chequers. I clapped with deep emotion because my lungs were telling me that I had been through something really pretty nasty, and that if it hadn't been for Jenny and Luis, fiddling with those oxygen tubes all night with all their skill and experience, I think I might have carked it **. On the day I was released, the virus had killed 737, and the daily toll was still rising. We were going to hit 10,000 fatalities and the gradient of the curve seemed steeper than that of France or Spain or Italy. The frustration was appalling. I longed to be able to get back to my desk, to steer things but my body had other ideas. On about the second or third day, I had tried to have a swim in the Chequers pool (donated by a former US ambassador, after President Richard Nixon paid a visit to Edward Heath and was horrified to discover that the British prime minister was expected to survive without one). Margaret Thatcher had been so hostile to this luxury that she turned the heating off, but when I was there the water was generally pretty warm. Now, it felt freezing. I am a strong swimmer, but I could barely manage a length, and had to haul myself out at the side. I lay there gasping like a grampus ***. It was an effort to get up the stairs, and climbing the hill was impossible. So I walked along the flat ground, with Dilyn pulling like a husky, until I noticed to my horror that even Dilyn seemed suddenly to have succumbed. After a few hundred yards he would lie there all floppy, tongue lolling. I have never seen anything like it before or since, and scientist Patrick Vallance later told me his dog had been the same. It felt like a medieval chronicle of a pestilence so bad that even the dogs were struck down. This virus was new, and deadly, and we did not know which way the pandemic would turn. British scientists were the first to come up with a genuinely useful treatment for the disease, by showing that the steroid dexamethasone could stop the nasty immune reaction the cytokine storm. It came too late for me, but it was a chink of light, a hint that one day the cavalry would appear tootling over the hill, and medicine would come once again to the rescue of the human race. But when? DICTIONARY CORNER * Banjaxed broken, ruined, shattered (Irish/English slang) ** Carked it died (Australian slang) *** Grampus a type of dolphin Obama's Brexit put-up job In the lead-up to the referendum, David Cameron invoked the aid of Barack Obama, who flew in on Air Force One like a kind of deus ex machina * and obligingly poured scorn on the idea dear to many Brexit-backing hearts that we might get a post-Brexit free-trade deal with the US. Britain would be 'at the back of the queue', said Obama, his choice of words ('queue' being British English for what Americans call the 'line') revealing that he had been fed the script by No 10. DICTIONARY CORNER * Deus ex machina (Latin: god from the machine): an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation. Convicted rapist has almost seen out his current sentence for a separate crime The man who will make the decision about whether the prime suspect in the Maddie McCann case will be set free or not has delivered a bombshell verdict which could ensure that he stays behind bars. Convicted paedophile and rapist Christian Brueckner is the man who German investigators believe abducted and killed Madeleine, then aged three, from her parents' holiday apartment in the Algarve in 2007. The 47-year-old is currently on trial for a range of non-related sex offences committed in Portugal, and there are strong indications that he will be acquitted. The only way German authorities could then keep him in prison would be if the court psychiatric expert, Dr Christian Riedemann, deems him 'dangerous' for society. Speaking today at Braunschweig Regional Court, forensic psychiatrist Dr Riedemann, 47, head of the correctional facility in Bad Rehburg said: 'The application of various procedures leads to the conclusion that Christian Brueckner can be categorized in the absolute top league of dangerousness'. It comes after a former cellmate of Brueckne, Laurentiu Codin, alleged that he had confessed to him about abducting a girl from an apartment in Portugal. In his latest testimony, Codin has reportedly claimed that a lover of Brueckner had been waiting outside the apartment at the time - with the pair arguing and fleeing separately when she saw he had snatched a child. Christian Brueckner (C) is brought to the courtroom for a session of his trial at court in Braunschweig, northern Germany, on September 25, 2024 German investigators sensationally named Brueckner as the key suspect in the abduction of the British three-year-old According to The Sun, Laurentiu told the court of the night of the alleged kidnapping: 'There was another person with him his lover they got into a fight and they separated there.' He added that he was convinced Brueckner had been been telling him the truth, saying: 'Christian was very proud of his doings and as if he was living through them again while telling about it. He told all so detailed.' Laurentiu, who was behind bars with Brueckner in 2020, is also reported to have claimed that the paedophile was part of a bigger organisation, and that he feared for his safety after speaking out against him in court. 'I am afraid of Brueckner now because somebody said to me I will be stabbed in my back,' he reportedly said. In court today, Dr Riedemann reiterated the danger he believes Brueckner would pose if he were freed, adding that the convict had refused to cooperate with him. 'According to established analysis procedures, almost 100 per cent of comparable sex offenders have more favorable prognoses than the defendant,' the expert said. 'And the probability that [Brueckner] will be imprisoned in the next two years is 30 to 50 per cent.' Christian Brueckner, 47, is currently serving a seven-year sentence for the rape of a US pensioner in 2005 and drug trafficking, and is also the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann A house near Praia da Luz resort and Lagos in the Algarve, Portugal, that was used by Christian Brueckner, a German man suspected in the disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann He added that he 'rejected any attempts at exploration of his personality by experts. 'I would like to ask him a lot of questions, but I only have to speculate about a lot of things. 'He belongs in the absolute top league of dangerousness. The probability that the defendant could commit further offences in freedom within two years is high.' Brueckner, who is currently serving a sentence for a 2005 rape of an American pensioner in Portugal, is currently accused of other horrific sex offences in the country. These include three cases of rape, and two cases of exposing him to children while masturbating. Pictured: The holiday complex where the McCanns were staying in Portugal's Algarve region in May 2007, when their three-year-old daughter vanished without a trace Madeleine McCann (pictured) went missing on May 3, 2007 at the age of just three. She has never been found. German criminal Christian Brueckner has been named by German prosecutors as their chief suspect in her disappearance If he is acquitted of these crimes, the only way to keep him in prison will be by activating something called 'preventative detention', for which he has to say that he deems Bruckner as dangerous for society. Today was the second time that Dr Riedemann gave an assessment of Christian Brueckner's personality. On day 33 of the trial, he also did this, first discussing an introduction of scientific research on sadistic offenders, and arguing that their main motivation is not the sex, rather the power. Here he said that sadists enjoy humiliating their victims, physically hurting them, tying them up and subjugating them. Brueckner is serving a seven-year jail term for the 2005 rape of American pensioner Diana Menkes, 72, in the Algarve. He is standing trial at Braunschweig district court for unconnected sex crimes allegedly carried out in the Algarve between 2000 and 2017. The offences Brueckner is on trial for include the alleged rape of Irish tour rep Hazel Behan, now 40, in her Praia da Rocha apartment in 2004. The former tour guide, who waived her anonymity and has spoken publicly about her experience, broke down in tears as she told the trial that Brueckner had raped her at knifepoint. Christian Brueckner in court. He is standing trial at Braunschweig district court for unconnected sex crimes allegedly carried out in the Algarve between 2000 and 2017 He has also been charged with the alleged rape of a teenage girl in his home in the same city and raping an elderly woman in her holiday apartment. Brueckner is also accused of exposing himself to a German girl on a beach in Salema in April 2007 and to an 11-year-old girl in 2017. His current sentence ends early next year, and if he is not found guilty in the ongoing trial, he could be freed from jail. The trial is due to end in December. Brueckner was sensationally named by German police as the prime suspect in the Madeleine's abduction. The revelation came in June 2020 - more than a decade after her disappearance. But he has never been charged in the case, and has long denied any involvement. Police have ruled out foul play after a 12-year-old boy and his grandfather were both found dead in a tent during a countryside camping trip as they revealed a second child was also rushed to hospital. Kaicy Brown, 12, and David Brown, 66, died in a suspected carbon monoxide poisoning - possibly caused by a cooking stove, an inquest heard. Police today said Kaicy's brother was also taken to hospital - but has since been discharged. Officers were called to the campsite in Brecon, Powys, to find the grandson and grandfather dead. Police have ruled out foul play after a 12-year-old boy and his grandfather were both found dead in a tent during a countryside camping trip Kaicy Brown, 12, (Pictured) and David Brown, 66, were found by Kaicy's uncle in a tent in Powys, mid-Wales on the morning of September 14 A spokesperson said: 'Another child was taken to hospital for assessment and has since been discharged. 'The deaths are being treated as unexplained and there aren't believed to be any suspicious circumstances at this stage. 'Their family have been informed and are being supported by specialist officers.' The young boy was found unresponsive alongside his grandfather in a tent in Powys by his uncle who has been sleeping in a tent nearby at around 11am on September 14. The family, who hailed from Earley in Berkshire, had travelled 200 miles to the campsite in mid-Wales and stayed overnight before the tragic incident occurred. Emergency services were called to the scene but the grandfather and grandchild could not be saved. Senior coroner Graeme Hughes told the Pontypridd Coroner's Court a toxicology test would determine the carbon monoxide levels in the 12-year-old's blood. He told family members: 'My deepest condolences to all of you for the loss of both Kaicy and David in such tragic circumstances.' The court also heard an investigation was underway to the death of Kaicy's grandfather, David, who lived in Wokingham, Berkshire. The inquest has been adjourned to a later date. In the aftermath of the double tragedy, Kaicy's former primary school paid tribute to the 'exceptionally talented artist' who made friends easily and was 'loved by his classmates and adults alike for his easy-going nature and support for others.' Two fundraisers have also been set up by friends and colleagues of the family. One has been set up to help Kaicy's heartbroken mother, Jessica, who lost both her son and father in the 'unimaginable' tragedy. Kaicy Rakai Zelden Brown, 12, and 66-year-old grandfather David Brown (Pictured together), are believed to have died in a suspected accidental carbon monoxide poisoning Emergency services were called to the scene but the grandfather and his grandchild could not be saved (Pictured: Kaicy Brown) The GoFundMe created by the grieving mother' friends, read: 'On 15th September the unimaginable happened to her son Kaicy, 12 and her father. 'They passed away from carbon monoxide poisoning on a camping trip. 'The money raised will go towards funeral costs, a memorial and legal fees as Jess wants to bring her boy home, as there is disputes within the family about where he will be laid to rest. 'We don't want her to go through anymore headache at this sad time. 'Any donations would be greatly appreciated to help relieve the financial burden of this tragic accident, also to help many families in need.' Over 1,500 has been donated to the fundraiser, which has a 5,000 target. A second GoFundMe page to support David's widow, Mandy has also been set up by Sonning Church of England Primary School, where Kaicy attended up until a few months ago before starting secondary school. In a post on Facebook, the school said the community was 'coming together to show our love' for the bereaved family. The statement added: 'We, as a community made up of parents, PTA members, staff, governors, colleagues, friends, local organisations and families, are coming together to show our love and support for the family at this tragic time, and let them know in our small way that we are here for them.' Kaicy and his brother attended the primary school, while their grandmother and guardian, Mandi, is a teaching assistant and has been a member of staff for more than 20 years. A statement on the GoFundMe page paid tribute to the youngster, who was described as said: 'This is a desperately sad situation, not least of all because Kaicy was only 12 years old. Sonning Church of England Primary School, where Kaicy attended up until a few months ago before starting secondary school, remembered the youngster as 'a true ambassador' 'We, as a school and local community of parents, friends and colleagues, are in shock, and we are all sending our condolences and deepest love and support to Mrs Brown, Reo and their family at this time.' The statement went on to pay tribute to Kaicy, who was described as 'a true ambassador for the school' and 'a kind, thoughtful and emotionally-aware boy who lit up a room with his smile and good sense of humour.' It added: 'He was also an exceptionally talented artist and impressed us with his attention to detail and incredible commitment to his artwork. 'Many of his pieces are still hung proudly around the school. 'Memories of Kaicy's fantastic starring role as Mrs Wolf, in the Year 6 production in July 2023, will always make us smile. 'His fashion show performance at our Year 6 residential was also thoroughly entertaining, combining his acting skills and sense of humour to put on a hilarious display for his peers and staff. 'A gentle soul, Kaicy made friends easily and was loved by his classmates and adults alike for his easy-going nature and support for others. 'Kaicy always upheld our Sonning values and was a true ambassador for the school. 'Kaicy was one of those pupils who had such a bright future ahead of him and someone we always felt would achieve great things in his life a thought which makes this situation even harder as we remember someone so special.' A quintessentially British fashion and homeware brand is set to make its grand return to the high street - just a year after stores vanished. Cath Kidston, with its trademark vintage aesthetic, will open its first new store next month despite having crashed into administration last year. The iconic store brand was acquired by retailer Next in March 2023 meaning people could continue to shop Cath Kidston online and at Next stores. Now the brand is due to open its new store on 18th October at Westfield White City in London. A post shared to the brand Instagram account said: 'Why yes. Yes, you guessed right. We do indeed have a new home opening soon. Can anyone tell where in London we'll be opening our doors?' Cath Kidston is known for its floral designs and iconic label, giving things a vintage feel Cath Kidston has been on UK high streets since 1993, but will not last there beyond its 30th anniversary The last Cath Kidston store, in London, will close on Wednesday A video reel that accompanies the caption displays footage of Westfield White City as it advertises the new store branded 'The Home of Print'. Cath Kidston collapsed in 2020, filing for bankruptcy the same year as Laura Ashley. This came as shoppers were increasingly turning to cheaper brands such as Temu, Home Sense and ASDA to buy homeware and clothing. Brexit and (Kate) Bingham pulled off Britain's vaccine miracle - and, naturally, Labour attacked them both: READ HERE How Covid nearly killed me. If it hadn't been for Jenny and Luis, fiddling with those oxygen tubes all night with all their skill and experience, I think I might have carked it: READ HERE Why I considered invading Holland with a dramatic canal raid to snatch our five million stolen vaccines back from Brussels clutches: READ HERE I saw no cake. I ate no blooming cake. If this was a party, it was the feeblest event in the history of human festivity: READ HERE Boris Johnson devised an extraordinary plan for British special forces to invade Holland to seize vaccine supplies during Covid, he reveals in his bombshell political memoir. In Unleashed, which is being serialised exclusively in the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, the former prime minister also tells for the first time how close he came to death from the pandemic and the full inside story of Partygate. In todays extracts, Mr Johnson recounts how after two futile months negotiating with the EU for the release of five million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine being held in a Leiden warehouse he summoned senior members of the Armed Forces to demand action. Mr Johnson infuriated that supplies of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which had been pioneered in the UK with British government support, had been kidnapped by the EU was told that forces could cross the Channel clandestinely and navigate up Dutch canals to liberate the vaccines. Boris Johnson has written in extraordinary detail about how close he came to death from Covid The former prime minister announcing he has tested positive for the virus in March 2020 The Halix plant in the Netherlands was a long-standing part of AstraZeneca's supply chain He ultimately agreed with advisers that mounting an invasion of a longstanding Nato ally would be nuts. In the book, which is already being described as the political memoir of the century, he recounts in extraordinary detail how close he came to death from Covid, and claims that without the round-the-clock effort of two dedicated nurses he would have carked it. In one of the many barbed references to Michael Gove which litter the book, Mr Johnson recounts the reaction of the former Cabinet minister when he raises the prospect that he could like the Greek politician Pericles die of the plague: His spectacles seemed to glitter at the thought, like the Penguin in Wallace and Gromit. Mr Johnson, whose pregnant wife Carrie was also afflicted by Covid, tells how he initially ignored doctors advice to go to hospital, even though he was so ill he could barely walk, think or read. After he was persuaded that it could go either way, he was taken into St Thomass hospital in a wheelchair, where he was soon admitted to intensive care. His fight to survive he avoids sleep in case he doesnt wake up is described in compelling detail. Mr Johnson recuperating at Chequers with dog Dilyn after being discharged from hospital The former prime minister at a gathering for his birthday in 2020 - which led to a police fine Mr Johnson receives his Covid vaccine at St Thomas's Hospital in London in December 2021 Mr Johnson also recounts his convalescence at Chequers, the PM's grace and favour country estate, and how even his dog Dilyn appeared to succumb to the disease: he would lie there all floppy, tongue lolling. He says that Brexit allowed the UK to race ahead of the EU to became the first country in the world to approve and roll out an effective vaccine, Pfizer BioNTech. In todays extracts, he passionately defends his behaviour over Partygate, which lit the fuse towards his eventual ousting as prime minister. He initially dismissed the first story about claimed breaches of Covid rules during a social gathering at No10 as a load of old cobblers which was probably some desperate nonsense being peddled by embittered former advisers. Of another event, which led to a police fine, he says: I saw no cake. I ate no blooming cake. But he admits that he made several catastrophic mistakes in the handling of the story, including by initially apologising rather than robustly defending No10s behaviour. He also regrets ordering a ridiculous and unfair witch-hunt by then-civil servant Sue Gray, who is now chief of staff to Sir Keir Starmer. Mr Johnson claims that Ms Grays political leanings are revealed by the fact that she had held discussions more than a decade ago to work for Ed Miliband when he was Labour leader. Todays extracts include hilarious pen portraits of Prime Minister Sir Keir, who is likened to a bullock having a thermometer unexpectedly shoved in its rectum and former Tory prime minister Theresa May, who is said to display schoolmarmy self-righteousness. He writes: I was particularly fixated upon her nostrils immensely long and pointy black tadpole shapes, like a Gerald Scarfe cartoon. He is scathing about then-US president Barack Obamas intervention in the Brexit referendum campaign in 2016, when he said Britain would be at the back of the queue for a trade deal. Mr Johnson says that his choice of words (queue being British English for what Americans call the line) indicated that he had been fed the script by then-prime minister David Cameron, who was backing the Remain campaign. Dozens of children tragically drowned during ritualistic bathing in rivers and ponds at a three-day Hindu festival in eastern India's Bihar state, officials have said. Heavy monsoon rains had recently raised water levels across the state, killing dozens and displacing thousands as houses collapse into the Ganges. At least 46 people, including 37 children, drowned in separate incidents across 15 districts during the Jitiya festival, a statement from Bihar's disaster management department said. Authorities have recovered 43 bodies so far, and the three missing people are presumed to be dead. The state government has announced compensation of 400,000 rupees (3,572) for the families of each of the dead. Naga sadhus run in to bathe in the waters of the holy Ganges during the Maha Kumbh Mela festival in India in 2013 (File photo) Hindu holy men take a holy dip in the waters of the Ganges during a religious ceremony in 2021 During the annual festival, mothers fast for 24 hours for the wellbeing of their children. The women are sometimes accompanied by their children when they visit rivers and ponds for cleansing rituals. Seven women were reported to have drowned across the 15 districts during the Jitiya festival. Disaster management groups are still conducting search operations to rescue survivors. Officials in Bihar said that people were ignoring the dangerous water levels in rivers to take part in the ceremony, which concluded on Thursday. Heavy rains and floods have affected several provinces of India in recent weeks, killing scores of people. Climate change is believed to have made monsoon weather more unstable, with the warming of the Indian Ocean creating 'flying rivers' lasting through the summer into September. Deadly accidents such as drownings and stampedes during religious festivals are common in India. Houses partially submerged in flood water from the River Ganges, in Patna on September 20 Flood-affected people along with their belongings, move to a safer place in a boat after rise in the water level of river Ganges following heavy rains, in Patna on September 23 In July, at least 121 people were killed after severe overcrowding and a lack of exits contributed to a stampede at a religious festival in northern India. In March, heavy rain caused the ceiling of an airport to collapse. Nobody was reported to have been injured , but flights from Guwahati airport in northeast India were suspended. Travellers were then seen evacuating the terminal as water and pieces of ceiling poured into the building. Footage showed water pouring into the another part of the terminal, showering over shops and flooding an airport restaurant. Governor Gavin Newsom has dealt a blow to reparations efforts in California that will see the state formally apologise for the lingering effects of slavery after he vetoed a key property bill. The rejected Senate Bill 1050 would have helped Black families reclaim or be compensated for property that was unjustly seized by the government through racially motivated eminent domain. The governor's reasons for not going ahead with the property proposal are because lawmakers blocked another bill to create a reparations agency that would have reviewed these claims, meaning the proposal wouldn't have been able to come into full effect. 'I thank the author for his commitment to redressing past racial injustices,' Newsom said in a statement, referring to state Sen. Steven Bradford. 'However, this bill tasks a nonexistent state agency to carry out its various provisions and requirements, making it impossible to implement.' The legislation was part of a package of reparations bills introduced this year that seek to offer repair for decades of policies that drove racial disparities for African Americans, which will see the state of California formally apologise for slavery. California Governor Gavin Newsom has rejected a bill that would have helped Black families reclaim or be compensated for land taken from them unfairly Man holds up a sign during a meeting by the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans in Oakland, Calif., Dec. 14, 2022 Newsom also approved laws to improve protections against hair discrimination for athletes and increase oversight over the banning of books in state prisons. 'The State of California accepts responsibility for the role we played in promoting, facilitating, and permitting the institution of slavery, as well as its enduring legacy of persistent racial disparities,' the Democratic governor said in a statement. 'Building on decades of work, California is now taking another important step forward in recognizing the grave injustices of the past - and making amends for the harms caused.' California entered the union as a free state in 1850. In practice, it sanctioned slavery and approved policies and practices that thwarted Black people from owning homes and starting businesses. Black families were terrorized, their communities aggressively policed and their neighborhoods polluted, according to a report published by a first-in-the-nation state reparations task force. Efforts to study reparations at the federal level have stalled in Congress for decades. California has moved further along on the issue than any other state. But state lawmakers did not introduce legislation this year to give widespread direct payments to African Americans, which frustrated some reparations advocates. Newsom approved a $297.9 billion budget in June that included up to $12 million for reparations legislation that became law. He already signed laws included in the reparations package aimed at improving outcomes for students of color in K-12 career education programs. Another proposal the Black caucus backed this year that would ban forced labor as a punishment for crime in the state constitution will be on the ballot in November. People listen during a rally in support of reparations for African Americans outside City Hall in San Francisco, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023 State Assembly member Isaac Bryan, a Democrat representing Culver City, called legislation he authored to increase oversight over books banned in state prisons 'a first step' to fix a 'shadowy' process in which the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation decides which books to ban. The corrections department maintains a list of disapproved publications it bans after determining the content could pose a security threat, includes obscene material or otherwise violates department rules. The new law authorizes the Office of the Inspector General, which oversees the state prison system, to review works on the list and evaluate the department's reasoning for banning them. It requires the agency to notify the office of any changes made to the list, and it makes the office post the list on its website. 'We need transparency in this process,' Bryan said. 'We need to know what books are banned, and we need a mechanism for removing books off of that list.' A callous dog owner who left his German Shepherd to die in the back of a van on one of the hottest days of the year is facing jail. Youssef Alhassouni put the animal, called Django, inside a locked wooden box in the back of a Mercedes Vito van in Sandford, Somerset, while he went off to 'do some business.' Despite it being 30C, the 26-year-old left Django to swelter for more than four hours with no access to water or ventilation. It was only when a passerby heard the dog whimpering that the alarm was raised. A callous dog owner who left his German Shepherd to die in the back of a van on one of the hottest days of the year is facing jail A police officer forced open the doors and opened the box to find Django had died. A vet later confirmed the dog died from heat stress. Alhassouni, from Liverpool, was later arrested for causing unnecessary suffering to an animal. A court heard he had driven 270 miles from Liverpool to Sandford, near Wareham, Dorset, on July 30 this year with Django. He left the car at 2pm and it wasn't until 6.11pm that police received a call from a member of the public who was concerned about a dog inside the van. Elizabeth Valera, prosecuting, told magistrates in Weymouth: 'Django was a healthy German Shepherd dog owned by the defendant. 'On July 30 the defendant put the dog in a wooden box in the back of his van, secured the lid and went off to do some business in Poole. 'A member of the public heard a distressed dog in the back of the van and the police were called and they forced the doors and managed to get the top of the box open. 'Very sadly the dog was dead by that stage. 'The officer noticed the heat coming out of the box when he opened it. There was no ventilation at all and the recorded heat was 30C. 'The dog was sent off to a vet and they prepared a report. Their conclusion was that Django died from heat stress. 'He undoubtedly suffered severe distress both physically and mentally. A reasonable dog owner would have been aware that being exposed to this environment would cause distress, suffering and death. 'The defendant was interviewed about the matter. He said he parked the van between 12 and 1pm and left it around 2pm. He was in Poole for four or five hours. 'He said he had left Django in the back of the van previously and nothing had happened to him. He said the death wasn't intentional and that he felt bad about what happened.' Alhassouni, who needed an Arabic interpretor when he appeared in court, pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal. The court was told that the starting point for this a prison sentence. Sentencing was adjourned and he will appear before magistrates in Liverpool next month. Advertisement There are only 39 days until Election Day, and Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are heading to critical swing states to try and win over voters. Harris is facing a big test today as she returns to the southern border in Arizona for only the second time as vice president, despite her 'border czar' title. Meanwhile, Trump is focusing on garnering more support in the crucial state of Michigan with two stops planned in the state on Friday. Follow all the updates in our U.S. politics live blog. MBABANE The man associated with the poisoning of PUDEMO President Mlungisi Makhanya, says he was compelled by personal and financial reasons to take the hard decision. In a video that circulated on social media yesterday, Sifiso Innocent Mahlangu made startling allegations, giving clues that the contention between him and Makhanya was based on personal circumstances and prompted by apparent lack of financial accountability in the political organisation. He also summarised the situation as a lion mauling its owner (libhubesi lidla umnikati walo). He registered discontentment with emaSwati who pretend to be having the best interest of the nation, yet their intention is personal enrichment. They go to rich countries and ask for money to advance the course of the struggle for change, but after getting the money, nothing goes towards that purpose. Recording He said he witnessed this after former Warder Bheka Magagula made a live recording on the scarcity of finances in the camp. Mahlangu alleged that money was paid for the liberation cause, in different instalments, one of which amounted to E3 million and another E1.5 million. He said he had no idea how the money was utilised. We were not offered even money to buy clothes or send home for childrens pampers. This is also the reason that commander (Thabo Kunene) decided to go solo, until he fell in the arms of the enemy. Though Mahlangu praised Makhanya for his connections to people and political parties of South Africa, he registered several concerns, which will not be repeated pending his recovery to respond. Narrating the events leading to the house attempted murder, he said he had not wished for such to happen. There were personal issues directly linked to me, and I am not in position to divulge them to you, for now. But these are the issues that made me take the decision to hold hands with Makhanya, so that we can die together. Whereabouts Kungente ngabona kutsi asibambane ngetandla mine na Makhanya, sikhahlele libhakede, he said. However, Mahlangus whereabouts remain unknown, while Makhanya is under intense treatment by medical doctors after ingesting the poison. Mahlangu said what pains him all the more is that when something goes wrong, the underground forces are the ones who take the fall. He promised to shed more light on these issues in due course. He warned those who had insulted him on facebook, saying they must be careful, lest the worst may befall them. Lingadvuma likwehlele manje, he said, meaning something terrible could befall them. Mahlangu said some people were prone to taking potshots at him, without understanding the pain that he has gone through. They do not understand that we sometimes sleep in the cold, shivering the whole night. This is like a lion turning to maul its owner. If the lion is no longer fed to the point of satisfaction, it will devour the owner. These are just life lessons that we endure (mafutsa endlela). He noted that the video clip he was sharing was inconclusive, pending whatever is published in the media. He then promised to shed more light in future. Mahlangu recorded himself in a room, whose location is unknown. Meanwhile, another voice recording emerged of a person who claimed to have spoken to Mahlangu after the ordeal. In the clip, the narrator says Mahlangu told him that he fed rice, wors meat and canned beans to the president and waited two hours for him to digest it before leaving. The voice recording also makes claims of how Mahlangu visited Eswatini prior to the poisoning incident and returned to Gauteng with phones. However, the clip is highly contentious in that the names of the people in conversation are not stated. Meanwhile, South African Communist Party Secretary General Solly Mapaila gave the South African Police Service 72 hours to arrest the person who attempted to murder the PUDEMO president. He was addressing the Southern African Democratic Teachers Unions 10th National Congress in Pretoria. A disgraced Commonwealth Bank IT executive has been jailed after taking bribes worth the equivalent of $2.8million. Jon Waldron, 53, was sentenced to a maximum of six years and eight months behind bars in the NSW District Court on Friday. Waldron was found guilty in May by the court of seven charges of corruptly receiving $US1.9million as a reward for helping American IT firm, ServiceMesh, secure two large contracts with CBA. Waldron, the former general manager of IT infrastructure engineering, had received the millions of dollars without the knowledge of his employer. He was also found guilty on three counts of aiding and abetting his co-accused, Keith Hunter. Hunter was jailed for three years in 2016. Waldron, a New Zealand national, was sacked from CBA in 2014 after investigators at the bank discovered he had received suspicious payments into his account. Waldron had previously pleaded not guilty to the charges and Judge Phillip Mahony said the 53-year-old showed 'no remorse for his offending'. 'The offender has continued to protest his innocence and has appealed his convictions,' Justice Mahony said. Jon Waldron, 53, (pictured) was sentenced to a maximum of six years and eight months behind bars in the NSW District Court on Friday for accepting the massive kickbacks Judge Mahony said Waldron has not made any progress in his rehabilitation, and was focused on how his offence only impacted him financially and emotionally, not the wider community. 'Notwithstanding that, I accept that he is at a low risk of reoffending given that it is unlikely he will be able to obtain employment in any position of trust in the future,' Judge Mahony said. Waldron will be eligible for parole on July 13, 2028. In his role, Waldron was in charge of 250 staff and managed a budget of $740million. Principal shareholder at ServiceMesh, Eric Pulier, has denied any wrongdoing. Russia has started deploying wolves on the frontline of the war - because the animals react early to the sound of approaching kamikaze drones. Two tamed beasts have been sent to serve with Vladimir Putin's troops and more will follow if the experiment is a success. The females were taken from the Siberian region of Khakassia, and raised by wolf-tamer Aleksandr Konchakov. He is also cross-breeding wolves with Russian Laika hunting dogs for use in the war. Konchakov visited the war zone before dispatching the predators to the battlefield by plane and train. The females were taken from the Siberian region of Khakassia, and raised by wolf-tamer Aleksandr Konchakov Konchakov visited the war zone before dispatching the predators to the battlefield by plane and trai The All-Russian People's Front (ONF) shared the news that two wolf pups had been requested back in May The animals have been dispatched to the frontline to assist Putin's troops in their war against Ukraine Russian fighters claim that the beasts have a good sense of smell, are sociable and active, and can warn of danger in advance. 'The predators can hear the approach of drones,' reported SHOT media. One of the wolves sent to fight for Putin is called Vysota - seen being fed ice cream. 'The puppies were simply brought to me by hunters without a mother,' said Konchakov. 'They [soldiers] asked [to move them to the war]. 'They asked so I gave.' The beasts have excellent 'intuition' and are 'smart', he said. The SHOT report said the wolves 'can hear the approach of drones and warn of danger in advance'. They 'will help Russian soldiers carry out combat missions in the [war] zone.' The wolf tamer said the Russian army asked for his animals so he provided them Konchakov describes the trained predators as 'very affectionate' The SHOT report said the wolves 'can hear the approach of drones and warn of danger in advance' Wolf tamer Aleksander Konchakov visited the frontline before sending his animals to support troops The All-Russian People's Front (ONF) shared the news that two wolf pups had been requested back in May, and said they would need to grow over the summer before being sent to join troops. 'There is an opinion that wolves are smarter than shepherds and, if properly trained, can become good helpers,' it said. 'Alexander regularly collects and transports humanitarian aid to the (war) zone for our soldiers. 'During the last joint trip with the People's Front, the military asked him for two wolf puppies to help them.' General Director of the Great Moscow State Circus, Edgard Zapashny, said of the unusual delivery: 'I hope that these two female wolves, who will now be with our fighters, will not be harmed, and that the men will surround them with care and ensure their safety. 'In turn, the animals will save the lives of our soldiers.' Lawyers claim he had 1,000 bottles of baby oil because 'Americans buy in bulk' The attorney representing Sean 'Diddy' Combs has claimed his case is an example of the federal government's general toxicity towards a successful black man. The scandal hit music mogul, 54, was sensationally arrested and charged last week with crimes including racketeering and sex trafficking, which he has denied. His attorney Marc Agnifilo, a former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney, has came out and blamed the feds for taking Diddy down because he is Black. Speaking on TMZ's 'The Downfall of Diddy: The Indictment', Agnifilo said the federal government was 'historically no friend of the successful black man'. 'They start making this case as a takedown of a successful black man. This is the government scrutinizing his business, scrutinizing his taxes, he does everything right', he said. His attorney Marc Agnifilo, a former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney, has came out and blamed the feds for taking Diddy down because he is black Diddy, seen here alongside his former girlfriend Kim Porter, Agnifilo added: 'What's the last vestige, we are going to go into his bedroom because maybe we don't like the way he is having sex.' He continues that his client has made 'some of the most important businesses' owned by a black man and that society has now reduced Diddy to a 'monster'. Combs was arrested by Homeland Security Officials last week at the Park Hyatt hotel in midtown Manhattan. Since then, he has been incarcerated while he awaits trial inside Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center. The charge, which details allegations dating back to 2008, accuses him of abusing, threatening and coercing women for years 'to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct.' Combs has been accused of arranging 'Freak Offs', described as 'elaborate and produced sex performances' arranged and directed by Combs while he masturbated and often recorded them. His indictment stated that some 'Freak Offs' would last for days, requiring Combs and victims to receive IV fluids to recover from the exertion and drug use. Federal agents claimed that they confiscated '1,000 bottles' of baby oil and lubricant following a raid on his homes in Miami and Los Angeles earlier this year. Earlier this week Agnifilo said that the star liked to buy in bulk like other Americans commonly do. He told the New York Post: 'I don't think it was 1,000. I think it was a lot. I mean, there is a Costco right down the street. I think Americans buy in bulk, as we know.' Federal agents claimed that they confiscated '1,000 bottles' of baby oil and lubricant following a raid on his homes in Miami and Los Angeles earlier this year Police and agents are seen surrounding Diddy's Miami home in March after executing raids Agnifilo added: 'These are consensual adults doing what consensual adults do, you know, we can't get so puritanical in this country to think that somehow sex is a bad thing because if it was there would be no more people.' Costco has since came out and confirmed that they don't sell baby oil in any of their locations across the country. Agnifilo said his client is feeling positive about his chances in court, adding: 'He's just laser-focused, he's engaged, he's helpful, he's confident. 'We're going through our defense as we do every day and his spirits are relatively good.' Diddy's arrest came 10 months after allegations of sexual and other abuse against the music mogul, and an announcement from prosecutors that he was being investigated for sex trafficking. The allegations began with a lawsuit by Diddy's ex Cassie Ventura which claimed she was beaten and raped by the star. The suit was settled the day after it became public, but Diddy has since been dogged by other claims. Last year Diddy was sued by ex Cassie, who alleged she was trafficked, raped, plied with drugs and viciously beaten by Diddy on many occasions. They are pictured here in 2018 The indictment against him also alleges he coerced and abused women for years while using blackmail and shocking acts of violence to keep his victims in line. It refers obliquely to an attack on his former girlfriend, Cassie, that was captured on video. Prosecutors wanted him jailed. His attorneys proposed that he be released on a $50 million bond to home detention with electronic monitoring. US Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky sided with the government. Like many aging hip-hop figures, Bad Boy Records founder Diddy had established a gentler public image. The father of seven was a respected businessman whose annual Hamptons 'White Party' was once a must-have invitation for the jet-setting elite. The suit was settled the day after it became public, but Diddy has since been dogged by other claims But prosecutors said he facilitated his crimes using the same companies, people and methods that vaulted him to power. They said they would prove the charges with financial and travel records, electronic communications and videos of the 'Freak Offs.' In March, authorities raided Combs' Los Angeles and Florida homes, seizing drugs, videos and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant, prosecutors said. They said agents also seized guns and ammunition, including three AR-15s with defaced serial numbers. A conviction on every charge would require a mandatory 15 years in prison with the possibility of a life sentence. The grieving father of Shawn Seesahai who was hacked to death with a machete has revealed his 19-year-old son's harrowing last moments in an emotional interview. Speaking from his native Anguilla, heartbroken Suresh Seesahai held back tears as he recounted the moment he learned his son had been murdered in Britain, where he had come for a better life. Suresh told how Shawn had begged 'daddy, help me' as two 12-year-old boys chopped and beat him to death in Wolverhampton last November, and how he is haunted by his son's final moments and 'how scared he must have been'. His family have described the unprovoked attack on the 19-year-old as senseless, having been committed 'for no reason at all'. After the pair were sentenced, we can now reveal how: Shawn Seesahai's mother Maneshwary Seesahai and father Suresh Seesahai (right) reveal the moment they learned their son had been murdered ahead of his killers' sentencing Shawn Seesahai, 19, was stabbed in the heart and suffered a skull fracture last November Your browser does not support iframes. Revealing the heartbreaking moment he learned of his son's murder, Suresh said: 'I took the phone and asked 'what happened to Shawn'? I said 'is Shawn OK' and they said 'No, Shawn passed away'. Paying an emotional tribute, he added: 'He will always will be remembered because he has a father a mother and a sister.' Shawn's mother Maneshwary Seesahai also revealed how their daughter had been traumatised by the ordeal. She said: 'She's crying that she doesn't have a brother anymore - and that affects us a lot when she says things like that. I can't see my son married. I can't see any grandchildren, it's very hard. 'Shawn you must remember we always will remember you until God is ready for us. One day we will see each other. I love you Shawn.' Detective Inspector Damian Forrest added: 'Shaun was a 19-year-old man with his whole life ahead of him. Maneshwary Seesahai explains how Shawn's sister has been deeply affected by the ordeal Suresh Seesahai held back tears to recount the moment he heard the news of his son's death Shawn Seesahai stumbled as he tried to flee from the boys in Wolverhampton, the court heard One of the boys posed for a picture with a machete tucked into his trousers hours before he committed the murder. He will not be named after a judge rejected a media application 'What was shocking for the investigation was that those two suspects were 12 years old.' Family of Shawn Seesahai describe their pain at his `senseless machete murder The family of Shawn Seesahai said they are haunted by thoughts of how scared he must have been when he was killed. In a victim impact statement read to the, relatives of Mr Seesahai described the Anguilla-born 19-year-old's killing as tragic, unexpected and senseless, and having been committed 'for no reason at all'. Relatives of Mr Seesahai, who were forced to take out a loan to travel to the UK to view the 20-day trial, have been watching the sentencing hearing via a videolink. The family's statement read: 'We make this statement in relation to the tragic, unexpected and senseless murder of our beloved son and brother Shawn, who was tragically taken from us in November last year. 'As a family we are struggling in so many ways since Shawn was taken from us, especially in the horrific way in which he was taken. 'Losing a child is a parent's worst nightmare. To put it all down in a statement on how it has impacted our lives would take more than a day to read. 'It has left a huge hole in the pit of our stomach which nothing can fill, we are devastated as a family, totally heartbroken and confused.' The statement added that Shawn was incredibly close to his younger sister, who had always dreamed of being there for his wedding and him being there for hers. The family members, including parents Suresh and Maneshwary and sister Shana, added: 'Mentally it has been hard for any of us to function normally. None of us have had an unbroken night's sleep since Shawn was taken from us. 'Every time I close my eyes all I can think about are what his last moments were and how scared he must have been. It continually breaks my heart. 'The impact on us as a family is devastating, its hard to believe that we will ever come to terms with what has happened. 'We will never get to see Shawn get married or have a family of his own. These things have been taken from us for what appears to be no reason at all.' Advertisement At Nottingham Crown Court today, Mrs Justice Tipples ordered each boy to be detained at His Majesty's pleasure for a minimum of eight years and six months. The sentence includes time spent living in secure accommodation where they have been since the offence last November. Following the hearing, Mr Seesahai's parents told of their anger over the minimum terms. His mother, Maneshwary Seesahai, told the BBC: I'm not happy. All the children in the UK will see that they only get eight years (and six months) and they will do the same thing. His father, Suresh Seesahai, added: The police did a good job, but Im not satisfied with the justice system. Fifteen years would have been better, because they will come out and still have a life at the age of 20. Another campaigner, Alison Cope, said the sentence does not reflect the horrific circumstances of the crime. Ms Cope has campaigned to stop youth violence since her son Joshua Ribera, 18, was fatally stabbed in the heart in 2013 while attending a Birmingham memorial event for another teenager who had been stabbed. She questioned whether eight and a half years was enough time to undo the underlying issues that led to them carrying out such a horrific crime'. Ms Cope told the Mail: Many young people are not receiving strong enough consequences for their actions and receiving the support they need to prevent another tragedy like this happening. So much more needs to be done nationally. We need consistent and compulsory education to prevent [crime] and a consistent and strong response when the wrong choices are made. 'Services must unite and work together to help divert young people from violence. The UK government reacted with a strong and clear message during the recent riots, which was zero tolerance, and the riots stopped. 'Knife crime needs the same priority and a different approach. If we do the same thing, we have the same outcome children becoming killers, children being killed.' The judge had told the boys: 'What you both did is horrific and shocking. You both killed Shawn in an attack that lasted less than a minute when he asked you to move from where you were on a park bench. 'Shawn did not deserve to be attacked. He did not deserve to die It's clear that the sentence I have decided to pass cannot make that right. 'What you did in those few short moments has also changed your life forever. You will have to live with the consequences. I cannot be sure which one of you stabbed Shawn. Only you know that, but you acted together.' The month-long trial at Nottingham Crown Court heard Shawn, 19, had travelled to the UK from the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla in the Caribbean for medical treatment. Jurors were told Shawn was shoulder-barged by the smaller of the two defendants, who 'often' carried the machete, before being punched, kicked, stamped on and 'chopped' at with the weapon. The victim's friend told the trial he was forced to run for his life but Shawn stumbled as he tried to flee from the boys. In a heartrending victim impact statement from the family, read to the court by Dorothea Hodge, the UK representative for Anguilla, they said: 'Losing a child is a parents' worst nightmare, and to put it all down in a statement on how it has impacted our lives would take more than a day to read. 'It has left a huge hole in the pit of our stomach which nothing can fill, we are devastated as a family, totally heartbroken and confused.' They said they had not had an unbroken night's sleep since the murder and were tormented by 'how scared' Shawn 'must have been' in his final moments. Shawn, who was living in Handsworth, Birmingham at the time of his death, had cataracts that he had been unable to get treatment for in Anguilla. After successful surgery in the UK he was 'able to start planning for the future and think about getting an education', prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC said. However, his life was brutally cut short after he and his friend encountered the boys near a bench in the park. Ms Heeley told jurors that despite the fact he had 'offered no violence, nor done anything to offend', he became the victim of a savage attack after one of the boys deliberately 'shoulder brushed' him then pulled a machete from his trousers. The Snapchat messages the two killers sent to each other after they killed Shawn Seesahai CCTV footage revealed the last moments of Shawn Seesahai as he headed to the park Mr Seesahai can be seen leaving Handsworth, an inner-city area of Birmingham, with two friends at around 5.30pm, getting on a tram at Winson Green station At 6.40pm, Mr Seesahai and his friend arrive at a petrol station Officers searched a storage space under one of the boys' beds and recovered a machete Forensics and police officers stand at the murder scene in Wolverhampton last November Shawn ended up on the floor where jurors heard he was punched, kicked and knifed struck so hard on the skull with the machete that a piece of bone came away. Mrs Justice Tipples was told on Thursday by Ms Heeley there was 'little precedent' for the case and the boys are thought to be the country's youngest ever knife murderers. Jonathan Roe, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said today: 'As prosecutors, we often deal with harrowing cases, but this case is particularly distressing due to the complete senselessness and devastating consequences of the defendants' actions. 'The defendants at the age of 12 should have been enjoying their childhood rather than arming themselves with a machete and killing an innocent person. 'Shawn Seesahai lost his life in a horrifically cruel way. I hope today's sentencing serves as a reminder of the dangers of carrying machetes. 'Shawn's family have shown remarkable strength and dignity in the aftermath of such a tragedy and our thoughts are with them at this difficult time.' Eric Adams has pleaded not guilty to corruption charges as he faced court accused of accepting lavish overseas trips in exchange for favors. He was arraigned in Manhattan Federal Court on Friday as the first New York City mayor to be indicted while in office. 'I'm not guilty, your honor,' he told Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker when asked how he pleaded to the five federal charges. Adams is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, and receiving campaign contributions from foreign nationals. He is also accused of defrauding NYC taxpayers of $10 million through allegedly fraudulent campaign funds. Eric Adams arrives in federal court to face corruption charges as the first New York City mayor to be charged while in office Outside court people chanted 'Eric! Eric!' and shouted: 'Free Eric!' and 'Eric Adams we love you!' But another onlooker was not so enamored with the mayor, shouting back, 'lock him up!' Adams sat in court at a bench next to his lawyer, Alex Spiro, and with no other aides or officials, he looked like any other defendant rather than the Mayor of NYC. He was not cuffed and his police detail sat two rows behind him in the public gallery, and appeared, glum, impassive, and stared ahead or spoke with Spiro quietly. Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker addressed Adams by saying: 'Good afternoon'. In his deep voice, he replied: 'Good afternoon'. Judge Parker said the purpose of the proceedings was to tell Adams his rights, explain the charges against him, and decide if he should get bail. She told the court that the mayor had the right to remain silent and the right to a lawyer. 'Anything you say can be used against you,' the judge said. Judge Parker asked if the Mayor understood and he said: 'Yes I do, your honor' She read through a summary of the indictment - as she did so, Adams did not react. Judge Parker ordered Adams released on his own recognizance, and he will not have to give up his passport as part of the terms of his release. Adams was arraigned in Manhattan Federal Court on Friday as the first New York City mayor to be indicted while in office Adams sat in court at a bench next to his lawyer, Alex Spiro, and with no other aides or officials, he looked like any other defendant rather than the Mayor of NYC However, he was barred from speaking to any witnesses in the case - including his staff and members of his own family - about matters relating to the case. The move was an apparent recognition of the fact Adams has to work with some of the potential witnesses in the case as part of his job, and to allow him to communicate with his family. 'He shall have no contact with any individual witnesses or others listed in the list to be proved by the government concerning the facts and circumstances outlined in the indictment,' Judge Parker said. 'This does not preclude Mayor Adams from having routine communications regarding business and private family matters.' Spiro told the court they were 'going to be wanting a speedy trial'. He said that at the next hearing, due to take place next Wednesday, they would be filing a motion to dismiss. In an embarrassing moment for the mayor, Judge Parker told Adams, a former police captain, that if he failed to appear at his next court date or comply with the terms of his release he could be charged with 'bail jumping' and a warrant would be issued for his arrest. The mayor was told not to have any contact or 'engage in any intimidation' of any witness or court staff or obstruct law enforcement and its investigation. Adams left the court about 12.40pm and gave another thumps up to the crowd and waiting cameras, but wasn't able to crack a smile. Adams leaves the court after being freed on his own recognizance by a judge Adams left the court about 12.40pm and gave another thumps up to the crowd and waiting cameras, but wasn't able to crack a smile He stood next to his lawyer as Spiro made a short speech to the press and public crowded around. Spiro said that 'you all remember the Brian Benjamin case, similar shaky theory', referring to the former New York lieutenant governor who was accused of funneling money to a real estate developer in exchange for campaign contributions. Benjamins case was thrown out in 2022 but revived in March this year by an appeal court. 'That was dismissed. Same prosecutors, same theory, but the spectacle of this so exciting to them they wanted to bring another one of these cases,' Spiro said. 'This case isn't even a real case, this case is the airline upgrade corruption case'. Spiro said that there 'are no emails, text messages or any corroboration whatsoever that the mayor knew about anything to do with these campaign donations'. 'The entire body of evidence is one staffer who says there is a conversation. What you have not learned is that staffer has lied and the government is in possession of that lie. 'When that staffer was first interviewed, that staffer said Mayor Adams knew nothing about this, he was not involved in this and hes innocent. 'They have that information, they have not turned it over to us and they have not turned it over to you'. Adams stood next to his lawyer as Spiro made a short speech to the press and public crowded around One of Adams' security detail points at something in the crowd as Adams looks in that direction, before clambering into the waiting SUV and leaving Spiro alluded to Adams' claim that he was targeted by the feds because he spoke out against the Biden Administration's handling of the migrant crisis. 'Why are they doing this? Why are they targeting him?' he said. 'They implied hes disappointing people or people should be disappointed in him. It's not him doing this, it's the government - the other government - that everybody should be disappointed in, bringing this case against a sitting mayor.' Adams did not respond to questions as he walked into a waiting SUV and left. Reporters shouted out: 'Are you corrupt?' and 'did you take a bribe, Mr Mayor?' Adams' glum demeanor and few words was in contrast to his two defiant speeches on Wednesday and Thursday where he declared his innocence and vowed to fight the charges. He gave a thumbs up to the scrum of press and New Yorkers who crowded the courthouse steps just beofre 9am on Friday. He climbed out of a black SUV in a navy suit and red patterned tie, with a pocket square, and strode into the building ahead of his arraignment, set for 12pm. Adams' arrival two hours ahead of his arraignment gave him ample time to be processed, which typically involves taking a defendant's mugshot, his fingerprints and his personal details. Mugshots in federal cases are not typically released to the public, unlike Donald Trump's from his criminal case in Atlanta, which was a state matter. The defiant mayor gave a thumbs up to the scrum of press and New Yorkers who crowded the Manhattan Federal Court on Friday morning as he arrived He climbed out of a black SUV in a navy suit and red patterned tie and strode into the building ahead of his arraignment, set for 12pm Adams is accused of defrauding New York taxpayers of $10 million through allegedly fraudulent campaign funds Judge Dale Ho ordered Adams to appear on Friday, despite his lawyer asking the court to delay the arraignment until at least Monday. Ho will preside over the next hearing on Wednesday, where he will likely ask prosecutors to present their discovery and estimate the length of a trial. As Adams was arraigned, NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who would become interim mayor if Adams resigned or was removed by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, spoke about that possibility. He didn't called for Adams to quit, but said he should explain how he planned to keep governing while under indictment. 'That's a difficult thing to see could actually happen, from my vantage point, but that doesnt mean he can't,' he said. 'Deflection and trying to wave off what is happening is not a plan. That is something else.' The NYC mayor allegedly took advantage of the city's system of matching campaign contributions with tax dollars, and 'fraudulently obtained as much as $2,000 in public funds for each illegal contribution', the indictment alleged. He was allegedly 'relying on the concealed nature of these illegal contributions to falsely portray his campaigns as law-abiding.' 'As a result of those false certifications, Adam's 2021 mayoral campaign received more than $10,000,000 in public funds', prosecutors said on Thursday. Adams is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, and receiving campaign contributions by foreign nationals Adams was greeted by a scrum of press and New Yorkers who crowded the Manhattan Federal Court According to the indictment, Adams' relationship with Turkish officials saw him accept a number of luxurious gifts, including stays in lavish Istanbul hotels. Adams allegedly pressured the FDNY to open a Turkish government-owned high rise in Manhattan in exchange for 'luxury travel benefits' - despite the building failing safety inspections. US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams alleged Adams 'took corrupt official action in exchange for some of the luxury travel benefits'. He alleged there were 'significant time pressures' to open the building in time for a visit from Turkey's president, at the urging of a Turkish official. Adams allegedly accepted over $100,000 worth of amenities and gifts from the Turkish government in exchange for 'influence over him', Williams said. The alleged gifts included a stay in the St Regis Istanbul hotel, where he stayed with a 'partner' in a luxury suite that would typically have cost $7,000 for two nights, but he allegedly only paid $600. Adams beaming in pictures from a 2021 trip to Ghana, where prosecutors claim he received free upgraded flights for two on his journey from New York He is accused of accepting flights from Turkish Airlines 'even when doing so was otherwise inconvenient', with a July 2017 trip from New York to France seeing him stop in Turkey. When his partner asked him why he was in Turkey, he allegedly responded: 'transferring here. You know first stop is always Istanbul'. According to prosecutors, Eric Adams accepted an array of luxury gifts and amenities from foreign governments who hoped to buy influence with him. This included free trips, hotel suites and airline upgrades valued at over $100,000. For example, he allegedly accepted free business class upgrades with companions for flights from New York to France, Turkey, Sri Lank and China in July 2017. That same month, he also allegedly enjoyed a hugely discounted stay at the Bentley Suite in the St Regis Hotel in Istanbul, valued at over $3,5000 per night but for which he only paid $300 per night. Another alleged instance came as one of Adams' staffers made a reservation for a flight to Turkey on the day of the 2021 NYC Democratic primary. He also allegedly received a free meal and transportation during a layover in Istanbul, and accepted gifts and amenities on the trip worth upwards of $12,000, prosecutors said. According to prosecutors, when the airline suggested he stay at the Four Seasons, the staffer said it would be 'too expensive' - to which the airline manager responded: 'Why does he care? He is not going to pay.' The airline manager allegedly added that Adams' 'name will not be on anything either', to which the staffer responded: 'Super.' Adams held a press conference outside the Gracie Mansion shortly after the federal indictment against him was unsealed on Thursday. The NYC mayor, 64, defied mounting calls for his resignation as he spoke surrounded by black community leaders in the city, saying he 'will continue to do the job that I was elected to do.' 'My day to day will not change,' Adams said, adding that his lawyers will 'take care of the case.' Asked if he had any plans to resign, Adams responded: 'I was elected by 700,000 people.' 'Everyone who knows me knows that I follow the campaign rules and I follow the law,' he said. As Adams spoke, a group of angry protestors shouted him down and demanded he step down from office. This led one of his supporters around him, Hazel Jones, to shout back from the podium for the protestors to 'shut up.' Another image from 2017 shows Adams on a trip to China, which came after he allegedly accepted free business class tickets to fly to the nation with a stop off in Turkey - worth over $16,000, prosecutors claimed. Adams earlier accused the feds of going after him because he expressed displeasure with the Biden Administration on immigration. Defiant in a pre-recorded statement on Wednesday night, Adams said: 'It is now my belief that the federal government is attempting charge me with crimes. If so, these charges will be entirely false, based on lies. 'But they will not be surprising. I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you, that I would be a target. And a target I became. 'For months, leaks, rumors, have been aimed at me in an attempt to undermine my credibility and paint me as guilty,' he went on. 'Just this past week, they searched the home of our new police commissioner, looking for documents from 20 years ago. 'Enough.' US Attorney Damian Williams, speaks at a news conference detailing an indictment against New York City Mayor Eric Adams Williams uses a visual aid to explain the indictment and evidence against Adams Adams went on to say, citing how the raid came just a week after new commissioner Thomas Donlon suddenly replaced predecessor Edward Caban, who was handpicked by Adams to replace outgoing Keechant Sewell. 'I will fight these injustices with every ounce of my strength and my spirit,' Adams declared. 'If I'm charged, I know I am innocent. I will request an immediate trial so that New Yorkers can hear the truth.' The political newcomer proceeded to point his law enforcement background, which he leaned on intensely three years ago during a successful campaign that touted him as tough-on-crime. 'New Yorkers know my story and know where I come from,' the former police captain said. 'I have been fighting injustices my entire life. That fight has continued as your mayor. Turning back to the migrant situation that has seen 217,300 foreigners funneled into the city, he proclaimed: 'Despite our pleas, the federal government did nothing as it's broken immigration policies [and] overloaded our shelter system. 'I put the people of New York before party and politics,' the mayor pressed on - before a lengthy pause. New York City Mayor Eric Adams laughs during a press conference outside his official residence, Gracie Mansion, on Thursday after he was charged Adams smiles at his press conference on Thursday, looking undeterred by the charges He went on to concede how in coming days, he will likely face calls to resign, but said he will resist all calls to step down. 'But I have been facing these lies for months, since I began to speak out for all of you - and there investigation started,' he continued, crying conspiracy 'Yet, the city has continued to improve.' 'You elected me to lead this city, and lead it I will. I humbly ask for your prayers and patience as we see this through. God bless you, and God bless the city of New York. Thank you.' Adams initially welcomed the concept of New York being a sanctuary city - with the then campaigning mayor, just days before he was elected, celebrating the then new arrivals as 'keeping our city running' during the pandemic. 'The days I spent with our essential employees, a substantial number of them were undocumented,' he added at the time, before changing his tune a little over a year later. A less somber Adams is seen outside Gracie Mansion flashing a thumbs up sign to a reporter just before news of the indictment broke. He was there Wednesday night as well 'They were delivering out Uber Eats, they were stocking our stores, they were out in the streets keeping our city running.' As the border crisis worsened, Adams abruptly changed his tune, asking for federal help In July 2022. The following month, he said the city had a 'moral and legal obligation to house anyone who is experiencing homelessness.' By the start of 2023, he shifted gears completely, having civic staffers hand out yellow fliers to immigrants that disclaimed was 'no guarantee' they would receive shelter or services if they went to New York. 'Housing in NYC is very expensive,' the fliers said. 'Please consider another city as you make your decision about where to settle in the US.' Two Just Stop Oil activists have been jailed for pouring soup over Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers, after they came close to 'destroying' the masterpiece. Phoebe Plummer 23, and Anna Holland, 22, caused as much as 10,000 worth of damage to the artwork's gold-coloured frame when they targeted it at London's National Gallery. Plummer received a two-year jail term, while Holland was handed 20 months. The protesters, wearing Just Stop Oil T-shirts, threw two tins of Heinz tomato soup over the 1888 work in October 2022, before kneeling down in front of the painting and gluing their hands to the wall beneath it. Staff at the gallery inspected the painting, worth up to 72.5m, and frame for damage while the women were still attached to the wall, and were worried the soup may have dripped through the protective glass. In October 2022, Phoebe Plummer, 23, (left) and fellow activist Anna Holland, 22, (right) flung two tins of Heinz soup at Sunflowers at London 's National Gallery Just Stop Oil supporters gathered outside the court, some of whom held posters of historical figures jailed for activism Plummer (left) received a two-year jail term, while Holland (right) was handed 20 months The pair had been to the museum in Trafalgar Square a day before the incident and bought the tins of soup from a Tesco supermarket in central London. They denied but were convicted of damaging property by a jury after a four day trial at Southwark Crown Court. Plummer said she had 'made peace' with her decision and smiled as she was handed her sentence. Sentencing the women, Judge Christopher Hehir said the 'cultural treasure' could have been 'seriously damaged or even destroyed'. Judge Hehir, who previously jailed the co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion for five years, continued: 'Soup might have seeped through the glass. 'You couldn't have cared less if the painting was damaged or not. 'You had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers.' The judge told Plummer, who was also handed a criminal behaviour order: 'You clearly think your beliefs give you the right to commit crimes when you feel like it. You do not.' Visitors at the gallery were heard gasping 'Oh my gosh' as the painting was attacked during the protest which was filmed and quickly uploaded onto JSO's Twitter page. Raj Chada, defending Holland, said the women 'did check' that the painting was protected by a glass cover before throwing the soup. Plummer, representing herself, told the hearing: 'My choice today is to accept whatever sentence I receive with a smile. 'It is not just myself being sentenced today, or my co-defendants, but the foundations of democracy itself.' Both Plummer and Holland refused to say who they took instructions from before they carried out the publicity stunt. The painting is considered to be a masterpiece and is one of the most recognisable artworks in the world Supporters of the two Just Stop Oil environmental protesters, Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland gather with placards outside Southwark Crown Court Plummer was also handed a three-month sentence for her part in a slow march which caused long tailbacks in west London in November 2023. Holland and Plummer were found guilty of criminal damage by a jury after three hours of deliberation in July, after which Judge Hehir said they 'came within the width of a pane of glass of destroying one of the most valuable artworks in the world'. Francesca Kolar, prosecuting, said: 'Whilst this risked serious damage to a priceless painting by one of the greatest artists - Vincent Van Gogh - there was, we say, actual damage to the seventeenth century Italian frame chosen specifically to house this painting by The National Gallery in 1999.' Prosecutor Ben Lloyd said that the antique frame, originally worth 28,000, had suffered around 10,000 worth of damage. Frame conservator Isabella Kocum said in a statement read to jurors: 'I was shocked and dismayed by the extent of corrosion this tomato soup had caused to the exquisite antique frame. 'The frame was specifically chosen for Van Gogh's painting because of the matching coloration. 'I remain amazed at how corrosive the soup was to the frame.' 'Even once the majority of the soup had been removed, I was alarmed to see that the remainder was acting like a paint stripper in front of my eyes.' In the intervening years, Plummer has taken part in numerous other demonstrations, committing flagrant offences and being constantly re-bailed so she can re-offend Plummer, who once likened herself to Martin Luther King, has lived a life of serene luxury Plummer attended the 50,000 a year St Mary's Ascott boarding school in Berkshire She grew up in her parents 2.85million Chelsea townhouse but is now thought to reside at a property in Lambeth In 2022, Plummer said in front of the painting: 'What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice? 'Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people? The cost-of-living crisis is part of the cost-of-oil crisis.' In July, just five days after her guilty verdict, Plummer was arrested for spraying paint on departure boards at Heathrow Airport. A number of Just Stop Oil supporters gathered outside the court, some of whom held posters of historical figures jailed for activism. Plummer, who once likened herself to Martin Luther King, has lived a life of serene luxury being privately educated at St Mary's Ascot boarding school in Berkshire before studying social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She grew up in her parents 2.85million Chelsea townhouse but according to court hearings now resides at a house in Lambeth. It is not known if the professional protester has managed to find gainful employment to support herself in her new digs, but according to an interview in the Times it seems unlikely. She boasted: 'I don't have to work three jobs to feed my kids or pay heating bills which means I can dedicate time towards fighting.' He's clearly a deeply disturbed not to say creepy individual who likes to dress up as schoolchildren and post weird, unsettling and in some cases revolting videos and images on the internet. For now, his true identity remains unknown. But there is no doubt that the chilling case of 'Smartschoolboy9' has sent parts of internet into a collective tailspin. Online sleuths around the world are furiously trying to work out his real name and accurate location though he is thought to be in south London. A single YouTube video investigating the case has some ten million views, while posts on TikTok, Reddit, X and other sites have collectively amassed millions of views, as people share competing theories and assess the evidence. The case of Smartschoolboy9 may turn out to be a sick prank or he may be a child predator at large, flaunting his paedophile predilections. So why has he drawn such horrified fascination? According to American YouTuber Nick Crowley who has 2.6million subscribers the origins of this chilling episode began on Instagram in 2021 when several accounts were launched in succession. There is no doubt that the chilling case of 'Smartschoolboy9' (pictured) has sent parts of internet into a collective tailspin The case of Smartschoolboy9 may turn out to be a sick prank or he may be a child predator at large, flaunting his paedophile predilections Online sleuths around the world are furiously trying to work out his real name and accurate location though he is thought to be in south London 'Smartschoolboy9' consisted of photos and videos of an overweight man dressed as a hideous caricature of a schoolboy The account as thousands of followers and the videos it has posted have amassed millions of views The first, 'truth_sticks_11', claimed to be run by a 12-year-old boy and his mother. It started posting pictures of a young blond boy, who may in fact have been an AI creation all along. 'Beautiful boy and account looked after by me, a degree-educated mother, choosing to stay anonymous,' the 'mother' oddly announced. The photos began fairly normally, showing a young boy at school. Over time, however, they became ever more strange, with the child's face digitally distorted to feature huge pouting lips enhanced with red lipstick and featuring a protruding tongue. The face was whitened, the hair yellowed, the eyes piercingly blue. The final image was cartoonish and extremely unnerving. The pictures also became grotesquely suggestive, some reportedly veering towards child pornography. At times the boy's face was digitally moved on to scantily dressed adult bodies, while similarly manipulated images of other children showed them in contorted positions and even tied up. The creator also appeared to have an obsession with women's high-heeled mini boots, with many of the images featuring children edited to appear to be wearing them. A second Instagram account, 'girl.chloe12', claimed to belong to a 13-year-old who shared the same obsession with the high-heeled boots. Crowley and others have argued this was classic 'fetish content' but horribly focused on children. The third account, 'Smartschoolboy9', was altogether more chilling. It consisted of photos and videos of an overweight man dressed as a hideous caricature of a schoolboy, much of his face painted white with bright red lipstick and wearing those same high-heeled mini space boots an unnerving real-life imitation of the AI-generated boy in the first account, albeit with a receding hairline. He spoke with a disturbing high-pitched voice and his tongue was almost permanently protruding. Much of the man's face has been painted white with bright red lipstick while they are wearing high-heeled mini space boots Photos have emerged of the man dressed obscenely as Stefanie, complete with school uniform, wig, boater and short skirt The person behind the account spoke with a disturbing high-pitched voice and his tongue was almost permanently protruding Some of the videos showed this individual 'in costume' in the hallway of a terraced London house apparently after arriving home from school. Another showed him on a bus supposedly heading to school and another walking down the street. Others were even more sinister, which understandably attracted particular alarm, in which he appeared to be chasing a real little boy, giggling, through a park. Internet sleuths say they've discovered evidence that the poster has created at least a dozen similar accounts, all of them involving fictitious children such as 13-year-old poet 'Stefanie' publishing sexually suggestive posts and eerily messaging each other if as if they were friends. Photos have emerged of the man dressed obscenely as Stefanie, complete with school uniform, wig, boater and short skirt. Crowley and many others suspect that the man behind Smartschoolboy9 could be a sexual predator who is trying to reach genuine children. Has he already claimed any victims? Pictures of numerous children posted by Smartschoolboy9 don't appear elsewhere on the internet, suggesting he has been contacting children privately before sharing their photos online, says Mr Crowley. With photos suggesting he is following real children around and that footage of him chasing the boy, internet users have become determined to unmask the real individual and alert the authorities. There are several clues. His posts including frequent shots of specific parts of Streatham, south London. Smartschoolboy9 also repeatedly mentions someone he calls David, leading many to suspect that that is his real name. He has also claimed to be in his 50s. Recently, fresh video footage was posted on X, apparently filmed by a group of children, and claiming to show the south London terraced house where the man lives. Disturbingly, as the children were filming outside, a hand appeared from inside the house, clinging to the front door. Internet sleuths say they've discovered evidence that the poster has created at least a dozen similar accounts, all of them involving fictitious children Some of the videos showed this individual 'in costume' in the hallway of a terraced London house apparently after arriving home from school Smartschoolboy9 repeatedly mentions someone he calls David, leading many to suspect that that is his real name In London, police in Greenwich reportedly circulated a message on social media saying that a man was 'pretending to be a child and engaging with kids on social media,' adding: 'An investigation is ongoing, but his intentions are unclear. Stay vigilant and talk to your children about online safety.' The post was later removed. The Met confirmed yesterday that it has been made aware of at least one video linked to Smartschoolboy9, in this case showing the man dressed as a schoolboy walking down a corridor. It told the Daily Mail in a statement: 'We are aware of the video being posted online. As no crime has been committed in the content of the video, we are not investigating anything at this time.' On Wednesday, the respected organisation Safer Schools put out an alert, saying that its 'online safeguarding team' had received reports of someone who posed a 'serious risk' and was 'potentially masquerading as a child on social media in order to interact with children'. It went on: 'Copycat accounts have emerged, and videos related to this issue are circulating in some schools. This has caused fear and anxiety among some younger children who have been exposed to this harmful content.' Some schools are already putting out their own warnings to parents on social media, saying children may be watching SmartSchoolBoy9. One concerned Hertfordshire primary school said that the material was 'highly inappropriate' and stressed that children shouldn't be watching it. No doubt that's true. But until the individual is definitively unmasked, it seems unlikely that the rising panic will stop. A man's Hawaiian oceanfront house has collapsed into the ocean - and now the state is suing him for allowing it to happen. Heart-stopping footage shared on social media earlier this week showed the home on Oahu's North Shore breaking apart and collapsing into the crashing waves. Homeowner Josh VanEmmerik, 31, is the owner of a bar called Gaslamp in Kailua and he grew up in the area. The house was his dream - a slice of Hawaiian oceanfront heaven. But after being accused of multiple violations including failing to properly protect it, he is now being sued for allowing its structure to float into the ocean. A man's Hawaiian oceanfront house has collapsed into the ocean - and now the state is suing him for allowing it to happen Homeowner Josh VanEmmerik is the owner of a bar called Gaslamp in Kailua and he grew up in the area As the structure crumbled, a neighbor who took the video could be heard warning onlookers: 'Be careful where you're standing. The whole roof is gonna come down right now.' The legal complaint argues that the moment the house collapsed, its debris became unwanted material on state-owned land. In Hawaii, all beaches up to the high-tide mark are public property. 'On September 24, 2024, large pieces of cement, wood, glass, electrical components, rebar, geotextile fabric, and other unidentified solid materials cover the State land spanning between the property boundary line and the ocean,' the complaint claims. The filing continued, stating that 'an unknown quantity of solid material from the dwelling on Subject Property 2 entered the ocean and were taken away from the location due to the ocean's natural processes.' The lawsuit is seeking an injunction to force the removal of debris in addition to financial compensation. The state plans to 'restore the beach to its natural condition for the public's use and enjoyment,' the outlet reported. Demolition began Thursday for the house. Excavators were seen tearing down the remaining parts of the property, as debris from Tuesday's collapse continued to be tossed into the ocean. The house before it collapsed into the ocean As the structure crumbled, Instagram user kevin_makana_emery who took the video, can be heard warning onlookers, 'Be careful where you're standing. The whole roof is gonna come down right now.' The video shows glass, metal, and wood collapsing into the ocean Instagram user kevin_makana_emery, who shared the shocking video on Wednesday, captioned it: The State of Hawaii officials could've prevented this! But they did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.' He pleaded with the state to take action. 'This situation has been going on for years now. Why are you NOT here cleaning this up!!! Talking about EXTREMELY DANGEROUS to our community members. broken glass, metal, nails, BS covering the entire beaches and reefs as we speak.' The video reveals the devastation scene of destruction, with glass, metal, and wood strewn across the sandy beach and pushed into the ocean. 'This is the beach that my daughter plays. It's literally covered in broken glass,' he added. Dozens of viewers weighed in on the situation. One commenter argued: 'Legally it's not the state's problem. It's the property owner's issue. It's like blaming the government if lightning hits a house and it burns down.' Others, however, sided with the homeowners. 'It's very sad to see this. The government's negligence is real and it kills many innocent people. It's even sadder for the families in the region.' Another concerned viewer commented: 'Worried for all that dangerous glass and things that can go right through your body if you step on them or fall on them! Take lotta pictures!! send it to the mayor.' The state of Hawaii has now filed a civil lawsuit against the homeowner, seeking damages for the beachfront catastrophe In December 2023, The Hawaii Board of Land and Natural Resources slapped VanEmmerik with a whopping $77,000 fine for erosion control violations in front of his Sunset Beach home Deputy Attorney General Danica Swenson told HawaiiNewsNow: 'Private landowners take a risk when they allow structures to be so close to the shoreline.' 'The people of Hawaii are now confronted with the consequences of property owners' failures to take heed of the ocean's warning signs of erosion.' In December 2023, The Hawaii Board of Land and Natural Resources slapped VanEmmerik with a whopping $77,000 fine for erosion control violations in front of his Sunset Beach home, as reported by Spectrumlocalnews. The violations stemmed from a series of unauthorized attempts to save his property from the encroaching ocean. Last year, VanEmmerik allegedly placed small polypropylene sandbags on top of older, failed erosion control measures, then poured concrete over the bags and placed rocks on the beach, as reported by KITV. All those against broke the law in the State Land Use Conservation District. Despite a settlement agreement requiring the removal of all unauthorized structures by September 30, 2023, Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands (OCCL) staff reported finding debris in the sand. A neighbor, Ken Bradshaw told Island News at the time that the erosion was inevitable. 'It was going to happen no matter what, erosion's going to take place - this particular beach at the North Shore is seriously prone to summer erosion, not winter erosion, trade wind summer swells come and move everything toward Waimea, this is an ongoing thing, I've been in my house 40 years, I've seen everything.' 'There was an old Hawaiian family that had property originally from Wahiawa, they finally sold it to a guy who was overly zealous and thought he could prevent it (damage) from happening and I warned him myself three times - do not buy this property,' he added. OCCL Administrator Michael Cain emphasized the importance of protecting Hawaii's beaches. 'The beaches are held in public trust by the state for the people of Hawaii, it's the DLNR's responsibility to protect these resource,' he said at the time. The vaccine race: it was Brexit and Bingham what won it. There were good reasons for any member of the Tory Government to feel apprehensive on the morning of December 8, 2020, round about breakfast time, when I visited Guy's Hospital in Southwark, South London. In so far as we had made mistakes in the fight against Covid, they were my mistakes, since I had ultimate authority over every decision. In so far as there had been unnecessary death and suffering, it was my responsibility and so there was something remarkable about this visit. No one swore at me under their breath, or catcalled from the coffee shop. No one even gave me the hairy eyeball. Perhaps it was because everybody knew it was all over the news that on this day our country was making history. Kate Bingham, who chaired the Vaccine Taskforce, secured the supply of immunisation jabs for Britain A nurse gives Boris his Covid vaccine at London's St Thomas' Hospital in March 2021 We stood at a respectful distance, sleeves rolled up, ties tucked into our shirt buttons, as we watched 81-year-old Lyn Wheeler get her Covid vaccine. She wasn't the very first in the world: that had been a 90-year-old at a hospital in Coventry, at 6.31 on the same morning. But she was one of the first. This church-going school assistant was getting a vaccination that was both licensed and effective. 'I am doing it for Britain,' she said. I was overwhelmed with excitement. I was also, frankly, amazed. As far as I knew, it took about ten to 15 years to bring a vaccine to market, and even then the chances were that it might not really work. I couldn't see why we would have a vaccine in five years, let alone in one. But one day in April, while I was sitting reading in Chequers, not long after getting out of hospital, I heard from my private office that a team at Oxford had made some sort of breakthrough. It appeared that they were using chimpanzee flu, or adenovirus, to mimic the Covid virus, so that if your body were exposed to this bug via a vaccine, you would develop antibodies against Covid. It all sounded promising, but still a long way off. When I got back to the office at the end of the month, I found some people such as my health adviser Will Warr full of enthusiasm for the Oxford project. But they were worried. We had committed 65 million to support the creation of the vaccine, yet the intellectual property belonged to Oxford. Now that the scientists, led by Sarah Gilbert, had made their breakthrough, they needed a commercial partner to bring it to market. They were about to do a deal with Merck, the pharmaceutical giant. Which was great, except that Merck was American. That was a worry. It wasn't about nationalism, or chauvinism, or some political desire to have a Union Jack on a British breakthrough. We had a hard-nosed, practical concern that in these desperate times any government our own included would do whatever it took to ensure that their own people had a supply of vaccines, if and when they became available. With the encouragement of Will Warr and Patrick Vallance, I wrote a letter addressed to both Oxford chancellor Chris Patten and the vice-chancellor, Louise Richardson. I delicately reminded them of the situation: of the long-standing UK government support for the Oxford researches into vaccines, and expressed the strong preference that they should seek another suitor. Boris speaks to 81-year-old Lyn Wheeler, one of the first in the world to get her Covid vaccine, at London's Guy's Hospital in December 2020 He gives the thumbs-up to the vaccination programme after receiving his own jab at St Thomas' Hospital They took the hint. It wasn't long before Pascal Soriot and AstraZeneca stepped forward; a contract was signed, and the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine was born. That step securing the vaccine supply before it even existed was crucial. It is a very sad thing, but the whole experience of Covid so far had taught me that when national politicians panic, international co-operation goes out of the window. What we needed was a tsar or tsarina who could take charge of the project, someone hustling, negotiating, talking to Big Pharma. I chose Kate Bingham, whom I had known since I was 18. She was one of a bevy of brilliant and energetic Paulinas (alumnae of the Girls' School in Hammersmith, West London) who went around Oxford in the mid-1980s, terrorising and breaking the hearts of their male counterparts. She had married an old school friend of mine, Jesse Norman, and she had also been at school with my sister, the ubiquitous Rachel. Yes, she was a chum of mine, but it was precisely because I knew her that I knew she was superabundantly qualified for the job. Her paper qualifications were perfect because she had built a career and reputation by investing in new medicines; and she had exactly the right leadership qualities. Britain ended up having the edge over other countries because Kate knew all the players in the life sciences sector. She also did deals as fast as she could, and, with my explicit approval, she was pretty lavish in placing her bets on six different vaccines and a total of about 350 million doses far more than would be needed by the entire UK population. She certainly spent public money, and thank goodness for her decisiveness in doing so; because, as an outlay, it was utterly dwarfed by the costs of the disease. Just as it looked, kerchingeroo, as if Kate's bets might actually pay off, spectacularly, the Left decided to lay into her. There was innuendo about her business connections, and the implication that she might be somehow profiting personally from her work on vaccines an absurd suggestion, not least since she was leading the taskforce pro bono. Another article complained she had spent 670,000 on PR consultants, which was a travesty because it was crucial to gauge public sentiment about vaccines given the challenges we were to face in the subsequent roll-out. The BBC joined the hue and cry, claiming that Kate had only got the job because she was a chum of mine and asking if she was an example of the new corruption in public life. Labour piled in first Jon Ashworth, then Rachel Reeves, then Keir Starmer himself as a way of getting at me. It wasn't long before they had egg on their face. On December 2, Britain became the first country in the world to approve an effective vaccine, in Pfizer BioNTech, and a few days later we were the first country to begin the roll-out as I saw at Guy's in Southwark. By the end of the month, we had become the first country in the world to approve the use of Oxford AstraZeneca, and unlike Pfizer (which required quite cold refrigeration) Astra could be stored at room temperature. The roll-out rolled on with ever-faster revolutions; because Kate had laid on the stocks, and because the approvals came faster than anywhere else in the world. And that was thanks in no small part to Brexit. I believe there were grave defects of the previous approach to Brexit, under the government of Theresa May. It is true that her 'deal' kept us 'closer' to the EU, but it also meant a kind of subordination to Brussels. By effectively remaining in the EU single market, we were out of the EU but run by the EU. Under Theresa's deal, we remained as paid-up members of EU single market institutions, such as the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Under my deal, we came out. We took back control. That meant that when it came to the approval of vaccines, we no longer had to go at the pace of the rest of the European Union. We had our own agency the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and we could do our own thing. The result was that we approved these drugs weeks and weeks before anyone else. That mattered. With more than 1,000 people dying on some of our worst days, even as the roll-out began 1,342 on January 19, 2021, the direst day of the pandemic the exact speed of our roll-out, in those few weeks, mattered more than anything else in the life of our nation. It meant, bluntly, that we were able to immunise huge numbers of elderly and vulnerable people who if they had been living in an EU country, or in pre-Brexit Britain would unquestionably have been forced to wait for EMA approval for their drugs, and who might therefore have died of Covid. It wasn't long before some graffiti appeared on the wall in Portobello Road, West London. 'Brexit saves lives,' it said. It wasn't the sort of writing you expect on the wall in the largely Remain-backing Kensington and Chelsea, and I know that some of you will still find it a pretty indigestible assertion. But painful as it may be for some people, it's true. If you want proof, look at the reaction of our continental friends and partners. It wasn't long before the success of the UK vaccine roll-out had started to drive them potty, first with irritation, then with rage. A huge whale carcass has washed up on a British beach as experts say its too rotten to be taken away and locals warn its beginning to smell. The creature - which is believed to be a minke or fin whale - washed up on Headland Beach, Hartlepool and can't be moved. The Environment Agency is warning members of the public to stay away from the dead animal. The UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) attends whale strandings so it can carry out post-mortems to determine whether they occurred naturally or were caused by humans. A spokesperson for (CSIP) told the BBC the whale was 'far too decomposed for us to justify attendance on site'. A huge whale carcass has washed up on a Hartlepool beach and can't be moved as experts say its too rotten to be taken away The creature is believed to be a minke or fin whale. The Environment Agency is warning members of the public to stay away from the dead animal Locals say the whale carcass is starting to smell. Rob Deaville, project manager for CSIP at the Institute of Zoology said that decomposed whales 'lose pathological value' and so they would not collect the whale Rob Deaville, project manager for CSIP at the Institute of Zoology added that decomposed whales 'lose pathological value' and so they would not collect the whale. He said he's at a loss as to why the animal became beached but suggested it could be a number of factors such as entanglement in fishing equipment, ship strike or underlying disease. One member of the public, who spotted the whale on September 25, said he was 'scared' of the gigantic mammal. He said: 'I go to the beach every day for a walk, I bumped into a lady who said there was a big whale on the beach. 'I thought she was having a laugh, off I went and I spotted the whale and the RSPCA were there to cordon the place off. 'I was a bit scared at first, anyone would with the size of something like that. 'I have never seen a real whale before. 'I hesitated at first, I wasn't sure if it was alive or not but the closer we got I realized it was dead.' Mr Deaville does not believe the local council will have been prepared with the equipment needed to remove the carcass. He said it could be used as landfill, be incinerated or just left until it completely rots away. China warns Japan against "bringing a wolf into the house" Xinhua) 09:38, September 27, 2024 BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of National Defense on Thursday urged Japan not to align with U.S. plans to deploy intermediate-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region, citing regional security risks. The warning was delivered by Zhang Xiaogang, the ministry spokesperson, during a regular press conference. When asked about recent reports that the U.S. army secretary had discussed the deployment of a multi-domain task force with Japan's defense minister, Zhang expressed serious concerns. Analysts have suggested that this may involve the installation of the "Typhon" intermediate-range missile system in Japan. Zhang cautioned that such a deployment would exacerbate the trend toward an arms race in the Asia-Pacific region, posing a severe threat to regional security and disrupting global strategic balance and stability. Voicing China's firm opposition, Zhang said, "The Asia-Pacific needs peace and prosperity, not confrontation and conflict." He urged the U.S. to halt actions that heighten tensions and warned Japan not to "bring a wolf into the house" by accommodating U.S. military plans. "Otherwise, Japan will be placing itself in a dangerous position," Zhang noted. The spokesperson said that China would respond firmly and resolvedly, based on how the situation develops, and in accordance with its own needs. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) An elderly couple who fell in love during 2022's devastating Hurricane Ian ignored calls to evacuate Thursday and said they would celebrate their hurricane-iversary by riding out Helene together as well. Michele Vikartofsky and Larry Leventhal met each other during the devastating Category 5 Ian that killed 161 people, because they were 'both crazy people that stayed' at their homes on Sanibel Island, Florida. And despite Florida officials urging residents to evacuate before Helene made landfall on Thursday night, the couple remained at home this time as well. When asked by NBC News why they remained, Michele had a one-word answer: 'Yolo.' Speaking over 5G network on their phones, the couple were asked why they remained in the area through the hurricane. Michele had a one-word answer: 'Yolo' The couple said Hurricane Helene was 'not as bad' as Ian, despite the storm bringing widespread destruction across several states on Thursday night Michelle and Larry said while Helene brought widespread destruction across several states, including leaving over three million without power, the damage does not compare to when Ian struck two years ago. The couple said they each lost cars that were swept away by Ian, but felt safer this time and rode out Helene in their 'hurricane safe' property. 'We lost power, but it's not as bad as Ian was,' Michelle said. 'But it's still worse than we thought it was going to be.' Asked why they remain living on Sanibel Island after it has been continually battered by extreme weather events in recent weeks, Larry said the island is 'paradise' 99 percent of the time. The couple revealed to Wink News that they were both strangers when Ian brought them together, as they were both 'crazy' neighbors who decided to weather the storm at the time. The couple admitted they were 'crazy people' for frequently riding out hurricanes, but said they have learned 'to be a little bit more careful' 'We had not met. We just met during the hurricane, spent two days walking around after, so Ian brought us together,' Michelle said, adding 'and now this happened' as she pointed to an engagement ring. They said that they felt far safer this time around, because 'after living through Ian, its like you could get through anything.' Michelle said: 'Ian was destructive. Ian taught us all a lesson that we never thought would happen here. 'Storm surge is always predicted, but [it] never happened like Ian, so, yeah, weve learned to watch a little bit, be a little bit more careful.' The couple spoke as Hurricane Helene barreled through several states after touching down in the Big Bend area of Florida on Thursday evening, leaving over three million without power and killing at least fourteen people. At least 23 people have been killed so far across Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. These deaths included a sign falling on one driver on a Tampa highway, two people drowning in coastal Pinellas County, and a four-year-old girl lost her life in a weather-related crash in North Carolina. Florida was hit with huge destruction as Hurricane Helene made landfall with wind gusts up to 140mph Some residents decided to ignore evacuation orders and woke up Friday to heavy flooding A family wades through flood waters in Crystal River, Florida in the early hours of Friday Debris left by Hurricane Helene after making landfall are seen in Cedar Key, Florida On Friday morning, more than 3 million homes and businesses were without power, including 1.2 million in South Carolina, 1.1 million in Florida (pictured), 1 million in Georgia, and 400,000 in North Carolina Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the death toll may continue to climb as rescue teams work through the wreckage left behind. The danger of the storm was highlighted as Floridians who decided not to evacuate were told to write their names on their bodies so they could be identified if they died in the storm. 'Please write your name, birthday, and important information on your arm or leg in a PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified,' the sheriffs office in mostly rural Taylor County warned those who chose not to evacuate in a Facebook post. Helene first made landfall with maximum sustained wind gusts of up to 140mph, prompting weather warnings far beyond the Florida coast up into northern Georgia and western North Carolina. On Friday morning, more than 3 million homes and businesses were without power, including 1.2 million in South Carolina, 1.1 million in Florida, 1 million in Georgia, and 400,000 in North Carolina, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us. The governors of those states, as well as Alabama and Virginia, all declared emergencies. 'When Floridians wake up tomorrow morning, we're going to be waking up to a state where very likely there's been additional loss of life and certainly there's going to be loss of property,' Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday night. By early Friday, Helene was downgraded to a Category 1 storm as it moved past Georgia, after leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. A Citrus County firefighter carries 11-year-old Michael Cribbins through floodwaters in Crystal River, Florida on Friday morning The severe storm ripped a road from its foundations in Florida, where officials urged residents to evacuate late Thursday The weather system hit the Big Bend area of Florida's Gulf Coast around 11:10pm CDT with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph As the hurricane moved through Georgia, Fox Weather reporter Bob Van Dillen was forced to interrupt his live shot to rescue a woman trapped in her car, leading to stunning footage. Van Dillen sprang into action as he was filing a live report in northern Atlanta, Georgia, where Helene tore through on Friday morning after making landfall in Florida hours earlier. Van Dillen began by pointing out the stranded woman 'drove right into the flood waters', and she could be heard screaming for help as he told the studio he had dialed 911 and was waiting for the fire department. As the screams continued through his broadcast, Van Dillen cut his live shot short to wade in and help the woman, with Fox anchors in the studio branding him a 'hero' as he carried her to safety in chest-deep waters. Van Dillen returned to the air after saving the woman and said he waded into the floodwaters because he lost faith that 911 firefighters would rescue her in time. Fox Weather reporter Bob Van Dillen sprang into action as he was filing a live report in northern Atlanta, Georgia, to rescue a woman trapped in her car by Hurricane Helene 'It's hard not to, because 911 have so many calls,' he said as he returned to Fox and Friends. 'They're going to take a long time to get here, but the fire department finally did get here.' The weatherman said that when he first approached the woman, she was 'panicking' and 'wasn't really making too much sense.' 'She was still had the seat buckle on. And she had her window about this much down and she's trying to talk to me through that,' he continued. 'So, I'm trying to open up the door and the water pressure wasn't allowing me to do it,' he said, explaining that the woman had to let water into her car so he could save her. '(The water was) up to my chest and there's a little bit of a current, but she was a short lady too, she was probably about five feet.' He concluded: 'I think the panic factor was setting in. And when you start to panic and you're in water and it starts getting cold, you can really, things could really go downhill quickly. So, I just - I couldn't wait.' A pub landlady has revealed why it costs diners a massive $33 for a chicken parmigiana after customers slammed the expensive price. Simone Douglas, who runs the Duke of Brunswick Hotel in Adelaide, uploaded a post to Facebook breaking down the expenses associated with making the classic dish. Ms Douglas said that after taking into consideration the cost of ingredients, staff wages, bills and fees, her business was making a profit of just $2 for every chicken parmi with salad they sell. 'When I broke it down and ran the maths, I was like, ''Wow, that's a lot of work for $2 profit at the end of the day'',' Ms Douglas told The Advertiser. Customers had left scathing online reviews of the cost of the meal, prompting Ms Douglas to explain why the parmi came with its price tag. She said the cost of running her business had grown by 40 per cent over the last five years. 'We're just happy to make a living, no one is getting rich. It's exhausting when you have people leaving one or two star reviews because they think your pricing is exorbitant,' Ms Douglas said. 'Some customers have teed off, saying it's nothing with our food, service, the ambience but that they wouldn't come back because it's $33 for a schnitzel, like we're making a fortune off the back off that.' The Duke of Brunswick Hotel in Adelaide has made headlines over its $33 chicken parmi Simone Douglas (pictured) who runs the Duke of Brunswick Hotel in Adelaide, said the pub makes very little in profit for every chicken parmi they sell to customers Ms Douglas said that not all pubs and hotels are run by larger businesses and companies. She said family-run pubs, such as her own, couldn't rely on gaming facilities like other establishments could. The publican said she hoped customers could express a bit of kindness to pubs and restaurants as they struggle to keep their doors open during the cost of living crisis. Earlier, Aussie diners were left fuming by the cost of a ham and cheese toastie that was being sold at a cafe in Perth for $31.20. Figures from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission revealed a record 1,667 food services collapsed in the 12 months to June 30. Leading Australian business analysis company CreditorWatch has forecast that one in 13 hospitality businesses will fail in the coming year. Meanwhile, cafe owners have warned the average cost of a flat white could jump to $7. Hospitality businesses have considered increasing the price of coffee as businesses are pushed to the brink amid the cost of living crisis. Ms Douglas decided to 'crunch the numbers' and the figures revealed the family business makes just over $2 in profit for every chicken parmi with a salad they sell (pictured) A woman has been jailed for seven years for attacking a schoolgirls over ten years with weapons including a candlestick, hammer, clingfilm and screwdriver. Aneliese Buchanan, 39, was arrested after one of the teenagers was rushed to hospital with a head injury, claiming she had been hit with a candlestick. A second victim, also under 18, claimed she had been attacked by Buchanan with a roll of clingfilm, a hammer and then a screwdriver. Buchanan was convicted by a jury in April of causing grievous bodily harm (GBH) and assault against one victim and assault against the second. Prosecutor Heath Edwards said of the first victim: 'She attended the Grange University Hospital in Cwmbran with a wound to the top of her head. Aneliese Buchanan, 39, has been jailed for seven years for a series of violent acts spanning ten years 'It was a wound that she blamed the defendant for causing after hitting her on the head with a candlestick.' The court was told that the open head wound to the girl under 18 had to be sutured. On the second victim, Mr Edwards said: 'She said the defendant strangled her with a roll of cling film, hit her with a hammer, stabbed her with a screwdriver and jumped on her head when she was on the floor.' Judge Shomon Khan told Buchanan that she 'lost all sense of control and proportion' during the attack triggered by 'something mundane.' He said that she struck her victim with the candlestick 'with force' to her ankle and head. Buchanan was convicted in April of grievous bodily harm, assault, and perverting the course of justice for trying to persuade one of the victims to drop the charges against her. He added: 'It's clear to me given this conviction and previous conviction that you lie.' The court heard she was previously jailed for making false claims she had been sexually assaulted in a nightclub - leading to an innocent man being arrested and held in a cell for 14 hours. Judge Shomon Khan previously told Buchanan: 'Because of the nature of the convictions it's going to be an immediate sentence of imprisonment. 'There can be little question about that.' Emma Harris, defending, said Buchanan had found custody 'difficult' due to medical conditions and still 'maintains her innocence.' Buchanan used a candlestick to attack one teenager while another girl said she was strangled with cling film and then hit with a hammer Sentencing her at Newport Crown Court today, Judge Khan said that her severe health issues 'didn't stop you offending' and 'this was the use of serious violence with the utmost cruelty.' 'You are still denying the offences,' he added, and told her that she is 'very much in denial.' He also addressed the victims' personal impact statements, saying that they make 'powerful reading.' Buchanan, of Newport, was sentenced to seven years imprisonment and ordered to pay a 120 surcharge. The girls cannot be named to protect their identity. A property destruction order on the candlestick was also imposed. A 15-year-old girl is fighting for life after she was injured in a crash allegedly involving a stolen car. Five teenagers, aged between 13 and 17, were inside the allegedly stolen Toyota Camry when it smashed into a Lexus SUV at the intersection of Wonga and Delaneys roads, in Warranwood, in Melbourne's east, just before 9am on Friday. The 15-year-old girl was found injured inside the car following the crash, while the four other teens fled the scene. She was rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries, while the driver of the Lexus was not injured. Five teenagers, aged between 13 and 17, were inside the allegedly stolen Toyota Camry when it smashed into a Lexus SUV at the intersection of Wonga and Delaneys roads, in Warranwood, in Melbourne 's east, just before 9am on Friday The four other teens were later arrested by police near the scene of the crash. The Toyota Camry was allegedly stolen from Flora Hill overnight on Wednesday. A 17-year-old Flora Hill boy was charged with nine offences including dangerous driving causing serious injury, theft of motor vehicle, intentionally cause injury, attempted theft of motor vehicle, assault with weapon and failing to assist at an accident. A 16-year-old boy was charged with theft of motor vehicle and failing to assist at an accident. Both will face a children's court at a later date. Two other 13-year-old boys were released pending summons. A sorority who plunged a suburban street into chaos after bussing in loads of girls to a rental property have defended their move. Alpha Omicron Pi held a recruitment event on Sunnyside Drive in London, Ontario, Canada, last weekend - much to the chagrin of of the local neighborhood. In a statement, the president of the local chapter based out of Western University said they had informed the home owner of what they planned to do with the house. 'When reserving spaces for events, our chapter has been transparent about our needs for a venue and will be respectful of that space,' Sabina de Crescentiis told CBC: 'When reserving spaces for events, our chapter has been, and will continue to be, transparent about our needs for a venue and will be respectful of that space.' Alpha Omicron Pi, seen here, held a recruitment event on Sunnyside Drive in London , Ontario, last weekend - much to the chagrin of of the local neighborhood The move by the sorority angered neighbors after footage emerged showing a long line of students outside of the rental property. Officials in the Canadian city are currently investigating the property which has operated as a short-term rental for over two years. Footage shared on social media by local man Chris Prater shows a long line of the students outside of the rental property for the event Earlier this week, owner Jithin Das, a local realtor, told CBC that he had not been informed of the move to have hundreds of young women bussed to the property. He said: 'I'm working with Airbnb and they're investigating how it happened. We were not aware this was going to happen. The president of the chapter Sabina de Crescentiis, seen here, said they had informed the home owner of what they planned to do with the house 'I was not told. They said 30 to 40 girls would be coming in turns. I'm extremely sorry to the whole neighborhood and the community.' Sorority president de Crescentiis also told the outlet: 'Before booking this residence, we shared with the owner that there would be multiple groups of 30-45 women at a time rotating in and out of the property over the course of each day.' The president reiterated that the event was an opportunity for those looking to join the sorority to meet others. She added: 'Our event was planned to not serve any alcohol. We did not use the pool and we were very conscious of noise ordinances so as to not disturb the neighbors. 'Our events were concluded by 5 p.m. each day. We are sorry to have been an unknowing party in this ongoing dispute.' Owner Jithin Das, a local realtor, said that he had not been informed of the move to have hundreds of young women bussed to the property According to local man Chris Prater, who filmed the long lines of the young women, they had been dropped off by the busload. He said: 'It's not what you want in a residential neighborhood. It's not an appropriate use of the house. It's a traffic concern, it's noisy and we just didn't sign up for that. 'They would get dropped off, get some instructions from some other girls on the driveway, march into the house and be inside for about an hour before coming out chanting and singing their sorority song. 'Then they would wait in the driveway for about 25 or 30 minutes before another bus came, dropped off more girls and picked up the ones that were already inside.' While Marion Warren told CTV News that neighbors have been complaining for years about the various groups that rent the house for short stays. The home was purchased in March 2020 for $673,000 and was most recently listed last year for $1.2 million She said: 'This weekend was horrific. School bus loads of young females were being dropped off and apparently were being interviewed in this house for a sorority.' Warren also spoke with CBC, saying that there was constantly new cars in the driveway and that the noise from the pool in the backyard filtered down the street. Other neighbors told the outlet that it often attracts large parties or several families at one time. A stripper showed up for a bachelorette party once, one person said. The home was purchased in March 2020 for $673,000 and was most recently listed last year for $1.2 million. A spokesperson for Airbnb earlier this week said: 'Airbnb bans parties, and weve suspended the listing and the booking guest as we look into the reported behavior.' A South African woman celebrated her '118th birthday' today as one of the oldest people in the world with a small party at her care home. Margaret Maritz joined other residents, carers and two of her daughters for celebrations at the home in Touws River, 110 miles northeast of Cape Town. She was born on September 27, 1906, according to a copy of her identity card. The document has not been independently verified but if confirmed would make Maritz the world's oldest living person. The current record-holder is Japanese national Tomiko Itooka who was born on May 23, 1908. Alongside two of her 14 children, Maritz blew out a candle on a large pink birthday cake at the party in the small town of Touws River. Margaret Maritz celebrated her 118th birthday with family and friends on Friday Margaret Maritz with her two daughters, Getryda Maritz, 81, and Liza Daniels, 67 Margaret blows out her candles at her 118-year birthday celebrations in Touwsrivier Martiz, known affectionately as 'Ouma Honderd' (Grandma Hundred), 'turned 118' today The birthday cake for Margaret Maritz as she celebrates her birthday on Friday 'She talks about her life as a young woman, (saying) you must respect your mother and your father,' a senior nurse at the home, Gregory Elroy Adams, told AFP. 'She didn't drink, she didn't smoke.' 'We must be grateful,' said one of her daughters, Liza Daniels, 67. 'I don't know if I will reach that age one day. 'But for me it's a very, very big privilege to have a mother that reaches this age.' Mrs Martiz, known affectionately as 'Ouma Honderd' (Grandma Hundred), reportedly cannot recall some of her earlier memories as she has mild dementia. Michael Fortuin, the manager of her care home, said her wider family are planning to visit her on Sunday. 'Sadly Ouma cannot recognise people anymore and complains about arthritis pain in her arms and legs, and requires assistance to walk, but she is always laughing and very talkative,' he told TimesLIVE. He added that the Gift of the Givers Foundation, a South African NGO, will provide a special lunch residents at the care home and hand out presents for all. Akila holiday resort will also donate a cake and Coca Cola were said to be donating drinks for Mrs Martiz. According to the Guinness World Records website, the oldest verified person is French national Jeanne Calment, who died in August 1997 at the age of 122 years and 164 days. 'Several people have been claimed to be older than Jeanne, but there has never been enough evidence to authenticate them,' it says. The oldest known South African died in March 2023 just two months before turning 129. Johanna Mazibuko was born on May 11, 1894 according to her identity papers, although these were not confirmed as authentic by authorities. The family is expected to join Mrs Martiz on Sunday Margaret Maritz interacts with her daughter Getryda Maritz, 81 during celebrations Margaret Maritz (R), sits outside with a carer on her birthday Margaret Maritz (C) celebrates her 118th birthday with other residents Margaret Maritz was born on September 27, 1906, according to a copy of her identity card Officially, the world's oldest person is Japan's Tomiko Itooka. Mrs Itooka was born on May 23, 1908. On Septemebr 16, celebrated as Respect for the Aged Day in Japan, the Guinness World Records presented Mrs Itooka with a certificate of authentication. Hitoshi Kai, her son, shared fond memories of visiting temples with his mother, according to the GWR. He said she was very independent and enjoyed walking to the seaside and hiking through the mountains alone. Mrs Itooka was born in Osaka during the Meiji period, and was 32 when Japan entered World War II. At 100, she climbed the stone steps of Ashiya Shrine without the aid of a walking stick. Joe Rogan has warned that the First Amendment will come under threat if Kamala Harris is elected president. The podcast host was discussing censorship on social media platforms during a Thursday's episode of his show with former Navy SEAL and CIA contractor Shawn Ryan. He warned that only X and Rumble are the only places with unfettered free speech. But he warned that the situation could deteriorate even further if the Democrats win in November. 'I don't think it [censorship] turns around if Kamala Harris gets into office. I think they clamp down more,' he said on the Joe Rogan Experience. 'She openly discussed the need for the same rules to apply to Facebook and Twitter and the possibility that Elon Musk could lose his privileges. ' Joe Rogan has warned that the First Amendment will come under threat if Kamala Harris is elected president In 2019, Harris famously branded social media companies as purveyors of 'hate,' and 'misinformation' vowing to hold them responsible for content posted on their platforms. 'We will hold social media platforms accountable for the hate infiltrating their platforms because they have a responsibility to help fight against this threat to our democracy,' Harris said during a speech to the NAACP in 2019. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also said that he felt 'extreme pressure' to remove content the government asked Facebook to censor from its platforms, but that he felt the pressure was 'wrong'. 'There are so many wild things that they are saying,' Rogan added. 'Tim Walz said that the First Amendment doesn't apply to misinformation or hate speech. OK, well, it certainly does.' He added that the 'goal' of the First Amendment is to encourage dialogue so that when 'you say something wrong, this person who is an expert says the right thing and you correct them'. Walz previously stated that, 'There's no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech and especially around democracy.' However, in 2021 the Supreme Court previously affirmed that there is no exception for hate speech. In 2019, Harris famously branded social media companies as purveyors of 'hate,' and 'misinformation' Rogan also debunked Vice Presidential hopeful Tim Walz's statement that the First Amendment does not apply to hate speech 'As a Nation we have chosen a different courseto protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate,' Chief Justice John Roberts said. During the episode Rogan went on to rant about how 'so much' of what is censored, 'turns out to be true'. He referenced the pandemic mask-wearing mandate, saying 'face masks don't work'. However, studies have shown that effective and consistent mask-wearing can help slow the spread of Covid-19. A new poll by Freedom Forum found that Americans are placing less importance on protecting the First Amendment. Just 58 percent of people surveyed said they would approve the First Amendment today, a 4-point decline from 2020. A man accused of killing four Idaho students in 2022 has made his first court appearance after the trial venue was moved 300 miles to find a fair jury. Bryan Kohberger stands accused of brutally murdering Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves in their off-campus house on November 13, 2022. The first routine hearing for the 29-year-old suspect was held in a Boise courthouse on Thursday, after the case was moved to the new venue 300 miles from the small town of Moscow, Idaho, where the ruthless killings occurred. Addressing attorneys for the prosecution and the defence, Judge Steven Hippler said he was 'happy to here' but added: 'I expect for you at all times to remain civil to each other, that you not engage in personal attacks, ad hominem attacks, that you not engage in theatrics, not misstate facts or the law to the court.' When asked to enter a plea last year, Kohberger stood silent, prompting a judge to enter a not-guilty plea on his behalf. Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty if he is convicted. The stakes in the case are 'as high as they can be,' Hippler said. This September 2024 booking photo provided by the Ada County Sheriff's Office shows University of Idaho slayings defendant Bryan Kohberger (L-R) Housemates Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen (on Kaylee's shoulders) Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle - the four victims of mysterious murders at their home near the Idaho University campus It was the first status routine hearing for Kohberger, 29, since the case was moved to the new venue in Boise from the small town of Moscow, where the killings occurred. Status conferences are typically uneventful, designed so the parties in a legal case can provide updates to the judge and schedule deadlines for future proceedings. But when the Idaho Supreme Court moved the case to Boise earlier this month, it also turned it over to a new presiding judge, appointing 4th District Judge Steven Hippler to replace 2nd District Judge John Judge. The venue was changed after Kohberger's defense attorneys successfully argued that extensive media coverage and strong emotions in the university town would make it difficult to find an impartial jury. 'I'd like to tell you I'm happy to be here,' Hippler said at the beginning of the hearing, 'but why start with an untruth?' 'I do expect - and this will come as no surprise to you - for you all to get along,' he added, according to The Washington Times. It comes after Kohberger's defense asked last week if he would be allowed to ditch the prison gear and wear a suit and tie ahead of his court appearance. Families of the four students who were slain opposed the allowance, with one mother saying 'It makes [her] sick' to see the man accused of murdering her daughter all dapper 'dressed up in a fresh haircut.' The suspected quadruple killer's trial date is set for June 2025 following multiple delays, and is expected to last for up to three months. The initial trial date was set for October 2023, but his lead defense attorney Anne Taylor has filed for extensions and further hearings numerous times since his arrest. His team also delayed revealing his alibi until May this year, but when finally submitted, prosecutors tore it apart, as Kohberger claimed he was 'driving alone' on the night of the murders 'to look at the moon and the stars'. Bryan Kohberger, right, is escorted into a courtroom to appear at a hearing in Latah County District Court, Sept. 13, 2023, in Moscow, Idaho Before the case was moved, prosecutors unsuccessfully argued they could find impartial jurors in Moscow by bringing in a large pool to choose from. They also said the move inconveniences the family members of victims, attorneys, and witnesses. Officials have said that Kohberger traveled in the region the night of the killings, that his DNA was found at the crime scene, and that surveillance video and cellphone data shows Kohberger visiting the area at least a dozen times before the killings. Kohberger's attorneys said in court filings that he was just out for a drive that night, which he often does to hike, run or look at the moon and stars. The trial is set for June 2025. A crime boss was snared by police after a blundering friend used an emergency credit card during a boozy trip at a brothel leading the police to find him, it has been claimed. Stevenson - who is known as 'Iceman' - and an associate were arrested in the Netherlands while on the run together. And sources say police only finally got their men because Stevenson's fellow fugitive used a bank card which police were monitoring. The card was marked 'for emergencies only' by Stevenson, as a means to fund a possible escape if the net was closing in quickly. But officers also had a marker on the card, meaning they would be alerted with a real time location, date and time when it was used. Stevenson and an associate were arrested in the Netherlands while on the run together Sources say the drunk runaway used the card while visiting a brothel in Amsterdam It comes two years after he was arrested while out jogging in the Netherlands following a massive manhunt to bring him to justice. The 59-year-old orchestrated a plot to smuggle 76million worth of cocaine, hidden in banana shipments, destined to Glasgow from South America. Prosecutors said the huge trafficking operation spanned the UK, Spain , Ecuador and the luxury Nurai Island Resort in Abu Dhabi. Sources say the drunk runaway, who was with the Scot gangster, used the card while visiting a brothel in Amsterdam, which is famous for its red light district. The pair are understood to have been hiding out in the Netherlands together for a number of months. Police are said to have hit a brick wall in trying to locate Stevenson, who is also known as 'Bull' and previously had a flat in Amsterdam, when the use of the bank card proved to be the breakthrough they needed. An underworld source said: 'Their bank cards were literally marked - officers had placed markers on them meaning they would get alerted if and when a card was used with a real time location. 'The talk is that this card was Stevenson's and marked 'for emergencies only'. It was basically a last resort for the gang if they needed to escape at short notice. 'They could either draw money from it and use the cash to help them disappear again, or they could give it to someone to use as a decoy, making police think they were in one place when they were actually in another. 'But the other guy went on a bender and took it to a brothel with him. When he used it, the police finally had an accurate location for them and used it to track them down.' A police source added: 'When tracking people like this you get a list of all their bank cards and get alerts set up so that when the cards are used, you get a 'ping'. The ping gives the exact date, time and location the card was used. 'This card was pinged, allowing police to go to the location and check CCTV.. From the CCTV they were able to identify people of interest and track their movements to and from that location. 'They then set up surveillance, and through the surveillance they tracked Stevenson and the other guy down. The use of the card literally led them right to him.' Stevenson was jogging in a park in the country when he was arrested in February 2022. Once back in the UK, Stevenson admitted orchestrating an international drug ring which trafficked cocaine worth 76million into the UK, hidden in shipments of bananas Following his arrest, Tim Mairs, Assistant Chief Constable with Police Scotland, said: 'I am grateful for the assistance of the National Crime Agency (NCA) and our international law enforcement partners.' At the time, National Crime Agency Regional Head of Investigation for Scotland, Gerry McLean, said: 'Stevenson was arrested while jogging and was clearly trying to keep himself fit for a life on the run. 'Any arrest of a fugitive over extremely serious allegations is a great result. The Agency has been working endlessly with Police Scotland and international partners to trace Stevenson and return him to the UK. 'It does not matter where fugitives go, we will work with partners like the Dutch National Police who've provided superb help, to trace and arrest them.' Once back in the UK, Stevenson admitted orchestrating an international drug ring which trafficked cocaine worth 76million into the UK, hidden in shipments of bananas. The 59-year-old is due to be sentenced next week. He will be caged alongside Gerry Carbin, 45, Ryan McPhee, 34, Paul Bowes, 53, David Bilsland, 67, and Lloyd Cross, 32. Stevenson was previously jailed for 12 years for laundering 1million of drugs money. His organised crime gang flooded Scotland with guns and Class A drugs using a network of crooked truck drivers. Police Scotland did not comment on the bank card claims, while the National Crime Agency did not respond to our request for comment. Donald Trump is leading Kamala Harris in yet another Arizona poll, this time grabbing a 6 percent lead that exceeds his edge in polling averages. Trump leads Harris by six points, 48 to 42, in the new USA Today / Suffolk University poll. Trump has led in multiple polls over a period of weeks in the state. The result comes as Harris prepared to visit the border and rolled out ad stressing efforts to control the border. The poll has Harris with a 47 percent plurality among Hispanic voters, with Trump garnering 35 percent support. Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego leads Trump ally Kari Lake 47 to 41 in a Suffolk poll of the hot Senate race there, in a state with Republican leanings that Joe Biden carried in 2020. Trump also led Harris in an Arizona Fox poll released Thursday, but a smaller 51 to 48 percent margin. Trump has led a batch of Arizona polls, and seized a six-point lead in the new USA Today / Suffolk University poll Harrris's Friday visit brings her to Douglas, on the U.S. Mexico border, at a time when voters there cite immigration as a top concern. Joe Biden and Bill Clinton are the only Democrats who have won Arizona since 1948, in a state that has been at the center of Trump's election fraud claims that got tossed out of court. Trump is using Harris's visit as an opportunity to go after her on the issue, saying Thursday should should have 'saved her airfare.' The Republican National Committee arranged a press call Friday with mothers of people who were brutally victimized by migrants who came here illegally. A new poll by Bloomberg / Morning Consult gave Kamala Harris the edge across the swing states. Her leads extended to all of them other than Georgia, where she and Trump were tied at 49 percent. Trump claimed a polling edge during a speech in Michigan Friday. 'And you know we're leading in the polls. We're doing great, but you know when you see we're leading by 2.3 points, we should be leading by 50 points, 60! We should be how the hell? You would really say: Why would anybody vote for her?' Ticketmaster is failing Taylor Swift fans who had their pricey tickets to see the pop icon stolen from their accounts by scammers. Would-be concertgoers who had their accounts hacked and tickets stolen are coming forward to blame Ticketmaster for poor security and a sluggish response to the crime. Blaine Heck, 36, told DailyMail.com that she was given $3,500 tickets to a Taylor Swift concert in New Orleans as a birthday gift, only to discover that fraudsters broke into her online account this week and transferred them out. She said she immediately contacted Ticketmaster, who informed her that 'it could take up to a week to resolve the issue - without any guarantees.' Would-be concertgoers who had their Ticketmaster accounts hacked and Taylor Swift tickets stolen are coming forward to blame the company for poor security and a sluggish response 'This situation has left me incredibly frustrated, and after speaking with others, I've realized that this is happening far too often, especially as we approach Taylor's upcoming U.S. tour dates,' she explained. Heck, of Essex, Connecticut, added that Ticketmaster seemed to have 'no sufficient safeguards in place to prevent these kinds of account breaches and ticket thefts.' She said she accepted the tickets into her account, learning through an an email that they had been transferred to another account the next day. 'Given the high stakes around major events like this, it feels like there needs to be a stronger digital ticket policy and enhanced security measures to protect customers," she continued. 'I did my duty by having different passwords, I changed them often, Ticketmaster failed me and so many others.' Heck, a publicist, said she contacted friends in the media industry and ultimately had the tickets returned. But she's still not letting Ticketmaster off the hook. 'I believe that there are hundreds more who this is happening to and they have to wait days if not weeks to even get Ticketmaster to respond,' she said. Sydney Rosa, 27, revealed her $1,200 tickets to an October 3 Pink concert were stolen last week California-based Ticket holder Sydney Rosa, 27, said she had her $1,200 tickets to an October 3 Pink concert in New Jersey stolen last week. She called Ticketmaster within an hour of discovering the fraudulent transfer, but an operator told her it would take 48 hours to escalate the case. 'I called back about an hour later that day because I saw that the fraudster had put the tickets they stole from my account back on the resale market on Ticketmaster. They confirmed that they saw that and said I just need to wait for a call-back,' Rosa wrote in an email to DailyMail.com. Rosa called Ticketmaster within an hour of discovering the fraudulent transfer, and an operator told her it would take 48 hours to escalate the case Rosa called Ticketmaster multiple times, and remained on the phone with them for over an hour after her tickets were stolen Two days later, she called Ticketmaster again and spoke with another representative who told her she been 'given misinformation,' and that it would take three to five business days for the company to 'find a resolution.' After waiting five business days, she still hadn't received a response. So she called again, and again was told she'd need to wait three to five business days. '[The representative] was super unhelpful as is all Ticketmaster because they dont care, they have my money,' Rosa said. Exasperated, she resorted to LinkedIn and messaged Ticketmaster's global head of resale operations, who restored her tickets. 'It's still ridiculous though because if I hadn't gone that extreme route who knows what would have happened,' Rosa said. 'I was lucky but clearly other people havent been as much.' Savannah Van Skyhawk revealed that a scammer stole her tickets she purchased on Ticketmaster to WTHR Heck shared her horror story less than a week after Savannah Van Skyhawk experienced the same issue with her Taylor Swift tickets. After she had four tickets to see Swift swiped from her account, she immediately contacted Ticketmaster - but the company ghosted her after the initial conversation. 'They would just tell me like, "We'll call you in three to five days." So, I'd wait three to five days, and they wouldn't call me,' she said. 'I try calling them again, and then again, they'd say three to five days. It was just kind of a circle, like no one ever called me.' The company restored her tickets and account after a media report on the predicament, but didn't explain how it happened. 'They just said once I'm back into my account, to change the email and change the password' she said, WTHR reported. 'Fans should be aware unauthorized ticket transfers are often a result of poor password management, like using the same password across multiple websites,' the company told the outlet. 'Fans should use a strong unique password for their Ticketmaster account, as they would a bank account.' Daily Mail has reached out to Ticketmaster for comment. Benjamin Netanyahu has issued a stark warning to Iran in his UN speech, saying that Israel can strike anywhere inside the country if it is provoked and will continue its war on Tehran proxy Hezbollah until it achieves 'total victory'. 'My country is at war, fighting for its life,' Netanyahu said in his impassioned speech at the UN General Assembly. 'We must defend ourselves against these savage murderers. Our enemies seek not only to destroy us, they seek to destroy our common civilization and return all of us to a dark age of tyranny and terror,' he told delegates. In a message he addressed to 'the tyrants of Tehran', he said: 'If you strike us, we will strike you... There is no place in Iran where the long arm of Israel cannot reach. And that is true for the entire Middle East.' His speech made no mention at all of the 21-day ceasefire proposal made by the US, France and other allies on Wednesday, which seeks to cool tensions and allow space for talks, as the region appears to be on the brink of all-out war. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 27, 2024 A view shows damage at the site of Israeli strike in Saksakiyeh, southern Lebanon September 27, 2024 Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following an Israeli strike, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Tyre, Lebanon September 27, 2024 Anti-war activists rally outside of the hotel where Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu - who is in the city for the UN General Assembly annual sessions - is staying 'We are winning,' Netanyahu said triumphantly, as Israel continues to bombard Lebanon as part of its campaign against Hezbollah, which he labelled a 'quintessential terror organisation'. Widespread airstrikes across the country's south and capital Beirut have left hundreds dead, including civilians, children and paramedics, in just a few days. Protesters gathered outside the UN condemning Netanyahu, who has vowed to continue with the battle against Hamas until 'total victory' is achieved. He went on to say regarding Israel's war on Hamas and Hezbollah: 'We will fight until we achieve victory, total victory, there is no substitute for it.' His speech was met with cheers from some allies in the audience, but also jeers, with many delegates walking out as he took to the stage. Netanyahu said he had not intended to come to New York to address the UN assembly this year, but felt compelled to do so 'to set the record straight' after what he called 'the lies and slanders levelled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium.' He denounced the UN, as he has repeatedly done in the past, labelling it as 'a house of darkness' and a 'swamp of antisemitic bile' and saying Israel should be treated as fairly as other nations. He said it the body had passed more resolutions against Israel than all other nations combined over the past decade, adding that the 'war criminals' are in Iran, Gaza, Syria and Lebanon. The two speakers who preceded Netanyahu on Friday each made a point of calling out Israel for its actions in Gaza, where tens of thousands of people have been killed over the past year. Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted southern Lebanese villages, as seen from Marjaayoun, southern Lebanon, 25 September 2024 'Mr Netanyahu, stop this war now,' Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said as he closed his remarks, pounding the podium. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, speaking just before the Israeli leader, declared of Gaza: 'This is not just a conflict. This is systematic slaughter of innocent people of Palestine.' Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed more than 41,500 Palestinians and wounded more than 96,000 others, according to the latest figures released on Thursday by the Health Ministry. In recent days, Israel has turned its attention to the border with Lebanon, where it is targeting Hezbollah, a proxy of Iran. Hezbollah began attacking Israel almost immediately after October 7, saying near-daily rocket fire into northern Israel over the past 11 months was to show its solidarity with Gaza. Almost 800 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon over the last week, according to Lebanese figures. Ongoing fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has driven tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border. Israel is vowing to step up its attacks on Hezbollah until its citizens can return safely to their homes. The joint ceasefire statement made on Wednesday said the situation in Lebanon has become 'intolerable' and 'is in nobody's interest, neither of the people of Israel nor of the people of Lebanon'. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israel's strategic affairs minister in New York on Thursday, telling him the ceasefire would 'allow civilians on both sides of the border to return to their homes'. 'Further escalation of the conflict will only make that objective more difficult,' his spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel used his speech before the UN General Assembly to rail against the body as an 'anti-semitic swamp,' to warn Iran not to attack his country and to give mixed signals on whether a ceasefire deal was possible. As the fighting increased in the Middle East, Netanyahu took to the lectern to address a nearly empty chamber. Many diplomats walked out in protest as he entered the great hall to speak from the rostrum. As Netanyahu took the stage, there was enough ruckus in the audience that the presiding diplomat had to shout, 'Order, please.' Visibly angry during his remarks, Netanyahu almost shouted from the lectern as he slammed the UN for passing resolutions against Israel, accusing the governing body of a double standard. 'What hypocrisy, what a double standard, what a joke. So the UN's so silly. All the speeches you heard today, all the hostility directed at Israel this year - it's not about Gaza. It's about Israel,' he said. 'It's always been about Israel, about Israel's very existence and I say to, until Israel, until the Jewish state, is treated like other nations, until this anti-semitic swamp is drained, the UN will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous farce.' As he spoke, Israel struck Hezbollah's central headquarters under residential buildings in Beirut as it continued its attacks on Hezbollah. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Netanyahu used his remarks to defend his nation's response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas. 'Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safely. And thats exactly what were doing,' he said. 'We will not rest until the remaining hostages are brought home.' Israels campaign in Gaza has killed more than 41,500 Palestinians and wounded more than 96,000 others, according to the Health Ministry. Netanyahu's fiery speech was full of dire warnings that there could be more battles to come. 'I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran: if you strike us we will strike you. There is no place no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach and that's true of the entire Middle East,' he said. Tensions between Israel and Iran have been on the rise since Israel attacked on Iran Embassy compound in Damascus and the assassination of Hamas's political leader in Tehran. Iranian officials have said Iran reserves the right to retaliate at their time and place of choosing. The war in the Middle East was one of the main topics of conversation as world leaders gathered in New York City for the annual UN meeting. Leaders are pushing for the fighting in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon to end. And many leaders, including President Joe Biden, used their speeches to reiterate calls for a ceasefire. Netanyahu, however, seemed to pour cold water on the idea, saying his military would keep striking Hezbollah militants in Lebanon with 'all our might.' 'We're at war with Hezbollah,' he said. 'As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war Israel has no choice. And Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their homes safely.' Security personnel talk to attendees as Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the United Nations Netanyahu addressed a nearly empty chamber as many delegates walked out in protest He made no mention of any ceasefire deal, including the call this week from the U.S. and France for a three-week ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. He did, however, say he wanted peace, he just made no mention of terms. 'Here's the truth,' Netanyahu said. 'Israel seeks peace. Israel yearns for peace. Israel has made peace and will make peace again.' The Israeli leader also said he nearly didn't come to New York for the annual meeting but 'after I heard the lies and slanders level that my country, by many of the speakers at this podium I decided to come here and set the record straight.' Thousands of infuriated Iranians burned and trampled on Israeli and US flags during a protest in Tehran Friday against Israel's attacks on Lebanon and Gaza. Widespread airstrikes across southern Lebanon and capital Beirut have left hundreds dead, including civilians, children and paramedics, in just a few days. Iranian officials had on Wednesday called on the nation to demonstrate in support of the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon 'and to condemn the barbaric crimes of the Zionist regime in Palestine,' the official IRNA news agency said. In Tehran after Friday prayers, a protest took place around Enghelab Square in the city centre, as demonstrators carried portraits of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah as well as Palestinian and Hezbollah flags. 'Israel is destroyed. Lebanon is victorious,' protesters chanted, deploring 'a bloodbath in Lebanon' as they burned Israeli and US flags. Demonstrators burn a representation of the U.S. flag during a demonstration against Israel's strikes on Gaza and Lebanon in Tehran, Iran today 'Israel is destroyed. Lebanon is victorious,' Iranian protesters chanted as they burned Israeli and Ameircan flags this afternoon In the capital, after the Friday prayers at Tehran University, citizens marched towards Inqilap Square with banners in support of Palestinians and Lebanon State television aired footage of other demonstrations in Semnan, Qom, Kashan, Kermanshah, Shiraz and Bandar Abbas. Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, triggering a war with Israel and near-daily cross-border fire from Hezbollah in Lebanon against Israel, which has hit back. Those exchanges have intensified dramatically over the past week. Israeli raids on Lebanon since Monday have killed hundreds in the deadliest violence since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed more than 41,500 Palestinians and wounded more than 96,000 others, according to the latest figures released on Thursday by the Health Ministry. Almost 800 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon over the last week, according to Lebanese figures. Ongoing fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has driven tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border. As the violence escalates, analysts say Iran is walking a tightrope by trying to support Hezbollah without getting dragged into a full-blown conflict and playing into its enemy's hands. Protests come after widespread airstrikes across southern Lebanon and capital Beirut have left hundreds dead, including civilians, children and paramedics, in just a few days As the violence escalates, analysts say Iran is walking a tightrope by trying to support Hezbollah without getting dragged into a full-blown conflict Hezbollah is part of the 'Axis of Resistance,' Iran-aligned armed groups across the Middle East which have targeted Israel, and also US forces, in support of Palestinian militants Hamas. It comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a stark warning to Iran in his UN speech today at the 79th United Nations General Assembly in New York, saying that Israel can strike anywhere inside the country if it is provoked. 'My country is at war, fighting for its life,' Netanyahu said in a speech at the UN General Assembly. 'We must defend ourselves against these savage murderers. Our enemies seek not only to destroy us, they seek to destroy our common civilization and return all of us to a dark age of tyranny and terror.' He added in a message he addressed to 'the tyrants of Tehran': 'if you strike us, we will strike you.' 'There is no place in Iran where the long arm of Israel cannot reach. And that is true for the entire Middle East.' 'We are winning,' Netanyahu added triumphantly, as Israel continues to bombard Lebanon as part of its campaign against Hezbollah. Protesters gathered outside the UN condemning Netanyahu, who has vowed to continue with the battle against Hamas until 'total victory' is achieved. It comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a stark warning to Iran in his UN speech today, saying that Israel can strike anywhere inside the country if it is provoked A view shows damage at the site of Israeli strike in Saksakiyeh, southern Lebanon September 27, 2024 Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following an Israeli strike, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Tyre, Lebanon September 27, 2024 Anti-war activists rally outside of the hotel where Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu - who is in the city for the UN General Assembly annual sessions - is staying He went on to say regarding Israel's war on Hamas and Hezbollah: 'We will fight until we achieve victory, total victory, there is no substitute for it.' His speech was met with cheers from some allies in the audience, but also jeers, with several delegates walking out as he took to the stage. Netanyahu said he had not intended to come to New York to address the UN assembly this year, but felt compelled to do so 'to set the record straight' after what he called 'the lies and slanders levelled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium.' The two speakers who preceded Netanyahu on Friday each made a point of calling out Israel for its actions. 'Mr Netanyahu, stop this war now,' Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said as he closed his remarks, pounding the podium. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, speaking just before the Israeli leader, declared of Gaza: 'This is not just a conflict. This is systematic slaughter of innocent people of Palestine.' Three Just Stop Oil supporters have thrown soup over two of Vincent van Gogh's paintings just hours after fellow activists were jailed for doing the same thing to his famous Sunflowers masterpiece. Pictures show three Just Stop Oil activists stood in front of the Sunflowers painting in the 'Poets and Lovers' exhibition at the National Gallery after covering it in soup again this afternoon at around 2.30pm. Phoebe Plummer 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were jailed earlier today for the same stunt that they performed in October 2022, as they came close to 'destroying' the masterpiece. One of the paintings - 'Sunflowers 1888' was the same one targeted by Plummer and Holland. After covering the paintings in soup, the trio took off their jackets to reveal Just Stop Oil t-shirts and one said: 'Future generations will regard these prisoners of conscience to be on the right side of history.' In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Just Stop Oil said: 'BREAKING: 2 VAN GOGH PAINTINGS SOUPED HOURS AFTER PHOEBE AND ANNA SENTENCED. '3 Just Stop Oil supporters have thrown soup over 2 of Van Gogh('s) paintings in the 'Poets and Lovers' exhibition at the National Gallery'. Three Just Stop Oil supporters have thrown soup over two of Van Gogh's paintings in the 'Poets and Lovers' exhibition at the National Gallery after fellow activists were jailed for doing the same thing in 2022 In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Just Stop Oil said: 'BREAKING: 2 VAN GOGH PAINTINGS SOUPED HOURS AFTER PHOEBE AND ANNA SENTENCED' Two pieces of work were targeted - Sunflowers (1888, National Gallery, London) and Sunflowers (1889, Philadelphia Museum of Art) The post featured a video of the activists vandalising the artwork that is hung in the National Gallery The National Gallery confirmed the three activists had been arrested and the paintings remain unharmed In October 2022, Phoebe Plummer, 23, (left) and fellow activist Anna Holland, 22, (right) flung two tins of Heinz soup at Sunflowers at London's National Gallery The post featured a video of the activists vandalising the artwork before telling an angry crowd: 'There are people in prison for demanding an end to new oil and gas, something which is now government policy after sustained, disruptive actions, countless headlines and the resulting political pressure. 'Future generations will regard these prisoners of conscience to be on the right side of history.' Just Stop Oil later revealed the three activists as community worker Phil Green, 24, from Cornwall, retired professor Ludi Simpson, 71, from Bradford and grandmother Mary Patricia Somerville, 77, from Bradford. In a statement, Mr Green said: 'Whilst deadly flooding, food shortages and extreme heat wreak havoc around the world, the state is choosing to focus energy on prosecuting ordinary people with the harshest sentences. 'Future generations will see those who stood up against suffering, genocide and greed as heroes and our reckless governments as the real criminals.' The activist was part of a JSO march in West London which delayed the England Cricket Team, who were travelling by coach, last June. Mr Simpson, an honorary professor of population studies at University of Manchester, described today's action as 'from the heart and the head' and described it as 'a splash of protest'. The activist, who has been previously arrested for his participation in JSO protests, added: 'I know politicians can do the right thing if they listen to the facts, but their inaction is burning up our lives. Is it too much to ask for a safe future?' Meanwhile Ms Somerville said she was 'more and more frightened that we're running out of time to save humanity from extinction', adding that she wanted to see changed 'happening in the lifetime of my grandchildren'. The National Gallery confirmed the three activists had been arrested and the paintings remain unharmed. The Just Stop Oil activists sit on the floor in front of one of the Sunflowers painting that was covered in soup A statement said: 'At just after 2.30pm this afternoon, three people entered Room 6 of the National Gallery Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers exhibition. 'They appeared to throw a soup like substance over two works - Sunflowers (1888, National Gallery, London) and Sunflowers (1889, Philadelphia Museum of Art). 'Police were called and three people have been arrested. 'The paintings were removed from display and examined by a conservator and are unharmed. 'We are aiming to reopen the exhibition as soon as possible.' Soup was also thrown on the facade of the British Embassy this afternoon in Berlin, Germany, and it believed this was also in solidarity with Plummer and Holland, who were jailed for two years and 20 months respectively. The paintings were removed from display and examined by a conservator who has said they are unharmed A worker cleans the facade of the British Embassy in Berlin, Germany, after soup was thrown over it It believed this was also in solidarity with Plummer and Holland, who were jailed for two years and 20 months respectively People stand outside The National Gallery following Just Stop Oil activists throwing soup at Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers this afternoon Plummer and Holland caused as much as 10,000 worth of damage to the artwork's gold-coloured frame when they targeted it at London's National Gallery just under two years ago. Staff at the gallery inspected the painting, worth up to 72.5m, and frame for damage while the women were still attached to the wall, and were worried the soup may have dripped through the protective glass. The pair had been to the museum in Trafalgar Square a day before the incident and bought the tins of soup from a Tesco supermarket in central London. They denied but were convicted of damaging property by a jury after a four day trial at Southwark Crown Court. Plummer said she had 'made peace' with her decision and smiled as she was handed her sentence. Sentencing the women, Judge Christopher Hehir said the 'cultural treasure' could have been 'seriously damaged or even destroyed'. Judge Hehir, who previously jailed the co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion for five years, continued: 'Soup might have seeped through the glass. 'You couldn't have cared less if the painting was damaged or not. 'You had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers.' Just Stop Oil supporters gathered outside the court, some of whom held posters of historical figures jailed for activism Plummer (left) received a two-year jail term, while Holland (right) was handed 20 months The judge told Plummer, who was also handed a criminal behaviour order: 'You clearly think your beliefs give you the right to commit crimes when you feel like it. You do not.' Visitors at the gallery were heard gasping 'Oh my gosh' as the painting was attacked during the protest which was filmed and quickly uploaded onto JSO's Twitter page. Raj Chada, defending Holland, said the women 'did check' that the painting was protected by a glass cover before throwing the soup. Plummer, representing herself, told the hearing: 'My choice today is to accept whatever sentence I receive with a smile. 'It is not just myself being sentenced today, or my co-defendants, but the foundations of democracy itself.' Both Plummer and Holland refused to say who they took instructions from before they carried out the publicity stunt. Plummer was also handed a three-month sentence for her part in a slow march which caused long tailbacks in west London in November 2023. Holland and Plummer were found guilty of criminal damage by a jury after three hours of deliberation in July, after which Judge Hehir said they 'came within the width of a pane of glass of destroying one of the most valuable artworks in the world'. The painting is considered to be a masterpiece and is one of the most recognisable artworks in the world Supporters of the two Just Stop Oil environmental protesters, Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland gather with placards outside Southwark Crown Court Francesca Kolar, prosecuting, said: 'Whilst this risked serious damage to a priceless painting by one of the greatest artists - Vincent Van Gogh - there was, we say, actual damage to the seventeenth century Italian frame chosen specifically to house this painting by The National Gallery in 1999.' Prosecutor Ben Lloyd said that the antique frame, originally worth 28,000, had suffered around 10,000 worth of damage. Frame conservator Isabella Kocum said in a statement read to jurors: 'I was shocked and dismayed by the extent of corrosion this tomato soup had caused to the exquisite antique frame. 'The frame was specifically chosen for Van Gogh's painting because of the matching coloration. 'I remain amazed at how corrosive the soup was to the frame.' 'Even once the majority of the soup had been removed, I was alarmed to see that the remainder was acting like a paint stripper in front of my eyes.' In 2022, Plummer said in front of the painting: 'What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice? 'Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people? The cost-of-living crisis is part of the cost-of-oil crisis.' In the intervening years, Plummer has taken part in numerous other demonstrations, committing flagrant offences and being constantly re-bailed so she can re-offend Plummer, who once likened herself to Martin Luther King, has lived a life of serene luxury Plummer attended the 50,000 a year St Mary's Ascott boarding school in Berkshire She grew up in her parents 2.85million Chelsea townhouse but is now thought to reside at a property in Lambeth In July, just five days after her guilty verdict, Plummer was arrested for spraying paint on departure boards at Heathrow Airport. A number of Just Stop Oil supporters gathered outside the court, some of whom held posters of historical figures jailed for activism. Plummer, who once likened herself to Martin Luther King, has lived a life of serene luxury being privately educated at St Mary's Ascot boarding school in Berkshire before studying social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She grew up in her parents 2.85million Chelsea townhouse but according to court hearings now resides at a house in Lambeth. It is not known if the professional protester has managed to find gainful employment to support herself in her new digs, but according to an interview in the Times it seems unlikely. She boasted: 'I don't have to work three jobs to feed my kids or pay heating bills which means I can dedicate time towards fighting.' Former Vice President Mike Pence this week laid out his vision of a winning Republican manifesto, calling on party candidates to embrace a traditional conservative platform rejecting 'protectionist tariffs' and 'isolationism' while recommitting to anti-abortion positions. Nowhere does he mention Donald Trump. But Trumpism is the clear target of his attack in an op-ed piece that has triggered speculation that he is preparing for a return to politics if his former boss loses the election in November. 'From both an ideological and a pragmatic perspective, the wise choice for Republican candidates would be to stay on the course we began in 2017,' he writes in the Wall Street Journal. Mike Pence with then Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in 2016 'As down-ballot Republicans approach the homestretch of this election, they should promise to deliver peace through strength, not isolationism and the abandonment of American leadership. 'Republicans should pledge to deliver better trade deals that increase prosperity, not protectionist tariffs that make products more expensive.' Trump has put tariffs at the heart of his economic program, using them in an attempt to punish adversaries such as China, bring manufacturing back to the U.S. and raise revenues. However, economists warn that it will be American importers who are saddled with the bills and will simply pass costs on to consumers. And he takes aim at other parts of Trump's manifesto and areas such as abortion where he has flip-flopped. 'Republicans should commit to tackling the growing debt that threatens to bankrupt the nation, pledging to adopt responsible budgets that fix Americas broken entitlement programs before they collapse,' he writes. 'Republicans should unashamedly recommit to the pro-life cause, which remains the great moral calling of our era and the issue that has animated the party for over half a century.' Pence was Trump's loyal vice president for four years before falling out over Trump's efforts to cling illegally to power after losing the 2024 election. For now, Pence finds himself out of step with the populist, Trumpist direction of the Republican Party. But that could change if Trump loses in November Pence launched his presidential run with wife Karen in June last year. He dropped out after three months as his campaign struggled to gain momentum With much of the Republican Party in the grip of the MAGA movement, Pence has found himself out of favor. He ended his own presidential run in October last year after never gaining any traction. But allies think it is just a matter of time before he returns to the fore. 'There's room for his voice and the voices of others, for this reason: Our party is, at this point, mostly a political coalition in search of a clear policy agenda,' Sen. Todd Young of Indiana, told Semafor. 'At some point we're going to have to gravitate around a clear policy agenda And Mike Pence is very well equipped to do that.' Pence has occasionally criticized his former boss, such as earlier this year when he accused him of retreating from his anti-abortion stance For now, he is quietly working on policy and occasionally popping up to criticize Trump for abandoning some of the conservative priorities of their administration. Much of his focus centers on his group Advancing American Freedom, which develops conservative policies. Pence's longtime adviser Marc Short said it was vital work. 'The Republican party has increasingly embraced populism as they've walked away from trusted conservative, free-market principles,' he posted on X. 'The party still needs those core conservative values today and beyond.' Donald Trump railed about what he called the 'impeachment hoax' during public comments before his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is trying to cultivate both major presidential candidates while fending off brutal Russian invasion. Trump promised to end the war with Russia if he wins the November election and said he would make a deal while President Joe Biden is still in office. He directing almost all of his comments during their first appearance toward what he termed his first impeachment, where he was accused of seeking a political favor by leveraging U.S. military support. With Russia making gains in Ukraine's eastern Donbas and sending daily drone and missile attacks at Ukrainian cities, Zelensky referenced the U.S. elections and said he decided to met with 'both candidates.' He said he hopes U.S. support will be 'very strong.' After welcoming Zelensky at Trump Tower, Trump thanked the Ukrainian leader for his public comments about their infamous 2019 phone call. He said he appreciated Zelensky backing him up after the conversation came out following a whistleblower report. Donald Trump praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his comments after a 2019 phone call that featured in his first impeachment. Trump said he could negotiate an end to Russia's war with Ukraine but declined to provide specifics of a solution He could have grandstanded and played cute, and he didn't do that. He said President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong, Trump said. He said Zelensky was like a piece of steel during impeachment, repeating the compliment. The Ukrainian stood with his head cocked toward Trump, showing very little expression as Trump went on about their phone call. He then turned his head straight ahead while Trump continued. Trump also said he had a great relationship, with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the invasion, and claimed if he wins the election he can work out an end to the war before he takes office January 20th. That posture would have him negotiating during the end of President Joe Bidens administration. I think we have common view that the war in Ukraine has to be stopped and Putin cant win and Ukraine have to prevail, Zelensky said in his own comment. Zelensky stood by has Trump described their phone call. During a later appearance Zelensky said ''Putin killed so many people and we need to do everything to pressure him to stop this war, and hes on our territory' Speaking about the war, Trump said: It has to end. At some point it has to end. He's gone through hell. His country has gone through hell like few countries have ever like it's happened anywhere. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. It's a terrible situation, and I will say I've had a great relationship. After dodging a question during the debate about whether he wants Ukraine to win the war, Trump repeatedly returned to his own reelection. And hopefully we'll have a good victory, because the other side wins, I don't think you're gonna have victories with anything, to be honest with you. He said if he wins the election, by January 20th or long before that, I think that we can work out something that's good for both sides. Trump announced the meeting Thursday, shortly after posting a message from Zelensky seeking a meeting and vouching for his 'great respect'. Speaking after their meeting, Trump said 'We both want to see this end and we both want to see a fair deal made.' Trump said he could push 'actually a rather rapid deal. It should stop and the president wants it to stop. And Im sure president Putin wants it to stop and thats a good combination.' It was Zelensky whose comments put the blame for the tragic war on Putin. 'Putin killed so many people and we need to do everything to pressure him to stop this war, and hes on our territory,' he said. Trump said it was a war 'that should have never happened. And it wouldnt have happened. Zelensky said Trump had to come see his country, and Trump said he would. 'It's a beautiful country. Beautiful weather, beautiful, everything,' he said. TikTok was forced to issue safety warnings to content obsessed users chasing a viral moment after they filmed themselves partying and dancing in Hurricane Helene as it bore down on Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. Despite wind gusts of up to 140 mph ripping through Florida's Big Bend region and leaving a trail of destruction extending past Georgia, some keen TikTokers decided the natural disaster was the perfect backdrop for their clips. In one, three young Florida residents were seen dancing on a beach while sand whipped past them at speed, while another woman shot-gunned a beer on her balcony as she was buffeted by the hurricane. As some went viral, TikTok slapped some videos with an alert, warning that 'participating in this activity could result in you or others getting hurt.' The warnings were an understatement to those that ignored evacuation orders, as Hurricane Helene's death toll reached at least nineteen on Friday morning with officials fearing the number would grow through the weekend. At least 23 people have been killed so far - including at least eleven deaths coming in Florida, eleven in Georgia, and one in North Carolina. These deaths included a sign falling on one driver on a Tampa highway, two people drowning in coastal Pinellas County, and a four-year-old girl lost her life in a weather-related crash in North Carolina. Despite mass evacuation orders, TikTokers showed off how they were passing the time in creative, often alcohol-fueled ways. One woman showed herself swigging from a bottle of Titos vodka on her balcony, although she admitted in the caption: 'We shoulda evacuated like everyone else...' Some also made light of weather reporters as they parodied covering the storm in their dressing gowns and with bottles of wine as microphones. But while some only joked about it, stunning footage from Friday morning showed one Fox Weather reporter interrupting his own live broadcast to rescue a woman stranded in her car. Weatherman Bob Van Dillen sprang into action as he was filing a live report in northern Atlanta, Georgia, where Helene tore through on Friday morning after making landfall in Florida hours earlier. Van Dillen began by pointing out the stranded woman 'drove right into the flood waters', and she could be heard screaming for help as he told the studio he had dialed 911 and was waiting for the fire department. As the screams continued through his broadcast, Van Dillen cut his live shot short to wade in and help the woman, with Fox anchors in the studio branding him a 'hero' as he carried her to safety in chest-deep waters. Van Dillen returned to the air after saving the woman and said he waded into the floodwaters because he lost faith that 911 firefighters would rescue her in time. 'It's hard not to, because 911 have so many calls,' he said as he returned to Fox and Friends. 'They're going to take a long time to get here, but the fire department finally did get here.' '(The water was) up to my chest and there's a little bit of a current, but she was a short lady too, she was probably about five feet,' he explained. He concluded: 'I think the panic factor was setting in. And when you start to panic and you're in water and it starts getting cold, you can really, things could really go downhill quickly. So, I just - I couldn't wait.' After the death toll reached 23, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the death toll may continue to climb as rescue teams work through the wreckage left behind. The danger of the storm was highlighted as Floridians who decided not to evacuate were told to write their names on their bodies so they could be identified if they died in the storm. 'Please write your name, birthday, and important information on your arm or leg in a PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified,' the sheriffs office in mostly rural Taylor County warned those who chose not to evacuate in a Facebook post. Helene first made landfall with maximum sustained wind gusts of up to 140mph, prompting weather warnings far beyond the Florida coast up into northern Georgia and western North Carolina. On Friday morning, more than 3 million homes and businesses were without power, including 1.2 million in South Carolina, 1.1 million in Florida, 1 million in Georgia, and 400,000 in North Carolina, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us. The governors of those states, as well as Alabama and Virginia, all declared emergencies. 'When Floridians wake up tomorrow morning, we're going to be waking up to a state where very likely there's been additional loss of life and certainly there's going to be loss of property,' Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday night. By early Friday, Helene was downgraded to a Category 1 storm as it moved past Georgia, after leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. A glamorous beautician dubbed the Lip King was spotted emerging from his home following the death of a mother-of-five after having a non-surgical BBL procedure. TV star Jordan James Parke was spotted today leaving his West Midlands house after being arrested then bailed amid an investigation into the death of Alice Webb. Ms Webb died just hours after having non-surgical procedure, which is thought to have involved the injection of chemical fillers. She had travelled from her home in Wotton-under-Edge to a clinic in Gloucester, called The Studio 23 which was said to be ran by beautician Jemma Pawlyszyn and Parke. Later that evening, Alice was rushed to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital but died in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Jordan James Parke leaving his home in Dudley, West Midlands on September 27 2024 TV star Jordan James Parke has been arrested then bailed amid an investigation into the death of Alice Webb Ms Alice Webb (Pictured) died just hours after having non-surgical procedure, which is thought to have involved the injection of chemical fillers . It is the first time a person has died in the UK from the procedure and comes after campaign group Save Face called for tighter controls in the cosmetic market warning that 'people could die' MailOnline asked Mr Parke to comment on the death of the 33-year-old mother yesterday, to which he said: 'I can't talk to anybody. I was arrested but I've been released.' Mr Parke, who describes himself on social media as The Plastic Surgery Advocate is not a qualified surgeon. The Kim Kardashian fanatic has previously appeared on US reality TV series Botched in 2015. However, he was turned away when he returned to the show in 2019 as doctors revealed a fourth nose job would have involved taking a piece of his rib to widen his nostrils. Parke, who has had major work done on his face, now has a private Instagram profile but it also linked to another page called The Lip King Aesthetics. He also works in Manchester, Bristol and the West Midlands. Alice is understood to have had the procedure in Gloucester, which is just a few miles from her home in Wotton-under-Edge. The BBL treatment is designed to make buttocks bigger, more rounded or lifted and sees fat or dermal filler injected into the buttocks to change size or shape. While non-surgical BBLs are not illegal in the UK, last year Wolverhampton City Council barred a company from carrying out the procedure after identifying risks associated with their processes, including blood clots, sepsis, and the potential for the death of body tissue James Parke also known as the 'Lip King' was seen getting into the large black 4x4 The procedure was carried out at The Studio 23 clinic in Gloucester, which is run by Jordan James Parke Jordan James Parke works alongside his assistant Jemma Pawlyszyn (pictured) Parke has spent more than 130,000 on cosmetic surgery and has appeared on TV to discuss his obsession on This Morning and Channel 4 Bodyshockers. He has had at least four nose jobs and 50 other procedures and once said: 'Plastic surgery is like sex. You can't have it once. You have to have it over and over.' Alice was an advanced aesthetic practitioner at Crystal Clear in Wotton-under-Edge, a market town in Gloucestershire. A GoFundMe page has been set up by her pal Abigail Irwin amid the tragedy. It said: 'I am hoping to raise as many funds as we can to support Dane, the partner of Alice and their five beautiful children at this very difficult sad time. 'Alice passed away Monday evening after having the BBL treatment.' 'Alice joined the beauty & Aesthetics industry two years ago and she has been smashing it, doing amazing. 'She cared about her clients, she would always check in to see if they were OK, Alice was a beautiful person inside and out and I feel very lucky to have known her and to have spent time with her in our salon. 'Alice would ask for advice all the time and ask to check if there was anything more she could do to improve her skills but she was just a pure natural and never needed my help but always wanting to be the best at her job and that she was. 'Alice has passed away at a young age of 33. Alice was beautiful inside and out with the biggest heart, her family was her world she is leaving behind her partner Dane & 5 beautiful children. 'Delsie, 15, Preete 13, Gracie, 12, Nylie, 10, Clarie ,7, as you can imagine this is a very difficult heart breaking time for them all so if we can all help donate or share to help take of some financial stress it would be really appreciated by the family.' Pictured is Studio 23, which is just a few miles from where Alice's home is in Wotton-under-Edge The Studio 23 sign could be seen at the property when MailOnline visited it in Gloucester today Wednesday evening, Alice's partner Dane Knight asked people not to speculate on the circumstances surrounding her death and to be mindful around her five daughters, who are 'extremely vulnerable' at this time. In an emotional post on Facebook he wrote: 'Want to say a heart felt thank you to all family and friends that were here for us at our time of need, including all of the kind messages sent to my children and myself. 'There was some very beautiful messages sent by some of your children that formed a start of a smile from the corner of my kids mouth. 'I feel this is important saying this as I will not accept speculations from adults being accidentally being eavesdropped by children and unnecessary questions raised to the 5 girls, so be extremely careful on what you say and who's around! My children are extremely vulnerable!' Gloucestershire Police has confirmed it has made arrests and is investigating the death. Prince Harry will make his first trip in over six years to Lesotho where he established his first major charitable project - but there has been no mention of whether Meghan will join him. The Duke of Sussex will travel to Lesotho early next month for a gathering of business leaders, philanthropists and local stakeholders, aimed at driving forward the work of his youth-focused charity Sentebale, supporting the digital and economic inclusion of the next generation. Lesotho's Prince Seeiso, who co-founded Sentebale with Harry almost 20 years ago, said it would fill the community with 'joy' to welcome back Mohale - Harry's affectionate Sesotho royal name which means 'warrior'. The duke said: 'As we head towards our 20th anniversary, our ambition has grown, giving us the confidence to bring our skills and experience in designing solutions with young people, and to leveraging our convening power to engage with leading regional players and global funders so we can add Sentebale's voice to addressing the challenges faced by the next generation in southern Africa.' The seed of Sentebale was planted in 2004 when Harry spent two months in the African kingdom of Lesotho during his gap year. The experience made a lasting impression on the young royal, who was then aged 19. Prince Harry dances with a little girl during the opening of The Dining Hall at Phelisanong Childrens Home in Lesotho in 2018 So far, there has been no mention of whether his wife Meghan will join him on the trip He came face-to-face with Aids orphans, met other traumatised young people and visited herd boys living a harsh existence looking after cattle in remote mountain areas. Harry was invited to the country, land-locked inside South Africa, by Seeiso, a friend of the his mentor, ex-Army officer Mark Dyer. Founded in 2006, Sentebale began working in Leosotho before expanding into Botswana, and operates in four key areas: strengthening the social and emotional wellbeing of those living with or affected by HIV; helping to provide access to health and social services; driving youth advocacy; and building individuals' skills and livelihoods. The duke regularly visited the mountainous nation to promote his organisation's work but last travelled to the capital Maseru in 2018, the year he married Meghan. Harry and Seeiso will visit Lesotho to showcase Sentebale's work to new supporters alongside existing donors through American Friends of Sentebale, with the princes also meeting local leaders and youth advocates. 19-year-old Prince Harry leading a young orphan by the hand to plant a peach tree together in Lesotho in 2004 Prince Harry plays with children holding balloons during the official opening of The Dining Hall at Phelisanong Childrens Home in 2018 In Johannesburg the group will take part in a reception with South Africa-based stakeholders and strategic partner Lebec, a women-led finance and philanthropy firm, and take part in a panel discussion about philanthropists creating change beyond writing cheques. Sentebale chairwoman Dr Sophie Chandauka said: 'Africa has the largest and fastest-growing youth population, and by 2050, nearly 40% of the world's youth will reside on the continent, with southern Africa home to a significant portion. 'Over 50% of these young people are at risk of remaining economically vulnerable without urgent investment in digital skills, education and job creation. 'The duke's return to southern Africa, alongside our new American friends, marks a milestone as we collaborate with world-class organisations and local leadership to engage this critical youth cohort. 'Together, we aim to accelerate digital and economic inclusion, addressing the low levels of access and literacy, which are crucial for young people's participation in the global economy and for achieving Sentebale's goals in health, wealth creation and climate resilience.' Convicted rapist has almost seen out his current sentence for a separate crime A forensic psychiatrist who assessed the prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case has warned that he is in the top one per cent of dangerous criminals and that he would likely claim a new victim 'soon' if he is freed from jail. Convicted paedophile and rapist Christian Brueckner is the man who German investigators believe abducted Maddie, then aged three, from her parents' holiday apartment in the Algarve in 2007. He has never been charged, despite German authorities saying they have evidence to support their claims, and is currently on trial for separate sex crimes allegedly carried out against multiple victims in Portugal between 2000 and 2017. The 47-year-old is currently on trial for a range of non-related sex offences committed in Portugal, but there have been strong indications that he could be cleared. As he nears the end of his seven-year sentence for the 2005 rape of a pensioner, the only way German authorities could keep him in prison would be if court psychiatric expert, Dr Christian Riedemann, deems him too 'dangerous' for society. Defendant Christian Brueckner in the courtroom for a session of his trial at court in Braunschweig, northern Germany, on September 25, 202 Madeleine McCann (pictured) went missing on May 3, 2007 at the age of just three. She has never been found. German criminal Christian Brueckner has been named by German prosecutors as their chief suspect in her disappearance Speaking today at Braunschweig Regional Court, Dr Riedemann, 47, head of the correctional facility in Bad Rehburg said he scored him as 99 per cent on a scale of dangerousness. 'He is one of the absolute top dangerous people,'Dr Riedemann said, adding in a stark warning that: 'A new victim is to be expected soon.' It was also revealed that Brueckner scored nearly 100 per cent on a test where just over 60 per cent suggests the subject is a psychopath. 'The application of various procedures leads to the conclusion that Christian Brueckner can be categorized in the absolute top league of dangerousness', the expert said. It comes after a former cellmate of Brueckner, Laurentiu Codin, alleged that he had confessed to him about abducting a girl from an apartment in Portugal. In his latest testimony, Codin has reportedly claimed that a lover of Brueckner had been waiting outside the apartment at the time - with the pair arguing and fleeing separately when she saw he had snatched a child. Christian Brueckner (C) is brought to the courtroom for a session of his trial at court in Braunschweig, northern Germany, on September 25, 2024 According to The Sun, Laurentiu told the court of the night of the alleged kidnapping: 'There was another person with him his lover they got into a fight and they separated there.' He added that he was convinced Brueckner had been been telling him the truth, saying: 'Christian was very proud of his doings and as if he was living through them again while telling about it. He told all so detailed.' Laurentiu, who was behind bars with Brueckner in 2020, is also reported to have claimed that the paedophile was part of a bigger organisation, and that he feared for his safety after speaking out against him in court. 'I am afraid of Brueckner now because somebody said to me I will be stabbed in my back,' he reportedly said. In court today, Dr Riedemann reiterated the danger he believes Brueckner would pose if he were freed, adding that the convict had refused to cooperate with him. 'According to established analysis procedures, almost 100 per cent of comparable sex offenders have more favorable prognoses than the defendant,' the expert said. 'And the probability that [Brueckner] will be imprisoned in the next two years is 30 to 50 per cent.' Christian Brueckner, 47, is currently serving a seven-year sentence for the rape of a US pensioner in 2005 and drug trafficking, and is also the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann A house near Praia da Luz resort and Lagos in the Algarve, Portugal, that was used by Christian Brueckner, a German man suspected in the disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann He added that he 'rejected any attempts at exploration of his personality by experts. 'I would like to ask him a lot of questions, but I only have to speculate about a lot of things. 'He belongs in the absolute top league of dangerousness. The probability that the defendant could commit further offences in freedom within two years is high.' Brueckner, who is currently serving a sentence for a 2005 rape of an American pensioner in Portugal, is currently accused of other horrific sex offences in the country. These include three cases of rape, and two cases of exposing him to children while masturbating. Pictured: The holiday complex where the McCanns were staying in Portugal's Algarve region in May 2007, when their three-year-old daughter vanished without a trace German investigators sensationally named Brueckner as the key suspect in the abduction of the British three-year-old If he is acquitted of these crimes, the only way to keep him in prison will be by activating something called 'preventative detention', for which he has to say that he deems Bruckner as dangerous for society. Today was the second time that Dr Riedemann gave an assessment of Christian Brueckner's personality. On day 33 of the trial, he also did this, first discussing an introduction of scientific research on sadistic offenders, and arguing that their main motivation is not the sex, rather the power. Here he said that sadists enjoy humiliating their victims, physically hurting them, tying them up and subjugating them. Brueckner is serving a seven-year jail term for the 2005 rape of American pensioner Diana Menkes, 72, in the Algarve. He is standing trial at Braunschweig district for offences which include the alleged rape of Irish tour rep Hazel Behan, now 40, in her Praia da Rocha apartment in 2004. The former tour guide, who waived her anonymity and has spoken publicly about her experience, broke down in tears as she told the trial that Brueckner had raped her at knifepoint. Christian Brueckner in court. He is standing trial at Braunschweig district court for unconnected sex crimes allegedly carried out in the Algarve between 2000 and 2017 He has also been charged with the alleged rape of a teenage girl in his home in the same city and raping an elderly woman in her holiday apartment. Brueckner is also accused of exposing himself to a German girl on a beach in Salema in April 2007 and to an 11-year-old girl in 2017. His current sentence ends early next year, and if he is not found guilty in the ongoing trial, he could be freed from jail. The trial is due to end in December. Brueckner was sensationally named by German police as the prime suspect in the Madeleine's abduction. The revelation came in June 2020 - more than a decade after her disappearance. But he has never been charged in the case, and has long denied any involvement. Labour's new climate envoy backed Extinction Rebellion and praised an eco-activist who glued themselves to the pavement outside Shell's HQ, it has been revealed. Rachel Kyte, who has been named the UK's new 'Special Representative for Climate', once proudly wore a badge bearing Extinction Rebellion's logo at a major summit. She also urged people to 'act now or get out the way' as the protest group plotted a week of civil disobedience. Foreign Secretary David Lammy this week hailed Ms Kyte's 'expertise and experience' when she was appointed to her new role. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband also claimed she would be 'invaluable' to Labour's climate ambitions. But the Tories said, by appointing Ms Kyte, Labour had shown they are 'not on the public's side' as they pointed to her past support for an 'extreme' group. Rachel Kyte was this week named as the UK's new 'Special Representative for Climate' Ms Kyte was pictured wearing a badge bearing Extinction Rebellion's logo at the COP24 summit in Katowice, Poland, in December 2018 In the same month, she posted a link on social media to a Guardian newspaper article describing how the group were planning a 'week of international civil disobedience' A year later, Ms Kyte used social media to praise Farhana Yamin, an environmental lawyer who had recently glued herself to the pavement outside Shell's headquarters in London Ms Yamin took part in the Extinction Rebellion protest in the capital in April 2019 Energy Secretary Ed Miliband (left) and Foreign Secretary David Lammy both hailed the appointment of Ms Kyte this week Ms Kyte was pictured wearing a badge bearing Extinction Rebellion's logo at the COP24 summit in Katowice, Poland, in December 2018. In the same month, she posted a link on social media to a Guardian newspaper article describing how the group were planning a 'week of international civil disobedience'. Ms Kyte wrote: 'Listen carefully to what young people, artists, mothers are demanding - act now or get out of the way. Rebels I've met are dignified, peaceful, determined.' A year later, Ms Kyte used social media to praise Farhana Yamin, an environmental lawyer who had recently glued herself to the pavement outside Shell's headquarters in London. 'Love for @farhanaclimate,' Ms Kyte posted in May 2019 - a month after Extinction Rebellion had caused chaos in London with a days-long disruptive protest. Tory MP Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, told the Telegraph: 'The Labour Party have taken 5million from someone who was happy to fund Just Stop Oil and have now appointed a climate envoy who has publicly supported Extinction Rebellion. 'These are groups who base their extreme demands on ideological fantasy not on the national interest. It shows again that Labour are not on the public's side.' The newspaper reported that Ms Kyte had never been a member of Extinction Rebellion. A spokesman for the group said: 'Rachel Kyte does not have an official role with Extinction Rebellion. 'But if she supports our demands for the Government to tell the truth about the severity of the climate and ecological emergency, act now with the urgency that is needed, and ensure any actions are fair and inclusive by making decisions together with everyday people, then we are hopefully pulling in the same direction.' A Government spokesman said: 'Rachel Kyte is an outstanding choice to be climate special representative. 'She is a globally recognised expert on climate finance, with top level experience at the UN and World Bank. 'Few people have done more to promote making our financial system respond to the climate crisis.' Households are being warned about the dangers of increased rodent activity caused by recent flooding. Pest control body the National Pest Technicians Association is urging the public to keep food and waste secure, and check properties for any gaps, cracks, or holes where rodents scavenging for food could enter. With rodents' usual food sources being disrupted by flooding, current weather patterns have created the ideal conditions for rodents to make their way inside homes and businesses. This comes after further torrential rain across Britain today caused more travel chaos as the rain left rail lines underwater, drivers stranded on submerged motorways and schools closed. Households are being warned about the dangers of increased rodent activity caused by recent flooding. A general view showing a flooded street in Hitchen, Britain (today) As rodents' usual food sources being disrupted by flooding, current weather patterns have created the ideal conditions for rodents to make their way inside homes and businesses. Pictured: a drone images show a flooded street and houses in Hitchen, Britain Pest control body the National Pest Technicians Association is urging the public to keep food and waste secure, and check properties for any gaps, cracks, or holes where rodents scavenging for food could enter This comes after further torrential rain across Britain today caused more travel chaos as the rain left rail lines underwater, drivers stranded on submerged motorways and schools closed NPTA technical manager Grahame Turner said: 'Floods can cause these spaces to become waterlogged and lead to the rodents being flushed from their normal habitat. They will seek refuge in drier, elevated areas such as homes' NPTA technical manager Grahame Turner said: 'Rats and mice will often live in burrows underground, and rats will also live in drains and sewers. 'Floods can cause these spaces to become waterlogged and lead to the rodents being flushed from their normal habitat. 'They will seek refuge in drier, elevated areas such as homes, offices, and commercial properties including, of course, food businesses. 'This increases the likelihood of infestations in places that might not typically experience rodent problems.' Mr Turner added: 'Understanding how weather impacts rodent behaviour, and taking proactive steps to rodent-proof your property, can help protect your home or business from infestations. 'Badly constructed, poorly maintained or damaged drains and pipes can act as entry points, bringing rodents straight into your property.' Trains going through Shropshire were blocked by flooding at Wellington station, which was left looking more like a Venice canal after heavy rain deluged the tracks. Flooding also blocked services to and from Aberystwyth in West Wales, as well as on the Chiltern Main Line in Oxfordshire between Banbury and Bicester North. Trains between Peterborough and London King's Cross were delayed due to flooding - while London Northwestern Railway trains between Bletchley and Bedford were axed until at least next week following severe waterlogging on parts of the route. A drone image shows a flooded street and houses in Hitchen today Floods near Oxford, these are pictures of the river Cherwell just north of Oxford city after heavy rain today Further torrential rain across Britain caused more travel chaos today. Here caravan site in Cogenhoe, West Northamptonshire, has flooded Tanker trucks work to remove floodwater covering the A421 dual carriageway in Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire Sight-seers watch on as they wait for the water to be cleared from the road in Marston A drone shot captured the extent of the flooding from above A car navigates a flooded road in Northampton as many roads have closed due to torrential downpours In Gloucestershire, Avon Fire and Rescue Service worked with National Highways to rescue people stranded on the M5 after heavy rainfall swamped the motorway. The road was shut northbound between J16 and J14 and southbound between J14 and J15 this morning as emergency services tried to clear the deluge. And the A421 in Bedfordshire was expected to remain closed today between the A6 and M1 near Marston Moretaine, as floodwater continued to be pumped out. Several schools in Bedfordshire and Birmingham were closed today; the pitch at AFC Telford's Seah Stadium in Shropshire was left underwater and the Bristol South Swimming Pool was closed after heavy rain damaged the roof. Fire crews evacuated 20 flood-hit residents from Hitchin in Hertfordshire, while a driver was rescued after his BMW became submerged in Hall Green, Birmingham. In Northamptonshire, 35 people were rescued from rising flood waters at a caravan park in Yarwell. The Environment Agency had 63 flood warnings in place for England this morning, meaning flooding is expected, and 113 flood alerts, meaning flooding is possible. In addition, a new warning has been issued for Sunday for strong winds of up to 60mph which may cause disruption across the South West of England and Wales. Waves crash against the lighthouse in Seaham Harbour in County Durham this morning People walk with their dogs during a downpour on Wimbledon Common in London today Staff clean the floodwater and mud away at AFC Telford's Seah Stadium this morning Flooding by the boundary at the Cloud County Ground in Chelmsford, Essex, this morning A man's umbrella is blown inside out during a downpour on Millennium Bridge in London today Vehicles negotiate debris from a tree on the North Circular road in London during heavy rain A tree has been blown onto a car and van in the West Sussex village of Sompting this morning Tankers are removing floodwater from the A421 near Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire, today A person jumps over a puddle on Euston Road in London today following more heavy rain Trains going through Shropshire are blocked by flooding at Wellington station this morning Slide me Met Office maps show today's temperatures (left) and the 'feels like' temperatures (right) Parts of England continued to be lashed by heavy rain this morning with a yellow rain warning in place for southern England, the Midlands and Wales in place until 9am. School closures in England today Bedfordshire Marston Vale Middle School, Stewartby Sharnbrook Academy, Sharnbrook Lincroft Academy, Oakley Hockliffe Lower School, Leighton Buzzard West Midlands Bournville School, Birmingham St Laurence Church Junior School, Northfield Victoria School, Northfield Longwill School for Deaf Children Advertisement The Met Office warned of cancelled trains, power cuts, flooded homes, spray on roads, communities becoming cut off and 'fast flowing or deep floodwater causing danger to life'. It comes after an amber warning for central areas of England expired at 6am. Areas affected by the amber warning - including Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire and the West Midlands - were struck by flash floods as the Met Office warned the regions could see up to 40mm (1.6in) of rainfall within three hours. Cambridge has an average monthly rainfall of 47.61mm for September. But the wet weather is expected to finally ease into this afternoon. Meteorologist Greg Dewhurst said northern and central parts of England and Wales had been hit hardest by the downpours. He said: 'There will continue to be localised flooding. A lot of these areas have been hit by rain in the past few weeks which means the ground is already saturated. 'The amber warning is in place until 6am and the wider yellow warning will be lifted at 9am. We're expecting it to then ease up and become a bit drier. 'But rivers often take time to respond so we're expecting disruption to continue in central and southern parts throughout the morning. The pitch at AFC Telford's Seah Stadium in Shropshire was left underwater this morning A BMW driver was rescued after his became submerged in the Hall Green area of Birmingham People walk with their dogs during a downpour on Wimbledon Common in London today A man walks in the rain near Tower Bridge in London this morning during a torrential downpour Tankers are removing floodwater from the A421 near Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire, today Waves crash against the lighthouse in Seaham Harbour in County Durham this morning A flooded treatment room at AFC Telford's Seah Stadium this morning after heavy rainfall Floodwater on Euston Road in London today following more heavy rain in the capital A car is driven through a flooded country lane in Dunsden, Oxfordshire, today after more rain Waves crash against the lighthouse in Seaham Harbour in County Durham this morning A van is driven through a flooded country lane in Dunsden, Oxfordshire, today after more rain A man walks in the rain near Tower Bridge in London this morning during a torrential downpour Horse riders brave a torrential downpour on a waterlogged Wimbledon Common today A person walks through a puddle on Euston Road in London today following more heavy rain Waves crash against the lighthouse in Seaham Harbour in County Durham this morning A tree has been blown onto a car and van in the West Sussex village of Sompting this morning Tankers are removing floodwater from the A421 near Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire, today A cyclist rides through a puddle on Euston Road in London today after more heavy rain A man's umbrella is blown inside out during a downpour Central London this morning 'Those planning to travel on Friday should factor this into their journey times.' Councils and emergency services in Northamptonshire and Hertfordshire confirmed a number of road closures and told residents they were working to keep people safe. Tewkesbury Borough Council in Gloucestershire has been handing out sandbags to residents to help protect their homes against flooding. At least four schools closed in Bedfordshire today - Hockliffe Lower School in Leighton Buzzard; Marston Vale Middle School in Stewartby; Lincroft Academy in Oakley; and Sharnbrook Academy. A message on the latter's Facebook page said: 'URGENT - SCHOOL CLOSURE TODAY - We have made the decision to close Sharnbrook Academy to all students today. Trains going through Shropshire are blocked by flooding at Wellington station this morning Flooded tracks at Wellington station in Shropshire this morning which has blocked the line Trains going through Shropshire are blocked by flooding at Wellington station this morning Avon Fire and Rescue Service worked with National Highways to rescue people stranded on the M5 in Gloucestershire this morning after heavy rainfall flooded the motorway The M5 in Gloucestershire was shut northbound between J16 and J14 and southbound between J14 and J15 this morning as emergency services tried to clear the flooding 'Three out of the four routes into the village are currently closed and there are extensive road closures in operation on local routes. 'A significant number of staff and students are unable to safely get to school. Rain continues this morning and flood warnings remain in place. 'We will be in touch later this morning with further updates. We are very sorry for the inconvenience and disruption this will cause.' And Lincroft Academy said on X that the school was closed 'due to extensive local flooding making travel routes into Oakley unsafe and impassable to staff and students with some on site flooding', adding: 'The area is on red alert for flooding with continued rain expected.' Meanwhile Marston Vale Middle School tweeted: 'An urgent announcement is now going out to all pupils, parents and carers and staff. Due to flooding, our school will be closed today. 'Unfortunately the bus company has already cancelled the buses and Stewartby is fairly inaccessible, as are parts of our school.' In the Birmingham area, at least four schools were closed - Bournville School and then another three in the nearby Northfield area: St Laurence Church Junior School; Victoria School; and Longwill School for Deaf Children. It comes after flooding in Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire this week has brought widespread travel disruption and damage to properties. Parts of the country saw twice the monthly average rainfall in 48 hours earlier this week, with flash flooding damaging homes on Monday and disrupting travel. AFC Wimbledon were due to play Newcastle in the third round of the Carabao Cup on Tuesday but it was called off and rescheduled after the Cherry Red Records Stadium in South West London was hit by flooding and appeared to have a sinkhole in the pitch. Firefighters and police also worked late into Tuesday night to evacuate residents after flooding at the Billing Aquadrome holiday park. There were further downpours on Wednesday evening. The Environment Agency said about 385 properties were flooded in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Kent and the Home Counties. Woburn in Bedforshire has had its wettest month on record with more than four times the average September rainfall - 227mm (8.9in) so far against an average of 55mm (2.2in). But the rain is expected to clear during today, leaving conditions much colder on Saturday. A Democrat judge in Texas was busted for allegedly using a fake Facebook page to direct racist comments toward himself in an attempt to garner sympathy and secure re-election. Fort Bend County Judge KP George, a top elected official in the suburban Houston county, won a 2022 re-election bid against his Republican opponent, Trever Nehls. A warrant obtained by KHOU 11 shows that George's cellular devices suggested he had been communicating with a fellow employee who used a fake Facebook account under the name 'Antonio Scalywag' to interact with the judge's posts and leave racist comments. Fort Bend County Judge KP George was busted for allegedly using a fake Facebook page to direct racist comments toward himself He allegedly worked with an employee to orchestrate online attacks in an attempt to garner sympathy and secure his 2022 re-election George is accused him of working hand in hand with his former chief of staff, Taral Patel, who was employed as a consultant for George's re-election campaign in 2022. Evidence from the obtained warrant suggests that Patel was the one leaving the racist comments - all with permission from the judge. Patel allegedly used the same tactic in his own campaign against Andy Meyers for a county commissioner seat. 'The allegations are that George and Taral Patel coordinated the racist messages that were basically posted during his campaign to essentially make KP George a victim, for the purpose of obviously winning a political race,' Meyers told KHOU 11. 'They did this for their personal gain which I think is reprehensible.' George is a U.S. citizen but was born in India. He was first elected as a county judge in 2018 and became the first person of color to ever serve as a judge in Fort Bend. The allegations against the judge only came to light when an investigation into Patel was conducted by the Fort Bend County District Attorney's office for his own suspected crimes. George is accused him of working hand in hand with his former chief of staff, Taral Patel (pictured) , who was employed as a consultant for George's re-election campaign in 2022 A tweet from 2020 shows George posting a collage of the racist comments he received - some from the alias 'Antonio Scalywag' Patel also claimed that he was the target of the same attacks. Most of the comments on his social media were directed at South Asians, calling them terrorists. Some also made fun of Hinduism. The posts were under the familiar name of Antonio Scalywag. One of the comments read: 'Was he even born here? Probably communist' Another stated: '... I am with Meyers ALL THE WAY... unlike Patel and his followers who worship Monkey and Elephant.' The same alias account was attacking Meyers online before Patel even launched his campaign against him. The investigator on the case, Evett Kelly, determined that the alias account was attached to an associated email address and phone number of Patel, KHOU 11 reported. In October of 2022, the Antonio Scalywag profile updated its profile picture from an IP address that was also associated to Patel. He was arrested in June on a felony charge of online misrepresentation for his role in the hoax, according to Click 2 Houston. George was indicted on a Class A misdemeanor Patel allegedly used the same tactic in his own campaign for a county commissioner seat According to the warrant, George issued a press release claiming he was the target of racist attacks on social media. But cell phone records from Patel included a conversation with the contact name KP George in which they discussed the press release and the screenshots before Patel asked him to approve the release. George was booked into Fort Bend County Jail on Thursday and released on a $1,000 bond. Fort Bend County Precinct 1 Constable Chad Norvell suggested the judge step down, calling the situation 'deeply embarrassing,' according to Click 2 Houston. The commissioner of the same precinct, Vincent Morales, also called for the judge to resign. But George maintains his innocence and has no plans to step down. In a statement, George said he is 'disappointed at the charges' He claimed in a statement on Thursday that his focus remains solely on serving the residents of the county, according to KHOU 11. 'Although I am disappointed by the charges brought against me, I am confident that when all the facts are presented, justice will prevail,' the statement read. 'In this country, you are innocent until proven guilty, and I fully intend to prove my innocence in court. 'I look forward to clearing my name and continuing the important work entrusted to me by the voters.' Prince Harry was spotted at a celebrity New York City tattoo parlor this week just ten days after his 40th birthday. The Duke of Sussex dropped into East Side Ink in the city's Lower East Side at around 1pm on Wednesday and spent around an hour inside. It remains unclear what kind of ink - if any - the royal opted for. Staff at the shop were tight-lipped when questioned about his visit. 'I couldn't tell you anything about anyone that stopped by without their permission. We would respect anyone's privacy in the exact same way,' owner Josh Lord told DailyMail.com. 'A tattoo is a deeply personal choice.... anything that happens here is your private moment.' Prince Harry dropped in to a New York City tattoo parlor on Wednesday during his visit to the Big Apple (pictured on September 23) Harry spent an hour inside East Side Ink on the Lower East Side The royal pulled up in a black SUV flanked by members of his security team and the NYPD, images obtained by Page Six show. The shop's owner said the prince stayed at the shop, where sessions cost up to $350 an hour, until just after 2pm. The tattoo parlor is renowned among celebrity circles, with the likes of 'Avengers' stars Chris Hemsworth, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans and Jeremy Renner all previously getting matching ink there. East Side Ink, which opened in 1992, describes itself as one of the oldest tattoo parlors in New York City. When it opened, the shop 'catered exclusively to bikers and hard-core body-art aficionados'. However, today it boasts of tattooing everyone from, 'neighborhood punks to Oscar-Winning celebrities'. Owner Josh Lord was tight-lipped about the royal's visit out of respect for his privacy East Side Ink boasts of being one of the oldest tattoo parlors in New York City. Pictured: A back tattoo on another customer A source said that Prince Harry arrived at around 1pm and stayed at the tattoo shop for just over an hour. Pictured: Another customer's arm tattoo 'On any given day, you might find your favorite actor or musician getting tattooed right next to neighborhood regulars,' the website states. The shop was listed as one of New York City's best tattoo parlors on Time Out's list for 2024. 'It's an honor to get to do a lot of these,' Lord said of his A-list clientele, which also includes fake tattoos for TV shows including True Detective, for which the shop won an Emmy, and The Penguin. Harry was in the Big Apple this week to support various pet charities and businesses including African Parks, The HALO Trust, The Diana Award, and Travalyst. After visiting the tattoo parlor, Harry filmed a skit for Jimmy Fallon The guest appearance was part of Harry's media blitz in the Big Apple The visit forms part of a solo eight-day trip to New York and the UK, without wife Meghan Markle. The prince is due to fly to London this weekend for his annual visit to support WellChild at their awards ceremony, again without his wife. Royal experts previously told DailyMail.com his solo trip shows he is determined to 'carve out' new opportunities and 'assert himself' after turning 40. On Sunday, Harry was seen greeting Queen Mathilde of Belgium, actor Forest Whitaker, several UN Agency Heads, and other dignitaries, for an event to honor survivors of childhood violence. He also spoke during a summit organized by the Clinton Global Initiative at the New York Hilton hotel on Tuesday. The prince has previously spoken of his desire to get inked in his memoir 'Spare'. In the anecdote, he described wanting to get a tattoo of Botswana amid a a boozed-up trip to Las Vegas where he was celebrating his new found freedom after stepping back as a senior royal. However, his security team stepped in and persuaded him not to go ahead. 'I was not going to get a tattoo, not on their watch, least of all a foot tattoo of Botswana,' Harry said. 'They promised to hold me down, known me out, whatever it took.' Harry and Meghan in July at the ESPYs. She did not join him for his trip to New York American security officials are still tracking Iranian plots to kill Donald Trump and other high-profile figures, according to the nation's top law enforcement officer. Attorney General Merrick Garland delivered an update on Friday about Tehran's efforts to disrupt the 2024 election, as charges against three members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (I.R.G.C.) were revealed. 'There are few actors in this world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran, state sponsor of terrorism,' he said. 'Iran's malign activities are wide ranging. 'The US government is intensely tracking Iran's lethal plotting against current and former US government officials, including former President Trump.' Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) soldiers march in formation during the annual military parade marking the Iraqi invasion in 1980, which led to an eight-year-long war (1980-1988); in Tehran, Iran, 21 September 2024 Security around the former president was stepped up after he survived an assassination attempt in July. A second suspected assassination attempt was thwarted earlier this month. There is no evidence that Iran was involved in either of those. But this week Trump was briefed by security officials about Iranian plots to kill him. The former president demanded that President Joe Biden threaten Iran with being blown to 'smithereens' if he came to any harm at their hands. 'We are working to investigate and disrupt Iran's funding and support of Hamas Hezbollah and other terrorist groups, and we are working relentlessly to uncover and counter Iran's efforts to stoke discord, to undermine confidence in our democratic institutions and to influence our relations,' said Garland. The Trump campaign revealed in August that it had been hacked by Iran. Several news outlets reported that they had been offered campaign documents but declined to publish them. On Friday, charges against three Iranians were unsealed. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday announced criminal charges against Iranian operatives suspected of hacking Donald Trump's presidential campaign and disseminating stolen information to media organizations Garland also said officials were 'tracking Iran's lethal plotting against current and former US government officials, including former President Trump' The indictment said the three menall members of the I.R.G.C.engaged in a wide-ranging hacking campaign that began in 2020. They targeted American officials, journalists and campaign operatives in an effort to undermine the democratic process The indictment said the three menall members of the I.R.G.C.engaged in a wide-ranging hacking campaign that began in 2020. They targeted American officials, journalists and campaign operatives in an effort to undermine the democratic process. The charges include identity theft, wire fraud, and computer fraud. It reveals how Iran stole debate prep material from the Trump campaign and and tried to send it to the Biden camp on the day of the first, and only, debate between then. Garland said all three live in Iran, making a prosecution unlikely. At the same time, the Treasury Department announced sanctions on seven members of the I.R.G.C. And the State Department said it was offering rewards of up to $10 million for information that led to the arrest of the three defendants. For its part, Iran described the allegations as 'unsubstantiated and devoid of any standing.' The clearly nervous owner of the Vauxhall Cavalier opened the boot gingerly... taking great care not to put his trembling hands inside. And as the lid sprang open, the reason for his timidity became all too obvious. For inside was a very agitated alligator unmuzzled, untethered and clearly not at all happy about being locked up. The 4ft animal had been kept in a bath in a Leith tower block. And when the owners horrified new girlfriend found out and demanded he get rid of it, he put it up for sale on the internet. Mike Flynn takes rescued caiman Jimmy to its new home in Spain The SSPCA and police were tipped off and veteran undercover animal welfare officer Mike Flynn was chosen to pose as a prospective buyer. Mike said: The guy opened the boot and there it was. It had been living in the guys bath and he had been feeding it dead rats. He bought it on the internet and it was definitely not suited to living in a small flat. He didnt have a licence to keep a dangerous animal and it was completely illegal. The crocodile had to be restrained using a dog grasper, a pole with a slip collar, and Mike and another officer then lifted the wriggling creature into their van. He added: It was much the same principle as handling a dangerous dog. We got it under control and taped its mouth shut. It was fine. If you lived in fear of getting bitten or injured, you wouldnt have been able to do my job. The reptile, a spectacled caiman nicknamed Jimmy, was taken into SSPCA custody. The charity eventually found a zoo in Torremolinos which agreed to take it. Jimmy was placed in a purpose-built crate and Mike and a colleague escorted him on a flight to Madrid, then onwards, in the rear of a hire car to Torremolinos. Jimmy still lives in the zoo today. After four decades on the frontline of protecting animals, Mike can cite many such memorable moments from his career: catching an ostrich in a city street; rescuing deadly snakes; helping to smash one of the largest dog fighting rings in Europe. This week, Mike retired as a chief superintendent of the SSPCA, a job that taught him to expect the unexpected. He said: There was often an assumption that my working days were all about saving puppies and kittens but that was far from the case. I have dealt with all sorts of animals and been in the craziest of situations. I always tried to stay calm and collected, regardless of what I was confronted with. Panicking wouldnt have got the job done. In another peculiar incident, Mike took an early Sunday morning call from a man who claimed he had just seen an ostrich wandering along Leith Walk in Edinburgh. He recalls: I thought the guy was probably drunk but I drove out there anyway. I couldnt believe it when I saw there actually was an ostrich on the street. The bird was limping after it had fallen off the back of the lorry transporting it to a farm. Mike said: It was young and only four foot high so I caught it, bound it and took it to get treated. Even I was surprised by that one. As a little boy growing up in Edinburgh, Mike had a natural affinity with animals and exasperated his mother by bringing home cats he found on the way home from school. Mike Flynn with one of the many dogs rescued by the animal charity Mike on a visit to the zoo in Spain that gave Jimmy the caiman a home He laughs at the recollection: Sometimes they werent even strays and belonged to the neighbours, so I was sent straight back out to return them. I always loved animals. They never let you down. The 65-year-old took a while to find his ultimate calling and he even worked as an assistant to a stage hypnotist before he got a job as a keeper in Edinburgh Zoo in 1978. He initially looked after the camels but as they tended to spit and bite, he was delighted at being moved to the rhino and elephant enclosures. In his care was Sally, the largest female Asian elephant in any zoo, at nine-foot tall and weighing 3.5 tons. Mike grew to adore the intelligent, lumbering creature. But after caring for Sally for two years, he found her motionless on the ground one morning. A vet was called but it was too late and Sally passed away from kidney failure having lived at the zoo for 45 years. Mike said: It was heartbreaking because I really loved her. I was in a hellish state and had to be sent home. I have never cried so much in my life. He was also devastated when a baby giraffe he helped hand rear died at only 17 days old. Mike added: It was horrible when an animal died. I grew attached to any animal I worked with. After seven years, he left the zoo and joined the SSPCA as an inspector and he would continue to encounter many exotic creatures. In the 1990s, the growth of the internet saw a boom in the illegal trade in exotic animals, with people buying creatures despite having none of the specialist knowledge needed to care for them. Mike, who rose through the ranks to ultimately oversee all uniformed SSPCA staff, was involved in the rescue of everything from abandoned iguanas to monkeys and parrots and once had to confiscate a lemur from a caravan. Reptiles such as iguanas became fashionable at one point and could be bought for around 25 on the web, but with the expense of buying tanks and specialist UV lights, buyers soon came to regret their purchase. The reptiles can be aggressive and one bit a finger off a teenage boy in Dumfries. Mike said: They might grow to be six feet long. When people discovered the iguana would really need a bedroom to itself, they would dump it. Popular childrens movies could often spark crazes in exotic animals. Terrapins flooded the market in the 1990s amid the popularity of The Teenage Mutant Turtles films and SSPCA rehoming centres received hundreds of the discarded animals. Mike said: People would keep them in the living room and they can stink. They can also live for decades, long after the kids got bored with them. 'Every time a new movie came out, we knew we would be overrun with terrapins in our centres. Mikes rescues have included dozens of snakes including cobras and rattlesnakes. In Hawick, Mike was called out to confiscate a neglected snake that was being kept in a tank in a bedroom. When his team first found it, it was slithering across the floor and they hadnt realised it was a Green Tree viper, so venomous one bite can bring on haemorrhaging, tissue rot and death. Mike said: Anyone could have been bitten by it and died. It was completely irresponsible. The owner of the poisonous snake also had American bullfrogs, which he collected for the hallucinogenic substance they excrete. We had quite a few instances of drug users buying frogs to lick them and get high, Mike recalls. But as well as being confronted with animals in dire circumstances, he also found people living in appalling conditions. In three separate incidents in one year alone, Mike discovered dead bodies after reports of distressed dogs being left in properties. In one tragic case, the SSPCA received numerous calls about a Jack Russell which had been barking for days in a house. When Mike and his team gained access, they discovered the decomposing body of the dogs elderly owner. Mike Flynn established the SSPCA's Special Investigations Unit, which has helped smash dog-fighting gangs He said: It was sad. Everyones concern was for the dog. No one had bothered to call about the old man. He had been dead for about four days. Someone must have known there could be something wrong with him but did nothing. In another shocking case of neglect, Mike was called to a rural home near Falkirk where a mentally ill woman was living in horrendous conditions. She had no running water and her electricity had been cut off. The woman had 60 dogs in filthy cages and her dilapidated home was infested with rats. Mike said: The woman was living in devastation and had slipped through the net. We took the animals away but she was allowed to stay. 'It was shocking a human being could be living in those conditions in modern Scotland and no one was doing anything about it. It wasnt fit for dogs but it was considered acceptable for her. Mikes role stretched far beyond that of rescuing animals and in 1992, he established the SSPCAs Special Investigations Unit (SIU). The unit targeted organised crimes involvement in barbaric practices such as dog fighting, badger baiting and puppy farming. It was formed a year after the SSPCA participated in a successful raid on a dog fighting event at a disused farm in Kennoway, Fife. It was the largest operation of its kind in Europe and involved more than 140 police officers and teams from the RSPCA and SSPCA. The brutal match, where spectators gambled on dogs fighting to the death, was attended by 31 serious criminals, including two released murderers and leaders of Hells Angels chapters. More than 40 police and ten animal welfare inspectors, including Mike, were smuggled up the dirt track to the farm in a horse box. The ingenious ploy meant if the vehicle was spotted by lookouts, it would be assumed it was heading to a riding school neighbouring the farm. Mike said: The police were there to deal with the criminals and we were there for the dogs. 'We were packed shoulder to shoulder in the horse box and my heart was pumping. The fight was held in an old byre with only one door, so when police stormed the building in the middle of a fight, the criminals had no route of escape. It was chaotic. They were taken completely by surprise. A gruesome scene then greeted the officers: a specially built whitewashed fighting pit was stained in blood from the dogs; metal poles were found nearby which were used to prise open the jaws of frenzied animals. All the participants were later convicted, with some sent to jail and others fined. Mike said: The whole operation went like clockwork and that was down to the police, who were excellent. Dog fighting is brutal and takes a terrible toll on animals. 'They either die or suffer terrible injuries. It was satisfying to put a stop to it. Four American pit bulls and two Staffordshire bull terriers were confiscated but they had been trained to be so dangerous they had to be put down. After the raid, it was clear the SSPCA needed its own unit of plain clothes officers and unmarked vans, capable of carrying out covert investigations. The unit Mike set up now has six officers and has secured a number of convictions in their campaign against crimes including dog fighting and badger baiting. Most of its work these days is dedicated to investigating puppy farming, which is so lucrative many criminals have quit drug dealing to pursue it. The SSPCA regularly intercepts smugglers bringing puppies into Britain from Ireland and Mike said the unscrupulous traders operate like drug traffickers. He said: They use burner phones which they immediately discard after they sell a puppy. They rent out short-term Airbnb properties from which to sell the dogs, pretending they are family homes. As the price of dogs soared during the pandemic, the rewards for smuggling have risen in lockstep. A consignment of ten French bulldogs in Britain can now fetch up to 40,000: about the same price as a kilo of cocaine. And while international drug-trafficking can lead to life imprisonment, the penalties for puppy smuggling are paltry, often only fines. Scotland has some of the toughest laws to tackle animal cruelty, with two-year sentences and unlimited fines available but Mike claims courts arent using them effectively. One drug dealer made more than 1million a year selling sick and overbred puppies but was fined only 2,600 by a Scots court. Mike said: That was less than he made on one puppy. More training of sheriffs is needed to encourage issuing greater penalties. 'These crimes have consequences for the wider community and they should be taken seriously. Mike has contributed to numerous government consultations and has been key to the introduction of harsher laws on animal welfare. In March, after decades of advocating for change, he helped secure an outright ban on all snares in Scotland. He considers the outlawing of the sick practice to be one of his proudest achievements and the same Bill gave the SSPCA enhanced powers to support police in tackling animal crime. In 2006 he was awarded an MBE in the Queens 80th birthday honours list for services to animal welfare in Scotland. In retirement, Mike is looking forward to spending more time with his wife Janice, daughter Eve and son Ross, after years of late-night call outs and long shifts. He will also have quality time with his small lap dog, Wee Mac, a rescue he adopted. For the next year, he will remain a member of the Scottish Governments Scottish Animal Welfare Commission. He said: I cant believe 37 years have come and gone. I loved the job and it always felt more of a privilege than it did work. I will miss it. I would do it all again tomorrow if I could. A retired policeman who repeatedly indecently assaulted a schoolgirl after grooming her four decades ago has been jailed for seven years. David Surridge was 30 and a special constable when he had sexual encounters with the girl on a 'weekly basis' in the 1980s. A court heard Surridge, who went on to become a PC, met her when she moved near to his marital home and plied the child with gifts, alcohol and cigarettes before molesting her between the ages of 13 and 16. Warwick Crown Court heard the victim eventually came forward in 2022 after a 'lightbulb moment' watching a television programme in which a girl was groomed. Surridge, 70, who retired from policing in 2014 after a 24 year career as a PC, admitted six counts of indecent assault. David Surridge plied a child with gifts, alcohol and cigarettes before molesting her between the ages of 13 and 16 Surridge was 30 and a special constable when he had sexual encounters with the girl on a 'weekly basis' in the 1980s. He is pictured outside of court In a statement, the victim, who is a mother, said: 'I realised what happened was not my fault. 'What he did was so wrong. As a policeman I trusted him and believed everything he said. Now it feels like he has ruined my life.' The court heard the incidents began in 1984 in Warwick and developed over a four-year period until the girl turned 16 and began a relationship with a serious boyfriend of her own age. Matthew Barnes, prosecuting, said: 'He would groom her by, for example, buying her presents, teddies, cards with romantic sayings. He made her musical tapes of love songs. 'She would skip school to see him. He took her for picnics in the countryside. 'Sometimes they would drink alcohol together. He gave her cigarettes. 'He would park up in the countryside in afternoons for sexual activity.' Mr Barnes added: 'Sometimes he took her to his garage at weekends which was away from his house for sexual activity.' In evidence, the woman, who cannot be named, told police that Surridge was 'charming' to her and did not 'force' her to engage in sexual acts. Warwick Crown Court (pictured) heard the victim eventually came forward in 2022 after a 'lightbulb moment' watching a television programme in which a girl was groomed Summarising her evidence, Mr Barnes said: 'For years she blamed herself for being a naughty teenager, until as an adult she came to realise she had been groomed and she had been a victim. 'She felt that she had been controlled and kept her mouth shut.' Surridge, who became a PC in 1990, had no previous convictions. Not guilty pleas to one count of rape and an additional count of indecent assault were ordered to lie on file. Adam Western, defending, told the court: 'He has asked me to say today how much he deeply regrets what he did to her and how sorry he is for the harm he has caused her. 'He is now an old man who is about to experience prison for the first time. The prospect of prison terrifies him. 'He will be more vulnerable than others going to prison, not just because of his age but because of his previous role as a police constable.' Sentencing, Judge Sylvia de Bertodano told Surridge: 'She was still 12 years old when you told her you were in love with her. it was at that stage you started to touch her sexually. 'This was a situation with a much older man, you at the time being a special constable, and someone she clearly looked up to. 'You groomed her by flattering her and talking to her and treating her like an adult when she was very clearly still a child. ' The judge said she was 'much, much too young to engage in any sort of sexual activity - least of all with a man in his 30s.' She told Surridge, of Coventry: 'If you're having sexually activity with a child of 12 or 13 you are robbing them of their childhood and that's what you did in this case.' A small gulf island that is a popular tourist attraction has been left decimated after Hurricane Helene slammed Florida. Cedar Key was blasted by the power of the Category 4 hurricane as it hit the small island, which sits less than 10 feet above sea level in Levy County. Michael Bobbitt, 48, was one of those who decided to stay behind. 'We're feeling pretty gut-punched here in Cedar Key. When we were fighting this in the night, however bad we thought it would be, it's much worse in the light of day. 'Cedar Key as we know it is completely gone,' he told The New York Times. 'Entire houses have been picked up and moved away. We had to go through four feet of water to get to them. The post office is destroyed.' As the residents that stayed on the island woke on Friday morning, they discovered the island had been stripped bare by the winds, with debris littering the streets The storm made landfall on Thursday and brought with it a storm surge that reportedly hit four feet on the small island in the Gulf of Mexico. Workers are seen digging through the debris on Friday Debris is left inside a flooded store after the storm hit Cedar Key on Thursday evening 'Several restaurants are destroyed. The Jiffy Food Store is destroyed. Vehicles are smashed in and turned upside down. Everything is impassable. It looks like a nuclear bomb went off.' The storm made landfall on Thursday and brought with it a storm surge that reportedly hit four feet on the small island in the Gulf of Mexico. As the residents that stayed on the island woke on Friday morning, they discovered the island had been stripped bare by the winds, with debris littering the streets. He added: 'All of those people that left are desperate to hear about their homes. I'm delivering the most devastating news that they have ever got in their lives.' There have been no reports of deaths or injury in the area, or other coastal parts of the county. 'That's just a true blessing', Lt. Scott Tummond told the Times, but added that workers would continue to be in rescue mode. Recovery mode, he said, would start after they make sure the safety of those who need assistance is complete. The popular tourist attraction, seen here before the hurricane, was hit by the storm on Thursday night as it hit the Gulf of Mexico The popular tourist attraction, seen here, was hit by the storm on Thursday night as it hit the Gulf of Mexico Bobbitt said Helene was the most violent force he had ever experienced, even finding it hard to explain how powerful it was. He expects the recovery of the small community and the island as a whole to take years. 'I expect there to be a mass exodus. There will be no services here for months. Theres no stores. No restaurants. 'Its over,' he said grimly. There have been no reports of deaths or injury in the area, according to officials The weather system hit the Big Bend area of Florida's Gulf Coast around 11:10pm CDT with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph The storm left a devastating path of destruction across Florida and the entire southeastern US, killing at least 25 people in four states In North Carolina, four people were critically injured and numerous others sustained minor injuries after a tornado touched down in Rocky Mount. The banks of the Swannanoa river in Asheville, NC, is seen here The storm left a devastating path of destruction across Florida and the entire southeastern US, killing at least 40 people in four states. The storm has since been downgraded to a tropical depression and is located around 125 miles southeast of Louisville, Kentucky, on Friday afternoon. According to the National Hurricane Center its sustained winds had dropped to 30 mph, after previously recording maximum sustained winds of 140 mph. At least 15 people have died in Georgia, a further eight in Florida, and a reported seventeen died in South Carolina. One person died in Florida by a falling tree, while another was struck by a sign on Interstate 4 in Tampa. In South Carolina two firefighters died after responding to calls, while two other deaths were put down to fallen trees. In neighboring North Carolina four people were critically injured and numerous others sustained minor injuries after a tornado touched down in Rocky Mount. According to the National Hurricane Center its sustained winds had dropped to 30 mph, after previously recording maximum sustained winds of 140 mph Members of the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department's Swift Water Rescue Team bring Darryl Hall to dry land after his home was swamped by flood waters in Atlanta, Georgia Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, meanwhile, issued a statement saying that four counties were now under a state of emergency on Friday afternoon. He urged citizens to stay safe and said the state was seeing widespread power outages. Around 4.4 million Americans were without power on Friday afternoon. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said dozens of people were still trapped in buildings damaged by the Category 4 hurricane. In Tennessee, patients and caregivers sought shelter on the roof of the Unicoi County Hospital near the border with North Carolina after it flooded. The facility was flooded on Friday morning after the nearby Nolichucky River burst its banks and flooded the facility. Due to the treacherous conditions, boats were sent by the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency and everyone was forced onto the roof. After failed attempts by helicopters to land safely on the building due to the high winds, a state police helicopter managed to land and hoist those stranded to safety. Senator Bill Hagerty confirmed just after 4pm EST that everyone had been rescued from the roof. The damage extended hundreds of miles to the north, with flooding as far away as North Carolina, where a lake used in the movie "Dirty Dancing" overtopped a dam. #BREAKING: At least 50 patients and staff are trapped on the roof of Unicoi County Hospital in Tennessee This is terrifying. Emergency crews attempted to evacuate people by ambulance and boats, but the water began rising way too quickly and and is moving too rapidly to pic.twitter.com/2uaw8B6gdy Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) September 27, 2024 Residents are seen here being rescued from floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Friday in Crystal River, Florida Destruction is seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Cedar Key, Florida on Friday Laurie Lilliott surveys what's left of her home after Hurricane Helene passed the area at Dekle Beach, Fla Multiple hospitals in southern Georgia were without power, and one in Tennessee was closed. Airports in Florida that closed due to the hurricane were reopened Friday. That included airports in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Lakeland and Tallahassee. At Tampa International Airport there had been 130 flight cancellations in the past 24 hours, as of Friday afternoon, according to FlightAware. Airports in Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina, remained open Friday but were reporting large numbers of cancellations and heavy delays. By 2 p.m., nearly 400 flights to or from Charlotte had been canceled. Nearly 580 more, to or from Charlotte, were delayed. At the larger Atlanta airport, 175 flights were canceled and more than 500 were delayed. Three U.S. destroyers in the Red Sea were targeted by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi, the militants said on Friday. The militants also targeted the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon with missiles and drones to show their support of Gaza and Lebanon. The Israeli army said it had intercepted a missile fired from Yemen which had triggered sirens to sound in central Israel. The Houthis' military spokesperson said operations would not halt until Israel's offensives in Gaza and Lebanon stop. The group attacked Tel Aviv with a ballistic missile and launched a drone towards Ashkelon in southern Israel, Yahya Sarea said. Houthi fighters march during a rally of support for the Palestinians "We will carry out more military operations against the Israeli enemy to triumph for the sake of our brothers' blood in Palestine and Lebanon," he added in a televised speech. Sarea also said, in a separate televised speech, that the group had simultaneously targeted three U.S. destroyers in the Red Sea with 23 ballistic and winged missiles and a drone while the vessels were on their way to support Israel. U.S. Navy warships going through the Bab al-Mandab Strait intercepted a number of projectiles, including missiles and drones, fired by the Houthis, a U.S. official said. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity and citing initial information which can change, said there was no damage to any of the three warships in the area. Israeli strikes have killed more than 600 people in Lebanon since Monday, with the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah at its most intense in more than 18 years. USS Laboon sails in the Red Sea Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel for almost a year in support of allied Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is fighting Israel in Gaza. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli assault on Gaza, according to health officials there. The war was triggered by an attack on Israel by Hamas militants who killed 1,200 people and abducted more than 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies. A member of one of the richest families in Europe spent thousands at a trendy burlesque bar while failing to pay any money in child support for his two young daughters, a family court heard yesterday. Bjoern von Siemens whose great-grandfather founded the German electronics and telecommunications giant worth over 100bn charged over 33,000 on his credit card while visiting The Box nightclub in New York and London. The club in London's Soho has a minimum spend of between 2,000 and 3,000 a night and is known for erotic and burlesque shows. The lavish spending was revealed as part of a hearing at the Family Court into Mr von Siemen's failure to pay any child support maintenance for his children, aged two and three, following the end of his three-and half-year marriage. His estranged wife Leah, 36, attended a court hearing in Central London as her lawyer attempted to have Mr von Siemens ruled in contempt of court for failing to pay the child support. Bjoern von Siemens, 41, spent thousands at a burlesque bar in London while failing to pay child support for his two young daughters Her 41-year-old ex-husband failed to attend the hearing and submitted a medical note in German to excuse his absence. The court was told that he had been at an awards ceremony the evening before the hearing at the court in Holborn, central London. His lawyer Grant Armstrong said he had agreed to pay the full arrears of 100,000 by October 18 with the contempt of court application stayed. Prior to the agreement details of his 'shocking' spending were laid bare in a skeleton argument presented to the court by Mrs von Siemen's counsel Joe Rainer. The court was told the couple had a pre-nup agreement with Mr von Siemen's assets at the time of the marriage listed as 46.5m with an annual income up to 800,000. Since splitting from his wife, the court document revealed that he has not paid any child maintenance of 15,000 a month. The document stated that he has continued to live a life of luxury with private jets, extravagant jewellery purchases, luxury cars and extensive high-end travel. Mr Rainer wrote in his submission that Mr von Siemen's has racked up legal fees of 600,000 as part of the divorce proceedings. Von Siemens has claimed through his lawyers that his annual income is far below the amount registered in the pre-nup. His estranged wife Leah, 36, attended a court hearing in Central London as her lawyer attempted to have Mr von Siemens ruled in contempt of court for failing to pay child support Mr Rainer wrote in his submission: 'The complicating feature of this case is the vast divergence between the presentation of his wealth in the pre-nup agreement and the marital standard of living which was extraordinary even by the standard this court is used to seeing.' An examination of Mr von Siemens spending revealed that during the months he failed to pay any maintenance he spent 21,000 in one night at The Box nightclub in New York city. He also spent 10,000 on a stay at the celebrity haunt of the Soho club. Other spending included 12,000 at The Box in London and 4,500 on home gym equipment. 'Scrutiny of statements shows relentless expenditure on high end restaurants, hotels, personal Amazon purchases, private chauffer services and oddly, Deliveroo,' the document states. 'His answer to this is to say that this expenditure is almost entirely for business purposes. The court should not be fooled by this half-baked obfuscation.' The skeleton argument said von Siemens uses company credit cards linked to a Berlin based company called Lindberg Equity and Management. He also has access to a family trust known as BVS. Von Siemens is the founder of a health care company called Caresyntax, a global leader in surgical analytics and automation. It is the company's aim to make surgery safer and their data platform is used in more than 2,800 operating rooms worldwide. Von Siemen's great-grandfather founded the electronics giant in 1847 and the company is estimated to be worth over 110billion. Family members share millions in dividend payouts from the multi billion turnover. Von Siemens is said to have charged more than 33,000 on his credit card while visiting The Box nightclub in New York and London His Harvard educated ex-wife, who attended court with her mother, is an investor working in the health care industry. In the 15-page document submitted to the court it revealed that von Siemens is living in a 25,000 a month flat in central London and last year had given his Romanian girlfriend named as Beatrice Iordache 150,000. Other spending included 1,500 on clothes from the luxury men's store Boggi in Milan. 'The evidence shows that (he) can spend as he wishes on the credit cards which are paid down by monthly direct debit from funds that must be sitting in companies derived from (his) work,' wrote Mr Rainer. Family Court judge Evans-Gordon agreed to allow Mr von Siemens to pay the arrears by October 18 with a date for a another hearing yet to be set. A judge has told boxer Chris Eubank's son Joseph to 'reflect on your behaviour' after he was cleared of raping a 16-year-old girl near Brighton Pier. The 27-year-old, of Hove, had previously denied attacking the drunk girl in a dark and secluded part of the beach on July 16, 2022. He instead said the teenager was 'completely happy' during the encounter and told jurors it was 'all very fluent and very consensual'. Today, he was found not guilty at Lewes Crown Court of two counts of rape. Speaking after the unanimous verdict, Her Honour Judge Christine Laing KC told Mr Eubank he needed to reflect on his behaviour. Joseph Eubank arrives at Lewes Crown Court in East Sussex for his rape trial. He has been found not guilty Speaking after the unanimous verdict, Her Honour Judge Christine Laing KC told Mr Eubank he needed to reflect on his behaviour The charges related to an alleged incident near Brighton Pier (file picture) on July 16, 2022 The judge told him: 'You need to think about your behaviour, Mr Eubank. 'You do have to reflect on your behaviour, it was not decent behaviour in any way, shape or form.' Mr Eubank's solicitor Shahid Choudhry said in a statement after the verdict that his client was 'hugely relieved'. 'This has been an extremely difficult time for him and his family. The allegation has been hanging over him for some two-and-a-half years and he wishes to express his gratitude to the court for ensuring he received a fair trial. 'Joseph's life has been at a standstill since he was an arrested and he can now move on to rebuild his future. 'Joseph would like to thank his family for his unwavering and unfailing support throughout.' Mr Eubank had given evidence at Lewes Crown Court on Wednesday, saying that he approached the girl standing near the seafront because he was attracted to her and started a conversation. The court had heard from prosecutor Beverly Cripps how the teenager had been drinking vodka with friends celebrating a birthday and had never been drunk like that before and 'couldn't see straight'. But Eubank, who said he had not drunk alcohol that night, said 'she looked completely sober' during their chat near the beach and he did not think she was drunk. 'There were smirks and smiles, there were intense looks her and I were sharing while having these conversations that suggested we were both quite attracted to one another,' he told the court. Jurors had heard from the alleged victim that she was 'rushed' down the beach and that she was falling on the stones because she could not stand up, and Eubank kept pulling her back up. But Eubank said as they set off for a walk he interlocked arms with the teenager and 'slowly and calmly' walked to the seaside. A file photograph of Joseph Eubank (left) with father Chris Eubank Senior (centre) and brother Chris Eubank Junior (right) Asked if the pair had discussed what they would do at the beach, Eubank replied no, adding: 'Her body language on the night was very clear to me.' He said they began kissing in the secluded part of the beach before she asked about his age, which was when he learned she was 16. He told jurors his reaction was to pull back, gasp and said 'oh shit' but said she replied: 'No, no, no, it's fine, it's ok.' Asked as they continued if there was difficulty, Eubank added: 'She was showing no signs of restraint, she was completely happy in the environment, we both were.' He told the court how after the 25 minutes together, he went back up to the beach to meet his cousin who had been calling him, but on reflection knew it was the 'wrong thing to do' and that if he had not left her on her own on the beach he would not be in this situation. Eubank later texted the teenager to see if she wanted to meet up again later that evening in a message which read: 'Hey pup are you ready for round two'. Asked why he did not tell police about the message, he said: 'I thought the police would be able to figure all this out very quickly. I didn't think it would ever get this far. Mr Eubank was supported throughout the trial at Lewes Crown Court by his mother Karron (pictured left) 'I thought after CCTV footage was checked, I thought I would be proven very innocent.' Mr Eubank refused to give police access to his phone after he was arrested. He told police he would not give them the PIN code following the death of his brother in Dubai and concerns for the mental health of their father Chris. The first anniversary of the death of Sebastian Eubank had passed two weeks before he met the girl. Joseph Eubank told the jury: 'Before all this happened, one of my family members passed away. 'My father was going through a difficult time mentally and I didn't want anybody having access to my phone.' Eubank denied there was anything on his phone he did not want police to see. He was supported throughout the trial by his mother Karron. The couple divorced in 2005 and none of his other family attended the trial in Lewes. Less than a month before the incident, Mr Eubank admitted drug driving. Traffic cops described Chris Eubank's son as looking Quite relaxed when they pulled him over for drug driving. Magistrates in Brighton banned him from driving for a year. In a statement released after today's verdict, Sussex Police Detective Constable Em Hayler, said: 'We respect the decision of the jury and the judicial process. 'We acknowledge the impact this case has had on everyone involved throughout the past two years. 'I'd like to thank everyone who assisted us in our investigation and the subsequent court process.' In the end, it wasnt even close. Russell Findlay, by a landslide. The journalist turned politician triumphed over all the odds, though mostly two pretty lousy rival campaigns, to be crowned the new leader of the Scottish Conservatives. Given the partys historically low share of the vote in general elections, one wonders whether congratulations or commiserations are in order. But Findlay was in upbeat mood at Edinburghs Radisson Blu. He has plans for the Scottish Tories and reckons he can get voters to give them another once over. He began his victory speech by thanking every sausage... sorry, supporter, who worked so hard for my campaign, so we know what his first priority will be: hiring a better gag-writer. He urged his opponents to come together as one united team. Since said opponents tried to have the contest halted on the pretext of some cockamamie conspiracy to install him in the top job, coming together might be some time coming. Incidentally, he had a decent answer when asked whether he was the Establishment candidate: Im looking forward to meeting this Establishment now that Ive been elected leader. Findlay and beaten rivals Meghan Gallacher and Murdo Fraser BUT most of his remarks were not directed to his party. He was speaking to the punters, folk who might never have voted Tory or would baulk at the very thought. He recognised that they were scunnered by the divisiveness and fringe obsessions of the Scottish parliament, and he wanted them to know he was too. Im not the same, he vowed. Im not a career politician. I understand your frustration that no one reflects the views you hold. That is going to change. They all say that, mind you. But Findlay does have a record of going against the Establishment grain on issues such as gender reform. Maybe hell turn out to be a goodun. Were due one. His message is more solidly centre-Right than were used to hearing from Tory leaders. Lots of emphasis on hard work, enterprise, law and order and decency. Whisper it, but the new leader of the Scottish Conservatives might actually be a conservative. He is especially eager to move off constitutional questions and take the fight to the Nationalists over health, education and justice. The Tories will never apologise for standing up for the Union, but a new battle is not far off. The next Holyrood election is less than two years away and, he said, the SNP are down but theyre not out. Findlay was careful not to wade into the UK leadership contest as he faced questions about calls for the next Conservative government to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights. He was personally in favour of remaining in the ECHR but given the failure of all other measures to stop the people-smuggling gangs, nothing should be off the table. HE also fielded the infamous Theresa May question: what was the naughtiest thing hed ever done? While confirming he had never run through a field of wheat, if you want a naughty list, wed probably be here all day. The hacks had a chuckle at that one. Which is where I must step in and be the po-faced finger-wagger. The naughty list gag was funny, but funny isnt in the job description of a Scottish Tory leader. This glibness problem has been present throughout the campaign. Findlay still answers questions like a journalist, with a certain candour and humour, but the demeanour of a party leader cannot be the same as that of a jaded reporter cracking gags with the subs. I like that he is an outsider and suspect some of the rough edges that come with that are actually beneficial. But theres a balance to be struck between earthiness and earnestness. Serious times call for serious leaders. Mohamed Al Fayed's son Omar has spoken out on the rape allegations against his father, saying he is 'horrified'. Five brave survivors alleged in a documentary that they had to barricade doors with chairs to get away from former Harrods boss Al Fayed, who died last year aged 94. Former employees said he would fly them to Paris under the guise of a work trip, take away their passports and put them in hotel rooms without locks. Chilling claims say he monitored them with CCTV in their own homes, phone tapping and he threatened their families if they ever dared to speak out about the abuse. BBC journalists looking into his predatory history gathered the stories of more than 20 women who said they had been abused by him, and 'up to 200' more have come forward since. His son Omar Fayed, 36, said the extent of the numerous claims 'has thrown into question the loving memory I had of him'. He previously made a spirited defence of his father, dismissing the allegations that he raped five of his young women staff as 'completely outrageous'. But today he said: 'I am horrified and deeply concerned by the allegations recently brought to light against my late father. Mohamed Al Fayed's son Omar has spoken out for the first time on the rape allegations against his father (pictured) Omar Fayed and his father Mohammed Al Fayed pictured together in 2007 Harrods (pictured) was an alleged hunting ground for Al-Fayed who targeted 'vulnerable' women before sexually assaulting them Five ex-Harrods employees who spoke of Al Fayed's alleged abuse are seen above. Pictured bottom left to right are Jen, Lindsay, and Catherine. Top left to right are Nicole and Gemma 'The extent and explicit nature of the allegations are shocking and has thrown into question, the loving memory I had of him', Sky News reported. 'How this matter could have been concealed for so long and in so many ways, raises further disturbing questions.' He said that he loved his father 'very much' and he was a 'wonderful dad'. But he added 'that aspect of our relationship... does not blind me from an objective assessment of circumstances'. He said he stood 'unequivocally in support of any legitimate investigation into these allegations. 'I will continue to support the principles of truth, justice, accountability, and fairness, regardless of where that journey may lead. No one is above the law.' Al Fayed dons a Victoria emerald and diamond tiara at Harrods' New Year sale in 2001 The boss of luxury store Harrods has spoken out for the first time over billionaire businessman Mohamed Al Fayed's (pictured) alleged sexual abuse. Michael Ward (pictured) said in a statement that it is clear Al Fayed 'presided over a toxic culture of secrecy, intimidation, fear of repercussion and sexual misconduct' Omar, the youngest of Fayed's four children with his second wife, Finnish model Heini Wathen, previously conceded that his father was an 'old-school chauvinist'. He told friends: 'Perhaps he was like an older version of Donald Trump.' But he said previously that 'the allegations of rape are completely outrageous'. At the time, he told friends at he believed the BBC screened its explosive documentary Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods to divert attention from the child porn disgrace of its TV news presenter Huw Edwards. 'Predator' Al-Fayed said: 'Call me papa' 'Sick predator' Mohamed Al-Fayed told his female staff to call him 'papa', one of his alleged victims has revealed. The woman, who went by the name of Natacha, described the billionaire as a 'monster' who was 'highly manipulative'. 'He behaved like a father figure, often saying 'call me papa', often talking about his family and children, as if to make me feel safe around him.' She continued: 'Unbeknownst to me, I had walked into a lion's den, a layer of cover-ups, deceit, lies, manipulation, humiliation, and gross sexual misconduct. 'The chairman preyed on the most vulnerable, those of us who needed to pay the rent and some of us who didn't have parents to protect them.' Advertisement Environmentalist and publisher Omar told a friend: 'I think the Beeb have had this up their back pocket.' He added: 'With all the fire they are coming under, I think it's timely that they deployed it just as Huw Edwards is let off the hook effectively for the most disgusting conduct.' Michael Ward, the current managing director of Harrods, said in a statement that it is clear Al Fayed 'presided over a toxic culture of secrecy, intimidation, fear of repercussion and sexual misconduct'. Mr Ward, who worked for Al Fayed for four years, said he was 'not aware of his criminality and abuse' and described it as a 'shameful period in the business' history'. He said an independent review was underway into issues arising from the allegations and that he had 'provided all the information I have to ensure my own conduct can be reviewed alongside that of my colleagues'. In his statement, Mr Ward said: 'As we have already stated, we failed our colleagues and for that we are deeply sorry. 'As someone who has worked at Harrods since 2006, and therefore worked for Fayed until the change of ownership in 2010, I feel it is important to make it clear that I was not aware of his criminality and abuse. 'While it is true that rumours of his behaviour circulated in the public domain, no charges or allegations were ever put to me by the police, the CPS, internal channels or others. 'Had they been, I would, of course, have acted immediately.' Mr Ward continued: 'Fayed, who owned Harrods from 1985-2010, operated this business as his own personal fiefdom. 'It is now clear that he presided over a toxic culture of secrecy, intimidation, fear of repercussion and sexual misconduct. 'The picture that is now emerging suggests that he did this wherever he operated.' MailOnline was told that Mr Ward sent a similar letter to Harrods employees earlier this week. But a source slammed the 'insensitivity towards victims of abuse', and said: 'Harrods has created an email address for employees to seek support - 'alfayedsupport@harrods.com' - which is highly inappropriate given that it references the name of the alleged perpetrator. 'This forces victims to engage with his name when seeking help, adding unnecessary distress.' The internal memo was criticised for using formal, corporate language that 'may come across as impersonal and detached', using phrases like 'settling claims in the quickest way possible'. A grieving father, whose three young children and former partner died in a house blaze in Bradford just weeks after he allegedly strangled the woman, has been told he will still face trial for the attack. Jonathan Birtle, 34, was on remand in custody for the alleged domestic assault when the family home was deliberately torched in a completely unrelated matter. Bryonie Gawith, 29, and children Denisty, nine, Oscar, five, and 22-month-old Aubree Birtle all died following the fire in Bradford in August. Two men have been charged with four counts of murder and will stand trial separately - as police concluded the fire and Birtle's earlier assault on his partner are not linked. Birtle, who was in custody for allegedly strangling Miss Gawith in July, was released on bail the day after the fatal blaze for compassionate reasons. Jonathan Birtle, 34, was in custody for the alleged domestic assault on his former partner when she and their three children died in a house blaze in Bradford Birtle had hoped the prosecution would be dropped as a result of his loss, but he was told the Crown Prosecution Service intends to proceed Bryonie Gawith, 29, and children Denisty, nine, Oscar, five, and 22-month-old Aubree Birtle all died in the fire, which was deliberately started Floral tributes were laid at the scene of the tragedy in Westbury Road, Bradford, in August Two men have been charged with four counts of murder and will stand trial separately - as police concluded the fire and Birtle's earlier assault on his partner are not linked He had hoped the prosecution would be dropped as a result of his loss, but he was told the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) intends to proceed. Today at Bradford Crown Court, Birtle pleaded not guilty to three charges, while his legal representation explained he may be 'unfit' to stand trial due to his psychiatric state. He denied the intentional strangulation of Miss Gawith, assault occasioning actual bodily harm on her and the theft of her mobile phone. All offences are said to have occurred at their home a month before the fatal blaze. Birtle was supported in court by three family members, who sat in the public gallery for the ten minute hearing. Fuad Arshad, representing Birtle in court, told Judge Kirstie Watson: 'This defendant is currently in a state of trauma and I have concerns for his psychiatric standing. 'It is therefore the intention of the defence to seek a report from a psychiatrist as to whether he is fit to stand trial.' A report must be before the judge by November 8. Mr Arshad added: 'He wishes it to be known in open court that he is very alarmed and distressed that the Crown Prosecution Service has decided to continue this prosecution against him and wishes that to be echoed in court.' Birtle has also requested that his ankle tag is removed and his bail conditions amended, because the funerals for his children will be held next week. He is currently subject to a 6pm to 6am curfew after he was released on bail by the Recorder of Bradford Jonathan Rose on 22 August, the day after the fire. Mr Arshad said about the ankle tag: 'That was for good reason. His Honour was concerned that the defendant, once released, may do something that he may regret later, bearing in mind his children and wife had died in circumstances the court is aware of.' A bail hearing has been scheduled before Judge Rose for Tuesday, next week. A trial date has been set for 6 January 2026. Mohammed Shabir, 44, and Calum Sunderland, 25, of Keighley, have pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder and the attempted murder of Ms Gawith's sister, Antonia Gawith. That murder trial is listed for 4 March, next year. Another man, who has not been named, is also suspected of involvement but remains in hospital with injuries incurred at the scene of the fire. He is understood to be critically ill. West Yorkshire Police previously confirmed the man in hospital was the ex-partner of a woman who was visiting the family at the time of the fire. Ms Gawith died at the scene, while her three children later died from their injuries in hospital. A coroner has ruled that a disabled woman who spent 39 hours on a chair in a busy A&E waiting for a hospital bed died due to neglect. Marina Young, 46, was suffering from an asthma attack when she was taken to the Royal Preston Hospital, in Lancashire. Doctors quickly realised she would need to be admitted, but the hospital was full, with more than 50 people waiting in A&E for a bed on a ward. Although Marina was seen by several junior doctors and nurses, staff underestimated the severity of her condition, failed to give her specialist drugs or refer her to specialist critical care or respiratory medics. She spent two nights in a chair and, around 10am on the second morning was found collapsed, still fully clothed and wearing her shoes, and soaked in her own urine. A coroner has ruled that Marina Young (Pictured with her niece Katie), who spent 39 hours on a chair in a busy A&E ward, died due to neglect Marina went into cardiac arrest and staff tried to resuscitate her. But when her sister, Michelle Young, 47, arrived a short time later to drop off some belongings, she was given the devastating news that Marina had passed away. Today Dr James Adeley, senior coroner for Lancashire, ruled there had been gross failures in providing the appropriate assessment and medical care to Marina, and in escalating her treatment to the intensive care unit by hospital staff. He concluded her death was caused by neglect, and also issued a prevention of future deaths report, ordering the hospital to make changes to stop similar deaths occurring in the future. Today Michelle, a retired hospital ward sister, said justice had been done. All we have ever wanted is to protect other patients and even saving one life would make the pain weve been through worthwhile, she said. Thats what Marina and my dad would have wanted and it brings me closure to know that has been achieved. Marinas voice has been heard and it has been recognised that her life did matter. An internal investigation by the hospital found that, although Marina had an underlying lung condition and was having a very severe asthma attack, she would not have suffered a cardiac arrest if she had received more timely treatment and been referred to senior doctors sooner. Marina was diagnosed with spina bifida at birth and was the first baby in the UK to undergo a bladder transplant. Marina Young, 46, who was diagnosed with spina abifida, was suffering from an asthma attack when she was taken to the Royal Preston Hospital, in Lancashire Despite her problems she managed to live independently, could walk short distances and was close to her family. On the evening of June 20, 2022, Michelle drove Marina to the Royal Preston because she felt wheezy and suspected she was suffering from an asthma attack. When they arrived, at 7.25pm, Michelle explained her sisters medical history to nurses and, although she wasnt allowed to stay because of Covid-19 restrictions, was in regular contact via text messages. The texts reveal her mounting distress, Michelle said. In one Marina, who had a fear of hospitals because of her experiences as a child, wrote: Scared at night sitting in a chair with a pounding headache. The investigation found that Marina was seen by a doctor around 9pm and at just before 11pm on June 20, when a decision was made to admit her to a ward. But A&E was extremely busy that night, with 109 people in the department and around half waiting for a bed. Although Marina was given antibiotics for a suspected infection, there was a delay in administering nebulisers, a failure to repeat blood gas tests, a delay in her being seen by a senior consultant and a referral to the hospitals respiratory team the following day was not actioned. Although further tests in the early hours of June 22 showed no improvement in Marinas condition and that she was suffering life-threatening asthma, her care was also never escalated to the hospitals critical care team. At around 9.25am on June 22 Marina, of Ribbleton, Lancashire, was reviewed by a trainee medic, who noted she was speaking in short sentences but was visibly breathless. Despite having been seen by several medical staff, it was determined they underestimated the severity of her condition, and failed to give her specialist drugs or refer her to a specialist unit (Pictured: Marina Young, her sister Michelle and father) She was seen by a nurse at 9.44am but three minutes later was found collapsed in her chair in cardiac arrest. Medics tried to resuscitate her but she could not be saved. Madeleine Langmead, a medical negligence solicitor at law firm JMW, who represented Marinas family at the two-day inquest, in Preston, this week said: We are grateful to the coroner for his careful investigation into Marinas care and for reaching this conclusion, which we feel is the only one that could have been made. Marinas case is likely to have implications for the treatment of other vulnerable patients, particularly those suffering an asthma attack and should improve their patient safety. The law firm is evaluating whether any legal claim for compensation can be brought against the hospital. Michelle previously told the Mail: Marina died in horrific circumstances. It is sickening to think that, as recently as 2022, my sister could be treated with such as lack of compassion by the NHS, which is supposed to care for all people, irrespective of their physical limitations. It appears her disability was not taken into account or recognised by any member of staff at the hospital. The lack of knowledge with regards to spina bifida, and how it affected Marina, left her lacking the care and compassion she required. Her past medical history was fundamental to any care she received, and it should have been at the forefront, with her dignity and basic human needs considered throughout by all staff, but this did not happen. Marina was one of approximately 16 million people in the UK living with a disability, nearly a quarter of the population. It is sickening to think of how many others may have been treated in the same way. A spokesman for Lancashire Teaching Hospitals, which runs the Royal Preston, said: The Trust would like to offer its sincere condolences to the family and friends of Marina Young and apologise for the failings identified in our own investigation and the Coroners report. We welcome the independent scrutiny of the Coroner and are committed to the further actions and learning identified in the inquest. Significant waits in A&E have been linked to excess deaths and increased harm to patients, as their condition can deteriorate before they are admitted or given a bed on a ward. In 2022, 23,003 people died after spending at least 12 hours in an A&E waiting for care or to be admitted to a bed, according to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), equating to roughly one person every 23 minutes. Earlier this year Inga Rublite, 39, died after being found unconscious under a coat on the floor of a hospital A&E department, where she had been for eight hours. Her name had been called three times by staff at the Queens Medical centre, in Nottingham, but when she failed to respond, they assumed she had left and discharged her from the system. She had suffered a brain haemorrhage. Marina (Pictured with her brother Michael and sister Michelle) spent two nights in a chair and, was found collapsed, and soaked in her own urine the second morning. She went into cardiac arrest and staff tried to resuscitate her but passed away Dr James Adeley, senior coroner for Lancashire concluded her death was caused by neglect, and also issued a prevention of future deaths report, ordering the hospital to make changes to stop similar deaths occurring in the future. Dr Adeley said: Marina died on June 22, 2022 after a 39 hour wait for a hospital bed in the Royal Preston Hospitals Accident & Emergency Department. Her death, due to asthma, was preventable and was caused by neglect characterised both by a gross failure to provide appropriate assessment and medical care and an inadequate escalation of her management to specialist physicians or ITU. One of the saddest and most upsetting aspects of this case is that when Michelle Young attended the Accident and Emergency department after her sister died, she was still wearing the same clothes and shoes that she was wearing when was admitted to the Accident and Emergency department. Dr Adeley also singled out concerning assessments completed by two doctors, Dr Thu RaTun and Dr Praktisha Srinivas, who he said he would be writing to the hospital about. Russell Findlay has little time to celebrate his victory in the Scottish Tory leadership race amid a frantic first few days in the new job. He was planning to squeeze in a pint of lager and maybe even a Venom or two a jokey reference to a lethal cocktail favoured by Labours Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner with his campaign team in an Edinburgh branch of JD Wetherspoon on Friday night. But he stressed he wont overdo it because he is due to meet King Charles on Saturday morning as part of celebrations to mark the 25th anniversary of the Scottish parliament and wants to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. He also needed to film a party political broadcast, to be screened next week, within his first few hours in post, which will highlight how the Scottish Tories will now stand for common sense and also for change. Mr Findlay will also be travelling to Birmingham tonight ahead of delivering his first major speech to the Conservative Party conference on Sunday. New leader of the Scottish Conservatives Russell Findlay has a busy few days ahead of him It has been extraordinarily intense, the 51-year-old said yesterday in his first interview after being confirmed as leader at an event at the Radisson Blu hotel on Edinburghs Royal Mile. We were told the result moments earlier within a side-room of the hotel and it all suddenly became very real indeed. The central message in his victory speech was one of unity, as he urged his party to come together as one team following a fractious campaign. The contest highlighted that a disgruntled minority of MSPs were unhappy with Douglas Rosss leadership style and believed that only his inner circle were involved in making decisions, with others largely ignored. They also tried to portray Mr Findlay as the Establishment candidate hand-picked by party chiefs. The new leader hopes his healthy winning margin securing nearly two-thirds of first-preference votes can help put these rows to bed. He said: It should mean that, going forward, people respect the outcome. Hopefully we can all now unite, pull together and fight our common opponents Labour, the SNP and others. When he leads the first group meeting at Holyrood on Tuesday, he will attempt to reach out to MSPs and tell them they will be listened to under his leadership. He said: Weve had a good, healthy, prolonged democratic debate and I want each and every one of my colleagues to know I value them. If you look at the Conservative benches you see an incredibly diverse range of life experience, which you dont really see in the other parties. I will embrace that and make use of the wonderful talent we have in parliament. But the busy start to his leadership means his first reshuffle of his frontbench team is likely to be delayed until his second full week in the role. In an olive branch to critics, he said: One of the most valuable things about the campaign has been hearing from members across Scotland. Many feel unheard, slightly disconnected from things, not really respected sometimes. As the new leader, it will be my job to ensure every member, every colleague, feels valued, heard and respected. Mr Findlay was keen to stress he is not a career politician, having had a lengthy career as a journalist before becoming an MSP in 2021, and he intends to use this as part of his key pitch that his party will now stand up for common sense and represent mainstream Scotland. After losing nearly half its vote share in the general election in July amid a surge in support for Reform UK, some have urged the party to shift to the Right to win back those disgruntled voters. But Mr Findlay said: I dont necessarily see it as a Left/Right issue but what I dont think we should do, and what Im certainly not going to do, is try to emulate Reform. We cannot control what other parties do but what we can do is set out a positive vision. I dont want to just change our party, I want to change Scotland for the better, and there is so much work to be done and theres an amazing opportunity in the next election, which is less than two years away. You dont win elections by lurching to the extremes of politics, you do so by talking to mainstream Scotland about the issues that truly matter to them. The new Scottish Tory leader wants to focus on key devolved issues rather than the rabbit hole of all sorts of fringe issues such as gender self-ID or MSPs acting like pound shop diplomats. His victory yesterday would have never happened had he been deterred by threats to his personal safety. In 2015, William Burns, a hired hitman carrying a knife, threw acid in his face as he answered the door at his Glasgow home. Mr Findlay, whose young daughter witnessed the attack, managed to overpower Burns, who was later jailed for ten years. Then in July this year, CID officers told the MSP they had intelligence that his life was in danger and the plot may be linked to the failed attack on him. Asked if he feared his new role could make his safety more of a concern, he said he has always been acutely aware of the threat. When he became an MSP, he went from anonymity to a public role, and acknowledges that he will now be even more prominent. Mr Findlay said: I will continue to be cautious about my safety but you cant mitigate against the behaviours of people who dont respect decency or the rules, and I will just have to be as cautious as I can. But what I refuse to do, and this isnt in any way to sound reckless or flippant... I will not go into hiding. I will not back down to bullies. He admitted he considered his own personal safety when he was weighing up whether to stand for the leadership. He said: It was a factor that made me think I was going to go from having a fairly modest public profile to being quite well known and that could well have ramifications. But it wasnt sufficient enough reason to not do this job. This job is far too important to let the threat from bullies stop me from doing the right thing. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. set aside headlines about his relationship with a reporter 40 years his junior to introduce Donald Trump at a campaign event in Michigan on Friday. And it was exactly the wild ride you might expect from a man whose presidential campaign included stories about dumping dead bears in Central Park, brain worms, and cutting the head off a whale. He warned about plunging sperm counts in teenagers, delivered a no-nonsense account of Trump's meeting with the Ukrainian president and was interrupted by a telephone call from his doctor. The 70-year-old, who pushed antivax conspiracy theories, accused the Democratic Party of siding with Big Pharma, Big Agriculture and Big Food. 'When my uncle was president, we spent zero on chronic disease,' he said. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. set aside the headlines about his relationship with Olivia Nuzzi, a reporter 40 years his junior, to introduce Donald Trump at an event in Michigan on Friday 'Now we spend $4.3 trillion and our children are so sick that 77% do not qualify for military service. 'Our fertility levels have dropped to the lowest in the world. Teens today have 50 percent of the sperm count, 50 percent of the testosterone as American teens two generations ago. 'Little girls are now hitting puberty at eight years old, because all the estrogen is generated by the poisons and toxic foods.' It was familiar ground for a politician who came to prominence as an environmental lawyer. For the past week he has dodged questions about a sexting scandal involving Olivia Nuzzi, a 31-year-old reporter who profiled him for New York magazine. She has been placed on leave while editors investigate. R.F.K. Jr. reportedly boasted to friends about receiving intimate photographs from Nuzzi. And his wife of 10 years, actor Cheryl Hines, has been spotted without her wedding ring amid the fallout. Olivia Nuzzi has been placed on leave while New York magazine investigates the relationship The event in Kent County, Michigan, is designed to highlight Trump's economic policies Trump took the stage after Kennedy's introduction. 'He's a good man,' said Trump Kennedy himself has avoided discussing the relationship, except through friends who claimed the reporter pursued him. 'I never comment on those kind of stories,' he told Fox News this week. He ended his own presidential run last month and endorsed Trump. On Friday, he warmed up a crowd waiting for the former president at the loading dock of a Michigan manufacturing plant. He riffed on the presidency of his uncle J.F.K., drawing parallels between the Cuban missile crisis and tensions today with Russia. And he talked up Trump's diplomatic skills after his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky. 'He was kind and civil to President Zelensky, but he was also firm in his resolve, and he said, "I've had a nice meeting, but I have not changed my mind,'" he said. Trump has made clear that he wants an end to the conflict before the U.S. spends more money supporting Ukraine. RFK Jr rejects a phone call from his doctor during his speech. Weird. pic.twitter.com/BmTgvWLh88 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 27, 2024 'And it was especially impressive to me, because I know what Donald Trump was thinking while he was having that meeting,' Kennedy continued. 'He was thinking, "I want to turn this guy over and hold him by his legs and shake all the money out of his pockets. And I hope it adds up to $208 billion because that's what we get. '"That's what the Democrats gave them, and we need to bring that money home and spend it here on our communities." But he had clearly forgotten to silence his phone. At one point he pulled it from his pocket and apologized to the crowd. 'Sorry my doctor's calling,' he said, as he rejected the call to the sound of laughter from the audience. Trump paid tribute to Kennedy in his speech. 'He does have great ideas,' he said. 'And getting a Kennedy to endorse a Trump Republican, that was a big deal, right? 'He's a good man.' Sometime during late afternoon on Monday, a 64-year-old woman climbed into a futuristic capsule in remote woodland in Switzerland. What happened next could have come from the set of a dystopian sc-fi movie. Once inside, after being given an access code (valid for 24 hours), the lid silently closed above her and, as she lay on a thin mat similar to a camping mattress, with her head resting on a purple neck cushion, an automated voice proceeded to ask her three questions: 'Who are you?', 'Where are you?' and 'Do you know what happens if you press the button?' Three times the woman a mother of two from the American midwest answered correctly. She was then given a final chilling reminder about what would happen if she did press it and that there would be no turning back. 'If you want to die,' the voice informed her, 'press this button.' The woman did so without hesitation. Moments later the sealed chamber was flooded with nitrogen, starving her of oxygen. Within two minutes she had lost consciousness and within five at 4.01pm she was pronounced dead, a process which was apparently 'peaceful and painless'. The Sarco pod at the location where it was allegedly used by a 64-year-old American woman The unnamed blonde woman stands in front of the Sarco suicide pod moments before she stepped in and took her own life The Sarco pod was located in remote woodland in Merishausen, Switzerland A 'suicide pod' known as 'The Sarco' is seen in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, July 8, 2024 The woman, who suffered from a severe immune disorder that left her in great pain, was the first person to use the 'suicide capsule' known as the Sarco (short for sarcophagus). She has not been identified but shortly before she died, she was pictured with her back to the camera outside the pod, about three miles from the village of Merishausen in the northern canton of Schaffhausen. The haunting image of the blonde-haired figure wearing a fleecy cream jumper, black trousers and open-toed sandals, was published in a Dutch newspaper. The inventor of the Sarco, Australian-born Philip Nitschke nicknamed Dr Death by his many detractors now lives in the Netherlands where the device was created using a 3D printer for Swiss assisted dying organisation The Last Resort. The design is intended to resemble that of a spacecraft in order to give those inside the feeling they are travelling to the 'great beyond'. The hatch, in fact, is like the door of the DeLorean from the Back To The Future film franchise. But critics have condemned the capsule's futuristic design and glitzy marketing for 'glamorising suicide'. The fact a purple (non-functioning) showroom model was displayed, amidst prosecco and pasta, at a design festival in Venice a few years ago and that visitors who attended a funeral fair in Amsterdam were invited to put on virtual reality glasses to experience what the Sarco might be like to use, has done little to counter this narrative. The inventor of the Sarco, Australian-born Philip Nitschke (pictured) nicknamed Dr Death by his many detractors now lives in the Netherlands where the device was created using a 3D printer for Swiss assisted dying organisation The Last Resort Philip Nitschke, front, stands next to a 'suicide pod' known as 'The Sarco' in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, July 8, 2024 Philip Nitschke enters a suicide pod known in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, July 8, 2024 Even in Switzerland, where assisted dying is legal in certain circumstances, the events which took place in a forest in Schaffhausen this week have provoked controversy. Four people, including co-president of The Last Resort, Dr Florian Willet, were believed to have been arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting suicide. The public prosecutor's office could give no further details other than to say 'criminal prodeedings' had started. Switzerland is one of the few counties where someone can legally end their life provided there is no 'external assistance' and those who help them to die do not do so for 'any self-serving motive'. The Last Resort has previously insisted no laws were broken. The moral and legal status of the Sarco has been keenly debated here in Britain where the 'right to die' is back on the political agenda. MPs could be given a free vote to legalise assisted dying in England an issue highlighted in a high-profile campaign by Dame Esther Rantzen who has terminal cancer before the end of the year. More than a quarter of the 120 applicants waiting to use the Sarco, according to The Last Resort, come from the UK. Among them are ex-RAF engineer Peter Scott and his wife Christine, both in their 80s, who have signed up to be the first couple to use a double suicide pod after Christine was diagnosed with vascular dementia. MPs could be given a free vote to legalise assisted dying in England an issue highlighted in a high-profile campaign by Dame Esther Rantzen (pictured) who has terminal cancer before the end of the year Campaigners are joined by some Members of Parliament as they protest outside Parliament in Westminster, ahead of a debate in the House of Commons on assisted dying in April 2024 Campaigners protest outside Parliament in Westminster, ahead of a debate in the House of Commons on assisted dying in April 2024. A petition for a debate gained more than 200,000 signatures and has been backed by Dame Esther Rantzen The death of the American woman, who was examined in advance by a psychiatrist and deemed mentally competent, provides a graphic illustration of what lies ahead for them and others who decide to make the journey to the 'great beyond' in the Sarco. A forensic account of her final moments are contained in Dutch daily De Volkskrant. The pod itself was transported on a trailer to a remote wooded area close to the German border where it was set up outside a hut. The only person who was present at the scene was Dr Willet. The unfolding drama inside the capsule, however, was followed remotely from Germany by its inventor Dr Nitschke, whose lawyer wife Fiona Stewart is director of The Last Resort. The American woman had to give an oral statement about her momentous course of action before entering the chamber. In the recording, lasting over four minutes, she said that she'd had a desire to die since being diagnosed with her illness, which had left her in chronic discomfort for 'at least two years'. She revealed that her two sons, who were not with her in Switzerland, 'completely agree' that this was her decision. 'They support me 100 per cent,' she said, something they confirmed in written statements. Their mother, who was then fitted to an oxygen and heart rate monitor, was given the choice of a dark or transparent view from the Sarco. She chose the latter. The last thing she saw as she drew her final breath was the canopy of trees above her. Dr Nitschke, who witnessed her death from a camera inside the Sarco, said she 'almost immediately pressed the button' after answering the three questions. 'She didn't say anything any more,' he is quoted as saying in De Volkskrant. 'She really wanted to die. A close up shot of the window into the Sarco suicide pod shows the padding patients lay on The suicide pod has a quote from American astronomer and planetary scientist Carl Sagan on the side that reads: 'We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.' 'My estimate is that she lost consciousness within two minutes and that she died after five minutes. 'We saw jerky, small twitches of the muscles in her arms, but she was probably already unconscious by then. It looked exactly how we expected it to look.' At 4.40pm, a law firm acting for The Last Resort informed the public prosecutor's office that an assisted suicide had taken place that afternoon 'near a forest hut in Merishausen'. The Sarco, which is fitted with a detachable coffin, was seized by the police and the deceased was taken away for an autopsy. Apart from Dr Willet, a photographer from De Volkskrant and two lawyers were also believed to have been held for questioning. The Last Resort had been warned in writing by the public prosecutor that 'if they came to Schaffhausen and used Sarco, they would face criminal consequences'. Even without the arrests, the death in the forest would have created an international furore because of the involvement of Nitschke. He pushed the boundaries of the hippocratic oath to the limit when he was a GP in Australia nearly two decades ago. He eventually burned his medical registration certificate in a legal dispute after he failed to refer to a psychiatrist a suicidal man who subsequently killed himself. His book, The Peaceful Pill Handbook, describing dozens of suicide methods in detail, caused uproar in 2006 and he has been making headlines ever since. One of his many creations was the Deliverance Machine, a laptop running a computer program connected to a syringe loaded with a lethal dose of barbiturates which could be injected into a person's arm if they answered a series of questions to establish their mental capacity and confirm their intent to die. Nitschke has held a number of euthanasia workshops in Britain down the years, raising concerns that elderly and vulnerable people could end up killing themselves in the belief that they had become a burden to their families. His latest venture the Sarco pod was officially unveiled at a Press conference in Zurich. One of the main 'selling points' is that it can be 'towed anywhere for the death' and 'transported to an idyllic outdoor setting' such as a Swiss forest, for example. Nitschke lobbied unsuccessfully for the Sarco to be used in Scotland in 2022. He wrote to Lib Dem MSP Liam McArthur, who is behind an assisted dying private member's bill at Holyrood, urging him to support the introduction of the capsules in Scotland for those with a terminal illness because 'they lead to a peaceful, even euphoric death'. Not everyone, even inside the assisted dying movement, agrees. Nitrogen was first used on death row prisoner Kenneth Smith in Alabama in January. Witnesses told how he shook and writhed, gasping for air, for up to ten minutes as his face mask filled with gas. CEO and Vice President Florian Willet (Left) and COO & Member of the Advisory Board Fiona Stewart (Right), of The Last Resort, a Swiss newest human rights, non-profit association focused on assisted suicide A view of the Sarco pod with the curved glass lid lifted up and the inside on full display On its website, The Last Resort distances the Sarco from the Alabama execution, claiming Smith held his breath because he did not want to die. 'Nitrogen hypoxia [asphyxiation caused by inhaling pure nitrogen] is only peaceful when the recipient is a willing participant and is willing to take deep, purposeful breaths,' the statement said. 'The Sarco is not a device that will ever be used in the context of a non-elective death and does not involve the use of a face mask.' Nevertheless, the Swiss interior minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider said the use of nitrogen was not covered by the country's laws and that, in her opinion, the machine would not meet product safety requirements. To be eligible to use the capsule, potential applicants must be at least 50 years old and have a psychiatric report confirming their capacity to die. Eventually, Nitschke says he hopes to develop an artificial-intelligence screening system to establish mental capacity. Unlike established assisted dying clinics in Switzerland, such as Dignitas, which typically charge around 10,000 to help people end their lives, the use of the Sarco is virtually free. The Last Resort believes a 'good death' is a fundamental human right and the organisation is funded by donations, bequests and an annual voluntary membership fee. There is a 16 charge for the purchase of liquid nitrogen plus the bill for a funeral director to remove the body. One woman, however, Jennifer McLaughlin, also American, claimed she spent her life savings, totalling $40,000, (nearly 30,000) on travel expenses to fly to Switzerland in July and had been pushed to spend the money by The Last Resort who allegedly told her she 'won't need it after I die'. Her complaint was made in a letter to a Swiss newspaper in which she said her death had become a 'media circus'. Miss McLaughlin, a former insurance company worker from Columbus, Georgia, is understood to have turned to another Swiss assisted dying clinic. The Last Resort flatly denied her version of events, insisting the use of the Sarco was withdrawn from her due to mental health concerns. Either way, campaign groups in Switzerland and Britain have expressed serious concerns about the suicide capsule. 'I wonder how humane it is to be enclosed in a device that closes you in and whether that can bring fear,' said Alex Pandolfo, a member of The Right To Die With Dignity UK. 'Most importantly, one of the great things about assisted death is that it can be holding hands with someone who loves you. But Sarco denies the person who dies and those that remain that last touch at the time of death.' Isn't there also something uniquely chilling about killing yourself in the middle of nowhere at the press of a button? Donald Trump said Friday he will 'request the prosecution' of Google part of one of the world's largest companies when he is back in office, complaining that it is only putting up 'bad stories' about him. Trump, who has long railed against Big Tech, posted the threat on his Truth Social site, where he also accused the country of promoting only positive stories about rival Kamala Harris. He offered no further evidence to back up his claims. 'It has been determined that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris,' Trump wrote. 'This is an ILLEGAL ACTIVITY, and hopefully the Justice Department will criminally prosecute them for this blatant Interference of Elections. If not, and subject to the Laws of our Country, I will request their prosecution, at the maximum levels, when I win the Election, and become President of the United States!' Although the Justice Department falls within the executive branch, decisions on whether to prosecute corporations for alleged criminal activity are usually left to career prosecutors. On a roll: Donald Trump accused Google of only 'displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump' and called for the company to face criminal prosecution Trump ally Elon Musk, who is backing his effort finally and boosted him with an interview on his X platform, accused Google of imposing a search ban on Trump after the July assassination attempt. Musk penned a post with an image of a search box for 'President Donald.' The results, offered by an autocomplete function, yielded 'Donald Duck' and 'President Donald Regan,' but not Trump. The firm called it an anomaly. 'Wow, Google has a search ban on President Donald Trump! Election interference?' wrote Musk. The autocomplete function currently yields Trump's name. Google, which accounts for most of parent company Alphabet's revenue, has denied manipulating its search results to help any political candidate. 'Both campaign websites consistently appear at the top of Search for relevant and common search queries. This report looked at a single rare search term on a single day a few weeks ago, and even for that search, both candidates websites ranked in the top results on Google,' it said in a statement. Donald Trump said the company 'has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump' on a day when he tore into rival Kamala Harris during a Michigan rally Google has denied manipulating its search to help a candidate Trump's threat to go after Google follows another threat earlier this month to prosecute people who 'cheated' or engaged in 'unscrupulous behavior' in the November elections. He accused Democrats of 'rampant Cheating and Skullduggery' and warned, 'when I win, those people that cheated will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.' His vows to prosecute rivals or companies perceived as working against him come in a race where Trump's Democratic rivals have flagged his comments justifying 'revenge' and calling for retribution against political opponents. Trump has also repeatedly railed against the federal, state and local prosecutors who have targeted him. If elected, he would have the authority to shut down Special Counsel Jack Smith's prosecution of him related to January 6th. Trump's post comes a week after the New York Times posted on a series of Trump efforts to seek federal prosecutions or investigations of political rivals ranging from former FBI Director James Comey to former Secretary of State John Kerry. A boisterous crowd of 1,000 protesters demanding an end to over-tourism in Spain also included environmental activists and Free Palestine zealots as they marched through Ibiza on Friday night. Waving banners and holding up placards, the demonstrators called for more restrictions on tourism to the island, as locals argue that the transformation of Ibiza into a 'luxury destination' was causing serious socio-economic problems for residents. The march was organised by major anti-tourism platform Caviem el Rumb, which has been carrying out demonstrations throughout the summer in the Spanish holiday hotspot. Security was stepped up to protect tourists from the demonstrators, who left Parc de la Pau in the town centre at around 8pm. Caviem el Rumb is campaigning for a reduction in tourism, which it claims is having an adverse effect on Ibiza. A boisterous crowd of 1,000 protesters demanding an end to over-tourism in Spain also included environmental activists and Free Palestine zealots as they marched through Ibiza Waving banners and holding up placards, the demonstrators called for more restrictions on tourism to the island, as locals argue that the transformation of Ibiza into a 'luxury destination' was causing serious socio-economic problems for residents One environmentally-minded protester wears a sign calling for an end to private jets It says tourism is only helping the rich while the poor in Ibiza suffer, especially due to the lack of affordable housing. Their cause has been heavily supported over the summer months by fellow protest group Just Stop Oil, which is concerned about the environmental impact of over-tourism and pro-Palestinian protesters, who advocate disrupting tourism to protest Israel's war in Gaza. Spokespersons Maria Cardona and Karen Killeen presented a manifesto to Ibiza's council earlier this summer along with a request for the island to lead a 'common reflection process' about the situation both Ibiza and neighbouring areas are going through due to excess tourism. It said: 'Ibiza and Formentera are capital production centres at the service of the tourism industry. 'An economic monoculture that has provided neither more prosperity nor more equality. 'It has only served to make the rich richer and expel the poorest from the island.' Anti-tourism protests have been held regularly in Spain and its surrounding islands in recent months. In July, some 2,800 people marched along a waterfront district of Barcelona to demand a new economic model that would reduce the millions of tourists that visit the country every year. The anger has spilled over into the Balearic islands, with ferocity at a high point in Ibiza, considered one of the more popular destinations for tourists. In May, worn down by the decades of antisocial behaviour that includes drinking, vomiting, fighting, drug-taking, nighttime (and broad daylight) sex on the beach and hospitalisations of mostly British visitors who come each year, the Balearic government enacted a clampdown. Campaigners held up banners saying 'We don't want an island of cement' and 'Tourism, yes but not like this' as they massed outside Ibiza's council HQ in May The protestors' demands include a limit on the number of vehicles that can enter the island in summer and a ban on using taxpayers' cash to promote Ibiza as a tourist destination From May 11, they banned the sale of alcohol in shops between 9.30pm and 8am in the three party zones of Majorca Magaluf, Palma and Llucmajor and San Antonio in Ibiza. The new rules also ban drinking in the street and buying alcohol from grocery stores after 8.30pm - with fines of up to 1,500 (1,350) or rising to 3,000 (2,550) for more serious behaviour breaches. Drink limits have also been introduced at all-inclusive hotels in the notorious tourist hotspots of El Arenal, Playa de Palma in Mallorca, and Sant Antoni in Ibiza in a bid to clamp down on reckless drunken behaviour. Party boats are not allowed to canvas for business on the beaches and all bars must close by 3am. There has also been discussion of introducing a controversial tourist tax to control the flow of visitors. Similar demonstrations have taken place in other tourist hotspots such as Malaga, Palma de Mallorca and the Canary Islands. Towards the end of May, one such protest was held in Ibiza. As many as 1,000 protestors marched against mass tourism amid backlash at boozy UK holidaymakers. Campaigners held up banners saying 'We don't want an island of cement' and 'Tourism, yes but not like this' as they massed outside the island's council HQ. The organisers of the Ibiza demo, a group called Prou Eivissa - which literally translates to 'Enough Ibiza', met with Ibiza's president Vicent Mari before taking to the streets. The protestors' demands include a limit on the number of vehicles that can enter the island in summer and a ban on using taxpayers' cash to promote Ibiza as a tourist destination. In the run-up to the protest, organisers said: 'Our beautiful island is in danger. Tourist crowds not only affect our quality of life, but also the beauty and authenticity that makes Ibiza such a special place. Tourists, typically British, often flock to the Balearic Islands for a rowdy holiday - something many of the locals despise 'Tourist overcrowding makes the cost of living unattainable for many residents. 'We fight for an Ibiza where we can all live in dignity. It is time to raise our voices and protect our home.' A Prou Eivissa spokesman said: 'We don't want no tourism but we want a different tourism. 'We want some controls. We want our lovely island back.' Spain received 85 million foreign visitors in 2023, an increase of 18.7 percent from the previous year, according to the National Statistics Institute. The most visited region was Catalonia, whose capital is Barcelona, with 18 million, followed by the Balearic Islands (14.4 million) and the Canary Islands (13.9 million). Members of a 'Fast and Furious' style car crime gang who were the 'go-to' for thieves across England seeking to dismantle stolen luxury motors have been jailed. Three members of the criminal car gang that handled up to 1m of stolen vehicles were locked up for a combined total of nearly 12 years. An extensive police investigation caught those led by Michael Kozub and Filip Zablocki, who would dismantle stolen vehicles at their 'chop shops'. Detectives revealed that Kozub, 46, Zablocki, 31, and their cohort were the 'go-to' contacts for thieves across South East England who would deliver them stolen cars. Gang members would then dismantle the vehicles - even chopping a Ferrari in half on one occasion - before moving and later exporting the separate parts. Vin Diesel and Paul Walker looking from car in a scene from the 2001 movie Fast and Furious Dominik Mrzyglod owned a transportation business and was responsible for getting the stolen cars, both whole or in parts, out of the UK Their actions bring to mind the 2001 blockbuster Fast and Furious, in which Brian O'Conner, a police officer, goes undercover in the street racing world to investigate a gang of truck hijackers. Three police forces worked together in a 17-month investigation to bring down the lynchpins of the criminal enterprise, culminating in the conviction and jailing of three members, with another narrowly avoiding jail. A painstaking investigation into the gang of four by detectives from Surrey Police, the Metropolitan Police and Hampshire Constabulary was initiated after a previous case saw other criminals convicted of stealing over 125 cars. Officers spent hours scrutinising phone messages in a 17-month investigation spanning 2022 and 2023 and identified that the criminal enterprise operated on a huge scale, with car thieves doing the dirty work for a central team who handled the stolen goods. Thieves would deliver cars stolen from Kent, Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and London to the four organisers, who used two sites as their chop shops. There, they dismantled the cars - including an expensive Ferrari that officers later found cut in half. After police discovered one site in Horley, West Sussex, last autumn, the gang swiftly relocated to another in Crawley, also in West Sussex. However, detectives quickly tracked the enterprise down for a second time at its new HQ. Kozub, of Wandsworth in south London, and Zablocki, of Mitcham in south London, were said to be the central figures of the operation. Filip Zablocki was jailed for two years and eight months Kozub was jailed for six years and three months after admitting to charges of conspiracy to receive stolen goods The pair were described as the 'go-to' contacts for car thieves across Southeast England, organising stolen cars to be delivered to their chop shops and keeping in close contact with an extensive network of convicted car thieves. Kozub was jailed for six years and three months after admitting to charges of conspiracy to receive stolen goods, with magistrates at Brighton Magistrates' Court also imposing a serious crime prevention order. Zablocki was jailed for two years and eight months after the same offences, as well as another for possession of cocaine. Accomplice Dominik Mrzyglod owned a transportation business and was responsible for getting the stolen cars, both whole or in parts, out of the UK. The 46-year-old, of Walton-on-Thames in northwest Surrey, pleaded guilty as his trial was looming and was sentenced to three years and one month in jail. The gang's mechanic, 49-year-old Mariusz Parafiniuk of Lewisham in southeast London, was convicted of conspiracy to receive stolen goods in April following a trial at Guildford Crown Court. He received a 15-month prison sentence suspended for two years and was ordered to pay 2000 in costs. Detective Inspector Dan Voller, of Surrey Police's Serious and Organised Crime Unit, explained that the total value of cars to have passed through the gang amounted to nearly a million pounds. [These] sentences are a result of excellent teamwork between a number of teams in Surrey Police and joint working with colleagues in the Metropolitan Police and Hampshire Constabulary,' he said. 'This included hours of meticulous searching through mobile phone evidence to prove there was a case to answer for conspiracy. 'We recovered cars to the value of over half a million pounds and believe that the total value of the cars that passed through this gang's operation is close to a million pounds. 'We traced a web of messages involving numerous people, across multiple phones and social media channels as deals were done for stolen high-value vehicles. 'Alongside that was a detailed analysis of ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) technology as we tracked the cars on their journeys, and of the gang's bank accounts. 'Kozub claimed the storage unit was simply where he innocently kept his jet ski, but this was proven to be a lie.' Acting Detective Chief Inspector Natalie Parker, of the Met Police's South Area Proactive Investigations Team, added: 'It was great to work with our policing partners to tackle crime important to our communities. 'Through joint working it was established that both Surrey Police and the Metropolitan Police had identified members of the same group through separate investigations. 'Both organisations were then able to pool their resources to ensure a successful outcome for the victims in the case as well as the wider public. 'In South London alone we saw a reduction in burglaries of over 30 per cent in the aftermath of this operation. 'I look forward to continue working collaboratively to achieve brilliant outcomes in the pursuit of justice.' Publishers are effectively forced to use Googles advertising products, a senior publishing executive told a landmark trial in which the tech giant is accused of operating a monopoly. Matthew Wheatland, Chief Digital Officer at dailymail.com, was called by the US Department of Justice as their sole witness to rebut Googles case at the end of a trial that has lasted 15 days. Government lawyers accuse Google of trying to monopolise display advertising on websites and depriving the publishing industry, including news websites, of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. The judge, Leonie Brinkema, could ultimately decide that Google is operating a monopoly and force it to sell off part of its advertising business. Billions of adverts on web pages are bought and sold each day through programmatic display advertising, a process involving automated auctions that take milliseconds. Publishers are being effectively forced to use Google's advertising products, a senior publishing executive told a trial (Stock image) Judge Leonie Brinkema is residing over the trial which could ultimately decide that Google is operating a monopoly and force it to sell off part of its advertising business Google owns the biggest ad server used by publishers to sell the adverts, known as DFP, and the biggest tool used by advertisers to buy them, known as Google Ads. It also runs the largest exchange where the auctions are run, which is called AdX. When combined, those tech tools keep 36 cents of every advertising dollar that goes through them, claim the government lawyers. In its case, Google has argued that it faces competition from Facebook, TikTok and others, and advertisers are moving their spending away from websites, instead using it for other areas including apps and social media. Mr Wheatland was asked by prosecutor Julia Wood whether advertisers shifting to social media impacts your negotiations with Google as an ad tech user. He said: That doesnt really. If advertisers change where they run their ad spend, that doesnt help the publisher per se. You cant shift those open web impressions to some other medium. Mr Wheatland was also asked what he thought about a suggestion made in the trial that publishers work harder to sell more advertising directly to advertisers, rather than relying on programmatic sales. He said: We work hard to sell direct impressions already. We work to sell as much as we can to direct clients. Its difficult to sell direct. The cost of doing business with direct sales is high. You need all of the support staff, sales people, creative, marketing, you need to generate post-market reports. In general, direct sales is not how the majority of ad sales runs across the open web. Attorneys Karen Dunn and Jeannie Rhee, both representing Google, arrive at the district court for the antitrust case in Alexandria, Virginia Mr Wheatland was then asked if he was aware of a trend in which advertisers were spending more on apps, and whether the Daily Mail has an app. He said the publisher had made a significant investment in its app. Separate apps were needed for different operating systems and support staff were also required, he said. Mr Wheatland added that the tendency was to get higher prices for ads on web than app. He said: Maybe 2 per cent of our readership comes to us on app, and added: Its not possible to shift all of our readership from web to app. Both the DOJ and Google have concluded their evidence and closing arguments will be delivered in late November. More than fifty patients and care workers were dramatically rescued after seeking shelter on the roof of a Tennessee hospital as a nearby river burst its banks. Ambulances raced to Unicoi County Hospital amid treacherous flooding caused by Hurricane Helene which left no time to escape. Dozens were driven from the building's interior and forced onto the roof in howling wind and rain as the Nolichucky River overflowed. The muddy brown waters quickly surrounded the structure which was built in 2018, with weather conditions so atrocious that rescue efforts were made even more difficult. More than fifty patients and their caregivers were rescued in dramatic fashion on Friday after scores sought shelter on the roof of a Tennessee hospital after a nearby river burst its banks 54 people were rescued from the roof of Unicoi County Hospital in Tennessee Several ambulances, cruisers and other emergency vehicle as flood waters deluged the area All roads accessing the hospital were completely impassable due to flooding. Several cruisers and ambulances have been lost. A SWAT team happened to be training at the time and was able to collect medications for the patients. The dramatic scene at the hospital locations near the North Carolina border was one of several that played out across the southern U.S. in Helene's wake. Flooding caused by its storm surge and torrential rain sent thousands of police officers, firefighters, National Guard members and others on rescue missions. Hundreds were saved, but at least 40 died. Unicoi County Hospital tried to evacuate 11 patients and 43 others on Friday morning as the facility flooded but the water was too treacherous for boats sent by the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. The decision was then made to take everyone to the roof. Ambulances raced to the scene but the flooding caused by Hurricane Helene was so bad they were unable to reach the hospital leaving patients and caregivers to head up to the roof Several emergency vehicles belonging to the hospital were lost to the floodwaters 'The water there simply came up faster with more debris than was safe to operate in the rafts to ferry from a dry point back to the hospital,' said Patrick Sheehan, Tennessee's emergency operations director. After other helicopters failed to reach the hospital because of the storm's winds, a Virginia State Police helicopter was able to land on the roof. Three National Guard helicopters with hoist capabilities were on the way, officials said. 'We ask everyone to please pray for the people at Unicoi County Hospital, the first responders on-scene, the military leaders who are actively working to help, and our state leaders,' said Ballad Health, the hospital's owner, on social media. Helicopters were initially unable to help with the rescue because of the high winds The nearby Nolichucky River overflowed with the muddy brown waters deluging the building Everyone was rescued from the hospital by 4:15pm with all affected patients having been transferred to Johnson City Medical Center. Hurricane Helen left an enormous path of destruction across Florida and the entire southeastern U.S., killing at least 40 people in four states, snapping trees like twigs, tearing apart homes and sending rescue crews on desperate missions to save people from floodwaters. Britain has launched a diplomatic bid to prevent a full-scale regional conflict in the Middle East. Foreign Secretary David Lammy reached out to his Iranian counterpart in an attempt to prevent further escalation. As Israel stepped up its bombardment of the neighbouring state of Lebanon, Mr Lammy spoke to foreign minister Abbas Araghchi. UK sources said Mr Lammy requested that Iran use its influence over Hezbollah to prevent a major conflict. He also reminded Mr Araghchi of Britain's support for a 21-day ceasefire and the start of negotiations between the major parties. Foreign Secretary David Lammy reached out to his Iranian counterpart in an attempt to prevent further escalation, requesting that Iran use its influence over Hezbollah to prevent a major conflict Israel stepped up its bombardment of the neighbouring state of Lebanon (Beirut is seen with smoke billowing on Friday) Foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said on X: 'I explicitly warned [Mr Lammy] of the disastrous consequences of the Israeli regime's ongoing aggression' The Iranian foreign minister later posted on X: 'I explicitly warned [Mr Lammy] of the disastrous consequences of the Israeli regime's ongoing aggression against Lebanon.' Meanwhile, the Foreign Office has dispatched more officials to Lebanon to assist Britons seeking to leave the country. Despite repeated government pleas, thousands of UK citizens have opted to remain in Lebanon as security in the country has worsened. But Defence Secretary John Healey said earlier this week: 'Events in the past hours and days have demonstrated how volatile this situation is which is why our message is clear British nationals should leave now. 'We continue to urge all sides to step back from conflict to prevent further tragic loss of life. 'Government is ensuring all preparations are in place to support British nationals should the situation deteriorate.' A rapist who started identifying as a woman after the attack and was referred to as she in court was yesterday sentenced to six and a half years in a mens prison. Lexi Secker, 35, wept as a judge said he had regard to how difficult a prison sentence in a male institution will be. Wiltshire Police faced criticism last month after refusing to specify the defendants biological sex, saying the crime was recorded as being committed by a male, but Secker went on trial as a woman. Judge Jason Taylor told Swindon Crown Court the attack was perpetrated by a man clearly attracted to women who was focused on sexual gratification after luring an intoxicated woman to a secluded woodland spot in Wiltshire. Rapist Lexi Secker, 35, who began identifying as a woman after the attack, has been sentenced to six and a half years in a male prison The judge told Secker: You now identify as a woman and are attracted to men. At the time of this offence, you were a man. 'You identified as a man and you were, on the evidence, clearly attracted to women. A police statement in June said that 'at the time of the offence Secker was living as a man' and the crime was 'recorded as being committed by a male'. A police statement said that Secker was tried 'as a woman' at Swindon Crown Court despite saying the rapist was 'living as a man' at the time of the offence But the statement also said Secker went on trial 'as a woman' and referred to the rapist as 'a person'. Fiona McAnena, of the charity Sex Matters, said at the time: 'This person is a man. Why don't the police say so? Do they think they have to pretend, because he now says he's a woman, even though he has committed the ultimate male crime of rape? 'It is very concerning to see the police pandering to the feelings of trans-identifying males. It does not give confidence that they are policing without fear or favour.' Though he left with a degree and a girlfriend he would go on to marry, things could have gone very differently had Prince William fulfilled his desire to leave university. After he spent his gap year travelling, the then 19-year-old's time in higher education got off to a rocky start. William began studying a degree in Art History at St Andrews in September 2001. However by the end of his first term the Prince was having second thoughts. Royal expert Robert Lacey told in his 2020 book Battle of Brothers how William only spent two of the 13 term-time weekends at the university and would often go home to London or Highgrove. The 19-year-old prince with his father Prince Charles during a visit to an education centre in Glasgow, shortly before he started university in 2001 Prince William at St Andrews during the start of his degree after enjoying a gap year of travelling Charles and William greet crowds who have gathered to see him on his first day at St Andrews When William first expressed doubts over his choice of course and institution, his grandfather Prince Philip responded with: 'William needs to knuckle down and not wimp out.' The young prince confided in his father, now King Charles, who was then the Prince of Wales, and told him how he wanted to leave the university and move elsewhere. He found life in the small Scottish town of St Andrews to be quiet. Mr Lacey described how the best part of his week was shopping at Tesco and playing sport on a Wednesday. And for a prince who everyone instantly recognised, navigating student life was a challenge. Though Charles originally agreed with his son, he changed his mind after speaking with his private secretary Sir Stephen Lamport, who also confided in deputy private secretary Mark Bolland. Palace aides were concerned the situation could cause a 'personal disaster for William' and that the Prince 'would have been seen as a quitter'. If William had not stayed at St Andrews, he may not have met Kate Middleton. Above: The couple on their graduation day Charles had a heartfelt discussion with his son about him wanting to move. Above: Charles and William greeting crowds after arriving for his first day at St Andrews Prince William shakes hands with people outside of St Andrews University There were also concerns William's departure could have caused problems for St Andrews' image, as well as the politics behind a British monarch possibly being viewed as snubbing a Scottish university. Palace officials had previously dealt with the criticism that followed Prince Edward after he decided to leave the Royal Marines part way through his training in 1987. Kensington Palace and St Andrews managed to instead resolve the issue by liaising with one another and agreeing for William to switch courses to Geography instead. Charles then spent the Christmas holiday having a heartfelt discussion with William, who eventually decided against the move too. William later said he felt he was 'daunted' rather than homesick. He said at the time: 'My father was very understanding about it and realised I had the same problem he had probably had. 'We chatted a lot, and in the end we both realised - I definitely realised - that I had to come back. 'I think it was the new surroundings. When I was with Raleigh International in Chile during my gap year, it was the same sort of thing. You're thrown into completely new territory. Kensington Palace and St Andrews agreed for William to switch courses to Geography instead William later said he felt he was 'daunted' over the situation rather than homesick 'I don't think I was homesick. I was more daunted.' Leading journalist Andrew Neil, who was Lord Rector at St Andrews at the time, put the scenario down to William having 'the blue', something that he said was a common problem with 'public school boys'. The decision to stay paid off, as it was at St Andrews that William met and fell in love with Kate Middleton. It was at a charity fashion show in St Andrews where William exclaimed, 'wow! Kate's hot', as his future wife walked down the catwalk in a see-through dress. The Duchess of Sussex knows her influence and impact and has been a powerful force in the world of fashion and entrepreneurship, especially for small and up-and-coming brands. It was in 2017 that Meghan Markle first realised her power as a fashion influencer. On her debut official royal engagement with Prince Harry in Nottingham, she carried a tote bag by the Edinburgh-based family fashion brand Strathberry. The bag sold out in 11 minutes on the company's website and web traffic skyrocketed by 5,000 per cent. More recently, Mehgan bought a stake in the small handbag label Cesta Collective and showed off one of their products in Colombia last month. She explained her strategy behind where her support goes, telling the New York Times: 'Times where I know there is a global spotlight, and attention will be given to each detail of what I may or may not be wearing, then I support designers that I have really great friendships with, and smaller, up-and-coming brands that haven't gotten the attention that they should be getting.' Below, we reveal the brands Meghan has showcased, often unexpectedly in favour of more established names. On her debut official royal engagement with Prince Harry, in Nottingham in 2017, Meghan Markle carried a tote bag by the Edinburgh-based family fashion brand Strathberry Visits to the company's site that day increased by an incredible 5,000 per cent Cesta Collective Meghan recently invested in Cesta Collective, an accessories brand specialising in basket bags handwoven by a collective of women in Rwanda and finished in Italy. She discovered them during an online shopping spree. Her investment will have come as no surprise to many. The royal has been spotted on several occasions over the years toting the brand's signature woven bags, including during her recent tour of Colombia with Prince Harry. She was first photographed carrying the label's 611 Bucket Bag when out for dinner with Cameron Diaz and Gwyneth Paltrow in May 2023. Following the flurry of sales, founders Courtney Weinblatt Fasciano and Erin Ryder reached out to Meghan's team to thank her for her support which led to the investment. After starting out with just five sample styles, it's clear that Cesta Collective is going from strength to strength with Meghan's backing. Meghan wearing a brand from the brand Cresta Collective during her visit to Colombia with Prince Harry in August Kimai Another example of how Meghan's influence has impacted sales was the rise of lab-grown diamond company Kimai, back in 2019. The brand's website had only been up and running for two months when she wore its 630 pave diamond wave crawler Felicity earrings, which immediately sold out. It sparked sales of 945,000, according to co-founders Jessica Warch and Sidney Neuhau. Kimai has become one of Meghan's favourite jewellery brands for daytime occasions. She recently wore a pair of semi-hoop earrings during her visit to Nigeria in May. Since then, they have been one of the Belgian brand's best sellers. Lab-grown diamond brand Kimai had only been running for two months when Meghan wore the 630 diamond wave crawler Felicity earrings, which immediately sold out. She wore them for a visit to the charity Smart Works in London in 2019 Johanna Ortiz 'When people are online looking for things or reading things, I'm trying to find great new designers, especially in different territories,' Meghan told the New York Times recently. One of those designers now being supported by Meghan is Johanna Ortiz, who has been championed by the Duchess for more than a year now. The Duchess has worn her pieces on several occasions, including at the Women of Vision awards in May 2023. She has also opted Johanna Ortiz outfits on different tours, first in Nigeria and most recently in Colombia, the designer's home country. There she wore a 1,595 showstopper. All of Meghan's chosen frocks featured woven fabric and a small cut-out detail at the bodice and were an instant sell out after being showed off by Meghan. Meghan Markle has been championing Johanna Ortiz for a year. She most recently wore one of the brand's showstopper dresses in Colombia in August Roxanne First Roxanne First launched her label in 2018, and Meghan wore the brand's Snake hoop earrings to the Endeavour Awards with Prince Harry in 2020. The event was the couple's final appearance as working senior royals. 'It was quite an iconic set of images, which did go fairly viral at the time,' Ms First told Forbes. 'The next day we were inundated with orders for these gold hoops, and a clear majority of sales came from the US. 'It was a phenomenal amount of orders!' Sales for the hoops increased by 500 per cent after Meghan wore them, and the US is now a top-three market for the brand. 'Being worn by a royal definitely has the power to raise brand profile as well as awareness,' Ms First added 'It's also a huge compliment to be worn by one of the royals, especially as we are fairly young brand.' Roxanne First's jewellery company were inundated with orders for the gold hoops that Meghan wore on one of her last official engagement - attendance at the Endeavour Fund Awards at Mansion House in March 2020 - and sales increased by 500 per cent Jennifer Chamandi Meghan loves designer shoe labels, in particular the likes of Manolo Blahnik, Aquazzura and Jimmy Choo. But for International Women's Day, she chose to support a less established female footwear designer. Lebanese-born Jennifer Chamandi Boghossian left her career as a senior banker at Merrill Lynch to start her brand after spending years on the trading floor, where she developed strong opinions on what makes a great pair of heels. One of the the Duchess of Sussex's most iconic outfits saw her wearing these Jennifer Chamandi two-tone 550 Lorenzo heels for a visit to Robert Clack Upper School in Dagenham, Essex, on International Women's Day in March 2020 She also developed her signature eye of the needle detail, which was patented in 2018. The flourish was seen on the two-tone 550 Lorenzo style worn by Meghan. According to Ms Chamandi, the effect was instantaneous. 'We had messages from stockists globally, wanting to know how quickly we could deliver a shipment of the style,' she recalled to Harper's Bazaar. 'Being a British brand, having a member of the royal family wear my shoes was a dream come true. After another intense lockdown, it felt like a ray of optimism.' Heidi Merrick Attending the Royal Salute Polo Challenge in Florida, Meghan looked immaculate in a 421 ivory silk-hemp dress by sustainable California-based label Heidi Merrick. It featured a scarf-style, halter neckline tied in a bow at the nape of the neck, and a cutaway section at the ribcage. Within hours, every size was sold out on the Heidi Merrick website. The brand says it aims to, 'empower women to be their most beautiful and best selves.' Further maximising Heidi Merrick's exposure during the tour of Nigeria, Meghan wore a backless design which was aptly named the Windsor. She has also worn their sunglasses on several occasions. Meghan looked immaculate in a 421 ivory silk-hemp dress by sustainable California-based label Heidi Merrick as she watched a polo competition in Florida in April After Meghan wore this outfit to the polo, every size was sold out and the outfit went viral Sophie Lis At the Invictus Games in 2022, Meghan debuted a 400 Love pendant by British jewellery designer Sophie Lis. She explained: 'It was a real pinch me moment, I knew she owned a collection of pieces from the brand, but nothing quite prepares you for the Meghan effect.' At the Invictus Games in 2022, Meghan debuted a 400 Love pendant by British jewellery designer Sophie Lis Meghan also wore these Sophie Lis 'fallen star' earrings for her final solo engagement The attention the brand received was like nothing they had experienced before, driving sales around the world. Meghan once again turned to the boutique jewellery designer for her final solo royal engagement, wearing the 230 glittering fallen star earrings signifying good luck and protection from evil. These appearances became front page news, leading to sales in the American market that helped the brand to expand. Outland During their visit to Australia in 2018 - at the start of which Meghan and Harry announced they were expecting their first child - the Duchess wore a 120 pair of black jeans in a style known as the Harriet from the relatively under-the-radar brand Outland. After Meghan wore these Outland black jeans in Australia in 2018, the brand saw sales increase by a staggering 640 per cent The firm, which was founded by James Bartle in 2011 to support victims of sex-trafficking, was part of Markle's effort to wear ethically produced clothing. Following Meghan's appearance in the denim there was an immediate 3,000 per cent increase in web traffic, and sales increased by a staggering 640 per cent. The denim maker has since been able to hire 46 new seamstresses in Cambodia, raising their total number of employees to 130. 'The Duchess of Sussex's appearance coming off an aeroplane in Dubbo in October 2018 had more of an impact than anyone could have imagined,' the label wrote on its website. 'Quite simply, we were overwhelmed with support, orders and interest in our brand.' Mother Denim Mother Denim was one of the first brands to experience the Meghan Effect, after the former actress wore its 160 skinny-fit Looker jeans to the 2017 Invictus Games in Toronto. The outing was her first public appearance as Harry's girlfriend. The style was old season, so the label's founder Lela Becker reissued it following the high demand and requests. The day after Meghan wore their jeans, Mother Denim saw nearly a 200 per cent increase in traffic on their website together with a huge spike for the month of October, beating their sales forecast by nearly 20 per cent. The impact proved to be enduring, and when the couple tied the knot in Windsor nine months later, demand rocketed again, generating a 4,000-strong waiting list for the style. The brand was forced to restock the style Meghan wore three times within the space of a season to keep up with demand. Mother Denim saw a 200 per cent increase in traffic on their website after Meghan's first appearance as Prince Harry's girlfriend in 2017 Finlay & Co All eyes were on Meghan's sartorial choices as she stepped out as Harry's new girlfriend at the 2017 Invictus Games. She gave small London-based eyewear company Finlay & Co a huge boost by opting for their 120 Percy frames for the outing. The product sold out immediately, with the company seeing a 1,000 per cent increase in sales and making 20,000 overnight. Although 37 per cent of visitors to the website came from the UK, the majority were based in America, meaning Finlay & Co found a new audience across the poind. The Meghan effect did not stop there. Their growing popularity allowed them to open a flagship store in London. Co-Founder David Lochhead commented: 'She [Meghan] wore the same frames in November and another surge came.' The four months of September, October, November and December 2017 became the highest grossing months since the brand's launch five years prior. Finlay saw a 1000 per cent increase in sales after Meghan turned up to the Invictus games in Toronto wearing these sunglasses in 2017 Veja Duchess Meghan wore Veja's V10 115 sneakers while watching the 2018 Invictus Games sailing final in Sydney Harbour. Her appearance in the sustainable shoe brand founded by Frenchmen Sebastien Kopp and Francois-Ghislain Morillion turned the trainers into the third hottest product according to Lyst. Online searches for the brand increased by 113 per cent the day after Meghan wore them, and its Instagram received thousands of new followers. Apple's share of Britain's mobile phone market has slumped to an eight-year low, figures suggest. Although still dominant, the tech titan's grip has fallen well below the 50 per cent mark in 2024. Now Apple has only a 12-point lead over arch-rivals Samsung. Fans have for years fumed about the Silicon Valley firm's lack of innovation. Experts have said that the market has squeezed to saturation and top of the line options are ten a penny, eating into Apple's dominance. After months of fevered anticipation, Apple's latest iPhone model last week went on sale worldwide. It described the 16 (which retails for 799), 16 Plus (899), 16 Pro (999) and 16 Pro Max (1,199) as 'the beginning of a new era', boasting of improved AI capabilities, camera upgrades and an upgrade in battery life. Your browser does not support iframes. The new iPhone 16 Pro, along with Plus and Pro Max (pictured) models, launched globally last week The new models also come packed with a button that activates the camera app - a feature described as the 'coolest ever' by Apple lovers. But leading figures in the industry criticised the underwhelming final product, which comes without the hugely-anticipated 'Apple Intelligence' AI ecosystem. The software might not be available until the start of 2025. Features of Apple Intelligence will include better writing tools, Photo Memories, the Clean Up tool, automatically transcribed audio, summarised notifications and smart replies. It will also adapt Siri to utilise Open AIs notorious chatbot, ChatGPT, and AI-powered emoji generation. Major tech reviewers The Verge dubbed Apple's newest phone 'the most unfinished product it has ever shipped'. One former US employee even brutally described it as 's***', claiming the firm was 'stuck in a loop'. Signs of lower-than-anticipated demand evident by quicker delivery times than for previous models saw the company's shares fall by 3 per cent. Consumers are spoiled for choice in terms of viable alternatives for a smartphone to match any conceivable criteria. Samsung and Google continue to sink hundreds of millions of dollars into development and are consistently unveiling new models in the UK with more bells and whistles. Many already have some, if not most, of the AI capabilities or relevant equivalents that Apple Intelligence is set to boast. Apple's share of the UK mobile phone market stood at 46 per cent in August, claims online data aggregator StatCounter. It plunged to 43.9 per cent in July marking its lowest point since September 2016. Samsung now controls a third of the market (33.8 per cent), up from less than 1 per cent in 2010, when comparative records began. Google (4.6 per cent) and Motorola (3.1 per cent) also hold notable slices of the pie. StatCounter embeds tracking technology on more than 1.5million partner websites globally and aggregates data from them to calculate mobile market share. From a price perspective, Apple iPhones on release still rank towards the top end. Though Samsung's big release this year, the S24 and S24 Ultra, retail for 799 and 1,249, respectively. However, pricing around standard and premium models has remained consistent over recent years as, by and large, has the delivery of new models and system upgrades. Your browser does not support iframes. Your browser does not support iframes. When the first iPhone launched in 2007, it was all about forcing consumer upgrades every two years, revamping the phone's design aligning with consumers looking to cash in their upgrades. Since then, Apple has released new iPhone models and iOS updates annually. Ernest Doku, mobiles expert at price comparison site Uswitch.com, told MailOnline that the reportedly subdued demand for the latest models has been noticed in the market. He said: 'While demand for the iPhone 16 at launch is reportedly lower than its predecessors - our data shows many opting for earlier, now cheaper, models too - were unlikely to see the death of the iPhone entirely any time soon. 'But with all manner of hardware innovations, compounded with rising costs, improved durability and sustainability driving longer usage of older devices, Apple does have its work cut out in capturing - or recapturing - the hearts and minds of those looking for a fresh smartphone experience.' Jeremy White, Wired Magazines senior innovation editor, concurred and told MailOnline the iPhone 16s launch landed less of a punch than usual. He said: 'Its no surprise that a lot of people thought that the iPhone 16 was going to be a super cycle year for iPhones - when you see a massive uptick of people trading in and getting the new one. 'But because a lot of the technology with the 16 is linked to the AI capabilities, that super cycle argument is negated to some extent. 'If youre interested in the AI features you might wait until the 17. But Mr White explained that the wider play from the company is to continue to build Apple into all aspects of a consumers life, merging the brand experience with the consumer. He added: 'The Apple ecosystem is the killer app that they have and the idea that everything talks to each other is not only very useful but its like a gateway drug that leads you to buy other products.' Mr White noted that in the UK 'the options are unbelievable because 'you can get an amazing smartphone for a few hundred quid'. 'The tech in smartphones is advanced, mature, even the mid-level and budget players have got many of the desirable features - thats going to erode anybodys position,' he said. 'But Apple is traditionally slow to bring in tech others already have come last, come best. 'Dont forget, when they launched the Apple watch, the smartwatch market was a joke and derided, they legitimised it and they have tremendous ability to do that in other sectors as well,' he added. 'Youd be a fool to write them off.' Apple declined to comment. When the iconic Sycamore Gap tree was illegally felled a year ago, there was an outpouring of anger from the public. Now towns across Britain have the chance to have their very own Sycamore descendant. To mark its anniversary, the National Trust has announced the opportunity for communities to request one of the tree's saplings. These young trees, collectively known as the 'Trees of Hope', have been grown from seeds collected shortly after the original Sycamore was cut down. There are 49 saplings in total one to represent each foot of the height of the tree at the time it was chopped down. The Sycamore Gap tree on Hadrian's Wall (pictured) was illegally felled last year, causing widespread anger The National Trust has announced the opportunity for communities to request one of the tree's saplings (pictured) Seeds and buds rescued from the Sycamore Gap (pictured) are 'springing into life' at a specialist conservation centre People gather around the stump of the Sycamore Gap tree in Northumberland National Park The much photographed and visited sycamore was cut down overnight between September 27 and 28, 2023 People from around the UK are invited to apply for a tree to plant in a publicly accessible space, with applications opening today The Northumberland National Park Authority will today unveil the first phase of the Sycamore Gap exhibition They are currently around 5 feet tall and, as they are still too young to be planted, will continue to be cared for by the National Trust until they are strong enough to be put in the ground most likely late autumn or winter next year. People from around the UK are invited to apply for a tree to plant in a publicly accessible space, with applications opening today. The Sycamore Gap tree, which long towered above Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland National Park, was illegally felled on the night of September 27, 2023. Two men in their 30s have been charged with damage to the tree and their trial is scheduled for December this year at Newcastle Crown Court. To further continue the legacy of the tree, the Northumberland National Park Authority will today unveil the first phase of the Sycamore Gap exhibition, which will see the largest section of the original tree's wood installed. Andrew Poad, General Manager for the National Trust's Hadrian Wall properties, said: 'The last 12 months have been a real roller coaster of emotions from the hopelessness and grief we felt when we discovered that the tree had been illegally felled, to experiencing the stories shared with us about just what the tree meant to so many. 'One of the first actions that served us so well was the collection of some of the seeds from the tree. 'These were sent straight away to the Trust's Plant Conservation Centre in Devon where the team have worked tirelessly to successfully propagate over 100 seedlings and grafted nine other saplings so we have the trees descendants for the future. 'In announcing our 'Trees of Hope' initiative today, we aim to find new homes in community settings across the UK so people can have the opportunity to engage with the Sycamore Gap Tree and its legacy so that more people everywhere can feel that they are part of this story and the tree's wonderful legacy.' The Sycamore Gap tree was planted about 130 years ago by the landowner John Clayton, who was seen as a visionary because he planted it as a landscape feature knowing he would not see it in his lifetime. The tree became even more famous after it featured in the 1991 Kevin Costner film, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Dissecting Govt Claim of Muslim Welfare Under Modi 3.0 Rule The BJP government has come up with the claim that it has done many things for the welfare of Muslims in 100 days of Modi 3.0 rule Friday September 27, 2024 8:34 PM , Syed Ali Mujtaba The BJP government has come up with the claim that it has done many things for the welfare of Muslims in 100 days of Modi 3.0 rule. The Minister of Minority Affairs Shri Kiren Rijiju, held a press conference on September 24, 2024, listing the BJP government's achievements for the welfare of the Muslims in India. First, Kiren Rijiju said the Ministry of Minority Affairs had organized Lok Samvardhan Parv, an event to showcase the schemes and programmes, the government has undertaken for the welfare of the minorities. What does the fair mean to the common man living on the margins? Second, Kiren Rijiju says his ministry has planned funds for loans under the National Minorities Development & Finance Corporation (NMDFC). This scheme has extended a credit of over Rs.1000 crores to over 2.5 lakh beneficiaries during 2024-25. The NMDFC has also signed MoUs with three banks in three States for the implementation of NMDFC schemes. Again, the stakeholders in these states have to ascertain whether any such government claim has reached them or not. Kiren Rijiju, then says his ministry has sanctioned Rs. 21.00 corers to the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh (JKLFC) for the financial year 2024-25. No one knows if this is an announcement or if it's being implemented on the ground. In the same vein, Kiren Rijiju says that his ministry has announced Rs. 10 crores to the Sindhu Infrastructure Development Corporation (SIDCO) in J&K and Ladakh. Is this fund for the people living in these areas or for the promotion of Sindhu i.e. Indus (Hindu) civilization? Kiren Rijiju talks at length about Pradhan Mantri Virasat Ka Samvardhan (PM VIKAS) which is an integrated scheme aimed towards the socio-economic upliftment of minorities through various initiatives. This is an ongoing scheme from the past several years that has been integrated into one by clubbing five schemes of the previous Congress government. This has nothing to do with the achievements of 100 days of Modi 3.0 rule. Providing skill development training in courses covering both modern and traditional job roles. Organizing capacity-building workshops for artisans. Preserving the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of minority communities. Promoting minority womens leadership and entrepreneurship. Educational support to minority youth through the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) Addressing infrastructure needs in convergence with the Ministrys PMJVK scheme. Kiren Rijiju further says that the PM Vikas scheme will facilitate credit linkages by connecting beneficiaries with loan programs offered by the NMDFC. Beneficiaries would also be supported for market linkages through the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH) to enhance their livelihood. Such claims have to be vetted by an independent auditor to validate the claims made by the Minister of Minority Affairs. Then, Kiren Rijiju claimed that his Ministry had launched Haj Suvidha App an end-to-end digital solution for the Haj pilgrims. It provides the pilgrims access to training content, accommodation and flight details, baggage information, an emergency helpline (SOS), grievance redressal, feedback, language translation, and miscellaneous information and services related to the pilgrimage. The Minister should be asked about the digital literacy rate of Muslims, and how many Muslims possess an Android mobile phone with internet connections. So for whom was such an app developed? Kiren Rijiju has also claimed that his ministry has released an Operational Manual for conducting Urs at the Durgah of Khawaja Moin ud din Chishti at Ajmer. This manual codifies and standardizes the conduct of the Urs to ensure a satisfactory experience for the pilgrims during the period of Urs. The Minster also claims to develop a DKS Suvidha Mobile App and a Web portal for this purpose. The Minister says this is for the welfare of the Indian Muslims. He must calculate the amount the pilgrims invest during their pilgrimage period and that goes to the state coffers. Can that be compared to the services offered by the government in the form of an Operational Manual and mobile App and website? In real terms is it a Muslim welfare measure? Kiren Rijiju further says that his ministry has ensured optimum utilization of funds initiated for use at the PM GatiShakti portal. This is to ensure zero overlapping of the schemes identified for the areas of implementation. He also says that a new PMJVK web portal is developed for overall digitized approval processes. My 100 Days report card of Historic 3rd-Term of PM @narendramodi Ji's Govt. People can give marks on the basis of actual performances of the Ministry of Minority Affairs, and the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs! Very Short clip of my press briefing. pic.twitter.com/zJqCQgR6DB Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) September 25, 2024 What the Minister is trying to say is that the digital format is the achievement of the BJP government for the welfare of Indian Muslims. He does not bother to talk about how many Muslims have benefited from the governments initiative in 100 days in office. Since there is none to dissect the governments claim that the media publishes as a gospel of truth. The circulation of such pulp fiction is a pithy commentary on the BJP governments approach towards the welfare of Muslim citizens of India. Even though its a piece of public knowledge, that Muslims are nearly 20 crore or 15% of the Indian population. [The writer, Syed Ali Mujtaba, is a Journalist based in Chennai. He can be contacted at syedalimujtaba2007@gmail.com.] Follow ummid.com WhatsApp Channel for all the latest updates. Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic. It seems the era of sharing your streaming service passwords with friends and family for free is finally at an end. The Disney+ password sharing crackdown has now come into effect, as the streaming giant starts to make users pay an extra fee for people using their account in another household. Disney+ UK customers now need to pay an extra 4.99 per month to add an 'Extra Member' outside their household, or 3.99 if they have Disney+ with ads. In the US, customers have to pay even more to share their password with someone in another home $6.99 or a hefty $9.99. However, Disney+ customers are furious with the change with many threatening to cancel their accounts altogether. Disney+ has announced the rollout of its password sharing crackdown in the UK and around the world Disney+: Extra Member prices UK - 3.99 (if you have Disney+ with ads) - 4.99 (Disney+ without ads) US - $6.99 (Disney+ with ads) - $9.99 (Disney+ without ads) Advertisement On X, formerly Twitter, one angry subscriber wrote: 'No password sharing with my elderly mother who lives 2,000 miles away @DisneyPlus??? Time for me to cancel.' Disney has long threatened to crack down on password sharing but has only now rolled out the change across multiple countries. Essentially, this change means that only the bill-paying subscriber and the people they live with will be able to use a Disney+ account unless they pay the new 'Extra Member' fee. Disney explains in a blog post: 'Our Disney+ subscription is meant to be used within your Household, which is a collection of devices associated with your primary personal residence that are used by the individuals who reside there.' Extra Members will have to create their own login credentials, but crucially it will be within the existing account and the account holder (the 'Subscriber') will be the one footing the bill. From this week, anyone who has been sharing their friend or family's account will find themselves unable to log in unless Extra Member is set up for them. From this week, subscribers will need to pay an additional monthly fee to invite an Extra Member outside of their household to stream content from their account From this week, anyone who has been sharing their friend or family's account will find themselves unable to log in unless Extra Member is set up for them. While travelling, users will be able to select 'I'M AWAY FROM HOME' to log into their account from outside their normal household On social media, Disney+ subscribers have been outraged by the change with many threatening to cancel To allow someone outside your household to stream Disney+ content will cost 4.99 per month in the UK Many subscribers and those using friends accounts have been outraged by the change, with one commenter saying 'my life is over' Essentially, each Disney+ subscriber is now able to invite one other person to their account as a member for the additional monthly fee, which varies. Extra Member costs an additional 3.99 per month for Disney+ Standard with Ads (the cheapest membership tier) and 4.99 per month for Standard and Premium account holders. Netflix, which implemented a similar paid sharing option last year, allows subscribers to add up to two extra members, but Disney+ customers can only add one. While Extra Members will only be able to stream on one device at a time, the account features will otherwise be the same as the main account. People added as an Extra Member must be over 18, reside in the same country as the main account holder and can't sign up with an email address 'associated with an active or lapsed Disney+ subscription'. Alternatively, people can just start their own Disney+ account, transferring their old profile to a new subscription. Disney suggests that people should 'sign up for their own subscription' and has made it possible to transfer their profile to a new account Disney's move was likely inspired by the resounding success of Netflix's password sharing crackdown which led to the service adding 9.3 million subscribers in three months. However, on social media, Disney+ subscribers have been outraged by the change. On X, one commenter wrote: 'Disney got rid of password sharing my life is over.' 'Disney ain't rich enough already damn', wrote another. Another commenter complained that Disney was 'always finding a way to squeeze us of more money.' And while Disney might be hoping the crackdown will boost subscription rates, many customers have already threatened to cancel. Some commenters have attributed the change to an attempt to generate more income from existing subscribers One subscriber wrote that Disney was 'always finding a way to squeeze us of more money' Disney may have hoped that the crackdown would boost subscriptions, but many paying members have threatened to cancel One commenter added that they felt justified sharing their account password given that Disney had increased its prices without offering any more content Why don't freeloaders just start their own account? In a nutshell, Extra Member will let people watch Disney+ while in a different household to the person who is paying the bill. So people in another household could start their own account, but they'd be the one paying the bill. Extra Member will be a good option for parents who live in a separate household to their son or daughter but want to pay for their streaming. Alternatively, it could suit a small group of friends across different households where the account holder (the billpayer) is considerably more wealthy than everyone else. Technically, Disney+ isn't stopping password sharing but monetizing it, just like Netflix has done. Advertisement One furious Disney+ customer wrote in a foul-mouthed tirade: 'You crooked *****. The moment I get that password sharing BS, I'm cancelling your ****.' 'Yeah, let's just cancel our subscriptions now', added another. One commenter joked: 'I'm about to go back to cable man'. A particular issue of concern for many customers is that the password sharing crackdown comes as Disney has continued to change its pricing structure. Previously, subscribers in the UK were able to access the full array of features and content for 7.99 a month or 79.90 for an annual subscription. But as part of an overhaul last November, Disney+ separated into three tiers the cheapest for 4.99 per month, 'Standard' for 7.99 per month and 'Premium' for 10.99 per month. Crucially, the cheapest option, costing 4.99, plays adverts before and even during shows and movies. In the US, Disney announced that prices are due to increase this October by up to $2 per month for most subscription tiers, hinting at potential UK increases in 2025. On X, one Disney+ customer complained: 'I MAY have been accepting of this extra fee if Disney hadn't already gradually increasing the base cost of Disney+ these past few years.' Another wrote: 'Disney+ just stopped password sharing on my account and y'all are killing me. You raise my subscriptions every month, I'm gonna let my friends and siblings use my account.' While one commenter added: 'Raise prices then do a password sharing crackdown, bold move lets see how it plays out for you.' Until November 2023 there had only been one price for Disney+ in the UK - 7.99 a month - but this single tier split into three tiers One commenter joked that they would go back to cable television, rather than pay for additional accounts In a foul-mouthed pot, one commenter threatened to cancel the moment that the anti-password-sharing measures were implemented On X, some commenters said they could have tolerated the change had Disney not already increased the price of subscriptions Some suggested that increasing prices while also cracking down on password sharing could drive subscribers away On Disney+ subscriber asked why they needed to pay more just to share their password information Another commenter branded the charge as 'unnecessary' complaining that they now had to pay to share their password Importantly, Disney has clarified that subscribers will still be able to use their accounts as they travel. Like Netflix, Disney+ will track the user's IP address to determine where people normally stream content from. If you try to log into your account while away from home, Disney will detect that you are not at your household and show a message saying: 'This TV doesnt seem to be part of the Household for this account'. To log in, select the option 'I'M AWAY FROM HOME' to send a one-time passcode to your associated email account which will authorise the device for a limited time. Users can also update their household to a new address with a one-time passcode if they have recently moved house. A woman in China's type 1 diabetes has been reversed thanks to a novel treatment that retools cells extracted from the patient's own body. The breakthrough cure converted these cells into personalized stem cells that were then used to grow clusters of fresh 'islets', hormone-producing cells in the pancreas and liver that help to regulate sugars in the body. 'I can eat sugar now,' said the 25-year-old, who lives in the city of Tianjing, where researchers say her body has successfully produced its own insulin for over a year. The treatment, which outside experts have called stunning and 'wonderful,' builds on a related milestone in Shanghai in April. A woman with type 1 diabetes in China has now proven capable of making her own insulin. The breakthrough converted her own extracted cells into personalized stem cells - then used to grow clusters of fresh 'islets,' hormone-producing cells in pancreas that help regulate sugar The pancreas is an organ which, amongst other functions, produces insulin. Insulin is a natural hormone that our body uses to control the amount of sugar in our blood stream. People with diabetes have trouble regulating their blood sugar because of pancreatic dysfunction That April case was different in that it involved transplanting stem cells into the liver, whereas the new method involved transplanting the newly made islets into the patient's upper abdomen near her pancreas. Prior islet transplants into the liver have been harder to observe via noninvasive methods like MRI, experts said, making it harder to remove these cell-clusters in a worst case where a patient's immune system rejects and attacks the transplant. This new method, inserting the islets just under the abdomen, allowed researchers to monitor the progress of these islets via MRI with comparative ease. 'They've completely reversed diabetes in the patient, who was requiring substantial amounts of insulin beforehand,' transplant surgeon Dr James Shapiro, who was not involved in the new study, told the journal Nature, approvingly. Other independent experts joined Dr Shapiro, who serves as a medical researcher at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, in praising the breakthrough. 'If this is applicable to other patients, it's going to be wonderful,' diabetes researcher Daisuke Yabe of Japan's Kyoto University told reporters. Some medical professionals, however, expressed caution over these results, waiting to see if the team's successful treatment can be reproduced in still more patients. University of Miami endocrinologist Dr Jay Skyler, who specializes in type 1 diabetes, noted that he would prefer to see if this 25-year-old test patient continues to produce insulin for herself at least five years total, before considering her case truly 'cured.' Health experts have generally also noted that the technique of crafting personalized transplants using the recipient's own cells is currently difficult to scale-up cost effectively meaning the price tag for this diabetes cure could be staggeringly high in the early going. The medical researchers at Nankai University and Peking University in China behind this new study noted that their test patient was already on immunosuppressant medication for a liver ailment. Therefore it remains unclear if other patients' bodies might reject a transplant of similar islets derived from their own, personal extracted cells. The June 2023 operation, as the team published in the journal Cell on Wednesday, took less than half an hour. 'The patient achieved sustained insulin independence starting 75 days post-transplantation,' as the Nankai and Peking University team wrote in Cell. People with diabetes often use blood sugar monitors, like this one pictured, to determine how much sugar is currently circulating in their blood stream. This helps them decide what to eat and when to use insulin to best manage their disease. By the fourth month after her transplant, the 25-year-olds patient's total time in the desired or target blood sugar range leapt up from 43.18 percent to 96.21 percent. Her so-called 'time-in-target glycemic range' has been above 98 percent, ever since, the researchers reported. Medical experts have hoped that transplants like this which subtly guide extracted patient's cells into becoming stem cells then used to grow more specialized cells for transplant back into the patient might be less prone to rejection by the body. The hope is that this method might override the need for immunosuppressant drugs, which help prevent transplant rejection at the cost of weakening a person's entire immune system. Several groups, including private pharmaceutical companies, have started testing their own islet cell transplant treatments, also created using donor stem cells. Vertex Pharmaceuticals in Boston, Massachusetts, with Dr Shapiro's assistance, has initiated a trial on a patient who also has type 1 diabetes, but is not prescribed with a regimen of immunosuppressant drugs. 'That trial is ongoing,' according to Dr Shapiro. SHOPPING Contains affiliated content. Products featured in this Mail Best article are selected by our shopping writers. If you make a purchase using links on this page, DailyMail.com will earn an affiliate commission. Click here for more information. Yes, you read that right, SALAD. The secret to having the softest, most supple skin of your life is a sneaky ingredient you may have just had for lunch quinoa. Nativa SPA is a skincare brand that feels like luxury without the steep price tags. 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And with those handful of shows now in the books, Sajaks daughter, Maggie Sajak, revealed she thinks Seacrest is doing 'great' and that's he's been 'so professional' as the new host of the iconic game show. 'I'm sure you would assume but he really appreciates the show and knows how important it is,' Maggie, 29, told Us Weekly while attending the iHeartRadio Music Festival on Saturday, September 21. 'You can really tell by how prepared he is and how he treats the contestants and how he treats the whole experience.' While Seacrest has stepped in as the newcomer, there will still be some familiarity on the set with Vanna White back in the fold as co-host. The show turned into a family affair of sorts considering Maggie has been working on the Wheel Of Fortune team as the official social correspondent since 2021. Pay Sajak's daughter, Maggie Sajak, revealed she thinks Seacrest is doing 'great' and that's he's been 'so professional' as the new host of Wheel Of Fortune since taking over September 9 Sajak has been so fond of White as a working colleague and longtime friend through the decades that Maggie and her kin consider her to be part of their family. 'Jokingly, we say she's Aunt Vanna, but I really have known her since before I was born,' she told the outlet. 'She's great, I love being able to see her now at work. We have a lot of fun, I pull her into TikToks I'm doing and things like that, so she's the best.' Maggie added, 'She really is such an icon, such a legend and such a great person too. She's as sweet as she seems.' The WOF social correspondent went on to paint the picture as to what it was like growing up on the set of such an iconic game show over the years. 'It's such a special show to so many people and it's more than just a show, which sounds maybe kinda cheesy, but it really is. I mean, this is bonding among generations,' Maggie said, before sharing about the importance the production has had on viewers. 'This is the time that families eat dinner together. I mean, it's really special,' she explained. 'When people have come up to my dad or told me how special the show is to them, it goes beyond just "I love that show" and to be a part of it now is really meaningful to me.' Maggie and her family have been protective over the Wheel Of Fortune legacy and how it would move forward following Pats departure, but she feels 'it is in great hands so we're excited to see where it goes.' Pat Sajak first announced his plan to retire as host of Wheel Of Fortune in June 2023 after 41 years on the job. Seacrest shared some complimentary comments about Pat Sajak when he stepped down to hand the reigns to him after more than four decaes Sajak, 77, said his final farewell to the show's devoted fans on June 7 The longtime Sajak-White team wore their emotions on their sleeve when bidding goodbye He said he felt he needed to leave on his own terms, and that he'd rather leave a couple years too early than too late. The Chicago, Illinois native then officially retired from the legendary show during this past season finale that aired on ABC on June 7. 'Pat, congratulations on an incredible run with Wheel of Fortune! Your dedication, charm, and wit have made the show a beloved part of American television for decades,' Seacrest shared in a heartfelt tribute to Sajak. 'Your partnership with Vanna has been nothing short of iconic, and together, youve created countless wonderful memories for viewers. Youve set the standard for hosts everywhere, and this marks the end of an era. Best wishes for all your future endeavors!' Seacrest officially began his run as host on September 9, which marked the start of the show's 42nd season. Ryan Seacrest, and Vanna White at his side, took over as host of Wheel Of Fortune on September 9, following Sajak's departure in June 'I'm sure you would assume but he really appreciates the show and knows how important it is,' Maggie Sajak told Us Weekly while attending the iHeartRadio Music Festival on Saturday, September 21 Vanna White addresses rumors she 'doesn't jibe' with Seacrest by sharing a photo of the two eating together as friends off camera While Seacrest is already carving out his own legacy at the helm, Pat Sajak is set to return to host his final season of Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune, that's set to premiere on Monday, October 7. Maggie and the Sajak family as a whole have been protective over Wheel Of Fortune and how it would move forward following Pat's departure, but she feels 'it is in great hands so we're excited to see where it goes.' Created by Merv Griffin, Wheel of Fortune ranks as the longest-running syndicated game show in the U.S., with 8,000 episodes taped and aired as of June 7, which is the last episode Pat Sajak served as host before handing the reins to Seacrest. The show, which airs on CBS, has been running continuously since its debut January 6, 1975 Former Coronation Street star Nicola Thorp revealed the most horrific part of her stalking ordeal during Friday's Good Morning Britain. The actress, 35, who played Nicola Rubinstein in the Manchester-based soap, lifted the lid on how she was stalked and terrorised for two years between 2018 and 2020 by a man who called himself her 'personal grim reaper'. She opened up to hosts Kate Garraway, 57, and Adil Ray, 50, about what happened to her and the impact it's had on her life. Opening the conversation, a shocked Kate exclaimed: 'Nicola I had no idea really about this, because that's the situation isn't is really when you're being stalked, until it gets to a court case it's a very isolating and terrifying experience.' The soap actress explained: 'I have to commend the police because when it came to reporting it to them, they did take it seriously, but I know I'm one of the lucky ones and I have a semi-public profile and I wonder if it was taken more seriously because of that.' Former Coronation Street star Nicola Thorp revealed the most horrific part of her stalking ordeal during Friday's Good Morning Britain The actress, 35, opened up to hosts Kate Garraway , 57, and Adil Ray , 50, about what happened to her and the impact it's had on her life She revealed that she still doesn't know what sparked the ordeal or how it began, but the first contact she's aware of was when the stalker sent her a photograph of his genitalia. As a women's rights campaigner, Nicola keeps her direct messages open to the public in case anyone messages her for help. She recalled: 'It carried on and carried on and over the course of two years it eventually clicked that this is various different people but all the same person. 'In fact he once pretended to be a woman who needed help to go to the police and report harassment and wanted me to meet up with "her" in real life and it actually turned out to be him - he didn't show thank goodness.' Casting her mind back to the day he was finally caught, she told Kate and Adil: 'You'd think it would be a happy day when the police called me and said "We've arrested him, we've found him". 'I was elated, asking "Who is it? Who is this man?" They said "We can't tell you"'. Silence filled the studio before Kate gasped: 'That's terrifying!' after hearing the shocking revaluation. Nicola continued: 'It was very disturbing to me that I didn't know what this man looked like, I didn't know his name, I didn't know where he lived. I begged the police for months and months to just tell me, give me some information. Nicola continued: 'It was very disturbing to me that I didn't know what this man looked like, I didn't know his name, I didn't know where he lived' Silence filled the studio before Kate gasped: 'That's terrifying!' after hearing the shocking revaluation Elsewhere in the interview, the actress revealed that the first time she ever saw her stalker face-to-face was when they appeared in court together and she was behind him in the security queue 'The most important thing for me is I wanted to know how tall he was because I wanted to know if he could carry me. I wanted to know how much a physical threat he would be. 'And nothing for months until they eventually showed me a photograph very fleetingly of what he looked like and I actually had to go to court to find out what his name was.' She admitted: 'So that I think psychologically was difficult because he then became everyone that I met. The police wouldn't even tell me if we was somebody that I knew, if he was an ex-partner.' Elsewhere in the interview, the actress revealed that the first time she ever saw her stalker face-to-face was when they appeared in court together and she was behind him in the security queue. 'You go through an airport style security system, you have to give your name in to a security guard,' Nicola said. 'I was there just trying to focus on what was happening and then I just heard this man in front of me say the name and I froze - it was him I was 30cm away.' Taken aback by the interview, Kate gasped again while Adil exclaimed: 'Goodness me'. Nicola faced her stalker, schizophrenic Ravinderjit Dhillon, 30, at Snaresbrook Crown Court in east London back in December 2023 with her fiance Nikesh Patel by her side - before he was sentenced to 30 months in jail. The actress played Nicola Rubinstein in Coronation Street (pictured in character) In an emotional witness statement, the actress told of her paranoia as the stalker referred to himself as the 'Grim Reaper' (pictured on This Morning in June 2023) In an emotional witness statement, the actress told of her paranoia as the stalker referred to himself as the 'Grim Reaper' as he used 25 different identities to target her and made sickening threats to choke and rape her. 'I lived in fear that this anonymous man who had hounded me for years was in fact someone I knew,' Ms Thorp told the court, as reported by The Sun. 'If you don't know who the person behind the keyboard is, he becomes everyone you meet and everyone you've ever met. 'All that time he knew exactly who I was and I knew nothing of him. 'When I was shown a photo of him it meant I had some freedom back, and only the freedom to run away if I saw him in the street.' She said that she had grown terrified about what her 'committed' stalker would do as she starred in a play last April - realising that he would know exactly where she would be. And her terror did not end when Dhillon was arrested - as she recalled that an abuser's victims are most at risk when their tormentor is 'cornered'. Dhillon began his warped campaign when he sent the 34-year-old an intimate photo of himself in October 2018. Sentencing Dhillon, Judge Rosa Dean said that she was 'quite sure' he had targeted Ms Thorp because of her celebrity alongside her 'determination to call out abusive and misogynistic behaviour'. She called the messages he sent to Ms Thorp 'deeply offensive and very violent' - saying they caused his victim to live 'in constant fear'. If you need help and advice, you can call the national stalking helpline on 0808 802 0300 As the 50th season of Saturday Night Live premieres this weekend, the story of how its very first episode took shape has become a legendary piece of show-business history. It's a story of how a then-30-year-old Lorne Michaels pitched a comedy-variety show in New York City with a team of unrecognized writers and performers. His vision? 'A comedy show, frank and intelligent, for young, urban adults,' Biography reported. And on the evening of October 11, 1975, Saturday Night Live was born. The first episode of Saturday Night Live premiered on October 11, 1975 The original cast still remembers the show's debut 50 years later - along with all the madness and chaos leading up to the premiere. Looking back at the first episode, the 'Not Ready for Prime Time Players' - including Chevy Chase, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman - took to the television screen with no idea they were about to make history. 'I don't think it concerned us one way or the other,' Chevy Chase told The New York Times. 'We were going to do what we do, and if you laugh, great, you laugh. You'll tell somebody else about it, and they'll laugh the next time.' The cast was about to kick off the longest running live sketch comedy show in TV history. After the first skit, Chevy Chase walked onstage, looked right at the camera and read the trademark line: 'Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!' for the first time ever The very first sketch, titled The Wolverines, features an immigrant, played by John Belushi (left), who is learning English. The head writer, Michael O'Donoghue (right), played a teacher who insisted on making Belushi repeat meaningless phrases #SNL premiered on this day in 1975! Watch John Belushi and Michael ODonoghue star in the very first sketch The Wolverines." pic.twitter.com/eRZkbSYtcw Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) October 11, 2018 Putting live comedy sketches on national TV was a risky move, but it created an instant cult hit, according to Open Culture. At the time, impersonating celebrities or taking jabs at current events weren't in the cards. The very first sketch, titled The Wolverines, features an immigrant, played by John Belushi, who is learning English. The head writer, Michael O'Donoghue, played a teacher who insisted on making Belushi repeat meaningless phrases - specifically, 'I would like to feed your fingertips to the wolverines'. It was short and nonsensical - setting the scene for what the show would offer. Valri Bromfield was the first female standup to perform on Saturday Night In the first episode, Jim Henson featured atypical adult-like characters from the Muppets world At the conclusion of the first skit, Chase walked onstage and looked right into the camera, reading the trademark line: 'Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!' While the very first season of SNL was an experiment in live comedy, it formed the basis for what would become an established television institution. Chase originally turned down an offer to join the show but changed his mind after only a few days - eventually going on to become one of the most famous faces to emerge from the cast. He said that despite the first episode have a reputation for being chaotic, it was 'not pandemonium at all.' 'We were very controlled about who was to do what,' he told the New York Times. Billy Preston was the first musical guest on Saturday Night Live, preforming Fancy Lady and Nothing From Nothing Another skit portrayed a home security technician demonstrating how vulnerable a family was to a home invasion Jane Curtin walked through the door to audition for SNL in the summer of 1975 and was met with producers asking her what she had prepared for them. 'The classic anxiety dream,' she told the Times. 'I was quiet and nobody paid any attention to me. I didn't know how to pitch. I had never had to do that in my life.' Luckily, she had previously acted in theater, commercials and a Boston-area improv group, and had some old material lingering around in her purse. 'It was a big purse,' she said. Chase anchored the first ever 'Weekend Update' on SNL In Jane Curtin's skit in the first episode, Trial, where she writes what her attacker said instead of saying it The Wolverines was the first ever on episode one Curtin was hit with 'imposter syndrome' in the weeks leading up to the first episode - mindlessly wandering the 17th floor of Rockefeller Plaza wondering how to create new material for herself. But her faith prevailed, and she appeared in several sketches. She kept herself in a bubble - never paying much attention to the audience - noting how the first broadcast 'went by in a blur.' When the show started gaining attention, she realized her life was beginning to change. 'You'd pass by people and they would shake,' she said. 'They had a physical reaction to you, because they could feel the energy behind what was happening at 30 Rock. And it was very, very exciting.' In Bee Hospital, bee fathers are informed of their newborns' ranks In the first episode, Bromfield performed a monologue where she mimics a teacher and a volleyball player Valri Bromfield was the first female standup to perform on Saturday Night. She knew she wouldn't stay around long - not wanting to deal with the stress of competition among performers in the show. But she did find the environment 'thrilling.' 'It was a festival of neurodiversity,' she told the Times. 'ADHD galore. Character disorders, personality disorders. It was everything you could ever wish for.' Musician Janis Ian performed on the debut episode with strep throat and a 104-degree fever. Dan Aykroyd's first appearance on SNL The original cast of the first episode Chase quickly became one of the most notable faces on Saturday Night Live She didn't look at it as a career-defining moment as much as another booking on her already busy schedule. But she is amazed at where the show landed 50 years later. 'It has become so different from anything anyone could remotely have envisioned,' she told the Times. 'Nobody thought anything could last this long. But it's mythic now, and I look very smart.' Lorne Michaels reflected on the original cast - and what they all had in common - in an unaired 60 Minutes clip. 'Everybody that I chose had gone through some screw-up in adolescence in that original group. Either death of a parent, divorce, something, some upheaval,' People reported. Lorne Michaels pitched the idea for Saturday Night Live as comedy-variety show with a team of unrecognized writers and performers As the show thrived, it launched the careers of many familiar faces - from Eddie Murphy and Adam Sandler to Will Ferrell and Tiny Fey He noted that the comedy legends from 1975 were 'all stuck in adolescence' for one reason or another. Over its first few seasons, SNL successfully drew larger ratings and bigger names from comedy and music. As the show thrived, it launched the careers of many familiar faces - from Eddie Murphy and Adam Sandler to Will Ferrell and Tiny Fey. Now, the story of the first episode in SNL history is portrayed in the feature film Saturday Night, which hit select theaters on Friday. Directed by Jason Reitman, the film portrays the 90 minutes leading up to the show's premiere. Saturday Night will hit theaters everywhere on October 11 - paying homage to the first episode ever aired on October 11, 1975. Giada De Laurentiis shared a group of photos and video clips celebrating her summer memories on Instagram. '& that's a wrap for summer 2024,' she captioned the post, adding a crying emoji. Included in that group was a video of her lookalike daughter Jade Marie De Laurentiis-Thompson, 16, singing with her band, The Hours. Jade can be seen singing lead vocals nearby a train station, possibly engaging in the tradition of busking. The Food Network star who had sinus surgery earlier this year shares Jade with her ex-husband, fashion designer Todd Thompson. Giada De Laurentiis shared a group of photos and video clips celebrating her summer memories on Instagram. '& that's a wrap for summer 2024,' she captioned the post, adding a crying emoji Giada frequently shares snaps with her only child on her social media and she has a lot more time to do that now that she has retired from The Food Network after 21 years as one of the network's biggest stars. To put it simply, she was burnt out as she told Rebecca Minkoff on her Superwoman podcast recently. 'I would switch gears without knowing it every seven years,' she explained. 'So I did Everyday Italian for seven years, then I got pregnant, and I was like, "OK, I cant do that show anymore. Ive got to do a reincarnation of the show because Im now pregnant. Im a different person,' she said of having Jade in 2008. She joined The Food Network in 2002 and over the years put out the shows, including Everyday Italian, which won her a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Lifestyle Host, Giada's Weekend Getaways, Giada at Home, Giada Entertains and Giada in Italy. And walking away from all of that terrified her. 'It took a while for me to make this decision because I was very fearful of leaving Food Network,' she said. 'Because when youre a big fish in that pond and then you get out, who knows whats gonna happen next? But I really started to become interested in the entrepreneurial sort of journey. And I realized I couldnt do both.' Included in that group was a video of her lookalike daughter Jade Marie De Laurentiis-Thompson, 16, singing with her band, The Hours The Food Network star who had sinus surgery earlier this year shares Jade with her ex-husband, fashion designer Todd Thompson Giada frequently shares snaps with her only child on her social media and she has a lot more time to do that now that she has retired from The Food Network after 21 years as one of the network's biggest stars De Laurentiis cited her 2015 divorce, her busy work schedule and being a single mom as reasons she was burnt out and 'felt like the world was crumbling around me.' 'So about two and a half years ago, I finally was like, "okay, I'm gonna make the jump, and I'm gonna put my energy in Giadzy."' And so far at least, she doesn't miss it, which surprises her. 'I know, I should say yes. I think its because I got burnt out. I really worked so hard for so long. I got burnt out and I couldnt see a path that was exciting anymore. I need excitement. And if Im getting bored, my viewers are getting bored,' she explained. Waiting For Godot (Theatre Royal Haymarket, London) Verdict: Exquisite torture Rating: Midnight always strikes and the time was always going to come. Because, gentle reader, although I have been a critic for decades now, I have managed to avoid Waiting For Godot. Although I read the play at school, as far as Samuel Beckett's masterpiece of existential despair goes, I remained, until now, virgo intacto. One of the reasons I've avoided this parable of futility was that I thought I 'got' it so didn't need to see the work in its meagre flesh. Also, I'd heard so much about it, it was as if I'd seen it already. It is, after all, micro-managed by the Beckett Estate, which demands strict adherence to stage directions. So I was met by the same grey lunar landscape and dead tree found in all past productions. The only difference was that this time it stars Lucien Msamati and Ben Whishaw in the tale of two tramps that has waylaid thesps including Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart since 1952. The set-up of the two men waiting in vain for the arrival of a legendary saviour called Godot is notorious. The great 20th-century theatre critic Kenneth Tynan remarked that one glance at the cast list ensures you know the outcome: Godot never arrives. Spoiler alert: there is no spoiler. The message is summed up by the bleak line 'we are born astride the grave, daylight gleams for an instant, then it is night once more'. It is not enough to 'get' the play, it must also be endured. Happily (and I use that word advisedly) it is better on the stage than the page. To read, it's a gloomy blueprint for giving up. Yet in performance it's an almost cheerful Laurel and Hardy double act interrupted by a grandiloquent squire called Pozzo (Jonathan Slinger) driving a human pack animal, Lucky (Tom Edden). The set-up of the two men waiting in vain for the arrival of a legendary saviour called Godot is notorious James Macdonald has clearly scoured the text for its morsels of amusement and crumbs of comfort One of the reasons I've avoided this parable of futility was that I thought I 'got' it so didn't need to see the work Since Godot never arrives, killing time is the order of the night, and here the filthy looking Msamati and Whishaw do it masterfully. Whishaw is the skinny Stan Laurel the nervier, twitching one, who's also delicate and wistful. Msamati is the older, plumper Oliver Hardy father figure afflicted with sore feet. He is sadder, more sardonic, and cranky. Slinger, however, almost steals the show as the haughty squire in a Homburg hat. Needy and craving approval, he provokes the envy and contempt of the tramps by glugging a bottle of wine and munching a chicken leg. He in turn is upstaged by Edden as Lucky, a slobbering zombie who erupts into a nonsensical speech of theological gobbledygook. James Macdonald has clearly scoured the text for its morsels of amusement and crumbs of comfort. So, although I have nothing to compare it with, I suspect that this is as good as it gets. I tired over its pitiless two-hour, 40-minute duration, and perhaps we are supposed to. But for me at least, the wait is over. I've kept my appointment with Godot after all. Until December 14. Marilyn gives complex US politics a lift Here In America (Orange Tree Theatre, London) Verdict: Stars and strikes Rating: The great American playwright Arthur Miller told the great American director Elia Kazan he would never work with him again after Kazan denounced friends as communists to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952. David Edgar's absorbing play asks why he did it and why Miller, who was also subpoenaed by the Committee in 1956, did in fact work with Kazan again, on his play After The Fall. In short, it's about idealism versus pragmatism. Typically of Edgar, who's revered for complex political plays, it is a densely argued series of discussions. Thankfully, Kazan's first wife (Molly Day Thacher) and Miller's second wife (Marilyn Monroe) bring much-needed emotional ventilation. Left to their own devices, the men's exchanges can sound like the turgid minutes of the Committee itself. David Edgar's absorbing play asks why Arthur Miller told the great American director Elia Kazan he would never work with him again after Kazan denounced friends as communists Typically of Edgar, who's revered for complex political plays, it is a densely argued series of discussions In James Dacre's nicely pitched production, Shaun Evans's Kazan is an ethical gadfly justifying shopping his friends on the grounds that they deserved it, he just wanted to work, and they'd have done the same. Michael Aloni's Miller lookalike is an ethical puritan who wasn't in quite such a tight spot having never (unlike Kazan) been a Communist Party member. Faye Castelow as Molly makes the men cut to the chase, while Jasmine Blackborow's Marilyn insists Miller stand by his refusal to name names (for which he got a suspended one-year prison sentence). This is certainly well-worn territory, so why now? Surely because America is once more openly at odds with itself. Until October 19. This Roman warrior could do with losing his temper Coriolanus (National Theatre, London) Verdict: Misses red mist Rating: Shakespeare's Coriolanus was the Roy Keane of the ancient world. A Roman warrior who 'waxed like a sea', and struck down towns 'like a planet'. More than this, and like the ex-Manchester United captain, he's a red-mist artist with a whopping temper. Sadly, though, this startling trait is missing from a mostly courteous Coriolanus played by David Oyelowo best known as peacemaking Martin Luther King in the 2014 film Selma. Ask him to stoop to make his case for being honoured as a Consul by the people of Rome, as he is here, and the normally hair-triggered General can be counted on to throw a catastrophic wobbly. He's wound up more easily than a wristwatch. Yet Lyndsey Turner's spectacular production turns his story into a portentous version of dystopian sci-fi movies The Hunger Games. Underpinned by a cinematic soundtrack, the play's serious musings on political populism barely get a look-in. The cast spend a lot of time distractingly re-arranging furniture, as if on a photo shoot Oyelowo's warlord is too self-possessed. He's more a tetchy Raheem Sterling than a bone-crunching midfielder with a volcanic temper Instead, the neo-fascist brutalism of Es Devlin's stunningly lit set dominates. Set mostly in a museum, amid pillars, busts and the famous statue of Romulus and Remus suckling at a she-wolf, this historical past is also the living present for characters including protesters who vandalise it (in an easy nod to Just Stop Oil). The cast spend a lot of time distractingly re-arranging furniture, as if on a photo shoot. This might have triggered a more irascible Coriolanus, but Oyelowo's warlord is too self-possessed. He's more a tetchy Raheem Sterling than a bone-crunching midfielder with a volcanic temper. No one need be afraid. Until November 9. A Face In The Crowd (Young Vic, London) Verdict: Hit and miss Rating: A Face In The Crowd is a new musical by Elvis Costello. It has some great beats and fine lyric writing, but a much less incisive grasp of American politics. Based on Elia Kazan's 1957 film, it's about a rough-neck drifter called Lonesome Rhodes given a chance to let rip on radio thanks to a radical young talk show host called Marcia. When ratings for Marcia's programme soar, Larry is offered a platform on TV where he gets out of hand and is chosen to fortify a mousey Republican in a campaign for President. Naturally we're meant to think of muck-raking shock-jocks like Steve Bannon endorsing Donald Trump. From left to right, Phil Bateman, Anna Fleischle, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Elvis Costello, Sarah Ruhl and Lizzi Gee attend the press night after party for 'A Face In The Crowd' Costello's eclectic musical score features good, rocky numbers galore and the title song is an anthemic lung buster with a Gospel undertow. Country and Western tunes add apple pie sweetness and Costello proves himself a fine jingle writer in a spoof ad for a pep pill called Vitajax, before a virile hoedown about eating red meat, Blood and Hot Sauce. None of that quite unifies a show driven with verve and energy by Ramin Karimloo as Mr Rhodes. He strums vigorously, sings potently and makes political bile taste like cotton candy. But that's not enough to create chemistry with Anoushka Lucas's rather prim Marcia and her sad and quailing voice reminiscent of Nora Jones. Kwame Kwei-Armah has assembled a good team for his farewell production at the Young Vic, but the cast feel like they're rattling around in yawning spaces on Anna Fleischle's retro Fifties set. Musically it's a pleasant two and a half hours, but satirically it's not quite hitting the proverbial cow's ass with a banjo. Asi Wind, Incredibly Human (Underbelly Soho) Verdict: True confessions of a con artiste Rating: Reviewed by Georgina Brown for the Daily Mail Did you know that the 43 quintillion combinations of a Rubik's cube would extend from the Earth to Pluto 730 times? In his latest fiendish show, Asi Wind 'solves' two cubes simultaneously, one in each hand, eyes shut, in a few tense seconds. It looks like magic but it's clearly for real; a breath-taking demonstration of Wind's mental agility (the solution lies in an algorithm), awesome memory and sleight of both hands. Which is his point. Wind turns the idea of magic on its head. 'I'm going to lie to you a lot,' he says, placing his metaphorical and literal - pack of cards on the table. There's a gleam in his eyes. Believe me, nobody lies better than Wind. In his latest fiendish show, Asi Wind 'solves' two cubes simultaneously, one in each hand, eyes shut, in a few tense seconds As he says, it's all lies. But seeing is believing. Wind is a consummate fraudster, a con artiste extraordinaire Dressed casually in black, he looks more like a maths teacher than a showman. Less a talker than a doer, there's nothing magical about his flat patter. And yet, over 80 giddying, gasp-inducing minutes, he reads minds, memorises a pack of cards, reveals the songs from a secret playlist, tears a page from Animal Farm, burns it to a cinder and reattaches it, without breaking a sweat. In one 'trick', he fiddles with a teeny piece of clay. Suddenly, the recognisable profile of a person whose name had been written on a postcard by a random member of the audience, emerges, through shadow-play, on a screen. In another, using dayglo paint, he brushes abstract shapes onto four canvases which, fitted together, create the portrait of another celeb, 'selected' by a member of the audience. The unmistakable image of X glows in the dark. My daughter was one of those invited on to the stage to hold a balloon. He gave one of them my daughter's a mind of its own. As he says, it's all lies. But seeing is believing. Wind is a consummate fraudster, a con artiste extraordinaire. Eugene Onegin (Royal Opera) Verdict: No sets, no ideas except daft ones, well-sung Rating: Opera by Tully Potter for the Daily Mail The stage is so bare, the clothing so inappropriate, that the sets and the period costumes must have been hijacked by Putin's operatives. The pesky man gets in everywhere. But of course, you can get lovely nearly-new garments from hospice shops. The director must have been kidnapped by people smugglers and carried off to Rwanda; but how marvellous it is that the cast and chorus have been able to make things up as they go along! It is all in the best spirit of World War II The stage is so bare, the clothing so inappropriate, that the sets and the period costumes must have been hijacked by Putin's operatives That the audience enjoys it all must mainly be down to conductor Henrik Nanasi, who secures excellent orchestral playing and choral singing Unfortunately, they have not read the libretto based on Pushkin's verse novel very carefully, so some daft things happen. And there is a distinct absence of serfs to fetch and carry, as there would be in early 19th-century Russia. Madame Larina and the nurse Filipyevna carry their own chairs on at the start and I soon begin to worry about those chairs (if there were three, we could all sing 'Three chairs for Tchaikovsky!') The chairs are used by Olga to take down Tatyana's letter to Onegin as she misses out much of it, he must be a clairvoyant to read it. One chair soon disappears. The other pops up in the most unlikely places, even the duel scene, and serves for Olga to do very naughty things with Onegin (he's the Mr Darcy character) which are not in Pushkin or the libretto. The poet Lensky (the tragic equivalent of Mr Bingley) is supposed to be shot by Onegin but for some reason commits suicide. The cast must have worked out that if the gun happened to be live, none of them could be sued or arraigned, as happened to poor Alex Baldwin over that unfortunate Western. How democratic it is that the same people who came in from working in the fields in Scene 1 are somehow at the grand ball in St Petersburg six years later, in the same charity shop clothes. The dancing is more redolent of Theresa May than the Mariinsky Theatre, but one has to make allowances. Oh the singing is rather good. Armenian tenor Liparit Avetisyan is a lyrical, plangent Lensky and Kristina Mkhitaryan, a Russian of Armenian heritage, is an affecting Tatyana. American contralto Avery Amereau convinces as Olga and Canadian baritone Gordon Bintner brings fine tone to Onegin. Brindley Sherratt, interrupting his holiday to replace a Russian afflicted by the Curse of Putin, is Gremin to the life. Other roles are well taken. That the audience enjoys it all must mainly be down to conductor Henrik Nanasi, who secures excellent orchestral playing and choral singing. If those listed as director and set designer, Ted Huffman and Hyemi Shin, want to donate their fees to charity, I suggest the Distressed Poseurs' Foundation. Ellen DeGeneres' bizarre nickname for disgraced rapper Sean 'Diddy' Combs has come to light in wake of his sex trafficking arrest. A 2016 tweet from the comedian, 66, has been recirculating on X (formerly Twitter) in recent days, in which she referred to Diddy as 'Cuddle McSnugglestuff.' The nickname was part of a brief shout-out that DeGeneres' had tweeted to Combs on his birthday. 'Happy birthday, P Diddy, Puff Daddy, Sean Combs, or as I call him, Cuddle McSnugglestuff. You don't need to know why,' she wrote on November 4, 2016. Some found it concerning that she was on a 'nickname basis' with the music mogul, who is now sitting in an NYC jail on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering. 'Do you know how sick you gotta be to be on a nickname basis with Diddy??!?!?' one fan wrote in reply to DeGeneres' tweet on Thursday. Ellen DeGeneres ' bizarre nickname for disgraced rapper Sean ' Diddy ' Combs has come to light in wake of his sex trafficking arrest; Combs, DeGeneres and DeGeneres' wife Portia De Rossi seen in 2008 A 2016 tweet from the comedian, 66, has been recirculating on X (formerly Twitter ) in recent days, in which she referred to Diddy as 'Cuddle McSnugglestuff' Another remarked: 'This aged poorly. Here to comment before the inevitable delete.' A different X user added: 'What a strange thing to say' Fans found the nickname especially creepy because Combs's ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura and numerous other individual have openly accused him of rape and sexual assault. He is also alleged to have organized wild sex parties dubbed 'Freak Offs' at his homes, where 'coerced' individuals were allegedly forced to engaged in days-long sexual exhibitions for Combs' pleasure. Some speculated that DeGeneres' tweet would soon be deleted from her X account which boasts 73.9million followers in an attempt to distance herself from Combs. DeGeneres is just one of many A-list stars whose past interactions and/or affiliations with Combs have been looked at in wake of his September 17 indictment. Days after his arrest, a clip of DeGeneres seemingly alluding to Combs' penchant for parties during a 2018 interview with the music mogul. In the February 2018 appearance, DeGeneres, 66, noted that Combs had arrived late to her taping and asked if he would be tardy for a party she was planning. 'Are you gonna be early for my party?' said DeGeneres, whose career has been scorched over the past four years following a toxic workplace scandal that eventually saw her long-running show canceled. Some found it concerning that she was on a 'nickname basis' with the music mogul, who is now sitting in an NYC jail on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering; Combs seen in 2023 Combs responded, 'Yes I am - no - you know I have to arrive fashionably late,' to which DeGeneres said, 'Not too late, though - please.' Combs asked DeGeneres, 'What time would you like me there?' to which she said, 'I'll tell you later.' She added: 'But not too late - cause, you know, once you get there the party really starts, you know what I'm saying? 'Yeah ... I got you - I promise you I'm not gonna let you down on this big one, for real,' Combs said. 'Your feet are gonna have blisters, you're gonna be dancing so hard.' DeGeneres - whose awkward November 2019 exchange with Dakota Johnson preceded an onswell of bad publicity during the 2020 pandemic - told Combs, 'I can't wait.' Diddy was indicted in New York on September 17 and charged with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. He pleaded not guilty to all three charges and was denied bail. The judge who will preside over his case agreed with prosecutors that he was a serious flight risk and that he posed a danger to others. Some speculated that DeGeneres' tweet would soon be deleted from her X account which boasts 73.9million followers to further distance herself from Combs; DeGeneres seen in 2016 Days after his arrest, a clip of DeGeneres seemingly alluding to Combs' penchant for parties during a 2018 interview with the music mogul In the February 2018 appearance, DeGeneres, 66, noted that Combs had arrived late to her taping and asked if he would be tardy for a party she was planning In the wake of the indictment, there has been attention on celebrities who had past been pictured attending Combs' parties, or spoke about them in interviews. Among the stars who have acknowledged attending the events include Khloe Kardashian and Ashton Kutcher, while other celebrities photographed at his events include Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lopez, Tommy Lee and Russell Simmons (whose own career was halted by allegations of misconduct). On Thursday, Combs' attorney stated that the rapper can't wait to testify in his upcoming sex trafficking trial in order to tell his side of the 'story.' 'I don't know that I could keep him off the stand. I think he is very eager to tell his story. And I think he will tell every part of his story,' his attorney Marc Agnifilo told TMZ. Aussie Oasis fans are set to face a huge scramble for tickets for the band's upcoming tour Down Under. Liam and Noel Gallagher sent fans wild when they confirmed they would finally be reuniting after Oasis famously disbanded in August 2009. They first announced a string of UK and Europe dates and teased world tour plans were underway, and it has now been revealed they will be visiting Australia. According to NME, Oasis will be taking to the stage in Sydney and Melbourne, with the exact tour dates and number of shows still yet to be confirmed. However, the rockers will reportedly not be visiting Brisbane, Adelaide or Western Australia, with fans set for hours-long travel for the select concerts. New Zealand has also seemingly been snubbed from the Oceania dates, meaning there will be no doubt be even higher demand for the Australian concerts. Some fans took to X - formerly known as Twitter - to share their dismay at the amount of Aussie cities that look to be snubbed on the upcoming tour. One user wrote: '1: Typical ('Australian Tour') & 2: Looks like I'll be going to Sydney and Melbourne... @oasis at Adelaide Oval would of been solid!' Disgruntled Aussie Oasis fans could be set to face a huge scramble for tickets as the Gallagher brothers have missed out a string of key cities on their 2025 tour (pictured: Liam Gallagher) A second fumed: 'Noooooooooo please not just Sydney and Melbourne @liamgallagher @NoelGallagher @oasis Perth is little Britain.' Meanwhile, a disappointed fan from New Zealand wrote: 'Looks like I'll be going to Aussie.' 'Not too many dates then really, or are they doing them more then once maybe?' another theorised. After ticket chaos for the UK leg of the tour, demand is expected to be sky-high for the Australian dates as it will be the first time the Wonderwall hitmakers have toured the country in 19 years. Oasis are not the first A-list talents to have caused fury Down Under in recent weeks by snubbing a string of notable Aussie cities on their upcoming tours. Global pop star Dua Lipa was notably hit by huge backlash for skipping over Brisbane and Perth on her upcoming 2025 tour. Controversial Brit rocker Pete Doherty also divided fans when he unveiled the list of cities his popular band The Libertines will be visiting in April 2025. Aussies on the West Coast were left devastated upon learning the band will only be hitting three major cities across the East Coast - Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Taylor Swift memorably also only visited Sydney and Melbourne during her sold-out Eras tour earlier this year, with fans forced to scramble for the sought-after tickets. According to NME, Liam and Noel (pictured) will be taking to the stage in Sydney and Melbourne, but will not be visiting Brisbane, Adelaide or Western Australia on their 2025 tour Many Oasis fans have already been left empty-handed when the hotly-anticipated 17-date UK reunion tour sold out in a matter of hours in an online fiasco. Around 14million fans faced eight-hour queues in a bid to get their hands on the highly-sought-after tickets to see the rock band live, with many still missing out. While other lucky fans managed to nab tickets, many were forced to splash out huge amounts on them after dynamic pricing saw costs soar to almost double within mere hours. The Gallagher brothers then made tickets available for another two Wembley shows via a staggered invite-only ballot, but many fans were left disappointed after not being called up for the sale despite queuing for hours in the first sale. Australian tickets will likely go on sale through Ticketek or Live Nation, who respectively sold tickets for other global stars including Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo. Frontier Touring are also a major provider Down Under, and have been responsible for advertising tickets for both Take That and Billie Eilish's 2024 Australia tours. Many Oasis fans have already been left empty-handed when the hotly-anticipated 17-date UK reunion tour sold out in a matter of hours in an online fiasco (Oasis are pictured in 2008) While no news has been confirmed on Ticketek's website, there is a generic waitlist page encouraging fans to sign up to be the first to know 'when an Oasis tour hits Australia'. It reads: 'Want to know when an Oasis tour hits the Australia? Want to know when Oasis tickets go on sale? 'Waitlist your favourite events and we'll contact you when any information becomes available.' Daily Mail Australia also understands that the ticket pricing for Aussie shows would be dictated by the artist, rather than the ticket provider. Saudi Arabia unveils Arab, Europe joint initiative to establish Palestine State In a move likely to change the Middle East politics, Saudi Arabia Thursday (September 26, 2024) announced a joint Arab and European initiative to establish an independent and sovereign Palestine State Saturday September 28, 2024 10:40 AM , ummid.com with inputs from Agencies Riyadh: In a move likely to change the Middle East politics, Saudi Arabia Thursday (September 26, 2024) announced a joint Arab and European initiative to establish an independent and sovereign Palestine State. Billed as the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the two-state solution was unveiled during Prince Faisal bin Farhans speech at a meeting that included the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and Norway, according to news agency Reuters. Prince Faisal said the first meeting of the new alliance will be held in Riyadh. The EU Foreign Affairs Chief, Josep Borrell, said the first follow-up meetings would also be held in Riyadh and Brussels. "On behalf of the Arab and Islamic countries and our European partners, we announce the launch of the international coalition to implement the two-state solution", Prince Faisal said. We will make every effort to achieve a reliable and irreversible plan for just and comprehensive peace, he added. The Saudi minister added that "the establishment of a Palestinian state is a fixed matter, and is not up for negotiation," stressing that "waiting for negotiated solutions in Palestine is no longer a possible option." The latest announcement came ten days after Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammad bin Salman asserted that recognition of Israel or any ties with the Jewish state is possible only after the State of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital is established. While inaugurating the activities of the first year of the 9th session of the Shoura Council in Riyadh, Mohammad bin Salman also slammed what he called crimes of the Israeli occupation authority against the Palestinian. "We renew the Kingdom's rejection and strong condemnation of the crimes of the Israeli occupation authority against the Palestinian people, ignoring international and humanitarian law in a new and bitter chapter of suffering, the Saudi Crown Prince said. The Kingdom will not stop its tireless work towards the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and we affirm that the Kingdom will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without that," he added. Mohammed bin Salmans statement came shortly after the UN General Assembly passed a draft resolution calling Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian lands, including West Bank and East Jerusalem. The resolution passed with 124 of the 193 members of the UN supporting its asked the far right Zionist regime to end its occupation and remove all settlements in 12 months. The UN vote and Saudi stand on the formation of the State of Palestine comes in the midst of the Israeli war in Gaza where the occupation forces have killed more than 41,000 Palestinians since Oct 7, 2023. Follow ummid.com WhatsApp Channel for all the latest updates. Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic. Blac Chyna has been accused of domestic violence, civil assault and battery in a newly-filed $10 million lawsuit from her ex-boyfriend Twin Hector. Hector, 27, whose full name is Taiyon Hector, said in legal docs filed Monday in California Superior Court that the 36-year-old reality star hit him while he was sleeping, and verbally abused him frequently in the three years they dated from August of 2020 thru March of 2023. Hector said in legal docs reviewed by People that Chyna, whose real name is Angela Renee White, threatened to murder him multiple times - and was particularly mercurial after she consumed alcohol. Hector told the court that the Washington D.C. native - who is mother to 11-year-old son King with Tyga, 34, and seven-year-old daughter Dream with Rob Kardashian, 37 - battered him in a 'vicious attack' in September 2021 as he slept. Hector and Chyna initially crossed paths in August of 2020, he told the court, and he quickly moved in with her, in Woodland Hills, California. Blac Chyna, 36, has been accused of domestic violence in a newly-filed lawsuit from her ex-boyfriend Twin Hector, 27, who says she hit him while he was sleeping and verbally abused him frequently in the three years they dated. Pictured in LA September 14 Chyna 'would regularly drink alcohol and use other drugs, to excess,' Hector said in legal docs, which led to her behaving in a 'physically violent and verbally threatening and abusive' manner, adding that the outbursts would come 'for no apparent reason.' Hector told the court that he 'would always do his best to avoid the blows' when Chyna was hitting him, and would try to restrain her. When she was sober afterwards, Chyna would either not remember the incidents or say she was sorry for them - without a measure of 'sincere remorse' - Hector said in legal docs. Hector said that he suggested to her to 'seek medical and/or psychological treatment for her propensity for violence,' but she declined, and demanded he abide 'by her every instruction or demand.' Hector told the court that he 'would always do his best to avoid the blows' when Chyna was hitting him, and would try to restrain her. When she was sober afterwards, Chyna would either not remember the incidents or say she was sorry for them - without a measure of 'sincere remorse' - Hector said in legal docs. Hector told the court that in the incident in which he pummeled him while he slept, she threw a series of 'multiple closed-fisted punches, elbow blows, and knee kicks to his body and face.' Hector said in legal docs that 'without warning,' he found himself bleeding profusely and 'virtually blinded by the blows to his eyes.' Hector, whose full name is Taiyon Hector, accused the reality star of committing acts of domestic violence, civil assault and battery during their relationship Chyna 'would regularly drink alcohol and use other drugs, to excess,' Hector said, which led to her behaving in a 'physically violent and verbally threatening and abusive' manner Hector said in legal docs that when Chyna realized how bad she had hurt him physically, she called her doctor to make a house call and render first aid to him. He said the doctor recommended he see multiple specialists - including a plastic surgeon, neurologist, ophthalmological surgeon and psychiatrist - to treat his injuries. Chyna 'has had violence and anger issues resulting from her abuse of alcohol for many years, and that the primary victims of such violence and abuse are the partners with whom she is in intimate relationships,' Hector told the court. Hector said in legal docs that he's dealt with PTSD, headaches and insomnia as result of the abuse he says Chyna inflicted on him. He told the court that physical injuries he incurred while they dated included a broken nose, nerve damage, whiplash, facial cuts and a scar. He said in legal docs that he hopes the suit will persuade Chyna 'to get help' and show that her celebrity status does not make her 'above the law, especially when it comes to domestic violence.' Hector told the court he 'sincerely hopes that [Chyna's] damaging acts or omissions as alleged in this complaint never occur, to anyone, ever again.' The lawyer representing Hector, Kirk Edward Schenck, told TMZ that 'it is a shocking experience for any man to go through - being attacked by a female aggressor in a domestic violence context and knowing they cannot fight back or even defend themselves for fear of being mislabeled (falsely) the de facto aggressor. 'Every day in America men suffer what are often brutal injuries, but many lack the courage to come forward and protect their legal rights. Our client is willing to stand up and seek protection under California's Domestic Violence Protection Act - which applies to all genders. He hopes other non-female victims of domestic violent crime will feel free to do the same.' Chyna's outbursts would come 'for no apparent reason,' her ex said in court docs. Pictured in LA in June Chyna has past faced allegations of domestic abuse, from her one-time fiance Rob Kardashian. Pictured in 2016 in Las Vegas Chyna a year ago confirmed her romance with current boyfriend, Grammy-winning songwriter and artist Derrick Milano, via Instagram Chyna has past faced allegations of domestic abuse, from her one-time fiance Rob Kardashian. The younger brother of Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian testified in an April 2022 court hearing that during their relationship in 2016, she struck him with a metal rod, tried to choke him with an iPhone cord and aimed an unloaded gun in his direction. Kardashian said that Chyna had 'tried to kill' him amid their 'toxic relationship.' Chyna a year ago confirmed her romance with current boyfriend, Grammy-winning songwriter and artist Derrick Milano, via Instagram. 'They always say don't go looking for love, let love find you,' Chyna told People last fall. 'In this case love found us. I know that might sound cliche, but hey, it be like that sometimes.' Earlier this month, Chyna took to Instagram with multiple posts declaring she had been sober for two years. 'Thank you to everyone who joined me in this special moment,' Chyna said September 14. 'Your support means the world to me. God has truly blessed me with grace, and I will cherish this journey forever.' People who are experiencing domestic violence are implored to contact National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. Calls are toll-free and confidential; and the line is open 24/7 in more than 170 languages. Julia Morris has revealed she has been diagnosed with cancer as she bravely gave an insight into her gruelling treatment on Friday. The I'm A Celebrity Australia host, 56, took to Instagram to publicly share her diagnosis for the first time and revealed she has undergone surgery. She posted a confronting photograph of herself lying hospital with a huge bandage across her face as she explained that she had a 'pretty big' skin cancer removed. Though the comedian put on a brave smile for the camera, she told how one of her eyebrows has been left marred from the surgery and warned fans of the importance of sun safety. 'How is your 50+ [SPF] working out for you? I wish I had used it more in my life. Another pretty big skin cancer removed this week,' she captioned the picture. 'Going to have to up my eyebrow drawing game. 'The Aussie sun is no joke & while I lived like a pig on a spit in my 20's, I'm absolutely suffering the consequences now. 'Please slip slop slap & as always, early detection is the key. Julia Morris has revealed she has been diagnosed with cancer as she bravely gave an insight into her gruelling treatment on Friday 'Big love to Dr Sheridan & the glorious team at Phoenix Dermatology & the Avenue Hospital for all the TLC this week Jx.' Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Julia for further comment. Julia's famous friends flocked to the comments section of her post to share their love and support with the beloved TV presenter. Bindi Irwin, the sister of Julia's I'm A Celebrity co-host Robert, commented, 'Sending a giant hug from all of us,' alongside a red heart. Fashion designer Lana Wilkinson wrote: 'Look after yourself lovely. Xx.' New Zealand-Australian hitmaker Ricki-Lee Coulter commented a series of red love hearts. While Bachelor star Brittany Hockley said: 'Good on you for sending out the message! Get better quick love xx.' She posted a confronting photograph of herself lying hospital with a huge bandage across her face as she explained how she had a 'pretty big' skin cancer removed Though she donned a brave smile for the camera, the TV presenter revealed she had a 'big skin cancer removed' from her face, marring one of her eyebrows The Block judge Shaynna Blaze added: 'Oh you poor thing - at first I thought you had a Santa hat on. You being all Jolly and all that! Get well and glad you are in the early detection stages!' 'Beautiful lady! Sending you love and laughs. Quick recovery my love,' fitness guru Michelle Bridges penned. 'A most relevant reminder. Sending love x,' former MasterChef judge Melissa Leong said in support. 'Sending you love Queen J, thank you for sharing,' former Miss Universe Australia Olivia Molly Rogers wrote. Former Home and Away star Tim Campbell said: 'Wowzer! Lots of healing love for a super recovery.' British actress and comedian Dawn French joked that Julia was an 'attention seeker' before sharing a kiss emoji in support. Julia's famous friends flocked to the comments of her post to share their love and support And radio star Michael 'Wippa' Wipfli wrote: 'Hang in there, hope you're ok. Sending love.' Julia is best known for her role as co-host on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! Australia, first alongside Dr Chris Brown and now conservationist Robert. She has been nominated for a Silver Logie five times for her work as an actress on House Husbands, and has been in the running for the Gold Logie twice as a host of I'm A Celebrity. The TV star shares two daughters, Ruby, 17, and Sophie, 15, with her ex-husband Dan Thomas, who she split from in 2021 after 16 years of marriage. One of Hollyoaks' most stunning sirens has ditched soaps for a career in fine art - 12 years after her memorable role. Best known for her role as bully Maddie Morrison, Scarlett Bowman departed the soap in 2012 when her character was brutally killed in a car crash. Despite being one of the soap's biggest villains, Scarlett praised Maddie as being an example for other young viewers. During her year-long stint in the village, Maddie set her boyfriend Callum a three-month sex ban until she was ready to lose her virginity to him. She was also nominated for the Sexiest Female at the British Soap Awards in 2012, but lost out to Michelle Keegan. One of Hollyoaks ' most stunning sirens has ditched soaps for a career in fine art - 12 years after her memorable role Best known for her role as bully Maddie Morrison, Scarlett Bowman departed the soap in 2012 when her character was brutally killed in a car crash Despite being one of the soap's biggest villains, Scarlett praised Maddie as being an example for other young viewers Eventually Maddie met her demise in spectacular fashion, killed by a flying minibus door following a devastating crash, as part of the soap's iconic Enjoy The Ride storyline. But 12 years since bidding farewell to Hollyoaks, Scarlett has left the world of soaps behind, marrying her husband Rob Colicci in a lavish ceremony in Portofino in 2016. The couple are proud parents to two children, son, Rafael, and daughter, Juno Rose. After exchanging their vows, the happy couple sped off in a pale yellow Fiat 500 Jolly covered with flowers. Scarlett has also landed qualifications in Fine Art, Textiles, and Photography, and went on to study Classics at Newcastle. As well as juggling life as a mother-of-two, Scarlett is a aontemporary artist who specialises in collages and runs her business, placing art in commercial spaces. In an interview with King and McGaw curator Becca Pelly-Fry, she said: 'I take forever to make these collages in my mind and physically on the table.' Explaining the choice behind the types of art she makes, she told Floorr Magazine: 'I didn't have much spare cash to be buying expensive art-related materials and so I made work with stuff I found all over the place - from literally around the house to skips, to discarded builders materials on the streets etc. But 12 years since bidding farewell to Hollyoaks, Scarlett has left the world of soaps behind, marrying her husband Rob Colicci in a lavish ceremony in Portofino in 2016 As well as juggling life as a mother-of-two, Scarlett is a aontemporary artist who specialises in collages and runs her business, placing art in commercial spaces (pictured in 2019) 'As a kid I used to collage old magazine scraps and I returned to this hobby when I left University, just in my spare time. 'This ''collage'' based approach developed to collaging found items and cheap materials purchased from local hardware and pound shops and as a result, this has naturally developed into a distinctly utilitarian-based aesthetic.' Earlier this month, Hollyoaks kicked off their new major scheduling shake-up as it will go down from five to just three episodes per week. It's set to take a year-long time jump, with 20 cast members sadly being axed due to the ongoing Channel 4 cuts. The channel said that they were making the change because it is the 'optimum pattern to keep heartland audiences hooked and attract new ones in a highly saturated content market' based on Channel 4 data. Skye Wheatley has showed off the results of her controversial fox eye lift surgery on social media after taking off her post-surgery bandages. The Australian influencer, 30, recently returned from Turkey after getting the cosmetic surgery, but has generally held off from posting the results online. However on Thursday, Skye took to her Instagram Stories to give fans a glimpse at the results of the procedure as she filmed herself in her car. After removing her post-surgery bandages in favour of tape, she took off her glasses and turned from side to side to show her followers her new post-surgery look. 'Results coming in hot,' Skye captioned a short video in which she showed off both sides of her face. She explained that she's keeping her face covered with see-through tape to assist the healing process and prevent swelling after removing the heavy-duty bandages. The fox eye thread lift raises the edges of the brows using a dissolvable PDO (polydioxanone) thread, aiming to recreate the look of the surgical fox eye lift without the need for an operation. Earlier this week, Skye revealed why she had decided to keep her face under wraps and not yet fully reveal her face post-surgery. Skye Wheatley has showed off the results of her controversial fox eye lift surgery on social media after taking off her post-surgery bandages in favour of a lighter tape (pictured) Fans of the Australian influencer, 30, got a glimpse at the results of the work she had done in Turkey in small snippets shared to her Instagram Stories In an honest update, Skye, who is two weeks into her recovery, addressed a fan's question: 'Why won't you just show your eyes?' In response, she wrote: 'HAHAHHAHAHA BECAUSE I'm 2 weeks post op and I just can't be f***ed with ppl's opinions right now,' she confessed, admitting that the current state of her face is still in the early phases of recovery. Skye explained that while she's healing, it will take a minimum of three months for her face to settle, and she expects gradual changes during that time. 'I can't show my face yet it's way too scary, but when I heal more I will show the process don't worry, she added in another post. The Big Brother star recently returned from Turkey where she underwent the fox eye lift as well as liposuction, a temporal lift and a blepharoplasty. The fox eye lift surgery, designed to mimic the red carpet look of the same name, has pulled back the outer corner of her eyes to have the almond shape usually achieved with dramatic eye make-up. Results from the minimally invasive surgery are said to last for between six and 12 months. Wheatley, who went on to become one of Australia's first 'Instagram stars', recently returned from Turkey where she underwent a fox eye lift, liposuction, a temporal lift and a blepharoplasty These procedures are just the latest in a series of operations Skye has undergone over the last decade. She was seen in public for the first time since her various surgeries earlier this month as she posed up for a series of selfies next to her car. The influencer also revealed bruises around the top of her thighs in a pair of shorts after also getting liposuction during her cosmetic surgery holiday. The sighting came just days after Skye spoke about her procedures on social media, in response to followers claiming she has a 'plastic surgery addiction'. 'Everyone is beautiful with or without surgery, but I think the more damaging thing is to get all these enhancements done without being honest about it,' she told followers during a live Instagram Q&A. 'There [are] so many girls online who've had surgical enhancements and say nothing. I won't be one of those people.' However, Skye went on to reveal that she wants to get even more liposuction done after her recent trip, despite previously revealing that her plastic surgeon had told her she 'doesn't need it' and advised against it. She looked delighted with her results despite the heavy bandages She also added that she was going for symmetry with her operation, saying 'I just want it to look even.' In Australia, the cosmetic surgery industry brought in a number of rigorous reforms backed by practitioners in July 2023. New rules for Australian cosmetic doctors include a mandatory GP referral before all cosmetic surgery, new testing for body dysmorphia in patients, and a one-week cooling off period between consultation and procedures, plus a crackdown on advertising (including social media) that downplays risks. Katy Perry has whipped her followers into a frenzy by sharing a clip to social media teasing that she knows who will win the AFL Grand Final on Saturday. The US pop star, 39, who is headlining the pre-match show at the MCG ahead of the Brisbane Lions taking on the Sydney Swans, teased her fans in an Instagram clip. The brunette beauty is seen visiting the penguin exhibit at Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium. Katy was all smiles as she gushed over a baby King Penguin called Pesto, and entertained him by blowing some bubbles into his enclosure. 'Visited Pesto last night. He told me who will win in the AFL grand final tomorrow but my lips are sealed,' Katy wrote next to the footage. Many of Katy's followers quickly took to the comment section to express their appreciation over the adorable footage. 'Pesto definitely wishes you good luck for the big gig tomorrow!' wrote Sea Life Aquarium and another fan added: 'The cutest thing on the internet.' Although Katy did not reveal who she tips as the Grand Final winner, she has previously shown her support for the Brisbane Lions with her hit Roar becoming one of the club's unofficial anthems. Katy Perry has whipped her followers into a frenzy by sharing a clip to social media teasing that she knows who will win the AFL Grand Final on Saturday Katy is reportedly being paid a staggering $5million to perform at the AFL Grand Final. She was said to have been hopeful to perform several songs from her new album to the crowd, in an attempt to promote the LP. However, AFL heads were said to have quickly knocked back the suggestion and told Perry to stick to her well-known hits from her previous album Teenage Dream. Channel Nine reporter Tom Morris claimed that AFL big wigs told the hitmaker they expected her to perform her older hits, such as Firework and I Kissed A Girl. The US pop star, 39, who is headlining the pre-match show at the MCG ahead of the Brisbane Lions taking on the Sydney Swans, teased her fans in an Instagram clip. The brunette beauty is seen visiting the penguins at Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium Appearing on SEN Breakfast, the veteran AFL journalist claimed that Katy's team had pushed back against an AFL request that the Teenage Dream hitmaker perform just one new song. 'She's playing about five songs and the AFL was very keen for her to play five classic tunes, she wanted to play two new ones,' he said. Tom added that both camps had reached a compromise with Katy reportedly agreeing to just one new track. Kendall Jenner made her triumphant return to Paris Fashion Week over the weekend. But now the supermodel, 28, is being slammed online for her 'uncomfortable' look at Thursday's star-studded Schiaparelli show. A video uploaded to Instagram by Vogue showed Jenner hanging out backstage in an extremely tight corset bodysuit. Her bust nearly spilled out of the sides of the sleeveless one-piece, which was styled with low-rise dark denim jeans for the runway. Fans quickly flooded the post's comment section to remark on how 'uncomfortable' Jenner appeared while also calling the bodysuit's design 'torture.' Kendall Jenner is being slammed online for her 'uncomfortable' look at Thursday's star-studded Schiaparelli show A video uploaded to Instagram by Vogue showed Jenner hanging out backstage in an extremely tight corset bodysuit 'Kendall's look, looks strange and uncomfortable,' wrote one concerned Instagram user. Another added: 'She looks beyond uncomfortable. You can literally see it in her face.' Although the bodysuit highlighted Jenner's cleavage and waist, fans still found the shape to be 'extremely unflattering' on the 5foot10inch beauty. Due to how constricted Kendall's midsection looked in Vogue's clip, one Kardashian-Jenner fan playfully begged her to 'just breathe!' Another wondered: 'Can she even breathe?' Although her look didn't get much love online, Kendall did have the support of her little sister Kylie Jenner and a slew of A-list stars front row at the Schiaparelli show. Kylie, 27, arrived in a figure-hugging black dress with a perilously low-cut neckline and white criss cross detailing in the halter neck design. She boosted her height with a pair of towering black heels and wore her brunette tresses in a perfect bouncy blow dry. Meanwhile Kendall covered up in a long trench coat as she left the show arm-in-arm with Kylie. Fans quickly flooded the post's comment section to remark on how 'uncomfortable' Jenner appeared while also calling the bodysuit's design 'torture' Earlier in the day Kylie and Kendall headed out in Paris amid the city's Fashion Week. The sisters looked stylish as they arrived for lunch at Zeffirino restaurant, which serves traditional Italian cuisine. Kylie put on a racy display in a perilously short brown miniskirt and went braless in an undone shirt. Kendall meanwhile looked elegant in a structured blue blazer and matching pencil skirt. Over the weekend, Kendall walked on the catwalk for L'Oreal after overcoming her crippling anxiety. The supermodel has been notably absent from the catwalk during both the earlier London and Milan fashion weeks this season, walking only in the Alaia show in New York at the beginning of the month. However, Kendall proved she is still a force to be reckoned with as she stormed the runway alongside icons including Heidi Klum, Eva Longoria and Cara Delevingne. Although her look didn't get much love online, Kendall did have the support of her little sister Kylie and a slew of A-list stars front row at Thursday's Schiaparelli show They left the show together, with Kendall wrapped up in a trench coat The show marked Kendall's catwalk debut for her new blonde locks, which she first revealed a couple of weeks ago after undergoing a hair transformation. Kendall's PFW appearance comes after Us Weekly revealed that she's taken a step back from her relationship with Bad Bunny and is spending time with ex-boyfriend Devin Booker. She had previously reconnected with the Puerto Rican music artist, 30, in the summer after dating each other from February-December 2023. 'Theyre still friendly but have taken a step back and arent dating,' an insider dished to the outlet earlier this week. It was also said that Jenner and Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Ocasio, 'were more serious after their short break' earlier this year, 'but it ultimately didnt work out long-term.' Following May's Met Gala, the duo were spotted back together, and in June they continued seeing each other during Paris Fashion Week. Following time spent in Europe over the summer with the hitmaker, Kendall 'decided she wanted space' according to Us Weekly's source. Over the weekend, Kendall walked on the catwalk for L'Oreal after overcoming her crippling anxiety; seen Monday Kendall attended The Row show on Wednesday The reality television personality has been 'hanging out with' Booker, who was her boyfriend from 2020-2022. They were seen together at Miami haunt The Surf Club earlier this month. The person close to Jenner's situation said, 'She wants to stay single for now,' adding, 'Kendall isnt ready to be tied down at the moment and is enjoying this era.' Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu opened up about why she would not wear her Emily In Paris character's clothes in 'real life.' The French actress, 61 - who recently wowed in a sheer ensemble at the star-studded Saint Laurent show in Paris - portrays the role of PR executive Sylvie Grateau in the hit Netflix series. However, when it comes to the character's fashion sense, the star explained to People, 'When I'm wearing her stuff, I'm wearing stuff that I would never wear in real life.' 'It has to do with being a bit too tight in a skirt, the heels being too high and having a hard time with those things, which I think is the hardship that Sylvie has in her life or in her clothes, too. Meaning that they translate that.' Philippine also revealed to the outlet that after wrapping on filming, she does not take 'anything from the show.' Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, 61, opened up about why she would not wear her Emily In Paris character's clothes in 'real life'; seen earlier this month in NYC 'I would never wear it in real life. Not only because I don't dress like that, but also because it's a character and you want to keep it a character.' During an interview with Elle UK earlier this month, the actress reflected on her own personal style when she is not stepping into the shoes of Sylvie on the Netflix series. 'I'm getting simpler and simpler with my style,' she expressed. 'I can't think about what I'm wearing in the morning when I'm getting dressed.' 'It's about having good shirts, good sweaters, good jeans, good shoes beautiful pieces that are very simple and comfortable.' Philippine added, 'When I'm working, I'm not always very comfortable, so I absolutely have to be in life. Day to day I will usually wear flat shoes or boots, with some nice jeans and a beautiful jacket.' She also explained, 'Quality is also important, because I was raised in Rome and Italy with people who have an incredible talent for, and love of, high quality.' In regards to her own philosophy when it comes to fashion, the star stated, 'Don't try to be fashionable. That's something my mom taught me.' 'Don't just follow trends, be your own trend. And also to invest in beautiful pieces that can last forever, instead of having a closet full of things you forget about after wearing it once. Quality over quantity, always.' However, when it comes to the character's fashion sense, the star explained to People, 'When I'm wearing her stuff, I'm wearing stuff that I would never wear in real life'; seen in 2021 'It has to do with being a bit too tight in a skirt, the heels being too high and having a hard time with those things, which I think is the hardship that Sylvie has in her life or in her clothes, too,' she added; seen in 2023 in Rome The second part of the fourth season of Emily In Paris was released earlier this month on September 12. And shortly after, the Netflix show was renewed for a fifth season - with Lily Collins confirming the big news during an appearance on Good Morning America. 'For the first time I get to talk about the fact that there will be a season five,' the actress - who portrays Emily Cooper on the series - expressed. 'We all just found out ourselves, so this is brand new for everyone. I'm very excited,' Collins added. And while talking to Harper's Bazaar earlier this month, Philippine discussed her character, Sylvie, and what she has learned from the role thus far. 'Maybe the younger generation sees Sylvie as somebody who refuses to be a victim, which I think is probably inspiring.' 'I'm getting simpler and simpler with my style,' she expressed. 'I can't think about what I'm wearing in the morning when I'm getting dressed'; seen as Sylvie in 2024 'It's always hard to talk about what other people see in [your own] character, but I think they like the strength and the irreverence, and somebody who speaks her mind, who's not afraid to be sometimes a bit brutal,' she stated. Philippine later shared, 'What I've learned is, I value my courage much more than I used to. I didn't really know how brave I was, and Sylvie showed me that I was quite brave, actually.' 'I probably had a different vision of myself than before, because I realized that I was stronger than I thought.' The Call My Agent! star has been keeping busy and recently made an appearance at the Saint Laurent RTW Spring 2025 show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday. The Call My Agent! star has been keeping busy and recently made an appearance at the Saint Laurent RTW Spring 2025 show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday (seen above) She turned heads wearing a sheer, blue dress that fell down towards her knees and added a thin belt around her waist. The actress slipped into a pair of open-toed, black heels that were secured with straps that wrapped around her ankles. Her locks were parted in the middle, and effortlessly flowed down to brush past her shoulders in light waves. Philippine flashed a cheerful smile as she struck a variety of poses at the runway event and joined other celebrities, such as Kate Moss and Zoe Kravitz. An esteemed Aussie actress made a rare public appearance with her son at a star-studded event in New York City on Thursday night. The 55-year-old is regarded as one of the finest performers of her generation with two Academy Awards, four BAFTAs and four Golden Globes to her name. She was the first ambassador of the Australian Film Institute and has been a patron of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts since 2001. She is also a a patron of the Sydney Film festival and was co-CEO and artistic director of the Sydney Theatre company from 2008 to 2013. In her personal life, she has been married to her playwright husband for 27 years and together they share four children, who are usually kept of of the spotlight. However, the star made a rare outing with one of her sons in New York this week for a charity event held by the Clooney Foundation for Justice, run by George and Amal Clooney. They sweetly held hands as they arrived at the New York Public Library together, with her son looking very suave in a black suit. But can you guess who his famous mother is? An esteemed Aussie actress made a rare public appearance with her son at a star-studded event in New York City on Thursday night... but can you guess who his famous mother is? That's right, it's none other than acting icon Cate Blanchett. The Elizabeth star arrived at the glittering event, The Albies, with her eldest son Dashiell on her arm. Cate cut a chic figure in an effortlessly stylish black sequinned blouse, which finished at her knee and featured silver embellishments on the left shoulder. She channelled her inner rocker with a pair of black leather pants and matching black heels to complete her look. Keeping the accessories to a minimum, Cate wore some finger and ear bling while finishing her ensemble with a black clutch purse with gold embellishments. She also wore a smokey eye make-up palette, a light rose blush and a matching shade for her lip. Dashiell cut a dapper figure in a dark blue double breasted suit that he matched with a pair of black leather shoes. That's right, it's none other than acting icon Cate Blanchett. The Elizabeth star arrived at the glittering event, The Albies, with her eldest son Dashiell on her arm They sweetly held hands as they arrived at the New York Public Library together, with her son looking very suave in a black suit Cate cut a chic figure for the charity event flaunting her sartorial eye with a black sequinned blouse The flowing top finished at her right knee and also featured silver embellishments on the left shoulder She matched this by channelling an inner rocker in a pair of black leather pants and matching black heels Keeping the accessories to a minimum, Cate also wore some finger and ear bling while finishing her ensemble with a black clutch purse with gold embellishments Dashiell also cut a dapper figure in a dark blue double breasted suit that he matched with a pair of black leather shoes He also wore a white shirt, black tie and light blue charity ribbon for the glitzy event. Cate and Dashiell rubbed shoulders with a galaxy of stars at the Albies, including Emily Blunt and John Krasinski, Jimmy Fallon, Donatella Versace, and Jon Stewart. The Albies were named after anti-apartheid hero Justice Albie Sachs and seek to recognise people who defend justice around the world. As well as Dashiell, Cate shares two more sons Roman, 19, and Ignatius, 16, and a daughter Edith, eight, with her longtime husband Andrew Upton. While Cate has carved out a hugely successful career as an actress and soared to global fame, Andrew has also seen big success across theatre and film. The couple have been married for nearly 30 years, having tied the knot in a romantic ceremony in December 1997 after he proposed after three weeks of dating. Former FBoy Island star Riccardo Valenza has been charged with stalking a woman. Riccardo, who appeared on the inaugural 2023 season of FBoy Island Australia, was charged with one count of unlawful stalking on June 4, the Townsville Bulletin reports. It has been alleged that Riccardo, 30, both stalked and harassed a woman in Queensland from December 8, 2022 to June 9, 2023. The alleged offences occurred as his FBoy Island scenes went to air, with the Binge reality show premiering on May 29, 2023. It was believed Riccardo was living between Townsville and the Sunshine Coast at the time the alleged offences occurred. Riccardo, who is a veterinarian, was granted bail in Maroochydore Magistrates court on August 1. However, it was reported that the charge was mentioned in Townsville Magistrates Court on Thursday, where Riccardo did not have to appear in person. Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Binge for comment. Former FBoy Island star Riccardo Valenza has been charged with stalking in Queensland Debuting on Foxtel / Binge in May 2023, ten-part reality series FBoy Island centres on three women out to find love from a choice of 24 suitors. However, the twist is that half of the men are time-wasting 'f**k boys' and the other half are genuinely looking for love. Among those looking for love on season one were DJ Sophie Blackley, occupational therapist Molly O'Halloran, and model Ziara Rae. Molly made the right call in choosing genuine contestant Nick Brown and Ziara found love with hunky Izaya Leota. By correctly choosing a genuine guy over a Fboy, the women not only found love, but also walked away with $50,000 in prize money to share with their new partner. Unfortunately, Sophie Blackley chose Fboy Joshy Allen, which means she did not find love and he was awarded the entire share of their prize money. Cate Blanchett chose her son as her date to The 2024 Albies, hosted by The Clooney Foundation for Justice, in New York on Thursday evening. The actress, 55, walked hand in hand with her eldest son Dashiell, 22, as the pair dressed up for the evening of glamour. The Australian star looked sensational as she opted for a black sequined floaty top which she paired with black leather trousers. Completing her look with a pair of little black heels and small clutch bag, she added a smattering of pale pink lipstick as she beamed beside her son. The pair's rare appearance comes amid speculation Cate and her husband Andrew Upton called it quits on their marriage earlier this year. Cate Blanchett held hands with her son Dashiell, 22, as the pair made a rare public appearance at The 2024 Albies, hosted by The Clooney Foundation for Justice, in New York on Thursday The actress, 55, chose her eldest son Dashiell, 22, as the pair dressed up for the evening of glamour Cate, 55, and her husband Andrew Upton welcomed Dash, their first child, in December 2001 after the couple tied the knot in 1997. The pair are also parents to sons Roman Robert, 20 and Ignatius Martin, 16 and daughter Edith Vivian Patricia, aged nine. Cate and Dashiell were seen together earlier this summer after he joined his mother at Cannes Festival back in May. Dashiell appears keen to follow in his mother's footsteps into show business but as a filmmaker behind the camera. The oldest son of the Oscar winner scored a role on the crew of the Ryan Gosling action film The Fall Guy as an assistant in the camera department after completing film school in 2022. Meanwhile rumours of marriage trouble for Cate and her husband swirled when the star was spotted on several occasions without her wedding ring. Cate left fans puzzled after stepping out at the 2024 BAFTA Film Awards without her ring. She stunned at the British film industry event in a maroon Louis Vuitton gown and striking body chain combo. The Australian star looked sensational as she opted for a black sequined floaty top which she paired with black leather trousers Completing her look with a pair of little black heels and small clutch bag, she added a smattering of pale pink lipstick as she beamed beside her son The mother and son linked arms as he helped her down the steps The pair's rare appearance comes amid speculation Cate and her husband Andrew Upton have called it quits on their marriage earlier this year Cate, 55, and her husband Andrew Upton welcomed Dash, their first child, in December 2001 after the couple tied the knot in 1997 (Pictured: Andrew and Cate, October 2017) However, rather than wearing her white gold and diamond wedding sparkler, the Blue Jasmine star sported a large emerald cocktail ring. Meanwhile her husband didn't attend the event. Curiously, Cate was also spotted ring-free in February, when she attended an event in New York at the Museum of Modern Art on February 6. Cate made no attempt at hiding her bare wedding finger as she smiled for photos outside the exclusive event. In October 2023, Cate was once again seen without her wedding ring as she sat front row at the Stella McCartney runway show during Paris Fashion Week. However Cate appeared to shrug off rumours of the split back in March after the couple attended a special event launching her role as creative director of alcohol brand Toku Sake. Like his wife Cate, Andrew is from Australia and was born and raised in Sydney, and attended the University of Sydney, before going on to become a screenwriter, playwright and director. Dashiell looked dapper in a navy suit and matching tie Inside the event Cate was sat beside Emily Blunt and her husband John Krasinski Cate held the room captivated as she stood up to speak during the awards evening The star showcased her ageless beauty as she wowed in the all black ensemble He has adapted a string of famous plays including The Cherry Orchard, The White Guard, Waiting for Godot and Uncle Vanya for productions in London and Sydney. He also served as the artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company from 2008 to 2012, and even wrote a libretto for an opera. Andrew has worked on a string of high-profile movies including 1995's Babe, 2005's Stories of Lost Souls and 2015's Carol - which starred his wife Cate and saw her nab an Oscar nomination. The couple also formed their own production company Dirty Films in 2000 and it has seen them work behind the scenes on projects including 2023 thriller The New Boy and 2020's comedy Apples. Pak receives 1.03 bln USD from IMF: state bank Islamabad, Sep 27 (UNI) Pakistan has received a Special Drawing Right (SDR) of around 1.03 billion U.S. dollars from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said on Friday. The inflows will be reflected in the SBP's liquid reserves, which will be released on Oct. 3, the bank said in a statement. A day earlier, the country's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed appreciation for the IMF's technical assistance and capacity-building programs, which have helped to strengthen the country's institutions and improve its economic management, in a meeting with Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the IMF on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Matt Forde took to the red carpet with a cane at the British Podcast Awards at London's Outernet on Thursday amid his battle with bone cancer. The comedian, 41, revealed last week he'd had a stoma bag fitted after being told by doctors, just three months after his wedding to wife Laura, that he had a tumour called a chordoma at the bottom of his spine. Matt cut a dapper figure in a smart navy suit for the appearance which he layered over a crisp white shirt. He completed the look with a pair of comfy trainers and beamed as he posed for snaps ahead of the ceremony. In the months before his August 2023 diagnosis, Matt was performing at the Pleasance Courtyard, where he was 'high as a kite' due to a suspected slipped disc. Matt Forde, 41, took to the red carpet with a cane at the British Podcast Awards at London's Outernet on Thursday amid his battle with bone cancer The comedian, 41, revealed last week that had a stoma bag fitted after being told by doctors, just three months after his wedding to wife Laura, that he had a tumour called a chordoma at the bottom of his spine When the comedian visited the doctor over excruciating back pain, they prescribed him codeine, diazepam, and an MRI scan. An MRI scan later revealed that his 'slipped disc' was, in fact, a cancerous tumour, called Chordoma, on his spine. After a grueling 13-hour surgery and ten weeks in the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, he was discharged with a colostomy bag and stoma. Speaking to The Times about his upcoming tour, The End Of An Era Tour, he said when he heard the C word in the doctors, it was 'like a lift going down quickly from the bottom of his lungs to his belly button'. He said: 'It was a good job I was sitting down because I think my legs probably would've buckled.' Matt immediately went into survival mode. 'I would have done anything I could to live literally sacrificed anything,' he said. 'The doctors could have carved off any part of me that they needed to, so that I could have an extra second on this planet with my wife, that was the main thing.' During his time in the hospital, the comedian underwent intense recovery, which saw him bed-bound and needing regular four-hour turns. Matt cut a dapper figure in a smart navy suit for the appearance which he layered over a crisp white shirt After a grueling 13-hour surgery and ten weeks in the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, he was discharged with a colostomy bag and stoma During his time in the hospital, the comedian underwent intense recovery, which saw him bed-bound and needing regular four-hour turns To help him recover, his wife had a sweet idea to help him stay motivated in his recovery. She placed two photographs on opposite sides of the hospital room, one of Ben Stokes after he'd scored his century at Headingley and on the other side a picture of Stuart Pearce celebrating his penalty against Spain. 'So matter what side I was on, I had a patriotic individual who'd overcome pain and strife roaring me on every four hours', he revealed. Before becoming a comedian, Matt worked for the Labour Party, which prompted a visit from the current Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. While Matt is cancer-free, he has had life-long changes to his bladder and bowel functions. He has to use a stoma and a colostomy bag and will need to self-catheterise. Matt's The End Of An Era tour will start on October 2, beginning in Norwich, Playhouse, and will end on March 12, 2025, at Glasgow's Glee Club. Grace Jackson and Ella Morgan were dressed to impress on Thursday as they attended EGO's Fall/Winter show during Paris Fashion Week. Love Island star Grace, 26, looked nothing short of sensational in a red lace mini-dress as she made her runway debut for the online fashion brand EGO. The stylish ensemble boasted a red rose halterneck neckline, lace off-the-shoulder sleeves, and a figure-hugging fit. Grace added inches to her frame with a pair of red stiletto high heels as she stormed the runway. The star beamed as she unveiled her debut collection 'Dark Rosa', which oozes 'dark glam', with an alluring range of velvet touches, satin silhouettes, demure detailing and floral finishes. Grace Jackson was dressed to impress in a red lace mini dress on Thursday as she attended EGO's Fall/Winter show during Paris Fashion Week She was also joined by MAFS star Ella Morgan, 29, who put on a daring display in a black cut-out dress which showed off some serious underboob Meanwhile, Ella, 29, set pulses racing as she flashed her underboob in a daring black cut-out dress. Celebs Go Dating's first ever trans star added inches to her frame with a pair of strappy black stiletto heels and toted her essentials around in a mini gold handbag. She further accessorised her glam look with a gold bangle and a pair of diamond rope earrings. Ella styled her brunette tresses into curls for the evening and wore a glamorous palette of makeup. Celebrity guests Amber Turner, Georgia Steel, Ella Thomas, and Harriett Blackmore also attended the star-studded launch to show their support for Grace. While speaking about her latest fashion venture, Grace couldn't hide her excitement as she said: 'I can't believe I'm showcasing my own collection with a brand I've always loved somewhere as iconic as Paris Fashion Week.' 'I am obsessed with this collection and every detail. I love every piece and I want anyone who wears it to feel as confident, sexy and empowered as I do in it.' Grace's career saw her successfully modelling for campaigns including the likes of Rihanna's Savage X Fenty and Fashionova. The Love Island star, 26, looked nothing short of sensational in the stylish ensemble as she made her runway debut for the online fashion brand EGO The stylish ensemble boasted a red rose halterneck neckline, lace off-the-shoulder sleeves, and a figure-hugging fit Grace added inches to her frame with a pair of red stiletto high heels as she stormed the runway The star beamed as she unveiled her debut collection 'Dark Rosa', which oozes 'dark glam', with an alluring range of velvet touches, satin silhouettes, demure detailing and floral finishes Ella added inches to her frame with a pair of strappy black stiletto heels and toted her essentials around in a mini gold handbag Ella looked incredible as she sat FROW with Amber Turner and Georgia Steel While speaking about her latest fashion venture, Grace said: 'I can't believe I'm showcasing my own collection with a brand I've always loved somewhere as iconic as Paris Fashion Week' After the successful fashion show, Grace let her hair down and enjoyed a beverage as she got several snaps with her pals During the event, she was also joined by her former Love Island co-star Harriett Blackmore who put on a sizzling display in a plunging blazer dress But that's not all - the TV personality also co-owns a social media management agency called Social Clubhouse, and runs an event company called 'Vamos'. Paris Fashion Week runs from September 23 to October 1, with a string of major designers choosing the City of Light to showcase their next collections. L'Oreal kicked things off on Monday with a star-studded runway featuring the likes of Kendall Jenner, Heidi Klum, Eva Longoria and Cara Delevingne. Tuesday saw Dior welcome Anya Taylor-Joy and Rosamund Pike to the FROW before Saint Laurent was the highlight of the evening calendar. The third day offered up Courreges and Mugler presentations while Thursday the spotlight shone on Hermes and Giambattista Valli. Friday will see Victoria Beckham supported by her A-list friends as she unveils her next ready-to-wear looks, with Rick Owens and Balenciaga also showcasing collections that day. Valentino and Stella McCartney will also be hot tickets before French fashion house Louis Vuitton closes the week with its glitzy show. Bianca Censori is never usually far from her husband's side in her array of daring and inappropriate ensembles. However Kanye West was alone as he arrived at Hong Kong airport on Friday ahead of his flight to Haikou in China. The rapper looked rather down in the dumps as he struck an unhappy face while making his way through the airport. Dressed in a buttoned up black jacket and black trousers, the hitmaker, 47, concealed his appearance as he kept the grey hood of his sweatshirt up around his face. Completing the look with black sunglasses, Kanye was surrounded by his entourage as he touched down in Haikou, however Bianca was nowhere to be seen. Kanye West looked down in the dumps as he arrived alone at Hong Kong airport without his wife Bianca Censori ahead of a trip to China on Friday The rapper struck an unhappy face as he appeared emotionless while making his way through the airport The couple were last seen together last week as the Australian architect, 29, donned a wildly inappropriate ensemble for a family outing in Tokyo. Bianca had been ordered to 'cover up around the children' by Kanye's ex wife Kim Kardashian but did nothing of the sort when she was spotted flashing her nipples in a sheer top. Bianca was joined by Kanye and his sons Saint, eight, and Psalm, five, at a supermarket in Japan's capital. His daughters North, 11, and Chicago, six, didn't appear to be present. Bianca put on a racy display going braless in a sheer nude tank top that highlighted her ample cleavage, after she recently risked an indecent exposure charge in another revealing look. She completed the barely-there outfit with tight grey leggings and wore her dark tresses slicked back in a bun. Bianca and Kim are said to be amicable but the Kardashians star is reportedly not a fan of her parading her risque fashion in front of her children. 'Kim instructed Kanye to never let Bianca dress like that around their kids,' a source told DailyMail.com exclusively. 'She is truly surprised that Kanye would let his wife leave the house like that.' Bianca has been pictured in a slew of headline-grabbing outfits since she married Kanye in December 2022 less than one month after his divorce from Kim was finalized. Dressed in a buttoned up black jacket and black trousers, the hitmaker, 47, concealed his appearance as he kept the grey hood of his sweatshirt up Completing the look with black sunglasses, Kanye was surrounded by his entourage as he emerged from the airport after the flight to Haikou Kanye momentarily removed his sunglasses as he headed through the airport Security kept the crowd in control as they pushed forward for snaps of the star Kanye didn't appear to engage or smile at the fans The couple were last seen together last week as the Australian architect, 29, donned a wildly inappropriate ensemble for a family outing in Tokyo, but she didn't seem to have accompanied him to China Bianca has been pictured in a slew of headline-grabbing outfits since she married Kanye in December 2022 less than one month after his divorce from Kim was finalized. (pictured in February) During Kanye and Kim's tumultuous marriage, Kim was reportedly asked to change her outfits if he felt like she was showing too much skin. He heavily influenced her fashion choices during their seven-year marriage. 'Kanye did the same thing he is doing with Bianca to Kim throughout their marriage. The difference is that when Kanye dressed Kim, he was respected as a person - as an artist,' one source said. 'Unfortunately, Kim knows what Bianca is going through - but she feels Bianca should have known what she was getting into.' Advertisement He's been trialling a range of new quirky looks in recent months as he makes a noticeable departure from his former James Bond looks. And Daniel Craig didn't disappoint once again as he headed to the Loewe show hand in hand with his wife Rachel Weisz during Paris Fashion Week today. The 56-year-old made sure all eyes were on him as he opted for garish colourful kitted sweater which he wore underneath a charcoal grey biker jacket. The actor completed the look with baggy khaki trousers which were tucked in to a pair of Timberland boots. Daniel, who shocked fans when he debuted his new long hair at the start of the summer, added a pair of yellow lens Ozzy Osbourne-style specs to finish the ensemble. Daniel Craig wears a quirky colourful ensemble as the former Bond star joins wife Rachel Weisz at the Loewe show today The actor, 56 opted for garish colourful kitted sweater which he wore underneath a charcoal grey biker jacket Rachel Brosnahan looked stylish in a navy waistcoat and the same baggy khaki trousers as Daniel Meanwhile Rachel also opted for a pop of colour as she wore a pale pink and lime green two-toned fluffy jumper. The academy-award-winning actress, 54, paired the jumper with stylish wide leg denim jeans and brown heels as she held hands with her husband. Letting her dark locks fall naturally over her shoulders, she accessorised with shades and a brown leather handbag to match her shoes. The couple were also joined by actor Jeff Goldblum who placed his arm around his wife Emilie Livingston. Jeff, 71, kept it cool in a black leather jacket, white tailored trousers and shades. Emilie, 41, showed off her physique in a fitted autumnal midi dress and brown shades. Model Emily Ratajkowski brought her son Sylvester Apollo Bear, three, to the show, and was seen holding him in her arms. The 33-year-old kept it casual as she flashed a hint of her cleavage in a white and grey checked plaid shirt and black leather skirt. The star completed the look with baggy khaki trousers which were tucked in to a pair of Timberland boots Daniel shocked fans when he debuted his new long hair at the start of the summer, with the look hearkening back to his younger years in the acting industry (right in 1992) Meanwhile Rachel also opted for a pop of colour as she wore a pale pink and lime green two-toned fluffy jumper The couple were also joined by acting royalty Jeff Goldblum who placed his arm around his wife Emilie Livingston Jeff, 71, kept it cool in a black leather jacket, white tailored trousers and shades Emily Ratajkowski brought her son to the show as she held Sylvester Apollo Bear, three, in her arms Her son, three, was seen wearing a pair of purple cords and stylish matching wellies Ruth Wilson appeared to go topless beneath a hugely oversized floor length camel coloured coat Gal Gadot looked sensational as she opted for a navy blue leather halter neck dress and matching navy heels The star showed off the backless dress in shots Jeff waved to fans as he kept it chic in the khaki shirt and black jacket Meanwhile her son posed up a storm in a pair of purple cords and stylish matching wellies. Elsewhere Ruth Wilson appeared to go topless beneath a hugely oversized floor length camel coloured coat. The actress, who recently starred as Emily Maitlis in A Very Royal Scandal, scraped her hair back in a slick bun as she kept a straight face in a pair of gold-rimmed shades. Gal Gadot looked sensational as she opted for a navy blue leather halter neck dress and matching navy heels. The actress, 39, added a contrasting brighter blue leather handbag and red lip to the look as she waved to fans while arriving at the show. Daniel worked with luxury fashion house Loewe in July and debuted a very different look for their FW24 campaign. The star was almost unrecognisable as he sported a long hair do and yellow tinted glasses, while modelling a slew of fashion-forward ensembles. For some of the snaps, shot by David Sims, Daniel donned several multicoloured knitted jumpers, a far cry from his 007 looks. The couple arrived hand-in-hand to the star-studded show They didn't let the blustery weather dampen their spirits The model, 33, kept it casual as she flashed a hint of her cleavage in a white and grey checked plaid shirt and black skirt Ruth, who recently starred as Emily Maitlis in A Very Royal Scandal, scraped her hair back in a slick bun as she kept a straight face in snaps Ruth added a pair of gold-rimmed shades to complete the simple look Meg Ryan opted for some baggy grey jogger style trousers which she paired with a long navy blazer coat and black chunky boots Shielding her eyes behind shades she toted her essentials in a chic clutch Emma Mackey opted for an oversized look as she wore a brown baggy bomber style jacket and khaki-beige wide-legged trousers Taylor Russell flashed a hint of her tone midriff in cut out denim jeans and a white 'Hollywood' T-shirt The quirky trousers also boasted a leather belt which she matched to her handbag Caroline Daur flashed a hint of her toned mid driff in low rise denim jeans and a white T-shirt, a beige coat and black floor length scarf Daniel looked worlds away from his former James Bond self Emilie, 41, showed off her incredible physique in a fitted autumnal midi dress and brown shades Jason Schwartzman kept it simple in a cream jacket with brown collar The American actor and musician posed for fans outside the venue Karlie Kloss looked effortlessly chic in a oversized trench coat, fastened with a silver broach She completed her look with some strappy black sandals and a burgundy handbag Meg, 62, struggled to control her hair in the wind as she waved to the crowds Gal looked stunning as she beamed in snaps while rocking the leather dress Ruth looked sophisticated in the striking coat Filipino-Swedish blogger and socialite Bryanboy looked chic in a white top and black flared trousers Ayo Edebiri and Josh O'Connor smiled in snaps together The Crown actor added a pop of colour in a blue and green striped knitted jumper Best known for playing a young King Charles Josh sported a beard and earring Pharrell Williams was joined by his wife Helen Lasichanh as she linked arms with the singer The Happy hitmaker opted for a bright blue jacket and pale green baseball cap The rapper and designed proudly carried a bag from his own Louis Vuitton collection American model Fai Khadra put on a colourful display as he tied an array of colourful shirts to him Gemma Chan wowed in a black lace mini skirt and black and white plaid shirt The actress also added shades to her look (L-R) Paola Locatelli, Sophie Wilde, Emili Sindlev Spanish-German actor and singer Aron Piper wore a bold patterned sweater French actress and director Geraldine Nakache opted for a grey jumper with a sheep wool like bodice Spanish soclaite Gala Gonzalez cut a stylish figure at the VIP event Stunning designs made their way down the catwalk And fans went wild for the photoshoot, with many praising the The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo star for showing off his fashion chops. They gushed: I love that as some actors get older, they just stop taking themselves seriously. Daniel Craig is a legend for this; Obsessed with the Daniel Craig Loewe campaign.' 'I am living for post-James Bond Daniel Craig; DANIEL CRAIG IN GLASSES AND A COLOURFUL SWEATER? WE LOVE TO SEE IT'. 'Not this being one of Daniel Craig's best photoshoots he's just having a little fun you guys; The hair is slaying me! And the clothes as well of course lol'. 'I would like to raid Daniel Craigs closet please and thank you; Daniel Craig for LOEWE? Talk about a match made in style heaven! Who knew 007 could also slay the fashion game? Next up: Bond in a runway chase scene!' 'Seriously Daniel Craig keeps getting dangerously hotter, wtf; I guess even James Bond needs a break from saving the world to model some high end fashion.' However, others couldn't help but poke fun at Daniel's haircut and quirky outfits, comparing him to actor Javier Bardem, Stanley Tucci's murderous character in The Lovely Bones, singer Iggy Pop and one of the Die Hard terrorists, Tony Vreski. They wrote: 'Daniel Craig looks like the recluse who is the only person who can hack the system; I now need to see Daniel Craig play a quirky Dad in a coming of age movie'. 'Daniel Craig looks like a hacker working for Hans Gruber; Daniel Craig looks like one of Hans Gruber's small footed goons from Die Hard, if they served. Johnny Depp reprised his famous Captain Jack Sparrow role in order to put a smile on children's faces on Thursday. The actor, 61, played the protagonist in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series and thrilled youngsters at the Donostia University Hospital in San Sebastian as he got back in character to pay them a visit. In a statement by Osakidetza-Basque Health Service, they revealed the Hollywood legend brought joy to the hospital as he 'chatted, played and laughed with the children'. Johnny - who has been promoting his directorial effort Modi at San Sebastian Film Festival - is also said to have stayed in character the whole time so as not to ruin the illusion. Sweet images on the ward showed Johnny happily posing for pictures with the children and cradling the babies on the Pediatrics and Oncology ward. Johnny Depp thrilled youngsters at the Donostia University Hospital in San Sebastian on Thursday as he got back in character as Captain Jack Sparrow In a statement by Osakidetza-Basque Health Service, they revealed the Hollywood legend brought joy to the hospital as he 'chatted, played and laughed with the children' The actor, 61, played the protagonist in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series (pictured with Orlando Bloom in 2003's The Curse of the Black Pearl) The statement continued: 'They have shared laughs and anecdotes, and he has helped them forget for a few minutes the difficulties they are going through at the moment. 'It was a gift that brought joy to patients, families, nursing professionals, doctors and all the staff who were working on the ward at the time. 'From Osakidetza, and especially from all the staff at the Donostia University Hospital, we would like to express our infinite gratitude to Johnny Depp for his time, his support and his energy, he has been a breath of fresh air for the entire ward.' It's not the first time Johnny has used his Disney character to spread joy. In 2022 he dressed up as Captain Sparrow to send a sweet message of support to a fan amid his battle with a terminal heart condition. The actor surprised YouTuber Kori, 13, with a video message and a phone call as Captain Jack Sparrow, telling him: 'I wish you the best of luck, I'm your number one fan Captain Kori, all my respect and love.' Kori has reportedly had two heart transplants and is in palliative care but wants to gain as many subscribers as possible while he can, which Johnny helped him with. His decision to get back in character comes after he was welcomed back to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Johnny is also said to have stayed in character the whole time so as not to ruin the illusion Sweet images on the ward showed Johnny happily posing for pictures with the children and cradling the babies on the Pediatrics and Oncology ward A statement read: 'They have shared laughs and anecdotes, and he has helped them forget for a few minutes the difficulties they are going through at the moment' It continued: 'It was a gift that brought joy to patients, families, nursing professionals, doctors and all the staff who were working on the ward at the time' Screenwriter and producer of the swashbuckling franchise Terry Rossio told DailyMail.com in July that now Johnny has cleaned up his act he would be welcomed back with open arms. In an exclusive interview, Terry said he 'wouldn't even hesitate' to have Johnny back on set, despite the allegations of abuse and alcoholism against the actor. Terry, 63, said casting the controversial Hollywood star is 'not the problem' for a sequel it is finding the right script, co-stars and finances to revive the Disney-owned franchise, which has grossed over $4.5 billion worldwide. Speaking exclusively on camera at the premiere of his new film Protocol 7, Terry said of the actor: 'Johnny is beloved. I wouldn't even hesitate on Johnny Depp.' 'Johnny Depp isn't the issue. The issue is: is there a story worthy? Is the script good? Can it be directed well? Can the finances of it be worked out? Those are the issues. The issue has nothing to do with Johnny.' Terry, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Shrek, added that Disney should not just look at Johnny returning, but attempt to bring back the main cast from the original Oscar-nominated debut Pirates movie Dead Man's Chest. Asked how far Disney bosses have gotten in their revival plans, Rossio pleaded ignorance, saying: 'Oh my gosh, I don't have any inside information. I'm sorry, I can't say.' But he then noted that other factors are likely to be holding up the reboot, and that sometimes it can take over a decade even for desired movies to be made. 'The Indiana Jones movie, for example, was like this,' he said. 'Everybody wanted it, but it took what, 15, 16 years for it to come about. 'There are a lot of forces that come into play in terms of schedule, availability, finances, creative control, the disposition of the studio, the planets have to align on any movie. It's a miracle that anything ever gets done.' They concluded: 'From Osakidetza, and especially from all the staff at the Donostia University Hospital, we would like to express our infinite gratitude to Johnny Depp for his time' Johnny delighted not just the children but their family members during the trip In 2022 he dressed up as Captain Sparrow to send a sweet message of support to a fan amid his battle with a terminal heart condition The actor famously told how Disney dropped him from the sixth Pirates of the Caribbean film after Amber Heard accused him of being a wife beater (pictured in 2014) Last year franchise producer Jerry Bruckheimer spoke of his hope to have Johnny back as Sparrow, but never confirmed Disney were on board. Terry's comments will delight fans given many had petitioned for him to come back after winning his libel trial against ex-wife Amber Heard. The actor famously told the trial under questioning from his own lawyer, that Disney dropped him from the sixth film after Amber accused him of being a wife beater. But a Virginia jury found that Johnny proved elements of defamation for Amber's statements in her 2018 Washing Post op-ed. They decided Amber's statements were false, and that she defamed Johnny with actual malice. The Jack Sparrow actor enjoyed a five minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival for his 2023 film, Jeanne du Barry, in which he stars as the former King of France Louis XV. Maggie Smith has been remembered by her former co-stars and described as 'wise, witty, waspish, wonderful' in tributes after her death on Friday. Celebrities have taken to social media to share their memories of the Oscar-winning actress after she died in hospital on Friday morning aged 89. The British star was known for prominent roles as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter franchise and as Violet Crawley in TV series Downton Abbey, as well as her Academy Award-winning performance in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie. Paying tribute to his former co-star, Harry Potter star Rupert Grint - who played Ron Weasley in the franchise - updated his Instagram profile picture to a sweet throwback of the pair. Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville - who played her son in the show - also paid tribute. He told the BBC: 'Anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent. 'She was a true legend of her generation and thankfully will live on in so many magnificent screen performances. My condolences to her boys and wider family.' Dame Maggie Smith has been hailed as 'wise, witty, waspish, wonderful' as celebrities pay tribute after her death (pictured in 2015) Paying tribute to his former co-star, Harry Potter's Rupert Grint updated his Instagram profile picture to a sweet throwback of the pair Dame Maggie starred as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter franchise while Rupert played Ron Weasley (pictured at a premiere in 2009) Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville also paid tribute, saying: 'Anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent' Dan Stevens - who played Matthew Crawley in the period drama - spoke out on his Instagram Story, writing 'Truly one of The Greats. RIP' alongside two pictures of his former co-star. Gyles Brandreth was also quick to pay tribute and called the late actress 'one of a kind in every way'. Brandreth shared a photo of him with Smith on X, formerly Twitter, and wrote: 'The saddest news: the death of Dame Maggie Smith marks the end of a golden era & a quite extraordinary life. 'She was a truly great actress, 'one of the greats' & simply the best company: wise, witty, waspish, wonderful. 'One of a kind in every way and consequently irreplaceable.' He also paid tribute on Times Radio, saying she was 'a uniquely towering acting talent. I was just reflecting that one of the qualities that we have as a country is our history with theatre. 'Our actors are considered world class and if you look at the top of the world class, Maggie Smith is up there with the greatest. She is one of the greats. What is remarkable about her, and the reason I say she's one of the greats, is that she wasn't just an exceptionally successful actress who could do it all. She had a unique quality. 'And I think to join the pantheon of the greatest, you have to have something about your voice, your look, your manner, that commands attention. She absolutely had that, right from the start. 'And she wouldn't have regarded herself as either a comic actress or a classical actress. She could just do it all. She lacked personal vanity in the sense that she was able to play parts like The Lady in the Van, based on Alan Bennett's play, turned into a movie, which was not a glamorous role. But she could also be incredibly glamorous... She was just a wonderful star. She had star quality, and she had the highest standards. 'Sometimes people found her a little daunting, I think. Young actors, or even older actors, were a little bit nervous of her. They thought, what is she going to say because she could be caustic, she was witty. But if ever she was perceived as being difficult, it was only because she had the highest standards, both for herself and for other people.' American actress Whoopi Goldberg paid tribute to Dame Maggie Smith and said she felt 'lucky' to have worked alongside her in Sister Act, where Dame Maggie played Reverend Mother Superior while Goldberg portrayed Deloris Van Cartier. Dan Stevens paid tribute on hisInstagram Story, writing 'Truly one of The Greats. RIP' alongside two pictures of his former co-star Dan played Matthew Crawley in the period drama (pictured with Hugh) Gyles Brandreth shared a photo of him with Smith on X, formerly Twitter , and wrote: 'The saddest news: the death of Dame Maggie Smith marks the end of a golden era' American actress Whoopi Goldberg paid tribute to Dame Maggie Smith and said she felt 'lucky' to have worked alongside her in Sister Act Omid Djalili tweeted: 'We've lost one the best today.RIP Maggie Smith Piers Morgan posted: 'RIP Dame Maggie Smith. Magnificent actress, magnificent lady. As entertaining, sharp and witty off screen as she was off it. A very very sad loss for Britain' Dame Maggie was described as a 'legend of British stage and screen' by BAFTA after she won five of their awards during her illustrious career The US actress shared an old picture of the two on set of Sister Act, dressed as nuns, on Instagram and described her as a 'great woman.' She wrote in her post: 'Maggie Smith was a great woman and a brilliant actress. I still can't believe I was lucky enough to work with the 'one-of-a-kind'. My heartfelt condolences go out to the family... RIP.' Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes hailed Maggie as a 'great person,' saying that it was a privilege to have got to spend 24 years working together. Speaking on Sky, he said: 'Maggie and I go back a bit now because the first time we worked together was on Gosford Park, which we made in about 2001. I was terrified of course, I remember, and she was always very kind, very professional, very funny - both in her acting and off the screen. 'And you never had to explain a line to her. You never had to explain why something was funny or any of that stuff - she had a marvellous instinctive grasp and of course her great gift as an actress was that she could make you cry your eyes out one minute and then laugh like a drain the next without turning into someone different. 'She could synthesise the character to have all these different aspects and she was a joy to write for and I'm very pleased that with Downton we gave her a busy last act of such an extraordinary stellar career. 'I realised that I was working with a great genius, and of course in a way that makes you fumble and make sure you're not talking rubbish, but she was very supportive, she was very interested in the creative process, and having decided that she liked the scene she really didn't who you were or anything else - she just wanted to get the scene right and that priority made it easier. 'You have to stop worrying about all the things that don't matter and just get on with getting it right, and I'd say that was the same for her in the 24 years that we worked together. 'We got to each others ways and I consider myself a very, very lucky person to have worked with her.' 'She was always quite dry - very witty and rather dry, and a very good analyst of people. She could make you laugh with describing people. She was very subtle in her appreciation of characters and of course her life was understanding character. Julian concluded: 'She was a great person, I have no hesitation with saying that. A great person and it has been a privilege for me to have worked with her.' Rob Lowe, who worked with Dame Maggie in 1992's Suddenly, Last Summer, reflected on their time together. He penned: 'Saddened to hear Dame Maggie Smith has passed. I had the unforgettable experience of working with her; sharing a two-shot was like being paired with a lion.' 'She could eat anyone alive, and often did. But funny, and great company. And suffered no fools. We will never see another. God speed, Ms. Smith! Star Trek legend George Takei tweeted: 'A grand star of screen and stage has departed. 'Maggie Smith, known most recently for her unforgettable roles as the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey and as Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, passed away at age 89. Fans both old and young shall miss her dearly.' Piers Morgan posted: 'RIP Dame Maggie Smith. Magnificent actress, magnificent lady. As entertaining, sharp and witty off screen as she was off it. A very very sad loss for Britain.' Omid Djalili tweeted: 'We've lost one the best today.RIP Maggie Smith.' Prime Minister Keir Starmer penned: 'Dame Maggie Smith introduced us to new worlds with the countless stories she acted over her long career. 'She was beloved by so many for her great talent, becoming a true national treasure whose work will be cherished for generations to come. Our thoughts are with her family and loved ones. May she rest in peace.' The X account for Larry the cat, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office at 10 Downing Street, also paid tribute, writing: 'Farewell Dame Maggie - nobody has ever done a better job of playing a cat.' British theatre owner and producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh has paid tribute to 'brilliant original' Maggie. Sir Cameron told the PA news agency: 'It is with enormous sadness that today, British theatre has lost one of its greatest stars - the incomparable Dame Maggie Smith. 'Many of Maggie's finest performances have been on the stages of theatres now in my care - one of the dress circle boxes in the Sondheim Theatre is proudly named after her. 'Over the decades, I have been privileged to see many of her unforgettable performances from her early days in revue, in the late-50s. 'Whatever she was in, every line was electric - she was the master of the zinger. 'I, and everyone at Delfont Mackintosh Theatres, salute a truly great artist. Maggie was a brilliant original who can never be replaced or ever forgotten.' Dame Maggie was described as a 'legend of British stage and screen' by BAFTA after she won five of their awards during her illustrious career. The organisation tweeted: 'We're saddened to hear that actor Dame Maggie Smith, best known for the Harry Potter films and Downton Abbey, has died at the age of 89. 'Dame Maggie was a legend of British stage and screen, winning five BAFTAs as well as a BAFTA Special Award and BAFTA Fellowship during her highly acclaimed career.' Downton paid tribute on their official X account Rishi Sunak wrote: 'She touched many lives across many generations with her incredible performances' Lucifer star Lesley-Ann Brandt said 'there will never be another' while Kelly Brook tweeted 'our most loved RIP' Kristin Scott Thomas said Dame Maggie 'saw through the nonsense and razzmatazz' of acting, and 'had a sense of humour and wit that could reduce me to a blithering puddle of giggles' Rob Lowe, who worked with Dame Maggie in 1992's Suddenly, Last Summer, reflected on their time together Tamzin Outhwaite called Dame Maggie a 'magnificent Dame' in her tribute The X account for Larry the cat, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office at 10 Downing Street, also paid tribute to the actress' role in Harry Potter Peter Egan added: 'Very sad to see this giant talent has fallen' Dame Maggie is pictured at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships on July 15, 2023 The National Theatre's director and co-chief executive Rufus Norris has hailed Dame Maggie as 'one of the greatest actors this country has had the inestimable pleasure of witnessing.' The actress first treaded the National Theatre boards in its debut season in 1963 and went on to work with Lord Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic, as well as being in productions including Hedda Gabler, Miss Julie and Hay Fever. In a statement to the PA news agency, Mr Norris said: 'She will forever be remembered as one of the greatest actors this country has had the inestimable pleasure of witnessing. 'Her deep intelligence, effortless dexterity, sublime craft and sharp wit were simply legendary. 'The National Theatre is reeling today and we send our deepest condolences to Maggie's family and her legions of admirers across the world and in every generation.' Kristin Scott Thomas said Dame Maggie 'saw through the nonsense and razzmatazz' of acting, and 'had a sense of humour and wit that could reduce me to a blithering puddle of giggles'. She starred opposite Dame Maggie in 2014 drama My Old Lady and wrote on Instagram: 'So very, very sad to know she has gone. She was a true inspiration. She took acting very seriously but saw through the nonsense and razzmatazz. She really didn't want to deal with that. She had a sense of humour and wit that could reduce me to a blithering puddle of giggles. And she did not have patience with fools.' Thomas added that you 'had to be a bit careful', but she 'absolutely adored her', called her comedic timing 'perfection' and vulnerable roles 'heartbreaking'. She added: 'The last time I saw her she was very cross about being old. "Maddening", I think she said.' Dame Maggie's children, Widow Clicquot actor Chris Larkin, and Die Another Day star Toby Stephens, announced her death in a statement. Born in Ilford, Essex, on December 28, 1934, she was an internationally recognised actress for much of her life after playing the fanatical teacher Jean Brodie in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie. She also won over Harry Potter fans later in life, when she appeared in the film series as the quick-witted, kind and formidable Professor McGonagall. And in 2010 she was central to the success of ITV series Downton Abbey, in her Emmy-award winning role as the acerbic Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, which she continued to play in the films. Larkin and Stephens, her sons from her first marriage, said in their statement: 'It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith. She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27th September. 'An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother. 'We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days. 'We thank you for all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time.' Dame Maggie Smith in a photocall for her play The Lady From Dubuque at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London on March 12, 2007 Ralph Fiennes presents Dame Maggie Smith with a Bafra award for Best Supporting Actress for the film 'Tea With Mussolini' at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on April 9, 2000 Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Judi Dench during rehearsals for their play 'The Breath of Life' at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London on October 9, 2002 Dame Maggie Smith arriving for a Royal Film Performance of Ladies In Lavender at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on November 8, 2004 Dame Maggie was one of the most versatile, accomplished and meticulous actresses of her generation, her repertoire ranging from Shakespeare to character parts in Harry Potter. She was a performer of contrasts, with an astonishing capacity to switch imperceptibly from radiance to melancholy, from quiet to boisterous, from graciousness to mischief within seconds. Full statement from Dame Maggie Smith's sons Chris and Toby Dame Maggie Smith's sons Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens issued the following statement via their publicist: 'It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith. 'She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27th September. 'An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother. 'We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days. 'We thank you for all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time.' Advertisement Although she was a tour de force in leading roles on the West End stage, she was equally happy - even during the years of her mega-stardom - to accept supporting roles, particularly in films. Truly professional and as near a perfectionist as she could be, she treated these roles with as much detailed and careful attention as she did her major parts. Probably her greatest triumph was in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, for which she won her first Oscar. But, Dame Maggie - she was made a DBE in 1990 - was self-deprecating about her abilities. Her family background gave no indication that she would not only enter the acting profession but also become one of its leading exponents. She said she had wanted, from childhood, to become an actress, but she did not see a play or a film until she was a teenager. Nor did she receive much encouragement from her family, particularly one of her grandmothers, who remarked that she could not go into acting 'with a face like that'. But none of this deterred her from her ambition. Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford, Essex, on December 28, 1934. She was educated at Oxford High School for Girls and later the Oxford Playhouse School, and first appeared on the stage as a girl of 18 in Twelfth Night. She made an early mark in revues, as a singer and dancer. One fan who saw her on Broadway in New Faces of '56, said he laughed so much he ended up banging his head on the seat in front of him. She was spotted by Laurence Olivier, who saw her as much more than just a vaudeville performer and invited her to join the newly-formed Royal National Theatre Company in London. There, and at the Old Vic, she excelled in both tragedy and comedy, moving easily from Shakespeare to Noel Coward, to Restoration comedy to Ibsen. As a 'rep' actress, she was able to develop her incredible range, skill and talent among some of Britain's best actors, including Robert Stephens, who was to become her first husband. They married in 1967 but divorced in 1974. The film industry began to recognise her abilities and she was given several supporting roles. Dame Maggie Smith rehearsing for Peter Pan with Dave Allen in an undated photograph Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Judi Dench arriving at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London on December 9, 2001 Queen Elizabeth II being presented to Dame Maggie Smith by Sir Laurence Olivier, when the Queen attended the charity premiere of the film Othello at the Odeon Theatre in London, on May 2, 1966 Dame Maggie Smith and Paul Scofield at London's Hilton Hotel where they picked up their awards from the Variety Club of Great Britain at it's 35th Annual showbusiness awards luncheon on February 3, 1987 Dame Maggie Smith arriving for the world premiere of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 on July 7, 2011 Dame Maggie Smith and her partner Beverley Cross on November 24, 1995 But she first emerged as an international star with her virtuoso performance as the fanatical teacher Jean Brodie in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie. Even in smaller roles she could upstage the film 'giants'. In one film, Richard Burton described her scene-stealing as 'grand larceny'. Dame Maggie won over a whole new generation of fans when she played Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films. In 2010 she was central to the success of ITV series Downton Abbey, in her Emmy-award winning role as the acerbic Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham. But she later told ES Magazine: 'I am deeply grateful for the work in (Harry) Potter and indeed Downton (Abbey) but it wasn't what you'd call satisfying. 'I didn't really feel I was acting in those things.' Dame Maggie Smith kisses Rupert Grint as they arrive for the world premiere of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on July 7, 2009 Dame Maggie Smith arriving at the premiere of Gosford Park at the Ziegfield theatre in New York City n December 14, 2001 Jill Bennett, Tom Jones and Maggie Smith (left to right) with their silver hearts showbusiness awards from the Variety Club of Great Britain at the Savoy Hotel in London on March 11, 1969 Her numerous awards also covered her performances in Tea With Mussolini, A Room With A View, A Private Function and The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne. Dame Maggie won a best actress Oscar for the role in 1970. Other film roles include her portrayal of a drunken Oscar loser in California Suite, the dying older lover in Love, Pain And The Whole Damn Thing, the tragic lodger in The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne, and the so-called 'funny old bat' in Gosford Park, which brought her a sixth Oscar nomination. She starred alongside Dame Judi Dench in the 2004 film Ladies In Lavender, and on stage in the David Hare play The Breath Of Life. One of her most famous roles was as a bag lady in The Lady In The Van, the 2015 adaptation of Alan Bennett's memoirs. She recently starred in the 2022's Downton Abbey: A New Era, where Violet's health deteriorates and she dies in an emotional end to her character. The next year, she appeared in The Miracle Club, which follows a group of women from Dublin who go on a pilgrimage to the French town of Lourdes. Dame Maggie's second husband, the playwright Beverley Cross who she married in 1975, died in 1998. She had two sons from her first marriage, Stephens and Larkin, who are both actors. Kate Moss looked effortlessly stylish as she stepped out alongside lookalike daughter Lila and Gigi Hadid amid Paris Fashion Week on Friday. The iconic supermodel, 50, looked effortlessly stylish in a black wrap dress which boasted bejewelled embellishments and she teamed it with leather boots. Shielding her eyes behind shades she accessorised with drop earrings and added a pop of colour by toting a leopard print handbag. Meanwhile Lila, 21, who the model shares with ex Jefferson Hack, kept things causal in a black top with jeans and a leather jacket. Gigi, 29, put on a very leggy display as she took in the sights and stopped to pose for snaps with fans. Kate Moss, 50, looked effortlessly stylish as she stepped out amid Paris Fashion Week on Friday She was joined in the French capital by lookalike daughter Lila, 21, (L) and a very leggy Gigi Hadid, 29 (R) The supermodel sported a quirky pair of plaid shorts which she teamed with a T-shirt and leather biker jacket. Kate has already made a string of stylish appearances during Fashion Week, including the Saint Laurent party, where she was joined by Rosie Huntington-Whitley and Amelia Gray Hamlin. Paris Fashion Week runs from September 23 to October 1, with a string of major designers choosing the City of Light to showcase their next collections. L'Oreal kicked things off on Monday with a star-studded runway featuring the likes of Kendall Jenner, Heidi Klum, Eva Longoria and Cara Delevingne. Tuesday saw Dior welcomed Anya Taylor-Joy and Rosamund Pike to the FROW before Saint Laurent was the highlight of the evening calendar. The third day offers up Courreges and Mugler presentations while Thursday will see the spotlight on Hermes and Giambattista Valli. On Friday, Victoria Beckham will be supported by her A-list friends as she unveils her next ready-to-wear looks, with Rick Owens and Balenciaga also showcasing collections that day. Valentino and Stella McCartney will also be hot tickets before French fashion house Louis Vuitton closes the week with its glitzy show. The iconic supermodel looked effortlessly stylish in a black wrap dress which boasted bejewelled embellishments and she teamed it with leather boots. Shielding her eyes behind shades she accessorised with drop earrings and added a pop of colour by toting a leopard print handbag The supermodel was sure to turn heads as she strutted through the French capital in her stylish black number Kate looked the epitome of chic in her black dress paired with a pop of her trademark leopard print Meanwhile Lila, who the model shares with ex Jefferson Hack, kept things causal in a black top with jeans and a leather jacket Gigi appeared in great spirits as she put on a very leggy display while taking in the sights The supermodel beamed as she posed for snaps outside her swanky hotel She sported a quirky pair of plaid shorts which she teamed with a T-shirt and leather biker jacket Slicking back her blonde locks she wore shades and a pair of stylish brogues Elsewhere, Sofia Vergara showed off her laid-back sense of style in a cream co-ord as she headed into Paris The actress teamed her relaxed look with trainers and a matching cross-body bag Kate soared to fame as the world's most iconic supermodel after he shot her renowned Calvin Klein campaign in 1993. His book features intimate portraits of a young and undiscovered Kate, shot in the early 1990s. The photographer, now 52, was 19 when he began a romance with Kate, revealing the model 'swept him away' and felt like his 'heart stopped' when he first met her at a Wella hair photoshoot back in 1991. Speaking of their two-year relationship in an interview with the Telegraph, Mario said in 2018: 'We modelled together, travelled together, it was fun and innocent- a time of discovery for both of us, it just felt right. Talking about her lengthy career, he added: 'She turned from a gorgeous kid into a beautiful woman but its much more than that, she can embody and become anything.' 'You know, she has this strange depth, I dont know how to explain it, but when you photograph her, you dont just get her, the model, you get something that goes further, beyond. Kate was just 19 years old when she starred in the iconic Obsession campaign posing nude for the adverts, with the couple splitting shortly afterwards. In an interview with Nick Knight, Kate previously spoke about working with her former flame. Also taking in the week's shows was fellow model Amelia Gray Hamlin, 23 She teased a glimpse of her toned midriff in a black suit from designer brand The Row She added a quirky element to her outfit with a pair of metallic Nike trainers Meanwhile Jared Leto, 52, wrapped up in a Ferrari bomber jacket and fur hat He opted for sliders and wore a pair of oversized shades The Suicide Squad star later shielded his famous features beneath a face mask She said: 'When youre in a relationship with a photographer and they start abusing that relationship of being like, "I want you to do this, I want you to do that". Kate then revealed that living with Mario's mother, Francesca Sorrenti, at the time helped her come to grips with her new surroundings, as the Croydon native moved to New York for work. She said: 'Thank goodness I was living with her and not in some model apartment. Because New York is a hardcore place!' Despite travelling the world, she said she hasn't forgotten her roots, and quipped: 'Because Im from Croydon, if you get above your station somebody will f***ing knock you down.' Dame Maggie Smith revealed the impact Harry Potter had on her life in a resurfaced interview as people everywhere started to recognise her. The beloved actress - who sadly died aged 89 on Friday - starred as Minerva McGonagall in seven of the eight films. Following her death, Maggie's 2023 appearance on The Graham Norton Show has resurfaced, where the actress and the Irish comedian, 61, discussed how Harry Potter 'changed her life'. In the clip, Graham asks Maggie: 'Harry Potter...That did, sort of, change your life in a way?' To which Maggie at the time joked back with: 'Well, yes, a lot of very small people kind of used to say hello to me and that was nice'. Dame Maggie Smith revealed the impact Harry Potter had on her life in a resurfaced interview as people everywhere started to recognise her The beloved actress - who sadly died aged 89 on Friday - starred as Minerva McGonagall in seven of the eight films (pictured in Deathly Hallows: Part Two in 2011) The audience then laughed before she added: 'It was a whole different lot of people.' Graham then chimed in with: 'But (it's) also so weird that they'd only know you for that one thing. Like you've never existed before'. Maggie then quipped back with: 'No I never had' and the audience burst out into fits of laughter once again. She added: 'Except one kid once said to me, "Were you really a cat?" and I heard myself say "just pull yourself together" How could I have been?' the audience laughed. The legendary actress then proceeded to share with Graham a story about how a child once couldn't fathom where he recognised her from. She said: 'Funnily enough I was in Waitrose in Stonington my favourite, and a little boy was at the checkout with his mother and he kept looking at me.' 'And I thought, "What am I going to do?" and he kept looking at me and looking at me and I said "Can I help you?" and he said "Its all right it'll come to me in a minute," I thought that was so sweet.' Aside from Harry Potter, the British star was known for her role as Violet Crawley in the TV series Downton Abbey, as well as her Academy Award-winning performance in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie. Following her death, Maggie's 2023 appearance on The Graham Norton Show has resurfaced, where the actress and the Irish comedian, 61, discussed how Harry Potter 'changed her life' She laughed: 'Well, yes, a lot of very small people kind of used to say hello to me and that was nice' After her sons revealed she had passed in a statement, tributes for the beloved actress started pouring in. Paying tribute to his former co-star, Harry Potter's Rupert Grint updated his Instagram profile picture to a sweet throwback of the pair. Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville - who played her son in the show - also paid tribute. He told the BBC: 'Anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent. 'She was a true legend of her generation and thankfully will live on in so many magnificent screen performances. My condolences to her boys and wider family.' Dan Stevens - who played Matthew Crawley in the period drama - paid tribute on his Instagram Story, writing 'Truly one of The Greats. RIP' alongside two pictures of his former co-star. Gyles Brandreth was also quick to pay tribute and called the late actress 'one of a kind in every way'. Brandreth shared a photo of him with Smith on X, formerly Twitter, and wrote: 'The saddest news: the death of Dame Maggie Smith marks the end of a golden era & a quite extraordinary life. 'She was a truly great actress, 'one of the greats' & simply the best company: wise, witty, waspish, wonderful. 'One of a kind in every way and consequently irreplaceable.' He also paid tribute on Times Radio, saying she was 'a uniquely towering acting talent. I was just reflecting that one of the qualities that we have as a country is our history with theatre. 'Our actors are considered world class and if you look at the top of the world class, Maggie Smith is up there with the greatest. She is one of the greats. After her sons revealed she had passed in a statement, tributes for the beloved actress started pouring in (pictured in 2015) Paying tribute to his former co-star, Harry Potter's Rupert Grint updated his Instagram profile picture to a sweet throwback of the pair Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville also paid tribute, saying: 'Anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent' Dan Stevens paid tribute on hisInstagram Story, writing 'Truly one of The Greats. RIP' alongside two pictures of his former co-star Dan played Matthew Crawley in the period drama (pictured with Hugh) Gyles Brandreth shared a photo of him with Smith on X, formerly Twitter , and wrote: 'The saddest news: the death of Dame Maggie Smith marks the end of a golden era' Omid Djalili tweeted: 'We've lost one the best today.RIP Maggie Smith Piers Morgan posted: 'RIP Dame Maggie Smith. Magnificent actress, magnificent lady. As entertaining, sharp and witty off screen as she was off it. A very very sad loss for Britain' Dame Maggie was described as a 'legend of British stage and screen' by BAFTA after she won five of their awards during her illustrious career What is remarkable about her, and the reason I say she's one of the greats, is that she wasn't just an exceptionally successful actress who could do it all. She had a unique quality. 'And I think to join the pantheon of the greatest, you have to have something about your voice, your look, your manner, that commands attention. She absolutely had that, right from the start. Full statement from Dame Maggie Smith's sons Chris and Toby Dame Maggie Smith's sons Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens issued the following statement via their publicist: 'It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith. 'She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27th September. 'An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother. 'We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days. 'We thank you for all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time.' Advertisement 'And she wouldn't have regarded herself as either a comic actress or a classical actress. She could just do it all. She lacked personal vanity in the sense that she was able to play parts like The Lady in the Van, based on Alan Bennett's play, turned into a movie, which was not a glamorous role. But she could also be incredibly glamorous... She was just a wonderful star. She had star quality, and she had the highest standards. 'Sometimes people found her a little daunting, I think. Young actors, or even older actors, were a little bit nervous of her. They thought, what is she going to say because she could be caustic, she was witty. But if ever she was perceived as being difficult, it was only because she had the highest standards, both for herself and for other people.' American actress Whoopi Goldberg paid tribute to Dame Maggie Smith and said she felt 'lucky' to have worked alongside her in Sister Act, where Dame Maggie played Reverend Mother Superior while Goldberg portrayed Deloris Van Cartier. The US actress shared an old picture of the two on set of Sister Act, dressed as nuns, on Instagram and described her as a 'great woman.' She wrote in her post: 'Maggie Smith was a great woman and a brilliant actress. I still can't believe I was lucky enough to work with the 'one-of-a-kind'. My heartfelt condolences go out to the family... RIP.' Rob Lowe, who worked with Dame Maggie in 1992's Suddenly, Last Summer, reflected on their time together. He penned: 'Saddened to hear Dame Maggie Smith has passed. I had the unforgettable experience of working with her; sharing a two-shot was like being paired with a lion.' 'She could eat anyone alive, and often did. But funny, and great company. And suffered no fools. We will never see another. God speed, Ms. Smith! Star Trek legend George Takei tweeted: 'A grand star of screen and stage has departed. 'Maggie Smith, known most recently for her unforgettable roles as the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey and as Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, passed away at age 89. Fans both old and young shall miss her dearly.' Piers Morgan posted: 'RIP Dame Maggie Smith. Magnificent actress, magnificent lady. As entertaining, sharp and witty off screen as she was off it. A very very sad loss for Britain.' Aside from Harry Potter, the British star was known for her role as Violet Crawley in the TV series Downton Abbey As well as her Academy Award-winning performance in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie (pictured 1969) Omid Djalili tweeted: 'We've lost one the best today.RIP Maggie Smith.' Prime Minister Keir Starmer penned: 'Dame Maggie Smith introduced us to new worlds with the countless stories she acted over her long career. 'She was beloved by so many for her great talent, becoming a true national treasure whose work will be cherished for generations to come. Our thoughts are with her family and loved ones. May she rest in peace.' The X account for Larry the cat, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office at 10 Downing Street, also paid tribute, writing: 'Farewell Dame Maggie - nobody has ever done a better job of playing a cat.' Dame Maggie was described as a 'legend of British stage and screen' by BAFTA after she won five of their awards during her illustrious career. The organisation tweeted: 'We're saddened to hear that actor Dame Maggie Smith, best known for the Harry Potter films and Downton Abbey, has died at the age of 89. 'Dame Maggie was a legend of British stage and screen, winning five BAFTAs as well as a BAFTA Special Award and BAFTA Fellowship during her highly acclaimed career.' Dame Maggie's children, Widow Clicquot actor Chris Larkin, and Die Another Day star Toby Stephens, announced her death in a statement. Born in Ilford, Essex, on December 28, 1934, she was an internationally recognised actress for much of her life after playing the fanatical teacher Jean Brodie in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie. She also won over Harry Potter fans later in life, when she appeared in the film series as the quick-witted, kind and formidable Professor McGonagall. Dame Maggie Smith in a photocall for her play The Lady From Dubuque at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London on March 12, 2007 Ralph Fiennes presents Dame Maggie Smith with a Bafra award for Best Supporting Actress for the film 'Tea With Mussolini' at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on April 9, 2000 Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Judi Dench during rehearsals for their play 'The Breath of Life' at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London on October 9, 2002 Dame Maggie Smith arriving for a Royal Film Performance of Ladies In Lavender at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on November 8, 2004 And in 2010 she was central to the success of the ITV series Downton Abbey, in her Emmy-award-winning role as the acerbic Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, which she continued to play in the films. Larkin and Stephens, her sons from her first marriage, said in their statement: 'It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith. She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27th September. 'An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother. 'We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days. 'We thank you for all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time.' Kylie Jenner proved she is her own biggest fan as she modeled a dress with her own face on it. On Friday, the reality TV personality, 27, took to her Instagram Story to share a couple snaps of herself modeling a Balmain dress with her face intricately beaded onto it. In the snap, she was trying on the dress in a room lined with abundant clothing racks and countless pairs of shoes. The Kardashians star who joined her chic sister, Kendall Jenner, at Schiaparelli's show on Thursday evening wore nothing else but the show-stopping dress and flipped her hair. She tagged Olivier Rousteing, a French fashion designer and creative director of Balmain, who rendered the stunning strapless, corset gown. Kylie Jenner proved she is her own biggest fan as she modeled a dress with her own face on it during Paris Fashion Week She shared the photos just before she made her first appearance at this year's Fashion Week by sitting in the front row alongside her older sister at the Schiaperelli show. For the fashion event, the makeup mogul wore a chic halterneck dress with a plunging low-cut neckline and criss-cross straps. Before they attended the show together, they also stepped out in Paris together to grab lunch at Zeffirino restaurant. For their outing, the youngest Kardashian-Jenner sister put on a racy display in a perilously short brown miniskirt and went braless in an undone shirt. And the day before, she arrived alongside her best friend Anastasia Karanikolaou as they joined Kendall and Gigi Hadid at Rosalia's star-studded birthday bash in Paris. Her outing and travels comes as her romance with actor Timothee Chalamet heats up. They were first linked in April 2023 and went public with their romance that September by packing on the PDA in the stands of a Beyonce concert. In January, earlier this year, they set the internet ablaze by engaging in a public display of affection at the Golden Globes but after that, they were not seen together for months. On Friday, the reality TV personality, 27, took to her Instagram Story to share a couple snaps of herself modeling a Balmain dress with her face intricately beaded onto it She shared the photos just before she made her first appearance at this year's Fashion Week by sitting in the front row alongside her older sister at the Schiaparelli show; pictured September 26 in Paris For the fashion event, the makeup mogul wore a chic halterneck dress with a plunging low-cut neckline and criss-cross straps; pictured September 26 in Paris The pair have studiously kept their relationship out of the public eye to the point that they ignited breakup rumors. However the conjecture turned out to be false, and as last month, Chalamet joined his girlfriend for her glamorous birthday trip to the Bahamas. Last month, a source close to the couple spoke about the status of their romance. Chalamet and Jenner have developed a 'very serious' relationship, according to the source, who gushed: 'He's great for her.' 'Her family loves him. He's so discreet and always has her back,' the insider told PEOPLE. 'He's very much a gentleman and everything that Kylie deserves.' 'She's incredibly happy with him,' the insider added. She's never been in love like this before,' a source raved, adding that the Bahamas trip was 'a nice break' for the reality star. Sophie Anderton sent pulses racing in a stylish swimsuit as she enjoyed a 'much needed escape' at a lavish Irish spa on Friday. The supermodel, 47, looked sensational in a chic blue 155 one-piece featuring a strappy back design. Sharing a candid clip to Instagram, the brunette beauty posed in a luxury sauna based at Laragh's Deerstone retreat. After enjoying a destressing session in the wooden hut, she then took a dip in an outside hot tube. Sharing some beautiful insights into her trip, Sophie revealed that she took it the trip to 'decompress' and 'detox from stress'. Sophie Anderton, 47, sent pulses racing in a stylish swimsuit as she enjoyed a 'much needed escape' in a lavish Irish spa on Friday The supermodel looked sensational in a chic blue 155 one-piece featuring a strappy back design She penned: 'Sauna, swim & selfcare! What better a way to start the weekend early? I took a much needed escape to @thedeerstone this morning, to decompress from the past week of work to detox the stress before training 'No matter how active my daily lifestyle, I always combine performance wear with chic elegant designs & @chlore_swimwear is my favourite in luxury active swimwear all year round! 'From sea swimming, paddle board yoga & kayaking to saunas, ice baths & indoor pool swimming, @chlore_swimwear have designed beautiful designs inclusive of all us.' Sophie previously revealed just why she believes fellow model Kate Moss has remained loved and relevant in an ever evolving industry for so long. Writing in The Sun earlier this year, Sophie revealed that she first met Kate back when she was 18-years-old back in 1995, and was in complete awe of the model. She explained that the star has always had a captivating quality: 'As she turns 50 next week, its still that natural poise and coolness that continues to capture everyones attention.' She added: 'I believe one of the secrets behind Kates incredible longevity in the business is that people have always been intrigued by her.' Kate has been in the public eye since she was 14-years-old, yet despite a career spanning almost 40 years, the public rarely hear the star speak. Sharing a candid clip to Instagram, the brunette beauty posed in a luxury sauna based at Laragh's Deerstone retreat After enjoying a destressing session in the wooden hut, she then took a dip in an outside hot tube Sharing some beautiful insights into her trip, Sophie revealed that she took it the trip to 'decompress' and 'detox from stress' Sophie previously revealed just why she believes fellow model Kate Moss has remained loved and relevant in an ever evolving industry for so long (pictured Kate and Sophie for the Earls Court Motor Show alongside Jodie Kidd in 1999) Sophie, revealed that she first met Kate (pictured in 2022) back when she was 18-years-old back in 1995, and was in complete awe of the model Sophie and Kate previously worked together back in 1999 for the Earls Court Motor Show alongside Jodie Kidd. Recalling her experiences with the model, Sophie described Kate as reserved and cautious who chose not to use her voice as she knew that wasn't her job. Armed with beauty, height and a strong work ethic, Sophie explained: 'She always had the whole package, and that is why clients and photographers all fell head over heels in love with her.' Kate shot to fame in the nineties before the age of influencers and social media models that are constantly churned out today. Finding success prior to that era, Sophie revealed that while Kate didn't flaunt her personality to the public, she still had plenty. Instead of following trends and fads, Kate set them from her lemon drop Topshop dress to her 2001 pixie hair cut. Sophie remarked that Kate has always stayed true to who she is, and now embodies a mature confidence as she approaches her 50th year. Leaving the raucous North London scene of her 20s and 30s firmly behind, Kate is now settled in a honey-coloured Grade II-listed mansion in the Cotswolds, and seems to be leaving the partying world behind. In November last year the star was criticized for failing to appear at her own launch party to celebrate the launch of the new ANINE BING Kate Tote in London. The supermodel was a surprising no-show at the cocktail party thrown with designer Annie Bing, an event attended by celebrity guests including Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Cat Deeley. Sophie explained: 'She always had the whole package, and that is why clients and photographers all fell head over heels in love with her' (pictured in 1997 ) Recalling her experiences with the model, Sophie described Kate as reserved and cautious who chose not to use her voice as she knew that wasn't her job Kate should have been the star of the party as she marked her partnership with the American designer, who had flown over from Los Angeles for the event. Speaking to The Sun, an source said: 'Annie and her team had pulled out all the stops for a mega-party to celebrate their partnership. 'But not long after the party started they were told Kate couldn't make it because she wasn't well. 'Lots of people were making jokes about her pulling a sickie, but it wasn't amusing for all the people who had gone to all that effort.' New Delhi, Sep 27 (UNI) The Supreme Court on Friday closed the curative petition filed by the Union government and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) which sought a reconsideration of its 2022 judgment allowing GMR Group to operate and manage Nagpur's Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport. During the hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the Court that after conducting a "dispassionate" review, he found no valid grounds to pursue the curative plea. A four-judge bench, comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justice Bhushan R Gavai, and Justice K Maheshwari, acknowledged Mehtas stance and concluded the proceedings. The bench noted that the curative petition did not meet the stringent criteria required, which include grounds like bias, lack of hearing, or analogous reasons. Mehta emphasized that there was no basis under curative jurisdiction to challenge the previous decision. There was a view earlier that the ground of bias could be raised, but I am clear that such a ground cannot be applied to an order of this court, clarified Mehta. He further noted that he did not consult the government on the matter, as his role required providing an independent legal opinion to the court. The original dispute, which dates back to 2022, involved a protracted legal battle over Nagpurs Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport operation. In May 2022, the Supreme Court upheld a ruling by the Bombay High Court, which favoured GMR Airports in its contract dispute with MIHAN India Ltd, a joint venture responsible for managing the Nagpur airport project. MIHAN had sought to cancel a contract awarded to GMR in 2019, claiming that the bid acceptance letter issued to GMR was not a formal contract award. However, both the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court ruled against MIHAN, stating that the cancellation of the contract was unjustified. UNI SNG RC Maggie Smith admitted to host Graham Norton that she has 'never watched Downton Abbey' and was 'delighted' when it ended in a clip that has resurfaced following the beloved actress' death aged 89. After the Harry Potter favourite passed away in the hospital on Friday, the hilarious video from 2015 on Graham Norton's iconic talk show was re-circulated online. The late British acting legend starred on the period drama as Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, from 2010 to 2015 - which is still remembered as one of her most prominent roles. But despite still being hailed for her brilliant performance and witty one-liners, the Oscar-winner admitted she was satisfied with the series coming to an end. 'So are you, in a way, sort of glad that Downton's over?,' the presenter asked, to which Maggie didn't hesitate to reply: 'Oh yeah.' Maggie Smith admitted to host Graham Norton that she has 'never watched Downton Abbey' and was 'delighted' when it ended - in a resurfaced clip following the actress' death aged 89 The late British acting legend starred on the period drama as Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, from 2010 to 2015 (pictured on the show in 2013) Causing host Graham to burst into laughter, she added: 'No, I really am. Honestly, she was about, by the time we had finished she must have been a hundred and ten so I couldn't go on and on. 'I couldn't! It just didn't make sense.' When asked if she ever watched the British period drama herself, she hesitated and then gave a cheeky look to the presenter. Graham struggled to contain his laughter, as he insisted: 'Did you not?,' but Maggie confirmed she didn't by shaking her head. 'I've got the box set. So I can watch it,' she added leaving the audience in stitches. The British star was known for prominent roles as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter franchise, as well as her Academy Award-winning performance in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie. Paying tribute to his former co-star, Harry Potter star Rupert Grint - who played Ron Weasley in the franchise - updated his Instagram profile picture to a sweet throwback of the pair. Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville - who played her son in the show - also paid tribute. When asked by the host if she was glad Downton Abbey was over - Maggie replied: 'No, I really am. Honestly, she was about, by the time we had finished she must have been a hundred and ten so I couldn't go on and on' - while also revealing she has never watched it Dame Maggie Smith has been hailed as 'wise, witty, waspish, wonderful' as celebrities pay tribute after her death (pictured in 2015) Paying tribute to his former co-star, Harry Potter's Rupert Grint updated his Instagram profile picture to a sweet throwback of the pair Dame Maggie starred as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter franchise while Rupert played Ron Weasley (pictured at a premiere in 2009) He told the BBC: 'Anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent. 'She was a true legend of her generation and thankfully will live on in so many magnificent screen performances. My condolences to her boys and wider family.' Dan Stevens - who played Matthew Crawley in the period drama - spoke out on his Instagram Story, writing 'Truly one of The Greats. RIP' alongside two pictures of his former co-star. Gyles Brandreth was also quick to pay tribute and called the late actress 'one of a kind in every way'. Brandreth shared a photo of him with Smith on X, formerly Twitter, and wrote: 'The saddest news: the death of Dame Maggie Smith marks the end of a golden era & a quite extraordinary life. 'She was a truly great actress, 'one of the greats' & simply the best company: wise, witty, waspish, wonderful. 'One of a kind in every way and consequently irreplaceable.' He also paid tribute on Times Radio, saying she was 'a uniquely towering acting talent. I was just reflecting that one of the qualities that we have as a country is our history with theatre. Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville also paid tribute, saying: 'Anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent' Dan Stevens paid tribute on hisInstagram Story, writing 'Truly one of The Greats. RIP' alongside two pictures of his former co-star Dan played Matthew Crawley in the period drama (pictured with Hugh) 'Our actors are considered world class and if you look at the top of the world class, Maggie Smith is up there with the greatest. She is one of the greats. What is remarkable about her, and the reason I say she's one of the greats, is that she wasn't just an exceptionally successful actress who could do it all. She had a unique quality. 'And I think to join the pantheon of the greatest, you have to have something about your voice, your look, your manner, that commands attention. She absolutely had that, right from the start. 'And she wouldn't have regarded herself as either a comic actress or a classical actress. She could just do it all. She lacked personal vanity in the sense that she was able to play parts like The Lady in the Van, based on Alan Bennett's play, turned into a movie, which was not a glamorous role. But she could also be incredibly glamorous... She was just a wonderful star. She had star quality, and she had the highest standards. 'Sometimes people found her a little daunting, I think. Young actors, or even older actors, were a little bit nervous of her. They thought, what is she going to say because she could be caustic, she was witty. But if ever she was perceived as being difficult, it was only because she had the highest standards, both for herself and for other people.' American actress Whoopi Goldberg paid tribute to Dame Maggie Smith and said she felt 'lucky' to have worked alongside her in Sister Act, where Dame Maggie played Reverend Mother Superior while Goldberg portrayed Deloris Van Cartier. Later on throughout the day, countless celebs flooded Maggie's social media accounts paying heartfelt tribute to the star. Dame Maggie won a best actress Oscar for the role in 1970. Other film roles include her portrayal of a drunken Oscar loser in California Suite, the dying older lover in Love, Pain And The Whole Damn Thing, the tragic lodger in The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne, and the so-called 'funny old bat' in Gosford Park, which brought her a sixth Oscar nomination. She starred alongside Dame Judi Dench in the 2004 film Ladies In Lavender, and on stage in the David Hare play The Breath Of Life. One of her most famous roles was as a bag lady in The Lady In The Van, the 2015 adaptation of Alan Bennett's memoirs. She recently starred in the 2022's Downton Abbey: A New Era, where Violet's health deteriorates and she dies in an emotional end to her character. Gyles Brandreth shared a photo of him with Smith on X, formerly Twitter , and wrote: 'The saddest news: the death of Dame Maggie Smith marks the end of a golden era' Piers Morgan posted: 'RIP Dame Maggie Smith. Magnificent actress, magnificent lady. As entertaining, sharp and witty off screen as she was off it. A very very sad loss for Britain' Dame Maggie Smith arriving at the premiere of Gosford Park at the Ziegfield theatre in New York City n December 14, 2001 The next year, she appeared in The Miracle Club, which follows a group of women from Dublin who go on a pilgrimage to the French town of Lourdes. Dame Maggie's second husband, the playwright Beverley Cross who she married in 1975, died in 1998. She had two sons from her first marriage, Stephens and Larkin, who are both actors. Tim McGraw has broken his silence after making a controversial political statement that sent shockwaves through his fanbase. During a post in honor of his beloved wife Faith Hill's 57th birthday last week McGraw mentioned fighting for women's rights and making it pretty clear he plans to vote for Kamala Harris. 'Our girls could not have a better role model in their lives as how to be an incredibly strong woman. And how to believe in themselves and be in charge of their lives (every aspect of their lives),' he wrote. 'Let's honor the women in our lives with respect and make sure that we fight for their rights right alongside them,' McGraw's, 57, caption read in part. He faced significant backlash for the politically charged statement and broke his silence, posting for the first time in the week since Faith's birthday. Tim McGraw took a chance and he's seeing the repercussions of that chance. Seen here in April 2024 'Sitting here thinking about how awesome all the shows were this year. Thanx to everyone who made the Standing Room Only tour so special!!' McGraw captioned his post of shots from his tour. The two country superstars married in 1996 and share three daughters: Gracie, 27, Maggie, 26, and Audrey, 22. While that was music to the ears of many of his fans, other more right-leaning conservative fans made sure to let him know how they felt in the comments. However, this is not the first time the father of three daughters has revealed he's more left-leaning than a lot of his fans. He called the attempted coup of the U.S. government on January 6, 2021 'one of the saddest days in our countrys history' and said it 'was tough to watch,' in an interview with Time. And he's also for common sense gun laws, pointing out during a 2017 Billboard interview, 'They want to make it about the Second Amendment every time its brought up. Its not about the Second Amendment.' McGraw also performed at President Joe Biden's inauguration in 2021 and, back in 2006, he said if he ever ran for office, it would be as a Democrat. Some fans were not pleased, vowing to never listen to him again despite being a big fan for decades. 'Wow! Used to be a Tim McGraw fan,' one person complained, as another Instagram user declared, "Id never listen to your music again after seeing you bleed blue.' But many more fans, women especially, remarked that McGraw has always stood for a women's right to choose while others said they have no intentions of setting women's right back 50 years by completely banning abortion. During a post in honor of his beloved wife Faith Hill's 57th birthday last week McGraw mentioned fighting for women's rights. Seen here in August 2023 'Our girls could not have a better role model in their lives as how to be an incredibly strong woman. And how to believe in themselves and be in charge of their lives (every aspect of their lives),' he wrote 'Let's honor the women in our lives with respect and make sure that we fight for their rights right alongside them,' McGraw's, 57, caption read in part. Seen here in August 2023 The two country superstars married in 1996 and share three daughters: Gracie, 27, Maggie, 26, and Audrey, 22. Seen here in June 2022 'Love a man that supports his wife and daughters and their rights,' one user commented. 'Happy Birthday Faith. I thank you MR. McGraw for standing and respecting the rights of every women in this country . Hats off to you,' another person wrote. 'I am a conservative, but how could we go back 50 years! A womans body is hers. A man doesnt have to worry about it,' one fan wrote. She added: 'I was a senior year when it passed. Sad to hear stories of girls going to Mexico and dying from decisions that were made for them! Womans body, womans right to choose!!' Harper Beckham, 13, certainly looked to be following in her mum Victoria Beckham's stylish footsteps as she led her famous family in heading to the designer's Paris Fashion Week show on Friday. The teenager opted for a chic pink satin dress for the occasion as she stepped out with dapper father David, brothers Cruz and Romeo and Cruz's girlfriend Jackie Apostel. Meanwhile, older brother Brooklyn, 25, twinned with actress wife Nicola Peltz, 29, as they rocked matching ensembles while they left their hotel separately to go and support Victoria. Harper teamed her dress with white strappy mules and opted to brave the rain without a coat as she left the hotel alongside dad David, who placed a protective arm around her waist. The football legend, 49, cut a typically smart figure, slipping into a sharp navy suit to watch his wife's presentation of her Spring/Summer 2025 line in the French capital. Harper Beckham, 13, certainly looked to be following in her mum Victoria Beckham's stylish footsteps as she led her famous family in heading to the designer's Paris Fashion Week show on Friday Meanwhile, older brother Brooklyn, 25, twinned with actress wife Nicola Peltz, 29, as they rocked matching ensembles while they left their hotel separately to go and support Victoria The teenager opted for a chic pink satin dress for the occasion as she stepped out with dapper father David, brothers Cruz and Romeo and Cruz's girlfriend Jackie Apostel Harper's floor-length dressed was especially made for her by her fashion designer mother, the Mail revealed. 'Harper is too young to wear a dress from Victoria's range,' said one friend. 'So she decided to make her very own bespoke one and it is beautiful.' While Harper and David dressed to impress, so too did Cruz and his girlfriend, with the teen rocking a retro blue suit while Jackie oozed glamour in a white satin gown - both outfits were also designed by Victoria. Family friends say that Victoria 'loves that he loves fashion' so has made him a handful of outfits in what has been her first foray into men's fashion. While Jackie was invited to Mrs Beckham's show for the first time and she made sure she wasn't left out of the VB fashion parade by wearing the label's 990 gathered shoulder floor-length cami gown in ivory. Meanwhile, brother Romeo, 22, kept things cool in a black leather jacket teamed with coordinating black trousers, shoes and sunglasses. Elsewhere, while Brooklyn looked smart in a classic black tux, Nicola rocked her own version of the look, opting for a shirt-style halterneck top with a black bow tie, paired with low-slung black trousers. The Beckham clan looked in great spirits despite the dreary weather, holding large umbrellas as they headed to their waiting cars. Before leaving the hotel, David posed for a snap with his children and joked getting the image was 'a little challenging' as they all needed to give their 'approval' before he could post it Victoria later shared a photo of the whole family the Instagram She and David enjoyed a glass of red wine after another successful fashion show While Harper and David dressed to impress, so too did Cruz and his girlfriend, with the teen rocking a retro blue suit while Jackie oozed glamour in a white satin gown Harper teamed her dress with white strappy mules and opted to brave the rain without a coat as she left the hotel alongside dad David, who placed a protective arm around her waist Harper was very much Victoria's mini me as she stepped out in a stylish blush pink gown Harper flashed a smile at big brother Romeo as they headed to the designer mother's Paris show Harper showed off her fashion credentials as she led the Beckham clan from the hotel Before leaving the hotel, David posed for a snap with his children and joked getting the image was 'a little challenging' as they all needed to give their 'approval' before he could post it. Also showing support for the former Spice Girl was her best pal Eva Longoria, who looked as glam as ever while heading to the show. The Desperate Housewives star, 49, went braless beneath a sleek black gown, which covered much of her figure. Eva matched her chic ensemble with a black box clutch and towering black heels, while sweeping her brunette tresses into a sleek style. The Hollywood star appeared in a great mood as she smiled and waved to fans before heading off to watch the show. Earlier in the day, Victoria was pictured heading to her Paris Fashion Week show on Friday ahead of her famous family as she prepared to sort the final touches. Having stepped out earlier and going braless under a black jacket, Victoria, 50, swapped her ensemble for a black power suit from her own collection. Her show began at 7.30pm with her family and a host of her showbiz pals in attendance. The designer is showing her Spring/Summer 2025 line in the capital and looked incredible in a plunging blazer hours before. She had left her hotel alongside her son Romeo with the pair happily posing for selfies with fans outside. The Beckham family garnered plenty of attention as they braved the rain and headed to the fashion show Onlookers stopped for snaps of the famous clan Elsewhere, while Brooklyn looked smart in a classic black tux, Nicola rocked her own version of the look, opting for a shirt-style halterneck top with a black bow tie, paired with low-slung black trousers Brazilian singer Jackie looked sensational in a plunging white satin gown Jackie put on a leggy display in the satin dress which she teamed with pointed black heels She showed off the stunning back of the dress as she waited to get into the car Cruz showcased his retro style in a blue pinstripe suit and white shoes Jackie flashed plenty of skin in her plunging, low back gown Sofia Vergara was in attendance As was Eva Longoria She shared snaps from a dinner afterwards Eva was also there to support her pal They had a raucous time after the show They larked about at the dinner in Paris Eva shared her pride in her friend They partied the night away Eva and some other pals shared snaps from the big night Sofie looked great in all black She posed with Victoria herself Earlier in the day, Victoria was pictured heading to her Paris Fashion Week show on Friday ahead of her famous family as she prepared to sort the final touches A little while later, her husband David was seen emerging from the building as he headed out for lunch with son Cruz, 19, and his new girlfriend Jackie. Brazilian singer Jackie was a member of Brazilian girlband, Schutz, although has since appeared to have gone solo, according to her online accounts. Former Spice Girl Victoria was the epitome of chic as she went braless and teased a glimpse of cleavage beneath her plunging black suit. Victoria's stylish blazer was cinched at her tiny waist and teamed with a pair of extreme wide-legged trousers as she shielded her eyes behind shades. She also proved to be her own best advert as she shared a stunning snap of herself on the beach to promote her upcoming show. Meanwhile, Romeo cut a more casual figure as he left the hotel in a graphic T-shirt, long shorts and a baseball cap. One lucky fan was able to grab a snap with both mother and son and while Brooklyn beamed, Victoria gave her best supermodel pout. Also showing support for the former Spice Girl was her best pal Eva Longoria, who looked as glam as ever while heading to the show The Desperate Housewives star, 49, went braless beneath a sleek black gown, which covered much of her figure Eva matched her chic ensemble with a black box clutch and towering black heels, while sweeping her brunette tresses into a sleek style All eyes were on Eva as she left her hotel to support her friend The Hollywood star appeared in a great mood as she smiled and waved to fans before heading off to watch the show Eva and Sofia were enjoying their night in Paris Posh previously told Vogue that the 'worst question' she is ever asked is 'Why don't you ever smile?'. She joked that she's smiling on the inside and the reason she never breaks into a grin is because: 'I feel that I have a responsibility to the fashion community.' The former Spice Girl has previously said she would look silly if she was seen constantly smiling. 'I smile in family pictures,' she told The New York Times back in 2013. 'When you're in a position to be paparazzi-ed just walking down the street, you'd look a little daft if you were smiling all the time.' Taye Diggs has revealed he felt 'blindsided' by Diddy's arrest on sex trafficking charges after previously considering the disgraced rapper a 'hero.' The musician, 54, real name Sean Love Combs, is currently awaiting trial at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center in New York City on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. It is alleged that the rapper would coerce and manipulate victims into taking part in days-long sexual performances, which he dubbed 'freak offs'. Diddy's associates would allegedly ply victims with drugs to keep them compliant and would make threats against anyone refusing to engage, in claims similar to those made in a civil lawsuit brought by Diddy's ex-girlfriend Cassie last year. Actor Diggs, 53, said Thursdays episode of Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudsons Sibling Revelry podcast: 'I felt so naive when I heard all that stuff because I was I dont know where I was, but all of it blindsided me. Taye Diggs has revealed he felt 'blindsided' by Diddy's arrest on sex trafficking charges after previously considering the disgraced rapper a 'hero' - pictured last week The musician, 54, real name Sean Love Combs, is currently awaiting trial at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center in New York City on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution 'He was a hero to me. I loved how he he didnt come from much, he started out as a dancer. All the things that I wasnt, growing up, he was. He had so much confidence and a certain arrogance that I loved and he made being black cool. 'I really put him on a pedestal and it was disappointing to see some of what happened. I couldnt believe it. And I didnt like that feeling.' The Chicago star added: 'On one side, Im like, this is great for people to know that this happens. We can think life is to be lived a certain way, we can think a person is a certain way and they can be the exact opposite and get used to that, you know?' It was recently revealed that Combs has 'been able to speak briefly to family members and his children via phone' as per People. Diddy's phone call home came amid news his lawyers are not asking for him to be moved from the 'Hell on Earth' Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset, Brooklyn. 'He is very concerned about his kids and their well-being,' the source stated. 'He has three minor children, two of whom now have no living parent available with him incarcerated. Four of his seven children have neither parent available with him incarcerated.' Another source said that the Combs kids are 'in a state of crisis and shock' following Diddy's arrest. Actor Diggs, 53, said on Thursdays episode of Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudsons Sibling Revelry podcast: 'He was a hero to me. I loved how he he didnt come from much, he started out as a dancer. All the things that I wasnt, growing up, he was. He had so much confidence and a certain arrogance that I loved and he made being black cool' 'It's heartbreaking to see the children in the state they're in. This is their father. But to them, he's not Diddy he's Dad. He has always been a loving, devoted father.' He shares Christian, Jessie and DLila with the late model and actress Kim Porter, who died in 2018 at age 47. Quincy was Porters son with partner Al B. Sure!, and Combs went on to adopt him. He shares Justin with stylist Misa Hylton, and Chance with businesswoman Sarah Chapman. In December 2022 he welcomed the arrival of his youngest child, daughter, Love, with model Dana Tran. On Tuesday Justin, Christian, and Quincy arrived together at a New York City courtroom to support their father. He added of Diddy: 'I really put him on a pedestal and it was disappointing to see some of what happened. I couldnt believe it. And I didnt like that feeling'; seen in 2022 Combss three daughters and 23-month-old baby girl were nowhere in view. Another source told People that Diddy is not getting any special accommodations at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center. 'He is being treated like any other detainee awaiting trial. As with all public figures in his position, he was placed on suicide watch upon admittance to the facility as a precaution.' Diddy was arrested and charged last week for sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. The charge, which details allegations dating back to 2008, accuses him of abusing, threatening and coercing women for years 'to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct.' He has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Following his arrest, he was denied bail by a judge after he used both his and his mother's homes in Miami - worth $50 million - as collateral. On Wednesday, he lost an appeal to overturn the decision and will remain in custody while pending trial. He is currently being held at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center. 'He is being treated like any other detainee awaiting trial. As with all public figures in his position, he was placed on suicide watch upon admittance to the facility as a precaution'; seen in a court sketch from September 18 Reporter Meghann Cuniff also shared on Twitter on Monday that Diddy's lawyers are not currently asking the judge to change where he's being held. The Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset, Brooklyn, also known as MDC, has a reputation for extreme violence, multiple deaths, squalid conditions, safety issues, rampant staffing shortages, smuggling of drugs and contraband, some carried out by its prison staff, and food that contains maggots - that have since been disproved. The jail has been deemed so dangerous that some judges have refused to send other violent offenders there. Some of the infamous prisoners detained there include Ghislaine Maxwell, Sam Bankman-Fried and R. Kelly. Combs, who pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to sex trafficking charges, is being held in solitary confinement - away from the comforts of his $48 million mansion - and on suicide watch. This summer there were two fatal stabbings and another stabbing in April where an inmate was knifed 44 times by MS-13 gang members at MDC, as per NBC reported. In the indictment against Diddy that was unsealed this week, it was claimed that federal raids on his Miami and Los Angeles mansions led to the discovery of over 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant. It is alleged that the rapper would coerce and manipulate victims into taking part in days-long sexual performances, which he dubbed 'freak offs.' Diddy's associates would allegedly ply victims with drugs to keep them compliant and would make threats against anyone refusing to engage, in claims similar to those made in a civil lawsuit brought by Diddy's ex-girlfriend Cassie last year. These allegations were central to prosecutors bringing sex trafficking charges against the producer, with observers noting that authorities are increasingly expanding the law to suit their cases against powerful defendants. A step up in federal sex trafficking charges was passed by Congress in 2000 as an intentional step to take down prostitution rings and pimps, but the evolving nature of the charge has seen it more recently used to snare individuals like Keith Raniere. Notably, Diddy has hired the same attorney, Marc Agnifilo, who has previously challenged the government's expanding use of federal sex trafficking charges in Raniere's 2019 trial that led to a 120-year sentence. Reese Witherspoon was full of love for her youngest son Tennessee this week. Her son - who she shares with ex James Toth, 12 - celebrated his 12th birthday on Friday, Sept. 27. 'Happy 12th Birthday to my wonderful son, Tenn!' the Legally Blonde star wrote. 'I'm so lucky to have your joyful, curious, hilarious spirit in my life making me laugh everyday. I love you, buddy,' she added, alongside the cute snap of them together. Witherspoon's two other children Ava Phillippe, 25, and Deacon Philippe, 20, also shared their own touching photos and tributes to their little brother. Reese Witherspoon shares rare snap of lookalike son Tennessee on his 12th birthday: 'I love you, buddy' She shares Ava and Deacon with her ex-husband, Cruel Intentions star Ryan Phillippe. Ava posted a snap of her little brother as a baby with the caption: 'Can't believe my once tiny brother is now 12 years old & about to be my same height.' She added: 'Happy happy birthday to this quick-witted, funny, curious & thoughtful dude that Im lucky enough to call my baby brother.' Deacon also posted a tribute on social media with a picture of the pair hugging, writing: 'What up 12.' Reese is known for being a proud cheerleader of her kids on her social media account. Earlier this year, Reese partied with Ava in Paris and shared the photos to Instagram. Witherspoon's two other children Ava Phillippe, 25, and Deacon Philippe, 20, also shared their own touching photos and tributes to their little brother. The birthday boy was seen enjoying a celebratory breakfast His older brother Deacon shared a slew of snaps of the youngster Sister Ava posted a sweet tribute to her little brother In one image, they were both spotted enjoying white wine in long-stemmed glasses while at a small bistro-style outdoor table with a tiny glass of peanuts at the center. 'January in Paris,' wrote Reese in her caption while Ava added a two champagne glass emoji in the comments section. Pal Jessica Alba wrote in the comments section, 'Mother Daughter trips are Everything!' In 2023, Reese appeared in one film - rom-com Your Place Or Mine? - with Ashton Kutcher who had not had a main film role since 2013. Reese with all three of her kids: Ava, Deacon and Tennessee. She was also pictured with husband Jim Toth, whom she has since divorced Ava and mom Reese in Paris in January where they both sipped wine Later this year, she will appear in Amazon Prime comedy You're Cordially Invited with Will Ferrell. The film follows the father of the bride (Will) who discovers his daughter's dream wedding venue has been double-booked for another bride and her wedding-planner sister (Reese). Reese has won an Oscar, an Emmy, and two Golden Globes over the 33 years of her Hollywood career. Phillip Schofield's daughter has hold of how her dad's 'heartbreaking' This Morning scandal and him coming out as gay has 'made them closer.' Discussing her own ordeal as the former presenter, 62, made his return to TV for Channel 5's Cast Away, Molly, 31, as she discussed everything for the first time. Phillip has been married to Stephanie Lowe since 1993 and the pair share two daughters: Molly and Ruby, 28. In 2020, he shocked the country when he came out as gay, however, he and Stephanie stayed married - albeit separating later that year. Speaking on Cast Away, set to air on Monday, Molly opened up about how hard the past few years had been on her family. Phillip Schofield's daughter has hold of how her dad's 'heartbreaking' This Morning scandal and him coming out as gay has 'made them closer' (pictured in 2022) Discussing her own ordeal as the former presenter, 62, made his return to TV for Channel 5's Cast Away, Molly, 31, as she discussed everything for the first time (pictured with daughters Molly and Ruby) She said: 'What people don't realise is that they batter you but then there are other people affected.' Molly, who works as her father's publicist, added: 'We've seen him in his lowest times, but I've been so proud of him, and as a daughter to see the love that people had for him that when it's taken away it's just heartbreaking.' 'Weirdly everything that's happened recently has made us closer.' 'When my dad came out, it was, it was very hard for me,' Molly continued. 'It was very hard for the entire family. Mainly my mum, of course, everything was turned upside down. But we talked through it and over time it's got easier.' Phillip secretly filmed Channel 5 special Cast Away, which required him to give up his home comforts for 10 days of soul-searching on a tropical island in the Indian Ocean During the show, he will discuss his bitter parting of ways with ITV and This Morning, which he hosted for 21 years, while fending for himself on the island paradise, located off the coast of Madagascar. His wife Stephanie's world came crashing down when, in May 2023, it finally became public knowledge that Phillip had conducted a years-long affair with a much-younger male ITV colleague. Phillip has been married to Stephanie Lowe since 1993 and the pair share Molly and Ruby, 28 (both pictured in January 2020) In 2020, he shocked the country when he came out as gay, however, he and Stephanie stayed married - albeit separating later that year (pictured on This Morning with Holly Willoughby) Phil and Stephanie have never legally divorced with sources close to the couple saying previously that she 'still loves him' deeply and will always remain in his 'support system' with their daughters Molly and Ruby. Phillip has not worked since he left This Morning in May 2023 shortly before the affair was revealed. His co-host and once close friend, Holly Willoughby, later left herself, with Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard taking over their roles. Phillip quit ITV entirely after admitting he had lied to the Daily Mail about his the affair. Friends of the star were 'quite certain' he would never work again following his admission, but Channel 5 changed this. One said at the time: 'Phillip has been very, very down recently. He doesn't know how he is going to work again. It's devastating for him to realise but he also knows that there is not a lot he can do about it. He doesn't know who will take him. He knows there is no way back to ITV or the BBC.' Sources close to Schofield say that his friends are trying to encourage him to think he can have a 'fulfilling life' away from showbusiness. One said: 'Just because he may not be on telly again doesn't mean he can't enjoy his life. Phil isn't so sure though.' Before the Channel 5 gig, Phillip was tipped for a job on national radio his 'first love' with Britain's largest commercial stations said to be jostling to bring him in to woo new listeners from rivals, including BBC Radio 2. An ITV report in December 2023 cleared bosses of a cover-up of the affair and did not mention any further damaging claims about Schofield's relationship with a young runner on the show. Despite claims of a 'whitewash', industry insiders told MailOnline that it opens the door to the star getting a new big-money deal to return to work in 2024. But a senior British broadcasting source said a return to TV for Mr Schofield is 'unlikely for now'. Phillip infamously described the affair as 'unwise but not illegal'. He admitted he once met the man at 15, but insisted they did not begin a relationship till he was 20 (both pictured with Holly) He said: 'Now that a line has been drawn in the sand by ITV over the Schofield saga, attention will move on. 'Within a period of time there is now a place for Phillip to return, possibly not on TV yet, but there are now a myriad of opportunities for him on commercial radio where he will be offered big money to return to his first love. 'The KC's report gives him a fresh chance but nobody will be surprised at all to see that ITV has found itself in the clear as it tries to save This Morning'. Neither Phillip nor his former partner spoke to Jane Mulcahy KC, whose report came out in December. Ms Mulcahy found that the unnamed runner's promotion from This Morning to Loose Women 'had nothing to do' with Schofield and claimed that also 'only one person' interviewed had knowledge of the affair but 'did not report their knowledge at time'. Blac Chyna's mother Tokyo Toni claimed she was the one who beat up her daughter's ex-boyfriend Twin Hector. On Friday, she took to social media with a since-deleted video, in which she said it was not Blac Chyna who injured him like he claimed in his domestic violence lawsuit. Instead, Toni insisted that she was the one who 'beat his motherf***in' a**.' This comes after Hector, born Taiyon Hector, sued Chyna and alleged she attacked him in his sleep back in 2021 in a $10 million lawsuit, which includes claims of domestic violence, civil assault and battery. She was fuming that Hector claimed it was Chyna, born Angela White, and insisted that he 'went to sleep' after she knocked him out. Blac Chyna 's mother Tokyo Toni claimed she was the one who beat up her daughter's ex-boyfriend Twin Hector; pictured November 2019 in Universal City On Friday, she took to social media with a since-deleted video, in which she said it was not Blac Chyna who injured him like he claimed in his domestic violence lawsuit. Instead, Toni insisted that she was the one who 'beat his motherf***in' a**' Toni began her video by alleging that Hector's claims were lies. 'Let me break something down to you, Hector. Don't tell no motherf***in' lies, b****. I beat your motherf***in' a** like the f*** I said I was,' she said. 'I finished your motherf***ing a**,' she repeated as she demonstrated a kick so hard that her shoe flew off. She also warned Hector that she would be heading to Los Angeles to confront him for 'playing games' with her and her daughter. She continued, adding that she would 'whoop [his] motherf***in' a**' for saying that Chyna, who she claimed was too petite to hurt him, 'did that to you.' She concluded her video with a stern warning to Hector. 'Try it again,' she said before grabbing her heels and swinging them at the camera. This comes after it was reported that Hector filed a domestic violence lawsuit against his ex-girlfriend. This comes after Hector, born Taiyon Hector, sued Chyna and alleged she attacked him in his sleep back in 2021 in a $10 million lawsuit, which includes claims of domestic violence, civil assault and battery; pictured September 14 in Los Angeles Toni was fuming that Hector claimed it was Chyna, born Angela White, and insisted that he 'went to sleep' after she knocked him out He is suing her for $10 million as he claimed she attacked him while he was sleeping at their place. In his lawsuit, he also alleged that it was not the first time she abused him. He claimed that she would frequently physically and verbally abuse him during their nearly three-year relationship. In Hector's suit, he accused Chyna of being 'physically violent and verbally threatening and abusive' towards him 'for no apparent reason' whenever she was under the influence. He said that the model, who celebrated two years of sobriety this month, 'would regularly drink alcohol and use other drugs, to excess.' He also referenced her ex-boyfriend, Rob Kardashian, as the reality TV star previously testified in 2022 that Chyna had allegedly beaten him five times during their relationship. Hector is suing her for $10 million as he claimed she attacked him while he was sleeping at their place. In his lawsuit, he also alleged that it was not the first time she abused him. He claimed that she would frequently physically and verbally abuse him during their nearly three-year relationship; pictured September 2023 in Los Angeles He also referenced her ex-boyfriend, Rob Kardashian , as the reality TV star previously testified in 2022 that Chyna had allegedly beaten him five times during their relationship; pictured May 2016 in Las Vegas She accused him of lying and claimed that he fell asleep after she beat him up. He said she threatened to kill him more than once and described a 'vicious attack' while he slept in September 2021. He recalled that his now-ex woke him up with 'closed-fisted punches, elbow strikes, and knee kicks to his body and face,' which he said 'nearly blinded him' and left his face covered in blood. The former couple previously dated from August 2020 to March 2023. At the time of their relationship, Hector moved into Chyna's home in Woodland Hills, where she lives with her son King and daughter Dream. Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum Kim Richards has reportedly suffered a relapse and has been placed on a psychiatric hold. After allegedly falling off of the wagon, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department [LAPD] confirmed to People that the reality star, 60, and her sister, Kyle Richards, 55, were involved in an altercation earlier this week. On Wednesday, an 'incident' occurred between the siblings in Encino, where Kyle 'owns a home that Kim had recently been staying in.' LAPD officers are said to have 'responded to keep the peace after a female reportedly violated a restraining order.' Following an investigation, the officers 'determined there was no order on file and no crime was committed.' Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum Kim Richards has reportedly suffered a relapse into her alcohol addiction and has been placed on a psychiatric hold; seen in 2019 'Both parties were informed of eviction process and officers kept the peace,' the officials told the outlet. The officials, however, could not verify if it was Kim and Kyle that were involved 'in the scuffle.' DailyMail.com has reached out to both Kim and Kyle's representatives, but have not heard back, at this time. Earlier this month, TMZ reported that Kim was placed on a 5150 psychiatric hold and taken to a hospital by ambulance for her 'incoherent' behavior. At the time, she was reportedly staying at a Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles. According to NAMI Sonoma County (National Alliance on Mental Illness), 'under California law, certain designated professionals can place a person in a 72-hour psychiatric hold.' During a 5150, a person is taken into custody and held for up to 72 hours for evaluation.' During this time, 'the facility or hospital is required to do an evaluation of that person, taking into account their medical, psychological, educational, social, financial, and legal situation.' After allegedly falling out of the wagon, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department [LAPD] confirmed that the reality star, 60, and her sister, Kyle Richards, 55, were involved in an altercation earlier this week (pictured in November 2023) Per TMZ, law enforcement sources said that Kyle claimed that Kim was 'in deep trouble over her sobriety' and that their entire family was 'worried about her survival.' Kim's struggle with sobriety was documented during her time on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. In their reality show's first season, which aired in 2010, Kyle accused Kim of being an alcoholic during a tense exchange. A year later, she entered rehab. In April 2015, Kim was arrested for public intoxication at the Beverly Hills Hotel. That same year, she went to a treatment facility in Malibu. In 2016, she recalled her addiction issues beginning after her split from her second husband, Gregg Davis in 1991. 'I started noticing I was drinking a lot,' she recalled. 'Thats when my issue started.' Kim's struggle with sobriety was documented during her time on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills; seen in 2021 In 2016, she recalled her addiction issues beginning after her split from her second husband, Gregg Davis in 1991. 'I started noticing I was drinking a lot,' she recalled. 'Thats when my issue started.' Mel C stunned in a blue mini dress on Thursday evening as she headed to a DJ gig at Cafe Mambo, Ibiza with her handsome model boyfriend Chris Dingwall. Mel paired her dress with a light tan saddle bag and a white pair of trainers and the wind swept her hair about. Sporty Spice showed off her tattoos in the sleeveless dress and its short length drew attention to her toned legs. Walking separately to the pair was Mel's boyfriend Chris, an Aussie, who looked handsome in all-black. A member of Mel's team ensured all eyes were on him as he sported a black T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase 'Team Sporty'. Mel C, 50, (pictured with a member of her team) stunned in a blue mini dress on Thursday evening as she headed to a DJ gig at Cafe Mambo, Ibiza with her boyfriend Walking separately to the pair was Mel's boyfriend Chris, an Aussie model, who looked handsome in all-black Mel paired her dress with a light tan saddle bag and a white pair of trainers and the wind swept her hair about After her set, Mel took to Instagram to write: 'What a way to end summer 24, this year has been insane, just keeps getting better. 'Thank you for having me again @mamboibiza @javiermamboking .' Earlier in September, and again in Ibiza, Mel and Chris piled on the PDA as they enjoyed the water. Days prior she had shared a steamy kiss with Chris during a PDA-filled boat ride on the island. Mel and Chris, who is also a model, went public with their relationship at Glastonbury in June. Not much is known about Chris but he is thought to be in his 40s. An online biography for the model explains that Chris has 'over 20 years of print, commercial and film work with some of the worlds best brands' under his belt. Chris is also a writer and director for film and television, having helmed a handful of shorts, including the St Kilda Film Festival entry Oasis, in which he also starred. Sporty Spice showed off her tattoos in the sleeveless dress and its short length drew attention to her toned legs After her set, Mel took to Instagram to write: 'What a way to end summer 24, this year has been insane, just keeps getting better Mel finished the caption: 'Thank you for having me again @mamboibiza @javiermamboking ' Earlier in September, and again in Ibiza, Mel and Chris piled on the PDA in Ibiza as they enjoyed the water Days prior she had shared a steamy kiss with Chris during a PDA-filled boat ride on the island. Mel and Chris arrived in Ibiza on the morning of the gig and both looked in high spirits at the airport Mel adjusted the top half of her Nike Jordan Brooklyn tracksuit - which would have set her back over 100 The set featured a crew-neck jumper, but hoodies are also available. Mel finished her look with opaque black sunglasses Across her body, Mel carried the same bag that she would wear to the gig hours later Chris additionally directed two episodes of the Australian miniseries Brock, about car racing legend Peter Brock, and has a number of upcoming film projects in post-production. It's unclear where the pair met, but Mel embarked on an extensive DJ tour in Australia back in May. Mel, who had a fling with Robbie Williams in around 1997, keeps her love life largely out of the spotlight but previously spoke about how she was banned from dating in the early days of the Spice Girls - while her bandmates were free to pursue romances. 'Looking back what struck me was it was one rule for one and another for the others, right?' she said. 'I think when you are vulnerable as well, people go, I don't think it's good for you.' Mel and Chris arrived in Ibiza on the morning of the packed-out gig and both looked in high spirits at the airport. Mel adjusted the top half of her Nike Jordan Brooklyn tracksuit - which would have set her back over 100. The set featured a crew-neck jumper, but hoodies are also available. Mel finished her look with opaque black sunglasses. Mel carried the same bag across her body that she would wear to the gig hours later. Wake Forest University has canceled a lecture set to be delivered by Palestinian-American activist Rabab Abdulhadi, scheduled for the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, in which 1,139 people were killed, and an additional 251 were taken hostage. In an email addressed to the Wake Forest community, University President Susan R. Wente and Provost Michele Gillespie indicated that Abdulhadi's lecture, scheduled for Oct. 7, "cannot take place." "We have also made the conscious decision not to host events on this day that are inherently contentious and stand to stoke division in our campus community," they wrote. "We are living in complex times, and yet we remain hopeful about the future because of this caring community and our shared mission to serve humanity." On Sunday, an online petition was started by the executive boards of Jewish student organizations Hillel and Chabad in order to protest the event featuring Abdulhadi. As of Thursday, the petition has received over 8,000 signatures. The university's undergraduate student enrollment stands at 5,471. Wake Forest's student-run newspaper, The Old Gold & Black, could not confirm what percentage of Wake Forest University students made up the signatories. "We support free speech, we encourage the university to host people with a variety of different viewpoints, to share different perspectives, encourage and foster dialogue on our campus. However, about a week ago, they put up posters for this event with antisemitic and pro-terrorist language," Isabelle Laxer, president of the WFU Chabad student organization, told Fox 8. "It's incredibly disheartening to see this happening on a day that saw the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust." The petition refers to Abdulhadi as a "self-proclaimed Hamas sympathizer." Abdulhadi, director of San Francisco State University's Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative, has aimed to strengthen ties between SFSU and Palestinian universities An-Najah and Bir Zeit, which have been described by Campus Watch as "Hamas-dominated." "Over the last 12 months we've heard the claim repeatedly that this was the worst of violence that Jews have suffered since the Holocaust, and I get that I'm a scholar of the Holocaust; I am Jewish. Oct. 7 was an incredibly horrible day," Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History Barry Trachtenberg told the Old Gold & Black. "We also must recognize that, since then, at least 42,000 Palestinians have been murdered, the vast majority of them being noncombatants. It is the largest loss of life in Palestinian history ever, and I believe that makes it worthwhile for us to be able to talk about it." Five on-campus academic departments were sponsoring the event, which had been titled "One Year Since al-Aqsa Flood: Reflections on a Year of Genocide and Resistance," --- Wake Forest University's Humanities Institute, the department of history, the department of politics and international affairs, the Middle East South Asian studies program and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza strip in the onslaught following the events of Oct. 7. The Great Indian Wedding has had movies and documentaries made about it, but the industry now worth an estimated Rs 50,000 crore annually and growing at an estimated 25 percent per year, it has been the driving force of more industries in India than any other. From wedding event planning to gifting and of course aviation and hospitality. Try to get a banquet hall or even a hotel room in the months of November and December in destinations as varied from Goa to Nainital and rates are through the roof. And countries across the world also want a piece of the pie, from cruise ships hosting large pre-wedding functions across the Mediterranean and beach resorts across South-East Asia now making arrangements for everything like beachside mandaps and even diving excursions during weddings and top chefs from across the world now specialising in wedding food, India is also exporting large sums of money abroad thanks to weddings. Little wonder then that Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January announced that Indians should Wed In India in order to keep the wedding industry ecosystem in India growing. But there should also be increased government support for all the start-ups in the space, from those who design cards to the thousands employed by the industry every year from make-up artists and waiters. For better or for worse, a large part of the wedding industry ecosystem is still cash-driven and outside the tax net. In fact, it might not be a bad idea for different states to start competing for wedding traffic by offering incentives to host weddings in their states, this could be through tax incentives to hotels and catering services as well as taxi operators. The ease of doing business should apply to the wedding industry as well. It is understandable that many people find the ostentatious display of wealth at weddings grotesque, especially since at a per capita GDP of less than $3000, Indians are far from being rich. But the wedding industry provides employment and opportunities to millions across the country every year and authorities should do more to ensure that a majority of the funds spent remain in India. Quad summit reiterated its commitment to ensure regional stability and foster sustainable development in the face of China's growing influence The fourth Quad Summit, held in Wilmington, Delaware, USA, marked a significant step toward reinforcing the strategic partnerships between the member countriesthe United States, India, Japan, and Australia. The Quad, officially known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, has become an essential platform for collaboration on multiple fronts, particularly in addressing security issues across the Asia-Pacific, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean Region. Over time, the scope of this partnership has expanded to include critical areas such as disaster management, digital infrastructure, and climate change, making it a multifaceted initiative with both security and development dimensions. One of the key highlights of this summit was Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's proposal to establish a new collaboration between India and the United States in the semiconductor sector. Modi emphasised the potential of AI (American-Indian) power, in reference to both artificial intelligence and the burgeoning US-India partnership. This collaboration, centered on a semiconductor facility near Noida in Uttar Pradesh, promises to bring advanced technologies, including control chips essential to both Indian and American security. The move is seen as a direct challenge to China's and Taiwan's dominance in the global semiconductor market, signaling a shift in the geopolitical landscape of technology. Alongside the semiconductor cooperation, maritime and cyber security remained top priorities for the Quad. The recent summit, attended by US President Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Modi, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, underscored the strategic importance of these areas. The Quad leaders are working to counter a variety of regional conflicts, including the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, transnational terrorism, and both traditional and non-traditional threats emerging in the Indo-Pacific. The member nations are particularly concerned about China's increasingly aggressive stance in the Indian Ocean and parts of the South and East China Seas, areas critical to global trade and security. Through dialogue and coordinated efforts, the Quad aims to tackle the growing threat of terrorism, especially in the Indo-Pacific region. By fostering diplomatic engagement and conflict resolution mechanisms, the Quad hopes to promote stability while ensuring economic prosperity for all member nations. The group's shared strategic vision is vital in shaping a multilayered, multilateral strategy for dealing with security challenges in an increasingly interconnected world. The Quad is not only a military alliance but also a platform for fostering development in fields such as education, science, biotechnology, and strategic planning, further strengthening the bonds between its members. India's rising global influence has been evident through its leadership in multiple international organisations such as the G20, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). These roles have allowed India to showcase its diplomatic prowess and address global issues. The Quad summit provided yet another opportunity for India to contribute to the development of a robust, cooperative international system. The discussions during the summit included the need to evolve a new strategic approach to counter threats from nations that seek to destabilise the global order. A key focus of the summit was the Indo-Pacific region, where the Quad aims to ensure a free, open, and secure maritime environment. This area has become a flashpoint for various conflicts, with China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) posing a significant challenge to regional stability. To counter this, the Quad members have collaborated on several initiatives, including the "Quad-at-Sea" Ship Observer Mission, which will enhance maritime security by 2025. Moreover, the group is also investing in renewable energy and high-quality infrastructure projects in the Indo-Pacific, aiming to foster sustainable development and reduce reliance on Chinese-led initiatives. Health cooperation was another important topic at the summit, with the Quad leaders announcing a collaborative effort to combat cervical cancer through the Quad Cancer Moonshot initiative. This humanitarian approach, combined with the group's security efforts, underscores the Quad's commitment to a comprehensive vision for regional stability and prosperity. The focus on addressing modern terrorism, including its funding and cyber threats, also highlights the Quad's adaptive approach to emerging security challenges. The ongoing collaboration among the Quad nations is not limited to traditional security measures. The group is working to enhance policing cooperation, cyber security, and border protection by leveraging technological innovations. These efforts are particularly crucial in addressing non-state actors who engage in smuggling, drug trafficking, and cyber-attacks. By tightening security mechanisms and boosting intelligence-sharing, the Quad hopes to build a more resilient defense network across the Indo-Pacific. The Quad's influence has also extended to humanitarian aid, as seen in its support for Papua New Guinea. The summit emphasised the need for a vigilant, modern approach to security, replacing outdated strategies that no longer fit the current geopolitical landscape. (The writer is recipient of Bharat Gaurav and Rastriya Gaurav Award is a professor and an expert of strategic affairs, views are personal) When it comes to establishing a business, one of the first things which is considered by entrepreneurs is the business environment. But have you ever wondered what factors influence it? Well, lets dig in. If we take a closer look, a number of factors actually impact a business and its day-to-day operations. They can be broadly categorised as internal and external. While internal factors are relatively predictable and can be handled by the business itself, external factors are the matter of concern. This is solely because it comprises components that are beyond the control of the business. However, what are these factors that arent in control of the business? Well, they can be further categorised into micro and macro environments. While the immediate external environment which influences the performance of the business makes up for the micro environment. Remote factors like political and economic form the core of the macro environment. Customers, competitors, suppliers, partners, and intermediaries among other factors which make up for the micro environment has a direct impact on the daily business operations. While they are not directly under the control of the business, they can be analysed and worked on to devise an appropriate strategy. This can be finalised as per the goals and objectives of the business. As for the macro environment, factors like political, social, technological, economical, environmental and legal can significantly impact a business. No business can prepare a plan for such factors, as they are unpredictable. Be it government policies related to tax, labour laws, trade restrictions or things like economic growth, business-specific laws, environmental policies, they have a big role to play. Given this fact, countries focus a lot on providing entrepreneurs and organisations an ideal environment to scale their business and thereby ensure economic growth for themselves. Of late, one of the countries which has been able to achieve this and emerge as a popular business hub among entrepreneurs is the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The gulf state has seen an unprecedented increase with regard to business setup across different sectors in each of its Emirates with business setup in Dubai being the favourite of entrepreneurs worldwide. In addition to the booming business environment, another factor which plays a significant role but goes unnoticed is the work done by business consulting firms. They act as the bridge between the entrepreneurs and their dream of setting up a business in a foreign market. Role of Consulting Firms in Business Setup Management consulting firms ensure that they guide the entrepreneurs about the prevalent rules and regulations. Having worked closely with government authorities, they can address the concerns of investors and business people in the best possible way. The consultants are well aware of the rules and regulations of the specific country or region and can ensure that they are navigated smoothly. With regard to business setup, they help with things like: Selection of appropriate jurisdiction among mainland, freezone and offshore. Choosing the right business structure based on the business activity Availing relevant business licenses and permits Renting office space to conduct business operations One of the management consulting firms which has made a name for itself among entrepreneurs for business setup in the Middle East is Commitbiz LLC. Business setup in Dubai or in any other Emirate is made easy as they provide end-to-end business solutions. Their business setup consultants are aware of the involved legalities and ensure seamless business registration. This is done by providing entrepreneurs a range of business-related services in the domain of company incorporation, tax planning, entity management and others. About Commitbiz LLC With the vision of providing world-class management advisory services across diverse business sectors, Commitbiz LLC was established in 2007. Over the years, they have expanded their services to different places in the Middle East region. Whether it was about setting up its first branch office in Abu Dhabi, opening an international branch in Bahrain or the recent development of setting up Muscat business park in Oman, they have kept the interest of the entrepreneur at the forefront. Following a client-centric approach, the team of 175+ business professionals has earned multiple awards during its journey. It is a testament to their dedication of simplifying business registration for entrepreneurs from around the world in the Middle East. Having helped over 10,000 clients across 150+ countries, the firm is now focused on growing further by staying true to its vision. With elections round the corner, BJP on Friday latched on to alleged corruption involving Congress leader Rahul Gandhis brother-in-law Robert Vadra when the Congress was in power in Haryana by firing a fresh salvo against the Opposition party. Modi during his campaign in Haryana recently had also revived the corruption charges involving him to slam the Congress and its leadership. Vadra has constantly denied allegations of any wrong-doing and accused the BJP of targeting him due to political vendetta. Echoing Modis words, Union Home Minister Amit Shah too trained his guns on the grand old party, alleging that dealers, dalaals and damaad used to rule the State before the BJP came into power. He also asked Rahul Gandhi if he knew the full form of MSP as he underlined that the BJP government in Haryana was procuring 24 crops at the minimum support price. With the Congress seen to be putting up a strong challenge after registering an impressive performance in the Lok Sabha polls, BJP sought to know who will stop Vadra if the party comes to power again. Haryana had become a hotbed of corruption when it was in power between 2004 and 2014, he said. BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia claimed the election in the State is a fight between Haryana ka laal (son of Haryana) and dalaal (fixer) of the Gandhi family, as it questioned the Congress leaderships silence on the corruption charges against Vadra and the partys then Government headed by Bhupinder Singh Hooda. He said people of the State have made up their mind to elect the BJP to power for a third straight term, asserting that the central Government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the State Government headed by Nayab Singh Saini have worked for farmers welfare. In one case, he noted, Vadras company allegedly acquired 3.5 acres of land of farmers and the then Hooda Government changed the land use, allowing him to pocket a huge profit by selling the parcel at four times the purchase price. In another case, farmers resorted to distress selling of their land after the Congress Government in the State issued a notification to acquire their land and then denotified after a builder linked to Vadra bought their land, he alleged. Rahul on his part stressed the need for simplifying the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and opening up the banking system to small businesses to promote job creation and alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modis monopoly model has taken away jobs in the country. Sharing a video of the Dogri Dham with RG event hosted by the All India Professionals Congress (AIPC) in Jammu on Wednesday, Rahul said that the frustration in the eyes of a young start-up owner from Jammu and Kashmir reflects the struggles of most entrepreneurs and small-business owners in India. The systematic attack on small and medium industries through incompetent policies like a bad GST and demonetisation has turned India from a producing economy to a consuming one. At this rate we can neither compete with China nor ensure prosperity for all Indians, he said, adding that India deserves better. In his rally Shah also attacked the Congress on the issue of corruption, reservation and over Article 370, which he said, the Congress wants to bring it back. Shah claimed the BJP will return to power in Haryana for third time after the October 5 polls. Congress Governments used to run on the basis of cut, commission and corruption while dealers, dalals (middlemen) and damads used to rule. Under BJP Government, there are no dealers, dalals while there is no question of damad, the senior BJP leader said. Referring to Rahul Gandhis recent US visit, Shah said whenever he wants to say anything rubbish ool jalool, he says in America. Shah accused Rahul of saying that he would end reservation of SC, ST and OBC. Shah also raised the issue of some rebels contesting as independents by breaking the party discipline and appealed to the people of Rewari to vote only for candidates who have the BJP symbol. He appealed to people to make BJP candidates Laxman Yadav (Rewari), Krishan Kumar (Bawal) and Anil Yadav (Kosli) victorious in the polls. Predicting a massive mandate for the Congress in the Haryana Assembly polls, former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said the final decision on the chief ministerial pick would be taken by the party high command and it would be acceptable to him. Asked about the Prime Ministers attack on the Congress over infighting, the former Haryana Chief Minister said there was no internal rift and the Congress was united. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Friday forecast heavy rainfall in parts of Bihar, Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh and warned of low to moderate flash flood risk in 13 districts of Bihar over the next 24 hours. IMD issued warnings for heavy to very heavy rainfall across Mumbai and Maharashtra, with significant impacts expected over the coming days. Following the recent trend of erratic monsoons, Mumbai is bracing for widespread rain, particularly in the Konkan region, which is anticipated to experience intense downpours today. According to the latest bulletin by the Met Department, a cyclonic circulation lies over north-central Maharashtra, and, under its effect, Maharashtra is expected to witness more downpour in coming days. Heavy rain is likely in West Champaran, East Champaran, Sitamarhi, Sheohar, Muzaffarpur, Gopalganj, Siwan, Saran, Vaishali, Patna, Jehanabad, Madhubani and Bhojpur districts, it said in a bulletin. These districts are at the risk of low to moderate flash floods in the next 24 hours, the Met Department said. A large number of people from the affected districts have been evacuated and brought to relief camps. The Shimla meteorological department issued a yellow alert for heavy rains at isolated areas of Himachal Pradesh. A total of 47 roads including National Highway 707 were closed for vehicular traffic in Himachal Pradesh following rains, officials said on Friday. The highest number of 25 roads were closed in Sirmaur, including NH 707 connecting Hatkoti in Shimla district and Paonta Sahib in Sirmaur district, ten in Kangra, eight in Mandi, two in Kullu and one each in Kinnaur and Shimla districts, according to the State emergency operation centre (SEOC). Officials said that 185 people died in rain-related incidents since the onset of monsoon in Himachal Pradesh on June 27 till Thursday evening, while 28 were missing. The State has suffered losses to the tune of Rs 1,332 crore, they said. The Israeli military said Friday it carried out an airstrike on the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut, where a massive explosion levelled buildings in a southern district, sending clouds of orange and black smoke billowing in the skies. The strike in the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the UN, vowing that Israels campaign against Hezbollah would continue. Not long before the explosion, thousands were massed in the suburb for the funeral of three Hezbollah members, including a senior commander, killed in earlier strikes. There was no immediate word on casualties in the strike. The Israeli army spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said it targeted the main Hezbollah headquarters, located beneath residential buildings. Hezbollahs Al-Manar TV said four buildings were reduced to rubble in the blast, so powerful that it rattled windows and shook houses some 30 kilometers north of Beirut. Ambulances were seen headed to the scene of the explosions, sirens wailing. Earlier in the day, an Israeli airstrike killed a family of nine in a Lebanese border village, authorities said, as Lebanon struggled to deal with a rising death toll, a wave of tens of thousands fleeing their homes and the possibility of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah. AP n Beirut The Israeli military said Friday it carried out an airstrike on the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut, where a massive explosion levelled buildings in a southern district, sending clouds of orange and black smoke billowing in the skies. The strike in the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the UN, vowing that Israels campaign against Hezbollah would continue. Not long before the explosion, thousands were massed in the suburb for the funeral of three Hezbollah members, including a senior commander, killed in earlier strikes. There was no immediate word on casualties in the strike. The Israeli army spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said it targeted the main Hezbollah headquarters, located beneath residential buildings. Hezbollahs Al-Manar TV said four buildings were reduced to rubble in the blast, so powerful that it rattled windows and shook houses some 30 kilometers north of Beirut. Ambulances were seen headed to the scene of the explosions, sirens wailing. Earlier in the day, an Israeli airstrike killed a family of nine in a Lebanese border village, authorities said, as Lebanon struggled to deal with a rising death toll, a wave of tens of thousands fleeing their homes and the possibility of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah. The much awaited silver crop as they call it in Bengal has finally arrived. The much awaited Padma Hilsa or the Hilsa fish of mighty River Padma, perhaps the worlds tastiest fish has finally arrived to grace the dishes of Kolkatans. Much to the ecstasy of the Bengali Bhadralok (gentleman) about 50 tonnes of Padma Hilsa on Friday arrived at the wholesale market juxtaposing the iconic Howrah Station. This is the first consignment of an expected 2,420 tonnes of Hilsa each weighing between 800 gram to about little more than 2 kg that is likely to be sent to India by mid October. The Bangladesh Hilsa swims to India through a cross current of debates and controversies in that country with a sizeable number of people in the new Bangla regime objecting to the export fearing that the transaction might jack up prices there. However, a top woman politician in the new regime in that country convinced the protesters saying only Indian can give the best price for their national fish. True, the mouth-watering flavour of Hilsa remains the same but diplomacy over it has kept on changing over the years. Like during the previous Sheikh Hasina regime consignments of this exquisite fish came to India as a gesture of friendship. But this time round it comes with a dose of economics too says a senior retired diplomat in this side of the border. The export of Hilsa from Bangladesh has seen fluctuations over the years, with a ban in place between 2012 and 2018. However, Bangladesh has made special exceptions in recent years for Durga Puja, as a gesture of goodwill and cultural diplomacy, said a professor in Dhaka University. Unlike in other parts of India fish is an item of offer to Mother Goddess in Bengal and so Hilsa will be offered to Durga who is worshiped besides as a Mother also as the Daughter who is coming home, said an organiser of the South Kolkata Durga Puja committee. Cut to its taste. They say the Padma Hilsa is Noor Jehan (Empress) of all fishes. Not for its silvery glaze but for its stupefying odour. So much so that while being cooked, the aroma of Padma Hilsa can drive the neighbour living several houses apart mad. No wonder why erstwhile Zamindars of eastern Bengal would employ country robbers to rob each others Hilsa consignments. Legend has it that Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq of Delhi, succumbed to the lure of Hilsa. If stories are to be believed, then Tughlaq was already suffering from various ailments when he tasted this fish. Mesmerised by its unique taste and flavour, he went on and on for days until he fell to his gluttony. Cut back to the wholesale market the fish is presently selling for anywhere between 1,400 and 1,600 per kg -- with its size varying between 800 gms and 1.2 kgs. When bigger size will come the price will breach Rs 2,500 ceiling, said Netai Pramanik an importer. Though we have been eating Hilsa for the past several months, the catches mostly coming from Ganges, Kolaghat and Digha there is nothing Padma Hilsa, said a Jadavpur University professor whose ancestors hailed from the other side of the border. The funda is the more the fish -- which comes from the sea -- swims upwards through the river the more tasty it is likely to be, he says reminiscing when there was no Farakka dam the fish would swim as far as Varanasi or even Allahabad, but not today. You can steam it, you can cook it with poppy seeds, with white mustard paste, with onion and ginger, make a simple curry or even wrap it in banana or Haldi leaves and simply steam it it tastes like heaven any day, he says wishing prices to come down below Rs 1,000 so that the poor man can also have a taste of Hilsa during the Durga Pujas. Police have seized 138 kg of ganja that had been brought to Madhya Pradeshs Indore district from Odisha in an ambulance and arrested two persons, an official said on Thursday. Superintendent of Police (Rural) Hitika Vasal told reporters that acting on a tip-off, an ambulance was stopped at Bherughat, about 40 km from the district headquarters, on Wednesday and searched following which the narcotic substance was found hidden in the vehicle. The 138-kg consignment of ganja, kept in small and big packets in the rear portion of the ambulance, could fetch about Rs 40 lakh in the illicit drug market, he said. The arrested smugglers have been identified as Kiran Hantal, alias Telco (19), and Balram Ganapatra, alias W (21), Vasal said. Both hail from Odishas Koraput district, bordering Andhra Pradesh, she added. The consignment was brought from Odisha to Madhya Pradesh. In the initial interrogation, the smugglers have said that they wanted to supply this drug in Indore and other cities, the official said. The BJP on Friday claimed Delhi Mayor Shelly Oberoi disregarded the Supreme Courts order dated August five by postponing the election meeting for a member of the Standing Committee of the Delhi Municipal Corporation(MCD)without any constitutionally valid reason. Leader of opposition in MCD Sardar Raja Iqbal Singh has filed a contempt petition in the Supreme Court. The BJP also said the Court had instructed the immediate election of a member to fill the vacant position after Kamaljeet Sehrawat was elected as a Member of Parliament. After significant delays, the Mayor finally scheduled the election meeting for September 26. However, the meeting was adjourned by Mayor in protest of the Municipal Commissioner order not allowing phones in the meeting. Subsequently, Delhi Lt Governor V K Saxena directed the immediate conduct of the meeting, which was first scheduled for Thursday night and then for Friday. However, the Mayor, along with all AAP councilors, boycotted the election meetings. Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Municipal Corporation, Sardar Raja Iqbal Singh has condemned the obstinacy of the Mayor and AAP and filed a contempt petition in the Honble Supreme Court today for violating the Courts directives. The petition may come up before the Court on Monday. Sardar Raja Iqbal Singh stated that the Standing Committee is the lifeline of the Delhi Municipal Corporation, and they will not allow the anarchic Aam Aadmi Party to paralyze the functioning of the Corporation under any circumstances. In a bid to woo women voters in the upcoming Assembly elections, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) announced the Laado Laxmi Yojana under which BJP pledges to offer Rs 2,100 monthly to all women. Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is on a two-day visit to Jharkhand announced this. Chouhan said our manifesto for Jharkhand is about to come. It is certain that in Haryana, just like we distributed the manifesto, we will put Rs 2100 in the account of sisters, in Jammu and Kashmir we said that we will put money, similarly in Jharkhand also we will put the same amount in the account of sisters which we have announced in Haryana. Chouhan is on a two-day visit to Jharkhand stayed in the tribal areas of Netarhat till late last night. During this time, he interacted with the tribal society on various topics. Union Minister Shivraj met the people of Baiga tribe as well as Korba primitive tribe, Birhor primitive tribe, Kisan tribe and Cheek Baraik tribal society. During this, Shivraj Singh Chouhan was traditionally welcomed by the tribal society in Netarhat. During this, the Union Minister was seen painted in tribal colors, played drums and also danced. Shivraj also danced to the tune of traditional songs of the tribal society. After this, he had traditional food of Jharkhand in Jamatoli, Netarhat. He tasted Gondli rice, corn ghatta, Bhapal salad, Futkal chutney, bamboo kareel bhujia, bar bodi dal. At the same time, the farmers of Netarhat presented traditional dances and songs performed at the time of sowing of crops and at the time of worship. Shivraj Singh also stayed overnight in Netarhat. Chouhan said that as a BJP worker and a Union Minister, I have come among the people of the tribal society. Even as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, I have stayed in villages among tribal brothers and sisters many times. Once again I have got the good fortune that I was able to come among my tribal brothers and sisters. He said that they are our family, and serving them is worship of God for me. Further said that the culture and color of the tribal society is amazing, he said. Shivraj Singh Chauhan surrounded the JMM government on Jharkhand's Mainiya Samman Yojana. He said that this is our project, Hemant Soren is copying the Ladli Behna Yojana before the elections. On Hemant Soren's breach of promise, he said that 5 years ago in the manifesto, he had promised to give 2000 rupees for stove expenses. He did not give stove expenses for 4 years and 10 months, now the elections are near, so I thought that it would not be spent from the pocket, so I started putting one thousand rupees each from the treasury. First Hemant Soren should give an account that there are 60 months in 5 years and if 2000 rupees were given in 60 months, then 1 lakh 20 thousand rupees would have been in the account of sisters, they ate 1 lakh 18 thousand and now they are putting 1 thousand rupees in pieces. Shivraj Singh Chauhan said that Hemant Soren's government had promised to give 5 lakh jobs but did not give a single penny. Papers were cancelled 17 times due to paper leak. JMM has become Paper Leak Morcha, not Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. In Jharkhand, brokers are playing with the dreams of youth. As soon as the BJP government is formed in Jharkhand, 2 lakh 87 thousand 400 posts will be filled in the first cabinet. When BJP was in power here, work was done but now JMM and Congress have destroyed Jharkhand. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has created district funds so that proper development can be done here with that money but its use is also not visible anywhere. People of the ruling party, people of the alliance are openly looting Jharkhand and the public is badly troubled. To change the fate and picture of Jharkhand, change of power is necessary here. Parivartan Yatra will bring change, change is certain, BJP government will come here now. Leading U.S. glaciologist returns to Xizang reflecting on remarkable changes Xinhua) 09:53, September 27, 2024 LHASA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Describing his relationship with Chinese scientists as "like brothers", Lonnie Thompson, a member of the American Academy of Sciences and a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has returned to the highest county in China 24 years after his last visit. In the Shuanghu County of southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, where the average altitude exceeds 5,000 meters, he is working with Chinese scientists to uncover the secrets of Earth. Located roughly 90 km northeast of the county seat, the Purog Kangri Glacier stands as the largest accumulation of ice outside the polar regions. In September, Thompson and academician Yao Tandong of the Chinese Academy of Sciences arrived there to conduct the second scientific expedition on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau. Their research primarily focused on crucial ice core drilling. "It's really striking to go back and see these places that we drilled early in my career. I want to continue documenting the changes we observe in these glaciers." At 76 and having undergone heart transplant surgery, Thompson expressed his excitement despite facing harsh environmental conditions and physical discomfort. This visit is part of a scientific expedition to investigate the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, known as Asia's "water tower". The target region encompasses "one glacier, two lakes and three rivers" and is part of the second scientific expedition and research of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, which was initiated by China in August 2017. The goal is to understand the mechanism of environmental change and provide scientific support for the ecological security of the plateau. The region is home to Purog Kangri Glacier, as well as Siling Lake and Namtso Lake, the largest and second-largest lakes in Xizang. It is also the birthplace of three big rivers in China, namely the Yangtze River, Nujiang River and Yarlung Zangbo River. Noting that this expedition is significantly in larger scale and more comprehensive, Thompson reflected on his first visit to Purog Kangri in September 2000. "Getting here was not easy back then. The road was muddy. Because the trucks were heavily laden with gear, and then we actually had to bring a road that we could lay down in front of the truck, so they wouldn't sink in the mud," he recalled. "We worked hard to push and pull trying to just get to the site. But this year's experience is totally different. Paved road all the way here, brand-new hotel and the research base is fully equipped." In October that year, the research team successfully drilled their first ice core, reaching a depth of 118.55 meters, followed by two additional cores at the depths of 213 meters and 154 meters. "Ice cores are crucial for understanding climate and environmental changes. Glaciers worldwide are retreating, and once they melt, the historical records they hold will disappear. Therefore, preserving these ice cores is vital. They serve as archives, allowing us to extract historical information even as new technologies emerge," Thompson emphasized, hoping this drilling will yield the longest and oldest ice cores from mid-latitude regions. The Purog Kangri Glacier occupies a unique position in glaciology. "The conditions of these glaciers are much different than we find in the polar regions or deeper in the tropics, and they are so important for the water resources, for the people who live downstream," he said. "Understanding what the climate history was in this region and then how it fits into the global picture is extremely important. I think the international collaboration is the only way we can do this." Thompson first visited China in 1984, where he began a scientific collaboration with Yao Tandong and other Chinese scholars. Over the past four decades, they have drilled ice cores in various glaciers across China and published their findings in prestigious journals like Science, while also advancing the Third Pole Environment (TPE) program. "We have built a solid scientific foundation over our 40 years of collaboration, establishing trust and viewing each other as brothers. This relationship is our most valuable asset in scientific research and cooperation," Thompson said. He also expressed optimism about the future of glaciology in China. He recalled that 40 years ago when he first arrived in China, there was only one glacial station, and the quality, the level of scientific research were very low. "But over the last 40 years, the investments that the Chinese governments made into glaciology have been tremendous." "The achievements of the past 40 years in China are remarkable," he continued. "For me, the best scenario is when the world achieves a win-win situation, where we all benefit from cooperation, explore new fields, and deepen our understanding of climate science. This is how we make progress." "China plays a very important role in the future. And I really appreciate the amount of investment the governments made in science here in China over the last 40 years. I wish I saw that in every country around the world," he concluded. "In the future, I want to continue documenting the changes we observe in these glaciers." (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Police have arrested a suspect in a fatal shooting that occurred on the University of Arizona campus earlier this week. Ryan Romero-Encinas, 20, was charged with first-degree murder Wednesday after allegedly shooting and killing Minhaj Jamshidi, a Pima Community College student, during a dispute at the university's volleyball courts late Sunday night, according to the University of Arizona Police Department. Jamshidi, 19, was originally from Afghanistan, according to a Facebook post by the Islamic Center of Tucson. According to 13 News, Romero-Encinas had shaved his head after the incident but ultimately turned himself in to police who were searching a Tucson apartment complex. Romero-Encina was scheduled to appear in court on Thursday. The Tucson community mourned the burial of Jamshidi the same day his alleged killer was arrested. Before the funeral, mourners gathered at the Islamic Center of Tucson near the school campus to pray for Jamshidi. Over 100 police personnel failed to find a missing 5-year-old girl who was found dead on Thursday in a flat less than 100 meters from where she had gone missing some 72 hours ago on September 23. Initial investigations suggest that the child was sexually assaulted before being killed at the EWS multistorey buildings at Idgah hills in the Shahjahanad police jurisdiction. Three persons, including two women, have been arrested by the police. According to Commissioner of Police Bhopal Harinarayan Chari Mishra the accused identified as Atul lured the victim, raped her, and strangled her to death before dumping her body in a water tank. On Thursday, the decomposing corpse was recovered from the water tank. The accused's mother Basanti and sister Chanchal were aware of the crime and have been booked as accessories in the gruesome crime.A n SIT has been formed for further investigation into the matter which has shocked residents in the posh Idgah hills locality where the EWS flats came up a few years ago. The accused, Atul, has a previous record with six cases of theft and molestation against him in Khargone district of the state. His wife had deserted him a couple of years ago.The accused told the police that taking advantage of the smoke during fogging (carried out by the civic health department), he dragged the girl to his flat. After raping her, he strangled her to death. He hid the body between the beds in the room for a day but when the body attracted flies, he threw the body into the water tank. A large number of residents gathered at the scene of crime to protest police negligence, the area has since been cordoned off. Police said that to avoid suspicion the accused mother and daughter reached the girl's grandmother's house at 10 am on Thursday from where they were arrested. Earlier a woman living in the girl's neighbourhood noticed a pungent smell from the accused's flat. Based on her information, the police searched the flat and the girl's body was recovered from a large plastic water tank kept near the kitchen sink.Sensing simmering anger in the area residents, the police asked them to stay indoors as the body was taken to AIIMS and later family members were taken in haste to the Chhola crematorium for her last rites. Earlier, Additional DCP Shalini Dixit said that the postmortem of the girl's body is being done. The cause of death will be revealed only after the short PM report. People had come to live on rent in the house where the body was found only five months ago. The Congress MLA Arif Masood expressed his displeasure over the absence of the Collector and SP on the spot. Questioning CM Mohan Yadav over the incident, the Congress leader asked, "where should we go with this girl? Where should he go with her dead body? Should we come to your bungalow?""Where is that Collector sahab who was standing in Berasia and shouting that whatever you say will happen. Whatever the BJP workers say will happen. Today the people of Bhopal are calling that this is an SC girl, where is the Collector and SP. Now they don't want to come here. They are hiding their faces. If the SP-Collector do not listen today, then after this the Chief Minister's residence will be surrounded. The Congress party will surroundl the Chief Minister with full force."MLA Atif Aqeel said hashish and marijuana are sold openly at the multi-storey buildings. This should be stopped. Alcohol should also be banned. When a man is intoxicated, he does anything. Here even 15-16 year old children are addicted. Now it is very important to ban intoxication so that the coming generations remain safe.Aqeel also reached the police station with an angry crowd. Police officers kept explaining to the people, but they did not listen. They kept demanding death penalty for the culprits. In preparation for the 2024 Assembly General Elections, District Election Officer-cum-Deputy Commissioner, Vijaya Jadhav, inaugurated the SVEEP War Room on Friday. This initiative, aimed at increasing voter turnout, was launched in the presence of key officials, including Returning Officer-cum-Additional Collector M. Mumtaz Ansari, DSP Headquarters Animesh Gupta, and Senior SVEEP Nodal Officer Prabhash Dutta. Alongside this, the SVEEP Calendar was unveiled at the Collectorate auditorium, outlining voter awareness activities such as Booth Level Officer training, rock band shows, senior voter engagement, and various youth-centric programs. These initiatives will run until November 10, 2024, aiming to increase voter awareness across all demographics. During the media briefing, DC Jadhav emphasized the importance of the 2024 elections as a celebration of democracy, urging first-time voters to actively participate. She highlighted the ease of the voting process with the introduction of facilities like the Voter Information Slip (VIS) to assist voters in locating their details. SVEEP Nodal Officer Prabhash Dutta emphasized that merely possessing a Voter ID card does not ensure a persons registration in the voter list. Voters must confirm their name is listed on the respective polling station's electoral roll. Also key district officials, including Returning Officer Bermo-cum-SDO Manoj Kumar and DSP City Alok Kumar, attended the event alongside media representatives. Delhi Police has arrested a woman for allegedly duping people on the pretext of getting them railway tenders and other contracts. Meenakshi Aggarwal and her husband Abhishek Aggarwal were declared proclaimed offenders in two cases of fraud and a bounty of Rs 25,000 was announced for information leading to the womans arrest, they said. Meenakshi was arrested from Jaipur on Thursday while her husband is still absconding, the police said. Meenakshi and Abhishek had cheated multiple people by luring them to invest in their schemes, Deputy Commissioner of Police (crime) Satish Kumar said. The couple used to lead a lavish lifestyle using the duped money and pretended that they were earning well, the DCP said. They assured huge profits to lure more people. After taking the advance from their victims, they used to flee and turned off their mobile phones to evade arrest, he added. According to the police, one of their victims Vijay Raj from Delhis Dabri had lodged a complaint against the couple regarding cheating and criminal breach of trust in 2021. Raj, in his complaint, alleged that he had invested over Rs 50 lakh in their schemes. Similarly, another person Rahul Gupta who was lured to invest Rs 3.18 crore for a contract in railways had lodged a complaint against the duo, the police said. The accused were arrested in both the cases but later got bail from the court. However, they did not attend court proceedings and were subsequently declared proclaimed offenders, said the DCP. Meenakshi, who was meanwhile hiding in Rajasthans Jaipur, was arrested after the police received a tip-off. A police team went to Jaipur and brought the woman to Delhi, the officer said, adding that Abhishek is yet to be held. The couple got married in 2011. Meenakshi was living in a posh society in Jaipur and was running a business of readymade garments, police said. An eight-year-old girl kidnapped from south Delhi allegedly by a drug addict was rescued by the Delhi Police from a moving train in Bihars Buxar district, an officer on Friday said. According to the police, Rohit Kumar, 21, kidnapped the girl to extort money from her father to buy drugs. Kumar came to Delhi to work as a labourer two or three days ago, kidnapped the girl, and made several ransom calls to her labourer father. On September 23, a man told police that he worked as a labourer in Jonapur in Delhi and reported that his eight-year-old daughter was missing. He told police that he lived with his daughter only as his wife passed away, Deputy Commissioner of Police (south) Ankit Chauhan said. An FIR was registered at Fatehpur Beri Police Station following the complaint and an investigation was taken up. All formalities, like uploading the details of the girl on ZIPNET, using social media messengers, were done swiftly and a search operation was conducted in the parks, abandoned areas and godowns, said the DCP. During the course of investigation, a team visited the house of the complainant and collected CCTV footage of the surrounding areas, he said. The footage revealed a person taking the girl with him. The man was later identified as Rohit Kumar, who had been living in the same locality for the last two-three days at the house of an acquaintance, DCP Chauhan said. Rohit Kumar called the complainant on his mobile and demanded Rs 20,000 to be transferred to his mobile, saying his daughter was in his custody. Several calls on his mobile phone were made later, which was a breakthrough for the team. We traced the location of the mobile number near Buxar, said the officer. Police zeroed in on at least three trains heading towards Patna and the mobile was found active in one of the trains. We immediately alerted the Government Railway Police (GRP) and Railway Protection Force (RPF) of Buxar and Arrah. They nabbed the accused in a moving train and the missing girl was rescued. The girl was taken into safe custody. A team of the Delhi police was also sent to Patna, the DCP said. During interrogation, Kumar revealed he was addicted to drugs and had no money to support his addiction so he abducted the girl. On the call of the National Movement for Old Pension Scheme Organization, employees in all the districts of the state including Bhopal will took out an outrage rally and submit a memorandum to the collector in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Dr. Mohan Yadav. In Bhopal, the employees took out an Aakrosh Rally on Kohefiza road. They gathered at the Collectorate while raising slogans. The employees continued to gather and submitted a memorandum. The Aakrosh rally was taken out in all the districts of the state. Employees have been protesting since 2017 demanding the re-implementation of the old pension scheme. Employees had demonstrated before the assembly and then Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh, but the matter did not work out. As an alternative to the old pension, the central government brought the Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) in August. The Union Cabinet approved it and announced its implementation from April 1, 2025. After this, the employees started the demand for old pensions again. Employees say that there is no better option than an old pension to secure the future of retired employees. Therefore, instead of National Pension Scheme (NPS) and Unified Pension Scheme (UPS), the government should directly talk about implementing the old pension scheme. On the other hand, the National Movement for Old Pension Scheme organization has also made it clear that the demand for old pensions will not stop under any circumstances. The government will have to implement it again. A continuous movement will be carried out regarding this. If needed, the employees will protest in Delhi again. National Social Media Incharge Sursari Prasad Patel, Kranti Organization Minister Gopal Banjare, Departmental President Manoj Chatpate, Bhopal District President Mohammad Danish, Ekant Suryavanshi, Afsar Khan, Manish Sharma, Manish Yadav and other NPS pensioner officers and employees were present in the Aakrosh Rally. The employees have figured out many flaws in the Unified Pension Scheme UPS. They say that this scheme does not have social security for teachers, officers and employees after retirement. It seems to be more dangerous than NPS. It should not be implemented. In NPS too, the rules for family pension after death while in service are controversia. It was the final day of parivartan yatra of BJP in Dhanbad on Thursday and was time to show their prospective strength of prospective candidates willing to contest forthcoming assembly elections before union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. Incidentally, the old guards of this party were asked to follow VVIP protocol for sharing platform with the Defence Minister owing to security concerns. All on the platform were given passes. Incidentally, one of the neo business tycoon, who happens to be operators of outsourced coal mines under BCCL and a new interant to BJP attempted to break the protocol and security ring to share platform with Defence Minister but had to face huge embarrassment as was not allowed to security staff of minister and local police. LB Singh alias Lal Babu Singh had come at the meeting location with hundreds of his followers who actually were ' paid workers' of outsourced company with an intention to bang the platform with his might in an attempt to prove his money and manpower support. But unfortunately , as the paid staff who were shoughting pro slogans in name of their master suddenly started shouting anti BJP slogans to please their master LB Singh as he was not allowed to reach on platform despite several attempts. The so-called party worker then rushed to his supporters to calm them but by then it was too late and everything was captured on video. It's worth mentioning that about a fortnight ago too supporters of LB had entered into scuffle with party supporters, specially that with supporters of sitting Dhanbad MLA Raj Sinha,at district headquarters of BJP when a team of party leaders was in Dhanbad for seeking 'opinion' for prospective party candidate for Dhanbad assembly seat. Later, LB had to leave the location as was not allowed to see the Defence minister. Incidentally, yet another ticket seeker Amresh Singh, who has family ties with the Defence minister,was allowed to give a sword to Rajnath Singh. Amresh along with his entire family members was also present at Dhanbad airfield to receive Rajnath Singh. Amresh Singh's mother Sheela Singh welcomed him by putting a tilak on the forehead of Rajnath Singh, his father RK Singh greeted by presenting a shawl to the defence minister.. Amid heavy security, more than 1.45 lakh students cast their votes in the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections at the varsitys North and South campuses on Friday. The Delhi University which underwent elections was a scene of raucous activity, with candidates supporters still hard at distributing pamphlets and throwing flyers while students queued up at colleges to cast their votes. The counting for the DUSU polls will be held only after October 21, when the Delhi High Court, which halted the process over defacement of public property by candidates, will hear the matter next, an election officer said on Friday. Rajesh Singh, Returning Officer for DUSU elections, said the counting of votes will take place after the next court hearing. The court will now hear the matter on October 21. Only after that will we be able to decide when the counting will take place, he said.It is likely the counting will be done after the courts hearing, he said. Students stood in long lines at their colleges with the hope of seeing improvement in campus infrastructure, also womens safety, a major issue.The voting was held in two phases, remained peaceful and except one or two incidents. The race for the post of president is expected to be a close one between ABVPs Rishabh Chaudhary, NSUIs Rounak Khatri and AISAs Saavy Gupta. The ABVP, the NSUI, the left-wing student body All India Students Association (AISA) and the Students Federation of India (SFI) have exuded confidence that their respective candidates would win. After the voting, the students organizations- thanked students who cast their votes. According to the office of chief election officer, DUSU, a total of 1,45,893 students from 52 colleges had cast their votes till 5.45 pm to elect a new president, vice president, secretary and joint secretary. The data for the remaining colleges is yet to be released. Heavy police deployment was made at both North and South campuses for smooth conduct of the elections. Police personnel were seen patrolling the campus on motorcycles. Polling was held in two phases. Students of morning colleges cast their votes till 1 pm and the second phase of polling for students of evening colleges started at 3 pm and continued till 7.30 pm. Meanwhile, campus tea and food stalls, busy enough on usual days, made brisk business as students gathered there to discuss their political opinion. Several students have complained that they couldnt cast their vote as they did not receive their identity cards. A total of 21 candidates, eight are in the fray for the post of president, five for vice president, and four each for the posts of secretary and joint secretary. The RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the Congress-backed National Students Union of India (NSUI), the left-wing student body All India Students Association (AISA) and the Students Federation of India (SFI) are the key players this year. Currently, the ABVP has the maximum number of seats in the student body and holds the posts of president, vice president and joint secretary. The NSUI holds the secretarys post. The ABVP has been extensively campaigning for the elections for the past few days. We were able to reach out to around one lakh students during this period. The ABVP has had a strong presence in the DUSU for many years. We have consistently stood by the students and raised their concerns. As a result, we are seeing a positive response and getting support from the students. We are confident that the students are with us and the ABVP will win the polls 4-0, said ABVP national general secretary Yagywalkya Shukla. NSUI president Varun Chaudhary said, This years elections are not ordinary. They are crucial for saving the university. Over the years, a culture of violence has emerged in the university because of the ABVP. We have promised a violence-free campus. In addition, we have also pledged to address issues like paper leaks and fee control, he said. Rishabh Chaudhary, who hails from Ganaur, Sonipat, graduated from Shyam Lal College and is currently a student of the Department of Buddhist Studies. Saavy Gupta is a third-year law student at Law Centre-2.In the fray for the post of vice president are ABVPs Bhanu Pratap Singh, NSUIs Yash Nandal and AISAs Ayush Mondal. The ABVP has fielded Mitravinda Karanwal, a third-year student of History (Hons) at Laxmibai College, as its candidate for the post of secretary. She is up against NSUIs Namrata Jeph Meena and SFIs Anamika K.Aman Kapasia, a Hindi (Hons) graduate from PGDAV Evening College, is the ABVPs pick for the post of joint secretary and will take on NSUIs Lokesh Choudhary and SFIs Sneha Aggarwal. On the occasion of the 15th World Pharmacist Day, Sage University hosted an enlightening event featuring Prof Dr Ajai Singh, Executive Director of AIIMS Bhopal, who highlighted the indispensable role of pharmacists in the health system. Addressing attendees, Dr. Singh stated, "Pharmacists are extremely important for society. They provide accurate information about medicines and treatments, which helps in patient care. Their contributions extend beyond medication to encompass health protection and disease prevention within the community." Dr. Singh elaborated on the multifaceted responsibilities of pharmacists, emphasizing that their work is not limited to dispensing medications. "Pharmacists are actively involved in drug research, leading to the development of new drugs and innovative treatment methods. Additionally, they promote health education, empowering individuals to adopt healthier lifestyles," he said. Highlighting the critical role of pharmacists in ensuring medication safety, Dr. Singh noted, "Pharmacists guarantee that patients receive the right medicines in the right quantities. They also address patients' queries, providing essential guidance that significantly enhances patient health outcomes." Furthermore, Dr. Singh underscored the importance of pharmacists in fostering health awareness within society. "Their efforts not only improve individual health but also contribute to the creation of a healthier community," he added. World Pharmacist Day serves as an occasion to recognize and celebrate the dedication and hard work of pharmacists around the globe. Celebrated English poet and former IPS officer Keki N Daruwalla died at a Delhi hospital after prolonged illness and a spell of pneumonia, his daughter Anaheita Kapadia said on Friday. He was 87. Daruwalla, one of Indias best known writers in English, died on Thursday night. Daruwalla, also known for his short stories, is survived by two daughters, Anaheita and Rookvain, sons-in-law and four grandchildren. The last rites were performed on Friday at Parsi Aramgah near Khan Market. Born in Lahore in 1937, Daruwalla studied at Government College in Ludhiana. He joined the Indian Police Service (Uttar Pradesh cadre) in 1958 and rose to become Special Assistant on international affairs to then Prime Minister Charan Singh. He later joined the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) where he was promoted to the rank of Secretary, R&AW. Even though he led a successful career in police and later at R&AW, it was his literary acumen that gained him national and international repute. Daruwallas first book of poetry, Under Orion, was published in 1970. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has taken significant steps in its investigation into the alleged money laundering associated with the food grain tenders scam within Punjabs Food, Civil Supplies, and Consumer Affairs Department. The agency has provisionally attached properties worth Rs 22.78 crore linked to the case, underscoring the scale of the alleged financial misconduct. At the center of this investigation is former Congress Minister and ex-Ludhiana West MLA Bharat Bhushan Ashu, who was arrested, for the second time, on August 1, 2024, at the EDs Jalandhar headquarters after being summoned for questioning. The EDs investigation has exposed a web of corruption involving not only Ashu but also several contractors and government officials allegedly complicit in the scam. The properties attached by the ED encompass a wide range of assets, including immovable properties located in key regions such as Ludhiana, Mohali, Khanna, and other parts of Punjab. In addition, movable assets like Fixed Deposit Receipts (FDRs), gold jewelry, bullion, and various bank accounts have also been included in this attachment. ED, in a statement released on Friday, highlighted the nature of the properties involved, which are tied to individuals implicated in the money laundering scheme. The agencys ongoing investigations aim to trace the flow of illicit funds and dismantle the network that facilitated this corruption. The ED initiated its investigation based on multiple First Information Reports (FIRs) lodged by Punjab Vigilance Bureau. These FIRs cite various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, concerning the tender scam in the Food and Civil Supplies Department. The allegations stem from Ashus tenure as the Food and Civil Supplies Minister during the previous Congress Government, where he allegedly favoured specific contractors for tender allotments, promising them inflated profits in exchange for bribes. The EDs investigation revealed a troubling pattern of misconduct, as Ashu and his associates, including his close aide Rajdeep Singh Nagra and Departments former deputy director Rakesh Kumar Singla, allegedly facilitated bribe collections from contractors. These bribes were then laundered through a network of shell companies, allowing the funds to be funneled into the purchase of various properties. In addition to Ashus arrest, the ED has also detained Rajdeep Nagra as part of its broader investigation into the case. Nagra was arrested on September 4, 2024, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. Both Ashu and Nagra remain in judicial custody as the ED continues its inquiries into the scam, with additional searches having taken place at 28 locations across Punjab on August 24 and September 4, 2024. The Government Accountability Office called out the U.S. Department of Education over "troubling" issues with its Free Application for Federal Student Aid form. In congressional testimony released on Tuesday, the GAO blamed the department for significant delays and errors since the new system launched in December. The GAO reported that the education agency's Office of Federal Student Aid had identified and addressed the issues multiple times before the launch. Currently, 20 FSA concerns remain unresolved. During Tuesday's House Education and the Workforce subcommittee meeting, Marisol Cruz Cain, director of GAO's information technology and cybersecurity team, and Melisa Emrey-Arras, director of the agency's education, workforce and income security issues, expanded on the numerous errors made by the education department. Both made several recommendations to improve the functionality of the FAFSA form, including making sure all the functionality is tested thoroughly. "The FAFSA rollout was mired in delays, errors and frustration for some of our most vulnerable students who lost their dreams of higher education," U.S. Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, chair of the subcommittee, said in his opening remarks. "The impact of the Biden administration's failure on real lives has been devastating. ... Unfortunately, it has been the low-income students who were hit the hardest." Emrey-Arras said problems with the 2024-25 FAFSA included a delayed launch, tech issues in inaccuracies, resulting in roughly 432,000 fewer students completing the form compared to the year prior. High school seniors and other first-time FAFSA applicants accounted for a majority of this decline. Lower-income students and families saw a notably larger reduction in FAFSA submissions, according to Emrey-Arras. Families and students with earnings of $30,000 or less saw the biggest decline in FAFSA submissions among independent students. Officials told GAO that the current goal is to improve functionality so people can start submitting applications. The office will continue to investigate The GAO stated that it will continue to investigate FAFSA issues and how the agency has worked to address them. In a gesture towards Corporate social responsibility, State Bank of India Bhopal Circle donated a bus to the Parimal Society, an NGO engaged with the Community Police Wing of Madhya Pradesh Police. The bus was handed over by Chief General Manager, SBI Bhopal Circle, Chander Shekhar Sharma to officials from Parimal Society, Bhopal, in the presence of dignitaries from Madhya Pradesh Police and State Govt officials. The bus was handed over during a Youth connect programme organized by MP police community police wing at Regional Science Centre, Bhopal on Thursday. In addition, SBI also donated Computer systems and required peripheral devices for the Research Lab and Skill/Learning Centre of the society to be used for violence affected children to re-orient them towards learning and empowering them. In his speech, CGM Bhopal Circle, Sharma said that this donation reaffirms our dedication to supporting initiatives that promote public safety and welfare. Several distinguished guests including Rashmi Arun Shami, PS, Dept. of Food, Govt. of MP, Addl. Police Commissioner Pankaj Srivastava, DIG Vineet Kapoor, Priyanka Shukla, Deputy Police Commissioner Zone-1, Saket Gourav, Project Cordinator, Regional Science Centre and other Top Police officials were present during the event. Last year, free textbooks were distributed to more than 22 lakh 10 thousand students studying in government schools in the state. Under the Free Text Book Distribution Scheme of the School Education Department, free textbooks are provided to all students from grades 9th to 12th in high school and higher secondary schools. Under the scheme, the department had made a provision of about Rs 100 crore in the budget. An education portal has been developed to provide quick information at various levels for monitoring the implementation and review of results in academic and administrative work in the School Education Department and taking corrective action based on them. There is a system for maintaining personal profiles and an e-service book of about 4 lakh employees and teachers on the education portal and preparing online salary bills for all officers, employees, and teachers. Along with this, there is GIS photo data including profiles of about one lakh schools. There is also a management system for online complaint redressal. Implementation of the Free and Compulsory Child Education Act 2009 and arrangements for the free admission of children from economically weaker sections and deprived groups in non-aided non-government schools through the online lottery are also being done online. The entire process related to the recognition of private schools under the Right to Education has been done online. Arrangements have also been made to send funds directly to the school accounts through Aadhaar verification of children and online banking. An online examination portal www.rskmp.in has also been created for conducting the examination. Online Shala Darpan has been arranged for inspection and follow-up of schools. An attendance system based on the mobile app is also being operated. Along with this, construction work monitoring systems, uniform distribution management systems, and textbook online tracking systems are also operational. Keeping in view the easy availability of internet-enabled smartphones, NICs Sahayog M-Shiksha Mitra App has been developed as an M-Governance platform to make all the facilities and services available on the education portal available through the app in a phased manner. In this, mainly the profile of all the schools, enrollment of students, posted teachers, facilities, infrastructure, location, and number of students enrolled in the school have been made available online. Tensions reached a boiling point in Lalbaba Foundry, Kailash Nagar, under the Burmamines police station area on Friday morning as Tata Steel officials arrived with a heavy entourage and four bulldozers, prepared to carry out a demolition operation. The district administration, alongside Tata Steel, planned to clear encroachments on the disputed land. However, they were met with fierce resistance from local residents and business owners, leading to hours of chaos and confrontation. The scene erupted around 9:30 am when Tata Steels bulldozers entered the area, igniting widespread protests. Members of the Lalbaba Foundry Vyapar Sangh immediately took to the streets, organizing a sit-in demonstration that quickly escalated. Protesters, driven by anger and fear of losing their homes and businesses, blocked roads, burned tires, and shouted slogans condemning Tata Steel's actions. The sheer scale of the protest forced the district administration to deploy additional police forces, including a Vajra vehicle, as the situation threatened to spiral out of control. Political parties rally behind residents As word of the bulldozer's arrival spread, the protest gained momentum with representatives from various political partiesincluding the BJP, Congress, and Aam Aadmi Partyjoining the movement. The Burmamines main road became a battleground, with traffic paralyzed for several hours as the crowd swelled. Political leaders voiced their opposition to the demolition, accusing Tata Steel and the district administration of insensitivity towards the plight of the residents. Notable figures like former MP Dr. Ajoy Kumar of Congress, Congress District President Anand Bihari Dubey, BJP leaders Abhay Singh, Dinesh Kumar, and BJP City President Sudhanshu Ojha all rushed to the scene, further intensifying the protest. Their presence signaled a united political front against the proposed demolition, with party lines blurring as leaders took a stand for the residents. Amid the heated standoff, former MP Dr. Ajoy Kumar confronted the officials of the district administration. In a tense exchange, Dr. Kumar challenged the legitimacy of Tata Steels court order, arguing that discrepancies in the case, such as incorrect account numbers, made the action unjust. He questioned the officials on why no prior notice was given to the residents of Lalbaba Foundry before attempting to demolish their homes and businesses. The officials were left scrambling for answers as Dr. Kumar pressed them on the legality of their actions. Temporary Reprieve for Residents With the immediate threat of demolition averted, it was agreed that Tata Steel officials would set a new date for the removal of encroachments. Meanwhile, the residents of Lalbaba Foundry are preparing to seek legal relief. They plan to file a case in court, aiming to secure a stay order that would prevent any further demolition efforts. A major point of contention is that the residents claim they were not made a party to the ongoing case in the Kolkata High Court, which had ruled in Tata Steel's favoor regarding the land. A dispute years in the making The conflict over the Lalbaba Foundry land dates back to 2006, when Tata Steel first filed a case in the Kolkata High Court, seeking the removal of what it deemed illegal encroachments on the disputed land. The court ruled in favor of Tata Steel, leading the company to file another case in the Jamshedpur Civil Court, seeking possession of the land. In response, the Civil Judge Junior Division One Jitendra Ram ordered the district administration to enforce the courts decision and hand over the land to Tata Steel. The entire operation was to be carried out under the supervision of court official Nazir Dheeraj Kumar. The disputed area covers approximately 70 decimals and is home to over 150 warehouses and more than 1,000 houses. The residents of Lalbaba Foundry, many of whom have lived and operated businesses there for generations, now find themselves fighting to retain their homes in the face of legal and corporate pressure. Awaiting the Courts Verdict As tensions remain high, all eyes are now on the Jamshedpur Civil Court, where the residents and business owners of Lalbaba Foundry have filed a complaint, challenging the legality of the eviction. Represented by advocate Sanjay Ranjan Bariyar, they are seeking a review of the courts order and have requested a stay of the demolition. A hearing was held on Friday, and the courts decision is expected on Saturday. Many hope that the court will grant a reprieve, offering the residents of Lalbaba Foundry a temporary lifeline in their struggle against displacement. If the court rules in their favor, it could set the stage for a prolonged legal battle between the residents and Tata Steel. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, on Friday, said that water and terrorism dont flow together, adding that until now, Pakistan has been holding a begging bowl, but soon it will be desperate for every single drop of water. While ordering a review of the 1960 Indus water treaty, the Government of India has said in clear terms that water and terrorism dont flow together. Until now, Pakistan has been holding a begging bowl, but soon it will be desperate for every single drop of water, he said. UP Chief Minister Yogi was in Jammu and Kashmir for the second day to campaign for Bharatiya Janata Party candidates in the upcoming assembly elections. He urged voters to support BJP candidates, including Sunil Bhardwaj from Ramnagar, Ranveer Singh Pathania from Udhampur East, Bharat Bhushan from Kathua and Shagun Parihar from Kishtwar. His rallies drew large crowds eager to see and hear him speak. Highlighting Pakistans current troubles, the Yogi stated, Pakistan is suffering for two reasons: first, it is facing the consequences of its own actions. Balochistan no longer wishes to remain part of Pakistan because its government treats them as foreigners. Similarly, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is rejecting Pakistans rule, expressing a preference to join Jammu and Kashmir and contribute to realising the vision of Akhand Bharat, rather than dying of starvation. The UP chief minister issued a stern warning to those spreading terror at Pakistans behest, stating they would neither have a shroud to cover themselves nor land for burial. Pakistan-backed terrorists know the cost of their actions, and soon Pakistan will be divided into three parts, ceasing to exist as it is known today. He added. Yogi stated that the effectiveness of the double-engine government is evident in Uttar Pradesh, where Ram Lalla has been finally enthroned in Ayodhya Dham after 500 years. Some claimed that building the Ram mandir would lead to rivers of blood. We asserted that in New India, rivers of blood do not flow; instead, it knows how to protect itself, he remarked. The UP chief minister further noted that in the past seven and a half years, Uttar Pradesh has not witnessed a single riot. He asserted that, like UP, Jammu and Kashmir also deserves development. Yogi Adityanath stated that the Congress, PDP (Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party) and National Conference have exploited the public by transforming the paradise on Earth into a warehouse of the sin of religious fanaticism. These parties fostered terrorism and corruption for their political gain, but with the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A, development has surged in Jammu and Kashmir. The region has shifted from being a terrorist state to a tourism destination. The countrys largest and highest bridge is currently under construction in Jammu and Kashmir, and a world-class train service like Vande Bharat has begun operations from Jammu to Delhi. While the NC, Congress and PDP armed the youth with guns, the BJP government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is providing employment opportunities by equipping them with tablets. Launching a scathing attack on the opposition, Yogi stated that those who claim they will restore Article 370 if their government comes to power are essentially seeking to bring back an era of terrorism, nepotism and corruption. He emphasised that these individuals do not prioritise peace, harmony and development; instead, they desire power. There is no room for these three parties here. The public has decided to say goodbye to this trio. When in power, the leaders of Congress, NC and PDP spent eight months a year in Europe and England and three months in Delhi. With such limited engagement, how can Jammu possibly develop in just one month? Accusing the trio of Congress, NC and PDP of fostering an environment of anarchy, corruption, nepotism and terrorism, Yogi Adityanath stated, The people from the Bakarwal, Gujjar, Dalit and Valmiki communities have been deprived of their rights for too long. In contrast, the BJP is effecting positive change in their lives under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi. The Ayodhya international airport in Uttar Pradesh has been named after Maharishi Valmiki, reflecting our commitment to honouring our heritage. Meanwhile, under Prime Minister Modis leadership, 80 crore people in India are receiving free rations, while Pakistan finds itself begging for assistance. Yogi urged the public to support the formation of a double-engine BJP government in Jammu and Kashmir to ensure security and development, and to realize Atal jis vision of Akhand Bharat. He highlighted that Kathua is historically significant as the district where Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the founder president of Bharatiya Jana Sangh, faced brutal treatment in 1952 for his democratic protest against the inclusion of Article 370 in the Constitution, which contradicted the sentiments of Baba Saheb Bhimrao Ambedkar. He pointed out that the voices of the people were suppressed by the Congress government. Yogi emphasised that Article 370 is at the root of the Congress partys sins, leading to the suffering of Jammu and Kashmir through partition, terrorism, migration and neglect. He stated that under Prime Minister Modis leadership, Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjees vision has come to fruition. Yogi emphasised that since the abrogation of Article 370, Jammu and Kashmir has rejoined the path of development and today, instead of violence, the region hosts G-20 conferences, with opportunities for work for every individual and access to water for every field. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has told a court here that RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and his family members obtained illegal gratification in the form of land parcels in exchange for appointments in the Indian Railways. The ED made the submissions in its supplementary chargesheet filed in the case before Special Judge Vishal Gogne, who also summoned Prasad's elder son Tej Pratap Yadav, who has not been named as an accused by the probe agency, in an order passed on September 18. "The court finds compelling basis to conclude prima facie and upon the standard of scrutiny required at the stage of summoning that Tej Pratap Yadav also engaged in the acquisition and concealment of the proceeds of crime and is thus liable to be summoned upon the present supplementary complaint (the ED's equivalent to a chargesheet)," the judge said. He also summoned Prasad's younger son and former Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav. The judge directed Prasad, a former Union minister and former Bihar chief minister, his two sons and others to appear before the court on October 7. The judge had earlier summoned former Bihar chief minister and Prasad's wife, Rabri Devi, and their two daughters -- Misa Bharti and Hema Yadav -- in the case. The land parcels, which were acquired in a way to consolidate holdings already in the Yadav family's possession, have been classified as "proceeds of crime" (PoC) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The ED has accused Prasad of hatching a criminal conspiracy along with his family members and associates to conceal the acquisition of the PoC. He ensured that the land parcels were transferred in a manner that obscured his direct involvement while allowing his family to benefit, the ED has alleged. The agency has alleged that the landowners, primarily in Patna's Mahua Bagh, were persuaded to sell their land at undervalued prices with the promise of jobs in the railways when Prasad was the railway minister. "Several of these parcels were located adjacent to lands already held by the Yadav family. Six of the seven land parcels involved were linked to Rabri Devi and were obtained either directly or indirectly," the ED has alleged. The investigation has revealed that A K Infosystems Private Limited and other entities used to further layer and obscure the connection between the land acquisitions and the "land-for-jobs" scheme, it has said. According to the ED, in a continuation of the conspiracy, Amit Katyal, a co-accused, transferred the ownership of A K Infosystems, which held valuable land parcels, to Rabri Devi and Tejashwi Yadav at a nominal price. Bhola Yadav, a close associate of Prasad, has been identified as the key facilitator in these transactions, the ED has said. He has admitted to persuading landowners near the Yadav family's holdings to sell their properties in exchange for jobs in the railways, it has claimed. These deals were structured to benefit Prasad's family, with properties transferred through intermediaries like the personal staff of Rabri Devi, namely Hridayanand Chaudhary and Lallan Chaudhary, both co-accused in the case, the ED has said. The properties in question were often portrayed as gifts from distant relatives, but Misa Bharti denied knowing these individuals, it has added. "Lalu Prasad and his family used their influence and official positions to derive personal benefits, masking the illicit transactions through a series of complex financial manoeuvres and entities. The scam, involving the illegal transfer of land in exchange for government jobs, is a significant breach of public trust and abuse of power," the ED has said. The judge has summoned the accused persons after taking cognisance of a supplementary chargesheet against them. The final report was filed before the court by the ED on August 6. The agency filed its case based on an FIR lodged by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The case pertains to Group-D appointments made in the West Central Zone of the railways based in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh during Prasad's tenure as the railway minister from 2004 to 2009 in return for land parcels gifted or transferred by the recruits in the name of the RJD supremo's family or associates, the ED has said. The Aam Aadmi Party termed the election of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi standing committee member scheduled for 1 pm on Friday as "unconstitutional and illegal" and asserted that the election will only be held on October 5. Following disruption over frisking of the councillors on Thursday, the election to the MCD Standing Committee was postponed till October 5 by Mayor Shelly Oberoi. Later Lt Governor VK Saxena, however, overturned the postponement of the elections and directed MCD Commissioner Ashwani Kumar to hold the election on Friday at 1 pm. Addressing a press conference on Friday, senior AAP leader Manish Sisodia and MCD Mayor Shelly Oberoi accused the BJP and the municipal commissioner of making a mockery of democracy and the constitution. Sisodia alleged that the commissioner issued an order late Thursday, directing the election to be conducted with an additional commissioner as the presiding officer. "The BJP is attempting to repeat what it did in the Chandigarh mayoral poll, where it was caught red handed," he said. As per rules, only the mayor, deputy mayor or a senior councilor can preside over the meeting of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) House. The mayor has already announced the House meeting and election of the standing committee member for October 5, he said. Sisodia further claimed that the commissioner's order for the election, issued at the direction of the Delhi Lieutenant Governor, is "illegal". Oberoi said she had already announced the next House meeting and the election of the sixth member of the standing committee on October 5 and that she was committed to a free and fair election. This order by commission is "unconstitutional, null and void and illegal", she added. She asserted that the election will only be held on October 5. An unidentified gang targeted three ATMs in this district and looted around Rs 70 lakh in the early hours of Friday, police said. The incident came to light when the police were alerted by the ATMs' central control room. The gang targeted the Mapranam, Thrissur East, and Kolazhy ATMs of the State Bank of India, police said. "The incident happened between 2 am and 4 am. One is in the rural police limit, while the other two were in the city police limit. They destroyed the CCTV cameras and used a gas cutter to cut the ATM machine," City Police Commissioner R Elango told the media. Police have received some evidence in connection with the gang and have started an investigation into neighbouring Tamil Nadu also. According to the police, the gang first reached the ATM at Mapranam and looted around Rs 35 lakh from there. Then they travelled to the city and targeted the SBI ATM at Shornur Road and took around Rs 9.5 lakh. The last ATM they hit was the Kolazhy branch of SBI, from where they looted around Rs 25 lakh, police said. Police have initiated an investigation into the incident. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer joined the leaders of the US and France in backing Indias bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to make it a more representative body that is not paralysed by politics. During his speech at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York on Thursday, Starmer called for reforms to ensure the global multilateral system is more representative and more responsive. Besides permanent representation for India, Africa, Brazil, Japan and Germany, the UK also made a pitch for more seats for elected members of the Security Council. We need to make the system more representative and more responsive to those who need it most, said Starmer. So we will make the case not just for fairer outcomes, but fairer representation in how we reach them; and this also applies to the Security Council. It has to change to become a more representative body, willing to act not paralysed by politics. We want to see permanent African representation on the Council, Brazil, India, Japan and Germany as permanent members, and more seats for elected members as well, he said. The Labour Party leader, making his first UNGA address as UK Prime Minister after the July general elections, also set out a change in Britains approach. He said: To support this we will also change how the UK does things. Moving from the paternalism of the past towards partnership for the future. Listening a lot more speaking a bit less. Offering game-changing British expertise and working together in a spirit of equal respect. Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday also backed Indias bid for permanent membership in the UNSC to make the UN more efficient and representative. France is in favour of the Security Council being expanded. Germany, Japan, India, and Brazil should be permanent members, as well as two countries that Africa will decide to represent it, he said. It follows President Joe Biden reiterating the US stance in favour of such an expansion of the UNSC, which comprises five permanent members and 10 non-permanent member countries elected for a two-year term by the General Assembly of the United Nations. The five permanent members are Russia, the UK, China, France, and the United States, which have the power to veto any substantive UN resolution. India has been at the forefront of efforts at the UN to push for urgent long-pending reform of the Security Council, emphasising that it rightly deserves a place at the UN high table as a permanent member. India argues that the 15-nation council founded in 1945 is not fit for purpose in the 21st Century and does not reflect contemporary geo-political realities. India last sat at the UN high table as a non-permanent member in 2021-22. There has been a growing demand to increase the number of permanent members to reflect the contemporary global reality. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy huddled with U.S. Leaders on Thursday to shore up American support for his country's fight against Russia as the war faces a partisan reckoning in this year's presidential election. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, has pledged to continue sending military assistance to Ukraine if she's elected. She'll have her own meeting with Zelenskyy after the Ukrainian leader sat down with President Joe Biden, who announced billions of dollars more in missiles, drones, ammunition and other supplies. The weapons include an additional Patriot missile defense battery and a new shipment of glide bombs that can be deployed from Western fighter jets, increasing their strike range. Biden pledged to ensure that all approved funding is disbursed before he leaves office, and he said he plans to convene a meeting with other world leaders focused on Ukraine's defense during a visit to Germany next month. We stand with Ukraine, now and in the future," Biden said alongside Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail. Meanwhile, Zelenskyy's tumultuous relationship with former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, continued to deteriorate this week. Instead of meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump criticized him. As for U.S. Support for Ukraine, Trump complained that we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal" to end the war. His message dovetails with Russian propaganda that claims intransigence by Kyiv not aggression from Moscow has prolonged the bloodshed. It's the most politically treacherous landscape that Zelenskyy has encountered in Washington since Russia invaded nearly three years ago. Ukrainian officials are anxious to maintain good relations with whomever becomes the next president of the United States, which is its biggest and most important provider of arms, money and other support. But the effort risks slipping into the political blender of the presidential campaign, polarizing the discussion around a war that used to be a bipartisan cause celebre in Washington. About two thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the U.S. Has a responsibility to help Ukraine, compared with one third of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in July. Americans are also split on which presidential candidate would do a better job handling the war. An AP-NORC poll from August found that about one-third of Americans said they trusted Harris more, while a similar share said the same about Trump. Zelenskyy was expected to present Biden with a plan to push the war toward an endgame that would involve a negotiated settlement with Russia. He's trying to secure leverage before Biden leaves office including acquiescence to fire long-range Western weapons deeper into Russia as a hedge against the possibility that American support erodes after the election. On Thursday, Zelenskyy found some bipartisan support as he visited Capitol Hill, where he was greeted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Sen. Lindsay Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said Zelenskyy asked to use long-range weapons, such as British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles or U.S.-made ATACMS, for maximum benefit to bring (Russian President Vladimir) Putin to the table and increase Ukraine's negotiating position. "If we don't make that fundamental choice this week, I think the outcome for Ukraine is dire, Graham said. Administration officials have been skeptical of Zelenskyy's request, believing the weapons could have limited benefits but increase the risk of escalating the conflict. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said senators gave Zelenskyy advice on how to persuade Biden to loosen restrictions. Rep. Jim Himes, another Connecticut Democrat and the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Zelenskyy wanted more, faster. He was politely frustrated," Himes said, and specifically requested more Patriot missile defenses as Russia escalates strikes on Ukraine's cities and energy grid before the winter. Despite support from some Republicans on Capitol Hill, Zelenskyy faces a much more tense situation with Trump. The latest round of sniping started on Sunday, when The New Yorker published an interview with Zelenskyy in which he criticized JD Vance, Trump's running mate, as too radical for suggesting that Ukraine needs to give up some territory to end the war. Zelenskyy also dismissed Trump's boasts that he could quickly negotiate a solution, saying my feeling is that Trump doesn't really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how. On the same day, Zelenskyy toured a Pennsylvania factory producing munitions for the war. He was joined by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, a top surrogate for Harris, and Republicans criticized the visit as a political stunt in a political battleground state. House Speaker Mike Johnson demanded that Zelenskyy fire the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., alleging that the tour was designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference. The Louisiana Republican didn't attend any of lawmakers' meetings with Zelenskyy on Thursday. Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Zelenskyy is in a no-win situation" where he can't even visit a U.S. Weapons manufacturer to say thank you without being attacked. Zelenskyy's trip to Washington coincides with the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where the Ukrainian leader spoke on Wednesday. Last week, Trump said he would probably meet with Zelenskyy while he was in the U.S., but a senior campaign official said there was never a meeting on the books. The official, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations, said Trump had told Zelenskyy back in July that it would probably be better not to sit down together until after the election. A Zelenskyy aide did not respond to questions about the potential meeting. Trump was impeached during his first term over asking Zelenskyy for help investigating Biden, then a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, at a time when the Ukrainian leader was seeking support from Washington. Now there are fears that Trump would cut off or add strings to U.S. Military assistance if he returned to the White House. Trump has also spoken admiringly about Putin, and this week he praised Russia's record of winning wars. Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Trump is not wrong to want a negotiated end to the war. However, he said, Trump risks undermining Ukraine by enabling Putin to make more gains on the battlefield. Neither Ukraine nor Russia is going to win this war, and the sooner that the parties try to end this, the better," Kupchan said. "Where Trump goes off course, and where Biden and Harris have a much stronger argument, is that we get to that point not by throwing Ukraine under the bus but by giving them sufficient support so they can block further Russian aggression. Zelenskyy can expect a far different tone from Harris, who met with him in Munich just days before Russia invaded. During her debate with Trump earlier this month, Harris expressed pride in U.S. Support for Ukraine's righteous defense." If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now, she said. Shares of Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS Get Free Report) have been assigned an average recommendation of Moderate Buy from the thirteen research firms that are covering the firm, MarketBeat.com reports. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and ten have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1-year price target among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $55.25. LVS has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Susquehanna decreased their price objective on shares of Las Vegas Sands from $59.00 to $51.00 and set a positive rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, July 25th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price target on Las Vegas Sands from $58.00 to $53.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a report on Thursday, July 25th. UBS Group lowered Las Vegas Sands from a buy rating to a neutral rating and cut their target price for the stock from $70.00 to $49.00 in a research report on Friday, August 23rd. Barclays decreased their target price on Las Vegas Sands from $57.00 to $52.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 25th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price target on shares of Las Vegas Sands from $53.00 to $47.00 and set a hold rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, July 11th. Get Las Vegas Sands alerts: View Our Latest Analysis on LVS Institutional Investors Weigh In On Las Vegas Sands Las Vegas Sands Price Performance A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in LVS. Bank & Trust Co acquired a new position in Las Vegas Sands in the 2nd quarter valued at about $29,000. Accent Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in Las Vegas Sands during the 4th quarter worth approximately $39,000. Fidelis Capital Partners LLC purchased a new position in shares of Las Vegas Sands in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $43,000. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of Las Vegas Sands by 93.2% in the second quarter. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. now owns 906 shares of the casino operators stock valued at $40,000 after purchasing an additional 437 shares during the period. Finally, Western Pacific Wealth Management LP raised its stake in shares of Las Vegas Sands by 53.5% during the first quarter. Western Pacific Wealth Management LP now owns 970 shares of the casino operators stock worth $50,000 after purchasing an additional 338 shares during the last quarter. 39.16% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. LVS stock opened at $48.39 on Friday. Las Vegas Sands has a 1 year low of $36.62 and a 1 year high of $55.65. The firm has a market capitalization of $35.64 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.38, a P/E/G ratio of 1.20 and a beta of 1.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.29, a current ratio of 1.58 and a quick ratio of 1.57. The businesss 50-day moving average is $40.10 and its two-hundred day moving average is $44.43. Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 24th. The casino operator reported $0.55 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.56 by ($0.01). Las Vegas Sands had a return on equity of 44.41% and a net margin of 14.08%. The firm had revenue of $2.76 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $2.82 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.46 earnings per share. The firms quarterly revenue was up 8.6% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts anticipate that Las Vegas Sands will post 2.45 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Las Vegas Sands Dividend Announcement The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, August 14th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, August 6th were given a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.65%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, August 6th. Las Vegas Sandss payout ratio is currently 38.65%. About Las Vegas Sands (Get Free Report Las Vegas Sands Corp., together with its subsidiaries, develops, owns, and operates integrated resorts in Macao and Singapore. It owns and operates The Venetian Macao Resort Hotel, the Londoner Macao, The Parisian Macao, The Plaza Macao and Four Seasons Hotel Macao, Cotai Strip, and the Sands Macao in Macao, the Peoples Republic of China; and Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Las Vegas Sands Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Las Vegas Sands and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Wedbush upgraded shares of Prosperity Bancshares (NYSE:PB Free Report) from a neutral rating to an outperform rating in a research report sent to investors on Tuesday morning, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Wedbush currently has $90.00 price target on the banks stock, up from their prior price target of $75.00. Wedbush also issued estimates for Prosperity Bancshares Q3 2024 earnings at $1.29 EPS, Q4 2024 earnings at $1.36 EPS, FY2024 earnings at $5.05 EPS, Q1 2025 earnings at $1.34 EPS, Q3 2025 earnings at $1.52 EPS, Q4 2025 earnings at $1.58 EPS, FY2025 earnings at $5.85 EPS and FY2026 earnings at $6.35 EPS. A number of other brokerages have also recently issued reports on PB. Compass Point lifted their price objective on shares of Prosperity Bancshares from $73.00 to $80.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Friday, July 26th. Stephens raised shares of Prosperity Bancshares from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 26th. StockNews.com cut shares of Prosperity Bancshares from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 28th. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Prosperity Bancshares from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $75.00 to $86.00 in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Finally, Truist Financial lowered shares of Prosperity Bancshares from a buy rating to a hold rating and cut their target price for the company from $81.00 to $79.00 in a research report on Friday, September 20th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Prosperity Bancshares currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $77.04. Get Prosperity Bancshares alerts: Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on PB Prosperity Bancshares Trading Up 0.6 % Shares of PB opened at $71.41 on Tuesday. Prosperity Bancshares has a 12 month low of $49.60 and a 12 month high of $74.87. The firms 50 day moving average is $71.62 and its 200-day moving average is $65.33. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.80 billion, a PE ratio of 16.45, a P/E/G ratio of 1.49 and a beta of 0.90. Prosperity Bancshares (NYSE:PB Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 24th. The bank reported $1.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.20 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $458.95 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $290.06 million. Prosperity Bancshares had a net margin of 25.10% and a return on equity of 6.32%. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.21 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that Prosperity Bancshares will post 5.06 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Prosperity Bancshares Announces Dividend The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 13th will be issued a dividend of $0.56 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 13th. This represents a $2.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.14%. Prosperity Bancsharess dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 51.61%. Hedge Funds Weigh In On Prosperity Bancshares Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Prosperity Bancshares by 59.6% during the second quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 474 shares of the banks stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 177 shares during the period. Quarry LP lifted its holdings in shares of Prosperity Bancshares by 533.3% during the second quarter. Quarry LP now owns 494 shares of the banks stock worth $30,000 after purchasing an additional 416 shares during the period. Quest Partners LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Prosperity Bancshares by 3,147.1% during the second quarter. Quest Partners LLC now owns 552 shares of the banks stock worth $34,000 after purchasing an additional 535 shares during the period. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC acquired a new position in shares of Prosperity Bancshares during the second quarter worth $43,000. Finally, Headlands Technologies LLC acquired a new position in shares of Prosperity Bancshares during the second quarter worth $46,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.69% of the companys stock. Prosperity Bancshares Company Profile (Get Free Report) Prosperity Bancshares, Inc operates as bank holding company for the Prosperity Bank that provides financial products and services to businesses and consumers. It accepts various deposit products, such as demand, savings, money market, and time accounts, as well as and certificates of deposit. The company also offers 1-4 family residential mortgage, commercial real estate and multifamily residential, commercial and industrial, agricultural, and non-real estate agricultural loans, as well as construction, land development, and other land loans; consumer loans, including automobile, recreational vehicle, boat, home improvement, personal, and deposit account collateralized loans; term loans and lines of credit; and consumer durables and home equity loans, as well as loans for working capital, business expansion, and purchase of equipment and machinery. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Prosperity Bancshares Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Prosperity Bancshares and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Wilmar International Limited (OTCMKTS:WLMIY Get Free Report) saw a large drop in short interest in the month of September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 1,000 shares, a drop of 91.7% from the August 31st total of 12,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 105,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 0.0 days. Wilmar International Stock Performance Shares of Wilmar International stock opened at $25.10 on Friday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $23.94 and a 200-day simple moving average of $24.04. Wilmar International has a fifty-two week low of $22.10 and a fifty-two week high of $27.62. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33, a quick ratio of 0.75 and a current ratio of 1.17. Get Wilmar International alerts: Wilmar International Cuts Dividend The firm also recently announced a dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 13th. Investors of record on Friday, August 23rd were paid a dividend of $0.4044 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, August 23rd. About Wilmar International Wilmar International Limited operates as an agribusiness company in Singapore, South East Asia, the People's Republic of China, India, Europe, Australia/New Zealand, Africa, and internationally. The company operates through four segments: Food Products, Feed and Industrial Products, Plantation and Sugar Milling, and Others. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Wilmar International Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Wilmar International and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Drucker Wealth 3.0 LLC purchased a new stake in Lockheed Martin Co. (NYSE:LMT Free Report) in the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 1,070 shares of the aerospace companys stock, valued at approximately $500,000. Get Lockheed Martin alerts: Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in LMT. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its holdings in Lockheed Martin by 1.7% during the second quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 1,942,658 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $902,714,000 after buying an additional 31,545 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its holdings in shares of Lockheed Martin by 11.3% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,169,223 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $546,144,000 after purchasing an additional 119,052 shares during the period. Wulff Hansen & CO. lifted its stake in Lockheed Martin by 56,626.7% in the 2nd quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. now owns 1,021,081 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $476,947,000 after purchasing an additional 1,019,281 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors grew its holdings in Lockheed Martin by 29.7% during the first quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 953,285 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $433,621,000 after purchasing an additional 218,506 shares during the period. Finally, Envestnet Asset Management Inc. increased its position in Lockheed Martin by 0.4% during the second quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 833,264 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $389,218,000 after buying an additional 2,942 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 74.19% of the companys stock. Lockheed Martin Trading Down 0.1 % Shares of LMT stock opened at $577.95 on Thursday. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $550.14 and a 200 day simple moving average of $491.21. Lockheed Martin Co. has a 1 year low of $393.77 and a 1 year high of $583.75. The company has a current ratio of 1.24, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.10. The stock has a market cap of $137.76 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.66 and a beta of 0.47. Insider Buying and Selling at Lockheed Martin Lockheed Martin ( NYSE:LMT Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The aerospace company reported $7.11 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $6.45 by $0.66. The company had revenue of $18.12 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.05 billion. Lockheed Martin had a return on equity of 95.03% and a net margin of 9.48%. Lockheed Martins quarterly revenue was up 8.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $6.73 EPS. On average, research analysts predict that Lockheed Martin Co. will post 26.65 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. In other news, insider Timothy S. Cahill sold 3,975 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $515.36, for a total transaction of $2,048,556.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 8,877 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $4,574,850.72. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Insiders own 0.17% of the companys stock. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of research firms have recently issued reports on LMT. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on Lockheed Martin from $503.00 to $599.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a research report on Friday, August 9th. Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of Lockheed Martin from $480.00 to $505.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 30th. Melius raised shares of Lockheed Martin from a hold rating to a buy rating and set a $704.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Susquehanna raised their target price on shares of Lockheed Martin from $540.00 to $565.00 and gave the stock a positive rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, Bank of America reiterated a buy rating and issued a $635.00 price target on shares of Lockheed Martin in a research note on Friday, August 30th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Lockheed Martin has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $553.43. View Our Latest Stock Report on LMT Lockheed Martin Profile (Free Report) Lockheed Martin Corporation, a security and aerospace company, engages in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration, and sustainment of technology systems, products, and services worldwide. The company operates through Aeronautics, Missiles and Fire Control, Rotary and Mission Systems, and Space segments. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Lockheed Martin Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Lockheed Martin and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Dundas Partners LLP lifted its stake in Amphenol Co. (NYSE:APH Free Report) by 55.3% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 617,382 shares of the electronics makers stock after acquiring an additional 219,875 shares during the quarter. Amphenol makes up approximately 3.3% of Dundas Partners LLPs investment portfolio, making the stock its 9th largest position. Dundas Partners LLP owned approximately 0.05% of Amphenol worth $41,593,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Get Amphenol alerts: Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of APH. Beacon Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Amphenol by 121.2% during the 2nd quarter. Beacon Capital Management LLC now owns 376 shares of the electronics makers stock worth $25,000 after purchasing an additional 206 shares in the last quarter. New England Capital Financial Advisors LLC raised its position in Amphenol by 100.0% during the second quarter. New England Capital Financial Advisors LLC now owns 376 shares of the electronics makers stock worth $25,000 after acquiring an additional 188 shares in the last quarter. Sachetta LLC lifted its stake in Amphenol by 131.1% in the second quarter. Sachetta LLC now owns 439 shares of the electronics makers stock valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 249 shares during the last quarter. Opal Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Amphenol in the 2nd quarter valued at about $29,000. Finally, New Millennium Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Amphenol during the 2nd quarter worth about $31,000. Institutional investors own 97.01% of the companys stock. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on APH shares. Truist Financial raised their target price on shares of Amphenol from $74.50 to $76.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, July 25th. Robert W. Baird reduced their target price on Amphenol from $72.00 to $70.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 25th. TD Cowen increased their price target on Amphenol from $45.00 to $57.50 and gave the company a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, June 6th. Stifel Nicolaus reaffirmed a hold rating on shares of Amphenol in a research report on Thursday, June 13th. Finally, Evercore ISI reissued an outperform rating on shares of Amphenol in a research report on Thursday, June 13th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $65.04. Amphenol Stock Performance NYSE APH opened at $65.35 on Thursday. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $63.96 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $63.23. Amphenol Co. has a 12-month low of $39.34 and a 12-month high of $70.84. The company has a market capitalization of $78.70 billion, a P/E ratio of 39.97, a P/E/G ratio of 2.59 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a quick ratio of 1.32, a current ratio of 2.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.56. Amphenol (NYSE:APH Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 24th. The electronics maker reported $0.44 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.41 by $0.03. Amphenol had a return on equity of 24.08% and a net margin of 15.69%. The business had revenue of $3.61 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $3.39 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.72 earnings per share. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 18.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts anticipate that Amphenol Co. will post 1.76 earnings per share for the current year. Amphenol Cuts Dividend The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 9th. Investors of record on Tuesday, September 17th will be paid a $0.165 dividend. This represents a $0.66 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.01%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 17th. Amphenols dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 40.37%. Insiders Place Their Bets In other news, VP Lance E. Damico sold 90,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.65, for a total value of $5,818,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 51,400 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,323,010. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In other news, VP Lance E. Damico sold 100,000 shares of Amphenol stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $65.63, for a total value of $6,563,000.00. Following the transaction, the vice president now owns 51,400 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,373,382. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, VP Lance E. Damico sold 90,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Friday, July 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.65, for a total value of $5,818,500.00. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 51,400 shares of the companys stock, valued at $3,323,010. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 1,516,000 shares of company stock worth $98,236,640 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 1.80% of the companys stock. Amphenol Company Profile (Free Report) Amphenol Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, primarily designs, manufactures, and markets electrical, electronic, and fiber optic connectors in the United States, China, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Harsh Environment Solutions, Communications Solutions, and Interconnect and Sensor Systems. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding APH? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Amphenol Co. (NYSE:APH Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Amphenol Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Amphenol and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Drucker Wealth 3.0 LLC bought a new stake in shares of UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH Free Report) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 2,086 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock, valued at approximately $1,062,000. Get UnitedHealth Group alerts: A number of other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Bell Investment Advisors Inc grew its holdings in UnitedHealth Group by 4.8% in the 4th quarter. Bell Investment Advisors Inc now owns 525 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock worth $276,000 after acquiring an additional 24 shares during the last quarter. Harbor Investment Advisory LLC increased its holdings in UnitedHealth Group by 3.2% during the 1st quarter. Harbor Investment Advisory LLC now owns 35,946 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock valued at $17,783,000 after purchasing an additional 1,129 shares during the period. Austin Private Wealth LLC lifted its holdings in UnitedHealth Group by 9.8% in the 1st quarter. Austin Private Wealth LLC now owns 1,246 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock worth $573,000 after buying an additional 111 shares during the period. Capital Insight Partners LLC raised its holdings in shares of UnitedHealth Group by 3.8% during the first quarter. Capital Insight Partners LLC now owns 9,045 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock valued at $4,475,000 after acquiring an additional 332 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Collective Family Office LLC boosted its holdings in UnitedHealth Group by 4.3% in the first quarter. Collective Family Office LLC now owns 1,577 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock valued at $780,000 after acquiring an additional 65 shares in the last quarter. 87.86% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades UNH has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Robert W. Baird boosted their price target on shares of UnitedHealth Group from $597.00 to $640.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on UnitedHealth Group from $546.00 to $559.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Thursday, May 30th. TD Cowen raised their price objective on UnitedHealth Group from $546.00 to $601.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 17th. HSBC increased their price target on shares of UnitedHealth Group from $580.00 to $610.00 in a research note on Thursday, July 18th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on shares of UnitedHealth Group from $555.00 to $615.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Wednesday, July 17th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eighteen have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, UnitedHealth Group currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $614.17. Insider Buying and Selling In other news, EVP Erin Mcsweeney sold 1,500 shares of UnitedHealth Group stock in a transaction on Thursday, July 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $579.03, for a total transaction of $868,545.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 7,785 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,507,748.55. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In related news, EVP Erin Mcsweeney sold 1,500 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Thursday, July 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $579.03, for a total value of $868,545.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 7,785 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $4,507,748.55. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Thomas E. Roos sold 2,851 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $569.88, for a total value of $1,624,727.88. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 29,501 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $16,812,029.88. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.33% of the stock is currently owned by insiders. UnitedHealth Group Price Performance UNH opened at $576.31 on Thursday. The companys 50-day simple moving average is $578.80 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $522.51. UnitedHealth Group Incorporated has a 52-week low of $436.38 and a 52-week high of $607.94. The stock has a market capitalization of $530.43 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.23, a P/E/G ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 0.58. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a current ratio of 0.88. UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, July 16th. The healthcare conglomerate reported $6.80 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $6.66 by $0.14. The business had revenue of $98.86 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $98.73 billion. UnitedHealth Group had a net margin of 3.66% and a return on equity of 26.55%. The firms revenue was up 6.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $6.14 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that UnitedHealth Group Incorporated will post 27.69 EPS for the current year. UnitedHealth Group Dividend Announcement The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 24th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 16th were given a dividend of $2.10 per share. This represents a $8.40 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.46%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, September 16th. UnitedHealth Groups payout ratio is currently 51.34%. UnitedHealth Group Profile (Free Report) UnitedHealth Group Incorporated operates as a diversified health care company in the United States. The company operates through four segments: UnitedHealthcare, Optum Health, Optum Insight, and Optum Rx. The UnitedHealthcare segment offers consumer-oriented health benefit plans and services for national employers, public sector employers, mid-sized employers, small businesses, and individuals; health care coverage, and health and well-being services to individuals age 50 and older addressing their needs; Medicaid plans, children's health insurance and health care programs; and health and dental benefits, and hospital and clinical services, as well as health care benefits products and services to state programs caring for the economically disadvantaged, medically underserved, and those without the benefit of employer-funded health care coverage. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for UnitedHealth Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for UnitedHealth Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its stake in shares of Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA Free Report) by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 5,082,729 shares of the credit services providers stock after purchasing an additional 71,569 shares during the period. Mastercard accounts for about 0.6% of Ameriprise Financial Inc.s holdings, making the stock its 20th biggest position. Ameriprise Financial Inc. owned about 0.55% of Mastercard worth $2,241,297,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Get Mastercard alerts: Other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Westend Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Mastercard during the 1st quarter worth approximately $27,000. Palisade Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Mastercard during the 1st quarter worth approximately $27,000. VitalStone Financial LLC raised its position in shares of Mastercard by 300.0% during the 4th quarter. VitalStone Financial LLC now owns 60 shares of the credit services providers stock worth $26,000 after purchasing an additional 45 shares during the last quarter. Scarborough Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Mastercard during the 4th quarter worth approximately $28,000. Finally, Beaird Harris Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Mastercard during the 4th quarter worth approximately $30,000. 97.28% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several analysts have commented on MA shares. Citigroup lifted their target price on shares of Mastercard from $528.00 to $538.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, August 1st. Piper Sandler lifted their target price on shares of Mastercard from $531.00 to $536.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. TD Cowen lifted their target price on shares of Mastercard from $532.00 to $533.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, August 1st. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of Mastercard from $530.00 to $536.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Finally, KeyCorp lifted their target price on shares of Mastercard from $490.00 to $515.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Thursday, August 1st. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty have assigned a buy rating and three have issued a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $513.70. Insiders Place Their Bets In other news, CFO J. Mehra Sachin sold 13,439 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $455.00, for a total value of $6,114,745.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 27,304 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,423,320. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other news, CFO J. Mehra Sachin sold 13,439 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $455.00, for a total value of $6,114,745.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 27,304 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,423,320. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CMO Venkata R. Madabhushi sold 4,685 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $493.10, for a total transaction of $2,310,173.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief marketing officer now owns 17,118 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,440,885.80. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 340,809 shares of company stock worth $159,610,703 in the last quarter. 0.10% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders. Mastercard Stock Performance Shares of MA stock opened at $489.45 on Thursday. Mastercard Incorporated has a 12 month low of $359.77 and a 12 month high of $501.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.95, a current ratio of 1.14 and a quick ratio of 1.14. The firm has a market capitalization of $452.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 38.91, a P/E/G ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 1.10. The companys fifty day moving average price is $468.18 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $461.37. Mastercard (NYSE:MA Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 31st. The credit services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $3.51 by $0.08. Mastercard had a net margin of 46.45% and a return on equity of 179.78%. The firm had revenue of $6.96 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.85 billion. On average, research analysts anticipate that Mastercard Incorporated will post 14.29 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Mastercard Announces Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 8th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, October 9th will be issued a $0.66 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, October 9th. This represents a $2.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.54%. Mastercards dividend payout ratio is currently 20.99%. Mastercard Company Profile (Free Report) Mastercard Incorporated, a technology company, provides transaction processing and other payment-related products and services in the United States and internationally. The company offers integrated products and value-added services for account holders, merchants, financial institutions, digital partners, businesses, governments, and other organizations, such as programs that enable issuers to provide consumers with credits to defer payments; payment products and solutions that allow its customers to access funds in deposit and other accounts; prepaid programs services; and commercial credit, debit, and prepaid payment products and solutions. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Mastercard Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Mastercard and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Ulster University Business School has today announced the continuation of the award-winning Talent Hub, an innovative initiative launched last year, co-designed with core industry partner FinTrU and in collaboration with The Derry Chamber of Commerce. It focuses on connecting talented students with Derry employers to help them build their professional networks whilst committing future talent to the North West region. Supporting the transition from education into the working world and as part of the Global Business and Enterprise degree offerings at Ulster University, in excess of 100 second-year students will complete four workshops delivered by academic experts and FinTrUs team of professionals. The series of workshops has been created to empower students with the skills, knowledge, and networking opportunities they need to enhance their potential for future employability, whilst ensuring the next generation of talent is aligned with employer needs. Each session will focus on a different aspect of essential career development themes, helping students to develop and advance their confidence and professional skills, build networking skills and business acumen, including what to expect during a job application process, from crafting compelling CVs to sharpening their interview skills, with the support in the classroom creating a real and authentic learning opportunity for the students from both Erin King (FinTrU) and Natalie McCloskey (The Londonderry Chamber of Commerce). READ NEXT: Varadkar proposes two-stage referendum process for Irish unification vote Dr Mary Crossan, Lecturer in Business Enterprise at Ulster University said: The Talent Hub programme, created by Dr. Aisling Reid, saw great success in its first year, winning the Educational Partnership Award at the North West Business Awards and doubling local placements. This success is thanks to the support of local business leaders like FinTrU, Alchemy Technology Services, Fujitsu, and Moore NI, who are committed to championing the next generation of talent and actively participate in activities to authentically network with students and create excellent learning environment and placement opportunities. We are delighted to continue our partnership with FinTrU for The Talent Hub 2024 and appreciate their outstanding efforts in co-creating this dynamic workshop series. FinTrU were our biggest local recruiter of business placement students last year because of this initiative. We will host a grand finale in December, offering the next generation of talent, the chance to pitch for placement by taking to the stage aiming to impress an audience of local employers with the hope of making an impression and aiding their opportunity for placement offers. Local businesses still have time to get involved with Talent Hub and we would welcome them to register to come along for the finale event. Our expectation is that they will find this an innovative and dynamic approach to engaging with potential placement students. Through the Talent Hub 2023 Ulster University student James Condren was able to secure his placement role at FinTrU for 2024. James explains: Through the Talent Hub, I was able to develop the necessary skills that would help earn me my place on FinTrUs 2024-25 Placement Programme and contribute to my success as a Junior Analyst. Additionally, participation allowed me to strengthen my networking skills, communicate with industry professionals during the workshops and events, and gain first hand insights from placement students on the benefits of working within their chosen companies. Speaking on the Talent Hub collaborative partnership, Kathleen McDermott, FinTrU, Executive Director said: After a hugely successful collaboration last year, we are delighted to be partnering with Ulster University Business School once again for the 2024 Talent Hub. We will be playing our part in helping to guide and advise aspiring local business students as they look towards building their future careers. Our FinTrU Placement Programme for 2025/26 is now open for applications and we welcome interest from students who wish to supercharge their career at FinTrU right here in the North West. Anna Doherty, Chief Executive of The Derry Chamber of Commerce added: Londonderry Chamber of Commerce have facilitated this fantastic collaboration between two of our corporate partners, Ulster University and FinTrU, to the benefit of everybody involved the businesses who are providing the skills and expertise, the educators who are shaping the programming and the students taking part. We are proud to see the university and business working together to provide tangible results and a confident talent pipeline. Local businesses can contact Dr Mary Crossan, Ulster University to learn more about the Talent Hub 2024 and get involved or register to attend the finale pitch for placement event by emailing m.crossan@ulster.ac.uk. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has run a workshop with students North West Regional College in Derry. Students in Creative Practice; Art, Design and Communication looked at the role of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission to promote and protect the rights of all in Northern Ireland. Pupils at the Strand Road Campus explored human rights and the arts, including the rights to freedom of artistic expression and creation, and the right to have access to and enjoy the arts. Chief Commissioner Alyson Kilpatrick said: It is essential that our young people understand what human rights they have, and what they can do if they feel their rights have not been respected. We want them to know our role in Northern Ireland to promote and protect the human rights of all. I would like to thank staff at North West Regional College for inviting us out to run our workshop; and students for the enthusiasm in learning about human rights as well as their engagement throughout the workshop. I wish them all the best with the rest of their studies. Ursula Coyle, Associate Lecturer at North West Regional College said: This was a unique opportunity for our students to explore and develop their understanding of context. Learning about the breadth and depth of the work the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission undertakes, that is influential locally, nationally and internationally was inspirational, resulting in the generation of ideas for new work. READ NEXT: Derry employers connect with future North West talent at Ulster University "Thanks to Jason McKeown and Michael Boyd from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission our students have extended their knowledge. The workshop was engaging, educational and art specific. "They felt their views and opinions where heard. It resulted in our students understanding how they, as artists have the rights and the visual voices that can be used to highlight and challenge injustices in societies, by focusing on human rights issues within their work. The government has been pressed to hold an independent inquiry into the murder of journalist Martin OHagan. Mr OHagan was killed by loyalist paramilitaries in Lurgan, Co Armagh in 2001. No-one has ever been successfully prosecuted for his murder. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) general secretary Michelle Stanistreet and assistant general secretary Seamus Dooley have written to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Secretary of State Hilary Benn, First Minister Michelle ONeill, deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly and Taoiseach Simon Harris calling for an independent inquiry into the killing. The NUJs Mr Dooley said there are many unanswered questions and issues to be resolved around the murder of Mr OHagan. He contended there are suspicions of collusion and that police had prior knowledge of the intention to kill Mr OHagan. For many years the NUJ has marked the anniversary of the vile murder of Martin OHagan with calls for an independent investigation, he said. Polite acknowledgements have not been followed up by action but we continue to demand an external investigation into the murder and the failure to properly investigate it. There are so many unanswered questions, so many issues which remain unresolved, despite the fact that the identity of those suspected of ordering and carrying out the assassination of Martin OHagan is well known, with names being published in the media with impunity. Since last years anniversary we have had a new Northern Ireland Secretary, a new British Prime Minister, a new Taoiseach along with a new First Minister and deputy First Minister. In that context, we are seeking support for a new investigation, led by an international figure and independent of those who have so far failed to properly investigate the murder. He added: The strong suspicion of collusion with the security forces and the suggestion that the PSNI may have had prior knowledge of the plan to murder Martin OHagan must be thoroughly interrogated. The murder of Martin OHagan was a watershed moment for journalism in the UK and Ireland. The failure to properly investigate it has cast a long shadow and continues to embolden those who seek to silence journalists. Amnesty International has backed the call for a fresh investigation into the killing. Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty Internationals Northern Ireland director, said Mr OHagans killing was designed to send a clear message to journalists in Northern Ireland that they are not safe. It is simply unacceptable that, in the 23 years since Martin OHagan was shot dead, not a single person has been held accountable, he said. This failure has created an environment of impunity for those who continue to threaten journalists in Northern Ireland today. It is notable that, in 2024, threats of serious violence continue to be directed at journalists from the very same sort of armed groups which killed Martin OHagan. We support calls from the National Union of Journalists for a fresh investigation into the killing. Press freedom must be resolutely defended. A UK Government spokesperson said: A free, independent media is one of the foundations of our democracy. It is vital that journalists are able to continue their work without the fear of attack or threat. We are committed to the safety of journalists, and to bringing to justice those responsible for crimes against journalists. We continue to work closely with the Northern Ireland Executive in their efforts to tackle the threat and harm caused by paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. Mike Nesbitt will deliver his first speech as the new Ulster Unionist leader remotely after he failed to recover from Covid in time to attend the partys annual conference. The party had been confident that Mr Nesbitt, who is also Stormonts health minister, would be able to attend the event on Saturday after missing several days of Stormont business this week. However, on Friday it was confirmed that that he has not recovered sufficiently to attend the conference in Belfast in person. A party spokesperson said: He will be addressing the closed session tomorrow morning for his ratification as party leader and the open conference at 14:45, both via a live stream. Mr Nesbitt had been due to answer health questions in the Assembly on Tuesday afternoon but the session was cancelled. A session where he was due to appear before his scrutiny committee was also rescheduled. In a social media post at the time he said: I have tested positive for Covid and will be at home recovering for the next few days. I continue to attend to ministerial business as much as possible. It was announced last month that Mr Nesbitt, 67, was to become UUP leader for the second time. He was the only declared candidate for the position following the resignation of Doug Beattie. The Strangford MLA became health minister after his party colleague Robin Swann vacated the role ahead of the general election. HIGHLIGHTS The Great Indian Festival sale is currently offering the Galaxy S24 for just Rs 59,999. You can take advantage of the bank discount that promises Rs 5,750 off with the OnePlus 12. Launched at Rs 74,999, the Motorola Razr 50 is now available for just Rs 64,998. The Amazon Great Indian Festival 2024 is now live for everyone. The sale comes with amazing discounts and deals across all categories. However, Smartphones get more attention as usual, as some of the hottest deals are available on them with tons of discounts. If youve been waiting to upgrade your phone, this could be the perfect time. If you are looking for an entry-level flagship smartphone, this article features a few of them that are available with crazy discounts. Not just that, some of them are proper high-end smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. Lets check out some smartphone deals under Rs 70,000 that you definitely dont want to miss! Samsung Galaxy S24 ( Buy Now ) The Samsung Galaxy S24 is the latest Galaxy S smartphone. It was launched in India in January for Rs 79,999. However, the Great Indian Festival sale is currently offering this smartphone for just Rs 59,999. This includes the sale instant discount and a Rs 3000 bank offer as well. OnePlus 12 ( Buy Now ) OnePlus launched this high-end smartphone at a price of Rs 64,999. There is not a very big instant discount on the OnePlus 12 but there are other offers. For example, you can take advantage of the bank discount that promises Rs 5,750 off. Along with that, there is an exchange offer as well for up to Rs 25,700. Xiaomi 14 ( Buy Now ) This phone is also of the same league as the OnePlus 12 and the Galaxy S24. It was launched at a starting price of Rs 69,999, but this one is available with the best deal among the three. You can purchase this smartphone at a discounted price of Rs 47,999. Motorola Razr 50 ( Buy Now ) This is the latest foldable offering from Motorola. Launched at Rs 74,999, the Motorola Razr 50 is now available for just Rs 64,998. Apart from this, there is also a massive bank discount that is promising Rs 8,750 off on this smartphone. This means you are getting almost Rs 19,000 off on the Razr 50. iPhone 15 ( Buy Now ) This is the saddest deal among all the five. Amazon has not offered any instant discount on this one currently. However, you can definitely use some bank offers on the iPhone 15 like a Rs 3000 bank discount on SBI Credit Card. Japan's advancements in diamond semiconductor technology could lead to practical applications by 2025-2030 Technological breakthroughs in diamond semiconductors, known for their superior performance despite technical challenges, could lead to practical applications as early as 2025 to 2030. Several Japanese research teams continue to make significant strides in this field. According to Nikkei, Saga University successfully developed the world's first power device made from diamond semiconductors in 2023. The same year, the university collaborated with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to develop high-frequency diamond semiconductor components for space communication. Tokyo-based precision parts manufacturer Orbray has successfully developed mass-production technology for 2-inch diamond wafers, pushing the limits of size manufacturing. The company is expected to soon complete research and development for 4-inch substrates. Additionally, Mirai Technologies, jointly funded by Toyota and Denso, is collaborating with Orbray to develop onboard diamond power devices, aiming for commercialization in the 2030s. Orbray is also working with Anglo American plc to advance its artificial diamond substrate business, focusing on developing large-diameter diamond substrates for use in power semiconductors and communications. The company plans to expand its production facilities in Akita Prefecture, Japan, with an initial public offering expected in 2029. Power Diamond Systems, a Japanese startup spun off from Waseda University, successfully developed a technology in 2023 to enhance the current-carrying capacity of diamond power devices. The company plans to launch samples in the coming years and has established a partnership with Kyushu Institute of Technology. Meanwhile, Ookuma Diamond Device, a startup derived from Hokkaido University and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), is constructing a large mass production factory in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture. The facility is expected to start operations in the 2026 fiscal year (April 2026 to March 2027), aiming to use its products in nuclear waste removal equipment for the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. These nuclear waste materials are high-radioactivity remnants generated from the reactor structure and the melting of nuclear fuel during the 2011 Fukushima disaster. They can only be processed by devices like diamond semiconductors that can withstand high radiation. The potential for diamond semiconductors to accelerate commercialization is drawing increased attention to related businesses. For instance, JTEC Corporation specializes in producing precision equipment for research facilities and has developed a plasma technology for polishing the surfaces of high-hardness materials. EDP is Japan's only company engaged in the manufacture and sale of synthetic diamond seeds for gemstones, boasting the world's largest single-crystal production mechanism. The company is also involved in the production of diamond semiconductor substrates and tool materials. As diamond semiconductor technology advances, the quality and stable supply of synthetic diamonds are gaining importance. Sumitomo Electric produced the world's largest synthetic diamond single crystal in the 1980s, named SumiCrystal, using high-quality materials for industrial applications. Currently, most synthetic diamond production is concentrated in India and China. South Korea is set to develop a technology in 2024 that shortens the time required to produce synthetic diamonds. A study published in Nature by the Korean Institute for Basic Science (IBS) introduces a new technique that uses a liquid metal alloy composed of gallium, nickel, and other materials to create artificial diamonds in 150 minutes. Security Summit discusses TSMC, government cyber security At the Security Summit organized by DIGITIMES on September 25, Herming Chiueh, deputy minister at the Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA), highlighted the disparity in cybersecurity resources between the government and private sector. He noted that while the government employs about 70,000 staff members, comparable to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), it cannot allocate the same proportion of personnel to cybersecurity as TSMC, which is managed by just 80 engineers. DIGITIMES and IC Broadcasting president Colley Hwang, in his opening speech at the two-day Security Summit, emphasized that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's recent 12-day visit to Taiwan primarily aimed to strengthen connections. Hwang pointed out that with the rise of Generative AI (GenAI), AI is poised to replace software, while hardware remains difficult to substitute due to its cost-effectiveness. Hwang emphasized that Taiwan's survival in the GenAI world hinges on business-to-business (B2B) rather than business-to-consumer (B2C) strategies. The GenAI trend has significantly benefited large cloud companies such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, as well as Taiwan's GPU OEM and AI server assembly businesses. Furthermore, Hwang asserted that Taiwan has moved beyond its former position of offering low-cost OEM and ODM contracts to overseas companies. He cited Quanta's profits as evidence that the era of minimal earnings is over for Taiwanese companies in this sector. Chiueh revealed that in the past two years, there have been six cyber attacks, with three being large-scale incidents more severe than those occurring during US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit. The 2024 presidential election's vote-counting system was also targeted. Fortunately, the government's cybersecurity measures, extended overseas through submarine communication cables, successfully prevented any serious cyber attacks from affecting the vote count. Comparing government and private sector cybersecurity, Chiueh explained the challenges faced by the public sector. While TSMC maintains solid security with just 80 staff members out of 70,000, the government, with a similar number of employees, struggles due to its diverse and multi-generational IT systems, in contrast to TSMC's unified system. Chiueh outlined the government's focus on cybersecurity for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as part of the National Project of Hope. Resources will be directed towards helping these businesses digitalize and establish robust cybersecurity measures. He stressed the need for the government to adopt a customizable zero-trust security model in the future. To support this initiative, Chiueh encouraged cybersecurity businesses to have their products certified by the National Institute for Cyber Security. This certification will be crucial for meeting future government requirements for IT and cybersecurity purchases. Save my User ID and Password Some subscribers prefer to save their log-in information so they do not have to enter their User ID and Password each time they visit the site. To activate this function, check the 'Save my User ID and Password' box in the log-in section. This will save the password on the computer you're using to access the site. Note: If you choose to use the log-out feature, you will lose your saved information. This means you will be required to log-in the next time you visit our site. Guaranteed Irish, has announced that one of its members Tonstix, has been awarded the Brand Activation Champion of the month for the use of the G in its Marketing, social media and online. Since gaining membership last year, the childrens natural solvent solutions company based in Dundalk, Louth have had great success and credit their use of the Guaranteed Irish symbol in support of this. In August they announced their Honey Jelly Pops will be stocked in 110 Tesco Stores across Ireland. Along with this, they have recently announced a partnership with Applegreen, where they will retail their Travel pops and in their forecourts across the country. Watch out for the video on our social media on our Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn! Read Next: Louth TD again calls for Covid inquiry into Dealgan House deaths In addition to this, they have increased their presence online with the Guaranteed Irish symbol seen across various sections of their website and on multiple platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. Sinead Crowther, Founder and CEO has spoken on the value of the being a Guaranteed Irish in its recognition and visibility saying, We are committed to continuing our efforts to promote the Guaranteed Irish symbol across all our branding and marketing channels. We believe that this partnership not only strengthens our brand but also supports the broader Irish community by encouraging consumers to choose Irish-made products. The organisations recent report by Red C research underlines the value of local enterprise to consumers here in Ireland with 86% consumers agree that the Guaranteed Irish brand adds legitimacy as a national seal of approval and 71% recognition across all age groups, 82% recognition amongst consumers aged 45-54. For more information about Guaranteed Irish and its initiatives, please visit www.guaranteedirish.ie. Oireachtas members from Louth heard of the impact Family Resource Centres (FRCs) are having in their local communities, and what campaigners say is the need for a renewed government commitment to increase core funding to enable them to deliver the services that are needed. The call was made as part of an AV Room briefing at Leinster House this week, held by the Family Resources Centre National Forum (FRCNF). For Budget 2025, the FRCNF has identified the required level of funding per FRC as 240,000, for them to be able to adequately provide the support and services required of them and to realise the full potential impact of the National FRC Programme. Read Next: Fraud offences on the rise again in Louth Representatives from Louth that attended the event included Ged Nash TD. Commenting on their pre-Budget submissionFergal Landy, CEO of the FRCNF said, We are renewing our call to Government ahead of Budget 2025 to maximise the potential of the FRC National Programme to increase its capacity to deliver for children, families, individuals, and communities throughout Ireland, and in doing so, provide additional supports to both urban and rural communities coping with many challenges such as the housing crisis, poverty, the cost of living, and promoting inclusive communities for all. Our 121 FRCs cannot continue to deliver for communities without adequate funding. When FRCs are adequately funded, they are extremely effective at leveraging up to three times more funding from other government and philanthropic sources and can then involve the community in the planning of integrated supports to meet the diverse range of needs. In every corner of the country, from Louth to Donegal, the FRC National Programme plays a vital role in providing support to communities. However, FRCs have long experienced a reduced level of core funding, in comparison to similar organisations, and we are now urging the Government to put communities at the heart of Budget 2025 and invest where it is needed most. The Government has an undeserved reputation for sound fiscal management, the Labour party has said. The opposition party launched a broadside against the coalition on Friday, saying Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are conservatives crippled by ideology. Labour finance spokesman Ged Nash said the Government lacked ambition and was not ashamed enough of child poverty. He was speaking as Labour launched its alternative budget for 2025, featuring five billion euro in additional spending over what the Government will announce in the official Budget on Tuesday. Homelessness figures released from the Department of Housing today once again make for shocking reading. Labours Renters Rights Bill involves the end of no fault evictions one of the most common triggers behind homelessness in Ireland. pic.twitter.com/313oIobgA8 Ivana Bacik (@ivanabacik) September 27, 2024 The document includes a doubling of the rent tax credit to 1,500 euro this year and next, and 300 euro in energy credits. The party wants to increase the minimum wage by one euro, and ban reduced pay rates for younger workers. On the 14 billion euro Apple windfall, Labour wants to spend six billion euro on seeding a State construction company and suggests a further one billion should be spent on water infrastructure and land servicing. The remainder would be divided between Slaintecare and climate measures such as public transport projects, offshore wind and the national retrofitting plan. Party leader Ivana Bacik said the partys platform was an ambitious programme to address the endemic challenges that our country faces today. We all know that we have resources in this country which are the envy of many of our EU neighbours, but in the Ireland of 2024 many people, even those with good jobs, with homes of their own, suffer from the cost-of-living crisis and from a lack of public infrastructure. And of course, those without homes suffer the most, at the sharp edge of what the President has rightly described as our housing disaster. Its not just that we dont have enough homes and that households are facing a real squeeze with expenses, we also have overwhelmed health services, creaking public transport infrastructure, and stalled capital investment, resulting from a Government content to rely on laissez faire policies, to hope for the best, rather than to step up with the necessary state investment to make a difference. Developing Ireland's construction workforce is a priority in our Alternative Budget published today https://t.co/Qcu7mDO2ew If Government are serious about ensuring a steady flow of apprentices into the sector, they must look at apprentice pay. @marie_sherlock pic.twitter.com/HjBWmdf74C The Labour Party (@labour) September 27, 2024 The party has put forward a one-off cost-of-living package worth 2.8 billion euro, on top of 8.2 billion euro in other new spending commitments. Key proposals include the funding of 6,000 public childcare places, a full year of paid parental leave, and capping childcare costs of 50 euro per week. Labour said it would build an extra 6,000 affordable and social homes per year taking targets up to 22,000 State-funded homes. It would also increase core social welfare payments by 20 euro per week. The alternative Budget includes 4.5% indexation of personal income tax bands to track wage growth as well as rates and credits, including USC rates, at a total cost of one billion euro. Labour said it would increase taxes on wealth rather than work and close loopholes that allow the rich to save millions. The party said it would raise 680 million euro through a phased 0.5% increase of employer PRSI, and 395 million euro by withdrawing income tax credits on incomes of more than 100,000 euro. At the core of the document are measures to address child poverty through child benefit, and a focus on children in homelessness and care. Meanwhile, Ms Bacik said Labour would introduce street-by-street retrofitting with free upgrades and heat pumps. In public services, Labour wants to increase training allowances for gardai and the Defence Forces, while also recruiting 2,000 nurses and midwives per year as well as 1,000 garda trainees in 2025. The party wants to make education free and introduce free GP services for all children. Elsewhere, the party would also provide tax relief to cut gym membership costs by 20% and introduce a climate ticket for public transport, capping costs at nine euro per month. West Cork-based writer, Sue Lewando, who writes under the name Chris Lewando when self-publishing, has a new book coming out on October 22. Its her third book in the Emerald Isle series written under the pseudonym Daisy OShea, published by Bookouture. (This publishing subsidiary of Hachette wanted a different author name to distinguish between Sues current series and her self-published work.) Entitled The Irish Family Secret, the main character in this novel is Ginny Kingston. The Kingstons and the Savages have been neighbours, farmers and bitter rivals for as long as anyone can remember. Drawn home by her work as an archaeologist, Ginny is determined to discover the truth behind the family feud. What happened to the young lovers who tried to heal the rift more than 50 years ago? Ruari Savage offers to help, but this comes at a price; he wants to know the truth about why Ginny left Roone Bay so suddenly. What he doesnt know is that Ginnys devastating secret might destroy their families new-found peace and any chance of happiness they might have with each other. Roone Bay is a fictional place in West Cork. You can imagine it being set where Schull is, says Sue, chatting in UCCs Student Centre over coffee, accompanied by her husband Robin Lewando, who is working on a doctorate in Geography at the university. (The couple are originally from the UK.) NEW BOOK: The Irish Family Secret Sues series does not have to be read in order from book one to book three. The books are set in the same time-scale and place. There might be a character in one book that turns up in another. There is a dual timeline in the books. The modern part is set in 1979/80. I wanted it set pre-internet and pre-mobile phones. I was in Ireland at that time. It was a lovely experience. There were still donkey carts for milk collection. The modern story has an element of mystery from past generations. Somebody has to find out something about them. The modern characters get intertwined with the history of their ancestors and the local community. Theres also mystery in the modern story that only unfolds in the last two chapters. The main character has been to university to study archaeology. There is a lot in the book about the Irish past such as ring forts, said Sue. Ginnys studies take her back to the family farm and what happened in her past as well as the older story concerning her grandparents time. This affects her current life. Past generations were probably more affected by previous generations than in modern times. The late 70s and early 80s in Ireland were very different to today, says Sue, who has done some ghost writing projects with Irish people who lived in those times. It was a very hard life. They had big families and were happy to share what they have. They didnt mind the cold and the shortage of food. But, with few employment prospects, a lot of people emigrated during that time. Sue says that while theres an element of romanticism in the book, she is also highlighting the pertinent issues of the day. Womens fiction kind of demands a love story with a happy ending. Bookouture labels what Im doing as womens fiction. Its not pure romance. Its a bigger story than that. And its realistic. I personally think the womens fiction tag puts people off. Theyre just good stories with good endings. Ive written about important social issues of the time such as contraception being illegal here in the seventies. Also, marriage was for life as there was no divorce. If an unmarried mother got pregnant, it was a stain on the family. Unlike today, the church had a huge influence on the morals of the day, says Sue. That comes out in my stories. As Robin chimes in, life was often tough on women in that relatively recent past, particularly in rural communities. Sue, who worked as a PA before throwing off the chains of wage-slavery, studied for a Masters degree in creative writing at UCC. Now, she says she makes a good living from writing, describing what she produces as commercial writing. When you talk about commercial books, all that means is that you want to get good sales that dont come from literary books, on the whole, she said. But there are standards. My books have a standard. They are well written. That comes from years and years of writing. Ever since she was a child, Sue wanted to write. My mother baked and my sister did pottery so theres a creative background there. However, real life got in the way of pursuing creativity so Sue worked in offices for most of her adult life. She managed to write a childrens novel, but she worked full-time and reared two children, the eldest of whom is now 40. Now, Sue is living the life of a full-time writer. She and Robin bought a wreck of a house near Drimoleague and the first room they did up became Sues office. We took a leap of faith when we moved to Ireland. We gave up our jobs and struggled to survive. Robin was hoping to get farm work. I was an online writing tutor (which was poorly paid.) But chasing the dream of living in scenic West Cork has paid off. At the moment, Sue is working on the fourth book in the Emerald Isle series. She has also self-published thrillers and romantic fiction. She has cracked the writing game - and has even written a book, Waymarks For Authors, with tips for aspiring writers and information about self-publishing. Cork-born artist, Suzy OMullane,who is now based in France, sums up the difference between the Irish and the French as exemplified by the reaction to her recent performances in a paper dress. Wearing a white off-the-shoulder number made out of cartridge paper held together with masking tape at the opening of photographer Harry Moores exhibition at the Quay Co-ops new art gallery in Cork recently, Suzy invited the public to draw on her. I was kind of being provocative, says Suzy. I wanted people to participate rather than being a passive audience. The idea was to allow whatever happened. At the Cork performance, people did beautiful drawings on my shoulders and dress that I didnt really want to wash off. They were polite, whereas the French are saucy and audacious a lot of the time. The French people delved into my face, drawing lines and squiggles on it. I found it very challenging. Its not something I would want. I had handed out pens to random people and after about five minutes, they passed them onto others and all of a sudden, I had a swarm drawing on me. Some of them were men. I felt that one man, who was drawing on my face, was almost being obnoxious. Suzy was inspired by the artist and widow of John Lennon, Yoko Ono, who some time ago invited people to cut off the dress she was wearing. Suzy O'Mullane. This photo was taken in preparation for performance at Harry Moore's exhibition at the Quay Co-op. I find the more you expose yourself, the stronger your performance becomes. No one went at my face at the Quay Co-op. People were careful. But Suzy feels that art is taken more seriously in France than in this country. The French love the arts. They show up for cultural events. I know theres a grant system there which I havent tapped into but a lot of artists there find it really good. For example, I know one artist in Paris who has a massive apartment with studio space for low rent. It was custom-built for an artist. I think artists fare better in France. Feeling depressed and isolated after the pandemic, Suzy says the only person she was seeing in Cork was her son. It was really hard going. I felt irrelevant. A lot of the galleries were closing down. I felt my work, while always good, was a bit samey. It was mostly figurative with a lot of symbolism as well. Its very personal emotional work, all relationship-based. Suzys late mother left her some money. I know she would have been absolutely thrilled that I used it for a Masters in drawing at the Paris College of Art. However, Suzy found the course hard-going. I found it very tough being told what to do again, at my age. Initially, I found myself rebelling against it. But I could see that the instructors were trying to get me out of being stuck and to try new things, new concepts. They were trying to guide me away from art that was too illustrative. The course was very conceptual. Suzy now loves conceptual art. I understand it a lot better. You have to have gone to art college to understand it. Its more of a metaphorical way of looking at something instead of an illustrative way. The masters was run by an extraordinary woman, Veronique Devolder. Shes a tough cookie but she gets results. She prises you open. Before she took me on, she had said she loved my work. But I found her tough and confrontational. I was being taken out of my comfort zone. I disagreed quite a lot, but we came to some sort of compromise. I felt she respected me and I started to see where she was coming from. Graduating as the best of her Masters degree class, Suzy received felicitations du jury. I was really happy with that honour because the jurors are very well established artists. Suzy O'Mullane at Republique, Paris. From 6am drawing performance at Republique Paris with Niall Cullen. Picture: Niall Cullen Suzy had always loved Paris. But I found that the parts everyone knows actually disappear when you live there. You live in a tiny shoe box of an apartment and pay exorbitant rent. I lived with my dog Lily (who died last year) in Paris. I was really glad of her because I was lonely. Outside of college, it took months to get to know people. I was really on my own apart from a few people I knew in Paris. I also found Paris very neurotic, with everybody flying around in the mornings on their trottinettes (electric scooters) in bike lanes. I found their attitudes a bit cheeky. You become a different person there. You grow an extra layer which is no harm for Irish people because we get walked on as a country. I found myself becoming a bit more assertive. Now living in the Perpignan area of southern France, Suzy was invited to do a series of exhibitions by a renowned artist in the area, Aline Fillip. She finds extraordinary venues and Ive been asked to perform in them. Im sort of building up a repertoire of performances. And it looks like Im accepted to exhibit at the Maison des Arts in Bages. Its a really good exhibition to get. Suzy says there are far more opportunities for artists in France than in Cork. I mean, how many galleries are in Cork? Since Art Trail folded in 2011, I dont think there are many opportunities here. I see some really strong artists in Cork whose work never sees the light of day. I think its a disgrace. "The Crawford is wonderful but thats closing for two years. For the foreseeable future, Suzy plans to remain in France and will come back to Cork as often as she can to see her grandchild. Sorcha is my pride and joy, aged one year and five months. Shes called Sorcha Roisin, after my daughter, Roisin. She has brought a lot of joy back into my family. It is 20 years since Roisin Davis died at the age of 24, from a heart attack. Suzys husband, musician Chris McCarthy, died five months later and in 2015, Suzy lost her brother, Tadhg, who died by suicide. She has had more tragedy than most. How did she cope? I got a lot of help. Im very into spiritual healing and meditation. Ive had an awful lot of counselling. I was really crushed for years. But I was making very strong art. My work was pouring out of my soul. So now, my little lady is a good reason to come to Cork. I come over regularly to mind her. Suzy is on a roll in France. I dont see curators running to artists studios here. In France, they do. The director and curator of Maison des Arts in Bages, Romain Jalabert, spent ages in my studio asking a lot of very deep questions. He is very astute and very well educated. The selection process wasnt easy. I had to make a book not a catalogue with statements and images and ideas. While professionally satisfied in her adopted country, Suzy misses the craic in Ireland. Irish people have a divil-may-care attitude and theyre kind. Obviously, French people are kind but in a different way. She is seeing a French man involved in the arts, Cyril Gaillot. Clearly her Gallic adventure has worked out well on all fronts. A protest is to be held at Cork University Hospital next week over ongoing staffing issues, with nurses and midwives to be balloted on industrial action. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation have announced that they intend to ballot their members from October 14 over the HSEs recruitment moratorium, which they say has led to over 2,000 vacant, abolished posts in the health service nationally. Trolley numbers have remained persistently high, with CUH having the second highest number of people on trolleys in the country almost every day this month, behind just University Hospital Limerick. There were 62 people on trolleys in CUH on Thursday, and on average, there have been 60 people on trolleys in the hospital every day in September, with the number going over 80 on one occasion, according to the INMO daily trolley figures. INMO Assistant Director of Industrial Relations, Corks Colm Porter, told The Echo that the protest and balloting were as a result of the ongoing HSE recruitment moratorium introduced in 2023. The HSE had come out publicly to say the moratorium had been lifted across all grades, but this was followed quite quickly by the pay and numbers strategy that placed arbitrary caps on the number of staff that can be recruited into the public health system, he said. We know the damage moratoriums can do on staffing levels, they can take years to recover from them, and were getting daily representations from members working in understaffed conditions, which they say is having a detrimental impact on themselves and the parents they are caring for. The INMO made a decision that enough is enough - our members are not going to tolerate working in conditions that arent safe for them or patients. INMO General Secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha added that the INMO Executive Council, made up of working nurses and midwives, have considered every possible option but feel strongly that the only response is a strong collective one from members and that this response must be an industrial relations response. INMO along with other trade unions Forsa and SIPTU are also to stage a series of lunchtime protests from next week, beginning with one at Cork University Hospital and another at HSE HQ in Dublin next Thursday October 3. Data gathered by SIPTU revealed that the majority of its members said the embargo, and subsequent suppression of posts, were having a detrimental impact on staff and services, while 88% of Forsa staff surveyed said there were vacancies in their departments. Ms Ni Sheaghdha concluded, For too long the goodwill of nurses and midwives has been taken for granted. It's time to call a halt and together with our colleagues in other trade unions exercise our rights to say, This is a step too far, and we will not tolerate it. A HSE spokesperson confirmed that there is now a new approved maximum Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) staff figure, but said, The CEO of the HSE has welcomed this positive step. Each of the six HSE Health Regions and each national service has been provided with its own specified number of WTEs and can within that approved number, replace, recruit and prioritise. This provides greater oversight when responding to the needs of the population and prioritising appropriately. There will be 2,350 new jobs advertised for this year, and recruitment has started. Managers will have to control recruitment to stay in line with the approved maximum. They added, It is regrettable that the unions have given notice of protests and intention to ballot against the background of an additional 1.5bn for the health service in 2024, a planned 1.2bn increase in the health budget in 2025, and the certainty regarding future reliance on 2024 non-core funding. This combined with the Pay and Numbers Strategy, gives greater clarity and stability to health service funding, and allows for a period of confident planning and budgeting. Students are being priced out of going to university due to a shortage of suitable and affordable accommodation, which requires a commitment from government to address, the UCC Students Union president has said. A recent report by The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science showed that nationally there are three applications for every student bed on university campuses. The Funding the Future report says that in Ireland 45% of higher education students live with their parents, 19% live in purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA), and 36% live elsewhere, predominantly in private accommodation. Publicly owned PBSA was oversubscribed by approximately 29,773 for the 2023/24 academic year, the report said. It added that those students who are unsuccessful in obtaining a place are forced into the private market. University College Cork Students Union president Katie Halpin Hill told The Echo: There is a national deficit of 30,000 beds that can only be meaningfully addressed with affordable and publicly owned purpose-built student accommodation. The current approach of relying on private providers of premium accommodation to plug demand is unsustainable and only serves to put students at risk. She continued: The governments lack of action on this issue has led to a scenario where landlords are in a position where they can charge unacceptable rents, and students are so desperate to secure somewhere that they will agree to a price they cant afford. Students are being priced out of third-level education, and this needs to be addressed by a commitment from government to support higher education institutes in building affordable purpose-built student accommodation for their students. The 21-year-old man facing multiple charges including counts of assaulting Cork city councillor Laura Harmon and head-butting a garda was released from custody yesterday. Judge Philip OLeary had remanded Christhian Bajoras in custody after adjourning his application for bail. Solicitor Eddie Burke called the accused to give evidence on his attitude to the charges and of his experience in custody for the past week. The young man said: I have learned a lot of things. I am a lot wiser now. I understand it can catch up with you. I understand I have a serious issue with alcohol. I promise I will do anything to avoid going to prison. Mr Burke said the gardai were concerned also about the amount of alleged shoplifting offences. The solicitor asked the young man if he would take whatever medication was prescribed for him. He said he would and he added: My main issue is alcohol. I pushed and pushed it I never thought I would end up in jail. I did not have as much respect for the law. I understand now it can catch up with me. Judge OLeary said he understood the concerns gardai had about this man in the community. However, the judge said he was releasing him on bail, warning the young man: If you breach any of the conditions you will almost inevitably be brought back into custody again. Bail conditions require him to abstain from alcohol, reside at Deerpark House in Friars Walk, stay out of Cork city except for pre-arranged medical and legal appointments, sign daily at Anglesea Street Garda Station and comply with all advice from his doctors. He was released on bail until October 24. The DPP will have to give directions in the cases. Garda Dean OSullivan objected to bail being granted to the accused at Cork District Court on September 20. His charges included assaulting Ms Harmon. On September 19, it is alleged he threatened city councillor Laura Harmon by shouting: I will kill you, at her, Gda OSullivan said. It is alleged Christhian Bajoras came into her personal space and made Laura Harmon believe he was going to assault her until passers-by intervened. In relation to the assault charge, there is no allegation of physical contact, but allegations of being put in fear of assault can constitute assault. The man, originally from Ballincollig, Cork, and now living at Deerpark House, faced multiple charges related to alleged incidents on Thursday, September 19. Gda OSullivan said: It is alleged that on the same date at Centra, North Main St, he took a bottle of beer valued 650 and left the store and re-entered an hour later and took another bottle. He was approached by the manager who alleged that Mr Bajoras kicked him in the leg and fled the shop. Other shoplifting charges were brought against him all from September 19 related to Tesco on Paul St, My Cork on Patricks St, and Dealz on Grand Parade. Gda OSullivan said: Having received a number of calls about him, gardai approached him on St Paticks Street and observed that he was highly intoxicated, shouting: Ill kick the s*** out of you and continually calling gardai c***s. Following his arrest, Garda Barry OShea was searching him and Mr Bajoras proceeded to headbutt Gda OShea. Mr Burke said that before July of this year, the defendant had never come to the gardais attention. He said Mr Bajoras was out of home because he was smoking weed. He said the accused was diagnosed with schizophrenia and drug-induced psychosis. Siobhan Buckley is the principal of the Presentation Primary School in Millstreet and what stresses her most is how to pay the electricity, oil, and insurance bills at the North Cork school, the teacher told The Echo this week, in advance of the budget announcements next week. Ms Buckley, who is the North Cork and Cork City North delegate to the Central Council of the Irish National Teachers Organisation, cited the lack of funding for schools to meet their rising bills and keep the lights on, maintain heat in winter, and pay for insurance. It is a constant worry, she said, and that one of the INTOs key asks, in its pre-budget submission, was increased payments to meet these bills. Our electricity bill for 2023 was 17,000 and insurance cost another 10,000. What we get at the moment does not cover our bills, Ms Buckley said. Another key demand from the INTO is a reduction in class sizes. Were still above the EU average, said Ms Buckley. Who this is likely to impact is the child in the middle: The very bright child will make progress in spite of you while the child who has special needs will get extra support. The INTO is also looking for the restoration of posts of responsibility within schools, which would enable teachers to assume additional responsibilities. This would lead, in the future, to some of these people putting themselves forward for posts as principals or deputy principals, positions which are seen as burdensome at present. A more structured path towards these positions is seen as essential by the organisation. In its pre-budget submission, Social Justice Ireland (SJI) also talks about reducing class sizes to below 20 and says there should be a focus on primary level and DEIS schools, schools that are included in the Department of Educations main policy initiative to respond to disadvantage. Among the other measures being proposed by SJI are a call to invest 100m to increase the provision of school places for students with special educational needs in both mainstream and special schools; 15m to support the expansion of the DEIS programme; the restoration of the Back to School clothing and footwear allowance to 2011 levels; increased funding for the School Meals Programme; increased capitation grants and, at third level, an increase of 1,000 in the maintenance grant for full-time students. A survey carried out recently for the UCC students union found that 28% of participants there were 3,000 respondents admitted going to lectures hungry, while 26% had reduced their expenditure on heating. According to UCC Students Union president, Katie Halpin-Hill, the survey captured the reality of what it meant to be a student today. It demonstrates the extent of student poverty, and the highlights the most prevalent challenges facing students daily, she said. In the Union of Students in Irelands pre-budget submission, the key asks were to fund the building of 30,000 beds the current shortfall in student accommodation the reduction of student fees by 1,500, with a view to their eventual abolition, as well as the provision of free public transport for all students. Further Education Minister Patrick ODonovan has already signaled that a fees reduction of 500 is on the way. Accommodation complexes are being built adjacent to Irish universities and other third-level institutions, but monthly rents are far in excess of their equivalent in other EU countries. In some cases students are paying 250 per week or more for rooms in private accommodation; however, in other cases its up to 450 per week. Whether the Government grasps that particular nettle on budget day remains to be seen. Workvivo by Zoom announced 100 Irish jobs today at the launch of its flagship engagement hub in Cork city. The announcement of the roles, supported by IDA Ireland, will see new employees hired over the next two years. The new positions will be primarily in product and engineering to invest in research and innovation and the majority will based in Cork with the opportunity also for remote working. Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Peter Burke TD said: The recent acquisition by Zoom has allowed Workvivo to significantly grow their innovative employee engagement platform, while keeping true to their own identity. Im thrilled to hear that Cork city has been chosen as their flagship Irish hub, underscoring both the Irish Government and IDAs commitment to regional investment. The creation of 100 jobs in the city is very welcome and will provide exciting opportunities for our skilled tech workforce." European Commissioner-Designate for Democracy, Justice and the Rule of Law, Michael McGrath said: I am delighted to celebrate the opening of Zooms flagship Irish engagement facility here in Cork city and I welcome the creation of an expected 100 jobs over the next two years. This is a further endorsement for Cork city and the wider south west region as a prime location for technology companies like Zoom. Co-founder and CEO of Workvivo by Zoom, John Goulding, said: It was so important to us that our new engagement hub would stay true to our DNA, while also setting us up for the next phase in our scaling journey as part of Zoom. Weve been so fortunate to have hired truly world-class talent over the last few years in Ireland. Now, with the incredible support of the IDA, were excited to welcome more people into the Workvivo by Zoom team. IDA Ireland executive director, Mary Buckley said: Zooms decision to establish its first major hub in Cork is terrific news for the Southwest region and indeed the whole of Ireland. Zoom is attracted by the wealth of skilled and diverse talent across the region to support their research and innovation focus. Id like to wish Zoom every success with this expansion. Workvivo was founded in Cork in 2017 and was acquired by Zoom in 2023. Cork has been alerted to possible localised flooding and difficult travelling conditions on Sunday with a status yellow rainfall warning issued by Met Eireann. The national forecaster issued the weather warning today, with the warning in place for the duration of Sunday. Persistent rain will turn heavy at times, Met Eireann said, advising that potential impacts could include localised flooding, poor visibility and difficult travelling conditions. Status Yellow - Rain warning for Cork, Waterford & Wexford Persistent rain, heavy at times Potential impacts: Localised flooding Poor visibility Difficult travelling conditions Valid: 00:00 29/09/24 to 00:00 30/09/24https://t.co/iJkuOKQdND pic.twitter.com/EZLgEDjO3C Met Eireann (@MetEireann) September 27, 2024 The warning, in place from midnight Sunday to midnight on Monday, has also been issued for Waterford and Wexford. According to the latest forecast for Munster, tomorrow will bring scattered cloud and good sunny spells. A few isolated showers will develop with highest temperatures of around 12 to 14 degrees. The current national outlook states that rain, heavy in parts, will spread up from the southwest, over much of the country during Saturday night and Sunday, reaching the north coast Sunday afternoon, and accompanied by fresh to strong and gusty easterly winds. The rain should turn more patchy on Sunday evening and night with a lighter northerly breeze setting in. As Irelands population grows and ages, the pension burden of the State also increases. While pensions are likely to rise in Tuesdays budget, the call has come from Social Justice Ireland to increase the state contributory and non-contributory pensions by 25 per week and to universalise the payment, starting in January 2025, at a cost of 1.37bn in Budget 2025 Social Justice Ireland has said that additional expenditure could be funded through reform of Irelands system of pension-related tax reliefs, as well as a moderate increase in employer PRSI. Paddy OBrien, who advocates for the elderly in Cork city, said there are two key measures that should be introduced by the Government: An increase in the weekly pension, with a special consideration for those who are living alone, as they face the same increases in heating and electricity costs but with just half the income of a couple; and an increase in the weekly fuel payment, coupled with an extension of the period of the payment to cover beyond the first week in April. Ive come across real and genuine poverty, Mr OBrien told The Echo. Ive never heard as many sincere complaints about the cost of living. People are struggling to meet costs not just from week to week, but from day to day. Mr OBrien said that the most severe threat faced by the elderly is the cold. Most of the elderly people in Cork are living in cold and damp houses and they have to purchase fuel daily, he said. A geriatrician at a conference told me that when faced with the choice between heat and food, an elderly person has to pick heat, he added. Mr OBrien had met people who were being paid large salaries and they were finding the cost of living hard to deal with, when purchasing food and other items in supermarkets. Imagine how much more difficult it is for the elderly on the minimum pension rate, he said. More than 6,000 volunteers removed an estimated 38 tonnes of litter as part of the Big Beach Clean in Cork. The event took place last week and saw more than 15,000 people across Ireland take part, removing more than 95 tonnes of litter nationwide. In Cork, more than 100 groups took part in the initiative, with clean-ups taking place in various locations throughout the county. Cork GAA had a total of 90 clubs sign up for World Clean Up Day as part of the Big Beach Clean 2024. The groups started at Pairc Ui Chaoimh and headed to Green Party councillor Dan Boyle, Lord Mayor of Cork, cheered them on. Around 60% of the litter found by the groups was recyclable. Were delighted to see so many volunteers and community groups across the country take part in the Big Beach Clean, said An Taisces Clean Coasts programme manager Bronagh Moore. This years event was the largest yet and a powerful reminder of the collective impact we can make together. As part of the event, Siuloid at Clonakilty Community Resource Centre had 40 people clean Inchydoney Beach, where the group removed 12kg of litter. Thirty cub and beaver scouts from Youghal also took part in the event, which saw them picking up litter and exploring local biodiversity in Glenbower Woods. Elaine Doyle from Clean Coasts spoke to the cubs and beavers group about the organisation before they had a play in the playground and enjoyed a hot chocolate provided by The Old Thatch. Clean Coasts joined forces with Kia Ireland, which supported the initiative this year by providing clean-up kits and supplies to volunteers throughout the country. Head of marketing and PR at Kia Ireland, Cathal Kealey, said: Kia Ireland was delighted to support the Big Beach Clean initiative from Clean Coasts and witness the dedication and hard work of the Clean Coasts staff and volunteers throughout the country. Their work is truly inspiring. The case against a man charged in relation to his alleged part in the robbery of a young French visitor in Cork City Centre has been adjourned until October 24 to allow time for DPP directions. Adam Corcoran, 29, with an address at an apartment at John Barry House, Midleton, County Cork, had his case adjourned by Judge Philip OLeary, on the application of Sergeant Gearoid Davis. The case against the late Daena Walsh, 27, of the same address, was also called in court and Sgt. Davis told Judge OLeary that Ms Walsh is deceased. Detective Garda Conor Cronin previously outlined the background to the charge of robbery at St. Patricks Street, Cork, on Tuesday evening (July 23), faced by Mr Corcoran. Det. Garda Cronin said, A group of French students in their early teens and their teachers were walking on St. Patricks Street at 10.20 p.m. on July 23. They were on a school tour to Ireland. It is alleged that a male and female approached the group of children The female began shouting at (one of the students, believing the teenager was laughing at her) and grabbed her Samsung phone out of her hand putting her in fear. The female then tried to leave with the phone and she was stopped by one of the French teachers who tried to get the phone back. The teacher and the female fell to the ground during the altercation. It is alleged that the male intervened and approached the teacher and struck him up to ten times in the back and upper body with a screwdriver. There had been no objection to bail being granted to the late Ms Walsh in July. Mr Corcoran was also released on bail despite garda objections to bail in his case. Going out or staying in? Here's your weekend guide for Cork Here's a round up of gigs and events running in Cork this weekend (September 27 to 29). Or if you decide to stay in, here's what's on the box... Wasps vs Humans are a musical duo that has been active for many years, melding performance poetry and music. Their live shows have been raucous and their albums stimulating. They are releasing a new album this week, and while it features fresh material, Linda Plover, one-half of the group, sees it as a culmination of many years of work. While Scratchcard Empires is our debut album and is essentially a collection of songs recorded at various times from as far back as 20 years ago to this year, our intention was to bring together a body of work in the form of an album. In terms of the track order, we initially talked about placing each track together chronologically. However, once we had all the tracks finished and mastered, it made more sense to look at how the tracks sat together dynamically and present it as a whole, eclectic mix of music, rather than a historic progression. Carl Antony Plover, the bands principal lyricist, says, The album is basically a time capsule of work. It does contain a number of download singles, but it was at the beginning of this year when we decided to put them all together and release an album. I think its a shame that there is a tendency to move away from listening to albums; there is a streaming generation, who tend to download just single tracks, rather than a body of work. Our previous singles have been a way of introducing listeners to our work. I think some acts rush to get an album together before anyone knows them. In our case, it has been a case of cooking on a slow heat, to get the true flavour. More than two decades of songwriting experience have gone into this album, and Carl reflects on the changes hes noticed in his writing, I think, when I was much younger, my songs were more internalised; personal and emotionally-based. However, the songs we write now, and certainly for the last 20 years, have been external observations of celebrity culture, American politics, inner-city violence, poverty, corruption, and obscene wealth. Its an outlet, but at the same time we try to add a splash of humour to things; its important not to take ourselves too seriously. Linda and Carl Plover when they released their first single 20 years ago in 2004. The passage of time has fed into the album process, says Linda. It really has been a journey, when we consider the last 20 years. When we first moved over to Ireland from the UK, we performed together as Chunky Planet, which had a more alternative, indie folk vibe, and then Carl went solo as a performance punk poet for a few years. I bowed out of writing and playing music for a number of years, but over the last 18 months have been drawn back in and its an amazing feeling, being back in the creative seat and performing with Carl again. Weve certainly evolved from where we started 20 years ago; so much else is incorporated into our sound. Having said that, the darker themes remain the same. What we started writing about two decades ago is just as relevant, unfortunately, today. The idea of writing outside of yourself has also influenced their albums title, Linda says. It was one of those people-watching moments, when Carl and I were waiting in a queue and seeing someone in front of us buy a wad of scratch cards. There was a sense of desperation in the way they frantically scratched out each card and clearly lost. It was as though they were hoping for that win, that last roll of the dice that could change their life. It was grim to watch. Scratchcard Empires just seemed to be the most apt title to describe that dollop of desperation and bleakness that is the albums undercurrent, Linda says. Carl has built a reputation as both a poet and songwriter, while also publishing a novel and developing live-stage shows performed in theatres. He sees all of those creative avenues distinctly. I feel they are all connected, but, at the same time, separate. I love words, in whatever format. A song has to flow with the music; a poem needs some form of tempo; and the words in a book or a script are brought to life through the images they create in your minds eye. Whatever the form, I think there is a need for structure or it will get lost. You could also say that about life. But for all the reflection, the duo behind Wasps vs Humans has many plans in motion to help support the album. We have a bunch of shows lined up to promote the record. You put all this work in and then its time to bring it to a live space. We recently played the Spirit Store in Dundalk. Theres always a great energy there. Our big launch gig is at The Crane Lane. It feels particularly special to do our album launch here, as it was one of the first venues we played in Cork. We have special guests, ADT (Alan Tobin), Stan Notte and Eoin Jordan performing, as well as some special-guest musicians joining us on our set. We then head out to West Cork, when we do a double headliner with ADT, at De Barras in Clonakilty, on October 10. De Barras has an extra-special place in our heart. Weve performed here over the years and feel a strong connection with this place. Were also looking forward to playing Levis in Ballydehob, as part of the Feelgood Festival at the end of October and excited to be linking in with Jinx Lennon, when we play with him at Thomas House in Dublin on October 12, before returning full circle to Cork with a show at Fred Zeppelins on November 1. The launch of Scrtchcard Empires took place at Crane Lane on September 26. Elizabeth City, N.C. Classical music knew no boundaries Wednesday night as The String Queens took over the Mickey L. Burnim Performing Arts Center, delivering a set that honored the soul of the 90s while showcasing their own fresh sound. In a diverse crowd that spanned four generations, The String Queens, an all-female trio of Washington, D.C.-based string instrumentalists, took the audience on a soulful ride that featured Lauryn Hills Doo Wop (That Thing), Anita Bakers Sweet Love, and an audience-pleasing rendition of a Mary J. Blige classic that invited the crowd to join in singing, Real love. Im searching for a real love. The performance, part of the Community Connections Lecture Series, was titled Strumming Authentic Soul and lived up to its name. Blending soulful tunes with classical orchestration, The String Queens delivered a show that merged their classical roots with the sound of soul music from their childhood. While classical music is our first love, we cant get away from that sound that we grew up knowingsoul, one of the String Queens shared with the audience. We all have a soundtrack to our lives. Its the music we grew up on. It was the music playing when we got up at 6:30 Saturday mornings. The performance was a celebration of music and a nod to its deep connection to culture. The trios stage presence and harmonious blend of string instruments brought the audience to their feet as they transformed classic R&B hits into something timeless, in the most effortless way. Kendall Isadore (violin), Dawn Johnson (viola), and Elise Sharps (cello) song list range from baroque to jazz to todays most popular hits. They have performed at prestigious venues such as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington and Carnegie Hall in New York City. School teachers by day and performers by night, The String Queens took a moment to acknowledge the importance of music education. Shoutout to the music department here at ECSU. The world would be so dry without music, said Isadore. Their comments reflected their belief in the power of music to bring love, hope and an imagination. More than a concert, Wednesdays event was a cross-generational experience that captured the rich musical heritage shared by baby boomers, Gen X, millennials and Gen Zproving that music has no limits. For more information on ECSUs performance and lecture series or to sponsor an event, visit the ECSU Community Connections page. (Photo: Peter Kenny)Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba, the South African Anglican leader speaks at a gathering during the Busan Assembly of the World Council of Churches on November 6, 2013. Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba has lashed out at the South African government for damaging education by failing to provide provinces with enough money to cover public service salary increases. Opening the Anglican Church's ruling Synod, he said the government's failure to increase funding for provincial education departments to cover the full costs of salary increases "has thrown the education sector into a funding crisis in which provinces have to decide what to cut to be able to pay the increases." In a statement, he noted that the most populous province of Gauteng has cut back on feeding and transporting learners and the Western Cape is faced with cutting 2,400 contract posts for teachers, Other provinces face the same dilemma. "In the sea of unemployment in which we are drowning, cutting education budgets spells disaster," said Makgoba. "If we are to educate a modern workforce, we should be increasing investment in education, not reducing it. Adopting 'austerity measures' in the fields of education, health and social welfare is a recipe for trouble." Makgoba heads the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, which includes dioceses in South Africa, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and the island of St Helena. "To take perhaps the most glaring example of suffering among God's people in Southern Africa, consider the levels of poverty which intensify their pangs of hunger," said the archbishop. "In John's Gospel, Jesus says he came that God's people may have life, 'and have it abundantly.' (Jn 10:10) But what does the promise of abundant life mean to the one in every three South Africansnearly eight-and-a-half million peoplewho are unemployed and the four out of every five who have given up even looking for a job?" He said it is no help to create well-paying jobs if there are not the people qualified to do them. "The failure of the government to increase funding for provincial education departments to cover the salary increases granted to public servants has thrown the education sector into a funding crisis in which provinces have to decide what to cut to be able to pay the increases." At the church synod Makgoba also noted that the unemployment rate in the other nations of the church Province is just as distressing. "In Namibia, it is approximately 33.5 percent, and in Lesotho and Eswatini, it is only a little better24.6 percent in Lesotho (but youth unemployment is extremely high, at about 30 to 35 percent) and 28 percent in Eswatini," said the archbishop. "The effects of unemployment, low wages, and poor economic growth are seen in the shocking levels of poverty in our different nations." He said that South Africa, blessed by natural resources, is blighted by having nearly 40 percent of people earn less than 65 rands a day or less than 4 US dollars at the current rate and 60 percent earn less than 125 rands a day. He said that in Lesotho, poverty is more severe, with a staggering 27 percent of the population living on less than 33 rands a day, while more than half live on less than 56 rands a day. In Eswatini, around 59 percent of people live below the national poverty line, and 20.1 percent live in extreme poverty. In Namibia, approximately 27.8 percent of the population lives below the national poverty line. Top overseas science, engineering universities encouraged to run joint education programs in China Xinhua) 09:59, September 27, 2024 BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Top overseas universities, especially those featuring on science and engineering, are encouraged to operate joint education programs with their counterparts in China, the Ministry of Education said on Thursday. This encouragement comes under a national initiative to provide more quality education resources, which the ministry announced at a press conference. The initiative also includes a plan to support China's top universities in expanding their education capacities, and a plan to establish several advanced research universities. China is working to promote the opening-up of its education sector, aiming to establish major education centers with global influence, the ministry said. It noted that the country also supports more foreign students to come to China for study and exchange, announcing plans to launch 800 international summer school programs over the next three years. A total of 50,000 young people from the United States will be invited on exchange trips to China over the next five years, as well as 10,000 young French people over the next three years, the ministry said, also noting that the number of young Europeans undertaking exchange trips to China will double. China is committed to "going global" in its education sector and promotes the running of education programs overseas in the fields of engineering and medicine in which China has comparative advantages, the ministry said. Chinese college and university students are also encouraged to pursue education overseas. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has slapped Meta with a $101.5 million (91 million) fine after wrapping up an investigation into a security breach in 2019, wherein the company mistakenly stored users' passwords in plain text. Meta's original announcement only talked about how it found some user passwords stored in plain text on its servers in January that year. But a month later, it updated its announcement to reveal that millions of Instagram passwords were also stored in easily readable format. While Meta didn't say how many accounts were affected, a senior employee told Krebs on Security back then that the incident involved up to 600 million passwords. Some of the passwords had been stored in easily readable format in the company's servers since 2012. They were also reportedly searchable by over 20,000 Facebook employees, though the DPC has clarified in its decision that they were at least not made available to external parties. The DPC found that Meta violated several GDPR rules related to the breach. It determined that the company failed to "notify the DPC of a personal data breach concerning storage of user passwords in plaintext" without undue delay and failed to "document personal data breaches concerning the storage of user passwords in plaintext." It also said that Meta violated the GDPR by not using appropriate technical measures to ensure the security of users' passwords against unauthorized processing. "It is widely accepted that user passwords should not be stored in plaintext, considering the risks of abuse that arise from persons accessing such data. It must be borne in mind, that the passwords the subject of consideration in this case, are particularly sensitive, as they would enable access to users social media accounts," DPC's Deputy Commissioner, Graham Doyle, said in a statement. The DPC has also given the company a reprimand in addition to the penalty. We may know more about what that means for Meta exactly when the commission publishes its full final decision and other related information in the future. Intel's fortunes have declined so rapidly over the past year that chip designer ARM made a "high level inquiry" about buying its crown jewel product unit, Bloomberg reported. However, Intel said the division wasn't for sale and turned down the offer, according to an unnamed insider. There are two main units inside Intel, the product group that sells PC, server and networking chips and a chip manufacturing foundry. ARM had no interest in Intel's foundry division, according to Bloomberg's sources. ARM and Intel representatives declined to comment. Intel's fortunes have been on the wane for years, but the decline over the last 12 months has been especially dramatic. Following a net $1.6 billion loss in Q2 2024, the company announced that it was laying off 15,000 employees as part of a $10 billion cost reduction plan. Last week, the company also revealed plans to transform its ailing foundry business into an independent subsidiary. Intel lost half its market value last year and is now worth $102.3 billion. ARM sells its processor designs to Qualcomm, Apple and other manufacturers (mostly for mobile phones) but doesn't build any chips itself. Purchasing Intel's product division would completely transform its business model, though that scenario seems highly improbable. With Intel wounded at the moment, rivals have been circling. Qualcomm also expressed interest in taking over Intel recently, according to a report from last week. Any mergers related to ARM and Qualcomm would be regulatory nightmares, but the fact that the offers exist at all shows Intel's vulnerability. Intel has other avenues to boost investment. Apollo Global Management (the owner of Yahoo and Engadget) has offered to invest as much as $5 billion in the company, according to a recent Bloomberg report. Intel also plans to sell part of its stake in chip-maker Altera to private equity investors. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has officially issued its full recommended fine against political consultant Steve Kramer. This is after he initiated a series of robocalls to New Hampshire residents with pre-recorded audio of President Bidens voice, using deepfake AI technology. The fake Biden told voters not to vote in the upcoming primary, saying Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday. Kramer must pay $6 million in fines in the next 30 days or the Department of Justice will handle collection, according to a FCC statement. Kramer doesnt just face a fine; he also has criminal charges against him. New Hampshire Attorney General John M. Formella announced that hell face multiple counts of voter suppression and impersonation of a political candidate. It wasnt a hugely difficult process, either. Kramer hired New Orleans magician (an actual magician) Paul Carpenter to make the phony recordings. Carpenter showed NBC News how he made the deepfake audio files using ElevenLabs. He said it only took around 20 minutes. Mat Smith The biggest stories you might have missed Its incredibly thin, once again. Engadget In a surprise short-notice (and short!) event yesterday, Samsung unveiled new additions to its portfolio of devices, including the Galaxy S24 FE and the Galaxy Watch FE LTE. The highlight had to be the new Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra tablet. With the Tab S10 series, the company is adding to its flagship S24 phones features like Circle to Search and Sketch to Image. Those features that work with the S Pen on the S24 Ultra, like Handwriting Assist and Note Assist, are here too. While software is the main draw this year, the Tab S10 Ultra has a 120Hz 14.6-inch screen with an anti-reflective finish and a MediaTek Dimensity 9300+ processor, instead of the usual Qualcomm chip. The Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra will be available starting at $1,200 for the 256GB model pre-orders are open now and the tablet will launch October 3. Continue reading. Cheap picks for noise canceling, workouts and more. Its now very possible to find a clean-sounding, richly featured pair for well under $100, but there are, unsurprisingly, a lot of bad earbuds too. Weve pulled in the best buds, including some that even manage to pack in noise cancellation. Expect capable buds from Anker, Jlab and even Amazon. Continue reading. After her elimination from 'Dancing with the Stars,' Anna Delvey is focusing on new ventures. After being eliminated from the celebrity dance competition in the first round of cuts on Tuesday, Delvey is using this time to look forward to taking over her story and focusing on her documentary. When discussing her doc with 'Newsweek,' Delvey shared, "I've been filming a feature-length documentary for a major platform that I can't wait for everyone to see. I feel like my story has been told for me by other people, so I'm excited to reclaim my narrative and get the opportunity to tell my own story." Delvey was reportedly not in full support of the Netflix series 'Inventing Anna.' The drama television miniseries, which was released on the streaming platform in February 2022, was created by Shonda Rhimes and inspired by Delvey's life. Julia Garner played Delvey in the title role. The 33-year-old is currently under house arrest for overstaying her visa. She wore an ankle monitor throughout her 'DWTS' journey a bedazzled one to match her costumes on the show. In explaining the logistics of wearing the device, she said, "It comes with a station that's plugged in at my residence, and a slide-on charger... I usually charge it once a day for about 60-90 minutes." Despite her early exit from the show, Delvey expressed admiration for her dance partner Ezra Sosa. "He was a great partner as well as incredibly patient, supportive and kind... I loved his charisma." Sosa also came to Delvey's defense amid online criticism, stating on TikTok, "I know what she did was really controversial and was not right, and I can never justify that for her and for anyone in her life. It's really hard for me because this person that I truly am just falling in love with every day in rehearsal, isn't the person that everyone sees in the media." He added: "No one deserves the amount of hate that she's getting right now. She deserves a second chance." Supermodel Naomi Campbell has been banned from serving as a charity trustee for five years after an investigation revealed serious financial mismanagement within her Fashion For Relief organization. The UK Charity Commission conducted the probe, which exposed troubling discrepancies, such as alleged extravagant spending and minimal donations to charitable causes. The investigation followed reports that the charity had spent over 1.6 million (over $2,145,000 in USD) on a glamorous gala in Cannes, yet allegedly only contributed 5,000 ($6,700 in USD) to charitable efforts over a 15-month span. In April, the Charity Commission officially removed Fashion For Relief from the UK charity register while continuing its investigation into allegations of misconduct, per the 'Daily Mail.' The final report published by the Commission concluded that the charity suffered from poor governance and insufficient financial oversight. Along with Campbell, 54, former trustees Bianka Hellmich and Veronica Chou were also banned from serving as trustees for varying lengths of time Hellmich for nine years and Chou for four, respectively. Fashion For Relief was founded by Campbell in 2005. The charity was inspired by her friend Nelson Mandela who urged her to use her platform for good. The charity reportedly raised over 11 million through star-studded events across the globe. However, concerns about its financial practices came to light when the Mayor's Fund for London lodged a formal complaint in 2021, stating that it was owed 50,000 by the charity. Read more: Naomi Campbell Fights Passengers Attempting To Film Her Sleeping During A Flight In Resurfaced Clip The inquiry revealed that a significant portion of the charity's spending was not directed toward its intended charitable goals. For instance, the organization reportedly spent over 14,000 on a flight from London to Nice, France, to transport art and jewelry, and nearly 10,000 on a luxury hotel stay for Campbell in Cannes. The Commission found these expenditures excessive and unrelated to the charity's mission. The report also noted unauthorized payments totaling 290,000 made to Hellmich for consultancy services, violating the charity's constitution. The Commission has since recovered 344,000 to be redirected to other charities, ensuring the funds are used for their original purpose. As of this writing, the actress and media personality has not commented on the banning. Cardi B addressed and dismissed a viral rumor on Thursday regarding an alleged affair with the late rapper Takeoff. This rumor surfaced amid ongoing accusations from her estranged husband, Offset, who claimed she cheated on him while pregnant. A screenshot circulating on social media suggested Cardi had confirmed a relationship with Takeoff, but she quickly debunked the claim, calling it "fake and weird." The fabricated tweet implied that Cardi B, 31, admitted to a secret relationship with Takeoff, stating, "You would be even more BUTT hurt if you knew the relationship me and Takeoff had before he passed." However, Cardi, whose real name is Belcalis Marlenis Cephus, firmly denied the authenticity of the screenshot, shutting down the speculation. On Wednesday evening, Offset accused his estranged wife of being unfaithful during her pregnancy, sparking fresh tension amidst their ongoing divorce battle. The Migos' rapper claimed in a comment on Cardi's Instagram Live that she had been intimate with another man while carrying their child. "U [had sex] with a baby inside, tell the truth!!" Offset reportedly wrote in a comment captured and shared on X (formerly known as Twitter). Shortly after, Cardi seemed to confirm the accusation on her X account, stating, "AND DID !!!!!!" It's unclear exactly when the alleged affair happened, but Cardi B filed for divorce from Offset, 32, in July. During her Instagram Live, the "Bodak Yellow" emcee addressed some of her frustrations with her estranged husband, claiming he threatened to take back gifts he had given her after she started moving on from their relationship. "You know what I find so crazy? That a [man] thinks that they can just buy a [woman]. I love me [material things], but you can't buy me no more," she said. The Bronx, New York, native filed for divorce from Offset, born Kiari Kendrell Cephus, for the second time on July 31, though a source told 'Page Six' that the split wasn't because of infidelity. Instead, the couple had simply "grown apart," according to the insider. Read more: Quavo And Offset Reconcile After Years Of Estrangement On The Same Day Rich Homie Quan Died Cardi B. is reportedly seeking primary custody of their children; their daughter Kulture, 6, son Wave, 3, and a newborn daughter, born on September 7, whose name has yet to be made public. Taye Diggs expressed his shock and disbelief upon learning about Sean "Diddy" Combs' arrest related to sex trafficking. On Thursday's episode of the "Sibling Revelry" podcast, hosted by Kate and Oliver Hudson, Diggs admitted that he had no idea about Combs' alleged dark past. "I felt so naive when I heard all that stuff because I was... I don't know where I was, but all of it blindsided me," Diggs confessed. At 53, the 'Rent' actor had long admired Combs and viewed him as a role model. The founder of Bad Boy Records represented many qualities Diggs respected, including his rise from humble beginnings and his confidence. "I loved how he didn't come from much; he started out as a dancer," Diggs said. "He had so much confidence and a certain arrogance that I loved, and he made being Black cool." "I put him on a pedestal, and it was disappointing to see some of what happened," the 53-year-old admitted. 'The Best Man' star also struggled with disbelief and discomfort as more disturbing details emerged. While reflecting on Combs' arrest, Diggs described it as a double-edged sword. "On one side, I'm like, this is great for people to know that this happens," he explained. "We can think a person is a certain way, and they can be the exact opposite." Combs, 54, was arrested on September 16 and charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy, and other serious crimes. An indictment claims that he abused and coerced individuals for decades to protect his reputation and cover up his conduct. The hip hop producer is currently being held without bail in New York City and has pleaded not guilty. His attorney, Marc Agnifilo, stated that Combs is eager to tell his side of the story and plans to testify in court. Offset has come under fire from Takeoff's brother, YRN Lingo, for involving the late rapper in his ongoing divorce drama with Cardi B. The Migos' rapper was criticized by Lingo for mentioning Takeoff in a public dispute. The conflict escalated when Offset, real name Kiari Kendrell Cephus, commented on X (formerly Twitter), referencing his late group member. "Listen to your ppl take and the bros TOld me," Offset penned. Lingo was quick to react, taking to Instagram to express his frustration, stating, "My brother ain't tell him [anything]!! Let my twin rest." This confrontation followed a tense exchange between Offset, 32, and Cardi B earlier in the week, centered around their troubled relationship. During an Instagram Live, Offset accused his estranged wife of infidelity while she was pregnant. "U [had sex] with a baby inside tell the truth!!" he accused. Cardi B fired back: "You know what I find so crazy? That [a man] thinks that they can just buy a [woman]. I love me [material things], but you can't buy me no more." The mom of three went on to vent about how men expect loyalty despite their own infidelities, questioning why they can't simply move on when she does the same. Cardi B, 31, seemed to confirm Offset's accusation when she later posted on X, writing: "AND DID !!!!!!" Offset responded by distancing himself from the drama, claiming to have moved on: "Everybody can see I don't want you! It's ok I'm not talking about this nomo all love u will be calling me after couple months u my bm I won [laughing emoji]." Their spat continued as the "WAP" rapper shared private text messages between them, where Offset reportedly asked if she still "wanted him," to which she replied "no." She also admitted to talking to other men while pregnant with their third child, revealing that she began moving on as early as June. Cardi B filed for divorce from Offset in August, just weeks before the birth of their third baby. Sean "Diddy" Combs is already sitting in jail for sex trafficking and racketeering charges, and now, another bombshell lawsuit has been filed against him. A woman is claiming the embattled hip hop mogul drugged, sexually abused, and impregnated her. In the latest filing, the woman alleges she suffered a miscarriage after she got pregnant from one of their alleged encounters in July 2022. Per legal documents obtained by 'TMZ,' the alleged victim, who has only been identified as Jane Doe, claims the 54-year-old repeatedly assaulted her over a span of four years. She claims she met the "I'll Be Missing You" rapper in 2020. Jane Doe accused Diddy and his team of using "coercive and harassing language" to travel against her will to Miami, Los Angeles, and New York in 2021 and 2022. The trips, according to the lawsuit, reportedly started out as all-expenses-paid vacays during their initial meeting. The latest lawsuit comes only days after another woman, Thalia Graves, sued Diddy on Tuesday, September 24, accusing him and his head of security, Joseph Sherman, of raping her in 2001. According to legal documents obtained by 'Us Weekly,' Graves was 25 years old at the time and had been dating someone who worked for Diddy. Graves alleges that Diddy lured her into a meeting with him and Sherman, where she was given a drink that she says was likely drugged. She claims the alleged substance caused her to briefly lose consciousness, and when she awoke, she was allegedly restrained and sexually abused by both Diddy and Sherman. The alleged incident left her with severe mental health struggles, including depression and anxiety, leading her to seek extensive psychological treatment. In 2023, Graves discovered that the alleged rape had been recorded by the Bad Boy Records' founder and Sherman and was being shown to other men. Diddy, who has not yet publicly responded to either lawsuits, remains in custody following his September 17 indictment on various charges, including racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, and fraud. The 14-page indictment alleges that Diddy used his business empire and influence to force women into sexual acts and hide his misconduct. These accusations span over a decade, with some dating back to 2009. Prince Harry found himself shrieking and cursing as he navigated a haunted maze alongside Jimmy Fallon on Thursday night's episode of 'The Tonight Show.' The Duke of Sussex, known for his royal composure, let loose some colorful language during the spooky experience. The maze, part of the attraction called "Jimmy Fallon's Tonightmares" at Rockefeller Center, saw Harry and Fallon face several frightening scenarios. At one point, the prince's words had to be bleeped, as he reacted strongly to the jump scares. Before entering the maze, Fallon asked Harry, 40, whether he was easily scared. Harry confidently replied, "Not normally," but hinted that this night might be an exception. And it certainly was, as Harry screamed and swore his way through the dark corridors, asking for Fallon when the lights went out. Night-vision cameras captured the father of two reacting to actors in creepy costumes, with Harry humorously asserting that he's not afraid of pandas, despite obvious fear on his face. At one point, a zombie in a suit startled Harry, to which he lightened the mood by quipping, "Is that Michael Buble?" Read more: Prince Harry Mistaken For Brother William After California Fundraiser Concert Harry's royal status even took the actors by surprise, with one performer visibly shocked upon realizing they had just frightened a prince. They excitedly shared the moment with a colleague, thrilled at their brush with royalty. The haunted maze, according to its website, consists of "ten spine-chilling rooms" filled with terrifying characters, from mad scientists to malfunctioning robots. 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon' premieres week nights at 11:35/10:35 p.m. on NBC. Ellen DeGeneres has opened up about her health and personal challenges in her latest Netflix special, 'For Your Approval,' including her triple diagnosis. After stepping away from the limelight in 2022 after "mean" allegations, she came to many discoveries, including health challenges with osteoporosis, OCD, and ADHD. The former talk show host called her osteoporosis diagnosis a "stupid bone density test" that led to the discovery of her condition. "I don't even know how I'm standing up right now," she said on-stage. "I'm like a human sandcastle. I could disintegrate in the shower." Recalling an episode of intense pain, she initially believed she had torn a ligament, but doctors later told her it was arthritis something they attributed to aging. In addition to her physical health, the 66-year-old also shared her journey with mental health. After undergoing therapy to cope with the public backlash following allegations of workplace misconduct, she learned she has OCD and ADHD. "I didn't know what OCD was. I was raised in a religion, Christian Science, that doesn't acknowledge diseases or disorders," DeGeneres explained. She also discovered her father likely had OCD, with her wife, Portia de Rossi, affirming, "Yes, you do." On ADHD, she commented, "My ADD makes it really hard to sit down and focus on anything at all... It's hard for me to focus." She humorously added that her mix of ADD, OCD, and memory loss leaves her "well-adjusted," since she obsesses over things but quickly forgets them. Reflecting on the challenges of aging, DeGeneres admitted, "It's hard to be honest about aging and seem cool." Still, she believes she's "well-adjusted" despite her various health issues. DeGeneres also addressed the 2020 controversy surrounding allegations of creating a toxic work environment on her talk show, stating, "What other people think of me is none of my business." Although she used to care about others' opinions, she has since let that go stating, "I just can't anymore." Poland has a secret weapon. No, not just the Abrams main battle tanks, F-35 stealth fighters, Patriot air defenses, Apache helicopters or other top-line equipment purchased by Poland. Polands secret weapon centers on its intense national commitment to security against a resurgent Russia and the favorable American opinion this inspires. Thats why Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Radek Sikorski is making a national security sweep from Washington, DC to the United Nations to Polish communities in Pennsylvania and an armored vehicle plant in Michigan. Russia is and for the foreseeable future will remain a danger, Sikorski said in an address at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington on September 20. Given the timing of his swing state visits, it may look like Sikorski is playing politics. But Polands Foreign Minister is not seeking to weigh in on Trump vs. Harris. Sikorski, an Oxford-educated former journalist, has praised both the Biden and Trump Administrations. As a canny and committed NATO ally, Poland is cultivating American public opinion and the Congressional goodwill that ensures Poland access to top American weapons technology. Michigan is a natural because 7% of the population is of Polish heritage. Strong American backing is our insurance policy, Sikorski said on X on September 21. Of course, Michigan is also home to an armored vehicle plant in Sterling Heights, and the sophisticated Maneuver Collaboration Center. The strategic position of Poland makes tanks and maneuver warfare crucial. To backfill its own forces, Poland has purchased refurbished Abrams tanks and will receive the first of 250 M1A2SEPv3 Abrams Main Battle Tanks in the summer of 2025. The U.S. Army agrees with the emphasis on tanks. Somebodys going to close that last 500m in the dark, smoked, the old-fashioned way, said Gen. James Rainey, Army Futures Command, and we better have armor units that can set things on fire. The Suwalki corridor on the Polish-Lithuanian border is the hotspot for any Russian move on the Baltics; and Poland shares a long border with Belarus, effectively Russias puppet. This spring, Poland and U.S. forces practiced combat-style river crossings in a big NATO war game exercise called Dragon 24. The main deterrent strength depends on having both U.S. and Polish forces operate the Abrams tank in sufficient numbers. The partnership built on interoperability is growing. Polish forces train with and trust the U.S. Army to be there in a crisis. Senior officers attend U.S. Army war colleges in the United States. Yet as Russia builds up its military, both the U.S. and Poland have more to do to mature the partnership. To its great credit, Poland began rearming prior to the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Then Poland sent more Polish tanks to Ukraine than the U.S. and Germany combined, while Polish citizens took 1.6 million Ukraine refugees into their own homes. Poland will spend just over 4% of its gross domestic product on defense in 2024 and 4.7% in 2025. Thats the highest in the alliance, according to the U.S. State Department. Ultimately, these expenses are negligible in comparison to the cost we would bear if we had to send our own troops, Sikorski said at SAIS on September 20. The reality is that Poland needs more tanks to fill out the scheme of maneuver. Another 250 Abrams tanks, interoperable with U.S. forces, could help make a Russian invasion too difficult to attempt. The tactical problem for Poland and the Baltics is to prevent a Russian fait accompli. For that same reason, the U.S. commitment to Poland is hefty. Poland hosts thousands of U.S. forces, including the U.S. V Corps Headquarters (Forward) in Poznan. A permanent U.S. Army garrison in Poland was established in March 2023. The U.S. Army moved an armored brigades worth of prepositioned equipment from Germany to Powidz, Poland. An armored brigade with Abrams tanks is now permanently deployed, and the future may see a second brigade if conditions warrant. This is all the more reason for Poland to completely modernize its tank forces. Poland purchased South Korean tanks as an interim measure, but it is the combined power of U.S. and Polish Abrams tanks that will cause Putin to think twice. Poland is also committed to the necessary business of maintenance and repair. The Abrams Regional Sustainment Center in Poznan opened in February 2024 and will support U.S. and Polish Abrams tanks based nearby. The Abrams tank can become the NATO standard in Eastern Europe, much as the F-35 fighter has done across partner air forces. A co-production agreement could allow Polish industry to assemble future Abrams acquisitions. As Sikorski has noted, Polands substantial defense spending also benefits Polish industry. NATOs forward presence upgrade now includes multinational battlegroups in Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. While all are capable, the battlegroup hosted by Poland with the U.S. as the lead framework partner has a special role in deterrence. Croatia, Czechia, Romania, Turkiye, and the United Kingdom are all contributing partners. However, it is the combination of the U.S. and Polands Abrams main battle tanks that make this force formidable. Ultimately, tanks in position to maneuver and operate together form a credible deterrent for NATOs Russian front. Dr. Rebecca Grant is a national security analyst and vice president, defense programs for the Lexington Institute, a nonprofit public-policy research organization in Arlington, Virginia. She has held positions at the Pentagon, in the private sector and has led an aerospace and defense consultancy. Follow her on Twitter at @rebeccagrantdc and the Lexington Institute @LexNextDC. The Defra Secretary has visited an Essex farm to hear about the worsening bluetongue situation, ensuring them that the government is 'working hard' to stop the virus's spread. Steve Reed, who was accompanied by Animal Plant Health Agency (APHA) staff, heard about the impact this disease has been having on the industry. According to the latest figures available, last published on 23 September, 98 farms have reported an outbreak since late August, which was this summer's first case. The government recently extended its bluetongue 'restricted zone', which now covers the entire east of England from Lincolnshire to West Sussex. Bluetongue virus is primarily transmitted by midge bites and affects cattle, goats, sheep, deer and camelids, with case numbers now increasing dramatically in northern Europe. Symptoms include fever, lethargy, ulcers or sores in the mouth or nose, and reduced milk yield. Disease control zones were put in place to control the movement of potentially affected animals as soon as bluetongue serotype 3 (BTV-3) was detected. Following his visit to the Essex farm, Mr Reed said he understood that the restrictions impacted farmers' businesses, but stressed the importance of adhering to these. I have heard first-hand the experiences of farmers battling this disease and we are working hard to prevent its spread into other areas of England and Great Britain. "We are committed to working with everyone affected and urge people to report livestock they suspect have the disease. Sascha Van Helvoort, APHA veterinary head of field delivery, added: The increasing number of bluetongue cases demonstrate the importance of vigilance from livestock keepers and farmers. We have field teams, vets and scientists across the country who are working hard to help tackle bluetongue virus and ensure farmers are being supported. If you have any suspicions of disease, you must report this to the Animal Plant Health Agency immediately so we can provide assistance. It comes as Defra recently permitted the use of the currently available unauthorised BTV-3 vaccines, subject to licence. The department recommends farmers and animal keepers to work with their veterinarians to decide if vaccination is right for their animals. To prioritise initial supplies, a general licence allows those in high-risk counties of England to use the vaccine. Specific licences can be applied for through APHA by animal keepers elsewhere in England who wish to use the vaccine BTV is a notifiable disease. Suspicion of BTV in animals in England must be reported to APHA on 03000 200 301, 03003 038 268 in Wales or a local Field Services Office in Scotland. Phase three of 'shelfwatch', the largest ever survey of food being offered on Scottish supermarket shelves, will revisit retailers to check support for local produce. NFU Scotland started the initiative in January, with an aim to shine a light on how and where Scottish produce is being made available to buy. For phase one, an independent research firm visited 71 stores across Scotland, looking at own-label beef, lamb, pork, chicken, eggs, vegetables and dairy. It revealed a completely mixed bag of what is going on in shops across the country and available to Scotlands consumers. Phase two continued to conclude a mixed picture of support, but it found that Aldi remained the strongest supporter of Scottish goods available to consumers (45%) and were top in 12 of 15 categories. In this phase, an independent research firm visited 73 stores across mainland Scotland over a 48-hour period in late May, reviewing more than 15,000 products. Researchers looked primarily at food on offer in Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Sainsburys, Co-Op, Marks and Spencer, Lidl and Aldi stores. In total, across all retailers, there was only a modest increase in the availability of Scottish own label produce from January, NFU Scotland said. The union's head of policy, Gemma Cooper, said phase three would build on the previous two, which both showed a mixed picture of support. She said: "There are significant differences across our sectors in terms of level of support for Scottish, and this is something we are keen to understand more about and see improvement. There is also further conversation to be had about labelling of produce. We have found that there are significant amounts of Scottish produce which are available but not labelled as such. "This could be attributed to supply chain challenges such as lack of processing capacity in Scotland." NFU Scotland will shortly launch its new supply chain strategy which will give a focus to its supply chain work in the coming months and years. Whilst ShelfWatch will continue to be an important source of data for our supply chain conversations, the union said it "does not sit in isolation". Ms Cooper added: "We will set out our renewed focus on profitability for our primary producers, underpinning commitments for businesses, and long-term sustainability. The livestock sector has come together to launch a UK-wide survey to better understand the impact bluetongue virus is having on farms. The survey aims to provide a clearer picture of what is happening on farms so that support can be better directed at impacted farmers. It seeks to find out what level of clinical signs farmers are seeing in their animals, whether they are experiencing mortality with BTV-3 cases, and what their appetite is to vaccinate in future. The survey is being led by Fiona Lovatt of Flock Health Ltd and the Ruminant Health & Welfare bluetongue working group, with help from AHDB and the University of Nottingham. Ms Lovatt said the survey's aim was to sure farmers' experiences and the impact on their animals are captured. "We know farmers across the country, in and out of the restricted zone, are at the coal face, dealing with daily challenges and disruption due to the BTV-3 outbreak. Its important to note this survey is fully anonymous, so hopefully farmers feel they can share everything they have seen that might be relevant. The short online survey is open to all livestock farmers, whether they have experienced confirmed cases of bluetongue on their farm or not. It aims to gather data on the number of animals affected, the severity of clinical signs, and the wider impacts on farm businesses. Ms Lovatt added that it was crucial to listen to the nation's farmers and learn to from their experiences. Currently a lot of our learnings about the impact of BTV-3 are from the Netherlands who have had more cases so far, so its vital we understand if the UK situation differs at all. "The data collected through this survey will be shared to help inform how the whole industry can best support those dealing with bluetongue, as well as informing preparations for next years midge season." The online survey is accessible via mobile or desktop, takes around 5 minutes to complete, with responses fully anonymous. It is expected to remain open for several weeks, with results to be shared widely across the industry. Anya Taylor-Joy's "love story" with husband Malcolm McRae was sewn onto her wedding dress. Anya Taylor-Joy has opened up about her wedding day The 28-year-old actress eloped with her fiance in 2023 to tie the knot in secret in New Orleans, but they went on to celebrate their love with a lavish ceremony in Venice, Italy for 150 guests and Anya has revealed her Dior wedding gown was embroidered with personal images telling the couple's story. She told WWD.com: "I wanted our love story to be embroidered on the dress. I didn't want to wear white, I don't know why, but there's so much embroidery. "You've got a little speed boat, because my dad was a world power boat champion when he was younger. And we've got things for my husband's family, coordinates - the whole story." Anya didn't reveal her secret ceremony in New Orleans until the couple celebrated their second wedding anniversary earlier this year because she was so determined to keep it private. She has also didn't release any pictures from her big day in Venice until April and she credits Dior's creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri with giving her plenty of help even though the dress might never be seen by the public. She added: "Maria was so sweet about it, just took the time and was so caring, and she knew that the dress wouldn't be seen. I've intentionally not released any pictures of my wedding. So she did it just for love." In the interview with WWD, Anya went on to confess she's been so busy recently she still hasn't unpacked after moving into her home in Los Angeles three years ago. She explained: "My work life moves so fast that my private life tends to not necessarily catch up. I've owned my house for two, three years, and I still haven't fully unpacked. Everything is just basically liveable." Anya previously opened up about her relationship with Malcolm in an interview with British Vogue magazine in 2022, saying: "I said to my partner the other day that he was my hobby. "I see reading as something that I have to do. He loved it because hes the same. Ive finally found someone who will happily sit in silence with me reading. "Were basically 80 years old and seven at the same time and it works really well." The Foo Fighters have cancelled a show after Dave Grohl recently revealed that he welcomed a baby outside of his marriage. Dave Grohl recently welcomed a baby girl The chart-topping band have taken to social media to announce that they will "no longer be appearing" at Soundside Music Festival in Bridgeport, Connecticut. In a statement posted on Instagram, the band said: "FOO FIGHTERS WILL NO LONGER BE APPEARING AT THIS WEEKEND'S SOUNDSIDE MUSIC FESTIVAL. PLEASE CHECK THE FESTIVAL WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION (sic)" The Foo Fighters haven't cited a specific reason for cancelling their planned appearance at the festival. However, earlier this month, Dave confirmed that he had fathered a child outside of his marriage. The 55-year-old musician vowed to "regain" the trust of his family after sharing the news via social media. Dave - who has been married to Jordyn Blum since 2003 - wrote on Instagram at the time: "I've recently become the father of a new baby daughter, born outside of my marriage. I plan to be a loving and supportive parent to her. I love my wife and my children, and I am doing everything I can to regain their trust and earn their forgiveness. We're grateful for your consideration toward all the children involved, as we move forward together." The Foo Fighters star has three daughters - Violet, 18, Harper, 15, and Ophelia, ten - with Jordyn, and Dave previously admitted that they've had a huge influence on him and his songwriting. Dave - who was married to Jennifer Youngblood between 1994 and 1997 - told TIME magazine in 2012: "It's changed everything that I do. When you have kids, you see life through different eyes." George Clooney is always "so proud" of his wife. Amal and George Clooney at The Albies The 'Wolfs' actor and his spouse Amal walked the red carpet at The Albies - which was hosted by their own Clooney Foundation for Justice - on Thursday (26.09.24) night in New York and the 63-year-old actor is always happy to support the human rights lawyer in all her endeavours. Speaking at the event, which recognises those who devote their lives to justice, George told People magazine: I would support anything my wife is involved in. Shes always on the right side of history, and Im always so proud to be in the same room with her no matter what and this is an event where we get to focus all the attention on the people who dont get enough attention. And 46-year-old Amal was equally complimentary about her husband, with whom she has seven-year-old twins Alexander and Ella. She said: Hes an amazing advocate, and it just means so much to me to be able to do this work together and for him to help bring to life some of the stories that were telling tonight. But George joked he'd had to bribe his wife to say something nice. He quipped: Im giving her money right now, you cant see, right behind her back. The pair will celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary on Friday (27.09.24) and the 'Burn After Reading' star had a surprise planned for his wife. He said: Im taking her somewhere tonight, but she doesnt know where." The couple are proud to be part of The Albies through their foundation, and hope to "protect" those who do "incredible" work. George told 'Access Hollywood': Were trying to protect them, shine a spotlight on them. "Our job is to shine a big light on the people that are doing some incredible work and try to protect them. Amal added: Our work has now led to dozens of people being acquitted or released from prison and every time you see that happening its obviously really satisfying. Were also working survivors of violent conflict and sexual violence and when we see the needle moving closer to accountability and closer to survivors getting compensation, thats obviously something were always going for." Ioan Gruffudd has accused his ex-wife Alice Evans of violating a restraining order by allegedly posting about the movie star on social media. Ioan Gruffudd and his ex Alice Evans are battling in court again The 50-year-old actor filed for divorce from Alice - the mother of his children Ella, 15, and 11-year-old Elsie - in March 2021 after 14 years of marriage and it was finalised last year amid a raging battle over child custody and money issues and now Ioan claims Alice has violated a DVRO (domestic violence restraining order] and breached the terms of their custody agreement. In paperwork filed at Los Angeles Superior Court - obtained by DailyMail.com - Gruffudd alleged: "I have discovered several social media posts by Alice where she has openly disparaged me and my fiancee, and where she has posted medical information of our children, in continued violation of the DVRO [domestic violence restraining order] and in violation of our Stipulation [agreement about child custody]. "Alice's public harassment affects my public reputation and my ability to obtain new work." The actor's legal team cited alleged examples including Alice's seeming contribution to a discussion on social media which encouraged users to share "common misconceptions about family court you wish you had understood better" Alice is alleged to have written: "That you can hand out a DVRO for 'mean text messages' but when actual violence happens, no DVRO because it's 'hard to prove ... "That my ex could just make up a bunch of lies about our 20-year relationship, say it was abusive and that I abused the kids and that the court (and BOTH sets of lawyers at the time) would just believe him. Despite copious evidence in the form of his own words in post interviews to the contrary." Gruffudd's team also shared another example of a social media post which alleged Alice had complained about having to pay hundreds of dollars for medicine for one of their daughters when she was sick. The posts were allegedly made during September 2024. Alice has previously insisted she no longer complains about her ex online. In a court filing at the start of September, she submitted a sworn statement in which she declared: "'I have not engaged in that conduct for years. Ioan's allegations that I continued to post to social media using fake accounts was addressed by the police and found to be completely false. "I sincerely hope that, at least for the sake of our children who have been dealing with this for four years now, Ioan can accept my apology and we can move on to the actual issues that remain to be settled." Ioan and Alice finalised their divorce in 2023. The 'Fantastic Four' star is now engaged to Bianca Wallace. Kathy Hilton is never "happier" than when she is surrounded by family. Kathy Hilton has eight grandchildren The 65-year-old reality star - who is married to hotel mogul Richard Hilton and has Paris, 43, Nicky, 40, Barron, 34, and 30-year-old Conrad with him - is a grandmother eight times over and insisted that she and her husband like nothing more than to get all of their "angels" in the same room together to spend time with them. She told People: "We have sleepovers and we make tents in our room. Just to be able to step back and watch and have this relationship with these angels. Theyre all so different and its just a different experience, its beautiful. "Nothing makes me Rick and I happier than having my children and all of the grandchildren under one roof, whether its a hotel or a house." The former 'Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' star - who is grandmother to Phoenix, 20 months, and 10-month-old London through Paris, Lily-Grace, six, Teddy, five, and Chasen, two, through her middle child as well as Milou, three, Caspian, two and Apollo, seven months through her so - is looking forward to Halloween. She said: "I'm going to be in New York, and I'm going to come home. I want to go trick or treating with Paris and Carter and Phoenix and London. The TV star also noted that Paris will be putting in plenty of prep time to make sure that the little ones are all dressed up for spooky season. She said: "Paris have them starting in the next week! Theyll be trying different things every day. Its her favorite time of year, so.. and I'll just have a sweater on and a big blinking pumpkin!" Disrupting the West End for over a decade, the award-winning landmark comedy THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG continues to wreak havoc in its 11th year at the Duchess Theatre. The Play That Goes Wrong You all know the classic whodunnit story, there has been a murder at a country manor and an inspector is set on the case to find who the culprit is. However, when this plot is given to the accident-prone thespians at The Cornley Drama Society, everything that can go wrong does! image credit Matt Crockett The actors and crew battle against all odds to make it through to their final curtain call, with hilarious consequences! Do you ever find out who murdered Charles Haversham? image credit Matt-Crockett Youll have to see for yourself! Experience total mayhem and enjoy the perfect slice of escapist comedy, guaranteed to leave you aching with laughter. Book your tickets now - from just 20 - ThePlayThatGoesWrong.com TONS OF FUN FOR ALL AGES - HuffPost Competition To be in with a chance to win this great prize all you need to do is answer the question below, then complete and submit the attached entry form. Question The Play That Goes Wrong is now in its 11th year at which West End Theatre? A. Garrick Theatre B. Duchess Theatre C. Apollo Theatre GOOD LUCK Terms and Conditions: One winner will receive a four tickets (minimum one adult) to see The Play That Goes Wrong at the Duchess Theatre, London, valid for Monday to Thursday and Sunday evening performances from 4 November 2024 to 6 February 2025 (excluding 15 December 2024 to 5 January 2025) subject to availability. No cash alternative. Travel not included. by Matt Shine for www.femalefirst.co.uk find me on and follow me on Closing Date : 14th October 2024 To read the full story, become a PRIME member today. PRIME Unlimited Access to Insightful Industry Information All Corporate Members and TexPro Subscribers are eligible to access F2F PRIME CONTENT using the same login credentials. Liverpool wants to move on from Darwin Nunez: This would be his replacement. Apuesta a este partido aqui Premier League 1 X 2 Premier League Arsenal Liverpool 2.00 3.60 3.60 Liverpool is closely monitoring Swedish forward Viktor Gyokeres, 26 years old, currently playing for Sporting CP, as a potential reinforcement for the upcoming summer, in case Darwin Nunez leaves the club in 2025. The Merseyside team's priority is to strengthen its offensive line, and Gyokeres has impressed in Portugal with his goal-scoring ability since his arrival. Gyokeres' performance has been spectacular, establishing himself as one of the top forwards in the Portuguese league, demonstrating impressive efficiency in the opponent's area. With 11 goals and several assists this season, the Swede has attracted the attention of major clubs in Europe, but it is Liverpool that appears to have the greatest interest in securing his services for the future. This increasing interest is also accompanied by remarkable performances with the Swedish national team, where he has maintained his goal-scoring streak during recent international matches. Liverpool Considers Darwin Nunez's Departure Liverpool finds itself in a situation where Darwin Nunez's future is uncertain, leading the management to consider options to avoid being left unprotected in attack. Gyokeres, who has already proven his worth in a demanding league like the Premier League, has the ideal profile to reinforce the Reds' offense. His speed, physique, and precision in front of the goal make him a highly coveted forward, sparking interest from several top-tier clubs. Despite the financial complications that his signing could entail, with a release clause around 100 million euros, Liverpool is confident that, if Nunez's departure materializes, they would have sufficient resources to secure the arrival of the Swedish striker. The challenge won't be easy, as other major European clubs are also closely monitoring Gyokeres' movements. This news is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, El Liverpool quiere salir de Darwin Nunez: Este seria su sustituto Directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, 12th Fails special screening was held at the Supreme Court of India on September 25. The screening was attended by the Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud, along with esteemed judges and more than 600 officials in the apex court. The screening was followed by a special interaction with the Chief Justice and Vidhu Vinod Chopra, along with IPS Manoj Kumar Sharma and IRS Officer Shraddha Joshi, on whose life the film is based and the films lead cast Vikrant Massey and Medha Shankar. Justice D.Y Chandrachud complimented Vidhu Vinod Chopra, while noting, "My complements to Vidhu ji for way he has transformed this real-life story on the screen. Both Vikrant and Medha have done a brilliant job. They have fully embodied the lives and environments of their characters and made it such a part of their existence while doing the film. I could feel that. There were moments in the movie when I thought I'd need a hanky as my eyes were moist. This film conveys, such a strong message of hope. On behalf of the entire staff and my colleagues at the Supreme Court, Id like to thank the team of 12th Fail for taking the time to spend the evening with us." K-dramas have taken the world by storm with their captivating storylines, unique writing and direction and on-point aesthetics. Whether you are in the mood for romance, comedy or some light-hearted binge watching, there is a K-drama for every occasion. To make your rainy days cosier, we've curated the perfect list of K-dramas to enjoy while you are curled up under a blanket with a warm bowl of ramen. Let the dramas work their charm on you. Extraordinary Attorney Woo A young, autistic lawyer, Woo Young-woo (played by Park Eun-bin), raised by her single father takes on the world, one case at a time. Her manner of communication makes her an easy target for bullies, but her intelligence helps her sail through. Along the way, she meets Lee Jun-ho (Kang Tae-oh) who quite instantly takes a liking towards her. Woo's law school peer and her mentor at her law firm help her wade through daily challenges and all in all, the series is a tale of a strong, autistic woman making her place in the world unfair to people who don't fit the societal norm, while forging genuine relationships. Twenty-Five Twenty-One Who doesn't love an innocent coming-of-age drama with innocent teenage love and romance? Twenty-Five Twenty-One beautifully tracks the lives of four characters from 1998 to 2021, set against the backdrop of the IMF crisis in Korea. Na Hee-do (Kim Tae-ri) transfers to a different school to pursue her passion for fencing, where she meets her inspiration Ko Yu-rim and a hardworking man Baek Yi-jin, whose family went bankrupt during the crisis. Fast forward to the present, Na Hee-do's daughter Kim Min-chae runs away to her grandmother's house and comes across her mother's diary and the story is told in flashbacks. With themes of teenage friendship, love, confusion, and self-discovery, this K-drama resonates well with viewers. This tale of fighting for one's dreams while navigating through new relationships makes for a perfect watch for cosy weather as it reminds us of the beauty of growing up. Hometown Cha Cha Cha A remake of the 2004 South Korean film, Mr Handy, Mr. Hong, this series became one of the highest-rated dramas in Korean TV history. It revolves around a dentist who goes to the village of Gongjin on her late mother's birthday and decides to open a dental clinic. There she meets Hong Du-sik and their relationship blossoms into love. This feel-good drama not only explores love as a theme but also talks about healing. Set against beautiful backdrops, it epitomizes the aesthetic of Korean dramas, filling binge-watchers with laughter and warmth. Crash Landing On You Crash Landing On You is undeniably one of the most iconic K-dramas, and it's easy to see why. The series features a cross-border love story set against political tension and family struggles. Yoon Se-ri, a South Korean businesswoman lands in North Korea after a paragliding accident and meets Ri Jeong-hyeok, a Captain in the North Korean People's Army. He tries to hide her and help her return to South Korea and love inevitably blossoms. The drama also follows another pair of star-crossed lovers, Gu Seung-joon and Seo Dan. As fate intertwines these couples, we get to witness a blend of cultures and a series of twists and turns that make it an engaging watch. If you ask us, the combination of romance and suspense is no less than the pair of chai and samosa on a rainy day. Something in the Rain The list remains incomplete without the mention of this iconic series. Also known as Pretty Sister Who Buys Me Food, it centres on a woman in her mid-30s who lives a rather empty life. As she tries to get over her boyfriend after being dumped by him - enters Seo Jun-hui (Jung Hae-in), her younger brother's best friend. The narrative revolves around them developing feelings for each other while tackling societal pressure because of their age difference. Another subplot that the drama follows is the challenges faced by a woman in a misogynist workplace. If you are drawn to forbidden love stories, this sentimental K-drama makes for a perfect watch on a cosy day indoors. Goblin Imagine a drama where a goblin and a grim reaper live as roommates, under the same roof. Well, you don't have to imagine because Guardian: The Lonely and Great God, popularly known as Goblin, brings that scenario to life. While this is essentially a love story, the fantasy K-drama is so much more. It is packed with sass, humour, great music, breath-taking cinematography, bromance, beautiful actors (looking at you, Gong Yoo) and some intense tear-jerker scenes. The plot follows a 939-year-old guardian of souls on a quest for a bride who can break his immortal curse. In this journey, he meets a grim reaper and a charming high-school student. With its magical world and flawless story writing, Goblin is an unforgettable watch. Critic's rating 3.5 /5 Binny And Family is a touching coming-of-age drama that beautifully captures the complexities of family dynamics and generational conflict. At its centre is Bindiya Singh alias Binny (Anjini Dhawan), a spirited punk-rock rebel living in London, who embraces her independence and authenticity. Her world turns upside down when her traditional grandfather SN Singh (Pankaj Kapur) comes to live with her family following a dramatic event, forcing them to confront their starkly different lifestyles. Every time her grandparents visit from Bihar, Binnys family puts on a facade of being a typical sanskari Hindu family. They hide their bar behind a bookcase, her mother Radhika Singh (Charu Shankar) dons Indian attire and takes a pallu, and her father Vinay Singh (Rajesh Kumar) even gives up smoking. Binny, however, feels stifled by these pretencesshe has to vacate her room, limit her clubbing, and adhere to a curfew. She longs for her parents to be genuine in front of their elders, which creates a tension that resonates throughout the film. The story takes a poignant turn after the passing of her grandmother Sharada Singh (Himani Shivpuri). As her grandfather moves in, the two navigate their contrasting worlds, embarking on a heartwarming journey of self-discovery. This film is an emotional roller coaster that dives deep into the importance of family, friendship, and the ties that bind us, even amidst our differences. One of the film's core messages is succinctly captured by a characters remark: Its all about loving your grandparents. Writer and director Ssanjay Tripaathy masterfully illustrates how each generation can learn from one another. Binny introduces her grandfather to social media, spending quality time together that gradually helps him cope with his grief. In turn, he imparts valuable lessons about love, happiness, and resilience. Through their evolving relationship, Binny grows, ultimately penning her experiences as a play that earns her recognition at an inter-school competition. Along the way, she also cultivates a deeper friendship with her crush, Dhruv (Tai Khan), aided by her ever-supportive best friend Bhavesh Parikh (Naman Tripaathy), who provides comic relief and grounding throughout. Pankaj Kapur delivers a masterclass in acting, portraying grief and loss with profound depth. His interactions with Binny are the heart of the film, filled with unspoken emotions. Debutant Anjini Dhawan matches his energy with a strong, confident performance, especially in their climactic confrontation scene, where raw feelings of guilt and anger unfolda testament to their powerful on-screen camaraderie. Supporting performances by Charu Shankar and Rajesh Kumar add layers to the family dynamic, with Kumar stepping away from his comedic persona to present a nuanced portrayal of a man struggling to connect with both his father and daughter. Himani Shivpuri also shines in her brief yet impactful role. Binny And Family is more than just a film; its a celebration of love, understanding, and the growth that arises from embracing our differences. It beautifully reminds us that, despite generational divides, the bonds of family can lead to profound transformation and connection. Watch it for its emotional story and superb performances all around. Be sure to carry an extra handkerchief with you to the theatre. And give your grandparents a call afterwards TRAILER : Binny And Family Dallas, Texas--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2024) - John R. Teakell Criminal Defense Attorney, based in Dallas, continues to expand its impact across Texas, offering comprehensive legal defense in cases involving federal tax violations, embezzlement, and federal drug charges. With a deep understanding of federal law and an extensive background in criminal defense, the firm is poised to offer aggressive representation for individuals and businesses facing complex legal challenges. Now eyeing Houston and Austin, Texas, the firm aims to address the growing demand for defense services in these major cities. Dallas advocate for federal tax violations, embezzlement, and drug case defense expands services to Houston and Austin, providing expert legal representation across Texas. As federal prosecutors intensify efforts against white-collar crime and drug offenses, Teakell's law office remains at the forefront of defending clients accused of these serious offenses. From tax fraud investigations to embezzlement schemes and drug trafficking charges, John R. Teakell offers clients tailored defense strategies aimed at mitigating potential penalties and securing the best legal outcomes. Given the high stakes associated with federal crimes, including lengthy prison sentences and hefty fines, the firm's approach prioritizes rigorous examination of all evidence and development of robust legal defenses. Individuals facing federal tax violations, such as tax evasion or fraudulent returns, can be subject to severe consequences under federal law. Likewise, accusations of embezzlement-often involving misuse of funds from corporations or government entities-carry equally harsh penalties. John R. Teakell's expertise in navigating federal courts, combined with in- depth knowledge of federal tax law, allows the firm to provide comprehensive defense for those charged with these serious offenses. Those seeking a consultation or legal representation can visit www.teakelllaw.com or contact the law office at 214-523-9076. In cases involving federal charges, particularly those related to federal drug laws or tax fraud, the consequences can be severe. Federal prison sentences are dictated by strict sentencing guidelines, leaving individuals facing a criminal offense subject to both minimum sentences and, in some cases, maximum sentences. The criminal penalties for these offenses can be life- altering, and securing a strong defense is critical to protecting constitutional rights and achieving a favorable resolution. A federal defense attorney well-versed in federal offenses can challenge the prosecution's case and raise reasonable doubt where applicable. Federal drug charges, such as simple possession or larger cases involving drug trafficking, often carry harsh penalties. The United States legal system, guided by federal law, holds individuals accountable through rigorous criminal investigations that may lead to criminal prosecution. For those facing these challenges, a federal drug crimes lawyer is essential to navigating the complexities of federal custody, securing the best possible defense, and potentially minimizing sentences. A crucial aspect of defending against criminal charges related to illegal drugs or criminal tax evasion is scrutinizing the methods used by law enforcement, particularly the validity of a search warrant or any false statements involved. Under Federal sentencing guidelines, individuals accused of filing false returns on their tax return or possessing illegal substances could face severe consequences, including a life sentence in extreme cases. Criminal defense lawyers play a pivotal role in challenging these accusations, especially when prior criminal records or a minimum penalty are factors. For criminal defense law firms dealing with federal cases, the stakes are often heightened by the involvement of federal agencies and the broader implications of criminal activity or illegal activity. Whether defending clients against fraudulent statements, tax fraud penalties, or criminal tax investigations, the expertise and track record of a firm can be instrumental in pursuing a successful outcome. The costs of prosecution-both financially and in terms of personal freedom-are significant, making it vital for anyone accused of a federal crime to seek immediate legal representation. The firm's defense in federal drug cases spans a wide range of charges, from possession to trafficking and conspiracy. With Texas continuing to be a focal point for federal drug enforcement efforts, particularly in cities like Houston and Austin, Teakell Criminal Defense Attorney is expanding its services to ensure that individuals accused of federal drug crimes receive the strongest defense possible. By utilizing thorough investigations and tapping into extensive knowledge of drug laws, the firm works tirelessly to challenge the prosecution's case and protect the legal rights of defendants. Listen to A Deep Dive into Federal Criminal Defense with Texas Attorney John Teakell on the Attorney Post podcast. Specializing in federal tax and drug cases, this Dallas attorney broadens practice to Houston and Austin, ensuring dedicated defense for clients facing serious federal charges. About John R. Teakell Criminal Defense Attorney John R. Teakell brings over 20 years of courtroom experience with a focused background in criminal law and securities. His comprehensive understanding of both federal and state crimes, along with his expertise in navigating the complexities of federal and state court systems, allows him to adeptly handle cases ranging from misdemeanors to federal death penalty cases. Specializing in white collar crimes, drug offenses, violent crimes, sex crimes, and SEC litigation, Mr. Teakell has earned a reputation for meticulous attention to detail and effective defense strategies. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/224311 SOURCE: Teakell Law OpenAI, a key Microsoft partner and the company behind ChatGPT, is undergoing significant changes that could impact its major investor. The AI developer plans to transition from a non-profit to a for-profit entity, potentially attracting investors and enabling a capital injection of up to $6.5 billion. This restructuring coincides with the departure of high-ranking executives, including the chief technology officer and head of research, raising questions about the company's future direction. Implications for Microsoft's Market Position These developments at OpenAI could significantly affect Microsoft's standing in the AI market. As a major investor and close collaborator, Microsoft has a vested interest in OpenAI's success and stability. The planned restructuring and possible capital increase could strengthen OpenAI's position in the AI sector, potentially enhancing Microsoft's competitiveness in artificial intelligence. Investors are closely monitoring the situation, reflected in slight fluctuations in Microsoft's stock price. This strategic partnership continues to be a focal point for market analysts assessing Microsoft's long-term growth potential in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. Ad The latest Microsoft figures speak volumes: Urgent action required for Microsoft shareholders. Is it worth investing, or should you sell? Find out what to do now in our current free analysis from 27 September. Continue reading here ... 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. 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! BELGRADE, Serbia, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In the middle of September, 2024, Linglong International Europe d.o.o., the first Chinese tire factory in Europe, officially started mass production. Another important project in Linglong Tire's "7+5" global strategic blueprint has come to fruition, and the global strategic layout has started a new journey! Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic led government departments at all levels, together with Chinese Ambassador to Serbia Li Ming, industry authorities, well-known experts from universities, as well as Linglong's global partners and media friends, to attend this grand event. Since its launch in 2019, Linglong Europe has attracted global attention with its grand blueprint of a total investment of US$990 million and an annual production capacity of 13.62 million high-performance radial tires. During its construction, Linglong's European factory has deeply integrated cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, mobile sensing, industrial big data, and industrial robots. It is committed to becoming a benchmark for tire production that is safe, environmentally friendly, intelligent, automated, and green, and becoming one of the leading digital factories in the global tire industry. It has achieved full automation and digital management from the warehousing of raw materials to the delivery of finished products, greatly improving product quality and production efficiency. Furthermore, the "green, clean, civilized, and lean" new factory model advocated by Linglong Europe will lead the industry towards a more environmentally friendly, efficient, and intelligent direction. During their in-depth visit to the production workshops of Linglong Europe, the visiting leaders and guests all expressed sincere admiration for the factory's high level of intelligence, unanimously acknowledging it as a model in the tire manufacturing industry that they have personally witnessed, and an "incredible factory" beyond their imagination in terms of intelligence. President Vucic emphasized during his visit, "It's unbelievable and incredible. I feel so proud and happy." With the official mass production of its European project, Linglong has taken an important step in its globalization strategy in the European market. The factory will provide European and surrounding market users with an excellent driving experience through high-performance products featuring green, low-carbon, low rolling resistance, and strong handling capabilities, as well as superior services. This milestone achievement not only promotes the construction and improvement of Linglong's overseas OE system, but also significantly enhances the competitiveness and influence of Chinese tire makers in the global market. In August 2024, with the Linglong Europe developing rapidly, Linglong announced the launch of the Linglong Phase II expansion project in Europe. After the expansion project is completed, it will add an annual production of 1.1 million high-performance radial tires of various types, including 800,000 sets of commercial vehicle tires, 50,000 sets of engineering radial tires, 150,000 sets of agricultural radial tires, 100,000 sets of retreaded tires, and liquid reclaimed rubber, photovoltaic power generation and other projects. At the mass production ceremony, Linglong Tire signed an additional investment memorandum with the Serbian government. The signing of this agreement is not only a full affirmation of the previous cooperation results, but also lays the foundation for the smooth progress of the European Linglong expansion project. In the future, Linglong Tire will take the project's mass production as an opportunity, aim at the high-quality joint construction of the "Belt and Road" between China and Serbia, strengthen compliance operations and safety production management, and promote future project construction with high standards and strict requirements. At the same time, the company will actively fulfill its social responsibilities, establish an excellent corporate culture image, and contribute more to promoting China-Serbia economic and trade cooperation to a higher level and promoting Chinese manufacturing to the world stage! Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517197/image.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/linglongs-european-factory-has-achieved-mass-production-302260762.html As the world faces pressing challenges of global climate and environmental issues, we transformation serves as a shining example of how businesses can play a significant and decisive role in creating a sustainable future. CARSON CITY, NV / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2024 / Mu Global Holding Limited (OTC PINK:MUGH) announced that the company is changing it's name to Vanguard Green Investment Limited. Effective 25 Jun, 2024 subject to satisfying applicable legal requirements. This more closely aligns the Company's legal name with it's brand name in marketplace. The Company's shares of common stock will continue to be listed on the OTCMarket's Exchange under OTC PINK ticker symbol "MUGH". No action is needed from current Mu Global Holding Limited stockholders. Vanguard Green Investment Limited, formerly a leading company in the healthcare industry, is proud to announce it's transformation to a ESG Advisor Service Company under the leadership of Chairman Niu Yenyen. This move marks a significant step towards building a sustainable future for earth and promoting female leadership in the business world. Chairman Niu Yenyen, a visionary leader with strong commitment to enviromental sustainability,spearheaded the transformation to Vanguard Green Investment Limited. With her extensive knowledge and expertise in the global climate and environmental issues. Under her leadership, the company successfully transitioned from it's original focus on healthcare to ESG Advisor Service in renewable energy project's. This transformation not only aligns Vanguard Green Investment Limited's global effort's to reduce carbon emissions, it also open's up new opportunities for the company. By focusing on ESG Advisor Service in green energy, the company is not only contributing to a greener and healthier planet,but is also generating sustainable returns for it's shareholder's. This move also highlight's the company's commitment to promoting female leadership in the business world and breaking gender stereotypes. Chairman Niu Yenyen believes that the transformation is just the beginning of Vanguard Green Investment Limited's journey towards a more sustainable future. She envisions the company becoming a ESG Advisor leader in the green energy sector and inspiring other businesses to follow suit. With her strong determination and the company's dedication to green investments, Vanguard Green Investment Limited is on it's way to making a positive impact on the environment and society. As the world faces pressing challenges of global climate and environmental issues, Vanguard Green Investment Limited's transformation serves as a shining example of how businesses can play a significant and decisive role in creating a sustainable future. The company's commitment to green energy and female leadership is a testament to it's vision of building a better world for future generations. Media Contact Organization: Vanguard Green Investment Limited Contact Person Name: Niu Yenyen Website: https://www.vg-il.com/ Email: syw@v-gil.com Contact Number: +13193041192 Address: 701 S CARSON ST STE 200, City: CARSON CITY NV State: Nevada Country: United States SOURCE: Vanguard Green Investment Limited Erinnern Sie sich, als Moderna und BioNTech von unbekannten Unternehmen zu globalen Marktfuhrern wurden und fruhzeitige Investoren reich belohnt haben? Die Branche steht vor einem erneuten Innovationsschub von bahnbrechenden Medikamenten bis hin zu revolutionaren Therapien. Warum sollten Sie dabei sein? Sie sollten jetzt in Biotech-Aktien einsteigen, weil wir am Beginn einer neuen Ara der medizinischen Innovation stehen konnten! Gen- und Zelltherapien, personalisierte Medizin und bahnbrechende Technologien konnten das Gesundheitswesen revolutionieren und die Aktienkurse in die Hohe schieen lassen. Die nachste Erfolgsgeschichte im Biotechbereich warten nur darauf, entdeckt zu werden. Wer jetzt investiert, hat die Chance, von gigantischen Durchbruchen und enormen Renditen zu profitieren. Warten Sie nicht, bis es zu spat ist - der nachste Biotech-Superstar konnte morgen schon durchstarten! Verpassen Sie nicht diese Chance! Fordern Sie sofort unseren brandneuen Biotech-Spezialreport an und erfahren Sie, welche 3 Biotech-Aktien das riesige Potenzial haben, Ihren finanziellen Erfolg zu sichern. Dieser Report ist komplett kostenlos und zeigt Ihnen zukunftstrachtige Investments im Biotech-Sektor. Handeln Sie jetzt und sichern Sie sich Ihren kostenfreien Report! 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! COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Tourism accounts for nearly 8 per cent of global CO2 emissions, and with the number of international arrivals predicted to reach 1.8 billion by 2030, action is more important than ever. Copenhagen launches a new tourism strategy including an ambitious climate roadmap and calls on the industry to change its course. This year's World Tourism Day marks a new beginning for tourism in Copenhagen. With its new strategy All inclusive,Copenhagen redefines an outdated and passive form of travel to an active and conscious approach. The future of all-inclusive tourism is not just a ticket to relaxation but a shared responsibility among the industry and guests. "When we measure the effects of today's tourism, they are far from all-inclusive. If we want tourism to be a key driver for positive change locally and globally, we must include negatives, such as pressure on local communities and the CO2 emissions that come from transport," explains Mikkel Aar-Hansen, CEO of Wonderful Copenhagen, and continues: "But we also need to look at all the positives, such as cultural interactions and exchanges and socioeconomic effects. Without this insight, we will not be able to set tangible and common goals for how we are going to transform the industry." Wonderful Copenhagen wants tourism in Copenhagen to accelerate the green transformation and create enriching encounters between locals and visitors. Goals that are crucial if the tourism industry wants to address urgent challenges related to climate change and overtourism. As part of its green ambitions, Wonderful Copenhagen has developed a new climate roadmap that outlines how the Danish capital's tourism can achieve specific emission reductions by 2030 and 2035, respectively, on its way to carbon neutrality (net zero) by 2050 at the latest. These targets include key factors such as air travel, which are not usually accounted for in similar calculations. "We need to take concrete and ambitious steps to reduce tourism's climate footprint. Our CopenPay initiative confirmed that there is a genuine motivation among travellers and attractions to take green actions. But we need to speed up and scale up these actions. With our climate roadmap, we lay out our path for the climate actions we need to take in the years to come," explains Mikkel Aar-Hansen. While Wonderful Copenhagen's new strategy sets a clear direction for Copenhagen's tourism, the hope is that it can inspire other destinations. "We want Copenhagen to be the world's most sustainable destination. And by aiming high, we hope to increase the level of competition among all destinations to be greener. Because, at the end of the day, tourism is a global business, and it takes international efforts to turn tourism into a force for good. Copenhagen has the ability and the responsibility to contribute to this endeavour." Read the full strategy:www.wonderfulcopenhagen.com/wonderful-copenhagen/about-us/strategy Images:https://platform.crowdriff.com/m/s-GyVcGIb3Wvy0g3SI Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2453561/4933213/Wonderful_CPH_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/copenhagen-its-time-for-tourism-to-become-a-force-for-good-302258891.html Aerial view of the PETRONAS LNG Complex in Bintulu, Sarawak Signatories at the Signing Ceremony of Definitive Agreements between Petroliam Nasional Bhd (PETRONAS), Mitsubishi Corporation, and Diamond Gas Holdings Sdn. Bhd. From left: Mr. Masaru Saito, Executive Vice President, Group CEO, Environmental Energy Group, Mitsubishi Corporation - Ms. Marina Md Taib, Senior Vice President Corporate Strategy, PETRONAS - Mr. Katsuya Nakanishi, President & CEO, Mitsubishi Corporation - Tan Sri Tengku Muhammad Taufik, President & Group CEO, PETRONAS - Mr. Gen Kunih TOKYO, Sept 27, 2024 - (JCN Newswire) - PETRONAS and Mitsubishi Corporation strengthen their 46-year long partnership through the signing of agreements, which further solidify the trust in PETRONAS' capabilities to deliver Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to the international market primarily LNG customers in Japan.United by a vision for a cleaner and lower carbon future, this significant collaboration encompasses the commitment shared by both parties in ensuring energy security amidst market volatility driven by global disruptions such as geopolitical tensions, rising regional demands as well as changing consumption patterns.The signatories of the agreements were PETRONAS' President and Group Chief Executive Officer Tan Sri Tengku Muhammad Taufik and Mitsubishi Corporation's President and Chief Executive Officer Katsuya Nakanishi.The agreements outline investment from Mitsubishi Corporation into the Malaysia LNG ("MLNG") Dua and MLNG Tiga for the next decade - the extension of its 10 per cent equity shareholding in MLNG Dua, and the reinvestment of a 10 per cent equity shareholding in MLNG Tiga, signifying its continued participation in the two ventures with associated marketing activities and deliveries of LNG from Bintulu to Japan.The cooperation has been built primarily on trust, demonstrating confidence in Malaysia's robust economic landscape to attract foreign direct investment, particularly in Sarawak.Tan Sri Tengku Muhammad Taufik said, "Our relationship with Mitsubishi Corporation began with our first joint venture agreement in 1978 and we are therefore excited about strengthening our ties further, especially in the era of energy transition where LNG is the natural fuel alternative. I look forward to more exciting endeavours, as we leverage opportunities together and address challenges that will positively impact our organisations and nations."Katsuya Nakanishi said, "Mitsubishi Corporation looks forward to providing continuous support in growing and nurturing access to global LNG market for PETRONAS' future volumes with LNG being the fuel of choice in the age of energy transition. At the same time, we are excited to unlock further value through our collaboration with PETRONAS as well as with the Sarawak State Government, with whom we have achieved many historical milestones in Malaysia."The PETRONAS LNG complex through partnerships and alongside Mitsubishi Corporation commenced LNG supply to long-term Japanese contract buyers since 1983. PETRONAS LNG Complex comprises four(4) joint ventures of MLNG, MLNG Dua, MLNG Tiga and PETRONAS LNG 9 with a production capacity of 29.3 Million Tonnes Per Annum (MTPA), making it one of the world's largest LNG producer in a single location. PETRONAS LNG Complex has been a main LNG supplier, providing lower-carbon energy solutions to a diverse range of public and private sector customers in Japan.Besides its main business of natural gas in Malaysia, Mitsubishi Corporation has also participated in total of 10 gas upstream blocks in Sarawak and expanded its areas of investment in Malaysia to automobile, food, petrochemicals, metal and steel, bringing the company's total investment amount into the country to approximately RM5 billion last year.About Mitsubishi Corporation (MC)Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) is a global integrated business enterprise that develops and operates businesses together with its global network of around 1,800 group companies.MC has eight Business Groups that operate across virtually every industry: Environmental Energy, Materials Solution, Mineral Resources, Urban Development & Infrastructure, Mobility, Food Industry, Smart-Life Creation and Power Solution. Through these eight Business Groups, MC's current activities have expanded far beyond its traditional trading operations to include project development, production and manufacturing operations, working in collaboration with our trusted partners around the globe.With an unwavering commitment to conducting business with integrity and fairness, MC remains fully dedicated to growing its businesses while contributing to a prosperous society.Inquiry RecipientMitsubishi CorporationTelephone:+81-3-3210-2171Source: Mitsubishi CorporationCopyright 2024 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved. Chilean Government prioritises Laguna Verde for CEOL CleanTech Lithium PLC (AIM:CTL)(Frankfurt:T2N)(OTCQX:CTLHF), an exploration and development company advancing lithium projects in Chile for the clean energy transition, reports an announcement by the Chilean Government on the Expressions of Interest ("RFIs") process under which the Company made submissions in June 2024. This is part of the process for the awarding of a Special Lithium Operating Contract ("CEOL") to enter production. The Government has prioritised six salt flats for lithium development, including Laguna Verde the Company's flagship project, as having the most favourable conditions to advance lithium exploration and extraction. The Ministry of Mining will award one CEOL per salt flat with companies only considered if they meet certain criteria. Highlights: Laguna Verde prioritised by the Chilean Government as one of six salt flats for which the CEOL awarding process will start. CTL submitted RFIs to the Chilean Government in June 2024 in line with the updated CEOL application procedure as part of the National Lithium Strategy. For a CEOL to be awarded companies must have experience in any stage of the lithium industry value chain, which includes exploration and development, the financial capacity to develop the project and, additionally, hold mining concessions equivalent to or greater than 80% of the applicable CEOL area within any of the six prioritised salar basins. CTL's RFI application directly addressed each of these key criteria and as the Company has a dominant licence position in the Laguna Verde basin it is the only Company that meets the mining concession area requirement. The Chilean Government will now commence indigenous community consultations related to these six salars. Additional to other criteria, CTL has developed a strong relationship with indigenous communities located in the surroundings areas, based on early engagement including a collaborative alliance signed in December 2023 to co-design the project's Environmental Impact Assessment (" EIA "). The Company is also working with the regional University to promote local opportunities for future projects. The next stage of the process is for companies to submit the CEOL application by December 31 st 2024. The RFI process has been transparent, and recognises the importance of progress made by applicants, with CTL being a leader in developing its projects based on using Direct Lithium Extraction ("DLE"), early and groundbreaking community engagement in the Atacama region, and full alignment with Chile's National Lithium Strategy. Steve Kesler, Executive Chairman and Interim CEO, of CleanTech Lithium PLC, said: "We are pleased the Chilean Government has provided an update on the CEOL process to support the lithium industry in Chile. It is very positive to see Laguna Verde has been prioritised as one of the salt flats that has the most favourable conditions to develop lithium production. We submitted our RFI highlighting the significant investment we have already made, the positive progress with DLE and our established engagement with local indigenous communities. The criteria set out by the Government recognises the status of the Company's progress at the Laguna Verde project and puts in place a clear path to award a CEOL and the project's development into production, which is targeted for 2027." For further information contact: CleanTech Lithium PLC Steve Kesler/Gordon Stein/Nick Baxter Jersey office: +44 (0) 1534 668 321 Chile office: +562-32239222 Or via Celicourt Celicourt Communications Felicity Winkles/Philip Dennis/Ali AlQahtani +44 (0) 20 7770 6424 cleantech@celicourt.uk Beaumont Cornish Limited (Nominated Adviser) Roland Cornish/Asia Szusciak +44 (0) 20 7628 3396 Canaccord Genuity (Joint Broker) James Asensio +44 (0) 20 7523 4680 Fox-Davies Capital Limited (Joint Broker) +44 (0) 20 3884 8450 Daniel Fox-Davies daniel@fox-davies.com Beaumont Cornish Limited ("Beaumont Cornish") is the Company's Nominated Adviser and is authorised and regulated by the FCA. Beaumont Cornish's responsibilities as the Company's Nominated Adviser, including a responsibility to advise and guide the Company on its responsibilities under the AIM Rules for Companies and AIM Rules for Nominated Advisers, are owed solely to the London Stock Exchange. Beaumont Cornish is not acting for and will not be responsible to any other persons for providing protections afforded to customers of Beaumont Cornish nor for advising them in relation to the proposed arrangements described in this announcement or any matter referred to in it. Notes CleanTech Lithium (AIM:CTL, Frankfurt:T2N, OTCQX:CTLHF) is an exploration and development company advancing sustainable lithium projects in Chile for the clean energy transition. Committed to net-zero, CleanTech Lithium's mission is to produce material quantities of sustainable battery grade lithium products using Direct Lithium Extraction technology powered by renewable energy. The Company plans to be a leading supplier of 'green' lithium to the EV and battery manufacturing market. CleanTech Lithium has two key lithium projects in Chile, Laguna Verde and Francisco Basin, and hold licences in Llamara and Salar de Atacama, located in the lithium triangle, a leading centre for battery grade lithium production. The two major projects: Laguna Verde and Francisco Basin are situated within basins controlled by the Company, which affords significant potential development and operational advantages. All four projects have direct access to existing infrastructure and renewable power. CleanTech Lithium is committed to using renewable power for processing and reducing the environmental impact of its lithium production by utilising Direct Lithium Extraction with reinjection of spent brine. Direct Lithium Extraction is a transformative technology which removes lithium from brine, with higher recoveries than conventional extraction processes. The method offers short development lead times with no extensive site construction or evaporation pond development so there is minimal water depletion from the aquifer. https://ctlithium.com/ **ENDS** This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact rns@lseg.com or visit www.rns.com. SOURCE: CleanTech Lithium plc SHANGHAI, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The 2025 Hotel & Shop Plus is expected to have over 2,000 exhibitors, 130,000+professional buyers, an exhibition area of 210,000 square meters, and over a hundred events held simultaneously. The exhibits cover multiple fields such as building materials, engineering design, smart hotels, hotel supplies, clean operation and maintenance, commercial retail, smart office, landscape architecture, etc. Starting Journey with Thirty Years of Accumulation After more than 30 years of industry accumulation, the Hotel & Shop Plus exhibition has greatly improved its influence both domestically and internationally, as well as its scale, product categories, and quality. In terms of inviting buyers and providing commercial services, it has become increasingly international and professional, and has become a well-known brand exhibition in the hotel and commercial space industry at home and abroad. Exhibition Lineup Upgrade Faced with the opportunity of industrial growth, the large-scale hotel and commercial space industry exhibition - Hotel & Shop Plus - will be held grandly in Shanghai New International Expo Center from March 31 to April 3, 2025. This will be a top-level professional trade docking event. Expand and enhance the original "Hotel + Shop" dual core ecosystem, expand the "Office & Public" space areas, and upgrade to the "H-S-O-P" overall pattern. Various Products Displayed Accurate and efficient business matchmaking, high-quality professional procurement and communication experience, and comprehensive improvement in the quality of exhibitors and exhibition categories will be achieved. The integration of new categories such as outdoor engineering design, hotel retail, public spaces, office spaces, and sanitation will further promote the transformation and upgrading of the exhibition lineup. Empowered by Distinctive Exhibition Areas The exhibition will take innovation as a trend leading direction, driving the application of new ecology in real scenes. By setting up characteristic exhibition areas, a group of high-quality brands such as hotels, design, technology, and cleaning have been gathered, providing investors, developers, and homeowners with a new perspective on the industry. Hotel Brand Investment and Franchise Exhibition Zone Gathering well-known domestic and foreign hotel brands, B & B brands, design companies and Building System Integrator, as well as hotel and commercial space enterprises to showcase real-life model rooms on site, leading the investment and development trend of hotels and commercial spaces. For exhibitor/visitor enquiry, please send email to: jade.liao@imsinoexpo.com. Explore more, visit our website: https://www.expohsp.com/?lang=en Book You Booth: https://booth.hdeexpo.com/info/#/complexNew/2025HDE-Shanghai-Exhibition-Booth/2025hdegwshanghai/en View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/booth-application-opens-in-hotel--shop-plus-shanghai-2025-302259961.html abrdn Property Income Trust Limited - Proposed Sale PR Newswire LONDON, United Kingdom, September 27 NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN, INTO OR FROM ANY JURISDICTION WHERE TO DO SO WOULD CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF THE RELEVANT LAWS OR REGULATIONS OF SUCH JURISDICTION FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONTAINS INSIDE INFORMATION 27 September 2024 abrdn Property Income Trust Limited (an authorised closed-ended investment company incorporated in Guernsey with registration number 41352) LEI Number: 549300HHFBWZRKC7RW84 PROPOSED SALE (the "Transaction") abrdn Property Income Trust Limited ("API" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement with certain funds and accounts managed by GoldenTree Asset Management LP ("GoldenTree") for the sale of the entire share capital of abrdn Property Holdings Limited ("APH"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of API. The Transaction comprises the sale of 39 assets (the "Portfolio"), being the Company's entire investment property portfolio, with the exception of its interest in the land at Far Ralia. API's debt facility with RBSI will be transferred in full to GoldenTree. The cash consideration for the purchase of the Portfolio is 351m (the "Consideration"), and the Company will receive net proceeds after adjusting for debt and other net assets of APH and subject to normal adjustments including those arising from the completion process. GoldenTree has paid a cash deposit of 35.1m, with the balance of the Consideration being payable in cash on completion. The Consideration: represents a discount of 8.0 per cent. to API's external valuation of the Portfolio as at 30 June 2024 of 381.6 million[1]; and implies a pro-forma net asset value of API as at 30 June 2024 of 244 million, equivalent to 64.0 pence per share, after adjusting for costs of the Transaction (the "Estimated Net Asset Value per Share").[2] The Estimated Net Asset Value per Share represents: a discount of 12.7 per cent. to API's net asset value per API Share of 73.3 pence as at 30 June 2024; a premium of 6.66 per cent. to the API Share price of 60 pence as at 26 September 2024, being the closing API Share price immediately prior to the date of this announcement; and a premium of 20.1 per cent. to the API Share price of 53.3 pence on 28 May 2024, being the date that API Shareholders approved the Managed Wind-Down. It is intended that, following completion, returns of capital will be made to API Shareholders in cash from the Consideration, by way of a members' voluntary liquidation. Such returns will be subject to the net realisation value of Far Ralia, which API is actively marketing, adjustments arising from the completion process, the operational costs of managing API through to liquidation (including tax effects) and the liquidation costs. Background to and reasons for the Transaction On 28 May 2024, API Shareholders approved an amendment to the Company's investment policy to implement a Managed Wind-Down. Under the Managed Wind-Down process, API was to be managed with the intention of realising all of the assets in its portfolio in an orderly manner, via disposals of single assets, groups of assets or the portfolio as a whole, with a view to repaying borrowings and making returns of capital to API Shareholders whilst aiming to obtain the best achievable value for API's assets at the time of their realisations. The Transaction follows an extensive and competitive process undertaken by API and its advisers to identify a buyer for the Portfolio in an effort to balance the objectives of maximising returns for shareholders against the timeframe for disposals. The API Board, having considered the potential alternatives including an asset-by-asset disposal, believes that the Transaction represents an effective execution of the Managed Wind-Down process. It provides greater price certainty and quicker return of proceeds for API Shareholders through realising the substantial majority of the investment portfolio in a single transaction. The Transaction is being undertaken in accordance with the Company's Managed Wind-Down investment policy and does not require the approval of API Shareholders. It is expected that the Company will declare the Q3 dividend of 1 penny per API Share in line with previous guidance, to be paid before distribution of sale proceeds. Conditions and timetable Completion of the Transaction is anticipated to take place on 29 November 2024. It is intended that subject to receipt of consent from the Scottish Forestry Commission, Far Ralia will be transferred from APH to API prior to completion. Provisions have been made to complete on the sale in the event of a delay by Scottish Forestry, whilst protecting the interest of API. The Transaction is also subject to clearance under the UK National Security and Investment Act 2021. It is expected that following completion of the Transaction and at an appropriate point in time, API will seek API Shareholders' approval to appoint a liquidator to wind up the Company and to cancel the Company's admission to trading on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange. Trading in API Shares will no longer be possible from that time. From the point that the conditions to the Transaction are satisfied, API will not continue to fulfil the relevant conditions to qualify for UK REIT status. The intention is to commence the returns of capital to shareholders as soon as the liquidator can do so. Information on GoldenTree and Farran Investments GoldenTree GoldenTree is an employee-owned, global asset management firm that specialises in opportunities across the credit universe in sectors such as high yield bonds, leveraged loans, private credit, distressed debt, structured credit, emerging markets, real estate, private equity and credit-themed equities. GoldenTree was founded in 2000 by Steve Tananbaum and is one of the largest independent global credit asset managers. GoldenTree manages nearly $55 billion for institutional investors including leading public and corporate pensions, endowments, foundations, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds. GoldenTree has over 300 employees, with offices in New York, West Palm Beach, Charlotte, Newport Beach, Dallas, London, Dublin, Munich, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Dubai. Farran Investments Farran Investments is a privately-owned commercial real estate specialist, whose team have acquired, funded, managed and exited over 5 billion of commercial real estate assets. Farran Investments, who act as an advisor to GoldenTree, is a minority co-investor in the acquisition vehicle incorporated by GoldenTree and will become the asset manager to the Portfolio following completion of the Transaction. James Clifton-Brown, Chair of API said: "Since the shareholder vote on 28 May 2024 to put the Company into a Managed Wind Down was passed, the Board, alongside the Investment Manager, explored the most effective means of disposing of the Company's assets. The aims were to maximise the returns to shareholders but also to return cash to them as soon as possible. The full range of disposal strategies was considered from individual property sales to a wider transaction. Through an independent agent, Gerald Eve, the whole portfolio was marketed to potential buyers in an extensive and competitive process. Following a second round of bids, the Board considered the GoldenTree Asset Management bid provided the best solution for shareholders, compared with the net present value of what might be achieved by way of individual sales over a longer period and represents a swift implementation of the shareholder resolution to conduct a Managed Wind Down. I would like to thank the team at abrdn who have delivered this outcome for shareholders." Enquiries abrdn Property Income Trust James Clifton-Brown (Chair) via Winterflood Jason Baggaley (Fund Manager) +44 7801 039 463 Mark Blyth (Deputy Fund Manager) +44 7703 695 490 Winterflood (Corporate Broker to API) Neil Langford +44 20 3100 0160 Farran Investments Freddie Brooks (Partner) info@farraninvestments.com Simon Lee (Partner) Important notices Winterflood Securities Limited ("Winterflood"), which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the United Kingdom, is acting exclusively for API and no-one else in connection with the matters set out in this document and will not be responsible to anyone other than API for providing the protections afforded to customers of Winterflood or for providing advice in relation to the matters set out in this document. Neither Winterflood nor any of its affiliates owes or accepts any duty, liability or responsibility whatsoever (whether direct or indirect, whether in contract, in tort, under statute or otherwise) to any person who is not a client of Winterflood in connection with this document, any statement contained herein or otherwise. [1] Excluding assets disposed of between 1 July 2024 and the date of this announcement, and the interest in the land at Far Ralia [2] Including API's external valuation of Far Ralia which as at 30 June 2024 was 10m. 4basebio Plc - Half-year Report PR Newswire LONDON, United Kingdom, September 27 4basebio PLC ("4basebio", the "Company" or the "Group") Half-year Report for the six months ended 30 June 2024 4basebio PLC (AIM: 4BB), Cambridge, UK, 27 September 2024 - 4basebio PLC, an innovation driven biotechnology company enabling and accelerating development of advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) through its high performant synthetic DNA products and non-viral, thermostable nucleic acid delivery platform, announces its unaudited half-year results for the six months ended 30 June 2024. Operational Highlights (including post period end) Revenues of more than 300k for the half year Order book above 600k at 30 June 2024 Strong growth in higher value HQ and GMP opportunities Supply Agreement signed for provision of DNA for tier 1 pharma Supply of DNA for manufacture of mRNA used in first in human clinical trial Five additional patent filings during 2024 Financial Highlights 40m cash investment announced 29 July 2024 Cash balances of 2.7 million at period end Loss for the period of 5.7 million (H1 2023 loss: 3.6 million) Net cash outflow from operating activities of 5.1 million (H1 2023: 3.0 million) Commenting on the interim results, Dr Heikki Lanckriet, CEO and CSO, said "We are pleased with our progress to date with the achievement of notable milestones in our commercial development, including the agreement to supply HQ and GMP synthetic DNA to a tier one pharma as well as the supply of DNA for the production of mRNA for use in a first in human vaccine program. We continue to see strong and growing interest in synthetic DNA and expect 2024 revenues to represent a significant step change to 2023. We believe there is continued significant value creation potential through ongoing investment in our synthetic DNA platform, with the opportunity to develop additional novel nucleic acid products to further reinforce 4basebio's unique market position and highlighting the flexibility of the technology platform. Our Hermes delivery platform is also progressing well with considerable promise both in the delivery of DNA and mRNA payloads. We are delighted to have reached agreement with Elevage Medical Technologies, a Patient Square Capital platform and Prudential Assurance Company Limited acting by its investment manager M&G Investment Management Limited for an investment of 40 million, subject to regulatory approval. The funding will underpin the commercial growth of the Company and the continued investment in the platforms. We see this step as further validation of our stated ambition to become the leading player in the supply of DNA for cell & gene therapies and vaccines." This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of EU Regulation 596/2014. For further enquiries, please contact: 4basebio PLC +44 (0)12 2396 7943 Heikki Lanckriet, CEO and CSO Cairn Financial Advisers LLP (Nominated Adviser) +44 (0)20 7213 0880 Jo Turner / Sandy Jamieson Cavendish Capital Markets Limited (Broker) Geoff Nash / Charlie Beeson / Nigel Birks +44 (0)20 7220 0500 Lionsgate Communications (Media Enquiries) +44 (0)77 91892509 Jonathan Charles Notes to Editors 4basebio (AIM: 4BB) is an innovation driven life biotechnology company focussed on accelerating the development of advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) through its high performant synthetic DNA products and non-viral, cell targeting nucleic acid delivery platform. The Company's objective is to become a market leader in the manufacture and supply of high quality synthetic DNA products for research, therapeutic and pharmacological use as well as development of target specific non-viral vectors for the efficient delivery of payloads in patients. Chairman's Statement Introduction The Board is pleased to report on the Group's continued progress during the first half of the year and the exciting developments over these past several months. It is pleasing to note 4basebio's accelerating commercial traction, highlighted through a combination of half year revenue and confirmed order book, which together represents in excess of 900k. As indicated previously, 4basebio expects to make significant revenue progress this financial year. At the same time, the Group continues to invest in its commercial and operational capabilities, underscored by headcount increasing to 101 at 30 June 2024, an increase of 23 against 30 June 2023. As a result and as expected, the Group incurred a net loss for the first half of 2024. 4basebio continues to implement its strategy requiring ongoing investment in technology and product commercialisation, which it expects will generate significant revenues and profitability over time. Alongside this core focus, 4basebio is delighted to report the agreements entered into with Elevage Medical Technologies ("Elevage"), a Patient Square Capital platform and Prudential Assurance Company Limited acting by its investment manager M&G Investment Management Limited ("M&G") to facilitate an investment of 40 million to further accelerate the Group's commercial ambitions. As noted in the announcements of 29 July 2024 and 9 September 2024, the completion of this investment is subject to regulatory clearance. The investment represents strong validation of the Group's technology platform and commercial aims and we are looking forward to welcoming Elevage and M&G to our shareholder register. It is also anticipated that our new shareholders will make valuable contributions to the future strategic direction of the Group. This investment coincides with the formation of a Strategic Advisory Board, as noted in the announcement of 8 August 2024 as well as the appointment of Dr Amy Walker to the Company's Chief Operating Officer and we welcome her to the Board. Operational Review Over the first half of the year, the Group has continued its focus on commercial activities, increasing its client base as well as continued product platform development underpinned by multiple patent filings. On these two points, the ambitions of the Group remain consistent with previous periods; accelerating commercial traction and continued innovation. As the Group's commercial and GMP activities mature, 4basebio is increasingly focussed on attracting customers at the late pre-clinical stage, with a particular emphasis on DNA production for IND-enabling clinical studies. Depending on each customer's application area, this variously requires high quality ("HQ") and GMP batches of DNA. Of particular highlight in this area is the commitment from a tier one pharma company, announced on 10 April 2024, to both high quality and GMP batches to be used in its manufacture of mRNA vaccines. In addition, the use of 4basebio's synthetic DNA for the manufacture of mRNA for a first in human clinical trial announced on 21 March 2024 is yet another substantial milestone for the Company. These developments corroborate and validate management's view that synthetic DNA is poised to take a significant market share of the wider DNA market due to the many benefits it offers over plasmid DNA. The Group continues to consider how it can further accelerate its commercial success and with the investment highlighted above, further significant expansion in this area is planned in the near term. While the Group's customer base is primarily comprised of US clients, there has been increasing interest in GMP opportunities across both Europe and APAC, demonstrating the accelerating momentum around 4basebio's activities. While the Group's core focus remains its synthetic DNA offering, 4basebio continues to make good progress in validating its Hermes platform in several collaborative studies which offer promising evidence of commercial potential for the platform, particularly in nucleic acid vaccine applications, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant, announced on 1 August 2023. Throughout the half year, the Group has continued to innovate across both technology platforms; the unique flexibility of its synthetic DNA platform facilitating the generation of novel DNA products with multi-application uses. The board is pleased with the continued progress which has been made during the first half of 2024 and remains very positive about the future prospects for the Group. The Group continues to validate its commercial proposition and synthetic DNA more generally through customer revenues, while at the same time continuing to strengthen its market position through additional patent filings around its products and technologies. Business outlook Over the second half of the financial year, the Group expects to continue to secure new clients and increase revenues from the sale of DNA and Hermes. As previously indicated, the Group will also continue investing in its technologies and capabilities, so that ongoing expenditure will continue to significantly exceed revenues, with the Group reporting a loss for the full year. The equity investment as noted above will strengthen the Group's financial position and ensures 4basebio remains well-resourced to deliver on its ambitions and commercial targets. Financial Review The results for the period ended 30 June 2024 and the consolidated balance sheet at that date reflect the consolidated performance and position of 4basebio PLC and all its subsidiary companies. Revenue The timing of revenue recognition is dependent on the mutually agreed scheduling of customer projects. Revenue in the first six months of 2024 ("H1 2024") was 0.33 million (H1 2023: 0.24 million), while the order book for DNA and Hermes projects exceeded 0.6 million. Cost of sales Cost of sales in H1 2024 was 92k (H1 2023: 77k), relating to the direct cost of products sold in the period. Selling and administration expenses Selling, general and administrative expenses were a combined 2.6 million in H1 2024 (H1 2023: 1.9 million), representing an increase of 0.7 million. Expenditure includes non-cash items relating to amortisation and depreciation of 383k (H1 2023: 190k) and share options charges of 348k (H1 2023: 87k). Other expenditure excluding these non-cash items rose by 311k, relating primarily to increases in Sales and marketing expenditure. Operations expense Operations expense was 1.4 million (H1 2023: 0.6 million) This reflects the scaling of the manufacturing and quality assurance teams between the periods. Research and development Overall research and development expenditure for H1 2024 was 2.5 million (H1 2023: 1.8 million), of which 0.2 million was capitalised in the period (H1 2023: 0.3 million). Overall expenditure increased as the UK team and capabilities continued to expand. Tax Tax represents R&D tax credits expected to be recovered in due course in relation to expenditure during the first half of the year. Balance sheet Non-current assets increased to 7.0 million at 30 June 2024 from 6.9 million at 31 December 2023; this related to additions of tangible fixed assets in the UK, capitalised R&D expenditure in Spain and capitalised patent spend as shown in notes 6 and 7 to the half year results. Current assets fell to 4.9 million at 30 June 2024 from 5.0 million at 31 December 2023, due to cash outflows during the first half of 2024. As a result, closing cash balances at 30 June 2024 stood at 2.7 million (31 December 2023: 3.1 million). Current liabilities reduced to 1.8 million at 30 June 2024 (31 December 2023: 2.3 million) with a modest decline in short term financial liabilities and seasonal timing differences in the build-up of certain accruals. The increase in long term financial liabilities reflects the drawdown on the 2Invest AG loan facility, with overall long term liabilities at 15.3 million as at 30 June 2024 (31 December 2023: 10.1 million). Other long term liabilities represent deferred grant income in Spain. Share Capital increased following the exercise of share options (as reported on 2 and 6 February 2024), giving rise to an increase in share capital of 415k to 11.5 million and share premium of 327k to 1.0 million, as shown in the Consolidated statement of changes in equity. Cash flow Net cash outflows from operations were 5.1 million for the period ended 30 June 2024 (period ended 30 June 2023: outflows of 3.0 million). This reflects an increase in operating cashflows directly arising from the growth in operations between the periods as presented in the Consolidated statement of profit and loss. Cash outflows from investing activities were static with a decline in the investment in tangible fixed assets of 0.2 million for the period ended 30 June 2024 (period ended 30 June 2023: 0.4 million) relating to both operations and R&D equipment. In addition, intangible assets investment included capitalised development expenditure in 4basebio S.L.U. representing a cash outflow of 0.2 million (H1 2023: 0.3 million), with additions of 0.3 million relating to capitalised patent expenditure (H1 2023: 0.1 million). Cashflows from financing for the period ended 30 June 2024 reflect the drawdowns from 2Invest AG under the loan facility of 5.1 million, partially offset by repayments of Spanish softloans. Exchange differences for the period represent changes in the British pound value of cash balances held in foreign currency. Tim McCarthy Chairman 26 September 2024 Consolidated statement of profit or loss and other comprehensive income for the six months ended 30 June 2024 in '000 Note Six months ended 30 June 2024 (unaudited) Six months ended 30 June 2023 (unaudited) Year ended 31 December 2023 (audited) Revenues 328 238 506 Cost of goods sold (92) (77) (166) Gross profit 236 161 340 Sales and marketing expenses (418) (248) (586) Administration expenses (2,198) (1,603) (3,250) Operations expense (1,390) (596) (1,417) Research and non-capitalised development expenses (2,269) (1,596) (3,560) Other operating expenses (6) (18) (85) Other operating income 246 136 506 Loss from operations (5,799) (3,764) (8,052) Finance expense (343) (98) (302) Loss before tax (6,142) (3,862) (8,354) Income tax credit / expense 4 414 307 689 Loss for the period (5,728) (3,555) (7,665) Loss per share Basic and diluted (in /share) 5 (0.45) (0.29) (0.62) Items that may be reclassified to the income statement in subsequent periods Exchange rate adjustments (88) (243) (172) Total comprehensive income (5,816) (3,798) (7,837) All of the loss for each period is from continuing operations. Consolidated statement of financial position 30 June 2024 in '000 Note 30 June 2024(unaudited) 31 December 2023 (audited) Assets Intangible assets 6 2,972 2,669 Property, plant and equipment 7 4,001 4,197 Other non-current assets 33 34 Non-current assets 7,006 6,900 Inventories 362 332 Trade receivables 52 107 Other current assets 1,790 1,514 Cash and cash equivalents 8 2,718 3,069 Current assets 4,922 5,022 Total assets 11,928 11,922 Liabilities Financial liabilities (220) (392) Trade payables (795) (694) Other current liabilities (790) (1,191) Current liabilities (1,805) (2,277) Financial liabilities (15,274) (10,065) Other liabilities (67) (72) Non-current liabilities (15,341) (10,137) Total liabilities (17,146) (12,414) Net liabilities (5,218) (492) Share capital 11,547 11,132 Share premium 1,033 706 Merger reserve 688 688 Capital reserve 13,878 13,530 Foreign exchange reserve (246) (158) Profit and loss reserve (32,118) (26,390) Total Equity 9 (5,218) (492) Consolidated statement of changes in equity for the six months ended 30 June 2024 in '000 Share capital Share premium Merger reserve Capital reserve Foreign exchange Profit and loss reserve Total equity Balance at 1 January 2023 (audited) 11,130 706 688 13,307 14 (18,725) 7,120 Loss for the year - - - - - (7,665) (7,665) Foreign Exchange difference arising on translation of 4basebio S.L.U. - - (172) - (172) Share based payments - - - 223 - - 223 Shares issued in period 2 - - - - - 2 Balance at 31 December 2023 (audited) 11,132 706 688 13,530 (158) (26,390) (492) [in '000] Share capital Share premium Merger reserve Capital reserve Foreign exchange Profit and loss reserve Total equity Balance at 1 January 2024 (audited) 11,132 706 688 13,530 (158) (26,390) (492) Loss for the year - - - - - (5,728) (5,728) Foreign Exchange difference arising on translation of 4basebio S.L.U. - - (88) - (88) Share option charge - - - 348 - - 348 Shares issued in period 415 327 - - - - 742 Balance at 30 June 2024 (unaudited) 11,547 1,033 688 13,878 (246) (32,118) (5,218) Consolidated statement of cash flows for the six months ended 30 June 2023 in '000 30 June 2024(unaudited) 30 June 2023(unaudited) 31 December 2023 (audited) Net loss for the period (5,728) (3,555) (7,665) Adjustments to reconcile net loss for the period to net cashflows Income taxes (414) (307) (689) Interest charge 343 98 302 Depreciation of property, plant and equipment 376 315 676 Amortisation and impairment of intangible assets 137 16 33 Other non-cash items 296 87 220 Tax receipt 118 561 561 Working capital changes: (Increase)/decrease in trade receivables and other current assets (55) (104) (109) Increase/(decrease) in trade payables and other current liabilities (180) (28) 695 (Increase)/decrease in inventories (34) (70) (202) Net Cash flows from operating activities (5,141) (2,987) (6,178) Investments in property, plant and equipment and intangible assets (188) (406) (871) Investments in capitalised development and intangible assets (507) (330) (619) Cash flows from investing activities (695) (736) (1,490) Net receipt/(payment) of loans 4,845 3,187 6,584 Interest paid (53) (26) (67) Capital lease payments (37) (49) (94) Proceeds of shares issue 742 2 2 Cash flows from financing activities 5,497 3,114 6,425 Net change in cash and cash equivalents (339) (609) (1,243) Exchange differences (12) (184) (39) Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the period 3,069 4,351 4,351 Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the period 2,718 3,558 3,069 Notes to the financial statements For the six months ended 30 June 2024 General information 4basebio PLC (the "Company" or "4basebio") is registered in England and Wales with company number 13519889. The Company is domiciled in England and the registered office of the Company is 25 Norman Way, Over, Cambridge CB24 5QE. 4basebio PLC is the parent of a group of companies (together, "the Group"). The Group focusses on life sciences and in particular the development of synthetic DNA and nanoparticles suitable for inclusion in, or delivery of, therapeutic payloads for cell & gene therapies and vaccines. The Company's shares are traded on London Stock Exchange's AIM market. The international securities number (ISIN) number for its AIM traded shares is GB00BLD8ZL39; its ticker symbol is 4bb.l. The interim report was approved by the board of directors on 26 September 2024. Significant accounting policies Basis of preparation This half year report, which is not audited, has been prepared in accordance with the measurement and recognition criteria of UK adopted International Accounting Standards. It does not include all the information required for full annual financial statements and should be read in conjunction with the financial statements of the Company and the Group for the year ended 31 December 2023. The accounting policies applied in this half year report are consistent with those in the financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2023, as described in those financial statements. Significant judgments In the application of the Group's accounting policies, management is required to make judgments, estimates and assumptions about the carrying amounts of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. The significant judgments made in relation to the financial statements are further set out below. Going concern The directors have at the time of approving the half year report a reasonable expectation that the Group has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. Thus, they continue to adopt the going concern basis of accounting in preparing the financial statements. Internally-generated intangible assets - research and development expenditure Development expenditure is capitalised when the conditions referred to in Note 4 of the Company's 2023 annual report are met. Estimates and underlying assumptions are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Revisions to accounting estimates are recognised in the period in which the estimate is revised if the revision affects only that period or in the period of the revision and future periods if the revision affects both current and future periods. Foreign currencies The functional currency of the Group is British Pounds. The principal currency rate of the Group other than the British Pounds is the euro which has developed as follows in relation to the equivalent of one pound (GBP/): in GBP Closing exchange rate Average exchange rate 30 June 2024 31 December 2023 Six months ended 30 June 2024 Six months ended 30 June 2023 Year ended 31 December 2023 Euro 0.8464 0.8691 0.8547 0.8764 0.8698 Income taxes The Group anticipates claiming R&D tax credits in both the UK and Spain in relation to the year ended 31 December 2023. The quantum of such claims for the first half of 2024 is estimated at 0.4 million (period ending 30 June 2023: 0.3 million). Loss per share Six months ended 30 June 2024 Six months ended 30 June 2023 Year ended 31 December 2023 Numerator in '000 Loss for the period (5,728) (3,555) (7,665) Denominator number of shares Weighted average number of registered shares in circulation (ordinary shares) for calculating the undiluted earnings per share 12,709,129 12,318,987 12,319,270 Diluted and Undiluted earnings per share (/share) (0.45) (0.29) (0.62) Intangible assets in '000 Development costs Patents and licences Total Cost or acquisition value 01 January 2023 3,040 504 3,544 Additions 446 173 619 Exchange differences (62) (8) (70) 31 December 2023 3,424 669 4,093 01 January 2024 3,424 669 4,093 Additions 246 261 507 Exchange differences (91) (14) (105) 30 June 2024 3,579 916 4,495 Cumulative amortisation and impairment 01 January 2023 1,367 53 1,420 Amortisation 4 29 33 Exchange differences (28) (1) (29) 31 December 2023 1,343 81 1,424 01 January 2024 1,343 81 1,424 Amortisation 116 21 137 Exchange differences (36) (2) (38) 30 June 2024 1,423 100 1,523 Net book value 31 December 2023 2,081 588 2,669 30 June 2024 2,156 816 2,972 Property, plant and equipment [in '000] Operating equipment Land and buildings Right of use assets Total Cost or acquisition value 01 January 2023 2,803 1,040 643 4,486 Additions 895 - 372 1,267 Disposals (24) - - (24) Exchange differences (8) - (3) (11) 31 December 2023 3,666 1,040 1,012 5,718 01 January 2024 3,666 1,040 1,012 5,718 Additions 190 - - 190 Exchange differences (14) (3) (3) (20) 30 June 2024 3,842 1,037 1,009 5,888 Cumulative amortisation and impairment 01 January 2023 670 140 43 853 Depreciation 493 47 137 677 Disposals (4) - - (4) Exchange differences (5) - - (5) 31 December 2023 1,154 187 180 1,521 01 January 2024 1,154 187 180 1,521 Depreciation 285 25 66 376 Exchange differences (7) (1) (2) (10) 30 June 2024 1,432 211 244 1,887 Net book value 31 December 2023 2,512 853 832 4,197 30 June 2024 2,410 826 765 4,001 Cash and cash equivalents [in '000] 30 June 2024 31 December 2023 Bank balances and cash in hand 2,718 3,069 Cash and cash equivalents 2,718 3,069 Equity On 6 February 2024, 485,735 shares were issued pursuant to exercises of employee share options on 1 and 6 February 2024. As a result, the share capital of 4basebio PLC as of 30 June 2024 amounts to a total of 12,805,208 divided into 12,805,208 shares of 1 (31 December 2023: 12,319,473 shares of 1). These are all registered ordinary shares. There are no shares with special rights or other restrictions on voting rights. Subsequent to the half year, on 13 August 2024, a further 5,520 shares were issued in relation to an employee share incentive plan. Share-based payments During H1 2024, 78,996 share options to subscribe for shares in the Company were granted to employees with an average weighted exercise price of 0.85 per share. As reported on 2 February 2024, these unapproved options were awarded to compensate staff for the loss of EMI qualification over pre-existing share options. These options vest in line with those pre-existing options. In addition, 20,000 and 4,000 options were awarded at a market price of 6.70 and 7.25 respectively. These share options vest one quarter on the anniversary of the grant, over four years. Consistent with previous awards as explained in note 24 to the 2023 financial statements, the awards were valued using a Black Scholes valuation model. An overall share-based payments charge of 348k (H1 2023: 87k) has been expensed in the period with a corresponding amount recognised in equity based on fair values calculated per option, as at the dates of grant. The charge for the half year is high due to the unique pricing and vesting conditions associated with the compensation options, with the full year charge expected to be proportionately lower. Legal matters As disclosed in note 26 of the 2023 financial statements, 4basebio S.L.U., the Company's Spanish subsidiary, is engaged in legal proceedings in Spanish Courts with Tyris Tx. The matter remains ongoing. Approval of the half year report The half year report was approved by the board of directors and authorised for publication on 26 September 2024. Events after the reporting period On 29 July 2024, the Company announced a binding term sheet with Elevage Medical Technologies ("Elevage"), a Patient Square Capital platform and Prudential Assurance Company Limited acting by its investment manager M&G Investment Management Limited ("M&G") for a combined equity investment of 40 million at a price of 15.00 per ordinary share, conditional on regulatory approval of the transaction. In addition, Elevage and M&G have between them agreed to purchase ordinary shares from entities belonging to the Deutsche Balaton Group and certain management and directors of the Company, at a purchase price equal to the Issue Price for an aggregate purchase price of 29.4 million. The Company then announced on 9 September 2024 that final documents had been entered into in relation to the transaction. The announcement further specified the number of shares to be sold by 2Invest AG and certain directors and confirmed that on 7 September 2024, the Company entered into a new relationship agreement with Elevage, M&G, 2Invest AG (on behalf of the Deutsche Balaton Group) and Cairn Financial Advisers LLP as well as a deed of termination in respect of its existing relationship agreement, which was entered into at the time of its admission to AIM, both with effect from admission of the Issuance Shares to trading on AIM. On 13 August 2024, the company issued 5,520 shares in relation to an employee share incentive plan. Forward-looking statements This announcement may contain certain statements about the future outlook for the 4basebio. Although the directors believe their expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, any statements about future outlook may be influenced by factors that could cause actual outcomes and results to be materially different. Regulatory News: TotalEnergies (Paris:TTE) (LSE:TTE) (NYSE:TTE) has signed an agreement with Lewis Energy Group to acquire a 45% interest in dry gas producing assets owned and operated by Lewis Energy Group in the Eagle Ford basin in Texas. The acquisition of these low cost and long plateau assets further strengthens TotalEnergies' integration across the gas value chain in the US, and follows the Texas Dorado acquisition announced in April 2024. TotalEnergies further expands its natural gas production in the U.S. Located in Southwest Texas, the acquired assets have the potential to be developed to reach a sustainable gross production of around 400 Mcf/d by 2028. This is the second acquisition of non-operated shale gas assets in 2024 after the purchase of non-operated interest in the Dorado asset, located in the Eagle Ford basin and which was purchased from Lewis Energy Group earlier this year. Moreover, TotalEnergies operates a technical production of around 500 Mcf/d in the Barnett. TotalEnergies, the largest exporter of U.S. LNG With over 10 million tons (Mt) exported in 2023, TotalEnergies is the largest exporter of U.S. LNG, thanks to its 16.6% stake in the Cameron LNG plant in Louisiana and several long-term purchasing agreements. The Company's U.S. LNG export capacity is expected to reach 15 Mt/y by 2030. "This acquisition further strengthens our upstream gas position in the United States and contributes to our integrated LNG position with a low cost upstream gas supply", said Nicolas Terraz, President, Exploration Production at TotalEnergies. "We are delighted to partner with Lewis Energy Group, a well-renowned and highly efficient gas operator with an historical footprint in South Texas." TotalEnergies in the United States TotalEnergies is deploying its integrated energy model across the United States, where it has been active since 1957. With over 10 Mt of output in 2023, TotalEnergies is the leading exporter of U.S. LNG, and plans to increase its capacity to 15 Mt/y after the start-up of the Rio Grande LNG plant in South Texas. The Company is integrated throughout the LNG value chain, with upstream gas production assets in Texas and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. is also a key country for the deployment of TotalEnergies' Integrated Power strategy with 25 GW of renewables projects and flexible generation assets, and as a power trading hub in Houston. Find out more about TotalEnergies' U.S. presence here. About TotalEnergies TotalEnergies is a global integrated energy company that produces and markets energies: oil and biofuels, natural gas and green gases, renewables and electricity. Our more than 100,000 employees are committed to provide as many people as possible with energy that is more reliable, more affordable and more sustainable. Active in about 120 countries, TotalEnergies places sustainability at the heart of its strategy, its projects and its operations. X @TotalEnergies LinkedIn TotalEnergies Facebook TotalEnergies Instagram TotalEnergies Cautionary Note The terms "TotalEnergies", "TotalEnergies company" or "Company" in this document are used to designate TotalEnergies SE and the consolidated entities that are directly or indirectly controlled by TotalEnergies SE. Likewise, the words "we", "us" and "our" may also be used to refer to these entities or to their employees. The entities in which TotalEnergies SE directly or indirectly owns a shareholding are separate legal entities. This document may contain forward-looking information and statements that are based on a number of economic data and assumptions made in a given economic, competitive and regulatory environment. They may prove to be inaccurate in the future and are subject to a number of risk factors. Neither TotalEnergies SE nor any of its subsidiaries assumes any obligation to update publicly any forward-looking information or statement, objectives or trends contained in this document whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Information concerning risk factors, that may affect TotalEnergies' financial results or activities is provided in the most recent Universal Registration Document, the French-language version of which is filed by TotalEnergies SE with the French securities regulator Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF), and in the Form 20-F filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240926669317/en/ Contacts: TotalEnergies Media Relations: +33 (0)1 47 44 46 99 l presse@totalenergies.com l @TotalEnergiesPR Investor Relations: +33 (0)1 47 44 46 46 l ir@totalenergies.com OSLO, Norway, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Photocure ASA (OSE: PHO), the Bladder Cancer Company, announces that it entered into an agreement with Equity Pharmaceuticals PTY Limited, part of the Clinigen group, in September, to initiate a Named Patient Program (NPP) enabling bladder cancer patients in South Africa to receive blue light cystoscopy (BLC) with Hexvix. Named Patient Programs (NPPs) provide access to medicines in response to requests by physicians on behalf of specific, or 'named,' patients when those medicines are not licensed or available in the patients' home country. Photocure's NPP with Equity Pharmaceuticals is designed to ensure that physicians can request Hexvix on behalf of individual patients residing in South Africa, with suspected or recurring bladder tumors. Hexvix blue light cystoscopy is indicated as adjunct to standard white light cystoscopy to contribute to the diagnosis and management of bladder cancer in patients with known or high suspicion of bladder cancer. Equity Pharmaceuticals will administer the NPP, and product sales are anticipated to begin in Q4 2024. "Without this NPP, BLC with Hexvix would not otherwise be available to bladder cancer patients in South Africa. Photocure is committed to ensuring global access to Hexvix as part of its sustainability goals," said Dan Schneider, President and CEO of Photocure. "We see this program as a stepstone to trialing various ways in which Hexvix can be made available to patients and urologists in countries where BLC equipment is already accessible." Note to editors: All trademarks mentioned in this release are protected by law and are registered trademarks of Photocure ASA. This press release may contain product details and information which are not valid, or a product is not accessible, in your country. Please be aware that Photocure does not take any responsibility for accessing such information which may not comply with any legal process, regulation, registration or usage in the country of your origin. About Bladder Cancer Bladder cancer ranks as the 8th most common cancer worldwide - the 5th most common in men - with 1,949,000 prevalent cases (5-year prevalence rate)1a, 6,14,000 new cases and more than 2,20,000 deaths in 2022.1b Approx. 75% of all bladder cancer cases occur in men.1 It has a high recurrence rate with up to 61% in year one and up to 78% over five years.2 Bladder cancer has the highest lifetime treatment costs per patient of all cancers.3 Bladder cancer is a costly, potentially progressive disease for which patients have to undergo multiple cystoscopies due to the high risk of recurrence. There is an urgent need to improve both the diagnosis and the management of bladder cancer for the benefit of patients and healthcare systems alike. Bladder cancer is classified into two types, non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) and muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC), depending on the depth of invasion in the bladder wall. NMIBC remains in the inner layer of cells lining the bladder. These cancers are the most common (75%) of all BC cases and include the subtypes Ta, carcinoma in situ (CIS) and T1 lesions. In MIBC the cancer has grown into deeper layers of the bladder wall. These cancers, including subtypes T2, T3 and T4, are more likely to spread and are harder to treat.4 1 Globocan. a) 5-year prevalence / b) incidence/mortality by population. Available at: https://gco.iarc.fr/today, accessed [February 2024]. 2 Babjuk M, et al. Eur Urol. 2019; 76(5): 639-657 3 Sievert KD et al. World J Urol 2009;27:295-300 4 Bladder Cancer. American Cancer Society. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/bladder-cancer.html About Hexvix/Cysview (hexaminolevulinate HCl) Hexvix/Cysview is a drug that preferentially accumulates in cancer cells in the bladder, making them glow bright pink during Blue Light Cystoscopy (BLC). BLC with Hexvix/Cysview, compared to standard white light cystoscopy alone, improves the detection of tumors and leads to more complete resection, fewer residual tumors, and better management decisions. Cysview is the tradename in the U.S. and Canada, Hexvix is the tradename in all other markets. Photocure is commercializing Cysview/Hexvix directly in the U.S. and Europe and has strategic partnerships for the commercialization of Hexvix/Cysview in China, Chile, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. Please refer to https://photocure.com/partners/our-partners for further information on our commercial partners. About Photocure ASA Photocure: The Bladder Cancer Company delivers transformative solutions to improve the lives of bladder cancer patients. Our unique technology, making cancer cells glow bright pink, has led to better health outcomes for patients worldwide. Photocure is headquartered in Oslo, Norway and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSE: PHO). For more information, please visit us at www.photocure.com, www.hexvix.com, www.cysview.com. About Clinigen Clinigen is a global, specialist pharmaceutical services company focused on providing ethical access to medicines. Its mission is to accelerate access to medicines for patients in every corner of the globe. The Group supports pharmaceutical and biotech companies across the medical product lifecycle, from clinical through to commercial and operates from sites in North America, Europe, Africa and the Asia Pacific. Clinigen has more than 1,000 employees across five continents in 15 countries and provides access in more than 130 countries every year. For more information on Clinigen, please visit http://www.clinigengroup.com. For further information, please contact: Dan Schneider President and CEO Photocure ASA Email: ds@photocure.com Erik Dahl CFO Photocure ASA Tel: +4745055000 Email: ed@photocure.com David Moskowitz Vice President, Investor Relations Photocure ASA Tel: +1 202 280 0888 Email: david.moskowitz@photocure.com Media and IR enquiries: Geir Bjrlo Corporate Communications (Norway) Tel: +47 91540000 Email: geir.bjorlo@corpcom.no This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com https://news.cision.com/photocure/r/photocure-establishes-named-patient-program-to-provide-access-to-hexvix-in-south-africa,c4043607 The following files are available for download: https://mb.cision.com/Main/17498/4043607/3025337.pdf Release View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/photocure-establishes-named-patient-program-to-provide-access-to-hexvix-in-south-africa-302260848.html Interim dividend of EUR 0.25 per A-share approved as part of EUR 450 million of cash returns in 2024, highlighting SES's continued commitment to shareholder returns The SES Board of Directors has approved the payment of an interim dividend of EUR 0.25 per A-share (EUR 0.1 per B-share) to be paid to shareholders on 17 October 2024, in line with the announcement made in February 2024 and SES's commitment to shareholder returns. The implementation of a semi-annual dividend distribution brings greater alignment between the cash generation of the business and cash returns to shareholders. The interim dividend to be paid next month will be followed, subject to shareholder approval, by the payment of a final dividend of at least EUR 0.25 per A-share (EUR 0.1 per B-share) in April 2025. Including the ongoing share buyback programme, SES is returning EUR 450 million to shareholders in 2024 and more than EUR 1 billion since the beginning of 2021, equivalent to around 100% of Adjusted Free Cash Flow over the same period, while maintaining investment grade balance sheet metrics and continuing to invest in our future network. Follow us on: Twitter Facebook YouTube LinkedIn Instagram Read our Blogs Visit the Media Gallery > About SES SES has a bold vision to deliver amazing experiences everywhere on Earth by distributing the highest quality video content and providing seamless data connectivity services around the world. As a provider of global content and connectivity solutions, SES owns and operates a geosynchronous orbit fleet and medium earth orbit (GEO-MEO) constellation of satellites, offering a combination of global coverage and high performance services. By using its intelligent, cloud-enabled network, SES delivers high-quality connectivity solutions anywhere on land, at sea or in the air, and is a trusted partner to telecommunications companies, mobile network operators, governments, connectivity and cloud service providers, broadcasters, video platform operators and content owners around the world. The company is headquartered in Luxembourg and listed on Paris and Luxembourg stock exchanges (Ticker: SESG). Further information is available at: www.ses.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240926808696/en/ Contacts: Richard Whiteing Investor Relations Tel. +352 710 725 261 richard.whiteing@ses.com Suzanne Ong Communications Tel. +352 710 725 500 suzanne.ong@ses.com Business Kitz, a leader in AI-assisted document and data management, is thrilled to announce the launch of its latest platform update, featuring both an advanced digital signature feature and a new AI-assisted workflow. These updates are designed to streamline how businesses create, sign, and manage their documents, providing greater efficiency, security, and compliance. BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / The new AI-assisted workflow allows users to upload documents in any format, and Business Kitz's AI will automatically extract key data such as important dates, clauses, and essential information. This new feature provides a summarized overview, helping businesses process their paperwork faster and with greater accuracy. It eliminates the need for manual document review, enabling users to focus on the most important tasks while improving overall productivity. Business Kitz logo Comprehensive Digital Signature Solution In addition to the AI workflow, Business Kitz is also introducing a digital signature feature aimed at businesses that need a fast, secure, and legally compliant way to sign documents on the go. With this feature, users can not only easily sign and share documents but also reap the benefits of AI-assisted intelligent storage features, which will be released soon. Key Highlights of the Update: - AI Workflow for Document Processing: Upload any document, and the AI will extract key data points, providing a summary of essential clauses, deadlines, and more. - Seamless Digital Signatures: Track the status of signatures with a full audit log and digital certificate for each signed document. - Global Legal Compliance: Business Kitz's digital signature meets key global standards such as eIDAS Level 1, UETA, and ESIGN (pending final verification). - User-Friendly and Secure: Both features are designed to be easy to use with built-in guidance and the highest level of encryption, ensuring full data protection. Streamlining Document Management for All Businesses This platform update is designed for businesses of all sizes that need a smarter, faster way to manage documents. From contracts to compliance paperwork, Business Kitz's new AI-assisted workflow and digital signature feature empower users to handle critical tasks more efficiently, while minimizing errors and ensuring long-term compliance. Supporting Business Kitz's Mission and Future Growth The release of these new features supports Business Kitz's vision of becoming the go-to platform for AI-assisted business document management. The company is committed to solving real problems that businesses face in managing back-office operations and has exciting plans to enhance these features further with storage, cryptographic signatures, and more integrations. Availability and Pricing The new AI-assisted workflow and digital signature features are now available. They are included as part of the Business Kitz subscription plan, which starts at $14/month, with users receiving seven free signed documents per month. After closing an oversubscribed $3.3M pre-seed round and launching its global product, the company is now opening its seed round. Visit businesskitz.com.au to create a free account or get involved in the seed funding round by contacting us. Contact Information Marlise Lachat Head of Marketing marlise.lachat@businesskitz.com.au + 34 651 337 440 SOURCE: Business Kitz View the original press release on newswire.com. BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Sept. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Vulcan Materials Company (NYSE: VMC), the nation's largest producer of construction aggregates, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Wake Stone Corporation, a leading pure-play aggregates supplier in the Carolinas. This value-enhancing acquisition is expected to provide more than 60 years of quality hard rock reserves to serve attractive high-growth geographies, most notably Raleigh, North Carolina. Tom Hill, Vulcan's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said, "We look forward to welcoming Wake Stone to the Vulcan family. Established in 1970, Wake Stone has successfully built a leading aggregates franchise that shares many of the same values as Vulcan. Our people are at the heart of our business, and we are excited to work with the talented Wake Stone team. "This acquisition is consistent with our aggregates-led growth strategy of continuing to expand our reach to better serve more high-growth regions in the United States. Our Vulcan Way of Selling and Vulcan Way of Operating disciplines remain fundamental to consistently compounding profitability across our franchise and successfully integrating new operations. With the financial strength and flexibility to continue to grow, we are well-positioned to continue to deliver value for our shareholders and our customers." The transaction is expected to close later this year, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions. About Vulcan Materials Company Vulcan Materials Company, a member of the S&P 500 Index with headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama, is the nation's largest supplier of construction aggregates - primarily crushed stone, sand and gravel - and a major producer of aggregates-based construction materials, including asphalt and ready-mixed concrete. For additional information about Vulcan, go to www.vulcanmaterials.com. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENT DISCLAIMER This communication contains "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other securities laws, regarding Vulcan, including, but not limited to, statements about the benefits of the proposed transaction between Vulcan and Wake Stone Corporation, including Vulcan's plans, objectives, expectations and intentions and the expected timing of completion of the proposed transaction. You can generally identify forward-looking statements by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "explore," "evaluate," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "seek," "should," or "will," or the negative thereof or other variations thereon or comparable terminology. These forward-looking statements are based on Vulcan's current plans, objectives, estimates, expectations and intentions and inherently involve significant risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Vulcan's control. Actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of these risks and uncertainties, which include, without limitation, risks and uncertainties associated with: Vulcan's ability to complete the transaction on the proposed terms or on the anticipated timeline, or at all, including risks and uncertainties related to securing the necessary approvals and the satisfaction of other closing conditions to consummate the proposed transaction; the occurrence of any event, change or other circumstance that could give rise to the termination of the definitive merger agreement relating to the proposed transaction; failure to realize the expected benefits of the proposed transaction; significant transaction costs and/or unknown or inestimable liabilities; the risk that Wake Stone Corporation's business will not be integrated successfully or that such integration may be more difficult, time-consuming or costly than expected; risks related to future opportunities and plans for the combined company; disruption from the proposed transaction, making it more difficult to conduct business as usual or maintain relationships with customers, employees or suppliers; effects relating to the announcement of the proposed transaction on the market price of Vulcan's common stock; the possibility that, if Vulcan does not achieve the perceived benefits of the proposed transaction as rapidly or to the extent anticipated by financial analysts or investors, the market price of Vulcan's common stock could decline; regulatory initiatives and changes in tax laws; general economic conditions; and other risks and uncertainties, including those described from time to time under the caption "Risk Factors" in reports and filings made by Vulcan with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Vulcan's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, Vulcan's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2024 and the quarter ended June 30, 2024 and future filings and reports made by Vulcan. Moreover, other risks and uncertainties of which Vulcan is not currently aware may also affect Vulcan's forward-looking statements and may cause actual results and the timing of events to differ materially from those anticipated. Vulcan cautions investors that such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and that undue reliance should not be placed on such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements made in this communication are made only as of the date hereof or as of the dates indicated in the forward-looking statements and reflect the views stated therein with respect to future events as at such dates, even if they are subsequently made available by Vulcan on its website or otherwise. Vulcan does not undertake any obligation to update or supplement any forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, new information, future events, changes in its expectations or other circumstances that exist after the date as of which the forward-looking statements were made, except as required by law. Investor Contact: Mark Warren (205) 298-3220 Media Contact: Jack Bonnikson (205) 298-3220 SOURCE Vulcan Materials Company CAESAREA, Israel, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Alma Lasers, a Sisram Medical company and a global leader in energy-based medical and aesthetic solutions, has announced the global launch of its 25th anniversary celebrations, kicked off at the Alma Academy in Thailand, attended by 340 physicians and company partners from 34 countries. Since its establishment in 1999, Alma has launched life-changing aesthetic platforms that serve as beacons of well-being and confidence for millions worldwide. The company, which started as an energy-based device provider, quickly climbed to the top of the industry, revolutionizing treatment paradigms in various aesthetic areas and setting new benchmarks in the medical aesthetic field in terms of both clinical excellence and innovative breakthroughs. Today, Alma is a world-leading provider in the aesthetic industry, with products sold in over 100 countries. With a vision to offer an entire ecosystem to treatment providers, the company presents the market's most synergistic offerings, including award-winning energy-based devices, high-end injectables, advanced skin analysis, home-use devices, and premium skincare products. Marking this significant anniversary, during the opening ceremony of the event, Mr. Lior Dayan, CEO of Alma Lasers, said: "Over the past 25 years, we've partnered with numerous clinics to advance the field of aesthetic treatments, consistently delivering clinically proven, high-value solutions that ensure exceptional patient experiences. As we look to the next 25 years, our mission remains steadfast." He added, "Together with our partners, we will continue this legacy, driving innovation and excellence to shape the future of the aesthetic industry and empower even more individuals worldwide." The flagship Alma summit, recognized among the top leading aesthetic industry events, has landed in Pattaya, Thailand and brought together 17 world-class experts from across the industry to discuss the latest news, insights, and share real case practices. Among the notable speakers were Prof. Ofir Artzi from Israel, Dr. Jeffrey Hsu from the US, Dr. Chytra V Anand from India, Dr. Natasha Cook from Australia, Dr. Do Young Rhee from South Korea, and Dr. Pablo Naranjo from Spain. Topics covered a wide spectrum, including skin rejuvenation, pigmentation, treatment of current challenging skin conditions, preorbital treatment, hair removal, scar management, acne, and facial contouring. The diverse group of participants featured dermatologists, aesthetic doctors, cosmetic surgeons, and plastic surgeons. The event included sessions presenting the latest technological advancements and clinical protocol developments and innovative treatment techniques with Alma's award-winning products such as the flagship Harmony XL Pro, a holistic device for dozens of aesthetic indications, Alma Hybrid, a groundbreaking concept for skin rejuvenation and scar treatments, and Alma PrimeX, providing a superior whole-body experience, Opus, ultimate non-invasive RF platforms for facial resurfacing and tightening, and the world's best-selling hair-removal platform, the special edition of Soprano Titanium. Alma Academy provides a unique platform for professionals to enhance their skills and network with industry leaders. Hosted annually in prestigious locations like Greece, North America, Spain, Dubai, and Italy, this event attracts top experts in medical aesthetics. Participants benefit from insights into cutting-edge research and real-world case studies, fostering collaboration and innovation in the field. About Alma Lasers Alma is a world-leading innovator and provider in the aesthetic and surgical markets, offering holistic cutting-edge solutions such as Laser, RF, Plasma, and Ultrasound technologies. We enable practitioners to deliver safe, effective and life-transforming treatments to their patients, utilizing state-of-the-art and clinically proven solutions. For more than two decades, Alma's multiple award-winning products have established a new benchmark in the medical aesthetic industry, both in terms of clinical excellence and innovative breakthrough. For media inquiries, please contact: Hagai Cohen, PR & Communications Manager Hagai.cohen@almalasers.com Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517418/Alma_Lasers_CEO.jpg Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2047372/Alma_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/25-years-of-innovation-and-excellence-alma-celebrates-silver-anniversary-at-the-seventh-alma-academy-event-in-thailand-302260864.html NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Recently, Twaao Exchange announced a series of innovative business initiatives, including the launch of an incubation center, an enhanced wallet, and new data services. These innovative solutions will be rolled out gradually, aiming to provide users with more comprehensive and professional digital asset management solutions. Through continuous innovation and service upgrades, Twaao is committed to creating higher investment value and more profit opportunities for its users. The Twaao Incubation Center is a core component of this innovation initiative. It will offer comprehensive support to promising blockchain projects, including funding, technology, marketing, and management consulting. Through a rigorous project selection and evaluation process, the incubation center will assist high-quality projects in achieving rapid growth and market success. Twaao aims to drive the development of the blockchain ecosystem through the incubation center, providing users with more premium investment opportunities. The product manager at Twaao stated, "Our incubation center is not just about providing resources and support to projects, but about building a bridge for users to discover and invest in promising projects. Through the incubation center, we hope to help more blockchain innovation projects come to fruition and promote the prosperity of the industry." Twaao has also launched a data service platform. This platform uses big data and artificial intelligence technologies to analyze market trends and trading data in real-time, providing users with precise investment advice and decision support. The data service platform will regularly publish market analysis reports and research findings to help users grasp market trends and investment opportunities. This series of innovative initiatives marks a significant step for Twaao in enhancing digital asset management services. With the introduction of the incubation center, digital wallet, and data services, Twaao offers users more comprehensive and professional solutions to better manage and invest in digital assets. Looking ahead, Twaao will continue to increase its investment in innovation and service upgrades, continuously optimizing and enhancing the service quality of the platform. Through close collaboration with partners both within and outside the industry, Twaao will keep exploring more possibilities in digital asset management, creating higher investment value and more profit opportunities for users. NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Recently, Twaao Exchange announced the establishment of a new office in Europe, aimed at providing more convenient localized services for Eurozone users. The platform plans to deepen its collaboration with European financial regulatory bodies to ensure all operations comply with local laws and regulations. This initiative is expected to enhance user trading experiences and expand Twaao influence in the European market. The new office of Twaao is located in Frankfurt, one of the financial hubs in Europe. This strategic location not only facilitates better service for Eurozone users but also promotes closer collaboration with local financial institutions and regulatory bodies. By establishing a local office, Twaao can respond more swiftly to user needs and provide more efficient services. In terms of compliance, Twaao will continue to strictly adhere to the financial regulations of European countries, ensuring that all business operations meet legal requirements. The platform will maintain close cooperation with European financial regulators, actively pursuing necessary compliance certifications and licenses. Through these efforts, Twaao is committed to providing users with a safe and reliable trading environment. To improve user experience, Twaao will launch a series of localized services in the European market. The platform will support Euro trading pairs and offer various local payment methods, facilitating easier deposits and withdrawals for users. Additionally, Twaao will provide multilingual customer service to ensure users receive timely assistance and support during their trading activities. The technical team at Twaao is continuously optimizing the platform features and performance to deliver an efficient and stable trading experience for European users. By introducing advanced trading engines and risk control systems, Twaao can better meet user trading needs, ensuring transaction security and reliability. Looking ahead, Twaao will continue to increase its investment in the European market, consistently optimizing and enhancing its service levels. Through deep collaboration with European financial institutions and regulatory bodies, Twaao will introduce more innovative products and technologies, providing users with superior trading services. Additionally, Twaao will actively promote cooperation with local communities and industry partners to jointly foster the healthy development of the European cryptocurrency market. BEIJING, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- China National Nuclear Power (CNNP) released its first technical service brand "I-Nuclear" on Wednesday, aiming to further provide all-around and multi-level technical support for the safe and efficient operation of nuclear power plants. Based on the eight technical service products released in 2017, "I-Nuclear" is a brand product of the CNNP continuously exploring and improving the core capabilities of its nuclear power technology services, catering to the diversified needs of the future nuclear power market. Positioned as a leading one-stop nuclear power technology service provider, "I-Nuclear" covers eight key aspects in nuclear power projects: Production preparation (i-Prepare), nuclear commissioning (i-Commission), operational support (i-Support), major overhauls (i-Outage), specialized maintenance (i-Maintain), professional training (i-Train), technical support (i-Tech), and nuclear informatization (i-Informatization), according to the CNNP. "The eight products above make up the CNNP's new 'I-Nuclear' brand. They represent the culmination of the CNNP's 260 reactor years of operational experience, serve as a significant symbol of the development of new productive forces, and reflect the successful practice of China's nuclear safety culture," said Lu Tiezhong, chairman of the CNNP, in a video speech he delivered at the brand's launch ceremony on Wednesday. "It is hoped that this platform will facilitate the sharing of nuclear power experiences, enhance the safety and operational standards of nuclear power, and create even more outstanding operational achievements in the nuclear sector," Lu said. "As the pioneer, main force, and leader of China's nuclear power industry, the CNNP is committed to promoting the safe and innovative development of nuclear energy, continuously exploring and improving its core capabilities in nuclear power technology services," he noted. The Wednesday launch ceremony was held in Shanghai along with the CNNP's culture festival, where it was also announced that a new CNNP cultural creativity and brand studio would be set up. "Wisdom, green, health, and safety are the keywords of future technology and industrial development, which are closely linked to the CNNP's efforts," said Fang Xin, former deputy secretary of the Party Leadership Group of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who attended the ceremony as a guest. Fang praised the release of "I-Nuclear" as a new milestone in the development of the CNNP. "The Chinese nuclear industry has always been at the forefront of technological innovation as a national strategic scientific force," she said at the ceremony. "We believe that through the hard work and dedication of all those involved in nuclear power, the future of China's nuclear energy will be even more brilliant." View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/chinese-nuclear-power-giant-releases-its-first-tech-service-brand-302260928.html SHANGHAI, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- At HUAWEI CONNECT 2024, the "Xinghe Intelligent Autonomous Driving Network" session successfully brought together over 100 representatives from enterprises, industry experts, and partners. During this session, Huawei introduced the industry's first L4 autonomous driving network solution - Xinghe Intelligent Autonomous Driving Network, paving the way for comprehensive digital and intelligent transformations across various sectors. As AI technologies reach critical milestones and AI applications approach a tipping point, industries are increasingly adopting AI solutions. Also, the rapid advancement of computing power has led to the widespread implementation of digital twins and various large language models (LLMs), driving network intelligence into a new phase of rapid development. The integration of these new technologies into the network domain is becoming inevitable. To address these advancements, Huawei launched the Xinghe Intelligent Autonomous Driving Network solution for enterprises. Wang Hui, President of NCE Domain at Huawei Data Communication Product Line, emphasized that the solution features a three-layer architecture comprising intelligent network elements (NEs), digital twins, and an intelligent brain. It integrates foundational capabilities, including the 10B-level-corpus telecom foundation model and cloud-map algorithm powered simulations, to create an L4 autonomous driving network capable of self-identifying risks, autonomously resolving faults, and self-verifying changes. This solution offers an AI-assisted O&M expert designed for various industries, including finance and education. Intelligent NEs: These NEs can sense comprehensive data - including services, traffic, and applications - within milliseconds, providing essential data for network-wide intelligence and significantly enhancing the processing efficiency of underlying network devices. Digital twins: The network digital map creates a multi-dimensional, real-time visualization of the network, allowing for online simulations. It offers a lightweight operations and maintenance (O&M) solution that facilitates trial and error, accelerating the innovative iteration of network operations. Intelligent brain: Utilizing the telecom foundation model, this component accurately interprets user intentions through natural language, transforms user requirements, and dynamically invokes various scenario-based AI agents, achieving end-to-end network intelligence. As AI model technologies continue to evolve and deepen in application, Huawei remains committed to ongoing research and development, striving for more precise intelligent decision-making and efficient automated management across various scenarios, ultimately helping customers' networks advance towards L4 high-level intelligence. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517493/image_5009699_30809477.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/huawei-unveils-the-xinghe-intelligent-autonomous-driving-network-solution-accelerating-digital-and-intelligent-transformations-across-industries-302260942.html Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - Eureka Lithium Corp. (CSE: ERKA) (OTCQB: UREKF) (FSE: S580) ("Eureka Lithium" or "Eureka" or the "Company") is pleased to announce, further to its news releases on August 14, 2024 and September 24, 2024, that it has closed a non-brokered private placement financing, issuing 4,633,000 units of the Company ("Units") for gross proceeds of $694,950 (the "Private Placement"). Each Unit consists of one (1) common share in the authorized share structure of the Company ("Share") and one (1) Share purchase warrant ("Warrant"), with each Warrant entitling the holder to purchase a Share at an exercise price of $0.205 for a period of 24 months from the date of issuance. In connection with closing of the Private Placement, the Company paid cash finder's fees in the aggregate of $19,771.50 and issued a total of 131,810 finder's warrants (each, a "Finder's Warrant"). Each Finder's Warrant is exercisable into a Share at an exercise price of $0.205 until for a period of 24 months from the date of issuance. The Finder's Warrants are subject to a statutory hold period of four months and one day following the closing date of the Private Placement in accordance with applicable Canadian securities laws. The net proceeds from the Private Placement are intended to be used for exploration expenses on the Company's Nunavik properties and for general and administrative expenditures. The Units issued under the Private Placement 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. Because the Private Placement was completed pursuant to the LIFE Exemption, the securities issued in connection with the Private Placement will not be subject to resale restrictions in accordance with applicable Canadian securities laws. An amended offering document dated September 24, 2024 relating to the Private Placement, amending the offering document dated Augst 14, 2024, was posted under the Company's profile at www.sedarplus.ca, on the Company's website at www.eurekalithiumcorp.com, and was delivered to prospective subscribers prior to closing of the Private Placement. The securities described herein have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or any U.S. state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or available exemptions from such registration requirements. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities in the United States, or in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. About Eureka Lithium Corp. Eureka Lithium is the largest lithium-focused landowner in the northern third of Quebec, known as the Nunavik region, with 100% ownership of three projects comprising 1,408 sq. km in the emerging Raglan West, Raglan South and New Leaf Lithium Camps. These claims were acquired from legendary prospector Shawn Ryan and are located in a region that hosts two operating nickel mines with deep-sea port access. Cautionary Statement Certain statements contained in this news release, including statements which may contain words such as "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "plans", "believes", "estimates", or similar expressions, and statements related to matters which are not historical facts, such as statements regarding the use of proceeds from the Private Placement, are forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's expectations and are based on certain factors and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on the Company's forward-looking statements. The Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct. The Company undertakes no obligation to release publicly any future revisions to forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this news or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as expressly required by law. The Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) has not reviewed, approved, or disapproved the contents of this press release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/224804 SOURCE: Eureka Lithium Corp. Chinese and Russian Influence Rising, US and Europe in Decline - African Youth Survey 2024 Coinciding with UN General Assembly and Summit of the Future - Africa's youth reveal which foreign powers will be the Most Influential Partners in Africa's Future African youth urging their leaders to play a stronger role on global affairs By 2030, one in three youth on the planet will be African - a critical demographic in shaping the world's future Youth want Change Now - findings of African Youth Survey across 16 African nations NEW YORK CITY, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- As world leaders are meeting in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, findings of the African Youth Survey 2024, the most comprehensive research into Africa's youth, reveals that China and Russia are winning the war for the hearts and minds of Africa's youth, a critical demographic for the future of the planet, as Africa is increasingly finding itself as a proxy for conflict between East and Western powers. Published by the Ichikowitz Family Foundation, a leading African NGO, the recently launched African Youth Survey 2024, provide unparalleled insights on how Africa's youth regard the role of global powers, in view of Africa's growing global significance and the reinforcement of multiple poles of power in the world order that have diversified Africa's pool of potential international partners. The findings arrive as a clarion call to the UNGA's 'Pact For The Future,' serving as a critical input to the Summit of the Future's quest for groundbreaking interventions. With a laser focus on the Global South and the urgent necessity to meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Africa's youth are unapologetically asserting their influence, demanding that their continent's leaders seize the reins of their own destiny. "Africa's youth are no longer content to be bystanders in global discourse. They are ready to rewrite the narrative, and they have every intention of wielding the pen themselves," said Ivor Ichikowitz, Founder and Chairman of the Ichikowitz Foundation. "The world must pay attention to Africa's emerging force - the youth. As the fastest-growing demographic, they are the heartbeat of the future. But will they rise as architects of a new era, or be relegated to passive spectators? Our African Youth Survey 2024 reveals that they are sounding the alarm, urging politicians and decision-makers across the region and globally to importantly navigate modern foreign influence with caution. The West can no longer afford to ignore the reality: disengagement and disregard for Africa's youth will have far-reaching consequences. This is not a plea for attention; it's a demand for action." "The historic disparities in influence are clear - Our continent represents nearly 30% of votes as the largest regional bloc in the U.N, yet not one of our countries holds a permanent seat at the U.N. Security Council. But we have in New York City a landmark opportunity for African voices to be heard by leadership at home and abroad - and for global action to be taken in response to them". Foreign Influences The Survey reveals that China has been ultimately seen as the most influential global power, and in fact, the most beneficial global power (76 percent say it has influence while 82 percent call the character of that influence positive), followed then by the United States (70 percent influential: 79 percent positive influence). The EU's influence has declined from 72% (2020) to 59%, the United Kingdom is down from 64% in 2020 to 56% and France has dropped from 58% (2020) to 51%. 72 percent of youth polled suggest concern today about foreign influence on their countries and Africa as a whole, reflecting a greater awareness of Russia's rising role. Ukraine-Russia War In The Eyes Of African Youth Russia's influence in Africa has risen since 2020, with 41% suggesting it is a leading foreign influencer on the continent, and 68% suggesting that influence is positive. Indeed perceptions of Russian influence have spiked markedly in several African states since 2022 - notably in Malawi, where it rose from 14 to 49 percent, and in South Africa, where it grew from 34 to 57 percent in the same two-year period. Directly or indirectly, these shifts trace back to its war against Ukraine, as more than half (57 percent) of those who have a positive view of Russia say it is because they are providing grain and fertilizer, and this is an area in which it has forcibly displaced Ukraine - a historic supplier to Africa. The question of who is to blame for the Russian-Ukrainian War is also mixed, as more than two-thirds - 68 percent - of respondents believe Russia's war in Ukraine could have been avoided, yet surprisingly, nearly a third (32 percent) lay blame for the war at the feet of the U.S., NATO and the EU. Only 23 percent specifically say that Russia is to blame (another 21 percent say all actors share blame). "Let's be clear-Russia's influence campaign is not only deliberate but effective. Africa is now the frontline of a struggle for global influence, and the youth are the prize," warned Ichikowitz. "Our leaders must wake up to this reality and protect the sovereignty of the next generation. This is not just about land or resources; it's a battle for the very soul of the continent." Yet despite high levels of concern about the influence of foreign powers, African youth do not want their leaders to shy away from the global platform - When asked what the main priority for national leaders should be, youth are looking to their leaders to balance both international and domestic issues - nearly half want the focus to be on addressing domestic matters (45%), while the other half are split between increasing their country's regional influence (23%) and expanding their country's influence on the global stage (29%). However, regardless of where youth want their leaders to focus attention, there is clear confidence in the ability of African leaders to influence issues on the global stage with two-thirds (64%) agreeing. "The African Youth Survey is a vital pulse check on the hopes, fears, and demands of Africa's next generation. As the world convenes in New York, it is clear: Africa's youth are not just participants in this story-they are its protagonists. The question is no longer whether they will be heard, but whether the world will finally listen." NOTES TO EDITORS: Fielded across 16 African countries, the African Youth Survey offers an unprecedented sounding on how Africa's rising generation sees their current situation, and is now in its third iteration since its launch in 2020. Over this period, the one-of-a-kind, multi-country poll has identified trends across a range of issues of importance to young Africans. Conducted by PSB Insights, a global leader in public opinion research, to-date there is no comparable barometer of the opinions of African youth in size or scope - The African Youth Survey is widely recognized as one of the most important research studies on young people living, learning, and working across Africa. Six new countries have been included in the 2024 Survey: Botswana, Cameroon, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Tanzania, and Namibia. The ten other countries surveyed are Congo Brazzaville, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zambia. This brings the total number of countries polled to 25, with almost 15,000 interviews having been conducted since the inception of the African Youth Survey in 2020. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/china-and-russias-influence-in-africa-grows-as-western-presence-declines-according-to-african-youth-survey-2024-302260797.html CHANGSHA, China, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science & Technology Co., Ltd. ("Zoomlion," 01157.HK) unveiled its first Overseas Academy in Changsha in August, marking a pivotal moment in the company's global talent development efforts. The inauguration coincided with the first session of the Global Employee Training Program, attended by 61 trainees from 26 countries. Concurrently, the pilot project for Turkey's Career Development System officially commenced, reinforcing Zoomlion's commitment to a comprehensive global talent strategy. The establishment of the Overseas Academy represents a significant advancement in Zoomlion's approach to talent cultivation. This initiative aims to elevate international business capabilities and enhance the company's global presence. The Global Employee Training Program features a curriculum designed to improve employees' understanding of the company's history, intelligent manufacturing processes, product knowledge, and cross-cultural collaboration. During the opening ceremony, Zoomlion's Co-President Wang Yongxiang and HR Director Li Xiaohong highlighted the importance of this training. They urged employees to seize the opportunity to deepen their engagement with the company's culture and enhance their professional skills. In line with these efforts, the Turkey Branch launched its Career Development System in Istanbul to improve local employees' career paths. This system not only opens channels for employee growth and promotion but also enhances identification, management, and motivation of talents. It is structured around three key steps: designing dual career development channels, establishing qualification standards for employees, and clarifying the promotion evaluation mechanism. These steps closely link level evaluations with key performance indicators and connect evaluation outcomes with recruitment, training, compensation, and promotion, allowing for flexible adjustments in employee levels and fostering personal growth. Four outstanding employees were recognized during the event, underscoring the importance of talent recognition within the organization. Their achievements reflect both individual effort and team spirit. Principal Employee Serkan Tolukan expressed gratitude for the company's support and emphasized the significance of the new system in fostering employee growth. "This initiative reflects Zoomlion's commitment to our development," he noted, highlighting the potential for collective success. Today, with over 3,000 local employees worldwide and products covering more than 140 countries and regions, Zoomlion is dedicated to enhancing its international presence. Through these strategic initiatives, Zoomlion is positioned to support the holistic development of its global workforce, ensuring opportunities for professional growth and paving the way for sustained international business success. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/zoomlion-launches-overseas-academy-and-global-training-program-to-boost-talent-development-302260967.html BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Deputy Ruler of Sharjah and Chairman of the Sharjah Media Council, laid the foundation stone on Saturday, for the projects of Al Reeh Al Mursala Clinic and the drinking water network. These projects are sponsored by the Sharjah Broadcasting Authority (SBA) in cooperation with the Sharjah Charity Intearnational (SCI) , located in the village of October in the Kyrgyz Republic. Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed stressed the value of humanitarian efforts and charitable initiatives aimed at providing support to the unwell and those in need worldwide, which leads to the launch of several philanthropic projects, such as establishing hospitals, providing care and support to patients, and setting up drinking water networks globally. He stated that the United Arab Emirates, particularly the Emirate of Sharjah, is committed to this duty through the guidance and vision of wise leadership, which aims to provide everyone with a stable, secure, and healthy life. The Chairman of the Sharjah Media Council noted that the establishment of the clinic, which will feature a range of medical specializations, as well as repairs to the drinking water system in October Village, Kyrgyzstan, is part of the charitable initiatives that got underway in Aswan, Egypt, in July, which aims to help the greatest number of sick and destitute people worldwide. Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed confirmed that the humanitarian medical campaigns would go on in other countries. According to Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed, the purpose of these humanitarian medical campaigns is to offer healthcare and treatment services to those in need who are unable to pay the expenses and treatment costs. The initiatives also aim to use formal channels in the country to distribute donations and philanthropic aid from generous individuals to those in need. The Chairman of Sharjah Media Council expressed his heartfelt thanks to the donors and contributors to the various charitable campaigns and programs, who are part of the medical support provided by hospitals to those in need through their generous donations via charitable initiatives such as "Pain and Hope" and " Al Reeh Al Mursala," which highlight humanitarian cases. Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed prayed to God Almighty to accept their contributions, bless their work, and grant swift healing to every patient. Upon his arrival, the Chairman of the Sharjah Media Council planted saplings at the site of the Al Reeh Al Mursala Clinic, laying the foundation stone for the clinic. He then visited the accompanying exhibition, which includes plans and information about the new building, covering a total area of 350 square meters. The clinic will include various specialties, such as general medicine, consulting physicians, and radiology, as well as maternity clinics and medical laboratories. Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed listened to a detailed explanation about the steps involved in establishing the new clinic building, which will serve 14,000 beneficiaries from the local population and surrounding areas. He learned about the processes of renovation and expansion, as well as the increase in capacity and the number of departments and medical specialties, all aimed at providing healthcare, meeting the needs of the community, and offering various specialized medical services to save time and costs. The Governor of October Village delivered a speech welcoming the Deputy Ruler of Sharjah, expressing his gratitude and appreciation to the Emirate of Sharjah for its charitable efforts and support for those in need around the world. He explained that the residents of the area had to travel long distances to access medical services due to the limited capabilities of the clinic and the lack of specialized medical fields. He noted that with the establishment of the Al Reeh Al Mursala Clinic, it would be easier for all residents in nearby areas to receive medical services. Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed then moved to the site of the drinking water network in October Village, which aims to cover the entire area, as well as reduce the spread of diseases caused by contaminated water and alleviate the residents' struggles in fetching drinking water from distant locations. The Deputy Ruler of Sharjah laid the foundation stone for the new drinking water network, which includes a water distribution system with an artesian well spanning 15,000 meters and a water tank with a capacity of 21,000 gallons. Additionally, modern extensions will be established for 700 homes, benefiting 4,000 people, along with two distribution points serving those passing through the area. The Chairman of the Sharjah Media Council, received commemorative gifts from the delegation of the Kyrgyz October Village and took group photos with them. The radio program " Al Reeh Al Mursala" is broadcast during the holy month of Ramadan each year, in collaboration with the Sharjah Charity International (SCI) . The program highlights various charitable and humanitarian projects and campaigns, aiming to encourage generous individuals to contribute to funding and providing a range of goodwill and benevolence in remote areas of the countries covered by the SCI's work and projects, which reach 110 countries worldwide. The foundation stone was laid in the presence of the Chairman of the Sharjah Media Council, along with Sheikh Saqr bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Chairman of the Sharjah Charity International (SCI); Muhammad Hassan Khalaf, Director General of the Sharjah Broadcasting Authority; Tariq Saeed Allay, the Director General of the Sharjah Government Media Bureau; Hassan Yaqoub Al Mansouri, Secretary-General of the Sharjah Media Council; Rashid Abdullah Al Obeid, Director of Sharjah Media City "Shams"; Salem Ali Al Ghaithi, Director of the Sharjah Broadcasting Authority; Abdullah Sultan bin Khadim, Executive Director of the Sharjah Charity International; and several directors and officials from the October Village in the Kyrgyz Republic. Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517540/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau_1.jpg Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517541/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau_2.jpg Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517542/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau_3.jpg Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517543/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau_4.jpg Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517544/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau_5.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/sultan-bin-ahmed-lays-foundation-stone-for-al-reeh-al-mursala-clinic-in-kyrgyzstan-302260972.html Caresyntax, a leader in surgical intelligence and automation, has been awarded the prestigious 2024 German AI Prize. The awards were presented by Volker Wissing, Germany's Federal Minister for Digitalization, at a ceremony held in Berlin on Thursday, September 26, 2024. The German AI Prize, sponsored by Axel Springer/Bild, PWC and DHL, is one of the largest AI awards in Europe and recognizes outstanding achievements in the development and application of artificial intelligence across all industries. The "Applied AI" (User Award) honors companies and entrepreneurs for outstanding achievements in the practical application of AI, which was awarded to Caresyntax. Now in its sixth year, the award highlights Germany's commitment to advancing AI, accelerating knowledge transfer to industry, and promoting the ethical use of AI technology. The prize is awarded in three categories: the Innovation Award for research institutions, the User Award for applied AI companies, and the AI startup prize for emerging enterprises. The award was granted following an extensive evaluation of Caresyntax's systems in leading hospitals across Germany and the EU. Currently, the platform supports 30,000 surgical professionals in 3,000 operating rooms globally, assisting in more than 3 million surgeries annually. Caresyntax joins an impressive list of past German AI Award winners, including DeepL, Merantix AG, Aleph Alpha, and Ada Health, further cementing its position as a leader in applied AI. "This recognition underscores the critical role AI plays in transforming surgical care," said Bjorn von Siemens, co-founder of Caresyntax. "Our platform addresses the pressing need for data-driven insights in the operating room, where even small improvements can have a profound impact on patient safety and hospital efficiency." Caresyntax's vendor-neutral surgery platform uses AI to analyze vast amounts of data generated in modern operating rooms, integrating video, audio, images, and other device information to improve patient outcomes, enhance surgical efficiency, and reduce healthcare costs. By enabling better decision-making and resource allocation in the OR, Caresyntax helps hospitals reduce clinical waste, increase the utilization of scarce surgical resources, and significantly lower costs associated with surgical operations. "The German AI Award validates the progress we've made on our mission to make surgery smarter and safer," von Siemens said. "As we continue to refine our AI capabilities, we're not just improving individual surgeries we're working towards a future where advanced analytics and automation can dramatically enhance the entire surgical ecosystem." About Caresyntax Caresyntax is on a mission to make surgery smarter and safer, by converging AI-powered software, devices, and clinical services to improve patient outcomes. Our vendor-neutral, precision surgery platform improves patient outcomes by providing data-driven insights to surgeons, hospital administrators, and medical device companies before, during, and after a procedure. Headquartered in San Francisco in the US and in Berlin internationally, Caresyntax software is being used in more than 3,000 operating rooms worldwide and supports surgical teams in more than three million procedures per year. Learn more at www.caresyntax.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240926371979/en/ Contacts: Daniel Oberhaus daniel@hausb.io Drill results outside of known mineralization confirm the expansion potential Cyclone resource upgrade and expansion: Assays confirm that the resource drilling around and within the Cyclone Deposit has intersected further thick high-grade copper intervals including: Drill hole SR24-093 was drilled 75m southof the current known area of mineralization and has intersected: 53.3m @ 3.9% copper (Cu), 12.6 grams per tonne (g/t) silver (Ag) from 86.9m downhole, including, 22.9m @ 8.5% Cu, 17.8g/t Ag from 86.9m downhole, including, 9.1m @ 14.4% Cu, 21.3g/t Ag from 93m downhole Drill hole SR24-070 has intersected: 45.7m @ 1.9% Cu, 9.4g/t Ag from 35.1m downhole, including, 27.4m @ 3.1% Cu, 14.6g/t Ag from 35.1m downhole, including, 15.2m @ 4.2% Cu, 16.2g/t Ag from 35.1m downhole Drill hole SR24-045 has intersected: 57.9m @ 1% Cu, 4.3g/t Ag from 32m downhole, including, 10.7m @ 3.2% Cu, 16.0g/t Ag from 65.5m downhole Sealift and 2025 program preparation: NEAS cargo ship MV Mitiq has successfully completed the 2024 sealift operation at Storm The sealift has delivered large quantities of supplies directly on Somerset Island for the 2025 exploration, resource expansion, and development programs, which is expected to save an estimated $4 Million on the 2025 budget Bulk samples containing copper were also transported offsite via the cargo ship, demonstrating the complete logistics chain for the potential direct shipping product mining operation TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. (TSXV:BAY)(OTCQB:ATBHF) ("Aston Bay" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an update on drilling activities at the Storm Copper Project ("Storm" or the "Project") on Somerset Island, Nunavut. The exploration program is being conducted by American West Metals Limited ("American West"), who is the operator of the Project. Aston Bay and American West have formed a 20/80 unincorporated joint venture in respect of the Storm Project property, with Aston Bay maintaining a free carried interest until a decision to mine upon completion of a bankable feasibility study. Thomas Ullrich, Chief Executive Officer of Aston Bay, commented: "It is exciting to hit such a long interval of high-grade copper outside of the previously known zone of mineralization as we work toward calculation of a maiden resource estimate this fall. This suggests there is more to be found, and it bodes well for additional discoveries and expansion of the known existing mineralization with next year's campaign. "We congratulate NEAS on the arrival of their cargo ship MV Mitiq into Aston Bay. This sealift is a first for the project that will significantly reduce the cost for both the delineation drilling and exploration diamond drilling programs next year. The successful operation demonstrates that bulk cargo and equipment can be economically transported to the project and that potential products could be delivered to market on the return journey. This will play an important part in future programs and development plans at Storm." Figure 1: NEAS cargo ship MV Mitiq at anchor in Aston Bay for the Storm Project sealift. EXCEPTIONAL COPPER INTERSECTIONS CONTINUE AT CYCLONE Assay results from the latest batch of drill holes have been received and continue to highlight the expansion and upgrade potential of the Cyclone Deposit (Figure 2). The latest assays have confirmed very thick and high-grade intersections of copper within and outside of the current known mineralization envelope, particularly at the west end and to the south of the deposit. The west end of Cyclone hosts the shallowest and highest-grade copper mineralization within the deposit, considered very favourable for a potential open-pit mining operation in future. The infill drilling also continues to confirm the excellent lateral continuity of the mineralization. Assays for the remainder of the outstanding drill holes are expected in batches over the coming weeks. Figure 2: Plan view of the Cyclone Deposit showing the copper mineralized zone outlines and historical and recent drilling, overlain on regional geology. DRILL HOLE SR24-093 DETAILS SR24-093 was drilled to the southwest of the Cyclone Deposit and to a downhole depth of 150.9m (Figure 3). The drill hole was designed to follow up other strong copper intersections outside of the known mineralization in the southern area including SR24-009 which intersected 15.2m @ 1.4% Cu, including 1.5m @ 6.4% Cu from 109.7m downhole (See August 15, 2024, Aston Bay news release. Drill hole SR24-093 intersected 53m of strong chalcocite mineralization (53.3m @ 3.9% Cu) from 86.9m downhole with an intensely mineralized zone and semi-massive sulfide zone between 86.9m and 109.7m downhole averaging 8.5% Cu over 22.9m (Table 1). The mineralized Allen Bay host rock in SR24-093 is displaced downward relative to the Cyclone Deposit south of the large fault that forms the northern boundary of the Central Graben. The faults that define this large block of down-dropped prospective rock within the Central Graben either host or are spatially associated with the majority of the copper mineralization at Storm. The graben block itself, with the prospective Allen Bay stratigraphic horizon covered by the barren overlying Douro formation at the surface, is little explored. These new intercepts highlight the potential for the Central Graben to host significant copper mineralization concealed at depth. The large 75m step-out from the previous drilling, thickness, and grade of the copper mineralization are promising for the discovery of additional mineralization to the southwest of the Cyclone Deposit and elsewhere in the large but underexplored Central Graben. Figure 3: N-S geological schematic section view through SR24-093 and SR24-073 showing the recent drill hole locations, recent assays, and the interpreted zones of copper mineralization.. DRILL HOLE SR24-045 and SR24-070 DETAILS SR24-045 and SR24-070 are located on the same drill section and have intersected intense copper sulfide mineralization on the margins of the known zones of mineralization at Cyclone (Figure 2). Mineralization in both drill holes consists of zones of intense vein- and fracture-style copper sulfide mineralization with thick intervals over 3% Cu hosted within fractured dolomite of the Allen Bay Formation. The dominant copper sulfide mineral observed within the drill holes is chalcocite, with minor bornite and chalcopyrite on the margins of the mineralized intervals and within veins. The mineralogy and intensity of copper mineralization is typically characterized by significant lateral continuity within Cyclone. Figure 4: Geological section view at 464,850E showing the mineralized intervals (>0.2% Cu) for drill holes SR24-011, SR24-15 and SR24-023, and the interpreted zones of copper mineralization. SEALIFT - DEMONSTRATION OF COMPLETE LOGISTICS CHAIN The NEAS cargo ship MV Mitiq has recently completed a sealift operation at the Storm Project. The ship anchored in Aston Bay and has delivered large quantities of aviation and diesel fuel, salt for diamond drilling, lumber, heavy machinery, and other supplies in preparation for the 2025 exploration and delineation drilling program. The sealift is carried out using large, tugboat-guided barges maneuvered onto a suitable beach (Figure 5), and then off-loaded using large wheeled loaders. Materials are hoisted from the ship to the barges (and vice versa) using large cranes. This system eliminates the need for wharves or other port infrastructure to load and unload cargo (Figures 6 & 7). The sealift has also demonstrated the loading operations and sent bulk samples of RC chips off-site. The mineralized samples will be used for metallurgical purposes and the process has demonstrated the complete logistics chain for a potential mining operation at the Storm Project: it is envisaged that potential copper direct shipping product would be transported to market in sea containers via sealift on empty ships returning to port on the east coast of Canada. Whereas the sealift has incurred expenses on the 2024 program, the exercise is expected to save approximately $4m on the 2025 program budget. Figure 5: Photo of the sealift tug and barging operation underway on Aston Bay, Nunavut. Figure 6: Offloading of cargo at the Storm Project Marine Loading Area (MLA), on the coast of Aston Bay, Nunavut. Figure 7: Photo of the Storm Project Marine Loading Area (MLA), on the coast of Aston Bay, Nunavut. Hole ID From (m) To (m) Width Cu % Zn % Ag g/t SR24-043 91.44 99.06 7.62 0.4 0.0 0.9 100.58 102.11 1.53 0.3 0.0 1.0 105.16 106.68 1.52 0.2 0.0 2.0 SR24-045 32.00 89.92 57.91 1.0 0.0 4.3 Including 65.53 76.20 10.67 3.2 0.0 9.0 SR24-049 27.43 44.20 16.76 1.0 0.0 2.9 Including 27.43 35.05 7.62 1.5 0.0 4.0 48.77 68.58 19.81 0.4 0.0 1.3 Including 65.53 67.06 1.52 1.1 0.0 1.0 SR24-053 83.82 86.87 3.05 0.4 0.0 0.5 SR24-061 48.77 51.82 3.05 0.5 0.0 1.0 Including 42.67 45.72 3.05 1.0 0.0 2.0 and 50.29 51.82 1.52 1.1 0.0 1.0 92.96 94.49 1.52 0.5 0.0 1.0 111.25 117.35 6.10 0.2 0.0 1.0 SR24-063 22.86 36.58 13.72 1.3 0.0 4.0 Including 27.43 32.00 4.57 3.1 0.1 8.7 42.67 45.72 3.05 0.5 0.1 3.0 50.29 51.82 1.52 0.3 0.0 1.0 59.44 60.96 1.52 0.3 0.0 1.0 65.53 71.63 6.10 0.3 0.2 2.5 SR24-067 12.19 21.34 9.14 0.3 0.0 1.0 30.48 35.05 4.57 0.8 0.0 2.0 Including 30.48 32.00 1.52 1.2 0.1 2.0 44.20 45.72 1.52 0.3 1.0 3.0 50.29 62.48 12.19 1.0 0.1 4.6 Including 50.29 51.82 1.52 1.0 0.0 6.0 and 57.91 62.48 4.57 1.9 0.1 8.7 59.44 68.58 9.14 0.3 0.0 2.0 73.15 74.68 1.52 0.4 0.0 2.0 SR24-070 27.43 28.96 1.52 0.4 0.0 1.0 35.05 80.77 45.72 1.9 0.1 9.4 Including 35.05 62.48 27.43 3.1 0.1 14.6 Including 35.05 50.92 15.24 4.2 0.1 16.2 SR24-071 33.53 35.05 1.52 0.4 0.0 9.0 65.53 82.30 16.76 0.8 0.1 3.7 Including 67.06 68.58 1.52 2.3 0.0 7.0 and 79.25 80.77 1.52 2.9 0.1 15.0 SR24-072 59.44 67.06 7.62 1.0 0.0 3.8 Including 59.44 64.01 4.57 1.5 0.0 4.7 71.63 74.68 3.05 0.6 0.0 3.0 79.25 80.77 1.52 0.7 0.0 2.0 SR24-073 45.72 54.86 9.14 0.2 0.0 2.7 65.53 82.30 16.76 0.4 0.0 3.2 Including 73.15 74.68 1.52 1.1 0.0 6.0 86.87 88.39 1.52 0.6 0.0 4.0 SR24-075 97.54 105.16 7.62 0.6 0.0 4.4 Including 97.54 99.06 1.52 1.1 0.0 7.0 SR24-076 106.68 120.40 13.72 0.8 0.0 2.4 Including 109.73 112.78 3.05 2.1 0.0 5.5 128.02 129.54 1.52 0.3 0.0 1.0 SR24-087 25.91 30.48 4.57 0.5 0.0 1.7 48.77 57.91 9.14 1.0 0.0 2.8 Including 50.29 56.39 6.10 1.3 0.0 3.8 76.20 88.39 12.19 0.6 0.0 2.5 Including 76.20 79.25 3.05 1.4 0.0 4.0 SR24-089 9.14 10.67 1.52 0.5 0.0 2.0 21.34 25.91 4.57 0.4 0.0 1.7 38.10 53.34 15.24 0.4 0.0 1.5 Including 42.67 44.20 1.52 1.1 0.0 3.0 57.91 59.44 1.52 0.5 0.0 1.0 65.53 68.58 3.05 0.4 0.0 1.5 88.39 89.92 1.52 0.3 0.0 3.0 SR24-091 16.76 24.38 7.62 0.4 0.0 2.6 32.00 35.05 3.05 0.3 0.0 0.8 53.34 62.48 9.14 0.3 0.0 1.5 70.10 77.72 7.62 0.2 0.0 1.2 SR24-093 86.87 140.21 53.34 3.9 0.3 12.6 Including 86.87 109.73 22.86 8.5 0.3 17.8 Including 92.96 102.11 9.14 14.4 0.0 21.3 Including 99.06 102.11 3.05 27.7 0.0 39.0 SR24-095 39.62 41.15 1.52 0.8 0.0 3.0 SR24-097 57.91 60.96 3.05 0.2 0.1 2.5 71.63 74.68 3.05 0.3 0.0 2.0 85.34 86.87 1.52 0.4 0.0 1.0 SR24-099 62.48 73.15 10.67 0.3 0.0 1.7 83.82 86.87 3.05 0.8 0.1 1.5 SR24-101 67.06 70.10 3.05 0.4 0.0 1.5 86.87 89.92 3.05 0.2 0.0 1.5 92.96 94.49 1.52 0.3 0.0 2.0 126.49 128.02 1.52 0.9 0.0 3.0 140.21 141.73 1.52 0.5 0.0 2.0 SR24-103 65.53 71.63 6.10 0.3 0.0 1.5 94.49 108.20 13.72 0.5 0.0 1.9 Including 102.11 103.63 1.52 2.2 0.0 5.0 SR24-105 96.01 106.68 10.67 0.4 0.0 1.1 112.78 114.30 1.52 0.3 0.0 1.0 SR24-107 60.96 64.01 3.05 0.5 0.0 1.0 100.58 103.63 3.05 0.3 0.0 0.8 SR24-109 118.87 120.40 1.52 0.7 0.0 2.0 SR24-111 67.06 68.58 1.52 0.2 0.0 1.0 97.54 99.06 1.52 0.4 0.0 2.0 SR24-112 51.82 53.34 1.52 0.3 0.0 2.0 76.20 99.06 22.86 0.8 0.0 3.4 Including 76.20 85.34 9.14 1.8 0.0 6.2 Table 1: Summary of recent significant drilling intersections at the Cyclone Deposit (>0.2% Cu). The intersections are expressed as downhole widths and are interpreted to be close to true widths. Details of the delineation drilling and exploration drill holes for the 2024 program are available at https://astonbayholdings.com/news/2024-storm-drill-hole-details/. Qualified Person Michael Dufresne, M.Sc., P.Geol., P.Geo., is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information in this press release. About the Storm Copper and Seal Zinc-Silver Projects, Nunavut The Nunavut property consists of 173 contiguous mining claims covering an area of approximately 219,257 hectares on Somerset Island, Nunavut, Canada. The Storm Project comprises both the Storm Copper Project, a high-grade sediment-hosted copper discovery (intersections including 110m* @ 2.5% Cu from surface and 56.3* @ 3.1% Cu from 12.2m as well as the Seal Zinc Deposit (intersections including 14.4m* @ 10.6% Zn, 28.7g/t Ag from 51.8m and 22.3m* @ 23.0% Zn, 5.1g/t Ag from 101.5m). Additionally, there are numerous underexplored and undrilled targets within the 120-kilometre strike length of the mineralized trend, including the Tornado copper prospect where 10 grab samples yielded >1% Cu up to 32% Cu in gossans. The Nunavut property is now the subject of an 80/20 unincorporated joint venture with American West (see "Agreement with American West" below for more details). Storm Discovery and Historical Work High-grade copper mineralization was discovered at Storm in the mid-1990s by Cominco geologists conducting regional zinc exploration around their then-producing Polaris lead-zinc mine. A massive chalcocite boulder found in a tributary of the Aston River in 1996 was traced to impressive surface exposures of broken chalcocite mineralization for hundreds of metres of surface strike length at what became named the 2750N, 2200N, and 3500N zones. Subsequent seasons of prospecting, geophysics and over 9,000 m of drilling into the early 2000s confirmed a significant amount of copper mineralization below the surface exposures as well as making the blind discovery of the 4100N Zone, a large area of copper mineralization with no surface exposure. Following the merger of Cominco with Teck in 2001 and the closure of the Polaris Mine, the Storm claims were allowed to lapse in 2007. Commander Resources staked the property in 2008 and flew a helicopter-borne VTEM survey in 2011 but conducted no additional drilling. Aston Bay subsequently entered into an earn-in agreement with Commander and consolidated 100% ownership in 2015. Commander retained a 0.875% Gross Overriding Royalty in the area of the original Storm claims which was purchased by Taurus Mining Royalty Fund L.P. in January 2024. In 2016 Aston Bay entered into an earn-in agreement with BHP, who conducted a 2,000-station soil sampling program and drilled 1,951m of core in 12 diamond drill holes, yielding up to 16m* @ 3.1% Cu. BHP exited the agreement in 2017 and retains no residual interest in the project. Aston Bay conducted a property-wide airborne gravity gradiometry survey in 2017 and drilled 2,913m in nine core holes in the Storm area in 2018 yielding a best intercept of 1.5m* @ 4.4% Cu and 20.5m* @ 0.6% Cu. Agreement with American West On March 9, 2021, Aston Bay entered into an option agreement with American West Metals Limited (American West), and its wholly owned Canadian subsidiary Tornado Metals Ltd., pursuant to which American West was granted an option to earn an 80% undivided interest in the Project by spending a minimum of CAD$10 million on qualifying exploration expenditures. The parties amended and restated the Option Agreement as of February 27, 2023, to facilitate American West directly earning an interest in the Project alongside its Canadian subsidiary without any change to the overall commercial agreement between the parties. The expenditures were completed during 2023, and American West exercised the option. American West and Aston Bay have formed an 80/20 unincorporated joint venture. Under the joint venture, Aston Bay shall have a free carried interest until American West has made a decision to mine upon completion of a bankable feasibility study, meaning American West will be solely responsible for funding the joint venture until such decision is made. After such decision is made, Aston Bay will be diluted in the event it does not elect to contribute its proportionate share and its interest in the Project will be converted into a 2% net smelter returns royalty if its interest is diluted to below 10%. Recent Work American West completed a fixed loop electromagnetic (FLEM) ground geophysical survey in 2021 that yielded several new subsurface conductive anomalies. A total of 1,534m were drilled in 10 diamond drill holes in the 2022 season, yielding several impressive near-surface intercepts including 41m* @ 4.1% Cu as well as 68m of sulfide mineralization associated with a deeper conductive anomaly. In April 2022, results of beneficiation studies demonstrated that a mineralized intercept grading 4% Cu from the 4100N area could be upgraded to a 54% Cu direct ship product using standard sorting technology. Further beneficiation and metallurgical studies are ongoing. In April 2023, American West embarked on a spring delineation drilling program using a helicopter-portable RC drill rig as well as conducting gravity and moving loop electromagnetic (MLEM) ground geophysical programs. The summer 2023 program conducted further delineation drilling of the near-surface high-grade copper zones to advance them toward maiden resource estimates in 2024. Deep diamond drilling during 2023 discovered high-grade copper sulfides up to 2.7% Cu at approximately 300m vertical depth (ST23-02), suggesting the potential for discovery of large-scale copper targets at depth. Diamond drilling of new high-priority deep MLEM targets, RC delineation drilling for resource development and additional geophysical surveys are now underway in the 2024 program. Metallurgical studies and environmental baseline studies are ongoing, with bulk sampling for prefeasibility-level processing planned for summer 2024. *Stated drill hole intersections are all core length, and true width is expected to be 60% to 100% of core length. About Aston Bay Holdings Aston Bay is a publicly traded mineral exploration company exploring for high-grade critical and precious metal deposits in Nunavut, Canada and Virginia, USA. The Company is currently exploring the Storm Copper Property and Cu-Ag-Zn-Co Epworth Property in Nunavut, and the high-grade Buckingham Gold Vein in central Virginia. The company is also in advanced stages of negotiation on other lands with high-grade critical metals potential in North America The Company and its joint venture partners, American West Metals Limited and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Tornado Metals Ltd. (collectively, "American West") have formed a 20/80 unincorporated joint venture in respect of the Storm Project property, which hosts the Storm Copper Project and the Seal Zinc Deposit. Under the unincorporated joint venture, Aston Bay shall have a free carried interest until American West has made a decision to mine upon completion of a bankable feasibility study, meaning American West will be solely responsible for funding the joint venture until such decision is made. After such decision is made, Aston Bay will be diluted in the event it does not elect to contribute its proportionate share and its interest in the Storm Project property will be converted into a 2% net smelter returns royalty if its interest is diluted to below 10%. About American West Metals Limited AMERICAN WEST METALS LIMITED (ASX: AW1) is an Australian clean energy mining company focused on growth through the discovery and development of major base metal mineral deposits in Tier 1 jurisdictions of North America. The company's strategy is focused on developing mines that have a low-footprint and support the global energy transformation. AW1's portfolio of copper and zinc projects in Utah and Canada include significant existing resource inventories and high-grade mineralization that can generate robust mining proposals. Core to AW1's approach is a commitment to the ethical extraction and processing of minerals and making a meaningful contribution to the communities where its projects are located. Led by a highly experienced leadership team, AW1's strategic initiatives lay the foundation for a sustainable business which aims to deliver high-multiplier returns on shareholder investment and economic benefits to all stakeholders. For further information on American West, visit: www.americanwestmetals.com. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS Statements made in this news release, including those regarding entering into the joint venture and each party's interest in the Project pursuant to the agreement in respect of the joint venture, management objectives, forecasts, estimates, expectations, or predictions of the future may constitute "forward-looking statement", which can be identified by the use of conditional or future tenses or by the use of such verbs as "believe", "expect", "may", "will", "should", "estimate", "anticipate", "project", "plan", and words of similar import, including variations thereof and negative forms. This press release contains forward-looking statements that reflect, as of the date of this press release, Aston Bay's expectations, estimates and projections about its operations, the mining industry and the economic environment in which it operates. Statements in this press release that are not supported by historical fact are forward-looking statements, meaning they involve risk, uncertainty and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Although Aston Bay believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on these statements, which apply only at the time of writing of this press release. Aston Bay disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except to the extent required by securities legislation. 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 news release. For more information contact: Thomas Ullrich, Chief Executive Officer thomas.ullrich@astonbayholdings.com (416) 456-3516 Sofia Harquail, IR and Corporate Development sofia.harquail@astonbayholdings.com (647) 821-1337 SOURCE: Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - Nickel 28 Capital Corp. (TSXV: NKL) (FSE: 3JC0) ("Nickel 28" or the "Company") has released its results for the quarter ended July 31, 2024. All figures are expressed in United States dollars, unless otherwise indicated. Quarterly Highlights The Company's principal asset, an 8.56% joint-venture interest in the Ramu Nickel-Cobalt integrated operation in Papua New Guinea ("Ramu"), had another outstanding quarter. Highlights from Ramu and the Company during the quarter include: Production of 7,555 tonnes of contained nickel and 675 tonnes of contained cobalt in mixed hydroxide precipitate ("MHP") during the second calendar quarter, placing Ramu as one of the top producers of MHP globally Sales of 7,666 tonnes of contained nickel and 684 tonnes of contained cobalt in MHP during the second calendar quarter Actual cash costs for the second calendar quarter, net of by-product sales, of US$3.37/lb. of contained nickel Share of operating profit from Ramu Nickel Mine of $2.2 million during the second calendar quarter Quarter end cash balance of US$7.3 million Total net and comprehensive income of US$1.2 million (US$0.01/share) for the three months ended July 31, 2024 Total non-recourse construction debt of US$45.2 million as at July 31, 2024 Christopher Wallace, the Company's Chief Executive Officer, stated: "As the first quarter since new management was appointed, Q2 marked a significant milestone for Nickel 28. The focus of our slimmed down management team has been on re-building Nickel 28 with an emphasis on prudent business management keeping in our mind, always, the responsibility we have to our shareholders. "During the quarter the price of nickel fell from a May 1 price of roughly USD $19,000 per tonne to a July 31 price of approximately $16,400 per tonne, a decline of approximately 13%. A decline of similar magnitude was experienced in the cobalt price; together these resulted in a decline in our revenues attributed from our joint venture in Ramu. Though revenue from our joint venture declined from the year earlier period, it improved from the previous quarter. "Ramu performed very well during this difficult nickel price environment maintaining costs within our previous guidance and once again exceeding nameplate production capacity. "The second quarter has been a busy one for Nickel 28's management team. Subsequent to my appointment as interim CEO on May 3, on May 16 I appointed Craig Lennon, our Head of Asia Operations to the role of Interim CFO. On June 13, the Board moved both Craig and me from interim to permanent positions. Craig has proven to be a significant asset in his new role. "A major focus of the new management team has been and will be expense control. Despite our short tenure, the Company has already made significant improvements in its cost structure. The new management team has created a new budget with a review of every expense category and a view towards making decisions about how we can operate the business with the greatest efficiency and at lower cost. The fruits of these efforts are already evident in the Q2 financial statements which show that operating expenses are down 71% from the same quarter last year and down 33% from the previous quarter. Our cost cutting is not over yet and we anticipate we can deliver further reduction in quarters to come. "It is worth mentioning that a significant, value-enhancing event occurred during the quarter when the Company reached a settlement with a former executive wherein 4,965,222 NKL shares were returned to the company, for nil consideration, having a value at the date of the return of approximately CAD $3.3 million. This reduced the number of NKL shares outstanding by roughly 5% to 91 million. "In addition, the Company applied for, and had approved, a Normal Course Issuer Bid under which the Company is currently repurchasing its own shares in the market. We believe that the current share price presents us with an excellent opportunity to deploy capital in our own stock. Given the current dynamics, shareholders should expect that over time, rather than face material on-going dilution as they have in the past, each share of Nickel 28 will represent a larger claim on the business and its cash-flows as the share count declines. "I am excited about the opportunities in front of Nickel 28 and I look forward to reporting further progress to you in subsequent quarters." About Nickel 28 Nickel 28 Capital Corp. is a nickel-cobalt producer through its 8.56% joint-venture interest in the producing, long-life and world-class Ramu Nickel-Cobalt Operation located in Papua New Guinea. Ramu provides Nickel 28 with significant attributable nickel and cobalt production thereby offering our shareholders direct exposure to two metals which are critical to the adoption of electric vehicles. In addition, Nickel 28 manages a portfolio of 10 nickel and cobalt royalties on development and exploration projects in Canada, Australia and Papua New Guinea. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains certain information which constitutes 'forward-looking statements' and 'forward-looking information' within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Any statements that are contained in this news release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "may", "should", "anticipate", "expect", "potential", "believe", "intend" or the negative of these terms and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to: statements and figures with respect to the operational and financial results of the Ramu project; statements with respect to the prospects of nickel and cobalt in the global electrification of vehicles; statements related to the repayment of the Company's Ramu operating debt (and the timing thereof); statements related to the Company's attributable cash flow (and the receipt and timing thereof); and statements with respect to the business and assets of the Company and its strategy going forward. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, most of which are beyond the Company's control. Should one or more of the risks or uncertainties underlying these forward-looking statements materialize, or should assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements prove incorrect, actual results, performance or achievements could vary materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this release and, other than as required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. The forward-looking statements contained in this release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. No securities regulatory authority has either approved or disapproved of the contents of this news release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/224709 SOURCE: Nickel 28 Capital Corp Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - (Block Height: 863,000) - Cathedra Bitcoin Inc. (TSXV: CBIT) (OTC Pink: CBTTF) ("Cathedra" or the "Company"), a developer and operator of high-density compute infrastructure across North America, is pleased to provide the following updates: Strategy Update On September 16, 2024, management published a memo outlining the Company's treasury strategy and formally adopting bitcoin holdings per share as the key metric which will guide future capital allocation decisions. The full memo can be found on the Cathedra website at: https://cathedra.com/Bitcoin-Strategy.pdf Operations Update Washington Operations In recent weeks, the Company amended the terms for one of its leased bitcoin mining facilities in Washington State. Under the amended terms, effective August 1, 2024, the Company will pay to the facility owner and operator a rate of US$50.00 per megawatt-hour plus a profit share equal to 35% of the gross margin from the Company's Bitmain S19J Pro machines operating at that site. The contract expiration date has also been revised to February 28, 2025 (the "Expiration Date"), subject to renewal at the Company's discretion. Beginning in September 2024 and ending on the Expiration Date, the Company will be credited back its initial security deposit incrementally on each month's bill. These revisions will result in an all-in cash cost of approximately US$28.00 per megawatt-hour (under current market conditions) and an effective break-even hash price of less than US$15.00/PH/s/d at the site under current market conditions. Tennessee Operations The Company's three data centers in Tennessee and Kentucky recently enrolled in a demand response program through the Tennessee Valley Authority. Under this program, the Company will be compensated for curtailing its data center load for up to 1% of the year. The compensation will consist of a fixed credit of approximately US$10 per megawatt-hour for participating in the program plus additional compensation for each curtailment event. In July and August, the Company accrued credits equal to approximately US$300,000. Repricing of Warrants The Company also announces that it has closed its proposed warrant repricing, as previously announced on August 19, 2024. An aggregate of 36,819,700 outstanding subordinate voting share purchase warrants of the Company (the "Warrants") were amended such that (the "Amendments"): (a) the exercise price of the Warrants was reduced to C$0.12, and (b) as required by the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV"), the Warrants were also amended to include a mandatory acceleration provision which provides that, if for any 10 consecutive trading days (the "Premium Trading Days") following the effective date of the Amendments, the closing price of the Company's subordinate voting shares (the "Shares") on the TSXV exceeds C$0.15, being 25% or more of the amended exercise price of the Warrants, the amended Warrants' expiry date will be accelerated such that holders will have 30 calendar days to exercise the Warrants (if they have not first expired in the normal course). The Company will announce any acceleration of the expiry date by press release and the 30-day period will commence seven days after the last Premium Trading Day. The terms of the Warrants remain otherwise unchanged. Certain of the Warrants were issued under a warrant indenture dated March 26, 2021 (the "Bought Deal Warrants"), and in accordance with the terms thereof, the Company received the consent of holders of the Bought Deal Warrants representing at least 66 2/3% of the outstanding Bought Deal Warrants to enter into a supplemental warrant indenture to effect the Amendments with respect to the Bought Deal Warrants. All holders of the Warrants other than the Bought Deal Warrants consented to the Amendments. The securities being offered have not been, nor will they be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. This news release will not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor will there be any sale of the securities in any state in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. About Cathedra Bitcoin Cathedra Bitcoin Inc. develops and operates digital infrastructure assets across North America with the goal of maximizing its per-share bitcoin holdings. The Company hosts bitcoin mining clients across its portfolio of three data centers (30 megawatts total) in Tennessee and Kentucky. Additionally, Cathedra is a 25% partner in a joint venture that is developing a 60-megawatt data center in North Dakota which will also host bitcoin miners upon its expected completion. Cathedra also operates a fleet of proprietary bitcoin mining machines at its own and third-party data centers, producing approximately 400 PH/s of hash rate. Cathedra is headquartered in Vancouver and its shares trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol CBIT and in the OTC market under the symbol CBTTF. For more information about Cathedra, visit cathedra.com or follow Company news on Twitter at @CathedraBitcoin or on Telegram at @CathedraBitcoin. Cautionary Statement Trading in the securities of the Company should be considered highly speculative. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws that are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. The information in this release about future plans and objectives of the Company, are forward-looking information. Forward-looking information contained in this news release includes but is not limited to information concerning the Warrants, the Company's expectations with respect to the amendments to the terms for one of its leased bitcoin mining facilities in Washington State and the Company's compensation expectations under the demand response program through the Tennessee Valley Authority. Any statements that involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as "expects", or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans", "budget", "scheduled", "forecasts", "estimates", "believes" or "intends" or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results "may" or "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking information and are intended to identify forward-looking information. This forward-looking information is based on reasonable assumptions and estimates of management of the Company at the time it was made. The Company has also assumed that no significant events occur outside of its normal course of business. Additionally, these forward-looking statements may be affected by risks and uncertainties in the business of Cathedra and general market conditions. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements are not based on historical facts but instead reflect Cathedra's management's expectations, estimates or projections concerning future results or events based on the opinions, assumptions and estimates of management considered reasonable at the date the statements are made. Although Cathedra believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, such statements involve risks and uncertainties, and undue reliance should not be placed thereon, as unknown or unpredictable factors could have material adverse effects on future results, performance or achievements of the Company. Among the key factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements are the following: the potential impact of the announcement of the completion of the Transaction on relationships, including with regulatory bodies, employees, customers and competitors; changes in general economic, business and political conditions, including changes in the financial markets; changes in applicable laws and regulations both locally and in foreign jurisdictions; compliance with extensive government regulation and the costs associated with compliance; unanticipated costs; changes in market conditions impacting the average revenue per MWh, and the risks and uncertainties associated with foreign markets. Additionally, the forward-looking statements contained herein may be affected by risks and uncertainties in the business of Cathedra and general market conditions. Please see the Company's management information circular dated June 18, 2024 which is available for view the Company's SEDAR+ profile on www.sedarplus.ca. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as intended, planned, anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Although the Company has attempted to identify important risks, uncertainties and factors which could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be others that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended and such changes could be material. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. 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. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/224806 SOURCE: Cathedra Bitcoin Inc. Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - Bloom Burton & Co. ("Bloom Burton") is pleased to announce Roberto Bellini, former President and Chief Executive Officer of BELLUS Health, as the recipient of the 2024 Bloom Burton Award. 2024 Bloom Burton Award Winner Roberto Bellini, former President and Chief Executive Officer of BELLUS Health To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6420/224811_7a68c2b6c45d5bab_001full.jpg "Roberto Bellini is being honoured for his extraordinary leadership at BELLUS Health. He led the advancement of camlipixant into a global phase 3 program and, later, the acquisition of BELLUS Health by GlaxoSmithKline for US$2 billion," said Jolyon Burton, President and Head of Investment Banking of Bloom Burton. "Despite a Phase 2 study setback for camlipixant in 2020, Roberto and his team persisted, attracted the capital to design and execute a second and ultimately successful Phase 2b trial that confirmed camlipixant as a potential best-in-class treatment option for refractory chronic cough." Mr. Burton continued, "Our Bloom Burton Award finalists continue to take the Canadian healthcare industry to new heights with their dazzling accomplishments each year. We are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to showcase and celebrate each of their stories, with key colleagues and participants from the sector, to inspire even greater achievements in the future!" Bestowed annually, the Bloom Burton Award honours an individual scientist, inventor, executive, entrepreneur, industry leader, or policy maker who made the greatest contribution to Canada's innovative healthcare industry in the previous year. Nominees were accepted from any of the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostic/imaging, research instrumentation, consumer health, services or healthcare IT sectors, and equal consideration was given to contributions across any stage of development - from discovery to commercial-end markets. The Bloom Burton Award finalists and winner were chosen by an esteemed panel of judges, all of whom are respected international leaders in healthcare investment, entrepreneurship and journalism: Michael Altman, Managing Director, Perceptive Advisors Christopher Arendt, Chief Scientific Officer, Head of Research, Takeda Karen Bernstein, Co-Founder and Chairman, BioCentury Joan Eliasek, President, McKesson Canada Carl Gordon, Managing Partner, OrbiMed Advisors Dennis Purcell, Founder and Senior Advisor, Aisling Capital Melinda Richter, Global Head, Johnson & Johnson Innovation - JLABS Camille Samuels, Partner, Venrock All finalists - Roberto Bellini, Tom Frohlich, formerly of Chinook Therapeutics, and Francois Ravenelle, formerly of Inversago Pharma - were celebrated at the 2024 Bloom Burton Award Gala at The Ritz-Carlton, Toronto on September 26, 2024. Each finalist also received a $25,000 cash prize. About Bloom Burton & Co. Bloom Burton & Co. is a firm dedicated to accelerating returns in the healthcare sector for both investors and companies. Bloom Burton has an experienced team of medical, scientific, industry and capital markets professionals who perform a deep level of diligence, which combined with our creative and entrepreneurial approach, assists our clients in achieving the right monetization events. Bloom Burton and its affiliates provide capital raising, M&A advisory, equity research, strategic advisory, as well as company creation and incubation services. Bloom Burton Securities Inc. is a member of the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) and is also a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF). To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/224811 SOURCE: Bloom Burton & Co. Inc. TAIPEI, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The 2024 Tang Prize Award Ceremony was celebrated this afternoon at the Globe Playhouse of the Taipei Performing Arts Center, bringing together the 2024 Tang Prize Laureates from countries including the United States, Denmark, and Ireland, both in person and virtually. The ceremony, a testament to the power of innovation and collaboration in addressing global challenges, was live-streamed globally. The six recipients of the 2024 Tang Prize include Omar M. Yaghi for Sustainable Development; Joel F. Habener, Svetlana Mojsov, and Jens Juul Holst for Biopharmaceutical Science; Hsu Cho-yun for Sinology; and Mary Robinson for Rule of Law. Dr. Jenn-Chuan Chern, CEO of the Tang Prize Foundation, commenced by extending a warm welcome and marking the 12th anniversary of the foundation's establishment. In June, the 2024 Tang Prize Laureates were announced, bringing the total number of laureates honored over six ceremonies to 39 (including 3 NGOs). Dr. Shu Chien, President of the Tang Prize Selection Committee, stated that the Tang Prize, established in 2012, has become a globally recognized and prestigious international award. Each category is evaluated by a dedicated committee composed of renowned experts, ensuring an objective, fair, and professional selection process regardless of race, gender, or nationality. "As I stand here today accepting this award," said Sustainable Development Laureate Omar M. Yaghi, who was born into a refugee family, "I do so not just for myself, but for everyone who has ever felt that their beginnings were too humble to make a difference. My journey is proof that remarkable things can emerge from the most unremarkable starts." Yaghi expressed immense gratitude to the founder, Dr. Samuel Yin. He was deeply moved and inspired by Dr. Yin's vision of establishing the Tang Prize to make the world a better place. Growing up in an impoverished environment, Yaghi keenly felt that waiting for ideal conditions often meant stagnation, and that the most remarkable achievements usually stemmed from the humblest beginnings. Biopharmaceutical Science Laureates Joel Habener and Jens Juul Holst expressed immense satisfaction in seeing their decades-long dedication to GLP-1 research acknowledged and its positive impact on alleviating the suffering of individuals with type 2 diabetes and obesity worldwide. Svetlana Mojsov expressed her gratitude for receiving the Tang Prize, specifically for her contributions to the discovery of GLP-1. Her research at Rockefeller University, under Bruce Merrifield, led to the groundbreaking identification of the bioactive GLP-1 (7-37) peptide, which showed promise in combating type 2 diabetes through her collaboration with Habener. Mojsov shared her four-decade-long scientific journey, which commenced at the Endocrine Unit of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where she began researching the role of peptides in regulating glucose metabolism and developing related therapies. Holst also shared his 50-year journey, transitioning from a gastroenterological surgeon with an interest in incretins to a leading researcher in GLP-1. His work culminated in key milestones that brought GLP-1 research to Copenhagen and ultimately led to the development of GLP-1 therapies that have now benefited millions in the treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Sinology Laureate Hsu Cho-yun expresses his gratitude to the Tang Prize Foundation, emphasizing the distinct mission of the Sinology award compared to the other three categories. While the other awards focus on solving contemporary global issues, Hsu believes the Sinology award seeks to identify the position of Chinese civilization within the broader tapestry of world history - past, present, and future. This resonates deeply with his own lifelong pursuit: dedicating his early career to studying Chinese history and his later years to extracting wisdom from Chinese culture to address global challenges. While humbled by this prestigious honor, he embraces the responsibility it entails. Rule of Law Laureate Mary Robinson expressed her profound honor and gratitude to be recognized by the Tang Prize Foundation and the Selection Committee in the name of the rule of law. She acknowledged the remarkable contributions of previous laureates who have championed human rights and the rule of law globally, emphasizing the ongoing tasks and shared responsibility to uphold these principles, a theme she intends to explore further in her Laureate's Lecture. Robinson is acutely aware that despite its crucial importance, the rule of law has faced increasing challenges and threats in recent decades. Robinson recognizes the concerted efforts of authoritarian and nationalist leaders to erode the foundations of legal and ethical norms, making the defense of the rule of law an increasingly complex endeavor. Yet, she remains steadfast in her commitment and champions human rights and the rule of law. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517552/2024_Tang_Prize_Award_Ceremony.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/prestigious-tang-prize-awards-ceremony-graces-taipei-302260981.html Agreement signed with the Ministry of Digital Transformation, Trinidad and Tobago Marks an important step in expanding India's digital public goods initiative globally MUMBAI, India, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) has entered into a strategic partnership with the Ministry of Digital Transformation (MDT) of Trinidad and Tobago, to develop a real-time payments platform similar to India's 'Unified Payments Interface' (UPI). This collaboration marks a significant milestone, making Trinidad and Tobago the first Caribbean nation to adopt the globally renowned UPI. This builds on the strong, longstanding bilateral ties between the two countries. This strategic partnership aims to empower Trinidad and Tobago to establish a reliable and efficient real-time payments platform for both person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions, expanding digital payments in the country and fostering financial inclusion. By leveraging technology and experiences from India's UPI, the partnership seeks to assist Trinidad and Tobago in modernising its financial ecosystem. This involves enhancing accessibility, affordability, connectivity with domestic and international payment networks in the times to come and ensuring interoperability. UPI has emerged as a transformative force in India's financial landscape, registering nearly 15 billion transactions in August 2024, with an estimated value of USD 245 billion. Through strategic collaborations with foreign central banks and governments, NIPL is committed to advancing India's digital public goods across the globe. Speaking on the development, Mr. Ritesh Shukla, CEO, NPCI International, said, "Trinidad and Tobago is taking significant steps towards advancing its financial infrastructure, and we are proud to support them in building a secure, sovereign, and scalable payments platform. Our experience with UPI in India has demonstrated how real-time payments can transform economies, by improving access to essential financial services and reducing reliance on cash. We look forward to working closely with the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the Central Bank in Trinidad and Tobago." Spokesperson of Ministry of Digital Transformation, Trinidad and Tobago, said, "It is with great anticipation that the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the Ministry of Finance embark on this significant engagement with NIPL to implement a digital payment system for Trinidad and Tobago. Fashioned on India's UPI, the digital payment platform will facilitate innovation in the Fintech sector, enhance the technical resiliency of the current payment infrastructure by providing a complementary, non-competing digital payments platform with increased security through the reduced use of cash. Moreover, successful implementation will contribute to the financial inclusion of our unbanked citizens. We extend sincere thanks to the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, which continues to be a strategic partner and stakeholder in this important initiative. We look forward to the partnership with NPCI International, as we actively seek to transform the existing payments landscape and establish a modern digital payments ecosystem." For more details about NPCI International, click here. For queries: corporate.communications@npci.org.in Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517483/NIPL_MDT_agreement_signing.jpg Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2243005/4331629/NPCI_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/npci-international-to-develop-upi-like-real-time-payments-platform-in-trinidad-and-tobago-302260996.html Chinese, Nepali militaries conduct joint army training in SW China's Chongqing Xinhua) 10:02, September 27, 2024 BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese defense spokesperson on Thursday elaborated on the subjects and activities of an ongoing army training jointly conducted by Chinese and Nepali militaries in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. During a media inquiry, Zhang Xiaogang, a spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense, said this year's joint training focuses on counter-terrorism missions in urban blocks and covers subjects such as multi-dimensional searching, targeted blocking, stealth approaching and armed rescuing. Sports competitions, cultural performances and cultural exchange activities have also been organized for the joint training, which is the fourth iteration of its kind, Zhang noted. China will work with Nepal to deepen military mutual trust and exchanges, strengthen practical cooperation, and build a closer China-Nepal community of shared future in the new era, Zhang said. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) DUBAI, UAE, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Bybit, the world's second-largest crypto exchange by trading volume, is excited to invite users in Argentina to unlock early-bird access to the physical Bybit Card. As part of its ongoing efforts to reach more retail consumers and investors, Bybit reaffirms its commitment to becoming the go-to crypto destination in South America's second-largest economy by GDP. Building on the resounding success of its virtual card launch in July, the issuer is seeking to benefit more users with the introduction of the physical, Bybit-branded Mastercard debit card. Eligible applicants will be among the first to get hold of the card before it becomes available to the general public in Argentina. During the pre-registration period, the physical card will be issued free of charge for a limited time only. The new offer echoes the success of the virtual card, with over 75% of Bybit's Argentinian users rushing to apply within the first two months. Users who have yet to sign up may apply for the virtual Bybit Card for a chance to enjoy 30,000 ARS in cashbacks for the first 100 USDT deposit. "While consumers are no longer tied to traditional brick-and-mortar banks, we recognize many users' preference for a physical card for the additional peace of mind. We are doing our best to meet the popular demands of our Argentinian community by offering better, faster, and more secure everyday solutions to help them off-ramp crypto assets, one step at a time," said Joan Han, Sales and Marketing Director of Bybit. The Bybit Card is available in select markets and has quickly become a preferred solution for users looking to safely expend their digital assets, including BTC, ETH, USDT, TON, and other tokens. It provides reliable and instant access to crypto, eliminating the hassle of complex on- and off-ramp processes. With just a swipe, Bybit Card holders can make payments and purchases at over 90 million merchants worldwide through the Mastercard network. The Bybit Card also comes loaded with benefits, regular and special rewards, with no annual fees or hidden charges. Apply now to get ahead of the curve. Terms and conditions apply. Bybit / TheCryptoArk About Bybit Bybit is the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, serving over 50 million users. Established in 2018, Bybit provides a professional platform where crypto investors and traders can find an ultra-fast matching engine, 24/7 customer service, and multilingual community support. Bybit is a proud partner of Formula One's reigning Constructors' and Drivers' champions: the Oracle Red Bull Racing team. For more details about Bybit, please visit Bybit Press For media inquiries, please contact: media@bybit.com For more information, please visit: https://www.bybit.com For updates, please follow: Bybit's Communities and Social Media Discord | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Reddit | Telegram | TikTok | X | Youtube Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517489/Pre_registration_Open_Physical_Bybit_Card_Argentina.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2267288/Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/pre-registration-open-for-physical-bybit-card-in-argentina-302261004.html Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - Lorne Park Capital Partners Inc. (TSXV: LPC) ("Lorne Park" or the "Company") is pleased to announce it has ranked No. 408 on the 2024 Report on Business magazine's ranking of Canada's Top Growing Companies. Canada's Top Growing Companies ranks Canadian companies on three-year revenue growth. Lorne Park earned its spot with a three-year growth of 57%. The Company, through its wholly-owned subsidiaries, Bellwether Investment Management Inc. and Bellwether Investment Management USA, LLC (collectively "Bellwether"), has methodically executed its growth strategy for the last decade, developing a track record of successfully integrating and growing wealth management businesses. By partnering with like-minded portfolio managers and family wealth advisors, Bellwether has built a robust offering that provides clients with a range of cost-effective public and private market investment solutions across its North American Wealth Management platform. Bellwether continues to build an extensive network of advisors that serve the needs of affluent families in many major centers across Canada and the United States. Over the previous two years, the Company completed the acquisition of Promus Asset Management, LLC and Fulcrum Equity Management, LLC. Both Fulcrum and Promus are Texas limited liability companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as investment advisors. These acquisitions have provided the Company with a footprint to expand its service offerings into the USA. "We have built a business that combines the best of both the discretionary investment management and wealth advisory worlds. Our partners benefit from the scale of a national platform allowing them to better serve their clients domestic and cross-border needs by focusing on what they do best, providing unbiased financial planning. Our clients benefit by being served by a team of experts in financial planning and investment management and due to our size, have access to leading investment solutions provided at a reasonable cost." - Robert Sewell, President and CEO Canada's Top Growing Companies is an editorial ranking that was launched in 2019 to celebrate the achievements of innovative businesses in Canada. To qualify for this voluntary program, companies had to complete an in-depth application process and fulfill revenue requirements. In total, 416 companies earned a spot on this year's ranking. The full list of 2024 winners along with editorial coverage is published in the October issue of Report on Business magazine. "Our annual ranking of Canada's Top Growing Companies reflects the sector-spanning ingenuity of this country's entrepreneurs and corporate leaders," says Dawn Calleja, Editor of Report on Business magazine. "And we think it's important to tell their stories, to help inspire the next generation of up-and-comers across the country." "The Globe and Mail congratulates this year's Canada's Top Growing Companies' winners for achieving exceptional growth and resilience in facing business challenges," says Andrew Saunders, CEO of The Globe and Mail. "It is a testament to dedication, strategic vision, and innovative drive." About The Globe and Mail The Globe and Mail is Canada's foremost news media company, leading the national discussion and causing policy change through brave and independent journalism since 1844. With our award-winning coverage of business, politics and national affairs, The Globe and Mail newspaper reaches 6.2 million readers every week in our print or digital formats, and Report on Business magazine reaches 2.9 million readers in print and digital every issue. Our investment in innovative data science means that as the world continues to change, so does The Globe. The Globe and Mail is owned by Woodbridge, the investment arm of the Thomson family. About Lorne Park Capital Partners Inc. Lorne Park was created to bring together boutique investment management and wealth advisory firms in order to deliver robust, cost-effective investment solutions to affluent investors, foundations, estates and trusts. Lorne Park's unique strategy creates better alignment between investment managers and wealth advisors while providing them with additional resources to accelerate their growth. About Bellwether Investment Management Inc. and Bellwether Investment Management USA, LLC Bellwether is a boutique investment manager that offers tailored investment solutions for affluent investors, foundations, estates and trusts utilizing its proprietary "Disciplined Dividend Growth" Investment Process. Bellwether provides discretionary investment management focused on global dividend growth investing and is dedicated to serving the distinct needs of affluent families. Bellwether's suite of investment solutions includes global equity and fixed income strategies as well as alternative strategies focused on private credit and global real estate and infrastructure. Bellwether Investment Management Inc. is registered as a portfolio manager in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan, an exempt market dealer in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, and an investment fund manager in Ontario and Quebec. Cautionary Notes Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release contains statements which constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information may be identified by such terms as "believes", "anticipates", "expects", "estimates", "may", "could", "would", "will", "plan", and other similar expressions. Forward-looking information in this news release includes, without limitation, Lorne Park's objectives, goals and future plans. Forward-looking information addresses possible future events, conditions and financial performance based upon management's current expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions. In particular, the forward-looking information contained in this news release reflects assumptions about the timing and results of the amalgamation and regulatory approvals. Management of Lorne Park considers the assumptions on which the forward-looking information contained herein are based to be reasonable. However, by its very nature, forward-looking information inherently involves known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such information. Such risks include, without limitation, changes in economic conditions, applicable laws or regulations. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Lorne Park disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/223758 SOURCE: Lorne Park Capital Partners Inc. EQS-News: United Terra Enterprises PLC / Key word(s): AGM/EGM/Capital Increase United Terra Enterprises PLC Announces Results of Extraordinary Shareholders' Meeting of Eurybia AG 27.09.2024 / 13:40 CET/CEST The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. United Terra Enterprises PLC Announces Results of Extraordinary Shareholders' Meeting of Eurybia AG Shareholders of Eurybia AG approve all motions of the Board of Directors at the EGM held on August 21, 2024 Schaan, Liechtenstein, September 27, 2024 - United Terra Enterprises PLC is pleased to announce that Eurybia AG, an energy company with a strong focus on the Mediterranean, held an extraordinary shareholders' meeting on August 21, 2024 in Zug, Switzerland. During the meeting the shareholders approved the election of a&o kreston audit ag as the company's auditors for the financial year 2023, the resolution of a capital increase and a general update to the company's Articles of Association to bring them in line with the latest provisions of Swiss company law. An update of recent events was also provided to all shareholders in attendance at the meeting. The resolutions from the meeting are reflected in the updated corporate extract of Eurybia and can be found on the Group's website at https://unitedterra.enterprises/investor-relations/ . Chief Executive Officer, Peter Krempin commented: "We were happy to see so many shareholders turn out to demonstrate their support and their interest in the success of the Company. We are nearing the completion of the reorganization of the Group and are positioning it for a successful future in the renewables and conventional energy sectors." If you are an Eurybia shareholder and would like additional information, contact Peter Krempin either via email info@unitedterra.enterprises or by telephone at +41 71 544 01 20. About United Terra Enterprises PLC United Terra Enterprises is an international energy company engaged in the upstream oil and gas sector and the energy transition to renewable energy. The company is focused on establishing a responsible balance between conventional energy sources and the protection of the environment. https://unitedterra.enterprises Disclaimer This press release contains forward-looking statements based on the currently held beliefs and assumptions of the management, which are expressed in good faith and, in their opinion, reasonable. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the actual results, financial condition, performance, or achievements, or industry results, to differ materially from the results, financial condition, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Given these risks, uncertainties and other factors, recipients of this document are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. The company disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or developments. This press release does not constitute or form part of any advertising, offer, recommendation or invitation to sell or issue, or any solicitation of any offer to purchase or subscribe for, any securities in any jurisdiction, nor shall part, or all, of this press release or its distribution form the basis of, or be relied on in connection with, any contract or investment decision in relation to any securities. This press release is not a prospectus. 27.09.2024 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 Belfast's iconic Thompson Dry Dock, known as the 'birthplace of Titanic', came alive with light and sound this September during an immersive production highlighting the city's maritime heritage. For the first time ever, the slipway hosted the 'Shadowdock' event as part of Belfast 2024, a year-long celebration focused on the themes of People, Place Planet. Hundreds of attendees embarked on an audio-visual journey, exploring the history, and the future, of Belfast in this inaugural cultural activation at the dock. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240924410344/en/ Shadowdock in Thompson Dry Dock, Belfast, as part of Belfast 2024. Pic Studio Kin Constructed between 1903 and 1905, the Thompson Dry Dock in Belfast, Northern Ireland, played a pivotal role in the early 20th-century shipbuilding industry. As part of the expansion of Belfast's Harland Wolff Shipyard-one of the world's foremost shipyards at the time-the dock was designed to accommodate massive transatlantic liners, including the RMS Titanic and her sister ship, the RMS Olympic. Upon completion, it was the largest and most advanced dock of its kind. The Titanic was famously placed in the dry dock for fitting out and final touches before its ill-fated maiden voyage in 1912, earning the dock the title 'birthplace of the Titanic.' Though no longer in use for shipbuilding after the 1960s, the dock has endured as a symbol of Belfast's rich industrial heritage. It has since become a key feature of the redeveloped Titanic Quarter, which celebrates the city's maritime legacy. The nearby Titanic Belfast museum further commemorates the shipyard and the Titanic's story, and the dock now serves as a popular tourist attraction as part of the Maritime Mile. The Thompson Dry Dock remains a monument to Belfast's shipbuilding era and the craftsmanship that made Harland Wolff a global leader in the industry. Created by designer Henry Sykes and Three's Theatre Company, the mesmerizing light show was produced by Conal Clapper and Alan Mooney. The show's enchanting soundscape, composed by award-winning composer Katie Richardson, added to the sensory experience. "It's about looking at things from a different perspective and that is why we have two ways to view the show, Above and Below Deck," said Creative Director Harry Sykes. "You can view from the top of the dock, down at the lights and hear the enchanting soundscape with narration on speakers, or you can dive deeper into the story with headphones by descending 40 feet below sea level into the dock itself, and walking through the lights, creating shadows, in a fully immersive experience." Gary Lightbody from The Lightbody Foundation added: "Shadowdock not only tells the story of the forgotten heritage of the amazing city of Belfast, but also asks questions about where it goes from here. We're proud to help give a platform to the local talent behind this experience and who doesn't love an outdoor show with a difference, and a stunning backdrop." Belfast 2024, created through collaboration with the city's residents, workers, artists, and cultural organisations, offers a year-long program of cultural celebrations. The initiative is designed to build the city's creative capacity and deepen its understanding of identity, relationships, and its place in the world. Shadowdock was commissioned by Belfast 2024 through Belfast City Council, with support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, The Lightbody Foundation, and Maritime Belfast Trust. Additional partners included Titanic Distillery, Catalyst, and Maritime Belfast Trust. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240924410344/en/ Contacts: jsharif@tourismireland.com NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Over the past five years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has continued to transform industries, revolutionizing business operations via process automation, enhancement of user experiences, and relying on data to make crucial business decisions in real-time. The true power of AI grows and expands across diverse domains, enabling enterprises to optimize their operations, eliminate bottlenecks, and craft customized products and services. From state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms to reflexive chatbots, AI is propelling the next generation of tech solutions that are smart, fast, and swift. In 2024, the AI landscape in the USA is roaring towards becoming the ultimate cornerstone of innovation, with every other firm investing in custom AI-driven solutions to stay relevant. AI-driven tools such as natural language processing, predictive analytics, and robotic process automation are dominating some major industries like finance, healthcare, and e-commerce. USA, being at the forefront of global AI innovation, has proudly recognized Hyperlink InfoSystem as one of the top AI development companies in USA for 2024. Specializing in custom AI solutions, the company has become a trusted and reliable partner for businesses looking to employ AI technology to elevate their business benchmarks. Founded in 2011, Hyperlink InfoSystem is a leading technology solutions provider with over 2700 satisfied clients, a portfolio of 4500+ apps, 2300+ websites, 120+ AI & IoT solutions, 140+ games, 120+ Salesforce solutions, 25+ blockchain solutions, 60+ data science projects, and a team of 1200+ dedicated developers. This recognition as a leading AI development company in the USA demonstrates its dedication to yielding the best-in-class AI solutions, along with its acknowledgment of the deep knowledge it holds of the US tech market. Harnil Oza, CEO of Hyperlink InfoSystem, says, "We couldn't be more overjoyed to be recognized as a top AI-driven software development company. AI holds an incredible amount of power to drive exponential growth, and our goal is to unlock its potential for our clients and deliver them solutions that aren't just modern but impactful." He further highlighted, "The USA is a global hub when it comes to AI innovation, and we're proud to contribute to this dynamic landscape by providing custom AI solutions, and we at Hyperlink InfoSystem believe in using AI to make business smarter and more efficient." As the adoption of AI grows in the United States, Hyperlink InfoSystem will strive to remain at the forefront of this innovation and assist their clients in realizing the complete potential of this technology. Their custom AI solutions for organizations include building intelligent systems, automating operations, and analyzing data for insights while ultimately enhancing user experiences. Hyperlink InfoSystem's team of AI experts holds in-depth expertise and knowledge in delivering tailored solutions that integrate seamlessly with the business's previous systems while driving growth, creativity, and efficiency. To inquire more about digital transformation with AI, call +1(309) 791-4105 or email info@hyperlinkinfosystem.com. About Hyperlink InfoSystem Hyperlink InfoSystem is a prominent international enterprise excelling in IT solutions in many domains. Since its humble beginnings in 2011, its specialization in technologies has expanded across web development, mobile app development, enterprise software solutions, and now Artificial Intelligence (AI). With over 1200+ employees and a global presence in the USA, UK, UAE, France, India, and Canada, Hyperlink InfoSystem is dedicated to assisting corporations to leverage the complete power of technology to accomplish their goals. Contact Details: Hyperlink InfoSystem Harnil Oza +1-309-791-4105 info@hyperlinkinfosystem.com New York Address: One World Trade Center 285 Fulton Street suite 8500, New York, NY 10007, United States Ahmedabad Address: C-308, Ganesh Meridian, Opp Kargil Petrol Pump, S.G. Highway, Sola, Ahmedabad, 380061 India London Address: Level 30, The Leadenhall Building, 122 Leadenhall Street, London EC3V 4AB Canada Address: 151 Yonge Street, 11th Floor, Toronto, Ontario, M5C 2W7, Canada Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2429933/4743119/Hyperlink_InfoSystem_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/hyperlink-infosystem-takes-the-spotlight-as-a-top-ai-development-company-in-usa-2024-302260954.html VANCOUVER, BC, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Wondershare, a global leader in software innovation, is excited to announce its participation at GITEX GLOBAL 2024 in Dubai, the world's largest tech and startup super-connector event. From October 14-18, visitors to H26-A20 at the Dubai World Trade Centre will be able to experience the latest solutions designed to enhance productivity and improve workflow efficiency for enterprises. Under the theme "Innovate Smarter for the Next-Gen Office", Wondershare will unveil an array of its upgraded flagship creative and productivity suite, featuring Wondershare EdrawMax, Wondershare EdrawMind, Wondershare PDFelement, Wondershare Filmora, and Wondershare Virbo. In addition, Wondershare will introduce its brand-new industry solutions to improve communication efficiency and increase content productivity. Visitors to Wondershare's booth will have the chance to experience the power of the company's latest tools through live demos, hands-on trials, and exclusive previews. Attendees will also be able to meet Wondershare experts and gain insights on how these innovations will revolutionize workflow efficiency, communication, and collaboration. As the world's most established and iconic large-scale tech exhibition, GITEX has been at the forefront of technological innovation for over four decades, serving as the premier gateway for tech creators, investors, and enthusiasts to collaborate. This year's event offers an unprecedented 44+ halls of exhibition space, showcasing tech giants and innovative startups in fields like AI, Cybersecurity, Mobility, Sustainable Tech, and more. "We are thrilled to join GITEX 2024, a pivotal event that provides a unique platform to highlight our industry solutions that cater not only to the growing needs of creators but also to businesses in sectors such as energy, fintech, medical, legal, manufacturing, semiconductor, and beyond." Said Rocky Tang, General Manager of Enterprise Development Business Unit. "We look forward to engaging with industry leaders, exploring new partnerships, and showcasing our innovations that empower users to create, collaborate, and bring their creative visions to life." About Wondershare As a renowned global leader in creativity and productivity solutions, Wondershare is dedicated to making cutting-edge technology accessible to everyone, fostering increased efficiency and creativity. Our commitment to excellence has been recognized through prestigious accolades from organizations like The Shorty Awards, G2, and GetApp. With a user base spanning over 100 million individuals across over 200 countries and regions, we offer diverse software solutions encompassing video editing, PDF manipulation, data recovery, diagram creation, graphic design, and more. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517425/image.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1274391/wondershare_LOGO.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/wondershare-to-showcase-enterprise-solution-excellence-at-gitex-global-2024-302261033.html Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - Nevada Organic Phosphate Inc. (CSE: NOP) ("NOP" or the "Company), a B.C. based company engaged in the exploration, in Nevada, for organic, sedimentary raw rock phosphate, is pleased to announce that, further to its news releases dated March 18, 2024; June 6, 2024; July 23, 2024; and August 20, 2024, it has closed the fifth tranche of its previously announced non-brokered private placement (the "Offering") for gross aggregate proceeds of $45,000 (the "Fifth Tranche") through the issuance of 900,000 units of the Company (each, a "Unit") at a price of $0.05 per Unit. Each Unit consists of one common share in the capital of the Company (each, a "Share") and one Share purchase warrant (each, a "Warrant"), with each Warrant entitling the holder thereof to purchase one additional Share (each, a "Warrant Share") at a price of $0.10 per Warrant Share for a period of sixty months following the date of issuance. The aggregate proceeds of the Fifth Tranche are anticipated to be used for advancement of the Company's Murdock Property and for general working capital. No fees were paid in connection with closing of the Fifth Tranche. All securities issued in connection with the Fourth Tranche are subject to a statutory hold period expiring four months and one day after the date of issuance, as set out in National Instrument 45-102 - Resale of Securities. The Offering remains subject to regulatory approval and the approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE"). None of the securities sold in connection with the Fifth Tranche have been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and no such securities may be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. 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 the United States or any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. Nevada Organic Phosphate Inc. NOP is a junior exploration company with a sedimentary rock phosphate property (the "Murdock Property") hosting a nearly flat lying sedimentary bed of known phosphate mineralization in NE Nevada. The increasing interest in organic and sustainable agriculture practices has contributed to the demand for organic fertilizers, including those derived from rock phosphate. Organic rock phosphate is often marketed as a fertilizer that not only provides phosphorus but also contributes to overall soil health. The Issuer aims to be one of the only certified organic rock phosphate producers with large scale potential in North America. The Murdock Property is situated adjacent to a main highway and the rail head to California. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its regulations services providers have reviewed or accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements and information ("FLSI") within the meaning of applicable securities laws. FLSI may include expectations, anticipations, beliefs, opinions, plans, intentions, estimates, forecasts, projections, guidance or other similar statements and information that are not historical facts. All statements which are not historical statements are considered FLSI. Forward- looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the proposed Offering and the anticipated use of proceeds of the Offering. All FLSI is based on assumptions, which may prove inaccurate, and subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those risks and uncertainties identified in the Company's public securities filings, which may cause actual events or results to differ materially from those indicated or implied in FLSI. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance or value on FLSI. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in any FLSI in this news release are reasonable at the present time, it can give no assurance that such FLSI will prove to be correct. Any FLSI in this news release is made as of the date hereof and the Company undertakes no obligations to publicly update or revise any FLSI, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless required by applicable securities laws. Any FLSI in this news release is expressly qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement. Not for distribution to U.S. news wire services or dissemination in the United States. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/224794 SOURCE: Nevada Organic Phosphate Inc. PITTSBURGH, PA / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / On September 25, 2024, Liberated Syndication Inc. ("Libsyn" or the "Company"), the leading podcasting platform for creators and advertisers, held its annual meeting of shareholders (the "Meeting"). All of the matters put forward before the Company's shareholders for consideration and approval, as set out in the Company's definitive proxy statement dated September 10, 2024 ("Proxy Statement"), were approved by the shareholders at the meeting. Each of the directors listed as a nominee in the Proxy Statement was elected at the Meeting to serve as a director of the Company until the Company's next annual shareholder meeting or until his or her successor is duly elected or appointed. Patrick Dolan, Chair of the Board of Directors noted, "As we celebrate 20 years in podcasting, I'm pleased to welcome Lauren as our newest board member as we embark on our next phase of value creation. Our investments in platform innovations enable us to deliver industry-leading tools and insights and scale our advertising business. Lauren's track record of success and expertise will help us unlock new opportunities across the podcasting landscape, positioning us for sustained growth." The Company believes it will benefit from Lauren Jarvis's extensive experience as an investor and advisor to growth companies at the intersection of technology and media. Over the past decade, she has held leadership roles in corporate and business development at both private and public companies. As a former executive at Spotify, Lauren spearheaded the company's early podcast strategy and investments. Her career also includes key roles at Vevo, where she led product-driven business development, and her involvement as a venture scout for Kleiner Perkins, focusing on seed-stage investments across consumer and SaaS. Lauren holds an MBA from London Business School and a BA from Brandeis University, where she graduated cum laude. Ms. Jarvis commented, "Libsyn has executed a successful platform strategy for more than two decades. I'm excited to join this esteemed board as Libsyn embarks on its next evolution. Together, we will enhance our offerings for podcasters of all levels-from independents to established creators-and expand our advertising marketplace, delivering advanced capabilities to a wider range of advertisers." A total of 26,118,832 shares, or approximately 80% of total shares outstanding, were voted at the meeting. Of the shares voted, more than 74% were voted in favor of approving each director nominee. About Liberated Syndication Celebrating our 20th year in podcasting, Liberated Syndication Inc. ("Libsyn") is the leading podcasting platform for creators and advertisers to host, distribute, monetize, amplify, and measure their audio and video content. The Company hosts more than 75,000 shows and delivers over 8 billion downloads to listeners globally. Libsyn Ads offers industry-leading podcast advertising solutions, serving as a comprehensive ad buying and management offering for creators, advertisers, and agencies to initiate and manage highly targeted campaigns across thousands of shows. Visit libsyn.com or investor.libsyn.com for more information on the Company and the platforms that it powers. #? #? # Media Contacts: Ray Yeung + Nancy Zakhary | ray@relev8.co + nancy@relev8.co Investor Contact: investor@libsyn.com SOURCE: Liberated Syndication Inc. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - West Oak Gold Corp. (CSE: WO) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a property option agreement with Cronin Exploration Inc. (the "Optionor") dated September 26, 2024 (the "Agreement"), pursuant to which the Company has acquired an option (the "Option") to purchase an undivided 100% right, title and interest in the Ptarmigan Silica Project located approximately 130km from Valemount, British Columbia (the "Property"). The 2280.3 Ha property has room to expand along strike and is a part of the Yanks Peak Formation, consisting of repeating 20-30m ridges with little to no overburden. There are nearly no contaminant minerals and silica grades ranging from 97% to 98% SiO2 have been recorded from historical work completed in 2010. The Company's technical team is optimistic that the historical work and recent field visits to the Property show potential for a sizable amount of silica rich material to be present. Deal Terms In order to exercise the Option, within five days of execution of the Agreement the Company must: (i) pay to the Optionor a total of $15,000 cash; and (ii) issue to the Optionor a total of 1,300,000 common shares in the capital of the Company. The Company has granted the Optionor a 2.0% net smelter returns royalty (the "NSR Royalty") with respect the Property. The Company has the right to purchase from the Optionor 50% of the NSR Royalty (being 1.0%) for $1,000,000 within 30 days of commercial production. Morgan Good, Chief Executive Officer of West Oak, commented: "The Company has taken several months to carefully identify high-quality projects with equally sophisticated and experienced partners. Cronin Exploration and its principles are precisely what our team had envisioned as their depth of expertise spans many years of resource sector success. As well, Cronin has been actively pursuing exciting strategic critical metals that we believe are at the forefront of the market, both in terms of a macro picture and representative of opportunities to provide shareholders with exposure to something unique and timely. West Oak believes the Ptarmigan Project's addition to its portfolio will position the Company beautifully as the mining sector, including critical metals, begins to see more attention and positive investor sentiment. Lastly, our team has plans for the initial work program in place and will further update the market with details in short order." About the Ptarmigan Silica Project The Ptarmigan Silica project is located within the Rocky Mountain Trench, on the western flank of the Rocky Mountains, and is proximal to the Fraser River valley. The project lies approximately 120 km ESE of Prince George, BC., and is transected by the Yellowhead Highway. The project comprises two claims for a total area of 2280 hectares. The area is underlain predominantly by metasedimentary rocks of the Proterozoic to Lower Cambrian age Cariboo Group. Within the Cariboo Group, the Yanks Peak formation is mainly quartzite, and is the target horizon for this project. A Phase 1 exploration program is planned, with detailed mapping and channel sampling, an airborne magnetometer survey and preliminary metallurgical testing. A budget of $77,000 has been proposed which is anticipated to lead to a Phase 2 drill program for further delineation of potential silica resources. Highlights: Recent due diligence sampling (three samples) returned values of 98.68, 98.44 and 99.52% %SiO2 with very low Fe2O3 values (0.25 to 0.42%). The target Yanks Peak quartzite outcrops in a series of distinctive parallel ridges with 20-30 metres of relief. Multiple parallel ridges with a total known strike in excess of 12km. The Company engaged Chris M. Healey, P. Geo of Healex Consulting, Ltd. to prepare a NI 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects technical report on the Ptarmigan Silica Project dated September26, 2024 (the "Technical Report"). The Technical Report is available under the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. Previous work on the property is limited to a Department of Highways quarry and an exploration program carried out in 2010. The Ptarmigan Group carried out a mapping and sampling program on the project area in 2010 (BC Assessment File 32528, Childs et al 2011). Twenty three samples were collected and subjected to whole rock analysis. The average value returned was 95.34% SiO2. However, for the seventeen samples described as "quartzite" the average was 97.69% SiO2. Some had slightly elevated iron content and this was interpreted to be due to the presence of pyrite and other iron-rich phases. Samples collected within current project area UTM Zone 10 Sample # East North %SiO2 comments 1 634828 5948830 98.12 quartzite 2 635261 5948609 97.97 quartzite 3 635558 5948495 98.28 quartzite 4 635413 5948452 98.28 quartzite 5 635875 5949308 98.68 quartzite 6 636860 5947694 97.74 quartzite 7 636693 5947804 98.05 quartzite 8 635800 5948241 98.18 quartzite 9 643653 5943195 97.85 quartzite 10 632947 5949887 98.80 quartzite 11 633037 5949854 97.91 quartzite 12 637812 5947822 98.54 quartzite 13 637517 5948092 97.40 quartzite 14 637032 5947538 97.71 quartzite 15 639070 5947504 94.66 quartzite 20 637653 5948299 96.58 quarry, better material? 21 637653 5948299 95.92 quarry, better material? (See the Technical Report available on SEDAR+ under Company's profile). The author of the Technical Report visited the Ptarmigan Silica Project on August 27, 2024 and collected three samples for data verification. They remained in his sole possession until they were delivered to Purolator Courier service in Nanaimo, BC, for transportation to MSALABS in Langley, BC. The samples were prepped using MSALABS PRP-910 method, which includes drying, crushing 1 kg to 2 mm, taking a 250 g split which is then pulverized to 95% -75g. The resulting splits were then analyzed using MSALABS WRA-310 code, a whole rock analysis, with ICP-ES finish for 13 parameters plus LOI. The sample results are set out below. UTM Zone 10 Sample # East North Elev %SiO2 %Fe2O3 PT-01 637643 5948282 839 98.68 0.42 PT-02 632896 5949895 841 98.44 0.29 PT-03 635883 5949307 831 99.52 0.25 The analytical results confirm the presence of high purity silica in the quartzite units. As well, the very low iron oxide contents are very positive for the potential for development of a high-quality silica facility. The author of the Technical Report recommended a $77,000 Phase 1 work program on the Property consisting of detailed mapping and sampling to outline the full extent of the target quartzite. Channel sampling, using a diamond saw, should also be included to identify any quality variations across the quartzite units. The author has also suggested an airborne magnetometer (fixed wing or drone) to allow a better understanding of the limits of the target units. Lastly, the author has indicated that preliminary metallurgical testing should be performed on the channel samples to ensure that the quartzite is amenable to beneficiation to the necessary standards for the identified end users. Given positive results from Phase 1, the author has recommended a $269,500 Phase 2 work program consisting of a drill program to allow evaluation of the potential silica resources on the Property. Also, the author has recommended an initial program of ten 50 m vertical diamond drill holes using HQ core to provide a substantial amount of material for a second phase of metallurgical testing. Qualified Person Chris M. Healey, P.Geo, an independent QP for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 prepared and approved the scientific and technical information disclosed in this news release. Mr. Healey is Principal Geologist at Healex Consulting Ltd. and is registered as a Professional Geoscientist with Engineers and Geoscientists British Columbia. About West Oak West Oak is focused on exploration in Canada. It currently has an Option to explore the Hedge Hog Project located 15km north of the town of Wells in the Caribou Mining Division of central British Columbia. Management and the board of directors of West Oak currently consists of Morgan Good (Chief Executive Officer and director), Leighton Bocking (director), Adrian Smith (director) and Bennett Liu (Chief Financial Officer). Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information This release includes certain statements and information that may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements relate to future events or future performance and reflect the expectations or beliefs of management of the Company regarding future events. Generally, forward-looking statements and information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "intends" or "anticipates", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "should", "would" or "occur". This information and these statements, referred to herein as "forward-looking statements", are not historical facts, are made as of the date of this news release and include without limitation, statements regarding discussions of future plans, estimates and forecasts and statements as to management's expectations and intentions with respect to, among other things: the exercise of the Option on the terms set out in the Agreement; the Company's exploration plans relating to the Property; the Company's belief that the strategic metals that Cronin has been actively pursuing is at the forefront of the market; the positive impact that the acquisition of the Property will have on the Company and the expected value it will bring to shareholders; that the mining sector, including critical metals, will begin to see more attention and positive investor sentiment; and the Company's plans for the initial work program on the Property and that it will further update the market with details in short order. These forward-looking statements involve numerous risks and uncertainties and actual results might differ materially from results suggested in any forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, among other things: a failure to exercise the Option on the terms set out in the Agreement or at all, early termination of the Agreement, changes in the Company's business plans, unanticipated and/or adverse changes resulting from the acquisition of the Property, general economic changes, unanticipated costs, and adverse changes in applicable legislation that impact the Company. In making the forward-looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, that: the Company will be able and willing to complete the exercise of the Option, that the Agreement will not be terminated early, that the Company's business plans with the respect to the Property will proceed as expected, that the Company will have the necessary resources to complete its exploration plans, and that the benefits of the acquisition of the Property will be consistent with management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve numerous risks and uncertainties and actual results might differ materially from results suggested in any forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, among other things: risks that the Company will not obtain the required regulatory approval with respect to the Option on the terms set out in the Agreement. Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, forward-looking information or financial out-look that are incorporated by reference herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. We seek safe harbor. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/224818 SOURCE: West Oak Gold Corp. By Elizabeth Barr NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / Cisco Systems Inc. BT and Cisco have been in a strategic partnership since 1990, focusing on delivering a wide range of network, communications, and IT solutions to businesses both nationally and globally. Both companies are also passionate advocates for STEM promotion, with Cisco previously supporting the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition (BTYSTE), one of the leading school STEM exhibitions in Europe which BT has organized and grown since 2001. In January 2023, Cisco leadership attended the BT exhibition in Dublin, where the Cisco Networking Academy (NetAcad) was first mentioned as a potential benefit for the bright young contestants. Following a number of meetings related to the exhibition, BT invited Cisco Ireland to participate in a career event it organized with Ukrainian Action Ireland to help more Ukrainian women to secure employment in Ireland. The event, which covered a range of subjects from Cybersecurity to pursuing diverse career paths, provided a perfect opportunity to introduce the minority community in Ireland to the Cisco Networking Academy program. With the support of TU Dublin, the leading Cisco Networking Academy Partner in Ireland, BT Ireland established a Cisco Academy to create a variety of free, online, self-paced courses in English and Ukrainian, spanning Cybersecurity, Networking, English for IT, Data Science, and Programming. TU Dublin and Cisco then set up a dedicated webpage for the students to learn more about each of the courses and enroll. The Academy has reached over 200 learners since establishing the Academy in October 2023 and hope to impact even more individuals in the future, particularly Ukrainian women who have benefited greatly from these educational opportunities. Participant Nataliia Cherkaska, a Project Manager, said "Recently, I completed the 'English for IT' course offered by Cisco. The material was presented excellently, divided into multiple stages, allowing me to revisit any necessary section. I particularly appreciated the well-structured video content and assignments. I am confident that the knowledge I gained from this course will be instrumental in advancing and enhancing my career." Shay Walsh, Managing Director, BT Ireland added, "Our long-standing partnership with Cisco has further enabled us to make a significant impact on the communities we serve. By integrating the Cisco Networking Academy into our initiative, we are not only enhancing STEM education but also providing valuable opportunities for Ukrainian women to develop crucial digital skills. This collaboration exemplifies our commitment to fostering innovation and inclusivity in Ireland." Niamh Madigan, Partner Leader at Cisco Ireland added "It's great to see a Cisco global initiative having such a great impact in Ireland. The Cisco and BT Ireland partnership continues to evolve, joining forces with them to have a positive impact on the community through the Cisco Networking Academy and Cisco's Partnering for Purpose initiative is very rewarding, Collectively we can have an even greater impact through our CSR programs." Shane Heraty Managing Director Cisco Ireland "We are proud to have reached around 50,000 students through the Cisco Networking Academy in Ireland since inception through a curriculum spanning Networking, Cybersecurity, Programming, AI, and more. Partnerships like this are a fantastic means of augmenting our impact with underserved and underrepresented communities." Tom Nolan, Lecturer in the School Of Informatics and Cyber Security at TU Dublin said " TU Dublin is delighted to be involved in this most worthwhile initiative, and is a great example of Academia and industry collaborating to provide a unique learning experience. We would hope to see some of the students partaking on these programs progress onto degree programs in the future." Explore free online courses at netacad.com We'd love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with CiscoPartners on social! Cisco Partners Facebook | @CiscoPartners X/Twitter | Cisco Partners LinkedIn View original content here. View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Cisco Systems Inc. on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: Cisco Systems Inc. Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/cisco-systems-inc Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: Cisco Systems Inc. Pelvic health startup Hyivy Health poised to offer better solutions to the 300M patients with pelvic floor dysfunction causing chronic pelvic pain and the clinicians who treat them. KITCHENER, ON / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / FemTech startup Hyivy Health has raised $2 million in their latest seed funding round from private investors to advance the Hyivy Pelvic Health Rehabilitation System, which stands to replace the current standard of care for pelvic pain. Hyivy Health CEO & Founder Rachel Bartholomew Hyivy Health CEO & Founder Rachel Bartholomew started the company after her treatment for cervical cancer. The round is led by Zcube - Zambon Research Venture with repeat and net new investors including Beresford Ventures, FACIT, Women's Equity Lab, and the founding partner of Chai Ventures. "Since its participation in the Zcube's Open Accelerator program in 2020, the innovative potential of this startup has been of great interest to us. We believe strongly in Hyivy Health and are delighted that Zcube - Zambon Research Venture is part of this exciting journey that continues to be marked by important clinical and financial milestones. We will continue to support Rachel Bartholomew and the entire team in their mission to improve women's health," says Andrea D'Alessandro, President at Zcube. Building from recent Health Canada approvals for Investigational Use, Hyivy Health has spearheaded two revolutionary clinical trials with world-class researchers, updating the 84-year-old global standard of care for cancer and endometriosis patients. The first trial with Grand River Hospital Regional Cancer Centre involves addressing the needs of large, complex gynecological and colorectal patient populations who have not been studied or supplied with updated treatment options for almost a century. The second trial is led by world-renowned gynecological surgeon and endometriosis specialist Dr. Mathew Leonardi at McMaster University to employ Hyivy technology in the first-of-its-kind study measuring the impact, measurement, and contributors to pelvic pain in endometriosis patients with a new and proven pain management tool introducing efficacy and safety-first solutions for this prolific patient population. "When I founded Hyivy Health four years ago, I knew I was addressing an unmet need for women with chronic pelvic pain, but I couldn't have imagined the overwhelmingly positive response from clinical researchers who see a multitude of opportunities in taking advantage of our technology." - Rachel Bartholomew, CEO and Founder of Hyivy Health The data sets from the Hyivy system see promising and exciting results for not just the treatment of pelvic pain, but also potential diagnostic capabilities across the more than 51 conditions associated with pelvic pain that affect women at any stage of life. Hyivy's approach serves as a medical connective bridge between patient and healthcare professional to provide the first ever pelvic and gynecological benchmarking/baselining, real-time monitoring, and therapeutic intervention through the clinician software portal, all while the patient uses the Hyivy device and patient app from the comfort of home. "Hyivy Health stands out as one of the key drivers in the industry with the unique potential to transform the pelvic health medical system. The power of the solutions, research, and data accumulated that can be put into action is like nothing I've seen across my career. Hyivy stands to empower clinicians with novel and effective tools to streamline and optimize their practice and workflows, as well as ultimately providing better care for patients." - Dr. Michael Krychman OBGYN, Executive Director SoCal Center for Sexual Health and Survivorship Medicine, Clinical Health Professor University of California Irvine Hyivy Health's alpha launch is slated for the U.S., with the last year and a half dedicated to unlocking existing reimbursement models to provide effective and affordable care. Starting in California with over 25 clinics in their pipeline, Hyivy Health is continuing to recruit gynecological and pelvic floor physiotherapy clinics in the state of California to adopt this first-of-its-kind solution. Contact Information Susan Stover Director of Marketing and Sales susans@hyivy.com +1-647-231-5405 SOURCE: Hyivy Health View the original press release on newswire.com. San Diego, California--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - Thiogenesis Therapeutics, Corp. (TSXV: TTI) (Thiogenesis or the Company) a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing thiol-active compounds that have strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties and that have the potential to treat mitochondrial diseases, including metabolic syndrome, today announced that it has entered into an investor relations agreement (the IR Agreement), effective October 1, 2024, with Triomphe Holdings Ltd., doing business as Capital Analytica (Consultant). The services to be provided by the Consultant include general social media consultation services regarding engagement and enhancement, social sentiment reporting, social engagement reporting, discussion forum monitoring and reporting, and other related investor relations services. Pursuant to the IR Agreement, the Company has agreed to pay the Consultant a quarterly cash fee of $15,000 plus applicable taxes. The Company has also agreed to grant the Consultant 100,000 stock options pursuant to the Company's Omnibus Equity Plan dated September 3, 2024 (the Plan). Each option enables the Consultant to acquire one common share at a price of $0.70 per share for a term of 3 years. The options will vest one-half after 6 months, one-quarter after 9 months and the remainder after 12 months. The IR Agreement has a term of twelve months and may be renewed at the end of the term. The Company and the Consultant act at arm's length, and the Consultant has no present interest, directly or indirectly, in the Company or its securities. The IR Agreement and its terms, including the grant of stock options, are subject to acceptance by the TSX Venture Exchange. Also, the Company announces that it has granted 1,000,000 restricted share units (RSU) to an officer of the Company. The RSUs vest annually, one half each on Jan. 15, 2026, and Jan. 15, 2027. Upon vesting, each RSU will entitle the holder to exchange it for one common share of the Company to be issued at the then market price of the common shares. The RSUs were granted in accordance with the Plan. About Thiogenesis Thiogenesis Therapeutics, Corp. (TSXV: TTI) is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company operating through its wholly owned subsidiary based in San Diego, CA. The Company is publicly traded on the TSX Venture Exchange. Thiogenesis is developing sulfur-containing prodrugs that act as precursors to previously approved thiol-active compounds, with the potential to treat serious pediatric diseases with unmet medical needs. Prodrugs are drugs that contain previously approved active ingredients and are modified so that they only become active when metabolized. For regulatory purposes prodrugs can use existing third-party safety data in regulatory submissions in the streamlined 505 (b)(2) regulatory pathway in the US, and its equivalent hybrid system in Europe, to proceed into human efficacy trials with regulatory approval. Prodrugs may enhance the profile of the active ingredient to increase its bioavailability and reduce side effects. The Company's initial target indications include mitochondrial encephalopathy lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes ("MELAS"), Leigh's syndrome, Rett syndrome and pediatric NASH. For further information, please contact: Forward Looking Statements This news release contains certain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively referred to herein as "forward- looking statements") within the meaning of Canadian securities laws including, without limitation, statements with respect to the future investments by the Company. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. Undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements, which are inherently uncertain, are based on estimates and assumptions, and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties (both general and specific) that contribute to the possibility that the future events or circumstances contemplated by the forward-looking statements will not occur. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements contained in this press release, and the assumptions on which such forward-looking statements are made, are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements included in this document, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions, or expectations upon which the forward-looking statements are based will occur. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions, known and unknown risks and uncertainties that contribute to the possibility that the predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not occur, which may cause the Company's actual performance and results in future periods to differ materially from any estimates or projections of future performance or results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the included forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable law. The forward-looking statements contained herein are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/224776 SOURCE: Thiogenesis Therapeutics, Corp. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - Masivo Silver Corp. (TSXV: MASS) (OTC Pink: GNYPF) ("Masivo" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has completed hole No. 5 at 322 feet at the Boston Mine project in Elko County, Nevada where Masivo is targeting its high grade Gold/Copper Skarn deposit. The drill core will be delivered to the certified lab for analysis this week and we expect results in 6-8 weeks. The commencement of drilling Hole No. 6 will begin early next week where Masivo is targeting a depth of 300 feet. The objective of Hole No.6 is to test the strong historical IP anomalies that are interpreted to reflect sulfide mineralization that is part of the skarn geology. Based upon the results, a decision will be made as to expanding the IP survey over the rest of the property. Hole No.1 had significant drill intercepts including 55 feet (drilled width) of 0.99% Cu, 1.52 g/t Au and 30.35 g/t Ag starting at 65 feet down hole. Phase 1 drill program will be between 6-8 holes with the follow up of a Phase 2 Drill Program of an additional 8-10 holes. The technical team has started discussions on a Phase 2 drill program, several new target areas are being discussed per the assay results on the Phase 1 program, we have not received assay results from Hole 2,3 or 4 but are expected in the near future. Masivo holds a $75,000 drill credit in Mexico and is continuing to discuss significant opportunities in Mexico and the USA to compliment the Boston Mine project. The Mexico projects would allow Masivo to drill in the winter months as the Boston mine can be challenging with winter storms. "We are making great progress drilling here at the Boston mine and looking forward to assay results." Commented David Coburn, President & CEO of Masivo Silver Corp. Brian Brewer, PGeo, is Masivo Silver's qualified person for the company's project in Nevada and Mexico, and has approved this news release. About Masivo Silver Corp. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS "David Coburn" Chief Executive Officer This press release contains "forward-looking information" that is based on the Company's current expectations, estimates, forecasts, and projections. This forward-looking information includes, among other things, statements with respect to the Company's exploration plans. The words "will", "anticipated", "plans" or other similar words and phrases are intended to identify forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company's actual results, level of activity, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward looking information. 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/224799 SOURCE: Masivo Silver Corp. WALLDORF, GERMANY / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) announced a partnership with Ambipar (B3:AMBP3)(NYSE:AMBI), a global leader in environmental solutions with operations in 40 countries, to bring Net Zero as a Service to customers and support the fight against climate change. Net Zero as a Service brings together a combination of SAP's robust cloud solutions and Ambipar's deep carbon credit generation and trading expertise to help customers seamlessly manage and offset carbon emissions. "In partnering with SAP, we are bringing together two companies with a shared commitment to help organizations achieve net zero," said Tercio Borlenghi Junior, CEO of Ambipar. "By combining SAP's technology with Ambipar's decarbonization expertise to create Net Zero as a Service, customers will have access to a simple but comprehensive solution that contributes to the low carbon economy." Comprehensive Carbon Management Net Zero as a Service can equip SAP customers globally with solutions for the entire decarbonization journey. SAP's ERP-centric and AI-enabled solutions will provide end-to-end carbon management, allowing customers to establish a common data foundation, seamlessly measure emissions and make granular and timely decisions that are financially and environmentally sound. Customers can neutralize emissions by purchasing internationally certified carbon credits through Ambipar's technology platform AMBIFY, available on the SAP Store, the online marketplace for SAP and partner offerings. "SAP customers are increasingly seeking ways to measure and offset their carbon emissions," said Adriana Aroulho, president of SAP Brazil. "Through Net Zero as a Service and our partnership with Ambipar, SAP is building on our commitment to deliver comprehensive sustainability management solutions and empowering our customers to become future-ready businesses." Scaling Net Zero as a Service Ambipar is currently piloting Net Zero as a Service in its own operations, tapping into the power of SAP's solutions as it aims to meet aggressive growth targets this year, before the service becomes widely available to SAP customers. By leveraging SAP Sustainability solutions, Ambipar will establish a unified data foundation, breaking down silos across the business, and seamlessly measure and manage carbon emissions. "Ambipar is undergoing a worldwide expansion and counts on SAP as a trusted IT partner as they scale," said Aroulho. "Net Zero as a Service will support Ambipar's growth objectives, while helping the company effectively streamline operations, drive innovation and manage its own environmental footprint. We are thrilled to bring this service to SAP customers." Visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP at @SAPNews. Sign up to receive news highlights from the SAP News Center, delivered straight to your inbox each week Subscribe now Media Contact: Sybelle D'Marco, +1 (305) 490-6139, sybelle.d-marco@sap.com, ET SAP Press Room; press@sap.com This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of SAP's 2023 Annual Report on Form 20-F. 2024 SAP SE. All rights reserved. SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see https://www.sap.com/copyright for additional trademark information and notices. View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from SAP on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: SAP Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/sap Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: SAP EQS-News: Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) / Key word(s): Alliance Africa Finance Corporation partners with Itana for the creation of Africa's first digital economic zone 27.09.2024 / 16:55 CET/CEST The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) will support Itana with project development funding and intends to lead in the financing of phase 1 of the Itana project which is budgeted at around $100m Itana ( http://apo-opa.co/4dnuip1 ), Nigeria's first licensed digital economic zone management company, and Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) ( www.AfricaFC.org ), the continent's leading infrastructure solutions provider, have agreed to jointly develop the first digital economic zone in Africa designed for global and Pan-African technology, finance and service-based businesses to operate and scale with ease across Africa, unlocking the continent's digital economy. The formalisation of this partnership took place yesterday in front of global government and business leaders, at the Global Africa Business Initiative (GABI), on the sidelines of the ongoing United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York. The Itana Digital Economic Zone in Lagos, Nigeria is intended as an online jurisdiction and to serve as a gateway to build a global business in Nigeria. Through Itana, companies can remotely incorporate and operate their businesses in the Itana zone, with laws, business incentives (tax, immigration & banking), and services optimized for the digital economy. This will be coupled with eco-friendly live-work districts and a live-in accelerator program, showcasing the future of African cities and providing the ideal infrastructure and support for businesses in Africa to scale and compete globally. AFC will support Itana with project development funding and intends to lead in the financing of phase 1 of the Itana project which is budgeted at around $100m. This will include an eco-friendly tech campus in Lagos, Nigeria, and funding of startups in Accelerate Africa, the accelerator program of Itana in partnership with Future Africa. AFC will also support the roll-out of the Itana Digital Economic Zone for global and Pan-African tech, finance, and service-based businesses seeking to operate across Africa. Itana and AFC are already collaborating alongside Future Africa, PwC Nigeria, and Charter Cities Institute as technical advisers to the Initiative for the Promotion of Digital Free Zones in Nigeria (DiFZIN) ( http://apo-opa.co/3BuB4Mm ), a non-profit advocacy and policy research organization representing the private sector in the recently announced Nigerian Federal Government steering committee for the establishment of Digital Economic Zones in Nigeria. The committee is chaired by President Bola Tinubu and includes relevant Government Ministers and Agency Heads. Itana intends to be to Nigeria and Africa what Delaware & Silicon Valley is to the U.S., the DIFC is to Dubai, and e-Estonia is to the European Union Itana ( http://apo-opa.co/47FY7jz ) will be a conducive environment tailored to the 21st-century digital trade and technological age. The organization recently launched the Itana Application ( http://apo-opa.co/4dnSUOB ) where individuals can join the community and have access to events and services such as business visa facilitation, local bank accounts, and a curated marketplace of trusted vendors and consultants for doing business in Africa. Businesses that meet the criteria can register as a Free Zone Enterprise (FZE) with ease and will receive a Business Operating license that enables them to do business in Nigeria like numerous digital companies including Reliance Info and Future Africa. Post business incorporation, businesses can operate in the zone with tax and capital repatriation incentives, get access to the Itana business community, apply for business banking in the Digital Economic Zone, and special work and residency permits without limitations imposed by expatriate quotas. "Itana intends to be to Nigeria and Africa what Delaware & Silicon Valley is to the U.S., the DIFC is to Dubai, and e-Estonia is to the European Union," said Luqman Edu, CEO of Itana. "Itana is poised as the gateway to doing business in Africa. Local and International businesses looking to expand their operations across Africa will naturally look to Itana as their point of entry". "Africa's digital economy is poised for significant expansion and innovation following the rapid adoption of mobile technology, a burgeoning youth population, and the growing importance of digital commerce and services," said Samaila Zubairu, President & CEO, Africa Finance Corporation. "In support of this, AFC is proud to be a pioneer alongside Itana, in building Africa's first digital economic zone. This unprecedented initiative marks a pivotal step towards creating a thriving hub for the African digital economy, cementing the Corporation's commitment to driving innovation, job creation, and sustainable economic development across the continent," he added. Last year, Itana announced ( http://apo-opa.co/4eIELg1 ) a funding round backed by leading technology venture capitals and highly influential tech industry leaders including LocalGlobe, Amplo, Pronomos Capital (backed by Peter Thiel), Balaji, and Future Africa (led by Nigerian entrepreneur Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, co-founder of Andela and Flutterwave). As the first Digital Economic Zone, Itana remains committed to making Nigeria a powerhouse in the global digital economy. It will be hosted in Alaro City, an integrated, mixed-use city planned on over 2,000 hectares in the Lekki Free Zone. Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Africa Finance Corporation (AFC). Download image: https://apo-opa.co/3XPctK2 For Media Inquiries, Please Contact: For Itana: Coco Liu Chief Operating Officer, Itana +1 (510) 731-8937 coco@itana.africa For AFC: Yewande Thorpe Africa Finance Corporation +234 1 279 9654 yewande.thorpe@africafc.org About Itana: Itana is a novel digital economic zone enabling global and pan-African technology, finance and service-oriented businesses to operate seamlessly across Africa. Offering a one-stop platform for setting up operations in Nigeria, Itana provides business services such as visa facilitation, local bank accounts and competitive incentives in taxation, immigration, banking, and regulation. It also features a Digital Residency community, a curated marketplace for trusted vendors, and the upcoming Itana District-a tech campus in Lagos, set to also become a model for the future of African cities www.ITANA.africa About AFC: AFC was established in 2007 to be the catalyst for pragmatic infrastructure and industrial investments across Africa. AFC's approach combines specialist industry expertise with a focus on financial and technical advisory, project structuring, project development, and risk capital to address Africa's infrastructure development needs and drive sustainable economic growth. Seventeen years on, AFC has developed a track record as the partner of choice in Africa for investing and delivering on instrumental, high-quality infrastructure assets that provide essential services in the core infrastructure sectors of power, natural resources, heavy industry, transport, and telecommunications. AFC has 43 member countries and has invested US$13 billion across Africa since inception. www.AfricaFC.org 27.09.2024 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 Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - Pool Safe Inc. (TSXV: POOL) ("Pool Safe" or the "Company") announces the appointment DNTW Toronto LLP, Chartered Professional Accountants (the "Successor Auditor") as the Company's new independent auditor. This follows the Company's prior announcement on September 16, 2024, when the Company announced the resignation of Wasserman Ramsay (the "Former Auditor") due to the retirement of Mr. Kevin Ramsay, the principal of the Former Auditor. The Successor Auditor's appointment has been approved by the Company's board of directors and will be presented for ratification at the next shareholders' meeting. For a copy of the Company's reporting package, including the Notice of Change of Auditor, together with the required letters from the Former Auditor and Successor Auditor, each prepared in accordance with the applicable requirements of Section 4.11 of National Instrument 51-102 - Continuous Disclosure Obligations, please visit the Company's SEDAR+ profile at www.sedarplus.ca. About Pool Safe Inc. Pool Safe Inc. designs, develops and distributes a product known as LounGenie, which functions as a multipurpose personal poolside attendant. LounGenie by Pool Safe Inc. is designed to provide safety, convenience, and peace of mind for hotels, resorts, waterparks, and cruise ship guests. Conveniently located alongside pool or beach lounge chairs, the LounGenie is a unique way of providing vacationers with a comforting sense of security for their belongings, while offering the vendor opportunities to increase F&B sales, expedite customer service and drive revenue. For more information, please visit loungenie.com or poolsafeinc.com. Pool Safe Inc. is a fully reporting publicly traded company which is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "POOL". Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Statements Some of the statements in this press release that depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, or that include words such as "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "plans", "believes", "estimates", or similar expressions, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of securities laws. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the information concerning possible or assumed future results of operations of the Company and the ability of the Company to appoint a successor auditor by September 30, 2024. These statements are not historical facts but instead represent only the Company's expectations, estimates, and projections regarding future events. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update or release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this presentation or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/224842 SOURCE: Pool Safe Inc. Villers-les-Nancy, 27 September 2024 - 6:00 p.m. (CET) PRESS RELEASE 2024 half-year results Group results impacted by weaker economic conditions and continuing investment efforts in H1: Revenue: 108.0m, -4.1% Current Operating Income: 20.9m, -24.1% Net Profit attributable to the Group: 17.2m, -21.8% Though with a profit margin that continues to be very positive: Ratio of Current Operating Income (COI) to Sales: 19.3% on a reported basis and 20.0% like-for-like H1 RESULTS (M) 2023 reported basis 2024 reported basis Change / Reported basis External growth Change / Like-for-like basis Revenue 112.6 108.0 -4.6 -4.1% -3.7 -8.3 -7.4% Current operating income (COI) 27.5 20.9 -6.6 -24.1% 0.0 -6.7 -24.3% Net Profit 22.9 18.1 -4.8 -21.0% 0.0 -4.8 -21.1% Net Profit attributable to the Group 22.0 17.2 -4.8 -21.8% The financial statements for the six-month period ended 30 June 2024 were reviewed and adopted by EQUASENS' Board of Directors, chaired by Thierry Chapusot, on 27 September 2024. These interim consolidated financial statements were subject to a limited review by the Statutory Auditors. _____ Results at 30 June 2024 H1 Current Operating Income / Division 2023 reported basis 2024 reported basis Change / Reported basis External growth Change / Like-for-like basis Pharmagest 18.4 14.1 -4.3 -23.5% -0.1 -4.4 -24.0% Axigate Link 4.6 4.4 -0.2 -4.9% -0.2 -4.9% e-Connect 3.6 2.5 -1.1 -29.9% -1.1 -29.9% Medical Solutions 1.3 0.0 -1.3 -100.0% 0.1 -1.2 -92.5% Fintech -0.4 -0.1 0.3 69.3% 0.3 -69.3% Current Operating Income 27.5 20.9 -6.6 -24.1% 0.0 -6.7 -24.3% PHARMAGEST division : a contraction in earnings reflecting lower sales and reinforced teams in Europe (COI/Sales: 17.2%) The decline in the Division's operating income is mainly attributable to a reduction in sales in France in the configuration and hardware segment. In a persistently challenging economic environment, the Division continued to focus its commercial strategy on acquiring new customers and regularly rolling out new software and hardware solutions. Despite this, recurring revenues were bolstered by the combined contribution of new SaaS offerings and contract indexation. To accelerate the deployment of solutions in Europe, the R&D and sales teams continued to be strengthened. AXIGATE LINK division : the profit margin remains high (COI/Sales: 28.6%) Strategic investments to support the roll-out of SaaS solutions such as TitanLink for Nursing Homes in Europe, and the extension of homecare services, have temporarily weighed on the Division's results. E-CONNECT division: current operating income declined in response to lower sales (COI/Sales: 45.4%) As previously reported, H1 2023 sales and earnings were boosted by the announced discontinuation of sales of Application Reader Terminals. The downturn in business in the first half of 2024 thus reflected the corresponding decline in sales. Despite this unfavourable environment, the Division demonstrated its ability to adapt by maintaining a healthy profit margin based on tight cost controls. MEDICAL SOLUTIONS division: a year of transition between the Segur digital healthcare investment programme and a new software solution (COI/Sales: -) Preparations for the Division's future involving the development of a new software platform and optimising the sales organisation led to significant investments which, in conjunction with lower sales following the end of the Segur programme roll-out, weighed on the Division's results. Recurring revenues rose 13.7%, resulting in a gross margin of 72.8%. FINTECH division: efforts to stabilise the business paid off in H1, with an improvement in earnings of 0.3m (COI/Sales: -) Consolidated balance sheet highlights Cash flow after interest and tax maintained a positive trend at 20.8m. Financial investments, through acquisitions as well as capital expenditures, in particular for the EQUASENS private healthcare cloud, continued, with more than 16.0m committed in H1. The net financial surplus at 30/06/2024 of 87.9m takes into account a change in presentation of IFRS 16 lease liabilities and put options for minority shareholders of 10.8m (recognised under other liabilities versus financial liabilities previously). 2024 outlook The Group maintains its forecast for a return to revenue growth starting in the second half of 2024, and an acceleration in 2025 driven by current investments and an economic climate that looks set to improve, particularly for pharmacies in France. The Group will continue to invest in R&D, infrastructure and sales forces in France and Europe in the second half of 2024. And while this will have a temporary impact on profitability in 2024, it should generate a return on investment from 2025 onwards. With a strategy focused on patients and interoperability, the Group is ideally positioned to seize opportunities for external growth in France and Europe. Financial calendar: 1 October 2024: Presentation of H1 2024 results 7 November 2024: Publication of Q3 2024 revenue 6 February 2025: Publication of f Q4/FY 2024 revenue About Group Equasens With more than 1,300 employees, Equasens Group is today a key player in the European healthcare sector, providing software and hardware solutions to all healthcare professionals (pharmacists, primary care practitioners, hospitals, hospital-at-home programmes, retirement homes, health centres) in both primary and secondary care sectors. With operations in in France, Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, and Luxembourg, Equasens Group today brings together healthcare professionals within a unique ecosystem in France and Europe benefiting people by making available the very best of technology. Listed on Euronext Paris - Compartment B Indexes: MSCI GLOBAL SMALL CAP - GAIA Index 2020 - CAC SMALL and CAC All-Tradable Included in the Euronext Tech Leaders segment and the European Rising Tech label Eligible for the Deferred Settlement Service ("Service a Reglement Differe" - SRD) and equity savings accounts invested in small and mid caps (PEA-PME). ISIN: FR 0012882389 - Ticker Code: EQS Get all the news about Equasens Group www.equasens.com and on LinkedIn CONTACTS Analyst and Investor Relations: Chief Administrative and Financial Officer: Frederique Schmidt Tel: +33 (0)3 83 15 90 67 - frederique.schmidt@equasens.com Financial communication agency: FIN'EXTENSO - Isabelle Aprile Tel.: +33 (0)6 17 38 61 78 - i.aprile@finextenso.fr HOUSTON, TX / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / MasterWord is honored to announce its partnership with UNESCO, within its actions linked to multilingualism online (2003 Recommendation concerning the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace) and the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (IDIL 2022-2032), in advancing the preservation of the linguistic and cultural heritage of Mayan speakers through the Mayan Languages Preservation and Digitization Project. This partnership aims to preserve, revitalize, digitize and promote Mayan languages by leveraging cutting-edge technology and fostering community-driven solutions, in support of UNESCO's global mission to protect and promote multilingualism online and indigenous languages worldwide. Ludmila Golovine and Winston Scott at the UNESCO Meeting on Multilingualism, Paris, France Two individuals are standing together in front of a blue background featuring UNESCO logos and the United Nations flag. The individual on the right is wearing a black jacket and a long green skirt, and the individual on the left is dressed in a suit. "The partnership with UNESCO allows us to share what we're learning with a global network," said Ludmila Golovine, CEO of MasterWord. "By fostering collaboration between indigenous communities and linguistic experts, we are building a practical roadmap for digitizing and preserving these vital languages, ensuring that future generations can have digital access and continue their rich traditions." Launched in May 2023, the Mayan Languages Preservation and Digitization Project is an open-source initiative dedicated to safeguarding Mayan languages, spoken by over seven million people in Guatemala and across North and Central America. The project provides innovative digital tools, including talking glossaries, a universal Mayan language keyboard, and community-driven resources to ensure that Mayan language speakers have equitable digital access. "By preserving Mayan languages and creating digital spaces for indigenous languages to thrive, we seek to increase educational and economic opportunities for millions of people through a grass-roots effort," explains project director, Dr. Winston Scott. Notable Achievements of the Mayan Languages Preservation and Digitization Project: 28 talking glossaries created for cultural understanding, including terms related to kinship, nature, and professions. Over 2 million words collected and documented in 11 Mayan languages. 200+ hours of audio content uploaded, preserving spoken records of Mayan languages. Development of a universal Mayan language keyboard, a first step in bringing Mayan text to digital devices. Developing a Roadmap for Language Digitization The project is currently developing a technical document that outlines a practical roadmap to digitization, building on both existing knowledge and available resources and new insights gained along the way. This roadmap can serve as a resource for replication for other communities globally. Thanks to the partnership with UNESCO and its global reach, the Mayan project will be able to both learn from the work done by other Indigenous communities and share the practical roadmap and lessons learned through IDIL 2022-2032, accelerating the impact on language preservation and digitization efforts worldwide. Support for UNESCO's IDIL 2022-2032 Goals Through this partnership, MasterWord and the Mayan Languages Preservation and Digitization Project are actively supporting the Global Action Plan of the IDIL 2022-2032, including: Fostering multilingualism and digital empowerment for indigenous languages. Empowering Indigenous communities by providing equitable access to information, education, public services, and economic opportunities. Promoting cultural diversity and heritage through the preservation and promotion of indigenous languages. By aligning with these goals, the Mayan project is contributing to a broader global mission of empowering communities through the preservation and promotion of indigenous languages. About MasterWord: MasterWord is a language services company that is committed to supporting language access, digitization, and preservation for the world's indigenous languages. Through partnerships and impact-driven projects, MasterWord advances the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by fostering multilingualism and promoting linguistic rights. For more information on the Mayan Languages Preservation and Digitization Project, visit: mayanlanguagepreservation.org Contact Information Ryan Foley Director of Communications rfoley@masterword.com 346-744-7158 SOURCE: MasterWord View the original press release on newswire.com. Regulatory News: Vivendi (Paris:VIV) has entered today into financing agreements to cover the potential redemption of its outstanding bond debt should the Group's split project, which feasibility study was announced on September 13, 2023, be pursued and approved at an extraordinary general meeting of its shareholders. Bilateral structured financing agreements involving purely cash-settled derivatives on a portion of Vivendi's Universal Music Group (UMG) shares have been entered into with five banks for a nominal value of 2 billion. These agreements will benefit from pledges on shares held by Vivendi in UMG, Telefonica, Telecom Italia and MediaForEurope and may be subject to margin calls. These financing agreements, maturing in September 2026 and extendable by one year, would provide Vivendi with the funds to redeem all its outstanding bond debt, in accordance with the terms and conditions of the relevant bonds, as soon as possible following the approval of the split project by the extraordinary general meeting of its shareholders and, in any event, before the effective date of the split up of the Group. The first utilization of the proceeds under these bilateral structured financing agreements would require, as a condition precedent, the cancellation of all available commitments under Vivendi's syndicated revolving facility agreement and its eight bilateral revolving facility agreements. The information and consultation procedures of the employee representative bodies of the concerned Group entities about the split project are still ongoing (cf. Vivendi's July 22, 2024 press release). It should be noted that at this stage, and according to applicable law, no decision to carry out this project has been or can be taken, and that no further action, even potential, can be presumed with regard to this project. Should this project go ahead following the information and consultation procedure, a decision could be taken at the end of October 2024 with a view to submitting it to an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders which could be held in December 2024. In such a case, this transaction would still require the approval by a two-thirds majority of shareholder votes. About Vivendi Vivendi is a global leader in content, media and communications. Canal+ Group is a major player in the creation and distribution of cinema and audiovisual content on all continents. With Lagardere, Vivendi is the world's third-largest book publisher for the general public and educational markets, and a leading global player in travel retail. Havas is one of the largest global communications groups with a presence in more than 100 countries. Vivendi is also active in the magazine business (Prisma Media) and in video games (Gameloft). As a committed group, Vivendi contributes to building more open, inclusive, and responsible societies by supporting diverse and inventive creative works, promoting broader access to culture, education, and its industries, and increasing awareness of 21st century challenges and opportunities. In December 2023, Vivendi launched the study of a split project where Canal+, Havas and Louis Hachette Group, the company grouping the assets in publishing and distribution, would become independent entities listed on the stock market. www.vivendi.com Important disclaimers This press release contains information that may have characterized, before becoming public, inside information as defined by Article 7(1) of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 of April 16, 2014, on market abuse, as amended. It also contains forward -looking statements with respect to Vivendi's financial condition, results of operations, business, strategy, plans and outlook, including the impact of certain transactions such as the split and listing projects, as well as related operations. Although Vivendi believes that such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of completion of the split and listing projects nor of Vivendi's future performance. Actual results may differ materially from the forward-looking statements as a result of a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are outside our control, including, but not limited to, the risks related to obtaining regulatory, administrative, third party or any other approvals, and the risks described in the documents of the Group filed by Vivendi with the Autorite des Marches Financiers (the French securities regulator), which are also available in English on Vivendi's website (www.vivendi.com). Investors and security holders may obtain a free copy of documents filed by Vivendi with the Autorite des Marches Financiers at www.amf-france.org, or directly from Vivendi. Accordingly, we caution readers against relying on such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release. Vivendi disclaims any intention or obligation to provide, update or revise any forward- looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. This press release does not contain or constitute an offer of securities or a solicitation of an offer to subscribe to or purchase, nor an invitation to sell, buy, or subscribe to securities in France or abroad. This press release must in no way be interpreted as a recommendation to readers. The dissemination of this press release may be restricted, limited, or prohibited by law in certain states, and anyone wishing to distribute it must inform themselves about the existence of such restrictions, limitations, or prohibitions, and adhere to them. Any failure to do so may constitute a violation of the applicable securities regulations in those states. Unsponsored ADRs. Vivendi does not sponsor an American Depositary Receipt (ADR) facility in respect of its shares. Any ADR facility currently in existence is "unsponsored" and has no ties whatsoever to Vivendi. Vivendi disclaims any liability in respect of any such facility. This document has been certified by Vivendi SE using the blockchain and Nodle Connecting SDK's Click solution to ensure its authenticity. View this certificate of authenticity by logging in to https://www.certification.vivendi.com or using a blockchain explorer such as https://etherscan.io or https://www.blockchain.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240927812063/en/ Contacts: Vivendi All amounts in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / RE Royalties Ltd. (TSX.V:RE)(OTCQX:RROYF) ("RE Royalties" or the "Company"), a global leader in renewable energy royalty-based financing, is pleased to announce it has ranked No. 136 on the 2024 Report on Business magazine's ranking of Canada's Top Growing Companies. Canada's Top Growing Companies ranks Canadian companies on three-year revenue growth, and RE Royalties earned its spot with three-year revenue growth of 314%. "We are honoured to be recognized by The Globe & Mail Report on Business as one of Canada's Top Growing Companies," said Bernard Tan, CEO and Co-Founder of RE Royalties. "This achievement is a testament to the hard work of our team and our commitment to providing clients and shareholders with innovative solutions that accelerate the growth of renewable energy projects. This is the second time we have been recognized as one of Canada's Top Growing Companies and it further validates our mission to build a sustainable future while delivering strong returns." Canada's Top Growing Companies is an editorial ranking that was launched in 2019 to celebrate the achievements of innovative businesses in Canada. To qualify for this voluntary program, companies had to complete an in-depth application process and fulfill revenue requirements. In total, 416 companies earned a spot on this year's ranking. The full list of 2024 winners along with editorial coverage is published in the October issue of Report on Business magazine. The list is out now and online: Ranking Canada's Top Growing Companies of 2024 - The Globe and Mail "Our annual ranking of Canada's Top Growing Companies reflects the sector-spanning ingenuity of this country's entrepreneurs and corporate leaders," says Dawn Calleja, Editor of Report on Business magazine. "We think it's important to tell their stories, to help inspire the next generation of up-and-comers across the country." "The Globe and Mail congratulates this year's Canada's Top Growing Companies' winners for achieving exceptional growth and resilience in facing business challenges," says Andrew Saunders, CEO of The Globe and Mail. "It is a testament to dedication, strategic vision, and innovative drive." About The Globe and Mail The Globe and Mail is Canada's foremost news media company, leading the national discussion and causing policy change through brave and independent journalism since 1844. With our award-winning coverage of business, politics and national affairs, The Globe and Mail newspaper reaches 6.2 million readers every week in our print or digital formats, and Report on Business magazine reaches 2.9 million readers in print and digital every issue. Our investment in innovative data science means that as the world continues to change, so does The Globe. The Globe and Mail is owned by Woodbridge, the investment arm of the Thomson family. About RE Royalties Ltd. RE Royalties Ltd. acquires revenue-based royalties from renewable energy facilities and technologies by providing a non-dilutive financing solution to privately held and publicly traded companies in the renewable energy sector. RE Royalties is the first to apply this proven business model to the renewable energy sector. The Company currently owns over 100 royalties on solar, wind, hydro, battery storage, energy efficiency and renewable natural gas projects in Canada, United States, Mexico, and Chile. The Company's business objectives are to provide shareholders with a strong growing yield, robust capital protection, high rate of growth through re-investment and a sustainable investment focus. For further information, please contact: RE Royalties Ltd. Talia Beckett, VP of Communications and Sustainability T: (778) 374-2000 E: taliabeckett@reroyalties.com www.reroyalties.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange), nor any other regulatory body or securities exchange platform, accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy the securities in any jurisdiction, nor shall there be any offer or sale of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities being offered have not been approved or disapproved by any regulatory authority nor has any such authority passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of the short form base shelf prospectus or the prospectus supplement. The offer and sale of the securities has not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to United States persons absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws. Forward Looking Statements This news release includes forward-looking information and forward-looking statements (collectively, "forward-looking information") with respect to the Company and within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. Forward looking information is typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. This information represents predictions and actual events or results may differ materially. Forward-looking information may relate to the Company's future outlook and anticipated events or results and may include statements regarding the Company's financial results, future financial position, expected growth of cash flows, business strategy, budgets, projected costs, projected capital expenditures, taxes, plans, objectives, industry trends and growth opportunities including financing. The reader is referred to the Company's most recent filings on SEDAR+ as well as other information filed with the OTC Markets for a more complete discussion of all applicable risk factors and their potential effects, copies of which may be accessed through the Company's profile page at www.sedar.com. SOURCE: RE Royalties Ltd. DUBAI, UAE, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Bybit , the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, is excited to announce that it has been granted a full license by the Astana Financial Service Authority (AFSA). This significant milestone enables Bybit to operate as a fully authorized market institution in Kazakhstan, marking another step in the company's global expansion. Under full authorization from AFSA, Bybit Kazakhstan will offer a comprehensive range of services, including operating a digital asset trading facility, providing custody, dealing in investments as both an agent and principal, and managing investments. Bybit's new licensing opens many opportunities for users in Kazakhstan and the broader Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region. "Kazakhstan has become a key player in the global crypto ecosystem, and we are thrilled to be expanding our services in such a dynamic market," said Ben Zhou, co-founder and CEO of Bybit. "With this full license, we are committed to bringing our cutting-edge technology, security, and transparency to crypto traders in Kazakhstan, ensuring they can access the best possible tools and services to thrive in this fast-growing industry." With this license, Bybit Kazakhstan will now offer various products, including spot and derivatives trading, margin trading, and crypto loans. The Bybit Kazakhstan website, under the domain "bybit.kz," is scheduled to launch in mid-October 2024. The expansion into Kazakhstan aligns with Bybit's mission to provide reliable and transparent services, catering to the unique needs of crypto traders and investors in the region. This new chapter for Bybit in Kazakhstan solidifies the company's commitment to fostering innovation and growth within the global cryptocurrency landscape. With a fully regulated platform, Bybit is poised to deliver enhanced services that meet the highest standards of compliance and security. Bybit looks forward to building strong relationships with traders in Kazakhstan and across the CIS region, empowering them to navigate the dynamic world of digital assets with confidence. Bybit / TheCryptoArk Bybit is the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, serving over 50 million users. Established in 2018, Bybit provides a professional platform where crypto investors and traders can find an ultra-fast matching engine, 24/7 customer service, and multilingual community support. Bybit is a proud partner of Formula One's reigning Constructors' and Drivers' champions: the Oracle Red Bull Racing team. For more details about Bybit, please visit Bybit Press . For media inquiries, please contact: media@bybit.com For more information, please visit: https://www.bybit.com For updates, please follow: Bybit's Communities and Social Media Discord | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Reddit | Telegram | TikTok | X | Youtube Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517848/Bybit_Receives_Full_License_Kazakhstan.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2267288/Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/bybit-receives-full-license-in-kazakhstan-302261307.html Paris, France--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - Sequans Communications S.A. (NYSE: SQNS), a leading provider of 4G and 5G semiconductors and modules for the Internet of Things, today announced that its Board of Directors has approved a change in the number of its ordinary shares represented by American Depositary Shares, issued by the Bank of New York Mellon as depositary, from 4 ordinary shares per ADS to 10 ordinary shares per ADS. The change in exchange ratio for the ADSs will have the same effect as a 1-for-2.5 reverse stock split of the ADSs. The ADSs will continue to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the same ticker SQNS but a new CUSIP will be assigned. Sequans' ordinary shares are not affected by the change. The Company's total outstanding share capital at present is 249,928,692 ordinary shares. Georges Karam, Sequans CEO, said, "We are nearing the October 9th deadline to increase our ADS price to meet the NYSE compliance obligations. This could be resolved organically after closing the recently announced asset sale to Qualcomm. However, we feel that independent of the NYSE criteria, it would be beneficial for the Company's ADS market price to be higher to enhance our appeal to a broader range of investors. We believe this action will better position our company for future growth. Furthermore, we are thrilled about the transaction with Qualcomm, which we anticipate closing soon, as the French government gave its clearance, and we are working towards satisfying remaining closing conditions." The new ADS to ordinary share ratio of 1 for 10 will be effective prior to the commencement of trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, October 9, 2024. Because each ADS will represent 10 times the number of Sequans' ordinary shares after the ratio change, and the total number of ordinary shares remains the same, the trading price of the ADSs is expected to increase by approximately the same multiple, enabling the company to regain compliance with the New York Stock Exchange minimum price listing requirement. No fractional ADSs will be issued. Holders who would otherwise receive fractional ADSs will receive a cash payment in lieu of such fractional ADSs. The cash in lieu rate will be set when the depositary sells the ADSs that would otherwise have been issued as fractional ADSs in one or more market trades. ADS holders with ADSs held in book-entry form or through a bank, broker or other nominee are not required to take any action and will see the impact of the change to the ADS ratio reflected in their accounts after October 9, 2024. Beneficial holders may contact their bank, broker or nominee for more information. ADS holders with ADSs held in certificate form will be required to exchange their certificates for new book-entry ADSs at a rate of 2.5 old ADSs for 1 new ADS. Shortly after October 9, 2024, such ADS holders will receive a Letter of Transmittal and instructions for exchanging their certificates from the depositary. Forward Looking Statements This press release contains projections and other forward-looking statements regarding future events or our future ADS price. All statements other than present and historical facts and conditions contained in this release, including any statements regarding our anticipated future ADS price and our ability to regain compliance with the New York Stock Exchange listing requirements, are forward-looking statements (within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended). These statements are only predictions and reflect our current beliefs and expectations with respect to future events and are based on assumptions and subject to risk and uncertainties and subject to change at any time. Sequans can give no assurance that the ADS price after the change in the ADS ratio will be equal to or greater than 2.5 times the ADS price before the change. We operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks emerge from time to time. Given these risks and uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Actual events or results may differ materially from those contained in the projections or forward-looking statements. Some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained herein include, without limitation: (i) the contraction or lack of growth of markets in which we compete and in which our products are sold, (ii) unexpected increases in our expenses, including manufacturing expenses, (iii) our inability to adjust spending quickly enough to offset any unexpected revenue shortfall, (iv) delays or cancellations in spending by our customers, (v) unexpected average selling price reductions, (vi) the significant fluctuation to which our quarterly revenue and operating results are subject due to cyclicality in the wireless communications industry and transitions to new process technologies, (vii) our inability to anticipate the future market demands and future needs of our customers, (viii) our inability to achieve new design wins or for design wins to result in shipments of our products at levels and in the timeframes we currently expect, (ix) our inability to enter into and execute on strategic alliances, (x) the impact of natural disasters on our sourcing operations and supply chain, (xi) the impact of the ADS ratio change on our ADS trading price and volume, (xiii) the impact of the pending asset sale to Qualcomm on our future business; and (xii) other factors detailed in documents we file from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements in this release are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. About Sequans Communications Sequans Communications S.A. (NYSE: SQNS) is a leading semiconductor company specializing in wireless cellular technology for the Internet of Things (IoT). Our engineers design and develop innovative, secure, and scalable technologies that power the next generation of connected devices. We offer a wide range of solutions, including chips, modules, IP, and services. Our LTE-M/NB-IoT, 4G LTE Cat 1bis, and 5G NR RedCap/eRedCap platforms are optimized for IoT, delivering breakthroughs in wireless connectivity, power efficiency, security, and performance. Established in 2003, Sequans is headquartered in France and has a global presence with offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Israel, Hong Kong, Singapore, Finland, Taiwan, and China. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/224835 SOURCE: Sequans Communications Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - Indico Resources Ltd. (TSXV: IDI.H) (the "Company") announces that, pursuant to its news releases dated January 10, 2024 and January 24, 2024, it has amended the size of its ongoing shares for debt transaction (the "Debt Settlement"). The Company had previously finalized and executed debt settlement agreements (the "Settlement Agreements") with certain creditors (the "Creditors") to settle an aggregate of $3,292,807 in debt (the "Prior Debt") accrued through a combination of services provided by the Creditors to the Company and outstanding loans. The Debt Settlement has now been amended to settle an aggregate of $1,145,972.37 in debt owed to the Creditors (the "New Debt"). In settlement and full satisfaction of the New Debt, the Company has agreed to issue to the Creditors an aggregate of 7,639,815 common shares in the capital of the Company (the "Debt Shares) at a deemed issue price of $0.15 per Debt Share (the "Debt Settlement"), instead of the previously planned issuance of 21,952,048 Debt Shares in settlement of the Prior Debt. The issuance of the Debt Shares and the closing of the Debt Settlement is subject to receipt of TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") approval, including clearance by the TSXV of a personal information form to be filed in connection with the Debt Settlement. Certain insiders of the Company will be participating in the Debt Settlement and are related parties of the Company pursuant to Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). Related party involvement in the Debt Settlement constitutes a "related party transaction". As the Company is listed on the NEX Board of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"), the Debt Settlement is exempt from the formal valuation requirements of MI 61-101 by virtue of Section 5.5(b) - Issuer not Listed on Specified Markets. The Debt Settlement is subject to minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101, which was successfully obtained at the Company's annual general meeting of shareholders held on October 13, 2023 (the "Meeting"). Brian Kerzner, the chief executive officer of the Company, will no longer be participating in the Debt Settlement. Further information on the Company's insiders who are participating in the Debt Settlement can be found in the Company's information circulated prepared for the Meeting and dated September 5, 2023, as can be found on SEDAR+. All Debt Shares issued in connection with the Debt Settlement are subject to a statutory hold period of four months plus a day from the date of issuance of the Debt Shares in accordance with applicable securities legislation. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities. The securities described herein have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the securities laws of any state and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to or for the benefit or account of U.S. persons, absent such registration or an applicable exemption from such registration requirements. About Indico Resources Ltd. Indico is a mineral resource exploration company focused on the discovery and exploration of porphyry copper gold deposits. On behalf of Indico Resources Ltd., "Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release." Forward-looking Statements: Certain statements in this press release are "forward-looking statements" which reflect the Company's current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that it believes might affect its financial condition, results of operations, business strategy and financial needs. In some cases, these forward-looking statements can be identified by words or phrases such as "may", "might", "will", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "intend", "plan", "indicate", "seek", "believe", "estimates", "predicts" or "likely", or the negative of these terms, or other similar expressions intended to identify forward-looking statements. Whether actual results, performance or achievements will conform to the Company's expectations and predictions is subject to a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors, including without limitation, those risks and uncertainties discussed elsewhere in the Company's filings on SEDAR+. Forward-looking statements may include but are not limited to, final approval by the TSXV of the Debt Settlement. Investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The forward-looking information contained herein is made as of the date hereof and is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/224936 SOURCE: Indico Resources Ltd. Gungnir Resources Inc. (TSXV:GUG)(OTC PINK:ASWRF) ("Gungnir" or the "Company") announces that it has granted incentive stock options to employees, directors and/or officers of Gungnir to acquire an aggregate of 2,000,000 common shares at $0.05 per share, for a period of 5 years. These incentive stock options have been granted in accordance with Gungnir's Stock Option Plan. About Gungnir Resources Gungnir Resources Inc. is a Canadian-based TSX-V listed mineral exploration company (GUG: TSX-V, ASWRF: OTCPK) with gold and base metal projects in northern Sweden. Gungnir's assets include two nickel-copper-cobalt deposits, Lappvattnet and Rormyrberget, both with updated nickel resources, and the Knaften-Hemberget project which hosts a developing intrusion-hosted gold system, VMS-style mineralization, and copper-nickel targets. Currently, the Company is focused on its newly discovered gold target at Hemberget. Further information about the Company and its properties may be found at www.gungnirresources.com or at www.sedar.com . On behalf of the Board, Jari Paakki, CEO and Director For further information contact: Head Office/Corporate Communications Phone: +1-604-683-0484 Email: corporatecommunications@gungnirresources.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. Certain statements in this news release may constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws (also known as forward-looking statements). Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, and may cause actual results, performance or achievements or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements or industry results expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. SOURCE: Gungnir Resources Inc. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - Spark Energy Minerals Inc. (CSE: SPRK) (OTC Pink: SPARF) (FSE: 8PC) ("Spark" or the "Company") is pleased to provide a corporate update on all of the recent corporate developments. Introduction to Spark's Flagship Project: "The Arapaima Lithium Project" Spark Energy Minerals is thrilled to introduce its flagship project, the "Arapaima Lithium Project," located in Brazil's renowned "Lithium Valley" in Minas Gerais. Covering 63,709 hectares, it is the largest contiguous landholding in this high-potential lithium region, offering significant exploration opportunities. The project is strategically situated near major industry players such as Lithium Ionic, Sigma Lithium, Latin Resources, Si6, and Atlas Lithium, positioning Spark Energy Minerals at the center of this fast-growing "lithium valley." Map of Spark Energy's flagship Arapaima Lithium Project relative to other major projects in Brazil's "Lithium Valley" To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10093/224938_dee2848b4439ab29_002full.jpg To advance exploration, Spark's geological team led by its VP Exploration, Jonathan Hill, has used advanced techniques, including geophysical, geochemical, remote sensing, and multi-spectral data. "These methods have identified promising lithium-rich targets across the project area. Even more encouraging, spodumene, a key lithium mineral, has been detected in stream sediments," said Mr. Hill. Government reports also point to high lithium potential, alongside other valuable elements like niobium, cerium, tin, tantalum, beryllium, and boron. A 2023 regional study highlighted the most promising areas for further exploration, marked in red, orange, and yellow based on sediment and mineral data in the below map. Map showing Spark Energy Metals 63 kHa contiguous tenement package overlain on the 2023 Brazilian Government Lithium Probability Map1 including remote sensing targets To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10093/224938_dee2848b4439ab29_003full.jpg Update on Q4 2024 Work Program in Brazil: Spark Energy Minerals is advancing its exploration activities across its large land package, aiming to uncover high-grade lithium deposits to meet the rising demand from global battery markets. The exploration program focuses on areas identified through advanced remote sensing and geophysical data. The region's geological potential is driven by lithium-rich pegmatite formations within G4 granite intrusions and favorable host rock structures, located near major known lithium deposits. Using modern techniques like remote sensing and multi-spectral analysis, along with reprocessed public geophysical and geochemical data, Spark's team has identified key targets. With confirmed lithium potential and strong geological indicators, Spark is well-positioned to seize opportunities in Brazil's Lithium Valley, supporting the electric vehicle and energy storage industries. "Lithium Valley" Industry Update: The global lithium market is growing quickly, and Brazil is becoming a key player with the launch of "Lithium Valley" in Minas Gerais. This initiative positions the state as a major hub for lithium production, supporting the electric vehicle and energy storage industries. Lithium Valley Brazil is raising the region's profile globally and reshaping international trade, as Brazil becomes an increasingly important supplier of lithium to the world market. Full details about the initiative can be found here and as well as in the related brochure found here. One of the key developments in Brazil's lithium sector is Sigma Lithium's "Groto do Cirilo" project, now the sixth-largest producer of lithium concentrate worldwide. On August 29, 2024, Sigma secured a BRL 487 million, 16-year loan from Brazil's National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) to fully fund the construction of its second Greentech Carbon Neutral Plant. The facility is set to be completed by summer 2025, further strengthening Brazil's role as a leading supplier of sustainable lithium. This investment aligns with BNDES's strategy to support a competitive, scalable, and environmentally responsible lithium supply chain. More information about Sigma's latest developments can be found here. Additionally, on August 15, 2024, Pilbara Minerals announced its intent to acquire Latin Resources in an all-stock transaction valued at USD 369.4 million. This acquisition grants Pilbara control of Latin Resources' flagship Salinas lithium project in Minas Gerais, providing them with exposure to the growing North American and European battery markets. Dale Henderson, Managing Director and CEO of Pilbara Minerals, commented on the acquisition. "We are excited to announce the acquisition of Latin Resources. This acquisition is on-strategy, diversifying the business with what we believe is a counter-cyclical, accretive extension that further builds out Pilbara Minerals' position as one of the leading lithium materials suppliers globally. The acquisition will deliver our second 100% owned, Tier 1, hard rock lithium asset, which is expected to be low-cost and accretive for our shareholders. It provides Pilbara Minerals with optionality to sequence new supply and diversify into new growth markets for lithium such as Europe and North America." Henderson also highlighted the significance of the Salinas project, saying: "One of the reasons Pilbara Minerals was attracted to Latin Resources was the strong foundation of community support that has been established to date. We look forward to working alongside the Latin Resources team, and other key stakeholders, as we develop Salinas to its full potential. We expect the combination of the Latin Resources and Pilbara Minerals teams will unlock the significant value of the Salinas project over time, de-risking its development and timing the project delivery appropriately in lock-step with the lithium market's growth." This acquisition strengthens Pilbara Minerals' position as a leading global lithium supplier and reinforces Minas Gerais as a key region in the global lithium supply chain. Full details on the acquisition can be found here. Spark CEO, Eugene Hodgson stated, "These developments underscore the growing prominence of Brazil's "Lithium Valley" and its importance in meeting the global demand for lithium. Spark Energy Minerals is proud to be part of this exciting growth and is well-positioned to contribute to the global energy transition, leveraging its strategic assets in Brazil's most promising lithium region." Introduction to Spark's Management, Directors and Key People: Eugene Hodgson - Chair, President & CEO Eugene Hodgson is a seasoned leader with over 40 years of experience across the resource industry, public sector, and capital markets. His diverse background includes significant roles in corporate communications, government and financial strategy, notably with Intrawest Corp, and investment banking as Vice President of Origination at Corpfinance International Corp. Mr. Hodgson has also served as Vice President of both the BC Mining Association and First Exploration Fund, a Merrill Lynch-funded junior mining flow-through fund. His extensive board experience encompasses numerous public companies and private organizations, including the Vancouver Board of Trade, Independent Power Producers of BC, and Timmins Gold Corp (NYSE). Additionally, he has held key positions and Board roles with Trait Biosciences Inc., Grandfield Pacific Corporation, Arimex Resources Inc., Equitable Real Estate Investment Corp., Sea Breeze Power Corp., Rover Metals Corp., Silvermex Resources Inc., Pacific Cascade Minerals, and Critical Infrastructure Technologies Ltd., making him a valuable asset in navigating complex business environments. Jonathan Hill - VP Exploration, Country Manager & Director Mr. Hill brings over 30 years' experience of global exploration, mining operational and project development experience including, Africa, Australia, and the Americas. He is a former geologist with Ashanti Gold where he was directly involved in several world class, greenfield and brownfield discoveries. Mr. Hill holds a BSc (Hons) Economic Geology 1988 (University of Cape Town), and a BAppSc. Applied Geology 1985 (Queensland University of Technology), and is a fellow of the AUSIMM. He has is a Non-Executive Director of Royal Road Minerals Limited and Stratabound Minerals Corporation, both TSX-V listed companies and was the former Greenfields Exploration Manager for Brazil - AngloGold, former VP Exploration and Geology Jaguar Mining and former Greensfield Exploration Manager of Columbia AnglaGold Ashanti. Chris Foster - CFO Mr. Foster is a consultant providing accounting and financial management services for both public and private companies across a broad spectrum of industries. He is currently Chief Financial Officer for DGTL Holdings Inc, former Chief Financial Officer for Perpetua Resources Corp, former Controller for the Ivanhoe Group's Global Mining Management Corporation and Peregrine Diamonds Ltd, Roca Mines Inc., and former accountant at Canadian Forest Products Ltd. Mike Stier - Director Mr. Stier is educated in business management and finance, with 15 years of experience in capital markets. He specializes in corporate structure, finance, business development, IPOs, M&A, and wealth management, having served as a CIBC IIROC licensed Senior Financial Advisor and senior analyst for a private equity company. Currently, he holds executive and directorship roles with private companies and publicly listed issuers, providing consultation across industries including mining, oil & gas, fintech, VR, eSports, health, life sciences, and biotech. Mr. Stier has acted for several public entities and currently serves on the board of Rektron Group Inc., La Fleur Minerals Inc., GoldHaven Resources Corp., and Saga Metals Corp. Andrew Lee Smith, P.Geo, BSC. - Chairman, Technical Advisory Board Andrew Lee Smith is an accomplished Professional Geologist. He has over 25 years of experience successfully exploring, developing, and operating North American and African base and precious metals mining projects. Andrew also holds directorships and management positions in several other junior mineral exploration companies. In 2015, Mr. Smith competed in the International Corporate Directors Education Program and received the ICD.D accreditation -the only professional designation for Canadian directors recognized both nationally and internationally. Michael Skead - Technical Advisory Board Member Mr. Skead is a geologist with over 30 years of international experience in mining exploration and development. He holds a BSc. Honours degree in geology from the University of Cape Town, (RSA) and MSc. in Exploration Geology, from the Rhodes University, Grahamstown, (RSA). He worked as the Vice President of Project Development at GT Gold Corp., which was recently acquired by Newmont Corp. for C$393 million. While at GT Gold Corp., he delivered the geological model and resource for the gold rich copper porphyry Saddle North Project which comprised an Indicated resource containing 1.81 B lbs. copper and 3.47 M oz. gold, and an Inferred resource containing 2.98 B lbs. copper and 5.46 M oz. gold. He was Director of Geoscience at Newmont Corp. and has previously held senior management positions in a number of internationally recognized mining companies including Goldcorp, Randgold Resources, and Dundee Precious Metals. Ian Gendall - Technical Advisory Board Member Mr. Gendall is the President & CEO of DLP Resources and was previously with Gencor, Billiton, Anglo American, Antofagasta and more recently, OceanaGold. While working with Billiton, Mr. Gendall led the team that was responsible for the discovery of an entirely new porphyry copper district in southern Ecuador. One of the companies that acquired part of the district was subsequently sold to CRCC- Tongguan Investment Co., Ltd. for $679M. Ian has extensive knowledge of operating in Brazil and was previously COO of Magellan Minerals, which was purchased in 2016 by Anfiled Gold Corp. Leonardo Souza - Consulting Geologist Mr. Souza is a Consultant Geologist at Canopus Geologia e Projetos, and an Associated Partner at Orion Group. He brings expertise in mineral exploration and project management from his lengthy experience developing mineral exploration projects across a spectrum of sizes and types, from metallic to gems, and business development within the sector, particularly in fostering partnerships and negotiating deals for domestic and international markets. Leonardo's skills extend to preparing business plans to attract investments and managing relationships with investors and investment funds, focusing on mining, mineral commodities, and exploration projects in Brazil and abroad. Qualified Person The scientific and technical information disclosed in this document has been reviewed and approved by Jonathan Victor Hill BSc Hons, FAUSIMM, a Qualified Person consistent with NI 43-101. About Spark Energy Minerals Inc. Spark Energy Minerals, Inc. is a Canadian company focused on the acquisition, exploration, and development of battery metals and mineral assets, with a particular emphasis on its substantial interests in Brazil. The Company holds significant land and mineral rights in Brazil's renowned Lithium Valley, one of the most prolific mining regions in the world. This region is rapidly gaining global recognition for its vast deposits of lithium and rare earth minerals, positioning Brazil as a critical player in the global energy transition. 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 Statement Disclaimer Certain statements contained in this release may constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" (collectively "forward-looking information") as those terms are used in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and similar Canadian laws. These statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of any of the words "could," "intend," "expect," "believe," "will," "projected," "estimated", "anticipates" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on the Company's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Actual future results may differ materially. In particular, this release contains forward-looking information relating to the businesses of the Company and Latam, the respective assets of the Company and Latam, financing and certain corporate changes. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date hereof, and the Company is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Certain statements contained in this release may constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" (collectively "forward-looking information") as those terms are used in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and similar Canadian laws. These statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of any of the words "could", "intend", "expect", "believe", "will", "projected", "estimated", "anticipates" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on the Company's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Actual future results may differ materially. In particular, this release contains forward-looking information relating to the businesses of the Company and Latam, the Company's properties, Latam's properties, and certain corporate changes. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date hereof and the Company is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. 1 Source: 2023 Brazilian Government Lithium Probability Map To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/224938 SOURCE: Spark Energy Minerals Inc. Sydney, Australia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - Central Iron Ore Ltd. (TSXV: CIO) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that, further to its press releases of August 2, 2024 and August 19. 2024, the Company has completed its rights offering (the "Rights Offering") to eligible holders of the ordinary shares (each, a "Share") in the capital of the Company at the close of business on the record date of August 13, 2024. Pursuant to the Rights Offering, the Company issued a total of 10,678,532 units (the "Units") of the Company, at a price of $0.05 per Unit for gross proceeds of $533,926.60. Each Unit will be comprised of one Share and one Share purchase warrant (each, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant entitles the holder to acquire one Share at an exercise price of $0.08 per Share on or before April 30, 2029. The Warrants will not be listed for trading on any securities exchange, however, the Warrants will be transferable. Pursuant to the Rights Offering, insiders of the Company purchase an aggregate of 9,431,000 Units as follows: Gullewa Limited acquired 202,000 Units; Brooklyn Bay Ptu Ltd. (which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Gullewa Limited) acquired 8,750,000 Units; and Mr. David Deitz, a Director and officer of the Company, acquired 479,000 Units. To the knowledge of the Company after reasonable inquiry, no person became an insider or control person of the Company as a result of the Rights Offering. No fees or commissions were paid by the Company in connection with the Rights Offering. Mr. David Deitz, has control or direction over the Shares that each of Gullewa Limited and Brooklyn Bay Pty Ltd. hold. As a result, prior to closing the Rights Offering, Mr. David Deitz, beneficially owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, an aggregate of 9,431,000 Shares, representing approximately 38.90% of the issued and outstanding Shares of the Company on an undiluted and partially diluted basis. On closing of the Rights Offering, Mr. Deitz owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, an aggregate of 18,862,000 Shares and 9,431,000 Warrants, representing approximately 54.02% of the issued and outstanding Shares on an undiluted basis and approximately 63.79% on a partially diluted basis. Depending on market and other conditions, or as future circumstances may dictate, Mr. Deitz, Gullewa Limited and/of Brooklyn Bay Pty Ltd. may from time to time increase or decrease their respective holdings of Shares or other securities of the Company. A copy of the early warning report will be available on the Company's issuer profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. The Rights Offering constituted a related party transaction within the meaning of TSX Venture Exchange Policy 5.9 and Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101") as insiders of the Company acquired an aggregate of 9,431,000 Units pursuant to the Offering. The Company is relying on the exemptions from the valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 contained in sections 5.5(b) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101, as applicable, as the Company is not listed on a specified market and the fair market value of the participation in the Offering by the insiders does not exceed 25% of the market capitalization of the Company in accordance with MI 61-101. The Company did not file a material change report more than 21 days before the closing of the Rights Offering because the details of the participation therein by related parties of the Company were not settled until shortly prior to closing of the Rights Offering. As of the closing of the Rights Offering, the Company has 34,915,780 Common Shares issued and outstanding. The Rights Offering remains subject to receipt of final acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. THIS NEWS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. Although the Company believes that such information is reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking information is typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking information provided by the Company is not a guarantee of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking information as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, the state of the financial markets for the Company's equity securities, the state of the market for iron ore or other minerals that may be produced generally, recent market volatility; variations in the nature, quality and quantity of any mineral deposits that may be located, the Company's ability to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required for its activities, to raise the necessary capital or to be fully able to implement its business strategies and other risks associated with the exploration and development of mineral properties. The reader is referred to the Company's disclosure documents for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effects, copies of which may be accessed through the Company's page on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/224884 SOURCE: Central Iron Ore Limited Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - Diamond Estates Wines & Spirits Inc. (TSXV: DWS) ("Diamond Estates" or "the Company") announced the results of voting at its annual general and special meeting of shareholders ("AGM") held yesterday in Toronto. The voting results for the election of directors were as follows: Director Nominees Number of Shares Percentage of Votes Cast For Withheld For Withheld Guy Blanchette 39,079,076 123,392 99.685% 0.315% John De Sousa 39,071,778 130,690 99.667% 0.333% Claude Gilbert 39,094,978 107,490 99.726% 0.274% Keith Harris 39,096,778 105,690 99.73% 0.27% Andrew Howard 39,094,382 108,086 99.724% 0.276% Ron McEachern 39,096,778 105,690 99.73% 0.27% Vince Timpano 39,096,778 105,690 99.73% 0.27% The voting results for other matters before the meeting were as follows: Appointment of Auditors: 99.755% of the votes were in favour of the resolution appointing MNP LLC as auditors of the Company until the next annual meeting, and 0.245% of the votes were withheld; Annual Approval of Stock Option Plan: 98.871% of the votes were in favour of the resolution to approve the stock option plan until the next annual meeting, and 1.129% of the votes were withheld; and Approval of Increase of Deferred Share Units Pool: 98.196% of the votes were in favour of the resolution to increase the pool of deferred share units from 1.2 million to 3.6 million, and 1.804% of the votes were withheld. The Company also thanks David Beutel for his long tenure as Chairman of the Company, which concluded at the AGM when David elected not to stand as a director. Andrew Howard, President & CEO of the Company commented that "David's steady hand and support have been instrumental in helping us continue to move forward and grow the Company." In the Board of Directors meeting immediately after the AGM, the following individuals were appointed officers of the Company: Ron McEachern - Chairman Andrew Howard - President and Chief Executive Officer Ryan Conte - Chief Financial Officer Andrew Green - Vice-President and Secretary. About Diamond Estates Wines and Spirits Inc. Diamond Estates Wines and Spirits Inc. is a producer of high-quality wines and ciders as well as a sales agent for over 120 beverage alcohol brands across Canada. The Company operates four production facilities, three in Ontario and one in British Columbia, that produce predominantly VQA wines under such well-known brand names as 20 Bees, Creekside, D'Ont Poke the Bear, EastDell, Lakeview Cellars, Mindful, Shiny Apple Cider, Fresh Wines, Red Tractor, Seasons, Serenity and Backyard Vineyards. Through its commercial division, Trajectory Beverage Partners, the Company is the sales agent for many leading international brands in all regions of the country as well as being a distributor in the western provinces. These recognizable brands include Fat Bastard, Meffre, Pierre Chavin and Andre Lurton wines from France, Brimincourt Champagne from France, Merlet and Larsen Cognacs from France, Kaiken wines from Argentina, Blue Nun and Erben wines from Germany, Calabria Family Estate Wines and McWilliams Wines from Australia, Saint Clair Family Estate Wines and Yealands Family Wines from New Zealand, Storywood and Cofradia Tequilas from Mexico, Maverick Distillery spirits (including Tag Vodka and Barnburner Whisky) from Ontario, Talamonti and Cielo wines from Italy, Catedral and Cabeca de Toiro wines from Portugal, Edinburgh Gin, Tamdhu, Glengoyne and Smokehead single-malt Scotch whiskies from Scotland, Islay Mist, Grand MacNish and Waterproof whiskies from Scotland, C. Mondavi & Family wines including C.K Mondavi & Charles Krug from Napa and Hounds Vodka from Canada, Bols Vodka from Amsterdam, Koyle Family Wines from Chile, Pearse Lyons whiskies and gins from Ireland and McCormick Distilling International including Tequila Rose Strawberry Cream, Five Farms Irish Cream Liqueur, Broker's Gin, Hussong's Tequila, Tarantula Tequila, 360 Vodka and Holliday Bourbon. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "estimates", "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 involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company and the matters discussed herein to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Actual results and developments are likely to differ, and may differ materially, from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. Forward-looking statements are based on a number of assumptions which may prove to be incorrect, including, but not limited to: the economy generally; consumer interest in the services and products of the Company; financing; competition; anticipated and unanticipated costs; and the anticipated performance of the Company. The estimate of the purchase price for the acquisition is a forward looking statement, and is based on estimates of future margin and commission revenue. While the Company acknowledges that subsequent events and developments may cause its views to change, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the views of the Company as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. There can be no assurances that the acquisition described in this press release will close. 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. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/224863 SOURCE: Diamond Estates Wines & Spirits Inc. Snohomish, Washington--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - Craft & Forge Homes is proud to announce its official rebranding from Northwest Unlimited Construction, marking a significant evolution in the company's journey. After five years of serving the community with dedication and excellence, the construction firm has taken this step to better reflect its values, mission, and commitment to quality. The new name, Craft & Forge Homes, emphasizes the company's deep passion for craftsmanship and its focus on creating not just homes, but environments where people can thrive. From meticulously planned remodels to custom home builds, the company aims to make every project a seamless blend of artistry and functionality. "Crafting Homes, Forging Futures" The decision to rebrand stems from the company's belief that a home should be more than just a structure; it should be a reflection of its occupants. This philosophy is embedded in the company's new slogan, "Crafting Homes, Forging Futures," which underscores Craft & Forge Homes' dedication to shaping both exceptional living spaces and meaningful relationships. "After five years of building homes and establishing connections, we realized that our brand needed to better align with who we are today," said Dayne Richards, founding partner of Craft & Forge Homes. "This rebrand is about more than just a new name-it's about reinforcing our commitment to quality craftsmanship and the people we work with, from our clients to our partners and team members. The values behind our work haven't changed, but our name now truly reflects them." Community-centered and Client-Focused Throughout its history, Craft & Forge Homes has remained deeply rooted in the Snohomish community, providing personalized service and high-quality projects that meet the specific needs of its clients. The company's dedication to craftsmanship has set it apart in the custom home and remodeling industry, allowing it to cultivate lasting relationships with clients and partners alike. Craft & Forge Homes recognizes the crucial role that clients, team members, and industry partners have played in its success. "The support of this community has been instrumental to our growth," Dayne Richards added. "We want to extend our deepest gratitude for their continued trust in us." As the company continues to expand its portfolio of remodels and custom homes, the rebrand signals an exciting new chapter. The change to Craft & Forge Homes is not only about honoring the art of building but also about forging futures where clients love where they live and feel a true connection to their homes. A Future Built on Strong Foundations Moving forward, Craft & Forge Homes will continue to prioritize collaboration, craftsmanship, and care in every project. This new chapter reaffirms the company's belief that every home tells a story, and Craft & Forge Homes is dedicated to helping clients write theirs. To learn more about Craft & Forge Homes and view their portfolio, visit the company's new website at www.craftandforgehomes.com. Media Contact: To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/224925 SOURCE: GetFeatured Nulogy, a Toronto, Canada-based provider of supply chain collaboration solutions, received $15M in credit facilities. CIBC Innovation Banking provided the credit facilities to support Rubicon Technology Partners strategic investment in Nulogy. The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts. Led by CEO Jason Tham, Nulogy is a supplier of cloud-based supply chain solutions that enables customers and their supplier communities to collaborate on a multi-enterprise platform. Its platform orchestrates upstream supply ecosystems composed of brands, contract manufacturers and packagers, third party logistics providers, and raw material and packaging suppliers to accelerate supply chain responsiveness, driving improved service while reducing waste, minimizing cost, and accelerating growth. FinSMEs 27/09/2024 These US measures align with actions by other economies like the European Union and Canada. They are a sign of broader concerns in the West about Chinas growing dominance in high-tech and industrial sectors read more Tariffs on several Chinese products, including EVs and solar cells have come into effect today (September 27) onwards. File image/Reuters Roughly a fortnight ago, the Biden administration had locked in a series of steep tariff hikes on Chinese imports, focusing on protecting strategic US industries from Chinas state-driven industrial practices. With duties on electric vehicles (EVs), solar cells, steel, and key minerals, this decision follows years of deliberation and fine-tuning by US officials. It has come into effect from Friday (September 27). Here are 10 key points to know about the tariffs being enforced from today: Advertisement 100 per cent tariff on Chinese EVs: Starting today, a 100 per cent duty is imposed on all electric vehicles imported from China. This is aimed at shielding U.S. EV manufacturers from what the administration describes as unfair competition driven by Chinese state subsidies. Tariff increases on solar cells and key minerals: A 50 per cent tariff is now applied to Chinese-made solar cells, along with critical minerals like polysilicon, essential in solar panel production. This comes alongside additional duties targeting other clean energy technologies to reduce dependency on Chinese imports. Steel and aluminum tariffs: The Biden administration has maintained a 25 per cent tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum imports. The move seeks to protect the domestic metal industry, particularly from the overproduction that has flooded global markets with cheap Chinese steel. Extended tariffs on EV batteries and components: Lithium-ion batteries and their components, crucial to the EV sector, now face a 25 per cent tariff. The goal is to bolster the US supply chain for EV production and reduce reliance on Chinese imports, especially as the EV market grows. Tariffs reflect policy continuity from Trump era: While these tariffs were expanded under President Joe Biden, many of them build on duties imposed during Donald Trumps presidency. Over $300 billion worth of Chinese goods remain subject to tariffs ranging from 7.5 per cent to 25 per cent, covering a wide range of products from clothing to industrial machinery. Industry concerns over disruptions: US industry groups have raised concerns that these tariffs may disrupt supply chains, particularly in semiconductor-intensive industries. Companies reliant on Chinese materials, including those in EV and tech sectors, worry about rising costs and limited alternatives. Stricter Tariffs on Medical Supplies Tariffs on medical supplies like face masks and surgical gloves will rise from 25 to 50 per cent, with implementation delays to allow for a shift to non-Chinese suppliers. Syringes, including those critical during the COVID-19 pandemic, face an immediate 100 per cent tariff, though infant feeding syringes have a temporary one-year exclusion. These US measures align with actions by other economies like the European Union and Canada. They are a sign of broader concerns in the West about Chinas growing dominance in high-tech and industrial sectors. With inputs from agencies Every mile conquered is a testament to human perseverance, innovation, and the desire to explore the unknown read more Indias historic road expedition, Bharat Ka Safar: Indias Endumaxx Expedition, has reached its halfway point, and the excitement continues to build as the Mahindra Bolero Maxx Pik-up, equipped with Apollo Endumaxx LT HD tyres, forges ahead through some of the countrys most challenging terrains. What began as an ambitious pursuit of a record-breaking road trip has now evolved into a journey of endurance, discovery, and inspiration. Crossing the Heart of India: Midway Milestones Advertisement Since the expedition kicked off on July 22, 2024, at Apollo Tyres CV zone in Gurugram, the crew has traversed over 11,000 kilometers, journeying through the breathtaking diversity of India. From the towering heights of the Himalayas to the scorching deserts of Rajasthan, and now deep into the lush greenery of central India, each leg of the trip has been an intense test of both machine and human spirit. The journey thus far has been nothing short of awe-inspiring. Northern India posed an initial challenge with its rugged mountain passes and congested urban centers, where the tyres showed their strength and resilience on winding roads and crowded streets. Now, as we enter the southern and central regions, the journey becomes even more dynamictropical coastal highways, expansive plateaus, and the iconic Deccan landscape have all played a part in testing the tyres durability under extreme conditions. A Journey of Discovery: More Than Just Miles But this journey isnt just about distance; its about the stories that unfold along the way. With each kilometer, the expedition has uncovered untold tales of rural India, connected with local communities, and showcased the nations cultural richness. The crew has witnessed sunrises over the desert, torrential rains in coastal towns, and the vast openness of agricultural heartlands. Throughout it all, the Apollo Endumaxx LT HD tyres have not just endured; theyve excelled. Each twist, turn, and obstacle has reinforced the groundbreaking technology that makes these tyres ideal for Indias unpredictable roads. The durability, grip, and performance have held strong, proving their worth at every corner, whether on smooth highways or treacherous backroads. Advertisement Real-Time Adventure: A Journey Shared Nationwide As this incredible journey unfolds, the nation watches in real-time. From live updates on CNBC Awaaz to exclusive stories on Firstpost.com, Bharat Ka Safar: Indias Endumaxx Expedition has captured the imagination of millions. With each new region, viewers are treated to stunning visuals, on-the-ground insights, and heartwarming encounters that go beyond the mechanics of the record attempt. Now, as the team approaches the southern stretch of the expedition, spirits remain high, and the road ahead is filled with promise. With nearly 11,000 km left to cover, the journey is far from overbut the determination to break the record grows stronger by the day. Every mile conquered is a testament to human perseverance, innovation, and the desire to explore the unknown. Advertisement Stay tuned as Bharat Ka Safar: Indias Endumaxx Expedition pushes further into new territories, testing the limits of endurance while bringing the heart of India to every screen across the nation. The road may be long, but the destination is now within reach. The Nykaa Best in Beauty Summit 2024 highlighted a key insight: Indias beauty and personal care market is set for phenomenal growth, driven by rising incomes, premiumisation, e-commerce expansion, and tech innovations read more Nykaa Best in Beauty Summit 2024 The inaugural Best in Beauty Summit 2024, organised by Nykaa in association with CNBC-TV18, was a landmark event that featured the release of the Nykaa Beauty Trends Report in partnership with Redseer. The summit brought together a diverse panel of journalists, industry veterans, investors, and influencers to discuss emerging trends in the beauty industry. Stimulating Panel Discussions With AI being the buzzword, the summit featured thought-provoking discussions on the potential of the technology in the sector. The integration of AI in advertising, particularly the potential to enhance ad creatives and ensure more effective and accurate ad placements was deliberated. Additionally, AIs role in developing conversational bots to assist consumers in making informed decisions was another prominent theme at the summit. Advertisement Highlighting the immense growth potential in the sector, Nykaa founder Falguni Nayar pointed out that while per capita spending on BPC in India currently sits around $15, countries with similar income levels see per capita spending between $50 and $60. She emphasised that educating consumers at scale is key to bringing more people into the fold. The evolution of beauty categories was also a major theme at the summit. Discussions on make-up products that also offer skincare benefits, the surge in the number of players, and a global community of users who are increasingly vocal about their expectations, spotlighted the trends in the industry. The summit concluded with the Best in Beauty Awards 2024, recognising excellence across various categories. Insights from the Nykaa Beauty Trends Report With growing household incomes and the rise of an aspirational middle class, Indias beauty and personal care (BPC) market, currently the fourth largest globally, is primed for spectacular growth and is estimated to reach USD $34 billion by 2028. The report allows us a window into the rising consumption patterns in this segment fueled by growing disposable incomes, the democratisation of e-commerce, and increased brand awareness in India. Trending towards Aspirational Premiumisation The report points towards a clear trend - There is a consolidated shift towards the demand for premium beauty products. This phenomenon is driven by rising incomes, increased consumer awareness of quality brands, and the exclusive brand experience. Estimates project the premium beauty segment to cross the $3 billion mark by 2028. Nykaa has been at the forefront of driving this change. The Nykaa platform has made global luxury brands available to the average Indian customer. With a diverse palette of more than 3600 brands, Nykaa has truly democratised access to the best of beauty from around the world. The in-house innovation of stepification (multi-step skincare routines) has allowed Nykaa to establish itself as a values-driven business. Advertisement The E-Commerce Route to Market Expansion One of the biggest factors driving the growth in the BPC segment is the e-commerce channel with a projected CAGR of 25%. Nykaa, which started as a digital-first beauty retailer, has led this change from the get-go. The impact of social media is also crucial in this transformational change. With an active user base of 520-560 million users in 2023, platforms like Instagram and YouTube have eased access to beauty expertise, empowering customers to make informed choices based on community reviews, tutorials, and influencer picks. Reaching Every Nook & Cranny with Omnichannel Access The demand for beauty has well gone beyond the metros and is now gaining tremendous among tier-2 and tier-3 cities. The rise of homegrown brands is another key driver of growth, with offerings leaning on traditional ingredients like neem and turmeric further diversifying the product basket. With ease of access and seemingly endless choice, consumers across the country are leveraging e-commerce and physical stores to meet their demand. The omnichannel route perfected by Nykaa - a careful mix of online and offline presence of 200+ brick-and-mortar stores - has been a game-changer in tapping hitherto untapped markets. Integrating Next-Gen Tech in Personal Care The role of next-gen tech is equally relevant in the personal care space. Innovations like AI-driven personalisation, advanced logistics, and a glitch-free shopping experience will significantly impact product discovery and sales. The Nykaa Beauty Trends Report highlights that brands that will be in sync with these trends will stay ahead of the curve. In this context, Nykaas ability to respond in real time to evolving trends in the technology domain, customer experience, and micro-trends underscores the importance of a hands-on approach. Advertisement Nykaa has been at the forefront of driving this shift towards premiumisation by democratizing access to over 3600+ beauty brands. Over the past decade, Nykaa has successfully launched and grown global prestige and luxury brands in the country. It caters to the largest base of premium beauty buyers in the country, as well as hosts the largest assortment of premium and luxury brands. The study has identified GenZ and young millennials along with customers in non-metro cities as the audiences spearheading beauty consumption and growth. Nykaas content and education ecosystems along with its robust campaigns have been instrumental in augmenting and shaping demand for this cohort. Binny And Family is a loveable film that will take you on an emotional roller-coaster read more Cast: Pankaj Kapur, Himani Shivpuri, Rajesh Kumar, Charu Shankar, Anjini Dhawan, Naman Tripathi Director: Ssanjay Tripaathy From Kal Aaj Aur Kal to Baghban, we have seen Bollywood exploring the dynamics of the generational gap between parents, children and grandchildren. While some have shown a good side, some have taken through the harsh reality. Amid this, a slice-of-life family drama comes across as an unabashed, unfiltered take on the generational gap between a teenager and her grandfather and how they create memories and bonds irrespective of their different approach, culture and core nature. Advertisement Binny aka Bindiya Singh (Anjini Dhawan) is a carefree rebellious teenage girl living in London with her parents. As she moved to the UK from Pune at the age of 5, she is now adapted to the foreign culture and has imbibed Western culture and modern thinking like having your own space and other aspects. While her father is a professor in a college, her mother is a career counsellor. The duo somehow imbibed the values and style of living of both countries. Every year, Binnys grandparents (Pankaj Kapur and Himani Shivpuri) come to London from their hometown in Bihar for two months and Binny has to share her room with them. In this period, Binny and her parents pretend to be rooted and follow the rituals and etiquette taught by them. While Binny doesnt hate her grandparents, she thinks that because of them she is losing her personal space and portraying her fake identity. After going back to Bihar, Binnys grandmother Sharda, who is a patient, falls unconscious. Binnys grandfather calls his son and tells him about the incident and says that she is in hospital and while the oxygen level is now on level, he is concerned about her health. The son tells his father he is arranging the tickets for London and asks him to come ASAP with his mother as the medical facilities are better in London. When Binnys father tells the situation to his wife and daughter, Binny gets annoyed that its her 12th, she wants to study and there are good hospitals in Bihar, where she can be treated. After a heated argument with her father, she leaves home in anger. Binnys mom supports her and tells his husband that his mother can be treated in Bihar. Advertisement While the character of Pankaj Kapur gets ready to come to London along with his wife, Binnys father calls him and lies that he had a word with the doctor and that it is better if she is treated there. He makes all the arrangements in a multi-care hospital in Patna. Binnys father takes leaves from college and heads to India to meet her parents. While the treatment goes smoothly, Binnys grandmother succumbs to a sudden cardiac arrest. After hearing this news, Binny and her mother feel guilty for opposing the decision to bring grandmother to London for treatment. Following all rituals post grandmothers demise, Binny and family along with grandfather come to London. Binnys grandmother, who is still grieving over his wifes demise leaves isolated and sad. Advertisement Now, Binny, who is still guilty of his behaviour, makes efforts to bring a smile to his grandfathers face. Slowly and steadily, the duo develops a bond and smoothly accepts each others lifestyle. However, due to a sudden incident, a rift is created between the duo. Will this misunderstanding hamper this beloved and unique bond? For that, you have to watch Binny And Family on the big screen. Director Ssanjay Tripaathy brings a compelling narrative and storytelling, which is relevant to almost every generation. The filmmaker presents complex relationships most simply and beautifully. Apart from exploring this bond, Binny And Family takes a subtle dig at youngsters and GenZ living a pretentious life for likes on social media platforms and sharing each and everything digitally. Advertisement Talking about the performances, Anjini Dhawan makes a confident debut as Binny and deserves appreciation for her sincere attempt to bring out this layered, relevant and complicated character. Pankaj Kapur is brilliant and makes a special place in your heart with his moving and cherishable performance. Himani Shivpuri is sweet and loveable as caring grandmother. Naman Tripathi as Binnys friend BP is funny and has his moments to shine. Rajesh Kumar & Charu Shankar as Binnys parents are superb and natural. On the whole, Binny And Family is a loveable film that will take you on an emotional roller-coaster. Rating: 3.5 (out of 5 stars) Advertisement Binny And Family is playing in cinemas Cast: Jitendra Joshi, Milind Shinde, Janardan Kadam, Dhananjay Mandaokar and Suruchi Adarkar Director: Chhatrapal Ninawe Language: Marathi In recent times, Marathi cinema has come up with great stories resulting in impeccable executions. Ghaath grabbed my eyeballs when it took centre stage at the Berlin Film Festival. While the trailer garnered curiosity among the audience, does it live up to its hype? Lets find out Deori village, which is under the control of Maoists, is considered to be hell for police officers. The only way to get a transfer from there is you have to arrest a Maoist. ACP Nagpure (Jitendra Joshi) wants to get a transfer to Pune so that he can be with his wife and daughter. Advertisement One day, suddenly news comes out that Nagpure has killed Raghunath (the leader of one of the Maoist groups). After that, Raghunaths brother Falgun plans to take revenge on Nagpure and makes strategic plans to assassinate him. One day, he chases him to another island and after reaching a hut, he finds that Raghunath is alive and has some connection with Nagpure. Well, whats that connection, which has a solid twist? While the drama and intensity are always high in this raw thriller, surprise twists have added more punch to the narrative. Kudos to director Chhatrapal Ninawe for his storytelling and for sketching out the depth of the characters, which are earthy, real, and impactful. Through pale light and desaturated colours, Ninawe transforms us into the world, where we are with the characters learning about survival skills and battling between extreme ideologies. Talking about the performances, Jitendra Joshi and Milind Shinde steal the show with their impactful portrayals with great support from Janardan Kadam and Dhananjay Mandaokar. Suruchi Adarkar is a surprise package that leaves you awestruck thanks to her powerful acting chops. On the whole, Chhatrapal Ninawe has delivered a gripping crime thriller that deserves the audiences attention. Advertisement Rating: 3.5 (out of 5 stars) Ghaath is playing in cinemas Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address the UN General Assembly after his speech was postponed. Japans ruling party will hold a key vote today to elect a new leader, who will become the next prime minister. Heres what else to expect today read more Its a busy Friday ahead. India faces Bangladesh in the second Test match at Green Park, Kanpur. India holds a 1-0 series lead against Bangladesh. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu will address the UN General Assembly today after his speech was deferred due to a major Israeli attack on Lebanon. Japan will get its new prime minister today as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is set to hold a crucial vote today. Delhi University Student Union (DUSU) Elections take place today to fill key positions, including president and secretary. Advertisement US Vice President Kamala Harris will visit the US-Mexico border today, her first trip since becoming the Democratic nominee. Delhis newly-formed government, led by Chief Minister Atishi, will seek a trust vote in the Assembly today. Flipkart and Amazon India open their annual festive sales to all customers today, after early access for subscribers. Heres a look at the events taking place today. Benjamin Netanyahu to address UN amid war with two neighbours Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose scheduled speech to the UN General Assembly was postponed on Monday after his countrys deadliest strike on Lebanon since the 2006 invasion, is now expected to speak on Friday. Netanyahu arrives at the UN at a time when both his personal credibility and that of Israel are under strain. Critics have questioned what he wants to accomplish during this visit beyond gaining attention. At the UN, Netanyahu is expected to argue that Israels actions in Gaza are justified and, as in his previous speeches, is likely to hold Iran accountable for the regions instability. Protests are expected to occur during his visit, especially since New York is home to Columbia University, a hotspot for recent campus protests against the violence in Gaza. Advertisement Indias Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, and Rohit Sharma walk after India won the first test match against Bangladesh in Chennai. AP India vs Bangladesh 2nd Test match India will face Bangladesh in the second Test match at Green Park Stadium, Kanpur, today. Both teams participated in intense practice sessions under a bright, sunny sky after arriving in Kanpur. India, led by Rohit Sharma, has already secured a 1-0 lead in the two-match series. Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin delivered a standout performance in the first Test, taking six wickets as a dominant India defeated Bangladesh by 280 runs on the fourth day of the opening test. Against a target of 515, Bangladesh were bowled out for 234 in their second innings, with first-inning centurion Ashwin (6/88) performing the bulk of the damage. Advertisement Kanpur will be hosting its first Test match since the thrilling draw between India and New Zealand in 2021. However, it remains to be seen how the weather and pitch conditions will impact the five-day contest between India and Bangladesh. Japans ruling party to choose new PM Japans ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will hold a crucial vote today to select a new national leader, following the decision of outgoing Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to step down. The vote is limited to the LDPs parliamentarians and dues-paying party members. Given the partys dominance in the governing coalition, the winner is expected to become the next prime minister of Japan. Advertisement Candidates of Japans ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) presidential election (from left), Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi, former Economic Security Minister Takayuki Kobayashi, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, former Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato, Digital Minister Taro Kono, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and LDP Secretary General Toshimitsu Motegi, pose for a photo session at the partys headquarters in Tokyo. File image/AP A record number of nine candidates, including two women, are contesting in what is seen as an unpredictable race. Experts warn that the new leader will need to immediately rebuild public trust to avoid the possibility of Japan returning to a pattern of short-lived governments. The vote will be decided by LDP lawmakers and 1.1 million grassroots members, which represents less than one per cent of Japans eligible voters. No candidate is likely to secure a majority in the initial round due to divided support, making a runoff between the top two contenders likely. This vote is seen as crucial for the LDP as it seeks to regain public support, following a series of scandals that have damaged Kishidas standing. Advertisement Delhi University elections The Delhi University Student Union (DUSU) Elections are set to take place today, September 27. The elections are being organised by the Delhi University Students Union to fill key positions, including president, vice president, secretary, and joint secretary. The candidates will be chosen through direct voting by the student body from Delhi University and its affiliated colleges. Notable groups, including ABVP, NSUI, AISA, and FSI, will have their representatives contesting in this election. Presently, the elected officials include Tushar Dedha as President, Abhi Dahiya as Vice President, Aprajita as Secretary, and Sachin Baisla as Joint Secretary. Ahead of election day, Delhi Universitys campuses were filled with several campaign activities. Convoys featuring luxury vehicles such as Range Rovers, Thars, and other SUVs accompanied the candidates. A walk through the DU North Campus revealed a sea of blue, yellow, orange, and white posters, banners, and hoardings displayed in every corner. A similar sight could be observed across the South Campus, where campaign posters and pamphlets covered bus stops, food stalls, roadside benches, bushes, and even plants. Kamala Harris to visit US-Mexico border US Vice President Kamala Harris will visit the US-Mexico border today, the White House said in an announcement. This marks her first visit to the border since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. Harris is scheduled to travel to Douglas, Arizona, where she will address issues related to border security and promote what a campaign aide described as the toughest bipartisan border security plan in a generation. US Vice President Kamala Harris visit to the border marks her first since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. File image/AP The aide further said, As a former attorney general from a border state, she took on international gangs and criminal organizations who traffic drugs, guns and human beings, and she has long believed we need an immigration system that is secure, fair, orderly and humane, a stark contrast from the divisive and dangerous politics of Donald Trump. Notably, Harris, who last visited the border in 2021, faces ongoing criticism from Trump, who has frequently attacked her handling of border policy. Delhi CM Atishi likely to seek trust vote The newly-formed government of Delhi, led by Chief Minister Atishi, is expected to seek a vote of trust in the Delhi Assembly today. The two-day assembly session began with a heated exchange of slogans between AAP and BJP leaders, forcing the Speaker to briefly adjourn proceedings on Thursday. The Delhi Assembly currently has 67 members, as two AAP MLAs were disqualified for joining the BJP, and former Leader of Opposition Ramvir Singh Bidhuri was recently elected as an MP from South Delhi. AAP, which initially won 62 seats in the 2020 elections, now has 58 members due to the disqualification of two MLAs under the anti-defection law, and two more being in jail. Meanwhile, the BJP holds seven seats in the Assembly. Flipkart, Amazon to begin annual festive sales E-commerce giants Flipkart and Amazon India are set to launch their annual festive sales today. After offering early access to their paid subscribers on September 26, both platforms will open the sale to all customers. Flipkart is preparing for high demand, especially for same-day deliveries, and has over 2 lakh product categories available across more than 20 cities as part of its Big Billion Days 2024 event. Meanwhile, Amazon has lined up more than 14 lakh sellers to offer millions of products on Amazon.in. Myntra, Flipkarts fashion and lifestyle platform, started its sale on September 25. Alongside discounts on various brands, Amazon is introducing around 25,000 new products from top brands, covering categories like electronics, mobile phones, televisions, appliances, fashion, healthcare, and more. With inputs from agencies UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Frances Emmanuel Macron have called for India to get a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). But what are the rules governing the UNSCs expansion? How close is India to getting the seat and what are the hurdles in the way? read more United Nations Security Council is made up of five permanent and 10 elected members. File Image / Reuters Indias bid for a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council just got a big boost. On Thursday, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer came out in favour of expanding the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Starmer, addressing the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, said, The Security Council has to change to become a more representative body, willing to act not paralysed by politics. We want to see permanent African representation on the Council, Brazil, India, Japan and Germany as permanent members, and more seats for elected members as well, Starmer added. Advertisement Starmers speech came a day after Frances Emmanuel Macron issued a similar call. Lets make the UN more efficient. Thats why France is in favour of the Security Council being expanded. Germany, Japan, India, and Brazil should be permanent members, as well as two countries that Africa will decide to represent it, Macron said. French President Emmanuel Macron called for the UNSC to expand. Biden during Prime Minister Narendra Modis trip to the United States had also support for India to get a permanent seat at the UNSC. Biden told Modi the US recognises the need for reforms of global institutions to reflect Indias important voice. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken too had endorsed Indias bid for a UNSC seat. The United States believes that this should include two permanent seats for Africa, one rotating seat for Small Island Developing States, and permanent representation for Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition to the permanent seats for countries, weve long endorsed Germany, Japan, and India, Blinken said. But what are the rules of UNSC expansion? How close is India to getting this seat? Why does it want it? Lets take a closer look: What are the rules of UNSC expansion? First, lets briefly examine the UNSC. The UNSC is responsible for maintaining international peace and security among all 193 members of the UN. Advertisement Founded in January 1946, it held its first session at Church House in Londons Westminster. It has since shifted base to the United Nations headquarters in New York. As per the UN website, the UNSCs first course of action when approached over a dispute is to try to broker a peaceful settlement. With regard to this it may: Set forth principles for such an agreement Undertake investigation and mediation, in some cases Dispatch a mission Appoint special envoys Request the Secretary-General to settle dispute In case of hostilities, the UNSC can Issue ceasefire directives Dispatch military observers or a peacekeeping force It can also Impose sanctions, embargoes and travel bans Cut-off diplomatic relations Issue a blockade Order collective military action. The UNSC currently comprises 15 members five permanent and 10 elected members which have two-year terms. The United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China and France are the permanent members. Collectively, this group is called the P5. Advertisement All of these members have the power of the veto which they, particularly the US and Russia, have frequently exercised through the decades. This veto power essentially allows one member to unilaterally block any resolution or decision from being passed. Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Switzerland are the 10 current elected members. Now, lets look at the rules to expand the UNSC. Changing charter Any changes to the composition of the UNC will involve changing the charter. Under the rules of the general Assembly, all 193 members get a vote on any changes. Thus, to approve an expansion, 128 countries must approve the change. But even this isnt enough. Advertisement After the charter is amended, it still must be approved. This requires two-third of member-states and their parliaments to give their assent but most importantly all the P5 members. For each member state, the ratification process adheres to the rules of their own country which can further complicate the matter. Then theres the question of the veto from any of the P5 members which can simply block an expansion proposal. The last time the security council was expanded was in 1963 when the number of elected members was increased from six to 10. This was done to establish equitable geographical distribution. Under this, five seats were given to African and Asian States, two seats were set aside Latin American and Caribbean States, two seats were allotted to Western European and others states, and one seat was kept for Eastern European States. Advertisement The entire procedure took a year-and-a-half. The last time a permanent member was changed was in 1971 when the Peoples Republic of China took the seat held by the Taiwan. How close is India to getting the seat? The growing number of world leaders pushing for India to get a permanent seat at the UNSC is a good sign. India has elected as a non-permanent member of the UNSC eight times most recently in 2021-2022. However, the voting structure of the UNSC demonstrates that India still faces an uphill task when it comes to gaining a permanent seat. There are also geopolitical obstacles from both foes and friends. Though in the past, four of the P5 members have come out in favour of India getting a permanent seat on the security council, China remains opposed. This is because Beijing sees New Delhi as a potential rival in the region. Even allies of India, like the US, who have pushed for New Delhi to get a permanent seat on the UNSC have in the past mused about new members being denied the power of the veto. Chinas President Xi Jinping. Reuters In 2008, then US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said the states do not want to extend a veto to new permanent members, as per The Week. This is perhaps to safeguard their own power on the world stage. India, of course, finds such a proposition unwelcome. China will resist Dhananjay Tripathi, writing in The Diplomat, laid out four main challenges to India getting a permanent seat on the council beginning with China. China is the only Asian country with a permanent Security Council seat. This adds to its power and international prestige, and China is unlikely to want to share this space with India. Whats more, particularly amid an ongoing border dispute with India, China will resist any attempt by any of the four members to change the composition of the UNSC, Tripathi wrote. He also raised the question of the veto power and New Delhis insistence that all new additions to UNSCs permanent membership be granted the same. Tripathi also questioned the depth of US support for India. He pointed to a piece in Foreign Affairs Magazine by prominent US-based South Asian expert Ashley Tellis who argues that Washington cannot take New Delhis support on strategic affairs as a given. The current war in Ukraine is a good example India defines its interest in ways that are not always identical to our own, Tellis later remarked in an interview. India needs better engagement with the region and much more internal work to strengthen its claim further, Tripathi concluded. Why does India want the UNSC seat? India has been highlighting the need for reforms at the UNSC to make it more diverse and equitable. India has warned that global institutions need to reform or risk facing oblivion. Rohan Mukherjee told Carnegie Endowment that India sees the current world order as inherently unfair. It is dominated by a great power club comprising the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Councilwho often flagrantly violate the very rules and standards to which they hold all other countries. It is also obsolete, privileging a group whose claim to centralitybeing the victors of World War IIis outdated, Mukherjee said. For India, the distribution of power and moral authority in the world has shifted substantially since 1945. The core issue, then, is one of equity, a vital precondition for the Security Councils continued legitimacy in the eyes of those who aspire to join the great power club. India has called for membership to be increased from the current 15 to 25-26, by adding six permanent and four or five non-permanent members. India has also proposed making permanent members elected democratically by the General Assembly and flexibility on the veto issue. Former Indian diplomat TP Sreenivasan, writing for Rediff, said India points to its large population, its support for the UN and peaceful resolution of disputes as the reason for it seeking to become a permanent member. Reform is path to relevance Modi and India have consistently pushed the need for the UN to reform. Modi, addressing the United Nations Summit of the Future at the UN General Assembly in New York, this week, called for reforms as a key to the UN maintaining its relevance. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses Summit of the Future at UN General Assembly on Monday. Photo/X/@MEAIndia For global peace and development, reforms in global institutions are necessary. Reform is the path to relevance, he stated. In September 2023, Modi, ahead of India hosting the G20 Summit, remarked, Todays world is a multipolar world where institutions are extremely important for a rules-based order that is fair and sensitive to all concerns. However, institutions can retain relevance only when they change with the times. A mid-20th century approach cannot serve the world in the 21st century. So, our international institutions need to recognise changing realities, expand their decision-making forums, relook at their priorities and ensure representation of voices that matter. Before a two-day trip to France in July 2023, Modi, in an interview with French newspaper Les Echos asked, How can we talk of it as a primary organ of a global body, when entire continents of Africa and Latin America are ignored ? How can it claim to speak for the world when its most populous country, and its largest democracy, is not a permanent member? With inputs from agencies Naomi Campbell, the British supermodel, was at the centre of a storm after a UK watchdog investigation uncovered widespread evidence of financial misconduct at her charity organisation, Fashion for Relief. It found the charity diverted much of the funds it raised towards personal luxuries of Campbell such as spas, cigarettes and luxury hotel stays. She has now been banned as a charity trustee read more A UK watchdog investigation uncovered widespread evidence of financial misconduct, the 54-year-old model Naomi Campbell has been banned from leading any charity in England and Wales for five years. Reuters Naomi Campbell, the British supermodel renowned for her reign on global runways, has found herself at the centre of a different kind of spotlight. After a UK watchdog investigation uncovered widespread evidence of financial misconduct, the 54-year-old model has been banned from leading any charity in England and Wales for five years. The charity in question? Fashion for Relief, which Campbell herself founded in 2015 to tackle poverty. In a report on Thursday, the UKs Charity Commission criticised the organisation for being poorly governed and suffering from inadequate financial management." Advertisement What did the watchdog report against Campbells charity and what did the supermodel respond? Lets take a closer look Grants used for spas, 5-star hotel stays The investigation found that Fashion for Relief diverted much of the funds it raised through glamorous fashion events towards personal luxuries rather than charitable causes. Despite raising millions, only a fraction went to grants. Instead, the money was used for luxury hotel stays, flights, spa treatments, personal security, and cigarettes for Naomi Campbell. From April 2016 to July 2022, less than 9 per cent of the charitys earnings went to the intended causes. The Charity Commission labelled some of the expenses not reasonable. One notable example was a 14,800 (Rs.13.84 lakh) flight from London to Nice in 2018, to transport art and jewellery for a Cannes event for the model. Another was a 9,400 (Rs 8,79 lakh ) three-night stay at a five-star hotel, which included expenses of nearly 7,940 (Rs 7.43 lakh) on spa treatments, room service, and cigarettes for Campbell. Although trustees claimed the hotel expenses were covered by a donor, no evidence was provided. The Charity Commission stated they failed to show how these were cost-effective and an appropriate use of the charitys resources. The inquiry report revealed significant issues regarding financial mismanagement and disorganised record-keeping at Fashion for Relief. It noted the charitys failure to maintain crucial documentation, such as invoices, receipts, and formal meeting minutes. Furthermore, the organisation operated without any full-time employees, relying instead on external advisers for administrative and accounting tasks. Advertisement Unauthorised expenses, unfulfilled promises Unauthorised expenses and unfulfilled fundraising promises have led to serious repercussions for Naomi Campbells charity. Two of her co-trustees, Bianka Hellmich and Veronica Chou, have been banned from serving as trustees for nine and four years, respectively. The inquiry uncovered unauthorised payments totalling 290,000 (approximately Rs 3.25 crore) made to Hellmich for consultancy services, which violated the charitys constitution. Additionally, Hellmich received 26,000 (around Rs 29 lakh) annually for travel expenses over two years. Although Hellmich proposed repaying the funds, the interim managers appointed by the Charity Commission successfully secured repayments to the charity. They recovered nearly 345,000 (about Rs 3.87 crore), and protection for an additional 98,000 (approximately Rs 1.10 crore) of charity funds. Advertisement These funds have been allocated to settle liabilities and support two other charities: Save the Children Fund and the Mayors Fund for London. After the inquiry began, both charities lodged complaints against Fashion for Relief for mismanagement of partnership arrangements. Tim Hopkins, who was part of the investigations team, said in a statement: Trustees are legally required to make decisions that are in their charitys best interests and to comply with their legal duties and responsibilities. Our inquiry has found that the trustees of this charity failed to do so, which has resulted in our action to disqualify them, he added. Further, Fashion for Relief was dissolved and removed from the countrys register of charities this March. Advertisement What did Campbell say? In response to the watchdogs report, Naomi Campbell expressed her alarm, and told AP, Ive just found out today about the findings, and I am extremely concerned. And we are investigating on our side." She emphasised her lack of control over the charity, explaining, I put the control in the hands of a legal employer. This statement came shortly after she was honoured as a knight in Frances Order of Arts and Letters for her contributions to French culture. We are investigating to find out what and how, and everything I do and every penny I ever raised goes to charity, she further said. Advertisement With input from agencies Shigeru Ishiba is next in line to become Japans prime minister after he defeated Sanae Takaichi in the Liberal Democratic Partys leadership vote on Friday. The 67-year-old is a senior member of the party, a former defence minister and a stern critic of Shinzo Abe read more Shigeru Ishiba has emerged victorious in the race to become Japans next prime minister, having been elected as the leader of the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on Friday. The 67-year-old former defence minister defeated his rightwing opponent, Sanae Takaichi, who was vying to be Japans first female prime minister, in a close runoff election, securing 215 votes against Takaichis 194 at the LDP headquarters in Tokyo. The vote came after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in August announced he would not run for re-election as LDP president amid damaging fundraising scandals and plummeting approval ratings. Advertisement Kishida emphasised the need for new blood to lead the party forward, indicating that his successor must usher in a new LDP. So, who is Shigeru Ishiba? What do we know about his journey to prime minister? Lets take a closer look. The border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon has sharply escalated, prompting many countries to swiftly alter their preparations for evacuations from the region. While India has strongly advised its nationals to leave Lebanon immediately, the US and the UK have deployed troops to Cyprus to help evacuate citizens read more Smoke rises as Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets launched from Lebanon towards Israel, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, as seen from Haifa, northern Israel, September 27, 2024. Reuters The border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon has sharply escalated, prompting many countries to swiftly alter their preparations for evacuations from the region. Several countries contingency evacuation plans focus on Cyprus as the first option and involve moving additional personnel as well as military and retainer commercial vessels into the region. If the war escalates and affects Lebanons airports, spillover plans could also include Turkey and Greece, as per Reuters. Here is the list of countries facilitating evacuation operations. Advertisement India India has strongly advised its nationals to leave Lebanon. All Indian nationals already in Lebanon are also strongly advised to leave Lebanon. Those who remain for any reason are advised to exercise extreme caution, restrict their movements and remain in contact with the Embassy of India in Beirut through our email ID: cons.beirut@mea.gov.in or the emergency phone number +96176860128, the Embassy of India said in a public notification. Approximately 3,000 Indians currently reside in Lebanon, according to The Hindu. Smoke and flames are visible near homes in Kiryat Shmona after a rocket attack launched from Lebanon, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in northern Israel, September 26, 2024. Reuters According to the report citing official sources, the Indian government is considering evacuating its citizens from Lebanon due to the countrys worsening security conditions. Notably, this is the first advisory by India since the pager attacks targeted Lebanon a week earlier. Australia Australia has urged an estimated 15,000 of its citizens living in Lebanon to leave, flagging a risk Beirut airport may close and the difficulty of evacuating large numbers if the situation worsens. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government had made contingency plans that could include evacuations by water. Were looking at every option, but theres obviously national security issues, he said in a Sky News interview. In 2006, it evacuated over 5000 of its citizens and another 1,200 foreigners from Lebanese ports, with the cooperation of Syria, Jordan, Cyprus and Turkey, during a war between Hezbollah and Israel. It was the countrys largest-ever evacuation, involving 17 ships, 22 Australian aircraft and over 470 buses. France France, which has been urging citizens not to travel to Lebanon, has had evacuation plans in place for several months but has not issued an evacuation order. Advertisement Present contingency plans centre around Cyprus and Beirut airport, while it is also discussing evacuations via Turkey. Paris has a warship in the region that could evacuate about 150 people and a helicopter carrier on standby that could take 10 times that many, but it would take several days to reach the region from southern France, two French diplomats said. French citizens in the country are thought to number about 23,000. Also read: What is Qader-1 missile that Hezbollah launched at Israel? Greece The Greek foreign ministry on Tuesday urged its citizens to leave Lebanon and avoid any travel to the country. A frigate is on standby in case assistance is needed. Advertisement UK British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has also urged British citizens in Lebanon to leave immediately." It has deployed around 700 troops to Cyprus, joining two Royal Navy ships already there, to be in a position to help evacuate nationals stuck in Lebanon. Britain also has two military bases on the island. The country is closely monitoring Beiruts international airport amid fears it may be forced to close, probably leading to an evacuation of British and other foreign nationals from Lebanon. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, at UN headquarters. AP Speaking at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, Starmer called for de-escalation and a ceasefire, emphasising the need to prevent further conflict. It is estimated there are about 6,000 British nationals and dual nationals, as well as their dependents, remaining in Lebanon. Advertisement About 10,000 more have left in the last week. Although Middle East airlines is adding extra flights over the weekend, the BBC reports that there isnt expected to be much demand for them. This is because a large number of people are opting to relocate northward rather than flee the war-torn region. US The US has ordered the deployment of dozens of troops to Cyprus to help prepare for scenarios, including an evacuation of Americans from Lebanon. The American forces will add to the roughly 40,000 troops already in the region. The new troops will have a different mission, however, the officials said, according to NBC News. They will specifically be on standby if the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah escalates and evacuations are needed. Advertisement The number of US citizens was estimated at 86,000 in 2022. Canada According to news reports from Canada, the country will cooperate with Australia in evacuating nationals by sea. The plan involves contracting a commercial vessel to transport 1,000 people out each day, The Toronto Star reported. Portugal Prime Minister Luis Montenegro on Wednesday advised against travel to Lebanon. The country has a plan to evacuate Portuguese citizens living there in cooperation with partner countries in the EU, he said. Philippines The Philippines said on Friday it will evacuate 11,000 citizens from Lebanon soon after a ground offensive is launched. Manila had earlier urged its nationals to leave Lebanon before airlines stopped flying to Beirut but most of its citizens did not heed the call, Filipino diplomats said. Foreign Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega said so far, only 500 Filipinos have taken up the governments offer to leave the region. Turkey Turkey is making preparations for the possible evacuation of foreign nationals and its citizens from Lebanon. Turkeys military has the capability and resources to carry out any missionfor the safe evacuation of our citizens or foreign nationals from Lebanon, the source said during a briefing in Ankara. Preliminary planning and preparations for a potential evacuation operation are being made, the person said, adding Turkey had conducted such operations in the past and was closely following developments in Lebanon. Japan The Japanese government is facilitating evacuation operations of its citizens by sending a Self-Defence Forces plane to Jordan. Adding that SDF planes, including a C2 transport aircraft, are already on standby in Japan in case the situation worsens. According to the Japanese Foreign Ministry, about 50 Japanese nationals are in Lebanon. Coordinating evacuations via Cyprus and Turkey Cyprus and possibly Turkey are seen as offering sanctuary to tens of thousands of people. Cyprus is the closest European Union member state to the West Asia, some 264 kilometres from Lebanon. It has been at the forefront of maritime aid efforts for Gaza and in the past was used to coordinate evacuations of around 60,000 people fleeing the Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006. We have requests from a number of countries, not only from the European Union but also from other third countries. We are ready to play this role in case of a need, Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides told Reuters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. We did it back in 2006 and we are ready to do it again, Christodoulides said. It is difficult but also it is our moral responsibility. It takes about 10 hours to Cyprus by sea, or 40 minutes by plane from Beirut. Until now, commercial airlines have been flying from Beirut, although some airlines like Air France have suspended operations, reducing options for people to leave. Israel rejects calls for ceasefire Israel rejected global calls on Thursday for a ceasefire with the Hezbollah movement, defying its biggest ally in Washington and pressing ahead with strikes that have killed hundreds in Lebanon and heightened fears of an all-out regional war. Despite Israels stance, the US and France sought to keep prospects alive for an immediate 21-day truce they proposed on Wednesday, and said negotiations continued, including on the sidelines of a United Nations meeting in New York, according to Reuters. An Israeli warplane struck the edges of the capital Beirut, killing two people and wounding 15, including a woman in critical condition, Lebanons health ministry said. That took deaths overnight and on Thursday to 28 and over 600 since Monday. The strike killed the head of one of Hezbollahs air force units, Mohammad Surur, Hezbollah said, the latest senior Hezbollah commander to be targeted in days of assassinations among the groups top ranks. On the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, the army staged an exercise simulating a ground invasion a potential next stage after relentless airstrikes and explosions of communications devices. Israels air force is planning to assist troops in the event of a ground operation and will stop any arms transfers from Iran, Air Force Commander Major General Tomer Bar said late on Thursday. With inputs from agencies US billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs has reportedly been a key player behind Kamala Harris ascent. The duos friendship goes way back. The philanthropist worked behind the curtain to nudge Joe Biden out of the presidential race after his disastrous debate with Donald Trump read more United States Vice President Kamala Harris is eyeing to become the countrys first female president. A high-profile friendship is helping her to realise that goal. Philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs has reportedly played a key role in propping up Harris as Democratic presidential nominee after US President Joe Bidens disaster debate with Donald Trump. The duo have been friends for years. Heres a look at how Powell Jobs has a hand behind Harris rise. Advertisement Who is Laurene Powell Jobs? Laurene Powell Jobs, 60, is the founder of Emerson Collective, a philanthropy and investment firm. Her collective is the majority owner of The Atlantic magazine. Powell Jobs did her MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. It was here in 1989 that she met Steve Jobs, the co-founder and former CEO of Apple. The duo married in 1991 and had three children Reed, Erin, and Eve. She inherited Steve Jobs stake in Apple and Disney upon his death. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Powell Jobs current net worth is $11.5 billion, making her the wealthiest woman in Silicon Valley. Harris and Powells friendship Powell Jobs friendship with Harris is not new. As per a New York Times (NYT) report, the philanthropist has emerged as Harris essential confidante over the past two decades. Not only has she provided funds and counsel to Harris but also helped boost the Democratic nominees public profile. Powell Jobs has been funding Democratic politics for years. She and her collective have donated more than $3.4 million to Democratic nominees and other funds since 2020, Fortune reported citing the Federal Election Commission filings. Advertisement As per the NYT report, Harris bonhomie with Powell Jobs developed over shared political philosophy, a fascination for art and culture, and their mutual trials as women in public life. In 2003, Powell Jobs donated $500 to Harris first run for San Franciscos district attorney. Next year, they attended the March for Womens Lives in Washington, DC, with other female leaders from the Bay Area. Laurene Powell Jobs, founder and chair of Emerson Collective, speaks at the Clinton Global Initiative at the Hilton Midtown Manhattan in New York City, US, September 24, 2024. Reuters When Biden swore in Harris as a Senator in January 2017, Powell Jobs was among the 59-year-olds extended family to get a picture with the then-US Vice President. As per the NYT report, Powell Jobs has organised several fundraisers for Harris, including many at her house. Last year, she made three donations to Harris campaign worth nearly $1 million. Advertisement Laurene has a gift for friendship, especially old friends she is tribally loyal. Kamala Harris falls within that ring of friends, David Bradley, who sold The Atlantic magazine to Powell Jobs Emerson Collective, told the American newspaper. In 2017, when asked in an interview about running for the 2020 US presidency herself, Powell Jobs turned the spotlight on Harris. Pointing to her friend who was sitting in the crowd at a tech conference, the billionaire said: I vote for her. Is Laurene Powell behind Harris ascent? Powell Jobs, who has connections to Silicon Valley, has placed her bets on her close friend, Harris. She has quietly given millions of dollars to an organisation backing Harris presidential bid, three people in the know of the matter told NYT. Advertisement In fact, the billionaire worked behind the curtain to push Biden out of the presidential race after his disastrous June debate. As per NYT, Powell Jobs expressed her concerns to major Democratic donors about the 81-year-olds ability to defeat Trump. When the US president insisted on staying in the contest, Harris reportedly looked at her options and turned to Powell Jobs for counsel, among others. Soon, Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee as Biden exited the race. As per NYT, Powell Jobs has pulled her weight to encourage female technology leaders to publicly support Harris. She is also helping in getting funds for Harris campaign. Advertisement Several polls have put Harris ahead of Trump in the presidential race. If she wins, will Powell Jobs have a role in the Democrats administration? Some say the billionaire will be an insider even if she does not hold a formal position. Laurene is one of a small number of philanthropists who has both made significant investments in educational innovation and is also actively engaged in Democratic politics, Marc Porter Magee, an education-reform advocate, told NYT. If Harris wins, she and her staff could emerge as important players in an administration that has yet to define its K-12 [Kindergarten to Class 12] agenda. With inputs from agencies Mukti Ranjan Ray and Mahalakshmi, who were colleagues, were allegedly in a relationship for nearly six months. They often had constant quarrels and Rays family alleges mental harassment from her for marriage. The fight between the couple escalated on September 3 when Ray allegedly struck Mahalakshmi on the head, resulting in her death. He later chopped her body into pieces and stored it in a refrigerator read more As the investigation continues into the Bengaluru murder case, shocking details are emerging with each passing day. The case has glaring similarities with the murder of Shraddha Walkar in Delhi. Mahalakshmi, a 29-year-old salesperson at a clothing factory, was murdered and her body was cut into 59 pieces, allegedly with a sharp cleaver knife, by her lover Mukti Ranjan Ray, who escaped from Bengaluru, days after committing the gruesome crime. Heres what led to the horrific murder. Advertisement Constant fights and marriage pressure Mukti Ranjan Ray, 30, and Mahalakshmi, who were colleagues, were allegedly in a relationship for nearly six months. The couple often had constant quarrels and fighting, including pressure and alleged mental harassment from her for marriage, as per Deccan Herald. The heated arguments and physical fights sometimes escalated onto the street outside her Vyalikaval residence, according to News18, which cited local police sources. The officer closely involved in the case told the channel that there had been reports about their altercations at the Malleshwaram police station and attempts to resolve the issue amicably. Ray and Mahalakshmi reportedly got into a fight on September 3 after he went to her house. Ray, who knew about Mahalakshmis earlier marriage with Hemanth Das, was reportedly upset as he had reportedly once seen pictures of other men on the victims phone. He had discussed about Mahalakshmis aggressive behaviour and the images on her cell phone with her younger brother, Smriti Ranjan Ray, who lives in Hebbagodi. Additional Commissioner (West) Sathish Kumar told News18 that the accuseds younger brother had confessed to the police about Ray contacting him after the murder. We are recording his statement under Section 164 of the CrPC. His statements match to what the accused has mentioned in his suicide note, Kumar said. Advertisement Blind rage Investigation revealed that the murder took place on the intertwining nights of September 3 and 4. A heated argument between the couple escalated when Ray allegedly struck Mahalakshmi on the head, resulting in her death, as per India Today. According to News18, Ray sat with the dead body through the night, planning ways to dispose of it. The next morning on September 4 at 11 am, he visited a utensil shop in Malleshwaram and bought a cleaver knife. CCTV footage captured the accused entering the shop. We have footage of the accused entering the shop, and later evidence indicated that the accused threw away an item, which was later discovered to be the knifes cover, a police source told News18. Advertisement After committing the heinous crime, Ray went incommunicado. After several days, he turned on his phone to call his younger brother and confessed to the murder. He informed his brother that he was upset about how Mahalakshmi treated him and complained about their constant fights. Her violent behaviour had frustrated him, leading to her murder, an investigating officer told News18. According to the police, Mahalakshmi was known to be hot-tempered, and complaints of physical assault between the two parties were lodged with the local police. A similar case was also registered by her estranged husband, Hemanth Das, at Nelamangala police station. He earlier informed police that he had filed a complaint against Mahalakshmi in February this year after she allegedly assaulted him for not giving her money. He also told reporters that Mahalakshmi had also filed a complaint against him earlier over a marital row. Das, who runs a mobile phone accessories store, lives with their four-year-old daughter in Nelamangala. Advertisement Earlier, Das had raised suspicions that Mahalakshmi had an affair with Ashraf, who hails from Uttarakhand and works at a barber shop. Prime accuseds suicide After the confession, Smriti Ranjan lent his brother money to flee the city. The accused informed him that he was heading towards their hometown in Odisha. The police tracked Rays mobile network first to the Andhra Pradesh border and then near the West Bengal border. The Bengaluru police subsequently dispatched three teams to track and arrest him. With the CCTV images, technical data, scientific analysis, and a suicide letter confessing the crime, the police have enough evidence to prove the case. Advertisement However, before police could track him, Mukti Ranjan was found hanging from a tree in Bhadrak, Odisha, near his hometown on September 25. He reportedly sought help from a friend in Balasore for a two-wheeler, promising to return the vehicle later that day. In his handwritten suicide note, the 30-year-old confessed to murdering Mahalakshmi. I did it. I killed her. I was fed up with her. Her constant fights and demands for money were very frustrating, the note, written in Odia, read, according to police sources in Odisha. Authorities recovered several personal belongings at the scene, including his bag, laptop, and mobile phone. With inputs from agencies New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been charged with accepting luxury travel and illegal campaign donations from Turkish nationals. In 2022, he became the second Black person elected NYC mayor. Now, this indictment unveiled on Thursday has the potential to derail his political career read more New York City Mayor Eric Adams has resisted calls to step down after his indictment on Thursday. Reuters New York City Mayor Eric Adams is in hot water. On Thursday (September 26), he became the first sitting New York City mayor to be indicted after United States prosecutors charged him with corruption. Adams, a former police captain, has denied any wrongdoing, calling the charges against him entirely false and based on lies. He is facing five separate criminal counts, including bribery and fraud. Who is Eric Adams? What is he accused of? What happens next? Lets take a look. Advertisement Who is Eric Adams? Eric Adams, 64, took charge of New York City the US largest city in 2022, becoming the second Black person to be elected New York mayor. The Democrat has previously served as an officer in the New York City Transit Police. He joined the New York City police department in 1984 and retired in 2006 with the rank of captain. As per The Guardian, Adams, who was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, has often talked about his impoverished upbringing. He said he joined the New York City police department to reform the police force after being beaten by cops when he was 15. In 2006, Adams became the New York state senator. He has also served as Brooklyn borough president. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, left, listens as his attorney Alex Spiro, right, talks to the members of the media as they exit Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the mayor, September 26, 2024, in New York. AP As New York City mayor, he adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards homeless people sleeping in subway cars, increasing police presence in the citys subway system, reported Al Jazeera. Adams has had a controversial political career. Now, he is facing criminal charges that have the potential to derail his political career in the future. What are the charges against him? Adams is facing five federal charges, including wire fraud and bribery. US prosecutors have accused him of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal programme bribery, and to receive campaign contributions by foreign nationals, two counts of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national and bribery. Advertisement In a 57-page indictment, US prosecutors allege that before and during his term as the New York mayor, Adams sought and accepted improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him. According to the prosecutors, the Democrat took trips to France, India, China, Sri Lanka, Hungary, Ghana and Turkey that were fully or partly paid by people who wanted to buy his influence in the city government, reported Associated Press (AP). The indictment alleges that Adams accepted free travel from a Turkish airline worth tens of thousands of dollars when he was Brooklyn borough president. It says Adams paid $600 (over Rs 50,000) for a two-day visit at a luxury suite in the St. Regis hotel in Istanbul, whose actual cost was $7,000 (Rs 5.9 lakh). Advertisement Prosecutors claim that the Democrat accepted more than $100,000 (Rs 83.6 lakh) in luxury travel. I want to be clear, these upgrades and freebies were not part of some frequent flyer or benefits programme available to the general public. This was a multiyear scheme to buy favour from a single New York City official on the rise, US Attorney Damian Williams said at a news conference, as per AP. For his 2021 mayoral campaign, Adams allegedly sought campaign contributions from Turkish sources. The indictment accuses him of collecting illegal donations to his campaigns through straw donors. American law bans foreign citizens from donating to US political candidates. Advertisement According to the US Attorneys Office in Manhattan, a Turkish official helped facilitate many straw donations for Adams mayoral run. The NYC mayor is accused of using straw donors who used to funnel money from another source to hide the source of funds. It is alleged that Adams at times created fake paper trails that suggested he paid, or intended to pay, for the gifts. Prosecutors say that by covering up his illegal contributions, Adamss 2021 mayoral campaign received over $10 million in matching public funds, reported The Guardian. In exchange, Adams allegedly pressured an official from New Yorks fire department to allow the new high-rise Turkish consular building to open in time for Turkish President Tayyip Erdogans visit in September 2021, despite safety concerns. The indictment alleges that the mayor did it at the behest of a Turkish diplomat. Advertisement The indictment claims a Turkish official told Adams it was his turn to repay him. After Adams intervened, the skyscraper opened as requested by the Turkish official, it says. Adams allegedly informed the diplomat when the Fire Department gave a nod for the opening of the building. You are a true friend of Turkey, the diplomat responded, the prosecutors claim. The indictment was unsealed Thursday morning after federal agents searched the mayors official residence, Gracie Mansion, on Manhattans Upper East Side. It comes after months of investigation by federal prosecutors, who have also been looking into Adams inner circle. Will Eric Adams resign? There have been calls for Adams to resign as the New York City mayor since the indictment was made public. New Yorks US Congressional Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is among those asking him to step down. I do not see how Mayor Adams can continue governing New York City. The flood of resignations and vacancies are threatening gov function. Nonstop investigations will make it impossible to recruit and retain a qualified administration. For the good of the city, he should resign. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 25, 2024 Adams has denied the charges and dismissed calls to resign. I put the people of New York before party and politics. Now, If I am charged, many may say I should resign because I cannot manage the city while fighting the case. Make no mistake, you elected me to lead this city and lead it, I will, the NYC mayor said in his statement. Rejecting the charges against him, Adams said in a pre-recorded video, I will fight these injustices with every ounce of my strength and my spirit. Voices have emerged in defence of the NYC mayor, claiming he is being targeted over his stance on the migrant problem in the city. I dont know whether Eric Adams @ericadamsfornyc is guilty or innocent. He does, however, deserve the presumption of innocence. I do know that Eric loudly spoke the truth on the migrant problem in NYC and what the consequences would be for New Yorkers and the country. Doing so https://t.co/0xEWYaQ6ps Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) September 26, 2024 What next for Eric Adams? Adams is slated to appear in court on Friday at noon Eastern Time (9.30 pm IST). While he has resisted calls to step down, the NYC mayor can be forced to do so. New York State Governor Kathy Hochul has the power to remove the mayor from office. She said in a statement that she will review my options and obligations as the Governor of New York. I expect the Mayor to take the next few days to review the situation and find an appropriate path forward to ensure the people of New York City are being well-served by their leaders, Hochul added. If found guilty, Adams could go to jail for decades. The wire fraud has a maximum sentence of 20 years, while the bribery count carries a sentence of 10 years in prison. He could face five years in prison for seeking foreign campaign donations and another five years for conspiracy. In the short term, the case is expected to complicate his 2025 mayoral bid. Several Democratic politicians, including New York City comptroller Brad Lander and state Senator Zellnor Myrie, plan to contest against Adams. It will be a challenging election for him if Adams stays in the race. With inputs from agencies Chinas naval expansion suffered a major setback when its state-of-the-art Zhou-class nuclear-powered submarine reportedly sank at a shipyard near Wuhan sometime in May or June this year. Beijing is yet to make an official statement hinting at an attempted cover-up. With plans to increase its submarine fleet to 80 by 2035, will this accident slow Chinas push for maritime dominance? read more A series of satellite images from Planet Labs from June appear to show cranes at the Wuchang shipyard in Wuhan Shi, China, June 13, 2024. File Image/Reuters Chinas ambitious push to expand its naval prowess, with the worlds largest navy, has suffered a severe blow after its newest nuclear-powered submarine sank earlier this year. Chinas first-in-class Zhou-class nuclear-powered attack submarine reportedly sank alongside a pier at the Wuchang Shipyard, near Wuhan, sometime between May and June 2024. The Zhou-class submarine, designed with an advanced X-shaped stern for improved underwater maneuverability, was under construction when it submerged unexpectedly. Despite efforts by Beijing to cover up the incident, satellite imagery revealed the disaster to the world. Advertisement A senior US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the sinking and described the unusual activity at the shipyard. Its not surprising that the PLA Navy would try to conceal the fact that their new first-in-class nuclear-powered attack submarine sank pierside, the US official told Reuters. A series of satellite images from Planet Labs from June appear to show cranes at the Wuchang shipyard in Wuhan Shi, China, June 13, 2024. File Image/Reuters The incident was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, and later corroborated by multiple intelligence sources and satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies, which showed cranes being used in an attempt to salvage the submarine. What led to the sinking? The exact cause of the submarines sinking remains unclear, and Chinese authorities have yet to acknowledge the incident publicly. It is still unknown whether nuclear fuel had been loaded onto the vessel at the time of the accident. Its not clear what caused it to sink or if it had nuclear fuel on board. In addition to the obvious questions about training standards and equipment quality, the incident raises deeper concerns about the PLAs internal accountability and oversight of Chinas defence industry, which has long been plagued by corruption, said the US official. Although the vessel was reportedly salvaged, experts believe that significant repairs will be needed before it can be made seaworthy again. Brent Sadler, a former US submarine officer and senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told WSJ, The sinking of a new nuclear sub that was produced at a new yard will slow Chinas plans to grow its nuclear submarine fleet. This is significant. Advertisement Is this incident a setback for Chinas navy? The sinking is a considerable setback for Chinas military, which has been aggressively expanding its naval power. The Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) Navy has 370 vessels, making it the largest navy by number of ships in the world, surpassing the US, which has 219. This fleet includes 234 warships, and according to a 2022 Pentagon report, China operates six nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, six nuclear-powered attack submarines, and 48 diesel-powered attack submarines. The submarine force is expected to grow to 65 by 2025 and 80 by 2035. China has prioritised the modernisation of its navy, aiming to challenge US dominance, particularly in the Pacific. Submarines, like the Zhou-class, are seen as critical to this strategy. Advertisement In any potential conflict over Taiwan, China would rely heavily on submarines to block US forces from aiding the island. Wellington Koo, Taiwans Defence Minister, while not directly commenting on the incident, stated, We have a grasp of the situation through multiple intelligence and surveillance methods, signalling that Taiwan is closely monitoring Chinas naval developments. How does this incident change Chinas naval strategy? The Zhou-class submarine was intended to be a cornerstone of Chinas future naval capabilities, and the loss is a blow to the countrys maritime ambitions. The Chinese military, particularly its navy, has made significant strides in recent years to bridge the technological gap with the US However, incidents like this expose vulnerabilities in Chinas military-industrial complex, which has been dogged by corruption and mismanagement. Advertisement In the wake of the incident, experts are questioning whether Chinas rapid military expansion is outpacing its ability to maintain high standards of training and equipment. The incident raises deeper questions about the PLAs internal accountability and oversight of Chinas defence industry, which has long been plagued by corruption, the US defence official said. Thomas Shugart, a former US Navy submarine officer and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, remarked, Can you imagine a US nuclear submarine sinking in San Diego and the government hushes it up and doesnt tell anybody about it? I mean, holy cow! Advertisement Where does Chinas navy lack? Chinas navy is growing in size, but questions remain about its capabilities. The PLA Navys submarine force, although impressive in quantity, may not yet match the technological sophistication and operational readiness of the US fleet. The US Navy operates 53 fast attack submarines, 14 ballistic missile submarines, and four guided missile submarines, all of which are nuclear-powered. In contrast, Chinas nuclear submarine program is still developing, and incidents like this could slow down its progress. Despite these setbacks, China shows no signs of slowing its military build-up. Earlier this week, China successfully conducted a rare launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean, demonstrating its growing nuclear capabilities. Moreover, the PLA continues to retire older submarines while expanding its ability to produce new, more advanced vessels. According to US officials, the Zhou-class submarines sinking will likely delay Chinas efforts to achieve maritime superiority in the Pacific. However, Beijings long-term goals remain unchanged, and the PLA Navy is expected to continue its relentless push to modernise and expand its capabilities, despite this high-profile failure. With inputs from agencies While reservations and weightage for Agniveers has been announced in CAPF and state organisations, this is a first for a company. BrahMos is also encouraging over 200 industry partners to follow suit read more BrahMos Aerospace, the maker of the world's fastest supersonic missile, has decided to reserve some jobs for Agniveers. Image: Reuters Indo-Russia joint venture BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd will have at least 15 per cent of the technical vacancies in the company filled by Agniveers. Additionally, half of the vacancies in administrative and security roles including outsourced functions will also be reserved for them. The company is also set to integrate Agniveers beyond regular contracts, including them into outsourcing contracts. The maker of the worlds fastest supersonic missile has become the first company in India to reserve jobs for Agniveers, a source told Firstpost. Advertisement BrahMos is also expanding the scope of the initiative beyond the company itself. It is encouraging its industry partners to also reserve 15 per cent of their workforce for Agniveers in roles tied to BrahMos Aerospaces requirements. Over 200 of BrahMoss Industry partners will be incentivised to provide opportunities to Agniveers. Why integrate Agniveers in BrahMos? Under the Agnipath Scheme launched in 2022, young individualsAgniveers are being recruited into the armed forces for a four-year term. They receive training in military tactics and technical proficiency, among other skills. Explaining the rationale behind integrating Agniveers, BrahMos Aerospaces CEO and MD Atul Dinkar Rane told Firstpost that Agniveers are going to be trained and theyre going to be disciplined, and we will not have to spend resources on extra training because they would have had rigorous instruction in whatever trade they would have taken up in the armed forces and skills they have picked up there. He added that this is a way to create an even more well-trained and disciplined workforce inside of BrahMos. Encouraging partner industries Dr SK Joshi, the Deputy CEO of BrahMos told Fristpost that over 250 Indian defence industries are part of Team BrahMos. He exuded confidence in other Indian defence industries and corporate houses following the initiative taken up by BrahMos. We anticipate an overwhelming response from our Indian defence industry partners as the first batch of Agniveers graduates, Dr Joshi said. Rane also expanded upon this. He said, We are going to request all our vendors who are going to be working with us in terms of all the security and manpower outsourcing we do and our partner industries that we want at least 15 per cent of their workforce to be Agniveers. Advertisement BrahMos will be adding this into the desirable features section of their tenders. Rane stated this will be a message to people planning to work with BrahMos about giving opportunities to Agniveers as well. Reservations in other organisations Presently, Agniveers are offered a 10 per cent reservation in the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) that come under the ambit of the Ministry of Home Affairs. They are also exempted from certain physical tests required of other candidates who want to enter any of the CAPF organisations. In July, Haryana announced a 10 per cent quota for Agniveers in select government jobs. The state government also announced that it would provide a subsidy of Rs 60,000 per annum to industrial units that offer Agniveers a monthly salary of over Rs 30,000. Advertisement The same month, UP government announced that Agniveers would be given weightage in the state police and the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) force. The 26-year-old youth, a native of Keralas Ernakulam district, who returned from the UAE on Friday tested positive for mpox. He is receiving treatment at a private hospital read more All international travellers returning to Kerala have been urged by the state government to seek immediate medical attention if they show any symptoms of mpox. Source: REUTERS. A second case of mpox has been reported in Kerala where a 26-year-old youth who recently returned from the UAE has tested positive. As per a report by The New Indian Express the youth returned to Ernakulam on Friday. His samples were tested at the National Institute of Virology lab in Alappuzha. After the test report, the samples were sent for genomic sequencing at the National Institute of Virology in Pune . According to a report by Onmanorama, the Kerala mpox patient is currently receiving treatment at a private hospital in the district. Advertisement His condition is said to be stable, a report by The Indian Express quoted health department officials as saying. Kerala reported its first case of mpox, caused by the monkeypox virus (MPXV), last week after a 38-year-old man, who also returned from the UAE to Malappuram tested positive for the infection. He was diagnosed with the Clade 1B infection, the first case of this clade in India. The World Health Organization (WHO) had declared mpox as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern due to the risks associated with Clad 1B variant of the infection. Kerala health minister Veena George has earlier urged all international travellers returning to the state to seek immediate medical attention if they show any symptoms of mpox. The Kerala government has been keeping itself prepared to tackle potential surge in mpox cases in the state. Isolation wards for mpox patients have been set up at district and general hospitals in all 14 districts. Also, treatment facilities have been made available at medical college hospitals across the state. Centre issues new mpox advisory for states On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Central government issued a fresh advisory for all states and union territories, warning against mpox. The government has urged all states and UTs to implement key public health measures to minimise and restrict the spread of mpox in India. Clinical presentation of Mpox clade I in adults remains similar to clade II," the advisory said, adding that however, the rate of complications may be higher in clade I than with clade II infections. Advertisement The Centre has instructed states to assess public health preparedness at healthcare facilities by deploying senior officials in conducting reviews both at the state and district levels. Also, states and UTs have been asked to identify isolation facilities in hospitals for managing both suspected and confirmed cases and ensure the availability of required logistics and trained human resources in such facilities. Also, an augmentation plan should be developed by them. The ministry has also said that all suspected mpox cases should be isolated and strict infection prevention and control measures should be put in place. Samples from skin lesions of any patient with the suspected symptoms of mpox should be sent to the designated labs immediately, and for those that test positive a sample should be sent to designated labs immediately, and the positive sample should be sent to ICMR-NIV for genome sequencing to determine the clade. Advertisement Mpox symptoms Mpox spreads by the virus of the same family as smallpox. Common symptoms of mpox include skin rashes or mucosal lesion which can last between two to four weeks. The rash usually starts on the face and spreads to other parts. Those infected may also experience fever, flu-like symptoms, headache, muscle aches, back pain, low energy and swollen lymph nodes. How mpox transmits Mpox spreads through close skin to skin contact with someone who has been infected. It can also spread through contaminated surfaces, or through infected animals. In some cases, the infection can be deadly. Human-to-human transmission can occur through respiratory droplets, direct contact with infected bodily fluids or lesions, and indirectly through contaminated materials. Notwithstanding the Shatabdi and Vande Bharat trains and newly developed expressways, it may be more interesting to take an air taxi from Faridabad to Karnal in the near future read more Indias Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the aviation sector regulator, has announced the rules for setting up Vertical Port (Vertiport). There is a general expectation that air taxis may start flying by 2026. The start may take place in the National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi and Mumbai, the two metros that are seeing high congestion on roads. Imagine going from Gurgaon to Greater Noida in 15-20 minutes rather than two hours by road, and saving the agony as well as the precious man-hours. Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Chennai are likely to be the next cities. Advertisement In 2020, Dubai passed a new regulation to help flying taxis and drone deliveries take off alongside a network of mini-airports within the city. Many cities in the world already operate air taxis. These Vertiports will be designed to allow the air taxis to make vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL). There will be some formalities and operational requirements like those on an airport. DGCA has reportedly held extensive discussions with all stakeholders to formulate rules for Vertiports. Rules and guidelines have been set for infrastructure, air taxi operations, battery charging, parking, landing, and emergency response for Vertiports, among others. Urban Air Mobility Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is the use of small, highly automated aircraft to carry passengers or cargo at lower altitudes in urban and suburban areas, which have been developed in response to traffic congestion. It usually refers to existing and emerging technologies such as traditional helicopters, vertical-takeoff and landing aircraft (VTOL), electrically propelled vertical-takeoff and landing aircraft (eVTOL), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These aircraft are characterised by the use of multiple electric-powered rotors or fans for lift and propulsion, along with fly-by-wire systems to control them. Advances in materials, computerised flight controls, batteries, and electric motors improved innovation and designs beginning in the late 2010s have allowed UAM. The aircraft will be operated initially by professionals, and only much later will we reach the stage of becoming personal aircraft like self-owned cars. For a long time, there have been helicopter services from airports to city centres. Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) would include drones, electric aircraft, and automated air traffic management, among other technologies, to perform a wide variety of missions, including cargo and logistics. Tilt-rotors can cover around 300 km. How to Manage UAM Advertisement UAM will be composed of an ecosystem that considers the evolution and safety of the aircraft, the framework for operation, access to airspace, infrastructure development, and community engagement. It will envisage commercial inter-city travel (like air taxis), cargo delivery, public services, and private or recreational vehicles. The initial UAM ecosystem will use existing helicopter infrastructure such as routes, helipads, and Air Traffic Control (ATC) services. Looking toward the future, the agencies are evolving infrastructure specially designed for UAM. It would mean designating routes along the main city arteries and developing new Vertiports. On March 2, 2022, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued draft interim guidance to support the design and operation of facilities that electric VTOL aircraft will use for initial operations. Many companies are developing the next generation VTOL vehicles. Advertisement Passenger acceptance and potential passengers value of time are the two key factors for going ahead. There is the need to understand the landscape of relevant questions surrounding the implementation of UAM. The urban airspace would have to look at safety factors, social aspects, and system and aircraft issues. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles as Part of UAM The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have been flying since the 1970s, and the safety record has been continuously improving. Removing pilots dramatically increases payload and reduces personnel costs. Also, there has been a boom in less expensive civil travel and light personal jets. UAM is the next logical step. UAM evolved from the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), a joint initiative of the FAA, NASA, and the industry to develop an air transportation system that moves passengers and cargo with new electric (i.e., green) air vehicles to places previously underserved by traditional aviation. Nearly 150 companies worldwide are in the race with under-testing UAM prototypes. The UAVs had to be made more robust for passenger flights. Advertisement Hybrid Propulsion Electric motors in multi-rotor designs for lift and cruise have started maturing. More efficient rotors are using lightweight materials. Hybrid-electric turbo-generators are being combined with rugged turbine engines using conventional or bio-derived jet fuel that powers motors or high-capacity batteries. The battery endurance is increasing, and the same is evolving further by the surface transport industry. The electromechanical actuators would be very important for UAM aircraft. Since the flight will be at low heights, they will experience thermals and the unusual winds caused by buildings. The pinpoint landings dozens of times a day would require fly-by-wire computers to make hundreds of small adjustments every second. The actuators would make these movements while maintaining the highest degrees of precision and reliability. Advertisement Flight Safety Issues Unlike a traditional helicopter, the UAMs will use multiple motors and propellers, electric engines, and lighter materials, which make them cheaper, quieter, and more efficient. The operations will be both urban and regional. Limited airspace and a larger number of operators would cause congestion. It may push the industry to adopt smaller separation standards. The safety record and acceptable risk models for hobby drones are clearly unacceptable. The on-board systems will have to have quadruple safety and high reliability. Since the UAM vehicles will have more degrees of freedom to freely choose their position, altitude, heading, and speed, this will require safety clearances. That would also require high technological capabilities, such as dynamic geo-fences and advanced sense-and-avoid capabilities, to maintain the required safety levels. Some such features already exist in drone swarms. Collision avoidance algorithms, avoidance maps, and path-planning would be required. A very compact traffic collision avoidance system and an enhanced ground proximity warning system, including avoiding buildings, made up of multiple electronic beams using a small phased array, are under testing. Flight and Weather Tall urban buildings create wind gusts and cause significant turbulence in their proximity. This can affect aircrafts ability to maintain position, altitude, and stability. Even the autopilot may be overtaxed and cause divergences. Precipitation can increase resistance or could affect onboard electronics. Low temperatures can reduce battery life. Icing can affect airframes or propellers and increase drone weight. Visibility and low ceiling could reduce the effectiveness of sense-and-avoid avionics. Close monitoring of weather is thus required. Traffic Challenges and Control The UAVs used for recreation, policing, infrastructure inspection, forestry, and agriculture purposes remain in specific geographic regions and require limited traffic management. Accommodating exponential UAM traffic will require solutions for communication, navigation, surveillance, and overall air traffic management. Differences in air vehicle designs, sizes, and performance will make it complex. Higher numbers, greater density, and lower altitudes of operations will need handling. Rules of air, routes, and scheduling would have to be evolved. Traffic management would mean flight path clearance, time slot scheduling, and, at times, first-come-first-launch approval. The routes will be based on demand and social factors. Separate corridors would have to be designated. It may be interesting to follow the main road as an axis. UAM aerodromes would be nearer to the main roads. Streetlight poles and electricity transmission towers would be a factor. Two-way traffic lanes would need horizontal and vertical separation. Tall building rooftops may be the UAM ports for ease of climb and descent. Building UAM Infrastructure The UAM ground infrastructure will have to dovetail into the other urban and regional transportation systems. Maintenance and battery management would have to be factored. Vertiport sites will emerge based on estimated air taxi demand. Take-off and landing pads, communication, navigation, surveillance infrastructure, and seat-booking will have to be evolved and fit into the overall urban plan. Air taxis may require booking, like car aggregators Ola and Uber, including ride-sharing. The initial air taxi service would be on manned aircraft and later shift to unmanned. Cargo movement through UAM will be a good starting point. Technologies and Certification LTE and 5G-and-beyond cellular technologies and secure satellite links will be required for communication. Assured accurate GPS and backups will be crucial. Battery and hybrid fuel cell technologies will be important. Lighter yet stronger materials must keep evolving. The UAM certification and regulations have to evolve through global standardisation. Volocopter eVTOL pilots and maintenance technician training is being evolved. There will be demand for pilots, and they would need certification to operate an eVTOL and remote eVTOLs. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and FAA are leading the process. UAM transportation policy and aircraft certification guidelines have to be in place first. Public Confidence and Social Factors The public is still sceptical about getting into an unmanned air taxi. Very few feel comfortable flying alone in an automated aircraft, even though accompanied by other passengers. Public acceptance will increase once self-driven cars become common. Since UAM will operate at low flight levels, closer to residential areas, communities will be concerned about security, privacy, liability, and noise, visual, and air pollution. UAM rotor sound can at times be irritating, both in volume and frequency. It would affect sleep. Quieter air vehicles would need to be designed. Drones equipped with cameras could capture images that impact privacy. People, in general, have positive attitudes towards innovation and new technology but expect high safety assurance. The cost of transportation and ticketing will be an issue. Time-cost-saving analysis would be made with other modes of travel. Portable Personal Air Mobility System The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is in the process of granting contracts for construction and flight demonstration of the Portable Personal Air Mobility System that can be used by soldiers for short hops of around 10 km. These will be mobile, small, light-weight, and compact. One can assemble them in a short time with minimal training. Once successful, it would be available for civil use, akin to the bicycle of the air. Global Cities Running Air Taxis There are many major cities around the world that use air taxis for urban mobility. Mexico City and Tokyo use city air taxis. New York has urban air mobility (UAM) and Uber Copter services. Sao Paulo, Brazil, has Voom, a subsidiary of Airbus that flew more than 15,000 passengers in 2017. Blade Air Mobility, Inc. (BLADE) is an aviation company headquartered in New York City. It is an urban air mobility company that provides air transportation for passengers and last-mile critical cargo, primarily using helicopters and amphibious aircraft for passenger routes in the US, Canada, Southern Europe, and India, in addition to being one of the largest air medical transporters of human organs for transplant in the world. In India, BLADE essentially runs helicopter flights between Mumbai, Shirdi, and Pune. Dubai will soon host the worlds first flying taxi service with Joby Aviation. Joby Aviation is a US venture-backed aviation company developing an electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft that it intends to operate as an air taxi service. Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami, and Santa Monica are other cities planning urban air mobility. IndiGos Electric VTOL The first attempt to launch an air taxi had been made by Inter-Globe Enterprises, the parent company of Indias IndiGo airline. It had signed an agreement with California-based Archer Aviation to acquire their VTOL aircraft called Midnight. Archer Aviation is an electric air taxi manufacturer. IndiGo has invested $1 billion and signed a deal for 200 Midnight aircraft. A Bright Future Ahead Automation and electricity storage technologies and higher flight safety will spur urban unmanned aviation. Rotary or fixed-wing cruise vehicles are already past the prototype stage. The UAM is currently in the honeymoon phase. UAM will be safe, sustainable, and convenient. By 2030, 60 per cent of the worlds population will be urban, and this will create UAM demand. Hundreds of start-ups are evolving new automated aircraft. Issues related to regulation, air traffic management, and public perception are being addressed. A holistic approach to urban air mobility would mean seamlessly integrating a variety of critical components. Most commercial airports are currently located in the suburbs. The vertiports will mostly be located in more densely populated areas. NASA, FAA, including Indias DGCA, are actively involved. The aircraft will be initially owned and operated by professional operators, as with taxis, rather than by private individuals. Big players in UAM include Amazon, Boeing, Airbus, Embraer-X, Uber Elevate, and Singapore UTM, among others. Maximising safety and capacity after understanding technological complexity, noise, and privacy is the essence. For UAM aircraft to be most efficient, recharging, swapping batteries, and hydrogen refuelling must be done as quickly as possible. If it is safe to travel to space in an automated unmanned craft, so will it be in the case of UAM. Some cities are encouraging the idea of inexpensive, point-to-point air travel as a way of reducing traffic congestion and moving goods. A European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) survey showed that 83 per cent of respondents had a positive attitude towards UAM, while 71 per cent were ready to try UAM services. An emerging big economy like India would have to get on board early and reap the benefits. India must also try to become a manufacturing hub and support the huge automation software demands. Notwithstanding the Shatabdi and Vande Bharat trains and newly developed expressways, it may be more interesting to take an unmanned air taxi from Faridabad to Karnal. It may also be a better way to travel from Greater Noida to Gurgaon on a Friday evening. And as it becomes possible, the loved ones will not be too far away. 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. With semiconductors powering everything from smartphones to cars, weapons systems, and artificial intelligence, India is positioning itself to play a key role in the global chip supply chain a crucial step to ensure the country does not miss out on the ongoing silicon revolution read more As India takes baby steps in semiconductor field, there is a need for greater investments, public-private partnerships, and strong collaboration between industry and academia. File image. In a move as significant as the historic India-US nuclear agreement of 2008, the United States military has partnered with India to establish the worlds first multi-material fabrication unit dedicated to national security. This cutting-edge semiconductor facility will produce high-tech chips for military hardware in both countries, as well as for critical telecommunications networks. The collaboration marks a groundbreaking agreement, as it is the first time the US military has entered into a technology partnership of this magnitude with India. Advertisement The announcement was made on the sidelines of the recently concluded Quad Summita strategic forum consisting of the US, India, Australia, and Japan. This partnership is part of Indias broader goal to create a robust domestic chip-manufacturing ecosystem, as outlined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his recent Independence Day address. Our dream is that every device in the world will have an Indian-made chip, he said, highlighting the governments vision. With semiconductors powering everything from smartphones to cars, weapons systems, and artificial intelligence, India is positioning itself to play a key role in the global chip supply chain. This initiative is seen as a crucial step to ensure the country does not miss out on the ongoing silicon revolution, avoiding past mistakes when it bypassed industrial manufacturing and jumped from an agriculture-led to a service-led economy. The Indian government has repeatedly stressed the importance of staying ahead in technological advancements, having taken early strides in 5G, 6G, and now with semiconductors and quantum computing. To bolster its semiconductor manufacturing capabilities, the government has rolled out several initiatives, including offering 50 per cent financial support for chip production and launching a Critical Mineral Mission to secure vital resources. The government is also setting up a Semiconductor Research Centre in collaboration with leading IITs and implementing a workforce development plan aimed at training 85,000 technicians and engineers. The newly launched Anusandhan National Research Foundation, with a dedicated Rs 1 trillion fund announced in the recent budget, is expected to energise Indias research ecosystem and foster innovation in cutting-edge semiconductor technology. States like Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Assam, and Uttar Pradesh have also introduced their own semiconductor policies, with more states expected to follow, reflecting a nationwide push to become a global leader in the semiconductor industry. Advertisement Critics, however, highlight several challenges in the governments push to develop silicon manufacturing in India. Establishing a semiconductor fabrication plant requires vast capital investment, often amounting to tens of billions of dollars, along with cutting-edge technology. India currently lacks the advanced infrastructure, skilled labour, and intricate ecosystem needed to support such a high-tech, complex supply chain. While estimates suggest that India has 20 per cent of the worlds semiconductor design engineers, a recent KPMG study noted that India will require 1.2 million skilled workers in the semiconductor sector by 2032. Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan has consistently pointed out that the governments subsidies are capital subsidies provided upfront rather than being tied to production, as seen in production-linked incentives (PLIs) in other sectors. He cautioned that if the governments timeline for chip production is to be taken seriously, these subsidies must be disbursed soon. Rajan also emphasised that India is likely to produce only 28 nm chips, while modern smartphones rely on 3 nm chips, the cutting-edge standard. To compete globally, India would need to subsidise multiple generations of chip factories, with costs rising as more advanced manufacturing technologies become necessary. Advertisement In a free-market economy, the Heckscher-Ohlin model suggests that countries should specialise in areas where they have a comparative advantage, implying that India should leave chip production to Taiwan, the US, and China. However, given shifting global dynamics and ever-changing geopolitical challenges, India cannot afford to miss the critical silicon revolution. Let us look at what China, one of the biggest consumers of chips, is doing today. As Chris Miller writes in Chip War: The Fight for the Worlds Most Critical Technology, Chinas original Malacca Dilemmaits concern about heavy dependence on the Strait of Malacca, a narrow waterway between Malaysia and Indonesia, for energy importshas shifted. Around 80 per cent of Chinas oil imports pass through this strait, making it a strategic chokepoint. Any disruption, whether from geopolitical tensions, piracy, or military blockades, could critically affect Chinas energy security. However, this is no longer Chinas main concern today. Now, it faces a blockade measured in bytes rather than barrels, as Miller notes. Advertisement Fearing that its dominance in global tech infrastructure would be undermined, the US barred China-based Huawei from purchasing advanced computer chips made with US technology. This has alarmed China, which now spends more on importing chips than on oil. In response, China is investing heavily in developing its own semiconductor technology. While India need not emulate the scale at which China is developing its chip manufacturing capabilities, the governments priorities, given the critical role of semiconductors today, are not misplaced. Currently, 75 per cent of the industrys global capacity is concentrated in East Asia. Localising production, coupled with an interconnected labour force, will foster learning by doing, thereby driving down production costs over time. Apart from ensuring the domestic supply of a critical component, focussing on semiconductor manufacturing could significantly boost Indias productivity. Advertisement A recent IMF report suggests that, with global productivity growth faltering, investing in advanced semiconductor technologies could be the key to unlocking new levels of efficiency and economic dynamism, revitalising productivity, and optimising resource allocation across the economy. India can leverage its strong semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem to drive digital transformation in green energy, healthcare, education, and governance. As India takes baby steps in this field, there is a need for greater investments, public-private partnerships, and strong collaboration between industry and academia. The current spending of 0.7 per cent of GDP on research and development is low to build a thriving research- and capital-intensive industry. Experts have long argued for increasing Indias R&D spend to 3 per cent of GDP. While there is still a long way to go, Indias efforts in the semiconductor industry could position it as a key player in the global market when the chips are down. Puneet Kumar Arora is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Delhi Technological University, India. Jaydeep Mukherjee is a Professor of Economics at Shiv Nadar University, Chennai. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views. Israel has learnt the hard way that mowing the grass to limit the capabilities of the terror groups is a strategy that fails in the long term; India should take lessons from it read more After Israel, no country faces as continuous and grave a terror threat as India. In neither country is the terror threat organic. Iran sponsors the terror groups attacking the Jewish state, while Pakistan plays the same role with anti-India terrorism. For decades, both India and Israel accepted terror as a fact of life. Pakistan-based terrorists would infiltrate into Kashmir and kill both Indians and foreigners. Audacious attacks stand out: Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists attacking the Indian Parliament in 2001, or the same group staging the Mumbai attacks seven years later. Pakistan-based terror groups transformed Kashmir into a no-go area for Indians and foreigners alike, decimating the tourism industry and victimising not only Hindus whom terrorists drove from their homes, but also many Kashmiri Muslims as well. Advertisement Israelis, too, lived with terror. Soldiers carry guns at the ready. Kindergarteners practice the dash to the bomb shelter, and entering a shopping mall or even pizza parlour is to face airport-like security. In Gaza, Israeli generals long spoke of mowing the lawn. It might be impossible to uproot the bomb-making factories and terror infrastructure, but every few years, they could launch operations to degrade Hamas capabilities for two or three years. In Lebanon, the lawn grew wild, though. To end the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1701 that demanded a ceasefire and the complete disarmament of non-state groups and militias in Lebanon. Rather than abide by the conditions of the agreement, Hezbollah rearmed, importing more than 100,000 rockets, missiles, and drones from Iran. The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, forced a paradigm shift in Israeli counterterrorism. It was the greatest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. The moral equivalency, if not outright antisemitism, of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres only encouraged the terrorists and their sponsors. UN silence as near-daily Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes and convinced Israeli officials that they could not rely on the UN or its ostensible partners to protect it. The lesson is clear: When terrorist groups acquire arsenals, their aim is to use them. It is against this backdrop that Israel has revived its targeted killing campaign. There is strategic logic to seeking to decapitate and disrupt terror groups via assassination of leaders and commanders. I lived in Jerusalem in the academic year 2001-02 while doing both postdoctoral research and teaching Iranian history at Hebrew University. It was the height of the Palestinian suicide bombing campaign. Almost daily, I heard bombs explode within earshot. A suicide bomber detonated in the bus I normally took to campus, and less than a week after I returned home, terrorists detonated a bomb in the cafeteria in which I ate nearly every day. Advertisement Two policies ended the months of terror. The first was the border fence and, in some locations, wall to separate Palestinian and Israeli populations. The second was Israeli-targeted assassination. When Israel killed terror leaders, they threw their groups into disarray. Paranoia reigned supreme as terrorists questioned whether their colleagues were the leak. It was safer not to communicate, and that itself disrupted operations. Assassinations also fuelled a desire for revenge. To recruit followers, terror groups must project strength. Failure to respond shows weakness and risks haemorrhaging followers. This leads terror groups to rush revenge, often at the expense of the suicide bombers psychological and tactical training, often enabling security forces and even bystanders to disrupt attacks before they begin. Advertisement Israels recent targeted assassinations against Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Operation Below the Belt neutering thousands of Hezbollah members, take targeted action to new levels. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is turning upon itself in a desperate attempt to ferret out moles. The Iranian regimes inability to react diminishes it in the eyes of the groups it supports and its own people. The compromise of Hezbollah beepers and walkie-talkies, however, has set a new standard for counterterrorism. Hezbollah, especially is reeling. For the first time in more than four decades, it appears Israel can eradicate the group. Lebanese openly mock it. As Hezbollah faces an existential crisis, diplomats who counselled compromise and acceptance of terror threats look naive. Hezbollahs defeat could represent a paradigm shift both for regional security and for those in foreign capitals who consider terror sponsorship as a policy tool. Advertisement The question for Indian policymakers now is: if Israel can take out the Hamas chief in an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps guest house in Tehran, why cant India take out the heads of Jaish-e-Mohammed or Lashkar-e-Taiba in ISI guest houses in Islamabad or Rawalpindi? The same also holds true with the targeting of Hezbollah communications. If Israel can compromise Hezbollahs supply chain, can India do likewise with Pakistan-sponsored terror groups? No terrorist who participated in the Mumbai attacks should remain alive, or should any terror leader feel safe, in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Pakistani Punjab, or Sindh. ISI leaders might bluster, but they deserve no immunity for their decades of terror sponsorship. Advertisement Indeed, just as Hamas now discovers in Gaza and Hezbollah learns in Lebanon, adulation at the point of a gun is not adulation at all. The demise of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders might give new hope to Palestinians and Lebanese to live normally. The same holds true for Pakistanis who have since 1971 at least lived a twisted ISI vision that betrays the welfare of Pakistani citizens. Israel has learnt the hard way that mowing the grass is a strategy that fails in the long term. Today, they are uprooting the lawn. India should do likewise. Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views. Considering the commitment, effort, and political capital invested by the leaders of the four countries since it was revived in 2017 and the far-reaching decisions adopted over the last four years, there appears little doubt that the Quad will continue to grow and expand in the coming years read more The fact that six Quad Summits have been organised in 43 months is not only unprecedented but also testimony to the resolve and steadfastness of the four-member countries to attain its objectives. File Photo The fourth in-person Quad Summit took place in Wilmington, Delaware, the hometown of US President Joe Biden, on September 21, 2024. In addition to the four in-person summits held so far, two virtual summits have also been convened, one each in March 2021, just after Biden took over as President, and in March 2022, immediately after Russias invasion of Ukraine. To a question by a journalist at the press meet after the summit whether the Quad will survive beyond the change in the White House in November, President Biden responded jocularly, keeping a friendly arm over the shoulder of PM Narendra Modi, who was standing next to him: Way beyond November! PM Modi is scheduled to convene the next Quad Summit in India in 2025. Advertisement The composition of the Quad will witness two major changes in the coming days and months. Japanese PM Fumio Kishida is due to relinquish charge and hand over power to a new leader in the next few weeks. The United States will go to its presidential elections on November 5, after which either former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris will assume the mantle of the President of the country on January 21, 2025. In addition, Australian PM Albanese will contest the parliamentary elections in mid-2025. PM Modi is the only Quad leader to have been at the head of the government since the resurrection of the Quad in November, 2017. Under the significant leadership changes likely to take place in at least two of the four Quad countries in the very near future, it will be useful to consider what the future of this grouping is likely to be in the coming years. Evolution of the Quad The Quad marks its 20th anniversary this year. The four countries, viz., Australia, India, Japan, and the USA, came together impromptu and voluntarily to provide humanitarian relief and succour to countries devastated by the catastrophic tsunami that hit several South and Southeast Asian countries on December 26, 2004. The idea of Quad received a further fillip with the Address by the then Japanese PM Shinzo Abe on the Confluence of the Two Seas to the Joint Session of the Indian Parliament in August 2007. However, both the idea of the Quad and the Indo-Pacific received a huge setback with the change of governments in Australia and Japan in late 2007. The Australian PM Kevin Rudd, who came to office in December 2007, two months after the resignation of Japanese PM Abe, decided to scuttle the then-nascent Quadrilateral Security Dialogue at the instance of China. Rudd, as a Mandarin-speaking diplomat, wanted to pander to China, which had already expressed its unhappiness with the concept. With the advent of Xi Jinping at the helm of affairs in Beijing in 2012 and the expansionist policies pursued by China in the South and East China Seas, the dormant idea of the Quad witnessed a resurrection in 2017 by President Donald Trump, who had identified China as a strategic threat to his country and the world. Advertisement The Quad has made significant progress since it was revived on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Manila, the Philippines, in November 2017, exactly a decade after the Confluence of the Two Seas speech by PM Shinzo Abe to the Indian Parliament. The Quad meetings took place at Senior Official level till September 2019, when the first meeting at foreign minister level was held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September 2019, followed by an independent, self-standing meeting of Quad foreign ministers in Tokyo on October 6, 2020. A significant impetus was provided soon after President Biden assumed office in January 2021 with a virtual summit amongst the four leaders in March 2021, followed by the first in-person summit in Washington, DC, in September 2021. These were followed by subsequent in-person summits in Tokyo in May 2022 and Hiroshima in May 2023. As aforesaid, the Wilmington Summit was the fourth in-person summit, and the one in India in 2025 will be the fifth. Advertisement Present Status of the Quad The Quad has continued to grow from strength to strength over the last three and a half years. When it was revived in November 2017, the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi termed it a bubble and froth on the surface of the ocean, which would dissipate and fade away in a short time. Not only has it not done so, but on the contrary, it has continued to grow stronger, broader, and deeper in its scope and coverage with the passage of time. The centrepiece of the Wilmington Summit as well as the earlier Summits was the focus on a free, open, inclusive, and prosperous Indo-Pacific. Without mentioning the name of China, the declaration calls out the inimical and pernicious activities of China in the South and East China Seas. Advertisement The leaders emphasised, The importance of adherence to international law, particularly as reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to address challenges to the global maritime rules-based order, including with respect to maritime claims. They expressed their serious concern about the militarisation of disputed features and coercive and intimidating manoeuvres in the South China Sea. They condemned the dangerous use of coast guard and maritime militia vessels, including increasing use of dangerous manoeuvres. They reaffirmed that maritime disputes must be resolved peacefully and in accordance with international law, as reflected in UNCLOS. They re-emphasised the importance of maintaining and upholding freedom of navigation and overflight, other lawful uses of the sea, and unimpeded commerce consistent with international law underscore(d) that the 2016 Arbitral Award on the South China Sea is a significant milestone and the basis for peacefully resolving disputes between the parties. Advertisement The above statements against the destabilising and damaging actions of China are much stronger and bolder than in any previous declaration. Reference to the July 2016 Arbitral Award by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which had completely rejected all of Chinas claims in the South China Sea, has been made for the first time in the Quad Summit pronouncements. This is testimony to the greater confidence amongst the Quad leaders for a more robust push back against China for its aggressive tactics in the Indo-Pacific. The Quad leaders made several path-breaking announcements to promote collaboration amongst the Indo-Pacific nations to enhance peace and security in the maritime domain. These initiatives were in addition to the proclamations made at the Summit in 2022 to offer near-real-time, integrated, and cost-effective maritime domain awareness information to partners in the region. This included a new regional Maritime Initiative for Training in the Indo-Pacific (MAITRI), to enable partners in the region to monitor and secure their waters, enforce their laws, and deter unlawful behaviour. India will host the inaugural MAITRI workshop in 2025. An announcement was also made for the Coast Guards of the four Quad nations to launch a first-ever Quad-at-Sea Ship Observer Mission in 2025 to improve interoperability and advance maritime safety. In the area of health, the Quad leaders announced a Quad Cancer Moonshot initiative, a groundbreaking partnership to save lives in the Indo-Pacific region. They committed to pooling their collective investments, scientific and medical capabilities, and contributions from private and non-profit sectors to reduce the burden of cancer in the region. It will initially focus on combating cervical cancer while laying the groundwork to address other forms of cancer. India announced a contribution of $7.5 million for HPV sampling kits, detection tools, and cervical cancer vaccines. In the area of quality infrastructure, the leaders announced the Quad Ports of the Future Partnership to harness the Quads expertise to support sustainable and resilient port infrastructure development across the Indo-Pacific, in collaboration with regional partners. In 2025, India will host a Quad Regional Ports and Transportation Conference in Mumbai. Through this new partnership, Quad partners intend to coordinate, exchange information, share best practices with partners in the region, and leverage resources to mobilise government and private sector investments in quality port infrastructure across the Indo-Pacific region. This will provide options other than the predatory investment projects offered by China under the Belt and Road Initiative. They announced the expansion of the Quad Infrastructure Fellowships to more than 2,200 experts. The Quad partners have already provided well over 1,300 fellowships since the initiative was announced at last years summit. The mandate at the first summit in 2021 covered the subjects of critical and emerging technology, supply of Covid-19 vaccines, and climate change. Today the scope has expanded to cover a large number of areas, including quality infrastructure, connectivity, maritime security, healthcare, the Quad Partnership for Cable Connectivity and Resilience, enhancing the resilience of Quads semiconductor supply chains, education, cyber security, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, counter-terrorism, space, people-to-people initiatives, and many more. On regional and global affairs, the leaders reaffirmed their consistent and unwavering support for ASEAN centrality and unity and support for Pacific regional institutions that have served the region well over many years, with the PIF (Pacific Islands Forum) as the regions premier political and economic policy organisation. In addition to the above wide-ranging assertions, the declaration recognises the need to make the UN Security Council more representative, inclusive, transparent, efficient, effective, democratic, and accountable through expansion in permanent and non-permanent categories of its membership and expresses the deepest concern over the war raging in Ukraine, including the terrible and tragic humanitarian consequencesneed for a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in line with international law, consistent with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, including respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity". It denounces North Koreas destabilising ballistic missile launches and its continued pursuit of nuclear weapons in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions. Further expressing deep concern for the worsening political, security, and humanitarian situation in Myanmar, including in Rakhine State, and dealing with other global issues like peace and security in the Middle East, ongoing attacks by the Houthis, disinformation, implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the achievement of its Sustainable Development Goals, etc. The leaders noted that in addition to the summit-level meetings, the foreign ministers of the four countries had met eight times over the last five years. The Commerce and Industry ministers as well as leaders of the Development Finance Institutions and Agencies are also expected to meet for the first time in the coming months. It is a measure of the commitment of the leaders of the four countries that, notwithstanding a change of leadership in three of the countries since 2017, the grouping has become even more dynamic, vibrant, and robust than when it started. Conclusion The fact that six Quad Summits have been organised in 43 months is not only unprecedented but also testimony to the resolve and steadfastness of the four-member countries to attain its objectives. If the former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe can be credited with the idea of the Indo-Pacific and former US President Donald Trump with reviving the Quad and the Indo-Pacific after a hiatus of 10 years in 2017, the current US President Joe Biden deserves full appreciation for not only convening the first Quad Summit but also taking it forward in a resolute and decisive manner. The raison detre of the revival of the Quad in 2017 was the belligerent moves by China in its neighbourhood maritime domain. Notwithstanding the bilateral conversations between China and the four members of the Quad, it is unlikely that China will significantly modify its behaviour in the near or medium term, which could force a rethink on the part of any of the four countries to revise their engagement with the Quad. Collaboration on the Quad platform is hence only likely to augment and deepen. In his statement at the Wilmington Summit, PM Modi said, The Quad is here to stay. Considering the commitment, effort, and political capital invested by the leaders of the four countries since it was revived in 2017 and the far-reaching decisions adopted over the last four years, there appears little doubt that the Quad will continue to grow and expand in the coming years. The writer is executive council member, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, president, Institute of Global Studies, Distinguished Fellow, Ananta Aspen Centre, and former Ambassador of India to Kazakhstan, Sweden and Latvia. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views. Intel, once the undisputed leader in the chipmaking industry, has faced significant challenges in recent years. The company has struggled to maintain its manufacturing supremacy, losing ground to Taiwans TSMC, while losing market share to NVIDIA and AMD read more Intel has been striving to reinvent its business strategy. The company has placed a strong focus on developing AI processors and has ventured into the chip contract manufacturing business. Image credit: Reuters Intel has reportedly turned down a bid from Arm Holdings, the British chip design giant, to acquire its product division, according to a recent report by Bloomberg News. Sources familiar with the matter indicated that Intel has made it clear that this part of their business is not up for sale. The report further clarified that Arm was not interested in Intels manufacturing operations. The discussions between the two companies, as reported, did not include any specific financial terms, and it remains unclear whether these talks are ongoing or have been completely abandoned. Both Intel and Arm have declined to comment on the situation. Advertisement Intel, once the undisputed leader in the chipmaking industry, has faced significant challenges in recent years. The company has struggled to maintain its manufacturing supremacy, losing ground to Taiwans TSMC, which has become a dominant force in semiconductor production. Additionally, Intel has been slow to capitalize on the booming market for chips designed for generative AI, a space where Nvidia and AMD have surged ahead. Adding to Intels challenges, Qualcomm, another major player in the semiconductor industry, has also expressed interest in acquiring Intels product division. Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Qualcomm had approached Intel, potentially eyeing a deal that could have a transformative impact on the sector. In the face of these pressures, Intel has been striving to reinvent its business strategy. The company has placed a strong focus on developing AI processors and has ventured into the chip contract manufacturing business. This move is part of Intels broader strategy to regain its competitive edge and adapt to the evolving demands of the tech industry. Despite these efforts, Intel has also been forced to make some tough decisions, including pausing the construction of new factories in Poland and Germany. The company has also taken steps to reduce its real estate holdings as part of a broader cost-cutting initiative. The rejection of Arms bid suggests that Intel is determined to retain control over its product division, viewing it as a crucial component of its ongoing turnaround strategy. While the company continues to face significant challenges, Intels refusal to sell off parts of its business indicates a commitment to overcoming these hurdles and reasserting its position in the competitive semiconductor landscape. The event was packed with groundbreaking reveals, including the debut of the Orion AR glasses prototype, the introduction of the Meta Quest 3S headset, and significant updates to Metas AI and Ray-Ban Smart Glasses read more The Orion AI Glasses where the highlight. Meta, however, acknowledged that these glasses are still a few years away from consumer availability. Image Credit: Reuters Meta Connect 2024 was a whirlwind of announcements, showcasing the companys ambitious plans for augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI), and new hardware. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, led the keynote with a slew of innovations, ranging from futuristic AR glasses to advanced AI capabilities. The event was packed with groundbreaking reveals, including the debut of the Orion AR glasses prototype, the introduction of the Meta Quest 3S headset, and significant updates to Metas AI and Ray-Ban Smart Glasses. Advertisement Orion AR Glasses - Metas new take on AR The biggest surprise of the event was undoubtedly the introduction of Metas Orion AR glasses, a prototype that offers a fully holographic experience. Unlike anything seen before, these glasses are designed to look like regular eyewear, albeit slightly thicker, with a lot of advanced technology hidden within. The glasses feature a new display architecture and are entirely see-through, allowing users to interact with virtual objects seamlessly integrated into the real world. Control is achieved through a neural-network-based hand gesture system, operated by a wristband. Demos at the event showcased the glasses being used in various scenarios, from gaming to overlaying windows on the users field of vision. A brief glimpse of video calling through personal avatars was also shown, indicating the potential for these glasses to revolutionise how people communicate. Despite being only in the prototype stage, the Orion glasses were praised for their lightness, achieved through a magnesium frame and silicon carbide lenses. Meta, however, acknowledged that these glasses are still a few years away from consumer availability, with the price being a significant factor that needs addressing. Nonetheless, early developer kits are expected to be released to select individuals soon. Meta Quest 3S is now official Another major highlight was the official announcement of the Meta Quest 3S, a mixed-reality headset that aims to make this advanced technology more accessible. Rumours had been swirling for some time, but Meta finally made it official. The Quest 3S is positioned as the entry-level device in the Quest headset lineup, with a price starting at $299.99 / 289.99 / AU$499.99 for the 128GB model. Advertisement The design of the Quest 3S is reminiscent of its predecessor, the Quest 3, but with a few notable changes, particularly in the front camera stack. The headset is built to deliver high-quality mixed reality at a more affordable price, making it accessible to a broader audience. Initial hands-on experiences highlighted the power of the onboard Qualcomm processor, which effortlessly handled the Horizon OS, gaming experiences like Batman: Arkham Shadow, and multitasking across multiple windows. The Quest 3S is shaping up to be a compelling option for those looking to explore mixed reality without breaking the bank. Meta AI, now with celebrity voices and enhanced capabilities Meta also made significant strides in AI, introducing a range of updates to its Meta AI platform. One of the most exciting developments is the addition of voice to the AI chatbot, with the voices of celebrities like John Cena, Keegan-Michael Key, and Kristen Bell being among the first to be introduced. Advertisement This new feature allows users to engage in realistic, human-like conversations with Meta AI through various apps, including Facebook, Instagram DM, WhatsApp, and Messenger. This enhancement brings Meta AI in line with other major AI players, such as OpenAI, Google, and Apple, all of which are integrating voice capabilities into their AI products. Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses get smarter While not as groundbreaking as the Orion prototype, the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses received a substantial update. These glasses, which have already gained popularity, now offer hands-free access to various audio services, such as Spotify and Audible. Users can request specific songs or genres, and the glasses will provide a natural, conversational interaction, powered by Meta AI. Advertisement In addition to audio enhancements, the Ray-Ban Smart Glasses will soon be able to handle language translation queries. Users can look at text in languages like Spanish, French, or Italian and have Meta AI translate it in real-time. This feature was demonstrated at the event and performed well in a controlled environment. Other updates include visual reminders, faster lens transitions to sunglasses, and Meta AI capabilities for video content. All these features are expected to roll out before 2025, making the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses even more versatile and user-friendly. A new image generation tool for Facebook and Instagram| Finally, Meta announced the integration of AI image generation into Facebook and Instagram, bringing its Imagine feature to these platforms. Similar to Apples Image Playground, this tool allows users to create images of anything they can imagine and share them directly on their social media feeds. Advertisement This feature is expected to add a new dimension to how users create and interact with content on Facebook and Instagram, offering endless creative possibilities. AI Translation for Instagram reels: breaking language barriers Meta is also pushing the boundaries of AI in social media with a new translation tool for Instagram and Facebook Reels. This tool, currently being tested in the US and Latin America, allows content creators to reach a wider audience through automatic dubbing and lip-syncing. The goal is to enable users to watch video content from around the world in their language without the need for subtitles. This could be a game-changer for content creators and consumers alike, making it easier to engage with content from different cultures and languages. Earlier this year, in March, US President Joe Biden announced nearly $20 billion in grants and loans to Intel, aimed at revitalising the companys semiconductor chip manufacturing capabilities within the United States read more The preliminary agreement includes $8.5 billion in grants and up to $11 billion in loans, with a substantial portion of the funds earmarked for Intel's operations in Arizona. Image Credit: Reuters, Reuters Intel is on the verge of finalising a significant funding agreement with the US government, potentially securing $8.5 billion in direct financial support by the end of the year, according to a report by the Financial Times. Sources familiar with the discussions have indicated that the negotiations are in an advanced stage, although there is no absolute certainty that the deal will be completed before the close of 2024. This funding is part of a broader initiative by the US government to bolster domestic semiconductor production, an industry that is increasingly viewed as critical to national security and economic competitiveness. Earlier this year, in March, US President Joe Biden announced nearly $20 billion in grants and loans to Intel, aimed at revitalising the companys semiconductor chip manufacturing capabilities within the United States. Advertisement The preliminary agreement includes $8.5 billion in grants and up to $11 billion in loans, with a substantial portion of the funds earmarked for Intels operations in Arizona. This funding will support the construction of two new factories and the modernisation of an existing facility, reinforcing Intels efforts to regain its competitive edge in the global chipmaking industry. However, the report also noted that any potential acquisition or significant restructuring of Intels business could complicate or even jeopardise the finalisation of this funding agreement. Notably, Qualcomm has reportedly approached Intel about a possible acquisition, as the troubled chipmaker continues to navigate a challenging landscape. Intel, once the leading force in semiconductor manufacturing, has faced significant setbacks in recent years. The company has ceded its manufacturing dominance to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and has struggled to produce a chip that could meet the high demands of the generative artificial intelligence market, a sector where NVIDIA and AMD have excelled. The anticipated funding from the US government is seen as a critical component of Intels strategy to regain its footing. By boosting its domestic manufacturing capabilities, Intel hopes to close the gap with its competitors and reclaim its position as a leader in the semiconductor industry. As the year-end approaches, the successful finalisation of this deal will be crucial for Intel, both for its immediate operations and its long-term strategic goals. The support from the US government could provide the necessary resources for Intel to overcome its recent challenges and re-establish itself as a dominant player in the global semiconductor market. Tokyo Electrons move is expected to take shape around 2026, with the initial focus on providing technical services to Tata Electronics read more Tokyo Electron is a key supplier to industry giants such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), Samsung Electronics Co., SK Hynix Inc., and Intel. This collaboration is part of a broader wave of semiconductor investments in India. Image Credit: Freepik Tokyo Electron Ltd., Japans leading chip equipment manufacturer, is planning to build a team of engineers in India as part of its strategy to align with the Indian governments push to expand semiconductor manufacturing in the country. This move is expected to take shape around 2026, with the initial focus on providing technical services to Tata Electronics Pvt. The companys CEO, Toshiki Kawai, has indicated that robotics will increasingly play a role in this initiative, with local engineers receiving both in-person and remote support from Japan. However, details regarding the number of engineers to be hired were not disclosed. Advertisement India, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is making significant efforts to attract international electronics companies and chipmakers to establish manufacturing facilities within its borders. This initiative is part of a broader plan to narrow the technological gap with advanced economies. Companies like Apple Inc. are already ramping up production in India, while domestic giants like Tata Group are investing heavily in semiconductor fabrication plants. The Indian government is offering substantial incentives to support these ventures, creating a fertile ground for companies like Tokyo Electron, which specialise in the machinery and expertise needed for semiconductor production. Tokyo Electron, based in Tokyo, aims to hire 10,000 new employees globally over the next five years, reflecting the growing demand for domestic chip manufacturing in various countries. The company is a key supplier to industry giants such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), Samsung Electronics Co., SK Hynix Inc., and Intel Corp. For the current business year ending in March, Tokyo Electron is projecting record revenue and operating profit, driven by a surge in demand for chips, particularly in areas like artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous vehicles, and energy efficiency. Despite pressures from the United States to tighten restrictions on exporting advanced chipmaking equipment to China, Tokyo Electron remains optimistic about the global demand for its machines. The US government has been urging Japan to limit Tokyo Electrons ability to service certain equipment in China, but Kawai believes that the global importance of semiconductors will ensure continued investment in chipmaking technologies worldwide. Advertisement Tokyo Electron has already committed to supporting Tata Electronics by training its workforce on the use of chipmaking equipment and assisting in research and development. This collaboration is part of a broader wave of semiconductor investments in India, with the Modi administration approving over $15 billion in investments, including a $2.75 billion assembly facility by US memory maker Micron Technology Inc. Additionally, Israels Tower Semiconductor Ltd. is exploring a partnership with billionaire Gautam Adani to build a $10 billion fabrication plant in western India. While China remains a significant market for Tokyo Electron, accounting for nearly 50 per cent of its revenue in the June quarter, sales to China are expected to decrease to between 25 per cent and 30 per cent as the companys overall sales continue to grow. However, Kawai emphasised that India is not seen as a replacement for the Chinese market but as an additional growth opportunity. Advertisement As Tokyo Electron continues to expand its market share against competitors like Applied Materials Inc., the company is focusing on advancing its technologies, including cryogenic etching for high-speed processing of stacked NAND memory and conductor etching for DRAM. Despite some fluctuations in investor sentiment, particularly towards AI, Kawai remains confident about the broader potential for growth in the semiconductor industry, noting that AI is just one aspect of the sectors future expansion. Tokyo Electrons stock has seen a decline since reaching a record high in April, but the company remains focused on the long-term potential of the semiconductor market, which Kawai believes is much larger than the current focus on AI suggests. During a fireside chat with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Jensen Huang emphasised that AI wont replace human workers but will instead complement them, by taking over repetitive and time-consuming tasks. AI will free employees to focus on more strategic and creative work read more Jensen Huang acknowledged that while the rapid pace of development can be overwhelming, it also positions NVIDIA to make significant contributions to the future of technology. Image Credit: Reuters AI agents are set to become as integral to the workforce as human employees, according to NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang. Speaking at the Dreamforce 2024 event in San Francisco, Huang suggested that the process of integrating AI into businesses will soon feel as routine as bringing on new team members. These AI agents and assistants are expected to work alongside human employees, enhancing productivity and efficiency across various industries. During a fireside chat with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Huang emphasised that AI wont replace human workers but will instead complement them. By taking over repetitive and time-consuming tasks, such as data entry, AI will free employees to focus on more strategic and creative work. Advertisement Huang likened the integration of AI to onboarding a new colleague, where the AI agent is introduced, trained, and given specific tasks to support the business. This theme of AI as a collaborative partner was central to Dreamforce 2024, where Salesforce unveiled its new Agentforce platform. This collection of AI-powered tools aims to assist businesses in leveraging AI to improve their operations. NVIDIA and Salesforce also announced a partnership to integrate NVIDIAs AI platform with Agentforce, combining NVIDIAs NIM microservices and NeMo models with Salesforces AI tools. This collaboration promises to deliver powerful insights and enhance productivity, particularly in high-pressure situations like crisis management, where companies may need to scale customer service rapidly or adjust delivery schedules in real-time. Huangs conversation with Benioff also touched on the personal use of AI, with Benioff humorously mentioning his use of ChatGPT as a therapist, to which Huang responded with a light-hearted comment about Benioffs relaxed appearance. The discussion then shifted to Huangs motivation, where he spoke passionately about the unique opportunity presented by the current wave of AI innovation. Huang acknowledged that while the rapid pace of development can be overwhelming, it also positions NVIDIA to make significant contributions to the future of technology. Huang closed by urging the audience not to miss out on the upcoming decade of AI advancements, likening it to an unmissable blockbuster movie. His message was clear: the future of AI is bright, and those who embrace it will be at the forefront of transformative change. For the first time since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has refrained from mentioning Kashmir in his United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) address read more Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York, US - September 24, 2024. Source: REUTERS. Since 2019, Recep Tayyip Erdogan barely skipped missing mentioning the issue of Kashmir during his annual address at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). It somewhat became a tradition for the Turkish President to speak more about the Indian region after Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government at the centre revoked abrogated Article 370, scrapping the special status that J&K had. This year too Erdogan addressed the UNGA, he was among the leaders whose speech was waited for. The Turkish president did speak at the UN, but this time it was surprisingly unusual there was no mention of Kashmir at all. Advertisement The mentioning of Kashmir in Erdogans UNGA address, in some form or another, since 2019 got common over the past few years. In 2023, he called for a just and lasting peace in Kashmir through cooperation and dialogue between India and Pakistan. The Turkish leader echoed similar sentiments in 2022 and even regretted that strong peace, and cooperation between India and Pakistan had still not yet been established, despite 75 years following their independence. A year before, in 2021, Erdogan called for the resolution of Kashmir through UN resolutions, something that he had said in 2020 as and 2019. In fact, in 2019, the Turkish president was most vocal when he said that the Kashmir dispute must be resolved through dialogue on the basis of justice and fairness, rather than conflict. Once, outside the UN, Erdogan even went on to say, India right now has become a country where massacres are widespread. What massacres? Massacres of Muslims. By who? Hindus. At a joint session of Pakistans parliament on February 14, 2020, the Turkish president had said: We have never forgotten and will never forget the help, which the Pakistani people extended, by sharing their own bread during our War of Independence. And now, Kashmir is and will be the same for us. It was Canakkale yesterday, and it is Kashmir today, [there is] no difference. Advertisement The remarks of Erdogan were often viewed as unwarranted interference in Indias domestic affairs, which New Delhi consistently rejected strongly. India reminded Turkey that, unlike Ankara, which invaded and occupied part of the sovereign nation of Cyprus in 1974, New Delhi has not taken any similar actions concerning Kashmir. But, if not Kashmir, what was the focus issue of Erdogans speech at the UNGA in 2024. His speech centred around the conflicts in Syria and the Gaza strip. Also, the Turkish leader used the platform to continue with his criticism of Israel and advocacy of the Palestinian cause. Erdogan even criticised the UN for what he called turning Palestinian territory into the worlds largest cemetery. Advertisement But, is Erdogan changing his tone on India? It seems yes, and there could be several reasons for this. Heres a quick look at XXX reasons 1 - BRICS factor Erdogans omission of Kashmir in his UNGA address comes as Turkey seeks to join the BRICS bloc which comprises of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. In his speech at the 79th UNGA session in New York, Erdogan said, We maintain our will to develop our relations with Brics, which brings together emerging economies. If Turkey joins BRICS, it would be the first North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) member to be a part of the bloc. Advertisement Turkey has backing of both Russia and China for BRICS entry but it can only happen with consensus. 2 - Turkey wants full-fledge SCO membership Turkey also aims to get a full-fledge membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and not just an observer. Turkeys anti-India posture may also get affected as India is also among nine permanent members of SCO. 3 - Indians Tourism & businesses In Turkey, Indians are third-largest Asian tourists after China and Indonesia. Also, Ankara has been witnessing a gradual expansion of Indian businesses. Also Read: Turkeys Erdogan changes tone, skips Kashmir mention at UN first time in years 4 - Relations with India-friendly nations Advertisement Turkey has been making efforts with countries including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE and incidentally, India shares excellent relations with all these nations. Turkey appears to have acknowledged this as it seems to work on strengthening its relationship with India. 5 - Turkeys disenchantment with Pakistan Turkeys growing discontent with Pakistan is becoming increasingly evident, primarily driven by the rising number of illegal Pakistani immigrants. This influx has become a significant point of friction in Ankaras relationship with Islamabad. Reports indicate that many of these immigrants are failing to respect Turkish culture, especially when it comes to women. Furthermore, intelligence findings suggest that illegal Pakistani immigrants have been involved in serious criminal activities, including gang violence, human and drug trafficking, and the ransom kidnapping of tourists in Turkey. Turkey paid for Erdogans remarks on Kashmir In October 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cancelled his planned visit to Turkey. Also, a lucrative $2.3 billion naval deal between India and Turkeys defence company was terminated. Not just this, New Delhi also cut its other defence exports to Turkey, including dual-use weaponry like explosives and detonators. India also has reduced its imports from Turkey and had entered into a defence agreement with Armenia, Turkeys traditional rival in the region. With inputs from agencies. From widening economic gaps between developed and developing nations to the impact of climate change on poor countries, the delegation is expected to hold discussions on a wide range of topics that are intended to address the issues of the members of G77 read more Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni gestures to leaders after posing for a family photograph at the opening of the Third South Summit. Reuters file The Group of 77 (G77) will meet in New York on Friday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. This will be the groups, which has 134 developing countries as its members, 48th annual meeting which foreign ministers of the member-nations will attend. From widening economic gaps between developed and developing nations to the impact of climate change on poor countries, the delegation is expected to hold discussions on a wide range of topics that are intended to address the issues of the members of G77. Advertisement Here are five things to know about the group: As chances of second Trump term high, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is eager to develop a relationship with him and prepare a firm footing for a working US-UK relationship under Trump read more British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on Thursday evening met former US President and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Starmer met Trump in New York City on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session. The meeting with Trump comes amid Starmers charm offensive in the United States in context of the upcoming election. As a second Trump term is very much possible, Starmer is eager to develop a relationship with Trump and prepare a firm footing for a working US-UK relationship under Trump. Advertisement Starmers government has a slew of concerns about a potential Trump presidency next year ranging from the support for Ukraine to continued funding of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and commitment to the United Nations (UN). Here are the five things that topped the agenda of Starmer-Trump dinner. Starmer wants a good working relationship with Trump Starmer and Trump met at the Trump Tower over dinner in New York City on Thursday evening. The dinner lasted for over two hours. Starmer and Trump discussed the longstanding friendship between the United Kingdom and the United States and the importance of continuing to develop the strong and enduring partnership between our two countries, according to a British government readout. This was the first meeting between the two leaders. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy was also part of the meeting. While it is common for visiting foreign leaders to meet leaders from parties outside of the government, it is more or less a norm that if you are meeting the nominee of one party in the United States in an election year, you also meet the others partys nominee. Starmer, however, only met Trump and not Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Politico noted that the unorthodox decision indicates the new British governments eagerness to win over Trump. Im a great believer in personal relations on the international stage. I think it really matters that you know who your counterpart is in any given country, and know them personally, get to know them face to face, said Starmer about personal relationships in politics, according to BBC News. Well work with whoever is president Advertisement Even as Starmer is keen to start on the right note with Trump, he asserted the strong foundations of the US-UK relationship. Starmer said his government will work with whoever sits in the White House. He further said that the US-UK special relationship has always stood above the people holding offices in the two nations. The first thing I think is important to say in relation to this is weve obviously had a special relationship with the US for a long time, forged in really difficult circumstances. That always sits above whoever holds the particular office, either in the US or the UK, said Starmer, according to BBC. Advertisement Is Starmer appeasing Trump? Starmer and his Labour Party ministers have been critical of Trump in the past. This has given the meeting another dimension. It has been said that as Trumps chances of winning the November have increased, Starmer wants to start on a fresh note by ditching the previous criticism. In 2019, when Trump had endorsed former British PM for Conservative Partys leadership, Starmer said, An endorsement from Donald Trump tells you everything you need to know about what is wrong with Boris Johnsons politics and why he isnt fit to be Prime Minister. Previously, Lammy had also called Trump a woman-hating, neo-Nazi sympathizing sociopath. Advertisement Last week, British border minister Angela Eagle had said that Trumps anti-immigration rhetoric had provoked the far-right anti-migrants riots in the UK this year. Starmers concerns regarding Trump Starmer has a number of concerns regarding Trumps second Trump. As a far-right leader who has embraced isolationism, Trump has provoked concerns among allies in Europe and elsewhere that the US support against adversaries such as Russia may not be assured under Trump. Trump has even said he may pull the plug on the support to NATO. He said this year that if a NATO member-state does not spend on defence as per his liking, he would not support the member-state and tell Russia to do whatever the hell they want with the member-state. Advertisement Trump has also refused to commit to the victory of Ukraine in the war with Russia. Instead, Trump has said he would end the war even before assuming office. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has plunged Europe in the worst security crisis since the World War-II. Trumps admiration of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and apathy for European security concerns have also made European leaders worried regarding Trumps second term. Starmer bats for internationalism As if in an indirect message to Trump, Starmer batted for internationalism just before meeting the former US president. In his address to the UNGA, Starmer batted for a global recommitment to internationalism and the rule of law even as polarisation and instability are rising across the world. People talk about an age of polarization, impunity, instability and an unraveling of the U.N. charter. And I feel a sense of fatalism has taken hold, but our task is to say no This is the moment to reassert fundamental principles and our willingness to defend them. To recommit to the U.N., to internationalism, to the rule of law, said Trump. The Bilateral Investment Treaty between India and Uzbekistan assures appropriate protection to Uzbekistan investors in India and Indian investors in the Republic of Uzbekistan, in light of relevant international precedents and practices read more India and Uzbekistan have signed a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) to assure appropriate protection to Uzbekistan investors in India and Indian investors in the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement on Friday. *The BIT between the Indian government and the government of Republic of Uzbekistan was signed by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Khodjayev Jamshid Abdukhakimovich, Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan, at Tashkent. *It assures appropriate protection to Uzbekistan investors in India and Indian investors in the Republic of Uzbekistan, in light of relevant international precedents and practices, an official statement said. Advertisement *It will increase the comfort level and boost the confidence of investors by assuring a minimum standard of treatment and non-discrimination while providing an independent forum for dispute settlement through arbitration, it said. *The treaty also provides for protection to investments from expropriation, provides for transparency, transfers and compensation for losses, it said. However, it said that while providing such investor and investment protection, balance has been maintained regarding the states right to regulate, providing adequate policy space. *The signing of the BIT reflects both nations shared commitment towards enhancing economic cooperation and creating a more robust and resilient investment environment. *The treaty is expected to pave the way for increased bilateral investments, benefiting businesses and economies in both countries. *Overseas Direct Investment (ODI) from India to Uzbekistan was USD 20 USD million during April 2000 to August 2024. Notable investments by Indian companies include those in the pharmaceuticals, amusement parks, automobile components, and hospitality industries. With inputs from agencies. Ties between the United States and China have been tense as they clash over US export controls on advanced chip technology to China, trade tariffs, Taiwan, human rights, and the wars in Gaza and Ukraine read more US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Wang Yi are meeting amid rising US-China tensions. (Photo: Reuters) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday in New York City, the U.S. State Department said. Ties between the worlds two biggest economies have been tense as they clash over U.S. export controls on advanced chip technology to China, trade tariffs, Taiwan, human rights and the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. The meeting between the two top diplomats will take place at 1330 ET (1730 GMT) on Friday, according to the State Department. The Chinese foreign minister is in the US for the United Nations General Assembly session. Advertisement China this week urged the US to promptly remove all additional tariffs on Chinese goods. The United States has expressed concern over Chinese ties with Russia since Moscows invasion of Ukraine while Beijing has repeatedly expressed worries over US ties with Taiwan. The US is Taiwans most important international backer and arms supplier even though Washington does not formally recognise its government, maintaining official relations only with Beijing. The challenges to the US posed by China exceed those of the Cold War, US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said this month. President Joe Bidens administration has been explicit that it is not seeking a cold war with China, but increasingly analysts and members of the US Congress have said escalating global competition between the two superpowers resembled a new style of cold war. The two sides have kept lines of communication open in recent months. The White House said last month a call was being planned between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Biden soon. Lebanon has said that 700 people have been killed and more than 1,000 have been injured in the Israeli bombardment so far read more A man stands on top of a damaged car at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Saksakieh, south Lebanon, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. - AP Tokyo is urging its citizens to leave Lebanon, Japans top government spokesman said Friday, with media reporting plans are afoot to dispatch military aircraft to evacuate them. Israeli bombing has killed hundreds of people this week in Lebanon, particularly in Hezbollah strongholds while the militant group has retaliated with rocket barrages. Were currently checking the safety of Japanese citizens living in Lebanon, as well as urging them to leave the country while regular commercial flights remain in operation, chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said Friday. Advertisement Meanwhile, Japanese media reported that arrangements are currently underway for the government to send military aircraft to Jordan where they will be on stand-by. The C-2 transport aircraft will be mobilised to evacuate around 50 Japanese citizens currently in Lebanon, media outlets including Kyodo News said, citing unnamed government sources. Yoko Kamikawa, Japans foreign minister, said Wednesday that Tokyo is strongly concerned about the escalation of tensions between Israel and Hezbollah. Japan, she added, strongly urges all parties to exercise the utmost restraint to avoid further escalation. Israel has rejected a push by allies for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon and has vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah militants. After capturing dozens of Ukrainian villages in eastern Ukraine, Russia has now moved dangerously close to the strategic city of Pokrovsk and has surrounded another important town of Vuhledar read more Russia has launched a heavy attack on Eastern Ukraine, around the key logistical hub of Pokrovsk. Image used for representative purpose/Reuters Even as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made the case for more support in the United States, Russia continued to make gains on the battlefield. In recent months, Russia has made a string of crucial battlefield victories. After capturing dozens of villages, Russia has now moved dangerously close to the strategic city of Pokrovsk and has surrounded another important town of Vuhledar. Amid such gains, Russia on Thursday said that it had captured another town of Ukrainsk in eastern Ukraines Donetsk province, according to AFP. The town lies just 18 miles (30 kilometres) away from Donetsks capital. Advertisement The claim of Ukrainsks capture came a day after Russia claimed to have won the villages of Hostre and Hryhorivka. While Hostre is close to Ukrainsk, Hryhorivka is close to the hilltop town of Chasiv Yar which Russia controls partially. The news of continuing Russian advances in the Donbas region, comprising eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, comes at a time when Zelenskyy is in the United States for talks with US President Joe Biden, Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, and Republican nominee Donald Trump. His agenda is to shore up support for Ukraine and convince Biden to allow Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia. The continuing support of the United States is critical for Zelenskyys vision for Ukraines war with Russia. While Harris is following Bidens commitment to Ukraines victory, Trump has refused such commitment and has instead repeatedly said he would end the war soon after winning the election. He has been critical of the US aid to Ukraine and has accused Zelenskyy of emptying US coffers. As Zelenskyy impressed upon the need for more weapons and permissions for deeper strikes, Biden approved assistance to the tune of $8 billion, which includes the first shipment of Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) gliding bombs along with air defence, unmanned aerial systems (UAVs), and air-to-ground munitions, according to NBC News. At least 33 people were killed as Hurricane Helene struck Florida and swept through the southeastern United States on Friday, US officials said, cautioning that some individuals remain trapped in buildings read more A stranded car sits in flood waters as Tropical Storm Helene strikes, in Boone, North Carolina, US, on Friday. Reuters Tropical Storm Helene brought life-threatening flooding to the Carolinas on Friday after leaving widespread destruction as a major hurricane in Florida and Georgia overnight that killed at least 33 people, swamped neighborhoods and left more than 4 million homes and businesses without power. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp announced 11 deaths in his state, including that of an emergency responder, Seven of the reported fatalities are in Florida, with other in North and South Carolina. Several of the deaths are attributed to trees falling on buildings, reported The Guardian Advertisement It is a very dangerous environment, and one of our finest has lost his life trying to save others, The Guardian quoted Kemp as saying at a late-morning media briefing. Weve had 11 confirmed fatalities. I would ask all Georgians, like the Kemp family is doing, to keep these folks in these communities in your thoughts and prayers, added Kemp. Kemp said emergency crews were having a hard time getting to places because of storm damage, and urged residents to be patient. We got to get our chainsaw cut teams to continue working to free up roads, but well have those resources moving as soon as its safe to do so, he said, adding that authorities were scanning the state by air to identify the worst hit places. Helene hit Floridas Big Bend region as a powerful Category 4 hurricane on Thursday at 11:10 pm ET (0310 GMT on Friday) and left a chaotic landscape of overturned boats in harbors, felled trees, submerged cars and flooded streets. Police and firefighters carried out thousands of water rescues throughout the affected states, including in Atlanta, where an apartment complex had to be evacuated due to flooding. Helene came ashore in Florida with 140 mph (225 kph) winds, weakening to a tropical storm as it moved into Georgia early on Friday. It was carrying maximum sustained winds of near 45 mph (97 kph) as of 11 am and was forecast to stall over the Tennessee Valley through the weekend. Advertisement Life-threatening storm surges, winds and heavy rains continued, the NHC said. The National Weather Service issued flash flood warnings for several counties in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina on Friday morning. This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW! the service said. In western North Carolina, Rutherford County emergency officials warned residents near the Lake Lure Dam just before noon to immediately evacuate to higher ground, saying Dam failure imminent. In nearby Buncombe County, landslides forced interstates 40 and 26 to close, the county said on X. The extent of the damage in Florida began emerging after daybreak. In coastal Steinhatchee, a storm surge - the wall of seawater pushed ashore by winds - of eight to 10 feet (2.4-3 meters) moved mobile homes, the NWS said on X. In Treasure Island, a barrier island community in Pinellas County, boats were grounded in front yards. Advertisement The city of Tampa posted on X that emergency personnel had completed 78 water rescues of residents and that many roads were impassable because of flooding. The Pasco County sheriffs office rescued more than 65 people overnight. The US Coast Guard said it had saved nine people from storm waters. Video posted online showed a Coast Guard crew pulling a man and his dog wearing life vests from the ocean on Thursday after his sailboat became disabled off Sanibel Island. Kevin Guthrie, Floridas emergency management director, urged residents in the affected areas to stay off the roads. I beg you, do not go out, Guthrie said at a morning press briefing. We have 1,500 search and rescue personnel in the impacted areas. Please get out of the way so we can do our jobs. Advertisement Officials had pleaded with residents in Helenes path to heed evacuation orders, describing the storm surge as unsurvivable, as NHC director Michael Brennan warned. In Taylor County, the Sheriffs Department wrote on social media that residents who decided not to evacuate should write their names and dates of birth on their arms in permanent ink so that you can be identified and family notified. With inputs from agencies The Australia-UK deal would involve the joint-production of submarines under the framework of the AUKUS alliance, according to Reuters read more The Virginia-class USS North Dakota, a nuclear-powered submarine, is seen during sea trials in this photo on October 25, 2014, at Submarine Base New London in Groton, Connecticut, USA. (Photo: Reuters) Australia and Britain said they would strike a bilateral treaty to produce a new class of nuclear-powered submarine, under the AUKUS partnership which also includes the United States. Australia will buy U.S. Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines from the United States in the next decade, with Britain and Australia later building a new class of AUKUS submarine at Barrow-in-Furness in Britain, and in South Australia, under the AUKUS pact announced in 2023. We will be negotiating a treaty, a bilateral treaty, between Australia and the UK to enable our portion of AUKUS, Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles told reporters after a meeting with his British and U.S. counterparts on Thursday in London. Advertisement We will be operating the same class of submarine. So when you look at the industrial cooperation, the technology transfer, the way in which all of those mechanisms operate to do that, that is the subject of the treaty, he added. British Defence Secretary John Healey said the meeting of AUKUS defence ministers had also agreed to use British-made Stingray torpedoes in P-8A Maritime Patrol Aircraft which are used as submarine-hunting aircraft in the Indo Pacific region. US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said the AUKUS partners had conducted significant experiments across the ground, undersea and electromagnetic spectrum to enhance warfighting capabilities as part of cooperation under the so-called AUKUS Pillar Two. A joint statement said the AUKUS partners were increasing their ability to develop and deliver offensive and defensive hypersonic technologies, and will conduct a large scale drone exercise later this year. The foreign ministers of the India, Brazil and South Africa condemned terrorism in all its forms and concurred that it is a global scourge that must be fought and that terrorist safe havens must be eliminated read more Foreign Ministers of India, Brazil and South Africa on Thursday pressed for concerted actions against all UN-listed terrorists and terror entities, including Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and other proxy groups and their facilitators. In a meeting held under the framework of the three-nation grouping IBSA (India-Brazil-South Africa), the ministers recalled the responsibility of all states to prevent and counter-terrorism, including the cross-border movement of terrorists. The meeting took place on the sidelines of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and it was attended by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, his Brazilian counterpart Mauro Vieira and South Africas Ronald Lamola. Advertisement The ministers condemned terrorism in all its forms and concurred that it is a global scourge that must be fought and that terrorist safe havens must be eliminated in every part of the world. They reaffirmed that the fight against terrorism must be carried out with full respect for international law, in particular the Charter of the United Nations and international human rights law, the ministers said in a statement. It said Jaishankar, Vieira and Lamola called for concerted actions against all UN-listed terrorists and terrorist entities including Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), other proxy groups and their facilitators. The ministers reiterated their resolve to step up joint efforts for the expeditious adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism in the UNGA, it said. The IBSA foreign ministers called upon the international community to establish a genuinely broad international counter-terrorism framework in accordance with the principles of international law and support the UNs central coordinating role in international counter-terrorism cooperation. They recalled the responsibility of all States to prevent and counter-terrorism, including the cross-border movement of terrorists, the financing of terrorist networks and terrorist actions from their territories, the statement said. Advertisement On the situation in Ukraine, the ministers stated their concern regarding the conflict and called on all actors involved to promote de-escalation and to foster direct dialogue so as to create conditions for effective peace. They assessed relevant proposals of mediation and good offices, including by countries not directly involved, aimed at the peaceful resolution of the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy, the statement said. Attended a productive IBSA Foreign Ministers meeting today alongside FM Mauro Vieira and FM @RonaldLamola. IBSA nations participate in and shape ongoing global discourses on development, SDGs, poverty eradication, multilateralism, and South-South cooperation. We share pic.twitter.com/GyZF9mYvW4 Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) September 26, 2024 Advertisement The call for dialogue and diplomacy by the three-nation grouping resembles Indias position on the resolution of the conflict. The IBSA foreign ministers emphasised that all states must act consistently with the purposes and principles of the UN charter. Jaishankar, Vieira and Lamola also expressed their deep concern about the dramatic humanitarian situation in Gaza and reiterated their call for an immediate ceasefire and the release of all remaining hostages. They stressed that all actors must comply with their obligations under international law, including relevant UNSC resolutions and ICJ (International Court of Justice) decisions, the ministers said. Advertisement They reaffirmed the urgent need for a lasting solution to the conflict through the political settlement of the situation based on a two-state solution, with an independent and viable state of Palestine living side by side with Israel, in peace and security, within the 1967 borders, which include the Gaza Strip and the west bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital, the statement said. The ministers called states that have not yet recognised the state of Palestine to do so and expressed their support for the admission of Palestine as a member of the UN. The ministers shared their concern about the risk of escalating conflicts in the Middle East, with unpredictable consequences for the whole region and the world, the statement said. PTI Seventeen countries attended a meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly chaired by Chinas Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Brazilian foreign policy adviser Celso Amorim. read more China and Brazil are pushing forward with their initiative to rally developing countries to support their proposal to end Russias war in Ukraine. This move comes despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyys rejection of the plan, saying that it favours Moscows interests. On Friday, a meeting took place on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGC), chaired by Chinas Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Brazilian foreign policy adviser Celso Amorim. The meeting drew 17 countries, highlighting the growing interest in finding a resolution to the conflict. Advertisement According to Wang, the discussion centered on preventing war escalation, avoiding the use of weapons of mass destruction, and safeguarding nuclear power plants. Russia and Ukraine are neighbors that cannot be moved away from each other and amity is the only realistic option, Wang said, adding that the international community should support an international peace conference involving both Russia and Ukraine. As well as Brazil and China, 10 countries from the Global South who were present, including Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey, signed a communique that Amorim said builds on an earlier six-point plan proposed by Brazil and China in May. Countries would continue to meet in New York under a grouping of friends for peace, he added. Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a no limits partnership deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2022, less than three weeks before Russian troops entered Ukraine. Beijing says it has not supplied Russia with weapons for use in Ukraine, but Western countries say its companies provide materials that Russia uses in the manufacture of weapons for the war. Zelenskyy, in a speech to the assembly on Wednesday, questioned why China and Brazil were proposing an alternative to his own peace formula. Advertisement Proposing alternatives, half-hearted settlement plans, so-called sets of principles would only give Moscow the political space to continue the war, he said. Asked about Zelenskiys comment, Amorim told Reuters, Im not here to respond either to Zelenskiy or Putin, just to propose a way for peace. With inputs from agencies. Chinas newest nuclear-powered attack submarine, identified as a Zhou-class sub, sank at a shipyard near Wuhan during construction in late May or early June, US intel report said read more A series of satellite images from Planet Labs from June appear to show cranes at the Wuchang shipyard in Wuhan Shi, China, June 15, 2024. Source: Planet Labs Inc / REUTERS. Chinas newest first-in-class nuclear-powered attack submarine sank at a shipyard near Wuhan between May and June this year, US intel officials said in a report. The incident comes at a time when China is toiling to expand its military capabilities and fleet of nuclear-powered submarines. The news of the vessel, identified as a Zhou-class submarine with a distinctive X-shaped stern, was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The report said that the submarine was built by China State Shipbuilding Corp., a state-owned company. It was observed alongside a pier on the Yangtze River in late May when it was undergoing its final equipping before going to sea. Advertisement Back on March 10, a satellite image taken by Maxar Technologies also showed the Zhou-class submarine, with its signature x-shape tail, docked at the port. But, imagery collected later in June showed that it did not return to the pier. As per the report, satellite photos from the site showed large floating cranes arrived in early June attempting to salvage the submarine from the bottom of the river. China tried to hide The PLA Navy tried to conceal the loss, but Thomas Shugart, a former US submarine officer and an adjunct senior fellow at the Centre for a New American Security, was the first to notice the unusual activity at the shipyard. Ive never seen a bunch of cranes clustered around (one spot), Shugart, who routinely studies satellite imagery of Chinese shipyards, was quoted as saying by CNN. Shugart further said that as per the older satellite images of the same shipyard, there was a vessel that had larger size and distinctive tail, indicating a new class of submarine. Usually, those submarines, after they get launched, theyre there at the shipyard for several months in outfitting. And it wasnt there anymore, Shugart said. Advertisement Its not surprising that the PLA Navy would try to conceal the fact that their new first-in-class nuclear-powered attack submarine sank pierside," the WSJ report quoted a senior US defence official as saying. the incident raises deeper questions about the PLAs internal accountability and oversight of Chinas defense industry, which has long been plagued by corruption, the US defence official further said. In an interview with WSJ, Shugart said, Can you imagine a US nuclear submarine sinking in San Diego and the government hushes it up and doesnt tell anybody about it? I mean, Holy Cow!" The whole boat would be full of water. Youd have to clean out all the electronics. The electric motors may need to be replaced. It would be a lot of work, Shugart further said. Advertisement Submarine sinking will slow Chinas plan to grow Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank, and a retired US Navy nuclear submarine officer said the sinking of a new nuclear sub that was produced at a new yard will slow Chinas plans to grow its nuclear submarine fleet. This is significant, he added. Did sub sinking lead to radiation American officials said they have not detected any indication that Chinese officials have sampled the water or nearby environment for radiation. There could also be a possibility that Chinese personnel were killed or injured when the sub sank, but US officials say they dont know if there were casualties. Advertisement Shugart, during an interview with WSJ, said that the risk of a nuclear leak was likely to be low as the sub had not ventured out to sea and its reactors were probably not operating at a high power level. Not familiar with situation: China A spokesperson from the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC, meanwhile said: We are not familiar with the situation you mentioned and currently have no information to provide. In a report issued last year, the Pentagon said China, at the end of 2022, had 48 diesel-powered attack subs and six nuclear-powered attack subs. China has now been rampantly moving to diversify the production of nuclear-powered submarines. Production has been centered in the northeastern city of Huludao, but the Asian nation is now gradually moving at the Wuchang Shipyard near Wuhan to manufacture nuclear-powered attack submarines. Advertisement The Pentagon report said that Chinas aim in developing new attack submarines, surface ships and naval aircraft is to counter efforts by the US and its partners to come to Taiwans aid during a conflict and to achieve maritime superiority" within the first island chain, a string of territory from the Japanese archipelago through Taiwan and the Philippines to the South China Sea. Earlier, the US, the European Union and nine other nations called on Israel and Lebanons Hezbollah to agree to a 21-day ceasefire amid escalating tensions between the two parties 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. File Image/Reuters After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discarded the ceasefire proposal pushed by the United States and France, the White House said on Thursday that Israelis were fully aware of every word in the joint statement. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that Washington and its allies were surprised and disappointed that Israel had rejected the proposal. Earlier, the US, the European Union and nine other nations called on Israel and Lebanons Hezbollah to agree to a 21-day ceasefire amid escalating tensions between the two parties. However, Netanyahu dismissed the proposal and instructed the Israeli army to proceed with full force against Hezbollah. Advertisement What I can tell you is that statement we worked on last night wasnt just drawn up in a vacuum. It was done after careful consultation, not only with the countries that signed on to it, but Israel itself, and we had every reason to believe that in the drafting of it and in the delivery of it the Israelis were fully informed and fully aware of every word in it, Kirby said in a press briefing on Thursday. We wouldnt have done it if we didnt believe that it would be received with seriousness, he added. As Netanyahu arrived in New York, Kirby made it clear that the discussion with the Israeli delegation is still happening today. US struggles to find reason why Netanyahu rejected the proposal During the press briefing, Kirby said that he was not aware why Netanyahu rejected the ceasefire proposal. So what prompted the prime ministers comments? Only he can say. What prompted our desire to get that statement written and out the door was that earnest desire to see diplomacy having a chance here, to de-escalate, he explained. Earlier, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre maintained that the call for the temporary truce aimed to open space for dialogue. And I would add that the statement was indeed coordinated with the Israeli side, said Jean-Pierre. She also reiterated that there are now discussions ongoing in New York. Our teams are continuing to have discussions, and so youll probably hear more later in the day, but those discussions are ongoing, she added. Israel has been pounding Lebanon since early Monday. The recent strikes killed at least 677 people and injured more than 2,500, according to figures released by the Lebanese Health Ministry. As Netanyahu is scheduled to address at the UNGA on Friday, many including the US will be looking for answers. Advertisement With inputs from agencies. It was the first gun-related event that Biden attended alongside Harris since appointing her to lead the office on gun violence prevention, which was established a year ago, according to a White House official read more The new order will employ the president's staff to assess the effects of active shooter drills in schools on students and teachers and if they cause trauma to them. Representative image/Reuters file US President Joe Biden has signed a new order that will restrict gun technologies essentially making it less easy to obtain guns and improve shooting drills in schools across the country. The move comes in the wake of a Georgia school shooting incident earlier this month where a 14-year-old student brought an assault-style rifle to school in his backpack and opened fire during morning classes, killing two students and two teachers and injuring nine others. It was the first gun-related event that Biden attended alongside Harris since appointing her to lead the office on gun violence prevention, which was established a year ago, according to a White House official. Advertisement During an event at the White House where the order was signed, Vice President Kamala Harris said, I believe the right to be safe is a civil right. Were experiencing an epidemic of gun violence. What does the order say? The new order will employ the presidents staff to assess the effects of active shooter drills in schools on students and teachers and if they cause trauma to them. The order also seeks to establish a new task force to investigate the dangers associated with machine-gun conversion devices, which allow a semi-automatic pistol to be transformed into a fully automatic weapon. The task force will also assess the proliferation of 3D-printed guns that are easy to print using an internet code but difficult to trace due to the absence of a serial number. It will be required to submit its report in 90 days. 700 students arrested The school shooting in Georgias Apalachee High School, the worst the state has seen in its history, has led to the arrest of over 700 students, 98 of them in the state itself. According to the New York Times, the students, at least one of whom is a fourth grader, have been accused of making violent threats against different schools in 45 states across US. At least 10 per cent of the arrested students are 12 or under. Advertisement Usually, a school shooting of this scale prompts similar threats in other schools but the amount of threatening messages and posts this year is unprecedented. In Arizona, schools received 156 per cent more threats in a single week of September than the same week last year. Harris, a Democrat, is visiting Douglas, Arizona, a border town of less than 17,000 people, with a message ripped from Trumps playbook, hoping to sell U.S. voters on ways she can improve the status quo. read more Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to visit Douglas, Arizona, on Friday, marking her first trip to the U.S.-Mexico border since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. During her visit, Harris plans to deliver remarks calling for tougher border security measures to address the ongoing border issues. This move comes as former President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans continue to criticise Harris and the Biden administrations handling of migration, pointing out that Harris has spent little time visiting the border during her tenure. Advertisement According to government data, approximately 7 million migrants have been arrested for illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border under Harris and President Joe Biden, a record high that has fuelled criticism from Trump. However, border crossings have significantly decreased since Biden announced an asylum ban earlier this year. In recent weeks, Trump and his running mate JD Vance have increased their criticism of immigrants, repeating falsehoods about legal Haitian immigrants in Ohio and suggesting immigrants were committing crimes and stealing jobs. Immigration is a top issue for voters. Arizona is a closely contested election state, with a high population of Latino voters sought by both parties. Trump has an edge with voters on migration, and Harris has gone on offense to improve her standing on the issue and defuse a key line of political attack for Trump. In nearly every campaign speech she gives, Harris recounts how a sweeping bipartisan package aiming to overhaul the federal immigration system collapsed in Congress earlier this year after Trump urged top Republicans to oppose it. The American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games, Harris plans to say, according to an excerpt of her remarks previewed by her campaign. After the immigration legislation stalled, the Biden administration announced rules that bar migrants from being granted asylum when U.S. officials deem that the southern border is overwhelmed. Since then, arrests for illegal border crossings have fallen. Advertisement Harris will also use her trip to remind voters about her work as attorney general of California in confronting crime along the border. During an August rally in Glendale, outside Phoenix, she talked about helping to prosecute drug- and people-smuggling gangs that operated transnationally and at the border. I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won, Harris said then. Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost, at 27 the youngest member of Congress and a leading advocate for Harris with young and Hispanic voters, said that in backing stricter enforcement, Harris is trying to strike a chord and she understands that, right now, there is a crisis at the border. Its a humanitarian crisis. Advertisement Thats why shes pushing for more resources at the border so that we have an orderly process, which is really important, Frost said. But, the thing is, thats where Donald Trump stops, is just at enforcement. The vice presidents trip to Douglas thrusts the issue of immigration into the brightest spotlight yet less than six weeks before Election Day. Trump didnt wait for her to arrive there before pushing back. On Thursday, he delivered a lengthy diatribe from New York, declaring that anything she says tomorrow, you know is a fraud because she was the worst in history at protecting our country. So shell try and make herself look a little bit better. But its not possible. Advertisement A day earlier, at a rally in North Carolina, Trump told voters that when Kamala speaks about the border, her credibility is less than zero." The Trump campaign has also countered with its own TV ads deriding the vice president as a failed border czar. Under Harris, over 10 million illegally here, said one spot. However, estimates on how many people have entered the country illegally since the start of the Biden administration in 2021 vary widely. Harris also never held the position of border czar. Instead, her assignment was to tackle the root causes of migration from three Central American nations El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras that were responsible for a significant share of border crossers. Advertisement The vice president took a long-term approach to an immediate problem, helping persuade multinational corporations and Latin American businesses to invest in the region. That, she argued, would create jobs and give locals more reasons to stay home rather than take the arduous trek north. Still, Trump has continued to decry an invasion of border crossers. Polls show that most Americans trust him to handle immigration more than they do Harris. Douglas, where Harris will appear, is an overwhelmingly Democratic border town in GOP-dominated Cochise County, where the Republicans on the board of supervisors are facing criminal charges for refusing to certify the 2022 election results. Trump was in the area last month, using a remote stretch of border wall and a pile of steel beams to draw a contrast between himself and Harris on border security. The town of 16,000 people has strong ties to its much larger neighbor, Agua Prieta, Mexico, and a busy port of entry thats slated for a long-sought upgrade. Many locals are as concerned with making legal border crossings more efficient as they are with combatting illegal ones. With inputs from agencies. The UNSC currently has five permanent and 10 non-permanent members. The permanent members are US, UK, China, France and Russia while the non-permanent members are elected by UNGA for two-year terms each read more Indias call for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council has found support among major global players with US and France being the pioneers in pushing New Delhis inclusion. The latest country to join the chorus is UK after Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that his country wants to see a permanent seat for India in the UNSC. Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly, Starmer said, We want to see permanent African representation on the Council, Brazil, India, Japan and Germany as permanent members, and more seats for elected members as well. Advertisement The UNSC currently has five permanent and 10 non-permanent members. The permanent members are US, UK, China, France and Russia while the non-permanent members are elected by UNGA for two-year terms each. If we want the system to deliver for the poorest and most vulnerable then their voices must be heard. We need to make the system more representative and more responsive to those who need it most. So we will make the case not just for fairer outcomes, but fairer representation in how we reach them. And this also applies to the Security Council. It has to change to become a more representative body, willing to act not paralysed by politics, Starmer added. Starmer echoed the remarks made by French President Emmanuel Macron who also called for greater representation of the security council and pushed for the permanent membership of countries like India and Japan. Lets make the UN more efficient. We need to make it more representative and thats why France is in favour of the Security Council being expanded. Germany, Japan, India, and Brazil should be permanent members, along with two countries that Africa will decide to represent them, Macron said. Last week, US President Joe Biden expressed his support for Indias bid to gain a permanent seat at UNSC. Israeli strike hit Beiruts densely populated southern suburbs Friday, flattening buildings in an operation the Israeli military said targeted Hezbollahs headquarters but a source close to the group said its leader was fine. read more People watch as a blaze rages amid the smoldering rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike targeting Hezbollah's main headquarters in Beirut's southern suburbs on September 27, 2024. Photo-AFP At least two people were killed and 76 wounded in a huge Israeli air strike in Beiruts densely populated southern suburbs Friday, said Lebanons health ministry. The successive Israeli enemy strikes on Haret Hreik in Beiruts southern suburbs, in a preliminary toll, killed two people and wounded 76, including 15 that required hospitalisation, a ministry statement said. Times of Israel quoted Channel 12 news saying that the assessment in Israel is that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was killed in tonights IDF strike on the terror groups underground HQ in Beirut. Advertisement Lebanons Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target of the latest Israeli strike on Beiruts southern suburbs, and the Israeli military is checking whether he was hit or not, US news website Axios said on Friday, citing an Israeli source. However, a source close to Hezbollah said that Hassan Nasrallah was fine after a massive Israeli strike on Beiruts southern suburbs on Friday that Israeli media said targeted the groups leader, AFP reported. Sayyed Nasrallah is fine, the source said, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media. Leading Israeli television networks reported that Nasrallah was the target of the strike. Meanwhile, the United Nations on Friday said it was alarmed by Israeli strikes on a densely populated area in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut. The UN is watching with great alarm the strikes on Beirut, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told a briefing. Anyone who looks at the pictures of smoke billowing from a densely populated area should be alarmed, he added, saying: We are trying to gather more information as we speak. Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the strike targeted the central headquarters of Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of the city. Advertisement The strikes came soon after Netanyahu vowed to continue targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon. We will continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met, he told world leaders at the UN. In a separate statement, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant also vowed to defeat Israels enemies near and far. Almost a year after the start of its war in Gaza, Israel has turned its focus on Lebanon, significantly ratcheting up its campaign against its archenemy Hezbollah. Among many in Lebanon, there is fear that Israels military operations in Lebanon would follow the same Gaza playbook: Evacuation orders, mass displacement and overwhelming airstrikes. Israel says its strikes target Hezbollah weapons sites and militants. Advertisement On Monday, Israel struck 1,600 targets across Lebanon, killing 492 people and wounding 1,645, and causing a massive wave of displacement as thousands fled from south Lebanon north. It was a staggering one-day toll that shocked a nation used to war. It was by far the deadliest barrage since the monthlong 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war when an estimated 1,000 people in Lebanon were killed. With inputs from agencies. The United States had no advance warning of an Israeli strike in Beirut and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Israeli counterpart as it was ongoing, a Pentagon spokesperson said on Friday read more The United States had no advance warning of an Israeli strike in Beirut and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Israeli counterpart as it was ongoing, a Pentagon spokesperson said on Friday. They were the US governments first comments about an Israeli operation that defied Washingtons calls for de-escalation and a ceasefire. The United States was not involved in this operation and we had no advanced warning, spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters. Advertisement Singh declined to say what Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told Austin about the operation and whether it targeted the Iran-backed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The Pentagon declined to speculate on whether Nasrallah was still alive. Austin and Gallant spoke as the Pentagon chief flew over the Atlantic after a visit to London. The Biden administration has been seeking to contain the crisis from spiraling further. Austin has publicly warned that an all-out conflict between Israel and Hezbollah would be devastating. On Thursday, he warned that risk existed but added a diplomatic solution was still viable. We now face the risk of an all-out war. Another full-scale war (could) be devastating for both Israel and Lebanon, Austin told reporters on Thursday. Asked what Austin may have communicated to Gallant given the Israeli strikes potential impact on U.S. efforts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, Singh declined to offer specifics, but she said the defense secretary is always frank in his conversations with his Israeli counterpart. Look at just the engagements that the secretary and Minister Gallant have had over the last two weeks, speaking regularly. I think if there was any type of fracture in trust, you wouldnt see those type of levels of calls and engagements occurring frequently, Singh said when asked if the lack of advance notification by Israel indicated a lack of trust. Advertisement The Israeli military said it had targeted Hezbollahs central headquarters in Beiruts southern suburbs on Friday in an attack that shook the Lebanese capital and sent thick clouds of smoke over the city. The news outlet Axios cited an Israeli source as saying Nasrallah was the target of the strike and that the Israeli military was checking if he was hit. A source close to Hezbollah told Reuters that Nasrallah was alive, while Irans Tasnim news agency also reported he was safe. A senior Iranian security official told Reuters that Tehran was checking his status. Netanyahu said, without providing evidence, that Israels military had killed or captured more than half of Hamas estimated 40,000 armed fighters, and that it had destroyed 90% of Hamas rockets read more Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, during his address at the UN General Assembly, said that while Israel is yearning for peace, it continues to face savage enemies and that the country will keep defending itself unless Hamas lays down its arms. I didnt intend to come here this year. My country is at war, fighting for its life. But after I heard the lies and slanders levelled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight, the Israeli leader said. Advertisement Talking about the Israel and Hamas war, the prime minister said, A normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel seemed closer than ever. But then came the curse of October 7th. Thousands of Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists from Gaza burst into Israel in pickup trucks, on motorcycles. And they committed unimaginable atrocities. Netanyahu said, without providing evidence, that Israels military had killed or captured more than half of Hamas estimated 40,000 armed fighters, and that it had destroyed 90% of Hamas rockets. He added that the war between Israel and Hamas could come to an end now if the latter surrenders and release all the hostages held by it in Gaza. But if they dont, we will fight until we achieve victory, total victory. There is no substitute for it, Netanyahu said. If Hamas stays in power, it will regroup and attack Israel again and again and again So Hamas has got to go, Netanyahu said to diplomats gathered at the UNs New York headquarters. A number of diplomats left the premises in protest before Netanyahu began his address while demonstrators gathered outside the UN building to slam the prime ministers war policy. On Iran-Hezbollah He added, Israel was soon forced to defend itself on six more war fronts organized by Iran. On October 8th, Hezbollah attacked us from Lebanon. Since then, they fired over 8,000 rockets at our towns and cities, at our civilians and our children. Advertisement Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah are currently engaged in a conflict with the former reportedly preparing its forces to launch a ground operation in Lebanon. Hundreds have died after Israeli airstrike hit several parts of Lebanon including the capital city of Beirut. I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran. If you strike us, we will strike you, Netanyahu said. With inputs from agencies Since Monday, Israeli warplanes have bombarded Hezbollah strongholds around the country, killing more than 700 people and injuring nearly 6,000, according to the health ministry read more Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following an Israeli strike, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Tyre, Lebanon. Reuters The UN said Friday that a catastrophic intensification of Israeli attacks targeting Hezbollah militants had left Lebanon facing its deadliest period in years, with its hospitals overwhelmed by casualties. The recent escalations in Lebanon are nothing short of catastrophic, said Imran Riza, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon. Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in a deadly exchange of cross-border fire since the Iran-backed groups Palestinian ally, Hamas, attacked Israel on October 7. Nearly a year into the war with Hamas in Gaza, Israel has shifted its focus to its northern front with Lebanon. Since Monday, Israeli warplanes have bombarded Hezbollah strongholds around the country, killing more than 700 people and injuring nearly 6,000, according to the health ministry. Advertisement Hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies detonated across Lebanon last week also killed at least 39 people and wounded nearly 3,000 in an attack widely blamed on Israel, which has refused to comment. We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation, and many express their fear that this is just the beginning, Riza told reporters in Geneva via video link from Beirut. He pointed out that on Monday alone, the death toll was equal to around half of the 1,200 killed during 34 days of war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. The level of displacement, the level of trauma, the level of panic, has been huge, he said. At the same time, Riza warned that Lebanons health sector is completely overrun. The events of last week, including the explosions of communication devices, have nearly depleted health supplies, he said. With the recent escalations and hospitals reaching capacity, the system is struggling with limited resources to meet the growing demands. The hospitals in Lebanon are overwhelmed, agreed Margaret Harris, spokeswoman for the World Health Organization. Advertisement She pointed out that the pager and walkie-talkie blasts had caused large numbers of serious injuries, especially to eyes and hands, which require specialised treatment. A full 777 injured remain in hospitals after those blasts, and 152 of those are critical cases, Harris said. That means theyre not leaving the hospital for quite some time, and so every day of bombing and blasts fills up beds that cant be unfilled. At the same time, she said, 37 health facilities had been closed across Lebanon due to events. Harris stressed that aid agencies had done a lot to prepare for possible mass-casualty events in Lebanon in case the past year of cross-border fire were to escalate. Advertisement The WHO had helped train most of the health workers in most of the hospitals for mass casualty, she said. But in our planning scenarios, we didnt have anything like the numbers that have actually been affected. It was way beyond anything that normal planning, even for a horrific event like this, would have expected. Natos new unit, known as the Multi Corps Land Component Command, will operate under the alliances US-based Norfolk Joint Force Command and work closely with Finlands land force command, already situated in Mikkeli read more Finnish Defence Ministeri Antti Hakkanen and Commander of the Finnish Army Lieutenant General Pasi Valimaki attend a press conference, as defence administration of Finland proposes Mikkeli, the town where the Finnish Army Command is based, as the location for NATO's Multi Corps Land Component Command. Rueters The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) will set up a new land command in Finland near the Russian border next year, tasked with overseeing the alliances land force operations in northern Europe in the event of a military conflict, Finnish Defence Minister Antti Hakkanen said on Friday (September 27). Finland, which joined Nato in 2023 in response to Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine, is organising the alliances presence on its territory. Multi Corps Land Component Command Advertisement This morning, I have decided that we will propose to Nato to establish the command in conjunction with the Army Headquarters in Mikkeli, Hakkanen said, referring to the city located about a two-hour drive from the Russian border. Natos new unit, known as the Multi Corps Land Component Command, will operate under the alliances US-based Norfolk Joint Force Command and work closely with Finlands land force command, already situated in Mikkeli. The unit will initially be composed of a few dozen international officials and have an annual budget of 8.5 million ($9.5 million), Hakkanen said at a news conference. Helsinkis long-term plans with Nato Finland and neighbouring Sweden, which also joined Nato this year, announced earlier that Sweden would coordinate foreign Nato troop visits and international drills in northern Finland. However, Finland has no plans to host a permanent multinational force, unlike the nearby Baltic states, due to the significant size of its own military forces. Speaking at the same news conference on Friday, the commander of the Finnish army, Pasi Valimaki, said the geographic scope of the new unit would be decided at a later date but initially it would oversee land force operations planning in the Nordic region. Advertisement With inputs from Reuters Netanyahu also lashed out at the United Nations, accusing it of becoming a contemptuous farce as he denounced the world bodys unfair treatment of his country. read more Palestinian supporters march near the United Nations headquarters at a protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in New York.- AP Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country must achieve a peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, citing the experience of the Abraham Accords. In his address at the UN General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said that one of the best ways to foil Irans nefarious designs is to achieve peace. I say to you, what blessing such a peace with Saudi Arabia would bring it would be a boon to the security and economy of our two countries, it would boost trade and tourism across the region, it would help transform the Middle East into a global juggernaut, he was quoted by the Guardian as saying. Advertisement Such a peace, Im sure, would be a true pivot of history: it would usher in a historic reconciliation between the Arab world and Israel, between Islam and Judaism, between Mecca and Jerusalem, the Israeli leader said. Netanyahu also said that Israel is seeking peace despite fighting for its life in the face of savage enemies who want its annihilation,". My country is at war, fighting for its life, Netanyahu said in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly. We must defend ourselves against these savage murderers. Our enemies seek not only to destroy us, they seek to destroy our common civilization and return all of us to a dark age of tyranny and terror. Netanyahu also lashed out at the United Nations, accusing it of becoming a contemptuous farce as he denounced the world bodys unfair treatment of his country. The Abraham Accords are bilateral agreements on ArabIsraeli normalisation signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and between Israel and Bahrain on September 15, 2020. Mediated by the United States, the announcement of August 13, 2020, concerned Israel and the UAE before the subsequent announcement of an agreement between Israel and Bahrain on September 11, 2020. Advertisement As part of the two agreements, both the UAE and Bahrain recognized Israels sovereignty, enabling the establishment of full diplomatic relations. I say to you, until Israel - until the Jewish state - is treated like other nations, until this anti-Semitic swamp is drained, the UN will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous farce, said Netanyahu read more Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, on Friday. AP Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday denounced the UN for unfair treatment of his country, referring to the world body as a swamp of anti-Semitic bile. Addressing the 79th United Nations General Assembly, Netanyahu said, I say to you, until Israel - until the Jewish state - is treated like other nations, until this anti-Semitic swamp is drained, the UN will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous farce. Advertisement He also took aim at the International Criminal Courts prosecutor. Netanyahu said he travelled to the United Nations to refute the untruths he had heard from other leaders on the same rostrum earlier in the week. I didnt intend to come here this year. My country is at war fighting for its life," Netanyahu said. But after I heard the lies and slanders leveled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight. Netanyahu, armed with visual aids as he has been in the past, defended his nations response to the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas on Israel that triggered an Israeli military operation that has devastated the Gaza Strip. He insisted that Israel wanted peace but said of Iran: If you strike us, we will strike you. He once again blamed Iran for being behind many of the problems in the region. For too long, the world has appeased Iran, Netanyahu said. That appeasement must end. With inputs from agencies Iranian authorities had urged nationwide demonstrations earlier this week in support of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and to condemn Israels actions in Palestine read more Thousands of Iranians gathered in the capital, Tehran, and other cities on Friday (September 27) to protest Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to strike Iran if provoked. Following Friday prayers, demonstrators in Tehrans Enghelab Square held portraits of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and waved Palestinian and Hezbollah flags, chanting slogans against Israel. Israel is destroyed. Lebanon is victorious, they shouted, denouncing what they called a bloodbath" in Lebanon. Advertisement Protests also took place in cities including Semnan, Qom, Kashan, Kermanshah, Shiraz, and Bandar Abbas, according to state television. A state-supported demonstration in Iran Officials had urged nationwide demonstrations earlier this week in support of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and to condemn Israels actions in Palestine. The protests come amid escalating violence in the region. Lebanese authorities say Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,500 people in Lebanon over the past year, a death toll higher than the 1,200 mostly civilians who died during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. That conflict also claimed the lives of about 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers. Netanyahu at UNGA Meanwhile, at the United Nations General Assembly, Netanyahu rejected calls for a ceasefire, vowing to continue Israels offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. He dismissed a 21-day truce proposed by France and the United States, stating that Israel would not halt its operations. Netanyahu also issued a warning to Iran, saying, If you strike us, we will strike you. He added, There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and thats true of the entire Middle East. His speech was met with walkouts by delegates from Lebanon, Iran, and the Palestinians. Advertisement The Israeli leaders remarks underscored the tense atmosphere at the UN, as he accused the international body of bias against Israel, drawing jeers from several members present. Hezbollah, aligned with Iran, is part of the so-called Axis of Resistance, which also includes Palestinian militant groups. These forces have regularly targeted Israeli positions and U.S. interests in the region in support of the Palestinian cause. With inputs from agencies Blaming Iran for being behind many of the problems in the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday issued a warning to the cleric-run state saying that there is no place in the country that Israel cannot reach read more Blaming Iran for many of the problems in the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday issued a warning to the cleric-run state, saying that there is no place in the enemy country that Israel cannot reach. Addressing the 79th UN General Assembly, Netanyahu said, I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran. If you strike us, we will strike you. There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and thats true of the entire Middle East, he added. Advertisement He emphasised Israels capabilities and declared with a confident assertion, We are winning, showing a map he termed the curse of Irans influence and another which he described as a blessing. Netanyahu also called for an end to the appeasement of Iran. Everything must be done to ensure Iran doesnt get nuclear weapons, the Israeli leader added. As the Israeli PM started the address, delegates, including from Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, exited the room amid a mix of cheers and angry yells. Netanyahu, armed with visual aids as he has been in the past, defended his nations response to the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas on Israel that triggered an Israeli military operation that has devastated the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu said that he didnt intend to come to the UNGA this year, but after he heard the lies and slander levelled at Israel he decided to come and set the record straight. I didnt intend to come here this year. My country is at war fighting for its life," Netanyahu said. But after I heard the lies and slanders leveled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight, he added. Advertisement He insisted that Israel wanted peace but said of Iran, If you strike us, we will strike you. He once again blamed Iran for being behind many of the problems in the region. Israels campaign in Gaza has killed more than 41,500 Palestinians and wounded more than 96,000 others, according to the latest figures released Thursday by the Health Ministry. The ministry, part of Gazas Hamas government, doesnt differentiate between civilians and combatants, but more than half the dead have been women and children, including about 1,300 children under the age of 2. In recent days, Israel has turned its attention to the border with Lebanon, where it is targeting Hezbollah militants and has inflicted civilian casualties as well. Hezbollah began attacking Israel almost immediately after the Hamas invasion, and ongoing fighting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group have driven tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border. Israel is vowing to step up its attacks on Hezbollah until its citizens can return safely to their homes. Advertisement With inputs from agencies In the past two and a half years, Norway, a country of 5.6 million inhabitants, has taken in some 85,000 Ukrainians, which, according to Oslo, is more than its Nordic neighbours. read more Norway will not automatically grant asylum to all Ukrainians but will examine applicants arriving from western Ukraine case-by-case, the government said Friday, Norwegian authorities decided to provide collective protection to all Ukrainian refugees by granting automatic asylum after the Ukraine war erupted in February 2022, We cant take in a disproportionate share of displaced people compared to similar countries, such as the Nordic countries, Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl told a press conference. Advertisement Over the past two and a half years, Norway, with a population of 5.6 million, has welcomed around 85,000 Ukrainians, a figure Oslo claims surpasses that of its Nordic neighbors. Moving forward, Norwegian immigration authorities will assess asylum applications individually for residents of six western Ukrainian regions, which are deemed safe due to their distance from the front lines of the conflict. The six are Lviv, Volhynia, Transcarpathia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil and Rivne. The government said the decision was taken because the high number of refugees was putting a strain on housing, health care and schools in some cities. Enger Mehl also noted that a rising share of the Ukrainian asylum seekers were men, including many of fighting age, at a time when Ukraine is struggling to recruit troops to fight the Russian offensive. Norway has gradually tightened its asylum conditions in the past two years in a bid to limit the number of arrivals and to incite Ukrainians to find work. Sharif alleged that instead of moving towards peace, India has moved away from its commitments to implement the Security Council resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir read more Pakistan on Friday raised the Kashmir issue in the UN General Assembly, saying that to secure durable peace, India should reverse the Abrogation of Article 370 and enter into a dialogue for peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir issue. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in his address at the General Debate of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, raked the issue of Jammu and Kashmir as expected, making references to Article 370 and Hizbul terrorist Burhan Wani in his over 20 minute speech. Advertisement Sharif spoke at length about Kashmir saying that similarly, like the people of Palestine, the people of Jammu and Kashmir too, have struggled for a century for their freedom and right to self-determination. Referring to Indias decision to abrogate Article 370, Sharif said, to secure durable peace, India must reverse the unilateral and illegal measures of August 2019 and enter into a dialogue for a peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir issue in accordance with the UN Security resolutions and wishes of the Kashmiri people. Sharif alleged that instead of moving towards peace, India has moved away from its commitments to implement the Security Council resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir. These resolutions mandate a plebiscite to enable the people of Jammu and Kashmir to exercise their fundamental right to self-determination, he said. The Pakistan prime minister further said that escalation of Islamophobia is a troubling global development. The most alarming manifestation of Islamophobia is the Hindu supremacist agenda in India. It aggressively seeks the subjugation of 200 million Muslims and the obliteration of Indias Islamic heritage, he alleged. India was expected to issue a strong rebuttal to Pakistans allegations through a Right of Reply after the debate concluded. Advertisement Pakistan regularly raises the issue of Jammu and Kashmir at various UN platforms, irrespective of the subject matter being discussed or the theme of the forum and fails to get any support or traction. New Delhi has repeatedly emphasised that Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh were, are and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India. India has also asked Pakistan to concentrate on addressing its internal matters rather than raising the Kashmir issue and indulging in frivolous allegations against New Delhi. Tensions between India and Pakistan spiked after New Delhi abrogated Article 370 of the Constitution to revoke the special status of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019. Advertisement Sharif also spoke about the situation in Gaza, Ukraine and Afghanistan. Today, we are facing the most daunting challenges to the world order. Israels genocidal war in Gaza, a dangerous conflict in Ukraine, destructive conflicts across Africa and Asia, rising geopolitical tensions, resurging terrorism, galloping poverty, stifling debt and the mounting impact of climate change, he said. On the Gaza war, Sharif said, This is not just a conflict. This is systematic slaughter of innocent people of Palestinewe must act now and demand an immediate end to this bloodshed. He said Pakistan seeks an immediate end to the tragic conflict in Ukraine and its peaceful resolution in accordance with the UN Charter and international agreements. Advertisement Sharif said Pakistan seeks the earliest possible normalisation of the situation in Afghanistan and the interim government must take effective action to neutralise all terrorist groups within Afghanistan, especially those responsible for cross-border terrorism against neighbouring countries. These include ISIL-K, Daish, Al Qaeda associated Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other terrorist groups, which unfortunately" are seen on Afghan territory, he said. Judge Andrei Mineyev explained the trial was brief because neither the prosecution nor defence had requested a review of material evidence, making the process relatively quick read more US journalist Evan Gershkovich was released by Russia in a multi-country prisoner swap between US and Russia. AFP The Russian judge who convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich of espionage said the trial was expedited because it did not involve a review of material evidence, and the verdict was swift due to his typing speed, Guardian reported citing Russian state media. Andrei Mineyev, the judge who oversaw the case, made the comments during a conference in the city of Yekaterinburg, where he discussed various legal cases he had handled, Russian media reported. Advertisement Short trial, fast verdict Mineyev explained the trial was brief because neither the prosecution nor defense had requested a review of material evidence, making the process relatively quick. The case itself was small. I dont remember how many folders there werethree or five, he was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency. He further remarked, Why did it go so quickly? The point is the court did not examine material evidence. The judge added that he had considered the verdict in just a few hours, stating, I retired at midday and pronounced the verdict at 5pm, citing his ability to type quickly as a reason for the fast turnaround. Accusations of espionage Gershkovich, a 32-year-old American reporter with Russian-born parents, was arrested in March 2023 during a reporting trip in Yekaterinburg. He was accused of collecting classified information on a major tank factory, a charge that both he and his employer, The Wall Street Journal, have consistently denied. His trial, widely condemned by international observers as a sham, was held behind closed doors, a common practice in espionage cases in Russia. Gershkovich was sentenced on July 19, 2024, to 16 years in prison but was released two weeks later as part of a significant prisoner exchange between Russia and Western nations, the largest of its kind since the Cold War. Despite his conviction, the US government and Gershkovichs supporters have maintained his innocence, asserting that the charges were politically motivated. Advertisement Judge Mineyev reportedly told the Russian newspaper Kommersant that he was 100-200 per cent certain Gershkovich was at the same time a journalist, a spy, and a CIA agent. The Sudanese civil war, now in its 17th month, has devastated the northeastern African country. It has claimed 150,000 lives, according to one estimate read more The Sudan war has led to thousands of deaths and resulted in widespread internal displacement. A famine has already been announced. File Image- Reuters An attack on a market in the Sudanese city of El-Fasher by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed 18 people, as world leaders appealed for an end to the countrys ongoing conflict. The RSF has surrounded El-Fasher since May, and famine has already been declared in the nearby Zamzam refugee camp, home to thousands of displaced people. On Friday (September 27), local resistance committees reported continued artillery shelling on residential neighbourhoods and the market. Advertisement We received 18 dead last night at the hospital, AFP quoted a medic at El-Fasher Teaching Hospital as saying. Some of the victims were burned, while others suffered severe shrapnel injuries. El-Fasher Teaching Hospital remains one of the few functioning medical facilities in the besieged city, where a full-scale assault by the RSF last weekend prompted UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to call for an immediate ceasefire. The rising toll in the Sudan war The RSF and the regular army continue to battle for control of North Darfurs capital. The Sudanese civil war, now in its 17th month, has devastated the northeastern African country. Both the RSF and Sudans military have faced repeated accusations of war crimes throughout the conflict. The RSF, descended from the notorious Janjaweed militia, has been specifically accused of ethnic cleansing. The war iself has claimed tens of thousands of lives. While the World Health Organization reports at least 20,000 deaths, US envoy Tom Perriello said some estimates place the toll as high as 150,000. The UN estimates that more than five million people are displaced within Darfur, making up half of Sudans internal displacement. The country is also facing the worlds largest hunger crisis, according to the UN. Advertisement The humanitarian crisis in Sudan, particularly in El-Fasher, has been a focal point at this weeks United Nations General Assembly in New York. On Wednesday (September 25), US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield urged the warring factions to agree to humanitarian pauses in El-Fasher, Khartoum, and other vulnerable regions. Concrete action remains lacking. With inputs from agencies In his address, Abbas mentioned the spiralling conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and accused the Jewish nation of committing genocide in Lebanon. However, not once did Abbas mention the name of the Iran-backed terror group read more In a fiery speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of waging a full-scale war of genocide in the Gaza Strip. During his address on Thursday, the Palestinian leader laid out a 12-point vision for post-war management of the enclave. In his address, Abbas also mentioned the spiralling conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and accused the Jewish nation of committing genocide in Lebanon. However, not once did Abbas mention the name of the Iran-backed terror group. Advertisement Abbas began his address by chanting three times We will not leave, adding, Palestine is our homeland. It is the land of our fathers, our grandfathers. It will remain ours, and if anyone were to leave, it would be the occupying usurpers, referring to Israel. He called on Israel to end the war in Gaza and urged the international community to stop its support of the Israeli campaign. The entire world is responsible for what is happening to our people," he remarked. Abbas slams Netanyahu and the US During his speech, the Palestinian Authority President dismissed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus claims that Israel did not kill civilians in Gaza. I ask you, who is it then that killed more than 15,000 children? He went on to slam the United States for supporting Israel in the war, noting that the US administration the largest democracy in the world on three occasions obstructed draft resolutions at the Security Council demanding Israel to observe a ceasefire. This is the United States the same country that was the only member in the Security Council that voted against granting the State of Palestine full membership in the UN, Abbas lamented. I dont understand how the United States could insist on opposing our people, insist on depriving us of our legitimate rights to freedom and independence, as is the right of the rest of the countries, he added. Abbas argued that if anything, it is the state of Israel that shouldnt be allowed membership in the United Nations. He supported his arguments by recalling how Israeli officials have called for the international institution to be shut down. Advertisement The day-after plan At the final leg of his address, Abbas presented what he said was a 12-point vision for the post-war management of Gaza. These 12 points are as follows: Permanent ceasefire in Gaza along with end of violence by Israeli settlers along with Palestinians in the West Bank. Humanitarian aid to be delivered throughout Gaza. Israel must fully withdraw from the coastal enclave without establishing any sort of buffer zones. The clause also calls for displaced Palestinians to return to their homes, or at least to the since-razed towns where they lived before the war. UNRWA must be protected and allowed to operate within Gaza, even after the war. International protection for the Palestinians on their occupied land". We are not fighting Israel. We cannot fight Israel, and we dont want to fight, but we want protection," Abbas said in his address. Palestinian government to have jurisdiction over the Gaza Strip, including the Rafah Border Crossing and other entry points. PA to engage in a comprehensive national reform process. The Palestinian government should be considered as the sole representative of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. We will not ask for more, but we will not accept any less, Abbas said, adding that he is still prepared to hold national elections if Israel allows balloting to take place in East Jerusalem. The state of Palestine will continue with their bid to obtain full member status in the United States. Implementation of the UN General Assembly resolution ordering an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, within a year. An international peace conference should be held in the region within a year to implement the two-state solution. International peacekeeping forces must be established to protect the people of both countries. Abbas stated that the 12-point plan is welcome for review and amendment by the international community. Meanwhile, Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in New York on Thursday, shortly before Abbas spoke at the event. The Israeli premier is scheduled to deliver his own address at the General Assembly on Friday. With inputs from agencies. Standing next to Zelenskyy ahead of the meeting, Republican presidential candidate Trump said he would work with both Ukraine and Russia to end their ongoing war read more Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meet at Trump Tower in New York. Reuters Former US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy began their first in-person meeting at Trump Towers in New York on Friday (September 27). Standing next to Zelenskyy ahead of the meeting, Republican presidential candidate Trump said he would work with both Ukraine and Russia to end their ongoing war. Trump claimed he had a very good relationship with Zelenskyy and with Russian President Vladimir Putin. I think if we (Republicans) win (the November 5 US presidential election), I think were going to get it resolved very quickly, he said. Advertisement For his part, Zelenskyy told reporters he wants to discuss with Trump his victory plan for Ukraine. He has already presented this plan to Biden and Harris at the White House on Thursday (September 26), the same day that Biden announced a new military aid package worth nearly $8 billion for Kyiv. Trump vows to get Ukraine war solved Following the high-stakes meeting, the Republican White House hopeful said, Its a shame but this is a war that should have never happened and well get it solved. Speaking to reporters at Trump Tower, he said It is a complicated puzzle Too many people dead. Too many beautiful cities. Verbal spat before meeting Contrary to Trumps claim of a good relationship with Zelenskyy, he and the Ukrainian leader had engaged in a war of words just earlier this week. The Republican had accused Zelenskyy of refusing to make a deal to end the conflict. He was also reportedly offended by Zelenskyys comments to The New Yorker magazine, in which he said that the Trump doesnt really know how to stop the war a claim the former President has made multiple times. Advertisement US media had in fact reported the meeting would not happen due to the friction. Zelenskyy and Trump face other challenges in patching up their relationship, too. Trump has long been critical of the billions of dollars in US support for Ukraine. Moreover, during his debate with Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris, he refused to say he wanted Ukraine to win the war against Russia. With inputs from agencies With Mayor Eric Adams entrenched in a fight for his political survival, New Yorkers are left wondering whether the citys mayorship is about to open up to new contenders read more NYPD officers open barricades for supporters of New York City Mayor Eric Adams (not pictured) to depart Gracie Mansion, his official residence, before the announcement that Adams was charged with bribery and illegally soliciting a campaign contribution from a foreign national, in New York City, US., September 26, 2024. Reuters The indictment of New York City Mayor Eric Adams has shaken the city to its core, throwing into question not only his leadership but the stability of the citys governance. The allegationsbribery, fraud and accepting illegal foreign donationspaint a picture of corruption that has allegedly spanned more than a decade. Federal prosecutors have accused Adams of accepting benefits like business-class flights and high-end meals in exchange for political favours, raising concerns about ethical governance at the highest level of New York Citys administration, as highlighted in Fox News. Advertisement A mayors denial amid political turmoil Adams has strongly denied all allegations. He dismissed the charges as entirely false and argued that they were politically motivated, owing to his public criticisms of President Joe Bidens border policies. He claimed that his stance on the border issue made him a target for political retribution, a defence that reflects the deep divisions within the current American political landscape, as discussed in Politico. Nonetheless, the weight of the indictment has sparked a city-wide conversation about how a mayor facing such serious legal charges can continue to lead the countrys largest city effectively. The governance of New York, already challenged by its complex socio-political issues, now faces an even more uncertain future. Concerns over leadership and governance While Adams has declared his intention to fight the charges, critics across New Yorks political spectrum are questioning his ability to remain focussed on running the city. State Senator Zellnor Myrie, reflecting a growing chorus of concern among local officials, emphasised that New York City requires a mayor who can dedicate his full attention to the myriad challenges facing New Yorkers today. According to Forbes, Myries sentiment highlights a fear that Adams attention will inevitably be divided between his legal defence and the demands of the city, possibly stalling progress on key issues such as public safety, housing and education. This sentiment resonates across the citys political establishment, where figures like Myrie express concern that Adams distraction could lead to governance paralysis at a time when decisive leadership is desperately needed. Moreover, Adams defencethat the charges are politically motivatedhas done little to quell growing public unease. A faction of city officials, including prominent figures in New Yorks Democratic Party, have openly speculated about what might happen if Adams is forced to step down. The rising star: Jumaane Williams One of the most critical dimensions of the political fallout surrounding Adams indictment is the role of Jumaane Williams, the public advocate of New York City. As the next in line for the mayoralty, Williams could temporarily assume the role of mayor if Adams resigns or is removed from office. Williams, a progressive Democrat, has a long history of clashing with Adams over policy decisions. He has been particularly vocal in his criticism of the mayors approach to policing and social justice. Earlier this year, Williams and Adams sparred over a police reform bill, with Williams calling Adams a fearmonger after the mayor vetoed the legislation, as reported by Fox News. Advertisement Williams, who made his political career as a community organiser, has positioned himself as a champion of progressive causes, advocating for significant reforms to the citys law enforcement policies. While Williams has refrained from directly calling for Adams resignation, his statement in the wake of the indictment underscored his commitment to transparency, accountability, and governance. Should Williams take over as acting mayor, it would signal a dramatic ideological shift in the citys leadership. His progressive stance on issues like police reform, housing affordability, and inequality stands in sharp contrast to Adams more moderate, sometimes conservative policies. Implications of a leadership change If Adams legal troubles deepen, Williams would not only become the face of New Yorks government but also be responsible for setting a special election date within three days of Adams resignation or removal. For Williams, this situation presents both an opportunity and a challenge. His leadership could mark a departure from the status quo, but it also places him in the centre of a maelstrom of political uncertainty. The transition to a progressive leadership under Williams might be welcomed by some, especially those who have long opposed Adams policies, but it could also polarise the citys electorate further. Advertisement Beyond Williams, there is yet another political figure waiting in the wings: Brad Lander, the citys comptroller, who is currently a candidate for mayor in the 2025 election. Lander has been a vocal critic of Adams throughout his tenure and was quick to call for Adams resignation following the indictment. He argued that Adams legal battles would consume too much of the mayors time and energy, making it impossible for him to govern the city effectively. Landers immediate reaction to the indictment reflects his long-standing opposition to Adams, particularly regarding fiscal policies and transparency in governance, as outlined by Gothamist. As comptroller, Landers responsibilities include overseeing the citys finances and he has used this position to scrutinise the Adams administration. His stance on the indictment reinforces his broader campaign message that New York needs a leader with integrity and a commitment to honest governance. Landers call for Adams to step down highlights the deepening political rift within New Yorks Democratic Party and signals the possibility of an accelerated mayoral race should a special election be triggered. Advertisement Speculations on governance: Hochuls role In the event of Adams resignation, Lander would likely be one of the front-runners in the special election, benefitting from his already well-established campaign infrastructure and public platform. However, the dynamics of a special election, where candidates run without party affiliations on the ballot, could lead to an unpredictable outcome. The absence of party labels means that the race could be shaped by individual platforms and personal charisma, rather than traditional party loyalties. For Lander and other mayoral hopefuls, this presents both a risk and an opportunity as the political landscape could shift rapidly in the wake of Adams legal troubles. Advertisement What complicates the situation further is the role of New York Governor Kathy Hochul. While Hochul has the authority to remove Adams from office, she has so far remained silent on whether she will exercise this power. Hochuls hesitation is understandable, given the political risks involved in intervening in New York Citys affairs. Removing a sitting mayor could set a contentious political precedent and escalate tensions between state and local governance. Nevertheless, the governors silence has led to speculation about whether she might eventually step in if the pressure on Adams becomes too great. A political quagmire The indictment of Mayor Eric Adams has thrown New York City into a state of political uncertainty. With Adams maintaining his innocence and refusing to step down, the city is left to grapple with the question of what comes next. Whether through the ascension of Jumaane Williams, a special election involving Brad Lander or the intervention of Governor Hochul, New York stands on the brink of a major political upheaval. Trump spoke hours after the Ukrainian president met with his US counterpart Joe Biden and Trumps November election rival Kamala Harris at the White House read more Donald Trump said he would meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday in New York, one day after the White House hopeful slammed Ukraines leader for refusing to strike a deal with Russia over the war. President Zelenskyy has asked to meet with me, and I will be meeting with him tomorrow morning at around 9:45 in Trump Tower, the Republican told reporters in New York. And its a shame whats happening in Ukraine. So many deaths, so much destruction. Its a horrible thing. Advertisement Trump spoke hours after the Ukrainian president met with his US counterpart Joe Biden and Trumps November election rival Kamala Harris at the White House. Zelenskyy is in the United States this week participating in the UN General Assembly in New York. Trump said I look forward to seeing him tomorrow. But the Republican also suggested he was displeased with Zelenskyys recent comments to The New Yorker magazine in which Ukraines leader said he believed Trump doesnt really know how to stop the war. When asked about Zelenskyys comments by a reporter at the press conference, Trump said I do believe I disagree with him. He doesnt know me. I believe I will be able to make a deal to end the war, Trump added, repeating a longstanding claim that he would swiftly bring about an end to the conflict which began when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. This is the fifth inmate executed in the United States within one week. This is also the greatest use of capital punishment the country witnessed in two decades read more The US State of Alabama conducted the execution of death row inmate Alan Eugene Miller. What makes the execution significant is the fact that Miller became the second American ever put to death by inhaling nitrogen gas. The 59-year-old was sentenced to death over back-to-back workplace murders of Lee Holdbrooks, Christopher Scott Yancy and Terry Lee Jarvis in 1999. This is the fifth inmate executed in the United States within one week. This is also the greatest use of capital punishment the country witnessed in two decades. Meanwhile, on the same day, an inmate named Emmanuel Littlejohn received a lethal injection in the state of Oklahoma after the states governor refused to grant him a last-minute clemency. Advertisement Miller became the 18th death row inmate to be executed so far this year and seven more are scheduled for the remaining three months of 2024. It also marked the 1600th execution in the US since the countrys Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. What was his final words? Miller was pronounced dead at 6:38 pm (local time) at a prison in Atmore. His death was confirmed by Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm. According to The Associated Press, Miller shook and trembled on the gurney for about two minutes. I didnt do anything to be in here, Miller said in his final words, which at times were muffled by a mask that covered his face from forehead to chin. The 59-year-old was fitted with the mask during the procedure and nitrogen gas flowed into the mask for about 15 minutes. Theres going to be involuntary body movements as the body is depleted of oxygen. That is nothing we did not expect, Hamm said at the news conference after the execution. Everything went according to plan and according to our protocol, so it went just as we had planned, he added. Hamm also stated that at one point, a correction officer had to adjust Millers mask in order to ensure that it was fitted. Tonight, justice was finally served for these three victims through the execution method elected by the inmate, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a release. His acts were not that of insanity, but pure evil. Three families were forever changed by his heinous crimes, and I pray that they can find comfort all these years later," Ivey furthered. Advertisement The saga of picking a mode of execution Millers execution came after a yearslong chain of events surrounding how he would be put to death. He initially requested death nitrogen hypoxia. However, the state at that time was not prepared to conduct the execution that way. In September 2022, the state initially attempted to execute him by lethal injection. That attempt was eventually called off when the state officials revealed that they could not access Millers veins before the execution warrant expired. Earlier this year, the state of Alabama executed Kenneth Smith by nitrogen hypoxia. Smiths execution was the first one conducted by the method. This paved the way for Millers execution. However, the death row inmate then challenged the states nitrogen hypoxia protocol in a federal lawsuit, claiming it could cause him undue suffering, thus violating his Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment. Advertisement The suit however was settled last month. The resolution of this case confirms that Alabamas nitrogen hypoxia system is reliable and humane, state Attorney General Steve Marshall said after the lawsuit was settled. Before his execution, Miller had nine visitors and in his final meal he had hamburger steak, baked potato and French fries, the Alabama Department of Corrections said. With inputs from the Associated Press. During the 2024 race, world leaders did not shy away from picking their favourites. With all that in mind, heres a look at who wants whom to win the presidential race between US Vice President Kamala Harris and Former US President Donald Trump read more People watch the presidential debate between Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 10, 2024, at the Gipsy Las Vegas in Las Vegas. (Photo: AP) The worlds biggest power is all set to go to polls this November. Apart from the United States, several countries in the world will be looking forward to seeing who will emerge as the winner of the Oval Office. The contenders in the race, former US President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have their own inclination and plans in regards to the US foreign policy. Hence, several nations around the world will see which candidate will win the polls and if they can gain any benefit from it. Since the 2016 elections, there have been several brewing allegations of election interference by foreign nations. During the 2024 race, world leaders did not shy away from picking their favourites. With all that in mind, heres a look at who wants whom to win the presidential race. Advertisement Iran On Thursday, a grand jury indicted multiple Iranians on charges related to hacking former US President Donald Trumps 2024 presidential campaign. The indictment came weeks after FBI and other US agencies said that Iranian hackers sent then-Democratic candidate and current US President Joe Bidens campaign information stolen from rival Trump. While there was no indication that any of the recipients in Bidens campaign team responded to the proposition, the officials said several media organisation was approached over the summer with leaked and stolen information. After the news stirred headlines, Kamala Harris presidential campaign called the emails from Iran unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity that was received by only a few people who regarded them as spam or phishing attempts. In a separate interview, Harris made it clear that neither her nor Bidens campaign acknowledged any of the emails. While the move was identified as an effort to tip the race against former president Donald Trump, a New York Times report suggested that Iranian efforts targeted both Biden and Harris. Earlier this week, Trumps campaign also said that the former president was briefed by US intelligence on threats from Iran to assassinate him. With Irans new president Masoud Pezeshkian eying to rebuild ties with the West and especially the US, the latest reports do not go well with his endeavours. Russia On September 5, Russian Vice President Vladimir Putin said that he wants Vice President Kamala Harris to win the November race. Putin also joked that Harris laughs so expressively and infectiously and that perhaps this indication of her good humour would mean she wouldnt impose sanctions on Russia, Tass reported. Advertisement However, days after the proclamation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with Sky News that Putin was joking when he said that Moscow wants the Democratic presidential nominee to win. It was a joke, Lavrov said when asked how much the change in US president would affect Russias foreign policy. President Putin has a good sense of humour. He often jokes during his statements and interviews." I see no long-term differences in our attitude to the current or previous elections in the United States because it is ruled by the notorious deep state, he added. It is pertinent to note that during the 2016 presidential race, Russia was accused of election interference. Advertisement Trump, who won the race at that time, has been notoriously inclined towards Putin. He went on to describe the Russian leader as smart on several occasions. Hence, if the GOP nominee follows through with his plans regarding the Russia-Ukraine war, a Trump win will be a boon for the Kremlin. Ukraine Speaking of the war, it is not hidden that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shares strong ties with the Biden administration. The current US government have splurged billions in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Zelenskyy has often engaged in a war of words with Trump. Ukraine might like to see Harris as the POTUS since Trumps proposed peace plan is seen as detrimental to the war-stricken nation. Advertisement The aforementioned facts also worry the Republicans as well. In a public letter on Wednesday, US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson demanded that Ukraine fire its ambassador to Washington, Oksana Markarova, after Zelenskyys controversial visit to an ammunition plant. He complained that Markarova had organised the visit to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant as a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats. The accusation by the Republicans became ripe since the event was attended by the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who has campaigned in support of Kamala Harris. The facility was in a politically contested battleground state, was led by a top political surrogate for Kamala Harris, and failed to include a single Republican because on purpose no Republicans were invited, Johnson wrote in a letter on congressional letterhead addressed to the Ukrainian embassy. Advertisement With Trump and Zelenskyy scheduled to meet on Friday, it will be interesting to see if the meeting changes the dynamics between the two world leaders. China In a conference call about foreign election interference efforts organized by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, several federal officials accused China of using artificial intelligence to create content designed to deceive Americans ahead of November polls. The IC considers AI a malign influence accelerant, not yet a revolutionary influence tool. In other words, information operations are the threat, and AI is an enabler, said an official of the intelligence directors office. The official asked not to be named as a condition for participating in the call. Thus far, the IC has not seen it revolutionize such operations, he said. The confirmation came just months after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated in April that the US has seen evidence of Chinese attempts to influence and arguably interfere with the upcoming US elections, despite an earlier commitment from leader Xi Jinping not to do so. We have seen, generally speaking, evidence of attempts to influence and arguably interfere, and we want to make sure that thats cut off as quickly as possible, Blinken told CNN. However, it is not clear exactly who China will support in this election since both the Democrats and the Republicans have maintained a hard stance in regard to China. The Biden administration, including Harris, worked towards restricting China to get import American parts to formulate semiconductor chips. Trump, on the other hand, focussed on balancing the trade deficit between China and the US during his time in office. Many believe that what China looks for when spying on other nations is access to information which they can eventually use to to make others vulnerable. With all this in mind, it will be interesting to see how the presidential race will play out. During her talks with the Ukrainian leader, the Democratic Presidential nominee referred to the Trump campaigns idea as the proposal to surrender' read more US Vice President Kamala Harris indirectly decried former US President Donald Trump and his campaigns problematic proposal to end the Russia-Ukraine war as she met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. During his visit to Washington, Zelenskyy laid out his victory plan to both US President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. However, during her talks with the Ukrainian leader, the Democratic Presidential nominee referred to the Trump campaigns idea as the proposal to surrender. Addressing Zelenskyy in the White House, Harris said some in my country would pressure Ukraine to accept a peace deal in which it surrendered its sovereign territory and neutrality in order to make peace with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Advertisement I shared the details of the Victory Plan with Vice President @KamalaHarris. It is very important for us to be fully understandable and work in full coordination with the United States. We must end this war and achieve a just peace. We must protect our people Ukrainian pic.twitter.com/ihS1JrAzKk Volodymyr Zelenskyy / (@ZelenskyyUa) September 26, 2024 These proposals are the same as those of Putin, and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace, she said. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable. While Harris did not explicitly take the names of her GOP rival Trump and his VP pick JD Vance, the proposal that she called out was oddly similar to the one proposed by the Republican duo. Zelenskyys fruitful visit to the White House Harris jabs came after the Ukrainian leader held talks with US President Joe Biden at the White House for the formal presentation of his plan. Following the meeting, the White House issued a short statement stating that the two leaders discussed the diplomatic, economic, and military aspects of President Zelenskyys plan and tasked their teams to engage in intensive consultations regarding next steps. President Biden is determined to provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win, the statement further read. The key details of Zelenskyys plan are kept under wraps but officials said that the proposal required additional American aid to prevent a Ukrainian rout on the battlefield and provide the [Ukrainian] people with the assurance that their future is part of the West. During the meeting with @POTUS, I presented the Victory Plan to him. We discussed details to strengthen the Plan, coordinated our positions, views, and approaches, and tasked our teams with holding consultations on the next steps. We deeply appreciate that Ukraine and the United pic.twitter.com/ow67qHZqF9 Volodymyr Zelenskyy / (@ZelenskyyUa) September 26, 2024 Advertisement Interestingly, before the meeting, Biden announced an additional $8 billion in military assistance to Kyiv, calling it a surge in security assistance for Ukraine and a series of additional actions to help Ukraine win this war. The aid includes the provision of medium-range glide bomb munition fired from fighter jets that would allow Ukrainian forces to strike Russian troops and supply lines at safer distances, The Guardian reported. Advertisement Out of the $8 billion, $5.5 billion will be allocated to the Ukraine security assistance initiative fund by the end of the year, as well as an additional $2.4bn in security assistance via the Department of Defense. Shortly after the announcement, the Ukrainian leader expressed gratitude over the matter. We will use this assistance in the most efficient and transparent manner to achieve our major common goal: victory for Ukraine, just and lasting peace, and transatlantic security, he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. I am grateful to @POTUS Joe Biden, U.S. Congress and its both parties, Republicans and Democrats, as well as the entire American people for todays announcement of major U.S. defense assistance for Ukraine totalling $7.9 billion and sanctions against Russia. On behalf of the Volodymyr Zelenskyy / (@ZelenskyyUa) September 26, 2024 Advertisement I am grateful to the United States for providing the items that are most critical to protecting our people. An additional Patriot air defence battery, other air defence capabilities and interceptors, drones, long-range missiles, and air-to-ground munitions, as well as funds to strengthen Ukraines defence industrial base, he added. Trump to meet Zelenskyy After calling him all sorts of names, Trump announced he would meet Zelenskyy in New York on Friday. The surprise announcement came one day after he slammed the Ukrainian leaders claiming that he refused to strike a deal with Russia over war. Advertisement President Zelenskyy has asked to meet with me, and I will be meeting with him tomorrow morning at around 9:45 (local time) in Trump Tower, the Republican told reporters in New York.And its a shame whats happening in Ukraine. So many deaths, so much destruction. Its a horrible thing, he added, making a complete U-turn from previous stance. The proclamation came hours after Zelenskyy met Biden and Harris at the White House. There has been a major clash of words between the two after Zelenskyys controversial interview with the New Yorker. During the interview, the Ukrainian leader said that he believed Trump doesnt really know how to stop the war and criticised Vance for describing a vision for peace that included Ukraine ceding territories currently occupied by Russia. Following this, Trump referred to him as a salesman and accused him of not accepting the peace deal with Putin. Hence it will be interesting to see how the meeting between the two leaders would pan out. With inputs from agencies. At the time of writing this article, Hurricane Helene is just hours away from making landfall in the state and is touted as the most powerful storm that has hit the United States this year read more Florida was rocked by intense storms and power outages after Hurricane Helene strengthened to a catastrophic category 4 storm. At the time of writing this article, Hurricane Helene is just hours away from making landfall in the state and is touted as the most powerful storm that has hit the United States this year. While it is currently barreled towards Floridas Gulf coast, the storms have already left over 600,000 people without power. Advertisement As the storm is expected to make landfall on Thursday night, forecasters warned that the enormous storm could create a nightmare scenario in the region. They stated that the potentially life-threatening storm surge could reach 15-20ft (4.6-6.1 meters) in the Big Bend area of Floridas Panhandle region. A lot of Hurricane Helenes gathering strength comes from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico which have reached unprecedented high levels in recent years. Not only this, the ocean waters around Florida have also seen rising temperatures, making the state more susceptible to catastrophic storms. The storm had already strengthened to category 3 by Thursday afternoon. At that time, it was about 200 miles southwest of Tampa at midday and slightly gained speed, moving at 16mph. Before the landfall, floods from storm surge had already hit some cities and communities like Fort Myers Beach where water was already 2ft above normal. Over 600,000 without electricity According to PowerOutage.us, over 600,000 customers are now without power in the state of Florida. The states governor, Ron DeSantis, stated that Hurricane Helenes landfall now looks like it will be closer to 11 pm (local time) - instead of early evening. The Florida governor added that models for the storm have shifted slightly to the east. I think youre looking at anywhere from that Wakulla-Jefferson County line over to Taylor County, he said. Most of the data that we have does have a Taylor County landfall, DeSantis furthered. It is pertinent to note that much of the region is already under a state of emergency. However, the storm is expected to weaken after the landfall. Advertisement A catastrophic and deadly storm surge is likely along portions of the Florida Big Bend coast, where inundation could reach as high as 20ft above ground level, along with destructive waves, the National Weather Service warned on Wednesday evening. Preparations to protect life and property should be completed by early Thursday before tropical storm conditions arrive, the agency added. A catastrophic and deadly storm surge is likely along portions of the Florida Big Bend coast, where inundation could reach as high as 20 feet above ground level, along with destructive waves. There is also a danger of life-threatening storm surge along the remainder of the west pic.twitter.com/jizu9K9HNp National Weather Service (@NWS) September 26, 2024 Advertisement On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency ordering federal assistance to Florida. He did the same in the state of Alabama on Friday. Mandatory evacuations in the state started to go into place earlier this week. This is going to be a multistate event with the potential for significant impacts from Florida all the way to Tennessee, Deanne Criswell, the Fema administrator, warned during an appearance at the White House press briefing. Meanwhile, cities as far as Asheville, North Carolina, were seeing heavy rain starting Wednesday night and is now touted as the furthest edge of the storm. Advertisement DeSantis made it clear that the storm is expected to cause major damage. Its not a matter of whether were going to get effects, its just a question of how significant those effects will be, DeSantis said on Wednesday. You do have time to evacuate, but that time is now, Kevin Guthrie, the Florida division of emergency management director, said on Thursday morning. Chinas A-share market rallies strongly on Thursday, with Shanghai market index exceeding 3,000 points Global Times) 10:19, September 27, 2024 China's Shanghai Composite Index surged more than 100 points, closing above 3,000 points on Thursday, the first time above the key benchmark since July 2, following a series of pro-growth policy measures rolled out by policymakers that help lift up investor confidence. The rally came after a key Communist Party of China (CPC) leadership meeting on Thursday that stressed the need to boost the country's capital market, while actively promote medium- and long-term funds to enter the market, the Xinhua News Agency reported. The Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a meeting on Thursday to analyze and study the current economic situation and make further arrangements for economic work. It was noted at the meeting that the fundamentals of the Chinese economy and the favorable conditions such as a vast market, strong economic resilience and great potential have remained unchanged, Xinhua said. All three major stock indices for the A shares posted gains of over 3 percent, with the Shanghai Composite Index rising by 3.61 percent, the Shenzhen Component Index up by 4.44 percent, and the ChiNext Index rising by 4.42 percent. This marks the third straight day that all three indices finished with gains. Trading volume at the Shanghai and Shenzhen bourses reached a total of 1.1625 trillion yuan ($165.6 billion) on Thursday, 5.1 billion yuan higher than a day ago. More than 5,100 stocks reported gains in prices, with more than 100 stocks reaching their daily upper limit. The real estate companies led the rally, followed by liquor, food, banks and securities companies. "With multiple favorable policies being released, we are witnessing a remarkable rally in market expectations. Three consecutive days of gains suggest the A-share market is now entering a new upward phase," Yang Delong, chief economist at Shenzhen-based First Seafront Fund, told the Global Times on Thursday. Chinese financial regulators on Tuesday released a slew of favorable policies to support the capital market which has lifted investor confidence. China will issue a guideline to encourage medium and long-term funds to enter the capital market, the country's top securities regulator said on Tuesday. The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) plans to release six measures to promote corporate mergers and acquisitions, and work with various parties to facilitate the circulation of private equity and venture capital funds. And, China's central bank, the People's Bank of China, will introduce new monetary policy tools to support the stock market's growth. The central bank will set up a swap program allowing securities, funds, and insurance companies to secure liquidity using asset collateral, said Pan Gongsheng, governor of the People's Bank of China, on Tuesday. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) The US government said on Friday it filed criminal charges against three members of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for hacking attempts aimed at disrupting the US presidential election read more Former US President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris at the presidential debate. AP File The US government said on Friday it filed criminal charges against three members of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for hacking attempts aimed at disrupting the US presidential election. The indictment is the latest effort by the Biden administration to counter foreign efforts to interfere in the November 5 presidential election between Republican Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris. The US Treasury Department also said it was imposing sanctions on seven members of Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps. Advertisement Iran has previously denied involvement. The Trump campaign said in August it had been hacked by Iran but said the perpetrators were not able to get private information. Several news outlets have said they declined to publish internal campaign documents that were offered to them. After more than three decades, schizophrenia patients have a new treatment option. The US FDA has approved a drug, known as KarXT or Cobenfy. It comes without common side effects such as weight gain and movement disorders found in other drugs read more The drug, known as KarXT or Cobenfy, belongs to Bristol Myers Squibb. Image courtesy: bms.com/in The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a new drug for schizophrenia. The drug, known as KarXT or Cobenfy, belongs to Bristol Myers Squibb. Bristol Myers got the drug via its $14 billion takeover of Karuna Therapeutics last year. The first new type of antipsychotic medicine in decades, it offers new hope for those afflicted by the disease. But why is this such a big deal? Lets take a closer look: A brief look at schizophrenia Advertisement First, lets briefly examine schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a chronic brain disorder. It causes persistent delusions and hallucinations and significantly impairs the way patients perceive reality. It impacts under 1 per cent of the US population. Around 3.7 million people in the US have a history of schizophrenia, research shows. Disorganised speech, trouble with thinking and lack of motivation are also some of the other symptoms. Though the disease has no cure, treatment is available. Antipsychotic medications can reduce symptoms of the illness and precent future episodes. Sarah Hamilton, MD, a psychiatrist at the Early Psychosis Intervention Center at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio, told Healthcentral.com, Antipsychotics help treat schizophrenia by eliminating or reducing psychotic symptoms. They primarily address the positive symptoms of the illness, and lessening these symptoms can lead to better quality of life, though many individuals will continue to suffer from the negative symptoms of schizophrenia such as lack of motivation, affective flattening, and speech difficulties as well as impaired cognition. Other medications can also end up getting the patient addicted. This is a problem because the data show that schizophrenia patients are more vulnerable to substance abuse than the general population. How Cobeny is different Because antipsychotics usually work by blocking the brains dopamine receptors. The first antipsychotic, antipsychotic, developed in 1951, worked exactly this way. Advertisement These medications extensively block dopamine receptors throughout the brain and reduce the positive symptoms of schizophrenia," Hamilton added. However, these medications usually come with side effects such as weight gain and movement disorders. However, due to this blockade, these medications have a higher tendency to negatively impact physical coordination, balance, and other motor skills like walking, Hamilton added. But Cobenfy is different. While it too targets dopamine levels in the brain, it does this by tackling the levels of acetylcholine. Advertisement Cobenfy also does not include a warning about the risk of increased mortality in some elderly patients, unlike other commonly used drugs for the disorder. It also comes without common side effects, such as weight gain and movement disorders, found in other drugs. William Blair analysts expect $2.5 billion in US sales for Cobenfy by 2030. Bristol said it expects to make the drug available to patients by late October at a list price of $1,850 a month or about $22,500 annually. FDAs approval was based on data from two studies in which patients on the drug experienced a meaningful reduction in symptoms. The New York Times quoted Karuna as saying that its study examined 252 people with schizophrenia. Advertisement Of these, half were prescribed Cobenfy and the others given a placebo. They were told to list their symptoms including hallucinations, hostility, tension and disorientation. Those on Cobenfy saw symptoms diminish 20 points compared to 10 points in the placebo group. The newspaper quoted the company as saying that the full study would be published later this year. What do experts say? Experts are excited. Jelena Kunovac, a clinical assistant professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told USA Today, The field is ready to try something different. This medication may be a game changer for some subset of patients. Dr Frederick C Nucifora, director of the Adult Schizophrenia Clinic at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, told The New York Times, This is the first time, really since the advent of these medicines, that a new mechanism has come out, so there is really a lot of excitement that maybe we have something new to treat patients with. Advertisement there is an unmet need still in the treatment of schizophrenia, particularly in patients who may show response to the positive symptoms but still have residual negative symptoms, said Alan Schatzberg, psychiatry professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. Schatzberg added that drug could be a game changer for schizophrenia patients. But questions about how the drug will do in the long-term also remain. Dr David Rind, the medical director of the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, pointed out that all three studies on the drug thus far limit its use to five weeks. We dont know how it works in any substantial way past five weeks, Rind told The New York Times. Patients and doctors, he added, are a little wary of claims before they actually see what happens with the drugs. There are also other concerns. As per Nature.com, patients must take Cobenfy twice a day a problem that people with schizophrenia frequently struggle to keep up, studies show. Thats a big limitation, Nate Sutera, a psychiatric pharmacist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, told the website. Sutera also pointed out that many antipsychotics are long lasting needing only a few doses annually. The cost is also a concern for many. It also isnt a silver bullet. Common side effects from Cobenfy in trials included vomiting, nausea, constipation, among others. The FDA said Cobenfy should not be prescribed to patients with urinary retention, or those with moderate or severe kidney or liver disease. Bristol says it expects to see significant utilisation of the drug by the end of 2025. With inputs from agencies The operation advertised through websites posing as nude photography services, where men paid between $350 and $600 per hour for sexual services read more The brothel ring, which operated from 2020 to November 2023, targeted well-connected clients including politicians, company executives, military officers. Image used for representative purpose/Reuters A Massachusetts woman accused of operating a high-end brothel network with prominent clients in the state and Washington, DC, suburbs pleaded guilty in federal court Friday (September 27). Han Lee, 42, and two co-defendants were charged with conspiracy to persuade individuals to travel across state lines for prostitution and money laundering. Lee initially entered a not guilty plea but changed it during Fridays court appearance. She remains in custody and faces up to 25 years in prison for the two felony charges. Advertisement James Lee of Torrance, California, and Junmyung Lee of Dedham, Massachusetts, were also indicted in connection with the brothel network. Operation catered to elite clients Authorities allege the brothel ring, which operated from 2020 to November 2023, targeted well-connected clients including politicians, company executives, military officers, lawyers, and professors. Prosecutors have not publicly named any of the buyers, and none have been charged, though some have appealed to keep their identities private. Acting Massachusetts US Attorney Josh Levy said prosecutors are committed to holding both those involved in running the operation and those who fueled demand accountable. The brothels were located in rented high-end apartments in Massachusetts and Virginia, including in Watertown and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Tysons and Fairfax, Virginia. The operation advertised through websites posing as nude photography services, where men paid between $350 and $600 per hour for sexual services. Hidden proceeds and recruitment Prosecutors allege that Lee concealed more than $1 million in proceeds by converting cash into money orders and using other methods to disguise the income. She also recruited women to work in the brothels, paying her associate, Junmyung Lee, up to $8,000 a month to handle bookings and bring women to the brothels. Han Lee maintained that she did not control the women but admitted to persuading them to travel across state lines for prostitution. Prosecutors said the women were not criminally charged and were considered victims in the case. Advertisement Authorities gathered evidence from witness testimony, physical surveillance, and electronic communications, as well as ledgers and phones seized from the brothel locations. According to court documents, the defendants created house rules to ensure the women kept a low profile in the buildings where the brothels operated. Client verification system The brothel operation required clients to undergo a verification process before booking appointments. Clients were asked to provide personal information, including full names, phone numbers, employers, and references. The defendants also kept separate phone numbers for each brothel, used to send clients menus of available women and services along with directions to the locations, investigators said. Advertisement Han Lees sentencing is scheduled for December 20. With inputs from agencies Despite setbacks, Chinas relentless pursuit of naval dominance and cutting-edge technology keeps its ambitions in the Indo-Pacific firmly on course read more Chinas maritime ambitions remain formidable, driven by its desire to project power and secure dominance over the Indo-Pacific. While recent incidents, including the reported sinking of one of its newest nuclear-powered attack submarines, have raised questions about operational challenges, they are unlikely to derail Chinas broader naval strategy. Boasting the worlds largest navy with over 370 ships, Chinas submarine fleet, despite these setbacks, continues to grow in size and sophistication, positioning the Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) as a formidable force in the region. Advertisement Recent submarine sinking According to a senior US defence official, Chinas first-in-class nuclear-powered attack submarine sank in a dockside mishap between May and June this year. The exact cause remains unclear and Chinese authorities have been notably silent. A Chinese embassy spokesperson in Washington stated that they had no information to provide regarding the matter. This silence has only fuelled speculation about the quality of Chinas naval equipment and the training standards of its crews. The US official also highlighted concerns about the PLANs internal accountability noting that corruption within Chinas defence industry has long undermined efforts to modernise the military. Despite the seriousness of the incident, it appears the PLAN is keeping the sinking under wraps, consistent with the Chinese militarys opaque operations. In Taiwan, where Chinas military activities are closely monitored, officials have acknowledged the event. Taiwans Defence Minister, Wellington Koo, confirmed to Reuters that the authorities had a grasp of the situation through multiple intelligence and surveillance methods, although he did not elaborate further. 2003 Ming-class Incident This is not the first time China has faced submarine-related challenges. In April 2003, a Ming-class submarine tragically exploded, killing all 70 crew members. The diesel engine continued running while submerged consuming all available oxygen and suffocating the crew. The disaster, which occurred during naval exercises near the Inner Changshan Islands, went unnoticed for ten days, as the submarine was on a silent exercise. Chinese fishermen eventually discovered the vessel adrift, its periscope protruding from the surface. The crew, including 13 naval academy trainees, were found slumped at their stations, unaware of the malfunction that killed them. Xinhua, Chinas official news agency, confirmed the deaths, and the Foreign Ministry attributed the incident to mechanical failure, though many suspected deeper operational inefficiencies. The 2003 incident exposed critical lapses in Chinas naval operations and it seems that some of these issues may persist. As the PLAN continues to expand and develop more advanced submarines, questions about its overall readiness to handle complex underwater operations remain. Allegations in the Yellow Sea More recently, reports surfaced of another Chinese nuclear-powered submarine suffering a deadly mishap in the Yellow Sea last year. According to Radio Free Asia, Taiwans National Security Bureau Director-General Tsai Ming-yen acknowledged in October 2023 that some accidents occurred with a Chinese submarine, despite earlier denials from the Ministry of National Defence. The incident, first reported by the Daily Mail, claimed that a Chinese Type 093 Shang-class nuclear submarine became trapped in an anti-submarine net, leading to the deaths of its entire crew due to an oxygen system failure. Although these reports have not been officially confirmed, they suggest serious vulnerabilities in Chinas submarine operations. Advertisement This incident, along with the recent sinking of the attack submarine, has once again placed a spotlight on the Chinese navys ability to maintain and operate its growing submarine fleet. The PLAN currently has six nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, six nuclear-powered attack submarines and 48 diesel-powered attack submarines. However, the US Department of Defence projects that this number will increase to 65 submarines by 2025 and 80 by 2035. Despite these impressive numbers, the string of accidents points to deeper issues that could jeopardise Chinas broader military ambitions. Chinas push for innovation While the sinking of Chinas newest nuclear-powered attack submarine is a setback, it would be premature to write off Chinas naval ambitions. Even the worlds largest navy is not immune to operational failures. Despite the secretive nature of its operations, Chinas naval expansion remains substantial and rapid. Advertisement Amid these challenges, China is pushing forward with cutting-edge advancements that could reshape underwater warfare. According to an Asia Times report from April, the Chinese navy is moving closer to achieving a breakthrough in submarine stealth technologyspecifically, a propulsion system with no mechanical moving parts. Such a system would eliminate detectable vibrations, allowing for unprecedented levels of stealth, a critical advantage in naval warfare. As reported by the South China Morning Post, Chinese scientists have made significant progress in laser propulsion technology, which could one day power submarines. The new system generates nearly 70,000 newtons of thrust using 2 megawatts of laser power emitted through optical fibers thinner than a human hair. This underwater fiber laser-induced plasma detonation wave propulsion leverages supercavitationvapourising seawater with laser pulses to drastically reduce water resistance. By eliminating mechanical noise, this technology could allow submarines to operate with stealth previously thought impossible. Advertisement While laser propulsion isnt entirely newJapanese scientists introduced the concept two decades agoChinas advancements have significantly improved its efficiency. If successful, this technology could revolutionise submarine design and operation, allowing them to evade detection in ways that current systems cannot. Future still belongs to China Despite the setbacks and mishaps, Chinas naval ambitions, particularly its growing submarine fleet, remain undeterred. With continuous investments in cutting-edge technologies and a clear commitment to expanding its capabilities, China is on course to further solidify its status as a dominant maritime power. The worlds navies, including the US, are well aware that Chinas naval rise is far from stalled. While operational failures are inevitable in such a vast and rapidly expanding force, the future of blue-water power still belongs to China. The LDP has remained dominant for most part of the post-war era. However, it has been rocked by several scandals and international conflicts that have left its once-powerful faction in complete shambles read more With the end of intense campaigning, Japans ruling party is all set to vote for its new leader on Friday. The hunt for a new leader started after Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced last month that he wont stand for re-election. Hence, whoever is named as the new chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), will assume the office of the Prime Minister. The conservative party remained dominant for most part of the post-war era. However, it has been rocked by several scandals and international conflicts that have left its once-powerful faction in complete shambles. A record nine candidates are vying for the prime ministerial post, the largest number in the LDPs history. Advertisement The winner of Fridays contest will be decided by an internal party vote rather than a public one. One policy change that remained consistent among almost all the contestants is the pledge to overhaul the embattled LDP in the face of public furry and declining approval ratings. In the upcoming presidential election, its necessary to show the people that the Liberal Democratic Party will change, Prime Minister Kishida said at a press conference last month when announcing his decision not to run for another term. Will Japan get its first female PM? The latest polling pointed to a wide-open contest between 63-year-old Sanae Takaichi, who is vying to become the LDPs - and Japans - first female leader, 43-year-old Shinjiro Koizumi, the youngest candidate in the race Shigeru Ishiba, 67, a former defence minister contesting the LDP leadership for the fifth time. Interestingly, Takaichis positions on womens issues are also in contrast to those of Koizumi and Ishiba, who are both in favour of allowing female emperors one of the hugely controversial topics in Japan. Also in the running for the LDP leadership are Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, who is the other female candidate; Digital Transformation Minister Taro Kono, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, Toshimitsu Motegi, the LDPs secretary-general; Takayuki Kobayashi, a former economic security minister; and Katsunobu Kato, a former chief cabinet secretary. It is pertinent to note that four out of the nine candidates have served as Japans Foreign Minister and three as Defence Minister. Results of the party leadership contest are set to be announced on Friday. In the first round of voting LDP lawmakers will be casting 367 ballots, followed by another 368 votes to represent the partys membership base of approximately 1.1 million. Advertisement If no one wins a majority in the first round, then a run-off will be conducted between the top two candidates. The winner of the polls will be then announced as Japans Prime Minister by the parliament which is expected to resume in early October. Yemens Iran-aligned Houthis said on Friday they had targeted Israels cities of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon with a ballistic missile and a drone in support of Gaza and Lebanon read more This image taken from video and released by Ansar Allah Media Office, the media arm of Yemen's Houthi rebels, on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, claims to show the launch of the ballistic missile that landed in an open area in central Israel, on September 15. AP File Yemens Iran-backed Houthis on Friday said that they targeted Israels cities of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon with a ballistic missile and a drone in support of Gaza and Lebanon. The Israeli army said it had intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard early in the day. According to a Times of Israel report, citing the Israel Defense Forces, the missile was downed outside the countrys borders by the long-range Arrow 3 air defence system, adding that warning alerts were triggered due to concerns about falling shrapnel from the interception. Advertisement The Arrow 3 system is designed to take out ballistic missiles while they are still outside of the atmosphere. As a result of the exoatmospheric interception, sirens were activated in a wide area. The Houthis military spokesperson said their operations wont halt in the coming days until Israels offensives in Gaza and Lebanon stop. We will carry out more military operations against the Israeli enemy in victory for the blood of our brothers in Palestine and Lebanon, Yahya Sarea said in a televised speech. Israeli strikes have killed more than 600 people in Lebanon since Monday, with the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah at its most intense in more than 18 years. Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel for almost a year in support of its ally Hamas, which is fighting Israel in Gaza. Its 2024 Pixel time! Google has 3 variants of their flagship series now (9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL), unlike last years 2 (8, 8Pro). It kind of mirrors the Apple iPhone line up like 16, 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max and Samsung with their S25, S25 Plus and S25 Ultra series. Google is definitely playing the big game here. In fact, it is their biggest game and bet on the symbiosis between leading edge hardware and a custom Gemini-powered, Pixel-heavy user experience. The Pixel 9 Pro XL is their best effort at producing a flagship that is worthy of our hard-earned money. Whats Googles play this time? Can they join the big league of blockbuster flagships this year? Will this be your phone-to-get this holiday season? Or is it another phone-to-forget? Lets find out. Pricing The Google Pixel 9 Pro XL with 256 gigabytes of storage is currently priced at 1,25,000 across multiple major retailers, including Reliance Digital, Croma, and Flipkart. The 512GB variant is 1,40,000. All of them have some bank discount or the other. The 256GB variant could be around 1,10,000, if you are lucky. It is a good price, considering it comes with freebies, like the one whole year of AI Premium plan in Google One, which comes bundled along with the phone. Its almost 2k per month, for 2TB of Google Drive storage and access to Gemini Advanced so around 24k is saved if you opt in for the Google One offer. Overall, it is a good value proposition. As a Google Pixel top-end user, it is also a given that the latest Android updates will keep coming for a long time. Looks and Feel A top-end phone requires top-class aesthetics. One of the few phones that looks better than the renders. Flat display, flat sides, a curvature that is familiar and materials that feel rich. Matte frosted glass with a glossy Google logo at the back for the Pros, while the compact 9 gets an inverse glossy finish for its back. Its an elite touch and feel, something that has been machined with utmost attention to detail. We were quick to protect the 9 Pro XL this case from Caseology. Even without the case, the phone felt solid and grippy enough to inspire a bit of confidence for no-case usage. Porcelain, Rose Quartz, Hazel and Obsidian are the 4 highly unique color options available on the Pixel 9 Pro XL. The one we have is the Hazel variant. We think the Porcelain White variant looks the best, as it carries forward the Panda theme that became really popular with the Pixel 2 XL. In terms of how the device feels in the hand, no doubt, it feels heavy and sturdy apart from feeling premium and rich. At 8.5mm of thickness and a weight of 221g, sporting a beefy 5,060 mAh battery, the Pixel 9 Pro XL is definitely on the heavier side of flagships, like the 227g 16 Pro Max and 232g S24 Ultra. We can say, among the flagships, the Pixel is the lightest heavyweight. The Pixel 9 Pro XL is well protected with IP68 dust and water resistance ratings. Its good to know that resistance does not mean proof. Screen The screen on the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL is a 6.8-inch (171 mm) Super Actua OLED display (LTPO) unit, with a peak brightness of up to 3000 nits without HDR and 2000 nits with HDR. In our usage, the display was perfectly visible under harsh conditions, especially when using the camera, which is an angle thats very hard to maintain visibility for. The aspect ratio is a wide 20:9, with the exact resolution coming in at 1344 x 2992 at 486 PPI pixel density. At 120Hz, the display remains smooth and responsive throughout. Since it is LTPO-enabled which means the display can go to very low refresh rate of 1Hz, using the Always-On display all the time is a luxury we can afford, and it didnt create a big dent in the battery life. There is full-blown HDR support in all kinds of apps, as expected from a flagship smartphone like the Pixel. The display quality is surprisingly better than the last year panel, which was already class-leading. The Pixel 9 Pro XL easily has one of the punchiest displays among the flagships. The display is protected by the Gorilla Glass Victus 2, which is currently the top end solution for protection against scratches. Overall, the screen is a top-notch unit with no compromises whatsoever when it comes to creation or consumption of high quality, high value content. Performance The latest Google Tensor G4 powers the Pixel 9 Pro XL with all its might. 1 Cortex X4 high performance core at 3.1 GHz (vs 2.9 GHz on the G3) 3 Cortex A720 Premium Efficient cores at 2.6 GHz (vs 4x 2.37 GHz A715 cores on the G3) and 4 Cortex A520 High Efficiency cores at 1.92GHz (vs A510 at 1.7GHz). A total of 8 cores and a whopping 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, along with the same 3rd generation Tensor cores for Machine Learning, an Exynos 5400 modem and a 4nm fabrication process from Samsung deliver the combined power packed performance for the Pixel 9 Pro XL. The ML cores can do upto 45 tokens per second in terms of raw performance in using the Gemini Nano LLM that is pre-loaded on the device, taking advantage of the vast amounts of RAM this time. Handling any kind of heavy application or task is quite easy for the Pixel and maintains a steady performance even when the battery is low. Even if the display is set to a dynamic refresh rate, it barely goes below 120Hz because of the stable throughput of the chip and its power efficiency. In 3D Mark wild life stress test, it scored 74.9% which is average, but this is better than the Pixel 9s score of 58%. The temperature increased from 31 to 44 degrees, which is slightly less than the Pixel 9. Now, lets have a look at the benchmarks to see how it compares with other chipsets in this segment. When it comes to overheating, which was a big issue in the Pixel 8 Pro, we are glad to see that the issue has largely been fixed, primarily outside the camera department. When using the camera, though, overheating is inevitable due to the sheer amounts of data processing going on while using it. Its not as bad as the Pixel 8 Pro, which refuses to decrease its heat and continues to heat up while on calls or, sometimes, randomly. No such conditions were observed on the 9 Pro XL. Just when using the camera, that too under heavy usage, the heating of the phone will be noticeable. Beyond that, its a marked improvement over the previous generation. Camera Googles Pixel line has long been synonymous with computational photography, and the Pixel 9 Pro XL takes this legacy to new, uncharted territories. On the back of the phone lies a trio of cameras, each with its own distinct duties. 1. The Main Sensor: A 50MP Large Sensor Megapixel Count: 50MP 50MP Aperture: f/1.85 f/1.85 Sensor Size: 1/1.31-inch 1/1.31-inch Special Features: Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), Octa PD (Phase Detection Autofocus) This is the camera youll use most often. It captures detailed images with rich colors and excellent dynamic range, even in challenging lighting conditions. The new color science embedded in the latest HDR algorithm claims to go for more accurate colors. When we compared it to the Pixel 8 Pro, the differences were distinct in how the Pixel 9 Pro XL sees colors. They are much more natural, with tonal contrast more in-sync with reality. The skin colors especially, have gained a big update, as we noticed a lot of accurate white balance estimations in tough scenarios. The large sensor size and wide aperture allowed for exceptional low-light performance and natural bokeh effects. OIS ensures sharp photos and stable videos, while Octa PD enables fast and accurate autofocus. All of this is true in our experience. The main camera is amazing. Both in photos and videos. 2. The Ultrawide Lens 48 MP! Megapixel Count: 48MP 48MP Aperture: f/2.2 f/2.2 Sensor Size: 1/2.55-inch 1/2.55-inch Special Features: Autofocus, Macro Focus capability Its 123-degree field of view is significantly wider than the main sensor. The inclusion of autofocus makes it versatile for capturing close-up shots with the macro mode. The higher megapixel count is a gift because almost all the time, we are mostly stuck with low resolution ultrawide cameras, but the Pixel is a class apart. Super high resolution in the ultrawide angle camera is great for landscape shots and even group shots. The new Add Me feature might be suggestive of that, in which you can shoot two frames that will be stitched together by AI to fill in new detail from the second frame. For example, you can add yourself in a group photo by asking a friend from the group to switch places and take the second shot in a similar frame. All this is thanks to some quick processing by computational camera magic. 3. The Telephoto Lens: 48 MP! Megapixel Count: 48MP 48MP Aperture: f/3.5 f/3.5 Sensor Size: 1/2.55-inch 1/2.55-inch Special Features: 5x Optical Zoom, OIS, Quad PD Its 5x optical zoom lens, along with Quad Phase Detect autofocus, takes some of the finest telephoto shots at default zoom. Superzoom is just getting better and better now, with shots that can go up to 30x. Adding the Telephoto lens is one of the toughest engineering problems for a small device like the smartphone. In that sense, Google seems to have achieved its engineering goals and output brilliant results. Although the switching between the lenses is still slightly slower and less smooth than the iPhone, it has definitely gotten much better. Perfect for Content Creators The camera unit all-in-all is perfect for content creators. Be it photography with excellent contrast and color science, with the ability to shoot high-res RAW, or the simply amazing videography, with the new HDR algorithms, the Pixel 9 Pro XL has cemented itself as one of the best options in the world for content creators. The video stabilization is top-notch, and all the lenses are wide enough, including the front facing one, with its 42MP high-res sensor, f2.2 aperture and 103 degrees field of view. Surprisingly enough, we are seeing some of the best front facing camera performance ever on a Pixel this time, thanks to the high-res sensor. This is a massive upgrade from the 10.5MP unit on the Pixel 8 Pro, which had a narrower 95 degree field of view. In all kinds of lighting conditions, all the sensors perform admirably well, and the computational photographic prowess is really visible in features like Night Sight and Video Boost, which increases the clarity of your shots to the next level. For vloggers and influencers who like to create a ton of content, the bundled offer of Google One AI Premium plan with 2TB of Drive storage is a great addition to the toolkit. A few drawbacks were noticed in the course of our usage no cinematic mode (portrait mode in video) was available for the front camera, as on date. 8K mode requires some heavy-duty processing on the cloud. Video boost is also processing-heavy and requires more time for it to work. A slightly more user-friendly approach would be helpful for content creators to fully take advantage of all the features. Battery This time, Google has gone with a similar battery capacity as last years 8 Pro, with a 5,060 mAh unit. With the help of the LTPO screen, a new power efficient modem and a new gen chipset, the Pixel 9 Pro XL manages to last longer than the 8 Pro, in our experience. The device will easily last at least half a day for even the heaviest content creator who is using the cameras all the time. Up to 37W, exclusively on the 9 Pro XL, the top end Pixel supports fast charging via the PD standard. Meanwhile, the other models can go up to 27W only. It takes about an hour and a half to fully charge the 5,060 mAh battery, which is considerably quicker but still a bit behind the many Chinese smartphone brands which are able to offer shockingly fast charging speeds of about 40 mins to fully charge the phone with ratings of around 100W. But also keep in mind that the Pixel is a long-term device with 7 years of guaranteed updates, so battery health will be longer with 37W, which is still fast enough for most users. The fast wireless charging speeds are up to 23W. Overall, you can expect a good battery life and fast charging speeds on the Pixel 9 Pro XL, it will not disappoint. Android and Gemini Advanced Of course, the Pixel series is blessed with update security and a thriving community of ROM makers who keep it alive much beyond Googles promised timelines. A whopping 7 years of upgrades, Pixel exclusive feature drops and security updates are guaranteed. Currently, the flagship is running on the latest version of Android with the September security update. As you would expect from a Google Pixel, it is one of the cleanest and most minimal user interfaces in the Android world. Its sometimes too minimal for a regular user who has already used Chinese brands or even Samsung. Especially for an iPhone user who has experience iOS 18, it will be radically minimal when it comes to design and customization. This also ensures stable performance and smooth animations throughout the UI. Of course, Android is very extendable with its ability to run custom launchers and custom icon sets. The Pixel experience is still, a blank slate though, which is mostly good for long-time Stock Android users. The star of the show is Gemini, which is Googles best effort at making an AI model based on the new LLM technology. Initially called as Bard, Gemini plays a big role in how a Pixel is experienced. To enable this, without any compromises, Google has gifted 1 year worth of AI Premium plan of Google One, with additional 2TB of Google Drive storage, to enable storage of your photos and files. This means Gemini Advanced which is a paid version of Gemini, is available for 1 year of literally free usage, and one year later, a monthly charge of 1,950 Rs is applied, which you can opt out of. There are a lot of use cases for Gemini, which comes on-device with a Nano model that powers a lot of the intelligence on the phone. Pixel Studio is a new GenAI imaging generation app that is now pre-installed on the Pixels to provide content creators a tool to generate any image other than people, which is a fun playground to have. And it works quite well, mostly because half of its load is off-loaded to the on-board Nano model. Also, available (only with US language set in Assistant settings) is Gemini Live, which is a live chatting version of Gemini, which provides a platform for completely voice-enabled interactions and conversations. This is good for brainstorming of ideas and having a casual conversation that one would have with another person, and it can answer all kinds of questions just like in the normal voice mode, but without much latency. This is direct competition with the advance voice mode of ChatGPT, which offers similar functionality. Gemini Advanced has a massive 1 million context window, which means it can read documents running hundreds of pages and still remember to answer your question without losing memory. With Imagen, it can create images as well. Meanwhile, Gemini Nano which works offline, from the device, can handle Super summaries, smart replies and image descriptions. For example, transcription summaries from the recorder app can have multiple people talking and still it will be able to create a report, a summed up report of what the content is. Smart replies reside inside mail apps and messages apps help with text recommendations. Both Advanced and Nano are great for content creators who like to take the help of these features. Other Stuff These are the 5G sub6 bands that are supported by the Pixel 9 Pro XL, which uses an Exynos 5400 modem from Samsung 5G sub-6: Bands n1/2/3/5/7/8/12/14/20/25/26/28/30/38/40/41/66/71/75/76/77/78/79 The Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 with dual antennas work great in our experience, with hotspot capabilities really enhanced. There is also an UWB chip for spatial orientation and close-range sensing. NavIC support is also included. The Pixel 9 Pro XL supports almost all the latest connectivity standards that you can think of, including the mmwave antennas, which are not functional in the Indian unit. One of the best stereo speakers on a smartphone reside in the Pixel 9 Pro XL. Clarity, separation, good bass frequencies and a loud output ensure that it is one of the best experiences you have on a flagship. Its great for listening to podcasts and sometimes even music, although it is best that the Pixel Buds Pro or some TWS would naturally be a better companion. For the first time, Google has gone for an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, which works at least thrice as fast as the absolutely unreliable and shockingly bad optical fingerprint scanner on the previous models since the Pixel 6. The last generation Pixel 8 Pro was seriously panned for having one of the worst experiences when it came to fingerprint scanning, and we are glad to see that this major flaw has been fixed and brought to the big leagues. Without expandable storage or dual SIM slot, it is only possible for adding storage on the cloud and add a second SIM via the eSIM protocol. Overall The key features that standout on the Pixel 9 Pro XL are obviously the cameras, and then Gemini. These two are unmatched when it comes to providing value for your purchase. The 3 cameras, in both photos and videos, output high quality results in a class-leading and creator-friendly way. Seriously, if you are a vlogger or a regular high-end content creator, the Pixel 9 Pro XL with its resolved issues from the 8 Pro, might be the best option available. The colors, the quality of stabilization, the texture and contrast, the dynamic range, everything about the cameras will make the Pixel 9 Pro XL a creator favorite gadget that can be useful in every scenario that requires any form of content creation. There are very few drawbacks to speak of, except may be the overheating that features itself during the use of the camera. Using the camera for a longer time might result in slightly uncomfortable heating issues that are otherwise non-existent. It could be improved after a few software updates. Ultimately, there is nothing like the Pixel 9 Pro XL out here. Only the next generation Pixel can out-compete it, as Google has carefully molded every single exclusive feature on their flagships towards their strengths in computational photography and AI. If you are a content creator who is looking for a flagship camera phone, then the Pixel 9 Pro XL is at the top of our recommendations, closely followed by the iPhone and the Galaxy S Ultra series. This year, Google have done their best. Fur den Artikel ist der Verfasser verantwortlich, dem auch das Urheberrecht obliegt. Redaktionelle Inhalte von GDN konnen auf anderen Webseiten zitiert werden, wenn das Zitat maximal 5% des Gesamt-Textes ausmacht, als solches gekennzeichnet ist und die Quelle benannt (verlinkt) wird. Georgian Parliament Building in Kutaisi Quelle: Roberto Magni Daniela Comi By Foto ReD Agency Controversies and Criticism The construction of the building was not without controversy. The site chosen for the building was previously occupied by the Memorial of Glory, a monument dedicated to Soviet soldiers of World War II. The demolition of the memorial in 2009, which was carried out using explosives, resulted in the accidental death of two people, a mother and her daughter. This event sparked much criticism and controversy. Furthermore, the decision to move the parliament to Kutaisi was seen by some as inefficient, as the rest of the government remained in Tbilisi. Despite promises of economic development for Kutaisi, many considered the building an unnecessary waste of resources. Tue Tuesday 85 /53 Mix of sun and clouds. Highs in the mid 80s and lows in the low 50s. The Russian Federation's malign activities and interference: UK statement to the OSCE, September 2024 Deputy Ambassador Brown condemns Russian disinformation and other forms of malign influence. 26 September 2024 Thank you Madam Chair. The United States has just informed this Council of steps it has taken to defend its democratic institutions in the face of a covert foreign influence operation by the Russian Federation. This follows other participating States' interventions in this Council to highlight multiple forms of malign interference across our region in recent months. Indeed the United Kingdom put Russia's malign influence and interference onto the Permanent Council's agenda in May and I thank the US for once again raising this matter. All OSCE Participating States - including the UK - have made important commitments to uphold media freedom, including to foster "free, independent and pluralistic media" as part of open societies and accountable governments. The United Kingdom will continue to uphold media freedom, learning from best practice - including that shared by the Office of the Representative for Freedom of the Media. And we again call on all other participating States - particularly Russia and Belarus - to uphold OSCE commitments on media freedom, safety of journalists and freedom of expression. At the same time the United Kingdom will also take action to defend our national and regional security against the full spectrum of threats emanating from Russia, working in partnership with others. This has included sanctioning Russian media outlets like Rossiya Segodnya and TV Novosti (which controls Russia Today) which spread disinformation and propaganda designed to incite violence and hatred towards Ukraine and its people. Madam Chair. Our message to Russia is clear: stop this illegal war; withdraw your troops from Ukraine; cease your malign activities including disinformation and information manipulation; and, respect the OSCE principles and commitments that keep us all safe. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address September 26, 2024 Transcript Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh Holds a News Briefing Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh SABRINA SINGH: All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Okay. Just a few things at the top and then happy to take your questions. This morning, Secretary Austin departed for London to attend the AUKUS defense ministerial meeting. The AUKUS DMM is the third of its kind, marking three years of enhanced security partnership and provides an opportunity for Secretary Austin to meet with his UK and Australian counterparts to review progress and outline steps for continued work under pillar one and pillar two of AUKUS. We'll have more to share in the coming days, but under pillar one, you can expect the secretary to reaffirm the United States' commitment to supporting Australia's acquisition of a conventionally armed nuclear powered submarine capability. Under pillar two, Secretary Austin and his counterparts will discuss plans to further enhance collaboration and harmonize acquisition processes over the next two years to accelerate the delivery of advanced capabilities to our defense forces. AUKUS presents a unique opportunity for our nations to collectively enhance our military capabilities, improve interoperability and advance a shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific. The department looks forward to continuing to work with our UK and Australian partners to implement this important work. Earlier this week, the navy announced that USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group departed naval station Norfolk, Virginia for a regularly scheduled deployment to the US naval forces Europe Africa US six fleet area of operations, demonstrating the commitment and power projection capability of the navy's globally deployed force. The strike group will operate in the US European command area of responsibility in support of our maritime partners and NATO allies. Switching gears, the department continues to monitor tropical storm Helene, as it is forecasted to intensify into a hurricane as it approaches the northeastern Gulf coast on Thursday. Florida and Georgia have both declared states of emergency and the governor of Florida has activated more than 3,300 national guardsmen and 12 rotary wing aviation assets in state active duty status. These guardsmen are prepositioned around the state to provide responsive sustained support including high wheeled vehicle rescues, aerial support, route clearance and commodities distribution. Additionally, in the next 24 to 48 hours, the States of Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina are expected to activate the National Guard as well. For more information, I would encourage you to reach out to National Guard Bureau of Public Affairs. And to close, last night, the Senate confirmed more than 6000 of our highly qualified military nominees in the Air Force, Army Marine Corps, Navy and Space Force. These confirmations include Lieutenant General Nordhaus to be Chief of the National Guard Bureau, Vice Admiral Halsey to be Commander of US Southern Command. Lieutenant General Reed to be Commander of US Transportation Command and Lieutenant General Brunson to be Commander of US Forces Korea. We're very glad that the Senate has confirmed these officers for critical positions during this time and for our national security and with that, I'd be happy to take your questions. Tara? Q: Thanks, Sabrina. So later this week, we're possibly expecting an agreement on the withdrawal or transition of US troops in Iraq. What still needs to be done in that agreement? It seems from the Iraqi perspective that this decision has been made and the details are set. SABRINA SINGH: So thanks Tara, I appreciate the question. I think as you alluded to, we'll probably have more details to share later this week. What we've said from the beginning is that we know that the global coalition and that international coalition is going to transition into a bilateral security relationship with the Iraqis. And this has been worked through the US Iraq Higher Military Commission working groups. So again, we should have more to share later this week, but at this time, I don't want to get ahead of that process. Q: Is it safe to assume that this means a reduction in the forces that are there from the 2,500? SABRINA SINGH: I think we'll have more to share this week. Q: OK. Secondly, the status of the refueler that's been damaged, and do you know anything else about what caused it to either run aground or run into something? SABRINA SINGH: Sorry, I was just trying to find some more for you on that. The ship that you're referring to was damaged when it was, I believe, in the fifth fleet AOR. Currently under investigation to what exactly caused that damage, but that oil tanker refueler has been towed to a port and there was no leakage from the ship. But in terms of impacts to operations, no impacts there. But for more information, I'd have to refer you to the navy. Q: And so you don't know what caused the damaged? SABRINA SINGH: That's right, we're investigating the incident. Great. OK. Idrees and welcome back. Q: Israel's military chief, I think earlier today said that strikes in Lebanon would continue in order to not only destroy Hezbollah's infrastructure but also prepare for a possible ground invasion. Just a general comment and do you see a ground invasion as likely or even imminent? SABRINA SINGH: So in terms of a ground incursion or a ground invasion, that's really for the Israelis to speak to. We certainly don't want to see any action taken that could lead to further escalation in the region. We still believe that there is time and space for diplomacy. We want to see a diplomatic resolution and a solution to prevent an all-out war. But in terms of the Israeli operations, I'd have to refer to them to speak to that. Q: And just to follow up, last week, I think the secretary had near daily calls with his Israeli counterpart, he hasn't spoken with them since the 22nd. Is there any reason for that? And should we expect any conversations between the two of them in the coming days? SABRINA SINGH: I think you can expect them to continue to engage. Just because they haven't spoken every day, doesn't mean that our teams haven't been in communication. Again, he engages with Minister Gallant on a pretty regular basis and when we have more to share on when the next call happens, we'll certainly read it out. But just because he hasn't had one every single day this week doesn't mean that we're not engaging with the Israelis. You've seen, maybe not from this building, but other agencies part of this administration engaging their Israeli counterparts, so we're continuing that dialogue. Fadi? Q: Thank you, Sabrina. Is there any support that the Pentagon is providing to the Israeli military in the current situation in Lebanon? SABRINA SINGH: In terms of any like ground support or air support? Q: Any support, even in terms of intelligence? SABRINA SINGH: No, no support. Q: Not even intelligence sharing? SABRINA SINGH: No. Q: So up until, I guess unless there's some changes, you've been describing what's happening as defensive operations. I believe in the first day, almost 500 civilians were killed, including women and Children in Lebanon. Civilian infrastructure has been damaged severely, almost 1,300 airstrikes. Today, up until 3:00 pm Beirut time, more than 50,000 villages have been hit by Israelis. International organizations are describing what happened the first day as the highest death toll in Lebanon since the end of the Civil War. So I'm just curious, what criteria are you using to describe what's happening as defensive operations? SABRINA SINGH: Well, Fadi, I think I'd have to point you back to October 8th when Lebanese Hezbollah attacked Israel following the brutal attack that Hamas launched on October 7th. So these are still defensive operations. We understand the threat that Israel faces. We are not supporting their operations when it comes to Lebanon. The support that you're seeing or what you're seeing when it comes to US forces in the region is for our own force protection. And should we need to come to the defense of Israel like saw from that large scale attack from Iran, we've positioned forces to do that. But when it comes to Lebanon, the US military has no involvement in Israel's operation. So I just want to lay that flat. In terms of some of what you just referenced, this is exactly why we're pushing for a diplomatic solution. We don't want to see innocent civilians lose their lives. We want to see a deescalating happen. And you're seeing engagement from all parts of this administration, including at UNGA right now. We're calling for a deescalated and we believe that a diplomatic off ramp is the best way to resolve what's happening on that northern border. Q: And last question, did any official in the Pentagon communicate any concerns about the high death toll among Lebanese civilians? I mean, I know, and we know in Gaza that was a constant conversation. Has anyone raised that issue in relation to Lebanon? SABRINA SINGH: Without getting into more details of the secretary's calls with Minister Gallant, we are of course always concerned of civilian casualties. We're seeing some of these strikes take place in areas where there are civilians. We're also seeing Israel notify populations to clear those areas. Our focus, and you're seeing a full court press here from the United States government and this administration, we want to see a diplomatic solution and we want to see it urgently. And that's why you're seeing engagement, whether it be at UNGA, or in calls that the secretary is doing with Minister Gallant, and not just at his level, but at other levels as well, we don't want to see any action taken on either side that would lead to further escalation. We want to see this deescalate and the best off ramp for that to prevent an all-out war is through diplomatic means. Q: Thank you. SABRINA SINGH: Tom? Q: Thanks, Sabrina. SABRINA SINGH: Yeah. Q: How confident are you that you can achieve a diplomatic offramp, especially given the past nearly 12 months where the US has been unable to broker any kind of sustained ceasefire in Gaza. So, for the situation with Hezbollah and Israel, how confident are you that we're not going to see a full scale conflict? SABRINA SINGH: Well, I'd, you know, push back on that respectfully. You know, we have seen periods where there has been a ceasefire put in place, and we have seen, you know, the ability to get we were talking, you know, months earlier about humanitarian aid being able to get in. That was something that this administration brokered to make sure that we could get humanitarian aid and supplies in. So, look, you're and not to reiterate just what I said to Fadi, but you're seeing a full court press from this administration at all levels for a diplomatic solution. Nothing is off the table. We don't assess that either side wants a larger scale, wider regional conflict, but we're doing everything that we can to prevent that from happening. And that's why you're seeing the engagements that the president is doing, from the secretary, and then on down in the building. Q: And while I appreciate that you don't want to speak for Israel, are you able to share anything in terms of what you've seen along the Lebanon-Israel border in terms of movement either side of it? Does it look like there's a ramp up towards some kind of a incursion? SABRINA SINGH: Right now it doesn't. You know, well, you know, without characterizing Israeli operations and letting them speak to them for themselves, you know, it doesn't look like anything is imminent. What we're seeing on that northern border is an increase in, you know, the tit for tat, going back and forth strikes between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah, and that is our concern. We you know, we are concerned about a miscalculation. We don't want to see a wider regional conflict. And that's why, in every conversation that we have, in the conversations that are happening in New York, we're we are continuing to press for a diplomatic resolve. Jesse? Q: Thank you so much. SABRINA SINGH: Yeah. Q: We all know that Secretary Austin is always in contact with his Israeli counterpart. Does the secretary have any objections to the way Israel is conducting its operations inside Lebanon? SABRINA SINGH: In terms of? Q: In terms of, as you may know, targeting civilians, maybe carpet bombing to the villages along the border. SABRINA SINGH: Well, I mean, something that we've raised is we don't want to see this escalate. And any time that there is a actions taken that could further escalate the war that's or, like, a broader conflict, that we want to avoid a regional war. The secretary, in all of his conversations, urges restraint and urges, you know, the Israelis to consider civilian casualties. And that's something that we've said from the very beginning. Look, I'm not going to get into more details on their private conversations. But of course, it's something that the secretary discusses with his counterpart and will continue to raise. Q: I mean, could you confirm if the secretary told Gallant that they need to avoid the infrastructure in Lebanon? SABRINA SINGH: I think what I can tell you is what I was what I reiterated earlier, is that of course we are always concerned where there are strikes in areas where there are is a is a concentrated civilian population. That's something that the secretary raises on his calls with Minister Gallant. It's something that, you know, at different levels in this building we also raise with our Israeli counterparts. But I'm just not going to be able to go beyond that. Liz? SABRINA SINGH: Thanks, Sabrina. On China's ICBM test launch, a US defense official said earlier today that China gave the US warning it was going to do this launch. Was that through military channels or diplomatic channels? I don't have more specifics to provide on the channels. But we were given some advance notice, but I'm just not going to get into more specifics of that. I will say that that is a good thing and that is moving in the right direction in terms of, you know, getting that advanced notification, and that further reduces the risks of any misperception and miscalculation. So, we certainly welcome that. Q: Were any US citizens, like, at harm by this test in any way, during it or following it? SABRINA SINGH: Not to my knowledge. Yeah, Oren? Q: Just a quick question. Israeli officials have said their strategy with Lebanon is escalate to deescalate. Does the Pentagon think that's a viable strategy for how to conduct operations with Lebanon? SABRINA SINGH: So, I'm not going to, you know, characterize the Israelis' operations. What I can tell you is only, you know, our view. And our perception is that any type of escalation that that could lead to a miscalculation we don't want to see We want to see steps that lead to de-escalation and, frankly, steps that lead to a diplomatic offramp, which we believe is the best solution here. That's what we're pushing for. That's what you're seeing happen at UNGA. That's also what you're seeing the secretary, you know continue to emphasize in his calls with Minister Gallant. And when he has the next call, you know, that will be something that, you know, I'm sure he would reiterate as well. Ok. Q: Just more clarity [Off mic]. SABRINA SINGH: Uh-huh. Sure. Q: In response to Tom's question, you said it doesn't look like anything is imminent. Was that in reference to a Israeli incursion into Lebanon? SABRINA SINGH: I believe the context was in terms of a ground incursion. So, I was saying, in that context, it doesn't look like something is imminent. But again, I'd refer you to the Israelis to speak to their own operations. Q: Thank you. I have a follow up question on Chinese ICBM launch. SABRINA SINGH: Of course. Q: So, what's your assessment of this unusual ICBM launch into the Pacific Ocean? And do you think this is a provocative action? And especially, do you think they want to send a message to the US? SABRINA SINGH: In terms of, you know, the whys, I'd refer you to the PRC to speak to that. You know, we monitored the ICBM test, to Liz's question. You know, again, we did receive some advance notification of this ICBM test, and we believe that that was a good thing. That was a step in the right direction. And it does lead, you know, to preventing any misperception or miscalculation. What we can do here from the department is continue to press for a more regularized notification arrangement when it comes to ballistic missile and space launches. And this is something that we've proposed with the PRC. And it represents, you know, a common sense confidence building measure. So, we want to see these types of notifications continue. Yes? Q: A question about presidential drawdown authority with regard to Ukraine Could you tell us what the department's plan is to keep using that after September 30th? We've seen reports that there is, like, a workaround that the department can notify Congress and then that is legal. Could you tell us what that workaround is? But also, could you tell us why that workaround is needed? You got some criticism today from Senator Wicker, saying that the department should have spent this money already or used this authority, I should say, since April. SABRINA SINGH: Sure. So, on your on your first question on how we're going to use the authority, I don't have anything to announce right now. But what I can tell you is that we're committed to making sure Ukraine gets the resources Congress approved by the end of the president's term. Again, I don't have more to announce right now, but we're committed to making sure that Ukraine gets what it what it has been allotted by Congress. And we are working with the interagency to do just that. So, you know, bear with us and we'll have more to share soon. Q: And SABRINA SINGH: In terms of your follow on question on the criticism, look, I'd have to point you back to the fact that for six months we didn't have a supplemental so we weren't able to refill our own shelves. So, therefore, when you're not able to backfill and refill our own stocks, we're not able to send out PDA's. So, you have to remember during that time we still had some existing authority, but we weren't able to send equipment, capability, systems out to Ukraine because we didn't have it on our stocks. During that time, during that six months lag, because we weren't able to do that, that also impacts packages going down the road. So, we're going to find we're going to make sure Ukraine gets what it needs, you know, in the future. But to push back on that criticism, I would say that, when you don't have what you need on your shelves, it makes it hard to send out that equipment, you know, in the timetable that Congress gave us when it when it was authorized. Q: So, is the plan now to move at a more at a faster rate than you've been moving so you can get it done before President Biden ends his term? SABRINA SINGH: I think we'll have more to share in the coming days. I just don't have more for you right now. Noah? Q: Just to ask a follow up on that SABRINA SINGH: Sure. Q: Because of the issues in getting the supplemental approved and certainly the issues in replenishing stocks because of that, all of that was known when the supplemental was passed in April. Is there a reason that the funding or the authority wasn't extended beyond the fiscal year? SABRINA SINGH: Well, I think also, Noah, you have to remember that we're talking about also working with the defense industrial base that has to backfill our own shelves. So, there you know, there's a lot of coordination and timing here. We did ask Congress for that authority to extend, and, you know, that did not happen so now we are in a different place. So, I can't, you know, go back and answer questions of, like, what if this happened and when. All I can tell you is that we're committed to making sure Ukraine has what it needs, and we're going to do it. And that's a commitment that this president has made. And when we have more to share, we will. Jared? Q: Sabrina, how comfortable is the department with the with the department's understanding of what the Israeli military's intentions and near, midterm plans are in Lebanon operationally? Has have the Israelis briefed you on what they intend to do? SABRINA SINGH: So, I'm not going to go into more details of the conversations between the secretary and Minister Gallant, but it's something that the that, you know, has and discussed and it's something that the Secretary continues to, you know, in all of his conversations, I think you've seen the readouts, it's something that he asked about and that they discussed, but I'm just not going to go beyond the readout. Yeah, in the back. Q: It's been reported that 60 additional US troops are being deployed to Cyprus to help with potential mass evacuations of US citizens from Lebanon. Can you confirm that? SABRINA SINGH: I cannot confirm the number, but what I can tell you is that we are sending a small number of additional US military personnel forward to augment forces that are already in the region. I'm just not going to be able to provide you more specifics. I know I've seen the reporting. I know it's frustrating, but I'm just not going to be able to confirm more. Q: And just to follow up on a story from last week, is it the Pentagon's view that it is an acceptable it's acceptable under the laws of war to booby trap civilian objects and place them amongst civilian populations? Is that is that acceptable for any nation to do? SABRINA SINGH: That's something that well, one without commenting on an operation that the US military had no involvement in, it's hard for me to get into the hypotheticals. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not going to try and go down and explain, you know, legalese from here, so. I just can't comment further on that operation for us. Yeah. Q: [inaudible] US, the affecting supply chains or intercepting supply chains in order to place explosive items within normal consumer objects, right? SABRINA SINGH: Yeah, I'm not going to comment on a hypothetical or an operation that we had no part of. Yeah? Q: Thank you, Sabrina. Secretary Austin on Sunday told his Israeli counterpart to give time for diplomacy to work. And on Monday, we saw that Israel started to bomb Lebanon. And today, the Israel Defense Force has announced that they call up and deployment of two reserve brigades to the border with Lebanon. So where is the time that that Secretary Austin asked Israel for diplomacy? And do you still believe that Israel listening to you? Thank you. SABRINA SINGH: We do believe that we have that Israel is listening. I mean, just the fact that they're listening by the amount of calls that the secretary has had with Minister Galant. I think that shows their willingness to hear our views, our concerns and our you know, to hear from the secretary. So I think that's important to note. In terms of, you know, I think your question was getting to are we writing off, you know, diplomatic measures, and we're not. Diplomacy is still the best path forward. There's always a way for diplomacy. There's always a way for both sides to, you know, to come to the table and to have this resolved in diplomatic measures. From the very beginning, I mean since October 7th and then, you know, October 8th when we've moved additional assets to the region, the whole focus of this administration has been to not only deescalate, but you know to send a message of deterrence. I think we have been successful in that. You know, this we know tensions are high, but we also don't we also see that there is a path forward for diplomacy. And that's why you're seeing this administration push so hard to get this done. And you're going to continue to. We're not going to give up on that. So we're going to continue to engage. Q: There is some media reports out saying that the US is now working with the France about a ceasefire, maybe a deal or a plan for Lebanon. Does anyone from the DOD have evolved or involved in this negotiation that that's happening right now in the United Nations during the UN Summit in New York. SABRINA SINGH: I don't have anything on those reports. I mean, I've been pretty public in telling you that we're pushing for, you know, diplomatic measures to resolve what's happening on that northern border. But I just don't have more to add on that report. I'm sorry I haven't seen it. Louis? Q: Hi, Sabrina. Is the shipment of 2,000 pound bombs for Israel, is that still on hold? SABRINA SINGH: Still paused. Q: So, the rationale behind that from what I understand was when Israel was preparing to go into Rafah, you know, to protect civilian lives, limited operations. Are there any concerns given the current ongoing air operations that Israel has been conducting striking in civilian neighborhoods? And you know, I know that we're seeing secondary effects, so it appears that there are they are striking the targets they're hitting, but are there concerns that the use of these bombs again presumably American bombs could be putting civilians at risk? SABRINA SINGH: So, you first asked about the 2,000 pound bomb shipment, so that is still paused. So I don't you know, I don't know what they're using in their operations, so I'd refer you to them to speak to that. There is always a concern about civilian casualties and that is something that the secretary has addressed, you know, really from the beginning whether it be in Gaza or elsewhere. That's a conversation that we continue to have. I think, you know, in that same vein we're also concerned about escalation. And that's why we don't want to see any action taken by, you know, either side that could lead to further escalation. And that's what the secretary continues to emphasize along with always talking about the need to protect civilians. And you are seeing, I mean, you know, I'm citing public sourcing here, but you know, the Israelis, notifying communities and towns on that northern border to clear that area because they will be conducting operations. You know, we have to protect civilians in the battle space. That's something the secretary has said. I know you've heard him say that before as well. Our focus, of course, is that. But the best way to protect civilians is, of course, through diplomatic means and for this to be resolved through diplomacy. And that's why we continue to push for that. Q: Is the secretary in the future planning to meet or travel to Israel in the future? SABRINA SINGH: Yeah, you know, I'm not I don't have any announcements to make in terms of travel, but when we do, I'm you'll be the first to know. Yes, in the back. Q: Thanks, Sabrina. You emphasized that the? SABRINA SINGH: I just I'm sorry. I just committed to giving Louis an exclusive on the secretary's travel. So yeah, yeah, sorry. And you know, we'll discuss we'll discuss later sorry, go ahead. Q: Thanks. You emphasized that the administration's position is that you don't want to see further escalation and you don't want to see an all-out war. Where do you draw the line, you know, especially with regards to a possible ground operation that may be imminent? SABRINA SINGH: Well, like I said, I mean, I don't know that it is imminent. And what we continue to push for and I'm not trying to use a tired talking point here. It's actually just, you know, the fact is that we do continue to push for a diplomatic resolution here. From the secretary to, you know, the interagency, that's something that we continue to engage on. And you know, in terms of the conflict itself, we still believe like right now, the conflict has been contained to Gaza. There's no question that there are higher tensions in the region. There's no question that there's been an increase in border clashes on that northern border. But we believe that in order to avert an all-out regional war, it's through diplomatic means. And so, we're going to continue to push for that. And you're seeing that happen in New York and you're seeing that happen here as well. Last one. Q: Just to follow though, how has the conflict been contained to Gaza? You have civilians being killed in Lebanon. SABRINA SINGH: Sure. But what I would tell you is that it's not how we would characterize, you know, an all-out full scale regional war. What you're seeing is a trade of fires back and forth on that northern border. I'd point you to October 8th when Hezbollah started launching those. We're not seeing this widen out to a regional conflict. And that's what we are concerned about. And that's why, you know, the secretary from the beginning, whether it be the Ford, the IHC, you know, the 26 MEU that was in the region. And now you have the Lincoln there. You know, we continue to position assets in the region to send a message of deterrence because we don't want it to scale out. Yes, we acknowledge that, you know, there have been, you know, innocent people that have been killed and we don't want to see that happen. And that's why we continue to press for diplomatic means. Q: Can you take one more? SABRINA SINGH: Sure, one more and then I've got one in the back and then we'll Q: I know this is a planning organization, that's not the answer I'm looking for. SABRINA SINGH: That's the answer you're getting. Q: Yeah. In in regards to Lebanon, did the Pentagon put together any NIO plans in case there's the need for it? SABRINA SINGH: You're so going to hate my answer, but we are a planning organization. We plan for a wide range of contingencies. I will point you back though to, you know, early on last year or sorry, late last year, but early on after October 7th when I think I was up here, General Ryder was up here getting a lot of questions about NIO. I will say we are always a planning organization prepared for any contingency and we never had to use those plans. We will always have plans on the shelves that we can dust off at any time. And that is the amazing thing of our military is we are able to search capabilities to the region. And the secretary did just that. And we have, you know, incredible firepower in the region right now. So again, I'm not going to get ahead of anything. That's also a State Department decision to make. But Fadi, to answer your own question, we are planning organization. All right, Mike, and then I'll wrap up. Q: Yeah, you the Pentagon always talk or often talks about deterrence and giving Israel enough to defend themselves. Does this administration, would they like Israel to actually win their battle, win their war against Hamas, win their war against Hezbollah? Is it do you have a position on that one way or the other? SABRINA SINGH: Well, I think we've said time and again that we support Israel's right to self-defense. You know, what a what a win looks like is really for Israel to define, but we are supporting them and their right to self-defense. And of course, you know, we understand and, you know, know the threats that they're facing from these terrorist organizations and that's why we are supporting them in their fight against, you know, what, you know the threats that they face on their borders. But beyond that I just don't have more to add. OK, thanks, everyone. https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3917835/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Joint Statement Following the Ministerial Meeting on Advancing Peace in Sudan US Department of State Media Note Office of the Spokesperson September 25, 2024 The text of the following statement was released by the United States of America, Germany, France, and the European Union following the Ministerial Meeting on Advancing Peace in Sudan on the margins of the UN General Assembly, on September 25, 2024. Begin Text: A Ministerial Meeting on Sudan was convened by Germany, France, the United States and the European Union in New York during the United Nations General Assembly High Level Week in support of the Sudanese people and their aspirations for a peaceful, prosperous and democratic future. Participants expressed deep concern about the catastrophic and still rapidly deteriorating situation in Sudan, reiterated the commitments made in the Declaration of Principles adopted in Paris on 15 April 2024, one year into the conflict, and informed about their initiatives for advancing peace in Sudan. The ongoing brutal hostilities between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and other armed groups continue to cause devastating suffering across the country. Participants were also gravely alarmed by the escalating hostilities in El Fasher which are putting civilians at extreme risk, and demanded an immediate halt to the siege. It was deemed essential that the warring parties adhere to their commitments made in Jeddah, Geneva, and subsequent negotiations, abide by the provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 2736 andfully comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Participants called on the warring parties to immediately re-engage in negotiations, cease hostilities and finally end the war. Participants urged them to ensure the protection of civilians, including humanitarian personnel and of civilian and critical infrastructure. They also called on them to commit, as a first step, to localized humanitarian pauses and ensure immediate humanitarian access to El Fasher, Sennar and Khartoum so that civilians are protected and humanitarian operations can reach those in most dire need of lifesaving assistance. Moreover, participants called upon all foreign actors, in line with relevant Security Council resolutions and the commitments made in Paris, to refrain from providing military support to the warring parties and to focus their efforts towards building the conditions for a negotiated resolution of the conflict. Participants expressed their readiness to support establishing a cessation of hostilities monitoring mechanism, as well as to taking appropriate measures to ensure the protection of civilians. Both parties to the conflict were called to immediately engage in a constructive discussion regarding the Compliance Mechanism proposed by the ALPS Group to protect civilians and to facilitate access of humanitarian assistance to all parts of Sudan. Participants believed that the international community should be prepared to explore options to support the implementation and durability of any future local or nationwide cessation of hostilities. Participants expressed their support for an inclusive and comprehensive political process with civilian actors at its core, including women and youth, to meet the long-delayed aspirations of the Sudanese people for a peaceful, prosperous and democratic Sudan. The Ministerial Meeting was attended by representatives of the United Nations, Germany, France, the United States, the European Union, the African Union, IGAD, the League of Arab States, the United Kingdom, Ethiopia, Uganda, Egypt, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Norway, Switzerland and Turkiye. End Text NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Joint Statement Following the Ministerial Meeting of the United States and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) US Department of State Media Note Office of the Spokesperson September 25, 2024 The text of the following statement was released by the Governments of the United States and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states. Begin Text : The Ministerial Meeting between the Gulf Cooperation Council and the United States was convened on September 25, 2024, in New York, co-chaired by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, Qatar's Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, current chairman of the GCC Ministerial Council, with foreign ministers from GCC member states and Secretary General Jasem Albudaiwi. The Ministers underscored their shared commitment to the strategic partnership between the GCC and the United States and to building upon the achievements of previous ministerial meetings, including the most recent in Riyadh on April 29, 2024, and to strengthen consultation, coordination, and cooperation in all fields. Israeli-Palestinian Issues The Ministers conveyed their support for the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel along the 1967 borders, with mutually agreed land swaps, in accordance with internationally recognized parameters and the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. The Ministers stressed the need for all civilians displaced after October 7 to return to their homes and reaffirmed their belief that a durable peace will be the foundation for a more integrated, stable, and prosperous region. They stressed the need to intensify efforts to strengthen capacity, effectiveness, and transparency within the Palestinian Authority in accordance with agreed-upon mechanisms. The Ministers affirmed there must be unified Palestinian-led governance in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority. They recommitted themselves to supporting Palestinian aspirations of self-determination and ensuring that Palestinians are at the center of post-conflict governance and security in Gaza. The Ministers further expressed support for improving Palestinians' quality of life, including through humanitarian assistance and efforts to accelerate Palestinian economic growth. The Ministers expressed deep concern over rising levels of settler and other extremist violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and stressed the need for perpetrators to be held accountable. They underscored the need to refrain from unilateral actions, including settlement expansions, which hinder the prospect of real peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians. The Ministers noted the importance of protecting all holy sites and places of worship, as well as preserving the historic status quo of Jerusalem, recognizing the special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in this regard. Gaza The Ministers committed to work together towards an immediate and sustainable ceasefire and release of hostages and detainees, consistent with the parameters laid out by President Biden on May 31, 2024, and United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2735. The Ministers called on parties to refrain from actions that would undermine efforts to achieve a diplomatic path forward. They commended the mediation efforts in this regard by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States, as indicated by the August 8 joint statement on the urgency for a ceasefire and the release of hostages and detainees, and stressed the need for all parties to abide by international law, including, as applicable, international humanitarian law and obligations related to the protection of civilians. They noted the generous support given by the GCC states and the United States to deliver aid to Gaza, emphasizing the essential role the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has played in the distribution of life-saving assistance. The Ministers called for a surge of rapid, unhindered, and at-scale delivery of humanitarian assistance, including food, water, medical care, fuel, and shelter, and stressed the crucial need to restore basic services and ensure protection for humanitarian workers. They underscored the need for all stakeholders to urgently facilitate humanitarian distribution networks across Gaza to deliver aid to alleviate the suffering of Palestinians and reiterated that all parties must ensure the safety and security of aid workers performing life-saving work and the effectiveness of humanitarian operations. The Ministers reiterated the importance of Egypt and Israel reaching a deal for the re-opening of the Rafah Border Crossing to facilitate humanitarian aid into Gaza, and committed to continue working together on the governance, security, and early recovery aspects of Gaza. Iran The Ministers expressed their deep concern over recent escalation in the region and its negative impact on regional security and stability. They also stressed the importance of compliance with international law, including the United Nations Charter, and respect for the sovereignty, political independence, and territorial integrity of states. The Ministers expressed their serious concern about the proliferation of advanced ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to threaten regional security and undermine international peace and security. The GCC and the United States reiterated their commitment to work together to address Iran's regional activities, including threats to sovereignty and territorial integrity and providing support to non-state actors who seek to destabilize the region. They also expressed support for diplomatic efforts aimed to promote de-escalation. The Ministers reaffirmed their commitment to ensuring freedom of navigation and maritime security in the region's waterways and their determination to deter illegal actions by Houthis that threaten the lives and safety of seafarers, shipping lanes, international trade, and oil installations in the GCC states. The Ministers underscored their support for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and renewed their call for Iran to fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and to cease both nuclear expansions that lack credible civilian justification and undermining the IAEA's efforts to verify that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively peaceful. The Ministers reaffirmed their position that regional tensions should be resolved through peaceful means. They further reiterated their support for the United Arab Emirates' call to reach a peaceful solution to the dispute over the three islands, Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, and Abu Musa, through bilateral negotiations or the International Court of Justice, in accordance with the rules of international law including the UN Charter. Yemen The Ministers expressed deep concern for the humanitarian condition of the Yemeni civilian population and stressed the need for the Houthis to allow safe, rapid, and unimpeded access of humanitarian aid to all those in need. The Ministers noted that Houthi attacks - inside and outside Yemen - harm the Yemeni people above all and called for the immediate release of all UN, NGO, and diplomatic staff illegitimately detained by the Houthis. The Ministers demanded the full implementation of UNSCR 2722, stressed the importance of maintaining maritime security, and demanded the Houthis halt attacks against vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. They underscored the importance of collective action to ensure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and to respond to activities that threaten regional and global security and stability. The Ministers reaffirmed their strong support and continued engagement for a meaningfully inclusive peace process within the framework of the GCC Initiative, Yemen's National Dialogue outcomes, and UNSCR 2216 to resolve the longstanding conflict in Yemen. The Ministers commended Saudi Arabia and Oman's sustained efforts to encourage inclusive Yemeni-Yemeni dialogue and provide economic and humanitarian assistance to Yemen. Kuwait and Iraq The Ministers recalled what was decided in their September 18, 2023 meeting and stressed the importance of Iraq's commitment to Kuwait's sovereignty and territorial integrity and respect for international conventions and UN resolutions, especially UNSCR 833 regarding the demarcation of the Kuwait-Iraq boundary. They called for the complete demarcation of the Kuwait-Iraq maritime boundary beyond boundary point 162 and called on the Government of Iraq to ensure that the 2012 Kuwait-Iraq Agreement to regulate maritime navigation in Khor Abdullah remains in force. The Ministers expressed support for UNSCR 2732 (2024), tasking the UN Secretary General with facilitating progress towards the resolution of all outstanding issues between Iraq and Kuwait, including repatriation of all Kuwaiti and third country nationals or their remains, and return of Kuwaiti property and the National Archives. The Ministers noted the important ongoing and future role of the UN in implementing UNSCR 1284 and ensuring the continued progress in resolving these issues, and called on Iraq to exert maximum efforts to reach a resolution of all the issues involved. GCC-U.S. Strategic Partnership The Ministers reaffirmed their shared determination to contribute to regional security, stability, and prosperity under the framework of the GCC-U.S. Strategic Partnership. The Ministers underscored their mutual resolve to build closer relations in all fields, including defense and security cooperation, and develop collective approaches to regional issues. The Ministers commended efforts advanced by the May 22 GCC-U.S. Integrated Air and Missile Defense and Maritime Security Working Groups in Riyadh. They stressed the substantive role of the two working groups in promoting strategic cooperation between both sides. The Ministers also praised the GCC Early Warning Study as part of the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Working Group held in September in Alabama. They also applauded the successful fifth GCC-U.S. Trade and Investment Dialogue meeting that was held in June in Washington, and acknowledged the importance of the joint meeting on a small modular reactors study tour held in September. The Ministers expressed interest in pursuing future GCC-U.S. working group meetings. The Ministers emphasized the importance of the principles of inclusion, tolerance, and peaceful coexistence for relations between nations, as referenced in the May 16, 2024 Bahrain Declaration, and stressed the importance of providing educational and healthcare services to those affected by conflicts in the region. The Ministers reaffirmed their condemnation of violence and hate, including religious hate, such as Islamophobia and antisemitism, calling on all States to respect and ensure the human rights of all individuals within their territory and subject to their jurisdiction as provided for by relevant international law. The Ministers noted the recognition by the Security Council in Resolution 2686 that hate speech, racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, related forms of intolerance, gender discrimination and acts of extremism can contribute to driving the outbreak, escalation, and recurrence of conflict. End Text. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Secretary Antony J. Blinken, Head of Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council Edgard Leblanc Fils, Haitian Interim Prime Minister Garry Conille, and Prime Cabinet Secretary and Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Dr. Musalia Mudavadi at a Multilateral Meeting on Building on Progress to Restore Security in Haiti US Department of State Remarks Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State Palace Hotel New York City, New York September 25, 2024 ASSISTANT SECRETARY NICHOLS: Mr. President, ministers, ambassadors, dear colleagues, welcome to our meeting on Building on Progress to Restore Security in Haiti. I would now offer the floor to Secretary of State Antony Blinken for his opening remarks. SECRETARY BLINKEN: Brian, thank you very much. And good afternoon, colleagues. Very good to be with you today. And thank you for joining us. Thank you also for standing with Haiti, for standing with the Haitian people. President Leblanc, Prime Minister Conille, thank you very much for your own vision, your leadership, and your resolve on behalf of the Haitian people. To our Kenyan friends in particular, thank you not only for working alongside us, but for working shoulder-to-shoulder with the Haitian people by taking charge of the Multinational Security Support mission. We're glad that President Ruto could visit Port-au-Prince on his way to New York and see this critical partnership firsthand. And we especially appreciate his announcement that 600 more Kenyan police will deploy to Haiti in the coming weeks. When we gathered here last year, the situation in Haiti could not have been more urgent. But no matter how challenging this crisis, we knew that we could not afford to lose our hope or determination. We could not stand by and watch more kidnappings and killing, more sexual violence, more hunger, more suffering. So we came together to help our Haitian partners, friends, and neighbors in their hour of need. Thanks to the Haitian-led political transition the Caribbean Community and the United States helped facilitate in March, Haiti has a prime minister, a Transitional Presidential Council, and a cabinet. Last week, the government named seven of nine members of the Provisional Electoral Council - a critical step toward free and fair elections. The Multinational Security Support mission - authorized by the Security Council - is providing crucial support to the Haitian National Police as it establishes an essential foundation of security. Over 380 Kenyan personnel are on the ground in Haiti. In the past several weeks, the first CARICOM contingents arrived - from Jamaica and Belize. We anticipate more personnel from Jamaica - as well as the Bahamas - deploying soon. We've seen dramatic increases in the number of vehicles and equipment for both the MSS and the police. I want to extend a special thanks to Jamaica for its leadership as the deputy commander of the mission. A number of other partners have also made important contributions - Canada in particular, as well as France, Spain, Turkiye, and Italy. Already, the HNP and MSS are conducting increasingly sophisticated joint operations and patrols. These operations have strict measures in place to uphold human rights, and ensure accountability for any transgressions. Greater security has enabled Haitians to slowly return to more normal daily routines. The airport has reopened for commercial flights. Police have retaken the main hospital, where Prime Minister Conille trained as a young doctor. Vendors back on the streets. Along Boulevard Toussaint Louverture, you can see people dancing to the Haitian kompa on the radio. Earlier this month, I traveled to Port-au-Prince, as Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield did earlier this summer. Immense challenges remain - ongoing violence and displacement, grinding poverty, political infighting. But I also witnessed the many positive forces that are in motion. Today, we have a chance - a chance to build on this foundation of security, to build on this progress, to build on a renewed sense of hope. The United States is committed to doing our part - both to address immediate needs, and to invest in Haiti's long-term success. We remain the largest contributor of humanitarian aid, including $45 million in additional support that I announced while I was in Haiti. We've already delivered well over $300 million to support the Multinational Security Support mission - armored vehicles, radios, night-vision goggles, drones. Today, I can announce that we're committing an additional $160 million to support the Haitian National Police, invest in the community violence prevention, and lay the groundwork for Haiti's recovery and stability. I'm also announcing additional sanctions to promote accountability for those who seek to undermine Haiti's institutions and to terrorize its people. I'm here as well to underscore Haiti's call for more support for the MSS - to fund more personnel, more armored vehicles, more drones, more radios, more generators. Each of us must step up, and the time to do that is now. We must also renew the mission's mandate, which expires in a few short days. And we need to consider how to sustain this mission over the long term - to provide for the predictable funding and deployment of personnel - in a way that has the continued support and trust of the Haitian people. When I met with the Kenyan commander, Otunga, the head of the multinational mission, he told me, and I quote, "We were deployed here to support our brothers in Haiti. We cannot wait." Neither should we. Haiti's security, its democracy, its future depend on the actions we take together, including the actions we take today. Thank you very much. (Applause.) ASSISTANT SECRETARY NICHOLS: And now from Haiti, the President of the Transitional Presidential Council Dr. Edgard Leblanc Fils. Monsieur le President. PRESIDENT LEBLANC FILS: (In French.) (Via interpreter) Mr. Secretary and minister of foreign affairs of Kenya, distinguished representatives of the countries that are friends of Haiti, dear guests, I am particularly happy to participate with you in this meeting this afternoon. I thank you for the particular special attention that you bring to the situation in Haiti. Haiti is undergoing a multi-dimensional crisis that is political, social, and particularly in matters of security. For the past three years, Haiti has been facing attacks from bandits, armed gangs who occupy 80 percent of the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. And a good part of the Department of the West efforts have been made, and progress made since April. After the consensus found with the cooperation of the Caribbean Community on March 11th, we were able to create a Transitional Presidential Council. We chose a prime minister; we have a national government in place. And despite our differences, we've been able to work to put in place recently a committee - a Provisional Electoral Council. We need only two more to complete that council, and measures have already been taken to create the committee that will ensure the national conference that will help us to reform the constitution that will lead to democratic elections that should take place - that shall take place at the end of 2025, so that at the beginning of the year 2026 we are able to pass power to a democratically-elected government. This will not be able to be done unless we arrive to deal with the issues of security. Thanks to the international community -and particularly with the support of Kenya, who leads the MMS - efforts have been made in that direction. And indeed, we can hope that we will be able to organize elections in the - to the extent that this mission can be reinforced with funds estimated for its deployment. Right now, there are about 400 Kenyans and a Jamaican delegation, another coming from Belize to reinforce them. However, we need more equipment, and fortunately, thanks to the promises of President Ruto of Kenya, who visited Haiti this weekend, to increase the number of Kenyans from - to 300 next year and adding 300 more at the end of November. However, we need much more in terms of personnel and also equipment to be able to solve the security problems and allow elections to take place. We thank the U.S. Government, who to date has greatly contributed to the fund for support of security, but we expect contributions from our friends to allow us to solve problems of security and bring the country back to normal functioning and democracy through elections, as I said earlier, that will take place at the end of next year. Thank you so much to you all. And after the discussion this afternoon, I hope that we will be able to bring much more details to allow us - to allow you to better appreciate our situation. Thank you. (Applause.) ASSISTANT SECRETARY NICHOLS: The honorable Prime Minister of Haiti, Dr. Garry Conille. PRIME MINISTER CONILLE: Thank you so much, Excellency, Mr. Secretary of State, Mr. President, dear friends and colleagues. Let me reaffirm the words of the president. I think we're making very, very good progress. And I want to be - I want to express my gratitude first and foremost to our brothers and sisters from Kenya and Jamaica, who have deployed in a very impressive way. They have not waited to be at full capacity. They felt the need and they immediately began to work with the police force to see how they can find solutions that can relieve the pain and suffering of the Haitian people. We meet every Saturday evening with the command. We've been patrolled - in patrols with them. We've seen them train together. The level of commitment and the level of engagement has been extremely impressive. And you can feel, if even slow, improvements in the streets of Port-au-Prince, but most important you're starting to see hope again, and I think that's extremely, extremely encouraging. For the past four weeks we have actually been engaging quite seriously and we've learned quite a bit in terms of the level of resistance to expect, as well as what it would take to actually eventually restore the level of security that would allow for free and fair elections. And while there is no doubt - no doubt - that the level of commitment of the Haitian police right now, supported by our brothers and sisters from (inaudible), will prove to provide a level of stability, we're nowhere near winning this. And the simple reality is we don't without your help. There is a sense of urgency because the Haitian people are watching this with cautious optimism. They're really hoping to see clear results. But more than 600,000 of them are living in camps. Half the population is food-insecure. Almost 20, 25 percent of our cadres have left the country. This is a very serious situation that requires urgent support. And it's very, very important that we all come together to make sure the police and the multinational force have the resources that is required for us to intervene in the most effective and urgent way possible. We worry that without the urgent implication of everyone to support this effort, we will lose the little success that we've been able to obtain at a very large price. I visit the police every time they're wounded. We're having about two police officers wounded every week, and about one death on average per week linked to that engagement, which is quite a bit. The police force right now is underequipped to be able to handle this, and will need further support and help and accompaniment if we're to be successful. We're facing a major danger right now because the port, which is where - the essential source of funding for the country, remains is under serious attack. And as you can understand, when we move our assets to operations, it's sometimes very difficult to redeploy to new areas that are exposed and exploited by the gangs. And because of the limitations we have, the time and the investment it takes to be able to do this creates new pockets of vulnerability that when - we are completely unable to support in an effective way. Now, Haiti has been extremely lucky so far because the rest of the country, the eight departments, have remained relatively stable. But what we've been seeing over the past two or three weeks is that as we engage in these controlled territories, the gangs flee and tend to attack these new spots. Because the north and the southern roads are blocked, it's almost impossible for the police to intervene in time. They have to use innovative ideas and instruments and systems to be able to make sure they're able to provide the support and protection to populations that are outside the metropolitan area. I want to give you very practical examples. We have now about 166 SWAT, which is our most sophisticated, elite group of police that intervene in this circumstance. They're largely overstretched. We're deploying and redeploying them. We do not have the capacity to ensure consolidation even when we're able to be successful in operations. So this will require the added support of the rest of the mission. And the promise of about 1,500 by November is a definite must for us to continue to not just address the gang situation but to certainly make sure that the Haitian people feel that there is consistent progress and there is reason for them to hope and wait. What will inevitably happen if we don't act now is that politics will get into this, new pressures will form on the transitional government, and the little stability we have will quickly become threatened with the added problem of the instability in governance that I think would make it extremely difficult for us to move on the electoral agenda very quickly. The good news is that we now have an electoral council, but we've already begun - more than that, we've already begun to have serious reflections on how we get the political agenda done. We think it's completely feasible, doable. We have a good understanding of a calendar that we're going to put it place. The government has already invested about 45 million, and by October we'll have $70 million of Haiti money invested in the electoral process, which is about half of what we think we'll need to be able to have a referendum on the constitution by February and then elections by November. And we're quite confident, with the assistance of our partners, that we can do this even though we know that we will not have the highest level of security. But we think we can work around that. We've invested a lot of time and thinking through the different scenarios and how we can move forward on it. But I'm here to say on behalf of the Haitian people it does not happen - it does not happen - if we do not keep our commitment, first to fully supporting the MSS so that it can be fully deployed, and eventually we have a real serious discussion about the level and the extent of support that will be required for us to cover the whole 27,000 square kilometers in a period that's usually highly tense during the electoral process. Again, thank you so much for being here today, and we look forward to your discussions and feedback. (Applause.) ASSISTANT SECRETARY NICHOLS: Representing the Government of Kenya, the Prime Cabinet Secretary and Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Dr. Musalia Mudavadi. CABINET SECRETARY MUDAVADI: Thank you, Secretary Antony Blinken, for convening this timely discussion on the progress to restore security in Haiti, a country that is dear to my president, William Ruto, and Kenyans in general. Ladies and gentlemen, the MSS mission is now a reality. The mission personnel now stands at 410 specially trained police officers, of whom 383 are from Kenya, 25 from Jamaica, and two from Belize. We are grateful to the United States, Canada, and other countries whose partnership and support have enabled us to where we are today. The past weekend, as you've heard, President Ruto made a visit to the Port-au-Prince to have a firsthand experience on the situation on the ground. He seized the opportunity to engage with the Haitian Presidential Council and interacted with the MSS mission personnel. The president left Haiti with renewed hope and optimism for two reasons. Firstly, the leadership and people of Haiti are resolute and united to break from the past and are ready to chart a new future for their country. And second, the deployment of the mission has started to pay off. Within its first hundred days of deployment, the mission, working in concert with the Haitian National Police, has made demonstrable progress securing critical infrastructure, including the international airport and its surrounding, the national hospital, and the seaport of Port-au-Prince. These developments are resulting in increased economic activities as well as a movement of people and essential goods and supplies. The joint patrols with the Haitian National Police in locations - the main city of Port as well as downtown locations have enhanced the protection of civilians. The mission is also assisting in clearing roadblocks and opening roads that are facilitating easier flow of humanitarian assistance. I am proud that the mission personnel continue to exhibit the highest standards of transparency and conduct. Not a single case of indiscipline has been reported thus far. The mission operations are guided by the key documents, including the Concept of Operations and Status Protection Agreement, and in compliance with the UN Human Rights Due Diligence policy. Your Excellencies, the 410 gallant officers have clearly demonstrated that this is a mission possible. But there is also so much that 410 out of - and I emphasize - 2,500 police officers can accomplish. We have an opportunity to increase and then sustain the momentum created for the expeditious achievement of the desired end state. So we must do the following. First, we need to surge in the number of police personnel in the theater. We encourage all the countries that have pledged personnel to move with speed and join Kenya, Jamaica, and Belize, who have deployed. In Kenya, an additional 600 officers are at the tail end of their pre-deployment training. We will be ready to deploy 300 of them within a month. Second, we need a continuation of a robust mandate that responds to the gravity of the situation. As the life of the initial mandate of the mission comes to an end, we hope the Security Council will extend it for another period of one year to allow for its full deployment for the achievement of the mandate. The council should also consider innovative ways for the UN to provide the necessary resources to sustain the gains made by the mission. Third, we need the requisite resource complement. The value of the mission can only be optimized by the availability of the necessary equipment, including air and maritime capabilities, which are currently lacking. We thank the donors who have made contributions to the UN trust fund, which has become the main funding stream for the mission. Unfortunately, the donations thus received far cannot sustainably support even the 410 officers, not to mention the yet-to-be-deployed personnel. It is our moral obligation as member-states to contribute funds, equipment, and logistics for the MSS mission success. Let us do this in solidarity with Haiti and its people. Before concluding, I must express our deep gratitude to the Haitian political leadership for their exemplary support, without which the MSS mission would not have achieved much. I must also emphasize that while the MSS mission is a critical and innovative intervention, it is only part of the solution. Haiti's stability will only be accomplished through a multi-pronged approach that addresses the root causes of its challenges. The mission will therefore coordinate and work closely with BINUH, and the UN country team, and the Haitian Government, as they align efforts to achieve an improved security and political situation in the country. I reiterate our gratitude to all stakeholders in this worthy cause from the personnel, contributing countries, to every donor, whether bilateral or through the UN trust fund. Thanks also to the secretary-general for establishing and operationalizing the MSS mission trust fund, which has facilitated support for the various elements. Finally, I affirm Kenya's unwavering solidarity with our Haitian brothers and sisters and will support them as they work to restore security for social and economic prosperity. Thank you. (Applause.) NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 'Hell is breaking loose in Lebanon,' Guterres warns Security Council 25 September 2024 - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the Security Council on Wednesday "to work in lock-step" to end the escalating violence between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants across the Blue Line in southern Lebanon. "Hell is breaking loose in Lebanon" the UN chief warned, noting that the exchanges of fire along the UN-patrolled line of separation "have expanded in scope, depth and intensity." Monday saw Lebanon's bloodiest day in a generation, as Israel continues to bombard largely Hezbollah-controlled territory, doubling down on the devastating electronic device attacks which killed hundreds last week. With an appeal for both sides to respect Lebanese sovereignty, Mr. Guterres said that the State "must have full control of its weapons" throughout the country. "We support all efforts to strengthen the Lebanese Armed Forces", he added. The UN chief said the daily violations across the Blue Line were in violation of key Council resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1701 (2006). Civilians must be allowed to return home With nearly 200,000 Lebanese now internally displaced, along with more than 60,000 northern Israelis, many lives have been lost since Hezbollah first began firing rockets over the line of separation in support of Hamas in Gaza, he added. The communities on both sides "must be able to return to their homes and live in safety and security, without fear", the Secretary-General said. He applauded all diplomatic efforts taken so far towards escalation and pledged the UN's continuing support for a ceasefire and increase in humanitarian relief for stricken Lebanese civilians. "Despite the dangerous conditions, our peacekeepers remain in position", he said, referring to the UN Interim Force, UNIFIL, although most civilian personnel have temporarily relocated. "I implore the Council to work in lock-step to help put out this fire", the UN chief told ambassadors. "Civilians must be protected. Civilian infrastructure most not be targeted...To all sides, let us say in one clear voice: stop the killing and destruction. Tone down the rhetoric and threats. Step back from the brink." He said an all-out war must be avoided at all costs. "It would surely be an all-out catastrophe." Israel attempting to make Lebanon 'a new Gaza': Algerian Foreign Minister Once again, Lebanon is facing "flagrant Israeli aggression, brutal aggression and hateful aggression," said Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf. He told the Council that what is happening there is "part and parcel of the policy of escalation" that Israel uses as a deliberate strategy elsewhere in the Middle East. He said Lebanon is facing an attack on its sovereignty, and its security and stability are being undermined. "All the elements of the crime have come together now in accordance with Israeli occupation. As they have done in Gaza, they are doing the same in Lebanon," he said. "This is a crime against peace," he continued. "It's a crime of aggression, a crime against humanity, a crime of war, a genocide. In other words, it is an attempt to change Lebanon and to make it into a new Gaza." Nobody wants a repeat of 2006 war: US United States Ambassador Robert Wood said his country has engaged extensively with all parties in the region since the Council last met to discussion the situation along the Blue Line frontier. He recalled that President Biden emphasized to the General Assembly that a diplomatic solution consistent with resolution 1701 remains the only path to durably reverse the cycle of escalation and enable displaced people on both sides to return to their homes. Mr. Wood said the US has "repeatedly made clear" that the Council cannot ignore the origins of this particular conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. He noted that hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians, and more than 65,000 Israeli civilians, have been displaced as a result of Hezbollah's decision on 8 October to break the peace that had largely endured along the Blue Line since the adoption of resolution 1701. Furthermore, Hezbollah's buildup of weapons, many of which are supplied by Iran, and its presence along the Blue Line in defiance of resolutions 1559 and 1701, have long been a source of instability, he added. "Nobody wants to see a repeat of the full-blown war that occurred in 2006, but the path to enduring stability goes beyond ending cross-Blue Line strikes. It must end with a comprehensive understanding relating to the Blue Line that has real implementation mechanisms," he said. Pull back from the brink: UK United Kingdom Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the Council this was a moment of "maximum danger. We are on the brink, the precipice." He said though top diplomats talk about a regional war, "the truth is we are already witnessing conflict on multiple fronts: in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Lebanon and the Red Sea." He said some 550 Lebanese had been killed in recent days, while Hezbollah rockets that have killed Israelis, "are just the latest in the cycle of pain, anguish and loss." "On both sides, now is time to pull back from the brink", Mr. Lammy continued, adding that his Government had been working hard with the US and France to formalise a wider demand for a ceasefire and a political plan to implement resolution 1701. Lebanon a victim of 'electronic cyber aggression' Mohammad Najib Azmi Mikati, President of Lebanon's Council of Ministers, said his country is facing "a blatant violation of our sovereignty and human rights". Lebanon is the "victim of an electronic cyber aggression and of an air and maritime aggression that can turn into a ground aggression and can become an all-out regional war," he warned. "We are witnessing today an unprecedented escalation resorting to new tools, especially electronic tools, to harm my people," he continued. "The aggressor is claiming that they are only targeting combatants and weapons, but I assure you that the hospitals of Lebanon are full of civilian injured people, including dozens of women and children." Mr. Azmi Mikati said he hoped to come out of the meeting "with a serious solution based on the joint efforts of all the members of the Security Council to put pressure on Israel to achieve an immediate ceasefire on all fronts and to restore stability and security to our region." Israel: 'No nation would sit idly by' Israel's Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said no other country would behave any differently to Israel, faced with attacks across its borders from north and south. "No nation would sit idly by as their citizens were attacked. Over the past week Israel has been conducting precise strikes in Lebanon against Hezbollah's command centres" and missile launch sites, he added. Given the chance, Hezbollah would carry out another 7 October, he warned, saying that with regard to the 2006 peace settlement outlined through resolution 1701, "the time for half measures is over, it must be enforced in full, without delay" - including the provision which says the Lebanese army should be on the border, not Iran's proxy force: Hezbollah. "Never again will the Jewish people hide from the monsters whose purpose in life is to murder Jews", Mr. Danon said, adding that Iran was the spider at the centre of the web of violence engulfing the Middle East. 'Weaponization' of communication devices a 'new version of terrorism': Iran Iran's Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi described the situation in the region as "extremely explosive". If left unchecked, an "all out unprecedented catastrophe would be inevitable." He said that "in continuation of its brutality in occupied Palestine", Israel is now waging an unjust war of aggression against Lebanon. He added that "the deliberate and indiscriminate targeting of civilians in Lebanon by detonating pagers, walkie-talkies and other electronic devices used by rank-and-file citizens across the country, must sound the alarm for the entire international community." Calling this "the most outrageous manifestation of the weaponization of ordinary communication devices," he said "this new version of terrorism must be profoundly condemned by all," otherwise it could "establish a very dangerous precedent that could be easily replicated by other terrorist groups and entities besides Israel." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address External pressures keeping Hezbollah from striking central Israel, researchers say By Michael Lipin September 25, 2024 Lebanon's Hezbollah militia has largely refrained from firing rockets at central Israel after a week of suffering the worst blows in its 11-month conflict with the nation, some observers say, as the group grapples with external pressures and its desire to keep the fighting at a low level. In the eight days since Hezbollah began seeing thousands of its communications devices explode in attacks it blamed on Israel, followed by Israeli airstrikes that eliminated more of its senior commanders, the group has fired only one of its most powerful weapons at Israel's heavily populated center. Hezbollah fired what it said was a ballistic missile toward Tel Aviv early Wednesday, in what the Israeli military described as the first such attack by the U.S.-designated terror group. Israel said that it had successfully intercepted the missile and that no damage had been done. Since its last war with Israel in 2006, the Iran-backed militia has built an arsenal of about 150,000 rockets and other projectiles, some capable of hitting anywhere in Israel, said Matthew Levitt, counterterrorism program director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, citing Israeli estimates. In an interview for the Wednesday edition of VOA's "Flashpoint" program, Levitt said one factor mitigating Hezbollah's use of its longest-range and most powerful missiles was the impact of the recent unprecedented Israeli strikes and suspected Israeli attacks on the group's communications devices, commanders and rocket stockpiles. "Israel has prepared the battlefield with a series of stunning tactical masterstrokes that have diminished Hezbollah's capacity to fight a prolonged, coordinated, full-fledged war," Levitt said. Brian Carter, Middle East portfolio manager at the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project, told VOA that Hezbollah has had to spontaneously reshuffle its command structures. "There has been significant disruption to those command systems, but the disruptions are temporary, and Hezbollah will try to fix them speedily with a potential Israeli ground offensive looming," Carter said. In a video posted online by the Israeli military, chief of staff Herzi Halevi told a group of soldiers on Wednesday near the border with Lebanon to prepare to enter enemy territory to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure. It was not clear when such a ground offensive may begin. Speaking to VOA, Middle East Forum Research Director Jonathan Spyer said Israel has largely deterred Hezbollah from using precision weapons against central Israel. "Israel has contained Hezbollah within a certain level of behavior. If Hezbollah goes beyond that, they know they will get the all-out war with Israel that they don't want," Spyer said. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah repeatedly has said he would stop his 11 months of near-daily strikes on northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas if Israel accepts the Palestinian terror group's terms for a cease-fire in Gaza. Iran-backed Hamas started a war with Israel by invading from Gaza last October. Levitt said Hezbollah does not want an all-out war with Israel because Lebanon, where the Iranian proxy is the dominant political and military force, is in a dire economic situation. "The Lebanese people are going to be very angry at Hezbollah for dragging the country into a war when that is not what they want or need right now," Levitt said. Hezbollah's patron Iran also does not want it to fight an all-out war with Israel now, Levitt said, as that would involve expending a significant number of rockets. "Iran wants Hezbollah to keep the powder dry on its precision-guided and long-range missiles, which Tehran sees as the best deterrent against Israel or anyone else attacking the Iranian nuclear program that has ratcheted up for the past year," he added. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, said Israel's "massive aggression" in Lebanon "cannot go unanswered," but he did not elaborate on how Tehran will respond. "The responsibility for all consequences will be borne by those who have thwarted all global efforts to end this horrific catastrophe," Pezeshkian said. Hezbollah and Iran also want to preserve the group's rocket arsenal because they see the conflict as a war of attrition that they want to last a long time, according to retired Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Sarit Zehavi, president of Alma Research and Education Center, which specializes in security challenges on Israel's northern border. "They don't want to use up all of Hezbollah's cards early in this conflict," Zehavi told VOA. "They want Israel to get drawn into the Lebanese mud." Spyer said Hezbollah also wants to maintain a low-level conflict with Israel because the alternative, besides all-out war, would be a cease-fire that enables Israel to keep fighting Hamas in Gaza while returning Israelis to northern communities that they fled last year due to Hezbollah's attacks. "If Iran and Hezbollah concede to such a cease-fire, it would be a strategic setback, because it would undermine the credibility of Iran's 'Axis of Resistance,'" Spyer said. "Israel would demonstrate that this axis is a bunch of components that try to work together until sufficient pressure is applied, and then they stop working together, so there would be no more axis." Besides Hezbollah, other Iranian proxies also have attacked Israel in support of Hamas since last year. Yemen's Houthis and militias based in Iraq and Syria have sporadically fired missiles, rockets and drones at the Jewish state. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sudan's army chief: RSF must withdraw before peace By Margaret Besheer September 27, 2024 Sudan's de facto ruler said Thursday that he wants to end the war in his country, but he said he will not sit with his rival general unless he withdraws his fighters. "We are keen on stopping the war and restoring peace and security, without any pre-conditions," Army Chief Abdel-Fattah al Burhan told reporters in New York, where he was attending U.N. General Assembly meetings. However, he stated several conditions for talks to start. "We will never sit with Hemedti unless his forces pull out, and unless they implement what we agreed to," he said referring to his rival, the head of the Rapid Support Forces, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as "Hemedti." Once allies in Sudan's transitional government following a 2021 coup, the two generals have turned into bitter rivals for power. On April 15, 2023, fighting erupted between their forces in the capital, Khartoum. It has since spread across Sudan, resulting in widespread atrocities and killing. Burhan was asked about new fighting that erupted between his forces and the RSF in Khartoum on Thursday, but did not offer any new details. Earlier Thursday, Burhan addressed the U.N. General Assembly annual debate. He used most of his speech to talk about the war in his country. Not to be outdone, his rival, Hemedti, issued a "General Assembly speech" of his own, on the social media platform X. Ten million people have been displaced and half of Sudan's population, 26 million people, are struggling with crisis levels of food insecurity. Famine was confirmed in August in Sudan's Darfur region, which has seen heavy fighting. At least 14 other areas of Sudan are considered at risk of famine in the coming months. "The food gap is there, but it hasn't reached the level of famine yet," Burhan told reporters. Regarding efforts by the United States and Saudi Arabia to bring the parties to the negotiating table in Switzerland in August, the army chief said it didn't happen because "external parties interfered" with the process. The Sudanese military accuses the United Arab Emirates of arming and equipping the RSF. The UAE was invited to a meeting in Switzerland in August and Burhan did not attend. He said he was also not happy with how the invitation was sent to him - in his personal capacity, not as head of state. He added that any peace process should be purely Sudanese-led. Asked about a July phone call he had with the leader of the UAE, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Burhan said he told the Emirati that the RSF has received either direct or indirect assistance from the UAE in the forms of weapons and training. He said MBZ, as the UAE leader is known, "promised to reconsider the situation." A report by a U.N. panel of experts earlier this year said there was substance to media reports that cargo planes originating in the UAE capital had landed in eastern Chad with arms, ammunition and medical equipment destined for the RSF. Publicly, the UAE denies that it arms the RSF and says it has only sent humanitarian aid to Sudan. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Background Press Call on the Situation on the Border Between Israel and Lebanon September 25, 2024 Via Teleconference 9:33 P.M. EDT MODERATOR: Good evening, everyone. Thanks so much for joining, especially on such short notice. As a reminder, this call is on background, attributable to senior administration officials. The contents of this call are embargoed until the completion of the call. For your awareness, not for your reporting, on the call today we have [senior administration official] and [senior administration official]. We have limited time, so I'll turn it over to [senior administration officials] for a few words at the top and then take as many questions as we can. [Senior administration officials], I'll turn it over to you. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thank you, Eduardo. Thanks, all, for joining. And again, I know it's a late evening and short notice, so appreciate it. Over the last 48 hours or so, the President and senior advisors have been engaging with the parties in the conflict along the Israel-Lebanon Blue Line and with partners around the world both partners in the Gulf and the Middle East, as well as with partners in Europe and Asia to reach a consensus for a call for a ceasefire that you have seen that we are issuing tonight. The ceasefire will be for 21 days, along the Blue Line. During those 21 days, the parties we will negotiate towards a potential resolution of the conflict that has been ongoing since Hezbollah launched the attack on October 8th, and to reach a comprehensive agreement along the Blue Line that allows for residents to return to their homes in both Lebanon and Israel. This has been an all-out effort by the administration to reach this moment. We are grateful to both the Israelis and Lebanese government in working tirelessly to get to this moment. This is a call for a ceasefire in Lebanon. During those 21 days, while we're negotiating in Lebanon and Israel, we will also work with our partners on seeing what we have done over the last several months consistently. And I'll let [senior administration official] talk about the negotiations in Gaza. But the 21-day ceasefire, I want to stress, is for a ceasefire in Lebanon and across the Blue Line only. The discussions towards a potential full agreement along the Blue Line will be accompanied also by negotiations in Gaza. And I'll turn it over to [senior administration official] for comment on that. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah, thank you. Just briefly to reemphasize, I think this is a very important statement joined by together with the G7 and together with three of our very close Arab partners with important interests in Lebanon. As you will see, there is a reference in the joint statement to U.N. Security Council Resolution 2735, which relates to Gaza. That resolution, just for awareness and reminder, is the three-phase hostage deal that the President laid out in May. That is what that Security Council resolution emphasized. And of course we recognize, and the statement says explicitly, that opening up diplomatic space for these 21 days to pursue the agreement in Lebanon, of course we hope that it might also open up diplomatic space as well to galvanize efforts on the very important primary effort we have to bring the hostages home. So that references the three-phase deal that we've been working on. But this is an important breakthrough on the Lebanon side, given all that has gone on there, particularly over the last few weeks. But, you know, we will try to use the space that it provides wisely on all fronts. MODERATOR: Thanks. With that, we have time for a couple of questions. First up, we'll go to Zeke Miller. Q Thanks so much. You just called this a breakthrough. What assurances do you have from the Israelis and from the Lebanese government and Hezbollah that they will actually accept this temporary ceasefire and that you can actually get a sustainable period of calm, that you can have that diplomatic space that you say you need? I mean, are you prematurely declaring victory here? Thank you. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, the parties are going to respond for themselves to the call, but I can share that we have had this conversation with the parties and felt this was the right moment to issue the call based on our discussions. They are familiar with the text. And again, we'll let them speak to their actions of accepting the deal in the coming hours. MODERATOR: Next up, we'll go to the line of MJ Lee. Q Hi. Can you talk to us a little bit about why 21 days? And also, when you were saying before, "We will negotiate towards" a comprehensive agreement, do you expect that the U.S. will be SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Can you speak up a little bit? It's hard to hear you if you don't mind. Q Yeah. When you say "We will negotiate towards" a comprehensive agreement, do you expect that the U.S. is going to be as heavily engaged as you all have been for the duration of those three weeks as you have been in the last couple of days? And my first question was if you could explain how you got to 21 days for the duration of this recommended ceasefire. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Sure. We 21 days, really, is we were looking for a period of time that would be a sustained space that was long enough to allow for negotiations in a realistic basis to be able to reach a complicated agreement during that period of time. So that's why 21 days. There's no real magic formula to it. It was something that we felt was long enough to sustain it and one that the parties could agree to. Second, on the negotiations: Look, over the last several months, since October 8th, we have been engaging consistently with the parties in Lebanon and in Israel to see what we can do to articulate an outline, an agreement that would enable returning to calm and security along that line. And it was always going to have to be more than just a ceasefire, because it would be unacceptable for Israeli residents to return to their homes in the north if there weren't security arrangements on the Lebanese side that prevented Hezbollah from sitting on the border and ensuring that they were secure from a October 7th-like attack in the future. So, we have had those discussions for quite some time. We expect to build on those on the premise of the conversation we've had over the last few months, and to turn that into a comprehensive agreement. Again, that is the space that we're creating with this ceasefire. And then, no guarantees, but we're hopeful that this will give us the time necessary to achieve it. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'll just emphasize: The objective is an agreement, along the lines that we've been working on, that would give citizens and civilians the confidence, the security arrangements to return to their homes. That's an objective we very much share with the Israelis. We want to see civilians return on both sides of the border. And the objective is to conclude that agreement within this 21-day period. MODERATOR: We have time for two more questions. Next up, we'll go to Alex Ward. Q Yeah, very quickly, are you now (inaudible) that Israel's strategy of escalate to deescalate worked because it led to this moment? And I'll leave it that. Thanks. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Look, we have been clear for a long time that we want to identify moments of opportunity to be able to reach a resolution here. We have consistently said that, ultimately, a solution to bringing the residents home safely and having the security for a long period of time would only be achievable through a diplomatic solution. We believe, regardless of what has happened on the battlefield over the last several days, weeks, the moment we feel is now to achieve that diplomatic resolution to get there. Military means on their own will not be able to achieve that. That has been our publicly stated policy, and I think both sides agree with that notion, which is why we are, today, at the moment that we're in. MODERATOR: Our last question will go to David Sanger. Q Thanks very much. I'm trying to understand who you think is going to agree to the 21-day ceasefire. Do we believe the Hezbollah leadership and Nasrallah is behind this? Or do we believe, in the end, that he would not sign up for it? And who would then what are you hearing from the Israeli government specifically on this? What I'm trying to get at is how strongly we should all suggest in our stories that this is going to come to pass and why you think, if it does, it builds you some momentum for Gaza. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: So, I'll let [senior administration official] answer the last piece on Gaza. But, look, we negotiate consistently. We negotiate and we deal with the sovereign state of Lebanon, with its leadership. We have been doing that for months. For the last 48 hours, we have been doing that non-stop, all day and night. They are responsible in speaking for the state of Lebanon and for everything that happens on that side of the border. Who they negotiate with and deal with as far as the non-state actors in Lebanon, that is I think they're aware of the responsibility that they have to speak on behalf of the country, for the state. So I think you know how this works. So our expectation is when the government of Lebanon and when the government of Israel both accept this, this will carry and to be implemented as a ceasefire on both sides of the Blue Line for the period of the 21 days. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'll just say, David, on again, this is a deal about Lebanon, so how could it poss- might it impact the hostage talks? I don't want to speculate too much. I will say a couple things. I mean, Sinwar, we know he's a decision-maker for Hamas. Obviously, we've seen throughout the hostage talks, everything has to go into him. He also wants a regional war. That's something he has basically said in a statement two weeks ago, praising the Houthi ballistic missile attack. He talked about a long-term war of attrition. I think he's been hoping that there'd be a broader, kind of regional conflict and all these other groups would join in. And frankly, we've done an awful lot an awful lot over the last 11 months to ensure that actually does not happen. We've done that through military means, through diplomatic means, through back-channels and everything else. And I think buying some time and space in Lebanon, and particularly if we can conclude this very important agreement which would benefit the people on both sides of the border, and I think we have a lot of that worked out it would buy us some time and space to try to pursue an arrangement in Gaza along the lines of the hostage deal we've been discussing. And if Sinwar understands there is not going to be a broader regional conflict, there really is a choice here: You do the deal, release the hostages, and you get an awful lot of calm in Gaza. That deal is on the table. It means that the war stops in Gaza. It means massive humanitarian relief. Everything we talked about, that's very much on the table, kind of ready to go, if we can work out some of the arrangements on the release of hostages and exchange of prisoners. So, I mean, we'll have to see. But I think this does it does shake things up, and we'll try to use the time and space and that's why the statement talks about diplomatic space wisely, again, focused primarily on Lebanon, but we'll see if it opens up some possibilities on the Gaza side, because we do need to bring the hostages home, and we remain very focused on that. I'd say the President, throughout the week here in New York, was focused on this constantly in almost every conversation he had with world leaders. We had a very important pull-aside this afternoon with President Macron of France, where the President the two presidents and our teams were able to work out some of the arrangements that we were discussing here throughout the day. And of course, President Biden and President Macron issued a joint statement tonight, commensurate with the broader statement by the G7, UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. So, a lot going on. Of course, the President remains deeply engaged in this as the days continue, including as we continue the week here in New York. The President is back in Washington; we're all here with Tony Blinken, the whole team, to continue to work. MODERATOR: Thanks, everyone. That's all the time we have for today. We're glad to take your follow-up questions as they come. As a reminder, this call was on background, attributable to senior administration officials, and the embargo is now lifted. Thanks so much for joining. 9:48 P.M. EDT NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Joint statement by President Biden and President Macron September 25, 2024 It is time for a settlement on the Israel-Lebanon border that ensures safety and security to enable civilians to return to their homes. The exchange of fire since October 7th, and in particular over the past two weeks, threatens a much broader conflict, and harm to civilians. We therefore have worked together in recent days on a joint call for a temporary ceasefire to give diplomacy a chance to succeed and avoid further escalations across the border. The statement we have negotiated is now endorsed by the United States, Australia, Canada, European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and Qatar. We call for broad endorsement and for the immediate support of the Governments of Israel and Lebanon. ### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Readout of President Joe Biden's Meeting with General Secretary To Lam of Vietnam September 25, 2024 President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. met today with General Secretary To Lam of Vietnam in New York. President Biden celebrated the one-year milestone of our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and reinforced the United States' commitment to a strong, prosperous, resilient, and independent Vietnam. Both leaders reflected on the lasting legacy of the late General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and his indelible mark on the U.S.-Vietnam bilateral relationship. The two leaders underscored our joint commitment to the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and expressed enthusiasm for bringing momentum into its second year - especially as we prepare to mark important bilateral milestones in 2025,including 50 years since the end of the war in Vietnam and 30 years since the normalization of ties. President Biden raised opportunities to advance cooperation on a range of economic, technology, security, and diplomatic issues. President Biden underscored the important work under the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework; progress in our cooperation on cybersecurity including for undersea cables, next steps toward building secure and resilient semiconductor supply chains and strengthening our technology partnership. The two leaders discussed the importance of working together to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific, and combatting environmental and non-traditional security challenges across the Mekong sub-region. The two leaders reaffirmed the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific - especially in the South China Sea. President Biden also emphasized the United States' commitment to ASEAN centrality and respect for human rights. ### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Remarks by President Biden and General Secretary To Lam of Vietnam Before Bilateral Meeting | New York, NY September 25, 2024 InterContinental New York Barclay New York, New York 2:17 P.M. EDT PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, General Secretary, it's great to see you again, have you here in the United States. We appreciate it. Is this simultaneous interpretation? One year ago, in Hanoi, we began a new era of relations with Vietnam and the United States, and we elevated our partnership to the highest level as possible. Since then, we've been I've been very proud of the progress we've made. First of all, we made historic investments in semiconductors and supply chains. And I want to note this was made possible through our CHIPS and Science Act here at home. Second, we launched unprecedented cooperation on cybersecurity. And third, we stood united building a more open and secure Indian Ocean committed to freedom of navigation and the rule of law. And finally, we continue our pathbreaking work to heal the wounds of war. I'm proud that we, the United States, have committed $215 million to complete the detox the tox- the detox remediation, as well as as we have many more things to do as well. Secretary General, as I or General Secretary, I should say I suggested at the U.N. address, there's nothing beyond our capacity when we work together. So, we welcome you all and looking forward to our conversation. The floor is yours. GENERAL SECRETARY LAM: (As interpreted.) It's a great pleasure to meet with you again, Mr. President. Well, this is the third time we met. As the Vietnamese proverb says, "It feels like a destined encounter." First, on behalf of the party, the state, and people of Vietnam and the family of the late General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, I wish to convey our heartfelt gratitude to you, Mr. President, for your sincere condolences on his passing and thank you for dispatching State Secretary Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to pay their respects. We deeply value the warm regards from the United States and from you personally, President Biden, towards late General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. And even during his lifetime, the late general secretary often spoke of you with fond memories and sincere appreciation. His historic visit to the U.S. in 2015 followed by your visit to Vietnam in September last year were historic milestones and have significantly advanced the growth of the Vietnam-U.S. relations, resulting in a higher level of the relations that we enjoy today. We appreciate very much your liking towards Vietnam, and your historic contributions have been pivotal in elevating our bilateral relations to the comprehensive strategic partnership as we enjoy today. Thank you very much, once again, Mr. President. PRESIDENT BIDEN: Thank you. And, again, welcome. And welcome to all of you. Thank you. 2:22 P.M. EDT NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Army Exceeds FY 2024 Active Duty Recruiting Goals By U.S. Army Public Affairs September 26, 2024 WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Army announced today that it has exceeded fiscal year 2024 recruiting goals for the Active component. The Army will achieve at least 55,300 total accessions for FY24 and will place approximately 11,000 soldiers in the Delayed Entry Program for FY25. By comparison, the Army achieved 50,181 accessions in FY23 and added 4,661 in the Delayed Entry Program. "The U.S. Army's recruiting force achieved our 55,000 accessions goal more than a month ahead of schedule, and we are on track to have more than 11,000 in our delayed entry program by the end of the month. This is more than double the goal we set for our delayed entry program and will allow our recruiting efforts for next year to start strong right out of the gate," said Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth. In October 2023, Wormuth and General Randy George, Chief of Staff of the Army, unveiled a series of sweeping changes to the Army's recruiting enterprise, including an expanded focus on a larger share of the labor market and the creation of a specialized talent acquisition workforce. "We are committed to continue to transform Army recruiting to enable our great recruiters to excel," said George. "The Army is a great place to serve, we need to make it easier for potential recruits to join." The Army took tangible steps during FY24 to implement the recruiting enterprise transformation. U.S. Army Recruiting Command graduated its initial class of Talent Acquisition Technician warrant officers earlier this year and in August 2024 announced that 25 noncommissioned officers from the first cohort of Talent Acquisition Specialists will embark on a four-month Training with Industry program to learn specialized techniques from industry partners. Even as this new model is implemented, the Army overhauled the curriculum for its current recruiters and provided them with better training and outreach tools. The Army also surged medical providers to Military Entrance Processing Stations across the country to help make the enlistment process more efficient. In January and February, the Army provided 62 medical providers - including doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants - and 46 medical technicians to 33 processing stations across the country. Surge personnel enabled USAREC to yield approximately 300 more enlistments per week compared to the same period last year. Throughout FY24, the Army Enterprise Marketing Office built upon the "Be All You Can Be" branding campaign while also leveraging innovative new technologies to reach expanded audiences and help identify candidates interested in military service. In addition to new recruiting initiatives, the Army also expanded its successful Future Soldier Preparatory Course, which helps potential recruits overcome academic and physical fitness barriers to service, while not sacrificing quality for quantity. Earlier this year, the FSPC added two additional companies at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and two more at Fort Moore, Georgia. For FY24, as of mid-September, 13,206 trainees in the active component completed the FSPC and entered Basic Training. "This year, we introduced new initiatives to attract qualified candidates and make the enlistment process more efficient, while our recruiters continued to connect with the communities they serve, share their Army stories and inspire others to serve as well," said Maj. Gen. Johnny Davis, commanding general of USAREC. "I'm incredibly proud of their hard work and dedication." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address FSRS new equipment fielding, training at Army's newest, most modern APS site By Cameron Porter, 405th AFSB Public Affairs Officer September 26, 2024 POWIDZ, Poland -- The Powidz Army Prepositioned Stocks-2 worksite is the newest APS site in the world. And it's also the most modern. One thing that makes it the most modern is its fire suppression refill system. The Powidz APS-2 worksite is currently the only APS worksite in the Army with this capability. Recently, new equipment fielding and training was conducted on the system as part of Army Field Support Battalion Poland's workforce training program. AFSBn-Poland has mission command of the Powidz APS-2 worksite, and the battalion coordinated and oversaw the fire suppression refill system training there. Sixteen Polish service members, two contractors and one translator took part in the training at the APS-2 worksite Sept. 17-20. Representatives from U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command were the primary training facilitators. "The fire suppression refill system, also referred to as FSRS, offers a brand-new capability to APS," said Capt. James Bath, the operations officer for AFSBn-Poland, 405th Army Field Support Brigade. "FSRS offers the ability to conduct onsite fire suppression refills without requiring reach back support from the United States." According to Bath, the new equipment fielding and training for the FSRS at the Powidz APS-2 worksite went flawlessly, even with competing priorities happening simultaneously. "The training was held, in part, during AFSBn-Poland's official colors uncasing ceremony, which was attended by numerous Polish and U.S. leaders, both military and civilian, to include the U.S. Ambassador to Poland and the Polish Undersecretary of the Ministry of Defense," Bath said. "The FSRS training was flawlessly executed during the AFSBn-Poland uncasing ceremony, one of our busiest weeks at APS-2 Powidz, thus far. As an added plus to conducting the training at the same time as the ceremony "American and Polish distinguished visitors and general officers were able to observe the FSRS equipment and the training as part of their introduction to APS-2 Powidz' capabilities," said Bath. The FSRS is a mobile trailer system which allows users to safely refill fire suppression systems for vehicles and other equipment in forward areas and field environments. FSRS provides for safe refilling of fire suppression bottles, helping reduce the risk of fire or explosions. The Powidz APS-2 worksite is now the home of an entire modernized armored brigade combat team's worth of APS-2 tactical vehicles and equipment sets, managed and maintained at ready-to-issue standards by the 405th AFSB's AFSBn-Poland. The Powidz APS-2 worksite demonstrates the U.S. and NATO's commitment to maintaining rapid deployment capabilities, playing a crucial role in deterrence through enduring agreements and strategic investments. In addition, it alleviates many of the deployment requirements typically associated with deploying major combat units to Europe from the U.S. It is estimated that APS-2 worksites in Europe, like Powidz, can help reduce deployment timelines for an armored brigade combat team from 60 days to as little as a week or two. The Powidz worksite bolsters defense capabilities and strengthens deterrence efforts while demonstrating the U.S.'s continued commitment to its European allies and partners. Ultimately, the Powidz APS-2 worksite helps to solidify an important partnership between the U.S., NATO, and Poland, highlighting a commitment to the collective defense and security of Europe. The 405th AFSB's prepositioned stocks program and it's six APS-2 worksites enhances U.S. Army Europe and Africa's readiness and capability to support the warfighter while simultaneously promoting stability and security in the region. By providing turn-key power projection APS-2 packages ready to employ at a moment's notice, the APS-2 program is a key component of U.S. Army Europe and Africa's power projection and warfighter readiness missions. The 405th AFSB is assigned to U.S. Army Sustainment Command and headquartered in Kaiserslautern, Germany. The brigade provides materiel enterprise support to U.S. forces throughout Europe and Africa - providing theater sustainment logistics; synchronizing acquisition, logistics and technology; and leveraging U.S. Army Materiel Command's materiel enterprise to support joint forces. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address September 26, 2024 Release Readout of Assistant Secretary of Defense Dr. Celeste Wallander's Travel to Libya and Malta Department of Defense Spokesman Tom Crosson provided the following readout: Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Dr. Celeste Wallander returned from travel after participating in bilateral meetings with several Libyan military and government officials this week. Dr. Wallander, Charge d'Affaires Jeremy Berndt, and Lieutenant General John Brennan, the Deputy Commander of the United States Africa Command, met with Libyan senior defense officials Sept. 23 to advance discussions on military cooperation between the U.S. and Libya. In Tripoli, Dr. Wallander met with Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dabaiba and General Mohamed al-Haddad, Chief of the General Staff, Libyan Armed Forces. In Benghazi, the U.S. delegation met with Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, Supreme Commander of the Libyan National Army and Lieutenant General Saddam Haftar, Chief of Staff of Ground Forces of the LNA. These meetings centered on opportunities for increased military-to-military cooperation and how the DoD can contribute to the long-term Libyan goal of military unification. Libyan leaders stated priorities for military cooperation included increasing counterterrorism efforts, improving border security, and stemming smuggling and illegal migration through increased maritime domain awareness. Dr. Wallander also traveled to Malta where she addressed a military-to-military exchange of Libyan leaders and participated in a bilateral meeting with the Maltese Minister of Home Affairs. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3917919/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address September 26, 2024 By David Vergun, DOD News U.S., Allies Call for 21-Day Cease-Fire on Israel-Lebanon Border The United States yesterday called for a 21-day cease-fire on the Israel-Lebanon border to prevent an escalation of war and give diplomacy a chance there and in Gaza. Voicing their support for this plan are Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, British Defense Secretary John Healey, and Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles, who met today in London at the AUKUS defense ministerial meeting. France and other allies and partners also support this plan. "The situation in Lebanon and northern Israel is deeply troubling," Austin said. Lebanese Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group, began firing rockets into Israel in an unprovoked attack the day after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist assault by Hamas, Austin said. "Hezbollah has not stopped since. Like any other state, Israel has a right to defend itself. And almost a year later, tens of thousands of Israeli and Lebanese civilians still cannot safely return home, and we now face the risk of an all-out war, another full-scale war, which could be devastating for both Israel and Lebanon, Austin said. Despite the sharp escalation in recent days, a diplomatic solution is still viable. A diplomatic solution, not a military solution, is the only way to ensure that displaced civilians on both sides of the border can finally go back home," Austin said. An immediate 21-day cease-fire will provide time for the diplomacy needed to achieve a durable arrangement that will allow Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return safely to their homes. This time can also be used to conclude and implement a deal to secure a cease-fire in Gaza and to bring all of the hostages home, he said. "Make no mistake. The United States remains postured to protect our forces and our personnel across the Middle East, and no one should try to exploit this crisis or expand this conflict. So, we will continue to work tirelessly to avoid another tragic war and to find a diplomatic path forward," Austin said. "We've been committed from the very beginning to help Israel provide the things that are necessary for them to be able to protect their sovereign territory, and that hasn't changed and won't change in the future," Austin said. Healey and Marles said the cease-fire is the only way to produce a long-term peace. The leaders also urged their citizens in Lebanon to leave while they still have the opportunity. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Statement by the High Representative on behalf of the EU on the military escalation between Israel and Hezbollah European Council / Council of the European Union Council of the EU Press release 26 September 2024 15:55 The European Union is extremely concerned with the military confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah, which started on 8th of October and escalated in the recent strikes in densely populated areas. We deplore the heavy price paid by civilians, including children and UN staff, and urge the respect of International Humanitarian Law in all circumstances. Any further escalation would have dramatic consequences for the region and beyond. UN Security Council resolution 2749, adopted unanimously on 28 August 2024, urges that all relevant actors implement immediate measures towards de-escalation. We urge both parties to urgently implement a ceasefire across the Blue Line that effectively and immediately ends all cross-border threats, and to work towards the full and symmetrical implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1701, so as to ensure the safe return of displaced populations on both sides as part of a broader negotiated settlement. The European Union calls on the international community to mobilise in support of ongoing diplomatic efforts to that end. We commend and strongly support the efforts of France and the United States to achieve a negotiated ceasefire. We call on all parties to protect and support the important mission of UNIFIL. The EU reiterates its strong support for the state institutions of Lebanon, including the Lebanese Armed Forces, and stands ready to help Lebanon to get out of its political impasse. EU member states have a long tradition of supporting Lebanon. Now that the country is facing dramatic moments, the Lebanese people can rest assured that member states and the EU will continue supporting them. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Launch of an Initiative on Accountability for Afghanistan's Violations of CEDAW Declaration Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland Statements, 26.9.2024 Since the seizure of power by the Taliban de facto authorities, the women and girls of Afghanistan have been subjected to the most severe systematic human rights violations. Various decrees, ordinances and other measures taken by Afghanistan grossly and systematically ban women and girls from public life and subject them to systematic gender discrimination. As a result of these deliberate actions by the Taliban de facto authorities, the human rights of Afghan women and girls are being violated by public and private institutions. Afghan women and girls are being socially, politically, economically and legally marginalized. The recently enacted so-called "vice and virtue" law seeks to silence half the population and erase women and girls from public life. Women and girls are not allowed to travel alone, raise their voices in public or show their faces in the streets. Life for many women and girls in Afghanistan is like life under house arrest. They are being deprived of their very dignity. We, Albania, Andorra, Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, Croatia, Finland, Honduras, Ireland, Iceland, Republic of Korea, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malawi, Morocco, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Australia, Canada, Germany, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, condemn the gross and systematic human rights violations and abuses in Afghanistan, particularly the gender-based discrimination against women and girls. We have repeatedly urged Afghanistan and the Taliban de facto authorities, including in the framework of the United Nations, to comply with international law, especially human rights law, to protect the human rights of all Afghans, and to lift all restrictions on the rights of women and girls, including on their right to education. However, the situation has not improved - to the contrary it continues to worsen. The women and girls of Afghanistan deserve nothing less than the full enjoyment of their human rights. Afghan women themselves have shown courageous leadership in calling for accountability. We recognize their vital role and heed their call. Afghanistan is responsible under international law for its ongoing gross and systematic violation of numerous obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), to which Afghanistan is a State Party. We, the above-mentioned States, call upon Afghanistan and the Taliban de facto authorities to immediately cease its violations of the human rights of women and girls and to answer to the request for dialogue to address the concerns of the International Community on this matter, including the acceptance of the recommendations addressed to Afghanistan during its Human Rights Council 4th Cycle Universal Periodic Review. We support the initiative taken by Australia, Canada, Germany, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, under Article 29 of CEDAW, who have formally taken steps to call on Afghanistan to cease its violations of CEDAW. The supporters of this initiative will continue to also consider other possible options to be followed individually or collectively under CEDAW and other relevant human rights frameworks, while remaining attached to a focused dialogue with a view to strengthening the rights of women and girls. This action is without prejudice to our firm position that we do not politically recognize the Taliban de facto authorities as the legitimate representation of the Afghan population. Afghanistan's failure to fulfill its human rights treaty obligations is a key obstacle to normalization of relations. However, we stress that the Taliban de facto authorities remain responsible to uphold and fulfill the international legal obligations of Afghanistan, including on the elimination of discrimination of women and girls under CEDAW. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address L.69 Annual Ministerial Meeting on the Margins of the 79th Session of UNGA High-Level Week India - Ministry of External Affairs September 26, 2024 On Thursday, 26 September 2024, the Foreign Ministers of the L.69 Group of countries met in the margins of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly. The meeting was chaired by Dr. The Hon. Ralph E. Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, in his capacity as Spokesperson of the L.69. Against the backdrop of the Summit of the Future, the leaders of the AU Committee of 10 (C-10) participated in this annual High-Level meeting to exchange views on the status of the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) on Security Council Reform. The Ministers reiterated the urgent need to make the Security Council more representative, transparent, efficient, effective, democratic and accountable, and recognised that the Summit of the Future provided an opportunity for renewed commitment to Security Council reform. The Ministers stressed the indispensable role to be played by developing countries in safeguarding the effectiveness, credibility and relevance of the Security Council's decisions and outcomes. They underscored that, for reform to be transformative, there must be greater representation of the Global South, especially for underrepresented and unrepresented regions and groups, such as Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean, in both the permanent and non-permanent categories of membership. They further expressed their support for continuing discussions on the issue of representation of cross-regional groups, including Small Island Developing States (SIDS). The Ministers reaffirmed their support for the Common African Position, as espoused in the Ezulwini Consensus and Sirte Declaration. They expressed that the Common African Position is a manifestation of the principle of African Solutions for African Challenges and reiterated the proposed elements as the only way to sufficiently redress the historical injustices done to Africa. The Ministers recognized that further delays in a comprehensive reform of the Security Council directly impacts the credibility and legitimacy of the United Nations. They further renewed their commitment to demonstrating the necessary political will to achieve the widest possible political acceptance on the five clusters set forth in GA Decision 62/557. New York September 26, 2024 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 'Israeli regime, its supporters are biggest terrorists' IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Sep 26, 2024 Tehran, IRNA -- Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian has said that the Israeli regime and its supporters are the biggest terrorists, because they are killing people with the tools and power they possess. Pezeshkian made the comment on Thursday at the end of his trip to the United States where he addressed the 79th UN General Assembly session and held separate meetings with world leaders. The president said that he held meetings with officials of more than 15 countries, with most of the discussions focusing on the Gaza war as well as the Israeli aggression on Lebanon. Israel and those supporting the regime claim that they are defending human rights and are opposed to terrorism, he said, adding that "the Zionist regime and its supporters are the biggest terrorists, because they easily bomb innocent people in Gaza and Lebanon, and destroy their homes with the tools and power they have. They have closed the roads and do not allow water, food and medicine to reach [people]". Pezeshkian departed New York for Tehran early on Thursday. 4194 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address France proposes truce during UNSC meeting on Lebanon IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Sep 26, 2024 Tehran, IRNA -- French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barot has unveiled a joint Paris-Washington plan to establish a ceasefire between Lebanon and the Zionist regime during an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council (UNSC). We have worked on a 21-day temporary ceasefire with the cooperation of our American partners in order to provide the possibility of negotiations, Barot said in the meeting, which was held at the request of Paris on Wednesday evening local time. While calling on all actors to be decisive in reducing tension, the top French diplomat warned that " the situation in Lebanon may reach the point of no return" and said Israel's attacks have caused high casualties in Lebanon. "We must do everything we can to reduce the tension between Israel and Hezbollah," he said While opening the UNSC's emergency meeting on Lebanon, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned that the situation in Lebanon has become volatile. Referring to the massive Zionist bombardment of Lebanon, he said that Monday was "the bloodiest day in Lebanon in a generation". Guterres also said that the UN peacekeeping forces have remained in their positions despite the dangerous situation in Lebanon. He stated that "the world cannot witness the transformation of Lebanon into another Gaza", adding that everyone should be concerned about the escalation of tensions in Lebanon and should work for diplomatic solution and a ceasefire. 4399 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Lithuania aims to become a framework nation of a NATO headquarters, says L. Kasciunas in Poland Republic of Lithuania - Ministry of National Defence 2024-09-26 International cooperation | Minister's news | Security and defense policy On September 26 in Szczecin, Poland, Minister of National Defence Laurynas Kasciunas signed a Letter of Intent with Federal Minister of Defence Boris Pistorius, State Secretary at the Ministry of Defence of Poland Stanisaw Wziatek and a representative of Denmark laying out main guidelines and terms for negations to become the fourth framework nation of the HQ Multinational Corps Northeast (HQ MNC NE). The Letter of Intent was signed during celebration of the 25th anniversary of the HQ Multinational Corps Northeast. HQ MNC NE was established in 1999 when Poland became a member of NATO to integrate its Armed Forces in NATO structure. It was formed by three framework nations: Poland, Germany and Denmark. Lithuania began contributing to HQ MNC NE activities with staff officers when it joined NATO in 2004. The current HQ MNC NE is a high-readiness NATO headquarters in charge of Allied operational command and control in the northeastern flank of NATO. Lithuania is now developing a national division and has decided to pursue the status of the fifth HQ MNC NE framework nation. "Our shared view on the regional, European and NATO security is clear: Russia is the main and long-term threat. We cooperate with the Allies, particularly through the HQ Multinational Corps Northeast to ensure a comprehensive protection of the Alliance territory from the first minute of a potential aggression. We are forming strong military capabilities to ensure an effective deterrence and defence of the eastern flank. We wish that the division formed in the Lithuanian Armed Forces would become a part of the corps headquarters. It is an important step in strengthening the defence of our region," said Minister L. Kasciunas. Becoming one of the MNC NE framework nations would allow Lithuania to adhere the national division to HQ Multinational Corps Northeast forces and to appoint officers to positions of command in it. The HQ Multinational Corps Northeast was established on 18 September 1999 with a signature of a treaty between Poland, Denmark and German at Defence Ministers level. The three countries are MNC NE framework nations that delegate officers to the positions of MNC NE Commander, Deputy Commander and Chief of Staff. Other countries, including Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia (since 2004) contribute to MNC NE activities as participating nations. The HQ Multinational Corps Northeast currently comprises 22 countries. The HQ Multinational Corps Northeast is a high-readiness NATO headquarters responsible for command of Allied operations in the northeastern flank, including the north of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The headquarters develops and implements regional defence plans and would defend against aggression in case of an actual threat. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address We are taking every step needed to ensure the German Brigade is moved to Lithuania smoothly, says L. Kasciunas after the visit by Federal Minister of Defence of Germany to Lithuania Republic of Lithuania - Ministry of National Defence 2024-09-26 International cooperation | Minister's news | Security and defense policy Today, September 26, Federal Minister of Defence of Germany Boris Pistorius presented to the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania the intergovernmental agreement on defence cooperation signed with Minister of National Defence Laurynas Kasciunas in Berlin two weeks ago. The agreement which outlines the legal framework for permanently stationing the German brigade in Lithuania today was presented for ratification at the Seimas. "We are taking every step needed to ensure the German Brigade is moved to Lithuania smoothly. It is noteworthy that Lithuania is strongly united politically on the matter; both the ruling and opposition party fully support the project of stationing the Brigade in Lithuania and its implementation as soon as possible. An absolute majority of population, as much as 85%, approve of the Brigade stationing as well," says Minister of National Defence L. Kasciunas. L. Kasciunas reaffirmed that all territories and areas dedicated to the German Brigade would remain in the possession of the Republic of Lithuania. "The military territories and sites of the Republic of Lithuania provided to the German Brigade Litauen will be used with consent of the Republic of Lithuania only in full respect of its sovereignty and legislation. The Rudninkai Training Area where the bulk of the Brigade will serve will not change status to a foreign military base but will remain a military territory of the Republic of Lithuania available to the German Brigade, Lithuanian Armed Forces and other Allied personnel," said L. Kasciunas. Germany is not only demonstrating regional leadership but also internationally as it demonstrates a steadfast NATO security commitment. In its turn, Lithuania is fully dedicated to providing the best conditions possible to the German military personnel and their families in terms of enhancing defence infrastructure development, education, healthcare and other vital areas. The intergovernmental agreement defines the procedure of using assigned military territories, arrival, departure and movement of the German military personnel in the Republic of Lithuania, terms of sharing jurisdiction, security considerations, establishment of education institutions and accessibility of healthcare for Bundeswehr personnel, and other issues. The document lays out the order of arrival of German troops in Lithuania, as well as their departure, the ways they will be able to access Lithuanian military infrastructure objects, and other practical considerations. It allows for establishing military shops and mess-halls, post services, radio station, driving schools and military medical facilities for the German Allies. As the number of German troops deploying to Lithuania are gradually mounting, they will temporarily use the infrastructure of the Lithuanian Armed Forces located in the vicinity of Vilnius: Nemencine and Rokantiskes. The military campus of Rokantiskes was unveiled this year offering excellent conditions for service and combat readiness building according to NATO standards. The German military will have everything they need for work and training in Rokantiskes and Nemencine. Servicemembers of Duke Vaidotas Infantry Battalion will be temporarily relocated from the Rokantiskes campus to Vilnius. In December 2023 Lithuania and Germany signed a Roadmap Action Plan which continues to serve as the main guidelines for the project. The headquarters initial command element of the Brigade settled in in Vilnius in April, construction of the Rudninkai military campus have been kicked off, other ongoing development of military civilian infrastructure continues. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Germany and Lithuania: Overcoming Challenges to Safeguard Europe's Peace Republic of Lithuania - Ministry of National Defence 2024-09-26 International cooperation | Security and defense policy OP-ED by Laurynas Kasciunas, Minister of National Defence of Lithuania and Boris Pistorius, Minister of Defence of Germany On September 13, 2024, Lithuania and Germany took a bold step toward strengthening European security by signing a Defence Cooperation Agreement. This agreement, which will station a permanent German brigade in Lithuania, is a powerful response to the fragile security environment on NATO's eastern flank. While the significance of this partnership is undeniable, it is also a complex undertaking. Both nations face hurdles in making this large-scale project a reality. Yet, what's at stake is far more than just the future of bilateral relations - it is about safeguarding peace across Europe. The deployment of Germany's 45th Mechanised Brigade to Lithuania marks a historic first for Germany, signifying a deep commitment to NATO's collective defense. This is not a symbolic gesture; it reflects Germany's recognition of the change in European security architecture. For Lithuania, hosting this brigade demands a major investment in military infrastructure-building the necessary training grounds, housing, and facilities to accommodate 5,000 German troops and their families. Yet, despite these challenges, much progress has already been made. The first troops have arrived in Lithuania, and the build-up of infrastructure is advancing steadily. In both countries, preparations are well underway. We are on track and aim to complete the project in 2027. In Lithuania, political unity is strong, with both government and opposition parties fully supporting the project and calling for its swift implementation. This broad backing underscores Lithuania's understanding of the critical importance of this mission. Germany, too, is moving forward, demonstrating leadership and commitment to the project. It is a trustworthy partner. The stakes extend well beyond the borders of Germany and Lithuania. The security of the entire European continent hinges on the success of this mission. The German brigade's permanent presence in Lithuania serves as a powerful deterrent against potential threats from the East, reinforcing NATO's eastern flank and contributing to the stability of the Baltic region. It also sends a clear message: Europe will not be intimidated by anyone, and NATO remains steadfast in its commitment to defend peace and democracy. This deployment is more than a military operation - it is a partnership built on shared values and common goals. Both nations are fully committed to ensuring that this project succeeds because they understand that the price of failure would be far greater than the cost of facing the challenges ahead. This collaboration, once fully realized, will serve as a model for NATO. As we look forward, it is essential to focus on the bigger picture: this mission transcends bilateral cooperation. It is about ensuring that Europe remains a place of peace, freedom, and security. Together, Germany and Lithuania are showing the world that safeguarding peace requires determination, leadership, and the willingness to face obstacles head-on. After all, investing in deterrence is far more effective than addressing problems that arise from indecision and perceived weakness. Our adversaries may wish for our failure, but we will not let them rejoice. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Marine Corps successfully demonstrates Link-16 in third XQ-58A Valkyrie test flight US Marine Corps News 26 Sep 2024 | Courtesy Story Headquarters Marine Corps EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- The Marine Corps' XQ-58A Valkyrie successfully completed its third test flight on Sept. 20, 2024, at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. This flight was conducted in partnership with the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, and industry partners.The test demonstrated newly added Link-16 capabilities for the uncrewed collaborative combat aircraft prototype, marking the first time the Department of Defense controlled an air vehicle using offboard expeditionary methods. Initial results indicate that the prototype met threshold requirements for autonomously exchanging relevant tactical information. These Link-16 capabilities significantly enhance the Marine Air-Ground Task Force's ability to conduct integrated and joint operations, contributing to the Marine Corps' mission to deter conflict and, when necessary, defeat enemies in complex and evolving scenarios. This successful test was conducted in preparation for Emerald Flag 2024, a multiservice and multi-domain training exercise scheduled for October. The exercise will incorporate technology and focus on the efficiency of joint warfare. The XQ-58A has proven itself ready for this capstone event, allowing the Marine Corps to demonstrate cooperative kill chain closure between manned and unmanned strike platforms for the first time in a large-force exercise. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Joint Communique of the Meeting of the OIC Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs The Ministers and senior officials of the member states of the OIC Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir met on 25 September 2024 on the sidelines of the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The Secretary General of the OIC chaired the meeting. Having heard the report from the OIC General Secretariat and Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (OIC-IPHRC), the briefing from the Defence Minister of Pakistan, the views of the senior officials of other member states of the Contact Group as well as the True Representatives of the Kashmiri People on the latest developments in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK); Reaffirming the inalienable right to self-determination of the people of Jammu and Kashmir in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions; Also reaffirming the earlier OIC pronouncements and resolutions on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute; Reiterating the contents of the Joint Communiques issued by the meetings of the OIC Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir, held on 25 September 2019, 22 June 2020, 23 September 2021, 22 March 2022, 21 September 2022, 17 March 2023, and 20 September 2023; Recalling the two reports issued by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in June 2018 and July 2019, comprehensively documenting the gross and systematic violations of human rights in IIOJK; Welcoming the role played by the relevant UN Special Rapporteurs, world leaders, parliamentarians, human rights organizations and international media, in raising their voice against the human rights violations in IIOJK; The Ministers and Senior Officials: Reaffirmed their support for the legitimate struggle of the Kashmiri people for realization of their inalienable right to self-determination in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions; Emphasized that durable peace and stability in South Asia remain contingent upon the final settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions and aspirations of the Kashmiri people; Reiterated their rejection of the illegal and unilateral actions taken by India on 5 August 2019 as well as the subsequent steps, aimed at undermining the internationally-recognized disputed status of the IIOJK and altering its demographic structure and political landscape; Rejected the Indian Supreme Court's judgement of 11 December 2023 on the status of IIOJK, emphasizing that domestic legislation and judicial verdicts cannot be invoked to undermine the internationally-recognized disputed status of Jammu and Kashmir; Condemned the protracted detention of the Hurriyat leadership, the genuine voice of the Kashmiri political aspirations, and thousands of political activists and dissenters; Also condemned the banning of a number of Kashmiri political parties and the ongoing campaign to confiscate the properties of the Kashmiri activists, to suppress dissent and intimidate the local population; Denounced the Indian authorities' plea seeking death penalty for one of the most prominent Kashmiri leaders, Mr. Yaseen Malik, who was awarded a life sentence in 2022, and demanded his immediate acquittal and release; Further denounced India's continued refusal to allow the OIC Special Envoy, the OIC- Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC), the UN Special Mandate Holders and international civil society organizations to visit IIOJK; Underscored that the Lok Sabha or Legislative Assembly elections in IIOJK cannot serve as a substitute to the grant of the right to self-determination to the people of Jammu and Kashmir; Urged India to end the human rights violations being committed by its forces in the IIOJK; Expressed serious concern over the statements from the Indian leaders, asserting unwarranted claims over Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan; Requested the Office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to continue monitoring the situation in IIOJK and issue a third report, in addition to its reports of 2018 and 2019, on the ongoing human rights violations there; Requested the Secretary General and OIC Member States to highlight the plight of the Kashmiri people at various international fora, including the United Nations; Directed their respective Permanent Representatives in New York and Geneva to regularly brief the UN Secretary General, the Presidents of the UN General Assembly, UN Security Council and the Human Rights Council and the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the developments in IIOJK; Directed the OIC Observer Missions in New York and Geneva to send a copy of this Joint Communique to all member states, the UN Secretary General and Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights; and Demanded that India: i. reverse all illegal and unilateral measures taken on or after 5 August 2019, aimed at altering the demographic structure and political landscape of IIOJK; ii. stop human rights violations in the IIOJK, iii. release all Kashmiri political prisoners and lift the ban on all outlawed Kashmiri political parties, iv. repeal all restrictive and draconian laws such as Armed Forces Special Powers Act, Public Safety Act, and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, v. allow unrestricted access to UN Special Procedures, OIC and IPHRC fact-finding missions, international media and independent observers to visit IIOJK, and vi. implement the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir. Islamabad, 26 September 2024 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN Security Council holds emergency meeting on Lebanon amid Israel-Hezbollah conflict People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 13:19, September 26, 2024 UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Requested by France, the UN Security Council on Wednesday convened an emergency meeting on Lebanon, the second meeting on the country's deteriorating situation in less than a week, with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres saying that "hell is breaking loose in Lebanon." In his remarks, Guterres urged the Security Council "to work in lock-step" to end the escalating violence between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants across the Blue Line, a buffer zone in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah and Israel must pull back from the brink of a potentially catastrophic regional war, he insisted, adding that there was now massive civilian displacement from southern and eastern Lebanon towards the Lebanese capital of Beirut, while the Israelis have endured repeated attacks from Hezbollah with more than 8,300 rockets, drones and increasingly high caliber missile attacks on military targets and residential areas. With an appeal for both sides to respect Lebanese sovereignty, Guterres said that Lebanon "must have full control of its weapons" throughout the country. "We support all efforts to strengthen the Lebanese Armed Forces," he added. "We say it very clearly and honestly: what we have been witnessing over the past year in Gaza and what we are witnessing now in Lebanon is likely to expand to other areas in the region if the international community does not shoulder its responsibility to put an end to the machine of death and destruction," Badr Ahmed Mohamed Abdelatty, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Emigration and Egyptian Expatriates of Egypt, told the meeting. "They are spreading terror and fear among Lebanese citizens ... We cannot bear to lose another generation because of the war," said Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati. "The ongoing aggression against Lebanon is fueled by the failure of the international community, and in particular by the UN Security Council, to hold Israel accountable for war crimes and genocide in Gaza," said Seyyed Abbas Araghchi, Iranian foreign minister. France on Wednesday unveiled a proposal for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon in UN diplomacy with the United States as the death toll mounted in deadly strikes by Israel. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said that the two Western powers were proposing a "temporary ceasefire" of 21 days "to allow for negotiations." The Arab League Council has at the level of foreign ministers warned of the repercussions of escalating "the Israeli aggression" against Lebanon in light of recent developments, which could lead to the outbreak of a large-scale regional war and threaten the security and stability of the entire region. Israel said on Wednesday it was readying troops for a potential ground incursion into Lebanon, telling soldiers to prepare to "enter enemy territory" as it called up more reservists and sent world leaders scrambling to prevent a full-scale war with Hezbollah militants. "We are preparing the process of a maneuver," Israeli Military Chief Herzi Halevi told troops at an exercise along the northern border. Israeli warplanes resumed intensive airstrikes on eastern and southern Lebanon on Wednesday evening, carrying out about 70 raids on the areas of Baalbek, Hermel, and Western Bekaa in eastern Lebanon. On Monday and Tuesday, Israel conducted its most extensive attacks on Lebanon since 2006, resulting in more than 550 deaths and over 1,800 injuries across the country. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said Israel's bombardment has displaced over 150,000 residents over the past 72 hours. The sharp escalation has raised concerns about a potential full-scale conflict between Israel and Lebanon, with fears that other regional powers could also be sucked in. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israel ramps up preparation for ground operation in Lebanon: military chief People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 08:37, September 26, 2024 JERUSALEM, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Israel is ramping up preparations for a ground offensive against Hezbollah, military chief Herzi Halevi said Wednesday, the third day of Israel's most intense bombardment of Lebanon since 2006. "You hear the jets overhead ... We have been striking all day. Both to prepare the ground for your possible entry (into Lebanon) and to continue degrading Hezbollah," Halevi told troops of the 7th Armored Brigade during a drill near the Israel-Lebanon border. His remarks followed Hezbollah's statement earlier on Wednesday that it had expanded its range of fire and launched a ballistic missile to attack the headquarters of Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, in the north of Tel Aviv. The missile was intercepted, but Halevi warned that Hezbollah would face a "very strong response," urging troops to "prepare yourselves." Halevi stressed that there would be no let-up in Israel's military operation, which began on Monday. "We are not stopping," he said, asserting that Israel is preparing to maneuver into villages in Lebanon. "Your military boots will enter enemy territory, enter villages that Hezbollah has prepared as large military outposts with underground infrastructure, staging points, and launch pads (for attacks) into our territory," he told the commanders. "You will go in, destroy the enemy there, and decisively dismantle their infrastructure." The goal, Halevi said, is to create conditions for displaced residents to return to their homes in northern Israel, where cross-border exchanges of fire with Hezbollah have intensified since October last year, running parallel to a war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Since Monday, Israel has conducted its most extensive attacks on Lebanon since 2006, resulting in more than 550 deaths and over 1,835 injuries across the country. The bombardment has also displaced many residents. The sharp escalation has raised concerns about a potential full-scale conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, with fears that other regional powers could also be sucked in. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address PBBM wants laws that 'fully bring life to Constitution,' protect WPS Philippine News Agency By Ruth Abbey Gita-Carlos September 26, 2024, 6:43 pm MANILA -- President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Thursday pushed for the immediate passage of measures to "fully bring life" to the Constitution and protect Philippine territory, including the West Philippine Sea (WPS). During the 63rd founding anniversary of the Philippine Constitution Association (PHILCONSA) at Malacanan Palace in Manila, Marcos said it is "high time" for the three branches of government - the executive, legislative, and judiciary - to take decisive action by committing themselves "to the unfinished work of democracy." "There is much left to be done. As we stand here today, we must acknowledge that many of the laws that fully bring life to our Constitution remain unpassed, and our efforts to fully empower our people and deepen our democracy still fall short of what the framers envisioned," Marcos said. "The Bagong Pilipinas (New Philippines) calls upon all the branches of the government to rise to this challenge," he added. Marcos emphasized the need to create a nation "where the rule of law reigns supreme, where justice is not selective, and where every Filipino enjoys the freedoms, the rights, and the dignity that they are entitled to." He added that upholding the principle of separation of powers of the three branches of the government is also key to "strong and stable" system of checks and balances. "It prevents abuse of power, promotes citizen's rights, and ensures accountability amongst the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary," Marcos said. "History is watching us. As we look to the future, let us remember that the Constitution is our guiding light towards a just, prosperous, and resilient Philippines." Protecting PH sovereignty Marcos also assured the public that the Philippine government continues to assert the country's sovereignty and jurisdiction to protect the integrity of its national territory. He acknowledged that the rising maritime tensions in the WPS "have raised fears of greater conflict." "We continue to engage in regular consultations and dialogue with all parties to manage that situation in the West Philippine Sea, while developing more avenues for communication and cooperation," Marcos said. Marcos said the response of the Philippines, which continues to be a "bastion of resilience, peace and unity," is "forward-looking," despite global uncertainties and geopolitical tensions. "Congress is also working on the passage of several pieces of legislation, including the Maritime Zones Bill, and this clarifies the geographical extent of our maritime domain and the Archipelagic Sea Lanes or ASL Bill that seeks to establish ASLs in our archipelagic waters and in the adjacent territorial sea," he said. PHILCONSA induction Marcos also lauded the PHILCONSA for its key role in defending, preserving, and protecting the Constitution. He said the PHILCONSA played an important role in preserving the Constitution "from insidious interests." "It was a bold task that only those who understood the Constitution as a living, breathing embodiment of who we are as Filipinos could fulfill," Marcos said. "In the past 63 years, the PHILCONSA has remained the steadfast, vigilant, and uncompromising guardians of our democracy and of our nation." During the event, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos was also inducted as a member of the PHILCONSA. Founded on this day in 1961, the PHILCONSA is a non-stock, nonpartisan organization dedicated to defending, preserving, and protecting the Constitution which serves as the fundamental law of the land. The PHILCONSA supports the government's efforts to ensure that its plans and programs remain compliant with the tenets of the Constitution. (PNA) NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hezbollah targets Israeli bases after airstrike on Beirut's Dahiyeh Iran Press TV Thursday, 26 September 2024 6:50 PM Hezbollah has targeted Israeli military positions and bases in the northern occupied territories with several barrages of rockets in response to the regime's attacks on Lebanon. Hebrew-language media sources said the Ami'ad base north of Lake Tiberias, Birya base and the Safed region were targeted on Thursday. "Defending Lebanon and its people, and in response to the barbaric Israeli" attacks on "cities, villages and civilians" in Lebanon, Hezbollah fighters targeted Safed "with 80 rockets", a statement by the resistance group said. A separate Hezbollah statement said that "in line with the defense of the people of Gaza and the resistance and defense of Lebanon and its people, we targeted the Zionist settlement of Kiryat Ata with 50 missiles". Hezbollah also published a video of what it said was its rocket attacks on the Megiddo Military Airfield west of the city of Afula, the Amos base, a key logistical hub for Israeli military operations in the north, and a weapons factory in Zichron Ya'acov. The operations came as Lebanon's health ministry said at least two people were killed and 15 wounded in an Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburb of Dahiyeh. The attack targeted an apartment building on Thursday evening, also leaving a woman in critical condition, a ministry statement read. The Israeli military said it was carrying out raids in Beirut, shortly after a large explosion was heard in the southern suburb of the Lebanese capital. Lebanon's official National News Agency said "three missiles" targeted "a residential apartment in a 10-storey building". Footage from Lebanese TV channel al-Jadeed showed rescue teams and ambulances rushing to the densely populated area to transport casualties to the hospital and remove victims from beneath the rubble. Some sources said Hezbollah commander Mohammed Srur, the head of the group's drone unit, was the target. An "Israeli strike targeted the commander of Hezbollah's drone unit, Mohammed Srur, known as Abu Saleh, whose fate is still unclear," the source said. Several other cities as well as areas in the Bekaa region were also hit by Israeli bombs. The fresh aggression came after top Israeli officials flatly rejected a US-backed call for a 21-day ceasefire. Israeli strikes on Wednesday killed more than 50 people across Lebanon. That raised the death toll from the past three days to at least 620, with more than 2,000 people wounded. The Lebanese resistance has carried out retaliatory strikes against Israeli targets deep inside the occupied territories. Israeli officials said explosions were heard in areas in the northern territories including upper Galilee, Acre and Haifa. Israel's military said sirens sounded in the Galilee area starting at 4:06 pm (1306 GMT) after 40 rockets crossed from Lebanon. Some 200 rockets were fired only on the city of Safed in the past 24 hours, they said, adding that half of the displaced settlers did not have shelters to take. On Saturday, Hezbollah said it fired a Qader 1 ballistic missile targeting the headquarters of Mossad for the first time since October. Yedioth Ahronoth: Hezbollah has not used 10% of power Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said Thursday the scope and quality of Hezbollah's recent operations do not represent the full capabilities of the Lebanese resistance group. Despite a wave of attacks by Israel, Hezbollah did not lose its mental sharpness, the Israeli newspaper said, pointing to the group's unprecedented recent launching of the Qader 1 ballistic missile toward Mossad's headquarters in Tel Aviv's suburbs. The newspaper said the development "was a historic landmark" for the group, whose Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah promised during the 2006 war "to bomb Haifa and beyond." Now, Hezbollah can bomb beyond Tel Aviv as well, it said. A Lebanese political analyst also praised Hezbollah's operational capabilities, warning that Israeli forces will become "sitting ducks" for the Lebanese resistance group should they attempt a ground invasion of southern Lebanon. "Hezbollah's ability to rebound from the pager attacks and the assassination of its senior commanders is a testament to its operational resilience and capacity to withstand shocks to its command-and-control structure," Amal Saad, a lecturer at Cardiff University, said in a post on X. The mayor of the northern Israeli settlement of Kiryat Shmona earlier highlighted Israel's vulnerability in the face of Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force on the northern front. Stern has repeatedly urged Israeli settlers not to return to the settlements in the north. Israeli media have repeatedly said the northern settlements have been emptied of settlers, noting that it is doubtful whether the settlers will ever be able to return. Hawkish minister threatens to quit Netanyahu's regime On Thursday, Israel's hawkish minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened to quit prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet if a permanent ceasefire is reached with Hezbollah. If Ben-Gvir leaves the coalition, Netanyahu will lose his parliamentary majority and see his cabinet come toppling down. This came after France proposed at a United Nations Security Council emergency meeting a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon. Netanyahu said Thursday his cabinet has not responded to the proposal. "It is an American-French proposal, which the prime minister has not even responded to," said a statement from Netanyahu's office, adding that he had ordered the military "to continue the fighting with full force". Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati welcomed the proposal, but Israel denied having agreed to a ceasefire with Hezbollah or Lebanese political parties. Hezbollah has long said it would agree to a deal with Israel but only if a ceasefire was first reached in Gaza. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Latin American leaders urge end to Gaza genocide in UN addresses Iran Press TV Thursday, 26 September 2024 6:05 PM Leaders of Brazil, Chile, and Colombia have condemned Israel's genocidal war in Gaza and called for an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian territory. Addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, the Latin American leaders advocated for Palestinian rights, highlighted the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, condemned the Israeli actions as genocidal, and criticized the inaction of global powers on Israel's war in the Gaza Strip. Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva underscored the severity of the humanitarian and security crisis in Gaza "In Gaza and the West Bank, we are witnessing one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent history, and it is now spilling over dangerously into Lebanon... What began as self-defense has turned into the collective punishment of the Palestinians," he said. Chile's President Gabriel Boric raised alarm over the mounting death toll in Gaza caused by Israeli genocidal war. "From Chile, we call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza to put an end to the suffering of the Palestinian population, which has already claimed more than 40,000 lives," he said. He said, "Israel must respect international law, stop the establishment and expansion of illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territories, and end the massacre in Gaza and the indiscriminate attacks it has been carrying out on the civilian population." Colombia's President Gustavo Petro, whose recent call for a boycott on coal exports to Tel Aviv made headlines, was another vocal advocate for Palestine, decrying the ongoing Israeli actions in Gaza as genocide. "They do not listen to us when we vote to stop the genocide in Gaza," said Petro, criticizing the inaction and silence of world powers toward calls for an immediate cessation of Israeli military offensive. "If we ask them to stop wars and focus on the rapid transformation of the world economy to save life and the human species, they will not listen. When Gaza dies, all of humanity will die. Today, we have 20,000 dead children." The General Assembly saw further calls to denounce the Israeli "persecution of the Palestinians" from the presidents of Cuba, Bolivia, and El Salvador. The United States has consistently vetoed UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza since October 2023. On October 18, the US vetoed a resolution drafted by Brazil, which called for a humanitarian pause in Gaza, allowing aid access and preventing further civilian casualties. On October 25, the US vetoed a resolution proposed by Russia, urging an immediate ceasefire. On November 1, the US blocked a resolution submitted by the UAE, calling for an immediate ceasefire and protection of civilians. On November 8, the US vetoed a resolution drafted by China, which focused on an immediate ceasefire and provisions for humanitarian assistance. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Houthi: Yemen won't hesitate to support Lebanon against Israeli invasion Iran Press TV Thursday, 26 September 2024 4:53 PM Ansarullah leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi says the Yemeni resistance movement will not hesitate to support Lebanon and Hezbollah against a possible invasion of the country by the Israeli enemy. In a televised address on Thursday, Houthi condemned Israeli strikes on Lebanon, saying they aim to block Hezbollah from "supporting Gaza and the Palestinian people". He said Israel's intensified aggression against Lebanon is "pre-planned aggression" that had been "in place for years" while asserting Hezbollah is "stronger than ever before". "The Zionist enemy tries to use the same criminal method in Gaza in Lebanon, launch an all-out attack, kill civilians and destroy their homes. This is while Hezbollah's role in supporting Gaza has become stronger and more influential," he said. Houthi said Hezbollah's achievements and victories show the resistance group's pivotal role in Lebanon and Palestine and the entire Muslim Ummah. "It is moral and at the same time in line with Lebanon's interests, because if the enemy achieves its goals in Palestine, Lebanon will definitely be exposed to Zionist attacks in the first place." Drawing on the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, he warned any "ground operation in Lebanon will inflict heavy losses on the enemy and its inevitable result will be a great defeat". "By the grace of God, Hezbollah inflicted the biggest losses on the Zionist enemy at a time when it did not possess the equipment and personnel it has nowadays. Hezbollah is now more powerful than ever, thanks to a stronger structure of fighting forces and a popular platform." The Ansarullah leader added that Hezbollah's missiles could hit all parts of "Occupied Palestine". Ansarullah is fighting Israel as part of the "Axis of Resistance", which includes Palestinian groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Lebanon's Hezbollah and several Iraqi groups. Since November, Yemeni forces have targeted Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea with drones and missiles in solidarity with Palestinians in the war on Gaza. Houthi said Yemen's operations have turned the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea as well as the Gulf of Aden into "forbidden zones" for Israel and its sponsors. Yemeni forces, he said, used 39 ballistic and cruise missiles as well as kamikaze drones in their last week's operations against Israeli interests. "We will never hesitate to support Palestine, Gaza in particular, as well as Lebanon and Hezbollah. We will cooperate with them," he said. "As long as the aggression against Gaza continues, all support fronts will remain active, and US and Israeli attempts will never succeed to stop them." Houthi said Lebanese, Palestinian and other resistance fighters have taken up their positions on the basis of their faith and religious duties. He said the most serious threats against the Muslim world are submission and subjection to the enemies. "History has shown that the cowardice of the Muslim world has caused great losses to nations, inflicted heavy casualties and brought humiliation to Muslims. "This is while the experience of Hezbollah has shown that the great victories, which have humiliated the Zionist enemy, could be obtained only in light of jihad, patience and self-sacrifice," he said. The Ansarullah chief finally called upon all walks of the Yemeni society to take to the streets on Friday in a strong show of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza and the Lebanese nation in the face of the aggravated Israeli brutalities. "The Zionist regime's criminal acts in Gaza are very horrendous and unprecedented, but the regime has failed in achieving its goals," Houthi said. "The Zionists have neither managed to release their captives nor eliminate Gaza fighters. They are instead caught in a quagmire and are suffering daily casualties." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hamas says Biden, Blinken directly involved in Palestinian genocide Iran Press TV Thursday, 26 September 2024 11:24 AM Hamas criticizes the US administration for misleading Congress regarding the ongoing transfer of American arms to Israel and withholding essential information on the blockade of Gaza, where over 2 million Palestinians are under relentless Israeli airstrikes. The Palestinian resistance group in a statement on Wednesday slammed the US administration, specifically President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, for complicity in the ongoing genocide against thousands of Palestinians, the Arabic-language Quds Press International News Agency reported. In a press statement on Wednesday, Hamas said a move by Blinken to deliberately conceal details of Israeli military crimes in Gaza from Congress, for fear that it would impact arms supplies to the occupation entity's army, coupled with the policy of starvation pursued by Israel violated international law. "This criminal conduct by Blinken calls for ... members of the US Congress and US judicial bodies to investigate the matter. It has resulted in the deaths of thousands of our people, either through direct killing with American weapons or by colluding with the policies of starvation and deprivation carried out by the criminal Zionist entity, in blatant violation of basic principles of international humanitarian law," it added. Hamas also urged international judicial bodies, particularly the International Criminal Court (ICC), to heed recent reports and initiate legal proceedings against Blinken. In a hearing held in May, Blinken indicated that Israel is not imposing any restrictions on the transport or delivery of US humanitarian aid to Palestinians. He made this statement despite the fact that two top US agencies responsible for humanitarian aid within the US government, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State department's refugees bureau, have disclosed that Israel is intentionally preventing the delivery of essential food and medical supplies to Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip. USAID said in a 17-page memo to Blinken in April that the body had documented several examples of Israel blocking aid into the besieged Gaza Strip, including its killing of aid workers, destroying agricultural structures, bombing ambulances and hospitals, and turning away trucks filled with food and medicine. USAID reported in its memo that Israel's "arbitrary denial, restriction, and impediments of US humanitarian assistance" created conditions for "one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in the world." Following the leak of individual memos from two agencies revealing Blinken's efforts to downplay Israeli war crimes, calls for his resignation have intensified, due to violations of both US law and humanitarian standards. "Antony Blinken lied to Congress even though he knew Israel was deliberately starving Gaza - all to keep arming the genocide. We demand that @SecBlinken resign and that @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris stop illegally arming Israel NOW!" wrote Jill Stein, an American Jew, who is the Green Party's presidential nominee in the upcoming US election, on X. The US law prohibits Washington from supplying arms to any parties, which has consistently hindered the flow of US-supported humanitarian aid. Nevertheless, the United States remains the largest arms provider to Israel, despite Tel Aviv's clear disregard for both American and international laws. Nearly a year into the Israeli regime's Washington-backed bloody onslaught on Gaza, the Tel Aviv regime has so far killed 41,495 Palestinians, and injured 96,006 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sudan's army begins major offensive to reclaim capital Khartoum from paramilitary forces Iran Press TV Thursday, 26 September 2024 11:05 AM Sudan's army has launched a major offensive in the capital Khartoum to retake ground held by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a report says, more than a year after a deadly war broke out between the two sides. The army of Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, the de facto ruler of the African country, on Thursday conducted airstrikes against RSF positions in Khartoum and north of the volatile city in its biggest such assault in months, Al Jazeera reported. According to the report, the army has managed to take control of three main bridges, including two that connect the city of Omdurman with the capital. In mid-April last year, an ongoing fighting began between troops of Al-Burhan's military government and those from the RSF, led by Burhan's former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, internally displacing millions of people so far. "We know the army was able to take over the eastern part of Nile Bridge, that's the bridge that connects the city of Omdurman to the city of Khartoum, and they've been advancing towards Nile Street, towards the presidential palace where there has also been heavy fighting reported," said an Al Jazeera journalist, reporting from Khartoum. Although the army regained some territory in Khartoum's sister city of Omdurman earlier this year, it primarily relies on artillery and airstrikes and has not yet managed to remove the more effective RSF ground forces entrenched in the capital. The bloody civil war that broke out in April 2023 has led to a severe humanitarian crisis. However, diplomatic initiatives by some foreign countries have stalled, as the army declined to participate in discussions last month in Switzerland. Amid the 2023 Sudan war, the military government has largely moved to Port Sudan due to heavy combat in Khartoum, prompting many to refer to Port Sudan as the country's de facto capital. Port Sudan, located on the Red Sea in eastern Sudan, is the country's primary seaport and accounts for 90 percent of the nation's international trade. Burhan and Dagalo seized full power in a 2021 coup, but their subsequent tense relations have plunged Sudan into even greater chaos and deeper turmoil during the past 17 months. Both the army and the RSF have been accused by human rights groups inside and outside the African country of war crimes, including targeting civilians, torturing prisoners, and indiscriminate shelling of residential areas across Sudan. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israeli aggression kills 23 Syrian nationals in eastern Lebanon Iran Press TV Thursday, 26 September 2024 10:42 AM At least 23 Syrian nationals have been killed in a new wave of Israeli aggression on eastern Lebanon, amid fierce fire exchanges between the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah and the occupying entity over the past week. Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) said the fatalities, most of them women and children, occurred on Thursday after an Israeli raid on a three-story building housing Syrian refugees in the town of Yunin near the city of Baalbek in northern Bekaa Valley. The agency quoted Ali Kassas, mayor of Yunin, as saying that the bodies of 23 Syrian citizens were pulled from under the rubble, adding that four Syrians and four Lebanese were also wounded. The Lebanese Red Cross said it recovered nine bodies, while others were recovered by the Hezbollah resistance group's paramedic service and the Lebanese Civil Defense. The NNA added that 11 Lebanese people were also killed and nine others wounded in the town of Karak in the Zahle district in Bekaa. It was one of the deadliest single strikes by Israel in Lebanon since the exchange of fire between the regime and Hezbollah over the past months. Earlier in the day, Israeli warplanes also launched a series of intensive raids on the southern Lebanese cities of Tyre, Dibba, Bidayas and Bazourieh, leaving a number of casualties. The Lebanese Ministry of Health said in a statement, "The Israeli enemy's attacks today on the town of Aita al-Shaab in southern Lebanon led to the martyrdom of three people." Hezbollah announced in separate statements that it had carried out retaliatory strikes by targeting Rafael's military industrial complexes in the Zovulon area north of the city of Haifa with salvos of rockets. The Lebanese resistance group also bombarded the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Motzkin with barrages of missiles. The Israeli military claimed on Thursday it had hit around 75 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon overnight, including ammunition depots of the Lebanese resistance group. The latest strikes come as the United States, France and several Western and Arab allies have called for an immediate 21-day ceasefire in the escalating conflict between Hezbollah and Israel while also expressing support for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip following intense discussions at the United Nations on Wednesday. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati expressed hope that a ceasefire could be reached soon and welcomed the call for a truce but said the key to its implementation is whether Israel, which has been moving troops closer to Lebanon, is committed to enforcing international resolutions. Hezbollah said on Wednesday that it had targeted the headquarters of the Israeli spy agency Mossad near Tel Aviv with an advanced ballistic missile in response to the recent pager explosions and the assassination of top commanders of the popular group. The Lebanese resistance movement had a day earlier fired 50 rockets at the Dado base, the headquarters of the Northern Command of the Israeli military, located northwest the occupied city of Safad, just 12 kilometers from Lebanon's border. Hezbollah and Israel have been involved in fierce fire exchanges since early October last year, shortly after the regime launched a genocidal war against the Gaza Strip following a surprise operation by the Palestinian resistance groups. On Wednesday, 72 people were killed in Israeli attacks across Lebanon, bringing the death toll to 620 since Monday. The new attacks came less than a week after the regime killed 38 people, including three children and seven women as well as Ibrahim Aqil, another one of Hezbollah's senior commanders, in an attack on a residential building in a southern Beirut suburb. A couple of days earlier, it had also detonated thousands of booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkie radios across the country, killing at least 39 people and wounding 3,000 others. The Lebanese resistance movement has vowed to keep up its retaliatory attacks as long as the Israeli regime continues its Gaza war, which has so far killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Security Council turning into political tool, its silence is deafening: Iran diplomat Iran Press TV Thursday, 26 September 2024 9:08 AM A senior Iranian diplomat has strongly criticized the United Nations Security Council for inaction regarding Israel's crimes in Palestine and Lebanon, saying the world body's silence is deafening. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi made the statement in an address to the open debate of the UN Security Council on "Leadership for Peace: United in Respect of the UN Charter in Search of a Secure Future" in New York on Wednesday. "The Security Council regrettably has become a tool in the hands of certain permanent members who prioritize their political and strategic interests over global peace," he said. "The Security Council's silence is deafening. It sends a dangerous message to the innocent victims of this war and the international community," he added. He emphasized that the United States has repeatedly used its veto power to shield Israel from accountability for its ongoing acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and now in Lebanon. "Our world stands at a critical juncture. We are facing the most conflicts [of any time] since the Cold War, marked by a staggering increase in civilian casualties, especially among women, children and humanitarian workers," the Iranian diplomat said. He expressed concern over violation of the international law and the principles of the United Nations Charter. Impunity for gross violation of international law, especially international humanitarian law, is becoming the norm, he regretted. Gharibabadi described the situation in Gaza as a "collective failure" to uphold international peace and security, saying, "We are witnessing an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe." He quoted a senior United Nations official as saying that Gaza has become the "hell on earth" and said the reports about the casualties are horrifying. "In Lebanon, the deliberate targeting of civilians in densely-populated areas using advanced technology for terror purposes is a blatant violation of international law, humanitarian principles and multiple United Nations resolutions," Gharibabadi added. He emphasized that Israel's savage airstrikes against Lebanon are not just an attack on the Lebanese people but an "attack on humanity itself." He criticized Israel for crossing all redlines and said, "For this terrorist regime, international humanitarian law and the principles of human dignity mean nothing." Israel's leadership has no intention of restoring peace to the region as its true objective is to drag the entire region into a full-scale war, he warned. The Iranian deputy foreign minister urged the Security Council to fulfill its responsibilities under the UN Charter, saying, "Immediate action must be taken to halt Israel's war machine and prevent further regional escalation." "The [Security] Council must act to protect civilians in Palestine and Lebanon and enforce Israel's compliance with international law and its bounding resolutions," he pointed out. He added that the United Nations Security Council is primarily responsible for protecting international peace and security, but it has become paralyzed by "political divisions," which has prevented it from taking a decisive action. He stressed the importance of building trust to restore peace, saying only consistent, integrated and impartial measures can lead the world into a safe and peaceful future. "If we are to restore peace, we must first trust. This begins with a deep respect for international law and the United Nations Charter," he pointed out. The remarks came amid the Israeli regime's ongoing genocidal war on the Gaza Strip and escalated deadly attacks against Lebanon. The escalation, which began following the launch of the brutal military onslaught against the coastal sliver on October 7, has witnessed the regime carrying out countless attacks against the Lebanese territory, killing hundreds of people over the past week alone. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sept. 25: 'Axis of Resistance' operations against Israeli occupation Iran Press TV Thursday, 26 September 2024 8:41 AM By Press TV Website Staff Amid Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed nearly 41,500 Palestinians so far, the majority of them children, resistance groups in Palestine and across the region continue their operations against the Tel Aviv regime and its Western backers. The major operations carried out by the Palestinian and regional resistance groups on Monday, September 25, are as follows: Al-Qassam Brigades' operations on Sept. 25: Engaged in fierce clashes with Israeli forces in the "Al-Samman" neighborhood of Jenin camp in the northern occupied West Bank, using machine guns. In a joint operation with the Al-Quds Brigades, bombed an engineering site of the Israeli military north of "Netzarim" with heavy-calibre mortar shells. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades' operations on Sept. 25: Targeted gatherings of Israeli soldiers at the Abu Mutibaq military site with an 122mm Asif rocket. Targeted a Israeli military vehicle of the "Namer" type with an RPG shell, east of the city of Rafah, southern Gaza Strip. Al-Quds Brigades' operations on Sept. 25: Engaged in fierce clashes with Israeli forces in Al-Bayader neighborhood in Jenin, occupied West Bank, using machine guns and explosive devices. Engaged in intense clashes with a special until of Israeli forces in the village of Anza in Jenin, occupied West Bank, using a heavy shower of bullets. Mujahideen Brigades' operations on Sept. 25: Targeted and destroyed D9 military bulldozer with an explosive device on Al-Nasira Street in Jenin, occupied West Bank. Al-Asifah Forces' operations on Sept. 25: Launched a 107mm rocket at the "Sderot" settlement. Hezbollah's operations on Sept. 25: Targeted the Ilaniya military base in the occupied territories with a barrage of Fadi 1 missiles. Launched a "Qader 1" ballistic missile at the Mossad headquarters in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, which was responsible for assassination of resistance leaders and detonation of pagers and walkie-talkies. Targeted the settlement of "Hatzor" with dozens of rockets. Targeted the headquarters of the Northern Command of the Israeli army in the Dado base with dozens of rockets. Targeted the "Sa'ar" settlement with a barrage of rockets. Targeted the settlement of "Kiryat Motzkin" with a barrage of rockets. Targeted the explosives factory in the "Zikhron Ya'akov" area with a salvo of Fadi 3 rockets. Targeted the "Kiryat Motzkin" settlement for the second time with a barrage of Fadi 1 rockets. Confronted two Israeli warplanes opposite the towns of Houla and Mays al-Jabal with appropriate weapons, forcing them to leave the Lebanese airspace. Targeted the Israeli espionage equipment at the "Ramia" site with appropriate weapons. Targeted the "Biranit" barracks with a heavy barrage of artillery shells. Islamic Resistance in Iraq's operations on Sept. 25: Targeted a vital Israeli military site in the occupied Umm Al Rashrash (Eilat) with a salvo of drones. Targeted a vital Israeli military site in the occupied Golan Heights with a barrage of drones. Targeted a vital Israeli military facility in the northern occupied territories with a barrage of drones. Targeted a vital Israeli military site in the northern occupied territories using an advanced al-Arqab cruise missile. Targeted a vital Israeli military site in the Jordan Valley of occupied territories with a barrage of drones. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UNRWA: Over 625,000 school-aged children in Gaza experiencing severe psychological trauma Iran Press TV Thursday, 26 September 2024 7:51 AM The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has reported that over 625,000 school-aged children in Gaza are enduring severe trauma while residing amidst the destruction. Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, in a post on X platform on Wednesday said that Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have endured terrible losses since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on Gaza nearly a year ago. "While nearly 625,000 deeply traumatized girls and boys are out of school and living in the rubble in Gaza, many children in the West Bank suffer from escalating violence that disrupts their lives and education," Lazzarini wrote. UNRWA raised concerns that nearly a year into the aggression, there has been a troubling rise in malnutrition, disease, and mortality rates. Even prior to the outbreak of war in Gaza, many families were already facing difficulties in providing adequate nutrition for their young children as they prepared for their first year of school, the UN agency added. Moreover, a report published by UNRWA on Wednesday warned that the ongoing war in Gaza will set children and young people's education back by up to five years, potentially leading to a lost generation of Palestinian youth who are permanently traumatized. "Children have seen that the international community will sit idly by as they are killed. This has left them with questions about values that schools and learning aim to instill around humanitarian principles that teachers will have to navigate," the report wrote. Since August, UNRWA has been offering educational services in shelters, benefiting approximately 8,000 children. However, the report emphasizes that significant additional efforts are required to address the substantial learning losses, which were already exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, previous Israeli military actions, and the ongoing conflict. A recent analysis reveals that only 3.5 percent of the aid allocated for Gaza has been directed towards education, despite an urgent appeal from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Satellite imagery reviewed by the Occupied Palestinian Territory Education Cluster reveals that more than 90 percent of schools have sustained damage, with many deemed irreparable. Ted Chaiban, UNICEF's Deputy Executive Director for Humanitarian Action, also raised alarms last week about a "lost generation" of children in Gaza and the West Bank, highlighting their significant gaps in education and the severe trauma they have faced over recent months. "I advocated for protecting children, improved security measures, and standard operating procedures for humanitarian personnel and facilitating the movement of separated unaccompanied children," he said. Palestinian officials say 36 children have already died of malnutrition since the Israeli genocide started, while the lives of 3,500 children are at risk due to the regime's systematic starvation policy. According to OCHA, by August 2024, Israeli aggression has killed over 10,600 children and 400 teachers, with injuries affecting more than 15,300 students and 2,400 educators. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of families in Gaza have been forced to flee their homes and are currently residing in inadequate tents and makeshift shelters. Israel has killed nearly 41,495 Palestinians and wounded 96,006 in Gaza since October 2023. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address World countries call for 'temporary' ceasefire in Israeli war on Lebanon, warn of 'unacceptable risk' of broader escalation Iran Press TV Thursday, 26 September 2024 7:34 AM A group of world countries has issued a joint statement, calling for a three-week ceasefire in Israel's aggression against Lebanon as the Tel Aviv regime's military has said it is preparing for a possible ground assault. The statement, which was released at the conclusion of an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday, followed talks led by France and the United States. It said the "intolerable" situation between Israel and Lebanon "presents an unacceptable risk of a broader regional escalation." "We call for an immediate 21-day ceasefire across the Lebanon-Israel border to provide space for diplomacy," added the statement signed by Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the UK, the US and Qatar. "It is time to conclude a diplomatic settlement that enables civilians on both sides of the border to return to their homes in safety." Neither Israel nor Lebanon has accepted the proposed truce, but US officials have voiced optimism based on their conversations with relevant parties. The joint statement also called for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where an Israeli genocidal war has killed 41,495, mostly women and children, since October 7, 2023. It was issued days after a major escalation in the fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah resistance movement. On Monday, the occupation's military widened its bombing campaign on Lebanon and is mulling a ground invasion. The death toll from Israeli aerial assaults across Lebanon since October has reached 1,247 with some 5,278 injured. In retaliation, Hezbollah has fired barrages of rockets into the occupied territories. The deadly exchange of fire was sparked by the Israeli onslaught against Gaza, which has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe in the besieged Palestinian territory. Israel 'spreading terror' in Lebanon Speaking at Wednesday's Security Council meeting, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Israel "is spreading terror and fear among the Lebanese citizens in full view of the world." "Israel is violating our sovereignty by sending their warplanes and drones to our skies," he noted. "Hundreds of civilians lost their life within a few days. Hospitals are overwhelmed, unable to accept more injured." Mikati further warned that his country is the "victim of an electronic cyber aggression and of an air and maritime aggression that can turn into a ground aggression and can become an all-out regional war." Last week, Israel detonated near-simultaneously thousands of booby-trapped telecommunication devices belonging to Hezbollah members in public places across Lebanon. It also assassinated several Hezbollah commanders is terrorist strikes. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran: Israel after full-scale war in region, does not deserve UN membership Iran Press TV Thursday, 26 September 2024 1:33 AM Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warns that the Israeli regime is after igniting a "full-scale war" in the West Asia region, saying the regime "does not deserve" to be a member of the United Nations due to its deadly and incendiary provocations. The top diplomat made the remarks in New York on Thursday, addressing an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on the situation in the region, which was held with a focus on Lebanon. The meeting came amid the regime's ongoing genocidal war on the Gaza Strip and escalated deadly attacks against Lebanon. The escalation, which began following the launch of the brutal military onslaught against the coastal sliver on October 7, has witnessed the regime carrying out countless attacks against the Lebanese territory, killing hundreds of people over the past week alone. "In continuation of its brutality in occupied Palestine, the apartheid-occupying regime of Israel is now waging an unjust war of aggression against Lebanon and targeting innocent people across the border and deep inside the territory," Araghchi said. He cited the case of the regime's detonating thousands of booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkie radios across the country on September 18 and 19, killing at least 39 people and wounding 3,000 others. The Israeli regime "deliberately" detonated the explosives that had been planted in advance inside the devices, the official said, describing the atrocity as a "new version of terrorism" that "must sound the alarm for the entire international community since this is the most outrageous manifestation of the weaponization of ordinary communication devices." He warned that such atrocity could "establish a very dangerous precedent that could be easily replicated by other terrorist groups and entities besides Israel." Araghchi denounced the United States, the regime's biggest supporter, for refusing to allow issuance of "a simple press statement" by the Security Council in condemnation of the "'mass terror' operation." The official reaffirmed the Islamic Republic's all-out support for the Lebanese people's "heroic" defense of the country in the face of the regime, referring to the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah's ongoing anti-Israeli operations. UN chief: Hell breaking loose in Lebanon Addressing the same meeting, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned, "Hell is breaking loose in Lebanon. As I told the General Assembly yesterday, we should all be alarmed by the escalation. Lebanon is at the brink." "An all-out war must be avoided at all costs. It would surely be an all-out catastrophe. The people of Lebanon...and the people of the world cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza." The European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also urged implementation of necessary action towards "halting the path to war," calling on the council to shoulder its responsibility and put an end to the Israeli aggression. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Moldova Blocks Russian Websites Ahead Of EU Referendum, Presidential Vote By RFE/RL's Moldovan Service September 26, 2024 Moldova's Intelligence and Security Service (SIS) has banned seven mostly Russian news sites, including that of state news agency RIA Novosti, which it said posed "national security risks" for Chisinau. The SIS on September 25 ordered Moldovan electronic communications providers to block access to five Russian sites -- Ng.ru, Gazetacrimea.ru, Crimea.gov.ru, Crimea.ria.ru, and Crimea24tv.ru in addition to RIA Novosti's Ria.ru site. The seventh site that was ordered blocked by SIS is Nuacum.eu, which describes itself as the voice of a movement called Nu. Nu Acum (No. Not Now). The site, which has been urging Moldovans to vote against joining the European Union in a referendum scheduled for next month arguing that the move is premature, features as its main driving force ex-Economy Minister Octavian Calmic. Moldova's pro-Western president, Maia Sandu, who is running for reelection on October 20, has proposed holding the EU referendum simultaneously with the presidential election. Under the U.S.-educated Sandu, Moldova -- one of Europe's poorest countries and a former Soviet republic where Russia maintained strong influence after Chisinau became independent more than three decades ago -- has experienced an about-face toward the West since she defeated Moscow-backed incumbent Igor Dodon in November 2020. After the start of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Chisinau positioned itself firmly with the West, condemning Moscow's war of aggression and admitting tens of thousands of refugees from neighboring Ukraine. Chisinau eventually secured an invitation to join the EU in 2022 and started membership negotiations with the 27-member bloc in June. The Russian Embassy in Moldova, which has in the past called the blocking of Russian sites "a subjective and politicized move," has not commented on the SIS decision to block the seven sites. In June, the United States, Canada, and Britain issued a joint statement warning of Russia's plans to influence the presidential election and to dispute a result running counter to the Kremlin's interests. The U.S. State Department has warned about Russia's attempt to influence the election. "In defense of our shared democratic values, we are taking this step to warn our democratic partners and Allies that Russian actors are carrying out a plot to influence the outcomes of Moldova's fall 2024 presidential election," the State Department said in a statement. "They intend to incite protests in Moldova should a pro-Russia candidate not win. They seek to foment negative public perceptions of Western governments and Moldova's incumbent leadership, while degrading public confidence in Moldova's ability to secure itself and maintain rule of law." Ahead of last year's local elections, the SIS ordered the blocking of dozens of sites that it said were posing a "danger" to Moldova's news environment. After RFE/RL found that the "blocked" sites continued to be accessible, experts said the method used by Moldovan authorities -- DNS blocking -- was inefficient. Moldovan lawmakers earlier this year passed a law that established the institutions that have the right to block access to "criminal sites," namely the Foreign Ministry and the SIS. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/moldova-eu-referendum- election-russia-influence/33136220.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 New low-altitude air route in China links Guangzhou with Hong Kong SAR Xinhua) 10:22, September 27, 2024 GUANGZHOU, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A low-altitude air route connecting Guangzhou, the capital city of south China's Guangdong Province, to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), was launched on Thursday. On Thursday morning, a helicopter departed from Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport and arrived at Hong Kong International Airport in just 40 minutes, marking a significant advance in the low-altitude economy of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Operated by China Southern Airlines General Aviation Co., Ltd., the route's inaugural flight utilized a Sikorsky S-92 helicopter, which can accommodate 19 passengers and two crew members. Li Erbao, chairman of China Southern Airlines General Aviation, said the route will offer charter flights during its trial phase, allowing customers to book custom travel. Li added that the company plans to introduce regular short-haul flights with two departure and arrival points in Hong Kong, enhancing travel options further for passengers. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Minister Fajon at the Security Council: both Israel and Hezbollah must stop attacks Republic of Slovenia 26. 9. 2024 Tanja Fajon, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, chaired an emergency Security Council meeting on Lebanon. Slovenia, which holds the Presidency of the UN Security Council for this month, convened the emergency meeting in the light of the escalating situation and at the request of France. Minister Fajon reiterated her strong condemnation of the escalation of tensions in Lebanon. "This week's new attacks are causing further chaos and fear. I therefore call on both sides, as well as all countries and stakeholders in the region, to exercise restraint in their actions and words. Each attack takes us further away from peace. To those of you who sit at this table and have influence on the various actors, I would like to say that now is the time to use it. Israel must stop its air strikes and abandon its plans for a ground invasion. Hezbollah must cease its attacks. This is the moment for the Security Council to unite in a common call to de-escalate tensions and end hostilities," said Minister Fajon. She emphasised that the protection of civilians must be the priority. "We are deeply concerned by the images of confusion and fear prevailing in southern Lebanon," she said, calling for respect for international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law. She recalled the words of Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, who stated that international humanitarian law offers a path to peace and should become our common political priority. "We call for the immediate and full implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701 and fully support UNIFIL in Lebanon. Its presence and mandate are key factors for stability," said Minister Fajon on behalf of Slovenia. She concluded her speech by recalling that diplomacy is the only way forward and that it is high time to return to the negotiating table. "We cannot afford to see Lebanon become the next Gaza. We cannot afford to continue this spiral of violence in the Middle East. We must stop it immediately. I call for a genuine commitment to concluding negotiations and for the Security Council to play an active role in supporting these efforts," she said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemeni Houthis Say Created Upgraded Palestine-2 Missile Sputnik News 20240926 DOHA (Sputnik) - Yemeni forces have created an upgraded Palestine-2 missile and are starting to use it at a new stage of operations in support of Palestine, Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said on Thursday. "This stage of military operations ... will be more effective for our country in light of the development of the potential and production of the Palestine-2 missile and other military capabilities. The Palestine-2 missile is considered a significant achievement and was put into operation during the fifth stage of military operations in support of the Gaza Strip," al-Houthi told the Al-Masirah broadcaster. He specified that this week "the Yemeni armed forces conducted operations using 39 ballistic, cruise missiles and drones, the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and the Gulf of Aden became a completely forbidden zone for the Israeli, American and British enemy." Last October, the Ansar Allah movement, the Houthis, announced that it would support Palestinian groups in their confrontation with the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip with missile and air attacks. In particular, the Houthis announced their intention to attack any ships linked to Israel, calling on other countries to recall their crews and not approach them at sea. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address IDF Says Carrying Out Precision Strikes on Beirut Sputnik News 20240926 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Israel's armed forces are carrying out precision strikes on Beirut, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Thursday. "The IDF is currently carrying out precise strikes in Beirut," the IDF wrote on Telegram. The target of an Israeli strike on Beirut was the commander of the aviation unit of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, Abu Saleh, the Israeli news website Ynet reported on Thursday. The Israeli strikes hit a house in Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanese media reported, adding that emergency services were responding to the attack. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) later confirmed the elimination of the commander. "Today, on September 26, 2024, on precise intelligence instructions, air forces attacked Beirut and eliminated ... the commander of the Hezbollah terrorist organization's aviation unit," the IDF said in a statement. An Israeli strike on a residential building in the southern suburbs of Beirut killed more than 50 people last week, including Hezbollah special operations commander Ibrahim Aqil. On Wednesday, the movement confirmed the death of another senior commander, Ibrahim Muhammad Qubaisi, in an Israeli missile attack. The latest escalation comes a week after a wave of explosions of electronic devices hit Lebanon, killing dozens of people and injuring over 3,000. Shiite resistance fighters responded to last week's Israeli strikes by attacking the Ramat David Israeli Air Force base and the Rafael defense industry facility in northern Haifa. Several rockets fell in residential areas on the outskirts of the Israeli city. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Netanyahu's Office Denies Reports of Ceasefire Talks With Hezbollah Sputnik News 20240926 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected on Thursday the reports of allegedly ongoing ceasefire talks with the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, stressing that the prime minister did not even respond to the proposals of the United States and France. "The reports about the ceasefire are not true. We are talking about a US-French proposal, to which the Prime Minister did not even respond. The report on the alleged directive on the easing of hostilities in the north is also untrue," the office said in a statement. The prime minister instructed the Israel Defense Forces to continue fighting in full force and in accordance with the plans presented to him. "In addition, the fighting in the Gaza Strip will continue until all the objectives of the war are achieved," the office added. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Thursday denied reports about allegedly ongoing ceasefire talks with the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, saying that the operations against the movement will continue until Israel wins. "There will be no ceasefire in the north. We will continue to fight the terrorist organization Hezbollah with all our might until victory and until the people of the north can safely return to their homes," Katz wrote on X. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Secretary Blinken's Meeting with Kenyan President Ruto US Department of State Readout Office of the Spokesperson September 26, 2024 The below is attributable to Spokesperson Matthew Miller: Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met with Kenyan President William Ruto today to review our strategic partnership and collaboration on shared priorities. The Secretary thanked President Ruto for Kenya's leadership of the Multinational Security Support mission to Haiti and for Kenya's role in promoting regional peace and security in Africa. The Secretary underscored our shared democratic values, including on implementation of the public anti-corruption and police accountability commitments President Ruto undertook in response to recent protests. The Secretary affirmed our ongoing commitment to strengthening the ties between our two nations. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Secretary Antony J. Blinken and Kenyan President William Ruto Before Their Meeting US Department of State Remarks Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State Palace Hotel New York City, New York September 26, 2024 SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, Mr. President, it's wonderful to see you as always. Thank you for taking the time in this incredibly busy week for all of us. I think many of us in Washington are still basking in the state visit that you conducted, and I think that only underscored the breadth and depth of the ties between our countries and the work that we're doing together on a bilateral basis but also on a regional and even global basis to try to help bring greater peace, greater security, greater opportunity to people in both of our countries but also in many others. I just want to again thank you for Kenya's remarkable leadership of the Multinational Security Support mission in Haiti. I was in Haiti a couple of weeks ago and saw for myself Kenya's leadership on the ground. But there and in so many other regional challenges in Africa, Kenya is playing an absolutely essential leadership role. For our part, we look forward to continuing our own discussions about how we can work together even more, particularly to help support your economic programs and economic growth, as well as the important work for the Kenyan people. So again, I thank you for taking the time today, and wonderful to see you again. PRESIDENT RUTO: Secretary, thank you very much for this meeting. It's immensely useful to us. And thank you, again, for the friendship between Kenya and the United States. It was a historic moment when I came for the state visit, and subsequent to the state visit I think so much is underway with Microsoft, with all the other agreements, with the CHIPS Act, and the discussions around investments and trade, and I'm very happy that we've made progress on our negotiations on the strategic trade and investment agreement. And I was also in Haiti a few days ago, following in your footsteps, and again to see for myself firsthand what is the situation in Haiti. A lot of optimism from the people - cautiously, because I think they've been here for far too long. Listening to the commanders and the Haitian police on the ground, both from MSS and the Haitian police, significant progress made, the airport a lot more secure, their hospitals, the police academy, around the port, but with very big gaps of more additional personnel, more equipment, a lot more logistics required, a lot more resources required. And I want to thank the U.S. for the immense support that we have received in terms of equipment and support at MSS and everything else you are doing around our continent, your support in South Sudan, what you are doing in DRC. And I will be looking forward to a conversation around those issues and to see how our partnership can help drive some of the solutions in those areas. SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thank you. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Joint Statement on the Situation in Venezuela US Department of State Media Note Office of the Spokesperson September 26, 2024 The following is the text of a joint statement by the Governments of Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Estonia, European Union, Germany, Guatemala, Guyana, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Thirty-one countries gathered on the margins of the UN General Assembly to discuss our grave concerns about the urgent situation in Venezuela and reiterate our support for respecting democratic principles and upholding human rights there. We applaud the Venezuelan people for their participation in the July 28 presidential election despite significant challenges. Over 12 million people went to the polls and exercised their right to vote. Their will, as expressed at the ballot box, must be respected. Yet nearly two months have passed since the election, and calls for electoral transparency from both Venezuelans and the international community remain unanswered. International election observers have documented their serious concerns about the transparency and integrity of the electoral process, in particular the refusal of the National Electoral Commission to release detailed and independently verifiable results from polling stations, as required. We remain gravely concerned by the widespread and ongoing repression as well as reported human rights abuses and violations following the election. These abuses include arbitrary arrests and detentions (including of children), deaths, denials of fair trial guarantees, and intimidation tactics against the democratic opposition and other members of civil society. In the context of violent repression against opposition members, a politically motivated arrest warrant issued on September 3 for presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who according to publicly available electoral records won the most votes in the July 28 election, forced him to depart the country. We call for the immediate release of those arbitrarily detained without respect for fair trial guarantees. It is critical that Venezuelans be allowed to express their political opinions peacefully, including through the exercise of freedom of peaceful assembly and expression, without fear of reprisal. We call for an end to the use of excessive force, political violence, and harassment against the opposition and civil society. We also call for the immediate return of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to Venezuela and the necessary conditions for it to fully carry out its mandate. In addition, we call on Venezuela to uphold and comply with its commitments under International Law, particularly as a party to the Caracas Convention on Diplomatic Asylum of 1954 by affording safe passage to the six asylum seekers currently residing in the official residence of the Republic of Argentina and allowing them to leave Venezuelan territory. Now is the time for Venezuelan political leaders to begin constructive and inclusive discussions on a transition with guarantees for both sides to resolve the country's political impasse and restore democratic institutions peacefully in accordance with Venezuelan law, as well as the will of the people as expressed through their votes on July 28. We stand with the millions of Venezuelans who continue to risk their lives and well-being to demand a more democratic, prosperous, and secure future for themselves and their country. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Secretary Blinken's Meeting with Armenian Foreign Minister Mirzoyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Bayramov US Department of State Readout Office of the Spokesperson September 26, 2024 The below is attributable to Spokesperson Matthew Miller: Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken held a trilateral meeting with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov today in New York during the UN General Assembly High-Level Week. Secretary Blinken commended both ministers on the progress Armenia and Azerbaijan have made toward a durable and dignified peace and encouraged continued progress by both countries to finalize an agreement as soon as possible. The Secretary underscored that a peace agreement would bring increased stability and prosperity to the region. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Secretary Blinken's Meeting with Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus US Department of State Readout Office of the Spokesperson September 26, 2024 The below is attributable to Spokesperson Matthew Miller: Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met with Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus, head of the Interim Government of Bangladesh, today in New York on the sidelines of the United National General Assembly. The Secretary and the Chief Advisor affirmed their shared vision of deepening the United States-Bangladesh partnership. The Secretary underscored U.S. support and assistance for the Interim Government as it guides the country towards economic stability and highlighted the importance of reforms to ensure continued foreign direct investment. He also indicated U.S. support for free and fair elections, which will chart an inclusive, democratic, and equitable future for all Bangladeshis. Secretary Blinken and Chief Advisor Yunus discussed the importance of building strong institutions to fight corruption, uphold media freedom, respect internationally recognized labor rights, and protect human rights for all in Bangladesh, including Rohingya refugees and members of minority communities. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address "I call for an immediate ceasefire between Lebanese Hizballah and Israel.": UK statement at the UN Security Council Statement by Foreign Secretary David Lammy at the UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Lebanon. 26 September 2024 This is a moment of maximum danger. We are on the brink. The precipice. At a few minutes to midnight. We talk of the risk of full-scale regional war but the truth is we are already witnessing conflict on multiple fronts. In Gaza. In the West Bank. In Lebanon. And the Red Sea. The strikes in recent days have taken 550 lives in Lebanon. The death of civilians, women and children. The UN workers killed. The Hizballah rockets that have killed Israelis are just the latest in the cycle of pain, anguish and loss. President, As we face the abyss, this Council has a duty to speak with one voice. And we must say that the rockets must stop now. The air strikes must stop now. Talks must start now. With an immediate ceasefire on both sides now. It is time to pull back from the brink. President, A full-blown war is not in the interests of the Israeli or the Lebanese people. And that is why within hours of last week's strikes I called for an immediate ceasefire between Lebanese Hizballah and Israel. Since then, we've worked closely with the US and France to formalise a wider demand for the ceasefire and a political plan to implement it. And at the UN in New York, the Prime Minister and I have been urging our G7 and other partners to do the same. Our priority must be a political solution in line with Resolution 1701. It is our duty to do all we can to exert maximum diplomatic pressure so Israeli and Lebanese civilians can return to their homes. So lives can be saved. So security can return to Northern Israel and Southern Lebanon. So that daily life can begin to return. Now let me be clear. The United Kingdom condemns Hizballah's attacks on Israel over the last 11 months, which have driven more than 60,000 people from their homes. There was no justification for these attacks. They have brought misery to ordinary people in Lebanon and Israel. And they have done nothing to end the conflict in Gaza or secure Palestinian statehood. And Iran, nothing justifies supplying weapons to terror groups in defiance of this Council. We call on Tehran to use its influence and urge Hizballah to agree a ceasefire. President, For the people of Israel and for the people of Lebanon, a brilliant, multicultural and tolerant nation taken captive by an armed militia that puts itself before the Lebanese people, we must come together to bring this conflict to an end. In 2006, this Council acted in the interests of peace and security. All parties need to embody that same spirit today. By coming together, act now to bring this conflict to an end. To stop the cycle of destruction. To stop the loss of yet more innocent lives. And to stop this conflict from exploding into full-blown war and open a path to peace. That is what we need. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Lebanon crisis: 90,000 displaced in last 72 hours, warns refugee agency 26 September 2024 - A new humanitarian crisis is unfolding at Lebanon's border with Syria as thousands of people flee Israeli shelling linked to the war in Gaza, UN humanitarians said on Thursday, just as Israel premier Benyamin Netanyahu arrived in New York for the UN General Assembly. Only hours earlier, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the Security Council that "hell is breaking loose in Lebanon" along the UN-patrolled line of separation, with exchanges of fire greater in "scope, depth and intensity" than previously. That warning came as US President Joe Biden told the world's leaders gathered at UN headquarters on Wednesday that an "all-out" war was possible between Hezbollah and Israel, while the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, reported people fleeing from Israeli strikes on Hezbollah targets in the early hours of Thursday morning, in response to attacks on Israel which included a first attempted missile strike on Tel Aviv. Peacekeeping chief warns of 'extreme danger' In a video message issued on Thursday in New York, the head of UN Peacekeeping Jean-Pierre Lacroix said: "I am deeply concerned by the sharp escalation along the blue line. As the Secretary General said last night in the Security Council, "Hell is breaking loose in Lebanon and we should all be alarmed by the escalation." He stressed that both the Lebanese and Israeli populations "are in extreme danger, with hundreds dead and thousands injured in recent days alone. Regional security and stability is at risk." "Literally thousands of families of Syrian and also Lebanese are crossing into Syria...they are women, children, men," said UNHCR Representative in Syria, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, as the Israeli military announced strikes on more than 70 targets overnight in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and in southern Lebanon. Both areas are believed to be Hezbollah strongholds. Border stress Standing amid vehicles laden with belongings strapped to the roof and countless people queuing in long lines on the Syrian side of the border, Mr. Vargas Lllosa said that UNHCR was working with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to provide water, food, blankets and mattresses - "because many of them will be spending the night here at the border while they are processed". According to media reports, a 21-day ceasefire proposal by the US, European allies including France and several Arab nations has been rejected by members of Mr. Netanyahu's government. Latest data from Lebanon's interior ministry indicates that 70,100 internally displaced people are now registered inside 533 government-run centres. Some 500,000 people have been displaced following months of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, the Lebanese authorities said. UNHCR said that it was continuing to coordinate closely with the authorities and other humanitarian organizations to provide relief to people uprooted from their homes inside Lebanon. "Our teams are on standby to help more civilians who have fled the airstrikes, providing shelter, health care and psychosocial support," the UN agency said on Thursday. Echoing solidarity with those impacted by the strikes, the UN Children's Fund, UNICEF, appealed for "more shelters and more funds" to provide critical support to those in need. "We are on the ground distributing emergency hygiene kits, blankets, sleeping bags, and dignity kits in displacement shelters. Our team is working tirelessly to support displaced families." Citing the Lebanese authorities, UNHCR said that more than 90,000 people have been displaced since 23 September and "more are abandoning their homes by the minute". The latest hostilities have killed more than 600 people and injured 1,835. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Abbas dismisses 'Israeli lies', tells world leaders entire generations being wiped out in Gaza 26 September 2024 - Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine, addressed world leaders at the UN General Assembly on Thursday, stressing that the Palestinian people will not leave their homeland the land of their ancestors. "Palestine will remain ours. And if anyone were to leave, it will be the occupying usurpers," he declared. He began by highlighting that Palestinians have endured nearly a year of what he described as one of the most heinous crimes of our time. "It is the crime of a full-scale war of genocide that Israel is perpetrating. A crime that has killed more than 40,000 martyrs in Gaza alone, and thousands remain under the rubble. A crime that has injured more than 100,000 injured to this day." He pointed out that whole Palestinian families have been annihilated, their family names completely erased. He also stressed that amid the onslaught, diseases are spreading, clean water and vital medicines are in scarce supply, and over two million Palestinians have been displaced, many forced to flee multiple times in search of safety. The deaths and injuries continue unabated, not only in Gaza but in the West Bank and in Jerusalem. President Abbas underscored that he was not speaking today "to respond to the lies" of the Israeli Prime Minister, who claimed before the US Congress in July that Israeli forces did not kill innocent civilians in Gaza. "I ask you, who is it then that killed more than 15,000 children of the 40,000 and an equal number of women and elderly persons. And who is it then that is continuing to kill them, I ask you?" Further in his address, President Abbas outlined a 12-point "day-after" proposal, for when the war in Gaza has ended. It called for, among other points, a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, an end to military and settler violence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and a full Israeli withdrawal from the Stripwithout buffer zones or annexations of any kind. He emphasized the need for regular, sufficient humanitarian aid into Gaza, an end to forced displacement throughout the occupied Palestinian territory, and stronger protection and support for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and other humanitarian organizations to ensure they can continue delivering services to Palestinians. He also called for international protection for Palestinians in the occupied territories, stating, "we cannot fight Israel, and we don't want to fight, we want protection," he said, adding that the State of Palestine must assume responsibility in Gaza and exercise jurisdiction over the region, including control of border checkpoints. "This is our proposal to you, you can accept it, amend it or change it, we are ready for all that." Concluding his address, Mr. Abbas said that "while we recognize the State of Israel, Israel does not recognize us". "We want a solution that will protect both countries the State of Palestine and the State of Israel so they can co-exist in peace, stability and security." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Exert more pressure to dry up funding for Houthi militias, Yemeni leader tells UN 26 September 2024 - The Chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council of Yemen called on Thursday for increased international pressure to dry up sources of funding for Houthi militias and to curb "the flow of Iranian weapons" into his country, which was constantly working to de-escalate tension. "A collective approach is necessary to assist the Yemeni Government to reinforce its institutional capabilities," its capacity to address the ongoing economic crisis and protect against threats to international navigation," Rashad Mohammed Al-Alimi told world leaders at the UN General Assembly's annual high-level meeting. Focusing largely on what he saw as the ever-present threat of escalation by Iran-backed Houthi militias, Mr. Al-Alimi said that without stepped-up efforts and assistance to tackle this threat, "the militias will not engage in any efforts to seek a comprehensive peace", nor would they refrain from "blackmailing" the region and wider international community. He argued that such efforts should include not only immediate humanitarian assistance but should extend to measures that would engender "stronger accountability mechanisms, especially in militia-controlled areas," as well as greater investments in infrastructure, healthcare, education and sustainable development. The Government had recently suspended its decision to move its banking headquarters from Sana'a, which is under Houthi control, to the temporary capital in Aden, heeding the call of the UN and the international community to de-escalate, he continued. This decision could hold "provided the Houthis engage in serious talks towards alleviating the country's economic crisis and to revive the peace efforts in line with the roadmap mediated by Saudi Arabia and Oman." Despite these and other efforts at de-escalation, Houthi militias had hijacked three Yemeni Airlines planes, launched drone attacks against the Safer oil facility, and issued "racist orders and laws" to ensure the nomination of their affiliates to public positions. This ongoing pattern of reckless escalation required the international community to take firm policies and push the militias towards the choice of peace, in line with international resolutions. He said Yemen's years-long economic crisis continued to be exacerbated by Houthi violence and terrorist attacks, including in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways, which impacted not only the region but threatened trillions of dollars in global trade, and against oil facilities, which hampered the ability of the Government to pay workers and provide public services. This ongoing "economic war" being waged by the Houthis "is part of a larger strategy aimed at weakening the Government and aggravating the humanitarian crisis facing 14 million Yemenis." Against this background, Mr. Al-Alimi underscored: "Yemen's recovery is not just a national issue, but a regional and global need, as its stability is crucial to maintaining peace and security [locally] as well as vital trade routes in the Red and Arabian Seas and surrounding waterways." Regarding the situation in the wider Middle East, Mr. Al-Alimi said, "The brutal Israeli war on the Palestinian people must stop immediately. That is the key to the desired peace, and an entry point to lifting the cover from Iran's and its agents' pretexts to exacerbate the situation in the region." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UNRWA Situation Report #1 on the Lebanon Emergency Response. All information valid as of 25/09/2024 at 15:00 UNRWA 26 Sep 2024 Key Points Following significant escalation in the armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon on 23 September, and the subsequent arrival of Palestine Refugees from the south seeking shelter in safer areas, UNRWA started the emergency response in Lebanon On 24 September, UNRWA opened two emergency shelters in Saida area (Siblin Training Centre) and the north (Toubas School inside Nahr el-Bared Camp). UNRWA opened another emergency shelter in its Nablus School in Saida city, in support of the overwhelmed Saida municipality on 25 September. UNRWA is providing shelter to people in need, including displaced Lebanese, Syrian refugees and Palestine Refugees. As of mid-day on 25 September, a total of 490 individuals were registered in the UNRWA emergency shelters, with numbers expected to double by end of the day. Overall Situation On 23 September, the armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah entered a new phase. Since then, Israeli Forces' airstrikes have impacted multiple areas across Lebanon, including Mount Lebanon, Nabatieh, Jezzine, Saida and the Bekaa region (North of the Litani River) in addition to areas on the southern border (South of the Litani River). As of 25 September, the Ministry of Health of Lebanon reported 558 persons killed (including 50 children), in addition to 1,835 injured. The intensive airstrikes have displaced tens of thousands of civilians, with many seeking shelter in the north. The city of Saida (in the south) has reportedly experienced a large influx of displaced persons, leading to shortages of basic supplies as bread and drinking water. As of 24September, around 200,000 people were estimated to be displaced in Lebanon. According to IOM, a total of 111, 656 people were reported displaced in the country as of 17 September. An additional 90,530 persons have been displaced from 17 to 24 September. The Government of Lebanon (GoL) and other institutions are stretched beyond capacity, affecting in particular the overwhelmed health care sector struggling to treat hundreds of wounded. The GoL has declared 240 schools and education facilities as shelters to accommodate the displaced people. It is however unprepared to manage this scale and provide sufficient food assistance. Most of the displaced are fleeing the southern district and Nabatieh, heading towards Beirut, Mount Lebanon, and from eastern districts including Baalbeck-Hermel and Akkar. Palestinians from gatherings and localities in Tyre and Saida inlcuding Adloun, Ansariya, Zahriya, Nabatiye have reportedly been displaced towards Saida and the northern areas. Most have sought to stay with family members in Saida, other cities and camps. In Tyre, some Palestine Refugees have reportedly moved into the city's Palestine Refugee camps (Burj Shemali, Rashidieh, El-Buss). In the Beqaa Valley, airstrikes near Baalbeck, including Wavel Camp, have led many families to flee to areas perceived to be safer in central and west Beqaa, with a number of Palestine Refugees from Syria (PRS) reportedly opting to return to Syria. As of now1, 121 households, representing a total of 490 people, are registered in the three opened UNRWA emergency shelters in the country. Of the registered individuals, 24 per cent are Palestinian, 29 percent are Syrian and 47 per cent are Lebanese. Among the Palestinians: 65 per cent are Palestine Refugees from Lebanon (PRL) and 35 per centare Palestinian refugees from Syria (PRS). The number of displaced people continued to increase on 25 September. Humanitarian Access, Protection of Civilians Since the escalation of hostilities on 23 September to date, only one UNRWA personnel in the Tyre area has been slightly injured. This team member received care at an UNRWA clinic and was subsequently released. Since the onset of the emergency response, two UNRWA facilities have sustained minor damage: Qastal School in Baalbeck (Beqaa) and Mansoura School in Tyre (South) including broken windows from nearby airstrike blasts. Repairs are underway as access permits. The Agency's Mansoura School and the nearby Houleh School north of Tyre have been excluded from being used as UNRWA emergency shelters due to the proximity of airstrikes. UNRWA response UNRWA announced the activation of its emergency response on 24 September and initially opened two of its emergency shelters for displaced persons: Toubas School in the Nahr el-Bared camp in the northand the Siblin Training Centre (STC) in Saida area. On 25 September, in response to the overwhelmed Saida municipality, UNRWA opened another emergency shelter in its Nablus school in Saida, to assist displaced people (mainly Lebanese nationals and Syrian refugees). UNRWA provided the displaced with mattresses, pillows, ready-to-eat foods and water. All incoming displaced persons are registered byUNRWA and supervised by trained emergency shelter coordinators and managers. UNRWA fitted the shelters with additional toilet and shower units, lighting and fuel tanks or solar panels. There is a small warehouse, a pharmacy and a medical clinic in the STC. UNRWA has finalized preparations for a total of 12 emergency shelters to be opened as needed. These shelters are equipped with sanitation and hygiene facilities, and food and drinking water. UNRWA Shelters Siblin Training Center (South): The UNRWA emergency shelter at STC located in Saida area, with the current capacity to host 1,400 persons, opened to IDPs on the morning of24 September. It currently hosts 96 families including 388 people registered at the shelter. Toubas School (North): The UNRWA emergency shelter at Toubas School located in the Nahr el-Bared Palestine refugee camp, with the capacity to host 774 IDPs, opened on the morning of 24 September. It was s opened to accommodate displaced persons from both the south and the neighboring Bekaa area, which is regularly receiving Israeli Forces airstrikes. Currently, 15 families including 68 people are registered at the shelter. Nablus School (South): In response to a request from the overwhelmed Saida municipality, UNRWA opened an emergency shelter in its Nablus School on 25 September. The school is expected to reach full capacity quickly (up to 400 individuals). Currently, nine families including 30 people are registered in the shelter. Programmatic & Operational Response Health The UNRWA health team is mobilised and operational. All UNRWA health facilities are functioning with no reports of medications shortages. UNRWA announced the activation of its emergency hospitalization response to cover wounded civilians at contracted hospitals. Arrangements are being sought for kidney dialysis patients. Prior to the emergency response, these patients were being treated at a hospital in Saida. Many may no longer be able to reach this location. Some kidney dialysis patients from the south have been referred to stay at the emergency shelter in Saida to facilitate the frequent need for treatment. Within the emergency hospitalization framework, two Palestine Refugees (one PRS and one PRL) have been reported hospitalized for injuries sustained in the Tyre area. Protection UNRWA protection team is working to support the registration team in the set-up of registration of IDPs in its emergency shelters. Guidelines published and disseminated to the community (including in a voice note) over an official UNRWA WhatsApp channel. Children remain particularly vulnerable in this crisis. In Tyre, one unaccompanied Palestine Refugee child was identified in the El Buss areaand was referred to protection partners. Sanitation Services/WASH All water networks in the camps are currently operating, ensuring adequate water supply for residents. Solid waste management is being implemented in all areas except Tyre, due to the current security situation. For the Tyre Area: In Rashidieh and El Buss Palestine Refugee camps: solid waste is being collected at designated platforms within the camps. However, transportation of these solid wastes to the dumping site in the Burj Shemali area is currently inaccessible due to ongoing security concerns, preventing any solid waste collection. In Burj Shemali Camp: solid waste from the Burj Shemali camp is brought to the Burj Shemali area dumping site. However, the current situation has rendered this process not possible. UNRWA is exploring options to rent a plot of land adjacent to the camp to establish a solid waste collection point, which would facilitate improved waste management operations. Logistics UNRWA has prepositioned supplies across the country in six storage facilities: Lebanon Field Office in Beirut, Houleh School and Mansoura School in Tyre2, the Siblin Training Center in Saida and Saadnayel storage facility in the Beqaa Vally. The supplies are being moved, monitored and replenished according to UNRWA emergency shelter needs and the overall situation. Prepositioned supplies include 5,000 ready-to-eat food parcels, 3,500 standard dry food parcels, drinking water, mattresses and pillows, cleaning supplies, hygiene kits, first aid kits and approximately 700 tons of flour ready to be distributed across the UNRWA emergency shelters. Coordination with partners is underway to procure all necessary items based on identified needs. A joint procurement effort is being established with IOM, which will source goods for UNRWA emergency shelters upon request. [1] Data cut-off time: 25/09/2024 at 3 PM [2] Due to the exclusion of Houleh/Mansoura Schools as potential emergency shelters, supplies stored there are being transferred to the emergency shelter at Siblin Training Centre. Quote from Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner General: "Our worst fear seems to be unfolding. [...] I would like to echo what the UN Secretary-General said to the Member States: don't make Lebanon a new Gaza." ENDS- NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Remarks by UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini at the Ministerial Meeting Co-hosted by Jordan and Sweden on the Margins of the 79th UN General Assembly UNRWA 26 Sep 2024 26 September 2024 New York Deputy Prime Minister of Jordan, Foreign Minister of Sweden, Secretary-General, Dear Colleagues, As we gather here in New York, two million people are trapped in 10 percent of the Gaza Strip. A place that horrifies even the most seasoned humanitarians. A place international journalists cannot visit. And yet, one million children live there. Amid rivers of polio-carrying sewage. In rubble infested with rodents and reptiles. More than 600,000 of these children are out of school. They have already lost two years of learning. Palestinians are no strangers to loss. But to be dispossessed from education - which has always been a source of tremendous pride - is new. We cannot afford to lose an entire generation and sow the seeds for future hatred and extremism. That is why UNRWA, beyond its lifesaving operations, resumed some learning activities in Gaza last month. Every day, we provide psychosocial services to thousands of children. We build on these activities to help them read, write, and do basic arithmetic. We will do so until their right to education is restored. Excellencies, More than 41,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been reported killed. Many of the hostages taken from Israel remain in captivity. The occupied West Bank is gripped by escalating violence. Long held fears of conflict spilling into Lebanon are being realized. And yet, the international community continues to equivocate. Seventy-five years ago, the General Assembly established UNRWA to provide, temporarily, public-like services for Palestine Refugees. Absent a political solution, amid recurring conflict, and what the International Court of Justice has called an unlawful occupation, UNRWA has continued to deliver its mandate. Today, the Agency is the beating heart of the humanitarian operation in Gaza. Despite this - and perhaps because of it - UNRWA is under fierce attack. Excellencies, In Gaza, 222 UNRWA staff have been killed. More than two-thirds of our buildings have been damaged or destroyed. Our aid convoys are looted amid a collapse of civil order, and obstructed by Israeli soldiers defying their chain of command. Disturbingly, senior Israeli officials have described destroying UNRWA as a war goal. Draft legislation in the Israeli Knesset seeks to evict the Agency from East Jerusalem, revoke its privileges and immunities, and designate it as a terrorist organization. An unconscionable action by a Member State against a UN entity mandated by the General Assembly. Make no mistake, it is not only UNRWA that is under attack. Across the occupied Palestinian territory, United Nations and international NGO staff are being phased out. These efforts aim to strip Palestinians of their refugee status, and change, unilaterally, the parameters for a future political solution. UNRWA also faces relentless allegations concerning breaches of neutrality. We take substantiated allegations seriously and investigate them thoroughly. In line with the Colonna recommendations, we are strengthening already robust systems for ensuring the neutrality of our staff and operations. Our personnel are vetted against UN and other sanctions lists. Our policy on Outside and Political Activities is at the forefront of efforts to prohibit behavior incompatible with serving as UN staff. Excellencies, I conclude with three appeals. First, I urge you to safeguard UNRWA's role in Gaza. A ceasefire is imperative, and the Agency is critical for ensuring a viable transition. In the absence of a state, only UNRWA can fulfill the learning and healthcare needs of Palestine Refugees. Second, the Agency requires a sustainable model of funding. UNRWA's operations are only secure until the end of October, with a shortfall of 80 million dollars for 2024. 2025 remains highly uncertain with a significant funding suspension in place, and anticipated budget cuts in top donor countries. Finally, we must reject attempts to tarnish UNRWA's reputation and end its operations. These efforts do not only threaten Palestine Refugees. They threaten the multilateral system. They threaten a future political solution. Your actions at this critical juncture will have repercussions for generations to come. UNRWA is a formidable tool at your disposal - I urge you to use it wisely. Thank you. Background Information: UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. The United Nations General Assembly established UNRWA in 1949 with a mandate to provide humanitarian assistance and protection to registered Palestine refugees in the Agency's area of operations pending a just and lasting solution to their plight. UNRWA operates in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, The Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Tens of thousands of Palestine refugees who lost their homes and livelihoods due to the 1948 conflict continue to be displaced and in need of support, nearly 75 years on. UNRWA helps Palestine Refugees achieve their full potential in human development through quality services it provides in education, health care, relief and social services, protection, camp infrastructure and improvement, microfinance, and emergency assistance. UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address FEMA, Maxwell AFB prepare for Hurricane Helene's landfall Published Sept. 26, 2024 By Senior Master Sgt. Richard P. Ebensberger 42nd Air Base Wing Public Affairs MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. (AFNS) -- As Hurricane Helene churns toward the southeastern U.S., the Federal Emergency Management Agency has set up an incident support base in coordination with the 42nd Air Base Wing at Maxwell Air Force Base. FEMA employees have been pre-staging equipment and life-sustaining commodities for distribution to areas that could be affected along the Gulf Coast. Since Sept. 24, more than 450 trucks loaded with essential supplies such as meals, water, cots and generators have arrived at a hurricane operations staging area on Maxwell AFB's airfield. "Maxwell has a vast airfield capable of supporting hundreds of trucks and equipment while also continuing air operations," said Lt. Col. Ara Bartemes, Operations Support Squadron commander. "It's great to work with our federal partners from FEMA and the U.S. Army of Corps Engineers, we're always ready to support them when needed." Supplies were shipped from the Atlanta Distribution Center to enable pre-positioning and quick distribution in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene's landfall. "The key to a successful response to a natural disaster like Hurricane Helene is preparation," said Author Manning, FEMA staging lead. "By pre-positioning these supplies at a strategic location like Maxwell, we can quickly distribute them to the areas that need them most." FEMA's mission is to help people before, during and after disasters. "It's a lot of hard work, but we have people who really enjoy helping people," Manning said. "Our priority is to support state requests for commodities and resources to help keep their residents and communities safe." Hurricane Helene is expected to make landfall in the southeastern this week and could potentially become a Category 4 storm. Residents in the Florida Keys and along Florida's west coast are being urged to take all necessary precautions to prepare for the storm. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address USS Preble Departs San Diego for Japan US Navy 26 September 2024 From Commander, Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet SAN DIEGO -- The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Preble (DDG 88) departed San Diego Sept. 22, 2024, shifting its homeport to Yokosuka, Japan. The move is part of a scheduled rotation of forward-deployed naval forces in the Pacific a permanent change of station move for for the crew and family members. Preble replaces USS Benfold (DDG 65), which will depart Yokosuka and shift its homeport to Everett, Washington. The forward presence of Preble directly supports the United States' commitment to the defense of Japan, enhancing the national security of the United States while improving its ability to protect strategic interests. Preble will directly support the Defense Strategic Guidance to posture the most capable units forward in the Indo-Pacific Region. The United States values Japan's contributions to the peace, security and stability of the Indo-Pacific and its long-term commitment and hospitality in hosting U.S. forces forward deployed there. These forces, along with their counterparts in the Japan Self-Defense Forces, make up the core capabilities the alliance needs to meet our common strategic objectives. "It has been more than four years since Preble last operated in 7th Fleet," said Cmdr. Paul Archer, Preble's commanding officer. "But Preble today is markedly different than the ship that last left 7th Fleet. Armed with the U.S. Navy's most capable combat system suite, this crew is well-trained and hungry to take our cutting-edge warship west to support national strategic objectives. The Western Pacific is gaining a true assetunparalleled technical capabilities and more than 300 Sailors excited for this new opportunity." Preble is the sixth ship to be named in honor of Commodore Edward Preble, an early 19th century U.S. Navy hero who served in the Revolutionary War and launched the attack on Tripoli in 1803. The ship was commissioned Nov. 9, 2002, in Boston and has been homeported at Naval Base San Diego for nearly 22 years. One of Preble's most notable operations was its 2004 surge deployment in support of the global war on terrorism. It was one of several U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and coalition ships responsible for patrolling and safeguarding the waters near the Khawr AL Amaya and Al Basrah oil terminals in the Persian Gulf. The security environment in the Indo-Pacific requires that the U.S. Navy positions the most capable ships forward. This posture allows the most rapid response times for maritime and joint forces and brings our most capable ships with the greatest amount of striking power and operational capability to bear in the timeliest manner. The mission of Commander, Naval Surface Force, Pacific is to man, train, and equip the Surface Force to provide fleet commanders with credible naval power to control the sea and project power ashore. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pacific Partnership 2024-2 Concludes Mission in Kosrae, Federated States of Micronesia US Navy - Press Release 26 September 2024 KOSRAE, Federated States of Micronesia -- A team representing Australia and the United States concluded the fifth and final mission stop of Pacific Partnership 2024-2 (PP24-2) in Kosrae, Sept. 23. The nine-day Kosrae mission stop brought more than 40 participants from Australia and the United States together to increase humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) preparedness in the Indo-Pacific. "The Pacific Partnership team is honored to have returned to Kosrae for the first time since 2011 to conduct the largest annual U.S. Navy multinational humanitarian assistance and disaster relief preparedness mission in the Indo-Pacific." said U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Brent DeVore, commander, Joint Region Marianas and commander, U.S. Naval Forces Marianas. "We cherish the longstanding, close relationship between Australia, the U.S. and the Federated States of Micronesia so it's wonderful to be here to see firsthand how our friendship continues to grow." During the mission stop, the team held 21 medical events including optometry exams and handing out more than 550 pairs of eyeglasses; installing dental chairs; three community health events, training 110 community members in basic lifesaving skills; and conducted subject matter expert exchanges in a wide variety of disciplines. "Pacific Partnership has given thought to the well-being of our friends and our neighbors, and to the idea that when we work together, we benefit and we all grow stronger," said Hon. Jennifer Johnson, U.S. Ambassador to the Federated States of Micronesia. "On behalf of the American people, I say thank you. What you've done here is highly impactful for our dear friends, the people of Kosrae." At the invitation of the host nation, the U.S. Coast Guard held boating safety workshops to share expertise and best practices for at-sea activities in Kosrae communities. The host nation outreach team organized 19 community engagements consisting of school visits, U.S. Navy recruiting events, an interfaith dialogue session, and concerts with the Pacific Partnership Band, composed of musicians from the U.S. Pacific Fleet Band and the Royal Australian Army Band. Engineering efforts included subject matter expert exchanges in coastal erosion and water purification, including site surveys to examine potential improvements on the drinking water infrastructure in Kosrae. The team also assembled a playground at a local elementary school. "Pacific Partnership 2024-2 in Kosrae has surpassed all expectations in terms of impactful outcomes for my people," said Kosrae Gov. Tulensa Palik. "So, on behalf of the people of Kosrae, I say to you, thank you for a job well done." Now in its 20th iteration, the Pacific Partnership series is the U.S. Navy's largest annual multinational HA/DR preparedness mission conducted in the Indo-Pacific. Pacific Partnership works collaboratively with host and partner nations to enhance regional interoperability and disaster response capabilities, increase security and stability in the region, and foster new and enduring friendships in the Indo-Pacific. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US carrier redeployment from Middle East reflects competing strategic interests, analysts say By Bilal Hussain September 26, 2024 The U.S. decision to pull the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt out of the Middle East, amid Israel's escalating wars in Gaza and Lebanon, is seen by analysts as a reflection of America's competing security interests there and in Asia. Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder announced on September 12 that the Roosevelt had left the region en route to the Indo-Pacific, after three weeks of simultaneous coverage in the region by the Roosevelt and a second carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln. The dual coverage was widely seen, at least in part, as a response to the threat of a massive Iranian aerial assault on Israel in response to the July assassination of Hamas' political leader in Tehran. The fear has receded as Iran has failed to respond, saying it does not want to upset the prospects for a cease-fire in Gaza. But Yasmin Omar, director of the Democracy Matters Initiative at the Middle East Democracy Center in Washington, noted that the United States also has pressing security concerns elsewhere. "The deployment of the USS Theodore Roosevelt was initially a show of force aimed at deterring U.S. adversaries in the region. Its withdrawal signals a noteworthy shift in U.S. military posture," she told VOA. Omar said the move suggests a reallocation of priorities, particularly as Washington addresses security threats in the Indo-Pacific, where China and Russia have been expanding their influence through major naval exercises. "It is important to interpret this as part of a broader recalibration of military resources, rather than a reduction in U.S. engagement," Omar said. An Iran specialist based in Washington, Sina Toossi, agreed that Tehran and Washington are signaling a desire to avoid war. But, he said, some U.S. allies in the region may interpret the U.S. restraint as indicating a lack of resolve. He noted that the United States chose not to go to war with Iran over provocations such as its September 2019 drone and missile attacks on Saudi Aramco or the January 2020 missile strike on a U.S. base in Iraq. "This restraint is likely a key reason why countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia have pivoted away from supporting the U.S.'s 'maximum pressure' campaign and instead have normalized relations with Tehran in recent years," he said. "They fear a costly conflict with Iran in which they would be left to face the consequences alone." Omar, similarly, cited recent military collaboration between Egypt and Turkey as an example of how Middle Eastern nations are adjusting their defense strategies in response to shifting geopolitical dynamics and uncertainties surrounding U.S. commitments. However, Brian Katulis, senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Middle East Institute in Washington, told VOA that it is important not to overinterpret every movement of U.S. military assets in and out of the Middle East. "The United States remains the strongest and most capable military actor from outside the region, and this movement is just part of the normal rotations of personnel and hardware that occur regularly," Katulis said. While Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are close security partners, Katulis cautioned against calling them "allies" in the same sense as NATO partners in Europe. "America does not have formal treaty allies in the Middle East. This move signals that the United States remains committed to maintaining its overall military readiness globally while continuing to work in close partnership with key countries in the region," Katulis said. When asked whether the departure of the Roosevelt might embolden adversaries such as Iran, Katulis responded, "No, because the United States still maintains significant military firepower in the region, and more importantly, it is working closely with partners to help them defend themselves against threats." Katulis said, "Iran remains significantly weaker in conventional military power than the United States and its regional security partners. Iran will likely continue to use asymmetric attacks, terrorist strikes and cyberattacks as key parts of its tools to undermine regional security." Nancy Okail, president and CEO of the Washington-based Center for International Policy, told VOA that the departure of the Roosevelt from the Middle East had already been scheduled with the arrival of the USS Abraham Lincoln three weeks ago to replace it. "The Roosevelt's presence was only briefly extended after Hezbollah launched strikes on Israel. The decision to end the dual-carrier presence is more of a Navy fleet management issue than an indication of diminished concern over strikes from the Houthis or Iran," Okail said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address AFRICOM, African militaries unite to combat gender-based violence By Mqondisi Dube September 26, 2024 U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, is working with southern African countries to combat gender-based violence in the military. This week, AFRICOM and regional military officials are holding a series of workshops in Zambia to strengthen regional collaboration in the fight against workplace harassment. AFRICOM and its component, the U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa, or USAFE-AFAFRICA, have united with the Zambia Defense Force to foster strategies to tackle gender-based violence in the region. Botswana and Zambia are participating in efforts to strengthen regional initiatives against sexual assault. Lieutenant Colonel Linda Jones, USAFE-AFAFRICA chief for African health engagements, said it is imperative to come up with strategies to fight gender-based violence in the armed forces. "It is the responsibility of leaders that all of us set the tone, including an environment where everyone is valued and empowered to speak up against misconduct," she said. "This involves not only enforcing policies but also modeling respect for behavior and actively supporting those who report incidents." In 2021, U.S. Defense Department officials reported sexual violence had reached the highest level ever reported, with 8.4% of women assaulted on duty. U.S. Air Force Tech Sergeant Samara Brown said if left unchecked, gender-based violence can affect execution of military tasks. "Gender-based violence undermines the core values of any military organization," Brown said. "It erodes trust, disrupts unity, cohesion and ultimately compromises mission readiness. We must take a firm stand against it, not just as a matter of policy but a commitment to uphold the principles of honor, integrity and respect that define our service." Retired U.S. Air Force official and workplace development consultant Keith Castille facilitated the Lusaka workshop. He said such collaborations with the Zambia Defense Force can ensure gender-based violence is addressed within regional militaries. "No military can tackle this issue alone," he said. "By sharing knowledge and collaborating across branches and communities, we can develop more effective strategies to combat gender-based violence. Engaging in open dialogue, facilitating workshops and creating joint initiatives will enable us to learn from one another and strengthen our collective efforts." Attending the workshop in Lusaka, Zambian Defense Force Major Stephen Muleya said the military workplace must be free of gender-based harassment. "When individuals know that they can perform their duties without the threat of harassment or violence, they are more likely to focus fully on their missions," he said. "We must actively cultivate an atmosphere where everyone can thrive free from fear and intimidation." Zambian officials said they're planning to open a regional office for innovative gender-based violence solutions. Zambian air force legal adviser Major Glory Musonda said collaboration with U.S. partners should result in solutions to gender-based violence within the force. "We all have a responsibility to build military environments where respect and dignity are upheld," Musonda said. "It's not enough to simply acknowledge the issue, we must actively work toward solutions that ensure the safety and well-being of every service member." Meanwhile, officials representing the U.S. Army War College are in Lusaka for discussions on women, peace and security, which aligns with efforts to address gender-based violence in the region. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Palestinian leader Abbas calls for US to end arms shipments to Israel By VOA News September 26, 2024 Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on the international community Thursday, particularly the United States, to stop sending weapons to Israel to end the bloodshed in the West Bank and Gaza. Abbas, speaking to the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, singled out the U.S. because of its arms shipments and vetoes of Security Council resolutions condemning Israel's nearly yearlong war against Hamas militants in Gaza. "Stop this crime. Stop it now. Stop killing children and women. Stop the genocide. Stop sending weapons to Israel," Abbas said. "This madness cannot continue. The entire world is responsible for what is happening to our people in Gaza and the West Bank." He said the U.S., in exercising its veto power in Security Council votes, effectively said, "'No, the fighting is going to continue.'" In another U.N. address, Edgard Leblanc Fils, the president of Haiti's transitional presidential council, announced that he supports a U.N. peacekeeping mission to fight gang violence that is still overwhelming authorities in the island nation in the Caribbean. It was the first time that a Haitian government official had expressed public approval of a peacekeeping mission since the U.S. broached the idea earlier this month as one way to secure more resources for a U.N.-backed mission led by Kenya that officials say lacks personnel and funding. "I am convinced that this change of status, whilst recognizing the errors of the past cannot be repeated, would guarantee the full success of the mission," Leblanc told the General Assembly. On Wednesday, Leblanc met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and others to talk about the state of the mission, which began when the first contingent of Kenyan police arrived in Haiti in late June. Nearly 400 Kenyan officers are now in Haiti, joined by nearly two dozen police officers and soldiers from Jamaica. The number of officers falls significantly short of the 2,500 pledged by various countries, including Chad, Benin, Bangladesh and Barbados, for the mission. The mandate of the current mission expires soon and must be renewed by this coming Wednesday. "We would like to see a thought being given to transforming the security support mission into a peacekeeping mission under the mandate of the U.N.," Leblanc said. The U.N. Security Council would ultimately have to vote on a peacekeeping mission, and experts have said it's unlikely it would support one. They have noted many Haitians would likely balk at it, given the introduction of cholera and sexual abuse cases that occurred when U.N. troops were last in Haiti. Since the early 1900s, there have been at least three major foreign military interventions in Haiti led by the United States and the United Nations. Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror group, ignited the war in Gaza last October 7 with its shock attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 41,000 in Gaza, according to Hamas health officials, although the Israeli military says the death toll includes thousands of Hamas fighters. Abbas said the U.S. "furnished Israel with the deadly weapons that it used to kill thousands of innocent civilians, children and women. This further encouraged Israel to continuous aggression," contending that Israel "does not deserve" to be a U.N. member. Abbas said that when the war ends, the Palestinian Authority should exercise full control of the Gaza Strip, a stance Israel has rejected. Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the U.N., assailed Abbas' 26-minute speech for not once saying the word Hamas and citing the militant group's pivotal role in igniting the conflict. "The Palestinian Authority under his leadership pays salaries to terrorists who kill Israelis: whoever kills more - Abbas pays him more," Danon said. "Only when he stands on the U.N. platform does he talk about a peaceful solution." "There is no greater hypocrisy and lie than this," Danon said. "Abbas' legacy is one of chronic weakness in the face of terrorism and hatred." While not mentioning Hamas, Abbas said, "From the very first day, I stressed the need to immediately stop the war. I condemned the killing of civilians, regardless of who they are and regardless of what side they were on or any people they were from. I demanded the release of prisoners and those detained by both sides." His remarks came a week after he called for a peace conference in Madrid aimed at resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Talks aimed at reaching a cease-fire deal have stalemated for months. The General Assembly is also hearing from Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bouhabib, on Thursday, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scheduled to speak Friday, following several days of Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon against Hezbollah militants. Others giving speeches Thursday include Sudan's military leader, Generaal Abdel-Fattah Burhan, European Council President Charles Michel, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Kenya's President William Ruto, Uruguay's President Luis Lacalle Pou, and Micronesia's President Wesley Simina. 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 Syrian refugees flee increasing conflict in Lebanon By Sirwan Kajjo September 26, 2024 Thousands of Syrian refugees are among those fleeing the escalating violence in Lebanon between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group. With most of the violence taking place in southern Lebanon, thousands of civilians are seeking safety elsewhere in the tiny Middle Eastern country. Mustafa Rashid, a Syrian refugee living in southern Lebanon, said his family and three other Syrian families were stranded at a house as they anxiously waited for a way out. "Everyone is trying to leave. We are trying to reach Beirut," he told VOA via a messaging app. In the capital, Beirut, many churches and schools were quickly turned into temporary shelters to receive thousands of people from southern Lebanon, including hundreds of Syrian families. Nihad, a pastor at an evangelical Christian church near Beirut who gave only his first name for security reasons, said his church alone has received about 150 fleeing Syrian families. "Some of them were sheltered in the church itself, while others were taken to some Syrian families who live around here," he told VOA on Thursday in a phone interview. The pastor said the church was overwhelmed with the influx of displaced people, having received limited financial donations from a local relief group and a private American citizen. According to the United Nations, Lebanon hosts an estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees who have been there since the beginning of Syria's conflict in 2011. The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said it was increasing its support for the growing number of displaced Lebanese and Syrian nationals. The U.N. said Wednesday that upwards of 90,000 people in Lebanon had been displaced during the previous five days. Lebanese officials said more than 600 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes that are targeting Hezbollah fighters and weapons. The Lebanese militant group is considered a terrorist organization by the United States. "This bloodshed is extracting a terrible toll, driving tens of thousands from their homes," Filippo Grandi, U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said in a statement on Wednesday. "It is yet another ordeal for families who previously fled war in Syria, only now to be bombed in the country where they sought shelter." The UNHCR said thousands of Lebanese and Syrian people were fleeing to Syria. According to the Saudi-funded Al Arabiya news channel, more than 20,000 Syrian and Lebanese citizens so far have crossed the border into Syria, with hundreds of vehicles lining up at a border crossing between the two countries. Bassam Alahmad, executive director of the Paris-based advocacy group Syrians for Truth and Justice, however, said returning to Syria isn't an option for all the Lebanon-based Syrian refugees. "While some Syrian refugees have already returned to Syria, it is a big risk for the majority of those living in Lebanon," he told VOA. "There are many refugees who are wanted by the Syrian regime. They fear to go back and face potential arrest or forced disappearance." Alahmad said one of his group's researchers who lives in Lebanon is among those who cannot go back. "He fled Syria a few years ago because he opposed the regime, so it is not possible for him to return safely," Alahmad said. Horan Hem, a Syrian Kurdish refugee in Lebanon, said he would rather live in an uncertain situation in Lebanon than return to face persecution in Syria. "With everything going on here, it is still safer for me to stay in Lebanon than going back to Syria," he told VOA. Syrian President Bashar Assad on Wednesday directed his government to provide assistance for fleeing Lebanese citizens, without any mention of Syrian refugees. Lebanon's health ministry announced Thursday that 23 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a village in the Bekaa Valley region, including 19 Syrian nationals. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday that at least 103 Syrians have been killed in Lebanon since the beginning of the latest escalation. This story originated in VOA's Kurdish Service. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Netanyahu says Israel will continue striking Hezbollah By VOA News September 26, 2024 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel is planning to continue striking Hezbollah in Lebanon "with full force" until residents in northern Israel can go back to their homes safely. "We will not stop until we reach all our goals, chief among them the return of the residents of the north securely to their homes," Netanyahu told reporters after landing in the United States ahead of his speech before the United Nations General Assembly Friday. Shortly before his statement, the Israeli military said it killed a Hezbollah drone commander in an airstrike on an apartment building in the suburbs of Lebanon's capital, Beirut. Two people were killed, and 15 others were injured in the attack, Lebanon's health ministry said. Netanyahu's confirmation that Israel will continue conducting strikes in Lebanon come as U.S. and European officials push for a 21-day pause in fighting between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah for negotiations to take place. But earlier on Thursday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz rejected a proposed cease-fire along the Israel-Lebanon border, hours after the European Union, the United States, France and eight other nations called for the three-week halt in fighting. "We will continue to fight against the Hezbollah terrorist organization with all our strength until victory and the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes," Katz said on social media platform X. The cease-fire proposal came late Wednesday in a statement saying the conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group "is intolerable and presents an unacceptable risk of a broader regional escalation." The multination statement said a cease-fire would allow for negotiations toward a diplomatic settlement consistent with U.N. Security Council resolutions that call for a halt to the clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, as well as a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin cautioned Thursday that "all-out war" would be "devastating" for Israel and Lebanon. "A full-scale war between Hezbollah and Israel could be devastating for both parties," Austin said in London. He added that a cease-fire "can also be used to conclude and implement a deal to secure a cease-fire in Gaza." Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also joined the cease-fire call, which said a broader regional conflict "is in nobody's interest, neither of the people of Israel nor of the people of Lebanon." Hezbollah has not yet responded to the proposal for a halt in fighting. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati supports it, but his government has no influence over Hezbollah. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told the Security Council earlier Wednesday he would head to Beirut later this week to work with local stakeholders on a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. The developments come after some of the deadliest days in Lebanon since its civil war ended in the early 1990s. Israel's military said Thursday it had already carried out airstrikes on 75 Hezbollah targets in southern and eastern Lebanon and was continuing to conduct new attacks. Israel also detected about 45 projectiles crossing into its territory from Lebanon, the military said. Lebanon's state-run news agency said an Israeli attack near the city of Baalbek hit a building housing Syrian workers, killing 23 people and wounding eight others. Lebanese health officials said Israeli strikes killed 50 people on Wednesday, bringing the death toll since Monday to more than 630 people, with more than 2,000 wounded. "To all sides, let us say in one clear voice: Stop the killing and destruction. Tone down the rhetoric and threats. Step back from the brink," U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Wednesday. "An all-out war must be avoided at all costs. It would surely be an all-out catastrophe." Ground invasion? Israel's army chief said Wednesday his troops should be prepared for a possible ground invasion of Lebanon, as Israeli fighter jets bombarded Hezbollah militant targets for a third straight day and the militants launched a ballistic missile targeting the headquarters of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency near Tel Aviv. Israel shot down the missile. Hezbollah broke a relative calm along the border after Hamas' October 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel triggered the war in Gaza. Israel says Hezbollah has fired nearly 9,000 rockets at communities in northern Israel since then. The militant group says it is acting in solidarity with Palestinians and its fellow Iran-backed ally Hamas. The fighting has killed 49 people in Israel, along with hundreds in Lebanon, and displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the border. Israel also said it has activated reserve troops in response to the fight against the Hezbollah militants. The war in Gaza began with Hamas' October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages. They are still holding around 100 captives, one-third of whom are believed to be dead. Israeli airstrikes and ground attacks have killed more than 41,400 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's health ministry, with the Israeli military saying the death toll includes thousands of Hamas fighters. Hamas has been designated a terror group by the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and others. Hezbollah also is a U.S.-designated terror group. VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer and National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report. Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sudanese army launches offensive to recapture Khartoum By VOA News September 26, 2024 Sudan's army on Thursday launched an early morning offensive in the capital, Khartoum, against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in what appeared to be the army's biggest operation since the conflict began, sources within the Sudanese military and witnesses at the scene said. The army hit RSF positions in the capital with artillery and airstrikes, according to the reports. The rebel group has controlled much of the capital since fighting erupted in April 2023 between Sudan's army chief, General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. The two generals were once allies in Sudan's transitional government after a 2021 coup but became rivals for power. Thursday's military offensive was launched before Burhan's address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where he said any peace efforts would have to include RSF giving up its arms. He also accused unnamed countries of backing RSF's efforts by supplying the rebel group with men, money and weapons. The general said, however, that the army is "proceeding to defeat and dislodge these aggressors, no matter how much assistance and support they find." A recorded speech by RSF commander Dagalo was heard by the General Assembly after Burhan's speech. Dagalo said, as he has many times before, that RSF is open to a nationwide cease-fire that would permit aid distribution. Reports from Khartoum said army troops crossed two key bridges over the River Nile that separate government-controlled areas in Omdurman from Khartoum proper, which is controlled by the RSF. Agence France-Presse reposted Sudanese army footage of troops celebrating the recapture of territory within the capital. The army's offensive coincided with a ministerial meeting on the conflict at the General Assembly, where U.N. agencies and member states called for immediate action to protect civilians, scale up humanitarian assistance, and end fighting. Millions face acute hunger U.N. reports state that an estimated 20,000 people have been killed and thousands injured since the conflict erupted in April 2023. The fighting has also created the world's worst hunger crisis, with nearly 26 million people more than half the country's population facing acute hunger. The civil conflict also has created a regional refugee crisis, with an estimated 8.1 million internally displaced persons and another 2.2 million driven across the border. Guterres shares concerns U.S. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met with General Abdel-Fattah Burhan head of Sudan's transitional government on the sidelines of the General Assembly Wednesday. A readout from that meeting said Guterres expressed deep concern about the escalation of the conflict and the risks of regional spillover. The statement said they also discussed the need for an immediate, lasting cease-fire and the importance of genuine dialogue leading to an inclusive negotiated peace settlement. The conflict has spread to Sudan's Darfur region where, the U.N. human rights office reports, fighting has intensified for control of the northern city of El Fasher. The office said the RSF, with the support of local tribal militia, besieged the city in May. The heaviest recent fighting took place September 20 and 21, when artillery claimed at least 20 civilians and destroyed shops in the city's main market. In a video statement Thursday, U.N. Human Rights spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said his office has documented incidents of civilians being killed as a result of shelling and airstrikes by both RSF and Sudanese Armed Forces. They also have documented cases of summary executions, sexual and gender-based violence, and reported abductions by the RSF and allied militias. Laurence said the office is calling on the international community, including the U.N. Security Council, to take action to protect civilians in Sudan and ensure respect for international law by all parties. Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Indian-ruled Kashmir election officials report over 50% turnout By Muheet Ul Islam September 26, 2024 Voter turnout of just over 56% was reported Wednesday in Jammu and Kashmir, the disputed, Indian-controlled territory holding its first legislative elections in ten years. Two hundred thirty-nine candidates ran for 26 assembly constituencies in Wednesday's voting, part two of the three-phase elections. More than 2.5 million adults were eligible to cast ballots. The elections took place under tight security arrangements to ensure smooth conduct of the polls. "The polls ended peacefully in all the six districts. However, some stray incidents like arguments et cetera occurred at a few places but there is no need for re-poll anywhere," Pandurang Kondbarao Pole, J&K Chief Electoral Officer, told reporters in a press conference. Jammu and Kashmir is experiencing its first elections since the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party revoked its limited autonomy in 2019, downgrading its status to that of a union territory. Some locals see the elections as a battle between the BJP and the people of Kashmir, saying the government has systematically snatched away their rights over the last decade. "Desperate times call for desperate measures. I have boycotted elections ever since I became eligible to vote. Today I feel it's necessary to cast a vote and send a message to New Delhi," Ikhlaq Shah, a resident of Qamarwari, told VOA. "If we fail to act now, I believe the BJP government will impose its hazardous agenda against us." India, he said, is more interested in exploiting Jammu and Kashmir's resources than caring for its people. Shah expressed disappointment that regional political parties, particularly the National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party, are competing against each other in the elections despite sharing the common goal of throwing BJP out of J&K. Muzamil Maqbool, a political analyst, told VOA that the parties have fragmented because their leaders are prioritizing personal interests. "Most of these mainstream parties were once colleagues of each other in the past. Now they have sprouted and formed their own separated parties to fight under different names and banners," Maqbool said. The result, he predicted, is that none of them will win a majority in the J&K legislature. "It's too early to say, but J&K may see a large coalition formed to govern after the October 2024 elections," he said. Shameem Ahmad Baba, a resident of old Srinagar, said voters are confused about the parties, who are accusing each other of being hidden allies of the BJP. "There is a mass confusion among the people about who supports us and who stands with the government, as so many candidates are running this time," Baba told VOA. "I wish the regional political parties had agreed on seat-sharing, as this would have helped keep New Delhi's influence at bay." Muzaffar Shah, vice president of the Awami National Conference, or ANC, said that if all regional parties worked together under the banner of the now-dissolved Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration, PAGD, it would have strengthened the movement of the local population. PAGD was a coalition of major parties created to press the demand that India revive J&K's special status. "PAGD was recognized almost throughout diaspora of Kashmir and throughout the world," Shah said. "Unfortunately, political parties in the alliance, they gave much more weightage to their organizational matters and power politics than the interests of people of region. That fact unfortunately led to the breakup." Meanwhile, a 16-member delegation of foreign diplomats from countries like the U.S., Mexico, Singapore and Norway visited Kashmir at the invitation of the Indian government. Former Chief Minister of J&K, Omar Abdullah, lashed out at the central government for inviting foreign diplomats to observe the elections. "If these diplomats comment on J&K the Government of India immediately says it's an internal matter and they don't want outside interference. If that's the case, why are they inviting them now?" Abdullah said. The third phase of the J&K elections takes place October 1. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US, Vietnamese leaders meet, seek deeper ties By Le Nguyen September 26, 2024 U.S. President Joe Biden says Washington is committed to a strong, prosperous, resilient, and independent Vietnam and discussed a broad range of ways the two countries can cooperate during a meeting with this Vietnamese counterpart, To Lam. Since coming to office in May, Vietnam's new president has been actively reaching out, meeting with the leaders of China and Russia. Washington is seeking to counter those advances and strengthen ties with Hanoi as well. Lam, who is also head of the ruling Communist Party, met with Biden on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York Wednesday. According to a White House statement, the two talked about "building secure and resilient semiconductor supply chains" and strengthening their tech relationship as well as progress in cybersecurity cooperation and Vietnam's efforts to increase its digital connectivity. Vietnam is looking to the United States and China to triple its number of subsea cables by 2030. Biden and Lam also focused on ways the two could deepen a comprehensive strategic partnership they entered last year. Biden said Washington wants to cooperate with Vietnam to uphold a free and open Indo-Pacific and discussed the importance of maintaining peace and stability especially in the South China Sea, according to the White House statement. During the meeting, which lasted a little more than an hour, Lam assured Biden that the United States is "a partner of strategic importance," while Biden told Lam that Vietnam is "a top partner of the U.S. in the region," Vietnam News Agency reported. Analysts say that while the meeting did not take place in the White House, it did highlight the high level of trust between Hanoi and Washington and the growing importance of bilateral ties. Nguyen Hong Hai, a lecturer of international relations at Hanoi-based VinUni, told VOA in an email that the way Washington and Hanoi are talking about one another and the high importance they attach to bilateral relations is significant. It is also a sign of deepening trust, Hai added. "Vietnam falls short of a U.S. ally. But as a partner, it is a top of its kind," Hai said. Hai said that Hanoi fits perfectly into Washington's Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy since it supports the rules-based order and is playing an increasingly bigger role in the U.S.-led global supply chain. On the other hand, Hanoi needs Washington as a regional security guarantor while its goal of becoming a developed economy with high income by 2045 is contingent on access to the U.S. market as well as its capital and technology. Ha Hoang Hop, chair of the Hanoi-based Think Tank Viet Know, said it was significant that both leaders reaffirmed the importance of their comprehensive strategic partnership. So, too, was Biden's commitment to support Vietnam's tech-driven growth and encouragement for Hanoi to play an active role in regional security. "The momentum of U.S.-Vietnam comprehensive strategic partnership will be maintained far beyond Biden's and To Lam's presidencies no matter who will succeed Biden next year or who will take the helm of the Vietnamese Communist Party in 2026," Hop told VOA in an email. The two countries recently marked the first anniversary of the comprehensive strategic partnership Biden signed with Nguyen Phu Trong, Lam's predecessor, during a visit to Hanoi last year. At that time, Lam was the country's security czar. He became president following the forced resignation of President Vo Van Thuong in March and replaced Nguyen Phu Trong as party chief after Trong unexpectedly died in late July. Lam's first foreign trip after becoming Vietnam's top leader took him to Beijing in August, when he and Chinese President Xi Jinping reaffirmed their commitment to bilateral ties. He also hosted Russia's Vladimir Putin in Hanoi in late June. Although readouts of Wednesday's meeting gave no indication that China was discussed, Beijing was watching the meeting closely, Hai said. China became Vietnam's first comprehensive strategic partner in 2008, and the two countries agreed late last year to build what they call a "community of shared future" following the upgrade in U.S.-Vietnam ties. "Any progress in U.S.-Vietnam ties is unwelcome in Beijing. However, Bejing should understand that Hanoi's deepening ties with the U.S. is not targeted at any country but just serves its own security," Hai said. Think Tank Viet Know's Ha Hoang Hop said that Beijing is "fully aware of Hanoi's strategic position in the Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy" and is trying to capitalize on this to serve its interests. "For its part, Hanoi is proactively navigating between the two superpowers," he said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israel rejects U.S. ceasefire proposal, launches extensive strikes in Lebanon for 4th consecutive day People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 08:07, September 27, 2024 JERUSALEM/BEIRUT, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Israeli warplanes continued their deadly airstrikes across Lebanon for the fourth consecutive day on Thursday, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a clear rejection of a ceasefire proposal advanced by the United States and France. The Israeli military stated that its drones targeted rocket launchers in southern Lebanon responsible for attacks on Israeli targets. Fighter jets struck "dozens" of Hezbollah targets, including militant cells, launchers, and weapons storage facilities in various areas of southern Lebanon. The Lebanese Health Ministry reported that at least 60 people were killed and 81 others injured in Israeli airstrikes on Thursday across various regions in Lebanon. Israel conducted 115 attacks on Thursday, the ministry noted, adding that the large-scale airstrikes, which began on Monday and have previously focused on the south and east of Lebanon, have now spread to include regions in the Mount Lebanon Governorate. According to the Israeli military, Hezbollah forces launched approximately 150 rockets toward northern Israel. Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service stated that no casualties resulted from the rocket attacks. Some rockets were intercepted, but others struck communities in northern Israel, where most residents have been displaced due to ongoing cross-border fire. In Rosh Pina, located in the Upper Galilee, a rocket hit a residential home, causing extensive damage. Fires broke out in Rosh Pina, Safed, and Birya as a result of the strikes. Hezbollah confirmed the rocket attacks, stating that the bombings and raids were "in defense of Lebanon and its people, and in response to the barbaric Israeli invasion of cities, villages, and civilians." During a situational assessment, Israel's military chief, Hertzi Halevi, rejected the U.S.-led ceasefire call at a UN Security Council emergency meeting. "We must continue to attack Hezbollah," Halevi said. "We have waited for this opportunity for years." Netanyahu echoed this sentiment, stating that Israel "will continue to strike Hezbollah with full force" until all objectives are achieved, including the safe return of northern residents to their homes. Also on Thursday, Israel's Defense Ministry announced an 8.7-billion-U.S.-dollar aid package from the United States to support Israel's military efforts. The package includes 3.5 billion dollars for "urgent wartime procurement," which has already been transferred to Israel, and an additional 5.2 billion dollars earmarked for air defense systems, including the Iron Dome, David's Sling, and an advanced laser defense system. "This substantial investment will significantly strengthen critical systems like Iron Dome and David's Sling while supporting the continued development of an advanced high-powered laser defense system, currently in its later stages of development," the ministry stated. The United States has been supporting Israel since the beginning of the conflict with Hamas on Oct. 7 last year, sending at least 700 cargo planes with weapons, bombs, and ammunition, according to official Israeli sources. Israel and Hezbollah, a Lebanese armed group and political party, have been trading fire across the border since Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah launched rockets in solidarity with Hamas' deadly attack on communities in southern Israel the previous day. As of Thursday, the total death toll from the Israel-Hezbollah clashes since last October has reached 1,540, with injuries totaling 5,410, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Since Monday, Israel has conducted extensive airstrikes across Lebanon, resulting in over 650 deaths and more than 2,000 injuries. The Israeli military reported that it has targeted over 2,000 locations during this period. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin noted on Wednesday that the bombardment has displaced more than 150,000 residents this week. This sharp escalation has raised concerns about a potential full-scale conflict between Israel and Lebanon, with fears that other regional powers could also become involved. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Two Russian Nationals Charged in Connection with Operating Billion Dollar Money Laundering Services Thursday, September 26, 2024 For Immediate Release Office of Public Affairs Justice Department Seizes Web Domains for Multiple Illicit Crypto Exchanges The Justice Department today announced actions coordinated with the Department of State, Department of the Treasury, and other federal and international law enforcement partners to combat Russian money laundering operations. The actions involved the unsealing of an indictment charging a Russian national with his involvement in operating multiple money laundering services that catered to cybercriminals, as well as the seizure of websites associated with three illicit cryptocurrency exchanges. "Today's actions highlight the Department's continued disruption of malicious cyber actors and their criminal ecosystem," said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. "The two Russian nationals charged today allegedly pocketed millions of dollars from prolific money laundering and fueled a network of cyber criminals around the world, with Ivanov allegedly facilitating darknet drug traffickers and ransomware operators. Working with our Dutch partners, we shut down Cryptex, an illicit crypto exchange and recovered millions of dollars in cryptocurrency." "Every step cybercriminals take in their pursuit of money leaves another track that leads us to their doorstep," said U.S. Attorney Jessica D. Aber for the Eastern District of Virginia. "And if you follow them on their path of greed, they will lead us to you. We will not stop, because while domains can always be seized, justice is unyielding." "The Secret Service is relentless in pursuing those engaged in criminal activity," said Assistant Director Brian Lambert of the U.S. Secret Service. "I thank our domestic and foreign partners for their efforts on this case, as we continue our work bringing to justice those engaged in transnational criminal activity." According to court documents unsealed today in the Eastern District of Virginia, Russian national Sergey Ivanov, known online as "Taleon," among other aliases, was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit and aid and abet bank fraud for providing payment processing support to the carding website Rescator, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering for laundering proceeds from the carding website Joker's Stash. "Carding" is the unlawful acquisition of and trade in stolen credit and debit card information for fraudulent purposes. Ivanov allegedly operated for nearly two decades as a professional cyber money launderer, advertising his services to other cybercriminals on exclusive Russian-speaking criminal forums. Over the years, Ivanov's laundering services and payment systems have catered to cybercrime marketplaces, ransomware groups, and hackers responsible for significant data breaches of major U.S. companies. Ivanov allegedly created and/or operated Russian payment and exchange services UAPS, PinPays, and PM2BTC, which provided money transfer and laundering services directly to criminals. Cryptocurrency blockchain analysis revealed that between July 12, 2013, and Aug. 10, cryptocurrency addresses associated with Ivanov's alleged money laundering services conducted transactions totaling approximately $1.15 billion in value. Approximately 32% of all traced bitcoin sent to these addresses originated from other cryptocurrency addresses associated with criminal activity. For example, more than $158 million of bitcoin flowing into Ivanov's addresses allegedly represented fraud proceeds, more than $8.8 million allegedly represented proceeds from known ransomware payments, and approximately $4.7 million allegedly originated from darknet drug markets. The U.S. Secret Service has obtained court authorization to seize domains associated with the UAPS and PM2BTC websites. The Rescator carding website allegedly sold stolen payment card data from U.S. financial institutions and personally identifiable information (PII) of U.S. citizens. For example, the website allegedly advertised the sale of data from up to 40 million payment cards and the PII of approximately 70 million people that had been stolen from a major U.S. retail victim in 2013. The breach cost the U.S. retail victim at least $202 million in expenses and caused damage to the U.S. retail victim's customers, who became targets of identity theft by other cybercriminals. Ivanov allegedly provided payment processing support for the Rescator carding site through the UAPS and PinPays services for purchases made on the site using bitcoin. Additionally, Russian national Timur Shakhmametov, known online as "JokerStash" and "Vega," among other aliases, is charged in the same indictment with one count of conspiracy to commit and aid and abet bank fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering related to his work in operating the carding website Joker's Stash and laundering the proceeds. Joker's Stash offered for sale data from approximately 40 million payment cards annually, totaling hundreds of millions of payment cards overall, and was one of the largest known carding markets in history. Estimates of its profits range from $280 million to more than $1 billion. Shakhmametov and others allegedly promoted Joker's Stash and its products by advertising the Joker's Stash website and its stolen payment card data on numerous online cybercrime forums. Separately, the U.S. Secret Service executed a seizure order from the District of Maryland against two website domain names used to support the cryptocurrency money laundering exchange "Cryptex.net." According to court records unsealed today, Cryptex.net and Cryptex.one were associated with the administration and operation of Cryptex, which offers complete anonymity to Cryptex users by allowing them to register for accounts without providing know-your-customer compliance requirements. Like UAPS and PM2BTC, Cryptex advertised itself directly to cybercriminals. According to a company that provides blockchain analytics services to law enforcement, there have been more than 37,500 transactions involving bitcoin addresses associated with Cryptex, amounting to a total value of approximately 62,586 bitcoin, or $1.4 billion at the time the transactions were made. Of that amount, about 31% of the bitcoin sent, or $441 million, originated from cryptocurrency addresses associated with criminal conduct, including $297 million of fraud proceeds and more than $115 million of proceeds from ransomware payments. Nine percent of all bitcoin sent to Cryptex, or $162 million, originated from cryptocurrency addresses associated with services often used by cybercriminals. Further, 28% of all bitcoin sent from Cryptex was sent to companies or darknet markets sanctioned by the United States. The seizure of these domains by the government will prevent the owners and third parties from using the sites for money laundering. Individuals visiting those sites now will see a message indicating that the site has been seized by the federal government. As part of the coordinated actions taken today, our Dutch partners seized the servers hosting PM2BTC and Cryptex. Those servers have been taken offline at various locations around the world, and the Dutch have seized cryptocurrency from those servers worth over $7 million. In coordination with the department's actions, other U.S. government agencies and foreign law enforcement partners are also taking related actions. The U.S. Department of State issued reward offers up to $11 million through its Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Ivanov and others involved in the operation of his money laundering services, and for Shakhmametov and others involved in the operation of Joker's Stash. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued an order that identifies PM2BTC as being of "primary money laundering concern" in connection with Russian illicit finance. Concurrently, Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Cryptex and Ivanov The U.S. Secret Service Cyber Investigative Section is investigating the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Zoe Bedell for the Eastern District of Virginia is prosecuting the case against Ivanov and Shakhmametov. Trial Attorney Jeff Pearlman and Senior Counsel Jessica Peck of the Criminal Division's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Sullivan of the District of Maryland are handling the investigation into Cryptex. The Justice Department's Office of International Affairs also provided assistance in these matters. The Netherlands Police, Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service, the International Cooperation Department of the Central Criminal Police of the State Police of Latvia, Europol, the National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance, the German Federal Criminal Police Office, and the UK National Crime Agency provided invaluable assistance. The text of FinCEN's order can be found here. For more information on the individuals and entities that OFAC designated today, click here. Topic: Cybercrime Components: Criminal Division Criminal - Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section Criminal - Office of International Affairs Office of the Deputy Attorney General USAO - Maryland USAO - Virginia, Eastern Press Release Number: 24-1208 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. Moves To Break Up Cyber-Money-Laundering Operation Allegedly Run By Russians By RFE/RL September 26, 2024 The United States on September 26 imposed sanctions on an alleged Russian money-laundering operation that caters to cybercriminals around the world and unsealed indictments against two Russian nationals for their alleged involvement in the operation. The Justice Department and the State Department said their actions in coordination with Dutch partners shut down the "prolific" money-laundering operation known as Cryptex and recovered millions of dollars in cryptocurrency. "Today's actions highlight the Department's continued disruption of malicious cyber actors and their criminal ecosystem," said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. The two Russians named in the indictment, Sergei Ivanov and Timur Shakhmametov, are charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, money laundering using stolen credit and debit card information, and other charges. Neither the Justice Department nor the State Department's statements say where the two are located. The State Department announced rewards of up to $10 million each for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Ivanov or Shakhmametov. Ivanov's services have been used by cybercrime marketplaces, ransomware groups, and hackers responsible for significant data breaches of major U.S. companies, the Justice Department said. Cryptex advertises its virtual currency services in Russian and has received over $51.2 million in funds derived from ransomware attacks, the Treasury Department said. Ivanov also allegedly created and operated Russian payment and exchange services UAPS, PinPays, and PM2BTC, which the Justice Department said provided money-transfer and -laundering services directly to criminals. Ivanov operated for nearly two decades as a professional cyber-money-launderer, advertising his services to other cybercriminals on exclusive Russian-speaking criminal forums, the Justice Department said. In a coordinated action, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Ivanov and Cryptex, which it said is based in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines but operating in Russia. The Treasury Department also identified PM2BTC as a "primary money-laundering concern" in connection with Russian illicit finance. PM2BTC has long-standing ties to Russian or Russian-affiliated financial institutions that are under U.S. sanctions or other restrictions, according to the Treasury Department. "The United States and our international partners remain resolute in our commitment to prevent cybercrime facilitators like PM2BTC and Cryptex from operating with impunity," said Bradley Smith, acting undersecretary for the Treasury Department's terrorism and financial intelligence unit. Individuals visiting the sites now see a message indicating that the site has been seized by the federal government. The seizure prevents the owners and third parties from using the sites for money laundering, the Justice Department said. It also said law enforcement authorities in the Netherlands seized the servers hosting PM2BTC and Cryptex. Those servers have been taken offline, and the Dutch have seized cryptocurrency from those servers worth more than $7 million. The State Department is also offering rewards of up to $1 million each for information identifying the leaders of PM2BTC and stolen credit-card marketplaces PinPays and Joker's Stash. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/treasury-crypto-russia-money- laundering/33136647.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 Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program Offers for Two Russian Nationals and Sanctions on Illicit Russian Virtual Currency Exchanges and Cybercrime Facilitator US Department of State Press Statement Matthew Miller, Department Spokesperson September 26, 2024 The Department of State is announcing reward offers under the Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program of up to $10 million each for information leading to the arrests and/or convictions of Timur Shakhmametov and Sergey Ivanov for participating in, conspiring to participate in, and attempting to participate in transnational organized crime. Separate reward offers of up to $1 million each are also being offered for information leading to the identification of other leaders of the Joker's Stash criminal marketplace (other than Shakhmametov), as well as the identification of other key leaders of the UAPS, PM2BTC, and PinPays transnational criminal groups (other than Ivanov). Concurrently, the Department of the Treasury is sanctioning Ivanov and Russia-operating virtual currency exchange Cryptex, and issuing an order that identifies PM2BTC as being of "primary money laundering concern" in connection with Russian illicit finance. These actions are part of a coordinated international effort to disrupt Russian cybercrime services and are being taken in conjunction with actions by other U.S. government agencies and international law enforcement partners. According to the U.S. Secret Service (USSS), Shakhmametov allegedly utilized the moniker "JokerStash" in his capacity as the creator/operator of Joker's Stash, one of the most profitable online marketplaces for stolen credit card data and compromised personally identifiable information. Ivanov laundered the proceeds from Joker's Stash. USSS alleges Ivanov to be a reliable, long-term provider of money laundering services for top tier cybercriminals since approximately 2005. Today's actions underscore the United States's commitment, along with our allies and partners, to not allow cybercrime facilitators to operate with impunity. We will continue to use all our tools and authorities to deter and expose these money laundering networks and impose cost on the cyber criminals and support networks. We reiterate our call that Russia must take concrete steps to prevent cyber criminals from freely operating in its jurisdiction. Today's reward offer is authorized by the Secretary under the Department of State's Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program, which supports law enforcement efforts to disrupt transnational crime globally and bring fugitives to justice. If you have information, please contact the USSS via email at MostWanted@usss.dhs.gov. If you are located outside of the United States, you may also visit the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. If you are in the United States, you can also contact the local USSS office in your city. The Department of the Treasury sanctions action today were taken pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13694, as amended by E.O. 13757, and E.O. 14024. For more information, see Treasury's press release. ALL IDENTITIES ARE KEPT STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. Government officials and employees are not eligible for rewards. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Treasury Takes Coordinated Actions Against Illicit Russian Virtual Currency Exchanges and Cybercrime Facilitator U.S. Department of the Treasury September 26, 2024 WASHINGTON -- Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury is undertaking actions as part of a coordinated international effort to disrupt Russian cybercrime services. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is issuing an order that identifies PM2BTCaa Russian virtual currency exchanger associated with Russian individual Sergey Sergeevich Ivanov (Ivanov)aas being of "primary money laundering concern" in connection with Russian illicit finance. Concurrently, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is sanctioning Ivanov and Cryptexaa virtual currency exchange registered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and operating in Russia. The FinCEN and OFAC actions are being issued in conjunction with actions by other U.S. government agencies and international law enforcement partners to hold accountable Ivanov and the associated virtual currency services. "The United States and our international partners remain resolute in our commitment to prevent cybercrime facilitators like PM2BTC and Cryptex from operating with impunity," said Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith. "Treasury, in close coordination with our allies and partners, will continue to use all tools and authorities to disrupt the networks that seek to leverage the virtual assets ecosystem to facilitate their illicit activities." Treasury's actions aim to protect U.S. national security and the integrity of the U.S. financial system by cutting off illicit financial institutions from the U.S. market. These actions exemplify how Treasury is leveraging international cooperation and all available tools to counter the ransomware threat and target Russian illicit financial activity. The United States has pressed the Russian government to take concrete steps to prevent cyber criminals from freely operating in its jurisdiction. A coordinated, international effort to combat russian illicit finance In coordination with OFAC and FinCEN's actions, other U.S. government agencies and foreign law enforcement partners are also taking related actions. The U.S. Secret Service's Cyber Investigative Section, the Netherlands Police, and the Dutch Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Service (FIOD) have seized web domains and/or infrastructure associated with PM2BTC, UAPS, and Cryptex. The U.S. Department of State has issued a reward offer up to $10 million through its Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Ivanov. Lastly, the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia are unsealing an indictment of Ivanov and another Russian national, Timur Shakhmametov. These actions by U.S. and Dutch agencies were taken in partnership with Operation Endgame, a multinational coordinated cyber operation with European partners, to dismantle financial enablers of transnational organized cybercrime. PM2BTC: A primary money laundering concern FinCEN's order identifying the virtual currency exchange PM2BTC, a virtual currency exchanger associated with Ivanov, as being of "primary money laundering concern" in connection with Russian illicit finance is made pursuant to section 9714(a) of the Combating Russian Money Laundering Act (as amended). The order is effective immediately and prohibits certain transmittals of funds involving PM2BTC by any covered financial institution. As set out in the order, PM2BTC facilitates the laundering of convertible virtual currency (CVC) associated with ransomware and other illicit actors operating in Russia. PM2BTC provides direct CVC-to-ruble exchange services using U.S.-sanctioned financial institutions, otherwise facilitates sanctions evasion, and has failed to maintain a credible and effective anti-money laundering and know your customer (KYC) program. FinCEN found that nearly half of PM2BTC's exchange activity had links to illicit activity, and correspondingly, that PM2BTC facilitates a substantially greater proportion of transactions with apparent links to money laundering activity in connection with Russian illicit finance as compared to 99 percent of other virtual asset service providers. FinCEN also determined that PM2BTC employs an unusual obfuscation that inhibits attribution of transactions to illicit activity and actors. The same technique has notably been used by several virtual currency exchanges of concern, some of which are sanctioned by OFAC. The text of FinCEN's order can be found here. Cryptex And Ivanov: russian facilitators of cybercrime Cryptex is a virtual currency exchange registered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines under the name "International Payment Service Provider" that provides financial services to cybercriminals and is operating in the financial services sector of the Russian Federation economy. Cryptex advertises its virtual currency services in Russian and has received over $51.2 million in funds derived from ransomware attacks. Cryptex is also associated with over $720 million in transactions to services frequently used by Russia-based ransomware actors and cybercriminals, including fraud shops, mixing services, exchanges lacking KYC programs, and OFAC-designated virtual currency exchange Garantex. OFAC is designating Cryptex pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13694, as amended by E.O. 13757 ("E.O. 13694, as amended"), for being responsible for or complicit in, or for having engaged in, directly or indirectly, a cyber-enabled activity identified pursuant to E.O. 13694, as amended, and pursuant to E.O. 14024 for operating or having operated in the financial services sector of the Russian Federation economy. Sergey Sergeevich Ivanov is an alleged Russian money launderer, who has laundered hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of virtual currency for ransomware actors, initial access brokers, darknet marketplace vendors, and other criminal actors for approximately the last 20 years. Through various payment processing services, including one that does business under the name "UAPS," Ivanov has served as the payment processor for various fraud shops, including OFAC-designated Genesis Market, whose website was taken down by law enforcement in 2023. Ivanov is currently associated with Cryptex. OFAC is designating Ivanov pursuant to E.O. 14024 for operating or having operated in the financial services sector of the Russian Federation economy. OFAC's designations follow several recent U.S. Treasury actions to combat Russia-based cyber criminals and further illustrates that Russia continues to offer safe harbor to such actors. These include the July 19, 2024 designation of two members of the Russian hacktivist group Cyber Army of Russia Reborn; the May 7, 2024 designation of Dmitry Khoroshev, also known as LockBitSupp, who is a leader of the LockBit ransomware group; and the February 20, 2024 designation of LockBit affiliates Ivan Kondratiev and Artur Sungatov. The individual and entity designated today facilitated transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars for cybercriminals and cybercrime services, including ransomware actors and OFAC-designated darknet market Genesis Market. SANCTIONS IMPLICATIONS As a result of today's action by OFAC, 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. Financial institutions and other persons that engage in certain transactions or activities with the sanctioned entities and individuals may expose themselves to sanctions or be subject to an enforcement action. The prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any designated person, or the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person. Foreign financial institutions that conduct or facilitate significant transactions or provide any service involving Russia's military-industrial base run the risk of being sanctioned by OFAC. For additional guidance, please see the updated OFAC advisory, "Updated Guidance for Foreign Financial Institutions on OFAC Sanctions Authorities Targeting Support to Russia's Military-Industrial Base," as well as OFAC Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) 1146-1157. 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. For more information on the individuals and entities that OFAC designated today, click here. For questions on FinCEN's order, please contact the FinCEN Resource Center at 1-800-767-2825 or electronically at frc@fincen.gov. ### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address September 26, 2024 By Joseph Clark, DOD News U.S. Spacecom Commander Outlines Role of Partnerships Amid Growing Threats The collective efforts of the United States and its allies to safeguard their shared interests in space are critical amid increasing threats in the domain, the commander of U.S. Space Command said yesterday. Space Force Gen. Stephen N. Whiting said the risks posed to critical U.S. and allied space capabilities are accelerating as Russia and China, in particular, field an array of capabilities. "The People's Republic of China, specifically, is fielding capabilities at breathtaking speed, holding space systems in all orbital regimes at risk," Whiting said during an address at the Air & Space Power Association's Defense Space Conference in London. "Along with Russia, they are deploying counterspace capabilities ranging from reversible, nonkinetic systems, such as [satellite communication] and GPS jammers and cyberattacks, to direct ascent and co-orbital antisatellite weapons," he said. Threats that were once theoretical or future possibilities are now realities, Whiting said. "Our strategic competitors also clearly recognize the advantages space provides on the modern battlefield," he added. "Russia's aggression in Ukraine shows that forces on land, at sea, and in the air can no longer move or conceal themselves without being tracked and targeted from space or by space-enabled systems." He said China has built a robust space-enabled network it aims to use to deny terrestrial forces and navies from accessing the Indo-Pacific region. In addition to rapidly developing capabilities, Whiting said both China and Russia are challenging norms and responsible behaviors in space. Whiting noted China's recurring launch anomalies that generated significant debris, which pose a danger to assets in orbit. He also highlighted Russia's reported plan to deploy a nuclear weapon in space in violation of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. "Such a capability would have indiscriminate effects and pose a threat to all satellites operated by countries and companies around the globe," Whiting said, adding that the U.S. would continue to engage with like-minded nations "to ensure that Russia understands the global community cannot tolerate a nuclear weapon in space." Addressing these growing threats, Whiting said, requires a strategic approach. And it starts with a capable, integrated team. "Space is a team sport," he said. "No single nation, department, service, agency or company can succeed alone. The full potential of space power is realized through the integration and synchronization of the joint, interagency, allied and commercial elements creating collective advantage that surpasses any competitor." U.S. Space Command plays a critical role in the integrated space enterprise, he said. He highlighted three moral responsibilities guiding Spacecom's mission, including ensuring space capabilities, protecting and defending space constellations, and safeguarding against space-enabled attacks. Underpinning Spacecom's success is the shared trust it forges with partners and allies. "Yes, [China] and Russia are active in the international arena," Whiting said. "But they cannot begin to replicate what we have: relationships forged over the decades in wartime and peace, built on a foundation of shared principles and values and in the chaos of conflict." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ex Kumul a boost for PNG interoperability By Captain Brittany Evans 26 September 2024 The Army's 3rd Brigade is taking part in Exercise Kumul Exchange 2024 with the Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) at Lavarack Barracks, Townsville. For two months, more than 60 PNGDF personnel will be integrated across 3rd Combat Service Support Battalion, 3rd Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment, 3rd Combat Engineer Regiment and Headquarters 3rd Brigade public affairs cell. The purpose of the exercise is to work and train closely to enhance interoperability and security cooperation between the two nations. Deputy Commander 3rd Brigade Colonel Boniface Aruma (PNGDF) said in terms of engagement, it was the biggest exercise by far. "The PNGDF is really trying to address the capability gaps and look to the future," Colonel Aruma said. "We're trying to upskill and expose the younger generation to best practice, by engaging with our partners, with whom we do a lot of work." PNGDF soldiers will embed with soldiers and officers of 3rd Brigade in their specific trades, conducting activities such as combat shooting, demolition, workshop tasks and media engagements. "I'd like them to take the level of professionalism and attention to detail that the Australian Army possess," Colonel Aruma said. "It's about getting that professional consistency going, so we can slowly change the culture back home and set the PNGDF up for future successes." He said Exercise Kumul Exchange was important for the continual growth and development of both militaries. "It sends a message about how genuine the Australian Army is in their endeavour to contribute to the growth and development of the PNGDF," Colonel Aruma said. "It speaks loudly about the strength of the relationship between our two countries that is growing stronger by the day." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address September 26, 2024 Transcript Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles, and British Defense Secretary John Healey Hold a Joint Press Conference Following the AUKUS Defence Ministerial Meeting in London BRITISH DEFENSE SECRETARY JOHN HEALEY: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us for this landmark meeting of AUKUS defense ministers, the first ever outside the United States, as we pass the three-year anniversary of this AUKUS partnership. And I'm delighted to welcome Secretary Austin and Deputy Prime Minister Marles. And in some ways, very fitting to do so at this venue, the old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, where six decades ago naval officers did their first nuclear training on a real reactor that was installed in the basement here, after, of course, our US allies first agreed to share the details of their nuclear technology. And 60 years on, that same spirit of sharing skills, technology and trade between the UK and the US, and now Australia is the foundation for AUKUS and driving us to go from strength to strength. And this close relationship between the US, Britain and Australia has long been a force for stability, security and democracy in the world. From both world wars to the war on terror, our three nations have stood shoulder to shoulder through the generations. And today in a world of growing uncertainty, this partnership has never been more important. It's an importance that is not just military, it's also economic. And through our meetings today, we've been planning to drive this AUKUS partnership still further, boosting our collective prosperity and security in three ways. First, our investment in this partnership helps our industries to prosper and it breaks down barriers to trade. Second, the skills and expertise that we share boosts jobs and boosts growth across our nations. And third, the investment in our future technologies helps drive innovation and will help develop new warfighting capabilities. Here in the UK, to date, nearly 10 billion pounds of investment has been allocated to UK nuclear infrastructure and nuclear industry since the AUKUS partnership was established. And more recently as a new government, we have confirmed radical trade reforms to break down barriers to trade and to technology sharing exclusively between our three nations, worth nearly 500 million pounds a year in the cost of red tape we are able to remove. And in today's trilateral meeting between the three nations, we also agreed to add lethal UK made Stingray torpedoes to the P-8 submarine hunting aircraft across all three nations, helping to counter the deep diving and conventional submarines. And of course, then continuing the same commitment to sharing skills and intelligence, which goes back those 60 years to the original nuclear engineers. The UK has today agreed to train hundreds more Australian to operate, maintain and regulate modern nuclear-powered submarines after the first course of 250 Australians was completed this month. And as part of that work, I can announce that Deputy Prime Minister Marles and I have agreed that negotiations will soon be underway for a new bilateral treaty to bind our AUKUS collaboration into law. So this not only reflects our commitment to a secure Indo-Pacific region where international rules are respected, it also sends a very strong message that our defense alliance is one that will endure for many decades to come. So I and our new UK government will work to maximize the benefits of AUKUS to our three nations, advancing technologies, developing military capabilities, securing economic gains and growing good jobs. But above all, we will work to maximize the potential for this ever-closer alliance to contribute to wider global security and stability. Finally, of course, we have held these discussions under a cloud of growing global insecurity. So in our trilateral and in our bilateral meetings, we have reinforced the need to stand together against Russian aggression towards peace in the Middle East and steadfast behind Ukraine for as long as it takes. In serious times, you need serious partners, and so, Richard, Lloyd, we in the UK stand shoulder to shoulder with you and with you we will drive the AUKUS partnership from strength to strength. Thank you. AUSTRALIAN DEFENSE MINISTER RICHARD MARLES: Well, thank you, John. Thank you, Lloyd. It is an honor to be here at this, the third AUKUS defense ministers meeting. As John just said, we meet at a time of significant moment around the world, where the rules-based order is under pressure, under threat. And our three countries share strategic alignment. We share values. We stand in support of the maintenance of the rules-based order, be that in Eastern Europe, be that in the Indo-Pacific and we are very grateful to have old, close, reliable partners such as the United Kingdom and the United States. Today's meeting has occurred just after the third anniversary of the announcement of AUKUS. What three years ago was an idea, today we can, looking back, rightfully say that that idea has blossomed into operational plans and plans which are being executed. Last month we saw in Perth, the USS Hawaii, a Virginia class submarine undertaking a maintenance package of work, which is the first time that an American nuclear-powered submarine has had maintenance performed outside of the United States or an American base. It is the first time that an American nuclear-powered submarine has had maintenance work undertaken on it by non-US citizens. All of this is happening under the banner of the AUKUS arrangement. The very first step in what we announced in March of last year was an increased tempo of visits of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. That is happening. The Submarine Rotational Force West which will take place from 2027 is on track and we are working very closely with both our partners, along with the Western Australian government to see that that is happening as well. In South Australia, we have seen land swaps take place with the South Australian government, such that we now have the site on which a production line will be established to build the future nuclear-powered submarines in Australia, the AUKUS variant, a variant that we will operate in tandem with the United Kingdom. We have seen at the end of last year and the beginning of this, legislative and regulatory changes take place across the US, the UK and Australia, which have created a license-free seamless defense industrial base between our three countries. Right there is one of the biggest reforms to defense trade in our three countries that we have seen in decades. It will have a profound impact on the way in which we operate together. And as John has said, there is an economic dimension to this which will greatly enhance defense industry across our three countries, building jobs, skills and capability in the US, the UK and Australia. The agreements that we reached in March of last year were legally underpinned by a treaty that was signed by our three countries in August of this year and emanating from that as John has just said, today we are announcing that negotiations will commence between Australia and the United Kingdom for our own bilateral treaty in respect of those elements of AUKUS, which relate to the relationship between the UK and Australia. And that particularly pertains to the development of the SSN AUKUS type submarine in the future, and we're really excited about the prospect of undertaking those negotiations. Today, we've also talked, though, about the challenges that we face, the challenges in respect of the human dimension, making sure that we are training enough submariners to operate these submarines in the future. And we have Australian submariners at the nuclear power school in the United States, being trained here in the United Kingdom, operating on astute class submarines, operating on Virginia class submarines. We have Australian defense industry workers from ASC who are right now gaining skills working in Pearl Harbor and the numbers in each of those areas stand to increase. Australia is funding 4,000 additional university places across our university system in all disciplines to make sure that we are building the skills that are needed to deliver this project. In respect of AUKUS pillar two, we've also seen really significant developments. When we met in California last year, we said that our three innovation systems would put out an innovation challenge in relation to electronic warfare and today, we are announcing the winners of that challenge, which in respect of Australia, are Enova Technologies. In South Australia, Penton a company in the ACT and Advanced Design Technology, another company in the ACT. And we certainly congratulate each of those companies on their success in this innovation challenge. We've also worked on developing classified advanced algorithms for the use of AI in terms of processing the vast amounts of data, which are picked up by our sonar buoys, which collectively will greatly enhance our decision making advantage in the undersea domain. And again, right there is work which we are doing now, which is happening now, which is increasing our military capabilities, which is putting advantage into the warfighter's hands. All of this is a demonstration that AUKUS is happening, and it is happening at a pace. And today, our conversations have been frank. This is the third occasion on which I have been at a defense ministers meeting of AUKUS with Lloyd. It's the first with John and it is great to have John as part of this team. And there is very much a sense of team as we meet to discuss this project going forward. I think it's fair to say that the personal rapport and friendship which exists amongst the three of us up here is emblematic of the closeness of the relationship between our threea Nations, which has now been embodied each and every day in a much deeper way through AUKUS. DEFENSE SECRETARY LLOYD AUSTIN: Thanks, John. Let me start by thanking Deputy Prime Minister Marles and Secretary of State Healey. Richard, John, it's great to see you both. I think our strong relationship makes working on complex issues like this a bit easier. I'm delighted to be here in London for our third AUKUS Defense ministerial meeting. We've had some very productive discussions today, but before I turn to them, I'd like to take just a few moments to discuss the crisis between Israel and Hezbollah. The situation in Lebanon and northern Israel is deeply troubling. Lebanese Hezbollah, an Iranian backed terrorist group, began firing rockets into Israel unprovoked on the day after the October 7th terrorist assault by Hamas, and Hezbollah has not stopped since. And like any other state, Israel has a right to defend itself. And almost a year later, tens of thousands of Israeli and Lebanese civilians still cannot safely return home, and we now face the risk of an all-out war. Another full-scale war, which could be devastating for both Israel and Lebanon. So let me be clear. Israel and Lebanon can choose a different path. Despite the sharp escalation in recent days, a diplomatic solution is still viable. A diplomatic solution, not a military solution, is the only way to ensure that displaced civilians on both sides of the border can finally go back home. So, I echo the call of President Biden and President Macron and other leaders yesterday for an immediate 21-day cease fire. And that will provide time for the diplomacy needed to achieve a durable arrangement that will allow Israel and Lebanese civilians a Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return safely to their homes. This time can also be used to conclude and implement a deal to secure a cease fire in Gaza and to bring all of the hostages home. All parties should seize this opportunity. It can bring much needed calm to Israelis, Lebanese, and Palestinians whose lives have been turned upside down since the Hamas assault on October 7th. And make no mistake, the United States remains postured to protect our forces and our personnel across the Middle East. And no one should try to exploit this crisis or expand this conflict. So, we will continue to work tirelessly to avoid another tragic war and to find a diplomatic path forward. And with that, let me turn back to today's agenda. Together, we have reaffirmed the extraordinary strength of our AUKUS partnership and we showed our shared vision for an open, free, secure, and prosperous Indo-Pacific. Our three proud democracies share a deep and binding belief in the rules based international order and in a system that respects human rights upholds the rule of law and insists that disputes be resolved peacefully. We also understand that we are stronger together, and that's the lens that we all used again today. Together, we reaffirm that AUKUS offers a unique opportunity for our three countries to enhance our military capabilities and to deepen our interoperability and to strengthen deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. Today, we reviewed our progress on pillar one toward providing Australia with a conventionally armed and nuclear-powered submarine capability while upholding the highest standards of nonproliferation. And I want to thank the sailors from all three of our navies who are working tirelessly to ensure that we succeed. Over the past year, we increased the number of officers and sailors from the Royal Australian Navy attending US and British submarine nuclear reactor schools. And US and Australian sailors along with UK observers recently conducted maintenance together on a US submarine visiting Australia. This was just a first step toward ensuring that Australia has a sovereign nuclear powered submarine capability. And we're also making progress a progress towards having a rotational presence of US submarines by as early as 2027. Both will help to enhance security and stability across the Indo-Pacific region. The United States also remains committed to supporting Australia's efforts to recruit and train the skilled workforce needed to build, maintain, and sustain and operate a nuclear-powered submarine. And we applaud the signature of the recent trilateral agreement that will allow for the transfer of naval nuclear propulsion equipment and material among AUKUS partners and it enhances the close cooperation already underway to integrate our industrial bases. And over the next year, our navies will seek more opportunities to integrate our industrial bases and we'll build more resilience across our supply chains. We also got a lot done on pillar two of AUKUS, which focuses on getting new advanced capabilities to our warfighters. We're working together to identify common requirements and to meet them with the most capable tech. And that's critical to building an even more capable combined force. And over this past year, we conducted several significant demonstrations and experiments across the ground, undersea, and along the electromagnetic spectrum. And taken together, all this progress will increase decision advantage for our warfighters. And we are excited to quickly feel these new a these advanced technologies across our forces. Our acquisition teams are driving Integration throughout our industrial bases and our innovation ecosystems. This will maximize our combined ability to develop, produce, and sustain these capabilities together. You know, earlier this year, we held the first trilateral AUKUS Innovation Challenge. It's focused on electronic warfare, targeting, and protection. And leading companies from all three countries offered solutions to these complex challenges. Our Defense Innovation Unit selected Distributed Spectrum, a vendor based in New York City. It is part a it is postured to provide critical capabilities which will strengthen AUKUS. And that reminds us of the importance of working with industry in all that it has to offer. Under AUKUS, we intend to do more of that. Our AUKUS innovation leads are developing a robust two-year agenda for further work with industry, and thanks to AUKUS our three militaries are operating together more closely and capably than ever before. So, Richard and John, thanks for your leadership and thanks for your commitment to security in the Indo-Pacific. As you've both said, we've got a lot done today and I look forward to doing even more in the days ahead. Thank you very much. BRITISH DEFENSE SECRETARY JOHN HEALEY: Thank you, Lloyd. Thank you, Richard. Right. I'm going to ask three a six journalists now if they'd like to pose a question to us. And I'm going to start with Johnny Beale of the BBC. Q: Thank you very much. [Inaudible] Secretary, Austin's comments about Lebanon just there. You did say, deliberately, I think, Israel can choose a diplomatic path. Now, Israel, you have said, should be part that ceasefire you want. Yet we've heard from Prime Minister Netanyahu today directing his own forces to continue the fight with full force. So, are you worried that he is ignoring your appeals for a ceasefire? And also is there a limit to US military support for Israel? We haven't seen any limits so far. You're still supplying them with arms, but are there red lines? For example, if Israel chose to carry out a ground invasion into Lebanon, is that a red line for you? And then I'd like to ask our defense secretary, are you worried about what Benjamin Netanyahu has said today? He seems to be ignoring those calls for a ceasefire, which you back, and is directing his forces, as he says, to continue the fight with full force. Are you any nearer also to thoseayou put 700 British troops into Cyprus, along with more US assets going into the region as well. Are you any nearer to that position where you're going to have to activate an evacuation, a military evacuation of British citizens in the country, because many say they can't get flights out? And I would ask that also, the deputy prime minister, you have Australian citizens in Lebanon, what are you doing about getting them out safely and are you going to be part of some military evacuation? Thank you very much, sirs. BRITISH DEFENSE SECRETARY JOHN HEALEY: Lloyd, do you want to have first crack ata DEFENSE SECRETARY LLOYD AUSTIN: Thanks, John. BRITISH DEFENSE SECRETARY JOHN HEALEY: athose multiple questions. DEFENSE SECRETARY LLOYD AUSTIN: Thanks for the question, John. Israel has stated that its goal is to return its citizens to their homes in the north. And I believe the best and the quickest way to do that is through diplomacy. I mean, there's no question that both Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah have stated that they do not want to see an all-out war. A war between LH and Israel could be devastating for both entities. And so, we believe that the best thing that can happen is that we agree to a ceasefire, or the two parties agree to a ceasefire and allow diplomacy to take place. And again, we have been in constant dialog with our counterparts in Israel. As you probably know, I talk to my counterpart frequently, and of course, I encourage them to pursue diplomacy every step of the way. In terms of any limits that we would place on Israel, we've been committed from the very beginning to help Israel provide the things that are necessary for them to be able to protect their sovereign territory and that hasn't changed and won't change in the future. BRITISH DEFENSE SECRETARY JOHN HEALEY: Thank you. The calls at the United Nations at this time, this week, led by President Biden by Prime Minister Starmer and a number of other nations for this 21-day ceasefire, unprecedented calls together at the United Nations offer a pause in the fighting, as Secretary Austin has said, and the chance to see negotiations. There is a way that Israel can see its thousands of displaced citizens return to their homes in northern Israel and those Lebanese can return to their homes as well. And that's the American led Hochstein plan. The Israelis have said they're prepared to accept that and I urge Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Lebanese Hezbollah leaders to pay heed to the combined voices at the United Nations to do just that, 21 days, a ceasefire where talks can start, and the fighting can end, and the chance of a longer term settlement may emerge. On the question of the British nationals in Lebanon, this is our first concern, their safety, it's the first duty of a government is to look after the interests of its nationals. Our advice on Lebanon has not changed in recent days. It's been the same for weeks. Don't go to Lebanon and if you are in Lebanon, then leave. And there are at present commercial flights leaving Lebanon, but at any sensible government must make preparations for future developments. So, I left the labor party conference early this week. On Tuesday morning, I chaired a meeting of Cobra officials that afternoon to ensure that if we see rapid developments in Lebanon, then Britain with allies is ready to respond. And in the last 24 hours, we've flown 700 UK military personnel to Cyprus. They stand ready to act should they be needed at short notice. AUSTRALIAN DEFENSE MINISTER RICHARD MARLES: Well, firstly, Australia has added its voice, along with the US, the UK and other countries for a call for a 21 day ceasefire to enable diplomacy to have the opportunity to establish a longer term peace on the Israeli-Lebanon border. There are a significant number of Australians who are Australian citizens who are in Lebanon, and we have been very mindful of that population of Australian citizens in Lebanon really since this conflict began. We do have in place plans and preparations in respect of a range of scenarios and we stand ready to activate those preparations. But the most important thing that can be said right now is to echo what John has said and that is that Australians who are in Lebanon now, this is the time to leave, don't wait. Take the opportunity to leave while you can. The quickest way to getting to safety is to take steps as we speak. And for those thinking of going to Lebanon, don't go. It is really important that people use this moment, and we are speaking as loudly as we can to the more than 10,000 Australian citizens who are in Lebanon, now is the time to leave. BRITISH DEFENSE SECRETARY JOHN HEALEY: Thank you. Can I move to Bridget Rollason, please, ABC? Q: Thank you. Secretary Austin, as the Deputy Prime Minister said, Australia has thousands of citizens in Lebanon. Given the close partnership that we've seen evident today, has there been discussions about how the US could possibly help Australia in getting these citizens out safely? DEFENSE SECRETARY LLOYD AUSTIN: Bridget, there's a bit of an echo, so I couldn't understand the question completely. If you could move your mic a little closer, maybe and speak up a little bit. Q: Sure. I was just wondering if there's been any discussions about how the US can help Australia get their citizens in Lebanon out safely given the partnership we've seen on display evident here? DEFENSE SECRETARY LLOYD AUSTIN: How we would help Australia leave Lebanon, is that the question? Q: Correct. DEFENSE SECRETARY LLOYD AUSTIN: Australia is a valued ally and certainly, we don't want to engage in any hypotheticals at this point. As you've heard the deputy prime minister say, that he is doing things to continue to plan and put means in place to be able to offer options to the Australian leadership if it comes to that. We do the same thing and as you heard Secretary Healey say, he is doing the same thing, and we are close allies. We will always endeavor to help each other when and if that time comes. But again, that hadn't presented itself yet, but Australia and the UK, I would hope that they would feel that they can always count on the United States of America. AUSTRALIAN DEFENSE MINISTER RICHARD MARLES: Perhaps I might just respond and say there has not been any request obviously of the UK or the United States. I mean right now we are talking about a hypothetical, but the most important message for people today and Australian citizens in Lebanon today is to leave. That's the most important step that people can take. But as Lloyd said, we, in our preparations for a range of scenarios, work really closely with both the US and the UK. There is a history of cooperation which goes back decades. We have seen scenarios in Lebanon previously over the last two decades and they are still remain fresh in oura But the most important step in relation to all of this as we speak is for Australians in Lebanon to leave today right now. BRITISH DEFENSE SECRETARY JOHN HEALEY: Thank you. Haley Britzky, CNN. Q: Thank you so much. Secretary Austin, you've spoken with your Israeli counterpart multiple times in the last week. Given Prime Minister Netanyahu's comments today, do you have confidence that Israeli leadership is listening to the US when it comes to this conflict with Hezbollah? And Secretary Healey, for you, can you speak about any detailed conversations between you and Secretary Austin regarding lifting the ban on Ukraine using Storm Shadow missiles to strike deeper inside of Russia? And is the UK prepared to move forward and allowing Ukraine to do this without the US If the US does not give approval? DEFENSE SECRETARY LLOYD AUSTIN: Thanks, Hayley. You heard me say a couple of seconds ago that a full-scale war between LH and Israel could be devastating for a both parties and it could lead to a larger conflict throughout the region. So that's not in the best interest of anyone. And the best way forward is a is to pursue a ceasefire that will enable diplomacy to take place. And again, I know that our diplomats continue to engage each other on this issue. I am confident that they'll continue to a to find a way to a to do just that, you know, get to a point where we can a we can see a ceasefire and still work towards a diplomatic solution. But this is a we recognize that there's hard work to be done. We are committed to doing that work. And yes, I am optimistic that a that the right things will happen. BRITISH DEFENSE SECRETARY JOHN HEALEY: Haley, we've been a government now in the UK for 10 weeks. In that time, we've stepped up the military aid that we've provided to Ukraine. We've sped up the deliveries of the aid that had previously been pledged. We've struck a new industrial treaty with Ukraine so that we cannot only provide what they need now, but we can produce what they need in future. And the main focus for the discussions between Secretary Austin and I this morning over Ukraine were how we get behind the victory plan that President Zelenskyy has presented in the US this week and how we can reinforce the Ukrainians position in the months ahead in the face of a continuing onslaught from the Russians on the eastern border. And in the end, we're talking about resolution of conflict and cease fire in the Middle East. Putin could end the war in Ukraine today if he pulls back his troops and ends his illegal invasion. Can I move on to Mark Nicol of Daily Mail, please? Q: Thank you, Mr. Healy. If I could ask you this question and then an adjunct to it to Mr. Austin. As the Daily Mail has reported recently, the Royal Navy hasn't had an attack submarine on operations for more than two months and most of the astute class are alongside undergoing repairs. This has necessitated a greater reliance on the UK's allies, in particular the United States. So when will Britain be able consistently to protect its bomber submarines, which carry the UK's nuclear deterrent? And to Mr. Austin, how familiar are you as US Secretary of State for defense with these many long standing issues within the Royal Navy? And how comfortable are you given a with them given it's the US that is often required to plug capability gaps? BRITISH DEFENSE SECRETARY JOHN HEALEY: Well, Mark, you know I won't comment as defense secretary on anything operational, but I will say as Defense Secretary, I will allow nothing that compromises the security of our UK nuclear deterrent. And I would just say to this, President Putin knows just how capable and world class our submarines and our underwater systems are. And today, we as three nations have been discussing our a the way that our national forces can be strengthened by being developed and deployed in the future together through the AUKUS partnership. So this is a partnership that reinforces our national securities, but also collaboratively reinforces wider national and international security and stability to. DEFENSE SECRETARY LLOYD AUSTIN: And Mark, I think the question was whether or not I am confident in the UK's capability, is that correct? Yes. Hey, listen, I a you know, we have been trusted allies for a long time. We have fought beside each other, bled with each other, faced difficult challenges with each other. And you know, I was telling the ministers earlier today, the short 41 years that I spent in uniform, a good part of that well, well over five years was in combat on and off. There was never a place that I went where I didn't have a Brit or an Aussie that was in that formation. That's how closely we've been working together for a long time. Matter of fact, when I was at Land Forces commander in Iraq, my deputy was a British man by the name of Sir Richard Baron. You probably know about him or know of him. He rose to prominence in the a in the UK military. But I have confidence in their war fighting capability, their strategic outlook, and in their willingness to work alongside us on tough issues. And the same level of confidence with the Australian military. So the short answer is yes. That answer is based upon many years of experience of working with the a with our allies here. BRITISH DEFENSE SECRETARY JOHN HEALEY: So thank you. Can I turn to Latika Bourke, please, The Nightly? Q: Thank you. Secretary, Austin, a revered elder of Mr. Miles's party, former Prime Minister Paul Keating, has said that AUKUS is about the United States turning Australia into suckers and a military outpost. What would you say to critics like Mr. Keating? And are you concerned about the tone of the debate in Australia around AUKUS and that leading to a slippage in public support for the program? And Secretary Healey, I didn't quite understand your answer on Storm Shadow. Yes or no, are you willing to go it alone? And Secretary Austin, would you be OK with that scenario if the British decided to go it alone? DEFENSE SECRETARY LLOYD AUSTIN: So, regarding your first question, AUKUS a pillar one of AUKUS will provide a generational capability to Australia that will provide benefits for many, many years to come. It is well worth the investment. It is well worth the effort that we put into it, and we take this very seriously. As you heard Secretary Healey say earlier, we haven't shared this with any other country in 60 years. So, this is not a good idea that we woke up one day and said, hey, let's do this. We understood the level of complexity, the commitment, the hard work that would go into this and the shared responsibilities that would come along with this. And what I've seen throughout, in working with our trusted allies here is just that, tremendous commitment. I've seen incredible performance by a by their sailors a by the Australian sailors. And Secretary Healey, I know, would agree with me as we have trained their sailors in our schools recently. Their performance has been quite impressive. This effort extends over many a several years. And because of that we know that we need to make sure that we hit every benchmark, every objective over that period of time that we've outlined. And to date, in the third year of our efforts on AUKUS, I can say that we have and we continue to press forward to make surethat that we're doing everything that we need to do to ensure that this capability comes to life. And it's already coming to life. You look at what's happening in the schools, you know, what we're doing in maintenance. We're investing in the submarine industrial basis, so we are creating capability, and we are committed to making sure that Australia has what it needs to have going forward and it will make its own sovereign decisions about what it will do in the future. We fully expect that, but thanks. BRITISH DEFENSE SECRETARY JOHN HEALEY: Let me add to that. I said earlier that we've just completed the first course of our Royal Navy training, 250 Australians in nuclear engineering. I am proud to say also we've got Australian submariners now serving on one of our astute submarines and we've got Australian experts now in our wider nuclear enterprise. These are just the very first steps. They will increase during the year ahead and it's part of the way that we bind our AUKUS partnership closer together and we develop it further for the future. On your other question, There really is only one person. You know that benefits from the public debate about specific capabilities and that is President Putin. And I would just say to you this, America, that has been outstanding in its leadership in support of Ukraine, and the UK provide military aid and support for Ukraine across a wide range of capabilities. And we do that for the sole purpose to help Ukraine defend itself from this illegal invasion and we will continue to do that. AUSTRALIAN DEFENSE MINISTER RICHARD MARLES: I might just say a little bit in response to the [inaudible] question as well. Mr. Keating, to give him credit has been consistent in his position over a long period of time. What Mr. Keating is saying now is what Mr. Keating was saying in March of last year. So there's really nothing new in his comments and obviously he is perfectly entitled to the view that he holds. But what's also not new is the strategic imperative for Australia to walk down the path of acquiring a nuclear-powered submarine capability. Just to be able to maintain the submarine capability that we had in the early 2000s when we first introduced the Collins class submarine, into the future will require us to move down a nuclear-powered path. Because as we move into the 2030s and '40s, diesel electric submarines will become increasingly detectable. And as a nation, which is positioned where we are, which is oceangoing, which is so connected to the world through our sea lines of communication, we have to have a top of the line, first rate, long range submarine capability. And the only way we achieve that is through a nuclear-powered submarine capability. So to be able to have the same capability in the future that in Mr. Keating's time, he was planning for with the Collins class submarines, we must walk down this path. But of course, a nuclear-powered submarine capability will be greatly in advance of anything that the Collins class submarines offer us today, as capable as they are. And this is the most significant, one of the most significant leaps in military capability that our nation has ever taken. And as Lloyd just said earlier, this is only the second time in history that we have seen countries pass this technology on to another country. The first of course being when the United States provided this technology to the UK. So it is not lost on us the significance of the step that we are taking. But this is utterly essential for Australia's future and the strategic imperative of that remains unchanged, irrespective of what Mr. Keating says. And in terms of the state of the debate in Australia, from the labor party's own conference last year in August through to the bipartisan position, which is held by the political parties in our parliament through to the public support for what we are doing in the development of AUKUS and Australia acquiring this capability. There is support for AUKUS in Australia. I mean that is where the public debate stands. There is absolutely support for this and we will continue to make the argument to the Australian people, we are really comfortable and confident about the way in which that argument is being received. There will of course be other voices which happens in a democracy and that is important. But this is a program which enjoys bipartisan support in Australia, and it is happening. BRITISH DEFENSE SECRETARY JOHN HEALEY: Thank you and finally, Lauren Williams, Defense One. Q: Thank you. More on submarine production. In the US, The Virginia class program is very behind schedule, it's years behind schedule, and the submarine industrial base challenges have long been known. Are you concerned at all that shipbuilders will able to not only produce what the Navy has already ordered in the US, but also produce what Australia is trying to procure? On pillar two, there's been a lot of discussion about expanding it to other countries and other technologies, but when you do that, that introduces security risks, cybersecurity risks specifically. Can you talk a bit about how you're going to protect companies' intellectual property and if you have enough counterintelligence efforts in place to mitigate those? And then in that same vein, with pillar two, when you're developing these technologies, I know a lot of it is classified, but still these companies are developing technologies. How are you ensuring that what's being developed will actually end up in the hands of military operators and not necessarily just become experiments? DEFENSE SECRETARY LLOYD AUSTIN: First of all, in terms of our ability to meet the production objectives, of course we're concerned about that and that's why we're investing more in the submarine industrial base, so that they can continue to expand capacity and place our efforts on a ramp that ensures that we can meet the objectives going forward. And I feel good about the things that we're investing in. I met with the leaders of industry and discussed with them what they're doing with the additional resources that we're providing, what they're investing in, how they're using those resources. And so, I think they welcome that discussion. And what I'm seeing is that we're investing in the right things, and we will be able to expand the capacity going forward and to meet our objectives. Pillar two, we do see opportunities to offer other countries the ability to work with us on specific projects. There are countries who want to work with us that bring a lot to the table and on a project-by-project basis, we will endeavor to work with those countries, ensuring that all the things that you mentioned in terms of protection of IP and those kinds of things, the right things are taking place. We don't take that for granted. And finally, my colleagues will attest to the point that during our discussion today, all three of us hammered home what our north star is. Our north star is to make sure that we are producing capability for the warfighter in real and relevant time, but we cannot allow to lose that focus. That's our current focus and it will be our focus for the foreseeable future going forward. BRITISH DEFENSE SECRETARY JOHN HEALEY: Richard? Let me just finish off by underlining that point about timescales. These are decade, the submarines in particular in pillar one are decades long programs. This is the perhaps the most complex engineering and technologies on the planet, but there is an imperative to see every day counts because it's what we do now and in the weeks and months ahead now that will determine whether or not to time, towards the end of the 2030s, the first AUKUS submarines are built and put into operation. And in our discussions that theme ran throughout, timescales are tough, but they are essential and that together we are absolutely determined that we will deliver. So thank you. Thank you, all. Thank you all very much. https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3918715/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address September 26, 2024 Release AUKUS Defence Ministers' Meeting Communique Today the Right Honourable John Healey MP, Secretary of State for Defence, United Kingdom hosted the Honourable Richard Marles MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, Australia and the Honorable Lloyd J. Austin III, Secretary of Defense, United States (U.S.) at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London, the United Kingdom (UK) to review progress in and reaffirm their commitment to the AUKUS partnership. The AUKUS partnership reflects the continued commitment by Australia, the United Kingdom, and United States to support a free and open Indo-Pacific that is peaceful, secure and stable. The discussions between the Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister today reaffirmed the importance of this innovative, enduring, and trusted partnership in the face of a rapidly evolving and increasingly unstable international security environment. The three nations will continue to work to uphold the global rules-based order where international law is followed, and states can make sovereign choices free from coercion. In this context, they reiterated their shared commitments to the AUKUS partnership for the decades to come and welcomed the progress made since AUKUS Defence Ministers last met in California, the United States, in December 2023. Pillar I - Conventionally Armed, Nuclear-Powered Submarines (SSNs) In March of 2023, our Heads of Government met to announce a comprehensive plan to support Australia's acquisition of a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine capability as quickly as possible. Since that announcement, our three governments have worked shoulder-to-shoulder to refine the milestones and principles that will form the building blocks for this decades-long partnership. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister reiterated their shared and enduring commitment to setting the highest nuclear non-proliferation standard, and the importance of this work to the success of the programme. They undertook to continue AUKUS partners' open, and transparent engagement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and noted the ongoing bilateral negotiations between the IAEA and Australia to develop a robust safeguards and verification approach for Australia's naval nuclear propulsion programme under Article 14 of Australia's Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA. Over the last year, our Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Royal Navy (RN), and U.S. Navy personnel have worked tirelessly across governments, defence industry, and academic institutions to optimise the training of personnel to maintain, sustain, operate, and crew nuclear-powered submarines. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister reiterated that the delivery of the "Optimal Pathway" depends upon the skilled workforces of all three countries and reaffirmed their shared commitment to develop a robust base of skills across their military, civilian and industrial sectors. More than 60 RAN personnel are currently in various stages of the U.S. nuclear-powered submarine SSN training pipeline to equip a cadre of Australian officers and sailors with experience aboard the U.S. Virginia class SSNs that the RAN will own and operate from the early 2030s. These numbers will increase further in 2025, with more than 100 personnel commencing training. Six officers have completed all training and have been assigned to U.S. Virginia class submarines. RAN enlisted sailors will join U.S. submarine crews before the end of this year. In the United Kingdom, three RAN officers completed the UK Nuclear Reactor course in July 2024 and are now assigned to UK Astute class submarines. The next group of RAN officers will commence training in the UK in November 2024. The RN, with the support of the Australian Submarine Agency, has also delivered professional and general naval nuclear propulsion training for more than 250 Australian personnel in Canberra. Australians have embedded into programme delivery teams in the UK Ministry of Defence and with Rolls-Royce Submarines. Australians are also currently embedded in U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program teams. In July and September 2024, Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard welcomed the first 40 ASC Pty Ltd personnel into its training pipeline with the expectation of more than 100 additional ASC Pty Ltd employees by mid-2025. The Australian Government has committed to nearly AUD 250 million to start delivering the skills and workforce needed for its SSN program, including providing 4,001 Commonwealth Supported Places at Australian universities, in addition to 3,000 undergraduate scholarships over six years, to build the necessary Australian Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics workforce. Additional programs have seen more than 70 Australians supported to undertake postgraduate nuclear studies at universities in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia. Australia has also recently announced the "Jobs for Subs" initiative, a government-funded program to evolve ASC Pty Ltd to recruit, train and retain approximately 200 additional graduates, apprentices and trainees to support Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-West) in Western Australia. Recognising that our partners in defence industry are and will remain vital to this endeavour, the Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister discussed opportunities to maximize our efforts to foster collaboration and build resilience across our industrial bases and supply chains. They welcome the collaboration between BAE Systems (BAES) and ASC Pty Ltd to bring together their combined decades of submarine building to deliver the SSN-AUKUS programme. The U.S. Government decided to invest USD 17.5 billion into its submarine industrial base to support initiatives related to supplier development, shipbuilder and supplier infrastructure, workforce development, technology advancements, and strategic sourcing. Australia has also committed to invest over AUD 30 billion in the Australian defence industrial base to develop Australia's supply chains and facilitate industry participation in U.S. and UK supply chains. His Majesty's Government announced an initial allocation of A4 billion from the United Kingdom to continue the detailed design work of SSN-AUKUS and order long-lead items, as well as the United Kingdom's investment of A3 billion across its Defence Nuclear Enterprise, including the construction of submarine industrial infrastructure that will help to deliver the SSN-AUKUS programme. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed the AUKUS partners' commitment to accelerate opportunities for Australian industry in the Virginia class submarine supply chain, including through the Defence Industry Vendor Qualification Program and other industry collaboration initiatives. They welcomed ongoing efforts to encourage further industrial base partnerships to build resiliency across the trilateral Submarine Industrial Base. This August, as a direct result of our close collaboration over this year, our three nations commenced the execution of the first-ever planned maintenance activity of a U.S. SSN in Australia. More than 30 RAN personnel worked alongside U.S. Navy and contractor personnel and UK observers to conduct routine maintenance and observe safety and stewardship evolutions. This was an important step in building Australia's capacity to support a rotational presence of UK and U.S. SSNs at SRF-West beginning as early as 2027, as well as Australia's future sovereign SSN capability. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister emphasised the importance of ensuring that our trilateral systems have the tools they need to transfer information and data in a timely fashion to facilitate cooperation. They were pleased to welcome the August 2024 signing of an enabling agreement for trilateral cooperation related to naval nuclear propulsion. Once in force, this historic agreement will enable AUKUS partners to go beyond sharing naval nuclear propulsion information, allowing the United States and the United Kingdom to transfer nuclear-propulsion material and equipment to Australia required for the safe and secure construction, operation, and sustainment of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines. This agreement reaffirms, and remains consistent with, the AUKUS partners' respective, existing international non-proliferation obligations. As a non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Australia has re-affirmed unequivocally that it does not have, and will not seek to acquire, nuclear weapons. Pillar II - Advanced Capabilities The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister hailed progress being made under Pillar II to deliver capability to our defence forces while bolstering industry and innovation sector collaboration. AUKUS nations continue to pool the talents of our defence sectors to catalyse, at an unprecedented pace, the delivery of advanced capabilities. Through AUKUS Pillar II, our trilateral science and technology, acquisition and sustainment, and operational communities are working across the full spectrum of capability developmentagenerating requirements, co-developing new systems, deepening industrial base collaboration, and bolstering our innovation ecosystems. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed progress made in building a more capable, combined joint force of the future because of this work. This year, under the Maritime Big Play initiative, we are undertaking a series of integrated trilateral experiments and exercises to enhance interoperability and accelerate the combined fielding of autonomous uncrewed systems in the maritime domain. Later this year, the three nations will bring together approximately 30 systems across four domains for the first large-scale AUKUS integrated demonstration. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed the inclusion of technologies from companies in each of the three nations and plans to expand to include additional industry partners in the future. In 2024, AUKUS partners furthered their undersea warfare capabilities by beginning to scale up the ability to launch and recover uncrewed underwater systems from torpedo tubes on current classes of British and U.S. submarines, which will increase the range and capability of our undersea forces. AUKUS partners are exploring opportunities to collaborate on sensors and payloads to maximize this capability and deliver effects such as strike, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. In parallel, the United Kingdom and the United States are strengthening superiority in the maritime domain by integrating the Sting Ray lightweight torpedo into the P-8A Maritime Patrol Aircraft alongside the Mk 54 torpedo, with trials planned for 2025. This will increase the opportunity for interchangeability and potential work on future torpedo programmes. These efforts will ultimately enhance the survivability of our surface combatant and submarine fleets. In the area of long-range precision strike, we are increasing our collective ability to develop and deliver offensive and defensive hypersonic technologies through a robust series of trilateral tests and experiments that will accelerate the development of hypersonic concepts and critical enabling technologies. These capabilities will hold time critical and heavily defended targets at risk from increased ranges, enhancing the survivability of our forces and defending our homelands and forces against potential threats. Advancing our maritime domain autonomy and decision advantage efforts, AUKUS partners demonstrated and deployed common advanced artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms on P8-A Maritime Patrol aircraft to process data from each nations' sonobuoys. These advances allow for faster data processing and improved target identification in congested acoustic environments, enhancing our combined anti-submarine warfare capabilities. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed plans to scale these technologies in 2025. Our joint forces demonstrated several innovative uses of AI technologies to enhance decision making and bolster combined military effects. In March, AUKUS partners demonstrated the ability to rapidly co-develop and deploy trilateral AI algorithms to find and fix targets for strike. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed trilateral plans to explore the introduction of these capabilities into operational units in the coming years. The International Joint Requirements Oversight Council (I-JROC) remains a critical collaborative forum to identify and validate joint and combined requirements to ensure capability development considers interoperability and interchangeability from the very start. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed the establishment of trilaterally determined key operational problems, leveraging existing activities to achieve capability development priorities endorsed by I-JROC. AUKUS partners seek: An enhanced multi-domain long-range strike capability that incorporates asymmetric capabilities and integrated targeting; Strengthened multi-domain integrated air and missile defence capability; Resilient command and control systems that maintain a diverse range of information; and Enhanced logistical networks that are able to deliver persistent support and sustainment for operations in contested environments. To this end, the Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed work underway across our trilateral Armies, Navies, and Air Forces to explore additional opportunities for collaboration in the land, maritime, air, and other domains under AUKUS Pillar II. A cornerstone of our AUKUS Pillar II program remains the opportunity to leverage the best of our defence industrial bases and innovation ecosystems. Over the past year we have further integrated our innovation ecosystems and fostered increased collaboration with these stakeholder communities to explore opportunities in all aspects of Pillar II. AUKUS partners executed the first trilaterally sponsored innovation prize challenge, which focused on electronic warfare. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister are pleased to announce Advanced Design Technology Pty Ltd, Inovor Technologies Pty Ltd and Penten Pty Ltd (AUS), Amiosec Ltd, University of Liverpool, Roke Manor Research Ltd, Autonomous Devices Ltd (UK), and Distributed Spectrum (U.S.) as the winners for this challenge. The selection of these companies demonstrates the important contributions that our trilateral commercial sectors and innovation bases can make in addressing critical operational requirements. Building on the success of this first challenge, the Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister were pleased to endorse plans for a robust two-year agenda that will increase collaboration between and among our innovation centres of excellence. Through this collaboration, AUKUS partners will leverage innovative tools to reach our entrepreneurs and actively solicit new and powerful capabilities from our trilateral innovation ecosystem and industrial base. In coordination with industry associations representing the trilateral defence industrial base, the Advanced Capabilities Industry Forum, continues to provide an opportunity for representatives across government and industry to exchange ideas and deepen industrial collaboration in Pillar II. By the end of this year, AUKUS partners will have convened meetings in each country and facilitated discussions with technology and policy subject matter experts to increase understanding and information sharing. In response to industry feedback and as current projects mature beyond traditional research and development projects, the National Armaments Directors from each nation are identifying opportunities to harmonise acquisition processes and reducing barriers to facilitate the accelerated delivery of Pillar II advanced capabilities. In April 2024, the Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister announced principles for engaging additional partners on opportunities to collaborate on AUKUS Pillar II projects. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed progress on consultations with Japan on improving interoperability with Japan's maritime autonomous systems as an initial area of cooperation. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister noted ongoing consultations with Canada, New Zealand, and the Republic of Korea to identify possibilities for collaboration on advanced capabilities under AUKUS Pillar II on a project by project basis. Defence trade and industrial base collaboration To promote innovation and realise the goals of AUKUS, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States implemented momentous amendments to our respective export control regimes. These historic efforts will maximise secure, licence-free defence trade and stimulate innovation across the full breadth of our defence collaboration, mutually strengthening our three defence industrial bases, while maintaining rigour and security in all three systems. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister reaffirmed support to reduce bureaucratic barriers to collaboration to enable deeper defence industrial base cooperation. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3918402/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address September 26, 2024 Release Readout of Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III's Meeting With Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder provided the following readout: Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III met with Australia's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles in London today on the margins of the AUKUS Defense Ministers Meeting. Following the successful Australia-U.S. Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) in August in Annapolis, Maryland, the two officials reviewed progress to strengthen the U.S.-Australia alliance. They affirmed their commitment to further deepen bilateral defense cooperation across a range of Alliance initiatives, including on force posture, defense industrial base integration, and advanced capabilities. They shared perspectives on the global security environment and underscored the importance of advancing defense cooperation with regional partners and allies to support their shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3918078/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address September 26, 2024 By David Vergun, DOD News AUKUS Collaboration Advancing Capabilities in Indo-Pacific Region, Austin Says The trilateral security partnership among the U.S., United Kingdom and Australia, also known as AUKUS, offers a unique opportunity for these nations to enhance their military capabilities, deepen interoperability and strengthen deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, said Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III. Austin met in London today with his AUKUS counterparts: British Defense Secretary John Healey and Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles, who also serves as his country's deputy prime minister. Progress has been made toward providing Australia with a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine, Austin said, noting that over the past year, the number of Australian sailors attending U.S. and U.K. nuclear reactor schools has increased and a U.S. nuclear-powered submarine visited an Australian port. "This was just the first step toward ensuring that Australia has a sovereign nuclear-powered submarine capability. We're also making progress toward having a rotational presence of U.S. submarines by as early as 2027," Austin said. The United States also remains committed to supporting Australia's efforts to recruit and train the skilled workforce needed to build, maintain, sustain and operate a nuclear-powered submarine, Austin said. The AUKUS partnership has two pillars. The first is to enable Australia's acquisition of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine capability as rapidly as possible, most likely in the early 2030s, the senior defense official said. The second pillar is to accelerate emerging capabilities, the official said. Areas of focus within the Pillar II include uncrewed maritime systems, artificial intelligence, autonomy, electronic warfare, quantum, cyber and hypersonics, the official said. Japan will be working on the maritime autonomy aspect. Conversations with Canada, South Korea and New Zealand are underway on how each can contribute to Pillar II, the official said. Also, as part of Pillar II, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have committed to reducing export control restrictions to facilitate secure trade among AUKUS partners, including the sale of U.S. Virginia-class submarines to Australia, the official said. Congress amended the International Traffic in Arms Regulations as part of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act and implemented an export licensing exemption for Australia and the United Kingdom, the official said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address AUKUS meeting announces progress on nuclear reactor training AUKUS nations will work closely together to boost global security, following the conclusion of a landmark meeting in London. 26 September 2024 Hundreds of Australian defence and civilian personnel will be upskilled in nuclear reactor expertise in 2025 by specialist Royal Navy engineers. The first such course concluded earlier this month, with 250 personnel learning the skills necessary to own, operate, maintain, sustain and regulate a nuclear-powered submarine. The UK Defence Secretary committed to more UK-delivered training courses as the trilateral Defence Ministers AUKUS meeting concluded in London. John Healey hosted his Australian and US counterparts at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich - the site of the Royal Navy's initial nuclear reactor training more than 60 years ago. The United Kingdom and the United States are strengthening superiority in the maritime domain by integrating Sting Ray torpedoes onto P-8A submarine-hunting aircraft. The Sting Ray counters deep diving and conventional submarines, and this move has the potential to boost lethality and stockpile resilience across the AUKUS nations. UK Defence Secretary John Healey said: "These are serious times, with threats increasing across the globe. Our defence partnerships have never been more important. I am pleased to confirm further skills and capability agreements with our AUKUS partners today. "Our government will stand shoulder to shoulder with our Australian and the US partners, with new UK leadership in AUKUS and a commitment to boost jobs and growth. "It has been an honour to host my counterparts in London for this landmark meeting." The progress by Australia to build their own nuclear-powered submarine workforce was furthered by Australian personnel last month when they participated in the maintenance of a nuclear-powered attack submarine - the USS Hawaii - for the first time in Australia. A trilateral statement issued following today's meeting underlined the security partnership's continued commitment to supporting a free and open Indo-Pacific, that is secure and stable. It said the countries will continue to work to uphold the rules-based international order where human rights and the rule of law are respected, and states can make sovereign choices free from coercion. AUKUS statement: 26 September 2024 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address AUKUS statement: 26 September 2024 The defence ministers of the AUKUS partnership met in London to review progress in and reaffirm their commitment to the AUKUS partnership. 26 September 2024 Today the Right Honourable John Healey MP, Secretary of State for Defence, United Kingdom hosted the Honourable Richard Marles MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, Australia and the Honorable Lloyd J. Austin III, Secretary of Defense, United States (U.S.) at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London, the United Kingdom (UK) to review progress in and reaffirm their commitment to the AUKUS partnership. The AUKUS partnership reflects the continued commitment by Australia, the United Kingdom, and United States to support a free and open Indo-Pacific that is peaceful, secure and stable. The discussions between the Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister today reaffirmed the importance of this innovative, enduring, and trusted partnership in the face of a rapidly evolving and increasingly unstable international security environment. The three nations will continue to work to uphold the global rules-based order where international law is followed, and states can make sovereign choices free from coercion. In this context, they reiterated their shared commitments to the AUKUS partnership for the decades to come and welcomed the progress made since AUKUS Defence Ministers last met in California, the United States, in December 2023. Pillar I - Conventionally Armed, Nuclear-Powered Submarines (SSNs) In March of 2023, our Heads of Government met to announce a comprehensive plan to support Australia's acquisition of a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine capability as quickly as possible. Since that announcement, our three governments have worked shoulder-to-shoulder to refine the milestones and principles that will form the building blocks for this decades-long partnership. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister reiterated their shared and enduring commitment to setting the highest nuclear non-proliferation standard, and the importance of this work to the success of the programme. They undertook to continue AUKUS partners' open, and transparent engagement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and noted the ongoing bilateral negotiations between the IAEA and Australia to develop a robust safeguards and verification approach for Australia's naval nuclear propulsion programme under Article 14 of Australia's Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA. Over the last year, our Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Royal Navy (RN), and U.S. Navy personnel have worked tirelessly across governments, defence industry, and academic institutions to optimise the training of personnel to maintain, sustain, operate, and crew nuclear-powered submarines. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister reiterated that the delivery of the "Optimal Pathway" depends upon the skilled workforces of all three countries and reaffirmed their shared commitment to develop a robust base of skills across their military, civilian and industrial sectors. More than 60 RAN personnel are currently in various stages of the U.S. nuclear-powered submarine SSN training pipeline to equip a cadre of Australian officers and sailors with experience aboard the U.S. Virginia class SSNs that the RAN will own and operate from the early 2030s. These numbers will increase further in 2025, with more than 100 personnel commencing training. Six officers have completed all training and have been assigned to U.S. Virginia class submarines. RAN enlisted sailors will join U.S. submarine crews before the end of this year. In the United Kingdom, three RAN officers completed the UK Nuclear Reactor course in July 2024 and are now assigned to UK Astute class submarines. The next group of RAN officers will commence training in the UK in November 2024. The RN, with the support of the Australian Submarine Agency, has also delivered professional and general naval nuclear propulsion training for more than 250 Australian personnel in Canberra. Australians have embedded into programme delivery teams in the UK Ministry of Defence and with Rolls-Royce Submarines. Australians are also currently embedded in U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program teams. In July and September 2024, Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard welcomed the first 40 ASC Pty Ltd personnel into its training pipeline with the expectation of more than 100 additional ASC Pty Ltd employees by mid-2025. The Australian Government has committed to nearly AUD 250 million to start delivering the skills and workforce needed for its SSN program, including providing 4,001 Commonwealth Supported Places at Australian universities, in addition to 3,000 undergraduate scholarships over six years, to build the necessary Australian Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics workforce. Additional programs have seen more than 70 Australians supported to undertake postgraduate nuclear studies at universities in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia. Australia has also recently announced the "Jobs for Subs" initiative, a government-funded program to evolve ASC Pty Ltd to recruit, train and retain approximately 200 additional graduates, apprentices and trainees to support Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-West) in Western Australia. Recognising that our partners in defence industry are and will remain vital to this endeavour, the Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister discussed opportunities to maximize our efforts to foster collaboration and build resilience across our industrial bases and supply chains. They welcome the collaboration between BAE Systems (BAES) and ASC Pty Ltd to bring together their combined decades of submarine building to deliver the SSN-AUKUS programme. The U.S. Government decided to invest USD 17.5 billion into its submarine industrial base to support initiatives related to supplier development, shipbuilder and supplier infrastructure, workforce development, technology advancements, and strategic sourcing. Australia has also committed to invest over AUD 30 billion in the Australian defence industrial base to develop Australia's supply chains and facilitate industry participation in U.S. and UK supply chains. His Majesty's Government announced an initial allocation of A4 billion from the United Kingdom to continue the detailed design work of SSN-AUKUS and order long-lead items, as well as the United Kingdom's investment of A3 billion across its Defence Nuclear Enterprise, including the construction of submarine industrial infrastructure that will help to deliver the SSN-AUKUS programme. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed the AUKUS partners' commitment to accelerate opportunities for Australian industry in the Virginia class submarine supply chain, including through the Defence Industry Vendor Qualification Program and other industry collaboration initiatives. They welcomed ongoing efforts to encourage further industrial base partnerships to build resiliency across the trilateral Submarine Industrial Base. This August, as a direct result of our close collaboration over this year, our three nations commenced the execution of the first-ever planned maintenance activity of a U.S. SSN in Australia. More than 30 RAN personnel worked alongside U.S. Navy and contractor personnel and UK observers to conduct routine maintenance and observe safety and stewardship evolutions. This was an important step in building Australia's capacity to support a rotational presence of UK and U.S. SSNs at SRF-West beginning as early as 2027, as well as Australia's future sovereign SSN capability. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister emphasised the importance of ensuring that our trilateral systems have the tools they need to transfer information and data in a timely fashion to facilitate cooperation. They were pleased to welcome the August 2024 signing of an enabling agreement for trilateral cooperation related to naval nuclear propulsion. Once in force, this historic agreement will enable AUKUS partners to go beyond sharing naval nuclear propulsion information, allowing the United States and the United Kingdom to transfer nuclear-propulsion material and equipment to Australia required for the safe and secure construction, operation, and sustainment of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines. This agreement reaffirms, and remains consistent with, the AUKUS partners' respective, existing international non-proliferation obligations. As a non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Australia has re-affirmed unequivocally that it does not have, and will not seek to acquire, nuclear weapons. Pillar II - Advanced Capabilities The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister hailed progress being made under Pillar II to deliver capability to our defence forces while bolstering industry and innovation sector collaboration. AUKUS nations continue to pool the talents of our defence sectors to catalyse, at an unprecedented pace, the delivery of advanced capabilities. Through AUKUS Pillar II, our trilateral science and technology, acquisition and sustainment, and operational communities are working across the full spectrum of capability developmentagenerating requirements, co-developing new systems, deepening industrial base collaboration, and bolstering our innovation ecosystems. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed progress made in building a more capable, combined joint force of the future because of this work. This year, under the Maritime Big Play initiative, we are undertaking a series of integrated trilateral experiments and exercises to enhance interoperability and accelerate the combined fielding of autonomous uncrewed systems in the maritime domain. Later this year, the three nations will bring together approximately 30 systems across four domains for the first large-scale AUKUS integrated demonstration. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed the inclusion of technologies from companies in each of the three nations and plans to expand to include additional industry partners in the future. In 2024, AUKUS partners furthered their undersea warfare capabilities by beginning to scale up the ability to launch and recover uncrewed underwater systems from torpedo tubes on current classes of British and U.S. submarines, which will increase the range and capability of our undersea forces. AUKUS partners are exploring opportunities to collaborate on sensors and payloads to maximize this capability and deliver effects such as strike, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. In parallel, the United Kingdom and the United States are strengthening superiority in the maritime domain by integrating the Sting Ray lightweight torpedo into the P-8A Maritime Patrol Aircraft alongside the Mk 54 torpedo, with trials planned for 2025. This will increase the opportunity for interchangeability and potential work on future torpedo programmes. These efforts will ultimately enhance the survivability of our surface combatant and submarine fleets. In the area of long-range precision strike, we are increasing our collective ability to develop and deliver offensive and defensive hypersonic technologies through a robust series of trilateral tests and experiments that will accelerate the development of hypersonic concepts and critical enabling technologies. These capabilities will hold time critical and heavily defended targets at risk from increased ranges, enhancing the survivability of our forces and defending our homelands and forces against potential threats. Advancing our maritime domain autonomy and decision advantage efforts, AUKUS partners demonstrated and deployed common advanced artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms on P8-A Maritime Patrol aircraft to process data from each nations' sonobuoys. These advances allow for faster data processing and improved target identification in congested acoustic environments, enhancing our combined anti-submarine warfare capabilities. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed plans to scale these technologies in 2025. Our joint forces demonstrated several innovative uses of AI technologies to enhance decision making and bolster combined military effects. In March, AUKUS partners demonstrated the ability to rapidly co-develop and deploy trilateral AI algorithms to find and fix targets for strike. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed trilateral plans to explore the introduction of these capabilities into operational units in the coming years. The International Joint Requirements Oversight Council (I-JROC) remains a critical collaborative forum to identify and validate joint and combined requirements to ensure capability development considers interoperability and interchangeability from the very start. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed the establishment of trilaterally determined key operational problems, leveraging existing activities to achieve capability development priorities endorsed by I-JROC. AUKUS partners seek: An enhanced multi-domain long-range strike capability that incorporates asymmetric capabilities and integrated targeting; Strengthened multi-domain integrated air and missile defence capability; Resilient command and control systems that maintain a diverse range of information; and Enhanced logistical networks that are able to deliver persistent support and sustainment for operations in contested environments. To this end, the Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed work underway across our trilateral Armies, Navies, and Air Forces to explore additional opportunities for collaboration in the land, maritime, air, and other domains under AUKUS Pillar II. A cornerstone of our AUKUS Pillar II program remains the opportunity to leverage the best of our defence industrial bases and innovation ecosystems. Over the past year we have further integrated our innovation ecosystems and fostered increased collaboration with these stakeholder communities to explore opportunities in all aspects of Pillar II. AUKUS partners executed the first trilaterally sponsored innovation prize challenge, which focused on electronic warfare. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister are pleased to announce Advanced Design Technology Pty Ltd, Inovor Technologies Pty Ltd and Penten Pty Ltd (AUS), Amiosec Ltd, University of Liverpool, Roke Manor Research Ltd, Autonomous Devices Ltd (UK), and Distributed Spectrum (U.S.) as the winners for this challenge. The selection of these companies demonstrates the important contributions that our trilateral commercial sectors and innovation bases can make in addressing critical operational requirements. Building on the success of this first challenge, the Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister were pleased to endorse plans for a robust two-year agenda that will increase collaboration between and among our innovation centres of excellence. Through this collaboration, AUKUS partners will leverage innovative tools to reach our entrepreneurs and actively solicit new and powerful capabilities from our trilateral innovation ecosystem and industrial base. In coordination with industry associations representing the trilateral defence industrial base, the Advanced Capabilities Industry Forum, continues to provide an opportunity for representatives across government and industry to exchange ideas and deepen industrial collaboration in Pillar II. By the end of this year, AUKUS partners will have convened meetings in each country and facilitated discussions with technology and policy subject matter experts to increase understanding and information sharing. In response to industry feedback and as current projects mature beyond traditional research and development projects, the National Armaments Directors from each nation are identifying opportunities to harmonise acquisition processes and reducing barriers to facilitate the accelerated delivery of Pillar II advanced capabilities. In April 2024, the Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister announced principles for engaging additional partners on opportunities to collaborate on AUKUS Pillar II projects. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister welcomed progress on consultations with Japan on improving interoperability with Japan's maritime autonomous systems as an initial area of cooperation. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister noted ongoing consultations with Canada, New Zealand, and the Republic of Korea to identify possibilities for collaboration on advanced capabilities under AUKUS Pillar II on a project by project basis. Defence trade and industrial base collaboration To promote innovation and realise the goals of AUKUS, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States implemented momentous amendments to our respective export control regimes. These historic efforts will maximise secure, licence-free defence trade and stimulate innovation across the full breadth of our defence collaboration, mutually strengthening our three defence industrial bases, while maintaining rigour and security in all three systems. The Secretaries and Deputy Prime Minister reaffirmed support to reduce bureaucratic barriers to collaboration to enable deeper defence industrial base cooperation. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address First ever UK-hosted meeting of AUKUS Defence Ministers as UK-Australia set to commence defence treaty negotiations A landmark AUKUS meeting will be held in the UK today as the Defence Secretary John Healey hosts counterparts from the US and Australia in London. 26 September 2024 Landmark meeting as Defence Ministers from AUKUS partners meet outside the US for first time. Negotiations set to commence on UK-Australia treaty to define defence relationship for decades. Billions of pounds of UK exports expected to support Australian submarine build, with AUKUS to support over 21,000 UK jobs and helping to grow the economy. The meeting will be the first trilateral Defence Ministers AUKUS meeting to be held outside of the United States. Healey will host US Secretary of Defense Lloyd James Austin III and Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles to discuss the importance of the AUKUS partnership. It comes as the UK and Australia have agreed plans to commence negotiations on a bilateral AUKUS treaty between the UK and Australia. The treaty will establish the strategic and operational framework for bilateral cooperation under AUKUS with a focus on the core elements of the delivery of SSN-AUKUS. Given the importance of accelerating the design, build and delivery of SSN-AUKUS, Australia and the UK agreed these negotiations should occur at pace and with high priority. This first-of-its-kind treaty between the two countries could create a major UK trade boost - it is estimated that facilitating the SSN-AUKUS build in Australia will see billions of pounds of submarine components exported from the UK through our defence industry supply chains. The treaty will lay out the nations' relationship on submarine co-operation, as work progresses on future conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered attack submarines for the UK and Australia. The three-year anniversary of the landmark AUKUS partnership was marked this month, following shortly after a historic breakthrough in defence trade was reached between the UK, US, and Australia. The significant reduction in red tape will cover up to A500 million of UK defence exports each year, and billions of dollars of trade across all three nations, helping boost UK economic growth. In a further boost for the UK economy, it is estimated at its peak the future AUKUS attack submarine programme will have more than 21,000 people working on it at UK sites, with the work generating an additional 7,000 skilled roles. UK Defence Secretary, John Healey said: I'm proud to be the first UK Defence Secretary to host a meeting of AUKUS Defence Ministers in Britain. As AUKUS partners, we stand shoulder-to-shoulder in an increasingly unstable world. This is a partnership that will boost jobs, growth and prosperity across our three nations, as well as strengthening our collective security. I'm delighted that we will soon be commencing negotiations on a bilateral AUKUS treaty with Australia, which will help create a more secure and stable Indo-Pacific for decades to come. The treaty work comes off the back of a UK-Australia Defence and Security Cooperation Agreement being signed earlier this year, helping make it easier for our Armed Forces to operate together in each other's countries and facilitate UK submarine crews visiting Australia as part of the AUKUS partnership. Since the AUKUS launch, nearly A10 billion of investment has been allocated towards UK nuclear work and infrastructure: A4 billion to progress SSN-AUKUS UK submarines through design, prototyping and initial purchases. A3 billion for new advanced manufacturing capabilities in Barrow-in-Furness and Derby. A2.4 billion over ten years from Australia to boost Rolls-Royce infrastructure and to share costs on SSN-AUKUS submarine design. Through AUKUS Pillar 2, Australia, the UK and the US are pooling the talents of their defence sectors to develop at pace the delivery of advanced capabilities. Four UK companies have been selected by the UK's Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) to receive a share of A2 million of funding to develop solutions in electromagnetic targeting and protection. The competition was run to find low cost, disposable, high volume and highly autonomous electromagnetic technology that can detect enemy actions or protect against them. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address HMCS Vancouver completes rearmament in Australia National Defence News release September 26, 2024 - Broome, Australia - National Defence / Canadian Armed Forces His Majesty's Canadian Ship (HMCS) Vancouver completed a forward rearmament in Australia on September 23, 2024, more than halfway through its six-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region on Operation HORIZON. This forward rearmament with Australia was a first for the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). The rearmament coordination and execution were nine months in the making, with planning having commenced in January 2024, and were made possible in part thanks to the close coordination and cooperation of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). Having the capability to rearm far from a Canadian homeport is a significant achievement. Accomplishing it with the support of our allies and partners demonstrates the strength of Canada's relationships in the Indo-Pacific region. This rearmament process allows the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) to strengthen its interoperability and interchangeability through the sharing of information, techniques, and lessons learned that will allow for more agility moving forward. Since HMCS Vancouver's deployment in June 2024, the ship has participated in three different multinational maritime exercises and expended munitions, including two vertically launched missiles at Exercise RIM OF THE PACIFIC (RIMPAC) 2024. Ammunition for the rearmament was transported from Canada to Darwin, Australia, via a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) CC-177 Globemaster, where it was stored until the ship's arrival. It was then transported to Broome, Australia, by the Australian Air Force and civilian contractors, and loaded onto the ship. During the rearmament itself, Canadian Forces Ammunition Depot staff members were on the ground, with members from the Australian Defence Industry (ADI) and the Royal Australian Navy to support. The logistics of facilitating a technical rearmament process occurring far from a Canadian Naval Base are complex and support from elements of the ADF and ADI were instrumental in the success of this mission. Quotes "The ability to conduct a forward rearmament this far from home increases our operational range in the region, enabling us to be better able to respond when called upon to protect and defend Canada and our allies. Making this forward rearmament in a new location a reality was the result of a great deal of hard work and coordination with our allies and partners, and I am very proud of what our deployed personnel and those here in Canada have achieved. This capability increases our range while on operations in the Indo-Pacific region and maintains our force's flexibility." Lieutenant-General Steve Boivin, Commander Canadian Joint Operations Command "The crew of HMCS Vancouver demonstrated our ability to effectively rearm far from home and stay combat effective for longer deployments throughout the world. The work that the sailors, aviators, and soldiers serving aboard HMCS Vancouver completed will be used as an example of how much we can achieve as a navy working with our allies around the world." Commander Tyson Bergmann, HMCS Vancouver Commanding Officer Quick facts HMCS Vancouver is a Halifax-class frigate with a crew of approximately 240 personnel comprised of RCN sailors and RCAF aviators who fly and support the ship's embarked CH-148 Cyclone maritime helicopter. Through the Joint Statement on Strengthening the Canada-Australia Defence Relationship, Australia and Canada committed to enhancing the interoperability of our armed forces and exploring ways to reduce barriers to collaboration, including through arrangements to facilitate value-added defence and industrial activities and to support operational cooperation. Canada's Indo-Pacific Strategy represents a comprehensive and integrated framework for increased Canadian engagement across the Indo-Pacific region. Canada will continue to work alongside allies and partners in the region to promote a stable, secure, and prosperous Indo-Pacific. Operation HORIZON is Canada's ongoing forward presence mission to promote peace and stability in support of the rules-based international order in the Indo-Pacific region. It replaced the Indo-Pacific portion of Operation PROJECTION in summer 2023, in line with Canada's Indo-Pacific Strategy. All naval activities formerly conducted under Operation PROJECTION Indo-Pacific, along with new activities conducted by the Canadian Army, RCAF, Special Forces Command, and other CAF elements, are now conducted under Operation HORIZON. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Canadian Armed Forces establishes a new Cyber Command National Defence News release September 26, 2024 - Ottawa - National Defence / Canadian Armed Forces Today, the Honourable Bill Blair, Minister of National Defence, and General Jennie Carignan, Chief of the Defence Staff, officially announced the establishment of the Canadian Armed Forces Cyber Command (CAFCYBERCOM). This new command will consolidate the CAF's cyber capabilities into a single unified and dedicated entity, which will enhance the military's readiness to tackle threats in the cyber domain. The establishment of CAFCYBERCOM represents an important milestone for the Department of National Defence (DND) and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). Our North, Strong and Free committed to establishing a new CAF Cyber Command, demonstrating Canada's commitment to operating in the cyber domain and reflecting the essential role of cyber in modern operations. This new command will be led by Major-General Dave Yarker, who will be responsible for cyber operations, and cyber force sustainment, management, and development. Through CAFCYBERCOM, the CAF continues to develop and scale its offensive and defensive cyber operations capabilities in close cooperation with the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSE). The CAF and CSE have a longstanding partnership in developing advanced technical and specialized capabilities for providing intelligence to support military operations. Over the last decade, the partnership has evolved to include collaboration in the areas of cybersecurity, and defensive and offensive cyber operations. The new CAF Cyber Command also enables Canada to meet our NATO commitments such as the Virtual Cyber Incident Support Capability and the Sovereign Cyber Effects Provided Voluntarily by Allies. The creation of the new command aligns with similar investments by Canada's key partners and allies in NORAD, the "Five Eyes" alliance, and NATO. By bolstering its cyber capabilities, Canada is supporting greater interoperability with its allies, is better equipped to counter the full spectrum of cyber threats, and is advancing NATO mission goals and objectives. Quotes "The establishment of the Canadian Armed Forces Cyber Command demonstrates to our allies, partners, and adversaries Canada's ongoing commitment to operating in a challenging cyber domain. By enhancing our work in the cyber domain, and by continuing to collaborate with our partners and allies, we can detect, deter, and defend against cyber threats and malicious actors targeting Canada and our interests." The Honourable Bill Blair, Minister of National Defence "Through the Canadian Armed Forces Cyber Command, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces will continue to develop and scale offensive and defensive cyber operations capabilities in close cooperation with the Communications Security Establishment. This initiative supports cyber operations at both the tactical and strategic levels. The new organization will focus resources so that we can advance existing activities in cyberspace related to operations, personnel, policies, and capabilities." General Jennie Carignan, Chief of the Defence Staff "I extend my congratulations to Major-General Yarker as he assumes the role of Commander of the Canadian Armed Forces Cyber Command. He brings considerable knowledge, experience, and leadership to the benefit of the Command, the Defence Team, and all Canadians." Stefanie Beck, Deputy Minister of National Defence "Building decisive advantage in the cyber domain demands speed, trust, agility and unity of effort, and I am proud to be appointed as the head of the organization that will strive to deliver just that." Major General Dave Yarker, Commander, Canadian Armed Forces Cyber Command "CSE has been a critical CAF partner since our inception. Working together comes naturally to us, and the CAF Cyber Command will be no different. That's why we are uniting our already world-class foreign cyber operations capabilities to protect Canada in a complex world. At a time when we face cyber warfare even in peace time, this partnership will benefit Canadians as well as Canada's allies and give us all better visibility on the evolving threat landscape we navigate every day." Caroline Xavier, Chief, Communications Security Establishment Canada Quick facts CAFCYBERCOM will be the single DND/CAF authority for cyber operations, responsible for cyber force sustainment, management, and development. CAFCYBERCOM includes Signals Intelligence and Joint Electronic Warfare and will be capable of conducting and supporting a range of cyber tasks. In addition to being integral to defending Canada and advancing its interests, the establishment of CAFCYBERCOM will help the Defence Team deliver on NATO commitments and the cyber and defence components of Canada's Indo-Pacific Strategy. CAFCYBERCOM will support the CAF's transition to a pan-domain battlespace with greater agility and responsive to malicious cyber activity. Major-General Yarker has held key staff and liaison positions with allies and partner agencies, and command positions at the Unit and Formation level since 2010. Major-General Yarker was appointed as the Joint Force Cyber Component Commander in 2022. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Canada-France Declaration on a Stronger Defence and Security Partnership Global Affairs Canada Statement September 26, 2024 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada On September 26, 2024, in Ottawa, the Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, and Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, called on our countries to work together towards a stronger defence and security partnership. Canada and France have cultivated a strong defence relationship, founded upon shared history, interests, a common language and universal values. During the 20th century, Canada and France developed a close defence relationship. During both World Wars, Canadian soldiers and French soldiers fought side by side and this year, our countries celebrated the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings. Our defence relationship was solidified in 1949 with the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), of which our two countries are founding members, as well as through our joint participation in various United Nations peacekeeping operations, NATO-led operations, and the Global Coalition Against Daesh. We share common security interests in a world facing serious international tensions and, more broadly, one marked by unilateral assertions of power. Given this, our respective officials, both political and military, have met with one another more regularly in 2024, to enhance our conversations on defence and security, and ultimately build a more ambitious strategic partnership. We are convinced that stronger cooperation between our two countries will facilitate better defence of the rules-based international order founded on respect for state sovereignty, and our democratic principles. Together, we are committed to doing our part to uphold the principles of the Charter of the United Nations; to help manage international crises and conflicts, including in the cyber domain; and to ensure the collective security and defence of NATO members. We will therefore expand our defence and security cooperation to support Ukraine, contribute to regional stability and security in the Indo-Pacific, reinforce our collaboration on crisis management and modernization of our armed forces, and fight against foreign interference and information manipulation. Support Ukraine Canada and France will support Ukraine for as long as it takes to thwart Russia's war of aggression, which is a flagrant violation of international law, including the Charter of the United Nations. Our support for Ukraine's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders is unwavering. In line with the G7 Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine of July 2023, Canada and France respectively signed bilateral agreements with Ukraine to confirm our commitment to strengthen Ukraine's ability to defend itself, foster resilience in the country, and deter future aggression from Russia in the long-term. As part of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group (UDCG), also known as the Ramstein group, we will strengthen our cooperation in the area of military equipment support to Ukraine and training. Canada and France have trained tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers through Operation UNIFIER (Canada) and the EU Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine (France). Our armed forces have cooperated on training Ukrainian fighter pilots. Our armed forces will continue to deepen their strategic cooperation in the field of cyber defence in support of Ukraine. We are determined to work with Ukraine and our partners to support Ukraine in defending its sovereignty, independence and its territorial integrity against Russian aggression, both in the traditional domains and in cyberspace, including by helping strengthen Ukraine's civilian cyber capacity through the Tallinn Mechanism. More broadly, we will continue our conversations on the topics of shared interest broached at the conference in Paris on February 26, 2024. Canada and France recognize that the deportation of Ukrainian children is a major concern and, as part of the international coalition, we will continue our efforts to ensure the return of the Ukrainian children deported to Russia. Contribute to regional stability and security in the Indo-Pacific Canada and France are two Pacific nations that wish to actively contribute to regional stability and security. We aim to maintain an open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region, free of excessive dependencies and any form of coercion, and founded on respect for international law, sovereignty and multilateralism. We reaffirm our shared commitment to support peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, through implementing United Nations resolutions and implementing sanctions decided upon by the United Nations Security Council. We remain fully engaged with our partners to dissuade any attempt to circumvent those sanctions by means of maritime surveillance and maritime air surveillance. We deplore the rising tensions in the South China Sea. We strongly oppose coercive and destabilizing activities, which are leading to increasingly violent and recurrent incidents, and call for the various parties to engage in dialogue. We also highlight the importance for all states to be able to exercise their rights and freedoms, including freedom of navigation and overflight, in accordance with international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Our two countries will strengthen our cooperation in terms of strategic and military analysis in the region, study opportunities for deploying future joint patrol missions, and increase our participation in multilateral exercises. This cooperation will improve interoperability between the armed forces of our two countries. In the same vein, we will consider integrating Canadian support to the deployment of the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. Canada and France will cooperate more closely to fight against illegal fishing and ensure maritime surveillance with Pacific Island countries in order to strengthen their sovereignty. We will work on joint deployments in the area. We will also strengthen regional security by participating in the training of Pacific Island partner countries. Collaborate more closely on international crisis management and conduct joint operations Canada and France recognize that climate change is not only an environmental threat, but is also one of the greatest security challenges of our time. We wholeheartedly support NATO's Climate Change and Security Action Plan, and we are two of the 12 sponsoring Allied nations of the NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence in Montreal. We will share our crisis management situation assessments, as we did recently during the crisis in Haiti, and in anticipation of situations in areas of mutual interest, like the Middle East. We will identify new opportunities to deploy together. We will strengthen the partnership within NATO by sharing experience among framework nations for Canada's deployment in Latvia and France's deployment in Romania. France stands ready to cooperate with Canada to facilitate logistical support to Canadian forces prepositioned in Latvia. In the Canadian Arctic, Canada and France collaborate on Operation NANOOK, the Canadian Armed Forces' signature operation in that region. Our two countries wish to increase joint navigation exercises, knowledge sharing, interoperability and training of crews in polar environments, drawing on the expertise and support of the Canadian Armed Forces in the Canadian Arctic. In the Sahel and more recently in the Gulf of Guinea, Canada has provided the French Armed Forces with unfailing support under Operation FREQUENCE. We intend to renew this important, effective collaboration in 2025. Collaborate more closely on the modernization of armed forces To better respond to crises, Canada and France will deepen our partnership to modernize our armed forces and improve our ability to conduct joint operations. We will continue sharing expertise on human resources, the heart of our armies, to improve recruitment and training on specific skills, while leveraging each other's capabilities in areas such as transport, strategic resupply, and submarine forces. Canada and France are committed to increasing our defence capacity and strengthening our capabilities to ensure our sovereignty and support our partners. To that end, we will share our respective technical know-how, and will find tangible new ways to work together on land, sea, air and cyberspace. We will continue discussing how to organize and improve our industrial and procurement processes. Fight against foreign interference and information manipulation Canada and France are confronted with foreign interference operations and information manipulation. Canada and France will increase communication with each other to effectively respond to those threats. Through our commitment to the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism (G7 RRM), our two countries are developing a collective response framework to counter foreign operations of information manipulation, as announced at the G7 Summit in Apulia. These efforts must be accompanied by support for factual and high-quality information, such as through the International Partnership on Information and Democracy and the Forum on Information and Democracy. We welcome initiatives such as the Journalism Trust Initiative, in which Canadian and French media are participating, to foster high-quality information. Thanks to the G7 RRM, we are also developing collective approaches to counter other threats to democracy and will continue to advance these objectives during our successive G7 presidencies in 2025 and 2026. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Prime Minister concludes successful visit from President of France to Canada Prime Minister of Canada - Justin Trudeau September 26, 2024 Ottawa, Ontario The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, welcomed the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, to Canada from September 25 to 26, 2024. With stops in Ottawa, Ontario, and MontrAal, Quebec, the visit helped further strengthen the close ties between our countries and advance our shared priorities. The leaders announced three key declarations that will align Canada and France's work to preserve peace and security, take ambitious climate action, protect the environment, and responsibly harness the full potential of artificial intelligence (AI). The first of these three declarations, the Canada-France Declaration on a Stronger Defence and Security Partnership, underscores Canada and France's steadfast commitment to supporting Ukraine in the face of Russia's illegal invasion. It also reaffirms our contributions to regional stability and security in the Indo-Pacific and reflects our co-operation in managing emergencies, modernizing our armed forces, and combatting foreign interference. The two leaders discussed shared, ongoing work to respond to the humanitarian situation in Haiti and reiterated their support for the United Nations-authorized Multinational Security Support mission in the country. Canada and France are in steadfast support of Haitian-led solutions to the conflict that will make a meaningful and lasting difference in the lives of the Haitian people - and build a better future. Building on the progress made at the United Nations General Assembly and the Summit of the Future earlier this week, Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron highlighted the critical importance of continued action to fight climate change and protect our oceans. In the Canada-France Declaration on the Ocean, the leaders underlined the vital role that oceans play for the environment, the climate, the economy, and food and energy security throughout the world. To advance our work, Prime Minister Trudeau announced Canada's membership in the Paris Pact for People and the Planet. The Pact, led by France and in partnership with global leaders, emphasizes collective action to accelerate sustainable development and create opportunities to help lift vulnerable populations out of poverty. During the visit, the Prime Minister and the President met with AI experts, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders to discuss the risks and benefits of this new technology. Canada and France have world-leading AI ecosystems, including leadership roles in the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), which has 29 members worldwide. A testament to our progress in growing a dynamic AI industry, GPAI's first two centres of expertise opened in Canada and France. Moving forward on this work, the Prime Minister and the President announced the Canada-France Declaration on Artificial Intelligence. The Declaration reiterates our countries' commitment to a safe use of AI that respects human rights and democratic values. During President Macron's visit, Canada was also named Country of the Year for the Viva Technology 2025 technology conference, which will be held in Paris next year. At this event, Canada's delegation will collaborate with the international community and meet with thousands of visionary start-ups, investors, organizations, and researchers to leverage advances in AI to strengthen our economy, increase productivity, and create new opportunities for Canadians. SCALE AI, Canada's Global Innovation Cluster dedicated to AI, will lead Canada's business delegation. Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron reaffirmed their commitment to promoting the French language and La Francophonie's institutions ahead of the next Sommet de la Francophonie, which will be held in Villers-CotterAts and Paris, France, on October 4 and 5, 2024. They also renewed their commitment to strengthening strategic coordination in preparation for the successive G7 Presidencies that Canada and France will hold, in 2025 and 2026 respectively. Quote "Canada and France's relationship is built on shared history, a common language, and democratic values. President Macron's visit to Canada is a testament to the enduring friendship between our two countries, and with the progress we have made over this visit, we will move forward to build a fairer and more prosperous future for our peoples." The Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada Quick Facts This was President Macron's second visit to Canada. It followed both leaders' participation in the United Nations General Assembly and Summit of the Future in New York City, United States of America. As a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the G7 and the G20, a founding member of the European Union, and a key partner in the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, France is a key ally for Canada on the international stage. In 2023, France was Canada's third largest merchandise export market in the European Union, and its 12th largest trade partner globally, with two-way merchandise trade totalling $12.9 billion. That same year, Canadian exports to France amounted to $4.3 billion, while imports from France totalled $8.7 billion. In France, Canada is represented by an embassy in Paris and consulates in Lyon, Nice, and Toulouse. France is represented in Canada by its embassy in Ottawa and consulates in Vancouver, Toronto, MontrAal, QuAbec, and Moncton. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address September 26, 2024 Release Readout of Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Amanda Dory's Bilateral Meeting With Canadian Deputy Minister of National Defence Stefanie Beck Pentagon Spokesman LtCol Garron Garn, USMC, provided the following readout: On September 26, 2024, Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Amanda Dory hosted Canadian Deputy Minister of National Defence Stefanie Beck for a bilateral meeting at the Pentagon. The two leaders discussed continued international support for Ukraine, defense strategy and investment, modernization of the North America Aerospace Defense (NORAD) Command, support to Haiti, and a range of other bilateral and global issues. The leaders reaffirmed the deep and longstanding partnership between the United States and Canada, based on a shared commitment to a secure and prosperous North America. The leaders discussed in detail potential areas for enhanced cooperation between the United States and Canada in order to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific and agreed to continue close coordination on Indo-Pacific security. They also agreed on the importance of continuing to work together through bilateral and multilateral engagements. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3918662/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China's missile launch into the Pacific sends message to U.S.: Analysts ROC Central News Agency 09/26/2024 09:37 PM Taipei, Sept. 26 (CNA) China's rare test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) into the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday was likely intended to send a message of deterrence to the United States, according to analysts. According to China's Defense Ministry, an ICBM carrying a dummy warhead was launched at 8:44 a.m. Wednesday (China Standard Time) as part of a routine training exercise by the PLA's Rocket Force. The missile fell into "expected sea areas" in the Pacific Ocean, the ministry said, without specifying an exact location. Authorities in French Polynesia later said that the missile had landed in waters near the islands' exclusive economic zone, and that China had sent advance notification to France. Shu Hsiao-huang (), an associate research fellow at the Institute for Defense and Security Research, said the test marked the first time in 44 years China has launched an ICBM into the Pacific. China typically tests long-range missiles over its own territory. It last launched an ICBM into the South Pacific in 1980. Shu said the launch was likely intended as a message to the United States, which has steadily expanded its presence in the Indo-Pacific in recent years, putting pressure on China. Beijing, in turn, has formed an alliance and increasingly conducts joint military drills with Russia, he said. As for the logic and timing of the test, Shu said that in an era of "great power competition," countries need to continually improve their strategic deterrence capabilities. In addition, Beijing may have wanted to show that the Rocket Force's readiness has not been negatively impacted, after several of its senior leaders were removed during an anti-graft purge last year, Shu said. Based on images released by the Chinese military, the ICBM used in the test launch was likely a Dongfeng-31 AG, which has a range of around 12,000 kilometers, according to Yang Tai-yuan (), a researcher at Tamkang University's Center for Advanced Technology. China also has Dongfeng-41 and JL-3 ICBMs, which have ranges of over 13,500 km and are capable of hitting the United States' East Coast, Yang said. For that reason, Wednesday's test launch sends a message to Washington that China maintains a nuclear second-strike capability, and possesses the ability to deter U.S. intervention if a war breaks out in the Taiwan Strait, Yang said. (By Wu Shu-wei and Matthew Mazzetta) Enditem/AW NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Taiwan condemns China's intercontinental ballistic missile test ROC Central News Agency 09/26/2024 05:37 PM Taipei, Sept. 26 (CNA) Taiwan's government on Thursday condemned China's test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean as "an attempt to undermine regional peace and stability." The People's Liberation Army (PLA) successfully fired an intercontinental ballistic missile at 8:44 a.m. on Wednesday, China's defense ministry said in a statement posted to social media later that day. The missile carried a simulated warhead and landed in international waters, the statement said. China's defense ministry said the launch was part of the PLA Rocket Force's routine annual training, adding that the test had complied with international law and was not directed against any country or target. However, Taiwan's various government agencies quickly condemned the missile test. In a statement, the Presidential Office lambasted China's attempt to undermine regional peace and stability, calling on Beijing to exercise self-restraint and be a responsible regional actor. The Cabinet stressed that as a responsible member of the international community, Taiwan would work closely with the United States and other like-minded countries to maintain regional peace, stability, and prosperity. Meanwhile, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that many countries in the Indo-Pacific region had expressed concerns about China's "irresponsible actions." The ministry added that Taiwan will continue to work with like-minded countries to curb the expansion of authoritarianism and jointly safeguard peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region. Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense (MND) accused Beijing of "saber rattling" over the test and live-fire drills by the PLA's Eastern Theater Command in the Yellow and Bohai seas. The MND charged China with creating the "illusion of peaceful dialogue" by having the head of the PLA's Southern Theater Command conduct overseas exchanges while the drills were ongoing. Beginning at 8 a.m. on Thursday, 29 Chinese aircraft were detected near Taiwan, including 21 that crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or its extension into Taiwan's air defense identification zone (ADIZ) off the northern, central and southwestern parts of the country, according to the MND. (By Matt Yu, Lai Yu-chen, Wen Kuei-hsiang, Yang Yao-ju and Evelyn Kao) Enditem/ASG NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China's ICBM test launch legitimate, reasonable routine training: Chinese Defense Ministry Global Times By Liu Xuanzun Published: Sep 26, 2024 07:59 PM China's intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test launch on Wednesday is a routine military training that is completely legitimate and reasonable, a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson said on Thursday. The launch aimed to test the performance of weapon and equipment, as well as troops training level, Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang said at a regular press conference on Thursday. Zhang stressed that China's nuclear policy is highly stable, consistent and predictable. China always follows a policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons and a nuclear strategy that focuses on self-defense, does not engage in an arms race, committed itself not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states or in nuclear-free region, and keeps its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required by national security, the spokesperson said. The PLA's news media center on Thursday released photos of the test launch of ICBM on Chinese social media platforms, showing the moment the missile was launched. Zhang's remarks came after the Chinese Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday that the PLA Rocket Force launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) carrying a dummy warhead to the high seas in the Pacific Ocean at 08:44 am on Wednesday, and the missile fell into expected sea areas. The Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday that China had informed the relevant countries prior to the launch. The Pentagon praised China for its transparency before the test launch, which helped prevent miscalculation, in a sign that military communication between the two countries is improving, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that China is engaged in the development of its armed forces and has the full right to test missiles, Russian news agency Tass reported on Wednesday. AP reported on Thursday that "China rarely tests ICBMs out in international waters, with some experts tracing the last such deployment back to May 1980." The test verified the reliability of the PLA's nuclear arsenal, a crucial component of credible nuclear deterrence, vital to both China's national defense and global peace and stability, according to experts reached by the Global Times. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian's Regular Press Conference on September 26, 2024 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People's Republic of China Updated: September 26, 2024 18:42 The Paper: We noted that China and Zambia jointly held the High-level Meeting on International Cooperation on Capacity-Building of Artificial Intelligence on the margins of the general debate of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly. China announced the AI Capacity-Building Action Plan for Good and for All. What does China hope to achieve through the Action Plan and what actions will be taken to translate the Action Plan into reality? Lin Jian: On September 25 local time, the High-level Meeting on International Cooperation on Capacity-Building of Artificial Intelligence was jointly held by China and Zambia at the UN Headquarters in New York. Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended and addressed the event. Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic, Indonesia's Coordinating Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, and high-level representatives from more than 80 countries and international organizations participated in the event. Participating parties had in-depth exchange of views and reached extensive common understandings on enhancing international cooperation on AI capacity-building. The AI Capacity-Building Action Plan for Good and for All proposed by China was supported and echoed by all parties. The Action Plan is aimed at bridging the AI divide and promoting the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Five visions were proposed on cooperation areas that meet the expectation of all parties, in particular the Global South, namely AI infrastructure, industrial empowerment, personnel training, data development and security governance. The Action Plan identifies 10 actions China will take, including promoting AI and digital infrastructure connectivity and carrying out cooperation in R&D and application of models and language resources, better synergizing AI strategies and strengthening policy exchanges, and actively sharing technical practices. China will hold 10 sessions of AI seminars by the end of 2025 for developing countries as a priority. China has proposed to set up the Group of Friends of International Cooperation in AI Capacity Building in an effort to deliver on the Action Plan. Since the beginning of this year, China has promoted the adoption of the resolution entitled "Enhancing International Cooperation on Capacity-building of Artificial Intelligence" at the UN General Assembly, and held the 2024 World AI Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance, and the first Seminar on Capacity Building of Artificial Intelligence. The Action Plan as part of the ongoing effort fully reflects China's leading role in global AI governance. We stand ready to work with the international community to implement the Action Plan, ensure that all countries can benefit from the AI dividends, and jointly pave the way for a brighter, more intelligent future. KBS: Yesterday, a Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer for the first time sailed through the Taiwan Strait. Japanese media commented that this is a response to China's military activities near Japan and is an assertion of freedom of navigation. What's China's position? Lin Jian: The Taiwan question concerns China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is the political foundation of China-Japan relations and a red line that must not be crossed. The Chinese military has handled in accordance with laws and regulations the entering into the Taiwan Strait of a Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force vessel. China is highly vigilant on Japan's political intention behind this move and has protested to the Japanese side. Japan made a clear commitment on this in the 1972 China-Japan Joint Statement, which says "The Government of Japan recognizes the Government of the People's Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China. The Government of the People's Republic of China reiterates that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the territory of the People's Republic of China. The Government of Japan fully understands and respects this position of the Government of the People's Republic of China, and it firmly maintains its position under Article 8 of the Potsdam Proclamation." We urge Japan to honor its commitment and act prudently on the Taiwan question, and refrain from causing disruption to its relations with China and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. TASS: Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently met with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell in New York. The two sides exchanged views on the Ukraine crisis. Foreign Minister Wang Yi stressed that if there are still some people making accusation against China, they are ill-motivated and if some still shift the blame to China, there are hidden agenda behind. What does Foreign Minister Wang mean by suggesting individual countries have hidden agenda? What motivation would these countries have? Lin Jian: During his meeting with High Representative Josep Borrell in New York, Foreign Minister Wang Yi stressed that China upholds an objective and fair position on the Ukraine crisis, works for deescalation and does not give up efforts for peace. China's efforts have been well recognized by the international community. Certain countries' repeated blame-shifting towards China is certainly not aimed at cooling down the situation and promoting peace talks. As for what they are truly up to, I believe people will have their own judgement. Rudaw Media Network: Kurdistan Region enjoys strong economic and trade relations with China. And Kurdistan Region is going to hold its parliamentary election. As a region friendly to China, what is your opinion on the upcoming elections? This is my first question. My second question is with tensions escalating in the Middle East, are you willing or is China taking any practical measures to ensure the safety and security of its projects and civilians? Lin Jian: China and Iraq enjoy a traditional friendship. China supports Iraq in maintaining stability and realizing development. We stand ready to strengthen exchanges with Iraq, deepen cooperation, and strive for new progress in our strategic partnership. As for your second question, owing to the current tensions at the border areas between Lebanon and Israel, the Center for Consular Assistance and Protection of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and China's Embassy in Lebanon have activated the emergency response mechanism, worked out relevant plans and issued multiple security alerts. We once again advise Chinese citizens not to travel to Lebanon in the near future and ask those already in Lebanon to follow closely the developments of the situation and return to China or depart Lebanon as soon as possible via commercial flights. For those who have to remain in Lebanon, please stay on high alert, prepare for contingencies, have sufficient supplies, and avoid traveling to the high-risk areas in southern Lebanon. In case of emergencies, they need to contact the Embassy as soon as possible for help. We will make all-out effort to assist Chinese citizens who need to relocate to safe places or have other needs. AFP: Japan says they were not notified by Beijing before the launch of the ICBM missile yesterday. Is that true? And if it's true, why did China not inform Japan of the launch? Lin Jian: The Ministry of National Defense of China released information on this yesterday. The test launch is a routine arrangement in our annual training plan. It is in line with international law and international practice and is not directed against any country or target. We've notified relevant countries in advance. I'd refer you to the Ministry of National Defense for your specific question. AFP: Indian media have reported that a team of Indian mountain climbers has summited a previously unclimbed and unnamed peak in the region of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as part of southern Tibet. The Indian climbers have named the peak after the 6th Dalai Lama. Does China have any comment on this? Lin Jian: I'm not aware of what you mentioned. Let me say more broadly that the area of Zangnan is Chinese territory, and it's illegal, and null and void for India to set up the so-called "Arunachal Pradesh" in Chinese territory. This has been China's consistent position. Reuters: Naval vessels from New Zealand and Australia sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, according to a statement from the New Zealand Defense Minister. Does the Foreign Ministry have any comment? Lin Jian: China handles foreign warships' transit through the Taiwan Strait in accordance with laws and regulations, and meanwhile we stay vigilant against any acts that might jeopardize China's sovereignty and security. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China test-fires ICBM into Pacific Ocean amid tensions with US Iran Press TV Thursday, 26 September 2024 3:30 PM China on Wednesday test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean amid tensions with the United States. The country's defense ministry said the launch of the ICBM, carrying a dummy warhead, was part of routine training and not aimed at any country or target, The People's Liberation Army's Rocket Force, which is in charge of conventional and nuclear missile operations, regularly launches ballistic missiles in China's remote Xinjiang region or the Bohai Sea, rarely testing ICBMs out in international waters. According to some experts, the last test-fire of an ICBM dates back to May 1980, when Beijing launched a DF-5 missile into the South Pacific. China's latest ICBM, known to be the DF-41, is estimated to have a range of 12,000 to 15,000 kilometers, capable of reaching the US mainland. Experts say China choosing the Pacific Ocean as the location for test-firing its missile comes across as both a display of its increased nuclear capabilities and as a warning to the United States and its allies in the region. According to Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha University in Seoul, the ICBM missile test was a clear message to Washington that "direct intervention in a conflict across the Taiwan Strait would involve the American homeland being vulnerable to attack". The test also demonstrated Beijing's capability to engage in military activities on several fronts simultaneously, he added. The Pentagon sought to keep a stiff upper lip, saying it had received "some advanced notification" of the test from Beijing, calling it "a step in the right direction ... to preventing any misperception or miscalculation". Earlier this week, US President Joe Biden hosted the Quadrilateral Summit at the Archmere Academy in Wilmington, Delaware. During a leaders' meeting of the so-called Quad alliance between the US, Australia, India, and Japan, Biden said the grouplet is "here to stay", pledging to deepen the partnership amid growing tensions with China. During his talks, intended for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, which was recorded on a hot mic, Biden claimed China had adopted an increasingly assertive stance in the Pacific Ocean region. He told the leaders of Australia, India and Japan that "aggressive" China is "testing us." "China continues to behave aggressively, testing us all across the region, and it's true in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, South China, South Asia and the Taiwan Straits," Biden was heard in what was supposed to be behind-closed-doors remarks to the Quad grouping of four countries. Biden added that while Chinese President Xi Jinping was focused on "domestic economic challenges", he was also "looking to buy himself some diplomatic space, in my view, to aggressively pursue China's interest." He then claimed that Washington was making "intense efforts" to reduce tensions with Beijing, including a phone call to the Chinese leader in April, to prevent direct conflict between the countries. In past years, Washington and Beijing have been at loggerheads over a slew of issues, including China's partnership with Russia, the origin of the COVID virus, bilateral trade tariffs, technological theft, espionage, Chinese Taipei and territorial claims, among other disputed topics. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hong Kong sentences 2 journalists to prison for sedition Stand News editor jailed for 21 months, while acting editor received a sentence that allowed him to be freed. By RFA Staff 2024.09.26 -- A Hong Kong court sentenced two former news editors to prison on Thursday for conspiracy to publish seditious material, the latest journalists to fall foul of what critics say is a sweeping campaign to stifle dissent in the Asian financial hub. Chung Pui-kuen, former editor-in-chief of the now-defunct Stand News, was sentenced to 21 months. Judge Kwok Wai-kin considered an initial 14-month sentence for former acting-editor-in-chief, Patrick Lam, but reduced it by three months because he has a serious illness, allowing him to be released immediately, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported The two are the first journalists to be found guilty of sedition since Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997. Both defendants pleaded not guilty, with Chung denying the newspaper was politically motivated. Lam declined to testify and did not appear in court to hear the verdict due to health issues. The two arrived at the district court in Hong Kong's Wanchai district on Thursday morning but the hearing began late and went on for longer than expected after the judge called for a break to consider mitigating statements from their lawyer, according to the AP news agency. The two faced a maximum sentence of two years in prison and a fine of 5,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$642) each. Both spent almost 12 months in jail following their arrests in December 2021. On Aug. 29, after a 54-day trial, a Hong Kong court found the two guilty under laws introduced during British colonial rule. Hong Kong authorities used them for the first time in 2020 when China imposed strict national security laws following huge pro-democracy protests the previous year. During the trial, lawyers for the Hong Kong government accused Stand News of promoting "illegal ideologies" and smearing the security law and the police who enforced it. They cited 11 articles, including an interview with democracy activist Nathan Law, which they said were written with seditious intent. Stand News was founded in 2014 and made a name by live-streaming the 2019 protests and criticizing Hong Kong authorities. On Dec. 29, 2021, police raided its office, arresting senior staff, including Chung and Lam, and freezing its assets, forcing it out of business. Months earlier, police raided the pro-democracy Apple Daily, also freezing its assets and forcing it to close. Its founder Jimmy Lai is on trial, accused of "conspiring to collude with foreign forces" and "conspiring to publish seditious materials." Some foreign news organizations have closed their offices, or moved staff out of Hong Kong amid increasing scrutiny by the authorities. In March this year, Radio Free Asia said it was closing its Hong Kong bureau, citing concerns for the safety of its staff and actions by Hong Kong authorities, including referring to RFA as a "foreign force." The city's press freedom ranking fell from 73 out of 180 territories and countries in Reporters Without Borders' annual World Press Freedom Index to 135 last year, just above South Sudan. "Media freedom has been a central factor for Hong Kong's success in the past and is an essential foundation of a free and inclusive society," the Media Freedom Coalition - a partnership of more than 50 countries - said on Sept. 9, in response to the convictions of Chung and Lam. "To enable media workers to safely fulfill their legitimate role in scrutinizing government policy and actions, journalism should not be prosecuted under the guise of national security." Hong Kong's Beijing-backed government rejects accusations from its domestic critics and Western countries, including the United States and Britain, that it is smothering freedoms in a once-vibrant society. The city government and Beijing say stability must be ensured and what they see as foreign interference must be stopped to protect the city's economic success. 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 September 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 Staff, students 'tread carefully' at Hong Kong's eight universities Academic freedom has been on the wane since the imposition of a national security law in 2020, a new report says. By Matthew Leung for RFA Cantonese 2024.09.26 -- Hong Kong's universities are seeing the erosion of academic freedom under an ongoing crackdown on dissent in the city, much of it in the form of self-censorship, according to a new report. Academic freedom in Hong Kong has severely declined since the Chinese government imposed the National Security Law on the city on June 30, 2020, according to the report, which was co-authored by the New York-based group Human Rights Watch and the Hong Kong Democracy Council. "Hong Kong students and faculty, accustomed to academic freedom, now have to tread carefully to avoid retribution for what they teach, research, and publish, and even with whom they associate," Human Rights Watch's associate China director Maya Wang said. The ruling Chinese Communist Party announced last year that it would step up "patriotic education" in schools, universities and religious institutions across the country, including in Hong Kong, in a move likely designed to quash internal political challenges to Xi Jinping's authoritarian rule. Since 2020, the authorities have arrested former Hong Kong University law lecturer Benny Tai for "subversion" after he formulated a strategy to win a majority in the Legislative Council for pro-democracy lawmakers, withdrawn funding from student unions that were involved in the 2019 protest movement, and torn down pro-democracy displays on Hong Kong campuses. Universities have also removed sculptures and other memorials marking the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, public commemoration of which is now banned in Hong Kong. Academics have also told Radio Free Asia that university departments no longer dare to offer courses deemed politically risky, for fear of running afoul of security laws, while being obliged to offer patriotic "national security education" as a mandatory class. 'Increasingly repressive' The Sept. 24 report, titled "We Can't Write the Truth Anymore: Academic Freedom in Hong Kong Under the National Security Law," found that freedom of expression, assembly and association have all come under threat, as universities become "increasingly repressive." "The Chinese government considers gaining ideological control over Hong Kong's universities a top priority, and many students and faculty now find themselves in the line of fire," Human Rights Watch's Wang said. Hong Kong's leader, Chief Executive John Lee, is the chancellor of all of the city's publicly funded universities, with the power to appoint key members of their government councils, which appoint senior management and staff. Since 2020, many of those who disagreed with Beijing have lost positions of authority, while those who support the ruling Chinese Communist Party line have been rewarded, the report said. According to the report, which was based on interviews with individuals at Hong Kong universities as well as local media reports, students and faculty widely self-censor, fearful of being targeted for harassment, retribution, and even prosecution for what they say and do both in the classroom and on campus. Lecturers and students alike "regularly self-censor in the classrooms, when they write and publish articles, apply for academic funding, and deliberate over which speakers to invite to conferences and events," it said, adding that students, academics and administrators all felt as if they were "living under a microscope." Censorship and suppression aren't always direct, either. Pressure on publications Days before the report was launched, students at Lingnan University said they had been warned off using the logo of the Lingnan University Student Union Press Bureau, with management citing concerns it could be mistaken for an official body of the school. A recent Lingnan graduate who gave only the nickname Fern for fear of reprisals said she had once served on the Press Bureau committee, which had relied on selling merchandise like T-shirts to fund some of its publications. "The student union doesn't give much annual funding to the editorial board, so if they can't sell merchandise, I don't know how they're going to fund their publications," Fern said. During her time at Lingnan, Fern said management would also sometimes contact union members with "concerns" about their activities, for example, about plans to invite certain speakers to address members. "I felt the atmosphere was very tense," she said of her time there. "It's not a place for spontaneous activism or a citizens' debate." Fewer questions, less discussion Even off-campus activities were monitored, Fern said. "They might call and ask students what they're planning to do and where, or maybe the national security police will call and tell them not to go ahead, as a 'reminder'," she said. Another Hong Kong university student who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals told RFA Cantonese that both students and faculty are extremely careful about what they say in public these days, for fear of being reported to the authorities. Students also ask fewer questions in class, and there is less public academic discussion, they said. Chung Kin-wah, a former assistant professor in social sciences at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said the universities no longer function like places that encourage exploration and debate. "What they're doing now isn't really a university education at all, because the universities are even suppressing the student unions ... to hound them out of existence," Chung told RFA Cantonese. "If the student union doesn't run activities and there are no student organizations, let alone direct participation in politics," he said. "There's no room for discussion in campus politics now, which I think is a very serious issue." Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Luisetta Mudie and Paul Eckert. 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 September 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 North Korea may conduct nuclear test after US election: South's spy agency The agency said the North possesses enough materials to build dozens of nuclear weapons. By Taejun Kang for RFA 2024.09.26 -- North Korea may conduct its seventh nuclear test after the U.S. presidential vote in November, said South Korean lawmakers, citing their country's spy agency. "Since North Korea has other options for provocation such as an intercontinental ballistic missile test or launch of a satellite, its nuclear test would be after the U.S. election," lawmakers Lee Seong-Kweun of the ruling People Power Party and Park Sun-won of the main opposition Democratic Party told parliament, citing the the National Intelligence Service, or NIS. It would be North Korea's first nuclear test since 2017. North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006. All six have been underground. The NIS also reported that the North possesses about70 kilograms of plutonium and a significant amount of highly enriched uranium, or HEU, enough to build dozens of nuclear weapons. On the North's disclosure of an HEU facility for the first time this month, the NIS said Pyongyang appeared to have the U.S. election in mind, but it could be also trying to "instill confidence" in the domestic audience struggling with a crippled economy. North Korea unveiled details of its uranium enrichment facility for the first time this month, with leader Kim Jong Un calling for increasing the number of centrifuges for uranium enrichment so it can build up its nuclear arsenal for self-defense. The North's state media, in reporting on the facility, did not disclose where it is or say when Kim visited it. The NIS, however, said the facility that state media reported on was likely to be the Kangson nuclear complex near the capital, Pyongyang, though acknowledging it was hard to give a definite answer, according to the lawmakers. The South Korean intelligence agency said the North's test launch of new tactical ballistic missiles on Sept. 18 was aimed at verifying its precision strike capability. Calling it a "slight improvement from the past," the NIS said one of the two missiles fired successfully reached the target, adding that the agency recognized it as a "grave threat" to South Korean security, the legislators said. The NIS also said that North Korea-Russia relations were "improving and strengthening considerably and continuously" and that it was "watching closely with concerns about Russia's economic support to North Korea, including the supply of refined oil." "We are very concerned and observing technical cooperation such as reconnaissance satellites as a compensation for North Korea's weapons supply," said the agency, as cited by the legislators. On Sino-North Korea relations, the NIS reported that they had "deteriorated a lot." "There is a lot of tension between North Korea and China, especially over the crackdown on or replacement of North Korean foreign currency earners operating in China," the NIS reported, without elaborating. In August, China's foreign ministry spokesperson rejected the suggestion that ties with North Korea had cooled. "Recently some countries and media are suggesting North Korea-China relations are in trouble, and that China and Russia are competing with each other over relations with North Korea, but this is far from the truth," the Chinese spokesperson said. "Let me emphasize that both North Korea and Russia are friendly neighbors of China, and China is pleased to see the development of China-Russia relations, which play a constructive role in regional peace and stability," the spokesperson added. Edited by Mike Firn. Copyright 1998-2016, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content September 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 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's answer to a question from Rossiya Segodnya news agency, New York, September 26, 2024 26 September 2024 19:17 1796-26-09-2024 Question: What is Russia's position regarding the resolution on the DPRK adopted at the 68th IAEA General Conference? Sergey Lavrov: President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and Chairman of State Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Kim Jong-un have been treating our bilateral relations with special care and attention. Thanks to their efforts, Russia-DPRK relations have reached unprecedented heights and evolved into what amounts to an allied relationship, which was sealed in June 2024 in Pyongyang with the signing of the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The deep and sincere trust developed between the two leaders plays an instrumental role in this regard. This trust stems from our shared vision and coinciding assessment of the current international environment. Russia is firmly committed to fulfilling all the agreements reached by the two leaders, including as set forth in the treaty I have just mentioned. Considering that we share the same strategic goals, we use all available opportunities and methods for achieving them, while taking into account the decades-old international mechanisms for discussing global matters, which set the tone for the efforts we make to promote our interests. Of course, we are fully aware of today's international environment and have factored the new reality in terms of global and regional security, including its nuclear dimension, into our agendas. We understand the principled position of our Korean friends, who believe that a missile and nuclear shield, along with other self-defence measures, form the bedrock of their independence and security. The United States, with the support of its allies, has been rogue and assertive in its efforts to deploy certain elements of their military and strategic infrastructure in the region, while making active use of the systems which can serve as delivery mechanisms for nuclear weapons. Together with the Republic of Korea and Japan, they have been exploring increasingly provocative and destabilising schemes as part of the so-called expanded nuclear deterrence. They have gone as far as openly designating the US-South Korea alliance as a nuclear alliance, just like the one the US has within NATO. Once you add Japan, this relationship is clearly headed towards forming a tripartite bloc, since Japan has been outspoken in its commitment to remilitarisation. This poses real and extremely serious regional security threats. In this context, applying the term 'denuclearisation' to DPRK no longer makes any sense. For us, this is off the table. In view of these facts, from the outset Russia has spoken out against the senseless initiative by Western countries to have the IAEA General Conference adopt a resolution on the DPRK. We argued that it would have a detrimental, inadequate and destructive effect. We said that the draft resolution, as drafted by the West, was unacceptable and noted that the General Conference failed to reach a compromise on this matter. We reject this document. In terms of international law, it is null and void and does not create any added value. This is not the first time in history that our countries have had to counter a common enemy which seeks to damage Russia-DPRK relations. We will consistently strive to reinforce the friendship and cooperation we share with the brotherly Korean nation and will never allow these hostile plans to materialise. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address DFA Statement on DPRK's Ballistic Missile Launch Republic of the Philippines - Department of Foreign Affairs 27 September 2024 MANILA 27 September 2024 -- The Philippines expresses serious concern and strongly denounces the continuing ballistic missile launches conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Such provocative actions undermine economic progress, peace, and stability in the Korean Peninsula and the Indo-Pacific region. We call on the DPRK to immediately cease these activities and abide by all international obligations, including relevant UN Security Council Resolutions, and to commit to peaceful and constructive dialogue. The Philippines wants to see lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula and echoes the calls of the international community for a complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of DPRK. END NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Joint statement - France-Kenya. AlysAe - President of France 25 September 2024 France and Kenya have agreed to jointly organize an Africa-France Summit in Nairobi in 2026. This decision was confirmed by the President of the French Republic, Mr. Emmanuel Macron, and the President of the Republic of Kenya, Mr. William Ruto, during a meeting held this Wednesday, September 25th in New York, on the sidelines of the United Nations' General Assembly high-level week. This summit will focus on solutions to challenges related to climate, environment and the reform of the international financial architecture, in favour of which the two heads of state are strongly mobilized. It will seek to foster a constructive form of multilateralism, in line with the Paris Pact for People and the Planet and the Nairobi Declaration which resulted from the Africa Climate Summit. This summit will bring together both political authorities from the African continent and representatives from civil society and the private sector. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Protecting civilians must be our 'North Star', says French President Macron 25 September 2024 - President Emmanuel Macron of France deplored on Wednesday what he saw as deepening divisions among the world's nations, telling the General Assembly that effective multilateralism has never been more necessary to rebuild trust and tackle crises. Recalling that global enthusiasm that had greeted the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, Mr. Macron regretted that, despite such jubilation, the Olympic Truce seemed "a dead letter". "Every day, humanity seems to fragment further," he said, lamenting the international community's failure to come together and find common solutions. To restore the power and hope vested in the words 'United Nations', he called for the restoration of trust among nations, and a serious push to see civilian protection as an imperative norm. "It must remain a North Star." "Let us not allow the idea to take hold for a single moment" that the suffering of some deserves more attention than the suffering of others, whether in Ukraine, Gaza or Sudan. "We need to show equal attention to all those suffering," President Macron said. Regrettably, current ongoing conflicts call into question the international community's ability to enforce the UN Charter. "When I see some people wanting to propose peace by asking for capitulation, I am surprised that we can even support such an idea," he said. Mr. Macron said Russia was waging a war of territorial conquest in Ukraine in disregard of the most fundamental principles of international law. "[Russia] is guilty of serious breaches of law, ethics and honour," he asserted. The fate of Ukraine is tied to peace and security in Europe and in the world "because who could believe themselves protected from their strongest, most violent and most greedy neighbors if we let Russia prevail as if nothing had happened?" Keen to help Ukraine build a just and lasting peace, he said that France will continue to provide it with essential equipment for its defense and will support its remarkable resistance. Turning to the Middle East, he acknowledged that Israel had a legitimate right to protect its people and to deny Hamas the means to attack it again. But its war in Gaza "has gone on too long [and] too many innocent people have died." A ceasefire must therefore be declared as soon as possible, the hostages must be freed, and massive amounts of humanitarian aid must arrive in Gaza, he underscored. While the international community must evince the political will to ensure a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the immediate risk is that of regional escalation, added Mr. Macron. "We urge Israel to cease escalation in Lebanon, and for Hezbollah to cease missile launches towards Israel. We urge all those who provide (Hezbollah) with the means to do so to stop," he said. "There must not, there cannot be a war in Lebanon," he underscored. Finally, Mr. Macron said he favoured expanding the composition of the Security Council. As he saw it, Germany, Japan, India and Brazil should be permanent members, as well as two countries that Africa would designate to represent it. New elected members should also be admitted. But this reform alone would not be enough to restore the Council's effectiveness, he warned, calling for a change in the body's working methods, a limitation of the right of veto in cases of mass crimes, and more attention to operational decisions required for maintaining peace. "The time has come to regain efficiency in order to act better on the ground," he concluded. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address DRDO & INAE organise 11th Engineers Conclave in Hyderabad to discuss emerging technologies & advancements in indigenisation India - Press Information Bureau Ministry of Defence Posted On: 26 SEP 2024 4:08PM by PIB Delhi The 11th Engineers Conclave, jointly organised by Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) in Hyderabad, commenced on September 26, 2024. The aim of the two-day annual conclave is to deliberate on two strategic priorities i.e., 'Additive Manufacturing for Defence Applications' and 'Defence Manufacturing Technologies'. The event, being held at Defence Research & Development Laboratory (DRDL) of DRDO, brings together engineers, scientists, academicians and industry leaders to discuss emerging technologies & advancements in indigenisation. The conclave was inaugurated by the Chief Guest, Former Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission Dr Anil Kakodkar and Guest of Honour, Secretary Department of Defence R&D and Chairman DRDO Dr Samir V Kamat. DRDL Director (Hyderabad) Shri GA Srinivasa Murthy, Director General, Missiles and Strategic Systems Shri U Raja Babu, and INAE President Prof Indranil Manna addressed the gathering. SR/KB (Release ID: 2058999) NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address ADM DINESH K TRIPATHI, CHIEF OF THE NAVAL STAFF ON AN OFFICIAL VISIT TO GREECE India - Press Information Bureau Ministry of Defence Posted On: 26 SEP 2024 1:46PM by PIB Delhi Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi, Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS), is on a four day official visit to Greece from 26 to 29 Sep 24. This visit is part of ongoing efforts to further consolidate bilateral defence relations between India and Greece, with a focus on enhancing Naval Cooperation. During the visit, the CNS will engage in bilateral discussions with senior Greek defence officials, including Mr Ioannis Kefalogiannis, Deputy Minister of Defence, Vice Admiral Dimitrios E Kataras, Chief of the Hellenic Navy General Staff (HGNS), Vice Admiral Christos Sasiakos, Deputy Chief of Hellenic National Defence General Staff. The discussions are expected to cover a broad spectrum of defence cooperation areas, particularly maritime security, joint training initiatives, and exploring avenues for future operational collaboration between the two navies. As part of his visit, Adm Dinesh K Tripathi shall be visiting the Salamis Bay, the base of the Hellenic Naval Fleet as well as the Hellenic Naval Academy. Through demonstrations and visits to Hellenic naval assets, the Hellenic Navy has planned to introduce Greece's naval capabilities and training methodologies to the CNS. The Hellenic Navy Chief shall be hosting the Indian CNS onboard the renowned Georgios AVEROF, the Hellenic naval museum ship, offering him a glimpse into Greece's rich maritime history and naval heritage. The visit underscores the strong naval relations between India and Greece, which include joint exercises, port visits, and capacity-building initiatives. Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi's engagements in Greece are expected to further strengthen the bonds of friendship and cooperation between the two navies, ensuring enhanced collaboration in areas of mutual interest. ***** VM/SPS (Release ID: 2058940) NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US announces sanctions over Iran oil shipment to Syria, East Asia IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Sep 26, 2024 Tehran, IRNA -- The US Treasury Department has announced sanctions on more than a dozen entities and vessels over what it called their involvement in the shipment of Iranian crude oil and liquid petroleum gas to Syria and East Asia. The Treasury announced the sanctions in a statement on Wednesday, saying that four ships associated with the fleet of Syrian shipping magnate Abdul Jalil Mallah and his brother, Luay al-Mallah, were among the vessels included in the measures, Reuters said, citing a statement by the department. The statement accused the Syrian brothers of continuing to use their "shipping empire" to support what the US called "malign activities of Iran and its proxies." The department alleged that Iran continues with "its illicit sale of oil and liquid petroleum gas" by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and Lebanon's Hezbollah resistance movement. Iran has not reacted yet, but it has dismissed in the past the allegations by the US and its Western allies regarding what they call malign activities by the country and the resistance groups it supports in the region. Iran has said that those groups decide and act independently. Iran has also described as illegal US sanctions against its oil sales. 4208**4194 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran slams US 'absurd scenarios' to implicate it in alleged assassinations Iran Press TV Thursday, 26 September 2024 3:17 PM Iran says US claims of Iranian threats to senior American officials are "ridiculous scenarios" fabricated by Washington. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday said the US was "intensely tracking an ongoing threat by Iran against a number of senior officials, including former government officials like president [Donald] Trump, and some people who are currently serving the administration." In a statement on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan'ani dismissed Blinken's "accusations as absurd and completely baseless." "It is clear that the formulation of such claims is merely part of the electoral atmosphere in the US and is driven by specific political goals, to the extent that they do not even warrant a response," Kan'ani noted. "The formulation of such false attributions and political accusations in the current tense conditions of the region cannot in any way diminish the international responsibility of the US government in aiding and participating in various international crimes against Palestine and Lebanon by the Zionist regime." Kan'ani said public opinion worldwide holds "the US regime" and its officials accountable for such humanitarian atrocities. "The absurd and baseless stunts and scenarios created by the US government against the Islamic Republic of Iran will not hinder Iran's determination to pursue legal and international accountability for the perpetrators and instigators of crimes committed against the Iranian people," he said. "The passage of time will not protect these criminals from trial and punishment." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran's defense minister urges Muslim countries to sever ties with Israel, expel its envoys Iran Press TV Thursday, 26 September 2024 2:20 PM Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh urges the governments of Muslim countries to cut off diplomatic relations with Israel, expel its ambassadors and impose sanctions on the regime. "Muslim states should not merely suffice to denunciation of Israeli crimes. They are rather required to put pressure on the regime to stop its genocide and prepare the ground for its collapse by severing political relations with the regime, expelling its ambassadors and ending mutual economic relations," he said. Nasirzadeh also underlined the need for Muslim countries and freedom-loving nations of the world to implement deterrent measures against the brutalities of the Zionist regime. "Zionist usurpers are gravely mistaken to think that acts of terror can destroy the resistance front, as the spirit of resistance has defeated the Zionist regime. The idea of aajihad and resistance will never be obliterated through bombs and mass killings," he said. Nasirzadeh made the remarks on Thursday as he visited many wounded victims of the recent Israeli terrorist attack in Lebanon, who have been transferred to Iranian hospitals for medical treatment. Nasirzadeh said the idea of resistance and steadfastness against oppressors derives from Islamic teachings and has its roots in the Holy Qur'an. "According to the divine promise in the Holy Qur'an, we must resist oppression and oppressors, including Zionists. This movement will continue until complete destruction of the regime," he said. The Iranian defense minister said anti-human acts are expected to be committed only by the Zionist regime with the support of the United States and Europe. "One is bewildered how the world order that the West is propagating has resulted in genocide and damage to civilians," he said. Nasirzadeh touched on Israel's use of communication devices for terrorist attacks. "Such behaviors disrupt commercial relationships among countries; because commercial firms and manufacturers of communication devices are fundamentally required to produce these devices in such a way that their use would pose no risk to consumers, and not to turn these devices into bombs and tools of terror." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Kurdistan Region set to hold long-delayed parliamentary election By Rikar Hussein September 26, 2024 The semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq on Wednesday officially began a campaign phase for its parliamentary elections scheduled for October 20. The vote, which was rescheduled five times due to political disagreements over the election system, comes at a time when the region is still suffering from a financial crisis related to disagreements with the Iraqi government. "Everyone is free to propagate their policies and programs, to criticize, but no one must allow themselves to spread hatred," said Kurdish President Nechirvan Barzani. The region was supposed to hold the election by the end of 2022, but the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) were not able to reach an agreement about amending the region's electoral system, particularly minority quota seats. Consequently, the Kurdish parliament was suspended in May 2023. Relations with Baghdad At the center of the election is the debate over the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) prolonged financial crisis due to the lack of cash flow from Baghdad. The region's public sector employees continue to suffer from unpaid and delayed salaries, as Irbil and Baghdad continue their painstaking talks on the KRG internal revenues, employee list and oil contracts. The crisis goes back to February 2014, when Iraq's then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki cut the Kurdish share of the Iraqi budget to protest the KRG's independent oil exports via Turkey. It was worsened by an Islamic State attack in August 2014, the Iraqi and Iranian pushback against the October 2017 Kurdish referendum for independence, and Turkey's decision to halt oil exports from KRG in March 2023. While the KDP officials accuse the Iraqi central government of keeping the KRG budget "hostage" to weaken Kurdish autonomy, the opposition parties blame, at least in part, the lack of transparency of KRG internal revenues and oil contracts with foreign companies. During his first campaign appearance, which was held in the Kurdistan Region capital, Irbil, on Wednesday, KDP head Masoud Barzani began his speech to zealous supporters acknowledging the Kurdish independence referendum anniversary, congratulating people "on this sacred day, when the nation of Kurdistan did not allow its will to be broken and did not bow itself." Barzani noted restored relations with the current Iraqi government led by Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani but warned his supporters against "a chauvinistic mindset" targeting the Kurdish people in Iraq. Barzani also recognized shortcomings in governance but asked voters to "put criticism aside for now" and vowed reform "from the top" after the elections. Governance and corruption While the KDP appeals to the nationalist sentiment of voters in the region, its main competitor, PUK, is focused on countering the KDP's "self-imposition" and offering itself as a better alternative to rule the region. "Only the PUK can readjust this crippled governance," PUK leader Bafel Talabani said in a televised address on Wednesday. Talabani accused the KDP of abusing the region's revenues for its own benefit and failing to defend Kurdish rights in Baghdad. He presented "a new PUK," which he said will act upon its promises of fighting corruption and mismanagement. Talabani counted the appointment of a Kurdish governor for Kirkuk from his party and his pressure to change the KRG electoral system as proof for a stronger comeback of the PUK, which has been riddled with separation and internal divisions, particularly after the death of his father and the PUK's founding leader and former Iraqi president Jalal Talabani. In 2013 the Change Movement, one of the key offshoots of the PUK, won 24 seats out of the region's then 111 parliament seats, leading the PUK by six seats. Divided opposition But the Change Movement over the years has suffered a significant setback among voters who are seeking an alternative to the KDP-PUK ruling system. Additionally, the appearance of more opposition groups, such as the New Generation, is expected to further divide the opposition votes to the benefit of the KDP and PUK, experts say. Renowned Kurdish politician Mahmoud Osman told VOA from Irbil, "Whether the elections are held or not, there will be no change in Kurdistan's governance, because the KDP rules one zone and the PUK rules another." He added, "The newly established parties are minor to the KDP and the PUK, which control the armed forces." The outbreak of civil war in 1994 split the Kurdistan Region into two zones, with the KDP controlling the yellow zone in Irbil and Duhok provinces, and the PUK in charge of the green zone in Sulaimaniyah and Halabja provinces. In 2006, both parties signed an agreement to create a joint administration, but division, especially in the Peshmerga forces, continues to hold back the region from its aspirations for stronger government institutions. "The will for change is present among the people of Kurdistan but not in the political parties," Luqman Ali, a political observer from Sulaimaniyah, told VOA. He charged that political parties in the region used parliament members as "employees" to implement their agendas. "So long as the government is not institutionalized to prioritize people over parties and political individuals, these elections will not bring about any considerable change," he said. About 2.9 million people from the region's four provinces are eligible to vote in the October 20 election, which is organized by Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC). IHEC spokeswoman Jumana al-Ghalai on Tuesday told VOA Kurdish Service that her commission is taking various steps to ensure a transparent process. "The vote-counting process will be conducted both manually and electronically. If the difference between them is 5%, manual counting will be used," she said. According to Aram Jamal, head of the Kurdish Institute for Elections, despite challenges in the system, the vote is an important step for the region's democratic process. The participation of more than 1,190 candidates in the election will ensure an intense campaign, he said. "What is important is to have a calm and civilized competition away from violence," Jamal told VOA. "The chances for fraud have been eliminated to a great extent and therefore, a new voting phase has started." This story originated in VOA's Kurdish Service with contributions from Snur Karim, Zhiyar Mohammed and Dilshad Anwar. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israel gets $8.7bn in US military aid amid new invasion plans Iran Press TV Thursday, 26 September 2024 7:42 PM Israel's ministry of war affairs says it has secured an $8.7 billion aid package from the United States to support its ongoing military plans across the region. In a statement released on Thursday, the ministry said the deal was concluded after a series of high-level meetings between Israeli and US authorities in Washington. "The package includes $3.5 billion for essential wartime procurement ... and $5.2 billion designated for air defense systems, including the Iron Dome, David's Sling and an advanced laser system," the ministry said in a statement. The aid package comes at a time when Israel is waging its military campaigns of death and destruction in the besieged Gaza Strip and Lebanon. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, in his address to the UN General Assembly in New York Thursday, accused the United States of providing Israel with the "deadly weapons that it used to kill thousands of innocent civilians, children and women". The Palestinian Authority chief called out the US for refusing a permanent ceasefire earlier in the war on Gaza, refusing to recognize the state of Palestine, and turning a blind eye to Israeli aggression. Abbas said he doesn't understand why the United States "insists on opposing" Palestinians. "We regret that the United States obstructed three times draft resolutions of the Security Council demanding Israel to observe a ceasefire," said Abbas. "The US alone stood and said, 'No, the fighting is going to continue.'" He added that this only encouraged Israel to continue the war. "As long as the US is supporting it, then why not keep going?" The Palestinian president also said that people in Lebanon are being subjected to a "war of genocide". "We condemn this aggression, and we demand that it stops immediately," said Abbas. It has been almost a year since the start of the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, where Israel has been killing civilians and razing infrastructure. Amid the failure in Gaza, the Israeli regime's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has now shifted focus to Lebanon. The US support for Israel's bloodshed has been so unconditional that it has prompted the closest allies of Washington and Tel Aviv to speak up and urge an end to the American administration's blind backing of the Israeli regime. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Myanmar junta airstrike kills civilians sheltering in rebel territory Jets bombed a building where hundreds of internally displaced people were staying, rebels and residents said. By RFA Burmese 2024.09.26 -- Myanmar junta jets bombed a shelter for displaced people in a rebel-held town in Rakhine state on Thursday killing 14 civilians and wounding 25, an insurgent force official told Radio Free Asia. The Arakan Army, or AA, has made significant gains in its battle for self-determination over the past year, capturing 10 of the 17 townships and major military bases in Myanmar's westernmost state but the junta has been hitting back, in particular with its air power. Air force jets bombed the coastal town of Thandwe early on Thursday, hitting public administration offices where people displaced by the fighting have been staying, said AA spokesman Khaing Thu Kha. "Two jets came in and dropped two bombs each on the city hall and the environmental preservation office. More than 200 displaced people were sheltering in the office," he said. "The injured were sent to hospital. Most were elderly people and children." The death toll would likely be higher because many displaced people who were seriously injured have not yet counted, said Khaing Thu Kha. RFA tried to contact Rakhine state's junta spokesperson Hla Thein for information on the airstrikes but he did not answer telephone calls. A Thandwe resident said he believed the jets had deliberately targeted civilians, though there was no particular evidence for that. "The people sheltering there are mainly from Thandwe township and Gyeik Taw village," said the resident who declined to be identified for safety reasons. Residents and members of the AA say junta attacks in Rakhine state have increasingly targeted schools, monasteries, residential areas and government buildings that the AA has captured. The junta has denied targeting civilians though human rights investigators also say civilians in rebel-held areas are increasingly being killed in airstrikes. On Wednesday, junta attacks on nearby Myebon township's Kan Htaunt Gyi village killed two women villagers and wounded seven people, residents said. The military has launched an offensive in Shan state, on northeastern Myanmar's border with China, aiming to recapture lost territory there from two main insurgent forces allied with the AA. On Sept. 2, the junta designated all three members of the alliance "terrorist groups." According to RFA data, junta airstrikes and heavy weapons attacks killed nearly 2,000 civilians and injured nearly 4,000 between the military's February 2021 coup d'etat and May 2024. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. The story was updated to add a comment from the AA spokesman saying that the death toll would likely be higher. 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 September 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 26 September 2024 Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs Assalam-o-Alaikum, Welcome to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif is in New York to attend the High-level segment for the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. The Prime Minister attended the event "SDG Moment" organized by United Nations on Sustainable Development Goals where he called for support to developing countries in escaping debt traps exacerbated by climate change-related disasters and an unfair global financial system. The Prime Minister also attended the "High-Level Meeting on Existential Threat posed by Sea-level Rise," and the UN Security Council's Open Debate on "Leadership for Peace" yesterday. In a statement on "Leadership for peace" during the High-Level Open Debate in the UN Security Council, the Prime Minister underlined that proliferating wars - in the Middle East, Europe, and elsewhere - great power tensions, and growing poverty - are threatening the foundations of world order. He proposed actions to address global challenges and strengthen peace and security in the world. Pakistan will pursue these objectives in the Security Council when it assumes its seat in the Council next year. On the sidelines of the UNGA Session, the Prime Minister has held bilateral meetings with the President of Maldives Dr. Muizzu; President of Turkiye Recep Tayyip Erdogan; President of Iran Masoud Pazeshkian; President of the State of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas; Crown Prince of the State of Kuwait, His Highness Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah; and the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres. The Prime Minister will address the UN General Assembly tomorrow. Pakistan remains concerned about the security situation in the Middle East owing to Israel's expanding adventurism and disregard of international law. Last week's military aggression against Lebanon is a grave violation of the UN Charter and international law. This dangerous escalation has further endangered peace and security in an already volatile region. Pakistan reaffirms its unwavering support for Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity. For almost a year now, Israeli occupation forces have been involved in a systematic genocidal campaign in Gaza and engaged in grave violations of international humanitarian law. This week Israel sent a container of decomposing bodies of 88 Palestinians to Gaza without sharing any information about the identities of the victims and the time and manner of their deaths. This inexcusably barbaric act violates international humanitarian law, which require the respectful handling and identification of the deceased. By withholding the names and gender of the deceased, the Israeli occupation forces have denied the victims their dignity and compounded the suffering of their families. No family should be denied the right to bury their loved ones with dignity. Israel must disclose the identities of the deceased and ensure dignified return of the mortal remains to their families. We call upon the international community to take immediate action to hold Israel accountable for its acts of international terrorism and its war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Contact Group of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Jammu and Kashmir met yesterday on the sidelines of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York. Chaired by OIC Secretary General, Hissein Brahim Taha, the meeting was attended by the representatives of the member states of the Contact Group which include Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, TArkiye, Niger and Azerbaijan. A delegation of the True Representatives of the Kashmiri People also participated. Defence Minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif who led the Pakistan delegation to the meeting, briefed the Contact Group on the political, security and human rights situation in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). Member states of the Contact Group emphasized the importance of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute on the OIC's agenda and expressed support for the Kashmiri people and their rights and freedoms. They called for an early, peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. The meeting concluded with the adoption of a comprehensive Joint CommuniquA, reaffirming the OIC's consistent support for the legitimate struggle of the Kashmiri people for realization of their inalienable right to self-determination in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. The Communique also condemned the banning of a number of Kashmiri political parties and the ongoing campaign to confiscate the properties of the Kashmiri activists. It underscored the so-called election exercises in IIOJK cannot serve as a substitute to the exercise of the right to self determination. The Contact Group also called upon India to halt the human rights violations in the IIOJK and take steps for the resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the relevant UNSC resolutions and the wishes 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. I thank you all! *** (Azaz Syed, Geo News): Ma'am, TArkiye has addressed the UNGA session recently in New York. TArkiye has talked about the Kashmir issue during its four previous visits to the UNGA but this time Kashmir was not mentioned. Is it the failure of Pakistan's foreign policy or has India approached TArkiye? Spokesperson: TArkiye has a consistent and principled position on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. The Turkish leadership and diplomats have expressed support for the right of self-determination of the Kashmiri people at multiple forums, including at the OIC. TArkiye is also an active member of the OIC contact group on Jammu and Kashmir. If you see the joint communiquA of the Contact Group which met last night, TArkiye joined the consensus on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir and reaffirmed its strong support for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Therefore, we should not draw any undue inferences from one statement. (Abdul Hadi Mayar, Hum Pashto 1 News): Regional connectivity and trade remain the central point whenever Pakistan holds talks with Central Asian republics, Russia and Belarus, but it is evident that none of such projects can materialize without peace and stability in Afghanistan. Isn't there any need for all these countries to evolve a regional and geo economic approach to the situation in Afghanistan. Spokesperson: Pakistan, like all neighbouring and near neighbouring countries of Afghanistan, is concerned about peace and security in Afghanistan. We are working with the neighbouring countries of Afghanistan. There are several forums of which Pakistan is a member, including the neighbouringcountries format, where all these countries discuss and debate various options to engage with Afghanistan; to ensure that Afghanistan territory is not a threat to the security of its neighbours; and to facilitate the people of Afghanistan, so that there is peace and prosperity in Afghanistan; so that these connectivity projects see light of the day. (Khawaja Nayyar Iqbal, Media Today): World's two biggest issues, Indian occupation on Jammu and Kashmir and Israeli atrocities in Gaza. Resolutions on them exist in United Nations Security council but none of the international level conferences were successful. What are the hopes of Pakistan regarding the same from the ongoing session of UNGA? Spokesperson: We have already issued a curtain raiser on the visit of the Prime Minister to New York for the UN General Assembly. Pakistan will strongly raise its voice on issues of international concern including the question of Palestine and the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. This will be highlighted in the statement that the Prime Minister of Pakistan will deliver tomorrow at UN General Assembly. This is part of Pakistan's conversations with world leaders which are taking place in New York. Jammu and Kashmir was the topic of discussion for the OIC in the format of OIC contact group held yesterday. We will continue to highlight the importance of the just resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute for lasting peace and stability in South Asia. We have called on the United Nations to use its good offices for implementation of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir and for ensuring the right to self- determination of the Kashmiri people. (Shaukat Piracha, AAJ News): My question is regarding a statement made by Pakistan Permanent Representative to the United Nations in an interview with voice of America. I really wonder whether such a statement was authorized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Government of Pakistan, when he says that the world must engage with Afghan Taliban government. Would not the international community laugh at this when Pakistan is maintaining a red line on the issue of TTP sanctuaries being given by the Afghan Taliban government? Why are we advocating that the world should engage with them. Is there a balance between our red lines and urging the world to engage with Taliban government? Spokesperson: I think this issue should be looked at in its right perspective. Pakistan has repeatedly said that we are deeply concerned for the welfare of the people of Afghanistan. It is important for Pakistan and for the international community to facilitate Afghanistan in providing economic opportunities to the people of Afghanistan and for creating conditions for peace and prosperity. These conditions are important from Pakistan's perspective, because it is a neighbouring country, and, more importantly, because Pakistan wishes the early and honourable return of Afghan refugees who continue to stay in Pakistan. We believe that peace, security and prosperity in Afghanistan will facilitate this process. And it is in this regard, that we engage with the Afghan authorities, and encourage the United Nations and other international bodies to facilitate the people of Afghanistan. Secondly, with regards to the use of Afghan soil against Pakistan, our position is very clear. Pakistan has taken up thisconcern, not just bilaterally with Afghanistan, but also with the international community, including at the United Nations, where we have highlighted that the Afghan territory is being used by terror elements against Pakistan. It is important that the Afghan authorities take action against the hideouts and sanctuaries that continue to be present in Afghanistan and threaten Pakistan's security and indeed the security of all neighbours of Afghanistan. (Afzal Reza, IRNA): My question is regarding the yesterday's meeting between President Pezeshkian and Prime Minister Sharif in New York yesterday. So, how you see the agreement reached in this meeting, that the both leaders agreed to formation of a joint working group for the expansion of the bilateral economic cooperation, specifically and especially to deal with the issue of the Pakistan-Iran Gas Pipeline. In the samemeeting, President Pezeshkian also shared his idea regarding the creation of a wide range road and railway communication network between regional countries facilitate to people-to-people contacts. So how does Pakistan see this? Spokesperson: Pakistan and Iran are close neighbours.We have several channels of communications between our two countries. The engagement at the leadership level is a reflection of the importance both countries accord to high level engagement and dialogue between Pakistan and Iran. We believe that with engagement and dialogue at the highest levels our two countries can work together for the mutual benefit of our two peoples and find common ground on economic and trade matters and find solutions to any issues that may arise from time to time. With regards to yesterday's meeting between the two leaders, I do not have the full picture of the discussions that took place overnight. I can underline, however, that Pakistan remains committed to dialogue with its brotherly country of Iran. We are ready to work with Iran in exploring various projects of dialogue and cooperation in the economic sphere. (Jiang Chao, Xinhua News Agency): I have two questions. We know that a summit of council of Headsof Governments of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states will be held next month. What is Pakistan's vision and expectation for all parties to implement the resolutions of the SCO Astana Summit in the upcoming summit? Spokesperson: The Council of the Heads of Government meeting of the SCO member states, is the second highest forum of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and deals with economic, social, cultural and financial matters. Its focus is on strengthening and enhancing cooperation in spheres of trade and economic cooperation, connectivity and transport links and investment in key sectors. Subjects pertaining to economy, trade finance, investment, trade facilitation and economic collaboration, as mentioned in the Astana declaration, will be further elaborated in the Council of Heads of Government meeting to be held in Islamabad. (Mateen Haider, GTV News): It's again related to Shanghai Cooperation Council of Heads of Government Summit. So far, how many confirmations have been received by Pakistan? How many heads of government would be attending this conference and also share updates that who will be attending from India? Spokesperson: We will be making announcements with regards to the participation of various delegations at a later date. (Jiang Chao, Xinhua News Agency): Still about SCO. We know that the Belt and Road initiative was written into the Astana declaration issued after the Astana summit of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO, stating that countries, including Pakistan, support the China's proposed BRI. So how do you view the connection between the SCO and the Belt and Road Initiative? Spokesperson: Pakistan has been supporting initiatives of SCO that foster connectivity and establish newer linkages amongst member states. SCO is perfectly placed to erect newer transport and road linkages, which strengthen interconnectivity amongst its members. Pakistan fully supports the Belt and Road Initiative, which is also an important connectivity project for the region and Pakistan is part of the flagship project of BRI, the China Pakistan Economic Corridor that we think is critical for Pakistan's economic prosperity and development. (Abdullah Momand,Dawn News): Pakistan, in a recent development, has offered scholarships to the Bangladesh students and in this regard, the Pakistani High Commissioner in Bangladesh Syed Ahmed Maroof held two meetings with the Bangladesh authorities. So is it a part of new diplomacy following the departure of Hasina Wajid? Spokesperson: Pakistan and Bangladesh have a long history of collaboration in educational, scientific and people to people domains. There have been several scholarships offered to Bangladesh in the past, and many Bangladeshi students have come to Pakistan for education. These offers have always remained on the table, and we look forward to welcoming Bangladeshi students to Pakistan on educational scholarship in the future as well. (Saqib Ali Rathore, Daily Kashmir Times):Kashmiri people, whenever inadvertently end up crossing the LOC are labeled and presented by India as terrorist. What are foreign office's comments on this because a man crossed the LOC, who was mentally unfit, India declared him a terrorist. I had already raised a question on this issue but have not gotten the answer yet. Spokesperson: I do not have the details of the exact case that you're referring to. However, we have been raising these issues with the Indian authorities that individuals who cross over mistakenly across the border must be dealt in a humane manner. In the past, Pakistan has also released individuals from India who crossed over mistakenly. We expect India to take a humane view of such cases. (ShabirWahgra, PTV World): Ma'am, after last week terrorist attack on diplomats in KP, like in Malam Jabba, is there any new SOPs, or measures suggested by foreign office to the organizations, provincial governments and relevant authorities who are inviting such high profile dignitaries, especially diplomats in such areas so that these incidents could be avoided? Supplementary: (Naveed Siddique, Daily Dateline)Ma'am, that was such a high-profile visit, but why protocol and security was not given to them? Supplementary: (Mateen Haider, GTV News) Hasany investigation been carried out by the local police, and that has been shared with the Foreign Office? Which Group exactly was involved in carrying out this IED attack? If the investigation was shared with the foreign ministry, has that been shared with the honorable Ambassadors who were on that particular visit? Supplementary: (Abdullah Momand , Dawn News)Foreign Office was quoted by an Urdu newspaper in which they claimed that the Foreign Office has shared that the province was informed prior to this visit. Following this attack, on the second day, Ministry of Foreign Affairs reportedly invited the Ambassador of 11 or 12 countries in which they gave them a surety that they will investigate this matter and will punish the culprit. Is this true? Supplementary: (Anwar Abbass, 24 News) Governor KP, Faisal Kareem Kundi has once again invited foreign diplomats to Peshawar? Will you give any recommendation or suggestion if they should go again or not? Spokesperson: Starting with your last question, Pakistan is committed to providing full security to any diplomat who is in Pakistan. We are committed to making their stay in Pakistan as comfortable and as secure as possible. In that respect, we encourage foreign diplomats to explore Pakistan and to follow the guidelines that have been shared with them on several occasions with regards to their travel to any part of Pakistan. Pakistan has condemned that incident of 23rd of September and our security agencies are investigating.When there is substantial information, it will be appropriately released. With regards to this particular incident of 23rd of September, this was a trip which was organized by the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and not by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or any government institution. We have taken serious note of the lapses which were made by the concerned individuals, including their failure to inform the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of organizing such a high profile visit.We are also in the process of developing guidelines to ensure that such incidents do not happen again. The Deputy Prime Minister, you are right, has met with the Ambassadors and Heads of Missions of the countries involved. He has assured them that Pakistan will fully investigate this incident and institute procedures to ensure their full safety. With regards to the travel of any diplomat to the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa, there are procedures in place. We have undertaken internal investigation, and have come to the conclusion that as far as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is concerned, all protocols were followed. That includes information regarding the travel of Ambassadors who contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs individually regarding their travel to the KP province. This information was shared with the KP government in writing, and we have documentary evidence for that. (Shaukat Piracha, AAJ News): A little clarification about the previous comment. Sorry, maybe we were not fully attentive as we are writing the tickers. Which documented evidence was shared with the KP government? Spokesperson: Some Ambassadors individually approached the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, informing us of their travel as has been their practice. This information was shared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the KP government. As for the event, which was organized by the Chamber of Commerce, the details of the event were not shared by the Chamber of Commerce with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So, the fact that there would be so many Ambassadors traveling together for a particular event not shared with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We are in the process of discussions and internal deliberations on how to rectify what has happened and how to fix this for the future. (Shaukat Piracha, AAJ News): And my question about the programme of the Prime Minister in New York. He has met the leaders from South Asia. I mean, he's met with Chief Advisor of Bangladesh, he also met with the Maldives President. He will also be meeting with the Nepalese Prime Minister. South Asian Cooperation Organization, SAARC, is not functional. India has its own sub regional organization, BIMSTEC. Did Prime Minister in these meetings discuss any proposal for revival of SAARC? Spokesperson: I would reiterate what I said in response to the question regarding Prime Minister's meeting with the President of Iran, I do not have the full readout of what transpired in these meetings, apart from the press statements, which have been issued by the Prime Minister's Office. We can discuss further details at a later date. (Anwar Abbass, 24 News): Ma'am, Kurram Agency is facing violence since long and now for two months. 20-25 deaths have been reported and 40-45 people are injured. Pakistan fenced the Pakistan-Afghanistanborder costing billions of rupees. What is the reason that the fence is easily breached every time, and when militants especially TTP cross the border and targetPakistani civilians? Spokesperson: This is an operational matter. I think ISPR would be in a better position to respond to this question. Thank you! **** NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Meeting of the Security Council standing conference on nuclear deterrence Vladimir Putin held a meeting of the Russian Federation Security Council standing conference on nuclear deterrence. September 25, 2024 19:50 The Kremlin, Moscow The meeting was attended by Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, Defence Minister Andrei Belousov, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, Director of the Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov, Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin, First Deputy Secretary of the Security Council Rashid Nurgaliyev, General Director of the Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities Yury Borisov, and Director General of State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom Alexei Likhachev. * * * President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues, Today we are holding a planned meeting, which is called Standing Conference on nuclear deterrence. We hold it twice a year. And today, we will discuss an issue related to updating the Basic Principles of State Policy on Nuclear Deterrence. Alongside the Military Doctrine, this is a document that officially defines and details Russia's nuclear strategy. First of all, it sets forth the basic principle of using nuclear weapons: the use of nuclear forces is the last resort measure to protect the country's sovereignty. Let me stress that we have always been highly responsible in matters like this, being well aware of the colossal power these weapons have, striving to strengthen the international legal foundation for global stability and prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and their components. At present, our nuclear triad remains the most important security guarantee for our state and citizens, an instrument for maintaining strategic parity and balance of forces in the world. At the same time, we can see that the modern military-political situation is rapidly changing and we have to factor that in, including the emergence of new sources of military threats and risks for Russia and our allies. It is important to predict the development of the situation and adjust the provisions of the strategic planning document in accordance with current realities. Over the last year specialists from the Defence Ministry, Foreign Ministry, Security Council Office and other agencies have made an in-depth and comprehensive analysis and evaluated the need for adjusting our approaches to a possible use of nuclear forces. Based on the results of this work, a number of updates have been proposed in terms of defining the conditions for using nuclear weapons. Thus, the draft Basic Principles expand the category of states and military alliances in respect of which nuclear deterrence is exercised and expand the list of military threats to be neutralised by nuclear deterrence measures. I would like to draw your attention specifically to the following. The updated version of the document is supposed to regard an aggression against Russia from any non-nuclear state but involving or supported by any nuclear state as their joint attack against the Russian Federation. It also states clearly the conditions for Russia's transition to the use of nuclear weapons. We will consider such a possibility once we receive reliable information about a massive launch of air and space attack weapons and their crossing our state border. I mean strategic and tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, UAVs, hypersonic and other aircraft. We reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against Russia and Belarus as a member of the Union State. All these issues have been agreed upon with the Belarusian side and the President of Belarus. Including the case when the enemy, using conventional weapons, creates a critical threat to our sovereignty. In conclusion, I will note that all the updates have been deeply calibrated and are measured against contemporary military threats and risks to the Russian Federation. Let's get down to work. I give the floor to Defence Minister Andrei Belousov. <...> NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's interview for the Soviet Breakthrough documentary film project, Moscow, September 25, 2024 25 September 2024 23:30 1777-25-09-2024 Question: In the 1920s, when the USSR did not have diplomatic relations with other countries, the Soviet Union decided to establish contacts with leading automotive companies to modernise its automobile industry. Despite the lack of diplomatic relations, major automakers began cooperating with our country. Does this mean that economic interest can work even at a time when there are no diplomatic relations? Sergey Lavrov: The question contains the answer. Can economic interest break through even in the absence of diplomatic relations? This was exactly the case in the 1920s. I would not say that the Soviet Union was pressing invitations on those specialists. The process was mutual. Western companies, in full accordance with the concept that underpinned the United States of America - doing business - realised immediately after the 1917 revolution that it was worth it to establish connections in this country, the richest in the world, and reach agreement with its new government on doing business. The Soviet Union, in turn, was interested in industrialising (this goal was already set). Particular emphasis was placed on manufacturing cars and trucks, primarily of the series that were crucial for the country's defence capability. New factories were established by Ford and Autocar (another company active at the time). The first conveyor belt was launched in Russia, using the technology transferred from Henry Ford's factories. The Russian makes ZIS (later known as ZIL) and KIM (later Lenin Komsomol Automobile Plant) were created by cooperative effort; they were cases of joint production. The Russian side started with licensed production before launching the production of a fully Soviet-made vehicle, although the manufacturers did borrow a great deal from their Western partners (in particular, the famous Pobeda car). Those business partnerships were established at a time when we had no diplomatic relations with the United States. But the country's government did not object to its citizens engaged in private entrepreneurship doing business in Russia at their own risk and peril. The risk and peril were very real indeed; but they paid off in the end. Critics in the United States slammed those businesses for 'helping the communists build up their economy.' In response, Henry Ford uttered one of his most popular phrases. He said that no matter where the industry prospered, in India, China or Russia, it would generate more profit for all. This was his vision of the future processes in the global economy. In fact, Ford predicted globalisation, something his own country is now destroying, forcefully and deliberately. Speaking of more recent developments, the sanctions imposed by the US have hit the automotive industries of their allies hard. US automotive exports to Russia were negligible and incomparable with those from Europe - from Germany and other countries, which supplied vehicles to our country on a far greater scale. The United States effectively banned them from further cooperating with the Russian Federation. The market quickly filled - and continues to be filled - with car brands from other countries, primarily from China. Joint ventures are being established. There has been a lot of sarcasm about our auto industry being replaced by Chinese imports. This is not true. Import substitution is working. Plans are now in place to launch the production of Russian cars using Chinese designs, the same way American know-how was used in the 1920s. This is just another example of the sanctions primarily harming those who impose them - especially when undermining their own industry was the last thing they wanted, but they had to obey the hegemon. This is what happened to the European Union, with its economy (not only the automotive industry) literally undermined by the United States. The effects of Washington's crusade to eliminate European competition will be felt for decades to come. Question: Do Russian automakers need diplomatic support to develop their operations and promote their products? Sergey Lavrov: Why just the automakers? Any economic matter with an international dimension requires political and diplomatic support. The economic agenda is front and centre whenever President of Russia Vladimir Putin holds talks at the highest level with his partners representing countries with adequate governments, primarily our partners within the SCO, BRICS and post-Soviet associations including the EAEU and the CIS. Combining our efforts must be a win-win proposition for all of us. Building a sealed economy is not an option in today's world. Everything is intertwined, considering the complexity of production chains involving a plethora of parts and technological solutions. These matters are coordinated at the highest level. It is also at this level that the parameters for major oil, gas, nuclear energy and transport projects are agreed upon. The North-South project is very important and has a lot of potential. And there is much more than that. Once the heads of state set the political benchmarks, this is where the economic agencies step in. This is diplomacy at its finest. Once they start implementing these objectives, the Foreign Ministry makes sure that the agenda for all the talks involving the Foreign Minister or his deputies with the corresponding countries includes practical steps to achieve the objectives as set forth by our heads of state. At the end of the day, it is by combining the instructions stipulated at the highest level with efforts by specialised agencies and diplomatic support that we can make this approach a success. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Plenary session of Russian Energy Week International Forum Vladimir Putin and President of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo took part in the plenary session of the Russian Energy Week International Forum. September 26, 2024 14:45 Moscow This year, the 7th edition of REW, themed Energy Cooperation in a Multipolar World, brought together over 4,000 participants from more than 50 countries. * * * President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Ladies and gentlemen, friends, colleagues, I am delighted to welcome you all to Moscow, to the 7th Russian Energy Week. This forum has long become a permanent fixture in the business schedule of the global energy sector, once again bringing together the heads of leading companies and industry organisations, government officials, prominent specialists, experts, and journalists. This year, more than 4,000 participants from over 50 countries will be discussing the most important issues on the energy agenda, and the challenges that both producers and consumers of energy resources are facing around the world. In addition, this forum is an excellent opportunity to establish new contacts, make deals and exchange views on the long-term prospects of the fuel and energy sector. Modern energy is one of the key sectors enabling global development. Its smooth operation based on transparent and predictable rules, when deposits are developed and resources are extracted, processed and supplied to the market without interruption, creates a solid foundation for economic growth, social progress, and improvement of the people's living standards. Unfortunately, this truism is being increasingly disregarded by those who resort to illegal sanctions, believing that such tactics can give them benefits and advantage in the energy market. What are we talking about here? Historically, the main elements of the supply infrastructure of the global energy market happened to be consolidated in the West. I am referring to innovative mining solutions, logistics, insurance of resource supply, and the system of payments for these operations. Taken together, this constitutes a global energy platform on a par with technologies. The Western elites believed that they could close access to these services for the countries they regard as inappropriate politically, thereby pushing them to the curb of progress, or more precisely, squeezing them out of the market. I believe that many would agree with me that all these instruments are being used above all for unfair competition. The reason for this is obvious: the West does not want competition because it cannot handle it, because it loses the competition if it plays fair, which is why it resorts to discrimination presenting it as so-called Euro-Atlantic solidarity, the protection of human rights, and the like. There are many other pretexts. What does this lead do? By closing access to its platform, the West has only encouraged the development of alternative solutions, alternative logistics, insurance and international settlement systems, as well as technological innovations. Of course, it is not a simple process, and it involves hard work by those involved, but the process is going on progressively. I would like to emphasise that these solutions are mostly immune to external influence. And since they are being gradually shaped on a fundamentally new technological basis, they are becoming more effective by the day and, which is even more important, more widespread, first of all in the countries that are gathering momentum and demonstrating a high economic development pace. I have said many times that the modern world has entered an era of fundamental and irreversible changes. A multipolar development model is emerging, starting a new wave of global growth for the rest of the 21st century. And this growth will be concentrated not in Europe or North America. Of course, the European and the US economies rely on a very solid and powerful foundation, and of course, they will keep running, and it will be quite a while before they run out of steam completely. That said, Europe and North America will no longer operate as the main growth drivers. They are gradually losing their weight in the global economy. This growth will shift to BRICS countries and the states that are willing to join our association and view equal cooperation with due respect for national interests as the promising way to proceed. I have already said this before but let me repeat it for this audience one more time. These are objective, international data. In 1992, the G7 accounted for 45 percent of global GDP, while BRICS had just 22 percent. As of the end of 2023, the G7's share declined to 30 percent, while BRICS increased its share to 36 percent. And this trend is gaining traction. Let me note right away that, according to international experts, several BRICS countries, including the People's Republic of China, the Russian Federation, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia will enjoy positive, albeit quite modest, economic trends. Once again, this is what experts have been saying, including international experts. At the same time, the countries of what we call the Global South will lead the pack in terms of - I would like to stress it a economic growth rates. For now, their per capita GDP is quite low, and so is the share of people living in cities, but they have a high birth rate. This group primarily includes countries in South and Southeast Asia, as well as Africa, including Equatorial Guinea, whose President, His Excellency Teodoro Obiang [Nguema Mbasogo] is taking part in this plenary session. I would like to ask you to greet him. (Applause.) To reiterate, BRICS - and Russia is chairing this organisation this year - sees its mission as combining economic capacities and creating a broad space of opportunities for everyone who is interested in harmonious and mutually beneficial cooperation. I would like to emphasise that it is mutually beneficial, that is, cooperation that benefits the interests of all our nations. We intend to build an effective development platform for countries that are promising growth centres now or will become ones - a platform free from malign outside influence, with unimpeded access to resources, technology, personnel, finance, trade and investment. In particular, I am referring to the energy sector, which, as I said, is crucial for economic growth and social progress. Russia, despite the challenges it is facing - everyone knows what they are, and in fact, everyone is facing challenges, so we have our own, too, and they are serious enough - nevertheless, Russia remains one of the leading participants in the global energy market. Over the past two and a half years, Russian companies have successfully redirected their exports of oil, petroleum products, and coal. Previously, the Asia-Pacific region accounted for about 39 percent of our energy exports, but by the end of last year, its share exceeded 60 percent. In general, friendly countries account for over 90 percent of Russia's energy exports today. At the same time, in physical terms, with the exception of natural gas (it is also clear to experts why), they have practically remained at the 2021 level. Russia is expanding the geography and scale of its energy cooperation. New routes are being created to connect to fast-growing receptive markets, including the countries of the EAEU, the CIS, and southern Eurasia. Gas exports through the Power of Siberia pipeline are increasing, and LNG exports continue to grow. In fact, LNG from the Russian Arctic has become one of the anchors, the main type of cargo shipped via the Northern Sea Route. We will definitely continue to develop our own LNG services and technologies, create centres for its transhipment, storage and trade. We will ensure enough tankers for our LNG projects; we will definitely augment the capacity of our Arctic and Eastern seaports, improve communications and enhance the Northern Sea Route infrastructure. My Russian colleagues know what I am talking about - how they are being roadblocked in what they do. Indeed, this partially hinders the implementation of our plans, but they will be implemented, nonetheless. In general, we are expanding international transport corridors. Freight traffic on these routes is scheduled to increase by at least 50 percent by 2030 compared to 2021. In particular, we are further developing the Eastern Operating Domain. The throughput capacity of the Baikal-Amur Mainline and the Trans-Siberian Railway, which is nearly 180 million tonnes this year, will grow to 270 million tonnes in ten years, which will allow us to transport large volumes of fuel and energy products and refined products from our regions in Siberia to markets of the Global South. Financial infrastructure, or more precisely, the system of payments for Russian exports, is a separate matter. There are certain difficulties here. To resolve that problem, we are switching to settlements in national currencies, which is of great interest to our partners. There are many problems in this sphere as well, which we are aware of, but we are gradually settling them. For example, the share of the ruble in our foreign trade transactions is approaching 40 percent. Between 2021 and 2023, the share of the ruble in export payments has grown nearly threefold to 39 percent, and the figure reached 39.4 percent in the first six months of 2024. At the same time, as part of our cooperation with BRICS countries, we are involved in the creation of our own payment configuration that will provide conditions for servicing all foreign trade efficiently and independently. I would like to add that Russian energy exports help friendly countries restrain the growth of import prices, maintain their energy security and economic stability, as well as compete more successfully in the global market. We are resolved to continue to move forward, and we will not limit cooperation to trade in resources. Russia is ready to help strengthen the technological sovereignty of its partners in the energy sphere by creating comprehensive scientific and production chains. This is what we are doing in terms of cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear technology. Rosatom is building nuclear power plants abroad and simultaneously training local personnel - engineers, workers and managers for the new facilities. In fact, we not only build power plants but, as Rosatom says, create new power generation and economic sectors for our partners. I am confident that this combination of intellectual and resource potentials of different countries and our advance to new levels of international cooperation will create additional opportunities for the national school of research and for developing engineering, services and, of course, the entire energy sector in Russia. Colleagues, Last year's energy consumption in Russia again set a new record that exceeds the Soviet-era indicators. You are well aware that growing energy consumption is the most unmistakable sign of economic growth. At the same time, our energy system, one of the world's largest, not only meets the growing demand from businesses, the economy, and the social sphere, but also is in the process of qualitative transformation. Over the past 15 years, the total capacity of the Russian power industry has increased by 18 percent, while the power plants themselves have undergone an in-depth overhaul, becoming more advanced, effective, and environment-friendly. For example, natural gas, an ecologically clean and effective hydrocarbon, accounts for 48 percent of Russia's energy balance and for over 85 percent, if we throw in the nuclear and hydraulic power industries that have a minimal carbon footprint. What I mean is that our energy balance is one of the "greenest" in the world; this is an absolutely obvious fact. Unlike certain Western countries that use the climatic agenda to promote their essentially neo-colonialist interests, we are implementing a fair and orderly energy transition in practice, a transition that takes into account our natural conditions, the socioeconomic development of our cities and the entire national territory, as well as the structure of this country's energy and fuel balance. We will continue to follow this approach in the future. We will continue to upgrade and strengthen our energy system, which has entered upon a stage of retooling and conversion to new technological solutions. Among other things, we are creating a substantial scientific and practical potential in a number of promising areas, such as renewable energy sources, small nuclear power plants, thermonuclear fusion, as well as hydrogen generation and production of motor vehicles, ships, and rail transport burning this kind of fuel. True, research and technologies are at different stages of implementation in this regard. But to reiterate: it is important to be aware of this outlook and make plans for the future. As you know, I have instructed the Government to extend the planning horizon for Russia's energy strategy until the middle of this century. This strategy sets forth an ambitious and comprehensive plan to expand our generating capacity at a national scale. All these undertakings imply long cycles, and we must be forward-looking when working on them, and this is exactly the way we have been treating them. Major, system-wide projects with long investment cycles will define these efforts, including, as I have already said, projects to master new technology, develop deposits and build the necessary infrastructure, power stations and grids. I would like to remind my colleagues in the Government that we will need to draft a revised Energy Strategy in the coming months, and then carry it out, one step at a time, by focusing on our priority long-term objectives to develop Russia's fuel and energy complex. As far as I know, the Government is currently in the process of coordinating these parameters among the agencies. I talked at length about these priorities a year ago, during the previous Energy Week. Let me remind you that our key priority is to satisfy demand on the domestic market and to ensure stable and affordable power supplies to our regions, cities and companies. Let me put a special emphasis on the fact that the fuel and energy sector must play its role in ensuring that all the 2030 national development goals are fulfilled. According to the available estimates, power consumption will grow at an [annual] rate of two percent until the end of this decade, which is about the same level as for the rest of the world. During this period, we intend to launch 27 gigawatts of new power generating capacity, including thermal, hydro and nuclear power plants. We will promote connectivity between the power grids in the Urals, Siberia and the country's east, while paying special attention to supplying power to Russia's Far East. Power consumption there has been growing at a rate exceeding the national average, and it is expected to increase even more as manufacturing expands and as new housing, infrastructure and social facilities are built. Our energy sector must be able to meet this demand, including by using modern coal power generation, with low environmental stress. I have already issued instructions to draft a long-term development programme for the Far Eastern Federal District's energy sector. Just like the national Energy Strategy, it will cover a period until 2050. I would like to ask the Government to fast-track the approval procedures for this document. Increasing the reliability of power supply to the regions is a separate matter. This year, we have applied a fundamentally new approach: we have introduced territorial grid organisations. Starting in 2025, these organisations will operate in each region of the country and will be responsible for power supply. They will also take over abandoned facilities (unfortunately, there are some) and address the consequences of accidents on networks, among other responsibilities. I would like to ask the Government, together with the heads of the Russian regions and energy companies, to analyse the effectiveness of territorial grid organisations on a regular basis and to draw up a plan for increasing the reliability of power supply for each region, with transparent financing sources developed in advance. All tools must be used, from regulatory agreements and infrastructure loans to concession mechanisms and service contracts. I would also like to mention the gas industry, which is undergoing serious changes. It is not only reorienting exports from the west to the east but also significantly increasing supply to the domestic market, including under the social gas supply programme launched in 2021, which is progressing at a good pace. I would like to thank the Gazprom management for this. Of course, our largest gas company, Gazprom, plays a leading role in this. I would like to ask the company and its management, together with the Government, to prepare a ten-year plan, the implementation of which will ensure the corporation's sustainable development and the creation of infrastructure necessary to change the geography of supplies. Let me reiterate, it must take into account our extensive plans to supply gas to all Russian regions and increase gas processing within the country. We all understand what I am referring to when I discuss redistribution of routes. Those who were once our buyers have decided to give up our relatively inexpensive energy resources and switch to a more costly alternative. Well, that is their choice; let them rely on this expensive resource. Next, the growth of hydrocarbon processing volumes at Russian plants and complexes is another priority task for the domestic fuel and energy complex. It is crucial to provide a raw material base and the necessary resource extraction. We have already identified special tax incentives for this. Thanks to state support measures, offshore fields, such as Prirazlomnoye in the Arctic and projects on Sakhalin, are being developed. Hard-to-recover reserves are being developed: the Palyanovskoye oil field in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Area and the Yuzhno-Neprikovskoye field in the Samara Region. New oil and gas provinces are being introduced in Eastern Siberia and the Arctic. I mean large projects, like Vostok Oil in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, and the Utrenneye and Shtormovoye fields on the Gydan Peninsula. The coal mining centre in the Far East is expanding its capacity. The Pacific Railway will also start operating next year. It is a private railway going from the Elga field in Yakutia to the port of Elga in the Khabarovsk Territory. Let me repeat, it is essential that the exploration of Russia's unique reserves makes it possible to develop domestic processing enterprises, creating maximum added value right here, in Russia. We have launched a state programme to upgrade oil refineries. Its goal is to provide the economy, cities, all populated areas and people with high-quality fuel, lubricants, bitumen, and other products. I would like to ask the Government to closely monitor how this programme is implemented and to work specifically on every enterprise, on the timing of repairs, and renovation of production. Special focus must be placed on the development of oil, gas, and coal chemistry. According to estimates, the demand for these products will only grow both in Russia and around the world. Moreover, these sectors are highly profitable. The price from raw materials to final goods in the chains can grow up to 12 times. Russia implements projects in this sphere, which are large even by global standards. The country's largest petrochemical plant, ZapSibNeftekhim, is operating, and the Amur Gas Chemical Complex, which will become the most powerful Russian enterprise for the production of basic polymers, is being built. There are other large projects as well. It is important that there be more such projects, that new production facilities are opened in various regions and modern, well-paid jobs are created. I have already drawn the Government's attention to this and would like to repeat it again: these business initiatives must be supported. Furthermore, it is clear that, under current conditions, the reliable operation of production fields, pipelines, refining facilities, and power plants, as well as the fuel and energy complex in general, is dependent on the availability of our own specialists, technologies, and competencies in the equipment used for producing and delivering resources, power engineering, and so on. A national project to be launched next year will serve as a major system-wide instrument of support for domestic initiatives. It is called New Nuclear and Energy Technologies. This national project will set ambitious goals, namely, to consolidate Russia's global leadership in the nuclear sector. It aims to consolidate that leadership, as our current standing is indeed global. This is evident from the volume of work that Rosatom, our leading company, is doing. Ensuring the country's technological sovereignty across all spheres of the fuel and energy complex is the goal of this new national project. I ask my colleagues in the Government, together with our business and academic communities, to elaborate all the details of this national project with a view to launching it without delay. Colleagues, Russia's fuel and energy complex is a modern, dynamic industry. It successfully meets current, including global, challenges and strengthens the raw materials, technological, and industrial sovereignty of our country; it supports and develops trade and cooperative ties with responsible foreign partners. Russia is fulfilling its obligations to supply energy resources to the world market and plays a stabilising role within it, participating in such authoritative formats as OPEC Plus and the Gas Exporting Countries Forum. Incidentally, we cooperate with the country represented by our guest in both organisations, and we will certainly continue this collaboration with our partners. I am confident that the strategic and long-term tasks facing our energy industry will undoubtedly be accomplished. This means that our energy companies, their workforce, and the industry as a whole will be provided with stable and reliable work for many years to come. They will make a significant and tangible contribution to achieving Russia's national development goals and improving the quality of life for our citizens. And, of course, they will continue to contribute to balancing the world energy markets for the sake of sustainable global development. Thank you. President of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (retranslated): Your Excellency President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, Your Excellencies heads of delegations and representatives of the organisations present in this audience, Ladies and gentlemen, It is a great honour for me to speak at the 7th Russian Energy Week International Forum themed "Energy Cooperation in a Multipolar World." We are grateful to the hosts for inviting Equatorial Guinea to participate in this exchange of experiences and best practices to address challenges in the energy sector and to expand international cooperation, being mindful of the important role that the energy sector plays in the national economies. I would like to express my deep gratitude to the Government and the people of the Russian Federation, as well as to my good friend President Vladimir Putin, for the warm welcome and hospitality extended to us the moment we arrived in Moscow, a wonderful city with a long history. Your Excellency, ladies and gentlemen, This forum is taking place in an international setting marked by economic and financial crises sparked by a decline in hydrocarbon prices and the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, which we must address as a team and stand together as we seek solutions. Indeed, we live in an era of major changes and challenges. We are faced with the realities of a world in transition in terms of the structures that bolster our economy. In this context, the energy sector plays a crucial role as a pillar supporting our state. Considering this, our current positions will have long-term consequences for generations to come. Equatorial Guinea is determined to deepen energy cooperation with Russia and other friendly countries. Our country is rich in natural resources, such as oil and gas, and is open to forging strategic alliances with willing partners. We strive to build a future where our respective economies will benefit from genuine cooperation based on mutual trust and shared benefits, which will be advantageous for our societies. This is why we encourage Russian companies and companies from other friendly countries to cooperate with us not only in energy production, but also in the exploration and development of our oil and gas resources. Such partnerships should not be limited to the production of resources but should include knowledge transfer, technological training, and the promotion of modern energy infrastructure development. Our goal is clear: we want Equatorial Guinea and our partners to streamline the use of our respective energy resources while using the latest technologies available in this sector. Your Excellency, Ladies and gentlemen, While discussing the energy sector's progress, we cannot overlook one of the most pressing problems facing the world: energy poverty. Millions of people do not have reliable access to energy. To address this, the Republic of Equatorial Guinea is cooperating with its African partners, working as part of the strategic partnership and the Central African Pipeline System finance committee. We invest in building energy infrastructure to stimulate the economy and improve the living standards of our societies. Equatorial Guinea believes that energy cooperation should be guided by a fundamental principle: to ensure the stability of energy markets, protecting the most vulnerable segments of the population from market volatility. On the other hand, Equatorial Guinea strongly supports strategies and efforts to stabilise global energy markets. In this regard, we call on all international stakeholders to work together to reduce uncertainty and promote appropriate market policies. Energy should not be a weapon that divides us, but a means to achieve common prosperity. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that the least developed countries are safely protected from fluctuations in energy prices and are not excluded from the benefits of energy and advanced technology. In addition, while, as oil producing countries, we all share the same markets, not all of us enjoy the same advantages. To address this, the national oil company of Equatorial Guinea, GEPetrol, took over the management of several oil projects that were previously managed by ExxonMobil. The new arrangement enabled GEPetrol to spur the country's hydrocarbon sector and begin shipments of crude oil from those projects in July this year. Your Excellency, Ladies and gentlemen, Today, there is an ongoing debate about the phase-down of fossil fuels. The idea behind decarbonisation is to reduce our carbon footprint. However, it should be noted that Equatorial Guinea is not among the countries with the highest carbon dioxide emissions. On the contrary, our emissions have almost no impact on climate change. However, meeting the global decarbonisation targets is a major challenge for the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. Nevertheless, we are required to switch to carbon-free sources. Furthermore, Equatorial Guinea does not possess the same kind of advanced technology supporting decarbonisation that more developed countries have access to. Therefore, we cannot accept or support the energy transition that leaves the least developed countries behind. It is necessary to acknowledge and accept the fact that the pace of adaptation to new market conditions will vary across the globe. Your Excellency, ladies and gentlemen, Ensuring a prosperous future for energy is our shared responsibility, which implies collaborative efforts - efforts that Equatorial Guinea is calling for - that are based not just on energy production, but also on a shared resolve to promote stability in energy markets. This will lead all of us to a fair technological transition. Cooperation is impossible unless it seeks to achieve common goals and is based on mutual benefits. More than that, it is impossible to talk about cooperation without a consensus based on considering each other's interests and respect for other countries. I would like to close by wishing the 7th Russian Energy Week International Forum, just like all the previous ones, every success. May the outcomes of the discussions and your proposals lead to a world free of injustice in the energy sector. Thank you very much. Vladimir Putin: Friends, colleagues, You have a full working week ahead of you. A week of contacts and meetings during which you will sit down and discuss the issues that brought you to Moscow. Without a doubt, your work during the forum and, more broadly, your current efforts are impacted by the political developments around the world. Politics and the economy are closely intertwined, especially in a critical and fundamental economic sector such as energy. This link can be traced to the early days of human history. It is obvious. Now, it has become clear to the point where even those who are not involved in the economy or politics are aware of it. However, we have here the people who are accustomed to doing concrete things, rather than telling others what they should be doing and how. We have businesspeople in this audience. The outcomes of your work will have a significant impact on both the economy and politics. I wish you success in this joint event and hope that your efforts will be as free of politics and as pragmatic as possible. I wholeheartedly wish you success. I would like to thank our foreign guests for coming to our country, Russia's capital, Moscow, in these challenging times. I wish you all the best, every success, and prosperity. Good luck. Thank you. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Talks with President of Equatorial Guinea Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo Vladimir Putin held talks at the Kremlin with President of the Repubic of Equatorial Guinea Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who is in Russia on a working visit. September 26, 2024 15:30 The Kremlin, Moscow The discussion focused on the further development of bilateral ties in various spheres, as well as current international and regional issues. Before the meeting, Vladimir Putin and Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo addressed the plenary session of the Russian Energy Week International Forum. * * * President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr President, friends, I am delighted to welcome you all to Moscow once again. We are very happy to see you. We have just taken part in the Russian Energy Week, which is held regularly and, as I mentioned in my address, has long become a salient part of the global energy agenda. This forum brings together many colleagues from all over the world who work in the energy sector and are our partners or may become our partners soon. Your country is our partner in the OPEC, and we have been successfully cooperating with Equatorial Guinea in the OPEC Plus format for a long time. Our common goal is to stabilise global energy markets. Overall, we have been addressing this task rather effectively, jointly with our partners in these organisations. As concerns our bilateral relations, the re-establishment of our respective diplomatic missions will certainly be instrumental in their development. I hope that the missions will operate in full force. We established diplomatic relations a long time ago, and they have a good, long history. We certainly have very good potential for developing our bilateral economic ties. We are collaborating in the humanitarian sphere, including in the training of national professionals for your country. We are ready to continue this effort. There are also good prospects in the field of military-technical cooperation. Mr President, I am happy to see you. At the beginning of our conversation, I would like to thank you for dedicating so much personal time over many years to the development of our interstate relations. Mr President, welcome to Russia. President of Equatorial Guinea Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (retranslated): First of all, I would like to extend our people's fraternal greetings to President of Russia Vladimir Putin and thank him for the warm and hospitable welcome. I would also like to express my gratitude for inviting us to attend this forum, which is a highly respected event. This morning, we attended a plenary session of the State Duma, which was another instructive event for Equatorial Guinea. I would like to convey best regards from our Government and people to the Government and people of the Russian Federation. At the same time, I would like to thank you for the wonderful organisation of this forum. It is a very important event for the development of the energy sector. It is an extremely important sector for Africa, but there is much to strive for, and there is a great deal we can do to develop this sector. We have no mobile coverage to speak of, and our energy network is insufficient for our people. Friendly countries should maintain and expand energy cooperation. We hope that Russian businesses will come to Equatorial Guinea and contribute to the development of the economic sectors in which they would like to work. We invite them and look forward to more active cooperation. I would like to express my gratitude to my friend, Vladimir Putin, for sending instructors to help strengthen our national security and defence capability, which is vital for our country, considering the challenges we are facing. However, we have survived and are living thanks to support from our society. Our society has welcomed the arrival of Russian experts. The training our citizens will receive from them will help us strengthen our national defences. Equatorial Guinea is virtually the only country in the region that does not have such problems as armed groups, but we are suffering from the consequences of piracy. Russia's presence is of great importance to us in this regard. I also see that our economic ties and trade relations are good and that they are growing stronger. We hope that Russia will be able to open a bank in Equatorial Guinea, which would simplify commercial transactions. We would also like Russia to support Equatorial Guinea's bid to join BRICS, and we hope it will do so. <...> NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Putin's new nuclear doctrine of Russia sends warning signal to West, Moscow says Iran Press TV Thursday, 26 September 2024 7:48 PM Moscow says President Vladimir Putin's recently announced changes to Russia's nuclear doctrine are intended to send a warning to Ukraine's Western allies, aiming to dissuade them from supporting attacks against the Russian Federation. During a televised meeting of Russia's Security Council on nuclear deterrence on Wednesday, the Russian leader outlined upcoming changes to the country's nuclear doctrine that would significantly lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. Putin described the key elements of the revised document, which has been drafted but awaits the president's approval, warning that Russia may use nuclear weapons in response to an attack with conventional arms. He stressed that any nation's conventional attack on Russia that is supported by a nuclear power will be considered a joint attack on his country. At a press conference on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed that the revisions to the document "should be viewed as a certain message" to the West. "This is a message that warns these countries of the consequences should they participate in an attack on our country by various means, not necessarily nuclear," Peskov further told reporters. Putin's strong message was aimed at discouraging the West from allowing Ukraine to strike deep within Russia with Western-supplied longer-range weapons, he said. According to a report by the TASS news agency, the doctrine, known formally as Basic Principles of State Policy on Nuclear Deterrence, in its revised version has a broader list of countries and military alliances that are subject to nuclear deterrence, with more entries in the list of military threats, whose neutralization requires nuclear deterrence. The development came a month after Ukrainian forces carried out an unexpected incursion into Russia's Kursk region. Putin on Wednesday did not mention Ukraine by name, but stated that the updates to the doctrine were essential due to a rapidly evolving global environment that has posed new threats and risks for Russia. Since the start of the current war between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022, Putin, in a warning to the West, has issued multiple implicit threats of nuclear attack. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week that the United States and Britain had not given authorization to Kiev to use Western-supplied long-range missiles on targets inside Russia. It appears that a U-turn has taken place in the policies of Washington and London, as earlier reports indicated that they had secretly approved Ukraine's use of long-range missiles against military targets within Russia. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Putin updates Russia's nuclear doctrine, announces new rules for nuclear arsenal use Iran Press TV Thursday, 26 September 2024 9:34 AM President Vladimir Putin has outlined the upcoming changes to Russia's nuclear doctrine, significantly lowering the threshold for his country to use nuclear weapons. In a televised meeting of Russia's Security Council on nuclear deterrence on Wednesday, Putin described the key elements of the revised document, which has been drafted but awaits the president's approval. The Russian leader warned that his country may use nuclear weapons in response to an attack with conventional arms, according to the latest updates to the country's nuclear doctrine, known formally as Basic Principles of State Policy on Nuclear Deterrence. An attack against Russia by a non-nuclear power with the "participation or support of a nuclear power" would be seen as a "joint attack on the Russian Federation," said Putin. He also stressed that the Russian Federation might deploy nuclear weapons in reaction to a conventional attack deemed a "critical threat to our sovereignty." This change seems to considerably reduce the threshold for Russia's use of nuclear weapons and coincides with discussions among Ukraine's Western allies about permitting Kiev to launch longer-range weapons to target military sites deep within Russia. The development came a month after Ukrainian forces carried out an unexpected incursion into Russia's Kursk region. Putin did not mention Ukraine by name, but stated that the updates to the doctrine were essential due to a rapidly evolving global environment that has posed new threats and risks for Russia. According to a report by TASS news agency, the revised doctrine has a broader list of countries and military alliances that are subject to nuclear deterrence, with more entries in the list of military threats, whose neutralization requires nuclear deterrence. Since the start of the current war between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022, Putin, in a warning to the West, has issued multiple implicit threats of nuclear attack. In February 2023, Russia also halted involvement in the New START treaty with the United States, blaming Washington for suspension of the treaty, which restricts the number of nuclear warheads each side can deploy. Both Washington and Moscow also withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019. Moscow blamed Washington for the looming collapse of the key nuclear arms control deal, and vice versa. The INF treaty banned the production, testing, and deployment of land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. The withdrawal from the treaty was one in a series of treaty withdrawals that marked the end of decades of nuclear arms control treaties signed by Washington and Moscow over fears of launching a nuclear conflict between the former Soviet Union and the US. START stands for "Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty" and is the last remaining nuclear arms control pact between Russia and the US, which limits the intercontinental weapons each nation can maintain. This nuclear arms reduction treaty between the US and Russia was signed on April 8, 2010, went into force in February 2011, and expires in February 2026. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Putin Rattles The Nuclear Saber Again. Bluster? Probably, Experts Say By Mike Eckel and Todd Prince September 26, 2024 Five days before President Vladimir Putin announced that he would loosen the conditions under which Russia might use a nuclear weapon against an adversary, one of those very same nuclear weapons had a spectacularly explosive mishap. The Sarmat, Russia's newest intercontinental ballistic missile, a next-generation projectile that Putin has bragged about, erupted in an unexplained blast on September 20, leveling trees, buildings, and scorching the earth around the test silo at the Plesetsk launch facility, according to commercial satellite imagery. In his September 25 remarks to his Security Council, televised to maximize attention beyond the Kremlin's walls, Putin made no mention of the accident. But he made sure that the world -- NATO and the United States, above all -- heard what he wanted them to hear: He was updating Russia's nuclear doctrine. "The updated version of the document proposes that aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear-weapon state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear-weapon state, should be considered as a joint attack on the Russian Federation," he said. Since February 2022, when he sent tens of thousands of troops across the border to invade Ukraine, Putin has repeatedly hinted, signaled, blustered, and threatened that Russia was ready to tap into its nuclear arsenal -- the world's largest -- to defend itself. He hasn't done it yet. But he and other officials have kept up a drumbeat of threats, some veiled and some direct. And that keeps arms-control experts, military analysts, and policymakers awake at night. Until Moscow actually releases the specifies that show the doctrine -- last updated in 2020 -- has changed, it's hard to figure out what, if anything, has, says Nikolai Sokov, a former Russian diplomat and arms-control negotiator now with the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Nonproliferation. But it is certainly a signal, he said. "I did not see anything fundamentally new, everything Putin said was there for a long time," Sokov told RFE/RL. "He went much more specific on the existing policy, but he added new details, tailored to the current situation." "It represents a signal, a warning to NATO, as NATO continues to contemplate whether Western weapons should be used for long-range strikes," he said, referring to an ongoing push by Ukraine to get permission to hit more targets inside Russia. In comments to reporters the following day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that was exactly what it was intended to be. "It must be considered a specific signal; a signal that warns these countries of the consequences if they participate in an attack on our country by various means, not necessarily nuclear," Peskov said. 'This Doctrine Is A Living Instrument' For generations, Soviet and now Russian policymakers have relied on the tool of strategic deterrence in their policy toolbox -- trying to make another country do what Moscow wants by signaling, or threatening, the possible use of atomic weapons. Over the past decade, Putin has markedly increased funding for Russia's armed forces, including its nuclear arsenal. That includes new models like the Sarmat ICBM, which has been put into use despite suffering at least three previous mishaps, as well as hypersonic weapons and nuclear-powered cruise missiles. Russia's arsenal -- both strategic weapons, like long-range missiles, and less-powerful tactical weapons, like nuclear-tipped artillery shells -- is now the largest in the world; the United States is a close second. Western planners -- particularly those who stay awake at night wondering when Moscow might decide to launch its missiles -- look closely at public statements not only by the Kremlin, but also the Defense Ministry and top foreign policy officials. The Basic Principles Of State Policy On Nuclear Deterrence is the formal doctrine that spells out when the weapons will be used, and under what conditions. In 2020, officials released an updated version of the doctrine, though there were no major shifts. Moscow could use its nuclear arsenal "in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, as well as in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy," it says. Many experts have focused on what might constitute an existential threat; one interpretation speculated that a popular uprising against Putin and his government might be considered to merit a nuclear response. During a business forum in St. Petersburg in June, one prominent Russian commentator called on Putin to lower the threshold for nuclear use. Putin demurred, but said he was open to revising the policy. "This doctrine is a living instrument, we are carefully watching what's going on in the world around us, and we don't exclude making changes in the doctrine," he said. Russian threats of the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine were serious enough in the months after the February 2022 invasion, according to CIA Director William Burns, who said he warned his Russian counterpart against it. But several events during the conflict have seemed to blur or even erase some of those red lines, adding more ambiguity into Western perceptions about Moscow's planning. Ukraine's use of drones to attack early-distant-warning radars, used to detect far-off missile launches, spooked Western policymakers, since that might be considered a threat to Russia's strategic defenses as spelled out in the doctrine. Putin has suggested that Ukrainian territories that the Kremlin has claimed to have annexed -- though no other country has recognized them as Russian -- would fall under the nuclear doctrine. Ukraine has continued to hit Russian forces, including with Western-supplied weapons, in many of those occupied territories, and Kyiv's stated goal is to take back all the land Russia has occupied. In August, Ukrainian forces pulled of an audacious cross-border incursion into Russia's Kursk region. It was the largest invasion of Russian territory by foreign forces since World War II, and may have arguably met the conditions laid out in the doctrine. NATO and the United States are now considering Ukraine's pleas to be allowed to hit targets deep inside Russia using long-range Western missiles -- something that Moscow has warned against. The Kremlin's decision to televise Putin's comments before his national Security Council was indicative that they wanted to send a message. And it came one day before Zelenskiy was to travel to the White House, where he was expected to request long-range strike permission, among other things. But Putin didn't in fact specify whether the doctrine had been formally updated, nor whether the proposal -- that a conventional attack on Russia by one country that is supported by another, nuclear-armed country -- would in fact merit a nuclear response. Putin's remarks do not mean the doctrine has changed substantially, says Pavel Podvig, senior research fellow at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva. "In fact, if you look closely and look at the history of the issue, there really aren't that many changes," Podvig said in an interview with Current Time. "For now, everything remains just at the level of statements, and we also haven't seen any real steps toward escalation," he said. "For now, I think, we need to be on guard, but on the other hand, we shouldn't react too strongly." "There is definitely more specificity," said Xiaodon Liang, senior policy analyst for the Arms Control Association. "We should be thinking of this kind of separate from the more casual nuclear threats that Russia has been making." Luke Coffey, a former British Defense Ministry adviser and now a senior fellow at Hudson Institute in Washington, says Putin's comments were aimed in part at Americans, with the U.S. presidential election just weeks away. He "is a very astute politician, and he understands how the issue of nuclear weapons plays out in the domestic debate in the United States," Coffey said. "He's a master at this propaganda and information warfare." "What was announced by Putin today wasn't really a huge departure from what Russian doctrine has been, maybe he put a finer point on the issue of a nuclear state supporting a nonnuclear state attacking Russia," he said. Todd Prince reported from Washington Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-putin- nuclear-doctrine/33136340.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 Press release on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's participation in a BRICS ministerial meeting 26 September 2024 20:50 1797-26-09-2024 On September 26, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took part in a traditional BRICS ministerial meeting held on the sidelines of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly in New York. The ministers had an in-depth exchange of views on a broad range of international issues, including items on the agenda of the 79th UN General Assembly session. Discussions focused on peace and security, global economic stability, and sustainable development. The participants reiterated their commitment to enhancing coordination within BRICS on international platforms. As part of preparations for the upcoming BRICS Summit in Kazan on October 22-24, the ministers reviewed pressing BRICS cooperation-related issues, including the establishment of a partner country category. The Brazilian delegation provided an outline of its BRICS chairmanship in 2025. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Press release on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's participation in a working meeting of CSTO foreign ministers 26 September 2024 17:52 1793-26-09-2024 On September 26, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took part in a working meeting of the CSTO foreign ministers organised by Kazakhstan's CSTO chairmanship on the sidelines of the high-level week of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly. The ministers discussed a wide range of international and regional security issues. They stressed the need to step up coordination of actions on topical issues on the UN's agenda between the CSTO member states on the UN platform and further promote cooperation between the CSTO and the UN. The ministers discussed preparations for the next session of the CSTO Collective Security Council on November 28 in Astana. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Laros 2024: final stage completed in Primorsky region 26.09.2024 The final stage of the Laros 2024 joint Russian-Laotian military exercise took place at the Sergeyevsky training ground. During the practical events, the joint Russian-Laotian group of forces blocked and eliminated illegal armed formations. Ground-Attack and Army Aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces, namely Su-25 aircraft, Ka-52 and Mi-8 AMTSh helicopters, were deployed to inflict fire damage on the enemy's moving reserves. Tactical airborne troops comprising special operations groups of the Russian Armed Forces and Lao People's Army enveloped and neutralised the mock enemy's manpower detected by a search and attack group. After tank and mortar platoons destroyed the mock enemy's fire power, an assault company of a motorised rifle unit eliminated the remaining enemy troops and captured the assigned line. Special forces units, tank crews, artillery, infantry fighting vehicles, flamethrowers, and Igla man-portable air defence systems of the Russian Armed Forces and Lao People's Army as well as Ground-Attack and Army Aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces were involved in main stage of the drills. Navy Informational Support Section NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian Deputy PM Calls for Impartial Probe Into Nord Stream Blasts Involving Russia Sputnik News 20240926 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - An objective investigation is needed into the explosions at the Nord Stream gas pipelines involving Russia, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Thursday. "It seems to me that an international investigation is needed, which would be more objective and would include Russia," Novak told reporters on the sidelines of the Russian Energy Week international forum. Russia is ready to continue deliveries if buyers are interested, the official added. Russia remains a reliable supplier of oil and gas to Hungary, and the countries will continue to develop relations in the energy sector, Novak emphasized. "Despite all the difficulties and problems related to sanctions restrictions and everything else, Russia remains to be a reliable supplier of resources to Hungary. We are talking about oil supplies through the Druzhba pipeline and gas supplies through the Turkish Stream pipeline," he said. Global demand is not expected to peak for neither oil nor gas in the coming decades, the deputy prime minister noted. "In my opinion, there will be no peak demand for oil or gas until 2050," he told reporters. It is important for the world to prevent shortages of energy resources, as such risk exist, Novak said. "Over the past 10 years, the global demand for global energy has grown by about 13-14%. In the next 20 years, these rates will be no less, and maybe even higher. We will see a 25% increase in primary energy consumption," he added. Russia has 10% of foreign equipment left to substitute in the oil industry, Alexander Novak pointed out. "To date, there are only about 200 types of equipment left... Now there is 10% of the amount of equipment that we did not produce, but bought abroad," he said. In the next few years, it is planned that Russian enterprises will start making the remaining types of equipment, which will ensure the technological sovereignty of the country, Novak added. The Russian government is working on President Vladimir Putin's instructions to limit the export of raw materials to unfriendly countries. "The government is currently working on this assignment, there is a specific analysis of the current situation on world markets and Russia's capabilities. Proposals will be ready in the near future," Novak elaborated. The list of banned products will include both minerals and processed products, the official added. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UK constrains Russia's future Liquified Natural Gas plans The UK has sanctioned 5 ships and 2 entities involved in the Russian Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) sector. 26 September 2024 the UK has sanctioned 5 ships and 2 entities involved in the Russian Liquified Natural Gas ( LNG ) sector ) sector this is the first time the UK is using its new ship specification power to target LNG vessels directly vessels directly today's action builds on efforts alongside allies to bear down on Russia's attempts to bolster its future energy revenues - the most critical source of funding for Putin's war in Ukraine The UK has today, 26 September, taken decisive action to sanction 5 vessels and 2 associated entities involved in the shipping of Russian LNG , including from Russia's flagship Arctic LNG 2 project. LNG is an important source of funding for Putin's illegal war in Ukraine. Russia has plans to expand its LNG revenues, aiming to grow their global LNG market share from 8% to 20%. Earlier this year, the UK sanctioned Arctic LNG 2, alongside our allies in the US and EU. Since then, the project has been forced to slash production. Today's action builds on this by targeting ships and entities involved in the Russian LNG sector, which engage with projects important to Russia's future energy production. The UK has now sanctioned 15 vessels and entities involved in the Russian LNG sector and we will continue to bear down on this important source of funding for Putin's illegal war in Ukraine. The vessels sanctioned today are: PIONEER (IMO 9256602) ASYA ENERGY (IMO 9216298) NOVA ENERGY (IMO 9324277) NORTH SKY (IMO 9953523) SCF LA PEROUSE (IMO 9849887) We are also sanctioning the following entities associated with the vessels: OCEAN SPEEDSTAR SOLUTIONS OPC - The operator and manager of PIONEER and ASYA ENERGY. WHITE FOX SHIP MANAGEMENT - The operator and manager of NORTH SKY Background Ships specified under the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 are prohibited from entering a port in the UK, may be given a movement or a port entry direction, can be detained, and will be refused permission to register on the UK Ship Register or have its existing registration terminated. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Secretary Blinken's Meeting with South African Foreign Minister Lamola US Department of State Readout Office of the Spokesperson September 26, 2024 The below is attributable to Spokesperson Matthew Miller: Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met with South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ronald Lamola today. The two emphasized the importance of the U.S.-South Africa partnership. They committed to continue to work together on shared priorities such as economic development, health diplomacy, and multilateral institutional reform. They discussed additional opportunities to advance common interests when South Africa assumes the presidency of the G20 in 2025 and the United States succeeds South Africa in 2026. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address United States Announces Additional Humanitarian Assistance for Syria US Department of State Media Note Office of the Spokesperson September 26, 2024 Today, on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly, Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Uzra Zeya announced nearly $535 million in additional U.S. humanitarian assistance for the Syrian people. This life-saving assistance from the American people includes more than $235 million through the Department of State's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration and nearly $300 million through the United States Agency for International Development's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. The humanitarian assistance announced today includes: Assistance provided through international organization partners to help meet the needs of the most vulnerable refugees, internally displaced persons, and host communities. These needs include emergency shelter; food assistance; access to health care and education; water, sanitation, and hygiene supplies; support for livelihoods; and protection for those in situations of vulnerability. Support through partnerships with international and local non-governmental organizations as they work with governments around the region to provide life-saving support and protection to host communities, refugees, and asylum seekers. The United States remains the single largest humanitarian donor to the Syria response, contributing nearly $1.2 billion to the response in Syria and the region in FY 2024 and more than $18 billion since the start of the 13-year crisis. This new assistance comes amid increasingly dire humanitarian needs, with 16.7 million Syrians requiring assistance within Syria and more than five million Syrian refugees across the region. The United States continues to uphold our commitment to the Syrian people, and we urge other donors to join us in stepping up to fill the significant funding gaps so partners can continue to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. In her remarks, Under Secretary Zeya emphasized conditions inside Syria do not allow for safe, voluntary, dignified, and sustainable refugee returns and that a political solution in line with UN Security Council Resolution 2254 remains the only way to ultimately end the suffering of the Syrian people. She also stressed the United States will continue to promote respect for the dignity and human rights of all Syrians and continue to support Syrian civil society in its pursuit of justice and accountability for human rights violations and abuses. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Joint Statement by UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria, Adam Abdelmoula, and Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis, Ramanathan Balakrishnan on the recent influx of Syrian and Lebanese families into Syria UNOCHA - United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 26 September 2024 We are closely monitoring the alarming developments in the region. Over the past few days, we have witnessed an influx of thousands of Syrians and Lebanese crossing into Rural Damascus, Homs, and Tartous Governorates. We welcome the Government of Syria's decision to open all border crossings to civilians arriving from Lebanon. These are traumatised people fleeing hostilities for their lives. Some families have reported travelling for two days to reach the borders, while others have traversed treacherous mountains on foot, arriving in a state of desperate need and exhaustion. The UN and partners are working closely with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, and mobilising an immediate response providing water, food, mattresses, blankets, and other essential non-food items. Humanitarian partners are stationed at the borders to monitor the situation and conduct needs assessments. We reiterate the Secretary General's call for de-escalation in the region and its far-reaching repercussions. We cannot afford more humanitarian crises, as the resilience of the people has already been tested beyond measure. In Syria, 16.7 million people need humanitarian assistance, while the humanitarian response remains underfunded, with just over 25 per cent of the financial requirements met to date. The international community must come together to prevent further suffering. It is our collective responsibility to act swiftly and effectively. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S., Taiwan 'well-positioned' to cooperate on drones, chips: AIT director ROC Central News Agency 09/26/2024 07:31 PM Taipei, Sept. 26 (CNA) The new United States de facto ambassador to Taiwan on Thursday said the two sides are "well-positioned" to build drones of the future, while the ongoing bilateral cooperation in the semiconductor sector is mutually beneficial and not a "zero-sum" game. Speaking to CNA in his first media interview since taking office as director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), Raymond Greene reaffirmed Washington's commitment to helping Taipei defend itself, and noted that Taiwan and the U.S. are well-positioned to collaborate on building a secure defense supply chain, in particular in drone production. Around the world, people are realizing drones are the future in defense, disaster response, environmental monitoring and fire response, according to the director. There's also a growing realization that the world is "too reliant on a single producer of drones," namely, China as "over 90 percent of consumer drones in the world are produced in China," Greene said. "So there's a huge focus on how we can diversify the supply chains and create a secure supply chain to meet the demand in a secure way," he said. Taiwan and the U.S. are especially "well-positioned" to partner in this field, as both have dynamic drone technology sectors, and because the future of drones is increasingly tied to the use of artificial intelligence (AI), an area where both Taiwan and the U.S. excel, he said. "No two partners are better placed to lead the world in AI technology than the United States and Taiwan," Greene said, highlighting the U.S.' strengths in AI research and development and Taiwan's leadership in semiconductor manufacturing. Meanwhile, when asked about the remarks by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in July that Taiwan had taken away all of the U.S.' chip business, Greene stressed that the ongoing cooperation between the two sides in the semiconductor sector is mutually beneficial. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek published on July 16, Trump said Taiwan "took all of [the U.S.] chip business" and should pay the U.S. for defense. The comments sent shares in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and related tech shares plummeting over concerns that a Trump return to the White House could lead to cuts or the cancellation of subsidies for TSMC's US$65 billion investment in building three advanced wafer fabs in Arizona. Greene told CNA that AIT is a neutral organization and, as such, he would not comment on the November election, but said that "people in Taiwan should take confidence in the fact that U.S.-Taiwan relations are very, very bipartisan." AIT serves as the de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan in the absence of official diplomatic ties. "We've seen incredible consistency even between the Trump administration and the Biden administration. Taiwan's self-defense capabilities, whether it's initiatives like the U.S.-Taiwan Education Initiative or the Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue, all of these initiatives started in the previous administration and got stronger in the current administration." "And regardless of what happens in November, I think this kind of collaboration will continue," he added. Greene lauded the collaboration on semiconductors as it allows the U.S., the world leader in chip design, and Taiwan, the maker of the world's most advanced chips, to work together. However, Taiwan, due to its lack of land, human resources and renewable energy, "can't accommodate all of the demand that we expect in the future, especially given the innovations of AI," he said. "And given just the limitations here in Taiwan, I think naturally you'll see more manufacturing shifting to the United States and other partners," he said. "I think this will actually increase the overall health of the market. It will increase the resilience." "And we don't see this as a zero-sum. In fact, this is going to benefit both sides," he stressed. Greene, whose most recent post was deputy chief of mission of the U.S. Embassy in Japan, took up the Taipei post in July, succeeding Sandra Oudkirk, who left the office after concluding her three-year tenure. The AIT noted that Greene has been posted to Taiwan three times. He served as deputy AIT director from 2018 to 2021. (By Joseph Yeh) Enditem/kb/AW NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Taiwan thanks G7 for labeling stability in Taiwan Strait 'indispensable' ROC Central News Agency 09/26/2024 01:43 PM Taipei, Sept. 26 (CNA) Taiwan has thanked the G7 foreign ministers for reiterating in their latest meeting that a peaceful and stable Taiwan Strait is "indispensable" to global security. The G7 members reaffirmed that "maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is indispensable to international security and prosperity," according to a press release issued after the meeting in New York on Tuesday. The G7 called for the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues and expressed support for Taiwan's meaningful participation in international organizations, the release said. It also noted that there had been "no change in the basic position of the G7 members on Taiwan, including stated One-China policies." In a press release issued Thursday, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) thanked the bloc for continually attaching importance to the stability of the Taiwan Strait. Since 2021, the leaders of the G7 have underscored the importance of keeping the Taiwan Strait stable in the joint communiquA issued following their summits, MOFA said, noting that Taiwan remained committed to contributing to regional and global peace, stability and prosperity. The top diplomats of the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, France, Canada and Italy, as well as the European Union's high representative, held talks in New York on the sidelines of the general debate of the 2024 United Nations General Assembly. The talks, similar to the ongoing U.N. general debate attended by heads of state, revolved around the protracted war in Ukraine and the spiraling conflict in the Middle East. The G7 members reiterated their "unwavering support" for Ukraine as it continues to defend itself against attacks by Russian troops that began in February 2022. They strongly condemned Russia for its "irresponsible" rhetoric of threatening to use nuclear weapons while pledging "appropriate measures" against actors in China and third countries that support Russia's war efforts. They also expressed "deep concern" over the escalatory violence in the Middle East from the Gaza Strip to the Israeli-Lebanese Blue Line -- a U.N.-drawn demarcation line between the two countries -- calling for a stop to "the current destructive cycle." In addition, they reiterated their strong opposition to China's "dangerous" use of coast guard and maritime militia in the South China Sea and its repeated obstruction of countries' high seas freedom of navigation. (By Teng Pei-ju) Enditem/kb NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. House passes Stop CCP Act targeting top CCP members ROC Central News Agency 09/26/2024 01:24 PM Washington, Sept. 25 (CNA) The United States House of Representatives passed the Sanctions on the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) Tyranny and Oppression Act on Wednesday by a vote of 243 to 174. The legislation -- referred to also as the Stop CCP Act -- provides for the "imposition of sanctions on members of the National Communist Party Congress of the People's Republic of China." The act says that the CCP, led by Xi Jinping (cea), is responsible for "violations of Hong Kong's autonomy," "increased aggression against the people of Taiwan" and "acts of repression and genocide against Uyghur Muslims." According to the text of the proposed law, if the U.S. president decides that "sanctionable conduct" has taken place, then members of the CCP's central committee -- the party's main leadership organization composed of around 200 permanent and 160 alternating members -- shall be prohibited from buying or selling property in the U.S. Furthermore, those leading communist cadres would be ineligible to receive an entry visa to the U.S. or would have their current visas revoked. The sanctions outlined in the act may also be applied to any "adult family members" of the top-ranking party member and their spouse. In the text of the Act, "sanctionable conduct" is defined as actions that play a "significant role in the development or implementation" of policies that "violate the autonomy of Hong Kong," "harass, intimidate, or result in increased aggression towards the people of Taiwan" or "contribute to political oppression or violation of human rights of individuals or societal groups within the People's Republic of China, including Uyghur Muslims." Crucially, the U.S. president must "determine" whether such "sanctionable conduct" has occurred for the measures to go into effect. Taiwan is mentioned repeatedly in the act sponsored by Republican Congresswoman Lisa C. McClain of Michigan. "Since the election of President Tsai Ing-wen (ee) as President of Taiwan in 2016, the Government of the People's Republic of China has intensified its efforts to pressure Taiwan through diplomatic isolation and military provocations," the act says. "The rapid modernization of the People's Liberation Army and recent military maneuvers in and around the Taiwan Strait illustrate a clear threat to Taiwan's security," it continues. The act also reiterates key aspects of the Taiwan Relations Act, highlighting that the United States is required by its own law to "maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan." Now that the bill has passed the House of Representatives, it will go to the Senate for deliberation. If the Senate approves after returning from recess on Nov. 12, the bill may be signed into law by the president. The passing of the Stop CCP Act follows other legislation targeting top-ranking members of China's authoritarian ruling party, many of whom own extensive financial assets in the U.S. despite party propaganda organs frequently denouncing the country. On Sept. 9, the House also passed the Taiwan Conflict Deterrence Act that would "restrict financial services for certain immediate families" of CCP officials if Beijing attacks Taiwan. (By James Thompson and Chung Yu-chen) Enditem/kb NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address PLA tracks, monitors foreign warships' Taiwan Straits transit Global Times Passage by Australian, New Zealand, Japanese vessels a political stunt: experts By Liu Xuanzun and Guo Yuandan Published: Sep 26, 2024 07:16 PM Updated: Sep 26, 2024 08:16 PM The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) monitored a group of warships from Australia, New Zealand and Japan when they recently sailed through the Taiwan Straits. Experts said on Thursday that the transit by the foreign naval vessels was simply a political stunt. Australian destroyer the HMAS Sydney, New Zealand supply ship the HMNZS Aotearoa and Japanese destroyer the JS Sazanami made a transit through the Taiwan Straits on Wednesday. The PLA tracked and monitored the ships throughout their transit, keeping the situation under control, a source told the Global Times. Foreign media said that it was the first time a Japanese Maritime Self-Defense destroyer had passed through the Taiwan Straits. In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian stated on Thursday that the Taiwan question concerns China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is the political foundation of China-Japan relations and a red line that must not be crossed. The Chinese military has handled in accordance with laws and regulations the entering into the Taiwan Straits of a Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force vessel. China is highly vigilant on Japan's political intention behind this move and has protested to the Japanese side, Lin said. On Australian and New Zealand warships' Taiwan Straits transit on Wednesday, Lin said China handles foreign warships' transit through the Taiwan Straits in accordance with laws and regulations, and meanwhile we stay vigilant against any acts that might jeopardize China's sovereignty and security. The Taiwan Straits transit by these three countries is clearly a political stunt, aimed at flaunting their so-called solidarity while sending the wrong signal to "Taiwan independence" forces, Fu Qianshao, a Chinese military expert, told the Global Times on Thursday. They are hyping their passage in the name of "freedom of navigation," aiming to show off and flex their military muscle, playing the "Taiwan card" targeting China, analysts said. It is completely legitimate for the PLA to track and monitor foreign warships passing through the Taiwan Straits, experts said, noting that the PLA is ready at all times to deal with any potential emergencies. Following the passage, the three countries' navies were scheduled to hold joint exercises in the South China Sea starting on Thursday, Reuters reported. The exercise will not contribute to peace and stability in the region, observers said. The South China Sea has been a tranquil region with busy sea lanes for international shipping, and such an exercise by countries from outside of the region is stirring up troubles and sabotaging freedom of navigation and security in the South China Sea, Fu said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Mainland's Taiwan affairs official meets KMT vice chairman People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 09:43, September 26, 2024 SHENYANG, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese mainland's senior Taiwan affairs official met on Wednesday with a delegation led by Sean Lien, vice chairman of the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) party, in northeast China's Liaoning Province. Song Tao, head of both the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said the mainland will continue to improve the systems and policies for promoting economic and cultural exchanges and cooperation between the mainland and Taiwan to boost integrated development across the Taiwan Strait. Song said the mainland is willing to work with the KMT to oppose "Taiwan independence" separatism and external interference, seek peace across the Strait, and work for the well-being of compatriots across the Strait. Lien said that based on the common political foundation of adhering to the 1992 Consensus and opposing "Taiwan independence," the KMT will continue to promote cross-Strait exchanges and cooperation in various fields, safeguard peace and stability across the Strait, and create more benefits for people on both sides of the Strait. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Mainland provides broad development space for businesses from Taiwan: senior official People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 09:40, September 26, 2024 SHENYANG, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese mainland is well capable of providing brighter prospects for economic cooperation across the Taiwan Strait and creating broader development space for Taiwan compatriots and businesses, a senior Taiwan affairs official of the mainland said Wednesday. Song Tao, head of both the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, made the remarks at the opening ceremony of an economic and trade cooperation event between Liaoning Province and Taiwan, held in Shenyang, the capital city of Liaoning. Song noted that with steady progress in the modernization drive, the mainland has been continuously optimizing its industrial structure, advancing the integration of digital and real economies, and strengthening its scientific and technological innovation. These achievements will enable the mainland to become more capable of facilitating the development of Taiwan businesses and compatriots in the mainland, which will bring more tangible benefits to them, according to the official. He stressed that "Taiwan independence" leads to neither peace nor development, and the mainland side has no tolerance for and has taken firm countermeasures against "Taiwan independence." Only based on the consensus of opposing "Taiwan independence" can cross-Strait relations get back on the right track, he added. Sean Lien, vice chairman of the Chinese Kuomintang party, said at the ceremony that compatriots on both sides of the Strait are of one family and belong to the same Chinese nation. Noting his family's bond with Liaoning, Lien emphasized his deep affection for the region and pledged to make further contributions to Liaoning's future development. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Japanese destroyer makes first Taiwan Strait transit The JS Sazanami was sailing alongside an Australian destroyer and a New Zealand supply ship. By RFA Staff 2024.09.26 -- A Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship passed through the Taiwan Strait for the first time to assert freedom of navigation, Japanese media reported, a voyage provoking protests from an increasingly assertive China which views the waters as its territory. The Takanami-class destroyer JS Sazanami, together with two naval vessels from Australia and New Zealand, made the 10-hour transit on Wednesday before reaching the South China Sea to conduct a joint exercise on Thursday, the Yomiuri Shimbun quoted unidentified government sources as saying. The two other warships were identified as the HMAS Sydney - a destroyer of the Royal Australian Navy - and the New Zealand navy's replenishment ship HMNZS Endeavour. Both sailed with ship tracking signals switched off. New Zealand's Defence Minister Judith Collins confirmed the transit in a statement on Thursday without mentioning the Japanese vessel. She said the New Zealand and Australian ships sailed through the strait in what she called a routine activity consistent with international law, the Reuters news agency reported. "The New Zealand Defence Force conducts all activities in accordance with international law and best practice," Collins said, adding that it was the first time a New Zealand naval ship had passed through the strait since 2017. There have been reports of increased activities by the Chinese military around Japan in the last few months. On Aug. 26, a Chinese reconnaissance aircraft entered the airspace of Japan's Danjo Islands in Nagasaki Prefecture. On Sept. 18, a carrier group led by China's first aircraft carrier Liaoning sailed into Japan's contiguous zone for the first time. According to the Yomiuri, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida decided to dispatch the JS Sazanami as he believed that if no action was taken, the Chinese military's actions would escalate. Taiwan has yet to confirm the transit. China lodged a complaint with Japan after its military "dealt with the matter according to law," the AFP news agency quoted foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian as saying Thursday. "China is highly vigilant about the political intentions of Japan's actions," he added. China considers Taiwan a Chinese province, and claims control over the waters around the self-governed island. The United States and allies insist that the Taiwan Strait is where high seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law. On Sept. 13, the German frigate Baden-WArttemberg and supply ship Frankfurt am Main sailed through the Taiwan Strait. Beijing said their transit was closely monitored. 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 September 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 PLA activities in the waters and airspace around Taiwan ROC Ministry of National Defense 2024/09/26 PLA activities in the waters and airspace around Taiwan 1.Dateis 6 to 6 a.m. (UTC+8) Wednesday to Thursday, Sep. 25-26 2.PLA activitiesis 43 PLA aircraft and 8 PLAN vessels operating around Taiwan were detected up until 6 a.m. (UTC+8) today. 34 of the aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and entered Taiwan's southwestern and eastern ADIZ. ROC Armed Forces have monitored the situation and employed CAP aircraft, Navy vessels, and coastal missile systems in response to the detected activities. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address PLA activities in the waters and airspace around Taiwan ROC Ministry of National Defense 2024/09/27 PLA activities in the waters and airspace around Taiwan Date 6 to 6 a.m. (UTC+8) Thursday to Friday, Sep. 26-27 PLA activities 41 PLA aircraft and 6 PLAN vessels operating around Taiwan were detected up until 6 a.m. (UTC+8) today. 32 of the aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and entered Taiwan's northern, central, southwestern and eastern ADIZ. ROC Armed Forces have monitored the situation and employed CAP aircraft, Navy vessels, and coastal missile systems in response to the detected activities. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Crew of TCG ALEMDAR participates in DYNAMIC MONARCH-24 Republic of TArkiye Ministry of National Defence Date: 26.09.2024 Crew of Turkish submarine rescue ship TCG ALEMDAR participating in the Exercise DYNAMIC MONARCH-24, conducted in Arendal/Norway, took part in training on KV BARENTSHAV. Turkish divers made observations about the capabilities of the ship with the NATO Submarine Rescue System (NSRS) onboard the ship. Also, "training of transferring the Emergency Life Support Stores (ELSS) to submarine via ADS-1200" and "diving operations using TCB ISTAKOZ-1 ROV and Surface Supplied Diving System (SDSS) training" were conducted by TCG ALEMDAR. Training were observed on the ship by the divers of Royal Norwegian Navy. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address TCG ALEMDAR arrives in Arendal for DYNAMIC MONARCH-24 Republic of TArkiye Ministry of National Defence Date: 26.09.2024 TCG ALEMDAR has arrived in Arendal/Norway to participate in Exercise DYNAMIC MONARCH-24. As part of the Exercise Plan, 28 personnel from 5 countries joining the exercise visited TCG ALEMDAR. Visitors were given a tour and informed about rescue capabilities. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address September 26, 2024 Release Readout of Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III's Meeting With United Kingdom Secretary of State for Defence, John Healey Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder provided the following readout: Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III met today with his UK counterpart, Secretary of State for Defence, John Healey, on the margins of the AUKUS Defense Ministers Meeting in London. The discussion included the situation in Middle East, support to Ukraine, and continued defense cooperation. The two leaders reaffirmed their unwavering commitment to continue supporting Ukraine's efforts to defend itself against Russian aggression and reiterated the importance of stopping the escalation of violence in the Middle East. Secretary Austin reiterated his thanks for continued defense cooperation with the UK on a wide range of operational and capability development efforts. Both leaders look forward to continued coordination and cooperation between our two militaries. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3918486/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Trump Says Zelenskiy 'Takes Billions' While Refusing To 'Make A Deal' To End War By RFE/RL September 25, 2024 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on September 25 of taking billions of dollars from the United States while at the same time refusing to "make a deal" to end Russia's full-scale invasion. Trump, who has been highly critical of the aid Washington has disbursed to Kyiv, said Ukraine should have made concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin in the months before Russia's February 2022 attack. "Any deal -- the worst deal -- would've been better than what we have now," Trump said. "If they made a bad deal, it would've been much better. They would've given up a little bit and everybody would be living, and every building would be built, and every tower would be aging for another 2,000 years." Trump made the remark at a campaign rally in North Carolina as Zelenskiy attended the UN General Assembly in New York ahead of a visit on September 26 to Washington, where U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to announce an additional aid package. Trump has frequently claimed that Russia never would have invaded Ukraine if he had been U.S. president and that he would swiftly put an end to the war if he returned to the White House. But he has not presented any concrete explanation of how he would accomplish that. In a debate earlier this month with Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war. Russia and Ukraine held several negotiations before the full-scale invasion was launched in February 2022, but Kyiv rejected the demands put forth by Moscow, which included recognizing Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and separatist-controlled entities in Luhansk and Donetsk. Trump's comments in North Carolina appeared to be in response to Zelenskiy's comments in an interview with The New Yorker in which he said Trump "doesn't really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how." Trump noted that Zelenskiy was in the United States and said he was making "little nasty aspersions toward your favorite president, me." He also described Ukraine as a country in ruins outside of Kyiv that is short on soldiers and questioned whether it had any bargaining chips left to negotiate an end to the war. "What deal can we make? It's demolished," he added. "The people are dead. The country is in rubble." Zelenskiy said he would present Biden with what he calls a victory plan for the war that is expected to include a request for permission to use long-range weapons provided by the United States to strike Russian targets. There had been reports that a face-to-face meeting between Trump and Zelenskiy would take place in New York, but the meeting was expected to be scrapped, according to U.S. media. The White House said Biden launched a joint declaration of support for Ukraine's recovery and reconstruction involving more than 30 countries, including the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, and the European Union. Biden, Zelenskiy, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gathered with other world leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in a strong display of unity for Ukraine. "We're committed to providing Ukraine with the resources that it needs to build back stronger than before.... You're not alone in this fight," Biden said in launching the joint declaration. A copy of the document distributed by the White House said it was Russia's responsibility under international law to pay for damages it had caused in Ukraine. "We reaffirm that, consistent with all applicable laws and our respective legal systems, Russia's sovereign assets in our jurisdictions will remain immobilized until Russia ends its aggression and pays for the damage it has caused to Ukraine," it said. Biden said more U.S. actions to accelerate support for Ukraine will be announced on September 26. In his remarks, Zelenskiy mentioned the U.S. Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II and said: "Today we are laying the foundation for a similar architecture of recovery." Meanwhile, the U.S State Department announced on September 25 that Washington will provide $375 million in additional military aid to Ukraine. The package includes high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) and mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles, as well as Javelin and tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided (TOW) missiles. With reporting by Reuters and AFP Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/kyiv-zaporizhzhya-strikes -ukraine-russia/33135636.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 Security Situation and Strengthening of Ukraine: Volodymyr Zelenskyy Met with Keir Starmer President of Ukraine 25 September 2024 - 23:55 President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Keir Starmer. "Thank you for the decisive steps taken by the United Kingdom since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Thank you for standing with us throughout this time," the Head of State said. Keir Starmer noted that he met with Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss the challenges facing Ukraine and to reaffirm their unwavering support. "And to have the chance to talk through what more needs to be done because these are turning into crucial weeks and months," the British Prime Minister added. The main topics of the talks included the security situation and the strengthening of Ukraine, in particular through new defense assistance. The parties also focused on the implementation of the bilateral security agreement, as well as the Peace Formula, preparations for the second Peace Summit, cooperation within the Ukraine-NATO framework and progress in negotiations on signing the agreement on transition to a stronger and deeper partnership. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Volodymyr Zelenskyy Held Meetings with UN Secretary-General AntAnio Guterres and the President of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly President of Ukraine 25 September 2024 - 22:56 President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy held meetings with United Nations Secretary-General AntAnio Guterres and President of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly, Prime Minister of Cameroon (2009-2019) PhilAmon Yang. The Head of State stressed: Ukraine hopes that the UN will respond to the needs of Ukrainians in the humanitarian sphere, especially in the course of winterization. The topics discussed by the President and the UN Secretary-General included the implementation of the Peace Formula, the security situation in our country and the freedom of navigation in the Black Sea. It is important for the continued operation of transport corridors and unimpeded export of Ukrainian agricultural products to global markets. During his meeting with PhilAmon Yang, Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that Ukraine is ready to effectively cooperate for implementing the priorities of the President of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly. "It is important for Ukraine that during the 79th Session of the General Assembly, under your presidency, the annual debate on the Ukrainian agenda item 'Situation in the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine' is held, as well as that our annual resolution on the situation with human rights in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine is adopted," the President stressed. The Head of State also urged PhilAmon Yang to support the Peace Formula and invited him to visit Ukraine. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Charles Michel Discussed Ways to Expedite the Decision on Use of Proceeds from Frozen Russian Assets President of Ukraine 25 September 2024 - 21:54 President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President of the European Council Charles Michel. The Ukrainian leader thanked Charles Michel for his efforts and leadership in supporting Ukraine. "I think that with your support, our path to the EU will be faster. There will be challenges. But in any case, we see this light in the near future," the President of Ukraine said. The meeting focused on the use of proceeds from frozen Russian assets for Ukraine's needs and on the steps required to implement the relevant decision as soon as possible. Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked for the first tranche of EUR 1.5 billion, which was received from the proceeds of Russian assets. In addition, the parties discussed in detail the situation on the frontline, military needs, steps required to strengthen Ukraine's resilience and defense capabilities, and the implementation of the Joint Security Commitments between Ukraine and the EU. In particular, they talked about the full use of the resources from the European Peace Facility and the Ukraine Assistance Fund to support Ukrainian defenders. Special attention was paid to maintaining sanctions pressure on Russia and preventing any attempts to circumvent those sanctions. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address France Will Train the Ukrainian Brigade - Talks between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Emmanuel Macron President of Ukraine 25 September 2024 - 21:40 President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President of France Emmanuel Macron. The Ukrainian leader thanked France for its steadfast support of Ukraine's membership in NATO and the EU, as well as for military assistance. Volodymyr Zelenskyy provided a detailed overview of the situation on the battlefield and outlined the needs of Ukrainian warriors. The main topics of the meeting included the further enhancement of Ukraine's air defense system and the training of Ukrainian military personnel. In the near future, France will train and fully equip the Ukrainian brigade. Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Emmanuel Macron discussed the results of recent thematic conferences based on individual points of the Peace Formula and preparations for the meeting on nuclear safety - as France heads the relevant working group. They also paid attention to the preparations for the second Peace Summit. The Ukrainian President noted that he counts on comprehensive cooperation with the new Government of France. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Readout of President Biden's Pull Aside with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine September 25, 2024 President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. met today with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. President Biden informed President Zelenskyy that he has directed a surge in U.S. security assistance to Ukraine, which will be announced publicly tomorrow, and which will help Ukraine win. President Zelenskyy previewed for President Biden his plan for victory. The two leaders will discuss this plan further during their upcoming bilateral meeting at the White House. Following their meeting in New York, President Biden convened a historic event in support of Ukraine at which the leaders of more than 30 countries agreed to sign a Joint Declaration of Support for the Recovery and Reconstruction of Ukraine. ### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Joint Declaration of Support for Recovery and Reconstruction of Ukraine September 25, 2024 More than 30 counties and the European Union have agreed to join the Joint Declaration of Support for the Recovery and Reconstruction of Ukraine. Those countries are Albania, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. We, the Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7), reaffirm our unwavering support for Ukraine today and in the future, in war and in peace. As stated in the Apulia-G7 Leaders' CommuniquA, together with international partners, we remain determined to provide military, budget, humanitarian, and reconstruction support to Ukraine and its people and are strongly committed to helping Ukraine meet its urgent short-term financing needs and to assisting with Ukraine's long-term recovery and reconstruction. We dispel any false notion that time is on Russia's side or that Russia can prevail by causing Ukraine to fail economically. Russia's war of aggression has wrought tremendous damage upon Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Today, we reaffirm a series of commitments to counter its effects. First, Russia's responsibility under international law to pay for the damage it is causing is clear. We reaffirm that, consistent with all applicable laws and our respective legal systems, Russia's sovereign assets in our jurisdictions will remain immobilized until Russia ends its aggression and pays for the damage it has caused to Ukraine. Second, we commit to use our economic assistance to ensure Ukraine maintains macro-financial stability, to repair and build critical infrastructure including in the energy sector, to boost economic growth, to support social resilience as well as the implementation of priority reforms. These include improving the business climate, strengthening anti-corruption efforts, implementing the justice system reform and promoting of the rule of law within the context of the EU accession process. We will also support Ukraine to ensure rapid and transparent absorption of donor financing. Third we are continuing our joint work to implement the decision made at the G7 Summit in Apulia to launch Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration (ERA) Loans for Ukraine by the end of the year, in order to make available approximately USD 50 billion in additional funding to Ukraine. The loans will be serviced and repaid by the future flows of extraordinary revenues stemming from the immobilization of Russian sovereign assets held in the European Union and other relevant jurisdictions. Part of these funds will be directed to military assistance to Ukraine. We will maintain solidarity in our commitment to providing this support to Ukraine. Fourth, we will continue to pursue our vision also by strategizing, coordinating and steering our support for Ukraine's economic recovery and reconstruction through the Ukraine Donor Platform. This will include catalyzing private sector contributions as well as leveraging bilateral, European Union, and international financial institution funding, and encouraging Ukraine's reform agenda in view of the country's accession path to the EU. We will continue to support Ukraine's human capital through our ongoing response to humanitarian needs and social protection. Finally, we will continue to assess and monitor progress on these commitments through Ukraine Donor Platform meetings and the annual Ukraine Recovery Conference, the next edition of which will be hosted by Italy in 2025. In order to implement the above-mentioned commitments,we will each work to provideUkraine withspecific, bilateral support aligned with this joint declaration and with the bilateral security agreements and arrangements that have been negotiated and signed with Ukraine. For its part, Ukraine is committed to implementing its economic, judiciary, anti-corruption, corporate governance, defense, public administration, public investment management and law enforcement reforms. These reforms are necessary and will be vital to enabling long-term support for Ukrainian reconstruction and recovery. Our message is clear: we remain committed to the strategic objective of a free, independent, democratic and sovereign Ukraine, within its internationally recognized borders, that is prosperous and able to defend itself. We highlight the importance of an inclusive and gender-responsive recovery and the need to address the different needs of women, children and disabled persons as well as other population groups who have been disproportionately affected by Russia's war of aggression. Through our collective support for Ukrainian reconstruction and recovery, we will ensure that Russia fails in its objectives to subjugate Ukraine - and that Ukraine emerges from Russia's war of aggression with a modernized, vibrant, inclusive society and innovative economy, resilient to Russian threats. Other countries that wish to contribute to this effort in support of Ukraine's long-term reconstruction and recovery may join this Joint Declaration at any time. ### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China to raise public funds for Great Wall conservation Xinhua) 10:23, September 27, 2024 BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China has launched a program to raise public funds for the conservation of the Great Wall, which is the country's largest existing cultural heritage site. At an event to launch the program on Thursday, Li Qun, China's deputy minister of culture and tourism, said that vigorous efforts should be made to promote voluntary action to protect the Great Wall, strengthen related public awareness and education, and effectively ensure that the results of Great Wall preservation work benefit the people. Li, also head of the National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA), noted the importance of encouraging more people to learn about, contribute to and share the results of the Great Wall's protection. The program was initiated by the China Foundation For Cultural Heritage Conservation under the guidance of the NCHA. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Remarks by President Biden at an Event with World Leaders Launching a Joint Declaration of Support for Ukrainian Recovery and Reconstruction | New York, NY September 25, 2024 September 25, 2024 InterContinental New York Barclay New York, New York 4:03 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, thank you, thank you. (Applause.) Welcome to Washington. Fellow leaders, friends, nine hundred and f- a for 944 days, Putin has waged his vicious onslaught against Ukraine. For 944 days, the Ukrainian people have stood unwavering, unbroken, and unbowed. Today, we're launching a Joint Declaration of Support for Ukrainian Recovery and Reconstruction to make it clear: We stand with Ukraine now and in the future. That starts on the battlefield. I am determined to ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to prevail in its fight for its survival. Tomorrow, I will announce a series of actions to accelerate support for Ukraine's military. But we know Ukraine's future victory is about more than what happens on the battlefield. It's also about what Ukrainians do to make the most of a free and independent future, of which so many have sacrificed so much. With this declaration, over 30 countries and the European Union have made important commitments. First, as Ukraine continues to make necessary reforms to fight corruption, we are committed to providing Ukraine with the resources it needs to build back stronger than it was before. Folks, it's no secret Russian attacks have caused significant damage to Ukraine. And less well-known is the story of Ukraine's economic resilience. Ukraine's GDP is stable and actually growing. Ukraine's defense industry, forged in the fire, is six times larger than it was a year ago. And Ukraine is now exporting almo- -exporting almost as much grain as it did before the war, feeding people and the world once again. Ukraine's economy is resilient, and together, we can help Ukraine go from economic resilience to economic revival. Second, we commit to hold Russia accountable for the damage it has caused. This builds on a historic effort by the G7. Back in 2022, two days after Russia's invasion, members of the G7 and the EU worked together to freeze $280 billion in Russian Central Bank funds outside of Russia. This summer, at the G7, the United States and our partners reached a decision to unlock $50 billion from the proceeds of those frozen assets to put that money to work for Ukraine as it rebuilds and recovers its economy. Today, we reaffirm that with all our respective countries and legal systems, Russia's sovereign assets will remain immobilized until Russia ends its aggression and pays for the damage it has caused. Finally, we're committed to coordinate closely, through efforts like the Ukraine Donor Platform, so we can make sure that each dollar goes as far as possible, reinforcing one another instead of duplicating work. Let me close with this. This war has shown the Ukrainians can do anything they set their minds to. Today, we show the Ukrainians you're not alone. You're not alone in this fight. You're not alone in the reconstruction that comes after. Ukrainian people have fought and died to win a future of freedom and independence. Mr. President, we all a we all stand by your side to help Ukraine make the most of it. Thank you all very much. (Applause.) 4:07 P.M. EDT NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address September 26, 2024 By C. Todd Lopez, DOD News Latest Security Assistance for Ukraine Announced, White House Directs DOD to Allocate Remaining Appropriations The Department of Defense announced yesterday the 66th round of security assistance for Ukraine, which includes some $375 million in presidential drawdown authority of equipment from the existing U.S. military inventory. Among other things, the PDA package includes air-to-ground munitions; ammunition for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System; 155 mm and 105 mm artillery ammunition; Javelin and AT4 anti-armor systems; and M1117 armored security vehicles. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the United States has committed approximately $56.3 billion in security assistance to Ukraine though both presidential drawdown authority and the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. Also, the White House announced it had directed the DOD to allocate all remaining security assistance funding appropriated for Ukraine by the end of the year. "As part of this effort, the Department of Defense will allocate the remaining Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funds by the end of this year," President Biden said in a statement yesterday. "I also have authorized $5.5 billion in presidential drawdown authority to ensure this authority does not expire so that my administration can fully utilize the funding appropriated by Congress to support the drawdown of U.S. equipment for Ukraine and then replenish U.S. stockpiles." The White House also said the DOD will provide $2.4 billion in security assistance through USAI. That additional support through USAI will provide Ukraine with additional air defense, unmanned aerial systems and air-to-ground munitions. To enhance air defense, Biden said, he has directed the DOD to refurbish and provide Ukraine with an additional Patriot air defense battery and additional Patriot missiles. The president also said he has agreed to provide Ukraine with the Joint Standoff Weapon long-range munition. While the U.S. has not agreed to give Ukraine F-16 fighter aircraft, other nations have. The U.S. has assisted by providing training on the F-16 to Ukrainian pilots. The president said he has directed the DOD to expand that training, including by supporting the training of an additional 18 pilots next year. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Chinese FM meets Russian, Ukrainian counterparts at UN, 'proving China's undoubtable stance for peace' Global Times By Yang Sheng Published: Sep 26, 2024 11:57 PM Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had discussions on the Ukraine crisis, among other issues, with his counterparts from Russia and Ukraine when Wang met them separately on Wednesday. Chinese analysts said the positive response and appreciations from the two conflicting parties toward China's contribution just prove that accusations from a few countries over China's stance on the crisis are nonsense and laughable. China's exchanges and interactions with Russia and Ukraine at the UN have also exposed that some Western countries, especially the US, are not standing for peace, and don't care about the Ukrainian and Russian people who are suffering from the war; instead, they have selfish hegemonic interest in this issue, experts noted. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday, Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha separately on the sidelines of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly. Wang said at the meeting with Ukraine's top diplomat that China is willing to work with Ukraine to maintain the momentum of stable development in bilateral relations. Wang emphasized that China has always advocated for peaceful resolution of conflicts, and this remains true for the Ukraine issue. China has been closely monitoring the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, and has provided four batches of humanitarian aid so far, and is ready to offer additional assistance based on Ukraine's needs, Wang said. China is also willing to maintain communication with all parties including Ukraine, in an effort to achieve peace at an early date, he noted. At the meeting with Wang, Sybiha reiterated Ukraine's adherence to the one-China policy and expressed the willingness to build a strong partnership with China, adding that Ukraine highly values China's stance on the crisis and its efforts for peace, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. During his meeting with the Russian top diplomat, Wang said China will always stay true to the original aspiration of establishing diplomatic relations with Russia and continuously enrich their comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era for the greater well-being of people of both countries. Lavrov said at the meeting with Wang that Russia is willing to work with China to push for greater development of bilateral relations. The two sides also exchanged views on the Ukraine crisis, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Chinese analysts said China has always kept close communication with both sides since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022, and is still making great mediation efforts to try to stop the conflict and restore peace. This has already proven that China's stance for peace is undoubtable, but a few countries, especially the US, have kept blaming, accusing and distorting China's stance on the Ukraine crisis when they are trying to add fuel to the flame. These few countries are also spending huge amounts of their' taxpayers' money to prolong the deadly war. Wang said on Tuesday at the UN headquarters while attending a UN Security Council high-level meeting on the situation in Ukraine that "any attempt to blame, attack or smear China on the Ukraine issue is irresponsible and will not succeed." Selfishness, incompetence exposed The US has frequently smeared and attacked China on the Ukraine issue. However, when Ukraine said it highly values China's stance on the crisis and its efforts for peace, the selfishness and hegemonic interest of Washington in the Ukraine crisis has completely been exposed. Zhang Hong, a research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday that an effective and sustainable solution of Ukraine crisis should be based on reality and the respect to the reasonable concerns of both sides, but the one-sided support from the US-led West to Kiev has made the conflict to escalate. "The past two years have proved that the military support from the West to Ukraine has failed to promote peace but has extended and escalated the conflict time and again," Zhang noted. By preventing the war from ending, the US military-industrial complex can keep earning money from the massive military aid and Washington can keep its influence over the EU and maintain pressure on Russia, so when the US trashes China's stance, it's laughable and nonsense, said experts. Nonetheless, the US attacks and smears China's stance in order to sow discord between China and the EU over the Ukraine crisis, Zhang said. "This kind of trick has just exposed the incompetence and selfishness of Washington in handling this crisis." Wang Yi on Wednesday also met with Josep Borrell, high representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. Wang expressed his appreciation for Borrell's commitment and effort as the EU's top diplomat on promoting mutual trust and cooperation between the two sides. Borrell, for his part, said China's rise is an unstoppable historical trend. China is already a strong country and will continue to grow stronger. The world needs China and Europe should strengthen cooperation with China. The world is not peaceful as challenges are growing and conflicts keep cropping up, and countries need to work together to maintain peace and security, said Borrell. The two sides also exchanged views on the crisis in Ukraine. Cui Heng, a research fellow with the Center for Russian Studies of East China Normal University, said that the US' attempts to sow discord between China and EU members by smearing China's stance on the Ukraine crisis did affect some EU members, but major countries like Germany and France still maintain strategic autonomy, and that's why the EU clearly understands that it needs to work together with China. Be realistic Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday rejected the China-Brazil peace proposal during his speech as the UN General Assembly, while Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva advocated on Tuesday at the same event for a plan for talks between Russia and Ukraine to end their conflict, Reuters reported. Zhang said Zelenskiy has high expectation to the peace plan. Yet, to be realistic, Ukraine needs to understand that the higher expectation it has, the more difficult it will be for all parties to reach a feasible plan. The conflicting parties can at least stop the conflict first and solve other complicated issues by negotiations, but if the conflicting parties refuse to do so, the war will be maintained in long term. Another reason is that Ukraine is unable to make decisions on its own, as the US is the real key player behind this war. So, before Washington believes that it's time for a talk with Moscow to stop this war in Ukraine, we might not be able to see Ukraine make a clear decision and accept any peace proposal. However, China and Brazil, as well as other members who are calling for peace among the international community, will keep on working toward stopping this endless war, said experts. Shen Sheng contributed to this story NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Update 251 - IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine International Atomic Energy Agency 91/2024 Vienna, Austria 26 Sep 2024 Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi addressed world leaders gathered at the United Nations this week and yet, even as he informed them about the ceaseless work of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to help Ukraine avert a nuclear accident during the military conflict, the Agency teams stationed at the country's nuclear power plants (NPPs) continued to report about drones and other military activities nearby. Ahead of this year's United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Director General Grossi spoke at the Summit of the Future about the IAEA's mission to foster peace and development around the world, including by assisting Ukraine in ensuring nuclear safety and security during a large-scale conflict that is now well into its third year. Noting that Ukraine used to generate more than half its electricity from nuclear power before the conflict began in February 2022, he said: "From the first months of the war, the IAEA has focused on assisting Ukraine in preventing a radiological or nuclear accident, which could have serious transborder consequences." The IAEA has since established support and assistance missions at all of Ukraine's nuclear power plants, including the Zaporizhzhya NPP located on the frontline, as well as the Chornobyl site. "Following months of negotiations and consultations, on 30 May 2023 at the UN Security Council I outlined five concrete principles to help ensure nuclear safety and security at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya NPP. These principles received strong support from the Members of the Council," Director General Grossi said in Monday's statement to the Summit. The persistent dangers to nuclear safety and security in Ukraine were also a key topic during the Director General's many meetings with government leaders and other senior officials in New York this week, including with new Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, who voiced strong support for the IAEA's work in the country. Reports from the IAEA's teams in Ukraine made clear that the nuclear safety and security situation remained precarious over the past week, with one team seeking shelter due to the presence of drones in the area, another team hearing anti-aircraft fire and a large explosion during an air raid alarm, and a third team visiting the site of an alleged drone attack. At the ZNPP, the IAEA team heard explosions throughout the week, including several blasts close to the site, although no damage to the plant was reported. Last Saturday, the ZNPP informed the team of an alleged drone strike that occurred on Friday afternoon on a 35/6 kilovolt (kV) substation around 300 metres away from the plant. This substation provides electricity to non-safety related facilities at the ZNPP, including a grid-water pumping station, a water management plant, and external warehouses. Visiting the affected site the day following the alleged attack, the IAEA team observed some impact on one of the substation's two transformers. Remains of batteries and metal pieces of the alleged drone were also observed in the area. The plant said repairs are still ongoing. Over the past week, the IAEA team has continued to conduct walkdowns across the ZNPP site, discussing maintenance and other activities important for nuclear safety and security of the plant. However, yesterday the ZNPP informed the team that it was not allowed to conduct its planned walkdown of the external warehouses and diesel fuel storage facility due to the risk from military activities. Ensuring adequate maintenance remains challenging during the conflict. The IAEA team was informed about the five categories of maintenance the ZNPP is implementing to ensure the reliability of the emergency diesel generators (EDGs) and about the scheduling of the maintenance frequency. The ZNPP said category 1 and 2 maintenance, the lowest categories, involving monthly visual inspections and annual maintenance, is ongoing during 2024. More advanced maintenance is planned for some EDGs in the coming years. The team was also informed on the progress of maintenance activities performed on reactor unit 6 during recent months. Among other activities, the IAEA team visited the turbine halls of reactor units 3 and 4 and were again not allowed to access the western parts of the buildings. On Monday, the IAEA team conducted a walkdown inside the unit 5 reactor building, observing the monthly changeover between cooling pumps of the spent fuel pool as well as some of the main reactor components and safety systems rooms. The IAEA teams present at the Khmelnytskyy, Rivne and South Ukraine NPPs and the Chornobyl site reported that nuclear safety and security is being maintained despite the effects of the ongoing conflict, including air raid alarms on several days over the past week. Over the past weekend, unit 2 at the South Ukraine NPP (SUNPP) was transferred to a cold shutdown state to repair the electrical motor of one of its main cooling pumps, which was damaged as a result of military attacks on the electrical grid outside the plant on 26 August. Following completion of the repairs, the unit returned to operation on Wednesday, and is increasing power. The plant's connection to two off-site power lines that were disconnected following last month's attacks was restored. On the night of 18 September, the IAEA team at the SUNPP was required to shelter due to the reported presence of drones in the vicinity. The IAEA was subsequently informed by the plant that 22 drones flew through the area, including one over the plant, while others were observed approximately 1.5 kilometers from the plant. A further 15 drones were recorded by the SUNPP in the area near the site the following night. On the nights of 20 and 21 September, the IAEA was informed by the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine (SNRIU) that two and eight drones, respectively, flew through the area. The IAEA team at the Khmelnytskyy NPP (KhNPP) reported an air raid alarm early in the morning of 22 September, during which the team heard anti-aircraft fire and a large explosion. The team was informed that a drone was detected about 3.4 kilometers from the KhNPP. In the early hours of this morning, the IAEA team was required to shelter multiple times at the site due to several air raid alarms. The IAEA teams at the SUNPP and at the KhNPP rotated earlier this week. Elsewhere in Ukraine, SNRIU informed the IAEA that the premises of its Eastern Nuclear and Radiation Safety Inspection regional unit, located in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, was damaged as a result of military activities. There were no casualties. The IAEA continued this week to deliver on its comprehensive programme of assistance to help Ukraine maintain nuclear safety and security. Two quadcopter drones for performing spatial radiometric surveys were delivered to the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Centre of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine aimed at enhancing their radiation monitoring capability. The delivery was supported by a contribution from Switzerland. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The President in New York called on allies to invest in Ukraine's long-range arms production President of the Republic of Lithuania September 26, 2024 On Wednesday, President NausAda participated in the Ukraine Compact meeting in New York, held during the high-level week of the UN General Assembly at the invitation of U.S. President Joe Biden. At the meeting, the Lithuanian President expressed full support for Ukraine's Peace Formula, stating that Lithuania would not back any proposals that undermine Ukraine's sovereignty or territorial integrity. The President stressed the need to step up support for Ukraine through military, political and economic means so that when the time comes for peace talks, Ukraine will feel strong and confident. The Head of State stressed that Lithuania will continue to actively support Ukraine militarily, pointing out that Lithuania will invest 10 million euros in the production of Ukraine's long-range arms and urging partners from other countries to follow this example. "In recent months, we have witnessed Russia systematically destroy Ukraine's energy system, so helping Ukraine's energy infrastructure is very important, especially as winter approaches. Lithuania is one of the largest donors, having already contributed over 63 million euros to Ukraine's energy sector," the President noted after the meeting. Gitanas NausAda also stressed the need to actively assist Ukraine in reconstruction efforts and reiterated Lithuania's readiness to continue its participation in various reconstruction projects, especially in the reconstruction of educational institutions. The leaders of 31 countries attending the meeting signed a Joint Declaration of Support for Recovery and Reconstruction of Ukraine. The President's Communication Group NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The President at the United Nations: Aggressor countries have no place in the UN Security Council President of the Republic of Lithuania September 26, 2024 President Gitanas NausAda, alongside the Presidents of Latvia and Estonia, held a traditional meeting with UN Secretary-General AntAnio Guterres during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). During this meeting, they discussed global security challenges, the repercussions of Russia's war in Ukraine, the UN's role in holding Russia accountable for its war crimes, and the need for lasting peace in Europe. Gitanas NausAda emphasized the necessity of reforming the UN Security Council to prevent aggressor countries from using their permanent seats on the UN Security Council to evade accountability. According to the Lithuanian leader, it is unacceptable that the UN becomes powerless in the face of the aggressor and lack the means to stop it. The President stressed the importance of the UN's role in achieving lasting peace in Europe and called for support for the Peace Formula proposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, asserting that peace talks must occur on Ukraine's terms. The Head of State also emphasized that Russia's war in Ukraine is marked by brutality and numerous violations of the fundamental principles of the UN Charter. "The collective response of the international community, including the UN, has not been sufficient to stop Russia's brutal war in Ukraine, which continues to this day. While we cannot undo the atrocities of war, we must ensure that they do not go unaccounted for," the President stated. President Gitanas NausAda reiterated Lithuania's support for the International Criminal Court's (ICC) investigations aimed at prosecuting those responsible for international crimes within its jurisdiction and said that the ICC must take a leading role in investigating war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine. Gitanas NausAda also highlighted the necessity of establishing a special tribunal to investigate the crime of Russia's aggression in Ukraine and to hold its political and military leadership accountable for the crimes committed. The President pointed out that Russia's accomplice, Belarus, must also face accountability, and that pressure must increase on Iran for supplying military equipment to Russia. The President's Communication Group NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The Presidents of the Baltic States and Poland discussed mobilizing global support for Ukraine at the United Nations General Assembly President of the Republic of Lithuania September 26, 2024 On Wednesday, President Gitanas Nauseda met in New York with Polish President Andrzej Duda, Estonian President Alar Karis, and Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics. This is already a traditional coordination meeting between the leaders of the Baltic States and Poland to discuss and coordinate their positions on key matters during the United Nations General Assembly. The discussions centered on regional security, support for Ukraine, and peace negotiations. During the meeting, President Gitanas Nauseda emphasized that Ukraine's victory is crucial for the security of both the region and Europe as a whole. He underscored the importance of continuing joint efforts to consolidate support for Ukraine and keeping this issue at the forefront of allies' agendas. The President highlighted that the Baltic States and Poland can serve as examples to other countries to step up their support for Ukraine by all meansmilitary, financial and political. Gitanas Nauseda also stressed the significance of actively supporting Ukraine's accession to the European Union, noting that its EU membership would bolster security and peace across Europe. "The countries in our region have become key players in mobilizing international support for Ukraine. We must continue to speak with one voice in the EU, NATO, and the United Nations. It is through our unity that we can achieve meaningful results for our region. This is the only way to ensure security and stability in our countries and throughout Europe," the Head of State stated. The Presidents of Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, and Poland also addressed the need to actively utilize the UN platform to rally support for Ukraine's Peace Formula. President Gitanas Nauseda emphasized that peace negotiations can only take place on Ukraine's terms, with full respect for the country's territorial integrity and sovereignty. He also highlighted the importance of working at the UN level to isolate the aggressor, Russia, and its accomplice, Belarus, in the international arena and to hold them accountable for the war crimes committed in Ukraine. The President's Communication Group NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Zelenskiy Brings 'Victory Plan' To White House Meeting With Biden, Harris By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service September 26, 2024 U.S. President Joe Biden welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to the White House on September 26 after announcing billions in military aid for Kyiv, insisting again that Russia "will not prevail" in its invasion of Ukraine. Zelenskiy presented Biden with what he has referred to as his "victory plan" and again requested that the United States lift restrictions on the use of long-range weapons it has provided to strike deep inside Russia at military targets. "Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail, and we'll continue to stand by you every step of the way," Biden said as he hosted Zelenskiy in the Oval Office after thanking him for presenting his plan. "We deeply appreciate that Ukraine and America have stood side by side," said Zelenskiy, dressed in a dark green military-style outfit. Zelenskiy also met with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party's nominee for president, later at the White House and shared his "victory plan" with her. Harris told Zelenskiy that her support for the people of Ukraine was unwavering. "The Ukrainian people are bravely defending their homes and their homeland, their freedom and their democracy against a brutal dictator," Harris told Zelenskiy at the White House. She also said that calls for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia were "dangerous and unacceptable." She added that suggestions from Republican candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, Senator J.D. Vance (Republican-Ohio), that Ukraine should cut a deal to end the war were not proposals for peace but "proposals for surrender." Trump has said Ukraine should have made concessions to Putin in the months before Russia's invasion. At a campaign rally in North Carolina on September 25 he said, "Any deal -- the worst deal -- would've been better than what we have now." Biden earlier on September 26 announced more than $8 billion in military aid for Kyiv and repeated in a statement that the United States will "provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win this war." The package includes for the first time a system called Joint Standoff Weapon -- a precision-guided glide bomb with a range of up to 130 kilometers launched from fighter aircraft -- as well as an additional Patriot air-defense battery and hundreds more Patriot missiles and AMRAAMs (advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles). Biden, who is leaving office in January, said the training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots in the United States will also be expanded, including the training of an additional 18 pilots next year. He said Washington and its partners were taking steps to disrupt a global cryptocurrency network used by Russia to evade sanctions and launder money, without elaborating. Biden added he has called a top-level meeting of the 50 or so members of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany next month to better coordinate efforts to back Ukraine's defense against Russian aggression. Zelenskiy thanked Biden in a message on X. "I am grateful to [U.S. President] Joe Biden, U.S. Congress and its both parties, Republicans and Democrats, as well as the entire American people for today's announcement," he wrote. Zelenskiy is looking to shore up support for his war effort ahead of the U.S. presidential election pitting Harris against Trump, who announced he would meet Zelenskiy on September 27 in New York after a separate meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The United States, Ukraine's main supporter, and Western allies have given Kyiv billions of dollars in military aid and other assistance while also slapping several rounds of sanctions on Moscow. Few details are known about the "so-called victory plan" put together by Zelenskiy, who has been on an intensive diplomatic mission since he arrived for the annual UN General Assembly earlier this week. Zelenskiy has said the plan will be a "bridge" toward ending the conflict, while media reports said it would ask for stepped-up U.S. military and financial backing and security guarantees, as well as further sanctions on Russia. People close to Zelenskiy have said the main security guarantee that Kyiv is pursuing is NATO membership, a longtime demand that has been met with skepticism by the United States and its allies. Zelenskiy has also indicated he will again seek permission to use long-range missiles to strike military targets deep inside Russia to prevent attacks on its cities and infrastructure, a move Ukraine's allies are divided upon. The White House played down Ukraine's hopes that Zelensky's visit would achieve that goal. "I'm not expecting there to be any new announcements on this particular action or a decision coming out of this meeting," White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican-South Carolina) said earlier that failing to allow the change in strategy would be a mistake. After meeting with Zelenskiy at the U.S. Capitol on September 26, Graham said the Ukrainian president asked for only one thing: permission to use U.S. weapons to strike "legitimate military targets" inside Russia. Graham said he believes that actions taken this week likely will determine the outcome of the war and that outcome will be "dire" for Ukraine if there is no change in the military strategy. "If you continue the policy of holding Ukraine back because you are worried about escalation, you will doom them to lose," Graham told reporters after meeting Zelenskiy. The Ukrainians "don't need just nice statements anymore. They need the capability to get [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to the table. And that will only come when you can hurt Putin militarily." If Biden really wants Ukraine to prevail, he must allow Zelenskiy to execute his plan, he added. Zelenskiy told senators the plan is to hit specific targets, including air bases, that the Russian military uses in its attacks on Ukraine. Zelenskiy believes that attacking those targets would give him leverage to get Putin to negotiate, and Graham said he believes that too. As the diplomatic efforts took place, Ukraine felt the brunt of Russian attacks on September 25 and 26. At least eight people were killed and 44 wounded, regional officials reported. A child was wounded in Kyiv as the Ukrainian capital and more than 10 other regions came under a wave of Russian strikes early on September 26. Vadym Filashkin, the governor of Donetsk, said four people were killed and 19 were wounded across the region whose civilian areas were shelled 28 times. In Kherson, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said, two people were killed and 14 were wounded. A 62-year-old woman was killed in a rocket attack in the Odesa region, according to Governor Oleh Kiper, while one person died in Russian shelling of the Sumy region. Overnight shelling of the southern Zaporizhzhya region wounded eight people, one seriously, Governor Ivan Fedorov reported. Separately, Russia's Defense Ministry said its forces had captured Ukrayinsk, a town in Donetsk some 30 kilometers south of Pokrovsk, a key hub that has been in Moscow's crosshairs for the past few months. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/kyiv-zaporizhzhya-strikes -ukraine-russia/33135636.html Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian Defence Ministry reports on repelling AFU attempt to invade Russian territory in Kursk region (26 September 2024) 26.09.2024 The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are repelling an attack of the Armed Forces of Ukraine against the territory of the Russian Federation. Units of the Sever Group of Forces continued offensive operations and inflicted losses on formations of the 21st, 22nd, 41st mechanised brigades, 17th Tank Brigade, 95th Air Assault Brigade, 36th Marine Brigade, 112th, and 129th territorial defence brigades of the AFU near Lyubimovka, Daryino, Novy Put, Nikolayevo-Daryino, and Plekhovo. Over the past 24 hours, units of the Sever Group of Forces repelled one enemy counter-attack in the direction of Obukhovka. As a result, the AFU losses amounted to up to 15 troops killed and wounded; two armoured fighting vehicles and one motor vehicle were destroyed. With the support of Army Aviation and artillery fire, three AFU attempts to break through the border of the Russian Federation in the direction of Novy Put and Medvezhye were foiled. The AFU losses amounted to up to 40 troops killed and wounded, four armoured fighting vehicles, and two motor vehicles. Army Aviation and artillery fire inflicted losses on manpower and hardware clusters of the 21st, 22nd, 41st, 61st, 115th mechanised brigades, 17th Tank Brigade, 80th, 95th air assault brigades, 36th Marine Brigade, 103rd, and 129th territorial defence brigades of the AFU near Bogdanovka, Guyevo, Daryino, Kruglenkoye, Kubatkin, Knyazhy Pervy, Kositsa, Lyubimovka, Martynovka, Makhnovka, Malaya Obukhovka, Medvezhye, Novaya Sorochina, Novoivanovka, Novy Put, Orlovka, Plekhovo, Tolsty Lug, and Yuzhny. Operational-Tactical Aviation and Missile Troops delivered strikes in Sumy region at concentration areas and reserves of the 21st, 22nd, 41st, 47th, 115th mechanised brigades, 82nd, 95th air assault brigades, 1st National Guard Brigade, 101st, 103rd, 106th, 129th territorial defence brigades near Barilo, Belovody, Byvalino, Vorozhba, Zhuravka, Glukhov, Gurinovka, Zarutskoye, Iskriskovshchina, Kislaya Dubina, Katerinovka, Pavlovka, Rechki, Starye Virki, Stetskovka, Sumy, Shalygino, and Khoten. Over the past 24 hours, the AFU losses amounted to more than 340 troops and 12 armoured fighting vehicles as well as four artillery guns and 11 motor vehicles. Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk region, the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost more than 17,400 troops, 130 tanks, 62 infantry fighting vehicles, 95 armoured personnel carriers, 824 armoured fighting vehicles, 525 motor vehicles, 142 artillery guns, 31 MLRS launchers, including eight of HIMARS and six of MLRS made by the USA, eight SAM launchers, five transport-loading vehicles, 35 electronic warfare stations and eight counter-battery radars, two air defence radars, 18 engineering vehicles, including 11 counterobstacle vehicles and one UR-77 mine clearing vehicle, as well as one armoured recovery vehicle. The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress. Department for Media Affairs and Information NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Biden Announces Nearly $8 Billion in Latest Military Aid for Ukraine Amid Zelensky Visit Sputnik News 20240926 WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US President Joe Biden on Thursday announced nearly $8 billion in military assistance for Ukraine, including long-range weapons and an additional Patriot air defense battery, according to a statement released by the White House. "Today, I am announcing a surge in security assistance for Ukraine and a series of additional actions to help Ukraine win this war," Biden said in the statement, which the White House released ahead of his meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The assistance includes $2.4 billion for the purchase of new arms for Ukraine, as well as $5.55 billion worth of weapons to be drawn from Pentagon stockpiles under the so-called Presidential Drawdown Authority. As part of an initiative to increase Ukraine's air defenses, the aid package instructs the Department of Defense to provide Kiev with an additional refurbished Patriot air defense battery and associated Patriot missiles, Biden said in the statement. Additionally, the package includes Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) long-range munition, Unmanned Aerial Systems, and air-to-ground munitions intended to strengthen Ukraine's defense industrial base and support its maintenance. The Thursday announcement came hours after White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre commented it was unlikely the president would announce a decision on clearing Ukraine to use US-provided, long-range weapons for strikes into Russia. Russian President Vladmir Putin earlier highlighted that NATO countries were toeing the line as to whether they intended to become a direct player in the ongoing Ukraine conflict in light of reports concerning the potential approval for long-range weapons. Such a move would effectively "open up the avenue for escalation." "Let's face it," retired US Army Lt. Gen. Earl Rasmussen earlier told Sputnik, "when [Zelensky] goes deep into Russia, those weapons systems basically need intelligence from the United States - NATO and specifically the US." "The intelligence information provided, the targeting, the programing, all is not done by Ukrainians. So basically the West becomes a full participant in the conflict," he noted. Western countries have provided hundreds of billions of dollars worth of aid to Ukraine since the start of Russia's special military operation in February 2022. Aid shipments began in 2022 with artillery munitions and training and have escalated to include tanks, advanced air-defense systems, missiles and cluster munitions. The Kremlin has consistently warned against the West's continued arms deliveries to Ukraine, saying that they only prolong the conflict. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN Spokesman on Ukraine's Strikes Deep Into Russia: We Want to See End to This War Sputnik News 20240926 UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik), Liudmila Chernova - The United Nations wants to see an end to the Ukraine conflict, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told Sputnik, commenting on deliberations by Washington on whether to allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russia. "Our focus, and we've been very clear, is that we want to see an end to this war," Dujarric said on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. "We want to see an end to this war in line with international law, General Assembly resolutions and the territorial integrity of Ukraine. I think, for the sake of people in Russia, for the sake of people in Ukraine, we need to see an end to this war in line with the principles I just stated," he noted. Moscow hopes the United States has "enough sense and reason" not to allow Kiev to strike deep into Russia, a nuclear power, with US-supplied weapons, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin earlier told Sputnik on the UNGA sidelines. Ukraine's request to use US-supplied long-range weapons deep in Russian territory will be discussed during Volodymyr Zelensky's meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday, White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby said. Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier that NATO countries are not only discussing the possibility of letting Kiev use Western long-range weapons against Russia, but are essentially deciding whether to get directly involved in the Ukraine conflict. The direct participation of Western countries in the Ukraine conflict would change its essence, and Moscow would be forced to make decisions based on the threats that would be created against Russia, he added. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are expected to discuss the Middle East, Ukraine and other issues of interest to both parties during a bilateral meeting on the UN General Assembly sidelines on Thursday. "The Secretary General will indeed meet with the Foreign Minister Lavrov later this afternoon," Dujarric said. "Obviously, Russia being a permanent member of the Security Council, there are a number of issues that I'm sure they will discuss whether it's the situation in the Middle East, the situation in Ukraine and a number of other global issues." The United Nations has grave concerns about the risk of a major ground war in Lebanon amid an escalation between Israel and Hezbollah, the spokesman told Sputnik. "We are extremely worried at the risk of a major ground war in Lebanon," Dujarric said on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. "I think it is clear that we cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza. It is clear that the people of Lebanon and the people of Israel cannot afford a conflict." Dujarric stressed that in any conflict, it is the civilians who are paying the ultimate price, pointing out that more than 100,000 Lebanese have already had to leave everything behind and flee the south as well as tens of 1000s of Israelis have had to do the same in the north. "People have been displaced. People are suffering. There is no military solution to this problem," he stated. "There is a Security Council resolution 1701, that provides the framework on how to end this conflict, on how to bring the state of the authority of the state of Lebanon back to southern Lebanon to control its own territory. That's what we want to see." Israel began carrying out massive strikes on southern and eastern Lebanon last week after announcing a new phase of its war effort in the region, with the focus on the northern front. Hezbollah, in turn, fired dozens of rockets toward northern Israel. On Monday alone, Israeli airstrikes killed 558 people, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said. The escalation was preceded by a series of explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon from September 17-18, which killed over 40 people and injured nearly 3,500 others. Guterres will discuss any issues brought forward by the Russian foreign minister, Dujarric said. "All that being said, we have to see how the meeting goes," he added. The 79th session of the UNGA opened on September 10. The annual debate will take place on September 24-28 and September 30. The United Nations must strengthen itself as an institution while working with other international organizations like BRICS, the spokesman added. "The Secretary-General [Antonio Guterres] has been engaged with the BRICS countries ... he engages because it's important for him as Secretary-General of the UN. But it's also important to remind people that we need to strengthen the one multilateral institution that represents every member state, and that's the United Nations," he said. Guterres will continue to engage BRICS and other groups on economic and political issues, Dujarric said. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian Forces Liberate Key Settlement in Donbass and Strike Ukrainian Military Infrastructure Sputnik News 20240926 The Russian Ministry of Defense has reported that units of the Tsentr Battlegroup have taken the settlement of Ukrainsk in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR). "As a result of decisive actions by the Tsentr Battlegroup, the settlement of Ukrainsk in the Donetsk People's Republic has been liberated," the statement said. Additionally, Russian forces targeted a military airfield and energy facilities that supported Ukraine's military-industrial complex. "Operational-tactical aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile forces, and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces have struck energy facilities supporting Ukraine's military-industrial complex, as well as the infrastructure of a military airfield," the ministry noted. According to the report, air defense systems shot down a long-range Neptune missile, three Hammer-guided bombs from France, five HIMARS rockets from the US, and 45 aircraft-type drones. In response to Ukrainian attacks on civilian objects, Russian forces have regularly conducted precision strikes on locations of personnel, equipment, mercenaries, and enemy infrastructure, including energy facilities, defense industries, military command, and communication sites. Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has repeatedly emphasized that the Russian military does not target residential buildings or social institutions. Russian servicemen of the 275th Self-propelled Artillery Regiment and 1st Guards Tank Army of the West group of forces fire a BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launcher toward Ukrainian positions - Sputnik International, 1920, 25.09.2024 Other developments: Battlegroup Tsentr: - Repelled 10 Ukrainian counterattacks in a single day. - Inflicted losses of up to 670 Ukrainian soldiers, a tank, and two armored vehicles. - Targeted the 53rd, 100th, 110th, 151st Mechanized and 68th Ranger Brigades, as well as the 116th Territorial Defense Brigade in multiple locations across the DPR. - Destroyed five vehicles, two 152-mm D-20 howitzers, and a 152-mm Giatsint-B gun. Battlegroup Yug: - Successfully pushed back Ukrainian formations, causing losses of up to 750 soldiers. - Targeted the 24th and 54th Mechanized Brigades and 119th Territorial Defense Brigade in Seversk, Kramatorsk, and other areas. - Destroyed 10 vehicles, as well as US-made M777 howitzers, Polish-made Krab artillery systems, and several electronic warfare stations. Battlegroup Sever: - Inflicted losses of up to 235 Ukrainian soldiers. - Targeted the Ukrainian 57th Motorized Infantry Brigade, 36th Marine Brigade, and 113th Territorial Defense Brigade in the Kharkov region. - Destroyed a 122-mm Grad MLRS, a 152-mm D-20 howitzer, and a 122-mm D-30 howitzer. Battlegroup Vostok: - Inflicted losses of up to 130 soldiers, a tank, and three infantry fighting vehicles. - Targeted Ukraine's 72nd Mechanized Brigade and 118th Territorial Defense Brigade in Ugledar and other areas. - Destroyed a French-made Caesar self-propelled artillery system and several vehicles. Battlegroup Zapad: - Gained better positions and repelled a counterattack, inflicting losses of up to 435 Ukrainian soldiers. - Targeted Ukraine's 3rd Tank Brigade, as well as the 14th, 44th, 53rd, and 66th Mechanized Brigades in various areas of Kharkov and Donetsk. - Destroyed two electronic warfare stations and two ammunition depots. Battlegroup Dnepr: - Gained more favorable positions, inflicting losses on Ukrainian forces, including 60 soldiers. - Destroyed a 155-mm Bogdana self-propelled artillery system, 152-mm MSTA-B howitzer, and a P-19 radar station. - Targeted formations in Ponyatovka and Antonovka in the Kherson region. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Two years of terror following Russia's attempted annexation of Ukrainian oblasts: UK statement to the OSCE Ambassador Holland calls out Russia's illegal attempted annexation of Ukrainian territory and the system of violence and terror that accompanies Russian occupation. 26 September 2024 Thank you, Madam Chair. Next week marks the second anniversary of Russia's illegal annexation attempts in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts. Russia claims these land grabs, and ten years of control over Crimea, have brought liberty. On the contrary, these years of occupation have brought violence, terror, and occupation. Carried out under the guise of sham referenda and backed by military force, Russia aims to legitimise its aggression and create a false narrative of rightful control over Ukrainian land. First implemented in Crimea, the Russian state has expanded to the newly occupied territories a systematic campaign, designed to suppress Ukrainian heritage, history, and language. This campaign goes beyond territorial ambitions; it seeks to dismantle the idea of Ukraine as a distinct nation, stripping away the cultural and national identity of its people. We continue to be appalled by widespread reports of violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and violations and abuses of International Human Rights Law (IHRL) within the temporarily occupied territories. As the independent Moscow Mechanism reports have shown, arbitrary detentions, forced deportations, and the persecution of civilians are prevalent. Particularly alarming is the forced deportation and indoctrination of Ukrainian children. The most recent report details the atrocious conditions faced by both civilians and prisoners of war held in detention, and the widespread and systematic use of torture, as well as sexual violence. In recent weeks, we have also seen media reports of POWs being executed in the most barbaric manner. Russia is also deliberately targeting Ukraine's cultural heritage in the territory it occupies. Museums, religious sites, and historic buildings have been bombed, looted, or appropriated. This systematic destruction of cultural sites not only devastates the physical symbols of Ukraine's heritage but also attempts to erase crucial elements of its national identity. Madam Chair, Russia's annexation attempts are a clear violation of the Helsinki Final Act, which enshrines the principle of territorial integrity and the inviolability of national borders. As a signatory, Russia committed to respect the sovereignty and independence of all states in the OSCE region, including Ukraine. They made the same pledge more directly in the Budapest Memorandum in the 1990s. By attempting to seize Ukrainian territory through force, Russia has flagrantly disregarded these principles. Moreover, the purported annexations represent a breach of the Paris Charter of 1990, in which all participating nations, including Russia, reaffirmed their commitment to peaceful relations, the rule of law, and the right of nations to determine their own destiny without external interference. Russia's continued imperialist ambitions destabilise the world, creating insecurity for all. We must call it what it is. And We must stand together to resist this dangerous expansionism. Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts, and Crimea are all irrefutably part of Ukraine. The UK will never recognise Russia's illegitimate claims to these regions. We call upon Russia to immediately cease its unprovoked illegal war and withdraw its forces unconditionally from all of Ukraine. Thank you. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Volodymyr Zelenskyy Presented the Victory Plan to the President of the United States President of Ukraine 26 September 2024 - 23:48 In Washington, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President of the United States Joseph Biden and presented the Victory Plan. The President of Ukraine expressed his gratitude to Joseph Biden for his resolute support and the decisions that help protect Ukraine and its people. "We deeply appreciate that Ukraine and America have stood side by side from the very first moments of this terrible Russian invasion. Your determination is incredibly important for us to prevail," Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted. The President also expressed his gratitude for the announced $7.9 billion package, which will support our warriors on the frontline. "aI want to thank you for all the years of supporting Ukraine, our independence. I remember how important your phone call to Kyiv was on the first day of the Russian invasion. And I also remember your visit to Ukraine at a critical moment in February 2023 - it was a brave decision," the President of Ukraine said. He presented the Victory Plan to the U.S. President. The leaders discussed the diplomatic, economic, and military aspects of the Plan and instructed their teams to hold consultations on the future steps. On October 12, Joseph Biden will hold a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at the level of leaders in Germany. The Presidents of Ukraine and the United States will have a bilateral meeting to review the progress of consultations. Also, they will meet with international partners to coordinate additional support for Ukraine. Joseph Biden assured that the United States will provide all necessary support for Ukraine to prevail and announced a decision to increase security assistance. "First, right now we have to strengthen Ukraine's position on the battlefield, and that's why today I'm proud to announce a new $2.4 billion package of security assistance. I've also directed the Pentagon to allocate all the remaining security assistance funding that has been appropriated for Ukraine by the end of my term, which is January 20th. And this will strengthen Ukraine's position in future negotiations. Second, we look ahead to help Ukraine succeed in the long term," the U.S. President emphasized. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address President of Ukraine Briefed Members of the U.S. House of Representatives on the Victory Plan President of Ukraine 26 September 2024 - 22:17 In Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with a bipartisan delegation from the U.S. House of Representatives, including Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, members of the Armed Services Committee led by Chairman Mike Rogers, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul, Co-Chair Adam Smith, Chairman of the Intelligence Committee Mike Turner, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. The President emphasized that freedom relies on bipartisan support and determination of the United States. "This is a very important opportunity to meet. I am grateful for the strong support of Ukraine by the United States, which saves the lives of our people and helps defend our independence and freedom," said the President. Volodymyr Zelenskyy presented the key points of the Victory Plan to the members of the House of Representatives and provided a detailed overview of the war and the situation on the battlefield. "We are at a critical juncture in this war. With the Kursk operation, we have shown that Putin does not have the strength to hold out when we apply real pressure. That is why we need strong pressure and strong positions for Ukraine right now to force Russia into peace. And we have prepared a plan, an urgent plan, to strengthen us on the path to victory," the President stated. The President called for assistance in ensuring that Ukraine is given permission and the necessary means to strike military targets in Russia. Key topics of the meeting included protecting Ukraine's energy grid and preparing for the winter, blocking the supply of Western components to the aggressor state, developing and deploying Ukrainian long-range capabilities. Volodymyr Zelenskyy also called for investing in Ukraine's defense production. Additionally, the parties discussed ensuring free navigation in the Black Sea and Ukraine's success in destroying the Russian Black Sea Fleet. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Volodymyr Zelenskyy Briefed U.S. Senate Members on the Victory Plan President of Ukraine 26 September 2024 - 20:43 In Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with a bipartisan delegation from the U.S. Senate, led by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, to present the key points of the Victory Plan. The President expressed his gratitude to both parties in the Senate, the U.S. Administration, and the entire American people for their vital military, economic, energy, and humanitarian support for Ukraine. "We have many friends here in the U.S. capital who have stood shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainians in the fight for freedom and independence since the very first days of the full-scale invasion. I thank every member of the Senate for this support," said the President. According to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meetings like this are especially crucial right now, as Russia is intensifying missile attacks on critical infrastructure ahead of the heating season. Among the topics discussed with the U.S. Senators, the focus was on the frontline situation, the immediate needs of Ukrainian warriors, joint weapons production, and key areas for continued American support. Ukraine's priority is to secure additional air defense systems and missiles. A separate focus of the conversation was stepping up sanctions pressure on the aggressor state, as well as using the revenues from frozen Russian assets for Ukraine's needs. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address More than 30 Countries and the EU Adopted a Joint Declaration of Support for Recovery and Reconstruction of Ukraine President of Ukraine 26 September 2024 - 02:06 The G7 + Ukraine meeting took place in New York, where more than 30 countries and the European Union adopted a Joint Declaration of Support for Recovery and Reconstruction of Ukraine. While adopting the Joint Declaration, speeches were delivered by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of the United States Joseph Biden, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Keir Starmer, President of the Council of Ministers of Italy Giorgia Meloni, and Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau. Joseph Biden stressed that this declaration is made public to reaffirm their support for Ukraine now and in the future. "I am determined to ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to prevail in its fight for survival. Tomorrow, I will announce a series of actions to accelerate support for Ukraine's military," the U.S. President said. He also emphasized that the partner countries will help Ukraine move from economic stability to economic revival. According to Joseph Biden, the proceeds from frozen Russian assets will be used to rebuild our country. Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that this joint commitment will contribute to Ukraine's recovery. It provides for the coordination of relevant recovery efforts through the Ukrainian Donor Platform. The President stressed that this support should become tangible this year. "This reflects our shared vision of life - we protect people, and we ensure that people have the opportunities to live. And it is absolutely justified that those who help us withstand now will be the first to benefit together with Ukraine from the large-scale reconstruction," the President of Ukraine said. The main points of the declaration are: comprehensive support for the reconstruction of Ukraine on its path to EU membership, coordination of support through the Ukrainian Donor Platform, the provision of additional financial assistance of about $50 billion by the end of the year from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets, some of which will be used for defense needs. The signatories clearly stated that by collectively supporting Ukraine's reconstruction and recovery, they will ensure Russia's inability to achieve its goals and will do everything possible to ensure that Ukraine has a post-war economy that is resilient to Russian threats. The Joint Declaration is open for signature. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Joint Declaration of Support for Recovery and Reconstruction of Ukraine President of Ukraine 26 September 2024 - 01:22 We, the Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7), reaffirm our unwavering support for Ukraine today and in the future, in war and in peace. As stated in the Apulia-G7 Leaders' CommuniquA, together with international partners, we remain determined to provide military, budget, humanitarian, and reconstruction support to Ukraine and its people and are strongly committed to helping Ukraine meet its urgent short-term financing needs and to assisting with Ukraine's long-term recovery and reconstruction. We dispel any false notion that time is on Russia's side or that Russia can prevail by causing Ukraine to fail economically. Russia's war of aggression has wrought tremendous damage upon Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Today, we reaffirm a series of commitments to counter its effects. First, Russia's responsibility under international law to pay for the damage it is causing is clear. We reaffirm that, consistent with all applicable laws and our respective legal systems, Russia's sovereign assets in our jurisdictions will remain immobilized until Russia ends its aggression and pays for the damage it has caused to Ukraine. Second, we commit to use our economic assistance to ensure Ukraine maintains macro-financial stability, to repair and build critical infrastructure including in the energy sector, to boost economic growth, to support social resilience as well as the implementation of priority reforms. These include improving the business climate, strengthening anti-corruption efforts, implementing the justice system reform and promoting of the rule of law within the context of the EU accession process. We will also support Ukraine to ensure rapid and transparent absorption of donor financing. Third, we are continuing our joint work to implement the decision made at the G7 Summit in Apulia to launch Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration (ERA) Loans for Ukraine by the end of the year, in order to make available approximately USD 50 billion in additional funding to Ukraine. The loans will be serviced and repaid by the future flows of extraordinary revenues stemming from the immobilization of Russian sovereign assets held in the European Union and other relevant jurisdictions. Part of these funds will be directed to military assistance to Ukraine. We will maintain solidarity in our commitment to providing this support to Ukraine. Fourth, we will continue to pursue our vision also by strategizing, coordinating and steering our support for Ukraine's economic recovery and reconstruction through the Ukraine Donor Platform. This will include catalyzing private sector contributions as well as leveraging bilateral, European Union, and international financial institution funding, and encouraging Ukraine's reform agenda in view of the country's accession path to the EU. We will continue to support Ukraine's human capital through our ongoing response to humanitarian needs and social protection. Finally, we will continue to assess and monitor progress on these commitments through Ukraine Donor Platform meetings and the annual Ukraine Recovery Conference, the next edition of which will be hosted by Italy in 2025. In order to implement the above-mentioned commitments, we will each work to provide Ukraine with specific, bilateral support aligned with this joint declaration and with the bilateral security agreements and arrangements that have been negotiated and signed with Ukraine. For its part, Ukraine is committed to implementing its economic, judiciary, anti-corruption, corporate governance, defense, public administration, public investment management and law enforcement reforms. These reforms are necessary and will be vital to enabling long-term support for Ukrainian reconstruction and recovery. Our message is clear: we remain committed to the strategic objective of a free, independent, democratic and sovereign Ukraine, within its internationally recognized borders, that is prosperous and able to defend itself. We highlight the importance of an inclusive and gender-responsive recovery and the need to address the different needs of women, children and disabled persons as well as other population groups who have been disproportionately affected by Russia's war of aggression. Through our collective support for Ukrainian reconstruction and recovery, we will ensure that Russia fails in its objectives to subjugate Ukraine - and that Ukraine emerges from Russia's war of aggression with a modernized, vibrant, inclusive society and innovative economy, resilient to Russian threats. Other countries that wish to contribute to this effort in support of Ukraine's long-term reconstruction and recovery may join this Joint Declaration at any time. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Volodymyr Zelenskyy Met with Joseph Biden President of Ukraine 26 September 2024 - 01:16 President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a meeting with U.S. President Joseph Biden on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Joseph Biden and the United States for all the support provided to Ukraine, which is saving the lives of Ukrainians and helping the state maintain its independence. The Ukrainian leader briefed the U.S. President on the situation in Ukraine, particularly on the frontlines. Volodymyr Zelenskyy focused on the Plan for Victory. The leaders agreed to discuss it during negotiations in Washington on September 26. The Presidents also took part in a special G7+ meeting on the reconstruction of Ukraine. More than 30 countries and the European Union signed a declaration focused on Ukraine's post-war recovery. "After the devastating Second World War, the Allies launched the Marshall Plan, which gave peace the strength to become truly lasting. Today, we are laying the foundation for a similar architecture of recovery - one that will promote peace for Ukraine and all of Europe and the general welfare " Volodymyr Zelensky said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Today, We Are Laying the Foundation for the Architecture of Recovery - Speech by the President at the G7+ Ukraine Meeting President of Ukraine 26 September 2024 - 01:05 Thank you so much! Dear President Biden, Dear leaders, dear our friends, I'm grateful to all of you for your unity in protecting lives. We previously gathered at the NATO Summit in Vilnius to strengthen our defense cooperation. We do value the G7 security declaration and the 26 bilateral security agreements, which fortify us all. And now, more than 30 countries and the EU have agreed to the declaration, truly strong declaration focused on rebuilding Ukraine after the hostilities. This is a shared commitment to help rebuild Ukraine and support our path to the EU. It involves coordinating recovery efforts through the Ukrainian Donor Platform, ensuring that our joint ideas become a reality. And it's crucial that this support becomes tangible this year. That's why additional financial resources are planned by the end of the year, with access to $50 billion in immobilized assets from the aggressor state - Russia, which brought this war upon us. This reflects our shared vision of life - we protect people, and we ensure that people have the opportunities to live. And it is absolutely justified that those who help us withstand now will be the first to benefit together with Ukraine from the large-scale reconstruction. Security and prosperity are tightly intertwined, and one cannot exist without the other. Sadly, throughout history, wars have too often shattered the destinies of generations - lasting a few years but poisoning lives for decades. Together, we can prevent this now. We must not leave behind ruins that would spread resentment and bitterness after this war. This task can only be achieved together. After the devastating Second World War, the Allies launched the Marshall Plan, which gave peace the strength to become truly lasting. Today, we are laying the foundation for a similar architecture of recovery - one that will promote peace for Ukraine and all of Europe and the general welfare. I thank President Biden and all you, friends, and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for their support in organizing today's meeting and for their unwavering leadership in protecting our lives. Thank you all, my friends! I am confident - life will prevail. Thank you! NNN! NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Zelenskyy meets Biden, Harris amid Republican allegation of election interference By Patsy Widakuswara September 26, 2024 Partisan politics ahead of America's November presidential election intruded Thursday on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's meeting with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss U.S. support for the war in Ukraine. From the White House, Biden insisted that Russia would not succeed in its war that began when it invaded Ukraine in February 2022. "Ukraine will prevail, and we'll continue to stand by you every step of the way," Biden said. Meeting separately with Zelenskyy, Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, reiterated the administration's support for Kyiv's war efforts and underscored that it's up to Ukraine to decide how the war will end. Without mentioning his name, Harris criticized Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance, whose proposal to end the war would leave Ukraine with less territory and no NATO membership. "These proposals are the same of those of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. And let us be clear: They are not proposals for peace," Harris said. "Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable." Vance suggested in a recent interview that Ukraine and Russia halt fighting and create a demilitarized zone at the current battle lines. Kyiv would need to adhere to a neutral status and stop its bid to join NATO. On Wednesday, congressional Republicans loyal to former President Donald Trump demanded that the Ukrainian leader fire his ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, over Zelenskyy's Monday visit to an ammunition factory in Pennsylvania, a hotly contested battleground state in the November U.S. presidential election. Zelenskyy met with the Democratic governor of the state, Josh Shapiro. In a letter to Zelenskyy, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said the visit to the factory that made munitions for Ukraine was a "partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats" that amounted to "election interference." "Support for ending Russia's war against Ukraine continues to be bipartisan, but our relationship is unnecessarily tested and needlessly tarnished when the candidates at the top of the Republican presidential ticket are targeted in the media by officials in your government," Johnson said. The White House called Johnson's letter a "political stunt" and pointed out that Zelenskyy recently met the Republican governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, in a "similar event." Johnson's reaction reflects Republican anxiety over the prospect of a Harris victory in Pennsylvania, home to many Ukrainian Americans, said Sergiy Kudelia, an associate professor of political science at Baylor University. "It's a key blue-wall state. Without it, Trump would have a hard time winning the election," he told VOA. "Given the number of Ukrainians living in Pennsylvania, close to 150,000, Ukrainian Americans could become a key voting bloc capable of swinging the race to one or the other side." Meeting with Trump Later on Thursday, Trump said he would meet with Zelenskyy on Friday at Trump Tower in New York. The Republican presidential nominee has in recent days increased his criticism that the U.S. continues to "give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal" to end the war. On Wednesday, Trump suggested that Biden and Harris were at fault for prolonging the war that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. "Biden and Kamala allowed this to happen by feeding Zelenskyy money and munitions like no country has ever seen before," Trump said. He argued that Kyiv should have made concessions to Moscow before Russian troops attacked, asserting that Ukraine was now "in rubble" and in no position to negotiate the war's end. "Any deal a the worst deal a would've been better than what we have now," Trump said. Trump's comments created anxiety not only in Ukraine but also in some European capitals that have been supporting Kyiv's war efforts, said Ian Lesser, distinguished fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. "To turn that around and suddenly give Moscow a great deal more leverage by calling into question the flow of arms to Ukraine, political support for Ukraine, et cetera, is handing a victory to Moscow," he told VOA. Deeper strikes The topics that leaders discussed Thursday included Ukraine's request for weapons donors to allow Ukrainian forces to use the weapons to strike targets deeper inside Russia. "I raised with President Biden [our] plan of victory today. We are preparing to discuss the details to strengthen the plan [and] coordinate our positions, use and approach," Zelenskyy said. Ukrainian leaders say such strikes are needed to degrade Russia's ability to carry out its daily missile and drone attacks. But the Biden administration has been reluctant to agree because of concerns about escalation. Russia, a nuclear power, has warned that arming Kyiv with long-range weapons would escalate the conflict beyond Ukraine. "It will mean that NATO countries, the United States, European countries, are at war with Russia," Putin said earlier this month. Kyiv's request has bipartisan support, including from Republican Senator Lindsay Graham. "If you allow Ukraine to start hitting legitimate military targets to put pressure on Putin, you're doing the next president a great service, whether it's Trump or Harris. They'll have some leverage to end this war," he told reporters Thursday. "He has specific military targets," Graham said of Zelenskyy's plan for victory. "If he could start executing that plan, that gives us the best hope of ending this war in 2025." Ahead of Zelenskyy's visit, the U.S. administration announced $8 billion in new aid for Ukraine. In a statement, Biden said the aid included a Patriot missile battery and missiles, as well as air-to-ground munitions and a precision-guided glide bomb with a range of up to 130 kilometers. The administration is also expanding training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots to include an additional 18 pilots next year. Zelenskyy thanked the U.S., saying the new aid included "the items that are most critical to protecting our people." "We will use this assistance in the most efficient and transparent manner to achieve our major common goal: victory for Ukraine, just and lasting peace, and transatlantic security," Zelenskyy said on social media platform X. VOA's Tatiana Vorozhko, Katherine Gypson and Chris Hannas contributed to this report. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukraine shoots down 66 of 78 Russian drones By VOA News September 26, 2024 Ukraine's military said Thursday it shot down 66 of 78 Russian drones launched in overnight attacks, along with all four guided missiles fired by Russian forces. The intercepts took place over the Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Poltava, Sumy and Vinnytsia regions, the military said. Officials in Kyiv said Thursday that Ukrainian air defenses shot down about a dozen Russian drones overnight, with falling debris causing a fire at a residential building and damaging a gas pipeline. Russia's Defense Ministry said Thursday it shot down four Ukrainian drones over the Belgorod region, two drones over the Kursk region and another drone over Bryansk. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the regional governor of Belgorod, said one person was killed in a drone attack that struck a car. Some information for this story came from The Associated Press and Reuters. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UK foreign secretary: 'We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Ukrainians' By Iryna Solomko September 26, 2024 Among the issues on the agenda for world leaders who gathered this week for the United Nations General Assembly is Russia's war against Ukraine. In an interview in New York with VOA's Ukrainian Service, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said his nation stands "shoulder-to-shoulder with the Ukrainians" and will provide Ukraine with military aid for "as long as it takes" to help it "stand off this aggression." He also cited intelligence findings that Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing mounting problems, with a deteriorating economy and mounting battlefield losses. The following has been edited for length and clarity. VOA: Have you had the chance to discuss with your counterparts in other countries, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the issue of lifting restrictions on Ukraine using long-range Western missiles against targets inside Russia? U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy: It was very important for me to be with Secretary Blinken in Ukraine just two weeks ago to see for ourselves, to discuss with [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy ... also to discuss Ukraine's needs as they head out of the autumn into the winter, and that we continue as allies to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position to stand off this aggression that we're seeing from Vladimir Putin. That was why I also went to the White House with [U.K.] Prime Minister [Keir] Starmer. We remain in the U.K. absolutely clear that we stand shoulder to shoulder with the Ukrainians. It's important that Ukraine has the finances and the money, the military aid, as well as the political, diplomatic and humanitarian aid, to get through 2025. And of course, here at the U.N. General Assembly, I will meet with Zelenskyy once again today. But, also, it's hugely important that we rally the Global South to ensure that they're not falling into the trap of Russian propaganda ... and efforts to destabilize [and distract] the international community ... when in fact what they are doing is taking ballistic missiles from Iran to use against [Ukrainian] men, women and children. VOA: You've already mentioned this meeting between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington. Can you share the details of the conversation? Lammy: I do think it is very important for us in the U.K. and Europe, and of course in the United States, to understand more the details of President Zelenskyy's "victory plan." And over the coming days, he will present that in detail to close allies. And of course, I'm not going to speculate what's in the papers ... because I don't want to give any advantage to Vladimir Putin. But I am really clear that this is a time for Western allies to show nerve and guts, because Vladimir Putin thinks that we'll get distracted. He thinks that we haven't got the attention span to stand with our Ukrainian friends. That's why we in the U.K. have found 3 billion pounds for Ukraine to buy and have the military equipment it needs, not just this year, [but] for every year as long as it takes. And that's what I said to my G7 allies last night when I met with them. That's the position we've got to ensure Ukraine is in. VOA: When do you think this crucial decision could be made? Lammy: We meet here in the U.N. General Assembly. I know that President Zelenskyy is meeting with President Biden a little bit later in the week also in Washington. We will head on to the G20 [summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November 18-19, 2024] as well. So, over the coming days and weeks, I expect us to be in a very strong position to ensure that Ukraine is in the best position it can be as we head into that tough winter in 2025. And let's just be clear about what I mean by that. All of our intelligence actually suggests things are going to get a lot tougher for Vladimir Putin as he comes out of next year. His economy is in trouble. He's going to find it very problematic with the amount of losses and casualties that he's taking. And actually, when you look at what Ukraine is doing a their ability to take back half the ground that's been lost, their ability to repel him from the Black Sea, their ability to advance in Kursk and hopefully keep the ground a this is a time for Western countries to show their nerve and to be absolutely committed as we head out of the autumn into the winter period. VOA: What do you say to people, including leaders, who warn that allowing Ukraine to use long-range weapons to strike inside Russia could lead to a third world war? Lammy: Well, we're really clear that under the U.N. Charter and under Article 51, Ukraine has the right to defend itself, to defend itself against the horrendous attacks that are coming from Russia, and we will do all we can within international law and the rules of engagement to support Ukraine to defend itself. VOA: You said that the war between Russia and Ukraine is likely to continue for at least another two years. Will Ukraine and the West will have enough to stand so long? Lammy: Let's be clear: The war could end tomorrow if Putin left. That's how it ends: Leave Ukraine. But in the absence of Putin showing any desire to negotiate, we have to continue to stand with Ukraine, because the cost of not standing with Ukraine would actually be financially far greater. You know, defense spending would rise substantially across all Western allies, and indeed, there will be a very vulnerable Baltic frontier in relation to Putin's threats. So, that is why we stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. And I'm quite sure that ... this war will only be settled in the end politically, of course. That also gets into the security guarantees that Ukraine needs. And we've always believed in the U.K. that that path to Ukraine joining NATO is a very important dimension of that security guarantee. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Readout of President Biden's Meeting with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine September 26, 2024 President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. met today with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine at the White House to discuss U.S. support for Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression. President Biden outlined his decision to surge U.S. security assistance to Ukraine, and President Zelenskyy presented his plan to achieve victory over Russia. The two leaders discussed the diplomatic, economic, and military aspects of President Zelenskyy's plan and tasked their teams to engage in intensive consultations regarding next steps. On October 12, 2024, President Biden will host a leader-level meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany, where the two leaders will review progress on these consultations and coordinate with international partners on additional assistance for Ukraine. President Biden is determined to provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win. ### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Statement from President Joe Biden on U.S. Support for Ukraine September 26, 2024 I am proud to welcome President Zelenskyy back to the White House today. For nearly three years, the United States has rallied the world to stand with the people of Ukraine as they defend their freedom from Russian aggression, and it has been a top priority of my Administration to provide Ukraine with the support it needs to prevail. In that time, Ukraine has won the battle of Kyiv, reclaimed more than half the territory that Russia seized at the start of the war, and safeguarded its sovereignty and independence. But there is more work to do. That is why, today, I am announcing a surge in security assistance for Ukraine and a series of additional actions to help Ukraine win this war. Today, I am announcing that: I have directed the Department of Defense to allocate all of its remaining security assistance funding that has been appropriated for Ukraine by the end of my term in office. As part of this effort, the Department of Defense will allocate the remaining Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funds by the end of this year. I also have authorized $5.5 billion in Presidential Drawdown Authority to ensure this authority does not expire, so that my Administration can fully utilize the funding appropriated by Congress to support the drawdown of U.S. equipment for Ukraine and then replenish U.S. stockpiles. The Department of Defense is announcing $2.4 billion in security assistance through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which will provide Ukraine with additional air defense, Unmanned Aerial Systems, and air-to-ground munitions, as well as strengthen Ukraine's defense industrial base and support its maintenance and sustainment requirements. To enhance Ukraine's long-range strike capabilities, I have decided to provide Ukraine with the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) long-range munition. To further strengthen Ukraine's air defenses, I have directed the Department of Defense to refurbish and provide Ukraine with an additional Patriot air defense battery and to provide Ukraine with additional Patriot missiles. This builds on my decision earlier this year to divert U.S. air defense exports to Ukraine, which will provide Ukraine with hundreds of additional Patriot and AMRAAM missiles over the next year and will help Ukraine defend its cities and its people. To build the capacity of Ukraine's air force, I have directed the Department of Defense to expand training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots, including by supporting the training of an additional 18 pilots next year. To counter Russian sanctions evasion and money laundering, the Department of Justice, the Department of the Treasury, and the U.S. Secret Service have taken action today to disrupt a global cryptocurrency network, in coordination with international partners. The United States will continue to raise the costs on Russia for its war in Ukraine and to deprive the Russian defense industrial base of resources. I will convene a leader-level meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany next month to coordinate the efforts of the more than 50 countries supporting Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression. Through these actions, my message is clear: The United States will provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win this war. ### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UNGA Debates Disarmament After Putin Proposes Revisions To Russian Nuclear Doctrine By Zachary Vargo September 26, 2024 The UN General Assembly on September 26 marked the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons with a long debate on nuclear disarmament that coincidentally came just one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin caused alarm by proposing revisions to his country's nuclear doctrine. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres cited Russia at the start of the session, telling delegations that the United Nations must call on Russia "to return to the nuclear arms disarmament process." Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has withdrawn from two important nuclear treaties, raising concerns about the use of nuclear weapons in the conflict. Putin further raised concerns on September 25 when he unveiled a new version of the Russian nuclear doctrine. The revised version of the document would allow the use of nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states when they are supported by nuclear powers. The new text "proposes that aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear-weapon state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear-weapon state, should be considered as a joint attack on the Russian Federation." Throughout the UNGA session it was apparent that the nations of the world were unequivocally against Putin's updated doctrine. Putin's comments came just one day before the 10th annual International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, which was designated by the United Nations to promote nonproliferation, disarmament, and the subsequent elimination of nuclear weapons. "Achieving global nuclear disarmament is the highest disarmament priority of the United Nations," the organization said on its website detailing the designation of September 26 as International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Despite the efforts of the world body, more than 12,000 nuclear weapons remain in the eight declared nuclear countries -- Russia, China, the United States, Britain, France, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Israel is believed to possess nuclear weapons but operates on a policy of nondisclosure. During the high-level meeting, representatives of all 193 UN member states were given an opportunity to speak on nuclear disarmament. Many of the delegates joined Guterres in arguing for the total elimination of nuclear weapons, who told the meeting they "deliver no real security or stability." The U.S. representative Mallory Stewart, assistant secretary at the Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability, said that the United States was "ready to engage constructively with Russia on bilateral arms control." At the same time, she highlighted Putin's withdrawal from key agreements and his rejection of "dialogue and transparency." In 2023, Putin both revoked Russian ratification of a global nuclear test ban treaty and suspended the New START nuclear treaty with the United States. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Putin has often touted Russia's nuclear arsenal and has issued warning about the use of nuclear weapons if Russia's national sovereignty were to ever be threatened. Stewart also spoke on the deterrence and security provided by the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which she said extends to U.S. allies, thus eliminating the need for others to pursue nuclear programs of their own. Delegates from South Africa and Libya, which are among the few countries that had nuclear weapons programs and chose to disband them, also spoke, calling for nuclear weapons to be given up entirely by all countries. In outlining their own choices, they hoped to show to other nuclear nations the feasibility of eliminating their nuclear weapons. Acting Libyan Foreign Minister Al-Taher Salem al-Baour asked nuclear weapons states to "do what other countries...have done" in getting rid nuclear weapons, calling them "weapons of destruction with no beneficial value." While several other delegates called for the total elimination of nuclear weapons, Fijian President Wiliame Katonivere said the climate of distrust was evident and that the existence of nuclear weapons would only lead to suffering. Many of the other speakers saw that progress achieved directly after the Cold War was slowly melting away, and Guterres was the most blunt about this, saying that the "risk of nuclear war is at heights not seen since the Cold War era." Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/nuclear-united-nations- guterres-putin-disarmament/33136597.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 Is This The End Of Nuclear Arms Control? By Ivan Gutterman September 26, 2024 "For the first time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have a direct threat to the use of nuclear weapons.... We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis," U.S. President Joe Biden said in 2022. The stark warning came after Russia's Vladimir Putin, suffering major setbacks in his full-scale invasion of Ukraine and forced to draft hundreds of thousands of civilians to bolster the military, said his government would "use all the means at our disposal" if Russia's territorial integrity was threatened. It was not the first time he had invoked the possibility of using nuclear weapons in connection with the war in Ukraine. "This is not a bluff," he said in a September 21, 2022, speech announcing a partial military mobilization. Despite Putin's rhetoric, Western officials have indicated they have seen no material preparations for a nuclear strike by Russia, and some experts have pointed out that the weapons "are not that useful to achieve military objectives." While a Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine seems unlikely, the risk of a new nuclear arms race continues to grow. Russia and the United States have withdrawn from several key arms control treaties over the past years, with only one -- the New START treaty -- still in force and due to expire in 2026. Russia says its participation in the treaty, which limits the numbers of nuclear warheads, launchers, and bombers the two signatories can deploy, is suspended, although it has promised to abide by the limits for now. If New START expires without a replacement, the two major nuclear powers -- for the first time since the START I treaty entered force 30 years ago, in 1994 -- will have no restrictions on how many nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles they can deploy. The erosion of nuclear arms control treaties began in the early 2000s, when the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Signed in 1972, this was one of the first treaties -- along with the interim agreement that resulted from the first Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, or SALT I, limiting deployed warheads, from the same year -- that aimed to avoid an arms race by maintaining parity between the Soviet Union and the United States. The ABM Treaty was designed to eliminate one of the reasons that the United States or Soviet Union would require a large arsenal: With only a limited capability to shoot down incoming missiles, there would be less need for overwhelming numbers of warheads. With the U.S. withdrawal, Russia immediately declared it would no longer abide by the limits agreed to in the START II treaty, which both powers had decided to adhere to even though the treaty had not formally entered into force. The next major bilateral treaty to fall was the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which banned ground-launched missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. The United States had long accused Russia of noncompliance with the treaty, with the Obama administration finding that a cruise missile tested by Russia in 2014 violated the treaty's range limits. The Trump administration announced that it would withdraw from the treaty in October 2018, with Russia responding in kind. These bilateral arms control treaties brought down the number of warheads from a peak of over 60,000 when the INF treaty was signed in 1987 to less than 10,000 when New START was signed in 2011. New Adversaries In addition to Russia's alleged violations of the INF treaty, the Trump administration cited China's nonparticipation and the need to prepare for a potential conflict in the Southern Pacific. China's expansion of its nuclear arsenal poses an obstacle to nuclear negotiations that did not exist during the Cold War, when non-American and Soviet arsenals -- and ambitions -- were small enough to ignore. Under U.S. President Donald Trump, the United States linked the prospects of a new nuclear agreement with Russia to the idea that China should join New START or another trilateral nuclear treaty. Last year, the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States found that the United States "will no longer be able to treat the Chinese nuclear threat as a 'lesser included case' of the Russian nuclear threat." According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China is significantly expanding its nuclear forces and may have deployed "a small number of its warheads" in 2023. It is expected to continue growing its forces over the next decade and could match American or Russian numbers of deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles in that time, although its overall number of warheads would remain lower. Whether the world sees a massive expansion of the number of warheads stockpiled and deployed if New START is allowed to expire without a replacement remains unclear. According to Daryl Kimball, head of the Arms Control Association, the United States and Russia have more efficient ways to increase the size of their deployed arsenals. After the treaty expires, "they will both have the capacity to double the number of deployed warheads by 'uploading'," meaning increasing the number of nuclear warheads present on delivery systems that are already deployed. Pranay Vaddi, the U.S. National Security Council's senior director for arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation, says that while the United States must be prepared for the constraints set out in New START to "disappear without replacement," the United States does not "need to increase [its] nuclear forces to match or outnumber the combined total of [its] competitors." Considering the United States' existing second-strike capability, it makes sense that more is not necessarily better. Just one submarine out of between eight and 10 at sea at any time carries some 100 warheads, enough to "obliterate a large country and kill many tens of millions of people," according to Kimball. Despite the impossibility of even Russia's and China's combined nuclear forces launching a successful first strike -- one that would knock out the United States' ability to cause catastrophic damage in response -- the United States might be headed for increases in its nuclear forces. The Strategic Posture Commission's report on preparing for threats from 2027 through 2035 states that the U.S. nuclear force must be "either larger in size, different in composition, or both" if it is to address both a revisionist Russia and a China that the report claims are "pursuing a nuclear force buildup on a scale and pace unseen since the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race that ended in the late 1980s." More, More, More The commission's report goes on to recommend that the United States urgently upload more warheads to its deployed carriers, deploy, or base nuclear forces to the Asia-Pacific theater, increase planned numbers of nuclear-capable bombers, look into fielding road-mobile nuclear missile carriers, which are not currently in the U.S. arsenal, and prepare to deploy the future Sentinel ICBM in a configuration that carries multiple independent re-entry vehicles (currently, each Minuteman III ICBM only carries one warhead, as a result of limits imposed by New START). At the same time, Russia is also pouring resources into upgrading its arsenal, with a recent test of a new type of heavy ICBM, the RS-28 Sarmat, apparently having failed. The Sarmat is one of six weapons that Putin unveiled at his 2018 annual address, where a video animation showed Russian missiles flying toward a target resembling Florida. Two U.S. analysts recently claimed to have found a likely deployment site for another one of Russia's nuclear-capable "invincible weapons" heralded by Putin in 2018, the Burevestnik. Russia has also raised the specter of resuming nuclear testing, preparing facilities on the island of Novaya Zemlya, where the Soviet Union tested the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated. Putin on September 25 proposed broadening the scope of Russia's nuclear doctrine, suggesting that attacks by "nonnuclear countries with the participation or support of a nuclear country" could trigger a nuclear response, in a clear reference to Ukraine and its Western backers. The same day, China launched a nuclear-capable ICBM into the Pacific Ocean, its first ICBM test outside of its territory in over 40 years. Besides potentially "uploading" warheads to existing carriers and developing new weapons systems, the United States recently announced it would deploy nonnuclear cruise missiles that would previously have been banned under the INF treaty to Germany, with Putin promising to respond in kind and lift a self-imposed moratorium on deploying intermediate-range missiles if the deployments go ahead. Russia has also reportedly deployed nuclear weapons in Belarus, which had not hosted them since the early 1990s. With numerous changes to nuclear and conventional missile force postures taking place, relations between the West and Russia and China at their lowest point since the Cold War, and with more countries building up significant stockpiles of warheads, we could already be living through the beginning of the next nuclear arms race. And if the nuclear powers don't agree on new limits, it could be just as risky as the last one. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/new-nuclear-arms-race- russia-china-united-states-start/33136427.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 Secretary-General's remarks at High-level Meeting Commemorating and Promoting the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons United Nations Secretary-General New York 26 September 2024 Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, Thank you for joining us on this important day highlighting the need for the total elimination of nuclear weapons. There should be no place for these devices of death in our world. Nuclear weapons are a double madness. The first madness is the existence of weapons that can wipe out entire populations, communities and cities in a single attack. We know that any use of a nuclear weapon would unleash a humanitarian catastrophe a a nightmare spilling over borders, affecting us all. These weapons deliver no real security or stability a only looming danger, and constant threats to our very existence. The second madness is that, despite the enormous and existential risks these weapons pose to humanity, we are no closer to eliminating them than we were 10 years ago. In fact, we are heading in the wrong direction entirely. Not since the worst days of the Cold War has the specter of nuclear weapons cast such a dark shadow. Nuclear saber-rattling has reached a fever pitch. We have even heard threats to use a nuclear weapon. There are fears of a new arms race. Meanwhile, the norms painstakingly established over decades against the use, spread and testing of nuclear weapons are being eroded. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, The first-hand, lived experience of the hibakusha a the brave survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a stand as clear reminders of where the nuclear path ends. They continue to sound the alarm, reminding us that we cannot afford to forget the lessons learned from those horrifying nuclear attacks in 1945. And yet, nearly 80 years later, nuclear-weapon States continue to roll the dice, resisting disarmament measures and believing that, somehow, our luck will never run out. But luck is not a strategy. They must stop gambling with humanity's future. This starts with nuclear-weapon States honoring their commitments, and meeting their disarmament obligations. Until nuclear weapons are eliminated, these States should commit to never use them under any circumstances. And they must demonstrate the utmost transparency in all matters related to nuclear weapons. I also call on the Russian Federation and the United States to return to the process of nuclear arms reductions, with other nuclear-weapon States following in due course. Disarmament and non-proliferation are two sides of the same coin. Progress in one spurs progress in the other. States must pursue both as a matter of urgency. Just days ago, the Summit of the Future a and the Pact for the Future that emerged a resulted in a new global commitment to revitalize the global disarmament regime, and bring our world closer to our goal of total elimination of nuclear weapons. This goal is supported by the vast majority of Member States a including through the General Assembly's first-ever resolution in 1946 calling for nuclear disarmament. The time has come to take steps to ensure that a nuclear weapon is never used again. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, We have spent far too long living with the threat of nuclear weapons. Previous generations learned how to hide under their desks or flee to bunkers to escape a nuclear assault. But leaders cannot escape their overriding responsibility to take concrete steps to reduce and end the nuclear threat, once and for all. The time for the total elimination of nuclear weapons is now. The United Nations stands with all Member States as we work together to build the peaceful, nuclear-weapons-free future our children and grandchildren deserve. Thank you. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of common stock of Methode Electronics, Inc. (NYSE: MEI) between June 23, 2022 and March 6, 2024, both dates inclusive (the Class Period), of the important October 25, 2024 lead plaintiff deadline. SO WHAT: If you purchased Methode common stock during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement. WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the Methode class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=21318 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email case@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than October 25, 2024. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually litigate securities class actions, but are merely middlemen that refer clients or partner with law firms that actually litigate the cases. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020, founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs Bar. Many of the firms attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers. DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, during the Class Period, defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) Methode had lost highly skilled and experienced employees during the COVID-19 pandemic necessary to successfully complete Methodes transition from its historic low mix, high volume production model to a high mix, low production model at its Monterrey, Mexico facility; (2) Methodes attempts to replace its General Motors (GM) center console production with more diversified, specialized products for a wider array of vehicle manufacturers and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), in particular in the electric vehicle (EV) space, had been plagued by production planning deficiencies, inventory shortages, vendor and supplier problems, and, ultimately, botched execution of Methodes strategic plans; (3) Methodes manufacturing systems at its critical Monterrey facility suffered from a variety of logistical defects, such as improper system coding, shipping errors, erroneous delivery times, deficient quality control systems, and failures to timely and efficiently procure necessary raw materials; (4) Methode had fallen substantially behind on the launch of new EV programs out of its Monterrey facility, preventing Methode from timely receiving revenue from new EV program awards; and (5) as a result of the foregoing, Methode was not on track to achieve the 2023 diluted earnings per share (EPS) guidance or the 3-year 6% organic sales compound annual growth rate (CAGR) represented to investors and such estimates lacked a reasonable factual basis. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages. To join the Methode class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=21318 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email case@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action. No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investors ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff. Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. ------------------------------- Contact Information: Laurence Rosen, Esq. Phillip Kim, Esq. The Rosen Law Firm, P.A. 275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor New York, NY 10016 Tel: (212) 686-1060 Toll Free: (866) 767-3653 Fax: (212) 202-3827 case@rosenlegal.com www.rosenlegal.com SINGAPORE, Sept. 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Splashtop, a leader in secure remote access and support solutions, has been recognized as a Rising Star at the prestigious 5th CybersecAsia Readers Choice Awards. Voted by CISOs, technology leaders, and cybersecurity practitioners, the awards celebrate Asia Pacifics cybersecurity leaders for their critical roles, innovations, and advancements in the industry. Splashtop was selected by the readers of CybersecAsia for its innovation and dedication to security while enabling the worlds remote and hybrid workforces. to be productive. The Rising Star Award honors newer providers who have made a significant impact in the Asia Pacific cybersecurity market. Splashtop has rapidly established itself as a trusted partner, offering simplified yet secure remote access and support solutions that meet the growing demands of hybrid work environments. We are honored to be recognized by CybersecAsia readers as a Rising Star in our first year as a nominee, said Leonard Wong, Vice President for Asia Pacific at Splashtop. Secure yet simplified remote access and support is now a mandatory aspect of business operations. Our mission is to simplify security for businesses of all sizes and empower IT users with innovative solutions that can be easily absorbed into their operations. This award validates our commitment to helping organizations in the Asia Pacific region securely adapt to the evolving cyber threat landscape. Victor Ng, Editor-in-Chief of CybersecAsia, said of Splashtops recognition, In the post-pandemic hybrid work environment, Splashtop has innovated to help organizations and individuals adapt to the new normal, with solutions geared to the needs of hybrid work, remote access, and support. Splashtop solutions provide advanced security features, including single sign-on (SSO) integration, multi-factor authentication, IP whitelisting, and granular access controls, allowing IT teams to verifying user identities through multiple layers of authentication. End-to-end encryption and watermarking safeguard the content of remote sessions. For compliance and regulatory management, centralized session recording automatically records remote sessions to the cloud, while SIEM integration enables real-time analysis of security alerts generated by applications and network hardware. Splashtop is compliant with global security standards like ISO 27001, GDPR, and SOC-2, ensuring that sensitive data remains secure. The 2024 CybersecAsia Readers Choice Awards, now in its fifth year, is one of the most prestigious programs in the region, recognizing outstanding cybersecurity solution providers. This year, 21 companies were honored for their innovations, with over 1,100 qualified voters selecting the winners from across Asia Pacific. As cyber threats continue to rise, the demand for secure and reliable remote access solutions has become critical. For more information on Splashtops award-winning remote access and support solutions, please visit Splashtop.com. About Splashtop Splashtop is a leader in solutions that simplify the work-anywhere world. Its solutions for hybrid work and IT / MSP remote support deliver an experience that is fast, simple and secure. Splashtops patented, high performance technology is capable of achieving 4K HD quality, multi-monitor support, and 60fps with ultra-low latency. Splashtop comes with advanced security features, broad device support, and responsive customer service. More than 30 million users, 250k businesses, including those in 85% of Fortune 500 enterprises, enjoy Splashtop products globally. Splashtop.com On the initiative and by decision of the Board of AB Amber Grid (legal entity code 303090867, registered office address Laisves av. 10, LT-04215 Vilnius, Lithuania), the Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of AB Amber Grid is convened at the Company's registered office (address Laisves av. 10, Vilnius) on 18 October 2024 at 10:00 am. Draft Agenda of the Meeting: 1) Approval of the conclusion of the Humanitarian Aid Contract Shareholder registration will commence at 9.15 a.m., 18 October 2024. Shareholder registration will be closed at 9.45 a.m., 18 October 2024. Record day of the General Meeting of Shareholders: October 11, 2024. Attendance and voting at the General Meeting of Shareholders shall be open to those persons who will be shareholders of the Company at the end of the record day of the General Meeting of Shareholders. A person attending the General Meeting of Shareholders and entitled to vote must provide a proof of identity. A person who is not a shareholder shall, in addition to the aforementioned document, provide a document confirming his/her right to vote at the General Meeting. Participation and voting at the General Meeting of Shareholders by electronic means shall not be possible. On 26 September, 2024, the Board of the Company approved the agenda of the General Meeting of Shareholders and the draft decision of the Meeting: 1) Approval of the conclusion of the Humanitarian Aid Contract Proposed draft resolution: "1.1. In accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 11(21) of the Law on Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid of the Republic of Lithuania, upon the recommendation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania and the approval of the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Lithuania, to enter into a Humanitarian Aid Contract with the Ukrainian company KHMELNYTSKOBLENERGO and to approve the following main terms of the Humanitarian Aid Contract: 1.1.1. The subject matter of the Contract is humanitarian assistance to Ukraine's energy sector. The humanitarian aid shall be provided through the transfer of 4 generators and 46 vehicles with a balance sheet value of EUR 60 285,53; 1.1.2. The parties to the Contract shall be Amber Grid AB and the Ukrainian company KHMELNYTSKOBLENERGO; 1.1.3. The purpose of humanitarian aid is the operation of energy infrastructure in wartime to meet the basic needs of people in wartime. 1.2 To authorise the Chief Executive Officer of the Company (with the right to sub-delegate) to sign the Humanitarian Aid Contract in accordance with the material terms and conditions of the Contract as set out in Clause 1.1, and to agree the other (non-material) terms and conditions of the Contract on behalf of the Company.". The Company's shareholders may access the draft decisions of the General Meeting of Shareholders and other additional materials related to the General Meeting of Shareholders and the exercise of shareholders' rights at the Central Regulated Information Database at www.crib.lt and on the Company's website www.ambergrid.lt. The shareholders of Amber Grid AB, whose shares carry at least 1/20 of the total number of votes, shall have the right to supplement the agenda of the General Meeting of Shareholders. The proposal to supplement the agenda shall be submitted in writing by registered mail or delivered to the Company's registered office at Laisves av. 10, LT-04215 Vilnius (hereinafter referred to as the "Headquarters"). The proposal shall be accompanied by draft decisions on the proposed items or, where no decisions are required, explanations on each proposed item on the agenda of the General Meeting of Shareholders. The agenda shall be supplemented if the proposal is received by 4 October, 2024 at the latest. Shareholders holding shares representing at least 1/20 of the total votes shall have the right to propose new draft decisions in writing on the items on the agenda of the meeting at any time before or during the General Meeting of Shareholders. Such proposal shall be in writing and submitted to the Company by registered mail or delivered to the Headquarters. A proposal made at the meeting shall be registered in writing and forwarded to the Secretary of the General Meeting of Shareholders. Shareholders shall have the right to submit to the Company questions relating to the agenda of the General Meeting of Shareholders to be held October 18, 2024 in advance, no later than by 15 October, 2024. Questions shall be in writing and shall be submitted to the Company by registered mail or delivered to the Headquarters. The Company will not provide an answer to a question submitted by a shareholder in person if the relevant information is available on the Company's website. Each shareholder shall have the right to authorise a natural or a legal person to attend and vote on his/her behalf at a General Meeting of Shareholders. The authorized person shall have an identity document and a power of attorney certified in accordance with the procedure established by laws, which shall be delivered to the Headquarters no later than by the close of registration for the General Meeting of Shareholders. The authorized person shall have the same rights at the General Meeting of Shareholders as the shareholder he/she represents. The form of a power of attorney for representation at the General Meeting of Shareholders is available on the Company's website at www.ambergrid.lt. Shareholders may vote on the items on the agenda of the General Meeting of Shareholders in writing by completing a general ballot paper. If a shareholder so requests, the Company shall send the general ballot paper form by registered mail or deliver it in person against signature free of charge no later than 10 days before the General Meeting of Shareholders. The completed general ballot paper shall be signed by the shareholder or his/her authorised representative. If the completed general ballot paper has been signed by a person who is not a shareholder, the completed ballot paper shall be accompanied by a document confirming the right to vote. The duly completed general ballot paper shall be submitted to the Company by registered mail or delivered against signature at the Headquarters not later than the close of shareholder registration for the General Meeting of Shareholders. The form of the general ballot paper is available on the Company's website at www.ambergrid.lt. The total number of shares at the date of convening of the meeting was 178 382 514. All these shares carry voting rights. The information provided for in Article 26 (2) of the Law on Companies of the Republic of Lithuania will be available on the Company's website at www.ambergrid.lt. Information on supplements to the agenda and on the decisions adopted by the meeting will also be available on the Central Regulated Information Database www.crib.lt. Annexes: 1. Voting ballot of AB Amber Grid; 2. Form of the power of attorney of AB Amber Grid; 3. Press release. More information: Laura Sebekiene, Head of Communications of AB Amber Grid, +370 699 61 246, l.sebekiene@ambergrid.lt Attachments Dublin, Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "United States Alternative Lending Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook - 75+ KPIs on Alternative Lending Market Size, By End User, By Finance Model, By Payment Instrument, By Loan Type and Demographics" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The alternative lending in this region is expected to grow by 11.4% on an annual basis to reach US$284.52 billion in 2024. Alternative lending adoption is expected to grow steadily over the forecast period, recording a CAGR of 7.4% during 2024-2028. The alternative lending market in the country will increase from US$255.39 billion in 2023 to reach US$378.61 billion by 2028. This report provides a detailed data-centric analysis of the Alternative Lending industry, covering market opportunities and risks across a range of industry categories. With over 50 KPIs at the country level, this report provides a comprehensive understanding of Alternative Lending market dynamics, market size and forecast, and market share statistics. The alternative lending sector in the U.S. is experiencing robust growth, driven by demand for flexible financing and advancements in technology. Key developments include significant funding, innovative product launches, and strategic partnerships that enhance lending capabilities. Mergers and acquisitions reflect ongoing consolidation and investment in technology. Regulatory changes are tightening oversight, emphasizing transparency, consumer protection, and risk management. As the sector evolves, it must balance innovation with regulatory compliance to sustain its growth trajectory. Growth in the Alternative Lending Sector Alternative lending in the United States has witnessed significant growth, driven by the increasing demand for flexible financing options from small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Digital lenders are capturing market share by offering streamlined application processes and relaxed qualification criteria compared to traditional banks, resulting in higher loan approval rates for borrowers. The alternative lending sector is anticipated to continue growing in the upcoming months as fintech companies innovate and adjust to changing market conditions. This expansion will probably be fueled by ongoing technological advancements and a shift in consumer preferences towards more accessible and efficient lending solutions. Key Developments in the Alternative Lending Sector Product Launches and Innovations LendingTree Secures $175 Million in Funding from Apollo Funds - In 2024, LendingTree, a leading online loan marketplace, secured $175 million in funding from Apollo Funds to expand its alternative lending offerings and enhance its technology platform. Nova Credit Introduces Nova Credit Platform - In March 2024, Nova Credit launched its Nova Credit Platform, which aims to transform how lenders manage and analyze consumer credit data. This will enable them to make more informed lending decisions and reach underserved borrowers. Strategic Partnerships Several key partnerships have emerged in the alternative lending sector in the USA, reflecting a trend of collaboration between traditional banks and fintech companies to enhance lending capabilities. BNY Mellon and CIFC Partnership Expansion - In March 2024, BNY Mellon announced expanding its partnership with CIFC, a specialist in alternative credit. This collaboration allows BNY Mellon Investment Management to access CIFC's U.S. direct lending strategy, which aims to serve clients across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia-Pacific. This partnership highlights the increasing demand for private capital, particularly for underserved European markets. JPMorgan Chase and FS Investments / Octagon Credit Investors - JPMorgan Chase was reportedly forming partnerships with FS Investments and Octagon Credit Investors. These partnerships are intended to broaden JPMorgan's private credit efforts, reflecting a strategic move to enhance its offerings in the competitive alternative lending landscape. Mergers and Acquisitions FIS and Worldpay: FIS sold a majority stake in its Worldpay Merchant Solutions business to GTCR for approximately $18.5 billion. This deal is one of the largest private equity transactions in fintech. It reflects ongoing consolidation in the alternative lending sector as firms seek to enhance their technological capabilities and market reach. Avantax and Cetera Financial Group: Cetera Financial Group, backed by Genstar Capital, acquired Avantax for about $1.2 billion. This acquisition is part of a broader trend where financial services firms merge to create more comprehensive service offerings and capitalize on synergies. Apollo and Univar Solutions: Apollo Global Management completed a $5.7 billion acquisition of Univar Solutions, a significant move in the broader financial services landscape that includes alternative lending elements, particularly in supporting small and medium enterprises through enhanced service offerings. Blackstone and Cvent: Blackstone's acquisition of Cvent for $4.1 billion also highlights the trend of private equity firms investing in technology-driven companies within the financial services sector, which includes alternative lending solutions. Regulatory Changes Finalization of Nonbank Lending Reporting Requirements: On May 22, 2024, U.S. federal banking regulators finalized new reporting requirements for bank loans and commitments to nonbank financial entities. This change aims to improve the banking system's understanding and supervision of credit concentrations and risks. The requirements will apply to insured depository institutions with over $10 billion in total assets, requiring them to disaggregate loans to various categories, including business credit intermediaries and private equity funds. These changes will take effect for the December 31, 2024 reporting period. Increased Regulatory Scrutiny: Federal banking regulators have indicated they will intensify scrutiny across the financial sector, including alternative lenders. This includes focusing on governance and risk management frameworks, particularly as nonbank entities like fintech companies increasingly offer financial products. The aim is to ensure consumer protection and mitigate risks associated with innovative lending practices. Consumer Protection Emphasis: In 2024, regulators are expected to prioritize consumer protection, scrutinizing how new financial products and technologies impact consumers. This includes evaluating third-party risk management and partnerships with fintech firms, ensuring that consumer interests are safeguarded amid rapid innovation in the sector. Potential for New Regulations: As the alternative lending market continues to evolve, further regulatory measures may be introduced. The industry is encouraged to self-regulate effectively to avoid more stringent government interventions similar to those seen after the 2008 financial crisis. Focus on Transparency: The regulatory environment is also shifting towards requiring greater transparency in lending practices. This move aims to prevent the issues that contributed to past financial crises and ensure that all lending entities maintain high standards of transparency in their operations Key Attributes: Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 189 Forecast Period 2024 - 2028 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2024 $284.5 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2028 $378.6 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 7.4% Regions Covered United States Scope United States Economic Indicators Gross Domestic Product at Current Prices Population Unbanked Population Unemployment Rate Loan Default Rate United States Alternative Lending Market Size and Forecast Transaction Value Average Transaction Value Transaction Volume United States Alternative Lending Market Size and Forecast by End User End User - Business End User - Consumer United States Alternative Lending Market Size and Forecast by Finance Models P2P Marketplace Consumer Lending P2P Marketplace Business Lending P2P Marketplace Property Lending Balance Sheet Consumer Lending Balance Sheet Business Lending Balance Sheet Property Lending Invoice Trading Debt Based Securities Equity Based Crowd Funding Real Estate Crowd funding United States Alternative Lending Market Size and Forecast by Payment Instrument - Transaction Value, Volume and Average Value Cash Cheques Credit Transfer Direct Debits Debit Card Credit Card E- Money United States Alternative Lending Market Size and Forecast by Payment Instrument to Model Alternative Lending Market Size and Forecast by Payment Instrument to P2P Marketplace Consumer Lending Cash Cheques Credit Transfer Direct Debits Debit Card Credit Card E- Money Alternative Lending Market Size and Forecast by Payment Instrument to P2P Marketplace Business Lending Cash Cheques Credit Transfer Direct Debits Debit Card Credit Card E- Money Alternative Lending Market Size and Forecast by Payment Instrument to P2P Marketplace Property Lending Cash Cheques Credit Transfer Direct Debits Debit Card Credit Card E- Money Alternative Lending Market Size and Forecast by Payment Instrument to Balance Sheet Consumer Lending Cash Cheques Credit Transfer Direct Debits Debit Card Credit Card E- Money Alternative Lending Market Size and Forecast by Payment Instrument to Balance Sheet Business Lending Cash Cheques Credit Transfer Direct Debits Debit Card Credit Card E- Money Alternative Lending Market Size and Forecast by Payment Instrument to Balance Sheet Property Lending Cash Cheques Credit Transfer Direct Debits Debit Card Credit Card E- Money Alternative Lending Market Size and Forecast by Payment Instrument to Invoice Trading Cash Cheques Credit Transfer Direct Debits Debit Card Credit Card E- Money Alternative Lending Market Size and Forecast by Payment Instrument to Debt Based Securities Cash Cheques Credit Transfer Direct Debits Debit Card Credit Card E- Money Alternative Lending Market Size and Forecast by Payment Instrument to Equity Based Crowd Funding Cash Cheques Credit Transfer Direct Debits Debit Card Credit Card E- Money Alternative Lending Market Size and Forecast by Payment Instrument to Real Estate Crowd funding Cash Cheques Credit Transfer Direct Debits Debit Card Credit Card E- Money United States Alternative Lending Market Size and Forecast by Loan Types B2C Loans Personal Loan Payroll Advance Home Improvement Education/Student Loans Point of Sale Auto Loans Medical Loans B2B Loans Lines of Credit Merchant Cash Advance Invoice Factoring Revenue Financing United States Alternative Lending Analysis by Consumer Attitude and Behaviour By Age By Income Gender For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/r0zm85 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 MULTITUDE P.L.C. (C 109441) ST Business Centre, 120, The Strand Gzira, GZR 1027 Malta NOTICE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING OF SHAREHOLDERS OF MULTITUDE P.L.C. Notice is given to the shareholders of Multitude P.L.C. (previously Multitude SE) (Company and/or Multitude) that an Extraordinary General Meeting of the shareholders of the Company is to be held on 23 October 2024 at 10:00 a.m. (EEST / Finnish time) (the Meeting). The Meeting will be held at the offices of Castren & Snellman Attorneys Ltd, Etelaesplanadi 14, Helsinki, Finland. Instructions for participation are provided in section 3 of this notice. The Meeting is being convened following the transfer of the Companys registered office from Finland to Malta in accordance with Article 8 of the Council Regulation (EC) No 2157/2001 of 8 October 2001 on the Statute for a European company (SE) on 30 June 2024, in order to adopt the Companys final accounts as required pursuant to Section 11 of the Finnish European Companies Act (742/2004, as amended) (the Finnish European Companies Act) and to make certain related resolutions. Accordingly, for the purposes of Section 11 of the Finnish European Companies Act, the Meeting is deemed to be a meeting of shareholders (in Finnish: osakkeenomistajien kokous). The Meeting will be conducted in the English language and will be held in person. 1 MATTERS ON THE AGENDA OF THE MEETING At the Meeting, the following matters will be considered: General: (1) Opening of the Meeting and appointment of chairman The appointment of the chairman shall be carried out in terms of article 59 of the Companys articles of association (the Articles). (2) Quorum In terms of article 56 of the Articles at least one (1) shareholder, present in person or by proxy, entitled to attend and vote at the Meeting shall constitute a quorum. (3) Calling the Meeting to Order (4) Election of Persons to Scrutinise the Minutes and to Supervise the Counting of Votes (5) Recording the Legality of the Meeting (6) Recording the Attendance at the Meeting and Adoption of the List of Votes Special business (ordinary resolutions): (7) Presentation and approval of the Final Accounts Pursuant to Section 11, Subsection 1 of the Finnish European Companies Act, the board of directors and the chief executive officer of a European company transferring its registered office from Finland must prepare final accounts as soon as possible after the transfer. The final accounts must include the financial statements and the board of directors report for the period for which financial statements have not yet been presented at the shareholders general meeting. The Companys board of directors (the Board) has approved the Companys final accounts including the financial statements and the board of directors report for the period running from 1 January 2024 to 30 June 2024 (the Final Accounts). The Final Accounts are available on the Companys website at www.multitude.com. The Board proposes that the Meeting resolves to adopt the Final Accounts. (8) Resolution on Discharging the Members of the Board and the Chief Executive Officer from Liability Insofar as permitted under the Maltese Companies Act (chapter 386 of the laws of Malta), and in line with Finnish market practice, the Board proposes that the Meeting resolves to discharge the members of the Board and the chief executive officer of the Company (the CEO) from liability for the period covered by the Final Accounts (i.e., while the Company was still registered in Finland). The discharge of the members of the Board and the CEO from liability is a standard procedure under Finnish law following the approval of financial statements for a particular period. (9) Closing of the Meeting 2 MEETING MATERIALS This notice (which includes the proposals of the Board of Directors relating to the agenda of the Meeting) as well as the Final Accounts and the auditors report thereon are available on the Companys website (www.multitude.com). Such documents will also be (a) sent to shareholders who so request and who inform the Company of their mailing address and (b) made available at the Meeting. The minutes of the Meeting will be made available on the Companys website no later than one week after the date of the Meeting. 3 PARTICIPATION INSTRUCTIONS IMPORTANT NOTE: THESE INSTRUCTIONS ARE DIFFERENT TO THE INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN IN PREVIOUS GENERAL MEETINGS OF THE COMPANY WHICH WERE HELD WHILE THE COMPANY WAS STILL REGISTERED IN FINLAND. YOU ARE THEREFORE ADVISED TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY AND SEEK ADVICE WHERE NEEDED. YOU ARE ALSO ENCOURAGED TO CONTACT YOUR RESPECTIVE CUSTODIAN / NOMINEE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL TO agm@multitude.com FOR ANY QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE. 3.1 Record date To be entitled to attend and vote at the Meeting (and for the Company to be able to determine the number of votes that may be cast), shareholders must have been entered in the register of members maintained by Clearstream Banking AG (Clearstream) on 23 September 2024. 3.2 Preliminary Shareholders are advised to ask their custodian bank / nominee without delay for the necessary information regarding registration for the Meeting, the issuing of proxy documents and voting instructions. In any case, shareholders should ensure that all relevant instructions are submitted by their custodian / nominee to Clearstream as soon as possible, within any applicable deadline. Clearstream will process all instructions received and will transmit them to the Malta Stock Exchange (as issuer CSD). In turn the Malta Stock Exchange will transmit the aggregated instructions to the Company. In terms of the Companys articles of association, the Company must receive all relevant shareholder instructions from the Malta Stock Exchange (as issuer CSD) no later than 10:00 a.m. (EEST / Finnish time) on 21 October 2024, and any instructions submitted to the Company after this deadline shall not be treated as valid. Accordingly, shareholders are encouraged to reach out to the respective custodians / nominees as soon as possible in order to ensure that their respective instructions are submitted to Clearstream within any applicable deadline. The Meeting will be held in person at the address indicated above. Shareholders and proxy representatives who wish to attend the Meeting will therefore be required to follow the Meeting registration requirements and will be required to make their own arrangements to attend the Meeting. 3.3 Participation in person Shareholders who wish to attend and vote at the Meeting in person must notify their intention to their respective custodians / nominees as soon as possible. Custodians / nominees will in turn be required to notify shareholders intention to participate at the Meeting by electronic instruction to Clearstream as soon as possible and in line with any deadlines that may be imposed by Clearstream, which instructions must be delivered in terms of Clearstreams existing procedures. Custodians/nominees may request shareholders full names, passport numbers/company registration numbers (or similar), full addresses, date of birth and daytime telephone number, number of shares in the Company, as well as, if applicable, details of proxies. Information submitted in connection with the notification will be computerised and used exclusively for the Meeting. 3.4 Proxy representatives A shareholder, who is entitled to attend and vote at the Meeting, is also entitled to appoint one or more proxies to attend and vote on such shareholders behalf. A proxy does not need to be a shareholder. The appointment of a proxy must be in writing and (a) where the shareholder is an individual, be signed by him/her or (b) where the shareholder is a corporation, be signed by a duly authorised officer of the corporation. The proxy form to be used by shareholders is available on the Companys website: www.multitude.com. Proxy forms must clearly indicate whether the proxy is to vote as she/he wishes or in accordance with the voting instructions sheet attached to the proxy form. Shareholders are advised that by submitting voting instructions they will effectively be voting in advance. The signed proxy form and, where the shareholder is a corporation, a certified copy of a certificate of registration, constitutive documents or similar document evidencing the signatory right of the officer signing the proxy form, must be submitted to each shareholders respective custodian / nominee as soon as possible. Custodians / nominees will in turn be required to deliver shareholders proxy data to Clearstream as soon as possible, within any applicable deadline, which data must be delivered in terms of Clearstreams existing procedures. Shareholders are, therefore, encouraged to send or deliver their proxy forms (and, if applicable certified copies of certificates of registration or similar) as soon as possible. Notice for the Malta Stock Exchange (as issuer CSD): Aggregated attendance notifications and proxy data processed by and received from Clearstream must be sent by the Malta Stock Exchange to the Company by email at agm@multitude.com not less than 48 hours before the time appointed for the Meeting and in default shall not be treated as valid. 3.5 Right to ask questions Each shareholder (or proxy holder) shall have the right to ask questions which are pertinent and related to items on the agenda of the Meeting to the Company by e-mail to agm@multitude.com by not later than 16 October 2024 by 23:59 (EEST / Finnish time). An answer to a question will not be given in those cases specified in article 70 of the Articles (a copy of which is available on the Companys website). 3.6 Other information As at the date of this notice the total number of shares in the Company is 21,723,960 and each of these shares carries one vote. As at the date of this notice, the Company holds 154,993 of its own shares as treasury shares. Pursuant to article 109 of the Maltese Companies Act, those shares which the Company holds in itself do not carry voting rights. Accordingly, the number of voting rights carried by the outstanding shares is 21,568,967. Please refer to the document titled Privacy Notice Extraordinary General Meeting 2024 available at www.multitude.com for additional information on the processing of personal data. Kindly also refer to Clearstreams Notice of European Union Data Protection Terms which sets out how sets out how personal data is used, stored, transferred or otherwise processed by Clearstream (https://www.clearstream.com/clearstream-en/about-clearstream/due-diligence/gdpr/dataprotection). In Malta on 27 September 2024 MULTITUDE P.L.C. The Board of Directors Contact: Lasse Makela Chief Strategy and IR Officer Phone: +41 79 371 34 17 E-Mail: Lasse.makela@multitude.com About Multitude P.L.C.: Multitude is a listed European FinTech company, offering digital lending and online banking services to consumers, small and medium-sized enterprises, and other FinTechs overlooked by traditional banks. The services are provided through three independent business units, which are served by our internal Banking-as-a-Service Growth Platform. Multitudes business units are Consumer Banking (Ferratum), SME Banking (CapitalBox), and Wholesale Banking (Multitude Bank). Multitude Group employs over 700 people in 25 countries and offers services in 16 countries, achieving a combined turnover of 230 million euros in 2023. Multitude was founded in Finland in 2005 and is listed on the Prime Standard segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol 'E4l'. www.multitude.com Dublin, Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Algeria Construction Market Size, Trends, and Forecasts by Sector - Commercial, Industrial, Infrastructure, Energy and Utilities, Institutional and Residential Market Analysis to 2028 (H2 2024)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The Algerian construction industry is expected to grow by 2.9% in real terms in 2024, driven by investments in transport, housing, and institutional construction projects In December 2023, as part of the Finance Bill 2024, DZD848 billion ($6.1 billion) was allocated to the healthcare sector, DZD313.52 billion ($2.3 billion) for the construction of 460,000 housing units, and DZD60 billion ($430.9 million) for the construction of roads. According to the government estimates, the country has 326 education and healthcare projects in the pipeline, as of June 2024. However, the construction industry is expected to face challenges in 2024, owing to monetary policy tightening, and project cancellations, amid political uncertainty. The construction industry is expected to grow at an annual average rate of 4.1% between 2025 and 2028, supported by the government's plan to produce 27% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2035. The government is estimated to develop 22,000MW of energy capacity in the country by 2030. Growth over the forecast period will also be supported by investments in the development of oil and gas and hydrocarbon projects. The government plans to invest DZD7 trillion ($50 billion) in the hydrocarbons sector by 2027. Scope Historical (2019-2023) and forecast (2024-2028) valuations of the construction industry in Algeria, featuring details of key growth drivers. Segmentation by sector (commercial, industrial, infrastructure, energy and utilities, institutional and residential) and by sub-sector Analysis of the mega-project pipeline, including breakdowns by development stage across all sectors, and projected spending on projects in the existing pipeline. Listings of major projects, in addition to details of leading contractors and consultants Reasons to Buy Identify and evaluate market opportunities using the analyst's standardized valuation and forecasting methodologies. Assess market growth potential at a micro-level with over 600 time-series data forecasts. Understand the latest industry and market trends. Formulate and validate strategy using the analyst's critical and actionable insight. Assess business risks, including cost, regulatory and competitive pressures. Evaluate competitive risk and success factors. Key Topics Covered: 1 Executive Summary 2 Construction Industry: At-a-Glance 3 Context 3.1 Economic Performance 3.2 Political Environment and Policy 3.3 Demographics 3.4 Risk Profile 4 Construction Outlook 4.1 All Construction Outlook Latest news and developments Construction Projects Momentum Index 4.2 Commercial Construction Outlook Project analytics Latest news and developments 4.3 Industrial Construction Outlook Project analytics Latest news and developments 4.4 Infrastructure Construction Outlook Project analytics Latest news and developments 4.5 Energy and Utilities Construction Outlook Project analytics Latest news and developments 4.6 Institutional Construction Outlook Project analytics Latest news and developments 4.7 Residential Construction Outlook Project analytics Latest news and developments 5 Key Industry Participants 5.1 Contractors 5.2 Consultants 6 Construction Market Data 7 Appendix For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/urutb0 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. CHONGQING, China, Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nadero Wealth Management, a leading financial services company based in Chongqing, is proud to announce the opening of its new tax consultancy office in Jersey in a move designed to enhance its international presence and provide comprehensive tax services to clients in the region. This strategic expansion accentuates the company's commitment to delivering exceptional financial solutions that meet the diverse needs of businesses operating within and beyond the Channel Islands. New Office Location and Services Offered The new St Helier office offers a wide range of tax-related services, including corporate tax planning, compliance advisory, personal taxation, and cross-border taxation strategies. The highly qualified team has extensive experience in both local and international tax regulations, ensuring that clients receive expert guidance tailored to their specific circumstances. Strategic Importance of Jersey Jersey is renowned for its robust financial services sector and favorable business environment. As a leading offshore jurisdiction, it provides numerous advantages for companies looking to optimize their tax strategies while ensuring compliance with global standards. By establishing a presence in Jersey, Nadero aims to support local businesses as well as international clients seeking to navigate the complexities of taxation in this unique market. Commitment to Client Success "We are excited about this new chapter for our company," said Dennis Zheng, CEO of Nadero. "Our goal is to empower our clients with the knowledge and tools they need to succeed in an increasingly complex global landscape. With our new office in Jersey, we are better positioned than ever to provide personalized service and innovative solutions that drive growth." About Nadero Founded in 2010, Nadero Wealth Management has established itself as a trusted global provider of financial services. With a focus on integrity, innovation, and client satisfaction, the company has built a reputation for excellence across various sectors. The opening of the Jersey office marks an important step in its mission to expand while maintaining high standards of service. For more information, please contact: Sandra Clifford, Chief Operations Officer s.clifford@nadero.com https://www.nadero.com To contact one of Nadero Wealth Management's Offshore Tax Consultancy Offices, please email tax@nadero.com or visit www.nadero.com/contact-us. Disclaimer: This content is provided by the sponsor. The statements, views, and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the content provider. The information shared in this press release is not a solicitation for investment, nor is it intended as investment, financial, or trading advice. It is strongly recommended that you conduct thorough research and consult with a professional financial advisor before making any investment or trading decisions. Please conduct your own research and invest at your own risk. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/cad54dbb-09ae-4a4a-89b9-25133a6b38bd SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Javelin Strategy & Research released its 2024 2024 Cyber Trust in Banking Scorecard today, revealing that privacy is the key driver of establishing and maintaining cyber trust. The scorecard evaluates and ranks 23 financial institutions (FIs) based on 121 relevant criteria across four categories: privacy, cybersecurity, education, and support. Bank of America earned Best in Class for its outstanding performance in privacy controls, cybersecurity features, and education, a remarkable improvement from its 11th-place finish just two years ago. The bank stood out for offering options that are often limited among the evaluated financial institutions, including comprehensive opt-out choices for tracking, targeted advertising and marketing, an extensive array of educational resources, and the ability for users to revoke permissions for third-party applications. Truist Bank ranked second overall, leading in the heavily weighted privacy category by offering significantly more data sharing opt-out options, including the unique feature of an opt-out through a button on the webpage, which reflects consumers' growing preference for convenience. U.S. Bank secured the third best overall ranking, excelling in both cybersecurity and education, due to enhanced visibility into third-party connections and extensive coverage of educational topics. The trust between a consumer and their financial institution is critical, said Suzanne Sando, senior analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research. Privacy has emerged as the key driver of cyber trust among, as it relates to how banks and credit unions collect and use consumers personal information tracking. Consumers are increasingly concerned about privacy protection with their primary FIs. Javelin's findings show that trust is directly impacted by the type of information FIs collect and track. From 2022 to 2024, consumer favorability towards data tracking by their primary FIs dropped significantly, with the belief that FIs only collect necessary personal and behavioral data falling from 86% to 56%. This reflects a notable decline in trust around FIs' data-tracking practices. For Javelin, this is a cautionary signal for banks. Though the importance of privacy is not new for consumers, it emerged as the leading predictor of a consumers trust in their financial institution in 2024. All FIs must reevaluate how transparent they are with customers and members about their data collection and disclosure practices, Sando said. Often overlooked steps in fostering cyber trust are promoting autonomy and giving consumers control over who can access their data and how that data can be used. FIs should prioritize investments in fraud and cybersecurity technologies, as well as payments innovations, that provide consumer transparency, autonomy, and the most robust security. For more information about the 2024 Cyber Trust in Banking Scorecard , please visit javelinstrategy.com. About Javelin Strategy & Research Javelin Strategy & Research, part of the Escalent Group, helps its clients make informed decisions in a digital financial world. It provides strategic insights to financial institutions including banks, credit unions, brokerages and insurers, as well as payments companies, technology providers, fintechs and government agencies. Javelins independent insights result from a rigorous research process that assesses consumers, businesses, providers, and the transactions ecosystem. It conducts in-depth primary research studies to pinpoint dynamic risks and opportunities in digital banking, payments, fraud & security, lending, and wealth management. Learn more at javelinstrategy.com . An image accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4662f47e-652c-4f2f-9bc0-1914329daa4d MONTREAL, Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Knight Therapeutics Inc. (TSX:GUD) (Knight or the Company) is pleased to announce it has ranked No. 397 on the 2024 Report on Business magazines ranking of Canadas Top Growing Companies. Canadas Top Growing Companies ranks Canadian companies on three-year revenue growth. Knight earned its spot with three-year growth of 64%. We are proud to once again be recognized among the Report on Business Canadas Top Growing companies, said Samira Sakhia, President and Chief Executive Officer of Knight. This achievement underscores the dedication and hard work of our entire team, whose innovative spirit continues to shape future of Knight. Our success is rooted in a clear strategic vision that drives us to deliver impactful therapies to patients across Canada and Latin America. As we continue to grow, we remain committed to advancing healthcare innovation with the same passion that has brought us here. Canadas Top Growing Companies is an editorial ranking that was launched in 2019 to celebrate the achievements of innovative businesses in Canada. To qualify for this voluntary program, companies had to complete an in-depth application process and fulfill revenue requirements. In total, 416 companies earned a spot on this years ranking. The full list of 2024 winners along with editorial coverage is published in the October issue of Report on Business magazine. The list is out now and online here. Our annual ranking of Canadas Top Growing Companies reflects the sector-spanning ingenuity of this countrys entrepreneurs and corporate leaders, says Dawn Calleja, Editor of Report on Business magazine. And we think its important to tell their stories, to help inspire the next generation of up-and-comers across the country. The Globe and Mail congratulates this year's Canada's Top Growing Companies' winners for achieving exceptional growth and resilience in facing business challenges, says Andrew Saunders, CEO of The Globe and Mail. It is a testament to dedication, strategic vision, and innovative drive. About The Globe and Mail The Globe and Mail is Canadas foremost news media company, leading the national discussion and causing policy change through brave and independent journalism since 1844. With our award-winning coverage of business, politics and national affairs, The Globe and Mail newspaper reaches 6.2 million readers every week in our print or digital formats, and Report on Business magazine reaches 2.9 million readers in print and digital every issue. Our investment in innovative data science means that as the world continues to change, so does The Globe. The Globe and Mail is owned by Woodbridge, the investment arm of the Thomson family. About Knight Therapeutics Inc. Knight Therapeutics Inc., headquartered in Montreal, Canada, is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on acquiring or in-licensing and commercializing pharmaceutical products for Canada and Latin America. Knights Latin American subsidiaries operate under United Medical, Biotoscana Farma and Laboratorio LKM. Knight Therapeutics Inc.'s shares trade on TSX under the symbol GUD. For more information about Knight Therapeutics Inc., please visit the company's web site at www.knighttx.com or www.sedarplus.ca. Forward-Looking Statement This document contains forward-looking statements for Knight Therapeutics Inc. and its subsidiaries. These forward-looking statements, by their nature, necessarily involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Knight Therapeutics Inc. considers the assumptions on which these forward-looking statements are based to be reasonable at the time they were prepared but cautions the reader that these assumptions regarding future events, many of which are beyond the control of Knight Therapeutics Inc. and its subsidiaries, may ultimately prove to be incorrect. Factors and risks which could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations are discussed in Knight Therapeutics Inc.'s Annual Report and in Knight Therapeutics Inc.'s Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2023, as filed on www.sedarplus.ca. Knight Therapeutics Inc. disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information or future events, except as required by law. Dublin, Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Protein Expression Market Industry Trends and Global Forecasts to 2035: Distribution by Type of Protein Expression System, Protein Expression-related Offerings, Application Area, End-users, Type of Operation, Geography and Key Players" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The Protein Expression Market is valued at USD 2.7 billion in 2024 growing at a CAGR of 8% during the forecast period 2024-2035. Proteins, composed of long chains of amino acids, have become increasingly important in the development of new drugs, treatments, and diagnostic tools. Their versatility, metabolic stability, target specificity, and high affinity have made them attractive candidates for therapeutic applications. In fact, 50% of the top-selling drugs in 2023 are protein-based therapeutics, with over 20 such treatments approved by the US FDA for the treatment of various chronic diseases, including cancers, immune disorders, infections, and diabetes. Furthermore, since 2023, over 6,500 patents related to protein expression have been granted. The growing demand for protein therapeutics and the need for innovative production methods have driven pharmaceutical companies to adopt protein expression systems for the production of recombinant proteins. These systems offer several advantages, including the ability to produce a wide range of target molecules, higher yields, shorter development times, and lower production costs. Additionally, companies have developed kits and reagents for protein expression, enabling the synthesis of complex proteins, including toxic proteins, membrane proteins, and post-translationally modified proteins. As the incidence of chronic diseases continues to rise, the demand for protein therapeutics is likely to increase. The maturation of protein-based leads into clinical trials and commercialization, as well as advancements in expression systems, are expected to drive the growth of the protein expression market over the forecast period. Key Market Segments Type of Protein Expression System Algal Expression Systems Cell-free Expression Systems Insect Expression Systems Mammalian Expression Systems Prokaryotic Expression Systems Yeast Expression Systems Protein Expression-related Offerings Competent Cells Expression Vectors Instruments Kits and Reagents Protein Expression Services Application Area Research and Diagnostics Therapeutics End Users Academic and Research Institutes CROs and CDMOs Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Companies Other End-users Type of Operation In-house Operations Outsourced Operations Research Coverage: This report provides a comprehensive introduction to protein expression, including its process and various applications. It explores different types of expression systems, their key features, and uses. Additionally, it discusses challenges and recent trends in protein expression, providing insights for researchers and industry professionals. A comprehensive assessment of protein expression product and service providers, along with information on several relevant parameters, such as year of establishment, company size and location of headquarters, type of protein expression systems, protein expression-related offerings and application areas. This report provides a comprehensive competitiveness analysis of protein expression product and service providers. Key parameters considered include developer strength and portfolio strength. The report also conducts a benchmarking analysis, highlighting the focus areas of companies and comparing their capabilities among competitors. This analysis provides valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of leading protein expression providers, enabling informed decision-making. This report provides in-depth profiles of key companies in the protein expression market. Each profile includes a brief overview, protein expression offerings, financial information, recent developments, and a future outlook. This comprehensive analysis helps readers understand the market dynamics, company strengths, and growth prospects. This report provides an in-depth analysis of the protein expression value chain, including supplier-end user relationships and process stages from design to large-scale production. This report examines the protein expression market's growth drivers, restraints, emerging opportunities, and existing challenges, providing a comprehensive analysis of the factors influencing the market's trajectory. This report provides a detailed estimate of the current market size and future growth potential of the protein expression market from 2024 to 2035. Our analysis is based on adoption trends, secondary and primary research, and reliable data. We have also provided a breakdown of the current and forecasted opportunity within the protein expression industry. To account for future uncertainties, we have developed three forecast scenarios: conservative, base, and optimistic, representing different market growth tracks. These scenarios provide a robust outlook for the market, allowing stakeholders to plan and prepare for various possibilities. Comprehensive prediction of the current and future opportunity within protein expression market across different types of protein expression systems, such as algal, cell-free, insect, mammalian, prokaryotic and yeast expression systems. Detailed predictions of the current and future opportunity within protein expression domain across various protein expression-related offerings, such as competent cells, expression vectors, instruments, kits and reagents and protein expression services. Comprehensive assessment of the current and future opportunity within protein expression industry across various application areas, such as research and diagnostics, and therapeutics. Comprehensive projections of the current and future opportunity within protein expression market across different end-users, such as academic and research institutes, CROs and CDMOs, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and other end-users. Comprehensive prediction of the current and future opportunity within the market for protein expression across different types of operation, such as in-house operations and outsourced operations. Comprehensive projections of the current and future opportunity within protein expression market across various geographies. In-depth discussion on the leading protein expression product and service providers in this industry, highlighting their protein expression portfolio and annual revenues of business segment that includes protein expression. Leading Market Companies Agilent Technologies Ajinomoto Bio-Pharma Services Aldevron Cayman Chemical Charles River Laboratories Domainex Eurofins CALIXAR GeNext Genomics GenScript Biotech Lonza Merck KGaA New England Biolabs ProMab Promega ProteoGenix QIAGEN Sartorius Synbio Technologies Syngene Takara Bio Thermo Fisher Scientific WuXi Biologics Key Topics Covered: 1. PREFACE 2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3. ECONOMIC AND OTHER PROJECT SPECIFIC CONSIDERATIONS 3.1. Chapter Overview 3.2. Market Dynamics 4. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 5. INTRODUCTION 5.1. An Overview of Protein Expression 5.2. Schematic Representation of Protein Expression Process 5.3. Applications of Protein Expression 5.4. Types of Protein Expression Systems 5.5. Challenges in Protein Expression 5.6. Recent Trends 6. MARKET LANDSCAPE: KEY PROTEIN EXPRESSION PROVIDERS 6.1. Key Protein Expression Providers: Overall Market Landscape 6.1.1. Analysis by Year of Establishment 6.1.2. Analysis by Company Size 6.1.3. Analysis by Location of Headquarters (Region) 6.1.4. Analysis by Location of Headquarters (Country) 6.1.5. Analysis by Type of Protein Expression System 6.1.6. Analysis by Protein Expression-related Offerings 6.1.7. Analysis by Application Area 7. COMPANY COMPETITIVENESS ANALYSIS: KEY PROTEIN EXPRESSION PROVIDERS 7.1. Key Parameters and Methodology 7.2. Company Competitiveness Analysis: Protein Expression Providers: 7.3. Protein Expression Providers: Benchmarking Analysis of Key Players 7.3.1. Spider Web Analysis: Benchmarking of Key Players Agilent Technologies Ajinomoto Bio-Pharma Services Charles River Laboratories GenScript Biotech Lonza Merck QIAGEN Sartorius Thermo Fisher Scientific WuXi Biologics 7.3.2. Protein Expression Providers: Parameter-wise Benchmarking 8. COMPANY PROFILES Agilent Technologies Ajinomoto Bio-Pharma Services Charles River Laboratories GenScript Biotech Lonza Merck QIAGEN Sartorius Thermo Fisher Scientific WuXi Biologics Other Prominent Players Aldevron Cayman Chemical Domainex Eurofins CALIXAR GeNext Genomics New England Biolabs ProMab Biotechnologies Promega ProteoGenix Synbio Technologies Syngene Takara Bio 9. VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS 9.1. Brief Overview on Protein Expression Process and Stakeholders Involved 9.2. Schematic Representation of Protein Expression from Design to Large Scale Production 10. MARKET IMPACT ANALYSIS: DRIVERS, RESTRAINTS, OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES 11. GLOBAL PROTEIN EXPRESSION MARKET 11.1. Key Assumptions and Methodology 11.2. Global Protein Expression Market, Historical Trends (2020-2023) and Forecasted Estimates (2024-2035) 12. PROTEIN EXPRESSION MARKET, BY TYPE OF PROTEIN EXPRESSION SYSTEM 12.1. Key Assumptions and Methodology 12.2. Protein Expression Market: Distribution by Type of Protein Expression System, 2020, 2024 and 2035 13. PROTEIN EXPRESSION MARKET, BY PROTEIN EXPRESSION-RELATED OFFERINGS 13.1. Key Assumptions and Methodology 13.2. Protein Expression Market: Distribution by Protein Expression-related Offerings, 2020, 2024 and 2035 14. PROTEIN EXPRESSION MARKET, BY APPLICATION AREA 14.1. Key Assumptions and Methodology 14.2. Protein Expression Market: Distribution by Application Area, 2020, 2024 and 2035 15. PROTEIN EXPRESSION MARKET, BY END-USERS 15.1. Key Assumptions and Methodology 15.2. Protein Expression Market: Distribution by Type of End-user, 2020, 2024 and 2035 16. PROTEIN EXPRESSION MARKET, BY TYPE OF OPERATION 16.1. Key Assumptions and Methodology 16.2. Protein Expression Market: Distribution by Type of Operation, 2020, 2024 and 2035 17. PROTEIN EXPRESSION MARKET, BY GEOGRAPHY 17.1. Key Assumptions and Methodology 17.2. Protein Expression Market: Distribution by Geography, 2020, 2024 and 2035 18. PROTEIN EXPRESSION MARKET, BY KEY PLAYERS Agilent Technologies Ajinomoto Bio-Pharma Services Charles River Laboratories GenScript Biotech Lonza Merck QIAGEN Sartorius Thermo Fisher Scientific WuXi Biologics For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/gwqvki 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 VIRGINIA BEACH, Va., Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Groundworks, North Americas leading and fastest-growing foundation and water management solutions company, today announced the hire of Lara Drake as its new chief experience officer (CXO). In this role, Drake will lead a team dedicated to enhancing the customer journey and experience. Additionally, Drake will oversee activities related to engagement for all 5,500 Groundworks employees. Groundworks has made great strides in creating a standard for the customer experience in home services, said Drake. I am eager to dive into my new role and identify opportunities to strengthen loyalty among the people who entrust Groundworks to make their homes safer, as well as the talented team members who are the backbone of the company. Drake brings an extensive history of strong performance, with 30 years of experience in communications and brand marketing. She most recently served as executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc., the leading operator of manufactured home communities, RV Resorts and Campgrounds in North America. Drake spearheaded the marketing and sales departments, implementing strategies designed to enhance customer experience and drive business development. Under her leadership, she directed a range of initiatives focused on growth including brand strategy, creative development, customer engagement, marketing analytics, social media, online reputation, public relations and revenue management. Previously, Drake dedicated 14 years to Discover Financial Services, where she held numerous vice president and director roles and led initiatives such as rewards marketing, product management and brand communications. With the continued evolution of Groundworks, we recognize the importance of enhancing how we engage with our customers. We continue to invest in processes and technology to evolve with consumer demands, noted Matt Malone, founder and CEO of Groundworks. Lara Drake brings the right mix of practical knowledge to lead our new customer experience efforts and will be a dynamic force on our leadership team. Drake earned a Bachelor of Science in communication studies from Northwestern University, a Master of Liberal Arts from the University of Chicago, and an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, specializing in Business Administration and Management. She will operate out of Groundworks headquarters in Virginia Beach, VA. This news comes amidst a banner year for Groundworks: it launched its first international expansion into Canada, acquired 11 companies and opened 5 additional offices. About Groundworks Groundworks, headquartered in Virginia Beach, Va., is North Americas leading and fastest-growing foundation and water management solutions company. Founded in 2016, Groundworks companies provide foundation and water management solutions, including foundation repair, basement waterproofing, crawl space repair and encapsulation, plumbing, gutter installation, and concrete lifting services, as well as offer soil stabilizing solutions for residential and commercial projects. Groundworks combined brands have helped over one million homeowners protect and repair their most valuable asset: their homes. Groundworks operates over 73 offices across 36 states as well as in Canada. It is an eight-time recipient of Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies and was named to the Inc. 2023 Best in Business list. For more information about Groundworks, visit https://www.groundworks.com/, and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. Media Contact John Thornton Chief Marketing Officer John.thornton@groundworks.com Debbie Ehrman FINN Partners Deborah.ehrman@finnpartners.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1988ec34-9de9-4fe5-a9a2-93236df469cc DALLAS, Texas, Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Associa Cares, the charitable affiliate of Associa, has announced a significant earmark of $100,000 to support individuals impacted by Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in Northwest Florida late Thursday night. Hurricane Helene is forecast to be a major storm with the potential to cause significant damage across the regions. In response to the likelihood of widespread destruction, Associa Cares has allocated up to $100,000 to provide immediate relief to those affected by the hurricane. This support includes direct assistance to individuals and families who have suffered losses. "We are deeply concerned about the impact of Hurricane Helene on the residents in Florida and beyond, said Andrew Fortin, President of Associa Cares. "Our primary goal is to provide immediate relief to those who have been displaced or affected by this disaster. We stand with the communities during this challenging time and are committed to helping them rebuild and recover." Associa Cares will work closely with local Associa branches in the region to identify potential recipients. The organization is mobilizing quickly to ensure aid reaches those in need. Through its coordinated efforts, Associa Cares aims to bring relief and support to the affected residents, helping them navigate the challenges posed by this natural disaster. For more information on Associa Cares and its efforts to support wildfire victims, please visit https://www.associacares.org/. About Associa Cares Associa Cares is both a U.S.-based nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization and a registered charity in Canada, created to assist families and communities in crisis as a result of natural and man-made disasters. Through donations raised from Associa employees and at fundraising events across North America and Canada, Associa Cares is able to provide aid to the families affected by these types of tragedies. Associa Cares has provided over $5 million in assistance to more than 3,800 families since 2005. Associa Cares funds are distributed to families of Associa-managed and non-Associa managed communities. To donate to Associa Cares or apply for assistance, please visit our website at www.associacares.org To view Associa Cares U.S. fundraising disclosures, visit: http://www.associacares.org/fundraising-disclosure-statement/. CALGARY, Alberta, Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ozan Ardic, the rising 26-year-old Canadian composer and pianist, will embark on his highly anticipated debut concert tour across Canada this November. Audiences in seven citiesOttawa, Montreal, Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Toronto, and Edmontonwill be treated by OA Music to a stunning performance featuring original compositions and a special presentation of Ludwig van Beethovens Pathetique and Moonlight Sonatas. With a dynamic mid-program improvisation, Ardic promises a unique experience in every city. The tour will kick off on November 5 at Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre in Ottawa, followed by stops at iconic venues such as Montreal's Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel and Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver. Tickets are available for purchase now at ozanardic.com/events-1 . This is a not-to-be-missed event for both seasoned classical music lovers and newcomers alike. The blend of traditional works with fresh, original compositions ensures a captivating performance for all. Tour Dates and Cities: Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre, Ottawa, ON - November 5 Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel, Montreal, QC - November 6 Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver, BC - November 8 Alix Goolden Performance Hall, Victoria, BC - November 9 Bella Concert Hall, Calgary, AB - November 13 Metropolitan Community Church, Toronto, ON - November 22 McDougall United Church, Edmonton, AB - November 30 Each concert will take audiences on an emotional journey, featuring Beethovens iconic sonatas and Ardics innovative, genre-defying pieces. Each concert will be a one-of-a-kind experience, Ardic says. The improvisational section will reflect the mood of the audience and setting, making every performance completely unique. Attendees will not only hear the music but also feel the energy and inspiration of each moment unfold live on stage. Ardic has been praised for his ability to connect with audiences on a deep level. Aida Sarbasova, a frequent attendee, describes his performances as mesmerizing and filled with both technical brilliance and emotional depth. Rising quickly in the classical music world, Ardic's recent lecture series, Between the Notes, drew hundreds and expanded his following. His mission is to enhance the concertgoers experience by fostering a deeper understanding of classical music. About Ozan Ardic Ozan Ardic is a Canadian composer and pianist known for his original works and innovative interpretations of classical music. He is committed to making classical music accessible and engaging through concerts, lectures, and recordings. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7d3f5a20-9c55-474e-92c4-25bafd64094d Washington, D.C., Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The New Civil Liberties Alliance has filed a Supplemental Brief urging the court to vacate the Industry-Funded Monitoring (IFM) Omnibus Amendment, issued by the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) and applied to nearly all fisheries in the region. Implemented by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations (NOAA) February 2020 Final Rule, the Herring Rule is just the first of many industry-funded monitoring programs. To enforce the Amendment, NOAA must issue separate rules for each fishery. NCLA has consistently sought to vacate both the Rule and the Amendment. This request follows the Supreme Courts recent decision in Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc. v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, where the Court overturned Chevron deference, eliminating judicial deference to agency interpretations of allegedly ambiguous or silent statutes. The key issue now before the court is whether the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA) actually authorizes the agencys controversial amendment. NCLA argues that Congress never authorized the Secretary of Commerce, under the MSA, to force New England fishermen into contracts with onboard observers. The costly Industry-Funded Monitoring program was imposed without proper statutory authorization, and without Chevron deference, this unlawful rule and amendment must be struck down. Now that Chevron deference has been overruled, courts are required to evaluate agency actions based on the statutes language, without substituting the agencys interpretations for what Congress wrote. This legal shift rightfully restores judicial authority to determine the meaning of the law to the courts, rather than relying on agencys often self-aggrandizing interpretations. NCLA believes Americans liberty interests are better protected when regulators are no longer able to substitute their own views for those that Congress actually set down in law. The Omnibus Amendment goes beyond its statutory limits, and NCLA calls on the court to declare it unlawful and vacate the Final Rule. NCLA released the following statements: With the death of Chevron deference in Loper Bright and Relentless this unlawful rule should die with it. John Vecchione, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA For more information visit the case page here. ABOUT NCLA NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLAs public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans fundamental rights. ### TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2024 - Dore Copper Mining Corp. (the "Corporation" or "Dore Copper") (TSXV:DCMC; OTCQB:DRCMF; FRA:DCM) is pleased to announce that it has closed its previously announced non-brokered private placement offering, pursuant to which the Corporation sold an aggregate of: (i) 20,960,955 common shares in the capital of the Corporation (the "Common Shares") at a price of $0.105 per Common Share for gross proceeds of approximately $2,200,900; (ii) 1,400,000 common shares in the capital of the Corporation that will qualify as "flow-through shares" within the meaning of subsection 66(15) of the Income Tax Act (Canada) and section 359.1 of the Taxation Act (Quebec) (the "Traditional Flow-Through Shares") at a price of $0.125 per Traditional Flow-Through Share for gross proceeds of $175,000; and (iii) 11,500,000 common shares in the capital of the Corporation that will qualify as "flow-through shares" within the meaning of subsection 66(15) of the Income Tax Act (Canada) and section 359.1 of the Taxation Act (Quebec) (the "Charitable Flow-Through Shares" and together with the Traditional Flow-Through Shares, the "Flow-Through Shares") at a price of $0.20 per Charitable Flow-Through Share for gross proceeds of $2,300,000, for aggregate gross proceeds to the Corporation of approximately $4,675,900 (collectively, the "Offering"). The Offering was oversubscribed. Canaccord Genuity Corp. and Red Cloud Securities Inc. acted as finders (each, a "Finder") in connection with the Offering. In consideration for acting as a Finder in connection with the Offering, the Corporation paid an aggregate of $3,000 in cash finder's fees to the Finders, representing 6% of the gross proceeds of the Traditional Flow-Through Shares that were sold to subscribers introduced by such parties, and issued an aggregate of 24,000 non-transferable warrants (the "Finder's Warrants") to purchase common shares in the capital of the Corporation (the "Finder's Warrant Shares") to the Finders, representing 6% of the Traditional Flow-Through Shares that were sold to subscribers introduced by such parties, with each Finder's Warrant being exercisable for one Finder's Warrant Share at a price of $0.105 per Finder's Warrant Share until September 26, 2026. The net proceeds from the sale of the Common Shares will be used for exploration and development activities, feasibility study work, permitting activities and for working capital and general corporate purposes. The Corporation will use an amount equal to the gross proceeds received by the Corporation from the sale of the Flow-Through Shares, pursuant to the provisions in the Income Tax Act (Canada), to incur, directly or indirectly, on or before December 31, 2025, expenses ("Qualifying Expenditures") related to the Corporation's projects in Quebec that are eligible "Canadian exploration expenses" (as defined in the Income Tax Act (Canada)), which will qualify as "flow-through critical mineral mining expenditures" (as defined in the Income Tax Act (Canada)), and renounce all the Qualifying Expenditures in favour of the applicable subscribers of the Flow-Through Shares effective December 31, 2024. In addition, with respect to subscribers who are eligible individuals under the Taxation Act (Quebec), the Qualifying Expenditures will also qualify for inclusion in the "exploration base relating to certain Quebec exploration expenses" within the meaning of section 726.4.10 of the Taxation Act (Quebec) and for inclusion in the "exploration base relating to certain Quebec surface mining exploration expenses" within the meaning of section 726.4.17.2 of the Taxation Act (Quebec). Ocean Partners UK Limited ("Ocean Partners"), an insider of the Corporation, and funds managed by Equinox Partners Investment Management, LLC ("Equinox Partners"), an insider of the Corporation, subscribed for 7,719,047 Common Shares and 7,719,048 Common Shares, respectively, under the Offering on the same terms as arm's length investors. Additionally, the Corporation understands that Ocean Partners and funds managed by Equinox Partners were each party to an arrangement with the initial subscribers of the Charitable Flow-Through Shares or donees thereof, pursuant to which Ocean Partners and funds managed by Equinox Partners each purchased 5,750,000 common shares in the capital of the Corporation. The participation of Ocean Partners and Equinox Partners in the Offering constitutes a "related party transaction" for the purposes of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). The Corporation is exempt from the requirements to obtain a formal valuation or minority shareholder approval in connection with the Offering in reliance on sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1)(a), respectively, of MI 61-101, as neither the fair market value of the securities issued to the related parties nor the fair market value of the consideration for the securities issued to the related parties exceeds 25% of the Corporation's market capitalization as calculated in accordance with MI 61-101. The Corporation did not file a material change report more than 21 days before the expected closing date of the Offering as the aforementioned insider participation had not been confirmed at that time and the Corporation wished to close the Offering as expeditiously as possible. The Offering was made by way of private placement in each of the provinces of Canada pursuant to applicable exemptions from the prospectus requirements and, in the case of the Common Shares, in certain other jurisdictions, in each case in accordance with all applicable laws. The Offering of the Common Shares was conducted on a private placement basis to persons in the United States who are "accredited investors", as such term is defined in Rule 501(a) of Regulation D ("Regulation D") under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), and in compliance with Rule 506(b) of Regulation D and applicable United States securities laws. The securities issued under the Offering are subject to a four month hold period under applicable Canadian securities laws which will expire on January 27, 2025. The Offering is subject to final acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange. The securities offered have not been, nor will they be, registered under the U.S. Securities Act or any state securities law, and may not be offered, sold or delivered, directly or indirectly, within the United States, or to or for the account or benefit of U.S. persons, absent registration or an exemption from such registration requirements. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of securities in any state in the United States in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. About Dore Copper Mining Corp. Dore Copper Mining Corp. aims to be the next copper producer in Quebec with an initial production target of +50 million pounds of copper equivalent annually by implementing a hub-and-spoke operation model with multiple high-grade copper-gold assets feeding its centralized Copper Rand mill1. The Corporation has delivered its PEA in May 2022 and is proceeding with a feasibility study. The Corporation has consolidated a large land package in the prolific Lac Dore/Chibougamau and Joe Mann mining camps that has historically produced 1.6 billion pounds of copper and 4.4 million ounces of gold2. The land package includes 13 former producing mines, deposits and resource target areas within a 60-kilometer radius of the Corporation's Copper Rand Mill. For further information, please visit the Corporation's website at www.dorecopper.com or refer to Dore Copper's SEDAR+ filings at www.sedarplus.ca or contact: Ernest Mast Laurie Gaborit President and Chief Executive Officer Vice President, Investor Relations Phone: (416) 792-2229 Phone: (416) 219-2049 Email: ernest.mast@dorecopper.com Email: laurie.gaborit@dorecopper.com Facebook: Dore Copper Mining LinkedIn: Dore Copper Mining Corp. Twitter: @DoreCopper Instagram: @DoreCopperMining Technical report titled "Preliminary Economic Assessment for the Chibougamau Hub-and-Spoke Complex, Quebec, Canada" dated June 15, 2022, in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"). The Technical Report was prepared by BBA Inc. with several consulting firms contributing to sections of the study, including SLR Consulting (Canada) Ltd., SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc. and WSP Inc. Sources for historic production figures: Economic Geology, v. 107, pp. 963-989 - Structural and Stratigraphic Controls on Magmatic, Volcanogenic, and Shear Zone-Hosted Mineralization in the Chapais-Chibougamau Mining Camp, Northeastern Abitibi, Canada by Francois Leclerc et al. (Lac Dore/Chibougamau mining camp) and NI 43-101 Technical Report on the Joe Mann Property dated January 11, 2016 by Geologica Groupe-Conseil Inc. for Jessie Ressources Inc. (Joe Mann mine). Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This news release includes certain "forward-looking statements" under applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the use of proceeds of the Offering, the timing and ability of the Corporation to receive necessary regulatory approvals, including the final acceptance of the Offering from the TSX Venture Exchange, the renunciation to the purchasers of the Flow-Through Shares and timing thereof, the tax treatment of the Flow-Through Shares, the Corporation's ability to meet its production target, the commencement, timing and completion of a feasibility study, and the plans, operations and prospects of the Corporation. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to: general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; delay or failure to receive regulatory approvals; the price of gold and copper; and the results of current exploration. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Corporation disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. 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. WINNEMUCCA, Sept. 26, 2024 - Paramount Gold Nevada Corp. (NYSE American: PZG) ("Paramount" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that its Annual General Meeting ("AGM" or the "meeting") of the stockholders will be held on December 12, 2024 at 11:00 AM eastern standard time. The meeting will be held virtually over the Internet. Proxy materials will be available on or about November 1st, the mail date, at www.edocumentview.com/PZG and on the Company's website. The Board of Directors has fixed the close of business on Thursday, October 17, 2024 as the record date for the determination of the stockholders entitled to notice of, and to vote at, the AGM. The Company also advised that it filed its annual audited financial statements for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024 on Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") on September 26, 2024. The audit report of the Company's independent registered accounting firm included a going concern qualification. Release of this information is required by Section 610(b) of the NYSE American Company Guide. It does not represent any change or amendment to any of the Company's filings for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024. To stay informed of future press releases, subscribe to our E-Alerts Program and to learn more about our projects visit the projects section of our website. About Paramount Gold Nevada Corp. Paramount Gold Nevada Corp. is a U.S. based precious metals exploration and development company. Paramount's strategy is to create shareholder value through exploring and developing its mineral properties and to realize this value for its shareholders in three ways: by selling its assets to established producers; entering joint ventures with producers for construction and operation; or constructing and operating mines for its own account. Paramount holds a 100% interest in three projects: Grassy Mountain; Sleeper and Bald Peak. The Grassy Mountain Gold Project ("Grassy") consists of approximately 8,200 acres located on private and BLM land in Malheur County, Oregon. Grassy contains a gold-silver deposit (100% located on private land) for which results of a positive Feasibility Study have been released and key permitting milestones accomplished. The Sleeper Gold Project is in Northern Nevada, the world's premier mining jurisdiction. The Sleeper Gold Project, which includes the former producing Sleeper mine, totals 2,474 unpatented mining claims (approximately 44,917 acres). The drill ready, Bald Peak Project in Nevada, consists of approximately 2,260 acres. Paramount Gold Nevada Corp. Christos Theodossiou, Director of Corporate Communications 844.488.233 Twitter: @ParamountNV VANCOUVER - Giant Mining Corp. (CSE: BFG | OTC: BFGFF | FWB: YW5) ("Giant Mining" or the "Company") announces an update on its Friday Gold Project ("Friday Gold"), located at Orogrande, approximately 16 km south-southwest of Elk City in the Orogrande Mining District, Idaho, USA, in which the Company holds a 20% ownership stake. The Historical NI 43-101 Mineral Resource Estimate ("MRE") dated Effective February 19th, 2013 entitled "Technical Report, Idaho Gold Project, Idaho County, Idaho, USA"1 (the "Report") did not include drilling that took place after the Effective date of the MRE. The NI 43-101 historical resource estimate was based on the results of approximately 30,480 meters (100,000 ft) of drilling, 70 core holes with 17,368 meters (56,981 ft) and 107 RC holes with 13,141 meters (43,115 feet) of drilling. Grades as high as 447.81 g/t gold were noted in the report.2 David Greenway, CEO of Giant Mining, recently stated, "We couldn't be more excited that gold is trading at an all-time near $2,700 per ounce. We are eager to provide an updated overview of Giant's 20% shareholding in the Friday Gold Project-a value we believe the market has yet to fully reflect in our company's market cap. With 1.237 million ounces of gold indicated and inferred, and the potential for further expansion by incorporating 14 already drilled holes with outstanding results, the project remains open in all directions, with several new targets. We believe the time is right to update the NI 43-101 and unlock the full potential of the Friday Gold Deposit for all stakeholders." The summary of the MRE are as follows: CUT-OFF g/t Au INDICATED INFERRED Tonne's (000's) AU g/t oz Au Tonne's (000's) AU g/t oz Au 0.35 24,737 0.89 705,000 25,069 0.8 644,000 0.4 22,358 0.94 677,000 22,924 0.84 618,000 0.45 20,130 1.00 647,000 20,847 0.88 590,000 0.5 18,093 1.06 615,000 18,832 0.92 559,000 0.55 16,214 1.05 547,000 4,029 0.91 117,000 Notes to accompany Mineral Resource tables: Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Mineral resources are amenable to open pit mining methods and have been constrained using a Lerches-Grossmann optimized pit. Assumptions include US$1,500/oz Au, 85% Au recovery, $2.50/tonne mining cost, $2.00/tonne waste mining cost, $12.00/tonne process and GA cost. No allowances have been made for mining losses and dilution. Pit slope angle of 45. The Company has elected to use a 0.45 g/t gold cut-off (bolded) which is greater than the conceptual marginal cut-off of 0.36 g/t. Gold analyses are performed by fire assay/AA finish methods. Mineral Resource Estimate from 2013 NI 43-101 Report with 1,237,000 ounces of gold Indicated + Inferred Click Image To View Full Size The Friday Gold consists of a Historical NI 43-101 MRE containing an indicated 647,000 Ounces of Gold at an average grade of 1.0 Gram per tonne and a further inferred resource of 590,000 ounces at an average grade of 0.88 grams per tonne using a cut off grade of 0.45 grams per tonne. Some of the headlines and results from the drilling reported by Premium Exploration Inc. ("Premium") in 2013 and 2014, after the date of the NI 43-101 are as follows: "Premium Exploration Encounters 151 Meters (496 Feet) of 2.68 g/t Gold at Its Idaho Gold Project" - January 23rd, 20143 Highlights of PFR2013-1: Highlights of PFR2013-2: 2.69 g/t gold over 151 meters including: 1.66 g/t gold over 123.3 meters including: - 5.62 g/t over 54.1 meters -2.37 g/t gold over 36.4 meters - 15.19 g/t over 9.14 meters -3.68 g/t gold over 6.1 meters -2.54 g/t gold over 17.5 meters -3.87 g/t gold over 6.5 meters -2.83 g/t gold over 15 meters -3.72 g/t gold over 7.5 meters "Premium Reports 5.23 G/T over 112.8 Meters at the Friday Deposit, Idaho including 32.22 G/T over 6.6 Meters" 4 Highlights of PFR2014-5: Highlights of PFR2014-6: 1.07 g/t gold over 128.1 meters including: 5.23 g/t gold over 112.8 meters including: -9.55 g/t gold over 5.3 meters -3.47 g/t gold over 4.5 meters -9.24 g/t gold over 1.8 meters -2.07 g/t gold over 8.5 meters -22.90 g/t gold over 0.8 meters -3.83 g/t gold over 5.0 meters -34.22 g/t gold over 6.6 meters --6.54 g/t gold over 5.3 meters Highlights of PFR2014-8: Highlights of PFR2014-9: 2.10 g/t gold over 98.3 meters including: 1.36 g/t gold over 92.36 meters including: -6.82 g/t gold over 2.3 meters -4.43 g/t gold over 6.5 meters -3.96 g/t gold over 1.5 meters -4.91 g/t gold over 1.8 meters -12.35 g/t gold over 0.8 meters -3.97 g/t gold over 1.8 meters -12.12 g/t gold over 3.1 meters -2.32 g/t gold over 1.1 meters -26.94 g/t gold over 1.5 meters -2.95 g/t gold over 2.7 meters -11.99 g/t gold over 1.5 meters -2.04 g/t gold over 2.7 meters -2.25 g/t gold over 1.8 meters Highlights of PFR2014-10: Highlights of PFR2014-11: 2.43 g/t gold over 96.2 meters including: 0.94 g/t gold over 72.7 meters including: -17.53 g/t gold over 2.3 meters -2.69 g/t gold over 4.5 meters -11.51 g/t gold over 0.8 meters -3.18 g/t gold over 4.3 meters -28.73 g/t gold over 3.1 meters -1.68 g/t gold over 2.3 meters -5.09 g/t gold over 2.0 meters -2.31 g/t gold over 4.6 meters Highlights of PFR2014-12: Highlights of PFR2014-13: 0.48 g/t gold over 113.2 meters including: 1.05 g/t gold over 86.3 meters including: -2.10 g/t gold over 2.7 meters -5.54 g/t gold over 3.1 meters -5.64 g/t gold over 1.5 meters -9.47 g/t gold over 1.5 meters -1.90 g/t gold over 1.5 meters -2.41 g/t gold over 2.6 meters -1.42 g/t gold over 2.29 meters -1.38 g/t gold over 3.81 meters Click Image To View Full Size Premium further reported on October 7th, 2014 that the company had drilled fifteen holes (15) which have yet to be updated and included in the 2013 published MRE. Three holes of the fifteen holes targeted the gold zone located at roughly two hundred meters depth and twelve holes targeted a shallower gold zone at roughly 40-100 meters in depth. "The deposit remains open in all directions for continued expansion." Metallurgy Premium historically announced and it was further reported in the NI 43-101 that "Results indicated that gold and silver reacted very well to cyanidation with excellent recoveries as follows: Gold 75-93% Silver 17-81% Areas of uncertainty that may materially impact the MRE include: Commodity price assumptions Assumptions that all required permits will be forthcoming Pit slope angles Metal recovery assumptions Mining and process cost assumptions There are no other known factors or issues that materially affect the estimate other than normal risks faced by mining projects in terms of environmental, permitting, taxation, socio-economic, marketing, and political factors. The Company is not aware of any known legal or title issues that would materially affect the MRE. About Premium Exploration Premium Exploration Inc. ("Premium"), a BC reporting issuer that owns a 100% interest in the Friday Gold Project located at Orogrande, approximately 16 km south-southwest of Elk City in the Orogrande Mining District, Idaho, USA. Giant Mining is a 20% Shareholder in Premium Exploration. Qualified Person The scientific and technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Lawrence Segerstrom, a consulting geologist who is a "Qualified Person" as such term is defined under National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43- 101"). About Giant Mining Corp. Giant Mining Corp. is engaged in the identification, review and acquisition of latter stage copper and copper/silver/gold assets. This is in direct response to the growing worldwide demand and lack of supply for precious metals fueled by the Green New Deal in the US and most other developed nations with similar programs aimed at addressing climate change. Such programs are heavily reliant on silver, gold and especially copper to produce Electric Vehicles and other renewable power sources, as well as building infrastructure to provide clean and affordable electricity. The flagship project is the Majuba Hill copper, silver and gold District located 156 miles (251 km) outside Reno, Nevada, USA. Management has been mandated to focus on safe, mining friendly jurisdictions where government regulations are supportive of mining operations. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. On Behalf of the Board of Giant Mining Corp. "David Greenway" David C. Greenway President & CEO For further information, please contact: E: info@giantminingcorp.com P: 1 (604) 499-6791 VISIT OUR WEBSITE FOR MORE DETAILS www.giantminingcorp.com LIKE AND FOLLOW Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn DOWNLOAD INVESTOR INFORMATION Click Here Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking" statements. Forward looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although Giant Mining Corp. 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 forward looking statements. Forward looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of Giant Mining Corp. management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by law, Giant Mining Corp. undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. 1 Premium Exploration Files Technical Report on the Idaho Gold Property (yahoo.com) 2 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/premium-exploration-files-technical-report-224112517.html 3 Premium Exploration Encounters 151 Meters (496 Feet) of 2.68 g/t Gold at Its Idaho Gold Project (yahoo.com) Premium Exploration Reports 5.23 G/T over 112.8 Metres at the Friday Deposit, Idaho Including 34.22 G/T Gold Over 6.6 Metres (yahoo.com) 4 Premium Exploration Encounters 151 Meters (496 Feet) of 2.68 g/t Gold at Its Idaho Gold Project (yahoo.com) Premium Exploration Reports 5.23 G/T over 112.8 Metres at the Friday Deposit, Idaho Including 34.22 G/T Gold Over 6.6 Metres (yahoo.com) Copyright (c) 2024 TheNewswire - All rights reserved. VANCOUVER, Sept. 27, 2024 - West Red Lake Gold Mines Ltd. ("West Red Lake Gold" or the "Company") (TSXV: WRLG) (OTCQB: WRLGF) is pleased to announce a Town Hall meeting in Red Lake to engage with community members about the Company's plans at the Madsen Mine and to recruit new employees. West Red Lake Gold aims to restart the Madsen Mine in 2025. In preparation, the Madsen site is very active: underground there are 2 to 3 development crews active at all times alongside 2 definition drill rigs, while on surface there are multiple large capital projects happening alongside an exploration drilling program. "We have been active at the Madsen Mine site for over a year and are pushing to restart this mine in 2025," said Shane Williams, President and CEO. "We are keen to host this Town Hall meeting so we can communicate our plans, hear feedback from the community, and spread the word that we will be hiring for multiple positions over the next six months." West Red Lake Gold's Town Hall is happening Wednesday October 2 at the Red Lake Legion, located at 31 Highway 105. The Town Hall will take place in two sessions (2:00-4:00 and 7:00-9:00). Each session will start with a presentation by Mine General Manager Michael Procyk on the company's activities and plans. After that, everyone in attendance is welcome to engage with management from all Madsen Mine site departments about job openings, questions, and concerns. The Company encourages anyone interested in working at the Madsen Mine to attend the Town Hall or contact careers@wrlgold.com. Market Making Service Contract West Red Lake announce that it has engaged the services of ICP Securities Inc. ("ICP") to provide automated market making services, including use of its proprietary algorithm, ICP Premium, in compliance with the policies and guidelines of the TSX Venture Exchange and other applicable legislation. ICP will be paid a monthly fee of C$7,500, plus applicable taxes. The agreement dated September 25, 2024 between the Company and ICP, with a start date of September 25, 2024. The agreement is for four (4) months (the "Initial Term") and shall be automatically renewed for subsequent one (1) month terms (each month called an "Additional Term") unless either party provides at least thirty (30) days written notice prior to the end of the Initial Term or an Additional Term, as applicable. There are no performance factors contained in the agreement and no stock options or other compensation in connection with the engagement. ICP and its clients may acquire an interest in the securities of the Company in the future. ICP's market making activity will be primarily to correct temporary imbalances in the supply and demand of the Company's shares. ICP will be responsible for the costs it incurs in buying and selling the Company's shares, and no third party will be providing funds or securities for the market making activities. ICP is located in Toronto, Ontario. ICP and its affiliates are arm's length party to the Company and prior to engagement, did not hold any securities of West Red Lake Gold Ltd. Directly nor indirectly prior to engaging as market maker QUALIFIED PERSON The technical information presented in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Maurice Mostert, P.Eng., Vice President of Technical Services for West Red Lake Gold and the Qualified Person for technical services at the West Red Lake Project, as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. ABOUT WEST RED LAKE GOLD MINES West Red Lake Gold Mines Ltd. is a mineral exploration company that is publicly traded and focused on advancing and developing its flagship Madsen Gold Mine and the associated 47 km2 highly prospective land package in the Red Lake district of Ontario. The highly productive Red Lake Gold District of Northwest Ontario, Canada has yielded over 30 million ounces of gold from high-grade zones and hosts some of the world's richest gold deposits. WRLG also holds the wholly owned Rowan Property in Red Lake, with an expansive property position covering 31 km2 including three past producing gold mines - Rowan, Mount Jamie, and Red Summit. ON BEHALF OF WEST RED LAKE GOLD MINES LTD. "Shane Williams" Shane Williams President & Chief Executive Officer FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Gwen Preston VP Communications Tel: (604) 609-6132 Email: investors@wrlgold.com or visit the Company's website at https://www.westredlakegold.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. CAUTIONARY STATEMENT AND FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION The decision to continue with the advancement of the Madsen Mine restart and the Company's operations and plans with respect thereto, as described herein (the "Madsen Mine Restart"), are based on economic models prepared by the Company in conjunction with management's knowledge of the property and the existing estimate of indicated and inferred mineral resources on the property set out in the report entitled, "Independent NI 43-101 Technical Report and Updated Mineral Resource Estimate for the PureGold Mine, Canada", with an effective date of July 31, 2022, as amended on April 24, 2024, a copy of which is available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. The Madsen Mine Restart is not based on a preliminary economic assessment, a pre-feasibility study or a feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability. Accordingly, there is increased uncertainty and economic and technical risks of failure associated with the Madsen Mine Restart, in particular: the risk that mineral grades will be lower than expected; the risk that additional ongoing mining operations are more difficult or more expensive than expected; and the risk that production and economic variables may vary considerably, due to the absence of a detailed economic and technical analysis undertaken in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Certain statements contained in this news release may constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information generally can be identified by words such as "anticipate", "expect", "estimate", "forecast", "planned", and similar expressions suggesting future outcomes or events. Forward-looking information is based on current expectations of management; however, it is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking information in this news release and include without limitation, statements relating to plans for the potential restart of mining operations at the Madsen Mine, the potential of the Madsen Mine; any untapped growth potential in the Madsen deposit or Rowan deposit; and the Company's future objectives and plans. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Forward-looking information involve numerous risks and uncertainties and actual results might differ materially from results suggested in any forward-looking information. These risks and uncertainties include, among other things, market volatility; the state of the financial markets for the Company's securities; fluctuations in commodity prices; timing and results of the cleanup and recovery at the Madsen Mine; and changes in the Company's business plans. Forward-looking information is based on a number of key expectations and assumptions, including without limitation, that the Company will continue with its stated business objectives and its ability to raise additional capital to proceed. Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. Additional information about risks and uncertainties is contained in the Company's management's discussion and analysis for the year ended November 30, 2023, and the Company's annual information form for the year ended November 30, 2023, copies of which are available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. The forward-looking information contained herein is expressly qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement. Forward-looking information reflects management's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to the Company. The forward-looking information is made as of the date of this news release and the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise such information to reflect new events or circumstances, except as may be required by applicable law. For more information on the Company, investors should review the Company's continuous disclosure filings that are available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ea2aa4ff-1c25-4e73-b569-1ae6ff4295ef September 27 - Interra Copper Corp. (CSE: IMCX; OTCQB: IMIMF; FRA: 3MX) ("Interra" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the commencement of the Phase One drilling program at the RIP Copper Project (the "Project" or "RIP") in the Stikine region of British Columbia. The RIP Project is situated approximately 33 km northeast of Imperial Metals' past producing Huckleberry copper-molybdenum ("Cu-Mo") mine and Surge Copper's advanced stage Ox/Seal/Berg projects. Imperial Metals Corp. is exploring Huckleberry and its surrounding claims for additional Cu-Mo resources. Atlas Drilling Ltd. out of Kamloops, BC, has been contracted for this first phase drill program of approximately 2000 metres. The project will be run out of the Huckleberry mine site camp located approximately 88 km west-southwest of Houston, BC. The initial drillhole will target the northernmost centre of the two IP anomalies defined by the recently completed geophysical surveys, airborne magnetics and 3D IP, detailed by the Company in its July 31, 2024, press release. The geophysical surveys suggest potential for two porphyry Cu-Mo mineralized centres (Fig. 1). The northernmost centre coincides with outcropping porphyry Cu-Mo mineralization and comprises a coincident magnetic/resistivity high, surrounded by a large "doughnut" shaped chargeability high (>35 mV/V) with a diameter of approximately 1 km. The second potential porphyry Cu-Mo centre is situated approximately 1.1 km to the south, comprising a similar magnetic high surrounded by a "doughnut" shaped chargeability high (>35 mV/V). This southern potential porphyry centre is entirely covered by overburden with a diameter of approximately 850 metres. CEO Brian Thurston commented, "We are excited to drill these two classic porphyry copper-moly deposit style bullseye targets. In well-established porphyry districts like this one, it is unusual to have untested classic porphyry targets but at RIP one of the targets is entirely untested by diamond drilling, and the other target was only tested with a single diamond drill hole, which was aimed away from the centre of the bullseye, and nevertheless hit encouraging mineralization. We feel enthused by the untested potential of this property and are excited to commence this first phase drill campaign." The Project is interpreted as a highly underexplored porphyry Cu-Mo system that is predominantly covered by overburden. A small outcrop area within the northern interpreted porphyry Cu-Mo mineralized centre contains variably altered porphyritic intrusions which cut strongly hornfelsed Hazelton Group volcano-sedimentary rocks. Porphyritic intrusions and hornfelsed country rock are both host to porphyry style stockwork, including magnetite-chalcopyrite and quartz-chalcopyrite-molybdenite veins. Historical exploration targeting a large IP anomaly on the project included shallow percussion drilling of this chargeability anomaly by Kennco and intersected porphyry copper style alteration and anomalous Cu-Mo mineralization over a broad area. A single diamond drill hole was collared approximately 200m north of the discovery outcrop and intersected anomalous Cu (0.07%) and Mo (0.005%) over 74m in strongly quartz-sericite-pyrite altered volcanic rocks cut by late feldspar porphyry and mineralized quartz diorite dykes; the bottom 64m consists of intrusive clast-rich polymictic breccia cut by abundant pyrite, gypsum and quartz veins with local secondary biotite. Quartz-sericite-pyrite, intermediate argillic and propylitic alteration predominate in the holes, suggesting that the Kennco holes only tested the upper levels of a shallowly eroded porphyry Cu-Mo system. In late 2023, the Company announced its option agreement with ArcWest Exploration Inc. ("ArcWest") to acquire an 80% interest in the RIP Cu-Mo project. Interra can earn the first tier of its interest in the project by completing staged exploration work totalling C$2.0 million and direct payment of C$100,000 and annual share payments over four years until end of 2027. Interra is currently fully funded for, and anticipates it will likely exceed, its 2024 and 2025 obligations for the earn-in of C$300,000 and C$500,000 in expenditures, respectively. With the recent completion of the geophysical surveys helping to define drill targets, the Company is now focused on this first phase drill program of approximately 2,000 meters. Figure 1: RIP Chargeability and Magnetic Survey Results Annual General Meeting The Company held its Annual General Meeting on September 20, 2024. All proposed resolutions, as described in the notice of the meeting and information circular dated August 9, 2024, were approved by the shareholders of the Company. Qualified Person Brian G. Thurston, P.Geo., the Company's CEO and a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, has reviewed and approved the technical information in this news release. About Interra Copper Corp. Interra Copper Corp. is focused on building shareholder value through the exploration and development of its two early-stage copper exploration assets located in British Columbia, Canada. The Thane Project located in the Quesnel Terrane of Northern BC spans over 20,658 ha with 10 high-priority targets identified demonstrating significant copper and precious metal mineralization. The Company has an earn-in option up to 80% and joint-venture agreement on the RIP Project located in Stikine Terrane in a prolific belt of Late Cretaceous (Bulkley plutonic suite), known for copper-molybdenum deposits. Interra Copper's leadership and advisory teams are comprised of senior mining industry executives who have a wealth of technical and capital markets experience and a strong track record of discovering, financing, developing, and operating mining projects on a global scale. Interra Copper is committed to sustainable and responsible business activities in line with industry best practices, supportive of all stakeholders, including the local communities in which we operate. The Company's common shares are principally listed on the Canadian Stock Exchange under the symbol "IMCX". For more information on Interra Copper, please visit our website at www.interracoppercorp.com. On behalf of the Board of Interra Copper Corp. Brian Thurston, P.Geo. Chief Executive Officer and Director Tel: 778-949-1829 For further information contact: Katherine Pryde Investor Relations investors@interracoppercorp.com Forward Looking Information This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "potential", "possible", and similar expressions, or statements that events, conditions, or results "will", "may", "could", or" should" occur or be achieved. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, without limitation, relating to the Rip Copper Project, including the Phase One drilling program, the exploration potential thereof, and the expected satisfaction of the Company's 2024 and 2025 earn-in obligations are forward-looking statements. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forward-looking statements reflect the beliefs, opinions and projections on the date the statements are made and are based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by Interra, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and the parties have made assumptions and estimates based on or related to many of these factors. Such factors include, without limitation, risks associated with possible accidents and other risks associated with mineral exploration operations, the risk that the Company will encounter unanticipated geological factors, risks associated with the interpretation of exploration results, the possibility that the Company may not be able to secure permitting and other governmental clearances necessary to carry out the Company's exploration plans, the risk that the Company will not be able to raise sufficient funds to carry out its business plans, and the risk of political uncertainties and regulatory or legal changes that might interfere with the Company's business and prospects. Readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release concerning these items. Interra does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by applicable securities laws. The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the contents of this press release, and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Copyright (c) 2024 TheNewswire - All rights reserved. Vancouver, September 27, 2024 - Masivo Silver Corp. (TSXV: MASS) (OTC Pink: GNYPF) ("Masivo" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has completed hole No. 5 at 322 feet at the Boston Mine project in Elko County, Nevada where Masivo is targeting its high grade Gold/Copper Skarn deposit. The drill core will be delivered to the certified lab for analysis this week and we expect results in 6-8 weeks. The commencement of drilling Hole No. 6 will begin early next week where Masivo is targeting a depth of 300 feet. The objective of Hole No.6 is to test the strong historical IP anomalies that are interpreted to reflect sulfide mineralization that is part of the skarn geology. Based upon the results, a decision will be made as to expanding the IP survey over the rest of the property. Hole No.1 had significant drill intercepts including 55 feet (drilled width) of 0.99% Cu, 1.52 g/t Au and 30.35 g/t Ag starting at 65 feet down hole. Phase 1 drill program will be between 6-8 holes with the follow up of a Phase 2 Drill Program of an additional 8-10 holes. The technical team has started discussions on a Phase 2 drill program, several new target areas are being discussed per the assay results on the Phase 1 program, we have not received assay results from Hole 2,3 or 4 but are expected in the near future. Masivo holds a $75,000 drill credit in Mexico and is continuing to discuss significant opportunities in Mexico and the USA to compliment the Boston Mine project. The Mexico projects would allow Masivo to drill in the winter months as the Boston mine can be challenging with winter storms. "We are making great progress drilling here at the Boston mine and looking forward to assay results." Commented David Coburn, President & CEO of Masivo Silver Corp. Brian Brewer, PGeo, is Masivo Silver's qualified person for the company's project in Nevada and Mexico, and has approved this news release. About Masivo Silver Corp. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS "David Coburn" Chief Executive Officer This press release contains "forward-looking information" that is based on the Company's current expectations, estimates, forecasts, and projections. This forward-looking information includes, among other things, statements with respect to the Company's exploration plans. The words "will", "anticipated", "plans" or other similar words and phrases are intended to identify forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company's actual results, level of activity, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward looking information. 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/224799 Not for Distribution to United States News Wire Services or for Dissemination in the United States Arizona Sonoran Copper Company Inc. (TSX:ASCU | OTCQX:ASCUF) ("ASCU" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has filed and been receipted for a preliminary short form prospectus in connection with its bought deal offering of 20,700,000 common shares in the capital of the Company (the "Common Shares") at a price of C$1.45 per Common Share (the "Issue Price") for gross proceeds to the Company of C$30,015,000 (the "Offering"), as further described in the press release of the Company dated September 24, 2024. Pursuant to the Offering, the Company also granted the underwriters an over-allotment option to purchase at the Issue Price up to an additional 15% of the Common Shares issued in connection with the Offering, which option is exercisable, in whole or in part, by the underwriters at any time until and including 30 days after the closing of the Offering. In connection with the Offering, the Company has entered into an underwriting agreement with Raymond James Ltd. and Paradigm Capital Inc., as co-lead underwriters and joint bookrunners, together with a syndicate of underwriters including Canaccord Genuity Corp., Eight Capital, Haywood Securities Inc., Stifel Nicolaus Canada Inc., Scotia Capital Inc. and TD Securities Inc. The preliminary short form prospectus relating to the Offering is accessible on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca) under the Company's issuer profile. The Offering is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary regulatory and other approvals including the approval of the Toronto Stock Exchange and the securities regulatory authorities. The securities offered in the Offering have not been, and will not be, registered under the U.S. Securities Act or any U.S. state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, United States persons absent registration or any applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable U.S. state securities laws. This press 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. Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange nor the regulating authority has approved or disproved the information contained in this press release. About Arizona Sonoran Copper Company (www.arizonasonoran.com | www.cactusmine.com) ASCU's objective is to become a mid-tier copper producer with low operating costs and to develop the Cactus and Parks/Salyer Projects that could generate robust returns for investors and provide a long term sustainable and responsible operation for the community and all stakeholders. The Company's principal asset is a 100% interest in the Cactus Project (former ASARCO, Sacaton mine) which is situated on private land in an infrastructure-rich area of Arizona. Contiguous to the Cactus Project is the Company's 100%-owned Parks/Salyer deposit that could allow for a phased expansion of the Cactus Mine once it becomes a producing asset. The Company is led by an executive management team and Board which have a long-standing track record of successful project delivery in North America complemented by global capital markets expertise. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, without limitation, statements regarding the Offering, the receipt of regulatory approvals, and the future plans or prospects of the Company. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of ASCU to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could affect the outcome include, among others: risks relating to the ability of the parties to complete the Offering on the terms described in this news release or timing currently expected, or at all, market conditions, future prices and the supply of metals; the results of drilling; inability to raise the money necessary to incur the expenditures required to retain and advance the properties; environmental liabilities (known and unknown); general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; results of exploration programs; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; political instability, terrorism, insurrection or war; or delays in obtaining governmental approvals, projected cash operating costs, failure to obtain regulatory approvals. Although ASCU 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 to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this news release and ASCU disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. 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 information form and management's discussion and analysis which is available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240927254996/en/ Contact Alison Dwoskin, Director, Investor Relations 647-233-4348 adwoskin@arizonasonoran.com George Ogilvie, President, CEO and Director 416-723-0458 gogilvie@arizonasonoran.com Religious freedom was one of the key topics at the Fourth Lausanne World Evangelization Conference. The conference set up a night panel discussion with the theme Reflection - Standing with the Persecuted Church, inviting representatives from different countries to share the current situation of the church in their countries. On the evening of the 25th, Dr. Kim Byung Yeon, distinguished professor of economics at Seoul National University, gave a speech focusing on the economic challenges of the post-epidemic period, changes in family life, and the reunification of North and South Korea. He highlighted the fact that the South Korean church is actively providing help for defectors and called on attendees to pray for religious freedom and human rights issues in North Korea. Dr. Kim noted that the Bible is the cornerstone of faith and a source of economic and political hope. Dr. Kim analyzed the impact of the pandemic on family structures and lifestyles, with data showing that overall household income in South Korea was reduced by at least half during COVID-19, with far-reaching effects on society. In addition, the pandemic led to a dramatic deterioration in living conditions in North Korea, where basic needs could not be met and shortages of drinking water and food were particularly acute. Discussing the political situation between North and South Korea, Dr. Kim mentioned that although tensions between North and South Korea still exist, the South Korean church is actively promoting the mission of unification. The younger generation's attitude toward reunification has changed; 15 years ago, about 50 percent of young South Koreans supported reunification; today that percentage has dropped to 30 percent. He emphasized that the Church has continued to provide assistance to North Korean defectors through the establishment of specialized departments while praying for reconciliation between North and South Korea. However, the recent Russia-Ukraine conflict has heightened regional tensions, creating more uncertainty about security on the Korean Peninsula. Dr. Kim concluded his speech by calling on attendees to Pray for the political freedom and human rights of the people of North Korea! Intercessory prayers were listed on the conference screen, including for peace on the Korean Peninsula, the North Korean nuclear weapons issue, the economy and livelihood of the North Korean people, and religious and political freedom. Following Dr. Kim's speech, representatives of believers from many countries took to the stage, holding white paper with the names of their respective countries written in black, and the congregation prayed in silence as an expression of their commitment to solidarity with persecuted churches and believers. Marko defends Red Bull over Ricciardo axe timing Daniel Ricciardo's unceremonious ousting from Formula 1 is all about the future of Red Bull, team consultant Dr Helmut Marko insists. Daniel Ricciardo, Singapore GP 2024 Red Bull The strong and raging rumours of Singapore have now become reality, as the energy drink-owned F1 concern finally admitted that Ricciardo, 35, will not be returning to his RB cockpit with immediate effect. It's good news for Liam Lawson, but the way Red Bull allowed Ricciardo to tearfully depart Singapore last Sunday has left a bitter taste in the mouths of many. Daniel Ricciardo left Singapore in a way that a driver of his talent surely did not deserve, Frederic Ferret, writing for France's L'Equipe, wrote. Auto Motor und Sport correspondent Tobias Gruner agrees: Daniel Ricciardo actually deserved to say goodbye to Formula 1 in style. Indeed, even Marko admits the Australian driver already knew his fate in Singapore. The timing had to do with various factors and obligations, said the 81-year-old. "He was informed and the worthy farewell performance was the fastest lap. That still showed the potential he has, although not consistently and not at the level that would bring him to Red Bull Racing, Marko told motorsport-total.com. Since he left us for Renault, he lost his winning instinct and I can't explain what happened. Red Bull had to pick up the contract option on New Zealander Lawson, 22, by the end of September, whilst at the same time it is believed that RB's main sponsors Visa and Cash App were pushing hard for Ricciardo to stay. Rumours suggest the management firm representing Ricciardo, Creative Artists Agency, actually introduced Visa and Cash App to the Faenza based team. But for Red Bull, given that Ricciardo was not up to the task of returning to the main F1 team, the decision to put Lawson in for the remaining races of 2024 is strategic. We want to have a comparison, Marko confirmed. Where does Lawson stand in relation to Yuki (Tsunoda), so that we know for the future what the driver pairing will look like for both of our teams. Another rumour is that Sergio Perez could announce his retirement from F1 at his home Mexican GP next month. We have to look to the future, said Marko. There are many young people on the launch pad like (Isaak) Hadjar, Lawson and also (Ayumu) Iwasa. As for the criticism Red Bull is taking for the way Ricciardo held off on revealing the news until now, Marko insisted: "He himself indicated that he is at peace with it. He has accepted the situation and we will see what his plans are for the future. Former F1 driver Giedo van der Garde told DRS De Race Show: "He could go into endurance racing or something like that, but actually it's time for him to do television. He has such a strong personality and he also does the marketing side so well that I'm sure he'll get an offer. (GMM) Gemma, her husband and three kids are circling the country in their caravan. They never expected to see something quite as spectacular as this. Gemma Hulme-Moir, her husband and three children at Port Gregory's Pink Lagoon in WA and 14 Mile Beach, also in WA. Source: Supplied Australians love to road trip, it's a rich part of our culture and one this country is well suited for particularly given its expansive size and breathtaking natural landscape. While the humble road trip is no new concept, in fact far from it, it appears in recent times more people are ditching big city life in favour of a journey on the open road. This year, Yahoo News has reported on dozens of Aussie families who have done just that, many of whom are opting to move from the comfort of their homes, to a bunk bed in a caravan. One such couple, originally from Mackay in Queensland, are embarking on a trip of a lifetime around the circumference of Australia boldly taking their three young children with them too. Speaking to Yahoo News Australia, Gemma Hulme-Moir said her kids are at an age where she felt it was "now or never". "We've taken seven months we're doing the full lap," Hulme-Moir told Yahoo. "We started at home, went up to the Northern Territory, then down WA coast, and then we'll finish up back in North Queensland. We're about halfway at the moment." Interestingly, the lagoon gets its incredible colour due to the presence of algae. Source: Supplied Queensland family latest in huge number of Aussies ditching cities for life on open road On what prompted such a courageous expedition, Hulme-Moir said "life just got a bit a bit tricky" between "juggling work" and other various commitments. "My husband and I both work big weeks, so we just thought life should be a bit simpler than this," she said. "We wanted to spend quality time with our three young children. We thought let's just pause real life and let's go and enjoy some quality time together." Home-schooling the children along the way, Hulme-Moir said the family of five have come across some "absolutely mind-blowing" sights along their travels. Recently, they stopped in Port Gregory in WA's mid-west, and were treated to arguably the best of them all, the young mum said the Pink Lake Lookout. "We had heard mixed reviews that sometimes it can, you know, the colour can vary," Hulme-Moir recalled. "So we were unsure what to expect, but we were just blown away. "It blew our minds pulling around and seeing that, the kids were squealing in the back saying, 'is that it, is that it' and it just it looked like something from a magical land. Just seeing such a big volume of water and it being so pink, it took our breath away." 14 Mile Campground is a medium-size campground adjacent to a recreation zone of Ningaloo Marine Park. Source: Supplied The reason for the water's jaw-dropping pink colouration is due to the presence of carotenoid-producing algae, which is a source of beta-carotene a food-colouring agent and a source of Vitamin A. Hulme-Moir said it's a sight the family are unlikely to ever forget. Now in WA, the family will soon head to South Australia before travelling back home via NSW. Reflecting on the journey so far, Hulme-Moir implored other Australians to consider the move themselves. "We're just blown away with how beautiful our own country is, and we feel lucky to be able to have to have made the leap, and to be able to get around and see it," she said. "It's such a shame that we all get stuck in that, that daily grind and barely pop our heads up enough for air. So yeah, we've been really blessed." Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. The Red Magic nova gaming tablet debutted earlier this month in China and is now going global. Red Magic claims this is the best tablet for triple-A games thanks to a combination of a potent chipset, capable display, big battery, and sophisticated passive and active cooling. Inside the Red Magic Nova is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Leading Edition a higher-clocked version of the SoC with a 3.4GHz Cortex-X4 prime core and a GPU running at 1GHz. This matches the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for the Galaxy, making it the current best chipset in terms of performance in the Android realm. But while Samsung's devices rely on passive cooling, the Red Magic Nova brings a 9-layer cooling system culminating in a 20,000 RPM turbofan. In between the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and the fan are a heat pipe, air duct, heat dissipation alloy, graphene, copper foil, thermally conductive gel, mainboard copper foil, and an all-metal aviation aluminum body. Red Magic says this elaborate system reduces the core temperature by 25C. A 10,100mAh battery with 80W charging support powers the tablet. Red Magic says you can expect 10 hours of gaming and nearly 19 hours of regular use. The all-metal body of the Red Magic Nova has a CNC-carved middle frame, a 45-degree anti-slip chamfer, and an anodized back cover. The tablet weighs 520g and is 7.3mm thick. The display is a 10.9-inch 2880x1800px IPS LCD with a 144 Hz refresh rate, and up to 840Hz of touch sampling. There's a 20 MP front-facing camera and a single 50 MP camera on the back. The nubia Red Magic Nova in Midnight Black You can pre-order the Red Magic Nova from October 7 through redmagic.gg and general sales will open on October 16. The Red Magic Nova starts at $499/499/439 for the 12/256GB model and goes up to $649/649/559 for the 16/512GB unit, and you'll seemingly get a choice of Midnight Black, though there is a Silver model as well. The tablet will come to North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Latin America. Red Magic also made a keyboard accessory that attaches magnetically to the accessory pins on the bottom of the slate, and there's a stylus available too, but prices haven't been disclosed just yet. Plus a new search for Samantha Murphy has concluded, with police offering an update. Oasis are reportedly set to be returning to Australia. Source: Getty Yahoo's live news blog for Friday, September 27 has now concluded. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says alleged pricing tactics used by Coles and Woolworths have been "a breach of trust". Read more below. A renewed search for the body of Samantha Murphy has ended after officers failed to find any signs of the missing mum. Oasis are reportedly set to announce Australian gigs as part of an updated world tour. An 88-year-old man who has spent 45 years on death row has been acquitted of a quadruple murder after evidence against him was found to be fabricated. LIVE COVERAGE IS OVER 14 updates Hurricane Helene seen from space This is remarkable vision captured from the International Space Station, showing the sheer size of Hurricane Helene. The hurricane has now made landfall in Florida with the Yahoo team over in the US providing regular updates here. The International Space Station flew over Hurricane Helene at 2:25 p.m. EDT Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, as it approached the Gulf Coast of Florida packing winds in excess of 120 miles an hour. pic.twitter.com/J1iU0Iztpx International Space Station (@Space_Station) September 26, 2024 Dan Andrews to get statue in Melbourne Daniel Andrews pictured in 2020 delivering a Covid-19 update. Source: Getty Dan Andrews, Victoria's former premier remembered for delivering the world's longest Covid-19 lockdown, is set to get a statue in Melbourne. Andrews qualifies for one after being premier for more than 3,000 days a rule introduced by the Liberals in the nineties. Four other premiers have statues along Treasury Place in the city and while the cost of Andrews' statue hasn't been revealed, sculptor Peter Corlett, who created the other statues, has previously said the statues cost in excess of $100,000, the Herald Sun reported. So what do you think? Should Dan Andrews get a statue? Have your say below. Morbid police request as 'unsurvivable' Hurricane Helene strikes Police in Florida's north are advising residents who don't follow evacuation orders for Hurricane Helene to write their personal details on their limbs with permanent marker. The morbid instruction requesting the person's name, birthday and important information to be written on them is to help rescue crews identify individuals either injured or deceased, Taylor County Sheriff's Office explained. Authorities, who have described the conditions to hit parts of Florida as "unsurvivable", urged residents who have left not to return until instructed to do so. "This has to be the most scariest post Ive ever read," one person said in response to the direction shared on Facebook. A road is empty of traffic as Hurricane Helene churns offshore in St. Pete Beach, Florida. Source: Getty Charity funds spent on Naomi Campbell's luxury hotel stay British supermodel Naomi Campbell has been banned from being a charity trustee for five years after it emerged her charity Fashion for Relief paid for her five-star hotel stay as well as other expenses including spa treatments. Campbell was one of three trustees who received the ban. According to the Charity Commission, the trustees failed to show how these were cost-effective and an appropriate use of the charitys resources. Read more here. Naomi Campbell pictured this week. Source: Getty Comedian's devastating health update Scottish comedian Janey Godley has shared a devastating video update revealing she is receiving end of life care for terminal cancer. The 63-year-old revealed her ovarian cancer has now spread and she "couldn't take any more" chemotherapy. It is devastating news to know that Im facing end-of-life but we all come to an end sometime. I want to thank everybody for supporting the family," she said. The overwhelming support has been amazing, and I dont know how long Ive got left before anybody asks. So I just want you to know that I appreciate all the love youve gave me and all the support. Cancer affects one in two people, and its affected me. Watch the difficult video below. Im now at end of life care - palliative care-and will be going into a hospice for the foreseeable - thanks to everyone who sends me love and support- youve been amazing pic.twitter.com/6JZ6cwTFk2 Janey Godley (@JaneyGodley) September 25, 2024 Australia facing 'scam-demic' Heading to the AFL grand final this weekend? Well you better check your ticket is legitimate. That's because Australia is in the midst of a "scam-demic", with a surge in fake tickets where scammers are taking advantage of music and sports fans. "The current scam-demic we're facing is widespread," Westpac's head of fraud prevention Ben Young said. Australians have reported almost $300 million in losses from 273,000 scams in the past year, the National Anti-Scam Centre says. Read more here. Dramatic rescue as man falls down sand dune There was a dramatic rescue earlier this week when a man fell down a 30-metre sand dune and broke both his legs. Several emergency crews responded to his Triple-0 call on Tuesday as he lay on a beach with his three dogs in Victoria's Warrnambool as waves "crashed onto him". This was a potentially volatile situation that required emergency services to work together under significant time pressure, Fire Rescue Commissioner Gavin Freeman said. Crews at the scene. Source: FRV World's longest-serving death row inmate acquitted An 88-year-old man who spent more than 45 years on death row has been acquitted over a quadruple murder in the sixties. A Japanese court found Iwao Hakamada not guilty on Thursday after a retrial for a 1966 quadruple murder, reversing a decision that made him the world's longest-serving death row inmate. The court found that evidence was fabricated and planted by investigators and that Hakamada was not the culprit, his lawyer Hideyo Ogawa said. Iwao Hakamada (left). Source: AP After the ruling and an explanation were read out, his 91-year-old sister Hideko Hakamada walked out of the courthouse with a big smile, welcomed by cheers and two big bouquets of flowers to celebrate the acquittal of her brother after the 58-year legal battle. Thank you, everyone, we won an acquittal, she told a televised news conference. When I heard the main sentence, it sounded almost divine. I was so touched and could not stop crying with joy." Hakamada was convicted of murder in the 1966 killing of an executive and three of his family members, and setting fire to their home in central Japan. Read more here. Trump's lawyer disbarred over election claims Former New York mayor and Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani has been disbarred as a lawyer in the US's capital. It follows a similar move made by New York and comes after pursuing false claims that then President Trump made about his 2020 presidential election loss. Ted Goodman, a spokesperson for Giuliani, called the decision in Washington DC is an absolute travesty and a total miscarriage of justice". Giuliani has argued that he believed the claims he was making on behalf of the Trump campaign were true. Parents want answers weeks after baby coffee attack The parents of the baby who was badly injured when hot coffee was poured over him in a Brisbane park are seeking more information about his alleged attacker, with the family appearing out in the cold with investigators. We would just like a bit of assurance that we are on the right track, and (that the offender) is going to get caught, the baby's father told Seven News. How (do) they plan on bringing him back? And if they know where he is in that particular country, is that country working with us? The 33-year-old suspect, a foreign national, fled Australia however police have not revealed where he flew to. The boy, named Luka, has undergone several surgeries after suffering severe burns. Luka pictured after surgery and the man police allege is responsible for the attack (right). Source: Nine/ Queensland Police Daniel Ricciardo's F1 career over It's officially confirmed. Beloved Australian Daniel Ricciardo's F1 career is over. He left an emotional message on social media saying its a port he's loved his whole life, and pointed towards a new adventure. The way in which the news has come hasn't sat too well with fans and some F1 pundits who feel he should have had a proper send off at the Singapore Grand Prix. Read more from Yahoo Sports Australia here. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Daniel Ricciardo (@danielricciardo) Renewed search for Samantha Murphy ends The latest search for the body of missing Victorian mother Samantha Murphy has failed to turn up anything of interest and has been called off. State and federal police faced wet conditions on Tuesday as they began a new search in Grenville, south of Ballarat, which wrapped up on Thursday. The 51-year-old was last seen alive when she went for a run on the morning of February 4. In March, police charged 23-year-old tradesman Patrick Orren Stephenson with Ms Murphy's murder. Samantha Murphy's phone was previously found by police. The most recent search remains focused on the Enfield State Forest at Grenville. The location is approximately a 15-minute drive from Buninyong, where Ms Murphy's phone was found buried in the mud on the edge of an agricultural dam in May. "Police have concluded their current search of the Enfield State Forest and no items of interest were located," a police spokesperson said. "The investigation remains ongoing and is focused on locating Samantha's body. Read more here. Oasis set to perform in Australia This is glorious morning news for any Oasis fan out there. The iconic band are set to expand their tour next year and Australia is reportedly in. According to an exclusive from NME, the Gallagher brothers are set to announce gigs at a further 13 locations, across North America, South America, Asia and Australia. Melbourne and Sydney are the chosen destinations for Australia with dates yet to be confirmed. The Gallagher brothers in 1999. Source: Getty Albo blasts Coles and Woolworths over alleged price tactics Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has taken aim at Coles and Woolworths over their alleged "pretend" specials where shoppers were deceived about discounted items. Albanese addressed reporters on Friday morning and spoke after a damning report was released today by the ACCC about the supermarket sector. "At a time when people are out their looking for value, it is a breach of trust for supermarkets to be behaving like this," he said. Albanese said the report made it clear supermarkets across Australia "need to do better". Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. Senators on Thursday moved to the voting file two resolutions one by Vice Speaker Tina Muna Barnes, and the other by Sen. Jesse Lujan that seek ways to bring down the costs of air travel to and from Guam. Muna Barnes Resolution 441-37 seeks to support Del. James Moylans H.R. 8786 that would provide a cabotage exemption for air carriers landing in Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. According to the resolution, the current cabotage policy as defined by the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 prohibits foreign airlines from transporting passengers or cargo between two points within the United States. Muna Barnes urged unanimous support for working with Congress to pass Moylans bill as it would be a big difference in driving costs down, she said. Whether it be a medical need off-island, or grieving the loss of a loved one and needing to come home...the cost (of airfare) is so high that if we dont try to work together, were going to continue to be stuck, the vice speaker said. Lujans Resolution 447-37, meanwhile, requests the U.S. Department of State to approve a temporary 24-month exemption to allow certain foreign air carriers to stop in Guam in the course of transporting passengers and cargo in either direction between a place in the U.S. and a place outside the U.S. Lujan said his resolution differs from Muna Barnes, in that it takes an executive route in trying to achieve a cabotage exemption. Resolution 447-37 details a long history of various local efforts dating back to 2002 that highlight the economic benefits from increased U.S. and foreign carrier activity. Facilitating the operation of foreign air carriers...would enhance connectivity, promote competition, reduce travel costs, and boost tourism and economic development in the region, Lujan said. Lujan said in addition to his and Barnes resolutions, there was also a joint resolution with representatives from the CNMI that supports cabotage exemptions for both jurisdictions. Were all speaking with one voice, Lujan said. The resolutions are addressed to President Joseph Biden, U.S. House and Senate leaders, relevant cabinet secretaries, and to Guam Del. James Moylan and CNMI Del. Gregorio Kilili Sablan. Legislative session resumes at 2 p.m. Friday. Drivers check in with school officials as they enter the gated entrance to Okkodo High School in Dededo on Sept. 27, 2024. Despite morning classes still being conducted for the students, many parents and guardians opted to pick up their children prior to their regularly schedule time of release. Afternoon session classes for F.B. Leon Guerrero Middle School students at the same campus were also canceled by the Guam Department of Education. By Stephen Smith, Kate Payne and Heather Hollingsworth | The Associated Press CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla. Hurricane Helene left an enormous path of destruction across Florida and the entire southeastern U.S. on Friday, killing at least 30 people in four states, snapping trees like twigs, tearing apart homes and sending rescue crews on desperate missions to save people from floodwaters. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said dozens of people were still trapped in buildings damaged by the Category 4 hurricane. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph when it made landfall late Thursday in a sparsely populated region in Floridas rural Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Floridas Panhandle and peninsula meet. But the damage extended hundreds of miles to the north, with flooding as far away as North Carolina, where a lake used in the movie Dirty Dancing overtopped a dam. Multiple hospitals in southern Georgia were without power, and one in Tennessee was closed. Authorities were having a hard time getting to places, so teams with chain saws were working to free up roads, Kemp told a news conference. Helenes devastation comes as climate change exacerbates conditions that allow such storms to thrive, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and turning into powerful hurricanes and typhoons, sometimes in a matter of hours. Thank God were both alive to tell about it, Rhonda Bell said after a towering oak tree smashed through the roof of her home in Valdosta, Georgia. This photo provided by U.S. Coast Guard District Seven (USCGSoutheast) shows a man and his dog being rescued after his sailboat became disabled during Hurricane Helene approximately 25 miles off Sanibel Island, Florida., on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024.U.S. Coast Guard District Seven via AP All five who died in one Florida county were in neighborhoods where residents had been told to evacuate, said Bob Gualtieri, the sheriff in Pinellas County in the St. Petersburg area. He said people who stayed because they didnt believe the warnings wound up hiding in their attics to escape the rising water. We tried to launch boats, we tried to use high-water vehicles and we just met with too many obstacles, Gualtieri said. He said the death toll could rise as emergency crews go door-to-door in the flooded areas. Deaths also were reported in Georgia and the Carolinas. Video on social media sites showed sheets of rain coming down and siding coming off buildings in Perry, Florida, near where the storm arrived. One news station showed a home that was overturned, and many communities established curfews. An airboat transports residents rescued from floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Crystal River, Florida.Luis Santana | Tampa Bay Times via AP Its really heartbreaking, said Stephen Tucker, after the hurricane peeled off the brand-new roof of a church in Perry that had to be replaced after last years Hurricane Idalia. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the damage from Helene appeared to be greater than the combined damage of Idalia and Hurricane Debby in August. Its demoralizing, he said. President Joe Biden said he was praying for survivors as the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency headed to the area. The agency has deployed more than 1,500 workers, and they helped with 400 rescues by late morning. In Tampa, some areas could be reached only by boat. Officials elsewhere warned that the water could contain live wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris. If you are trapped and need help please call for rescuers DO NOT TRY TO TREAD FLOODWATERS YOURSELF, the Sheriffs Office in Citrus County, Florida, warned in a Facebook post. More than 4 million homes and businesses were without power Friday morning in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports. The hurricane came ashore near the mouth of the Aucilla River on Floridas Gulf Coast. That location was only about 20 miles northwest of where Idalia hit last year at nearly the same ferocity, causing widespread damage. Thomas Chaves, left, and Vinny Almeida walk through floodwaters from Hurricane Helene in an attempt to reach Chaves' mother's house in the Shore Acres neighborhood Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Florida.Mike Carlson | The Associated Press Cities as far inland as Atlanta were drenched, with just car roofs poking out of the water in some neighborhoods. As the hurricanes eye passed near Valdosta, Georgia, a city of 55,000 near the Florida line, dozens of people huddled early Friday in a darkened hotel lobby. We heard some rumbling, said Fermin Herrera, 20, cradling his sleeping 2-month-old daughter in his arms. Helene is the third storm to strike the city in just over a year. Tropical Storm Debby blacked out power to thousands in August, while Hurricane Idalia damaged an estimated 1,000 homes in Valdosta and surrounding Lowndes County a year ago. Now some downtown storefront windows were shattered and store awnings mangled. Officer Nate Martir, a law enforcement officer from the Florida Fish Wildlife and Conservation Commission, holds an American flag that was lying on the ground amid debris while patrolling from a high-water-capable swamp buggy in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Cedar Key, Florida, on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024.Gerald Herbert | The Associated Press Soon after it crossed over land, Helene weakened to a tropical storm, with its maximum sustained winds falling to 70 mph. At 11 a.m. Friday, the storm was about 105 miles northeast of Atlanta, moving north at 32 mph with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph), the National Hurricane Center in Miami reported. Forecasters expected the system to continue weakening as it moves into Tennessee and Kentucky and drops heavy rain over the Appalachian Mountains, with the risk of mudslides and flash flooding. Even before landfall, the storms wrath was felt widely, with sustained tropical storm-force winds and hurricane-force gusts along Floridas west coast. Officials begged residents to evacuate. Please write your name, birthday, and important information on your arm or leg in a PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified, the Sheriffs Office in mostly rural Taylor County, Florida, warned those who chose not to evacuate in a Facebook post. The dire advice was similar to what other officials have said during past hurricanes. In North Carolina, forecasters warned of flooding that could be worse than anything seen in the past century. Evacuations were underway in several areas of the state Friday, and around 300 roads were closed. The Connecticut Army National Guard sent a helicopter to help. Its terrible. I dont know if I will ever see anything like this again, said Spencer Tate Andrews, of Asheville, North Carolina. School districts and multiple universities canceled classes. Airports in Florida that closed were to reopen Friday, and inspectors were out examining bridges and causeways along the Gulf Coast to get them back open to traffic quickly, the states transportation secretary said. An American flag sits in the floodwaters from Hurricane Helene in the Shore Acres neighborhood Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Florida.Mike Carlson | The Associated Press A day before hitting the U.S., Helene swamped parts of Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula, flooding streets and toppling trees as it brushed the resort city of Cancun and passed offshore. In western Cuba, Helene knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses as it brushed past the island. Helene was the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures. Payne reported from Tallahassee, Florida, and Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri. Associated Press journalists Seth Borenstein in New York; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Russ Bynum in Valdosta, Georgia; Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Andrea Rodriguez in Havana; Mark Stevenson and Maria Verza in Mexico City; and Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, contributed to this report. Hurricane Helene has made landfall Thursday night in the Big Bend of Florida, making it the strongest hurricane to ever hit that part of the Sunshine State. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Helene roared ashore around 11:10 p.m. ET near the mouth of the Aucilla River in the Big Bend area of Floridas Gulf Coast. It had maximum sustained winds estimated at 140 mph. That location was only about 20 miles northwest of where Hurricane Idalia came ashore last year at nearly the same ferocity and caused widespread damage. Helene prompted hurricane and flash flood warnings extending far beyond the coast up into northern Georgia and western North Carolina. More than 1 million homes and businesses were without power in Florida and more than 100,000 in Georgia, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us. The governors of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, the Carolinas and Virginia all declared emergencies in their states. One person was killed in Florida when a sign fell on their car and two people were reported killed in a possible tornado in south Georgia as the storm approached. When Floridians wake up tomorrow morning, were going to be waking up to a state where very likely theres been additional loss of life and certainly theres going to be loss of property, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday night. As of midnight ET, the center of Hurricane Helene was located about 80 miles north-northwest of Cedar Key, Florida, and about 45 miles east-southeast of Tallahassee, Florida. As the storm moves north-northeast at 20 mph, its bringing with it catastrophic winds that are pushing farther inland over the Florida Big Bend and Florida Panhandle, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory. Those winds are expected to soon move into southeastern Georgia. The probable path of Hurricane Helene as it moves inland, valid at 11 p.m. ET on Sept. 26, 2024. The storm made landfall as a massive Category 4 hurricane around 11:10 p.m. ET near the mouth of the Aucilla River in the Big Bend area of Floridas Gulf Coast.Courtesy National Hurricane Center This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation, the hurricane center wrote. Persons should not leave their shelters and remain in place through the passage of these life-threatening conditions. The hurricane center reminded people to not venture out during the calm moments when the eye of the storm passes overhead. Hazardous winds can increase very quickly when the eye passes. A station at the Perry-Foley Airport reported sustained winds of 55 mph with a gust of 99 mph. A National Ocean Service tide gauge at Cedar Key reported a water level 8.68 feet above mean higher high water, which is an approximation of inundation in that area. Even before landfall the storms wrath was felt widely, with sustained tropical storm-force winds and hurricane-force gusts along Floridas west coast. Water lapped over a road in Siesta Key near Sarasota and covered some intersections in St. Pete Beach. Lumber and other debris from a fire in Cedar Key a week ago crashed ashore in the rising water. Beyond Florida, up to 10 inches of rain had fallen in the North Carolina mountains, with up to 14 inches more possible before the deluge ends, setting the stage for flooding that forecasters warned could be worse than anything seen in the past century. Heavy rains began falling and winds were picking up earlier Thursday in Valdosta, Georgia, near the Florida state line. The weather service said more than a dozen Georgia counties could see hurricane-force winds exceeding 110 mph. In south Georgia, two people were killed when a possible tornado struck a mobile home on Thursday night, Wheeler County Sheriff Randy Rigdon told WMAZ-TV. The damage was reported as heavy thunderstorms raked much of the state. Wheeler County is about 70 miles southeast of Macon. The storm made landfall in the sparsely-populated Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Floridas Panhandle and peninsula meet. Please write your name, birthday, and important information on your arm or leg in a PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified, the sheriffs office in mostly rural Taylor County warned those who chose not to evacuate in a Facebook post, the dire advice similar to what other officials have dolled out during past hurricanes. Federal authorities were staging search-and-rescue teams as the weather service forecast storm surges of up to 20 feet and warned they could be particularly catastrophic and unsurvivable in Apalachee Bay. Please, please, please take any evacuation orders seriously! the office pleaded in an forecast discussion, describing the surge scenario as a nightmare. School districts and multiple universities canceled classes. Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed Thursday, while cancellations were widespread elsewhere in Florida and beyond. Helene has already weakened to a Category 2 hurricane as it has moved inland. Despite the weakening, damaging winds and heavy rain were expected to extend to the southern Appalachian Mountains, where landslides were possible, forecasters said. The hurricane center warned that much of the region could experience prolonged power outages and flooding. Tennessee was among the states expected to get drenched. Areas 100 miles north of the Georgia-Florida line expected hurricane conditions. The state opened its parks to evacuees and their pets, including horses. Overnight curfews were imposed in many cities and counties in south Georgia. This is one of the biggest storms weve ever had, said Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. For Atlanta, Helene could be the worst strike on a major Southern inland city in 35 years, said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd. Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Haiti - Politic : Message from the UN Secretary General on Haiti As part of an event entitled "Building on Progress to Restore Security in Haiti" https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-43285-haiti-usa-$160m-for-the-pnh.html organized by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, on the sidelines of the 79th UN General Assembly, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivered a message read by his Chief of Staff, Courtenay Rattray Message from the UN Secretary-General : "I am pleased to send my greetings to this high-level event to spur progress on security in Haiti. The crisis in Haiti is a protracted human tragedy with a long and well-known history. It is one of the most disastrous humanitarian situations in the world. The international community has a responsibility to step up to support the Haitian people in their efforts to restore stability. Recently, we have seen some progress in putting transitional governance structures in place a vital step on the way to inclusive democracy and the rule of law. But the Haitian people are still subjected to egregious human rights abuses by gangs. Young women and girls continue to suffer appalling levels of sexual violence and abuse. During the first half of this year, the United Nations documented 3,638 homicides -- an increase of nearly 74 percent over 2023. Despite the imposition of the arms embargo in October 2023, gangs and other non-State actors continue to procure arms and ammunition illicitly. The first deployments of the Multinational Security Support mission the MSS are a positive step. I commend Kenya for its leadership as well as those countries that have pledged to contribute with personnel, equipment, and necessary logistical resources. I also commend countries that have contributed to the Trust Fund for the mission, set up by the Secretary-General in accordance with the request of the Security Council. The fund now stands at $85.3 million. However, funding for the mission, and for the Haitian National Police, remains totally inadequate. I urge all those who have made financial commitments to deliver on them urgently. We must keep working to mobilize sufficient resources for the mission, and for the humanitarian response in Haiti. Close to 703,000 people have been displaced and more than 5 million Haitians are food insecure almost half of the population. There is an urgent need for resources to support humanitarian efforts. The Humanitarian Needs Response Plan for Haiti, totaling $674 million, is currently only 39 per cent funded. Excellencies, A durable solution to the current crisis can only come from a political process that restores democratic institutions through elections. Improving security is crucial to creating the conditions necessary for these elections. The UN will not waver in its commitment to Haiti. We continue to support the transition process, in line with the mandate of our current mission, BINUH the UN Integrated Office in Haiti. I also welcome CARICOM's support to the Haitian-led efforts and its cooperation with BINUH. Like people everywhere, Haitians demand and deserve to live in dignity, free from the threat of violence. Thank you. " See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-43285-haiti-usa-$160m-for-the-pnh.html HL/ HaitiLibre Jim Michaels, an Auburn native and son of prominent local politician George Michaels, and who went on to become a prolific rabbi in the Washington, D.C., area, passed away Sept. 21. He was 78. Ordained in 1974 at Hebrew Union College, Michaels practiced as a conservative rabbi, according to his obituary. He received his Doctor of Pastoral Counseling in his 50s and in 2003, he was appointed director of pastoral care at the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington in Rockville, Maryland. He retired in 2018, but continued working part-time as a chaplain until two months prior to his death. Michaels "split his career between work as a congregational rabbi and what he sees as his true calling service as a chaplain," according to a July 2023 article in Washington Jewish Week. My job is to be sensitive, willing to listen and to share words of encouragement, he said. "I hope that the Jewish community will recognize the importance of what chaplains do." Michaels was one of three sons of George Michaels, who represented the Auburn area in the state Assembly and, in 1970, cast a dramatic deciding vote to legalize abortion in New York. New movie depicts Auburn politician's 'Deciding Vote' on abortion Rob Lyons and Jeremy Workman were making their latest movie when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade one year ago. Jim and his brother Lee, a partner at Auburn firm Michaels Bersani Kalabanka P.C., spoke to The Citizen last year about the release of a documentary about their father's "Deciding Vote." "They showed how important the family connection was," Jim said. "He obviously was very troubled by it, and so it was the influence of myself, my sister-in-law and others who made it a moral decision." Jim passed away at his home in Rockville after a several-months-long illness, according to his obituary. He is survived by his wife, Karen; his five children, Marnin (Tetiana) of Zurich, Switzerland; Aaron (Limor) of Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Dania (Stuart) of Tucson, Arizona; Aliza (Gal) of Alpharetta, Georgia; and Etzion (Danielle) of Jupiter, Florida; as well as 10 great-grandchildren and his brother Lee. Haiti - News : Zapping... CPS : Land Access Closed to its Port of PAP On Thursday, September 26, 2024, the Haitian company Caribbean Port Services (CPS) announced that it was temporarily closing land access to its Port-au-Prince port, a key corridor for supplies in the country that has been paralyzed by attacks by armed gangs, from September 26 to 29. CPS said this should allow the army and the national police to continue their efforts to secure the area. MMSS : 2,500 troops by January On Thursday, Kenyan President William Ruto assured the UN that the full deployment of the multinational mission in Haiti will be completed by January 2025. "Kenya and other Caribbean and African countries are ready to deploy but are hampered by a lack of equipment, logistics and funds [...] I must stress, however, that Kenya will deploy the additional contingents to reach the target of 2,500 police officers by January 2025." Passport : Grievance service available Are you having a problem with your passport application ? The Directorate of Immigration and Emigration is here to help ! Contact our grievance team at : doleances@immigration.gouv.ht Quebec : Haitian Independent Senator in the Senate Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Governor General Mary Simon has appointed Suze Youance as an Independent Senator to fill a vacant seat in the Senate for Quebec. Originally from Haiti, Ms. Youance immigrated to Canada in 2006, where she made a name for herself in the fields of engineering, teaching and research. She worked for several engineering firms and taught for many years at the Ecole de technologie superieure de Montreal. The Embassy of the Republic of Haiti in Canada warmly congratulates Ms. Suze Youance on her recent appointment as an Independent Senator for Quebec. WHO Supervision Visit A joint supervision visit to the WHO-Haiti Colbert Lochard National School site with the Ministry of Public Health provided an opportunity to assess the services provided. "Thanks to this monitoring, we can adjust our interventions (health care, drinking water, sanitation and the fight against gender-based violence) and ensure that the essential needs of more than 50,000 people living in the sites supported by WHO-Haiti are effectively addressed." UN : Leslie Voltaire on Energy "As head of the infrastructure and energy project within the CPT, I took part in a constructive working lunch with Andres Rebolledo, Executive Secretary of the Latin American Energy Organization. This meeting was an opportunity to discuss current energy issues, opportunities for cooperation between Haiti and Latin American countries, as well as solutions to meet energy needs in a context of sustainable development," said Advisor Leslie Voltaire in New York. HL/ HaitiLibre A bug in iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 appears to be causing significant problems in interaction with IMAP accounts: more and more users are reporting that email communication is disrupted after updating their iPhones and iPads: retrieving emails via IMAP sometimes fails completely, and in some cases there are errors when synchronizing individual mail folders. The mail server does not respond and terminates the connection, iOS states in a warning dialog. The user is prompted to check the access data. Sending emails also appears to work unchanged for those affected. Anzeige Mail providers also report IMAP problems According to the reports, re-entering the access data does not provide a remedy. In addition to Apple Mail, the error can also be observed with some other email clients such as Outlook, also specifically when using IMAP accounts. The problem apparently cannot be limited to a specific email provider: Apple's iCloud mail service seems to be affected, as well as Gmail (integrated via IMAP) or other services such as GMX and web.de. Vodafone explained on Monday that the network operator had been struggling with a malfunction of the IMAP mail server for several days. This was triggered by the iOS 18 update, which has been available for over a week and is likely to be gradually installed on more and more devices. The IMAP dropouts do not appear to occur in the macOS 15 Sequoia released by Apple at the same time. The specific cause of the error remains unclear, and obviously not all users of IMAP email accounts run into the error: On devices in the Mac & i editorial office, no abnormalities were observed with IMAP under iOS 18.0 (final version and beta versions). In combination with Exchange and when using email apps from the respective provider, everything else seems to work as usual. No tangible workaround for IMAP bug Anzeige Accordingly, there is as yet no tangible workaround for retrieving emails via IMAP again. Some users experiment with the IMAP path prefix in the advanced IMAP settings ("Settings > Apps > Mail > Mail accounts > [account name]"). Other users report that it worked again after deleting and re-adding the email account. Others are trying their luck by installing the iOS 18.1 beta, although it remains to be seen whether IMAP will then work consistently without errors. Otherwise, the only option is to wait for an imminent bug fix update from Apple. The manufacturer usually delivers a .0.1 version quite quickly after operating system upgrades. Empfohlener redaktioneller Inhalt Mit Ihrer Zustimmmung wird hier ein externer Preisvergleich (heise Preisvergleich) geladen. Preisvergleiche immer laden Preisvergleich jetzt laden (lbe) First responders are cutting their way through roads blocked by downed trees Heavy rain from Hurricane Helene washed away a driveway of a home on Cabin Creek Road. First responders have answered more than 600 calls for service during Hurricane Helene and were struggling on Friday to reach some calls for help because so many roads are flooded or blocked by downed trees. We still have dozens of emergency calls that emergency responders are working diligently to get to, Emergency Management Director Jimmy Brissie said. Theyre either having to cut their way in or find different pathways to get to those calls. About every roadway has a significant number of trees down thats impacting response capability. County Manager John Mitchell joined Brissie in warning residents that the French Broad River wont crest until 8 tonight at Fletcher and 8 a.m. Saturday at Blantyre around the Mills River area. In Fletcher the river is projected to crest at 30 feet above flood stage and Blantyre at 29 feet. There are two parts to this event, Mitchell said. The first was the hurricane itself. The second part is the flooding. There is still time for folks to prepare for this historic flood. We would strongly encourage folks to seek shelter or shelter in place. The hurricane emergency calls had resulted in a number of injuries, Brissie said. No fatalities have been reported. Currently we have resources from across the state assisting our local fire departments and rescue squad, Brissie said. As the rain lets up, flash flooding along Mud Creek and other tributaries should subside but the French Broad will continue to rise to historic levels. The emergency operations center is in close contact with the Etowah and Mills River fire departments, which are expected to deal with stranded residents amid rising water through Saturday morning. Folks that have not evacuated may become isolated, Brissie said, maybe for several days as the flood cuts off access. I-26 from Four Seasons Boulevard to Upward Road remained closed before noon Friday. NCDOT crews are focusing their efforts on trying to get it reopened, Brissie said. Ninety-nine percent of Duke Energy customers lost power. Blue Ridge Fire & Rescue Chief Will Sheehan said calls have been nonstop. Were pretty overwhelmed right now, he said. I havent had time to stop and count. Im sure its over a hundred (for) all kinds of stuff trees down, power lines down, flooded roads, folks trapped in their residence. Its all over our district. Ive been doing this 32 years and Ive never seen anything like this. It was not slowing down, either. This is still a very fluid situation, he said. County officials implored residents not to call 911 about road conditions, power outages and downed trees. The nonemergency information number is 828-771-6670. China releases catalog of 105 tropical crop germplasm banks Xinhua) 10:25, September 27, 2024 HAIKOU, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A catalog listing 105 tropical crop germplasm banks in China was released on Thursday, underscoring the country's efforts to preserve and utilize its tropical crop resources. The banks are spread across eight provinces and autonomous regions, including Hainan, Guangdong and Xizang, according to the catalog issued by the economic development center of China State Farms during an exchange event in Haikou, the capital of the southern island province of Hainan. To date, the germplasm banks contain more than 90,000 resources, with 73 dedicated to single crops such as rubber trees, lychees and mangoes, said Huang Hui, deputy director of the center. Tropical crop germplasm resources play an important role in China's biodiversity and serve as the foundation for the sustainable development of the country's tropical crop industry. In 2008, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs launched a project to protect these resources. Huang noted that the release of the catalog aims to improve the germplasm banks and facilitate the transformation and application of scientific and technological achievements in the seed industry, providing significant guidance for the future of China's tropical crop seed sector. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Skaneateles Mayor Mary Sennett said the village has improved its processes after a state comptroller's review found the board did not properly audit $1.3 million of expenses over a 21-month period. In a statement provided to The Citizen, Sennett said nearly half of the claims examined by the auditors were health insurance payments. The comptroller's office found the board did not audit approximately $593,000 in health insurance claims. The health insurance payments, Sennett explained, are part of the village's payroll process and had been accounted for in a separate expense account. Before the audit began, village officials learned that the health insurance expense reporting needed to be part of its regular bill-paying process. Sennett said they implemented the change in January, but the audit covered a period June 2022 to March 2024 before that adjustment. Sennett addressed the audit's finding that the village did not seek competitive bids for seven claims totaling $356,000. The largest of the purchases was a $328,000 vacuum truck. New York state law required three bids for that expense, according to Sennett. "For this purchase, we worked with a company that handles the bidding process," she said. "We learned that if a company is used for bidding, the comptroller's office requires a board resolution to engage a bidding company. We now have the correct process in place for those future expenses going forward." The comptroller's audit also found the village paid 36 claims totaling $171,000 that were not reviewed and approved by department heads. Auditors highlighted this in the report because village board members said they rely on department head approvals before voting on the expenses. Sennett said the board receives a list of vouchers to review before every regular board meeting. Many bills are recurring, she noted, and all expenses "need to be reviewed by the department head before the board approves payment." "In isolated cases, some expenses had not been signed off on before our meeting," Sennett said. "We have improved our review process to ensure that no payments are made without the proper approval of the department heads. As I stated in my letter to the auditors, despite the clerical errors, these were all appropriate village expenses." The audit contains five recommmendations for the village, including advising the board to thoroughly audit every claim and confirm whether a purchase is approved by department heads. After the audit was completed, Sennett met with the auditors. She said they were complimentary of the village's employees and operations. "This was a laborious process for our office staff, but one we welcomed as an opportunity for gaining insight and for learning ways to improve," Sennett continued. "I'm proud of their work and proud of our integrity. We've learned some things and have tightened up some procedures and remain committed to transparent and responsible fiscal management." The mother of a man who committed suicide while incarcerated at the Cayuga County Jail has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the county in federal court seeking at least $20 million in damages. The lawsuit, filed by Sherri Williams in August in U.S. District Court, Northern District of New York, alleges officials neglected the mental health needs of her son, Fred R. Williams Jr., 35, of Summerhill. He was found unresponsive at the jail on Nov. 24, 2022. After resuscitation measures were attempted he was transported to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, where he died the next day. The defendants in the lawsuit are the county, its jail, its sheriff's office and its mental health office, including Sheriff Brian Schenck and 30 unnamed county employees. Sherri Williams seeks $10 million each for the county's alleged failure to provide medical care and for its alleged cruel and unusual punishment, as well as punitive damages, attorney fees and other costs. Her attorneys at Syracuse firm Kenny & Kenny and Cayuga County Attorney Fred Westphal did not respond to requests for comment by The Citizen. 'Deliberate indifference' The lawsuit claims that "deliberate indifference" by the defendants toward the mental health and medical needs of Fred R. Williams Jr. led to his death. County staff failed to address his suicidal ideation, behavior and physical condition, the lawsuit continues, despite his "known history of suicide attempts and known extensive mental health history." Multiple requests were made for Williams' mental health and psychiatric medications, the lawsuit says, but they were not provided despite his prescription history. While Williams was put on constant watch due to his behavior, the lawsuit says, that behavior did not lead to a proper mental health assessment. Warning signs were also ignored, the lawsuit continues, such as him refusing time outside his cell the day he committed suicide despite normally waiting by the door to leave, as well as him refusing his dinner that evening. "Freds extensive mental health history was, or should have been, well-known by defendants as Fred had been treated extensively by Cayuga County Mental Health," the lawsuit says. According to the jail's log, at about 7:30 that night a corrections officer found Williams in his cell lying face-down in his bunk, unresponsive, with fabric tied around his neck and blood-soaked fabric around his left wrist. Auburn City Ambulance arrived at 7:45 p.m. and transported him to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with brain death and placed on comfort care before being pronounced dead. Report: Man's suicide at Cayuga County Jail 'a complete failure' of care A report on the suicide of a man being held at the Cayuga County Jail said his death might have been prevented if mental health care had been 'A complete failure' In September 2023, a report by the New York State Commission of Correction said Williams' death "may have been preventable." A medical review board found that Cayuga County Mental Health failed to give Williams continuity of care, properly assure his referral to a psychiatric provider and give him a proper diagnosis and treatment during his incarceration at the jail. The county "failed multiple times over a seven-week period to provide even minimal psychiatric care to Mr. Williams, who suffered from chronic and serious mental disease," the report said. "This represents a complete failure to continue his necessary psychiatric care." The county responded with a comprehensive review of the jail's mental health services, and a corrective action plan for them. Actions included creating a rotation of three psychiatric nurse practitioners; replacing the existing social worker with a new full-time social worker and a new part-time one, as well as a supervisor for them; providing a mental health support staff; establishing weekly meetings with jail administration for transitioning new mental health staff; and implementing a new mental health referral process and developing an electronic medical record for mental health and medical staff. Lauren Walsh, director of community services for Cayuga County and director of the Cayuga County Community Mental Health Center, told The Citizen after the report that the county worked with the sheriff's office to review the conditions surrounding Williams' suicide and "made significant changes within the jail ... to enhance the quality of the mental health care to meet the increasing need. This story originally appeared on JTA. We are immigrating to America. It was 1989, and my parents had sat my sister and me down in our living room to break the news. In those years of economic and political instability, as well as the ethical injustice of apartheid, many Jewish South Africans had an exit plan. Our time had finally come, and I was devastated. I sobbed big ugly tears. In my mind, I was leaving more than the comfort of my family and friends. I was leaving the only way of life that I understood. South Africans as a group are traditionally Orthodox but not necessarily observant; Shabbat dinners followed by TV was how I grew up. Immigrating to a vast new world made me petrified that I would lose my Jewish identity. When I arrived in Florida, I got involved with a local theater group for teens. But as much as I loved performing, I became a drama dropout, in the name of Shabbat. I traded rehearsals for the sound of the chazan singing Lcha Dodi. I? chose tasting challah and grape juice with my family overeating McDonalds French fries with fellow thespians. Eager to remain rooted in a world that was familiar, observing Shabbat became my way to recreate home. I think about this change every year at Rosh Hashanah, an opportunity to begin our lives anew. Our hearts are open, our books are open, the shofar cries out and we cry out with it. We reckon with ourselves and we reckon with God. Every year, the High Holy Days call upon us to pause, reflect and consider what changes we need to make to bring more justice to ourselves and the world around us. What part of our past must remain unchanged, and what do we have the power to change for the better? Yehuda Amichai, in his poem My Parents Motel, captures this very dichotomy as he describes his fathers dying words. After recalling his fathers softer and gentler version of the Ten Commandments, he says: I want to add two to the Ten Commandments: The eleventh commandment, You will not change, and the twelfth commandment, Change, you will change. Amichais two invented commandments have guided me from my earliest days, constantly exploring how to hold onto change without changing too much, and how to balance tradition with modernity in a world that does not always value religion. For me, that liminal space between changing and not changing and the desired pace at which change can or should occur remains a constant undercurrent in my life and leadership. In 2010, many people objected to Rabbi Avi Weiss for ordaining me as the first female Orthodox rabbi. The sudden media attention brought on an onslaught of criticism. Orthodox change is seen as an oxymoron at its worst and decidedly slow at best. My ordination and my taking the title rabba (the feminine form of rabbi) several months later was seen as too much too fast. This move, I was told, would destroy the Orthodox community. The two rabbis who railed against me published an article called Orthodox Women Rabbis? and used a metaphor of orthodontics in expressing his views. Change, they said, quoting one of their teachers, must happen slowly, like the process of braces that methodically and slowly straighten teeth over time. Too much pressure, they accused, would cause the teeth to break. Its not that I dont believe in patience. My patience has helped me slowly traverse many obstacles. Some of my colleagues, understandably, have accused me of being too patient! The metaphor I like for patience and the process of change is not orthodontics, but rather exercise. My trainer, with whom I have been working religiously, once a week every Monday afternoon, introduced me to the phrase time under tension. When you hold one position, be it a squat, plank or bicep curl, for a long period of time, it is called time under tension. Whenever I hear this phrase, usually while sweating, I always think about the process of change. I may be gasping for breath (and in pain), but I cant help but imagine my muscles first being called to wake up, and then slowly, with lots of effort and energy (and did I mention some pain?) eventually changing, becoming better and stronger. When we put in the work, with a healthy dose of righteous anger, change becomes inevitable. Yet many people, like the orthodontics rabbis, have a visceral fear of change and they end up imprisoned by their past, remaining exactly where they are. When people ask why I continue to invest in womens leadership in the Orthodox world after I experienced so much resistance and animosity, my answer is this: if we want the Jewish community to grow and thrive, we cannot ignore the wisdom, insights, moral courage and spiritual rigor that women contribute. Our community has always benefited from many voices, scholars and genders. When women are undermined in Orthodox communities where we truly and deeply belong everyone misses out. Rabbeinu Yonah Gerondi, in his introduction to Shaarei Teshuva, or Gates of Repentance, a book that is often read on the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah, tells a story about a group of bandits that were imprisoned by the king. After a few days, the prisoners dug a tunnel, a route to escape. But there was one prisoner who was immobile. He could not crawl through the tunnel to freedom. He remained imprisoned, plagued by his past. We are often stuck behind the walls we create for ourselves. We have to know when to forge ahead and when to have the patience to wait. We have to know what to shift, what to transform and what to keep intact. We have to know which external fears inhibit our ability to change and what personal cages we erect for ourselves. I have come to realize that although the process of becoming ordained was slow and methodical for me, it opened up a pathway for hundreds of other women to actualize their dream of being halakhic and spiritual leaders. The accusations of too fast were just a front for some peoples resistance and discomfort to change. Rosh Hashanah is the opportunity to ask ourselves, Which changes are we seeking? What gets in the way of evolving in the ways we want? Perhaps the shofar sounds are emblematic of the tensions, paces, and anxieties of change. On one hand, the fast, quick truah the tu-tu-tu-tu-tu is like an alarm that awakens the soul to act. The slower drawn out sounds of the shevarim tu, tu, tu remind us of what should not change too fast, and of the deliberative slowness that sustains everlasting change. Unlike my experience as an immigrant and as a rabbi, changes dont always involve physically crossing an ocean or becoming more religious. But everyone has the capacity to traverse gulfs in their own lives personally, communally and spiritually. We must embrace moments when we are called to change and when we are called to not change. We have to know when to hold onto the eleventh commandment, You will not change, and when to employ the twelfth commandment, Change, you will change. May this year, 5785, bring deep cathartic awakenings, quick and necessary resolutions, and also the patience and fortitude to slowly and gradually relax ourselves into changes that can be everlasting. (JTA) On the morning of Oct. 7, Rabbi Erez Sherman was preparing for the Yizkor memorial service at his Conservative synagogue, Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. He had written a sermon, somewhat presciently, about memory. It was titled Hard to Say Goodbye. Then he received a text message from his predecessor, Rabbi David Wolpe, who was three hours ahead in Boston: Change your sermon. News had broken about Hamas surprise attack on Israel, and while Sherman said he typically doesnt use technology on Shabbat and holidays, it became clear that this was no typical holiday. For his sermon that day, Sherman ended up reading text updates from someone in a shelter in Ashkelon, near the Gaza border. Now, as rabbis across the United States prepare their sermons for the upcoming High Holidays, the first since Oct. 7 sent shockwaves across the Jewish world, many are acutely aware that similar last-minute changes could be needed yet again. As the Israel-Hamas war continues and the U.S. presidential election approaches, the volume and pace of news show no sign of abating. For any rabbi interested in preaching on current events, that uncertainty presents a challenge. But as Rabbi Nicole Guzik, Shermans wife and co-senior rabbi, points out, its a challenge with which rabbis are often somberly familiar. I hate to say it but look what has happened during the months of September and October, Guzik said. What was it like to be a rabbi during 9/11? What was it like to be a rabbi during the Yom Kippur War? Being a rabbi is being able to pivot and to give meaning and significance and the grounding of Torah to current events. Rabbi Jennifer Frenkel, the senior rabbi at Congregation Kol Ami, a Reform synagogue in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, said High Holiday sermon-writing often boils down to the art of procrastinating. Thats especially true, she added, when the holidays fall as late as they do this year Rosh Hashanah begins Oct. 2, nearly three weeks later than it did last year. I think clergy have learned a lot since 9/11, since all these things tend to hit around the holidays, about being open to needing to scrap everything weve thought of and start again, Frenkel said. Frenkel, who plans to speak about current events for one of her High Holiday sermons, said she has been collecting resources and brainstorming with colleagues. But while in a typical year she would likely have an initial draft by this point, Frenkel said she has not yet started writing that sermon. That process, I imagine, is going to start much later than it has, Frenkel said. Certainly, with the situation in Israel ever evolving, the political climate in the country. So thats kind of where I am not very far at all. But I think thats the best place to be right now, just staying open to the meaning that were finding in the day to day. Guzik, who is planning to speak about the Gaza war on Rosh Hashanah, said the conflict has actually simplified rabbis preparations in one way when it comes to choosing sermon topics. You know youre going to speak about Israel, Guzik said. I would be shocked if one of the five sermons that people deliver, [if] ones not about Israel, that would be a very hard thing for me to hear. I think it kind of relieves that uncertainty. I think the question will be the direction. Rabbi Ariel Rackovsky, who leads Congregation Shaare Tefilla, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Dallas, said he has recently been writing his Shabbat sermons later than usual and, where possible, avoiding references to specific events that could quickly become outdated. For the High Holidays, he said, he plans to keep his sermons focused on broader subjects that can be written ahead of time with little risk of requiring changes, and when he talks about Israel, current events will not be the sole focus of his remarks. Given that the specific reality may change, not just from one day to the next but from one hour to the next, my discussions are going to focus on the types of themes that you can prepare for in advance, that you can anticipate, Rackovsky said. Michele Lowe, a playwright who advises rabbis across the country on their sermons, said many of the rabbis she is working with ahead of this High Holiday season are planning to speak about the war and antisemitism, even if they gave similar sermons last year or in the months since Oct. 7. Lowe is advising roughly two dozen rabbis on 37 sermons for this fall her largest workload since she began moonlighting as a so-called rabbi whisperer. Most of her clients are Reform rabbis and the majority are women, she said. Lowe said that any rabbi who chooses to speak about the war knows that they will likely need to continuously edit their sermons until the day they deliver them. Because this is something that is unfolding literally by the day, I think that if they are going to be preaching about the war, for example, they know that, Lowe said. Its absolutely not a surprise. Lowe said the current moment reminds her of another recent crisis that accelerated ahead of the High Holidays: the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, even as vaccination rates increased, the spread of the Delta variant cast uncertainty over how synagogues would approach the holidays. Everyone thought in July of 2021, everybodys going to stay healthy, things are going to be OK, Lowe said. And then what ended up happening was, the more the summer came on, a lot of those sermons had to get rewritten. On the plus side, Lowe said, giving a sermon about the war or other current events during the High Holidays provides rabbis a luxury often not available to them on a typical Shabbat: Time. While she usually encourages brevity Im of the belief nobody ever complained that the sermon was too short, she quipped Lowe said High Holiday sermons are often closer to 20 minutes, sometimes twice as long as a typical Shabbat offering. As rabbis tackle or revisit these topics on the High Holidays, length is not the only factor to weigh. Theres also the question of navigating the political climate in ones own congregation, a reality that differs in each community. At Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, Sherman said the clergy have historically tended to steer clear of politics an approach that drew criticism when Wolpe argued for it. We dont give political commentary, we give spiritual food for the soul, and I think thats an important aspect, Sherman said. Anybody can go read the news on whatever site they would like to, but when youre going to come to a synagogue on Shabbat, on holidays, on High Holidays, I think people want to feel connected three ways: To each other, to a deeper sense of themselves and to God. Sherman said his community includes members of all political stripes, and that he and his colleagues really try to present ideas of how to think and not what to think. That apolitical approach does not apply to Israel, however, which he said has been a topic of conversation and education literally every week since Oct. 7. In fact, thats a practice Sherman said his congregants have validated. About five or six months after the war began, Sinai Temples rabbis asked lay leaders whether they should stop talking about Israel. When we asked our leaders, should we go back to what we were doing pre-Oct. 7, they said, No, were not enjoying what youre doing, but we crave it, Sherman said. To Frenkel, the appeal of an Israel sermon for both the rabbi and the congregation is the opportunity to use Jewish tradition and text to draw meaning out of a difficult situation, an exercise that can be repeated, even on the same topic. For many [congregants], they havent been in the synagogue to hear every Israel sermon that weve given, or every sermon on antisemitism, or every sermon on the meaning that we find in community right now, Frenkel said. These sermons are kind of the heavy hitters. Are we going to echo some of the things that have already been said this year? Absolutely. But I think theres always a new angle. Rackovsky has experience revising his sermons quickly. In 2018, American-Israeli activist Ari Fuld, whom Rackovsky knew personally and who had a relationship with Rackovskys synagogue, was stabbed and killed by a Palestinian teen in the West Bank days after Rosh Hashanah. Rackovsky said he found a way to incorporate Fulds legacy and what he stood for into his Yom Kippur sermon that year. If he has to adapt his sermons this fall, he hopes its for a brighter reason. I hope that that pattern doesnt hold up this year, he said. But on the other hand, theres already been so much bad news that its not like youre starting from a place where youre talking about how great things are and suddenly theyre not. While last-minute changes to High Holiday sermons have historically been prompted by tragedy 9/11, COVID spikes, war in Israel Guzik isnt ruling out the possibility that good news could throw a wrench into her sermon this year. Say suddenly on erev Rosh Hashanah, I get news that God willing it happens much earlier a deal has been reached and the hostages are being released, you better believe that my sermon is changing, she said. Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Recently, BYD held the launch event for the Yuan UP (locally known as the NUEVO BYD S1 PRO) at the iconic Avenida Escazu shopping center in Costa Rica, according to a press release posted on BYD's WeChat account. Photo credit: BYD This car model is built on BYD's latest e-Platform 3.0 and features the innovative CTB (cell-to-body) technology, which enhances both safety and energy efficiency. The electric motor delivers a maximum output of 130 kW, and the vehicle boasts an impressive pure electric range of 401 kilometers (NEDC standard). Additionally, the rear seats can be folded down to provide 1,220 liters of cargo space, making it ideal for family use and weekend getaways. Kris Wang, Sales Manager of BYD America Auto Sales Division, remarked, "Costa Rica is renowned for its clean energy and green development, which aligns perfectly with BYD's sustainable development philosophy. By introducing the model, we aim to promote a more environmentally friendly lifestyle and work together with Costa Rica to showcase a vision for sustainable development." Photo credit: BYD Pedro Dobles, General Manager of BYD's Costa Rican dealer Cori Motors, noted, "We have partnered with BYD for several years and currently operate five BYD dealerships in Costa Rica, with plans to expand to eleven. The NUEVO BYD S1 PRO continues our commitment to high standards in performance and safety, offering consumers more choices." In recent times, the rise of cryptocurrency scams has become a concerning trend, with scammers adopting various deceptive tactics to defraud unsuspecting individuals. One prevalent tactic involves impersonating federal agents to convince victims often seniors that their bank accounts are compromised. In response to these fictitious claims, some individuals resort to depositing money into cryptocurrency ATMs under the false pretense that it will secure their accounts with governmental protection. Cryptocurrency ATMs have emerged as a favored tool for fraudsters due to their anonymity and accessibility. By posing as federal agents, scammers exploit the trust of their victims leading them to believe that their financial assets are in jeopardy. The promise of government protection serves as a persuasive lure coercing individuals into making hasty and uninformed decisions. Amidst the growing prevalence of cryptocurrency scams, it is crucial for individuals to exercise vigilance and adopt precautionary measures to safeguard their finances. Here are some steps to mitigate the risk of falling victim to such fraudulent schemes: 1. Verify the legitimacy of any communication claiming to be from government agencies. Genuine authorities typically communicate through official channels and do not request immediate monetary transactions. 2. Educate yourself about common tactics used by scammers such as creating a sense of urgency or impersonating trusted entities. Remain skeptical of unsolicited messages or calls, especially those pressuring you to take immediate action. 3. Utilize reputable cryptocurrency exchanges and platforms that prioritize security measures such as two-factor authentication and encryption protocols. Avoid engaging with unverified vendors or unfamiliar platforms. 4. Exercise caution when using cryptocurrency ATMs, especially in response to unsolicited requests or warnings. Verify the authenticity of the information provided and consider seeking advice from financial experts or authorities before making any transactions. By staying informed and vigilant, individuals can fortify themselves against the pervasive threat of cryptocurrency scams and protect their financial assets from exploitation. Resources like the Orlando Senior Help Desk can also be a vital source of credible information for seniors and their families. The Help Desk, which is accessible at 407-678-9363 and OrlandoSeniorHelpDesk.org is ready to help seniors determine if an outreach to a local senior might be fraudulent. The Orlando Senior Help Desk is part of Jewish Pavilion Senior Services (JPSS), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides essential support and fosters a sense of community among Jewish seniors. At the heart of its mission, JPSS serves as a beacon of inclusivity offering a wide range of services and programs tailored to meet the unique needs of Jewish residents in elder-care facilities. Through personalized room visits, joyous holiday celebrations, and cultural enrichment activities, JPSS endeavors to alleviate feelings of isolation and preserve the rich traditions of Jewish heritage. Beyond serving the Jewish community, JPSS extends its outreach to seniors of all faiths embodying the spirit of inclusivity and compassion. By welcoming individuals from diverse backgrounds into its programs, Jewish Pavilion Senior Services fosters meaningful connections and promotes a sense of belonging among elders in the community. Learn more at JewishPavilion.org. This article originally appeared on Kveller. Happy Yom Kippur! my mom shouted on speakerphone to my fiance and his family. Thank you, they said. Mom, Yom Kippur isnt really happy, I explained. We were staying at my future in-laws Long Island home, and everyone was exhausted from fasting. Insecure about not being Jewish myself, I longed to prove I was the perfect daughter-in-law-to-be. But I was the odd one out because Id broken the fast earlier with a Power Bar to stave off a migraine. Id also asked why the light switches were taped to the on position. My fiance explained that this peculiarity reminded them to abstain from work, a rule of Jewish law. Turning on a light is work? I asked. My fiance nodded. Yes, its forbidden. The Torah prohibits igniting a fire on Shabbat or Yom Kippur, his dad chimed in, eager to teach me the tenets of their faith. Oh, I said, pretending to understand. I shut off the speakerphone and walked into the kitchen to finish my phone conversation, trying to play down another awkward moment although it was impressive that my Italian mom could embarrass me all the way from Staten Island. Not happy? she asked. Its a holiday! Yes. But its a day of atonement. I explained that Yom Kippur was a bit like Reconciliation, the Catholic sacrament, but consolidated into one day. Its a somber time during which Jews avoid eating and drinking to demonstrate the extent of regret felt for those theyd wronged. My explanation helped my mom understand. Still, the idea of a holiday being solemn was contradicted by our households joyful celebrations overflowing with lasagna, laughter and the ability to turn light switches on and off. The closest comparison I could offer was Holy Week; although Good Friday is a mournful day, when we visited the church to ponder Jesuss crucifixion, it only requires abstention from meat. The real focus centered on Easter Sunday, when, after mass, we engage in a gleeful celebration to commemorate Jesuss resurrection. Lasagna has been a holiday staple in my family for several generations; I think the tradition originated with my grandparents, who grew up during the Great Depression. Meals containing expensive ingredients like meat and goats milk cheese didnt come cheap, so this delicacy was reserved for major celebrations when the extended family gathered. More recently, lasagna became a staple ingredient in any affair hosted by my mom, as a way to honor her late father, my Grandpa Tony, and our Italian heritage. My husband and I are married now and we have three kids. Though I didnt convert, we agreed to raise our kids in the Jewish faith so they could gain a strong moral foundation. We joined a Reform temple that recognizes them as Jewish, even though Im not, and they attend Hebrew school there. My oldest has already become a bat mitzvah and my other two are on the journey. Although my kids havent studied Catholicism, weve taught them that because Christianity is rooted in Judaism, both faiths share similar values to be upstanders and make the world better. (The biggest difference is one of opinion: Christians believe Jesus was the messiah while Jewish people are still waiting for him/her to arrive.) And although Im fully on board with having my children identify as Jewish, its sometimes difficult for me, let alone my side of the family, to grasp the intricacies of Jewish law. There are unfamiliar rules to follow, and my husbands family has adopted some rather stringent traditions, like keeping glatt kosher for the week of Passover, even though they arent Orthodox. Regardless, weve endeavored to be super-inclusive to both sets of relatives, hoping to teach our kids tolerance. Over the years, weve invited grandparents to all celebrations, whether Jewish or Christian. On Passover, my parents clap along while we sing a spirited Dayenu. We erect a tree and host a secular Christmas Eve party, to respect my traditions, and my husbands family joins us as we track Santas progress online, reveling in the kids joy as they anticipate his visit. Yom Kippur always felt different, though. Because of its serious nature, I felt uncomfortable inviting my side of the family. They wouldve passed out at the thought of fasting for 25 hours. The long stint at synagogue, followed by the dairy break-fast meal bagels, lox, egg salad and challah French toast for sundown consumption, always seemed tedious to explain. But then, a few years ago, on the evening of Yom Kippur, the kids asked, Whos coming tomorrow? They were unaware that wed found ourselves without guests for the break-fast, as my husbands familys strict observance didnt allow them to drive and we couldnt travel because it was a school night. Wed lived as expats in London for a while without extended family, so our children cherished being with loved ones. What if we invite my parents? I asked my husband. Surprised, he stared at me, then smiled. Sure, he said. Just tell your mother that the lasagna needs to be meatless. (Although our home isnt kosher, my husband eats kosher-style for Jewish holidays.) What can I bring? my mother asked when I invited her. I told her that she couldnt bring her party staple because it didnt mix with the kosher fare. That seemed easier than changing it, although putting the kibosh on the most significant way she showed love felt cruel. Bring flowers, I said. The next day, after services, I prepared the spread since I only quasi-fasted, and I allowed myself to work. But I couldnt shake feeling guilty about forbidding my mothers Sicilian delicacy. To make up for it, I cooked an online recipe an amalgamation of gooey cheese, bread and wine but it was no replacement. Unhappy Yom Kippur, my mom said when we opened the front door. That perseverant woman shoved an aluminum tray into my hands. Its a meatless lasagna. Eat it tomorrow when the holiday is finished. She crossed the threshold with a bouquet. Ill get a vase. When the sun finally went down and it was time to eat, I was compelled to include the lasagna. It felt right and it would make her happy. Plus, there wasnt a Jewish law prohibiting it. Thank you, my husband said to my mother, retrieving a piece. It was ironic that he was the only one breaking a bonafide fast. But since my family always scarfed down food as though theyd fasted for a day, he was in good company. Delicious, my dad said, eating a bagel and lox, enjoying it most. Later, we watched him pull a coin from my littlest ones ear, and my eldest read a picture book to my mom while she washed dishes. My husband and I shared a glance, both of us realizing that above all else, they were happy to be with their grandchildren and content to be eating, or not eating, lasagna. It was making memories that mattered most. (European Jewish Press via JNS) A pro-Israel advocacy group has called for a new global coalition to defeat the Hamas terrorist organization, after six Israeli hostages were killed in cold blood last month hours before being rescued by the Israel Defense Forces. In the European Coalition for Israels monthly talk show, The European Report, ECI founding director Tomas Sandell on Tuesday expressed his grave concern regarding the many concessions made to Hamas in the wake of the terror groups Oct. 7 massacre. This is not the time to reward terrorists by making concessions or calling for a ceasefire but a time to come together to rescue the remaining hostages and dismantle the Hamas killing machine with the same determination [with which] the international community fought and defeated ISIS, the Islamic State, said Sandell. Newly re-elected Dutch MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen, a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists group, expressed the same sentiment on the program, saying enough is enough. Ruissen, who was elected to parliament with a record number of votes, credited his election victory to his consistent support for Israel at a time when many other candidates were afraid to publicly express their solidarity with the Jewish state. He explained how on the campaign trail he met with many young Jews who expressed their fear of returning to their college campuses this fall due to violent anti-Israel demonstrations. The monthly talk show was recorded as the new European Parliament was being installed in Brussels, where the composition of important committees and delegations was being finalized. Sandell noted that the new parliament seems more inclined to understand the challenges Israel is facing, as many of the parties who scored well in the Israel-vote ranking made significant gains in the June elections. Furthermore, outgoing E.U. foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell, who has a history of making anti-Israel statements, will soon be replaced by former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. Growing up in the shadows of Putins Russia gives Kallas a better understanding of how we ought to defend the free world from this new axis of evil which includes both Russia and Iran, said Sandell. If things go according to plan the new European Commission will be confirmed by the European Parliament by early November. Still, the confirmation process may drag on. On Wednesday it was revealed that Belgiums nominee for European Commissioner, Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib, had a reputation for being biased against Israel during her career as a top journalist with Belgium TV. In one instance she refused to mention the Israeli citizenship of a recipient of a prestigious award, and last year faced calls to resign after it was revealed she had granted visas to delegations from both Iran and Russia for a major convention in Brussels. According to ECI, with the ongoing war in Ukraine and the rise of antisemitism across Europe, Lahbibs candidacy could become a liability for the new European Commission, which will face a new geo-political landscape in the wake of Russias 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in southern Israel last year. This year marks the 10th anniversary of The European Report, which is recorded in the studio of the European Parliament in Brussels and broadcast on several TV stations across Europe. Originally published by the European Jewish Press. (JNS) U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, in her first solo interview, said she had wholly backed the Biden administrations decision to pause the delivery of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. Speaking to the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia on Tuesday, the Democratic presidential nominee said that one of the things that weve done that Im entirely supportive of is the pause that we put on the 2000-pound bombs. She offered this as an example of a concrete action the White House had taken to pressure Israel to agree to a ceasefire deal. So, there is some leverage that we have had and used, she said. I absolutely believe that this war has to end, and it has to end as soon as possible, Harris said. In mid-June, in a video posted to social media, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced his frustration with the Biden administrations actions, calling it inconceivable that the White House was withholding weapons and ammunition to Israel during its war against Hamas in Gaza. During World War II, Churchill told the United States, Give us the tools, well do the job. And I say, give us the tools and well finish the job a lot faster, he said. While the administration admitted to delaying the 2,000-pound bombs, it denied holding up other weapons systems. John Kirby, the White House national security communications advisor, said that the White House didnt understand what Netanyahu was talking about. It was perplexing to say the least, certainly disappointing, especially given that no other country is doing more to help Israel defend itself against the threat by Hamas and, quite frankly, other threats that theyre facing in the region, than the United States, Kirby said. However, two days after Netanyahus remarks, Republican Senators Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) accused the White House of delaying arms to Israel. Hagerty said that the Biden administration has refused to send Congress formal notifications to finalize a host of arms sales to Israel, including F-15s, smart bomb kits and munitions even after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee informally cleared these sales. Cotton accused the Biden administration of engaging in sleight-of-hand in response to the White Houses insistence that only the 2,000-pound bombs has been paused. As you are aware, the Arms Export Control Act requires the administration to notify Congress before sending weapons to a foreign country, Cotton wrote. Your administration has manipulated this requirement by withholding this formal notification to Congress of approved weapons sales, including F-15s, tactical vehicles, 120-mm mortars, 120-mm tank rounds, joint direct attack munitions and small diameter bombs. Your administration can then claim that the weapons are in process while never delivering them, he said. Youre playing politics with the nations honor and our allys security. (JTA) American Jews are one step closer to having a Smithsonian museum dedicated to their history. The House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill Monday to study the possibility of bringing the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, in Philadelphia, under the Smithsonian umbrella. The Weitzman, as it is known, is considered the premier museum of Jewish history in the United States and already has an affiliation with the Smithsonian. Full membership in the Smithsonian network of museums would unlock federal funding opportunities and confer additional prestige on the Weitzman. The bill had the support of 36 Jewish groups and was co-sponsored by a bipartisan slate of 94 representatives. Lawmakers spoke of rising antisemitism in the United States and Israels multi-front war in speeches ahead of the bills approval. Pervasive anti-Israel bias has infected our country. Antisemitism is on the rise and threatens the safety of all communities and institutions, said Rep. Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican. Let me be clear, antisemitism has no place in America. Israel is in a fight for its very existence from the terrorist threat of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. I strongly support our ally, Israel, and our Jewish friends in the Middle East. The bills author, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Jewish Democrat, said the elevation of the museums status could help in the fight against antisemitism. With antisemitism skyrocketing, acknowledging the past and acting to build a better tomorrow is more critical than ever, Wasserman Schultz said. It will take a whole-of-society effort to do this, and folding the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History into the Smithsonian is one step toward that goal. We must uplift Jewish stories and raise awareness of the contributions of Jewish Americans throughout our nations history. If passed by the Senate and signed by the president, the bill would establish a commission to consider transferring the museum to the control of the Smithsonian trust. Ultimately, the Weitzman would join a collection of Smithsonian museums dedicated to other minority groups including African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans and Latinos. Supporters of the plan are motivated in part by the view that the Smithsonians United States Holocaust Memorial Museum plays a critical but limited role in educating Americans about Jewish history and fighting antisemitism. The Holocaust describes the darkest moment in the history of the Jewish people, perhaps the darkest moments of humanity, but it does not tell people about who the Jewish people are, said Phil Darivoff, the chairman emeritus of the Weitzman. It does not tell the unique and joyful story of Jews in America and that is something that Americans need to understand. (JTA) WASHINGTON Should the U.S. government address antisemitism on its own, or as part of the broader fight against prejudice? Thats the question that occupied and divided Republican and Democratic senators on Tuesday at an emotional hearing that, at one point, was brought to a stop by someone shouting antisemitic invective. Tensions were evident almost immediately when the Judiciary Committees Democratic chairman, Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, and its top Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, clashed over the hearings aims and even its name, Threat to Justice Everywhere: Stemming the Tide of Hate Crimes in America. In introductory comments, Durbin noted, as the FBI and extremism watchdogs have warned, that violence tends to come more from the far right than it does from the far left whose protests against Israels military campaign in Gaza have roiled campuses. Graham and other Republicans wanted the hearing to focus solely on campus antisemitism. The goal was to have a hearing about why its so hard to go to school if youre Jewish, and its really hard to go to these schools if youre Jewish, youre being knocked down, youre being spat on, he said. This is not the hearing were getting, so well work with what weve got. Durbin said he was not ready to emphasize one type of bigotry over another. He noted that the audience included both families of victims of the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, as well as of a Palestinian-American child stabbed to death by his landlord last year. Prioritizing which group is being discriminated against the worst, I dont believe is a valid exercise of our authority here, said Durbin. What we are trying to do is to identify a problem in America that extends beyond Jewish population to the Arab population to the Palestinian population. All of those hate crimes are unacceptable. House Republicans have devoted massive resources to investigating antisemitism on campus but paid comparatively little heed to threats from the far right, which Durbin emphasized were pressing. Since 2000 according to federal law enforcement, white supremacists have been responsible for more homicides than any other domestic extremist group, he said. The witnesses at the hearing included Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute, who authored a comprehensive analysis of the spike in anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim attacks in recent years, and Kenneth Stern, the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate and the author of a popular and controversial definition of antisemitism, who were invited by the Democrats. Republicans invited Mark Goldfeder, the director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, which has filed lawsuits to protect Jews on campuses. The back-and-forth at the hearing brought to the fore tensions that have been simmering since the Biden administration first rolled out a broad set of anti-extremism initiatives in 2022. Jewish groups said the generalized approach was too diffuse. That led Biden to launch an antisemitism-specific task force in December 2022, and the rollout of a strategy to combat antisemitism in May 2023. Later that year the White House announced a national strategy to combat Islamophobia. Defenders of the White Houses approach said bigotries are impossible to isolate and can more effectively be combated in unison. But some conservative groups have complained that Bidens antisemitism strategy has been diluted by at times addressing other bigotries, a complaint that intensified after Hamas launched its war on Israel on Oct. 7. This committee should act not just in general, but specifically about what its like to be Jewish in America in 2024, and it is not a good story, Graham said. Stern and Goldfeder both argued that antisemitism should not be seen in isolation, saying that its expression reverberated in the targeting of other vulnerable populations. Stern said the reverse was true as well: Attacks on other minority groups endangered Jews. Antisemitism is at heart a conspiracy theory that sees Jews as conspiring to harm humanity, he said. Its offered as an explanation for what goes wrong in the world. It appears on the right and on the left. Its also the philosophical backbone of much white supremacy. But we tend to think about antisemitism as only what people say about Jews or Israel, and not enough about how vilification of anyone among us can create a conveyor belt to antisemitism. The Orthodox Union, which played a leading role in advocating for an antisemitism strategy, expressed outrage at what it said was the committees watered-down treatment of antisemitism. The hearing failed to center on the unique and rising threat Jewish communities face, it said in a statement. Instead, it featured witnesses who did not adequately address the specific challenges of antisemitism and omitted key voices from Jewish students and educators affected by this hate. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, echoed that critique, decrying that we dont get a hearing on antisemitism, we get a hearing generically on hate. While he was speaking, Capitol Police led away a man shouting Fing Jews and the Israelis themselves, talk about the 40,000! referring to Palestinians killed in Israels war with Hamas. Talk about all these people! Why [is it] about antisemitism? Another tense moment came when Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, aggressively questioned Berry, claiming that she supported Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran while she repeatedly said she did not. You should hide your head in a bag! Kennedy shouted at Berry, to gasps in the room. Its regrettable that I, as I sit here, have experienced the very issue that were attempting to deal with today, Berry said in response. This has been, regrettably, a real disappointment, but very much an indication of the danger to our democratic institutions that were in now. The Anti-Defamation League condemned Kennedys theatrics. Just as its antisemitic to hold the Jewish community accountable for actions of the state of Israel, its wrong to single out an Arab American as a terrorist sympathizer, it said in a statement. (JNS) - A rare and unique First Temple-era stone inscribed with a name in paleo-Hebrew script has been uncovered near Jerusalem's Temple Mount, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Thursday. The ancient black stone seal was unearthed in an excavation by the Temple Mount's southern wall. It is believed to date back 2,700 years and was used by a senior official in the Kingdom of Judah's administration, the state-run archaeological body said. "The seal, made of black stone, is one of the most beautiful ever discovered in excavations in ancient Jerusalem, and is executed at the highest artistic level," said Yuval Baruch and Navot Rom, who directed the excavations with funding by the City of David Foundation. The object-which is engraved with reverse script, served its owner both as an amulet and as a signature for legal documents and certificates, according to the IAA. It has a hole drilled through its length so that it could be strung onto a chain and be worn around the neck. The artifact is engraved with the words "LeYehoezer ben Hoshayahu"-"For Yeho'ezer son of Hosh'ayahu"-in paleo-Hebrew script. Experts said that the seal is an extremely rare and unusual discovery. "This is the first time that a winged 'genie'-a protective magical figure-has been found in Israeli and regional archaeology," said Filip Vukosavovic, IAA archaeologist and Assyriologist. "Figures of winged demons are known in the Neo-Assyrian art of the 9th-7th centuries BCE, and they were considered a kind of protective demon." The seal was apparently made by a local craftsman, "a Judahite, who produced the amulet at the owner's request. It was prepared at a very high artistic level," said Vukosavovic. The name Yehoezer appears in the Bible (Chron. I 12:7) in its abbreviated form, Yoezer, one of King David's fighters. In the Book of Jeremiah (43:2), which depicts events thought to have occurred during the same period the seal was in use, the name "Azariah ben Hosh'aya" appears. "Hosh'aya" is the abbreviated form of Hoshayahu. "This is further evidence of the reading and writing abilities that existed in this period," said Baruch. "Contrary to what may be commonly thought, it seems that literacy in this period was not the realm only of society's elite. People knew how to read and write-at least at the basic level, for the needs of commerce." When Hosh'ayahu died, his son Yeho'ezer inherited the seal, and he "added his name and his father's name on either side of the demon," in an effort to "directly appropriate to himself the beneficial qualities he believed the talisman embodied as a magical item," the archaeologists believe. The paleo-Hebrew inscription "was done in a sloppy manner," unlike the "careful engraving of the demon," indicating that it could have been "Yehoezer himself who engraved the names on the object," said professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa, who took part in the research. "The spectacular and unique find opens another window for us into the days of the Kingdom of Judah during the First Temple period, and attests to that administration's international connections," said Israeli Heritage Minister Rabbi Amichai Eliyahu. "In doing so, it demonstrates the importance and centrality of Jerusalem already 2,700 years ago. It is impossible not to be moved by such an unmediated and direct encounter with a chapter of our past, a time in which the First Temple stood in all its glory." Additional information about the seal is to be presented to the public next week at the annual "City of David Research Conference," which takes place on Wednesday, Sept. 4 in Jerusalem. (JNS) Jerusalems Old City and Judea and Samaria must be judenrein within a year, according to a Palestinian-drafted resolution, which the U.N. General Assembly passed on Sept. 18. The resolution, which passed by a 124-14 margin with 43 abstentions, is meant to give force to a July advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice, which declared Israeli presence to be illegal in any area over the 1949 armistice line. More than 40 countries sponsored the resolution, which was the first that Palestinians filed after being granted unprecedented privileges, for a non-U.N. member, earlier this year. The resolution calls on the Israel Defense Forces to withdraw completely from Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and Gaza within 12 months, which means evacuating all Jewish communities beyond the armistice line, including Jerusalems Old City. It also bans arms sales to the IDF of any equipment that would be expected reasonably to be used in the territory over the 1949 lines and calls for a boycott of all products produced by Jews in those areas. The resolution text lacks any mention of Israeli security concerns, historic ties to the lands or Hamass terror attacks in Israel on Oct. 7. The vote came after a day of debate on Tuesday. Argentina, Czechia, Fiji, Hungary, Malawi, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Tonga, Tuvalu and the United States joined Israel in opposing the resolution. Notably, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Ukraine and Australia were among those who abstained. General Assembly resolutions have no legal force, but the resolutions passage on Wednesday is expected to be used in international courts and other fora to seek additional action against the Jewish state. It is widely expected that the Palestinians will request that the U.N. Security Council take up the issue. Security Council resolutions are binding, but the United States would be expected to thwart such an effort, including with its veto power. Further fuel on worldwide antisemitism Danny Danon, Israels ambassador to the United Nations, called it a shameful decision that backs the Palestinian Authoritys diplomatic terrorism. He added that the General Assembly continues to dance to the music of the Palestinian Authority, which backs the Hamas murderers. Before the vote, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters he would back the implementation of the resolution should it pass. Seth Riklin and Daniel Mariaschin, president and CEO respectively of Bnai Brith International, said that the international nonprofit is appalled by the atrocious resolution. Bnai Brith International strongly condemns the U.N. General Assemblys passage of the first resolution officially sponsored by Palestinians days after they became the first non-member state group further upgraded to many member state privileges at the U.N. General Assembly, despite the world bodys own rules and practices, the duo stated. Coming from an assembly in which Arab and other pro-Palestinian governments wield an automatic majority to annually condemn Israel more than all other countries combined, the motion is unprecedented in its shamelessly one-sided endorsement of Palestinian claims and political demands, and further erodes the U.N.s credibility as a serious contributor to promoting conflict-resolution and universal human rights, they added. Shame on all countries that enabled this atrocious affront to justice and peace as part of the latest UNGA emergency session on the Middle East that does nothing to help seriously address and settle the emergency, Riklin and Mariaschin said. Arsen Ostrovsky and Nadav Steinman, CEO and board chair respectively of the International Legal Forum, stated that today, simply put, the United Nations has become the diplomatic arm of Hamas and that the resolution is just the latest in a litany of obscenely one-sided anti-Israel resolutions at the U.N. since Oct. 7. All it does is reward the murderers, rapists and abductors of Hamas while pouring further fuel on worldwide antisemitism and eroding whatever remaining credibility of the already problematic and politicized International Court of Justice, upon which this resolution is meant to be based, they added. Ultimately, peace will only prevail when Hamas is defeated and the hostages are released, not through tiresome antics and pyrrhic Palestinian victories at the U.N. (Israel Hayom via JNS) A heated debate has erupted on social media over recent changes made to the Wikipedia entry for Zionism, sparking accusations of historical revisionism. Users on social media have over the past several 24 hours posted a comparison between the 2023 and 2024 versions of the Wikipedia page, with one user, Liv Lovisa, claiming that history is being rewritten. Blake Flayton, a vocal commentator on Jewish and Israeli issues, responded to the post, calling the changes egregious and urging someone with expertise to edit the page to reflect what he considers to be a more accurate portrayal. At the center of the debate are key changes in the language used to describe Zionism, the movement that called for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in what is now Israel. The 2023 version of the page framed Zionism as a nationalist movement born in the 19th century that sought to secure Jewish self-determination. In contrast, the 2024 version of the entry introduces more charged terminology, describing Zionism as an ethno-cultural nationalist movement that engaged in colonization of a land outside of Europe, with a heightened focus on the resulting conflicts with Palestinian Arabs. Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible, it reads. On its website, Wikipedia says the following on its policies: Wikipedia has no central editorial board. Contributions are made by a large number of volunteers at their own discretion. Edits are neither the responsibility of the Wikimedia Foundation (the organization that hosts the site) nor of its staff, and edits will not generally be made in response to an email request. Critics, including Flayton, argue that the new language in the Zionism entry distorts the historical narrative, positioning Zionism in a more negative light by drawing parallels to colonialism and downplaying the movements core goal of creating a safe homeland for Jewish people. The use of the term colonization, in particular, has been a flashpoint, as it evokes a political context that some feel misrepresents the motivations behind the establishment of Israel and overlooks the historical persecution faced by Jews that led to the Zionist movement. Another Twitter pro-Israel voice, Hen Mazzig, wrote: The new Wikipedia entry on Zionism isnt just inaccurate, its downright antisemitic. It asserts that the origin of Ashkenazi Jews is highly debated and enigmatic, echoing Khazar theory, the dangerous lie that Ashkenazi Jews are converts and not descendants of the Jews exiled from the Land of Israel. He added, This theory is often weaponized to call Israelis colonizers and thus dehumanize us. In fact, Jewish history of repeated exile and migration from Israel to Europe is incredibly well-documented, as are genetic studies linking our people to the Middle East. Any balanced article discussing Jewish genetics and Israel would mention that. @Wikipedia has become a hate site. I hope theyll change course. The uproar underscores broader concerns about the influence of Wikipedia, one of the most visited websites in the world, and the potential for bias or misinterpretation regarding politically sensitive topics like Zionism. As a public, user-edited platform, Wikipedia is often subject to scrutiny, especially when it comes to contentious issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With millions of readers relying on the site for information, changes to entries like these can have significant implications for public understanding of historical events and modern geopolitical debates. Israel Hayom has yet to receive a response from Wikipedia. (JNS) I was on site when a mob of Islamists and leftists attacked the Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles. The synagogue was besieged and Jews were prevented from entering. Multiple Jewish community members were assaulted while the police for the most part did nothing. No arrests were made of the attackers who came armed and masked. While the media tried to once again cover up or redirect blame for the violence, there was enough outrage that a few L.A. legislators actually attempted to introduce bills banning more of the same. Who would possibly object to that? CAIR. The Islamist group whose leader celebrated the Oct. 7 attacks. After pressure campaigns totaled previous efforts to stop the pro-terrorist violence, the L.A. Board of Supervisors, which had backed the UCLA attacks on Jewish students, introduced a proposal for a bubble zone that would ban preventing people from entering a school, healthcare facility or house of worship. Or harassing people in close proximity to these sites for political reasons. Im not a big fan of the bubble zone legislation, which fails to deal with whats going on, but CAIR claims that preventing them from harassing Jews going to synagogue interferes with their rights. The CAIR press release defends the attacks on the Adas Torah synagogue and claims that preventing hateful mobs from attacking synagogues would be penalizing peaceful protests simply based on their proximity to geographic landmarks, and that this motion threatens to push protesters out of sight, effectively chilling their speech, further disenfranchising already vulnerable groups. The geographic zones in question would be houses of worship. The houses of worship that the mobs CAIR supports seem to want to attack. What kind of organization needs to make the case for blocking synagogues and harassing Jews? CAIR does. Beijing (Gasgoo)- On September 26, AVATR, the premium new energy vehicle brand jointly developed by Changan Automobile, Huawei, and CATL, officially put the AVATR 07 onto the market. Coming with six variants across all-electric (BEV) and range-extended (REEV) powertrains, the AVATR 07 is priced between 219,900 yuan and 289,900 yuan. Photo credit: AVATR The AVATR 07 continues the brand's signature design with an elongated body and dynamic proportions, featuring one of the widest body structures in its segment. The vehicle's distinct front fascia includes the recognizable F-shaped lighting, contributing to its bold aesthetic. Inside, the AVATR 07 offers zero-gravity front seats with 16-way electric adjustment, ventilation, heating, and massage functions. Rear passengers enjoy electric seat adjustment between 28 and 34 degrees, along with the debut of the AVATR LINK system, allowing control of air conditioning, lighting, and seat settings via a tablet. Photo credit: AVATR The vehicle's interior length reaches 3,119mm, with a 500-liter trunk. A one-button bed function transforms the space into a flat 3-square-meter sleeping area. The AVATR 07 features an advanced chassis system with Taihang Smart Control platform, including double-wishbone front suspension and multi-link rear suspension, both using aluminum alloy materials. Equipped with smart air suspension and CDC damping control, the model ensures a balance of comfort and handling. Photo credit: AVATR Powered by Huawei's HarmonyOS 4.0 smart cockpit and Qiankun ADS 3.0 intelligent driving systems, the AVATR 07 delivers impressive tech integration. The BEV version boasts an 82kWh Shenxing Battery from CATL with 650 km of range, while the REEV version uses a 1.5T engine and CATLs REEV-dedicated 39kWh battery, providing fast charging capabilities and enhanced efficiency. (JNS) Im a fan of the Free Press podcast Honestly. Its one of my regular sources of media. The even-handed coverage given to all topics is invigorating. But as someone who lives in Judea and Samaria, the episode titled The Palestinian Traitor Risking Everything to Speak Out lacks some necessary context. For those who havent listened to the episode, I highly recommend it. The interviewee has both an unbelievable story and a fascinating philosophy on life. Since speaking out against the atrocities of Oct. 7, hes been labeled a traitor, which in the Arab community means that you are earmarked for death. Hes been in hiding ever since; therefore, his identity could not be disclosed. Bari Weiss, founder of the Free Press and host of the podcast, is a reliable advocate for Israel. She is a bullhorn for the truth that so much of the legacy media chooses to ignore or distort. It is for this reason that a number of the podcast segments were so troubling. One of the most challenging sections of the interview dealt with the Palestinian interviewees trials entering and exiting Israel. As detailed in the conversation, he required a permit to study at an Israeli university and to obtain one, he needed to be married. Host Bari Weiss seemed shocked that Israel would make such a stipulation. The Palestinian gentlemans response is as true as it is insightful. Young men with families are markedly less likely to commit acts of violence since they have something to lose. The interviewee had accepted and fully understood the need for this. A similar interaction occurred when discussing his daily trip to and from the university. The Palestinian man detailed his daily 50-kilometer, 5.5-hour commute. As was pointed out, the entire ordeal should have taken an hour in each direction. The delays are caused by checkpoints he and other Palestinians need to pass through. Once again, Weiss was audibly disturbed by this fact, whereas the interviewee seemed to understand its necessity. Israel has no desire to subject her neighbors to massive delays in travel for its own sake. The checkpoints are an unfortunate requirement, needed to protect Israeli civilians under constant threat of terror attacks. No one wishes this to be the case but to ignore reality would cost innocent lives. The most disconcerting portion of the interview dealt with the Palestinians place in the university he attended. Weiss made a big deal about how unique it is for someone from his neighborhood to attend an Israeli school of higher education. While that may very well be true, the discussion could have easily misled uneducated listeners. While few Arabs from Judea and Samaria attend colleges, plenty of Arab Israelis enlist in these schools. In fact, the number of Arab students grew by 78 percent over a seven-year period, accounting for 16.1 perecent of the undergraduate population, 13 perecent of the graduate population and 6.3 perecent of the postgraduate population. The most heartbreaking part of the interview was the closing segment. Its clear that this Palestinian mans life is in danger. Weiss pleaded with the audience to help find a solution for hima place where he could speak his mind freely, practice his religion as he sees fit and be safe from persecution. What was truly heartbreaking from my perspective is that the solution is just 50 kilometers away. Israel is this place. In fact, its the only place like it in the entire Middle East. All of its citizens have the freedoms this man desires and deserves. (JNS) The current negotiations between Hamasan Iran-supported, internationally designated foreign terrorist organizationand Israel, a legitimate democratic nation-state, is a puzzlement. About 3,800 Hamas terrorists were among the 6,000 Gazans who invaded Israel on Oct. 7 and committed barbaric, inhumane atrocities. Every inhumane act committed, including the taking of hostages and the firing of thousands of indiscriminate rockets into civilian Israeli towns and cities, is against every law of humanity, conduct under the laws of war and many acts of the Geneva Conventions. Throughout these last 11 months, the Israeli military response has been effective in reducing Hamass military abilities. Even though Israel has had to deal with intense and ongoing diplomatic and media pressure, in addition to punitive arms shipment delays, including outright arms contract cancellations from its alliesthe United States and Britain. Unfortunately, and desperately, the goals of the hostages return (dead and alive), as well as eliminating Hamass control of Gaza, still remain. Therefore, Israel is compelled to negotiate with proven liars. Note on Israeli military effectiveness: When the often-quoted, unsubstantiated claim of 40,000 Gazan deaths at the hands of the Israelis is mentioned, the fact that this statistic includes enemy combatants is omitted. The Israeli military has consistently delivered a civilian-to-combatant death ratio of less than 2-to-1, a historically unprecedented low number, in what analysts describe as one of the most difficult and complex urban warfare operations ever attempted. Let that sink in. While these tense negotiations are going on, Khaled Mashaal, a top official of Hamas recently urged the resumption of suicide bombings against the innocent citizens of the party they are negotiating with, namely Israel. Read that previous sentence again to let the incredible incongruity set in. (All the while, Israel is suffering from the nearly daily rocket and drone attacks from Iranian-backed Hezbollah and the increasing terror attacks from the Palestinian Authority in Judea-Samaria, aka the West Bank.) That leads us to Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which became the Palestinian Authority after he signed the Oslo Accords. The Oslo Accords was a set of agreements between Israel and the PLO that established a peace process for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Shortly after signing the accords, Arafat gave a speech on May 10, 1994, in a mosque in Johannesburg, where he called for a jihad to liberate Jerusalem (read: destroy Israel and kill the Jews). He suggested that his signing of the peace accords with Israel was only a tactical step that could be reversed. He based this on taqiyya, an Islamic concept that allows lying to confound and defeat enemies through deception. Here is an excerpt from that speech. The text was transcribed directly from a tape recording of Arafats address. What they are saying is that [Jerusalem] is their capital. No, it is not their capital. It is our capital. It is the first shrine of the Islam and the Muslims. This agreement (the Oslo Accords), I am not considering it more than the agreement which had been signed between our prophet Mohammed and Quraysh, and you remember the Caliph Omar had refused this agreement and [considered] it a despicable truce. But Mohammed had accepted it, and we are accepting now this peace offer. But to continue our way to Jerusalem, to the first shrine together and not alone. The first quote is a bald-faced lie as Jerusalem is considered the third holiest Muslim site and has been the Temple Mount and Jewish capital of Israel for more than a thousand years before Mohamed. The second statement Arafat referred to was an agreement known as The Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, which allowed Mohammed to pray in Mecca for 10 years. Two years later, when Mohammed grew stronger, he broke the agreement because he felt the Quraysh supported an attack by one of their allies on an ally of the Muslims. Mohammed subsequently slaughtered the tribe of Quraysh and conquered Mecca. The third statement declares that just like Mohamed accepted and broke a peace agreement, so does Arafat. Arafats modern interpretation of taqiyya exposed his intention to move from the original concept, to lie and mislead in order to shield oneself, to the new interpretation of employing this immoral tactic to achieve an ultimate goal by deception. As he said in his own words above, we sign it now but continue to conquer. It should be noted that the term used for one of the negotiations key objectives, permanent ceasefire, is a contradiction, as this concept does not end the conflict but merely delays restarting it sometime in the future. Proof can be found by reviewing all the previously broken Hamas-ceasefire agreements, as well as the untenable non-negotiable conditions Hamas is putting forth in the current proposed ceasefire. (Mainly that, Israel should completely withdraw, rebuild Gaza and put Hamas back in power. No accountability.) It could be sarcastically said that ceasefire in Arabic means re-arm. The all-important hostage issue is mere leverage from Hamass point of view. To Jews, Israelis and other moral people worldwide, the hostages are of utmost concern. Hamas knows this. As does their puppet master, Iran, which controls Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis and other regional terrorist groups. (Note: Only an Iranian regime change will bring the potential for permanent peace and stability to the entire region.) Yes, negotiate. But negotiate from strength and on terms that contain ultimatums and consequences. The drawn-out negotiations have been only a Hamas delay tactic to increase the deaths of their own citizens and hostages, whom the terrorist organization uses as human shields, which, in turn, leads to more unfounded international condemnation of Israel. This condemnation emboldens Hamas to reject agreed-upon terms and demand more. The world, especially the United States, must desist from only pressuring Israel, they must immediately bring strength and support to Israel and specify terms that contain ultimatums and consequences with the end objective to effectively decimate the power of Hamas, as well as any Islamic jihadistss ability to rise and threaten Israel and Western civilization again. Unfortunately, with the full knowledge that this is negotiating with liars. Can you say taqiyya? (JNS) For decades, Jewish Republicans have talked about a realignment whereby Jews will abandon their traditional, almost reflexive support for the Democratic Party and embrace the Republican Party. Historically, Jewish voters have leaned heavily Democratic due to the partys association with liberal values, which resonate with most Jews who identify as liberal or progressive. Policy Jews say that Israel is not the most critical issue, but they are influenced if one candidate is perceived as hostileas was the case, for example, with Jimmy Carter. He would have never become president if one... The Supreme Court recently delivered a significant judgement ( Just Rights for Childrens Alliance & Anr. v. S. Harish & Ors., Criminal Appeal Nos. 2161-2162/2024 ) which expanded the law on possession of child pornographic material while overturning a questionably reasoned judgement of the Madras High Court. The impugned high court judgment had held that mere possession and storage of pornographic material of children without any transmission or publication of the same does not amount to an offence under section 67B of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act) and section 14(1) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO Act). Another related point that the apex court made in its pronouncement which is worthwhile to note is its direction to all courts of the country, forbidding them from using the term child pornography and instead using the term child sexual exploitative and abuse material (CSEAM). Elaborating on the reasoning behind this order, the Supreme Court rightly explained that child pornography is a misleading term that underplays the severity of the crime, as the term pornography is typically used to connote visual material depicting a consensual sexual relationship between adults, viewed for sexual pleasure. As children lack the capacity to consent to any sexual activity with adults, a term such as pornography that suggests the voluntary participation of a child cannot be condoned. Instead, the Supreme Court has directed the usage of the term CSEAM in all judicial orders and judgments. CSEAM correctly focuses on the gravity of the offence and clearly places the burden of the conduct on the exploitation and abuse of the child on the perpetrator instead of on the child. The apex court further proposed that Parliament ought to consider bringing about an amendment to the POCSO Act to substitute the term child pornography with CSEAM to underscore the gravity of sexual offences committed against children. It was also suggested that the government may consider the route of an ordinance for the proposed amendment to the POCSO Act. Language is important, and it matters even more so in statutes, judicial orders, and judgments. Public perception of crime and victimisation often hinges on how it is described by courts and the media. Hence, when news and media organisations choose to report on say, for instance, a sexual abuse case involving a minor by labelling it a sex scandal it has real-world ramifications on how the victim is viewed by society at large. Therefore, statutory language and language used by the judiciary ought to be cognizant of the harms that incorrect and insensitive language can perpetuate. The direction of the apex court is laudable and a step in the right direction. It is important for statutory definitions and judicial interpretation to correctly and comprehensively capture the nature of the criminal act. Thus, in this context, labelling criminal acts in a way that accurately describes the nature and degree of the crime assumes great importance. This concept is known as the fair labelling principle in criminal law. The principle of fair labelling advocates for fairly representing the wrong committed by the perpetrator by labelling it in a just manner that accurately captures the harm inflicted by the accused person on the victim. Therefore, the principle of fair labelling is significant in communicating to a layman the heinousness of the crime and preventing any blame or insinuation of consent on the part of the child, which the term child pornography fails to do. A fair label also helps to impart important information about the crime that has been committed such as to establish societal disapproval regarding the offence and indicate proportionality of the response of the criminal justice system vis-a-vis the offence. The principle is not new under Indian jurisprudence and has previously been used in the context of rape and sexual assault laws. Specifically speaking, it has been used in arguments during litigation regarding the constitutionality of the marital rape exception under Indian criminal law at the Delhi High Court in RIT Foundation v. Union of India (2022). At the international level as well, the term child pornography has been criticised as problematic by several experts. The lack of consensus on the definition of the terms pornography and even child further complicates the matter and has led to varying definitions of these terms in different parts of the world. In 2015, in its resolution on child sexual abuse online, the European Parliament stressed that it was crucial to use the correct terminology for offences committed against children, including the description of images of sexual abuse of children, and to use the appropriate term child sexual abuse material rather than child pornography. The Terminology Guidelines for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse that were adopted in 2016, also known as the Luxembourg Guidelines (Guidelines) compiled by leading international organisations having expertise in child rights have similarly recommended moving away from the term child pornography. The Guidelines suggest best practices regarding terminology to be used in matters of crimes committed against children, recommend using child sexual abuse material and urge that child pornography be avoided in its entirety. International law enforcement agencies such as Interpol and Europol have followed suit, acknowledged that the term child pornography is actually beneficial to the offender as it can be used to denote legitimacy and compliance by the victim and recommended the discontinuation of the term. Thus, among law enforcement, judicial, and academic circles, there is an increasing concurrence that child pornography does not sufficiently convey the seriousness of the crime that the victim has been subjected to and, in fact, minimises it. Appropriately descriptive terms that accurately convey to non-experts the extent of the graveness of the crime committed against children are vital. Properly understanding the crime that has been committed and its implications on the victim is one of the first steps to ensuring justice and preventing the revictimization of the child in question. The direction by the apex court in this regard to all courts and the suggestion that appropriate amendment to the law is made would bring India in line with international best practices and recommendations by experts. Children comprise one of the most vulnerable sections of society. In a country where sexual assault is shrouded in social stigma and shame, this direction is heartening as it will help in making certain that serious sexual crimes committed against a child are not trivialised, and their magnitude is not lost to the public at large. Hopefully, Indias Parliament and the police will follow suit in changing the law and ensuring the usage of the correct terminology in a manner that protects children and safeguards their dignity. Avanti Deshpande is a lawyer and researcher. Her interests include human rights law, criminal law, and gender justice. The views expressed are personal Chinese equities capped their biggest weekly rally since 2008 with a burst of trading that overwhelmed the Shanghai stock exchange, underscoring a dramatic shift in investor sentiment after Xi Jinpings government ramped up economic stimulus. People walk on an overpass with a display of stock information in front of buildings in the Lujiazui financial district in Shanghai, China.(Reuters) In an echo of the rally that followed Chinas massive stimulus during the global financial crisis, the CSI 300 Index of large-cap shares soared 4.5% on Friday bringing this weeks gain to 16%. Trading activity was so intense that it led to glitches and delays in processing orders, according to people familiar with the matter. The Shanghai exchange said it was investigating the issues, without elaborating. It was a frenzied end to a week that has raised hopes of a bottom in Chinas $8.9 trillion stock market after years of losses that made it one of the worlds worst performers. Chinese authorities unleashed a long hoped-for barrage of monetary stimulus on Tuesday, followed by vows from top leaders to do whats necessary to shore up the housing market and boost consumption. While many details of Chinas stimulus plan remain unclear and past bouts of euphoria have often fizzled, market watchers say the fear of missing out on a sustained rally is palpable. With Chinas markets closed next week for the Golden Week holidays, domestic investors may be worried that the rally could continue in Hong Kong while theyre away, said David Chao, a strategist at Invesco Asset Management. FOMO is running high for investors as Chinese equities have moved close to 10% in the past three days, he said. Based on historical valuation, we think Chinese stocks have another 20% runway to go. A gauge of Chinese stocks in Hong Kong climbed 2.5%, notching its longest winning streak since 2018. The ChiNext index, a tech-heavy gauge, rose a record 10%. Turnover in China reached nearly three times the amount from the days prior to the stimulus blitz that began on Tuesday. As investors turned to risk assets over havens, Chinas ultra-long government bond futures saw their biggest daily loss on record Friday. Chinas 10-year bond yield rose 5 basis points at 2.16%. Chinese authorities shift this week drove billionaire investor David Tepper to declare that hes buying more of everything related to the country. I thought that what the Fed did last week would lead to China easing, and I didnt know that they were going to bring out the big guns like they did, he said in a CNBC interview Thursday. We got a little bit longer, more Chinese stocks. The securities regulators guidelines to encourage companies to attract long-term investors also fortified the optimism already brewing in the market. The broad rally Friday was underscored by 266 of the CSI 300 Indexs 300 members ending the day in the green, with spirits maker Kweichow Moutai Co. and battery producer Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. leading the surge. But Chinese bank stocks bucked the rally and fell, as investors weighed the implications of a 1 trillion yuan ($142 billion) capital injection plan reported by Bloomberg News. China is planning to inject funds mainly raised from the issuance of new special sovereign bonds, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. The injection plan could lead to a 56 basis point dilution of return on equity, JPMorgan analysts including Katherine Lei wrote in a note. The slump may also a reflect a shift away from sectors that were viewed as more resilient when the market was falling; with some of the nations highest dividend yields, Chinese banks have appealed to investors looking for stable returns. Some investors are looking for signs of more fiscal stimulus to drive the next leg of gains. We can expect fiscal measures as well to come, said Raymond Chen, a fund manager at ZiZhou Investment Asset Management. This is for sure leaving many cynics behind. Morgan Stanley is among a slew of China watchers gradually turning bullish, with strategist Laura Wang and her colleagues seeing another 10% upside for the CSI 300 Index in the short term. Just days earlier, the Wall Street bank removed its preference for onshore stocks over offshore counterparts, citing a lack of supportive factors such as state buying. The optimism also drove higher other Asian stocks with exposure to the worlds second-biggest economy as the risk-on mood intensified across the region. Flipkart issued an apology for its recent promotional advertisement which referred to husbands as aalsi, kambakkht, and bewakoof. The video, promoting Flipkart's 'Big Billion Days Sale,' has since been removed from Flipkart's social media platforms. The advertisement featured a couple and offered tips on how women could order and store handbags from the e-commerce platform without their husbands finding out about it. Flipkart apologized for an advertisement featuring derogatory terms for husbands, which has now been taken down. The 'Big Billion Days' sale is currently active until October 6.(Reuters) The advertisement faced major backlash on social media as NCMIndia Council For Men Affairs posted the video on X (formerly Twitter) and said that it was toxic and misandrist. So @Flipkart deleted this misandrist post. But what was the logic behind even posting such toxic video addressing a Husband as Aalsi, Kambakkht and Bewakoof Pati. They must apologise for this and hope they will not repeat it. Misandry will Not be Tolerated Anymore, the post read. Watch ad here: Flipkart apologised by commenting on the post and said that the video was shared in error and has been taken down. The company said, Were sorry for the offending video which was posted in error, and took it down as soon as we realised our mistake. We will do better in the future." The Flipkart Big Billion Days sale has started today (September 27) and will conclude on October 6. NEW DELHI: India and Uzbekistan on Friday signed a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) to assure appropriate protection to investors of the two countries. The treaty was signed by Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Uzbekistans deputy prime minister Khodjayev Jamshid Abdukhakimovich at Tashkent (X/FinMinIndia) The treaty was signed by Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Uzbekistans deputy prime minister Khodjayev Jamshid Abdukhakimovich at Tashkent, the finance ministry said in a statement. The BIT between India and Uzbekistan assures appropriate protection to Uzbekistan investors in India and Indian investors in the Republic of Uzbekistan, in light of relevant international precedents and practices, it said. It will increase the comfort level and boost the confidence of investors by assuring a minimum standard of treatment and non-discrimination, while providing for an independent forum for dispute settlement through arbitration, it said. The BIT also provides for protection to investments from expropriation, provides for transparency, transfers and compensation for losses. However, while providing such investor and investment protection, balance has been maintained with regard to states right to regulate and thereby provides adequate policy space, it added. The signing of BIT reflects both nations shared commitment towards enhancing economic cooperation and creating a more robust and resilient investment environment, it said. BIT is expected to pave the way for increased bilateral investments, benefiting businesses and economies in both countries. Sitharaman, who is in Uzbekistan, also visited the Shastri School in Tashkent. Earlier today she paid floral tribute to the late Prime Minister of India, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri, at his memorial in Tashkent, a finance ministry official said. In the school, FM interacted with school children and teachers, many of whom could also converse in Hindi. An Indian business delegation led by FICCI also coincided with the Tashkent visit of Sitharaman. The delegation attended the signing of BIT between India and Uzbekistan. India is among the top 10 trade partners of Uzbekistan with bilateral trade $756.60 million (as per Uzbek statistics-2023) is well below potential, the Indian embassy in Uzbekistan said in a brief on India-Uzbekistan bilateral relations. The major items of Indias exports are pharmaceutical products, mechanical equipment, vehicle parts, services, frozen buffalo meat, optical instruments and equipment and mobile phones. Indias import from Uzbekistan consists largely of fruit and vegetable products, services, fertilisers, juice products and extracts, and lubricants, it said. Total Indian investments in Uzbekistan amount to US$ 61 million. Notable Indian investments by Indian companies include those in the field of pharmaceuticals, amusement parks, automobile components, and hospitality industry, it said. Investments in various fields, including pharma and healthcare, textiles and auto components, agriculture and food processing, and mining and jewellery sector are in various stages of discussion, it said. Indian company GMR have expressed interest in investment in airports, development of air corridor, Navoi cargo complex in UzbekistanIn October 2019, Amity University and Sharda University have opened campuses in Tashkent and Andijan respectively and Sambhram University in Jizzakh region & Acharya University in Bukhara, it said. India and Uzbekistan had signed a joint statement in September 2019 to set up a joint feasibility study for entering into negotiations for a preferential trade agreement (PTA), it added. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) approved Swiggys updated draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) for one of the largest new-age initial public offerings (IPOs). The Swiggy IPO is among the country's top public offers this year. For those who wish to invest in the IPO, here's all you need to know: Swiggy IPO: The Securities and Exchange Board of India has approved Swiggy's updated draft red herring prospectus for a major IPO aiming to raise 3,750 crore, contributing to a total size of 10,414 crore. 1. Swiggy IPO size: The food delivery platform is planning to raise 3,750 crore by issuing fresh shares. In the IPO, existing holders, including Prosus and Accel India, are expected to sell around 18.53 crore shares. The offer-for-sale (OFS) component is 6,664 crore and the total IPO size is 10,414 crore. 2. Swiggy IPO objectives: Net proceeds from the IPO will be used by the company to repay debts, expand Instamart and spend on marketing to create brand awareness, it said in its DRHP. The company said that 982 crore will go towards the expansion of Instamart, 930 crore for brand marketing and business promotion expenses, 586 crore in technology and cloud infrastructure and 137 crore to pay back its debt. Remaining 1,115 crore will be used for general corporate purposes and to fund a potential acquisition later, the company said. 3. Swiggy valuation: Swiggy is likely to have a valuation of around $10-13 billion at the time of its listing which will be lower than rival Zomato's around $30 billion a market capitalisation. 4. Swiggy's financial performance: In Q1FY25, the company's losses widened 8 percent to 611 crore from 564 crore in the year-ago period. Swiggy's revenue came in at 3,222.2 crore in the June quarter, an increase of 35 per cent from 2,389.8 crore in the previous year. In FY24, the company's revenue grew 36 per cent to 11,247 crore from 8,265 crore while its losses were down 44 per cent to 2,350 crore from 4,179 crore. OpenAI is discussing giving Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman a 7% equity stake in the company and restructuring to become a for-profit business, people familiar with the matter said, a major shift that would mark the first time Altman is granted ownership in the artificial intelligence startup. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the Microsoft Build conference at the Seattle Convention Center Summit Building in Seattle, Washington.(AFP) The company is considering becoming a public benefit corporation, tasked with turning a profit and also helping society, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The transition is still under discussion and a timeline has not been determined, one of the people said. OpenAI is mulling the changes against the backdrop of an exodus of senior managers. Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati said on Wednesday she is leaving, a surprise move that marks the latest high-profile departure from the startup. In the months after it suddenly fired and then rehired Altman last year, OpenAI has been in a state of flux losing multiple managers and shifting the structure of some of its teams. Also Read: PC makers may design for US or China, we focus on Indian buyers: Asus Arnold Su OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit research organization with the goal of building artificial intelligence that would be safe and beneficial to humanity. In keeping with those origins, Altman had not taken equity, stressing the company was meant to broadly benefit society and that he had enough money. Yet as the value of the business soared, its been increasingly difficult to stick with those ideals. In 2019, the company created a for-profit subsidiary to help fund the high costs of AI model development, and has since drawn billions in outside investment from Microsoft Corp. and others. OpenAI is currently working to raise $6.5 billion at a $150 billion valuation, which would make it one of the most valuable startups in the world, Bloomberg reported this month. That boost on top of the possible new equity could add more than $10 billion to Altmans net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, vaulting him into the ranks of the worlds richest people. In a statement, a spokesperson said OpenAI remains focused on building AI that benefits everyone, adding, the nonprofit is core to our mission and will continue to exist. The possible equity holding, which is still under negotiation and could change or not materialize, would give Altman an ongoing financial stake in the success of OpenAI. Many investors favor the idea of a founder owning at least part of the businesses they run. Altman has also occasionally said in interviews that he wished he had taken equity so that people would stop asking him about it. Reuters earlier reported on OpenAIs plan to restructure and give Altman equity for the first time. Altman said the executive departures were not related to the restructuring. I saw some stuff that this was related to a restructure, thats totally not true, Altman said on stage at the Italian Tech Week in Turin on Thursday. This is just about people being ready for new chapters in their lives. In a statement on X, Murati said she was stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration. In response, Altman expressed tremendous gratitude for Muratis contributions, writing, Its hard to overstate how much Mira has meant to OpenAI, our mission, and to us all personally. He also said that he would share more with employees about transition plans soon. Murati does not yet have a exit date at the company, according to a person familiar with the matter. She is still speaking with OpenAIs leadership about plans for her replacement, including the timeline. In the post, she wrote, For now, my primary focus is doing everything in my power to ensure a smooth transition, maintaining the momentum weve built. Representatives for OpenAI and Murati declined to provide further comment. On Wednesday, many employees were shocked by the announcement of Muratis departure. On the companys internal Slack channel, multiple OpenAI employees responded to the news with a WTF emoji, according to a person familiar with the matter. Also Read: Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos was worried House of Cards would get him fired. Here's why Murati, an Albanian-born Dartmouth-educated engineer, played a key role in shepherding major product releases, including OpenAIs popular ChatGPT chatbot, its DALL-E image generation software, and its recently released advanced voice mode that lets users talk to ChatGPT in essentially real time. This spring, Murati came under fire for saying in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that she wasnt sure whether Sora, a text-to-video generator that OpenAI has showed off but not yet released, was trained on user-generated videos from YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Such a use of YouTube content would be an infraction of the platforms terms of service, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan later told Bloomberg. After Altmans ouster, Murati gained a higher profile when she was appointed as interim CEO but she quickly joined a group of executives pushing for Altman to be reinstated. Her departure marks the latest executive exit at OpenAI since Altmans firing and rehiring last year. Ilya Sutskever, the companys chief scientist, left in May. In August, co-founder Greg Brockman said he would go on leave until the end of the year and researcher John Schulman left for AI rival Anthropic. The departures leave only two members of OpenAIs original founding team at the startup: Altman and Wojciech Zaremba. In her post on X, the text of which she earlier sent to employees at the company, Murati said she was grateful to have worked with the OpenAI team. Together weve pushed the boundaries of scientific understanding in our quest to improve human well-being, she wrote. The company currently has about 1,700 employees, more than double the roughly 770 it had in late 2023. Altman subsequently announced additional changes to OpenAIs management. In a memo to OpenAI he also posted to X on Wednesday, he wrote that Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew is leaving, along with Barret Zoph, a vice president of research who worked on products like ChatGPT. In his own post on X, Zoph said it was a very difficult decision to leave and he plans to explore new opportunities outside the company. OpenAI is doing and will continue to do incredible work and I am very optimistic about the future trajectory of the company and will be rooting everybody on, he wrote. Altman also named six existing employees who will now report directly to him, some in new roles, including Matt Knight as chief information security officer. I have over the past year or so spent most of my time on the non-technical parts of our organization; I am now looking forward to spending most of my time on the technical and product parts of the company, the CEO wrote, adding that there will be an all-hands meeting Thursday to answer employee questions. Leadership changes are a natural part of companies, especially companies that grow so quickly and are so demanding, Altman wrote. I obviously wont pretend its natural for this one to be so abrupt, but we are not a normal company. Also Read: Isha, Akash Ambani, Ghazal Alagh in Hurun's under-35 list of entrepreneurs: Check list here Google had to pay $2.7 billion to rehire artificial intelligence genius Noam Shazeer who left the tech giant to found his own startup. The 48-year-old software engineer was hired by Google in 2000 and he left the company in 2021 after it refused his request to release a chat bot that he had developed with a colleague Daniel De Freitas, The Wall Street Journal reported. Noam Shazeer, a key AI figure, is back at Google for $2.7 billion after founding Character.AI. His return is seen as pivotal for the companys AI advancements, including the development of Gemini.(Reuters) Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas went on to found Character.AI which became one of the hottest AI startups in Silicon Valley and reached a $1 billion valuation last year. After this, Google announced that both of them are joining Googles AI unit DeepMind and the Sundar Pichai company paid Character.AI $2.7 billion to license its technology as well as to get Noam Shazeer to work for the company, The Wall Street Journal said in its report. The licensing deal allows Google to immediately access Character.AIs intellectual property without having to wait for the regulatory approval. The report added that Noam Shazeers return to Google is being viewed among s the primary reason behind the acquisition of Character.AI by the company's employees. Even former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was reportedly impressed with Noam Shazeer which resulted in the latter being able to build an AI model that could operate with human-level intelligence. If theres anybody I can think of in the world whos likely to do it, its going to be him, Eric Schmidt was quoted as saying of Noam Shazeer in 2015. In 2017, Noam Shazeer also created Meena, a chat bot that could engage humans on a range of issues. At the time, he was so confident of Meenas utility that he predicted it would one day replace Googles search engine. But Google bosses thought that it was too risky to release Meena due to concerns about safety and fairness, the Journal reported. Noam Shazeer will now lead the companys efforts to build the next version of Gemini, Googles next-generation AI model built to compete with rivals such as OpenAIs ChatGPT. Toyota Toyota is moving away from calling its plug-in hybrid models Prime, instead defaulting to simply Plug-In Hybrid. The change is reflected in the 2025 model-year Prius and RAV4 models. Toyota says the 25 RAV4 Plug-In Hybrid models are scheduled to arrive at dealerships in limited quantities before the end of the year. If you were ever curious or confused about what Prime meant in the Toyota world, your day has finally come. Toyota is dropping the Prime label from its plug-in hybrid Prius and RAV4 models for 2024. Once used to separate the standard hybrid models from their plug-in counterparts, Toyota will move to a more straightforward naming convention and is adding Plug-In Hybrid to the end of the appropriate models. ADVERTISEMENT Prime launched with the updated Prius in 2016, and according to Toyota, it was meant to help establish that it was the best. Prime came to the RAV4 when it launched its plug-in hybrid powertrain in 2019. Outside of the name change, the 25 RAV4 Plug-in Hybrid also shakes up its badging conventions, and theres also a new 25th anniversary Highlander hybrid. The blue inserts in the Toyota logos are gone, alongside the Prime badgesreplaced with traditional Toyota badging, a PHEV badge is now adorning the rear hatch. Other than that, the RAV4 trucks along for 25 without any major changes underneath the skin. Toyota It's a similar story for the 25 Prius Plug-In Hybrid. Riding the wave of its most recent generational shift, youd almost expect the changes to be light, and it is just badging here, too. The fifth-generation hybrid system still makes 220 hp, and its 13.6-kWh battery pack is still good for around 40 miles on a single charge, according to Toyota. Joining the list of subtle changes heading to the 25 RAV4 is a similarly subdued price bump. The current $45,085 base price will rise $175 and now start at $45,260 when it arrives at dealers before the end of the year. Theres no word on a Prius price bump, so we dont expect too much of a change. Do you think moving away from the Prime badge for plug-in hybrids is smart? Tell us your thoughts below. The Supreme Court on Friday sought responses from the Centre and others on a petition by Babbar Khalsa terrorist Jagtar Singh Hawara, who is serving life term in former chief minister Beant Singhs assassination case in 1995, seeking his transfer from Delhis Tihar Jail to any prison in Punjab. The Supreme Court on Friday sought responses from the Centre and the Delhi and Punjab governments on a petition by Babbar Khalsa terrorist Jagtar Singh Hawara, who is serving a life term in the Beant Singh assassination case, seeking his transfer from Delhis Tihar Jail to a prison in Punjab. (HT file photo) A bench of justices B Gavai and KV Viswanathan issued notices to the Centre and the Delhi and Punjab governments seeking their responses on Hawaras plea. Hawara is serving life imprisonment for the rest of his life in the case related to the murder of Beant Singh in a blast at the entrance of the civil secretariat in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995, in which 16 others were also killed. The plea filed in the apex court said Hawaras conduct in prison has been clear except for an alleged jailbreak which took place on January 22, 2004, when he had escaped and was later arrested. How were you (Hawara) successful in digging a tunnel, the bench asked senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, who appeared for Hawara. Gonsalves said, Today, we are almost 30 years from the main incident and we are 20 years from the jailbreak. The bench issued notice on his plea and posted it for hearing after four weeks. The plea, filed through advocate Satya Mitra, has sought Hawaras transfer from Tihar Jail in Delhi to any other prison in Punjab saying there was no case pending against him which is registered in the national capital. It has also sought a direction to the respondents to produce before court the entire records of Hawara regarding his conduct in prison during his incarceration till today. Petitioner (Hawara) is currently serving his life imprisonment till the rest of his life in a case registered in the state of Punjab... He is a native of Fatehgarh Sahib district and ought to be confined in a prison in Punjab, it said. The plea said since Hawaras re-arrest after the jailbreak till today, 19 years have passed and the performance of the petitioner in jail has been without blemish. It claimed the petitioner had 36 false cases foisted on him after the murder of Beant Singh and he has been acquitted in all except one case. The plea said one of the persons, who is similarly situated as Hawara and was convicted in the same murder case and was also part of the jailbreak, has been shifted from Tihar jail to a jail in Chandigarh. The mere fact that the petitioner is considered a high-risk prisoner years ago is not a good enough reason today to keep the prisoner in Delhi and not shift him to Punjab, it said. It is also submitted that there is no provision to keep the petitioner confined in a prison in Delhi when there is no case pending against him in the respondent state. Also, as the only ongoing case in which the petitioner prisoner has been imprisoned for the rest of his life is registered in Chandigarh, the petitioner will be governed by the rules of the state of Punjab, the plea said. It said one of the reasons for seeking transfer to a jail in Punjab was that Hawaras daughter is in Punjab. It said while the petitioners wife has died, his mother is in coma in the US. The question that arises in this case is whether a person who has been accused of committing a murder in the context of serious social upheaval where tens of thousands of young Sikhs were extra-judicially executed by the state police on the instructions of the deceased chief minister Beant Singh, which offence has been characterised as exacerbated by his unsuccessful jail break attempt, but who has for the last 19 years led a life in prison which is without blemish can seek an order from this court for transfer to a jail in Punjab, the plea said. In March 2007, Hawara was sentenced to death by a trial court in the case. The Punjab and Haryana high court had in October 2010 commuted his sentence to life imprisonment with a direction that he shall not be released from jail till the rest of his life. Hawaras petition said the appeals filed by him as well as by the prosecution against the high court verdict are pending in the apex court. A three-day long first Asia-Pacific and third national conference on LGBTQI+ health kick-started at the National Institute of Nursing Education (NINE) auditorium on the PGIMER campus on Thursday. Themed Advancing LGBTQI+ peoples health and rights, the conference at PGIMER, Chandigarh, will convene public health professionals, researchers, healthcare providers and LGBTQI+ community members from across the Asia-Pacific region to address critical health issues and well-being of the community. (HT Photo) The PGIMER, in collaboration with Humsafar Trust, and the Centre for Sexuality and Health Research and Policy (C-SHaRP) is conducting the conference. Themed Advancing LGBTQI+ peoples health and rights, the conference will convene public health professionals, researchers, healthcare providers and LGBTQI+ community members from across the Asia-Pacific region to address critical health issues and well-being of the community. The conference is being attended by 200 in-person participants, including 50 from Asia-Pacific countries, with an additional 500 virtual attendees expected. Comprehensive discussions on government policies, mental health, HIV prevention, gender-affirmative care, and panel discussions featuring LGBTQI+ testimonials on healthcare experiences will be discussed. The participants from Thailand, Malaysia, Bhutan, Bangladesh, USA, Nepal, Manila, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam are attending this conference. Speaking during the event, Radhika Chakravarthy, joint secretary, Union ministry of social justice and empowerment, said the Centre had launched the Ayushman Bharat TG Plus card for transgender individuals for health coverage up to 5 lakh annually. Chakravarthy also shared interim measures of the high-level government committee constituted under the Supreme Court direction, which include joint account opening and having a partner as a nominee, jail visitation rights for partners of queer people and inclusion of partners name in the household ration card. Key speakers emphasised the need for comprehensive healthcare for the LGBTQI+ community, with UNAIDS Director Eamonn Murphy promoting the concept of undetectable = untransmittable and Dr Shivangi Saha from AIIMS Delhi calling for research and support for gender-affirming services. Estranged cousins and grandchildren of Bansi Lal are fighting each other to wrest the family citadel of Tosham and legacy of former Haryana chief minister Bansi Lal. Estranged cousins and grandchildren of former Haryana chief minister Bansi Lal, BJPs Shruti Choudhry and Anirudh Chaudhary of the Congress, are contesting the assembly elections from the familys stronghold of Tosham in Bhiwani district. (HT Photos) The constituency has been a stronghold of the family as four-time CM Bansi Lal was elected from Tosham on six occasions, his younger son, Surender Singh, twice and Surenders wife, Kiran Choudhry, four times. While the daughter of Surender and Kiran, Shruti Choudhry, 48, is the BJP candidate for the October 5 Haryana election, the contest has become contentious with the entry of Anirudh Chaudhary, also 48, the son of Bansi Lals elder son, Ranbir Mahendra. BJP rebel Shashi Ranjan Parmar, 58, who is contesting as an Independent, is threatening to play the spoilsport. Ranbir Mahendra and his sister-in-law, Kiran, had been embroiled in legal battles over claims of succession to Bansi Lals assets after his death in 2006. Bhiwani-Mahendergarh BJP MP and former Congress leader Dharambir Singh, once a fierce rival of the Bansi Lal family who contested against the former CM and his son Surender on four occasions and defeated them twice, is backing Shruti this time as she is the party candidate. Kiran won the seat on the Congress ticket in 2019 by 18,059 votes, defeating Parmar, then a BJP candidate. The constituencys caste distribution shows that Jats comprise about 33% of the population, Brahmins 10%, Rajputs 7%, Ahirs 4.5%, Khati 3.2%, Punjabi-Khatris 2.6%, Vaish 2%, Nai 1.9%, Gujjars 1.8% and Scheduled Castes 24%. Located in the foothills of the Aravallis, Toshams landscape is dotted with sand dunes, hillocks and camels. Two stretches of the Aravallis in Khanak and Dadam revenue estates are centres of stone mining. Unemployment major issue Campaigning door to door at Dinod village, Congress candidate Anirudh Chaudhary says its an honour to be contesting from the constituency his grandfather represented. He says that unemployment is a big issue in Tosham. It is a water-scarce area. Both irrigation and potable water are sparse. Proliferation of narcotics is a cause of concern, and the growing unemployment has only contributed towards the spread of drug abuse among youngsters, he says Criticising the BJP-led Centres Agnipath scheme, he says, There was a time when one used to see youngsters undergoing physical training to prepare for recruitment in the armed forces. However, since 2022, the inclination to join security forces as Agniveers has decreased drastically. He says the Tosham election should not be billed as a contest between cousins or a family fight. I see it as a contest between candidates of the Congress and the BJP. It is an election essentially being fought by the masses. People have had enough of the BJP. Farmers are distressed and have turned against the BJP. If you look around, you will find that every section adversely affected during the 10-year BJP rule in Haryana, Anirudh Chaudhary says. Asked about his cousin Shruti and aunt Kiran Chaudharys campaign, he says, I focus on issues and my connect with the electorate. A lot of false propaganda is being spread against me. That does not bother me. Shruti is my sister and Kiran ji my aunt. I respect them. I also tell people to give them due regard but vote for me, he says. Development only agenda Campaigning at Laxmanpur, a Jat-dominated village, Anirudhs cousin and BJP candidate Shruti Choudhry says she is seeking the mandate to continue with the momentum of development initiated by her grandfather and mother, who represented the constituency. When I was the Lok Sabha MP from Bhiwani-Mahendergarh (of which Tosham is a part) in 2009, lot of funds from the central scheme were pumped in to augment water works in villages. My mother was the public health engineering minister in Haryana at that time and it helped, she says after meeting a group of families. Setting up of the Chaudhary Bansi Lal University and the upcoming medical college in Bhiwani were the familys initiatives, she says. We will take things forward and keep the momentum going. Development is my only agenda, she says. Asked about the contest with her cousin, she says, Anirudh and his father were never a part of this scenario. They are new to this terrain. Anirudhs father used to contest from Mundhal and Badhra. They have just cropped up to usurp my grandfathers legacy. But people know the truth. On quitting the Congress and joining the BJP, Shruti says her mother and she made the right choice at the right moment. The Congress has finished itself on the ground. It has no organisation and has lost its vision. When Bhupinder Singh Hooda was chief minister, he stalled many projects in this area and weakened the Congress. My grandfather used to say as CM, one needs a broader vision, she says as her motorcade heads to Kharkhari Sohan village. Challenges for new MLA Jaibir Singh of Riwasa village says that robbing youngsters from the area of a stable employment opportunity by introducing Agnipath scheme, growing unemployment, farmers unrest and water scarcity would be some of the issues influencing the voting patten in Tosham. Ved Prakash of Dinod village says that development of this constituency, including finding ways to overcome the water scarcity, would be a challenge for the new MLA. Constituency profile Total voters: 2,23,609 Male: 1,19,469 Female: 1,04,139 Transgender: One Prominent contestants: Shruti Choudhry (BJP), Anirudh Chaudhary (Congress), Shashi Ranjan Parmar (Independent), Om Singh (BSP), Rajesh Bhardwaj (JJP) Contest: Head-to-Head Factors at play: Water scarcity, Agnipath scheme, unemployment, farmers anger, Bansi Lals legacy, BJP dissident. Past elections 2005: Surender Singh (Congress) 2009: Kiran Choudhry (Congress) 2014: Kiran Choudhry (Congress) 2019: Kiran Choudhry (Congress) The Delhi high court allowed a daughter to replace her stepmothers name with that of her biological mother in all official academic records, recognising the fundamental right to have ones identity linked with ones biological parent. Representational image. Taking note of the girls circumstances, wherein she alleged she was mistreated by her father and stepmother, a bench of justice Swarana Kanta Sharma opined that the denial of the relief would lead to denying her the right to be known by the name of the mother who brought her to the world. In its 25-page ruling, made available on Friday, the judge opined that the case in hand was not a legal battle, but a personal one in which the daughter was fighting to be rightfully recognised as the child of her biological mother. Therefore, this court, recognising the petitioners legitimate right to have her identity connected with that of her biological mother by way of her voluntary choice, and understanding the unique circumstances of her roller coaster life, cannot overlook the emotional and psychological weight attached to this issue. This court cannot leave the adult daughter living with a psychological burden of seeing the name of her stepmother, where her own biological mother has been raising her after the second marriage of her biological father, the court said in its September 23 order. The girl had approached the high court seeking to direct the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to correct her mothers name by replacing her stepmothers name with her biological mothers name in the admission and examination records. In the petition, the girl stated that she had written letters to the CBSE to rectify the error and replace the names, but the board failed to respond. The girl in her petition claimed that she had been unjustly deprived of her right to be recognised by her correct identity in official records and that her father, who enrolled her in the school, not only wrongly misrepresented her surname but also wrongly attributed the name of his second wife, as her mother. She claimed that her father had forcibly taken custody against her biological mothers wishes when she was an infant and had later entered his second wifes name as her mother. The CBSEs counsel had contended that the existing bye laws do not permit amendment to a candidates parental names once the form has been filled, and the incorrect name is entered therein. Rejecting the contentions, justice Sharma in the ruling opined that rigid application of the regulations in such a unique and personal circumstance would result in unfair denial of justice to her which may seem trivial to some, however, may mean the world to a daughter seeking to be recognised by the name of her biological mother. This court is of the firm opinion that when the doors of rigid interpretations close, it is the courts discretion that opens windows of hope for those left remedy-less, the court maintained. CBSE, the court noted, was opposing the petition purely for the sake of formality and thus reminded the board of its primary duty to serve the people and facilitate justice. SILIGURI: West Bengals Siliguri city police on Friday arrested two men for allegedly heckling two Bihar residents who came to apply for jobs in a central police force, police said. Two persons, identified as Rajat Bhattacharya and Giridhari Roy, were arrested on the charge of harassment, intimidation and assault on two persons from Bihar. (ANI/Screengrab) The two accused, members of Bangla Paksha, an organisation advocating the rights of the states Bengali-speaking population, claimed the young men were using fake West Bengal domiciliary certificates to secure their appointment. The accused, Rajat Bhattacharya and Giridhar Mondal, were detained on Thursday evening and produced before a judge on Friday. Police said the two candidates left Siliguri after the incident and could not be traced. The heckling and intimidation, which happened on Tuesday, surfaced on Thursday when a video of the incident went viral in Bihar and parts of north Bengal, triggering outrage. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union minister Giriraj Singh and Bihars Lok Jan Shakti Party (Ram Vilas) leader and Union minister Chirag Paswan demanded action against the guilty in their social media posts. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar also ordered chief secretary and DGP to get details from West Bengal. RJD chief Lalu Prasad also spoke to West Bengal CM Mamta Banerjee asking her to take action against the culprits. The Bihar police on Thursday evening wrote to their counterparts in West Bengal to seek action in the case and ensure safety of Bihar students. The video that went viral is said to be of Siliguri in which two students said to be from Bihar are being assaulted and tortured to prevent them from appearing at the examination. The clip has been forwarded to you on your mobile, Bihar additional director general (law & order) Sanjay Singh said in the letter. Police said the incident took place on Tuesday when some members of Bangla Paksha entered a rented accommodation at Ranidanga on the outskirts of Siliguri and allegedly heckled the Bihar residents who came to the north Bengal headquarters of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) for physical tests being conducted for recruitment of constables. The Bangla Paksha members accused the young men of producing fake West Bengal domicile certificates for the job. In the video, the two job applicants were made to hold their ears and do sit-ups. In the video, Bhattacharya could be heard accusing the Bihar residents of taking away jobs meant for local Bengalis. One of the Bangla Paksha members claimed to be a policeman, a police officer said on condition of anonymity. HT cannot verify the authenticity of the video clip. Atri Sharma, president of the Siliguri-based Bihari Kalyan Manch, neither confirmed nor denied the allegation of fake domiciliary certificates being used by the job applicants. Sharma said it was for the police to investigate whether they produced a fake certificate. We strongly condemn the assault on the Bihari youths. We see it as an act of terrorism. While being taken to court on Friday, Bhattacharya accused the Bihar residents of using fake documents. We will not allow this, he said. We are looking for other members of this Bengali group, a police official said. No SSB official commented on the incident till Friday afternoon. The state government has announced plans to organise the Janjati Bhagidari Utsav (tribal participation festival) on a large scale from November 15 to 20. For representation only (HT File Photo) The festival will be held in celebration of Jan Jatiya Gaurav Diwas (tribal pride day), commemorating the birth anniversary of freedom fighter Birsa Munda. The festival, which will be held at the Uttar Pradesh Sangeet Natak Academy in Lucknow, is being organised in collaboration with various departments, including the Uttar Pradesh Folk and Tribal Culture Institute, the Uttar Pradesh Scheduled Caste and Tribe Research and Training Institute, and IFFCO, New Delhi. It is planned to be a vibrant celebration of tribal culture, history, and contributions to society, bringing together a wide range of activities and events to honour the tribal communities of Uttar Pradesh. The festival aims to promote greater tribal participation and create a platform to showcase their rich cultural heritage. Minister of culture Javeer Singh said, To ensure the event is a success, the social welfare department has constituted a high-level committee. This committee, led by the director, tribal development department, will be responsible for coordinating with the government and overseeing all preparations. The committee includes representatives from several key departments, including the social welfare department, Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj Research and Training Institute, culture department, UP Folk and Tribal Culture Institute, and the tourism department, among others. Additionally, Dr Priyanka Verma, deputy director of the tribal development department, has been appointed as a key member, while Dr Devendra Singh, research officer of the UP Scheduled Caste and Tribe Research and Training Institute, has been named the Member/Coordinator. AGRA/LUCKNOW Kingpin of a 300-crore bank fraud in Maharashtra, Babban Vishwanath Shinde alias Babban Baba, was arrested by the Maharashtra police with the help of local cops in UPs Vrindavan on Tuesday. He was living at a temple here in the guise of a sadhu (seer) for many months, said police. Babban was wanted in multiple cases of fraud registered in Beed, Dharashiv and Mumbai between June and July 2023. (Pic for representation) He posed as a sadhu by shaving his beard and moustache and donned a kurta dhoti. The Maharashtra police kept searching for him at different locations in Delhi, Nepal, Assam, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh. The accused was finally nabbed from near the Krishna Balram Mandir of Vrindavan in Mathura when the Maharashtra police team from Beed district traced him living there. ASP (city), Mathura, Arvind Kumar informed that Babban was wanted in multiple cases of fraud registered in Beed, Dharashiv and Mumbai between June and July 2023. He said the Beed police sought help from the Mathura police to trace his location. The accused was wanted in a case registered in Beed district of Maharashtra under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating) of the IPC in July 2023. The Beed police has taken him along after procuring his transit remand from a local court on Wednesday for legal proceedings, he added. Another police official said Babban was chairman of Jijau Maasaheb Multi-State Cooperative Credit Society Limited. Its main branch was in Beed and had around 70,000 account holders, who had deposited crores of their hard-earned money in the cooperative bank. The fraud worth 150 crore surfaced in the bank in May 2023, which gradually rose to 300 crore as more people turned up to register their complaints. He said Shinde, who had apparently sensed trouble, had disappeared from Beed on July 3, 2023, after the fraud surfaced and the FIR was lodged in the matter. Later, multiple FIRs were registered in several districts of Maharashtra, added the official. The Maharashtra police had arrested multiple people in this multi-crore fraud, but Babban remained evasive, hiding and changing his locations from one state to another. The Uttar Pradesh government has now decided to provide sanitary pads to girl students of government upper primary and composite schools to ensure their regular attendance in schools. The move is expected to improve the regular attendance and education of girl students of class 6 to 8. (For Representation) A sum of 110.316 lakh (1.103 crore) has been released for 36,772 girls studying in 535 upper primary and composite schools covered under the PM Shri scheme selected in 2024-25. This amount will be spent by the respective school management committees. A sum of 300 will be spent for buying sanitary pad for every girl student. All these students are studying in classes 6 to 8, said Kanchan Verma, director general, school education, U.P. Most of these girl students are from rural areas and they have little knowledge about sanitary pads and their use. This step of the Yogi government is being considered a concrete initiative to ensure regular attendance of girls and take care of their health, said a government official. The state government has made many arrangements to prevent misuse of the budget. On the instructions of basic education minister Sandeep Singh, complete transparency has been ensured in the purchase of sanitary pads. The assistant finance and accounts officer and the district coordinators, girl education, have been given necessary instructions in this regard. The sanitary pads will be distributed to the concerned school committees within a week of receipt of the budget. Further strategy will also be prepared by organising a meeting of headmasters at the block level. A committee will be formed at the school level for the purchase and distribution of sanitary pads. It will include the chairman of the school management committee, headmaster, a female teacher, ICDS supervisor and an ANM as members. The scheme is not only a means of promoting the education of girls, but is also an important step to increase awareness towards their health and hygiene. It is expected to improve the regular attendance and education of girl students of class 6 to 8, an official said. Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has overturned a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court order that would have allowed Indrani Mukerjea, a key accused in the Sheena Bora murder case, to travel to Spain and the United Kingdom for ten days. Indrani Mukerjea. (HT Photo) Justice Shyam C Chandak issued the ruling in response to a petition filed by the CBI challenging the special court's decision. The agency argued that Mukerjea, a British national, might not return to face trial if allowed to leave India. Mukerjea is currently standing trial alongside her two ex-husbands, former media baron Peter Mukerjea and Sanjeev Khanna, for allegedly murdering her daughter Sheena Bora. In her original application, Mukerjea had requested permission to travel to England, citing her British nationality, and to Spain, where she claimed to have a bank account and property for which she needed to update her will. She stated that she was "required to travel to Spain for execution of documents" regarding her account at Banco Sabadell and "needed to update her will with respect to her property in Spain for which she needed to be present herself in front of Notary". On 19 July, the special court had granted Mukerjea permission to travel abroad once for ten days within the next three months, stipulating that the trip should occur between two consecutive trial dates. The court had also ordered her to report to the CBI before departure and upon return, and to deposit 2 lakh as cash security. This was not Mukerjea's first attempt to secure travel permissions. A previous application had been filed, but her passport was damaged while in the court's custody, preventing her from travelling abroad. Mukerjea was arrested in 2015 for the alleged abduction and murder of her daughter Sheena Bora in April 2012. Prosecutors claim that Mukerjea, along with her ex-husband Sanjeev Khanna and driver Shyamwar Rai, killed Sheena and disposed of her body in a forest in the neighbouring Raigad district. The CBI has alleged that Mukerjea's motive for the murder was her disapproval of Sheena's relationship with Rahul Mukerjea, the son of her ex-husband Peter Mukerjea, who is also charged in the case. Mumbai: India has secured a position on the 15-member Steering Committee of the GlobE Network, an international anti-corruption body, following a multi-stage voting process during the plenary session held in Beijing on Thursday. This election places India in a pivotal role to influence the global anti-corruption agenda and asset recovery efforts. The Ministry of Home Affairs serves as India's Central Authority for the GlobE Network. (Biplov Bhuyan/HT File Photo) The Ministry of Home Affairs serves as India's Central Authority for the GlobE Network, with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) acting as member authorities. Officials familiar with the development suggest that India's expertise and experience in tackling corruption will be valuable assets to the network. "India's participation will strengthen its efforts to combat cross-border financial crimes and corruption," an official stated, emphasising the GlobE Network's importance as a platform for international cooperation. Initiated by the G20, an inter-governmental forum, the GlobE Network was officially launched on 3 June 2021 during a special event at the UN General Assembly Special Session against Corruption (UNGASS). India had expressed support for the initiative in 2020. The network has since grown to include 121 member countries and 219 member authorities. The GlobE Network is emerging as a platform where agencies worldwide share best practices, criminal intelligence, and develop strategies to combat corruption collectively. During India's G20 Presidency in 2023, two High Level Principles for combating corruption were adopted, which detailed leveraging the GlobE Network. Toyota Toyota has announced that the RAV4 Prime and Prius Prime will now become the RAV4 Plug-in Hybrid and Prius Plug-in Hybrid. The only differences for 2025 are the badges, with a PHEV badge appearing on the rear and the plug-in RAV4 dropping the blue accents from its Toyota emblems. Both plug-in-hybrid systems carry over unchanged, with both vehicles able to travel over 40 miles on electric power alone. Toyota was an early adopter of plug-in-hybrid powertrains, first entering the segment in 2012 with the Prius Plug-in Hybrid. The PHEV version of the Prius took on the name "Prime" when it returned for another generation in 2017, and Toyota added a Prime version of its popular RAV4 crossover for the 2021 model year. Now, Toyota has announced that the Prime moniker will soon disappear into the archives, with the brand reverting to its old naming scheme with the 2025 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid and RAV4 Plug-in Hybrid. Michael Simari - Car and Driver Toyota says that the change from Prime to Plug-in Hybrid is meant to make it easier for shoppers to understand the different powertrain options offered on the RAV4 and the Prius. For the new model year, the Toyota logos on the front and rear of the RAV4 will ditch the blue "halo" design layered within the logo, which previously distinguished the plug-in models as the more eco-friendly variants. Both the plug-in RAV4 and Prius will also wear a "PHEV" badge on the rear. ADVERTISEMENT Other than the name change, the Prius Plug-in Hybrid and RAV4 Plug-in Hybrid carry over unchanged for 2025. The RAV4 Plug-in Hybrid continues to be offered in two trims, SE or XSE, producing 302 horsepower from a 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine paired with two electric motors. The RAV4 Plug-in Hybrid ekes out 42 miles of all-electric range from its 18.5-kWh battery. Prices for the 2025 RAV4 Plug-in Hybrid kick off at $43,865 (before destination fees), and Toyota says that the PHEV model will reach dealerships in "limited quantities" in late 2024. Car and Driver has reached out to Toyota and will update this story with full pricing when it's announced. Story continues The Prius Plug-in Hybrid, meanwhile, comes in SE, XSE, and XSE Premium trims and sticks with the same 13.6-kWh battery that returns up to 44 miles of electric driving range on the base SE trim level. The PHEV version of the Prius mates a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine with two electric motors for a combined 220 horsepower. Toyota has yet to specify a price for the 2025 Prius Plug-in Hybrid or a timeline for when it will become available. You Might Also Like A delegation of Muslim intellectuals, scholars and representatives of several organisations strongly objected to the contentious Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, during a meeting with the joint parliamentary committee (JPC) set up to examine it. They claimed that the bill is unconstitutional and goes against the interests of the Muslim community. New Delhi: Members of Joint Parliamentary Committee on Waqf (Amendment) Bill leave after a meeting at Parliament House Annexe, in New Delhi, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (PTI Photo) Also Read: Rijiju hails Waqf Bill consultation, Dubey seeks probe into 12.5 million replies The JPC is in Mumbai to hold informal discussions with various stakeholders in an effort to refine the bill, which seeks to amend the Waqf Act, 1995, and proposes sweeping changes to how waqfs are governed and regulated. A waqf is a Muslim religious endowment, usually in the form of a property made for purposes of charity and community welfare. The delegations strong objections led to an argument with the head of the JPC, Bharatiya Janata Party MP Jagdambika Pal, who was visibly unhappy about the fierce opposition to the bill. There was also a verbal spat between another JPC member, Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee, and representatives of the Gulshan Foundation, who supported the bill. Members of the Muslim community told the JPC that the entire community was against the amendment and asked for it to be retracted. They claimed to have data showing that around 60 million Muslims have rejected the bill. When we said this, the JPC chief immediately said you must have started a campaign. We asked why we wouldnt do it, as it is directly related to our community. He was rude and appeared to have a preconceived notion about the waqf land and the community, said a member of the Federation of Maharashtra Muslims, who was present for the meeting. Also Read: BJPs intent to dismantle Waqf Board clear in Amendment Bill, claims Asaduddin Owaisi The delegation also raised concerns about misleading claims being spread on social media, such as waqf boards having the biggest land bank after the Railways and defence and the government being forced to give up land or property claimed by the waqf board. Pal asked what can the government do about social media claims. We responded by saying it is the governments responsibility to control misleading claims being made openly in society, said another person who was present for the meeting. The Muslim intellectuals told the JPC that thousands of acres of waqf land are illegally occupied, including by both central and state governments, with efforts currently underway to reclaim these lands. They also opposed the inclusion of non-Muslim members on the Waqf Board and the removal of the requirement for a Muslim chief executive officer. The delegation expressed concerns that the amendment aims to facilitate the occupation of waqf lands, a notion that the Muslim community finds entirely unacceptable. They emphasised that Waqf lands are private properties dedicated to god for charitable and welfare purposes. The delegation expressed hope that the JPC would communicate the Muslim communitys sentiments regarding the bill to the government and recommend its rejection. They cautioned that if the bill is passed without proper consideration, the Muslim community would be compelled to resist it through constitutional means. In August, the BJP-led central government introduced a bill that sought to bring sweeping changes to the powers of state waqf boards, conduct a survey of waqf properties, and remove encroachments by amending the Waqf Act. The tabling of the bill was met with strong criticism from opposition parties, who said it was unconstitutional and divisive. The government then set up a 21-member joint parliamentary committee to examine the bill. The JPC has to submit its report when Parliament convenes for its winter session. The committee is visiting several cities across the country to seek the opinion of people from the Muslim community about the bill. Apart from Pal, other members of the JPC present for the Mumbai meeting were Maulana Mohibullah Nadwi, Asaduddin Owaisi, Nishikant Dubey, Arvind Sawant, Suresh Gopinath, Kalyan Banerjee, and Suresh Mhatre, among others. They met with scholars and representatives of several Muslim organisations, such as Maulana Mahmood Daryabadi, general secretary of the All India Ulema Council; Maulana Ilyas Khan Falahi, president of the Maharashtra Jamaat-e-Islami Hind; Dr Zahir Kazi, president of Anjuman Islam; Fareed Sheikh, president of the Mumbai Aman Committee, Maulana Faheem Falahi, secretary of the Jamaat-e-Islami Maharashtra Waqf Cell, Mohammad Siraj, president, Movement for Peace and Justice), Shia cleric Agha Rooh Zafar, Advocate Mobeen Ahmed, secretary, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Mumbai), Shakir Sheikh, managing trustee, Bombay Education and Social Trust, Saleem Motorwala, secretary, MPJ, Afzar Usmani, Hafiz Iqbal Chunawala from the Memon Community among others. Mumbai: The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has secured a loan of 31,673 crore from Power Finance Corporation (PFC) to fund nine infrastructure projects in constituencies represented by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde or his son Shrikant. Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. (PTI Photo) (PTI) Eight of the nine projects received approval from MMRDA's executive committee on 4 September, approximately 20 days ago. These projects include the Balkum-Gaimukh Thane Coastal Road (Phase I), Eastern Freeway extension, National Highway 4 to Katai Naka elevated road, Thane-Bhiwandi creek bridge between Kolshet and Kalher, Kasarvadavali to Kharbao creek bridge, elevated road between Kalyan-Murbad Road and Badlapur, Anand Nagar to Saket elevated road, and Gaimukh to Payegaon creek bridge. The ninth project, the Thane-Borivali twin tunnel, had been previously approved. Sanjay Mukherjee, Metropolitan Commissioner of MMRDA, stated, "This is a significant milestone for the development of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), as we have secured a major loan facility from PFC totalling to 31,673.79 crore." A formal loan agreement was signed between MMRDA and PFC on Wednesday, marking the financial closure of these "high-priority" infrastructure projects aimed at enhancing connectivity, boosting economic growth and improving the quality of life in MMR. According to an MMRDA note, this financial closure is intended to cover 80% of the total project cost, with the remaining portion being supported through a combination of government grants and contributions from MMRDA. Of the total amount, 15,071 crore will be allocated to the Thane-Borivali twin tunnel project, while the remaining 16,602.79 crore will be distributed among the other eight projects. Mukherjee added that these projects are expected to significantly improve the transportation infrastructure, offering safer, faster and more sustainable travel options to the citizens of MMR. "This loan agreement marks a pivotal moment in MMRDA's continued efforts to develop world-class infrastructure, making the region a more connected, sustainable and vibrant place to live and work," he said. Project cost and size Thane Coastal Road (Phase I): 2,799 crore, 13.45 km Eastern Freeway Extension: 2,727 crore, 12.95 km NH 4 to Katai Naka Elevated Road: 1,981.17 crore, 6.71 km Kolshet Kalher Creek Bridge: 288.18 crore, 1.64 km Kasarvadavali Kharbao Creek Bridge: 1,525.31 crore, 3.93 km Kalyan-Murbad Road to Badlapur Elevated Road: 451.10 crore, 2.16 km Anand Nagar to Saket Elevated Road: 1,854 crore, 6.30 km Gaimukh to Payegaon Creek Bridge: 975.58 crore, 6.509 km Thane Borivali Twin Tunnel: 15,071 crore Total: 12,601.34 crore A 29-year-old man has tested positive for monkeypox (Mpox) and is currently under treatment in Kochi, confirmed Kerala health minister Veena George on Friday, making it the second case of the viral infection in the state in less than two weeks. An undated colorised transmission electron micrograph of mpox virus particles (pink) found within an infected cell (yellow), cultured in a laboratory. (Reuters Photo) He had recently arrived in the state from abroad with symptoms. He is currently admitted in a private hospital in Kochi and is stable, George told reporters. Tests will be done to determine the strain of the Mpox virus, a health official said. On September 18, the state health department had informed that a 38-year-old native of Edavanna in Malappuram district, who arrived from the UAE, had tested positive for Mpox. He was admitted to the Government Medical College and Hospital in Manjery after showing symptoms like Mpox. He is currently stable. Earlier this week, it was confirmed that the variant of Mpox found in the 38-year-old man was clade 1b, a highly transmissible strain currently linked to the outbreak in Africa and other countries. It was the first such Mpox case in India. The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Mpox a public health emergency in Africa in August. According to the WHO, the monkeypox virus is an enveloped double-stranded DNA virus of the Orthopoxvirus genus and has two distinct clades. In 2022, a global outbreak of clade 1b began, which continues to this day. The infection spreads from person to person, primarily through close contact and its common symptoms are fever, sore throat, headache, swollen lymph nodes and muscle aches. The Mohan Majhi government in Odisha has announced 180 days of maternity leave for its women employees who have children through surrogacy. Male employees (surrogate fathers) will also be entitled to 15 days of paternity leave, according to notification issued by finance department. Surrogacy is a method of assisted reproductive technology wherein a woman carries and gives birth to a child for another person or couple. (HT File Photo) Surrogacy is a method of assisted reproductive technology wherein a woman carries and gives birth to a child for another person or couple. Many couples worldwide opt for this method for various reasons, including infertility and pregnancy risks. India has become popular as a place for surrogacy since 2002. The Parliament passed the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2021, prohibiting commercial surrogacy but allowing altruistic surrogacy, which involves no monetary compensation to the surrogate mother other than the medical expenses and insurance coverage during the pregnancy. In June this year, the central government extended maternity and paternity leave benefits to government employees attaining parenthood by surrogacy. In July this year, the Orissa high court had ruled that surrogate mothers deserve equal maternity leave, emphasising the importance of early caregiving for child development. The court made the remarks while upholding OFS officer Supriya Jenas 2020 petition against the denial of 180 days leave. The single-judge bench of Justice SK Panigrahi cited Article 21 to direct Odisha to treat adoptive and surrogate mothers equally and referred to international conventions like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women to ensure non-discriminatory employment treatment. Maternity leave should be granted to employees who become mothers through surrogacy to ensure treatment and support for all new mothers, irrespective of how they become parents, he said. The finance department notification said a state government female employee, having less than two surviving children, who becomes a surrogate mother will be eligible for maternity leave of 180 days. A state government woman employee, having less than two surviving children, who becomes a commissioning mother will be eligible for maternity leave of 180 days. A state government male employee, having less than two surviving children, who becomes a commissioning father will be eligible for paternity leave of 15 days within the period of 6 months from the date of delivery of the child. If both the surrogate mother and the commissioning mother are state government employees, both will be eligible for 180 days of maternity leave each. Agreement on surrogacy made between surrogate mother and commissioning parents along with supporting medical documents from registered doctors/hospitals have to be produced for claiming maternity/paternity leave, it said. Forty crore pilgrims and tourists from across the country and abroad are expected to attend Mahakumbh-2025, to be held on the sandy banks of Sangam starting January 13, 2025. Even before the event, the number of tourists in Prayagraj has already seen a significant rise, as confirmed by the state tourism departments data. Pilgrims at Sangam in Prayagaraj (File) According to the regional tourism department in Prayagraj, over 5 crore tourists visited the city in 2023. In the first six months of 2024 alone, more than 4.5 crore tourists have already visited Sangam city. Additionally, 4,266 foreign tourists visited Prayagraj last year to experience its rich historical, cultural, and religious splendor. This year, in just six months, the number of foreign visitors has reached 3,894, according to the data. Similarly, 14,37,674 Indian tourists stayed in the citys hotels last year, along with 2,771 foreign tourists. This year, in just six months, 19,41,426 Indian tourists have stayed in hotels, and the number of foreign guests has increased to 3,960, officials confirm. Historical and religious places in Prayagraj have been developed by the government over the past two years. The impact of these efforts has become noticeable during the last one-and-a-half years. Magh Mela and Prayagrajs historical and religious sites have started attracting tourists in significant numbers, said Aparajita Singh, regional tourism officer of Prayagraj, confirming the trend. Officials and tour operators believe that improved air connectivity via Bamrauli airport and the enhancement of the highway between Prayagraj and Varanasi have made the journey easier for tourists visiting Prayag. Additionally, the Pran Pratishtha (consecration) of the new idol in the Shri Ram temple in Ayodhya this year has also attracted tourists to Prayagraj. Officials believe that, as an important stop on the Rampath Gaman Marg, many tourists had come to Ayodhya for the Pran Pratishtha also visited Prayagraj in large numbers. From a tourism perspective, 13,29,720 tourists visited Prayagraj last year to see historical sites like Anand Bhawan, Shaheed Chandrashekhar Azad Park, and Khusro Bagh. In just the first six months of this year, that number has increased to 13,79,280. Similarly, 20,85,791 tourists visited religious places last year, while by June 2024, the number has already reached 33,17,551. Data from the tourism department shows that 2,84,80,000 devotees attended the Magh Mela in 2023. This year, during the same period of the annual religious fair, that number has increased to 3,71,35,000. PHOTO: Pilgrims arriving at Sangam in Prayagraj (HT File Photo) The minor accused in the Porsche car crash that claimed two lives is not getting admission at any college owing to the ongoing criminal case against him, his lawyer told the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB), adding that a Delhi management institute where he had enrolled in a BBA course cancelled his admission. Porsche car which was involved in the accident that killed two in Pune (File Photro) The 17-year-old had allegedly rammed his speeding high-end car into a motorcycle at Kalyaninagar on May 19, killing two software engineers. Also Read | Porsche accused's family reached hospital drunk and tried to save son, claims Pune Police: Report On Thursday, defence lawyer Prashant Patil informed the JJB that his client is facing difficulties to get college admission. The lawyer urged asked the board to allow the minor to seek college admission in Pune or other locations. Special Public Prosecutor Shishir Hiray informed the JJB that the prosecution has no objection to the minor pursuing higher education. Meanwhile, the police on Thursday submitted a supplementary report with fresh charges before the JJB adding charges under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 213 (taking gift to screen an offender), 214 (offering gift or restoration of property to screen an offender), as well as Sections 466, 467, 468, and 471 related to forgery. Also Read | Porsche case: Pune police add new charges against juvenile Secctions of the Prevention of Corruption Act were also invoked as part of the investigation, said officers, adding that the minor colluded with his parents, doctors from Sassoon General Hospital and intermediaries to tamper with evidence. The keys to combating the climate change that's wreaking havoc on Germany's beer industry could lie inside a plant nursery nicknamed "our kindergarten" at the Society of Hop Research north of Munich. At every stage, the plants will be incorporated into education in university and vocational school classrooms, breweries and farms across Germany.(Photo: Freepik - representation purpose only) The 7,000 seedlings there are a mix of new varieties that sprouted from research, education and centuries-old German traditions in hops farming and beer brewing. The hope is that the plants will grow to be seven to eight meters (23 to 26 feet) tall and strong enough to withstand a multitude of diseases and disasters thrown at them like rising temperatures, drought and the dreaded powdery mildew that can wipe out entire crops. At every stage, the plants will be incorporated into education in university and vocational school classrooms, breweries and farms across Germany. Generations of professional farmers and brewers, as well as the students who seek to join their ranks, will learn much from the growing plants: Which new varieties should be added to decrease the risk of a bad year wiping out a farm's entire harvest, whether the latest breeds offer a new taste for the market, and if a specific type is particularly resistant to disease. Also Read: Amazon India signs MoU with Labour Ministry to connect with job seekers on NCS portal The seedlings successes or failures could determine the fate of the country's famed Hallertau region, the worlds largest hops-growing area where most of the farms' crops will end up in beer. If the hops stay alive and thrive, the vines will graduate next year to trellises in trial fields in the heart of Bavaria. Researchers hope the specially bred hops will grow to become climate change-resistant and commercially viable varieties that will ultimately be brewed into beers served around the world and at future Oktoberfests, celebrated an hour's drive south of the research society. The new varieties give our farmers the chance to have income, to have a living for the next generation," Walter Konig, the society's managing director, told The Associated Press last week from the small farming town of Hull. "It gives our brewers the varieties that they need now and in the future. Human-caused climate change has made the world hotter and increased the likelihood of both long droughts and intense bursts of rainfall. It has affected farmers and their practices worldwide, including in this beer-making region of Bavaria where the art and craft of hops-farming and beer-brewing dates back more than a thousand years. The history is honored at every Oktoberfest, which began Saturday for the 189th time. Education and research are crucial components of Germanys beer industry, from the Society of Hop Research to apprenticeships, a hops-cultivation vocational program and the vaunted Master Brewer diploma. Konig, for example, gives lectures to brewers and farmers around Germany and inside the research centers dedicated classroom, spreading the societys latest knowledge into drought-tolerant farming techniques, pesticide reduction and efforts to enhance plant biodiversity. The society in recent years has bred hop varieties for farmers that take climate change into account: The new plants need less water and have deeper roots to withstand the drier weather. Also Read: CBSE organises Principals' workshop on parenting for students well-being Experts say this education and information-sharing is becoming ever more important to maintaining the traditional tastes of your favorite German lagers and ales. Climate change is taking place. This is true, you cannot doubt this," said Thomas Becker, a professor and chair of brewing technology at the Technical University of Munich. Becker, who oversees the universitys research brewery, said he teaches the 400 to 500 students in his program to think about how climate change affects the entire beer industry, from the soil to the bottle that will be sold on the commercial market. The farmers yields are rapidly shrinking, and whats left has become totally different, Becker said, forcing brewers to change their recipes in order to achieve the historic tastes. The professor also challenges his students to minimize energy consumption during their brewing and finish with a product that has a longer shelf-life to limit waste. The students quickly learn that it's increasingly difficult to brew a crisp, cold beer on a warming planet and it could get even harder, according to a study published last year in the journal Nature Communications. Researchers forecasted a 4 to 18% decrease in hop yields across growing regions in Europe by 2050 if farmers don't adapt to the changing climate. It's already happening in the Hallertau. The region's raw materials hops and barley have faced higher temperatures and less rainfall during the spring and summer growing months for several years. Andreas Widmann, a 32-year-old fourth-generation hops farmer in the Hallertau, lost 20 to 30% of his yields in recent years after hot, dry summers. In addition to his degree in agricultural business administration, Widmann took specialized classes in hop cultivation at the only technical school in Bavaria to offer such courses. Widmann's experience comes both from classrooms and time spent with his own crops in Germany and during a three-month internship at two hops farms in the United States. He learned about climate change in school, like new soil treatments, but says creativity also comes into play in the fields. Now, hes transitioned from student to teacher: He works with his farms apprentices to figure out the best way to water sustainably with irrigation, use fertilizer efficiently and plant new varieties that can handle climate change and still be marketable to brewers who want to keep the classic taste. Looking into the future of hop growing is always a very difficult thing, Widmann said last week as the vines were harvested around him. Because on the one hand, it depends on supply and demand. What kind of hops do brewers want? On the other hand, we say yes, we need climate-tolerant varieties to be grown. Konig says Widmann and Becker's students are among a wave of future farmers and brewers who are ready and willing to tackle climate change. We often have maybe settled old brewmasters. They say, I dont change my recipe, its good like I do it. I dont want to use a new recipe or a new variety," Konig said. But we want to teach the new generation what the problems are, what solutions we have. It's a delicate balance for the German beer industry to maintain the country's hops and brewing tastes and traditions while also adapting for the future. To ensure the Hallertau remains the worlds largest hops-growing area for centuries to come, Becker says climate change must continue to have its own seat in the classroom. Its really always into our mind when we are educating our people," he said. Also Read: BITS Pilani and IIT Bombay collaborate to drive research and innovation Ashoka University concluded its second edition of Building Foundations for Inclusive Higher Education conclave at the India Habitat Center (IHC). The Conclave featured four dedicated Idea Labs that explored critical themes, including building support structures and reasonable accommodation frameworks at HEIs (REPRESENTATIVE PHOTO) The event brought together experts from universities, institutions, and NGOs from across the country to discuss about creating more inclusive higher education systems for students with disabilities. A report titled Access to Higher Education: An Unresolved Challenge for Students with Disabilities, was released by Reena Gupta, Director of the Office of Learning Support (OLS) at Ashoka University, and Neha Trivedi, Founder of Spandan. The report examines the barriers students with disabilities face and offers recommendations to Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) on how to address these issues. Also Read: Kerala SET January 2025: Registration begins at lbsedp.lbscentre.in, direct link here The event saw participation from over 100 key stakeholders in government, academia, and industry, including Rina Sonowal Kouli, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Higher Education, Dr Pankaj Mittal, Secretary, Association of Indian University; Dr Jagdish Arora, Advisor, National Board of Accreditation; Dr R K Chadha, Ex-Additional Secretary at Parliament of India, Lok Sabha; Ipsita Mitra, Deputy Secretary, Policy, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities & Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Neha Trivedi, Founder of Spandan: Inclusion and Accessibility Consultancy Services; Dr Homiyar Mobedji, Disability Expert, Program Management - Asia & Africa, Benetech and Dr Piyush Chanana, Head, National Centre for Assistive Health Technologies (NCAHT) at IIT Delhi amongst others. At Ashoka University, we believe that true excellence in education can only be achieved when it is accessible to all. This initiative represents our dedication to fostering an inclusive environment where students with disabilities can thrive. Todays discussions mark another step toward creating a truly democratic higher education system, which will play a critical role in Indias overall success," said Prof Somak Raychaudhury, Vice-Chancellor of Ashoka University. The Conclave featured four dedicated Idea Labs that explored critical themes, including building support structures and reasonable accommodation frameworks at HEIs, strengthening accessible library systems and educational content accessibility, facilitating access to assistive technology for students in higher education, and empowering faculty as agents of inclusive teaching, mentioned the press release. Also Read: BITS Pilani and IIT Bombay collaborate to drive research and innovation Voting for the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) elections is underway amid high security here on Friday at the north and south campuses of the university. (L-R) ABVP candidates Rishabh Chaudhary for President, Bhanu Pratap Singh for Vice President, Mitravinda Karanwal for Secretary and Aman Kapasia for Joint- Secretary during the manifesto launch for the DUSU election, in New Delhi, Saturday.(PTI file) Students from different DU colleges were seen standing in long queues to cast their vote to elect a new president, vice president, secretary and joint secretary. Heavy police deployment was made at both the campuses for smooth functioning of the elections. Police personnel on motorbikes were seen patrolling the campus. Around 1.40 lakh students are eligible to cast their votes. Voting will take place in two phases -- students from morning colleges will cast their vote till 1 pm and those from evening colleges from 3 pm till 7.30 pm. A total of 21 candidates are vying for the positions with eight candidates contesting for the post of president, five for vice-president, and four each for the posts of joint secretary and secretary. The RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the Congress-backed National Students' Union of India (NSUI), and the left-wing alliance of the All India Students' Association (AISA) and Students' Federation of India (SFI) are the key players this year. Speaking to PTI videos, national-level leaders of both the ABVP and NSUI expressed confidence of securing victory. "ABVP has been extensively campaigning for the elections over the past few days. We have been able to reach out to around 1 lakh students during this period. ABVP has had a strong presence in DUSU for many years. We have consistently stood by the students and raised their concerns. As a result, we are seeing positive reactions and support from the students. We are fully confident that the students are with us, and ABVP will win the polls 4-0," said Yagywalkya Shukla, national general secretary of ABVP. NSUI president varun Chaudhary said, "This year's elections are not ordinary. They are crucial for saving the university. For many years, a culture of violence has emerged in the university because of ABVP. We have promised a violence-free campus. In addition, we have also pledged to address issues like paper leaks and fee control." The battle for the post of president is expected to be a tight race between ABVP's Rishabh Chaudhary, NSUI's Rounak Khatri and AISA's Saavy Gupta. Rishabh Chaudhary, who hails from from Ganaur, Sonipat, is a graduate of Shyam Lal College and is currently a student in the Department of Buddhist Studies. Saavy Gupta contesting as an AISA candidate is a third-year law student at Law Centre-2. The vice president post is a contest between ABVP's Bhanu Pratap Singh, NSUI's Yash Nandal and Ayush Mondal of the AISA. The ABVP has fielded Mitravinda Karanwal as its candidate for the post of secretary. Karanwal, a third-year student of History (Hons) at Laxmibai College, is up against NSUI's Namrata Jeph Meena and SFI's Anamika K for the post. Anamika is currently pursuing a master's degree in Political Science. For the joint secretary position, ABVP's Aman Kapasia, a graduate of Hindi (Hons) from PGDAV Evening College, will face off against NSUI's Lokesh Choudhary and SFI's Sneha Aggarwal. Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court has halted the counting of votes of the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections till posters, hoardings and graffiti that have been put up are removed and public property is restored. The court passed the order on Thursday. Currently, the RSS-affiliated ABVP holds most seats in the students body with the posts of president, vice president and secretary with them. The Congress's student wing NSUI holds the secretary's post. The Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kashipur hosted the 25th IIM Library Consortium on September 25, 2024. The event saw the participation of library heads from all 21 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). Over 45 database companies are participating in this prestigious three-day Consortia Meet, which will conclude on September 27, 2024. The event saw the participation of library heads from all 21 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). The inauguration of the Consortia Meet was marked by the lighting of the ceremonial lamp by Professor Somnath Chakraborty, Acting Director of IIM Kashipur, while the welcome address was delivered by Professor Madhurima Deb, Chairperson of the Library Committee. The event saw the gathering of members of the IIM Libraries Consortium and other dignitaries of IIM Kashipur along with Chief Administrative Officer Col Ajay Kumar Upadhyay, who extended his best wishes for the successful conduct of the program. Guests in attendance included Prof Madhurima Deb, Chair of the Library Committee and Assistant Professor in the Marketing Area, Prof Rameshwar Shivadas Ture, Chairperson of OBHR, Prof Mridul Maheshwari, Assistant Professor in the OBHR area, Prof A V Raman, Professor in OBHR and the Librarian, Dr Mohammad Asif Khan. Also Read: Amazon India signs MoU with Labour Ministry to connect with job seekers on NCS portal Following the inauguration, a group photo session was conducted with the consortium members and IIM Kashipurs faculty and dignitaries. The event also featured a Knowledge Tree plantation ceremony, where consortium members and dignitaries participated. The 25th IIM Library Consortium reinforced the collaborative efforts of the IIM libraries and underscored the importance of knowledge sharing and sustainability in academic excellence, mentioned the press release. Also Read: BITS Pilani and IIT Bombay collaborate to drive research and innovation SAN FRANCISCOIf fans werent able to make it to Madrid earlier this year for Sir Peters first-ever live European sex show, the Raging Stallion Studios crew has everyone covered. Fans of Falcon | NakedSword Exclusive Sir Peter now have insider access to exclusive footage from this unique live experience that showcases the award-winning superstar fucking John Thomas in front of M3N C3NSOREDs jam-packed audience. Filmed on location at Zenith in Madrid, the scene is out now, exclusively on RagingStallion.com. After John Thomas uses an oversized dildo to stretch out his hole, Sir Peter is ready to storm the stage for his first-ever live European sex show. With the live audience just feet away from him, Sir Peter continues to fuck John before rimming the jockstrap-clad fucker and stuffing his mouth full. The crowd at Zenith in Madrid cheers as Sir Peter slides everything from a screwdriver to his dick into Johns ass and pounds him out under the clubs flashing lights. Promotion of this all-new scene is available through the Buddy Profits affiliate program. For more information or direct affiliate inquiries, contact [email protected]. Police on Thursday booked a student of the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Hamirpur for allegedly stalking and threatening a woman classmate, police said. When the incident came to light on Wednesday night, students of the institute came out of their hostels and demanded stern action against the accused. (HT File) A complaint was received from the woman, a student of the Electronics and Communication Engineering Department at NIT, alleging that her classmate had been harassing her for a few days, said Superintendent of Police, Hamirpur, Bhagat Singh Thakur. The accused youth allegedly misbehaved with the complainant recently, used indecent words and threatened her, the SP said. Also Read: Amazon India signs MoU with Labour Ministry to connect with job seekers on NCS portal Based on the complaint received through the dean, student welfare, and NIT, an FIR has been registered against the accused student under sections 78 (stalking), 79 (word/gesture/act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 351(2) (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), he said. When the incident came to light on Wednesday night, students of the institute came out of their hostels and demanded stern action against the accused. Also Read: CBSE organises Principals' workshop on parenting for students well-being On Thursday, the students, mostly women, demanded that the management take steps to ensure their safety. First-year students skipped classes to protest the incident, following which the institute's management spoke to the woman student and submitted a statement signed by her to the police. Following this, the students returned to their hostels. An investigation into the matter is underway, police said. Also Read: BITS Pilani and IIT Bombay collaborate to drive research and innovation More than 1.45 lakh students cast their votes in the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) elections at the varsity's North and South campuses till 5.45 pm on Friday, an official statement said. A total of 21 candidates, eight are in the fray for the post of president, five for vice president, and four each for the posts of secretary and joint secretary.(Raj k Raj) According to the office of the chief election officer, DUSU, a total of 1,45,893 students from 52 colleges had cast their votes till 5.45 pm to elect a new president, vice president, secretary and joint secretary. The data for the remaining colleges is yet to be released. Heavy police deployment was made at both North and South campuses for smooth conduct of the elections. Police personnel were seen patrolling the campus on motorcycles. Polling is being held in two phases. Students of morning colleges cast their votes till 1 pm and the second phase of polling for students of evening colleges started at 3 pm and will continue till 7.30 pm. A total of 21 candidates, eight are in the fray for the post of president, five for vice president, and four each for the posts of secretary and joint secretary. Also Read: Ashoka University calls for inclusive higher education at 2nd annual conclave The RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the Congress-backed National Students' Union of India (NSUI), the left-wing student body All India Students' Association (AISA) and the Students' Federation of India (SFI) are the key players this year. Currently, the ABVP has the maximum number of seats in the student body and holds the posts of president, vice president and joint secretary. The NSUI holds the secretary's post. Speaking to PTI Videos, national leaders of both ABVP and NSUI exuded confidence that their respective candidates would win. "The ABVP has been extensively campaigning for the elections for the past few days. We were able to reach out to around one lakh students during this period. The ABVP has had a strong presence in the DUSU for many years. We have consistently stood by the students and raised their concerns. "As a result, we are seeing a positive response and getting support from the students. We are confident that the students are with us and the ABVP will win the polls 4-0," said ABVP national general secretary Yagywalkya Shukla. NSUI president Varun Chaudhary said, "This year's elections are not ordinary. They are crucial for saving the university. Over the years, a culture of violence has emerged in the university because of the ABVP. We have promised a violence-free campus." "In addition, we have also pledged to address issues like paper leaks and fee control," he said. The race for the post of president is expected to be a close one between ABVP's Rishabh Chaudhary, NSUI's Rounak Khatri and AISA's Saavy Gupta. Rishabh Chaudhary, who hails from Ganaur, Sonipat, graduated from Shyam Lal College and is currently a student of the Department of Buddhist Studies. Saavy Gupta is a third-year law student at Law Centre-2. In the fray for the post of vice president are ABVP's Bhanu Pratap Singh, NSUI's Yash Nandal and AISA's Ayush Mondal. The ABVP has fielded Mitravinda Karanwal, a third-year student of History (Hons) at Laxmibai College, as its candidate for the post of secretary. She is up against NSUI's Namrata Jeph Meena and SFI's Anamika K. Aman Kapasia, a Hindi (Hons) graduate from PGDAV Evening College, is the ABVP's pick for the post of joint secretary and will take on NSUI's Lokesh Choudhary and SFI's Sneha Aggarwal. In an order passed on Thursday, the Delhi High Court had halted the counting of votes of the DUSU elections till public property defaced by posters, hoardings and graffiti is restored. Also Read: BITS Pilani and IIT Bombay collaborate to drive research and innovation Actor Saif Ali Khan has heaped praises on Congress MP and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi in a recent interview. Speaking at the India Today Conclave, Saif picked Rahul as his choice among the brave politicians of the country and credited him for reforming his public image. (Also read: Narendra Modi is glamorous, says Saif Ali Khan) Saif Ali Khan has heaped praise on Rahul Gandhi Saif, who has been promoting his new film Devara Part 1, attended the India Today Conclave on Thursday. At the event, when asked what kind of a politician he liked, Saif replied, I like a brave politician, an honest politician. Saifs praise for Rahul Gandhi The host then named PM Narendra Modi, former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, and Rahul Gandhi as examples and asked Saif to name a brave politician from among them who could take India into the future, to which Saif replied, I think they are all brave politicians. I think what Rahul Gandhi has done has been very impressive. There was a point when people were disrespecting things he was saying and doing. And I think he has turned that around by working very hard in a very interesting way. Saifs praise for Rahul was shared widely on social media, predominantly by followers of the politician. The video is now going viral on X (formerly Twitter) with many calling it the stars endorsement for Rahul Gandhi. Incidentally, in the Amazon Prime Video series Taandav, Saif had played a character that many had called similar to Rahul Gandhi. The political thriller saw Saif play the heir apparent to a PM. Saifs new film release Saif Ali Khans new film Devara Part 1 hit the screens on Friday. The pan-India action film stars Jr NTR and Janhvi Kapoor alongside Saif in the lead roles. The film has been directed by Kortala Siva and has had a wide release in Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi. The film had impressive advance booking numbers and looks set to have a very strong opening day with many projecting a 100+-crore global haul on day one itself. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, though still on cordial terms for the sake of the children, are moving forward in the next chapter of their lives minus each other. The Batman star has reportedly also wrapped up his affair with his pre-divorce bachelor rental property, where he took refuge while grappling with marital woes before JLo filed for divorce on the second anniversary of their wedding ceremony. Cast member Jennifer Lopez, right, and Ben Affleck attend a photo call for a special screening of "Marry Me" on Feb. 8, 2022, in Los Angeles.(Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) Now that the Gone Girl sector has scooped up a new Pacific Palisades, California, home for $20.5 million, he seems to have no plans of turning back. Ironically enough, another old chapter of his life will stay close to him with this move. Affleck purchased the brand-new LA residence as a gift for himself around the time of Lopez's 55th birthday in July. Moreover, since the mansion is located on the border of Brentwood, it positions him closer to his ex-wife Jennifer Garner and their children Fin (15) and Samuel (12), while eldest daughter Violet (18) recently started college at Yale. The Daredevil costars dropped her off at the university and were eventually pictured deboarding a private jet in the hours leading up to Lopez filing for divorce. Also read | Kanye West's controversial Malibu mansion officially off the market, but at millions worth of loss Ben Affleck moves out of pre-divorce rental property Daily Mail's September 25 report shows pictures of the Air actor-director packing up, with movers helping him transport his stuff. A truck from the company Wetzel & Sons is seen on the move. Affleck's new California abode definitely marks a move towards stability, at least on some fronts, as The Accountant actor will no longer have to cough up the hefty $100,000 monthly rent for his previous station, per the Robb Report. More about Ben Affleck's new home The 51-year-old filmmaker's new place is higher on simplicity when compared to his and Lopez's house. His feelings for the two abodes are also reported to be poles apart, as several reports have established that while he is fond of his new home, he was never a fan of his marital estate. With a reported 5 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms, the budding bachelor pad in Pacific Palisades features separate breakfast and dining spaces, a family room, a den, a media room and a powder room. Pictures obtained by Page Six show that the backyard is also home to an in-ground pool. A source previously told PEOPLE that the place offers a sense of privacy and seclusion, which is high on Affleck's priority checklist. Also read | Video of Angelina Jolie-Brad Pitt's daughter Zahara removing Pitt from name resurfaces, draws instant criticism Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez's Beverly Hills house sale hits another snag In the meantime, the sale of Bennifer's marital home in Beverly Hills, which hit the market in early June, is oh-so-gradually showing some development. TMZ reported on September 24 that a New Jersey couple has fallen in love with the 38,000-square-foot house. They've reportedly also made a $64 million offer for the estate, which the ex-Hollywood couple had originally listed for $68 million, flipping the place for an almost $8 million profit. Despite favourably flipping through the Beverly Hills mansion's chapter, the sale hit another snag. The New Jersey couple pulled out of escrow after a family death. Nevertheless, sources told the outlet that they are still interested in it. Regardless of where that train is headed, Affleck is presumably satisfied with where he is now. Detailing his thoughts on his new home, an insider told PEOPLE that Ben is where he wants to be: close to his kids and in a neighbourhood that he loves. Ben Afflecks ex-wife, actor Jennifer Garner has reportedly taken charge of protecting his mental health amid his ongoing public divorce with Jennifer Lopez. Affleck has, in the past, struggled with alcohol issues as well as mental health problems and as per reports, he feared a relapse given the stress of the ongoing divorce proceedings. (Also read: Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck still moving forward with divorce despite recent kissing) Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck were married for 13 years Jennifer Garner's mercy squad for Ben In Touch magazine reports that Jennifer Garner is leading a mercy squad that keeps checking up on Ben, ensuring his well-being. Youre seeing Jen going over there nearly every day to make sure hes okay. His mother, his brother and his close friends, like Matt Damon, are helping out too. Theyre all in touch with him and with each other. Theyre very much a team and acting as a de facto support group for him. If theyre seeing a thing to worry about, they alert each other immediately. Ben knows theyre all in touch, but he doesnt know the extent of it, the report quoted a source as saying. Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck were married from 2005-18 and have three kids together - Violet, 18, Fin, 15, and Samuel, 12. Ben and JLos complicated relationship history Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez met on the sets of the 2002 film Gigli and began dating soon after. By the end of the year, the two were engaged and very much the it couple of Hollywood. However, they postponed their wedding in 2003 and then broke up the following year. They rekindled their relationship in 2021 and eventually got married in a lavish ceremony in 2022. However, last month, Jennifer filed for divorce, noting that they had been separated since April. While theyve been seen together ever since then, most notably at a family brunch earlier this month, reports have stated that the divorce proceedings are still on. Australian documentary filmmaker David Bradbury was detained at the Chennai airport along with his children earlier this month. The acclaimed director, who has been nominated for an Oscar in the past, was reportedly stopped upon arrival in Chennai and then detained for a day before being deported back to Australia. (Also read: Black Panther director Ryan Coogler was detained, put in handcuffs after being mistaken for a bank robber) David Bradbury with his children David Bradbury's detention and deportation The 73-year-old award-winning filmmaker had arrived in India on September 10 with his two children Nakeita (21) and Omar (14). The filmmaker said in an interview with The Wire that he wanted to show his kids how Hindus deal with death and take them to Varanasi. The filmmakers wife Treena, herself a documentary filmmaker, succumbed to cancer five months ago. However, Bradbury said that upon arrival, he was detained at the airport and kept for 24 hours in pretty disgusting room with papers and rubbish on the floor under a bed with a filthy mattress and no sheets. I was allowed to go to the toilet up the corridor, but there was one time when, despite my calling out, they didn't come back to let me out. So, I was obliged to relieve my bladder into a paper cup I found on the floor, he told The News Minute. Bradbury also claimed that he was not given access to a toilet all this while, until he was finally deported to Australia. Bradbury said that his two children were made to travel separately. The filmmaker claims he was also not allowed to contact the Australian High Commission. Why was David Bradbury deported While there has been no official word on why the filmmaker was detained and deported, Bradbury believes his ordeal is linked to a 2012 film he made on the Kudankulam nuclear plant. While on a visit to India as a judge of the Mumbai film festival, Bradbury had visited Idinthakarai, a coastal village in the Tirunelveli District of Tamil Nadu, which was an epicentre of the protests against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant. The protests were about the alleged harmful impact of the plant on the environment and the local communities. He documented the protests and the causes behind it, including the death of a protester in police firing. Bradbury had even been arrested in India in October 2012 while he was making that documentary. Kanye West's gutted Malibu pad is officially off his back. The Tadao Andao-designed house's sale closed on Thursday morning. The once-abandoned house has finally found an owner, but that's not to say that his history strays any further from the Stronger rapper's controversial roots. Kanye West's decrepit Malibu house is finally off his back as Selling Sunset star Jason Oppenheim helped negotiate the final deal with Bo Belmont, who runs Belwood Investments. (Amy Harris/Invision/AP) Ye's Malibu Road residence has been in the headlines for all sorts of notorious reasons. The hip-hop figure stripped the beachfront property's meticulously planned originality down, intending for a major makeover. However, the West dropped the ball on his pad as controversies caught up to him. Kanye West faces millions worth of loss in his Malibu house sale Despite his initial plans, the rapper ultimately decided to unload the place from his real estate portfolio. The listing first hit the market in December 2023 for its original $53 million sale priceslightly less than the $57.3 million price tag for which Ye snapped the property in 2021. Also read | Jeremy Allen White, Molly Gordon dating IRL? The Bear costars lock a chefs kiss' after possibly house-hunting What Ye's Malibu property looked like before it was gutted; Part 1(The Oppenheim Group) As Ye got stuck with the mansion and all his efforts to sale off the place went down the drain, he enlisted Selling Sunset star Jason Oppenheim's help. In August, the 24844 Malibu Road house entered into escrow after hitting several dead-ends on its road to finding a new buyer. The original $53 million asking price was slashed down to $39 million in April. However, the final price at which Ye ultimately put this residence's chapter behind him is even significantly lesser. Who ultimately purchased Kanye West's Malibu oceanfront house? The chopped-off pricing dropped to $21 million as California-based real estate crowdfunding firm Belwood Investment scooped up the disaster project this week, according to TMZ. What Ye's Malibu property looked like before it was gutted; Part 2.(The Oppenheim Group) As per the Los Angeles Times, Belwood's CEO, Bo Belmont, is also ready to pour $6-$8 million into a new renovation plan to restore the Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect's vision. This positively contradicts Ye's ambitious plans to transform the place which only rendered it uninhabitable. And Belmont definitely holds it all against the Yeezy boss. Also read | Is Kim Porter memoir fact or fiction? Diddy's children spill the beans That was a really dumb move. Really no purpose, he said of the rapper removing the glazing of the floor. As he revisited some of the No More Parties in LA artists old plans for the house, including turning the stairs into a slide and the floor into trampolines, among other things, the firms CEO added, It would have required extensive review. Theres a process to it and he does things his own way, and the city of Malibu, they dont care who you are theyll hold you accountable. What Ye's Malibu property looked like before it was gutted; Part 3.(The Oppenheim Group) For this brand-new passion project, Belmont is all set to join forces with Marmol, Radziner, a design-build practice based in Los Angeles, initially involved in the houses build. With 500 investors reportedly on Yes Malibu property, investing between $1,000 and $1 million, the Belwood CEO hopes to flip the house for a profit to benefit them. The Belwood Investments boss was once charged with attempted murder for a pitchfork attack in Napa County. LA Times reports he was later convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, resulting in a three-year prison sentence. Actor Nayanthara and her husband-filmmaker Vignesh Shivan shared birthday posts for their sons Uyir and Ulag as they turned two. Taking to Instagram on Thursday, the duo shared pictures from Greece as they celebrated the special occasion there. (Also Read | Nayanthara kisses her everything Vignesh Shivan as she celebrates his birthday, shares pics) Nayanthara and Vignesh Shivan celebrated Uyir and Ulag's birthdays in Greece. Nayanthara pens birthday note for sons Nayanthara shared photos as she and Vignesh played with their sons while spending time outdoors. She wrote, "Happy birthday, my Azhagannnsss. Every second I spend with u both feels like I hv lived a whole lifetime in that tiny second. Love Life Magic Strength is alllll you. Thank you for this surreal life." "I love you both with allllll my heart n soul my dear Uyir baby n ulag baby. May God blesssss u with all the goodness in the universe my babies. Amma & Appa love u to the moon n back. @wikkiofficial," she added. Vignesh shares post for Uyir, Ulag Vignesh, too, posted a bunch of pictures as the family enjoyed their vacation in Greece. He geo-tagged the location as Mykonos, Greece. He captioned the post, "When I named u guys Uyir & Ulag I really wanted you both to be my Uyir & Ulag ! And thats how exactly u guys have been to me ! My little boys ! Love you two, as you Turn Two!" "Amma & Appa and the entire family have never been this happy in this entire life , the happiness and fulfilment you guys give us prove that God has so much love on us and is in a generous mode when it comes to blessing us ! And I prayed so hard to know that you guys are also blessed immensely ! With all these blessings from God & With all the love in this universe ! Wish u 2 a very happy happy birthday my life & my world ! Love you Twoooooooooooooo muchhhhhhhhhhhhhh. #Uyir #Ulag #happybirthday," he added. Vignesh praises Nayanthara Sharing Nayanthara's post on his Instagram Stories, Vignesh wrote, "My uyir you are the best mom. I appreciate you for successfully completing two years of taking care of these boys soooo unbelievably well while also working soooo hard, maintaining yourself, your work discipline and handling everything so efficiently! You inspire me each and everyday! but this day is just too two tooooo special for us and our lives." Vignesh penned a note for Nayanthara too. About Nayanthara and Vignesh Nayanthara and Vignesh married in Chennai on June 9, 2022. It was an intimate wedding with only their close friends and select guests, including Shah Rukh Khan, AR Rahman, Suriya, and Rajinikanth, in attendance. The couple welcomed their sons via surrogacy in 2022. The news was shared by Vignesh on his Instagram handle where he shared pictures of his twin newborns, Uyir and Ulagam. Nayanthara's films Nayanthara was last seen in Malayalam cinema in the 2022 film Gold, where she starred alongside Prithviraj Sukumaran. She made her Bollywood debut in Jawan alongside Shah Rukh Khan last year and has also appeared in Tamil films such as Iraivan and Annapoorani: The Goddess of Food. Palak Sidhwani, who portrays Sonu Bhide on Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah (TMKOC), has accused the producers of exploiting her. The actor disclosed that she received a legal notice from the production, alleging that she breached her initial contract. In an interview with Bombay Times, Palak stated that she chose to leave the show for professional growth and health reasons. (Also read: Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah: Delhi HC restrains unauthorised use of content in YouTube videos, social media posts) TMKOC's Sonu aka Palak Sidhwani receoved legal notice from the producers. Palak Sidhwani on her exit from TMKOC The official statement from Neela Film Productions stated that Palak Sindhwani, who plays Sonu in TMKOC, has violated several important rules in her exclusive artiste agreement. The breaches primarily concern Palak Sindhwani's unauthorized third-party endorsements and appearances without obtaining the necessary written consent, as required by her contract. While reacting to the allegations, Palak stated that, I had informed the production house on August 8 about my decision to quit the show. They decided to take some time and then told me that I will be given an official email to which I could mail the resignation letter but that never happened. They delayed approving my resignation and after a few weeks to my surprise I saw articles in media about how I had breached the contract. She further said, I signed their contract 5 years ago and they denied giving me a copy of it. I received a copy on September 19, 2024. They had agreed to let me continue brand endorsements and post the pandemic I also started brand endorsements on social media. They didn't say anything then but after I announced my decision to quit they have started this plan of action. I have also taken legal advise and will follow what's right for my career. I wanted to quit the show for health reasons and professional growth. I have had several meetings but there is no solution yet. This is exploitation and I never expected this after working with them for five years. Just because I want to quit Taarak Mehta, they are making my exit difficult. About Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah The Indian sitcom TMKOC is based on the weekly column Duniya Ne Undha Chasma by Tarak Mehta for the magazine Chitralekha. It is one of the longest-running television series in India. The show is produced by Asit Kumarr Modi and premiered on 28th July 2008 on Sony SAB. It is also available for streaming on SonyLIV. The second season of Netflix's show Monsters became one of the most streamed series on the OTT platform. However, the biographical crime drama anthology has faced criticism for its portrayal of certain real-life incidents, with some viewers finding it misleading. (Also read: Vashu Bhagnani claims Netflix owes him 47 crore; OTT platform denies it: Report) The Netflix series Monsters is facing criticism for misleading facts in its second season. Monsters Season 2 faces criticism on social media Season one of Monsters covered the Jeffrey Dahmer murders and sparked widespread controversy for initially being seen as disrespectful to the victims and their families. Now, in season 2, the show is once again facing criticism on social media. Monsters is based on the true story of brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were 21 and 18 years old respectively when they murdered their parents, Kitty Menendez and Jose Menendez, on August 20, 1989. Ryan Murphy defends Monsters Executive Producer Ryan Murphy defended his series by saying, If you watch the show, I would say 60 to 65 percent of our show, in the scripts and in the film form, center around the abuse and what they claim happened to them, reported by Greek Reporter. He further stated that, We do it very carefully, and we give them their day in court, and they talk openly about it, he added. We present the facts from their point of view. Erik Menendez questions accuracy in Monsters The brothers, who are incarcerated, haven't seen the show. Despite this, Erik made a statement about it through his wife, Tammi Menendez. According to the publication, Erik's statement read: I believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle, creating a caricature of Lyle rooted in horrible and blatant lies rampant in the show. In Tammis message, it was explained that Erik felt the inaccurate portrayals, were done so on purpose. She pointed out, It is with a heavy heart that I say, I believe Ryan Murphy cannot be this naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent. Other controversy over Monsters Season 2 Many people are reportedly upset about how Monsters portrays sexual abuse. They believe the show doesn't accurately show the trauma and misleads viewers about what really happened. Monsters shows the two brothers confessing to murdering their parents and admitting they did so due to years of sexual abuse from their father and physical abuse from their mother. The series also implies that Lyle and Erik had an incestuous relationship. In episode 2 of Monsters, the brothers Erik and Lyle share a kiss. While in the 6th episode their mother catches them showering together. Monsters is created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, It is available for streaming on Netflix. SACRAMENTO, Calif.On September 24, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 2863 into law, clamping down on auto-renewing subscription services. The new law requires companies offering automatic renewals and continuous services to provide customers with an easier way to cancel subscriptions in the same way. According to Newsom's office, this ensures that customers can easily exit services without being trapped in a confusing process to cancel or face hidden fees. "At a time when too many in our community are struggling, unwanted subscription renewals can really add up," said Asm. Pilar Schiavo, the Democratic lawmaker who initially introduced AB 2863. She added, "AB 2863 is the most comprehensive Click to Cancel legislation in the nation, ensuring Californians can cancel unwanted automatic subscription renewals just as easily as they signed upwith just a click or two." Nobody wants to get ripped off, whether its a small subscription fee thats seemingly impossible to cancel or massive medical debts which force families into financial ruin," said Gov. Newsom in the same press statement. "Were strengthening protections for Californians across the board and helping save consumers money." The law requires companies to acquire an "express affirmative consent" to automatic renewal terms, which requires a higher degree of consent to user agreements. It also requires companies to prevent user agreements and contracts featuring information that undermines a consumer's ability to affirmatively consent to auto-renewals. This measure directly impacts adult websites with recurring subscription models. Corey Silverstein, an adult industry attorney, warned that compliance is necessary. He said that "this law will significantly impact operations" for adult platforms. Compliance strategies would require adult websites to adopt transparent billing and subscription procedures ensuring users are fully informed to grant expressed consent. This new legally required degree of transparency will additionally be promoted through annual activity reports sent to users featuring an explanation of charges and services. Users must also be notified of fee changes and other changes to the user agreement or any other applicable conditions of the subscription. Also, user experiences for renewals and cancellations need to be simplified and intuitive. This means that canceling subscriptions must be simple and effective. Organizations that opposed AB 2863 include digital news media properties and advertisers, including Conde Nast and the parent company of the Dallas Morning News. The California Chamber of Commerce also opposed the bill, along with retailers and the Motion Picture Association, which represents mainstream film studios. Consumer protection advocates predominately voiced support for the bill, like the Consumer Federation of California and the California Low-Income Consumer Coalition. AB 2863 enters force on July 1, 2025, giving adult companies based in California or with a large user base in that digital space about nine months to comply. One of the quickest, and most effective, ways to recognize when a script is weak is when it jumps to a flashback with a few weeks ago title. It leads to some calculative narrative brain-fog situation that never really adds anything new to the present action that the audience has not figured out already. Taaza Khabar Season 2, now streaming on Disney + Hotstar, has many such flashbacks. The jarring, almost forced cuts to the past harm the pace of the narrative, more so when the show is built on the premise that our protagonist can see the future. The present matters less when the future is so readily available on an app, so how convenient it must be to look back at the past right? (Also read: Bhuvan Bam on influencers taking over acting jobs in Bollywood: Hamare desh mein gadhe, ghode saath mein daud rahe hain) Bhuvan Bam in a still from Taaza Khabar Season 2. Season 2 needs taaza updates Those who have been acquainted with what Bhuvan Bam's Vasant Gawde did in Season 1 along with that cliffhanger, can be at peace to know that far worse things happen to him and his acquaintances this season. His actions demand no sympathy because the script offers no scope to look beyond what he is doing and how he is doing these mad-ambitious-insane things. The opening episode takes off where it ended last season, but this time the taaza khabar is that he is dead. So how can he stop this happening in real life? What can he do to stop what's already predicted? Turns out, a lot! He jumps, cries, lies, kills, yells and manipulates like only he can. We also return to his tribe; which comprises of his helpless parents (played by Atisha Naik and Vijay Nikam; who see no harm in their son's misdeeds and are happily working to save more money), his friend/sidekick Peter (Prathmesh Parab), the bakery owner Mehboob (Deven Bhojani), and Madhu (Shriya Pilgaonkar). All these characters simply exist in service of our great Vasant's whims, and will happily take a bullet or some bullying depending on his tomfoolery. But of course, the biggest crisis has not arrived yet! That's cue for Yusuf (Jaaved Jaaferi) to make his king-sized entry as the menacing antagonist who will not leave Vasant even when he is gone for good. Final thoughts The conceit has run its course by now but the there are still six episodes to find new taaza khabar notifications to elongate the narrative a little more. The writing is extremely derivative and seems to run in the same circles of new plan, but bigger flops in execution where someone gets killed. There are no consequences whatsoever. The police is sleeping, there is no investigation on the crimes, no one bats an eyelid, and the city of Mumbai is as non-existent in its fabric as ever. What difference will it make if Vasant shifted to Bangalore and updated his location there? Would he be able to reach the spot after getting a taaza khabar battling the traffic? The best quality is that there is no point in asking questions or showing the slightest urge to interrogate the repercussions of greed, or the injustices meted out to the powerless. Taaza Khabar could have been so much more if it had taken the disparity between the have-s and the have-nots and designed its premise from that angle. The tail was right there. Vasant seems to learn nothing, so it is best that his audience does not mind asking either. New taaza khabar update, new plan! Bhuvan has natural screen presence as an actor but he can barely add any impact to a scene when it demands so less from him. His actions begin to feel too repetitive and juvenile after a point. Taaza Khabar loves a new trick, a new set-piece, a new resolution. But there's nothing taaza about any of these parts. The show needs a much-needed update for its own good, just like the app. Taaza Khabar Season 2 is available to stream on Disney + Hotstar. As democracies committed to a rules-based international order, the United Kingdom (UK) and India share common values and security interests, making us natural partners in defence. This is evident in the joint military exercises our forces undertake. Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations headquarters in New York City on September 26, 2024. (AFP) But why, Im often asked, do we not see the same level of partnership in defence manufacturing? Why does the UK, with 7% of the global arms export market, only hold a 2.5% share in India? At the same time, why doesnt India export more into the UK defence sector? The reality is that the UK has underperformed in Indias defence manufacturing sector for many years. However, this is rapidly changing through a revitalised, strategic approach from both governments. In 2015, a Defence and International Security Partnership (DISP) was established. This was followed by a 2019 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Defence Technology and Industrial Capacity Cooperation (DTICC) and, in 2021, a 2030 roadmap which positioned defence as one of five key pillars in the relationship. In 2022, the UK took the important step of adding India to countries eligible for Open General Export License (OGEL), to facilitate the export of niche and dual-use tech to India. Earlier this year, Indias defence minister visited the UK, resulting in a Letter of Arrangement (LoA) between Indias DRDO and the UKs DSTL to boost technology collaboration. Two months ago, the UKs foreign secretary announced in New Delhi the UK-India Technology Security Initiative (TSI), introducing a new approach for bilateral cooperation in critical technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), quantum, and semiconductors. This initiative, while not expressly defence-related, complements broader defence efforts. A delegation of UK defence companies recently visited New Delhi to engage with the Indian government and industry, participating in events like the UK-India Industry Day. The momentum is clearly building. Why? Because the potential for bilateral collaboration has never been greater. India is focused on indigenisation, building reliable defence technology supply chains, and providing its forces with the capabilities needed for modernisation. The country is progressing rapidly in developing its domestic defence industry. The UK-Indian Business Council (UKIBC) and its members appreciate Indias Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative and applaud reforms in the defence sector. We recognise Indias focus on co-creation, co-development, and manufacturing for global markets. India is not simply a market. UK companies are starting to see India as a strategic partner, integrated into their research, technology, and supply chains. UK firms stand to benefit from Indias cost-effective manufacturing, while India can accelerate its industrial development with support from mature defence markets like the UK. Ultimately, this partnership is about equipping Indias armed and paramilitary forces with the tools they need. A secure India leads to a more secure Asia-Pacific region, which is a key UK interest. Returning to the question: Why hasnt UK defence manufacturing grown more in India? A survey was recently released showing the UK's contributions to Indias defence sector, revealing extensive business-to-business activity. UK firms may be too modest about their impact, or we might need to tell our story better. British technology is integrated into many defence platforms, as in the HAL-Tejas which contains critical systems from the likes of Meggitt and Martin-Baker. The Implementation Agreement (IA) between Rolls Royce and GTRE to co-develop a new engine to power future Indian fighters augurs well for British involvement in major Indian platforms. At UKIBC, our aerospace & defence industry group includes over 20 UK companies with combined global revenues of $60 billion, all keen to expand their business with India. UK firms are working with Indian partners on future programmes like electric propulsion, indigenous aero engine design and complex weapons. Still, were only scratching the surface. Both governments and businesses need to seize the opportunity. In the UK, export control regulations do not always align with our trading goals. Where possible, the UK should ensure its export licensing rules enable the governments ambitions for a robust defence manufacturing and technology partnership with India. In India, adjustments to the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) 2020 could substantially increase Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and job creation. This would also enhance indigenous capability by bringing foreign technology into domestic programmes, boost the Strategic Partnership Model, and help India close the capability gap with China faster. For example, refining the grading of indigenous content and addressing FDI inconsistencies between procurement programmes would help ensure a level playing field for foreign and Indian firms, encouraging more foreign companies to manufacture in India for global markets, as they do in other sectors. Despite geopolitical challenges, global defence firms are thriving worldwide, and while Indias defence market isnt yet plug and play for international majors, significant progress has been made. Still, our members want both governments to be bolder in their approach. We need a plan to connect Indias flourishing defence start-up ecosystem with the UK. Establishing an accelerator programme for high-growth UK firms in India could drive more tech collaboration and joint ventures. At the same time, India could consider allowing 100% automatic FDI in defence, with national security exclusions and contract clauses to ensure supply during conflicts. We should explore a UK-India UAV programme to reduce reliance on Chinese components. The UK could sponsor more chairs at Indian think tanks to deepen understanding of Indias defence ecosystem. Additionally, we should explore ways for the UK and India to jointly provide defence equipment to third markets in the region. UK firms are already active across Indias defence market, but we must communicate this more effectively. Even so, there is much more the two countries can do together, enabled by the right reforms on both sides, to secure a bright future in defence manufacturing. This article is authored by Richard McCallum, Group CEO, UK-India Business Council. Age is just a number- and Divya Dutta swears by the saying. Having turned 47 on September 25, she quips that another number being added to her age doesnt bother her anymore. Divya Dutta Earlier it used to play on my mind, now it doesnt. I feel the same. I met my friends recently in Lucknow while shooting for my next project, and they said I look the same. But more importantly, I feel the same- a child at heart. That exuberance, child like enthusiasm for life always remains intact. I guess that number cliche used to annoy me, admits Dutta, who has her kitty full of projects. She will be a part of the second season of Bandish Bandits and the Vicky Kaushal-starrer Chhava later this year. Also read: National Book Lovers Day | Divya Dutta, Aahana Kumra, Abhishek Banerjee; celebs reveal how reading helps them unwind She made it a point to be with her family on her special day- which is why she scheduled a professional commitment in Mumbai on her birthday. She laughs, I flew in just for a day to be with everyone, and came back the same night to Lucknow. Normally it is me who plans a party, I threw one this time too. I have not been at home for three months, so my family looked into it. The good thing about being in Lucknow is that I have a lot of friends, so the atmosphere is nice. When I am immersed in work, it doesnt really feel much. As for her birthday present, she laughs, I gift myself all the time. If I see and like something, I feel I deserve it. Its beautiful to pamper yourself sometimes. Jumping from one web show to another, you find ways to do it, and rejuvenate yourself whichever way possible. For sometime now, rumour mills have been abuzz with news of a possible collaboration between filmmaker Prasanth Varma and Tamil star Karthi. However, fans may need to be patient, as this director-actor duo is not set to join forces just yet. In an exclusive conversation with us, while Varma confirmed that he has pitched a script to the Ponniyin Selvan actor, he also mentioned that their busy schedules will make an immediate collaboration unlikely. Prasanth Varma says Karthi has liked a script. "We have met and discussed something but nothing will happen immediately. I have 2-3 films in the pipeline and he also has a couple of projects. We might collaborate on something later. We will have to wait until something materializes," he states. Also Read: Ranveer Singh, Prasanth Varma confirm shelving Rakshas: Not the ideal time for this project When asked if he has a character in mind for Karthi, Varma reveals, "We have already pitched a story to him and he liked it. But he needs to wrap up his current commitments. Will figure out the dates then and see how things unfold." On a separate note, Varmas latest film, HanuMan, has proven to be a blockbuster, starring Teja Sajja in the lead role. Following its success, the filmmaker has announced a sequel titled Jai Hanuman, promising significant updates next month. "With Jai Hanuman, everything will be announced next month. The pre-production work has been underway for last few months. I am just waiting to put it all together, and we will announce everything next month," he shares. HanuMan has emerged as a pan-India blockbuster, grossing 238 crores domestically. With such box-office numbers, expectations for the sequel are high. However, Varma remains unfazed by the pressure. "Irrespective of the pressure, I will try to do a better film than my previous film. So there is no pressure. It's actually a privilege," he concludes. The rise in consumption of OTT content in India has given birth to an interesting trend adaptations. Not only are foreign web shows being adapted for Indian audiences, Indian productions are being adapted into different regional languages. Case in point: Tamil and Telugu versions of the Hindi web series Panchayat, were announced earlier this year. The Night Manager and Duranga Audiences have an ever-increasing content appetite for diverse storytelling and high production values Manish Kalra, chief business officer at ZEE5, says: The success of titles like Gyaarah Gyaarah, Duranga and more show that the creative ecosystem is perfecting the art of adapting to Indian viewers pallettes. Not a copy but a reimagination While it is certainly not novel, blending of global themes and local nuances brings fresh perspectives in the Indian OTT space. As director Umesh Bist, who helmed Gyaarah Gyaarah (an adaptation of the Korean drama Signal), puts it, When you know the original series has worked well, its easy to sell your idea to the producers and OTT platforms. If it has worked in one language, then it might resonate across different cultures. Also Read: OTT releases to watch this week: Love Sitara, Gyeongseong Creature, Saripodhaa Sanivaaram and more Actor Tillotama Shome, who is a part of The Night Manager an adaptation of a British series of the same name says adaptations are so much more than just remaking a show in a different language.It is not a cheap copy, its a reimagination, she opines, adding, Adapting a show may involve altering plotlines, characters or settings to suit the new context; it has to be faithful to the source material, but also transformative. Something for everyone Actor Gaurav Arora, who played Fareed Mir in Tanaav, a remake of the Israeli series Fauda, credits OTT platforms for bringing new concepts to their audiences. I believe that there is something for every set of audience. After doing Tanaav, I realised that a big chunk of the audience wasnt even aware of Fauda. A lot of people are not aware of the content across the world, so the OTT medium really helps in doing so with web series adaptations, the actor reflects. Actor-dancer Mukti Mohan agrees and adds that adaptations allow for more characters and plot points to be developed. My character (in Gyaarah Gyaarah) hardly appeared in the Korean show, but in the Indian adaptation, her arc was defined differently and she got a fitting ending, she shares. Gaurav Arora in Tanaav Also Read: Taaza Khabar season 2 review: Nothing fresh about this Bhuvan Bam show which tests your patience What clicks and what doesnt? Trade expert and producer Girish Johar suggests that audiences might click with a show especially if they are aware of its predecessors prior success. The story has already established itself among the audience, hence people believe it would be good. Once it resonates with local culture, it becomes a little bit more relatable, he elaborates. Interestingly, many adaptations have been reinterpretations of popular thriller shows. Ask if the genre matters and Bist explains, It is not about adaptations, since the thriller genre is generally more popular on OTT. A successful adaptation is a matter of masterful reimagination and not just the genres. The longer format also allows for a deep dive (into the plot and characters), Shome ends. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia on Friday called municipal commissioner Ashwani Kumars election meeting notice for the vacant Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) standing committee seat illegal and said they would stay away from the process. He argued a bureaucrat cannot preside over the meeting of the elected corporation. AAP leader Manish Sisodia. (X) Sisodia likened Kumar to Anil Masih, the returning officer who was caught on camera defacing ballots cast in Chandigarh mayoral polls on January 30 that helped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win the election. The Supreme Court in February overturned the mayoral polls results and declared the AAP candidate the winner Delhi BJP chief Virender Sachdeva said that the AAP has a majority in the MCD but it was running away from the election to the vacant seat. He added that AAP was responsible for the murder of democracy as key panels had not been formed over 21 months after the MCD polls. AAP, Arvind Kejriwal, and Manish Sisodia are murdering the democracy in MCD. You won the election...you have the majority still you are not letting the MCD elections take place. From the appointment of aldermen, zonal committee election, and the standing committee, courts have been forced to intervene to help MCD operate. Why are you running away from elections? They do not even trust their councillors, Sachdeva said. On Thursday, an impasse over the election for the last standing committee member could not be resolved despite an eight-hour-long stand-off, three adjournments, protests, and lieutenant governor VK Saxenas intervention. AAP objected to an order from the municipal secretariat disallowing mobile phones inside the chamber. Saxena invoked the seldom-used Delhi Municipal Corporation Act Section 487 directing that elections be completed by Thursday. He said deputy mayor Aaley Iqbal may be requested to preside over the meeting for the conduct of the election in case mayor Shelly Oberoi was unavailable or unwilling to do so. Saxena allowed the senior-most member to discharge the function in case both were unwilling or unavailable. The municipal commissioner late on Thursday submitted a report to Saxena saying Oberoi had again refused to preside over the election. Iqbal and seniormost councillor Mukesh Goel (AAP) did not respond. Around midnight, Saxena ordered that the election for the standing committee seat be held at 1pm on Friday while directing additional commissioner Jitender Yadav to preside over it. Sisodia said Saxena ordered MCD commissioner to hold elections and the whole night the BJP councillors were present there, while those of AAP and Congress were absent. Now, they want to conduct the election by 1pm under the supervision of additional commissioner of MCD. What Masih did in the Chandigarh mayoral elections, the same is being done. MCD commissioner is like Masih. The standing committee is a key panel that controls MCDs purse. It has been at the centre of a political and legal tussle between the BJP and AAP for almost two years. Out of 18 standing committee members, 12 are elected through zonal wards committees. The House of councillors elects the remaining six directly. The BJP has nine members in the standing committee and the AAP eight. The seat was left vacant when the BJP councillor Kamaljeet Sehrawat resigned after winning Lok Sabha polls. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday announced his support for India's bid for a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) during the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, following a similar endorsement from French President Emmanuel Macron. UK PM Keir Starmer announced his support for India's bid for a permanent seat at the UNSC during the 79th session of the UN General Assembly on Thursday. Speaking at the UN General Assembly in New York, Keir Starmer said, The Security Council has to change to become a more representative body, willing to act not paralysed by politics. He added, We want to see permanent African representation on the Council, Brazil, India, Japan and Germany as permanent members, and more seats for elected members as well. India has been leading the charge at the UN for urgent, long-overdue reforms of the Security Council, asserting that it rightfully deserves a permanent seat at the UN's high table. India contends that the 15-member council, established in 1945, is outdated and fails to represent the current geopolitical landscape of the 21st century. India's most recent term at the UN high table was as a non-permanent member from 2021 to 2022. There is an increasing call to expand the number of permanent members to better reflect the realities of today's global dynamics. French President Macron's bid for India's permanent membership in UNSC Emmanuel Macron has voiced his support for India's bid for permanent membership in a reformed United Nations Security Council while advocating for the expansion of this influential UN body. "We have a Security Council that is blocked...Lets make the UN more efficient. We have to make it more representative," Macron stated during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday. "That's why," he continued, "France is in favour of the Security Council being expanded. Germany, Japan, India, and Brazil should be permanent members, as well as two countries that Africa will decide to represent it." Macron's remarks came days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address to the 'Summit of the Future' on Sunday emphasised that for global peace and development, reforms in institutions are essential, underlining that reform is the key to relevance. Addressing the Summit, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also warned the 15-nation UNSC, which he described as outdated and whose authority is eroding, will eventually lose all credibility unless its composition and working methods are reformed. UNSC members The United Nations Security Council is made up of 15 members: five permanent members with veto power (the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom) and 10 non-permanent members who serve two-year terms. The primary functions of the Council include investigating conflicts, establishing peacekeeping operations, and imposing sanctions when necessary. It plays a vital role in tackling global crises and conflicts, making it an essential entity in international diplomacy. (With PTI inputs) YSRCP chief YS Jagan Mohan Reddy is likely to be issued a notice by the police to not defy prohibitory orders ahead of his visit to the Venkateswara Swamy temple at Tirumala Hills on Friday, reported news agency PTI. YSRCP chief Jagan Mohan Reddy is likely to be issued a notice by the police to not defy prohibitory orders ahead of his visit to the Tirupati temple(HT_PRINT) Several members of the party were issued notices by the district police to not violate section 30 of the Police Act. Section 30 regulates public assemblies and processions and has been enforced near the Tirupati temple after controversy emerged surrounding the alleged use of beef tallow in the renowned Tirupati laddus. A senior police official told PTI that the police may issue a notice to Jagan Mohan Reddy after he lands at Renigunta Airport as well, due to messages being spread online asking party members to gather at locations in Tirupati as a show of solidarity. The police official told PTI, "We have noticed several postings on social media platforms asking people to gather at certain places in Tirupati. The notices are nothing but cautioning them not to come and defy orders." Former chief minister Reddy has planned a visit to the Tirupati temple as part of statewide rituals conducted by his party to atone for the sin committed by chief minister Chandrababu Naidu for alleging that the previous YSCRP government had used impure ingredients in the Tirupati laddus. Former chairman of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), B Karunakar Reddy, said he and several other party leaders had been issued notices by the police but he was entitled to visit the temple with seven members. "Some of our leaders were given notices at midnight not to come out. It is nothing but madness if the officials ask Jagan Mohan Reddy to give a declaration, because he offered silk robes to Lord Venkateswara Swamy several times during festivals," the former chairman of TTD told PTI. YSRCP general secretary Gadikota Srikanth Reddy said that leaders of the party in Rayachoti in Annamayya District were also warned to not venture out. The YSRCP chief's visit to the temple to offer prayers has been embroiled in controversy due to the ruling NDA government's demand that he declare his faith before entering the temple. A former bureaucrat said, according to rules, foreigners and non-Hindus have to declare their faith in the presiding deity before they can enter the shrine. Jagan Mohan Reddy is expected to depart from Gannavaram Airport for Renigunta at 4 pm today and reach Tirumala by 7 pm. On Saturday, at 10:20 am he will leave to offer prayers to Lord Venkateswara at Tirumala. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, echoing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's words, attacked the previous Congress government in Haryana, alleging that dealers, dalaals and damaad used to rule the state before the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came into power. Home Minister Amit Shah addresses a public meeting ahead of Haryana Assembly elections, in Rewari (PTI Photo)(PTI) He also highlighted the efforts and initiatives of the BJP government in Haryana in a poll rally on Friday, ahead of the state assembly elections. Amit Shah criticised the Congress regime in Haryana in the previous term, saying that it was marked with cuts, commission and corruption. The home minister said, The rule of dealers, dalals (brokers) and damads (sons-in-law) prevailed. Neither dealers nor brokers are left in the BJP government, there is no question of son-in-law. Addressing a rally in Rewari, further accused the Congress of lying to farmers in the name of MSP. Attacking Rahul Gandhi, Shah said that the Congress leader doesn't even know the difference between Rabi and Kharif crops. "Some NGO has recently told Rahul Gandhi that he will get votes by saying MSP. Rahul Baba, do you know the full form of MSP? Do you know which are the Kharif and Rabi crops? Congress governments running across the country, stop lying to the farmers in the name of MSP. The BJP government of Haryana is buying 24 crops from farmers at MSP. Congress leaders in Haryana should tell us once which government of yours in the country bought 24 crops at MSP?" Shah added. Shah attacked Rahul Gandhi for his remarks on reservation and SC/ST quota during his visit to the United States. "Rahul Baba goes abroad and says that we will end the reservation of ST-SC-OBC communities. They used to accuse us of ending reservation and went to America and said in English that we will end reservation. Rahul Baba, how will you end it, the government is ours and I tell you that as long as there is even one BJP MP in the Parliament, you cannot end the reservation," the union minister said. The Haryana assembly election will take place in a single phase on October 5, and the results will be declared on October 8. (With inputs from ANI) Badlapur sexual assault case: The Bombay high court on Friday granted an urgent hearing to the father of Akshay Shinde, the accused in the Badlapur minors' sexual assault case who was shot down by the Thane Police, in an alleged fake encounter case, Live Law reported. Akshay Shinde was accused of sexually assaulting two minor girls at a school in Badlapur town of Thane district. The father of the Badlapur sexual assault accused has moved an application before the Bombay high court against the chief officer of the Ambernath municipal council seeking land for his son's burial. A bench of Justice Revati Mohite Dere and Justice MM Sathaye will hear the matter at 1pm, Bar and Bench reported. Family members of Akshay Shinde are also demanding security for his last rites. Amar Shinde, Akshay's uncle, addressed media personnel on Thursday, stating that the family has yet to determine a burial site. He emphasised the need for police protection during the last rites, citing threats to the lives of Akshay Shinde's parents and their lawyer. Akshay Shinde's lawyer, Amit Katarnavre told news agency PTI the 24-year-old had previously expressed a desire to be buried rather than cremated. On Wednesday, Akshay Shinde's father informed the Bombay high court that the family was ready to claim his body but was struggling to find a burial site. The public prosecutor assured the court that a deputy commissioner of police from the Thane crime branch would assist the family in making necessary arrangements. Hearing the petition filed by Akshay's father, the Bombay high court expressed concerns regarding the police shooting, suggesting that the incident could have been avoided, and stressed the need for a fair and impartial investigation. A division bench, comprising Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Prithviraj Chavan, raised critical questions about the circumstances surrounding the shootout and the police's handling of the situation. In his petition, Akshay's father challenged the police's assertion that Akshay had fired upon an officer while being transported for questioning, leading to his death in retaliatory fire. The petition alleged that he was killed in a fake encounter and called for an investigation into the incident. Akshay Shinde was arrested sexually assaulting 2 kindergarten girls Akshay Shinde was arrested last month for allegedly sexually assaulting two kindergarten girls at a Badlapur school. He was shot and killed on Monday evening while being taken to Badlapur for further investigation. Advocate Katarnavre, meanwhile, criticised the lack of transparency regarding the charge sheet filed against Akshay, stating that no copy has been provided to the family. "One will come to know what was his role in the crime only from the charge sheet. How did the government decide he is the culprit? (With inputs from agencies) CHINO, Calif.Inclusivity is a trending topic in many industries, and the sex toy industry is no exception. According to pleasure product company Honey Play Box, in the past, brands that traditionally catered to heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied people may have left gender-fluid and disabled individuals feeling excluded. But times have changed. A 2021 LGBTQ+ Market Insights survey showed 48 percent of gender-fluid individuals prefer brands showcasing diversity, while 62 percent are dissatisfied with limited choices in the sex toy market, Honey Play Box said. In an effort to increase inclusivity for diverse consumer communities and tastes, the company offers several gender-neutral color options including green, orange, white and black, in its Terri, Kai2, and Scioness model adult toys, among others. Honey Play Box multi-use toys also have been designed to cater to various preferences and body types, with different sizes to fit individual needs. Voice-activated toys (operated with the Honey Play Box app) are more easily accessible for customers with limited mobility. Honey Play Box maintains a commitment to increased inclusivity, with body and gender positivity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic diversity as important considerations for product development and design. The company welcomes feedback and collaboration with communities and individuals, to uphold standards for inclusivity. Visit Honey Play Box for more information. A Bangladeshi porn star named Riya Barde was among eight women who were arrested in separate cases of staying illegally in India using fake documents, according to media reports. Seven of these women were arrested from Navi Mumbai while Riya Barde was arrested from Ambernath City in Thane. Bangladesh adult film actress Riya Barde (Facebook) Riya Barde, also known as Arohi Barde, is an adult film actress from Bangladesh, reported NDTV. Acting on a tip, a team from the NRI police station raided a residential premises at Karave village in Navi Mumbai on Tuesday evening and apprehended the women staying in two rooms there, reported PTI. The accused women, who were working as domestic help, had snuck into India illegally and were living in the village without valid documents. In a separate case, a woman was arrested by the Hill Line Police from Ambernath after a tip suggested that she was living there with bogus documents. The accused was identified as Riya Arvind Barde, and she was also allegedly involved in a forgery and cheating case. According to the police reports, over a year ago, they received a complaint and subsequently questioned Riya Barde about her credentials to verify her status as an Indian citizen. Investigation revealed the accused conspired to obtain a school transfer certificate from Bangladesh for one of her accomplices and a birth certificate from North 24 Parganas district in West Bengal. Using these documents, they secured education credentials and passports for the other accused, the police said. Riya Barde's documents were eventually sent for verification where it came to light that her birth certificate, school leaving certificate, and passport had three different places of birth listed North 24 Parganas, Hooghly (both in West Bengal) and Achalpur in Maharashtra's Amravati district. A resident from Amravati allegedly forged the documents for Riya and three of her associates to help her stay in India illegally. A search is currently underway for four other accused in the case. (With inputs from PTI) Bengaluru murder case: The striking similarities between the murders of Shraddha Walkar in Delhi and Mahalakshmi in Bengaluru have raised police suspicions that the prime accused, Mukti Ranjan Roy, might have been influenced by the Walkar case after watching videos on social media that reenacted the Delhi crime, News18 reported. Mahalakshmi's body, cut into 59 pieces, was stuffed in a refrigerator, the police said. Shraddha Walkar, who was in a live-in relationship with the accused Aaftab Amin Poonawala, was allegedly strangled by Poonawala on May 18, 2022. According to the 6,629-page chargesheet filed by Delhi Police in January last year, Aaftab Poonawala allegedly dismembered her body, kept it in a fridge, and disposed the pieces in desolate places across the city over several days to avoid getting caught. The body parts were discovered later. The body of Mahalakshmi, 29, was chopped into 59 pieces with her remains stuffed in a fridge for 18 days bears resemblance to the case of Shraddha Walkar. The accused, identified as Muktiranjan Pratap Ray (31), was found dead under the Dhusuri Police Station limits in Bhadrak district of Odisha. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) Shekhar H Tekkannavar said in Bengaluru that the man was found hanging from a tree on Wednesday morning. In a purported suicide note found from the spot, he has confessed to the crime, according to Odisha police. According to police in Bengaluru, the suspect and the woman were working in a garment shop where they met and become friends. The two were in a relationship. Mahalakshmi was allegedly pressuring him to marry her. This led to constant arguments between them and led to an altercation. Apparently irked over this, the accused, who is allegedly very short-tempered, killed Mahalakshmi and later dismembered her body, police said, citing preliminary investigation. News18 reported that Mukti Ranjan Pratap Roy spent the entire night, after the murder, with Mahalakshmi's body, contemplating how to dispose of it. The report also suggested that he may have drawn inspiration from the Shraddha Walkar case, leading him to dismember the body with a sharp cleaver knife, stuff it in the fridge, and flee the crime scene. Investigations indicated that the murder occurred between September 3 and 4. More details on what led to the murder Mukti Ranjan Pratap Roy, a 31-year-old man from Odisha, was identified as a suspect in the murder of Mahalakshmi, whose body was discovered on September 21. Mukti Ranjan and Mahalakshmi were reportedly involved in a tumultuous relationship for nearly six months, frequently engaging in arguments and physical fights, with some disputes spilling out into the street just outside her home in Vyalikaval, according to local police sources cited by News18. Complaints about their altercations were filed at the Malleshwaram police station, and, as an official explained, attempts were made to resolve the issues amicably. He had discussed her aggressive behaviour and the photographs on her mobile phone with his younger brother, Smriti Ranjan Roy, who resided in Bengaluru. On the night of September 3, Mukti Ranjan allegedly went to Mahalakshmi's home, where they had yet another argument, triggered by her pressure for him to marry her. Mahalakshmi was previously married to Hemanth and had a young daughter from that marriage. The couple had separated in September 2023 after suspicions arose regarding her affair with a man named Ashraf, whom her husband cited as the reason for their breakup in his police statement. Mukti Ranjan, aware of her previous marriage, also suspected her of having other affairs and declined to marry her. He had previously seen pictures of other men on Mahalakshmis phone, which upset him. Police say Mahalakshmi was known to be hot-tempered According to the police, Mahalakshmi was known to have a hot-tempered personality, and there had been complaints of physical assaults from both sides filed with the local authorities. A similar case was registered by her estranged husband, Hemanth, at the Nelamangala police station, where he reported that she had bitten him during an argument and demanded money, according to investigators on the case. On that tragic night, following a heated argument, Mukti Ranjan Roy reportedly lost his temper. After assaulting Mahalakshmi, which led to her death, a furious Mukti Ranjan allegedly remained with her body throughout the night, contemplating how to dispose of it. The police suspect that it was during this time that he watched videos on methods for body disposal. Mukti Ranjan purchased a knife to cut Mahalakshmi's body On September 4 at 11 am, CCTV footage confirmed that Mukti Ranjan Roy visited a utensil shop in Malleshwaram and purchased a cleaver knife, according to the News18 report. We have footage of the accused entering the shop, and later evidence indicated that the accused threw away an item, which was later discovered to be the knifes cover, a police source was quoted as saying. After committing the heinous crime, Mukti Ranjan turned off his phone and went into hiding. His younger brother, Smriti Ranjan, who lives in Hebbagodi near Electronic City, attempted to reach him but found his phone switched off. A few days later, when Mukti Ranjan turned his phone back on, Smriti Ranjan inquired why he had been unreachable. This is when Mukti Ranjan Roy confessed to his brother that he had committed murder. He asked him to immediately vacate the room where he was staying. He explained that he was very upset with the way Mahalakshmi treated him. He also complained to him about their constant fights and that her violent behaviour had frustrated him, leading to her murder, the investigating officer said. Mukti Ranjan instructed his brother to flee the area, warning him that the police would also pursue him. Smriti Ranjan later confessed to the police that Mukti Ranjan even borrowed money from him after admitting to the murder, stating he was heading to their hometown in Odisha to evade law enforcement. The police traced Mukti Ranjans mobile phone to West Bengal, but it was switched off. After further technical analysis, it was discovered that his number was active in Odisha, prompting the Bengaluru Police to send three teams to locate and apprehend him. Technical data, scientific analysis, and CCTV images helped us track the prime suspect in this case. Based on the enquiry of Mukti Ranjans brother, residing in Bengaluru, we found that Mukti Ranjan had confessed to murder before him. Further, Mukti Ranjan had confessed to killing Mahalakshmi in his suicide note, which was found near his body. We will continue our investigation after receiving more details from our teams and our counterparts in Odisha, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) Shekhar HT. Muktiranjan committed suicide On Wednesday, September 25, Mukti Ranjan Roy was discovered hanging from a tree in Bhadrak, Odisha, near his hometown. Reports indicate that he had asked a friend in Balasore for a two-wheeler, assuring him he would return the vehicle later that day. In his handwritten suicide note, Mukti Ranjan confessed to murdering Mahalakshmi. I did it. I killed her. I was fed up with her. Her constant fights and demands for money were very frustrating, the note, written in Odia, read, according to police sources in Odisha. Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Central Bengaluru, Shekar H Tekkannavar, stated that the accused, Mukti Ranjan Roy, took his own life while being pursued by law enforcement. The police suspect that Mukti Ranjan Roy may have used the two-wheeler to escape to Odisha. They are currently working to identify who provided him with the vehicle and the route he took. Police teams from both Odisha and Karnataka are coordinating efforts to piece together the details of this heinous murder. The Indo-Russian joint venture BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd, which manufactures the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, has reserved a raft of vacancies for Agniveers, recruited under the Agnipath scheme, in various departments including technical, general administration and security, and it will also encourage its industry partners to hire such soldiers who are released after four years of service. The development comes days ahead of the assembly elections in Haryana where the scheme has met with stiff opposition. (Representative file photo) In an office order published on Thursday, BrahMos Aerospace said at least 15% of technical and general administration vacancies will be reserved for Agniveers who will also be recruited for at least 50% positions in security and other administrative functions at various centres where such tasks have been outsourced. The #Agniveers, with their rigorous, time-bound training in military tactics, technical proficiency, discipline & quick adaptability, will be the backbone of Indias growing defence & industrial sectors. As #India continues its journey towards becoming a developed nation by 2047, the contribution of #Agniveers in industries like ours will be pivotal in shaping the countrys future, the company said in a statement posted on X on Friday. Also Read:BJP promises MSP, jobs for ex-Agniveers in its Haryana manifesto The development comes days ahead of the assembly elections in Haryana where the scheme has met with stiff opposition. BrahMos Aerospace is the first major company to officially announce reservations for Agniveers across various functions. To be sure, the government has reserved 10% vacancies in the Central Armed Police Forces, and several defence public sector undertakings are likely to make similar amendments to their recruitment rules along with age relaxation to hire Agniveers. Some states, including Haryana and Rajasthan, have also announced reservations for Agniveers in their police forces. The recruitment model, a political hot button, was introduced two years ago with the stated objective of keeping the armed forces young and battle-ready. 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. Only young men and women aged between 17 and a half and 21 are eligible under the scheme that seeks to recruit soldiers for only four years, with a provision to retain 25% of them in regular service for another 15 years. Industry partners of BrahMos Aerospace will also be encouraged to recruit at least 15% Agniveers in their establishments, and the commercial supply orders will now include this in terms and conditions, the company said. #BrahMosAerospace strongly believes that #Agniveers, passed out from Govt. of Indias Agnipath Scheme, will not only fill the skill gap at grassroots level for the Indian defence industries, but also provide a dedicated workforce which places the Nation and the organisation at the forefront, the company said on X. BrahMos Aerospace has also made a provision for hiring Agniveers for at least 15% of contractual vacancies through third party contract staffing depending on their experience and qualification for technical roles. On September 5, HT reported the government has no plans to shake up the controversial Agnipath model that cuts tenure of personnel below officer rank and offers them fewer service benefits as making any changes to the scheme will go against the grain of what it seeks to achieve and endanger Indias security interests. 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 cost the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a chunk of votes across the region in the summers national elections. Soldiers recruited under the legacy system serve for about 20 years before they retire in their late 30s with pension and other benefits including health care and canteen facilities, which Agniveers released from service after four years are not entitled to. In July, Prime Minister Narendra Modi brushed aside criticism of the Agnipath model, saying it will boost combat effectiveness and increase the strength of the country. Speaking in Dras from a makeshift stage on a helipad named after a 22-year-old Kargil war hero killed in action, he said, 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. The PMs comments came at a function organised by the army to mark the 25th anniversary of victory in the Kargil war with Pakistan. A software firm employee whose 11-year-old son was allegedly strangled by his school principal and teachers in a botched occult ritual in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras demanded the death penalty for the childs killers on Friday and alleged that more people were involved in the gruesome crime that has shocked the state. The murder was committed on Sunday but came to light on Thursday when the five accused was arrested Sri Krishna Kushwaha, a software professional working with a private firm in Noida, shifted his family to his village in Hathras district during the pandemic. But dreams of a better future for his children were crushed this week, when the owner of the school, the manager, the principal, and two teachers abducted Kritarth from the hostel to perform a tantric ritual for the prosperity of the institution, and eventually killed him. We are not satisfied by the working out of the case because we believe that there were others involved too. A special investigation team should be created for proper investigation, said Kushwaha. Police have arrested five people, shut the school, and said the hostel was running without permission. They also said that a similar occult attempt was made with a previous student on the night of September 6,but was abandoned when the teenager made a ruckus. My only son was so brutally attacked that his collar bone was broken. The school authorities say the CCTV camera was non-functional on the day of the incident and no footage is being provided to us, Kushwaha said. Bulldozer action should be taken against such schools and the school authorities responsible should be publicly hanged, he added. The crime was committed on Sunday but came to light on Thursday when the five accused was arrested. Police said Jasodhan Singh, the owner of DL Public School where Kritarth was enrolled, believed in tantric rituals and asked his son Dinesh Baghel, the director of the school, to sacrifice a child for the prosperity of the school and his family. On September 22, the student was abducted from the schools hostel by teacher Ramprakash Solanki, Dinesh Baghel and school owner Jasodhan Singh. Jasodhan Singh believes in tantra practice and asked his son to sacrifice a child for the prosperity of school and his family, said Ashok Kumar Singh, additional superintendent of police (ASP), Hathras. They took the student to a secluded place for the sacrifice and began shaving his head, but the student woke up and began crying and struggling, the officer said. Kritarth was thrashed to silence him but when he resisted, and the accused allegedly stuffed a cloth into his mouth, said police. After that he was strangulated. Another teacher Veerpal Singh and school principal Laxman Singh were also present at the spot and were guarding the place, Ashok Kumar Singh added. The next morning, Kushwaha said he received a call from Baghel, saying that his son was running a fever. The school is located 6km from my village. I asked him to drop my son home so that I could get him treated. He said the boys condition was deteriorating and thus he was being taken to Agra, Kushwaha said. The family became suspicious, and intercepted the school van at Sadabad on the Agra-Hathras road. The body was found there. We found my sons body along with his school bag. Why would one carry a schoolbag for an ailing student? asked Kushwaha. He said he had no idea about the school management indulging in occult practices and said he also got his daughter admitted to the school this year. She did not stay at the hostel but went to the school in a cab with a few other girls, he said. Police said a location near a tube well was selected as the site of the ritual and added that a rope, keys and a religious text were found there. Police found material commonly associated to occult practices, said Hathras superintendent of police Nipun Agarwal. Police said the postmortem report of the student revealed that he was strangled. They have arrested Jasodhan Singh, Baghel, principal Laxman Singh and two teachers Ramprakash Solanki and Veerpal Singh, and lodged an FIR against them under Section 103 (1) (murder) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Police also said they found another student, a teenager, who said Baghel, an occult practitioner, had tried to abduct him in his sleep on September 6 but he raised an alarm, prompting teachers and other students to come to his rescue. DL Public School was shut on Friday after orders from the education department, which is probing how a school with permission to run classes only till the fifth standard was operating up to Class 8 with a hostel. The hostel had a strength of 35 students and there were 24 students there on the day of the incident, people familiar with the matter said. The two-storeyed school building had about 20 rooms where about 700 to 800 students studied. Agarwal said the basic education officer was in process of filing a complaint on the basis of which a case will be registered under relevant sections. The school, now closed, was not having the sanction to have residential facilities for students. The school is found violating various terms and conditions of affiliation. Legal action will be taken against the school management after the case is registered, Agarwal said. But for the inconsolable father, this meant little. He had put Kritarth in theschool, hoping that he will have a good educational foundation.For both children, he paid annual fees of 1 lakh. During Covid, my wife and children came back to our native village in Hathras. I had thought that later, I would get my son admitted to a better school in a bigger city, he said. In lower kindergarten, Kritarth was a day scholar but from upper kindergarten, he was accommodated in the hostel. It was better to have my family in the village, and financially easier for us. I would come to visit from Noida on weekends, he said. Now its all lost. Bhubaneswar: The Bhadrak district administration on Friday imposed prohibitory orders to ban meetings in Bhadrak town after a protest by a community against a Facebook post about their religious beliefs turned violent, leading to injuries to police personnel. Police said the prohibitory orders were imposed for an indefinite period within the jurisdiction of Purunabazar police station area of Bhadrak (Screengrab) A deputy superintendent of police (DSP) and a police sub inspector were injured in the stone pelting and a vehicle of the Bhadrak tehsildar was severely damaged, the order issued by sub divisional magistrate Monaj Patra said. Any congregation, gathering, meeting, agitation are strictly prohibited in the proceeding area and violation of the same shall be viewed seriously by the District Administration, the order signed by Patra said, invoking his powers under section 163 of Bharatiya Nyay Samhita. Police officials said the prohibitory orders were imposed for an indefinite period within the jurisdiction of Purunabazar police station area of Bhadrak. Police said over 600 people blocked the road at Santhia bridge connecting Kacheribazar-Purunabazar demanding arrest of the culprit. When they were taking out the rally, police detained them, but they forcibly tried to go ahead leading to lathicharge. Many persons in the rally then started throwing stones at the police personnel. Bhadrak is known to be a communally sensitive district. In April 2017, a communal violence spanning a couple of days in Bhadrak town over an inflammatory comment by a person of a particular community in a Facebook post led to arsoning in which 450 establishments, including shops, godowns and houses were destroyed and property worth 9 crore was lost. The communal violence led to imposition of curfew in the town for over a month, the longest in the State so far. Chief minister Siddaramaiah should resign from his position to avoid embarrassment to the party, senior leader and Karnataka Congress disciplinary committee president KB Koliwad said on Thursday, after a special court ordered a Lokayukta police probe against him in a site allotment case. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah speaks to the media, in Bengaluru on Thursday. (ANI) Speaking to the media, former speaker in the assembly, Koliwad said: I appeal to him personally. He has no allegations, has delivered pro-people programmes and has the support of 136 MLAs. Siddaramaiah should resign at this stage and help the party as the Congress would face embarrassment in the forthcoming elections. CM Siddaramaiah will come out clean in this case and he will become the CM yet again. Hence, he should not cause embarrassment to the party and resign. CM Siddaramaiah will have to step down and face the investigation, he added. He said that the opposition was misusing the opportunity, so Siddaramaiah should become the CM after he came out clean in the investigation.He will always have the support of 136 MLAs and the high command, he stated. On Siddaramaiahs decision that he wont resign, Koliwad said: In my opinion, CM Siddaramaiah should resign and face the investigation. After the probe, let him become the CM. He further stated that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal (Secular) or JD(S) were conspiring against Siddaramaiah and had got a complaint lodged by a private person.Now, the governor has given prosecution consent and the court has also ordered an investigation. There is no doubt that CM Siddaramaiah is an honest and efficient chief minister, his governance is pro-poor and for the backwards. There are no black marks on his political career and now he is facing charges because of the conspiracy of the Opposition parties, he said. Meanwhile, former minister and senior Congress MLA, RV Deshpande has stated that there is nothing wrong if Deputy CM and Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar wanted to become the CM. Shivakumar has done a good job. Siddaramaiah has the support of the high command and all our MLAs. The court has given orders for conducting an enquiry against him and let it be done. He has also welcomed the probe, he added. The CMs position is not vacant in the Congress and CM Siddaramaiah will continue in his position for five years. The Opposition is only discussing the resignation of the CM and the MUDA case. Nothing else is spoken about, he opined. In response to Koliwads remarks, State cabinet minister MB Patil said: Koliwad could be a senior leader, but Siddaramaiah is our chief minister and he will continue. There is no question of any resignation, as he has not done anything wrong. Now they (courts) have ordered a preliminary probe, but has he (Siddaramaiah) signed any of the files (related to MUDA)? We are confident that we will win the legal battle. I dont know why Koliwad has said that. The high command is watching everything, said MB Patil. Meanwhile, Shivakumar on Thursday said no party leader has staked a claim for the post of chief minister in the backdrop of the incumbent Siddaramaiah facing a Lokayukta probe in the MUDA sites allotment case. Leader of Opposition R Ashoka on Thursday evening said that even as Congress party workers are asking the CM to step down, the party doesnt dare to seek the resignation. Chief minister Siddaramaiahs actions are not only embarrassing for the Congress but for the entire state of Karnataka, he said. Senior leaders of his party, including former speaker KB Koliwad, have opined that Siddaramaiah should resign, as his actions have caused embarrassment to the party. Neither AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge nor KPCC president DK Shivakumar seem to have the courage to ask for his resignation, he added. Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Thursday referred to religious conversions as antithetical to both national values and constitutional principles, emphasising that a sugar-coated philosophy is being used to target vulnerable sections of society, news agency ANI reported. Vice president Jagdeep Dhankar (X/VPIndia) Addressing the inaugural ceremony of the Hindu Spiritual and Service Fair in Jaipur, Dhankhar said that the values enshrined in the Constitution reflect the essence of Sanatana Dharma, describing it as all-encompassing and the only path forward for humanity. He further highlighted that Hinduism advocates for humanity and stresses the protection of all living beings and nature. Sanatana never spreads poison; it channels its own powers. There is another indication that is very dangerous, one that could change the country's politics. This is happening through policy, institutionally, and in a planned conspiracy, and that is a religious conversion! he said. A sugar-coated philosophy is being sold. Where do they go? They target the vulnerable sections of society. They encroach more into our tribal communities. They lure them with temptation. I firmly believe that we are witnessing, very painfully, religious conversions in a structured manner as a policy, and this is antithetical to our values and constitutional principles. There is an urgent need to neutralize such sinister forces. We must remain vigilant and act swiftly, he added. Dhankar expresses concern over forces active in fragmenting India The Vice President voiced concern over forces working to divide India and stressed the importance of remaining vigilant. You cannot imagine the scale of those currently active in fragmenting India, he said. Reflecting on nationalism and patriotism, Dhankhar remarked, When I observe events in neighbouring countries and hear a narrative from someone who has held a constitutional post, been a central minister, and is a senior legal advocate, implying that this could happen in India as well, I askIs our democracy weak? He further said, The values of our Constitution beautifully encapsulate Sanatana Dharma. Sanatana Dharma is woven into the Preamble. Our constitutional values stem from Sanatana Dharma. The essence of Sanatana Dharma is mirrored in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution. It is all-inclusive and represents the only way forward for humanity. He also highlighted that India's ancient and rich cultural heritage upholds its inclusive nature, preserving its pure traditions and life-affirming values. Earlier on Sunday, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar emphasised Indias path toward Ram Rajya noting that the nations transformation under its current leadership demonstrates substantial progress. Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud on Thursday emphasised the enduring relevance of the Indian Constitution, attributing its longevity to its flexibility and sensitivity to the evolving needs of its people. Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud. (HT PHOTO) Delivering the MK Nambyar Memorial Lecture in New Delhi, the CJI highlighted that the Constitutions ongoing relevance is the result of a continuous dialogue between generations of citizens, each of whom interprets and applies constitutional principles to address contemporary challenges. The story of the Constitution is a constant dialogue between generations of citizens. This dialogue reflects a dynamic process where each era interprets and applies constitutional principles to contemporary challenges and aspirations. It highlights how the Constitution evolves through judicial interpretations, legislative amendments, and societal changes, adapting to new contexts while preserving fundamental rights and values. This continuous dialogue ensures that the Constitution remains relevant and responsive, reflecting the collective vision and aspirations of the people across different epochs, said the CJI. He spoke about the role of constitutional visionaries such as MK Nambyar, who was a pioneering constitutional lawyer associated with landmark cases, leaving a mark on the interpretation of fundamental rights and the limits of parliamentary power. The CJI praised Nambyars contributions to Indias constitutional jurisprudence, particularly his landmark arguments in cases such as IC Golaknath and Kesavananda Bharati. The Golaknath judgment in 1967 held that Parliament cannot curtail the fundamental rights of citizens and that all amendments can be subject to judicial review. This case laid the basis for the basic structure doctrine formulated in the Kesavananda Bharati case in 1973. The 1973 ruling laid down that Parliament can amend any part of the Constitution but cannot tinker with its basic structure a check on the executive and the legislative powers of the government. With senior advocates KK Venugopal (Nambyars son and a former attorney general) and CS Vaidynathan in attendance, the CJI highlighted that Nambyars arguments went beyond strict adherence to the framers original intent, advocating instead for a more dynamic interpretation. The Constitution continues to be relevant because it is sensitive to the changing needs of its constituents, the CJI said, explaining how Nambyars approach marked a departure from originalism and helped shape Indias legal landscape. Justice Chandrachud stressed dialogue has kept the Constitution alive and responsive to the aspirations of a diverse nation. He cautioned against interpreting the Constitution with a rigid focus on the framers original intent. A conservative reading of the framers intent belies their foresight, he said. He added that the framers themselves did not intend to lock the provisions of our Constitution in place for eternity. The CJI said they rather envisioned the document as a framework that could evolve over time, acquiring greater insight and flexibility to meet the transformative needs of society. The CJI emphasised the indispensable role of lawyers in this ongoing constitutional dialogue. While judges interpret the Constitution, lawyers craft the interpretative frameworks that guide these decisions. The CJI urged young lawyers to follow Nambyars example and use every opportunity before the court to enrich the Constitution, ensuring its continued relevance for future generations. He hoped future lawyers will learn from his experience and view every opportunity before the Court as a platform to enrich the Constitution. Concluding his address, CJI Chandrachud said that constitutional interpretation must evolve with the times while preserving the core values that anchor Indias democratic framework. A thriving democratic order must account for each of them, encourage more assertion, creative interpretation, and engagement with our constitutional culture. He highlighted visionaries such as Nambyar showed that constitutional interpretation goes beyond text and original intent, blossoming in the lived realities of the people. KOCHI: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPM] on Friday snapped ties with LDF legislator PV Anvar following his sharp attacks on the Pinarayi Vijayan government over alleged inaction on his complaints against additional director general of police (law and order) MR Ajith Kumar and the chief ministers political secretary P Sasi. Nilambur MLA P V Anvar told reporters on Thursday that the chief minister had no right to remain Keralas home minister and was a total failure (PTI FILE PHOTO) CPM state secretary MV Govindan told reporters in Delhi that it was clear that the allegations made by the Nilambur lawmaker had not been made to strengthen the state government or to find solutions. They have not been raised with the right intentions. The reality is that his stand is part of the continuous attacks by right-wing forces and right-wing media to undermine the state government. The communist party has grown through continuous protests and agitations and Anvar claims to have the support of its cadres even though he has no experience working in the party. We cannot accept his stand against the party and will go to the people to clarify our position, Govindan said. CPM no longer has any ties with MLA PV Anvar. Since he doesnt have a primary membership of the party, we cannot take any action against him. His removal from the CPMs parliamentary grouping in the assembly is only technical and it will happen soon, the state secretary said. Anvar, a businessman and two-time Independent MLA backed by the CPI(M), mounted a stinging offensive against the chief minister on Thursday, claiming that as the states home minister, Vijayan had failed to rein in corrupt police officials and act against his political secretary, P Sasi. Anvar also claimed at his Press conference that the investigation announced following his complaints against the ADGP related to illegal felling of valuable trees, misappropriating wealth and links to gold smuggling gangs, were slow-moving and ineffective. The MLA also said he would approach the high court as the judiciary was the last hope. CM Pinarayi Vijayan, who is in Delhi to attend the partys Politbureau meeting, dismissed Anvars charges in a brief statement. I dismiss the allegations raised by Anvar against the party, LDF and the government. His allegations can only be seen as part of efforts to tarnish the LDF and the government. This stand does not affect the ongoing investigations (against the ADGP). The probes will continue truthfully and transparently. I will make a detailed statement later, he said. The Supreme Court on Friday set September 30 as the date to hear an appeal against a judicial order requiring Delhi chief minister Atishi and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Arvind Kejriwal to appear before a trial court on October 3 for criminal defamation proceedings. The high court had refused to quash the defamation proceedings against Kejriwal and Atishi. (PTI photo) This comes after the Delhi high court, on September 2, refused to quash the defamation proceedings against Kejriwal and Atishi. The proceedings stem from allegations made by the two leaders, allegedly accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of orchestrating the deletion of 3 million voters names, from specific communities, from the Delhi electoral rolls. The high court had also directed the AAP leaders to attend the trial court hearing scheduled for October 3. Also Read: Delhi assembly seating chart revised as Atishi replaces Kejriwal in seat no. 1 A Supreme Court bench, comprising justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti, deferred the hearing to September 30 after counsel for the complainant, BJPs Delhi Pradesh vice president Rajiv Babbar, claimed he was not informed about the listing of the case despite filing a caveat. A caveat ensures that no order is passed by the court without first hearing the party that filed it. We were treated unfairly by the Supreme Court registry. Despite our caveat, we were only informed last night, leaving us unprepared, senior counsel Sonia Mathur, representing Babbar, told the bench. In response, senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Kejriwal and Atishi, expressed no objection to the adjournment. As a result, the bench postponed the hearing to September 30. The high courts September 2 order deemed the statements by the AAP leaders defamatory, suggesting they were made to gain undue political mileage. The defamation complaint also named two other AAP leaders, Sushil Kumar Gupta and Manoj Kumar. The single-judge bench of the Delhi high court noted that the AAP leaders accusations implied that the ruling BJP engaged in corrupt practices by manipulating the voter rolls to remove names, which could influence public opinion and voters choices. It added that the remarks tarnished the BJPs reputation and undermined public trust in the party. Kejriwal and the other AAP leaders had challenged the trial courts decision, which upheld the summons issued by the magistrate court following Babbars complaint. Babbar contended that the AAP leaders damaged the BJPs reputation by falsely accusing it of directing the Election Commission to delete voters names, particularly from the Bania, Purvanchali and Muslim communities, during a December 2018 press conference. The AAP leaders sought to quash the magistrate courts March 15, 2019, order and the sessions courts January 28, 2020, order, labeling the complaint as politically motivated. They also argued that Babbar was not an aggrieved party. However, the high court dismissed these arguments, noting that the AAP leaders claims of good faith could only be established during trial. It emphasised that while citizens have a constitutional right to truthful information, political parties cannot exploit the media to make defamatory allegations against their opponents for political gain. The trial court hearing remains scheduled for October 3. BERLINEuropean adult content company Lustery has announced its commitment to producing AI-free content and has restructured contracts with performers to include protections against using AI-generated images in content. AI-generated deepfake porn is making headlines globally, Lustery said, citing a 2019 Sensity report that found 96 percent of AI-generated deepfakes were sexual and non-consensual, with 99 percent targeting women. The company has updated its performer contracts with a new clause ensuring that AI will not be used to create additional content or replace performers work without their consent. No new content will be created or distributed using performers likenesses without consent, the company said, emphasizing the new policy as a significant step toward safeguarding performer rights. In an age where AI services like ChatGPT are censoring adult and sex-related content, they reinforce control over people's freedom of sexual expression. By offering these services for free, they further entrench the notion that everything online should be freea dangerous gateway to piracy. Its crucial to support ethical adult content by paying for your porn, ensuring that real people are valued and not replaced by AI. Our freedom of sexual expression and the livelihoods of performers depend on it. Pornography is ethical while creating and sharing intimate images with AI without consent is not, said Paulita Pappel, founder at Lustery. The company also recently joined the AI regulation initiative Open (Mind) AI, to encourage dialogue with European technology regulators. Lustery said it strives to stay at the forefront of ethical innovation while upholding the rights and safety of performers and is committed to maintaining transparency and integrity in all aspects of its operations, to produce authentic, non-exploitative explicit content. For more information, visit the Lustery website. Violence erupted at Dehradun railway station on Thursday night as members of two communities clashed over an issue related to an interfaith relationship who were present there, reported The Indian Express. Dehradun police arrived at the scene after being informed of the communal unrest. (Photo representative purpose only) The young man and woman from Badaun, Uttar Pradesh, were at the railway station when members of the Hindu and Muslim community learned of their presence and showed up to confront them. Officials said the confrontation escalated with objects being thrown, stones pelted and damage caused to the parked trains. Dehradun senior superintendent of police (SSP), Ajay Singh told newspaper, As per what we know so far, a minor girl from Badaun came to Dehradun to meet some person here. There is already a missing persons report registered in Badaun. The police also informed the GRP (government railway police) based on the girls location and provided her details. The local police arrived at the scene after being informed of the communal unrest. Heavy police forces were deployed in the area in and around the railway station and SSP Ajay Singh arrived at the scene to get the situation under control. Police teams have been stationed near the railway station and were conducting foot patrols to maintain peace. The police were also reviewing CCTV camera footage to identify the members of both communities responsible for the violent clash. SSP Singh assured the crowd in the station that matters would be taken care of and urged them to go home. Senior police officials told The Indian Express, that a thorough investigation would be launched and those involved would be punished. The Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) will conduct its election on Friday, September 27, after the Delhi high court allowed the poll to go ahead under the condition that counting and declaration of results could take place after defaced public property on campus was restored. NSUI campaigns in North campus before DUSU elections (Photo by Vipin Kumar/ Hindustan Times) The Delhi high court expressed displeasure over the vandalism that had taken place on campus during the election campaigns and on Wednesday had warned the students' union and election authorities that polls would be deferred if action was not taken, reported news agency ANI. On Thursday, a bench of Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela gave permission for the elections to continue but expressed serious concern about the lack of regulations and transparency as candidates spent large amounts of money on campaigns. The next hearing on the matter has been scheduled for October 21. Earlier, in 2019, the court had disposed of a PIL by lawyer Prashant Manchanda seeking a complete ban on defacement of public property by the DUSU candidates. Also Read: Delhi HC allows DU students union polls but bars vote count till vandalism fixed The DUSU elections also faced controversy after Varun Choudhary, president of the Congress-linked National Students' Union of India (NSUI), claimed that people linked to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) had been appointed as electoral officers for the polls, reported news agency ANI. Amid questions being raised about the integrity of the polls and the lack of supervision by the university, Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS), the student wing of the ruling Aam Aadmi Party has bowed out of the race. Kamal Tiwari, party secretary of the CYSS stated that they have opted out of elections after facing setbacks in the Punjab University polls last year and would be focusing on spreading awareness about AAP's youth centric policies in Vidhan Sabha constituencies, reported The Indian Express. In the 2023 elections, which were conducted after three years due to the pandemic, Tushar Dedha from the ABVP won the post of president, with Abhi Dahiya from NSUI as vice-president. Aparajita from ABVP won the secretary post and Sachin Basla from the same party won the joint secretary post. The ABVP, NSUI and the AISA-SFI will be contesting against each other as 1,40,000 students vote in the elections in two phases. An 11-year-old boy studying in Class 2 was killed as a part of an alleged black magic human sacrificial ritual by the owners of his school to make the educational institute more prosperous in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras district last week. UP: Class 2 boy killed in human sacrifice for school's prosperity; 5 arrested(Representational image) According to the police, the boy, identified as Kritarth, was studying at DL Public School. The school's owner, Jasodhan Singh, who is said to believe in tantrik rituals, had asked his son (the school's director), Dinesh Baghel, to sacrifice a child for the prosperity of the school and his family, the police said. On September 23, the father-son duo, along with three other staff members, abducted the victim from the school's hostel and took him to a secluded place for the sacrifice, Ashok Kumar Singh, additional superintendent of police (ASP), Hathras, told news agency PTI. However, the boy woke up and began crying. Following this, the accused people strangulated the boy and killed him, the police said. According to the police, the accused told the child's parents that their son was being taken to a hospital in Baghel's car as he was not well. However, family members of the child stopped the car mid-way and found out about their son's death. They immediately informed the police. 5 people arrested The Uttar Pradesh Police has arrested five people in the case the school owner, Jasodhan Singh, director Dinesh Baghel, principal Laxman Singh, and two other teachers, Ramprakash Solanki and Veerpal Singh. An FIR has been registered against them under section 103 (1) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). In a similar incident, a mother-daughter duo was arrested in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar in May for killing two children - aged four and seven - as a part of a human sacrifice. According to the police, the accused performed the sacrificial rituals on the suggestion of a Tantrik to get rid of aatma (soul) residing in on of their bodies. Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) leader and former Haryana deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala speaks to Hindustan Times on a range of issues, including its split with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) earlier this year, the JJPs performance during the Lok Sabha elections and its preparations for the upcoming Haryana assembly polls. Jannayak Janta Party leader and former Haryana deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala. (ANI) How well is the JJP countering the anti-incumbency against the BJP? How are you placed for the assembly polls? We are at the same position from where we started in 2019. But we are also improving at a very fast rate day by day. Yes, there is a factor of anti-incumbency primarily because of the farmers agitation. But people also understand that the JJP did a lot for the farmers be it making hassle free payment for crop procurement in two days, buying 14 crops on minimum support price or increasing the crop damage compensation amount to 15,000 per acre and depositing it in the farmers accounts within 30 days of crop loss. We have delivered successfully. Do you think you and the JJP could have been a front runner for the assembly elections had you resigned during the farmers agitation against the three agricultural laws? Who knows what would have happened. Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Sukhbir Badals wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal resigned from the Union cabinet in protest against the laws. Where do they stand today? Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leader Abhay Singh Chautala also quit his assembly seat. Did he win the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat? No. It seems the public sentiment somewhere was that had I resigned in 2020, the BJP government would have fallen, which really did not happen in March this year. I was out of the government in March and Nayab Singh Saini continued as chief minister. The BJP broke ties with the JJP after four-and-half-years of coalition? What went wrong? We could not come to an understanding on the seat-sharing for the Lok Sabha elections. Thats why we parted ways and decided to contest on our own. Did the decision to snap ties with the BJP hurt the JJP badly in the Lok Sabha elections? There were two factors which influenced the 2024 Lok Sabha elections national issues and a fight between the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA). In the fight between NDA and INDIA, regional parties which did not partner with either of the two blocs failed to gain any momentum, except SAD, which won only one seat in Punjab. So, was this the reason that the JJP performed poorly, securing a mere 0.87% vote share in the Lok Sabha polls? Yes, the numbers went down. Look at the Lok Sabha election results for SAD in Punjab. They have never performed so badly. Their vote share decreased to 13%. However, the voting pattern will be entirely different in the upcoming assembly elections in Haryana. It wont be on the lines of the Lok Sabha polls. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which was part of the INDIA bloc during the Lok Sabha polls, is now contesting against the Congress in the assembly elections. The vote share which the AAP got in Kurukshetra was an outcome of the alliance where they had the Congresss support. What are the issues on which the JJP is contesting the assembly elections? The law and order situation in Haryana is a major issue. The state is in a complete mess as no one is scared of the police now. There has been a deterioration in the law and order in the last five months. There has been a large number of extortion cases, firing incidents, murders and rapes. No action has been taken. Chief minister Saini does not have any control over the home department. Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda says the JJP is the B-team of the BJP? How would you respond to this? Its an absurd argument. Every party and its cadre work for themselves. No party would work for another political party. Did we fight for the Congress in 2019? No. This time we have entered into an alliance with the Azad Samaj Party (ASP) and we will do well. Our target is to make maximum gains. What do you mean when you say the JJP holds the key (also the partys poll symbol) to the 2024 assembly elections? This time the JJP and the ASP combine will open the lock (to get to power). In 2019, we helped the BJP open the lock. But this time, we will form the government. Will you consider entering into a post-poll alliance with the BJP again? I think it is too early to say this. First, we should have the numbers. If the numbers are positive for us, we will form the government. Lets see who all support us. India and Bhutan have decided to expedite development of cross-border and connectivity infrastructure, including establishment of an integrated check post in Jaigaon-Phuentsholing and rail-links between Kokrajhar-Gelephu and Banarhat-Samatse, the commerce ministry said on Friday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Bhutans King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk. (File Photo) The decision was taken at the India-Bhutan Commerce Secretary Level Meeting (CSLM) in Thimphu, which was cochaired by commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal and his Bhutanese counterpart Dasho Tashi Wangmo, the ministry said in a statement. Barthwal is on a two-day official visit to Bhutan till September 28. They also discussed to open additional routes for import of areca nut to India through land customs stations (LCS) Hatisar and Darranga. The discussion involved additional point of entry in Darranga LCS for import of food items in India from Bhutan, the statement said. The government of India agreed to notify LCS at Samrang following upgradation of necessary infrastructure, it said. They also considered notifying LCS Jaigaon for import of scrap in India from Bhutan. The two partners discussed the establishment of haats along the India-Bhutan border, facilitation of movement of businesspersons, consideration of import of boulders from Bhutan to India and inclusion of three additional species of timber for import from Bhutan to India. Secretaries also touched upon issues of deploying personnel for phyto quarantine inspection services (PQIS) at LCS Darranga, and early operationalisation of agreement for recognition of official control exercised by Bhutan Food and Drug Authority (BFDA) by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), which was signed in March 2024. The two sides decided to expedite the finalisation of agreements between National Seed Centre, Bhutan and Brahmaputra Valley Fertilizer Corporation Limited, India for supply of fertilizers to Bhutan, the statement said. They held wide-ranging discussions on all aspects of the bilateral trade partnership, including measures to further strengthen cross-border infrastructure, enhance connectivity and facilitate trade between the two countries, the statement said. The two sides positively assessed the progress in bilateral trade, commerce, connectivity and investment partnership. They noted recent signing of bilateral MoU on general supply of petroleum, oil and lubricants (POL) and related products from India to Bhutan, it said. Other issues included an agreement for recognition of official control exercised by Bhutan Food and Drug Authority (BFDA) by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and finalisation of text of the MoU on establishment of rail-links between India and Bhutan. Both sides expressed satisfaction at bilateral cooperation in ensuring smooth supply of essential commodities to and from Bhutan, including potato, wheat, sugar, non-basmati rice, fertiliser, coal. India and Bhutan reaffirmed the commitment to further strengthen trade linkages, boost connectivity and facilitate cross-border movement of goods, services and people. The two sides also agreed to hold the next CSLM in India on a mutually convenient date. India on Friday "strongly" condemned the vandalism of the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan temple in Sacramento in US' California on September 24. The Consulate General of India in San Francisco said it has taken up the matter with local authorities to take immediate action against those responsible. On September 24, the BAPS temple was desecrated with the slogan Hindus go back!(Hindu American Foundation/X) In a statement on X, the CGI said The Consulate General of India, San Francisco strongly deplores the act of vandalism which took place on September 24th night at BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Sacramento, California. @cgisfo has taken up the matter with local authorities to take immediate action against those responsible. On September 24, the BAPS temple was desecrated with the slogan Hindus go back! according to a post on their X account, where they called out the anti-Hindu hate. This incident comes days after their temple in Melville, New York was also similarly vandalised. According to ABC10, authorities are investigating the vandalism, which also featured expletives about prime minister Narendra Modi and Indian external affairs minister Dr S Jaishankar. The Sacramento County Sheriff's Office said that the vandals had spray-painted graffiti on the building and damaged the water pipes. The sheriff's office is currently searching for a suspect, reported CBS. On September 17 days before prime minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US, the BAPS temple in Melville, New York was covered with offensive graffiti, and in July, a BAPS temple in Edmonton, Canada was vandalised as well. In a post on X, the Sacramento county sheriff stated that the vandalism is officially being investigated as a hate crime. Detectives from the Sacramento County Sheriffs Gang Suppression Unit, which investigates hate crimes in Sacramento County, responded to the scene and began their investigation. Allied State and Federal law enforcement agencies were also notified of the incident and will assist with the investigation, they said in their post. Former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after its candidate Sunder Singh won the last vacant seat of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) standing committee. BJP's Singh received 115 votes while Aam Aadmi Party candidate Nirmala Kumari did not receive any vote. The Congress and AAP had boycotted the election. With Singh's win, the BJP has 10 members in the panel while the ruling AAP has only eight. Former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.(PTI) According to rules only the mayor can convene a meeting of the MCD House but the lieutenant governor changed it and directed an additional commissioner of the civic body to do it, Kejriwal said in the Delhi assembly. "Is this election?" he posed and accused the BJP of resorting to "hooliganism". As per the rule, a notice has to be sent to every councillor 72 hours before the meeting, but it was not followed, PTI quoted the AAP convenor as saying. The seat had fallen vacant after BJP councillor Kamaljeet Sehrawat was elected as the Lok Sabha MP from West Delhi. Delhi mayor Shelly Oberoi in a press conference termed the election unconstitutional and declared that AAP councillors would not participate. MCD Commissioner Ashwani Kumar on Thursday had issued an order for conducting the Standing Committee member election on September 27 at 1 pm. The MCD order said that the election for the lone vacancy in the Standing Committee by the Corporation was scheduled for September 26 at 2:00 pm; whereas, the said election was not conducted and the meeting was adjourned to October 5 by the Mayor Shelly Oberoi. Elections free and fair: BJP's winning candidate After his election win, BJP's Sunder Singh said,"I thank the top leadership for having faith in me...AAP also had filed their nomination but they might not have had trust in their own councillors, they thought it was better to run away from the election." They were given opportunities multiple times...everybody was given time of 1 pm today but they did not show up...the Presiding Officer conducted the election free and fair...I won, Tanwar told ANI. This is the win of democracy...AAP knew they would lose the floor test so they left battleground. AAP is good at lying...they can go to court but the court always pulls them up, MCD House Leader of Opposition Raja Iqbal Singh told ANI. The Income Tax (IT) department on Thursday interrogated Kannada actor Darshan Thoogudeepa, who is currently lodged in Bellari prison, after 85 lakh was seized during the investigation of the murder of Renukaswamy, an official familiar with the matter said. A local court is set to hear Darshans bail plea, along with his associates, on Friday. Following the murder of Renukaswamy, a resident of Chitradurga, the Bengaluru police uncovered a large sum of money in connection with the crime and informed the IT Department (ANI) Following the murder of Renukaswamy, a resident of Chitradurga, the Bengaluru police uncovered a large sum of money in connection with the crime and informed the IT Department, leading to the latest developments. The IT officials visited Darshan in prison on Thursday, where they questioned him about the origins of 85 lakh that was seized during the investigation, said an officer in the know of the development. According to the police charge sheet, the actor had confessed to handing over 30 lakh to his co-accused, Pradosh, to facilitate the disposal of Renukaswamys body. The money was intended to cover expenses related to the crime, including the involvement of others who helped cover up his role. Darshan has said that the money was intended for the disposal of the body and other expenditures related to the crime, including paying those who would carry out the task, ensuring that his involvement remained hidden, a police official said. Police revealed that Darshans actions were part of a broader effort to obscure his connection to the murder. Three other accused, Raghavendra, Karthik, and Kesavamurthy, were allegedly paid 5 lakh each to remain silent about Darshans role. They were also promised that their legal expenses would be covered and that they would receive a larger sum at the conclusion of the trial, police said. The IT department has since registered a case against Darshan and received court approval to continue interrogating him in custody. Former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy cancelled his visit to the Tirumala temple after police issued notices to him and members of his party amid controversy over alleged usage of animal fat during preparation of Laddus being offered as Prasadam. Former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy During a press conference on Friday, Reddy criticised chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, accusing him and his Telugu Desam Party (TDP) of using Hinduism for political gain. He further claimed that the BJP was supporting Naidu instead of stopping him from engaging in dirty politics. "This is the first time in history that someone has been barred from visiting a temple," Jagan said, displaying the notices that were issued to his party members. He asserted that if any YSRCP members participated in the Tirumala programs, legal action would be taken against them, as per the notices. Jagan further added, The demon rule is continuing in the state. The government is trying to obstruct my upcoming visit to the Tirumala temple. Police have issued notices to YSRCP leaders across the state regarding the temple visit. The notice states that the visit to the Tirumala temple is not permitted, and the programme organized by YSRCP does not have the necessary approval. Consequently, leaders are not allowed to participate in that programme. Jagan on adulterated ghee controversy In the press conference, Jagan Reddy clarified that there has always been a robust procedure in place at the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) for testing ghee quality, which includes three rounds of tests. If any issues were found, the ghee tankers were always rejected and sent back, a practice followed both during the previous TTD administration and his own. He said that the same happened in July this year when tankers with adulterated ghee were rejected. Jagan also played a video of the TTD Executive Officer (EO) confirming that the ghee in question was adulterated with vegetable fat, not animal ghee, and was never used in laddu preparation. The company responsible was issued a show-cause notice, with steps taken to blacklist them. He further added that under Chandrababu Naidus regime from 2014 to 2019, around 14-15 ghee consignments were rejected due to quality issues. Similarly, between 2019 and 2024, 18 ghee tankers were rejected, emphasizing that this is a standard process. He stated, What Im saying is all based on facts. Jagan claimed that the first tanker arrived on June 12 after the new regime took over, with results declared on June 4. Between July 6 and July 12, four more tankers failed the tests and were rejected. On September 18, Chandrababu Naidu made allegations about animal fat in the ghee. On September 19, the TDP office released a report from the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) in Gujarat, and on September 20, the TTD EO reconfirmed that the ghee had not been used and the tanker was returned due to uncertainty in the reports. The company, which began supplying ghee on June 12, had two tankers rejected on July 15, and after the NDDB conducted confidential tests, further supplies from the company were stopped, and a show-cause notice was issued. He also talked about the prices of ghee, noting that even during the TDP regime in 2015, ghee was priced at 275, and in 2019 it was 325. Later, under the YSRCP regime, it was 320. He questioned where the difference in the rates was. Several times I visited Tirumala Jagan Reddy said that after his padayatra, he visited Lord Venkateswara by climbing the steps and only then returned home, dedicating five years to the journey. He emphasised, "My religion is humanity." He spoke of reading the Bible in private, while outwardly identifying as Hindu, and respecting Islam and Sikhism. He questioned, Do you understand the meaning of secularism? You ask about my religion, but will you only allow me into the temple if I declare it? He expressed concern that if a former Chief Minister faces such scrutiny, what about Dalits? Addressing the BJP, he asked, You claim to represent Hinduism, but why are you allowing the prestige of Lord Venkateswara and the sacred laddu to be degraded by false accusations? Why haven't you taken action? He concluded by challenging those who call themselves supporters of Hinduism to reconsider their stance, stating, Hinduism is about showing humanity. YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) chief YS Jagan Mohan Reddy announced on Friday the indefinite postponement of his visit to the revered Tirumala Venkateswara Temple, amid a growing controversy over the famous Tirupati Laddu. His decision follows increasing pressure from the ruling NDA allies in Andhra Pradesh, who demanded Reddy publicly declare his faith before entering the Hindu temple. Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu and ex-CM Jagan Mohan Reddy. Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, addressing the media, refuted Reddy's claims that he was being stopped from visiting the shrine. "No one stopped him from going to the temple," Naidu said, adding that all that was required was adherence to temple customs, including a declaration of faith for non-Hindu visitors. Also Read | Tirupati Laddu row: BJP says Jagan Mohan Reddy must declare faith before entering Tirumala temple The controversy comes on the heels of Naidus accusations last week that substandard ghee and animal fat were used in the iconic Tirupati Laddu during Reddy's tenure as chief minister. Reddy has strongly denied the allegations, asserting that the ghee in question was rejected by the temple's governing body, the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), and was never used in the preparation of the sacred Laddu Prasadam. In a press conference, Reddy said police had issued warnings to his party members, deterring them from accompanying him to the temple. "As someone who loves and respects Lord Venkateswara, I do not want to divert attention from the real issues, so I am postponing my visit," he said, without announcing a new date. Hours after Reddy's announcement, Naidu maintained that while traditions at the temple must be upheld, no one had issued Reddy any notices to prevent him from entering. The temple requires non-Hindu visitors to declare their faith in Lord Venkateswara before seeking darshan, a practice Reddy reportedly did not follow in previous visits. Naidu accused the YSRCP of attempting to rally supporters for Reddy's visit, leading police to impose restrictions. He dismissed Reddys allegations of a political agenda behind the temple restrictions, asserting that temple customs were sacred and must be respected by all visitors. "No one is greater than the traditions and customs of Tirumala," he insisted. Also Read | Tirupati Laddu row: Ram Temple chief priest calls for ban on outsourced prasad The dispute between the two leaders has deepened in the wake of the NDAs demand that Reddy declare his faith ahead of his planned visit, igniting tensions between the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the YSRCP. Reddy's two-day temple visit was originally scheduled to begin with his departure from Gannavaram Airport on Friday, with darshan at the temple on Saturday. SCO focuses on strengthening economic cooperation, enhancing connectivity: Pakistani foreign office Xinhua) 10:36, September 27, 2024 ISLAMABAD, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is focusing on strengthening economic cooperation and enhancing connectivity in the region and beyond, the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday. Commenting on the upcoming prime ministers' meeting of the SCO in Islamabad, spokesperson of Pakistan's Foreign Office Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said that subjects pertaining to the economy, trade, finance, investment, trade facilitation and economic collaboration, as mentioned in Astana Declaration, will be further elaborated. Highlighting joint building of China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as mentioned during the SCO Astana Summit, the spokesperson said that Pakistan has been supporting initiatives in the SCO that foster connectivity and establish new linkages among member states. "Pakistan fully supports the Belt and Road Initiative, which is also an important connectivity project for the region and Pakistan. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of the BRI, is critical for Pakistan's economic prosperity and development," she said. Launched in 2013, the CPEC is a corridor linking Gwadar Port in southwest Pakistan's Balochistan province with Kashgar in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which highlights energy, transport and industrial cooperation in the first phase, while in the new phase expands to the fields of agriculture and livelihood. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) A 12-member gang cornered a car on the national highway near Peechi in Kerala, kidnapping two persons and stealing over 2.5kg of gold ornaments on Thursday, News18 reported citing police officials. A 12 member gang cornered a car in Kerala, kidnapping 2 and stealing gold ornaments (Asianet/X) A video of the incident was caught on the dashcam and uploaded to social media. In the video, at least three SUVs are seen blocking the vehicle as the highway narrowed near a section of the flyover that was under construction. The gang members in the SUVS boxed on the car and kidnapped two men, who the police identified as Arun Sunny and Rojy Thomas. According to police, a complaint regarding the incident was filed on Wednesday, and an FIR was registered under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), as reported by PTI. The FIR states that the incident occurred on September 22, who were assaulted at first and robbed of 2.5 kg of jewelry valued at 1.84 crore. The two men were released later. The police is currently investigating the case. According to The Hindu, a special investigation team (SIT) has been formed to probe the matter as well. Another instance of a robbery took place in Thrissur as a five-member gang stole 65 lakh in cash from three different ATMs. They used a gas cutter to cut the cash tray and walked away with cash without any witnesses. CCTV cameras had also been painted over to prevent their indentification. However, the police told PTI that a nearby hotel had captured five men with covered faces going across the street towards a SBI ATM. A day after the main accused in the murder of a 29-year-old Bengaluru woman allegedly died by suicide near his village in Bhadrak district of Odisha, his family members alleged that the woman used to extort money and other valuables from him besides physically abusing him. Police personnel investigate after the dead body of a woman, cut into pieces, was found stored in a refrigerator, at Vyalikaval in Bengaluru on Saturday. (ANI Photo)(ANI) On Wednesday morning, body of the 31-year-old main accused in Mahalaxmi murder case, was found at the cremation ground in Bhadrak. Police alleged that the man, who worked with Mahalaxmi, had killed her on September 3 and later chopped the body into 59 pieces before stuffing them into a refrigerator in a one-bedroom apartment in Vyalikaval area of Bengaluru last week. According to police, Mahalakshmi had moved to Bengaluru nine months ago after a family dispute, leaving her husband. After moving to the city, she entered into a relationship with the man from Odisha. The suicide note in his diary revealed that he had strangulated Mahalaxmi on September 3 after an altercation and later chopped the body using an axe blade. On Thursday, the accuseds younger brother told reporters that after killing Mahalaxmi, his brother came to Berhampur and confessed to his crime. My brother was with me for last nine-ten days. After staying for three days with me he confessed to killing Mahalaxmi. He told me that she used to blackmail him and extorted money from him. He was forced to give her a golden ring, an expensive mobile phone as well as a necklace. She used to demand money from him as and when she wished and him got beaten up and arrested, he said. Over the last one and a half years, he was stressed over the fact that all his earnings were being taken away by Mahalaxmi leaving little for himself and his parents... He kept on telling that the woman has destroyed our family, the brother alleged. He wanted to marry her and was taking her on a bike to Kerala. However, she accused him of kidnapping and got him beaten up by the public. The public beat him up badly and handed him over to the police. He was also beaten by the cops and left after he gave 1,000 bribe. The girls brother along with his friends had also threatened to kill my brother. So, out of rage, he choked her. After realising that she had died, he tried to hang her to show it as suicide. However, he could not hang her and hence chopped it into pieces and put it in the fridge before fleeing to Odisha, he claimed. The brother further alleged that the Bengaluru police subjected him to torture to extract information about his brothers actions and interactions. He was then moved from Berhampur to various locations, including Balasore, Soro, and Bhadrak, and finally released in Bhubaneswar. I could not follow whatever they said due to their accented Hindi and that led to further torture, the brother claimed. Meanwhile, his mother said that her son was stressed when he arrived from Bengaluru at 10 pm on Tuesday. When I asked him why he was so tensed he told me that he had done something wrong. He revealed that he had killed the girl in Bengaluru who worked with him... He told me Mahalaxmi used to beat him and that he had to kill her to save himself, his mother claimed. Meanwhile, police in Bhadrak district said they have recovered the suicide note that said, I was fed up with her conduct. I fought with her over personal matters and Mahalaxmi assaulted me. Enraged by her act, I killed her. The Karnataka Lokayukta on Friday filed a first information report (FIR) against chief minister Siddaramaiah, his wife BM Parvathi and brother-in-law Mallikarjuna Swamy in connection with a land allotment case, compounding the problems for the embattled Congress leader who swept to power last year on an anti-corruption campaign. Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah and his wife has been named in the FIR filed by the Karnataka Lokayukta. (ANI) The case involves allegations of irregularities in land allotted to Siddaramaiahs wife, Parvathi, by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (Muda). It came on a day Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge rallied behind Siddaramaiah amid mounting calls for the CMs ouster. The FIR was filed following a direction to the Lokayukta by the special court in Bengaluru, said TJ Udesh, superintendent of Lokayukta Police in Mysuru, confirming the FIR, a copy of which is with HT. Siddaramaiah was named as the primary accused, followed by his wife Parvathi as the second accused, and Mallikarjuna Swamy as the third. Devaraju, who sold the land to Swamy, was listed as the fourth accused, along with others. The FIR invoked Section 120B (criminal conspiracy), Section 166 (disobeying the law with intent to cause injury), Section 403 (dishonest misappropriation of property), Section 406 (criminal breach of trust), and Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code. It also included charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act, the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, and the Karnataka Land Grabbing Prohibition Act. Troubles mount for Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah. Siddaramaiah is the second sitting chief minister of Karnataka to face an FIR. The Karnataka Lokayukta, founded in 1984, serves as the watchdog to address corruption and public complaints against state officials. Initially seen as a powerful entity in tackling corruption, its authority to investigate was taken away in 2016 and given to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), an agency controlled by the CMs office. However, in 2022, the Karnataka high court disbanded the ACB and reinstated the Lokayuktas authority, transferring all active cases back to it. Karnataka Upa Lokayukta justice B Veerappa (Retd) addressed the recent allegations against the institution on Friday, stating that the Lokayukta is carrying out its duties with integrity. We are doing our job. There is no question of changing our pattern. We have to go by the procedure... If false cases are filed, we can also prosecute them. Lokayukta is doing its job honestly, he said. The CM denied any wrongdoing and dismissed calls for his resignation, attributing the case to political moves orchestrated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Why should I tender my resignation? You have to tender a resignation only if you have done something wrong, right? When I have not done anything wrong, he said, addressing reporters at Mysuru airport. Kharge and the Congress rallied behind him. Their [BJPs] main aim is to defame the Congress party, it is not fair, there is no question of him [Siddaramaiah] resigning from the post, Kharge said. The Opposition in the state criticised his refusal to resign. If Siddaramaiah continues to argue, why should I resign even after all this?, it would render his 40 years of political life meaningless. I believe he wouldnt want to sink further in the eyes of the people, losing the remaining respect he has, said senior BJP leader R Ashoka. Responding to the development, Krishna said that he has approached the high court seeking a CBI probe into the matter. The Lokayukta has filed an FIR, but I have approached the high court for a CBI probe, so the matter is investigated without any prejudice, he said. The controversy revolves around land acquisition and compensation in Mysurus Devanur 3rd stage layout. The disputed land is a 3.16 acre plot, which Siddaramaiah says was gifted to Parvathi by Mallikarjuna, in 1998. In 2014, when Siddaramaiah was CM, Parvathi applied for compensation for the land after Muda allegedly took over the land for development without her permission. In 2017, Muda agreed to compensate her, and she was given 14 residential plots amounting to a total of 38,284 square feet in the prime Vijayanagar 3rd and 4th stage layouts. The complainants argued that these 14 plots in the heart of Karnatakas second-largest city were far more valuable than the original land, under Mudas 50:50 scheme. After the controversy came to light, Siddaramiah offered to return the 14 plots if his wife was given 62 crore as compensation. The Muda 50:50 scheme, announced in 2016, entailed offering 50% of the developed sites as compensation to the original land owners. The controversial scheme was scrapped in 2023. The complaint, filed by Snehamayi Krishna and seen by HT, alleged a long-running conspiracy by Siddaramaiah and his family. The 14 plots given to Parvathi were valued at over 8 crore, while the original land was reportedly worth 3.5 crore based on the official guidance value, alleged the complaint. The accused number 1, who held office of power as the deputy chief minister of Karnataka in the year 1996 to 1999hatched a plan with accused 2 to 5 in order to knock of the properties belonging to Muda, the complaint said. The complaint added that in 2004, Devaraju sold the plot to Mallikarjuna Swamy by falsifying the sale deeds. When Accused no. 1 returned to power as deputy chief minister in 2004... the sale deed was executed in the name of Accused no. 3, the CMs brother-in-law, and was later transferred to Accused no. 2, his wife, as benami property, it said. This is a serious case of an economic offence involving blatant corruption at the higher rungs of executive and political power, the complaint added. It further alleged that Devaraju cooperated with Siddaramaiah and his family to execute a fraudulent sale of the land, allowing the misuse of public office for personal gain. Krishna said that the alleged irregularities intensified when Siddaramaiah became CM in 2013. When Accused No. 1 became the chief minister of Karnataka in 2013, the attempt to grab the MUDA sites regained momentum and acting according to the illegal plan, Accused No. 2, Smt. Parvathy, from 2014 onwards started to make representations to MUDA requesting allotment of compensatory sites for allegedly using the land in sy. no. 464 for the development of Devanurus 3rd phase layout, the complaint said. Krishnas complaint placed the responsibility of the alleged irregularities on Siddaramaiah. The accused number 1 is personally and collectively responsible for the actions, acts and policies involved in the Muda scam. He is accountable and answerable to the people of the state. Krishna also filed a petition in the high court seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the matter. The petition expressed concerns about the Lokayuktas ability to conduct a fair investigation, citing its connection to the state government. But Siddaramaiah was defiant, visiting Mysuru where large crowds gathered to see him. He questioned the BJPs moral authority in demanding his resignation, referring to Union minister HD Kumaraswamy, who is part of the BJP-led central government and is currently out on bail ina 2007 mining lease case. An FIR has been registered against Kumaraswamy, and he is out on bail. What moral right does the BJP have to seek my resignation? This is a political conspiracy. They want to destabilise our government. The CM also reiterated his innocence. I have not committed any wrong, and I will fight the case against me in the alleged MUDA scam legally, he said. Siddaramaiahs troubles began on August 16, when governor Thaawarchand Gehlot granted sanction under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and Section 218 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, enabling the prosecution of the CM in connection with the alleged offences mentioned in the petition. On August 19, Siddaramaiah approached the high court, challenging the governors sanction. But last Tuesday, the high court sided with Gehlot. Justice M Nagaprasanna, who delivered the verdict, upheld the governors decision, explaining that under certain exceptional conditions, the governor can act independently, as per the provisions of the Constitution. The Congress stood with the CM. Law will take its course... It is not necessary that the government should respond to it as it is an autonomous body. If Siddaramaiah has personally committed a crime, he is responsible, but he has not done anything like that, Kharge told news agency ANI. Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu will travel to India in the second week of October for a visit that is seen as an attempt to reset bilateral ties after an acrimonious period in the relationship, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. External affairs minister S Jaishankar with Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu in August. (Photo from X) Muizzu, who last came to New Delhi to participate in Prime Minister Narendra Modis swearing-in on June 9 along with leaders of six other regional countries, is set to be in India for the bilateral visit during October 7-9. His meetings with the Indian leadership, including Modi, are scheduled for October 7, the people cited above said on condition of anonymity. This will also be Muizzus first bilateral trip to India since he became president in November 2023 on the back of an India Out campaign. His governments efforts to reduce the Maldives dependence on India and a demand for the removal of some 85 Indian military personnel deployed in the Indian Ocean archipelago to operate three aircraft took bilateral ties to a fresh low. Last December, Muizzus government, which is perceived to be pro-China, terminated a 2019 agreement with India for joint hydrographic surveys. This was followed by several steps to bolster defence cooperation with China and Turkey. However, there have been signs of a thaw in the overall relationship in recent months. Shortly after India replaced the military personnel who operated and maintained two helicopters and an aircraft, used mainly for humanitarian missions, with civilian experts, Muizzu was a surprise addition to the list of regional leaders invited to Modis swearing-in. There has been a definite dialling down of the rhetoric from the Maldives. Now the two sides will look for ways to take things forward and strengthen relations, one of the people cited above said. Muizzus trip in June was followed by a visit to the Maldives by external affairs minister S Jaishankar in August, when the two sides signed an agreement on introducing Indias Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system in the archipelago and inaugurated several projects built with Indian grants and loans. Signs of a thaw came from Muizzu himself, when he described India as one of the closest allies and invaluable partners of the Maldives at a meeting with Jaishankar. Earlier this month, Muizzus spokesperson announced he would visit India very soon on the same day that two junior ministers, who were suspended in January for derogatory comments against Modi, resigned from the government. The Indian side has also helped the Maldives avoid the risk of defaulting on its Islamic bond payments by extending the State Bank of Indias (SBI) subscription to government treasury bills worth $50 million for another year. The treasury bills had matured on September 19. In May this year, the SBI subscribed treasury bills worth $50 million under the same mechanism, again at the request of the Maldivian government. Sameer Patil, a Mumbai-based security expert with Observer Research Foundation, said the latest developments in bilateral ties reflected the pragmatic approach adopted by Muizzu in recent months. After the initial outbursts of anti-India sentiments, the Muizzu administration has made reconciliatory moves towards India, as is evident from his participation in Modis swearing-in and the impending visit, he said. This also reflects a pragmatic realisation that he cant keep a distance from India, knowing fully well the perils of depending only on China, as well as the overall regional situation, where he needs on his side, Patil added. New Delhi: Waterlogging on Western Express Highway between Jogeshwari and Goregaon during the heavy rain in Mumbai. (HT PHOTO) The monsoon is active over central and western parts of India, despite having begun its withdrawal from portions of Rajasthan, Gujarat and some areas of Punjab and Haryana on Tuesday, according to weather officials who now expect the retreat of the rainy season from the country to slow down. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has warned of isolated extremely heavy rainfall over Konkan, Goa, Madhya Maharashtra, Gujarat, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim until Friday. Enhanced rainfall activity with isolated heavy rain is likely over the Western Himalayan region, central, east and northeast India during the next two to three days. The monsoon is very active now due to a cyclonic circulation, said M Mohapatra, director general of IMD. Its a very large-scale system stretching from east to west over central India. There is already very heavy to extremely heavy rainfall over west India. Heavy rain may continue until at least September 28. There will be no progress in the withdrawal of monsoon until this system weakens. We also have to see if more monsoonal systems are developing. Typically, the monsoon begins withdrawing on September 17 and completely withdraws from the country by 15 October. A cyclonic circulation over north Madhya Maharashtra and its neighbourhood extends up to the middle tropospheric level. A trough runs from this circulation to north Bangladesh, also extending to the middle tropospheric level. Since June 1, there has been 5% excess rainfall overall, with 4% excess over northwest India, 16% excess over central India, 16% excess over the southern peninsula, and a 17% deficiency over east and northeast India. During the week of September 26 to October 2, overall, rainfall is likely to be normal to above normal over entire except South Peninsular India, IMD said in its extended range forecast on Thursday. Conditions are likely to become favourable for further withdrawal of monsoon from some more parts of northwest India towards second half of the week. During the week of October 3 to 9, rainfall is likely to be above normal over most parts of central, east and northeast India; normal to above normal over northwest and south Peninsular India during the week. Monsoon is likely to withdraw from some more parts of northwest and adjoining Central India during the week. The father of an 11-year-old boy, who was murdered in his school as part of human sacrifice in Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh, demanded capital punishment for the culprits. I got a call from the school manager in the morning and he told me that my child's health is very bad... They kept misleading me. After one and a half hours, the body of my son was found with Dinesh Baghel. My son's bag was also in his car and Dinesh Baghel was in an inebriated state at that time, Kishan Kushwaha, the father of the boy, told ANI. The student named Kritarth was abducted from the school's hostel by teacher Ramprakash Solanki, director Dinesh Baghel and school owner Jasodhan Singh Another person involved in this, Lakshman Singh was not present in the car at that time. My son was strangulated to death and the bones of his neck were broken. I want the culprits to be hanged and my son to get justice. My son has been studying in that school for around 4 years and over 500 students study in the same school and I do not think that sacrifice or black magic is done in the school. The real reason behind this should be investigated and I want to request CM that SIT should be formed, Kushwaha added. What happened in Hathras school? According to Hathras additional superintendent of police Ashok Kumar Singh, the student named Kritarth was abducted from the school's hostel by teacher Ramprakash Solanki, director Dinesh Baghel and school owner Jasodhan Singh. Singh believes in 'tantra' practice and asked his son to sacrifice a child for the prosperity of school and his family, the police official added. As per the police, the accused took the boy to a secluded place for sacrifice but he woke up and began crying. "After that he was strangulated. Another teacher Veerpal Singh and school principal Laxman Singh were also present at the spot and were guarding the place," Singh added. National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) chairperson Priyank Kanungo labelled the crime as 'unforgivable' and a result of carelessnes. The heinous crime that took place is unforgivable and a result of carelessness. The commission has taken cognisance of the incident. A team of NCPCR from Delhi will go to investigate this. Under the leadership of the state commission chairperson, this incident will be probed and a report will be submitted to us. Prima facie, it appears that rules were broken, guidelines of government of India were not followed, the child rights body chief added. (With agency inputs) Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shut down prospects for peace in both the theatres of war in West Asia on Friday as he declared to the United Nations General Assembly that his country will intensify operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon until the groups capacities are degraded and continue its offensive against Hamas in Gaza until achieving total victory. Netanyahu addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly in New York. (REUTERS) Minutes after his speech in New York, Israel bombed Hezbollahs underground headquarters in Beirut. Netanyahus address came amid overwhelming criticism of Israel at the UN, which he derided as a swamp of anti-Semitic bile and a house of darkness. As he took the podium, delegates from several countries walked out, leaving the hall mostly empty a stark contrast to the solidarity and pro-Palestinian sentiment displayed during Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbass speech the previous day. In a belligerent and angry speech, Netanyahu accused Iran of triggering a seven-front war against Israel and recounted Hamass October 7, 2023 terror attacks that left 1,200 dead and over 250 hostages abducted. Disregarding global public opinion and peace proposals pushed by Israels closest ally, the US, Netanyahu made no mention of the thousands of lives lost and humanitarian suffering caused by Israels offensive in Gaza. He also ignored the three-step ceasefire proposal mediated by Egypt and Qatar, and the recent US-French 21-day ceasefire proposal amid escalating conflict with Lebanon. Instead, Netanyahu framed the moment as a choice between blessing and curse. The blessing, he said, was the possibility of historic reconciliation between Jews and Arabs, Judaism and Islam, Mecca and Jerusalemspecifically referencing potential normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia. He highlighted opportunities presented by the India-Middle East-Europe corridor with a map. The curse, illustrated with a darker map, was what he called Irans arc of terror, encompassing Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and Houthis in Yemen. Addressing Iran, his main target, Netanyahu warned, If you strike us, we will strike you. There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cant reach. He urged the world to end what he termed the appeasement of Iran and vowed that Israel would do everything to stop Irans nuclear ambitions. Regarding Gaza, where over 40,000 have died and two million displaced due to Israels year-long offensive, Netanyahu claimed success in weakening Hamas but insisted, We are focused on mopping up Hamass remaining terror capabilities and infrastructure. We remain focused on the sacred mission of bringing hostages home. Hamas has got to go. Drawing an analogy with World War II, he argued that just as Nazis couldnt be allowed to rebuild Germany, Hamas couldnt have a role in post-war Gaza. On Hezbollah, Netanyahu blamed the Lebanon-based group for an unprovoked assault against Israel on October 8 last year, displacing over 60,000 Israelis from northern towns. Asking if the US would tolerate such a situation, he declared, Israel must defeat Hezbollah in Lebanon. It is a quintessential terror organisation. And it has killed more Americans and Frenchmen than any group except bin Ladenan indirect reference to Washington and Pariss push for peace. Netanyahu reserved harsh words for the UN itself, where Israel has faced fierce condemnation. He claimed the body had remained contemptible since his first speech there in 1984. He attacked the International Criminal Court for issuing an arrest warrant against him and holding Israel responsible for war crimes, calling it absurd and accusing it of ignoring real war criminals in Iran, Gaza, Yemen, Syria, and elsewhere. He alleged that progressives criticizing Israels actions as genocide were funded by Iran, turning a blind eye to Iranian dictatorship while attacking a democracy. Netanyahu slammed all those who didnt support Israel as victims of moral confusion and declared, Israel will win this battle because we dont have a choice. The National Investigation Agency has arrested a 29-year-old man in Bengaluru for allegedly being linked to banned terror outfit United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), a police officer said on Thursday. The suspect, identified as Girish Bora, alias Gautam, was apprehended from the citys outskirts in the Jigani area (File photo) Jigani police inspector N Manjunath said that the suspect, identified as Girish Bora, alias Gautam, was apprehended from the citys outskirts in the Jigani area, where he had been living under a false identity, on Tuesday night. He said: After receiving information from NIA officials about a suspected militant in Bengaluru, we deployed our team to assist them in the arrest. The NIA took him into custody after producing him before the additional chief metropolitan magistrate (ACMM) court on Wednesday and then left for Guwahati. The accused had been in the city for just 15 days, staying at a friends house with his wife. He further said that Bora, who had been employed as a security guard at a private company, had likely fled to Assam after planting an improvised explosive device (IED) in Guwahati last August. The authorities suspected that he had been planning further activities from Bengaluru. The arrest followed the interrogation of an accomplice, who was earlier arrested in connection with planting IEDs at multiple locations in Guwahati. Boras whereabouts were revealed during the investigation, leading to action by NIA. NIA officials seized Boras mobile phone and important documents during the operation. Further investigations are underway to determine whether Bora was involved in other terror-related activities while in Bengaluru, the police officer added. Karnataka cabinet on Thursday directed states chief secretary and other secretaries that any correspondence from the government to Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot, as sought by the latter, should be sent only after its consent. Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah chaired the cabinet meeting on Thursday. (ANI) The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister Siddaramaiah. The governor is repeatedly writing letters (to govt), in what seems to be a behaviour of impatience, seeking information with an instruction that they be sent immediately. After verifying all the rules, the cabinet has directed the chief secretary and secretaries to place it before the cabinet and to proceed further as per the decision of the cabinet, while sending any information to the governor, states law and parliamentary affairs minister HK Patil told reporters. Citing the governors recent letter to the government, wanting to know how certain confidential material between Raj Bhavan and Lokayukta was leaked, Patil said: Where were those papers and how they were leaked, it is for the governor now to give permission for probe and pinpoint who are the people concerned in the Raj Bhavan itself. Gehlot had written to chief secretary Shalini Rajneesh on August 28, asking how the government came to know about the confidential material relating to Lokayuktas request to him seeking prosecution sanction against some opposition leaders. Patil alleged that the concerned documents were at the Raj Bhavan for months in violation of law, but the blame was put on the government. The cabinet decision comes at a time when the state government is facing the heat following a special court in Bengaluru ordering a probe by the Lokayukta police against Siddaramaiah in the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (Muda) site allotment case. Though Siddaramaiah on Thursday asserted he would not resign from the post, Karnataka Congress disciplinary committee president KB Koliwad said the chief minister should step down and face investigation to avoid embarrassment to the party. I appeal to him personally. He has no allegations, has delivered pro-people programmes and has the support of 136 MLAs. Siddaramaiah should resign at this stage and help the party as the Congress would face embarrassment in the forthcoming elections, Koliwad, a former assembly speaker, told reporters. Siddaramaiah will come out clean in this case and he will become the CM yet again. Hence, he should not cause embarrassment to the party and resign. When reminded that Siddaramaiah declared he wont resign, Koliwad reiterated that Siddaramaiah should resign and face the probe. Meanwhile, deputy CM and state Congress chief DK Shivakumar on Thursday said no party leader has staked a claim to the CMs post in the backdrop of Siddaramaiah facing a Lokayukta probe in the Muda case. Mounting pressure on the Congress, Opposition BJP said even the leaders of the ruling party were asking for Siddaramaiahs resignation. CM Siddaramaiahs actions are not only embarrassing for the Congress but for the entire state of Karnataka. Senior leaders of his party, including former speaker KB Koliwad, have opined that Siddaramaiah should resign, as his actions have caused embarrassment to the party. Neither AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge nor KPCC president DK Shivakumar seem to have the courage to ask for his resignation, leader of the Opposition in the assembly, R Ashoka told reporters on Thursday evening. (With PTI inputs) A day after a special court asked Lokayukta police to investigations allegations against chief minister Siddaramaiah in Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) case, the CM reiterated on Thursday he will not resign and denied any wrongdoing in the allotment of 14 sites to his wife by the authority. Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah being welcomed by Congress leaders on his arrival at the Nada Habba Dasara, in Mysuru, on Thursday. (PTI) Siddaramaiah called the allegations against him as a BJP conspiracy and said he would wage a legal fight. The CM is likely to move Karnataka high court challenging the single bench high court order on Monday which allowed governors sanction to prosecute the chief minister, according to people familiar with the matter. While inaugurating Knowledge Innovation and Well-being (KWIN) City, he said: There is no question of resigning, because I have done no wrong. This (charges against him) is a BJP (conspiracy). He also asked whether Prime Minister (Narendra Modi as the then Gujarat CM) resign in the Godhra incident as FIR was lodged (then) and (H D) Kumaraswamy (JDS leader) is in Narendra Modis government, he is on bail, has he resigned? Siddaramaiah reiterated that he will not resign and will fight the case legally. I wont resign, let them get Kumaraswamys resignation, he is on bail. He is in whose Cabinet, in which government? He should give (resignation first). Did Narendra Modi resign? Despite hundreds of people dying, he did not resign. I have done no wrong, there is no need for me to resign, he added. On Wednesday, a special court ordered a probe by the Lokayukta police in Mysuru against the CM in the MUDA site allotment case, setting the stage for registering an FIR against him. The Lokayukta officials said they were studying the court order and will decide on the FIR soon. Deputy chief minister and state Congress president DK Shivakumar also ruled out the possibility of Siddaramaiah stepping down on the issue. On Thursday, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) staged a protest in front of Mahatma Gandhi statue at Vidhana Soudha demanding Siddaramaiahs resignation. Holding placards and shouting slogans, several party lawmakers and leaders took part in the protest, led by R Ashoka and Chalavadi Narayanaswamy. Two court orders have come against Siddaramaiah. When we first protested inside and outside the assembly they (CM and Congress) termed it as politically motivated and when the governor order came they said it was at the behest of the BJP-led government at the centre. Now the high court and special court have given orders, they have found truth in allegations and said it needs to be investigated and the CM should resign, Ashoka said. Meanwhile, Shivakumar said: Im saying that the proposal for the chief minister to resign wont come. This is a political conspiracy by BJP and JD(S). They are unable to digest the benefits of our five guarantee schemes reaching people. The order of the special court Judge, Santhosh Gajanan Bhat, came a day after the high court upheld the sanction granted by the governor Thaawar Chand Gehlot to conduct an investigation against Siddaramaiah on the allegations of illegalities in the allotment of 14 sites to his wife B M Parvathi by MUDA. The Special Court exclusively to deal with criminal cases related to former and elected MPs/MLAs issued the order directing the Lokayukta police in Mysuru to initiate an investigation on the complaint filed by RTI activist Snehamayi Krishna of Mysuru. In the MUDA site allotment case, it has been alleged that compensatory sites were allotted to Siddaramaiahs wife in an upmarket area in Mysuru, which had higher property value as compared to the location of her land which had been acquired by the MUDA. The MUDA had allotted plots to Parvathi under a 50:50 ratio scheme in lieu of 3.16 acres of her land, where it developed a residential layout. Under the controversial scheme, MUDA allotted 50 per cent of developed land to the land losers in lieu of undeveloped land acquired from them for forming residential layouts. It is alleged that Parvathi had no legal title over this 3.16 acres of land at survey number 464 of Kasare village, Kasaba hobli of Mysuru taluk. (With PTI inputs) WASHINGTON With American support for Ukraine at a partisan crossroads, Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday slammed suggestions that Kyiv should cede territory for the sake of peace with Moscow as "dangerous and unacceptable." The Democratic presidential nominee made her comments as she stood alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and they served as a thinly veiled criticism of suggestions from Republican candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, that Ukraine should quickly cut a deal to end the war. "They are not proposals for peace," Harris said. "Instead they are proposals for surrender." Her comments served as a reminder of the high stakes for the war effort in this year's election. Trump, for his part, has criticized U.S. assistance for Ukraine, praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and faulted Zelenskyy for the ongoing bloodshed. Trump said he will meet with Zelenskyy in New York on Friday after days of questions over whether the two leaders will sit down with each other. Harris' remarks were among the most expansive on her foreign policy vision since she ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket two months ago. She rejected calls for the U.S. to walk away from its international role and warned that potential aggressors could be emboldened if Putin emerges victorious. "The United States supports Ukraine not out of charity, but because it's in our strategic interest," Harris said. Trump responded to Harris in a statement saying that "I'm the only one who can get the war stopped." Referring to Harris and President Joe Biden, he said, "they have big blood on their hands and there is no end in sight." Zelenskyy's tumultuous relationship with Trump continued to deteriorate this week. Trump described the Ukrainian leader as "the greatest salesman on Earth" for securing U.S. support, and he complained that "we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal" to end the war. Trump's message dovetails with Russian propaganda that claims intransigence by Kyiv not aggression from Moscow has prolonged the bloodshed. Zelenskyy was in Washington to present the White House and Congress with his plans for reaching an endgame in the war by improving Ukraine's chances on the battlefield and its eventual leverage at the negotiating table. He's pushing to lift restrictions on using long-range Western weapons to strike targets deeper in Russian territory. No movement on this issue was evident during Zelenskyy's visit. However, Biden announced billions of dollars more in missiles, drones, ammunition and other supplies. The weapons include an additional Patriot missile defense battery and a new shipment of glide bombs that can be deployed from Western fighter jets, increasing their strike range. Biden pledged to ensure that all approved funding is disbursed before he leaves office, and he said he plans to convene a meeting with other world leaders focused on Ukraine's defense during a visit to Germany next month. "We stand with Ukraine, now and in the future," Biden said alongside Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. "Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail." Ukrainian officials are anxious to maintain good relations with whomever becomes the next president of the United States, which is its biggest and most important provider of arms, money and other support. The effort risks slipping into the political blender of the presidential campaign, polarizing the discussion around a war that used to be a bipartisan cause celebre in Washington. About two thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the U.S. has a responsibility to help Ukraine, compared with one third of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in July. Americans are also split on which presidential candidate would do a better job handling the war. An AP-NORC poll from August found that about one-third of Americans said they trusted Harris more, while a similar share said the same about Trump. On Thursday, Zelenskyy found some bipartisan support as he visited Capitol Hill, where he was greeted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Sen. Lindsay Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said Zelenskyy asked to use long-range weapons, such as British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles or U.S.-made ATACMS, for "maximum benefit to bring Putin to the table" and increase Ukraine's negotiating position. "If we don't make that fundamental choice this week, I think the outcome for Ukraine is dire," Graham said. Administration officials are skeptical of Zelenskyy's request, believing the weapons could have limited benefits but increase the risk of escalating the conflict. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said senators gave Zelenskyy advice on how to persuade Biden to loosen restrictions. Rep. Jim Himes, another Connecticut Democrat and the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Zelenskyy wanted "more, faster." "He was politely frustrated," Himes said, and specifically requested more Patriot missile defenses as Russia escalates strikes on Ukraine's cities and energy grid before the winter. Zelenskyy faces a much more tense situation with Trump. The latest round of sniping started on Sunday, when The New Yorker published an interview with Zelenskyy in which he criticized JD Vance, Trump's running mate, as "too radical" for suggesting that Ukraine needs to give up some territory to end the war. Zelenskyy also dismissed Trump's boasts that he could quickly negotiate a solution, saying "my feeling is that Trump doesn't really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how." Famous student protests from around the world Famous student protests from around the world 1901: Wrzesnia School Strike in Poland 1924-25: Fisk University protests 1930s: UCLA anti-establishment protests 1942: White Rose Society resistance in Germany 1956: Hungarian Revolution student marches 1960: Japan's Anpo protests 1960-68: American civil rights protests (Greensboro to Columbia) 1962: Rangoon University protests in Myanmar 1965-75: US Vietnam War protests (SDS Teach-ins to Kent State) 1968: Tlatelolco Massacre in Mexico City 1968-1974: LGBTQ+ protests throughout the US 1973: 'Take Back The Night' protests against sexual violence 1973: Athens Polytechnic uprising 1976: Soweto Youth Uprising in South Africa 1989: Tiananmen Square occupation in China 1989: Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia 1998: Trisakti shootings in Indonesia 1999: Iran student protests over free speech 2006: 'A Day Without Immigrants' demonstrations 2010: London tuition protests 2011: Arab Spring fueled by youth 2011-13: Student education reform protests in Chile 2013: Black Lives Matter demonstrations 2013: Student debt protests at New York universities 2014: Jadavpur University protests against sexual violence 2014: Hong Kong's Umbrella Revolution 2016: Uganda's Makerere University protests 2016: 'Love Trumps Hate' student rallies 2017: #MeToo movement against sexual harassment 2018: 'March For Our Lives' against gun violence 2019: Global climate strikes 2020: Protests against police brutality 2021: #FeesMustFall movement in South Africa The Supreme Court on Thursday strongly disapproved of using the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) as a tool to prolong the incarceration of an accused, ruling that constitutional courts will not allow indefinite pretrial detention under the anti-money laundering law. The bench acknowledged that there was a prima facie case against Senthil Balaji, but the prolonged detention without a foreseeable end to the trial weighed heavily in favour of his release. (ANI) While granting bail to former Tamil Nadu minister V Senthil Balaji, arrested in June 2023 on money-laundering charges arising out of cash-for-jobs scam case, the court sounded a clear warning about the abuse of PMLA provisions by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), delivering a scathing critique of how the law is being employed to keep individuals jailed without trial for an unreasonably long time. The bench acknowledged that there was a prima facie case against Balaji, but the prolonged detention without a foreseeable end to the trial weighed heavily in favour of his release. The constitutional courts cannot allow provisions like Section 45(1)(ii) to become instruments in the hands of the ED (Enforcement Directorate) to continue incarceration for a long time when there is no possibility of the trial concluding within a reasonable time, a bench of justices AS Oka and AG Masih declared. Under PMLA, Section 45 prescribes a high threshold requiring courts to conclude that the accused is not guilty of the offence and is not likely to commit the offence while on bail. The court also cautioned that the stringent provisions of PMLA must not become instruments of arbitrary detention and expressed deep anguish over the prolonged detention of individuals in cases involving stringent penal laws. These stringent provisions regarding the grant of bail, such as Section 45(1)(iii) of the PMLA, cannot become a tool which can be used to incarcerate the accused without trial for an unreasonably long time, held the bench, underscoring that stringent of PMLA provisions must not result in an indefinite loss of personal liberty. It asserted bail is the rule, and jail is the exception as a well-settled principle of Indias criminal jurisprudence. The ruling comes at a time when two special benches of the Supreme Court are yet to hold an effective hearing on petitions challenging the validity of certain PMLA provisions, particularly those related to summons, arrest, search and seizure. One batch of these petitions has assailed the apex courts 2022 judgment in the Vijay Madanlal Choudhary case, which upheld several controversial provisions of PMLA with far-reaching impact on the powers granted to ED under the law. Thursdays judgment, penned by justice Oka, reflected growing judicial concern that the statute could be weaponised in a way that violates fundamental rights under Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to life and personal liberty. This critique followed recent judgments that underscored the importance of personal liberty, including bail as a constitutional right, even in cases involving severe statutory restrictions. Various benches of the apex court have delivered powerful rulings highlighting the need for the prosecution to act fairly, even under laws like PMLA and UAPA, which impose significant restrictions on bail. Many of these judgments involved the granting of bail to persons, such as Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, Aam Aadmi party lawmaker Sanjay Singh and BRS leader K Kavitha, who were arraigned as accused by ED in the Delhi excise policy case. Section 45 of PMLA stipulates that the public prosecutor must be given an opportunity to oppose the bail application of the accused. It also requires the court to be convinced that there are reasonable grounds to believe the accused is not guilty and is not likely to commit any offence while on bail. These conditions generally make it challenging for an accused in a money laundering case to secure bail. Laws such as UAPA and NDPS also have similar provisions that contemplate the reverse burden of proof, which requires the accused to prove their innocence, even during bail proceedings -- a stark departure from the usual legal presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Drawing on the Supreme Courts 2021 judgment in the KA Najeeb case that recognised inordinate delays in trials as a ground of bail in UAPA cases, the bench reiterated that stringent bail provisions do not preclude constitutional courts from intervening in cases where trials are excessively delayed. The rigours of such provisions will melt down where there is no likelihood of trial being completed in a reasonable time, and the period of incarceration already undergone has exceeded a substantial part of the prescribed sentence, noted the court. A central theme of the courts ruling was the intersection between delayed trials and the harsh bail provisions under PMLA, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act , or UAPA, and Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS). The bench held that the stringent conditions for bail under these special laws cannot go together with inordinate delays in the trial process. Expeditious disposal of trials for the crimes under these statutes is contemplated. Inordinate delay in the conclusion of the trial and the higher threshold for the grant of bail cannot go together, asserted the bench, ruling that if trials are likely to be prolonged indefinitely, the courts have a constitutional duty to intervene. Considering the gravity of the offences in such statutes, expeditious disposal of trial for the crimes under these statutes is contemplated...The expeditious disposal of the trial is also warranted considering the higher threshold set for the grant of bail. Hence the requirement of expeditious disposal of cases must be read into these statutes, declared the bench, expanding the remit of this ruling to UAPA and NDPS as well. PMLA prescribes a minimum sentence of three years and a maximum of seven years for money laundering offences. When trials are likely to drag on beyond reasonable limits, the court said, the continued detention of the accused becomes untenable. If the trial of the complaint under PMLA is likely to prolong beyond reasonable limits, the Constitutional Courts will have to consider exercising their powers to grant bail, the judgment said. If constitutional courts do not exercise their jurisdiction in such cases, it noted, the rights of the under-trials under Article 21 of the Constitution of India will be defeated. The judgment stressed that even in statutes that override standard bail provisions, the overarching principles of justice must be preserved. The constitutional courts can always exercise their jurisdiction under Article 32 or Article 226, as the case may be, it explained, referring to the courts power to intervene in cases of fundamental rights violations. Reflecting on cases where accused individuals have spent years in jail, only to be acquitted in the end, the court lamented the unjust loss of years of life due to prolonged incarceration and clean acquittals. There are cases where clean acquittal is granted by the criminal courts to the accused after very long incarceration as an under-trial. In such cases of clean acquittal, crucial years in the life of the accused are lost, it noted. The bench went so far as to suggest that in such cases, individuals may have a claim for compensation for the violation of their rights under Article 21. It may amount to violation of rights of the accused under Article 21 of the Constitution, which may give rise to a claim for compensation, said the bench, adding constitutional courts will have to someday take a call on this peculiar situation that arises in the justice delivery system. The powerful judgment by the court came while granting bail to former state minister and DMK leader Balaji, who was arrested by ED in June 2023 in a case alleging cash-for-jobs dating back to 2014 when he was transport minister under the AIADMK government. The alleged scam, which surfaced in 2011, involved the alleged exchange of money for job appointments in the states transport department. EDs investigation into the laundering charges followed earlier criminal proceedings against Balaji under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Balaji was represented in the case by senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Sidharth Luthra. Ordering his release on bail, the court highlighted that the minimum sentence for money laundering under Section 4 of the PMLA is three years, which can be extended to seven years. Given that Balaji has already been in jail for more than a year, the court was mindful of the extended period of his pre-trial detention. It further noted that the case involves over 2,000 accused and more than 600 witnesses. Due to this large number, the trial process is expected to be long and drawn out, with even the framing of charges likely to take several months, noted the bench, adding the trial proceedings were expected to take at least three years. Simultaneously, it pointed out that the trial under PMLA cannot be finalised until the trial of the scheduled offences concludes. This created a situation where even if the money laundering trial proceeded, it could not be fully resolved unless Balaji was found guilty of the scheduled offences -- in this case, the cash-for-jobs scam, in the first place. To address concerns raised by ED regarding possible tampering with witnesses or evidence, the court imposed strict conditions on bail, including regular appearance by Balaji before the deputy director of ED in Chennai every Monday and Friday; appearance before the investigating officer of the scheduled offences; restraint against contacting any prosecution witnesses or victims related to the scheduled offences; full cooperation with the trial and a refrain from asking for adjournments. Former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday questioned Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat over induction of leaders with corruption allegations into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Kejriwal cited a purported letter he wrote to Bhagwat, saying,"Is Mohan Bhagwat satisfied with Modi ji's decision to induct the most corrupt leaders in the BJP by scaring them through ED and CBI?" Aam Aadmi Party convenor Arvind Kejriwal and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat "Recently, I wrote a letter to Mohan Bhagwat. I asked questions on 4-5 things. One of the questions was, is Mohan Bhagwat satisfied with Modi ji's decision to induct the most corrupt leaders to join BJP by scaring them through ED and CBI? On 27 June 2023, the Prime Minister said that Ajit Pawar had done a 70,000 crore scam and five days later, he made Pawar join the BJP and made him deputy CM. I wanna ask, do you have any shame?" ANI quoted Kejriwal as saying during his address to the Delhi assembly. BJP said Himanta Sarma is corrupt, inducted him a month later: Kejriwal Citing the example of now Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Kejriwal said,"On 22 July 2015, in Assam, the BJP said Himanata Biswa Sarma is corrupt and one month later he joined BJP. Like these, there are 25 members. They are very close to Modi ji. This is their honesty. These are 25 jewels." "How can RSS members accept that? And the RSS workers still can't get tickets. Their work is now reduced to laying out the carpet. They lay out the carpet for the NCP leader, Congress leader who joined BJP." Kejriwal resigned as chief minister last week, days after he was granted bail in a corruption case filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the alleged Delhi liquor scam. Atishi succeeded him as the chief minister of the national capital. (With ANI inputs) The Supreme Court on Friday closed a curative petition filed by the Union government and the Airports Authority of India (AAI), seeking a reconsideration of its 2022 judgment which allowed the GMR Group to manage and operate Nagpurs Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport. The plea was filed by the Union government and AAI seeking a reconsideration of its 2022 judgment. (File photo) Solicitor general (SG) Tushar Mehta, acting in his capacity as an officer of the court, informed a four-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud that there were no valid grounds to pursue the petition. He stated that, after a dispassionate review of the matter, as requested earlier by the court, he found no basis under the curative jurisdiction to challenge the ruling. There was a view previously that the ground of bias could be pressed, but I am clear that such a ground can never be pressed against an order of this court, clarified Mehta. He also emphasised that he did not consult the government on this matter, as his duty was to provide an independent opinion to the court. Also Read: SC orders release of YouTuber Savukku Shankar after TN revokes detention The bench, also comprising justices Sanjiv Khanna, Bhushan R Gavai and JK Maheshwari, acknowledged Mehtas professional stance and concluded the proceedings, noting that the curative petition did not meet the stringent criteria required for such cases, including bias, lack of hearing, or any analogous grounds. Senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi appeared for GMR Airports. The original dispute dates back to May 2022, when the Supreme Court upheld a Bombay high court ruling that favored GMR Airports in a protracted legal battle. MIHAN India Ltd (Multi-Modal International Cargo Hub and Airport at Nagpur), a joint venture tasked with managing the Nagpur airport project, had sought to cancel a contract awarded to GMR in 2019 for the airports upgradation and operation. MIHAN argued that the bid acceptance letter issued to GMR in March 2019 was not a formal award of the contract, but the high court rejected this claim, calling the cancellation of the contract unjustified. The Supreme Court, in its 2022 judgment, concurred with the Bombay high court, ruling that government-awarded contracts must adhere to principles of fairness and equality, and upheld the decision to reinstate GMRs contract. In its 2022 ruling, the Supreme Court bench, then comprising justices Vineet Saran (since retired) and JK Maheshwari, observed that the high courts order was based on sound reasoning and legal analysis. We are of the considered opinion that the findings recorded by the high court allowing the writ petition are in accordance with law. Those findings do not suffer from any illegality, warranting interference by this court in the exercise of the power under Article 136 of the Constitution of India, the bench had ruled. The May 9, 2022 judgment emphasised that contracts awarded by government bodies must be rooted in the principles of fairness, equality, and rule of law. It rejected MIHANs argument that the acceptance of GMRs bid was conditional upon approval from the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation, thus quashing the cancellation attempt. In wrapping up Fridays proceedings, the bench noted the fairness of Mehtas dispassionate view and recorded that the Centre and AAI had chosen not to press the petition due to the absence of grounds to invoke curative jurisdiction. However, the bench clarified that a specific observation in its 2022 ruling, which stated that the Centre or AAI were not necessary parties in such cases, would not serve as a precedent in future matters. This clarification ensures that the parties involved will not be necessarily bound by the same conclusion in subsequent cases of a similar nature. The Supreme Court on Friday sought the response of the Centre and the governments of Delhi and Punjab on a petition filed by Jagtar Singh Hawara currently serving life imprisonment at Tihar jail in the 1995 murder case involving former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh to be shifted to a Punjab jail. Supreme Court of India. (ANI File Photo) Hawara, 54, who has already undergone 28 years of incarceration, told the top court that his daughter stays in Punjab along with his extended family and a case pending against him in a Punjab court cannot be prosecuted effectively by his lawyer who cannot travel to Delhi before every date. The bench, headed by justice Bhushan R Gavai, issued notice on Hawaras petition. Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves and advocate Satya Mitra represented the convict. The bench, also comprising justice KV Viswanathan, granted four weeks for the respective governments to file responses. Hawara was arrested on September 21, 1995, for being part of the conspiracy to assassinate the former CM after a bomb blast at the secretariat complex in Chandigarh. A trial court awarded him death penalty in 2007 but the Punjab and Haryana high court in 2010 commuted it to life sentence, requiring him to spend the rest of his life in prison. His appeal against the HC order is still pending before the top court. In his petition, Hawara said that being a high-risk prisoner cannot be a ground to keep him confined to Delhi jail when no case against him is pending here. He pointed out that several high-risk prisoners such as Gurdeep Singh Khera and Devinderpal Singh Bhullar, who have been arrested under anti-terror laws, were originally incarcerated in Delhi and subsequently transferred to Punjab prisons. Hawaras wife has passed away while his daughter, who is now 19, stays in Punjab along with his extended family. Following the killing, nearly 36 cases were lodged against him in Punjab. While he has been acquitted in 35 of them, in the one case that remains, Hawara cited his inability to attend the court proceedings. Even his lawyer is 82 years old and unable to travel to Delhi for consultations. Initially following his arrest, he was lodged in a Punjab jail. In 2004, he escaped from jail and was caught after nearly one year. Following his re-arrest, he was shifted to Tihar. Since then, his conduct in jail has been without any blemish, Hawara added. Earlier this week, the top court had issued notice on the petition of another convict in the Beant Singh murder case Balwant Singh Rajoana, a sympathiser of the Babbar Khalsa militant group to commute his death sentence to life term. The manager of a school in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras allegedly sacrificed an 11-year-old Class 2 student with the help of his father and three others as he believed the sacrifice would help the educational institutes growth and bring his family prosperity, investigators said on Friday. Investigators said the boy was asleep when he was picked up and taken to a forest for sacrifice. (Getty Images/iStockphoto) Additional police superintendent Ashok Kumar Singh said that the school manager Dinesh Baghel, his father Jasodan Singh, principal Laxman Singh, and teachers Ram Prakash Solanki and Veerpal have been arrested. Investigators cited the post-mortem report and said it showed the boy was strangulated even as the school authorities initially claimed that the boy died due to illness. They cited the probe and said Jasodan Singh and Baghel practised occult and eventually confessed to sacrificing the boy. Investigators said the boy, who lived in the school hostel, was asleep when Solanki allegedly picked him up and took him to a forest for sacrifice. Veerpal and Laxman Singh allegedly kept a watch to ensure the sacrifice was carried out as the child cried for help. The accused kept the boys body in Baghels car after strangulating him and were looking for a place to dump it. The boys father was told that his son was unwell and had been taken to a doctor. The boys family somehow tracked Baghels car at Sadabad and recovered the dead body of the boy on September 23. Investigators said the boy was brutally killed and that his collarbone was broken. The accused strangulated him after gagging him. The boys hair was cut from one side as part of a sacrifice ritual. Police said the five accused have been booked for murder under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhitas Section 103 (1). Additional police superintendent Ashok Kumar Singh told news agency PTI that Solanki, Baghel, and Jasodhan Singh abducted the boy on September 23 from the schools hostel. Jasodhan Singh believes in tantra practice and asked his son to sacrifice a child for the prosperity of school and his family, he said. He said the accused strangulated the boy as he cried. ...Veerpal Singh and school principal Laxman Singh were also present at the spot and were guarding it, he said. He added the accused confessed to police that the student was sacrificed for the prosperity of the school and the owners family. The Tamil Nadu Police on Friday gunned down a member of a gang suspected to have been involved in an ATM heist in Kerala's Thrissur. The shootout took place after they allegedly tried to flee after ramming into cars and two wheelers at Kumarapalayam in Namakkal district of the state, a senior police official told PTI. Namakkal: Police personnel take a member of a gang suspected to have been involved in ATM heist in Kerala's Thrissur, after he was injured in police firing, in Namakkal district.(PTI) Another gang member injured in the shootout is undergoing treatment at a government hospital. Two police personnel injured after being attacked by the gangsters are also being treated. Salem range deputy inspector general (DIG) E S Uma said,"They (the gang) necessitated a situation forcing the police to open fire. Two of our men have been injured in the attack." According to a PTI report, the police while chasing a container truck had warned the driver to stop the vehicle. After the driver refused to obey the orders, reinforcements were called and the truck was intercepted. "The police had to open fire at a person who attempted to flee from the truck and nabbed him. Six others were also detained," the official said. A car which was concealed inside the truck was also seized. Enquiries were on if it was the same gang that was involved in the major heist at three separate ATMs in Thrissur district, he said. The road rage in Sannasiapatti, Kumarapalayam left the road users in shock. Some of the passers-by pelted stones at the truck in a frantic bid to stop the vehicle, the PTI report added. Thrissur ATMs heist An unidentified gang targeted three ATMs in Kerala's Thrissur district and allegedly decamped with around 70 lakh in early hours of Friday, PTI quoted police officials as saying. According to the report, the gang targeted the Mapranam, Thrissur East, and Kolazhy ATMs of the State Bank of India. "The incident happened between 2 am and 4 am. One is in the rural police limit, while the other two were in the city police limit. They destroyed the CCTV cameras and used a gas cutter to cut the ATM machine," City Police Commissioner R Elango told reporters. (With PTI inputs) It has now been a year since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in Canadian Parliament that the countrys security agencies were actively pursuing what he called credible allegations of potential links between Indian intelligence and the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar on June 18, 2023 in Surrey in British Columbia. Prime Minister Narendra Modi A hardcore Babbar Khalsa International turned Bhindranwale Tiger Force terrorist, Nijjar had 10 cases registered against him and the Interpol had issued a red corner alert against the Khalistani radical in 2014. Nijjar, who held several meetings with Pakistan ISI officials in 2013 & 2014 to organise terror activities in Punjab, is actively involved in networking, training and financing Khalistan Tiger Force members. Nijjar also organised an arms training camp in Mission Hills, VC, Canada and imparted training to youth in the firing of AK-47, sniper rifles, and pistols.. Nijjar, along with Charanjit Singh and Rinku Bhila, Goldy Brar have also formed an action committee to give exemplary punishment to people involved in sacrilege cases.. But the Canadian government turned a blind eye to his terror activities. ALSO READ: Nijjar was a killer, not a religious head, says Indian Intel While Trudeau tarnished the reputation of India after the Modi government hosted a very successful G-20 summit, his government has not been able to provide a shred of evidence to substantiate the so-called credible allegation. Today, Canada is prosecuting four Sikh men for killing Nijjar and its intelligence agencies are still trying to dig a connection between Indian intelligence and the murder of a terrorist in an inter-gang rivalry. Justin Trudeau runs a minority government with case-to-case support by Bloc Quebecois and the pro-Khalistani New Democratic Party. Trudeau govt may fall by February 2025 There is a strong chance that the Trudeau government may fall by February 2025 on the Finance Bill, as the Quebec party wants two key legislations to be passed in its favour and Jagmeet Singh of NDP wants to be entitled to a Parliament pension by that time. The Opposition Conservative Party has opened a big lead and the government is expected to change in the next elections. Given the political scenario, the opportunistic Khalistani radicals are lying low and trying to adjust to the future government change as Conservatives know that the radical Sikh vote bank is totally with the Liberals led by Trudeau. But the larger question is Should Justin Trudeau not sincerely apologise to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for indicting Indian intelligence without any proof ? Should Trudeau not apologise to India for polarising the Indian diaspora in Canada and radicalizing the Sikh community in Punjab to protect his vote bank? Should Trudeau not apologize for wrecking the bilateral relationship with India for Sikh votes? A year after Nijjar killing, Trudeau has shown that Anglo-Saxon politicians can put Indian politicians to shame when it comes to political skullduggery. By accusing Indian intelligence of assassinating terrorist Nijjar, Trudeau instigated the Sikh community in India against the Modi government. He went a step further by dabbling into the politics of Punjab through diplomats in New Delhi and Chandigarh, who had direct links with leaders of the ruling party in these two states. It was the Khalistani radicals based in Canada who were partly behind the funding of activists against the now-recalled three Farm Laws in the garb of farmers. While Indian Ambassador to Canada Sanjay Verma called allegations against India ill-considered, unfortunate and unsubstantiated in an interview recently, the role played by Justin Trudeau in radicalizing the Sikh youth against India is unforgivable. The damage done by Trudeau by dividing the Indian diaspora for his vote bank politics under the cover of freedom of speech is perhaps permanent but the bilateral relationship may go into recovery mode once the Conservatives are in power. Trudeau should apologize for spreading an unsubstantiated lie against India. He should do it now. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued an orange alert on Friday predicting heavy rainfall in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, Uttarakhand, east Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal, predicting very heavy rainfall. According to the weather department, Delhi is also likely to witness light rainfall throughout the day. Two school students share an umbrella to shield themselves during rain, in Mumbai,(PTI) Maharashtra rain Mumbai woke up to another spell of heavy showers on Friday as the IMD predicted more showers. The IMD, in its bulletin, said Maharashtra is likely to receive heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places for the next 24 hours. Heavy to very Heavy rainfall with extremely heavy rainfall at isolated places very likely over Madhya Maharashtra on September 27, and isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall on September 28, it said. Several parts of Maharashtra witnessed heavy showers and waterlogging, causing widespread disruptions, including delays in local train and flight services on Wednesday. In Mumbai, areas like Kurla East, Nehru Nagar, and Chembur were heavily waterlogged, while significant traffic jams were reported on the Kurla bridge due to the rainfall. A landslide at the Mumbra bypass also impacted traffic movement. In view of the heavy rainfall, the BMC had declared a holiday for all schools and colleges in Mumbai on Thursday. Goa and Gujarat weather updates According to the IMD, fairly widespread to widespread light to moderate rainfall is very likely over Konkan and Goa during the week and in Gujarat over the next three days. Heavy to very Heavy rainfall with extremely heavy rainfall at isolated places very likely at isolated places over Konkan and Goa and Gujarat region on September 27; isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall also very likely over Saurashtra and Kutch on September 27; and isolated heavy rainfall very likely over Gujarat region, Saurashtra and Kutch on September 28, the weather department wrote. Rain in Madhya Pradesh The IMD said in its bulletin issued on Thursday that scattered to fairly widespread light to moderate rainfall over central India is expected during the next three days in West Madhya Pradesh. Heavy rain lashes Jammu Heavy rains lashed Jammu on Friday, bringing the temperature down in the Valley. According to the IMD, light rain is expected in the Valley at isolated places through the day. Isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall is very likely over Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and East Uttar Pradesh on September 27; isolated heavy rainfall very likely over Uttarakhand on September 28, the IMD said. Tamil Nadu and Kerala According to the IMD, scattered to fairly widespread light to moderate rainfall is expected in South India this week. Isolated heavy rainfall very likely over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Karaikal on September 28 and 29; Kerala and Mahe during September 29 to 30; South Interior Karnataka on September 29; and coastal Karnataka on September 30, it said. Bengal and Northeast The IMD, in its bulletin, predicted heavy to very heavy rainfall in Sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim on Friday, following which the intensity of the showers would reduce. Isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall is also very likely over Bihar on September 27; isolated heavy rainfall very likely over Jharkhand, it said. Meanwhile, heavy rainfall is predicted in the northeastern states - Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura on Friday and then from September 30 to October 2; Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya on September 27 and 28. Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar has expressed strong displeasure over the Maharashtra state administration's failure to comply with Election Commission of India (ECI) directives on the transfer of key officials ahead of the upcoming legislative assembly elections. CEC Rajiv Kumar along with ECs Gyanesh Kumar & Dr. Sandhu reviews poll preparations.(@ECISVEEP) During a review meeting in Mumbai on Friday, Kumar questioned why over 100 police inspectors are still holding key positions in the city, despite an ECI order issued on July 31 to relocate officials who have served in their current postings or home districts for more than three years, reported ANI. Also Read | Amit Shah helps finalise Mahayuti seat-sharing: BJP likely to contest 155, Sena 85-90, NCP 45 Kumar reportedly also sought explanations from Maharashtras chief secretary and director general of police (DGP) for the delay in implementing the transfer order. No report was received from the Chief Secretary and DGP till the due date. Reminders were issued vide the Commission's letter of even number on 22.08.2024, 11.09.2024 and 25.09.2024, directing thereby to furnish the reports urgently, a letter from ECI to the chief secretary of Maharashtra government read. The Commission has directed the Chief Secretary and DGP to explain the circumstances as to why the compliance reports have not been furnished even after the lapse of stipulated time limit despite the reminders in the matter, it added. Also Read | Satyapal Malik to campaign for MVA in state assembly polls CEC reprimands excise commissioner Kumar also reprimanded the excise commissioner and gave strict instructions to dry up the flow of illicit liquor from neighbouring states to ensure fair elections. He stressed the need for stricter controls on the movement and distribution of illegal alcohol ahead of the elections, which are expected to be fiercely contested. He warned against misuse of vehicles, particularly police vans and ambulances, for transporting illegal cash or other inducements during the election period. Also Read | United Mahayuti to push hyperlocal issues in assembly poll campaigns The commission also issued directives to banks, prohibiting the movement of cash after sunset, and instructed the Narcotics Control Bureau to monitor inter-border drug trafficking closely. An ECI delegation led by Kumar, alongside Election Commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and SS Sandhu, is in Mumbai to review preparations for the upcoming election. The assembly elections in Maharashtra, which will be held in 288 constituencies, are expected to see a heated contest between the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition and the Maha Yuti Alliance. The ECI has yet to announce the election dates. With ANI inputs Karnataka on Thursday withdrew the general consent given to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe cases in the southern state, as chief minister Siddaramaiah struck a defiant stance and dismissed the Oppositions mounting calls for his resignation in connection with a land allotment case. Siddaramaiah (PTI) The state cabinets move came a day after a Bengaluru court ordered a Lokayukta probe against Siddaramaiah in connection with land alloted in 2020 to his wife Parvathi in the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (Muda), compounding the trouble for the chief minister. As the political row simmered, the CM dug in his heels, calling the allegations against him a conspiracy by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). There is no question of resigning, because I have done no wrong. This [case] is a BJP conspiracy. I will not resign. I will fight legally I have done no wrong, there is no need for me to resign, he told reporters in Bengaluru. The Siddaramiah-led cabinet held a meeting in Bengaluru, after which state minister HK Patil said that they have withdrawn the nod given to CBI to investigate cases in the state due to its misuse by the central government. We are withdrawing open consent for CBI investigation in the state. We are expressing our concerns about the misuse of the CBI. In all the cases we have referred to CBI, they have not filed charge sheets, leaving many cases pending. So, case by case, we will verify and give (consent for CBI probe), Patil, the state law and parliamentary affairs minister, said. Section 6 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946, empowers state governments to give or deny consent to CBI to investigate the matters within their boundaries. To be sure, the Supreme Court and high courts can order a CBI investigation without the consent of a state government. Seven states West Bengal, Telangana, Punjab, Meghalaya, Kerala, Jharkhand, and Tamil Nadu all ruled by non-BJP parties, have withdrawn general consent to CBI. HT reached out CBI officials for a response but did not get one immediately. The land allotment case has become the trigger for a raging political tussle in the state, with the BJP stepping up its attack against the Congress. On Tuesday, the Karnataka high court rejected Siddaramaiahs petition challenging governor Thaawarchand Gehlots decision to permit his prosecution in connection with the Muda case. Then on Wednesday, special court judge Santhosh Gajanan Bhat issued directions to take up an investigation under Section 156 (3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure which gives a magistrate the power to order an investigation into a cognisable offence, and directed the police to file the investigation report by December 24. According to people aware of the developments, Siddaramaiah, who is serving his second term as chief minister after winning a sweeping mandate in 2023, is likely to approach a division bench of the high court against the single bench verdict. The BJP hit out at the state government over the withdrawal of CBI consent. Siddaramaiah, who weakened the Lokayukta organisation in his first term and was reprimanded by the court, is now showing his Hitler attitude toward CBI and governor, leader of Opposition in the legislative assembly R Ashoka said. Patil maintained that the decision to withdraw the CBI consent was not influenced by the BJPs demand for a probe by the central agency in the Muda case. They (CBI) are biased. Thats why we are taking the decision. Its not because of the Muda case. We have taken this decision to control them (CBI) from taking the wrong path, he said. Deputy chief minister and state Congress president DK Shivakumar rallied behind Siddaramaiah and also ruled out the possibility of the latters resignation. Im saying that the proposal for the chief minister to resign wont come. This is a political conspiracy by the BJP and JD(S). They are unable to digest the benefits of our five guarantee schemes reaching people, he said, referring to the five poll guarantees that helped the Congress win the Karnataka elections last year. The BJP continued to mount an attack on the state government, staging a protest at the Vidhana Soudha and demanding Siddaramaihs resignation.Two court orders have come against Siddaramaiah. When we first protested inside and outside the assembly, they (the chief minister and Congress) termed it politically motivated, and when the governor order came, they said it was at the behest of the BJP-led government at the Centre. Now, the high court and special court have given orders, they have found truth in allegations and said it needs to be investigated. Siddaramaiah must resign and respectfully cooperate with the investigation, Ashoka said. Spotted, striped and gleaming in the sun. Thats how Mike Pandey recalls his first encounter with whale sharks. He was about nine at the time. A school of the giant fish were following the steamer in which he, his parents and his younger brother were travelling, on their week-long journey from Kenya to India. I was spellbound by their size. My brother and I tried feeding them pieces of bread. They swam along with the steamer from the second day onwards, but were gone by the time we reached Porbandar. Years later, he would see them again, in Porbandar. It was the late-1990s and the fish were being slaughtered along the Gujarat coast. Their liver oil or grease was used to waterproof boats, and it was used in boot polish, Pandey says. Exporters were selling the meat to some South-East Asian countries. Pandey spent months shooting footage in Gujarat, and in 2000, released Shores of Silence, his film on the mass slaughter. It would win a Wildscreen Panda Award, known as the Green Oscar. It would do a lot more. The film led to a ban on the killing of whale sharks on Indian shores; they were declared a protected species. It is one of the many times Pandey has used his lens to fight back. The many times have added up, over the years. He has helped change laws, helped people view the same picture differently. He has won three of those Green Oscars in the process. Earlier this month, Pandey, 75, was awarded the 2024 Jackson Wild Legacy Award, in recognition of his visionary work as a conservation filmmaker. A still from Shores of Silence. (Image: Riverbank Studios) Previous recipients include Jane Goodall and David Attenborough. Mike is celebrated for his powerful and hard-hitting films that have led to five legislative changes in India, including the protection of whale sharks globally, vultures, horseshoe crabs, and elephants, the citation states. It was quite unreal, being felicitated on a stage that had honoured his heroes, Pandey says. When I got the news, I wondered if it was fake, he adds, laughing. The award has been humbling. It is validation of my work, and the work of those who speak up for wildlife and nature. And it is a response to the million times I have been asked, Oh but what do you get out of this work youre doing? *** Take only what you absolutely need and Dont hurt any living being were the two philosophies that Pandeys mother, teacher-turned-homemaker Shanta Devi, lived by. Its what she taught her children. In many ways, he owes his love for wildlife and nature to his parents, and to his childhood in Kenya, he says. He was born in Nairobi and grew up near the Nairobi National Park. He and his brother Ishwar Pandey would listen for the lions calling out to each other at night. His father, Bansh Dev Pandey, a police officer, would take them across in the evenings, to watch the lions, zebras and giraffes. We also saw the Masai people live in harmony with the wild, Pandey says. Then, when he was seven, his paternal uncle Rajdeo Pandey gifted him a Kodak Brownie box camera, and taught him to develop his own images. I took that camera with me everywhere. Watching magic erupt on film enthralled me, he says. A leopard cub toys with Pandeys lens in Khairbari, West Bengal. (Image: Riverbank Studios) While his father dreamed of him becoming an aeronautical engineer, Pandey decided to also pursue filmmaking. He studied both in the UK, attending filmmaking classes in the evenings. When the time came to choose a career after college, my father asked me to follow my heart, he says. On his return to India, one of his first projects was Guru Baba Nanak, a documentary on Guru Nanak, made with Khushwant Singh as advisor. Pandey briefly dabbled in Bollywood, working as second unit director and director of special effects on films such as Razia Sultan (1983; starring Dharmendra and Hema Malini) and Ghazab (1982; starring Dharmendra and Rekha). Razia Sultans director, Kamal Amrohi, was headed to London to shoot a special Turkish bath scene featuring Hema Malini, as it needed special effects. I told him Id shoot it for him at a fraction of the cost, he recalls. Pandey did eventually shoot the scene, which shows Malini emerging from the bath, as steam from the hammam envelops her. The steam had to rise 12 feet high and, at the same time, stay away from her face. I had to use a hair dryer and a newspaper fashioned into a funnel to keep the steam away from her face, but keep it swirling around her, he says, laughing. Amrohi called it technology ka karishma (the miracle of technology)! *** Bollywood didnt feel like the right fit. Pandey returned to Delhi. In 1973, he had registered a company called Riverbank Studios, hoping to create enough films about conservation and wildlife to constitute a career. During the making of The Last Migration, which traced how deforestation drove a herd towards human settlements. The film won Pandey his first Green Oscar. (Image: Riverbank Studios) He began to work in this direction, making nature films for Doordarshan, Films Division, the union environment ministry, state tourism and forest departments, and the Border Roads Organisation. Later, he would also make films for BBC, the International Federation of Red Cross, International Union for Conservation of Nature, and World Bank. His first major turning point would come only two decades later, when assigned to shoot a three-to-five-minute film on the capture of wild elephants in Surguja, then in Madhya Pradesh (now in Chhattisgarh). A number of elephants and humans had died there. Roads were being closed in the evenings, in a sort of man-animal-conflict-induced curfew. On the day he arrived with a crew of five, Pandey set off alone to explore the area, and came upon an elephant that looked like it had been trapped and beaten, lying on the ground. The giant was dying. I could see his honey-brown eyes. He was in pain. I felt so helpless that despite warnings from locals, I touched his forehead. His eyes moved and locked with mine. I was transfixed, he says. I touched his forehead with my head. Slowly, the light faded from his eyes. He felt something shift in him then, Pandey says. The animal had had no voice; it couldnt protest, or tell its side of the story. All it had likely been looking for was food and water. What was his crime? I made a silent promise then that his death would not go in vain. I would try my best to question what were doing to this Earth. *** Pandey and his team stayed on for over a month and turned the five-minute short into a 50-minute film. The Last Migration (1994) captured a 42-day wild-elephant-capture operation, explored the excessive deforestation in Bihar that had driven the herd to Surguja, and traced the man-animal conflict that had then broken out. The film won him his first Green Oscar; he made news as the first Asian filmmaker to win the award. The experience of making the film redefined him, he says. The elephant never left him. He had also found his mission; this is what his camera could do. In 1999, Pandey began to anchor the Doordarshan show Earth Matters, which morphed into Dharti Kare Pukaar; new episodes are still being made and broadcast, in one of the longest-running such series in the country. In 2004 came the film The Vanishing Giants, a sequel to The Last Migration. It won him his third Green Oscar, and it led to a ban on cruel, outdated techniques of trapping these animals in India. Two years later, Broken Wings (2006) traced how the veterinary drug diclofenac was killing vultures who fed on cattle carcasses injected with the pharmaceutical. Timeless Traveller (2003) focused on the horseshoe crab, found on the coast of Odisha and crucial to shore biodiversity. These crabs were being smuggled off the beaches and sold abroad; their blood was in demand for medical testing and research. The film was used to lobby for their protection; they were declared a protected species in 2010. Pandey is currently working on a film about mangroves, and on an eight-part series titled The Green Planet... In Crisis. Through all these productions, he says, the aim has been to confront the viewer with a question: Why are we plundering everything that sustains us? There might have been a time when we destroyed natural resources out of ignorance, he says. But now, the way were preying on the environment and wildlife, wiping out forests, polluting air, water, soil... This is consumeristic, mindless greed. We no longer know how to only take what we need. Nothing satiates us. Some innovations have come off the runway, gone through several iterations, endured over decades and stayed in our wardrobes, far longer perhaps than even their makers anticipated. What would a popular archive of fashion history hold? Shefalee Vasudev, fashion writer and editor-in-chief of the digital magazine The Voice of Fashion, lists her top five. . Burberry trench coat By the turn of the century, the British army was using this English invention to clothe its officers. By the time World War 1 began, they had already commissioned a special design. The Burberry trench coat was designed for life in the trenches. It had rings that could be hitched to flasks, maps and grenades; and room for epaulettes. It was long, warm and waterproof. It quickly became a status symbol with civilians too, as men and women bought it as a gesture of national pride. It was used in World War 2 as well. It lives on all these decades later, its trademark checked pattern typically used in the lining. . Chanel tweed jacket Boxy, relaxed and made of wool, this creation made its debut in 1925. Defined by elegance and straight cuts, it represented Coco Chanels response to (and rejection of) the torturous corsets still prevalent at the time. The jacket, it is said, was inspired by a sweater she borrowed from her then boyfriend Hugh Grosvenor, Duke of Westminster, as they explored the Scottish Highlands together. Wearing it, she would later say, she realised the comfort that women were missing out on. Over the past century, the Chanel tweed jacket has been revived, redesigned and re-released in a range of iterations. . Diors New Look . Rounded shoulders, cinched waists and pleated, voluminous skirts made up Christian Diors New Look, his first collection, in 1947. After the years of scarcity and austerity amid World War 2, there was a lush muchness to these clothes. The collection began to be called the rebirth of French couture. With it, Dior brought back the neglected art of pleasing, he would later write, in his autobiography Dior by Dior (1956). . Yves Saint Laurent pants for women . Before Yves Saint Laurent designed a pant-suit for women, womens suits were generally paired with skirts of many lengths. In echoes of Chanel, half a century later, another French designer was freeing women from the shackles of should be. The first pantsuit was unleashed in the Spring/Summer 1967 collection. Saint Laurent called it Le Smoking, and immediately put out a ready-to-wear line too, so that more women could access the designs, and help the radical idea spread. . Bottega Veneta Knot clutch . Developed by Tomas Maier, who was then a creative director with the brand, it was inspired by a small, rounded box clutch from 1978 that he saw in the archives of the Italian design house. He kept the shape and gave it a new clasp: a woven knot made of leather. The clutch hit the runway in 2002, and has been a part of several collections since. The Knot has been reinterpreted in a number of ways. There have been the Origami Knot, Vintage Jewel Knot, Metal Lace Knot, Memory Knot and more. The label even held a Knot retrospective, in 2014. Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla were so strapped for cash, they couldnt afford to keep a single piece from their early collections together, even though they knew they would one day wish they had. We had to sell everything we created. We didnt even have the funds to keep master samples, the designers say. They would later track down some of those garments from the 1980s, borrow them from their owners, and replicate them, finally bringing at least a version of them back home. Their archive is now one of the countrys richest repositories of contemporary fashion and textile history part of a growing number of such storehouses of iconic pieces and copyrighted materials, swatches, sketches, photographs and know-how. There are fashion archives attached to the labels of Rahul Mishra and Gaurav Gupta (who have shown at Paris Haute Couture Week since 2020 and 2023 respectively); Ritu Kumar and Sabyasachi Mukherjee; Tarun Tahiliani and the late Wendell Rodricks. Inside the Rahul Mishra archive. When the Mumbai fashion house Purple Style Labs (PSL) acquired the Rodricks label shortly after the designers death in 2020, the archive was considered one of the big draws. In a bit of good news, young designers now have the wherewithal to get started in year one. Or at least year one of their current iterations. Mishra didnt preserve anything from his first collection, in 2006. He was too focused on building skill, visibility and brand. By the time he co-founded his label that same year, with wife Divya Bhatt Mishra, who is also a fashion designer, he knew better. Archiving is now a priority, he says. The label is still too young to think about things like a retrospective, he adds, but it is being done with an eye on the future. *** Perhaps now is an apt time for such efforts, says Shefalee Vasudev, a fashion writer and editor-in-chief of the digital magazine The Voice of Fashion Until about the turn of the century, this was still a nascent industry in India, Vasudev adds. Now the footprint is becoming larger and labels are less derivative. As the history of Indian fashion lengthens its shadow, it has to be documented, as an industry as well as in terms of all the personal creations and innovations of various designers. It is perhaps worth noting that when cultural historians look back and ask, who did Beyonce wear at that event, or where was that sculpted silhouette first seen, the answer will involve an Indian designer, so it is that much more crucial to preserve these pieces of history as brands around the world, from Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent to Gucci and Ermenegildo Zegna, have been doing for decades. A sketch from the Wendell Rodricks archive. Payal Jain, who studied the archives of Dior, Chanel, Balenciaga and Yves Saint Laurent while at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in San Francisco (it has since moved to Los Angeles), was inspired to maintain a year-wise physical and digital catalogue of her work from the very first year, and it helped her showcase her 30-year career in a retrospective recently, she says. Tahiliani had documented his work copiously too, even if he only formally organised it as an archive in 2020, when his label turned 25. Over four years, his company has built that archive into a carefully curated, indexed and searchable repository that is rich in history, range and detail. At its heart is a set of 22 glass-fronted cupboards that hold 7,000 pieces. They sit in a fireproof, temperature-controlled, restricted-access room. Our own TT-Wikipedia, head of the archive Gurvinder Kaur Gundev calls it. Still, hundreds of master swatches have been lost, Gundev says. There arent even photographs of them, let alone samples. That means we will never be able to recreate them, or preserve any of the knowledge or craftsmanship that came out of creating them all those years ago. Some things are simply lost to time; there is nothing one can do. *** Today, when one has the choice of preserving almost everything, deciding what to keep and what to relinquish to time can be tricky too. This is where experts such as Pramod Kumar KG, co-founder and head of the Delhi-based Eka Archiving, come in. His archiving consultancy has worked with brands such as Tahiliani, Anokhi and FabIndia. Not everything can or should be saved; it all takes up expensive real estate, especially since fashion artefacts must be stored in a certain way, given space to breathe and protected from the elements, he says. A well-built archive is one that serves as a source of identity and pride, documents a brands evolution, captures the designers vision and inspiration, and helps preserve continuity. It helps train new designers and recreate classics, allows old designs to be easily retrieved, recreated, showcased or worn again. It also helps preserve knowledge of craftsmanship, technique, fabrics, ideas and approaches. It allows a legacy to endure, KG says, as ownership changes hands and new generations of designers and administrators take over. What sits in the archives of some of Indias biggest fashion houses? How are they organised, cared for, and run? Take a look. . Rahul Mishra : On storing sculpted visions The Rahul Mishra dress worn by industrialist Isha Ambani to the 2024 MET Gala. It featured repurposed and re-created embroidered flowers drawn from his archive. (Ritik Jain, Rahul Mishra) There is a 5,000-sq-ft space in Rahul Mishras studio that is temperature-controlled, sealed to outside light, and protected with biometric-enabled access. It is where most of the work he has done in the last 10 years is stored. There are sketches here and unused embroidered fabric, textile swatches and, of course, entire garments. Preserving the garments is no easy feat, given that Mishra is known for his sculptural creations. Indexing is crucial, to prevent boxes being disturbed or opened unnecessarily. Ideally wed need 10 times the space to be able to store everything, he says, laughing. The items that go into the archive are carefully selected, to represent an idea and a collection. Every season, we produce about 100 different designs, so its not possible to preserve everything, says Mishra, 44. We instead try to have something to represent each idea, including details of fabric used, embroidery done, measurements and more. Rahul Mishra co-founded his label in 2006, with his wife Divya Bhatt Mishra, 41, who is also a fashion designer. He hadnt preserved anything from the work he had done before then. So here, from year one, the archiving began. Which makes sense, given the strides Mishra has already taken. He has shown at Paris Haute Couture Week (PHCW) for eight seasons so far, and is one of only three Indians to show there at all, in 51 years. His clothes have been worn by Zendaya, Selena Gomez and Gigi Hadid, by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan at an Ambani wedding celebration. One of the most treasured pieces in his archive, in fact, is the first piece he ever showed at PHCW, in 2020: a leaf jacket worn by Zendaya at a Bulgari event later that year.. Rahul Mishra. But the value of the archive is not about which celebrity has worn a piece, says Mishra. Rather, it is about the moment in which it is created and what inspiration can be drawn from it. So there are many samples in the archive that have not seen the light of the runway but are still priceless additions. They also help maintain a chronological order to your evolution as a designer. Garments usually end up in the archive a year or two after they are created. After showing at Paris Fashion Week, new collections travel around the world for celebrities to wear and for press coverage, before they return to Mishras headquarters in Noida. These are pieces from the parts of his collection that are never sold. Whats missing from the archive still hurts though, Mishra adds. The first garments he ever showcased, in 2006, for instance, took handwoven fabrics from Kerala, traditionally used to make mundus, and turned them into tunics, dresses and palazzo pants. It was a collection that won him several awards and kickstarted his career. Its what got me a scholarship to study at the Istitiuto Marangoni in Milan and shaped the designer I am today, he says. Unfortunately, I dont have a single piece from that collection with me today. . Its like our very own Tarun Tahiliani Wikipedia: Read an interview with the keeper of the TT archive - Wendell Rodricks: When the line lives on A dress from the Cubist Rose collection of 2017, relaunched as part of a capsule collection this year. When the Mumbai fashion house Purple Style Labs (PSL) acquired the Wendell Rodricks label shortly after the designers death in 2020, the archive and manufacturing unit (both in Goa) were a big draw. The brand now works with the same network of craftsmen and tailors, to put together ready-to-wear collections under the Wendell Rodricks label. The artisans often visit the archive for inspiration, says PSL founder Abhishek Agarwal, 35. In the archive are the Kunbi saris made using the Goan weave that Rodricks helped revive, original sketches, pieces featuring his signature colour-blocking, and iconic designs from renowned collections seen on runways, on celebrities and in magazines, dating back to his first collection in 1989. These include the first cutout of Rodrickss iconic Palace Balcony Choli created for the 2011 Taj Calendar. His vision is evident in this piece through its intricate craftsmanship that forms the outline of the remarkable Taj Lake Palace, Jaipur, says Agarwal.. In the archive are the Kunbi saris made using the Goan weave that Rodricks helped revive, original sketches and iconic designs from renowned collections dating back to 1989. In February this year, the label used the archive to recreate a number of iconic items from Rodrickss oeuvre, and launched a capsule collection as an ode to the late designer. These included an off-white satin top-and-shorts set that his muse Malaika Arora wore in a 1995 shoot; a one-shouldered dress worn by Bipasha Basu at the first-ever Lakme Fashion Week in 2000; and a Grecian sari gown worn by Lisa Ray at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2005. We acquired the brand to take the designers vision forward and to keep his timeless aesthetic alive. The archive helps us do that, Agarwal says. . Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla : Two time travellers tales Three of the four pieces displayed as part of NMACCs inaugural exhibition, including the architectural coat from 1990 (above, right), inspired by Delhis Purana Quila. They met in 1986. Less than a year later, Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla had opened their first boutique store together. Called Mata Hari, it was an instant success. Actors Dimple Kapadia and Jaya Bachchan and the socialite-philanthropist Parmeshwar Godrej were early customers. But these were still tough times. In our first few years we had to sell everything we created, since we didnt have the funds to keep master samples and create an archive, the designers say. They have come a long way since, of course. In their archive now are signature pieces featuring chikankari and zardozi that have been worn by the likes of actor Judi Dench and popstar Beyonce. After a few years of flourishing, the duo began to slowly build an archive. They went through the rather painful process of tracking down some early garments, borrowing them from their owners, and documenting and replicate them for the archive and archival catalogue. We now have a dedicated space that contains a magical collection of our work, from cholis and stoles to ensembles in zardozi, chikankari, mirror work and raw silk, from anarkalis to saris and lehengas to menswear such as kurta-pyjamas, bandhgalas and sherwanis, they say.. Designers Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla. Four of these pieces were displayed at the India in Fashion exhibition that marked the opening of the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) in Mumbai last year. These included a signature architectural coat from 1990 inspired by the Purana Quila in Delhi. It took 48 karigars a total of 4,500 man hours to create the three-dimensional embroidery in raw silk on pure chamois satin all quilted to give the effect of gates opening onto a palace. The mirrorwork ghagra worn by Madhuri Dixit-Nene in Sanjay Leela Bhansalis 2002 film Devdas. The chikankari farshi and dupatta with badla kurti created as a master sample in 2005. And a zardozi Anarkali produced between 1993 and 2009. Items are selectively lent out, and have been shown at institutes such as the UKs Victoria and Albert Museum. The archive is now added to as often as possible, the designers say. . Payal Jain : A time capsule of couture, pret, home A coat from the 2006 collection Metamorphosis.Swatches, sketches and prints for a 2011 Madhubani dress. (Vicky, Payal Jain and Prabuddha Dasgupta) In November, Payal Jain celebrated 30 years as a fashion designer, with a retrospective show at a farmhouse just outside Delhi. For it, she created 30 all-white sculptural outfits that represented the arc of her work. She combined wood, metal and paper with yarn made from jute and bamboo fibre, added sequins, bobbins, buttons, beads, fasteners and thimbles. The 30 pieces told the story of how her work has shifted towards minimalism and a focus on textures. Its a shift that became apparent to her as she scanned her archive in preparation for the show, says Jain, 53. Going through the archive helped me realise how my work has changed over time, even while my philosophy stayed the same, she says.. Payal Jain has maintained a year-wise physical and digital catalogue from the first year of her label. (Vicky, Payal Jain and Prabuddha Dasgupta) Her collections include lines of couture, pret-a-porter, home and corporate design. Using traditional textiles, she creates contemporary dresses and pant suits, among other Western silhouettes. Her archive, representing a wide range of appeal, through an era of particularly dramatic socio-economic and cultural change in India, thus captures some of the change that Indian fashion has undergone too. Over the decades, her clothes have been worn by Victoria Beckham, Priyanka Chopra and Saina Nehwal. But her grandest achievement, Jain says, is when she gets orders from a second generation of clients. That is gratifying and meaningful. It also tells her she has her finger on the pulse. It is important to invent, reinvent, rediscover, Jain says. How are you going to be able to do any of that if you have no tangible record of what youve already done? Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and her daughter Aaradhya Bachchan were recently spotted at Mumbai airport, gearing up for their trip to Dubai for the IIFA event. After wowing everyone with her glam look at Paris Fashion Week, Aishwarya went for a more relaxed, yet super stylish, vibe this time around. She and Aaradhya were gracefully twinning in matching all-black outfits, looking effortlessly stylish from head to toe. The mother-daughter duo was all smiles as they posed for paparazzi. Let's break down their cool, laid-back looks and take some fashion inspo for our next trip. (Also read: Aishwarya Rai's Day 2 look in too colourful ensemble disappoints fashion lovers, fans say terrible outfits. Watch ) At Mumbai airport, Aishwarya Rai and Aaradhya Bachchan turned heads in stylish outfits ahead of the IIFA event in Dubai.(HT photo/VarinderChawla) Decoding Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's stylish airport look For her airport look, Aishwarya kept it cool, comfy, and on-trend. She chose a black oversized jacket with full sleeves, featuring a loose fit and a bold logo print scattered across the fabric, making it a statement piece. To balance the oversized top, she paired it with sleek, skin-tight leggings, effortlessly nailing the athleisure aesthetic. Adding to the sporty-chic vibe, Aishwarya completed her look with a pair of crisp white sneakers and carried a stylish black bag slung over her shoulder for that extra touch of flair. How she styled her look Her makeup look featured nude eyeshadow, winged eyeliner, mascara-coated lashes, blushed cheeks, defined brows, and bold red lipstick. She styled her luscious black tresses in her signature middle-parted style, leaving them loose to cascade beautifully down her shoulders. On the other hand, Aaradhya looked adorable in a light blue sweatshirt, black pants, and matching sneakers. She channelled her mom's iconic hairstyle by adding a chic hairband, looking utterly adorable as she walked alongside Aishwarya toward the international terminal. Her pictures and videos from the airport quickly went viral on social media, with fans showering her posts with tons of likes and comments. One user wrote, "So graceful," while another commented, "OG Aishwarya." Meanwhile, several others dropped fire and heart emojis to express their admiration. Kylie Jenner is here to turn up the heat with her jaw-dropping new look! She stole the spotlight at Schiaparelli's Paris Fashion Week show, which took place at the iconic Place Vendome. Daniel Roseberry's SS25 collection brought out a star-studded front row, and Kylie was definitely one of the regulars in the mix. This isn't her first rodeo with Schiaparelliremember when she rocked that wild faux lion head dress at their Spring 2023 Haute Couture show? Talk about making a statement! Kylie Jenner dazzles in cut-out dress at Schiaparelli's Paris Fashion Week show(Instagram/@kyliejenner) Known for her daring and bold fashion choices, Kylie always manages to steal the spotlight with her looks. Her latest appearance is no exception, as she exudes sheer glamour and high-fashion in a stunning cut-out dress. Scroll down to know more. (Also read: Bathrobes as high fashion? From Rihanna, Mouni Roy to Kylie Jenner, see how celebs are rocking this unexpected trend ) Kylie Jenner rocks a black cut-out dress Kylie slipped into a snug little black dress with a striking graphic neckline. The dress featured a cleavage-framing cut-out that extended into white criss-cross shoulder straps and adding a bold touch to her ensemble. The bodycon fit perfectly hugged Kylie's gorgeous curves, showcasing her figure beautifully. The knee-length hemline completed the look flawlessly, making her outfit truly unforgettable. How she styled her glam look Styled by Alexandra and Mackenzie Grandquist, the mother of two completed her sleek halter dress and bold Wonder Woman-inspired cuffs with a pair of chic black peep-toe pumps. Interestingly, these pumps are making a statement beyond just Kylie's look, they also appeared at New York Fashion Week when Tory Burch unveiled a "pierced" reinterpretation of the classic sandal during her Spring 2025 runway show. Her glam makeup look featured nude eyeshadow, mascara-coated lashes, defined brows, blushed cheeks, a glowing highlighter, and glossy nude lipstick. To complete the look, Jenner styled her hair in elegant old Hollywood waves. Her understated manicure perfectly matched that of her supermodel sister, Kendall Jenner, who made a rare appearance on the runway for Schiaparelli's Spring 2025 show. In 2013, the civil aviation ministry (MoCA) proposed the setting up of a Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and a Bill was produced but not implemented during UPA IIs tenure. While many airline industry insiders have always maintained that the DGCA is overly top-heavy, it is quite possible that, given the pace the countrys aviation market has grown, more officers are needed even at the senior levels In 2015, after the government changed, then-civil aviation minister Ashok Gajpatiraju dismissed the idea, arguing that he saw no reason for a change in nomenclature. As per the ministers understanding, the new authority would merely replace DGCA, amounting to a change in name but not much else! He set the matter to rest by decisively saying he saw no reason to do so. Over two decades of covering the government in India have convinced me that ministers are blessed with a unique ability to see only either what they are shown or what they choose to see, unable to see what even the common man can spot with ease. This is one of those instances. Anyone who flies and frequents Indias airports can attest that more Indians are flying than ever before, and with the rise in passenger numbers, complaints and grievances have also surged. These are all voiced and go viral on social media. Pressure eventually mounts on the authorities be it MoCA or the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to address these. These range from cancellations and delays, errant passenger or crew behaviour, and unjustified levies to more serious incidents or transgressions by the airline operators. As one senior industry professional recently quipped, the director general of civil aviation had turned into the director general for consumer affairs. In the absence of any proper redressal system, airlines in India are getting away with nothing short of murder, which I will elaborate on in many subsequent pieces. The UPA II proposed that the new CAA would discharge all the duties currently assigned to DGCA, including safety oversight, environmental regulation, licensing, international coordination, advising the government, and industry development. It would also be responsible for the protection of consumer interests and training of civil aviation personnel, including its own staff. It further argued that appeals against CAAs decisions may be made to the government, and all funds received by CAA, including central government grants, fees, and charges, would be credited to the Civil Aviation Authority Fund, giving it financial autonomy. While the CAA, as envisaged by UPA II, was a good idea, it didnt go far enough. Having watched and written about the functioning of the DGCA for over two decades, here are some of the things I think are non-negotiable for any safety regulator. To start with, there is absolutely no justification for the safety regulator to be headed by an IAS cadre officer, or for that matter, any bureaucrat. In fact, one of the better DGCA chiefs was Air Marshal Jafar Zaheer who had warned Indira Gandhi against her younger sons unauthorised flying and resigned when his warning was ignored. Had she heeded his advice, the history of this country and its leadership might have been quite different from what it is today. The current system of an IAS officer (mostly, additional secretary level) heading the regulator doesnt work for a host of reasons, the foremost being that he is beholden to the minister for his next promotion as secretary. Hence, he treads on eggshells and is apt to do everything the minister demands, several of which run antithetical to what should ideally be done. A ji-hazoor culture might work in other areas, but not flight safety. Moreover, the top official at the safety regulator needs to have an in-depth knowledge of the aviation sector globally, given it is a technologically fast-moving sector. We dont need only bureaucrats, many of whom spend their tenure struggling to grasp the technicalities of aviation and quick action gets ruled out in almost every situation. Further, it is equally critical that he is resistant to the pressures from airline operators to make the rules more amenable to their interests. In other words, his moral probity must be beyond reproach. An interesting aside here: Unlike other regulators, such as the Federal Aviation Authority (United States) or European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the qualifications of Indias director general of civil aviation are omitted on the website. A former FAA chief, Steve Dickson, graduated from the US Air Force Academy, worked over 30 years with Delta, had flown both fighter and commercial jets during his career and had held the position of director of the Air Navigation Bureau of the International Civil Aviation Organization before he was chosen to head the regulator. Last but not least, once countries find a highly qualified head, they dont keep changing them at the drop of a hat. EASA, for instance, has maintained the same head for eight years in some cases while in India, the average tenure was less than two years up until very recently. To make matters worse, the DGCA structure is quite complicated with one director general, six joint directors general, six deputy directors general, 17 directors and 43 deputy directors. Many appear to work at cross-purposes and yet are not held accountable when they fail to perform their duties adequately or if any discrepancy occurs. While many airline industry insiders have always maintained that the DGCA is overly top-heavy, it is quite possible that, given the pace the countrys aviation market has grown, more officers are needed even at the senior levels. But there is no denying that fixing responsibilities clearly and holding individual officers accountable is urgently needed. When it comes to the selection of those who head specific functions, the focus needs to be on quality instead of quantity. This is not to say we dont need more hands-on board to keep the skies safe. But we cant fill the regulatory body with whomever the powers-that-be desire or favour. The usual kith-and-kin approach does not work in a sector as technically advanced as this. Playing with human lives is not a sport anywhere in the world. Financial freedom for the regulator is also a critical need. This is the only way to ensure that the regulator can attract the needed skilled talent at market rates and be free to hire and fire as per its requirements. This can be easily tackled by levying a small charge of 10 or 20 on every air ticket sold in the country. No passenger would object to a small levy to ensure that their safety is ensured. Moreover, sufficient resources and autonomy are required for the regulator to keep pace with the rest of the world on safety matters. As things stand, once the allotted resources run out, DGCA officials often have to back out of International Air Transport Association (IATA) or ICAO meetings and other forums, in which regulators from other nations participate. This makes little sense for the world's third-largest aviation market by aircraft size. There needs to be an independent body to keep an eye on and rate the work of the watchdog and ensure corrective action is taken as needed. The regulator is there to ensure that airline operators do not cut corners, follow all the rules, and deliver a safe, reliable air service. What happens when there is a serious incident or accident, like a recent one in which two pilots lost their lives after a trainee aircraft crashed in Jamshedpur? Who is liable for these lost lives: the founders of the flying school or the DGCA officials who are in charge of ensuring the flying schools follow all safety protocols? Will the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) do a thorough examination, identify the causes, and ensure corrective measures are taken? It is possible that the DGCA was lacking in its duties or the flying school in observing the rules or both. The AAIB, too, needs to be an independent body as well, with no affiliation or link to MoCA. It should be free to pull up the DGCA when required like the National Transport Safety Board is in the US with respect to the FAA. In the past, after every major air accident or incident in India, expert committees were set up to examine the reasons and recommend corrective action in long reports. These reports then gather dust and, at some stage, are consigned to the dustbin. Very few of the recommendations made over the years have actually been implemented, according to industry and even DGCA sources. Just to cite one instance, in the early 2000s, India borrowed the concept of the accountable manager from EASA but did not follow it in letter or spirit. Post the 2010 crash in Mangalore, in which 158 lives were lost, the accountable manager of the airline was not held accountable, continued working in the airline, and was the chief operating officer (COO) of the airline when its next serious accident took place at Calicut in August 2020. Had this happened with any of the European carriers, the accountable manager would very likely have faced punitive action or, at the bare minimum, lost his position of significance in the carrier post the first crash itself as per EASA laws and regulations. This illustrates just one of the several gaps in the functioning of the present DGCA. While the whole gamut of safety-related issues that need tackling remains outside the purview of this article, it is imperative for the government to abolish DGCA in its present form, set up a new financially independent safety regulator that focuses solely on this aspect, and further set up an ombudsman that focuses on passenger-related aspects, including grievances and woes. Anjuli Bhargava writes on governance, infrastructure and the social sector. The views expressed are personal As the festive season approaches, finding the perfect gift for children can be both exciting and challenging. If youre looking for a present thats fun and fosters their creativity, imagination, and problem-solving skills, LEGO Sets are an excellent choice. Not only do they keep the kids engaged for hours, but they also help in developing crucial skills that will benefit kids for years to come. Get your hands on exclusive Lego Sets starting at just INR.999 at Amazons Great Indian Festival With Amazons great Indian festival sale offering LEGO Sets starting at just Rs. 999, theres never been a better time to invest in some amazing Sets for your children! From space to Disney castles, theres a LEGO Set for every interest and age group! Relive the magic of Harry Potter with the Talking Sorting Hat Talking Sorting Hat A truly fascinating experience for Harry Potter aficionados, the Talking Sorting Hat is the first-ever LEGO Harry Potter model that talks! While building the hat is a fun experience itself, its sound brick, which has 31 randomised sounds truly brings it to life! What's more, it comes with a Display stand and your own Harry Potter for kids to show off their building skills. Bring winters to your home with Elsa's Frozen Castle Elsa's Frozen Castle If your child has a passion for Disney Frozens Elsa, Anna, and their friends, this learn-to-build castle set is the perfect gift for them! Along with iconic characters, the Set comes with a Starter Brick base, ice-cream kitchen, fireplace, and a self-contained build in each bag. A lot of other fun extras like Castle swing and slide area, small campfire, and canoe builds make this a fun yet immersive experience that holds concentration for hours. Your kid's own little space: Planet Earth and Moon in Orbit Set Planet Earth and Moon in Orbit If your children are enthusiastic about the space, gift them this experiential and educational Set. This buildable model of the Earth and Moon in orbit is a great way to help your children understand the solar system. It comes with gear elements to create the orbital movements and a realistic rotational system and offers an understanding of the moon phases as well. There is truly no better way to learn science! Your Kid's favourite Police Car Police Car Move creative play into the fast lane with this cool LEGO City Police Car. The exciting Set is a sporty Patrol car that will introduce your children to fun crook-catching adventures. It comes with features such as headlights, stylish rims, wide fenders, and a Police minifigure, and offers action-packed adventure to your little ones! The exclusive R2-D2 set R2-D2 A playful display featuring a LEGO brick-built toy figure of the most beloved droid in the StarWars universe! This LEGOStarWars buildable toy is great for display and has lots of fun features to inspire R2-D2 role-play. It comes with unique features like a rotating head, an attachable periscope, and tools to encourage creative play. Pyroraptor & Dilophosaurus Transport Set Pyroraptor & Dilophosaurus Transport Children can track, trace, and capture dinosaurs with this exciting set, inspired by the Jurassic World Dominion movie. This 254-piece set features 2 dinosaur figures, a buildable off-roader with a trailer, and 3 minifigures, that truly make it an immersive experience. This set makes a great gift for young Jurassic World Dominion fans who are into toy vehicles and dinosaurs. Explore the range of LEGO on Amazon India -https://www.amazon.in/stores/LEGO/Homepage/page/F4C60479-0892-4815-AB2C-A2B61F67F2F5 Disclaimer: This article is a promotional feature and does not have journalistic/editorial involvement of Hindustan Times. When you purchase a new bike, one of the first and most crucial steps is getting it registered at your local Regional Transport Office (RTO). Upon registration, your bike is assigned a unique registration number, which is documented in the Registration Certificate (RC) issued to you. This registration number is not just a formal requirement; it serves as the identity of your vehicle, making it legal to drive on Indian roads. It also holds the key to accessing essential details about your bike, including its insurance information. The Basics of Getting Bike Insurance Details by Vehicle Registration Number In this guide, we'll explore how to use your bike's registration number to obtain its insurance details. But first, let's clarify what a bike registration number is and why it's so important. What is a bike registration number? A bike's registration number is a unique alphanumeric code assigned by the RTO where the bike is registered. This number serves as an identity card for the vehicle, allowing authorities and the general public to access its basic details, including the RTO where it was registered, its insurance status, engine and chassis numbers, and more. The format for a bike registration number in India typically looks like this: "AA 00 AA 0000." Heres a breakdown: The first two letters represent the state where the bike is registered. The following two-digit number is the RTO code. The next two letters indicate the RTO sequence. The final four digits are the unique registration number of the bike. While the first six characters may be the same for multiple vehicles, the last four digits are unique to each bike. Why is a bikes registration number so important? The registration number of a bike is more than just an identification code. It serves several critical purposes, including: 1. Buying a Bike Insurance Policy You cannot purchase a bike insurance policy without providing the vehicle's registration number. Insurance providers use this number to issue policies and document the vehicle's details within the policy document, ensuring accurate and specific coverage. 2. Renewing a Bike Insurance Policy When renewing your bike insurance, you must enter your bikes registration number on the insurer's portal. This allows the insurer to retrieve details such as the previous policy, engine and chassis numbers, and other relevant information, helping calculate your renewal premium. 3. Making Insurance Claims In the event of an accident or damage to your bike, the registration number is vital for filing a claim. Insurers will require your bike's RC to process your claim. If its a third-party claim, you'll also need to provide the registration number of the other vehicle involved. 4. Retrieving Bike Insurance Details If you misplace your insurance policy document, your bike's registration number can help you retrieve your insurance details. This is particularly useful when you need to register a claim or present your bikes insurance information to traffic authorities. How to get bike insurance details by using the registration number There are several ways to obtain your bike insurance details using the vehicle's registration number. Here are the most common methods: Through the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways Website Visit the official website of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways at parivahan.gov.in. Navigate to the "Online Services" section and select "Vehicle Related Services." Enter your bikes registration number, and all the relevant details, including insurance information, will be displayed on your screen. Using the mParivahan Mobile App Download the "mParivahan" app on your smartphone. After registering with your name and mobile number, enter your bikes registration number in the app. The app will display all details about your bike, including the owner's name, fitness certificate validity, road tax status, and insurance information. Through the RTO's Official Website or Office You can visit the official website of the RTO where your bike is registered and enter your bike's registration number to view its insurance details. Alternatively, you can physically visit the RTO office, provide your bikes registration number to the helpdesk, and request the insurance details. Via Your Insurance Provider's Website or Branch Most insurance providers allow you to check your policy details online by entering your bikes registration number and your registered mobile number on their website. You can also visit the nearest branch office of your insurer or contact their customer support to obtain your bike insurance details. Your bikes registration number is a crucial tool for accessing a wide range of information, including its insurance details. Whether youre purchasing a new policy, renewing an existing one, or filing a claim, having your bike's registration number handy makes the process smooth and efficient. For those who prefer a centralised option, the Insurance Information Bureau (IIB) website, developed by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), also allows you to retrieve your bike insurance details using the registration number. Remember, keeping your bike insurance information up to date is essential for ensuring continuous coverage and compliance with the law. Lastly, when renewing your bikes insurance policy, ensure to ask for the No-claim bonus (NCB). NCB in bike insurance is a discount that the policyholder earns for a claim-free year. This discount increases up to 50% - with every claim-free year and can be used to get a discount on renewal premium. Disclaimer: This article is a paid publication and does not have journalistic/editorial involvement of Hindustan Times. Hindustan Times does not endorse/subscribe to the content(s) of the article/advertisement and/or view(s) expressed herein. Hindustan Times shall not in any manner, be responsible and/or liable in any manner whatsoever for all that is stated in the article and/or also with regard to the view(s), opinion(s), announcement(s), declaration(s), affirmation(s) etc., stated/featured in the same. A 30-year-old factory worker collapsed and died a day after her manager refused her sick leave request. The shocking incident was reported from Thailand at a time of growing discussions on work-life balance across the world. A 30-year-old woman in Thailand died after her manager allegedly refused her sick leave request(Unsplash) According to the Bangkok Post, the 30-year-old woman was an employee of an electronics plant in the Samut Prakan province of Thailand. Identified only as May, she had taken sick leave with a medical certificate from September 5 to 9 after being diagnosed with an inflamed large intestine. May spent four days at the hospital while receiving treatment for her condition. After being discharged, she took two more days of sick leave as she was not feeling better. On the evening of September 12, May asked her manager for another day of sick leave, saying her condition had deteriorated further. Her manager informed her that she would have to come to work and submit another medical certificate since she had already taken so many days of sick leave. Worried about losing her job, May showed up to work on September 13. However, she collapsed after working for just 20 minutes, claims a friend of hers. May was immediately rushed to the hospital and had an emergency surgery. Unfortunately, she died from necrotising enterocolitis the following day. Company devastated by loss Mays employer, Delta Electronics Thailand, shared a statement on her death on September 17. The company said it was devastated by the loss of their employee and would launch an investigation into the incident. At Delta Electronics, our people are the foundation of our success, and we are devastated by this loss. Our priority is to provide unwavering support to the employees family at this trying time, said Victor Cheng, CEO of Delta Electronics (Thailand) PCL, in a statement posted on Facebook. The company has launched a comprehensive investigation to establish the facts surrounding this incident. Delta Electronics remains committed to transparency and responsibility and will keep all relevant parties informed as more information becomes available, the statement added. A British couple that was kicked off an EasyJet flight for a lewd act back in March recently had their court hearing. Bradley Smith and Antonia Sullivan were caught red-handed while performing a sexual act in public view, which led to them being escorted off the flight. A British couple was kicked off an EasyJet flight for performing a sex act. The couple was returning to Bristol from a holiday in Tenerife, Spain on March 3 when several witnesses on their EasyJet flight reported their inappropriate behaviour to the crew. During the 7 am flight, Bradley Smith sat on seat 16A while his girlfriend, Antonia Sullivan, sat next to him on 16B. Their co-passenger in seat 16C was one of three people who saw their NSFW act, according to British newspaper The Sun. A mother and daughter duo sitting in the row behind the couple also witnessed it. Heres what happened According to the witnesses, Bradley asked Antonia to perform a sexual act minutes after the flight took off from Spain. The couple then arranged some clothes over Bradleys lap and commenced their explicit act in the packed flight. After a few minutes the witness was aware that the couple had re-arranged some coats over Smiths lap and there followed vigorous hand movements beneath the coat, prosecutor Maree Doyle told Bristol magistrates court. The witness sitting next to them could see what was happening while a mother and teenage daughter sitting behind the couple could also see what was going on, the prosecutor said. When the furious mom called cabin crew to complain, Antonia initially insisted that she was only rubbing her boyfriends leg. However, the couple was later escorted off the plane by police for questioning. The judgement Both Bradley, 22, and Antonia, 20, pleaded guilty to one act of outraging public decency by committing a sexual act in a public place in court earlier this week. They have been asked to pay 100 GBP ( 11,000 INR approximately) as compensation to each of the three witnesses. Bradley was also ordered to complete 300 hours of community work, while Antonia got 270 hours. Judge Lynne Matthews reprimanded the couple for their explicit behaviour in public. You had no regard for the feelings of other passengers. There was a child sitting behind you who was able to see what was happening. Who do you think you are and what right do you think entitled you to behave in that way in full view of people on that flight? the judge asked. A recent cobra sighting in a society located in Greater Noida has caused significant alarm among local residents. The incident unfolded when the snake was spotted near Tower C, in the park side area of Gaur City 1. Shortly thereafter, a safety notice was distributed to inform residents about the situation and advise them to be vigilant while traversing the area. A cobra was spotted in Greater Noida.(X/@GreaterNoidaW) (Also read: Heart-stopping video shows huge cobra emerging from toilet in Indore) Safety notice issued Dated September 26, the notice alerted residents: Dear residents, we would like to bring to your notice that a snake is found roaming around Tower C, park side area today. The maintenance office also emphasised the need for caution, stating, We would request all the residents to be careful while roaming to the park side area. Especially brief your kids to be very careful. The notice provided reassurance, confirming that the security team had safely captured the snake and handed it over to the forest department for further action. Successful capture by security team Following a tense and risky operation, the security team at Gaur City 1 successfully captured the reptile and placed it in a closed enclosure. The snake was then handed over to officials from the citys forest department, who will facilitate its release back into its natural habitat. Two images of the captured cobra were shared on social media, showing the reptile secured in a blue bin. The accompanying caption read, Cobra snake found in the Central Park of 4th Avenue Society, Gaur City 1. Security personnel risked their lives to catch the snake. The images captured the swift action taken by the security team, highlighting their bravery during the incident. Check out the post here: (Also read: Terrifying 9-foot king cobra found hiding in bedroom in Karnataka. Viral video) Comparative incident in Karnataka In a related note, a similar situation recently occurred in Karnataka, where a 9-foot-long king cobra was discovered inside a family home. The snake had made its way into a wooden box located on a loft. Upon discovering the massive reptile, the family immediately contacted the forest department for assistance. Watch the clip here: The rescue operation was led by Ajay Giri, a field director from the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station (ARRS), who successfully captured the king cobra and released it back into the wild under the supervision of forest officials. Coldplay frenzy has taken over Indian fans since the band announced their 2025 concert in Mumbai. With tickets sold out and resale prices soaring, it's clear that fans are pulling out all the stops to secure a coveted seat. Hence, when a man shared a post on Threads, claiming he had some tickets to resell, it didnt take long for people to flock to the comments section to get more information and purchase the tickets. While some wanted to secure a seat, others needed clarification about the authenticity of the Coldplay concert tickets. (AFP) Reselling Coldplay tickets tickets. Please Dm on Insta, Threads user Prashik Nagrale wrote, adding that he wants to sell the tickets to those in Delhi-NCR, Gurgaon, Mumbai or Bangalore. I assure all possible support to prove the genuineness of the tickets (sic) if you are fine with the prices. The prices of tickets are actually higher than real prices in the resale market. Please beware of any scam. Thanks, he further wrote, claiming he is offering the real deal. He concluded the post with screenshots of the tickets. Take a look at the entire post here: Real or fake? Social media debates As expected, the viral post sparked a flurry of reactions, with people sharing various comments. While some asked about the availability or price of the tickets, others were more concerned about their authenticity. Can you please let me know the price? Im interested, wrote an individual. Several others dropped similar comments to secure a seat at the upcoming concert. Then, some were interested in the price of the tickets the man claimed to resell. One Threads user asked, Hey, how much for these tickets? Another added, I hope these are affordable. Some, a bit late to the party, inquired if the tickets were still available. A few, however, labelled the post as a scam. Just like this person who commented, Bro, nice editing see the 2nd screenshot no recent bookings to recent bookings. BookMyShow lodges police complaint: The online ticket aggregator BookMyShow,the official ticketing partner for Coldplay's concerts, has lodged a police complaint about the alleged sale of fake tickets for the upcoming concert on certain online platforms. According to PTI, they further appealed to people to not fall victim to these scams. What are your thoughts on this mans post claiming he is reselling Coldplay concert tickets? A new employee at a Chinese educational firm was briefly fired after refusing to buy breakfast and coffee for her boss. The employee, surnamed Lou, was allegedly dismissed for not bringing her supervisor a "hot Americano and an egg" each morning. The incident came to light after she shared her experience on the social media platform Xiaohongshu. A Chinese employee was briefly fired for refusing to buy breakfast for her boss.(Pixabay) (Also read: Chinese man, 30, dies after 104 days of non-stop work with only 1 day off) Daily breakfast demands Lous supervisor, identified as Liu, insisted that the new employee fetch an Americano, an egg, and sometimes a bottle of water each morning. When the employee refused, tensions escalated. She explained that these tasks were not part of her role and expressed her frustration online, stating that her boss was unreasonable in expecting personal favours on a daily basis. I wasnt hired to be a personal assistant, yet my boss expected me to handle her breakfast needs every morning, Lou posted, shedding light on the situation. Dismissed without compensation When the issue was raised with the human resources department, the employee hoped for a fair resolution. However, she was instead told to leave the company without any compensation. According to a report from South China Morning Post (SCMP), the HR department cited her refusal to serve food and water as grounds for termination. (Also read: 55-year-old Chinese delivery driver working 18 hours daily dies while napping on bike) The decision caused an uproar on social media, with netizens criticising the firm and calling for an internal investigation into the incident. Many argued that such treatment of employees was unacceptable and demanded the company take action. Supervisor fired following backlash After receiving heavy backlash online, the company was compelled to respond. Under mounting pressure from the public, the firm decided to reinstate the dismissed employee and terminate the supervisor responsible for the unreasonable demands. Earlier in September, the company issued a public statement confirming that Liu had been fired for her inappropriate behaviour. The firm assured the public that it would take steps to ensure similar incidents would not occur in the future. In a shocking case from northern Vietnams Thanh Hoa province, 37-year-old Luu Thanh Nam was arrested for stealing bones from his uncles grave and attempting to extort money from his family. The man reportedly demanded 5 billion Vietnamese dong (167,000) from his extended family to repay gambling debts. A man in Vietnam stole his uncle's bones to extort 167,000 for gambling debts.(Pixabay) The incident, which occurred on 9 September, was reported by the South China Morning Post. Nams uncle, who had died four years prior, was the father of his cousin, Luu Thanh Hoi. (Also read: Vietnamese man with chronic headaches had chopsticks in brain) Grave desecration and threats Armed with a shovel, Nam dug a 20cm hole in his uncles grave and removed a portion of the remains. He then hid the bones in a nearby rubbish pile before sending an anonymous message to Hois wife, threatening never to return the remains unless the family paid the ransom. In a chilling warning, Nam also cautioned the family against involving the authorities, claiming they would lose the remains forever if they did so. Alarmed by the threats, the family checked the grave and discovered the disturbance. Upon finding the coffin cap damaged, they immediately contacted the local authorities. Swift police action Following a swift investigation, the police identified Nam as the culprit. Overwhelmed by gambling debts, he confessed to the crime. Authorities recovered the stolen bones and returned them to the family, allowing them to reinter the remains according to local customs. (Also read: TikTok influencer cleans abandoned grave in viral video: Everyone deserves a beautiful resting place) On 12 September, Nam was formally arrested on charges of grave desecration and extortion. In Vietnam, desecration of graves can lead to a prison sentence of up to seven years, while extortion charges could carry a penalty of up to 20 years, depending on the severity of the crime. Disrespecting tradition In Vietnamese culture, disturbing a grave is seen as deeply disrespectful, as it is believed to disrupt the peace of the deceaseds soul and bring misfortune to the living. After recovering the remains, Hoi reburied his father in line with traditional customs, hoping to restore peace to his spirit. After spending 46 years on death row, a man was finally proven innocent and acquitted. Freedom came to the world's longest-serving death row prisoner after more than half a century when a Japanese court ruled that the evidence in his murder conviction was fabricated. The 91-year-old sister of the world's longest-serving death row prisoner bowed to the judge who declared his innocence. (via REUTERS) Ailing health prevented 88-year-old former boxer Iwao Hakamada from being in the court to learn the outcome of his retrial, which was granted a decade ago after a long campaign by supporters. But his 91-year-old sister Hideko, who often speaks for him, bowed deeply to the judge who declared Hakamada innocent. "Everyone -- we won the acquittal, it's all thanks to your support," she said outside the Shizuoka District Court, close to tears with her voice cracking. What was he convicted of? Hakamada spent 46 years on death row after being convicted in 1968 of robbing and killing his boss, the man's wife and their two teenage children. "Investigators tampered with clothes by getting blood on them" which they then hid in a tank of miso, or fermented soybean paste, said Thursday's ruling, seen by AFP. It slammed the use of "inhumane interrogations meant to force a statement... by imposing mental and physical pain". "The prosecution's records were obtained by effectively infringing on the defendant's right to remain silent, under circumstances extremely likely to elicit a false confession," the ruling said. Supporters gather at court Hundreds of people queued in the morning to try to secure a seat for the verdict in a murder saga that has gripped the nation and sparked scrutiny of Japan's justice system. Prosecutors have two weeks to appeal, according to Japanese media. Hideko told a post-trial news conference that the not guilty verdict had "sounded divine". She wore a white jacket and, asked before the verdict if it symbolised her brother's innocence, said she had deliberately avoided dark colours. A bout every day Japan is the only major industrialised democracy other than the United States to retain capital punishment, a policy that has broad public support. Hakamada is the fifth death row inmate granted a retrial in Japan's post-war history. All four previous cases also resulted in exonerations. His lead lawyer Hideyo Ogawa said Hakamada sometimes seems like he "lives in a world of fantasy" after decades of detention, mostly in solitary confinement. Describing his battle to obtain an acquittal to AFP in 2018, Hakamada said he felt he was "fighting a bout every day". "Once you think you can't win, there is no path to victory," he said. Hakamada appeared not to be immediately aware of the decision, after Japanese media reported that supporters had removed the batteries from his TV remote control on Thursday. Hideko had told reporters she wanted to tell him the news soon after the verdict, but at the right moment. He was filmed shortly after the decision leaving home to go for a walk, dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and a green hat. Hostage justice Hakamada initially denied having robbed and murdered the victims in 1966 but then confessed following what he later described as a brutal police interrogation that included beatings. Ogawa said after the verdict that 58 years had been "too long" to settle the case but "the fact that the judge found falsification on three major issues was also a very significant milestone". The Supreme Court upheld Hakamada's death sentence in 1980 but his supporters kept up the fight to reopen the case. A retrial was granted in 2014 and Hakamada was released from prison, although legal wrangling meant the proceedings only began last year. Supporter Atsushi Zukeran, wearing a T-shirt saying "Free Hakamada Now", said outside the court that the case was "a painful reminder of how Japan's criminal justice system must change". Given how long the affair dragged on, "part of me wouldn't be able to celebrate the acquittal entirely", Zukeran said. Teppei Kasai, Asia programme officer for Human Rights Watch, told AFP Hakamada's case was "just one of countless examples of Japan's so-called 'hostage justice' system". Amnesty International said Hakamada had endured "almost half a century of wrongful imprisonment and a further 10 years waiting for his retrial". Boram Jang, the rights group's East Asia researcher, said that meant the verdict was "an important recognition of the profound injustice he endured for most of his life". As Durga Puja approaches, radical Islamic groups have warned Bangladesh's Hindu minority to not openly celebrate the festival and engage in any idol worship or immersion, reported India Today. Hindus in Bangladesh hold a rally condemning violence against them and other religious groups in the Muslim-majority country(AP) Insaf Keemkari Chhatra-Janta, a radical Islamic group, staged a protest in Dhaka's sector 13 against the use of a playground by the Hindu community for the Durga Puja celebrations. The area had been used by the community for many years. However as tensions rise between religious groups in the country, several Islamic groups have called for restrictions on celebrating the Hindu festival, the report said. Holding up placards in Bangla that read no worship anywhere by closing roads, no pollution to water by idol immersion, no worship to idols, the protesting group presented a 16-point list of demands citing environmental damage, use of government funds for religious activity and disruption as reasons to stop celebrating Durga Puja. One of their issues was that Durga Puja had been made a national holiday despite Hindus only making up two per cent of the population. They claimed that the festival caused a nuisance for the Muslim majority and also stated that Muslims should not support such festivals for religious reasons. Their demands also included a call to remove temples built by occupying many special lands in Bangladesh, reported India Today. Another demand asks all temples to have anti-India banners and slogans for Hindu citizens to prove their loyalty to Bangladesh and their anti-India sentiments. Reports of temple vandalism and idol destruction have increased, heightening the anxiety of the community. In Khulna, Hindu citizens told India Today that they were being asked to pay 5 lakh Bangladeshi taka to celebrate Durga Puja. Despite assurances from Muhammad Yunus, chief advisor of the interim government, the Hindu community in Bangladesh has faced a surge in attacks on life and property after the ouster of Sheikh Hasina. The Israeli military said it carried out a strike on the headquarters of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed targeting Hezbollah's central command centre in the densely populated Dahiyeh suburb, which is known as a stronghold for the group. The Israeli military said Friday it carried out a precise strike on the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut.(X / video screengrab) "The IDF (military) carried out a precise strike on the central headquarters of the terrorist organisation Hezbollah in Dahiyeh," military spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a televised statement. Lebanons state-run National News Agency said six buildings were levelled to the ground by the strikes. Israels three main TV channels say the massive strikes in Beirut targeted Hezbollahs leader Hassan Nasrallah. The Israeli army had no comment on the reports that Nasrallah was the target. But given the size and timing of the blast, there were strong indications that a high-value target was inside the building at the time, reported the Associated Press. The news outlet Axios cited an Israeli source as saying Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was the target of the strike and that the Israeli military was checking if he was hit. A source close to Hezbollah told Reuters that Nasrallah is alive, while Iran's Tasnim news agency also reported he was safe. A senior Iranian security official told Reuters that Tehran was checking his status. Explosions from the strikes were heard across Beirut, shaking windows and buildings as far as 30 kilometres away from the city centre. Thick black smoke billowed into the sky, and ambulances were seen racing towards the site of the blasts in Dahieh, with sirens echoing throughout the city. Hospitals in the area were receiving casualties, but the scale was not immediately clear. Officials at Sahel hospital near the scene of the strike said they had received 10 wounded, three of them critically, including a Syrian child. The strike came amid heightened tensions following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's vow to escalate Israel's offensive against Hezbollah. Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Friday, Netanyahu reiterated Israels commitment to confronting Hezbollah, stating, As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice and Israel has every right to remove this threat. A Lebanese security source told Reuters that Friday's assault was the largest Israeli attack on the capital's southern suburbs since the conflict began earlier this week. The precise impact and casualties from the strike were not immediately known. The escalation of violence follows a week of intensive airstrikes across southern Lebanon, where Israel has been targeting Hezbollah positions. Over 700 people have reportedly been killed, and tens of thousands of civilians have fled their homes amid the bombardment. Netanyahu's UN speech, delivered shortly before the Beirut strike, was defiant, dismissing ongoing international efforts to broker a ceasefire in the conflict. The US, European Union, and several Arab nations had proposed a three-week ceasefire to stem the violence. However, Netanyahu focused on achieving "total victory" over Hezbollah and its ally Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip. With inputs from agencies China's latest nuclear-powered attack submarine sank earlier this year while under construction, US officials said Thursday, in a potential embarrassment for the country as it seeks to expand its military prowess. This satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows what appears to be a sunken Chinese submarine at a shipyard near Wuhan, China, June 15, 2024. (Planet Labs PBC via AP) The sinking of the Zhou-class submarine, the first of its kind, occurred sometime between May and June alongside a pier, reported news agencies quoting a senior US defence official. The incident, which has raised questions about the safety and reliability of China's cutting-edge military technology, is a blow to Beijings ambitions to project power, especially in contested regions like the South China Sea. Also Read | India to get its 2nd nuclear submarine Satellite imagery from Planet Labs PBC analysed by US defence experts showed the submarine partially submerged near the Wuchang shipyard on the Yangtze River, surrounded by cranes and rescue equipment. Images taken in June show the vessel almost entirely underwater, while subsequent images from August suggest the presence of a submarine at the same dock. However, it remains unclear whether it is the same vessel or another Zhou-class submarine. Also Read | Indian Navy approaches government for two nuclear attack submarines China's nuclear submarine fleet, which as of 2022 consisted of six nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, six nuclear-powered attack submarines, and 48 diesel-powered attack submarines, is set to grow substantially in the coming years. According to U.S. military estimates, Chinas fleet could reach 65 submarines by 2025 and 80 by 2035. China reacts to America's claim The Chinese government, however, has not publicly acknowledged the submarine sinking. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington stated, We are not familiar with the situation you mentioned and currently have no information to provide, reported Reuters. "It's not surprising that the PLA Navy would try to conceal the fact that their new first-in-class nuclear-powered attack submarine sank pierside," AFP quoted a senior US defence official as saying. "In addition to the obvious questions about training standards and equipment quality, the incident raises deeper questions about the PLA's internal accountability and oversight of China's defense industry -- which has long been plagued by corruption," the official said. Also Read | France offers full support in nuclear submarines, jet engines and underwater drones to India While it remains unknown whether the submarine was carrying nuclear fuel or if its reactor was active at the time of the incident, US officials have noted that no radiation leaks were reported. This has assuaged some fears about potential environmental damage. Still, analysts say the incident casts doubt on the survivability and operational reliability of Chinas next-generation submarines, a key component of its military expansion. The incident comes at a time of heightened tensions between China and its neighbours over territorial disputes, especially in the South China Sea, a region vital to global trade routes. China's increasingly assertive stance in the region has alarmed countries like Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines, while the United States has responded by strengthening alliances and conducting freedom-of-navigation operations. With inputs from agencies Several experts and employees have slamming Meghan Markle for some time, and now former staff members are calling her a demon boss compared to the glowing accounts recently shared in the media. US actress Meghan Markle addresses the audience during the "Afro women and power" forum, at the Municipal Theatre in Cali, Colombia, on August 18, 2024.. (Photo by Raul ARBOLEDA / AFP)(AFP) The Daily Beast cited several individuals who worked for Meghan during her time as a royal and described her as a difficult and demanding employer, with some even referring to her as a demon and recalling her psycho moments in the workplace. Current and former staffers described her as a generous and thoughtful employer who regularly gave her team freshly cut flowers and home-produced eggs, per a US Weekly report. The time I spent working with Prince Harry and Meghan was incredibly meaningful to me, one staffer said. ALSO READ| Prince Harry was urged to stay in UK by this former British Prime Minister, new memoir reveals But The Hollywood Reporter painted her as a dictator in high heels, allegedly reducing grown men to tears with her harsh management style. Everyones terrified of Meghan. She belittles people, she doesnt take advice. Theyre both poor decision-makers, they change their minds frequently, a source told THP. However, another source close to Meghan and Prince Harry swiftly denied those allegations, calling the claims a fabrication when speaking to The Daily Beast. Ex-staffer describes Meghan's behavior as bad, very bad, even psycho While acknowledging that Meghans behaviour could be difficult at times, a former courtier who worked with the couple told The Daily Beast, There have been plenty of difficult royals over the years, and I do think that after the ill-feeling of Megxit, Meghans bad moments were amplified and distorted and blown out of proportion. The source then cited examples like Princess Margaret, who famously had staff hold out their hands to use as ashtrays, and Prince Andrew, who was notorious for his poor treatment of palace workers. ALSO READ| Prince Harry 'hasn't looked happy for a while' just because of Meghan Markle: Royal expert Yet, the courtier admitted there were bad, very bad, even psycho moments when Meghan allegedly berated staff both in person and over the phone, making them feel terrible. I witnessed people being chewed up and made to feel like s**t, the source recounted. It was an incredibly fraught time, and Im inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt, the courtier added. Jason Knauf, Meghan's former press secretary, sent an email to Simon Case, Prince Williams private secretary at the time, raising, I am very concerned that the duchess was able to bully two PAs out of the household in the past year, He wrote the Duchess of Sessexes' behaviour as totally unacceptable. Pakistan said Thursday it would have to go through "transitional pain" after the International Monetary Fund agreed to a new relief package of $7 billion to bolster its faltering economy. .Pakistan said it would have to go through "transitional pain" after the IMF agreed to a new relief package of $7 billion (Photo by Amna YASEEN / AFP)(AFP) Although the South Asian nation's economy has stabilised since it came close to defaulting last summer, it is dependent on IMF bailouts and loans from friendly countries to service its huge debt, which swallows up half of its annual revenues. Also Read: At US Event, Jaishankar Reminds West Of Its Pakistan Aid, Talks India-Russia Ties, New World Order "There will be transitional pain, but if we are to make it the last programme, then we have to carry out structural reforms," Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb told local broadcaster Geo News. The IMF said in a statement it would issue an "immediate disbursement" of around $1 billion. Also Read: Kashmir mans quest to meet Pakistani influencer ends in detention in Gujarat "This past year has seen a very welcome return to economic stability in Pakistan," IMF Pakistan mission chief Nathan Porter told reporters on Thursday. "The challenge confronting Pakistan now is to move beyond this renewed sense of stability and towards stronger and sustained growth, with its benefits shared more broadly and evenly across society," he added. Also Read: Saudi Arabia warns Pakistan for sending beggars with Umrah visas: Take action or' Pakistan in July agreed to the deal -- its 24th IMF payout since 1958 -- in exchange for unpopular reforms, including cutting back on power subsidies and widening its chronically low tax base. Speaking on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the deal came through thanks to the "tremendous support" of Saudi Arabia, China and the United Arab Emirates. "In the final phase (of negotiations), the IMF's conditions were related to China. The way the Chinese government supported and strengthened us during this time is something I am truly grateful for," he told reporters shortly before the deal was announced. Last month, Aurangzeb had said Pakistan was negotiating a $12 billion loan reprofiling from bilateral lenders. The amount comprised $5 billion from Saudi Arabia, $4 billion from China and $3 billion from the UAE for a three- to five-year period. Porter said all three countries had "provided significant financing assurances," beyond these commitments to rolling over the $12 billion in existing loans. Reacting to the news, Pakistan's stock exchange briefly reached a new record high before losing ground in later trade. Formidable' vulnerabilities Kaiser Bengali, a Pakistani economist, said the deal "will help us pay back our immediate debts, but nothing more." "The only economic reforms that we are required to implement is more taxes. There is no progress on reducing government expenditures," he told AFP. At the end of 2023, Pakistan -- long locked in a cycle of overlapping political and economic crises -- had amassed a total debt of more than $250 billion, or 74 percent of GDP, according to the IMF. About 40 percent of its debt is owed to external creditors in foreign currencies. Its biggest single foreign creditor is China and Chinese commercial banks, at just under $30 billion, followed by the World Bank at more than $20 billion, according to the report. Last year the country came to the brink of default as the economy shrivelled amid political chaos following catastrophic 2022 monsoon floods and decades of mismanagement, as well as a global economic downturn. It was saved by last-minute loans from friendly countries as well as an IMF rescue package. Islamabad wrangled for months with IMF officials to unlock the latest loan, which came on the condition of reforms including hiking household bills to remedy a permanently crisis-stricken energy sector and raising pitiful tax takings. In a nation of more than 240 million people where most jobs are in the informal sector, only 5.2 million filed income tax returns in 2022. The IMF said Pakistan "has taken key steps to restoring economic stability with consistent reforms". But "despite this progress, Pakistan's vulnerabilities and structural challenges remain formidable", it warned. "A difficult business environment, weak governance, and an outsized role of the state hinder investment, which remains very low compared to peers," it added. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will cut short his visit to New York and return to Israel on Friday, his office announced, following a powerful airstrike on Hezbollahs central command centre in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. The strike marked the most intense bombardment on Beirut in the past year, levelling six buildings and sending massive clouds of orange and black smoke over the city. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 27, 2024.(Reuters) The Israeli military described the operation as a precise strike, targeting Hezbollahs central headquarters, located beneath residential buildings in the densely populated southern suburb of Haret Hreik. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesperson, said in a televised statement, We have targeted the main Hezbollah command centre in Beirut, located deep within civilian areas. The US Pentagon confirmed that it had not received prior warning about the strike. A Pentagon spokesperson said that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Israeli counterpart as the operation was underway. The United States is actively involved in diplomatic efforts aimed at de-escalating the conflict, which has escalated in recent weeks. While the full scale of casualties remains unclear, Lebanons state-run National News Agency reported that the Lebanese Red Cross deployed 10 teams to the scene of the strike. Sahel Hospital, located near the site, confirmed that it had received 10 wounded, three of them critically injured, including a Syrian child. Local media showed emergency workers sifting through the rubble in search of survivors, with flashlights illuminating the destruction as night fell over the city. Plumes of smoke were visible for miles, and local TV footage showed the aftermathentire buildings reduced to rubble, with emergency personnel struggling to extinguish fires amid the debris. The force of the explosion was so powerful that it rattled windows and shook homes as far as 30 kilometres away from the impact site. Just before the strikes, thousands had gathered in a nearby suburb for the funeral of three Hezbollah members, including a senior commander, who were killed in earlier Israeli strikes. Following the latest bombardment, residents of the area were seen hastily gathering their belongings and fleeing toward Beiruts airport. Fridays attack came as Netanyahu vowed to continue Israels military campaign against Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, casting doubt on U.S.-led efforts to broker a ceasefire. Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Netanyahu reaffirmed Israels right to self-defence, stating, As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right to remove this threat. The ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has seen an escalation in recent days, with Israel launching a wave of airstrikes across southern Lebanon since Monday. Lebanese officials report that more than 700 people have been killed in the bombardment, including at least 50 children. Tens of thousands have fled their homes in Lebanons southern and northeastern regions. The strikes on Beiruts southern suburbs occurred as the U.S. continues to push for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. Washington has proposed a three-week ceasefire, supported by the European Union and several Arab nations. However, Netanyahus recent comments signal that Israel is intent on continuing its campaign against Hezbollah and its ally Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. With inputs from agencies Whispers of discord between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been in the air for a while now, causing lots of people to speculate about how their relationship is fairing. There is growing concern among royal commentators and fans about the couple, who have begun to spend more time alone in the last few weeks, as they were once known for their undivided front. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle share important statement on US presidential election (Photo by ANDRES CASTILLA / Colombian Vice-Presidency / AFP) (AFP) Prince Harry has been seen attending several high-profile events in his New York tour without Meghan by his side. This increased separation has led to speculation about a potential rift between the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, with royal journalist Sarah-Louise Robertson adding to the conversation. ALSO READ| Prince Harry screams and runs through zombie-filled room in a haunted maze with Jimmy Fallon: Watch Has Harry and Meghan's relationship changed? Speaking to GB News, she said, Im concerned, eight days away from Meghan Markles grass or class, wherever you want to call it, that to me is this signal. Its just a hop, skip, and a jump to splits-ville. As far as Im concerned, I think the writings on the wall. Robertson pointed out, He hasnt looked happy for a while. He didnt look very happy when he was on that supposed tour in Colombia. People have said he looked a bit happier when he was in New York. He was a bit more human? He was humanised on this New York trip. You know that last trip to New York where they claimed that they were being hounded by paparazzi, weve heard none of this this time. Harry has a busy schedule of solo engagements As part of his visit to New York, King Charles III's younger son will spend a week collaborating with a youth charity named after Princess Diana, as well as an African conservation group. ALSO READ| Prince Harrys US visa ruling called suspicious, expert says it certainly appears that Before meeting with the charity The Halo Trust, which had been close to his mother's heart, he intends to host the WellChild Awards in London. Notably not appearing at these forthcoming events, Meghan Markle has been in the UK since the funeral for Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022. Royal expert Phil Dampier told The Sun, this recent pattern of Harry attending events is significant that he is doing so much on his own now. They are living more separate lives as it looks like Harry is trying to carve out what exactly his future is. Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has acknowledged in his memoir, Unleashed that he pushed Prince Harry with a sudden request to remain in the UK as a working royal. Boris Johnson reveals in his memoir that he attempted to persuade Prince Harry to remain a working royal during a 2020 UK-Africa summit. (Reuters) In the serialization of his memoir in the Daily Mail, Johnson describes being assigned the task of giving a manly pep talk to the Duke of Sussex in January 2020. At the time of Harrys imminent exit from his royal duties, the chat occurred on the edges of a UK-Africa investment summit in London. A friend of the Duke told Daily Mail, It was a man-to-man conversation. They were totally alone. But Harry wasnt for turning he was unpersuadable by that point. This alluding Harry's speech to supporters of his Sentebale charity back in 2020, where he said, It brings me great sadness that it has come to this. The decision that I have made for my wife and I to step back, is not one I made lightly. ALSO READ| Prince Harry 'hasn't looked happy for a while' just because of Meghan Markle: Royal expert Johnson's attempt to persuade Prince Harry, a totally hopeless mission Now back to Johnson, the attempt to persuade Prince Harry to reconsider his decision was ultimately futile. He reflects on the encounter as a totally hopeless mission, with the prince already mentally prepared to leave his royal life behind. It was a ridiculous business... when they made me try to persuade Harry to stay. Kind of manly pep talk. Totally hopeless, Johnson writes. The UK-Africa investment summit meeting, which lasted around 20 minutes, was a one-to-one catch-up without aides present. It came just a day after Prince Harry publicly stated that he had no other option but to step down from his royal role. At the time, this meeting was largely overlooked, with reports only mentioning a brief discussion between the prime minister and the prince. It has since been revealed that Johnson hailed Prince Harry as a valuable asset to UK plc. ALSO READ| Prince Harry screams and runs through zombie-filled room in a haunted maze with Jimmy Fallon: Watch Johnson's memoir leads one to believe he had been asked to step in on behalf of both Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street. Although he worked hard to persuade Prince Harry, it looked like the young royal was set on blazing a trail away from his official royal obligations. Johnson points out he was unable to persuade the prince, using his own Brexit story as a reference, smiling that although he led the UK to leave the EU, he couldnt get Prince Harry to stick with the Royal Family. Sean "Diddy" Combs' legal woes are deepning. Federal prosecutors have acquired a videotape of one of his alleged encounters with a male sex worker. The tape was reportedly handed over by the sex worker in exchange for immunity from prosecution, potentially providing damning evidence in the ongoing criminal case against the music mogul. The individual who handed over the evidence is reported to have signed a proffer agreement. FILE - Sean "P. Diddy" Combs directs photographers as they sing "Happy Birthday," to him as his date Kim Porter, left, listens(AP) Diddys sex tape in Fed hands On September 26, TMZ reported that an escort met with federal investigators in New York City while Sean "Diddy" Combs remains behind Brooklyn bars, awaiting his criminal trial. The discussion reportedly centered around a scandalous "freak off" involving Diddy, the escort, and another womanan explosive detail in the ongoing sex trafficking and racketeering charges against the music mogul. The escort has signed a proffer agreement, granting him immunity to speak freely with federal investigators without the risk of prosecution. This alleged video is said to be part of the notorious "freak off" tapes recently revealed in court documents, detailing multi-day sex orgies characterised by excessive drug use, over-the-top alcohol consumption, and an abundance of baby oil and lubricants, with accounts of women being coerced into participating in these sexual activities. Also read: Diddy is desperate to shift narrative with 'love and heartbreak story: Wants to testify Details on Diddys drug choices offered to the Feds A source speaking to TMZ revealed that the same man who handed over the videotape also discussed the types of drugs the disgraced rapper allegedly used while partying. He provided details on how he contacted an escort to engage in a "freak off" involving himself, Diddy, and another woman. The individual also mentioned one specific encounter he claims was captured on tape and later submitted to officials investigating the case. Earlier, Combs's attorney, Marc Agnifilo, who will be featured in TMZs documentary The Downfall of Diddy: The Indictment, provided insight about the alleged "freak offs," stating that these parties were not "wild orgies" but rather typical threesomes involving consenting individuals. Sean Diddy Combs wants to testify in court While the trial date has yet to be announced, Agnifilo noted in the same documentary that the Bad Boy record producer has his own narrative to share, one he intends to present in his own manner during court testimony. The attorney described this side of the story as "a deeply human tale, filled with love, pain, and heartbreak." He is expected to address the video featuring his former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, in which he is seen brutally attacking her. Also read: Joe Biden calls Kamala Harris and JD Vance boss and secretary during gun violence and control event On the other hand, Hollywood A-listers who were once regulars at Diddys infamous "White Parties" are being urged to speak out against the rapper, yet it appears that no one is willing to do so. Stars like Usher and Justin Bieber, who trained under Diddy, along with his former girlfriend Jennifer Lopez, and partygoers like Leonardo DiCaprio and the Kardashians, have all remained tight-lipped, despite the mounting pressure from the public and media. Former President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met Friday to discuss plans to resolve the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine in New York. Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump meets with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Trump Tower, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)(AP) After the meeting, Trump said he had learned a lot but that their talk had not changed his stance that negotiations could bring an end to the war. We both want to see this end and we both want to see a fair deal made, Trump told Fox News at Trump Tower in New York. The president wants it to end and he wants it to end as quickly as possible. He wants a fair transaction to take place, he added, referring to Zelenskyy. The meeting capped a tense week between the Ukrainian leader and Trump, which saw the pair trading barbs in the press and the Republican presidential candidate question US aid for Kyivs fight to repel Russian President Vladimir Putins invasion. Before the meeting, the former president had offered praise for Zelenskyy while insisting he wanted to help resolve the conflict. Were going to work very much with both parties to try and get this settled and get it worked out, Trump said. It has to end at some point, it has to end. Hes gone through hell. The barbs and insults of the prior week hung heavy over the proceedings, though, with Zelenskyy offering a wry smile when asked by a reporter why he was sitting down with the former president. But Trump largely praised the same Ukrainian leader he had spent recent days ridiculing on the campaign trail, repeatedly thanking him for his handling of the controversy over a phone call Trump made in 2019. Trump was impeached over the incident, in which he repeatedly pressured Zelenskyy to investigate political rival Joe Biden and Bidens son, Hunter. He could have grandstanded and played cute, Trump said, lauding Zelenskyy. He was like a piece of steel. He said President Trump did nothing wrong. Zelenskyy detailed his peace plan which he also presented Thursday at the White House to Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trumps opponent in this years election. This war shouldnt have been started, Zelenskyy said after their meeting. Putin killed so many people and of course we need to do everything we can to pressure him to stop this war and he is in our territory. Trump insisted his relationship with Putin could bring a swift end to the war. We have a very good relationship and I also, as you know, have a very good relationship with President Putin and I think if we win I think were going to get it resolved very quickly, he said. Trading Barbs Trump had stepped up his criticism of Zelenskyy in recent days, deriding the wartime leader as the greatest salesman in history for convincing the US to provide billions in military assistance to help Kyiv. We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal: Zelenskyy. There was no deal that he could have made that wouldnt have been better than the situation you have right now, Trump said at a campaign event on Wednesday, berating the Ukrainian leader and accusing him of making little nasty aspersions toward your favorite president, me. Zelenskyy also rankled the Trump campaign after a visit to swing-state Pennsylvania, where he stopped at a munitions plant to thank workers and make his case for sustained military aid from the US and allies, and met with Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro. But on Friday, Trump used the meeting as an excuse to criticize Harris, whom he blamed for conditions in Ukraine. Harris also used her meeting with Zelenskyy to excoriate Trump while not mentioning him by name saying that pressure to force Ukraine to the negotiating table would compel Kyiv to give up sovereign territory and forgo security ties with other nations conditions she said Putin seeks. They are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, Harris told reporters as she stood aside Zelenskyy on Thursday. Former US President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Trump Tower in New York on Friday morning, where Trump expressed confidence that he could end the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine very quickly if he wins the 2024 election. Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meet at Trump Tower in New York City, U.S., September 27, 2024. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton REFILE - QUALITY REPEAT(REUTERS) We have a very good relationship, and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin, Trump said prior to their discussion. And I think if we win, I think we're going to get it resolved very quickly. Zelensky, who was in the US for the United Nations General Assembly, responded by expressing hope that his relationship with Trump could improve. He said he hopes they have more good relations than their strained ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin. ALSO READ| US state of the race in key swing states that will decide the election in a razor-thin battle: Explained Trump, in turn, remarked, It takes two to tango. Trump has been a vocal critic of the Biden administrations funding of Ukraines war efforts and has, at times, expressed scepticism about Zelenskyy's leadership. Is Trump a glimmer of hope for Ukraine-Russia peace? This unease was recently heightened after Zelenskyys visit to a munitions factory in Pennsylvania, which drew criticism from some U.S. lawmakers. Notably, House Speaker Mike Johnson called for Zelenskyy to dismiss the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, following the visit, as no Republican officials were invited to participate in the event. Trumps criticism of US aid to Ukraine is not new, but Zelenskyy has also voiced concerns over Trumps stance, stating in the past that the former president doesnt really know how to stop the war. Trump has repeatedly claimed that he could bring about peace in Ukraine within a day touted that the war would never have started if he had still been president. Trump spoke with Fox News about his discussion with Zelensky, and said that he learned a lot from their conversation. He reaffirmed, We both want to see it end and a fair deal made. It has to be fair. I think it will happen at the right time. ALSO READ| Netanyahu attacks hypocrite' UN, calls it antisemitic swamp for singling out Israel The president [Zelenskyy] wants it to end as quickly as possible. He wants a fair transaction to take place. Zelenskyy, who has consistently advocated for increased pressure on Russia, reiterated, Putin killed so many people, and, of course, we need to do everything to pressure him to stop this war. He is in our territory. That's the most important. He is in our territory, and how to stop the war, to pressure him as we can, we have to do it. Fast-moving Hurricane Helene was advancing Thursday across the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida, threatening a catastrophic storm surge in northwestern parts of the state as well as damaging winds, rains and flash floods hundreds of miles inland across much of the southeastern U.S., forecasters said. Floridians take shelter at Lincoln High School ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Helene in Tallahassee, Florida, U.S., September 26, 2024. (REUTERS) The storm was upgraded to an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm Thursday. Landfall is expected by the evening. States of emergency were declared in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia and Alabama. In the Pacific, former Hurricane John strengthened Thursday morning back into a hurricane as it threatened areas of Mexicos western coast with flash flooding and mudslides. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Isaac formed Wednesday in the Atlantic Ocean and was expected to strengthen as it moves eastward, possibly becoming a hurricane by the end of the week, forecasters said. Isaac was about 690 miles (1,115 kilometers) northeast of Bermuda with top sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. It was moving east at about 12 mph (19 kph). Florida sees mass power outages ahead of Helenes landfall More than 340,000 homes and businesses were without power in Florida shortly as of 7:30 p.m. local time, according to tracking site poweroutage.us. Among them were 120,000 customers of Duke Power, a major energy provider in serving west-central Florida and the Panhandle. The utilitys outage map showed most of its affected customers some 105,000 were concentrated in the Tampa area on the states Gulf Coast. While Tampa is south of where Helene is expected to make landfall, the area was still under a storm surge warning and a tropical storm warning, with forecasters expecting dangerous surges of up to 15 feet (4.5 meters) and winds topping 40 mph (64 kph). Rain picks up near the Florida-Georgia border VALDOSTA, Ga. Heavy rains began falling and winds were picking up in Valdosta, Georgia, near the Florida state line shortly before 7 p.m. ET. The National Weather Service said more than a dozen Georgia counties could see winds exceeding 110 mph, including Lowndes County where Valdosta is located along Interstate 75. Other inland cities in rural southern Georgia where the hurricane threat was highest included Thomasville, Moultrie and Tifton. Biden declares state of emergency for Alabama WASHINGTON President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in Alabama on Thursday ahead of Hurricane Helene's landfall in nearby Florida. The U.S. National Hurricane Center has said Hurricane Helene is unusually large and expected to have far-ranging impacts beyond Florida's Big Bend, where the storm is expected to make landfall Thursday evening. The governors of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia already declared emergencies in their states. Florida governor says there's still time for residents to evacuate but not much TALLAHASSEE, Fla. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that models have Hurricane Helene making landfall most likely in a rural coastal county of almost 22,000 people in the states Big Bend area. The fast-moving storm will likely reach Taylor County, Florida late Thursday, DeSantis said at an evening news conference at the states emergency operation center in Tallahassee. Youre going to have hurricane force winds for probably 50 miles outside the eye of the storm, and then youre going to continue to see surge, particularly in that Big Bend area, DeSantis said. About five hours before the expected landfall, the governor said residents of vulnerable areas of northern Florida still have time to evacuate but that the window was shutting quickly. The governor warned residents they would likely lose power and that intercoastal bridges across the state were being closed to traffic. North Carolina officials warn of severe flooding from Helene ASHEVILLE, N.C. As night falls in the North Carolina mountains, emergency officials are asking anyone who lives in a place that has ever flooded to find safety at higher ground as Hurricane Helene nears land. Flooding has already started in some areas after 7 to 10 inches (18 to 25 centimeters) of rain fell from a storm unrelated to the hurricane. Forecasters predict an additional 9 to 14 inches (23 to 36 centimeters) of rain could fall as what remains of Helene moves across the area Thursday night into Friday. A storm like this, were seeing flooding where we have never seen it before, said Jimmy Brissie, emergency services director for Henderson County south of Asheville. Already the Swannanoa and French Broad Rivers are predicted to reach levels not seen since the benchmark flood of 1916 in western North Carolina that killed 80 people and isolated Asheville for weeks. Emergency officials also fear mudslides as rushing water could pick up dirt and boulders and send them all cascading down mountainsides. Helene strengthens to a Category 4 hurricane Helene strengthened into an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane ahead of its expected landfall on Floridas northwest coast Thursday night, forecasters said. The hurricane was about 120 miles (195 kilometers) west of Tampa and had sustained winds of 130 mph (215 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Category 4 hurricanes have sustained winds over 130 mph (209 kph) that can severely damage homes, snap trees and down power lines. Strong winds have already cut power to over 250,000 homes and businesses in Florida, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us. Storm surge: Deadlier than a hurricanes winds TALLAHASSEE, Fla. In 2005, Hurricane Dennis landed near the Alabama-Florida state line as a Category 3 hurricane. Far to the east, Floridas Big Bend where Hurricane Helene is expected to come ashore never even felt tropical storm strength winds, but it was still hit with a mass of water that devasted coastal communities. Thats storm surge. Its more deadly and destructive than wind and can make a significant impact far from the center of a storm. While wind can tear off roofs, knock down trees and snap power lines, storm surge can push buildings completely off their foundations, can trap and even drown people in their homes, wash out roads and bridges, toss boats inland and hammer anything in its path. The leading cause of death from hurricanes is water, not wind, said Craig Fugate, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And in the case of Hurricane Helene, predicted storm surge as high as 20 feet could be devastating in the coastal areas of the states Big Bend. Atlanta's usually bustling roads are deserted in anticipation of Helene ATLANTA What is normally evening rush hour for metro Atlantas more than 6 million residents revealed a city that had already gone home to button up for Hurricane Helene. The citys downtown office district was nearly deserted, and normally traffic-choked freeways were all flowing freely. Most areas of metro Atlanta received 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 centimeters) of rain during the day Thursday, atop heavier rain Wednesday. Forecasters extended hurricane warnings even farther north, pushing them into Atlantas southern exurbs, as officials continued to warn that the area is likely to see significant storm winds. Vice President Harris urges people in Helenes path to heed local orders WASHINGTON Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday urged people in Hurricane Helene's path to heed the orders of local officials. We urge everyone who is watching at this very moment to take this storm very seriously, she said during a gun violence prevention event in the East Room of the White House. Orlando International Airport remains open despite impending storm ORLANDO Floridas busiest airport remained open Thursday despite Hurricane Helene being on a path to make landfall in the northern part of the state. Orlando International Airport had a total of 65 flight cancellations, as of Thursday afternoon. Other Florida airports were closed in Tampa, Clearwater and Tallahassee because of the storm. Passengers with canceled flights were urged to contact their airlines for information on rebooking, the airport said in a news release. Orlando International Airport was the seventh busiest airport in the United States, and Floridas busiest, with more than 28 million passengers boarded last year, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Backup batteries, solar microgrid trailers and generators headed to Florida NEW ORLEANS In New Orleans, members of the nonprofit Footprint Project have spent the day preparing solar microgrid trailers, backup batteries and atmospheric water generators for deployment to county emergency departments and relief organizations in Florida in anticipation of widespread and prolonged power outages. More than 160,000 people in Florida have already lost power according to Poweroutage.us. The zero-emission equipment is meant to offset the need for gas and diesel-powered generators, which pollute the air and can be costly to fuel. Some of the equipment was being transported from southeast Louisiana where it was used during power outages caused by Hurricane Francine. Its clean, its quiet, its safer, said program director Jamie Swezey. Our goal is to offset use of traditional gas and diesel generators that are always in the field and that exacerbate extreme weather events. Overnight curfews imposed in south Georgia ATLANTA Several cities and counties in south Georgia have imposed overnight curfews in advance of Hurricane Helenes expected arrival Thursday evening, including Albany, Valdosta and Thomasville the largest cities in the region. Students at 2 Florida universities moved into shelters TALLAHASSEE, Fla. Students who remained in the dorms at Florida State University and Florida A&M University in Tallahassee have been moved into shelters for the duration of Hurricane Helene. At Florida State, university officials assisted students in moving from their dorms to the Augustus B. Turnbull Conference Center, which opened Thursday morning. The conference center has been upgraded to withstand extreme conditions, university officials said. At nearby Florida A&M, students who remained in on-campus housing were also asked to shelter at the Al Lawson Center until the storm passes. Rural sheriff's office offers dire warning to anyone who didn't evacuate PERRY, Fla. Officials in mostly rural Taylor County, along Floridas Big Bend region where Hurricane Helene is expected to make landfall, offered a very dire warning on Facebook for anyone who didnt evacuate: Please write your name, birthday, and important information on your arm or leg in a PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified. The sheriffs office further asked residents to email them vital information including the location of their home, and the number of people and animals who live there. They also asked residents who followed evacuation orders to have patience when its time to return home. They noted that there will likely be many impassable roads, downed trees and power lines. Taylor County has a population of about 22,000. Georgias governor: This is one of the biggest storms weve ever had Georgia officials are urging people to stay home while emergency teams disperse to manage Helenes impact as the storm moves swiftly across the state. This is one of the biggest storms weve ever had, Gov. Brian Kemp told reporters on Thursday. It may not be the strongest category, but from a wind field perspective and the amount of damage it has the potential to do statewide, its better to be safe than sorry. Extended power outages across the state are likely tonight and tomorrow, especially in South Georgia, Kemp said. The storm is expected to move through South Georgia from around sunset Thursday to sunrise Friday, and through middle Georgia between 10 p.m. Thursday and 10 a.m. Friday, and through North Georgia from midnight to noon Friday. There are currently eight emergency shelters and 30 American Red Cross teams ready to set up shelters if more are needed.I can assure you we will respond with every asset that we have available as soon as its safe to do so, Kemp said. There will be no place for you to go if things get bad CEDAR KEY, Fla. Lumber and other debris from a fire in Cedar Key a week ago were crashing ashore in the rising water Thursday afternoon, well ahead of Hurricane Helenes arrival along the Big Bend region on Floridas Gulf Coast. Officials with Cedar Key Fire Rescue posted on Facebook a video of the debris-filled waves. They advised people to stay away from the waters edge to avoid being hit by debris that was crashing ashore. The fire along Dock Street damaged several buildings on Sept. 19, officials said. On Wednesday afternoon, the agency pleaded with residents to evacuate the island, which is southwest of Gainesville. There will be no place for you to go if things get bad, the post said. We do not have shelters on the island. There will be no food, no water or sewage and more than likely you will lose power. It could possibly be days before its restored. This is going to be a life-threatening surge. It is nothing to take lightly. They offered a dire warning: If you choose to stay and things change for the bad, you are putting your first responders life in danger unnecessarily. Flooding in North Carolina from Helene could be historic, forecasters say ASHEVILLE, N.C. Forecasters responsible for much of the North Carolina mountains say flooding in the region from Hurricane Helene could be worse than anything seen in the past century. The National Weather Service in Greer, South Carolina, said 7 to 10 inches (18 to 25 centimeters) of rain have already fallen the past two days along a front before Helene-related storms arrive. They predict an additional 9 to 14 inches (23 to 36 centimeters) of rain could fall as what remains of the hurricane moves across the area Thursday into Friday. This will be one of the most significant weather events to happen in the western portions of the area in the modern era, forecasters said in a statement Thursday. They said it could be the worst flooding since 1916 when two decaying tropical systems rained themselves out over the region causing widespread floods and mudslides that killed 80 people, wiped out dozens of miles of railroad tracks and brought down boulders that still sit in fields today. Asheville and other mountain towns were cut off for weeks. Helene also could bring hurricane force wind gusts to the highest peaks in North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina and gusts over 60 mph (97 kph) to the rest of the region. Some intersections in St. Pete Beach are already underwater ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. Some intersections in St. Pete Beach along Floridas Gulf Coast were underwater by Thursday afternoon. Photos posted by the Pinellas County Sheriffs Office showed roads underwater in a commercial district of the beachside city located about 30 miles southwest of Tampa. We are already seeing concerning conditions, the sheriffs office posted. Hurricane Helene is unusual but its not an example of the Fujiwhara Effect The National Weather Services hurricane center warned Thursday that Hurricane Helene will penetrate well inland across the southeastern United States after making landfall in Florida. Tropical storm warnings were posted as far north as North Carolina. The unusual reach as far north and inland as forecasters expect and the potential impacts is raising questions about the Fujiwhara Effect, a rare weather event where two storms rotate around a shared midpoint. But Hurricane Helene isnt interacting with another tropical storm at surface level, so its not technically an example of the Fujiwhara Effect. Instead, Helene is feeling the effects of a low-pressure weather system in the upper levels of the atmosphere. The potential impact is still severe: The hurricane center has warned of prolonged power outages, downed trees and dangerous flooding miles away from the Florida coastline in parts of Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee. Helene becomes a major Category 3 hurricane Helene strengthened into a major Category 3 hurricane Thursday as it barreled across the Gulf of Mexico on a path to Florida. The hurricane was about 195 miles (315 kilometers) southwest of Tampa and had sustained winds of at least 111 mph (179 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. The huge storms center is expected to make landfall in the Big Bend area of Floridas northwestern coast Thursday evening. Hurricane warnings and flash flood warnings extended far beyond the coast up into south-central Georgia. The governors of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia have all declared emergencies in their states. Helene became a tropical storm Tuesday in the western Caribbean Sea and became a hurricane Wednesday. Coastal conditions near Sarasota are beginning to deteriorate, officials say SARASOTA, Fla. Conditions along the coastal areas near Sarasota were beginning to deteriorate early Thursday afternoon, officials said. The Sarasota County Sheriffs Office posted photos on social media showing water lapping over a road at Nora Patterson Park, which is on the northern tip of Siesta Key. Sarasota is about 60 miles (96 kilometers) from Tampa on Floridas Gulf Coast. Its a wakeup call for everybody VALDOSTA, Ga. Some businesses began closing early Thursday afternoon in Valdosta, Georgia, near the Florida line. The inland city was under a hurricane warning, with forecasters predicting dangerous winds late Thursday as Helenes center churns northward through southern Georgia. Employees of a Walmart in Valdosta were turning away customers in the parking lot before 1:30 p.m. Red and blue pallets stacked high blocked the stores entrances. Margaret Freenman, 67, and her two grandchildren found the store closed when they showed up to buy a few extra snacks before Helene arrives. Freeman said shed already stocked up on essentials. Freeman has lived in Valdosta her entire life and said hurricanes have only seemed like a real threat in recent years. Hurricane Idalia uprooted a tree that punched a hole in Freemans roof and broke some windows when it tore through Valdosta a year ago. Tropical Storm Debby knocked out electricity for thousands in August. Its a wakeup call for everybody, said Freeman, who planned to ride out the latest storm again at home. Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay closes ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. The Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay has closed as wind gusts have reached 60 mph, the Florida Highway Patrol said Thursday afternoon. Florida sheriff says his community is in for a rough 24 hours CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla. The sheriff of a coastal Florida county in the path of Hurricane Helene said Thursday that his community is in for a rough 24 hours and a long recovery. Wakulla County Sheriff Jared Miller said the county likely has a long road ahead of it once the storm passes after making an expected landfall Thursday night. The storm could grow to a Category 4 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico before landing in the Big Bend area where Wakulla County is located, with a storm surge up to 20 feet (6 km). I have lived here my entire life and have never witnessed some of the storm predictions we are currently seeing, Miller said in a social media post. I hope that I am mistaken. The sheriff urged residents to stay off local roads, including evacuees who may be itching to return to see the conditions of their homes after the storm passes through. This is not a maybe this is on track to happen ASHEVILLE, N.C. Emergency officials in the North Carolina mountains are warning that heavy rains before Hurricane Helene even arrives have set the stage for potentially historic flooding. The French Broad River and Swannanoa River, which run in and around Asheville and then south, are already predicted to break 100-year-old records Friday into Saturday. The flooding could be worse than in 2004 when water rose to car rooftops in Biltmore Village just outside the gates of the historic Biltmore estate built by George Vanderbilt. This is a potentially historic event with catastrophic, deadly consequences. This is not a maybe. This is on track to happen. So please, please take every precaution to take yourself out of harms way, Buncombe County Emergency Services Director Taylor Jones said. Seven inches (18 centimeters) of rain has already fallen in Asheville while some other areas have seen even more. All of the water is flowing downhill out of the mountains. Mudslides are also a danger as swiftly flowing rivers and runoffs cut their own channels and bring down rocks, trees and other debris, said Andrew Kimball, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Greer, South Carolina. Pre-landfall emergency declarations help states get needed resources ahead of Helene, FEMA head says WASHINGTON The Federal Emergency Management Agencys administrator Deanne Criswell said Thursday that the pre-landfall emergency declarations for Hurricane Helene are important to help states have the resources they need to open shelters and get people to safety. She also noted changes to Small Business Administration policies to make it easier for people including those who work from home to qualify for help. FEMA deployed more resources ahead of Helene due to increased severity of extreme weather WASHINGTON The Federal Emergency Management Agencys administrator Deanne Criswell said the increased severity of extreme weather has led her agency to put more resources in place ahead of landfall by Hurricane Helene. The FEMA head warned about flash flooding from rain and said its better to have more search and rescue teams ready to help people than to have too few teams. FEMA head anticipates Helene will be a multi-state event WASHINGTON The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Deanne Criswell said her agency has been preparing for Hurricane Helene for a number of days and they began moving resources into Florida on Monday. Speaking at Thursdays White House briefing, Criswell said she anticipates the storm will be a multi-state event with impacts from Florida to Tennessee. She added that there are 1,100 people distributed across the federal government to address any damage from Helene and that an additional 700 personnel are ready to provide support after the storm hits. She added that people in the hurricanes path should listen to local government officials about whether to evacuate or shelter in place. Criswell said she will travel to the region on Friday at President Joe Bidens direction to assess the situation. North Carolinas governor warns residents to prepare for heavy rain and flooding North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper warned residents in western and central counties to prepare for heavy rain and potentially catastrophic flooding Thursday night and Friday from Hurricane Helene. Speaking at a Thursday morning briefing, Cooper said the mountains also likely will see landslides, river flooding and debris flows. And cities not necessarily in Helenes direct path, like Charlotte and Asheville, could see flash flooding, he said. The impacts of Helene should not be ignored and all North Carolinians should remain informed, said state emergency management director Will Ray. Areas of western North Carolina could receive from 9 to 14 inches (23 to 36 centimeters) of rain, with amounts reaching 20 inches (51 centimeters) possible, Ray said. Cooper said some shelters were already open and 175 National Guard service members were activated to help in the storm response. Additionally, he said people in the mountains and foothills who dont have to travel shouldnt, the governor said. Im concerned about our mountain areas, seeing the amount of rain thats already on the ground and this storm coming, he said. Ive seen firsthand the devastation that it can cause. Death toll from Hurricane John rises to 5 Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador raised the death toll from Hurricane John to five Thursday as the communities along the countrys Pacific coast prepared for the storm to make a second landfall. State parks and 9 shelters open to evacuees in Georgia The Georgia Emergency Management Agency said nine shelters were opening for Hurricane Helene, mostly in the southern parts of the state. The state has also opened its state parks to evacuees, saying its welcoming people and pets, including horses. Parks officials say they are currently housing 15 evacuees. Biden declares an emergency in North Carolina President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for North Carolina on Thursday, according to the White House. The approval follows one issued for Georgia earlier in the day and one issued for Florida earlier in the week. Federal Emergency Management Agency teams were already deployed to Florida and Alabama to support local first responders. Federal authorities have positioned generators, food and water, along with search-and-rescue and power restoration teams. This has been my livelihood ST. MARKS, Fla. As Hurricane Helene barreled toward Floridas Big Bend, Philip Tooke sat in a rocking chair on the back deck of his fish house overlooking the St. Marks River, watching and waiting. A commercial fisherman who took over the business his father founded in the town of St. Marks, about 5 miles (8 kilometers) north of Apalachee Bay, Tooke plans to ride out this storm like he did Hurricane Michael and others on his boat. This has been my livelihood. This is what pays my bills, Tooke said of his boats. If I lose that, I dont have anything. Tooke said hell wait until the water is about knee-deep and then he, his brother Richard and some of their employees will hunker down on the La Victoria, the Jenny Lee and the Susan D, loosening the lines that fasten the boats to the dock as the water rises, in the hopes they wont be battered apart. St. Marks sits at the confluence of the St. Marks and Wakulla Rivers and is known to flood during storm events. On Thursday morning, water was already beginning to cover Riverside Drive, which runs through downtown. Filling sandbags in Clyattville, Georgia VALDOSTA, Ga. Rain drizzled Thursday morning outside a fire station where residents filled sandbags in the unincorporated Clyattville community outside Valdosta near the Georgia-Florida line. Helene was forecast to pass nearby as a hurricane Thursday night. Jose Gonzales and his 14-year-old son, Jadin, shoveled sand into bags and piled them into the back of a pickup truck. Though their home is inland, Gonzales said heavy rains during Hurricane Idalia a year ago got blown under his doors and cracked a window. Some of the carpet inside got so wet he had to replace it. For Helene, he planned to fortify his doors in hopes of preventing it from happening again. If it blows sideways, we might get more water inside the house, Gonzales said. Its just mother nature. Biden approves emergency declaration in Georgia President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Georgia on Thursday morning after issuing one for Florida earlier in the week. Federal authorities have positioned generators, food and water, along with search-and-rescue and power restoration teams. And Florida officials have sent more than 130 generators to gas stations to ensure that people will be able to fill their cars after the storm, and extra fuel has been shipped into Florida, DeSantis said. John again pelts the coast of Mexico with rain MEXICO CITY As John became a hurricane for the second time, rain continued to pelt the Pacific coast state of Guerrero in Mexico where the storm caused three deaths in its first landfall earlier this week. Authorities in Guerrero reported flooding in some low-lying neighborhoods in Acapulco. Soldiers and National Guard officers were posted outside stores in Acapulco to prevent the kind of widespread looting that broke out in the resort after Hurricane Otis hit last October. This old house was built in 1903 I think itll hold up VALDOSTA, Ga. Joe Overby, 67, and his family were preparing Thursday to ride out the hurricane at their home in the unincorporated Clyattville community outside Valdosta, Georgia, where Hurricane Idalia a year ago toppled trees and damaged about 1,000 homes. Overby boarded up the open front of a large storage building next to his house. He had a generator to power his refrigerator and freezer and planned to move cars to his neighbors yard across the street where there were no trees. He said Idalia last year bent some sturdy oaks in his backyard, exposing the roots. Im afraid this time theyre going to come down, Overby said, adding that he planned to hunker down at home overnight with his wife, two children and four dogs. This old house was built in 1903, he said. I think itll hold up. You cant even pull the nails out, the wood is so hard. Florida officials warn residents of hazards they may face even after Helene hits State officials warned Florida residents of the potential risks they face even after Hurricane Helene rips through the northern part of the state, which was expected Thursday night. Driving on roadways and tree branches falling on homes were the two biggest hazards during storms, said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at a news conference in Tallahassee. Drivers should stay off roads because of potential flooding and people should stay in the interior parts of their homes if they hear tree limbs snapping, which sounds like fireworks or a gun being fired, officials said. It will likely be dark by the time this storm passes, DeSantis said. Do not try to do any work in the dark. You dont know what hazards are out there. The sun is going to come out. Youre going to have time to take stock of this. State emergency officials have sent more than 130 generators to gas stations to ensure that people will be able to fill their cars after the storm, and extra fuel has been shipped into Florida, DeSantis said. We havent seen fuel shortages, only some lines, the governor said. So we feel good about the fuel situation. Associated Press journalists are stationed across Florida and Georgia to report on Helene Associated Press journalists are stationed across parts of Florida and Georgia to report on Hurricane Helene and the storms aftermath. Photographer Gerald Herbert and videographer Stephen Smith are in Crawfordville, Florida, which is south of Tallahassee in whats known as the Big Bend region. Reporters Brendan Farrington and Kate Payne are reporting from Tallahassee, the states capital. The AP also has photographer Mike Stewart, video journalist Sharon Johnson and reporter Russ Bynum reporting from Valdosta, Georgia, which is about 72 miles northeast of Tallahassee, just across the state line. Helene knocked out power and forced evacuations in western Cuba Helene knocked out power in western Cuba as it brushed past the island, affecting some 160,000 customers in the province of Artemisa and another 70,000 in the neighboring province of Pinar del Rio. The hurricane also forced some 800 people in the region to evacuate flood-prone zones, according to Guerrillero, a local newspaper. Pictures posted on social media showed overflowing rivers that turned some streets into creeks as people traveled by boat with their personal belongings. On the Isle of Youth, some 25 hectares (62 acres) of tobacco seedbeds of export quality were damaged, said Raul Fernandez, director of a local company, adding that an anticipated planting schedule for October could be delayed. In addition, some 3,000 customers, about 12% of the municipality, were without power. The Cuban government was still assessing overall damage on Thursday. Airports across multiple states see flight delays and cancellations Airports in the Florida cities of Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed Thursday, while more than half the flights to airports in Sarasota and Fort Myers were canceled Thursday morning, according to flight tracking service FlightAware. More than a hundred flights in and out of the worlds busiest airport in Atlanta had also been canceled while more than 100 others were delayed, but thats a relatively small fraction of flights there. Airports in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the Florida cities of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando were seeing a smaller number of delays and cancellations Chances for a direct hit on Tallahassee have slightly lessened, DeSantis says TALLAHASSEE, Fla. A shift in models nudging Hurricane Helenes projected landfall further east lessens the chances for a direct hit on Floridas capital city if that trajectory holds, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday morning. The shift placed the storm closer to the sparsely-populated Big Bend area where two hurricanes in the past year made landfall Idalia in August 2023 and Debby last August. The Tallahassee metro area has a population of almost 393,000 residents. Helene was expected to make landfall Thursday night, possibly as a Category 4 storm. Thats significant when you are talking about Tallahassee because yesterday we were talking about an eye wall thats on the western part of the city, DeSantis said at a news conference from the states emergency operations center in Tallahassee. The Tallahassee area hadnt seen a major hurricane of Helenes expected magnitude at landfall in recent memory, the governor said. The more the track shifts east, the better off for Tallahassee, DeSantis said. Floridas emergency operations building will be tested when Helene hits the state Even the building where Floridas emergency response to Hurricane Helene is organized will be put to the test when the fast-moving storm plows through Tallahassee late Thursday, possibly as a Category 4 hurricane, state officials said. The building that houses the states emergency operations center in Tallahassee has walls that were built to withstand a Category 5 hurricane. But during construction in the 1990s, there wasnt enough money to ensure the roof could withstand a hurricane that strong, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a news conference Wednesday afternoon. Backup plans were in place should there be any problems with the building. It should be fine, but well see, DeSantis said. Weve taken precautions just in case something happens to be able to continue the continuity without any major interruption. John strengthens into a hurricane again near southwestern Mexico MEXICO CITY Former Hurricane John restrengthened into a hurricane on Thursday morning as it threatened areas of Mexicos western coast with flash flooding and mudslides. Officials posted hurricane warnings for southwestern Mexico. John hit the countrys southern Pacific coast late Monday, killing at least two people, triggering mudslides, and damaging homes and trees. It grew into a Category 3 hurricane in a matter of hours and made landfall east of Acapulco. It reemerged over the ocean after weakening inland. Rain is falling and the roads are empty near where Helene is expected to make landfall PANACEA, Fla. Rain was beginning to blow in the predawn darkness Thursday along coastal U.S. Highway 98, which winds through countless fishing villages and vacation hideaways along Floridas Big Bend. Shuttered gas stations dotted the two-lane highway, their windows boarded up with plywood to protect against the storm. The road was largely empty at first light, with what drivers there mostly heading northeast, towards higher ground. This stretch of Florida known as the Forgotten Coast has been largely spared by the widespread condo development and commercialization that dominates so many of Floridas beach communities. The sparsely populated region is loved for its natural wonders the vast stretches of salt marshes, tidal pools and barrier islands; the dwarf cypress trees of Tates Hell State Forest; and Wakulla Springs, considered one of the worlds largest and deepest freshwater springs. Helene upgraded to Category 2 hurricane as it barrels toward Florida MIAMI Helene was upgraded Thursday morning to a Category 2 storm and is expected to be a major hurricane meaning a Category 3 or higher when it makes landfall on Floridas northwestern coast Thursday evening. As of early Thursday, hurricane warnings and flash flood warnings extended far beyond the coast up into south-central Georgia. The governors of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia have all declared emergencies in their states. MIAMI Tropical Storm Isaac formed Wednesday in the Atlantic Ocean and was expected to strengthen as it moves eastward, possibly becoming a hurricane by the end of the week, forecasters said. Isaac was about 690 miles (1,115 kilometers) northeast of Bermuda with top sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. It was moving east at about 12 mph (19 kph). Isaac is the ninth named storm in what is predicted to be a busy hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 in the Atlantic. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts between 17 and 25 named storms, with as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes. An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes. Another day another Biden gaffe. In a recent White House event tackling gun violence, President Joe Biden stirred the pot with his offbeat remarks again, dubbing Vice President Kamala Harris as his boss while accidentally labeling Ohio Senator JD Vance as secretary. As he signed executive orders aimed at enhancing gun control measures, Biden criticised Trumps running mate, misrepresenting the senators comments about gun violence. US Vice President Kamala Harris, left, and President Joe Biden during an address on gun violence in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (Bloomberg) The order not only tries to deal with 3D-printed guns that can't be traced but also aims to address the trauma experienced by students due to active shooter drills. The government said they are looking forward to a new team coming up with some ideas to handle these big problems in about three months. Biden goes off script during gun control event, slams Vance President Joe Biden, known for his awkward moments and gaffes, found himself trending online again after blasting the author of Hillbilly Elegy. While speaking, Biden stated, Ive been to all but three mass shootings in the United States of America, before launching scathing remarks against the Republican Vice Presidential hopeful. Also read: Joe Biden shares his future plans, how he wants to be remembered after White House exit: It sounds corny The 81-year-old went on to accuse Vance of normalising mass shootings in America, even though Vance's full remarks suggest the opposite. Earlier, when several Democrats and even a few news outlets misinterpreted his comments, critics pointed out that Vance had actually expressed concern, stating, I dont like that this is a fact of life. But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools. Im going to be very blunt, Secretary Vance of Ohio has called these shootings facts of life, Biden continued. Who the hell do these people think they are? he asked. So Joe is talking about dealing with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance for Jimmy Carter? one social media user pointed out. Biden refers to Senator JD Vance as 'Secretary Vance,' then regurgitates the debunked lie that he dismissed school shootings as 'facts of life,' another added. Biden calls Senator JD Vance 'Secretary Vance.' He needs to go back to wherever he was. Its a clown show, a third chimed in. But the Vance debacle wasnt the only incident stealing the spotlight. The former presidential candidate then said, Keep it going, boss, while passing the pen he used to sign the documents to Vice President Kamala Harris and the current Presidential hopeful. Biden has accidentally called Harris "president" on seven different occasions according to the reports. This slip follows his recent gaffe in New York City, where he mistakenly welcomed world leaders with "welcome to Washington." Just days prior, during a quad gathering, he was caught snapping at a staffer, asking, Whos next? before introducing Indian Prime Minister Modi. Biden and Harris advocate for efforts to tackle gun violence The executive order not only seeks to improve school safety protocols but also intends to restrict new technologies that make it easier to use and obtain firearms. Together, were sending a strong message that addressing crime and violence in America requires a serious discussion about guns, the U.S. president stated prior to signing a new executive action aimed at reforming active shooter drills in schools. Last year, in the aftermath of yet another school shooting, my predecessor echoed the sentiment of many Congress members, saying, Just get over it, he said while announcing other initiatives as well according to CNN. Also read: Melania Trump breaks silence on Kamala Harris replacing Biden in fight with Donald Trump: 'It's very hard to' I believe the right to be safe is a civil right, Harris addressed the room. And that the people of America have a right then to live, work, worship, and learn without fear of violence, including gun violence. And yet, our nation is experiencing an epidemic of gun violence. Biden said that if Republicans take over the White House or Congress in November, any steps to strengthen the gun laws might not last. Living Nostradamus, who foresaw the April Microsoft outage and coronavirus pandemic, has now issued chilling prediction about a potential conflict between the US and China. Athos Salome, who is from Brazil, dubbed as psychic for his various precise predictions, including billionaire Elon Musk's Twitter purchase and the passing of Queen Elizabeth.(Instagram/Athos Salome) Athos Salome, who is from Brazil, dubbed as psychic for his various precise predictions, including billionaire Elon Musk's Twitter purchase and the passing of Queen Elizabeth. He has earlier stated that the worst is yet to come as the world is on the verge of WWIII due to the escalating tensions throughout the globe. Living Nostradamus Athos Salome warns against two key events Speaking to Daily Mail Femail, Salome made an equally alarming prediction, suggesting that there may be an impending conflict between the United States and China. He suggested that two significant events may trigger an escalation of hostilities. According to him, the South China Sea can become volatile due to territorial disputes and military presence in the region. Moreover, a significant cyberattack that could compromise country's national security and unintentionally trigger a war. Calling such concerns real, Salome warned of a more subtle danger, citing China's growing market and its enhancing ties with Russia. He declared that this coalition, which was developed out of a shared anti-Western imperialist mindset and a deep-seated self-interest, has the power to escalate regional strife into a global war. Also Read: Hamas has got to go': Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu at UNGA Living Nostradamus says nothing could stop major incident in South China Sea While China views American military forces and collaborations as challenges to its domination, Salome noted the major focus of the current conflict is the struggle between the two countries, which is being masked by America's attempts to maintain its control in the Indo-Pacific region. He went on to say that China's actions in the South China Sea, where it has converted disputed islands into military sites and raised tensions among neighbours, have exacerbated this competition. Thus, the case of Asia could be considered as one vivid example of how regional conflicts may affect the entire world, he added. Salome, who prophesied three days of darkness in 2024, claimed that nothing could stop a major incident in the South China Sea or a highly skilled cyberattack that would shock the world. Melania Trump, the former First Lady and Donald Trump's third wife, opened up about son Barron's college life at New York University's Stern School of Business. Melania Trump labelled her son as incredible, young man, stressing that she adores his strength, his intelligence, his knowledge and his kindness. Barron, the youngest and only son of Trump with Melania, is rarely out of the spotlight, despite his mother's efforts to keep him away from it. Melania opens up about Barron's NYU move In her first television interview with Fox News in a span of two years, Melania disclosed details about her personal life and even mentioned that while she was content with Barron, Trump wished to have more kids with her. Speaking about Barron's new college life, she hailed his decision to join NYU, stating that he is having a good time. Praising her son's decision to stay in New York, she stated that he desired to reside in his own house and pursue his studies in NYC. I could not say I'm an empty nester. I don't feel that way. I raised Barron as own person and gave his own yes and nos. I respect that it was his decision to come here, she said. The proud mom labelled her son as incredible, young man, stressing that she adores his strength, his intelligence, his knowledge and his kindness. She further revealed that her 18-year-old son is enjoying his college days, but acknowledged that his life is very different than any other 18, 19-year-old child. She nonetheless expressed her optimism that he will have a great experience. Also Read: Melania Trump breaks silence on Kamala Harris replacing Biden in fight with Donald Trump: 'It's very hard to' Melania's advice on blended families When Trump married Melania, he already had four children with two different wives. While Trump's four children were seen with him on various rallies and election campaign events, Melania is yet to make an appearance. Ahead of the release of memoir 'Melania', the former First Lady gave advice on blended families, emphasizing that you cannot control anyone. To take the individual as they are. You cannot control anyone. You can control only your own behavior, your own words. Everybody's in control of their own self. I'm not in control of my husband. I'm not in control of his children. I'm not even in control of my child. He is his own person. And we all have yes and nos and we all are all individuals. Once you live your life with respect and love, that's all that matters, she continued. Turns out Prince Harrys New York trip was not just an official work tour; the Duke of Sussex is set to make a rare TV appearance. The estranged royal will be joining the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on September 26 for a unique twist on a spooky experience. TONIGHT: Prince Harry & Jimmy experience Jimmy Fallons Tonightmares! (Jimmy Fallon) This special Halloween attraction promises to be anything but ordinary; however, you might not see him sit for an interview. The host dropped a sneak peek of their adventure on social media. Prince Harry joins Jimmy Fallon on Tonightmares! After a packed week in New York City supporting his causes, Prince Harry is trading his duties for a dose of fright. He's the first brave soul to take on Jimmy Fallon's ToNightmares, a haunted maze that's straight out of the late-night host's worst nightmares. As they announced on X, TONIGHT: Prince Harry & Jimmy experience Jimmy Fallons Tonightmares! Imagine 10 rooms filled with creepy characters and jump scares around every corner. It's like stepping into a real-life horror movie. The Tonight Show's YouTube channel warned, "Brace yourself for 10 spine-chilling rooms... Enter if you dare!" Also read: Why Sean Diddy Combs is desperate to testify: Aims to shift the narrative with 'love and heartbreak story This immersive haunted maze features intricately designed rooms where guests will encounter a host of chilling characters, including a mad scientist, malfunctioning robots, a werewolf, and other nightmarish beings, with each room delivering escalating scares and unforeseen surprises. Prince Harry hops on spooky thrill Fueling the thrill, the show dropped a sneak peek of the terrifying encounter, where Harry and Jimmy can be seen watching a seemingly innocent video of Fallon with a puppy. But things quickly get spooky when Fallon starts looking around weirdly and there's this weird noise. Harry's really on edge when a zombie-like thing pops out from behind a door. The camera pans and we get a glimpse of Harry freaking out when the monster comes crashing in, making him jump so hard he grabs Fallon's chest. "That really freaked me out," Fallon says, still a bit shaken. Their scare doesn't stop there. They run into a scary Wolverine and a bunch of creepy musicians. The video wraps up with one of the musicians fanning herself like she can't believe what just happened, showing just how intense the haunted maze was. Prince Harry to make a rare TV appearance As the Duke, who recently marked his 40th birthday, eagerly anticipates another Netflix venturenot one that invites royal scrutiny like his first documentary with Meghanbut rather a celebration of his passion for polo, he will be featured in a special TV experience on September 26. joining him on Thursday's episode are notable guests including Cate Blanchett, Saturday Night Live star Marcello Hernandez, and comedian Nick Griffin. Also read: Joe Biden calls Kamala Harris and JD Vance boss and secretary during gun violence and control event Last week, Harry was at a meeting with The Halo Trust, a group that works to get rid of landmines and explosives. He also took part in a Travalyst event, which is all about traveling responsibly and taking care of the environment everywhere. This might be a big deal, but it's not his first time on TV. Back in January 2023, when he was promoting his book Spare, Harry made a cameo on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He had a fun chat with the host about answering 15 questions from Colbert. That episode achieved record viewership. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presented his war victory plan to Donald Trump during a closed-door meeting on Friday, after the Republican presidential candidate said he would work with both Ukraine and Russia to end their conflict. Donald Trump meets with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Trump Tower, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)(AP) The meeting between the two men at Trump Tower in Manhattan was their first in-person encounter since 2019. Zelenskyy said he was talking with both Trump and his Democratic rival in the Nov. 5 election, Vice President Kamala Harris, because Ukraine needed strong U.S. support in its continuing war with Russia. Trump praised Zelenskyy, but said he also had a solid relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. We have a very good relationship (with Zelenskyy), and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin, Trump told reporters. And I think if we win, I think we're going to get it resolved very quickly, he added. Zelenskyy has used his U.S. visit to promote his victory plan, which a U.S. official described as a repackaged request for more weapons and a lifting of restrictions on the use of long-range missiles. The plan presupposes the ultimate defeat of Russia in the war, the official said. Some officials see the aim as unrealistic. When asked on Thursday by a reporter if Ukraine should hand over some of the Ukrainian land Russia has captured to end the war - a non-starter for Kyiv - Trump replied: We'll see what happens. At one point during a pre-meeting press conference on Friday, when Zelenskyy suggested he had a better relationship with Trump than Putin did, Trump responded: Yeah, but you know it takes two to tango. Still, Trump said on Friday he was pleased to meet with Zelenskyy, a marked change in tone from some of his previous comments on the campaign trail. After the meeting, Zelenskyy called his talks with Trump very productive. On Monday, Trump said Zelenskyy wanted Harris to win the election. He has also called Zelenskyy the greatest salesman of all time because his country has received billions of dollars in military aid from the United States and Europe. It's an honor to have the president with us, and he's been through a lot, Trump said on Friday. He's been through a tremendous amount, like probably nobody else, almost nobody else in history, if you really get right down to it, and we're going to have a discussion and see what we could come up with. TRUMP, HARRIS DIFFER ON UKRAINE Trump on Friday said that if he won the Nov. 5 election he would immediately begin working toward a resolution of the Ukraine conflict, even though he would formally take office only in late January 2025. Zelenskyy, who was in the United States for the U.N. General Assembly, met on Thursday with Democratic President Joe Biden and Harris. Over the weekend, Zelenskyy traveled to a munitions factory in Pennsylvania with that state's Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, a Harris ally. The visit upset Trump's campaign and enraged some congressional Republicans who viewed the trip as a campaign stop, particularly as Pennsylvania is an important battleground state expected to decide the U.S. election. As late as Thursday, people close to Trump and his campaign had said a meeting appeared extremely unlikely, though the former president apparently changed his mind during Zelenskyy's stay in the country. Trump and Harris' differences on Ukraine echo splits in their respective Democratic and Republican parties, and their view of the U.S. role in the world. Along with Trump, some Republicans in Congress have questioned the value of U.S. funding and additional weapons for Ukraine's two-year battle against Russia's invasion, calling it futile, while Democrats led by Biden have pushed to punish Russia and bolster Ukraine, framing Ukraine's victory as a vital national security interest. The war in Ukraine and foreign policy in general lag behind domestic issues like the economy, healthcare and immigration in terms of what most voters think are important. But a strong majority, 64%, of registered voters say they support Ukraine's use of U.S.-supplied arms to strike within Russia, according to an August Reuters/Ipsos poll, including 78% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans. Nancy Pelosis husband reportedly sold over $500,000 worth of Visa stock just before the company faced serious federal antitrust charges. Paul Pelosi unloaded the stock three months before the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit against Visa, accusing the company of illegally monopolizing the debit card market following a lengthy investigation by its antitrust division. Donald Trump on Saturday hit out at former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi while addressing a first rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(AP) Now, 2024 Presidential hopeful Donald Trump has taken aim at Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), calling for her prosecution following the stock sale. Speaking at Trump Tower, Trump questioned the timing of the trade. Trump calls for Nancy Pelosis prosecution "Nancy Pelosi has a little problem," Trump said on Thursday, according to the POST, a day after Visa was hit with an antitrust lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges that Visa illegally paid off its competitors to block them from the market and stifle innovation. "Her husband sold their Visa stock they had a lot of Visa stock one day before it was announced that Visa is being sued by the Department of Justice," the Republican candidate added. Also read: Haitian Presidents giant jug sip and spill at UN speech triggers cruel memes; video goes viral The 78-year-old, who survived two assassination attempts this year and is facing multiple legal battles, accused Pelosi of being "aware" of the upcoming lawsuit and tipping off her husband, Paul, before he offloaded the stock. "Think about it. Nancy Pelosi sold a huge amount of Visa stock just one day before the big lawsuit that made headlines," he said. You think that was just luck? I dont. Standing inside the Trump Tower he then demanded her prosecution. She should be prosecuted, Trump declared. Nancy Pelosi should be prosecuted for that. The former House Speaker and the Republican candidate have a long history of tension, frequently exchanging sharp criticisms and legal threats. Pelosi has openly condemned Trump for his role in the January 6 Capitol riot, even labeling him a "domestic enemy." Meanwhile, Trump's team hasnt held back, blaming Pelosi for influencing President Bidens decision to run in the 2024 election. Nancy Peolosis husband dumps Visa stock just before DOJ lawsuit According to the POST, Christopher Josephs, the tech guy behind the Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker on X shared a post on July 3 that showed a government document about how Paul Pelosi sold 2,000 shares of Visa stock. Those shares were worth anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million. The document called it a SP, which stands for Paul Francis Pelosi, a San Francisco-based businessman who runs Financial Leasing Services that focuses on real estate, venture capital investments, and consulting. Speaker Pelosi does not own any stocks, and she has no prior knowledge or subsequent involvement in any transactions, a spokesperson for Pelosi informed the POST after accusations were made targeting the politician. Also read: Diddys alleged sex tape handed over to the Feds by a male sex worker in exchange for: Report We allege that Visa has unlawfully amassed the power to extract fees that far exceed what it could charge in a competitive market, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a press release launching the lawsuit. Merchants and banks pass along those costs to consumers, either by raising prices or reducing quality or service. As a result, Visas unlawful conduct affects not just the price of one thing but the price of nearly everything. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer dined with Donald Trump for two hours as he sought to move past previous criticism of the former president to burnish personal relations ahead of a US election that may return him to power. Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivers remarks to the press before meeting Keir Starmer(AFP) The meal at Trump Tower in New York capped off a two-day visit by the new premier to attend the United Nations General Assembly. The two men discussed the longstanding friendship between their two nations and the importance of maintaining an enduring partnership, according to Starmers office. With UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy also in attendance, there was potential for awkwardness given both he and Starmer had criticized Trump while their left-leaning Labour Party was in opposition. Now in government, and with a tight presidential race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris on the other side of the Atlantic, they face the prospect of having to work closely with him. Itll be really to establish a relationship between the two of us, Starmer told reporters before meeting Trump. Im a great believer in personal relations on the international stage. I think it really matters that you know who your counterpart is in any given country, and you know personally, get to know them face-to-face. Keir Starmer won't meet kamala due to diary challenges While the British premier had hoped to also meet with Harris on the visit, reporters traveling with him to New York were told that diary challenges had prevented it. That raises the chance he may cross the Atlantic again before the US vote, since hes never met the vice president. A Harris win would clearly be preferable to Starmer, whose Labour Party has longstanding ties with the vice presidents Democrats. Starmer denounced the the politics of noisy performance, the weak and cowardly fantasy of populism in his speech to Labours annual conference earlier this week, without naming any populist in particular. Trump remains unpopular in the UK, disliked by 67% of the British public, according to the latest polling by YouGov. But Starmer insisted that the UK would continue to work closely with whoever won the presidential vote in November. The so-called special relationship between the US and UK always sits above whoever holds the particular office, either in the US or the UK, he said. Trump has said he wants to condition US security guarantees on European nations hitting goals for defense spending, raising questions about his commitment to allies. Thursdays meeting provided Starmer with an opportunity to speak about areas of importance to Britain, including support for Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as well as a commitment to fighting climate change. Starmer declined to comment on his key messages to Trump. Its probably as strong now as its ever been, in relation to the Middle East and Ukraine, the premier said about the relationship with the US. Youve seen how closely Ive been working with the US in relation to both of those issues. The US people will decide who they want as their president, and we will work with whoever is president, as you would expect. Im not going to speculate on what any particular issues may be the other side of the election. As leader of the opposition in early 2021 Starmer said Trump needed to take responsibility for his role in the attack by protesters on the Capitol following the last presidential vote. Moreover, several of his ministers including Foreign Secretary David Lammy have criticized Trump in the past also. Trump is not only a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath, Lammy wrote as an opposition lawmaker in 2018. He is also a profound threat to the international order. But none of that seemed to deter Trump, who told reporters in New York shortly before meeting Starmer: Im going to see him in about an hour so I have to be nice, right? I actually think hes very nice, Trump said. I think he ran a great race, he did very well. Its very early, but hes very popular. The U.S. Justice Department on Friday unsealed criminal charges accusing three members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps of hacking Donald Trump's presidential campaign and trying to disrupt the Nov. 5 election. Donald Trump's campaign said in August it had been hacked by Iran but said the perpetrators were not able to get private information. (AFP) The indictment is the latest effort by the Biden administration to counter foreign efforts to interfere in the election between former President Trump, a Republican, and his Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris. Iran said on Thursday that accusations that it had targeted former U.S. officials were baseless. The three men -- Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar Balaghi -- were trying to undermine Trump's campaign, Attorney General Merrick Garland told a news conference on Friday. We are seeing increasingly aggressive Iranian cyber activity during this election cycle, he said. The indictment says the three men used fake email accounts to trick several campaign officials into believing they were dealing with a trusted source, and then got them to click on links that allowed the hackers to steal emails and other internal documents, such as debate preparation material and profiles of potential vice presidential candidates. They then leaked that information to media outlets and the campaign of President Joe Biden while he was still a candidate, the indictment said. Charges include wire fraud, identity theft and computer fraud. The U.S. Treasury Department also said it was imposing sanctions on the three men along with several other Revolutionary Guard Corps members. Trump's campaign said in August it had been hacked by Iran but said the perpetrators were not able to get private information. However, several news outlets have said they declined to publish internal campaign documents that were offered to them. Biden campaign officials also did not respond when offered Trump's debate preparation material shortly before the two candidates met for their only debate on June 27, the indictment said. The restraint is a marked contrast to the 2016 election, when hacked communications from Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign received extensive coverage. The Iranian hacking team, known as APT42 or Charming Kitten, is known for placing surveillance software on mobile phones that allows them to record calls, steal texts and silently turn on cameras and microphones, researchers say. The three men are currently in Iran and beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement, but Garland noted that the Justice Department has successfully apprehended other international suspects long after they were charged. "We will follow these people for the rest of their lives," he said. The Justice Department says Iran's efforts are not confined to the digital realm. A Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran pleaded not guilty earlier this month to terrorism charges stemming from what authorities say was a plot to assassinate a U.S. politician in retaliation for the killing of Iran's Revolutionary Guards top commander in 2020. The defendant named Trump as a potential target, according to a source, but there are not indications he was linked to the two recent attempts on Trump's life. The Justice Department has also targeted Russian attempts to tamper with the election, bringing criminal charges and sanctions against employees of state media outlet RT for allegedly funding pro-Trump social-media influencers in the United States. The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on alleged Russian money laundering operations that catered to cybercriminals and involved three illegal cryptocurrency exchanges. The US Justice Department unsealed an indictment charging Russian national Sergey Sergeevich Ivanov with conspiracy to commit bank fraud and money laundering using stolen credit and debit card information.(REUTERS) The Justice Department unsealed an indictment charging Russian national Sergey Sergeevich Ivanov with conspiracy to commit bank fraud and money laundering using stolen credit and debit card information. Ivanov's services have been used by cybercrime marketplaces, ransomware groups and hackers responsible for significant data breaches of major U.S. companies, the department said. Russian national Timur Shakhmametov faced similar charges in the indictment, the department said. In a coordinated action, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Ivanov and Cryptex, a virtual currency exchange based in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines but operating in Russia. The United States and its allies have imposed sanctions on thousands of Russian targets since Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. The war has seen tens of thousands killed and cities destroyed. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network also identified Russian crypto exchange PM2BTC, which is associated with Ivanov, as a "primary money laundering concern" in connection with Russian illicit finance. The Treasury financial crime bureau found that PM2BTC used "an unusual obfuscation" that made it harder to trace illicit transactions, it said. PM2BTC has longstanding ties to Russian or Russian-affiliated financial institutions that are under U.S. sanctions or other restrictions, according to Treasury. The United States and our international partners remain resolute in our commitment to prevent cybercrime facilitators like PM2BTC and Cryptex from operating with impunity, said Bradley Smith, acting under secretary for Treasury's terrorism and financial intelligence unit. At the same time, the State Department announced rewards of up to $10 million each for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Ivanov or Shakhmametov. The State Department is also offering rewards of up to $1 million each for information identifying the leaders of PM2BTC and stolen credit card marketplaces PinPays and Joker's Stash. With just 38 days to go, US elections remain very very close battle to call. Even as the latest opinion polls indicate a neck on neck battle between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, the popular vote scales are titled in Democrat's favour. However, in reality, the popular vote does not determine the outcome; it all comes down to the electoral votes, highlighting the significance of swing states. Watch out for the five swing states that will decide the US election 20024(Getty Images via AFP) In 2024 race to the White House polarisation in the seven swing state is narrowing and now limited to five states. In 2020, all four of these states gave a very narrow margin of victory to Joe Biden and now Donald Trump hopes to reclaim the throne from the Democrats by making significant moves here. Also Read: Kamala vs Trump: Road to 270 explained Battle for Arizona: Tables are turning With 11 electoral votes, Arizona is tied for the 14th-most electoral votes among states and is considered one of the key battlegrounds that could decide the election. In 2020, President Joe Biden, narrowly, became the first Democrat to beat a Republican presidential candidate in Arizona since former President Bill Clinton in 1996. Now a Fox News poll shows Trump leading Harris by 3 percentage points, however, Last month Harris was leading the race in the state by 1 point. Trump's gain is being aided to bold shift in sentiments among Hispanic voters and women voters. Under 30-year old voters are also moving towards Trump. According to NY Times/Siene Poll, Harris is trailing Trump 45 percent to 50, as compared to August, when 49 percent opted for Harris over Trump (45). Battle for Georgia: It's advantage Trump Georgia, with 16 electoral votes, is a historically red state that Trump must win. In 2020 he lost the state to Joe Biden by only 12,000 votes which costed him the presidency. In the current opinion polls former president is edging his counterpart by 49 percent to 45 percent. Last month poll showed the pair tied at 47 percent each. Meanwhile, Harris is hoping that a surge of turnout from her supporters in and around Atlanta would help her win the state. It is whiter states, like Michigan and Wisconsin, where Harris appears to be polling stronger, while more diverse states (like Georgia) are leaning slightly Trumps way, claims an NYT analysis. Battle for Wisconsin: Kamala has an edge, but Trump won't let go On the other hand Wisconsin with 10 electoral votes should be a cake walk for Kamala Harris. According to NYT polling average she enjoys a two-percentage-point leads in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. If she bags all three along with Nebraska, the presidency is hers. Wisconsin was another close call state in the 2020 polls with electoral college giving Biden an edge close to 21,000 votes. As Trump is in no mood to let the state get away, do expect a dramatic overturn in the coming weeks. Michigan too is critical, too, though it has a recent history of friendliness to Democrats, who performed well there in the 2022 midterms and in the 2020 election. Battle for North Carolina: Can the red state turn blue? For Trump to enter the White House he needs Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia. Yet, the red state of North Carolina with 16 electoral votes has been showing its blue wings recently. Even though a Democratic presidential candidate hasnt won North Carolina since Barack Obama did in 2008, NYT polling average indicates Trumps lead is less than one percentage point. The recent controversy surrounding, Trump endorsed Mark Robinson, the Republican gubernatorial candidate calling himself a Black Nazi can dampen the mood further. Battle for Pennsylvania: The match clincher Pennsylvania - the biggest swing state, with the highest stakes remains the most exciting battle to be tracked in 2024. It's where both Kamala and Trump have pumped in the maximum effort and funds. $138 million in airtime has been bought in the state until the Election Day, according to AdImpact. With 19 electoral votes, Pennsylvania is crucial to call the US election. Last time Biden won it by a margin of 1.6% but in 2016 Trump clinched it by close to 0.7%. Whereas previous to that the state voted Obama to power in two consecutive elections. Current polls show Harris and Trump in a close race at 48% and 46%, respectively. According to Nate Silver, the founder of ABC's FiveThirtyEight, Pennsylvania has a 33 percent chance of tipping the election this year. Harris' lead is a bit more than one point in Pennsylvania, which "is the most important tipping point state, states Silver. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy huddled with U.S. leaders on Thursday to shore up American support for his country's fight against Russia as the war faces a partisan reckoning in this year's presidential election. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, speaks during his meeting with President Joe Biden, right, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)(AP) Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, has pledged to continue sending military assistance to Ukraine if she's elected. She'll have her own meeting with Zelenskyy after the Ukrainian leader sat down with President Joe Biden, who announced billions of dollars more in missiles, drones, ammunition and other supplies. The weapons include an additional Patriot missile defense battery and a new shipment of glide bombs that can be deployed from Western fighter jets, increasing their strike range. Biden pledged to ensure that all approved funding is disbursed before he leaves office, and he said he plans to convene a meeting with other world leaders focused on Ukraines defense during a visit to Germany next month. We stand with Ukraine, now and in the future," Biden said alongside Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail. Meanwhile, Zelenskyy's tumultuous relationship with former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, continued to deteriorate this week. Instead of meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump criticized him. As for U.S. support for Ukraine, Trump complained that we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal" to end the war. His message dovetails with Russian propaganda that claims intransigence by Kyiv not aggression from Moscow has prolonged the bloodshed. It's the most politically treacherous landscape that Zelenskyy has encountered in Washington since Russia invaded nearly three years ago. Ukrainian officials are anxious to maintain good relations with whomever becomes the next president of the United States, which is its biggest and most important provider of arms, money and other support. But the effort risks slipping into the political blender of the presidential campaign, polarizing the discussion around a war that used to be a bipartisan cause celebre in Washington. About two thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the U.S. has a responsibility to help Ukraine, compared with one third of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in July. Americans are also split on which presidential candidate would do a better job handling the war. An AP-NORC poll from August found that about one-third of Americans said they trusted Harris more, while a similar share said the same about Trump. Zelenskyy was expected to present Biden with a plan to push the war toward an endgame that would involve a negotiated settlement with Russia. He's trying to secure leverage before Biden leaves office including acquiescence to fire long-range Western weapons deeper into Russia as a hedge against the possibility that American support erodes after the election. On Thursday, Zelenskyy found some bipartisan support as he visited Capitol Hill, where he was greeted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Sen. Lindsay Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said Zelenskyy asked to use long-range weapons, such as British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles or U.S.-made ATACMS, for maximum benefit to bring (Russian President Vladimir) Putin to the table and increase Ukraine's negotiating position. "If we dont make that fundamental choice this week, I think the outcome for Ukraine is dire, Graham said. Administration officials have been skeptical of Zelenskyy's request, believing the weapons could have limited benefits but increase the risk of escalating the conflict. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said senators gave Zelenskyy advice on how to persuade Biden to loosen restrictions. Rep. Jim Himes, another Connecticut Democrat and the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Zelenskyy wanted more, faster. He was politely frustrated," Himes said, and specifically requested more Patriot missile defenses as Russia escalates strikes on Ukraine's cities and energy grid before the winter. Despite support from some Republicans on Capitol Hill, Zelenskyy faces a much more tense situation with Trump. The latest round of sniping started on Sunday, when The New Yorker published an interview with Zelenskyy in which he criticized JD Vance, Trump's running mate, as too radical for suggesting that Ukraine needs to give up some territory to end the war. Zelenskyy also dismissed Trump's boasts that he could quickly negotiate a solution, saying my feeling is that Trump doesnt really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how. On the same day, Zelenskyy toured a Pennsylvania factory producing munitions for the war. He was joined by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, a top surrogate for Harris, and Republicans criticized the visit as a political stunt in a political battleground state. House Speaker Mike Johnson demanded that Zelenskyy fire the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., alleging that the tour was designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference. The Louisiana Republican didn't attend any of lawmakers' meetings with Zelenskyy on Thursday. Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Zelenskyy is in a no-win situation" where he cant even visit a U.S. weapons manufacturer to say thank you without being attacked. Zelenskyy's trip to Washington coincides with the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where the Ukrainian leader spoke on Wednesday. Last week, Trump said he would probably meet with Zelenskyy while he was in the U.S., but a senior campaign official said there was never a meeting on the books. The official, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations, said Trump had told Zelenskyy back in July that it would probably be better not to sit down together until after the election. A Zelenskyy aide did not respond to questions about the potential meeting. Trump was impeached during his first term over asking Zelenskyy for help investigating Biden, then a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, at a time when the Ukrainian leader was seeking support from Washington. Now there are fears that Trump would cut off or add strings to U.S. military assistance if he returned to the White House. Trump has also spoken admiringly about Putin, and this week he praised Russia's record of winning wars. Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Trump is not wrong to want a negotiated end to the war. However, he said, Trump risks undermining Ukraine by enabling Putin to make more gains on the battlefield. Neither Ukraine nor Russia is going to win this war, and the sooner that the parties try to end this, the better," Kupchan said. "Where Trump goes off course, and where Biden and Harris have a much stronger argument, is that we get to that point not by throwing Ukraine under the bus but by giving them sufficient support so they can block further Russian aggression. Zelenskyy can expect a far different tone from Harris, who met with him in Munich just days before Russia invaded. During her debate with Trump earlier this month, Harris expressed pride in U.S. support for Ukraine's righteous defense." If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now, she said. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is fine, a source close to him said, and denied reports he was the target of the strike on the militant groups headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, by the Israeli military on Friday. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah (Reuters File Photo) Also Read: Israel PM Benjamin etanyahu cuts short US trip as IDF targets Hezbollah in Beirut The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out a precise strike on the Central headquarters of the Hezbollah terror organisationtaking the necessary action to protect our people so that Israeli families can live in their homes, safely and securely, IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, declared in a televised statement shortly after the military action in the Dahiyeh suburb in Lebanons Capital. Who is Hassan Nasrallah? (1.) He was born on August 31, 1960, in the northern Burj Hammud suburb of Beirut. The son of a poor grocer, he had eight siblings. (2.) Since February 1992, Nasrallah has led Hezbollah as the group's secretary-general, the third in its history. Now 64, the cleric succeeded Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed by Israel. (3.) In a 2014 interview, he denied living in a bunker but admitted to regularly switching sleeping places. The point of security measures is that movement be kept secret, but that doesn't stop me from moving around and seeing what is happening, Nasrallah told Al-Akhbar, a Lebanese newspaper sympathetic to Hezbollah. (4.) Officials and journalists who met him in recent years, described tight security measures that prevented them from knowing where they were being taken. Most of his speeches in the past two decades have been recorded and broadcast from a secret location. (5.) Said to be a gifted public speaker, Nasrallah is married and has four surviving children. His eldest son, a Hezbollah fighter, was killed in an ambush by Israel in September 1997. (With AFP inputs) Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky will sit down for a potentially fractious meeting Friday, following a series of scathing attacks by the White House hopeful on the Ukrainian president's handling of the conflict with Russia. Zelensky sat down a day earlier with Trump's US election rival Kamala Harris, as well as President Joe Biden, who both pledged their support for Kyiv's war, which has largely been bankrolled by the United States. Trump, who this week accused Zelensky of refusing to "make a deal" to end the conflict, said the pair will meet at around 9:45 am (1345 GMT) at his Trump Tower skyscraper in New York. US media had earlier reported the meeting would not go ahead after Trump was offended by Zelensky's comments to The New Yorker magazine, in which he said that the Republican "doesn't really know how to stop the war." Trump struck back at a campaign rally in North Carolina on Wednesday, saying: "We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal, Zelensky." Zelensky is in the United States this week participating in the UN General Assembly in New York. He is also looking to shore up support for his country's war effort as it struggles on the battlefield in the third year of Moscow's invasion. The Ukrainian leader presented a so-called "victory" plan to Biden and Harris at the White House on Thursday, with Biden announcing a new military aid package worth nearly $8 billion for Kyiv. Standing with Zelensky at her side, Harris did not mention Trump by name but said there were "some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory." Biden pledged in a separate meeting with Zelensky that "Russia will not prevail" in the war it launched in February 2022. Dressed in his trademark military-style outfit, Zelensky replied that "we deeply appreciate that Ukraine and America have stood side by side." However, his visit has been clouded by the row with Trump which underscored how November's US election could upend the support that Ukraine receives from its biggest backer. Trump has long been critical of the billions of dollars in US support for Ukraine. He has echoed many of Russian President Vladimir Putin's talking points, saying at a rally earlier this week that Ukraine could not win as Russia "beat Hitler, they beat Napoleon, that's what they do." Republicans have also been livid after Zelensky visited an arms factory in Biden's hometown in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, accusing the Ukrainian ambassador of organizing a partisan political event and calling for her to be sacked. When Trump was president he also asked Zelensky for potentially damaging political material on Biden ahead of the 2020 election -- which led to the first of the Republican's two impeachments. If I get it right, that was the point. The Trump is so incoherent that it is impossible to comprehend anything he says. And he himself thinks it's because his mutterings are so utterly intelligent that the rest of us cannot follow. Some have likened him to a random word generator. "Why are women over 50 supporting abortion access when it doesn't affect them" just reveals how little this guy can fathom what it's like to care about other people "Why are women over 50 supporting abortion access when it doesn't affect them" just reveals how little this guy can fathom what it's like to care about other people Desi Lydic rounds up shitty male politicians' insulting appeals to female voters: from Trump's claims of being their protector despite taking away abortion rights, to Ohio Senate hopeful Bernie Moreno's dismissal of post-menopausal women's commitment to abortion access, to N.C. gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson's salacious porn-forum comments about his sister-in-law. Plus, Dulce Sloan joins to make Josh Johnson answer for every man. I am a man whose sister is a feminist lawyer and brother who formed group at MIT in '68 that occupied President Howard Johson's office in '69, whose mom testified before Congress re ERA, as an expert on collge ed and admin...Nixon drove her bananas. Today... sigh. "Play WEIRDLE, 2 words or few syllables...Trumpster's longest coherent sentences, e.g. : "Losers drool." "I rule." "Worship me." or make up sobriquets...'Weakest MISSING Link" DinAlt. The Dimster. Sigh. "You're rubber." "I'm glue." Idea and object permanence!...turns out T mind very temporary. Idea impermanence, but Id permanent. Artificial Stupidity. Future and past unreal, mists that shift with his mood. And...ATTENTION SPAN. The Fugitive Kind." Phun for non-crime family and un-store-bought friends." https://www.hongkongwatch.org/all-posts/2024/9/24/no-lord-mandelson-we-dont-need-to-cosy-up-to-xis-china-benedict-rogers (BNO) 180 76 1989 13 12 23 Doughty Street Chambers Keir Starmer KC (IPAC) 47 2021 ?? T https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/international/2024/09/17/uk-peer-slams-tory-boycott-of-hong-kong-urges-thaw-with-china/ Rebecca Choong Wilkins David Ingles 2024 9 17 Peter MandelsonPaul Miller/Bloomberg Peter Mandelson 7 Global Counsel 2015 2021 5G 2008 2019 2022 'No, Lord Mandelson, we dont need to cosy up to Xis China', Benedict Rogers https://www.hongkongwatch.org/all-posts/2024/9/24/no-lord-mandelson-we-dont-need-to-cosy-up-to-xis-china-benedict-rogers Peter Mandelsons intervention on China policy this week is profoundly wrong and potentially very dangerous. During a visit to Hong Kong in which he met government officials, top businessmen and bankers, and gave a speech at the University of Hong Kong, Lord Mandelson claimed that the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary in the city are intact and he blamed the previous Conservative government for initiating a boycott of Hong Kong and failing to sustain proper channels of communication with Beijing. He said that the new Labour government wished to recreate the strategic dialogue that Britain has had with China in the past, after many years of a very poor, deteriorating relationship, adding that it was time for both countries to stop throwing mud at each other. That sounds perilously close to the failed so-called golden era of Sino-British relations pursued by David Camerons government which of course was first started by Lord Mandelson. One has to ask: what planet is Lord Mandelson living on? Lets take these points one by one, in reverse order. First, the reason the relationship has deteriorated in recent years is because of the increasingly belligerent, bellicose, repressive and aggressive behaviour of the current Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime in Beijing, led by Xi Jinping. Over the past five years particularly, Xis regime has been credibly accused of genocide against the Uyghurs by both the previous and current US administrations, several parliaments around the world including our own, and an independent tribunal chaired by the lawyer who prosecuted Slobodan Milosevic, Sir Geoffrey Nice KC. It has dismantled Hong Kongs promised freedoms, human rights, the rule of law and autonomy, ripping up an international treaty, the Sino-British Joint Declaration, in the process. It has intensified its repression of dissent and its crackdown on religion across China, including the barbaric practice of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience. Beijings atrocities in Tibet have continued, with revelations that at least a million Tibetan children have been coercively separated from their families into colonial boarding schools which prohibit them from learning Tibetan language, practising Tibetan Buddhism or living their Tibetan culture. But of course, Lord Mandelson has long shown a disregard for Tibet. Chinas aggression towards Taiwan has intensified and its threats to our national security through espionage, infiltration, influence operations and intimidation campaigns have increased. And lets not forget the CCPs responsibility for unleashing upon the world the Covid-19 pandemic that destroyed hundreds of millions of lives and livelihoods, through its irresponsible lies, cover-ups and repression of whistleblowers. So there are good reasons relations deteriorated, and the blame lies in Beijing not in London. In Lord Mandelsons view this is throwing mud, but it is really simply pointing out the facts. Lets turn to his second allegation: that the previous Conservative government was in danger of operating a boycott of Hong Kong. That is an absolute lie and totally unnecessarily politicises what has always been an issue that has commanded broad cross-party support. The last government did one thing for which it deserves great credit, and that was the introduction of the British National Overseas (BNO) scheme. This provided a pathway for potentially several million Hong Kongers to flee Hong Kong and build a new life in freedom in the United Kingdom. That scheme was announced by Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab the day after the imposition by Beijing of a new, draconian National Security Law upon Hong Kong which destroyed the citys freedoms, and it was championed and implemented by Priti Patel. Eligibility for the scheme was further extended, after much advocacy from the last Governor of Hong Kong Lord Patten and Lord Alton, both Patrons of the organisation I co-founded, Hong Kong Watch, and the last government should be applauded for the measures they took to offer Hong Kongers a future. But dont be in any doubt: that scheme drew enormous support from across all parties and both Houses of Parliament. Moreover, the Labour Party in opposition were vocal in pushing the government at the time to go further and to be more robust on human rights in China. David Lammy, Catherine West, Stephen Kinnock, Lord Collins and plenty of other Labour Parliamentarians, frontbench and backbench, as well as friends from the Liberal Democrats, Scottish Nationalists and other parties were allies in the effort to put some spine into the back of the last government. Lammy said he would call out the genocide of the Uyghurs if in government one of the many promises the new government has u-turned on in the past two months. Far from operating a boycott of Hong Kong, the last government refused to implement any sanctions in response to Beijings breaches of the Sino-British Joint Declaration and instead sent at least two ministers the then Trade Minister Lord (Dominic) Johnson and Foreign Office Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan to the city. While they may have made platitudinal remarks about human rights, the focus of both visits was increasing trade. And the Foreign Secretary James Cleverly made a much-trumpeted or at least much-tweeted visit to Beijing for the same purpose. Human rights in China and Hong Kong is not and should not be a party political matter. I have my criticisms of the previous government and my concerns about the current governments approach. But I also have many friends on all sides who share the same view. Lord Mandelson trying to weaponise this issue as a stick with which to beat the Conservatives and a wedge to drive between the parties is wicked. Finally, to the absurdity of his suggestion that the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary in Hong Kong is still intact, I make simply three points. First, read this article by Lord Sumption, who finally made the decision to quit sitting in Hong Kongs courts. He says this: Hong Kong, once a vibrant and politically diverse community is slowly becoming a totalitarian state. The rule of law is profoundly compromised in any area about which the government feels strongly. Second, follow the case of my friend Jimmy Lai, the 76-year-old British citizen and media entrepreneur who has been in jail for more than three and a half years on multiple trumped-up charges including serving 13 months for lighting a candle and saying a prayer at a peaceful vigil to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. As I wrote earlier this week, Mr Lai a devout Catholic has reportedly been denied Communion since last December, is held in solitary confinement for more than 23 hours a day, denied access to independent medical care and has very limited access to human contact or daylight. As his international legal team at Doughty Street Chambers where the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer KC practised said yesterday at the United Nations, Mr Lais continued arbitrary detention raises grave concerns. Mr Lai is still on trial under the National Security Law, and could face life imprisonment. Several foreign nationals, including myself, have been named as collaborators with him in his trial. None of us despite appeals from Parliamentarians in the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) have been called to give evidence. Mr Lais entire trial is a travesty of justice, especially as he was denied his first choice of legal counsel. What kind of rule of law or judicial independence is that? And third, just look at the multitude of other cases. The fact that 47 former elected legislators and activists were arrested for holding a primary election to choose their candidates for what should have been Hong Kongs Legislative Council elections; the fact that the editors of Stand News were convicted of sedition last month; the crackdown on press freedom and closure of Mr Lais Apple Daily in 2021; and the fact that in Hong Kong today, if you wear a T-shirt of a particular colour or sing a particular song, you can be arrested and jailed what kind of rule of law is that, Lord Mandelson? In a fig-leaf to those who believe in human rights and democracy, the former British First Secretary of State, Trade Secretary and European Union Trade Secretary said he did think that the Hong Kong authorities should tread lightly on peoples lives. Tell that to Jimmy Lai. Tell that to the Stand News editors. Tell that to the hundreds of political prisoners in jail in Hong Kong today. Lord Mandelson, you can do better than that. Few would dispute that we must talk to Beijing. Certainly I do not advocate disengagement. But the question for me is not whether to engage but how, and I am certain that we achieve nothing by kowtowing, diluting, denying, undermining or surrendering our values or by varnishing our differences. While they may not like it, the CCP respects us more if we stand up for what we believe in, rather than as long-time American businessman James McGregor put it nearly a decade ago acting like a panting puppy. Other failed politicians have attempted to cosy up to Beijing. Think Vince Cable. Think George Osborne. But what makes Lord Mandelsons intervention dangerous is that he has the ear of the new Prime Minister and is spoken of as a candidate to be either UK Ambassador to the United States or Chancellor of Oxford University. If he continues acting like a panting puppy with regard to China, he should be disqualified from both positions and left to shout on the sidelines. His analysis of and partisanship in matters of China policy profoundly discredit him and endanger our national interest and values. UK Peer Slams Tory Boycott of Hong Kong, Urges Thaw With China https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/international/2024/09/17/uk-peer-slams-tory-boycott-of-hong-kong-urges-thaw-with-china/ By Rebecca Choong Wilkins and David Ingles Sept 17, 2024 Peter Mandelson (Paul Miller/Bloomberg) (Bloomberg) -- UK Labour party veteran Peter Mandelson faulted the former Conservative government for failing to sustain proper channels of communication with China and not living up to Britains responsibilities in Hong Kong. It was in danger of operating a boycott of Hong Kong and the necessary communication that Britain needs to maintain with China, the former British trade secretary said in an interview during his first trip to the Asian finance hub in more than four years. And thats what is going to change under the new government. The Labour peer is a close adviser to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who led the party to a landslide election win in July. Mandelson is also a co-founder of Global Counsel, a firm thats become one of the most influential advisory groups in the UK and has been expanding its coverage of China. Britains relations with China have turned sharply for the worse after what then Prime Minister David Cameron proclaimed was a golden era of relations with Beijing when he was in power back in 2015. In 2021, the Conservatives blocked Huawei Technologies Co. from participating in Britains 5G network and more recently traded barbs with Chinese officials over allegations of spying. Hong Kong Mandelson, who was an influential figure in the last Labour government under Tony Blair and has been a peer in the House of Lords since 2008, met with Hong Kong officials, top businessmen and bankers during the visit. He said he was shocked that members of the local government were cold shouldered by ministers during trips to London earlier this year. Thats a serious infringement of Britains role and responsibility in Hong Kong, he said. The former British colony has faced criticism from Western governments over dismantling many of the freedoms that once set the city apart from the mainland. The US earlier this month issued an advisory that warned businesses operating in Hong Kong could fall afoul of new national security legislation an announcement the citys government rejected as misleading and untruthful. While Mandelson said he believes the rule of law remains intact and the judiciary is still independent in Hong Kong, he urged the government to be very careful of moving in a direction criticized by its detractors. I think very strongly that the Hong Kong authorities have to tread lightly on peoples lives, he said. Re-engaging China The former European trade commissioner said the UK government planned to re-engage with China after a full audit of the bilateral ties, including by re-establishing formal meetings between officials. Starmer has yet to articulate a formal strategy toward the worlds second-largest economy since taking power. During a phone call seen as laying the ground for a reset between the two countries governments, Starmer told Chinese President Xi Jinping last month he was hopeful for frank, open and honest talks on areas of disagreement including on Hong Kong. The prime minister additionally referenced Russias war in Ukraine and human rights as issues the UK wants to address with China. The new Labour administration is also crafting an economic agenda to lay out strategies for key sectors including electric vehicles. That may provide insight into the countrys position on imports of Chinese EVs, an industry the European Union and the US are targeting with tariffs. The British government wants to, in time, recreate the strategic dialogs that Britain has had with China in the past, Mandelson said. Some of such forums have been halted in recent years, including the UK-China Economic and Finance Dialogue which hasnt taken place since 2019. Mandelson also had a word of caution for companies at risk of getting caught in the crosshairs of rising tensions. You can operate your business in both the American and Chinese economies, but inevitably youve got to be mindful of any downside risks of doing so, he said. At the end of the day, it behooves governments of all countries to allow businesses to do business. Wrong Turn The UKs re-engagement with China would be conditional on Beijings condemnation of Russias war against Ukraine, according to Mandelson. Responding to a question, he agreed that was a minimum requirement for improving the ties and criticized Chinas wrong turning over its alignment with Russia. It hangs like a cloud, frankly, over Chinas relationship with the whole of Europe, he said. We would want to see China taking a more responsible approach to that conflict. China has cultivated a partnership with the Kremlin despite the 2022 invasion, seeking to portray itself as a neutral actor that can help end the war. Beijing should use its influence and premier role in the international system to bring about a withdrawal by Russia from Ukraine and a settlement between the two countries, Mandelson said. China cannot complain on the one hand of threats to its territorial integrity and, in the next moment, stand stand idly by whilst Russia changes Ukraines borders by force, he said. There is a double standard there and hypocrisy, which does not serve China well. I read three articles about the cases of Homicide, child endangerment and animal cruelty, on the Bucks County Herald, August 15, 2024. Barbara gave me the newspaper. 1Police: Double homicide under investigation in Buckingham. Written by Freda R. Savana According to Buckingham police and the Bucks County District Attorneys office, two adult males and one adult female were found shot in head in the home, located in The Ridings of Buckingham neighborhood. Steven Chow, 59, shot and killed 21-years-old Raymond Chow and 63-years-old Amy Troung while they were lying in their beds, officials said, before killing himself a short time later. The investigation is ongoing and anyone with information is asked to contact the Buckingham Township Police Department or Bucks County District Attorneys Office. * I think: The three appeared to be members of a family that had been killed because of a serious family feud. Their last name is Chow and they appear to be Chinese. I have previously seen reports that there is a Chinese couple in California working at Google, and the husband killed his wife and then committed suicide. Family members should love each other, and conflicts should be dealt with calmly and reasonably, and should not develop into hatred. It is recalled that during the Cultural Revolution in China, the masses formed factions due to different views, which developed into armed fighting. There are also students who beat their teachers, causing many people to lose their lives. It is normal for people to have different views on society, we should treat others equally and respect others. You can't always think that you are right and ask others to obey you! 2 Richland cop facing child endangerment charges. Written by John Anastasi Bucks County Detectives have charged a Richland Township police officer with endangering the welfare of his 5-years-old son by leaving him home alone. The change against Joshua Fonseca, 33, who lives in the township, is a misdemeanor, according to the court documents. The officers formal arraignment in Doylestown is scheduled for Aug.30. Court documents state that the alleged incident occurred on the afternoon of April 22. A neighbor out walking their dog encountered a shoeless boy crying hysterically as he ran out the front door of a home. When the child got to the street, he stopped running, but began to wander into the roadway. Sgt. Mike Kisthardt, of the Richland Township police, said Fonseca has been on leave from the department since May 20, which court documents list as the date the charges were filed. * I think: Children should be taken good care of when they are young. But if both parents work, it is impossible to take care of children at home, in China, more by grandparents to take care of. Or the mother did not work staying home to take care of the children. Maybe there will be more kindergartens to take care of children in the future. 3) Farm owner facing cruelty and neglect charges after Bucks SPCA seizes 100+ animals. Written by Jody. Charges are pending against the owner of a farm in Wrightstown, where the Bucks County SPCA last week took custody of more than 100 animals in what it called a large-scale farm animal cruelty and neglect case. The farm owner, Abigail OKeefe , was found to have left the country with no confirmation of when or if she planned to return The agency said, 25 of the sickest animals were transported to BCSPCAs Quakertown Shelter and barn to begin receiving care under the direction of the agencys director of shelter medicine and in consultation with large animal veterinarians. *I think: Shouldn't animals be abused? But humans raise animals for themselves. Raising cows, sheep, chickens, and ducks, and finally killing them to eat meat. China even kills dogs and cats! Keeping dogs and cats is to enrich the owner's life. When the owner doesn't like them, they may be abandoned by the owner and become stray cats and dogs. When a certain animal poses a threat to humans, such as the American bison, humans kill them on a large scale. This is reality. Margarita Cruz, PhD in Economics, is an Assistant Professor of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship at EHL. Margaritas research lay at the intersection between organizational theory and entrepreneurship, with a particular focus on the role of authenticity on entrepreneurial outcomes such founding of new organizations and introduction of new products. During her doctoral studies, Margarita has also been a visiting PhD student at Robert H. Smith Business School, University of Maryland (2015-2016), thanks to the competitive Fellowship for most promising candidates granted by the Swiss National Science Foundation. In her research, Margarita is passionate about breweries, restaurants, and luxury hotels. In the classroom, Dr Cruz likes to bring state-of-the-art trends and practices about the entrepreneurial and strategic scene in the hospitality and F&B industries. Before joining academia, she gained experience as business engineer in the banking and chemical industries. The theme for the Future Hospitality Summit - FHS World 2024, taking place from 30 September -2 October at Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai is Invest in Our Future. The conference programme will comprise numerous content tracks under the main theme including Investment & Development;, Destination & Urban Development; People, Planet, Profit; Tech & Innovation; and Real Estate Hotelisation. In the lead up to the event we asked several industry partners about how theyre investing in the future in 2024 and beyond. In an era where the future of our industry hinges on innovation and responsibility, the theme Invest in Our Future could not be more relevant. As design and construction teams navigate a rapidly evolving landscape, focusing on two crucial areas will shape a prosperous and sustainable tomorrow: guiding owners and developers toward sustainable designs and fostering diversity within our workforce. Addressing these themes ensures that our industry thrives as a beacon of progress and inclusivity. Guiding Owners and Developers: The Case for Sustainable Investment Project teams bear a significant responsibility in guiding owners and developers toward sustainable practices. We must provide compelling, data-driven arguments that highlight the short and long-term benefits of early investment in sustainability. Simply adhering to industry standards is no longer enough; we must advocate for and implement innovative solutions that enhance operational efficiencies and asset value over time. Sustainable practices in design and construction are not only ethical choicesthey are also financially prudent. Investing early in green technologies, energy-efficient systems, and sustainable materials can lower operational costs, reduce environmental impact, and increase asset value. For instance, integrating renewable energy sources and high-performance building systems can lead to substantial savings on energy bills and maintenance, contributing to improved financial performance. Hiltons research into 2025 travel trends found that 84% of UAE residents feel that minimizing environmental impact while traveling is important. As global environmental awareness grows, the demand for sustainable properties rises, too. At Hilton, we aim to respond to these demands and serve as good stewards of the destinations where we operate, guided by our Travel with Purpose ESG strategy. Developers and operators who prioritise sustainability can attract environmentally conscious guests, tenants, or buyers, enhancing their market position. Thus, project teams must present a strong commercial case for these investments, showing not just immediate benefits but long-term value. Our role extends beyond implementation. We must engage stakeholders to communicate the advantages of sustainability and offer actionable insights for decision-making. By doing so, we ensure that our projects not only meet current standards but also set new benchmarks for excellence. Fostering Diversity: Investing in the Next Generation Equally crucial is our commitment to fostering diversity within the industry. Traditionally male-dominated, the design and construction industry urgently needs to open doors for young female talent. Investing in a diverse workforce is not just about fairness; it drives innovation and enhances our industrys capabilities. To build a more inclusive industry, we must actively seek out, support, and sponsor emerging female professionals. This involves creating mentorship opportunities, providing access to career development resources, and promoting gender diversity in leadership roles key focus areas for us at Hilton. By nurturing young female talent, we ensure that future leaders bring diverse perspectives and innovative solutions. Supporting female talent also means addressing biases and systemic barriers that hinder their advancement. It requires a concerted effort to counteract unconscious biases in hiring, offer equal career advancement opportunities, and foster a supportive environment where diverse voices are valued. Investing in diversity enriches our industry with a variety of viewpoints and experiences that drive creativity and problem-solving. Diverse teams are better equipped to understand and meet global client needs and are more likely to generate innovative solutions that propel the industry forward. A Call to Action As we reflect on the theme Invest in Our Future, it is evident that our commitment to sustainability and diversity will shape the industrys trajectory. Guiding owners and developers toward sustainable practices builds a foundation for long-term success and environmental stewardship. Fostering diversity and supporting the next generation of female leaders creates a dynamic, innovative, and inclusive industry. Moving forward requires dedication and collaboration. We must advocate for these principles and actively implement them in our practices and decision-making processes. Embrace this challenge with resolve and optimism, knowing that our investments today will yield a brighter, more sustainable, and equitable future for our industry. Anne Bleeker In2 Consulting +971 56 603 0886 The Bench HSMAI Europe Commercial Strategy Conference 2025 Announced - Image Credit HSMAI Europe Kick off 2025 by joining some of the brightest minds in hospitality at HSMAI Europes Commercial Strategy Conference. HSMAI Europes Commercial Strategy Conference the evolution of HSMAI ROC reflects the development of marketing, revenue optimization, sales, and other commercial functions into new and evolving commercial strategy organisations inside many hotel companies. We are thrilled to announce that were returning to the iconic Savoy Hotel in London, where we last gathered in January 2020, for this years highly anticipated Commercial Strategy Conference. Its a pleasure to be back, setting the stage once again for insightful discussions, networking, and the latest industry advancements. Event Highlights Wednesday, January 15th, 2025: Pre-Workshops: Participate in our global certification workshops (CRME, CHDM & CHSL) to enhance your expertise. For more information contact us at postbox@hsmai.eu Venue to be announced HSMAI Europe Board of Directors Meeting (Internal) The Savoy Hotel, London Leadership Day: An invitation-only event, where we invite HSMAI Europe Advisory Board members, Rising Leaders Council, Board of Directors members, Student Council and special supporters and sponsors of the region. The Savoy Hotel, London Thursday, January 16th, 2025: Commercial Strategy Conference: It has become one of the most compelling and comprehensive learning exchanges for commercial leaders in the hospitality industry. Join us for an unparalleled professional development experience. The Savoy Hotel, London HSMAI Awards Europe 2024: Celebrate excellence in the industry at our awards ceremony. The Savoy Hotel, London Friday, January 17th, 2025: Executive Roundtables (by invitation only): Participate in focused discussions on Revenue, Sales, Marketing, and HR & Talent, allowing you to exchange ideas and best practices with peers. Venue to be announced Dont Miss Out on the Super Early Bird Rate! This year, as last year we are offering you a Super Early Bird Rate if you sign up now. Register by Wednesday 18th September to take advantage of our discounted rate and secure your spot. Visit the event page for registration and details. Almarena Puerto Retiro, Affiliated by Melia - Image Credit Melia Hotels Almarena Madero Urbano, Affiliated by Melia - Image Credit Melia Hotels Melia Hotels International continues to grow, expanding its international presence and increasing its offer in Argentina. The hotel company announces the addition of two properties to its portfolio, the Almarena Puerto Retiro and the Almarena Madero Urbano, which will both open on 1 November under the Affiliated by Melia brand. These hotels result from a new collaboration agreement with the Almarena Group, paving the way for Melia to expand further in the country. These two Affiliated by Melia brand properties are located in the modern neighbourhoods of Puerto Madero and Retiro in Buenos Aires, famous for their avant-garde architectural development. Once an industrial port, the area now boasts elegant residential areas, restaurants, trendy shops along its docks, and a lively atmosphere. It's an ideal base for tourists wishing to discover one of Latin America's most vibrant cities. Almarena Puerto Retiro, Affiliated by Melia is located in the Puerto Retiro District, with open views of the port and the La Plata River. The property, a true urban oasis, opened in 2023, offering 73 fully equipped apartments with extraordinary views and a complete spa and wellness space. It boasts an outdoor pool, Pilates room, spa circuit with saunas, heated pool and treatment rooms. It also offers different spaces for business meetings, conferences and social events, including a versatile multifunctional room, meeting rooms and an auditorium. Almarena Madero Urbano, Affiliated by Melia, is surrounded by Puerto Madero's tourist hotspots. It has 78 relaxed and modern apartments with integrated kitchens. It also features a large swimming pool, two jacuzzis, saunas, and a large fully equipped gym, as well as two spacious meeting rooms and a small auditorium. Melia already has two iconic hotels in the country: Gran Melia Iguazu (voted Best Hotel in Argentina in 2023 by the World Travel Awards), opposite the Iguazu Falls, and Melia Recoleta Plaza, a boutique hotel in the La Recoleta neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. With the recent partnership with the Almarena Group, which manages the two properties that will soon join its portfolio, Melia wishes to promote further expansion in Argentina, especially in the premium and luxury segment. To do this, a new expansion plan has been established, focusing on destinations such as Bariloche, Calafate, Ushuaia, Mendoza and Salta. For Gabriel Escarrer, Chairman and CEO of Melia Hotels International, "this partnership represents a significant step towards consolidating our presence in the Argentine market while showing how local groups and partners trust us to improve their distribution capacity and benefit from our recognised brands, leadership and loyalty programme, among other valuable resources." Almarena is an ever-growing Argentine company, now in its 10th year of operation. It has been consolidating itself since 2014 as one of the leading emerging players on a national scale in the hospitality, gastronomy and real estate development industries. It was founded with Almarena Apart and Hotel Boutique, a beach resort on the Costa del Este, on the Argentine coast. Further accommodation options opened later in Buenos Aires, covering the needs of international travellers. For Juan Ignacio Politi, President of Almarena, "we are proud to be part of the Melia family and this is a true milestone for the company. We trust that by working together, we will continue to grow in Argentina, offering an excellent service and creating new opportunities for the tourism sector." Tourist Fees Are Becoming More Common, But Can They Really Help Combat Overtourism? - Image Credit Unsplash+ Barcelona. Iceland. New Zealand. Venice. Bali. Amsterdam. The list of destinations across the globe with tourist taxes set to take effect or already in place continues to grow. Destinations are opting to put these fees in place for a number of reasons. For some hotspots, addressing overtourism is on the list of factors under consideration when implementing such a tax. Overtourism has been simmering for years and it feels like we are at a delicate tipping point, said Sally Davey, CEO of Travalyst. Its about creating a more balanced relationship between travelers and the places they visit one where everyone benefits. A city can have tourists or a destination can have tourists - but the tourists shouldn't have the destination, said Doug Lansky, a destination and tourism advisor. Whether these fees can be an effective strategy to deter people from visiting traditionally popular destinations is yet to be seen - especially after Venice's 29-day trial period generated $2.2 million profit with many days seeing a record number of visitors. The role of fees in addressing overtourism The introduction of fees is seen as a proactive measure to reduce overtourism by encouraging travelers to be more mindful in their decision-making, Davey said. With fees in place during a peak period, for example, perhaps visitors would opt to avoid those destinations and instead choose a lesser-known - and fee-free - destination. Or maybe they would delay a visit to a popular destination to an off-peak time that may not incur a fee. By dispersing tourists in this way, Davey said, the use of a fee can also help to decrease traffic and to preserve a destination's natural beauty and cultural heritage while giving tourists the opportunity to see a destination without overcrowding that could lead to a perhaps less-than-ideal experience. And the money generated can help the destination long after the visitors depart. Usually the funds go directly back into the community, which is vital for supporting conservation projects, improving infrastructure, and ensuring that tourism benefits locals as much as visitors, Davey said. Barcelonas tourism tax, for example, is intended to help finance the city's public services, including cleaning, public transport and renewable energy in schools. Are tourist fees effective? Experts are divided on fees efficacy when it comes to managing overtourism. But in the short term, there is a bit of consensus among some industry leaders: The fees act as a representation of a first step towards redistribution of tourists. The introduction of fees has sparked discussions about responsible tourism and the impact of travel on local communities and the environment, which can only be a good thing, but its still too early to draw definitive conclusions, said Davey. Davey feels optimistic that travelers will start to factor fees into their planning as they become more aware, leading to more conscious decision-making. There's definitely an increasing awareness among tourists about these fees, particularly due to media coverage and the growing discourse around sustainable travel, said Mirko Lalli, CEO and founder of Data Appeal. However, the extent to which tourists take note varies. That level of notice often depends on travelers personal situations - maybe if a traveler is more budget-conscious, the fees will have a higher impact. On the flipside, if money is not a concern, then travelers may not be bothered with the fees at all. The introduction of fees has sparked discussions about responsible tourism and the impact of travel on local communities and the environment, which can only be a good thing, but its still too early to draw definitive conclusions. Sally Davey, Travalyst What's encouraging is that we're seeing a growing segment of travelers who are more conscious of their impact and understand the rationale behind these fees, Lalli said. Meanwhile, Lansky characterizes meager entry fees as a superficial solution that doesnt even provide temporary relief. It'd be like, if you had a wound on your arm that required 10 [to] 20 stitches, and you took one of those smallest Band-Aids on it that doesn't even stop the bleeding, said Lansky. It does nothing ... What it is, though, is someone saying, Oh, well, at least you reached for a Band-Aid. That [youve] kind of got your head in the right place a little, but you grabbed the wrong size. Carlos Cendra, partner and marketing and communications director at Mabrian, a travel intelligence consultancy, said fees can be short-sighted when used as unilateral measures to a multifaceted problem. He doesn't think travelers will truly be discouraged to visit because of an entry fee or tax. Such measures can do little or nothing to change habits in a meaningful way or at least not to the extent needed to really redistribute carrying capacity," Cendra said. The crux of the issue: Fees arent helpful as a sole solution. They need to be part of a broader strategy that includes visitor management, sustainable development and community engagement, Lalli said. Cendra said that there is no silver-bullet solution to overtourism - something all destinations need to keep in mind, he said. How could fees become more effective? That said, there are a few factors that could increase the influence of fees. First is transparency - communication with tourists is necessary to explain why and how fees are meant to benefit the local communities, according to Cendra. The experience shows that locals and visitors alike have little to no real knowledge about the actual positive impact of the collected funds in the communitys welfare, and this also contributes to the sense of satiety that some destinations are reflecting in protests and demonstrations, Cendra said. And changes in fee rates could make a difference, too: While fees have been implemented, that doesnt mean theyll necessarily stay in place or stay the same - New Zealand, for example, is bumping its International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy fee for short-term visitors from NZD$35 to NZD$100 on October 1. Lansky believes that bumping fees could be beneficial. They would be great if they were an amount that actually deterred people from going," he said. But it becomes a balance, too, to keep the fees from becoming prohibitive or exclusionary. Continuous monitoring and adjustment of these policies is crucial to ensure they effectively address overtourism without pricing out the cost-conscious traveler, said Davey. This article originally appeared on PhocusWire. Barletta Group acquires Hotel Villa Diodoro in Taormina, Italy - Image Credit Hotel Villa Diodoro A summary of European hotel transactions provided by HVS BC Partners Real Estate acquires 30 Ibis hotels in Germany from AccorInvest British private equity firm BC Partners Real Estate, together with French asset manager Hova Hospitality, has entered an agreement to acquire 30 Ibis hotels in Germany from French owner-operator AccorInvest. The portfolio was brought to market last year for 130 million (56,300 per room). The hotels, acquired with the benefit of vacant possession, are predominantly situated in A and B cities across western Germany, with a combined total of 2,308 rooms. All hotels will be leased on a long-term, CPI-linked basis to the French hotel group B&B Hotels, which is actively pursuing expansion. Societe Generale acted as the external financier for this purchase. With this latest acquisition, the BC Partners European Real Estate I fund, launched in 2021 with 900 million in capital, has now invested 75% of its total funds. Eternam acquires the Moulin Plaza in Paris French investment firm Eternam has acquired the three-star, 50-room Hotel Moulin Plaza in Paris, France, for approximately 17.5 million (350,000 per room). The hotel is located in the 9th district of the French capital, just a two-minute walk from the Moulin Rouge. Eternam plans to renovate the rooms and common areas to upgrade the hotel to four-stars. To fund the acquisition, Eternam has organised a club deal that brings together approximately 30 private and institutional investors. The French hotel management company Honotel is set to operate the property. Honotel specialises in midscale hotels across France, with a portfolio of over 40 properties. Meridia acquires Reserva Alecrim in Portugal Spanish alternative investment fund manager Meridia has acquired the 58-bungalow Reserva Alecrim in Alentejo, Portugal. The 14-hectare resort is located in southern Portugal, approximately 140 kilometres south of Lisbon. This acquisition marks Meridia's second investment in Portugal. Meridia plans to add additional bungalows, with the resort also set to undergo a soft rebranding to Wecamp by 2025, which would make it the 14th property under the sustainable glamping Wecamp platform. IDF Tourisme & Territoires acquires the Sonder Yvette in Paris French real estate investment firm IDF Tourisme & Territoires, along with a group of investors, has acquired the three-star, 61-room Sonder Yvette in Paris, France. The property is located in a southern suburb of Paris, approximately five kilometres away from the Eiffel Tower. American hotel group Sonder will continue to operate the property, one of five it manages in Paris. Last month, Sonder signed a long-term strategic licensing agreement with Marriott International, through which over 9,000 Sonder units will join Marriott's portfolio by the end of 2024, with full integration into Marriott's distribution channels and Bonvoy program expected by 2025. Neville Park Hotel Group acquires the Maldron Hotel Wexford from Dalata Irish Neville Park Hotel Group has entered an agreement to acquire the three-star, 108-room Maldron Hotel Wexford in Wexford, Ireland, from Dalata Group, Ireland's largest hotel operator. The property is located in Wexford, a town two hours to the north of Dublin. Dalata is also in discussions about the sale of the Clayton Whites Hotel, located in the heart of the town. Neville Park is owned by Wexford native Colm Neville, who already owns The Crown Quarter in Wexford. Dalata's portfolio of owned and managed hotels includes over 50 hotels across Ireland and the UK under the Maldron and Clayton brands. Barletta Group acquires Hotel Villa Diodoro in Taormina, Italy Italian real estate development company Barletta Group has entered an agreement to acquire the four-star, 102-room Hotel Villa Diodoro in Taormina, Italy, from the Italian Bambara-De Luca family. The total price is approximately 85 million (833,000 per room), which reportedly includes both the purchase price and future renovation costs. The famous hilltop town of Taormina is located on Sicily's eastern coast, overlooking the Ionian Sea and Mount Etna. As part of the Gais Hotel Group, the Bambara-De Luca family, hoteliers for four generations, will continue to manage the hotel operations until the end of January 2025, after which the Barletta Group will commence the renovation process. The Barletta Group plans to reposition the property as a luxurious five-star hotel, reducing the total room count by 30% to 72 keys. Paval Holding acquires the Waldhaus Flims Resort in Switzerland from Z Capital Romanian investment vehicle Paval Holding, in partnership with the Lithuanian group Apex Alliance, have completed the acquisition of the five-star, 150-room Waldhaus Flims Wellness Resort, Autograph Collection, Switzerland, from the American private equity firm Z Capital for an undisclosed price. Flims-Laax is one of Switzerland's leading ski resorts, located in the canton of Grison in the east of the country, about a 1.5-hour drive south-west of Zurich. The Waldhaus is currently closed but scheduled to reopen in the winter season 2025/26 after restoration, and will be operated via Apex Alliance's operating arm, Apex Alliance Hotel Management. This is the second acquisition by Paval Holding (which is owned by the brothers Dragos Paval and Adrian Paval) and Apex Alliance in partnership, following their purchase of the 167-room, four-star Grand Hotel Gardone in Italy in 2023, as reported in this newsletter. Fontas Gruppe acquires Adagio Access Freiburg in Germany Berlin-based Propetti Investment Holding, acting on behalf of the family office Fontas Gruppe, has acquired the 153-room Aparthotel Adagio Access in Freiburg, Germany, from an undisclosed seller. Located on the edge of Germany's Black Forest, Freiburg is the fourth largest city in the south-western state of Baden-Wurttemberg. The hotel was delivered in 2021 and is currently operated under a long-term lease by HR Group, with a franchise agreement from Accor under the Adagio Access brand. Spanning seven storeys over an area of some 5,500 square metres, the hotel also features 31 underground car parking spaces. The property was transacted as part of a share deal. 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. Rendering of El Cosmico - Image Credit ICON Rendering of El Cosmico - Image Credit ICON In a groundbreaking fusion of cutting-edge technology and visionary design, ICON and Liz Lambert have embarked on a revolutionary project: the world's first 3D-printed hotel and residences in Marfa, Texas. This bold venture promises to redefine luxury accommodations while enhancing the cultural and economic landscape of the region. Construction has begun on this trailblazing development, spearheaded by ICON, a leader in advanced construction technologies, in collaboration with the renowned architectural firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). The project will not only relocate but also significantly expand the beloved El Cosmico to a sprawling 60+ acre property. The new El Cosmico will be a haven of creativity and comfort, offering: Guest Accommodations: Thoughtfully designed spaces that blend seamlessly with the desert environment. Thoughtfully designed spaces that blend seamlessly with the desert environment. Amenities: A luxurious pool, a serene bathhouse, a gourmet restaurant, and exclusive private residences. A luxurious pool, a serene bathhouse, a gourmet restaurant, and exclusive private residences. Architectural Marvels: Utilizing 3D-printing technology, the designs will feature unique architectural elements such as domes, arches, and parabolic forms. For those looking to immerse themselves in this avant-garde lifestyle, the "Sunday Homes" are available for purchase. These homes, which boast expansive views of the majestic Davis Mountains, are priced starting from $2.29 million and are listed with Kuper Sothebys International Realty. The first model home is set to be completed by the end of the year, offering a glimpse into the future of residential luxury. The development is not just about innovative architecture; its about fostering a vibrant community that harmonizes with the natural desert surroundings. The project emphasizes: Creative Culture: A space where art and nature coalesce. A space where art and nature coalesce. Sustainable Design: Leveraging 3D-printing technology to create organic, sustainable structures. Leveraging 3D-printing technology to create organic, sustainable structures. Community Enrichment: Providing high-quality jobs and affordable housing through ICON's Initiative 99, thereby contributing to Marfas economic and cultural fabric. While the original El Cosmico will remain open until 2025, anticipation builds as the new development is slated for completion in 2026. This project is more than an architectural feat; its a commitment to sustainable, forward-thinking design that enriches the community. For more details on home sales and to stay updated on this pioneering project, visit elcosmicohomes.com. Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton Hobbs - Image Credit HVS HVS Brokerage & Advisory, as the sole and exclusive advisory firm to ownership, presents the opportunity to acquire the 67-key Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton Hobbs, a limited-service hotel asset located in Hobbs, New Mexico. A new investor has the potential to convert the hotel to a Spark by Hilton, which would align well with the local market's demand profile. The property benefits from its strategic location along North Lovington Highway in Lea County, which ranks #1 in oil production nationwide, and is surrounded by key demand generators including major energy companies, such as Halliburton and Patterson-UTI Drilling Co., and nearby educational institutions and hospitals. Additionally, the property is located within a short drive of Zia Park Casino & Racetrack, which regularly attracts highway travelers given its proximity to the Texas/New Mexico border. Spark by Hilton Conversion Opportunity New ownership will be required to rebrand the hotel at closing. The Spark by Hilton franchise is available, and the seller has provided a copy of the conversion property improvement plan (PIP), which can be found in the virtual deal room (VDR). Current estimates for the Spark conversion are approximately $20,000 per key, or $1.34 million (rounded). Given that the Hobbs market caters to working-class, oil-and-gas (O&G) clientele, the Spark by Hilton brand is uniquely positioned to capture midscale room-night demand; thus, no negative impact on rooms revenue would be expected upon the conversion. Operational Upside Potential for a Robust Operator Per the trailing-twelve-month (TTM) July 2024 profit-and-loss (P&L) statement, the hotels gross operating profit (GOP) was 29.6%, with a net operating income (NOI) flow-through of about $500,000 (rounded). Great upside exists for a more hands on operator to restructure the hotels operations to maximize NOI flow-through. Based on a selection of similar vintage Hampton operating statements, the hotel should achieve a stabilized GOP margin between 44.0% and 47.0%. Multiple opportunities for improvement exist that could lead to a collective decrease in rooms expense, specifically in the payroll department. In comparison to other markets across the country, New Mexicos property tax rates have historically been lower. For example, the hotels annual property tax expense averaged $15,000 per year ($232 per key) over the last five years. Increasing Revenue Trend & Stable Operating History The hotels rooms revenue for the year-to-date (YTD) period through August 2024 increased by 10.4%, compared to the same period last year. From 2021 through 2023, rooms revenue consistently averaged over $1,700,000. Per the July 2024 TTM STR data, the submarkets occupied room nights (demand) increased 9.0%. Attractive Rooms Revenue Multiplier (RRM) 2.7x Based on the $5,200,000 pricing guidance, the hotel asset underwrites to an attractive 2.7x RRM based on the TTM July 2024 rooms revenue. Ideal Location in Strong-Performing Oil & Gas Market West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prices have ranged from $70 to $80 a barrel to over the last six months. The property is located in Lea County, which ranks #1 in oil production across the country. Diverse Mix of Demand Sources Opportunities exist for group business from local educational institutions, energy companies, and hospitals. Approximately 1,500 passengers travel through Lea County Regional Airport in Hobbs monthly. Leisure demand generators in the area include the Western Heritage Museum & Lea County Cowboy Hall of Fame, Lea County Center for the Arts, and Harry McAdams State Park. Zia Park Casino Hotel & Racetrack, located within a five-minute drive of the Property, attracts 2.2 million visitors annually given that Hobbs is located along the Texas/New Mexico border. Major employers in the area include Halliburton, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Baker Hughes, Lea Regional Medical Center, Patterson-UTI Drilling Co., Ferguson Construction, and Key Energy Services. Discount to Replacement Cost To construct a similar limited-service hotel asset with comparable amenities, the estimated all-in investment would be a minimum of $110,000 to $130,000 per key. This opportunity presents an investor with the ability to acquire the property at a price well below replacement cost at $77,000 (rounded) per key. For inquiries please visit here to execute the Confidentiality Agreement. Wait! Before you go Please sign up for our Evening Digest and Breaking Newsletters Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Red Lion Inn Appoints General Manager STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. The Red Lion Inn announced the appointment of Stacey Gravanis as its new General Manager. With a career in hotel management spanning over two decades, Gravanis brings experience and a proven track record of success. Gravanis' career in the hospitality industry is marked by achievements across various leadership roles, including Vice President and General Manager positions at prominent hotel brands. Her expertise encompasses a wide range of disciplines such as P&L management, financial reporting, team leadership, strategic planning, negotiations, communication, client relationships, business development, and operations management. Prior to joining the Red Lion Inn, Gravanis served as the Area General Manager for Aimbridge Hospitality, where she was responsible for overseeing operations at three properties in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Gravanis also served as the Vice President and General Manager at Falcon Hotel Corporation/Sheraton Springfield Monarch Place Hotel. There, she led a team of 160 employees at a 325-room downtown property. "Our mission is to create spaces that will enable people to connect in meaningful ways and Stacey embodies that principle," said Sarah Eustis, CEO of Main Street Hospitality. "We are lucky and honored for her to take over as the next steward of the Red Lion Inn." At the Red Lion Inn, Gravanis will leverage her experience to enhance operational excellence and guest satisfaction. "I am thrilled to join the Red Lion Inn and contribute to its legacy of exceptional hospitality," said Gravanis. "This role is a unique opportunity to blend my passion for service excellence with the rich history and charm of this iconic property." Chinese modernization will create new opportunities: ambassador Xinhua) 10:41, September 27, 2024 LONDON, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Ambassador to the United Kingdom (UK) Zheng Zeguang has said that Chinese modernization will create new opportunities for China's cooperation with other countries. Speaking at a reception held on Wednesday to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the ambassador recalled China's remarkable achievements over the past 75 years, saying its development has been an engine for the global economy and injected positive energy into world peace. "With reform measures rolled out at the third plenum of the 20th CPC Central Committee, China's social vitality will be further unleashed, development momentum reinforced, and high-quality development boosted, and new opportunities will be created for China's cooperation with other countries," Zheng said. He said that China and the UK should work together to follow up on the understanding between the leaders of the two countries, uphold mutual respect, enhance engagement, and expand cooperation, so as to build a stable and mutually beneficial relationship and contribute to world peace and stability. Parliamentary Under-Secretary Catherine West at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spoke on behalf of the UK government at the reception. More than 500 guests from all walks of life in the UK, ambassadors from various countries to the UK, and representatives from the Chinese community, Chinese-funded institutions, and Chinese students attended the event. Also at the reception, China-Britain Business Council Chair Sherard Cowper-Coles told Xinhua that China's development is "without parallel in human history." The UK has an economy and a society that is very complementary to China and the two sides enjoy a huge potential for cooperation, said Cowper-Coles. "I hope we can be part of Chinese modernization, and I hope the world can share in it." He said: "I don't believe in de-globalization or decoupling or de-risking, I think we de-risk by engaging with each other, by exchanging goods and services and ideas." Highlighting a shared future between the two countries, he said, "We should have a shared future, we must have a shared future, and we must work together." (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today unveiled the Galaxy S24 FE, the latest addition to the Galaxy AI ecosystem that delivers premium mobile experiences to more users. More people can enjoy the Galaxy S24 series flagship innovations, including AI-enhanced photography, cutting-edge performance, and more Galaxy AI features Powered by the AI-based ProVisual Engine and Galaxy AIs Photo Assist features, Galaxy S24 FE showcases an enhanced camera setup that empowers users to be more creative. Its the perfect device for gaming on the go with a 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display, a long-lasting 4,700mAh battery, and a powerful Exynos 2400 series chipset. The Galaxy S24 FE offers premium Galaxy AI tools and ecosystem connectivity to enhance communication, productivity and creativity all housed in an iconic design and protected by robust Samsung Knox security. We want everyone to enjoy all the benefits of our latest mobile innovations, said SeaYoung Lee, Corporate EVP and Head of the Smartphone Research and Development team at Samsung Electronics. Galaxy AI opens so many new experiences for users, helping them communicate, and be more creative and productive. Galaxy S24 FE makes the powerful performance and premium Galaxy AI capabilities of the S24 series available to even more people." Unlock Creativity With AI-enhanced Camera and Editing Galaxy S24 FE makes it easy for anyone to shoot stunning photos and videos. Its premium camera setup features a 50MP wide lens and 8MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom both supported by optical image stabilization (OIS) plus a 12MP ultra-wide lens and a 10MP selfie camera. The camera systems capabilities are further elevated by Samsungs dynamic ProVisual Engine, an AI-driven camera engine that takes visual quality to incredible heights. Making its debut in the FE series, ProVisual Engine features vastly improved technology that leverages advanced AI algorithms to deliver breathtaking detail and remarkably subtle textures: Nightography with AI image signal processing (ISP) to improve low light performance, enabling beautiful night portraits with AI image signal processing (ISP) to improve low light performance, enabling beautiful night portraits Works with the wide cameras 50MP Adaptive Pixel Sensor to enable optical-quality performance at zoom levels from 2x in addition to the optical 3x zoom. AI zoom also provides the enhanced image quality at distances between digital zoom lengths. to enable optical-quality performance at zoom levels from 2x in addition to the optical 3x zoom. AI zoom also provides the enhanced image quality at distances between digital zoom lengths. Object-Aware Engine to recognize scenes and optimize colors in Super High Dynamic Range (HDR), ensuring vibrant and lifelike photos and videos When it is time to edit, Photo Assist features breathe life into ideas. Since its introduction with the Galaxy S24 series devices, Galaxy AI has become invaluable for editing images and expressing creativity: Generative Edit reassembles the world through object moving and removal capabilities, allowing more creative freedom reassembles the world through object moving and removal capabilities, allowing more creative freedom Portrait Studio reimagines selfies as cartoons, comics, watercolor paintings, or sketches to add flair to online profiles reimagines selfies as cartoons, comics, watercolor paintings, or sketches to add flair to online profiles Edit Suggestions quickly remove pesky flaws, such as reflections, with the press of a button quickly remove pesky flaws, such as reflections, with the press of a button Instant Slow-mo immortalizes every second of lifes important moments in a snap Game On with Powerful Performance The powerful Exynos 2400 series chipset enables an uncompromised gaming experience compatible with cutting-edge features such as Ray Tracing. In the world where every bit of speed and efficiency counts, the Galaxy S24 FE utilizes several key features to stay ahead of the competition: A 1.1x larger vapor chamber improves cooling to maintain peak performance for longer durations improves cooling to maintain peak performance for longer durations A bigger 4,700mAh battery allows for long, worry-free gaming sessions allows for long, worry-free gaming sessions A 6.7-inch adaptive Dynamic AMOLED 2X display the largest display ever used in the FE series with a up to 120Hz refresh rate provides a smooth and stunning viewing experience the largest display ever used in the FE series with a up to provides a smooth and stunning viewing experience Vision Booster optimizes color and contrast for clear and comfortable gaming even in sunlight Seamless Galaxy AI Experiences The Galaxy S24 FE incorporates the same advanced AI experience as the Galaxy S24 series. Designed to enhance work, simplify communication, and increase connectivity, Galaxy AI on the S24 FE offers tools that unlock new possibilities: Circle to Search with Google satisfies curiosity with unprecedented ease by offering instant search results with just a long press of the home button and circle satisfies curiosity with unprecedented ease by offering instant search results with just a long press of the home button and circle Interpreter instantly translates in-person conversations, lectures, or any other type of presentations, even when offline instantly translates in-person conversations, lectures, or any other type of presentations, even when offline Live Translate breaks down communication barriers on phone calls and is now being extended to a selection of popular third-party apps breaks down communication barriers on phone calls and is now being extended to a selection of popular third-party apps Composer from Samsung Keyboard generates suggested text based on simple keywords for email and supported social media apps from Samsung Keyboard generates suggested text based on simple keywords for email and supported social media apps Note Assist streamlines the note-taking process and automates formatting and translation. In Samsung Notes, you can get transcription, translation, and summarizing of voice recordings directly. Texts in PDF files also can be translated and overlaid through PDF overlay translation Connecting and Securing the Samsung Galaxy Ecosystem Every Galaxy AI-enhanced experience becomes even more useful when the Galaxy S24 FE is connected to Samsungs expansive mobile ecosystem. It seamlessly transfers files, quickly sets up extended displays, and effortlessly executes complex creative ideas through intuitive inputs. In this hyper-connected Samsung Galaxy ecosystem, Galaxy S24 FE enables experiences that increase productivity, creativity, and efficiency. Building on the innovative legacy of the S series, the Galaxy S24 FE is fortified with strong security. Samsung Knox, Galaxys multi-layer security platform that safeguards critical information and protects against vulnerabilities with end-to-end secure hardware, real-time threat detection and collaborative protection. As a continuation of the S24 series tradition of sustainable design, the Galaxy S24 FE has been made to do more with less when it comes to the planets resources. It features a wide variety of recycled materials, including recycled plastics, aluminum, glass, and rare earth elements in both internal and external components. It also features seven generations of OS upgrades and seven years of security updates, and comes in a packaging box made from 100% recycled paper material. The Galaxy S24 FE is available in Blue, Graphite, and Mint colors with the following SRP in the Philippines: Galaxy S24 FE 8 + 128GB - P39,990 Galaxy S24 FE 8 + 256GB - P44,990 Galaxy S24 FE 8 + 512GB - P53,990 Learn more about the Galaxy S24 FE here: https://www.samsung.com/ph/smartphones/galaxy-s/galaxy-s24-fe-blue-128gb-sm-s721blbbphl/buy/ In a pioneering move to help underserved and unserved Filipinos quickly bridge the gap between daily essentials and take the first step towards creditworthiness, leading finance app GCash, through its lending arm Fuse, has unveiled the expansion of its GLoan with an extended feature: the GLoan Sakto. This game-changing fintech innovation is designed to empower Filipinos, especially in the D&E sectors, allowing them to afford day-to-day essentials. Users can apply for loans as low as PHP 100 to help with day-to-day essentials Designed to help Filipinos thrive every day through responsive and inclusive digital services, GLoan Sakto reflects GCashs commitment to develop meaningful financial solutions that support the everyday needs and long-term financial well-being of many Filipinos. Based on the 2021 Financial Inclusion Report of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), approximately 43% of the Filipino adult population rely on informal sources for borrowing money for daily expenses. This behavior reflects a significant lack of access to formal financial services, as only 22% of Filipinos are served by formal credit institutions. The heavy dependence on informal lending for everyday needs, such as transportation and school expenses, underscores the urgent need for more inclusive financial solutions to improve accessibility and reduce the reliance on potentially strained personal relationships. This is the financial gap that GCash aims to bridge with GLoan Sakto. Filipinos will benefit from GCashs nano loans by gaining quick and easy access to funds for daily essentials without relying on informal sources or straining personal relationships. This service offers a structured and reliable way to manage small, urgent financial needs, enhancing financial inclusion and convenience. Loanable amounts for GLoan Sakto are P100 and P300, payable within 14 days. No interest is charged on the loan and borrowers only pay a processing fee of P6.5 and P19.5, respectively. More than just a loan product, GCash envisions GLoan Sakto as a stepping stone for Filipinos toward lasting financial freedom. It is the first step in helping users build their creditworthiness, eventually graduating them to GCashs core loan offerings, such as GCredit, GGives, and GLoan, thereby integrating them further into the formal financial system. GLoan Sakto represents our commitment to empowering ordinary Filipinos with essential financial tools by providing them access to formal credit through this easy entry-level loan product. With this new financial tool, we are not only addressing their immediate needs but are also helping users build a good credit history," said Fuse Lending president and CEO Tony Isidro. Accessible nano-sized loans a transformative leap in the PH lending landscape The launch of GLoan Sakto, Fuse, and GCash has marked a transformative leap in the lending landscape in the Philippines. By seamlessly integrating accessible, nano-sized loans into the everyday financial practices of millions, especially the lowest income segments of Filipino society with 89% of users coming from the D&E market segments; 78% of which reside outside the National Capital Region. GLoan Sakto has not only broadened financial inclusion but also empowered individuals with the tools needed for personal growth and stability. This innovative solution has significantly boosted lending activity, driving economic participation and fostering a more dynamic, resilient financial ecosystem in the country. For instance, 3 out of 4 first-time borrowers return for additional loans, setting a new standard for financial integrity and customer confidence, especially in lending. Likewise, 9 out of 10 borrowers repay their loans on time, despite having no prior formal credit line, and 15% of unique borrowers have already taken out more than five loans. By enabling Filipinos to easily and conveniently borrow loans using only their mobile phones, GLoan Sakto has not only simplified the borrowing process but has also cultivated a renewed sense of trust among borrowers, demonstrating a commitment to responsible lending and contributing to a more credible and inclusive financial landscape. As GCash continues its mission to foster financial inclusion, GLoan Sakto stands as a significant milestone, particularly in serving the most marginalized sectors of society. It is a powerful tool in GCashs ongoing effort to strengthen its role in nation-building through financial empowerment. For more information on how to get started, visit www.gcash.com. Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the The Life Cinematic email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} King Charles III has praised the late Dame Maggie Smith for her warmth and wit after the actors death at the age of 89. The monarch shared his statement alongside a photograph of the pair speaking at the Pride Of Britain awards at Londons Grosvenor House Hotel in October 2016. My wife and I were deeply saddened to learn of the death of Dame Maggie Smith, said Charles. As the curtain comes down on a national treasure, we join all those around the world in remembering with the fondest admiration and affection her many great performances, and her warmth and wit that shone through both on and off the stage. The two-time Oscar winners death was announced by her sons Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens on Friday (September 27). She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother, they said. King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) speaking to Maggie Smith at the Pride of Britain awards in 2016 ( Adam Gerrard - WPA Pool/Getty Images ) We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days. We thank you for all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time. UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also paid tribute to Smith, writing on X: Dame Maggie Smith introduced us to new worlds with the countless stories she acted over her long career. She was beloved by so many for her great talent, becoming a true national treasure whose work will be cherished for generations to come. Our thoughts are with her family and loved ones. May she rest in peace. Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days New subscribers only. 8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled Try for free Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days New subscribers only. 8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled Try for free On Instagram, Whoopi Goldberg shared a throwback picture of herself alongside Smith in the hit 1992 comedy Sister Act. She wrote: Maggie Smith was a great woman and a brilliant actress. I still cant believe I was lucky enough to work with the one-of-a-kind. My heartfelt condolences go out to the family... RIP. Rob Lowe, who appeared with Smith in the 1993 BBC drama Suddenly, Last Summer, described his late co-star as a lion. In a post on X, he wrote: Saddened to hear Dame Maggie Smith has passed. I had the unforgettable experience of working with her; sharing a two-shot was like being paired with a lion. She could eat anyone alive, and often did. But funny, and great company. And suffered no fools. We will never see another. God speed, Ms. Smith! 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 Greys Anatomy has officially returned for its 21st season, and it will see the return of old faces and the loss of a regular. The latest premiere of the longest-running US medical drama was dedicated to Stephanie Leifer and, while casual fans of the long-running medical drama might not be aware of who she is, the tribute was a moving moment as Leifer was an instrumental figure in the shows enduring success. Leifer died of cancer in June, aged 56. She was a programming executive who oversaw Greys Anatomy while working at ABC the US network on which the show airs as well as ABC Signature, the company that produces it. She worked at ABC for 28 years up until her departure in 2022. Greys Anatomys showrunner and executive producer Meg Marinis was asked about the dedication in an interview discussing the episode. Marinis, who started out on Greys Anatomy as a PA, worked with Leifer for over 15 years, and she branded her former employee incredible. Speaking to Deadline, Marinis said: Stephanie Leifer was an incredible person and devoted champion of Greys. She truly believed in us from the early years all the way through and supported our creative vision. I started my career as a PA, delivering Greys scripts to her office, and I remember her door always being open. She was so encouraging to writers and attended several Greys milestone events. It was a heartbreaking loss for this family. open image in gallery ( ABC ) In 2019, Greys Anatomy changed US television history to become the longest-running prime-time medical drama in the US, overtaking the previous victor, ER. ER, which starred Anthony Edwards, George Clooney and Julianne Margulies, ran for 15 seasons between 1994 and 2009. The overall record is held by BBC series Casualty, which has aired in the UK since 1986. 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 Greys Anatomys former lead star Ellen Pompeo made the shock decision to depart the show in 2021, stating: I am eternally grateful and humbled by the love and support you have all shown me, Meredith Grey and the show for 19 seasons! Pompeo didnt completely abandon the show, though, as she still returned for a handful of episodes in the shows 20th season and will continue to do so this season. She was reduced from a series regular to a recurring character. She also remains an executive producer on the series and continues to narrate the opening and closing voiceovers for each episode. 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 Phillip Schofield has hit back at reports he quit his role on This Morning following his widely reported affair scandal. The former presenter, 62, will address the controversy in a three-part Channel 5 series, titled Cast Away, which sees him spend 10 days trying to survive on an island in the Indian Ocean. It will mark the presenters first return to TV since he admitted to having an affair with a younger male colleague he worked with on ITVs This Morning, which led to his departure from the daily chat show. In the first Cast Away episode, seen by The Independent, a series producer asks Schofield how hed feel if he couldnt cope with island life, to which he replies: Oh it is inconceivable that I would quit. He then seemingly references his This Morning departure, adding: Im fired but I never quit. Elsewhere in the programme, Schofield discusses the difficulties of filming the Cast Away series without the public finding out. This August, it was rumoured Schofield would enter the Im A CelebrityGet Me Out of Here jungle for the forthcoming series, which will be hosted once again by double act Ant McPartlin and Dec Donnelly. open image in gallery Phillip Schofield on Cast Away' ( Channel 5 ) Im apparently four to one [odds] to do the other jungle programme, Schofield says from his home in London before heading to the Cast Away island. Now, although my best mates host it, there are some channels you just wont work for, he adds of his relationship with ITV. There are just some people you wont work for. He adds: Ive just got to get out of the country now without anyone thinking, Where the hell is he going? Not flying out of Heathrow or Gatwick cause that would be too obvious. So, Im on my way to get the Eurostar. open image in gallery Phillip Schofield on Cast Away' ( Channel 5 ) Schofield left ITV last May after he admitted he had lied about having a consensual on-off relationship with a younger man, which took place while Schofield was still married to his wife Stephanie Lowe. Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days New subscribers only. 8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled Try for free Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days New subscribers only. 8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled Try for free The presenter said he arranged for the teenager to get work experience with ITV when he was around 19. He denied having any form of sexual contact with him until he was around 20 years old, after the man had been working on the show for a few months, and insisted the relationship was consensual and fully legal. After the scandal emerged, Schofield apologised for lying to the media, his friends and his colleagues about the affair and immediately left ITV. Viewers have been left incensed at the news of the former presenters TV comeback and have called the move a disgrace. One person said the presenter was desperate for attention while dozens joked about the concept of the show which sees Schofield stranded alone as they commented, absolutely nobody wants to work with him so hes doing a show that has no cast or crew. Another added: Phillip Schofield on a desert island for 10 days in his TV comeback? The only way Ill be watching that is if the island is heavily populated with lions, tigers, snakes and crocodiles. Schofield addresses the hostility towards him during the first Cast Away episode, saying: I think thered be an awful lot of people [who] hope that I never come back. Goodbye. Thank you. What happened? He got washed out to sea. Well, there we go. open image in gallery Phillip Schofield on Cast Away' ( Channel 5 ) In the same episode, the former presenter reveals he was on the brink of suicide after his career fell apart. I had everything in place, he says. Everything was set up. Schofield admits during the programme that the only reason hes still alive is because his daughter Molly, 31, talked him down from the edge. He explains his daughter had asked him: Can you imagine what it would do to me if you did this on my watch? That was just enough to take a step back from the edge, he explains. And I could have been hospitalised But then I thought, That is going to get out. So, I just raced to the family home and shut the gates. Cast Away airs over three nights beginning Monday 30 September. 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 Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang has claimed that Sydney Sweeney begged the cast to make jokes about my boobs when she hosted the show earlier this year. The 27-year-old Euphoria and Anyone But You actor hosted SNL in March this year where she made jokes about rumours surrounding her and Glen Powell and her part in superhero flop Madame Web. Although Sweeneys hosting appearance was mostly viewed as a success there was some pushback about the multiple gags and sketches about her physical appearance, including one where she worked as a Hooters waitress. However, Yang has now stated that many of the ideas for jokes came from Sweeney herself who claimed: She was practically begging everybody. Speaking on the Fly on the Wall podcast, Yang said Sweeney was an example of a host who came in and understood how she was being consumed and perceived already. He added: She came in and was like, Please, everyone, make jokes about my boobs. Sweeneys SNL appearance bizarrely became a political talking point with one right-wing commentator writing a think piece called: Are Sydney Sweeneys breasts double-D harbingers of the death of woke? Commenting on the debate, the Immaculate actor told NME that theres not anything I can do about the obsession with her appearance. Asked if it made her want to stay off the internet, she responded: Um, no, I think its important to be aware of everything and then use that information however I may well. But Im just being me, thats all. This echoed the thoughts that she shared in an interview with Variety published on 18 March, Sweeney admitted that the constant remarks make her feel like she has no control over online discourse about her own appearance. 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 Sydney Sweeney at the premiere of Madame Web ( Getty Images ) I see it, and I just cant allow myself to have a reaction. I dont know how to explain it - Im still trying to figure it out myself, she told the outlet when asked about the viral reaction to her SNL debut. People feel connected and free to be able to speak about me in whatever way they want, because they believe that Ive signed my life away. That Im not on a human level anymore, because Im an actor. That these characters are for everybody else, but then me as Sydney is not for me anymore, Sweeney said. Its this weird relationship that people have with me that I have no control or say over. 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 }} Chinas most advanced nuclear submarine sank in port while undergoing final sea tests earlier this year, American officials have claimed, in a blunder Beijing rushed to cover up. The Zhou class vessel sank in May or June at the Wuchang shipyard near Wuhan, an anonymous Pentagon official told Reuters. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the boat was likely carrying nuclear fuel when it went down. The sinking, if confirmed, would mark a blow to the plans of the Chinese navy, already the largest in the world with over 370 ships. China is vying to overtake the US as the dominant maritime power in the world and the production of a new generation of nuclear submarines is crucial to its strategy. The US has designated China as its long-term pacing challenge. A Chinese embassy spokesperson in Washington said they had no information to provide. "We are not familiar with the situation you mentioned and currently have no information to provide," they said. The unnamed American official told Reuters that it was not clear what caused the boat to sink, or whether it carried nuclear fuel. "In addition to the obvious questions about training standards and equipment quality, the incident raises deeper questions about the PLAs internal accountability and oversight of Chinas defence industry, which has long been plagued by corruption," the official said, using an acronym for the Peoples Liberation Army, adding that it was not surprising that the PLA navy would try to conceal" the sinking. A satellite image from Planet Labs appear to show cranes at the Wuchang shipyard on 15 June 2024 ( Reuters ) Analysts noted changes in satellite imagery of the dock at the Shuangliu shipyard on the Yangtze River where the nuclear submarine was undergoing final checks. Images from 10 March show the boat docked at the port and being prepared for its first sea trial, but images from 15 June do not show the submarine. Naval experts said they only see floating cranes in the later images, a possible indication that attempts were being made to salvage the vessel. An image from 15 June showed the submarine either fully or partially submerged just under the rivers surface, surrounded by rescue equipment. Containment booms can be seen around the area, likely used to prevent any oil or other substances leaking from the vessel. A subsequent satellite image on 25 August showed a submarine back at the same dock. It is not clear if this is the same vessel. It is not known if the reported sinking caused any casualties. The incident is likely to add to growing pressure on Chinas military as the government presses ahead with a crackdown on corruption. President Xi Jinping recently removed the top leadership of the Rocket Force, the military branch responsible for managing both conventional and nuclear missile operations. The Chinese Communist Party has framed the crackdown on the Rocket Force as part of an anti-corruption drive, particularly targeting officials involved in military procurement. The state-of-the-art Zhou class nuclear attack submarines have a distinctive X-shaped tail that aids manoeuvrability as well as advanced stealth technology to reduce noise and evade detection by enemy forces. In recent years, Beijing has made the modernisation of its naval fleet a top priority. The PLA navy operates six nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, six nuclear submarines and 48 diesel-powered attack submarines, according to a 2023 China military power report. In comparison, the US navy has 53 fast attack submarines, 14 ballistic-missile submarines and four guided-missile submarines. This force is expected to grow to 65 by 2025 and 80 by 2035, the US Defense Department has said. According to the Congressional Research Service, the PLA navy operates 234 warships compared to the US navys 219. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A Hong Kong court on Thursday sentenced a former editor of the now-defunct Stand News to 21 months in prison in a sedition case, making him the first journalist to be jailed under the colonial-era law since the erstwhile British possession was returned to China 27 years ago. Chung Pui-kuen has already served some 11 months of his sentence in pre-trial detention. The sedition law allows for a maximum imprisonment of two years. Patrick Lam, a former acting editor of Stand News, was sentenced along with Mr Chung but was released immediately on account of a serious immune system condition. His lawyers had told the court that Mr Lams kidney function was less than 30 per cent and any mistakes or delay in treatment could endanger his life. Mr Lams wife, seated in the gallery alongside diplomats from the US, UK and EU, burst into tears as the judge ordered his release. Mr Chung waved at his family members and colleagues in the courtroom as many shouted take care and see you later, reported Hong Kong Press Free Journal. Patrick Lam leaves the court in Hong Kong on 26 September 2024 ( Reuters ) The journalists, arrested on 29 December 2021 after police raided their newsroom, were sentenced almost a month after they were found guilty of a conspiracy to publish and reproduce articles with seditious intentions. They had been charged under rarely used colonial-era sedition laws, rather than the controversial 2020 national security law. They pleaded not guilty. In its ruling, the court dismissed the defence argument that the journalists had unintentionally fallen foul of the law and accused them of siding with the protesters who ground Hong Kong to a halt in 2019. Since Stand News had a mass following, it said, the seditious articles caused serious harm to Hong Kong and, by extension, China. The court said the defendants were not engaged in genuine media work but were instead participating in the so-called resistance movement of that time. In its verdict delivered in August, the court said Stand News had become a tool for smearing the governments in Beijing and Hong Kong during the 2019 protests. News reporters work outside the Hong Kong court where two former editors of Stand News were sentenced on 26 September 2024 ( Reuters ) Mr Chung defended the work of Stand News. The media should not self-censor but report, he said. Freedom of speech should not be restricted on the grounds of eradicating dangerous ideas, but rather it should be used to eradicate dangerous ideas. The court deemed at least 11 articles published in Stand News, most of them opinion pieces, to be seditious. Chung Pui-kuen arrives at the district court in Hong Kong on 26 September 2024 ( AFP via Getty ) Stand News, an online news outlet founded in 2014, reported and wrote extensively on the 2019 protests and the government crackdown on them. It was raided six months after Hong Kongs government had shut down Apple Daily newspaper and arrested its owner Jimmy Lai. Mr Lai, accused of publishing seditious material, is set to take the stand to defend himself later this year after a court declined to drop the charges that could land him in jail for life. 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 }} Australian documentary filmmaker David Bradbury was detained at an airport in India while travelling with his children earlier this month and refused entry to the country. The director says he was stopped and questioned about a documentary he made in India more than a decade ago, before eventually being deported. Mr Bradbury, 73, landed at the Chennai airport in southern Tamil Nadu state on 10 September with his children Nakeita and Omar. The family intended to take a two-week trip across India, with plans to visit five tourist destinations. I wanted to show my son Omar how Hindus deal with death and say farewell to their loved ones in the next life, the filmmaker told The Wire. Mr Bradburys wife, Treena Lenthall, an activist and filmmaker, died of cancer five months ago. Mr Bradbury started working as a radio journalist for ABC in 1972 and went on to make several acclaimed documentary films. He has been twice nominated for an Oscarin 1987 for his film on Pinochets Chile, Chile Hasta Quando? and in 1981 for Front Line, a profile of Tasmanian-born combat cameraman Neil Davis. Speaking to The News Minute, Mr Bradbury described being pulled aside at the Chennai airport, being held in a room with a single bed, mattress, no sheets, or blanket, and being refused when he asked to contact the Australian embassy. Naketia, 21, and Omar, 14, were allowed through. Describing the room, he said there was rubbish on the floor and a metal grill on the door, which had a view out to a wall beyond. I was allowed to go to the toilet up the corridor, but there was one time when, despite my calling out, they didnt come back to let me out. So I was obliged to relieve my bladder into a paper cup I found on the floor, he said. He was denied access to his medication and warmer clothes, he added, and his request to contact the embassy was ignored. Mr Bradbury said the interrogators asked him to unlock his phone and provide details of his contacts in India, but he refused. The Independent has contacted Mr Bradbury as well as Indias home ministry for comment. Mr Bradbury said that he was asked about the purpose of his current visit and to explain his first visit to the country in 2012. That 2012 visit is the reason Mr Bradbury believes he was stopped and questioned. The filmmaker was a member of the jury for the Mumbai International Film Festival in 2012. After his obligations at the festival ended, Mr Bradbury travelled to Idinthakarai, a coastal village in Tamil Nadu, with Lenthall and then three-year-old Omar. The village is near the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, and Mr Bradbury stayed for over two weeks to document ongoing protests against the project. The protests centred around concerns of local villagers over the long-term impacts of the plant, especially in light of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. Indian activists bury themselves in sand as part of a protest against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project on 26 September 2012 ( AFP via Getty ) Detailing what he had seen and faced, Mr Bradbury wrote in 2013: I watched as Leon the fisherman rubbed 440 days off the whiteboard and added a 1 to it. For 441 days the people of Idinthakarai have resisted the dictates of the Centre Government 3000km away in New Delhi to incorporate their village into the grand scheme of things. In the last raid, the police lathi charged (with bamboo sticks) peaceful protestors and beat everyone in their path who could not flee fast enough: children, the crippled, women, old men and women. One fisherman was shot dead. Ive just been informed 30 people including the woman who helped me get to Idinthakarai have been arrested and detained by Tamil Nadu policeThey are ordinary people like you and me. The police couldnt get away with putting me in gaol, but they can do this to their own people. Questions about this trip at the airport have led Mr Bradbury to conclude that his detention and subsequent deportation were related to his role in documenting the protests. I told them I was just doing my job, like they are now interrogating me. It was important for me to see the people of Idinthakarai learn why they were so determined in their struggle against the Union government in Delhi and the state government in Chennai that six nuclear power plants were being built. I told the interrogating officers that if India was truly a democracy, it should value the rights of the media to have access to marginalised people and tell their side of the story, Mr Bradbury said. Indian police clash with protestors on the beach at Idinathakarai village near the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant on 10 September 2012 ( AFP via Getty ) I told the two officers that I agreed with the people of Idinthakarai that it was madness to build one, let alone six nuclear reactors, on a major earthquake faultline that had swept one thousand locals to their deaths in the tsunami of 2004. After Mr Bradbury was detained, his children decided to continue on their trip. They said Indian police allowed them to speak to Mr Bradbury only across a barricade and tried to convince them to ask their father to return to Bangkok, where the three had come from. They kept asking us to convince our father to return to Bangkok. We just refused, they said. Mr Bradbury was deported to Thailand and planned to join his children in Milan, which was where they were meant to go after their trip in India. His children reportedly left India on 26 September. 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 At least 46 people, most of them children, have drowned in swollen rivers and ponds in northern India during a Hindu festival amid heavy monsoon rains. The festival of Jivitputrika Vrat, marked by women fasting and offering prayers for the health and prosperity of their children, sees millions of people visit rivers, ponds and streams for ritual bathing in the northern state of Bihar. The water bodies have been swollen by heavy monsoon rains this time, leading to scattered incidents of drowning in 15 districts of the state. The victims include 37 children and seven women. The state has announced 400,000 (3,940) as compensation for the families of each of the victims. open image in gallery An aerial view shows houses partially submerged by flooding in the Ganges river in Patna, Bihar, on 20 September 2024 ( AFP via Getty ) Fatalities during crowded festivities are not uncommon in India. Last year, 22 people drowned during the same festival in Bihar. In July this year, at least 116 people were crushed to death at an overcrowded Hindu religious gathering in the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh, the worst such tragedy in more than a decade. The latest deaths occurred amid heavy rainfall and flooding across India as the monsoon rains continue for longer this year. India usually experiences the monsoon between mid-June to mid-September. This year, though, heavy rains have continued till the end of September, leaving several rivers across the country swollen for longer than usual. Separate rain-related incidents in Bihar have killed at least 10 people this monsoon season. In the southern state of Kerala, torrential rains caused a series of landslides that killed at least 200 people and flattened entire villages earlier in the summer. The monsoon rains also brought the financial capital Mumbai in western India to a standstill this week, killing four people, flooding roads, and leading to cancellation of flights and trains. This weeks heavy rainfall in the country was caused by excess moisture over the Bay of Bengal in the east and the Arabian Sea in the west, combined with a low-pressure system across the region. More heavy rainfall is forecast in the coming days. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A young boy was killed in a ritual sacrifice by teachers who believed it would please the gods and bring good fortune to their school in India, police said on Friday. The boy, the son of a software engineer at a private firm in Delhi, was killed at a private school in the city of Hathras, Uttar Pradesh. Five people, including the schools director and three teachers, have been arrested for the alleged murder of the second grade student, police said. The director, Dinesh Baghel, and his father, Jashodhan Singh, are accused of orchestrating the ritualistic killing with the help of the three teachers. Mr Singh, who police said is a believer in black magic and human sacrifice, allegedly performed the ritual to improve the struggling schools financial prospects. The boy was sacrificed as part of a ritual for the schools supposed success and glory. We are investigating if any other individuals were involved in the murder, senior police officer Nipun Agarwal told The Times of India. Mr Agarwal said the director and his father had previously attempted to sacrifice another boy for the same reason but that plan failed. He did not elaborate on how or why the earlier attempt did not succeed, or what happened to the victim. Police say they tried again on 22 September, abducting the boy while he was sleeping and placing him by a well behind the school to perform the ritual. When the boy woke up and tried to escape, the accused allegedly panicked and strangled him. School staff found the boy lying dead in his hostel bed the next morning. But instead of reporting to the police, Mr Baghel drove around the city with the body in his car, reported The Times of India. The boys family, informed that their child was unwell, arrived at the school in the meantime and raised the alarm when they could not find him. I received a call from the school saying, Your childs condition is very serious. Please come immediately. While I was on my way, they called again, saying, The childs condition has worsened and we are taking him to Sadabad, the students father recounted, referring to a nearby town. We followed them towards Agra, but they didnt stop the car. When we returned, we caught up with them in Sadabad where we found my childs body in their car. Human sacrifices, although rare, are still prevalent in India. These are conducted to appease deities into granting wishes. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, the country reported 103 cases of human sacrifice from 2014 and 2021. Three people were arrested in 2022 in the southern state of Kerala for allegedly murdering two women in a suspected case of human sacrifice. 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 }} Japans former defence minister, Shigeru Ishiba, has won the ruling Liberal Democratic Partys (LDP) presidential election at his fifth and final attempt, defeating economic security minister Sanae Takaichi in a runoff vote. He is set to become the countrys next prime minister. More follows Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Ellen DeGeneres revealed shes been diagnosed with Osteoporosis, OCD and ADHD. In her new Netflix comedy special, For Your Approval, the former talk show host, 66, updated fans on her litany of health issues. I dont even know how Im standing up right now. Im like a human sandcastle. I could disintegrate in the shower, the comedian confessed. According to DeGeneres, she discovered she had Osteoporosis after undergoing a bone density test. Osteoporosis is a bone disease in which a persons bones become brittle. It often develops when bone mineral density and bone mass decreases, or when the structure and strength of bone changes, according to the Mayo Clinic. After experiencing excruciating pain one day, the actor went to see her doctor assuming shed torn a ligament. She then proceeded to get an MRI, which led her doctors to believe she had arthritis. open image in gallery Ellen DeGeneres Netflix special, For Your Approval, premiered on September 24 ( Netflix ) Its hard to be honest about aging and seem cool, she added. Elsewhere in the special, the A-lister confessed shed started going to therapy after toxic workplace allegations came out against her in 2020. It was in those therapy sessions that she came to understand she had obsessive-compulsive disorder, otherwise referred to as OCD. I may have OCD because a therapist said so and I said, Yes I am very organized, because I thought that was the O. I didnt know what OCD was, she explained. I was raised in a religion, Christian Science, that doesnt acknowledge diseases or disorders. So when I was growing up, nobody talked about anything. There was no discussion of anything. The National Institute of Mental Health considers OCD to be a long-lasting mental disorder where a person experiences uncontrollable and recurring thoughts (obsessions), engages in repetitive behaviors (compulsions), or both. OCD can cause distress and severe anxiety, as well as affect a persons everyday life. Now understanding what OCD is, DeGeneres believes her father had the same disorder. She said: He would check the doorknob 15 times before wed leave, hed check the faucet 15 times, he would unplug all the appliances before we left the house because lightning could strike and it could catch fire. They say it could be hereditary. Later in the episode, DeGeneres went on to reveal she also has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which makes it extremely difficult for her to focus and sit still. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects a persons ability to focus, control impulses, and be active, the NIMH states. ADHD has no known cure, however, therapy and medication are two avenues that help manage symptoms. So, I have ADD, I have OCD, Im losing my memory, DeGeneres candidly said. But I think Im well-adjusted because I obsess on things, but I dont have the attention span to stick with it, and I quickly forget what I was obsessing about in the first place. So, it takes me all the way around to being well-adjusted, I think, she added. The Netflix special, available to stream now on the platform, begins with DeGeneres standing in front of a slew of headlines, labeling her the Queen of Mean and a villain. Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Elon Musk has denied that hes in a relationship with Giorgia Meloni after the two were pictured in close conversation at the Atlantic Councils gala dinner on Monday (September 23). The 53-year-old billionaire took to X/Twitter (which he owns) the following day to address his friendship with the Italian Prime Minister. I was there with my Mom, he wrote. There is no romantic relationship whatsoever with PM Meloni. Musk presented Meloni with a Global Citizens Award at the black-tie event, which is part of the United Nations General Assemblys annual gathering of world leaders. [Meloni is] someone who is even more beautiful on the inside than she is on the outside, Musk said in his speech, according to Politico, going on to call her authentic, honest and thoughtful. That cant always be said about politicians, he added, prompting a laugh from the crowd. In response, Meloni praised the Tesla CEOs precious genius. open image in gallery Elon Musk and Giorgie Meloni have been spotted together several times this year ( Getty Images ) The two have gotten together several times throughout the last year, with Musk speaking at Melonis Christmas Party for young conservatives organized by the Brothers of Italy party in December 2023. Before the event, he also met Meloni in Italy to discuss the countrys low birth rate, artificial intelligence (AI), and the EU. Before the dinner, Meloni spoke about receiving the Global Citizens Award, explaining why Musk was chosen to deliver the honor. According to La Voce di New York, it was decided months ago that he would give this award, with the move having nothing to do with the American election campaign. The attempt to deploy Italy in the American campaign is, I believe, above all an Italian attempt, but it doesnt seem particularly intelligent to me, she told journalists in New York before her speech at the dinner. She added: I have already answered and explained a thousand times that I am not a supporter of foreign interference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations, I am not among those leaders who think they have the right to tell a citizen who lives in another nation what is best for his future. Leading up to the 2024 US presidential election, Musk has made it clear that hell be voting for Republican nominee Donald Trump. I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery, the father of 12 wrote on X in July, just moments after the former president was targeted in an assassination attempt. Trump was 15 minutes into giving a speech at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, this summer when shots rang out and the former president was seen clutching his ear, before ducking below the podium. The martyr lived, Musk wrote in a later post, citing a reported debate between conservative venture capitalist Peter Thiel and LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman. Musks clarifications about his friendship with Meloni also come one year after she publicly announced her separation from her partner of 10 years, Andrea Giambruno. At the time, she said that their paths had diverged for some time. The former couple also share a seven-year-old daughter, Ginevra. Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Mayor Eric Adams September 25 indictment has spurred hilarious reactions from New Yorkers. On Wednesday, the 64-year-old politician was indicted on federal charges of bribery, wire fraud, solicitation of contribution by a foreign national, and conspiracy. The US Attorneys in the Southern District of New York announced his five-count indictment and accused him of taking illegal campaign contributions during his 2021 mayoral campaign in addition to other things of value, from foreign nationals. These charges come after a lengthy federal investigation into his 2021 campaign as well his personal ties to Turkish government officials and nationals. Adams is now the first sitting mayor to face federal criminal charges. On social media, locals were quick to joke about the ordeal. open image in gallery Eric Adams was indicted on September 25 for charges of bribery and fraud ( REUTERS ) And thats why you dont play chicken with the public library budget, The New Yorkers Emily Nussbaum joked Meanwhile across town Samantha was dealing with an indictment of her own, wrote another, referencing a famous Sex and the City bit. I guess God doesnt want Eric Adams to be mayor anymore, a third wrote. Adams famously once said that God wanted him to be New York City mayor. Eric Adams throwing awaying his career, wrote another next to a video of the mayor introducing the citys trashcans. Others shared jokes about Adamss famed hatred of rats. Between his 2022 press conference remarks, where he officially declared his distaste for the citys unofficial inhabitants, to the Urban Rat Summit he hosted earlier this month, Adams has been very vocal about wanting to solve the citys rodent problem. Rats high-fiving each other in the street, one person remarked. A second posted a Photoshopped picture of a rat seated at the head of a table with the caption: Tell Eric I want him to know it was me. Rats secure yet another victory in New Yorks war on rats, another person commented, while a fourth added: Theyre winning the streets one slice of pizza at a time lmfao. Adams confessed he was not surprised by the charges raised again him and refused to step down from his position as mayor. He denied all the allegations against him, ignoring all past and present lawmakers urging him to leave his post as the top official in the city. Adams was elected as New York Citys 110th mayor in 2021 and took office in 2022. He was due to run again in next years mayoral race for a second term. Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Johnny Depp decided to surprise children in a nearby hospital while attending the San Sebastian Film Festival. On Thursday, September 26, the 61-year-old visited the children of the Donostia University Hospital in San Sebastian, Spain, while dressing up as one of his most iconic characters, Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. The actor was able to make an appearance after premiering his new film Modi - Three Days on the Wing of Madness, about the life of the Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani in Paris during World War I. Modi marks the first film to be directed by Depp since 1997s The Brave, which he also starred in alongside Marlon Brando. The hospital posted on X (formerly Twitter) various pictures of the actor posing with children and speaking to them throughout his time there. From all the staff of the Donostia University Hospital, we would like to express our infinite gratitude to Johnny Depp for his time, his support, and his energy, as well as to @sansebastianfes for having facilitated this visit, the hospitals post read. In a statement from Osakidetza-Basque Health Service, the hospital spoke about how much the children loved having Depp there. They have shared laughs and anecdotes, and he has helped them forget for a few minutes the difficulties they are going through at the moment, they said. It was a gift that brought joy to patients, families, nursing professionals, doctors, and all the staff who were working on the ward at the time. From Osakidetza, and especially from all the staff at the Donostia University Hospital, we would like to express our infinite gratitude to Johnny Depp for his time, his support, and his energy, he has been a breath of fresh air for the entire ward. This isnt the first time Depp has worn his Jack Sparrow costume to visit children in hospital. Back in 2015, he opened up about his daughter Lily-Rose spending nine days in Londons Great Ormond Street Hospital, where she received treatment for kidney failure caused by E.coli poisoning in 2007, which he told Graham Norton was the darkest period of my life. Since then he has returned to that hospital in his costume in an attempt to cheer up other children there. For me, its a gift. They give me the gift, he said. When my daughter was ill in Great Ormond Street it was the darkest period of my life. Id always done these visits but after that experience, the visits became more and more important. Depp continued: The kids are so courageous but to be able to bring a smile or a giggle to the parents means everything in the world to me. 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 }} Thousands of Ethiopians gathered in the capital Thursday to celebrate an annual religious festival distinguished by the lighting of bonfires according to the beliefs of the local Orthodox Christian faithful. National celebrations of the festival, known as Meskel, traditionally happen in a square by the same name in Addis Ababa. It is one of Ethiopias most celebrated religious holidays, marked with rituals and merriment across the country. Festivities will continue until Friday, a national holiday during which the faithful attend church services and share intimate moments with their families. In celebrations of Meskel a word in the local Amharic language for "cross" bonfires are burned across the country. In Meskel square Thursday, the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church lit a large one in the presence of thousands of believers in white costumes. Across Ethiopia, many gather in public squares and by churches to light similar bonfires from piles of logs, dry leaves and grass. Prayers and religious ceremonies are followed by a feast of kitfo, a lean minced meat somewhat similar to steak tartare that's savored as part of Meskel festivities. According to the church's beliefs, the festival celebrates the cross upon which Jesus was crucified and its recovery by Saint Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine. The story goes that Saint Helena had a revelation in a dream instructing her to light a bonfire and follow the smoke to find the cross buried in Jerusalem. Meskel has been inscribed by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This year's festival comes at a difficult time for Ethiopia, Africa's second-most populous country and one of the largest landlocked nations in the world. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's efforts to secure access to the sea via the semiautonomous Somali region of Somaliland have angered authorities in Somalia who see the move as an act of aggression. At the same time, Ethiopia is at odds with Egypt over the large dam on the River Nile that authorities in Cairo say will diminish their share of much-needed Nile water. The disputes have raised tensions in the Horn of Africa in recent weeks. Abiy also has flexed with the Orthodox Christian Church, which criticized him for apparent excesses by government forces in the brutal war in the northern region of Tigray. That conflict ended with a peace deal in 2022. A new insurgency emerged in 2023 when government troops tried to disarm local militia in the Amhara region, which shares a border with Tigray. Some Meskel celebrants said the festival presents an opportunity to consider peace. The importance of the celebration of Meskel to Ethiopians is to have us reflect on the idea of peace," said Berhanu Admass, a church deacon. This is to have us embrace forgiveness and pray for our peaceful co-existence as uniquely and beautifully defined to us by the hope that Meskel is and it represents. A larger celebration of Meskel is expected Friday in Gurage Zone in Ethiopias south, where Meskel has long held particular significance. The Gurage Zone administration said it expects hundreds of thousands of tourists to travel there. Everton Gordon, a Jamaican-Canadian who has previously celebrated Meskel in Canada, said that marking the holiday in Ethiopia is a unique experience. The large bonfires are going to be the highlight, he said. Ethiopian Azeb Bisrat and her children flew into Addis Ababa from Gonder, a city in Amhara that has witnessed intense fighting in recent months. She said that some members of her extended family were unable to travel because of security concerns. As a big family, we often drove to Addis Ababa to take part in such an important ritual, but the last few years have made that journey nearly impossible," she said. Luleseged Tadesse, a resident of CMC, a suburb of Addis Ababa, said that while he was unable to attend the big celebration in Meskel Square, he had mobilized neighbors, including Muslim Sudanese and Syrian refugees, to take part in the celebration. Those neighbors escaped conflicts in their countries. All neighbors have contributed to the festival what we can and we are going to light a bonfire, sacrifice a sheep and pray in our own religions for better days for Sudan, Syria and Ethiopia, he said. Such a celebration brings neighbors together, makes us act like a family and see the best in each other. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the APs collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. 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 Israeli airstrike hit a school sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians in northern Gaza on Thursday, killing at least 11 people and wounding 22, including women and children, the territorys Health Ministry said. The Israeli military confirmed it struck the school in the Jabalia refugee camp, saying it was targeting Hamas militants inside who were planning attacks on Israeli troops. The claim couldn't be independently confirmed. Footage from the al-Falouja School showed rescue workers rushing casualties out of the school compound amid widespread debris and crowds of people. One video showed men wrapping a mangled, severed torso in a plastic sheet and putting body parts into a cooler. Gazas Health Ministry didn't immediately provide a breakdown of how many of the casualties were women and children. Israeli forces have repeatedly struck schools, saying Hamas fighters use them as command centers to plan attacks. The military says it uses precision weapons to avoid civilian casualties. The strikes have brought heavy death tolls. Tens of thousands of Palestinians are living packed in schools across Gaza after fleeing their homes in the face of Israeli bombardment and offensives. More than 1.9 million of Gazas 2.4 million people have been displaced in the nearly yearlong conflict, according to the United Nations. In the southern city of Khan Younis, authorities buried in a mass grave the bodies of 88 Palestinians that Israel returned to the Gaza Strip a day earlier. A bulldozer dug a trench in one of the city cemeteries, and the bodies were laid inside in blue plastic bags before the bulldozer covered them over with dirt. Gaza's Health Ministry denounced what it called the inhumane and immoral way Israel had treated the bodies, saying they were sent back piled in a truck with no information to identify them. Throughout Israel's offensives in Gaza, troops have dug up multiple graveyards as well as impromptu mass graves created at hospitals holding the bodies of Palestinians killed during raids on the facilities. The military has taken an unknown number of bodies into Israel, saying it is searching for potential bodies of Israeli hostages or militants. Israels campaign in Gaza has killed more than 41,500 Palestinians and wounded more than 96,000 others, according to the latest figures released Thursday by the Health Ministry. The ministrys count doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants, but more than half the dead have been women and children, including about 1,300 children under the age of 2. Israel launched its campaign in Gaza, vowing to destroy Hamas after its Oct. 7 attack, during which militants killed around 1,200 people and took about 250 others hostage. It blames civilian deaths in Gaza on Hamas, because the groups fighters operate in residential areas and use civilian infrastructure. ___ Follow APs war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war 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 }} New British Prime Minister Keir Starmer took the international stage at the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday for the first time with a message: His nation is returning to responsible global leadership. The Labor Party leader, who won a landslide election victory in July, told the annual gathering of world leaders that with him as prime minister, the UK will lead again tackling climate change at home and internationally, and restoring our commitment to international development. Working with other nations, Starmer said, Britain will also tackle conflicts from Gaza and the West Bank to Ukraine and Sudan where immediate cease-fires are urgently needed.. He said nations must also work together to make the world less dangerous. We have to face some hard truths, the prime minister said. The institutions of peace are struggling, underfunded, under pressure and outpoliticized. He said the entire global system of arms control and combating the proliferation of weapons which has been constructed over decades has begun to fall away and needs global action. We will also change how the UK does things, Starmer said. Moving from the paternalism of the past towards partnership for the future listening a lot more, speaking a lot less." He said the UK will also be offering other countries game-changing British expertise, and will work together with nations in a spirit of equal respect. Starmer told assembled ministers and diplomats that a sense of fatalism has taken hold in an age people describe as polarized and full of impunity and instabilitly. Well, our task is to say: No. We wont accept this slide into greater and greater conflict, instability and injustice, he said. Instead, we will do all we can to change it. ___ Edith M. Lederer, chief U.N. correspondent for The Associated Press, has been covering international affairs for more than 50 years. See more of APs coverage of the U.N. General Assembly at https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations 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 }} Nearly 700 people have been killed in Lebanon this week, according to Lebanons health ministry. Israel has dramatically escalated strikes, saying it is targeting Hezbollahs military capacities and senior Hezbollah commanders. Top Israeli officials have threatened to repeat the destruction of Gaza in Lebanon if the Hezbollah fire continues, raising fears that Israels actions in Gaza since Oct. 7 would be repeated in Lebanon. The International Organization for Migration estimated Thursday that more than 200,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas after it stormed into Israel, sparking the Israel-Hamas war. Lebanon says a total of 1,540 people have been killed within its borders in that time. The United States, France and other allies jointly called for a 21-day cease-fire. Lebanon's foreign minister said the country welcomed the cease-fire efforts, and decried Israels systematic destruction of Lebanese border villages. Israeli military vehicles were seen transporting tanks and armored vehicles toward the countrys northern border with Lebanon, and commanders have issued a call-up of reservists. Netanyahu says Israel is striking Hezbollah with full force and wont stop until its goals are achieved. ___ Heres the latest: Israeli strike kills a family of 9 in a Lebanese border town, authorities say BEIRUT Authorities in Lebanon say a family of nine was killed in an Israeli airstrike in a town near the border with Israel. The state-run National News Agency reported the deaths in the strike early Friday in Shebaa. It put the strike at 3 a.m. local. The report offered no other details and the Israeli military did not immediately acknowledge the strike. The Philippines is preparing to evacuate thousands of its citizens from Lebanon MANILA, Philippines The Philippine government is bracing to evacuate thousands of Filipino workers in Lebanon in case the deadly conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group further escalates, Philippine officials said Friday. More than 11,000 Filipinos live and work in Lebanon, often as house cleaners. Philippine officials have not yet ordered a mandatory evacuation of its citizens because it was not yet clear whether a full-scale war would erupt, including an Israeli ground attack. Many Filipinos were adamant not to leave their jobs in Lebanon and return to uncertainties at home, but they have been told to be ready to evacuate any time, Foreign Undersecretary Eduardo De Vega told a news briefing in Manila. They say its better for them to die in war than to die of hunger, De Vega said. But he added without elaborating that the Philippine government prepared a contingency plan for a massive evacuation if widespread ground fighting erupts across Lebanon. Philippine Ambassador to Lebanon Raymond Balatbat told reporters in Manila via video on Friday that many Filipinos there will only decide to leave when the situation is so bad, when the war is at their doorsteps. 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 }} Two Just Stop Oil activists have been jailed after pouring soup over Vincent Van Goghs Sunflowers painting at the National Gallery. Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were jailed for two years and 20 months respectively at Southwark Crown Court on Friday for the protest in 2022. The two women threw tomato soup over the painting - which is protected by glass - in October 2022. After the protest, the pair removed their jackets to reveal Just Stop Oil t-shirts, before glueing their hands to the wall underneath the artwork. Phoebe Plummer, 23, left, and Anna Holland, 22, right, were jailed on Friday ( Just Stop Oil ) The court heard the activists had come close to destroying the masterpiece and had caused up to 10,000 worth of damage to the gold-coloured frame worth 28,000. Gallery staff inspected the painting and frame for damage while the women were attached to the wall, and were worried the soup could have dripped through the protective glass. Phoebe Plummer, then 21, said at the time: What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? More than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people? Judge Christopher Hehir, sentencing, said the painting could have been seriously damaged or even destroyed. He said that soup might have seeped through the glass, adding: You couldnt have cared less if the painting was damaged or not. You had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers. People appeared outside Southwark Crown Court in support of Anna Holland and Phoebe Plummer ( James Manning/PA Wire ) Judge Hehir was the judge who previously jailed the co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, Roger Hallam, to five years in prison. The judge told Plummer: You clearly think your beliefs give you the right to commit crimes when you feel like it. You do not. Representing herself, Plummer responded to the judge: My choice today is to accept whatever sentence I receive with a smile. It is not just myself being sentenced today, or my co-defendants, but the foundations of democracy itself. Raj Chada, defending Holland, said the women had checked the painting was covered by glass before the protest. The court heard the activists had come close to destroying the masterpiece ( Just Stop Oil ) Many supporters were outside the court while Plummer and Holland were sentenced, with some holding pictures of historical figures who had been jailed for activism. Plummer was handed a three-month sentence for her part in a slow march blocking traffic in west London last November. The pair were found guilty of criminal damage by a jury in July, following three hours of deliberations. Just five days after Plummer was found guilty, she was arrested for spraying the departure boards at Heathrow Airport with orange paint. Sunflowers, Vincent van Goghs most famous painting, was painted in Arles in the south of France in August 1888. It shows 15 sunflowers in a yellow pot against a yellow background. 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 }} Just Stop Oil activists have thrown soup over two Van Gogh paintings just hours after their fellow protesters were sentenced to years in prison for doing the same. It came just hours after Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were jailed for a combined 3 years 8 months at Southwark Crown Court on Friday for the exact same protest in October 2022. The three activists souped not just Van Goghs Sunflowers painting - which is protected by glass - but also one other painting nearby. There were cries of no, stop and why are you doing that as they poured soup onto the paintings, before removing their jumpers to reveal the name Just Stop Oil on their t-shirts. There are people in prison for demanding an end to new oil and gas, something which is now government policy, one of the group said after the protest. After sustained disruptive actions, countless headlines and the resulting political pressure, future generations will regard these prisoners of conscience to be on the right side of history, she added. Along with a video of the protest, the climate organisation posted on X: 2 Van Gogh paintings souped hours after Phoebe and Anna sentenced. It added: 3 Just Stop Oil supporters have thrown soup over 2 of Van Gogh paintings in the Poets and Lovers exhibition at the National Gallery. Earlier today, Plummer and Holland were told their actions could have seriously damaged or even destroyed the painting. Judge Christopher Hehir, sentencing, said soup might have seeped through the glass, adding: You had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers. After throwing the soup on the painting, Plummer said: What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? More than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people? Well bring the latest updates on this breaking news story 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 }} Police are trivialising stalking and letting victims down, watchdogs have warned, as figures show one in five women are targeted. A major new report, launched in response to a super-complaint against police lodged two years ago by the anti-stalking charity Suzy Lamplugh Trust (SLT) on behalf of the National Stalking Consortium, found clear evidence that victims were being let down. In their super-complaint, the groups warned some victims were being left at risk of being seriously hurt or killed as they struggled to have their cases taken seriously. The 159-page police watchdog response published on Friday found police had overtly minimalised or trivialised stalking behaviours reported to them in 46 of the 470 stalking and breach of protective order cases they reviewed. This included victims not being believed or taken seriously or feeling victim-blamed or shamed by officers. One victim explained: I was told keep collecting the evidence and then being told as Im reporting stalking continued stalking well hes not actually done anything wrong yet, hes not actually doing anything which completes skews and twists how you think about what youre reporting. The watchdogs found it especially concerning that in some cases they reviewed, police had not identified risk of serious harm or homicide to a victim. It comes after official data from the Office for National Statistics showed one in five women and one in 11 men in England and Wales have been a victim of stalking. The report detailed victims feeling victim-blamed or shamed by officers ( PA ) The director of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), the chief inspector of constabulary and the boss of the College of Policing jointly called on forces in England and Wales to take urgent action. They made 29 recommendations to improve their response to the intrusive crime, which causes clear psychological trauma to victims. They also called for an overhaul of unclear stalking legislation, which could include a review of sentencing or more cases heard at crown court. Currently, 85 per cent of cases are tried at magistrates court with a six-month maximum sentence. Other measures needed include simplifying routes to obtaining a Stalking Protection Order, to allow police to better protect victims while investigations are carried out. The use of stalking protection orders (SPOs), introduced in 2020 to ban perpetrators from approaching their victims, was worryingly low, the report found. In a press conference on Friday, Chief Inspector of Constabulary Andy Cooke said it was regrettable that victims had not always been supported or taken seriously. Its regrettable on the occasions that people have come forward and dont feel that theyve been protected, he said. I must say, though, there are many, many instances where stalking victims have been pleased with the response of policing. But again, its not consistent, and thats the key issue. Really, there needs to be a consistency of approach legislation needs to be changed. Urging all forces in the country to take up the 29 recommendations, he added: Sadly, on too many occasions, yes, we are not seeing victims being properly protected, and we are not seeing victims getting that justice that they should rightly demand. Andy Marsh, from the College of Policing, said officers are hit with a blizzard of data when they try to investigate a pattern of stalking behaviour. But he hopes artificial intelligence can help officers trawl through evidence seamlessly and instantaneously. So what we will do is turn that blizzard of information into our best asset, our best asset that will help them make a smarter decision to conduct an investigation, to record the right crime and to take the right protective measures for the victim thats reporting it, he added. A trust named after estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, whose body has never been found, supports victims of stalking ( Bill Cross/Shutterstock ) Emma Lingley-Clark, the SLT charitys interim chief executive, hailed the findings as a pivotal moment for police forces to demonstrate their commitment to improving the criminal justice experience and outcomes for victims of stalking. It is not enough to just say we will do better, instead now we need to see a real commitment to preventing the numerous failures encountered by stalking victims, she added. Londons victims commissioner Claire Waxman said the report demonstrated the need for urgent reform so stalkers were brought to justice and victims were better protected. She called on the government to overhaul legislation so there is a single offence which recognises the severity and impact of this crime. Deputy Chief Constable Paul Mills, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) lead on stalking, said: We remain committed to doing everything possible to improve the policing response for victims of stalking. We are carefully working through the recommendations made for policing and will work closely with our partners across the criminal justice system and beyond to further improve and standardise the service victims receive. A Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) spokeswoman said: We are continuing to work closely with police to build a picture of a suspects manipulative behaviour and actions to present a robust case in court while utilising protective orders to safeguard victims from repeat offending. Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips said: Behind the findings in this report are heartbreaking testimonies from victims. Stalking is an insidious crime that can leave survivors traumatised. It also sets out important recommendations for how the whole justice system can better tackle this awful crime. We are already actively considering these, looking at how we can work with the police to overhaul how we respond to this crime and put more perpetrators behind bars. We thank the Suzy Lamplugh Trust for this report and we will respond fully in due course. 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 }} Detectives are looking for a man who absconded from a secure mental health facility five days ago. Terrence Mayes, 41, was being detained under the Mental Health Act at the hospital in Southall before breaking out on Monday. Police have appealed for help finding him, while warning the public not to approach him if he is spotted. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: Despite an extensive investigation, officers have been unable to locate Terrence Mayes and are now appealing for the publics help. Police are looking for Terrence Mayes ( Met Police ) He has links to Wembley, and it is thought likely that he will be in the west London or north-west London areas. Have you seen him, do you know where he is, or do you have information that might help officers locate him? Police ask anyone who sees him to call 999 and quote reference 5425/22Sep. 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 first defendant to admit a charge of riot after the recent far-right violence has been jailed. Kieran Usher, 32, from Sunderland, was jailed at Newcastle Crown Court on Friday for four years and four months after admitting his role in the riots of late July and early August. Usher, who has learning difficulties, pleaded guilty after he was caught as part of an orgy of mindless violence and disorder, the court heard. He was accused of encouraging mob violence during a night of trouble on 2 August in Sunderland. Prosecutor Michael Bunch said Usher was involved in encouraging others, beckoning them on, filming their activities. Usher appeared via a video link from HMP Durham ( Elizabeth Cook/PA Wire ) Northumbria Police chief constable Vanessa Jardine said officers suffered serious and sustained violence with bricks, concrete blocks and scaffolding poles. Sophie Allinson Howells, defending, said Usher attached little value to himself and didnt hold strong political beliefs. She said Usher was not linked with the far-right movement, adding: Tying the Union Jack to himself is best described as an attempt to fit in with a bunch of peers who were there. Usher attended a police interview without legal representation and made a full admission to officers, Howells said. At a previous hearing, Usher became the first defendant in the country to admit a charge of riot following the summers violence, before appearing in Newcastle Crown Court today via a video link from HMP Durham. CCTV evidence showed him wearing a mask and a Union Jack flag, encouraging those around him to throw missiles at the police. Usher pleaded guilty after he was caught as part of an orgy of mindless violence and disorder, Newcastle Crown Court heard ( PA Archive ) It was a night of violence in which a building was set on fire, businesses were looted, and police protecting a local mosque came under a sustained attack. In sentencing, Judge Tim Gittins took into account that Usher had made full admissions to police and pleaded guilty at the first opportunity. The judge said: Right-thinking members of the community in which you live were left shocked, distressed and in fear. From the outset, you were drinking and using your phone to film. You then draped yourself in a Union flag your acts while carrying that flag bring shame to it. Christopher Atkinson, head of the Complex Casework Unit for CPS North East, said after Usher pleaded guilty last month: It is clear from the evidence in this case that Usher played an active role in the mob violence that unfolded on the streets of Sunderland. The coordinated and unlawful violence carried out by the group in this incident, the severity of which forced police to temporarily retreat from the assault, made a charge of riot wholly appropriate in this case. The events of that evening also created immeasurable fear for Sunderland residents, with significant damage caused to local businesses. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A grieving family have paid tribute to joyful spirit Daejaun Campbell after he was stabbed to death with an alleged zombie knife in south east London. Daejaun died from stab injuries after being attacked on Eglinton Road, Woolwich on Sunday. Neighbours described hearing the teenager cry out Im 15, dont let me die as a local woman tried to save his life. The Metropolitan Police have made two further arrests in connection to Daejauns death. An 18-year-old man was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of murder. He remains in police custody. A 15-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice and was released on bail. In a statement issued via police, Daejuans family paid tribute to his calming nature and enthusiastic attitude, saying he would manifest a happy atmosphere among his friends and relatives. Jacob Losiewicz, of Church Manor Way, Abbey Wood, appeared at Bromley Magistrates Court on Thursday charged with the his murder. He appeared in person and spoke to confirm his name, address and date of birth during the brief hearing. He was remanded in custody and will appear at the Old Bailey on Monday. Daejauns family said: Daejaun was known for walking with the biggest smile and even bigger heart, he would always do his up most best to help anyone. Daejaun had a joyful spirit, full of wit and charm with the incredible ability to light up a room with his presence and impactful smile. His family went on to call for end to this senseless killing and called for change to ensure our young have the brightest of futures. The Metropolitan Police said it was called at about 6.35pm on Sunday to Eglinton Road, Woolwich, where they found Daejuan with a stab injury. Despite the efforts of officers and paramedics, he died at the scene a short time later. Police said a post-mortem examination revealed that Daejaun died from a sharp force trauma to the left thigh. Detective Chief Inspector Kate Blackburn, who is leading the investigation, said: Daejaun was only 15 when he lost his life. His family are understandably devastated. Although officers have made a number of arrests and have charged a suspect we need to gather as much information as possible to fully understand what happened on Sunday evening. If you know anything, no matter how insignificant you think this information is please tell us. Even the slightest bit of information can help us build a picture of what happened to young Daejaun. You can contact Crimestoppers anonymously if you are afraid of speaking to us. Police have urged anyone with information or video footage to contact them on 0208 721 4005 quoting Operation Baghaze. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The UK foreign secretary has been accused of ignoring the family of a British citizen jailed on bogus charges in Egypt, despite passionately campaigning for his release in opposition. Sanaa and Mona Seif, sisters of activist and author Alaa Abd el-Fattah, claimed David Lammy had refused to meet with them since being given the top job more than two months ago. Mr Lammy worked tirelessly for Mr el-Fattahs release as shadow foreign secretary and joined the familys protest outside the Foreign Office in 2022. Sanaa told The Independent: He was once our champion. He was our guy. He knew every detail. Now we are not so sure. Mr Lammy will not even meet with us. It is unacceptable. Its very hard to stay hopeful when it feels like the foreign secretary is ignoring us. It was easier to meet Conservative foreign secretaries. The sisters of Alaa Abd el-Fattah say David Lammy has ignored them since becoming foreign secretary, despite campaigning for his release in opposition ( PA Wire ) Mr el-Fattah, 42, has spent nearly a decade behind bars and was handed an unjust five-year prison sentence in 2021 for sharing a social media post, according to Amnesty International. He is due to be released on 29 September, but his family and lawyers fear he will be hit by Egypts revolving door system - where political prisoners are hit with fresh charges to prevent them from being freed. Mr el-Fattah was a figurehead of Egypts 2011 uprising that overthrew the former dictator Hosni Mubarak, but was detained after a sweeping anti-democratic crackdown by President Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi. As shadow foreign secretary, Mr Lammy championed Mr el-Fattahs case and accused the former Conservative government of letting down British citizens by failing to take action. In 2022, he called the Conservative governments diplomacy weak and urged serious diplomatic consequences for the Egyptian government if Mr el-Fattah was not released. Alaa Abd el-Fattah has spent the best part of a decade locked up in Egypt on bogus charges, according to human rights group Amnesty International ( Omar Robert Hamilton/Reuters ) In the same year, Mr Lammy told BBC Radio 4: We have a 4bn trade deal with Egypt, that is tremendous leverage. Why has it taken months and months for the Foreign Office to act? Ive been asking for them to act, and Ive got to tell you that UK citizens have been badly let down. However, Mr Lammy was pictured with the Egyptian foreign minister on Wednesday in a meeting intended to promote economic growth and investment between Britain and Egypt. Mr el-Fattahs sister Mona added: We are asking for the government to ensure Alaa is released and believe the UK could do this if it wanted to. If the UK government is unable to convince Egypt to release Alaa, then I honestly do not know what the point in the Foreign Office is. Egyptian activist and blogger Alaa Abdel el-Fattah is due to be released on 29 September amid fears he may be detained for longer ( AFP via Getty Images ) Mahmoud Shalaby, Amnesty Internationals Egypt Researcher, said: Alaa Abd el-Fattah has spent most of the last decade being repeatedly arrested and unjustly imprisoned simply for peacefully exercising his human rights. He is a prisoner of conscience. He should never have been forced to spend a single minute behind bars. The Egyptian authorities must immediately and unconditionally release him and allow him to reunite with his loved ones at long last. A Foreign Office spokesperson told The Independent that the foreign secretary is committed to trying to resolve Alaas case and said the family have since been offered a meeting. They added: The foreign secretary raised the need to make progress on Alaas case in his first meeting with the Egyptian foreign minister, which took place at the UN this week. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A doctor has denied carrying out sexual health tests on Harrods staff on behalf of Mohamed al-Fayed. Dr Ann Coxon was named by victims in a BBC investigation as one of the people who allegedly carried out intrusive gynaecological examinations, including STI tests, at the request of the billionaire. Approached by reporters outside her home in Notting Hill, she was asked if she regrets working for Fayed. She replied: No. Asked if she had carried out sexual health tests on Harrods employees, Dr Coxon said: No, I did not. Asked again if she would like to apologise to Fayeds victims, she replied: I have no comment to make. Dr Ann Coxon is approached by reporters outside her home in Notting Hill ( BBC ) Dr Coxon, who is still registered to practice with the GMC, has been approached for comment by The Independent. A GMC spokesperson said: The alleged sexual abuse conducted by Mohamed al-Fayed against multiple women is horrifying. The allegations relating to medical staff working for Mr Fayed are deeply concerning. If we identify any potential fitness to practise concerns about individual doctors, we will thoroughly examine all relevant information and take action as appropriate. Another doctor accused of carrying out sexual health tests is Wendy Snell, who has since died. Mohammed al-Fayed speaks to media in 2010 ( AFP via Getty Images ) It came as the Metropolitan Police has said it investigated 19 allegations against Fayed, including rape and sexual assault, but none resulted in charges. Of the previous allegations, three were of rape, 15 were of sexual assault, and one was related to trafficking, with the offences claimed to have taken place between 1979 and 2013 against 19 separate women. The alleged crimes were reported to the Met between 2005 and 2023, during which time the force said it approached the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) on five occasions. Two of these, in 2009 and 2015, were to pass full files of evidence, it said, while the remaining three approaches were for early investigative advice. The force said it has now received new allegations from people who have not previously contacted them about the former Harrods owner, although it is not confirming the number. The Metropolitan Police has said it investigated 19 allegations against Fayed but none resulted in charges ( PA Archive ) It said it will now fully explore whether any other people could be pursued for criminal offences in connection with the Fayed accusations, which includes a review of all existing allegations. The true scale of Fayeds abuse of his young female employees was revealed in a BBC investigation, Al Fayed Predator at Harrods. The documentary alleges five women were raped by the Egyptian billionaire tycoon who died last year. Based on testimony from more than 20 former female employees, many more may have been sexually assaulted, threatened and harassed. I did not give consent, one victim told the BBC. I just wanted it to be over. Fayed was a monster, a sexual predator with no moral compass, said another. We were all so scared. He actively cultivated a culture of fear. The managing director of Harrods said on Thursday the London department store is deeply sorry for failing employees who say they were sexually assaulted. 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 }} Intelligence chiefs have issued a new alert to warn of a threat from targeted phishing attacks being carried out by hackers working on behalf of the Iranian government. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is part of GCHQ, said cyber attackers working on behalf of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were using social engineering techniques to gain access to victims personal and business accounts online. It said that people with links to Iranian and Middle Eastern affairs, such as current and former senior government officials, leading think tank personnel, journalists, activists and lobbyists, were at risk. Iran is heavily involved in the escalating violence in the Middle East as a supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah in their conflict with Israel. Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard is accused of carrying out the phising attacks ( EPA ) The US, which has also issued an alert, said people associated with US political campaigns had been targeted. The hackers may impersonate family members, well-known journalists, discuss foreign policy topics or issue invitations to conferences, according to the warning. In some cases, the actors might impersonate email service providers to obtain sensitive user security information, it added. Paul Chichester, director of operations at the National Cyber Security Centre, said: The spear-phishing attacks undertaken by actors working on behalf of the Iranian government pose a persistent threat to individuals with a connection to Iranian and Middle Eastern affairs. With our allies, we will continue to call out this malicious activity, which puts individuals personal and business accounts at risk, so they can take action to reduce their chances of falling victim. I strongly encourage those at higher risk to stay vigilant to suspicious contact and to take advantage of the NCSCs free cyber defence tools to help protect themselves from compromise. Spear phishing targets a specific person or group and often includes information known to be of interest to the victim. The Iranian hackers have often impersonated contacts by email and messaging platforms, and built a rapport with victims before tricking them into sharing user credentials via a false email account login page, the cyber experts warned. The actors can then gain access to victims accounts, exfiltrate and delete messages and set up email forwarding rules, they added. This activity poses an ongoing threat to various sectors worldwide, including the UK, the NCSC said. People at risk not the general public are advised to follow the centres mitigation steps and to take up special support measures designed for high-risk individuals. Individuals who face a higher risk of targeting due to their work or public status are eligible to sign up for two opt-in cyber defence services managed by the NCSC, the alert says. US intelligence agencies have said that in the summer, Iranian hackers stole material from Donald Trumps presidential campaign and sent it to officials in the Biden campaign as well as journalists. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US 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 ongoing public hearing into the Titan submersible disaster has revealed that part of the experimental vessel fell off before it imploded last June. Better known as the Titanic tourist sub, the Oceangate submersible had a controversial design that raised concerns inside and outside of the company before it led to the deaths of five men. Former Oceangate operations director David Lochridge revealed last week that he was actually fired for raising his concerns. It is believed that the vessels carbon fibre hull considered by experts to be unsuitable for use at depth was weakened on repeat dives to the Titanic wreck, which lies at around 12,500 feet below the North Atlantic Ocean, as testified by National Transportation Safety Board engineer Don Kramer on Wednesday. Now, the US Coast Guard, which is investigating the sinking, has released a picture showing that the dome part of the vessel, which was used to view the doomed Titanic, fell off when it returned to the surface after a dive in 2021. The inquest heard in an earlier session how the bolts around the dome shot off like bullets when the Titan hit the deck of its mother vessel. One of the Titans commercial passengers, Fred Hagen, testified: The force of the platform hitting the deck it basically sheared off several bolts and they shot off like bullets. And the titanium dome fell off. This was one of over 100 technical failings that the submersible was said to have suffered, including its earlier prototype being hit by lightning, before last Junes catastrophic implosion. It claimed the lives of Oceangate CEO Stockton Rush, 61, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, otherwise known as Mr Titanic, as well as commercial $250,000-a-head customers British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58; Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood, 48; and his son Suleman Dawood, 19. The Titans cone fell off as it returned from a dive in 2021, the public inquest heard. ( U.S. Coast Guard ) A mission specialist from the 2021 mission where the dome fell off, Renata Rojas, claimed in a hearing on 19 September that the Titan was working very smoothly before its dive. She recalled: There was only, I think, two bolts or four bolts on the dome. It started dripping, falling off. In response to the malfunction, 18 bolts were added to the dome to ensure it stayed in place, and Ms Rojas insisted that she never felt unsafe when she dived in the Titan. This was never sold as a Disney ride, she said. It was an expedition that things happen and you have to adapt to change. Other controversial elements of the Titan operation included the fact that the sub was reportedly controlled by a PlayStation controller and had its movements tracked on an Excel spreadsheet, according to previous witnesses at the hearing. Stocktons vision was give somebody this PlayStation controller and within an hour theyre going to be a pilot its not the way it works, Mr Lochridge said as part of his testimony. Antonella Wilby, a former OceanGate contractor, told the hearing last week: There were delays because there was this manual process of first writing down the lat-long coordinates and then typing them in. The Titan lost contact around an hour and 14 minutes into its dive to the Titanic wreck last June. What followed was an international search and rescue mission before its debris was discovered on the ocean floor. Footage from a remotely operated vehicle showed what the Titans debris looked like on the ocean floor. ( USCG/Reuters ) A spokesperson for Oceangate told The Independent: OceanGate expresses our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who died in the tragic implosion of the Titan. There are no words to ease the loss endured by the families impacted by this devastating incident, but we hope that this hearing will help shed light on the cause of the tragedy. OceanGate, which is no longer an operating company, having ceased all business activity shortly after the tragedy, and which has no full-time employees, is a party in interest in the Coast Guard proceeding. The Company has been fully cooperating with the Coast Guard and NTSB investigations since they began, including at the ongoing public hearing convened by the Coast Guard. OceanGate is represented at the hearing by Jane Shvets and Adrianna Finger of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. The public hearing is set to come to a close on Friday. 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 }} Boris Johnson has claimed he was asked by Buckingham Palace to persuade Prince Harry not to quit royal life or leave the UK shortly before the Sussexes moved to North America. In the former prime ministers new book, Unleashed, which will be released on 10 October, Mr Johnson claimed he was asked to give the Duke of Sussex a manly pep talk to convince him it would be a mistake to leave Britain. He said that officials in Downing Street and Buckingham Palace approached him in January 2020, just weeks after he entered office, believing that he might be able to dissuade Prince Harry of his decision. Mr Johnson has previously said the memoir will be his personal account of the huge realignment that took place in UK politics in the last 15 years, taking in his leadership of the Brexit campaign that severed Britains ties with the EU, as well as his management of the Covid pandemic and the subsequent scandals that rocked his government until his downfall as PM in September 2022. According to the Daily Mail, which is serialising the book, Mr Johnson wrote that there was a ridiculous business ... when they made me try to persuade Harry to stay. Kind of manly pep talk. Totally hopeless. The meeting, which took place on the margins of a UK-Africa investment summit in London Docklands, came just hours after Prince Harry announced with great sadness that he and Meghan felt they had no other option but to step away from royal life. During the subsequent meeting, the two men met for 20 minutes without aides as Mr Johnson tried to persuade the prince to reconsider. The following day, however, the duke flew to Canada to be reunited with Meghan and their young son, Archie. The family later moved to Montecito, California, where they remain today, having given up their lives as working royals. A friend said Mr Johnson thought [Harry and Meghan] were a great asset to the UK, adding that the former PM believed it was a real shame they were leaving when they were doing such great work. Mr Johnson isnt the only ousted premier to try to set the record straight on their tenure in No 10 recently his successor, Liz Truss, released Ten Years to Save the West earlier this year. In it, she gave her account of her disastrous 49 days in power, blaming the fallout from her mini-Budget on the deep state. 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 }} Water supplies may be shipped from Norway to the UK under plans for a last-resort measure in case of extreme droughts. Southern Water, one of the countrys largest water companies, is considering a measure which could see up to 45 million litres of water shipped to the UK in tankers per day. The company said it would be a last-resort contingency measure only used in case of an extreme drought emergency in the early 2030s. It is not a preferred solution and would only be implemented in the case of a rare drought, which would be considerably worse than the severe drought of 1976, it added. A heathland in 2023, after the extreme heat and drought of 2022 ( National Trust Images/PA ) Tim McMahon, Southern Waters managing director for water, said: We put less water into supply now than we did 30 years ago and measures like reducing leakage have enabled us to keep pace so far with population growth and climate change. As we work to take less water from our chalk streams and build new reservoirs like Havant Thicket in Hampshire, we need a range of options to help protect the environment while this infrastructure comes online. Importing water would be a last resort contingency measure that would only be used for a short period in the event of an extreme drought emergency in the early 2030s - something considerably worse than the drought of 1976. We have a range of other reserve options to call on first, such as temporary desalination plants and water-saving agreements with businesses, to keep Hampshires taps running, so the likelihood of needing to import water is very remote. Were committed to continuing to work with our regulators on developing the right solutions to meet the challenge of water scarcity while protecting the environment. The River Ver is one of Englands rare chalk streams ( Getty Images ) Southern Water confirmed to The Independent that it is in early-stage talks with the Extreme Drought Resilience Service, part of a private UK company called Water Level Limited. The Independent has also contacted Water Level Limited for comment on the talks. The emergency plan was first reported in the Financial Times, which said the water would come from fjords in Norway. It comes in part as a response to growing environmental concerns regarding droughts in the UK, particularly following summer 2022. The UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology said in March that the country is being increasingly tested by droughts, which pose challenges for water companies. Southern Water said importing supplies would be a last-resort contingency ( PA Media ) The 2022 drought posed significant challenges to water management and communication with the public given the speed of onset of drought conditions and impacts, the centre said. Southern Water, which covers Hampshire, Kent, East and West Sussex, and the Isle of Wight, would use customers bills to pay for the measure. Currently, its water supplies are taken from groundwater and chalk streams. The Environment Agency warned Southern Water in March to stop tapping into globally rare chalk streams during dry spells. Southern Water signed an agreement with the EA in 2028 pledging the company would find an alternative water source by 2027. Southern Water has come under heavy criticism recently after it was found to be one of four companies - including Anglian Water, Thames Water and Yorkshire Water - responsible for more than 90 per cent of serious pollution incidents in 2023. The company has a two-star overall rating by the agency out of four. 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 }} Its destruction triggered outcry and sadness across the nation but now, 12 months on from the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree, saplings of it are to be planted across the UK. Custodians of the much-photographed and visited sycamore say they hope the venture, which comes exactly a year after the tree was chopped down, will create a new chapter of hope in its legacy. The Trees of Hope project will see a total of 49 saplings, each representing a foot of the height of the tree, gifted to communities across the country for planting in publicly accessible spaces. Groups are being invited to apply for the saplings by the National Trust and Northumberland national park. It begins a new era for the Sycamore Gap tree, which was a longstanding feature above Hadrians Wall before it was illegally felled on the night of 27 September last year. Its a year since the Sycamore Gap tree was illegally chopped down ( PA ) The Sycamore Gap tree was planted as a landscape feature in a dell along Hadrians Wall 150 years ago ( PA ) Early reports at the time suggested it had been brought down by a storm, but it quickly emerged that the iconic tree had been chopped down. Two men charged with criminal damage over the felling of the tree will face trial in December. They have denied the charges. Seeds were collected from the stricken tree to create saplings, which will be given out across the UK ( James Dobson/National Trust Images/PA ) Andrew Poad, general manager for the National Trusts Hadrians Wall properties, said: The last 12 months have been a real rollercoaster of emotions, from the hopelessness and grief we felt when we discovered that the tree had been illegally felled, to experiencing the stories shared with us about just what the tree meant to so many. Mr Poad said saplings had been created from some of the seeds collected from the stricken tree. They were looked after at the Trusts Plant Conservation Centre in Devon, where a team has successfully propagated more than 100 seedlings. He said: In announcing our Trees of Hope initiative today, we aim to find new homes in community settings across the UK so people can have the opportunity to engage with the Sycamore Gap tree and its legacy, so that more people everywhere can feel that they are part of this story that they are a part of this trees wonderful legacy, helping to create a new chapter in the life of this legendary tree. The stump of the Sycamore Gap tree today ( PA ) Already selected to receive saplings as part of the initiative are Henshaw Church of England Primary School, which is the school closest to Sycamore Gap, and all 15 national parks in the UK. An exhibition Sycamore Gap: One Year On is also being officially opened at The Sill: National Landscape Discovery Centre in Hexham on Friday, when 240 children from 13 local schools will take part in a celebration of the trees life ahead of the public being allowed in on Saturday. The Sycamore Gap tree is thought to have been planted by Newcastle philanthropist and lawyer John Clayton in the second half of the 19th century. Over the years, its popularity has seen countless marriage proposals, birthday celebrations and scatterings of ashes take place beneath its canopy, and it even appeared in the Hollywood film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Sir Keir Starmer met with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Thursday after the former president described him as very nice. The prime minister visited Trump Tower in New York ahead of Novembers US election as he visited the United States for the United Nations General Assembly. Foreign secretary David Lammy, who called Mr Trump a racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser seven years ago, also attended the talks. Ahead of the meeting, Sir Keir said: Itll be really good to establish a relationship between the two of us. Im a great believer in personal relations on the international stage. I think it really matters that you know who your counterpart is in any given country, and know them personally, get to know them face to face. Sir Keir Starmer met with former president Donald Trump during his visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly ( 2024 Getty Images ) Mr Trump praised Sir Keir ahead of the meeting, saying: I actually think hes very nice. He ran a great race, he did very well, it is very early, he is very popular. Asked whether he would be prepared to stand up to Mr Trump on issues such as support for Ukraine, Sir Keir said: The first thing I think is important to say in relation to this is weve obviously had a special relationship with the US for a long time, forged in really difficult circumstances. That always sits above whoever holds the particular office, either in the US or the UK. And it is really important. I think its probably as strong now as its ever been, in relation to the Middle East and Ukraine. And youve seen how closely Ive been working with the US in relation to both of those issues. The US people will decide who they want as their president, and we will work with whoever is president, as you would expect. Im not going to speculate on what any particular issues may be the other side of the election. Before he met with Sir Keir, Trump was asked about Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform. He said: I think Nigel is great, Ive known him for a long time. He had a great election too, picked up a lot of seats, more seats than he was allowed to have actually. They acknowledged that he won but for some reason you have a strange system over there, you might win them but you dont get them. Nigel is a fantastic person. 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 }} In Liverpool this week Sir Keir Starmer had his first opportunity to address a Labour conference as prime minister, giving the leader a chance to take stock of his governments performance since sweeping to power in July. The prime minister set out his vision for the future of Britain under Labour, and his determination to rebuild the nation, while facing down criticism for means-testing winter fuel payments. He has faced criticism for accepting freebies including clothes and glasses though our chief political commentator John Rentoul says those jeering him are playing into the hands of the right-wing media and those trying to dissuade a new breed of politician from Westminster. When we asked for your early assessments of Keir Starmers tenure as prime minister, the comments revealed hope for the future with calls to address areas such as wealth inequality, repair public services and create closer links with the EU. Heres what you had to say: Progress in the right direction In the hurricane of dissent from the right-wing media, which one might expect, Labour are making progress in the right direction generally. But, they must read the zeitgeist better and show some signs of addressing the catastrophic wealth inequality in Britain. Tax the rich and feed the poor and we are all better off. silverbus Inherited mess The freebies coverage hasnt changed my opinion of Labour. I feel that the stories did far more and if Labour are staying within the rules, I cant help thinking its just the Tory press making a smear out of nothing. I do think the doom and gloom was a bit heavy-footed but I also can see that theyve been making enormous changes against the massive odds of the mess they inherited. The swift action against the rioters was decisive. Theyre bringing the arts back into the curriculum. I really think theyre going to turn the country around. Val Give them 14 years Recent events have not impacted my opinion of Starmer and his government whatsoever. The election was on the 4th July which is not even three months ago and the task facing the government is huge. The impact of their policies will be seen over a period of years not weeks. People tend to have very short memories with the chaos of the Tories fading into the past, but their legacy will not be cleared up with a newspaper headline, a party conference or even the first budget. We complain about the short-termism of politicians acting to gain or keep votes every few years, and yet it seems were happy to dismiss this government after a matter of weeks. Give them 14 years and see how things are then! ColwynDay Higher bar for means-tested fuel allowance Im a fortunate, well-off woman in a relationship with another well-off retired professional. Both have good occupational pensions, live in a well-insulated home with an air source heat pump, in a prosperous rural Yorkshire village where 95 per cent plus own their own homes and are similarly placed. I certainly dont need or want a winter fuel allowance. That said, I think a means-tested solution should have a far higher bar. People dependent solely on the lowest state pension in Europe, are more likely to live in cold, drafty rented accommodation. Inequality in UK is a killer and this policy as it stands will impact on the poorest, least healthy section of the population. CalamityJane Dealing with the impossible Good start dealing with the impossible. Miracles take a bit longer. It takes a long time to clean up an inherited mess. They have done well so far. gustifer Rush to judgment Theres a lot of rush to judgment going on around here. Tories = 14 years of doing nothing except buffoonery (Johnson, Rees-Mogg) idiocy (Truss, Dorries) unenlightened self interest and making things worse (plenty of data to support that if you can be bothered to look) Labour = less than three months which in political terms is no time to make any noticeable difference. I suspect the negativity below is mostly Tory Tribalism and Reform Contraryism, even from some who claim to have voted for Labour. All that said, I dont agree with removing the winter fuel allowance from most pensioners which I think was a very clumsy act politically and very harsh on those pensioners who clearly need it. As it goes Im a pensioner who doesnt need it (more by luck than judgement and a fairly generous final salary pension) so Ive no problem they took it from me. Just to be clear Im a floating voter who voted Labour this time because all the data was very unflattering to the Tories and too many of them struck me as being unserious, out of touch and borderline venal. As for Reform far too right-wing for my tastes and Farage is the worst kind of plausible sophist entirely lacking substance and full of special pleading his case. I wont score Labour until the end of this term of government. Then Ill score them at the ballot box, purely based on the data. WokeUp Get on with the job The main thing they need to do is shut up about the Conservatives and get on with the job. They need to be more positive and back this up with policies that encourage growth and investment. Changes that help families and young people should also be at the top of the list. theculture It will take more than a few weeks Obviously, I am extremely unhappy about the winter fuel allowance debacle, because I know several elderly pensioners who are just over the pension credit limit and will suffer. Continuing the move from working tax credit to universal credit has already hit me because I can no longer claim my 24 a week. Not much to some, but it went a long way towards my food. As for the rest, well, I shall give my thoughts when they have been in longer. It will take more than a few weeks to sort the mess that the Tories left behind. MsRuthless The direction of travel is good They have been politically inept, in my view. Means-testing winter fuel should have targeted only the well-off. If the right-wing media can point to a dead pensioner that they can blame on Labour, we wont hear the last of it. But the direction of travel is good; repair the public services and trade relations with Europe, take those privatised utilities in hand. Theyre fortunate theres plenty of time to improve. Longmemory23 Little creativity I was optimistic when Labour won the election, it was a move away from the far left of the party and Starmer seemed highly qualified for the role. I wasnt thrilled about the policies and the manifesto was vague, but the message of change was their main campaigning point and change is exactly what the country needs. However, after a few months, despite what the government says, it seems like change is not really on the agenda. It is more of the same and unfortunately, Im not surprised. There seems to be very little creativity in the few solutions offered and the vagary is ongoing. Overall the approach is quite wishy-washy which rather suits Starmers disposition. Regardless, I am withholding strong judgment until next election cycle when we will see if their policies have actually made a difference. I wont be holding my breath. JimboJones Political naivety It seems to me that it was gross political naivety for the Labour government to make the first public service cut to pensioners income. While Ive always felt a bit guilty as a pensioner taking the winter fuel allowance I am reasonably comfortably off with a work pension as well as the state pension I do feel for those who only get the state pension, I dont think I could live off it. As for the freebies scandal, I dont know how the Tory press has the nerve to condemn Starmer after all the money the Tories have leached out of public funds for their cronies, never mind private donations the PPS scandal during lockdown comes to mind. Gingerbred I still have hope They are clearly more competent and well-intentioned than the last rabble, but the winter fuel debacle does feel like an unnecessary, unforced error and the freebies farrago is just a bit politically naive. Ultimately, they have misread the need for a) a more hopeful strategic story and b) the need to get out there day in and day out to shape the short-term narrative. If they can learn from those mistakes, I still have hope for the next five years. But if they dont, they wont get a second term. In particular, regarding the winter fuel payment, they should find a way to defer or remove poorer pensioners from the hit. Ned76 Time and space It s very early days, far too early to judge. Ive liked some of what Ive heard from some ministers. But I am disappointed with other elements, like the expenses same old. But Im prepared to give them time and space to clean out the Tories Augean Stables and then see where they get to, what they manage to achieve. Of course, this version of Labour will not be to everyones taste (not sure its to mine, TBH) but Jeez Louise, its way better than the alternative. Lysistrata1 Some of the comments have been edited for this article. You can read the full discussion in the comments section of the original article here. All you have to do is sign up, submit your question and register your details - then you can then take part in the discussion. You can also sign up by clicking log in on the top right-hand corner of the screen. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email 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 }} Ive been responding to your questions following a significant week for Labour, as they held their first conference in government in over a decade. Sir Keir Starmer steadied his party on Tuesday in a keynote speech, reminding of Labours mandate to reshape Britain with a simple message: "We won." The prime minister pledged to "face the storm" of unpopular decisions and declared "we're all in this together" at the partys annual conference in Liverpool. Amid criticism over winter fuel payment cuts, gifts, and tensions in Downing Street, Sir Keir sought to silence doubters with a long-term vision. He promised "homes for heroes" for veterans, unveiled a Hillsborough Law to tackle cover-ups, and his justice secretary vowed to reduce the number of women in prison. As the conference unveiled more of Labours platform and policy positions ahead of the upcoming budget, it was only natural that our readers had questions. Here are six questions from Independent readers and my answers from the Ask Me Anything event. Q: Why is everyone obsessed with the first 100 days and do you think the gap between forming a government and the first Budget has been the big problem? TimC A: I agree that the obsession with 100 days is an irritating journalistic device, but we humans like round numbers. You make a good point about the lateness of the Budget: I think it would have been better to have an early emergency Budget in July and got the pain out of the way in one go. Part of the thinking was presumably the need to give the Office for Budget Responsibility 10 weeks notice after criticising Liz Truss for ignoring the OBR, Rachel Reeves obviously wanted to play it by the book (but possibly could still have had a Budget in September?). Q: Shouldnt we give labour (I didnt vote them in) a little while to sort out the dogs breakfast that the Tories have left us with? WaitWhat A: I think most people are prepared to give Labour time to sort out the problems they have inherited. They have settled some strikes, but without securing changes in working practices. But the acceptance of gifts has struck home with a lot of people, especially with pensioners who are just above pension credit level. Q: Where are the tax reforms aimed at closing loopholes and preventing tax avoidance by wealthy high earners? What tangible benefits are being provided for low-income individuals? Additionally, where is the promised review of employment laws addressing zero-hour contracts and workplace bullying?Worker A: The tax changes will be announced in the Budget, and Keir Starmer hinted in his speech that they will fall on the better off. He said: The cost of filling that black hole in our public finances, that will be shared fairly. I am not sure why the winter fuel payment cut was announced so much earlier. As for the employment rights measures, Angela Rayner promised the bill would be published when parliament resumes in a couple of weeks time, although not all the detail will be decided until later. It seems reasonable to take some time to get it right although I think Labour should have done more work on these policies in opposition. Q: No mention of climate change which is getting exponentially worse and will consume more and more of our national resources. It is also an opportunity for industry (flood resilience, food resilience, renewable energy, EV) Where will Labour go on all this? JPCoetzee A: Keir Starmer mentioned climate change three times in his speech, but each time only as an item in a list of things that the government has to attend to. But Ed Miliband delivered a substantial speech yesterday you can find a copy on the Labour Party website. Q: Now that the Labour Party has taken away the winter fuel allowance do they still subscribe to the statements they made back when the Tories wanted to do that and Labour said 4,000 people would die? What has changed, maybe mild winters? Daleel A: I think the Labour Party would say that it is a changed party, and the 4,000 figure was produced when Jeremy Corbyn was leader. Q: According to Starmer We should respect the ballot box, but under our corrupt system, Starmer is wielding his majority on the 24 per cent Labour vote. The majority of British people abstained or voted against Labour. How is this fair? will121 A: I am not in favour of compulsory voting. If people dont want to vote, thats up to them. Their abstention cannot then be used to make an argument about the democratic legitimacy about the process that took place without them. But Im not in favour of proportional representation either. Our system is easy to understand and I think most people got the result they wanted. These questions and answers were part of an Ask Me Anything hosted by John Rentoul at 4pm BST on Tuesday 24 September. Some of the questions and answers have been edited for this article. You can read the full discussion in the comments section of the original article. John also sends a weekly Commons Confidential newsletter exclusive to Independent Premium subscribers, taking you behind the curtain of Westminster. If this sounds like something you would be interested in, head here to find out more. 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 }} Russell Findlay has been elected as the new leader of the Scottish Conservatives after winning a majority of votes in the first round. Mr Findlay secured a clear victory with 62 per cent of the vote, with Murdo Fraser coming second and Meghan Gallacher third. He called for the party to come together as one united team, as the Scottish Conservatives look to bounce back from their worst UK general election result since 2005. The Scottish Conservatives saw their vote share halved since the 2019 general election, when Jackson Carlaw ran the party. Murdo Fraser, left, came second while Meghan Gallacher, centre, came third ( PA Media ) Mr Findlay said: Let us start the hard work right now to win back public trust. I want to deliver the message to people across Scotland who do not feel that anyone represents them, who are scunnered by the divisiveness and fringe obsessions of the Scottish Parliament, who feel let down and failed by politicians of every single party, including ours, who think politicians are all the same. I feel that way I get it, but Im not the same. Mr Findlay had been the clear favourite to take the Scottish leadership after being endorsed by Ruth Davidson, the partys most successful leader in recent times. With a turnout of 60 per cent, the partys returning officer Leonard Wallace announced on Friday that Mr Findlay had won with 2,565 of the 4,155 votes cast. Mr Fraser won 1,187 votes while Ms Gallagher came third with 403. Douglas Ross resigned after a rebellion by his party ( PA Wire ) It was a bitter contest, with accusations of dirty tricks and the re-emergence of a feud between Mr Fraser and former leader Ruth Davidson - who accused the former of seeking to effectively break away from the UK party in a trojan horse plan, which he denied. Predecessor Douglas Ross announced he would stand down after the general election following a rebellion among MSPs and Conservative activists. Mr Ross had stepped in to replace David Duguid - a popular general election candidate for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East - while he recovered from a medical operation. Mr Ross was the only Scottish Tory to lose his seat, as the SNPs Seamus Logan beat him by a 942 margin after a Reform Party surge damaged the Tory vote. Despite being the second-largest party in the Scottish parliament with 31 seats, the Scottish Conservatives may drop into third at the 2026 election if opinion polls dont improve. According to an average calculated by Electoral Calculus, the Scottish Tories currently sit around 12 per cent in the polls, with Reform not far behind. Mr Findlay was formerly a journalist for The Sun, STV and the Sunday Mail before entering politics in 2021 with a failed attempt to be elected as the MSP for Paisley. In December 2015, Mr Findlay was on the receiving end of an acid attack on his doorstep while reporting for The Sun on gang crime in Glasgow. Mr Findlay held down his attacker, William Burns, long enough for the police to arrive. Burns was sentenced to a 10-year jail term. Close Sue Gray quits: Defence secretary says Labour cabinet is most unified hes ever served in Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Sir Keir Starmer has warned that a two-state solution is the only viable long-term route through the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, as he said Britains thoughts are with the Jewish people on the anniversary of the 7 October attacks. In a speech to the House of Commons, the prime minister called for an end to the living nightmare Palestinians are enduring, and vowed to use the power of diplomacy to try to minimise suffering on the ground, as he urged Israel to renew efforts for a ceasefire and called for more relief for civilians. He took aim at Iran, saying the launching of 200 ballistic missiles at Israel last week exposes, once again, Irans malign role in the region. His speech comes as David Lammy sought to reassure MPs the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar are not up for negotiation amid backlash over his decision to hand the Chagos Islands over to Mauritius. The Foreign Secretary told the Commons: I want to reassure the House and all members of the UK family worldwide that this agreement does not signal any change in policy to Britains other overseas territories. 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 }} As the Conservatives grapple with an uncertain political landscape ahead of the next general election, key questions loom over the future of the partys direction and leadership. This years Conservative Party conference in Birmingham promises to be a radically different affair from 2023s gathering when Rishi Sunaks government clung on to power with a series of last-ditch policy announcements. Ministers at the time proposed offshoring prisoners, cutting civil servants, and controversially scrapped HS2. The focus has now shifted to the battle for the partys future. James Cleverly, Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick, and Tom Tugendhat are the candidates, engaging in hustings, speeches, and behind-the-scenes lobbying as they vie for the leadership. Meanwhile, former Tory MPs, ousted in Julys general election, will reflect on where the party went wrong and how it can recover. Should the Tories focus on winning back votes from Reform or the Liberal Democrats? How can they regain credibility on immigration, having presided over significant increases? And how can they come to terms with the legacies of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, David Cameron, George Osborne, and Rishi Sunak? The party faces tough decisions on its strategy, as well as internal debates about its identity and priorities. With these pressing issues in mind, I invite you to join me, John Rentoul, The Independents chief political commentator, for a live Q&A. I will be answering your questions on the Conservative Partys future, the challenges it faces, and the key figures shaping its direction. If you have a question on the Conservative Party conference, submit it now here, or when I join you live at 4pm on Monday 30 September for the Ask Me Anything event. Register to submit your question in the comments box under this article. If youre not already a member, click sign up in the comments section to leave your question. For a full guide on how to comment click here. Dont worry if you cant see your question they may be hidden until I join the conversation to answer them. Then join us live on this page at 4pm as I tackle as many questions as I can. 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 }} Alabama has executed Alan Eugene Miller, marking the second time the state has put a death row inmate to death using nitrogen gas. Miller died at 6.38 pm on Thursday and was earlier visited by three attorneys, his brother-in-law, two sisters, brother, spiritual advisor and a friend. His last meal was hamburger steak, a baked potato and French fries. Before prison officials administered the flow of nitrogen, Miller said: I didnt do anything to be in here...I didnt do anything to be on death row, according to an AL.com reporter who witnessed the inmates final moments. Miller reportedly moved his fingers on the gurney as the gas began to flow. He took deep breaths and lifted his head several times. He proceeded to struggle against the restraints, shaking for about two minutes followed by six minutes of gasping on and off. Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Q Hamm stated that Millers execution went according to procedure. Theres going to be involuntary body movements as the body is depleted of oxygen so that was nothing we did not expect, he said during a news conference. It was the fifth execution since Friday. Freddie Khalil Owens, Marcellus Williams and Travis James Mullis had all been put to death in the days before Millers execution. Emmanuel Littlejohn died Thursday morning. Miller, 59, had been convicted of the 1999 murders of Terry Lee Jarvis, 39, Lee Holdbrooks, 32, and Christopher Yancy, 28. The inmate killed the men on August 2 that year over suspicions they had discussed his sexuality, per USA Today. Prosecutors said Miller killed Holdbrooks and Yancy at their place of employment and then drove to a second business to shoot Jarvis. The murders happened where Miller had worked or previously worked, and the victims were found with several bullet wounds. The execution at the William C Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore came days after a report from The Intercept claiming some of the states executioners have been accused of violence and misconduct. The Alabama Department of Corrections did not respond to the outlets request for comment. Miller had raised his own concerns over how the state planned to put him to death. In January, Kenneth Eugene Smith, another Alabama inmate, became the first person in the world to be executed via nitrogen gas. Witnesses said they saw Smith writhing and thrashing for about two to four minutes followed by five minutes of heavy breathing. Alan Eugene Miller has become the second man in the world to be put to death using nitrogen gas ( Alabama Department of Corrections ) Smiths spiritual advisor, Reverend Jeff Hood, called it torture. Nitrogen hypoxia forces inmates to breathe nitrogen through a mask that displaces the oxygen in their system. The method rose in popularity among death penalty states because the drugs for lethal injections became difficult to find. State officials said Smiths execution faced complications because the inmate held his breath at the beginning, which delayed the flow of nitrogen gas into his system. They had expected him to be dead of asphyxiation within minutes after gas began to flow. Alabama decided to execute Miller with nitrogen hypoxia following a failed lethal injection attempt in 2022 in which executioners could not establish an IV line. Miller alleged he was poked for 90 minutes while officials tried to execute him. Additionally, the inmate said he had previously designated nitrogen hypoxia as his method of choice on a government form but the state said it had no record of that decision being made. As a result, the state planned to move forward with nitrogen hypoxia in the event of a second attempt for Miller. But after Smiths execution, Miller told state officials he thought executioners were too incompetent to put him to death. I dont think yall know what youre doing, Miller said as part of a lawsuit he filed in July attempting to bar the state from using the method on him. Anti-death penalty signs placed by activists along the road heading to Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama before Kenneth Eugene Smiths execution ( Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ) His attorneys argued the states execution captain has no medical or scientific training, and had received no training for fitting gas masks. Miller expressed uncertainty about whether the mask would fit him because he has a big old head, he said. The inmate entered into a confidential agreement with the state regarding his execution the following month, announcing he would no longer seek legal attempts to stop his death. Following Millers death, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said: In Alabama, we will not deny justice to the victims of heinous murders. Tonight, despite misinformation campaigns by political activists, out-of-state lawyers, and biased media, the State proved once again that nitrogen hypoxia is both humane and effective. Millers execution went as expected and without incident. Alabamas decision to go ahead with the execution faced scrutiny because a forensic psychiatrist testified at trial that Miller was mentally ill at the time of the offenses, and prosecutors were unable to obtain a unanimous jury vote for death. There are currently 160 inmates on death row in Alabama. Inmates are given the choice of three execution methods: nitrogen hypoxia, electrocution or lethal injection. After Smiths execution, the attorney generals office said 30 inmates had already chosen nitrogen hypoxia as their method. Prisoners now seeking to change their method would need to do so through the courts. Alabama first approved nitrogen hypoxia for executions in 2018. Since then, Mississippi and Oklahoma have followed suit. After Smiths execution, a handful of state legislators expressed enthusiasm for adopting the method. 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 pastor who oversaw the destruction of alleged child sex abuse material found on a church computer then waited six years to tell police has been reassigned, two months after announcing his resignation from a southwestern Ohio church. In 2012, after he arrived at Holy Rosary Church in the rural community of St. Marys, Father Barry Stechschulte sought to destroy a hard drive which contained gay pornography and child sex abuse images, according to a police report obtained by The Independent. The device had been used by the churchs previous pastor, Tony Cutcher, per the report. A deacon discovered the images while attempting to refurbish the computer and reported them to Stechschulte. Stechschulte said he was so taken aback by the images he didnt look at them carefully. Theyre described in the report as male homosexual pornography and pictures of children in provocative poses. Stechschulte told the deacon he wanted the stuff erased, according to police, though the father said he could not remember if he told the deacon to physically destroy any computer parts. The deacon then removed the hard drive and burnt it with a blow torch, he told police. I instructed that the hard drive be destroyed, Stechschulte wrote in a July letter to parishioners obtained by the Cincinnati Enquirer. I realize that not reporting it was a terrible mistake, which I regret. It would be a full six years before police in the area were alerted to the images, local news station WCPO found. Cutcher told police he didnt download any child sex abuse images to the computer intentionally, saying such an act was not something he would purposely do ever and someone must have added any images of children, according to the police report. Police werent able to determine if any illegal material was in fact on the computer, but community members still felt betrayed. Cutcher, who was pastor at Holy Rosary before Stechschulte arrived, was investigated by Montgomery County prosecutors in 2021 for sending hundreds of texts to a teen parishioner. Cutcher hasnt been charged with any crime and has since resigned from the church. In July, Stechschulte announced his resignation from St. Susanna, a larger church he moved to after Holy Rosary. Since then hes been reassigned to a cluster of rural churches outside the Dayton area, effective October 14, according to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati website. The Independent has contacted the Archdiocese for comment. Community members said they were upset the priest has remained within the church. "When the archbishop knowingly places a cleric that violated the child protection decree at a parish; it appears as though he proclaims to offenders, enablers and parents that child protection is largely a performative endeavor," Teresa Dinwiddie-Herrmann, co-founder of local advocacy group Ohioans for Child Protection, told WCPO. "How long will Catholic parents allow this cycle of enabling, abuse and cover up to continue?" 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 }} Bryan Kohberger was handcuffed and dressed in a suit as he made his first court appearance since the infamous Idaho murders case was moved to a new county across the state. The 29-year-old suspect in the killings of four University of Idaho students appeared in Ada County court on Thursday afternoon, where the newly-assigned judge cast fresh doubts on the current timeline for the trial. The trial was originally set to take place in Moscow, Idaho, in summer 2025 but was moved 300 miles away to Boise after Kohbergers defense team successfully argued that keeping it in Latah County, where the students were killed, would impede legal proceedings due to a mob mentality among the prospective jury pool. During the hearing, Ada County Judge Steven Hippler raised concerns about the timeline of the trial which is expected to last between three and four months saying it would be challenging for jurors because it would span the entire summer vacation. He suggested either starting the trial either in May, or pushing it back to September. Prosecutors said they preferred May, while the defense pushed for September. The judge called for both sides to present their arguments in a closed hearing after which he will make a ruling. In the hearing, Kohberger was also granted his request to wear a suit and tie instead of a prison jumpsuit, after his attorneys argued his right to a fair trial would be protected if he were to be allowed to wear street clothes. Bryan Kohberger wearing a suit and tie in Thursdays hearing ( Law&Crime/YouTube ) Authorizing Mr Kohberger to wear street clothing to all public hearings is one way to reduce potential for prejudice, his attorney Anne Taylor wrote in court filings. Taylor cited a Supreme Court decision from 1976 stating that forcing a defendant to wear a jail uniform to court could negatively impact whether a jury saw them as guilty of alleged crimes. The family of one of victim Kaylee Goncalves have hit out at the request, calling for him to be required to wear prison garb. While Hippler allowed Kohberger to wear his own clothes at Thursdays hearing, he said he will decide his attire for future hearings after consulting with security officials. Though he was in a suit this time, the hearing did mark the first time the former criminology student wore handcuffs in court. The 29-year-old is accused of stabbing to death Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin in an off-campus student home in Moscow on November 13 2022. Bryan Kohberger seen in latest mugshot after he was booked into Ada County Jail earlier in September ( Ada County Sheriffs Office ) Mogen and Kernodle were living in the house at the time, while Goncalves had just recently moved out but had returned for the weekend. Chapin was Kernodles boyfriend, and was staying in the home on the night of the attacks. Two other female roommates were also in the house at the time but were unharmed. Kohberger was arrested around six weeks later and charged with the murders. When asked to enter a plea in court in 2023, Kohberger stood silent, prompting a judge to enter a not guilty plea on his behalf. Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty if Kohberger is convicted. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A Maryland mother-of-four was gunned down while nursing one of her twin babies in what police are calling a murder-suicide linked to domestic violence. Taquia Kiki Nails, 32, was at her home on 62nd Avenue in Fairmount Heights near the Maryland/Washington, DC, border when her estranged boyfriend, 26-year-old Quindell Mercer, shot her around 11 p.m. Tuesday, according to Prince Georges County police. Mercer, the father of the twins, later turned the gun on himself. Nails mother, Lillie Nails, told FOX 5 News that the shooting stemmed from an argument between the couple. Taquia Kiki Nails, 32, who was a mother of four children, including twin babies, was shot and killed by her estranged boyfriend, 26-year-old Quindell Mercer, police say ( FOX 5 DC ) They got into it, and he asked her to say another word, the grieving mother said. She said another word, and he shot her twice in the head. When I got there, the baby was full of blood. Nails 16-year-old niece, who was in the home at the time of the shooting, described what she saw. She told him to get out of her house multiple times. He came out of the bathroom and shot her three times while she was holding the baby, the niece said. I tried to pepper spray him, but he pointed a gun at me. It jammed, and I got out of the house. As I closed the door, he ran out and started shooting at me. The family revealed to FOX 5 that there was a history of domestic violence with the couple. They said Nails wanted Mercer to be involved in the twins lives, but that she did not want to stay in a romantic relationship with him which caused him to become upset, they said. He was upset because she said she didnt want to be in a relationship. And Im going to make sure that people know that because she deserves for people to know the truth, Qiana Barnes, Taquias best friend, explained. Nails family says she was a loving and devoted mother to her four young children ( Precious Memories Funeral home ) Last spring, Nails sought a protective order against Mercer after he allegedly choked her, ABC7 reported. However, she decided not to go forward in court and the order expired. There was a history of this, Kim Jackson, Taquias aunt, said. She had a restraining order. She did everything she was supposed to do in this situation. Id like to see stronger legislation that tracks these people and makes sure they get some rehabilitative assistance. Nails family is now grieving her loss and say she was a loving and devoted mother to her four young children. They told FOX 5: Were falling apart. Everybody cant believe it. Its Kiki. A fundraiser was created to help pay for Nails funeral and to help support her four children. Her sister London Nails said she never thought this would happen. She gave me all the advice. Shes the reason why I wanted to become a mom, London said. Whos going to tell me anything? Shes not even here to tell me now... Its like, whos going to tell me how to be a mom? 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 Las Vegas teenager was arrested at his high school nearly a year after he allegedly shot and killed a marijuana dealer. Lequan Harrison faces multiple charges, including open murder, which is a combination of first- and second-degree murder, and discharging a gun in connection to the killing of 19-year-old Angel Solis, who was gunned down on October 23, 2023, according to KLAS. Las Vegas police say Solis was sitting in a parked car in a lot on Boulder Highway for a pre-planned drug deal when he was shot. A handgun and two bags of marijuana were found inside the car. A witness told police that Solis had called the marijuana buyer through Instagram and the person instructed him to drive to a specific part of the parking lot, according to KLAS. The two men met Solis who sold them a bag of marijuana. The men left but returned a few minutes later and fired several shots into the car, the witness said. Police searched Harrisons apartment, which was not far from the crime scene, and found a gun box and a cleaning kit. They also searched his phone and found searches for boulder highway shooting the day after the murder, according to court documents obtained by KLAS. Harrison was arrested during the search but denied any involvement. He later changed his story and said there was another person, and that he ran when he heard the gunshots. The teen gave them information that was never made public. Messages were located in Harrisons phone asking if everyone was good and talking about getting rid of a gun the morning after the shooting, police said. Police obtained surveillance video and data from several Instagram accounts, including one in which Harrison reportedly sent messages about doing a robbery. Harrison was in class at night school at a Southeast Valley high school on September 19 when the FBI and police arrested him. The teen is being held on no bond. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for October 7. 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 roadside assistance worker who was helping a driver fix a flat tire was tragically struck and killed when another driver ran off the road, according to authorities. Eric Anthony Jr., a 23-year-old motorist assistance patrol operator for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD), had stopped on the I-610, near Canal Boulevard in New Orleans, on Tuesday, to help the driver of a disabled vehicle, Louisiana State Police said. He was grabbing equipment from the rear of his Dodge SSV emergency vehicle to fix the tire on the stationary Chevrolet SUV when a Nissan Rogue SUV swerved off the road onto the shoulder, police said. The vehicle struck Anthony, then the rear of the Dodge, before spinning and hitting the stationary Chevrolet, police said. Anthony was hospitalized with serious injuries before being pronounced dead. He leaves behind a six-year-old son. The driver of the Nissan identified by police as Oscar Perez-Moran, 26 was not wearing a seatbelt and was taken to a local hospital for treatment and underwent toxicology tests, WNDU reported. Police said he will be booked on charges of negligent homicide and other traffic-related charges on his release from hospital. Eric Anthony Jr., (pictured), 23, leaves behind a six-year-old son ( Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development ) It is not clear what caused the driver to swerve and hit Anthony. Police said Anthonys vehicle had been parked on the right shoulder behind the disabled SUV and was highly visible with emergency lights activated, an illuminated signboard on the top of the vehicle, and traffic cones placed on the shoulder behind it. The owner of the Chevrolet was unharmed. Richard Ardis, the operations manager for the Department of Transportation and Development Motorists Assistance Patrol, told WAFB that Anthony had only started the job in July. We had a tragedy and its felt by everyone. Hes one of our own he said. He leaves a mother, a father, a 6-year-old son and a grieving family. I would ask that everybody keep them in their thoughts and their prayers. Department of Transportation and Development Secretary Joe Donahue said: This job is inherently dangerous, and the brave people doing these jobs risk their lives every day in order to make motorists safer. We would like to remind everybody to pay attention, dont drive distracted, and abide by the move-over law when possible reported WAFB. 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 Michigan man is behind bars after being arrested for the murder of a missing school janitor whose dismembered body parts were found near a boat ramp in Bay City. Robert Dale Tweedly Jr., 40, is charged with one count of open murder and one count of moving and mutilation of a corpse in connection to the death of 41-year-old Justie Stilwell. Stilwell was reported missing by his family on September 18 after he failed to show up to work at Handy Middle School in Bay City. The same day, police responded to the Edward Golson Boat Launch after a teenager spotted a severed foot in the Saginaw River. Police later found Stilwells arms and the lower parts of his legs in the water. The body parts were identified as belonging to Stilwell through fingerprint identification. Justie Stilwell, a janitor who went missing on September 18, was found murdered. Police have now arrested a suspect in the case ( Skorupski Family Funeral Home & Cremation Services ) Its unclear if the two men knew each other. A motive for the killing is not known at this time. Stilwells disappearance and death have been unsettling in Bay City, located about 112 miles northwest of Detroit, where he worked at Handy Middle School. Justie was a valued member of our Handy family, and we know that this loss will be felt deeply by many, the Bay City school district said in a statement. Renee Griebe said Stilwell was a regular customer at her hair salon. He was more quiet, more not social, kind of had to draw things out to get him to talk to me during haircut services and stuff like that, Griebe told WNEM-TV. He was just always kind. I cant imagine something like this happening to him. On Friday, Tweedly appeared remotely from the Bay County Jail before District Judge Mark Janer and pleaded not guilty to both charges. He is being held at the jail on a $1 million bond. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A 63-year-old mother and beloved healthcare worker was found dead after she set off on her regular hike along a trail in Texas and now a 38-year-old man is facing charges in connection to the case. Stacey Dramiga went hiking along the Salado Greenway Trail near Dafoste Park, in San Antonio, at around 10am on Sunday morning, according to Bexar County Sheriffs Office. Her husband reported her missing later that day when she failed to return. In a press briefing on Monday, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said that Dramigas body had been found about 30 yards into a wooded area off the trail. An autopsy found that she died from blunt force trauma to the head, the Bexar County Medical Examiners Office told People. Dramigas death is now being investigated as murder with the sheriff saying we dont believe that she went off that trail voluntarily. We believe that she was either forced or taken off of that trail to the point where we found the body, he said. Stacey Dramiga (pictured) was found dead after going for a hike ( Bexar County Sheriff's Office ) Marco Flores, 38, was arrested and charged with evading arrest and detention in connection to the case. The sheriffs office told People that Flores was around the scene at the time that Dramigas body was found and spoke to investigators. While Flores was speaking with the Deputy, Flores provided some details regarding the victims condition that were not released to the public, the office said. When Flores was told he would be taken in for questioning, he allegedly fled. He was detained and taken to the Bexar County Sheriffs Office Headquarters for questioning. He has since been booked into Bexar County Jail, said KSAT. The sheriff had said on Monday that investigators wanted to speak to a woman seen chatting to the victim on the morning she disappeared. That woman is not believed to be a suspect in the case, he said. Dramigas family members are also not suspected of any involvement in her death. Dramigas husband told Bexar County Sheriffs Office that his wife who worked as the director of the Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation Clinic at the Brooke Army Medical Center would regularly frequent the trails and felt comfortable doing so alone. But Keith Dibrell who lives near the trail told KSAT you couldnt even pay me to go down there. Marco Flores (pictured in mugshot) is being held at Bexar County Jail ( Bexar County Sheriff's Office ) If youre walking through there and youre not from this area and folks know that, youll get jacked, he added. Salazar said on Monday that deputies from the Bexar County Sheriffs Office and San Antonio Park Police would be patrolling the trail routes on horseback and bicycles but insisted that the trails are safe. The Greenway Trails are absolutely safe, right? But you have to no matter where you are, whether you are in a park, a rural area, or in the middle of the city, youve got to be aware of your surroundings at all times, he said. Youve got to make sure that youre notifying somebody of where youre going to be, if youre going to the mall by yourself, shopping, you know, its a good idea to let somebody know, drop a pin on your cellphone. Let them know the general area you will be. Just on the off chance something does happen to you. We want you to be aware of your surroundings at all times. Police urged members of the public to come forward with any information about the case. Driven to happiness When Joe Gransden was a student at Williamsville North High School in the late 1980s, he enjoyed nothing more than driving around town with his best pal, Tony Scire, in Gransdens black 1979 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am. A few years later, Gransden sold the car for money he used to pay for college. He since has become a successful trumpet player and jazz band leader in Atlanta. At age 53, he lives there and travels all over America with his band. Earlier this year, Gransden realized how much he missed his favorite car. The musician hired a private investigator and began a huge effort to find the vehicle, contacting car clubs and sending out dozens of emails. His investigator located the car in Arab, a small city in northern Alabama. Gransden said it had been sitting under a tree for 15 years, unused and providing a home for snakes and mice. I bought it back from the last owner, brought it here to Atlanta and we totally refurbished it, Gransden told The Buffalo News. I drive it around town and it almost makes me feel like Im a teenager again at Williamsville North. He just wishes his buddy, Scire, who died in 2005, was still around to ride shotgun. Dan Herbeck UPS could use GPS Sometimes, there are more important matters for city officials than whether to approve a building or parking lot. Such as, knowing where the entrance is and who it belongs to. When Atlanta-based UPS came to the Buffalo Planning Board this week to request approval to replace its entire 550-space asphalt parking lot at its Parcel Distribution Hub, company representatives thought they just had to explain the $5 million project, itself. But aside from causing confusion for board members who wondered why the project at 935 Bailey Ave. came before them in the first place it sparked a more important question. Why does the sign face only one way? For those of us who use UPS, if youre coming south on Bailey, you cant see that massive sign. You go right by it, said Planning Board Vice Chair Cynthia Schwartz, noting that the huge UPS sign faces north. So theres no way to identify that youre at the UPS entrance. She acknowledged it had nothing to do with the project at hand, which the board approved. But, she added, you might want to consider making a change while youre at it. Jonathan D. Epstein A man who wants no introduction Pat Casilio might have felt like Rodney Dangerfield last week. He wasnt getting any respect. The longtime real estate developer and current Clarence town supervisor was participating on a panel discussion about town-center developments for the Western New York chapter of the New York State Commercial Association of Realtors. Alongside him were Amherst Town Supervisor Brian Kulpa and Uniland Development Co. Vice President Carl Montante Jr., as they discussed the future of the Boulevard and Eastern Hills malls. But first came the introductions around the entire room a longstanding tradition of the trade group. There was Carolyn Casilio Vinci, a project manager and real estate agent for her fathers company, and former president of the local chapter. Then there was Phil Casilio, an executive partner with the company, and Pats brother. And then came the supervisor, who joked that he had been thrown out of the company. A few minutes later, Hamburg Industrial Development Agency CEO Sean Doyle, who moderated the panel, formally introduced Casilio as one of the panelists: Pat Casilio has been leading the Town of Clarence since 2016, after being terminated from Casilio Development Companies. Jonathan D. Epstein 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 }} Residents downstream of two North Carolina dams were evacuated after reports of a catastrophic failure due to flooding from Hurricane Helene. Officials in Cocke County, Tennessee said on Friday afternoon that the Waterville Dam, just over the state line in North Carolina, had failed and ordered everyone in downtown Newport to get out. State officials and the National Weather Service (NWS) later said this was a false alarm, citing the energy company that operates the dam, but the evacuation orders remained in force. Elsewhere, officials in Rutherford County, North Carolina told residents downstream of the Lake Lure Dam to flee to higher ground due to floodwater overflowing the top of the 124-ft-high barrier and pouring uncontrolled around the edges. Water is cresting the dam and flowing around the side walls. Structural supports have been compromised, but the dam wall is currently holding, said the county emergency management department. The Lake Lure Dam in calmer times, near Asheville in North Carolina. Residents were told to evacuate after the dam was compromised by heavy rain from Tropical Storm Helene on Friday ( Town of Lake Lure ) Evacuations have occurred from the dam to Island Creek Road. Evacuation sirens are sounding downstream of the dam. At least 130 people were dead across multiple states on Monday evening after Hurricane Helene crashed into Florida as a 140mph, Category 4 storm late Thursday, pounding the west coast with unsurvivable conditions. While Helene was downgraded as it moved inland and the winds dropped, it continued to dump vast amounts of water across Georgia, the Carolinas and then up into Tennessee and Kentucky as it moved north heading into the weekend. The result was chaos and confusion across a wide area, with both Rutherford County in North Carolina and Cocke County in Tennessee initially claiming that the dams had burst or were about to burst. EMERGENCY UPDATE: THE WATERVILLE DAM HAS SUFFERED A CATASTROPHIC FAILURE. EVACUATION ALL OF DOWNTOWN NEWPORT IMMEDIATELY, Cocke County Mayor Rob Mathis wrote on Facebook. But the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) said: "We have been informed the dam has not failed, per Duke Energy. Evacuations are still occurring in the area." Duke Energy announced that it had opened all floodgates at the Waterville Dam and that the structure was performing as expected. However, a spokesperson declined to say whether or not the dam was damaged. A spokesperson for the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality likewise confirmed to The Independent that the Lake Lure Dam appeared to be of sound structure at around 3pm. Due to the rainfall, the dam is said to be overtopping across its entire length of the dam. The structure was intact as of the last reports we have, said spokesperson Josh Kastrinsky. Theres been some erosion noted on the left abutment of the structure, and some water is flowing around that abutment. A later update said the flow over the top of the dam had reduced from 2ft deep to 1ft or less, but that water was still flowing uncontrolled around both right and left abutments. By Monday afternoon, all roads in downtown Newport had reopened, according to Mathis. He also said he had been in contact with the White House and was assured by Joe Biden that federal resources would be available to assist in the citys recovery efforts, WBIR reports. Cocke County Sheriff C.J. Ball confirmed on Monday that two people had died due to storm-related incidents. On Facebook, wedding and portrait photographer Helen Pace, who lives on the other side of Lake Lure from the dam, posted pictures of her badly damaged house and a road carved apart by floodwaters. Flooding and a badly-damaged road near Bat Cave around Lake Lure, North Carolina on Friday following impacts from storm Helene ( Helen Pace ) We are physically OK, she said. The water has started to recede and I think we dodged the predicted winds... We are not able to get out now, we have no power, no water, and cell service seems to be restricted. Sending my love to you all. The Rutherford County evacuation orders named a total of 45 streets in two separate Facebook posts. Officials said that storm shelters had been opened at Lake Lure Town Hall and Rutherfordtown Presbyterian Church. It wasnt immediately clear on Friday how many people are affected by the evacuations, but Newport has an estimated population of about 7,000 and Lake Lure has about 1,600. The Lure Dam was built in 1927 on the Broad River, about one hours drive east of Asheville and two hours west of Charlotte. Lake Lure itself is best known nationally as a filming site for the 1987 film Dirty Dancing, which used it to stand in for upstate New Yorks Catskill Mountains. Kastrinsky said that the Lake Lure Dam is classified as high hazard due to the large number of people and roads downstream of it, but was last assessed to be in fair condition, the second highest of four available ratings. The Waterville Dam is at the confluence of the Pigeon River and Big Creek, and is also known as the Walters Dam. Both dams are located in North Carolinas Great Smoky Mountains. Editors Note: This story was updated at 18:46 Eastern Time on Friday 27 September, 2024. to reflect new statements from emergency officials about the Waterville Dam. 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 }} Hundreds of people are still presumed missing across six states following the devastating impacts from Hurricane Helene. Helene is now one of the deadliest storms in US history, with 160 deaths reported late Tuesday. The majority of fatalities were in North Carolina. The current data that we have, is that it looks like there could be as many as 600 lost lives, Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall said Monday. But, we dont have any confirmation of that. We know there are 600 who are either lost or unaccounted for. Sherwood-Randall cautioned that the numbers vary widely and theres a lot of reporting that doesnt add up about the numbers. A search and rescue dog and handler searches for victims through thick mud in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina on Tuesday. ( (AP Photo/Mike Stewart) ) She added: And so, while we may see the numbers go up as we get to more locations that have not yet been fully developed in terms of disaster, immediate emergency response operations, we may see more people who unfortunately perished. But we may also not see the numbers skyrocket as people have predicted they might. Governors in the impacted states did not provide an update to that figure on Tuesday. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and Director of Emergency Management William Ray said that theyd work with the states information and referral service to determine the number of missing. We know that there will be more fatalities, Cooper said. South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster announced that the number of confirmed deaths from the storm in his state rose to 36 on Tuesday afternoon. This has really hit our region hard, he said. White House Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall speaks Monday at the White House. She said deaths associated with Hurricane Helene and its devastating impacts could be as many as 600, but cautioned that its too soon to know. ( (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) ) A Facebook group with more than 477,000 members included posts from people looking for family members. Some also provided updates saying their loved ones had been found. Search and rescue efforts continued in western North Carolina with 92 teams working on the ground. Helicopters provided air support while rescuers trudged through deep mud with dogs. Images taken in the Wautaga County town of Boone over the weekend revealed the extent of the damage, with collapsed houses and whole areas underwater. On Tuesday, Watauga County Director of Emergency Management Will Holt said there was one team left in the area. Now were really starting to get into isolated pockets and finding where people are, he said. Scott Richardson surveys his collapsed house in Boone, North Carolina, on Saturday following impacts from Hurricane Helene. ( REUTERS/Jonathan Drake ) The Watauga County Sheriffs Office told The Watauga Democrat on Monday that there had been two deaths related to the storm. In hard-hit Buncombe County, 40 deaths were reported. Thousands of federal personnel have been deployed to respond to Helene, and President Joe Biden will travel to Raleigh, North Carolina on Wednesday. The president had waited to travel there until it was determined his presence would not to disrupt rescue efforts, according to officials. Hurricane Helene hit Floridas Big Bend region last Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane. The National Hurricane Center said Tropical Storm Kirk had strengthened into a hurricane on Thursday. The storm is expected to become a major hurricane in the coming days. 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 Fox meteorologist leaped into action during a live broadcast early Friday morning to rescue a woman trapped in her car amid the deadly Category 4 Hurricane Helene. Bob Van Dillen was reporting from North Atlanta, Georgia which has been gripped by flooding and massive gusts when the woman could be heard frantically calling out for help from her submerged white car in his live shot. Oh man its a situation. We will get back to you in a little bit. Im going to go and see if I can help this lady out a little bit more you guys. Ill be back, Van Dillen told viewers. Van Dillen, who was reporting from Peachtree Creek, described how the water had climbed to about 23 feet and was reportedly still rising. Bob Van Dillen (pictured) was captured on Fox News carrying a trapped woman from her car ( Fox News ) He reassured the trapped woman: Yeah, I gotcha. I got you loud and clear. Fox cameras then caught the moment Van Dillen who is 6 feet 1 inch tall slowly carried the trapped woman from her car and through the chest-deep water to safety. He later appeared on Fox & Friends, telling the co-hosts: I called 911, it was five minutes, 10 minutes and you could hear her screaming right? You could hear it through my live shot, real loud. Pictured: Flooded streets near Peachtree Creek in North Atlanta as Helene takes hold ( Getty Images ) Van Dillan said he simply could not wait any longer for emergency services to arrive, and decided to take action himself. She was panicking. She really wasnt making too much sense, and she was still strapped into her car seat, Van Dillen told Fox & Friends. She still had the seat buckle on, and she had her window about this much down and shes trying to talk to me through that. So Im trying to open up the door, Ainsley, and the water pressure wasnt allowing me to do it. So I said, Roll your window down. So she rolls it down and it allowed me to open the door. The battery is still alive and kicking in that car. In fact, I think the engine is still on the water itself is relatively warm. The water temperature is about 80 degrees. He said it was a miracle the water didnt short circuit the boards and prevent her from rolling her window down. That allowed the pressure to be equalized and allowed me to pry the door open, unbuckle her seatbelt, put her on me, in my side, he explained. It was good to go. More than 37 people have died as Helene continues to the southeast US with heavy rainfall and dangerous winds. 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 }} Category 4 Hurricane Helene made landfall in Floridas Big Bend region on Thursday night, bringing with it deadly winds of 140mph and a catastrophic storm surge. Helene made landfall at 11.10pm ET at Perry, Florida, just east of the mouth of the Aucilla River, the National Hurricane Center said in an update. This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation, the National Hurricane Center stated an hour before the storm roared ashore. Persons should not leave their shelters and remain in place through the passage of these life-threatening conditions. The center says that storm surge in areas near Helenes landfall could be as high as 20ft and be unsurvivable in some areas. More than 800,000 customers in Florida and Georgia were without power as Helene prepared to make landfall, according to PowerOutage.US. 11:20pm EDT 26th September -- #Hurricane #Helene has made landfall in the Florida Big Bend region at around 11:10pm EDT just E of the mouth of the Aucilla River. Max sustained winds at landfall were estimated at 140 mph & a min pressure of 938 mb. Info: https://t.co/1OTHyJkqja pic.twitter.com/WWohcTqpBa National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) September 27, 2024 Some counties in the Big Bend area halted emergency service operations as the storm bore down. Helene will remain a hurricane as it moves into southern Georgia overnight before weakening and ending up in Tennessee on Friday afternoon as a tropical storm. A state of emergency was declared in 61 of Floridas 67 counties with several placed under evacuation orders. Earlier, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that one person had been killed when a sign fell and hit a vehicle on Interstate 4 in the Tampa area. So that just shows you that its very dangerous conditions out there, the governor said in a news conference in Tallahassee. You need to be, right now, just hunkering down. Now is not the time to be going out. DeSantis predicted that Floridians would wake up on Friday and find it very likely theres been additional loss of life. He added: Youre going to have people who are going to lose their homes because of this storm, DeSantis said. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A map has been released showing how close the doomed Titan submersible came to the Titanic when it suffered a catastrophic implosion in June. The Titanic tourist sub, as it was better known, charged $250,000 a head to see the legendary liner to customers known as citizen explorers. A public inquiry is being held by the Titan Submersible Marine Board of Investigation (MBI), examining how the uncertified vessel was allowed to dive almost two and a half miles to the bottom of the North Atlantic to a wreck which has been protected since 2001 by the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. According to reports, the vessel was subject to no safety regulations because the Titanic itself sits in international waters. The map was released on Tuesday (24 September) by the US Coast Guard, showing how the debris stretched over an area of 322,917 square feet, as confirmed by an official to Popular Science. The story caused a worldwide sensation last summer when the submersible was initially reported missing, prompting an international search and rescue mission over an area of 435 miles (700 kilometres) off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, where the Titanic met her icy fate over 100 years ago. With a limited supply of oxygen onboard, the world waited to discover the fate of the Titans five occupants. At the time, several theories circulated in the media about what had happened, including the suggestion that the submersible could have become entangled in the wreckage of the Titanic itself. While the Titans last known position before the implosion was 1,600ft away from the bow of the Titanic, its debris was found much closer to the bow at 300m away, Coast Guard officials said. A map released by the Coast Guard shows the Titan debris field in relation to the Titanic. ( RMS Titanic via US Coast Guard ) The implosion claimed the lives of OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61, Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58; Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood, 48; and his son Suleman Dawood, 19. After hitting an iceberg, the Titanic split in two and lies in two sections around 2,600ft apart. The stern was mostly destroyed in the sinking, which is why the bow of the ship has been documented in so much more detail. A representative for OceanGate declined to comment when asked by The Independent if any of their expeditions ever went to the stern section. The US Coast Guard, however, said: The Marine Board only has evidence confirming the Titan expeditions visited the bow section of the RMS Titanic wreckage. The vessel was subject to no safety regulations because it was diving in international waters. ( PA Media ) The Titan debris landed a mere 300m from the bow section of the Titanic. ( USCG/Reuters ) Former OceanGate operations director David Lochridge testified last week that after raising several concerns about the design of Titan, he was fired by the company. The whole idea behind the company was to make money, Mr Lochridge testified at the hearing which comes to a close tomorrow (27 September). There was very little in the way of science. National Transportation Safety Board engineer Don Kramer later testified this week that he believes the catastrophic implosion was caused by the vessels carbon fibre hull, which showed anomalies. The Independent has reached out to the US Coast Guard for comment. Close Long-time friend of OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush said Titan sub explosion was expected 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 }} OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush allegedly declared that he would buy a congressman to make issues surrounding the Titan subs certification go away, a witness testified. Matthew McCoy, who worked at the submersible company for six months from April 2017, addressed the Titan Marine Board of Investigation panel on Friday for the final day of the two-week long hearing into Titans disaster voyage in June 2023. After raising concerns about an alleged lack of certificate of inspection for the first Titan sub in 2017, McCoy testified that Rush told him, I would buy a congressman to make problems disappear during a lunch meeting. The ex-OceanGate employee said that he quit soon after. He was either trying to intimidate me or impress me, he testified. McCoy also alleged that the OceanGate engineering department was full of college interns during his time at the company, adding that he doesnt believe there was a professional engineer on staff. Captain Jamie Frederick, member of the US Coast Guard who oversaw rescue mission of the Titan and its five crew, began testifying after McCoy. Coast Guard Search and Rescue Specialist Scott Talbot was the last person to testify. 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 }} The tumult of Eric Adamss indictment on federal charges as part of a long-running corruption case has much of New Yorks media and political classes already consumed by speculation around who will take over the mayoralty. But theyre also talking about another New Yorker who is far from likely to be seeking that job: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the rising progressive star of the New York congressional delegation. Ocasio-Cortez, an outspoken backbencher in the Democratic House caucus, was one of the very first state electeds to call for Adams to resign as the feds closed in around him. Her call for the mayor to step down actually came just a few hours before the impending indictment hit the headlines. Absent any comment about the criminal charges themselves, her statement referred instead to the growing staff exodus from the Adams administration and the separate investigations into the mayors political allies. The flood of resignations and vacancies are threatening gov function. Nonstop investigations will make it impossible to recruit and retain a qualified administration, she wrote on Twitter. For the good of the city, he should resign. Adams stands accused of taking illegal campaign contributions, defrauding the citys campaign fund, and even pressuring the New York Fire Department to open a consulate for the government of Turkey without following proper fire code protocols. The five-count indictment describes comical efforts to allegedly cover up the scheme, including an Adams aide reportedly excusing themself to the bathroom during an FBI interview, then deleting messages in the bathroom. Adams denies all the allegations. The impending political vacuum at the top of New York City politics is bound to shake up the political scene at a time when its widely speculated that 34-year-old Ocasio-Cortez is eyeing a greater role in her party. She delivered a primetime address at the Democratic National Convention in August the only backbencher Squad member to do so and received some of the loudest cheers of the night. Her willingness to figuratively stick her neck out on the issue of Adams presumably before knowing the indictment was coming is another sign that shes looking to take on a leadership role. The Independent reached out to Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez as lawmakers were on Capitol Hill to pass a short-term funding bill this week. She declined to talk about her future plans, explaining that her focus was centered on House business. It remains to be seen when or if the congresswoman will pursue her political career beyond the 14th district. She very publicly declined to run for Senate this cycle in a statement last year, a move that likely triggered a few sighs of relief in the office of Senator Kristen Gillibrand, the Democratic incumbent up for re-election. That means shell be waiting until 2028 at least to make a bid for the upper chamber, unless a resignation occurs before then. Waiting is something the third-term congresswoman is good at and thats not a bartending joke. Unlike other progessives in New York politics, particularly in the city, Ocasio-Cortez is not a perennial campaigner. She hasnt sought an office yet besides the one she first won in 2018, declining two opportunities to run for Senate. Chuck Schumer was reported to have been worried about a primary challenge from Ocasio-Cortez in 2022, when he was last up for re-election. His worries in and of themselves are notable, given that hes the senior-most Democratic leader in the entire state, as well as in Congress. If the congresswoman does mount a bid against Schumer in 2028, her decision not to seek a Senate seat in either of the past two cycles will likely play to her benefit. Under Joe Bidens presidency, Ocasio-Cortez has charted a difficult course. She and the progressive Squad of the Houses furthest-left members emerged as some of Bidens loudest allies in the House when it came to passing his signature Build Back Better legislation, which later died due to opposition in the Senate. At the same time, she has continued to stake out positions which keep her in line with her base of leftist supporters both in her district and online, including by being one of the first members of Congress to call the Israeli assault on Gaza a genocide and to support an arms embargo. Her true strength and the reason Schumer fears her possible statewide elected ambitions comes from her proven ability to expand her support beyond the progressive left. It was a failing that hamstrung Bernie Sanders during his two presidential bids, as he was unable to chip away at larger coalitions of voters within the Democratic Party. But Ocasio-Cortez frequently finds herself the target of praise from centrists and even some Trump-opposed Republicans. Such unlikely friends have become enamored with her eloquent remarks in interviews and around Capitol Hill, as well as the level of preparedness she has demonstrated at committee hearings like her grilling of Michael Cohen in 2019. Were still a long way out from AOC even theoretically having an opportunity or reason to make any national ambitions public. But if the Adams indictment reminds us of one thing, its that New York politics is never really very stable, and often throws ones planned political future for a spin. 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 }} President Joe Biden on Thursday said the billions of dollars of defense aid he has authorized for Ukraine will strengthen Kyivs hand in future negotiations as he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office for what could be the final time during his presidency. Sitting alongside Zelensky, Biden thanked the Ukrainian leader for sharing his own plan for victory in his countrys nearly three-year-old war against Russian invading forces. He added that it was important to strengthen Ukraines position on the battlefield by releasing all of the aid approved by Congress in the supplemental defense aid package he signed into law earlier this year. The billions of dollars worth of defense assistance will be delivered to Kyiv before Biden leaves office in January. He also told Zelensky of the importance of supporting Ukraines long-term success, including through eventual paths to European Union and NATO membership as well as through ensuring Kyiv retains sufficient capabilities to against future Russian aggression. I'm proud of the steps we've taken [and] of our partnership on these fronts, Biden said. Earlier this summer, we launched the Ukraine compact with more than 20 nations committed to Ukraine's long-term security, and yesterday, with over 30 nations and the EU, we launched the Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine's recovery and assets as well... These two elements are critical to how this war ends. Russia will not prevail in war. Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail, and [we] will continue to stand by you every step of the way, the president added. President Joe Biden and Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speak in the White House Thursday. ( Getty Images ) For his part, Zelensky thanked Biden once again for his strong support over the course of the war and told the American leader that Ukrainians deeply appreciate that Ukraine and America have stood side-by-side from the very first moment of this terrible Russian invasion. Your determination is incredibly important for us to prevail, he said. We must restore normal life, and we greatly value your leadership, Mr President. Zelensky said the $7.9 billion in aid announced by the White House will be a great help and revealed that he and the American president were preparing to discuss the details and strengthen his plan for victory over Russia. The Ukrainian leader also met with Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday in her ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, during which Harris the Democratic presidential nominee told Zelensky that her support for Kyivs defense is unwavering. I have been proud to stand with Ukraine. I will continue to stand with Ukraine, and I will work to ensure Ukraine prevails in this war, to be safe, secure and prosperous. The United States must continue to fulfill our longstanding role of global leadership, she said. We must stand with our allies and our partners. We must defend our democratic values and stand up to aggressors, and we must stand for international order, rules and norms. Each one of these principles is at stake in Ukraine, and that is why Ukraines fight matters, Harris added. She warned that allowing Putin and Russia to prevail would embolden the Russian leader to further threaten NATO members such as Poland and the Baltic states. We also know that other would-be aggressors around the world are watching to see what happens in Ukraine. If Putin is allowed to win, they will become emboldened, and ... history is so clear in reminding us: the United States cannot and should not isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. Isolation is not insulation, she said. In what appeared to be a veiled swipe at former president Donald Trump and his Republican allies, Harris admitted to Zelensky that there are some in the US who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality, and would require Ukraine to forgo security relationships with other nations. Biden told Zelensky of the importance of supporting Ukraines long-term success, including through eventual paths to European Union and NATO membership as well as through ensuring Kyiv retains sufficient capabilities to against future Russian aggression. ( AP ) These proposals are the same of those of Putin, and let us be clear: they are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable, she said. Zelensky has been in the United States for the UN General Assembly, where on Wednesday he warned world leaders that Russian president Vladimir Putin is attempting to break the Ukrainian spirit by targeting his countrys energy infrastructure. He also cautioned against accepting purported peace deals that would be negotiated without Ukraine having a say. Any parallel or alternative attempts to seek peace are, in fact, efforts to achieve an out instead of an end to the war, he said, adding later that he was skeptical of the true interest behind a recent push by China and Brazil to foster an end to the conflict. When some propose alternatives, half-hearted settlement plans, so-called sets of principles, it not only ignores the interests and suffering of Ukrainians ... it not only ignores reality, but also gives Putin the political space to continue the war, he said. Zelensky also toured a Pennsylvania plant where munitions destined for his armed forces are being made. That visit drew anger from Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, who called for Zelensky to fire the Ukrainian ambassador to the US in response. Johnsons outrage was supposedly due to no Republicans being invited along to the tour of the plant, though White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed it as a political stunt by the GOP at a press conference on Thursday afternoon. The sit-downs between Zelensky and the two American leaders come after Biden announced another large tranche of US security assistance for Kyiv. That assistance includes nearly $8 billion in aid from Defense Department and State Department programs, as well as access to Joint Standoff Weapon long-range munitions and additional Patriot anti-aircraft missiles and another Patriot battery. Through these actions, my message is clear: The United States will provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win this war, Biden said in a statement. The president noted that Ukraine has won the battle of Kyiv, reclaimed more than half the territory that Russia seized at the start of the war, and safeguarded its sovereignty and independence during the time that his administration has worked to surge defense aid to the country. For nearly three years, the United States has rallied the world to stand with the people of Ukraine as they defend their freedom from Russian aggression, and it has been a top priority of my administration to provide Ukraine with the support it needs to prevail ... but there is more work to do, Biden added. Bidens announcement of more security aid to Kyiv comes just weeks before a US presidential election that could determine whether Ukraine remains a sovereign country or becomes a Russian vassal state. Trump was impeached in late 2019 for using US security aid to attempt to blackmail Zelensky into announcing sham investigations into Biden and his son. Nearly five years later, he has threatened to cut off American assistance to Kyiv if he gets a second term, all while promising to end the war by forcing Zelensky to accept terms that would be favorable to Putin. Zelensky was set to meet with Trump in New York, but it was initially canceled. Now, Trump said on Thursday that he plans to meet with the Ukrainian leader on Friday. 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 continue to keep the pressure on Donald Trump and the broader conservative movement over the ending of federal protections for abortion rights but a new memo from the national party indicates that those attacks may expand to encompass another issue: healthcare access. A memo provided to The Indepdendent and issued by the party on Friday outlines angles of attack surrounding the Trump administrations 2017 push to repeal the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. That scheme, which represented a long-held goal of the right under Obamas presidency, ultimately failed after three Republican senators broke ranks with their party to kill the GOPs repeal effort. The drama that played out on the Senate floor culminating in John McCains famous thumbs down belied a larger argument around the issue of healthcare access: the mandated coverage for Americans with pre-existing conditions that was central to the Affordable Care Acts legislation and expanded coverage for millions of Americans people who subsequently would have been ripped off their plans, were it repealed. A so-called skinny repeal bill offered by the GOP in 2017 would have kept that central pre-existing conditions tenet while making other sweeping changes to the bill, including a restructure of Medicare. Experts estimated at the time that millions still would have lost access to health insurance under the Republican plan, and as a result it was sunk. Now, Democrats on the national committee are coming out swinging against their Republican foes over healthcare costs and access to no-cost emergency contraception under the Affordable Care Act. Pointing to parts of the much-maligned Project 2025 that call for an end to FDA approval for mifepristone and other efforts to restrict contraception, the DNC says in the memo that the rollback of access to free emergency contraception would be a blow to the rights of 48 million women who access such treatment, not to mention the milions more who access birth control through subsidized health care plans. Citing Planned Parenthood and other organizations, it notes that contraception accounted for as much as 30%-44% of out-of-pocket healthcare costs for American women prior to the passage of Obamacare. Trump himself has denounced Project 2025 and made multiple efforts to distance himself from the conservative super-group through his public remarks and campaign aides. But the plan was clearly designed with a second Trump presidency in mind and outlines priorities indisputably held by the groups that make up the core of the conservative movement and ones tied to many of his current and former staffers. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, most Americans receive contraception without paying out-of-pocket costs its one of the laws most popular provisions, said DNC press secretary Emilia Rowland on Friday. Democrats are hellbent on linking Donald Trump to Project 2025 over his denunciations and denials ( Getty Images ) But with Trump hellbent on terminating the ACA if he retakes power, more than 60 million women could lose their access to free birth control under their health plans, and his Project 2025 agenda would rip away access to no-cost emergency contraception for 48 million women, said the DNC spokesperson. This election, Americans have a clear choice: give Trump and Vance unlimited power over our bodies and futures by tearing away access to Plan B and birth control and raising health care costs, or elect Vice President Harris and Governor Walz to defend our freedoms and fight to make access to affordable reproductive care a reality for all. The Independent has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment. The DNCs sharpened edge on the issue of healthcare access may be energized in part by Trumps declaration that he has only a concept of a plan for replacing Obamacare when asked about the issue at the presidential debate in Philadelphia. The moment was somewhat overshadowed by a separate rant dredging up a racist conspiracy about Haitian migrants in Ohio. But the former presidents admission that the GOP still has no central answer for what it would replace Obamacare with has been seized upon by his enemies. Harris herself has taken to making light of the remark. In a sitdown with Oprah Winfrey, the vice president said that the current $5,000 tax credit for starting a small business was inadequate and joked that it would only fund the concept of a business. Harris takes a jab at Trump's 'concept of a plan' debate remark Whether Trump and the GOP would actually push to repeal Obamacare rather than just carve out the regulations and agencies related to it through political appointments is another story. The ex-president and his party never launched a second bid to replace the legislation after the partys 2017 failure, instead pivoting to a tax plan which passed later that year. It was the last time Trump had majorities in both chambers of Congress, and had the opportunity to try. Trump indicated otherwise during his debate with Harris earlier this month. While largely misrepresenting how he and his party signed on to the legislation aimed at killing the Affordable Care Act, the ex-president insisted that he saved the signature legislation of his predecessor. JD Vance, his running mate, has made similar remarks. Obamacare was lousy healthcare. Always was, said Trump at the debate. I had a choice to make when I was president: Do I save it and make it as good as it can be? Never going to be great. Or do I let it rot? And I felt I had an obligation, even though politically it would have been good to just let it rot and let it go away... And I saved it. I did the right thing. And a Trump campaign spokesperson claimed that the former president had fully moved on from his effort to repeal the legislation. "Kamala Harris is lying because she is losing. President Trump has repeatedly said he is not going to terminate the Affordable Care Act. He is going to make healthcare actually affordable, in addition to bringing down inflation, cutting taxes, and reducing regulations to put more money back in the pockets of all Americans who have been robbed by Kamala Harris and Joe Biden's disastrous economic policies, said Karoline Leavitt. 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 }} Not even Donald Trump could summon a frenzied crowd outside of the federal courthouse in New York City like Eric Adams did Friday when the mayor pleaded not guilty to the five criminal charges hes facing. A sea of broadcast cameras, lighting equipment and reporters filled the sidewalk Friday morning in front of the courthouse. They also packed the area across the street it was more than the amount present at Trumps defamation trial with E. Jean Carroll in January. During the Trump case, the sidewalk across the street was filled with members of the media during that trial and even on the busiest day verdict day the sidewalk directly in front of the building was still navigable. New Yorkers did not seem to care to show up to see the action unfold outside of the federal building. Granted, it was freezing at the time. But even those who wandered by refused to stop to snap a photo or ask questions. Not today. On Friday, runners who, seemingly unintentionally, ran into the crowd stopped their jog to whip out their phones and record the action. Police barricades, holding back New Yorkers who turned up to see their mayor arraigned, stretched up and down the street. No, the mayors 8:45 a.m. arrival time for a noon arraignment was still not early enough to avoid the craze around his criminal allegations. He is, after all, the talk of the town not that he minds. Crowds of people took up the sidewalk in front of, and across the street from, the federal courthouse where New York City Mayor Eric Adams was arraigned. It created a circus-like atmosphere ( AP ) Adams seems completely unfazed by the mass attention. He rolled with Friday afternoons court proceedings as if it were an everyday occurrence, albeit an inconvenient one. Sporting a typical white button-down and dark suit jacket, he arrived early at the courthouse, and subsequently, the courtroom. Something the former president never did. By the time the general press and spectators were permitted in the courtroom, Adams had been seated with his one lawyer for at least 30 minutes. It was so unspectacular it took multiple reporters several minutes to notice the mayors presence. Adams arrived at federal court three hours before his arraignment time. Press line the streets and there were more members of the media present for Adams than former president Donald Trump when he was on trial in connection to sexual abuse allegations ( AP ) The courtroom filled up quickly, mostly with law clerks and attorneys who work in the building. An extra row of plastic chairs was added behind the benches to accommodate the number of people in attendance. A few lucky citizens got to see the historic arraignment from the benches, others were directed to watch from an overflow room on a different floor. It was a noticeable contrast to the number of average Americans who attended Trumps sexual abuse trial earlier this year. Despite that case involving a former president, only a few people enough to count on one hand showed up to see opening or closing arguments. Though the overflow room for Trumps case was almost always full, mostly with reporters. Shortly after noon, Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker entered the courtroom to begin the arraignment. She spent several minutes reading Adams his Miranda rights and then summarizing the allegations and charges laid out in the indictment that accuses Adams of corruption before, during and after his 2021 mayoral campaign. That includes allegedly accepting free or heavily discounted luxury travel, accommodations and other perks from Turkish officials and then wielding his power as mayor to circumvent an FDNY fire inspection on the Turkey consulate. Adams, depicted in a courtroom sketch, sat besides his attorney while being arraigned on Friday. He has denied the allegations against him and resisted calls to resign ( REUTERS ) In all, the five counts: bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy and two counts of soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals, are punishable by up to 45 years in prison. Yet Adams seemed fairly relaxed at the list of allegations. He kept a straight face and stared forward refusing to even look in the direction of the press seated in the jury box to his right. I am not guilty, your honor, the mayor pleaded. Adams, depicted in a courtroom sketch, sat beside his attorney while being arraigned on Friday. He has denied the allegations against him and resisted calls to resign ( Getty Images ) It was expected that Adams would plead not guilty, he has vehemently denied all allegations of wrongdoing in multiple mediums. He proclaimed innocence in an official statement, in a pre-recorded video and at a chaotic press conference on Thursday. Hes certain he has not committed any crimes. His lawyer, Alex Spiro, informed Judge Parker they plan to file a motion to dismiss the indictment next week. Adams is permitted to be released while awaiting trial. It would probably be a bit of work to run the city from one of its jails. The conditions of his release are that he may not contact witnesses or the unnamed individuals in the indictment about the charges or facts of the case. Federal prosecutors said they would give Adams lawyer a list of those people and determine how to best approach this since some of those people may be staffers or family that Adams interacts with daily. Approximately 25 minutes after Judge Parker entered the courtroom, and three-and-a-half hours after Adams arrived at the courthouse, the arraignment was over. Maintaining his straight face, Adams exited the courtroom escorted by a group of US Marshalls. Outside the courthouse, New Yorkers and members of the media piled against the barricades, determined to get a photo of the mayor after his first court appearance. The scenes for Adams were dramatically different than Trump, who often only saw a handful of protestors outside the courtroom as he faced E Jean Carroll ( AFP via Getty Images ) A lone New Yorker shouted words of affirmation at Adams as he exited the building. The mayor stood stoically beside Spiro for a brief press conference where his lawyer told reporters the case isnt even a real case. As he entered a black SUV, the mayor flashed his signature thumbs up to the press while maintaining a straight face. Adams, the first New York City mayor to face federal criminal charges in modern history, went about his day on Friday attending an afternoon meeting with his advisory committee on the judiciary and left the circus he created behind. 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 }} Just hours before New York City mayor Eric Adams was hit with a federal indictment, a split within the New York Democratic Party had already began. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the democratic socialist congresswoman from the Bronx and Queens, called on Adams to resign. I do not see how Mayor Adams can continue governing New York City, she wrote on Twitter. The flood of resignations and vacancies are threatening gov function. Nonstop investigations will make it impossible to recruit and retain a qualified administration.For the good of the city, he should resign. But shortly thereafer, a reporter from a New York station asked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries asked about Ocasio-Cortezs claims during a press conference. Eric Adams is working as hard as he can to be the best mayor possible and meet the needs of the residents of New York City, Jefferies said in response. We need Eric Adams to be successful as mayor, because he is the mayor at this moment in time. That evening, after the final votes in the House before the election were cast, the indictment dropped. Adams indictment includes five charges of wire fraud, bribery, conspiracy, and solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national. Adams has denied any wrongdoing. And while this may seem like a New York story, the truth is that its ramifications extend across the country. In fact, Adams served as a thorn in the side of the Biden administration because of his repeated criticisms of the presidents immigration policy. Donald Trump even hinted that might be the reason for Adamss indictment (there is, of course, no evidence to support such a claim.) I watched about a year ago when [Adams] talked about how the illegal migrants are hurting our city and the federal government should pay us and we shouldnt have to take them, and I said You know what, hell be indicted within the year and I was exactly right, Trump said during a press conference in New York on Thursday. New York remains an overwhelmingly Democratic state and despite Trump holding rallies in Long Island and in the Bronx, he has zero chance of winning there. But if Kamala Harris is to have any chance of passing her agenda, Democrats know that they will need to flip seats in the Empire State and get an overwhelming win. And the Adams indictment is just the latest black eye that might prevent them from doing so. In 2022, during the midterm election, Democrats hoped to flip some Republican seats that had voted for President Joe Biden in 2020. Some Republicans decided to retire and there seemed like a good chance, even in what was shaping up to be a bad year for Democrats. That didnt happen. Rather, Governor Kathy Hochul, who had replaced disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo, severely underperformed in her campaign against then-congressman Lee Zeldin. Voters in Long Island and the Hudson Valley concerned about crime in New York City voted for Republicans. Given the fact that Republicans only control 220 seats to the Democrats 212, that small margin has to sting. During a forum held by Politico during last months Democratic National Convention, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi specifically faulted Hochul. Five seats in New York, she noted. Well, I think it related to the gubernatorial race. Jeffries Pelosis successor as Democratic leader, who is usually not nearly as candid said in his Thursday press conference: We have important races all across the country, and certainly there are several in New York, which include Long Island, Hudson Valley and in central New York. Democrats feel fairly confident that they can win those seats. The non-partisan Cook Political Report lists three of them as a toss-up and one of them New Yorks 22nd district held by Representative Brandon Williams as leaning Democratic. The fact that Democrats flipped New Yorks 3rd district as soon as the House expelled the disgraced George Santos may have given them reason to feel confident they could pull off a victory. But a scandal in New York City so close to the election threatens that. It gives Republicans in places like Long Island and Westchester who commute into the city another bludgeoning tool to say that Democrats are corrupt and they need to be elected to serve as a check on Harris, should she take the White House. Republicans are already trying to tie Harris to Adams, despite his criticisms of the Biden administration. The fact that Adams, a former police officer, also represented a tough-on-crime type of Democrat will make it harder for those Republican attacks to land after all, many of them have simultaneously been attempting to claim that Harris would defund the police. Nevertheless, the fallout from the Adams scandal could hurt Democrats especially by dividing them at a vulnerable moment. And it might require them to scour other states like California, Arizona or Nebraska for pickup opportunities to give Harris a Democratic majority. If they wind up in the minority, they will likely blame Adams. 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 }} JD Vance is being criticized for a planned town hall this weekend with Lance Wallnau, a pro-Trump evangelical leader who has backed election conspiracies and accused Kamala Harris of using witchcraft. This is Vances endorsement of one of the worst, most conspiratorial, Christian supremacist spectacles in the country, Matthew D. Taylor, a scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, & Jewish Studies, wrote on X on Thursday. He warned the Monroeville, Pennsylvania, event would take on extra significance because its close to where Trump was nearly assassinated, a near-miss Trumps more religious supporters take as divine intervention. The Harris campaign, meanwhile, blasted Vance in a statement for appearing alongside a conspiracy theorist like Wallnau. Speaking to an online talk show earlier this month, Wallnau said Kamala Harriss debate performance was tied to witchcraft. JD Vance will appear Saturday with MAGA pastor who frames Trump as holy warrior ( Getty Images ) She can look presidential, Wallnau said. Thats the seduction of what I would say is witchcraft. Thats the manipulation of imagery that creates an impression contrary to the truth, but it seduces you into seeing it. So that spirit, that occult spirit, I believe is operating on her and through her. The Independent has contacted Vance and Wallnau for comment. As The Independent has reported, Wallnau is among a group of evangelical Christian leaders backing Trump as part of their goal of establishing what they call the New Apostolic Reformation, an American theocracy. As part of this campaign, Wallnau has popularized an idea known as the Seven Mountains mandate, which calls on Christians to secure positions of influence over politics, education, family, the arts, the media, business, and religion. Vances town hall is a stop on a nationwide campaign of pro-Trump religious gatherings called the Courage Tour. During a Wisconsin Courage Tour event, Wallnau doubled down on Trumps claims that the 2020 election was stolen. January 6 was not an insurrection it was an election fraud intervention! he reportedly told the crowd. The Texas-based religious leader has been an outspoken ally to Trump, using his widely watched media platforms to spread false claims about the 2020 presidential race and claim God had a plan to change the outcome of the election. He also appeared at Washington events in the run-up to January 6 and was at the infamous rally on January 6 itself from which the Capitol insurrection began. Wallnau also wrote a 2016 book about Trump, Gods Chaos Candidate: Donald J Trump and the American Unraveling, which helped solidify evangelical support for the Republican. That relationship has continued to flourish. Exit polls in 2020 showed Trump had 75 percent support from white evangelicals. Still, Harris has a projected five-point lead in Pennsylvania, according to the latest polls. The Texas-based Wallnau has a history of outlandish remarks, including claiming climate activists were controlled by demons. 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 }} Newly released messages appear to undercut vice-presidential nominee JD Vances claims that he had a change of heart about former President Donald Trump once he witnessed his achievements in office. In 2021, while campaigning for the US Senate seat he now holds, Vance asked people not to judge me based on what I said previously about the man he called, variously, a cynical a**hole, a moral disaster, a total fraud, an idiot, and Americas Hitler. I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy, Vance said at the time, adding that he in fact voted for Trump in 2020. I think he was a good president, I think he made a lot of good decisions for people, and I think he took a lot of flak. From left, Michael Bloomberg, Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, attend the 9/11 Memorial ceremony on the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura) ( AP ) However, The Washington Post obtained direct messages Vance reportedly exchanged privately on Twitter, in which he slammed Trump a man he later deemed the best president of my lifetime, for his myriad shortfalls as commander-in-chief. Trump has just so thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism (excepting a disjointed China policy), Vance reportedly wrote in February 2020. That June, Vance predicted Joe Biden would beat Trump in the upcoming election, according to another Twitter DM seen by the Post. I think Trump will probably lose, Vance wrote. He would soon go on to claim, falsely, that the election had been stolen from Trump by miscreant Democrats. In the same June 2020 exchange, Vance revealed that Emperor Trump had offered him a position in his administration, but that he turned it down. JD Vance claimed eggs cost $4 but he was caught out by the price tag behind him ( AP ) In a statement responding to the Post story, Vance spokesman William Martin said the VP candidate was not in fact denigrating Trump in his past remarks, but rather, establishment Republicans who thwarted much of Trumps populist economic agenda to increase tariffs and boost domestic manufacturing in Congress. Fortunately, Sen. Vance believes that Republicans in Congress are much more aligned with President Trumps agenda today than they were back then, so he is confident that they wont run into those same issues within the party, Martin said, criticizing the Post for withholding the identity of its source and calling the outlets reporting unethical journalism. In July, Vances former law school roommate told The Independent that he believed the Ohio Republican was a hypocrite who had sold his soul in supporting Trump. I believe that he has adopted the MAGA mindset wholesale, attorney Josh McLaurin said. I think that he personally wants to see a lot more destruction of institutions and norms than your average elected Republican does. And I think that hes allowing his deep-seated anger and who cares where that anger is from to motivate him to make this complete ideological conversion. 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 }} Marjorie Taylor Greene has launched a furious tirade at House Speaker Mike Johnson after he pushed through legislation to avoid a government shutdown, accusing him of being a Speaker for the Democrats. Johnson defied Donald Trump on Wednesday by letting the House of Representatives vote to approve a spending bill to keep the government funded until December, even though it included no provisions to tighten elections. Trump had previously called on House Republicans not to agree to a continuing resolution without the Save Act, which claimed it would prevent illegal immigrants from voting. This is even though US law already prohibits such a practice in federal elections. In response, Taylor Greene said Republicans did not deserve to control the House. Mike Johnson is not our Speaker, she said. He is the Speaker for the Democrats, she told Steve Bannons War Room podcast. I share the anger and frustration, and I dont think Republicans deserve to be re-elected to hold the majority," the Georgia representative added. The Georgia representative said Johnson was a Speaker for the Democrats ( Getty Images ) The House voted 341-82 to pass the continuing resolution, which will fund the government at levels set in the fiscal year 2024 budget, through December 20. In her rant, Taylor Greene said one of Johnsons failures was greenlighting government funding for the Department of Justice. And [Johnson] has delivered that through his actions of fully funding the Biden-Harris administration, fully funding the weaponized DOJ, fully funding the FBI that had agents and was involved in January 6th and raided Mar-a-Lago and has raided a lot of January 6th defendant homes, she said. Taylor Greene, who often peddles conspiracy theories and is a fervent Trump supporter, added: We have to elect president Trump in order to control the federal government, in order to take back all of these huge agencies and departments and set the course right. Trump wrote on Truth Social last week: If Republicans dont get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form. Mike Johnson defied Trump for letting the House vote ( AP ) The former president has not yet responded to the news. Some conservatives and members of the House Freedom Caucus expressed frustration at the fact that House Republican leadership gave up. And I realize hes got a tough job, but the countrys in tough shape, financially, militarily in every way, Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina told The Independent. So I will wish he had fought harder, but it is what it is. However, Tom Cole, chair for House Appropriations, told The Independent that including the Save Act was not feasible and a government shutdown would be worse. My personal opinion is, we were not likely to be able to get that and the government shutdown was not going to be helpful to president Trump, let alone to our efforts to hold on to the House, he 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 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 }} Mike Lindell, the controversial founder of MyPillow and vocal ally to Donald Trump, is claiming ignorance over the neo-Nazi symbolism in his pillow prices. Lindells pillow company, which he founded in 2009, is currently offering customers the Standard Classic MyPillow for $14.88 reduced from $49.98. But the discount has got critics pointing out a popular neo-Nazi symbol lurking behind the price. The numbers 14 and 88 are two popular white supremacist numeric symbols, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The first is a nod to the 14 words slogan, We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children, coined by David Lane a member of the white supremacist terrorist group known as The Order. Meanwhile, 88 is a common code meaning Heil Hitler, because H is the eighth letter in the alphabet. Lindell addressed the criticism on conservative online talk show FlashPoint this week, claiming he had no knowledge of the symbolism associated with the price of his items. Mike Lindell speaks at a Minnesota rally featuring Trump and JD Vance on July 27 2024. He has claimed ignorance over the hidden meaning behind his pillow prices ( Getty Images ) Instead, he said he arrived at the number via a discounting tactic used by Walmart. When they have a sale on a sale, right? That 88, he said, according to Forward. I get a call from all the media around the country and the world, all the way to The Daily Mail, saying, what are you, a Nazi? The conspiracy theorist also told the New York Post: I have no idea what this is all about. The pillows were still available for the contentious price as of Friday morning. An advertisement posted to X from MyPillows official account promotes the discount as a limited time offer MyPillows official X account told potential buyers the discounted price is a limited time offer ( @MyPillowUSA/X ) The Independent has contacted Lindell for comment. Lindell founded his pillow company in 2009, and over the years has become an avid Trump fan. He is widely known for peddling the baseless conspiracy theory that hundreds of thousands of votes went missing in Georgia during the 2020 election. This latest controversy comes weeks after DHL filed a lawsuit against MyPillow, accusing Lindell of owing the courier company nearly $800,000 in unpaid bills. 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 }} Stanley McChrystal, a retired Army general once dubbed the finest warrior in the U.S. military, has endorsed Kamala Harris for president. McChrystal, who oversaw the Afghanistan war during the Obama administration, wrote in a New York Times op-ed on Thursday that the decision was starkly simple. Ms. Harris has the strength, the temperament and, importantly, the values to serve as commander in chief, the retired general wrote. When she sits down with world leaders like President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, representing the United States on the global stage, I have no doubt that she is working in our national interest, not her own. In the piece, McChrystal admits that he is not comfortable with many Democratic and Republican policy positions, preferring the center of the political spectrum, but argued that Harris was a person of superior character. The op-ed doesnt name Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump explicitly, but appears to allude to his alleged past remarks denigrating fallen military service members as losers and suckers. Retired military general Stanley McChrystal endorsed Biden in 2020 and has thrown his support behind Harris for the White House in 2024 ( Getty Images ) Character will dictate whether we stand by our NATO allies and against Vladimir Putins continued aggression, McChrystal argued. Character will dictate whether we have a commander in chief who honors and respects the men and women who serve in uniform. The Independent has contacted the Trump campaign for comment. McChrystal has had his issues with top Democrats and Republicans over the years. In 2019, after McChrystal told ABC News that Trump is immoral and doesnt tell the truth, the then-president savaged the military leader on social media. General McChrystal got fired like a dog by Obama, Trump wrote on Twitter. Last assignment a total bust. Known for big, dumb mouth. Hillary lover! In 2010, McChrystal resigned following a damaging, widely-read Rolling Stone profile where he mocked then vice president Joe Biden, who had clashed with the general over whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. McChrystal ended up endorsing Biden in 2020. McChrystals endorsement follows a letter earlier this month from 100 former officials in Republican administrations, including numerous top military and defense leaders, also backing Harris. The letter slammed Trump as unfit to serve again as President, or indeed in any office of public trust, following incidents like the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The Harris campaign has won support from other unlikely places, picking up the backing of Jack McCain, son of late Republican senator John McCain, and the endorsement of former GOP congresswoman Liz Cheney and her father, former Bush administration vice president Dick Cheney. Whether such endorsements will matter remains to be seen, given the Republican partys embrace of a harder-right stance under Trump, who is running on a platform of taking on establishment Washington figures like those who have endorsed Harris. According to the latest polls, Harris leads Trump by about 3 percent. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email 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 }} Tim Walz is planning to hold a fundraiser in JD Vances backyard just days after the pair debate for the first time. The Democratic vice presidential nominee will head to Vances current hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio, on October 5 after Democrats in the area raised at least $1m to get him there, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Officials from the campaign reportedly told Vice Mayor Jan-Michele Kearney if they wanted Kamala Harris to visit, they would have needed to raise $1.5m. For us, we wanted either Vice President Harris to come or Governor Walz to come. They said, OK...I think thats huge, she told the newspaper. Hes the vice presidential candidate, hell be second in command. We really like him a lot. Details of the event are currently under wraps but Kearney said Walzs appearance is likely to be a private one, not a public rally. Its going to be exciting and its going to be wonderful, she added, saying there would be additional events for the public added in the near future. Tim Walz will attend a fundraiser in JD Vances Ohio hometown ( REUTERS ) We will definitely have a rally for the public as well, she said. Were just excited. Its a great time and everybody should be involved. I think the fact hes coming to Cincinnati means how important we are to the election. Ohio, which has 17 electoral votes, is no longer considered a swing state after turning red for Donald Trump in 2016 and staying red in 2020. Trump is comfortably ahead in the polls in the Buckeye state this time round as well. A poll by The New York Times has the Republican 10 points ahead of Harris in Ohio, with voters backing him 54 percent to 44 percent for the vice president. Walz will be in JD Vances (pictured) backyard when he attends a fundraiser ( AP ) Vance, who was raised in Middletown but now lives in Cincinnati, was sworn into office as senator for Ohio at the beginning of 2023. Vance and Walz will go head to head next Tuesday in their first and only planned vice presidential debate. This week Vance revealed he doesnt need to prepare that much for the debate against the Minnesota governor. We have well-developed views on public policy, so we dont have to prepare that much, Vance said during a press call on Wednesday, according to The New York Post. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is playing Vance during Walzs mock debates while Republican Minnesota Representative Tom Emmer is playing the part of Walz during Vances preparations. Emmer was picked so that he could emulate Walzs folksy demeanor, according to ABC News. The debate is set to take place at 9pm ET and will be hosted by CBS News. 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 appeared to suggest that New York mayor Eric Adams had been indicted after criticizing the Biden administrations policy on illegal migrants. Speaking at a press conference at Trump Tower on Thursday, the former president said he wished Adams luck with his charges, but then admitted he didnt know anything about what he did. Adams has been charged with bribery, wire fraud, solicitation of contribution by a foreign national and conspiracy, becoming the first sitting mayor in modern history to face federal criminal charges. US Attorneys in the Southern District of New York unveiled a sprawling five-count indictment against the mayor on Thursday, accusing him of seeking and accepting illegal campaign contributions to his 2021 mayoral campaign, as well as other things of value, from foreign nationals. At his press conference, Trump said that although he did not know Adams well, he had been fairly generous to me in his statements. He then claimed he had predicted the mayors arrest and subsequent indictment over a year previously. At a press conference at Trump Tower on Thursday, Trump wished Adams luck before saying he did not know anything about what he did ( AP ) I watched about a year ago when he talked about how the illegal migrants are hurting our city and the federal government should pay us and we shouldnt have to take them, and I said you know what, hell be indicted within the year and I was exactly right, he said. We have people that use the justice department and the FBI at levels that have never been seen before, so I wish him luck I dont know anything about what he did. These are dirty players These are bad people, we need an honest justice department, we need an honest FBI and we need it fast. Trump later repeatedly declined to acknowledge a question about whether he would pardon Adams ( AP ) Trump later repeatedly declined to acknowledge a question about whether he would pardon Adams, should he return to the Oval Office. The charges against Adams stem from a months-long federal investigation into his 2021 mayoral campaign and his ties to Turkish government officials and Turkish nationals. Federal prosecutors are accusing the mayor of accepting illegal campaign donations, funneled through a straw donor scheme, and accepting luxurious benefits in exchange for wielding his power to intervene in a fire inspection at the Turkey consulate. Adams said he was not surprised by the charges and denied all allegations of wrongdoing, after the indictment was unsealed on Thursday. 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 boasted of a very good relationship with both Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin on Friday as he hosted the Ukrainian leader for a meeting at his New York City skyscraper. The former president also repeated a bizarre boast that he could, if re-elected in November, negotiate an end to the nearly three-year Russian war against Ukraine. Trump, who was impeached in 2019 for using American defense assistance to pressure Zelensky to launch sham investigations into President Joe Biden and his son, was being briefed on Kyivs latest plan for victory against Putin. We have a very good relationship, he told reporters as he stood with Zelensky. And I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin. And if we win, I think were going to get it resolved very quickly, he said. Zelensky quickly interjected: I hope we have more good relations between us. Zelensky said he and Trump share a common view that the war ... has to be stopped, and Putin cant win and Ukrainians have to prevail. And I want to discuss with you the details of our plan, he added. Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump meets with Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky at Trump Tower, Friday 27 September in New York ( AP ) For his part, Trump said he and Zelensky have had a great relationship, citing Zelenskys decision to deny that Trump had exerted any pressure on him during the July 2019 phone call in which hed linked sending Javelin anti-tank missiles to Zelenskys announcement of investigations into the Bidens. So we're going to sit down just discuss it, and if we have a win, I think long before January 20, before I would take the presidency ... I think that we can work out something that's good for both sides. It's time, he said. Trump had previously cancelled plans to meet with the Ukrainian leader after Zelensky sparked GOP outrage by visiting the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in the battleground state of Pennsylvania over the weekend. He reversed course late Thursday after Zelenskys meeting with Harris, during which the Democratic presidential nominee told Zelensky that her support for Kyivs defense is unwavering. In what appeared to be a veiled swipe at Trump and his Republican allies, Harris admitted to Zelensky that there are some in the US who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality, and would require Ukraine to forgo security relationships with other nations. These proposals are the same as those of Putin, and let us be clear: They are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable, she said. Zelensky has been in the United States for the UN General Assembly, where on Wednesday he warned world leaders that Russian President Vladimir Putin is attempting to break the Ukrainian spirit by targeting his countrys energy infrastructure. He also cautioned against accepting purported peace deals that would be negotiated without Ukraine having a say. Any parallel or alternative attempts to seek peace are, in fact, efforts to achieve an out instead of an end to the war, he said, adding later that he was skeptical of the true interest behind a recent push by China and Brazil to foster an end to the conflict. When some propose alternatives, half-hearted settlement plans, so-called sets of principles, it not only ignores the interests and suffering of Ukrainians ... it not only ignores reality, but also gives Putin the political space to continue the war, he said. Earlier in the week, Zelensky also toured a Pennsylvania plant where munitions destined for his armed forces are being made. That visit drew anger from Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, who called for Zelensky to fire the Ukrainian ambassador to the US in response. Johnsons outrage was supposedly due to no Republicans being invited along to the tour of the plant, though White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed it as a political stunt by the GOP at a press conference on Thursday afternoon. 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 mayor of the French town at the centre of the shocking multiple rape trial has gone into hiding following death threats over comments he made in an interview. Louis Bonnet, 74, caused outrage when he said the crimes of Dominique Pelicot, 71, should not be blown out of proportion because after all, no one died. Mr Pelicot has admitted regularly drugging his wife, Gisele, now 72, and allowing scores of men to rape her over a 10-year period. Mr Bonnet is now under the protection of police officers in the south of France, at an unknown address far away from Mazan, where he was elected mayor in 2020. Ive been threatened, Ive been insulted, he said on Friday. Someone asked the town hall for my address so that they could raid my home with a gang. Mr Bonnet said he had also been receiving threats on social media, and by phone, since speaking to the BBC earlier this month. He had commented on the ongoing trial at the Vaucluse Criminal Court in Avignon, in which 50 men are accused of aggravated rape alongside Mr Pelicot. Mr Bonnet expressed views about rape that are widely held in France, especially among older men. He claimed to have received many messages from local residents who support him. Mr Bonnet said in the interview: The bottom line is that at some point, when our village is seen as a breeding ground for rapists, people have to speak out. If there was a slip-up with Mr and Mrs Pelicot, it does not represent the whole village. But he later made a full apology on Facebook, saying he regretted his comments. Ms Pelicot has waived her right to anonymity in a case that has caused shock and outrage around the world. She has been in the courtroom since the trial opened on 2 September, supported by her three adult children. Mr Pelicot was first arrested in September 2020 for secretly filming up womens skirts at a supermarket in Carpentras. His devices were searched, and there were hundreds of pornographic videos and photos of women. It was while in custody that Mr Pelicot disclosed the existence of a hard drive containing some 3,800 photos and videos of his wife being raped between 2011 and 2020. Detectives have listed a total of 92 rapes committed by 72 men, 51 of whom have been identified. The sex ring involved advertising on a site for swinger partners on an online forum called Without Her Knowing on the now-defunct coco.fr site. Of the 83 men involved, 51 of them, aged between 26 and 73, were identified and arrested by police. Mr Pelicot is said to have sedated his wife by putting a powerful anxiolytic into her dinner. Alleged rapists involved in the case include civil servants, ambulance workers, soldiers, prison guards, nurses, a municipal councillor, and truck drivers. In a separate case, Mr Pelicot has been charged with raping and murdering a 23-year-old estate agent in Paris in 1991. He has admitted one attempted rape in 1999, after DNA testing proved a case against him. The aggravated rape case is due to last until 21 December. Fourteen of the other defendants have also admitted rape, while the remainder deny any wrongdoing. A defiant Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that Israel seeks total victory against the Iran-backed militant groups Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon as he warned Tehran that there is no place his countrys military assets cannot reach. Facing growing pressure over the need for a ceasefire on the Israeli-Lebanon border, and long-running calls for a truce in Gaza, the Israeli prime minister laid out a bombastic defence of his actions at the UN General Assembly in New York, containing lots of fiery rhetoric but no mention of putting an end to either conflict. Firmly rebuffing Western pressure for a truce with Hezbollah, he declared instead that we are winning. As if to make the point, not long after he finished his speech, explosions rocked Beirut, with the Israeli military announcing that it had launched a strike targeting Hezbollahs central headquarters. Reports suggested that Hezbollahs leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was the possible target. As the explosion sent massive clouds of orange and black smoke billowing into the sky, Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari claimed that the base was underneath residential buildings. The Independent asked whether Hassan Nasrallah had been present at the headquarters, but the Israeli military declined to confirm or deny this. Israels prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York on Friday ( Reuters ) Earlier in the day, an Israeli airstrike killed a family of nine in a border village, authorities said, as Lebanon struggled to deal with a rising death toll around 700 and a wave of tens of thousands fleeing their homes thanks to the possibility of all-out war. One woman, who wished not to be named, described losing her uncle and his entire family, his wife and their three daughters, in a strike in the south of the country. The woman told The Independent: I have some other friends as well... There is one whole family, my childhood friend from school, with his wife and daughters. They all were killed, and also his sister, who was with us in school. I am just one person; we all have so many stories. With tensions flaring on two fronts, Mr Netanyahu said that Israel was waging a war for its survival after the 7 October attacks during which around 1,200 people were killed by Hamas and another 250 taken hostage and also affirmed his armys sacred mission to bring the hostages home. Rescuers amid the rubble following an overnight Israeli airstrike in a southern Lebanese village ( AFP via Getty ) Hezbollah has said it wont stop firing until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, having exchanged cross-border fire with Israel since the 7 October attack prompted Israels retaliatory aerial and ground assault on the territory. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry, and more than 90 per cent of the population has been displaced. Mr Netanyahu began his speech in New York by saying he had been prompted to address the UN by the lies and slander spread by other world leaders, and that he was seeking to set the record straight. His harshest warnings were reserved for Iran whose delegation was absent for the speech which he described as the puppet master behind the violence. There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, he said. And thats true of the entire Middle East. Far from being lambs led to the slaughter, Israels soldiers have fought back with incredible courage. Delegations from several nations walked out as the 74-year-old spoke, but projecting to those cheering in the gallery, where some of the families of Israeli hostages were watching, he said: I have another message for this assembly and for the world outside this hall: we are winning. Mourners stand over the bodies of members of the same family who were killed during an Israeli airstrike ( AFP via Getty ) Mr Netanyahus defiance comes in the face of growing demands for a ceasefire with Hezbollah, alongside the longstanding calls for a truce in Gaza. The US, France, the UK and a number of allies have put forward a proposal for a 21-day truce on the Lebanon-Israel border. In a statement before his UN address, Mr Netanyahus office said that talks in concerning the proposal would continue in the coming days. But there was little sign of that in his speech. The Israeli military reported conducting dozens of strikes over two hours on Friday in the southern regions of Lebanon, including the cities of Sidon and Nabatiyeh. The strikes targeted Hezbollah rocket launchers and infrastructure. According to the military, Hezbollah responded by launching a barrage of rockets towards the northern Israeli city of Tiberias. Washington has cautioned that further escalation would complicate efforts for civilians on both sides to return home. Mr Netanyahu declared to the assembly that Israels military campaign would persist: We will keep weakening Hezbollah until all our goals are achieved. In his own speech to the UN General Assembly on Thursday, Sir Keir Starmer stepped up calls for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon. Stop the violence. Step back from the brink, the prime minister said. Similar rhetoric was heard in relation to the conflict in Gaza, where US-led ceasefire negotiations have stalled. Mr Netanyahu said that the war could end if the Hamas militants responsible for the 7 October attack on Israel surrendered, disarmed, and released the hostages taken during the assault. He said: We will fight until we secure total victory. There is no alternative. He added that the same was true of Hezbollah. Mr Netanyahu ended his speech by criticising the UN as a house of darkness and a swamp of antisemitic bile, and said that Israel should be treated as fairly as other nations. Close Israeli hostages families march to Netanyahus home on October 7 anniversary 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 }} Israel has said it will launch operations on Lebanons southern coast, hours after ten firefighters were killed in an Israeli strike in the south of the country. The Israeli military has told residents to stay off the beaches and fishermen off the sea for a 60-kilometre stretch along the Mediterranean. At least 10 firefighters have been killed in an Israeli strike on a municipal building in the town of Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon, the local health ministry has reported. The Lebanese health ministry, a separate authority to the Iran-backed group, says 22 people were killed and 111 wounded in Israeli strikes across the south yesterday. More than 2080 have been killed in total, and a further 9869 wounded, since Israel began bombing Lebanon a few weeks ago. It comes as Israeli civilians mark the anniversary of Hamas deadly 7 October attack, during which they killed around 1,200 people and took 251 more hostage in Gaza, 101 of which remain in the enclave. Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have since been killed by Israels retaliatory air and ground attack in Gaza, according to the local, Hamas-run health ministry. Families of the hostages marched to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahus residence in Jerusalem this morning to mark the terror attack. Source Galileo is planning a number of floating offshore wind farms around Ireland Some investors are shunning Irelands offshore renewable energy sector because of the uncertainty surrounding the direction of government policy, according to the chief executive and co-founder of Source Galileo, an Ireland-based company thats backed by the investment arm of Ikea. Kevin Lynch said that this weekend hell be meeting Japanese investors in Norway, where Source Galileo is involved in a floating offshore wind demonstration project and will then travel to the south of France with them to assess potential projects there. Theyve invested with us in Norway, but they wont touch offshore Ireland because Ireland is faffing around, Mr Lynch said. He said that whether or not Source Galileo can deliver its first floating offshore wind energy platform off Ireland by about 2030 depends on the next government. The company is moving ahead with plans for a number of major floating offshore wind farms around Ireland and the UK. They include projects off the coasts of counties including Cork, Donegal, Wicklow and Wexford. Floating wind farms can be built much further from shore than ones where turbines are fixed to the seabed. The technology means they can be constructed in deep waters. The Source Galileo wind farms are being planned for locations up to 32km from shore. The wind farms will cost billions of euros to develop. Investors need direction and thats where the minister has to do his job a bit better, Mr Lynch said. Ministers need to run their departments, not the other way around. For some reason, Ireland has ended up with the best possible resource, but is last-place in Europe. The government has developed its Designated Maritime Area Plan (DMAP) that determines the broad areas where fixed-base offshore renewable energy projects can be developed. The government argues that this will result in plan-led development of offshore renewable energy projects. A draft south coast DMAP has recently proposed four areas where fixed-base offshore wind farms may be developed. They include locations off Waterford and Wexford. An offshore wind auction in respect of one of the four areas is due to take place by the end of this year. The governments Climate Action Plan aims to have at least 5GW of installed offshore wind energy capacity by 2030. An additional 2GW of offshore wind capacity is earmarked for the production of green hydrogen and other non-grid uses. But Mr Lynch believes that some of the more contentious offshore wind energy projects that are in the pipeline and planned relatively close to shore wont even get built. In the UK, there is a current pipeline of 95GW of offshore wind projects, with almost 15GW already operational. Its currently assessing search areas for future rounds of offshore wind energy licensing. What Ireland is doing is fundamentally different from what everybody else in Europe is doing, Mr Lynch said of the countrys offshore renewable energy plans. Its also fundamentally far behind it. In Norway, the government gave our demonstrator project a 200m grant. Mr Lynch said that Ireland also needs to capitalise on the supply side of the offshore wind energy sector. The Exchequer is set to receive 38bn in corporation tax alone this year, with all of the money from the Apple state-aid case included. Minister for Finance Jack Chambers has said that while only 8bn of the Apple back tax is likely to be received before Christmas, with the remaining 6bn arriving in 2025, all 14bn of it will appear on the Exchequers bottom line this year. Minister Chambers also revealed that he has received no notification about third-country adjustments to the Apple payment which means no other EU countries appear to be staking a claim to any of the proceeds. With the national finances in their healthiest condition since the foundation of the State, the Department of Finance is estimating, before next weeks Budget, that an exchequer surplus in the range of 13-14bn will be recorded this year, and a surplus of 9bn next year. "The Department has been advised that the CSO initial view is that the [Apple] revenue should be recorded in 2024, in line with the date of the European Court of Justice judgement, Minister Chambers told a press conference this afternoon. On this basis, my Department is projecting a general government surplus in the region of approximately 25bn for 2024, and a general government surplus in the region of 12bn for 2025. "This is the equivalent of approximately 8pc of GNI* for 2024 and 3.75pc of GNI* for 2025. GNI* is a special measure of economic activity that excludes the distortion effects caused by big multinationals. Minister Chambers again stressed that the Apple money will not be used on day-to-day spending, or on narrowing the tax base. He said that, along with Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe, he is drawing up a set of principles and parameters for how the money should be used. The proposal they put together on the strategic direction for the money will be put to their Cabinet colleagues, and there will be more detail provided on Budget day next Tuesday. Former Conservative cabinet minister Michael Gove has been appointed as the new editor of The Spectator. Mr Gove, who stepped down from parliament at the last general election, will become the magazine's new editor at the start of next month, and is "perfectly suited to the role", according to Freddie Sayers, publisher of The Spectator and the chief executive of new owner OQS. Mr Gove who served in the governments of David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak was a journalist before he became an MP. His will take up the job after final approval from Acoba, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. Acoba indicated it does not believe the appointment will "raise any particular concerns under the Government's rules". But it added: "The committee reminds you that it is your responsibility to manage the propriety of any work undertaken with The Spectator. "In particular, as a former cabinet minister, you must be careful not to offer any unfair insight as a result of your access to information and potential influence in government which the conditions below seek to mitigate." Mr Gove is expected to take the role from October 4, after completing a three-month waiting period since last being a minister. The position is currently held by Fraser Nelson, who will step down "after 15 incredibly successful years", Mr Sayers said in a message posted on X. Mr Nelson will continue to write for The Spectator and will become associate editor. Earlier this month, it was confirmed the magazine had been bought by GB News backer Paul Marshall for 100m (119m). The Spectator is one of the world's oldest politics and current affairs magazines, established in 1828 in London's Old Queen Street. In a statement Mr Sayers said the job of editor of The Spectator "requires a rare breadth of intellectual interests and depth of journalistic experience". "Alongside his political and journalistic nous, Michael brings a love of books, philosophy, art, opera and a mischievous sense of humour. He is perfectly suited to this role, and I can't wait to work together to bring The Spectator to new audiences," he added. Mr Nelson described Mr Gove as "the obvious successor" to the role. "His experience, combined with his journalistic skills and the quality of the team around him, will make for quite a potent combination," Mr Nelson added. The outlook for household finances is up modestly this month in what has been interpreted as expectations that consumers will likely be better off after Tuesdays Budget. With cost-of-living supports expected, consumers are also hopeful priority will be given to spending on housing and health when Finance Minister Jack Chambers addresses the Dail, according to the latest Credit Union Consumer Sentiment Index. The survey found that overall there was a fractional dip in consumer confidence in September, despite some improvement in how people see their household finances. Economist Austin Hughes, who oversees the compiling of the index, said the less negative reading on household finances suggests the worst may be over, but any current improvement may be inadequate for many. If there is a giveaway Budget, consumers have no plans to go on a spending spree, according to the survey findings. Health and improvements to housing infrastructure are seen as key Budget priorities by those surveyed. The need for cost-of living supports was also emphasised by respondents. Mr Hughes said the broadly unchanged sentiment reading for this month signals no marked change in the mood of Irish consumers. He said this hints that Irish consumers are in a watch, wait and worry mode at present. The Credit Union Consumer Sentiment Survey, in partnership with Core Research, shows an index reading of 71.9 for September, effectively unchanged from the August figure of 72.0. The September reading suggests that positive momentum evident in significant improvements in both the June and July surveys has now faded. Despite the broadly unchanged reading for this month, recent months have seen an improvement from the depressed level of sentiment readings seen through 2022 and last year. This suggests Irish consumers feel things are not getting notably worse, Mr Hughes said. But there is little sense that in the past couple of months Irish consumers believe things are clearly continuing to get better. Concerns around job losses in Ireland and worries about a slowdown in the global economy are playing a role. The sentiment survey implies that many of those on lower incomes and those with relatively large financial commitments such as housing and childcare costs may be continuing to struggle to make ends meet. The survey indicates the main focus of consumers in terms of Budget measures is on infrastructure, health and housing, and cost-of-living pressures. Keir Starmer says latest 10bn data centre shows Britain is open for business UK wants to make itself location of choice for new AI infrastructure UK prime minister Keir Starmer. Photo: PA Donal O'Donovan Fri 27 Sep 2024 at 03:30 UK prime minister Keir Starmer has hailed a 10bn (12bn) data centre investment by US private equity giant Blackstone as evidence Britain is open for business during a visit to this weeks UN summit in New York. Price of oil is dropping as Opec members plan to open the taps December output hike to go ahead as overproduction issue is addressed Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak. Photo: Bloomberg Maha El Dahan and Olesya Astakhova Fri 27 Sep 2024 at 03:30 The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies will go ahead with a planned oil production increase in December but first need to cut output to address overproduction by some members, two OPEC+ sources said yesterday. Gas bombs were falling as we rehearsed a play in the West Bank. I said Can we shut the door at least? Playwright Khawla Ibraheem, who is from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, talks about showing the normal side of life under fire in her touring play A Knock on the Roof We are part of a global scene: Khawla Ibraheem. Photo: Marcus Middleton Chris McCormack Fri 27 Sep 2024 at 03:30 In 2017, Khawla Ibraheem, a young theatre artist staying in Jerusalem, left the house where she was staying each morning and crossed the bustling Old City to get to El Hakawati, Palestines National Theatre. The Minister said there have been adequate windows to spread slurry this year and that ground conditions have been a lot better this year. Pic: Don Moloney Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue has ruled out the possibility of an extension to the slurry spreading period, which is set to close on 01 October. Nobody should have tanks full, particularly the years thats in it. If they do, they need to seriously examine why that happened and how they got to it because there have been opportunities for that not to be the case, he told the Dail. The comments came in response to a parliamentary question from Sinn Fein spokesperson on agriculture, Martin Kenny, who told the Minister that many farmers still had full tanks. Unfortunately it is not something I intend to extend or that Im in a position to extend for very good reason. All of our collective priority has to be in terms of improving water quality and in particular that we keep our Nitrates Derogation. That is dependent on good water quality, Minister McConalogue explained. The reason for the closed period is there for good scientific reason, so that slurry is spread at a time of year that once the nutrients hits the ground the plants are growing and able to utilise them, rather than sit there, not be utilised, and wait to be potentially leached into the watercourses around. Thats what happens from this point of the year onwards. Last year was very different where I did give a two week extension but as youll remember last years weather was very different from what weve had this past six weeks. The harvest was massively different last year, lots of crops unharvested, and that tells you what it was like on grassland as well. The Minister said there have been adequate windows to spread slurry this year and that ground conditions have been a lot better. October the first is the deadline, but if you were to extend that for example to the eighth of October, youre applying slurry with the objective of growing grass, when is that grass going to grow and be available, maybe mid or late November if grass is growing, he continued. If its not growing the slurry will still be there in the ground waiting for weather events to bring it somewhere else. October is not the time of year to be spreading slurry - its spring, during the year, whenever growing conditions when plants and grass can take up the nutrients. Its a waste to be spreading it this time of year. If any farmer has a particular difficulty they should contact the Department and outline their circumstances but we will certainly not be extending the deadline. The Government has postponed a ban on the rehoming of XL bully dogs until February next year after animal welfare charities raised concerns. Dozens of XL bully dogs currently in shelters would have faced being euthanised next week when new laws about the restricted breed come into effect. Initially it had been announced that a ban on breeding, buying, importing or rehoming the breed would be in place from October 1. However, following engagement with animal welfare charities and shelters, existing XL Bully dogs already in these facilities will be permitted to be rehomed or exported until February 1, 2025, the Department of Rural and Community Development confirmed. It will still be illegal to buy, breed or import these types of dogs from next Tuesday. The delay only applies to animal welfare charities and shelters where XL bully dogs are already in these facilities. It does not apply to any other owners of XL bully-type dogs. From February, it will also be against the law to own an XL bully without a certificate of exemption confirming the animal is licenced, micro-chipped and neutered. Those who violate the laws face fines of up to 2,500 or imprisonment, while the dog will be seized. Minister for Rural and Community Development Heather Humphreys signed the legislation to ban XL bully dogs this week following a number of serious attacks in recent months. Last week, an XL bully dog was put down in Dublin after attacking its owner, who was hospitalised. Some animal welfare organisations have voiced concerns over the implementation of the new rules, fearing the laws will lead to increased abandonment. They also expressed sadness at having to put down healthy dogs. An animal welfare charity in Sweden has offered to take XL bully dogs from Ireland ahead of the restrictions coming into effect on Tuesday. Some Irish dog charities this week transported dogs to Hundar Utan Hem (Dogs Without Homes) including an organisation in Ashbourne, Co Meath, which sent 22 dogs on Thursday. Welfare organisations in Ireland say they have been struggling to rehome the breed in the wake of high-profile attacks including the death of 23-year-old Nicole Morey in Limerick. Current owners of XL bullies will be able to apply for a certificate of exemption from Tuesday if their dog is licensed, microchipped and neutered. They will be permitted to keep their dog until the end of its natural life. I am bringing these regulations into force in the interest of public safety following a number of horrific attacks by XL bully dogs, which included the death of a young woman in Limerick, Minister Humphreys said following a cabinet meeting on Thursday. The XL bully type dog was also responsible for an attack on a very small child in Kerry last month and the horrific attack on Alejandro Mizsan in Wexford in 2022. I am concerned that if we do not take action now, the number of these dogs in the country will grow and my fear is that these attacks will become more frequent. While I know not everybody will agree with the ban, my ultimate priority is to protect public safety. As a cross of restricted breeds, XL bully-type dogs are subject to the existing additional rules under dog control legislation. When in public these dogs must be securely muzzled and kept on a strong chain up to two metres in length by a person over 16 years of age who is capable of controlling the dog. Building contractors have warned that jobs will be lost if industrial action continues as pickets were mounted at the National Childrens Hospital construction site today. The Mechanical Engineering and Building Services Contractors Association (MEBSCA) called for an end to picketing by Unite members employed as plumbers and fitters. It said it has been served with notice of further industrial action on two days a week for the month of October. Workers employed by MEBSCA contractors are holding a fourth one day strike today in a row over a travel allowance. Unite wants the first hour of a travel expense payment restored after it was cut during the financial crash. MEBSCA claimed that plumbers and fitters employed by its members are the highest paid workers in the construction industry and their claim is unrealistic and unsustainable. It said in a statement that they have seen their pay increase by over 26pc since an agreement was reached to incorporate the first hour of travel into hourly rates. The association said a pay agreement negotiated between Unite and MEBSCA in December last year will give a further 4.5pc increase to mechanical workers up to May 2026. It said industrial action by Unite is causing reputational damage to the sector, which will result in job losses. MEBSCA is extremely disappointed that its member firms are being targeted once again by being served with notice of further industrial action by Unite to take place for two days a week for the month of October, it said. It said the first hour of the travel time allowance was incorporated into hourly rates of pay in 2011. An agreement was reached at the Workplace Relations Commission between MEBSCA, Unite and Connect. Plumbers, pipefitters and welders employed by MEBSCA members are, therefore, being paid the first hour of travel time, it said. It said workers employed by non-MEBSCA companies are in receipt of lower rates of pay and are not paid a travel allowance. Unite said yesterday that MEBSCA had made an approach this week, but its disputes committee decided that there will be a further full day stoppage today. Its members voted overwhelmingly for industrial action last month. It is thanks to the determined action of Unite members over the past three weeks that MEBSCA has made contact, said Unite general secretary Sharon Graham. She said the employers need to remember that making contact is a long way from resolving the dispute. This is a highly profitable sector, and our members will continue to have Unites unstinting support as they fight to have the first hour of travel time restored, she said. Construction workers picketing at the National Childrens Hospital site have spoken of their frustration in the row over payment for travel expenses, saying the guys are getting angrier, but theyre adamant and going to stick this out. Unite union members want the first hour of a travel expense payment restored after it was cut during the financial crash. Their protest at the hospital site is the latest in a series of pickets over the issue at different locations. The first hour of travel time was taken off workers over a decade ago at a time when people were told to tighten their belts, said Susan Fitzgerald, regional secretary for Unite. The point was made at the time that it would be reviewed later. What we said consistently is that the building companies have recouped any losses any hit they mightve taken at stage and then some but workers havent. Workers are still clawing back to the point that they were at when these cuts and rationalisations were made. Were now saying that workers get back what was taken off them. Its hard enough surviving today without having to chase what should never have been taken and what needs to be given back right now. Travel time is essential for our workers. Other people go to the same place of work every day, they know where theyre going to be Monday to Friday. Construction workers can be sent miles away; they can be sent around the country. Workers have been out of pocket with the loss of travel time. Its time it was brought back: weve run out of patience at this stage. Susan Fitzgerald, regional secretary for Unite James McCabe, regional officer for Unite, said workers are desperate for this payment as the cost of living is soaring. This is our fourth picket for industrial action, the guys are getting angrier but theyre showing that theyre adamant and theyre going to stick this out. Theyre committed to this campaign, said Mr McCabe. In 2010 when this first hour was taken away, obviously there was a financial situation, everybody suffered. But what we have seen in recent years is that the employers profits are skyrocketing. With energy prices increasing, household bills being high, insurance and car costs going up, we want this to be reinstated. James McCabe, regional officer of Unite Tom Fitzgerald, regional coordination officer for Unite, said the workers want a solution, otherwise they will continue to protest. Construction workers, mechanical workers, plumbers and welders had a significant cut to their travel allowance. Theyre required to work at different locations: you could be in Dublin today, Navan tomorrow, he said. There was always an allowance to support that. It was said that it would be reviewed, but that never took place. We want the employer to come to the table and negotiate a resolution. Its not a sustainable situation. When you compare and contrast having an allowance and not having an allowance, there are parking costs now, extra travel costs and you dont have that hour. That has an impact on your living standards. Over a week it could cost you 120 to 130, and thats been missing for many years despite soaring profit and massive increases in turnover. Theyre well able to pay this and negotiate with the unions, and they need to do that. The next step hopefully is to sit down and see how well resolve this. Thats the preferred next step. In the event we cant achieve that, weve issued further notice for the month of October theres eight days in total that well be back in picket lines across the country. We want to maximise take home pay, and theres plenty of profit there to improve that. A spokesperson for the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board previously said: As addressed with Unite, any issues or concerns regarding travel time payments to craft personnel who are employees of mechanical contractors involved on the National Childrens Hospital project should be addressed directly to BAM Building Ltd or Jones Engineering, as this is a matter entirely for those parties. A BAM spokesperson declined to comment on the Unite strike at the childrens hospital. The Irish Independent also contacted MEBSCA for comment. A fashion buyer who felt she was treated like a criminal when she was sacked while waiting for her work visa to be renewed has won 25,000 for unfair dismissal. I was in tears, crying non-stop. I told him my visas going to be renewed in three days, they cant do it to me, its wrong. He said no, thats your letter of termination, the worker, Poliane Fernandes Lima, told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) earlier this year. Gardai seized a firearm, ammunition and two vehicles during a search operation in Baldoyle, Dublin 13 on Wednesday evening. Investigations by gardai who are monitoring an escalating feud in north Dublin led to a sawn-off double barrelled shotgun being seized as well as two cars that have been used for organised criminality. Two career criminals and a juvenile associate of the men remained in garda custody today where they were being questioned about a spate of burglaries across seven counties. The investigation into their activities is being led by Roscommon gardai where it is suspected that the gang committed up to ten burglaries near the Athlone area. Prospering telemedicine a reflection of China's rapid internet development 10:43, September 27, 2024 By Jin Xin, Ni Yi ( People's Daily A 5G ultra-remote robotic liver tumor resection surgery was recently completed, with the surgeon in east China's Zhejiang province and the patient in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region nearly 5,000 kilometers away. The surgeon, from a surgical control station, operated robotic arms skillfully, and the robotic arms, upon receiving the commands, precisely executed various surgical tasks. So far, hospitals in Zhejiang have completed over 50 such 5G ultra-remote robotic surgeries for patients in Xinjiang. A remote group consultation is carried out between a hospital in Aksu, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and Hangzhou Red Cross Hospital in east China's Zhejiang province. (Photo from the official account of the command center of Zhejiang province's paired assistance program for Xizang autonomous region's Nagqu on WeChat) In recent years, telemedicine and digital healthcare have rapidly developed in China, safeguarding public health and vividly illustrating how information technology promotes equitable public services and fosters inclusive development of the internet. In 2010, Zhejiang started offering paired assistance for Xinjiang's Aksu region and the First Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. Since then, leveraging network communication technology, doctors from Zhejiang have implemented remote consultations and transmitted medical images, among other healthcare initiatives. "Back then, the idea of performing remote surgeries on patients in Xinjiang using robots from Zhejiang seemed like a fantasy," recalled a doctor aiding Xinjiang. According to Li Zheyong, vice president of Alaer Hospital in Xinjiang, which supervised by the Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital affiliated with Zhejiang University, School of Medicine, communication technology is key to remote robotic surgery. "Generally speaking, the network delay during a surgery should not exceed 300 milliseconds, and it must not be interrupted," Li said. In recent years, mobile communication technologies such as 5G have rapidly advanced, and the infrastructure for network communication has continually improved. As of 2023, China accounted for 42 percent of the world's essential patents for 5G standards. The country has built a total of over 3.37 million 5G base stations, and its computing power ranked second in the world. This largest and most advanced 5G network has made it possible to transcend geographical limitations. In 2023, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital completed a 5G ultra-remote robotic cholecystectomy for a patient in Xinjiang, the first of its kind in China. The surgery utilized the country's first four-arm laparoscopic robot that employs 5G technology for ultra-remote operations, whose core software and hardware were all developed by Chinese teams. Experts from Shanghai Chest Hospital removes a lung tumor for a patient in Kashgar, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region via a domestically produced 5G remote surgical robot, July 13. (Photo provided by the Second People's Hospital of Kashgar Prefecture) Recently, on a desert road in Alaer city, administered by the First Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a car accident took place, leading to multiple fractures of a man. Soon after the accident took place, a doctor from a nearby health clinic arrived at the site. Lacking experience in emergency care, the doctor was concerned that improper handling could jeopardize the man's recovery. Thanks to a pair of specially designed augmented reality (AR) glasses the doctor took, which was enabled by the 5G technology, he received guidance from experienced experts, who were observing the patient through the glasses in real time. "The 5G + AR remote diagnosis and treatment system extends high-quality medical care to the primary level," said Cai Xiujun, president of Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital. The application of internet technology in the healthcare sector is helping urban and rural areas better share quality medical resources, and it's not just in Xinjiang. The remote medical service network now covers all cities and counties in China and is extending to the primary level in communities and rural regions. Approximately 70 percent of primary-level clinics nationwide have established remote medical collaboration with higher-level hospitals. The rapid advancement of the internet and the ongoing digitalization efforts are bridging the "digital divide" between urban and rural areas at an unprecedented pace, enhancing the accessibility and equality of basic public services. "Now, tests done in cities can also have their results viewed back in rural hospitals; its truly convenient," said Tulfjang, a Xinjiang patient with chronic illness. With the support from the medical teams assisting Xinjiang, Aksu region and the First Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps are gradually establishing a chronic disease management system that covers regional, county, township, and village levels, promoting patient information sharing, mutual recognition of testing data, and standardized management. This integration of information goes beyond healthcare. Interconnected data improves the efficiency of government and public services, allowing more people to genuinely benefit from the digital dividends brought by technology. (Web editor: Chang Sha, Hongyu) The family of a girl who was seriously injured in an attack on Dublins Parnell Square in November have said they hope she will be home in time for Christmas. Aged five at the time of the incident, the young girl was one of three children injured outside Colaiste Mhuire on Parnell Square East on November 23. A care worker was injured while trying to protect the children during the incident. The family issued an update on a GoFundMe page raising funds for the girls medical costs The page has raised more than 107,000 at the time of writing after the initial target was set at just 500. We would like to thank you all for your generosity. The money has come a long way, the family said. Over the last months we have had to move to a bigger place with a wheelchair accessible layout, furnish the house thinking about space and functionality, get an adapted car which has enabled us to take our darling home at the weekends, plus daily costs. Not having a kitchen to cook meals in does add up. We are hoping to be home full-time before Christmas. Earlier this month the girl was discharged was released from Temple Street Childrens Hospital, 281 days after the attack. She has since been moved to a rehabilitation facility. The family said the new facility is inspiring and they can see changes in our little angel on a daily basis. In an earlier update posted in August, the girls family confirmed she had been able to return home for the first time since the attack and described her as a warrior. The incident on Parnell Square sparked far-right gatherings and rioting in Dublins city centre on the night of November 23 and led to rioters clashing with gardai, looting shops and damaging vehicles including buses and Luas carriages. Riad Bouchaker (50) of no fixed abode, has been charged with three counts of attempted murder, causing serious harm to the care worker, assault of a man at the scene and assault causing harm to three children. Former taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the 'majority' of people think immigration figures have been too high. Photo: Getty Labour leader Ivana Bacik has labelled comments by Leo Varadkar on immigration as a new low. The former taoiseach said the level of immigration to Ireland has been too high in recent years. During a visit to the US last week, Mr Varadkar spoke to University of Notre Dames college newspaper The Observer, ahead of holding a public discussion at the universitys centre for international studies. Today's News in 90 seconds - 27th September 2024 He said migration benefited the economy and warned against the rise of populism and prejudice against migrants, but said the level of immigration to Ireland is increasing too quickly. "The majority of people think that the numbers have been too high in recent years, and theyre right, he said. "A country of five million people seeing its population rise by 2pc a year, which is whats happening at the moment, is too fast. Ms Bacik described Mr Varadkar's comments on immigration as a "new low". "I think it's deeply inappropriate and unhelpful and indeed a really new low in political narrative," Deputy Bacik said. "To see Leo Varadkar making such a statement that suggests that there is too there has been too much immigration, that doesn't take into account the horrific war in Ukraine, that doesn't take into account the need to provide shelter to so many fleeing war. "That doesn't take into account the fact that around the country employers, communities are crying out for labour," Ms Bacik added. "I think these comments were deeply unhelpful, it is a new low," she added. Ms Bacik also took aim at comments made by Taoiseach Simon Harris, who drew much criticism for linking the level of homelessness with the rate of immigration. The party leader also criticised Sinn Fein for comments made by Finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty who said Ukrainian refugees are pricing Irish people out of the rental market. The comments were in relation to the Ukrainian-only Accommodation Recognition Payment (ARP) which provides 800 per month tax-free to beneficiaries. "We saw the Taoiseach's comments last week, again, appearing to conflate homelessness and inward migration. Really unhelpful," she said. "And then just this week, we see the main opposition party doubling down and coming out with some very strong rhetoric that is, that was really anti Ukrainian, I think, cannot be put any other way," Ms Bacik added. Mr Varadkars comment came after Mr Harris drew criticism for linking the level of homelessness with the rate of immigration in an interview with The Sunday Times. Mr Harris said: People understand the fact that homelessness numbers are heavily impacted by the fact we are seeing many people seek protection in our country, seek asylum in our country and many people come from abroad hoping to have a new future in Ireland and immigration, it has many, many pluses, but it has had a challenge there. Those comments have been criticised by members of the opposition, including People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy, who called them a shameless dog whistle and Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon who said the Taoiseach was trying to "scapegoat international protection applicants". Asked by The Observer about the success of Fine Gael following his resignation six months ago, Mr Varadkar credited Mr Harris for leading the party to a strong position in the opinion polls. "[It] was really a political calculation that my party had a better chance of doing better with a new leader, he said. "Because people who had maybe gotten sick of us or sick of me, would look at the party again and would consider us again. And that seems to be working and working well, really in large part, because of the energy and enthusiasm of the new Taoiseach Simon Harris. He added to the pressure being put on Mr Harris to call a general election and said it should be called sooner rather than later to give the Government its best chance at being re-elected. Mr Varadkar also said the Taoiseach shouldnt let the opinion polls go to his head. Louise Tobin, Senior Librarian for Dublin City Council's Library, with Lynsey Kelly, education development worker with the City of Dublin Education and Training Board. Photo: Siobhan Taylor/ PA Wire Irish libraries saw a 20pc jump in the lending of e-books and e-audio books last year, new figures show. A total of 931,291 e-books and 1,674,191 e-audiobooks were loaned through branches in 2023, up one fifth on 2022. However, the substantial increase has not dented the lending of traditional print books combined with audio visual material such as CDs and DVDs, they increased to 14.5 million, a rise of 18pc. The data was released ahead of National Public Libraries Open Day on Saturday, when people are encouraged to visit their local library to explore the range of free services, regardless of whether they are a member. We have seen public library users become more familiar with digital resources, said Dr Stuart Hamilton, head of libraries development at the Local Government Management Agency. And the popularity of e-book and e-audio books highlights how Irelands 330 public libraries continue to adapt. Overall, the popularity of Irish public libraries is increasing, with a 2.6pc spike in membership in 2022-23 to 784,618. Almost half of these members are also members of the BorrowBox service, which provides access to e-books and e-audio books. Dr Hamilton said the popularity of e-resources demonstrates a growing outreach to those who would not ordinarily consider using a library, including people with intellectual disabilities, literacy issues, job seekers and new arrivals to Ireland. Dr Stuart Hamilton, head of libraries development at the Local Government Management Agency (Conor McCabe/Mediaconsult/PA) E-books, for example, can be suitable for readers with a range of disabilities, he said. Libraries are community settings offering a broad range of free services which allow people connect, access information, receive support and browse and escape. National Public Libraries Open Day allows anyone to acquaint themselves with what our libraries offer through free membership. Meanwhile, Dublin libraries are reaching out to pre-school children living in homeless accommodation in the city centre. The move is part of a campaign by Dublin City Councils Library in the Community programme to assist marginalised and isolated groups. Ahead of Saturdays open day, a story time session for pre-schoolers was held at homeless accommodation at Gardiner Street. It is one of more than 300 events held by the Library in the Community team since last year and which have engaged more than 30,000 people since. Anna Marie Delaney, chairwoman of the National Libraries Development Committee, said National Public Libraries Open Day will highlight the crucial role of libraries in communities. Public libraries are vibrant, inclusive community hubs providing all sorts of events and activities within our villages, towns and cities. Diversity of resources and services includes encouraging reading at all levels, improving digital skills and literacy, enabling formal and informal learning and supporting the provision of information and guidance on every topic. Bonus payments to be made soon with an eye on general election Finance Minister Jack Chambers needs to try and find a solution on the so-called land-hoarding tax. Photo: PA A 250 energy credit and a double Child Benefit payment have been agreed for inclusion in next Tuesdays Budget. The Coalition will seek to frontload any bonus payments to the end of the year with a general election looming. The burden of the Universal Social Charge (USC) will again be reduced. Money paid back from bailing out the banks will be specifically directed towards housing. First-time buyers will be able to get a government refund of 30,000 on houses for another year. Talks are continuing over major elements of the Budget, including funding for housing. Ministers have now signed off on significant giveaway elements, including cost-of-living payments. The continued energy credit will come down to 250 and is expected to apply to bills for the remainder of this year. A bonus Child Benefit double payment before Christmas has also been agreed. Pensioner Brian Newman budget case study However, an increase in the 140-a-month universal payment for each child is unlikely. Tanaiste Micheal Martin had floated the idea but it wont happen unless funding is found in the closing days of negotiations. There was also an increase in the second USC band rate from 22,920 to 25,760 The remaining social welfare elements of the Budget have yet to be finalised. Taoiseach Simon Harris and Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys want the pension increased by 15 a week, but not Jobseekers Allowance, as the country is in full employment. On the tax side, the USC will again be reduced. Last year, the 4.5pc USC rate was cut to 4pc, meaning tax savings of 122 for those earning over 36,000. There was also an increase in the second USC band rate from 22,920 to 25,760. A reduction in the USC along similar lines has now been agreed. USC could be cut by 1pc on incomes between 25,000 and 70,000, under proposals put to the Coalition party leaders by Finance Minister Jack Chambers. This change is likely to feature alongside other changes to credits and bands. Sinn Fein finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty Giving certainty to first-time buyers, the Help-to-Buy scheme for new houses worth up to 500,000 will continue for another year. Funding from the sell-off of AIB shares will be symbolically targeted at housing. The State has clawed back 16.1bn from the 20.8bn invested in AIB by the taxpayer during the financial crash. The remaining shareholding in AIB, which is just over 25pc, is worth about 3bn. The latest sale of the States stake in the bank brought in nearly 600m. But the Coalition still has to resolve its differences over the so-called land-hoarding tax. The residential zoned land tax was introduced in last years Budget, but was deferred until February next year. The Indo Daily: Budget 2025 will it fire the general election starting gun? Finance Minister Jack Chambers suggested the tax would have to be delayed again, due to its impact on farmers, prompting a row with the Green Party. The junior coalition party insists the tax must be introduced. But the problems around how to specifically exempt active farmland remains. Next Tuesdays Budget will be the Governments last chance to make a big impression on voters ahead of the general election, to be held either in November or the spring. Sinn Fein also says it will reverse excise duty on petrol and diesel, and reduce student fees by 1,500 Drawing the Budget battle lines ahead of the election, Sinn Fein pledged to abolish the USC for average workers, reduce childcare costs to 10 a day and scrap the TV licence. In its alternative Budget, the party said it will undo the damage of previous governments, while ramping up public spending. The partys finance spokesman, Pearse Doherty, said his Budget package of 12.4bn includes 7.3bn of new measures. As part of a cost-of-living package, the party said it would provide 450 in electricity credits to householders, as well as a double Child Benefit payment in October and December. Sinn Fein also says it will reverse excise duty on petrol and diesel, and reduce student fees by 1,500. The Social Democrats say taxing super wealth would raise 175m in revenue. The party wants to introduce a 1pc levy on wealth above 2m. This would exclude family homes and businesses, farm holdings and pension assets. Government surplus will be around 25bn this year, Finance Minister Jack Chambers confirms There will be a general government surplus in the region of 25bn this year, Finance Minister Jack Chambers said. This will include the Apple Tax windfall money, though Minister Chambers said that the exchequer will only receive 8bn this year. It comes as the Department of Finance publishing its annual White Paper ahead of the Budget, which provides estimates of Irelands receipts and expenditure for the coming year. Each year, the Department of Finance publishes Estimates of Receipts and Expenditure for the following year in advance of the Budget. The White Paper, as it is called, provides the expenditure and revenue forecasts that underpin the Budget. It will be published by Minister Chambers and Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe this afternoon. Slight rise in number of people accessing emergency housing in Ireland, says Minister for Housing The number of people in emergency homeless accommodation has reached a new record high of 14,486 in Ireland, according to the latest figures from the Department of Housing. Data released this afternoon shows that 10,067 adults and 4,419 children were accessing emergency accommodation during the last week of August. The latest figures also reveal that there were a total of 2,099 families accessing such services - the highest ever figures for adults, children and families. The figures do not include people sleeping rough, those that may be couch surfing or homeless in hospitals or prisons, those in a shelter for asylum seekers or domestic violence centres. The figures show that in the 12 months since August 2023, there was an increase of 1,795 people in emergency accommodation. There were 2,099 families in emergency accommodation, marking an 11% increase; 4,419 were children, showing a 14% rise since 2023; 1,740 people were aged between 18 to 24, marking a 14% increase over the year. Focus Ireland called for "urgent Government action on social housing". Focus Ireland chief executive Pat Dennigan said: "We know that housing and homelessness are key concerns for Irish voters, and all political parties must put forward ambitious yet realistic proposals to meet the significant challenges ahead. "We urge both Government and opposition parties to focus on solutions, rather than casting blame on vulnerable groups." Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien said the numbers represent a a "very, very slight increase" in people in emergency accommodation. "That is still no consolation, indeed, to anyone who is in emergency accommodation," he added. "I'm always acutely conscious that while we talk about numbers, behind those numbers are families and individuals and kids. "My biggest challenge is to exit more people out of emergency accommodation that are entering into it. "If we can continue the upward production of homes and the trajectory that we are on to deliver more social homes again this year, I think that will really help us in levelling off the numbers of people in emergency accommodation then start to decrease." Asked when the public will start to see a drop in the number of people in emergency accommodation, the minister said he could not give a date or month. "What we have seen in the last couple of months is quite a significant reduction in new entries," he added. "I am pleased to see too... that those in emergency accommodation are spending less time in it and are exiting it quicker than we have done before. "That's why it is so important we have the solutions for it, the housing stock, to assist people in exiting out." Wayne Stanley, executive director of the Simon Communities of Ireland, said: "Throughout Simon Week (this week), we have been travelling the country discussing the solutions to homelessness. "What stands out from those discussions is that we need to put a clear focus on outcomes. "The solutions are there but what we are missing is the investment in those solutions and the supply of homes that are required. In that context, the figures released today are an outrage and should be viewed in those terms. "The foundations for both of these elements must be set out in next week's budget and must form a central plank of any new programme for Government. "A 'giveaway' or 'election' budget that does not have the investment to turn the corner on homelessness would be a shameful abdication of duty by Government." The Salvation Army said public argument over the sources of homelessness will do nothing to ease the crisis. The Christian church and charity, one of the largest providers of homeless accommodation in Dublin, said action must replace debate in a bid to confront spiralling figures. As we approach winter, we are appealing again to the Governments responsibility to end homelessness once and for all, said Erene Williamson, The Salvation Armys Homeless Services Ireland Lead. We look on in frustration at the incredible amounts of public money spent on bike shelters and security huts, when thousands of children and their parents have nowhere to call home. A political row about homeless figures being impacted by the increase in people seeking international protection here, will do nothing to remedy that. From The Salvation Armys perspective, a chronic lack of affordable housing and the cost of living crisis are the key drivers for people accessing our services. We need real action rather than debate. Ms Williamson said the charity never takes nationality or personal circumstances into account when attempting to secure emergency accommodation for single people or families. Former taoiseach Leo Varadkar (left) and SDLP leader Colum Eastwood meet schoolchildren from Derry during an event at the city's Playhouse Theatre on Thursday. Photo: PA The Sinn Fein ard fheis opens in Athlone this evening but it may already have been the target of attempted sabotage. On a trip to Derry with outgoing SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, former taoiseach Leo Varadkar said all Irish political parties should have a united Ireland as an objective, not just an aspiration. The comments were seen as a subtle effort at trying to undercut Sinn Feins unique selling point in the South as the sole party hell-bent on Irish unification. From left: Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly, Professor Ian Greer, vice-chancellor of Queens University Belfast, George Mitchell and First Minister Michelle O'Neill at the event. Photo: PA Former US senator George Mitchell, who helped broker the Good Friday Agreement, has challenged Northern Irelands current leaders to fulfil the potential of the historic peace deal. Mr Mitchell (91), who returned to Belfast as plans were unveiled to build a new home for a peace institute in his name at Queens University, said while Northern Ireland had enjoyed 26 years of peace, there has not been 26 years of full reconciliation and progress. Star Limerick hurler Kyle Hayes must wait until at least December to find out if he will go to jail Former US president Dwight Eisenhower once said that when he couldnt solve problems, he made them bigger, so that he could solve them. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to have taken the advice to heart. Unable to deliver on his pledge to simultaneously rescue hostages in Gaza and eliminate Hamas, he has expanded the fight to take on the groups allies Hezbollah and Iran. And its working for him. With confirmation on Tuesday of the death of Hezbollahs missile force chief, Ibrahim Muhammad Qabisi, Israel has now killed at least three of the organisations top commanders, together with many of its senior officers. Many other fighters were killed or wounded by booby- trapped pagers and walkie-talkies, severely damaging its communications. An unknown number of rocket launchers and missiles has been destroyed in the most intensive Israeli aerial bombardment since its 2006 invasion. Make no mistake, Hezbollah is being very badly damaged. Back when people believed the world was flat, maps carried a warning on the edge: There be dragons. It was a note of caution for anyone considering travelling beyond the horizon: you might expect to be burned or swallowed whole. It might be useful to attach such a warning to future government contracts. If the new National Childrens Hospital (NCH) is an indication of where our public finances are headed, we should all be worried about what lurks around the corner. We are still very much in uncharted territory, according to David Gunning, chief executive of the New Childrens Hospital Development Company. Mr Gunning, who appeared before the Oireachtas Health Committee, is charged with handling the NCH development. The completion date has changed no fewer than 14 times. In his view, the hospital is being held hostage to negotiations. He could not give assurances that the completion date will not be changed again. The original estimated cost was 650m. However, the bill for the project is now closing in on 2.2bn, and there is still no sign of the finish line. Anger at the lack of clarity is reaching boiling point. What ought to be a showpiece of modern health infrastructure is in danger of becoming a national embarrassment. A crisis of trust in how taxpayer money is being spent is coming to a head Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said the whole fiasco is rooted in government incompetence. The partys health spokesperson, David Cullinane, implied construction seemed to be taking place within something of a time-warp. Every day becomes a month, [which then] becomes a year. Im not convinced that this strategy of having endless rows with the contractor is working. Its clearly not, he said. The oversight board has said it intends to seek damages from construction firm BAM. The claim could run to more than 20m. The legal rights and wrongs of the case may be thrashed out at length in the courts, but when it comes to public confidence in the project, time has run out. The need for the hospital is urgent. Every unnecessary delay is a betrayal of the children who desperately need its services. A crisis of trust in how taxpayer money is being spent is coming to a head. A long list of revelations and an alarming lack of explanations is not helping matters. This unease will have been greatly added to by the latest disclosure that a security shelter at the entrance to the Department of Finance cost over 1.4m. That particular detail went down like a lead balloon when brought to the attention of an Oireachtas finance committee, which is still trying to come to terms with a 336,000 bike shelter at Leinster House. It has been said that accountability is the glue that ties a commitment to the result. By such a yardstick, the Government is in increasing danger of coming unstuck. Sheelaigh O'Shea and Billy O'Mara representatives from Mallow, who were placed first in Category C with Deputy Mayor Martin Coughlan and Chief Executive Moira Murrell. Pic: Gerard McCarthy photography The crucial role communities play in the fight against litter was recognised by Cork County Council at its recent Anti-Litter Challenge awards. Volunteers attired in high viz jackets and gloves, armed with litter pickers and bags are a regular sight on our roadsides and streets these days. These tireless individuals often active in early morning and late evening devote long hours to keeping our environment clean by picking litter discarded by others. Their work was recognised by Cork County Council at its recent Anti-Litter Challenge awards ceremoney held at County Hall. Over 140 community representatives from towns and villages across the county attended the awards ceremony. The competition originated in the 1990s and brings an element of friendly inter-community competition to the ongoing problem of dealing with litter. Twenty towns and sixty-six villages across Cork entered in 2024 and their streets, footpaths and roads were judged over six weeks in May and June. Each place that entered was scored based on the presence of litter and those with the highest scores received special recognition and a coveted county title. Deputy Mayor of Cork County, Cllr Martin Coughlan praised the massive voluntary effort which is the cornerstone of the Anti-Litter Challenge. Mr Coughlan said: The standard of cleanliness was high this year and this was evident to anyone travelling throughout the county. Cllr Coughlan also emphasised that supporting communities in their endeavours would continue to be central to the councils work. Chief Executive of Cork County Council Moira Murrell said: The Anti-Litter Challenge was one of the councils most significant community initiatives. The winners were announced in the various categories on the night, details of which had been a closely guarded secret up to that point. While the Anti-Litter Challenge is competitive in nature, Cork County Council acknowledges the hard work and dedication of all those who participated which ensures that all towns and villages are cleaner. The winners on the night were: Towns Category A: 1 Dunmanway, 2 Passage West, 3 Millstreet. Towns Category B: 1 Castletownbere, 2 Kinsale, 3 Schull. Towns Category C: 1 Mallow, 2 Charleville, 3 Crosshaven. The most improved town winner was Cobh. Saleen won the County Final Large Villages and Ballinhassig won the County Final Small Villages. The Lord Mayor met students from all years as well as the staff of the community school on his visit Pictured are, 5th year student, Michael O'Mahony, Chairperson Ballincollig Community School Student Council and 3rd year student, Freya Desmond, Junior Chairperson Ballincollig Community School Student Council who greeted the Lord Mayor Cllr Dan Boyle, during the visit of Lord Mayor Cllr Dan Boyle, to Ballincollig Community School, Ballincollig, Cork. Picture: Jim Coughlan. Pictured are members of the Ballincollig Community School Student Council who greeted the Lord Mayor Cllr Dan Boyle, during the visit of Lord Mayor Cllr Dan Boyle, to Ballincollig Community School, Ballincollig, Cork. Picture: Jim Coughlan Pictured are, 5th year student, Michael O'Mahony, Chairperson Ballincollig Community School Student Council and 3rd year student, Freya Desmond, Junior Chairperson Ballincollig Community School Student Council who greeted the Lord Mayor Cllr Dan Boyle, during the visit of Lord Mayor Cllr Dan Boyle, to Ballincollig Community School, Ballincollig, Cork. Picture: Jim Coughlan. Pictured are members of the Ballincollig Community School Student Council who greeted the Lord Mayor, during the visit of Lord Mayor Cllr Dan Boyle, to Ballincollig Community School, Ballincollig, Cork. Picture: Jim Coughlan. Pictured is Cyril Desmond, Principal Ballincollig Community school, with the Lord Mayor Cllr Dan Boyle, during the visit of Lord Mayor Cllr Dan Boyle, to Ballincollig Community School, Ballincollig, Cork. Picture: Jim Coughlan. Pictured are Michael O'Mahony, 5th year and Sophie Mischke, 3rd year presenting gifts to the Lord Mayor Cllr Dan Boyle, during the visit of Lord Mayor Cllr Dan Boyle, to Ballincollig Community School, Ballincollig, Cork. Picture: Jim Coughlan. Ballincollig Community School students and staff were visited by the new Lord Mayor of Cork, councillor Dan Boyle, earlier this week. Fifth year student Michael OMahony, who is chairperson of Ballincollig Community School Student Council, and third year student Freya Desmond, who is junior chairperson of the schools Student Council, warmly welcomed Lord Mayor Boyle at the doors to the college. Inside the building, the Green Party councillor shook hands with principal Cyril Desmond, who introduced the visiting politician to students from all years as well as the staff of the community school. To mark his trip to the educational facility, Michael OMahony and third year student Sophie Mischke presented the Lord Mayor with gifts which will surely remind him of his special visit in the future. Cllr Boyles visit to Ballincollig Community School was a continuation of the annual Lord Mayors school visits tradition set by Terence McSwineys mayoralty in the 1920s. The Lord Mayor will visit several other schools in the Cork city area this autumn. Culture Night 2024 proved a huge success with thousands of people attending 160 events throughout the county. On Friday, September 20, communities around Cork County came together in the September sunshine and enjoyed 160 events in their areas for Culture Night 2024. The annual event was an overwhelming success, with local programmes drawing thousands of attendees from across the region. From electrifying DJ sets at Connolly's of Leap to the energetic multicultural showcase in Carrigaline, the county came alive with creativity, fun and curiosity. The warm weather added to the festive spirit, as town streets from Mitchelstown to Bantry and everywhere in between were filled with revellers. Mayor of the County of Cork, Cllr Joe Carroll who visited events in Bantry including a celebration of 50 years of Bantry Library said: The communitys strong participation made Culture Night 2024 a standout celebration. This years events reflected the county's wide-ranging cultural offerings, including traditional Irish dance, and innovative music and performance, presented by people of all ages and backgrounds. With a sense of community pride and artistic expression on full display, Culture Night Cork County once again showcased the talent and innovation found in the county's creative scene, leaving a lasting impression on all who attended, he added. Those who enjoyed events over the weekend are encouraged to continue to visit their local venues, studios, organisations and galleries throughout the year. Culture Night Cork County is presented by Cork County Council and funded by The Arts Council. Harbour Court gates erected seven months after councillors voted to close off access The gates closing off the laneway at Harbour Court. Pic: Sam Boal/Collins Photos Dublin City Council has erected gates at the entrance to Harbour Court in the city centre. Pic: Sam Boal/Collins Photos Gates have been installed on a laneway in Dublins north inner city, seven months after councillors voted to restrict access due to its reputation as a hotspot for anti-social behaviour. Harbour Court, off Abbey Street, had become a focal point for intravenous drug use, according to Dublin City Council (DCC). The laneway is a T-shape with three entrances: at Marlborough Street, opposite the Abbey Theatre; at Wynns Hotel close, to the Luas line; and a third onto Eden Quay. Councillors made a majority decision in January to close off the laneway, which links to the back of multiple properties. The decision was driven by the laneway being an open space for potential drug use, prostitution and drug paraphernalia, along with multiple complaints lodged by pubs, restaurants and other businesses that directly face the street. Black steel gates, standing 2 metres high and topped with pointed finials, have now been installed at the Abbey Street entrance to Harbour Court. Businesses such as Wynns Hotel and other pubs and restaurants in the area had been lobbying for its closure since 2009. Harbour Court. Photo: Sam Boal / Collins In January, local businesses told the Irish Independent they were delighted by the news of Harbour Courts closure. Fast-forward more than seven months and gates have finally been erected, restricting access to property owners who use the street for deliveries and bin storage. The gates were installed last week following a lengthy procurement process and consultation with property owners. Single-swing electric gates are now in place at the Abbey Street and Eden Quay passageway along with double gates that have been installed at the wider Marlborough Street entrance. The installation will be completed this week, with the electronic gates becoming fully operational. The decision to close off public access to the laneway was opposed by some councillors, including Green Party councillor Janet Horner, who said she was strongly against the proposal. She called for a plan to eventually reopen the laneway, with suggestions for new lighting, murals and increased garda patrols. However, the council confirmed the gates would be installed by the end of this month and that the decision to close the laneway to the public remains in place. The Dublin Festival of History kicks off today and features more than 250 talks, walks, exhibitions and performances. Pic: Marc O'Sullivan The Dublin Festival of History, now in its 12th year, is exploring a time when Dublin was officially 25 minutes behind London. With over 250 free events scheduled over three weeks, the festival promises diverse explorations of Irelands rich history, including All in Good Time: The Fascinating History of Dublins Public Clocks. Adrian Le Harivel, a former curator at the National Gallery of Ireland, will take you on a journey through Dublins lesser-known public clocks on October 7 at Pearse Street Library. There are around 80 such clocks scattered across the city, dating from 1804 to 2019. Speaking to RTE News, he noted that during the 19th century, there was an enormous expansion of all types of buildings, which is reflected in the number of clocks that appeared on them. In 1916, Dublin was 25 minutes and 21 seconds behind London, actually following the path of the sun. Theres a certain logic to it, but clearly in a modern world, you have to have the same time, he added. It wasnt until the arrival of the railways that time became standardised in Ireland. Le Harivels talk promises to be both informative and entertaining, especially since many of these decorative clocks didnt even tell the correct time. 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 The opening event, The Last Disco: The Story of the Stardust Tragedy, features authors Christine Bohan, Sean Murray, and Nicky Ryan discussing the aftermath of the 1981 fire that claimed the lives of 48 young people. This discussion, taking place at Dublin Castle at 8pm on September 27, not only commemorates the victims but also highlights the relentless fight for justice by their families. Other events as part of the festival include an exploration of the punk scene, From Prejudice to Punk to Pride, where Eoin Freeney shares insights from his life as a musician in Dublins vibrant punk era. There are also musical performances, panel discussions on LGBTQ+ histories, and guided walks exploring Dublins hidden gems. Another intriguing event is Bodysnatchers, Surgeons and Insurgents with Dr Ronan Kelly, who will host a talk in the Royal College of Surgeons at 6.30pm on October 4. All events are free, but booking is recommended for many sessions to ensure your spot. For the All in Good Time event, no booking is required just arrive early to grab a seat. What would you do if you won 5.5 million? Locals of Kildimo, Co Limerick pondered this exact question as Mulcairs Mace celebrated the latest enormous Lotto win for the county. After a syndicate took home a monster 8.9m prize earlier this year in Garryowen Stores, the West Limerick petrol station has now found themselves in the Lotto hot seat and locals couldnt help but marvel at the astonishing win. The National Lottery has confirmed that the Limerick winner made contact, and arrangements are now being made for them to collect their prize. Speaking to the Irish Independent, Carol Mulcair, co-owner of Mace Kildimo said: Its the same people who come in here everyday, they buy their bread and their milk with us and with any luck itll be someone local, but whoever is the winner deserves it. If the winners were among the group in the store during Fridays celebrations they were keeping their incredible news firmly to themselves. Carol added that the support she and her husband Jim receive each day from their staff make their shop run smoothly. I thought they were coming in for pictures, but they all arrived this morning, even on their days off, rolled up their sleeves and started doing jobs around the place, she smiled. Coming in for their morning coffees and lunchtime trips to the deli, locals gathered to share the excitement with the staff, whether they had known of the win or not! Lisa Fitzgerald from Pallaskenry was in to pick up a bite to eat when she heard the news and exclaimed: Stop it! 5.5 mil? When asked what she would do if she won, she said: I just never think about money and things like that, so I don't know. I think I would just want to do something nice for my family, something for my mum and dad not boring at all, she laughed. Chris and Sinead Enright are from Kilcornan, only minutes from the winning store. A staff member at Mace Kildimo for 18 years, Sinead said: Im like part of the furniture at this stage, but it wasnt me who won, she laughed. This couldnt have happened to nicer people As a worker in a nearby rival store, husband Chris added that if he was the lucky winner, hed have to keep working. It would be for my own sanity more than anything else, he said. Speaking of the store owners, Chris added: This couldnt have happened to nicer people, they treat their staff so well, and my wife can agree to that. Christopher Chan, a drainage worker from Ennis who was passing through Kildimo to a job with his colleague when they spotted the celebratory balloons said: Id retire! He said he was already dreaming of being feet up in a cabana in a tropical country just thinking about it. But Id definitely keep a house in Clare, just for a base, he laughed, proud of his Banner roots. Outside, 9-year-old Leyton from Newcastle West was arriving into the shop alongside his mother, Rosanna and father, David. Id save it, remarked the responsible young boy. Youd go to Disneyland, would you?, asked his dad, before Leytons eyes widened at the thought of treating his parents and two sisters to a luxury stay at the famous resort. The Limerick winner becomes the 7th Lotto Jackpot winner of 2024, joining the ranks of six other big winners from across the country. 27th Septemebr 2024. Two buildings and up to six cars were damaged during a rampage of destruction in the early hours of Friday morning in Westport. Windows from the Order of Malta at St Johns place and thenearby HSE residential Unit as well as multiple parked cars were indiscriminately damaged as a result of the rampage. Westport Gardai are in attendance and preserving the scene. Photo Conor McKeown Members of Westport Order of Malta Unit Eamon and Emer Berry and Brian Moran witnessing the damage done. Photo Conor McKeown A man in his 30s has been arrested after a number of buildings and vehicles were targeted during an overnight rampage in Co Mayo. A number of vehicles and properties at St Johns Place in Westport including the Westport Order of Malta, a HSE property and a number of private cars had their windows broken overnight. The damage was discovered early this morning, Friday. A man, aged in his 30s, was arrested and is currently detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984, at a Garda station in the Western Region. Westport Gardai are in attendance and preserving the scene.Photo Conor McKeown Eamon Berry, head of the local Order of Malta, described the scene as like the after effects of a riot. Speaking on Midwest Radio, Mr Berry said, A guard rang me and told me that there was 21 windows broken, and I initially thought he was pulling my leg because we had had a meeting last night in the building and we left it at 10.30pm. Follow Independent Mayo on Facebook "I was horrified and shocked and taken aback. "Our vulnerable neighbours in a newly refurbished building had triple glazed windows broken in on top of them. "Our building is bad but when you see that. Then I looked around and saw cars and vans. "It was like something you would see in the after effects of a riot. "I havent seen anything like that in a long time, said Mr Berry. Windows from the Order of Malta at St Johns place and the nearby HSE residential Unit as well as multiple parked cars were damaged as a result of the rampage. Photo Conor McKeown Gardai said they are investigating a criminal damage incident that occurred in Westport, Co Mayo this morning, Friday, September 27 2024 at approximately 3am. "Investigations are ongoing. Stephen Blewitt, General Manager Aurivo Dairy; Lawrence McNamee, Director, Aurivo; Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Minister Charlie McConalogue TD; and Raymond Barlow, Chairman of Aurivo. Aurivos Chairman, Raymond Barlow, his fellow Aurivo board director Lawrence McNamee and Stephen Blewitt, General Manager, Aurivo Dairy made a presentation earlier this week to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue on the importance of the Agriculture sector and those who work within it in the midlands, west and north-west region. The presentation to Minister McConalogue took place on the farm of liquid milk suppliers, Gareth and Dawn Porter in Donegal. From a regional economic perspective, Aurivo emphasised the importance of agriculture to the midlands, west and north-west, pointing out that 70,000 people (14% of those directly employed in the region) are currently employed on farm or in direct manufacturing and related services (a further 12 to 15% are employed indirectly in roles supported by farming income). Echoing the Ministers own stated views of the importance of being able to attract and retain young, energetic, innovative people into the sector, Aurivo stressed that recent legislative changes are making dairy farming less attractive for all those involved and the negative impacts of over-regulation must be considered if rural communities are to have a future financially and socially. Aurivo commended the Minister on his recent approach to seek a further Nitrates derogation for Ireland, reminding him that the region covered by Aurivo has the lowest stocking rate at 0.39 cows per Hectare, less than 40% of other areas of Ireland and that as a consequence there are exceptionally good phosphate and nitrate levels in the waterways of the Aurivo region. Aurivo assured Minister McConalogue of its and its milk suppliers commitment to playing an important role in helping improve water quality and the environment in the region. In doing so, the team informed the Minister that Aurivo is well on target to achieve its scope 1 and 2 emissions reductions by 2030 and outlined to the Minister the numerous initiatives it has put in place to improve the environment in which it operates and to assist its farmers achieve their 25% GHG reduction by 2030: Aurivos Farm Profitability Programme (in its tenth year), where best practices are rolled out on focus farms and used to educate and inform the wider Aurivo supply base Aurivos Future Milk Sustainability Bonus of CPL where milk suppliers commit to carrying out agreed environmentally focused initiatives. The Co-ops Carbon Soil Measuring initiative in conjunction with Farmeye Aurivos forage and soil testing and nutrient planning programme and its involvement in the Signpost Programme in conjunction with Teagasc Aurivos involvement with ASSAP and the Thrive Calf to Beef Programme However, Aurivo pointed out that the Government must offer further supports to ensure that environmental targets on farm are achieved. Aurivo welcomed the concept of nitrates regionalisation as introduced in October 2023, which saw some parts of Donegal, Sligo, Mayo, Leitrim and Galway retain 250 derogation and stated they firmly believe the high-water quality, low stocking density, large economic dependence on agriculture and environmental initiatives currently in place, dictate that a much larger area of the Aurivo region should be allowed to retain its existing derogation. Margaret McLoone, SFHEA, Programme Chair & Lecturer in Health Promotion at ATU, Fiola Murphy, HSE Child Health Programme Development Officer, Community Healthcare, Cavan Donegal Leitrim Monaghan Sligo, Patricia Carroll, Infant Feeding and Lactation Clinical Nurse Specialist, Sligo, Leitrim and South Donegal, mum Sarah Devenney holding her 5 week old baby Jack Devaney, Cara O Neill, Head of Health and Wellbeing, HSE Community Healthcare Cavan Donegal Leitrim Monaghan Sligo, Yvonne Kennedy, Healthy Campus Coordinator at ATU, Lynn Cunningham, Infant Feeding and Lactation Clinical Nurse Specialist at Sligo University Hospital. New mum Sarah Devenney with her baby Jack who is 5 weeks old in front of a mural. Atlantic Technological University (ATU) is celebrating National Breastfeeding Week by unveiling a new mural on its Sligo campus, dedicated to promoting and supporting breastfeeding. The initiative, a partnership between ATU and the Health Services Executive (HSE), makes ATU the first higher education institution in Ireland to feature a large-scale exterior mural designed to encourage conversations and raise awareness of the importance of breastfeeding amongst all members of society. Located on the wall of the Students Union building, the mural is the creation of renowned artist Marian Noone, also known as Friz. She ha returned to the Sligo campus after creating The Owl of Wisdom mural on the Innovation Centre Building in 2021. The mural depicts the artists niece being breastfed, a scene inspired by the observation of the tender moments between mother and child in the early days of the baby's life. The design focuses on the baby and highlights the profound bond established as a mother breastfeeds her baby. The mural promoting breastfeeding by artist Friz at Atlantic Technological University (ATU), Sligo. This mural is very personal to me, inspired by my newborn niece. It captures a moment of love and connection that is universal and timeless. I hope it encourages and normalises the beautiful act of breastfeeding, making it a more accepted and supported practice in our society, Marian said. Dr Orla Flynn, President of ATU, says the mural is a true reflection of the collaborative efforts between ATU and HSE. We are honoured to have such a beautiful and meaningful piece on our Sligo campus. It celebrates the natural and nurturing act of breastfeeding, while also showing our commitment to promoting health and wellbeing in many different areas. The project team is headed by Fiola Murphy, HSE Child Health Programme Development Officer for Community Healthcare in Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Monaghan, and Sligo, along with Margaret McLoone, SFHEA, Programme Chair and Lecturer in Health Promotion at ATU. Their joint effort highlights the murals broader mission to serve as a reminder of the significance of breastfeeding and to promote healthier infant-feeding practices throughout the region. Cara O Neill, Head of Health and Wellbeing, HSE Community Healthcare Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Monaghan, Sligo says the HSE are delighted to partner with ATU. Margaret McLoone, SFHEA, Programme Chair & Lecturer in Health Promotion at ATU, Fiola Murphy, HSE Child Health Programme Development Officer, Community Healthcare, Cavan Donegal Leitrim Monaghan Sligo, Patricia Carroll, Infant Feeding and Lactation Clinical Nurse Specialist, Sligo, Leitrim and South Donegal, mum Sarah Devenney holding her 5 week old baby Jack Devaney, Cara O Neill, Head of Health and Wellbeing, HSE Community Healthcare Cavan Donegal Leitrim Monaghan Sligo, Yvonne Kennedy, Healthy Campus Coordinator at ATU, Lynn Cunningham, Infant Feeding and Lactation Clinical Nurse Specialist at Sligo University Hospital. Increasing Irelands breastfeeding rates will help improve the long-term population health. We hope this impactful piece of artwork by Friz will provoke thoughts and inspire conversations, particularly among young people, staff and visitors which will contribute to creating a society where breastfeeding becomes the norm. Everyone is invited to join the official unveiling of the mural at 12.30 pm on Wednesday, 2 October 2024, at the main reception of ATUs Sligo campus. The event, entitled From Bump to Baby and Beyond A Celebration of Breastfeeding, will include a breastfeeding research showcase featuring various infant feeding-related research projects conducted in collaboration between the HSE and ATU. National Breastfeeding Week takes place from October 1 to 7. Funding can be spent on Christmas lights in rural towns and villages. Rural communities across the county will benefit from a 50,000 fund designed for events in the lead up to Christmas. The once-off allocation from the Local Government Fund to assist a number of local authorities in the run up to Christmas was announced by Alan Dillon, Minister of State for Planning and Local Government. It is intended that funding will be used to support Christmas markets, or other such events, and festive activities such as Christmas lights in smaller rural towns in Sligo. It is hoped that these supports will encourage people to shop local and help local economies. The allocation of funding is in recognition of the unique and significant economic challenges faced by businesses and local authorities in Donegal, Leitrim, Sligo, Mayo, Galway City and County, Clare, Limerick and Kerry. Deputy Frank Feighan said: Nine local authorities will receive 50,000 each for Christmas events which will hopefully generate footfall and activity to support these smaller town centres and revitalise the local economy in the run up to Christmas 2024. Its great to see the introduction of this initiative. Particularly for our towns with a population of less than 5,000 which will be prioritised to receive funding. The allocation of funding is in recognition of the unique and significant economic challenges faced by businesses in the North West. The Co Council Economic Department side plays a vital role in supporting businesses in Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim throughout the year, and I know this will be a valuable resource for communities in the run up to Christmas. When we encourage initiatives such as these, were supporting the businesses that make our towns and communities so unique during the festive season. Fine Gael and Minister Alan Dillon want to support local communities and businesses, especially during the busy Christmas period. The events that arise from this funding will hopefully encourage more people to shop in their town centre and support the local economy throughout the Christmas period, concluded Deputy Feighan. Large crowds of parishioners flocked to St Aidan's Cathedral in Enniscorthy earlier this week to catch a glimpse of the St Bernadette relics from Lourdes, on visit to selected locations across Ireland. This visit was the first time the relics have pilgrimaged to Ireland, and their stop in Enniscorthy was just one of many on their tour of the 26 counties. Over the two days, locals who were unable to travel to France, due to various reasons including health issues, were able to experience a part of the pilgrimage on their home soil. On the first day of the showing, a special service was held by the Irish Pilgrimage Trust, an organisation that brings young people with special needs to Lourdes every Easter. The organisation is particularly strong in Ferns and Wexford and they provided spectacular music for the occasion. Bishop Ger Nash said that all members of the community came together for the monumental experience. "It was an outstanding experience. It really brought people together you could see that many people facilitated for others to see the relics. A lot of younger people drove older parishioners and there were plenty of buses organised. It was a very positive experience, he said. He also noted that the atmosphere and giving nature experienced during the trip to Lourdes was reflected in the Enniscorthy cathedral over the two days. "I have been to Lourdes and when you go there, the people who need assistance are greatly focused on and they become the centre of the pilgrimage. You could see the exact thing happening here as well. Just a real sense of happiness and joy in the place, he added. From next week, public transport providers are set to refuse to carry e-scooters on board buses and trains over fears of battery combustion. In recent days, Wexford Bus confirmed that they would be following the guidelines of the National Transport Authority (NTA) and will no longer carry e-scooters on board any of their services from October 1. Outlining the decision, the Wexford company stated that the restriction would apply to all e-scooters, even those that can be folded or carried. It said that the new regulations were for safety reasons and to help prevent the risk of combustion no board buses. Explaining the guidelines previously, the NTA stated that: The guidance is prompted by safety concerns in relation to many lithium-ion batteries which are commonplace in such devices. "These batteries are known to develop internal faults, leading to overheating and combustion. This has resulted in recent fires and thick black smoke on board public transport in Madrid and Barcelona. The announcement received a mixed reaction, with those in favour of e-scooters as alternative eco-friendly transportation questioning whether its more dangerous to carry them on a bus than a phone, tablet or laptop. E-scooters have been a hot topic in Wexford since the introduction of Irelands first shared e-scooter scheme just over six weeks ago. The pilot scheme, operated by Bolt, has not been without its critics, with local elected reps stating that they are inundated with complaints around e-scooters being misused and operated in a dangerous manner. Maggie Smith attends a screening of her film 'The Lady In The Van' in 2015 in London. Photo: Getty From left, Maggie Smith, Miriam Margolyes, Richard Harris and Alan Rickman in 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'. Photo: PA British actress Maggie Smith, a double Oscar winner who appeared on stage, in the Harry Potter films and the Downton Abbey series, has died aged 89. Popular with audiences for more than 60 years, Smith gave life to a host of memorable characters, from Muriel Sparks passionate Edinburgh girls school teacher Jean Brodie, in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, to Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter series and Violet Crawley in ITV drama Downton Abbey. Her other film hits include the Sister Act franchise and Steven Spielbergs Hook. Maggie Smith has died at the age of 89. Photo: PA A statement from her sons Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin said: It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith. She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning. An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days. We thank you for all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time. Over her career, Smith worked with theatrical greats including Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Alan Bennett and Judi Dench, while maintaining a prolific film and television presence from the 1960s onwards. From left, Maggie Smith, Miriam Margolyes, Richard Harris and Alan Rickman in 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'. Photo: PA The actor was born Margaret Natalie Smith on December 28, 1934 in Ilford, Essex. She was the youngest child of Nathaniel Smith, a pathologist and laboratory technician from Newcastle upon Tyne, and Margaret Hutton, a Glaswegian secretary, who had fallen in love after meeting on a train to London. The family relocated to Oxford when their daughter was four. She soon won a scholarship to Oxford High School and, despite a frustrating failure to win parts in school plays because she was considered too common, Smith later alleged quickly resolved to become an actress, just as her elder twin brothers Alistair and Ian had decided equally emphatically to dedicate themselves to careers in architecture. In 1952, when she was 17, she took a job as an assistant stage manager at the Oxford Playhouse, which she later complained had amounted to little more than making endless cups of tea and playing maids, but which had also seen her make her debut as Viola in Twelfth Night before appearing in such plays as Cinderella, Rookery Nook, Housemaster, W Somerset Maughams Cakes and Ale and The Letter, and Nikolai Gogols The Government Inspector. In 1956, she went to New York City to make her Broadway debut, playing several parts in the revue New Faces of 56 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre before returning to London the following year to star in the musical comedy Share My Lettuce. Maggie Smith pictured in 1966. Photo: PA Here she played opposite Kenneth Williams, who would remain a lifelong friend with whom she would appear again, to award-winning effect, in the Peter Shaffer two-parter The Private Ear and the Public Eye at The Globe in 1962. She is so singular, a unique actress, Williams would later say of his co-star, praising her hard work in rehearsals and remembering with particular relish a sketch in which she had played a hostess encouraging her guests to join in a round of party games while artfully swinging a string of beads around her neck and midriff and back again without losing them, a trick only mastered through hours of practice. Her real stage breakthrough arrived that same year when she was invited by Olivier to join his company at the National Theatre, having been impressed after seeing her in William Congreves The Double-Dealer at The Old Vic, where she had also completed a trio of Shakespeare plays. She stayed there for eight years, enjoying a remarkable run from 1963 to 1965 in particular when she starred in George Farquhars The Recruiting Officer, played Desdemona in Othello and appeared in Henrik Ibsens Master Builder, Noel Cowards Hay Fever and Much Ado About Nothing. However, her relationship with Olivier was often tense and in danger of boiling over into outright rivalry. She later revealed that he had once slapped her in a rehearsal for Othello and criticised her diction, to which she pointedly replied in perfectly crisp vowels, having waited until he was in make-up to play the Moor: How now, brown cow? Nevertheless, the 1965 film version, which gave screen debuts to Michael Gambon and Derek Jacobi, secured Oscar nominations for both of its stars. Smith married fellow actor Robert Stephens on June 29, 1967, with whom she went on to have two sons: Chris Larkin (born 1967) and Toby Stephens (1969). They too would grow up to join the family business. The couple separated but Smith quickly remarried, to the playwright Beverley Cross, on June 23, 1975. The pair moved to Canada, collaborating on a string of productions at Ontarios Stratford Shakespeare Festival (1976-80) and remained together until his death in 1998. Maggie Smith was renowned for her stage and film work. Photo: PA In 2010 she was central to the success of ITV series Downton Abbey, in her Emmy-award winning role as the acerbic Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, which she continued to play in the films. Asked by chat show host Graham Norton whether she was glad the series was coming to an end in 2015, Smith answered, without a moments hesitation: Oh yeah! No, I really am. Honestly, by the time we finished she must have been 110 so I couldnt go on and on! Asked whether she had ever actually seen an episode of Downton, she replied, rather more guiltily: Ive got the box set... A giant of theatre and a deft character player on film, extremely committed and rarely out of work, Smith was nevertheless something of a perennial outsider, despite the adulation she received throughout her career, having acquired a reputation as rather spiky and acid-tongued, disinclined to suffer fools gladly. On whether she had ever felt inclined to try to correct this perception, she told an audience at Londons Tricycle Theatre in March 2017: Its gone too far now to take back. If I suddenly came on like Pollyanna, it wouldnt work it would frighten people more if I were nice. Theyd be paralysed with fear. And wonder what I was up to. But perhaps I should try it Hello! What fun! Were going to be here all day! And then filming all night too! Goodie! And its so lovely and cold! Japanese court acquits longest serving death row prisoner after 46 years Criminal system is under scrutiny as Iwao Hakamada has name cleared Iwao Hakamada goes for a walk in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka prefecture, central Japan, after his acquittal. Photo: AP Nicola Smith Telegraph.co.uk Fri 27 Sep 2024 at 03:30 A set of blood-stained trousers found in a tank of miso in 1967 sealed a young Iwao Hakamadas destiny as the worlds longest serving death row inmate. Donald Trump in new move to lift $500m ruling against him over inflating his net worth Judges concerned about overreach in landmark case against former president Donald Trump maintains the case is politically motivated. Photo: Reuters Jack Queen and Luc Cohen Fri 27 Sep 2024 at 03:30 Appeals court judges signalled scepticism yesterday towards the civil fraud case brought by New York state against Donald Trump as the former president asked them to toss a nearly half-billion dollar judgment against him over real estate business practices that a trial judge declared fraudulent. Israeli teams had meetings to discuss the U.S. ceasefire proposals with Lebanon on Thursday and will continue discussions in the days ahead, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday, adding that he appreciated the U.S. efforts. "Our teams met to discuss the U.S. initiative and how we can advance the shared goal of returning people safely to their homes. We will continue those discussions in the coming days," he said in a statement. New York City Mayor Eric Adams attends a press conference outside his official residence Gracie Mansion after he was charged with bribery and illegally soliciting a campaign contribution from a foreign national, in New York City, yesterday. Photo: Bing Guan/Reuters New York City Mayor Eric Adams was indicted yesterday on charges he took illegal campaign contributions and bribes from foreign nationals in exchange for favours, including helping Turkish officials get fire safety approvals for a new diplomatic building in the city. Since 1963, The Independent has helped create a great community! Since our founding in September of 1963, The Independent has been dedicated to giving Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin, and Sunol readers the news they need to be in-the-know about what's going on in the Tri-Valley region. India Shortens Deadline for Filing CSR-2 Return: MCA Notification Companies in India that report their corporate social responsibility expenditure must note that the filing window for the CSR-2 return form for FY 2023-24 has been shortened and must be done by December 31, 2024. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has tightened corporate social responsibility (CSR) compliance in India by reducing the window for submitting CSR returns. Companies are now required to file their CSR-2 return for the financial year 2023-24 by December 31, 2024. This CSR-2 return must be filed separately from the AOC-4, which is the annual return form due within 30 days of the companys annual general meeting (AGM). Previously, for FY 2022-23, businesses were permitted to submit their CSR-2 returns by March 31, 2024. Experts in company law have pointed out discrepancies in some cases where CSR figures reported in financial statements (via AOC-4) did not align with the data provided in CSR-2 filings. The MCAs move to shorten the compliance period is expected to enhance government oversight and reduce the potential for malpractice. The revised timelines will promote greater transparency and accuracy, requiring companies to maintain distinct records for AOC-4 and CSR-2 filings. Earlier, the Companies (Accounts) Rules, 2014 were amended in 2022 to mandate CSR-2 as an addendum to AOC-4. However, in 2023, this was changed to require separate CSR-2 filings after AOC-4 submissions for FY 2022-23, with a deadline of March 31, 2024. The latest amendment now sets the deadline for CSR-2 filings for FY 2023-24 to December 31, 2024. Form CSR-2, introduced in 2022, requires companies to report details of their CSR initiatives, including projects undertaken, CSR committees, spending, and unspent funds. Photo courtesy: wikipedia.org New Delhi: India will not purchase liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia's Arctic LNG 2 project, which is under Western sanctions, Reuters reported, citing Oil Secretary Pankaj Jain, who confirmed the development on Friday. "We will not buy from Arctic LNG 2. We are not engaging with any sanctioned commodity. Anything broadly sanctioned is off-limits for us," Jain was quoted as saying by Reuters. The Arctic LNG 2 project, led by Russia's Novatek, has been targeted by Western sanctions due to Russias conflict with Ukraine. The United States has also sanctioned numerous entities and individuals linked to Russia's war efforts, including companies involved in the development and transportation of LNG from the Arctic LNG 2 project. Novatek has denied media reports about the company was involved in creating and managing a "shadow fleet" to support the Arctic LNG 2 project. Photo Courtesy: PIB India and Uzbekistan signed the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) in Tashkent which promises to increase the confidence of investors in both the countries. The treaty was signed by Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman and Khodjayev Jamshid Abdukhakimovich, Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan. "The BIT between India and Uzbekistan assures appropriate protection to Uzbekistan investors in India and Indian investors in the Republic of Uzbekistan, in light of relevant international precedents and practices," read a statement issued by the Indian government. "It will increase the comfort level and boost the confidence of investors by assuring a minimum standard of treatment and non-discrimination, while providing for an independent forum for dispute settlement through arbitration," the statement said. Why BIT is an important treaty? The BIT also provides for protection to investments from expropriation, provides for transparency, transfers and compensation for losses. However, while providing such investor and investment protection, balance has been maintained with regard to States right to regulate and thereby provides adequate policy space. The signing of the BIT reflects both nations shared commitment towards enhancing economic cooperation and creating a more robust and resilient investment environment. The BIT is expected to pave the way for increased bilateral investments, benefiting businesses and economies in both countries. Photo courtesy: digitalindiagov.in New Delhi: In a significant move, BrahMos Aerospace announced on Friday its decision to reserve positions for Agniveers under the Agnipath Scheme, becoming the first public sector undertaking (PSU) and defence public sector undertaking (DPSU) to do so, media reports said. The defence company will allocate at least 15 percent of its technical and general administration vacancies across various work centres for Agniveers, reported The Economic Times. It also aims to fill at least 50 percent of security and administrative roles at outsourced work centres with Agniveers. Furthermore, at least 15 percent of contractual positions through third-party staffing will be reserved for these candidates, based on their experience and qualifications. BrahMos Aerospace will also encourage its industry partners to recruit Agniveers for at least 15 percent of positions related to the company within their organizations. "The Agnipath Scheme was introduced by the Government of India, where young soldiers are recruited in all three branches of the Armed Forces for a period of four years. These soldiers will be trained in various aspects of the Indian Armed Forces, including general administration, security, and various technical areas. The soldiers coming out of the Agnipath scheme, well-trained, qualified, disciplined, and motivated through a rigorous selection and training process, therefore, if recruited in BAPL, in their respective fields, will be assets to the organisation," stated BrahMos Director Anil Misra, accoding to the publication. This initiative addresses the need for additional manpower to meet increasing demand from both international markets and the Indian Armed Forces, the defence firm noted, the report added. BrahMos Aerospace is a collaborative project between Indias Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russias NPO Mashinostroyenia. The Agnipath scheme allows the recruitment of youths aged between 17-and-a-half and 21 years for a four-year term in the Indian defence forces, with an option to retain 25 percent of them for an additional 15 years. The scheme has been heavily criticized by the opposition, particularly in states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Uttarakhand, and Himachal Pradeshregions known for their major contribution to military recruitmentdue to concerns over lack of job security, which reflects broader issues related to rising unemployment. Photo Courtesy: PIB Indian PM Narendra Modi dedicated to the nation three PARAM Rudra Supercomputers worth around Rs 130 crore via video conferencing on Thursday. Developed indigenously under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM), these supercomputers have been deployed in Pune, Delhi and Kolkata to facilitate pioneering scientific research. The Prime Minister also inaugurated a High-Performance Computing (HPC) system tailored for weather and climate research. Addressing the occasion, the Prime Minister said that today marks a huge achievement in the field of science and technology for India and is a reflection of the nations progress by prioritizing research and development. Todays India is carving new opportunities in the endless horizon of possibilities, the Prime Minister remarked. The Prime Minister mentioned the development of three PARAM Rudra Supercomputers by Indias scientists and their installation in Delhi, Pune and Kolkata, and also spoke about the inauguration of Arka and Arunika, a High-Performance Computing (HPC) system tailored for weather and climate research. The Prime Minister conveyed his best wishes to the entire scientific community, engineers and all citizens. The Prime Minister dedicated the three PARAM Rudra Supercomputers to the youth of the nation as he recalled granting 25 extra days apart from the 100 days towards youth at the onset of the third term. He underlined that these supercomputers will play a crucial role towards making such state-of-the-art technology available to young scientists in the country and highlighted its usage in aiding advanced research in the fields of physics, earth sciences and cosmology. Such sectors, the Prime Minister said, envision the future of science and technology. In the era of digital revolution, computing capacity is becoming synonymous with national capability, the Prime Minister said, noting the direct dependence on science and technology and computing capabilities for opportunities in research, economic growth, the collective capability of the nation, disaster management, ease of living, ease of doing business etc. He said that such industries become the basis of Indias development in Industry 4.0. He stressed that Indias share should not be limited to bits and bytes but expand to terabytes and petabytes. Therefore, the Prime Minister said todays occasion is proof that India is moving forward in the right direction. The Prime Minister emphasized that the India of today cannot remain satisfied by merely matching the capabilities of the rest of the world but considers its responsibility to serve humanity through scientific research. Indias mantra is Atmanirbharta (self-reliance) through research, Science for Self-Reliance, the Prime Minister remarked as he highlighted historic campaigns like Digital India, Startup India and Make In India. He also mentioned the creation of more than 10,000 Atal Tinkering Labs in schools to strengthen the scientific temper among India's future generations, an increase in scholarships for education in STEM subjects and a research fund of Rs 1 lakh crore in this year's budget. He underscored the aim to make India empower the 21st century world with its innovations. Emphasizing the strides made by India across various sectors, focusing specifically on the space and semiconductor industries, the Prime Minister said that there is no sector today where India is not making bold decisions or introducing new policies. India has become a significant power in the space sector, the Prime Minister said, noting that Indias scientists achieved the same feat with limited resources where other nations spent billions of dollars on their success. Modi proudly highlighted Indias recent achievement of becoming the first country to land near the moons South Pole. This achievement, he said, is a testament to the nations perseverance and innovation in space exploration. Modi further elaborated on Indias future goals in space, stating, Indias Gaganyaan Mission is not just about reaching space; it is about reaching the limitless heights of our scientific dreams. He also mentioned the government's recent approval for the first phase of establishing an Indian space station by 2035, which will elevate Indias presence in space exploration. The Prime Minister stressed the importance of semiconductors in todays world and said, Semiconductors have become an essential element of development. He mentioned the launch of India Semiconductor Mission to strengthen this sector and highlighted the positive results witnessed within the short period. He emphasized that India is building its semiconductor ecosystem, which will play a vital role in the global supply chain. The Prime Minister also mentioned the introduction of three new Param Rudra supercomputers, which will further support Indias multidimensional scientific development. Prime Minister Modi emphasized India's scientific and technological progress, stating that India's journey from supercomputers to quantum computing is a result of the nations grand vision. He pointed out that supercomputers were the domain of only a few nations earlier, but India is now matching the capabilities of global supercomputer leaders with the launch of the National Supercomputing Mission in 2015. He said the country is taking the lead in quantum computing where the National Quantum Mission is playing a crucial role in advancing Indias position in this cutting-edge technology. He underlined that this emerging technology is expected to transform the world, bringing unprecedented changes to the IT sector, manufacturing, MSMEs, and startups, creating new opportunities and positioning India to lead globally. Image Credit: X/AAP New Delhi/IBNS: AAP National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal took potshots at PM Narendra Modi and the BJP, during the two of the Delhi Assembly's special session, declaring that they are misusing ED and CBI to hijack state governments. He slammed the BJP for welcoming corrupt leaders, once labeled as the most corrupt by PM Modi, and halting corruption cases against them. The AAP supremo lamented the erosion of democracy, likening it to a betrayal of Bhagat Singh and Chandrasekhar Azads legacy, and warned that the BJP is desperately manipulating voter lists to cover their imminent defeat in Delhi. Taking up the issue of ED and CBI being discussed in the House, AAP National Convener Arvind Kejriwal said he had written a letter to RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat four-five days ago and talked about five issues. One of the questions was does Mohan Bhagwat agree with the way Prime Minister Modi is inducting the most corrupt leaders of this country into his party by scaring them with ED and CBI or luring them with money, by breaking them from other parties. The AAP national convenor said PM Modi, Amit Shah, and BJP called those leaders most corrupt a few days ago, and after a few days, they inducted them into their party. On 27 June 2023, the Prime Minister said that Ajit Pawar is accused of a scam of Rs 70,000 crore and we will send him to jail. And after 5 days on July 2, he was included in his government and made Deputy Chief Minister. Kejriwal said, I want to ask them (BJP) if they feel ashamed. Well, all of us are bad, but your Prime Minister accuses a man of corruption worth Rs 70,000 crores on 27th June and after 5 days on 2nd July makes him his deputy CM. How do you face people at home, in your colony and how will you face the whole world that you are in such a party. On 22nd July 2015, the BJP of Assam said that Himanta Biswa Sarma is a very corrupt person. After one month on 23rd August 2015, he was inducted into the party (BJP) and the CBI case against him was shelved. PM Modi has 25 such gems, which he has carefully collected from other parties. They are very close to Modi Ji. Modi Ji cleaned all the filth (corruption charges) on them, washed (put on the backburner) all their cases, he added. "Ajit Pawar belonged to NCP, he had cases of EOW and ED against him, and Modi ji got both the cases closed. Praful Patel was a leader of NCP, he had cases of CBI and ED against him, both the cases were closed by Modi ji and the Prime Minister inducted him in his party. Pratap Sarnaik was a leader of Shiv Sena, he had cases of ED and EOW against him, both the cases were closed by Modi ji and he was inducted in the BJP," he said. "I take more pity on the RSS people as now they do not get tickets (in election), rather tickets are given to the people brought from the other parties (turncoats). Their job is only to spread the carpet (make arrangements for the meeting) for those who defected from the Congressmen, the NCP or the Shiv Sena to join the BJP, because they never get a ticket," he said. The AAP National Convenor said apart from this, they (BJP) toppled many governments. From March 2016 to March 2024, Prime Minister Modi tried to topple 13 state governments 15 times. Out of that, he succeeded in toppling 10 governments. These governments were not toppled, rather these governments were stolen. These people have stolen those governments by sending ED and CBI, threatening them, luring them and buying them with money, he said. Smoke billows from a site targeted by shelling in the southern Lebanese village of Zaita. Photo Courtesy: UNICEF/Dar Al Mussawir The Israel Defense Forces on Friday confirmed senior Hezbollah commander Mohammed Hussein Surour was during airstrike in Beirut. The airstrike occurred amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah which has escalated in recent times. There seems to be no end to tension with an international bid to secure a ceasefire, which seems to fall apart. A missile was fired from Yemen toward Israel and successfully intercepted by the "Arrow" Aerial Defense System. Sirens and explosions were heard following the interception and falling shrapnel. https://t.co/CGzsJxNvNb Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) September 26, 2024 Speaking on the airstrike, IDF posted on X: "ELIMINATED: Commander of Hezbollahs Aerial Command, Muhammad Hussein Srour, in a precise IAF strike in Beirut." ELIMINATED: Commander of Hezbollahs Aerial Command, Muhammad Hussein Srour, in a precise IAF strike in Beirut. Srour advanced and directed numerous aerial terrorist attacks aimed at Israeli civilians. During the "Iron Swords" war, he executed several terrorist attacks pic.twitter.com/odPb5tCERx Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) September 26, 2024 "Srour advanced and directed numerous aerial terrorist attacks aimed at Israeli civilians. During the "Iron Swords" war, he executed several terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers using UAVs and explosive devices," the force said. "In recent years, Srour led the manufacturing project of UAVs in southern Lebanon and established UAV manufacturing and intelligence gathering sites in Lebanon, located adjacent to civilian infrastructure in Beirut and southern Lebanon," it said. "He was also the commander in the surface-to-air missile unit, commander in the 'Aziz' Unit of the Radwan Force and Hezbollah's emissary to Yemen and the Houthi terrorist regime's Aerial Command," the force said. In a major update shared on Friday, the IDF said a missile was fired from Yemen toward Israel and successfully intercepted by the 'Arrow' Aerial Defense System. " Sirens and explosions were heard following the interception and falling shrapnel," read the IDF X post. The Foreign Minister of Lebanon on Thursday said that the crisis in his country demanded urgent international action as Israeli attacks threatened to set off a domino effect, turning the entire Middle East region into a black hole of endless conflict. Today, we desperately need the United Nations to play its role as a refuge for small countries victimized by aggression, including my homeland, Lebanon, said Abdallah Bou Habib, denouncing Israels attacks and calling for an end to the current conflict. In his remarks to world leaders at the UN General Assembly, the Foreign Minister said: What we are currently experiencing in Lebanon is due to the absence of a sustainable solution to the root of the crisis, which is occupation. To claim anything else would be a waste of time. So long as the occupation persists there will be instability and there will be war. While reiterating that at this very moment the future of Lebanons people is imperiled, he described events over the past two weeks since the latest conflict had broken out. Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine, addresses the general debate of the General Assemblys seventy-ninth session. Photo Courtesy: UN Photo/Loey Felipe Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine, addressed world leaders at the UN General Assembly on Thursday, stressing that the Palestinian people will not leave their homeland the land of their ancestors. Palestine will remain ours. And if anyone were to leave, it would be the occupying usurpers, he declared. He began by highlighting that Palestinians have endured nearly a year of what he described as one of the most heinous crimes of our time. It is the crime of a full-scale war of genocide that Israel is perpetrating. A crime that has killed more than 40,000 martyrs in Gaza alone, and thousands remain under the rubble. A crime that has injured more than 100,000 injured to this day. He pointed out that whole Palestinian families have been annihilated, their family names completely erased. He also stressed that amid the onslaught, diseases are spreading, clean water and vital medicines are in scarce supply, and over two million Palestinians have been displaced, many forced to flee multiple times in search of safety. The deaths and injuries continue unabated, not only in Gaza but in the West Bank and in Jerusalem. President Abbas underscored that he was not speaking today to respond to the lies of the Israeli Prime Minister, who claimed before the US Congress in July that Israeli forces did not kill innocent civilians in Gaza. I ask you, who is it then that killed more than 15,000 children of the 40,000 and an equal number of women and elderly persons. And who is it then that is continuing to kill them, I ask you? Further in his address, President Abbas outlined a 12-point day-after proposal, for when the war in Gaza has ended. It called for, among other points, a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, an end to military and settler violence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and a full Israeli withdrawal from the Stripwithout buffer zones or annexations of any kind. He emphasized the need for regular, sufficient humanitarian aid into Gaza, an end to forced displacement throughout the occupied Palestinian territory, and stronger protection and support for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and other humanitarian organizations to ensure they can continue delivering services to Palestinians. He also called for international protection for Palestinians in the occupied territories, stating, we cannot fight Israel, and we dont want to fight, we want protection, he said, adding that the State of Palestine must assume responsibility in Gaza and exercise jurisdiction over the region, including control of border checkpoints. This is our proposal to you, you can accept it, amend it or change it, we are ready for all that. Concluding his address, Abbas said that while we recognize the State of Israel, Israel does not recognize us. We want a solution that will protect both countries the State of Palestine and the State of Israel so they can co-exist in peace, stability and security. PM. Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons/ Tech. Sgt. Andy Dunaway, USAF - U.S. Department of Defense, U.S.-Japan Security Arrangements Remain Vital Former Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba will soon become the new Prime Minister of Japan, replacing Fumio Kishida whose tenure will end soon. Ishiba marched ahead to take charge of the country's key post after winning the partys leadership contest on Friday. He will assume command of the fourth largest economy of the world after the parliament convenes in October. His party holds the majority in the lower house of the parliament. He was one of nine candidates and beat economic security minister Sanae Takaichi who was vying to become Japans first woman leader in the runoff, with 215 votes to 194, reported CNN. Shigeru Ishiba also beat Shinjiro Koizumi on his way to become the PM. After winning the vote, Shigeru Ishiba said will devote himself to making Japan a "safer" country, reported Kyodo news agency. Shigeru Ishiba has been a member of the House of Representatives since 1986 and has served as Minister of Defense from 2007 to 2008 and Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries from 2008 to 2009, as well as being the Secretary-General of the LDP from 2012 to 2014. Videograb of fresh Lebanon strikes/ courtesy: X Beirut/IBNS: Moments after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah, Israel carried out fresh air strikes on the south of Lebanon's capital Beirut targeting the militant outfit's headquarters, media reports said. The strikes, heard across the city, sent huge clouds of smoke soaring above the densely populated south of Beirut. Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the strike targeted "the central headquarters" of Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of Beirut. The bombing came after Netanyahu concluded his address to UN General Assembly delegates in New York, at which he vowed to keep up strikes against Hezbollah and fight "until victory" against Hamas. Hezbollah and Israel have been involved in a deadly exchange of cross-border fire since the group's Palestinian ally, Hamas, attacked Israel on October 7 last year. Israel's aerial bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon has killed around 700 people this week alone, according to the health ministry. "As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safe," Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly, adding that operations against the Iran-backed militant group will "continue until we meet our objectives." Nearly a year into the war with Hamas in Gaza, Israel shifted its focus to its northern front with Lebanon, with its wave of aerial bombardment sparking an exodus of around 118,000 people. Photo Courtesy: Unsplash The killing of a Japanese schoolboy in China has triggered tension among the community which is beefing up security following the attack. The incident occurred a week ago in Shenzhen city. The 10-year-old child was on his way to a Japanese school when he was attacked by a male assailant on September 18, reported NHK. The Chinese government did not reveal the exact motive behind the attack so far. The incident has triggered fear among Japanese expatriates. A man in his 30s engaged in trade-related business in Shenzhen told NHK that he has become nervous when walking alone, and that the city is no longer a place he can consider living over the long term. Recently, the Japanese Ambassador to China visited Dalian in the northeastern province of Liaoning when he urged Dalian Communist Party Secretary Xiong Maoping to beef up the security of the Japanese school. Ambassador Kanasugi Kenji said the fatal stabbing incident deteriorated the bilateral relationship between the two countries. He called the situation "extremely serious." Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons The Taiwan government has condemned China's recent test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean. Taiwan described the move as an attempt to undermine regional peace and stability. The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) successfully fired an intercontinental ballistic missile at 8:44am on Wednesday, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said in a statement posted to social media later that day as quoted by Taipei Times. The missile carried a simulated warhead and landed in international waters, the statement said. Taiwan has condemned the test. The Presidential Office said in a statement that the launch was a Chinese attempt to undermine regional peace and stability, reported Taipei Times. It even directed China to exercise self-restraint. What is the basis of Chinas claim over Taiwan? The basis of Chinas claim over Taiwan dates back to 1945 when Japan lost its control over the island in 1945,post-World War Two. The 1949 Chinese civil war led to communists taking control and Chiang Kai-shek the one who lost fled to Taiwan. He ruled it for many decades. This is where Chinas claim to Taiwan emanates. The very fact that Chiang Kai-shek came to Taiwan and was not indigenous to the place is Taiwans argument against the claim. Why is Taiwan important to China? A lot of things actually, which of course are related to Taiwan but not necessarily direct to Taiwan. It's more about (China's) relationship changing with the United States or we should say Western Countries, mainly the United States and China. Taiwan then happens to become a key player and main actor in this dynamics, said Alice. 100 miles from the coast of China, Taiwan is an island, that is located in the first island chain, this positioning makes it crucial to the US foreign policy. US-Sino relations hinge on, One China Policy, it acknowledges that, there is only one Chinese Government." The US recognises its formal ties with China. With Taiwan the US shares independent strong unofficial relations. US President Joe Biden announces $8 billion in military assistance for Ukraine. Photo Courtesy: White House X page US President Joe Biden on Thursday announced $8 billion in military assistance for Ukraine to help the country 'win this war' against Russia. Biden said his administration has decided to provide Ukraine with the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) long-range munition. "To further strengthen Ukraines air defenses, I have directed the Department of Defense to refurbish and provide Ukraine with an additional Patriot air defense battery and to provide Ukraine with additional Patriot missiles. This builds on my decision earlier this year to divert U.S. air defense exports to Ukraine, which will provide Ukraine with hundreds of additional Patriot and AMRAAM missiles over the next year and will help Ukraine defend its cities and its people," Biden said in a statement issued by the White House. Biden said to build the capacity of Ukraines air force, he has directed the Department of Defense to expand training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots. Biden made the announcement at a time when Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the White House to meet the President. "I am proud to welcome President Zelenskyy back to the White House today. For nearly three years, the United States has rallied the world to stand with the people of Ukraine as they defend their freedom from Russian aggression, and it has been a top priority of my Administration to provide Ukraine with the support it needs to prevail," Biden said. Biden said: "I have directed the Department of Defense to allocate all of its remaining security assistance funding that has been appropriated for Ukraine by the end of my term in office. As part of this effort, the Department of Defense will allocate the remaining Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funds by the end of this year. I also have authorized $5.5 billion in Presidential Drawdown Authority to ensure this authority does not expire, so that my Administration can fully utilize the funding appropriated by Congress to support the drawdown of U.S. equipment for Ukraine and then replenish U.S. stockpiles." He said: "The Department of Defense is announcing $2.4 billion in security assistance through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which will provide Ukraine with additional air defense, Unmanned Aerial Systems, and air-to-ground munitions, as well as strengthen Ukraines defense industrial base and support its maintenance and sustainment requirements." What did Zelenskyy say in UNGA? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday that Russia cannot defeat his people on the battlefield, so it is looking for other ways to break the Ukrainian spirit, deplorably by targeting its vital energy infrastructure as winter approaches. These are deliberate Russian attacks on our powerplants and entire energy grid, he said, noting that it has destroyed all Ukrainian thermal power plants and a large part of the hydro-electric capacity. This is how [Russian President] Putin is preparing for winter, hoping to torment millions of Ukrainians ordinary families, women and children, and ordinary towns and villages. Putin wants to leave them in the dark and cold this winter forcing Ukraine to suffer and surrender. President Zelenskyy asked the leaders, assembled in the General Assembly Hall for the annual general debate, to imagine the situation in their countries, if 80 per cent of their energy systems are destroyed. He continued, noting that according to his intelligence, Moscow plans attacks on Ukraines nuclear power plants and their infrastructure with the aim of disconnecting them from the power grid. If, God forbid, Russia causes a nuclear disaster at one of our nuclear power plants, radiation wont respect state borders, and unfortunately, various nations could feel the devastating effects, he warned. Further in his address, President Zelenskyy highlighted the failure of the Security Council in dealing with the war, noting that when the aggressor exercises veto power, the UN is powerless. He contrasted that with his proposed peace formula, which he said is supported by nearly 100 nations and international organizations and in which there is no veto power. Thats why its the best opportunity for peace everyone is equal, and its effective and comprehensive, he said, noting also that it prioritizes nuclear safety, energy security, food security, the return of prisoners of war and the protection of Ukraines territorial integrity. Against that backdrop, he criticized alternatives, half-hearted settlement plans to the peace formula, adding that such attempts not only ignore the interests and suffering of the Ukrainians, but also give Putin the political space to continue the war. Any parallel or alternative attempts to seek peace are, in fact, efforts to achieve a lull instead of an end to the war, he said. I want peace for my people real peace and just peace. And I am asking for your support from all nations of the world, he added, be united nations, and that will bring us peace. Image Credit: In image Melanie Joly/ credit: @melaniejoly Twitter handle Melanie Joly, Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, participated in a summit of the Global Coalition hosted by US President Joe Biden in New York City to address Synthetic Drug Threats on the margins of the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. The need to continue driving international action to disrupt the illegal production, distribution, trafficking, and sale of synthetic drugs was highlighted by the event following the successful work of the Coalition over the past year to detect emerging drug threats and promote public health interventions and prevention services. Highlighting Canadas efforts to combat one of the most serious and deadly public health crises, Joly said that her country is focused on providing timely access to the prevention, harm reduction, treatment, or recovery services and supports they need, when and where they need them. Canada's $25 billion investment, noted Joly, in critical health priorities, provides increasing access to mental health and substance use services and supports. Welcoming the wide range of initiatives highlighted by the Coalition, Joly encouraged countries to commit together to the reduction of threats to public health and public security posed by synthetic drugs. Pledging to continue domestic efforts to address the illegally manufactured and powerful synthetic drug supply that is driving the overdose crisis, Joly said that strengthening multilateral efforts to address the increasing threats of synthetic drugs and organized crime. (Reporting by Asha Bajaj) In 2009, Kirat Assi was like any other woman, navigating life and hoping to find love. But what unfolded over a decade is truly astonishing. Living in London, she sent a Facebook message to Bobby, the brother of her cousin Simran's ex-boyfriendan ordinary condolence message after his brother's passing. This innocent exchange soon blossomed into a decade-long romance. However, what seemed like a love story turned into a nightmare that no one could have foreseen. The truth behind this relationship, the shocking motives, and the mastermind behind it all are now exposed in Netflix's gripping documentary, Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare. But, who is Kirat Assi? Kirat Assi, also known as Harkirat Kaur Assi, was living a seemingly ordinary life in West London in 2009. Credit: X/ @JustKirat | Harkirat Kaur Assi She worked as an arts and events assistant at Hounslow Community Services, and was also a radio presenter on Radio Desi, a programme for London's Punjabi community. Kirat's tale of betrayal first came to light in the Sweet Bobby podcast, hosted by journalist Alexi Mostrous of Tortoise Media in a riveting six-part series. Through her website, Kirat not only shares her harrowing experience of being catfished but also provides support for others who have faced similar nightmares. Yet, despite the high-profile exposure, much about her life remains shrouded in mysterymaking her story all the more intriguing. What is Kirat Assi's 'Sweet Bobby' catfishing story? For Kirat Assi, everything changed in 2010 when a Facebook message from "Bobby," a cardiologist, sparked what seemed like a promising friendship. Over time, their bond deepened, eventually evolving into a romantic relationship - but she had never ended up meeting Bobby, despite close encounters. As the years passed, the relationship grew increasingly toxic, leaving Assi in emotional turmoil. After a decade of waiting to meet the man she had fallen for, Kirat finally tracked down the real Bobbyonly to uncover a shocking truth: her Bobby had never existed. Credit: X/ @JustKirat The person behind the elaborate deception was none other than her own cousin, Simran Bhogal. In a moment that left Kirat stunned, Simran confessed the truth face-to-face. "She came to my house. She stood there and said: 'It was all me.' I didn't know what she meant, at first. She said she was Bobby. I still didn't get it," Kirat recounted to the Mail Online. Despite the emotional devastation, Simran faced no criminal charges, as catfishing is not illegal in the UK. However, Kirat pursued a civil case in 2020, which was settled out of court. The settlement included an apology letter from Simran, who explained her actions as a "family dispute" that began when she was just a schoolgirl. For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment. Bollywood actor Bobby Deol, who made a powerful comeback with his film Animal, has been the talk of the town since. Despite no dialogues, Bobby Deol manage to woo the audience with his aura and on-screen presence. He was recently spotted at the Mumbai airport wearing a sporty look. A laid back stylish yet cosy white hoodie shirt with grey pants is an ideal outfit for travel. The white hoodie wasn't just your regular casual thing. It was sheer, white and sleeveless which made Lord Bobby flex his muscles and look really good and hot. He paired up the entire look with a pair of white sneakers making him look young and vibrant. Would you believe if we told you that Bobby Deol is actually 55-years-old! We're loving Bobby's both on-screen and off-screen look. Here he can be seen choosing easy neutral tones white white and grey, making it pleasant to the eyes. An oversized lightweight hoodie vest definitely comes under the category of athleisure, combining easy, breezy with style. Only Bobby Deol can make even causal outfits look fashionable. He can be seen getting out of the car and walking straight to the departure gate of the airport. Like most celebrities, it is a possibility that Bobby Deol is flying to Abu Dhabi too for the IIFA awards ceremony 2024. In the last two years, Bobby Deol has emerged not just as a talented actor but also as a style icon for many. We can't wait to see Bobby Deol's attire for the big event at the red carpet. Are you excited too? While, most of you might have fallen in love with Bobby Deol in Animal, but he was one of the few actors in Bollywood with the most unconventional looks. Curly hair, broad body and dusky skin tone. Featuring in movies like Soldier, Gupt, Barsaat and Kareeb, Bobby Deol proved to be stylish on many levels back then too. For more stories on celeb fashion, follow us on Indiatimes Lifestyle. Kylie Jenner just made a temperature-raising appearance at the Paris Fashion Week in an eye-catching look! The diva turned up at the Schiaparelli show held at the iconic Place Vendome to get a glimpse at creative director Daniel Roseberry's SS25 collection. Although this was not Kyli's first rodeo, this look is sure to make its way into the list of her hottest dresses of all time! Even though Kylie is known for her jaw-dropping, daring sartorial choices, she always manages to surprise us and her latest appearance is no exception! Stealing the spotlight with her looks, the diva chose a smoking hot cut-out dress. Let's take a closer look at her glamorous appearance. Kylie Jenner at Paris Fashion Week For the high-fashion event, Kylie chose a black, bodycon dress with a plunging neckline. The dress featured a cut-out neckline that extended into criss-cross, white-coloured shoulder straps. The sizzling, cleavage-framing neckline added a sultry flair to the dress. The figure-hugging dress perfectly accentuated the diva's silhouette, showcasing her curves beautifully. The knee-length hemline tied the whole look together and gave a chic look to her bold ensemble, which Kylie donned with confidence. Kylie paired her flawless dress with delicate black peep-toe pumps which went beautifully with her demure look. Styled by Alexandra and Mackenzie Grandquist, the business mogul went with gold-toned accessories to complete her look. The stylish accessories featured a pair of statement Wonder Woman-inspired cuff bracelets, which adorned both her wrists. For her makeup, the cosmetic queen went with a full glam look. Her expertly applied makeup included a nude and cool-brown eyeshadow, mascara-coated eyelashes, filled-in brows, rosy blushed cheeks, a smattering of luminous highlighter on high-points of her face, and a glossy nude-brown ombre lip. Her minimalistic nude-hued manicure perfectly matched her makeup look. Her hairstyle featured dramatic curls which reminded us of the old-world glamour of yesteryear Hollywood divas. The romantic curls were set in a style that framed one-half of her face and added a touch of mystery to her look. The rest of her smooth, luscious locks were left to cascade down her back. Also Read: 'Stree 2' actress Shraddha Kapoor shows how to elevate your basics to make a stunning outfit For more on celeb lifestyle and fashion from around the world please visit Indiatimes Lifestyle. Donald Trump is an aspiring (second-time) President like no other. What sets him apart isn't his policies or speeches; it's his flair for self-promotion. In the final days leading up to America's presidential election, he is still selling luxury items engraved with his name to his followers. Tell me you are a narcissist without telling me you're a narcissist, right? His latest offering is a stunning watch priced upto a whopping $100,000. Trump Watch collection On Thursday, Donald Trump unveiled his "Official Trump Watch Collection," describing it as "truly special" and perfect as a Christmas gift. Credit: Truth Social His new website encourages followers to buy limited edition watches priced at $100,000, with only 147 available in three colors. Trump mentioned that he has taken the first watch for himself. These luxury timepieces feature a gold case adorned with diamonds. The $100,000 price tag includes a customised back plate and a signed letter from Trump. For those looking for a more affordable option, other watches in the collection start at $499 Credit: Got Trump Watches Trump is also promoting his watches with the slogan "fight, fight, fight," a phrase he famously used after an assassination attempt on him in Butler, Pennsylvania. The most expensive model includes 122 diamonds on its bezel and is offered in three styles made of 18-karat gold, while another "Fight Fight Fight" version is available for $499. From watches & sneakers to silver coins: Trump sells all Since launching his 2024 White House campaign, Trump has promoted a range of branded products. Earlier this week, he introduced $100 silver coins featuring his face. In February, he showcased new Trump-branded sneakers at "Sneaker Con," an event dubbed "The Greatest Sneaker Show on Earth." Called "Never Surrender High-Tops," these are priced at $399 and come with an American flag detail on the back. They are sold on a new website that also offers other Trump-branded shoes, as well as "Victory47" cologne and perfume for $99 a bottle. Although the websites for these products state that proceeds do not directly benefit Trump or his campaign, they mention that each sale is subject to a "paid license agreement." This mechanism is similar to what allowed Trump to profit from various products, including water, vodka, and steaks, long before he entered the political arena. While the debate over his political abilities may continue, one thing is clear: Trump is undeniably a savvy businessman. How did people react? The news quickly gained traction on social media, sparking a viral wave of reactions. One user expressed skepticism, saying, "I am having trouble believing that Trump selling watches for $100k isn't a money laundering scheme" while another stated, "Some see a gift, I see an easy way for a Saudi prince to donate millions to his campaign." Yet another asked a pertinent question: "According to this guy, America is a 'shithole country' where no one can afford eggs and yet he's selling watches for $100,000?" For more news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News. The internet sensation celebrity dog Swaggy Wolfdog has lost its $100k chain and is now offering a generous amount to anyone who manages to find it. Yes, you read that right. This has actually happened. The celebrity canine lost the high-priced jewellery while walking the iHeartRadio Music Festival red carpet in Las Vegas past Saturday. Swaggy's precious jewel goes missing! All eyes were on Swaggy when he made a dashing entry in the T-Mobile Arena of the coveted event. However, things took a turn for the worse when his striking chain went missing. The update was shared via Swaggys Instagram account with a series of the canines pictures from the event. The post was captioned, Can't believe this happened to Swaggy; he lost his brand new $100k chain at an event this past Saturday. It added that anyone who finds the customised diamond chain, which has Swaggy's name and a Swaggy pendant, will be offered a big reward. As per a Fox 40 report, the chain was a gift from Swaggy from luxury jeweller Aporro. More about Swaggy Swaggy, known for his viral red carpet moments, enjoys a sizeable fan following of over 3 million Instagram and 7 million TikTok followers. A quick look at his Instagram would tell you the husky has made quite an impression among celebrities who love to get clicked with him. From Taylor Swift to DJ Snake, Swaggys adorable pics with A-listers have often sent the internet into a frenzy. Swaggys background has also played a pivotal role in his meteoric rise. Before he attained influencer status, Swaggy was an abandoned dog and was rescued by DJ Swagrman. With a whole lot of love from around the globe, both Swaggy and Swagrman are now committed to returning favour and providing every possible assistance to animal rescue centres. Swaggy also serves as the president and pet aggregator of Life or Miracles, a foundation created by his team to rescue dogs from Mexico. Government funding totaling between 3 and 4 million euros will be provided to businesses in the greater Volos, south Pilion, and Almyros areas affected by the storm 'Daniel' that had been excluded from the first phase of funding, Development Minister Takis Theodorikakos said on Friday. Theodorikakos paid a visit to the Magnissia Prefecture Chamber and met with the administrator and professionals who briefed him on their issues. The package of aid will be associated with aMinistry program that is expected to start very soon. Businesses that will benefit from it are in the sectors of food establishments, tourism, manufacture and others in areas such as Agria, Milies, Lyri, Amaliapoli, and Pteleos that had been excluded from the program's first phase. The minister was accompanied by Climate Change & Civil Protection Deputy Minister Christos Triantopoulos and Deputy Christos Boukoros at a visit to the First Industrial Area of Volos and the management agency. "It is one of the largest industrial zones in Greece, with 105 businesses established, and thousands of employees, in a space of 280 hectares (2,800 stremmas)," the minister said. He referred to a Development Ministry program involving 20 industrial parks in Greece, including Volos, with funds provided by the ministry through Recovery Funds. iefimerida.gr Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati on the sidelines of the 79th United Nations General Assembly, where they discussed the latest developments in Lebanon and the broader region. Mitsotakis stressed the urgent need for de-escalation to prevent the conflict from spreading, which could endanger regional stability. He also voiced his strong support for a proposal calling for an immediate 21-day ceasefire, underscoring the importance of swiftly restoring peace and stability in the area. iefimerida.gr The recent meeting between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in New York has offered a glimmer of hope for improved bilateral relations. While positive strides have been made, particularly in the realm of migration cooperation, significant challenges persist, most notably in the areas of maritime zones and the Cyprus The escalating migrant flows in the Aegean have been a pressing concern for Greece. The Greek government has intensified efforts to combat human trafficking and dismantle networks operating in the region. However, the recent diplomatic developments between Greece and Turkey have also highlighted the complexities of managing migration flows in the Mediterranean. The delimitation of maritime zones in the Eastern Mediterranean and Aegean remains a contentious issue. Turkey's aggressive stance on energy projects in the region, including the Great Sea Interconnector, poses a significant challenge. While there is optimism that a resolution can be found, the coming months will be crucial in determining whether conditions are ripe for negotiations. The recent incidents involving the Hellenic Coast Guard pursuing traffickers' boats within Turkish territorial waters underscore the delicate nature of Greek-Turkish relations. While the situation was de-escalated through direct communication between ministers, it serves as a reminder of the potential for tensions to flare up. President Erdogan's speech at the UN General Assembly highlighted the ongoing challenges in bilateral relations. His insistence on international recognition of the breakaway state in occupied Northern Cyprus and his demands for maritime rights in the Eastern Mediterranean and Aegean demonstrate the complexities of the issues at hand. While the recent meeting between Mitsotakis and Erdogan is a positive development, it is essential to remain realistic about the challenges that lie ahead. The path towards a more stable and cooperative relationship between Greece and Turkey will require continued dialogue, compromise, and a commitment to finding mutually beneficial solutions. By Yiannis Koutsomitis iefimerida.gr Prime Minister Kyriakosaddressed the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly on Thursday Dapo Abiodun, the governor of Ogun State, has praised Bishop David Oyedepo, the founder of Living Faith Church Worldwide, for his remarkable impact on peoples lives. According to Abiodun, Oyedepos teachings have not only brought millions closer to God but also instilled a sense of empowerment and resilience in them. On Thursday, Abiodun offered this greeting in a congratulatory message issued by his Chief Press Secretary, Lekan Adeniran, on the occasion of the man of Gods 70th birthday. Advertisement The governor said, Oyedepo has become a colossus in Christendom as an evangelist and soul winner, with millions of followers all over the world. On September 27, 1954, Oyedepo was born in Osogbo, in Osun State. He is also the presiding Bishop of the Faith Tabernacle. Abiodun lauded Bishop Oyedepos ongoing devotion to mankind via his work in education and philanthropy, describing him as a multifaceted individual. Bishop Oyedepos impact transcends religious boundaries; he has been a beacon of hope and inspiration to millions around the world. His visionary leadership in the Faith Tabernacle and the Living Faith Church has transformed countless lives, instilling values of diligence, perseverance, and faith in God. READ MORE: Been Touring For 20 Years But Im Still Building My First House Seun Kuti Queries Colleagues Lavish Lifestyles Through his teachings, he has fostered a spirit of empowerment and resilience, encouraging individuals to aspire to greatness. Bishop Oyedepos dedication to education, philanthropy, and community development, which has significantly contributed to the upliftment of society, is worthy of emulation. Bishop Oyedepo is a man of many parts, a great teacher, soul winner, and a colossus in Christendom. We in Ogun State appreciate your dedication and commitment to our society. We are grateful for your impactful messages to our citizens and wish you a very happy birthday, the statement said. Okuneye Idris Olanrewaju, often known as Bobrisky, a Nigerian crossdresser, has found himself at the focus of a growing storm following reports about his stint in Kirikiri Prison. Bobrisky was sentenced to six months in prison for naira abuse in April, but he was only there for three weeks before allegedly arranging his early release. However, the issue began on Tuesday, when social media influencer Martins Vincent Otse, also known as VeryDarkMan, posted a recorded phone conversation in which Bobrisky admitted to completing his prison sentence outside the facility. Advertisement According to his accusations, he spent roughly N15 million to get the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to dropmoney laundering charges against him. Bobrisky was brought to Kirikiri Custodial Centre after his sentencing in April, but he was released after barely three weeks, according to individuals familiar with the case, as exclusively reported on Friday by Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ). However, he was officially released from prison in August. A prison official told FIJ that Bob spent only three weeks here with us in Kirikiri before she was transferred to another undisclosed location. This was where she spent her time; it was all arranged, and money was involved, the source added. The official revealed that Bobrisky was guarded like a president until the socialites secret departure after three weeks. READ MORE: N15m Bribery: I Demand Independent, Open Investigation Bobrisky She received VIP treatment throughout her stay, the source continued. She lived in a special cell. The money she claimed to have paid is true; there are no lies about that. Yes, she did pay. Bobriskys connections with other convicts were restricted by prison authorities, which reduced the visibility of his eventual disappearance. There was one instance when a guy was on a video call with his girlfriend and unexpectedly turned the camera to Bobrisky, the official recounted. This was considered an invasion of her privacy, and as a consequence, he was confined to his cell for nearly two months. As I mentioned, she was heavily guarded, which minimized such incidents. She was quietly taken away after three weeks, the source said. The Edo state Peoples Democratic Party governorship candidate, Asue Ighodalo, has expressed confidence of winning his case at the State Election Petitions Tribunal. Recall that Ighodalo lost to Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress, in the just concluded September 21 gubernatorial poll. The PDPs candidate polled 247,274 votes, Okpebholo secured 291,667 votes. Olumide Akpata, the candidate of the Labour Party, came a distant third with 22, 763 votes. Advertisement Reacting to the outcome of the election, on Thursday, via Channels Televisions Politics Today, Ighodalo said that Okpebholos victory is faulty. READ MORE: My Mandate Stolen, Edo Peoples Will Sabotaged Ighodalo He added that his legal team has identified over 150 polling units that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, was not deployed. He said: There is a lot of data, information, evidence that we have. We are fully confident that going through the tribunal, we will win the case. We will regain our mandate and we are clear without any doubt that we are the winners of the election last Saturday. We didnt rig. When APC and INEC saw that APC was losing woefully, they then subverted the electoral laws and the guidelines. Collations are done at the polling units and then you go to the ward and then the local government collation centre and then the state. There was a jump, from ward straight to the state. News / National by Staff reporter Long serving ANC alliance partner the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in KwaZulu-Natal has broken ranks, saying the once-ruling party was teetering on the brink of total collapse due to the unemployment rate.On the back of this, Cosatu has planned a national march on October 7 to counter the increasing unemployment rate which is at 33%.In an interview with the Daily News, Cosatu's provincial secretary in KZN, Edwin Mkhize, said their hands were "tied" as a federation and they were tired of being exploited as workers."The ANC will not serve the previously disadvantaged if it continues to be in alliance with parties such as the DA. That is why we are taking to the streets to voice our dissatisfaction with the current government," said Mkhize.He said the Government of National Unity (GNU) led by the ANC has completely shut them out of governance."As workers, we feel like our voices have been silenced. We cannot allow this to continue any longer."Enough is enough. We are the core of this government as workers," he said.He added: "We will be marching because we are tired of being exploited by the current government led by the ANC. It is time now that we show them that we are tired of being led by the ANC that is not prioritising the people on the ground," said Mkhize.In a statement, the labour federation said, "Cosatu notes with serious concern the deepening of the neoliberal agenda by the imperialist forces through our state and owners of the means of production. This is the reason Cosatu in KZN fully supports the strike which is called by Cosatu and other federations on October 7."We see this strike as a crucial issue because it addresses bread and butter issues for workers."With millions of people unemployed in the country, Mkhize said, "We need jobs, but workers are being retrenched day in and day out through the narrow application of Section 189."Austerity measures impact workers heavily and continue to impose hardships on the working class as it undermines service delivery."Many companies, public services and local government sectors are currently engaging in collective bargaining; the effects of the neoliberal austerity measures are making it very difficult to conclude progressive collective bargaining agreements for workers," said Mkhize.With the cost of living rising, Mkhize said measures should be put in place to cushion workers on the receiving end of the sluggish economy."The National Economic Development and Labour Council must revisit some sections of the legislation to engage the Treasury to review the issues of tax and giving access to workers to withdraw their savings when they are retrenched or lose their jobs."As Cosatu KZN, we are worried about the attack on KwaDukuza municipality. Our view is that this is one of the municipalities that is performing well. If this is not properly clarified, it may cause harm and instability to the municipality. More focus must be given to ensuring accountability by municipalities that did not perform well on audits." President Bola Ahmed Tinubu says the Federal Government will work with Monday Okpebholo, Governor-elect of Edo State, and his Deputy, Dennis Idahosa, for the development of the State. He made the disclosure on Thursday while receiving Okpebholo and Idahosa at the State House, Abuja. Advertisement While advising the duo to prioritise development of the State, he said: Governor-elect, you can now face the task of development. We are here to work with you. You have seen the progressive governors of APC. They are truly progressive. Work with them. Learn the ropes, and I believe you are up to the task. You have earned the victory. Democracy is difficult, particularly in emerging democracies and economies like ours. If you hear complaints from places like America, you know how difficult it is to navigate democracy. But it remains the best form of government. READ ALSO: My Door Is Open To Everyone Edo Gov-Elect, Okpebholo Says After Receiving Certificate Of Return Tinubu described both Okpebholo and Idahosa as a good symbol of people ordained by God to work together. You started as rivals and ended up as partners. You are a symbol of good understanding in politics; the man at our partys helm has been through it before. In Kano, he was a front runner, became a second runner, and became a deputy before he eventually became a governor. He acknowledged Adams Oshiomhole, senator representing Edo north, for leading the All Progressives Congress (APC) to victory in the gubernatorial election in Edo. I must thank the security agencies. There was no bloodshed, no riot. People voted and went back to their houses in peace, and the fears dissipated instantly. I saw Adams Oshiomhole radiating in joy sincerely the governors showed up in Edo, they impressed me. They defended the party. They worked hard for the party, Tinubu acknowledged. The Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency, has urged Nigerians living around River Niger and River Benue banks to relocate to safe locations and secure their lives and property. NIHSA Director-General, Umar Mohammed, made this known in a statement released to the public on Friday, saying that the steady rise in water levels has reached the red mark. He noted that the prolonged rainfall across the country has already led to devastating flash floods in several regions. Advertisement Highlighting the agencys commitment, Umar reiterated NIHSAs mandate for effective water resource management. He said: The steady rise in the water levels of River Niger and Benue has gotten to the red mark. Relocate to safe locations and secure their lives and property. READ MORE: Flood Kills Two, Others Missing As Heavy Downpour Hits Oyo Communities (Pictures) It is an effort to help save lives and property of Nigerians in order to abate flood impact, enhance food security, promote national resilience to flood thereby fostering sustainable water resources management. NIHSA will continue to monitor daily the water levels of our major rivers and tributaries, issuing flood warnings and alerts along with providing flood predictions, he said. We must heed the agencys warning by doing the needful, clearing our drainages and gutters as well as making way for water run-off. Eight persons were confirmed dead following a brutal cult clash in the Awarra and Ochia communities of Ohaji/Egbema Local Government Area, Imo State. A local leader, who wished to remain anonymous, expressed frustration to on Thursday about the state governments failure to provide adequate security, allowing cultists to continue their deadly attacks unchecked. He said, Eight people have so far been killed in this clash by the cultists here. Out of the eight lives reported dead in the past weeks, five were members of the cult groups, while three community members slumped and died when they heard the sound of the guns. One person who was abducted has yet to be seen. Advertisement The community leader further called on the Nigeria Police and Imo State Government to take immediate action to ensure the safe return of residents who fled their homes due to the recent cult clashes. Our people have become displaced and taken refuge in churches in neighbouring communities like Assa, Obile, Obosima, and Umuokanne and theyre dying because they have no food, no access to their homes and farmlands. Imagine people living outside their homes in this economic hardship. To ensure that peace returns to the areas, the communities of Awara and Ochia have constituted a committee to come out with measures to restore peace, he added. READ ALSO: Five Suspects Arrested In Connection With Kidnappings In Imo He expressed hope that the committee would do a good job in the restoration of lasting peace in the area, saying, We need peace to return to our communities so that people can lead their normal lives. An anonymous youth leader said the clash was a supremacy battle between contending groups over the control of proceeds from oil companies operating in the communities. It is a battle by two groups over who will control the proceeds of the money that come to Awarra and Ochia communities by the oil companies that operate there. One group is controlled by a man called Acid while the other is led by Achis, seeking to dislodge it. He confirmed that no fewer than four people had been killed in the clashes but noted that normalcy had been restored following the intervention of the government. Reacting, the Imo State Police Public Relations Officer, Henry Okoye, said the security agencies had been receiving complaints about attacks by some criminal elements in the areas. The police have been doing a lot to restore peace in Ohaji. The Commissioner of Police has engaged in a series of meetings with stakeholders of Ohaji. We, in collaboration with other security personnel, have enhanced security strategy. Ohajis security also lies with the people of the area because theres no way we can actually get it right without the maximum cooperation of people. The Commissioner of Police has personally visited Ohaji. The cooperation with the stakeholders is yielding results because we have made several arrests. The security of Ohaji has improved since the current police boss came. We are doing everything possible to restore peace and order in the area, Okoye said. The Edo State Governor-Elect, Monday Okpebholo has said that his door is open to everyone planning to support his government. Okpebholo, who received his certificate of return from the Independent National Electoral Commission on Thursday, noted that he is still expecting a congratulatory message from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, and its candidate, Asue Ighodal. The electoral body disclosed that the candidate of the All Progressive Party, secured 291,667 votes to defeat his closest challenger, Ighodalo of PDP,who got 247,274 votes. Advertisement The newly elected Governor of the state also revealed that he is ready to work with the opposition if they have useful ideas to add to the value of the state. Okpebholo said: For me, Im coming as a servant to serve the Edo people. That is what is required of me, and that is what exactly Im going to do. So very soon, you will see a lot of development coming up in Edo. READ MORE: Ill Continue Where Oshiomhole Stopped Edo Gov-Elect, Okpebholo We are going to employ teachers. We are going to renovate our school, a lot will be happening over time. So with time, you will recognise that a new dawn has happened. If they have an idea that is beautiful, that is acceptable by the people, then why not? My door is open to everybody. They have to bear it. They have to wait. It has happened. If I had lost I would have borne it, and I would have, by now, congratulated the winner. So Im expecting them to congratulate me. Idris Okuneye, also known as Bobrisky, a Nigerian transvestite, has demanded an impartial and transparent inquiry into the purported N15 million bribery case. It should be noted that popular activist VeryDarkMan, released audio of Bobrisky claiming to have offered N15 million to Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) operatives in exchange for the dropping of money laundering charges against him and assisting him in avoiding a jail term at the Kirikiri Correctional Centre in Lagos. Bobrisky denied the audios substance and described it as fake. Advertisement In addition, the crossdresser sent a mysterious message about contemplating death. However, in another Instagram post on Thursday, Bobrisky downplayed fears and called for an open probe. READ MORE: Bobrisky Saga: VeryDarkMan Denies Defaming Femi Falana, Clarifies Motive Behind Audio Release He wrote: Please, everyone calling to tell me the danger I am in and the plans against me should hold it now and fu*k it. I was being scared because of the story that EFCC will detain me again and I will be sentenced to prison a second time. I am ready for any investigation, but not in the same EFCC office where I was detained, and any investigation should be free, no intimidation and I demand for an independent and open investigation for the world to see. The socialite emphasised that the recording was a forgery, that it could be manipulated, and that he was prepared to defend his position in court. Anybody can alter any audio, add or frame any audio and put it out. Best of luck. Anyone who published any audio should take responsibility for the audio. The fact remains that I am not the maker of the audio and didnt publish any audio and nothing can change that. I will meet you guys in any court this time around if you have any case against me, he said. SEE POST: The Ondo State Security Network Agency, Amotekun Corps, has detained two suspected kidnappers who allegedly abducted four travelers along the Owo/Benin motorway in the states Ose Local Government Area. The development occurred less than 72 hours after the corps paraded 27 suspected criminals arrested throughout the state, saying that four victims were rescued following the recent arrest of the hoodlums. Speaking about the incident, Akogun Adetunji Adeleye, the corps commander, said while parading the suspects in Akure, the state capital, on Thursday that he led the operatives in partnership with some hunters to apprehend the suspected kidnappers and rescue the victims. Advertisement READ MORE: Tell Your Cheating Husband To Protect Himself, Dont Leave Your Marriage Toyin Tomato Advises Women According to the commander, the suspects had been terrorising farmers and commuters on the Elegbeka/Ifon route of the Owo Benin Motorway and had collected a ransom of N1.2 million from several victims in August. He said, The suspects engaged the operatives of Amotekun in a gun battle before they were captured. A day before the rescue, there was a reported kidnapping along a well-known route. Our team swiftly mobilised and, in collaboration with hunters, we combed the forest where the victims were believed to be held. By the end of the day, we successfully rescued four people. What made this operation particularly significant was the identification of two of the arrested suspects. These are no longer suspected kidnappersthey are confirmed kidnappers. The Amotekun head went on to state that the victims recognised the suspects as the same people responsible for prior abductions in the area, stating, These criminals had been arrested before but nevertheless managed to return to the same location. Now we have them again. The former spokesperson of Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign in 2023, Daniel Bwala has claimed that some government agents do not believe in President Bola Tinubus administration. INFORMATION NIGERIA reports that Bwalas statement is coming, following a proposed cabinet reshuffle by the President. It was gathered that Bayo Onanuga, special adviser to Tinubu, on information and strategy, on Wednesday, said that the former governor of Lagos state will soon shake-up his admiration. Advertisement Speaking on the development, Bwala, during an interview with Channels TV on Thursday, claimed that some politicians are trying to play it safe so they dont incur the wrath of the people. He added that some ministers who have failed the president have put their career and future at risk. READ MORE: #EdoDecides: Outcome Shows Confidence Of People In Tinubus Govt Akpabio Bwala said: Some agents of the government, very sadly, their attitude suggests that they dont even believe in the president. They prefer to play it safe; they feel that if they depend on the government, they will incur the wrath of the people. They want to be clever by half. With the performance of the ministers, I think that is the reason the president has put out words that he is going to rejig. He is not going to be guided by events but when he wants to do it. It is not a matter of ifs but matter of when. Operatives of the Zamfara state police command have arrested an officer of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps, identified as ASC Maikano Sarkin-Tasha, for supplying dangerous weapons to bandits in the State. INFORMATION NIGERIA reports that firearms, such as anti-aircraft rockets and AK-47 ammunition was also recovered from the NSCDC officer on Thursday. Advertisement It was gathered that the suspect, who confessed the crime, also admitted to be providing narcotics items to the terrorists. Sarkin-Tasha, while confessing his crime at the Zamfara police command, told newsmen that he was introduced to trading in illicit firearms two years ago by a fellow security operative. READ MORE: NSCDC Nabs Three Teenagers For Allegedly Setting House Ablaze After Stealing Foodstuffs In Kwara He said: I was arrested on my way to supply ammunition and assortment of drugs, intoxicants to bandits. I got the supply from a fellow civil defence officer and a rank mate, Aminu Musa. I was first introduced to the arms supply two years ago. While parading the civil defence operative in Gusau, the Commissioner of Police, Shehu Muhammad Dalijan, also paraded a quack doctor accused of treating terrorists, Mamuda Sani Makakari. He was caught with 441 live ammunition. The container ship CMA CGM Marco Polo arrives at Philadelphia's Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in March. Acquiring 150 acres from Norfolk Southern would significantly expand the ports capacity to handle automobiles and containers. Read more The state agency that owns Philadelphias seaport facilities is in negotiations with Norfolk Southern Corp. to buy 150 acres on the site of the old Philadelphia Navy Base. Philadelphia Regional Port Authority officials see the potential acquisition as a generational opportunity that could create as many as 15,000 jobs which would more than double the number of jobs the port currently supports according to Ryan Mulvey, the agencys director of government and public affairs. Advertisement The site, known as Mustin Yard, represents the last available land at a unique nexus of deepwater, highway, and rail access, Mulvey said in testimony last week before the Pennsylvania House Transportation Committee. To close the deal, the port authority, which calls itself PhilaPort, needs a funding commitment from the state, Mulvey told lawmakers. Acquiring the site would significantly expand the ports capacity to handle automobiles and containers, the big metal boxes that fuel global trade. PhilaPort reported handling 743,000 container units last year, up 80% over 2016 levels. A key contributor to that growth has been the ports imports of perishable products like fruit and meat. Port officials project that container volume will double to about 1.5 million units by 2040. The 150-acre Mustin Yard would be even bigger than the ports main container terminal, the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal, which sits on 106 acres near the Walt Whitman Bridge. PhilaPort officials declined to say how much state funding they might need to buy the land or to develop it. Industry observers said the land is likely to cost tens of millions of dollars. A spokesperson for Norfolk Southern declined to comment on the negotiations. Mulvey said in his testimony that as part of PhilaPorts five-year plan, it has requested about $530 million in capital funds for 2026 and 2027. However, he told The Inquirer that those requests will likely change in light of $217 million in new federal grants the port secured last week. Competitor ports ramp up investment The port authoritys request for new state aid comes as competitor ports are ramping up their own investments. Delaware has committed almost $200 million to build a new container terminal near the Port of Wilmington in a partnership with a private operator. The Swiss shipping line Mediterranean Shipping Co. is developing a terminal in the Port of Baltimore. READ MORE: Delawares port expansion plan is back on track and rekindling a regional rivalry with Philadelphia While Philadelphia has seen significant cargo growth, it is still a relatively small player among U.S. ports in international trade. For example, the Port of New York and New Jersey handled 7.8 million container units last year more than tenfold Philadelphias volume. Competitor ports are sitting out there and ready to eat our lunch, Mulvey said, adding that some of them, like Delaware, have natural advantages over Philadelphia because theyre closer to the ocean. PhilaPorts operations support 12,000 direct and indirect jobs, Mulvey said, generating $90 million in state and local tax revenue. He said developing Mustin Yard could generate an additional $38 million in revenue. The port authoritys consultants found that in a scenario in which the yard is fully developed into a container terminal, that could create 15,000 jobs, Mulvey told The Inquirer. However, he emphasized the number of jobs and economic impact would depend on several factors, including the amount of capital investment and the type of cargoes handled at the yard. PhilaPort had not shared its underlying analysis with The Inquirer as of Thursday evening. The port has also hired a consulting firm to do a broader economic analysis. Under Gov. Tom Wolfs administration, the state invested more than $500 million in new electric cranes and other equipment at Packer Avenue, a 155-acre auto processing center at PhilaPorts Southport facility on the former Navy base, and new warehouses. Most of that money came from the states issuance of general obligation bonds, with the debt service covered by the general fund. Port officials say the growth in containers and autos it handled 259,000 Hyundai, Kia, and other vehicles last year, up 40,000 units from 2022 shows the investment has paid off. The deepening of the Delaware River also enabled Philadelphia to accommodate bigger ships. Developing vacant waterfront land Norfolk Southerns Mustin Yard is adjacent to PhilaPorts Southport facility, which sits on land that had previously been part of the U.S. Navy Base. After the Navy left in 1996, the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. (PIDC) took over the Navy Yard to develop parcels of vacant waterfront land. Several hundred acres were set aside for port expansion, including the area now known as Southport. In 2014, PhilaPort considered converting Southport into a modern container terminal an idea that the City Controllers Office projected would have maximized its economic impact. The report said using Southport as a storage space for automobiles would generate the least amount of economic activity of the three scenarios envisioned at the time, in part because fewer direct jobs flow from vehicle imports. But the state was looking for a potential Southport development to be financed primarily through private money, and any developer would have had to compete with the Packer Avenue terminal directly to the north. Ultimately port and state officials decided instead to upgrade the decades-old Packer Avenue terminal, operated by Gloucester City-based Holt Logistics Corp., and dedicate Southport to autos, where cars are stored before heading to dealer showrooms. READ MORE: Truckers are raising alarms about unfair competition subsidized by taxpayers at Phillys port That delivered a win to the Teamsters union, whose members work the auto yard. PhilaPort leases the facility to logistics provider Glovis America Inc., an affiliate of South Korea-based Hyundai Glovis Co. Ltd. The dockworkers who unload cargo from ships are represented by the International Longshoremens Association. The unions membership might go on strike next week at ports across the East Coast. PhilaPorts 11 board members are appointed by the governor and legislative leaders in Harrisburg. Thats been good for the auto industry, but it kind of stunted the growth potential for the container business, said Bob Blackburn, a former top PhilaPort official who left the agency in 2015 before the investment decisions were made. The bill has come due. If the port wants to expand container capacity, it needs more land. I would imagine its not going to be cheap for the commonwealth, Blackburn said of Mustin Yard. The railroads historically value their property very high. Norfolk Southern in 2002 agreed to build a high-tech freight yard on the old Mustin Field Naval Air Station at the east end of the former Navy base in South Philadelphia. The Delaware River Port Authority owned the land and agreed to finance the $16 million project, with the railroads rent payments covering the debt. Under the agreement, the railroad had the right to repay the loan and take title to the yard at any point in the lease period. Property records show the DRPA conveyed the land to the railroad in 2008. Norfolk Southern declined to discuss the condition of the site. $217 million federal grant The negotiations with Norfolk Southern come as U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.), a Democrat whos up for reelection this year, and Philadelphias congressional delegation announced last week they had secured $217 million in federal aid to expand the Southport terminals operational capacity. The port authority had already received funding to build its first new berth a place where ships can stop to transfer cargo in 50 years. That project is expected to be completed in 2026. The new round of funding made available through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2021 will enable the port authority to build a second berth and infill construction, which will expand the port by 10 acres. The new berth, which is projected to be completed in 2027, will alleviate congestion for container ships at Packer Avenue, Mulvey said, as ships carrying autos will be able to dock at Southport instead. Amid all that new construction, the port authority is expecting another source of demand at Southport, as Norwegian Cruise Line announced in July that it will start docking there in 2026 to pick up passengers for voyages to Bermuda. News researcher Ryan W. Briggs contributed to this article. Just after midnight, Philadelphia police investigate the scene of a one car crash at the intersection of Pattison Ave. and South 3rd Street in Philadelphia on Sunday. Read more A 25-year-old man has been charged with aggravated assault and related crimes for driving his car toward officers who had been attempting to break up one of nearly a dozen illegal car meetups throughout the city over the weekend, authorities said. Deonte Vincent of Tacony sped his vehicle toward two officers who had sought to detain someone at a meetup in Rhawnhurst on Saturday night, prosecutors said. Neither the officers nor the bystander was hit, officials said, but Vincent did strike the bystanders car before driving away. Advertisement Vincents arrest marks the second criminal case to be filed in the aftermath of a night of mayhem that began late Saturday and spread from Northeast to Southwest Philadelphia and just outside City Hall. The chaos attracted widespread attention on social media, with photos and videos spreading quickly and showing hundreds of people dressed in costumes and masks while drag racing, doing doughnuts, exploding fireworks, and jumping onto moving police vehicles. Participants dubbed the nights events Project X. A host of officials said Thursday that they were continuing to investigate the incidents using those same videos and social media posts to try to identify perpetrators. Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said police have identified nearly 40 cars across the various scenes, and five of them have been seized to be searched. About two dozen people were given citations that night, Vanore said, and some could end up facing additional criminal charges. Vanore and others, including First Assistant District Attorney Robert Listenbee, said the illegal meetups were dangerous and destructive, and would not be tolerated. They said law enforcement was continually monitoring social media to proactively identify potential gatherings and would work to ensure accountability afterward. If you engage in these kind of illegal [meetup] activities, drifting activities we are going to do everything we can to arrest you and prosecute you, Listenbee said. Still, Vanore acknowledged that police had been aware of the possibility for meetups over the weekend, but that the scale and persistence of the gatherings caught authorities by surprise leading a handful of officers to respond to an incident with hundreds of participants, only for the crowd to disperse and gather again elsewhere. The scope, the locations, the timing of this was not evident in advance, Vanore said. Car meetups, also known as takeovers or slide shows, have been going on for years, and are not unique to Philadelphia. One driver who spoke to The Inquirer earlier this week said drivers from states including New York, North Carolina, and Virginia had decided to gather in the city as a final ode to summer. But the spectacles quickly grew unruly, and remained that way throughout the night. One person was arrested earlier, police said: Jhonny Martinez, 19, of Upper Darby, was charged with recklessly endangering another person after crashing into a pole in South Philadelphia while fleeing officers. Vanore said that a 17-year-old girl from Delaware, who attended with one of the participants, was hospitalized after being struck by fireworks and that doctors initially thought she had been shot. He said detectives were continuing to review that incident and many others. We are nowhere near done, Vanore said. Editors note: An earlier version of this article provided an incorrect last name for Deonte Vincent. News / National by Staff reporter SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila has once again accused the ANC of selling out and associating itself with weak allies of the Government of National Unity (GNU).Mapaila, who has been vocal about the GNU, did not mince his words about ANC's choice in listening to non-entity parties such as the DA and Gayton McKenzie's Patriotic Alliance instead of members of the tripartite alliance which includes Cosatu and the SACP."The ANC is a consequence that right now even respects all non-entity political parties, including this party of the PA. They have more respect for that party than their own allies. They (the ANC) listen more to the DA than they listen to its allies. For instance, we can put it on the table here."We did discuss Cabinet. We rejected this minister taking over education (Gwarube). We were not listened to because a deal was made. The DA and Steenhuisen said they bargained hard. Yes, the following day after the announcement of Cabinet, he came out and said: 'We bargained hard and we are represented in 12 clusters of Cabinet. No single alliance partner here can say we are represented in all clusters of Cabinet.'"Mapaila, who addressed members of the South African Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu) gathered for their elective conference at the Birchwood Hotel, did not hold back his regular criticism of the ANC and its choice of partnership in the seventh administration following the May elections.Sadtu's three-day elective conference, which began on Wednesday, is being held under the theme: "Mobilising the consciousness and uniting revolutionary professionals in strengthening foundational learning and functional skills, to advance inclusive and sustainable economic growth in pursuance of a socialist society."Mapaila said the SACP's good faith within the alliance continues to suffer at the hands of the current ANC leadership which does not appreciate the three-way partnership."We participate in good faith that the ANC will take our views across the board into consideration. They do not do so, but they do so for the DA. It is high time that the ANC learns to respect its allies," he said.Earlier this month, following similar utterances, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula branded these attacks as being "unfortunate" and an insult. Investigations into opioid poisoning cases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia dovetail with national trends that show how the rise of fentanyl is harming children. Read more The team at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia that tracks suspected child abuse is increasingly investigating a devastating ripple effect of the regions opioid crisis: deaths and poisonings in young children. Over the last 12 years, four children treated at CHOP for swallowing opioids died, and cases referred to the child protection team have quadrupled since 2019. At least two suffered lasting complications, including brain injury from oxygen deprivation. Advertisement The youngest patient was 19 days old. Most of the children were under the age of two, a CHOP physician found in new research looking at the cases of 69 children, aged 8 and under, who were treated at the hospital for opioid ingestion and referred to its child protection team between 2012 and 2023. The most common opioid involved was fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid now dominant in Philadelphias illicit drug markets and driving most of the overdose deaths in the city. The investigated cases outline, in stark detail, just how dangerous an opioid ingestion can be for children. The most common side effects seen in the cases were an altered mental status, abnormal breathing, and seizures. Eleven childrens hearts stopped. Nearly three-quarters had slowed or stopped breathing. More than half were admitted to an intensive care unit. The children came from all over the region 23 area hospitals sent at least 40 children with opioid poisoning to CHOP. The research was spearheaded by Maria Quidgley-Martin, who treated children exposed to opioids while working as a pediatric emergency medicine fellow at CHOP. Shes presenting early findings from the study, which has not yet been published, at a weekend conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics, a leading medical professional society. I felt this was something that wasnt being talked about, she said. And the cases highlighted in her research are only those that were investigated by the hospitals child protection team. Its likely the hospital treated other cases of opioid poisoning that didnt merit an abuse investigation, Quidgley-Martin said. Fentanyls growing threat to kids The increase in opioid poisoning cases at CHOP dovetails with national trends that show how the rise of fentanyl is harming children. Another new study based on data from poison control centers around the country shows how deaths and life-threatening health complications from an opioid exposure are on the rise, even as childrens exposures to prescription opioids drop. The vast majority of reported opioid exposures nationwide still involve prescription opioid painkillers, whose widespread prescription in the 1990s and early 2000s fueled the countrys ongoing addiction and overdose crisis. But a yearslong effort to improve childrens safety around prescription opioids has been hindered by the emergence of illicit fentanyl in Americas drug markets, the authors of the national study wrote. Up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine, fentanyl has legitimate use as an anesthetic and is also used to treat serious pain, like that in cancer patients. But it is also manufactured by drug trafficking organizations and sold on the street in a powdered form. Reports of children 6 and under being exposed to fentanyl in both prescription and illicit form and to other opioids sold on the street increased fivefold between 2016 and 2023. Reports of severe complications tripled. The CHOP research also highlighted how the spread of fentanyl has put kids at increasing risk of harm. At CHOP, 65% of the exposure cases investigated by the child protection team between 2012 and 2023 involved fentanyl, with most taking place after 2019. All four of the children who died had ingested fentanyl. Most of the fentanyl exposure cases investigated at CHOP involved street drugs, Quidgley-Martin said. Some of the children treated for opioid exposure in recent years also tested positive for xylazine, an animal tranquilizer not approved for human use thats contaminated most of the citys illicit fentanyl supply. Digging into the data Fentanyl poisonings are the scariest opioid exposure cases that Diane Calello sees in the ER at Rutgers Health in Newark. Calello, a pediatric toxicologist, coauthored the recently released national study and serves as the executive medical director of the New Jersey Poison Control Center, which is run out of Rutgers. This month, Calello also published a study digging into how children in New Jersey ingest opioids. The study, based on data from the poison control center, found that about 86% of the 230 opioid exposures reported in the state between January 2018 and December 2022 involved prescription opioids. They were swallowed most often at the childs home. About 40% of children exposed had ingested opioids that belonged to their parents, but 17% had swallowed their grandparents medications. At least five cases involved opioids prescribed to the family pet, mixed with foods like peanut butter to get the pets to swallow them, and then left out. Among the CHOP cases referred for child abuse investigations, which more often involved illicit fentanyl, 65% of the children exposed had family members with a history of addiction. In about half the cases, the childrens families had previous contact with a local child protective services agency. And half did not go home after the hospital: They were placed in foster care or sent to live with other family, said Quidgley-Martin, who completed her CHOP training and is now a clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Florida. How to prevent an opioid exposure When treating young patients who have swallowed opioids, Calello often talks about missed opportunities to get them help earlier like making sure parents who are prescribed opioids know how to store them safely and have naloxone, the opioid-overdose reversing drug, in the house. I often wish we could go back in time and have naloxone in the moms purse, Calello said. Naloxone is safe to use in children, Calello said. And because young children arent used to opioids, theres no risk of them going into withdrawal after a dose of naloxone, like an adult with an opioid tolerance might, she said. Parents should still call 911 or take a child to the hospital after a suspected ingestion, even if they give them naloxone at home. Quidgley-Martin also said she was surprised by the number of children who arrived at CHOP, even from other hospitals, without having been treated with naloxone. More doctors should consider the possibility of an opioid exposure if they encounter a child who has difficulty breathing or is confused, she said. I have given naloxone to children and seen it reverse an opioid overdose and help them breathe when they were having a hard time, she said. Im recommending that doctors have a very low threshold to try it out if they have a child that doesnt seem to be breathing right. Physicians who prescribe opioids should also talk about overdose risks for everyone in a household, not just their patients. People who are writing a prescription for an opioid with an adult patient can say, Hey, this medication may be very familiar to you, but that doesnt mean its not dangerous, Calello said. Even one pill can be enough to kill a child. Front of the Pennsylvania Building at 16th Street and Pennsylvania Boulevard in 1931. The photo is courtesy of PhillyHistory.org, a project of the Philadelphia Department of Records. Read more At 5:45 a.m., on Sept. 28, 1930, Broad Street Suburban Station officially opened in Center City when the first electric suburban train pulled out of the new underground station at 16th Street and Pennsylvania Boulevard now known as John F. Kennedy Boulevard. The train made its way to the new West Philadelphia station at 30th and Arch Streets, the beginning of what we now call 30th Street Station. A prescient advertisement in the Sept. 25, 1930, edition of The Inquirer touted Suburban and the new West Philly station as ... the first of the gigantic Pennsylvania improvements which will literally reshape the heart of Philadelphia. Suburbans building was constructed by the Pennsylvania Railroad as a replacement for the old Broad Street Station as a terminus for suburban lines. The old station, built in 1881, featured an enormous train shed and sat in City Halls orbit at what is now Penn Plaza. Advertisement The railroad had hired the prestigious Chicago architectural firm of Graham, Anderson, Probst & White to erect an imposing office building that would be worthy of the railway company that touted itself as The Standard Railroad of the World. Viewed from the street, Suburbans grand art deco building featured limestone on the upper portions of the 21-story building, black granite along the street-level facade, and brass work on the entryways. Under the street, 325 multiple-unit electric trains ran between the city and suburbs daily. So, you see, its name derives not from where the station sits, in the heart of a major U.S. metropolitan city, but from where its trains extend to, out into those blooming suburban towns. READ MORE: Why Philadelphias Suburban Station is in the heart of the city The stops included towns along the Main Line (named after the railroads main line to Harrisburg), including Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Villanova, Paoli, Malvern, and Devon, as well as other stations in surrounding counties. Broad Street Station was torn down in the early 1950s. Once Suburban Station opened in 1930, it became the new, technologically advanced commuter terminal. Well, until its new friend in West Philly would grow over the course of three more developmental stages and steal the spotlight. Shown is a view of the Japanese Garden seen form the Shofuso Japanese Cultural Center on August 24, 2024. The Shofuso Japanese Cultural Center, located in West Fairmount Park, has been cited by Quiet Parks International as a place of respit in an urban location. Read more The outdoors can be a refuge, an open space giving us some bliss away from our fast-paced lives. Lets slow down and travel to a handful of places in Pennsylvania recognized for their serenity. Plus, a handful of fun things are happening in the sky, on the ground, and in the waters across our region. Theres also a superstar camel in our neck of the woods. Later on, allow me to calm your fears on the invasive joro spider that has officially landed in Phillys backyard. Advertisement Your weekend weather outlook: Showers are likely today and Saturday, mostly due to remnants of Hurricane Helene (ultra-dry Philly could use the rain). Sunday should be mostly cloudy. Paola Perez (outdoorsy@inquirer.com) If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here. Traffic. Sirens. Seemingly never-ending construction. All of that noise can get really overwhelming, really fast. Then you step one foot into nature, and its as if noise canceling just turned on, as Jason Nark perfectly describes it. Research shows that hitting the mute button is mentally and physically healing. It makes us healthier and happier human beings. And its good for wildlife, too less noise means its easier for them to communicate and sense danger. Nark reports on rural parts of Pennsylvania and the outdoors far from urban life, so hes well versed on where to find swaths of silence in our area. Two of these respites are right here in Philadelphia. From Fairmount Park to vast forests out west, keep reading to find peace and quiet, near and far, in Pennsylvania, and enjoy this minute-long ASMR of stillness in Pa. parks. P.S. Id love to hear where you go to escape city life. Reply to this email with your story. News worth knowing Now were passing the microphone to Jason Nark. Youll always find his work here. Heres one I wanted to bring you from 2018. Einstein is pacing on a muddy driveway in Bucks County, occasionally stealing kisses from a tall woman, but mostly looking like hes got somewhere better to be. The clock is ticking on his 15 minutes of fame, and everyone wants a piece: car dealerships, local bars that made drinks in his honor, and even universities that hire him so stressed-out students can pet him before finals. Then there are the nativity scenes. Einstein cant keep track of all the wise men hes known, if a camel could keep track of things. Einstein is a dromedary camel, a one-humper, his owner says. His kind is native to Egypt, Africa, and Australia, places where winter requires, at the most, a cardigan. But Einstein, who was born in Florida 11 years ago, took a brief journey in the snow on Nov. 15 after his trailer got stuck on Route 309 north in Souderton, Montgomery County. He was on his way to a Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia event at the Kimmel Center. People took pictures, the internet swept them up into its own bizarre storm, and while Einstein never made it to Philly, he made it to something. I never knew what a meme was before this, says Charis Matey, owner of Peaceable Kingdom Petting Zoo in Perkasie. Hes got about 20 of them now, and one of them is with the Flyers mascot. Somebody posted the two of them together. Matey, sporting fresh scratches on her neck from a reluctant groundhog, flashes a dinged-up flip phone to prove she doesnt know what a meme is. Jason Nark (Dec. 2018) Discover what its like to live a hectic day in the life as Einstein the camel. Its true. The invasive joro spider has landed in Bucks County. A few months ago, I told you not to fear the joro. Still, the giant flying arachnid is reasonably spooky to some. If youre anything like me and you cringe over creepy crawly things, I understand your anxiety. Let me rip the bad news bandaid: Theres not much we can do to stop them from spreading. Its too early to tell how they could impact our ecosystems. The silver lining? Theyre not venomous, they dont really bite when threatened, and they arent dangerous to people or pets. Read on to get the facts and calm some concerns. Give us a review of your outdoors experience for a chance to be featured in this newsletter by emailing me back. My autumn playlist is already shaping up nicely. How about yours? Heres a song from mine (and an eternal thank you to Stevie Nicks): And the summer became the fall / I was not ready for the winter / It makes no difference at all / Cause I wear boots all summer long. 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 new owner of this unfinished construction site at 9th and Emily Streets in South Philadelphia has been unable to access the property because the Sheriff's Office has not processed the deed following an auction in early June. The land has become an eyesore and drawn violations from the Department of Licenses and Inspections. Read more The Philadelphia Sheriffs Office is being sued over its lengthy delays in transferring deeds after property auctions an ongoing problem for the past year that has left some winning bidders unable to take possession of properties for seven months or longer. The lawsuit was filed last week on behalf of ING Properties, a Virginia-based investor and lender to commercial developers. The firm is seeking to obtain deeds to six properties following a sheriff sale nearly four months ago. Advertisement Someone has got to pay attention to this, said INGs lawyer, Daniel Bernheim, who alleged that the Sheriffs Office has repeatedly violated Pennsylvanias rules of civil procedure by not promptly processing deeds after auctions. Bernheim said the office appears overwhelmed. He has not received an explanation for the delays. The deed-recording process in Philadelphia used to take around six to eight weeks to conclude after a sheriff sale. But a recent Inquirer analysis of more than 130 sheriff sale deeds recorded between October 2023 and March 2024 found that their auctions were held, on average, just over 200 days prior. READ MORE: They bought properties at Philadelphia sheriff sales, but they never got the deed Sheriff Rochelle Bilal had initially denied that there was a problem, despite repeated phone calls and in-office visits from frustrated buyers. Shed said her office was processing deeds normally. You insist there is a widespread delay, but that is incorrect, Bilals spokesperson, Teresa Lundy, said in an email to The Inquirer in July. Bilals staff later reversed course, and acknowledged they were wrong. They blamed the problem on an unspecified staffing issue and said they would conduct an audit and fix the problem. Bilal did not respond to a request for comment on the ING lawsuit. The City of Philadelphia is also named as a defendant. A spokesperson for the citys Law Department declined to comment. Bernheim, who also serves as a Lower Merion commissioner, said he is hoping the lawsuit leads to a systemic fix. In INGs case, the firm became the owner of the South Philadelphia properties after the development project it had financed fell through and no one bid on the properties at the June 4 sheriff sale. The half-built foundations have become a trash-strewn eyesore and have drawn several violations from the Department of Licenses and Inspections. But Bernheim said ING has been unable to take action because they are not yet the legal owners. People were just using it as a garbage pit, he said. If you dont have the deed, you cant take care of the property, and you cant sell it. Its unsightly and its a safety hazard. City records show that the Sheriffs Office has recently been processing more deeds than it had in the past. From July 1 to Sept. 1, 256 sheriff deeds were recorded by the citys Department of Records, finalizing those sales. During the prior six months, just 304 sheriff deeds were recorded. The problem, however, does not appear to have been fixed, with some auction winners waiting for deeds from sheriff sales that were held at least as far back as April. In some cases, buyers have purchased properties with borrowed money, so they must pay interest on loans as they wait months to get copies of deeds. I havent seen any improvement on our end, said Clayton Pronold, a lawyer who represents mortgage servicing companies. Were just sitting around waiting on deeds. Pronold said he just received a deed last month from a property that went to sheriff sale in September 2023. In suburban Philadelphia counties, he said, the process typically takes about 60 days. Its terrible, Pronold said. Its really affecting a lot of people. Nick Williams (left), of Imhotep, holds a sign during a rally against gun violence at City Hall in Philadelphia. The city just launched a $1 million public art program to address gun violence. Read more A year after Philadelphia was awarded a $1 million grant for a new public art and community outreach project by Bloomberg Philanthropies-led Public Art Challenge, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and the city have launched a public art and poetry project to combat gun violence in Germantown. On Thursday, the city announced the start of the Healing Verse Germantown: The Streets Are Talking initiative, which invites residents to participate in a series of in-person and online poetry workshops focused on the citys gun-violence crisis. Advertisement The two-year program is a collaboration between Bloomberg Philanthropies, the citys Creative Philadelphia office, and poets Trapeta Mayson and Yolanda Wisher. Rob Blackson, director and curator of Washington Colleges Kohl Gallery, will serve as the projects arts coordinator. Wisher, a Germantown resident and former Philadelphia poet laureate, said the Mayson-led writing sessions will be grounded in a safe, trauma-informed approach. Participants will attend creative writing sessions and write poems about their experiences with gun violence, which will then be used to inspire public artworks and be heard on the Healing Verse Philly Poetry Line, a toll-free line that Mayson developed to offer callers a 90-second poem by a Philadelphia poet. This is really about approaching the issue of gun violence through a 360 approach, said Wisher, whos organized poetry workshops with Mayson for over 20 years. Having these spaces where we can be together and have collective moments of healing and expressiveness can really disrupt the cycle of violence. Through additional partnerships with Pushing Progress Philly, the Every Murder Is Real Healing Center, and other advocacy groups, the project will work with residents who volunteer to attend creative writing sessions. Blackson will use their poems to create 20 temporary public art installations throughout Germantown. The exact locations will be nominated by community members. The grant money will be used to fund the multipronged project, to compensate the efforts of partner organizations and collaborators, and to hire staff and cover marketing expenses. Kelly Lee, the citys former chief cultural officer, previously told The Inquirer that Mayson, Wisher, and Blackson will also be compensated for their work. The grant, led by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is aimed at encouraging city mayors, artists, and community groups to develop solutions to significant urban issues. Philadelphia was one of eight cities selected from a pool of 154 cities from 40 states. The other winning cities are Atlanta, Baltimore, Honolulu, Houston, Orlando, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City. While the number of shootings in Philadelphia dipped in 2023 and continues to see a decline in 2024, gun violence remains well above historical norms. More than 400 people were killed last year, and Germantown has been disproportionately affected by gun violence. From 2020 to 2023, there were 204 shootings in Northwest Philadelphia, resulting in 42 deaths. There have been 19 fatal shootings in the 8th Council District in 2024, according to city data. Chantay Love of EMIR Healing Center believes Healing Verse Germantown will encourage residents and community leaders to be more strategic in their approach to gun violence. If you understand gun violence and how we have gotten here, its going to take time, Love said. We have to recreate the environment to what we expect it to be, and artwork has always been instrumental in healing people from gun violence. Artwork has to be a part of the healing and prevention process. Wisher, too, doesnt think Healing Verse Germantown will solve the citys gun violence in one fell swoop. But she believes the program will lead to broader conversations and a ripple effect of advocacy that vibrates for years to come. Between the workshops, art installations, and expanded hotlines, Marguerite Anglin, public art director of Creative Philadelphia, said the goal is to reach upward of 5,000 Philadelphians. By the end of the two-year mark, Anglin hopes Healing Verse Germantown will serve as a model for other Philly communities affected by gun violence to embrace. For more information on the public art challenge, visit publicartchallenge.bloomberg.org and healingversegermantown.com. The Church of the Advocate in North Philadelphia was packed for a Nov. 5, 2022, memorial for noted Philadelphia-raised playwright Charles Fuller Jr. (Jonathan Wilson / For the Inquirer) Read more The historic Church of the Advocate, which for decades stood as a bulwark for art, protest, community service, and sacredness, is ending its feeding ministry after 40 years, at least until new funding is secured. Emails began circulating Wednesday that the soup kitchen, known as the Advocate Cafe, would stop operations on Monday, Sept. 30. The emails caused some people to fear that the 127-year-old Gothic Revival church in North Philadelphia might also be closing its doors. It had recently stopped having services in its sanctuary because of safety issues with the building. Advertisement Bottom line, the church is NOT closing, Jennifer Tucker, director of communications for the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, wrote in an email to The Inquirer. It will be open for worship on Sunday, and the afterschool program will continue. Barbara Easley Cox, a church member, said her phone had been ringing since Wednesday. She said she was told to come to church on Sunday to find out what is happening. Im opposed to them closing it, Cox said. But Im going to go and hear what they have to say. The church, at 1801 W. Diamond St., was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 and named a National Historic Landmark in 1996. In the 1960s and 1970s, it became known as a center for social justice activities. With the late Father Paul Washington as rector, the church allowed Black Power and Black Panther conferences to take place in 1968 and 1970. In 1974, the church defiantly hosted the unauthorized ordination of the first 11 women priests in the Episcopal Church. More recently, in 2017, then-pastor Rev. Renee McKenzie, now retired, invited an undocumented Mexican migrant family, a mother and her four children, to live at the church for a year while they applied for political asylum. Plans for Barbara Harris Center for Race and Reconciliation Tucker said several groups are pursuing grants and fundraising for the church, which she said needs $15 million to bring it up to safety standards. One group, made up of activists, educators, lawyers, and church leaders, is working to develop the Barbara Harris Center for Race and Reconciliation out of the Church of the Advocate, Tucker said. The Right Rev. Barbara Harris, a Black woman born in Philadelphia, was the first woman elected as a bishop in the Anglican Church worldwide. She was elected in 1988 and ordained as bishop in 1989. She received death threats after she was elected. We are also looking to see if the Advocate could be a pilgrimage site for those interested in the churchs history, or headquarters for a prison rehabilitation and reentry program like the successful Homeboy Industries, Tucker said. READ MORE: Charles H. Fuller Jr., whose A Soldiers Play won the Pulitzer Prize, was memorialized by a city that admired him A commitment to the Advocate Tucker said the Diocese would send an email to members to emphasize its commitment to the future of the Advocate. There are three buildings on the churchs historic main campus. A fourth building, a row house on Gratz Street, is called the Madeira Center. The three buildings on the church campus are the main sanctuary, the parish house which once hosted the soup kitchen and the Washington Center, containing a gym and classrooms on the site of the former rectory, which was demolished about 20 years ago. The Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania has invested $1,365,226 in the Church of the Advocates operations, buildings, and ministries in the last few years, Tucker said. As long as we can safely support the community, the Washington Center will be open to hosting voting and events that serve the neighborhood. The Washington Center, named for Father Washington, is a polling place for the Nov. 5 election. Shutting down the sanctuary One reason people were alarmed about the soup kitchen closing is that in July, the church was forced to halt all activities in the sanctuary after its insurance company deemed the structure unsafe. Since then, church services for a dwindling congregation, where the attendance could sometimes be counted on one hand, have been held at the Madeira Center. And a couple of years ago, the east wall of the parish house, where the soup kitchen first began operations, collapsed. Thats when the feeding ministry also began operating from the Madeira Center. Tucker said in an interview that if people who havent heard the soup kitchen is closing show up after Monday, they will see notices directing them to other food services. READ MORE: The first female head of Philadelphias Church of the Advocate is stepping down Activism and art, but fewer congregants The Church of the Advocate had a strong reputation for activism and art since the 1960s. In addition to political conferences, Father Washington invited John Coltrane and other musicians to perform jazz at the church. Between 1973 and 1976, two Philadelphia artists, Richard Watson and Walter Edmonds, painted vivid murals on wood panels attached to the sanctuary walls to tell the story of Black struggle for freedom and civil rights. And in 1998, Philadelphia author and playwright Lorene Cary established Art Sanctuary there. Father Washington made it a space where we could organize and stand up for human rights and civil rights, said Karen Warrington, a North Philadelphia resident who once lived near the church. But the congregation on Sundays didnt grow. The sign at One Parkway Building, 1515 Arch Street, for the Philadelphia's Citizen's Police Oversight Commission still reads as the former Police Advisory Commission May 13, 2024, on the first day on the job for Tonya McClary, the new CPOC director. Read more The Citizens Police Oversight Commission removed one of its commissioners Thursday night, marking the latest setback for the embattled agency. After a two-month investigation, Rosaura Torres Thomas was unanimously voted out by commissioners at a public meeting. Thomas was suspended in July for allegedly sharing confidential information and having contact with people adverse to the agency and its mission, interim chair Hassan Bennett said. Advertisement The commission is now down to four commissioners, fewer than half the nine posts the agency was meant to have. When she was suspended as the inquiry got underway in July, Thomas said the confidential information the commission accused her of leaking included emails sent from her private email address in which she defended a person other commissioners had disparaged. The investigation determined Thomas provided confidential information to people who were not entitled to it and had a relationship with Philadelphia residents with lengthy histories of harassing and demeaning CPOC staff, the commission said in a statement. The investigation into Thomas was conducted by the agencys investigation unit, which was created to investigate allegations of police misconduct. Since its launch in 2022, the commission has not independently investigated a single complaint against police its central mission from its creation in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd and the unrest that followed in Philadelphia and across the nation. In the investigation of Thomas, CPOC officials said, she refused multiple interview requests She also did not respond to a subpoena seeking correspondence from her personal email, Nick Kato, director of investigations at CPOC, said. On Friday morning, Thomas said she refused to sit down for interviews with the commissions investigation unit because she did not want to be verbally attacked. She said the confidential information cited by Kato were emails to City Council members and that there was no harassment from residents she had been in contact with. Thomas said she did not attend the Thursday night meeting because she believed the outcome was a foregone conclusion. This is sad because I feel like I failed the people, not them. I didnt become commissioner to appease them, I became commissioner to help la comunidad, she said. To help the people in the city of Philadelphia. At the meeting, Bennett said he was troubled by Thomas lack of communication with the commission during the investigation. The role of a commissioner is one of trust and commitment to transparency and accountability, as well as integrity, Bennett said. This decision cannot be made lightly, as it reflects on our unwavering responsibility to uphold the publics confidence in the Citizens Police Oversight Commission and its mission to foster accountability and build trust between the community, as well as law enforcement. Since its debut in 2022, the commission has been allocated more than $3 million in taxpayer money, hired a staff of 22, and established a panel of nine commissioners who hold monthly meetings to discuss public safety issues. Agency staffers sit in on administrative hearings for officers accused of wrongdoing and audit internal affairs reports prepared by the police department. The commission was designed to have more power than its predecessor organization, the Police Advisory Commission, which critics saw as largely ineffective. But it has not independently investigated a single complaint against police. And progress has been stymied by what critics say is constant infighting and petty power moves. Last year, a third of the commission resigned in protest, citing a toxic environment. Investigations into police misconduct were the primary goal City Council set for the agency when it was created in response to calls for police accountability after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Critics say the commission has failed to carry out its central mission. Kevante Washington died after he was assaulted at Federal Detention Center of Philadelphia prison cell in March 2023. Read more The mother of a 31-year-old man who died following an assault in the Federal Detention Center of Philadelphia filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the U.S. government alleging the attack could have been prevented. Cynthia Santiago, the mother of Kevante Washington, says that she is still waiting for answers and for her sons alleged assailant to be held accountable, a year and a half after Washingtons death in March 2023. Advertisement Washington was assaulted in his cell on March 10, 2023, while serving a sentence for drug and firearms charges at the federal prison on Arch Street. He arrived at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital with injuries throughout his body, according to the lawsuit, including facial fractures, damage to organs in his abdomen, and lacerations of his anus. He died at the hospital the next day. Washingtons cellmate had a violent past, the mothers attorney said, including previously stabbing a person while incarcerated at the Center City detention center. No one, including the cellmate, has been charged with any crimes related to Washingtons assault. The federal lawsuit, filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, claims prison officials put Washington at excessive risk with his cell arrangement. The complaint also says that the prison was understaffed, and that staff ignored Washingtons concerns about his safety. It should not have happened, Santiago said during a Thursday news conference at her lawyers office. We deserve answers. The Federal Bureau of Prisons said that the agency does not comment on pending litigation. The U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment. Washington was arrested in 2016 and pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal counts of conspiracy to distribute heroin and illegal possession of a firearm. He was sentenced to eight years in prison. The father of three from Wilmington wrote a letter to the judge at sentencing saying that he wanted to turn his life around, and not follow his fathers path by spending his childrens lives in prison. I dont wanna be a repeat, he wrote in the letter, which was obtained by the News Journal. In winter 2023, Washington was a few months away from completing his eight-year sentence and was living in a work-release facility in North Philadelphia, said Emeka Igwe of the Igwe Firm, who represents the family. He raised concerns about his personal security and in early March was transferred to the protective unit at the detention center, where he was assaulted. The ironic thing about this was he was put in this protective unit for his own safety, Igwe said. A foliage fan photographs the changing leaves behind Independence Hall in Philadelphia last November. Read more Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter Hi, Philly. Fall is officially here and the leaves are starting to turn. Our new interactive story shows when and where to see peak fall colors across Pennsylvania. And former President Donald Trumps messaging on immigration mirrors his 2016 strategy. Its littered with misinformation and its working in the Keystone State. Advertisement Plus, were launching something fun: Test your news know-how every Friday with our weekly News Quiz. Our first edition asks how well you paid attention to stories about the Savannah Bananas, Bruce Springsteen, and eight more. Let me know how you score! Julie Zeglen (morningnewsletter@inquirer.com) If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here. September means autumns official arrival, but for me, its not really fall until the one majestic maple tree in my neighborhood turns fire orange. My camera roll tells me that happened around late October last year. But as I noted while driving to a Carbon County campsite recently, north of the city, the leaves are already changing. Pennsylvania has a longer and more varied fall foliage season than anywhere else in the world, according to the states Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. The agency publishes weekly foliage reports throughout the fall, which gives us a good idea of when and where to see Pennsylvanias best fall colors. Trees are still looking pretty green in Philadelphia this week, but up near Scranton, leaves are closer to peak color. Designer Charmaine Runes explains it all in this interactive story, and offers suggestions for the best places to see yellows and reds. Well be publishing a new forecast every week during the fall season, so be sure to check back for the latest color predictions. In other nature-slash-planetary news: From Sept. 29 through Nov. 25 this year, our planets gravity will pull a house-sized asteroid into a loop around Earth. Yes, its a second moon. The latest presidential polling in Pennsylvania shows Trump trailing Vice President Kamala Harris by four percentage points, within the margin of error. Yet on immigration specifically, the states voters favor the Republican candidate by more than twice that much. From the affluent Philly suburbs to the Rust Belt, illegal immigration remains a potent force eight years into Trumps time on the national political stage. His playbook looks much like that of 2016: Encourage fear. Push false claims. Target low-information voters who believe the issue is linked to their own economic outlook. Theyve been able to other these folks and convince these voters someones getting something for free and youre not getting it, a Westmoreland County historian told The Inquirer. Politics reporters Julia Terruso and Katie Bernard spoke to likely voters across the state about why Trumps messaging resonates, and fact-check his claims. P.S. If youve been near Seventh and Market Streets in recent months, youve seen that giant Trump ad atop the Lit Brothers building. Its the work of a Florida personal injury attorney and major GOP donor. 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, with the announcement that Hoda Kotb is leaving NBCs Today show, were resurfacing reporter Michelle Myers story on what a daily routine is really like for those tasked with perkily describing the news while the rest of us are still waking up. A quick summary of what we learned when NBC10-Telemundo 62 morning anchor Lucy Bustamante let Myers follow her around for a day last winter: Her first alarm goes off at 1:50 a.m. Yes, she does her own hair. And yes, she gets to have a family four kids under 13. (Her husband makes her coffee the night before.) Heres the full explanation. 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 A group of nature watchers and researchers got a super-rare encounter with which animal off the Cape May coast earlier this month? A) Blue whale B) Giant squid C) Tiger shark D) Sea lion Think you know? Check your answer. What were... Remembering: When Suburban Station opened in Center City in 1930, to great acclaim. Learning how: The Flyers ice gets made at Wells Fargo Center. Anticipating: The definitive Earth, Wind & Fire documentary directed by Questlove. Unscramble the anagram Hint: The Quakertown native playing Wells Fargo Center next month APNEA TRANSCRIBER Email us if you know the answer. Well select a reader at random to shout out here. Cheers to Dennis Disbrow, who solved Thursdays anagram: Amy Gutmann. The former and longest-serving president of the University of Pennsylvania is back on campus with a new joint appointment after serving as the U.S. ambassador to Germany. Photo of the day Lets do it again this Sunday, eh? Ahead of the Eagles Week 4 game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, check out the latest edition of our Bird Box game. Thanks for starting your day with The Inquirer. Whenever your weekend begins, have a good one. 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. Former President Donald Trump talks with the media in the spin room at the Convention Center in Philadelphia following his Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. During the debate, Trump falsely claimed that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Ohio. Read more DALLAS, Pa. Boyd Sweinberg lives in a small town of about 2,000 people that is 94% white, but like many supporters of former President Donald Trump, he believes illegal immigration is a drain on the broader economy that could diminish his life in Harvey Lake. Weve gotta send them back where they came from, Sweinberg, a 63-year-old government employee, said at the Luzerne County fair last month. We know theyre here. We just havent seen em yet. Advertisement He ranks illegal immigration as his No. 1 issue, and echoes messaging that Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, have made a centerpiece of their campaign as they crisscross Pennsylvania in the elections waning days. Pennsylvania voters favor Trump on immigration over Vice President Kamala Harris by 9 percentage points. Interviews with voters here show how in towns across the state, from the affluent Philadelphia suburbs to the Rust Belt, the issue remains a potent political force eight years into Trumpism. And the Trump campaigns often-incendiary focus on illegal immigration is reverberating from county council meetings to Haitian solidarity rallies and campaign events, as immigrants and nonimmigrants express fears of the inflammatory rhetoric, and as Trumps supporters rally around the cause. Her border policies welcomed 25 million illegal aliens into this country, Vance said last weekend, referring to Harris. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 7.1 million immigrants entered the U.S. between 2021 and 2023, including legal and undocumented immigrants. People who shouldnt be here, people who are competing against you and your children to buy the homes that ought by right go to American citizens. The 2024 Trump playbook looks a lot like 2016s Trumps best opportunity to win the presidency is to win Pennsylvania. And his strategy has increasingly drawn from the formula that got him elected eight years ago: using fears of illegal immigration to motivate voters. His 2016 refrain of build the wall turned to false claims of noncitizens voting en masse, and made-up tales of Haitian immigrants eating household pets. Trump is particularly targeting lower-information and less politically engaged voters who believe the issue is linked to their economic outlook or opportunity for advancement. More than the economy, in Pennsylvania Trumps strongest issue is immigration. It is a very clear strategy and a strategy thats rooted in the fact that this has been successful not just in American politics in recent history, said Jasmine Rivera, executive director of the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition. It is a strategy that has been successful in many, many, many countries for over 150 years. This is not new. This is to be expected. Theres a direct correlation between voters who feel passionate about immigration and who support Trump. When voters are asked broadly what the most important issue facing the state is right now, just 3% say immigration, but when they are asked whats motivating their personal vote, Trump supporters cite immigration as their second most important concern, behind the economy. Mostly I love his ideas for immigration, said Nancy Burkland, a nurse from Luzerne County, who was an independent until Trump ran. Now shes a super-fan. He wants to deport the illegals and stop them from getting any benefits that, you know, our taxpayers are paying for. Illegal crossings of the Mexican border hit an all-time high of 2.2 million in 2022 during President Joe Biden and Harris administration. But the impact on the economy, public safety, or schools is hard to measure. There is little nonpartisan research on the topic. A report by the GOP-controlled U.S. House found that illegal aliens in Pennsylvania had cost taxpayers more than $1 billion in 2023. Statewide, the American Immigration Council, which advocates on behalf of immigrants, found that immigrants in Pennsylvania, including undocumented and legal residents, paid $13.1 billion in taxes 2022 and additionally had $34.2 billion in spending power. The council and the GOP report cited different numbers for overall undocumented immigration, but the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute estimates 153,000 undocumented immigrants reside in Pennsylvania, about 100,000 fewer than the GOP report estimated. How Trump and Vances messaging has resonated in Pa. Trump and Vance have promised mass deportations, without details on how they might roll out, and claimed towns like Springfield, Ohio are suffering from a hostile takeover by immigrants. The GOP governor of the state called the characterizations false and harmful. Despite criticism, Vance was defiant in Leesport last weekend. He has said he will continue to refer to migrants here legally as illegal because he thinks they have been granted amnesty too broadly. At this very moment, the Democrats are busy calling anybody who disagrees with Kamala Harris open border a racist, Vance said last weekend. In the small town of Springfield, Ohio, or here in Pennsylvania, there have been cities, small towns, that have been overwhelmed with migrants who are brought in by Kamala Harris. And so our message to Kamala Harris and the Democrats is: Were gonna keep on complaining about your policies, because this is America and we have the right to speak our mind. The messaging is taking hold. Moments before Vance took the stage in Leesport, 25-year-old Casey Carpenter previewed his remarks as she explained why shes voting for the GOP ticket. The immigrants coming in and taking all the housing from our veterans, thats a huge one, said Carpenter, a marketing representative from Berks County, who purchased her first home in 2021. There is a housing crisis across the country, but there is no evidence that veterans are being kicked out of their homes to make way for immigrants. The oft-repeated claim seems to stem from an incident in which a nonprofit group made up a story about homeless veterans being evicted from a hotel in New York to make room for migrants. Carpenter dismissed articles that disproved the story. I like to watch more independent news on YouTube, people that go on the streets, she said. Some Trump supporters across the state also claim with little evidence that illegal immigration is causing an uptick in crime. A Harris administration leaves the border wide open with drug mules flooding in and families threatened, said Lisa Scheller, a coffee shop owner and former GOP congressional candidate in the Lehigh Valley, who spoke before Vance at his rally. Trumps campaign is running ads highlighting horrific cases of immigrants committing murder or rape. But research shows that immigrants are not more likely to commit crimes than anyone else. Just outside Philadelphia, Delaware County residents have spent months flooding county council meetings to insist in increasingly combative public comment sessions that local officials are secretly busing in undocumented immigrants. That fear has become a lightning rod for everything right-wing residents dont like about the Democratic-controlled county council. They insisted a proposal for a mental health facility in a county park was actually for migrants, and tax increases, some claim, are designed to replace existing residents with immigrants in low-income housing. Similar stories echo across the state. Often people who have fallen on harder economic times are most susceptible to an idea that the odds favor immigrants. Theyve been able to other these folks and convince these voters, someones getting something for free and youre not getting it, said Tim Kelly, a historian and professor at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Westmoreland County. Here in Luzerne County, Barbara Ruger, 75, fell behind on mortgage payments a year ago and lost the home she shared with her daughter. They were living in an encampment near Kingston before a shelter placed them in a house in Nanticoke. Ruger makes a connection between their struggle and illegal immigration. The thing that really frosted me was theyre giving houses to all the illegals for free, Ruger said, although immigrants are not actually being given houses. When we lived in the tents, a lot of those homeless were veterans down there. Harris triangulates as Democrats push back After Trump repeated false claims that Haitian migrants were eating pets in Springfield, Harris denounced his words as dangerous. You cannot be entrusted with standing behind the seal of the president of the United States of America, engaging in that hateful rhetoric that, as usual, is designed to divide us as a country, is designed to have people pointing fingers at each other, Harris said in an interview earlier this month at WHYY in Philadelphia. Its designed to do that. As she has gained momentum, she has shifted her tone on immigration, a sign she worries that Trumps barrage of attacks against her could not only motivate his base but also weaken her support. She has revamped her campaign website on the issue and pledged to pass a bipartisan immigration bill that would pump millions into securing the border. I know we can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system, she also said to applause in her Democratic National Convention speech. We can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border. Harris tougher talk on immigration has frustrated advocates who see her trying to have it both ways. But on the whole, she has faced very little opposition from the progressive wing of her party. If you are not white, and if youre not Republican, you dont stand a chance with him, said Ana Gallardo, a Harris supporter from Pottstown who attended a rally by Harris running mate, Tim Walz, to mark the start of Hispanic American Heritage month. Gallardo is Puerto Rican but said she worries daily about friends of hers from Nicaragua and Honduras who are undocumented. With Kamala Harris, there will be a little less fear, Gallardo said. Rosa Velesquez, a 66-year-old Harris supporter from Peru, is a U.S. citizen who has worked all of the last 40 years she has lived in the country, primarily in warehouses in the Lehigh Valley. We dont come here to steal anybodys job, Velesquez said. We dont come here to take anything from nobody. At a rally to support Haitian immigrants in Philadelphia last month, the Rev. Christopher Neilson, a Jamaican immigrant, called the vilification of Haitian migrants undeserved. It is not true. It is subversive. It is destructive. It is divisive, he said. Ketty Pointe-Jour, the Haitian community liaison for the New Sanctuary Movement, whose parents immigrated 70 years ago to flee the Duvalier regime, said Trumps attacks are mobilizing communities. Its causing us to move forward, Pointe-Jour said. Were not going backward. As the sun started to set at the Luzerne County Fair last month, Conrad Klem sat with his wife, Marilyn, eating apple dumplings. The retired barber voted Republican before Trump, whom he said he cant stand. Asked why, he said immigration. I just dont understand all this focus on it, Klem said. We need the people to work. Most of them people are all good, decent people who want a better life. Staff writer Fallon Roth contributed to this article. News / National by Staff reporter This morning, President Emmerson Mnangagwa welcomed Hon. Utoni Nujoma, the son of Namibia's first President, Dr. Sam Nujoma, at State House. Cde Utoni Nujoma, who currently serves as a Minister in the Namibian Government, is in Zimbabwe for a private family visit.The meeting between the two leaders underscores the strong ties and shared history between Zimbabwe and Namibia, two nations that fought together for independence and continue to collaborate on various fronts. During their discussion, President Mnangagwa and Minister Nujoma reflected on the progress made in both countries since their liberation struggles and the importance of fostering regional cooperation.Utoni Nujoma expressed gratitude for the warm hospitality extended by the Zimbabwean government and people. The visit also provided an opportunity for the Minister to reconnect with family and friends in Zimbabwe, further strengthening the bonds between the two nations.As a prominent figure in Namibia's political landscape, Utoni Nujoma's visit signifies the ongoing relationship between Zimbabwe and Namibia, emphasizing shared values and commitments to mutual growth and development in the region. Members of the crowd dance as they wait for Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump to begin speaking during a campaign rally at Ed Fry Arena in Indiana, Pa., Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Droke) Read more There are 38 days until Election Day. In this edition: Advertisement Julia Terruso, Gillian McGoldrick, Aliya Schneider, Fallon Roth, Katie Bernard, pa2024@inquirer.com If youd like to get this free newsletter in your inbox, sign up for free here. Have a question about this election? Email us back and well try to answer it in a future newsletter. Battle for the sexes Polls including the one The Inquirer released last week show a stark difference between how women and men will be voting this election. Vice President Kamala Harris is surging with women and former President Donald Trump has a stronghold on men. National politics reporter Julia Terruso takes a closer look at how each candidate is trying to close the gender gap to expand their coalition: A week after Vice President Harris made an appeal in Philadelphia to Black men saying shed work to earn their vote, former President Donald Trump told a crowd in Western Pennsylvania hed be a protector for women. You will no longer be abandoned, lonely or scared. You will no longer be in danger, Trump said. You will no longer have anxiety from all of the problems our country has today. You will be protected, and I will be your protector. Trump went on to say women would no longer have to think about abortion, an issue on which the overwhelming majority of female voters prefer Harris. Trump and Harris are deadlocked in Pennsylvania but a closer look at their support here shows a striking gender gap. In a Philadelphia Inquirer/New York Times/Siena College poll, Harris had a 17-point advantage among women and Trump had a 11-point advantage among men. Nationally some polls have shown an even larger divide. But aside from the protector comment, theres been little evidence that Trump is focusing too much on winning over women as he tries to mobilize voters with six weeks until Election Day. Trump is so heavily targeting very specific male audiences in very specific ways, said Alison Dagnes, a Shippensburg University professor, who has spoken on how gender is factoring into the presidential election. Its this agro-masculine, Im a real mans man. From the celebrities at the Republican National Convention (Hulk Hogan among others) to some of the podcasts hes appeared on, Trump has seemed to disproportionately target white male audiences. On the other side, Harris, who has not made gender central to her campaign, has elevated her running mate, Tim Walz, to try and appeal to a different brand of masculinity. Theyre showing him fixing transmissions. Its so purposeful because shes trying to target the latte dads, and the educated Black men and educated white suburban men, Dagnes said. Ultimately direct gender appeals are often ineffective. Pennsylvania Democratic strategist Hannah Jeffrey said Harris best chance in the state is building a wide coalition. I think the candidate who wins Pennsylvania is the candidate with the most resources and the better coalition, who is building a case to a broader group of people. Focus on that rather than trying to appeal to one group over another. The latest Dave McCormick managed the worlds largest hedge fund, Bridgewater. Its a major line in his resume for U.S. Senate, but its also been one of his campaigns biggest vulnerabilities because of the firms business in China and reportedly cult-like environment. A married, gay, moderate who supports abortion rights but is voting for Trump, New Jersey Republican Curtis Bashaw describes his Senate campaign as walking a balance beam. Josh Shapiros visit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to a Scranton ammunition plant has drawn the attention of U.S. House Republicans, who contend the Ukrainian leader was campaigning for Harris in the key swing state. Trump and his allies are laying the groundwork to blame noncitizen voting, an extremely rare occurrence, for a potential loss in November much like Trumps inflated concerns about mail voting signaled strategy to contest Pennsylvanias results in 2020. Harris still trails Trump on the key issue of the economy. Her speech in Pittsburgh this week was an attempt to close that gap. Heres why that matters for the Pa. race. Fact Check The claim: When Kamala Harris uses illegal action to give amnesty to aliens, that does not make them legal immigrants. That makes them illegal immigrants unless youve lost all common sense, said Sen. JD Vance, Trumps running mate, as the campaign ratchets up its rhetoric on the issue. The check: False Vance was referring to Haitian residents in Springfield, Ohio, many of whom are in the U.S. with temporary protected status. The temporary protected status program was created by Congress in the 1990s and it is granted to people whose home country is in crisis. The Obama administration first offered it to Haitians living in the U.S. after the 2010 earthquake. Trump had sought to end the status for Haitians during his presidency. The Biden administrations use of the program is legal though not without controversy. The Department of Homeland Security announced in June that it was offering TPS to roughly 300,000 Haitians who arrived in the country before June 3. The status would last until February of 2026. This comes on top of 200,000 Haitians who already had that status. Stock up Influencers: Twenty content creators were hosted by a Democratic donor effort in an extravagant house in the posh Philly suburb of Gladwyne, which was complete with Harris-themed corn hole and beer bong. The manor had been transformed into a content house where the creators 10 from Pennsylvania and 10 from across the country strategized about pro-Harris messaging and crisscrossed their networks to grow their reach. They collaborated on content, like satirical videos about a White Ladies for Kamala class and a bearded man embodying Project 2025. They also went to a Phillies game, sang Karaoke for Kamala, and learned about greedflation. Stock down Spell-check: Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance is coming to Newtown in purple Bucks County for a rally Saturday. Yes, Newtown, not Newton as the spelling mistake in the press release announcing his Pennsylvania visit suggested. The Ohio senator probably didnt mean the beloved bar, Isaac Newtons, in Newtown Borough. The slip-up has garnered some quips online, including from Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) who joked on X that Vance claimed the Haitians ate one of the Ws in Newtown, a reference to the xenophobic false claims about Haitian immigrants that Vance and former President Donald Trump have spread on the campaign trail. Vances visit comes after Trump canceled a Bucks County stop earlier this month. Politics translator What he said: Former Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican who has taken up protecting democracy as his side gig to teaching law at Duquesne University, reflected at a Keep Our Republic event in Harrisburg on his own reelection loss in 2015 to former Gov. Tom Wolf. People are going to lose races. I lost my reelection. Get over it. Move on and move forward, Corbett said. What he meant: Former President Donald Trump, get over your 2020 loss. And if you lose again this year, move on. Campaign cash State campaign finance reports filed this week show Democrat Eugene DePasquale will go into the final weeks of the race for Pennsylvania attorney general with more than $2.1 million in the bank after spending more than $1.1 million over the last four months. Republican Dave Sunday is sitting on more than $1.2 million going into the races final months, after spending less than $160,000 of the campaigns own money. But those figures dont mean DePasquale has the money advantage. Democrats cried foul about Sundays report, claiming that one of the top Republican contributors the Commonwealth Leaders Fund, which is largely funded by Pennsylvanias richest man Jeff Yass did not get reported properly and purposely hidden from voters. The Commonwealth Leaders Fund PAC has reserved more than $6 million in TV ads and streaming through November, and has been on TV for weeks. Sundays campaign said there is nothing amiss about their report, and the Commonwealth Leaders Fund didnt tell them how much it has spent on in-kind contributions until after the campaign finance filing period was over on Sept. 16. They are making a mountain out of a molehill, Sundays spokesperson Ben Wren said in a text. Scenes from the campaign trail About 200 people showed up for the event hosted by the Harris campaign a mix of Republicans, Democrats and independents. What were watching next Josh Shapiro will campaign for Kamala Harris in the Philly burbs with television producer Shonda Rhimes, who created Scandal and Greys Anatomy. JD Vance will visit Bucks County on Saturday as the Trump campaign seeks to make gains in the key collar county. Donald Trump will hold a rally in Erie on Sunday. Hell be back in the state again the following weekend for his Oct. 5 return to Butler after surviving an assassination attempt there this summer. As always, thank you for reading. Enjoy the last weekend of September! New York City Mayor Eric Adams speaks during a news conference outside Gracie Mansion on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in New York. Read more The indictment of New York Mayor Eric Adams (D) punctures yet another hole in Donald Trumps and his allies unsubstantiated claims that the Justice Department has been weaponized against their side. With the addition of Adams, the Justice Department has now indicted a handful of prominent Democrats, including former senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Tex.) and President Joe Bidens own son, Hunter Biden. Perhaps sensing yet another setback in Trump's conspiracy theory, many on the right quickly greeted news of Adams's indictment by suggesting it actually reinforced their point. Advertisement This too was about political targeting, they suggested and outright claimed the twist being that this time the targeting was of a Democrat who had declined to toe the partys line on issues like immigration and crime. But such theorizing came mostly before the indictment was released Thursday. And the details in the actual document quickly undermined that thin explanation. READ MORE: Feds charge NYC mayor with selling his influence to foreign nationals. He says he wont resign. The document outlines schemes that appear brazen. It suggests at least some knowledge on the part of Adams and an aide that what was being undertaken was not exactly on the up-nd-up. And some episodes detailed came years before Adamss comments alienated some Democrats. The indictment charges Adams with five counts, including bribery, wire fraud and seeking illegal campaign donations from foreign sources allegations that Adams denies. The suggestion that Adams was targeted quickly flew on the right, with an assist from Adams himself and later Trump. After a popular right-wing X account connected the indictment to Adams having complained about an influx of migrants last year, Elon Musk responded that Adams was told to shut up by the Democratic Party after this. The New York Post ran a suggestive piece juxtaposing Adamss indictment with his battles with the White House over the migrant crisis. Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt said, It sounds like if you dont fall in line with the Biden family, or this White House, or this administration, or the top Democrats, your life can be ruined. Plenty of others wagered or suggested much the same. Trump joined them later Thursday, saying he had predicted Adams would be indicted when Adams began complaining about migrants last year. You take a look at what they do, these are dirty players. These are bad people, Trump said at a news conference, while acknowledging he was unfamiliar with the indictment. Adams, too, gestured at such theories, claiming in a video released Wednesday night, I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target, and a target I became. But the indictment contains a number of colorful scenes and details that are difficult to square with the idea that Adams was singled out for political reasons. At one point, the indictment describes an Adams staffer wagering that his boss would object to a particular aspect of an alleged scheme only to later find out his boss had no such qualms. In June 2018, the unnamed Adams staffer spoke with an unnamed Turkish entrepreneur about Adams raising money in Turkey, according to the indictment. The staffer asked how the money raised would be declared in the United States, given you cant legally do that, and the entrepreneur floated funneling it through an American citizen who was Turkish. I think he wouldnt get involved in such games, the Adams staffer allegedly replied of his boss, while adding: Ill ask anyways. The indictment goes on to say that, after the staffer brought the idea to Adams, contrary to the Adams Staffers expectations, ADAMS directed that the Adams Staffer pursue it. At another point, in 2021, the indictment describes the Adams staffer negotiating with the New York City-area general manager of Turkeys national airline over flights to Istanbul. The airline official suggested Adams pay just $50 for the tickets, but the Adams staffer objected and said the price should be higher to Let it be somewhat real. The indictment says that Adams became so accustomed to the travel benefits from the airline that he went well out of his way to use the carrier. He even at one point asked if it could be used for flights to Easter Island in the South Pacific a route the carrier does not offer. Another detail suggests Adams understood what was allegedly the quid pro quo nature of his relationship with Turkish interests. It describes a 2021 phone call in which a Turkish official told the Adams staffer that, because of their support for Adams, it was his turn to support them specifically by helping them obtain a temporary certificate of occupancy for a building in New York known as the Turkish House. When the staffer relayed the sentiment that it was Adamss turn, Adams allegedly responded, I know. The indictment describes other instances that prosecutors could use to establish consciousness of guilt. While texting with his staffer about a trip to Turkey in 2019, the indictment says the staffer urged Adams, To be o[n the] safe side Please Delete all messages you send me. Adams allegedly responded, Always do. According to the indictment, Adams also changed the password on his personal cellphone after the investigation broke into public view in November 2023 but then just days later claimed he had forgotten the new password. Adams produced the cellphone a day after FBI agents on Nov. 6, 2023, conducted a search that obtained other phones but not his personal device. The password was changed to six digits from four. The indictment says Adams claimed he did so on Nov. 5, in the indictments words, to prevent members of his staff from inadvertently or intentionally deleting the contents of his phone because ... he wished to preserve the contents of his phone due to the investigation. But when he handed the phone over and it was locked, the indictment says, Adams claimed he had forgotten the password he had just set, and thus was unable to provide the FBI with a password that would unlock the phone. To put that into timeline form, the investigation became public knowledge on Nov. 2, 2023, and Adams apparently changed his password on Nov. 5. But just two days later, he turned over the phone and claimed he didnt know the password. Trump allies have long leaped at weaponization conspiracy theories, given the volume of Trump allies and now Trump himself who have been charged and in some cases convicted. The idea that the Justice Department is weaponized has become an article of faith on the right, an easy way to explain away why so many in Trumps orbit are convicted criminals. But if anything shows how speculative the whole exercise has been, it might be the attempt to immediately shoehorn the notion into an indictment of a prominent Democrat. A video screen grab of Allegheny County executive Sara Innamorato stomping a spotted lanternfly that landed on Vice President Kamala Harris. The invasive bug has wreaked havoc on local vineyards and trees since arriving in Pennsylvania a decade ago. Read more Turns out Vice President Kamala Harris recent visit to Pennsylvania wasnt just about steel and tax credits it was also a crash course in pest control. While disembarking from Air Force Two near Pittsburgh International Airport last week for a campaign stop at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh just weeks before the Nov. 5 election Harris had an unexpected brush with a longtime Pennsylvania tradition: stomping the notorious spotted lanternfly. The lesson came courtesy of Allegheny County executive Sara Innamorato, who heroically swatted and squashed the invasive critter after it brazenly landed on the vice president. Advertisement Spoiler: The lanternfly did not survive. As the vice president steps in front of me, I put out my hand, I shake her hand, and then the lieutenant governor turns to me and swats something off my shoulder, Innamorato said. I did the little theres a bug on me dance and flicked it off my chest and realized it flew onto the pant leg of the vice president! Thats when her instincts kicked in. I swatted it off her pant leg and squashed it, then looked up at her and said, We have to kill the spotted lanternflies, we survived this together, Innamorato joked of the interaction. I dont think she knew what was happening at first. Readers should take note of the textbook technique employed by Innamorato. In under a second, Allegheny Countys top official used a swift hand swipe to the vice presidents pant leg followed by a right foot stomp. In the video, now viewed by 1.5 million people online, Innamorato takes a solid stomp foundation and foot placement, quickly pivots, and sends a final stomp follow-through that experts now consider one of the most historic lanternfly stomps in state history. The technique was prime, [Innamorato] went with the classic one-two approach, said Julie Urban, a leading lanternfly expert at Penn State. Had she stomped it on Vice President Harris that wouldve been disgusting, so that was very diplomatic. This isnt the first time a lanternfly has made a cameo with the White House crew. The spotted menace once landed on President Joe Biden during a 2020 speech, but Urban joked this might be the first instance of a lanternfly joining a presidential campaign stomp. Pennsylvania is a swing state, but it was demonstrated here that its also a swing and stomp state too, she said. Innamorato greeted Harris again later that day in a photo line at Harris visit to Carnegie Mellon University. She announced to the room that she googled spotted lanternflies on her drive into CMU after the stomp. I told her, We have to stomp them its our civic duty, Innamorato said. Much of Harris Pittsburgh visit centered on proposals for the regions economic driver, metal manufacturing, like incentivizing industry growth through tax credits and zoning reform. Biden and Harris commitment to decarbonizing manufacturing industries aligns with the regions own goals, said Innamorato, of striking a balance between a market that employs nearly 100,000 residents and reducing the pollution caused by it. Allegheny County will use federal funds to improve decarbonization efforts in the manufacturing industry and public housing in the coming years. As for the now-legendary stomp, Innamorato admits its hilarious and slightly mortifying. Secret Service is very deliberate about how you step forward, shake the hand, and may exchange a few words with the vice president, and then they move on, she said. I broke protocol to stomp the lanternfly. Shonda Rhimes attends the 2019 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on Feb. 24, 2019, in Beverly Hills, Calif. On Saturday she will join Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris in the Philadelphia area. Read more Shonda Rhimes will campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris in Philadelphia and the collar counties on Saturday, with a special appearance from Gov. Josh Shapiro. Their appearance falls on the same day Sen. JD Vance will be rallying in Bucks County for former President Donald Trump. Rhimes, an award-winning writer and producer, will make stops in Philadelphia on Saturday at a Books, Ballots, and Brunch event with Black women leaders, as well as the 52nd Ward Canvass and Appreciation Picnic. The successful producers repertoire includes Greys Anatomy, Private Practice, Bridgerton, How to Get Away With Murder, Inventing Anna, Scandal, and more. Advertisement Outside of Philadelphia, Shapiro and Rhimes will put a spotlight on reproductive rights, rallying with local Democratic leaders in the suburbs. Rhimes joined the Planned Parenthood board in 2017 and cochairs a get-out-the-vote initiative created by Michelle Obama called When We All Vote, alongside other celebrities like Janelle Monae and Megan Rapinoe. Also on Saturday, Vance, Trumps vice presidential nominee, will be campaigning for Trump in Newtown, a friendly turf for the Republican nominee from Ohio. Abortion is Harris strongest issue among Pennsylvania voters just months before the presidential election, in which Pennsylvania plays a critical role. A postdebate poll from The Inquirer, New York Times, and Siena College found that Harris held a 25-point lead on Trump on the subject with 59% of likely voters trusting her more on the issue, slightly higher than President Joe Bidens lead on abortion in April. The crucial Philly suburbs were especially supportive of Harris on abortion issues, with 72% of likely voters in the collar counties saying she was better equipped to handle the issue. Its not the first time a celebrity has campaigned for Democrats on the issue in the Philly burbs this year. In May, Harris was joined by Abbott Elementary star Sheryl Lee Ralph in Montgomery County to discuss reproductive rights while President Joe Biden was the nominee. In June, first lady Jill Biden and Wonder Woman actress Lynda Carter visited Montgomery County as part of a four-stop rally across Pennsylvania around the two-year anniversary of Roe v. Wade being overturned to attack Trump on the issue. READ MORE: Ovaries! Kamala Harris and Abbott Elementarys Sheryl Lee Ralph discuss reproductive rights in Montgomery County Democratic speakers at the suburban rally on Saturday will likely take aim at Project 2025, a document put together by a conservative think tank as a blueprint for another Trump presidency. Trump has distanced himself from the project since its become a Democratic talking point, but a large number of his associates authored the plan. Project 2025 takes aim at abortion access, Planned Parenthood (even beyond their abortion services), emergency contraception, and abortion pills. The blueprint says the Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health decision, which took away the national right to abortion, was just the beginning. Since Trump appointed the conservative Supreme Court majority that took away that right, Trump has bragged about and taken credit for Dobbs. READ MORE: What is Project 2025, and why are people Googling it more than Taylor Swift right now? Conservatives in the states and in Washington, including in the next conservative Administration, should push as hard as possible to protect the unborn in every jurisdiction in America, the Project 2025 foreword reads. The documents language about supporting the rights of fetuses and embryos can threaten family planning methods like IVF and some forms of contraception, according to legal experts. News / National by Staff reporter This morning, the City of Bulawayo Mayor David Coltart met with some of engineers at the historic clock tower to assess the necessary repairs needed to restore the iconic clock and its bells to full functionality. The meeting, attended by key engineers, focused on the steps required to revive this cherished symbol of the city.The initiative gained momentum following a generous offer of support from the Swiss Ambassador, who expressed a commitment to help restore the clock tower to its former glory. The clock, which has long been a landmark in Bulawayo, requires rehabilitation of its mechanism to ensure accurate timekeeping and proper functioning of the bells.During the visit, it was noted that while the bells are still operational, the overall mechanism requires attention to restore it fully."As you can hear, the bells are still working, but we need to rehabilitate the mechanism and clock to get it working properly," an engineer explained.City officials expressed their gratitude for the Swiss Ambassador's support and emphasized the importance of the clock tower as a historical and cultural icon for Bulawayo. They reassured residents that progress would be made swiftly, inviting the community to "watch this space" for updates on the restoration.The rehabilitation of the clock tower is expected to enhance its role as a focal point for both residents and visitors, celebrating Bulawayo's rich heritage and commitment to preserving its historical landmarks. Loh remarked on the growing trade between China and Latin America, noting that much of this activity is facilitated through Hong Kong. With our new central hub for global marine and shipping in Lima and a growing presence here in the Asia-Pacific region, we are even better positioned to serve the needs of our clients in this key location and across the globe, he said. Intelligent disruptors Innovation is why the insurance industry continues to push boundaries and at the forefront of this movement are the 5-Star Insurance Innovators of 2024. As a group, the winners have embraced the transformation to Insurance as a Service (IaaS) with their bespoke and embedded solutions. This customer-focused approach aligns with what the modern client demands and expects, and ultimately creates a more responsive industry. Over the last two years, the insurtech sector has seen a massive boom, being a big catalyst for innovation in insurance, a sector thats been ripe for disruption for some time," says Richard Klipin, CEO of the National Insurance Brokers Association. Customers demanding more efficiency in an environment of abundant choice, and having clarity regarding what they want, is driving the industry to embrace digital transformation that can help improve customer experience and outcomes. AI is another significant element of the innovation movement as it empowers insurers to offer increasingly personalised products and optimise processes, handing them a competitive advantage. Its also set to become more common as AI is adopted across the market, led by IBs 5-Star Insurance Innovators. Marcello Negro, principal and head of product management and marketing at strategic analytics firm Finity, highlights the key areas of innovation. In particular, across commercial insurance lines, we have seen an increase in investment into automation, particularly for tasks like document extraction of quote slips and asset schedules, he says. Insurers are recognising the value of freeing up their teams from tedious manual processes, allowing them to focus on making better underwriting decisions and building relationships with clients, ultimately leading to a better experience for insurers, brokers and customers alike. An example he presents is Finitys recently developed Uniwriter product, which streamlines underwriting processes into one end-to-end system. To genuinely innovate and stand out, Negro asserts, a firm needs to cultivate a culture of pioneers, reflected in the following approaches: fostering an environment that encourages employees to explore new technologies such as generative AI (GenAI) identifying opportunities for improvement embracing proof-of-concepts and the inevitable failures or learnings This entrepreneurial mindset and forward-thinking approach were central themes at a recent Finity technology event, where speakers shared their experiences with building and maintaining digital ecosystems, he adds. Senior industry leaders emphasised the importance of bringing together people, processes, and technology to create a competitive advantage. IBs 5-Star Insurance Innovators have embraced these principles to be at the forefront of challenging the status quo and pioneering new advancements. The IB team objectively assessed 38 entries from insurers, brokerages, and service providers across Australia and New Zealand, focusing on initiatives and results achieved in 2023. The top 25 innovative insurance companies that demonstrated extraordinary impact in propelling the industry forward were crowned 5-Star Insurance Innovators. With more than half of global insurance CEOs confident in achieving returns on investment within five years of implementing GenAI, the most innovative insurance companies in Australia and New Zealand are positioning themselves as pioneers leading the way. Below, three of this years 5-Star innovative insurance companies disrupting the industry with groundbreaking innovations share their insights on how they are shaping the future of insurance. Klipin adds, Consumers are getting much clearer about what they need and what they want. From an insurance broking point of view, when the world gets faster and more complex, the need to have a trusted advisor becomes even more important to help navigate through that complexity. A mindset that helps cultivate trusted advice thats provided by an educated and capable professional will be in high demand to stand out in the future. Disruptive technologies are transforming the future of insurance The 5-Star Insurance Innovator is a forward-thinking provider of claims and risk management solutions. Its approach to innovation focuses on leveraging advanced technology and thought leadership to enhance service delivery and provide actionable insights to the industry. IB recognised the company for two key initiatives: introducing an AI-driven telephony system that redefines claims management publishing a strategic roadmap for insurers, The Carrier Perspective: 2024 Claims Insights whitepaper, which addresses critical industry challenges through expert insights Deputy CEO of personal injury and COO, Lionel Charmetant, shares his observations and notable findings from both of these. Q: How has the AI-driven telephony system specifically improved claimant outcomes, and what key insights have you gained from the real-time analysis of calls? A: Our early work with this system has shown strong potential to improve claimant outcomes by enhancing our ability to understand customer interactions and improve the processes that underpin our service delivery. Qualitative analysis of customer calls is a manual and labour-intensive process. By utilising the AI-driven telephony system, we can access deeper insights faster than ever and on a larger scale. This provides data that is critical to providing high levels of customer service and frees up our service teams time to have those personal interactions with claimants. The call sentiment analysis tool rapidly transcribes calls, evaluates performance, and improves quality assurance standards, all contributing to enhanced productivity and better results. By doing this at a large scale, were better able to identify trends in customer conversations, sentiment, intent and other key metrics. These actionable insights empower us to make data-driven decisions, ultimately enhancing our customer service and improving claimant outcomes. Q: What challenges did you face while piloting the AI-driven telephony system, and how do you plan to scale this technology across your operations? A: The most important challenge in implementing new technology is ensuring we retain and enhance the human touch. Our claims managers role in the claims process is indispensable, reassuring claimants, providing guidance and helping them navigate complex situations. Our AI tools are intended to support our people and complement the great service they already offer. Q: What feedback have you received from industry leaders on The Carrier Perspective: 2024 Claims Insights whitepaper, and how do you see it shaping future claims management strategies? A: The response to the paper has been fantastic. The whitepaper has been recognised for its valuable insights into the pressing challenges and emerging opportunities within the insurance sector. Were particularly proud that ANZIIF acknowledged the paper as part of the recent ANZIIF Awards, but weve also seen it spotlighted by Insurance Business, UAC and other leading industry bodies. Weve also had great feedback from clients and our connections in the industry. Were planning the 2025 survey, and weve been able to expand the topics covered to address new and evolving areas of interest based on the feedback weve received. As we launch and then scale new tools such as the AI-driven telephony system, our focus is always on how we engage our staff, incorporate their feedback, and bring them on the journey Lionel Charmetant Gallagher Bassett Breakdown: AI-driven telephony system Why: Its adjusters handle about 20,000 phone calls daily, each potentially significantly impacting claimants lives. Given the sheer volume, no organisation can supervise every call, leading to potential inconsistencies in service quality. How: Its AI system analyses each call for quality assurance, gauges sentiment, transcribes and summarises conversations, and aggregates results for performance management. The system ensures adjusters follow best practices, flags risks in real-time and provides comprehensive call data for continuous improvement. Results: Significant improvements in its call handling processes, including enhanced quality of its claims management, improved adjuster training, strengthened relationships with claimants, and timely interventions, leading to better overall outcomes. Differentiator: While some companies use AI for call analysis, its comprehensive systems ability to gauge sentiment and summarise calls for broader data analysis is unique, setting it apart from competitors who may still rely on manual supervision. The Carrier Perspective: 2024 Claims Insights by the numbers: 150: businesses surveyed globally to gather data on challenges, such as employee retention, AI utilisation, and the impacts of demographic and climate changes, offering a deep dive into these topics and actionable insights for insurers in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and North America 10,000: downloads achieved within the first month of its release, earning it a reputation as a go-to resource for industry leaders who want to stay ahead of the curve and deliver value to policyholders The 5-Star Insurance Innovators flagship risk maturity assessment online (RMA Online) platform is a first-of-its-kind enterprise risk management solution tailored for the care, education, faith, community and not-for-profit sectors. IB recognised Ansvar Insurance for its groundbreaking innovation in the specialty sectors, which empowers organisations to take charge of their risk frameworks with easy-to-use technology backed by a comprehensive maturity model. Its early-into-market release has seen uptake from multiple peak body groups, insurance networks, broker groups and individual clients, who benefit from the unique risk maturity model and integrated online system designed specifically for organisations governing vulnerable communities. General manager of risk solutions, Anthony Black, shares his insights on the tools effectiveness in reshaping risk management practices and enhancing client and broker engagement. Q: How has the introduction of RMA Online transformed the approach to risk management for organisations in the care, education, faith, community and not-for-profit sectors? A: Because its built by sector experts with extensive experience in governance and risk management, its widely accepted as credible and valuable. Its uniqueness also presents excellent opportunities for brokers to differentiate themselves from the more general risk management support traditionally offered to customers. In essence, we are disrupting the high-cost and corporate-orientated risk models that these sectors have been forced to rely on, shifting to one that speaks to their context, in their language, for their purposes. Plus, its available to all organisations at no cost, which many find remarkable. This approach is shifting the culture from a low-value compliance focus to one that measures the effectiveness of the risk framework and identifies ways to strengthen it and thats what maturity is all about. This transformation enables organisations to drive their own improvement, build long-term risk management capabilities, and benchmark outcomes with other organisations, an option previously unavailable to these sectors. For brokers, its a point of difference. New avenues for supporting clients and deepening relationships in these sectors have opened, fundamentally changing how brokers engage with their clients. Q: What feedback have you received from clients and brokers using RMA Online, and how has this new tool changed their risk management practices? A: We have had a much higher take-up than anticipated, given how new it is. We hear that it is reshaping how organisations think about their risk frameworks. RMA Onlines questions push into areas commonly left out when considering risk management approaches. Because each client receives a maturity score, it helps them to understand their development on a maturity scale and gives them practical advice on how to move up that scale. We hear from boards and executives that they are under more pressure to validate the effectiveness of their risk frameworks and that RMA Online provides a valuable contribution to their assessments. A client at the National Care Organisation told us this has been a great way for their executive team to come together and assess their risk management approach practically and holistically. Broker interest has also been positive. We have created ways to assist brokers in distributing information about RMA Online. We have provided education sessions for brokers to understand the value in the approach for business growth and retention and supported them in client meetings to step through the system and explore the outcomes together. Q: What are the next steps for RMA Online, and how do you envision this tool evolving to further support your specialty sectors in managing emerging risks? A: We will continue to reshape thinking using risk maturity as the model for improvement and direct efforts into strengthening risk frameworks. By doing this, we will likely see better governance and risk management standards, more confident risk management capabilities, and reduced insurable loss exposures. Losses and harm in these sectors can have terrible individual and community consequences. In addition, we will expand its reach to as many sector organisations as possible with the assistance of our broker networks and capture background data to provide insights on risk maturity within sectors, which does not currently exist, and use this information to tailor programs to support risk capabilities and inform benchmarking. We will prioritise linkage of sector risk maturity information with sector claims information to identify patterns and relationships in practices, data and trends for improved decision-making for clients, brokers and insurers Anthony Black Ansvar Insurance RMA Online by the numbers: three years spent designing, developing and testing RMA Online the ERM team is a top 3 finalist in the 2023 Risk Management Institute of Australasia Risk Team of the Year awards five sectors benefit from the solution tailored to their unique needs zero cost to all insureds The 5-Star Insurance Innovator fosters a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship around disruption, particularly in the automotive channel. Employees are empowered to take ownership of the business and challenge the status quo, proactively disrupting their business processes rather than waiting for external forces to drive change. Allianz Australia achieved recognition from IB for its Indicative Quote (IQ) system, which replaces the traditional process of purchasing home and vehicle insurance with a one-click estimate. The IQ system uses a combination of data from partners, customers, and the insurer, seamlessly integrated via APIs, to deliver an estimated price for insurance in real-time. General manager, consumer partners, Dan Tully, unveils the inspiration for the innovation, which other insurers have not replicated in the Australian market, and how it significantly enhances customer experience. Q: What inspired the development of the IQ system? A: The inspiration was if we dont do it, someone else will disrupt us. And secondly, were constantly asking if theres a better way to do what we do today. Buying a car, for example, is a cumbersome process that hasnt changed much in a decade. Were genuinely trying to transform the business model. The power has always been with the dealership and the business manager selling you the car; they have all the power. Weve tried to break that power, not in a bad way, but to give the customer control of the process. Let them choose how they want to interact. Ive encouraged my team by saying, I know you dont want to upset the dealer; theyve been doing things a certain way for 10 years. But if we dont disrupt, someone else will, and theyll do it to both us and the dealer. So, lets do it in a way that takes them on a journey. Theyre already a trusted partner; if we dont take them with us, someone else will. Theyll ask why Allianz didnt do that for them, and they might not have any choice but to leave us, even if they dont want to. The other big thing, which I know is cliche now, is the omni-channel approach. That was the big breakthrough with the IQ, but the real game changer is how the omni-channel setup puts the customer in control. The IQ is a massive innovation, but we almost take the fact that we are plugged into the omni-channel for granted. It takes the power away from the business manager and puts it on the customer. Weve got the data, and thats our competitive advantage. Weve got partners who want to collaborate with us and figure out what we can do to improve the sales process for the customer. Our vision was to exceed customer expectations: push a button, get a price, and be done. Its a game changer. Q: What were the biggest challenges faced during the implementation of the IQ system, and how were they overcome? A: The first big challenge was getting funding, and we self-funded the project. Another challenge is dealing with third parties and the unknown. And you never know how implementation will go. We overcame that by working closely with our partners and assembling a dedicated project team to work with our business partner weekly. Then, we went live with a pilot test to ensure it worked and eliminated any bugs, and then we went national. Q: How does Allianz plan to evolve the IQ system, and what new technological innovations are on the horizon? A: What Id love to do next is leverage AI chatbots to keep the customer in the digital journey. Thats my next innovation: the role of AI for customer experience. You hear it everywhere: data is the new oil, but not many use it. What inspired me was figuring out how to leverage our data. Now, we integrate with partners in real time, instantly pricing what used to take 10 minutes Dan Tully Allianz Australia Insurance Indicative Quote by the numbers: From 19 to 3: IQ reduces the number of questions for lenders and customers, streamlining the process significantly 30% : reduction in the average time it takes to complete a home insurance quote 60%: increase in the quote-to-sale conversion rate Pain points addressed for customers and lenders: reduces processing time for staff members and customers by pre-filling available information from partner systems generates a price estimate to customers without having to complete a full quote within the Allianz insurance platform eliminates double handling of data and the possibility of data-entry errors 201500 employees Credit Clear Limited 26100 employees Agile Underwriting Services Codafication FreightInsure New Zealand Financial Services Group SafetyCulture Care 1025 employees Coalition Insurance Solutions Curium Grappler InsuredHQ Kanopi Simfuni Strata Insurance Solutions A report commissioned by the Actuaries Institute has called for significant changes in the types of data collected about First Nations people in Australia. The document, titled Getting to Grips With Indigenous Data, emphasised that to improve the lives and futures of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the nation must rethink how data is gathered, utilised, and controlled. Passwords, in particular, are a major part of the frustration. According to the survey, 88% of the participants were frustrated with managing multiple passwords, with 60% saying they have too many to remember. Fifty-five per cent admitted to having stopped using a service because of difficulties logging in, with healthcare apps being the biggest offenders. Nevin, who brings more than two decades of industry experience, is known for his expertise across small group, large group, and level-funded coverage. In his new role, he will focus on helping brokers navigate the employee benefits market, offering solutions that support their business growth and client retention. Bishop Street Underwriters is part of RedBird Capitals portfolio and focuses on partnering with MGAs and niche underwriting teams. The company combines the experience of its reinsurance executive team with RedBirds expertise in financial services, aiming to create a differentiated platform positioned to capitalize on growth opportunities within the insurance sector. Supporters of the bill, including the CDI, have argued that the pay disparity has led to significant staff shortages. According to CDI press secretary Gabriel Sanchez, 75% of insurance investigators who leave the department transfer to the DOJ to become special agents, creating a cascade effect that has left the CDI critically understaffed. Commenting on the deal, financial terms of which were not disclosed, president Bob MacDonald said: When we were considering potential acquirers, it was imperative that we align ourselves with a partner that has a strong commitment to human service organizations. AM Best has affirmed the financial strength rating (FSR) of A+ (Superior) and the long-term issuer credit rating (Long-Term ICR) of "aa" (Superior) for Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd (Switzerland) and most of its rated operating affiliates, all subsidiaries of Swiss Re Ltd. Comprehensive supply ship Luomahu conducts replenishment-at-sea China Military Online) 13:11, September 27, 2024 Comprehensive supply ship Luomahu (Hull 964) attached to a navy flotilla under the PLA Southern Theater Command provides liquid supply to Type 052D guided-missile destroyer Guilin (Hull 164) via alongside replenishment-at-sea during a comprehensive logistic exercise on August 6, 2024. (eng.chinamil.com.cn/Photo by Li Junlin) (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) News / National by Staff reporter MK Party (MKP) deputy president John Hlophe has been interdicted from taking part in any Judicial Service Commission (JSC) activities, pending a review of the National Assembly's decision to designate him to the body.On Friday, the Western Cape High Court handed down its judgment in an application from the DA and NGOs Freedom Under Law and Corruption Watch for his recusal from the JSC.A full Bench of judges seconded from the Gauteng High Court heard the matter.The DA submitted that it deemed it irrational for Hlophe, the first judge to be removed from the Bench in democratic South Africa, to be a part of the body that interviews judges for vacancies and disciplines members of the judiciary.DA national spokesperson Karabo Khakhau welcomed the court's decision.She described it as a landmark victory for the DA and for the integrity of the judiciary."The court's decision affirms our position and strengthens the fight to maintain the highest standards of integrity within our judiciary. An impeached judge, found guilty of gross misconduct should not hold a position on the JSC, a body entrusted with the responsibility of selecting judges and upholding the highest standards of judicial integrity," she added.Khakhau said the ruling was a major step towards safeguarding the independence and credibility of the judicial system."Allowing Dr Hlophe, who was impeached after a long and contentious legal process, to influence the selection of future judges, would have severely damaged public trust in our judiciary and compromised the principles that uphold our democracy."Hlophe's removal from the Bench followed a JSC process in which he was found guilty of gross misconduct for trying to sway two Constitutional Court judges to rule in Zuma's favour in the arms deal corruption case in 2008.Four months after his removal, he was sworn in as an MP for the MKP to lead the opposition in the same National Assembly that removed him.In July, he was confirmed as a member of the same JSC.It is widely expected that Hlophe will appeal. The New York City Council will introduce legislation this week that would drastically reduce the amount of insurance coverage taxi and ride-share vehicles are required to maintain, looking to contain potential fallout from the insolvency of the citys largest taxi insurer. Northern Manhattan City Council Member Carmen De La Rosa wants to lower the minimum personal injury protection coverage for commercial ride-share cars in New York City from $200,000 to $50,000. The change would bring insurance requirements in line with levels mandated for ride-share vehicles in the rest of the state, helping lower premiums in an industry beset by financial problems. I represent a community in Northern Manhattan where the livery industry is still one of the economic engines for my community, said De La Rosa, who will introduce the bill on Thursday. Shes urging the council to act just weeks after the states Department of Financial Services warned that American Transit Insurance Co. has massively deficient reserves and is at significant risk of failure. The company, which insures at least 60% of the citys roughly 120,000 taxis, livery cabs and ride-share vehicles, disclosed in its latest filings that its losses outstrip reserves by roughly $700 million. A spokesperson for American Transit did not respond to a request for comment. Insurance industry experts have blamed American Transits financial circumstances partly on its practice of charging artificially low premiums that arent commensurate with its liabilities. If the company failed, the outcome would be economically devastating for livery drivers, passengers, health care providers and the New York economy, and would disrupt vital transportation services, DFS has said. The agency, which regulates all insurers statewide, is working with American Transit on a plan to shore up its finances, which could include a sale or liquidation. Exorbitant Premiums De La Rosa said her legislation, which would require a majority of the Council and the mayors approval to be enacted, is designed to help city black car and cab drivers, whove struggled since rideshare apps upended the economics of the industry. Many drivers are saddled with debt after buying once-valuable Medallions, the relatively scarce city-issued licenses to operate cabs, before their value crumbled. If another company were to take over American Transit and charge premiums high enough to cover their liabilities, city taxi drivers could see their premiums, which range from $4,000 to $6,000 a year, increase by as much as 30%. That would be devastating to city drivers, De La Rosa said. Even at current levels, taxi drivers premiums are so exorbitant at this point that many drivers are afraid theyre going to lose their livelihoods, she added. Personal injury protection, or PIP, also described as no-fault insurance, covers medical costs and lost wages for drivers or their passengers if theyre injured in a car accident, regardless of which party was at fault. New York is one of just 12 states in the country that requires drivers to carry such personal injury protection coverage, and the city has one of the highest coverage level requirements in the country. Read More: NYC Cab Crash Sends Rider on Nightmare for Insurance Money New York Citys $200,000 personal injury protection coverage requirement was implemented in 1998, after a series of high-profile crashes led to devastating pedestrian and passenger injuries. In the 1990s, the rate of accidents involving for-hire vehicles had been steadily increasing, said Matt Daus, a former chair of the citys Taxi and Limousine Commission, who is now chair of the Transportation Practice Group at law firm Windels Marx. When these laws were passed there were no systems in place to get bad drivers off the road, Daus said. But riding in taxis has become much less risky since then, he said. New York Citys high PIP coverage requirements have had a negative unintended consequence, becoming a magnet for would-be fraudsters, city and state regulators have said. In no-fault insurance fraud schemes, groups of people manufacture accidents, or fabricate or exaggerate injuries sustained in crashes to exploit the possibility of a six figure payout. A 2023 DFS report found 75% of all fraud claims the department received that year were suspected cases of no-fault insurance fraud. De La Rosa said the high coverage requirements had also discouraged other insurers from trying to compete in the market making American Transit too big to fail, as one of the only companies operating in the industry. Photo: A taxi outside Penn Station in New York, US, on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024. New Yorks insurance regulator issued a damning report laying out the severe financial condition of the citys largest insurer of taxis and for-hire vehicles, as well as dozens of potential financial improprieties and accounting problems, warning that the consequences of failure could be devastating for tens of thousands of drivers. Copyright 2024 Bloomberg. Topics New York Personal Auto A man who spent 26 years in solitary confinement despite a history of mental illness can sue Pennsylvania prison officials for alleged cruel and unusual punishment, a U.S. appeals court said in reviving the mans lawsuit. Roy Lee Williams spent nearly all of his time alone from 1993 until 2019, when a legal settlement led the state to end the practice of routinely housing death-row inmates in solitary confinement. Williams had been sentenced to death for killing a construction worker in Philadelphia in 1988. An Associated Press story on the 1992 trial reported that Williams, who is Black, had said he wanted to kill a white person because a white person had put him in jail in a robbery case. He was sentenced to death row at 26. His mental health problems date back to at least age 14, when he was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility amid suicidal ideation, according to his lawsuit. Prison officials knew of his history of severe mental health and cognition problems at least by 1996, Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Theodore McKee wrote in the 2-1 ruling issued last Friday, which reversed a lower court ruling. While state officials argued that the Department of Corrections was not on notice before 2019 that its solitary confinement practices were unconstitutional, McKee found they were. He cited a 25-page letter outlining needed reforms the agency received in 2014 from the U.S. Department of Justice. The 2014 DOJ report concisely packaged much of the relevant and binding law and delivered it to the defendants doorstep, said McKee, who sits in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court in Philadelphia. Solitary Confinement Bans The ruling comes as at least a dozen states have banned or restricted solitary confinement and lawsuits in both Pennsylvania and around the country target the practice as well, especially for people with mental illness. Critics say a persons mental health can deteriorate quickly in isolation, leading in some cases to self-harm. Williams, who filed his initial lawsuit without the help of a lawyer, described a six-month disciplinary period he once spent without even a radio as being isolated on top of being isolated, according to the ruling. The 3rd Circuit also revived Williams claim that prison officials ignored his right to services under the Americans with Disability Act. The evidence here is uncontradicted, McKee wrote. By neither removing Williams from solitary confinement for 26 years, nor making modifications to his conditions of confinement, the DOC failed to act. Williams remains in custody, and under a death sentence, in a state prison near Philadelphia. He is represented by the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, which has filed a number of similar suits alleging undue harm from years of isolation. Some lawsuits seek policy changes, while Williams is seeking money damages since he is no longer in solitary confinement. His is the first to go up on appeal. So I think this opinion definitely will help all those other men whose cases are currently pending in trial courts right now, said Matthew Feldman, a supervising attorney with the group. The state Attorney Generals office, which argued the case, declined comment Tuesday while it reviewed the opinion. Its client, the Department of Corrections, did not immediately return email messages seeking comment. According to Feldman, about 5% of the states prison population is in solitary confinement. He said that about half of that group compared to one-third of the overall prison population have a history of mental illness. People living in solitary confinement typically only get about an hour a day outside of their small cell, and are often restrained when they leave it. Advocates say its difficult to sleep because the environment is often loud and brightly lit, even at night. I personally find it inspiring that, despite all that these men have been through, they had the courage to sue their jailers, Feldman said of Williams and others who drafted the initial suits on their own. They had the ingenuity to file these cases and craft compelling legal arguments. And I guess they had faith that they could vindicate their rights in court. Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits USA Pennsylvania Pennsylvania State University will pay $703,742 in back wages and interest and enter into a conciliation agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor to resolve alleged gender pay discrimination against female employees. Based on a compliance review, the Department of Labor said it found that, since at least July 1, 2020, Penn State allegedly paid 65 women employees less than men holding similar positions in facilities operations and maintenance, extension education and senior administration jobs. This also included some female faculty in research professor roles at the College of Engineering and the Applied Research Laboratory and some female faculty in teaching professor roles at the College of Agricultural Sciences and the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications. In addition to paying the back wages, Penn State agreed to take steps to make sure its compensation practices and policies are free from discrimination. The government said the universitys actions violated Executive Order 11246, which prohibits federal contractors from discriminating in employment based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin. Employers that hold federal contracts must provide all employees with equal employment opportunities and audit their employment processes to make certain no barriers to equal employment exist, said Samuel B. Maiden, regional director of Philadelphia office of the federal contract compliance unit. The states largest public university, Penn State is among the nations biggest universities. In 2024, Penn State received more than $178 million in payments from federal contracts with agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NASA, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the departments of Defense and Agriculture. Topics Claims Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont announced that the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has opened two business recovery centers that are now providing in-person assistance to businesses applying for federal disaster aid for damages incurred caused by the severe flooding the western portion of the state experienced on August 18, 2024. Located at the Monroe Police Department and Oxford Town Hall, these centers are staffed by SBA customer service representatives who can assist business owners in completing disaster loan applications and accept documents, and provide updates on an applications status. Both locations are open Mondays to Fridays from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and on Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. They are closed on Sundays. Walk-ins are accepted, however SBA encourages applicants to schedule an appointment in advance by visiting appointment.sba.gov. In addition to applying in person, business owners may also call the SBAs Customer Service Center at 800-659-2955 or send an email to disastercustomerservice@sba.govfor more information. The Lamont administration said it is currently working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to open similar in-person centers that will provide assistance to homeowners seeking to apply for federal disaster aid. In the meantime, homeowners can begin the process of applying for assistance by visiting www.DisasterAssistance.gov, by calling 800-621-FEMA (3362), or by using the FEMA app. When an individual registers through FEMAs website, they will be registering for any possible assistance offered by both FEMA and the SBA. Any business that experienced losses from this extreme flooding are strongly encouraged to meet in person with an SBA representative who can guide them through the process on the loans and programs that are now available to them as a result of the major disaster declaration we received last week, Lamont said. In August, Lamont announced a $5 million micro-grant state program to assist small businesses in the western portion of the state rebuild and recover from the record rainfall and flooding. This state-funded grant program is separate from any potential federal funding that businesses or homeowners may be eligible to receive. Under this program, state grants of up to $25,000 are available for small businesses and nonprofit organizations in Fairfield County, Litchfield County, and New Haven County that have fewer than 100 employees and experienced damage from the floods. According to the state, up to almost 16 inches of rain fell in 6-8 hours in some locations. The peak rainfall exceeded 3 inches of water per hour, and 7 inches in three hours in a band from Monroe to Oxford. There was also major river flooding of the Housatonic, Little River, and Naugatuck rivers. The flooding took the lives of two women Oxford. Lamont has said the state has received huge requests from private citizens due to their homes flooding, businesses being destroyed, and bridges and local roads being washed away. Topics Commercial Lines Flood Business Insurance Connecticut The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre in New York reports that it has reached an agreement with survivors, insurers, parishes and other parties on a settlement of its bankruptcy case that includes a $323 million fund to compensate victims of clergy sexual abuse. The total proposed settlement includes insurance contributions, diocesan assets and sale proceeds from diocesan property, and contributions from parishes and other related entities. The diocese, parishes and other related entities will contribute a total of $234.8 million. Insurance companies will contribute a total of about $85 million. Counsel for the committee of creditors will contribute $3 million. The terms were made public at a hearing on September 26. Part of the settlement plan involves all parishes entering into an abbreviated Chapter 11 with the approval of the court and the parties to the case in order to secure a release from liability for the parishes. No parishes are closing as a result of this process. The Dioceses goal has always been the equitable compensation of survivors of abuse while allowing the Church to continue her essential mission. We believe that this plan will achieve those goals, the diocese said in a statement announcing the agreement. Adam Slater, managing partner of Slater Slater Schulman LLP, which represents 100 of the approximately 600 survivor-claimants in this matter, said this is the largest diocese settlement in the history of New York State, and the first diocese settlement to be reached nationwide following the Supreme Courts recent Purdue Pharma decision relating to non-consensual third-party releases. The majority of our clients are in their 60s and 70s they have been waiting decades for justice, and we are extremely pleased to reach this settlement on their behalf, Slater said. Jeff Anderson, another survivors attorney, credited the courage, perseverance, and truth-telling of the survivors for the agreement and noted that the diocese, the bishop, the parishes, and the schools are all required to have rigorous child protection protocols in place as part of this settlement. The Rockville diocese filed for protection under bankruptcy in October 2020 as it faced more than 600 lawsuits of alleged clergy abuse after New York State enacted the Child Victims Act in 2019. The law allowed survivors to file retroactive lawsuits and eliminates the statute of limitations for all future lawsuits based on childhood sexual abuse claims. The Rockville Centre diocese has 132 parishes. Priests working at numerous churches within the diocese have been accused of sexually assaulting minors. The dioceses filing for bankruptcy halted the abuse cases in state court subject to the church coming up with a plan with insurers and survivors and approved by the bankruptcy court to handle the claims. The bankruptcy court had given the church until October 31 to come up with a plan. If there was no plan, the judge could end the bankruptcy process and return the lawsuits to state court. The first trial was scheduled to start in just weeks. The insurers involved in the talks include Allianz units Interstate Fire & Casualty Co., Firemans Fund Insurance Co. and National Surety Corp., along with Certain Underwriters at Lloyds and London Market Companies. The insurers issued policies covering the time period from 1976 to 1986. Allianz companies wrote excess insurance coverage. The participation of another insurer, Arrowood Indemnity, is uncertain as it is currently involved in liquidation proceedings in Delaware. In April 2024, the diocese proposed a $200 million settlement that was rejected by survivors. The bankruptcy court then ordered the parties to restart settlement negotiations. Topics Claims Ukrainian authorities said at least three people were killed by a Russian strike against a Danube River port that was repeatedly attacked last year after it became a lifeline for key exports amid the Kremlins invasion. Fourteen others, including a child, were also injured in the attack on Izmail, Odesa region Governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram Friday. Ukraines Danube ports were targeted by Russia in the summer of 2023 as they became a major route for the embattled countrys agricultural shipments following the collapse of a UN grain deal. President Volodymyr Zelenskiys administration also managed to establish a corridor via the Black Sea from ports to export commodities, including metals. Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian navy, said Izmail port is operating normally after the attack. Romania said it scrambled four fighter jets last night after detecting groups of drones approaching Ukraine near its border. One may have entered the European Union nations airspace for a period of three minutes, though no impact was reported, according to the Romanian Defense Ministry. Ukraines air defense forces said 24 out of 32 drones were shot down in three regions. In one of those, the central Dnipropetrovsk region, the national police said a missile had also hit a building used by the force in Zelenskiys home city of Kryvyi Rih, potentially leaving civilians under the rubble. Copyright 2024 Bloomberg. Topics Russia Axis Insurance Managers Inc., the Vancouver, Canada-based insurance broker, announced the acquisition of Baker Insurance, a property/casualty brokerage based in Calgary. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. This strategic move strengthens Axis presence in the region and enhances its ability to provide expert risk management solutions, the company said. Founded in 1976 and rebranded as Baker Insurance Ltd., following its acquisition by Ed Baker in 2006, the company specializes in the management of complex risks in the areas of corporate and private asset insurance. Baker Insurance provides expert risk management and consultancy services, including risk assessments, claims management, and comprehensive operational reviews. Additionally, the company offers specialized insurance solutions such as surety bonds, and inland marine coverage. Ed and Colin Baker lead the commercial lines division, while Shelley and Tara Baker focus on personal lines, ensuring comprehensive coverage across all client needs. With roots dating back to 1928, and over 300 employees, Axis Insurance has become a leading national brokerage, and one of the fastest growing brokers in Canada, handling more than C$380 million in written premium. Axis specializes in commercial, life, employee benefits, and wealth advisory services. Source: Axis Insurance Topics Mergers & Acquisitions Agencies Canada Property Casualty Pine Walk Capital Ltd., the specialist MGA incubator platform and wholly owned subsidiary of The Fidelis Partnership, announced the launch of the MGA Seraphina. Seraphina will write a broad portfolio of international property business, complementing and diversifying The Fidelis Partnerships existing property D&F book and supporting the BRICS+ strategy to broaden the geographical footprint of the business The launch also marks a return to the company for Kelly Sanders, who was formerly a senior underwriter with the business. Sanders joins from Probitas 1492 where she was a senior underwriter and, prior to her last period with Fidelis Insurance, spent over 10 years in senior underwriting roles for StarStone and FM Global. The international property market is expanding, within the overall context of a growing global economy as well as a heightened risk environment, driven, in part, by climate change, commented Sanders, founder and chief underwriting officer of Seraphina. Were seeing particular appetite for insurance from within the BRICS+ region. From experience, I know that no company is better placed to capitalise on these changes and opportunities than The Fidelis Partnership and I cant wait to work with the team again, she added. Launched in 2017, Pine Walk Capital Ltd. has now established 10 MGAs providing custom underwriting, and operational and regulatory frameworks to support specialist and innovative underwriting offerings. In 2023, Pine Walks GWP grew 43% to $780 million. Were delighted to launch Seraphina as we continue to grow the Pine Walk platform in line with our expectations to surpass $1bn in GWP next year, according to Rinku Patel, group COO of The Fidelis Partnership and CEO of Pine Walk. Profitable growth is a natural result of the disciplined approach we take within the markets weve entered. Were also delighted to welcome Kelly back to group, she has the deep trust of the leadership team and a large following in the market, Patel said. Her solution-based underwriting approach has made her a sought-after partner for brokers and their clients, and we are excited for her to start. The Fidelis Partnership is a privately-owned, Bermuda-based managing general underwriter, which, through its subsidiaries, is a global underwriter of property, bespoke and specialty insurance and reinsurance products. The Fidelis Partnership is separately owned and managed from the ownership and management of Fidelis Insurance Group. Source: The Fidelis Partnership Topics Insurance Wholesale Pero Family Farms Food Company, LLC, will pay $40,000 in compensatory damages and furnish other relief to settle a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) lawsuit, the federal agency announced today. The EEOCs suit alleged Pero Family Farms maintained a sexually hostile work environment at its Benton Harbor, Michigan, facility by allowing a male employee to sexually harass a female co-worker until she obtained a personal protection order. The alleged conduct violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits sexual harassment. The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. Pero Family Farms Food Co., LLC, Case No. 1:23-cv-622) in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process. Under the three-year decree settling the suit, Pero Family Farms is enjoined from subjecting female employees to sexual harassment, from creating or maintaining a sexually hostile work environment, and from retaliating against any employee because they complain of sexual harassment or participates in a sexual harassment investigation. Pero Family Farms will also revise its sexual harassment policies, train employees and human resources personnel on Title VIIs sexual harassment and retaliation provisions, and create and maintain a 24-hour hotline through which employees can report harassment complaints anonymously. Source: EEOC Topics Lawsuits Michigan A judge in South Dakota has thrown out a lawsuit brought by dozens of neighbors in a Rapid City-area subdivision whose homes were built above an old, underground mine linked to sinkholes in the neighborhood. Circuit Court Judge Eric J. Strawn in a ruling posted online Wednesday granted the states motion for summary judgment and dismissed all the claims, ruling that the state has sovereign immunity, a sort of legal protection against lawsuits. The plaintiffs attorney, Kathy Barrow, said her Hideaway Hills clients will appeal to the state Supreme Court. The plaintiffs are arguing that the states mining activities and the way it ultimately closed the mine created conditions ripe for sinkholes to develop. They also fault the state for failing to disclose the problematic conditions. The plaintiffs want the Supreme Court to sort out the blurred lines of the legal theory behind their claims, Barrow said. An attorney for the state referred The Associated Press to Ian Fury, spokesman for Gov. Kristi Noem, who didnt reply to The APs email seeking comment. The lawsuit was originally filed in 2020. That same year, a giant sinkhole opened in the neighborhood, which later revealed the extent of the mine beneath. About 150 neighbors in 94 homes are seeking $45 million. Other holes and sinkings have occurred since, imperiling houses, roads and utilities, according to the homeowners. The former state cement plant mined gypsum for several years in the area decades ago. Attorneys for the state have argued that the cement plant did not mine underground and the collapse would have occurred regardless of the plants mining activities. ___ Dura reported from Bismarck, North Dakota. Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits Legislation News / National by Staff reporter A 51-year-old Bulawayo man, Bongani Matshazi, has been sentenced to six months in prison after being convicted of stealing US$7,259 and R10,000 from his employer to pay for a spiritual cleansing ritual.Matshazi, who worked as a driver for Zimsend Pvt Ltd, was entrusted with delivering the money to a supermarket in Plumtree. Instead, he diverted the funds to pay a traditional healer, seeking to cleanse himself of what he believed were evil spirits.Bulawayo magistrate Mrs. Evia Matura initially sentenced Matshazi to 30 months in prison. However, 12 months were suspended on condition that he commits no similar offense within the next five years. An additional 12 months were suspended on the condition that he restitutes the stolen funds. With only US$530 of the stolen money recovered, Matshazi is now required to repay the balance.In her ruling, Mrs. Matura emphasized the severity of theft from an employer, highlighting the significant breach of trust involved. "The degree of moral blameworthiness was high, and the offender deserves a custodial sentence," she said. "The offender tried to cover up the crime by falsely claiming he had been robbed, when in fact he used the money for spiritual purposes."Prosecutor Mr. Mehluli Ndlovu told the court that Matshazi had reported a fake robbery to the company's operations manager and filed a police report at Figtree Police Station. However, further investigations revealed that his story was fabricated.In his defense, Matshazi claimed he gave the money to the traditional healer in an envelope during the cleansing ceremony but later changed his mind. When he returned to retrieve the money, it had mysteriously turned into papers and old bond notes.The court viewed Matshazi's actions as a serious offense, warranting an effective six-month prison sentence. An influential group of law enforcement leaders is pushing police departments across the U.S. to change how officers use force when they subdue people and to improve training so they avoid consistent blind spots that have contributed to civilian deaths. Calling the use of force a defining issue in policing today, the Police Executive Research Forum released extensive new guidance it says can reduce the risks of deaths following police restraint. The group credited an ongoing investigation led by The Associated Press for inspiring the reforms. The AP and its reporting partners created a database of more than 1,000 deaths over a decade after officers used tactics meant to subdue people without killing them the same category of force that killed George Floyd. The research forums recommendations spanning better coordination with medical responders, de-escalation tactics and adherence to long-standing safety warnings apply to all incidents officers handle. But the group focused on a particular type of case that APs investigation repeatedly documented: People in a medical, mental or drug crisis who die after police use physical blows, restraints or weapons like Tasers. The groups report shifts the focus from blaming those with mental illness and addiction for their own deaths. These people are not suspects. They are patients, said Minneapolis Police Chief Brian OHara, who two years ago took over a department at the center of calls for change after Floyd was killed there in 2020. This is not just about making it safer for a patient. Its about increasing safety for everyone. OHara plans to meet with his staff this week to discuss implementing the recommendations. Deaths that AP identified happened everywhere, affecting people from all walks of life, though Black people were disproportionately represented. In hundreds of cases, officers werent taught or didnt follow well-known guidelines for safely restraining people. These kinds of mistakes were part of what pushed the research forum to act. Every police chief, sheriff, trainer, officer, and any other person involved in these incidents should take the time to read these principles and put them to use, the recommendations said. They can save lives. The Police Executive Research Forum, based in Washington, D.C., and led by police chiefs and administrators, has written policy guidelines on Tasers and body cameras at the request of the Justice Department. While the group largely represents big city departments, its guidelines help inform policy and training standards in many agencies and its work has been cited in court decisions and federal investigations. In June, the group convened about 20 experts to start hashing out recommendations following the AP-led investigation, done with the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism programs at the University of Maryland and Arizona State University, and FRONTLINE (PBS). While some states have banned chokeholds and other tactics since Floyds death, sweeping changes met resistance. A federal package of reforms named in his honor failed to reach President Joe Bidens desk. In these situations, police need to know what they can do, said Chuck Wexler, the research forums executive director. Because if it doesnt go right, the police are going to be held accountable. The recommendations sent to hundreds of police leaders Saturday will be used in training programs the research forum operates, Wexler said. Recognizing a crisis While officers in about 30% of the deaths AP identified from 2012-2021 used force to protect someone, many more incidents werent imminently dangerous and often involved people suffering a health emergency. Cases like these frequently turned volatile after officers misinterpreted as defiance someones hesitation or inability to follow commands. Escalating to physical force then exacerbated the medical condition. In one death AP featured, medics and police in Tennessee treated the body movements of a 23-year-old man suffering a seizure as resistance. The mother of Austin Hunter Turner sued police and other responders after learning from body-camera video AP unearthed that her son was subjected to more force than she realized. People in these medical behavior emergencies appear to be at greater risk of dying when police restrain them, the research forum wrote. It urged departments to improve training so officers can better recognize and respond to these situations. Repeatedly yelling at someone in medical crisis to calm down or relax, for example, often makes the situation worse, the report said. Police should coordinate with fire, dispatch and medics ahead of time so everyone knows their role. Avoiding force mistakes The research forum reiterated and expanded on long-standing safety warnings on physical holds, specifically saying officers should limit when and how long they pin someone face down in what is known as prone position. Police have been on notice since the 1990s that leaving someone in prone restraint can dangerously restrict their lungs and heart. AP found police often failed to turn over the person once they were handcuffed. In dozens of cases, officers blew off cries of, I cant breathe. The research forum said police could save lives by rolling people onto their side as soon as possible, even if they are flailing, and by having at least one officer monitor their health. The group also warned police not to buy misconceptions about prone restraint, including that if someone is talking, they can breathe adequately. Calling for sedation The report addressed another finding from APs investigation by recommending that officers should never seek to influence whether medics give someone an injection to calm them down. The AP found at least 94 people died after they were given sedatives and restrained. In more than 15 of those cases, police requested or suggested that emergency medical workers inject sedatives, such as ketamine or midazolam, to temporarily immobilize someone for transport. Experts told the AP that requests from police can pressure medics to use treatments that may be high risk especially if a person is held face down but not medically necessary. Get the shot to calm him down! a California officer told a paramedic in the 2020 death of a 40-year-old man who received midazolam while restrained. Some departments such as Minneapolis have barred officers from requesting sedation, as does a state law in Colorado. But many others offer little or no guidance to officers, some of whom embrace sedation when they see it work rapidly on combative people. Medics should make decisions independently of police, based on the totality of the circumstances, the report said. It added that medics should feel comfortable intervening when officers are restraining people in dangerous ways. Were not trying to interfere with the job they are doing, Eric Jaeger, an EMS educator and paramedic who helped develop the guidelines, said of police. We are trying to do our job, which is to protect the health of the patient. Photo: Minneapolis Police Chief Brian OHara, left, shakes hands with Michael Wilson on the three-year anniversary of George Floyds death at George Floyd Square, Thursday, May 25, 2023, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr, File) ___ This story is part of the ongoing investigation Lethal Restraint led by The Associated Press in collaboration with the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism programs and FRONTLINE (PBS). The investigation includes an interactive story, database and the film Documenting Police Use Of Force. Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Hurricane Helene barreled into the western coast of Florida with dangerous winds, knocking out power for more than a million customers and threatening to unleash deadly flooding across several states. Helene made landfall near Perry with top sustained winds of 140 miles (225 kilometers) per hour, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center, making it a Category 4 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, before weakening to a tropical storm. Life-threatening storm surge, winds and heavy rains continue, the NHC said in an updated advisory at 5 a.m. ET. The storm is packing winds of 70 miles per hour. Several hurricane and tropical-storm warnings have been discontinued along parts of Floridas east and west coasts, the NHC advisory said. The tropical storm warning has been ended for the Florida Keys, including the Dry Tortugas. Helenes massive size means its expected to bring torrential rain and flooding to cities hundreds of miles away, including Atlanta and Asheville, N.C. Prior to making landfall, its outer winds extended out 310 miles, with the storm causing widespread disruptions to ground and air travel. Over 1.3 million homes and businesses are without power across the southeast US, according to PowerOutage.us, with the vast majority in Florida. The storm also shut in about a quarter of Gulf of Mexico oil production and a fifth of gas activities, according a Thursday notice from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. Helene plowed ashore in Floridas rural Big Bend region, near the states capital Tallahassee, which has a population of about 200,000. Governor Ron DeSantis said it would be one of the strongest storms to strike at the city in memory. The system strengthened as it neared landfall, with its top winds edging up to 140 miles per hour in the final two hours before coming ashore, according to NHC advisories. The National Weather Services Tallahassee unit warned in its latest update on X that dangerous storm surge continues along the Big Bend coast. However, winds will be gradually diminishing through the morning. Water levels this morning are just peaking, with the surge 2-3 feet higher than previous records around Tampa Bay and up to Cedar Key, said Jennifer Hubbard, warning coordination meteorologist, National Weather Service Tampa Bay Area. With the incredibly broad wind field with Helene, we also saw tropical-storm-force winds across the area, with some hurricane-force gusts in the lower 80 mph range in St. Petersburg and in the Egmont Channel. Total damages and economic losses may reach $15 billion, depending on how long Helene can sustain its most dangerous winds, said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler with Enki Research. Helene is the fourth hurricane to hit the U.S. Gulf Coast this year. Copyright 2024 Bloomberg. Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Florida Windstorm As research has evolved on the effects of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), correlations are being made to medical conditions within people exposedand thats about everyone to some degree. Were ingesting this stuff for years and years, to the point where the [Centers for Disease Control] estimates 97% of Americans have PFAS in their blood, Daniel Orseck, senior vice president environmental at Aspen Insurance told Kelly told Insurance Journals Andrea Wells, vice president of content, at the WSIA Annual Marketplace in San Diego. These so-called forever chemicals are used in the production of many products, such as nonstick cookware, certain kinds of fabrics and clothing, cosmetics, and firefighting foams. Its a personal issue for Orseck, he told Wells. Additionally, the research has drawn the attention of regulators, Orseck said. The topic is one Insurance Journal and its sister publications have kept an eye on. The insurance industry has taken note of PFAS risk as regulation and litigation grows. Related: Underwriters Wary of PFAS Amid Superstorm of Litigation, Regulation Cheniere Energy Inc.s top executive Jack Fusco wants the biggest gas exporter in the US to set the rules to measure the environmental impact of liquefied natural gas, using a fleet of methane tracking technologies and the companys clout as the nations top consumer of the fuel. Cheniere amasses data using satellite imagery, helicopters, drones, fixed sensors and emissions tracking from lidar, or light detection and ranging, Fusco said in an interview last week at the Gastech summit in Houston. In 2022, the company began listing emissions data associated with each contractual loading from two export plants in Louisiana and Texas. Society wants a cleaner fuel source. And our challenge is to make sure not only that we keep up but that we lead, Fusco said. Tracking emissions for the super-chilled fuel from the US is key to meeting demand from buyers in Europe as lawmakers in the European Union are working on regulations to curb methane the main component of natural gas via imported energy supplies. Cheniere already adheres to a United Nations-led program to measure methane, which the European Commission has cited in its proposed regulations. Proponents of establishing methods for tracking LNG emissions say that eventually determining how to standardize a system will have ripple effects on global LNG buyers and sellers. But environmental organizations and researchers have pushed back on the methods used to track methane. Cornell University professor Robert Howarth authored a study released in late 2023 that rekindled the fight over just how much LNG contributes to global emissions, saying natural gas isnt any better for the climate than coal. The Biden administration continues to study environmental impacts of LNG and paused permitting for new projects in January. As the US is due to double its LNG export capacity through the end of the decade, Cheniere says it expects to be ahead of other LNG exporters who arent tracking emissions and aims to use its leverage as the nations top gas consumer to set global standards. Fusco unexpectedly compared Chenieres position with methane tracking with Whole Foods, referring to the grocer becoming the first certified organic food national retailer and thus setting industry standards. They put the rules of the road and then they used the purchasing power to make sure people complied with it, Fusco said of the grocer. Were getting there. But as you know, we buy a lot of gas. Photo: The Aristidis I liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker docked at the Cheniere Liquefaction facility (CCL) in Corpus Christi, Texas, US, on Monday, Dec. 4, 2023. Copyright 2024 Bloomberg. Topics USA LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) An inmate who was beaten by an Arkansas police officer in the back of a patrol car filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the former officer and his police chief, accusing them of violating his constitutional rights. Attorneys for Billy Lee Coram filed the lawsuit against former Jonesboro police officer Joseph Harris, Jonesboro Police Chief Rick Elliott and the city of Jonesboro over the Aug. 8 beating. Harris was fired after he was caught on his patrol car camera punching, elbowing and slamming a car door against the head of Coram, who was being transferred from a local hospital back to the county jail. Jonesboro Chief of Police Rick Elliott knew he had a ticking time bomb in Officer Harris yet unleashed him on the City of Jonesboro knowing he was set to explode, Michael Kiel Kaiser, who filed the lawsuit with attorney Mike Laux in federal court, said in a news release. No matter what Mr. Coram has allegedly done, under no circumstance is the violent rage inflicted on him by Officer Harris ever acceptable. Jonesboro Police released video of the video and announced Harris firing in August. Elliott said he had reviewed the video after receiving a complaint from the county sheriffs office about the incident. Elliott did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment. Jonesboro City Attorney Carol Duncan said the city had not been served yet, but does not comment on pending litigation. A number was not listed for Harris. In the video, Coram is wearing a hospital gown and choking himself with a seatbelt wrapped his neck as the car is moving in the roughly 12-minute video. After the car pulls over, Harris opens the door and punches and elbows Coram several times in the face as he unwinds the belt. Harris later slams the car door against Corams head. According to the lawsuit, Coram had been taken to the hospital after ingesting a baggie of fentanyl and had run away from the hospital when he panicked. He had wrapped the seatbelt around his neck to try and gag himself to dislodge the fentanyl he believed was still in his system, the lawsuit said. In the moment, I thought he was going to kill me. Ive dealt with a lot of cops, but never one as vicious as Officer Harris, Coram said in a statement released by his attorneys. He was stone cold; he didnt say nothing and was just hellbent on punishing me. Elliott last month referred the case to local prosecutors. The Craighead County prosecutor did not immediately return a call on Tuesday. The lawsuit claims that Elliott knew Harris had an established and well-known employment history of using excessive force, engaging in deceptive practices and making threats against law-abiding citizens. They include his use of excessive force during an arrest when he worked off-duty at a night club in 2022. Coram said in a statement that hes in constant pain from the beating. Coram is being held in the Poinsett County jail on an escape charge, but a court date had not been set yet. Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits Auto Federal safety officials said that almost four months after a fatal explosion at a steel-hardening facility in Tennessee, teams are still trying to determine the exact cause of the incident. One worker was killed in the explosion at the Techniques Surfaces USA (TS USA) liquid nitriding facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on May 30, and another worker was injured. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, known as the CSB, began investigating soon after. The CSB is issuing this update to keep the public informed on the agencys ongoing investigation into the tragic incident at TS USA, Board Chairman Steve Owens said in a statement Thursday. Moving forward, the CSB will continue its analysis and of the cause of this incident in order to prevent similar events from occurring. The agency said that so far, the probe has determined that on the day before the incident, TS USA had completed a liquid nitriding process for five stainless steel rollers. The rollers were left in a hot water rinse bath overnight, a common practice at the facility. The next morning, the plant manager found one roller still leaking water and suspected that it was clogged with solidified oxidizer salt, the CSB explained. After consulting with a process engineer remotely, the manager decided to reintroduce the rollers directly into the oxidizing bath without preheating. At 8:58 a.m., an eruption of molten salt from the oxidizing bath occurred, fatally injuring one employee and igniting combustible materials in the area, leading to multiple fires. The TS USA plant is part of HEF Durferrit USA, based in Springfield, Ohio. Among other processes, the facility uses salt baths to harden steel by nitriding, or causing the steel to absorb nitrogen. Topics Tennessee Chemicals When it comes to climate change, there are two Chipotles. One is the fast-casual burrito chain with a focus on sustainable ingredients, an app that lets customers track the carbon footprint of their orders and a goal to halve its heat-trapping emissions in the next six years to help fix one of the most pressing issues of our time, the company says. The other is a key member of the Restaurant Law Center, an industry trade group that is suing and supporting litigation to beat back pivotal climate rules. Such contradictions are rife among many of the worlds biggest hotel operators and restaurant chains. Marriott and Hilton have pledged to cut their carbon emissions by almost half by 2030, while the parent companies of KFC, Taco Bell and Burger King have made similar climate commitments. But all of these companies are important members of powerful trade associations that have recently filed lawsuits to overturn critical local and state climate rules. The litigation could deter climate action among city and state lawmakers, who have surpassed the gridlocked federal government as the primary drivers of green policies in the U.S. A lot of companies have sort of outsourced their climate obstruction to their trade associations, says Timmons Roberts, professor of environment and society at Brown University. People have been focused on Exxon and the Koch Brothers, but climate obstruction is really much more complicated, and its everywhere. This issue has recently leapt to the fore in Colorado, where lawmakers for the state and for Denver enacted rules to slash greenhouse-gas emissions from buildings, including hotels, offices and apartments. Despite being less ambitious than the climate pledges of Marriott International Inc., Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. and others, the rules are now under fire from industry groups like the Colorado Hotel & Lodging Association, where Marriott representatives hold powerful board seats, as well as the Restaurant Law Center. Chipotles press team didnt respond to numerous messages, while a Marriott spokesperson said in an email that we do not directly control the actions taken by industry associations or business groups, and affirmed the companys climate commitments. The climate stakes are significant because buildings are an outsized source of emissions. Occupants burn methane gas to heat water and power furnaces, and they gobble up electricity. These structures account for about half of Denvers climate footprint, and, more broadly, about 35% of heat-trapping emissions in the US. Buildings are a Major Climate Culprit | Commercial and residential buildings account for more than a third of US greenhouse gas emissions: Both Denver and Colorado have embraced a new tactic for addressing this. Lawmakers recently enacted building performance standards, which require large structures to become more environmentally friendly. This type of rule was first implemented in Washington, DC, in 2019, and has since spread to 13 states and cities across the US, with nearly three dozen more local governments vowing to follow. But legal challenges, including those filed against Denver and Colorado by the hotel industry and others, could sap this momentum. By bringing these lawsuits in a lot of different placesthe industry can generate the idea that these are risky, and therefore drive away local governments from doing it, says Daniel Carpenter-Gold, staff attorney for the Public Health Law Center at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law. In Denver, the rules require that about 3,000 buildings cut their energy use by an average of 30% by 2030. About a quarter of the citys buildings already meet the 2030 requirements, while owners of less efficient structures including the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel, which is part of Marriott may need to slash their energy use by one-third or more. For both the state and city rules, building operators get to choose how theyll achieve savings. This could mean deploying LED lighting, installing heat pumps, adding solar panels, or other solutions. In Denver, requirements for most buildings start next year, with warning notices for potential fines upwards of millions of dollars for laggards going out by late 2026. When industry groups, including the Colorado hotel operators, sued to block both the state and city requirements in April, they claimed the rules are preempted by federal energy law that regulates the efficiency of certain appliances. Moreover, the requirements will cost billions of dollars and take far more time than has been allotted, according to talking points distributed by the groups. The hotel associations board is packed with executives running properties for major hotel chains. The executive committee is chaired by Tony Dunn, who manages the Sheraton in downtown Denver, while its secretary manages the Ritz-Carlton in Denver, which is also part of Marriott. Other board members represent properties from Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. and Hyatt Hotels Corp., which has pledged to cut more than a quarter of its emissions by 2030. Dunn didnt respond to messages, but he submitted a declaration supporting the lawsuit that said the rules would force his hotel to incur significant costs. That could include at least $100,000 to $200,000 for an energy audit, he wrote, to identify available options to achieve the building performance standardsand begin the planning process for making material modifications. Hilton and Hyatt didnt respond to messages. Amie Mayhew, president of the Colorado Hotel & Lodging Association, said she couldnt discuss the matter due to the litigation. A separate Denver rule, meanwhile, is facing blowback from national trade groups representing major hotel and restaurant chains, including Chipotle, Burger King and Taco Bell. The city, in addition to its building performance standard, recently banned gas-powered furnaces and water heaters in newly constructed large buildings. In some cases, operators of existing large buildings will also be required to install electric equipment when replacing these types of appliances as early as next year. This would avoid locking in gas-burning equipment that lasts for a couple of decades and it will shrink emissions as Colorados electricity supply gets greener. The states last coal plants are expected to close by 2031. And Xcel Energy, the states largest utility, has agreed to supply about 80% of its electricity to the state from renewable sources by the end of the decade. In July, however, industry groups including the Restaurant Law Center, the American Hotel & Lodging Association (whose top board officials include Hilton and Marriott execs), and the National Propane Gas Association (NPGA), filed a lawsuit to overturn Denvers rules that limit new gas equipment. They similarly argue that federal energy law preempts such local rules; and they warn that this would shrink the number of gas users, thus causing the price of the fossil fuel to spike for remaining customers, including restaurants. This legal challenge isnt just about Denver. The gas industry privately hopes the litigation will dissuade other cities from restricting gas appliances, according to a summary of the NPGAs executive committee meeting in May, which was viewed by Bloomberg Green. In it, the group lamented Colorados increasingly ambitious climate rules, saying it has rapidly turned into a problematic state from a marketplace competitiveness standpoint. It added that it was monitoring 12 municipalities that are exploring rules to restrict gas and promote electrification. If this Denver code goes unchallenged and is allowed to stand, it stated, there is concern that other Colorado communitieswill follow suit. US Trade Associations Massive Clout | Political spending by nearly 90 US trade groups involved in climate issues between 2008 and 2018: The Restaurant Law Centers role in the lawsuit isnt new terrain for the nonprofit. Last year, the group filed a legal brief in support of the California Restaurant Associations litigation against the City of Berkeley, which had enacted the nations first ban on gas hookups in new homes and buildings. The restaurant groups eventually prevailed, dealing a sharp setback to climate action as Berkeley and dozens of other cities were forced to scrap rules that halted the expansion of the gas system. The Restaurant Law Center states on its website that it gets involved with many cases brought to its attention by its Board of Directors. That board consists of 12 outside members, a quarter of whom are executives with restaurant companies Chipotle, Yum! Brands Inc. and Restaurant Brands International Inc. that trumpet bold climate commitments, including science-based targets to reduce their emissions in line with a 1.5C future. Chipotle even unveiled an all-electric kitchen design last year to help it meet its climate targets. We hold ourselves accountable to reduce the environmental impact of our restaurants, Laurie Schalow, Chipotles head of corporate affairs, said at the time. Schalow declined to comment. A spokesperson for Restaurant Brands International, the parent company of Burger King, didnt answer questions about its role in the trade groups legal efforts, but said in an email that our focus is on our own commitments to grow a sustainable business, including cutting its emissions by half by 2030. A spokesman for Yum!, which runs KFC and Taco Bell, also didnt answer questions about the litigation, but said in an email that the company remains committed to climate action, including its science-based targets. Angelo Amador, executive director of the Restaurant Law Center, didnt respond to several messages. A spokesman for the American Hotel & Lodging Association didnt respond to questions about the Denver lawsuit, but said in a statement that the group has room for a wide range of climate goals and actions within our diverse membership base and are focused on ensuring hotels have the flexibility they need to become more efficient. Sarah McLallen, vice president of communications at NPGA, meanwhile, said in an email that her group strongly believes in energy freedom and consumer choice. This means consumers should decide for themselves what energy source is most appropriate, she said. For companies to have integrity with their climate claims, activists say they need to be on the same page as the trade groups they fund. That means advocating for green policies inside of the groups and publicly speaking out in favor of legislation when their views differ. When the California Chamber of Commerce, for instance, opposed a state bill last year that would require large businesses to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, some members of the group, including Salesforce Inc. and Microsoft Corp., broke ranks and embraced the proposal. It eventually prevailed. We want companies to use their influence to shift how the trade associations are lobbying, says Deborah McNamara, executive director of ClimateVoice, a nonprofit that pushes companies to advocate for climate policies. If trade groups cant be swayed, she adds, companies should stop funding them. Its a step that occurs very infrequently. Apple Inc. famously quit the US Chamber of Commerce in 2009 after the group attacked a variety of climate proposals, including a TV spot that lampooned a federal cap-and-trade bill. Five years later, Googles then-executive chairman accused the American Legislative Exchange Council of literally lying about climate change as it cut ties with the group. And, in 2019, Shell Plc departed a group called the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, citing differences over climate policy. Mostly, though, these differences quietly linger. A report by E&E News earlier this year found at least 37 companies, including Pfizer Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc., reported their own climate policies are at odds with their participation in the US Chamber of Commerce. For some companies, this disconnect has persisted for well over a decade. This is one of the biggest problems that we have to solve, says McNamara of ClimateVoice. Top photo: A coal-fired power plant in Craig, Colorado. The states last coal plants are expected to close by 2031. Photographer: Chet Strange/Bloomberg. Copyright 2024 Bloomberg. Topics Colorado A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court determination that a Montana health clinic submitted hundreds of false asbestos claims on behalf of patients. A jury decided last year that the clinic in a town where hundreds of people have died from asbestos exposure submitted more than 300 false asbestos claims that made patients eligible for Medicare and other benefits they shouldnt have received. The Center for Asbestos Related Disease (CARD) in Libby, Montana, had asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse last years ruling. The clinics attorney argued its actions were deemed acceptable by federal officials and that the judge in the case issued erroneous jury instructions. But a three-judge panel said in a decision issued late Tuesday that the clinic couldnt blame federal officials for its failure to follow the law. The panel also said that Judge Dana Christensens jury instructions were appropriate. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently awarded the clinic a new five-year asbestos health screening grant, CARD said in a Wednesday statement from executive director Tracy McNew. The appeals court ruling will not affect its daily operations, she said. We want to reassure our patients and the community that not a single person lost Medicare benefits as a result of the trial. Our diagnoses are sound, and we stand behind the care we provide, McNew wrote. CARD is financially stable and is continuing its mission. The clinic has received more than $20 million in federal funding and certified more than 3,400 people with asbestos-related disease, according to court documents. Most of the patients for whom false claims were made did not have a diagnosis of asbestos-related disease that was confirmed by a radiologist, the 9th Circuit said. The case resulted from a lawsuit brought against the clinic by BNSF Railway. The railroad has separately been found liable over contamination in Libby and is a defendant in hundreds of asbestos-related lawsuits, according to court filings. The clinic was ordered to pay almost $6 million in penalties and fees following last years ruling. However, it wont have to pay that money under a settlement reached in bankruptcy court with BNSF and the federal government, documents show. BNSF representatives did not immediately respond to emailed messages seeking comment. The Libby area was declared a Superfund site two decades ago following media reports that mine workers and their families were getting sick and dying due to asbestos dust from vermiculite that was mined by W.R. Grace & Co. The tainted vermiculite was shipped through the 3,000-person town by rail over decades. Exposure to even a minuscule amount of asbestos can cause lung problems, according to scientists. Asbestos-related diseases can range from a thickening of a persons lung cavity that can hamper breathing to deadly cancer. Symptoms can take decades to develop. Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Claims Employee communications platform Workvivo plans to add 100 jobs at its new Cork City hub over the next two years. Founded by John Goulding and Joe Lennon in 2017, the firm grew rapidly, adding a growing list of blue-chip clients which accelerated during the covid lockdowns as remote working became standard across the globe. Workvivo counts Ryanair, Amazon, Bupa and the Virgin Group among its customers. Worvivo was acquired by Zoom in 2023 but continues to operate independently. The company's new offices on Lapp's Quay follow the blueprint of Zooms other hubs around the globe, marking a shift from traditional office spaces towards a technology-first experiential working hub designed for hybrid working. This project is supported by the Irish Government on behalf of IDA Ireland The new roles will be hired over the next two years and will primarily be product and engineering positions to invest in research and innovation. John Goulding, chief executive, and Joe Lennon, chief technology officer, of Workvivo. Picture: Clare Keogh It was so important to us that our new engagement hub would stay true to our DNA, while also setting us up for the next phase in our scaling journey as part of Zoom," John Goulding said. "Weve been so fortunate to have hired truly world-class talent over the last few years in Ireland. Now, with the incredible support of the IDA, were excited to welcome more people into the Workvivo by Zoom team. The opening was attended by European Commissioner-Designate for Democracy, Justice and the Rule of Law Michael McGrath. I welcome the creation of an expected 100 jobs over the next two years," he said. "This is a further endorsement for Cork City and the wider South-West region as a prime location for technology companies like Zoom. I want to congratulate everyone who has made todays opening a reality. I also wish to acknowledge the role of IDA Ireland, which continue to be instrumental in attracting foreign direct investment into Ireland. Workvivo's Chief Operating Officer Gavin Wrenn said the expansion was a notable milestone for the company. "Only a fraction of startups will ever make it as far as Workvivo has," he said, adding that while they have retained their independence and brand they have leveraged their role within Zoom to extend their reach with a Workvivo presence in Sydney, San Francisco and Sao Paulo. The Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) has fined Meta Ireland 91m for improperly storing the passwords of certain social media users on its internal systems. The DPC said Meta Ireland which is a subsidiary of Facebook and Instagram-owner Meta Platforms stored the passwords as plaintext in its internal systems, which meant they did not have any cryptographic protection or encryption protection. This potentially allowed people in the company to see users' passwords. The DPC said these passwords were not made available to parties outside of the company. The inquiry into this matter was launched in April 2019 after Meta Ireland notified the DPC it had inadvertently stored certain passwords in this way. Deputy commissioner at the DPC, Graham Doyle said it was widely accepted users passwords should not be stored in plaintext considering the risk of abuse that arises from persons accessing such data. It must be borne in mind that the passwords, the subject of consideration in this case, are particularly sensitive, as they would enable access to users social media accounts, Mr Doyle added. Meta Ireland were notified of the fine on Thursday. The DPC found Meta Ireland breached GDPR by failing to notify it of a personal data breach, failing to document personal data breaches concerning the storage of user passwords in plaintext, not using appropriate measures to secure users passwords, as well as not implementing appropriate measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to the risk. The DPC said it submitted a draft decision to the other concerned supervisory authorities across the EU/EEA in June. No objections to the draft decision were raised by the other authorities. In a statement, a spokesperson for Meta said that as part of a security review in 2019 it found a subset of Facebook users passwords were temporarily logged in a readable format within our internal data systems. We took immediate action to fix this error, and there is no evidence that these passwords were abused or accessed improperly. We proactively flagged this issue to our lead regulator, the DPC and have engaged constructively with them throughout this inquiry, the spokesperson said. News / National by Staff reporter South African Airways (SAA) has announced an increase in the number of flights on its popular Johannesburg-Harare route, raising weekly services from 10 to 12, effective November 5, 2024. The expansion comes in response to growing demand from travellers between the two cities, further boosting connectivity for business and leisure passengers.With the new schedule, SAA will introduce two additional flights from Harare to Johannesburg. Flight SA25 will depart Harare at 07:20, arriving in Johannesburg at 09:00, operating Monday to Friday. A second flight, SA23, will depart Harare at 12:25, arriving in Johannesburg at 14:05 daily.The return flights from Johannesburg will also see increased frequency, with flight SA24 departing daily at 10:00, arriving in Harare at 11:35. Another flight will depart Johannesburg at 20:10, arriving in Harare at 21:45 from Sunday to Thursday.SAA has maintained a strong presence on the Johannesburg-Harare route for over two decades, consistently serving the travel needs of both countries. Commenting on the new schedules, SAA Country Manager Ms. Julia Rewayi said the decision was driven by customer demand."Increasing our flight frequency on the Johannesburg-Harare route is a testament to our commitment to meeting the evolving needs of our customers. The demand is driven by the growing ties between South Africa and Zimbabwe, and we are excited to facilitate this connectivity, which is crucial for business and tourism," said Ms. Rewayi.The expanded flight schedule aligns with SAA's broader densification strategy aimed at strengthening operations in Africa, a key market for the airline. The increasing demand for flights has been attributed to the rising movement of Zimbabwean expatriates, growing tourism, and increasing trade between South Africa and Zimbabwe.As Zimbabwe's political climate stabilizes, SAA anticipates further growth in travel and trade, reinforcing its role as a leading carrier in the region. The Irish Farmers' Association has announced the rollout of the Farmer Health Checks Programme. The initiative, which is run in partnership with Croi Heart & Stroke Charity, will provide farmers with a free health check worth 200 at pop-up clinics at livestock marts over the next six weeks. Those who attend the clinics across the country will also receive a detailed and helpful Health Information and Advice Pack. The first of the clinics takes place at Ballyjamesduff Mart, Co Cavan, on October 1, with the last in Macroom Mart on November 9. Other Munster dates include Thurles Mart on October 28, Kilmallock Mart on November 4, COrrin Mart on November 5 and Castleisland Mart on November 6. Minister Martin Heydon confirmed last week that IFAs farm safety, health and well-being project had been approved as part of a new farm safety initiative announced earlier this year. IFA President Francie Gorman is appealing to farmers to make an effort to attend their nearest health check clinic and to be more conscious of their health in challenging times for agriculture. As a farmer and IFA president, Im proud to introduce this Health Promotion Pack, part of the 'Farmer Health Checks' initiative, funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food, and the Marine (DAFM). More than ever, it is important that farmers take time to have themselves checked, and this programme is a perfect opportunity to do so," he said. IFA Farm Family and Social Affairs chair Teresa Roche said farming is more than just a job, but a lifestyle that comes its own set of demands. Often, the focus is on the health of our livestock and land rather than our own health and well-being. This initiative is a reminder that looking after ourselves is just as important as anything else," Ms Roche said. Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue added: I urge all farmers to take the time to avail of this comprehensive health check which provides one-to-one health screening and advice on a range of risks. I was grateful to avail of the health check myself at the National Ploughing Championships recently and was very glad to receive a positive result on the day. However, our health can never be taken for granted. IN THE just-released film The Outrun, Saoirse Ronan plays Amy Liptrot, a 30-year-old writer who returns to her remote island home. There, she reconnects with its wild beauty and slowly rebuilds her mental health after a decade of caning it in London. In her 2016 memoir of the same title, Liptrot writes how nature sharp, cold, wild Scottish nature helped solidify her sobriety following an increasingly catastrophic alcohol addiction. Shed returned to Scotland after completing non-residential treatment in London: I was worried my life was over and Id never have fun again. Saoirse Ronan in The Outrun. From Orkney to Hackney back to Orkney, Liptrots life was filled with extremes. Growing up on a remote sheep farm on the northern Scottish archipelago closer to Bergen than London, battered by wind and sea, with a father frequently hospitalised for bipolar disorder and a mother who turned to evangelical Christianity to cope, Liptrot escaped south to the hedonism of Londons parties and pubs. Years went by in a blur of waiting for the weekendor for the hangover to end, she writes. After losing friends, relationships, jobs and flats, she moved back to Orkney, newly sober. She swam in icy water surrounded by curious North Sea seals, walked on deserted beaches, and immersed herself in the stark beauty of the islands. Lately, Ive noticed a gradual reprogramming, she writes. In the past, when I was under stress, my first impulse was to drink.now, Im not just fighting against these urges but have developed new onesmy first thought was sometimes not a pint, but get in the sea. By immersing herself in nature, she slowly rewired her neural pathways. In her book By The Sea: The Therapeutic Benefits of Being In, On and By The Sea, marine biologist Dr Deborah Cracknell refers to the Biophilia Hypothesis, an idea popularised in 1984 by US biologist Edward O Wilson. (The term biophilia, meaning love of life / living systems, was first used by psychoanalyst Erich Fromm in 1964). Wilsons hypothesis proposes that the reason we love nature so much is evolutionary that after millions of years of being part of a greater eco- system, we are genetically hardwired to respond positively to aspects of the natural world that support our survival (and react negatively to the bits that dont, which would explain being scared of spiders, snakes, etc). Our emotional connection to other living beings is, therefore, not just individual preference but a basic human need. Cold water therapy Victorian doctors prescribed dips in the sea and trips to spa waters as medicine. More recently, an extreme example of blue therapy is Wim Hof, aka The Ice Man when his wife killed herself in 1995, he famously used cold water immersion to help himself recover from grief, shock and depression. In 12 Step recovery, atheists use the acronym GOD to mean Great Out Doors, getting hooked on nature in the manner of Amy Liptrot, although perhaps not on faraway uninhabited islands. In lockdown, even the most cold-phobic among us got in the sea to stay sane. Blue and green therapy, as time spent in nature has been rebranded, is nothing new its only our rupture from nature that is new(ish), so we are now hearing the scientific proof of what our inner selves have always known. That time spent in nature is healing, soothing, uplifting, and regenerative, giving us the headspace to think creatively. For me, walking in nature in wide open heathlands, in woods, through fields is the ultimate head-clearer and thought-processor, while if I want a factory reset, I jump in the sea, especially when its freezing. They dont call it swimmers high for nothing. From the creative work of Wordsworth to Nietzsche, the Brontes to Van Gogh, and Frida Kahlo to Georgia OKeeffe, there are endless examples of how the psyche is profoundly linked to and dependent upon the natural world. It can even make a difference for people in hospital beds. In 1984, pioneering behavioural scientist Dr Roger S Ulrich showed how patients with a view of nature recovered faster and were discharged sooner. A Japanese study showed how even placing a vase of roses on the desks of office workers made them feel calmer after four minutes. Also, a research review published in Science Advances, Dr Gregory Bratman, from the University of Washington, and his colleagues found that contact with nature was associated with, among other positive responses, greater happiness, positive social interactions, a sense of purpose, and a decrease in mental distress. Inspired by Dr Ulrichs 1984 findings, Kathy Willis, professor of biodiversity at Oxford, writes in her book Good Nature how spending time among trees and open spaces calms and soothes. Even within 90 seconds, the scent of conifers molecules called pinenes reduces human heart rate, while the scent of juniper and cypress trees boosts human immunity. The Japanese practice of Shinrin Yoku, or forest bathing, is a mainstay of Japanese culture and is growing in popularity in the West. Dr Sean Owens Green deal Dr Sean Owens has a 400-year-old elm tree outside his surgery, which he encourages patients to sit under. Owens belongs to Irish Doctors For The Environment, a group that seeks to affect cultural change in our relationship with nature. He also belongs to Plant-Based Doctors Ireland, which advocates for the benefits of plant-based nutrition, and the Irish Society of Lifestyle Medicine, which is again about nature, nutrition, exercise, and natural destressing rather than prescription pills. With so much hard evidence about the restorative powers of nature on human health, youd wonder why this approach isnt a reality. Why arent more health professionals advocating it? Green prescribing isnt yet well defined because the idea of prescribing connection to nature as a therapeutic agent is still relatively new, says Owens. He explains that green prescribing differs from your doctor suggesting going for a walk sometimes as its more structured. It takes the idea of a prescription a fixed dose, a fixed duration, a calculable outcome and applies it to nature. So it could be a 12-week course that involves a regular long walk, forest bathing, or a park run. Then, the impact on blood pressure, stress responses, etc, are measured in the same way the effect of pharmaceutical intervention would be measured. Green prescribing is more robust than signposting, says Owens. He describes how follow-up studies from the 12-week Woodlands for Health initiative run by Coillte and Mental Health Ireland, which involves a weekly forest walk and a cup of tea afterwards, showed enormous therapeutic benefits for participants. Our relationship with nature is not new. Whats new is our separateness from it. As a health resource, nature is free and therefore not for profit, so there is little commercial incentive to fund the infrastructure needed to create access for everyone, not just those who have private transport or live in places with easy access to nature. Theres more money in pills, as well as a cultural expectation around what doctors prescribe: Were expected to prescribe pills. Yet nature is such a powerful untapped resource for mental health, says Owens. However, high-pressure modern medicine is not set up for this approach. Busy doctors, surgeries, and hospital wards are not the best places to prescribe nature, says Owens. Also, pharma companies have a huge influence on medical training. Who would fund a [nature] trial? Theres no incentive. He emphasises that prevention is much better than cure and how more green prescribing would have a huge effect overall on the health service all the wins are upstream, the benefits not just for health but for civil society as a whole. Happier, calmer, healthier people are more connected to themselves and their environment which might sound utopian, but its all right on our doorstep. For this cultural shift to happen, there needs to be funding, equal access to green spaces (so that its not just the middle classes going sea swimming or nature walking), plus infrastructure and transport. To rely on doctors to prescribe nature is missing the point, he says. Ireland needs to reframe nature as a health opportunity. Further reading When we stroll through a forest, it's easy to admire the towering canopies, the rustling leaves, and the dappled sunlight playing on the forest floor. But beneath this serene facade lies a world of complex relationships and survival strategies. Far from being passive parts of our landscape, trees engage in intricate reproductive behaviours that are crucial for their survival and, by extension, ours. Understanding the differences between monoecious and dioecious trees isn't just botanical minutiae, it's key to conserving biodiversity and combating the challenges posed by climate change. The Independent Multitaskers Monoecious trees such as oak are the multitaskers of the tree world a single tree bears both male and female reproductive organs. This arrangement allows them a form of reproductive insurance, so they can self-pollinate if necessary but often prefer cross-pollination for greater genetic diversity. Monoecious (pronounced muh-NEE-shus) trees are the multitaskers of the tree world. The term comes from the Greek words for 'one house', indicating that a single tree bears both male and female reproductive organs. Oaks, pines, and birches are classic examples in Ireland. This arrangement allows them a form of reproductive insurance, so they can self-pollinate if necessary but often prefer cross-pollination for greater genetic diversity. Think of them as the Enyas of the tree world, creating their own harmonious melodies solo, yet their songs become even richer when they resonate with the rest of the forest. The Social Romantics The bright red berries on a holly tree signify a female, but these berries won't appear unless a nearby male provides pollen. Without a male tree within pollination distance, the female remains berryless. On the other side of the reproductive spectrum are dioecious (pronounced dy-EE-shus) trees, derived from the Greek for 'two houses'. Each tree is distinctly male or female, necessitating interaction between the sexes for reproduction. Yew, willows and holly are quintessential Irish examples. The bright red berries on a holly tree signify a female, but these berries won't appear unless a nearby male provides pollen. Without a male tree within pollination distance, the female remains berryless. These trees rely heavily on external forces, such as wind, insects, birds to transfer pollen from male to female counterparts. If male and female trees are too far apart or if pollinator populations decline, reproduction becomes a daunting challenge. The Balanced Hermaphrodites Apple trees have flowers that are both male and female. These hermaphrodites have the best of both worlds, capable of self-pollination yet thriving with the help of pollinators for cross-pollination. Some trees, like the hawthorn and apple trees, take a middle path, with flowers that are both male and female. These hermaphrodites have the best of both worlds, capable of self-pollination yet thriving with the help of pollinators for cross-pollination. Hawthorn, a familiar sight in Irish hedgerows, quietly contributes to the genetic tapestry of the landscape, ensuring that even in isolation, they can flourish. Why tree reproduction strategies matter At first glance, the reproductive life of trees might seem like academic trivia. However, these strategies have profound implications for ecosystem health and biodiversity. Genetic diversity the key to resilience Genetic diversity is nature's toolkit for adaptability. A population with varied genetic makeup is better equipped to handle diseases, pests, and environmental changes. Monoecious and hermaphrodite trees that self-pollinate extensively can suffer from inbreeding depression, reducing their ability to cope with stressors. Dioecious trees naturally encourage genetic mixing but are susceptible to population fragmentation. Understanding these dynamics helps in managing forests to maximize resilience. Conservation efforts can focus on promoting conditions that favour cross-pollination in monoecious species and ensuring that dioecious populations are sufficiently connected. Habitat fragmentation the isolation dilemma Human activities have carved up vast stretches of forests into isolated patches. For dioecious trees, this means that male and female trees can end up isolated from each other, like star-crossed lovers separated by insurmountable distances. Even wind-pollinated species face challenges when distances become too great. Without the ability to mingle their genetic material, these trees struggle to produce the next generation. It's a botanical version of Romeo and Juliet, but with fewer soliloquies and more ecological consequences. Monoecious and hermaphroditic trees fare slightly better due to their self-sufficiency, but isolation still limits opportunities for cross-pollination. The resulting genetic bottlenecks can reduce resilience across entire tree populations. Hawthorn trees have flowers that are both male and female. These hermaphrodites are capable of self-pollination yet thrive with the help of pollinators for cross-pollination. Hawthorn, a familiar sight in Irish hedgerows, quietly contributes to the genetic tapestry of the landscape, ensuring that even in isolation, they can flourish. Climate change shifting the reproductive landscape Climate change doesn't just warm the planet; it disrupts the synchronised dance of ecological timing. Phenological shifts are changes in the timing of biological events and can lead to mismatches between flowering periods and the activity of pollinators. For dioecious trees, this can be particularly devastating. If male and female trees or their pollinators are out of sync, reproduction rates plummet. Monoecious trees aren't immune either. While they can self-pollinate, the resulting lack of genetic diversity can make them more susceptible to disease. What can we do? Promoting habitat connectivity by establishing wildlife corridors connects fragmented forests, allowing for the movement of pollinators and the dispersal of seeds and pollen. Protecting pollinator population such as bees, butterflies, and other pollinators benefits dioecious trees and the broader ecosystem. This can be achieved by reducing pesticide use and planting pollinator-friendly flora. Additionally, diversifying reforestation efforts by including a mix of monoecious, hermaphrodite, and dioecious species when planting trees promotes genetic diversity and enhances ecosystem resilience. Next time youre lounging under the shade of a grand old oak or admiring the shimmering leaves of a willow, remember, these trees arent just standing around looking pretty. They're engaged in a complex botanical love affair. Like us, they face challenges, adapt, and do whatever it takes to keep thriving. So, when you stop to appreciate the greenery, know that you're not just witnessing natures beauty, youre eavesdropping on a love story thats been millions of years in the making. And in that moment, remember that our future is intertwined with theirs, and it's our turn to help them thrive. A Fine Gael MEP has called on the GAA to implement stricter rules on ticketing for concerts at their stadiums, following widespread criticism over the price of Oasis tickets. Sean Kelly, MEP for Ireland South, said that there needs to be consistent ticketing standards at GAA stadiums due to the practice existing for match tickets. Mr Kelly, who served as President of the GAA between 2003 and 2006, said that he had been shocked and appalled over tickets for Oasis at Croke Park being hiked in real time. "If this happened with All-Ireland final tickets, there would be absolute uproar, Mr Kelly said. "Could you imagine charging 100 for a ticket and then seeing it jump to 200, 300, or even 400 just because of high demand? It wouldnt be tolerated. Mr Kelly said that GAA stadiums at present do not have consistent rules around pricing for events that are not matches. These concerts take place in GAA grounds, and I firmly believe that the same principles that apply to our matches should apply to concerts. There should be no ticket gouging, period, he said. "I believe the GAA must step up and ensure that the same level of fairness applies to all events in their venues. This is about protecting consumers and ensuring that everyone can enjoy live events without being priced out. Tickets for the Oasis gigs at Croke Park were due to start at 86.50, not including booking fees. However, dynamic pricing kicked in, with in-demand standing tickets costing as much as 415.60. For the 2024 season, All-Ireland hurling and football tickets were priced at 100 for stands and 55 for terraces respectively, which had been an increase on 2023s prices. Ticketmaster Ireland The Fine Gael MEP has also written to the EUs Competition Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, calling for an investigation to be launched into Ticketmaster Ireland, questioning whether or not the companys actions are breaking EU competition laws. In a letter to Ms Vestager, Mr Kelly cited concerns about the sale of Oasis tickets, saying that the company appears to have monopolistic control over Irelands ticket market, citing the use of dynamic pricing. In the case of Ticketmaster, the implementation of dynamic pricing during the sale of tickets for these concerts has resulted in exorbitant price gouging, with prices escalating to levels far beyond what could reasonably be considered fair market value, Mr Kelly wrote. He said that while dynamic pricing may not be unlawful, it raises questions about the transparency of the practice in a market where consumers cannot access tickets elsewhere. Mr Kelly said that he believed the use of dynamic pricing could be a form of abuse of a dominant market position. He told the Irish Examiner that fair pricing for tickets was required, regardless of whether they purchase it at 1pm or 4pm. The Fine Gael MEPs call comes just weeks after the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) confirmed that an investigation into Ticketmaster Ireland had been launched due to their handling of Oasis ticket sales. Over 100 complaints were received by the CCPC over the Oasis concert ticket sales. Ticketmaster Ireland was contacted for comment on the matter. Ukrainians feel very much alone, aid convoy organisers have warned, as donated medical equipment and toys worth about 500,000 left Ireland for the war-torn country. Jeeps carrying the aid will also be donated for taking injured soldiers from the frontlines to hospitals. An ambulance will go to a maternity hospital. The incredible generosity of individual donors and businesses made this possible, the convoy co-organiser said. Stephen Byrne, from the non-profit 'What About Us' music organisation, is on his third trip with humanitarian aid to Ukraine in the last year. When we go into Ukraine, you see very few young men on the streets. You are going to see mostly women, older people, children, he said, with most men already in the army. When you talk to the ordinary people, they get very emotional about people coming into their country to help because they feel very much alone. They are fighting the fight against Russia, their boys are being sacrificed to protect their homeland. I dont think people in Ireland, in the West, really understand the actual pain and suffering they are enduring on our behalf. Read More Russian missiles and drones target Kyiv for five hours The 4x4s, for example, last on average 90 days before damage from pockmarked roads makes them unusable or they are destroyed in attacks, he added. He praised the generous support given to Ukrainian refuges but called for more aid on the ground. In all, 23 drivers with seven 4x4s, an ambulance, a truck, and a minibus travel to Lviv. Each donated vehicle is packed with medical supports and other aid. Part of the What About Us aid convoy to Ukraine Pic: Supplied The first convoy, we did a year ago, and that was three 4x4s full of medical supplies. This year weve seven 4x4s, plus an ambulance, a truck and a minibus, he said. Id say we have over 500,000 of donated medical supplies and other donations; its incredible generosity from the Irish people really. Donors such as hospitals and homecare and pharmaceutical companies helped, as well as individuals. Finola Harrington co-ordinated and collected medical supplies before the convoy left Greystones, Co Wicklow, on Friday. She travelled around the country, picking up a boot here and a wheelchair there, said Mr Byrne. They also received support from Axa Insurance as arranging travel insurance into Ukraine was complex. Financial donations When you go and ask business people, they are there to help, he said, saying some gave financial donations while others gave products. The truck filled with veterinary supplies and animal food goes to Ukrainian charity Breaking the Chains. They rescue animals, with some then supporting injured soldiers in rehabilitation. The minibus is earmarked for an orphanage supported by Irish charity Effective Aid Ukraine. The 80 residents all have disabilities and some are as young as five. It is carrying clothes, food, hygiene products, toys, and tools. Mr Byrne said they plan to cross the border on October 1 after the long drive. He worked for some decades in the tech start-up sector. In recent years, through What About Us music, he has worked with musicians on peace projects, including bringing Israeli and Palestinian musicians together to compose more than 300 pieces of music. Children are being forced to go out late at night to shoplift for their parents and face violence if they fail to return with what is demanded. Support charity Childline has told how children are contacting it out of desperation after being caught stealing by the shop owners. Childline director of services, Caroline O'Sullivan said: We have received calls from children who have stolen and want to talk to us about it. They want to talk to us about the embarrassment of being caught and the shame and the expectations of parents who want them to go back out and do it again. Shane Gleeson at his Inver Petrol Station at Hurlers Cross, Castletroy, Limerick: 'Sometimes we will give them a few biscuits just so they have something to bring back'. Picture: Brendan Gleeson "Of course, kids feel like they have no choice because these are their parents. Children are being coerced. This has become their norm and their everyday reality. The charity is willing to work with parents to break the cycle of childhood petty crime. Ms OSullivan referred to the charity's CTSS (Childline Therapeutic Support Services) programmes which see it work with parents to help change their ways without fear of legal repercussions. There was a time in Dublin where a lot of children were being sent out to beg. People were complaining when it wasnt the childrens fault. During that time we worked with a lot of parents and the problem was no longer prominent. Limerick retailer echoes Childline's concerns The issue is by no means confined to Dublin. Shane Gleeson, who owns five Spar stores in Limerick, has seen shoplifting carried out by kids as young as 4 at his service station in Hurlers Cross, Limerick. He stressed that the kids are not to blame. Most of the time we see them and stop them from coming in. However, they start crying telling us our dad is going to kill us and what do you do then? Each of his stores loses an average of 50,000 to shoplifting every year. Yet he often gives the children biscuits to take home to their parents because he knows otherwise they might face a beating. He has caught children as young as 4, trained by their parents, stealing from his 24-hour service station at Hurlers Cross on Castletroys Dublin Road in the early hours of the morning. One woman who once taught her children to steal is now doing the same with her grandchildren at the store years later. Its a regular occurrence, he told the Irish Examiner. This is happening at 1.30am with kids who are 8, 9, and 10. Their parents get the munchies at a certain time of night so kids are sent out for food without money. If they come back without food they are beaten. "They try and sneak in by hanging outside the shop until it gets really busy. Once they are in they will lay low, see what they can grab and run." He struggles with seeing such vulnerable kids being exploited. It's horrible because we are sitting there watching them crying and wondering what the right thing to do is. The truth is we dont really know. "Sometimes we will give them a few biscuits just so they have something to bring back. Thats all you can do. The kids arent intrinsically bad at all. If they were in a different family they would be just like any other children. He wants the parents to be held accountable. We all want our kids to do well in life and do better than we did. You give them every chance but these children have none. "They are quite polite and quiet but you can see them beaten into submission when in another life they probably would have gone to college. The store owner has been accumulating evidence of thefts. I have a video of a 4-year-old kid stealing. Her granny is with her. She teaches them. Ive watched her teach her daughters to steal and now her granddaughters are stealing as well. Ive heard parents telling their children to put an item under their jersey. They tell them to grab the stuff and send them out of the shop with it. "That is absolutely routine now as well. They think this is normal because they have been told by their parents to do it. What else are they supposed to do? Parents will fight back on occasion with intimidation tactics, he says. The instant reaction from parents is to tell us we said something that we didnt so they can try and take a defamation case against us. "Thats why we have to put sound on the cameras at the tills. We have to be careful what we say at the counter in case a staff member is accused of defamation. A lot of the time they will make it up so thats why having sound on the cameras is so important. Meryl Streep spoke out at the United Nations General Assembly against the treatment of women on Taliban ruled Afghanistan. A 46-year-old Cork man repeatedly spat at gardai in the city centre, shouting at them: People dont have time for you pricks anymore. Kenneth Matthews, of 3 The Heights, Killeens, Blarney, Co Cork, pleaded guilty to four separate charges arising out of this incident, which occurred on Washington Street on September 7. He admitted engaging in threatening behaviour and being so intoxicated he was a danger to himself or others. Sergeant John Kelleher said that at 1.45am on that Saturday morning on Washington Street, Cork, he came to the attention of gardai because he was causing a disturbance, having been refused entry to a premises in the area. He spat three times in the direction of gardai. A fourth time he spat and narrowly missed Sergeant John Greens shoe. He pointed at gardai and shouted: People dont have time for you pricks anymore. He also said, F*** you, you cannot talk to me like that, Sgt John Kelleher said at Cork District Court. Defence solicitor Frank Buttimer said: The facts are accepted. He knew he was extremely drunk. He had no doubt he was guilty and always intended to plead guilty. He should know better and he is mortally embarrassed. He is working. He has asked me to offer his sincere apologies to the gardai and he would welcome an opportunity to make a contribution to the Garda Benevolent Fund. He accepts he has a record. He is off the drink again. He has a relationship with alcohol which is unhealthy, Mr Buttimer said. Judge Philip OLeary said: His behaviour on the night was quite disrespectful. It is not fair on any serving guard. The judge said he would finalise the case with a 350 fine for the accused's threatening behaviour and he took the drunkenness into consideration. Judge OLeary said in relation to the offer by Kenneth Matthews to make a contribution to the Garda Benevolent Fund that he could do so outside court. The defendant has 26 previous convictions including six for being drunk and a danger to himself or others and three for engaging in threatening behaviour. Two of the 10 men accused of conspiring to import drugs into Ireland appeared in Cork District Court on Friday by video link from prison where the case against them involving a 4,500-page file was further adjourned until October 25. Detective Sergeant Michael Lyons attended at Cork District Court where Judge Treasa Kelly was told that directions were still awaited from the Director of Public Prosecutions. Against a background of the accused being remanded in custody for six months already, Sergeant Dave Delea said the file in the case ran to 4,500 pages and involved the gardai and police forces in other parts of the world. The two defendants before the court on Friday were remanded in continuing custody for another four weeks. Angel Serran Padilla, 39, of Malaga, Spain, and Raul Garcia Tabares, 48, of Cadiz, Spain, were represented by barrister Nicholas Hall. A Spanish interpreter was present in court to translate proceedings for the accused who appeared by video link from prison. Each of the accused and eight other men also before the courts is accused of conspiring with nine others to import drugs. The charge in each case states: That you (defendants name) on dates between February 27 and March 14, both dates inclusive, within the state, did conspire with one or more persons, namely (nine other names) to do an act in the state that constitutes a serious offence, namely the importation of controlled drugs in excess of 13,000, an offence contrary of Section 15B (1) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 as amended and contrary to Section 71 (1) (a) (4) of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 as amended by Section 4 (b) of the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions ) Act 2023. A decision on the next steps in the Cork Events Centre saga will come to Cabinet in the next two weeks, the Tanaiste has confirmed. The long-delayed project was hit with fresh legal complications linked to the amount of State funding required for the proposed venue. The centre was estimated to cost 50m when the sod was turned in 2016, but the price tag has swelled to double that amount. With some 57m in State aid already pledged, it is understood an additional 30m to 40m is required. Speaking to the Irish Examiner in New York, Micheal Martin said he was very frustrated and angry with how the project had advanced. We agreed to put more money into it on the basis that a detailed design brief would be prepared... and then at the end of that detailed design, we did say we would look at inflationary pressures since its a substantially higher figure now, and legal issues have arisen now in relation to how we go forward. "Im asking government and pressing for this to be done the next week or two, to say to people, we have to deal with those legal challenges... to get the decision on how we proceed next week or two." Mr Martin said that legal advice has been sought from the Attorney General. Given that legal issues that have been raised with us by the department, weve consulted with the Attorney General on this, given the scale of funding thats now required, and so we want to give final consideration in the next week or two, because Im very frustrated and angry at the fact that its dragged on this long. The Tanaiste said the centre is of significant importance to the city but said the 2016 sod-turning was a mistake. He said projects such as the events centre are difficult as they require public-private partnerships. There was a sod turning that shouldnt have happened at the time, because it was nowhere near, even near starting, never mind finishing. News / National by Staff reporter The 14 Zimbabwean children intercepted by Botswana authorities while traveling to South Africa without proper travel documents have been reunited with their parents. The children, who are school-aged and were on their way to visit family during the August school holidays, have now missed three weeks of classes since the start of the school term.The children, hailing from Tsholotsho District in Matabeleland North, are currently being processed at the Plumtree Border Post. Their release marks a significant development after concerns were raised about their safety and well-being during the unauthorized trip.Esau Siwela, the former chairperson of the Tsholotsho Rural District Council and current ward 9 councillor, confirmed the good news. "We are at Plumtree Border Post right now, and all the children have been united with their parents. The officials in Botswana freed them today, and we are taking them home," he stated.The incident has highlighted the challenges faced by families in border regions, particularly concerning travel regulations and the movement of children. Authorities have urged parents to ensure that children possess the necessary documentation when traveling across borders to avoid similar situations in the future.More to follow.... People in Cork who say they have had dirty brown water flowing from their taps have blasted Uisce Eireanns bonus payments as the utility struggles to fix discoloured water that has blighted parts of the city for two years. The residents of Mount Farran took to the streets on Thursday night to highlight the public health issue hours after it emerged that some Uisce Eireann staff got bonuses of up to 30,000 last year. We are appalled to learn that Uisce Eireann employees are being rewarded with even more generous bonus payments when the evidence shows that their management of water supplies to Cork City homes is going from bad to worse, they said in a statement. Uisce Eireann have shown nothing but gross incompetency. We are a community on the streets out of desperation. Our complaints to Uisce Eireann are getting us nowhere. We are frustrated and worried about our health and our families' health after two long years of poor water quality supply running through our taps. We are expected to drink, cook, bathe, and wash our laundry in this unsafe, dirty water," they said. Residents of Mount Farran in Cork protest over the quality of the water supply. Picture: David Keane Uisce Eireann is incapable of telling us when we will have a reliable supply of safe water despite numerous complaints and they have not even offered us a temporary supply of clean water tanks. Solidarity TD Mick Barry said "it really sticks in the craw" to hear of Uisce Eireann bonuses of up to 30,000 when households in Cork City are being forced by the company to cope with a steady supply of discoloured water. More than a dozen of the top bosses are being paid 200,000 or more: Golden salaries for them, brown water for the people. Its rotten, he said. Thursday's protest was the latest over the discoloured water issue which has been affecting parts of the city since the commissioning of the new 40m water treatment plant on the Lee Rd in July 2022. As it came on stream, the utility changed the chemical process it uses to rebalance the pH of the water, switching from calcium hydroxide-lime to sodium hydroxide, or caustic soda. This, combined with a faster rate of water flow through the pipes, has been dislodging sediment built up inside some of the networks old cast iron pipes, discolouring the water. Water samples supplied by residents meeting to raise the issue of water quality at Mount Farran in Cork. Picture: David Keane As complaints surged in late 2022 and across 2023, the utility tweaked the chemistry but the problems and complaints continued. As political pressure mounted, it set up a special taskforce earlier this year to try to tackle the problem once and for all. It has spent months flushing the network in the worst-affected areas, and on Wednesday it began the latest round of flushing which will target Dublin Hill, Meelick Park, Mervue Crescent, Glenthorn, Old Whitechurch Rd, and areas off Ballyvolane Rd over the next two months. On Tuesday it said it is investing 1.6m in the new treatment plant to further treat the source water coming into the plant, and the treated water before it leaves. A manganese removal system will be in place by the end of this year, with all the work completed by mid-2025. While it has invested more than 100m in recent years in improving the citys water infrastructure, it says around 500m is required, across several decades, to replace the city's entire cast iron mains network, some of which dates from the late 1800s. As one of Irelands most experienced divers, he has spent much of his life underwater now he is going deeper by launching the countrys first commercial submarines. West Cork-based John Kearney, who has been involved in some of the most complex search and recovery dive operations off the Irish coast, says his new submersibles will be a game-changer in our ability to explore and understand our marine world, but also for search, rescue, recovery and survey operations. He and his team, which includes experienced ex-navy and military divers, have been conducting sea trials off the south-west coast in recent months, performing up to 100 dives in the waters off Cape Clear island to demonstrate the subs capabilities and reliability. But now he has officially unveiled the vessels, with the first vessel ready for deployment, and the second due to follow soon. Our main focus will be maritime research and recovery, Mr Kearney said. They will be real game-changers for scientific and environmental research as well as survey and recovery operations. Over nine-tenths of Irish territory is underwater, and only a fraction has been explored. It really is still the great unknown, and the capabilities of our submarines will allow us to explore great swathes of the seabed, not just in Ireland but worldwide. Recently, a Stone Age wall was discovered off Germany's Baltic coast that may be the oldest known megastructure built by humans in Europe. So who knows what our marine archaeologists and historians might find around coastlines across the globe. The two subs, and their support vessel, will also be available for hire to marine companies and research institutions that require specific data from the ocean depths or the ocean floor. The subs were built by the Dutch company U-Boat Worx and have been certified by Germany-based DNV, the world's leading classification society, which requires each individual submersible to meet stringent and extensive rules and regulations. Powered by electric motors, the A-EX1 vessel, the companys NEMO 2 model, is a compact submersible that can carry two people one pilot and a passenger. It can dive for up to eight hours to a depth of 100m about 330ft and features a groundbreaking pressure hull design which provides a virtually unimpeded view. It also has enough air, food, and water to sustain crew life on board for up to five days in the event of a seabed emergency. The A-EX2 sub is the larger Super Yacht Sub 3 model, which can accommodate three people one pilot and two passengers. It can dive for up to 12 hours, also to a depth of 300m, about 1,000ft. It has similar safety features. Both vessels have been customised to include an advanced forward-looking imaging sonar system, an externally mounted 4K camera specially adapted for underwater recording, as well as an extensive lighting rig to help explore the dark depths. As investigations continue into the OceanGate Titan sub disaster in June 2023, when the sub imploded at about 3,300m en route to the wreckage of the Titanic, killing all five people on board, Mr Kearney said his subs would operate at much shallower depths. But safety is and must always be the top priority, he said. Certification includes passing a range of rigorous tests and trials, from design to final delivery, overseen by independent surveyors, and the sub crews must follow rigorous pre- and post-dive checks similar to the procedures followed by airline pilots. Its essential that our team of pilots and support personnel are fully up to speed on all aspects of operations to ensure the continued success of our missions, Mr Kearney said. Both vessels have been acquired by Muiri Carraige Aonair Teoranta (MCAT), a West Cork company headed by Mr Kearney, who has christened them the Atlantis Explorer 1 (A-EXI) and the Atlantis Explorer 2 (A-EX2). Initial funding for the project has come from both private investors as well as from the Department of the Marine. Historical shipwrecks Mr Kearney said they also hope to use the submarines to explore historical shipwrecks that litter the seabed and uncover and identify their condition and precise location. It is estimated there are more than 18,000 known and potential shipwrecks in Irish waters alone, including inshore waterways. Our aim is to start with a baseline survey of historical and many more unknown shipwrecks in various waters and to put a stop to treasure hunters that have plundered our heritage unhindered for so long, he said. They have caused immeasurable damage to historical wrecks and artifacts, sometimes destroying them almost entirely by using heavy breaking equipment. The subs were built by the Dutch company U-Boat Worx and have been certified by Germany-based DNV. Once wrecks have been located and identified by our submarines, they will be subject to a non-destructive examination, and their condition recorded, thereby providing vital evidence to assist in any prosecution of parties engaged in theft from historical wrecks and sites. The two subs, and their support vessel, will also be available for hire to marine companies and research institutions that require specific data from the ocean depths or the ocean floor, and they will be made available for use in underwater surveying and recovery missions worldwide. We would also be more than happy to make our submarines and expertise available to coast guards, law enforcement agencies, and naval services if they think it will assist them in any way, especially in the fight against drug smugglers, Mr Kearney said. He is also the driving force behind plans to develop a historical marine project, Fastnet Maritime Museum, in Baltimore, which he hopes will use including immersive 3D exhibitions showcasing our shipwrecks and our incredibly rich and varied marine life. We also plan to make use of the underwater footage we record to create a series of programmes for the public to make them more aware of the unbelievable world within our oceans and seas," he said. My whole life has revolved around the sea, and I'm passionately interested in increasing the number of people who care about our oceans and our heritage." A remote coastal village on a rugged peninsula is set to host its first-ever autumn school, which it hopes will help shape the future of Irelands coastal and rural communities. Organisers of the inaugural Beara Wonders Event, on the scenic Beara peninsula in West Cork, said topics including rural resilience, marine and fishing, farming, biodiversity and sustainable living will be discussed, with a focus on rural Ireland, and the Beara peninsula itself for the next half-century. And they said it would be more than just a local initiative, serving also as a blueprint for rural communities across Ireland that face similar challenges. As the community furthest from Dublins seat of government, we hope to lead by example, taking the time to learn from experts and reflect on the strategies that can positively impact coastal and rural areas throughout the country, said Klaudia Drozdzik, the coordinator at Allihies Copper Mine Museum. The autumn school, supported by Bantry Credit Union, will feature a series of walks and talks across the weekend of October 11 to 13, with a line-up of experts speakers that includes Beara locals Eoghan Daltun, who will open the event with a talk on his journey to restore a temperate rainforest ecosystem in Beara, and a wildlife talk with Denis Walsh, who will also lead a walk and talk event with Tadhg O'Sullivan focusing on diversity and sustainability. Allihies Autumn School will feature a series of walks and talks across the weekend, with a line-up of expert speakers. Academic experts including Dr Pat Meere, Dr Brendan Dunford, and Dr Kevin Flannery will discuss geology, farming and fishing, while Dr Susan Steele, the executive director of the European Fisheries Control Agency, will lead an online talk on sustainable fishing and rural enterprise. Ms Drozdzik said while for generations, emigration had posed a significant challenge to maintaining a stable population in Allihies and other remote communities, the past few years have witnessed a resurgence of interest in the area, with returning emigrants, their descendants, and newcomers both part-time and permanent choosing Allihies for its remoteness, rich history, and stunning landscape. This newfound interest presents a timely opportunity to strategise about the future of these regions, with a focus on sustainable income streams that respect and nurture the natural environment, she said. By addressing key issues like environmental stewardship and sustainable development, the Allihies Autumn School is setting the stage for a brighter future, one in which rural communities can retain their unique identities while adapting to modern needs. More details, and tickets for the event, can be found here. Maggie Smiths trophy cabinet reflected her extraordinary achievements across theatre, film and television from the BBC to Hollywood, the West End to Broadway. A measure of her versatility and durability is that, in the 1960s, she played nine major roles in the formative years of the National Theatre, but also, from the start of the 2000s, appeared in five series of Downton Abbey. Her role in that show was Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, who lived in such a bubble of exclusive comfort that, in trademark one-liners, she would drawl in mystification, for example: What is a weekend? That acerbic superiority was a signature throughout Smiths career, including the part that brought her first Academy award in 1970, against a shortlist also featuring Liza Minnelli and Jane Fonda, for the title role in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie about a maverick, arrogant schoolteacher in Edinburgh. Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Smith consistently had the courage and talent to do unexpected things. Her second Oscar, in 1979, was for California Suite, with a script by Neil Simon and a cast of high Hollywood talent including Alan Alda and Walter Matthau. Smith played exactly what she had been at the start of the decade: an English actress up for her first Academy award. Another surprise on her CV demonstrated an ability to play it straight and dark. In 2019, after 12 years away from the stage, Smith, at the age of 84, performed a 100-minute monologue at the Bridge theatre in London. A German Life was adapted by Christopher Hampton from a documentary movie interview given, at the age of 102 (the show was a rare case of an octogenarian ageing up for a part), by Brunhilde Pomsel, who worked for the Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels during the Holocaust, but who continued to deny complicity or guilt. With typical meticulousness, Smith refused to accept the part until she had proved to herself at home that she could memorise an extended solo. Combining enduringly impeccable technique with the guts to test it again at such an age, it was a late triumph in an astonishing career. Despite joining the Oxford Playhouse Company at 16, rather than going to college, Smith benefited from the local varsity theatrical privileges, cast in Oxford University Dramatic Society productions, including revues, which, at the time were attended by national critics. Such was the impact she made in comedy skits and songs that, aged 21, she was part of an ensemble recruited to appear on Broadway in a revue called New Faces of 1956. At that point, Smith seemed set to be a sketch-and-music comedian, especially when Strip the Willow, a play about the survivors of a nuclear war in the UK, failed to transfer to London from a UK tour. Growing reputation Smiths serious dramatic career was launched when she appeared in a double bill of plays, The Private Ear and The Public Eye, by Peter Shaffer, in 1962. These won Smith her first Evening Standard best actress statuette, at the age of 27, and caught the attention of Laurence Olivier, then establishing, at Chichester, the first attempt at a National Theatre. Crucially to the development of her reputation, Olivier trusted her not only with comedy such as The Recruiting Officer, George Farquhars early 18th-century farce but also tragedy: she was Desdemona to Oliviers performance in the title role of Othello. Also at the National, Smith formed a relationship with the actor Robert Stephens, who became her first husband, and father of her sons, who, as Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin, followed their parents into acting. Had Julie Andrews not turned down the Jean Brodie movie, Smith would never have played the part that redefined her career. With her American bankability increased by a US tour of Noel Cowards Private Lives, Smith used it to go into a kind of theatrical exile from Olivier and Britain. From 1976 to 1980, she played four summer seasons at the Shakespeare festival in Stratford, Ontario where she played the part of Millamant and other roles that might have been expected in London, such as Lady Macbeth. Smith fell into a happy rhythm of filming gigs split with Canadian acting sabbaticals. While she rehearsed or acted, Beverley Cross wrote to her, having become Smiths second husband in 1975 following her divorce from Robert Stephens. When Smith returned to London theatre, she took over from Diana Rigg as the troubled modern colonial wife Ruth Carson, in Tom Stoppards Night and Day. She confirmed her resurgence with two more Evening Standard awards, in 1981 and 1984, for London runs of shows she had premiered in Canada. In Virginia, by Edna OBrien, she was the writer Virginia Woolf, for whom Smiths gift for haughty wit made her natural casting. Smith, in contradiction of the standard professional graphs, had, after that slight mid-career dip, a third act even more glorious than her first. Shaffer wrote for her Lettice and Lovage, a comedy maximising her command of sardonic superiority, as Lettice Douffet, a tour guide who begins to embellish history. She took the play to New York, where she won a Tony award. Smith also became an Alan Bennett specialist. She co-starred with Michael Palin in the movie A Private Function in 1984, as a Yorkshire woman using a black-market pig to prevent wartime rationing thwarting her upward mobility. In the 1988 first series of Bennetts Talking Heads monologues for television, she was a vicars wife, anxious about private sins, in A Bed Among the Lentils. On stage (1999) and screen (2015), she was memorable as The Lady in the Van, a fictionalised version of Miss Shepherd , a Catholic evangelist tramp who for some years lived in a caravan on Bennetts driveway. Another reason for her retreat from theatre was, unusually for a septuagenarian performer, a vast demand from movie studios. Between 2001 and 2011, she appeared in seven of the eight Harry Potter films, as Professor Minerva McGonagall, transfiguration teacher at Hogwarts, her embodiment of the formidable Scottish academic seeming to contain affectionate nods to Brodie. Maggie Smith as Professor Minerva McGonagall in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The part brought Smith considerable wealth she joked about the Harry Potter pension fund and a vast new fanbase that, she complained, made it impossible for her to shop in Waitrose any more. Her cinematic renaissance had also included Robert Altmans Gosford Park (2001). In this English country house drama, written by Julian Fellowes, Smiths character was at least a first cousin to her Downton Abbey countess. Appearing in a TV series with an average audience of 10 million made it even harder for her to go shopping. But this late superstardom, half a century or more after her first major theatre and movie successes, confirmed that she was an actor with the rare ability to do anything she wanted anywhere. Guardian Geri O'Toole doesnt hesitate when asked to name her happy space. The Cork-born Limerick woman will slip into her kitchen/dining/living area to grab a coffee and some rare me time. This is an interior designer who is on speed dial for high-profile clients across the globe. I feel calm there, she says of the open-plan, light-filled space. Packing for a trip the following week to California and putting the finishing touches to the Howth home of Vogue Williams are just two items on her to-do list once our conversation ends. Exposed stone and the use of other natural materials lend themselves to the earthy colour palette. Yet calming as well as homely are the words Geri uses to describe the interior style of her own Limerick home, renovated and extended from a smaller older cottage. The appeal of creating serene settings is whats steered her towards and along this career path, Geri believes. Ive always loved how interiors make me feel. I can be an anxious person so having an ordered calm, softly lit environment also calms my nervous system, she says. And I love bringing that feeling of calm and home to my clients homes; its the best feeling in the world when a client is happy and enjoying their home environment. The exterior of interior designer Geri O'Toole's home in Co Limerick. Pictures: Ruth Maria Murphy Other favourite perches are chillout zones also, like the dining banquette and handmade bar stools (by Modet Furniture) at the kitchen island. And she may have a chic little black book thats the envy of designers across the world but Geri takes the sort of gleeful, childlike delight any of us would every time she stows goodies away in her walk-in pantry: It is such a nice addition. I keep the toaster in here and all the food. Having this pantry allows me to store so much in one space and to close the door if its untidy! Geri and her husband Cathal Glynn moved into their home nine years ago and from the beginning hoped to extend the early 19th-century property. We got it up to scratch with the old cottage that was there. There were two bedrooms upstairs and no storage at all, says Geri. We always knew wed need a bigger space in time to come. It was when Geri was expecting Edie that planning permission came through and they embarked on the project in 2021, completing it in July 2023. Coming from a smaller cottage which we also loved we now have a sense of spaciousness and light in this new space, she says. Our architect, Des Ewing, came up with a great idea of raising the roof to let light in at all angles. Geri with Geri O'Toole with Edie, Cathal and Finley. Pictures: Ruth Maria Murphy O'Toole Now the open-plan kitchen/dining living room, previously part of a former outbuilding, is the fulcrum of their home, in which they retained the old gable wall and added an arch. It was quite dark before with small windows in stone walls and we opened it up to let in as much light as possible, says Geri. Geri's interior design style has gone viral online. She describes her style as classic with an edge of contemporary. The vaulted ceiling and exposed wooden beams enhance the space, which features natural French limestone floor tiles and furnishings built by Geri herself using earthy shades. The designer chose Little Greene Slaked Lime Dark for the island with Calacatta Gold marble for the worktop. Only connect An extension features mainly glass walls this is where the sitting room is located and a hallway connects to the old house. Two childrens bedrooms are upstairs as well as the main suite which features two walk-in wardrobes and an en-suite bathroom. The ceiling height and addition of beams enhance the sense of space in the kitchen area. The newly extended house is essentially a four-bedroom residence. We use one of the bedrooms as a playroom. It has an ensuite and if we have guests over its a bedroom but day to day its a playroom, says Geri. The interior designer describes the style of her home as a hybrid. Its classic with an edge of contemporary to make it feel modern. Our house has gone viral online, and in America they call the style European cottagecore, apparently! says Geri. The light-filled interiors. The couple and their two children, Finley, ten, and Edie, nearly three, love to gather in the kitchen. We cook very quick meals, like stir-fries, in the evening but at the weekend we love cooking a really nice meal and hanging out with the kids in this space, says the interior designer. If Geri got to invite anyone on the planet to dinner, who would make the cut? Bryan OSullivan or Katie Harbison, two fellow Irish designers I admire, she says. Geri loves the 'calming' feel of her interiors. Baxter their pooch brings to five the family number. At 14, the pugalier (pug and cavalier King Charles spaniel) looks much more youthful even snapped by renowned interior photographer Ruth Maria Murphy as he nabs forty winks in the hallway by the library (on a gold Rug Company rug, naturally). He looks great for his age I dont know how! says Geri. Cathal owns a construction company, CGC, so the duo also make a good partnership when it comes to producing super spaces, including renovating their own outbuildings to release their potential in their old-meets-new dream family home. I love bouncing ideas off him, says Geri. Cathals practical and does the actual figuring out. I come up with all the brainwaves and he leaves the finishes to me. Weve worked on a couple of projects [together] now. The interior designer started her own company, Geri Designs, six years ago focusing mainly on residential interiors for clients in Ireland and abroad. Geri O'Toole with her daughter Edie. WHAT was it like making her vision of her own family home a reality? It was way more difficult for myself, as it was so personal, admits Geri. Its much easier to pick items for clients and intuitively know what they want and guide them along. Of the renovation and extension, she adds: Planning is key, planning earlier in the project always allows you to get the best results possible. Its also something that develops as it progresses. The house was extended so it now features four bedrooms. "Im very decisive this is really important in my work as I have to make so many design decisions daily so in a way not giving it too much headspace is a good thing because you run with your decisions which progresses things onsite more quickly. Decisiveness is a quality that sits well with Geri and it brings us to one of her most well-known clients, Vogue Williams. I love working with Vogue, she is a breath of fresh air, she knows what she likes, is decisive and she is so appreciative. We have almost finished her new home in Howth, says Geri. The ottoman in the hallway, covered in Pierre Frey fabric. Were waiting for these really special stools for the kitchen area. Theyre the final piece of the puzzle. The final-puzzle pieces that have made Geris house a home are artworks. I love art. I just love the way pieces of art bring a little bit of interest, she says. I have a Louis le Brocquy framed piece in my hallway, for instance. I got that from Stoney Road Press in Dublin they have fantastic stuff. Geris passion for design and interiors stems from childhood when she was a frequent auction attendee with her dad, Noel OToole, who established the business Browsers Furniture & Interior Design. My parents were always into aesthetics, she says. My father has always loved fine art, antiques and beautiful furniture. Geri used Farrow & Ball's Sulking Room Pink to colour-drench her laundry room. What is the best bargain she ever sourced for her home? It has to be the pair of black lamps in my living room. They are gorgeous quality, weigh an absolute tonne, but I got them for a steal in an auction, she says. A mid-century coffee table and a John Shinnors artwork from Acquired.ie are prized possessions in the same room. Geri designed the black and white hallway tiles herself and the ottoman in the same space, with pink and cream Pierre Frey fabric, is functional as well as fabulous. Thats where my kids always sit and put on their shoes, says Geri. Its bespoke we make bespoke furniture for all our projects. Baxter taking a nap. Her pink laundry room is another practical and pretty combo. I colour-drenched the whole space cabinets, walls, ceiling in Sulking Room Pink by Farrow & Ball, says the designer. Its quite a dark little room so that warmed it up. I got the lovely stone which is real marble from Stone Surfaces in Longford. What does Geri think of the surge in popularity in interiors? Social media has a huge part to play a lot of our clients come in with saved pictures and they can be beautiful designs from all over the world, she says. The residence is a mixture of old and new. A passion project is an online course she started earlier this year to teach interior design. Does Geri have key advice when planning design and colour schemes? Gather samples and play with them, add new contrasts and extra materials and keep playing until you find the perfect combination, she says. Instagram: geri_designs Website: geridesigns.ie TVs Grand Designs is going strong for 25 years this year but the couple behind West Corks Derryduff Farm in the unsullied Coomhola valley, Tony and Helen Grubert, were in the place-creating groove ever before it with their own grand design, and their ahead of the curve eco-aware sensibilities. Honey-spot: one of the Derryduff Estate houses Back in 1992, the couple, originally from London, came across a remote farmhouse up the Coomhola river and by the Borlin valley, where wild West Cork rubs rocky shoulders with wild Kerry and near the sublime Priests Leap, run through with a cascading river and watched over by ravens and sheep. Chasing the dragon? the original house has fun plus function Having checked out remote Munster settings on Europes fringes, from Clare to Cork, the old farmhouse they espied in the hills north of the N71 near Bantry and Ballylickey and whats now the Wild Atlantic Way was owned and lived in by a Dutchman and was everything we wanted. Derryduff homes are in a cluster It took a bit of time to negotiate, to buy and to make their own, with a bit of over and back and huffing and puffing, but by 1999 the year Kevin McClouds Grand Designs first aired on Channel Four the Bantry area remote hillside home in the clouds was theirs; reroofed, and made comfortable, with even likes of underfloor heating in place. Helen and Tony made the lifestyle move over with their two sons, then aged 12 and 14 years, now adults and whove moved back to the UK after formative and engaging years here at Derryduff More, with 144 acres of rugged land to call their own. Pond with reed-beds and bridge After the family home was secured, they started on an even more ambitious project, going on to build a series of other houses with a low and no-carbon footprint, so far ahead of the then low-base learning curve on carbon footprint and climate change concerns, capturing carbon in their build so that some of the additional buildings are carbon positive. A bit of tech too... They delivered two linked buildings, winsomely called Honeycomb and Honeypot House as an annex, as well as another one, almost entirely off-grid called Honeysuckle. Initially, they used the services of locally-based eco architect Tony Cohu who has a number of low and no-energy building to his credit around West Cork, from the rustic to the high-end like the Inish Beg estates boathouse. Working later with Ballydehob designer Jeremy Baines, there are now up to 11 bedrooms, and the number came in handy as Tony and Helan accommodated guests and students on residential courses they ran in environmentally-friendly design and construction. Outbuildings Modestly, Tony reckons their early-adaptation design and build methods (timber framing, ground source geothermal, natural insulation, passive heat gain through orientation using Pilkington K glass, reusing materials, buying entire hardwood trees for milling, etc) inspired a considerable number of self-builds as they had hundreds of keen students visit down the years. Workshop They contributed their labours also in what was true hands-on education, including young families with children who surely embraced a free-range lifestyle whilst in residence, in utterly unspoiled land, many hundreds of feet above sea level, bounded by a river below and with a burly mountain crest above, demarcating the Cork-Kerry border. Coomhola is a spate river in a beautiful valley setting Tony later taught courses in UCCs Science department, imparting his knowledge, perspective and skills, and inter alia the couple set up an eco learning charity called the Unicorn Foundation, long before a unicorn came to mean a start-up company worth $1bn or more. They planted many, many thousands of trees but later deregistered from State planting schemes to plough their own furrow: tellingly, a Christmas tree they planted back out in one of their first festive celebrations in West Cork is now a c 40 tall pine. Colour and carvings combine for warm character Where do the years go? Over 30 years on, Tony and Helen (who also works as a minister and celebrant) are looking to retire and downsize from whats been a sizeable and considerable lifetimes work and labour of love, stressing their continuing love of the life and the location. They hope to stay in the broad locality, and have put their 144-acre holding, homestead, and honeyed collection of other houses up for sale. Its all listed with estate agent Ray ONeill of Sherry FitzGerald who first listed the c 2,400 sq ft Honeycomb House and Honeypot annex on just two acres three years ago, totaling five bedrooms for the Gruberts at 375,000. But, now, with time marching on, the couple have decided to sell the entire lifestyle holding on the full 144 acres, with internal paths, much planting, feature pond with reed-bed waste treatment yet clean enough to wild bathe in and with an arched timber bridge to a tiny island created by one of their carpentry-gifted sons, built without a single nail or screw. Oh, and the mix also includes Tonys very large workshed from where much of the joinery for the buildings emerged, set up with saws and lathes, CNC routers, carving equipment, dust extractor and tools galore: theres even an active wormery, for compost creation. Sherry FitzGerald now guide the entire lot at 1.485m, describing the Derryduff Estate as a very special listing, ideal for use as a holiday or retreat centre, hobby sustainable farming enterprise or other West Cork lifestyle uses. Clearly, theres a lot of property here for the right buyer, whoever he, she or they are, and as it now needs some TLC to freshen up and replace some timbers and finishes after the ravages of decades of Irish weather, whoever takes over will need some basic skills, commitment and energy so the workshop will come in handy. Its certainly going to have an appeal to those concerned about environment issues, whether home-grown or arrivals from overseas: volunteer woofers to give a helping hand could continue a tradition already kickstarted here. West Cork alone has seen some noble purchases of land for rewilding, whether down in Beara with writer/forester Eoghan Dalton and his 73 acres, or entrepreneur Bryan Meehans purchase of the old oak forest at Dromgarriff on the waters by Glengarriff. Meehan also purchased Kenmares Park Hotel last year, so there is money out there for special and rare buys such as Derryduff Estate, a Grand Design, only with natural grandeur. VERDICT: When we started no-one knew much about climate change and carbon emissions: its mainstream now, everyone knows about it and so in a sense we dont have anything to teach, says Tony reflectively, no longer a lone voice in a very special wilderness. Senior public servants, business owners and those in defined benefit pension schemes will be the main beneficiaries of the decision by the Department of Finance to increase the Pension Standard Fund Threshold (SFT) to 2.8m by 2029. Legislation to enact these changes will likely be included in this years Finance Act. The SFT was introduced in December 2005 to place a lifetime limit on the total capital value of pension benefits that an individual could draw from tax relieved pension products. Where an individual breaches the lifetime cap at retirement, the excess is subject to penal taxation at an effective income tax rate in the region of 70% of which 40% is incurred upfront, with the remaining balance collected on drawdown. Kieran McAuliffe, Director of Provest Private Clients Ltd. The SFT was initially set at a level of 5 million, with provision made for it to be indexed at regular intervals thereafter in line with an earnings factor. While it was indexed up to a high-water mark of 5.4 million, the financial crisis intervened and the SFT was reduced to 2.3 million in 2010 and to 2 million in 2014. In late 2023, then Minister for Finance, Michael McGrath announced the commencement of a targeted review of the Standard Fund Threshold (SFT) regime led by an independent expert, Dr. Donal de Buitleir, with support from the Department of Finance. This review was apparently instigated when the Government was left red faced when no senior Garda applied for the role of Deputy Garda Commissioner mainly due to the penal taxation of pension benefits. In the public service, senior Gardai are particularly affected as they have to retire at 60, so the capitalisation factors used in determining the value of their pension against the 2m cap are less favorable. The review by Dr. Donal de Buitleir was published in the past few weeks and makes significant recommendations regarding the Standard Fund Threshold (SFT) and limits on pension tax reliefs. The Minister for Finance, Jack Chambers, also issued a statement on the review on the same date. Whilst the review called for an increase in the SFT to 2.8m in one go, and then to increase it annually in line with growth in average weekly industrial earnings, the Department of Finance has decided to stagger the increase. The Minister has decided on a phased increase in the SFT to 2.8m by 2029, starting in 2026 at 2.2m with further annual increases of 200,000 in 2027, 2028 and 2029 to reach 2.8m by 2029. An automatic annual adjustment of the SFT will apply thereafter in line with future income increases at a rate to be set annually by the Minister for Finance. There would therefore appear to be no immediate increase in the threshold for 2025, a point which has been criticized by senior public servants. No rationale has been given as to why the first increase wont take place until 2026 but further clarity on the point may emerge in the weeks ahead. The review by Dr. de Buitleir also called for a reduction in the factors used to value a defined benefit pension accrued after 1st January 2014. For example, the current capitalisation factor for public service and defined benefit pension at 65 is 26. The review has recommended that this rate should be reduced to a more favorable rate of 19. The Minister has decided that an independent evaluation of new lower age-related valuation factors proposed in the report will be undertaken. It is, however, not clear when the new lower factors will apply from. It also looks likely that the current maximum lump sum entitlement of 500,000 will be maintained, with 200,000 tax free and the balance of up 300,000 taxed at 20%. So, it appears that a retiree who has accumulated a pension fund of 2.8m in 2029 will not be entitled to take 700,000 (25% of their fund) as a lump sum. They will instead be entitled to 500,000; 200,000 tax free and the balance of 300,000 taxed at 20%. Finally, and interestingly, the review by Dr. de Buitleir recommended the removal of the 115,000 relevant earnings limit for pension contributions and the removal of age-related limits for pension contributions on a phased basis. The Government has noted these recommendations and intends to establish an interagency group to review them in more detail. Currently, the pension contribution limits for individuals are based on a percentage of pensionable earnings of up to 115,000. Personal contribution rates are also linked to your age. Even an increase in line with the SFT would see the limit increase from 115,000 to 161,000 by 2029. This would still fall well short of the 275,000 limit that applied as far back as 2008, representing a reduction of over 58% in the annual earnings cap from its peak. For the vast majority of workers, the ability to fund a pension anywhere close to 2.8m will be insurmountable throughout their working lives. The Irish Association of Pension Funds (IAPF) DC survey from 2020 suggested at the time that an average total contribution paid for employees of DC Schemes was between 10% and 11% or earnings. In summary, the increase in the SFT is certainly welcome but it will only impact a very small portion of the workforce in this country, mainly senior public servants, business owners and those in Defined Benefit Pension Schemes. An opportunity to increase or remove the earnings cap of 115,000 appears to have been missed for now, which would allow individuals to build up sufficient funds aligned with an increased SFT and to give them access to an appropriate and fair level of retirement income. We await the publication of the Finance Bill 2024, which will probably happen in early to mid-October 2024 to see what further pension recommendations might be included for 2025. Kieran McAuliffe is the Director of Provest Private Clients Ltd. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday after having criticized him on the U.S. campaign trail and expressed doubts the US ally can win its war with Russia. Trump said on Thursday they would meet at 9.45 am (1345 GMT) at Trump Tower in Manhattan. Though Trump and Zelenskyy talked over the phone in July, this will be their first in-person meeting since Trump's 2017-2021 term. Zelenskyy, who is in the United States for the UN General Assembly, met on Thursday with Democratic President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate in the November 5 election. While Ukraine's leader was in Washington, Biden announced a new military aid package of more than $8 billion (7.2 billion). At the same time, Harris reaffirmed her support for Kyiv and, in a veiled swipe at Trump, accused him of failing to stand up for the Eastern European ally. Before departing Kyiv, Zelenskyy had expressed his intention to present his "victory plan" to defeat Russia to Biden, Harris and Trump. But among his unspoken goals on Friday will likely be patching up his relationship with Trump who has at times been critical of Zelenskyy. Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in the vice president's ceremonial office inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building Over the weekend, Zelenskyy travelled to a munitions factory in Pennsylvania with that state's Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, a key Harris ally. The visit upset Trump's campaign and enraged some congressional Republicans who viewed the trip as a campaign stop, particularly as Pennsylvania is an important battleground state expected to decide the US election. Trump, for his part, has intensified his criticisms of Zelenskyy in recent days. He said on Monday that Zelenskyy wanted Harris to win the election, and on Wednesday he called the Eastern European nation "dead" and "demolished." Generally speaking, Trump has declined to say he wants Ukraine to win its war with Russia and he has characterized US aid to Ukraine as a waste of money. As late as Thursday, people close to Trump and his campaign had said a meeting appeared extremely unlikely, though the former president apparently changed his mind during Zelenskyy's stay in the country. Meetings between presidential candidates and foreign leaders have taken place during previous election campaigns. In 2016, Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton both met leaders of Egypt, Japan and Ukraine during that year's UN General Assembly. However such encounters are nonetheless sensitive, as the law limits what candidates can say or discuss during such encounters. The 1799 Logan Act permits Americans outside the government to meet with foreign officials, but it also limits their ability to negotiate US disputes. A dinghy carrying migrants towards the eastern Greek island of Kos capsized in rough weather overnight, leaving one person dead, while dozens more people were rescued from a yacht in southern Greece, the coast guard said. It said the dinghy was carrying 16 people when it capsized south east of Kos near the Turkish coast. Maggie Smith, the prolific, multi-award-winning actor whose work ranged from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie to Harry Potter to Downton Abbey, has died aged 89. Her children, Widow Clicquot actor Chris Larkin, and Die Another Day star Toby Stephens, said in a statement: An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days. We thank you for all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time. Born in Ilford, Essex, on December 28, 1934, she was an internationally recognised actress for much of her life. Her gift for acid-tongued comedy was arguably the source of her greatest achievements: the waspish teacher Jean Brodie, for which she won an Oscar, prim period yarns such as A Room With a View and Gosford Park, and a series of collaborations on stage and screen with Alan Bennett including The Lady in the Van. My career is chequered, she told the Guardian in 2004. I think I got pigeonholed in humour If you do comedy, you kind of dont count. Comedy is never considered the real thing. However, Smith also excelled in non-comedic dramatic roles, performing opposite Laurence Olivier for the National Theatre, winning a best actress Bafta for The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, and playing the title role in Ingmar Bergmans 1970 production of Hedda Gabler. Born in 1934, Ms Smith grew up in Oxford and began acting at the citys Playhouse theatre as a teenager. While appearing in a string of stage shows, including Bamber Gascoignes 1957 musical comedy Share My Lettuce opposite Kenneth Williams, Ms Smith also made inroads on film, with her first substantial impact in the 1958 Seth Holt thriller Nowhere to Go, for which she was nominated for a best supporting actress Bafta. After starring in Peter Shaffers stage double bill The Private Ear and The Public Eye, Ms Smith was invited by Olivier to join the nascent National Theatre company in 1962, for whom she appeared in a string of productions, including as Desdemona to Oliviers Othello in his notorious blackface production in 1964. Ms Smith repeated the role in Oliviers film version the following year, for which they were both Oscar-nominated. In 1969 she was cast in the lead role of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, the adaptation of the Muriel Spark novel about the Edinburgh schoolteacher with an admiration for Mussolini; Ms Smith went on to win the best actress Oscar in 1970. Later the same year she starred in Ingmar Bergmans production of Ibsens Hedda Gabler for the National Theatre in Londons West End; the Evening Standards Milton Shulman described her as haunt[ing] the stage like some giant portrait by Modigliani, her alabaster skin stretched tight with hidden anguish. Another Oscar nomination for best actress came her way in 1973 for the Graham Greene adaptation Travels with My Aunt, and an Oscar win (for best supporting actress) in 1979 for California Suite, the Neil Simon-scripted anthology piece in which she played an Oscar-nominated film star. Ms Smith continued her successful parallel film and stage careers in the 1980s. She starred opposite Michael Palin in A Private Function, the wartime-set comedy about food rationing, co-scripted by Alan Bennett, and had a colourful supporting role as gossipy cousin Charlotte Bartlett in Merchant Ivorys A Room With a View, for which she was nominated for yet another Oscar. She followed it up with The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, a character study in which Ms Smith played the unmarried, frustrated woman of the title. On stage she played Virginia Woolf in Edna OBriens 1980 play at the Stratford Festival Theatre in Canada, and in 1987 starred as tour guide Lettice Douffet in Peter Shaffers Lettice and Lovage. She also reunited with Mr Bennett for his Talking Heads series on both radio and TV, playing a vicars wife having an affair. Film roles continued to roll in: she starred alongside Joan Plowright and Cher in Franco Zeffirellis loosely autobiographical Tea With Mussolini, a dowager countess in Robert Altmans country-house murder mystery Gosford Park, and opposite Judi Dench in Ladies in Lavender, written and directed by Charles Dance. She also accepted the prominent role of Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series, appearing between 2001 and 2011 in every instalment apart from Deathly Hallows Part 1. Meanwhile, she achieved arguably her most impactful TV role as the countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, created by Gosford Park writer Julian Fellowes reprising the role in two standalone cinema films, released in 2019 and 2022. Having played the role on stage in 1999, Ms Smith enjoyed a late career triumph in The Lady in the Van, Alan Bennetts memoir about the woman who lived on his driveway. Ms Smith was married twice: to fellow actor Robert Stephens between 1967 and 1975, and Beverley Cross between 1975 and his death in 1998. News / National by Staff reporter The Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) has announced an increase in water allocation for power generation in 2025 to 27 billion cubic meters (BCM), a significant rise from the 16 BCM allocated at the beginning of 2024. This allocation is shared equally between Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) and Zambia's Zesco, with each company receiving 13.5 BCM.In a recent update regarding the situation at Lake Kariba, ZRA Chief Executive Engineer Munyaradzi Munodawafa emphasized that the authority based its decision on hydrological simulations and predictions from the Southern African Climate Outlook Forum (SARCOF) for the upcoming season."The authority, in collaboration with Zesco and ZPC, has finalized the water allocation processes for power generation at Kariba Dam for the year 2025," stated Engineer Munodawafa."Upon consulting both Zesco and ZPC, it was agreed that a total of 27 billion cubic meters of water be allocated for power generation at Kariba Dam for 2025."The water allocation will be subject to review at the end of the first quarter of 2025, considering the actual rainfall performance during the 2024/2025 rainfall season, as well as river inflows and the water levels at Kariba Dam.SARCOF has forecasted that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region is likely to experience normal to above-normal rainfall during the upcoming season. However, meteorological departments in Zimbabwe and Zambia have downscaled these predictions, suggesting that the Kariba lower catchment area in northern Zimbabwe and the northeastern section of the Zambezi River catchment in Angola may experience below-normal rainfall from October 2024 to January 2025.The ZRA's proactive measures in water allocation come amid growing concerns about the impact of climate variability on hydropower generation in the region. The collaborative approach between the ZRA, ZPC, and Zesco aims to ensure sustainable power generation while addressing the challenges posed by changing weather patterns. The Israeli military said it has carried out a precise strike on the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut. Army spokesman Daniel Hagari made the announcement in a televised address after the explosion in Beirut sent massive clouds of orange and black smoke billowing in the skies. Ambulances were seen heading to the scene of the explosions, sirens wailing. The strike came an hour after thousands of people attended the funeral of a top Hezbollah commander who was killed the day before. Earlier in the day, an Israeli airstrike killed a family of nine in a Lebanese border village, authorities said, as Lebanon struggled to deal with a rising death toll, a wave of tens of thousands fleeing their homes and the possibility of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah. As the two sides continued to trade fire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed world leaders at the UN, vowing continue degrading Hezbollah until Israel achieves its goals along the Lebanon border, further dimming hopes for an internationally backed ceasefire. Israel dramatically intensified its airstrikes in Lebanon this week, saying it is determined to put an end to more than 11 months of Hezbollah fire into its territory. The scope of Israels operation remains unclear, but officials have said a ground invasion to push the militant group away from the border is a possibility. Israel has moved thousands of troops toward the border in preparation. That has Lebanese fearing a repeat of the last Israel-Hezbollah war, in 2006, which lasted a month and wreaked heavy destruction over parts of their country. Or worse, they fear, Lebanon could suffer devastation on the scale wreaked in Gaza by Israels nearly year-long campaign against Hamas. At least 25 people were killed in Israeli strikes early on Friday, health minister Firass Abiad said, bringing the death toll in Lebanon this week to more than 720. He said the dead included dozens of women and children. The Israeli military said it carried out dozens of strikes over the course of two hours around the south on Friday, including in the cities of Sidon and Nabatiyeh. It said it was targeting Hezbollah rocket launchers and infrastructure. It said Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets toward the northern Israeli city of Tiberias. Just Stop Oil activists have poured soup over two Vincent Van Gogh paintings just hours after other members of the group were jailed for damaging the gold frame of the artists Sunflowers. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Just Stop Oil said: BREAKING: 2 VAN GOGH PAINTINGS SOUPED HOURS AFTER PHOEBE AND ANNA SENTENCED. 3 Just Stop Oil supporters have thrown soup over 2 of Van Gogh(s) paintings in the Poets and Lovers exhibition at the National Gallery. One of two Vincent Van Gogh paintings targeted at the National Gallery in London by Just Stop Oil activists (Just Stop Oil/PA) The post featured a video of the activists vandalising the artwork before telling an angry crowd: There are people in prison for demanding an end to new oil and gas, something which is now government policy after sustained, disruptive actions, countless headlines and the resulting political pressure. Future generations will regard these prisoners of conscience to be on the right side of history. The National Gallery confirmed the three activists had been arrested and the paintings remain unharmed. A statement said: At just after 2.30pm this afternoon, three people entered Room 6 of the National Gallery Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers exhibition. Just Stop Oil activists who poured soup over two Vincent Van Gogh paintings (Just Stop Oil/PA) They appeared to throw a soup like substance over two works Sunflowers (1888, National Gallery, London) and Sunflowers (1889, Philadelphia Museum of Art). Police were called and three people have been arrested. The paintings were removed from display and examined by a conservator and are unharmed. We are aiming to reopen the exhibition as soon as possible. Phoebe Plummer 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were jailed on Friday after causing as much as 10,000 (12,000) worth of damage to the artworks gold-coloured frame when they targeted it at Londons National Gallery. 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. News / National by Staff reporter The MK Party has expressed strong disapproval of a recent ruling by the Western Cape High Court, which it describes as an "incompetent, irrational, and blatantly political judgment."The judgment seeks to interdict Dr. Mandlakayise John Hlophe from fulfilling his constitutional duties as a Member of Parliament appointed to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), a decision that the party argues constitutes gross judicial overreach.In a statement, the MK Party condemned the court's decision, stating that it undermines the provisions of the South African Constitution. The ruling specifically targets Dr. Hlophe's role in the JSC process, yet the court did not issue an interdict against Parliament, which voted to appoint him in the first place.The party highlighted that Section 178 of the Constitution mandates the appointment of three members from opposition parties to serve on the JSC, and as the official opposition party, the MK Party's right to designate its MPs for this role is constitutionally guaranteed."The court has not reviewed or set aside Parliament's decision to appoint Dr. Hlophe to the JSC," the statement read. "Until that decision is reviewed, the JSC cannot sit without him. This constitutional stalemate is deliberately created by a compromised judiciary driven by political motivations."The MK Party announced its intention to appeal the ruling, criticizing the application brought by the Democratic Alliance (DA) as "frivolous" and reflective of a broader agenda against black leaders. The statement alleged that the DA, along with the African National Congress (ANC) under President Cyril Ramaphosa, played a role in Dr. Hlophe's past impeachment as a judge, framing the current legal challenges as a continuation of this politically motivated persecution.The party asserted that there is no legal justification for the court to reverse the democratic decision made by elected representatives regarding Dr. Hlophe's appointment. "The MK Party has the constitutional right to nominate its members for external forums such as the JSC and Pan-African Parliament. Courts must reject the misuse of the justice system that conflates the separation of powers," it stated.Additionally, the MK Party reiterated its commitment to abolishing the "biased Roman-Dutch Law," asserting that it has no place in an African society. The party stands firmly behind Dr. Hlophe and announced plans to mobilize support against the JSC's upcoming sitting, scheduled for October 7, 2024, urging all who value democratic principles to join their cause.The MK Party is expected to release a detailed plan of action next week after consultations with its structures and allied organizations, emphasizing the importance of maintaining the integrity of the JSC and the democratic process. More commercial flights are on offer this weekend to get Britons out of Lebanon, after the UK Government urged them to escape an Israeli military campaign against Hezbollah. An estimated 5,000 Britons holding dual nationality and their relatives have remained in Lebanon despite the warnings, including several hundred who hold only UK citizenship. It is understood that the Government does not believe it needs to organise an emergency evacuation yet, given the availability of commercial flights and ships, but UK armed forces in Cyprus remain on standby with 700 troops returning to the region this week. Airlines are already laying on extra flights to accommodate increased demand out of Beirut. But officials say there is no large-scale exodus out of the country entirely, with internal movement confined to people fleeing the Israeli offensive in the south of Lebanon to head further north. UK citizens are being urged by the Foreign Office to register their presence. The UK visa office in Beirut meanwhile remains open for relatives of Britons who wish to join them on flights to Britain. The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has the potential to spill into a wider war that no one can control, Sir Keir Starmer warned at the United Nations in New York on Thursday. But Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to fight on, as he prepares to deliver his own speech later on Friday to the UN General Assembly. Emily Thornberry, chairwoman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, warned that any full-scale ground invasion by Israel into southern Lebanon could play into Hezbollahs hands. Speaking on BBC Radio 4s Today programme, she said that Netanyahus Right-wing government should pay heed to a call from Western and Gulf countries to cease fire with Hezbollah as part of a wider truce with Hamas in Gaza. We dont know whether or not Israel is bluffing about a ground war, the Labour MP said. We do know that in 2006 that they got very bogged down [in Lebanon], that at the moment they may be ahead because theyre using air power and surprise, but a ground war may well be different. And actually, the poor Lebanese, who you know many of whom do not want Hezbollah in the bottom of their country, certainly dont want to have the Israelis. And Hezbollah may well end up with more legitimacy as a result of that ground invasion. Peter Andre is part of the cast of Falcon credit:Bang Showbiz Peter Andre is "very excited" to have landed a new TV role. The 'Mysterious Girl' hitmaker will portray megalomaniac Hector Laidlaw in 'Falcon', a thriller hailed as a cross between 'Indiana Jones and 'The Da Vinci Code', opposite 'Snow White and the Huntsman' actor Noah Huntley in the lead role of Greg Falcon. The four-part series will follow Greg as he stumbles across a dark online scheme that could destabilise the world while vacationing in Malta, and his findings lead him to team up with Professor Victoria Bassey (Victoria Ekanoye) to uncover a plot that dates back almost two thousand years. The duo face a race against time when they come up against internet fiend Laidlaw. Peter said of his role: "I'm really looking forward to the challenge. The character is fantastic; he has a dark side, he's clever, deep, and very dangerous. 'Falcon' is going to be a great series, and I am very excited to be working alongside such an incredible cast". The show will also star Daniel Coll, Richard Ashton, Joe Savino and local talent from Malta. Producer and star Daniel said: "Written by the brilliant Dave Thorp this show will be thrilling to watch and great family viewing, with a fabulous cast. We look forward to 'Falcon' hitting TV screens next summer." The series is being made by Picture Point Films and will be set entirely in Malta and Gozo. Peter recently hinted the project was in the pipeline. He wrote in his column for new! magazine: "I've got a huge part in a new Channel 5 drama as one of the lead characters, which I'm excited about. "I can't reveal the name of it yet, or give much away, but I start filming next month and can't wait to get stuck in." US President Joe Biden has declared over $8 billion in military aid for Ukraine to assist the nation in winning this war against Russia, following a visit from President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce this significant commitment. The assistance package features the initial delivery of a precision-guided glide bomb known as the Joint Standoff Weapon, capable of targeting areas up to 130km away. This medium-range missile represents a substantial enhancement to Ukraines strike capabilities against Russian forces, allowing for operations at safer distances. The bomb, designed for high-accuracy targeting, is intended to be deployed from fighter jets. Supporting Ukraine, which has been under Russian invasion since February 2022, remains a primary focus for the US, according to Mr Bidens statement. We need your consent to load this rte-player content. We use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content. Manage Preferences That is why I am announcing today an increase in security assistance for Ukraine and a series of additional measures to help them secure victory in this war, stated Mr Biden, who is set to leave office in January. The majority of the new assistance, totaling $5.5 billion, is to be allocated before the end of the US fiscal year on Monday, when the funding authority is scheduled to lapse. An additional $2.4 billion falls under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, enabling the administration to procure weapons from manufacturers instead of withdrawing them from US military reserves. This initiative will enhance Ukraines air defense systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, and air-to-ground munitions, while also bolstering Ukraines defense manufacturing capabilities and supporting maintenance and sustainment needs, as explained by Mr Biden. Latest Ukraine stories Under this strategy, the president mentioned that the US Defense Department will refurbish and deliver an extra Patriot air defense battery and additional Patriot missiles to Ukraine. Mr Biden has directed the Pentagon to expand training programs for Ukrainian F-16 pilots, including assistance with the training of an additional 18 pilots in the coming year. To counteract Russian sanctions evasion and address money laundering, the US will take steps to disrupt what Mr Biden referred to as a global cryptocurrency network, in collaboration with international partners. Additionally, Mr Biden announced plans to convene a leader-level meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Germany next month to unite efforts among over 50 countries aiding Ukraine. Before his planned meeting with Mr Biden at the White House later, Mr Zelensky is expected to engage with Democratic and Republican leaders at the Capitol. Support for Ukraines defense has generally garnered bipartisan backing in the US, although it remains uncertain how many Republicans will be willing to meet with Mr Zelensky given increasing criticisms of his administration from within the party, including from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Mr Trump has voiced his discontent with the Ukrainian president during his campaign for the 5 November election and has, at least for the moment, declined Mr Zelenskys request for a meeting. During a campaign event in North Carolina yesterday, the former president sharply criticized Mr Zelensky, stating, We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to negotiate, Zelensky. Mr Trump also held President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, responsible for facilitating Russias invasion. Many congressional Republicans have expressed anger over Mr Zelenskys visit on Sunday to a munitions factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, which is Mr Bidens hometown. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives Oversight Committee has initiated an investigation into this visit. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican who is unlikely to meet with Mr Zelensky, has called for him to dismiss his ambassador to Washington for planning the Scranton trip, although he clarified to reporters that this demand was not a threat to withdraw military aid. Kremlin says changes to Russias nuclear policy are a warning to the West In a related development, the Kremlin has stated that alterations to Russias nuclear weapons doctrine, as outlined by President Vladimir Putin, should be perceived as a warning to Western nations regarding the consequences of their involvement in attacks against Russia. Mr Putin indicated that Russia may resort to nuclear weapons if assaulted with conventional missiles, asserting that Moscow would regard any attack supported by a nuclear-armed country as a collective aggression. The Kremlins decision to revise its nuclear policy is a response to discussions in the United States and Britain about allowing Ukraine to employ conventional Western missiles for strikes on Russian territory. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed that modifications to a document titled The Foundations of State Policy in the Sphere of Nuclear Deterrence have been developed. When questioned by reporters about whether these alterations signal something to the West, Mr Peskov stated, This should be considered a clear signal. This serves as a warning to these countries about the repercussions if they take part in an assault on our nation through any means, not limited to nuclear ones, Mr Peskov added. According to Mr Peskov, the world is witnessing an unprecedented confrontation, which he claims was instigated by the direct involvement of Western nations, including nuclear powers, in the conflict in Ukraine. Israeli Forces Directed to Get Ready for Ground Offensive in Lebanon The military chief of Israel informed troops that airstrikes in Lebanon would persist to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure and prepare for a potential ground operation by Israeli forces. As he made this statement, sources indicated that the United States had initiated a diplomatic effort to halt the conflicts in both Gaza and Lebanon, with proposals being discussed at the UN General Assembly in New York. US President Joe Biden mentioned during an interview with ABC television that while an all-out war was conceivable, he added: Were still in play to have a settlement that can fundamentally change the whole region. Israel expanded its airstrikes on Lebanon and intercepted a missile reportedly fired by Hezbollah, aimed at the Mossad intelligence agencys headquarters near Tel Aviv. You can hear the jets flying overhead; we have been conducting strikes all day, General Herzi Halevi told Israeli troops stationed at the border with Lebanon, as stated in a military announcement. This serves to prepare the ground for your possible entry and continues to degrade Hezbollah. Global leaders expressed their worries about the conflict, which is progressing alongside Israels war in Gaza, as the death toll in Lebanon increased and thousands evacuated their homes. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that the US and its allies were tirelessly striving to prevent a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah, which has pledged to persist until the conflict in Gaza ends. According to two Lebanese officials, two Western diplomats, a source acquainted with Hezbollahs perspective, and a source briefed on the talks, all of whom chose to remain anonymous, the US is spearheading a new diplomatic initiative that includes addressing both conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon for the first time. Ceasefire proposals Three Israeli sources reported that the US and France were collaborating on ceasefire proposals to alleviate the escalating violence in Lebanon, which Hezbollah instigated in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza; however, no significant progress has been made thus far. The risk of escalation in the region is critical The best response is diplomacy, and our coordinated efforts are essential to prevent further escalation, Mr. Blinken remarked during a meeting with officials from Gulf Arab states and ministers in New York. This week, Israeli airstrikes primarily focused on Hezbollah leaders and struck hundreds of locations deep within Lebanon, while the group launched numerous rocket barrages into Israel, prompting hundreds of thousands to flee the border area. Emergency responders are seen at the scene of an overnight Israeli strike in the Lebanese village of Akbiyeh. Israel reported that its warplanes targeted southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, a stronghold of Hezbollah located further north, and announced the mobilization of two additional reserve brigades for operations along the northern border. This will enable the ongoing combat against the Hezbollah terrorist organization, safeguard the State of Israel, and create conditions for the residents of northern Israel to return to their homes, the statement read. In a brief video message, which did not address US-led initiatives for a ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Hezbollah was facing more severe consequences than it could have anticipated and reiterated his commitment to repatriate tens of thousands of Israelis to their homes in the northern border regions. Latest Middle East stories Since Monday, Lebanese hospitals have been inundated with the injured, following Israeli bombings that resulted in more than 550 fatalities in Lebanons deadliest day since the end of its civil war in 1990. Todays strikes by Israel resulted in at least 51 deaths and over 223 injuries, as reported by the Lebanese health minister. Hezbollah declared that it targeted the Mossad headquarters in support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and in defense of Lebanon and its populace. It accused Mossad of orchestrating the assassinations of its leaders and alleged involvement in incidents where booby-trapped devices detonated last week, claiming 39 lives and injuring nearly 3,000. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied these allegations. Israel denies missile targeted Mossad HQ Israeli officials asserted that a heavy missile was headed towards civilian areas in Tel Aviv, not specifically towards the Mossad headquarters, before being intercepted. Israel has broadened the areas in Lebanon that it has been striking since last night, with attacks for the first time targeting the beach resort of Jiyyeh, located just south of Beirut. Additionally, it attacked locations including Bint Jbeil, Tebnin, and Ain Qana in the south, the village of Joun in the southern Chouf district near Sidon, and Maaysrah in the northern Keserwan district. As many as half a million people may have been displaced in Lebanon due to Israels bombardments, according to the foreign minister. In Beirut, thousands displaced from southern Lebanon sought refuge in schools and other facilities. Damaged vehicles are observed beside a residential building that suffered strikes on its top two floors in the Ghobeiri area of Beirut. More than 60 individuals were evacuated from the town of Alma Chaab, located near the border, following overnight strikes. At least two houses were completely destroyed, but fortunately they were empty, and there were no casualties, stated Milad Eid, a resident. Israeli authorities reported that the Galilee region of northern Israel faced heavy rocket fire from Hezbollah this morning. In the Israeli town of Safed, an assisted living facility was struck, although no injuries were reported, authorities noted. Near-daily exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border have persisted since hostilities erupted last October between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Israeli teams convened to discuss the U.S. ceasefire proposals with Lebanon and plan to continue their discussions in the coming days, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated, expressing gratitude for the U.S. efforts. Netanyahu made these remarks following Israels rejection of an allied proposal for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, reaffirming a commitment to combat Hezbollah militants until victory is achieved. Our teams met (yesterday) to deliberate the U.S. initiative and explore ways to advance our mutual goal of ensuring the safe return of individuals to their homes. We will proceed with these discussions in the days ahead, he mentioned in the statement. The Israeli airstrikes on Iran-backed Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon this week have resulted in hundreds of casualties while the militant group has responded with extensive rocket attacks. On the same day Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared that there would be no ceasefire in the north, where Israeli aircraft have been conducting the most intense bombardments against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah for decades. After Netanyahu departed for New York yesterday, his office released a statement confirming that the prime minister had ordered Israeli troops to continue their full-force operations in Lebanon. Netanyahus statement did not address the remarks made by Katz and other Israeli officials who also dismissed a ceasefire. Instead, it noted that there has been a lot of misreporting surrounding the U.S.-led ceasefire initiative. Israel aligns with the objectives of the U.S.-led initiative to facilitate the safe and secure return of people living near our northern border, the statement added. Israel values the efforts of the United States in this regard, acknowledging that U.S. involvement is crucial in promoting stability and security in the region, the statement concluded. Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu categorically was dismissed the ceasefire proposal. The United States expressed dissatisfaction with the rejection of the ceasefire by indicating that substantial effort had gone into crafting the truce proposal. We wouldnt have made that statement, nor would we have worked on this initiative if we didnt believe that our conversations with the Israelis were aligning with the goal, National Security spokesman John Kirby remarked in a statement. French President Macron later described it as a mistake for Netanyahu to decline a ceasefire, asserting that he would have to take responsibility for any regional escalation. During a meeting in Canada with Prime Minister Justin Trudeauwho also supported the ceasefireMacron pointed out that the ceasefire plan had been developed with Netanyahus input. Intolerable The joint statement addressing the ceasefire highlighted that the situation in Lebanon had become intolerable and was detrimental to both the people of Israel and Lebanon. Lebanons health ministry reported that Israeli bombardments had resulted in 92 deaths and 153 injuries in the country over the past 24 hours. Since the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in October, over 1,500 individuals have lost their lives, with Thursdays figures pushing the total number of fatalities in Israeli strikes on Lebanon in just the past week beyond 700. Approximately 118,000 individuals have been displaced by the ongoing conflict in Lebanon over the last week. According to the International Organisation for Migration, around 118,000 people have been forced from their homes due to the fighting in Lebanon in the past week. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israels strategic affairs minister in New York, emphasizing that a ceasefire would enable civilians on both sides of the border to return to their homes. Any further escalation of the conflict will only complicate that goal, spokesman Matthew Miller stated. Meanwhile, the Israeli defense ministry announced a new $8.7 billion aid package from the United States aimed at supporting ongoing military operations, demonstrating the U.S.s reluctance to condition military assistance on a ceasefire agreement. Yemen missile Israels continuous bombardments in Lebanon have sparked fears of a possible widespread regional war in the Middle East. This month, Israel has indicated a shift in focus from Gaza, where it has been engaged in conflict with Hamas since the attack on October 7, to its northern border with Lebanon. Israels military chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, has instructed troops to prepare for a potential ground offensive, according to a military statement. The Israeli military reported that it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen. Israels ongoing operations in Lebanon have heightened concerns of a comprehensive regional conflict. The head of Yemens Houthi rebels, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, stated in a televised address that his Iran-backed group would not hesitate to support Lebanon and Hezbollah. Since November, the Houthis have initiated drone and missile attacks targeting Red Sea shipping, claiming these actions express solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza conflict, which erupted after Hamass October 7 assault on Israel. Gaza key Diplomats have suggested that resolving the war in Gaza is crucial to stopping the fighting in Lebanon. However, despite significant mediation efforts from the United States, a ceasefire in Gaza remains elusive. At the UN General Assembly in New York, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud announced a new international coalition aimed at pursuing a two-state solution in Gaza. The attack by Hamas in October resulted in 1,205 fatalities, predominantly among civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official data, which includes those taken hostage and later killed. Of the 251 hostages taken by militants, 97 are still believed to be held in Gaza, with the Israeli military reporting that 33 of them are deceased. The military response from Israel has resulted in over 41,500 deaths in Gaza, most of whom are civilians, as reported by the health ministry in the Hamas-run region. The United Nations has deemed these figures credible. Nine members of the same family have been killed in an Israeli airstrike. An Israeli strike at around 3 a.m. on Friday killed nine people from the same family in the southern Lebanese border-town of Shebaa, including four children, mayor Mohammad Saab told Reuters. The strike hit the familys home, completely destroying it and causing devastation in the surrounding area. The family had been living in the area for generations and were well-known and respected in the community. The loss of so many innocent lives has left the town in shock and mourning. The Israeli military stated that the strike was in response to rocket fire from Lebanon into northern Israel, but the exact circumstances surrounding the incident are still unclear. The United Nations has called for an immediate ceasefire and an investigation into the incident. The tragic event serves as a stark reminder of the human cost of conflict and the need for a peaceful resolution to the ongoing tensions in the region. The international community must come together to work towards a lasting peace that will prevent such senseless loss of life in the future. By Emily Crawford, University of Sydney | (The Conversation) As the violence between Israel and Hezbollah has escalated dramatically in recent days, civilians have paid a heavy price. Hundreds of people in southern Lebanon have been killed and more than 1,600 wounded in Israeli airstrikes. Hezbollah, meanwhile, has fired hundreds of rockets and other munitions into Israel. More than 160,000 people have been displaced on either side of the border from the fighting, which many fear may be close to tipping into a full-scale war. One senior analyst for the International Crisis Group said theres been a very worrying shift on both sides in recent days in terms of a willingness to cause civilian casualties. In such a chaotic environment, just what exactly are both sides obligated to do under the law to prevent civilian casualties? What are both sides obligated to do as a baseline? The law of armed conflict is very straightforward on this question they must only target military objectives and military personnel. They must not target civilians. And even when launching attacks against legitimate military objectives, all parties to an armed conflict are under an obligation to, as much as possible, minimise the risk of collateral, civilian damage. If it becomes clear at any point in the planning or the execution of an attack that there is going to be disproportionate civilian damage, then the attack should be called off or appropriate warnings should be given. Warnings are complicated, though. There is no strict obligation to warn civilians in the law of conflict. Rather, there is a requirement to warn civilians if the circumstances permit. So, for instance, if its necessary to immediately attack a specific location because its the only opportunity you would have to target an insurgent leader or legitimate high-value target, theres no obligation to give prior warning. The other complication is that while the Israeli Defence Forces have been historically quite good about providing warnings through email blasts and leaflet drops, there are still physical constraints in places like Gaza and southern Lebanon. They are densely populated and quite geographically confined. So the degree to which people can actually physically flee when theyve been given a warning is debatable. How effective can a warning be if theres nowhere for them to go? Distinguishing between civilian and military targets All parties in a conflict are bound by the same obligation, which is to distinguish between civilians and the military. That said, the law of armed conflict does allow for some collateral damage which is defined as unavoidable incidental civilian casualties. The parties to a conflict need to take this into account in a proportionality assessment. This places obligations on parties to a conflict to perhaps choose a different time or method of warfare to make the attacks more specific. There are some aerial drone attacks and missile attacks that can be highly discriminate. For example, there are missiles that can be timed to only detonate inside a particular apartment, so that only the residents in that apartment are injured or killed. It does not bring down the entire building. Where you start coming into problems are bombardments of entire buildings in order to target one really high-value individual does this justify a much higher number of civilian casualties? There is an element of the IDF using this justification because Hamas and Hezbollah are non-state groups and dont engage in regular tactics. Is Hezbollah bound by the same rules? Hezbollah is absolutely bound by the same rules as states. Nearly all the rules of the law of armed conflict are customary. This means everyone is bound by the law, even if they havent been a signatory to a treaty like the Geneva Convention. This means, for example, that Hezbollah must prevent casualties among Lebanese citizens, as well as Israelis. Under the law, Hezbollah does not only have to distinguish between civilians and the military in their active attacks. They also cant attempt to immunise their military assets by placing them in dense civilian areas. And they need to do their utmost to remove civilians from areas where there are going to be military attacks. Again, part of the complication is these are very enclosed spaces. So the question becomes exactly how far away do civilians need to be? This is not just specific to Gaza, Lebanon or Israel its a question for most places that have densely built-out areas. Urban warfare is one of the really difficult areas for the law at the moment. Where to from here? The tactics being used by Hamas and Hezbollah are nothing new. Theres always been a fairly consistent disregard for the law and brutality in a lot of their activities. But if it can be proven the pager and walkie-talkie attacks on Hezbollah were carried out by the IDF, thats a new level of brutality for Israel, because thats an absolute violation of the protocol on booby traps and landmines. Israel is a party to that protocol. The laws always get broken in times of armed conflict. But this has been quite unprecedented. For legal and political reasons, there is value in actually acquitting yourself in a conflict with restraint. Parties to a conflict are still operating on the basis that eventually normal international relations have to resume. And its far better to have those international relations resume without the other side believing you capable of barbarism. Emily Crawford, Lecturer and Co-Director, Sydney Centre for International Law, University of Sydney This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. - Bonus Video added by Informed Comment: Has Israel broken international law with its attacks on Lebanon? | Al Jazeera Newsfeed The far right is not just using the rhetoric of anti-immigration. It is using the actual immigrants themselves as weapons. ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) The immigrants were arriving on childrens bicycles and sometimes even in wheelchairs. According to Norwegian law, immigrants couldnt cross the border by foot. So, in 2015, they were traveling from Russia to the far north of Norway on any conveyance they could find. It was an odd choice of a place to cross into the West. Norway and Russia share a border way up north in the Arctic Circle. The 5,500 asylum-seekers were not Russians. They came from far away to the south: Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen, along with 43 other countries. What were they doing in this cold, remote part of the world? The Norwegians were suspicious. Some of the new arrivals spoke Russian and had been living in Russia for some time. The Police Security Service (PST) had several theories. It believed that the Russians were using the immigrants as a wedge to disrupt Norwegian society by adding strain to the welfare state. Then there was the political angle. Norways far-right Progress Party, opposed to immigration from the Global South, could benefit from the crisis, disrupting the Scandinavian reputation for tolerance and complicating Norways relationship to the European Union. Given how integrated some of the migrants had been in Russian society, the PST also suspected that some of them were tasked with collecting information for Russian intelligence. The strange saga of asylum-seekers from the Middle East riding bicycles into arctic Norway is not unique. Countries and non-state actors have long used migrants and refugees as a vehicle to achieve geopolitical ends. Think of how imperial states have sent their own citizens as migrants to expand colonial reach in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Nor is it unusual within countries for immigrants to be misused in this manner. The governors of Texas and Florida packed refugees onto buses and planes bound for northern cities, also to promote discord and burden social services in an effort to undermine Democratic-controlled municipalities. Immigration is a go-to political weapon for the far right. It has used the issue to amplify the economic anxieties of the base (theyve coming to take our jobs), the cultural fears of majority-white populations (theyre coming to replace us), and the specific political worries of conservatives (theyre going to bankrupt our welfare state). The difference today is that the far right is not just using the rhetoric of anti-immigration. It is using the actual immigrants themselves as weapons. The Russian Game For Vladimir Putin, its a win-win stratagem to support a surge of migration into Europe. From his point of view, waves of immigrants challenge the cohesiveness of the European Uniongenerating endless arguments among member states about how to address the problemand boost support for his far-right political allies like the National Assembly in France and the Alternative fur Deutschland in Germany. Putin launched his war against Ukraine to seize control of his neighbor, not with the primary goal of sending Ukrainians streaming out of the country. But the exodus has served Putins purposes by once again ripping the bandage off the immigration question in the EU and challenging Europes commitment to supporting Kyiv. It has had the side benefit of triggering the exit of many Russians from Russia, depleting the ranks of the opposition. The country that has hosted the most Ukrainians is Germany. Anger over the states generous treatment of these refugees was a major factor in the far rights electoral victory in Thuringia and its second-place finishes in Saxony and Brandenburg. A bonus for Putin is that the left partyBundnis Sahra Wagenknechthas adopted the same anti-immigrant, anti-Ukraine positions, which propelled it to unexpectedly strong results in those elections as well. Both the far right and this bogus left have adopted effectively pro-Russian positions around support for an immediate ceasefire in the war that locks in Russias territorial gains. Yearning to Breathe Free, Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, Clip2Comic, 2024 Putin also acts through allied intermediaries. Belarus, for instance, has used a similar strategy against neighboring Poland. In 2021, the Belarusian government attracted migrants to Minsk with promises that they could get into Europe. It then helped ferry those immigrants to the frontier where border guards reportedly cut through fences to allow them into Poland. For years, Poland has been a home for activists trying to get rid of Aleksandr Lukashenko. The dictator has struck back not with bombs and missiles but with desperate refugees. This year the problem reemerged as attempted border crossings from Belarus jumped from a negligible number to nearly 400 a day. A knifing of a Polish border guard, who died of his injuries, prompted Poland to establish a buffer zone with various walls and barriers. Polands fortification of the border achieves another Lukashenko goal: cutting Belarus off from Europe. Exiled Belarusian opposition leader, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, has appealed to Warsaw: Initiatives to limit border traffic due to the regimes ongoing provocations should target the dictator, not the people. We cannot abandon Belarusians to their fate behind a new iron curtain. Out of Latin America Daniel Ortega doesnt fit the usual definition of a far-right leader. After all, Ortega was a leader of the leftist Sandinistas who overthrew a Nicaraguan dictator allied with the United States. But when Ortega won reelection in 2006, he charted a different political path. He cracked down any and all opposition, including many leftists and former Sandinistas. He aligned himself with the Catholic Church and supported a complete ban on abortion. He has enriched himself and his family through corrupt practices. But he remains consistent in one respect: he still deeply dislikes the United States. Nicaragua is suffering under U.S. sanctions, and Ortega has come up with a novel way of wreaking revenge. Ortegas government has loosened restrictions so that around 200,000 people from a dozen countriesincluding Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Libya, India, and Uzbekistancan come to Nicaragua and pay a fee of between $150 and $200 at the airport to enter the country. These mostly non-tourists who have taken advantage of the liberal visa regime do not stay for long in Nicaragua, itself a poor country. For another fee, travel agencies offer to bring them to the United States. Including all the Nicaraguans fleeing political repression or economic hardship, Ortega is responsible for an estimated 10 percent of the immigrant flow at the U.S.-Mexico border at peak times. Like Putin, a close ally, Ortega wants to sow discord in the United States or, at least, force negotiations that could reduce sanctions against him and his family. As in Cuba and Venezuela, the outflow of disgruntled citizens also serves as a way of reducing the likelihood of opposition movements mobilizing enough support to force a change in government. Why Anti-Immigrant? Autocrats and right-wing ideologues hate diversity. They believe in political uniformity, preferably one-man rule. They also favor ethnic and/or religious homogeneity. They hold to anti-immigrant views even though they spell economic suicide for their countries. Their birthrates falling, European countries need immigrants to survive. The same holds true for the United States and most of Asia. But that hasnt stopped these political forces from building walls, erecting bureaucratic obstacles, and even expelling people. Autocratic regimes have used expulsions to get rid of demonized minorities and burden troublesome neighbors with the influx of immigrants. The Myanmar military, for instance, planned a campaign of intimidation and violence against the Rohingya minority that sent 800,000 desperate people over the border into Bangladesh. The Israeli government has supported an often-violent settler movement that has expelled Palestinians from their land in the West Bank. Turkey invaded Syria in 2019 and sought to clear Kurds from neighboring territory to disrupt cross-border cooperation with Kurds in Turkey. The use of immigrant flows as a weapon is also a form of anti-globalization. The West, as Putin and his allies see it, are trying to transform their conservative societies by way of LGBTQ organizing, feminist and pro-choice messaging in movies and films, and pro-democracy campaigns that threaten the ruling parties. Although Putin and his allies criticize the West and Anglo Saxons for promoting these strategies, the far-right in the West also embraces this message. But heres the twistthe far right argues that these emancipatory movements are in fact anti-Western for undermining Western values of family and nation. Immigrants cannot be blamed for being confused. They are accused of being vectors of globalization, and yet the architects of globalization have never embraced the free movement of people across borders. Syrians desperate to leave a country at war, Rohingya forced out by a genocidal military, Nicaraguans escaping political repression: these are all the pawns in a chess game that Vladimir Putin, his global allies, and the far right are playing against liberal elites and globalizers. In reality, as the weaponization of immigrants demonstrates, Putin and friends are fighting a war against international law and human dignity. Via Foreign Policy in Focus VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Latin Metals Inc. (Latin Metals or the Company) - (TSXV: LMS) (OTCQB: LMSQF) announces that it has closed its previously announced non-brokered private placement (the Financing) for aggregate gross proceeds of $2,000,000 through the issuance of 25,000,000 units (each a Unit) at a subscription price of $0.08 per Unit. Each Unit consists of one common share in the capital of Latin Metals (each, a Share) and one half of one common share purchase warrant, with each whole warrant entitling the holder thereof to purchase one Share at a price of $0.15 per Share for a period of 24 months from the closing of the Financing. In connection with the closing of the Financing, the Company paid finders fees on a portion of the Financing to Leede Financial Inc. consisting of a $70,350 cash commission and 879,375 finders warrants, each finders warrant entitling the holder thereof to purchase one Share at a price of $0.08 per Share for a period of 12 months from the closing of the Financing. All securities issued by the Company pursuant to the Financing are subject to a hold period of four months and one day in Canada. Certain officers, directors and a control person of the Company (collectively, the Related Parties) participated in the Financing pursuant to the terms described above, purchasing in aggregate 10,225,000 Units. These constitute related party transactions pursuant to Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions (MI 61-101). The Company relied on Sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101 for an exemption from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements, respectively, as at the closing of the Financing, neither the fair market value of the Units issued in connection with the Financing, nor the fair market value of the consideration received by the Company for same, insofar as it involved the Related Parties, exceeded 25% of the Companys market capitalization. The proceeds from the Financing are intended to be used for mineral exploration, project generation, project acquisition, repayment of loans, and for general working capital. The closing of the Financing is subject to receipt of TSX Venture Exchange final approval. About Latin Metals Latin Metals is a mineral exploration company acquiring a diversified portfolio of assets in South America. The Company operates with a Prospect Generator model focusing on the acquisition of prospective exploration properties at minimum cost, completing initial evaluation through cost-effective exploration to establish drill targets, and ultimately securing joint venture partners to fund drilling and advanced exploration. Shareholders gain exposure to the upside of a significant discovery without the dilution associated with funding the highest-risk drill-based exploration. On Behalf of the Board of Directors of LATIN METALS INC. Keith Henderson President & CEO For further details on the Company readers are referred to the Companys web site (www.latin-metals.com) and its Canadian regulatory filings on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. For further information, please contact: Keith Henderson Suite 890 999 West Hastings Street Vancouver, BC, V6C 2W2 Phone: 604-638-3456 E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 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 news release. This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, forward-looking statements) within the meaning of applicable Canadian and U.S. securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, including, without limitation, the use of proceeds from the Financing the anticipated business plans and timing of future activities 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. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: believes, expects, anticipates, intends, estimates, plans, may, should, would, will, potential, scheduled or variations of such words and phrases and similar expressions, which, by their nature, refer to future events or results that may, could, would, might or will occur or be taken or achieved. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which 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. Such risks and other factors include, among others, statements as to the anticipated business plans and timing of future activities of the Company, the ability of the Company to obtain sufficient financing to fund its business activities and plans, delays in obtaining governmental and regulatory approvals (including of the TSX Venture Exchange for the Financing), permits or financing, changes in laws, regulations and policies affecting mining operations, currency fluctuations, title disputes or claims, environmental issues and liabilities, risks relating to epidemics or pandemics such as COVID19, including the impact of COVID19 on the Companys business, financial condition and results of operations, changes in laws, regulations and policies affecting mining operations, title disputes, the inability of the Company to obtain any necessary permits, consents, approvals or authorizations, the timing and possible outcome of any pending litigation, environmental issues and liabilities, and risks related to joint venture operations, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Companys continuous disclosure documents. All of the Companys Canadian public disclosure filings may be accessed via www.sedarplus.ca and readers are urged to review these materials. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements in this news release or incorporated by reference herein, except as otherwise required by law. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2024) - Waraba Gold Limited (CSE: WBGD) (FSE: ZE0) (OTC Pink: WARAF) (the "Company" or "Waraba") is pleased to announce the continuation of its drilling program at the Fokolore Gold Project in western Mali, West Africa and the transition to a diamond core drilling program from reverse circulation ("RC") drilling. The initial results of the ongoing Phase 1 drilling campaign, which were announced on August 7, 2024, have provided significant geological and structural insights into the mineralized zones at the Fokolore Project. The Company is committed to unlocking the full potential of the Fokolore Project. The diamond core drilling technique to be employed in the next part of the Phase 1 drilling campaign allows for the recovery of more detailed geological information, which is crucial for understanding the mineralization and structural controls within the deposit. Highlights: Transition to diamond core drilling following initial RC drilling marks a key milestone in Waraba's exploration strategy, aimed at systematically defining the extent and grade of gold mineralization. Diamond core drilling targeting both known zones and exploring new areas within the Fokolore Project will provide higher-quality samples and enable a more comprehensive analysis of the mineralized zones, in order to expand Waraba's understanding of the mineralized system. Carl Esprey, CEO of Waraba Gold, commented: "We are excited to advance our exploration efforts at Fokolore with the commencement of diamond core drilling. The data gathered from this work will enhance our geological model and guide us toward unlocking the project's full value. This step reaffirms our commitment to advancing Fokolore as a significant gold project in Mali." About Waraba Gold Limited The Company is a resource exploration company that is acquiring and exploring mineral properties. The Company is a reporting issuer in the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta. The Company's common shares trade on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the trading symbol "WBGD" and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the trading symbol "ZE0". For more information about the Company, please refer to the Company's profile available on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca). Forward-Looking Information and Cautionary Statements Certain information in this news release constitutes forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. Any statements that are contained in this news release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "may", "should", "anticipate", "expect", "potential", "believe", "intend" or the negative of these terms and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements in this news release include statements relating to: the Company's plans and scope with respect to its drilling campaign, including, details of the Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3, and the stated timelines thereof; the Company's continued exploratory work of the Fokolore project; and the Company's anticipation of providing its shareholders with further updates. Forward-looking information in this press release are based on certain assumptions and expected future events, namely: the Company's ability to carry out its plans with respect to its drilling campaign under the stated scope and timelines; the Company's ability to continue its exploratory work of the Fokolore project; and the Company's ability to provide its shareholders with further updates. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements, including but not limited to: the Company's inability to carry out its plans with respect to its drilling campaign under the stated scope and timelines; the Company's inability to continued its exploratory work of the Fokolore project; and the Company's inability to provide its shareholders with further updates. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list is not exhaustive. Readers are further cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions, or expectations upon which they are placed will occur. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement and reflect the Company's expectations as of the date hereof and are subject to change thereafter. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, estimates or opinions, future events or results or otherwise or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and such forward- looking information, except as required by applicable law. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2024) - Sanu Gold Corporation (CSE: SANU) (OTCQB: SNGCF) ("Sanu Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the closing of the Company's C$5,000,000 non-brokered private placement (the "Placement") originally announced on September 6, 2024. The Company has issued 100,000,000 common shares (each, a "Common Share") at a price of C$0.05 per Common Share. Two new strategic investors have made lead subscriptions to the Placement: AngloGold Ashanti plc ("AngloGold Ashanti") participated for 33,400,000 Common Shares in the Placement for aggregate gross proceeds of C$1,670,000. AngloGold Ashanti's strategic investment represents an approximate 14% ownership in the Company. Capital DI Limited, the investment subsidiary of Capital Limited ("Capital"), participated for 24,000,000 Common Shares in the Placement for aggregate gross proceeds of C$1,200,000. Capital's strategic investment represents an approximate 10% ownership in the Company. "We are grateful to be welcoming two large, new Strategic Investors into Sanu Gold which highlights the prospectivity and high-quality nature of the Company's assets in Guinea, West Africa. AngloGold Ashanti plc, a top-tier global gold miner, has been operating its Siguiri mine in Guinea for the last 25 years, producing 221,000 oz of gold in 2023. Capital is a rapidly expanding international drilling and mining services provider, with deep operational roots in West Africa and Guinea. Capital is supporting the mining industry in Guinea with investments, drilling and laboratory services. We look forward to working with both AngloGold Ashanti plc and Capital on unlocking some potential major discoveries on both the Diguifara and Daina permits with up to 10,000m drilling," commented Martin Pawlitschek, President and CEO of Sanu Gold. The net proceeds of the Placement will be used to advance exploration, including ground geophysics and a 10,000m drilling program on the Company's Diguifara and Daina Gold Exploration Permits in Guinea, West Africa, the Company's other exploration permits in Guinea, West Africa and for general working capital purposes. The Placement is subject to the Company's filing requirements with the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE"). All securities issued pursuant to the Placement are subject to a four-month hold period under applicable Canadian securities laws and will be subject to a resale restriction expiring four months and one day from the closing date. In connection with the closing of the Placement, the Company paid aggregate total finders' fees of $177,450 to the following finders: Eventus Capital Corp. and Euroz Hartleys Limited. In connection with the closing of AngloGold Ashanti's strategic investment, the Company has entered into an investor rights agreement (with the "Investor", as defined below), whereby, subject to certain conditions, including time and ownership thresholds, AngloGold Ashanti will have certain rights, including the right to participate in future equity issuances to maintain its ownership in the Company, participation and top up rights, a right of first refusal on certain asset-level transactions for Diguifara, and the formation of a technical advisory committee focused on the Diguifara project. Two directors and officers of the Company ("Related Parties") acquired an aggregate of 3,500,000 Common Shares under the Placement for a total purchase price of $175,000. This participation by Related Parties of the Company constitutes a "related party transaction" as defined under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). However, the Placement will be exempt from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 as neither the fair market value of any Common Shares issued to or the consideration paid by such Related Parties exceeds 25% of the Company's market capitalization. Early Warning Disclosure As disclosed above, AngloGold Ashanti Holdings plc (the "Investor") has acquired 33,400,000 Common Shares pursuant to a subscription agreement dated September 26, 2024. The Investor is a wholly owned direct subsidiary of AngloGold Ashanti. Immediately prior to the Placement, the Investor did not have beneficial ownership of any securities of the Company. Immediately after the Placement, the Investor acquired beneficial ownership of 33,400,000 Common Shares, representing approximately 14% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares on a non-diluted basis. The Investor acquired Common Shares in the Placement for investment purposes and intends to review its investment in the Company on a continuing basis. Depending upon a number of factors including market and other conditions, the Investor may from time to time increase or decrease its beneficial ownership, control, direction or economic exposure over securities of the Company. The Company is a corporation existing under the laws of British Columbia with its head office at 918-1030 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC V6E 1Y3. An early warning report will be electronically filed with the applicable securities commission in each jurisdiction where the Company is reporting and will be available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. For further information or to obtain a copy of the early warning report, please contact: Press Office Andrea Maxey +61 08 9435 4603 / +61 400 072 199 Investor Relations Andrea Maxey: +61 08 9435 4603 / +61 400 072 199 Yatish Chowthee: +27 11 637 6273 / +27 78 364 2080 AngloGold Ashanti Holdings plc Communications House, South Street, Staines-Upon-Thames Surrey, TW18 4PR United Kingdom This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to sell any securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. About Sanu Gold Located within the Siguiri Basin, a world class gold district that is host to several operating mines and major new discoveries, Sanu Gold is exploring three high quality gold exploration permits in Guinea, West Africa. The Company has defined multi-kilometer long gold-bearing structures on each of the gold exploration permits, with multiple high-value drill targets and is targeting multi-million ounce gold discoveries. Sanu is operated by a highly experienced team, with successful records of discovery, resource development and mine permitting. Martin Pawlitschek President & CEO, Sanu Gold Corp. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements" with respect to the Company within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential", "indicates", "opportunity", "possible" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Forward-looking statements in this news release includes, but is not limited to, the anticipated timing for completion of various exploration or drilling programs and the use of proceeds from the Placement. Although Sanu Gold believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance, are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results or realities may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Such material risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the Company's plans for exploration on its properties and ability to execute on plans, ability to raise sufficient capital to fund its obligations under its property agreements going forward, ability to maintain its material property agreements, mineral tenures and concessions in good standing, to explore and develop its projects; changes in economic conditions or financial markets; the inherent hazards associated with mineral exploration and mining operations, future prices of gold and other metals, changes in general economic conditions and local risks in the jurisdiction (Guinea) in which it operates, accuracy of mineral resource and reserve estimates, the potential for new discoveries, the ability of the Company to obtain the necessary permits and consents required to explore, drill and develop the projects and if obtained, to obtain such permits and consents in a timely fashion relative to the Company's plans and business objectives for the projects; the general ability of the Company to monetize its mineral resources; changes in environmental and other laws or regulations that could have an impact on the Company's operations, compliance with environmental laws and regulations, dependence on key management personnel; general competition in the mining industry availability of capital and financing; general economic, market or business conditions, regulatory changes; timeliness of regulatory approvals as well as those factors discussed in the Company's public disclosure record. Forward-looking statements are based on the reasonable beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. PERTH, Western Australia, Sept. 27, 2024 /CNW/ - (ASX: WGX) (TSX: WGX) (OTCQX: WGXRF) (Westgold or the Company) advises that it has filed a new National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure of Mineral Projects (NI 43-101) compliant technical report for its Meekatharra Gold Operations in the Murchison Goldfields in Western Australia. The technical report titled "NI 43-101 Technical Report, Meekatharra Gold Operations, Muchison Goldfields, Western Australia" dated 27 September 2024, with an effective date of 30 June 2024 (the Technical Report) supports the news release of the Company dated 14 August 2024 (updated on 16 August 2024), titled "Westgold Declares Maiden South Junction Ore Reserve" (the Release). Under NI 43-101, issuers must file a technical report within 45 days of the date of initial disclosure of, among other things, a new or materially changed Mineral Resource Estimate. Copies of the Technical Report and the Release are available under the Company's profile on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca). There are no material differences between the Technical Report and the information disclosed in the Release. Technical Report and Qualified Persons The Technical Report has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of NI 43-101 by Leigh Devlin and Jake Russell, each of whom are Qualified Persons (as defined under NI 43-101). As both Mr. Devlin and Mr. Russell are employees of the Company, neither is independent for purposes of NI 43-101. This announcement is authorised for release by the Board of Directors. Forward-Looking Information These materials prepared by Westgold include forward looking statements. Often, but not always, forward looking statements can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as "may", "will", "expect", "intend", "believe", "forecast", "predict", "plan", "estimate", "anticipate", "continue", and "guidance", or other similar words and may include, without limitation, statements regarding plans, strategies and objectives of management, anticipated production or construction commencement dates and expected costs or production outputs. Forward-looking statements inherently involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company's actual results, performance and achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements. Relevant factors may include, but are not limited to, changes in commodity prices, foreign exchange fluctuations and general economic conditions, increased costs and demand for production inputs, the speculative nature of exploration and project development, including the risks of obtaining necessary licenses and permits and diminishing quantities or grades of reserves, political and social risks, changes to the regulatory framework within which the Company operates or may in the future operate, environmental conditions including extreme weather conditions, recruitment and retention of personnel, industrial relations issues and litigation. Forward looking statements are based on the Company and its management's good faith assumptions relating to the financial, market, regulatory and other relevant environments that will exist and affect the Company's business and operations in the future. The Company does not give any assurance that the assumptions on which forward looking statements are based will prove to be correct, or that the Company's business or operations will not be affected in any material manner by these or other factors not foreseen or foreseeable by the Company or management or beyond the Company's control. Although the Company attempts, and has attempted, to identify factors that would cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those disclosed in forward looking statements, there may be other factors that could cause actual results, performance, achievements or events not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended, and many events are beyond the reasonable control of the Company. In addition, the Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of the factors outlined in the "Risk Factors" section of the Company's continuous disclosure filings available on SEDAR+ or the ASX, including, in the Company's current annual report, half year report or most recent management discussion and analysis. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in these materials speak only at the date of issue. Subject to any continuing obligations under applicable law or any relevant stock exchange listing rules, in providing this information the Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any of the forward-looking statements or to advise of any change in events, conditions or circumstances. Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - August 27, 2024) - The Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE" or "the Exchange") today welcomed the listing of EagleOne Metals Corporation (CSE: EAGL) ("EagleOne" or the "Company"). The Vancouver-based Company's common shares have been approved for listing on the... Read More Former Gambian military fugitive Bora Colley turned up on August 9 around midnight at the Yundum Barracks, the countrys biggest military encampment over an hours drive from the Gambian capital Banjul, where he was immediately arrested and detained. Colley left with Yahya Jammeh, former president of The Gambia who has been in exile in Equatorial Guinea since 2017. After the fall of Jammeh, some soldiers followed him whilst another faction fled to Guinea Bissau. Colley was part of the latter, according to our sources in Foni and to media reports. A day after Jammeh left, there was no trace of Colley or of other notorious Junglers, including Nuha Badjie, Sanna Manjang, Nfansu Nyabally, Modou Jarju alias Rambo, Saul Sambou, and Solo Bojang. Over the years, Colley and some others got closer to the Gambian territory. They are said to have moved into the southern Senegalese region of Casamance, where they have been living the past years. The Foni region, in the West Coast Region of Gambia from which most of them hail, borders Casamance. According to our sources there, the reason many of the fugitives chose this location is because of the protection they received from the people of Casamance. Justice Info cannot confirm whether these fugitives have ever crossed into The Gambia, but our sources in Foni say they do have access to their wives. Though Colley may have only turned himself in now, his location may have been an open secret to many people residing in the Foni region. Security concerns After Colley turned himself over to the authorities, The Gambian government has been bashed for its security failures, namely by human rights activist Madi Jobarteh. Colley has been mentioned at the Gambias truth commission and in the trial of Gambian Bai Lowe in Germany, for his involvement in killings and enforced disappearances of nine Mile 2 death row inmates in 2012, the killing of Intelligence chief Daba Marenah and others, tortures of persons interrogated before a panel for their alleged participation in a foiled coup in March 2006, and the death of journalist Deyda Hydara in 2004. He is on the list of wanted persons Gambian authorities issued in 2018. The question on everyones lips is how Colley, a high-profile alleged perpetrator, was able to enter The Gambia unnoticed. According to Jobarteh, his undetected entry exposes the security fragility of the country. This goes directly to the political and security leadership of the country in ensuring effective security sector reforms which should have produced a more efficient and professional security apparatus. The fact that such a dangerous man could enter the country and then spend days inside the country unnoticed requires an urgent review of the security system for drastic changes to take place. This incident clearly demonstrates that the much talked about security sector reforms are not a success, he told Justice Info. Why return now? Our national security is solid, and then the fact that he came into the country is not due to lack of vigilance. The border is very porous. We have about 900 kilometers, and for most of it there is no security presence. So, he was in his house and then when he knew that very soon the search would get him, he was forced to surrender himself, Chief of Defense Staff Lieutenant General Mamat Cham said at a government event last month attended by Justice Info. You can run but you cannot hide. You can use the port of borders to enter but I think what needs to be clear is that when he entered, the State was closing in on him through surveillance, and he knew that he had to hand himself in, Minister of Information Ismaila Ceesay also remarked. Jobarteh added: But what makes the issue also more of a national security concern is that Colley was a key member of the death squad of Jammeh. Hence the question is, why did he decide to return to the country now? What are his plans? Is Jammeh involved in this decision and for what objective? The military says they are investigating him, and I hope they will carry out a thorough and impartial investigation and be transparent enough to share the report with the public. Detained without charge Since his surrender on August 9, Colley has not been notified of the criminal charges against him. The military has not revealed much regarding its plans, though they have set up a joint panel that consists of the Gambia Armed Forces, The State Intelligence Services, The Gambia Police Force and the Ministry of Justice. This panel is tasked with looking into the circumstances around his return. We welcome the arrest of a former suspected member of a death squad on August 9, a step towards accountability for the crimes committed under the former president Yahya Jammeh and justice for the victims, said Amnesty Internationals West and Central Africa office. We call on the government of Gambia to respect the right to a fair trial without recourse to the death penalty, it added. But the risk seems to be rather that he fails to face justice in his own country. In December 2021 another Jungler, General Saul Badjie, to whom Colley was answerable along with other Junglers including some returned from Equatorial Guinea where they were with former president Jammeh. But they were detained at the Mile 2 Prison without charge, leading to a High Court Judge ordering their release in February 2022. Colley is a deserter from the armed forces, so he is still accountable to his command for what he has done, said the Chief of Defense Staff at an August 16 Ministerial Town Hall meeting in presence of the Ministry of Defence. We want to use this forum also to call upon the other dissidents that are hiding in the woods and maybe living a very pitiful life. Let them return and then subject themselves to whatever charges or allegations are made against them. The Gambia is a rule of law country. Nobodys life will be put in jeopardy, but you will have to answer to the law. And for the citizens, we are in full control of security. Whether General Colley or anybody else comes in, it should pose no concern for them. Rwandan-backed M23 rebels and the Rwandan army have indiscriminately shelled densely populated areas of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), including refugee camps, since January, NGO Human Rights Watch said on Thursday. It said the DRC army and its allies, which are fighting M23 and its Rwandan military backers, had increased the danger to civilians by opening fire inside refugee camps and assaulting civilians. Both sides had "killed and raped camp residents, interfered with aid delivery and committed other abuses", the rights group said, noting that many of the victims were women and children. It stressed that the laws of war "prohibit deliberate or indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian objects", adding: "A state that knowingly provides weapons to abusive armed groups may be complicit in war crimes." Since launching an offensive in late 2021, M23, a largely Tutsi militia, has seized large swathes of territory in the eastern DRC -- a mineral-rich region housing a string of rival rebel groups that has been plagued by internal and cross-border violence for the past three decades. The resurgence of M23 has triggered a humanitarian disaster, particularly in the eastern province of North Kivu. Over half a million people have fled to camps surrounding the regional capital, Goma, "pushing the total number of displaced people in North Kivu to about 2.4 million", HRW said. "The Rwandan army and the M23 armed group have throughout 2024 indiscriminately shelled displacement camps and other densely populated areas near Goma," the HRW office in Kenya said. The rights group said it had "documented five apparently unlawful attacks by Rwandan forces and the M23 since January 2024, in which artillery or rocket fire struck displacement camps or populated areas near Goma". - Foreign interference - HRW said M23 fighters had raped women crossing its front line with the DRC army in search of food. Congolese soldiers and a coalition of militia known as "Wazalendo" ("patriots" in Swahili) had also committed rape and had "opened fire inside displacement camps, killing and wounding civilians". In August, medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said more than one in 10 young women in camps in and around Goma had reported being raped between November 2023 and April 2024, HRW said. Fighting near Goma and the camps had affected delivery of humanitarian aid and created food shortages in the city, it continued. M23 is backed by Kigali which believes the presence in eastern DRC of a Rwandan Hutu extremist group, the FDLR, constitutes a threat to Rwanda's borders, according to reports released in August by the Ebuteli institute in the DRC and New York-based Congo Research Group. On Wednesday, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi asked the United Nations General Assembly to impose targeted sanctions on Rwanda. The DRC government, France and the United States have all accused Rwanda of backing M23. The UN Security Council has so far only condemned "foreign" entities for providing M23 with military support. Manuel Vazquez Arellano counts himself lucky to have survived the mass disappearance of 43 Mexican students a decade ago. Now a lawmaker, he says he is determined to uncover the truth about what happened. "Even if I were a priest, I would still be talking about the missing 43," the former student leader, a member of congress with the ruling left-wing Morena party, told AFP ahead of the 10th anniversary Thursday of the tragedy. Now 36, Vazquez Arellano said that when he was invited to become a federal legislator in 2021, he accepted on the condition "that I could say anything" about the case, which drew international condemnation. On the night of September 26-27, 2014, Vazquez Arellano, also known as Omar Garcia, was in Iguala at the scene of the disappearance of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college in the southern state of Guerrero. He said he arrived after his classmates vanished. "When the authorities didn't come, we called the media," he said. "When they arrived, we were shot at. Everyone ran." The students -- from a college whose members have a history of political activism -- wanted to commandeer buses to go to Mexico City and participate in the annual commemorations of the student massacre of October 2, 1968. The college, which is free, is the only option for many students from poor families from the surrounding countryside. It has always been considered by the authorities as a hotbed of "guerrillas," according to Vazquez Arellano, who has been accused by some relatives of the missing of being partly responsible because he knew the activities were risky. "We don't want to have anything to do with him anymore. We just want him to stop talking about the missing people," Mario Cesar Gonzalez Contreras, the father of one of the 43, told AFP. - 'State crime' - The case has become emblematic of a missing persons crisis that has seen more than 100,000 people disappear in a spiral of drug-related violence in Mexico. So far, the remains of only three of the missing students have been identified through genetic testing of bone fragments. Outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador created a commission after taking office in 2018 tasked with establishing the truth about the mass disappearance. In 2022, the commission branded it a "state crime" and said the military shared responsibility, either directly or through negligence. Investigators suspect that the students were abducted by drug traffickers in collusion with corrupt police, although exactly what happened to them is unclear. The so-called "historical truth" -- an official version of the case presented in 2015 under then president Enrique Pena Nieto -- was widely rejected, notably the theory that the remains were incinerated at a garbage dump. One theory the commission put forward was that cartel members targeted the students because they had unknowingly taken a bus with drugs hidden inside. Vazquez Arellano believes that Lopez Obrador had "the political will" to uncover the truth and credited him with making progress during his six-year term, which will end next week. "But until we really know what happened that night and where the students are, it won't be enough," he added. Vazquez Arellano deplored "inertia" and an approach within state institutions that favored "impunity rather than justice." The lawmaker, who was re-elected in June, has his sights set on Omar Garcia Harfuch, a former senior police officer who has been tapped to be security minister under president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, who will take office on October 1. "You know what happened on the night of September 26 in Iguala," Vazquez Arellano said in a video message last October. "You knew how the historical truth was constructed." Garcia Harfuch, a former police coordinator in Guerrero who went on to be Mexico City's security chief under ex-mayor Sheinbaum, has denied having participated in meetings that fabricated the "historical truth". Former attorney general Jesus Murillo Karam, the alleged architect of that version of events, was arrested in 2022 on charges of forced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice. The people responsible "for all these deceptions and manipulations" must be held to account, said Vazquez Arellano. Air strikes and shelling rocked Khartoum on Thursday as the army attacked paramilitary positions across the Sudanese capital, witnesses and a military source told AFP. The clashes began at dawn, several residents reported, in what appeared to be the army's first major offensive in months to regain parts of the capital controlled by the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. It comes the same day Sudan's de facto leader, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, addressed the UN General Assembly in New York. On the eve of his address, UN chief Antonio Guterres voiced concern to Burhan "about the escalation of the conflict in the Sudan", the United Nations said. Burhan called in his address for the "rebel militia to be designated as a terrorist group" and accused the RSF of obstructing peace efforts. On the ground, Sudanese army forces were "waging fierce fighting against the rebel militia inside Khartoum", a source in the military told AFP, referring to the RSF. The source, requesting anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media, said army forces had crossed three key bridges over the Nile -- which had separated parts of the capital held by the army from those under RSF control. - 'Political cover' - Since April 2023, when war broke out between Burhan's Sudanese Armed Forces and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, the paramilitaries had largely pushed the army out of Khartoum. In its last major offensive in February, the army regained much of Omdurman, the capital's twin city across the Nile and part of greater Khartoum. The government loyal to the army is based in Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast, where the army has retained control. The RSF meanwhile has taken control of nearly all of the vast western region of Darfur, rampaged through the agricultural heartland of central Sudan and pushed into the army-controlled southeast. In his address at the UN, Burhan accused "countries in the region" of providing the RSF with "financial support, mercenaries and political cover". The army chief did not name the countries, but his government has repeatedly accused the United Arab Emirates of funnelling arms to the paramilitaries from neighbouring Chad in violation of the arms embargo on Darfur. United Nations experts last year found the accusations "credible", and diplomats say the United States has in private pressed the UAE over its support to the RSF. - 'Intense' shelling - In Omdurman, a witness said the sound of bombs, which had "jolted them from sleep" at dawn, continued through the day. Several residents of Omdurman reported "intense artillery shelling" falling on residential buildings while military warplanes flew overhead. "In our neighbourhood alone, three people have been killed today," one Omdurman resident told AFP, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisal. Amid an effective communications blackout and a crippled healthcare system, it was not possible to verify any casualty toll. Since the war began, much of its worst fighting has been in densely populated areas and both sides have been accused of war crimes, including indiscriminately bombing residential areas. The war has already killed tens of thousands of people, with the World Health Organization saying at least 20,000 people have been killed, but some estimates of up to 150,000. It has also created the world's largest displacement crisis, the UN says. More than 10 million people -- around a fifth of Sudan's population -- have been forced from their homes, according to UN figures. Famine has been declared in Zamzam refugee camp in Darfur near the city of El-Fasher, where the RSF last weekend launched a large-scale offensive after months of siege. El-Fasher is the only one of five state capitals in Darfur not yet in RSF hands. In his meeting with Burhan, Guterres said the war "risks a regional spillover," the UN said. "People in Sudan have endured 17 months of hell, and the suffering continues to grow," top UN relief official Joyce Msuya said separately. The Zurich Film Festival (ZFF) said on Thursday it had dropped a public screening of the controversial documentary "Russians at War" from its programme, citing "safety reasons". "Russians at War" sparked outrage when it was first shown at the Venice film festival earlier this month, with some accusing the film of towing the Kremlin line and supporting Moscow's invasion. In mid-September Ukraine added its Russian-Canadian director Anastasia Trofimova to a national security blacklist for spreading "Russian propaganda" about Moscow's invasion. "In view of the current situation" Trofimova will no longer make an appearance at the Swiss festival, the ZFF confirmed on X. It will however remain in competition, the statement added. The festival "has decided not to screen the Canadian French documentary film RUSSIANS AT WAR publicly, due to safety reasons", it said on the social network. "For the ZFF, the safety of its audience, guests, partners as well as the staff is the top priority," it added. The Toronto film festival likewise invoked security issues to justify removing the documentary from its programme. ZFF director Christian Jungen had insisted as recently as last Thursday that the film screening would go ahead. Yet he acknowledged that the director was "not unproblematic", especially given her work for state-owned television channel Russia Today. The film gives voice to Russian soldiers taking part in the Kremlin's war with its pro-Western neighbour. When it was on the Swiss festival's programme, the documentary was described as portraying "Russian frontline soldiers in Ukraine (dealing) with the fragility of democracy". But "Russians at War" was described by a Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman as "a propaganda film that whitewashes war crimes, not a documentary". Thursday, the ministry posted on X that "we appreciate the Zurich Film Festival's decision to cancel public screenings" of the film but added that "we urge to completely remove the 'Russians at War' film from the festival's competition". vog/sbk/gv X Thousands of people including relatives of 43 students presumed to have been massacred marched through Mexico City on Thursday for an emotionally charged protest marking the 10th anniversary of the tragedy. The case, one of the violence-plagued country's worst human rights atrocities, has become emblematic of a missing persons crisis that has seen more than 100,000 people disappear. Days before Claudia Sheinbaum takes oath as Mexico's first woman president on October 1, relatives, students and other protesters took to the streets of the capital shouting their slogan: "Alive they took them! Alive we want them!" Marisol Luna Torres, 33, whose brother Jose Luis was 18 when he disappeared, said she felt "sadness, pain, anger... because of not knowing anything, the wound remains open." The crowd headed for Mexico City's main square in front of the presidential palace carrying mock coffins, images of the 43 students and banners reading "Punish the guilty" and "It was the state." A hard core of masked demonstrators vandalized buildings along the route, lighting fires, smashing windows and spray-painting walls. The students' disappearance on the night of September 26, 2014, drew international condemnation and shocked a nation where criminal violence has claimed more than 450,000 lives since 2006. So far, the remains of only three of the missing students from the Ayotzinapa rural teacher training college in the southern state of Guerrero have been found and identified. The families hold the ruling left-wing party of outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador -- a close ally of Sheinbaum -- responsible for the failure to locate the remainder. "We believe this president lied to us. This president deceived us," Maria Elena Guerrero, the mother of one of the missing, said at one of a series of events marking the anniversary. Hilda Hernandez, whose son also disappeared, said the authorities are "trying to wear down the parents," hoping they forget. "But despite every attempt to divide and discredit, without rest or reprieve the parents continue to demand truth, justice and accountability," she said. - President defends record - Lopez Obrador defended his record in a letter sent to parents this week that underscored the prosecution of 151 people -- including 16 military personnel -- and the imprisonment of 120 people, as well as searches of hundreds of sites. "There is no evidence that the army participated in the disappearance of the young people," Lopez Obrador said at a news conference Wednesday, adding that military commanders had cooperated in the investigation. The students from the Ayotzinapa college -- whose members have a history of political activism -- had commandeered buses to travel to a demonstration in Mexico City when they went missing. Investigators believe they were abducted by a drug cartel with the help of corrupt police, although exactly what happened next is unclear. The so-called "historical truth" -- an official version of the case presented in 2015 under then-president Enrique Pena Nieto -- was widely discredited, notably the theory that the remains were incinerated at a garbage dump. In 2022, a truth commission set up by Lopez Obrador's government branded the case a "state crime" and said the military shared responsibility, either directly or through negligence. The commission found that the army was aware of what was happening and had real-time information about the kidnapping and disappearance. One theory it put forward was that cartel members targeted the students because they had unknowingly taken a bus with drugs hidden inside. Amnesty International on Thursday urged Sheinbaum's incoming government to "guarantee a professional and expeditious investigation that, once and for all, leads to justice, truth and reparation for the damage, which the families of the students so long for." At 10 am on February 26, 2022, Maryna Hanitska saw a tank with the letter V outside the gate and took a picture of it. In the first days of the invasion, the Russians would shoot at windows to keep people away from staring at them. While she still had a cell phone connection, Hanitska was posting on Facebook to let everyone know that there were patients in her institution: In case they kill us. I recorded a video to leave a trace. Hanitska was the director of Borodyankas psychoneurological care centre, in the region of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, when in February 2022 some 400 residents of the institution, including bedridden patients and those in wheelchairs, staff, people from neighbouring houses and children, became hostages of the Russian occupiers. We figured they were Chechens On March 5, they broke down the gate and burst into the yard with their cars, she recounted at the trial. From the way they looked, we figured they were Chechens. They forced all of us outside. They searched the building, threatened us that if they found weapons or if we were hiding soldiers or members of the territorial defence, if we were Nazis, we would be executed, killed, blown up. They scared us with threats: The surroundings are rigged with mines. Do you know how much time it would take for nothing to be left of you here? or: We will pack you in a box and send it to your president, because you have the Nazi government in Kyiv, and we have come to burn your government. It was cold, 10-12 degrees below zero, the Institute director recalled at the hearing. They were undressing our patients looking for tattoos. They thought they were from the territorial defence and not residents, since they didnt look like they were sick. I begged them not to shoot. I said: You see a lot of men, they are just sick people, they are like kids. I simply ask you not to shoot. They said: Show us the children. I said: I cant show you the children because you are armed. We had the children in a separate basement. Most of our children are autistic. The diagnosis means that even holding a childs hand is not always possible. The workers would give the soldiers the keys to the doors, but they would ignore them and break in, entering the rooms where patients were lying in beds. They were not wearing balaclavas, all of them had their faces uncovered. Most had long beards, wore new, clean, elite uniforms, and always wore St Georges ribbons [used in Russia to honour military valour], according to the testimony. Shortly after invading Ukraine in February 2022, a Chechen battalion of the Russian forces besieged the Borodyankas psychoneurological hospice and its patients, in this building located around 80 kilometres from Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Daniil Martynov, the Russian in charge One of them was in charge. He had no beard and spoke pure Russian, without an accent, gave commands and everyone obeyed him without question. Behind him, there were 6-10 soldiers who served as bodyguards. It was Daniil Martynov. He saw that people were very scared, and introduced himself saying that they were not fighting civilians but had come to liberate them. He assured people that he was responsible for his subordinates. He promised that no one would be hurt if people did not leave the institution, because otherwise it would be perceived as an act of diversion and the soldiers would shoot to kill. I showed him one room, went to show the second and he changed his mind. You could smell that there were disabled people there, the smell of elderly people and those in diapers, one of the employees recalled in court. So, he changed his mind. All right, lets not traumatise them, he said. Lets go outside and continue the conversation. Thank Russian President Putin The employees were taken to the area in front of the institution. The director was put in the centre. Soldiers stood in front and behind her, pointing their weapons at the employees. Martynov explained that they needed to record a video and thank Russian President Vladimir Putin. Hanitska was confused. For what? Martynov leaned over and answered very calmly: What do you mean, for what? For the fact that you are alive. Well record a short video now, Marina, and then everything will be fine with you. And I can promise you that not a single glass will fall from your windows again, Martynov said. The woman broke down in tears, Martynov got angry and warned her that she needed to smile. Hanitska tried to imitate a smile, but her cheek started to twitch. Meanwhile, Martynov ordered to start recording on a cell phone and began to speak to the camera: I am a colonel of the Russian army. We did not come to kill civilians but to liberate you from the nazi authorities, Then he spoke about monuments and Victory Day. After a few minutes, Martynov turned around and asked: ...and Marina?, reminding her of her speech. The woman rushingly replied: Thank you for the fact that we are alive. The filming was stopped, and the Russians were displeased: the frightened and tearful woman did not look convincing. Due to the anxiety, Hanitska fainted, and the staff had to bring her back to her senses by sprinkling her with water. The Russians left the institution, but the residents and staff were not allowed to leave. Shelling and mines near the patients The occupiers positioned their military equipment around, using it to shell nearby villages anti-tank guns, a self-propelled artillery system and BM-21 Grad system at a distance of 120-150 metres from the building, as well as buried landmines in the field nearby. Presumably, the Russian military hoped to avoid retaliation, since there were 400 civilians nearby. To support this claim, the prosecutor submitted a satellite image dated March 11, 2022, which showed the neuropsychiatric hospice in the village of Borodyanka, as well as objects nearby, that looked like military equipment and infrastructures. By comparison, the satellite image from December 17, 2019, showed no such military installations. The institution was cut off from electricity, water, heating and communication. Martynov allowed people to go outside the gate to get water from the well. Machine gunners were sitting in the bushes. People were also allowed to make a fire in the yard for cooking. A maintenance worker recalled that the military had brought food twice. They didnt say anything, they just drove into the yard and left six or seven grocery bags as if they had taken them from a local store. Another staff member said that they once brought a bag of sugar and a bag of buckwheat to the institution, which the Moscow Patriarchate Church supposedly donated. On another occasion, they said: Give us a pot, well give you food, and brought some fish soup and a pot of boiled buckwheat, probably leftovers from their field kitchen. The most fragile could not survive On March 13, they allowed the people from the institution to be evacuated. When she returned in early April, Hanitska discovered that in her absence, they occupied the building. The place was in disarray, with Russian rations and faeces all over the rooms. Computers had been dismantled, and laptops had been stolen from the accounting office. The Russians smashed windows and doors and made a hole in the wall in the managers office. Twelve people died in the institution during the occupation. When people returned, they reburied the bodies and planted trees in that area of the yard. We have never had such a high mortality rate in such a short period, Hanitska said. Employees attribute the deaths to stress from the loud sounds of the explosions, the fact that it was very cold, to the shortage of medicines and medical care, and it is likely that two of the residents had a stroke. Martynov under US sanctions The eyewitnesses could not identify any other soldier than Martynov. His eyes were cold and stinging. All the others looked the same to me. Different photos were shown to me, but they all looked the same, Hanitska said. The prosecution established that as of February 24, 2022, Martynov held the position of Deputy Head of the Department of the Federal Service of the National Guard Troops of the Russian Federation for the Chechen Republic. Previously, he was a security adviser to the Head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov. Until 2013, he served in the FSBs Alpha special unit and participated in the training of Chechen special forces. Since December 2020, he has been under sanctions in the United States of America for human rights violations. After retreating from the Kyiv region, Martynov participated in the hostilities in eastern Ukraine. On May 8, 2022, Kadyrov himself posted a video on Telegram of his dear brother Martynov reporting about the liberation of the city of Popasna in the Luhansk region. In February 2023, it was also reported that Martynov, acting as an adviser to the Russian Minister of Emergency Situations, had travelled to Turkey as part of an official delegation to assist the earthquake victims. The Ukrainian authorities sent an extradition request to Turkey, but it remained unanswered. This report is part of our coverage of war crimes justice produced in partnership with Ukrainian journalists. A first version of this article was published on the "Sudovyi Reporter" website. The MND: Firm Opposition to Coercion, Bullying and Bloc Confrontation by the US in the South China Sea China Military Online) 13:26, September 27, 2024 Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense, made the remarks at a regular news conference on Thursday. Question: The 2024 Quad Leaders Summit issued a joint statement which did not mention China directly but criticized coercive and intimidating maneuvers in the South China Sea. It also announced to launch a first-ever Quad-at-sea Ship Observer Mission by coast guards of the four countries in 2025. What's your comment? Zhang Xiaogang: Relevant joint statement uses vague languages to cover its malicious intention to target China. It needs to be emphasized that China has indisputable sovereignty over Nanhai Zhudao and its adjacent waters. It is fully legitimate, justified and beyond reproach for China to conduct constructions on our own territory and carry out law-enforcement operations in waters and airspace under our jurisdiction. Though not directly concerned in the South China Sea issue, the US, Japan, India and Australia are resorting to microphone diplomacy to criticize and smear China and stir up troubles and mislead the public. In particular, the US has deployed offensive weapons in the region, worked with its allies to step up military exercises, and conduct close-in reconnaissance against China's islands and reefs. Talking about militarization, coercion, bullying, and bloc confrontation in the South China Sea, I think the US deserves these labels more than any other country. Joint maritime operations carried out by relevant countries should contribute to regional peace and stability, and not harm the interests of any third party. The Chinese side is firmly opposed to actions that may stir up troubles and escalate tensions in the South China Sea. We will firmly defend our own sovereignty, security and maritime rights and interest, and maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Thursday, September 26, 2024 - A 24-year-old man, Tonderai Mupindu, has been sentenced to 12 months in prison for ass@ulting his 45-year-old lover, Anna Fadzai Katoma, after accusing her of infidelity. The incident, which unfolded in Mvuma, Zimbabwe, occurred on September 3, 2024, when Mupindu discovered Katoma in bed with his friend, Vitalis Masamha. According to court documents obtained by the Masvingo Mirror, Mupindu arrived at Katomas home early that morning, only to find the two sharing a blanket. Shocked by the sight, he left without confrontation. However, later that evening, he saw Katoma and Masamha seated together outside Penny Beer Hall at Munzhaku Business Centre, which prompted him to approach them. Mupindu requested a private conversation with Katoma, leading them back to her homestead. During this meeting, he confronted her regarding the alleged affair, but she denied any wrongdoing. In a fit of rage, Mupindu began assaulting Katoma, resulting in visible injuries, including a swollen face and bruises around her left ear and eyes. Following the ass@ult, Katoma reported the incident to the police, leading to Mupindu's arrest. He was charged and appeared before Magistrate Constance Mutandwa, who handed down the 12-month sentence. The prosecution, led by Simbarashe Hwacha, confirmed that Mupindu's actions were fueled by jealousy and accusations of infidelity after the earlier discovery. Thursday, September 26, 2024 - In a new escalation of tensions, Algeria announced on Thursday, September 26, that it will impose visa requirements on Moroccan nationals, accusing holders of Moroccan passports of involvement in criminal activities, including "Zionist espionage." This decision marks a further downturn in relations between the North African neighbours. The statement, published by Algeria's official APS news agency, claimed that Morocco had engaged in actions threatening Algeria's stability. Algeria accused its neighbour of allowing "Zionist espionage agents holding Moroccan passports" to enter its territory and conducting "multiple networks of organized crime, drug and human trafficking, as well as smuggling and illegal immigration." This comes after authorities in Tlemcen, Algeria, reported the arrest of seven individuals, including four Moroccans, accused of being part of a spy ring earlier this month. Algeria also accused Morocco of supporting the Berber separatist movement MAK in Algeria. Diplomatic ties between the two countries were severed in August 2021, following Morocco's normalization of relations with Israel after then-U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara. The two nations have been at odds for decades, particularly over the status of Western Sahara, a disputed territory largely controlled by Morocco but backed by Algeria's Polisario Front, which campaigns for its independence. Although there are no direct flights between Algeria and Morocco, travel had previously been visa-free for citizens of both countries. Algeria expressed its commitment to maintaining ties with the "brotherly" Moroccan people but blamed Rabat's authorities for the worsening diplomatic relations. Morocco is yet to respond to Algeria's latest move. Friday, September 27, 2024 - A former chief in Kiambaa claims that Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua conned him Ksh 50,000 when he was the District Officer. Gachagua borrowed him Ksh 50,000 claiming that he wanted to clear a car that he had imported from Dubai at the port and promised to return the money. However, Gachagua did not return the money. He further narrated how Gachagua sabotaged him in the line of duty and subjected him to mental torture, prompting him to resign. He falsely accused the chief of collecting bribes from changaa dealers and stealing money meant for constructing schools. At one time, Gachagua sent police officers to abduct the chief and kill him in Karura forest. However, the plan flopped after some members of the public witnessed the police officers abducting the chief. He was released and abandoned in Kiambu. Listen to the explosive interview. This is why they don't want you to learn your history. pic.twitter.com/MDqPcvUPBU Gabriel Oguda (@gabrieloguda) September 27, 2024 The Kenyan DAILY POST. Friday, September 27, 2024 - Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) Archbishop Jackson Ole Sapit is disappointed with President William Ruto's plot to impeach his Deputy, Rigathi Gachagua, having prayed for their victory at Bomas in 2022 Addressing the press in Nairobi, Sapit called on Ruto and Gachagua to embrace dialogue as the solution to their fallout and stop the drama. He noted that the impeachment of the deputy president was not the solution to the current crisis. According to Ole Sapit, it was impossible to dismiss Gachagua since there was no constitutional provision for such. Sapit further noted that Ruto and Gachagua were elected in the same election vote and that it was improper to impeach one and leave the other. Every time there is a disagreement within the presidency, it makes it dysfunctional. Ours is a call for dialogue and impeachment is not the solution and we do not have a constitutional framework for that, Sapit said. As a church, we do not advocate for impeachment and we call upon the two to sit down the way they did when they decided to be together. Ole Sapit, while reiterating the church's stand, urged the two leaders to fix the economic challenge in the country first before embarking on politics. The Kenyan DAILY POST Thursday, September 26, 2024 - A chimpanzee, famous for its tool-using ability, ripped a baby girl from her mother's arms before taking her into the forest to butcher her and harvest her organs. Seny Zogba was working in a cassava field in Bossou, in Guinea, when a chimp sunk his teeth into her and stole her eight-month-old baby, named as Yoh Helene. The little girl's mutilated body was found 3km from the Nimba Mountains Nature Reserve. Witnesses fear the chimp used his tools to main the girl as they claim the infant had been eviscerated. Chief researcher Gen Yamakoshi chillingly told The Times the gruesome killing was because the chimps "no longer fear humans." An angry mob directed their fury towards the scientists who have been studying the remarkable animal community for decades, and brought the baby's corpse to their Bossou Environmental Research Institute. They then ransacked the building, destroying and setting fire to equipment including drones, computers and over 200 documents, the centre's managers said. Joseph Dore, a young member of the group from Bossou, said: "it's the way she was killed, that's what angered the population." Local ecologist Alidjiou Sylla said the dwindling supply of food in the reserve was pushing the animals to leave the protected area more frequently, increasingly the likelihood of attacks. The research centre said it had recorded six chimpanzee attacks on humans within the reserve since the start of the year. Moussa Koya, another youth leader, said "It was not their will [to be violent] but it has become the habit of the chimpanzees." Mr Yamakoshi said it wasn't clear whether the attacks are because of food or "excitement". "It is similar behaviour to how chimps treat one another," he said. "If they are excited they cannot control their behaviour." In 2022, the oldest member of a chimpanzee tribe, Fana, died in solitude age 71, leaving behind two sons, Foaf and Fanwa. The tiny community of apes use stone hammers and anvils to crack open nuts - the most sophisticated act ever observed of humanity's genetically closest relative. The great apes live in the wild but share the territory and its resources with the locals, who protect them, believing them to be reincarnated ancestors. Chimpanzees are respected in Guinea and traditionally given gifts in the form of food, prompting some to venture out of the protected area and into human settlements, where they can sometimes attack. But Bossou elder Michael Gamada Koiba said locals now don't know "what kind of chimpanzees they are" after the fatality. Thursday, September 26, 2024 - Elon Musk has denied having an affair with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, after pictures of them together were shared online. Pictures shared online showed the Tesla founder and the Italian Prime Minister gazing into each other's eyes at the Global Citizen Awards in New York City on Monday as Musk handed Meloni the titular award. 'Find someone who looks at you the same way the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni looks at Elon Musk,' one X user wrote, sharing a photo of Musk touching Meloni's shoulder. 'You can't have mELONi without ELON,' another added. Meanwhile, Musk quickly denied having any romantic relationship with Meloni at the black-tie event. 'I was there with my Mom. There is no romantic relationship whatsoever with PM Meloni,' Musk wrote on X in response to a post of a photo showing them gazing into each other's eyes at a banquet table, which had the joking caption, 'We all know what happened next.' Musk and Meloni have met several times before, with the Italian prime minister hosting the billionaire at her official residence in Rome in June of last year. Thursday, September 26, 2024 - The final words of a Texas death row inmate before he was executed for molsting and murdring his three-month-old baby have been revealed. Travis Mullis, 38, spoke his last words while strapped to a gurney in the dath chamber in Huntsville, Texas, on Tuesday night. After waiving his legal right to appeal his execution for the 2008 k!lling of his baby, Mullis said he 'took the legal steps to expedite to include assisted suicide.' 'I don't regret this decision to legally expedite this process,' he said in his last statement. 'I do regret the decision to take the life of my son. It was my decision that put me here,' the convicted killer added. Mullis brutalized his own son, Alijiah, after trying to rape another child on Jan. 29, 2008, according to KPRC. At the time, Mullis, his girlfriend and newborn were living with a friend who had a daughter because they could not afford their own place. In a police confession days after the killing, Mullis told police he tried to assault the 8-year-old at a playground. 'I had asked her to take her pants off, she said, "No,"' Mullis confessed told investigators. 'She started to cry, she got scared, I also got startled. I was upset about what I was doing. I knew that it was wrong. So, I told her, "Lets just go home."' Mullis told police he himself had been sexually abused as a child and thought he could get rid of the flashbacks if he 'acted on them.' Mullis told his girlfriend what had happened between him and the girl, and the couple feared they would get kicked out of the mobile home once her dad heard about it. Claiming he was going for a drive to figure out next steps, Mullis went for a drive with this infant in Galveston. The dad, then 21, claimed the baby woke up during the drive and began to cry uncontrollably. 'I had hit my breaking point with stress, and I was, you know, scared,' he told police. 'I was panicking, I, you know, hit my breaking point and I broke at that point. I felt that the only way to make him stop crying was to kill him.' Mullis strangled the baby and then stomped him to death. While he didn't confess to it, prosecutors said there was evidence he had molested the baby boy as well, before dumping his body on the side of the road near the sea wall. Mullis went on the run for three days before surrendering to the cops in Philadelphia. In 2011, he was convicted and sentenced to dath. Seven years later, he filed a motion to waive his appeals and fire his attorney, hoping to expedite his execution. 'Im guilty of what I did and the death penalty is legally justified and, I believe morally, the sentence for what Ive done. I'm ready to accept my punishment,' he said during an interview at the time. Officials declared him dead at 7:01 p.m. CDT. Thursday, September 26, 2024 - The Pretoria Magistrates Court on Wednesday sentenced a former South African National Defence Force (SANDF) employee, Leon Santos Conga (48) to life imprisonment for r@pe of his girlfriend. He was given an additional 10-year direct imprisonment for attempted m8rder for knowingly exposing and factually infecting his girlfriend with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Conga was found guilty on Tuesday, June 11, 2024. The Regional Spokesperson of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Gauteng Division: Pretoria, Lumka Mahanjana in a statement said the court ordered that the sentence should run concurrently. Conga and the victim were in a love relationship for four months, from 16 December 2016 until April 2017. Before the two began their relationship, the victim had done an HIV test on 01 December 2016 which came back HIV negative. When the two started their relationship, the victim raised the HIV conversation and insisted on knowing Congas HIV status. Conga then lied and misled the victim and told her that he was HIV negative hence his employer was able to deploy him outside the country. However, the victim came with the condition in their relationship that no condom no sex. One time when the two were intimate, Conga removed the condom. This apparently happened twice until the victim felt unwell and went to do an HIV test. When the results came back positive, she confronted Conga who denied infecting her.She then reported the matter to the police in May 2017, however the docket was only opened on 09 July 2017. In 2018 after several postponements in court, the matter was withdrawn due to insufficient evidence. However, after investigations and the required evidence was obtained from the SANDF the matter was re-enrolled on 21 August 2021 and Conga appeared in court. During the trial, Conga stated that the condom was removed by the complainant and denied infecting the victim with HIV. However, the state prosecutor, Advocate Emile Van der Merwe called a witness, Professor Terresa Russouw, an HIV expert who testified about the effects of HIV and assisted the state in proving the attempted murder charge. The state also provided evidence which revealed that Conga first tested HIV positive on 08 October 2007, therefore he was aware of his HIV status when he removed the condom and had intercourse with the victim. During the sentencing proceedings, in aggravation of sentence, Advocate Van der Merwe argued that Conga was known to the victim as he served in the military with her brother. She trusted him but he betrayed that trust. Furthermore, Van der Merwe said r@pe is not only a serious violent crime, but it is extremely prevalent therefore, the courts and prosecutions owe it to the community to deal with such matters with the seriousness and devotion it requires. He asked the court to impose a sentence of life imprisonment. Advocate Van der Merwe also handed in a Victim Impact Statement (VIS) and called the victim to testify in aggravation, where the victim told the court that the man left her with an emotional scar and a permanent trademark which is HIV. Taking antiretroviral treatment (ARV) every night is a constant reminder of the scar he permanently gave her. As such she has anxiety and fears about ever infecting her partner should she be in a relationship or infecting her child should she decide to have a baby. When handing down the sentence, the Regional Magistrate, Ntlati agreed with the state that Conga showed no remorse and that he committed a very serious offence that had devastating effects on the victim and her family. Friday, September 27, 2024 - Kapsaret Member of Parliament Oscar Sudi has blamed Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua for the June and July anti-government protests, which led to the deaths of 61 Gen Zs and left thousands injured by police. According to Oscar Sudi, the protests, dubbed Gen Z protests, were financed by Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua in an attempt to overthrow President William Ruto. Sudi, a close ally of President William Ruto, also told Gachagua that he belongs to jail for trying to overthrow a democratically elected government. My boss, it's no longer a secret that you're the mastermind behind the dead-on-arrival plan to oust our President. "Young people were killed in the streets, and those jailed are a result of the money you poured to sponsor demos, yet now you claim you're fighting for them! Save for the respect we have for your office, you belong in jail, Sudi stated. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, September 27, 2024 - Deputy President Rigathi Gachaguas fear is all gone as his looming impeachment approaches. This is after he went bonkers on President William Ruto, accusing him of using security agents to frustrate and intimidate him and his allies. This follows the DCI's move to prefer serious charges against his two-allied MPs for allegedly funding Gen Z protests against Rutos government. In a post on Facebook, Gachagua wrote, The use of the criminal justice system to manage politics is an outdated political strategy that was used in the past. I am embarrassed that we are back to where we were. Harassment of my Office staff and Members of Parliament perceived to be close to me, has been going on for the last two months. President William Ruto and I, on assuming Office, gave an undertaking to the People of Kenya that never again shall the criminal justice system be called upon to help in the management of politics, he added. I have learnt of a scheme to prefer trumped-up charges against three members of my staff and the MPs for Embakasi North Hon James Gakuya and Embakasi Central Hon Benjamin Gathiru Mejja Donk. This evil scheme is to associate them with violent demonstrations that took place in late June, in a futile attempt to soil my name and hopefully create grounds for the mooted impeachment proceedings against me, he stated. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, September 27, 2024 President William Rutos Senior Advisor Moses Kuria has delivered a political jab on Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, blaming him for inflicting upon himself the political crisis that he is facing. According to Kuria, Gachaguas failure to listen to the advice that he offered him months ago, could be to blame for the situation he finds himself in. Kuria revealed that he offered political advice to Gachagua, only for the second in command to ignore and turn against him. In a statement, Kuria revealed that he had initially asked Gachagua not to move into a political pact with President William Ruto without a political party as this would limit his political might within the administration but he failed to heed any advice. He added that he even offered the Deputy President a chance to use his Chama Cha Kazi outfit to get into the Kenya Kwanza Coalition deal but he rejected that offer too. According to Kuria, instead of Gachagua working with him while serving the government within the Ministry of Trade, the latter chose to stage political contests and even went as far as lobbying for him to be shuffled to the Ministry of Public Service. Kuria instead took to his social media to remind the Deputy President of a letter he had written to him, raising the same issues that he states the Deputy President ignored. Kuria alleged that the political situation in which the second in command finds himself is self-afflicted. According to the letter, Kuria blamed Gachagua for going behind leaders from Mount Kenya, especially in the awarding of senior government jobs who only learnt of the decisions via a gazette notice without a prior brief. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, September 27, 2024 - President William Ruto told CNN that he has stabilized the country after anti-government protests by young people nearly toppled his regime in June and July. In an interview with CNNs Christiane Amanpour, the president explained that the protests were caused by misinformation and fake news that fueled the youths to take to the streets. Ruto said the protests would have been avoided had the government sensitised the public on their policies and strategies to raise revenues. "Most of the situation that you saw, part of it was occasioned by misinformation, fake news, and other aspects of protests. More explanation is going into our strategy going into the future," he explained. Ruto further said that criminal gangs infiltrated the protests to propel violence and destroy property, prompting police to intervene and contain the chaos. Despite the law enforcement officers receiving wide criticism over their actions during the protests from Human Rights Groups, the president noted that their actions prevented the country from plunging into further crisis. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, September 27, 2024 - An administration police officer assigned to Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja is defrauding job seekers by falsely claiming he can secure them government jobs. The rogue officer identified as Vitalis Okodoi masquerades as a National Intelligence Officer (NIS) while luring his victims. He approached one of the victims and lied to him that he could secure him a job at Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). He asked for Ksh 150,000 from Nick Mogaka in order to help him secure a slot at the government agency. Nick has so far sent Ksh 96,000 hoping to get the job, only for the officer to block him. He has tried to reach out to him in vain after he blocked all communication channels. See photos of the con police officer who is assigned to Sakaja. The Kenyan DAILY POST. Friday,, September 27, 2024 - Haiti Prime Minister Garry Conille has registered his displeasure with the slow progress of the Kenya-led mission to restore peace in his country. Addressing the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Conille warned that the conflict in Haiti is far from over despite the presence of the Kenyan police. He emphasised that despite Kenyas leadership in the fight, Haiti's war against gangs is nowhere near being won. "We are not close to victory, and without external support, we may never reach that point," he declared. His message was clear: the Haitian people are holding onto hope, but results are painfully slow to materialise. This comes even as the Kenya-led mission, initially pitched by the United States as a way to address the security crisis, faces calls for restructuring. Washington has proposed that the mission, currently operating on voluntary contributions, be converted into a fully-fledged United Nations peace operation. This shift would ensure a more reliable funding stream, a move seen as crucial for sustaining the effort. Kenya has staked its international reputation on the contentious mission, and the lack of funding is threatening to derail it. Success in this mission could boost Kenya's global political standing, while failure could damage the country's public image. The Kenyan DAILY POST Thursday, September 26, 2024 - A Sweden based Zambian woman, Maureen Bahema, who described herself as a lover of Jesus Christ, has taken to X to write pen a note to her future husband. Dear future husband If I come over to your house, you don't have to explain why you don't have this or that, she wrote on Wednesday, September 25. "If you don't have food or drinks, I'll buy us some. If your home is messed up, I don't care, I'll help you clean it. If your TV is small, I don't care, something is better than nothing. No cable, let's play cards! No furniture, we can sit on the floor. You dont have to feel bad or embarrassed its very normal. I'm your friend, Im your family. Im your woman. Friday, September 27, 2024 - A close confidante of former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has advised Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua to resign before he gets impeached. In a statement shared via his official X account on Friday, Raila Odingas spokesman Prof. Makau Mutua opined that the troubled DP should quit his job to save his political career. He explained that impeachment is akin to the death penalty because it lustrates one for life as it bars one from ever holding public office. "My free advice to DP please resign before you are impeached. "Impeachment is a political death penalty because it lustrates one for life barring you for life from ever holding any public office in the Republic of Kenya, he said. The professors remarks come amid a heightened impeachment motion against the DP, following claims by Kimilili Member of Parliament Didmus Barasa that over 240 MPs have signed in favor of the DPs ouster. According to Barasa, the charges leveled against the DP in the impeachment motion include attempted coup, gross misconduct, abuse of office, legal breaches, and constitutional violation among others. The MP and a section of Kenya Kwanza legislators have accused the DP of leveraging on the recent Gen Z demonstrations to attempt to overthrow President William Ruto. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, September 27, 2024 Former Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero is in serious panic after the Court of Appeal granted the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) permission to investigate the source of his immense wealth. The court granted EACC access to Kideros several bank accounts that are stashed with billions, allegedly stolen from Nairobi County and Mumias Sugar Company. In a statement, EACC revealed that the Appellant Court dismissed a petition Kidero filed over EACC's access to his accounts. The Commission indicated that its officers intended to investigate the source of wealth of the former governor. Kidero is facing allegations of corruption and economic crimes reported to have happened while serving as the county boss and the MD of Mumias Sugar. "The Court of Appeal (Musinga, Makhandia & Kantai, JJA) sitting in Nairobi has dismissed a Petition filed by former Nairobi Governor Dr Evans Kidero seeking to stop EACC from investigating his bank accounts. The Judgement was delivered on Friday, 20th September 2024," read the statement in part. "Kidero moved to the High Court in 2016 after EACC obtained Orders from the Chief Magistrates Court to access multiple bank accounts linked to the Governor on investigations into allegations of corruption, economic crimes, and unexplained wealth allegedly amassed during his tenure as Nairobi Governor and Managing Director of Mumias Sugar Company." According to the anti-graft agency, Kidero had pleaded with the courts to block investigators from accessing his accounts, noting that the action infringed on sections of the law. The Kenyan DAILY POST Thursday, September 26, 2024 - A man with a facial disfigurement says he was asked to leave a restaurant because he was "scaring customers". Oliver Bromley, 42, was receiving treatment at Kings College Hospital in Camberwell, southeast London when he decided to visit a local restaurant for lunch. However, when he went to order food, a member of staff said they had received complaints from customers about his face and asked him to leave. Oliver has a genetic condition called Neurofibromatosis Type 1, which causes benign, non-cancerous tumours to grow on his nerves. Upset and shocked by the experience, Oliver wrote to the restaurant but said he received no response. He is now sharing his story in the hope that it will educate people about his condition and prevent similar situations in the future for him and others. He has been in contact with the charity Nerve Tumours UK, who said what Oliver experienced is sadly "not uncommon". It has organised meetings with UKHospitality to call for more awareness in the hospitality industry. Oliver, who helps run an NHS mental health crisis helpline but is currently off work, said he had been undergoing treatment at Kings College Hospital last month when he decided to take myself for lunch. "The food looked good when I looked in one window, and I went inside," he explained. "They said they were cash only, so I took some money out and went to place my order. "The gentleman behind the counter told me there had been complaints about me, and for me to please leave. "I asked him to repeat himself, and he said I was scaring customers." Oliver, who lives in Reigate, Surrey, said he was "incredulous" at what the employee told him, as he had hardly been in the restaurant long enough for someone to complain about his presence. "I hadnt even sat down," he continued. "I went to place my order and they asked me to leave. "Perhaps they had seen me browsing, perhaps they didnt want me in there. "I dont know, but that is what they said. These are the facts. "Obviously, I was very upset. I went to a local park to console myself and think of a plan of action on how to deal with it." After writing to the restaurant, which he doesnt want to name, and not receiving a response, Oliver contacted the Met Police, who recorded the incident as a hate crime. The Met confirmed to the BBC that officers had visited Oliver about the incident and said that although no arrests had been made, the force took "reports of hate crime seriously". Nerve Tumours UK director, Karen Cockburn, said: "We were extremely disappointed to hear news of the dreadful, but sadly not uncommon, incident that Oliver Bromley experienced while attempting to purchase lunch. "We work tirelessly to raise both the profile of the condition and the work that we do to help patients; and also to educate the wider public about the condition. "If Oliver felt that he had been discriminated against, there is the option that he could have a case under the 2010 Equalities Act, in which severe disfigurement is a protected characteristic. "We have written to both the restaurant concerned, and to UKHospitality, the trade association body. "Whilst we have not received any response from the restaurant, I am delighted to say that UKHospitality has offered to work with us to raise awareness of the condition among the hospitality sector, and I am meeting with them shortly to kick start this joint venture." Friday, September 27, 2024 - Controversial Mumias East Member of Parliament, Peter Salaysa, has publicly threatened renowned content creator Andrew Kibe after Kibe posted a video trolling him for shooting his shot on socialite Huddah Monroe. Kibe shared a video on his Instagram account castigating Salaysa, saying Huddah is way above his class. He urged Salaysa to chase after ladies he can afford and claimed that Huddah hangs out with Sheikhs in Dubai and not local politicians. His remarks rattled Salaysa, prompting him to threaten him. Salaysa posted screenshots of the messages that he sent to Andrew Kibe, threatening to take his life. The first time MP told Kibe that he could kill him and use his power and influence to buy freedom. He ordered Kibe to delete the video attacking him, warning that failure to do so would result in dire consequences. Below is a video that Kibe posted, prompting Salaysa to send him threats here Link>> The Kenyan DAILY POST. Thursday, September 26, 2024 - A mother was hauled out of Disney California Adventure Park alongside her hysterical children after she tried passing the kids off as toddlers so they could sneak into the park for free without paying. Footage posted to TikTok on Wednesday, September 25 shows the unidentified mother surrounded by Disney security staff and being led out of the park in cuffs by Anaheim police officers. Her two young daughters are seen holding onto their mother on both sides and shouting, help in Spanish. Another officer is seen pushing a side-by-side stroller behind them during the incident. The video, which has racked up nearly half a million views since being posted, is captioned Getting arrested at the happiest place on earth. Another video, obtained by TMZ, shows the mother shouting, Youre fking hurting me! as shes escorted out of Happiest Place on Earth next to her crying children. She is accused of trying to pass the kids off as 2-year-olds so they could enter the park without purchasing a ticket, the Anaheim Police Department told TMZ. A one-day pass to Disneyland and Adventure Park starts at $104. For an additional $65, guests can opt for the Park Hopper Pass, allowing Disney goers to explore both theme parks on the same day. However, children meeting that requirement must be with a guest with a ticket and reservation to enter the park. According to Disneyland Resorts Park admissions policy, children under three do not need a theme park ticket for Disneyland or Adventure Park. The Anaheim Police Department also told KTLA that the unidentified woman allegedly tried to sneak her children into Disneyland in the past. Police said she was arrested for trespassing but was later released on a citation. Watch video below Friday, September 27, 2024 - Former Law Society of Kenya (LSK) President Nelson Havi has blasted Members of Parliament who are planning to impeach Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua. The motion to impeach Gachagua has already been tabled in the National Assembly by Kimilili MP Didmus Barasa. Speaking about the looming impeachment of the Deputy President, Havi called the MPs imbeciles, wondering where they were when the country needed them to impeach former Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mithika Linturi over the fake fertilizer scandal. These imbeciles in the National Assembly could not impeach Mithika Linturi for selling us counterfeit fertilizer and fake maize seeds but want to impeach Rigathi Gachagua for being a clown. Kenya is full of imbeciles and clowns, Havi wrote on his X page. Gachagua's impeachment grounds include gross misconduct, undermining the President, and attempting to overthrow Ruto. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, September 27, 2024 - Kakamega County Senator, Dr. Boni Khalwale, has urged Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua to tone down his Mt. Kenya rhetoric and focus on national politics, emphasizing that he is a leader for the entire country. Addressing the DP on social media platform X on Thursday, Khalwale emphasized that Gachaguas proximity to the presidency requires him to tone down his regional rhetoric. Mr. Deputy President, Rigathi, you are just a heartbeat away from the presidency. You have lectured us enough about Mount Kenya. Its time to tone down, please, Khalwale posted. His comments follow Gachaguas recent remarks during the interdenominational funeral service for 21 Hillside Academy victims at Mweiga Stadium. The DP appealed for kindness towards the people of Mount Kenya, asserting their enduring presence in Kenyas political landscape. These people were there, they are here today, and they will be here tomorrow. "I appeal to everyone to treat the people of the mountain with the kindness they deserve because it is the right thing to do, Gachagua said. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, September 27, 2024 - The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has recommended serious charges against two MPs allied to Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua over their involvement in anti-government protests in June and July this year. Embakasi Central legislator Benjamin "Mejja Donk" Gathiru and his Embakasi North counterpart James Gakuya are accused of planning and mobilising demonstrators to destabilise the country. According to the DCI officers, the two were implicated following an intelligence report that alleged that the duo organised several meetings at a popular hotel in Nairobi to plan the protests. Upon interrogation, the DCI officers preferred charges against the lawmakers. The charge sheet includes; soliciting or inciting others to commit offences contrary to Section 391 of the Penal Code. Other preferred charges were; conspiracy to commit a felony contrary to Section 393 of the Penal Code and money laundering contrary to Sections 3, 4 and 7 of the Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Act. In a related investigation, police also questioned former Embakasi West MP George Theuri, former Nyeri Town MP Ngunjiri Wambugu, and Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua's private secretary, Munene wa Mumbi, on Monday last week. These individuals also stand accused of having ties to the organization alleged to have funded the Gen Z protests. This comes even as Gachagua faces imminent impeachment with more than 200 MPs having appended their signatures to send the DP home over tribalism. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, September 27, 2024 President William Ruto could be going home alongside his Deputy, Rigathi Gachagua, who is facing imminent impeachment. This was revealed by Wiper Leader Kalonzo Musyoka who held a massive roadside rally in Nyeri yesterday after attending the requiem service for the 21 students who perished in the Hillside Endarasha Academy fire tragedy. In an update on X shortly after the rally, Kalonzo thanked the people of Nyeri for the warm reception and declared his support for Gachagua ahead of his alleged impeachment. Kalonzo stated that should Members of Parliament bring a motion to impeach Gachagua, they should also table another motion to impeach President William Ruto. The Wiper leader said the calls for Gachagua's impeachment were engineered to drive Kenyans' attention from the JKIA-Adani deal. "Let me be clear: if they bring a Motion to Impeach Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua in Parliament, they should also bring one against William Ruto. "Anything else is nonsense, a weak attempt to divert Kenyans' attention away from the Adani heist and the perpetrators behind the nefarious scheme," Kalonzo wrote on X. This comes a week after Kalonzo called out the Kenya Kwanza regime over attempts to abuse The Constitution of Kenya. He accused Ruto's administration of trying to silence Kenyans' constitutional rights. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, September 27, 2024 - The government of President William Ruto, through the Ministry of Environment, has introduced another new tax called Environmental Restoration Fees months after Kenyans rejected the controversial Eco Levy tax which sought to address almost the same issues. Environment Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale, in the notice, stated that the fees would be charged on all imported finished products. He added that all importers of finished products would be required to pay the fee directly to the National Environment Restoration Fund established by section 25 of the Environmental Management and Coordination Act. The proposed Environmental Restoration Fee is set to be used to address the triple planetary crises of environmental pollution, nature and biodiversity loss, and climate change. According to Duale, the proposed fee was a strategic tool designed to encourage sustainable practices and fund waste management programs. The establishment of the Fund will also promote environmental stewardship across the country and will be applied to products that contribute significantly to the waste burden. Kenyas ability to mitigate and adapt to these environmental challenges is severely constrained by inadequate financial resources, CS Duale stated. The challenges posed by pollution require sustained investment in infrastructure, policy, enforcement, and community education. Without reliable sources of domestic funding, Kenya risks falling short The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, September 27, 2024 - About a week ago, a video of a drunk and homeless Kenyan lady who was filmed in Germany stranded in the streets went viral on TikTok, prompting a well-wisher to rescue her. The well-wisher, a Kenyan lady living in Germany, decided to house the young lady and take her to the hospital. However, she is back to her drinking habits. She ran away from home and went on a drinking spree with her boyfriend. Police found her sleeping on the streets and returned her to the well-wisher who had been housing her. Watch the video. The Kenyan DAILY POST. Thursday, September 26, 2024 - A woman landed in hospital with a broken nose and missing front teeth while doing a "Dirty Dancing" lift with her partner. Flo Bragg, 27, was holidaying in Provence, France, when she decided to try the famous lift from the 1987 smash, made famous by Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze. The pair were "bored" at their villa when she decided to pass the time by recreating the famous lift with her partner, 40, in the pool. But it all went wrong when she flew face-first into a wall - knocking out her two front teeth, and breaking her nose in the process. Now, she's trying to raise money for her dental treatment, including x-rays and a double root canal, which will set her back 270. Flo, a sales executive from Exeter, said: "We were just bored one day - we decided to attempt it a couple of times. "I guess we thought it would be funny if we just nailed it. But I went face-first into a wall on my second attempt. "My boyfriend had knocked out my two front teeth, and broke my nose!" In the video, the couple appear to be giggling as they perform the ambitious lift in the pool. But Flo soon plummets from the lift and crashes into the water, later revealing she hit the wall on her way down. Her partner initially laughs at the failed lift but quickly realises something is wrong when she cries: "I split my lip, I split my lip! Help, help help!" He exclaims: "You're bleeding, you're bleeding!' and they rush to the side of the pool." Flo's partner drove her to hospital after the accident on September 19 where she had her teeth temporarily glued back in. She felt unable to enjoy the rest of her holiday - because she wasn't able to eat "regular" food and had to keep her face out of the sun. But she needs to raise 270 to cover the rest of her treatment, and now she's back in the UK, as well as her French medical bills. "Any money I can raise towards that would be great," she added. "I ended up with one broken nose, one split lip, and two lost teeth over a lift." Watch the video below. Friday, September 27, 2024 President William Rutos ally Oscar Sudi has rebuked Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua for attacking the President. This is after Gachagua blasted Ruto, accusing him of using security agents to harass and intimidate him and his allies. This follows the DCI's move to charge two MPs close to him, James Gakuya of Embakasi North and Benjamin Gathiru of Embakasi Central, with treason over their involvement in violent demonstrations that rocked the country in June. Gachagua claims that the charges are part of a wider plot aimed at discrediting him and setting the stage for his impeachment. This evil scheme is to associate them with violent demonstrations, in a futile attempt to soil my name, he stated on social media. According to Gachagua, the alleged harassment has been ongoing for the past two months, with his staff and supporters also facing pressure. However, in a statement on his X account, Sudi, who is also the Kapsaret MP, stated that Gachagua belongs in jail for using his allies to fund Ge Z protests. He accused Gachagua of hypocrisy and stirring tribal sentiments for personal gain. Young people were killed in the streets and those jailed are a result of the money you poured to sponsor demos, Sudi wrote. He didnt mince words, adding, Save for the respect we have for your office, you belong in jail. He further accused the DP of hiding behind tribalism and pretending to fight for the Mt. Kenya region while advancing his own selfish political agenda. Dont hide your ill intentions by attempting to box Mt. Kenya people into a tribal cocoon, Sudi declared, calling Gachaguas actions shameful. The Kenyan DAILY POST Thursday, September 26, 2024 - The world's longest-serving death row prisoner has been acquitted by a Japanese court, more than half a century after his 1968 murder conviction. The Shizuoka District Court ruled on Thursday, September 26, that 88-year-old Iwao Hakamada was not guilty in a retrial obtained by the former boxer and his supporters a decade ago. 'The court finds the defendant innocent,' judge Koshi Kunii said. Hakamada was sentenced to hang in 1968 after being found guilty of murdering his boss, his wife and their two teenage children, and setting fire to their home two years earlier. The former professional boxer spent 46 years on death row believed to be the longest time spent on death row of any prisoner worldwide, until he was freed in 2014 when new evidence emerged and a retrial was ordered. Hakamada has consistently protested his innocence and said investigators forced him to confess, while his lawyers alleged police had fabricated evidence. There was no immediate decision on whether prosecutors would appeal against the verdict, which was reported by Kyodo news agency and other Japanese media outlets. Hakamadas defence lawyers have urged prosecutors not to challenge the ruling, given his age. The presiding judge at Shizuoka district court, Koshi Kunii, acknowledged that three pieces of evidence had been fabricated, including Hakamadas confession and items of clothing that prosecutors claimed he had been wearing at the time of the murders. Investigators tampered with clothes by getting blood on them, the ruling said, and criticised the use of inhumane interrogations meant to force a statement by imposing mental and physical pain. It said: The prosecutions records were obtained by effectively infringing on the defendants right to remain silent, under circumstances extremely likely to elicit a false confession. Hakamadas 91-year-old sister, Hideko Hakamada, who has campaigned tirelessly on behalf of her brother, told reporters before Thursdays verdict: For so long we have fought a battle that has felt endless. But this time, I believe it will be settled. Hakamada initially denied robbing and fatally stabbing the victims but confessed after what he later described as a brutal police interrogation that included physical abuse. Campaigners said his ordeal had exposed flaws in Japans criminal justice system and the cruelty of capital punishment. We are overjoyed by the courts decision to exonerate Iwao Hakamada, said Boram Jang, an east Asia researcher at Amnesty International. After enduring almost half a century of wrongful imprisonment and a further 10 years waiting for his retrial, this verdict is an important recognition of the profound injustice he endured for most of his life. It ends an inspiring fight to clear his name by his sister Hideko and all those who supported him. As we celebrate this long overdue day of justice for Hakamada, we are reminded of the irreversible harm caused by the death penalty. We strongly urge Japan to abolish the death penalty to prevent this from happening again. The nickname bestowed on us residents by our internal medicine residency program director was city savages. There was a tremendous amount of pride amongst the residency programs in Boston back in the late 1980s, and it was no different in my program. I recall exploring residencies in Boston. While interviewing at another highly regarded Boston Hospital, I asked the chief resident many questions, including a quiet question about the residency program at Boston City Hospital (BCH). He responded, Those residents are angels. I have no idea how they do what they do. In that moment, I was sold, not on his hospital but on BCH. We saw everything at BCH, as did most of us training in medicine at that time. BCH was special. Many, if not most, patients did not have insurance. Patients were from all walks of life and from all across the globe. Many did not speak English. Many suffered from the ravages of alcohol or substance use disorder, HIV infection, and hepatitis (including non-A, non-B hepatitis, later known as hepatitis C). We were deeply proud of the care we provided and worked hard to ensure that our patients, regardless of their personal habits, where they came from, or how they spent their time, received dignified, excellent health care. The faculty and the residents who had gone before us were role models. By the time we were third-year residents, we could take care of any challenge that came in the door (and our program director liked to remind us of this, hence the city savages moniker). We knew internal medicine inside and out. We were ready to go to any lengths to do all we could to provide optimal care to our deserving patients. We ran all the codes in the hospital. When rotating through the emergency room, we gave instructions over the radio to EMTs in the field. When the hospital lab went down one night, the resident on call in the ICU monitored the treatment of his patients life-threatening hyperkalemia by following T-waves on the patients EKG. It was a challenging place to work, as anyone who did a residency in a safety net hospital or works in one today knows. The fact was, though, that all of us, whether we were residents, faculty, nurses, and everyone else, were deeply committed to serving our patients and their communities. We wanted to be there. We most definitely were city savages, extremely proud, and yes, it could be said we had a swagger. It is this pride, instilled by the dedicated and devoted Boston City employees and my fellow residents, that guided me to the American College of Physicians, and like-minded physicians throughout my career. This ethos represents who internal medicine physicians are. We provide longitudinal care for complex adult patients with complicated problems, no matter our work setting. We know what our patients need, and we go to great lengths to ensure they get it. And if we dont know what they need, we figure it out. We thrive in uncertainty and excel in challenging and dynamic environments. Internal medicine physicians see the big picture, and our deep training and knowledge give us a unique perspective to lead care teams and our organizations. And importantly, we take care of each other in the process. Most physicians in practice today fall under the internal medicine umbrella, whether they are subspecialists, generalists, or hospitalists. Internal medicine has been and remains the largest training specialty, and internal medicine faculty in medical schools comprise the largest departmental group. A recent study shows that the majority of medical school deans who responded to a survey are internal medicine, family medicine, or pediatrics trained. Internal medicine physicians comprise the largest specialty on many hospital staffs, and many are hospital presidents and CEOs today. We are leaders across the health care spectrum. Internal medicine has changed greatly since I was a resident. BCH no longer exists as a stand-alone entity, and hospitalists are now ubiquitous, as are electronic medical records. Attendings staff hospitals overnight, and residents are much more closely supervised, a significant improvement. The days of 36-hour in-house calls have vanished. Patients no longer fear the financial consequences of pre-existing conditions, thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Internal medicine physicians face great pressures to meet their contractual obligations and employers expectations and requirements. The burden of prior authorizations is real. Our health care system heaves and struggles. Multiple professional societies advocate for physician payment reform to ensure that primary care and internal medicine physicians will be there when we need them most. The old city savages of Boston City Hospital still exist: they are us, internal medicine physicians. We are leaders and the foundation of comprehensive health care. We serve as influential and valued medical educators and health system leaders across the country and the world. We solve problems. The foundational principles that inspired me as a BCH resident continue to inspire medical students and residents today, which bodes well for our future. And for that, I am grateful. 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. Why this doctor says medicine is broken and what can be done about it This is a highly encapsulated but accurate portrayal of the emotional weight of the conversation and the tension between a physicians personal challenges and the desire to heal, both for themselves and their patients. Patient/Physician (P): Im an old blues man, and I think you understand Ive been singing the blues ever since the world began. Psychiatrist (Me): I hear you. That timeless blues spirit runs deep, carrying the weight of lived experience and heartache. Its like a rhythm that never fades, just keeps echoing through every generation. Whats got you singing the blues today? P: Medicine has devolved into a shit show. Me: I feel that frustration. Medicine has become so entangled in bureaucracy, profit-driven motives, and administrative burdens that its easy to lose sight of patient care. Its a system where compassion and time are often sacrificed for metrics and margins. What aspects of it feel like the biggest failures to you right now? P: I dont know where to begin. I just feel so let down by the system. It doesnt work for the benefit of patients or providers. Me: Its a betrayal, really, when the system thats supposed to heal becomes one that harmsnot only patients but those whove dedicated their lives to care for them. When the focus shifts to profits, efficiency, and control, the humanity of medicine fades. Providers are overworked, patients are rushed, and no one feels heard or cared for. What do you think could turn it around? Or at least soften the sharp edges? P: Honestly, I think its hopeless. Maybe put more doctors in control of the decisions. Take the administrators and politicians out of the exam room. Me: That would be a real step in the right directionletting the people who actually understand patient care, the doctors, guide the system. The problem is that medicine has become too corporate, with too many non-medical folks pulling the strings, turning health care into a commodity. When business decisions overshadow clinical judgment, its the patients and providers who suffer. Its easy to feel hopeless when it feels like no ones steering the ship with compassion. Do you think theres any way doctors can reclaim some of that control, or is it too far gone? P: Well, I mentioned that Im an old blues man. I actually came of age during the era of rock and roll, and your comment that medicine may be too far gone reminds me of the Eagles song Already Gone. I suppose thats my answer, that in my mind, Ive already left it behind. But I dont know what my next step will be. It frightens me, and departing my very sick patients makes me feel guilty. Me: That makes a lot of sense. Letting go is tough when youve poured so much of yourself into your work, especially when peoples lives and well-being are involved. But it sounds like youve given so much already, and the toll this broken system has taken on you is real. Already Gone fits the feelingof knowing its time to move on, but not without some heartache. Maybe its not about abandoning your patients, but finding a different way to support them or channel your experience. The path ahead might not be clear yet, but theres still so much you can do, even outside the system. How do you think you might continue to make a difference? P: Again, your choice of words is uncanny. The Eagles also sang Heartache Tonight, a romp about getting hurt by staying in a toxic relationshipIm married to medicine. But to answer your question, I definitely still feel passionate about the medical field, and I would like to make a contribution, to continue to impact patient care, even if its through indirect means. Do you have any suggestions? Me: Im glad to hear that passion for medicine is still alive in youit can be channeled in ways that bring fulfillment without being caught up in the mess of the system. Here are a few ideas on how you could make an impact indirectly: Teaching and mentorship: Sharing your knowledge with younger physicians or medical students could shape the next generation of compassionate, patient-centered doctors. You can pass on the values you feel the system is missing. Writing and advocacy: Judging by your publications, youre a capable writer. Maybe you could become a voice for change through writing or public speaking, shedding light on systemic issues while advocating for reforms that prioritize patient care. Volunteering: There are many opportunities to use your expertise in non-profit organizations, free clinics, or community health initiatives that dont have the same bureaucratic weight as hospitals and large systems. Consulting: Your experience could be invaluable in advising health care organizations or startups on how to create patient-centered systems or improve current practices. Telemedicine or specialty care: You might still be able to see patients in a more controlled, flexible environment through telemedicine or by offering second opinions or specialty consultations that dont involve the same administrative burden. Do any of these resonate with where youre at? P: Actually, all of these options are appealing. I just dont know how to get started. Also, Ive been thinking about working as a locum tenens physician. Ive read positive stories about this type of work. Me: Its great that all those options resonate with youit shows that youve got a lot of potential paths forward. Locum tenens work could be a solid bridge, too, giving you the chance to continue practicing while having more control over your schedule and environment. To get started with each of these options, heres a breakdown: Locum tenens: There are several agencies that specialize in locum tenens placements. You could start by researching reputable agencies to find a good fit. Many of them offer flexible opportunities that might allow you to explore other interests alongside practicing medicine. Talk to other physicians who have worked locum tenens to get their perspective and advice. Teaching/mentorship: Reach out to medical schools, residency programs, or even online platforms like Coursera or MedEd platforms where you could contribute as a lecturer or mentor. Consider joining professional organizations that have mentorship programs, or look for conferences that offer opportunities to teach workshops. Writing/advocacy: Perhaps starting a blog or contributing op-eds to medical journals or mainstream publications could be the next step. Advocacy groups often look for people with your kind of experience to help frame important issues. Joining professional networks or organizations that focus on health care reform or patient advocacy could give you a platform to push for change. Volunteering: Look into organizations like Doctors Without Borders, local free clinics, or national medical outreach programs. Many allow for short-term or flexible commitments that align with your skills and experience. Consulting: You could begin by offering pro bono advice to health care startups or non-profits, then build your reputation and expand your network. Platforms like LinkedIn are great for showcasing your expertise and connecting with companies in need of medical insight. Locum tenens could also give you time to explore these indirect paths without fully committing to one right away. P: That sounds great. Thanks for your advice. Same time next week? Me: Why? Theres no point in crying the blues anymore! Arthur Lazarus is a former Doximity Fellow, a member of the editorial board of the American Association for Physician Leadership, and an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. He is the author of several books on narrative medicine, including Medicine on Fire: A Narrative Travelogue and Story Treasures: Medical Essays and Insights in the Narrative Tradition. Most hospitals in Virginia failed to comply with a state law requiring them to demonstrate their ability to care for survivors of sexual assault. According to a memo that Dr. Karen Shelton, the state health commissioner, sent this month to Gov. Glenn Youngkin, 112 of 181 hospitals in the state last year did not submit a plan to treat survivors or send them to another hospital. A state law that took effect in 2023 directs each hospital in the state to affirm it can either treat survivors or transfer them to another facility. But the State Board of Health has not finalized regulations meant to standardize treatment, leading to a delay. Although the number of patients visiting hospitals for sexual assault is rising in Virginia, most hospitals lack certified nurses and some have decided treating sexual assaults is too expensive. Last year, nearly 2,500 survivors of sexual assault visited an emergency room in the state, according to the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association. That figure has risen 20% since 2020. Comprehensive solution to fix the problem Because most hospitals do not have forensic nurses, survivors have been turned away. One visited three hospitals in Northern Virginia before ultimately driving to Richmond, according to Del. Karrie Delaney, a Fairfax County Democrat who sponsored the bill. The law, signed in 2020, took effect in 2023. It requires hospitals that do not treat sexual assaults to transfer patients to a suitable alternative. It also created a task force to standardize treatment for sexual assaults, which can vary from one health system to another. Further, the law requires hospitals to store evidence for law enforcement investigations. In 2020, Delaney called the measure a comprehensive solution. Im really proud to be able to present this with the support of so many of the stakeholders that do this work, she added. But by October 2023, most hospitals in the state still had not submitted plans to treat or transfer survivors. Despite the high number of hospitals that failed to comply with the law, Virginia hospitals have been, and continue to be, leaders in caring for patients impacted by violence, including survivors of sexual assault, Julian Walker, a representative for the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Staffers didnt know how to perform exams In 1993, Bon Secours launched what is now called its violence response team. The group of 30 employees treats victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, human trafficking and more. Bonnie Price, one of the teams founders, realized at the time that doctors and nurses had little training to handle sexual assaults. They did not know how to perform a forensic exam without reading the instructions, Price told the Times-Dispatch. Now, the teams members undergo months of training, including learning how to care for child victims and the role law enforcement plays. Price served on a task force designed to standardize treatment for sexual assault across the state. Forensic nurses need to know how to collect evidence properly and how to explain a patients options for reporting to law enforcement, she said. They should also check for sexually transmitted infections and discuss the possibility of pregnancy and emergency contraception. Nurses can link survivors with advocates who provide support. But the task force did not provide its recommendations until this year, Walker said, and the State Board of Health has not approved them yet. Without firm regulations, hospitals lack guidance to move forward. It is unclear what caused the delay. A representative for the Virginia Department of Health did not respond to a request for comment from the Times-Dispatch. Reimbursement is so low Delaney, who sponsored the original bill, is now considering legislation for 2025 to make sure hospitals have directions to follow. While shes not sure exactly what the bill will entail, she said she will speak with experts and do whatever is necessary to implement the original law. My goal is to make sure anyone who comes to the hospital or an appropriate health care facility has quick access to forensic care, she told the Times-Dispatch. There are other reasons why so few hospitals are prepared to care for survivors of sexual assault. One big reason is a lack of forensic nurses. According to a 2019 study by the Virginia Joint Commission on Health Care, of the states 94,000 nurses at the time, only 150 were credentialed forensic nurses. Other states have similar problems. Many medical providers are uncomfortable treating sexual assault victims, the study determined. Bon Secours violence response team is the only program in the state with a forensic nurse on duty 24 hours a day, Price said. And some hospitals have determined the specialty is too expensive. The cost of forensic nursing is high, the patient volume can be low and the reimbursement hospitals collect is low and difficult for hospital staff to process, according to the 2019 report. Reimbursement is so low and complicated it is not worth the administrative time to figure it out, one hospital told the commission. A state-supported fund, called the Sexual Assault Forensic Exam Payment Program, covers the cost of evidence collection so victims do not have to pay the entire cost. But the fund pays hospitals below the actual cost of performing the exam. In the budget Youngkin signed earlier this year, lawmakers said they would strive to fund 60% of a hospitals cost for conducting the exam. The outgoing Executive Director of Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), Ms. Dorothy Kisaka, along with other dismissed directors, handed over their offices to the newly appointed Acting Directors at City Hall in Kampala on September 27, 2024. The Office of the President announced on Thursday that lawyer Frank Nyakaana Rusa would serve as interim Executive Director, deputized by the Authoritys director for revenue collection, Robert Nowera, and Dr. Sarah Zalwango as acting Director for public health. Speaking at the handover ceremony, the Minister for Kampala, Minsa Kabanda, stated that the process of selecting substantive directors had begun with the commission advertising for these positions. President Museveni dismissed KCCA Executive Director Dorothy Kisaka, her deputy Eng David Luyimbazi, and the director of Public Health Dr. Daniel Okello on Tuesday. The move came in response to the Kiteezi Landfill collapse that resulted in the tragic loss of 35 lives and the disappearance of several others. Commissioner of Parliament and former Leader of Opposition, Mr Mathias Mpuuga has declined calls from the DP bloc to front him for presidency in the forthcoming general elections. The DP bloc team led by Micheal Mabikke and political activist, Samuel Lubega Mukaaku on Thursday asked Mpuuga to warm-up for the presidential race with their support. However, according to Mpuuga, Ugandas current political terrain requires amendments in the electoral laws to draw fair and balanced ground if a genuine election is to happen. I warmly appreciate the kindness of my comrades for believing that I am capable. All I can say is that there are many other Ugandans capable of offering leadership at a higher level and my humble view is that lets first concentrate on creating an environment that makes it possible for leaders to emerge and compete favorably beyond self-interest and our desires, Mpuuga said. He was addressing journalists on Friday at Parliament on his proposals for constitutional and electoral reforms. By Cillian Sherlock, PA A Labour councillor was wrong to say the pager attack in Lebanon was one of the greatest anti-terrorist strikes ever, the partys leader has said. Dozens of people were killed and thousands were injured in shock electronic device bombings, in which thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah detonated on Tuesday and Wednesday last week. Civilians were among those killed and injured, including children. Responsibility for the attack has been widely attributed to Israel. Tanaiste Micheal Martin said he believed the attack was in violation of Geneva Convention rules on indiscriminate attacks. Later on September 18th, Labour councillor for Louth Pio Smith commented on the strikes. In response to a social media post which alleged that Hezbollah had purchased the devices from a shell company owned by the Israeli State, Mr Smith posted on X: This definitely is one of the greatest anti-terrorist strikes ever and Hezbollah actually paid Israel in the process. At the launch of Labours alternative Budget on Friday, party leader Ivana Bacik said she had not seen Mr Smiths comments. However, when pressed on whether she agreed with them, she replied: I dont. Mr Smith has been contacted for comment. By Rebecca Black, PA Conservationists are celebrating after white-tailed eagles bred in Northern Ireland for the first time for more than 150 years. Two first-time breeders in Co Fermanagh successfully fledged one chick. It has been hailed by the Northern Ireland Raptor Study Group (NIRSG) and the RSPB as correcting a multi-generational absence. White-tailed eagles, described as a native component of Irish wildlife, became extinct in Ireland from the late 19th century. Also known as the sea eagle, they are termed as the UKs largest bird of prey, standing at almost one metre tall, with a wingspan of up to 2.4 metres and a distinctive white tail, and the birds are often described as a flying barn door. A white-tailed eagle hunting for fish off the Isle of Skye (Alamy/PA) They were reintroduced to Ireland by the Golden Eagle Trust (GET) and National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) between 2007 and 2011, with the aim of establishing a viable population. One hundred eagle chicks were brought from Norway and released in Killarney National Park, Co Kerry, and in 2020 more young birds were released at a number of sites across Ireland to bolster the population. Released birds were wing-tagged, with tag colours relating to their year of birth and codes to identify individuals, and many were fitted with satellite tags to provide accurate details of their locations. The two that have bred in Northern Ireland are just four years old and were released on the shores of Lough Derg, Co Tipperary in 2020, having been brought from Norway in phase two of the Irish reintroduction programme. Co Fermanaghs wetlands, woodlands and farmlands of have been described as providing the ideal habitats for this species. Dr Eimear Rooney from NIRSG said she felt a rush of adrenaline when she spotted the chick earlier this year. The confirmation of this eagle species breeding in Northern Ireland corrects a multi-generational absence, symbolising the restoration of a once extinct species and highlighting the importance of wetlands, woodlands and farmland habitats on which many of our raptors depend, she said. From reviewing satellite data provided by NPWS we had an idea that the birds were nesting, but with young eagles nothing is guaranteed. I cant describe the adrenalin rush the moment I saw the chick earlier this year and confirmed that the birds were not only nesting but had successfully reared a chick. Dean Jones, investigations officer from RSPB NI added: The return of breeding white-tailed eagles to Northern Ireland is a true testament to the power of conservation and really showcases the awe-inspiring resilience and adaptability of our natural world. The poisoning of the two white-tailed eagles in Glenwherry in May 2023 was devastating, however, to have this pair breeding successfully, under the protection of a caring local farmer, really illustrates how humans and birds of prey can exist in harmony. Gregory Woulahan, operations director from RSPB NI, praised the efforts of the local farmer whose actions to keep the site private and minimise disturbance created the conditions for these young birds to rear their first chick. It is hoped this chick will reach adulthood and return to breed in four to six years, boosting the population of these birds alongside creating tourism opportunities for the rural economy and the implementation of further efforts to boost and restore spaces for nature, he said. MAYNOOTH University is expecting an out-of-this-world visitor next week (9 October) when NASA astronaut Steven Swanson shall be their guest of honour for the colleges Space Week 2024. Join us at Maynooth University for your chance to explore everything from the wonders of new worlds to new views of the Universe in a fascinating event, said a college spokesperson. The highlight will be a free public talk on astrophysics From New Worlds to the Infinite Universe - in the TSI Building on 9 October at 6.30pm. This free in-person event will have experts discuss the latest discoveries in space exploration, from exoplanets to cosmology, and to delve into the wonders of the Universe. Different speakers will cover a range of topics from the search for alien worlds to cosmology to examining the worlds largest telescope (the ELT) and planet formation itself. The attendance will feature a meet and greet with Steven Swanson, a NASA astronaut who has logged over 195 days in space and completed five space walks across several flights. He will share his experience on the International Space Station and perspective on the future of space missions. More information and tickets are available on Eventbrite. A woman who has no recollection of colliding with a minibus and then a wall has been convicted of drink driving and dangerous driving. Guilty pleas were entered to the charges at Kilkenny District Court, where evidence was heard in the case. Garda Jennifer Martin said a two-vehicle road collision took place at Archersrath, just outside Kilkenny, at 5.30pm on November 30 last. A minibus coming from the direction of Bennettsbridge towards the city and a Toyota Yaris coming from the city collided on a bend, at Archersgrove. Garda Martin spoke to both drivers at the scene. John Carthy, driver of the minibus, said the oncoming Yaris veered onto his side of the road and the collision occurred. He made every attempt to stay to the left, pulling into the verge, but could not avoid the impact with the other vehicle. Mr Carthy was not injured and there were no passengers on the minibus. Catherine Hayes, 2 The Orchard, Inistioge, was driver of the Yaris. She was being attended to by an ambulance crew. She told the garda she didnt remember anything. After the collision with the minibus Ms Hayess car continued on another 50 metres and collided with a high, stone wall, causing extensive damage to the vehicle. Ms Hayes was taken to St Lukes Hospital to be treated for an injury to her eye and pains in her side. Before she left the scene, Ms Hayes failed a roadside breath test, Garda Martin said. Gardai followed to the hospital where a blood sample was taken. This showed 162mg of alcohol per 100mls of blood. Ms Hayes later underwent surgery on her eye socket at St Jamess Hospital in Dublin. She suffered six broken ribs and a broken nose. She had no previous convictions. Solicitor Chris Hogan said his client is 37 and a problematic drinker. Ms Hayes uses alcohol to self medicate and dull the pain of childhood incidents, the solicitor said. Ms Hayes was doing well but in her 20s she suffered two bereavements and then drink became problematic. She gave up aged 23 but had a relapse. Mr Hogan said his client did not drink on the day of the accident but because of the amount she had been drinking it had built up in her system. She has not driven since and has no intention of driving. Mr Hogan said his client has not had a drink since this incident. She is apologetic and is attending therapy. Mr Hogan asked the court to give his client credit for her early plea. Judge Geraldine Carthy took into account the mitigation and said she was satisfied the defendant was remorseful. Convicting Ms Hayes of drink driving, the judge imposed a fine of 250 and driving disqualification of three years. For dangerous driving a fine of 200 was handed down with a driving ban of two years. 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. Design & Crafts Council Ireland have lodged plans to develop the former Bank of Ireland building on Market Street in Thomastown into a centre of excellence for ceramics. The proposed works consist of conservation and restoration works to the original historic bank building to include: the refurbishment of existing windows and doors; the refurbishment of existing roof finishes; the refurbishment of historic ceilings; refurbishment works to the existing facade including re-painting works; and the provision of a new ground floor structure and finishes. Minor internal alterations to existing walls and doors are also proposed to accommodate the proposed new use. Alterations to the existing single-storey flat roof extension to the rear and side of the building are proposed to include: the provision of a new pitched roof in part; internal alterations to accommodate the proposed new use; alterations to the Marshs Street elevation and the rear elevation; and the provision of new high-performance glazing and doors. READ ALSO: Hidden treasure buried in Kilkenny? Externally it is proposed to remove two single-storey external shed structures and replace with a new single-storey, pitched roof structure for the storage, preparation, and processing of materials, accessed via a covered walkway from the building and the existing vehicular entrance from Marshs Street. A new pedestrian entrance and path is proposed from the rear public carpark to the building. A decision is due from Kilkenny County Council by November 11, 2024. The former Sessions House in Thomastown is currently being used by Design & Crafts Council Ireland as a state-of-the-art jewellery and goldsmithing school. FOR MORE LOCAL NEWS, CLICK HERE Kilkenny broadcaster Carol Dooley has been inducted into the IMRO Radio Awards Hall of Fame'. Dooley is one of four broadcasters bestowed of the honour, joining; Eddie Caffrey, Ray DArcy, and Hugo Duncan. The four broadcasters attended a ceremony at the IMRO offices earlier today (Wednesday), to celebrate their remarkable careers and their enduring impact on Irish radio. The overall IMRO Radio Awards event will be at the annual gala on Friday, October 4 at the Lyrath Estate Hotel in Kilkenny. The local woman began her broadcasting career at Kilkenny Community Radio in 1979 (latterly Radio Kilkenny and now Community Radio Kilkenny City). Subsequently, she has broadcasted for outlets at home and abroad and now hosts a popular show on Sunshine 106.8 FM and KCLR 96FM. FOR MORE LOCAL NEWS, CLICK HERE Victor Finn, IMRO Chief Executive, headline sponsors of the Awards said: "Their legacy within the industry is undeniable, and they now take their well-deserved place among Irelands most esteemed broadcasters." "Radio continues to play a hugely valuable role in Irish life, not only entertaining listeners but acting as a trustworthy source of news and information for us all. Hall of Fame recipients are reflective of the talent at work across the industry and its wonderful to see todays inductees recognised," Aoife MacEvilly of Coimisiun Na Mean commented. A Labour councillor was wrong to say the pager attack in Lebanon was one of the greatest anti-terrorist strikes ever, the partys leader has said. Dozens of people were killed and thousands were injured in shock electronic device bombings, in which thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah detonated on Tuesday and Wednesday last week. Civilians were among those killed and injured, including children. Responsibility for the attack has been widely attributed to Israel. Tanaiste Micheal Martin said he believed the attack was in violation of Geneva Convention rules on indiscriminate attacks. Later on September 18, Labour councillor for Louth Pio Smith commented on the strikes. In response to a social media post which alleged that Hezbollah had purchased the devices from a shell company owned by the Israeli State, Mr Smith posted on X: This definitely is one of the greatest anti-terrorist strikes ever and Hezbollah actually paid Israel in the process. At the launch of Labours alternative Budget on Friday, party leader Ivana Bacik said she had not seen Mr Smiths comments. However, when pressed on whether she agreed with them, she replied: I dont. Asked by the PA news agency if he still stood by his remarks, Mr Smith said: I still stand by them, absolutely. He added: Thats the good thing about the Labour Party, you can agree to disagree. Mr Smith said he had not been contacted by the partys head office about the comments. The councillor received criticism for the post, with one social media user noting that children had died in the explosions. Mr Smith defended the remarks, citing Hezbollah attacks on Israel and the killing of Irish peacekeeper Sean Rooney in 2022, for which Hezbollah members were accused. He said: There was a number of other people who agreed with me. So I mean, thats just the nature of social media. I mean my point of view is Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation. You know, they recently murdered an Irish soldier and they attack Israel on a daily basis and they have displaced up to 100,000 Israelis from the northern section of Israel along the border with the Lebanon. And, what is Israel supposed to do about that? Mr Smith said legal scholars had argued that the strikes were compliant with proportionality under just war theory. Remarks by former taoiseach Leo Varadkar that immigration numbers have risen too quickly in Ireland, have been described as a new low. Labour leader Ivana Bacik criticised the comments, saying they were deeply inappropriate and unhelpful. In an interview with the University of Notre Dames college newspaper this week, Mr Varadkar said that people have a right to think that immigration numbers have risen too quickly. Mr Varadkar, who was visiting the United States earlier this week, told The Observer: The majority of people think that the numbers have been too big in recent years, and theyre right. A country of five million people seeing its population rise by 2% a year, which is whats happening at the moment, is too fast. The former Fine Gael leader pointed to the economic benefits of high migration, but warned against the rising prejudice in Ireland. His comments were condemned by Ms Bacik. Clearly, Leo Varadkar is enjoying life after politics, and Im sure Taoiseach Simon Harris is delighted to get all the free advice hes been given by the former taoiseach, she said on Friday. On a serious note, I think its deeply inappropriate and unhelpful and indeed, a really new low in political narrative to see Leo Varadkar making such a statement, that suggests that there has been too much immigration. That doesnt take into account the horrific war in Ukraine, that doesnt take into account the need to provide shelter for so many fleeing war, that doesnt take into the account the fact that around the country, employers and communities are crying out for labour. Every hospital, every healthcare facility, every school, every childcare facility, is looking for staff. I think these comments were deeply unhelpful. It is a new low. We saw the Taoiseachs comments last week again appearing to conflate homelessness and inward migration. Really unhelpful. I criticised those. Then just this week, we see the main opposition party doubling down and coming out with some very strong rhetoric that was really anti-Ukraine and cannot be put any other way. For Labour, weve always stood for a fair and effective immigration system. We want to ensure that communities around the country are acknowledged for the welcome thats been given to those whove come here, that the small number of hostile events have been a minority and an exception, and the reality is, Ireland is a welcoming country, and for Labour, well always stand for an inclusive, tolerant and a diverse society. Asked about Mr Varadkars comments, Minister for Housing Darragh OBrien said he had not yet read the full interview, but said that the rise in population has added to the challenges of the housing crisis. I havent read the full interview. Ive only heard the sort of snippets of it, he said on Friday in Co Dublin. I think undoubtedly immigration poses challenges and has brought about challenges to the state, but like Ive welcomed that, I think its good that we have a population thats growing. I was in Beaumont Hospital yesterday, for arguments sake, and the vast majority of our healthcare workers are people whove come from overseas and who have decided to make Ireland their home. I welcome that. I think the comments the former taoiseach made with regard to what pace that has happened, thats reality that were dealing with. I suppose one of the issues, if you take on housing, has really been the main issue there, is that we didnt have enough homes built for a 10-year period before this government came into office. Were playing catch up there, and we are trying to be making progress in that regard. But you know, weve full employment in our economy right now. Weve been 2.75 million people working when you talk across the sectors, be that construction, be that retail or hospitality, you see the challenges that businesses have actually getting staff to fill roles that are there. We need people actively engaged in our economy, when we need people coming into our country. Im glad that our population is growing. Gardai are appealing for witnesses after a young man died in hospital following a two-car collision in County Wicklow. The alarm was raised at around 8.35am on Thursday and emergency services subsequently attended the scene of the collision that occurred on the R753 between Ballinaclash and Aughrim. "The driver of one vehicle, a man aged in his 20s sustained serious injuries and was conveyed to St Vincents University Hospital in Dublin. He has since passed away as a result of his injuries," confirmed a garda spokesperson. According to gardai, a female child who was a passenger in the second vehicle was conveyed to Childrens Health Ireland at Crumlin as a precaution. READ ALSO: Three arrested as gardai target crime group behind spate of burglaries They are appealing for any witnesses to this collision to come forward and any road users who may have camera footage, including dash-cam, and who were travelling in the area at the time of the incident, are asked to make this footage available to investigating gardai. Anyone with any information is asked to contact Wicklow garda station on 0404 60140, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any garda station. Chris Bishop and Simon Court announced: Two new laws will be developed to replace the Resource Management Act (RMA), with the enjoyment of property rights as their guiding principle, RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Parliamentary Under-Secretary Simon Court say. The RMA was passed with good intentions in 1991 but has proved a failure in practice. Finally, there is hope. It has been clear for decades the RMA is extremely flawed. The only thing worse than the RMA was Labours replacement law in 2023 which was so terrible it made the RMA look great. The 10 core design features on the new laws are: Narrow the scope of the resource management system to focus on managing actual effects on the environment. Establish two Acts with clear and distinct purposes one to manage environmental effects arising from activities, and another to enable urban development and infrastructure. Strengthen and clarify the role of environmental limits and how they are to be developed. Provide for greater use of national standards to reduce the need for resource consents and simplify council plans. This would mean that an activity which complies with the standards cannot be subject to a consent requirement . . Shift the focus away from consenting before activities can get underway, and towards compliance, monitoring and enforcement of activities compliance with national standards . . Use spatial planning and a simplified designation process to lower the cost of future infrastructure. Realise efficiencies by requiring one regulatory plan per region , jointly prepared by regional and district councils. , jointly prepared by regional and district councils. Provide for a rapid, low-cost resolution of disputes between neighbours and between property owners and councils, with the potential for a new Planning Tribunal (or equivalent). Uphold Treaty of Waitangi settlements and the Crowns obligations. Provide faster and cheaper processes with less reliance on litigation, contained within shorter and simpler legislation that is more accessible. The ones in bold are those especially important. If they can turn these principles or design features into law, that will be a very good thing. Share this: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp More Pinterest Print Tumblr The MND: The Philippine side should not have miscalculation and should stop making risky and futile provocations China Military Online) 13:31, September 27, 2024 Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense, made the remarks at a regular news conference on Thursday. Question: The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) ship 9701 has withdrawn from Xianbin Jiao and the PCG said it would send another ship to the reef and would not let it become a second Huangyan Dao. Philippine Defense Secretary said that if China removes the Philippine ship grounded at Ren'ai Jiao, it would be an act of war. What's your comment? Zhang Xiaogang: The Philippine side recently pulled out PCG 9701 which had been illegally anchored in the lagoon of Xianbin Jiao. It is the only right way forward and is conducive to restoring peace and stability in relevant waters. China has indisputable sovereignty over Nansha Qundao and its adjacent waters, including Ren'ai Jiao and Xianbin Jiao. We will take firm countermeasures against any act that infringes China's territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests. Actions that violate the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) and undermine regional peace and stability are unwelcomed. We urge the Philippine side not to have illusion and miscalculation and stop making any risky and futile provocations. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Shares of Canadian Western Bank (TSE:CWB Get Free Report) have been assigned an average rating of Moderate Buy from the twelve research firms that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and six have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 12-month target price among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is C$48.03. A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on CWB shares. National Bankshares cut their price objective on shares of Canadian Western Bank from C$37.00 to C$30.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Monday, June 3rd. CIBC raised their price objective on Canadian Western Bank from C$55.80 to C$60.30 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Scotiabank lifted their price objective on Canadian Western Bank from C$30.00 to C$52.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 18th. Cormark increased their target price on Canadian Western Bank from C$46.00 to C$47.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Finally, Desjardins lifted their price target on Canadian Western Bank from C$53.00 to C$57.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Get Canadian Western Bank alerts: View Our Latest Analysis on Canadian Western Bank Canadian Western Bank Stock Up 2.1 % TSE CWB opened at C$54.30 on Friday. The stocks 50 day moving average is C$49.57 and its 200 day moving average is C$37.86. The firm has a market capitalization of C$5.25 billion, a PE ratio of 18.53, a P/E/G ratio of 2.95 and a beta of 1.39. Canadian Western Bank has a twelve month low of C$24.66 and a twelve month high of C$54.50. Canadian Western Bank (TSE:CWB Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Friday, August 30th. The company reported C$0.60 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of C$0.87 by C($0.27). The business had revenue of C$298.47 million during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of C$296.88 million. Canadian Western Bank had a return on equity of 7.51% and a net margin of 29.23%. Canadian Western Bank Dividend Announcement The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 26th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, September 12th were paid a dividend of $0.35 per share. This represents a $1.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.58%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 12th. Canadian Western Banks dividend payout ratio is currently 47.78%. Insider Activity In other news, Senior Officer Jenny Siman sold 1,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of C$46.05, for a total transaction of C$46,050.00. In related news, Senior Officer Jenny Siman sold 1,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Monday, July 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of C$46.05, for a total transaction of C$46,050.00. Also, Senior Officer Trent Albert Erickson sold 3,900 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of C$51.42, for a total value of C$200,538.00. Insiders own 0.46% of the companys stock. About Canadian Western Bank (Get Free Report Canadian Western Bank provides personal and business banking products and services in Western Canada. The company offers current, savings, US dollar, chequing, flex notice, organization, business trust, and trust fund investment accounts. It also offers commercial lending and real estate, equipment financing and leasing, aviation financing, and dealership financing products; agriculture lending products and AgriInvest savings account; variable and fixed rate mortgages; line of credit; registered retirement savings plan, consolidation, and vehicle loans; and credit cards. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Canadian Western Bank Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Canadian Western Bank and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has approved a $400 million loan for Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL), marking a significant step toward its acquisition of Telenor Groups operations in Pakistan. In a statement, PTCL confirmed the approval, which had been anticipated since April, with initial expectations for completion by July. The IFC detailed in a seperate statement, $224.5 million will come directly from IFC and an additional $175.5 million from British International Investment and the Silk Road Fund, structured over a seven-year term. This acquisition will see PTCL take control of Telenor Pakistan and Orion Towers Private Limited, with plans to merge its mobile subsidiary, Pak Telecom Mobile Limited (Ufone), with Telenor Pakistan. The combined entity is projected to serve around 70 million subscribers, reducing the number of mobile network operators in the country from four to three. The main competitors left in the market will be Zong and Jazz. The merger represents another strategic exit by Telenor from Asian markets, following its previous mergers in Thailand and Malaysia and its withdrawal from Myanmar. Telenor still retains its stake in Grameenphone in Bangladesh. The IFC emphasised that Pakistans telecommunications sector presents substantial growth opportunities, with broadband and mobile user penetration currently below regional averages. Pakistans telecommunications market offers significant opportunities for growth and investment, said Khawaja Aftab Ahmed, IFCs Regional Director for the Middle East, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Commenting on the deal, Hatem Bamatraf, President and Group CEO of PTCL and PTML, highlighted the landmark nature of the financing: This is the largest single financing ever secured in the industry, and it strengthens the PTCL Group while promoting long-term stability across the telecom sector. The enhanced economies of scale will allow the industry to contribute more effectively to Pakistans economic and social progress. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras S.A. Eletrobras (NYSE:EBR Free Report) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report released on Monday. Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras S.A. Eletrobras Stock Performance Shares of NYSE:EBR opened at $7.33 on Monday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $7.26 and a 200 day moving average price of $7.34. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 2.33 and a current ratio of 2.35. Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras S.A. Eletrobras has a twelve month low of $6.21 and a twelve month high of $9.11. Get Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras S.A. - Eletrobras alerts: Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras S.A. Eletrobras (NYSE:EBR Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 8th. The utilities provider reported $0.14 earnings per share for the quarter. Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras S.A. Eletrobras had a return on equity of 4.18% and a net margin of 13.37%. The company had revenue of $1.61 billion during the quarter. As a group, equities analysts predict that Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras S.A. Eletrobras will post 0.32 EPS for the current fiscal year. Institutional Inflows and Outflows About Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras S.A. Eletrobras Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Millennium Management LLC grew its position in Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras S.A. Eletrobras by 228.9% during the second quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 1,580,932 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $10,165,000 after buying an additional 1,100,233 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras S.A. Eletrobras by 14.2% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 71,414 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $459,000 after purchasing an additional 8,878 shares in the last quarter. Cubist Systematic Strategies LLC bought a new stake in shares of Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras S.A. Eletrobras during the second quarter valued at approximately $938,000. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans increased its position in shares of Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras S.A. Eletrobras by 36.7% during the second quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 362,019 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $2,328,000 after purchasing an additional 97,166 shares during the period. Finally, Beck Bode LLC raised its stake in shares of Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras S.A. Eletrobras by 1,444.6% in the second quarter. Beck Bode LLC now owns 1,766,440 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $11,358,000 after purchasing an additional 1,652,075 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 6.54% of the companys stock. (Get Free Report) Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA Eletrobras, through its subsidiaries, engages in the generation, transmission, and commercialization of electricity in Brazil. The company generates electricity through hydroelectric, thermoelectric, nuclear, wind, and solar plants. As of December 31, 2023, it owned and operated 44 hydroelectric plants with a total capacity of 42,293.5 megawatt (MW); 5 thermal plants, including coal and gas power generation units with a total installed capacity of 1,632 MW; and two nuclear power plants comprising Angra 1 with an installed capacity of 657 MW and Angra 2 with an installed capacity of 1350 MW. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras S.A. - Eletrobras Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras S.A. - Eletrobras and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. StockNews.com upgraded shares of EnerSys (NYSE:ENS Free Report) from a buy rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report report published on Tuesday morning. ENS has been the subject of a number of other reports. Roth Mkm restated a buy rating and set a $120.00 price objective on shares of EnerSys in a research report on Monday. Roth Capital upgraded shares of EnerSys to a strong-buy rating in a report on Tuesday, August 27th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, EnerSys presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $118.00. Get EnerSys alerts: Get Our Latest Report on EnerSys EnerSys Stock Up 2.1 % ENS stock opened at $101.56 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48, a current ratio of 2.70 and a quick ratio of 1.66. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.09 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.62, a P/E/G ratio of 0.62 and a beta of 1.24. EnerSys has a 52-week low of $83.27 and a 52-week high of $112.53. The companys 50 day simple moving average is $100.10 and its 200-day simple moving average is $98.83. EnerSys (NYSE:ENS Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, August 7th. The industrial products company reported $1.98 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.97 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $852.90 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $877.52 million. EnerSys had a net margin of 7.73% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The companys revenue was down 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.89 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that EnerSys will post 8.94 EPS for the current year. EnerSys Increases Dividend The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 16th will be paid a dividend of $0.24 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 16th. This is an increase from EnerSyss previous quarterly dividend of $0.23. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.95%. EnerSyss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 14.77%. Insider Activity In related news, insider Chad C. Uplinger sold 500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $100.87, for a total value of $50,435.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 17,175 shares in the company, valued at $1,732,442.25. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other EnerSys news, insider Chad C. Uplinger sold 500 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $100.87, for a total value of $50,435.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 17,175 shares of the companys stock, valued at $1,732,442.25. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO David M. Shaffer sold 2,400 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, August 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $100.00, for a total transaction of $240,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 244,140 shares in the company, valued at approximately $24,414,000. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 22,700 shares of company stock worth $2,271,843 in the last three months. 1.61% of the stock is owned by insiders. Institutional Trading of EnerSys Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in EnerSys in the 4th quarter worth approximately $46,747,000. American Century Companies Inc. lifted its stake in shares of EnerSys by 246.8% in the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 264,247 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $27,355,000 after buying an additional 188,053 shares during the last quarter. Shellback Capital LP acquired a new stake in shares of EnerSys in the second quarter worth $14,012,000. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of EnerSys by 17.2% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 908,253 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $94,022,000 after buying an additional 133,211 shares during the period. Finally, Great Lakes Advisors LLC acquired a new position in EnerSys in the 2nd quarter valued at $10,765,000. Institutional investors own 94.93% of the companys stock. EnerSys Company Profile (Get Free Report) EnerSys engages in the provision of stored energy solutions for industrial applications worldwide. It operates in four segments: Energy Systems, Motive Power, Specialty, and New Ventures. The Energy Systems segment offers uninterruptible power systems (UPS) applications for computer and computer-controlled systems, as well as telecommunications systems; switchgear and electrical control systems used in industrial facilities and electric utilities, large-scale energy storage, and energy pipelines; integrated power solutions and services to broadband, telecom, data center, and renewable and industrial customers; and thermally managed cabinets and enclosures for electronic equipment and batteries. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for EnerSys Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for EnerSys and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Global Payments (NYSE:GPN Get Free Report) had its price target reduced by research analysts at KeyCorp from $145.00 to $135.00 in a note issued to investors on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an overweight rating on the business services providers stock. KeyCorps price target suggests a potential upside of 38.22% from the stocks current price. A number of other equities research analysts have also issued reports on GPN. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods dropped their target price on shares of Global Payments from $150.00 to $140.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Monday, July 8th. BNP Paribas upgraded shares of Global Payments to a strong sell rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. Royal Bank of Canada cut their price objective on shares of Global Payments from $172.00 to $158.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Thursday, August 8th. StockNews.com upgraded Global Payments from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on Global Payments from $111.00 to $118.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 20th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $141.36. Get Global Payments alerts: Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on GPN Global Payments Trading Up 0.6 % Shares of Global Payments stock opened at $97.67 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 0.92, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68. Global Payments has a twelve month low of $91.60 and a twelve month high of $141.77. The firm has a market capitalization of $24.93 billion, a PE ratio of 19.38, a P/E/G ratio of 0.71 and a beta of 0.98. The firms 50-day moving average price is $105.63 and its 200 day moving average price is $109.61. Global Payments (NYSE:GPN Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, August 7th. The business services provider reported $2.93 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.90 by $0.03. Global Payments had a return on equity of 11.93% and a net margin of 14.26%. The business had revenue of $2.57 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.32 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.48 earnings per share. The businesss quarterly revenue was up 4.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Global Payments will post 11.07 EPS for the current fiscal year. Insiders Place Their Bets In related news, CAO David M. Sheffield sold 1,651 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $100.73, for a total value of $166,305.23. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 20,531 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,068,087.63. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. 0.98% of the stock is owned by insiders. Hedge Funds Weigh In On Global Payments Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of GPN. Sanctuary Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Global Payments during the second quarter worth about $900,000. Brown Financial Advisors acquired a new stake in Global Payments during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $1,128,000. Heritage Oak Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Global Payments in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $333,000. Delphi Management Inc. MA grew its stake in shares of Global Payments by 5.6% in the second quarter. Delphi Management Inc. MA now owns 13,682 shares of the business services providers stock worth $1,323,000 after acquiring an additional 730 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Aurora Investment Counsel increased its position in shares of Global Payments by 5.9% during the second quarter. Aurora Investment Counsel now owns 11,300 shares of the business services providers stock worth $1,093,000 after acquiring an additional 625 shares during the period. 89.76% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. About Global Payments (Get Free Report) Global Payments Inc provides payment technology and software solutions for card, check, and digital-based payments in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific. It operates through two segments, Merchant Solutions and Issuer Solutions. The Merchant Solutions segment offers authorization, settlement and funding, customer support, chargeback resolution, terminal rental, sales and deployment, payment security, and consolidated billing and reporting services. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Global Payments Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Global Payments and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Sonic Automotive (NYSE:SAH Get Free Report) was upgraded by equities researchers at Morgan Stanley from an underweight rating to an equal weight rating in a research report issued on Wednesday, MarketBeat.com reports. The brokerage currently has a $58.00 price objective on the stock, up from their prior price objective of $40.00. Morgan Stanleys price objective would indicate a potential downside of 0.22% from the stocks current price. A number of other brokerages also recently issued reports on SAH. Bank of America reduced their price target on shares of Sonic Automotive from $68.00 to $67.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, July 22nd. Stephens initiated coverage on Sonic Automotive in a research note on Thursday, September 12th. They set an equal weight rating and a $64.00 target price for the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on Sonic Automotive from $63.00 to $75.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 10th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC started coverage on Sonic Automotive in a research report on Tuesday, August 20th. They set a buy rating and a $73.00 price objective for the company. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $66.50. Get Sonic Automotive alerts: View Our Latest Stock Report on SAH Sonic Automotive Stock Performance Shares of Sonic Automotive stock opened at $58.13 on Wednesday. The businesss 50 day moving average price is $58.44 and its 200 day moving average price is $56.27. The company has a market cap of $1.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.91 and a beta of 1.61. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.04, a quick ratio of 0.36 and a current ratio of 1.10. Sonic Automotive has a one year low of $41.19 and a one year high of $64.68. Sonic Automotive (NYSE:SAH Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, August 5th. The company reported $1.47 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.38 by $0.09. Sonic Automotive had a net margin of 1.35% and a return on equity of 25.31%. The firm had revenue of $3.45 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $3.56 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.83 EPS. The companys revenue was down 5.5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts predict that Sonic Automotive will post 5.79 EPS for the current year. Insiders Place Their Bets In other news, CFO Heath Byrd sold 19,827 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, July 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $60.00, for a total transaction of $1,189,620.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 173,618 shares of the companys stock, valued at $10,417,080. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Insiders own 40.95% of the companys stock. Institutional Trading of Sonic Automotive A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Point72 DIFC Ltd boosted its holdings in Sonic Automotive by 6.9% in the second quarter. Point72 DIFC Ltd now owns 2,900 shares of the companys stock valued at $158,000 after purchasing an additional 187 shares during the period. Inspire Investing LLC grew its position in shares of Sonic Automotive by 3.4% during the second quarter. Inspire Investing LLC now owns 6,475 shares of the companys stock worth $353,000 after buying an additional 211 shares in the last quarter. Arizona State Retirement System increased its stake in shares of Sonic Automotive by 10.8% during the second quarter. Arizona State Retirement System now owns 4,324 shares of the companys stock worth $236,000 after buying an additional 420 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in Sonic Automotive by 3.7% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 12,806 shares of the companys stock valued at $730,000 after acquiring an additional 458 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC purchased a new position in Sonic Automotive in the first quarter worth approximately $30,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 46.92% of the companys stock. Sonic Automotive Company Profile (Get Free Report) Sonic Automotive, Inc operates as an automotive retailer in the United States. It operates in three segments, Franchised Dealerships, EchoPark, and Powersports. The Franchised Dealerships segment is involved in the sale of new and used cars and light trucks, and replacement parts; provision of vehicle maintenance, manufacturer warranty repair, and paint and collision repair services; and arrangement of extended warranties, service contracts, financing, insurance, and other aftermarket products for its guests. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Sonic Automotive Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Sonic Automotive and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Toyota Industries Co. (OTCMKTS:TYIDY Get Free Report) was the recipient of a large growth in short interest in September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 1,800 shares, a growth of 800.0% from the August 31st total of 200 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 6,900 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 0.3 days. Toyota Industries Stock Performance Shares of TYIDY stock opened at $80.25 on Friday. The stocks fifty day moving average price is $77.41 and its 200 day moving average price is $87.35. Toyota Industries has a 1-year low of $66.49 and a 1-year high of $106.84. Get Toyota Industries alerts: Toyota Industries Company Profile (Get Free Report) Read More Toyota Industries Corporation manufactures and sells textiles machinery, materials handling equipment, automobiles, and automobile parts in Japan, the United States, and internationally. The company operates through Automobile, Materials Handling Equipment, and Textile Machinery segments. It provides vehicles; gasoline and diesel engines for automobiles and industrial equipment; turbochargers and foundry parts; car air-conditioning compressors; car electronics comprising DC-DC converters, in-vehicle chargers, on-board chargers and DC-DC converter units, and DC-AC inverters; batteries; and stamping dies, including automotive and lift truck stamping dies. Receive News & Ratings for Toyota Industries Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Toyota Industries and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. (NYSE:TKC Free Report) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note released on Monday. Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. Price Performance TKC opened at $7.08 on Monday. The firms fifty day moving average price is $7.36 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $6.82. The company has a market capitalization of $6.23 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.78 and a beta of 0.84. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.42, a current ratio of 1.57 and a quick ratio of 1.56. Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. has a 1 year low of $4.07 and a 1 year high of $8.47. Get Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. alerts: Institutional Investors Weigh In On Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Atomi Financial Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. by 4.8% in the second quarter. Atomi Financial Group Inc. now owns 28,091 shares of the Wireless communications providers stock valued at $213,000 after acquiring an additional 1,284 shares in the last quarter. Kathmere Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. by 6.6% in the 2nd quarter. Kathmere Capital Management LLC now owns 24,915 shares of the Wireless communications providers stock valued at $189,000 after purchasing an additional 1,552 shares during the period. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. by 8.8% during the 1st quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 23,224 shares of the Wireless communications providers stock valued at $121,000 after purchasing an additional 1,877 shares during the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC raised its stake in shares of Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. by 9.7% during the 2nd quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC now owns 22,037 shares of the Wireless communications providers stock worth $167,000 after purchasing an additional 1,955 shares during the period. Finally, Janiczek Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. by 7.7% in the 1st quarter. Janiczek Wealth Management LLC now owns 27,892 shares of the Wireless communications providers stock worth $145,000 after buying an additional 1,997 shares during the last quarter. Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. Company Profile Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. provides digital services in Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and the Netherlands. It operates through Turkcell Turkey, Turkcell International, and Techfin segments. It offers work contact services, such as mobile communications, fixed business internet and business phone, and customer loyalty and programs; digital business services comprising uninterrupted access, cyber security, data center, Internet of Things, big data, e-transformation, technologies, and managed services, and cloud solutions. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. By Baek Byung-yeul The new crime film "Dirty Money" offers a fresh take on the genre by exploring the ironic situation of corrupt detectives who not only investigate crime but also engage in it, according to its director, Kim Min-soo. "I tried to differentiate it from other crime movies. I wanted to convey to the audience the ironic fun that comes from detectives committing crimes," Kim said during a press conference in Seoul on Thursday. In the movie, Myung-deuk (Jung Woo) and Dong-hyuk (Kim Dae-myung) are detectives who investigate during the day and take bribes from illegal businesses at night. They attempt to steal dirty money for a life-changing opportunity and get entangled in another case. Eventually, these partners are pursued by Seung-chan (Park Byung-eun), a detective from the criminal investigation bureau who was Myung-deuk's ex-partner, as he closes in on the investigation. Jung said he was attracted to the simple yet intense title and plot of the film. "I wondered what it would be about if it was a story about life falling apart after mishandling money," he said. "I think it's important to make films with strong messages, but it's also important to make movies that people can enjoy in theaters while eating popcorn. I found great appeal in that aspect." Kim Dae-myung said he lost over 10 kilograms while filming this movie. "Dong-hyuk is an immature character whose life goes wrong a lot. When we were working on the movie, the director wanted me to see the progression of the character's transformation from boy to man, so I lost weight over 10 kilograms," he said. Park, who portrays detective Seung-chan, tried to show his character as "a mix of a Dobermann and a hyena" relentlessly pursuing these corrupt detectives. "In crime movies, there are often absurd and exaggerated characters and situations, but the characters in 'Dirty Money' are realistic, like citizens you might see around you," he said. "Dirty Money" was filmed from December 2018 to March 2019. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the film's release was delayed several times over the years and it is finally set to be released next month. Kim, who co-wrote the screenplays for the movies "The Merciless" (2017) and "Kingmaker" (2022), said he didn't expect the film's release to be delayed this long. "When we were working on set, I never thought the release would be delayed this much," the director said. "I'm really grateful to the staff who worked on post-production. I kept visiting them and suggesting parts to improve. I want to thank them for teaching me a lot and allowing me to keep making revisions during that process." The actors appreciated the director's prolonged commitment to refining the film despite numerous delays as well. "He continued to edit until recently. That process must not have been easy, and I think his passion is amazing," Kim Dae-myung said. As a result of these efforts, "Dirty Money" has been included in the Special Premiere section of the Busan International Film Festival next month and will hit theaters on Oct. 17. By Lee Yeon-woo Woori Bank opened four new branches dedicated to foreign customers, called "global desks," on Friday. Some of them will also begin operating on Sundays for the convenience of customers. Woori said it established the four new global desks at its headquarters in Seoul, Gwanghui-dong banking center in Seoul, Uijeongbu banking center in Gyeonggi Province and Gimhae banking center in South Gyeongsang Province. Each desk will specialize in serving customers from specific regions: the United States and China, Mongolia and Russia, Thailand and Cambodia, and Indonesia, respectively. The Uijeongbu and Gimhae centers will operate every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., while the Gwanghui-dong banking center will open on the second and fourth Sundays of each month during the same hours. This initiative is aimed at accommodating foreign customers who find it difficult to visit the bank on weekdays. Woori Bank's global desks now total eight locations, including those at the bank's Seoul National University and Guro Bon-dong branches in Seoul and Sinjeju and Seogwipo branches on Jeju Island. The newly established global desks will be staffed with foreign employees from respective countries, offering services such as opening an account, smart banking, foreign exchange and remittance services and personalized consultations on financial products. "We plan to expand dedicated counters in areas with large foreign populations," a Woori Bank official said. "We will continue to work toward providing improved financial services for our foreign customers." By Yi Whan-woo Veterinarians' yearly income has been increasing at a faster pace compared to other highly skilled professionals in Korea, data showed Friday. These professionals include doctors and lawyers who are at the top of the career pyramid and are frequently mentioned when talking about the country's most lucrative careers. The data compiled by the National Tax Service and released by Rep. Ahn Do-geol of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea reflects that Koreans are increasingly opting to live with pets rather than children. According to the data, the average annual income of veterinarians was 100 million won ($75,900) in 2022, lower than doctors at 400 million won, accountants at 220 million won and tax accountants at 120 million won. The vets, however, topped the list regarding the pace of yearly income increase. Veterinarians saw their income grow by 12.6 percent each year on average between 2014 and 2022, which is higher than 8.3 percent growth for doctors, who claimed second place, 8.1 percent for labor attorneys and 6 percent for architects. The yearly income of pharmacists increased 5.5 percent on average, 4.3 percent for accountants, 3.6 percent for dentists and tax accountants, 1.5 percent for licensed customs brokers, 0.2 percent for traditional Korean medicine practitioners and 0.1 percent for patent attorneys. For lawyers, the growth in their yearly income stagnated at zero percent over the surveyed period. "A steeper growth in income for veterinarians suggests more people have pets, and there is a higher demand for veterinary care," Ahn said. Citing separate government data, the lawmaker said more than 15 million individuals, or approximately one out of every four households nationwide, own dogs, cats or other companion animals. Accordingly, the pet market is anticipated to be worth around 21 trillion won by 2032 after reaching 8.5 trillion won in 2022. The market includes pet insurance, which, according to the industry, grew nearly 52 percent in 2023 from the previous year. Dentists and traditional Korean medicine practitioners earned 100 million won annually on average. Patent attorneys earned 90 million won, while licensed customs brokers and pharmacists both posted 80 million won. Lawyers fared relatively poorly, posting 70 million won. The world must recognize that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons and pursue dialogue despite its violations of U.N. sanctions and international law, the United Nations' nuclear chief said Thursday. In an interview with The Associated Press. Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), wondered whether slamming the door on Kim Jong-uns government has solved anything or are we, on the contrary, exacerbating the conditions for a situation that may go out of hand? He said North Koreas nuclear program should be condemned for violating Security Council sanctions and international law. But there has been no international engagement since 2006 when the country became a de facto nuclear weapon possessor state and since then its nuclear program has expanded significantly. Grossi said its very important to keep reiterating that North Korea has to stop its nuclear activities, but at the same time, we need to start thinking seriously about stopping to talk past each other. We must be proactive, and we must open doors for dialogue, he said. My credo ... for many, many years, has always been engage, talk, try things. What is happening in North Korea is extremely concerning, Grossi said. But at the same time, it should be a call for diplomatic action. He said engagement with North Korea will require very careful, diplomatic preparatory moves to regain trust. I hope that will be possible. Grossi said. He said one possible issue for engagement with Pyongyang is on nuclear safety. North Korea offered a very rare glimpse into a secret facility to produce weapons-grade uranium about two weeks ago. Grossi said it confirmed that the IAEAs analysis of Pyongyangs nuclear program is very, very solid. As these pictures show, and beyond that, they have a vast nuclear program, which is perhaps the only one in the world on which there is no visibility in terms of the observance of the basic international nuclear safety standards, he said, pointing to tons of material being handled at its nuclear facilities. During the North Korean leaders visit to the secret facility, the countrys official news agency, KCNA, said Kim called for stronger efforts to exponentially produce more nuclear weapons. Grossi asked what Kim means by exponentially, saying there is speculation on whether North Korea has 30 or 50 nuclear warheads. But more broadly, he stressed that we are at an international juncture where other countries are also increasing their nuclear weapons arsenals, though perhaps not exponentially. This is a symptom of our underlying, very profound malaise that will have to be addressed one way or the other, he said. In his more than a decade in power, Chinese President Xi Jinping has invested in high-tech military technologies and a growing arsenal of nuclear weapons. The United States is modernizing its nuclear weapons program. And Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday that any nations conventional attack on Russia supported by a nuclear power will be considered a joint attack on his country. The announcement was clearly aimed at discouraging the West from allowing Ukraine to use its longer-range weapons to strike Russia. Grossi called Putins threat, outlined in a revision of Moscows nuclear doctrine, serious and concerning, and said it may represent a lowering of the threshold for the possible use of Russias nuclear arsenal or a broadening of his words. He said other countries have also used hypothetical scenarios that would trigger nuclear weapons use. We are not surprised, and this is part of the calculations of countries, Grossi said. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday that he received an intelligence report indicating Russia is planning to attack its nuclear power plants which could lead to a nuclear disaster. Grossi, asked about the report, said the IAEA takes Zelenskyys statement seriously but we dont have that information. The nuclear agency still has staff at every nuclear power plant in Ukraine, he said, and this summer has been particularly difficult, with military targeting of a nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, where one of its cooling towers was set on fire. Following Ukraines surprise cross-border incursion into Russia, the IAEA chief visited the Kursk nuclear power plant, the countrys third largest, where the Kremlin said the remains of a drone had been found. During the more than 2 -year war following Russias February 2022 invasion of its smaller neighbor, Grossi said he has maintained contacts with both sides. If he calls Putin or Zelenskyy, he said, they will probably pick up the phone, because they recognize that nuclear safety has regional and even global implications. As for Iran, its new reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has said Tehran didnt want to enrich uranium at near-weapons grade levels but had been forced to when the United States withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal between his country and six major powers. In his first speech on the world stage, Pezeshkian told the General Assembly on Wednesday that Iran is ready to engage on the 2015 nuclear deal if all participants act in good faith. Grossi said the presidents comments are an opening for the IAEA, and he plans to visit Tehran very soon." What I would like to hear from him is what is his take on the return to an agreed framework, which is, in my opinion, what we need to do, the IAEA chief said. It could be on the basis of the 2015 nuclear deal known as the JCPOA, Grossi said, but Iran has far advanced its nuclear capacities since then. It will have to be much, much stronger, he said, "and we are ready to work with them. (AP) In what may seem an unusual form of diversification, Pakistans Mari Petroleum Company Limited (MPCL) has said it plans to invest in the establishment of data centres, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and related technology ventures. According to a number of reports, MPCL, in collaboration with its partners, will lead this expansion by developing Tier III and Tier IV-certified, purpose-built data centres across Pakistan to meet the data management and processing needs of a wide range of public and private institutions. Pakistan currently has 22 data centres. As local press resource The Business Recorder puts it, these data centres will provide co-location and cloud services, addressing the evolving requirements of businesses across different sectors. The move may seem unusual, but it isnt totally unexpected. As the Data Centre Dynamics website points out, in August MPCL announced the formation of a subsidiary focusing on cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI). The company reportedly said this week that it has formed a new digital infrastructure subsidiary with an equity investment of some US$36 million. The news of MPCL's move into data centres appeared this week in a Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) stock exchange announcement, which was notable mainly for its brevity. Indeed, numbers of data centres, where they will be located, size, scale, partnerships, and timing of the date centre rollout were not mentioned. However, the PSX announcement said the project launch ceremony for the first data centre took place this week in Karachi and suggested that MPCLs plans to form a dedicated company relevant to the sector will help tap the rising demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence. MPCL, founded in 1984, is controlled by Pakistani conglomerate the Fauji Foundation, which, says Data Centre Dynamics, is largely controlled by the countrys armed forces. The South Korean government reiterated Friday that the denuclearization of North Korea remains a shared goal of the international community amid controversy surrounding the United Nations nuclear chief's remarks suggesting the world should recognize that Pyongyang possesses nuclear weapons. In an interview with the Associated Press, Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), emphasized the importance of continuing to press North Korea to cease its nuclear activities but at the same time recognize the reality that they possess nuclear weapons. "Denuclearization of North Korea is an essential condition for achieving peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and globally, and it remains the unanimous goal of the international community," said a South Korean foreign ministry official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Grossi also suggested that the international community needs to engage more seriously in dialogue, saying, we "need to start thinking seriously about stopping to talk past each other." The Seoul official pointed out that the South Korean government has repeatedly proposed dialogue with Pyongyang without preconditions, but North Korea has not responded. Instead, Pyongyang appears to be focused on advancing its nuclear weapons program, the official noted. "We will continue to work closely with the IAEA and the international community to achieve the denuclearization of North Korea," the official added. Grossi questioned whether isolating North Korea under Kim Jong-un's leadership has been effective, while insisting that North Korea became a "de facto" nuclear weapons state in 2006. Grossi's remarks appear to contradict the stance of the international community, which has not officially recognized North Korea as a nuclear-weapons state. (Yonhap) Pyongyang's drastic policy shift highlighted at International Forum on One Korea By Jung Min-ho Reunifying the Korean Peninsula into one nation has always been a challenging mission. But over the past year, skepticism has grown to an unprecedented level. After the North Korean regime officially abandoned its goal of unification late last year, some politicians in the South have also joined increasing calls for peaceful coexistence. During this years International Forum on One Korea, co-hosted by the Global Peace Foundation (GPF), Action for Korea United and One Korea Foundation, political leaders, security experts and human rights activists urged the government and people in the South to reject that shift, saying that permanent division on the peninsula betrays Koreas founding vision and would not bring lasting peace. The fact that (North Korean leader) Kim Jong-un abandoned unification, which was a key policy of both his father and grandfather, is an admission that he has already lost, Hyun Jin Preston Moon, left, founder and chairman of the GPF, said at Fridays event held in Seoul. According to Moon, that decision was tantamount to abandoning the aspirations of modern Korea's forefathers who led the independence movement from Japans 1910-45 colonial rule and those who established the nation under the founding value of Hongik Ingan, interpreted as to benefit humanity widely. Whos carrying the torch of those aspirations and staying true to our 5,000-year history and the destiny of the Korean people (now)? Its you, he said, calling on the government to reform its unification ministry as a pan-government, nonpartisan entity for that critical task. North Koreas attempt to leave the peninsula divided will not be supported by any countries, not even China, one of its most important allies, according to Hao Su, professor emeritus at Renmin University of China. The Chinese government has always supported the policies for the peaceful reunification of the peninsula led by the people of the peninsula. North Koreas recent policy changes will not affect Chinas perception, nor will it change Chinas stance of supporting the peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula, he said. Dozens of prominent scholars and activists shared their insights and discussed ways to make the vision possible there. One thing they all agreed on was that prioritizing denuclearization of North Korea above the human rights of its people has achieved neither of the objectives. For 30 years, our North Korea policy has sacrificed human rights for the sake of addressing nuclear weapons. Both North Koreas nuclear and missile programs have thrived. Sidelining human rights to appease the regime is not the answer, but a fundamental flaw in policy. Our task is to turn this record of failure into success, said Robert Joseph, a senior scholar at the National Institute for Public Policy and former special envoy for nuclear nonproliferation in the U.S. Given that the greatest vulnerability of the Kim regime is from within, from the alienation of its own people who suffer under its totalitarian repression, Joseph suggested placing human rights and a comprehensive information campaign at the center of a new strategy for North Korea. His view was echoed by Suzanne Scholte, a U.S. rights activist and chief of the North Korean Freedom Coalition. Today, the people of North Korea are far more informed about the outside world than ever before. It is precisely why Kim Jong-un is using such draconian measures to isolate them from the outside world: It is the only way he can stay in power, Scholte said. He is terrified that he is losing control over their minds, which will mean the end of this triple family dictatorship. What those experts suggest is to maximize the international efforts to let ordinary people in North Korea know what the whole world already knows the reality of their terrible human rights situation, the incompetence of their leaders and the world outside their borders. David Maxwell, a GPF senior fellow and vice president at the Washington-based Center for Asia Pacific Strategy, said such efforts matter not just for the countrys peaceful unification but also for another important mission of creating a new Korea. One of the subjects addressed during the forum was the economic cost of unification, which is one of the major reasons for growing skepticism, particularly among young South Koreans. According to Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist, such worries are vastly overblown. First: the economic reconstruction of northern Korea will be an immense project but if the returns on investment in this project are high, the project can basically pay for itself in the long run, he said. Second, thanks to generations of market-led modern development, both South Korea and the world as a whole are richer and more productive than ever before better poised to mobilize and deploy the immense amounts of capital and know-how a successful Korean reunification will surely require. If reunification suddenly occurred today, the newly reunified Korean Peninsula would count as a fairly affluent country, he noted. Rough calculations indicate that overall wealth per adult for a reunified Korea would be over $150,000 today, he added about the same level as in much of Southern Europe. None of this will be easy of course but all of it is surely doable, Eberstadt said. But Korean reunification is unthinkable only if we fail to think about it. The government plans to invest 3.3 trillion won ($2.5 billion) of its health insurance funding annually over the next five years to reform large general hospitals to better prioritize the treatment of critically ill patients, the interior minister said Friday. Minister Lee Sang-min made the remarks during a government meeting in response to ongoing walkouts by medical doctors protesting the government's medical reform, which includes a significant increase in the nationwide medical school admissions quota, starting in 2025. As part of the reform, the government plans to invest 3.3 trillion won annually over the next five years in a restructuring project for large general hospitals, which begins next month, Lee noted. "The workforce structure at top-tier general hospitals will be reorganized around medical specialists and physician assistant nurses," the minister said. Through the restructuring, such hospitals will be made to focus on high-level treatments, such as those for critically ill patients and rare diseases, while the number of hospital beds for patients with mild conditions will be reduced by 5 to 15 percent, according to the minister. Including the investment for this project, a total of 20 trillion won will be spent over the next five years on the government's medical reform, he added. "Without increasing the number of medical doctors, which are in short supply, it will be difficult to secure the medical workforce needed to normalize essential and regional medical services," Lee said. (Yonhap) Korea urged Israel and Lebanon on Friday to accept the ceasefire proposal made by the United States and France to stop the escalation of tensions in the Middle East. "We welcome and fully support the statements made by countries such as the United States and France calling for an immediate 21-day ceasefire along the Israel-Lebanon border," foreign ministry spokesperson Lee Jae-woong said in a commentary. "We strongly urge the relevant parties to immediately accept this ceasefire proposal and to continue efforts to ease tensions in the region," the commentary said. The U.S., France and other like-minded countries made the joint call earlier this week as the armed conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah is feared to lead to a wider war in the Middle East. (Yonhap) 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China By Kim Hyun-bin Chinese Charge d'Affaires Fang Kun highlighted China's profound transformations and progress since 1949 and emphasized the importance of continued Korea-China cooperation during the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China event held in Seoul on Thursday. "On Oct. 1st, 1949, the People's Republic of China was founded. From then on, the history of old China, which was poor, weak and at the mercy of others, came to an end, and the Chinese nation was reborn from the ashes and entered a new era of independence, autonomy and progress," he said, "The Chinese nation has ushered in a great leap from standing up, getting rich to becoming strong." Fang underscored the significant economic milestones China has achieved, noting that China's total economic output ranks second in the world. In 2023, China's per capita GDP surpassed $12,000, marking a 750-fold increase since 1952. He also pointed out China's leading positions in manufacturing, trade and foreign exchange reserves, alongside its advances in high-speed rail, electric vehicles and technological innovation. "Looking back over the past 75 years, we are fully proud of the progress of the Chinese people's having (a) better life. China has built a moderately prosperous society in all respects and lifted nearly 100 million rural people out of poverty," Fang said, emphasizing the social advances made under Chinese leadership. Fang emphasized China's commitment to an independent foreign policy centered on peace, development and cooperation. He stated that China aims to be a builder of global peace, a contributor to worldwide development and a defender of the international order. Fang also called for increased international cooperation to tackle global challenges and achieve shared prosperity, highlighting China's role as a responsible major nation. On the future of Korea-China relations, Fang stressed the importance of strategic cooperation. "China and the ROK are not only close neighbors that cannot be moved away, but also inseparable partners," he said. Since establishing diplomatic relations in 1992, Fang noted that "China-ROK relations have achieved leapfrog development, and exchanges and cooperation in various fields have yielded fruitful results." Looking ahead, Fang expressed optimism about the potential for deeper ties between the two nations. "China's policy towards the ROK remains continuous and stable, and we always attach great importance to the ROK and China-ROK relations. It is hoped that both sides will stick to the original intention of establishing diplomatic relations, follow the trend of the times, and keep a steady strategic direction," he said. In closing, Fang called for enhanced communication and mutual trust to foster a better future for both countries. "Continuously strengthen communication, enhance mutual trust, deepen friendship, expand cooperation, promote the steady and long-term development of the China-ROK strategic cooperative partnership, create a better and more prosperous future for the two countries and make greater contributions to regional peace and stability and human development and progress," he said. Korea on Friday pledged to continue its cooperation with Japan's incoming government in order to maintain "positive momentum," following the ruling party's election of former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba as leader, setting him up to become the country's new prime minister. "We will continue to work closely with the new Japanese cabinet to ensure the positive flow of Korea-Japan relations," a senior presidential official said on the condition of anonymity. The official emphasized that Japan is Korea's closest neighbor and partner, sharing common interests rooted in freedom, human rights and the rule of law. A Korean foreign ministry official also voiced optimism, noting that both countries will maintain open channels of communication to uphold the "positive bilateral momentum." Ishiba, known for his dovish stance on historical issues between the two nations, is set to become prime minister next week, as the Liberal Democratic Party's ruling coalition holds a majority in the Japanese parliament. Ishiba defeated Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi, a conservative candidate who was vying to become Japan's first female prime minister. (Yonhap) A former U.S. national security advisor stressed the need Thursday for South Korea to increase its defense spending to 3 percent or 3.5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), as Seoul and Washington are in negotiations over a defense cost-sharing deal. Robert O'Brien, who served as national security advisor for former President Donald Trump from 2019-2021, made the remarks, as South Korea and the United States are holding their eighth round of negotiations in Seoul this week to determine Seoul's share of the cost for the stationing of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK). "We need our allies to pitch in. The South Koreans are up to 2.5 percent of GDP in defense," O'Brien said during a forum on China's threat to American security hosted by the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute. "Those numbers need to go to 3 percent or 3 and a half percent, like the United States, so (that) we can burden-share with our allies," he added. He praised Japan for increasing their defense spending "dramatically" during the administrations of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his predecessors, Yoshihide Suga and Shinzo Abe. "I am sure the next (Japanese) prime minister will do the same," he said. His remarks came amid lingering concerns that should Trump, now the Republican presidential nominee, return to the Oval Office, he could put pressure on South Korea and other allies to jack up their defense spending. Touching on China's growing nuclear arsenal and threats from North Korea and Iran, O'Brien said that the U.S. needs to figure out how to "increase" its nuclear capability. "Keep in mind (that) North Korea and Iran are spinning far more centrifuges than America has. I mean, to some extent, the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs are ahead of where we are," he said. "Certainly, the Russians and Chinese are as well. So, we've got to get back in the nuclear game." Regarding Chinese threats, he said that China is "racing towards nuclear parity with America." "I think their goal is to have 1,500 strategic weapons pointed at us," he said. O'Brien also noted the importance of U.S.-led groupings to address various challenges from China, including the AUKUS security partnership between the U.S., Britain and Australia and the Quad forum involving the U.S., India, Japan and Australia, as well as trilateral cooperation between South Korea, the U.S. and Japan. "Those alliances scare the Chinese because they see us operating together," he said. "We can contain and we can push back against the Chinese when they drive wedges between us." He also gave a positive view of the Camp David summit the first standalone trilateral summit between South Korea, the U.S. and Japan in August last year. "I give the Biden administration credit for the Camp David meeting with President Yoon (Suk Yeol) and Prime Minister Kishida and President Biden," he said. But he claimed that the "groundwork" for that meeting was laid under the Trump administration, which he said helped keep Seoul and Tokyo together at a time of historical tensions between the two Asian allies. (Yonhap) The Supreme Court on Friday overturned a lower court's acquittal of a Syrian man accused of inciting participation in the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group by uploading videos created by IS, sending the case back for retrial. The 39-year-old Syrian individual, who previously worked at a junkyard in Pyeongtaek, some 65 kilometers south of Seoul, was indicted on charges of uploading videos promoting the terrorist group on his Facebook account between 2015 and 2018 to incite membership. He was also charged with encouraging a colleague to join IS in 2018. The videos he uploaded were produced by IS and included a link that allowed direct communication with IS members. Prosecutors concluded that the man was himself a member of IS. It was the first indictment under the country's counterterrorism act, which was enacted in 2016. A district court had initially convicted him of inciting participation in IS and sentenced him to three years in prison, but in a subsequent ruling, an appellate court acquitted him, citing insufficient evidence. On Friday, the Supreme Court struck down the appellate court's acquittal, citing possible culpability for violating the counterterrorism act and returned the case to the Incheon District Court for retrial. "The suspect's act of uploading articles and videos (from IS), along with a link to the Telegram account under the name of (IS), could be seen ... as encouraging others to join and participate in the terrorist group," the court said. (Yonhap) By Jung Da-hyun International students and foreign workers can now receive a 10 percent discount on express mail service (EMS) at post offices in Seoul, the city government announced, Friday. An additional 3 percent discount is available to those who opt for online pre-registration. The Seoul Metropolitan Government has signed a business agreement with Korea Post to extend the EMS fee discount to include a greater variety of foreign residents. The discount was previously available only to naturalized immigrants and multicultural families under the Multicultural Families Support Act. Since the initial agreement in 2011, the city has provided nearly 87,000 fare discounts, totaling around 380 million won, to multicultural families as of August this year. Additionally, since July 2023, an extra 3 percent discount has been offered to those who register in advance through the post office website or app. With the growing number of international students and foreign workers in the city, this latest agreement aims to enhance support by making EMS deliveries more affordable and accessible for these residents. Eligible individuals for the expanded discount now include foreign nationals holding F-6 visas who are married to Koreans, international students with D-2 or D-4 visas, foreign workers on E-9 and H-2 visas and foreign residents with F-5, D-10, F-1 and F-3 visas. The discount is available at all post offices across Seoul, with no restrictions on where packages are sent internationally. To get the discount, the customer must present identification such as resident registration card, domestic resident registration card, family relations certificate or basic certificate to verify their eligibility when visiting post offices. "Through this agreement, we will collaborate with the local community to enhance support for foreign residents and multicultural families," said Lee Hae-sun, director-general of the Global City Policy Bureau at the city government. More information can be found on the official websites of Seoul Hanultari for Multicultural Familes and the Seoul Foreigner Portal. By Nam Hyun-woo Korean chipmakers reliance on raw materials imported from China deepened last year, despite the escalating global supply chain uncertainties fueled by growing U.S.-China tensions. Industry officials voiced concerns about the risks of relying heavily on a single country, emphasizing the need to diversify sourcing channels. However, they also acknowledged that Chinese materials remain cost-competitive, urging the government to better prepare for potential supply chain disruptions. According to a report by the Export-Import Bank of Korea, the countrys reliance on Chinese imports of five out of six key raw materials for making semiconductors increased last year. The reliance on Chinese imports for silicon used in silicon wafers rose from 68.8 percent in 2022 to 75.4 percent in 2023, while that of germanium, a key material for next-generation compound semiconductors, surged by 17.4 percentage points to 74.3 percent during the same period. Only fluorite, a key material for hydrofluoric acid, showed a slight decrease from 49.9 percent to 47.5 percent during the same period. In the wake of the war in Ukraine and growing trade conflicts between the U.S. and China, Korean chipmakers have been making efforts to diversify their sourcing channels, but the data showed that they are critically relying on China for key raw materials. The report also showed that Korean chipmakers are also relying heavily on Chinese manufacturing. Samsung Electronics Xi'an plant accounted for 29 percent of the companys total NAND flash production in 2021, but the number rose to 36 percent in 2022, 37 percent last year and is expected to reach 40 percent this year. The ratio of SK hynixs DRAM production at its Wuxi plant declined from 49 percent in 2021 to 42 percent last year, though it is expected to remain significant at 41 percent this year, underscoring China's continued importance in their semiconductor manufacturing. The numbers are worrisome for the Korean chipmakers, as the U.S. is slapping more bans on trade related to improving Chinas chip manufacturing capabilities. As well, Korea's trade dependence is feared to leave it vulnerable to Beijing's economic retaliation in the event of any potential future political disputes. Bloomberg reported on Sept. 2 that China has warned of severe economic retaliation against Japan if it further restricts sales and servicing of chipmaking equipment to Chinese firms, and Toyota Motor told Japanese officials that Beijing could react to the curbs by limiting Japans access to minerals required for automotive production. With over a month remaining before the U.S. presidential election, businesses are expecting Washington to tighten regulations against China and stronger pressure on its allies to fall in line, regardless of the election result. In the wake of the tensions between Washington and Beijing, businesses have been making efforts to diversify sourcing channels for raw materials to avoid supply chain disruptions stemming from political risks, a semiconductor industry official said. However, it is also true that Chinese raw material imports still maintain cost competitiveness, backed by its solid mining infrastructure and natural reserves. This means that diversifying sourcing channels will incur higher costs, forcing companies to keep their reliance on Chinese imports to a certain level. Another semiconductor industry official also said that lowering dependence on Chinese imports is not always the answer, and that firms will have to expect assists from the government in the event of supply chain disruptions. KaiOS, whose mobile operating system brings the internet to affordable devices, has announced a partnership with payment giant Mastercard to integrate a range of digital payments solutions for developing markets, beginning with Cote dIvoire and Nigeria. As the partners explain, small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) especially in developing markets still struggle to adopt digital payments. Thus KaiOS and Mastercard are partnering to help millions of SMEs globally accept digital payments using KaiOS devices. The promise is that even the smallest businesses will be able to use low-cost devices to accept payments safely and easily via Mastercard QR Pay by Link; Tap & Go contactless payments technology is promised in the near future. Business owners can use their KaiOS-powered phone to enrol for the service. After entering their registered credentials and authenticating via a one-time password, SMEs can then access and immediately use a variety of digital payment options. Sebastien Codeville, chief executive officer of KaiOS Technologies, explains: By bringing Mastercard's secure payment technology to affordable internet phones running KaiOS, we're unlocking new opportunities for small businesses and entrepreneurs, allowing them to participate in modern commerce more fully. This innovation brings down barriers and enables an affordable consumer device to become a powerful business tool. Mastercard and KaiOS will focus on African markets first, collaborating with partners like Touch and Pay Technologies (TAP), a NIgerian IT service company leveraging NFC (near field communication) technology, and Wizzit, a global innovative payment solution provider with offices in South Africa. This will help the initiative to extend access to in-market merchants. Olamide Afolabi, chief executive officer of TAP, says: By integrating KaiOS into our platform, were enabling millions of users with feature phones to access seamless digital payment solutions and financial services that were previously out of reach." Dirk Bruynse, chief operating officer of Wizzit adds: This partnership will enable us to scale our switching capabilities and deliver innovative payment solutions that cater to the evolving needs of businesses of all sizes. KaiOS already works with all major carriers, mobile network operators, and mobile phone manufacturers in emerging regions. It says its expansion plans include acquiring banks, payment facilitators, fintechs and more. Panel maker vows to focus on OLED business By Nam Hyun-woo LG Display signed a 2 trillion won ($1.5 billion) deal to sell its entire stake in a large LCD plant in Guangzhou, China, the company said in a regulatory filing, Thursday. Selling the plant is seen as a crucial step in improving LG Display's asset efficiency, as its LCD business has been largely responsible for the company's accumulated losses. The sale is expected to provide financial flexibility, allowing the company to accelerate its focus on OLED technology. According to the filing, LG Display will hand over all of its stake in the plant to China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT), a subsidiary of Chinese home appliance giant TCL, on March 31, 2025. The LCD plant consists of two divisions panels and modules each managed by different corporate entities. LG Display holds an 80 percent stake in the panel division, with the remaining 20 percent owned by Guangzhou Development District. LG Display also fully owns the module division. Originally, LG Display held a 70 percent stake in the panel division but increased it to 80 percent earlier this month by acquiring a 10 percent stake from Chinas Skyworth for 244 billion won, aiming to expedite the sale. In the filing, LG Display said it is selling the stake to "improve efficiency to focus on the OLED business." The company noted that the sale would enhance its competitiveness and stabilize its financial position, but added that it is not yet in a position to disclose plans for the 2 trillion won fund raised through the sale. The sale offers LG Display a chance to rebalance its position in the large LCD market, which has become oversaturated and highly competitive due to the cost advantages of Chinese rivals. Read More LG Display seeks rebound by selling Guangzhou LCD plant LG Display has been actively scaling down its large LCD business in recent years due to the limited potential for differentiating its products from Chinese competitors, coupled with increasing market volatility in the large LCD sector. On the other hand, Chinese manufacturers place significant value on the competitiveness of large LCD panels for TVs, which continue to dominate the display market. This put LG Display in urgent need to unload its stake in the plant to focus on more strategic areas. While reducing its involvement in large LCD businesses, LG Display has been focusing on higher value-added products, such as small- and mid-sized OLED panels for IT devices. This shift allows the company to capitalize on growing demand for premium displays in sectors like smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Industry officials note that while LG Display currently holds a technological advantage over competitors in the OLED sector, Chinese rivals like BOE are rapidly closing the gap through significant investments. This raises concerns that LG Display might face a similar decline in its OLED business as it did with large LCDs, where Chinese firms gained an edge through aggressive pricing and scale. Although LG Display has not disclosed specific plans for the use of the funds from the sale, the market anticipates that the money will be directed toward advancing its OLED business and supporting its financial stability. Meanwhile, LG Display will retain its LCD products for IT devices and automobiles. The company plans to concentrate on high-end products, emphasizing features such as low power consumption, distinctive design, and higher resolutions. With LG Display's sale of the large LCD plant in Guangzhou, no South Korean company is producing large LCD panels for televisions. LG Displays longtime rival, Samsung Display, had already divested its LCD plant in Suzhou, China, to CSOT in 2020. A Seoul court on Friday dismissed a suit filed by U.S.-based hedge fund Elliott seeking some 26.7 billion won ($20.2 million) in delayed interest from Samsung C&T as a fallout of the 2015 merger of two Samsung units. Elliott, which owned a 7-percent stake in Samsung C&T, led a proxy fight against the firm's merger with Cheil Industries, citing unfair terms that it said greatly undervalued the company and investors' interest. The controversial merger went ahead, backed by the state-run National Pension Service's swing vote in Samsung's favor. In response, Elliott exercised appraisal rights, demanding Samsung C&T buy its stake back. The matter was taken to court when the two sides could not reach an agreed-upon price per share. They reached a settlement in 2022, when Samsung C&T paid 72.4 billion won to Elliott, but the American hedge fund filed a suit last year seeking an additional 26.7 billion won in delayed interest, claiming it was under the terms of the "secret agreement." Samsung countered that it has no obligation to pay the delayed interest. The Seoul Central District Court on Friday dismissed the demand for the return of the contract money, saying delayed interest was not part of the agreed-upon amount. (Yonhap) By Ko Dong-hwan Hyundai Engineering & Construction has revealed its new premium apartment suites in Daejeon, building a new housing community closely connected to the citys various infrastructure and improving the quality of living, according to the major construction company, Friday. Hillstate Gayang The Wise in the citys Dong District consists of three buildings, each 49 levels tall with four basement levels, providing 358 suites in overall. Residents will be in close proximity to one of the tram stations being built in the city. Highways are close to the neighborhood, providing easy access to Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Innopolis Daedeok a state-designated region dedicated to scientific research and development and outside the city. E-Mart, Shinsegae Style Market, CGV movie theater and Daejeon Hankook Hospital are among key city hotspots to improve everyday life at the new Hillstate complex. Mountains, childrens parks and Gayang Elementary and Middle Schools are also within 1 kilometer of the upcoming development, in addition to a new public library scheduled to open in December. The land value of the new Hillstate is also expected to rise due to urban development projects under progress. Following the start of construction on the citys new tram line, a metro station development project with the biggest scale in Dong District has recently acquired a business license 16 years after its onset, kicking off its construction. Mega Chungcheong Square and a new industrial complex in the citys Samjeong-dong are also in their design development phase, with new job opportunities coming along. Hyundai E&C said the new Hillstate has spacious parking lots, high ceilings and community facilities comprising a day care center, a senior lounge and more. Israel rejected global calls on Thursday for a ceasefire with the Hezbollah movement, defying its biggest ally in Washington and pressing ahead with strikes that have killed hundreds in Lebanon and heightened fears of an all-out regional war. Despite Israel's stance, the U.S. and France sought to keep prospects alive for an immediate 21-day truce they proposed on Wednesday, and said negotiations continued, including on the sidelines of a United Nations meeting in New York. An Israeli warplane struck the edges of the capital Beirut, killing two people and wounding 15, including a woman in critical condition, Lebanon's health ministry said. That took deaths from hits overnight and on Thursday to 28 and over 600 since Monday. The strike killed the head of one of Hezbollah's air force units, Mohammad Surur, Hezbollah said, the latest senior Hezbollah commander to be targeted in days of assassinations among the group's top ranks. Israel said it struck about 220 Hezbollah targets over the past day. On the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, the army staged an exercise simulating a ground invasion a potential next stage after relentless airstrikes and explosions of communications devices. Israel's air force is planning to assist troops in the event of a ground operation and will stop any arms transfers from Iran, Air Force Commander Major General Tomer Bar said late on Thursday. "We are preparing shoulder to shoulder with Northern Command for a ground maneuver. Prepared, if activated. This is a decision to be made above us," he told soldiers, in a video distributed by the Israeli military. Israel has vowed to secure its north and return thousands of citizens who have evacuated since Hezbollah launched a campaign of cross-border strikes last year in solidarity with Palestinian militants fighting in Gaza. Landing in the U.S. to address the U.N. General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters the military will keep hitting Hezbollah with "full force and we will not stop until we achieve all our goals, first and foremost returning the residents of the north safely to their homes." Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on X, "There will be no ceasefire in the north." Israel's stance dashed hopes for a swift settlement after Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, whose government includes Hezbollah elements, had expressed hope for a ceasefire. White House spokesperson John Kirby told a briefing on Thursday that Israel had been "fully informed and fully aware of every word" in the ceasefire proposal and allies expected it would be taken seriously. The U.S. is Israel's longtime ally and biggest arms supplier. French President Emmanuel Macron said he did not believe Israel's rejection was definitive. "It would be a mistake by the prime minister to refuse it because he would be taking responsibility for regional escalation," Macron told reporters in Canada. "We will do everything to ensure this proposal is accepted," Macron said, adding that France was ready to call a new U.N. Security Council meeting to endorse the proposal. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes during the heaviest Israeli bombardment of Lebanon since a major war in 2006. Hezbollah has faced off against the Israeli military since the Shi'ite Muslim movement was created by Iran's Revolutionary Guards in 1982 to counter an Israeli invasion of Lebanon. It has since evolved into Tehran's most powerful Middle East proxy. The White House said that U.S. and Israeli officials, including U.S. Mideast envoy Brett McGurk, were holding discussions on Thursday in New York. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to meet with Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer. In London, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned there was a risk of all-out war in the Middle East, but a diplomatic solution was still possible. "So let me be clear, Israel and Lebanon can choose a different path, despite the sharp escalation in recent days, a diplomatic solution is still viable," Austin said. Hezbollah has fired hundreds of missiles at targets in Israel, including its commercial hub Tel Aviv, although Israel's aerial defense system has ensured the damage has been limited. Israeli fighter jets on Thursday also hit infrastructure on the Lebanese-Syrian border to stop the transfer of weapons from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel's military said. The Lebanese health ministry said most of the victims on Thursday were Syrians killed in the town of Younine in the Bekaa Valley. Lebanon is home to around 1.5 million Syrians who fled civil war there. Hezbollah said in a statement it had struck the town of Kiryat Shmona in north Israel and an Israeli military northern command base, as well as using air defense weapons to force two Israeli warplanes back. In Beirut, thousands of Lebanese have sought shelter in schools. In one, women could be seen leaning out of classroom windows, smoking cigarettes or airing out foam mattresses they had slept on this week. Aid organizations were distributing clothes and food, and checking on medications needed by elderly people who fled too quickly to bring prescriptions with them. (Reuters) Japan's next prime minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday outlined his ideas to reshape the nation's miliary alliance with Washington, after winning the conservative ruling party's leadership race. The seasoned 67-year-old former defense minister beat arch-nationalist Sanae Takaichi who would have been the country's first-ever woman leader in the final round. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has governed almost uninterrupted for decades and holds a majority, meaning Ishiba will be elected premier by parliament on Tuesday. In a press conference on Friday, Ishiba vowed to restore confidence in the party after a funding scandal and gave a cautious run-down of his key reform pledges. "Japan wants to fulfil our proactive responsibility and start discussions about how to build peace in this region," he said when asked about his proposals for an Asian NATO. It could be a expansion of several existing blocs such as the so-called Quad that groups Japan, the United States, India and Australia, he said. Establishing a military training facility for its troops in the U.S., as Germany has done, could be an "extremely effective" way to strengthen the bilateral alliance and would allow Japanese forces to "train at their maximum capability." He said he wanted to call a snap election to shore up his mandate "as soon as possible" but declined to say when. Ishiba had come close to the top job before, including in 2012 when he lost to nationalist Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest-serving leader who was later assassinated. The military model-maker with an affinity for 1970s pop idols says his experience tackling tough issues, such as agriculture reforms, makes him qualified to lead. Recent days and weeks have seen separate incursions into Japanese airspace by Chinese and Russian military planes, as well as North Korean missile tests. "I have worked on national security matters for a long time and I will be committed to protecting Japan's territory," he said. Following the result, China's foreign ministry spokesman said the country wants to improve ties with Japan. "The long-term, sound and steady development of China-Japan relations serves the fundamental interests of the two peoples," he said. South Korea's foreign ministry said the country hopes to "maintain the positive momentum in Japan-South Korea relations." Yen surges At home, Ishiba will be tasked with breathing life into the economy, as the central bank moves away from decades of monetary easing that has slashed the value of the yen. Ishiba supports the Bank of Japan's exit from its unorthodox ultra-loose policies, and the Japanese currency surged after Friday's result. He has also pledged to revitalise rural regions and proposes creating a government agency for disaster prevention. In the first round of voting, a record nine candidates were in the running after the LDP's long-powerful factions disbanded this year over the funding scandal. Takaichi, the economic security minister, is a vocal nationalist popular with the LDP's conservative wing. The 63-year-old was close to assassinated ex-premier Abe, whose supporters are still powerful. 'Courage in his convictions' LDP leaders are in office for three years and can serve up to three straight terms. Unpopular Prime Minister Fumio Kishida did not run for re-election. "I have a good impression of Ishiba, because he seems to have courage in his convictions," Junko Tominaga, a woman in her 50s, told AFP on the streets of Tokyo. "I just don't want Japan to tilt further to the right under Ishiba in terms of defence." Minoru Kitani, 46, said his "hopes for Ishiba aren't so high." "But I agree with, and support, his belief that Japan needs to be protected better, made stronger and guarded against the threat of other countries," he said. While "a woman prime minister would've been good," a win for Abe's mentee Takaichi would not "have done much to herald a fresh start for Japan." During his term, Kishida has taken steps to double Japan's defence spending, opening the door for military exports as the LDP seeks to revise the pacifist post-war constitution. He welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to a G7 summit in Hiroshima and has strengthened Japan's often testy ties with its neighbour South Korea. But his rule was also tarnished by scandals, voter anger over rising prices and sliding poll ratings. (AFP) Israel will continue to discuss ceasefire proposals for Lebanon in the days ahead, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday, as Washington warned that further escalation would only make it harder for civilians on both sides to return home. Israel's foreign minister on Thursday rejected global calls for a ceasefire with the Iran-backed Hezbollah group and pressed ahead with airstrikes that have killed hundreds in Lebanon and heightened fears of a regional war. An Israeli strike on Friday killed nine members of a family, including four children, in the Lebanese border town of Shebaa, mayor Mohammad Saab told Reuters. Israeli attacks have killed more than 600 people in Lebanon since Monday, the health ministry says. Hezbollah said it had fired rockets into Israel on Friday at Kiryat Ata near the city of Haifa some 30 km (20 miles) from the border, and the city of Tiberias, declaring the attacks a response to Israel strikes on villages, cities and civilians. Though Israeli air defences have shot down many of Hezbollah's rockets, limiting the damage they've done, the group's attacks have shut down normal life across much of northern Israel as more areas fall into its crosshairs. The Israeli military said it had intercepted four unmanned aircraft that crossed from Lebanese territory into the maritime space off the coast of Rosh Hanikra at the Lebanese border. The conflict between Israel and the heavily armed Hezbollah is their worst in more than 18 years and part of the spillover that has swept through the Middle East as a result of the Gaza war. Syrian state media reported that an Israeli airstrike on Friday killed five soldiers in Syria, where Israel has intensified a years-long campaign aimed at rolling back the influence of Iran and Hezbollah. The United States and France proposed on Wednesday an immediate 21-day truce across the Lebanese-Israeli border, and said negotiations continued, including on the sidelines of a United Nations meeting in New York. Netanyahu said on Friday that Israeli teams had meetings to discuss the U.S. ceasefire proposals on Thursday and would continue discussions in the days ahead, adding that he appreciated the U.S. efforts. "Our teams met (Sept. 26) to discuss the U.S. initiative and how we can advance the shared goal of returning people safely to their homes. We will continue those discussions in the coming days," he said in a statement. On Thursday, after Netanyahu left for New York where he is attending the United Nations General Assembly, his office issued a statement saying the prime minister had ordered Israeli troops to continue fighting with full force in Lebanon. His statement made no reference to the comments of Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who on Thursday rejected ceasefire proposals, or other Israeli politicians who have echoed that position, saying only that there had been "a lot of misreporting around the U.S.-led ceasefire initiative." Israel says its campaign aims to secure the return home of tens of thousands of Israelis who have been forced to evacuate areas near the Lebanese border over the last year of hostilities. Hezbollah began firing at Israel on Oct. 8 as the Gaza war began, declaring solidarity with the Palestinians. Hezbollah has said it will only cease fire when Israel's Gaza offensive ends. In Lebanon, more than 90,000 people have been reported as newly displaced this week, according to the U.N. International Organisation for Migration (IOM), adding to more than 111,000 already uprooted by the conflict. The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said 30,000 people had crossed from Lebanon into Syria in the last few days, 80 percent of them Syrians. Well over a million Syrians fled to Lebanon during the Syrian civil war that erupted in 2011. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israel further escalation would only make it harder for civilians to return home on both sides of the border, the State Department said. "The Secretary discussed the importance of reaching an agreement on the 21 day ceasefire across the Israel-Lebanon border," the State Department said in a statement on Thursday, referring to talks between Blinken and Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer. "He underscored that further escalation of the conflict will only make that objective (of civilian return) more difficult." The State Department added that Blinken also discussed efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and steps that Israel needs to take to improve delivery of humanitarian assistance in the enclave where nearly the entire 2.3 million population is displaced and faces a hunger crisis. (Reuters) Jennifer Kramer, a long time teacher at Topeka Elementary School, shared this photo of some of the students who are collecting money for Black Pine Animal Sanctuary in rural Albion. They have collection jars in four businesses in Topeka. From left are Rubee Grice, Janie Hershberger, Timothy Slabach and Wyatt Beechy. The students want to help the animals have a comfortable life, because the animals were abandoned or abused, she said. They could not understand who would want to have these animals as pets, or to make money from them. Black Pine was established in 2000 to provide refuge to displaced, captive-raised exotic animals for the rest of their lives and to educate people about responsible animal care and conservation. More information can be found at bpsanctuary.org. SpaceX has reportedly said it plans to invest US$1.5 billion in Vietnam in the near future as an apparent sweetener to convince the government to allow the company to launch its LEO satellite broadband service Starlink in the country. According to a report issued by the official Vietnam News Agency on Thursday, the investment plan was proposed by Tim Hughes, SpaceXs senior VP for global business and government affairs, during a meeting in New York City on Wednesday with Vietnamese party general secretary and state president To Lam. The report offered no details on where or when the US$1.5 billion would be invested, and SpaceX has not publicly confirmed the report. Lam said the Vietnamese government is considering the investment proposal, and asked SpaceX to coordinate with relevant Vietnamese agencies and partners to complete any investment procedures, the VNA report said. Lam also reportedly said during the meeting he hopes that SpaceX will help Vietnam respond to natural disasters in a timely and effective fashion a timely topic as communities struggle to get back on their feet and stay connected after Super Typhoon Yagi battered northern Vietnam earlier this month. In a meeting with Vietnamese prime minister Pham Minh Chinh just before Yagi made landfall, Hughes pitched Starlink as a way to enhance education, training, and disaster prevention efforts in the country, according to VN Express. SpaceX has been actively lobbying to get approval to launch Starlink in Vietnam since September 2023 as part of its broader strategy to expand in Southeast Asia. So far, Starlink has been cleared to offer services in the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. According to Reuters, a key sticking point in the discussions between SpaceX and the Vietnam government is rules regarding foreign ownership. SpaceX would need to set up a JV with a local partner to operate in Vietnam, and would be limited to a 50% stake, whereas SpaceX wants a controlling stake. SpaceX would also need to find a way to comply with laws regarding domestic data storage and content restrictions, the report said. One factor working in SpaceXs favour is that Vietnam has recently demonstrated a willingness to make concessions to foreign companies to help local players cope with surging demand. In July, the government said it would allow foreign investors to own data centres in Vietnam for the first time. The change was made because its local data storage law was generating more demand for storage than local data centre operators could handle. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. While the #MeToo movement has shed light on the ubiquity of sexual harassment, assault and rape, a majority of that spotlight has centered on the assailants: their horrific crimes, numerous cover-ups, eventual oustings and, sometimes, professional resilience. A new set of powerful public service announcements rejects that status quo by bleeping out the name of a well-known perpetrator. Instead, the videos from creative agency Deutsch and #MeToo movement creator Tarana Burke focus on the dignity, humanity and healing of survivors of sexual violence. The clips which debuted online Monday after a private screening at the Sundance Film Festival feature firsthand accounts and reflections from survivors, including Terry Crews. "In the year that's gone by, I've learned that silence is violence," says the "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" star in the video. "I will not be shamed. I did nothing wrong." Additionally, Emily Waters, Daniela Contreras and an anonymous survivor break their silence in the PSAs, which pair raw audio of their stories with animated illustrations and text. "It was very important to focus on the types of stories that are generally less represented in the media," explained Kelsey Hodgkin, Deutsch Los Angeles' head of strategy. Indeed, the PSAs include testimonies from African American men, an undocumented worker and a survivor of intimate partner violence. Burke hopes these videos help redirect the #MeToo conversation and coverage to center on the survivors instead of the predators. She spoke to The Times about creating the movement's first PSA campaign and spurring others toward everyday action. Why make these PSAs? In the year and a half since #MeToo has been in this international spotlight, the popular narrative has been so focused on perpetrators and policy, and we haven't seen enough conversation about the millions and millions of people who have actually said, Me too. And what has become painfully clear is that the world doesn't really understand the life cycle of a survivor. The PSA is a great way to help people get rid of any preconceived notions and understand what survivors are actually feeling and thinking. And the people who volunteered to be part of this PSA are putting their stories out in the world very bravely, but they're also helping us to shift the narrative. Of the four survivors highlighted, one is a celebrity and another is anonymous. How did you choose these participants? We definitely wanted to have a spectrum of people. #MeToo isn't necessarily a women's movement; there just hasn't been enough attention paid to men who deal with sexual harassment and sexual abuse. It really is a movement for all survivors, however they identify. We also wanted to highlight young people and immigrants. Sexual violence has nothing to do with celebrity status, and it's important for everyday people to hear other everyday people talking about their survival. However, I also think it's important for us to not trivialize the experiences of people in Hollywood, as if they haven't survived sexual violence. Even if you're a celebrity, you also should be seen and heard and believed. What's the best way non-survivors can support the #MeToo movement? Empower survivors by empathizing with them. Try to understand what this life is like; try to put yourself in this place where youve have this experience. I know sometimes people are like, I want to do something more, I want to go out and volunteer, I want to write a check.Thats great, but its important that people have empathy for survivors, because these are the people who will be jurors on trials, who will influence public opinion about policy. We have to make sure that those people really understand what it is we hold with us. ashley.lee@latimes.com Twitter: @cashleelee UPDATE: Teenager charged in homicide after 30-year-old man dies day after being shot, authorities say Authorities are searching for a 17-year-old from Bethlehem accused shooting and critically injuring a man Thursday evening near Governor Wolf Elementary School. Gianni Santini is charged with felony attempted criminal homicide, felony aggravated assault and two counts felony robbery, as well as firearms and weapons offenses. A warrant for his arrest has been filed at the office of District Judge Vivian I. Zumas. Northampton County District Attorney Stephen Baratta announced the charges Friday afternoon. Bethlehem Police Capt. Nicholas Lechman said shots rang out shortly before 9:30 p.m. in the 1900 block of Butztown Road. Investigators found the wounded man and immediately provided first aid. He was taken to an area hospital for treatment, Lechman said. The mans injuries are considered life-threatening, city police said. Santini fled the scene, police said. Police have not released a motive in the incident, but did say the shooting was not a random act. As the charges involve the use of a deadly weapon, Santini would be prosecuted as an adult, authorities said. Bethlehem Area School District officials announced on social media Governor Wolf Elementary School would be closed Friday as the investigation continues. The incident didnt happen at the actual school, however, photos show yellow police tape on school property Thursday evening. Please subscribe now and support the local news you rely on and trust. Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. An man convicted of gunning down the mother of his children last year in West Catasauqua Park in Whitehall Township and wounding another man, was sentenced Thursday to life in prison, authorities said. Rami Abouloh, 42, of Allentonwn, was found guilty of murder, attempted homicide and aggravated assault on May 31, according to a release from Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihans office. Just before 7 p.m. on June 13, 2023, local police were called to the park for a report of gunfire. They discovered Patricia White, 35, of Allentown, shot multiple times and unresponsive on the ground, the office said. She was pronounced dead at the scene and her death was ruled a homicide. Abouloh and White had four children, who are being cared for by her family, Holihans office said. A second victim was found nearby with four gunshot wounds that required surgery, investigators said. Minutes after the shootings, Abouloh dialed 911 and identified himself as the shooter, officials said. He told the dispatcher his wife was with a man in the park and he shot them. Abouloh was arrested and told police, Thats what happens when you cheat, court records showed. In Pennsylvania, a conviction of murder of the first degree is an automatic life sentence without the possibility of parole, the office said. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription. Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com. One man was hurt in a shooting Thursday evening near Governor Wolf Elementary School in Bethlehem, city police said. Bethlehem Police Capt. Nicholas Lechman said shots rang out shortly before 9:30 p.m. in the 1900 block of Butztown Road. Investigators found a man with a gunshot wound, immediately rendered first aid, and he was taken to an area hospital for treatment, Lechman said. The mans injuries are life-threatening, city police said. The suspect then fled the scene and no arrests have been made, according to police. A news release issued by Bethlehem police Friday morning indicates investigators know who the suspect is and are expected to file an arrest warrant later Friday. Police said the incident was not a random act. Bethlehem Area School District officials announced on social media Governor Wolf Elementary School would be closed Friday as the investigation continues. The incident didnt happen at the actual school, however, photos show yellow police tape on school property Thursday evening. Those with information are asked to contact the Bethlehem Police Department at 610-865-7000 or email BethlehemPolice@bethlehem-pa.gov. Anonymous information can also be provided on the police Tip Line at 610-691-6660. The gunfire shortly before 9:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024 rang out in the 1900 block of Butztown Road, near Governor Wolf Elementary school.Mike Nester | lehighvalleylive.com contributor Please subscribe now and support the local news you rely on and trust. Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Editors note: This story has been updated with more details from a UGI Utilities, Inc. spokesperson. An odor of natural gas has led to the evacuation of all students and staff from Nazareth Area Middle School, district officials say. The odor was discovered shortly after 10:15 a.m. Friday in a garage on the schools property, 94 Friedenstahl Ave., in Upper Nazareth Township, district officials said. The school houses students in grades 7-8. Roughly 800 students, teachers and other staff were then evacuated from the building, John Mason, a spokesman for UGI Utilities, told lehighvalleylive.com. A letter initially sent home to parents, obtained by lehighvalleylive.com, stated students and staff were being moved to the neighboring Nazareth Area High Schools north campus gymnasium. There were no reported injuries in the incident. However, by 11:30 a.m., a posting on the middle schools website stated students now will be dismissed early from school by 12:15 p.m. out of an abundance of caution. The gas line has since been shut off in the building and students are returning to the building at this time to gather their belongings prior to dismissal, the message states. Regular dismissal procedures will be in place including parent pick-up, walkers, and students transported by Jennings Transportation. All middle school after-school activities additionally have been canceled. If there is an exception to the cancellation, a communication will be shared directly by the athletic department and/or coach, the posting stated. A crew with UGI Utilities, Inc. continues to investigate the source of the odor, Mason said. However, preliminary findings indicate the odor began during an issue with a fuel line in the schools mechanical room. UGI remains onsite assisting in troubleshooting the odor, he said. Please subscribe now and support the local news you rely on and trust. Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. UPDATE: Amount of sewage released from pipe breech in central Pa. revised downward Editors note: This story has been updated with information on the status of repairs. SELINSGROVE Nearly a million gallons of raw sewage are estimated to have been discharged into a Snyder County creek before temporary repairs were made to a ruptured pipeline in Selinsgrove. The break in the 20-inch force main occurred adjacent to the Eastern Snyder County Regional Authoritys treatment plant. It was discovered about 6 a.m. Sunday. Raw sewage was discharged into Penns Creek until temporary repairs were made about 10:30 p.m. the same day. The flow rate in the pipeline is estimated at 800,000 to 900,000 gallons a day, according to information provided to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection on Tuesday. The damaged pipe was replaced Wednesday and no additional sewage was released, the DEP said. Repeated attempts to reach authority personnel for comment were unsuccessful. The authority while making temporary repairs observed the ductile iron pipe estimated to be nearly 50 years old was in poor condition, DEP said it was told. The authority will be working with its engineer on a long-term repair or replacement of that section of the line, it says. The raw sewage discharged into Penns Creek near the Isle of Que and then into Middle Creek and the Susquehanna River. DEP officials recommended the public temporarily avoid the two creeks and a 20-mile downstream stretch of the river to Liverpool. No impact on aquatic life has been detected, said Michael Parker, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission. Its access areas to the river remain open, he said. Public drinking water supplies are safe and may continue to be used, DEP says. There are no surface water intakes for public drinking water downstream until Dauphin County, it points out. To the DEPs knowledge, no private water supplies have been impacted, officials said. The Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association is trying to determine the impact of the sewage both in the immediate area and downstream, its executive director, John Zaktansky, said. It also is working on the best course of action not only to get things cleaned up but proactively to make sure something similar does not happen again here or elsewhere, he said. DEP cautioned that more raw sewage could be released during replacement of the broken pipe on Wednesday or Thursday. In connection with that work, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation said the southbound exit ramp from Route 11/15 to Route 35 in Penn Twp. would be closed for part of the day Wednesday, with a detour established. The authoritys sewage treatment plant serves the Shamokin Dam-Selinsgrove area. A man who spent 26 years in solitary confinement despite a history of mental illness can sue Pennsylvania prison officials for alleged cruel and unusual punishment, a U.S. appeals court said in reviving the mans lawsuit. Roy Lee Williams spent nearly all of his time alone from 1993 until 2019, when a legal settlement led the state to end the practice of routinely housing death-row inmates in solitary confinement. Williams had been sentenced to death for killing a construction worker in Philadelphia in 1988. An Associated Press story on the 1992 trial reported that Williams, who is Black, had said he wanted to kill a white person because a white person had put him in jail in a robbery case. He was sentenced to death row at 26. His mental health problems date back to at least age 14, when he was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility amid suicidal ideation, according to his lawsuit. Prison officials knew of his history of severe mental health and cognition problems at least by 1996, Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Theodore McKee wrote in the 2-1 ruling issued Friday, which reversed a lower court ruling. While state officials argued that the Department of Corrections was not on notice before 2019 that its solitary confinement practices were unconstitutional, McKee found they were. He cited a 25-page letter outlining needed reforms the agency received in 2014 from the U.S. Department of Justice. The 2014 DOJ report concisely packaged much of the relevant and binding law and delivered it to the defendants doorstep, said McKee, who sits in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court in Philadelphia. The ruling comes as at least a dozen states have banned or restricted solitary confinement and lawsuits in both Pennsylvania and around the country target the practice as well, especially for people with mental illness. Critics say a persons mental health can deteriorate quickly in isolation, leading in some cases to self-harm. Williams, who filed his initial lawsuit without the help of a lawyer, described a six-month disciplinary period he once spent without even a radio as being isolated on top of being isolated, according to the ruling. The 3rd Circuit also revived Williams claim that prison officials ignored his right to services under the Americans with Disability Act. The evidence here is uncontradicted, McKee wrote. By neither removing Williams from solitary confinement for 26 years, nor making modifications to his conditions of confinement, the DOC failed to act. Williams remains in custody, and under a death sentence, in a state prison near Philadelphia. He is represented by the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, which has filed a number of similar suits alleging undue harm from years of isolation. Some lawsuits seek policy changes, while Williams is seeking money damages since he is no longer in solitary confinement. His is the first to go up on appeal. So I think this opinion definitely will help all those other men whose cases are currently pending in trial courts right now, said Matthew Feldman, a supervising attorney with the group. The state Attorney Generals office, which argued the case, declined comment Tuesday while it reviewed the opinion. Its client, the Department of Corrections, did not immediately return email messages seeking comment. According to Feldman, about 5% of the states prison population is in solitary confinement. He said that about half of that group compared to one-third of the overall prison population have a history of mental illness. People living in solitary confinement typically only get about an hour a day outside of their small cell, and are often restrained when they leave it. Advocates say its difficult to sleep because the environment is often loud and brightly lit, even at night. I personally find it inspiring that, despite all that these men have been through, they had the courage to sue their jailers, Feldman said of Williams and others who drafted the initial suits on their own. They had the ingenuity to file these cases and craft compelling legal arguments. And I guess they had faith that they could vindicate their rights in court. By MARYCLAIRE DALE Legal Affairs Writer A stretch of the D&L Trail that closed last winter for a rehabilitation project is set to reopen at 7 a.m. Saturday. The project initially was expected to require a partial trail closure that began in February within Lehigh Canal Park in Carbon County. Instead, the work closed off the entire 4-mile stretch beginning in March between Weissport and Jim Thorpe. Hopes were that the project would wrap up in May. We would have loved to get it open for this summer, Lehigh Canal Recreation Commission Chairman Ryan Saunders told lehighvalleylive.com on Friday. Unfortunately that was just not possible. The work rehabilitated two canal overflows that allow water to flow into the Lehigh River, as well as trail resurfacing. As construction was set to begin, however, it was discovered drinking water transmission lines underlying the canal and towpath were closer to the surface than the engineered plans accounted for, Saunders said. That required working with the Lehighton Water Authority to protect the water supply for its local communities while allowing the project to move forward. The solution was to install new secondary piping along the current water line along with beams to protect the vital infrastructure, Saunders explained. The contingency added $186,000 to the initial $550,000 contract, Saunders said. It presented a challenge for the recreation commission, which is made up of volunteer representatives of the seven municipalities that own the trail through Lehigh Canal Park between Jim Thorpe and Parryville. Saunders called the water authority pivotal in moving the project forward, and fantastic to work with despite the hurdle. So thats what took that lengthy time period, was trying to determine how much its going to cost, how were going to pay for it and whos going to pay for it, he said. And it took some time. In the end, funding was secured for the entire project from two major sources: the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. Saunders said the recreation commission recognizes the impact the closure had on local residents and businesses that benefit from the scenic recreational trail. He credited Rutledge Excavating Inc. with mobilizing in early July to complete the revised project in time for fall foliage viewing, both along the trail and in the tourism destination of Jim Thorpe. I can speak for the entire board when I tell you nobody in the universe wants that trail open more than the seven people that sit on that board, Saunders said. The rehabilitation project came about in response to liability concerns about aging wooden structures that carried the trail over the pre-existing spillways, according to Saunders. A second phase to install a third canal overflow and do some canal bank stabilization is on hold until at least 2026, in part to allow the local community to heal from the 2024 work since another trail closure would be required once the project resumes. A message seeking comment from the water authority was not immediately returned. With Saturdays reopening, the D&L Trail is once again clear from Northampton north through Jim Thorpe and into Lehigh Gorge State Park and beyond, all the way through the nearly 10-mile Black Diamond stretch north of Interstate 80 at White Haven. Trail gaps persist from Northampton south to Allentown before the trail is open again to Easton, with additional closures along the Delaware Canal south of Easton due to more rehabilitation and maintenance work, according to the interactive trail map maintained by the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor at delawareandlehigh.org. From Bristol to Wilkes-Barre, the entire D&L has 144 miles open and available to trail users, with plans for more than 165 miles of trail in all, according to the Easton-based heritage corridor. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. New legislation signed by Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys has imposed an all-out ban on XL Bully dogs. This legislation will make it illegal to import, breed, or re-sell XL Bullies from October 1, and ban ownership from February 1, 2025. Owners who posses an XL Bully before next February are required to provide a 'Certificate of Exemption' to keep their existing dogs. These dogs must also be neutered and microchipped, which requires a valid dog licence, vet confirmation, photo ID and proof of address. Ms Geraldine Lannigan, dog coordinator with Laois SPCA has welcomed these restrictions, but stressed that they must be correctly enforced. "Yes, the legislation is needed, but it also only takes a handful of bad owners to give a breed a bad name," Ms Lannigan said. Pictured: An XL Bully type dog. "These are big, strong dogs we are talking about, there needs to be some control in place. The all-out ban sounds harsh, but you can't have dogs out attacking people. The legislation is needed, but it's important that it's actually enforced," she said. "Registering for the certificate of exemption is not a huge ask for anyone that loves their dog and is happy to hold on to it. The dog already should have most of these things. "The problem is, people go out and buy puppies and don't realise what they're really getting. If you're getting a big dog, training is so important, you need to socialise your dog properly," she said. "I love dogs, but if a dog that size goes out of control, I wouldn't have the strength to hold it. It goes for all large dogs, not just XL Bullies, they need to be properly trained by their owners from when they're young. "We get calls from people who have bought puppies, and when the dogs grow bigger than the owners expected, they are surrendered to us. Then we are left with big dogs that haven't been housetrained, neutered, vaccinated or microchipped. "You can't just expect rescues to be able to completely retrain these dogs," she said. "The XL Bully isn't a breed, it's a mix of breeds. There is a specific criteria required for a dog to be labeled an XL Bully. "Some are obvious, some aren't," Ms Lannigan said. Pictured: Ownership of XL Bullies will be banned from February 1 2025. For those in doubt, criteria for XL Bully type dogs can be found in the legislation here. Ms Lannigan believes that the Irish Government should adopt the same methods as Sweden, who recently imported 22 XL Bullies from Ireland upon the announcement of this ban. "Sweden are taking in vanloads of strays across the world, particularly from Ireland and Poland," she said. "They have no stray dogs on the street and treat their dogs well. That's why they're taking them in from countries like ours," she explained. "We need to adopt their system." Laois SPCA have recently launched an appeal for donations following financial struggles. "Anyone who would like to foster an animal or donate to us would be great. Even donations of food would be appreciated," she said. "We have 11 dogs at the moment and we are limited in what we can take, we have no kennels and rely on foster homes." The charity currently have 140 animals in their care. Those who wish to donate to Laois SPCA may do so here. A man is being questioned by gardai following a significant drugs seizure in the Blanchardstown area of Dublin. As part of an intelligence-led operation, Revenue officers seized approximately 6.6 kg of herbal cannabis, with an estimated street value of 132,000, on Thursday evening. "The seizure was made as a result of a joint operation conducted by Revenues Customs Service, the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (GNDOCB), and the K District Divisional Drugs Unit, Dublin," said a Revenue Spokesperson. Gardai have confirmed a man, in his 30s, was arrested during the operation and that he is currently being detained, under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act 1996, at a garda station in Dublin. Subject to court orders, he can be held, without charge, for up to seven days. READ ALSO: ALERT: Gardai seek help in locating 15-year-old girl who was last seen in Dublin Both gardai and the Revenue say investigations are ongoing. A Revenue spokesperson added that the seizure is part of its ongoing joint operations targeting organised crime groups and the importation, sale and supply of illegal drugs. "If businesses, or members of the public, have any information regarding smuggling, they can contact Revenue in confidence on 1800 295 295," they added. Facebook parent company Meta has been fined 91 million euro by the Data Protection Commission. It follows an investigation into Meta inadvertently storing certain user passwords in plaintext on its internal systems, meaning they were not protected by encryption. The issue applied to millions of Facebook and Instagram users. Meta Ireland notified the DPC of the breach in March 2019. The passwords were not made available to external parties. Latest News: Irish Data Protection Commission fines Meta Ireland 91 millionhttps://t.co/yRAt4LdNZ2 pic.twitter.com/7CWFwHekH6 Data Protection Commission Ireland (@DPCIreland) September 27, 2024 The DPC found a range of infringements of GDPR rules including failing to notify the commissioner of the data breach, failing to document the data breach, not using appropriate security measures to protect the passwords, and not implementing appropriate organisational measures around the confidentiality of the passwords. Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said: It is widely accepted that user passwords should not be stored in plaintext, considering the risks of abuse that arise from persons accessing such data. It must be borne in mind that the passwords the subject of consideration in this case are particularly sensitive, as they would enable access to users social media accounts. A Kildare TD and former Commandant in the Armed Ranger Wing (ARW) has commended a Newbridge man for his leadership over Irish troops in Lebanon. Dr Cathal Berry TD made the comments when he was asked about his views on the situation in Lebanon by the Leinster Leader. It follow after An Taoiseach Simon Harris said that plans are in place for 'all eventualities and contingencies' regarding Irish troops in Lebanon while speaking with Newstalk on Wednesday, September 25 last. Last month, the Independent TD, who has been on peacekeeping missions in Israel, Syria and Lebanon, claimed that the government is 'freeloading' on other states to evacuate Irish citizens from Lebanon should tensions escalate. Now, Dr Berry TD has said: "Very concerned about the ongoing and deteriorating situation in Lebanon. [It is] likely to get worse too in the short-term unfortunately. "Thinking of our troops out there every day." He also said: "It is re-assuring to note that Newbridge man Lieutenant Colonel Tom Fox is in charge of our Battalion out there; a highly capable and experienced commander. "No better man to take great care of our personnel while still getting the job done." Dr Berry TD also paid tribute to late Newbridge soldier Robert Deegan, who had also served with the ARW: "[I am] very sorry to learn that Robert was killled in action in Ukraine last week fighting for what he believed in. "My thoughts are with his well known and highly respected family in Kildare." "The priority now must be to try and retrieve his body and return it safely home if possible; I will assist in any way I can in that regard," he concluded. A Senator for Kildare South has paid tribute to a former Mayor of Kildare who suddenly passed away. Micheal 'Spike' Nolan resided in Newbridge and previously served as a Fine Gael councillor. He also once represented the county as its Mayor. Commenting on the suddent passing of the late Mr Nolan, Fianna Fail Senator Fiona O'Loughlin said on her official Facebook page: "We were all devastated yesterday when news broke of the sudden and untimely death of 'young Spike' Micheal Nolan. "Micheal was great friend and colleague on Newbridge Town Council and Kildare County Council, following in the footsteps of his own Dad, as I did mine. "He was the epitome of decency: kind, thoughtful, caring and a wonderful family man, both to his beloved Deirdre, Rebecca, Tadhg and Jack and his loving Mam Ursula." File photograph showing the late Micheal 'Spike' Nolan. "Though retired from politics, Micheal retained a very keen interest in all things political, and cared deeply about his hometown of Newbridge, and of course, the Sash. "Our last conversation was last Saturday week when we chatted about his job with Dublin Bus, upcoming elections and his great pride in his children. We left one another with a smile saying 'chat soon' sadly, not to be. "Very deepest sympathy to Deirdre, Rebecca, Tadhg, Jack, Ursula, Kevin, Brian, extended family and friends. "We will all miss his friendship, smiles and hugs." "Goodbye friend, rest easy, many good memories, hard times ahead." Senator O'Loughlin concluded her tribute with the following saying: "And one by one the lights go out / And one by one we slip away." Five women, described as cousins, were prosecuted at Naas District Court for theft at a supermarket. Madalina Rostas, 25; Soneta Rostas, 27; Bianca Roastas, 23; Lamaita Colaci, 30; and Florica Roastas, 21; with addresses at North Circular Road, Dublin were prosecuted for an offence at the Maynooth branch of Dunnes Stores on April 8, 2023. Sgt Mary Meade recalled that a trolley was filled in the store at Manor Mills. Solicitor Tim Kennelly said the woman had a total of 12 children between them. Mr Kennelly said he did not think a prison term would be appropriate and suggested that a decision on the case should be put off to see if any of them came to garda attention. Read more Kildare news The court was also told that none of them went to school. When asked by Judge Desmond Zaidan why they had committed the offence, they said through an interpreter they did not have enough money or had a child. He noted that the women were entitled to claim social welfare. The court heard that Lamaita had eight previous convictions, including six for theft; Madaline had 25 previous convictions, including 19 for begging; Soneta had 23 previous convictions, including two for attempted theft while Bianca and Flroica had no previous convictions. Judge Zaidan bound each of them to the peace for a period of twelve months. He added that if they misbehaved they could be sent to jail. Boxty, a traditional potato pancake native to Leitrim, Sligo, and Cavan, looks soon to receive official recognition, solidifying its connection to County Leitrim. This recognition will fall under the Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status, highlighting the connection between the product and the region where it is produced. People in the North West and the Midlands have been campaigning for Boxty to receive PGI status, which has been criticised as beyond painfully slow by Sligo-Leitrim TD, Marian Harkin. The Independent TD has been involved in this campaign for over 10 years. Deputy Harkin made her remarks in a Dail exchange with Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue where she sought an update on progress with the European Commission in relation to the assignment of the status. Minister, I organised the very first meeting to apply for PGI status for Boxty way back in January 2014. Attending that meeting were a number of producers along with Joe Lowe from Leitrim LEO and other interested parties, Deputy Harkin said. At the meeting Joe Lowe and his counterpart from Cavan LEO committed to putting funding in place to hire a consultant and progress the application. Since then, producers have attended meeting after meeting, year after year in conjunction with the Department. Indeed, I have attended some of these meetings but despite all this effort, energy and commitment, from the producers in particular, we are still a considerable distance from sending the application to Brussels. As an MEP and as a TD I have continued to push this application and indeed, I have questioned the Minister for Agriculture several times every year throughout the lifetime of this Dail, Deputy Harkin added. In his reply, Minister McConalogue said that his Department expects to publish, very shortly, the PGI application for boxty as part of a national opposition procedure, a procedure akin to a public consultation. He said the process is at the stage where the preparatory work has been completed and the consultation is the next important step. Deputy Harkin said she was pleased to hear this but reminded the Minister that he gave her the exact same answer last year and told her the process was at the same stage. I dont doubt your bona fides on this, I don't doubt your interest or your departments interest, but we cannot seem to reach an outcome, Deputy Harkin said. Mr McConalogue acknowledged Deputy Harkins frustration but assured her that every priority is being given to progressing PGI status for Boxty and believes he can get movement on the issue. Minister, I hope Im not wrong, but I do have a sense that we are almost at the final hurdle. Nevertheless, you must know that there's a huge level of frustration among the producers who have attended so many meetings and complied with everything thats been asked of them. I take your bona fides on this and Im beginning to believe that maybe we're at a key point and that within the next few weeks, or less, this will move to the next stage and after that an application will be sent to Brussels. "Minister, I really want to believe that this time, we are at the final hurdle, Deputy Harkin concluded. READ NEXT - Leitrim welcomes Charles Dowding: A pioneer in 'No Dig' gardening In County Leitrim, over 40 dedicated volunteers took part in Clean Coasts' Big Beach Clean, removing an estimated 276kg of marine litter from various locations across the county. The clean-up effort in Leitrim was part of a nationwide initiative where more than 15,000 people joined forces to clear over 95 tonnes of litter from Ireland's beaches, rivers, and waterways during the Big Beach Clean weekend from the 20th to the 22nd of September. Leitrim, known for its beautiful inland waterways, played a crucial role in this year's event. The Carrick on Shannon Residents Committee led a significant clean-up along the Shannon River quays and walkways. A team of 10 volunteers managed to collect 58kg of litter, helping to preserve the pristine condition of one of Irelands most picturesque riverfronts. Their efforts demonstrate the county's commitment to tackling marine litter and protecting the local environment. Although Leitrim doesn't have a long coastline, the county's involvement highlights the widespread impact of marine litter on inland waterways that eventually feed into the ocean. The participation of volunteers from Leitrim serves as a reminder that everyone, regardless of proximity to the sea, plays a role in reducing litter and protecting Ireland's water systems. In addition to removing litter, volunteers in Leitrim and nationwide contributed to a citizen science project by recording the types of waste they found. Common items discovered during the clean-up included plastic bottles, cigarette butts, and food wrappers, highlighting the need for ongoing awareness and action. Bronagh Moore, Clean Coasts Programme Manager at An Taisce, praised the dedication of Leitrims volunteers, saying, Were incredibly inspired by the efforts of the community in County Leitrim. Although the county is inland, the contribution of volunteers here shows that protecting Irelands waterways is a collective effort. Every piece of litter removed makes a difference. Leitrims involvement in the Big Beach Clean is a testament to the power of community action and the countys commitment to environmental stewardship. As part of a broader national and global movement, the work done by volunteers in Leitrim helps to safeguard not just their local water systems, but also the wider marine environment. This years Big Beach Clean was the largest yet, with over 600 clean-ups organized nationwide. The continued efforts of communities like those in County Leitrim will be vital in the ongoing fight against marine pollution, ensuring that Irelands natural beauty remains protected for future generations. The Big Beach Clean is an annual event organized by Clean Coasts and forms part of the International Coastal Cleanup (ICC), a global effort coordinated by Ocean Conservancy. While the initiative is typically focused on coastal areas, the inclusion of inland waterways like the Shannon River underscores the interconnectedness of Irelands ecosystems and the need for action across the board. The clean-up efforts were supported by Kia Ireland, which provided clean-up kits and supplies to volunteers across the country. This partnership enabled communities like those in Leitrim to take meaningful action in preserving their local environments. Paramount Gold Nevada Provides Details of Its Upcoming AGM WINNEMUCCA, Nev., Sept. 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Paramount Gold Nevada Corp. (NYSE American: PZG) ("Paramount" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that its Annual General Meeting ("AGM" or the "meeting") of the stockholders will be held on December 12, 2024 at 11:00 AM eastern standard time. The meeting will be held virtually over the Internet. Proxy materials will be available on or about November 1st, the mail date, at www.edocumentview.com/PZG and on the Company's website. The Board of Directors has fixed the close of business on Thursday, October 17, 2024 as the record date for the determination of the stockholders entitled to notice of, and to vote at, the AGM. The Company also advised that it filed its annual audited financial statements for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024 on Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") on September 26, 2024. The audit report of the Company's independent registered accounting firm included a going concern qualification. Release of this information is required by Section 610(b) of the NYSE American Company Guide. It does not represent any change or amendment to any of the Company's filings for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024. To stay informed of future press releases, subscribe to our E-Alerts Program and to learn more about our projects visit the projects section of our website. About Paramount Gold Nevada Corp. Paramount Gold Nevada Corp. is a U.S. based precious metals exploration and development company. Paramount's strategy is to create shareholder value through exploring and developing its mineral properties and to realize this value for its shareholders in three ways: by selling its assets to established producers; entering joint ventures with producers for construction and operation; or constructing and operating mines for its own account. Paramount holds a 100% interest in three projects: Grassy Mountain; Sleeper and Bald Peak. The Grassy Mountain Gold Project ("Grassy") consists of approximately 8,200 acres located on private and BLM land in Malheur County, Oregon. Grassy contains a gold-silver deposit (100% located on private land) for which results of a positive Feasibility Study have been released and key permitting milestones accomplished. The Sleeper Gold Project is in Northern Nevada, the world's premier mining jurisdiction. The Sleeper Gold Project, which includes the former producing Sleeper mine, totals 2,474 unpatented mining claims (approximately 44,917 acres). The drill ready, Bald Peak Project in Nevada, consists of approximately 2,260 acres. Paramount Gold Nevada Corp. Christos Theodossiou, Director of Corporate Communications 844.488.233 Twitter: @ParamountNV 26 september 2024 at 21:00 News published onand distributed by: CNOOC Limited Brings On-stream Shenhai-1 Phase II Natural Gas Development Project HONG KONG, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- CNOOC Limited (the "Company", SEHK: 00883 (HKD Counter) and 80883 (RMB Counter), SSE: 600938) announces today that Shenhai-1 Phase II Natural Gas Development Project has commenced production. The project is located in the Qiongdongnan Basin, northern South China Sea, with an average water depth of approximately 900 meters. The main production facilities include a new fixed production platform and 3 centralized subsea wellheads, with 12 development wells planned to be commissioned.It is expected to reach peak production of 162 million cubic feet of natural gas and 3,931 barrels of condensate per day in 2025. Mr. Wang Dongjin, Chairman of the Company, said, "The project has successfully overcome the world-class challenge of deep-water high-pressure oil and gas reservoir development. It witnesses effective large-scale conversion of reserves into production from the 'South China Sea trillion-cubic-meters-level gas region', and provides stable supply of clean energy for the economic and social development of South China. In the future, CNOOC Limited will accelerate the development of new quality productivity of marine energy, and strengthen the exploration and development of deep-water oil and gas resources, thereby further contributing to the high-quality development of China's offshore oil industry." CNOOC Limited holds 100% interest in this project and is the operator. ? End ? Notes to Editors: More information about the Company is available at http://www.cnoocltd.com. *** *** *** *** This press release includes forward looking information, including statements regarding the likely future developments in the business of the Company and its subsidiaries, such as expected future events, business prospects or financial results. The words "expect", "anticipate", "continue", "estimate", "objective", "ongoing", "may", "will", "project", "should", "believe", "plans", "intends" and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These statements are based on assumptions and analyses made by the Company as of this date in light of its experience and its perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors that the Company currently believes are appropriate under the circumstances. However, whether actual results and developments will meet the current expectations and predictions of the Company is uncertain. Actual results, performance and financial condition may differ materially from the Company's expectations, including but not limited to those associated with macro-political and economic factors, fluctuations in crude oil and natural gas prices, the highly competitive nature of the oil and natural gas industry, climate change and environmental policies, the Company's price forecast, mergers, acquisitions and divestments activities, HSSE and insurance policies and changes in anti-corruption, anti-fraud, anti-money laundering and corporate governance laws and regulations. Consequently, all of the forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements. The Company cannot assure that the results or developments anticipated will be realised or, even if substantially realised, that they will have the expected effect on the Company, its business or operations. *** *** *** *** For further enquiries, please contact: Ms. Cui Liu Media & Public Relations CNOOC Limited Tel: +86-10-8452-6641 Fax: +86-10-8452-1441 E-mail: [email protected] Mr. Bunny Lee Porda Havas International Finance Communications Group Tel: +852 3150 6707 Fax: +852 3150 6728 E-mail: [email protected] SOURCE CNOOC Limited 27 september 2024 at 01:53 News published onand distributed by: Feature: Flying Tigers' legacy nourishes a lasting bond in China-U.S. friendship 13:40, September 27, 2024 By Tan Jingjing, Huang Heng ( Xinhua LOS ANGELES, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- An exhibition of historical photographs at California State Polytechnic University (Cal Poly), Pomona, has brought to life the enduring bond forged between the Flying Tigers and the Chinese people amidst the turmoil of World War II. Flying Tigers Lieutenant Robert Mooney sacrificed his young life to protect residents of Xiangyun in China's Yunnan Province. People of Lanping in Yunnan Province built an airstrip with their own hands to rescue American pilot Robert Walroth. Both communities undertook relentless efforts to search for missing American Captain James Fox and his Chinese crew ... The exhibition, as part of a cultural exchange program organized by Yunnan Province in Los Angeles, records how the Flying Tigers helped Chinese people in their fight against Japanese invaders, and how Chinese people came to the aid of U.S. pilots, showcasing their remarkable courage and friendship. "The Flying Tigers are not only heroes of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, but also ambassadors of China-U.S. friendship. Their spirit, symbolizing the upholding of justice, the advocacy of peace, and the pursuit of win-win cooperation, stands like an eternal lighthouse, guiding the development of China-U.S. friendship," said Lai Yong, head of the Yunnan cultural exchange program delegation. During World War II, U.S. General Claire Lee Chennault led the Flying Tigers, a group of American volunteer pilots, to China to help the Chinese people expel invading Japanese forces. The Flying Tigers created the extremely dangerous "Hump Route" over the Himalayas to provide critical supplies to the Chinese troops fighting the Japanese invaders. "The Flying Tigers were not only a group of brave pilots but also a symbol of unity, courage and collaboration in the face of adversity," said Wen Cheng, professor and associate chair at the Civil Engineering Department of Cal Poly, Pomona. "Their efforts during World War II paved the way for the strong partnership that our nations share today. As we honor their legacy, we also reflect on the importance of international cooperation, friendship, and mutual respect -- values that continue to shape our future together," Cheng said. "Let us continue to build bridges of understanding and cooperation between China and the United States, just as the Flying Tigers did over 80 years ago," he added. Nell Chennault Calloway, granddaughter of General Chennault, described the U.S.-China relationship as one of the most important in the world. She told Xinhua that the spirit of the Flying Tigers is about helping each other and uniting as one, upholding justice and defending peace, and also about valuing and renewing U.S.-China friendship. "As we celebrate the 45th anniversary of the reunification of China and the United States, we must also celebrate the personal ties that bind us together," Calloway said. From students studying abroad to entrepreneurs forging business partnerships, from cultural exchanges to scientific collaborations, these personal connections form the foundation of bilateral relations, she said. Yunnan Province has played a unique role in China-U.S. exchanges and cooperation, not only during wartime but also in today's context. The people of Yunnan honor the Flying Tigers by preserving and restoring historical sites, establishing memorial halls and monuments like the Hump Memorial, and naming schools in their honor. Over the years, Yunnan Province has maintained close links with the U.S. side, establishing sister-province relationships with Texas and Delaware. Additionally, five pairs of sister-city connections have been forged between Yunnan's cities and autonomous prefectures and their counterparts in the United States. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Global trading and investing platform eToro has announced its agreement to acquire Australian investment app Spaceship in a move aimed at expanding its presence in the Australian market and enhancing its product offerings. The acquisition, valued at up to $80 million AUD, will allow eToro to integrate Spaceships superannuation services into its global portfolio, aligning with the companys broader strategy of expanding long-term savings options. The deal will provide eToro users with access to Spaceships high-performing superannuation services, including GrowthX, which has delivered an 11% annualised return since its 2017 launch up to August 31, 2024. Spaceship customers, in turn, will gain entry to eToros multi-asset platform, which offers a wide range of investment products such as equities, ETFs, commodities, and cryptocurrencies, along with educational resources and tools. Spaceship, launched in 2017, has grown to over 200,000 clients and manages more than $1.5 billion AUD in funds. The companys core offerings include superannuation funds under Spaceship Super and professionally managed investment portfolios via Spaceship Voyager. Yoni Assia, CEO and Co-founder of eToro said: Spaceship and eToro share the goal of making investing accessible for everyone. Like us, they look to the future and we are excited to welcome their team and their clients into the eToro family. With almost two decades of experience building, innovating and serving clients around the world, I believe that together eToro and Spaceship can take our offering for Australian users to the next level. We are expanding our long-term savings and investing proposition for our users globally and this acquisition is a key step on this journey. Our mission is to give people the tools and knowledge they need to grow their wealth. To do this we must continue to build out our offering, so that we can support people throughout their investing lives. We hope that this deal will be the first of many in the long-term savings and investing space as we continue to build out our localised product offering in our key markets. Andrew Moore, CEO of Spaceship said: Joining forces with eToro is a pivotal moment for Spaceship, accelerating our momentum in Australia and unlocking new opportunities for growth. Were deeply aligned with eToros goal of making investing accessible for everyone, and this partnership will enable us to reach new heights as we expand our product offering to customers, while continuing to provide top-tier value. Moreover, it offers our customers a promising opportunity to be part of a forward-looking company that aligns with our future ambitions. Robert Francis, MD of eToro Australia said: This is a significant milestone for eToro in Australia and underscores our commitment to growing our presence here. We want to give Australians everything they need to meet their investing goals. By combining Spaceships superannuation proposition with eToros multi-asset investment offering, we can better support our users throughout their investment journeys. I look forward to working with the Spaceship team. Spaceship clients will continue to be served by the Spaceship brand. In the future, Spaceship customers will gain easy access to eToros products, investment tools and educational resources, whilst eToro clients will be able to sign up to Spaceship through the eToro app and view their Spaceship funds on their eToro account. This integration will take place gradually. Founded in 2007, eToro is a trading and investing platform with over 38 million registered users from 75 countries. The company is authorised and supervised by regulatory authorities in jurisdictions around the world including ASIC. Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. MOBIA Technology Innovations Proudly Earns a Place on The Globe and Mail's Sixth Annual Ranking of Canada's Top Growing Companies DARTMOUTH, Nova Scotia, Sept. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MOBIA Technology Innovations is delighted to announce it has ranked No. 274 in the 2024 Report on Business magazine's ranking of Canada's Top Growing Companies. Canada's Top Growing Companies ranks Canadian companies on three-year revenue growth. MOBIA earned its place on the list for a fourth year in a row with three-year growth of 140%. MOBIA's passion for creating value for customers fuels innovation and drives the company to push the limits of what's possible, creating custom technology solutions to solve complex business problems. Added to its deep technical bench, this focus on innovation has helped MOBIA achieve growth during a time of economic uncertainty. "The rise of new technologies, like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation, has opened a whole new world of opportunities for our customers," said Mike Reeves, President at MOBIA. "But the evolution of these technologies creates its share of challenges, too. As a company, we're committed to being the partner they can lean on to execute complex business transformations that create competitive advantage in shifting markets." Canada's Top Growing Companies is an editorial ranking that was launched in 2019 to celebrate the achievements of innovative businesses in Canada. To qualify for this voluntary program, companies had to complete an in-depth application process and fulfill revenue requirements. In total, 416 companies earned a spot on this year's ranking. The full list of 2024 winners along with editorial coverage is published in the October issue of Report on Business magazine. "Our annual ranking of Canada's Top Growing Companies reflects the sector-spanning ingenuity of this country's entrepreneurs and corporate leaders," says Dawn Calleja, Editor of Report on Business magazine. "And we think it's important to tell their stories, to help inspire the next generation of up-and-comers across the country." "The Globe and Mail congratulates this year's Canada's Top Growing Companies' winners for achieving exceptional growth and resilience in facing business challenges," says Andrew Saunders, CEO of The Globe and Mail. "It is a testament to dedication, strategic vision, and innovative drive." ABOUT THE GLOBE AND MAIL The Globe and Mail is Canada's foremost news media company, leading the national discussion and causing policy change through brave and independent journalism since 1844. With our award-winning coverage of business, politics and national affairs, The Globe and Mail newspaper reaches 6.2 million readers every week in our print or digital formats, and Report on Business magazine reaches 2.9 million readers in print and digital every issue. Our investment in innovative data science means that as the world continues to change, so does The Globe. The Globe and Mail is owned by Woodbridge, the investment arm of the Thomson family. ABOUT MOBIA MOBIA is a leading expert in business transformation and innovative enterprise technology systems. With hundreds of customers across North America, MOBIA partners with organizations of all sizes, across all verticals to transform the way they work. Focused on people, processes, technology, and culture, MOBIA helps businesses reach their full potential. MOBIA is proud to be recognized as one of Canada's Best Managed Companies and Canada's Top Growing Companies . To learn more, visit Mobia.io To learn more about MOBIA contact Nicole Murphy at [email protected] . 27 september 2024 at 04:50 News published onand distributed by: Freeland Powers Wildlife Protection Task Forces with Digital Intelligence Sixteen agencies from Thailand and Laos are set to collaborate in the fight against wildlife trafficking, after concluding a specialized joint training recently near a border hotspot where organized crime syndicates have illegally transported large volumes of wild animals, including their body parts, including tigers, rhinos, lions, pangolins and elephants. Participants reported that the training, known as "CTOC", was instrumental because it used fictitious syndicates based on real-life characters and businesses, and included technology and training that will help them track and arrest the real culprits. The week-long "Counter-Transnational Organized Crime" training course was held in Nakhon Phanom, Thailand, September 2-6, and was organized and delivered by Freeland, in partnership with the Southeast Asia Police Chief Network (ASEANAPOL), Detego Global and the International Wildlife Trust. Instructors included former law enforcement officers from 5 countries and digital forensics experts from Detego Global. Instructors helped participants navigate through and solve a complex case based on data obtained from real-life wildlife criminals. Thai and Lao officers have witnessed and tracked some of the world's most notorious wildlife traffickers, including the infamous "Hydra" syndicate, which is responsible for the illegal killings of thousands of endangered animals and trees from Asia and Africa over the past 2 decades. Seven Hydra members have been arrested, and over $50 million in their assets have been seized or frozen. However, some of its leading culprits remain at large. CTOC was designed by Freeland to network and capacitate agencies to identify and dismantle criminal supply chains. The course was followed this week by the delivery of award-winning Detego digital forensics technology to the new Wildlife Intelligence Center of Thailand, hosted by the country's Department of National Parks (DNP). Freeland and Detego Global, in partnership with ASEANAPOL, will deliver the same technology and training to law enforcers in Malaysia and Vietnam in the near future. "Detego technology will help enforcers gather comprehensive intelligence on organized wildlife crime rings, which have historically had an edge over enforcers," said Freeland Founder, Steven Galster. "The crooks have often been better networked and resourced, but CTOC and Detego will power new task forces to even the score, giving endangered wildlife a chance." Inspired and skilled up by the CTOC course, one trainee went immediately to work, chasing a lead and arresting a trafficker who had moved 1.4 tons of pangolins (scaley anteaters, the most heavily trafficked mammal in the world) through northeast Thailand in the direction of Laos. The arresting officer and his new task force cohorts are now planning on using their new technology to analyze the details to expand the scope of the case and prevent more targeting of pangolins and other animals. For more information: [email protected] About Freeland Freeland is a frontline counter-trafficking organization working for a world that is free of wildlife trafficking and human slavery. Our team of law enforcement, development and communications specialists work alongside partners in Asia, Africa and the Americas to build capacity, raise awareness, strengthen networks and promote good governance to protect critical ecosystems and vulnerable people. www.freeland.org About Detego Global Detego Global is a pioneer in digital forensics and incident response solutions, providing cutting-edge tools that empower organizations to combat threats and solve complex security challenges. With a commitment to innovation and excellence, Detego Global serves law enforcement, the military, government agencies, and corporate clients worldwide. CONTACT: Company: Detego Global Contact Person: Buddhika Karunasekara (Director of Marketing) Phone Number: +44 (0) 7889 227 428 Email: [email protected] SOURCE: Detego Global 27 september 2024 at 07:30 View the original press release on accesswire.comNews published onand distributed by: flyExclusive Announces Key Addition, Further Strengthening Leadership Team flyExclusive, Inc. (NYSEAMERICAN: FLYX) ("flyExclusive" or the "Company"), a publicly-traded provider of premium private jet charter experiences, today announced a number of key leadership appointments, adding additional experience to the Company's executive leadership. Brad Garner joins flyExclusive as Chief Financial Officer, Matt Lesmeister will become Chief Operating Officer and Mike Guina will transition to Chief Commercial Officer, effective immediately. "The addition of Brad to our team adds significant bench depth to a leadership team that we believe is the best in the industry. The actions reflect our commitment to a leadership team with world-class professionals and positions the Company for the next phase of growth," said Jim Segrave, Founder and CEO of flyExclusive. "I'm thrilled to welcome Brad to the organization and I'm confident his expertise in fundraising, innovative capital structuring, and accounting will further optimize our finance organization. His addition, in close coordination with Matt Lesmeister, should extend and leverage the significant improvement in our processes made by Matt and team over the course of this past year. Brad's addition also allows Matt and Mike to accelerate strategic operational and new business initiatives designed to drive multiyear value and success for flyExclusive's customers, employees and shareholders." Garner joins flyExclusive from Hale Partnership Capital Management, LLC (?HPCM"), a multi-strategy investment partnership with a focus on public equity, private equity and real estate, where he served as Chief Financial and Compliance Officer since 2015. Garner also served as the Chief Financial and Principal Accounting Officer for the publicly traded HG Holdings, Inc. from 2018 through 2022. Also while at HPCM, Brad served as the CFO of Best Bar Ever, Inc., a protein bar company, where he helped lead the spin-off of non-core assets and structured multiple rounds of venture capital investment and ultimate exit. Prior to HPCM, Brad spent nearly 10 years in public accounting at Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP in both the audit and tax practices. Brad has a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Accountancy from Wake Forest University. "I'm incredibly excited to join flyExclusive as it sets the industry standard for excellence in private aviation," Garner said. "I look forward to leveraging my public company experience to build on the strong foundation that's been established and continue flyExclusive's impressive growth trajectory." As Chief Operating Officer, Lesmeister will focus on driving operational excellence across the enterprise with continued alignment and coordination between finance, sales and operating functions. As Chief Commercial Officer, Guina will further focus his oversight of flyExclusive's sales and new business strategies across wholesale, retail, fractional, Jet Club, and aircraft Maintenance Repair and Operations. "I'd like to thank Matt and Mike for their continued leadership and dedication to our business," Segrave said. "They have been instrumental in driving excellence across the organization and we're a stronger company today because of their many contributions to date. I have never been more confident than I am today about the leadership team we have in place and look forward to further leveraging this core strength to consolidate and accelerate flyExclusive's leadership position in the industry." About flyExclusive flyExclusive is a vertically integrated, FAA-certificated air carrier providing private jet experiences by offering customers a choice of on-demand charter, Jet Club, and fractional ownership services to destinations across the globe. flyExclusive has one of the world's largest fleets of Cessna Citation aircraft, and it operates a combined total of approximately 100 jets, ranging from light to large cabin sizes. The company manages all aspects of the customer experience, ensuring that every flight is on a modern, comfortable, and safe aircraft. flyExclusive's in-house repair station, aircraft paint, cabin interior renovation, and avionics installation capabilities, are all provided from its campus headquarters in Kinston, North Carolina. To learn more, visit www.flyexclusive.com. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by the words "believe," "project," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "strategy," "future," "opportunity," "plan," "may," "should," "will," "would," "will be," "will continue," "will likely result," and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections, and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual future events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this document, including but not limited to: risks related to reliance on and the need to hire, integrate and retain key personnel; management of growth; the ability of the Company to file timely file its required annual and quarterly reports with the SEC; the ability of the Company to regain compliance with NYSE American continued listing standards and maintain the listing of the Company's securities on a national securities exchange; the ability of the Company to comply with covenants under and repay its debt; the potential dilution of stock ownership by our capital raising efforts; the outcome of any legal proceedings; volatility of the price of the Company's securities due to a variety of factors, including publication of articles about the Company by third parties, changes in the competitive and highly regulated industries in which flyExclusive operates, variations in operating performance across competitors, changes in laws and regulations affecting flyExclusive's business; the ability to implement business plans, forecasts, and other expectations, and identify and realize additional opportunities; and the risk of downturns and a changing regulatory landscape in the highly competitive aviation industry. The foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. You should carefully consider the foregoing factors and the other risks and uncertainties described in the "Risk Factors" section of flyExclusive's registration statement on Form S-1 and other documents filed by the Company from time to time with the SEC. These filings identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and the Company assumes no obligation and does not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. The Company does not give any assurance that it will achieve its expectations. 27 september 2024 at 16:05 News published onand distributed by: CARVYKTI is the first and only cell therapy to significantly extend overall survival versus standard therapies for patients with multiple myeloma as early as second line 45 percent reduction in risk of death achieved with CARVYKTI after three-year follow-up in landmark CARTITUDE-4 study Data featured in a late-breaking oral presentation at the 2024 International Myeloma Society Annual Meeting RIO DE JANEIRO, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) announced today long-term results from the Phase 3 CARTITUDE-4 study that show a single infusion of CARVYKTI (ciltacabtagene autoleucel) significantly extended overall survival (OS) in patients with relapsed or lenalidomide-refractory multiple myeloma who have received at least one prior line of therapy, including a proteasome inhibitor (PI), reducing the risk of death by 45 percent versus standard therapies of pomalidomide, bortezomib and dexamethasone (PVd) or daratumumab, pomalidomide and dexamethasone (DPd).1 With these data, CARVYKTI is now the first and only cell therapy to improve OS versus standard therapies for patients with lenalidomide-refractory multiple myeloma as early as second line.1 Findings were featured as a late-breaking oral presentation at the 2024 International Myeloma Society (IMS) Annual Meeting (Abstract #OA-65).1 "The three-year follow-up data from the Phase 3 CARTITUDE-4 study show a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in overall survival and quality-of-life measures with CARVYKTI versus standard therapies?meaningful results that have the potential to transform the multiple myeloma treatment landscape," said Binod Dhakal, M.D., M.S., Associate Professor of Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Division of Hematology, and study investigator.* "This adds to the growing body of data reinforcing the promise of a single infusion of CARVYKTI, which, in addition to demonstrating a significant overall survival benefit, also offers patients the opportunity of a period free from multiple myeloma treatment as early as second line." The Phase 3 CARTITUDE-4 study evaluated CARVYKTI compared to standard therapies of PVd or DPd for the treatment of patients with relapsed or lenalidomide-refractory multiple myeloma after one prior line of therapy.1 Patients who received one to three prior lines of therapy, including a PI and immunomodulatory agent (IMiD), and were lenalidomide-refractory were randomized (CARVYKTI [cilta-cel], n=208, standard therapies, n=211).1 At median follow-up of almost three years (34 months), median OS for patients treated with both CARVYKTI or standard therapies was not reached (NR) (95 percent Confidence Interval [CI], not estimable (NE) ? NE) and (95 percent CI, 37.75 months ? NE) (Hazard Ratio [HR], 0.55; 95 percent CI, 0.39-0.79; P=0.0009).1 At 30-month follow-up, OS rates were 76 percent for patients on the CARVYKTI arm and 64 percent for patients on the standard therapies arm.1 These data show CARVYKTI significantly extended OS for patients compared to standard therapies.1 In patients randomized to the CARVYKTI arm, CARVYKTI reduced the risk of death by 45 percent compared to standard therapies demonstrating clinically meaningful responses for patients as early as after first relapse.1 Median progression-free survival (PFS) was NR in patients treated with CARVYKTI (95 percent CI, 34.50 months ? NE) and 11.79 months (95 percent CI, 9.66-14.00) in patients treated with standard therapies demonstrating sustained deep and durable responses.1 Patients treated with CARVYKTI had a 77 percent complete response or better, and 85 percent overall response rate. Patients treated with CARVYKTI demonstrated a 62 percent minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity (10^-5) and 57 percent MRD-negativity (10^-6) compared to patients treated with standard therapies (18.5 percent, 9 percent), respectively.1 Median duration of response was NR (95 percent CI, NE-NE) in patients treated with CARVYKTI and 18.7 months (95 percent CI, 12.9-23.7) for patients treated with standard therapies.1 Median time to symptom worsening based on the Multiple Myeloma Symptom and Impact Questionnaire (MySlm-Q) was NR (95 percent CI, NE-NE) with CARVYKTI and 34.33 months (95 percent CI, 32,20-NE) with patients treated with standard therapies (HR, 0.38; 95 percent CI, 0.24-0.61; P<0.0001).1 The safety profile of cilta-cel versus standard therapies was consistent with previous analysis. In the safety analysis [cilta-cel, n=208, standard therapies, n=208], 97 percent of patients in both arms experienced grade 3/4 treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) with cytopenia being the most common.1 Treatment-emergent infections occurred in 64 percent of patients in the CARVYKTI arm and 76 percent of patients who received standard therapies with 28 percent and 30 percent being classified as grade 3/4, respectively.1 In the CARVYKTI arm, there were seven patients with hematologic second primary malignancies, 50 patients died and of those patients, 21 died due to progressive disease.1 One patient treated with standard therapies experienced a hematologic second primary malignancy, 82 patients died and of those patients, 51 died due to progressive disease.1 "CARVYKTI is the first and only cell therapy approved for the treatment of patients with myeloma as early as second line, and now also the first and only cell therapy to improve overall survival and demonstrate improved patient quality-of-life outcomes versus standard therapies for patients with lenalidomide-refractory multiple myeloma," said Jordan Schecter, M.D., Vice President, Disease Area Leader, Multiple Myeloma, Innovative Medicine, Johnson & Johnson. "At Johnson & Johnson, we remain committed to addressing unmet need through the development of innovative treatments for patients and healthcare providers, and we look forward to submitting these results to local health authorities worldwide." The U.S. FDA and European Commission approved CARVYKTI for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma who have received a least one prior line of therapy including a PI, IMiD, and are refractory to lenalidomide earlier this year. Globally, we have now launched CARVYKTI in 5 countries and treated more than 3,500 patients. About CARTITUDE-4 CARTITUDE-4 (NCT04181827) is the first randomized Phase 3 study evaluating the efficacy and safety of CARVYKTI. The study compares CARVYKTI with standard of care treatments PVd or DPd in adult patients with relapsed and lenalidomide-refractory multiple myeloma who received one to three prior lines of therapy. The primary endpoint of the study is progression-free survival (PFS); safety, OS, minimal residual disease negative rate and overall response rate are secondary endpoints. About CARVYKTI (ciltacabtagene autoleucel; cilta-cel) CARVYKTI (cilta-cel) received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in February 2022 for the treatment of adults with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma after four or more prior lines of therapy, including a proteasome inhibitor, an immunomodulatory agent, and an anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody. In April 2024, CARVYKTI was approved in the U.S. for treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma who have received at least one prior line of therapy including a proteasome inhibitor, an immunomodulatory agent, and who are refractory to lenalidomide, following a unanimous (11 to 0) FDA Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) recommendation in support of this new indication. In April 2024, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved a Type II variation for CARVYKTI for the treatment of adults with relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma who have received at least one prior therapy, including an immunomodulatory agent and a proteasome inhibitor, have demonstrated disease progression on the last therapy, and are refractory to lenalidomide. In September 2022, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) approved CARVYKTI for the treatment of adults with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma in patients that have no history of CAR-positive T cell infusion therapy targeting BCMA and who have received three or more lines of therapies, including an immunomodulatory agent, a proteasome inhibitor and an anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody, and in whom multiple myeloma has not responded to or has relapsed following the most recent therapy. CARVYKTI is a BCMA-directed, genetically modified autologous T-cell immunotherapy, which involves reprogramming a patient's own T-cells with a transgene encoding chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) that directs the CAR-positive T cells to eliminate cells that express BCMA. BCMA is primarily expressed on the surface of malignant multiple myeloma B-lineage cells, as well as late-stage B cells and plasma cells. The CARVYKTI CAR protein features two BCMA-targeting single domains designed to confer high avidity against human BCMA. Upon binding to BCMA-expressing cells, the CAR promotes T-cell activation, expansion, and elimination of target cells. In December 2017, Janssen Biotech, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company, entered into an exclusive worldwide license and collaboration agreement with Legend Biotech USA, Inc. to develop and commercialize CARVYKTI. For more information, visit www.CARVYKTI.com. About Multiple Myeloma Multiple myeloma is an incurable blood cancer that affects a type of white blood cell called plasma cells, which are found in the bone marrow.2 In multiple myeloma, these plasma cells proliferate and spread rapidly and replace normal cells in the bone marrow with tumors.3 Multiple myeloma is the third most common blood cancer worldwide and remains an incurable disease.4 In 2024, it was estimated that more than 35,000 people will be diagnosed with multiple myeloma in the U.S. and more than 12,000 people would die from the disease.5 People living with multiple myeloma have a 5-year survival rate of 59.8 percent.6 While some people diagnosed with multiple myeloma initially have no symptoms, most patients are diagnosed due to symptoms that can include bone fracture or pain, low red blood cell counts, tiredness, high calcium levels and kidney problems or infections.7,8 CARVYKTI IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION INDICATIONS AND USAGE CARVYKTI (ciltacabtagene autoleucel) is a B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA)-directed genetically modified autologous T cell immunotherapy indicated for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, who have received at least 1 prior line of therapy, including a proteasome inhibitor and an immunomodulatory agent, and are refractory to lenalidomide. IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION WARNING: CYTOKINE RELEASE SYNDROME, NEUROLOGIC TOXICITIES, HLH/MAS, PROLONGED and RECURRENT CYTOPENIA, and SECONDARY HEMATOLOGICAL MALIGNANCIES Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS), including fatal or life-threatening reactions, occurred in patients following treatment with CARVYKTI. Do not administer CARVYKTI to patients with active infection or inflammatory disorders. Treat severe or life-threatening CRS with tocilizumab or tocilizumab and corticosteroids. Immune Effector Cell-Associated Neurotoxicity Syndrome (ICANS), which may be fatal or life-threatening, occurred following treatment with CARVYKTI, including before CRS onset, concurrently with CRS, after CRS resolution, or in the absence of CRS. Monitor for neurologic events after treatment with CARVYKTI. Provide supportive care and/or corticosteroids as needed. Parkinsonism and Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) and their associated complications resulting in fatal or life-threatening reactions have occurred following treatment with CARVYKTI. Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis/Macrophage Activation Syndrome (HLH/MAS), including fatal and life-threatening reactions, occurred in patients following treatment with CARVYKTI. HLH/MAS can occur with CRS or neurologic toxicities. Prolonged and/or recurrent cytopenias with bleeding and infection and requirement for stem cell transplantation for hematopoietic recovery occurred following treatment with CARVYKTI. Secondary hematological malignancies, including myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia, have occurred in patients following treatment with CARVYKTI. T-cell malignancies have occurred following treatment of hematologic malignancies with BCMA- and CD19-directed genetically modified autologous T-cell immunotherapies, including CARVYKTI. CARVYKTI is available only through a restricted program under a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) called the CARVYKTI REMS Program. WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS Increased early mortality - In CARTITUDE-4, a (1:1) randomized controlled trial, there was a numerically higher percentage of early deaths in patients randomized to the CARVYKTI treatment arm compared to the control arm. Among patients with deaths occurring within the first 10 months from randomization, a greater proportion (29/208; 14%) occurred in the CARVYKTI arm compared to (25/211; 12%) in the control arm. Of the 29 deaths that occurred in the CARVYKTI arm within the first 10 months of randomization, 10 deaths occurred prior to CARVYKTI infusion, and 19 deaths occurred after CARVYKTI infusion. Of the 10 deaths that occurred prior to CARVYKTI infusion, all occurred due to disease progression, and none occurred due to adverse events. Of the 19 deaths that occurred after CARVYKTI infusion, 3 occurred due to disease progression, and 16 occurred due to adverse events. The most common adverse events were due to infection (n=12). Cytokine release syndrome (CRS), including fatal or life-threatening reactions, occurred following treatment with CARVYKTI. Among patients receiving CARVYKTI for RRMM in the CARTITUDE-1 & 4 studies (N=285), CRS occurred in 84% (238/285), including ?Grade 3 CRS (ASCT 2019) in 4% (11/285) of patients. Median time to onset of CRS, any grade, was 7 days (range: 1 to 23 days). CRS resolved in 82% with a median duration of 4 days (range: 1 to 97 days). The most common manifestations of CRS in all patients combined (?10%) included fever (84%), hypotension (29%) and aspartate aminotransferase increased (11%). Serious events that may be associated with CRS include pyrexia, hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, respiratory failure, disseminated intravascular coagulation, capillary leak syndrome, and supraventricular and ventricular tachycardia. CRS occurred in 78% of patients in CARTITUDE-4 (3% Grade 3 to 4) and in 95% of patients in CARTITUDE-1 (4% Grade 3 to 4). Identify CRS based on clinical presentation. Evaluate for and treat other causes of fever, hypoxia, and hypotension. CRS has been reported to be associated with findings of HLH/MAS, and the physiology of the syndromes may overlap. HLH/MAS is a potentially life-threatening condition. In patients with progressive symptoms of CRS or refractory CRS despite treatment, evaluate for evidence of HLH/MAS. Ensure that a minimum of two doses of tocilizumab are available prior to infusion of CARVYKTI. Of the 285 patients who received CARVYKTI in clinical trials, 53% (150/285) patients received tocilizumab; 35% (100/285) received a single dose, while 18% (50/285) received more than 1 dose of tocilizumab. Overall, 14% (39/285) of patients received at least one dose of corticosteroids for treatment of CRS. Monitor patients at least daily for 10 days following CARVYKTI infusion at a REMS-certified healthcare facility for signs and symptoms of CRS. Monitor patients for signs or symptoms of CRS for at least 4 weeks after infusion. At the first sign of CRS, immediately institute treatment with supportive care, tocilizumab, or tocilizumab and corticosteroids. Counsel patients to seek immediate medical attention should signs or symptoms of CRS occur at any time. Neurologic toxicities, which may be severe, life-threatening, or fatal, occurred following treatment with CARVYKTI. Neurologic toxicities included ICANS, neurologic toxicity with signs and symptoms of parkinsonism, GBS, immune mediated myelitis, peripheral neuropathies, and cranial nerve palsies. Counsel patients on the signs and symptoms of these neurologic toxicities, and on the delayed nature of onset of some of these toxicities. Instruct patients to seek immediate medical attention for further assessment and management if signs or symptoms of any of these neurologic toxicities occur at any time. Among patients receiving CARVYKTI in the CARTITUDE-1 & 4 studies for RRMM, one or more neurologic toxicities occurred in 24% (69/285), including ?Grade 3 cases in 7% (19/285) of patients. Median time to onset was 10 days (range: 1 to 101) with 63/69 (91%) of cases developing by 30 days. Neurologic toxicities resolved in 72% (50/69) of patients with a median duration to resolution of 23 days (range: 1 to 544). Of patients developing neurotoxicity, 96% (66/69) also developed CRS. Subtypes of neurologic toxicities included ICANS in 13%, peripheral neuropathy in 7%, cranial nerve palsy in 7%, parkinsonism in 3%, and immune mediated myelitis in 0.4% of the patients. Immune Effector Cell-associated Neurotoxicity Syndrome (ICANS): Patients receiving CARVYKTI may experience fatal or life-threatening ICANS following treatment with CARVYKTI, including before CRS onset, concurrently with CRS, after CRS resolution, or in the absence of CRS. Among patients receiving CARVYKTI in the CARTITUDE-1 & 4 studies, ICANS occurred in 13% (36/285), including Grade ?3 in 2% (6/285) of the patients. Median time to onset of ICANS was 8 days (range: 1 to 28 days). ICANS resolved in 30 of 36 (83%) of patients with a median time to resolution of 3 days (range: 1 to 143 days). Median duration of ICANS was 6 days (range: 1 to 1229 days) in all patients including those with ongoing neurologic events at the time of death or data cut off. Of patients with ICANS 97% (35/36) had CRS. The onset of ICANS occurred during CRS in 69% of patients, before and after the onset of CRS in 14% of patients respectively. Immune Effector Cell-associated Neurotoxicity Syndrome occurred in 7% of patients in CARTITUDE-4 (0.5% Grade 3) and in 23% of patients in CARTITUDE-1 (3% Grade 3). The most frequent ?2% manifestations of ICANS included encephalopathy (12%), aphasia (4%), headache (3%), motor dysfunction (3%), ataxia (2%) and sleep disorder (2%). Monitor patients at least daily for 10 days following CARVYKTI infusion at the REMS-certified healthcare facility for signs and symptoms of ICANS. Rule out other causes of ICANS symptoms. Monitor patients for signs or symptoms of ICANS for at least 4 weeks after infusion and treat promptly. Neurologic toxicity should be managed with supportive care and/or corticosteroids as needed. Parkinsonism: Neurologic toxicity with parkinsonism has been reported in clinical trials of CARVYKTI. Among patients receiving CARVYKTI in the CARTITUDE-1 & 4 studies, parkinsonism occurred in 3% (8/285), including Grade ? 3 in 2% (5/285) of the patients. Median time to onset of parkinsonism was 56 days (range: 14 to 914 days). Parkinsonism resolved in 1 of 8 (13%) of patients with a median time to resolution of 523 days. Median duration of parkinsonism was 243.5 days (range: 62 to 720 days) in all patients including those with ongoing neurologic events at the time of death or data cut off. The onset of parkinsonism occurred after CRS for all patients and after ICANS for 6 patients. Parkinsonism occurred in 1% of patients in CARTITUDE-4 (no Grade 3 to 4) and in 6% of patients in CARTITUDE-1 (4% Grade 3 to 4). Manifestations of parkinsonism included movement disorders, cognitive impairment, and personality changes. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of parkinsonism that may be delayed in onset and managed with supportive care measures. There is limited efficacy information with medications used for the treatment of Parkinson's disease for the improvement or resolution of parkinsonism symptoms following CARVYKTI treatment. Guillain-Barre syndrome: A fatal outcome following GBS occurred following treatment with CARVYKTI despite treatment with intravenous immunoglobulins. Symptoms reported include those consistent with Miller-Fisher variant of GBS, encephalopathy, motor weakness, speech disturbances, and polyradiculoneuritis. Monitor for GBS. Evaluate patients presenting with peripheral neuropathy for GBS. Consider treatment of GBS with supportive care measures and in conjunction with immunoglobulins and plasma exchange, depending on severity of GBS. Immune mediated myelitis: Grade 3 myelitis occurred 25 days following treatment with CARVYKTI in CARTITUDE-4 in a patient who received CARVYKTI as subsequent therapy. Symptoms reported included hypoesthesia of the lower extremities and the lower abdomen with impaired sphincter control. Symptoms improved with the use of corticosteroids and intravenous immune globulin. Myelitis was ongoing at the time of death from other cause. Peripheral neuropathy occurred following treatment with CARVYKTI. Among patients receiving CARVYKTI in the CARTITUDE-1 & 4 studies, peripheral neuropathy occurred in 7% (21/285), including Grade ?3 in 1% (3/285) of the patients. Median time to onset of peripheral neuropathy was 57 days (range: 1 to 914 days). Peripheral neuropathy resolved in 11 of 21 (52%) of patients with a median time to resolution of 58 days (range: 1 to 215 days). Median duration of peripheral neuropathy was 149.5 days (range: 1 to 692 days) in all patients including those with ongoing neurologic events at the time of death or data cut off. Peripheral neuropathies occurred in 7% of patients in CARTITUDE-4 (0.5% Grade 3 to 4) and in 7% of patients in CARTITUDE-1 (2% Grade 3 to 4). Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of peripheral neuropathies. Patients who experience peripheral neuropathy may also experience cranial nerve palsies or GBS. Cranial nerve palsies occurred following treatment with CARVYKTI. Among patients receiving CARVYKTI in the CARTITUDE-1 & 4 studies, cranial nerve palsies occurred in 7% (19/285), including Grade ?3 in 1% (1/285) of the patients. Median time to onset of cranial nerve palsies was 21 days (range: 17 to 101 days). Cranial nerve palsies resolved in 17 of 19 (89%) of patients with a median time to resolution of 66 days (range: 1 to 209 days). Median duration of cranial nerve palsies was 70 days (range: 1 to 262 days) in all patients including those with ongoing neurologic events at the time of death or data cut off. Cranial nerve palsies occurred in 9% of patients in CARTITUDE-4 (1% Grade 3 to 4) and in 3% of patients in CARTITUDE-1 (1% Grade 3 to 4). The most frequent cranial nerve affected was the 7th cranial nerve. Additionally, cranial nerves III, V, and VI have been reported to be affected. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of cranial nerve palsies. Consider management with systemic corticosteroids, depending on the severity and progression of signs and symptoms. Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis (HLH)/Macrophage Activation Syndrome (MAS): Among patients receiving CARVYKTI in the CARTITUDE-1 & 4 studies, HLH/MAS occurred in 1% (3/285) of patients. All events of HLH/MAS had onset within 99 days of receiving CARVYKTI, with a median onset of 10 days (range: 8 to 99 days) and all occurred in the setting of ongoing or worsening CRS. The manifestations of HLH/MAS included hyperferritinemia, hypotension, hypoxia with diffuse alveolar damage, coagulopathy and hemorrhage, cytopenia and multi-organ dysfunction, including renal dysfunction and respiratory failure. Patients who develop HLH/MAS have an increased risk of severe bleeding. Monitor hematologic parameters in patients with HLH/MAS and transfuse per institutional guidelines. Fatal cases of HLH/MAS occurred following treatment with CARVYKTI. HLH is a life-threatening condition with a high mortality rate if not recognized and treated early. Treatment of HLH/MAS should be administered per institutional standards. CARVYKTI REMS: Because of the risk of CRS and neurologic toxicities, CARVYKTI is available only through a restricted program under a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) called the CARVYKTI REMS. Further information is available at https://www.carvyktirems.com/ or 1-844-672-0067. Prolonged and Recurrent Cytopenias: Patients may exhibit prolonged and recurrent cytopenias following lymphodepleting chemotherapy and CARVYKTI infusion. Among patients receiving CARVYKTI in the CARTITUDE-1 & 4 studies, Grade 3 or higher cytopenias not resolved by day 30 following CARVYKTI infusion occurred in 62% (176/285) of the patients and included thrombocytopenia 33% (94/285), neutropenia 27% (76/285), lymphopenia 24% (67/285) and anemia 2% (6/285). After Day 60 following CARVYKTI infusion 22%, 20%, 5%, and 6% of patients had a recurrence of Grade 3 or 4 lymphopenia, neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, and anemia respectively, after initial recovery of their Grade 3 or 4 cytopenia. Seventy-seven percent (219/285) of patients had one, two or three or more recurrences of Grade 3 or 4 cytopenias after initial recovery of Grade 3 or 4 cytopenia. Sixteen and 25 patients had Grade 3 or 4 neutropenia and thrombocytopenia, respectively, at the time of death. Monitor blood counts prior to and after CARVYKTI infusion. Manage cytopenias with growth factors and blood product transfusion support according to local institutional guidelines. Infections: CARVYKTI should not be administered to patients with active infection or inflammatory disorders. Severe, life-threatening, or fatal infections, occurred in patients after CARVYKTI infusion. Among patients receiving CARVYKTI in the CARTITUDE-1 & 4 studies, infections occurred in 57% (163/285), including ?Grade 3 in 24% (69/285) of patients. Grade 3 or 4 infections with an unspecified pathogen occurred in 12%, viral infections in 6%, bacterial infections in 5%, and fungal infections in 1% of patients. Overall, 5% (13/285) of patients had Grade 5 infections, 2.5% of which were due to COVID-19. Patients treated with CARVYKTI had an increased rate of fatal COVID-19 infections compared to the standard therapy arm. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of infection before and after CARVYKTI infusion and treat patients appropriately. Administer prophylactic, pre-emptive and/or therapeutic antimicrobials according to the standard institutional guidelines. Febrile neutropenia was observed in 5% of patients after CARVYKTI infusion and may be concurrent with CRS. In the event of febrile neutropenia, evaluate for infection and manage with broad-spectrum antibiotics, fluids and other supportive care, as medically indicated. Counsel patients on the importance of prevention measures. Follow institutional guidelines for the vaccination and management of immunocompromised patients with COVID-19. Viral Reactivation: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) reactivation, in some cases resulting in fulminant hepatitis, hepatic failure and death, can occur in patients with hypogammaglobulinemia. Perform screening for Cytomegalovirus (CMV), HBV, hepatitis C virus (HCV), and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or any other infectious agents if clinically indicated in accordance with clinical guidelines before collection of cells for manufacturing. Consider antiviral therapy to prevent viral reactivation per local institutional guidelines/clinical practice. Hypogammaglobulinemia: can occur in patients receiving treatment with CARVYKTI. Among patients receiving CARVYKTI in the CARTITUDE-1 & 4 studies, hypogammaglobulinemia adverse event was reported in 36% (102/285) of patients; laboratory IgG levels fell below 500mg/dl after infusion in 93% (265/285) of patients. Hypogammaglobulinemia either as an adverse reaction or laboratory IgG level below 500mg/dl, after infusion occurred in 94% (267/285) of patients treated. Fifty six percent (161/285) of patients received intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) post CARVYKTI for either an adverse reaction or prophylaxis. Monitor immunoglobulin levels after treatment with CARVYKTI and administer IVIG for IgG <400 mg/dL. Manage per local institutional guidelines, including infection precautions and antibiotic or antiviral prophylaxis. Use of Live Vaccines: The safety of immunization with live viral vaccines during or following CARVYKTI treatment has not been studied. Vaccination with live virus vaccines is not recommended for at least 6 weeks prior to the start of lymphodepleting chemotherapy, during CARVYKTI treatment, and until immune recovery following treatment with CARVYKTI. Hypersensitivity Reactions occurred following treatment with CARVYKTI. Among patients receiving CARVYKTI in the CARTITUDE-1 & 4 studies, hypersensitivity reactions occurred in 5% (13/285), all of which were ?Grade 2. Manifestations of hypersensitivity reactions included flushing, chest discomfort, tachycardia, wheezing, tremor, burning sensation, non-cardiac chest pain, and pyrexia. Serious hypersensitivity reactions, including anaphylaxis, may be due to the dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) in CARVYKTI. Patients should be carefully monitored for 2 hours after infusion for signs and symptoms of severe reaction. Treat promptly and manage patients appropriately according to the severity of the hypersensitivity reaction. Secondary Malignancies: Patients treated with CARVYKTI may develop secondary malignancies. Among patients receiving CARVYKTI in the CARTITUDE-1 & 4 studies, myeloid neoplasms occurred in 5% (13/285) of patients (9 cases of myelodysplastic syndrome, 3 cases of acute myeloid leukemia, and 1 case of myelodysplastic syndrome followed by acute myeloid leukemia). The median time to onset of myeloid neoplasms was 447 days (range: 56 to 870 days) after treatment with CARVYKTI. Ten of these 13 patients died following the development of myeloid neoplasms; 2 of the 13 cases of myeloid neoplasm occurred after initiation of subsequent antimyeloma therapy. Cases of myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia have also been reported in the post marketing setting. T-cell malignancies have occurred following treatment of hematologic malignancies with BCMA- and CD19-directed genetically modified autologous T-cell immunotherapies, including CARVYKTI. Mature T-cell malignancies, including CAR-positive tumors, may present as soon as weeks following infusions, and may include fatal outcomes. Monitor life-long for secondary malignancies. In the event that a secondary malignancy occurs, contact Janssen Biotech, Inc. at 1-800-526-7736 for reporting and to obtain instructions on collection of patient samples. Effects on Ability to Drive and Use Machines: Due to the potential for neurologic events, including altered mental status, seizures, neurocognitive decline or neuropathy, patients receiving CARVYKTI are at risk for altered or decreased consciousness or coordination in the 8 weeks following CARVYKTI infusion. Advise patients to refrain from driving and engaging in hazardous occupations or activities, such as operating heavy or potentially dangerous machinery during this initial period, and in the event of new onset of any neurologic toxicities. ADVERSE REACTIONS The most common nonlaboratory adverse reactions (incidence greater than 20%) are pyrexia, cytokine release syndrome, hypogammaglobulinemia, hypotension, musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, infections-pathogen unspecified, cough, chills, diarrhea, nausea, encephalopathy, decreased appetite, upper respiratory tract infection, headache, tachycardia, dizziness, dyspnea, edema, viral infections, coagulopathy, constipation, and vomiting. The most common Grade 3 or 4 laboratory adverse reactions (incidence greater than or equal to 50%) include lymphopenia, neutropenia, white blood cell decreased, thrombocytopenia, and anemia. Please read full Prescribing Information, including Boxed Warning, for CARVYKTI. About Johnson & Johnson At Johnson & Johnson, we believe health is everything. Our strength in healthcare innovation empowers us to build a world where complex diseases are prevented, treated, and cured, where treatments are smarter and less invasive, and solutions are personal. Through our expertise in Innovative Medicine and MedTech, we are uniquely positioned to innovate across the full spectrum of healthcare solutions today to deliver the breakthroughs of tomorrow, and profoundly impact health for humanity. Learn more at https://www.jnj.com/ or at www.innovativemedicine.jnj.com. Follow us at @JanssenUS and @JNJInnovMed. Janssen Research & Development, LLC and Janssen Biotech, Inc., and Janssen Global Services, LLC are Johnson & Johnson companies. Cautions Concerning Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding product development and the potential benefits and treatment impact of CARVYKTI (ciltacabtagene autoleucel; cilta-cel). The reader is cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations of future events. If underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or known or unknown risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results could vary materially from the expectations and projections of Janssen Research & Development, LLC, Janssen Biotech, Inc. Janssen Global Services, LLC and/or Johnson & Johnson. Risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: challenges and uncertainties inherent in product research and development, including the uncertainty of clinical success and of obtaining regulatory approvals; uncertainty of commercial success; manufacturing difficulties and delays; competition, including technological advances, new products and patents attained by competitors; challenges to patents; product efficacy or safety concerns resulting in product recalls or regulatory action; changes in behavior and spending patterns of purchasers of health care products and services; changes to applicable laws and regulations, including global health care reforms; and trends toward health care cost containment. A further list and descriptions of these risks, uncertainties and other factors can be found in Johnson & Johnson's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, including in the sections captioned "Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" and "Item 1A. Risk Factors," and in Johnson & Johnson's subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Copies of these filings are available online at www.sec.gov, www.jnj.com or on request from Johnson & Johnson. None of Janssen Research & Development, LLC, Janssen Biotech, Inc., Janssen Global Services, LLC, nor Johnson & Johnson undertake to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information or future events or developments. * Dr. Binod Dhakal, Associate Professor of Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Division of Hematology, has provided consulting, advisory, and speaking services to Johnson & Johnson; he has not been paid for any media work. 1 Mateos, et al. Overall Survival (OS) With Ciltacabtagene Autoleucel (Cilta-cel) Versus Standard of Care (SoC) in Lenalidomide (Len)-Refractory Multiple Myeloma (MM): Phase 3 CARTITUDE-4 Study Update. International Myeloma Society 2024 Annual Meeting. September 2024. 2 Rajkumar SV. Multiple myeloma: 2020 update on diagnosis, risk-stratification and management. Am J Hematol. 2020;95(5):548-5672020;95(5):548-567. 3 National Cancer Institute. Plasma Cell Neoplasms. https://www.cancer.gov/types/myeloma/patient/myeloma-treatment-pdq. Accessed June 2024. 4 City of Hope. Multiple Myeloma: Causes, Symptoms & Treatments. https://www.cancercenter.com/cancer-types/multiple-myeloma. Accessed June 2024. 5 American Cancer Society. Key Statistics About Multiple Myeloma. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/multiple-myeloma/about/key-statistics.html#:~:text=Multiple%20myeloma%20is%20a%20relatively,men%20and%2015%2C370%20in%20women. Accessed June 2024. 6 SEER Explorer: An interactive website for SEER cancer statistics [Internet]. Surveillance Research Program, National Cancer Institute. https://seer.cancer.gov/explorer/. Accessed June 2024. 7 American Cancer Society. What is Multiple Myeloma? https://www.cancer.org/cancer/multiple-myeloma/about/what-is-multiple-myeloma.html. Accessed June 2024. 8 American Cancer Society. Multiple Myeloma Early Detection, Diagnosis, and Staging. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/multiple-myeloma/detection-diagnosis-staging/detection.html. Accessed June 2024. SOURCE Johnson & Johnson 27 september 2024 at 16:30 News published onand distributed by: Senegal's President Bassirou Diomaye Faye attends a press conference in Dakar, Senegal on August 29, 2024. ANNIE RISEMBERG / AP Senegal's President Bassirou Diomaye Faye on Thursday, September 12, announced he had dissolved the opposition-dominated parliament and set new legislative elections for November 17. "I have dissolved the National Assembly to ask the sovereign people for the institutional means that would allow me to give substance to the systemic transformation that I promised them," Faye said on national television. "Today, more than ever, the time has come to open a new phase in our term," the 44-year-old head of state said. Faye swept to a presidential victory in March 2024 on a promise of radical change for the West African nation. Along with his Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, Faye ran on a ticket of sovereignty and leftist pan-Africanism, raising the hopes of young people in a country where three-quarters of the population is under 35. But government action has so far been hampered by the lack of a majority in parliament. According to Senegal's constitution, Faye could dissolve the opposition-dominated parliament from September 12 and call early legislative elections, which could give him the majority needed to implement his policy agenda. In his address, Faye said, "The pledge of a frank collaboration with the parliamentary majority ... was an illusion." "It has decided to turn its back on the people to pursue its cult of obstruction, thereby blocking the project for which I was elected," he said. He cited, in particular, the management of public finances under his predecessor Macky Sall, alleging "wilfully hidden excesses" of spending and added that a report approved by Senegal's court of auditors would soon be published. Last year, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) made global headlines with the release of Falcon, its open-source large language model (LLM). Remarkably, by several key metrics, Falcon managed to outperform or measure up against the LLMs of tech giants like Meta (Facebook) and Alphabet (Google). Since then, the UAE has positioned itself as a frontrunner in the global artificial-intelligence race by consistently releasing updates to its powerful model. These efforts have not gone unnoticed: In April, Microsoft acquired a $1.5 billion minority stake in G42, the UAEs flagship AI company, underscoring the countrys growing influence. Analysts often attribute the UAEs emergence as an AI powerhouse to several factors, including robust state support, abundant capital, and low-cost electricity, all of which are necessary for training LLMs. But another important and often overlooked factor is the countrys authoritarian governance model, which enables the government to leverage state power to drive technological innovation. Read more Subscribers only Nvidia, a titan of microchips facing the first doubts about AI The UAE is not alone. Authoritarian countries like China have a built-in competitive advantage when it comes to AI development, largely owing to their reliance on domestic surveillance, which fuels demand. Facial-recognition technologies, for example, are used by these regimes not just to enhance public safety but also as powerful tools for monitoring their populations and suppressing dissent. By contrast, facial recognition has become a source of enormous controversy in the West. The European Unions AI Act, which entered into force on August 1, has effectively banned its use in public spaces, with only a few narrowly defined exceptions. Top-down national strategies This provides AI firms in China and the UAE with a massive advantage over their Western counterparts. Research by David Yang and co-authors shows that Chinese AI firms with government contracts tend to be more innovative and commercially successful, owing to procurement practices that provide them with access to vast troves of public and private data for training and refining their models. Similarly, UAE firms have been allowed to train their models on anonymized health-care data from hospitals and state-backed industries. AI firms seeking access to such data in Western countries would face numerous legal hurdles. While European and American companies grapple with strict compliance requirements and a surge in copyright-infringement lawsuits, firms in China and the UAE operate in a far more lenient regulatory environment. You have 55.09% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only. Dynamic Business brings you the key startup fundraising from this week Willed secures $3 million in latest funding round Willed, an estate management platform, has raised $3 million in its latest funding round, with Seven West Media joining as an investor. This strategic investment includes an option for an additional $3 million, allowing Willed to boost its marketing efforts. Founded in 2019 and launched in 2020, Willed provides a death-as-a-service software solution for wills, probate, and prepaid funerals, aiming to make end-of-life planning simple and accessible. This new funding follows a previous $6 million round in June 2022, with investors that include Thorney Investment Group and PSC Insurance founder Paul Dwyer. InDebted raises $50 million in series C funding InDebted, a consumer debt collection fintech, has raised $50 million in a Series C funding round, valuing the company at over $350 million. The round was led by Airtree and backed by the Australian Retirement Trust and Premier Capital Partners, with contributions from existing shareholders. Previously, InDebted secured $22.5 million in July 2022 at a $200 million valuation. Restoke raises $5.1 million seed round for U.S. expansion Restoke.ai, a hospitality operations management platform, has raised $5.1 million in Seed funding to support its expansion into the U.S. market. Founded in 2020 by Assaf Stizki and Ken Brand, the AI-based platform automates restaurant operations. The funding was led by Rampersand, with support from Mandalay Venture Partners and U.S. venture firms BC Growth and Stage2 Capital. Mary Technology Raises $1.35 Million for AI Legal Solutions Sydney legaltech startup Mary Technology has raised $1.35 million to enhance its AI solution for drafting case chronologies. The funding round was led by Empress Capital, with contributions from notable investors including Sam Nickless, CEO of Gilbert + Tobin. Marys software streamlines the preparation process, converting thousands of documents into tailored chronologies in under 15 minutes. Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close THINK before you flush is a new campaign, operated by Clean Coasts in partnership with Uisce Eireann. The campaign attended the Limerick Island Swim, encouraging people of all ages to cultivate responsible flushing behaviours in their homes. This initiative aims to raise awareness about the detrimental effects of flushing sanitary products and other damaging items down the toilet and to promote responsible waste management practices. Organised by the volunteers of Narwhals Swim Club, the annual Island Swim celebrates the swimming community of Limerick city and invites participants to experience the River Shannon in a whole new way, from the water! On the day, attendees were invited to engage in discussions about marine litter, responsible waste management, and ways to safeguard our wastewater network and marine habitats. Speaking about the event, Ollie OFlaherty from Clean Coasts said: We are thankful to the Narwhal Swim Club and its volunteers for inviting us to be part of this event. We had a great day watching the participants take on such a fantastic challenge. TBYF goes hand in hand with swimming as we need clean water to enjoy these activities! We were delighted to be in Limerick and engage in conversations with every member of the community. READ MORE: New 'ambitious' action plan for Limerick waters to ease pollution Sewage-related litter poses a real burden on our wastewater network and marine environment. Ollie said that the wonderful news is that the solution is straightforward. The TBYF campaign emphasises the importance of appropriate flushing behaviour and disposal of items including wipes and other sanitary products in the bin, even if they are labelled as flushable. When items such as wet wipes are flushed they can cause serious blockages in wastewater networks, cause sewage overflows and ultimately pollute our rivers, lakes, beaches and coastlines. Uisce Eireanns head of wastewater operations, Nuala Woods, congratulated the volunteers of Limerick Narwhals Swimming Club for organising such a successful event at the weekend. This annual event celebrates the swimming community of Limerick city and were delighted that the TBYF team were given the opportunity to enhance community awareness about the need to protect our precious environment. Many of these items discarded down the toilets of Ireland can end up in our streams, rivers, and on our beaches, creating a significant threat to wildlife as seabirds often ingest plastic and sewage related litter, mistaking it for food. She also said that it is vital to empower long-lasting change to flushing behaviours and that the TBYF campaign demonstrates how all of us can play our part in protecting our eco-system. Also at the Limerick Island Swim, the team discussed the Think Before You Pour campaign, that looks at the issue of pouring fats, oils, and greases (FOGs) from cooking down the kitchen sink. Instead of flowing freely, FOGs cool and harden as they travel along the wastewater network. Uisce Eireann clears thousands of blockages from the wastewater network every year. The Think Before Pour campaign urges everyone to dispose of FOGs in the bin once cool. CAMPAIGNERS pushing for a new veterinary school have called for the process to be paused after University of Limerick (UL) withdrew its plans. One vet, Dr James Quinn, says the decision by UL not to proceed with its project for a school in Limerick is a catastrophic loss. He said the school would have brought a capital spend of 50m and an annual payroll of 20m attached to a vet school of 500 students at UL. In a letter to the college community, its acting president Prof Shane Kilcommins wrote the decision came about given the estimated cost of the proposal, the current pause on capital expenditure, and the circumstances the university finds itself in. PICTURES: Supporters cheer on Bruff and Na Piarsaigh in Limerick Premier Intermediate Hurling Championship The announcement was made the day before a new report by the Comptroller and Auditor General confirmed significant losses were incurred by the universitys acquisition of the former Dunnes Stores at Honans Quay in the city centre, and homes purchased in Rhebogue for student accommodation. Its reportedly led to a decision by college bosses to pause short and medium term investment while a new way forward is charted. The Vet Working Group, who held meetings on campus as recently as last month says conflating the governance issues with the universitys ability to open a veterinary school has serious consequences. While recognising the serious governance issues relating to the lack of oversight in the spending of public money on property purchases in the Limerick area, ULs academic record and research programmes are not in question, the group said. They believe this loss will resonate for the next century. It removes all possibility of a second hub being founded, for Ireland to excel in the vital research required, the group said. Instead of in Limerick, new third-level vet schools will be hosted on campuses at other colleges - the Atlantic Technological University in Donegal and Galway, plus South East Technological University in Kilkenny. The Vet Working Group has said: The prospect of two small scale low ranking vet schools in Ireland and the duplication of staff, facilities and a curriculum represents a major overspend of scarce resources. The graduate supply problem first identified to the government by the Vet Working Group in 2022 required a single, ranked large intake site such as UL to deliver a meaningful solution. Calling a pause, the group believes, will allow the Higher Education Authority to involve independent international veterinary educational experts in the decision making around where a new school can be located. The loss of the potential that a new vet school in UL can deliver has serious consequences for the farming and urban communities of the whole island. In the same week that UL withdrew from the process, we hear that 83 Irish students will be starting their first year in Warsaw at the start of October, they concluded. MAYOR John Moran says, as an openly gay man, he couldnt imagine a scenario where he would have won an election in Limerick a decade ago. Sitting in his top-floor council office, overlooking the River Shannon, with his faithful dog Henri by his side, the mayor says his sexuality was a non-issue on the doorsteps when he campaigned successfully to be Limericks first directly elected first citizen this year. Although he has never hidden his orientation - he is in a long-term relationship with partner Damien Duggan - his Red Setter was more of a talking point among Limericks electorate. The new mayor of Belfast (Micky Murray) has been described as the first openly gay mayor of Belfast. What I love is nobody has said this in Limerick. Now, its like, he is the mayor with the dog. Thats more of a conversation piece than Damien being my partner. That, to me, is a huge vote of confidence in Limerick for the future, that effectively it was a non-issue, he says. Mayor Moran admits that before he started campaigning for the role, the thought did cross his mind that it might rear its head. I dont think I could have done this 10 years ago. If this election was 10 years ago, I probably would not have gone for the election. I couldnt have imagined a scenario in which I would have won the election in Limerick. He says he absolutely feels like an ambassador, and adds: Hopefully other people who have similar issues they want to not yet talk about in public, at least know they do not need to feel afraid from a work or personal perspective of it coming out. In the first part of an in-depth interview with Limerick Live last week, Mayor Moran spoke of his early departure from the Department of Finance, after just two years, outlining how he felt people were prying into his private life. Before that disclosure, there was some speculation that he would not finish out his five-year term as directly elected mayor. He shoots this suggestion down, pointing to his ambitious plan of over 100 pages which was unveiled last month. READ MORE: Exhumation underway of Clare man killed in Bunratty more than forty years ago I think its pretty obvious I am here to stay. This job is not going to get done overnight. Its the first time in local government youve got five years. This is a pathway, I think, to a fairer and more successful Limerick, and thats the place I want to live in. While his plan covers rural Limerick, Mayor Moran has placed a special focus on the city centre, in particular housing and getting the local economy moving. He is envisaging Limerick and OConnell Street, as a place which never sleeps. Arguably, it helps that he has a vested interest with his ownership of properties in the citys heart - one of which he plans to live in soon. I have lived right in the heart of Georgian Limerick and I want to live there again. I spend a lot of time in the city. I think if you know you have five years, it is much easier. You cant fix everything in one go, but you can start to come up with where you are going to go, and how do you get there each year as the budget is available. One of the things he is proposing is a so-called Vienna Model of housing, based on an approach taken in the Austrian capital. Its not something which is in peoples everyday lexicon, Mayor Moran acknowledges. Its radical for Ireland. I dont think some people understand just how radical an intervention I was proposing in the housing plan. The first thing we need to see is a more significant government intervention in public housing than we have seen, he says. The Department of Housings plan has been to buy existing homes, use them for social housing, rather than send the cranes in and build them. Essentially, the government is paying somebody elses mortgage. If you take the view I would have that 25% of all the housing in Limerick should be owned by government, that allows you to tame the market in how you see them react to charging rent to people, he continues. The Vienna Model works on the principle that if you start now, instead of renting homes from others, you build your own homes. You then use the rent people are paying, plus the money the State would have paid (to private landlords) to effectively pay down the mortgages on those homes. The first citizen believes that, in 30 years time, the final parts of these mortgages will be paid off. From that moment on, the rent on that property, be it an apartment or house, will now be able to help them subsidise the rents for other people, he explains. Mayor Moran does not have a role in crime prevention - but its something he would like to see taken into his purview. Something which is a major bugbear for people living in the city centre, and retailers running businesses in the urban area has been an increase in crime and drug abuse. There is an acknowledgement the gardai are underresourced. What they are doing is trying to use their resources as efficiently as they can. We have been in conversations with them about whether we can introduce during the day the community wardens idea. The guards are on the streets a lot more. We see more squad cars going around. Its an important part of the solution. But they need resources as well. They put the van in OConnell Street a couple of days and behaviour changed. But they dont have that van full time. They only borrow it a couple of times a year. We need to try and get that van full-time, Mayor Moran insists. He says it goes back to his call - made in the first part of our interview last week - to give the executive mayor his own envelope of money which he can direct to where he sees fit. In the past, people have complained the city can become something of a dead zone from when offices close into the evening. There is one element in Mayor Morans plan which he feels could be a gamechanger for the urban area - a cinema. He has identified the former Theatre Royal building in Cecil Street. Its an amazing building, but its in a really poor condition. It goes back to what we said about having the funds. How does that currently work? You have to wait until government decides they will have a competitive call-out across the country for people who want to do cinemas. Theyll do it for the next three years, and its hard to find funding. Thats why it all comes down to the concept Im trying to get across in the budget. If we bring it down to Limerick, what itll mean is we have a debate here about whether in 2025, the most important thing to do is have a cinema in Limerick, get a van for the guards. Or do we plan homes. Then at least it is our decision, he says. One thing people can do now though, is patronise the Belltable Theatre in OConnell Street, which shows independent films every Monday evening. Its easier to justify a cinema in the city centre if the Belltable is full every Monday, and they are trying to figure out do they do Tuesday and Wednesday. While Mayor Moran acknowledges it can be frustrating to keep contacting the gardai about crime in the city, it is necessary. If we are to get more resources to deal with crime - the more you should report. Even if youre walking home at night and feeling threatened. If that doesnt get reported to the gardai, they dont have it in the crime stats so Limerick looks like it doesnt have these issues, he explains. Away from the urban area, comments the mayor made in relation to rural Ireland back in 2016 were brought up during the election campaign. At the time, he warned the State can no longer afford to subsidise the personal choices people make when they elect to live in the countryside. Although opponents of his seized on the comments, he said it was not raised among any of the people he encountered throughout rural Limerick. It didnt come up at all. But two things have changed. We have nearly 40bn more money every year now. We were still in a situation where we had unsustainable debt. What it meant is, if you take a decision recognising that we are looking at one million to 1.5m more people living in the country, if you want to continue building the State the way we did it at the time, its a more expensive option. Thats not anti-rural. In some respects, its saying the way we were building rural Ireland will cost more money than we had, he says. Mayor Moran actually believes he was ahead of the curve - and he has been proven correct, given how the construction of once-off houses across rural Ireland is now restricted in development plans. What I was recommending at the time is, lets have broadband put into rural villages, into towns, and encourage people to live in these areas rather than the once-off houses. Its much better if I can walk to work. If I cant walk to work, its better if I come in on public transport. We cant put public transport to every house across Limerick, he points out. What with the Indian summer Limerick and Ireland has been enjoying in late September, its hard to believe that Christmas is less than three months away. Limerick will see an improved festive offering over the coming years, Mayor Moran has pledged. He wants to see businesses working in tandem to provide an unforgettable experience. How can we change the way Limerick works so there isnt just one spot in front of Penneys where Christmas happens? Where the whole of Limerick, particularly the core historic part, feels Christmassy. It might not happen in the first year. But that should evolve to being that if youre walking up OConnell Street or Mallow Street, that there is a Christmas tree in every window of every Georgian building. It shouldnt be that difficult, but, collectively, if everybody can take part in this... he says. We can do competitions for people who do the best shop fronts, for example. There are other plans - helped by what he feels was a successful period in August when the Crescent area beside the Daniel OConnell monument was closed to traffic and became something of a public park. The experiment I believe was really successful in changing the minds particularly of people who live around that area of what that space can be. I have asked before what would be the ramifications in terms of inconveniencing people of having something like a Christmas market in this area, he states. Also expected this year is the Santa Experience at the International Rugby Experience, plus the ice rink in Arthurs Quay Park. Then, what do we do in Bedford Row, and what do we do around King Johns Castle? Thats how you animate the whole city then. All the shops inbetween feel included. After Christmas, it will not be long before the St Patricks Day celebrations kick in. Dont expect Mayor Moran to join the exile of politicians leaving Ireland to view parades overseas, however. Ill stay in Limerick, he confirms. This is what I mean by being in the community. It is where it is. I can go to New York anytime, he points out. Mayor Moran believes some overseas travel is necessary, so he is planning to allocate funding to individual councillors to afford them the choice of how they want to internationalise Limerick on the national holiday. Tourists off Fiji Island, which is at risk form climate change. Photo by AFP Within 30 years, sea levels will rise at least 15 centimeters on several Pacific island nations, regardless of what cuts are made to greenhouse gas emissions, new NASA analysis shows. Under different emission scenarios, researchers projected sea level rises for Tuvalu, Kiribati, Fiji and Nauru, finding some countries could experience localised flooding a few times a year. Others could be submerged for nearly half a year, according to the analysis released Wednesday. Almost the entire country of Tuvalu is vulnerable to flooding, NASA found. Even under a best-case scenario -- if global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels -- sea levels will rise 23 centimeters (nine inches) by 2054. "Everyone (in Tuvalu) lives by the coast or along the coastline, so everyone gets heavily affected by this," said youth climate activist Grace Malie, who is from the island. "The future of the young people of Tuvalu is already at stake," Malie added. Under a business-as-usual scenario, Tuvalu could face sea levels rising 27 centimetres, and 30 centimetres under a worst-case scenario. The low-lying archipelago has a mean elevation of just two meters (6.5 feet) above sea level and two of Tuvalu's nine islands have already largely disappeared. 'Consistent' sea level estimates NASA researcher Ben Hamlington said rising seas vary from region to region -- due to melting glaciers or topography of coastlines -- but Pacific projections were "surprisingly consistent". Within the next 30 years under a business-as-usual scenario, rising sea levels across Kiribati and Fiji will reach 27 centimetres and 28 centimetres, respectively. By 2100, sea levels could increase by 70 centimeters across the Pacific islands. The researchers drew on flooding data and climate emission projections to determine the sea level inundation. But Hamlington said more on-the-ground data was needed to ensure the most accurate projections, which would allow communities to best prepare for the future. Nearly a billion people worldwide live in low-lying coastal areas, increasingly vulnerable to storm surges, coastal erosion and flooding -- while Pacific islands face growing threats to their economic viability and even existence. Tuvalu's Prime Minister Feleti Teo said this year that rising seas and more frequent flooding have increased soil salinity, reducing crop yields and weakening trees. Infrastructure such as roads and power lines has been washed away. "Higher land on which to rebuild does not exist," he said. Fiji, like other countries, has resorted to relocating entire villages from the most flood-prone areas since 2014. But the government estimates more than 600 communities could be forced to move and 42 villages are under urgent threat of inundation. University of New South Wales climate lecturer Ben Shaw said the issue was particularly difficult because every Pacific nation is figuring out how to deal with the issue. "That is going to be the watershed moment," he said. A FORMER public house, located in Feenagh village, is to get a new lease of life. This week's Limerick City and Council meeting heard that it is intended that the premises will be converted into two residential dwellings. It will then enter the rental housing market. The Council meeting heard of the proposed disposal of the property to Lisballyhay Trading Company in the sum of 75,000. The property is derelict and in need of complete refurbishment works. READ MORE: Limerick community 'inspire' after hosting first key meeting to improve rural life The site comprises of a two-storey former public house and surrounding land of around 0.23 acres. The property and surrounding land have been vacant and in a derelict condition for a number of years. The former pub was entered on the Derelict Sites Register in November 2022. Limerick City and County Council acquired the building compulsorily in January 2024. The purchaser is acquiring the property with full knowledge of the derelict site notices to complete the appropriate works so that the property is delisted from the Derelict Sites Register. WITH judging now complete, ten groups have been selected as wildcards to compete in the 2024 Limerick Going for Gold Grand Final. Over 60,000 will be distributed to communities in a range of categories in this years competition. A total of 15 groups will now go forward to the grand final. These include the 10 selected wildcards and five groups selected by public vote. The full list of finalists is as follows: Askeaton, Athea, Ballysteen, Broadford, Castleconnell, Feenagh, Garrienderk, Glenroe, Glin, Kilmallock, Kilmeedy, Kilteely, Patrickswell, Rathkeale and Rockhill-Bruree. Mayor of Limerick, John Moran praised the efforts of communities across Limerick, saying: Congratulations to the ten wildcard finalists. Your dedication and hard work have truly shone through in what was an exceptionally competitive year. The passion and commitment displayed by community groups and residents' associations across Limerick make this a remarkable competition each year." READ MORE: Irish Georgian Society to return to Limerick He continued: I want to acknowledge the ongoing support of the JP McManus Charitable Foundation and the media partners, who work with the Council to deliver this unique competition in Limerick each year. I look forward to celebrating the Grand Final. Judging took place across three categories: Going for Gold Tidy Towns; Limerick Bee Friendly in Bloom; and Residential. Whittling the entries down to ten wildcards was a challenge for the Going for Gold judges, Michael Griffin and Pat Shearin. The grand final of Limerick Going for Gold will take place in the Limerick Strand Hotel on October 23. The judges have also added some new awards to recognise the excellent work undertaken by volunteers across Limerick. AS THE 100 year anniversary of the cinema disaster in Dromcollogher approaches, a local group is planning to organise a commemorative event in September 2026. This group, 'Dromcollogher26', intends to honour and preserve the memory of the 48 victims who died. The group have also started to research the impact of 'The Burning' on the families of the victims and survivors. The commemoration of the centenary of the cinema disaster will mark a very significant event that happened soon after the foundation of the Irish State. The tragedy in Dromcollogher shocked the nation. The leaders of the Irish State came to be with the people at the time. The 2026 programme of commemorative events will look to remember this, one of the greatest tragedies in our countrys history. The details of the events leading up to the cinema fire are quite well documented. Dromcollogher26 want to ensure that the actual verified history of what happened forms the basis of any public discussions, as we approach the centenary. A public library was later built on what was the site of the disaster and stands as a memorial to all those who lost their lives there. READ MORE: Limerick community 'inspire' after hosting first key meeting to improve rural life Nearby, 46 of the 48 victims are buried in a communal grave at St Bartholomews Church. The group will consider if the passing of one hundred years warrants additional memorial in the town to honour the victims and help to preserve the memory of this terribly tragic event. Dromcollogher26 have begun to make a study of this aspect of The Burning. The group will be researching media and official records as well as conducting an extensive programme of conversations with those who have lived longest in Dromcollogher. The research work will continue for the next two years. The Dromcollogher26 group will be undertaking local fundraising events in the future. Families and friends of Dromcollogher, wherever in the world, will be able to play their part in ensuring that the event in 2026 is a meaningful commemoration. All are invited to contact the group and to contribute to their research programme and also to consider using their online donation facility at idonate.ie. Call 087 2416767 or email Dromcollogher26@ gmail.com for more information. LIMERICK City and County Council is planning a significant investment of 1.5 million euro to upgrade and enhance the facilities at Grove Island Leisure Centre. Operator, Aura Leisure, have also committed to invest circa 350,000 to provide state-of-the-art gym equipment. This brings the total overall investment to 1.85 million. The centre, which opened its doors in 2003, includes a 25-metre swimming pool, sauna, steam room, gym, and hall area. This ambitious upgrade will ensure that the facility continues to be a vital resource. It is the only pay-as-you-go facility of its kind available in the local community. Following an Expression of Interest process, Aura Leisure, which has successfully operated Grove Island Leisure Centre on behalf of Limerick City and County Council since 2014, will continue to manage the centre, ensuring continuity of service. Mayor of Limerick, John Moran is welcoming the planned investment, saying: Places for exercise especially in urban areas are essential for a more liveable and healthier Limerick. This much needed and overdue investment will pay dividends over and over in terms of the health and wellbeing of residents and the wider community. Mayor Moran continued: Having more spaces for activity in Limerick is a priority of mine. But it is also important to better maintain and invest in those we already have and adapt them to changing preferences. It is especially critical to keep those pay-as-you-go facilities we have like this one. They remove a key obstacle to exercise by not requiring people to commit or even have the funds to commit to an annual membership before using the facility. Commenting on the investment, Director of Service, Regeneration, Sport and Recreation at Limerick City and County Council, Joe Delaney said: We are delighted to maintain the successful partnership with Aura Leisure, a multi-award-winning company, who will continue to operate the Grove Island Leisure Centre to the highest level. The upgrading of the facilities is an investment in the health and wellbeing of the wider community in Limerick. The centre will continue to operate while the improvement works are ongoing, and every effort will be made to minimise disruption. READ MORE: Limerick teacher helps highlight the challenges of diabetes as part of national event The upgrade works will be carried out in three phases, commencing in Autumn 2024, with completion expected by the end of 2025. The phased approach will minimise disruption. The project received a significant boost with the allocation of 500,000 from the Community Sport Facilities Fund announced on Wednesday last. The improvement works include: Refurbishment of the existing hall: The hall will be transformed into a state-of-the-art gym, with the current gym space repurposed into a larger exercise studio. New gym and exercise equipment: Aura will invest around 350,000 in the latest gym and exercise equipment to meet the evolving needs of users. Upgrade of the Health Suite: The sauna, steam room, and jacuzzi will be upgraded to enhance the overall wellness experience. Refurbishment of the Changing Village: This will include upgrades to family changing rooms, flooring, lockers, and shower facilities to improve user comfort and convenience. Mechanical Electrical System Upgrade: The facilitys mechanical and electrical systems will be replaced and upgraded to ensure efficiency and sustainability. The investment programme aims to protect and sustain the vital community health resource of Grove Island Leisure Centre, significantly increase the overall number of users, and improve the health and well-being of all who use the facility. Importantly, access to swimming, an essential life skill, will be maintained for all sections of society. Revenue officers have seized cocaine and herbal cannabis worth more that 500,000 at Dublin Airport this week. In separate operations at Dublin Airport, Revenue officers seized 1.65kgs of cocaine and 22.5kgs of herbal cannabis, with a combined value of 565,000. The cocaine, with an estimated value of 115,000, was discovered when Revenue officers stopped and searched the baggage of a passenger who had disembarked a flight from Paris, France. Read Also: Man arrested following significant drugs seizure during 'intelligence-led' operation The herbal cannabis, with an estimated value of 450,000, was discovered, with the assistance of detector dog Jack, when Revenue officers stopped and searched the baggage of a passenger who had disembarked a flight from Ibiza, Spain. Dublin Airport detector dog Jack|PIC: Revenue Two men in their 30s were arrested by An Garda Siochana, under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act 1996 in connection with these seizures. Both individuals have since appeared before the courts, and investigations are ongoing. These seizures are part of Revenue's ongoing operations targeting the importation of illegal drugs. If businesses, or members of the public, have any information regarding smuggling, they can contact Revenue in confidence on 1800 295 295. Abbey Tauchen | This year marks the 75th anniversary of Stamper Hall, a cornerstone of Lincoln Universitys campus and home to the School of Business. Originally constructed in 1948 as the Inman E. Page Library, this Georgian-style building has undergone significant transformations over the decades, reflecting the growth and evolution of both the university and its academic programs. The Early Years: From Page Library to Stamper Hall Built in 1948, the Inman E. Page Library served as the hub of learning and scholarship at Lincoln University for nearly half a century. In 1997, a new library was constructed on the southeast corner of the university, prompting a repurposing of the original building. After an extensive renovation and remodeling process, the structure was renamed Cletus Stamper Hall in 2001, in honor of Dr. Cletus Stamper, a longtime educator and leader in the College of Business and Economics. Today, Stamper Hall houses the Lincoln University School of Business, continuing its legacy as a center of academic excellence. The original Inman E. Page Library at night. Tracing the Origins of the School of Business The roots of Lincoln University's School of Business can be traced back to the 1890s with the introduction of bookkeeping classes. As the demand for business education grew, the curriculum expanded to include courses in economics and accounting. By 1939, the business department was formally established, offering a Bachelor of Business Administration degree. Over the years, additional programs were added, including an MBA degree in 1975, which further solidified the departments status as a key player in the university's academic offerings. The School of Business officially became a standalone entity in 1983, and today it offers undergraduate degrees in business administration, accounting, marketing, public administration and business education, alongside a masters degree in business administration. Milestones in Stamper Hall's History Stamper Hall has witnessed numerous milestones over its 75-year history. After its transition from a library to an academic building in 2001, the hall became a modern learning space dedicated to business education. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021 presented unprecedented challenges, but the School of Business remained steadfast in its commitment to its students, adhering to stringent health protocols to continue providing quality education. From left to right: Dr. Cletus Stamper, H. Monroe Purnell and A.P. Marshall. From left to right: Dr. Cletus Stamper, H. Monroe Purnell and A.P. Marshall. Honoring the Pioneers: Dr. Cletus Stamper, H. Monroe Purnell and A.P. Marshall The history of Stamper Hall and the School of Business is intertwined with the contributions of several notable individuals. Dr. Cletus Stamper, for whom the building is named, was a dynamic figure in Lincoln Universitys history. Born in Atlanta in 1916, Stamper's family later moved to New York, where he excelled as a high school athlete. He earned a degree in business from Virginia State and a masters degree in education from Columbia University. After serving in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II, Stamper pursued further education at Columbia, earning both a masters degree and a doctorate in business administration. In 1950, Dr. Stamper joined Lincoln University as an assistant professor and held various influential positions over the next 33 years, including instructor, university business manager, department head and dean of the College of Business and Economics. His leadership was pivotal in shaping the direction of business education at the university. Dr. Stamper retired in 1983 and passed away on December 14, 1997, in Maryland at the age of 81 Henry Monroe Purnell, born in 1907 in Eastern Shores, Maryland, developed a passion for academics early in life. He began his education at Wilberforce University, where he earned a bachelors degree in education, and later obtained a masters degree in business in 1936. The following year, Purnell joined Lincoln University as an instructor of secretarial training. After serving in World War II, he returned to the university and continued to shape its business curriculum for nearly three decades. As the business department expanded, he embraced new responsibilities, including serving as interim director of the department in 1951. Purnell remained dedicated to Lincoln University until his sudden passing in 1965, marking 28 years of service. Albert P. (A.P.) Marshall, a native of Texarkana, Texas, made a significant impact on the building's history. After graduating from Lincoln University with a degree in library science in 1939, he was hired as an assistant librarian. He served in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II and returned to his position at Lincoln afterward. In 1950, Marshall earned a masters degree in library science from the University of Illinois and was promoted to university librarian, a role he held until 1969. During his tenure, he expanded the library's holdings to support the growing student population and the introduction of new academic disciplines. His contributions laid the foundation for the library's eventual transformation into Stamper Hall. Stamper Hall now houses Lincoln University's School of Business. Looking Ahead: The Future of Stamper Hall As Stamper Hall celebrates its 75th anniversary, Lincoln University honors its rich history while looking forward to the future. The School of Business remains committed to fostering innovation, leadership and academic excellence. By embracing new technologies and pedagogical methods, Stamper Hall continues to evolve, ensuring that Lincoln Universitys legacy of excellence in business education will endure for generations to come. In commemorating 75 years, Lincoln University invites the community to reflect on Stamper Halls storied past and join in celebrating the bright future ahead. India, 27 September 2024 Grants of up to SGD 1 million each will be awarded to three transformative businesses in the tenth year of DBS Foundation. The focus on ageing aligns with DBS Foundations dual emphasis on providing essential needs and fostering inclusion for vulnerable communities. Marking a decade of creating impact, the DBS Foundation unveiled the new Impact Beyond Awardwith an aim to support enterprises that provide innovative solutions to the worlds most wicked problems. Each year the Award intends to pose a challenge statement and invite businesses to pitch their transformative ideas. This year the focus will be on ageing and the Foundation will be seeking solutions that will enable everyone to grow old with dignity and purpose. According to the 2023 India Ageing Report by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)[1], the percentage of the elderly demographic (60 years and above) in India is projected to double to over 20% of the total countrys population by 2050. While an ageing population can be viewed as a societal challenge, the DBS Foundation believes it can also be an opportunity to be harnessed both to change traditional mindsets, as well as to scale longevity businesses. Each of the three Impact Beyond awardees will receive prize money of up to SGD 1 million beyond financial support, the winning enterprises will be mentored by the banks senior management and other business leaders, and gain access to potential investors. It is open to social enterprises and small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) that have at least SGD 5 million in annual revenue in the most recent financial year. Applications from around the world are welcomed, and the application window is open from 20 September to 30 November 2024. Azmat Habibulla, Managing Director and Head of Group Strategic Marketing & Communications, DBS Bank India, said: The introduction of the Impact Beyond Award marks a significant milestone in DBS Foundation's ten year journey. This years spotlight on tackling the issues linked with an ageing society are a demonstration of the Foundations commitment to empowering the most vulnerable segments of the population. The complexities of an ageing demographic in India will only keep increasing and we believe that this award will be a catalyst to scale purpose-driven solutions in healthcare, social support systems and financial inclusion to improve the quality of life of senior citizens. With DBSs holistic approach that goes beyond banking, we are looking forward to championing these businesses and fostering long-term inclusivity through innovative solutions." DBS Bank, which is approaching its 30th year in India, recently launched a priority banking program for senior citizens called DBS Golden Circle, which has been designed to offer a comprehensive suite of benefits and services, focused on making banking simpler and more rewarding for resident Indian citizens aged 60 years and above.In 2020, the DBS Foundation awarded a grant to ElderAid Wellness, a Business For Impact that provides a range of home-based health and wellness services to support the elderly and enables them to live their golden years with independence, dignity and security. For more information on the DBS Foundation, please visit:www.dbs.com/dbsfoundation About DBS DBS is a leading financial services group in Asia with a presence in 19 markets. Headquartered and listed in Singapore, DBS is in the three key Asian axes of growth: Greater China, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. The bank's "AA-" and "Aa1" credit ratings are among the highest in the world. In 2024, CRISIL Ratings reaffirmed its CRISIL AAA/Stable rating on the corporate credit facility of DBS Bank India Ltd (DBIL). The rating on the certificate of depositsprogramme was also reaffirmed at CRISIL A1+. Recognised for its global leadership, DBS has been named Worlds Best Bank by Global Finance,Worlds Best Bank by Euromoney, and Global Bank of the Year by The Banker.As a different kind of bank, DBS is at the forefront of leveraging digital technology to shape the future of banking, having been namedWorlds Best Digital Bank by Euromoney and the worlds Most Innovative in Digital Banking by The Banker. In addition, DBS has been accorded the Safest Bank in Asia award by Global Finance for 15consecutive years from 2009 to 2023. In line with its focus on responsible banking, DBS was named the Best Bank for Sustainable Finance India by Global Finance in 2024. Additionally, DBS Bank was ranked among the top 3 on Forbes' list of the World's Best Banks in India for three consecutive years, from 2020 to 2022. DBS Bank has been present in India for 30 years, opening its first office in Mumbai in 1994. DBS Bank India Limited is the first among the large foreign banks in India to start operating as a wholly owned, locally incorporated subsidiary of a leading global bank. As a trusted partner, DBS provides a range of banking services for large, medium, and small enterprises and individual consumers in India, focusing on a seamless customer experience that helps them Live more, Bank less. In November 2020, Lakshmi Vilas Bank was merged with DBS Bank India Limited. DBS Bank India now has a network of ~500 branches in 19 Indian states. DBS is committed to building lasting relationships with customers as it banks the Asian way and understands the intricacies of doing business in the regions most dynamic markets. Through the DBS Foundation, the bank creates impact beyond banking by supporting businesses for impact: enterprises with a double bottom-line of profit and social and/or environmental impact. DBS Foundation also gives back to society in various ways, including equipping underserved communities with future-ready skills and helping them to build food resilience. With its extensive network of operations in Asia and emphasis on engaging and empowering its staff, DBS presents exciting career opportunities. For more information, please visitwww.dbs.com. Media Contacts: DBS Bank India Rohini Rego rohinirego@dbs.com 99305 49207 Adfactors PR Chennakeshav Shenoy Ck.shenoy@adfactorspr.com 9819266998 Each year Airbus and Boeing, the two halves of the global aircraft duopoly, face off at the worlds most prestigious airshow, which alternates between Paris and Farnborough, in the countryside close to London. This years event in Farnborough, which opened on July 22nd, was a more subdued clash than usual. Both firms announced some orders from airlines, but these were mostly small. Boeing is still reeling from the consequences of a panel blowing off a 737 Max, its short-haul aircraft, in January. That model, which first flew in 2016, has been bedevilled with safety issues. The company has had to slow down production as regulators have investigated its safety procedures, enraging airlines whose deliveries have been delayed. Airbus, which had more planes on display at Farnborough than its chastened rival, has had troubles of its own. Snags in its supply chain have forced it to delay plans to ramp up deliveries of its short-haul jets. At current production rates it will take Airbus nearly 12 years to produce the 8,600 planes it has on its order books, and a similar time for Boeing to meet its 6,150 unfilled orders. The backdrop is one of soaring demand. Boeing reckons that over the next 20 years the global fleet of passenger planes will need to double to meet the worlds growing appetite for flying, requiring 44,000 new aircraft. That is roughly twice as many planes as the duopoly managed to deliver in the past 20 years. Could this open the door to aviations twosome becoming a threesome? Rob Morris of Cirium, a consultancy, thinks it is more a case of when, rather than if". Yet the barriers to becoming a maker of large passenger planes remain formidable. It would cost Boeing and Airbus perhaps $20bn-30bn to develop a new plane. The expense would be even greater for any newcomer. They would need a decade or more to prepare designs, set up factories, establish a supply chain and obtain the blessing of regulators before any revenue rolled in. What they produce would need to match or beat the price and performance of the duopolys competing planes. They would then have to convince airlines, which benefit from lower costs when running a single-make fleet, to switch. And they would need to build the vast network of service technicians any customer would require before signing a cheque. Embraer, a Brazilian aerospace firm, is rumoured to be contemplating a tilt at the duopoly. Its regional jets seat a maximum of around 145 passengers, compared with typically between 150 and 240 for Boeings 737 MAX and Airbuss A320 family of short-haul planes. Few pundits dispute that it has the engineering prowess. Yet the experience of Bombardier, its one-time rival in regional jets, suggests that is not enough. The Canadian firm invested vast sums developing its CSeries jet, larger versions of which could compete with smaller versions of Airbuss and Boeings short-haul planes. The financial strain this placed on the company, coupled with tariffs imposed by America after an anti-dumping complaint by Boeing, led it to sell the programme in 2017 to Airbus, which now markets the aircraft as the A220. Bombardier ceased making regional planes altogether in 2020, though it still makes business jets. Taking on the duopoly from a standing start would be even riskier. After 15 years of soaring costs and technical snafus Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a Japanese industrial giant, called time last year on its project to develop SpaceJet, a small regional plane that would have been its countrys first homegrown passenger aircraft in decades. The MC-21, a much delayed narrowbody jet from Russias United Aircraft Corporation, is said to be too heavy and suffers from a shorter range and lower capacity than planned. While it may begin commercial service next year, and has a few hundred domestic orders, it is unlikely to do much flying outside Russian airspace. Flight risk Chinas determination to become an aerospace superpowerand its willingness to throw fistfuls of yuan at the effortpresents the biggest threat to the duopoly. The Centre for Strategic and International Studies, an American think-tank, reckons that by 2020 Chinas government had handed up to around $70bn in subsidies to COMAC, the countrys state-owned aerospace champion, to develop the C919, a narrowbody rival to the 737 MAX and A320 family. Conceived in 2006, it made its long delayed first flight in 2017. COMAC has now delivered six of the planes to customers, and has orders for over 1,000 more. The C919s range and capacity, however, fall short of the competition. com[ Attracting international buyers will be tough. Outside its home market, only a startup in Brunei with Chinese backers has ordered the C919. Western aviation regulators will be wary of approving a new jet from a new manufacturer, and Western politicians could grumble about domestic airlines purchasing Chinese planes. Even if COMAC meets its goal of making 150 C919s a year in five years time, which seems ambitious, it will remain a minnow. Cirium reckons 1,800 short-haul jets will be sold annually by then, meaning COMAC would account for less than a tenth of the total. Boeing still hopes it will ramp up production of its 737 Max to 50 a month by 2026. Airbus intends to be making 75 A320s a month by 2027. That said, a slow climb does not mean COMAC will never reach altitude. Mr Morris of Cirium reckons that over the next 20 years it can capture 20-30% of a Chinese market for 6,000 short-haul planes. Chinas domestic aerospace supply chain should also develop further. Only 14 of the 82 suppliers for the C919 are Chinese, and many of the most complex components come from America and Europe. But Chinas government is endeavouring to change that. It is even said to be planning an attempt to break into the jet-engine business, taking on Western incumbents. Airbus, too, was heavily dependent on government largesse when it first began making big jets (though it had the advantage of being formed out of a consortium of longstanding European aerospace firms with experience making planes). Its first passenger jet, the A300 it launched in 1969, was a commercial disappointment. But it laid the groundwork for planes that followed. COMAC may similarly learn from the C919. Though details are scant, it is now developing the C929, a model of which was on display at Farnborough. The long-haul plane would compete with Boeings 787 Dreamliner and Airbuss A330. COMAC is also said to be developing the C939, which would take on the even larger Boeing 777 and Airbus A350. The incumbents should watch their tails. 2024, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under licence. The original content can be found on www.economist.com In the fight for our democracies in the 21st century, the front lines are increasingly online, declared Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the United Nations. Around the world, authoritarian regimes are weaponizing technology, [to] censor, surveil, to repress their citizens. Meanwhile, citizens and civil society groups use social media, online messaging, to organize, to wield smartphones, to document human rights abuses, share them, with the entire world. The United States is committed to ensuring that digital technologies enhance the rights and the privacy of our people and expand broad based opportunity. The United States is determined to work with fellow democracies to realize that goal. That's why at the first Summit for Democracy 2021, the U.S. pledged to reinvigorate the Freedom Online Coalition and double down on efforts to safeguard and advance a free and open Internet, said Secretary Blinken: Together, this coalition is enhancing Internet freedom and combating censorship. For example, the United States, Germany, Estonia have supported the Open Technology Fund to help millions of people via virtual private networks for VPNs and other tools to circumvent firewalls, Internet shutdowns, empowering activists, journalists from Russia to Iran to Cuba. This also includes taking steps to curb digital surveillance, said Secretary Blinken: We worked together to define guardrails for the use of surveillance technologies by governments. We mobilized 17 nations. We're committed to countering the misuse and abuse of commercial spyware. The United States has worked to lead by example, including imposing visa restrictions and sanctions against companies and individuals who exploit these technologies. This year, the United States, with the support of members of the Freedom Online Coalition, put forward a landmark U.N. resolution to use safe, secure, trustworthy artificial intelligence to promote sustainable development. Every member state adopted that resolution. Hopefully this sets a framework and sets a foundation going forward for AI, said Secretary Blinken. A few weeks ago, the U.S. joined fellow democracies in signing the Council of Europe's AI Convention, the world's first multilateral treaty on AI and human rights. Authoritarian regimes are determined to co-opt and abuse technology to repress their people. Thats why [w]e have to be equally determined in our mission to defend freedom online, said Secretary Blinken. The United States looks forward to continuing this vital work with governments, the private sector, civil society, and NGOs. Small farmers, who are often left to fend for themselves, have been witnessing a turnaround in fortunes in recent years as fintech platforms address a critical need in Indias agriculture sector. Using technology and a deeper use of data, agri-fintech startups are expanding their lending services to small farmers despite the risks involved, helping boost agriculture-sector loans to record levels. Temasek-backed StarAgri, a full-stack agritech platform that typically offers loans to farmers against their agricultural stocks or receivables, is now providing smaller-ticket loans to marginal farmers through agents for purchasing raw material such as seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. Such input financing is risky as it does not involve any collateral that can be adjusted against the loan in case of default and is typically offered based on guarantees from other farmers or agents. StarAgri, which has built a 300-crore portfolio of input financing by privately testing the offering over the last 2 years, plans to digitally map farms to analyse cash flows and predict crop outcomes. It (data mapping) allows us to analyse their cash flow, predict the type, quantity, and quality of crops they will have in the next 90 days, and estimate their cash position after 90 days," said Amith Agarwal, founder and chief executive of Star Agriwarehousing and Collateral Management Ltd, or StarAgri. For this, the IPO-bound StarAgri is registering farmers on its platform to provide advisory and financing services to them. While it currently has registered around 80,000 farmers, StarAgri plans to double this number by 2025. The company last month formally rolled out input financing as a product under its non-banking financial company, Agriwise Finserv, to provide loans to small farmers. It is also preparing to file a draft red herring prospectus for a public market listing in about two months, Agarwal said. Also read | Micro Amul: Are farmer-run companies the next big idea in Indian agriculture? Agri loans soar Loans to farmers from the traditional banking ecosystem have hit record highs. Citing data from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), Reserve Bank of India deputy governor Swaminathan J. recently said in a statement that institutional credit to agriculture had reached an all-time high of 25.1 trillion. But he also pointed out that traditional lending practices have limitations in meeting the needs of the agriculture sector. Agriculture is inherently seasonal, and returns are often delayed or reduced. Innovative financial solutions are necessaryones that are flexible and tailored to the specific needs of farmers," Swaminathan said. In recent years, agri-fintech startups have stepped in to address this gap. Ergos Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd, which is backed by Aavishkaar Capital, Chiratae Ventures, and Trifecta Venture Debt Fund, lends to small farmers by converting their grains into tradable assets. It offers credit against their stored produce. Arya.ag, Samunnati Financial, and FarMart Service lend across the value chain, providing credit to processor firms, traders, and mandis (agriculture marketplaces such as the Agriculture Produce and Livestock Market Committee) against collateral such as farm stocks and receivables. Also read | Agritech firms turn to private labels to improve revenue, margins Samunnatis loan disbursements increased to 3,525.6 crore in 2023-24 from 2,775.8 crore in the previous financial year. Aryas loan disbursals in FY23 grew to 1,015.76 crore through its fintech platform, Aryadhan, as per the latest data available. StarAgris loan portfolio comprises 16,000 crore in commodity-based financing (loans against stocks), and about 1,000 crore in procurement-based financing (loans against receivables). It has added 300 crore in loans through its new input-based financing product. While StarAgri lends as little as 1 lakh to small farmers, banks prefer lending a minimum of 1 crore. Even within their agri portfolio, traditional banks have an unstated preference to fund agri (small and medium enterprises) and processors over farmers," said Satya Sagar, principal at agritech-focused venture capital firm Omnivore. Even those that have decent credit history and income streams are pushed to then borrow from informal sources." One reason for the increasing farm loans is RBIs priority sector lending mandate that requires banks to extend a certain percentage of their loans to critical sectors such as agriculture. But recovering the loans continues to be a risky proposition. Also read | The long wait for Indias first agritech unicorn Can fintechs solve for credit risk? For decades, the Indian farming sector has struggled with mounting bad debt. As of March, non-performing farm loans, or farm loans not repaid, accounted for 6.5% of total bad loans, according to recent RBI data. Government loan waiver schemes have compounded the issue, as farmers halt repayments in anticipation of such policies, adding pressure on banks already burdened by bad debt. Most recently, in June, the Telangana government announced a loan waiver of up to 2 lakh per farmer, benefiting nearly 4 million farmers at a cost of around 31,000 crore to the state treasury. Meanwhile, many agritech firms that attracted significant capital during the 2021-2022 funding boom are now struggling to scale their initial models. The purchasing power of the average farmer is quite limited, which has created challenges related to scaling," said Anand Chandra, co-founder and executive director of Arya. Mechanization, which we expected to grow, hasnt been widely adopted as it comes at significant cost, and theres a minimum scale at which it becomes profitable or yields dividends." As a result, most agritech companies in India are yet to turn a profit. Apart from StarAgri and Arya, many highly valued venture capital-backed playerssuch as DeHaat, WayCool, Ninjacart, Agrostar, and Absolute Foodscontinue to operate at a loss. Also read | Banks asset quality rears its head after long gap as agri, retail provisions surge Arya saw a 49.48% year-on-year revenue increase to 290 crore in FY23, while its profit surged 11-fold to 7.58 crore. StarAgris revenue rose 81% to 709.5 crore as profit increased 96% to 37.6 crore in FY23. To scale up, many agritech startups have ventured into lending to farmers. When agritechs began offering new products, one of the challenges we foresaw was adoption, particularly the availability of finance to pilot these initiatives," said Chandra. Arya established an NBFC in 2023 to extend loans of 5-10 lakh to small farmers. In August, Jai Kisan, a rural-focused fintech startup, also obtained an NBFC licence after acquiring a majority stake in Kushal Finnovation Capital, an NBFC specializing in supply chain financing for rural micro, small, and medium enterprises. Jai Kisan has facilitated disbursals of over 6,000 crore since inception in 2017, with 3,000 crore in FY24 alone. But the challenges in lending to small farmers, particularly in loan recovery, is also true for fintech lenders. Farm income often suffers from factors such as heat waves, unseasonal rains, and rising raw material cost. Experts warn that startups offering loans to small farmers may struggle with loan recovery. Initially, the percentage of defaults doesnt seem significant, which may appear promising. But once you scale and review your portfolio, you will notice that the percentage of defaults starts swelling," Chandra said. Data mapping, a revolutionary technology in this space, could help mitigate such challenges. However, the technology is still in its nascent stage, with limited satellite data available to startups. While satellite data is starting to gain attention, its real impact will likely be seen in the next 3-4 years," said Vikram Gupta, founder and managing partner of IvyCap Ventures. With more satellites focusing on specific crop data, we will begin receiving highly accurate information, which could mark a turning point and potentially cause a significant increase in agri-lending." U.K. antitrust officials said Amazon.coms multibillion-dollar investment in artificial-intelligence company Anthropic didnt qualify for a formal investigation, a win for U.S. Big Tech weeks after Microsoft was also spared a probe over its links to Inflection AI. The U.Ks Competition and Markets Authority launched a probe in August to determine whether Amazons $4 billion investment in Anthropic posed a threat to competition in the country. Officials have now concluded that isnt the case and said they wouldnt open a formal investigation. The investment handed Amazon a minority ownership position in Anthropic as part of efforts from the e-commerce giant to support AI startups it sees as promising in hopes to gain an edge on fierce competitors likes of Alphabets Google, Microsoft and ChatGPT maker OpenAI. Google last year agreed to invest up to $2 billion in Anthropic. British officials said they closed the case as they essentially lacked jurisdiction because Anthropics revenue in the country didnt meet a threshold of 70 million pounds ($93.9 million) for target companies and because the combined activities of both Amazon and the startup didnt meet a certain share of goods or services threshold in the U.K. The watchdog didnt reach a conclusion on whether the investment led to Amazon having material influence over Anthropic, but said it didnt believe the arrangement would create a relevant merger scenario. Amazon doesnt hold a board seat or decision-making powers at the startup. An Amazon spokesperson said the group welcomed the decision, acknowledging the CMAs lack of jurisdiction. By investing in Anthropic, were helping to spur entry and competition in generative AI," the spokesperson said. An Anthropic spokesperson also welcomed the ruling, saying the startup remained an independent company as its strategic partnerships and investor relationships didnt diminish its corporate governance independence or its freedom to partner with other companies. The decision from Britains antitrust watchdog comes weeks after officials there also cleared Microsofts hiring of former employees from Inflection AI and its partnership with the startup, offering some breathing space to U.S. tech giants over their ties to AI startups. In the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission launched an inquiry into generative AI partnerships earlier this year, ordering companies to provide information regarding recent investments into startups. That probe includes Amazon and Anthropic as well as Microsoft and OpenAI. News Corp, owner of Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal, has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI. Chandigarh: Indian consumers will soon see more Danone products on shelves as the French food company considers India a priority market and will continue investing in it, chief executive Antoine de Saint-Affrique told Mint in an interview on Friday. He declined to share details of the new products, saying, Competitors in India are so strong that I'm not going to announce in advance what we are going to do. On Friday De Saint-Affrique was in Chandigarh, which is 30 km from the companys plant in Lalru. He also announced plans to invest 20 million to expand its nutrition facility in Lalru over the next four years. Danone sells early life nutrition products and nutritional supplements under Protinex brand in India. We are committed to the market for the very long term. We have products that are extremely relevant for India. About 25 million new babies are born in India every year, and we are one of the world leaders in early-life nutrition products. More elderly people are facing health issues, and we are one of the world leaders in medical nutrition, he said. In India since the 1990s Danone has a long history in India, although its business here has been limited to adult nutrition and early-life nutrition. The worlds largest yoghurt maker entered India in the 1990s through a joint venture with the Wadia Group to build a biscuits portfolio for Britannia Industries Ltd. This lasted 13 years and included a dispute over the intellectual property of Britannias Tiger biscuits brand. The dispute ended when Danone exited the biscuits business worldwide. The company launched its nutrition business in India in 2012 by acquiring the nutrition portfolio of Wockhardt group for 250 million. It also operated a beverage-focussed joint venture with the Rahul Narang Group in the 2000s. The JV ended in 2015 after Danone exited the beverage market in India, shutting down brands such as Qua and Blue. It also sold fresh dairy products including milk and flavoured yoghurt, but exited the dairy business in India in 2018. Globally, Danone sells products in several categoriesfrom essential dairy and plant-based products to yoghurt (Activia), bottled water (Evian) and specialised nutrition products. It operates in more than 120 markets, and generated 27.6 billion of sales in 2023. Missed opportunities? Asked about potential missed opportunities in India's dairy market, where a growing middle-class has benefitted large companies such as Nestle and Amul, de Saint-Affrique said the past is the past. What I'm interested in is the future. The growth is no way close to stopping in India. See the growth of the population, the growth of the middle-class, you see the relevance of our products in these markets. So I don't see an end to the growth of India, he added. The company has only scratched the surface in early-life nutrition, he said. It sells brands such as Dexolac in India, and competes with Nestle India and Abbot in this category. Penetration rates for such products in India are still low, he said. Also read | Mint Explainer: Why Nestle failed to increase royalty payments while rivals succeeded Protinex is sleeping beautymeaning it's not doing too badly but is not where it should be de Saint-Affrique said, adding, "There are plenty of things we can do in our existing categories. As a result, growing existing categories is the first priority, he said. De Saint-Affrique was brought in to head the food company in 2021 following the ouster of the former CEO after activist shareholders called for his removal. In 2022 de Saint-Affrique unveiled the Renew Danone plan which called for competitiveness in core categories and geographies, expanding of its presence in new segments and geographies, and seeding categories of the future, among other things. The company of today is very different from the company of three years ago. Three years ago indeed it was a choppy time with covid. The company had a very public governance crisis we were challenged on performance. Three years later, we have delivered consistent performance, he said. A dedicated bankruptcy tribunal on Friday pulled up Dunzo Digital Pvt Ltd, a quick commerce platform backed by Reliance Retail, for not reaching a settlement with its creditors despite being given enough time to resolve the matter. You have taken more than three months for settlement and still nothing has happened. We are not allowing you to file any objections. First file your interlocutory application on why your objections should be considered, the Bengaluru bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) said on Friday. It scheduled the next hearing for 4 November. The bench, led by Justices K Biswal and Manoj Kumar Dubey, was hearing insolvency petitions filed by two of Dunzo's creditors Invoice Discounters of Dunzo Digital and Velvin Packaging after the company failed to repay them. The NCLT had issued notices to the company over these petitions in February and March, and asked Dunzo to file a reply. On Friday the bench noted that Dunzo had not filed its reply to the petitions even after seeking time to do so, following which the NCLT said in June that the company had forfeited its right to reply to the petitions. Manjunath Hiral, counsel for Velvin Packaging, told the tribunal, We were under the impression that they will come forward and close the settlement... The application that they have filed is a shock to us and an indicator that the settlement talks have failed." In July, Invoice Discounters of Dunzo Digital told the NCLT it had received only half the money it was owed. The actual amount owed was not disclosed before the tribunal. Also read: How offline grocers are adapting to the quick commerce surge Dunzo reportedly owes 4 crore to another creditor, Betterplace Safety Solutions, and 11.4 crore to advertising partners and vendors including Google India, Facebook India and Glance. Down to 50 employees On 31 August Mint reported Dunzo had sacked 150 employees in a fresh round of layoffs, leaving it with just 50 employees in its core supply and marketplace teams. The company was looking to claw back profits to pay off liabilities including salaries of current and former employees as well as vendor payments as it looked for capital to survive, according to two people aware of the development. In less than two years, OpenAI has gone from a little-known nonprofit lab working on obscure technology to a world-famous business whose chief executive is the face of the artificial-intelligence revolution. That change is tearing the company apart. On Wednesday, OpenAIs chief technology officer became the latest high-profile executive to announce an exit, departing as the company prepares to become a for-profit corporation. The exits are public eruptions of tensions that have been growing in the company behind ChatGPT since CEO Sam Altman returned following his brief ouster last year. Some tensions are related to conflicts between OpenAIs original mission to develop AI for the public good and new initiatives to deploy moneymaking products. Others relate to chaos and infighting among executives worthy of a soap opera. CTO Mira Murati is one of more than 20 OpenAI researchers and executives who have quit this year, including several of Altmans co-founders. View Full Image Mira Murati is the latest high-profile executive to announce an exit from OpenAI. Photo: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images Current and former employees say OpenAI has rushed product announcements and safety testing, and lost its lead over rival AI developers. They say Altman has been largely detached from the day-to-daya characterization the company disputesas he has flown around the globe promoting AI and his plans to raise huge sums of money to build chips and data centers for AI to work. OpenAI has also been evolving into a more normal business, as Altman has described it, since his return. The company, which has grown to 1,700 employees from 770 last November, this year appointed its first chief financial officer and chief product officer. It added people with corporate and military backgrounds to its board of directors. It is seeking to raise $6.5 billion from backers including Microsoft, Apple and Nvidia. And OpenAI is increasingly focused on building out its product offerings, which some longtime employees say takes focus from pure research. Some at the company say such developments are needed for OpenAI to be financially viable, given the billions of dollars it costs to develop and operate AI models. And they argue AI needs to move beyond the lab and into the world to change peoples lives. Others, including AI scientists who have been with the company for years, believe infusions of cash and the prospect of massive profits have corrupted OpenAIs culture. One thing nearly everyone agrees on is that maintaining a mission-focused research operation and a fast-growing business within the same organization has resulted in growing pains. Its hard to do both at the same timeproduct-first culture is very different from research culture," said Tim Shi, an early OpenAI employee who is now chief technology officer of AI startup Cresta. You have to attract different kinds of talent. And maybe youre building a different kind of company." Altman has been in Turin, Italy, as this weeks events occurred, for Italian Tech Week. Speaking in a fireside chat there Thursday, he denied that employee departures were related to the restructuring plans and said, I think this will be hopefully a great transition for everyone involved, and I hope OpenAI will be stronger for it, as we are for all of our transitions." OpenAIs CFO sent a letter to investors Thursday saying it is on track to close its funding round by next week, and would host a series of calls afterward to introduce them to key leaders from its product and research teams. View Full Image OpenAI President Greg Brockman and Altman at an event in Seoul last year. Photo: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg News OpenAIs focus on making steady improvements to ChatGPT and other products has borne fruit. Its annualized revenuea projection of yearly receipts based on recent resultsrecently hit about $4 billion, more than triple from the same time last year. It is still losing billions a year, however. Continued growth will depend on maintaining its technological edge. The companys next foundational model GPT-5expected to be a major leap in its developmenthas faced setbacks and delays. Meanwhile, rival companies have launched AI models roughly on par with what OpenAI is offering. Two of them, Anthropic and Elon Musks xAI, were started by former OpenAI leaders. The intensifying competition has frustrated researchers who valued working at OpenAI because it was the perceived leader in the space. An OpenAI spokeswoman declined to respond to most specific points in this article. We dont agree with these characterizations, but recognize that evolving from an unknown research lab into a global company that delivers advanced AI research to hundreds of millions of people in just two years requires growth and adaptation," she said, adding that Altman has been very engaged in company strategy and hiring and has driven the build out of its product division. We are deeply committed to our mission and are proud to release the most capable and safest models in the industry," she said. Wall Street Journal owner News Corp has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI. The following account is based on interviews with current and former employees of OpenAI, as well as people close to the company. A failed reunion OpenAI employees call Altmans firing and unfiring last November the blip" because it lasted just a few days. But the blips repercussions are still working their way through the company. The first sign was the disappearance of one of OpenAIs co-founders and most respected research scientists, Ilya Sutskever. He delivered the news of Altmans firing to the CEO, then publicly apologized for his role. He never returned to work in the office. In May, Sutskever resigned. Soon after, Jan Leike, who co-led a safety team with Sutskever, quit as well. OpenAI officials worried their departures might trigger a larger exodus and worked to get Sutskever back. Murati and President Greg Brockman told Sutskever that the company was in disarray and might collapse without him. They visited his home, bringing him cards and letters from other employees urging him to return. Altman visited him as well and expressed regret that others at OpenAI hadnt found a solution. Sutskever indicated to his former OpenAI colleagues that he was seriously considering coming back. But soon after, Brockman called and said OpenAI was rescinding the offer for him to return. Internally, executives had run into trouble determining what Sutskevers new role would be and how he would work alongside other researchers, including his successor as chief scientist. Soon after, Sutskever launched a new company focused on developing the most advanced AI, without the distraction of releasing products along the way. Called Safe Superintelligence, it has raised $1 billion. Sutskever hasnt publicly commented on the circumstances of his departure. In a May 17 post on X, Leike said: I have been disagreeing with OpenAI leadership about the companys core priorities for quite some time, until we finally reached a breaking pointover the past years, safety culture and processes have taken a back seat to shiny products." He went to work for Anthropic. Rushed launches This spring, tensions flared up internally over the development of a new AI model called GPT-4o that would power ChatGPT and business products. Researchers were asked to do more comprehensive safety testing than initially planned, but given only nine days to do it. Executives wanted to debut 4o ahead of Googles annual developer conference and take attention from their bigger rival. The safety staffers worked 20 hour days, and didnt have time to double check their work. The initial results, based on incomplete data, indicated GPT-4o was safe enough to deploy. But after the model launched, people familiar with the project said a subsequent analysis found the model exceeded OpenAIs internal standards for persuasiondefined as the ability to create content that can convince people to change their beliefs and engage in potentially dangerous or illegal behavior. The team flagged the problem to senior executives and worked on a fix. But some employees were frustrated by the process, saying that if the company had taken more time for safety testing, they could have addressed the problem before it got to users. The OpenAI spokeswoman said the higher-risk indicators the team detected were erroneously elevated by a flaw in the methodology, and that GPT-4o was safe to deploy under the companys criteria. OpenAI continues to be confident in 4os medium risk assessment," she said. The rush to deploy GPT-4o was part of a pattern that affected technical leaders like Murati. The CTO repeatedly delayed the planned launches of products including search and voice interaction because she thought they werent ready. Other senior staffers also were growing unhappy. John Schulman, another co-founder and top scientist, told colleagues he was frustrated over OpenAIs internal conflicts, disappointed in the failure to woo back Sutskever and concerned about the diminishing importance of its original mission. In August, he left for Anthropic. High-level drama In addition to the other executive departures, one of Altmans key lieutenantsBrockmanis on sabbatical. Brockman is seen as a longtime worker loyal to OpenAI. When OpenAI was founded in 2015, it originally operated out of Brockmans living room. Later, he got married at the companys offices on a workday. But as OpenAI grew, his management style caused tension. Though president, Brockman didnt have direct reports. He tended to get involved in any projects he wanted, often frustrating those involved, according to current and former employees. They said he demanded last-minute changes to long-planned initiatives, prompting other executives, including Murati, to intervene to smooth things over. For years, staffers urged Altman to rein in Brockman, saying his actions demoralized employees. Those concerns persisted through this year, when Altman and Brockman agreed he should take a leave of absence. Brockman wrote on X last month, Im taking a sabbatical through the end of year. First time to relax since co-founding OpenAI 9 years ago." He is expected to return. But the companys leadership ranks have been depleted. On the same day Murati resigned, OpenAIs chief research officer and vice president of research left as well. Altman now needs to strengthen his executive team, try to close a multibillion-dollar fundraising round vital to the companys ability to keep operating, and begin the complex process of converting a nonprofit organization into a for-profit company. Investors in the new round will be able to pull back their money if OpenAI doesnt complete the conversion within two years. And he has to do it all while keeping up morale at a company beset by very public crises and challenges. One OpenAI employee on the companys technical team wryly posted on X Wednesday night that, Today I have made the difficult decision to stay at OpenAI." Write to Deepa Seetharaman at deepa.seetharaman@wsj.com Mumbai: To boost corporate governance practices, the capital market regulator plans to extend the mandate of setting up risk management committees (RMC), to the top 2,000 companies listed on exchanges as per their market share. This comes after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) in 2020 mandated that the top 1,000 listed companies set up RMCs. If this decision goes through, there will be fierce demand for risk managers in India Inc. Mint spoke to consultancy and compliance experts who told them that companies are upping their teams of RMCs which include auditors, cybersecurity and geopolitical experts. To be clear, RMCs are responsible for pre-empting, evaluating and mitigating risks that might affect the organization. This is different from a crisis management team which springs into action after the crisis happens. Also read | RBI deputy governor urges banks to exercise prudent risk management On 26 June, Sebi released a consultation paper seeking comments on recommendations given by an expert committee constituted in August 2023 and chaired by former Sebi Whole Time Member S.K. Mohanty on ease of doing business. The recommendations included amendments to Sebi's Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements (LODR) regulations, aimed at strengthening corporate governance. One key proposal is extending the discretionary requirement to form RMCs to the top 2,000 listed entities. Broader regulatory shift Experts believe this move will provide companies with a valuable "outside-in" perspective, but they also view it as part of a broader regulatory shift where authorities are delving deeper into corporate operations and governance. Consultancies that help companies establish RMCs stress that having a dedicated risk management committee, which reports directly to the Board of Directors, raises the committees profile to that of an audit committee. This not only sharpens the focus on risk management but also fosters a stronger risk-aware culture within the organization. Also read | PSBs asked to focus on robust risk management practices Siddharth Vishwanath, Partner and Risk Consulting Domestic Markets Leader at PwC India added that the growing cost of non-compliance and the extent of regulatory oversight was also changing. "Regulators today are looking more deeply into the functioning of companies and the repercussions of non-compliance are not limited to penalties alone", he said. Cost to companies to form RMC Experts agree that Sebi's mandate for the top 2,000 companies would increase costs, but believe the benefits would far outweigh them. Ketan Dalal, founder of Katalyst Advisors and a member of several RMCs, noted that the primary additional expense would be the fees paid to committee members for meetings with the Board, which should hardly be a concern." Laxmikant Gupta, Chartered Accountant and Principal at RiskPro India, a specialized risk management consultancy, highlighted that the 1,000th company on the list has a market capitalization of approximately 2,500 crores, while the 2,000th companys market cap ranges between 200-250 crores. He pointed out that companies with a market cap over 200 crores are already required to conduct internal audits and could easily add two more officials to form an RMC. Experts agree that Sebi's mandate for the top 2,000 companies would increase costs, but believe the benefits would far outweigh them. Risk management standards and approaches for banks are stricter with larger structures while non-banking listed companies need not be so structured. However, benefits of RMCs at the systemic level of the company will outpace the costs", Gupta said. Gupta suggested that Sebi could consider targeting specific industries within the 1,000 to 2,000 range for mandatory RMCs, based on factors such as environmental impact, data privacy, affiliation with larger corporate groups, or being part of critical supply chains. Purvi Mathur, managing partner at KP Associates, Advocates & Consultants, emphasized that companies integrating geopolitical risk management into their corporate governance structures would be better equipped to navigate the complexities of the global business environment and safeguard long-term shareholder value. Geopolitical risks and how RMCs manage them Geopolitical risks arise from wars, terrorism, and conflicts between nations, disrupting international business. Currency fluctuations and oil prices are key indicators of such risks. Experts noted that industries with direct or indirect exposure to global economies are the most affected. Direct exposure examples include construction contracts in conflict zones like Afghanistan or Israel facing recovery issues, or profitable airline routes turning unviable due to geopolitical tensions and visa restrictions. Indirect exposure can affect sectors such as education finance, where companies face risks from students stuck in conflict zones like Ukraine or visa delays, such as those applying for Canadian visas. However, geopolitical risks can also create opportunities, such as the boost to India's textile industry following the Bangladesh crisis. Dalal from Katalyst Advisors explained that companies must prioritize geopolitical risk management, as it can lead to supply chain disruptions, reduced demand, and raw material shortages. "The risk owner would have to build scenarios to mitigate risks, which would be helpful to deal with the fallouts. A review by RMCs helps companies in getting 'outside in' perspective" he said. Geopolitical experts Gupta said that in the last five years, especially after covid-19 pandemic, geo-political expertise has emerged as a new era and few companies or groups have an Intelligence Department or chief economist, keeping the geo-political scenarios on the radar. Vishwanath from PwC informed that they hired talent from technology institutes, leading graduate schools and B-schools. "We also have former defense personnel, regulators, bankers and other subject matter experts in PwC Indias Risk Consulting team with close to 5000 team members, growing at 30% y-o-y", he said. And read | Economic growth faces risks from weather, geopolitics, global financial conditions: finance ministry Manoj Kumar Vijai, partner and head, Risk Advisory at KPMG in India, said that a notable trend was the migration of industry executives to consulting roles, which brings in sector-specific expertise to enhance our service capabilities. Industries under heavy regulation, such as financial services and pharmaceuticals, depend on specialized risk managers and as the complexity increases, even smaller organizations can no longer afford to have CIOs, CFOs, or other executives who double up as risk experts," he said. Mumbai: China's Tencent Holdings Ltd is set to sell its stake in Dream11 parent Sporta Technologies Ltd, two people familiar with the development said, as the gaming unicorn moves to comply with regulations on Chinese investments. Singapore-based Tiga Investment Pte Ltd will acquire Tencent's shares for over $150 million, the people cited above said on the condition of anonymity. Mint could not ascertain Tencent's exact holding in Dream11 or the amount it plans to sell. The transaction is being undertaken to comply with PN-3 filing," one of the people cited above said, referring to a government notification restricting investments from the northern neighbour. Investments from China came under a harsh glare after border tensions flared up in Ladakh in 2020. Press Note-3 (PN-3) issued in April 2020 formalized the scrutiny, requiring government approval for investments from neighbouring countries. Also read | Every rejection taught us how to build our pitch: Dream11's Harsh Jain Although the latest Economic Survey appeared to make a pitch for Chinese foreign direct investment in select segments, government officials have since then clarified that there would be no letdown in scrutiny of Chinese FDI. Tencent and Tiga did not respond to requests for comment; Dream11 said it had no comment. Tigas investment plan has secured approval from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) through its green channel. Since the Parties and their respective group entities and affiliates do not have any (a) horizontal overlaps; or (b) existing or potential vertical linkages; or (c) existing or potential complementary business activities in India, the Proposed Transaction is unlikely to cause any appreciable adverse effect on competition in India," the website said. In recent times, the govt has been more open to grant approvals for Chinese FDI in some sectors, such as manufacturing. -Sudip Mahapatra News website VCCircle first reported Tigas interest in Dream11 earlier this week. Formally, the restrictions on Chinese investments under Press Note 3 remain changed," said Sudip Mahapatra, partner, S&R Associates. "However, in recent times, the government has been more open to grant approvals for Chinese FDI in some sectors, such as manufacturing. In overall economic interest, there is a growing case to limit the restrictions on Chinese investments to a few strategic sectors, " Mahapatra added. Tencent first acquired a sizeable stake in Dream 11 in 2018, when the gaming company was valued at $750 million, but has sold shares several times since then. Tencent had invested in Dream11 as part of its strategy to invest in gaming companies across the globe. For instance, it owns a significant stake in Fortnite developer Epic Games and acquired Super Cell, the developer of Clash of Clans, for over $10.9 billion in 2016. Also read | Dream11 parent prepares war chest as it pivots M&A strategy Since 2020, however, Indian startups have largely shied away from taking equity investments from Chinese firms. Tencent had also changed its strategy to invest in India through debt, Financial Times reported in September 2021. In recent transactions, Tencent bought ShareChat's optionally convertible debentures when it raised a $49 million debt financing round. In 2021, the Chinese conglomerate also invested in Cars24's parallel debt round, when it raised $320 million in equity from other investors at a valuation of $1.84 billion, according to VCCEdge. Some other companies where Tencent holds a stake include digital ledger for small business owners Khatabook, neo bank Niyo, medical service aggregator Practo Technologies and food delivery business Swiggy, according to VCCEdge. In a March 2021 interview with the Economic Times, Dream11 co-founder Harsha Jain said Tencent's stake stood at 10.9%, and that the company would not raise further capital from Chinese firms. And read | Chinas Tencent in talks to join ShareChats fundraising round Since then, Tencent has seen its stake get diluted, most significantly in Dream11's $840 million fund-raise at a valuation of $8 billion. Other Chinese investors have also had to sell their stakes. Alibaba Holdings sold its stake in Paytm in 2023. Meanwhile, Dream11 has also returned significant capital for early investors. In an April 2021 post, Kalaari Capital founder Vani Kola said that Dream11 had returned a $206 million to Kalaari LPs with many fold upsides still locked into the company". Multiples PE has also made over 10X returns on its Dream11 investment. India has ascended 42 positions in the Global Innovation Index (GII) since 2015 and now ranks 39th out of 133 economies evaluated. The latest GII report, released on Thursday, September 27, showed India's remarkable progress in fostering an innovative ecosystem, reported ANI. The index, which assesses various factors contributing to innovation, has placed India at the top among the 38 lower-middle-income economies. This achievement underscores India's growing influence in the global innovation landscape, particularly among developing nations. Union Minister Piyush Goyal attributed this success to the country's leadership and focus on innovation. In a post on the social media platform X, Goyal stated, Guided by PM @NarendraModi ji's decisive leadership, India achieves these remarkable milestones: 1st among 10 economies in Central & Southern Asia, 1st among lower-middle-income economies, 4th in @WIPO Science & Technology (S&T) Cluster Ranking. India's GDP Meanwhile, the Budget for the current fiscal had projected a nominal GDP growth of 10.5 per cent while fiscal deficit was pegged at 4.9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). The report also recognises India's regional dominance, ranking it first among 10 economies in Central and Southern Asia. Additionally, India has secured the fourth position in the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Science and Technology (S&T) Cluster Ranking, the report added. Several Indian cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, and Chennai, have been listed among the world's top 100 S&T clusters, cementing India's position as a hub for research and technological advancement, the ANI report added. India also ranks seventh globally in intangible asset intensity, reflecting its strength in non-physical assets such as patents and trademarks, which are crucial drivers of innovation, as per the report. This progress in the GII rankings demonstrates India's commitment to fostering innovation and its growing impact on the global stage, the ANI report added. Pakistan Economy: Pakistan has secured significant financing assurances from China, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to an official from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). These commitments extend beyond the rollover of $12 billion in bilateral loans owed to the three countries, per Reuters. Nathan Porter, IMF's Mission Chief for Pakistan, refrained from specifying the additional financing amounts but confirmed that these assurances are part of the newly approved IMF program. I won't go into the specifics, but UAE, China and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia all provided significant financing assurances joined up in this programme, Porter said during a press briefing. Also Read | Multibagger IT stock sets board meeting date to consider stock split. Details The IMF's Executive Board, on September 26, approved a $7 billion, 37-month loan agreement for Pakistan. The agreement mandates sound policies and reforms aimed at strengthening the countrys macroeconomic stability. As part of the deal, Pakistan will receive an immediate disbursement of $1 billion, the report added. Also Read | IMF engaging with Sri Lankas new govt on loan agreement for economic recovery IMF acknowledges Pakistans remarkable economic recovery Pakistan, which has a history of IMF bailouts, has now entered its 23rd programme since 1958. Despite the frequency of such interventions, Porter emphasised that the country's recent economic performance has been noteworthy. Pakistan has staged a really remarkable economic turnaround since mid-2023, he noted. Porter attributed these gains to sound policy decisions and underscored the need for continued efforts to ensure sustainable growth. So what we've seen is the benefits of undertaking good policies, he said, stressing the importance of consistent monetary, fiscal, and exchange rate policies. He also pointed to the need for higher tax revenues and more efficient public spending. Pakistan achieved its first primary budget surplus in two decades last year, and the IMF programme aims to increase this surplus to 2 percent of the GDP. According to Porter, this target will be partly met by improving tax collections from under-taxed sectors like retail. The next review of Pakistans IMF loan programme is expected in March or April 2025, following the performance assessment at the end of 2024. The Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) elections are being held on Friday, September 27. However, the votes will be counted on Saturday. The voting for the DUSU lections began at the north and south campuses of the university. Voting will take place in two phases: students from morning colleges will cast their vote till 1 pm and those from evening colleges from 3 pm till 7.30 pm. Around 1.40 lakh students are eligible to cast their votes. DUSU elections: When will results be announced? The counting of votes will take place on Saturday and subequently, the DUSU election results will be announced. But there's a condition applied. The Delhi High Court halted counting votes in the DUSU elections, putting forth a condition before authorities proceed with the election results. Also Read | DUSU Election Result 2023: Delhi Police issues special traffic advisory A bench of Chief Justice-designate Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela said the election process may proceed, but the votes will not be counted until the court is satisfied that the defacement of property has been removed. The court ordered removing all defacement material, including posters, hoarding, and graffiti, and restoring public property. DUSU Polls: Key candidates A total of 21 candidates are vying for the positions with eight candidates contesting for the post of president, five for vice-president, and four each for the posts of joint secretary and secretary. The ABVP candidates are: Rishabh Choudhary for President, Bhanu Pratap Singh for Vice President, Mitravinda Karanwal as secretary and Aman Kapasiya as Joint Secretary. DUSU Elections: ABVP candidates From the NSUI's side, Rounak Khatri will contest the polls as president, Yash Nandal as Vice-president, Namrata Jeph Meena as secretary and Lokesh Choudhary as Joint Secretary. DUSU Elections: NSUI candidates Also Read | NSUI protests against inclusion of course on Savarkar in DU syllabus From the left-wing alliance of AISA and SFI, AISA's Saavy Gupta is contesting for President's post, AISA's Ayush Mondal for vice president post, SFI's Sneha Aggarwal for secretary position and Anamika K for the joint position. Karnataka aims to double the number of Global Capability Centres (GCCs) in the state over the next five years through an ambitious new policy, still in the drafting stage, offering financial incentives, including rent coverage, tax breaks, and reimbursements. With a current base of about 500 GCCs, the state plans to reach 1,000 by 2029, marking a significant effort to attract international companies seeking to establish captive centres specializing in technology, research, and development. This initiative comes as part of the proposed Karnataka Global Capability Centre (GCC) Policy 2024-2029, the first such policy dedicated to these centres. We are the leaders. We didnt have to do it, but we tend to be on topWere the Usain Bolt, and weve never looked back," said Priyank Kharge, Karnatakas IT minister, while announcing the draft policy for feedback. Read this | Tech, engineering jobs to be driven by GCCs as IT services remain muted India has more than 1,700 GCCs, according to IT industry body National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), of which Karnataka houses a third. Kharge, now serving his second term as the states IT minister, hopes to attract further investments, especially as neighbouring states like Tamil Nadu house major players such as Foxconn and Ola, while Telangana is set to host Googles second-largest office. The draft policy targets $50 billion in economic output and aims to create 350,000 jobs through the expansion of GCCs. Incentives to drive expansion Under the policy, Karnataka plans to offer at least 26 incentives to new and existing GCCs, aiming to lure investments outside the overcrowded Bengaluru region. Key incentives include funding up to 40% of the total capital expenditure, capped at 5 crore, for GCCs setting up in towns and cities outside Bengaluru. The policy will support a maximum of five such projects during its tenure. Also, GCCs with over 100 employees located outside Bengaluru can claim up to 50% rent reimbursement, capped at 50 lakh, with the policy supporting up to 10 such projects annually. The state will offer additional incentives through tax exemptions and reimbursements to reduce operational costs. New GCCs setting up or expanding operations in Karnataka will receive a 100% exemption from electricity tax for five years. For centres outside Bengaluru, the government will reimburse one-third of property tax for the first three years of operations. The draft policy also focuses on boosting employment, offering a 50% reimbursement on intern stipends for a maximum of three months, capped at 5,000 per intern per month. This benefit will cover up to 20,000 interns annually and 1,00,000 interns over the policy period. The reimbursement applies to GCCs hiring interns from state government universities or affiliated colleges. Beyond Bengaluru The state governments focus extends beyond Bengaluru, often referred to as the Silicon Valley of India. The policy encourages companies to establish or expand GCCs in various towns across Karnataka, each known for its specialized expertise. So the ideais not to create more Bengalurus around Karnataka, but to give each region, to give each centre, to give each tier-2 city its own unique field, said Sharath Bachegowda, member of the state assembly and chairman of Keonics, which is the the state governments largest IT training institute. Karnataka is actively promoting investments in smaller cities such as Mysuru, Mangaluru, Hubballi-Dharwad, and Kalaburagi to diversify its economic landscape. This push to expand GCCs beyond Bengaluru also comes as the city grapples with infrastructure issues, with commutes of up to two hours. Rising real estate prices have added to the challenges, prompting the state government to invite companies to set up in other parts of Karnataka, where rental costs are lower, and skilled talent is abundant. While the policy primarily focuses on larger GCCs with over 100 employees, it also provides a "range of benefits" for smaller 'nano GCCs'those employing between five and 50 peoplethough specific incentives for these smaller centres are yet to be detailed. In competition Karnatakas bid to double the number of GCCs follows chief minister Siddaramaiahs ambitious vision for the state to become a $1 trillion economy by 2032. When we talk about a $1 trillion digital economywe need to ensure we stay ahead of the curve, Kharge said. While Kharge is focused on drawing new GCCs to Karnataka, neighboring states are also ramping up their efforts. Tamil Nadu is incentivizing high-paying jobsthose offering more than 1 lakh per monthby providing payroll subsidies to GCCs. Meanwhile, Telangana has unveiled plans for a life sciences GCC consortium in Hyderabad, bringing together all GCCs specializing in that sector. New Delhi: The department of telecom (DoT) may take a favourable view on waiving bank guarantees due from telcos for spectrum purchased till 2022, a move that could help the beleaguered Vodafone Idea Ltd the most. Prior to 2022, telcos had to submit a bank guarantee while buying spectrum, a rule designed to ensure they make regular annual payments for the airwavespurchased. The demand for a waiver was under consideration, according to two senior officials in the department. There was room to allow relief since the 2024 auction did not have the requirement, one of the officials said on the condition of anonymity. A precedent to this effect also exists, when the government in 2017 agreed to increase the number of annual payments for spectrum bought in prior auctions, from 10 to 16 years. A lower interest on penalties was also agreed upon by the government," another official said, also asking not to be named. Also read | Telcos need to be sustainable to invest in networks, ensure better services Vi will be the biggest beneficiary of such a waiver as it's supposed to arrange for bank guarantees worth 27,000 crore within the coming couple of months. It is saddled with statutory dues worth 2.1 trillion that prevented it from investing in 4G and 5G networks. Having raised funds from equity, executives at the No 3 carrier said at an investor call that its discussions with the government on waiving the guarantees were developing positively, with solutions expected in the coming weeks. Any relief will only help the loss-making company improve its financial position. Vi will be the biggest beneficiary of such a waiver as it's supposed to arrange for bank guarantees worth 27,000 crore within the coming couple of months. The DoT will require a nod from the Cabinet and an amendment to the Notice Inviting Applications, the legal document that lays down the rules and process of auction, to approve the bank guarantee waiver, the first official said. The NIA needs to be amended since the payments are for previous auctions. Officials said that while the proposal was under discussion and informal meetings with the operators seeking the waiver were being held, a formal decision was yet to be taken. Emailed queries to the department of telecom remained unanswered. Also read | Mint Explainer: New telecom law gets partially notified. What next? According to the new NIA for the 2024 auctions, telecom operators don't need to submit financial and performance bank guarantees under the reform measures for the telecom sector taken in 2021. Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Reliance Jio asked the telecom department to also consider waiving the requirement for the spectrum bought prior to 2022. The carriers argued that the money could instead be channelled towards improving networks. Creditworthiness of the service providers was consistent, whether it is for past or future spectrum auction payments. Further, continuing with this requirement unnecessarily blocks the working capital of the telcos, inhibiting investments in network rollout to deliver ubiquitous coverage and connectivity to Indian citizens," the Cellular Operators Association of India said in a letter to Neeraj Mittal, secretary of the department of telecommunications, seen by Mint. The operators said the investments into networks would go towards meeting the governments vision of providing competition and customer choice for inclusive development and bringing the marginalized areas into the mainstream, besides universal broadband access to connect the unconnected. And read | Why foreign investors ploughed into India's telecom stocks Property Share Investment Trust, a small and medium real estate investment trust, on Friday, filed its draft papers with market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for 353 crore initial public offering (IPO). The proceeds from the offer are planned to be used mainly for acquiring the Prestige Tech Platina asset by the Platina SPVs (special purpose vehicles), with any remaining funds allocated for other general corporate purposes. Also Read | Swiggy IPO: Top 10 things to know about the public offering The IPO will be a fresh issue of Platina units, with no offer for sale. ICICI Securities Limited is the sole lead manager to the Offer and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas is the Indian Legal Counsel to Property Share Investment Trust and the Investment Manager in relation to the PropShare Platina. Further, KFin Technologies Ltd is the registrar of the offer. Axis Trustee Services Limited is the Trustee for the Issue, and PropShare Investment Manager Private Limited is the Investment Manager for the offer. The units are proposed to be listed on BSE. With the introduction of SM REITs, the regulator has introduced a regulatory framework for a new asset class to the varied class of public investors. We believe PropShare Platina - Indias 1st SM REIT scheme, offers investors an opportunity to invest in a Grade A pre-leased commercial property at a ticket size starting 10 lakh," said Hashim Khan, Director, Property Share. About the company PropShare Platina includes 246,935 square feet of office space within Prestige Tech Platina, a LEED Gold-certified office building situated on Outer Ring Road in Bengaluru. The space is set to be entirely leased to a US-based tech company under a new nine-year lease agreement, featuring a 4.6-year weighted average lock-in period and a 15 per cent rent escalation every three years. Investors in this scheme can expect a projected distribution yield of 9 per cent for FY26. Also Read | Manba Finance IPO allotment status out. What GMP signals as eyes set on listing The Outer Ring Road is the largest office market in Bengaluru, accounting for approximately 34 per cent of the total office space, according to research by Jones Lang LaSalle. It hosts the offices of numerous multinational companies, including Adobe, Amazon, Google, Samsung, CISCO, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo. Developed by The Prestige Group, the asset is conveniently located near the upcoming metro station that will connect the Outer Ring Road to the airport. Phoenix Overseas IPO listing: Shares of Phoenix Overseas made a flat debut on the bourses on Friday, September 27 as they listed at 64 on NSE SME, the same as its IPO price. The SME IPO, valued at 36.03 crore, was open for subscription from September 20 to September 24. The IPO was priced in the range of 61-64 per share. Following the three-day bidding process, the IPO closed with an overwhelming demand, with the issue subscribed 119.22 times. The IPO received bids for 64.78 crore shares against 54.34 lakh shares on offer. The retail investor segment saw a massive subscription of 148.43 times, while the Non Institutional Investors (NII) category was booked 109.71 times. Meanwhile, the Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs) quota was subscribed 65.74 times. About the IPO The Phoenix Overseas IPO was a combination of fresh issue of 45.8 lakh shares aggregating to 29.31 crore and offer for sale of 10.5 lakh shares aggregating to 6.72 crore. The minimum application size for retail investors was set at 2000 shares, requiring an investment of 1.28 lakh. The company intends to use the net proceeds from the offer for several key purposes, including funding its working capital requirements, pursuing inorganic growth initiatives to expand its business, and addressing general corporate purposes. These objectives aim to enhance operational efficiency, support strategic acquisitions, and ensure the company's overall financial stability and growth. Khandwala Securities Limited was the book-running lead manager of the Phoenix Overseas IPO, while Cameo Corporate Services Limited was the registrar for the issue. The market maker for Phoenix Overseas IPO was Nikunj Stock Brokers. About the Company Incorporated in December 2002, Phoenix Overseas Limited is a B2B trading company specialising in the trading and marketing of animal feeds, agricultural produce, and commodities such as corn, oil cakes, dry red chillies, coriander, cumin seeds, food grains, tea, pulses, soya bean meal, and rice bran de-oiled cake. Alongside its core trading operations, the company also manufactures a variety of bags and fashion accessories for men and women, made from jute, cotton, canvas, and leather. These products include purses, wallets, and shopping bags, catering primarily to clients in European markets like France, Italy, and Germany, as well as in the UAE and Australia. Phoenix Overseas Limited operates a manufacturing facility located in Sodhpur, Kolkata. The Indian stock markets are hitting new highs regularly. Instead of feeling overwhelmed, investors should concentrate on the real challenge: choosing the right sectors and stocks to take advantage of this momentum. Currently, the spotlight is on metal stocks that are showing upward trends. Let's start by analyzing the Nifty Metal Index, which has emerged as the frontrunner. Nifty Metal Index View Full Image Source: Tradepoint, Definedge The Nifty Metal Index has staged an impressive breakout on the 0.25% X 3 daily point & figure (P&F) chart. This breakout from a four-column triangle pattern marks the end of a prolonged consolidation phase, signalling a robust bullish shift. What is a P&F chart? A point-and-figure chart uses X to denote bullish moves, while O denotes bearish moves. Unlike traditional time-based charts, P&F charts focus solely on price changes and are considered "noiseless". They filter out minor price fluctuations, highlighting significant trends and reversals. The lack of time constraints gives a clearer picture of supply and demand dynamics, helping chartists make more informed decisions. With this breakout, the index is on track to challenge its previous all-time high of 10,195. A successful breach of this level could set the stage for a further rally, potentially driving the index up by an additional 12-15%. The bullish trend in the Nifty Metal Index paves the way for large-cap metal stocks to continue their upward trajectory. Let us analyse three of the major playersHindalco, Vedanta and Tata Steelthat are likely to fuel the indexs rise. For more such in-depth analyses, read Profit Pulse. Hindalco Hindalco, the flagship company of the Aditya Birla Group, is a leading player in the metals industryand is known for its significant presence in aluminium and copper production. As one of the worlds largest integrated aluminium producers, Hindalco has a diverse portfolio that spans from mining to downstream products, making it a vital contributor to the metal sector's growth. Hindalco Daily Chart View Full Image Source: Tradepoint, Definedge The stock has successfully broken out from multi-month resistance levels around 700 on the daily chart, retested the breakout zone, and resumed its bullish ascent. The retest of this breakout offers an optimal risk-reward opportunity and confirms the strength of the upward move. Vedanta Vedanta Ltd (VEDL) is one of India's largest diversified natural resource companies. It has a strong presence in metals such as zinc, aluminium, and copper. Vedanta is known for its vast mining operations and industrial leadership and plays a crucial role in the global commodity markets. VEDL Daily Chart View Full Image Source: Tradepoint, Definedge On the daily chart, VEDL has broken out of a symmetrical triangle pattern, a sign that bullish momentum is building. One key point to note is that this chart is based on a non-dividend-adjusted price of 20 as of 10 September 2024. This adjustment allows traders to focus on the previous high of 506, which could be a significant psychological level. A monthly close above 506 would trigger a new wave of bullish sentiment, potentially pushing the stock into unexplored territory. Also Read: Three power stocks that are breaking out on the charts Tata Steel Tata Steel, one of the largest steel producers in the world, holds a key position in the Indian metal sector. Known for its strong fundamentals and global presence, Tata Steel has been a significant player in driving the growth of the Nifty Metal Index. The company has successfully navigated domestic and international market dynamics with a diverse portfolio spanning multiple regions and industries. Tata Steel Daily Chart View Full Image Source: Tradepoint, Definedge Tata Steel has experienced a technical reversal after testing its 200-day exponential moving average (DEMA) channel created using the 200 DEMA (high) and 200 DEMA (low), signalling that bears may have lost their grip on the stock, as evidenced by the bear trap on the chart. The breakout from a long consolidation phase, accompanied by rising volumes, strengthens the case for a trend reversal. As Tata Steel surges away from the 200 DEMA channel, the bulls appear to be firmly in control, making it a potential stock to add to your watchlist. Also Read: One sector, three breakout stocks. Can you take the bull by the horns? This strong technical outlook on the Nifty Metal Index and its key constituents suggests that the sector is poised for further gains. Investors can make the most of this bullish wave in the metals space by cherry-picking the right stocks. Note: The purpose of this article is only to share interesting charts, data points and thought-provoking opinions. It is NOT a recommendation. If you wish to consider an investment, you are strongly advised to consult your advisor. This article is strictly for educative purposes only. As per SEBI guidelines, the writer and his dependents may or may not hold the stocks/commodities/cryptos/any other assets discussed here. However, clients of Definedge may or may not own thesesecurities. Brijesh Bhatia has over 18 years of experience in India's financial markets as a trader and technical analyst. He has worked with the likes of UTI, Asit C Mehta, and Edelweiss Securities. Presently he is an analyst at Definedge. Disclosure: The writer and his dependents do not hold the stocks discussed here. Howeverm clients of Define edge may or may not own thesesecurities. Stock Market Today: MOS Utility Ltd share price is in focus on Friday, September 27 as five foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have picked a stake in the small-cap stock. MOS Utility share price has more than doubled since July 2024 lows and almost grown 4 folds in the last one year, hence giving multibagger returns to the investors FII pick up stakes As per bulk deals data available on NSE, five FIIs, namely Saint Capital Fund, AG Dynamic Funds Ltd., Minerva Ventures Fund, Nexpact Ltd. and Bridge India Fund, picked up stakes in MOS Utility Ltd on 26 September 2024. Saint Capital Fund picked up 15,40,000 shares, AG Dynamic Funds picked up 2,69,600 shares, while Bridge India Fund picked up 5,49,600 shares. Recently, MOS Utility's share price has also remained in focus as it entered into a share subscription/share purchase agreement to acquire 51% equity shares of Samvriddhi Inclusive Growth Network Private Limited. Samvriddhi Inclusive Growth Network is engaged in the business of providing financial inclusion and financial services etc. related services on a pan India basis through its network of agents. Also Read | Breakout stocks to buy or sell: Sumeet Bagadia recommends five shares to buy MOS Utility Limited provides a variety of fintech and utility payment solutions services to businesses and consumers. As per the block deal data, Minerva Ventures Fund and Saint Capital Fund acquired a stake in MOS Utility at an average price of 285.94 and 285, respectively. MOS is associated with renowned actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui to amplify its mission of financial inclusion. Helped by this strategic collaboration, MOS aims to highlight the convenience and accessibility of its financial services, showcasing how they cater to the diverse needs of individuals across India. Siddiqui's relatable and humble personality seamlessly aligns with MOSs customer-centric approach, resonating with the masses, according to the company. By tapping into his massive fan following spanning urban and rural India, MOS seeks to bridge the financial divide, promoting economic empowerment and social mobility. Stock Market Today: The benchmark Nifty 50, extending its record run, ended at fresh closing highs on September 26 . The late surge after a soft opening meant that the Nifty-50 index with gains of 211.90 points ended at 26,216.05 up 0.81% while S&P BSE Sensex with gains of 666.25 points ended at 85,836.12, up 0.78% Bank Nifty at 54,375.35 also ended with 0.51% gains led by surge in PSU banks. Gains in Auto and metal stocks supported the markets while Nifty Consumer Durables closed in the red. Broader indices remained subdued for another session, with mid and small caps ending mixed. Trade setup for Friday After Nifty ending with gains on Thursday, analysts expect momentum to continue. Technically, after a muted opening market successfully cleared 26000/85300 mark. Shrikant Chouhan, Head of Equity Research, Kotak Securities said that We are of the view that, as long as market is trading above 26000/85300 the bullish setup is likely to continue. On the higher side, it could move up till 26300-26375/86000-86300, while below 26000/85300 uptrend would be vulnerable. Bank Nifty broke out of the sideways consolidation 53800 54300 on the upside. we expect the momentum to continue towards 55000. Support base shift higher towards 54000 53900, said Jatin Gedia Technical Research Analyst at Sharekhan. Global Markets Asia and European markets on Thursday saw a surge in technology shares and China news as Beijing revealed additional stimulus plans aimed at boosting the country's economy. Beijing unveiled additional plans to boost the second-biggest economy in the world, including cash transfers to the underprivileged and an alleged $140 billion infusion into the biggest state-run banks. Siddhartha Khemka, Head - Research, Wealth Management, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd expects the bullish momentum in Nifty to continue supported by strong action in frontline stock. Globally, US Q2 GDP & PCE numbers would be important data to watch out Stocks to buy today Sumeet Bagadia, Executive Director at Choice Broking has recommended two stock picks for Wednesday. Also Ganesh Dongre, Senior Manager of technical Research at Anand Rathi has given another three stock picks for today. These include TVS Motor Company Ltd, BF Utilities Ltd , Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd, Indus Towers Ltd , Alembic Pharmaceuticals LTD Sumeet Bagadia's stocks to buy today 1, TVS Motor Company Ltd. Sumeet Bagadia recommends buying TVS Motor Company at 2891.1 with Stop Loss at 2790 and target price at 3050 TVS Motor Company is exhibiting strong bullish momentum, currently trading at an all-time high of 2902 levels. The recent breakout above the crucial resistance at 2800 levels is a significant technical development, supported by robust trading volumes, reinforcing the strength in the stock. The breakthrough suggests a potential continuation of the upward trend, offering an optimistic outlook for investors, said Bagadia 2. BF Utilities Ltd - Bagadia recommends buying BF Utilities Ltd at 1009.8 with Stoploss at 975 and target price at 1060 BF Utilities daily chart analysis offers a favourable view for the following week, indicating a steady higher advance. Notably, the stock has produced a notable higher high and higher low pattern, and the company's recent upward swing has effectively violated the neckline, establishing a new week high. This breakthrough indicates the possibility of a significant follow-through upward increase in the stock price. Ganesh Dongre, stocks to buy today 3. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd- Dongre recommended buying BPCL at 345 with a Stoploss at 335 with a Target price of 360 The stock found a substantial support level at Rs. 335, marking a crucial juncture in its recent trading. Presently, at Rs.345, the stock has demonstrated a definitive reversal in price action, suggesting a potential continuation of its upward momentum. Traders keen on seizing this opportunity could consider buying and holding the stock, setting a prudent stop loss at Rs.335. The anticipated target for this trade is Rs.360, representing the next significant resistance level. This strategy positions traders favorably to capitalize on the stock's anticipated rally in the weeks ahead, said Dongre 4. Indus Towers Ltd - Dongre recommends buying Indus Towers Ltd at 395 with a stoploss at 382 and target price of 420. In the recent short-term trend analysis of the stock, a notable bullish reversal pattern has emerged. This technical pattern suggests the possibility of a temporary retracement in the stock's price, potentially reaching around Rs. 420. At present, the stock is maintaining a crucial support level at Rs.382. Given the current market price of Rs.395, a buying opportunity is emerging. This suggests that investors might consider purchasing the stock at its current price, anticipating a rise towards the identified target of Rs. 420, said Dongre 5. Alembic Pharmaceuticals LTD - Dongre recommends buying Alembic Pharmaceuticals Ltd at 1200 with Stop Loss at 1160 and target price of 1260 On the daily chart of this stock, a breakout at the Rs. 1200 price level has been observed, signaling a potential upward trend. Complementing this breakout, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) is still turning up, indicating increasing buying momentum. Given these technical indicators, traders can consider buying on dips, entering the stock at a lower price point. To manage risk, a stop loss at Rs. 1160 is recommended. The target price for this strategy is Rs. 1260 in the upcoming weeks, suggesting a potential gain as the stock continues its upward trajectory. "What is love of art?" says Krishen Khanna. That I must be painting all the time." One of the founders of the Progressive Artists Group, the Mumbai-based artists who shaped the post-independence art scene in India, Khanna is the last surviving member of the iconic group of modernists. At 99, he remains just as devoted to the pursuit of art as he was more than 40 years ago when he spent four years (1980-84) painting the mammoth and detailed The Great Procession on the ceiling of the lobby of the ITC Maurya in New Delhi. Among his most awe-inspiring works, the handpainted mural, which he describes as a continuous procession with no beginning and no end", is a parade starting in Indias Mauryan past and continuing into scenes of the everyday. This panorama of vibrant imagery is imbued with a variety of emotions ranging from humour to pathos. I have been sketching and drawing as always," he replies over email when asked about his plans for his 100th year (he turns 100 in July 2025). I have done a large painting depicting dereliction recently. It took me a long time and went through many iterations." The art world, meanwhile, has been marking this milestone yearnot just in the life of this deeply humanist painter but also in the intertwined history of a postindependence nation and Indian modernismwith a host of events. Tao Art Gallerys founder Kalpana Shah curated a landmark exhibition in Mumbai from 8 August-3 September to highlight the diversity of Khannas oeuvresculptures, tapestries, sketches and paintings from his six-decade-long practice. Earlier this month, auction house Saffronart held My Sketchbook in Colour in Delhi featuring hand-coloured mixed media works, including a display of unique timepieces with Khannas iconic Bandwallas created in collaboration with Swiss watchmakers Deguiret. In association with Aleph Book Company and education company Namtech, the auction house published a celebratory book, My 100th Year, edited by art critic-curator Uma Nair. The book features rare archival images, most heartwarming of which are photographs of him with fellow modernists M.F. Husain, Tyeb Mehta, S.H. Raza and their families. It also includes photos of the artist at work by his son, Karan Khanna. Khannas Bandwalla seriespoignant renderings in sculpture and painting of the musicians who lead Indian wedding processions, usually in shades of ochre and redis among his most iconic works, popular with both collectors and enthusiasts. These men who drum up a good cheer and set the tone for the celebration with their shiny brass instruments and bright uniforms, are rarely included in the celebrations. When he was working out of the Garhi studio in Delhi, he would see bandwallas at the crossroads, marching to join a baraat," explains Kishore Singh, senior vice-president, DAG. These people who added so much colour to a wedding procession would not even be invited to have a cup of tea at the celebration. You have to have knowledge of his empathy and humanitarianism to understand the story that he is telling you." Also read: What to watch this week: La Maison, Mr McMahon View Full Image 'O.K. Tata', oil on canvas. Image: courtesy Uma Nair/ Karan Khanna This depiction of the vulnerability of the human figure remains one of Khannas greatest strengths. One can see it time and time again in his works, whether he was tackling migration, social upheaval, conflict, the horrors of Partition or any other topic. In his News of Gandhijis Death (1948), for instance, a mass of people, across religions, classes and genders, are reading the newspapers in stunned silence. He keeps going back to the subject of the newspaper readers to show the emotional response of different people, drawn from the anonymous mass of humanity, to news. He did another version 40 years later," says Singh. A keen observer of the sights and sounds around him and ever sensitive to people living on the margins, Khanna began to bring bandwallas, truck drivers and dhaba owners into his works from the 1970s onwards. From rural migrants sleeping on the truck bed and exhausted musicians returning home at the end of the day, to huddled groups of refugees and labourers catching a short break at roadside tea stalls, the artist magnified and celebrated the unnoticed populations of Nizamuddin and Bhogal where he lived and worked those that seldom attract a second glance, the non-persons of the Indian streets, became Krishens unlikely heroes," writes art critic-curator Gayatri Sinha in Krishen Khanna: A Critical Biography (2001). Much of this empathy came from his own lived experiences of Partition when his family moved to Shimla from Lahore. Two works from 1947, Refugees on a Train 16 Hours Late and Exodus, are emblematic of the social upheaval and trauma of one of the biggest events of mass displacement in the subcontinent. In both, by portraying figures huddled closely at a station, waiting for a traina symbol for a bleak ray of hopeor farmers and cattle moving through waterlogged fields, leaving behind the land that was once home, Khanna creates a mood of melancholia. To create that tableau of humanity could only happen because it deeply affected him. (Later) The places he stayed became the stage on which he created his characters," says Nair. View Full Image Maltis Marriage Band at Ravensdale, 2019, oil on canvas. Image: courtesy Uma Nair/ Karan Khanna In My 100th Year, Khanna mentions seeing hundreds of trucks in Bhogal in Delhi, where many Sikhs migrated after Partition to become truck drivers. They were victims of Partition and they had no place to live, so they lived in the trucks. The same thing with the bandwallas. They were dislocated like everybody else. I have great sympathies with these people," he says. In the interview to Lounge, Khanna further explains: They became central subjects in my paintings because, though individually they might be overlooked, together they formed a powerful narrative of community and resilience." Also read: Hanif Kureshi (1982-2024): Bringing art out into the open Seventy-three years later, the plight of migrant labourers during the covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns affected Khanna deeply. Nair remembers a conversation with Khanna during those recent tough years: He asked me, What will they do? How will they live? His sensitivity to the human predicaments and catastrophes has defined his very being." Early influences Born in Lyallpur (now Faisalabad, Pakistan) in 1925, Khanna moved to England in 1938 to pursue higher studies. He had to return to Lahore in 1942 during World War II, after which the family was forced to move to Shimla during Partition. A year later, he joined Grindlays Bank in Bombay (now Mumbai), where he met the artists who would become his lifelong friendsS.H. Raza, M.F. Husain, Tyeb Mehta, F.N. Souza, V.S. Gaitondeand with whom he would create a new vocabulary for Indian art as the Progressive Artists Group,which combined modern techniques with indigenous concerns and subjects. Deeply interested in art from childhood, Khanna was barely seven when he first tried to replicate Leonardo da Vincis The Last Supper from a reproduction brought home by his father, who was a teacher in an intermediate college in Lahore. This theme, along with other Christian elements and iconographies, have remained a lifelong preoccupation with him. In his essay, The Betrayal and Flagellation, in the book Krishen Khanna: Images in My Time (2006), Norbert Lynton attributes this to Khannas education at a Christian school in Lahore and then at the Imperial Services College in England. his understanding of Christianity took on additional depth, with closer knowledge of the New Testament and of the character of Christian saints such as St Francis, still a favourite," writes Lynton, adding a caveat: that this emphasis on his Christian education must not overshadow Khannas grasp of Indian and Asian art, culture and mythology. Nair mentions that Khanna held his first major exhibition in 1949 and sold his first painting, Spring Nude, to Dr Homi Bhabha of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research for 225. Even though his job required him to shift to Madras (now Chennai) in 1953, his friendships with Husain, Gaitonde and Bal Chhabda endured. In 1961, I quit Grindlays. On my last day at work, Husain, Gaitonde and Bal Chhabda were at the door, waiting for me to emerge. The moment I came out, Bal Chhabda took my tie off, saying I wont need it anymore. We went out, had tea together to celebrate and then dinner at a place called The Coronation Durbar. Raza threw a party in Paris; they had all wanted me to quit," Khanna is quoted as telling Nair in My 100th Year. He moved to New Delhi, and soon after became the first Indian artist to be awarded the John D Rockefeller III Fund to be the artist-in-residence at American University, Washington, between 1963-64. Later he would go on to become a curator of sorts for the art collection built up by ITC Maurya in Delhi, using it as a platform for fellow artists. That includes the wonderful Meera Mukherjee sculptures such as Ashoka at Kalinga, besides prolific works by Akbar Padamsee, Tyeb Mehta and M.F. Husain," says Singh. As the first Rockefeller fellow, Khanna became the contact for other artists and recommended many others for the same. Khanna began to weave some kind of an influence, becoming more than just an artist at that point of time," he says. The heart of the artist Khanna was not always a figurative painter. In fact, between 1964-65, he created a number of abstract Sumi-e paintings in black ink on rice paper.. The paintings were instinctive, as opposed to considered For some time, Khanna chose to stay close to abstraction, partly under European and American influence but his instincts and his need to speak about the world more directly led him back to representation art on a very wide front," writes Lynton in Images in My Time. It is interesting to see how figuration slowly emerged from abstraction, with figures being depicted in two or three shades of brown and orange initially. This is visible in his 1978 work Rear View, which depicts the harsh reality of figures packed into the backs of trucks like cattle. The truck driver series from the 1970s is harsh, showing road workers in the back of vehicles, coming to work at night so that the traffic was not impacted during the day," says Singh. He draws your attention to someone who is supplying a service, contributing to the development of the city, but is not being taken care of by anyone." Also read: Mahanagar, Satyajit Ray's feminist masterpiece View Full Image Pieta, 2007, oil on canvas. Image: courtesy Uma Nair/ Karan Khanna The other key theme in his oeuvreversions of The Last Supper and of suffering, persecutionmay have been Biblical in narrative but the characters were often people who would frequent places like Nizamuddin in Delhi. Imagine a fakir becoming Lazarus," says Nair. While he loved looking at Old Masters, his integrity of purpose was to create his own unique identity. He believes that we see the enactment of the holy books all around us. Suffering is an emotion that touches a deep chord in him, and he always says that All great art has to be local." Within the Progressive Artists Group, different artists responded to the story of Christ differently. F.N. Souzas engagement with the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ in works such as Resurrected Christ and Crowned Christ are tinged with a sense of violence and aggression. "With Krishen Khanna, it was very different. He responded to the idea of koinonia, or the Christian idea of fellowship, in his own way. So you see the artist exploring what it means to achieve communion by eating together; the connection between betrayal and transcendence; the depiction of those who are a part of society and yet removed from it in the form of the Christian saint, kalander or a Sufi," explains cultural theorist and curator Ranjit Hoskote. Khanna has also engaged with characters from the Mahabharat, especially Dhritarashtra, Gandhari and Draupadi, in significant works such as the monochromatic The Blind King and Blindfolded Queen (2006), the bronze sculpture Gandhari (2006) and the oil on canvas The Humiliation of Draupadi (1986). He does not paint a heroic Draupadi but an extremely vulnerable one," says Singh, who had shown the painting in the 2021 DAG show, Navrasa: The Nine Emotions of Art. Instead of portraying the disrobing of Draupadi, he focuses on the public shaming, evoking a sense of revulsion and anger against this act of violence against a woman. He asks if this experience is heroism or valour as our storytellers like to portray. He does this with the Christian series also, this questioning of powers that be and holding to account the stories that are passed on to us," says Singh. These images of persecution became even more pertinent when painted in the backdrop of the Emergency. Hoskote is fascinated by the way in which Khanna blurs the lines between the secular and the sacred in works such as the Dhaba and Last Supper in which the apostles are working-class figures. They are touched by an inner life and a possibility of transcendence. There is an interplay between the worldly and the sacred. His imagination spans millennia," he says. Also read: Aboriginal Cry: A play about voices waiting to be heard Khannas practice also highlights the importance of having an art scene that is multigenerational, rather than focusing only on the present generation of artists. Each generation is experimental in its own way. That struck me very forcefully with Krishen. If you place him in the generation of the Progressives, he would be seen as defying the logic of that generation," he says. For instance, with the Bandwallas and the truck driver series, he ushered in this centering of the figure of the margins in his works. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was exploring the same protagonists that younger artists like Sudhir Patwardhan and Vivan Sundaram were doing. This is a lesson to not being committed to a watertight generational approach to history," explains Hoskote. Friends like family Khannas life and practice cannot be viewed in isolation; rather his journey is enmeshed with the lives and times of his fellow Progressives. These friendships were not only formative but also deeply sustained all the people involved," says Hoskote. S.H. Raza once said to me that My friends were strange and powerful animals. And that phrase is stuck in my head because it is so truethese artists had powerful energies." Stories about Khannas generosity are well-known. Tyeb Mehta, in interviews, had talked of Khanna finding a place for him to stay when he came to Delhi. He did the same for Ram Kumar and many other artists. Tanuj Berry, who has been a friend of Khannas since 2002, has worked on four publications about him, and has written an introduction to In My 100th Year with Saman Malik, states in an email interview, Himmat Shah had started living in Garhi studios, which is not a space to dwell in but only to work. The artist was soon asked to vacate the studios. However, Krishen, recognising his talent and need, fought for him to be allowed to live in Garhi for years, preserving the possibility of one of Indias most celebrated sculptors to continue to survive and work." Even though the Progressives artists hailed from different cultural backgrounds, they found common ground. Hoskote elaborates on the differencesRaza, who still carried the baggage of his family being splintered by Partition; Husain. who grew up in the art deco capital of Indore and was transitioning from being a billboard painter and toy maker to a fine arts painter; and Khanna, who came from the professional bourgeoisie". I find myself intrigued by how these incredible friendships were formed across lines of region and religion. The one aspect that bound them together was that they were committed to something more than the visual artsand that was their deep immersion in literature," says Hoskote. View Full Image Krishen Khanna with artist friends (M.F. Husain, Nirmal Verma, Tyeb Mehta) and their families. Photo: courtesy Uma Nair/ Karan Khanna/ Saffronart For instance, Khanna, who is multilingual, studied literature in Persian, Punjabi, Urdu and English. Husain too was a voracious reader in several languages. Ram Kumar wrote fiction in Hindi, and Raza engaged with writings in Sanskrit, Hindi and English. I think this participation in a larger literary culture brought them together. Each of them expressed this engagement in different ways in their work," he adds. Among the Progressives, Khanna and Raza were prolific letter writers and much of their correspondence to each other is now with the Raza Foundation. They didnt just write to each other about exhibitions, forms and techniques but also about their personal lives. It was very charming how they included family in their conversations. Their relationship embraced a wider, more inclusive world. This ability to share stories came naturally to Krishen as he is such a raconteur, and to Raza (who later lived in France) because he missed home a lot. That connection and contact was important to them," explains Singh. When he shifted to Delhi, artists who lived in and around Nizamuddin would get together at a local dhaba in the morning for chai. Or they would split a bottle of rum at each others homes over long conversations," says Singh. Many of his friends ended up as subjects in his works. Take The Last Bite (2005), his version of the Last Supper, featuring Padamsee, Mehta, Souza, Bhupen Khakhar and Manjit Bawa gathered around Husain in a restaurant. Then there is Portrait of Husain (1954), which once again featured his dear friend. In My 100th Year features a lovely anecdote in Khannas own words: I recall many years ago, he (Husain) bought a Volkswagen when he was in Germany. He drove all around and then went to Paris to meet Akbar Padamsee. When he was coming back to India, he wanted to sell the car and told Akbar to find a buyer. Akbar said he could buy the car. So M.F. promptly handed over the keys to him. No money dealing was ever done" Also read: Avan Lapli: Reframing sites of history along the Indian Ocean Memories such as these have continued to inform his work though he does not live in the past. When the covid-19 pandemic struck, he remembered his friends together. He was filled with nostalgia and said, Theyve all gone. I am the only one left," says Nair. Khanna often refers to himself as an Ancient Mariner", who has remained behind to tell the stories of his friends. Nair recalls something he said to her in 2010 at a Grosvenor exhibition in London: He said: Painting from my sitting room, I am surrounded by all my friends; Husain, Gaitonde, Raza, Tyeb, Padamsee... their paintings are all around me and have become a part of me. I feel that they are all still with me and that is a happy thought." View Full Image For Krishen Khanna, painting is not just about creating; its an investigationa continuous exploration of what lies beyond the familiar. Photo: courtesy Tao Art Gallery FINDING INSPIRATION IN EVERYDAY FIGURES In an interview, relayed to Lounge by the artists daughter Malati Shah, Khanna reflects on all that continues to drive his art The Last Supper has remained an enduring subject for you. What drew you to the subject at such a young age, and how has your reading of the painting changed over time? As a child, I was deeply captivated by the solemnity and human drama of The Last Supper. Even at the tender age of 7, I could sense the weight of these moments, and it ignited my desire to capture such profundities on canvas. Over time, my understanding of the painting has evolved. Its no longer just a Biblical depiction; its a reflection of the human condition, the complexities of relationships, and the universal themes of hope and despair. Every revisit is a fresh exploration, a deeper dive into the unending layers of human emotion and narrative. Be it Partition, protests during the Emergency, or scenes around the studio, how does the figure on the street become a protagonist in the depiction of major historical events? The recurring presence of figures like the bandwallas, dhabawallas, and truck drivers in my work stems from their omnipresence in everyday scenes around places like the Red Fort and Jangpura (in Delhi), where I lived. These individuals, often seen in groups, represented a collective strength and identity that resonated deeply with me. They became central subjects in my paintings because, though individually they might be overlooked, together they formed a powerful narrative of community and resilience. It always intrigued me that such rich subject matter was rarely explored by other artists, with notable exceptions like Mickey Patel, who also found inspiration in the everyday lives of these unsung heroes in figurative art. For me, these figures are not just background elements; they are the true protagonists, embodying the spirit of the streets and the everyday reality of major historical events. Could you look back at the most cherished moments of camaraderie, support and even positive criticism by fellow artists? Lets start with a younger me and my friendships at that time. Take, Pran Nath Mago, for instance. At that time, I worked with a printing press, but was interested in art probably with the same intensity as now. His work fascinated me then and still does. The way he worked like a miniaturist but was not held back by the so-called dangers of being imitative. After all, even those original miniaturists savoured the procedure. In art, other peoples experiences become ones own. In the age of new media, AI and tech-based art, what does the act of pure painting mean to you? Painting is not just about creating; its an investigationa continuous exploration of what lies beyond the familiar. Just as a doctor investigates a body, I approach each canvas with the same intensity and curiosity, searching for something that hasnt existed before. This process of discovery and the potential to bring forth something new and different is what drives my art. Its about the intensity of seeing, feeling and translating those experiences on to the canvas, irrespective of the technological advancements around us. Pure painting, for me, is the pursuit of a deeper truth and the relentless exploration of possibilities. Growing up in a family of lawyers in Delhi, it wasnt surprising that Saurabh Kirpal would choose a career in law. But it was only when he started living as an openly gay man with his partner in India that he experiencedwhat he describes in a video interview with Lounge as an eye-opening moment". Suddenly the full brunt of inequalitythe humiliating reality of living in ones own country as a lesser citizen, in a perpetual state of discriminationdawned on him. It is this bitter truth that led Kirpal to become one of the key advocates for marriage equality and argue for its legal sanctions before the Supreme Court last year. Although the apex court ruled against the petitions, leaving it up to the lawmakers to reform the status quo, the fight for marriage equality remains alive. In his new book Who is Equal? The Equality Code of the Constitution, Kirpal takes a hard look at the concept of equality as enshrined in the Constitution, and especially the often conflicting ways in which it has been interpreted by courts in India. Such confusions owe their origins to the Constitution itself, either to its linguistic ambiguity or to the inescapably elitist mindset of its creators. The chief architect of the document, B.R. Ambedkar, had anticipated such scenarios when he pre-emptively warned: On 26 January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions." Taking us back to the first principles that went into crafting independent Indias founding charter, Kirpals book is written with rigour, clarity, and no legalese. Targeted at ordinary citizens, it functions as a glossary to the all-important Articles 12-35 of the Constitution, which define the fundamental rights accorded to all citizens of India. Students, scholars and practitioners of law will also benefit from Kirpals luminous, humane and persuasive arguments. View Full Image 'Who is Equal? The Equality Code of the Constitution', by Saurabh Kirpal, Penguin Random House India, 304 pages, 699 Having introduced the formal (the text of the law), substantive (the impact of the law) and procedural (the law in practice) approaches to equality, Kirpal moves into the thorny terrain of the rule of law. Concepts like generality of law and intelligible differentia (the justification for treating certain groups of people or situations differently), among others, come alive in examples drawn from a rich repository of judgments. Kirpal mentions a case in 1949, cited by Constitution scholar Rohit De, in which an irate Parsi journalist challenged the Bombay Prohibition Act, 1949 as it criminalised Indians for drinking alcohol without a permit, which, ironically, was only issued to foreign nationals and military personnel visiting Bombay. While the Bombay high court accepted it as an act of discrimination, the Supreme Court took a different view. The doctrine of equality, the court ruled, didnt mean that a legislature could not create different classes of peoplein this case military personnel and civilians." While such a verdict will now be dismissed as outside of the scope of intelligible differentia, Kirpal shows that different spheres of civilian lifebe it education, employment, business, democracy or marriagecontinue to be affected by whimsical judgements. The Letter of the Law If the Indian Constitution was a document ahead of its time, it also came with its share of glitches, Kirpal reminds us. The egregious under-representation of women in the original Constituent Assembly (15 women against 374 men), along with the dominance of upper-caste elites in the overall representation of the members, meant that the future of India was mostly decided by a privileged handful. Given the intellectual calibre in the room, it is likely that members of the Constituent Assembly were aware of their relative privilege, Kirpal says, though they were also products of their time. Fabian Socialism was a major influence on the making of the Constitution, but in the end, Ambedkars vision prevailed," he adds. His desire to change peoples lives for the better was the driving force behind the document." As a result, the focus on substantive equality (a rights-based approach that focused on equality, equal opportunity and fair outcomes) led to forward-thinking provisions like quotas, long before the Mandal Commission gave affirmative action a boost in the 1980s. However, the Constitution perpetuated certain draconian colonial rights, too, like that of preventive detention (Article 22) by the State. It was cautious in dealing with personal laws, leaving little room for active reform. And so, while property laws may have seen positive developments over the ages, the reality of marital rape, for instance, is still not accepted by the judiciary in the 21st century. Such anomalies come through in Kirpals examination of landmark verdicts, informed by the subjective views of the judges who delivered them. Judges author judgments shaped as they are by their own political philosophies and fashioned by the dominant thinking of the times," he writes. Seemingly progressive rulings can, therefore, smack of internalised biases. In 2017, when a bench of the Supreme Court ruled that verbal divorce (triple talaq) as sanctioned by Islamic law was unconstitutional, the judgement was lauded by many for protecting the rights of women, but equally criticised by a section of feminists. As Kirpal shows, the ruling was based on several key assumptions by the bench (the sanctity of marriage and a moral objection to the ease of divorce, among others) rather than an application of the general classification testthe fact that wives didnt enjoy the same privilege of divorcing their husbands by triple talaq. Gender inequality was writ large in the provision," Kirpal concludes, yet the text of the judgment is seemingly unaware of the discrimination innate in the provision." The Face of the Law This ability to help the reader confront the challenges raised by a polyvocal court which creates uncertainty in the law" and acts less as a symphony and more as a cacophony" makes Who is Equal? an urgently relevant read for these times. Judicial subjectivities, mired in patriarchal attitudes, have resulted in a lingering toxicity in the system. A case in point is inter-caste marriage and its relationship with existing reservation laws. As Kirpal writes in the chapter on employment, If an upper caste woman marries a scheduled caste man, she is not entitled to any reservations that her husband may be entitled to." If you think this is a rare exception in a heavily patriarchal system where a woman, for once, is not forced to take the caste of her husband on marriage, youll be sorely mistaken. While the woman is exempted from taking her husbands caste, Kirpal adds, the children born out of such a marriage would likely be eligible for reservations as they are presumed to have the caste of their father". And yet, when it comes to a lower-caste man marrying an upper-caste woman, the man does not lose the benefits of his caste upon marriage". This sleight-of-hand clause in the law was invoked after the death of Rohith Vemula by suicide to determine his caste status. While a sound legal education may act as a deterrent to subjective biases, the judiciary remains overburdened with too many matters, with a lot riding on the judges, as Kirpal says. It doesnt help that India doesnt have a codified anti-discrimination law, which is really a reflection of the apathy of our lawmakers towards the citizenry. The poor dont really capture the attention of Parliament, which, in turn, palms off the responsibility of ensuring equality on to the courts," he adds. The political reluctance to grant more rights to religious minorities, which, in turn will likely upset the majority community, may be a reason behind the lack of an anti-discrimination law, but the blame cannot be put on the current dispensation alone. Why did it not come into effect in the 1950s, or when other regimes were in power?" Kirpal asks. The truth is, as a society we are far from rights conscious, and still led by upper-caste elitist interests." Somak Ghoshal is a writer based in Delhi. Also read: Franz Kafka and the truth we are afraid of The Bombay High Court has recently held that employees cannot be penalised for employers failure to deposit tax deducted (TDS) from salary. The object and purpose behind the provision is to the effect that when an obligation to deposit the tax as in the present case, is on the employer and if the employer has defaulted, the liability to pay such tax cannot be shifted so as to be foisted on the employee, the Bombay High Court said in a recent order. It is worth recalling that employees of TCS received income tax notices about discrepancies in their TDS. Several employees received income tax notices due to discrepancies between the TDS credit in their Form 26AS, Annual Information Statement (AIS) and the amount they claimed while filing their income tax return. So, how does it impact the employees whose income tax is deducted as TDS by the employer and supposed to be deposited with the income tax department. Take these steps to access Form 26AS 1. If you are an employee, you can check the tax deduction on 26AS which shows monthly deduction of tax. So, you can check whether your employer is depositing the tax that it shows on your salary slip. 2. Even during the year, you can check the tax deduction as shown in your annual tax statement (or 26AS) whether the TDS has been deducted or not. 3. In order to check your form 26AS, you can take the following steps: i). Visit the income tax e-filing website. ii). Log in to the website by entering login ID and password. iii). Once logged in, you can go to e-file and click to access the scroll down menu. iv). Click 'Income Tax Returns', go to the scroll down menu, and click view form 26AS. v). This will take you to another link which opens as a separate window. vi). Now, you need to click View Tax Credit (Form 26AS/Annual Tax Statement). Here you can access the tax deposited by the employer with the income tax department. Nevada Democratic leaders this week spoke to journalists in rural areas about their goals of bringing more people into the fold and how they want to touch bases with all voters. In a Thursday news conference via Zoom, Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno, who chairs the Democratic Party in Nevada, said readers and viewers in rural areas matter to the party and they hope to get that message across. I made a promise that Nevada Democrats would touch every corner of this state, connect with every voter, whether they were in the rurals, urban, [or] frontier part of our state. That we would take no vote for granted, said Monroe-Moreno, the first Black woman to hold the position of state Democratic Party chair. She and other party leaders, such as rural caucus chief Aaron Sims clearly have good intentions, but do they really have the drive or know-how to reach those voters? Sims is chair of his partys rural caucus, but lives and works in a relatively metropolitan part of the state, as defined by the party. His commute from suburban Washoe Valley to Reno is a brief 25 minutes, give or take. By comparison, commutes from the micropolitan county of Elko to the nearest metropolitan area, Salt Lake City, ranges from about two to four hours or more, depending on how far you are from Interstate 80 for the drive. Monroe-Moreno and Sims noted there are six rural party outposts in the northern reaches of Nevada, including in Elko County. But when an operation is managed far from its constituency, is it representative of those it serves? Id say Washoe Valley is pretty rural, Sims said, noting hes also lived in Carson City for 14 years and before those 10 years in Gardnerville; to me, thats, you know, thats rural. He said the party and others define rural Nevada as basically anything thats not the Reno or Las Vegas-Henderson area. But I do spend a tremendous amount of time in other places across the state. Lost on the two, though, is just how rural northeastern Nevada is. Some vehicles going from one end of Elko County to the other wont make it on a tank of gas. It was pointed out to the party leaders that over-the-air TV in Elko County is rebroadcast from Reno and Salt Lake City via a taxpayer funded television district. There is no cable TV in Elko County; thankfully there is fiber-cable high-speed internet. But because theres no broadcast TV in town and local radio doesnt span very much of the broadcast frequencies, theres not much outreach targeting Elko voters, save for streaming services. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding, as very few Democrats hold office in the county. Thank you for sharing that, Monroe-Moreno said. I will share that information that you gave with both the Rosen team and the Harris team about those ad placements because of where you get that TV media. Question 3 Monroe-Moreno and Sims also spoke about other political matters that splash across screens on video streamers day and night, including Question 3, which will appear on the November ballot in Nevada. Ads in support of Question 3 talk about opening primaries to everyone, so no one is skipped during a state-run election. What the ad doesnt mention is this relies on ranked-choice voting, which pools all primary candidates onto a single ballot for everyone. They rank their choices from 1 to 5 and then, through complex computational algorithms, a winner is divined if no candidate wins an outright majority. Democrats oppose Question 3 because two issues actually are on a single question and because ranked-choice voting, they say, isnt a good idea. And, they said, this is one issue they oppose along with their political brethren on the other side of the aisle. So, if the Dems oppose this measure, and the GOP also isnt in favor, who is pushing Question 3? Thats a really good question, Monroe-Moreno said. From what I have been able to learn, its some out-of-state folks who are pushing an agenda that people with very deep pockets much deeper than mine are investing in our state, to change the way we do business here. She said opening primaries is a discussion that a lot of people want to have in this state. It should be on a separate question. But when you look at the ranked-choice voting, weve seen how its worked in some states, and it hasnt always been to the benefit of the constituents in that state. Durga Puja is around the corner, and devotees are gearing up to celebrate the annual 10-day festival with great fervour and enthusiasm. However, for Bangladesh's Hindu minority, this time, celebrations might take a back seat as radical groups issued a warning to Hindu minorities in the nation, India Today reported. The radical group Insaf Keemkari Chhatra-Janta warned against open celebrations of the festival and idol worship or immersion. Ahead of Durga Puja celebrations, the group staged a protest in Dhaka's sector 13 against the use of a playground by the Hindu community. Notably, the playground had been used by the community for many years. Amid tensions between religious groups in the country ruled by Muhammad Yunus, the organisation protested against nationwide holidays during the festival. Agitating against the use of the area for the festival and demanding restrictions on celebrations, the Insaf Keemkari Chhatra-Janta protestors held different placards in Bangla that read, No worship anywhere by closing roads, no pollution to water by idol immersion, no worship to idols. The group presents a 16-point list of demands The extremist group members presented a 16-point list of demands and cited environmental damage as the reason to stop Durga Puja celebrations. The demands ranged from preventing the use of government relief funds for festival expenses to eliminating road closures during festivities. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday criticised the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) for allegedly releasing more water without notifying the Bengal government. The Chief Minister expressed concern over the relentless heavy rainfall in the state and suggested that DVC's unchecked water release might aggravate the situation. Today it rained heavily, and yesterday the DVC released another 25,000 cusecs of water without informing us. They did not communicate through our sources. I am worried about what will happen if the rain does not stop in the next three days, said Mamata Banerjee, reported PTI. DVC has no other work. They only release water and kill human beings. West Bengal is not flooded because of heavy rain. The report further stated that Mamata Banerjee has repeatedly asserted that the floods in West Bengal are largely man-made and caused by unnecessary water discharge from DVC dams. Responding to the allegations, the Union Power Ministry stated that all procedures were followed in releasing water from the DVC dams. The department further denied Mamata Banerjee's claims that the discharges were responsible for the flooding in the state. Also Read | South Bengal districts under flood alert after DVC releases 1 L cusecs of water Recently, the Chief Minister has also written two letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging his intervention in the flood situation and requesting the release of funds. DVC has no other work The West Bengal CM has been targeting the DVC over its handling of water releases from the dam. Last week, the CM blamed the DVC, claiming that the unplanned water releases had contributed to the floods in the state. She added that 28 people had died because of the increasing floods. DVC has no other work. They only release water and kill human beings. West Bengal is not flooded because of heavy rain, the Chief Minister said while addressing a press conference in the States Birbhum district, reported The Hindu. Also Read | DVC chairman Andrew W.K. Langstieh resigns During a meeting in Burdwan, Mamta Banerjee condemned the Central governments handling of the situation, stating that millions of houses were inundated because of their inaction. Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis emphasized that the shooting of the accused in the Badlapur sexual assault case was an act of self-defense, stating that the police "will not clap" if faced with an attack. Speaking at the India Today Mumbai Conclave, Fadnavis clarified that he does not endorse "encounters" but cautioned against glorifying such incidents. We do not believe in encounters and I personally believe that the rule of law must be followed and, accordingly, the criminal must be punished and that must be done quickly. Our police will not clap if attacked, and they shot at the accused in self-defence, Fadnavis told India Today. CM orchestrated encounter: Raut Meanwhile, Leader of Shiv Sena (UBT) Sanjay Raut alleged that the State Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister orchestrated the encounter to protect the BJP and RSS affiliates associated with the same institution as the accused. The UBT leader also accused the Maharashtra government of attempting to leverage the police encounter for their political gain, claiming that the CM and his Deputy are engaged in a race to take credit for the situation, ANI reported. "Rapists should be taught a tough lesson. And these fast-track courts should not get into such cases. There should be immediate justice", Raut said. However, he added, "If you encounter such people for your own political gain, then it is wrong." He also noted, There is a race to take credit for encounters. I am Singham or you are Singham. This competition makes it clear how big politics is going on, Raut said while criticising the competition surrounding the police encounters and accusing the CM Eknath Shinde and his Deputy Devendra Fadnavis of 'fighting' to take credit for the encounter. What did Bombay HC say? The Bombay High Court has raised concerns about the police encounter involving Akshay Shinde, stating, "It is difficult to believe this. Prima facie there seem to be issues." Justice Chavan highlighted that a physically weak individual would struggle to fire a pistol or quickly unlock a revolver. Shinde's father, Anna Shinde, has filed a petition calling for a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the case, claiming his son was killed in a fake encounter. The court has instructed that all case documents be transferred to the state CID for investigation, questioning the delay in this transfer. The next hearing is set for October 3. Akshay Shinde, 23, was arrested on August 17 for allegedly sexually assaulting two girls in a school toilet. According to police reports, he was shot after allegedly firing at officers while being transported from jail. This incident has sparked controversy between the ruling Mahayuti government and the opposition, especially as Maharashtra approaches Assembly elections later this year. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday slammed the INDIA block and the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal after two students from Bihar, who had gone to West Bengal for a SSC exam, were allegedly assaulted by a group of men in Siliguri. WB police have said that two people have been arrested in connection with the incident. Taking to microblogging platform X (formerly known as Twitter), BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla questioned the law and order situation in West Bengal, asking if it is prohibited for any Indian to go to any state? Poonawalla said, " The people who make huge statements regarding the Constitution, who carry out the Bharat Jodo Yatra should answer if it is prohibited for any Indian to go to any state? " The (West Bengal) state government should take appropriate action but the question is, has Tejashwi Yadav spoken anything against the politics of addressing Indians as 'Baharis' in some states? The 'Yuvraj' of Congress bifurcates between outsiders and locals... DMK leaders insult the people of UP and Bihar, such an incident takes place in a TMC-ruled state, and Tejashwi Yadav is in alliance with them...," Poonawalla added. Poonawalla attacked RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav over his silence on the incident, Tejashwi Yadav, who went to Bengal and campaigned with Mamata Banerjee, should answer what the government of West Bengal is doing... The West Bengal calls the people of UP-Bihar as 'Bahari' (outsiders)... Meanwhile, Siliguri Police have said that two persons have been arrested for allegedly threatening and heckling two CISF job aspirants from Bihar. The police said two persons, identified as Rajat Bhattacharya and Giridhari Roy, were arrested on the charge of harassment, intimidation and assault on two persons from Bihar. Also Read | West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee slams DVC for releasing water without notice Earlier on Thursday, Union Minister Giriraj Singh criticized the West Bengal government over the incident. Red carpet for Rohingya Muslims in Bengal and Bihar kid beaten up for taking exam? Are these children not part of India? Has Mamata government taken the contract of only saving rapists?, Singh posted on X. Sharing the viral video of the alleged incident, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leader Chirag Paswan asked West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee if it a crime to take an exam in West Bengal? The news of brutal assault on Bihari students in West Bengal is very unfortunate and condemnable. The Chief Minister of that state has once again insulted the Biharis, which cannot be tolerated at all. I want to ask Mamata Banerjee ji, is it a crime to take an exam in West Bengal? Will the opposition party leaders still remain silent? I want to ask the Leader of Opposition of Bihar, on what basis will you support the Trinamool Congress now. I request the Honorable Chief Minister Shri @NitishKumar ji to get the matter thoroughly investigated and take legal action against the culprits. Paswan posted in Hindi. To cleanse the Jaipur Municipal Corporation Heritage (JMCH) office of alleged corruption, Hawa Mahal MLA Balmukund Acharya sprinkled a mixture of Gangajal and gamutra (cow urine) on the councillors and the premises. As reported by Indian Express, the BJP removed sitting JMCH Mayor Munesh Gurjar amid corruption allegations and replaced her with Kusum Yadav, who gained support from seven Congress turncoats and one independent councillor to secure a majority. We have purified it with Gangajal and removed all impurities. And after prayers with Vedic mantras, behenji (the new Mayor) has assumed charge on this navami date. Now there will be an environment of purity in the municipal corporation, the mahant said. On Tuesday, these eight joined the BJP. Before Yadav assumed office on Wednesday, Balmukund Acharya conducted a purification ceremony for the JMCH premises, councillors, and officers. The councillors and officials also symbolically drank the mixture as it was applied to their faces, including their lips, the report said. Balmukund Acharya told The Indian Express, I sprinkled Gangajal and gamutra in the JMC office to address the corruption. From today, the JMCH is corruption-free. He mentioned that he carries a bottle containing the mixture of Gangajal and gomutra. I keep it in my car and drink it daily, he said, noting that he sprinkled it on the councillors and added, They cant say that the dash of water didnt touch them. Asked whether the JMCH officials were also given Gangajal and gamutra, he said Gangajal and gamutra has been fed to everyone before the Mayor assumes charge. In our culture, Gangajal and gamutra are fed so that in case you have committed any crimes, you are free of them now. Now you are sanatani, work with purity Earlier in May 2021, BJP leader Pragya Thakur has said that Cow urine extract protects from coronavirus and lung infections and stated that she takes cow urine daily and it has protected her from Covid-19. The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday won the last vacant seat of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) standing committee, the highest decision-making body of Delhi civic body. In the elections for the last vacant seat of the 18-member MCD Standing Committee, BJP candidate Sunder Singh received 115 votes, while the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Nirmala Kumari did not get any votes. Singh won unopposed as the councillors of the ruling AAP and Congress boycotted the election. Reacting to his victory, Sunder Singh Tanwar said, I thank the top leadership for having faith in me. The AAP also had filed their nomination but they might not have had trust in their own councillors. They thought it was better to run away from the election. Further stating that they were given opportunities multiple times, Sunder Singh said, "Everybody was given time of 1 pm today but they did not show upThe presiding officer conducted the election free and fair...I won..." The seat became vacant after BJP councillor Kamaljeet Sehrawat was elected as the Lok Sabha MP from West Delhi. Now, the BJP has 10 members in the panel while the ruling AAP has only eight. Meanwhile, AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal slammed the BJP and accused the saffron party of stealing the mandate and wrongly overpowering the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. "Is this election?" he asked and accused the BJP of resorting to "hooliganism". As per the rule, a notice has to be sent to every councillor 72 hours before the meeting, but it was not followed, claimed the former chief minister. However, BJP Councillor Raja Iqbal Singh termed it as the win of democracy. "The AAP knew they would lose the floor test so they left the battleground. The AAP is good at lying...they can go to court but the court always pulls them up," the BJP councillor added. Union Health Ministry issued an advisory on Thursday after India became the third non-African country to report clade 1b Mpox case on September 23. The advisory issued for all states and union territories warning against the Mpox infection said, Clinical presentation of Mpox clade I in adults remains similar to clade II. It is important to note that the rate of complications may be higher in clade I than with clade II infections. The Department of Health and Family Welfare's advisory dated September 26 instructed for the isolation of all suspected Mpox cases and the implementation of strict infection prevention and control measures. Also Read | Mpox in India: First case of Clade 1b strain detected in Kerala The Health and Family Welfare Department has provided clinical management protocols, infection prevention and control practices, and a risk communication strategy, in addition to a list of laboratories operationalised for testing. The World Health Organisation declared the Mpox disease outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on August 14 this year. This is the second time the WHO has declared Mpox disease associated with PHEIC under the International Health Regulations, 2005. Instructing the states to assess public health preparedness at health facilities, the ministry directed them to conduct reviews at both the state and district levels. Furthermore, the Health Ministry instructed authorities to ensure that hospitals set up isolation facilities to manage both suspected and confirmed cases. Requisite logistics including trained human resources in such facilities and development of an augmentation plan are among the other necessary requirements. The release further noted, The 2024 PHEIC is related to MPox virus clade I which is more virulent and more transmissible than Mpox clade II. According to the advisory, samples from skin lesions of any patient with the suspected Mpox symptoms should be sent to the designated labs promptly. Those patients who test positive, their sample should be sent to designated labs and to ICMR-NIV for genome sequencing to determine the clade. Delhi police on Friday said a firing incident has been reported in a car showroom in the Naraina area of the national capital. According to Delhi police several rounds were fired during the incident, however, no injuries were reported in the incident. Delhi police said they are investigating the matter. More details awaited. A similar firing incident was reported at a prominent mall in NCR's Noida on Monday, September 23. Noida police said the accused opened fire in the parking lot of the Gardens Galleria mall in Sector 138 after a fight at a bar. Later 3 men were arrested in the incident. According to Noida police, the three accused were partying at the Oscar resto-bar in the Gardens Galleria mall. They had consumed liquor. During the party, they had a fight with another group of people partying there. The fight took an ugly turn in the parking lot after which they opened fire. Noida police said they have recovered illegal weapons from them. According to Manish Mishra, the additional deputy commissioner of police in Noida, the incident occurred on Sunday night when two groups got into a fight at a pub in Gardens Galleria mall. The altercation moved to the parking lot, where shots were fired. Three people have been arrested and the weapon used in the firing has been recovered by the police. FIR has been registered at Sector 39 police station, said Manish Mishra. Earlier on September 21, Delhi police arrested two suspects in connection with an alleged firing incident in North West Delhi's Adarsh Nagar area. According to Delhi police, locals informed that unidentified people fired several gunshots in the air Adarsh Nagar area. Fortunately, no injuries were reported. After receiving information, police from the nearest police station rushed to the incident spot and controlled the situation as several gunshots have caused chaos in the area. In a shocking incident, a student studying in class 2 was murdered in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras as part of a 'black magic' ritual to bring fame to the school. The student, identified as Kritarth, was abducted by a teacher from the school's hostel on September 23. Later, he was taken to a secluded place for the sacrifice. However, as the student woke up and started crying, he was strangulated, reported PTI, quoting Ashok Kumar Singh, Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP). Police have arrested five people, including the owner of the school, his son, the principal and two teachers. In order to bring 'prosperity' to the school and his family, Jasodhan Singh, the school owner who reportedly believes in 'tantrik rituals', asked his son Dinesh Baghel, the director of the school, to sacrifice a child. The arrested principal and teachers have been identified as Laxman Singh Ramprakash Solanki and Veerpal Singh. Kritarth parents were apparently told that the child was unwell and was being taken to a hospital. Later, they were again called and informed that his condition had worsened, and he was being taken to Sadabad. "We followed them towards Agra, but they didnt stop the car. When we returned, we caught up with them in Sadabad, where we found the child's body in their car, India Today quoted the boys father as saying. Police said that the post-mortem report revealed that Kritarth was strangled. According to NDTV, the accused had earlier tried to 'sacrifice another student, on September 6, but had failed. Police said that the accused informed them during the investigation that the student was killed for 'sacrifice' for the prosperity of the school. "We have arrested five people," confirmed Hathras Superintendent of Police, Nipun Aggarwal. Weather today: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast heavy to very heavy rainfall in isolated regions across Himachal Pradesh, East Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. In Delhi, areas such as Narela, Bawana, and Akshardham, are expected to receive light to moderate rainfall at isolated places. A heavy rainfall alert has been issued for West Bengal and Sikkim for the upcoming week. The weather observatory has further stated that rainfall across the country is likely to be normal or above normal, except for South Peninsular India. This region is expected to receive below normal to normal rainfall over the week. Rainfall for West India The IMD has predicted fairly widespread to widespread rain and light to moderate rain for Konkan and Goa during the week. At the same time, Madhya Maharashtra, and Gujarat are expected to receive fairly widespread to widespread light to moderate rainfall during the next three days till September 29. The weather body has also issued a heavy rainfall alert for Madhya Maharashtra, Gujarat region, Saurashtra and Kutch on September 28. East and Northeast India Sub Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim are likely to experience heavy to very heavy rainfall on September 27. These regions are also expected to receive heavy rainfall on September 28, and October 2. Also Read | PM Narendra Modis visit to Pune cancelled due to heavy rainfall Meanwhile, isolated heavy rainfall is expected for these regions on specific dates: Jharkhand on September 27; Bihar on September 28; Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura during September 30-October 2. Northwest India The IMD has predicted isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall for Himachal Pradesh on September 27. It has also issued a very heavy rainfall alert for Uttarakhand on September 28. South Peninsular India The Met dept. has predicted scattered to fairly widespread light to moderate rainfall over the region during the week. Isolated heavy rainfall has been predicted for Kerala and Mahe during September 28-30, South Interior Karnataka on September 29, and Coastal Karnataka on September 30. The Enforcement Directorate on Friday raided multiple locations linked to Telangana Revenue Minister P Srinivasa Reddy and some others in a money laundering case. The Congress Minister faces accusations related to an alleged smuggling racket worth more than 100 crore, according to officials. About five premises in the state, including Hyderabad, are being searched, PTI reported, citing officials' statement. The sources stated that 16 teams of ED are conducting raids in the Minister's residence and Raghav company MD and Directors' residences and offices located in Banjarahills, Hyderabad, according to Deccan Chronicle. The money laundering case comes after the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) complaint against P Srinivasa Reddy's son, Harsha Reddy. The charges were levied after Harsha Reddy of the Raghav Group purportedly purchased seven watches worth 5 crore. Also Read | Rahul Navin appointed as new director of Enforcement Directorate for two years The payments for these are related to an alleged hawala and crypto currency racket worth 100 crore, PTI reported. An individual identified as A Naveen Kumar is under ED's scanner in connection with the case. Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy has previously come under ED scrutiny, with similar searches conducted at his residences in November 2023, shortly before the Telangana Assembly elections. Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy has been the Minister for Revenue, Housing, Information and Public Relations in the Telangana government since December 7, 2023. This development comes two days after the Revenue Minister, in a post on X, said that 604 bicycles were distributed by PSR Trust to girls studying in Classes 8th to 10th on September 24. Also Read | ED files first chargesheet against Tejashwi Yadav in land for job scam case On Tuesday, P Srinivasa Reddy laid the foundation stone for the construction of additional classrooms in Zilla Parishad High School, which encompasses measures for the three-phase power supply needed by the school. In another latest important development linked to the federal agency, the Supreme Court set aside the Delhi high court's August order. Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan concurred on granting regular bail to former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on September 12. Also Read | ED conducts first ever raid in Union Territory of Ladakh in crypto case Raising questions on the timing and manner of Arvind Kejriwal's arrest by the CBI, Justice Bhuyan said the CBI's arrest was perhaps only to frustrate the grant of bail to Arvind Kejriwal in the ED case. While claiming that non-cooperation cannot mean self-incrimination, he said, And therefore, Kejriwal's arrest by the CBI on this ground was impermissible. Barmer District Collector Tina Dabi, who launched the Navo Barmer campaign to keep the city clean, was recently seen reprimanding shopkeepers during a cleanliness inspection drive. She also warned shopkeepers that failure to comply with cleanliness rules may result in a fine and the closure of their shops. Earlier on Wednesday, when Dabi was doing the inspection of the cleanliness drive, she became upset at Kisan Market after seeing dirt in front of shops. She questioned the shopkeepers why dustbins are absent in front of their shops, following which the video of the incident went viral. You all are throwing things in the drain and here and there. I will get this shop closedThis is not a place to throw garbage. Right now, I am getting the garbage removed. I will come again after two days to see. I should see big dustbins in front of every shop here. All of you can buy one dustbin each. It is not a matter of shame to clean the area in front of your shop, the IAS officer was heard saying to a shopkeeper in one of the videos. In another video, she warned shopkeepers about possible actions the administration could take against them. Dabi even stated that if the shopkeepers couldn't afford dustbins, the administration would provide them. Also Read | Bengaluru traffic halts train: Video causes hilarious comments on social media She said, Why are you throwing garbage in the drain? This man is number one in spreading garbage. If there is no dustbin from tomorrow, the shop will be closed. Dustbins are needed to throw garbage, not polythene. Today we have come to warn you. If dirt is found tomorrow, you will be fined 500. If you cannot arrange a dustbin, then tell us, we will provide one. Apart from this, the District Collector said that everyone is responsible for keeping their city clean. It is my responsibility to keep Barmer clean just as much as it is yours. It should not happen that from tomorrow you start throwing garbage in the open again, Dabi said. Dabi, UPSC 2015 topper recently transferred to Rajasthan as the District Collector of Barmer, appealed to shopkeepers and businessmen to carry out cleanliness campaigns. British rock band Coldplay's much-anticipated return to India in January next year, after nine years, triggered a mad rush for concert tickets and hotel rooms in Mumbai. Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know that the Coldplay concert in Mumbai sold out within minutes of going live, leaving fans frustrated after hours of waiting in virtual queues. With options running out at home, Indian fans are now setting their sights overseas, hopping on the trend of gig-tripping. Gig-tripping is a travel trend where fans plan trips, often internationally, to attend concerts by their favourite artists. Skyscanner, an online travel company, predicted that cultural exploration will be a priority for travellers in 2024, with gig-tripping topping the charts. According to Skyscanner's Travel Trends 2024, 37 per cent of Indian travellers are willing to fly short-haul to see their favourite performers live, while 20 per cent are ready to take off on long-haul flights. Overall, 44 per cent of Indian travellers have expressed their desire to attend a music concert in 2024, with a major chunk of interest coming from 25 to 34-year-olds. Coldplay Abu Dhabi The Skyscanner report further stated that a huge 79 per cent would prefer to attend a concert overseas instead if it means saving more money. When tickets for their Mumbai concert quickly sold out and were later resold at exorbitant pricesreportedly 50,000 and abovemany Indian Coldplay fans decided to explore international destinations. Also Read | Coldplay fans have a point: There must be a better way to sell gig tickets As it turns out, Abu Dhabi has emerged as a popular choice. Coldplay is set to perform there on January 11-12, and several fans from Bengaluru and Mumbai have shared screenshots of their tickets on X. One X user from Bangalore shared a screenshot of Ticketmaster, showing the platform was stick for 10 minutes. A ticket for the Coldplay Abu Dhabi concert starts at AED 195, which is 4438.85 for standard seating, and can go up as high as AED 1,495, i.e. 34031.17 for the Deluxe seating. Also Read | Richest in Coldplay: Check net worth of key members ahead of India concert Mumbai is not only the financial capital of India, it is one of the most costliest cities and one of the primary reasons that make survival more difficult is the exorbitant home rentals. Compact places, exorbitant prices and always chatty real estate agents sum up the reality of the 'city of dreams'. Also Read | Bengaluru traffic halts train: Video causes hilarious comments on social media With several incidents of owners of compact apartments in Mumbai seeking rents that could fetch sprawling homes in other metro cities, one social media user showed how unusual the real estate scene in Mumbai is. Recently a social media user, named Utkarsh Gupta hailing from Jaipur shared an unusual sight from a luxury 2BHK apartment located in the upscale Pali Hill neighbourhood in Mumbai. In the video, he showed the 2BHK apartment, which cost a jaw-dropping rent of 1.35 lakh per month, along with a security deposit of 4 lakh. The washing machine was installed directly above the apartment toilet. Gupta wrote in the caption, Only in Mumbai can you front-load your washing machine while top-loading your commode. At an affordable price of 1.35L per month! The tweet garnered over 10.6k views and soon went viral. Here are few reactions: One wrote, "Hahaha , Amchi Mumbai is unbeatable.Tenant can have a tumble bath too, instead of a Tub bath." Another wrote, "So if you look from outside there's protruding metal box with washer just like the window air conditioner ! I hope they haven't weakened the structural strength of the building." A thord user wrote, Going forward Corporate Company can arrange commodes instead of chairs for staffs to release the pressure. While the fourth commented, "It's because of all of you immigrants have made Mumbai overcrowded to live in." "But what if the used water from the washing machine is fed to the commode? I think it's a brilliant idea!" wrote the fifth user. Considered as one of the most revered festivals in Hinduism, Durga Puja is the festival devotees wait for entire year. The festival celebrates the victory of Goddess Durga over the buffalo demon Mahishasura. The festival helps unite millions of devotees to epitomize the triumph of good over evil through cultural and spiritual celebrations. Though the festivities begin from Mahalaya, the celebrations start from the sixth day Shashthi. On this day, the idol of Goddess Durga is unveiled, and her presence is invoked. Durga Puja 2024: Dates The Mahalaya Amavasya or Mahalaya is on 2 October, when people invite Goddess Durga on the Earth and eye are drawn on her idol. This means Navratri will begin on 3 October. However, the actual celebrations will kick off on the fifth day, Panchami, on 8 October. On 9 October, Shashthi will be celebrated where the idol of Goddess Durga is unveiled, while Maha Saptami will be celebrated on 10 October. Maha Ashtami will be celebrated on 11 October, while Maha Navami will be celebrated on 12 October. The final day of the festival, Vijaydashami, will be celebrated on 13 October; following this, Durga Visarjan will take place. Durga Puja 2024: Cultural significance and celebrations The Durga Puja is more than a mere festival. It unites people who gather to thank Goddess Durga for epitomizing the triumph of good over evil. The festival unites people and promotes social and cultural harmony. Various rituals and festivities occur during the 10-day festival, where people from different sections participate in elaborate decorations, traditional music, dance performances, and sumptuous feasts. The festival resembles a profound expression of faith, culture, and community. As the date approaches, devotees devote themselves to the Goddess Durga and welcome her on earth to celebrate the courage, compassion, and resilience that the Goddess embodies. For years, Mint has been the trusted source of credible and insightful financial news for industry leaders, policymakers, and professionals. With a steadfast commitment to accuracy, depth, and relevance, Mint has consistently empowered decision-makers across various sectors. Our tagline, "Think Ahead. Think Growth," encapsulates Mints mission to equip its readers with the foresight and knowledge they need to excel in an increasingly complex financial landscape. We do this through Mint Premium, our prime subscription offering for our prime users. Mint Premium is more than just a subscription. Its your gateway to mastering the financial worldand all the factors that shape it, from the economy to policy, and culture and lifestyle to geopolitics. In todays fast-paced environment, simply staying informed isnt enough. The overwhelming volume of information available can make it difficult to filter out the noise and make informed decisions. This is where Mint Premium steps in. 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As Hurricane Helene approaches landfall in Florida's Big Bend this evening, airlines across the U.S. have cancelled or delayed thousands of flights, Reuters reported. According to FlightAware, 1,038 flights had been cancelled and 1,672 delayed by 11:59 AM ET. Southwest Airlines canceled 201 flights, followed closely by American Airlines and Delta Air Lines. Airports in affected areas, including Tampa International, Orlando International, and Fort Lauderdale International, have alerted travellers to potential delays and cancellations. Also Read: Tropical Storm Helene Triggers Hurricane Watches in Florida American Airlines has issued a travel advisory for airports in the Southeastern US and Gulf of Mexico regions, with JetBlue and Southwest also providing similar advisories. Travelers are encouraged to stay updated on their flight statuses and plan accordingly. Officials have issued dire warnings and urged residents in coastal areas along the hurricane's path to evacuate ahead of catastrophic winds and a potentially deadly storm surge. Also Read: Hurricane Francine Rakes Louisiana With Dangerous Winds Hurricane Helene has intensified into a Category 4 storm, poised to make landfall on Floridas northwest coast Thursday night. Forecasters warn of a potentially catastrophic storm surge and hazardous winds and rain affecting much of the southeastern U.S, AP reported. Hurricane and flash flood warnings have been issued extending into northern Georgia and western North Carolina. Power outages have already impacted over 600,000 homes and businesses in Florida. In response, governors from Florida, Georgia, Alabama, the Carolinas, and Virginia have declared states of emergency. As of now, the hurricane's eye is approximately 90 miles south of Tallahassee, with sustained winds reaching 140 mph. It is moving north-northeast at 24 mph, with life-threatening storm surges expected to hit the Big Bend area, potentially reaching up to 20 feet. Residents are urged to take precautions and stay informed. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis stated that updated models indicate Hurricane Helene may make landfall further east than previously predicted, reducing the likelihood of a direct hit on Tallahassee. The metro area, home to approximately 395,000 residents, could experience less severe impacts as a result. Authorities are continuing to monitor the situation closely and urge residents to remain prepared. Please, please, please take any evacuation orders seriously! the office said, describing the surge scenario as a nightmare. In the Pacific, former Hurricane John reformed as a tropical storm on Wednesday and regained hurricane status on Thursday, threatening Mexico's western coast with flash flooding and mudslides. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador confirmed that the death toll from John has risen to five, as communities along the Pacific coast brace for the storm's anticipated second landfall. Authorities are urging residents to remain vigilant and prepare for severe weather conditions. Muhammed Yunus, chief adviser to the interim government of Bangladesh, hinted of design and conspiracy involved in ousting Sheikh Hasina, the former Prime Minister of India's neighbouring country. Yunus was speaking at the Clinton Global Initiatives annual meeting, where he was welcomed by former US President Bill Clinton and incumbent President Joe Biden. The Nobel Laureate lauded the students and hailed them saying they were the makers of the new version of Bangladesh. In August 2024, Bangladesh witnessed one of the most significant political upheavals in its history. What began as a protest against a controversial quota system in government jobs evolved into a nationwide movement that ultimately caused Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee. creating the new version of Bangladesh Muhammed Yunus went on to praise the students for their protests and voicing their demands. They are the ones creating the new version of Bangladeshlets wish them every success, he said. This was meticulously designed and did not happen by chance. During his speech, Yunus also added that no one could make out who was behind the protests. He, however, named Mahfuj Abdullah, indicating that he played a role in Hasinas ouster from the country. He hinted that this was meticulously designed and did not happen by chance. Mahfuz Abdullah, also known as Mahfuz Alam, is the coordinator of the Liaison Committee of student movement leaders. Introducing three students behind the protests during the meet, Yunus said the students were just like any other ordinary individuals. Also Read | After Chabahar, India looks to build port facilities in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka They just look like any other young person(s) you will not recogniSe. But when you see them in action or hear them speak, you will be shaken. They shook the whole country by their speeches, dedication and commitment. They said you can kill us anytime you want, but we won't give up, stated Yunus. Brain behind the revolution The interim government leader then hailed Mahfuz as the brain behind the revolution. Yunus further went on to add that the student movements came about as a combined effort, with even the leader unaware as to who was heading the movement. Also Read | Bangladesh: Hindu boy hacked to death in police station over blasphemous post "He is known as the brain behind the whole revolution. He denies it repeatedly ... but that's how he is recognised," he said. Yunus also called the student revolution a meticulously designed and carefully planned movement. Even the leadership did not know who was leading it (the movement). When they speak, they can inspire any young person anywhere in the world, said Muhammed Yunus. One of Britains best-known actresses, Dame Maggie Smith, known for playing the dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey and the acerbic Professor Minerva McGonagall in Harry Potter films, died on 27 September at the age of 89 at London. The news of her demise in a London hospital was confirmed by her sons Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens in a statement, issued through publicist Clair Dobbs and quoted by The Guardian, She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27 September. An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother. Also Read | Laapataa Ladies at Oscars: Remarks on women by film committee spark outrage We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days. We thank you for all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time, the statement added. Maggie Smith: Childhood Born as Margaret Natalie Smith on 28 December 1934 to Margaret Hutton and Nathaniel Smith at Essex, moved to with her family to Oxford when she was four years old. She went to Oxford High School until the age of 16, following which she left to study acting at the Oxford Playhouse. Also Read | Laapataa Ladies beats Ranbir Kapoors Animal for Oscars Maggie Smith: Career In 1952, Smith began her career as Viola in Twelfth Night at the Oxford Playhouse at the age of 17 and made her Broadway debut in 1956. Smith appeared in her first film in 1956, a British Drama called Child in the House. For her role as Bridget Howard in the film Nowhere to Go, Smith received the first of her 18 British Academy Film Award nominations. In the year 1965, Smith earned her first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film adaptation of Othello as Desdemona. By that time, she was appearing in a in the British comedies like Go to Blazes, The Pumpkin Eater, and more. Maggie Smith: Awards In 1969, Smith won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the title role of the film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. The role also won Smith her first BAFTA Film Award for Best Actress. In 1978, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for California Suite and won her first Golden Globe Award for the same role. In 1984, Smith won her second Best Actress BAFTA Film Awards for her role as Joyce Chilvers in the black comedy A Private Function. Smith won her fourth BAFTA Film Awards for Best Actress for the title role in the 1987 film The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne. While her fifth BAFTA award arrived for Best Supporting Actress for the 1999 film Tea with Mussolini. After winning so many awards, she gained significant international recognition and acclaim for playing Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter movies, based on author J K Rowling. Between 2010-2015, Smith appeared as Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in the British period drama Downton Abbey, which became a cultural phenomenon. She also continued to appear for theatres. In 2014, Smith was made a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) for services to drama in the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours. India has strongly deplored the vandalism of the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan temple in Sacramento, California, which occurred on September 24. Consulate General of India in San Francisco wrote in a post on X, The Consulate General of India, San Francisco strongly deplores the act of vandalism which took place on September 24th night at @BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Sacramento, California. @cgisfo has taken up the matter with local authorities to take immediate action against those responsible. In a post on X, BAPS Public Affairs said, Less than 10 days after the desecration of the @BAPS Mandir in New York, our Mandir in the Sacramento, CA area was desecrated last night with anti-Hindu hate: Hindus go back! We stand united against hate with prayers for peace. Earlier on Thursday, Radharaman Das, Vice President of the Kolkata International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), described the vandalism of the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Temple in Sacramento, California, as unfortunate. As reported by ANI, he expressed hope that law enforcement authorities would take strict action against those responsible. Das also voiced his deep concern about the rising attacks on Hindu temples globally, including in the United States, where religious freedom is a fundamental right. Not only in America, there have been attacks on the Hindu places of worship throughout the world. The attack on the Swaminarayan temple is unfortunate. In a country like America, which professes that they give everyone the right to practice their religion, we can see that such incidents are happening there also, Das told ANI. The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Sacramento was vandalised by unknown miscreants on September 25, just days after a similar incident at the BAPS Mandir in New York. Graffiti with anti-Hindu messages such as Hindus go back alarmed the local Hindu community. In response, the community vowed to stand united against hate. The BAPS Public Affairs team stated on X, We stand united against hate with prayers for peace. The Sacramento County Sheriff's Office confirmed the vandalism and noted that vandals had also cut water lines at the property. Ami Bera, US Representative for California's 6th District, condemned the act, stating, There is no place for religious bigotry and hatred in Sacramento County. The Hindu American Foundation thanked Bera for addressing the hate crime, calling it an anti-Hindu hate crime. On September 17, just days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US, the BAPS temple in Melville, New York, was defaced with offensive graffiti. Additionally, in July, a BAPS temple in Edmonton, Canada, was also vandalised. Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in the southern village of Kfar Rouman, seen from Marjayoun, south Lebanon. (Photo: Euronews) Previously, on September 23, the embassy issued an urgent notice recommending Vietnamese citizens to leave Lebanon. In its latest urgent notice, the embassy also advised Vietnamese citizens who plan to go to Lebanon should postpone or cancel their trips. For Vietnamese citizens who cannot leave Lebanon due to force majeure, the embassy reiterated that they need to be vigilant, closely follow the situation on local media, refrain from gathering in crowded places and absolutely do not go near the southern area of Beirut, the southern area near the border with Israel and the northern and eastern areas (Beeka Valley) near the border with Syria. According to the embassy, there are 13 Vietnamese citizens living and working in Lebanon, and the Vietnamese community in Lebanon is still safe. It recommends that people find temporary shelter in safer areas and stock up on food and medicine to prepare for bad situations. In case of an emergency requiring assistance, citizens should contact the embassy via the hotline: +20 102 613 9869; the Vietnamese Honorary Consulate in Lebanon: +961 70 229 300; or the citizen protection hotline: +84 981 84 84 84. Currently, many airlines have suspended flights to Beirut such as Flydubai, Etihad, Qatar Airways, EgyptAir, Lufthansa, and British Airways. Many countries including the US, Australia, UK, Italy, and Egypt have asked their citizens to leave immediately or not to travel to Lebanon. Arab countries, the US and the European Union (EU) on September 25 issued a joint statement calling for a "temporary ceasefire" in Lebanon. The joint statement was approved by the EU, the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar. The statement was issued after Israel conducted a series of airstrikes targeting Hezbollah forces in Lebanon in the last few days, threatening to push the Middle East into a full-scale conflict./. Amid escalating tensions between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said that his country wants peace and is forced to defend itself on war fronts organized by Iran. "If you strike us, we will strike you," said Netanyahu during his address to world leaders at the UN at a pivotal moment in the Mideast. Netanyahu said that he was not intending to come and address, however, he came to set the record straight after hearing the lies and slanders levelled against his country by many of the speakers at the UN podium. The Israel leader stated that his country is seeking peace despite fighting for its life in the face of 'savage enemies' who want its annihilation. "My country is at war, fighting for its life," the Prime Minister said, adding, "We must defend ourselves against these savage murderers. Our enemies seek not only to destroy us, they seek to destroy our common civilization and return all of us to a dark age of tyranny and terror." "This war can come to an end now. All that has to happen is for Hamas to surrender, lay down its arms and release all the hostagesIf Hamas stays in power in Gaza, it will regroup, rearm and attack Israel again. So Hamas has got to go. Israel will fight "until we achieve total victory" if Hamas does not surrender," Netanyahu said. Also Read | Netanyahu says Israel will continue ceasefire discussions for Lebanon Netanyahu also warned Iran that Israel will strike if it is hit first, and warned that his country can reach any part of the cleric-run state as he vowed to fight on in Gaza. However, he said that they don't want to see a single person, a single innocent person, die. Netanyahu also told the UN that Israel will no longer tolerate daily Hezbollah rocket fire. "As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safeWe'll continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met," Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly. Just imagine if terrorists turned El Paso and San Diego into ghost towns ... How long would the American government tolerate that?" he said, shaking his fist in emphasis. Yet Israel has been tolerating this intolerable situation for almost a year. Well, I've come here today to say: Enough is enough, AP quoted Netanyahu as saying. We are defending ourselves, but we are also defending you against a common enemy that through violence and terror seeks to destroy our way of life, the Prime Minister added. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday vowed to use 'full force' against Hezbollah and bombard the military group's targets indefinitely after rejecting a ceasefire push by the United States. Its key backer, the US, urged for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon. On Wednesday, a number of countries including the US, European states, Saudi Arabia and other middle eastern nations urged for a pause in fighting, after Israel signalled that it was preparing a possible ground invasion of Lebanon. The ceasefire plea was in response to the possibility of spiralling the regional conflict and dragging in the US and Iran. US defence secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday said that another full-scale war could be devastating for both Israel and Lebanon". He further suggested that a diplomatic solution "is the only way to ensure that displaced civilians on both sides of the border can finally go back home. Following Netanyahu's statement, the White House said, Netanyahu and Israeli people have every right to thwart threat to their peace and security, reported Reuters. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron said it would be a 'mistake' for Israeli PM to 'refuse' a ceasefire in Lebanon. Citing the "absolutely shocking" number of civilian casualties, the French President warned against Lebanon becoming a new Gaza. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer backed India's bid for a permanent membership at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), calling for winds of change. India earned the UK's support days after US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron expressed similar views. Speaking at the general debate of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Starmer emphasised the need for the UNSC to evolve. "the Security Council has to change to become a more representative body, willing to act not paralysed by politics, said Starmer. The Security Council has to change to become a more representative body, willing to act not paralyzed by politics. Currently, the UNSC consists of five permanent members and ten non-permanent members elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly. The permanent members are Russia, the UK, China, France, and the United States, all of whom have veto power over substantive resolutions. Here's what we know so far. UN General Assembly Debate UK PM Starmer called for an increase in the seats for elected members. We advocate for permanent representation for Africa on the Council, alongside Brazil, India, Japan, and Germany as permanent members, as well as an increase in seats for elected members, said the UK Prime Minister. 'More effective, more representative' Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron also voiced strong support for India's inclusion as a permanent member of the UNSC. While citing a need for the UN to be more effective, Macron said this could be possible by making the body more representative. Also Read | Israeli strike kills another Hezbollah commander | Top updates So let's just make these United Nations more effective, first by perhaps making them more representative. That is why France, and I repeat here, is in favour of the Security Council being expanded, he told the UN General Assembly. He mentioned that Germany, Japan, and Brazil should also be permanent members, as well as two other nations that Africa will decide upon. Also Read | The Quad has served Beijing a veiled notice on the Indo-Pacific Last week, the US also voiced support for India to have a permanent seat at the UNSC. Outdated UNSC model India has argued for decades that it deserves to be a member of the UNSC. At the Summit of the Future on September 22, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also warned of the outdated model of the UNSC. He said the body would lose all credibility unless its working methods were reformed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said that his government will continue to discuss ceasefire proposals for Lebanon in the days ahead after US president Joe Biden warned of "all out war" in the region. Earlier on Thursday, Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz rejected proposals for a ceasefire with Hezbollah. Katz went ahead with airstrikes that have killed hundreds in Lebanon and heightened fears of a regional war. Washington also warned that further escalation would only make it harder for civilians to return home on both sides of the border. Also Read | How Israels spies got blindsided by Hamas but still hit Hezbollah hard "The Secretary discussed the importance of reaching an agreement on the 21 day ceasefire across the Israel-Lebanon border," Reuters reported quoting the State Department. An Israeli strike on Friday killed nine members of a family, including four children, in the Lebanese border town of Shebaa, mayor Mohammad Saab told Reuters. Also Read | Israeli strike kills another Hezbollah commander | Top updates The Reuters report, citing the Lebanese health ministry, said the Israeli attacks since Monday have killed more than 600 people in the country. Meanwhile, Hezbollah said that it fired rockets into Israels Kiryat Ata and Tiberias in a response to Israels strikes on villages, cities and civilians. It is important to note that Kiryat Ata is near the city of Haifa, some 30 km (20 miles) from the border. The report said though many of Hezbollah's rockets were shot down by the Israeli air defences, however, the attacks have shut down normal life across much of northern Israel as more areas fall into its crosshairs. Also Read | Backed into corner, Hezbollah must make a fateful decision The Israeli defence forces further said they have intercepted four unmanned aircraft that crossed from Lebanese territory into the maritime space off the coast of Rosh Hanikra at the Lebanese border. The US and France proposed an immediate 21-day truce across the Lebanese-Israeli border on Wednesday, and said negotiations continued, including on the sidelines of a UN meeting in New York. Netanyahu said that Israeli teams had meetings to discuss the US ceasefire proposals on Thursday and would continue discussions in the days ahead "Our teams met (Sept. 26) to discuss the US initiative and how we can advance the shared goal of returning people safely to their homes. We will continue those discussions in the coming days," Reuters quoted Netanyahu as saying. Earlier on Thursday, Netanyahu left for New York where he is attending the United Nations General Assembly. Netanyahus office, in a statement said, the prime minister has ordered Israeli troops to continue fighting with full force in Lebanon. However his statementmade no reference to the comments of Foreign Minister Katz, who rejected ceasefire proposals Japans ruling party has selected former defence minister Shigeru Ishiba as its leader, positioning him to become prime minister next week. Here are the top ten updates: 1. This leadership victory effectively secures the top role, as the Liberal Democratic Partys ruling coalition holds a majority in parliament. A record nine candidates, including two women, participated in the election, determined by the partys lawmakers and grassroots members, according to a report by Reuters. 2. Ishiba won against hardline nationalist Sanae Takaichi in a run-off vote, marking one of the most unpredictable leadership elections in decades. The election featured a record nine candidates. 3. As the leader of the LDP, which has dominated Japanese politics for nearly the entire post-war period, he is virtually guaranteed to become the country's prime minister due to the party's parliamentary majority. No one won a majority in the first round of voting, forcing a runoff between Ishiba and Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi, a staunch conservative who ran against Kishida in 2021. 4. The push to replace current premier Fumio Kishida began in August when he announced his resignation amid scandals that drove the LDP's approval ratings to historic lows. 5. Ishiba now faces the challenge of addressing domestic discontent over rising living costs while navigating a volatile security landscape in East Asia, characterized by an assertive China and a nuclear-armed North Korea. 6. In brief remarks to lawmakers prior to the run-off, Ishiba emphasized his vision for a fairer and kinder Japan, and he was visibly emotional as the final results were announced, Reuters reported. 7. Ishiba has courted controversy with his peers for going against the grain and challenging previous leaders, and has failed in four previous leadership bids. He has said he will not run again after this contest. 8. He supports some socially progressive policies like changing the law to allow married couples to use separate surnames, a move opposed by Takaichi and other more conservative LDP lawmakers. 9. He supports some socially progressive policies like changing the law to allow married couples to use separate surnames, a move opposed by Takaichi and other more conservative LDP lawmakers, Reuters reported. 10. On Tuesday, Kishida and his Cabinet ministers will resign, allowing Ishiba to be formally elected in a parliamentary vote and subsequently form a new Cabinet later that day. The main opposition, the liberal-leaning Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, has faced challenges in gaining traction despite the scandals surrounding the LDP. However, experts believe that its newly elected leader, centrist former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, is advocating for a conservative shift within the party, which could lead to broader political realignments. Hollywood in the 1970s and 80s often imagined a world where technology is so evolved it is almost human, from Star Wars," in which R2-D2 and C-3PO are not just tools but also friends to humans, to The Terminator," in which an assassin-robot is disguised as a human. Science fiction is about to become reality. Artificial-intelligence-enabled humanoids capable of blending seamlessly into our world will soon be a part of everyday life. Elon Musk claimed at a shareholder meeting in June that Tesla will deploy more than 1,000 Optimus humanoids to work on the factory floor next year. He also said that humanoid technology will soon be so advanced that it will be odd not to have a robot buddy, your C-3PO or R2-D2." Other developments by Boston Dynamics, Figure, Amazon, and Chinese-based Unitree Robotics assure that the technology is here to stay. But the real race over this technology isnt between private companies. Its between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party. Congress must act to prevent products manufactured by adversarial regimes, especially China, from infiltrating our businesses, schools, communities and homes. Better yet, we must position the U.S. as a global leader in the field. This will increase opportunities for Americans and ensure that ethical standards shape the future. Unfortunately, China already has a leg up, accounting for more than half of all robot installations worldwide over the past three years. Beijing is aggressively subsidizing advanced robot manufacturers and supporting efforts to build factories capable of mass-producing humanoids as soon as next year. China wants to lead the world in all roboticsespecially humanoidsand is able to do it for less, owing to its inhumane labor practices. Estimates indicate Chinese humanoids might cost as little as one-fifth as much as their Western competitors. And we know that Beijing is more than willing to violate international trade laws to dump cut-rate products into the U.S. and other markets, undercutting competition and emerging as the only option for consumers. More than commerce is at stake. Chinese-manufactured humanoids threaten Americans personal security because of the data they collect. These robots will take in limitless information about their surroundings, including any person with whom they interact. Humanoids will become important to almost every industry, which means the economy will be tied to the largest producer of these robots. Reliance on Chinese-made robots would tie American economic success to the goodwill of the Communist Party. Humanoid robots will have both defensive and offensive national-security implications. The U.S. military is exploring ways to incorporate humanoids into modern warfare, but China has already deployed armed robotics to the battlefield. If the U.S. falls further behind in such critical technology, our troops will face fatal disadvantages on the battlefield. We need to procure and develop this technology independent from China. The Defense and Homeland Security departments are already required by law to source some war-fighting technologies domestically. But humanoids could fit into statutory exceptions to these requirements. The good news is that the playbook to prevent Chinese control of humanoids already exists. As part of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress included a prohibition on Chinese drones for defense purposes and is poised to do the same with Lidar, a laser-based radar-like system. A similar restriction on Chinese humanoids is needed. Congress should ban the importation of Chinese humanoids and ensure that no American technology can support their creation before Xi Jinping has his own robotic army on American soil. Mrs. Britt, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Alabama. Mr. Helberg is a senior adviser to the Palantir Technologies CEO Alex Karp. Oyos acquisition of Motel 6, an American budget hotel chain, should boost its chances of pulling off a successful public listing in the coming years, after two failed attempts. Last week, Oyo agreed to buy Motel 6 from Blackstone for $525 million in cash. The Ritesh Agarwal-led company will finance the deal partly by raising debt. The acquisition will significantly increase Oyos presence in the US and entrench the dominance of international markets within the companys overall business. But more importantly, at least in the short term, it will significantly improve Oyos profitability. Oyo reported its maiden annual net profit of 229 crore in the year ended 31 March, 2024. The company estimates that Motel 6 will add 630 crore of Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) in FY26. It expects its overall Ebitda to rise to 2,000 crore. That, combined with a revival in sales growth, will position Oyo well to attain an attractive market capitalisation on the public markets, given the increasing appetite among stock market investors for new-age tech companies. IPO aspirations Although it withdrew its IPO filing in May, Oyo wants to go public at some point. And, why not? Stock prices of Indian internet companies like Nykaa, PolicyBazaar and Cartrade have registered a remarkable turnaround this year. Even battered Paytm has recovered most of its losses over the past four months; its stock had crashed after the RBI directed the company in January to shut its payment bank. Until this year, apart from Zomato, most other internet stocks had declined after listing. It's not just internet stocks, the broader market has been on a tear this year. Whether the rally and the current market levels are sustainable is anyone's guess. But the spectacular performance of internet stocks this year, along with a funding downturn in private markets, has prompted other startups like Oyo to make a beeline to list their shares. Also Read: Vivek Kaul: Todays IPO frenzy cant be attributed to Indias growth story For several years before the pandemic, Oyo had expanded recklessly. Fuelled by Agarwals dreams of world domination, backed by SoftBank, the company opened hotels in nearly 80 countries, including the US and China, the worlds two largest economies. By the end of 2019, it had become the second-most valued startup in India at $10 billion. But even before Covid-19 hit travel and hospitality, it had become clear that Oyo had grown too fast for its own good. During the pandemic, it was forced to cut tens of thousands of jobs, exit hopeless markets and give up its world domination ambition. In its latest funding round last month, it was valued at $2.4 billion, less than a fourth of its 2019 valuation. Its revenues are still far off from pre-pandemic levels. While the company has avoided a collapse, its decline has been humbling. The opportunistic Motel 6 acquisition, however, shows that Agarwal still harbours ambitions to become a large global hotel brand. To his credit, despite the many setbacks, Agarwal has held firm and stabilised the company. He has also increased his holding in Oyo, now estimated at 33% (although its not clear how exactly he financed the $2 billion he invested in Oyo in 2019 and how he will pay it back). Oyos maiden net profit, posted last year, is likely to increase in the coming years, especially if it can revive sales growth. Its easy to forget that Agarwal is still only 30 years old. He has time on his side. But it will likely take several years more for him to return Oyo to its 2019 peak a cautionary tale for entrepreneurs whose unfettered ambition leads them to lose touch with the reality of daily operations. A year ago, Israel suffered its worst-ever intelligence failure when Hamas launched a surprise attack, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages. Today, a wave of strikes against Hezbollah has Israels long-vaunted spies back on the front foot. The turnaround reflects how Israel has invested its time and resources over the past two decades. Since fighting a war with Lebanon-based Hezbollah in 2006, Israel has rigorously prepared for another major conflict with the militant groupand potentially with its backer Iran. Hamas, by contrast, was viewed as a far less potent threat. Even shortly before the Oct. 7 incursion from the Gaza Strip, top officials were dismissing signs of an impending attack. Last September, the Israeli military confidently characterized Gaza as being in a state of stable instability," and intelligence assessments concluded that Hamas had shifted its focus to stoking violence in the West Bank and wanted to limit the risk of direct Israeli retaliation. Much of our focus was on preparing for the confrontation with Hezbollah," said Carmit Valensi, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv and expert on the Lebanese militia. We somewhat neglected the southern arena and the evolving situation with Hamas in Gaza." A series of Israeli attacks in Lebanon over the past two weeks have left Hezbollah reelingshocked by Israels abilities to penetrate the group and struggling to close the gaps. Thousands of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies exploded virtually simultaneously on consecutive days last week, killing 37 and injuring around 3,000. Shortly afterward, an airstrike in Beirut killed a group of more than a dozen elite military leaders. Hezbollahs security remains porous. On Tuesday, another Israeli airstrike in southern Beirut killed Hezbollahs top missile commander. The operations came almost two months after Israel demonstrated its penetration of Hezbollah by killing top commander Fuad Shukr, who had eluded the U.S. for four decades. He was killed by an airstrike on his apartment on the upper floors of a Beirut residential building, where he had been summoned by a phone call shortly before. The intensified campaign by Israels foreign spy service, the Mossad, and military intelligence units devastated Hezbollahs leadership and degraded its weapons arsenal. The countrys air force has followed up with a bombing campaign that hit more than 2,000 targets this week. Israels military chief of staff said Wednesday that the stepped-up effort has been preparation for a ground invasion. The U.S. and its allies are pressing the two sides to pause the fighting, hoping to avoid war on another front or even a regional conflagration as the fighting in Gaza continues in its 12th month. More than 600 people have been killed in this weeks strikes on Lebanon, and around 2,000 have been injured, the countrys health ministry says, adding to the heavy toll already in Gaza. Israels success against Hezbollah compared with its failure regarding Hamas comes because the countrys security services are better at offense than defense, according to Avner Golov, a former senior director at Israels National Security Council who is now with MIND Israel, a national security advisory group. The core of Israeli security doctrine is to bring the war to the enemy," Golov said. With Gaza, it was totally different. We were surprised, so it was a failure." Israel has monitored the buildup of Hezbollahs arsenal ever since the two sides signed a truce in 2006 after a monthlong war. At the time, many in Israels security establishment were disappointed with the armys performance in the war, as it failed to significantly damage Hezbollah, which began rebuilding its position in the south. The military, as a result, sought to better understand Hezbollah and throttle Irans military and financial support to the group, including via a campaign of airstrikes in Syria that became known as the war between the wars." In Gaza, by contrast, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adopted a strategy of containing Hamas in recent years, thinking the Palestinian group was focused on governing Gaza and wasnt interested in a war with Israel. The two sides had fought a series of short conflicts following Hamass takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, and the groups leader in the enclave, Yahya Sinwar, appeared to be more interested in improving the economic conditions of the Palestinian people. There were signs the U.S.-designated terrorist group was planning an attack, including military exercises that foreshadowed the ways it stormed into Israel on Oct. 7. But Israels intelligence services discounted the exercises as saber-rattling for Hamass domestic audience. The military felt confident in the strength of the technologically advanced separation wall it had erected to divide Gaza from Israeli territory. Gathering intelligence from human sources that might have warned of an attack had become more difficult after Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and turned it over to Palestinian control, said Uzi Shaya, a former Israeli intelligence official. The ability to create human intelligence in Gaza in a very dense and small area, in which everyone knows everyone, where a stranger pops immediately, makes life much more difficult," Shaya said. Getting access to people in Lebanon or outside Lebanon connected to Hezbollah is easier, he said. Feats of intelligence only go so far. Ultimately, Israels success against either group will be determined on the battlefield. In the tight confines of the Gaza Strip, Israels military has battered Hamas and laid waste to the urban landscape. It will face a different enemy in the hills of Lebanon. Despite Israels long effort to degrade Hezbollahs military buildup, the Lebanese militia managed to amass a vast arsenal it can deploy in a war. The group is now weighing how to respond to the series of devastating Israeli attacks. Hezbollah fired its first missile ever at the commercial capital of Tel Aviv on Wednesday, its boldest response yet, but it hasnt come close to implementing all its capabilities. Valensi, the senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, said there was a danger Israels recent successes leave it overconfident. Invading Lebanon with troops could give Hezbollah the opportunity to demonstrate its military advantage on the ground, she said. We saw how challenging and difficult it is to eliminate such a complex organization like Hamas," she said. Hezbollah is a different story." Write to Rory Jones at Rory.Jones@wsj.com Lokayukta police on Friday, September 27, registered a First Information Report (FIR) against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, his wife and others in the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) site allotment case, official sources have said. The development comes two days after a Special Court in Bengaluru ordered a Lokayukta police investigation against Siddaramaiah and others in the MUDA case. The order of the Special Court Judge, Santhosh Gajanan Bhat, came a day after the High Court upheld the sanction granted by Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot to conduct an investigation against Siddaramaiah on the allegations of illegalities in the allotment of 14 sites to his wife BM Parvathi by MUDA. The Special Court directed the police to probe under section 156 (3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and asked for the investigation report to be filed by December 24. It said, Acting under Sec.156(3) of Code of Criminal Procedure, the jurisdictional police i.e., Superintendent of Police, Karnataka Lokayukta, Mysuru is hereby directed to register the case, investigate and to file a report as contemplated under Sec.173 of Cr.P.C., within a period 3 months from today. Offences under Sec.120B (Punishment of criminal conspiracy), 166 (Public servant disobeying law, with intent to cause injury to any person), 403 (Dishonest misappropriation of property), 406 ( Punishment for criminal breach of trust), 420 ( Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 426 ( Punishment for mischief), 465 (Punishment for forgery) , 468 (Forgery for purpose of cheating), 340 (Wrongful confinement), 351 (Assault) of the Indian Penal Code were listed by the court. Meanwhile, Siddaramaiah said, No matter how much harassment BJP-JDS and the Governor do against us, we will not stop the pro-poor guarantee programs. Thousands of people came to today's event and showed their support for me. We have people with us; our government is there for them. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who is facing probe in MUDA scam case, refused to resign on Friday. He took a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Centre, saying that HD Kumaraswamy, a minister in the Union Cabinet, is on bail after an FIR was lodged against him. Siddaramaiah accused the BJP of attempting to destabilise the Congress-run Karnataka government. It's a politics by them [BJP] to destabilise our government, that's why they are doing it. They tried Operation Lotus, but they failed because we are 136 legislators. They formed government without a mandate twice, did Yediyurappa win? We will fight it legally, Siddaramaiah was quoted by news agency ANI as saying on Friday. Siddaramaiah had earlier told reporters, ....did the Prime Minister [Narendra Modi as the then Gujarat CM] resign in the Godhra incident as FIR was done [then]? [HD] Kumaraswamy [JDS leader] is in Narendra Modi's government, he is on bail, has he given resignation? Have they given resignation? Are they not embarrassed? I will not resign. I will fight legally, Siddaramaiah was quoted by PTI as saying on Thursday. Siddaramaiah's comments came after the BJP demanded his resignation over MUDA scam case. The case pertains to the alleged illegalities in the allotment of 14 sites to his wife BM Parvathi by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA). In the MUDA site allotment case, it is alleged that compensatory sites were allotted to Siddaramaiah's wife in an upmarket area in Mysuru, which had higher property value as compared to the location of her land which had been "acquired" by MUDA, news agency PTI reported. By Zhang Andi The media trip "Xinjiang: Always More to Discover," hosted by the Office of the Xinjiang Cyberspace Affairs Commission and GMW.CN, was successfully held in Urumqi, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, from Aug. 7 to Aug. 14, 2024. Journalists from eight major Turkish media outlets ventured into the heart of Xinjiang, China, witnessing firsthand the regions vibrant cultural mosaic and rapid modernization. Their experiences provided them with a new perspective, one that sharply contrasts with the common narratives and misinformation prevalent in Western media. A Region of Cultural Diversity Exploring Xinjiang, the journalists found themselves immersed in a living tapestry of cultures that have coexisted for millennia. Erdal Emre, Head of News at Yon Radio, marveled at the historical depth, describing cities steeped in over 2,000 years of history, where traditions from Buddhism, Islam, and various ethnic groups intertwine. Tunc Akkoc, Editor in Chief of HARICI observed, Xinjiang is truly a multicultural region where different languages, religions, and ethnic groups coexist. Uyghur, Hui, Tajik, Kazakh, and even Russian people live side by side, preserving their unique cultural practices while identifying as Chinese. The journalists were particularly struck by the way these ethnic groups maintain their traditions, from language and clothing to religious practices, creating a vibrant and harmonious community. Adnan Bulut, General Coordinator of Anka News Agency shared his conversation with a religious leader in Urumqi, who confirmed that mosques were open and religious freedoms were respected. Economic Growth and Modernization The rapid economic growth in Xinjiang also caught the journalists by surprise. Mustafa Birol Guger, Editor in Chief of the CUMHURIYET Website, arrived expecting to find a remote, underdeveloped region, but instead discovered sprawling, bustling cities with dynamic social lives. Ibrahim Varl, Editor in Chief of BIRGUN, noted the youthful energy on Xinjiang's streets. Their visits to advanced agricultural and industrial sites left a deep impression. Varl marveled at the large-scale greenhouse operations, particularly the innovative soilless cultivation techniques. Ive never seen anything like this on such a large scale. Its astonishing. Bridging Understanding The journalists quickly recognized a vast gap between the reality they observed and how Xinjiang is often portrayed in Western media. Tunc Akkoc emphasized that the misinformation largely stems from a lack of direct experience. The journalists underscored the importance of sharing their insights to bridge this knowledge gap. Birol stressed the need for visuals to help people in Turkey understand Xinjiang better. Erdal added, The more Turkish people know about Xinjiang, the more they'll appreciate its cultural richness. As their journey came to an end, the journalists agreed on one thing: the true Xinjiangvibrant, diverse, and thrivingneeds to be seen and experienced to be understood. They hope that sharing these firsthand accounts will spark greater awareness and appreciation for Xinjiang, bringing the regions beauty and complexity into sharper focus for audiences far beyond its borders. Editor: ZAD Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said he had received offers to become prime minister "multiple times" before and after Lok Sabha polls. Gadkari spoke at the India Today conclave when asked whether he could share more about his earlier comment regarding an opposition party leader who had offered support if he was willing to assume the role of Prime Minister. I have received such an offer multiple times, even before the (Lok Sabha) election and afterwards, he said. When the interviewers sought to know if Gadkari had received offers to become PM after the Lok Sabha results in June, the senior BJP leader evaded the query and said he was leaving it to the mediapersons to decipher. I will not compromise with my ideology. There was no question of accepting the offer. It is not my aim to become prime minister. I am living my ideology with my conviction, he asserted. Earlier on 15 September, Gadkari was speaking at an event where our senior journalists were conferred the Anilkumar Award for Excellence in Journalism 2023-24 at a function in Nagpur, where he said that an opposition leader once offered to back him if he wanted to run for the Prime Minister's position. To become the prime minister is not the aim in my life. I am loyal to my conviction and my organisation, and I am not going to compromise for any post because my conviction is foremost for me. Reacting to Gadkari's statement, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Priyanka Chaturvedi had stated that the INDIA bloc has many capable leaders who are fit to lead the country. Chaturvedi also suggested that Gadkari was using the opposition as an excuse to show his own desire to become the prime minister. Nitin Gadkari ji is expressing his heartfelt desire to be on the top chair, using the excuse of opposition parties he is sending a message to Modiji. INDIA alliance has very capable leaders who can lead the country, wouldnt want to borrow one from BJP. Well played Nitin ji, Chaturvedi posted on social media platform X. In a stunning display of cosmic beauty, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) has shared stunning image of Wolf-Rayet star named WR 31a. Also Read | NASA is selling a brand-new Moon rover Situated approximately 30,000 light-years away in the constellation Carina, this hot, massive star is named after astronomers Charles Wolf and Georges Rayet, who first these stars. NASA states that some can also be around 20 times as massive as the Sun. However, their lifecycle is only a few hundred thousand years. In cosmic terms, thats like the blink of an eye. Also Read | NASA to stream livestream launch of SpaceX mission to rescue Sunita Williams Here's all you need to know about WR 31a Wolf-Rayet stars are known to shed around half of their mass in under 100,000 years. Ultimately, these massive stars will meet their end in a brilliant supernova explosion, dispersing stellar materials that will contribute to the formation of new stars and planets in the universe. In the image provided by NASA, the striking blue bubble encircling WR 31a is Wolf-Rayet nebula. As per NASA, these round or ring-shaped interstellar clouds of dust and gas are created when speedy winds interact with the outer layers of hydrogen ejected by WolfRayet stars. Netizens are mesmerized by the stunning image of WR 31a, with reactions ranging from awe to intrigue. Comments highlight the beauty of the star, with one user even likening it to "Photoshop." Some other called it Beautiful Another wrote, Interesting view One user remarked, I Love astronomy, so mindblowing and intriguing Never going to blink when NASA posts, one user declared Another shared their mixed feelings, saying, Why do I feel like it's both beautiful and scary at the same time. NASA HAS big plans for the Moon. By the end of the decade, it wants to send humans back to the lunar surface. Before then, though, it intends to send probes to look for ice at its south pole. This ice carries enormous scientific value. It could shed light on how Earth acquired its liquid water; it is also ripe for conversion into rocket propellant. Scientists were, therefore, left somewhat confused in July when the agency abruptly cancelled its almost-complete Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), a craft designed to look for this ice, and offered it to commercial companies instead. Its all a bit weird," says Benjamin Fernando, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University. The rover, roughly the size of a Fiat 500, has already been built. It is undergoing final testing at NASAs Johnson Space Centre in Houston ahead of a planned launch next year on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, carried by a lander built by Astrobotic, a Pennsylvania-based firm, that NASA has already paid for. In recent years, such outsourcing has been characteristic of NASAs new approach to lunar exploration, in which it buys landers and launchers off private companies rather than building its own. Never before, though, has the agency given an almost-complete mission to a private company. One of VIPERs main instruments is a drill, built to dig for ice up to a metre beneath the lunar surface. VIPER was designed to deploy this drill in some of the craters at the Moons south pole, which, because of the configuration of the lunar orbit, never see direct sunlight. Temperatures at the floor of these craters do not rise above -160C, and it is here that previous spacecraft have seen hints of ice. If a rover delivers hard proof, however, upcoming human lunar missions could then extract the ice, possibly splitting off its hydrogen atoms to make rocket fuel. Eventually, says NASA, the Moon could become a refuelling stop for human missions farther into the Solar System. Lofty goals. Also, unsurprisingly, not cheap. According to NASA, the VIPER project has cost $433m so far, well above its initial budget of $250m, which is more than the agencywith many other missions to fundsays it can afford. What NASA proposes, instead, is that a commercial company takes command of VIPER. In exchange, it would have to pay for the rovers final tests; find a way to land it on the Moon (possibly with a different lander); and then perform its original scientific mission. Any new owner would still be expected to reveal any findings made with the rover, but they could also use the opportunity to further their own lunar ambitions. Eleven companies have thus far submitted proposals. Theres growing interest in commercial companies doing their own scientific missions," says Laura Forczyk, founder of the Georgia-based space consulting firm Astralytical. One of the companies known to have expressed interest is Houston-based Intuitive Machines, which is already under contract with NASA to develop a lunar communications network, among other projects. It was also the first private company to achieve a partially successful lunar landing (its craft tipped over), in February 2024. Another interested party, ORBITBeyond, based in New Jersey, has also been selected by NASA as a contractor for potential future Moon missions. The companies exact plans for VIPER remain unclear. Given the sunk costs, NASA is expected to save only $84m from VIPERs cancellation. Congress must approve NASAs request to cancel the rover before it does so, with a decision expected in the coming months. We want a more detailed assessment," says a spokesperson for the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. One of our biggest concerns is how cancelling VIPER will impact our competitiveness with China," they add, given Chinas own ambitions to prospect for ice at the Moons south pole. Other missions might experience a similar fate as NASA, and other government agencies, face increasingly tight budgets. For those with deep enough pockets, though, there are bargains to be had. 2024, The Economist Newspaper Ltd. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under licence. The original content can be found on www.economist.com When women first arrived on Wall Street in the 1950s and 60s, there was a playbook they were expected to follow if they wanted any chance of success. Wall Street" was still centered around actual Wall Street, a compact area with not only the major firmsJP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearnsbut also many smaller brokerage houses. A veritable army of female secretaries, teletypists and data-entry clerks would pour out of the subways in the early morning, daring to enter this male bastion in heels and skirt. Those who started to climb the ladder usually found their foothold in the smaller firms. They put up with a lot, none of it subtle, all of it exacerbated by the two-martini lunch. To Bernadette Murphy, coming from the nautically tinged neighborhood of City Island in the Bronx, Wall Streets harbor salt air smelled like home. Yet working as an assistant in a trading department in the late 50s, taking trade orders and writing letters for her firms partners, she also was in hostile territory. She found herself fending off men in the office who offered her trips to Paris or a new wardrobe in return for sexual favors. Her response, repeated by countless women across hundreds of offices for decades, before sexual harassment was a definable legal infraction: Dont be silly! What would your wife say?" Women on Wall Street had to have a thick skin and perseverance to navigate past the wrong kind of attention while vying for the right kind. But if you had all that, you could perhaps get somewhere. Beth Dater certainly did. A Boston University graduate turned Pan Am flight attendant, she married a pilot in the late 60s who asked her to stop flying. A temp agency sent her first to pass out chocolate-cherry bonbons in a parking lot dressed up as Miss Mon Cheri, and then to the offices of Lehman Brothers CEO Robert Bobbie" Lehman to pick up the phones. Like so many early women of Wall Street, she got her start answering the phoneswatching, listening and learning. Before long, she was auditioning at Fiduciary Trust Company as a research analyst-in-training. Female research analysts led the way up the ladder because, not needing to be visible, they could hide behind initials that effectively rendered them men, or at least genderless. In 1970, when Wall Street was put on notice about its hiring practices at New York Citys Human Rights Commission hearings, only Merrill Lynch was able to boast that as many as seven of its 26 industry specialists were women. But as one of them, Mary Wrenn, noted: For a long time, those who read my reports didnt know whether I was Miss or Mr. Wrenn." Mary Farrell came to Wall Street the next year, having answered an ad for a securities analyst trainee at Pershing & Co.mistaking it for a theater-related job because of the firms Broadway address. She was hired because the director there boasted that hed figured out that hiring women was a way to snag inexpensive talent. Later, at Smith Barney, she went to report an incident in an elevatoran executive had pushed her up against the wall and groped herand found the director of HR crying because something similar had happened to her that same day. When Mary returned to the office on Monday, the HR director was gone, but shed left a parting gift on Marys desk: a list of the salaries in her department. Mary learned she was being paid exactly half of what the lowest paid male analyst was making. To some women, even half of a male Wall Street salary seemed like good pay; it was more in actual dollars than most women in America were making. But it enraged Muriel Mickie" Siebert, an early pioneer who arrived in New York in a broken-down Studebaker in 1954 and catapulted ahead as a successful airline industry analyst. She also knew that tradingentirely off limits to womenwas where the real money was. Frustrated that she couldnt sit at the big table making the big deals at a major firm (she was told shed still have to sit with the typists), a friend suggested she buy her own seat on the New York Stock Exchange. It turned out the NYSE constitution did not bar women (the founders hadnt had the foresight!). Hurdles were plentiful anyway, but on Dec. 28, 1967, Siebert became the first female NYSE member. It had cost her close to half a million dollars for a white metal badge with the number 2646 embossed in red. She referred to it as the most expensive piece of jewelry going." Still, to avoid conflicts, she promised not to set foot on the floor: She would use an independent, two-dollar" male floor broker as her proxy. Almost a decade later in 1976, Alice Jarcho became the first woman to actually trade on the floor, and she encountered what Siebert feared. Jarcho wasnt ready for the lewd remarks, the dildoes sent down the pneumatic tubes, the anonymous threatening calls that led to a temporary police escort. But by 1980, when Jarcho left the NYSE floor to become the number two on the Shearson American Express institutional trading desk, a seismic shift on Wall Street and on college campuses was about to take place. Women in business schools were now becoming commonplace, a leap forward from 1963, when the first class of eight female students arrived at Harvard Business School only to be interrogated by the men about why they were taking the place of legitimate breadwinners. Female graduates from the Ivy Leagues and graduate business schools started to pour in like a gold rush. Beth Dater, always elegantly attired, rolled her eyes at these newcomers in their sneakers and suits, their office heels tucked away in a monogrammed Lands End canvas tote. But even she started to feel a tad insecure that unlike them, she did not possess an MBA. The fact was that the difficult pathway Dater and her cohort had takenmany of them college dropouts and all overcoming obstacles to turn support roles into steppingstoneswas fast closing. The new Wall Street woman belonged to an entirely different universe. But did she penetrate the all-boys club any better than her predecessors? It was telling that in the insider trading scandals of the late 1980s, which resulted in Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky and others serving time, not one woman was indicted. This wasnt a badge of integrity; it was a sign that women did not yet fully belong. Yet belonging was vital. In the 1990s, on the notorious Bear Stearns trading floor, Maureen Sherry, a Cornell University graduate whod benefited from a boss with a busy social schedule whod sent her to meetings in his stead, watched (and laughed) as inflatable sex dolls flew through the air, men punching at them to keep them aloft. When she and other top-level Bear Stearns women had had enough, they started meeting to share information, as well as to get the lowdown on the current predators, and eventually agreed to call out the worst of whatever they experienced. But their efforts largely proved futile because after all these years, they were suddenly drawing a line in the sand that hadnt been there before. Their male colleagues were confused: If a sexual innuendo was fine yesterday, why not today? In recent decades, women have certainly dealt themselves into the Wall Street game, thrived and had fun doing it, but they havent gotten as far as theyd expected. In 2022, women held only 12% of the managing director posts and 16% of principal and partner positions at private-equity firms. Perhaps its finally time to rewrite that playbook. Paulina Bren, a historian and professor at Vassar College, is the author of She-Wolves: The Untold History of Women on Wall Street" published on Sept. 17 by Norton, from which this essay is adapted. Stranded hippopotamuses are pictured at the Munambeza Pond in the Zambezi Region, Namibia, on Sept. 25, 2024. About 130 hippopotamuses are stranded in the mud in northeastern Namibia, as water levels continue to drop due to severe drought, a government official said Wednesday. To address this urgent situation, Namibia's Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism is drilling boreholes to pump water into the Munambeza Pond in the Zambezi Region, spokesperson Romeo Muyunda told Xinhua. (Namibia's Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism/Handout via Xinhua) WINDHOEK, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- About 130 hippopotamuses are stranded in the mud in northeastern Namibia, as water levels continue to drop due to severe drought, a government official said Wednesday. To address this urgent situation, Namibia's Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism is drilling boreholes to pump water into the Munambeza Pond in the Zambezi Region, spokesperson Romeo Muyunda told Xinhua. According to Muyunda, this is the second borehole drilled this year; the first was at Lugala in the Zambezi Region, where the water supply has improved conditions for the 135 hippos that were previously trapped in June. Following the completion of the borehole at Munambeza, the team will move on to a third location called Sinde, which is also nearby, Muyunda said. "The situation is caused by the drought we find ourselves in as a country, leading to water ponds drying out and hippopotamuses being stranded in some of these ponds," he said. "The ponds we know of so far are three on the eastern side of the Zambezi Region. In one pond we visited on Tuesday, Munambeza, water levels continue to go down," he added. According to Muyunda, these ponds not only sustain the hippopotamuses but also provide drinking water for other wild animals and livestock from neighboring communities. "So this intervention is going to serve several purposes," he added. Muyunda also warned of a potential rise in human-wildlife conflict, as the current situation may lead to competition for water resources. "We want to urge the public to remain cautious at all times. If the situation calls for it, please contact the ministry to intervene if any wildlife comes into your area," he said. Muyunda said the ministry is committed to wildlife conservation and is focused on saving lives rather than resorting to lethal measures. Stranded hippopotamuses are pictured at the Munambeza Pond in the Zambezi Region, Namibia, on Sept. 25, 2024. About 130 hippopotamuses are stranded in the mud in northeastern Namibia, as water levels continue to drop due to severe drought, a government official said Wednesday. To address this urgent situation, Namibia's Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism is drilling boreholes to pump water into the Munambeza Pond in the Zambezi Region, spokesperson Romeo Muyunda told Xinhua. (Namibia's Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism/Handout via Xinhua) Stranded hippopotamuses are pictured at the Munambeza Pond in the Zambezi Region, Namibia, on Sept. 25, 2024. About 130 hippopotamuses are stranded in the mud in northeastern Namibia, as water levels continue to drop due to severe drought, a government official said Wednesday. To address this urgent situation, Namibia's Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism is drilling boreholes to pump water into the Munambeza Pond in the Zambezi Region, spokesperson Romeo Muyunda told Xinhua. (Namibia's Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism/Handout via Xinhua) Editor: WXY Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Police officers stand in front of the Department of Justice in Washington, DC. Motorists in Longford have been advised that there will be a number of road closures to facilitate the Ray Flynn Mile and 5K Night Run this evening. The event honours the incredible achievements of Longfords legendary athlete Ray Flynn. It is a series of running events that cater to all ages and abilities. The Ray Flynn Mile and 5K Night Run will feature some of Ireland's top athletes. To facilitate the Ray Flynn Mile and 5K Night Run, Longford County Council has given notice that it has made an order to close a number of town centre road ways from 6:00pm to 9:00p. The closure affects those using Ballymahon Street, Dublin Street and New Street in Longford town. This include junctions: Main Street (R198) and Ballymahon Street (N-63-590); Main Street (R198) and Dublin street (N-63-592) and Geraldine Tce (L-3006-0); Dublin St (N63-592) and Dublin Road (R393-232); New Street (N63-594) and Dublin Street (N63-592); New Street (N63-594) and Breadens Lane (L-30111-0); Earl Street (L-3011-0) and Market Square (N63-587); Ballymahon Street (L-3011-0) and Market Square (N63-587); Harbour Row (L-3012-0) and Market Square (N63-588). The alternative route sees all through traffic use the N4 and N5 Longford Town by-passes. This road closure is in accordance with the Roads Act 1993 (Section 75: Temporary Closing of Roads) and Road Regulations 1994 (Article 12). The Ray Flynn Mile and 5K Night Run will feature some of Ireland's top athletes providing an extraordinary opportunity for participants and spectators alike to witness elite-level competition. The Ray Flynn Elite Mile Races is the show piece of the evening. Elite men and women mile races will take place on closed roads in the centre of Longford Town. A prize fund of 3000 will be distributed to the top finishers in the mens and womens elite mile races. The Ray Flynn 5K Night Run is a mass participation run which follows the same town centre lap as the mile events, with an additional scenic short lap along the canal. The first 300 entries will receive a bespoke finisher medal. The Primary School Childrens 1K is perfect for our younger runners, this event will take participants on the same town centre lap as the mile. Residents in Longford town are being exposed to unhealthy and potentially unsafe pollution levels over a period of time from fine particulate matter. The EPA has said the risk of health problems like heart disease, asthma, and low birth weight increase from breathing in unhealthy levels of PM2.5m, the finest and most hazardous material. Longford's level of 9.2 microgrammes exceeds the recommended World Health Organization air quality limit of 5mg per metre cubed. The town is also very close to breaching planned recommended European levels, with a new directive later this year due to set a 10mg target for 2030. Also read: Longford woman Roisin Reilly promoted to new marketing role at Bauer EPA Scientific officer David Kelleghan, who assessed the Longford figures, provided his reaction and expressed some concerns. "PM10 in Longford is not a concern, but PM2.5 is over the WHO air quality limit, which is set at 5 microgrammes per metre cubed for the annual mean," Mr Kelleghan stated. "So, based on the WHO figures that is a concentration that would have a health affect impact." Significant unhealthy levels can also reduce visibility and lead to the air appearing hazy and PM10 levels are highest in our towns and villages due largely to the burning of solid fuel. Mr Kelleghan explained that PM2.5 is worse and causes more health-related damage than PM10. Also read: Longford Disabled Activist James Cawley and 300 others "Reclaim their Rights" "The reason for that is because it is so much smaller and when you breathe them in they go through your lungs, your bloodstream and it's not just pulmonary issues, they cause cardiac issues as well such as blood clots, heart attacks," he said. "There is research that shows hospital admissions increase after air quality events in Ireland with these health issues, they all go up when you are exposed." Ireland has the highest incidence rate of asthma in Europe and it is estimated that there are 1,600 premature deaths in Ireland annually due to particulate matter. Also read: Longford family celebrate miracle triplets first day at school The EPA report said Ireland needs to tackle solid fuel burning and transport emissions to meet Clear Air Strategy ambition and protect public health. The EPA has expanded Irelands air quality monitoring network to include 115 monitoring stations, up from 29 in 2017, and now provides real-time monitoring and forecasting on airquality.ie. The EPA has stressed local authorities' need to facilitate proactive choices on both home heating and travel through strong application of the Solid Fuel Regulations and supporting alternatives to car travel. Former Longford Green Party local election candidate Catherine Joseph, who is now an independent, stated the data is concerning. Also read: Former Longford county councillor given benefit of Probation Act for assault charge "What is clear from this report is that Longford County Council, and indeed all local representatives, must take more decisive and proactive action," she said. "We are lagging behind on critical environmental and health issues, and this is reflected in our air quality data. The Council should be enforcing the solid fuel regulations with greater rigour." The Department's Ukraine Crisis Temporary Accommodation Team confirmed that a two year contract has been issued to house up to 59 Ukrainians at the former Hotel following refurbishment operations in place since January. The use of the Park House Hotel in Edgeworthstown as a location for housing refugees seeking international asylum was last raised at the January meeting of Longford County Council. On that occasion the Director of Service with responsibility for Enterprise and Ukrainian Humanitarian Response, Michael Nevin, said it was not a local authority project, but added that they were aware there has been work taking place. The former Park House Hotel in Edgeworthstown has been closed for a number of years, however it was approved for demolition and redevelopment in 2022. Also read: Longford Gardai involved in swoop on suspected burglar gang This week the Department of Integration confirmed it will be used to accommodate Ukrainian Refugees. It's anticipated that the new residents will be allocated within the next month. Councillor Paul Ross says the announcement has been in the pipeline since January: This is absolutely no surprise, It's been going on for the last nine months, he told the Leader. Cllr Ross says though the development has positive and negative aspects: The majority of people in Edgeworthstown are welcoming of those who are fleeing war to come to the Park House Hotel. Also read: Concern expressed over poor Longford air quality It was a derelict building that's now been done up. There are some concerns, such as the pressure on the health care system. The doctor of surgery in Edgeworthstown is at capacity and we need a new primary care centre. The Fine Gael elected representative said there are other social infrastructure considerations: Since September the availability of school bus places has been a problem. I have the parents of a number of children looking for school bus places to go to Granard. If additional teenagers are in the Park House something needs to be done about bus spaces to Granard, something has to be worked out. Also read: Longford woman Roisin Reilly promoted to new marketing role at Bauer Cllr Ross says the Department could have handled the flow of information to the public better: There are pros and cons to this, but the way the locals have been included in the process is not ideal. The first official engagement we had was this week. There's been talk here for the last nine months, the rumour mill always gets ahead of itself. Before the local elections there were some protests, people voicing legitimate concerns brought up, but there was no engagement, there was no real communication up to this point. PICTURES | Big crowd in Lanesboro as renowned Longford historian launches new book He says there may be opportunities arising from the establishment of the refugee centre: We need a Family Resource Centre in Edgeworthstown. I know some businesses in the town are currently recruiting staff, so if these people are looking to work, it could be a benefit to the town. Ultimately the Park House was going to be knocked out a couple of years ago. Now it's back open again. It may well become a hotel down the road, he concluded. 1st Dhaka China Day event held in Bangladeshi capital Xinhua) 13:49, September 27, 2024 DHAKA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The first "Dhaka China Day" event, co-hosted by the Chinese embassy in Bangladesh and North South University on Tuesday, attracted nearly 50,000 people, including prominent figures from various sectors of Bangladesh and China, as well as local residents and university students. "We are getting to know a lot about Chinese food, culture and economy in today's event," Bangladeshi university student Sumaiya Sultana told Xinhua. Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Yao Wen, Adviser to the interim government on the Ministries of Shipping, Textiles and Jute M Sakhawat Hossain, along with Vice Chancellor of North South University Abdul Hannan Chowdhury, and heads of various friendly organizations from Bangladesh and China attended the event. Yao said the Dhaka China Day highlights the vibrant spirit of China-Bangladesh friendship, allowing the people of Bangladesh to experience the rich and diverse traditional culture of both countries and significantly enhancing mutual understanding and friendship. He expressed hopes for further exchange and cooperation in various fields to elevate the relationship between the two countries to a higher level. For his part, Sakhawat warmly congratulated the successful holding of Dhaka China Day and spoke highly of the development in Bangladesh-China relations. He said he hoped the two countries would further strengthen cultural exchanges and enhance cooperation in a wider range of areas. During the opening ceremony, students and teachers from the Confucius Institutes and Classroom in Bangladesh performed dragon and lion dance, while North South University students sang popular songs in Chinese. An artistic troupe from China's Yunnan province staged song, dance, and acrobatic performances featuring rich Chinese ethnic characteristics. Various cultural activities were held during the event, including tea ceremonies, paper cutting, folk music, and calligraphy, as well as displays of high-tech products from China and China-Bangladesh cooperation outcomes. "I was surprised to see so many stalls and everything," North South University student Jannatul Islam said. "It's the first time this event is happening on our campus." Saifur Rahman, another student from the university, said he visited every stall during the event. "This is a big opportunity for us to know about China," he said. "And also develop ourselves in the future, the business in Bangladesh and China, and the Bangladesh-China partnership." (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) An aerial photo taken on Sept. 25, 2024 shows a part of Lake Kulu in Konya, Turkiye. Lake Kulu, by which Uludag grew up, is located some 5 km east of Konya Province's Kulu district. Once a haven for rose flamingos and other migratory birds on their way to Africa, it has already dried up due to groundwater overuse and climate change. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua) by Burak Akinci KONYA, Trkiye, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- When Murat Uludag was a teenager about 40 years ago, there was so much water in central Turkiye's Lake Kulu that it was dangerous to swim in it. "This region used to be a sanctuary for 186 species of birds. Compared to the past, we only have a handful of birds left," lamented Uludag, a man in his mid-50s who now heads a local wildlife conservation group. "If there's no water, there's no life," the ex-farmer told Xinhua, pointing at a small flock of flamingos and ducks stubbornly packed together in the middle of a tight shoal in the lake. Lake Kulu, by which Uludag grew up, is located some 5 km east of Konya Province's Kulu district. Once a haven for rose flamingos and other migratory birds on their way to Africa, it has already dried up due to groundwater overuse and climate change. In the past, farmers in Kulu used to grow traditional crops like wheat and barley, but they later shifted to water-intensive crops like maize or beetroot, leading to aggressive use of groundwater which gradually dried up the creeks feeding the lake, Uludag said. Lake Kulu is not alone in facing an uncertain future. According to figures released by the Turkiye Nature Conservation Association on September 18, 186 out of 240 lakes in Turkiye have entirely dried up over the past 60 years, while the remaining ones are at risk of drought and pollution. Besides, authorities have reported hundreds of sinkholes in Konya Province, which are weakening the bedrock and threatening agriculture and human safety. "One of the main issues in central Anatolia and the vast Konya plain is the proliferation of illegal wells drilled by farmers to irrigate water-intensive crops," Melih Ozbek, an Ankara-based scholar and a wildlife activist, told Xinhua. Another reason is the change in agriculture in recent years, exacerbated by climate change that has resulted in erratic weather conditions and drought, Ozbek said. There is an urgent need to create a plan involving all relevant parties and implement it with a shift in mindset, he said. "People are unwilling to make sacrifices for something they cannot see. They will suffer more in the coming decades," he added. Echoing Ozbek, Erol Kesici, a leading Turkish expert on water issues, warned that "there is not a single lake left in Turkiye that we can point to as being in good condition." "The problems are dire, with water levels, surface areas, pollution and oxygen depletion worsened; unfortunately, many of our natural lakes, formed millions of years ago, have suffered from severe drying in the past few decades," Kesici said. An aerial photo taken on Sept. 25, 2024 shows a part of Lake Kulu in Konya, Turkiye. Lake Kulu, by which Uludag grew up, is located some 5 km east of Konya Province's Kulu district. Once a haven for rose flamingos and other migratory birds on their way to Africa, it has already dried up due to groundwater overuse and climate change. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua) An aerial photo taken on Sept. 25, 2024 shows a part of Lake Kulu in Konya, Turkiye. Lake Kulu, by which Uludag grew up, is located some 5 km east of Konya Province's Kulu district. Once a haven for rose flamingos and other migratory birds on their way to Africa, it has already dried up due to groundwater overuse and climate change. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua) An aerial photo taken on Sept. 25, 2024 shows a part of Lake Kulu in Konya, Turkiye. Lake Kulu, by which Uludag grew up, is located some 5 km east of Konya Province's Kulu district. Once a haven for rose flamingos and other migratory birds on their way to Africa, it has already dried up due to groundwater overuse and climate change. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua) An aerial photo taken on Sept. 25, 2024 shows a part of Lake Kulu in Konya, Turkiye. Lake Kulu, by which Uludag grew up, is located some 5 km east of Konya Province's Kulu district. Once a haven for rose flamingos and other migratory birds on their way to Africa, it has already dried up due to groundwater overuse and climate change. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua) An aerial photo taken on Sept. 25, 2024 shows a part of Lake Kulu in Konya, Turkiye. Lake Kulu, by which Uludag grew up, is located some 5 km east of Konya Province's Kulu district. Once a haven for rose flamingos and other migratory birds on their way to Africa, it has already dried up due to groundwater overuse and climate change. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua) An aerial photo taken on Sept. 25, 2024 shows a part of Lake Kulu in Konya, Turkiye. Lake Kulu, by which Uludag grew up, is located some 5 km east of Konya Province's Kulu district. Once a haven for rose flamingos and other migratory birds on their way to Africa, it has already dried up due to groundwater overuse and climate change. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua) An aerial photo taken on Sept. 25, 2024 shows a part of Lake Kulu in Konya, Turkiye. Lake Kulu, by which Uludag grew up, is located some 5 km east of Konya Province's Kulu district. Once a haven for rose flamingos and other migratory birds on their way to Africa, it has already dried up due to groundwater overuse and climate change. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua) An aerial photo taken on Sept. 25, 2024 shows a part of Lake Kulu in Konya, Turkiye. Lake Kulu, by which Uludag grew up, is located some 5 km east of Konya Province's Kulu district. Once a haven for rose flamingos and other migratory birds on their way to Africa, it has already dried up due to groundwater overuse and climate change. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua) An aerial photo taken on Sept. 25, 2024 shows a part of Lake Kulu in Konya, Turkiye. Lake Kulu, by which Uludag grew up, is located some 5 km east of Konya Province's Kulu district. Once a haven for rose flamingos and other migratory birds on their way to Africa, it has already dried up due to groundwater overuse and climate change. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua) Editor: WXY Met Eireann has issued its full weather forecast for Ireland this weekend and it makes for grim reading after the sunshine of last week. The national forecaster has already issued a weather warning for Thursday in Dublin, Louth, Meath and Wicklow, alerting residents there to "rain, heavy at times, coupled with gusty winds, strongest near the coasts and on higher ground." The warning is in place until 8pm on Thursday with people also warned of the risk of spot flooding and disruption to travel. Their outlook beyond that warns of "rather mixed weather over the next few days and quite cold too for this time of year." They say Thursday "will be dull and wet as rain in the northeast and east extends across most of the country. The rain will be heavy at times, particularly in eastern parts of Leinster, and may cause spot flooding. It will become windy with fresh to strong and gusty northerly winds, strongest on Irish Sea coasts. Highest temperatures of 9 to 13 degrees. "The heavy and persistent rain will gradually clear southwards through the evening but it will remain rather cloudy. Fresh to strong and gusty northerly winds will gradually ease too with lowest temperatures of 4 to 7 degrees. READ NEXT: Met Eireann update on flooding risk for Ireland amid brutal weather twist "A rather cloudy start with a good scattering of showers drifting down from the north [on Friday]. Some sunny spells will develop later in the afternoon as the northerly breeze weakens. Highest temperatures of 10 to 13 degrees. "Rather cool with a fresh northerly breeze [on Friday night]. Quite cloudy too with a few showers drifting down over the country but it should stay mostly dry across the southern half of the country. Lowest temperatures of 2 to 6 degrees." Looking to the weekend, Met Eireann predict Saturday will be "a mostly dry day then with scattered cloud and good sunny spells at times too especially in the south and east. A few isolated showers will develop over Connacht and Ulster at times. Westerly winds will fall light later in the day with highest temperatures of 10 to 13 degrees. "Cloud will thicken early [on Sunday] in the day with outbreaks of rain developing across parts of the southwest too. More persistent rain will move over from the west later in the morning as southerly winds increase fresh to strong and gusty. Winds will increase to very strong at times along the west coast later in the afternoon with some heavy falls of rain spreading throughout the country. Highest temperatures of 12 to 15 degrees." Next week isn't looking any better with Met Eireann's latest forecast concluding: "Looking ahead, current models indicate another very unsettled day with heavy rain at times and very strong and gusty winds throughout. Temperatures likely to be in the mid-teens." Local News By Chris Boyle Published: September 27 2024 The funds will be applied toward implementing and developing a program for a multicultural historical library at the Community Center. Nassau County Legislature Alternate Deputy Minority Leader Siela A. Bynoe (D Westbury) applauded the unanimous Monday, Sept. 23 approval of a $13,500 Hotel-Motel Occupancy Tax Fund grant for the John J. Byrne Community Center in Uniondale. The funds will be applied toward implementing and developing a program for a multicultural historical library at the Community Center that includes a collection of books, documents and other relevant materials; lectures, workshops and other educational events; family-friendly programs and activities; exhibitions and displays of artifacts, art and other culturally significant items; cultural celebrations, and open microphone-style events where community members are encouraged to share their own stories and experiences. Local News By Chris Boyle Published: September 26 2024 Facing Pressure of Upcoming Jury Trials, Diocese of Rockville Centre and Its Parishes Reach Settlement in Years-Long Bankruptcy. Today, the Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre (DRVC) and its parishes announced a proposed global settlement with hundreds of sex abuse survivors who allege they were abused as children at the DRVCs parishes, churches, and schools. The settlement is conditioned on each of the DRVCs parishes filing for bankruptcy, a first in any bankruptcy arising from claims against the Catholic Church, and will stop a number of jury trials against the DRVC and its parishes. The first jury trial was scheduled to begin on October 7, 2024. The proposed settlement is conditioned on each of the DRVCs parishes filing for bankruptcy in order to protect the parishes and their insurers from the threat of future lawsuits. The total settlement amount may increase based on claims covered by the Arrowood insurance company, which is going through liquidation and did not participate in the settlement. Jason P. Amala, a partner and sexual abuse attorney with Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala PLLC, who represents more than a dozen survivors who filed claims in the DRVC bankruptcy, believes the Diocese settled because of upcoming jury trials: The timing of this settlement speaks volumes. With less than two weeks to go before the first jury trial, the Diocese, its parishes, and its insurance companies have come to the table and we have a global deal. Ironically, the Diocese filed for bankruptcy in order to avoid jury trials, but then spent the last four years asserting our clients claims had little or no value. We commend the survivors and Judge Glenn for staying the course, making the deal happen. and sending a strong message that even the most powerful entities can be held accountable. James R. Marsh, a partner and sexual abuse attorney with Marsh Law Firm PLLC, reiterated that the threat of upcoming jury trials was the catalyst for the DRVC reaching the deal: "The Diocese claimed $200 million was its 'best and final' offer, and threatened to dismiss its own bankruptcy if survivors did not accept its low ball offer. Rather than capitulate, the survivors told the Diocese, its parishes, and their insurance companies to get ready to face New York juries for their wrongdoing. On the proverbial courthouse steps at the first jury trial, the Diocese, its parishes, and its insurance carriers have finally agreed to settle for more than $120 million over their last offer. I hope this settlement paves the way for a similar approach in the other Catholic bankruptcies, some of which have been pending for even longer than this one. If anyone out there wants to argue these claims aren't worth much, they should be forced to make that argument to a jury." Background on DRVC Bankruptcy Filed almost four years ago, on October 1, 2020, the DRVCs bankruptcy is one of the longest pending Catholic bankruptcies in the country, and has also been one of the most contentious. In March 2023, The Official Committee Of Unsecured Creditors, a committee of survivors appointed by the bankruptcy court to represent the interests of all survivors, filed a motion to dismiss the DRVCs bankruptcy (Dkt. 1912). The motion claimed the DRVC and its parishes were unwilling to propose a reasonable amount to resolve the bankruptcy, and noted the DRVC had made clear it would never agree to a settlement that did not include its parishes. On October 23, 2023, the bankruptcy court recognized the parties were at an impasse, but declined to grant the Committees motion because it would result in hundreds of lawsuits against the Diocese and its parishes returning to state court. The bankruptcy court recognized the Diocese would likely just file for bankruptcy, again. Instead of dismissal, the bankruptcy court suggested the parties consider test cases, in the form of jury trials in state court, in order to get a better handle on what's the range of potential recoveries against parishes and/or the Diocese. In early 2024, as a number of test cases began to move forward in the state court system, the DRVC filed a proposed plan for emerging from bankruptcy. In April 2024, the DRVC announced that its proposed plan had been rejected by more than 85% of survivors, which it admitted was an overwhelming number of rejections. In response, on April 12, 2024, the DRVC filed its own motion to dismiss its bankruptcy, claiming $200 million was its best and final offer to its creditors. (Dkt. 3053). Rather than grant the DRVCs motion to dismiss its own bankruptcy, the bankruptcy court noted the DRVC and some of its parishes were facing jury trials in New York state court and ordered the parties to resume settlement negotiations. The first of those jury trials was scheduled to begin on October 7, 2024, in Nassau County. The Diocese originally filed for bankruptcy on October 1, 2020, following hundreds of child sex abuse lawsuits made possible by the Child Victims Act (CVA). The CVA opened a lookback window that temporarily suspended the statute of limitations and bestowed survivors with the unprecedented opportunity to seek restitution for decades-old child sex abuse crimes. The CVA lookback window was opened in August 2019 and closed in August 2021. Throughout this two-year period, PCVA and The Marsh Law Firm filed nearly 700 cases in state court. About PCVA Law Since 2004, Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala PLLC (PCVA) has represented hundreds of abuse survivors in substantial and complex bankruptcy proceedings around the country, including the Spokane Diocese, the Pacific Northwest Order of Jesuit Priests, the Christian Brothers of Ireland, and the Milwaukee Archdiocese. PCVA currently represents numerous survivors of sexual abuse in the pending bankruptcies of the the Boy Scouts of America, the Buffalo Diocese, the Rochester Diocese, the Camden Diocese, and the Archdiocese of Agana in Guam. In bankruptcy proceedings for the Pacific Northwest Order of Jesuit Priests, PCVA represented almost 140 survivors in one of the largest Catholic clergy settlements in the nation. The firm has also represented multiple women who were sold for sex as children on backpage.com and whose claims resulted in the seizure and closure of that website by federal authorities. Nassau DA: Queens Man Sentenced to Up to 7 Years in Prison for Killing Passenger in Drunk Driving Crash Crime By Chris Boyle Published: September 27 2024 Kwesi Williams drove at high rate of speed while intoxicated and crashed into an unoccupied vehicle and a utility pole, killing his female passenger. Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly announced that a Queens man was sentenced today to two and a half to seven and a half years in prison for crashing into a utility pole while intoxicated and speeding and killing his 32-year-old passenger in December 2021. Kwesi Williams, 43, pleaded guilty on June 5, 2024, before Judge Robert McDonald to Manslaughter in the Second Degree (a C felony) and Operating a Motor Vehicle While Under the Influence of Alcohol (an A misdemeanor). The defendant was sentenced today to two and a half to seven and a half years in prison. NCDA recommended a sentence of four to 12 years in prison. Kwesi Williams reckless and irresponsible decisions caused a catastrophic chain of events that ended the life of Sadayah Furet, said DA Donnelly. Williams was driving more than twice the speed limited and intoxicated when he struck a parked car and then launched his vehicle into a utility pole. Driving while intoxicated is a selfish choice and can quickly lead to the tragic deaths of innocent people. Our thoughts continue to be with Sadayahs family as they mourn her loss. DA Donnelly said that on December 3, 2021, at approximately 2:04 a.m. near 272 Elmont Road in Elmont, Williams, driving at a high rate of speed, crossed over the roadway, struck a parked, unoccupied vehicle, and crashed into a utility pole. The defendants passenger, 32-year-old Sadayah Furet, suffered extensive injuries to her head and neck, multiple broken bones, and damage to several major organs, including her lungs and heart. She was taken to NYU Langone Hospital Long Island where she was pronounced deceased at 3:33 a.m. Data recovered from the vehicle revealed that at the time of the collision the defendant was driving 74 mph in a 30-mph zone. A search warrant for the defendants blood taken at the hospital also revealed that his blood alcohol content was 0.10% approximately an hour and 15 minutes after the crash. Williams was arrested at NYU Langone Hospital Long Island by members of the Nassau County Police Department Homicide Squad on December 3, 2021. Local News By Chris Boyle Published: September 27 2024 Amount includes $118,763 awarded to work with four Long Island farms. As world leaders gather in New York during Climate Week NYC 2024, Governor Kathy Hochul today highlighted the States nation-leading climate efforts, including awarding a record level of fundingmore than $33 millionto farms through the Climate Resilient Farming Grant Program. Funded projects aim to help New Yorks farmers reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect water, ensure soil health, and increase on-farm resiliency to the effects of a changing climate. Altogether, the projects are estimated to reduce greenhouse gases by 120,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year the equivalent of removing 28,560 gasoline powered vehicles from the road for one year. This is nearly double the impact of the previous round of the program. Funding for the program was included in the New York State FY 2025 Enacted Budget as part of the States aggressive climate agenda and is supported by additional federal funds through a USDA Climate Smart Commodities grant. "New York State is leading the nation in the fight against climate change, and our record investment in the Climate Resilient Farming Program is just one part of my administrations ambitious efforts to protect our ecosystems and create the green future all New Yorkers deserve," Governor Hochul said. "This program gives farmers the resources they need to mitigate their impact on the environment, prepare for and respond to whatever weather events the future holds, and continue their critical work contributing to our local economies. Led by county Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCD), a total of 70 projects will be implemented on 184 farms across New York State. They are supported through $16.14 million in State funding, plus an additional $17 million in federal funds. Of the 70 awarded projects, 39 involve a new farm participant, illustrating the growing reach and impact of the program. SWCDs were awarded the grants on behalf of farmers in one of six tracks: Track 1A: Livestock Management: Alternative Waste Management and Precision Feed Management (New York State funds) Track 1B: Manure Storage Cover and Methane Capture Projects (federal funds) Track 2: Adaptation and Resiliency (New York State funds) Track 3A: Healthy Soils NY (systems and Best Management Practices that support soil health and agroforestry (New York State funds) Track 3B: Soil Health Systems (federal funds) Track 4: Agricultural Forestry Management (for carbon sequestration) (New York State funds) The Climate Resilient Farming Grant Program follows the States Agricultural Environmental Management planning framework and is led and implemented by county SWCDs. County SWCDs work with farms and communities to conserve natural resources and address pressing environmental challenges and opportunities. SWCDs in the following regions were awarded grants through Round 8 of the program: Capital Region: $3,152,885 awarded to work with 11 farms Central New York: $8,241,829 awarded to work with 36 farms Finger Lakes: $12,948,325 awarded to work with 67 farms Long Island: $118,763 awarded to work with four farms Mid-Hudson: $166,400 awarded to work with five farms Mohawk Valley: $608,797 awarded to work with five farms North Country: $3,439,282 awarded to work with 20 farms Southern Tier: $2,827,378 awarded to work with 19 farms Western New York: $1,655,677 awarded to work with 12 farms In total, the awarded farms are projected to implement 98,000 acres of cover crops, 23 acres of riparian buffers, and nine manure storage cover and flares systems the most in a single round, which will provide the largest estimated greenhouse gas emission reduction for a single practice for the program to date. For a complete list and descriptions of projects awarded, please visit the Department of Agriculture and Markets website. State Agriculture Commissioner Richard A. Ball said, "Farmers care deeply for the health and vitality of New Yorks working landscapes. Working in partnership with county Soil and Water Conservation Districts across the state, our farmers are committed to producing food in a way that reduces their environmental footprint and protects our natural resources at the same time. With this record-setting level of funding, we are expanding our reach to even more farms across the State, helping New York State to continue to lead the nation in combating climate change and ensuring a healthy, thriving environment for all." New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Interim Commissioner Sean Mahar said, With $33 million in new funding announced today, New Yorks farmers will be able to better prepare for the impacts of extreme weather events resulting from climate change and reduce operational impacts to the environment, like choosing equipment that helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and implementing projects to better support soil health and water quality after extreme weather. DEC applauds Governor Hochul and our partners at the Department of Agriculture and Markets for supporting New York farms and advancing sustainable practices to improve the health and resiliency of our agricultural ecosystems and communities with record investments and complementary initiatives like investments through the Clean Water, Clean Air and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act. New York Farm Bureau President David Fisher said, Farmers are natural stewards of the environment. We welcome investments in sustainability, especially those investments that help farmers protect the land that is their livelihood. The Climate Resilient Funding Program creates a pathway for farmers to reduce greenhouse gases and take proactive measures in planning for extreme weather conditions. Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo said, For nearly a decade, the Climate Resilient Farming Program has helped farmers address the impacts of climate change through proven techniques and practices. I'm pleased that this record-level round of funding is reaching so many new participants across the state. Thank you to the Governor, our federal partners, and my colleagues for their continued support for this program and to the Soil and Water Conservation Districts for their dedicated service. Assemblymember Deborah Glick said, As fresh water sources become scarcer nationwide, sustainable farming has become even more important for New York and the entire US. Thank you to Governor Hochul for on-going support to farms and addressing climate change through the Climate Resilient Farming Grant Program. This program increases sustainability efforts and lowers greenhouse gas emissions while protecting water and soil health through projects led by county Soil and Water Conservation Districts, said Assemblymember Deborah Glick, Chair of the Environmental Conservation Committee, This years projects will nearly double the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions while abating nutrient pollution and harmful algal blooms, protecting drinking water, and supporting our farmers and New York farms. State Senator Pete Harckham said, "Our farms are facing the consequences of the climate crisis every day. The Climate Resilient Farming Grant program is vital to their efforts to build soil health, protect our environment, and ensure a sustainable local food supply. I'm particularly proud of the Healthy Soil NY program, which promotes a cohesive, scientifically rigorous soil protection strategy. It was true then and true now. With continued support, we can empower New York farmers to lead the way in resilient, climate friendly agriculture." Senator Michelle Hinchey said, When we say farmers are on the frontlines of the Climate Crisis, we mean their ability to grow our food is directly tied to the environment around themhow healthy the soil is, the weather conditions, and the effects of a changing climate. Their work and our food supply depend on a stable and thriving ecosystem, and as a state, we have a major stake in this process. The Climate Resilient Farming Grant Program is one of the key initiatives where the state can deliver direct support to our farms, helping scale proven sustainability measures and put New York in the best position to protect our food supply for the future. Im proud to help champion this vital program and congratulate all the awarded projects supporting farms across New York State, including in Columbia and Ulster counties! New York State Soil and Water Conservation Committee Chair Dale Stein said, Thanks to the partnership between the State and the County Soil and Water Conservation Districts, we have seen great progress in the use of Best Management Practices on our farms to mitigate the impacts of climate change and to help our farmers be better prepared for the increasing number of severe weather events we are all experiencing. Now, with the help of federal funds, our Districts are able to expand their reach even further and welcome even more farms into the program. Launched in 2015, the Climate Resilient Farming Program supports the State's agricultural sector in meeting its goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sequestration on working lands under the State's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. So far, through the program, with expert technical support provided by county SWCDs, 580 farms have been able to implement changes that are contributing to a reduced environmental footprint and increased resiliency to the effects of a changing climate. Round 8 of the program provides $16.14 million in state funding for these projects, consistent with $16 million in Round 7 and a significant increase from $8 million in Round 6. Governor Hochuls Commitment to Soil and Water Conservation Districts Under the Governor's leadership, the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget provides $81.8 million through the Environmental Protection Fund, up $4 million from last year, for agricultural programs and initiatives, such as the Climate Resilient Farming grant program, that are helping farms to implement environmentally sustainable practices and combat climate change. This includes capital investments Soil and Water Conservation Districts oversee, such as supporting dairy farmers to implement projects that enhance manure management systems that sequester carbon and conserve manure nutrients applied to fields and soil to benefit water quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It also includes recent funding in the Eastern Finger Lakes Watershed that galvanizes implementation of the plans and programs to address on-the-ground actions necessary to abate nutrient pollution and harmful algal blooms (HABs), prevent runoff, protect drinking water, and support local farmers. New York State's Nation-Leading Climate Plan New York State's climate agenda calls for an orderly and just transition that creates family-sustaining jobs, continues to foster a green economy across all sectors and ensures that a minimum of 35 percent, with a goal of 40 percent, of the benefits of clean energy investments are directed to disadvantaged communities. Guided by some of the nations most aggressive climate and clean energy initiatives, New York is advancing a suite of efforts including the New York Cap-and-Invest program (NYCI) and other complementary policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030 and 85 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels. New York is also on a path toward a zero-emission electricity sector by 2040, including 70 percent renewable energy generation by 2030, and economy-wide carbon neutrality by mid-century. A cornerstone of this transition is New York's unprecedented clean energy investments, including more than $28 billion in 61 large-scale renewable and transmission projects across the State, $6.8 billion to reduce building emissions, $3.3 billion to scale up solar, nearly $3 billion for clean transportation initiatives and over $2 billion in NY Green Bank commitments. These and other investments are supporting more than 170,000 jobs in New Yorks clean energy sector as of 2022 and over 3,000 percent growth in the distributed solar sector since 2011. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality, New York also adopted zero-emission vehicle regulations, including requiring all new passenger cars and light-duty trucks sold in the State be zero emission by 2035. Partnerships are continuing to advance New Yorks climate action with more than 400 registered and more than 150 certified Climate Smart Communities, over 500 Clean Energy Communities, and the States largest community air monitoring initiative in 10 disadvantaged communities across the State to help target air pollution and combat climate change. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeks a role for Turkey in Gazas post-war reconstruction if not governance, and the Biden administration appears ready to accede to this request. Others also see Turkish involvement after the conflict as a fait accompli. Its tough to imagine any long-term solution to the Gaza situation without regional players like Turkey playing a role, either as a guarantoras theyve talked aboutor certainly in the rebuild, retired US Ambassador to Turkey Jeff Flake stated in a recent interview. However, rather than welcome Turkey, Washington should be wary. The problem is not only based on Erdogans ideological sympathy for Hamas but also his willingness to use the Turkish paramilitary SADAT to act on his behalf. In 2012, Adnan Tanriverdi, an Erdogan confidant and the highest-ranking officer to be purged from the Turkish military for Islamist proclivities following the 1997 soft coup, founded SADAT alongside nearly two dozen military colleagues with similar sympathies. SADATs efforts on Erdogans behalf during the 2016 coup attempt by some Turkish Armed Forces factions reinforced the presidents confidence in the private military company (PMC). SADATs website states that it provides defense and security consulting, military and internal security training, and logistics services for armed forces and police, including maintenance and repair systems. The organization also says it can procure weapons and explosives for its clients. Like Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Wagner Group, SADAT allows Erdogan to further Turkeys interests while maintaining some plausible deniability. The chief difference between Wagner and SADAT is ideology. SADAT is unabashedly Islamist. Its stated mission includes the desire to form an alliance of Islamic countries that takes its place among the worlds superpowers. Tanriverdi also called for the creation of a joint Islamic army. SADAT provides an avenue for arranging military security and training to organizations aligned with Islamist ideologies in Libya, Azerbaijan, West Africa, Syria, and Iraq. The organization says it does not support Hamas, but evidence suggests otherwise. Tanriverdi died last month, but SADATlike Wagnersurvives its founder. Tanriverdis son and the Turkish PMCs new chief, Melih Tanriverdi, seeks to fill any vacuum the United States, Europe, or moderate Arab partners leave in the region. As normalization efforts with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad advance, and the United States seeks to draw down its forces in Iraq, SADAT stands poised to advance its footprint in both countries, often at the expense of counter-Islamic State fights. Before his death, Adnan Tanriverdi called for an Islamic army for Palestine and threatened that any Israeli operation in Gaza should lead to attacks on Tel Aviv. Thus, SADAT would likely be the conduit for Erdogans recent threat to take action against Israel against the backdrop of Israels war with Hamas. Current and future US administrations should understand this history and SADATs mission before giving Turkey a role in training or equipping Palestinians in Gaza, especially given evidence that SADAT has supported terror by training and recruiting fighters for the Nusra Front and the Islamic State. On September 18, the Armenian Bar Association also requested Global Magnitsky Sanctions against SADAT over allegations of serious human rights abuses and complicity in violence and instability across conflict zones, particularly in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), Libya, and Syria. Western leaders do not trust the Wagner Group to bring security anywhere in the world, and SADAT similarly lacks credibility while also having an Islamist agenda. Rather than viewing Turkey as an ally and assuming its proxies can contribute to postwar security in Gaza, the US would be better served by the Treasury Department investigating SADAT for terror ties. If the PMC is found to have definitively augmented the capabilities of terrorist groups, sanctions on the groups leadership and frozen assets in jurisdictions that touch the US financial system would resultnot vesting this paramilitary organization with reconstruction, peacekeeping, and security duties. Tyler Stapleton is director of congressional relations at FDD Action. Sinan Ciddi is a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Follow them on X: @Ty_D_Stapleton and @SinanCiddi. Dame Maggie Smith, the iconic British actress celebrated for her roles in Harry Potter and Downton Abbey, has passed away at the age of 89. Her family confirmed that Smith died peacefully in the hospital on Friday, surrounded by close friends and family. AP In a heartfelt statement, her sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, expressed their grief: "She was an intensely private person, and she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves behind two sons and five loving grandchildren, all deeply saddened by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother." Born on December 28, 1934, in Essex, Smith's illustrious acting career spanned over seven decades. Her early years were spent in Oxford, where she began studying acting at just 16. By 1952, Smith made her stage debut as Viola in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, marking the start of an extraordinary journey that would see her become one of Britain's most celebrated actresses. Her breakthrough came in the late 1950s, with her first BAFTA nomination for Nowhere to Go. She earned international acclaim by winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1969 for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and followed that with a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for California Suite in 1978. Harry Potter fame While Smith's career was steeped in theatre and film, she gained worldwide fame for her portrayal of Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter series and as the witty Dowager Countess Violet Crawley in Downton Abbey. Smith's family also extended their gratitude to the staff at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care during her final days. Tributes poured in from her colleagues, with friend Gyles Brandreth remarking, "She was a truly great actress, wise, witty, and one of a kind." Dame Maggie Smith's legacy will forever be remembered through her immense contributions to film, theatre, and television, where her performances left an indelible mark on audiences worldwide. Marxist-leaning president wins Sri Lankas elections: this is how the result of the countrys presidential elections on the weekend have been reported in the international press. The headlines are incorrect, but the facts are sensational enough. For the first time, a party outside the duopoly that has dominated Sri Lanka since independence in 1948 has taken the presidency. All of the old politics, parties and dynasties, all of the old crooks and leeches who have sucked Sri Lanka dry for 76 years, were on the ballot paper and the masses rejected them roundly. The old ruling cliques, with all the advantages of their wealth and power, were utterly humiliated. Back in 2019, Gotabaya Rajapaksa took 51 percent of the vote. On the weekend, his nephew Namal Rajapaksa took a humiliating 2.5 percent! The outgoing president Ranil Wickremesinghe, to whom the whole electoral machine of the Rajapaksas had defected, who had all the advantages of being the incumbent, of being the liberal darling of the ruling class, and of being able to sell his success in negotiating an IMF bailout, did little better. He got just 17 percent. Anything associated with the establishment, with the old elites, with the handful of families that have dominated the island for decades and who have brought it to ruin, was rejected. In their place, weve seen the most remarkable political transformations. A generation ago, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP, Peoples Liberation Front) called itself a Marxist-Leninist party. Its members were killed, imprisoned and exiled after leading not one but two failed youth insurrections against the state. On the weekend it rose from 3.6 percent to 42 percent, clinching the presidency for its candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD). It must be stated from the start that, today, the JVP bears little relation to the party it once was. It continues to bear the hammer and sickle as the party logo, but thats a distant echo of its once revolutionary past. A rally of the JVP from May Day 2016. The party may still use the hammer and sickle, but this is a distant echo from its past / Image: unknown Its leader, the new president, has been shaking hands with ambassadors, bankers and businessmen for months. He has reassured the blood-sucking creditors and the IMF that the country will move forward in partnership with them under his presidency a partnership that bears resemblance with that of the mule and its driver, or perhaps the lion and the gazelle. But despite this, in the days running up to the election, the old ruling clique raised a red-baiting hue and cry about this extreme party with its violent past. In so doing, they only helped enhance the anti-establishment credentials of the party in the eyes of the masses, who want nothing more than to uproot and destroy the whole establishment. A complete upheaval in consciousness If you want an example of how narrow, how utterly circumscribed so-called democracy is under capitalism, just take a look at Sri Lanka. Five years ago, the masses were asked to put a tick next to one of a limited list of names in order to decide who will rule over them. They did so immediately following an atrocious wave of ISIS terror attacks. The result, predictably, led to a landslide for Gotabaya Rajapaksas, with his clans nationalist campaign, soaked in Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism and national security hysteria. He won 51 percent of the vote. In 2019, Gota Rajapaksa (pictured, left) received 51 percent of the vote. On the weekend, his nephew Namal Rajapaksa received 2.5 percent of the vote, a humiliating defeat for the clan / Image: Government of India Since that election in 2019 which gave a mere partial snapshot of a temporary mood, distorted through a limited system of dynastic parties the country has been through a pandemic, national bankruptcy, a revolution, and the flight of the very same president! On the weekend, the Rajapaksas stood again. This time they put up the young princeling and Gotabayas nephew, Namal Rajapaksa. He took a mere 2.5 percent a complete and well-deserved humiliation for this clan. Look at the electoral map of the weekends election: it was precisely those areas that voted most heavily for the Rajapaksas at the last elections that voted overwhelmingly for a so-called ex-Marxist now! There is a lesson there. In 2019, the superficial, pessimistic empirics despairingly sighed about Sri Lankas hopelessly calcified, reactionary and racist electorate. With the election of the Rajapaksas, they confidently predicted that Sri Lanka was entering a prolonged period of reaction, even fascism. The same species of superficial analysts have written off the Trump-voting workers of the United States, Le Pen-voting workers in France, and Modi-voting workers in India as irredeemable reactionaries. And yet, in Sri Lanka, the same electorate who lifted the Rajapaksa clan to power have hurled them down in such a fashion that it is hard to envisage a road to recovery. The lesson, if the empirics are capable of learning anything at all, is that these snapshots only give a few hints at the really complex processes at play in the minds of millions of men and women, and that mighty events, at a certain stage, will inevitably turn consciousness completely on its head. Why AKD won and where he didnt Bourgeois elections offer a partial snapshot of what stage consciousness is passing through. Digging deeper, these results paint a complex picture. AKDs victory was a remarkable one, but he has received an endorsement that is far from unanimous. The electoral map shows quite clearly along which lines the electorate is divided. In the North and East, with its Tamil and Muslim majorities, and in the plantation regions of the Central highlands where Indian Tamils are a significant force, it wasnt AKD but the SJBs Sajith Premadasa who topped the polls. In Colombo too, where a third of the population come from the Sinhala majority, a third are Tamils and a third Muslims, Dissanayake also trailed behind Premadasa. A breakdown of the election map shows that, whilst the JVP/NPP won a majority, in the North, East and Centre of the country, the right-wing bourgeois opposition party, the SJB, took the anti-government vote / Image: Furfur Majorities among the Sinhala masses voted for the JVPs Dissanayake. This was, as we have explained elsewhere, a negative vote, a vote against the old parties and dynasties. But the JVP is an old party with a long history, and a rather chequered one to say the least when it comes to the minority groups in Sri Lanka. Indeed, the JVP supported Mahinda Rajapaksas brutal campaign of atrocities against the Tamils after the latter was elected president in 2005. The same negative vote against the Ranil Rajapaksa regime was thus in no way expressed among minority groups with a vote for the JVP. Instead, they largely voted for the only other tool that could express a mood of similar rejection of the governing parties, namely, the right-wing opposition party, the SJB, although without any great enthusiasm for its buffoon of a leader, Sajith Premadasa. Dissanayake, the JVP, and the partys electoral alliance the National Peoples Power (NPP), have done much to distance themselves from the JVPs past or rather, the insurrectionary communist part of the partys past! Theyve made clear that they are a respectable, centre-ground party now. But there has been no repudiation or apology for the partys long history of Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism. There was no hint of a class appeal to the masses, to unite the working masses across the ethnic divide, whose common suffering has taken on agonising proportions in the past two years. This was thus a key limiting factor in restraining the potential for the NPP/JVPs success, which is already restrained by its dubious past. Dissanayake has reassured those who really call the shots the capitalists that his programme will be a responsible one, of respecting the deals done with the IMF, of perhaps amending this or that of the harshest aspects of the debt restructuring programme, but otherwise ensuring that the creditors get their pound of flesh. The whole thrust of the partys programme has been one of fighting corruption and good governance. By cutting out the graft and corruption that is endemic to politics in a country like Sri Lanka, AKD assured the masses that his government would be able to refund education, healthcare, and certain social programmes, to take the edge off austerity, whilst restoring the public finances and economic stability. This is sheer nonsense. The crisis into which Sri Lanka has been plunged is a consequence of the overarching crisis of world capitalism. There will only be an economic recovery once austerity and attacks against the working class reduce labour costs to such miserable levels that international capital can be guaranteed handsome profits. Dissanayakes programme, by directing the fury of the masses against corruption instead of capitalism, is music to the ears of the IMF and the big creditors. But the latter nonetheless fear that the masses, drawing confidence from the blow theyve dealt against the old ruling clique, will have expectations that go far beyond the NPPs empty programme. Thats the problem when your programme is a void: the masses can fill it with whatever content they imagine. Prospects What can we expect going forward? Firstly, the JVP/NPP will face a struggle to consolidate its power after this victory. AKD has dissolved parliament and called new elections. This is a popular move. The old Rajapaksa-dominated parliament is absurdly out of keeping with the real feeling in the country. But the NPP faces multiple hurdles. Dissanayakes victory was not as convincing as he might have hoped. For all the above mentioned reasons, he is, in fact, the first Sri Lankan president since 1978 who has been elected while failing to gain more than 50 percent of first-preference votes. This presents a dilemma. Unless the NPP can get a majority of MPs in the upcoming parliamentary elections, which it is far from guaranteed, a crisis immediately beckons. If it emerges as the biggest party but remains short of a majority it will either be utterly unable to govern a government of crisis from day one or it will be forced to enter a coalition. But with whom would it enter coalition? Presumably one or other of the very same rotten, dynastic parties whose corruption it has promised to root out. Its anti-corruption programme will fall into smithereens. The old ruling elite is now closing ranks to contest the upcoming elections and protect their common interests. Ranil Wickremesinghes UNP is presently in discussion with Sajith Premadasas SJB to contest the election jointly. They will be pulling out all the stops. So will AKD and the JVP/NPP. They face the disadvantage that they lack a party machine based on extensive clientelism. We can expect a few tokenistic moves on the part of AKD to boost the partys chances, like the recent recall of all luxury ministerial cars, so symbolic of the opulence of the governing elite. But the real trouble for the JVP/NPP would begin if they actually win these elections and get their majority. This victory has emboldened the masses after two hard years. They will be putting pressure on the new government to deliver something beyond symbolic measures like the arrest of the most corrupt former regime figures. They have no intention of going after the wealth of the foreign capitalists and the domestic elite that have really drained the nation. There will be enormous pressure, meanwhile, to return to the IMF to renegotiate the debt restructuring in order to remove the most onerous austerity conditions. The party has maintained an ambivalent stance on this question. They must surely know that, whilst this is what the masses desperately desire, they can hope for no better terms from the IMF. Even if the IMF could afford to do so, for political reasons, they cannot grant any further concessions after the agreement reached with the outgoing government of Ranil Wickremesinghe. To do so would send a potent message to the oppressed masses in dozens of countries facing bankruptcy around the world that revolution pays off. The results of this election are a product of the revolution in 2022. The ruling class has tried to use the mailed fist. Now it must use the velvet glove to deceive the masses / Image: Batapola Antenna To anyone who holds sincere illusions that AKD and the JVP/NPP could successfully renegotiate a deal, we point to the example of Greece. There, the Greek masses elected the left government of Syriza on a far less unambiguous programme than AKD of renegotiating bailout conditions with the IMF. After the negotiations, in which Syriza dared to mobilise the masses, they imposed far harsher terms to punish the Greek masses for their defiance, and Syriza capitulated. On the back of that betrayal, the traditional party of Greek capital, the New Democracy, was able to claw its way back to power. Sri Lankas government will enjoy no greater success in appealing to the goodwill of the imperialist institutions and blood-sucking creditors. The election of AKD is a fruit of the Sri Lankan revolution of 2022. Under the Rajapaksas and Ranil Wickremesinghe, the ruling class has attempted to rule through brute repression. Now, through the JVP/NPP, they will be forced to switch tack, and to rule through sweet promises and illusions. In his inaugural speech as president, AKD said the following: There is one dream our people see every new day the sun rises. That is, tomorrow will be better than today! Yes, these are very picturesque words, and they indeed express the very modest hope of the Sri Lankan people. But your partys programme cannot guarantee such a thing. The capitalist system, that you defend, promises only an ever darker tomorrow. The Sri Lankan working class will have to pass through this new school of promises and sweet words, from which its vanguard will draw more advanced conclusions. Not only the old cliques, but the whole system must be uprooted. Only the repudiation of the debt and the expropriation of the local oligarchy and foreign capital can offer a way out of the nightmare into which the people have been plunged. Such a path, which a revolutionary party of the advanced workers and youth alone would be able to take, would light the way for the socialist revolution across the Subcontinent, which at present is a seething cauldron of revolutionary anger. For 24 years, Anna Caldarelli has risen each school day morning well before most of her neighbors to make sure the children of East Boston make it to class safely. A lifelong resident of the neighborhood, Caldarelli, 80, points out the teenagers and adults, her neighbors, who she crossed as young children. Some kids come to the corner crying and I always have a tissue. We tie many shoelaces, she said. Its a pleasant job and it keeps us young. But her job is one fewer and fewer people seem willing to do. Boston has 153 crossing guards and more than 50 vacant positions city officials would like to fill. Its not the only city or town facing a shortage of people interested in this 15-hour-a-week, part-time role. Nobody is applying, Caldarelli, the president of Bostons crossing guard union, said. Officials in Natick, Hudson and other towns across the region also report difficulty hiring and retaining crossing guards. The city of Watertown budgets for about two dozen positions. Half are empty, Watertown Police Chief Justin Hanrahan told MassLive last month. Were, like, begging people, he said. Boston faces the unique troubles of being the largest urban area and the largest school district in the region. But here and in suburbia, there are intersections where a young child walking to school or their bus simply cant safely cross alone. When one of those crossing guard positions goes unfilled, the city turns to police officers to fill the gap. There enters another problem: Boston is short several hundred cops, stretched thin by a nationwide exodus from law enforcement. Some crossing shifts overlap with police department shift changes. When he was a captain, Boston Police Superintendent Robert Ciccolo recalled that he would need an officer coming off an overnight shift to stay on longer to cross students in the North End. In the morning rush, an intersection by the North Washington Street Bridge was not a spot we can leave uncovered, he told City Councilors on Sept. 12. Those extra hours worked mean more money spent for a department whose overtime pay reached $88.5 million last year and annually runs well over budget. Councilor Enrique Pepen is grateful for the officer he recently saw crossing kids one morning at a busy intersection in Roslindale. But with the police department drastically understaffed, I would rather him doing some other type of enforcement, he said. Crossing guard Anna Caldarelli stops traffic in East Boston on Wednesday morning to allow students to cross the street safely. She works 15 hours a week and has been a crossing guard for 24 years. (Will Katcher/MassLive).Will Katcher/MassLive When Caldarelli took over the union in 2017, she represented 196 crossing guards. But as it did across countless industries, the COVID-19 pandemic decimated Bostons crossing guard ranks, driving dozens into retirement. The position can be tricky to hire for: 90-minute shifts each morning and afternoon and part-time pay starting at $18 an hour in the most recent union contract. Its not for everyone. Caldarelli wakes around 5 a.m. most mornings usually her Malteses fault and at around 7:30 a.m. walks to work at the corner of Saratoga and Westbrook streets, a stones throw from her front door. Eighty-five percent of Bostons crossing guards are women. A majority are non-white. Three dozen are over age 70. The oldest member of their union is 92. Most crossing guards work in their neighborhoods within walking distance of home. Joseph Donnellan, a Norwood attorney representing the union, said the modest wages and the citys lackluster recruiting are responsible for the crossing guards diminished ranks. Caldarelli also bristled at the requirement that public employees be Boston residents, a rule city officials have waived for some positions, though not for crossing guards. Living in Boston is increasingly unaffordable for many in the public sector. Caldarelli said many crossing guards work second jobs. Their starting annual salary is $13,000 for 15 hours of work per week, which is equal to about $34,600 for a 9-to-5 job. Under the new union contract, it will rise 20% over the next four years. Absolutely, the residency requirement should be dropped, Caldarelli said. Right now, we have a crossing guard crisis, Hanrahan, the Watertown police chief, said. When his officers arrive for morning roll call, some are sent immediately to intersections missing crossing guards. Hanrahan identified a few solutions when he was promoted to police chief last year. One was a pay raise for crossing guards, who are civilian employees of the police department, as they are in Boston. A second was to begin a cadet program to hire young prospective police officers, train them on the job, and, in the process, gain extra hands for dispatching, community events and traffic control. Boston has a cadet program, yet about 60 positions are unfilled, police officials told the city council earlier this month. The same recruiting issues facing departments hiring full-time officers also plague their recruitment of cadets, reflecting a general falling interest in law enforcement careers. In the past, the Boston Police Department used cadets significantly for traffic, Ciccolo told the city council earlier this month. In fact, they had permanent traffic assignments. Right this minute, we dont have the staffing levels on the cadet side to do that. Crossing guard Anna Caldarelli during the morning school day commute in East Boston on Wednesday. (Will Katcher/MassLive).Will Katcher/MassLive Pepen suggested transferring the crossing guards from the police department to another city division the school system or the Transportation Department, for instance as he said some Greater Boston communities had done. He reasoned that a person could cross children in the morning and afternoon and work elsewhere in the schools or do parking enforcement for the city in the middle of the day. That may ease recruitment and hiring, Pepen said. Caldarelli rejected that idea. Though crossing guards are civilians, they wear a badge, identification and uniform that say Boston Police, and she liked that. We get the respect, she said. She does a great job, one neighbor, who gave his name as Anthony P., said Wednesday as he steered his motorized wheelchair past Caldarellis corner. He had known her for 20 years and received her crossing assistance many times. I just want the city to be safe, he said. Bostonians can channel their inner German with a plethora of Oktoberfest happenings in the city. Munichs 189th Oktoberfest started on Sept. 21 and will last until Oct. 6 so theres still time to participate in all the beer-drinking festivities your heart desires. But if you cant make it to Germany, there are plenty of opportunities to raise a stein in celebration. You can find some Oktoberfest happenings in Boston below. Barktoberfest at Park-9 Dog Bar in Everett and Fenway Prost with your pooch at Park-9s Barktoberfest from 3 to 6 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28 at both the brewerys Everett location and Fenway pop-up. The event will let humans participate in a stein-holding contest while their dogs get a treat. You can sign up for this competition and others including a dog-holding contest for dogs over five pounds upon arrival. Aeronaut Allston Oktoberfest Snag a stein and prost at Aeronaut Allstons Oktoberfest from 1 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28. The beer hall will have German-inspired beers and food. You can also test your strength by competing in a stein-holding competition. Tickets starting at $10 can be purchased online. Oktoberfest burger at Puttshack From Oct. 2 to 31, you can order a special Oktoberfest burger from Puttshacks locations in Seaport and Natick. The limited-time burger consists of a brisket, chuck, and short rib patty, topped with Pecan wood bacon, Swiss cheese, sweet grilled onions, whole grain mustard, lettuce, and tomato, served on a toasted pretzel bun. Puttshack will also be pouring special 23-ounce glasses of Samuel Adams Oktoberfest and serving Bavarian Donuts with vanilla ice cream all month in October. Oktoberfest Bash at Banners Kitchen and Tap Reserve your table at Banners Kitchen and Taps Oktoberfest Bash from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 5. The bash will feature German-themed hors doeuvres along with an a la carte menu and a special Oktoberfest Featured Menu. The $50 event will also feature live music and performances by authentic German actors. Attendees can also vote for their favorite beer after sampling brews from more than 15 renowned breweries. Oktoberfest at City Tap House Don your dirndls and lederhosen for Oktoberfest at City Tap House in Seaport from 2-8 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 5. The restaurant will transform its patio into a full German biergarten complete with polka music as well as stein-hoisting competitions at 2:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Pair your beer with one of City Taps food specials including the Best of the Wurst German sausage sampler with sauerkraut, pickled beets, mustard and baguettes ($18) and the Bavarian Twist, a giant soft pretzel with beer-cheddar and mustard dipping sauces ($16). Admission is free while food and beer specials available at a la carte pricing. Oktoberfest at Tall Ship East Bostons popular outdoor bar Tall Ship Boston is hosting its fourth annual Oktoberfest from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 6. Attendees can sample roughly a dozen local brews, German-themed food, compete in a stein hoisting contest and listen to live music. People can also stick around to watch the New England Patriots take on the Miami Dolphins on Tall Ships LED screen. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased online. Harvard Square Oktoberfest The 45th annual Harvard Square Oktoberfest will take place from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 6. With more than 100,000 visitors each year, the annual festival will feature live music, dancing, street performers, vendors and international food options. The event is open to the public. Popular New England baking company King Arthur Baking Company is returning to the city where it got its start. The Vermont-based bakery will open a pop-up store in Boston from Oct. 3 through Dec. 31. The store will sell King Arthurs signature baking equipment from flours and mixes to pans and tools as well as host classes and events. The pop-up will be located at 172 Newbury St. in Boston and the store will be open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. King Arthur Baking Company, which has a permanent location in Norwich, Vermont, was founded in Boston in 1790, the companys website states. After nearly 200 years headquartered in Boston, King Arthur moved to Vermont in 1984. The company also oversees its own baking school and has produced multiple cookbooks, including its newest cookbook The Big Book of Bread." Rapper Macklemore is speaking out after uttering an anti-America remark during a live performance that got him dropped as a headliner for an upcoming music festival. The remark came while the 41-year-old was performing his new song Hinds Hall 2 at Seattles Palestine Will Live Forever Festival on Sept. 21. Straight up, say it, Im not gonna stop you, Macklemore told the crowd, according to a video posted to X Sept. 22. Im not gonna stop you yeah, (expletive) America. The Cant Hold Us rapper was then removed as a headliner for the inaugural Neon City Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada, which is scheduled for Nov. 22-24. The festival, which originally announced Macklemore as a headliner on Sept. 19, said on Instagram on Tuesday that the rapper will no longer be performing due to unforeseen circumstances. Other headliners Alison Wonderland, Neon Trees, Russell Dickerson and Seven Lions are still expected to perform. Macklemore then released a statement on Instagram on Wednesday explaining how the (expletive) America comment was directed toward lawmakers. The Thrift Shop rapper started by acknowledging that his thoughts and feelings are not always expressed perfectly or politely, and that his Seattle performance was one of those times. Unfortunately, the historic event in my hometown that brought thousands of people together to raise awareness and money for the people of Palestine has become overshadowed by two words, Macklemore wrote. I wish I had been in a better place with my grief and anger. But the truth is Im not ok. I havent been. I have been in utter disbelief with how our government is showing up at this moment in history, wrote the rapper, who has been an avid supporter of Palestine and has criticized U.S. leaders for supporting Israel. Some days I wake up, see another couple billion dollars given to Israel, or another refugee encampment destroyed, or a father holding a limb from his martyred child, or another speech from a politician justifying the right of Israel to defend itself while denying Palestinians the right to exist, and I say to myself (expletive) America, Macklemore wrote. The rapper then said the expletive he used should not get misconstrued for the word hate. Its different to be angry than to disown, Macklemore wrote. My (expletive) my anger is rooted not in distain (sic) for where I was born but in anguish for how we can collectively allow this to continue. It is not directed at the people that make up our country, but toward our government who refuse to listen to us. Macklemore also acknowledged that he has slipped in front of the world before, and that hes sure itll happen again. Ive lost endorsements, Ive lost shows, Ive lost business ties. I am still here, unwavering in my support for a Free Palestine, the rapper wrote. I care about humanity and this earth too much to turn back now. A Boston man who was fatally shot Monday night was identified publicly by police on Friday. Police found Quami J. Clarke, 19, hurt from gunshot wounds at 277 Centre St. on Sept. 23. Clarke was treated before he was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said. A Cambridge woman pleaded guilty on Friday to federal charges in connection with running a brothel network out of Cambridge and Watertown, court records read. Han Lee, 42, pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to commit, persuade, induce and coerce one or more individuals to travel in interstate or foreign commerce to engage in prostitution and money laundering conspiracy. She made her plea with no agreement with the prosecution. It is a fact that I ran the illegal business, but I did not control the women within it, she said through the interpreter, the Boston Globe. They all came voluntarily of their own free will. Along with Jummyung Lee, 30, of Dedham, and James Lee, 68, of Torrance, California, Han Lee was Fairfax in connection with the brothel network that also operated in Farifax and Tyson, both in Virginia, according to court records. Elected and military officials, security-cleared government officials, executives from high-tech and pharmaceutical companies, doctors, professors, attorneys, scientists and accountants, among others made up the list of commercial buyers whom officials believe paid for sex with women at the brothels. The customers found the women through two main online platforms: a site called bostontopten10.com, and another named browneyesgirlsva.blog, according to federal prosecutors. None of the buyers have so far been named, nor charged. Prosecutors are committed to holding those who ran the scheme accountable, along with those who fueled the demand, Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy has said. The operators raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars through the network, where men paid from approximately $350 to upwards of $600 per hour depending on the services, according to prosecutors. Officials say Han Lee concealed more than $1 million in proceeds from the ring by converting the cash into money orders, among other things, to make it look legitimate. Han Lee would also keep hundreds of money order receipts in a Louis Vuitton shoebox, apparently organized by date, location, and amount, in an impeccable filing system, prosecutors said in November 2023. She didnt have legitimate employment, court documents claimed. Still, she was able buy luxury bags and shoes, including, items from Yves St. Laurent, Givenchy, Louis Vuitton, Christian Louboutin and Jimmy Choo. Material from the Associated Press and previous MassLive reporting was used in this report. A former city employee who worked in planning and development under mayors Tom Menino and Marty Walsh is returning to City Hall as Bostons new chief of planning. Kairos Shen, who teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Real Estate, will take the new role starting Oct. 15, the city announced this week. He will replace former Planning Chief Arthur Jemison, who left earlier this month to return to family in Michigan. Im excited to return to City Hall with a fresh perspective after a decade of teaching, research, and mentoring the next generation of urban planners and designers, Shen said in a statement. Boston is a different city than it was ten years ago, and Im inspired by the incredible strides Mayor (Michelle) Wu has taken in just two and a half years. Im looking forward to advancing the significant work that has already begun including zoning reform and making development review more predictable and transparent. While the U.S recently added more jurisdictions to its list of potentially dangerous travel destinations, some jurisdictions just havent made their way off the list, and Mexico is one of them. Earlier this month, the U.S Department of State issued a travel advisory encouraging those planning trips to Mexico reconsider or cancel the trip altogether citing violent crime as the reason. Violent crime such as homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery is widespread and common in Mexico, the advisory reads. The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in many areas of Mexico, as travel by U.S. government employees to certain areas is prohibited or restricted. In many states, local emergency services are limited outside the state capital or major cities. For those who choose to travel to Mexico anyway, the U.S Department of State advises travelers to keep traveling companions close and family back home informed of their travel plans. Read more: Travel advisory warns of possible terrorist attacks in popular European nation If a traveler becomes separated from their group, that person should send a friend their GPS location, and if they take a cab alone, they should take a photo of the taxi number or license plate and send a photo to a friend. Travelers are discouraged from showing any signs of wealth and should be extra vigilant when using an ATM, visiting a nightclub, or casino. The U.S. Department of State also encourages people to: Advisory by state A first responders organization has urged law enforcement to maintain transparency with the public as it investigates the death of Massachusetts State Police Trooper Enrique Delgado-Garcia earlier this month. The letter, written by the Latino Law Enforcement Group of Boston, stresses that David Meier the attorney leading the investigation into Delgado-Garcias death and the Massachusetts State Police to be transparent with the public at this time. MassLive recently asked readers to identify people they consider Hispanic and Latino leaders in Massachusetts, working to make a difference across the statee. Profiles of these leaders will be published over the course of Hispanic Heritage Month from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15. These are people readers have identified as inspirational, who may be doing good acts for their communities. They are being recognized for their accomplishments, leadership and commitment to inspire change. Victor Davila, Springfield city councilor.Victor Davila Victor Davila Age: 53 Community: Springfield His story: Victor Davila arrived in Springfield as a teenager. He didnt speak any English and his family was homeless. Today, he is a Springfield city councilor representing Ward 6 and chairs two committees: general government and PILOT/revenue. In his role, Davila said he is entrusted to oversee city finances, budgeting and operations, while acting as a bridge between residents and government. In addition to serving as a city councilor, Davila, a resident of Springfields Forest Park neighborhood, works as a full-time paramedic for AMR, responding to emergency calls for sick and injured people in Springfield. He has always been attracted to service for others, he said. A graduate of Westfield State College, Davila is the first Latino of Puerto Rican heritage to be elected to the Springfield City Council for Ward 6. He has also previously served as the past president of the Forest Park Civic Association and a parish council member at Holy Name Church. When Davila ran for reelection in 2023, his platform focused on developing comprehensive plans to address gun violence and litter in the city. In his words: Springfield is a great to live. We need your talents. Get involve in the community. Do not give up. Always purse your dreams and goals and always believe in yourself. Were always open to hearing about more inspiring people. If youd like to suggest someone else who should be recognized, please fill out this form. MassLive recently asked readers to identify people they consider Hispanic and Latino leaders in Massachusetts, working to make a difference across the state. Profiles of these leaders will be published over the course of Hispanic Heritage Month from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15. These are people readers have identified as inspirational, who may be doing good acts for their communities. They are being recognized for their accomplishments, leadership and commitment to inspire change. Ysabel Garcia. Photo by Darrius Mylze Johnson, Visionary ActsPhoto by Darrius Mylze Johnson, Visionary Acts Ysabel Garcia Age: 31 Community: Springfield Her story: Ysabel Garcias history of winning her own mental health battles has propelled her into a career dedicated to Black and Latinx people receiving equitable and culturally sensitive care. Garcia leads Estoy Aqui LLC, which translates to I am here. Since 2020, her training consultant business has delivered over 100 educational programs made for mental health providers to learn about the socio-cultural aspects of mental health in communities of people of color. What sets my work apart is how I focus on the unique sociocultural contexts and systemic issues that are often ignored by traditional mental health care, Garcia said. Her advocacy is delivered through community care circles, workshops and training sessions with healthcare provers, social service workers and community members. Garcias personal experiences trying to find mental health care when she was a teenage Dominican immigrant contemplating suicide were difficult. She felt the providers in therapy, residential programs and psychiatric hospitals were not equipped to handle suicide, especially from a social justice perspective. I expected respect, compassion, and understanding. Instead, I faced coercion and retaliation through solitary confinement and law enforcement involvement for expressing my pain, Garcia said. By focusing on the needs and perspectives of Latinx and Black people when giving mental health care, Garcia said her approach is pushing for real, systemic changes that gets to the root of mental health challenges and suicide. While her education isnt mainstream, Garcia said its crucial. People who attend my programs often tell me theyve never heard about the topics we discuss, even after years in their field, she said. Im committed to turning each shared story into a building block that strengthens the collective wisdom of our communities, making it possible for us to be equipped with the knowledge and skills to sustain us, Garcia said. In her words: Radically embrace authenticity, humility, and compassion. Recognize that lived experience is a form of expertise and center these voices in your work. Diverging from the industry standard is not easy; it requires challenging entrenched norms and advocating for systemic change, often in the face of resistance. So, stay focused. Were always open to hearing about more inspiring people. If youd like to suggest someone else who should be recognized, please fill out this form. Cowboy hats and Dannys Way potatoes were back at The Big E this year. A year after the unexpected death of Danny Bell, the beloved owner of Bells Smokehouse Grill, the potato vendor returned to the side of the Connecticut building on the fairgrounds. Bell, who brought his famed barbecue pork to the fair for over 20 years, died unexpectedly at his home on June 22, 2023, according to his obituary. Fairgoers in 2023 were disappointed to find his booth vacant on the side of the Connecticut building. A large banner honored Bells memory, but questions remained about whether the loaded baked potatoes would return without its longtime leader. Danny Bell, the famous potato vendor outside the Connecticut Building at The Big E who died on June 22. Photo by Heather Morrison Former employees, including general manager Jon Treybal, decided to continue Bells legacy and bring back the booth this year with the blessing of his wife, Eileen. Danny turned this into a real wonderful destination point, Treybal said last week. Even Treybal, who worked for Bell since 1998, feared Bells Smokehouse Grill had served up its last pulled pork. Two of Bells restaurants closed in Connecticut after his death, but employees are working to re-open at a new location soon. Luckily, many of Bells employees remained. Bells tried and true recipes, inspired by Southern cuisine, continued to attract loyal customers. Danny taught me well so I just tried to duplicate how he would handle it, Treybal said. Hes like a father to me, he added. I dont want to sound cliche, but I used to talk to him about everything. Bell's Smokehouse Grill returned to the Big E this season after a year's hiatus due to the owner's passing in 2023.Luis Fieldman Ron Brooks, who worked with Bells for eight years, said that Bell was a one-of-a-kind guy. We all miss him, Brooks said. Everything we know about this place, Danny taught us. The booth employs about 30 people during the 17-day-long fair. The Big E, one of the nations largest fairs, attracts hundreds of thousands of people on its busiest of days. There are buildings representing each state in New England, and for two decades, the Connecticut building became known for its loaded baked potatoes. Dannys Way potatoes are loaded with butter, sour cream, bacon, and chives plus the options of broccoli and cheese, pulled pork, or chili. ($20) Other options at the booth include a cup of chili ($5), a cup of pulled pork ($5), a hot dog ($7), and a chili cheese dog ($10). Bell's Smokehouse Grill returned to the Big E this season after a year's hiatus due to the owner's passing in 2023.Luis Fieldman On a cloudy Wednesday morning, employees at Bells Smokehouse Grill were scooping pulled pork and customers were taking advantage of the early hours and beating the crowd. Every time someone left a tip, the employees would ring a loud bell and let out a loud Yeehaw. Treybal looked towards his co-workers, dressed in cowboy hats and wearing matching black shirts printed with a covered wagon the booths logo. We dont want to let him down, Treybal said. As a wise man once said, I wasnt prepared for the smell. That wise man is MassLives Nick OMalley who also served the vital role of directing me to where, exactly, at The Big E I could locate the fabled pickle beer. The answer: the Connecticut state building, and specifically the Connecticut Craft Beer Works tent at the back of the building. There, for $13, I purchased 20 ounces of Pickle Sour Ale, which was garnished with a pickle spear. The beer is brewed by Connecticut Valley Brewing Company, which describes it as the ultimate flavor fusion and the craft beer thats like a pickle-packed party in your pint glass. When I was handed the beer, the first thing I noticed was the smell: some unholy combination of dill, pickles and beer. After removing the pickle spear to drink the beer, I was surprised at how little pickle flavor I actually detected. My pickle sour ale tasted well, like a sour ale. Not a ton of pickle in sight. At first, that is. As I continued to drink, and after taking a bite of my beer-covered pickle, the pickle of it all began to overwhelm my senses. The beer, once a crisp, refreshing antidote to the growing heat of the fair, had become too sour to bear. Im ashamed to say I didnt make it all the way to the bottom of my 20-ounce pour, though maybe that was the right choice given that it was roughly 10:30 a.m. when I was handed my beer. In the heat of the moment, I gave the beer a six out of 10. In hindsight, that seems generous. If I were to return to The Big E, I dont think a second Pickle Sour Ale would be on my agenda. With the chances of rain dissipating going into this weekend, its looking to be a decent time to see some fall foliage in New England. But where? Isolated regions in the northern end of New England that saw moderate colors could struggle with dry, warmer temperatures, according to Yankee Magazines weekly fall foliage update. Some of these "early bright colors browned and are on the ground, the magazine wrote. Much of the region needs a little more time and a bit of a dry spell in order to continue the transition, Yankee added. The next round of color should be the real wave of fall foliage as most trees still have green leaves on their branches. To see these early colors, travelers can head up to northern Vermont, into the higher elevations of northern New Hampshire and western and northern Maine, Yankee wrote. The White and Green Mountain region is expected to have moderate colors, while the rest of the region should see low to moderate colors, the magazine continued. One community Yankee recommended not for its colors but for its location adjacent to the peak foliage is Littleton, New Hampshire. A charming classic New England mountain town, Littleton has seen a resurgence as its turned into a hub of tourism, business and commerce, Yankee wrote. The town is home to the motto Be glad brought to you by the one and only Pollyanna, whose creator Eleanor H. Porter called Littleton home, according to the town website. Visitors to Littleton can start their day at the Crumb Bum Bakery downtown for great sandwiches and coffee before trekking north for the fall foliage, Yankee suggested. You could head towards the Northeast Kingdom through Willoughby Gap or Newport for great foliage over lake views, or ride the Kingdom Trails near Burke, the magazine wrote. Alternatively, you could head to Dixville Notch and hike Table Rock for a view that has found substantial Instagram fame. Turning back in town for dinner, Yankee recommended visiting the Beal House and Freehouse Taproom, but you cant miss a traditional brew and pretzel at Schilling Brewery next to the covered bridge. For anyone looking for fall colors south of Littleton should see them coming along, though Franconia and Crawford Notches are not expected to be so vibrant yet, Yankee wrote. Varied forecasts suggesting peak colors reaching parts of the region between mid-September and late October were slowly dashed after Yankees Jim Salge noted in a Sept. 17 update that the preceding lack of rain was speeding up falls arrival regarding foliage. I would look for peak colors to be a bit earlier than historical averages in the north now, and perhaps more of New England will turn all at once, Salge wrote. GBH is a news partner of MassLive.com. To check out GBH, click here. Worcester has to decide by the end of the year how it will spend its remaining $44.3 million in federal pandemic relief money, GBH reports. With that deadline looming, some local nonprofit leaders are criticizing the city for inequitably dispersing some of the money in prior grant rounds and urging officials to do better. The American Rescue Plan Act money is intended to support economic recovery and address long-term challenges, especially those affecting communities disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. But some nonprofits and activists argue Worcester has used a lot of its ARPA funds to continue a pattern of preferential treatment to larger, well-funded organizations over small Black- and Brown-led groups. This is not fair to the communities were serving, said Sha-Asia Medina, executive director of The Village Worcester, a community center that spotlights Black culture. The city has been given ample opportunity to address the problem. Its not hard. Medina and a few other nonprofit leaders plan to deliver a petition to Worcester City Council demanding officials use the remaining ARPA funds for the communities that it was originally intended for. The petition notes that nonprofit leaders have repeatedly spoken with city leaders about what they describe as blatant racial equity issues in the funding process, but their concerns continue to go ignored. In an August memo, Worcester City Manager Eric Batista responded to some of the criticisms. He wrote that his administration has tried to use the ARPA money to respond to emerging and persistent needs in the community. Since receiving $146 million in ARPA funds in 2021, Worcester officials have made much of the money available to nonprofits to address a range of issues that affect underserved communities, from food insecurity to youth violence. And some smaller nonprofits have secured large grants. The Jubilee Career Center for the Performing Arts, for example, secured a $227,000 grant in 2023 that has helped the organization fund free after-school arts and technology programming on a mobile classroom bus. Still, critics say the majority of Worcesters ARPA distributions have amounted to business as usual. Batista said the city based its recent arts and culture funding decisions amounting to nearly $3 million on how much organizations suffered during the pandemic, giving bigger grants to venues with more staff and that lost revenue during pandemic closures. Several large organizations received the maximum $125,000, more than twice the amount of smaller groups like The Village. The city got it wrong once again, said local equity and justice activist Maydee Morales. Activists note that the Worcester Art Museum and Mechanics Hall were among the cultural groups that received the largest grants, even though both reported millions in revenue and fundraising efforts. Hanover Theatre, EcoTarium and the Mass Symphony Orchestra also received the maximum. For comparison, the Worcester Caribbean American Carnival Association received $40,000 in the same round of grants. While Jennifer Gaskin, the associations founder, is grateful for the funding, she said organizations like hers deserved more money because they regularly work with underserved communities that suffered most during the pandemic. A bigger grant, she added, would have been transformative for her organization, which has an annual budget of about $100,000. If I was getting $120,000, I could hire an executive director that could be out here fundraising and making connections with the community and building our capacity, she said. We want to be able to have year-round programming beyond our annual carnival. Local activist and former chair of the Worcester Human Rights Commission Guillermo Creamer Jr. said smaller nonprofits can be especially impactful when their leaders share the lived experiences of the people theyre working with. He said marginalized residents lose out when those groups cant access as much funding. The city needed to be more creative, he said, and I think that creativity should have come with [the goal], We want to make sure that this funding can change the direction of an organization that is on the ground because thats what this funding was for. The Worcester Art Museum did not respond to a request for comment. The Hanover Theatres acting President and CEO Troy Siebels said it was appropriate for bigger venues like his to receive more funding because they lost a lot of money when operations shut down during the pandemic, and they continue to struggle financially. The number of performances a year is still not back to where we were pre-pandemic, Siebels said. Were grateful for the help. In his memo, Batista said the city took steps to ensure the ARPA process was equitable, like extending grant deadlines and working with organizations to correct mistakes in their applications. The city added that some smaller nonprofits grants actually amount to a higher proportion of their budgets than the money bigger venues received. But several nonprofit leaders say even when the city selects them for an ARPA grant, its not guaranteed theyll actually secure the money because the citys imposing strict and burdensome requirements on them. When Sha-Asia Medina and her mom, Parlee Jones, applied for ARPA funding in 2022 for The Village, they saw it as an opportunity to repair their building and expand the nonprofits programming, which includes free reiki and yoga classes, cookouts and talent shows. Soon after receiving over $100,000 in ARPA grants, however, they quickly learned the money came with barriers. They say Worcester officials told them to pay for the buildings repairs out of pocket, and the city would reimburse them in increments. But Medina and Jones dont have the money to front the cost. They say the city also has required that they collect sensitive information from the people who take The Villages classes. Medina says one form asked for peoples addresses, if they received food stamps or income-restricted benefits, and whether they were people of color. Medina said she and her mom dont feel comfortable reporting that personal information to the city. They say theyre considering forgoing some of the grant money as a result of the strict requirements. Wanting people to fill out those invasive forms and us having to send that information to City Hall we couldnt figure out a way to do that in a way that didnt disrupt the energy of the space where people can kind of just freely walk in, Medina said. In an email, a spokesperson for Worcester said the city is following federal requirements and organizations have to meet certain eligibility requirements to receive advanced funding. But while much of the ARPA distribution process is left to local governments, the U.S. Department of Treasury explicitly said it doesnt have a preference for the way grantees are paid. David Thompson, acting CEO and the vice president of the National Council of Nonprofits, said Worcester seems to be committing the same mistake as other communities across the country: theyre making the distribution process and subsequent requirements a lot more strict than the federal government requires. The city has opted for safety instead of impact, Thompson said. Its easy to put money into established entities that have public support, and it takes more time and perhaps more risk to invest funds in smaller organizations that are innovating. Its disappointing. With only six weeks to go to the US Presidential election, the only thing that remains certain is that it wont finish on November 5. Already, the Trump camp has let it be known that every state outcome will be challenged, every legal device resorted to and every fraud allegation loudly proclaimed if their candidate fails to be elected for another term. The Trump campaign has made no secret of its belief that the electoral system is out to deprive him of what he still maintains was rightfully his in 2020. Its exhortation to its canvassers is to make it too big to rig. Campaign senior advisor Chris LaCivita has ominously predicted: Its not over on election day. Its over on inauguration day. In a massive recruitment drive, Trumps campaign is training 100,000 volunteer citizen patriots as poll watchers in swing states. One would be hard put to devise an electoral system more convoluted than that which determines, every four years, who should be the leader of the free world. The United States is the only democracy where the candidate who gets the most votes does not necessarily win election to office. Twice in recent times, the express wish of the people has been overturned by a system that is the opposite of what it purports to be. In 2000, George W Bush, having lost the popular vote, secured the narrowest of majorities in the Electoral College to become president. In 2016, Donald Trump was 3 million voted behind Hillary Clinton, but yet went on to win the prize. The Electoral College itself is something of a misnomer, since it is not a place but rather a process. It is a throwback to when each of the individual states which make up the union robustly defended its own independence, and had little time for federal meddling in their internal affairs. Under that process, each state is allocated a certain number of Electoral College votes, largely dependent on population, and ranging from as high as 54 to as little as three. The candidate reaching the magic majority of 270 College votes becomes president. Theoretically, the system is straightforward. The candidate who wins the popular vote in each state is entitled to the total electoral college votes of that state (with two exceptions) on a winner-takes-all basis. To observe the formalities, the Electoral College electors for each state (not to be confused with voters) meet in the state capital and formally record the results for transmission to Washington. But nothing in the American system is straightforward, and since there is no overarching legislation to govern electoral practice, each state is free to make its own laws. It is not unheard of, but rare, for a state electoral college voter to go rogue and vote for someone other than the winner of the popular mandate. The American election system is surprisingly loose and unstructured, with the absence of any single central authority enabling all sorts of challenges and legal loopholing. The system reached its nadir in 2020 when Mr Trump tried to bully state officials into changing the local results. When that failed, he leaned on Congress and his vice president, Mike Pence, to reject the outcome. And when all of that failed, he incited a mob to storm the Capitol and wreak mayhem. There is nothing to suggest that, if the results again go against him, he will not resort to the same tactics. To add one further grotesque ingredient to the mix is the possibility of a dead heat, a tie between Ms Harris and Mr Trump in the Electoral College. In that event, true to form, the next US president will be selected by the House of Representatives, with each state carrying one vote. Not for profit organisation Mayo North East has been selected for funding from The Coca-Cola Company and its strategic bottling partner, Coca-Cola HBC Ireland and Northern Ireland. The company announced today the 18 non-profit organisations from across the island of Ireland that have received a share of this years Coca-Cola Thank You Fund. The successful non-profit organisation from Mayo is Mayo North East, receiving 8,925 in funding. A total of 200,000 in grants were once again made available to youth groups working to empower young people through transformative programmes of learning and sustainable development. Chris Kelly from Mayo North East youth organisation (Photo: Conor McKeown) Mayo North East works with communities and public sector agencies to support individuals experiencing social exclusion, inequality, and poverty. The partnership aims to create sustainable, inclusive communities through provision of continued further education and development of local community groups. Funding will support a project called Waste Wise Kitchen, which will run two ten-week programmes focused on food waste, cooking skills, healthy eating, and ways to reduce food waste and be more sustainable. A key outcome is the project will lead to small changes regarding food waste and help participants become more informed and sustainable consumers. Now in its fourteenth year, the initiative continues its commitment to fostering education, employability, and environmental leadership among young people aged 16-25. This is the second consecutive year that 200,000 in grants has been made available through the Fund, enabling a greater number of community-based projects to inspire and empower the next generation to become skilled and engaged citizens. Speaking about the importance of grant schemes such as the Coca-Cola Thank You Fund, Coca-Cola Ireland Country Manager, Agnese Filippi, said: This years applications highlighted the essential role that community resources play in empowering young people to build a better future for themselves. From initiatives that support education and personal development, to those enabling sustainable development and climate action, the diversity and creativity of the projects is truly remarkable. We would like to thank every organisation that applied this year and commend their efforts in making a lasting difference in their local communities, he added, Davide Franzetti, General Manager, Coca-Cola HBC Ireland and Northern Ireland went on to say: The goal of this years Coca-Cola Thank You Fund was to play a role in fostering that ambition, helping to equip these future leaders with the resources and supports they need to thrive in their local communities. Operated in partnership with the Irish Youth Foundation (IYF), Lucy Masterson, Chief Executive concluded: As a longstanding partner of the Coca-Cola Thank You Fund, we are delighted to announce the Funds support for 18 outstanding community organisations working to improve the future of young people. Over the past 14 years, the Coca-Cola Thank You Fund has awarded nearly two million to 182 non-profit organisations, making a significant impact in communities across Ireland. For more information about the Coca-Cola Thank You Fund, see the website. Vodafone Ireland has signed a Corporate Power Purchasing Agreement (CPPA) which allows them to now purchase renewable electricity from Castlebar's Derrynadivva Wind Farm. The telco signed with energy supplier Flogas, along with its infrastructure partner Vantage Towers, making them the first telco in Ireland to sign a CPPA. The investment of six million euro comes as part of the company's sustainability goals to achieve net-zero across its full value chain by 2040. Combined with other agreements Vodafone has in place, 100 percent of its Irish operations are matched with certificates of renewable energy sources in Ireland. The energy secured within this agreement gives Vodafone access to clean, high quality and affordable renewable electricity for its extensive network of cables that deliver mobile and fixed services to customers across Ireland. As part of this agreement, the company's infrastructure partners, Vantage Towers, will also receive renewable energy from the Derrynadivva Wind Farm. Amanda Nelson, CEO at Vodafone Ireland, said the company is proud of these steps. Todays announcement is an investment in Ireland and its renewable energy industry. This is a significant step towards our own ambitious net-zero targets, she said. Brian McHugh, Managing Director at Vantage Towers Ireland, said: Vantage Towers infrastructure network is totally powered by renewable energy, in line with our global ESG agenda. Sustainability is a necessity, and this agreement with Flogas is a further commitment to minimizing the impact of our business on the environment, and a continued investment in Irelands natural generating capability. Pat Brett, Director at Derrynadivva Wind Farm Ltd, said they are thrilled to play a pivotal role in Irelands transition to a sustainable energy future. By delivering clean, renewable wind energy to some of the nations largest companies, we are not only helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also supporting these businesses in their commitment to more efficient and responsible energy consumption, he continued. James Temple, Renewables Manager at Flogas, explained: "The CPPA with Vodafone Ireland underscores the accelerating commitment of Irish companies to increase their use of carbon-free energy and lead in renewable energy adoption. As a leading provider of clean energy CPPAs, Flogas is dedicated to enhancing the economic feasibility of renewable projects and advancing Irelands transition to a low-carbon economy, he concluded. THE damage done to buildings and vehicles in Westport during a recent rampage has been compared to the after-effects of a riot. Twenty-one panes of glass were smashed when an individual vandalised several cars, a mini-bus, Mac Bride Community Nursing Unit, a library, and Westport Order of Maltas premises at St Johns Place. A suspect was arrested and detained by gardai, who are still investigating the matter. Speaking on Midwest Radio this morning, Westport Order of Malta member Eamon Berry described the aftermath of the rampage as a frightening site that resembled the after-effects of a riot. Its an incredibly quiet area, the Mac Bride home, the HSE nursing home is directly in front of that area. To think something like that could happen in a very quiet residential area and at the same time a town centre location, its really difficult to comprehend what thought process was going through the perpetrator or perpetrators mind that they think they can justify this type of behaviour, he said. Mr Berry claimed the incident would instil fear in the area, where the vast majority of residents are pensioners. I think we have to work really hard and I think our local authority, Mayo County Council have to step up here and have a long hard look at what happened. Is there something that we should be doing or we need to do or we havent done? he said. Its not the first time weve had windows broken, well get over it. My very big concern is the vulnerable adults and our senior citizens. Its a big part of the Order of Malta is respect for our senior citizens, our methodology and the way we try and work is how can we make your day better today. And last night is going to have done an awful lot of psychological damage. There is nothing worse than fear in people, and I am really fearful that it will put fear into people, what happened last night, he concluded. Local county councillor, Peter Flynn, condemned the incident, saying: This type of criminal behaviour is shocking and has to be eliminated. All of the damage to the Order of Malta building and multiple vehicles is terrible but for the people in the HSE residential unit to be awoken in the middle of the night to glass coming in on them is shocking. Mayo man Cathal Kelly can see almost see the finishing line. Less than two weeks left on his monumental journey and then he will reach Rome: "I feel very emotional and proud of myself. It is the adventure of a lifetime." Three and a half months ago, Cathal started walking. He embarked on the 2,200km long pilgrimage route called 'Via Francigena', through France, Switzerland and Italy down to Rome. Along the way, Cathal is raising awareness for two charities, the Crumlin Children's Hospital and the Mayo Parkinson Association, and collecting donations for these organisations. More info on how to donate: here. Cathal has described his journey as a 'humbling experience'. "I'm looking at my boots now, I hope they will make it" says Cathal, speaking to The Mayo News during his rest day in Siena today: "I did contemplate buying new boots, but unfortunately, they didn't have my size here in the shop." But fortunately there is Irish people almost in every corner of the world, and even though rumour has it, that 'Guinness doesn't travel well', Cathal was able to source an excellent pint of the 'black stuff' in the middle of Italy: "I'm in Siena at the moment. A beautiful old city. And as it turns out, I found a fantastic pint of Guinness. It was served by a Dublin man but with connections to Mayo. It is the beauty of the walk. Everything is broken down to simple things. You're not caught up in the normal hustle of everyday life and you appreciate the small things so much, after a long day of walking." And even if Cathal didn't get new boots, he was able to treat himself with a new pair of socks for the final stretch of about 200km to Rome. It's the little things. People have said about Cathal, that he was on 'The longest pub crawl in Europe' with him posting photos on social media. But walking all day, across half of Europe, everyone would agree that a pint in the evening is reward well deserved. But obviously the most important thing are the donations. They have been coming in aplenty. So far Cathal has raised more than a thumping 30,000. Cathal says he is 'grateful' for all the support that he has received during his journey. And he has avoided injuries or any mishaps: "I get constant messages and comments from home, so many people wishing me well. It has been overwhelming. It's been the driving force. Without that constant support coming in, I'm not sure I would have made it really." But he also says: "The longevity of it has really hit home. I can't wait to come home. My brother and his partner have had a child and I'm really looking forward to meet my niece. I feel very privileged and grateful." And presumably no pint in Italy will taste as nice as the one that Cathal will have at home in Swinford when he returns in two week's time. Technical Director, USAID/DRC Accelerator Activity About Palladium: Palladium is a global company working to design, develop and deliver positive impact on the lives and livelihoods of people around the globe; broaden access to health, water, power, and infrastructure; build enduring, sustainable, and transformative institutions and market systems to address global challenges; and conserve the natural world. We operate in over 90 countries and have a workforce of 3,000 talented, motivated, and diverse staff of all religions, races, languages, and gender identities. Palladium Americas: Our Americas business team has brilliant and passionate colleagues working in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America as well as the Caribbean, fulfilling projects and assignments for clients from institutions, corporations, governments, and foundations based around the world. This Opportunity: Palladium is seeking a Congolese national Technical Director(s) anticipated 5-year USAID-funded project to improved health outcomes for Congolese in four provinces: Sud-Kivu, Lomami, Tanganyika, and Kasai Central. The focus of this Activity will include but is not limited to children under five, pregnant and postpartum women, youth, and especially adolescent girls, and hard to reach communities. advance and sustain DRC. The anticipated project(s) will aim to support stronger, more resilient health systems at all levels, save lives, decrease morbidity and disability, and increase the potential of women, newborns, children, families, and communities to thrive. This project will support the DRC Ministry of Health priorities including to advance the Government of DRCs provincial goals of improving maternal and child health; decreasing maternal, infant, and child morbidity and mortality; improving the nutritional status of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women, and children under five; decreasing malaria-associated morbidity and mortality; improving access to and use of family planning (FP) and reproductive health services, including for healthy spacing and timing of pregnancy; and increasing uptake of key behaviors that drive improved health outcomes. This Activity will support efforts to improve the availability of, equitable access to, demand for, and use of quality, integrated health services. The Technical Director is a key personnel position and will be responsible for ensuring the overall technical coherence and integrity in program implementation. The Technical Director is the chief advisor for the project in all technical areas, ensuring that project activities are based on the most up-to-date, evidence-based interventions, standards, and guidelines. The Technical Director will report to the Chief of Party and will provide direct supervision to various technical staff. The Technical Director will serve as a member of the Project Senior Management Team. You and Your Career: If you are a problem-solver, collaborator, and doer, and you have expertise in primary health care, integrated health service delivery, or the technical strategy and implementation of donor-funded health projects, we are interested in hearing from you. We are a learning organization and provide growth opportunities from the start. We pride ourselves on giving you the freedom, resources, and guidance to chart a fulfilling career! Reporting and Supervision: The Technical Director will report to the Chief of Party and supervise relevant technical staff. Primary Duties and Responsibilities: Responsible for ensuring the technical integrity of all project interventions and activities. Provide overall technical direction, leadership, and technical expertise for the project team in designing and delivering evidence-based, high impact primary health care services in public and private health facilities. Provide technical advice on the integration of siloed health services into established service delivery systems across service levels and the life course continuum. Provide technical assistance and guidance on the latest health developments, publications, and other information generation activities nationwide and globally. Represent the project at national and subnational stakeholder meetings and technical working groups as relevant to strengthen coordination between central and provincial level government. Coordinate the projects technical work across clinical content-specific and cross-cutting areas to improve management and function of primary healthcare services Coordinate the technical expertise of Palladium and its subcontractors which will include international and local organizations. Liaise with and oversee coordination with technical counterparts in the DRC Ministry of Health and other donor-funded projects at all levels of the health system. Build capacity through training, mentoring, supervision, and technical exchanges that support the MOH, civil society, and local partner development. In collaboration with the COP, ensure that the program is delivered according to donor and government policies. Perform other related duties and responsibilities as assigned. Key Competencies Required: Medical Doctor, Registered Nurse, or Midwife with a Master's degree in public health, social sciences or related field. Minimum of 10 years of successful experience as a senior-level technical or program manager on integrated service delivery projects in Sub-Saharan Africa of a similar scope and size. Technical expertise in PHC, MNCH, FP/RH, nutrition, WASH, malaria, health systems strengthening, quality improvement and global health security. Experience working with the central, primary and/or community health care context in DRC. Demonstrated capacity to develop technical materials and strengthen local clinical and non-clinical capacities to improve primary health care. Proven ability to work collaboratively with sub-national and central level governments, various ministries, development partners including donors, the private sector, and community organizations to advance development and health objectives. Demonstrated experience leading and managing multi-disciplinary teams to achieve results in a fast-paced, complex, and evolving environment. Excellent interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to lead and work effectively in team situations. Experience writing and making professional presentations in French and English. Willingness to travel throughout DRC as necessary. Professional Expertise/Competencies Preferred: Congolese nationals preferred Previous work experience in DRC or West and Central Africa strongly preferred. Existing relationships with DRC stakeholders a plus. Diversity, Equity & Inclusion - We welcome applications from all sections of society and actively encourage diversity to drive innovation, creativity, success and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce; and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment regardless of their background or personal characteristics. These include: (but are not limited to) socio-economic background, age, race, gender identity, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, veteran, marital or Indigenous status. Should you require any adjustments or accommodations to be made due to a disability or you are a neurodivergent individual or any other circumstance, please email our team at accessibility@thepalladiumgroup.com. Safeguarding - We define Safeguarding as the preventative action taken by Palladium to protect our people, clients and the communities we work with from harm. We are committed to ensuring that all children and adults who come into contact with Palladium are treated with respect and are free from abuse. All successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced selection process including safeguarding-focused interviews and a rigorous due diligence process. Click this link to apply: https://palladium.csod.com/ux/ats/careersite/2/home/requisition/22165?c=palladium by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, September 26, 2024 Lawmakers throughout the country, as well as parents and teenagers, have accused social media platforms addicting young people by serving them with personalized content, sending notifications and automatically playing video after video. Now, the Federal Trade Commission appears to be gearing up to weigh in on social media use by teens. On Thursday, the agency said it plans to hold a virtual workshop to study the use of design features on digital platforms aimed at keeping kids, including teens, online longer and coming back more frequently. The FTC elaborated that the workshop will delve into whether design features result in more engagement or time spent on digital platforms, the effects of design features on minors' physical and psychological health, and what measures might be effective, feasible, and consistent with the current legal landscape. advertisement advertisement News of the workshop comes amid increasing efforts to regulate how social platforms display material to teens. For instance, California Governor Gavin Newsom late last week signed a bill requiring social media platforms to display content to known minors in reverse chronological order, as opposed to algorithmically curating their feeds, unless parents consent to the curation. Earlier this year, New York enacted similar legislation. Both state laws also restrict platforms from sending notifications to minors during certain hours. In California and New York, the statutes were touted as measures that would help combat social media addiction. But critics say the laws unconstitutionally interfere with platforms' First Amendment right to wield editorial control. Opponents also argue that algorithms benefit users by weeding out problematic posts -- such as bullying comments -- that would appear if comments were displayed chronologically. Neither one of those bills has been challenged in court -- at least not yet. But a federal appellate court recently blocked key portions of a different California bill -- the Age Appropriate Design Code -- that also would have regulated social media companies' ability to display content to minors. That statue requires online companies likely to be accessed by users under 18 to evaluate whether the design of their services could expose minors to potentially harmful content, and to mitigate that potential harm. The law also includes privacy provisions, such as a requirement to configure default settings in a privacy-protective way, unless the business can show a compelling reason that a different setting is in the best interests of children. The FTC workshop will take place on February 25, 2025. by Danielle Oster , September 26, 2024 Even in the wake of mass shootings, anti-gun-control hardliners in Congress have not shied away from wearing their love for assault weapons hearts on their sleeves -- or, more accurately, their lapels. These lapel pins depict the widely marketed AR-15 assault rifle commonly used in mass shootings -- as well as in the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania this July. The organization Change The Ref has responded with a collection of pins designed to show the deadly impact of the weapon, cheekily called The Second Amendment Defender Collection. The reference is those anti-gun-control lawmakers (and Supreme Court members) who advocate for an expanded interpretation of the amendment beyond the legal precedent of maintaining a well-regulated militia. The collection includes a "pretty assault rifle label pin, along with the other side they dont want you to think about: the victims. Children dead, bloodied and traumatized, says a young woman in the campaign video. The pins actually depict a bloodied school locker; a child in the crosshairs, with her hands up; and another one lying in a pool of blood, his backpack beside him. advertisement advertisement Change The Ref is an anti-gun-violence organization founded by Manuel and Patricia Oliver, the parents of Joaquin Oliver, one of the 17 victims in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The video at the center of the effort opens with brief footage from horrific school shootings, noting that there were 349 such shootings last year, interspersed with Change The Ref student activists confronting politicians about their opposition to gun safety laws. Lawmakers spotlighted in the video include Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and Tim Burchett (R-TN) who noted on the day of the Covenant School shooting in his home state that Congress is "not gonna fix" school shootings and that he homeschools his own daughter for safety. As the video shifts to footage of Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) proudly holding up an AR-15 pin, and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) in a House session, the spot delivers the message that such politicians wear these pins in the halls of Congress even during National Gun Violence Survivors Week, before pivoting to introduce the The Second Amendment Defender Collection. Its time to pin it on them the video concludes, driving viewers to the organizations website. In addition to the campaign video, Change The Ref is also selling the enamel pin set, alongside other pins commemorating Joaquin Oliver and advocating for an assault weapons ban. "While we believe lawmakers should be free to take action and express their beliefs, we also believe in telling the complete story, including the dark reality of where those beliefs and corresponding actions may lead," Manuel Oliver said in a statement. "We know a majority of Americans want responsible gun safety legislation, but those with the power to pass laws have failed to act, so we must pin the blame where it belongs: on the legislators who refuse to stop mass shootings." The message arrives amid heightened scrutiny of gun violence. This summer, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an Advisory on Firearm Violence report that declared gun violence in America a public health crisis, having overtaken motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death in children and adolescents aged 1-19. According to a 2023 Statista survey of registered voters, 65% of voters support banning assault-style weapons -- including a plurality of Republicans (48%), and 61% of independent voters. by Sarah Mahoney @mahoney_sarah, September 27, 2024 Fancy some contemporary photography with your new shoes? Saks Fifth Avenue hopes so, with the luxury department store offering 100 limited-edition prints. From a range of notable artists, the new collection is another way for the department store to flex its authority on all things luxury. Some stores are also adding a team of dedicated art advisors to provide customers with art selection services. Fashion and art are two highly coveted categories within the luxury space, says Tracy Margolies, Saks chief merchandising officer, in the stores announcement. "Appealing to both art enthusiasts and collectors alike, Saks is opening a new door for artists to reach a luxury audience. The collection is kicking off first in New York, where many works appear in the stores windows, and in Beverly Hills. It will expand to Boca Raton, Brickell (a neighborhood in Miami), Chicago, Houston, New Jersey and San Francisco later this fall. advertisement advertisement Select stores will feature a pop-up gallery space that displays a curated selection of pieces and a digital catalog of the full assortment. And by scanning a QR code, people can use the See in Your Space feature for an augmented-reality version of the work. The store is also splashing the images across digital channels, marketing them through email and social content. The collection includes lithography, engraving, silkscreen printing and photography, with work from such established artists as Sol LeWitt, Eva Lootz, Alex Katz, and Christo. Some of the pieces are exclusive to Saks. Saks, owned by HBC, is in the midst of an ownership transition. Earlier this summer, HBC announced it would acquire Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman for $2.65 billion, establishing what it is calling a technology-powered luxury retail company called Saks Global. That company will include the luxury retail and real estate assets of Saks Fifth Avenue, Saks Off 5th, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman. Each company is expected to continue operating as its own brand. Highlights: Human cells may possess a "pause button" similar to that found in some mammals, allowing embryonic development to halt temporarily The mTOR signaling pathway could help regulate this pause, with potential applications in improving IVF success rates Using human stem cell models instead of real embryos paves the way for more ethical and scientifically advanced research Did You Know? Some mammals, like kangaroos and bears, can pause their pregnancies for months! It's called embryonic diapause, and now scientists think human cells may have this ability too. #embryonicdiapause #ivf #medindia Some mammals, like kangaroos and bears, can pause their pregnancies for months! It's called embryonic diapause, and now scientists think human cells may have this ability too. #embryonicdiapause #ivf #medindia Advertisement How Other Mammals Hit the Pause Button on Their Development Advertisement Science Behind the Development Pause: Meet the mTOR Pathway Trusted Source mTOR activity paces human blastocyst stage developmental progression Go to source Trusted Source Advertisement Could Pausing Embryo Development Change IVF? What This Means for the Future of Reproductive Medicine Will We Ever Use This Ability in Real Life? mTOR activity paces human blastocyst stage developmental progression - (https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(24)00977-2.pdf) Imagine hitting the pause button in the earliest stages of life, allowing the body to take a breather before continuing on its incredible journey of development. Sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, right? Well, it might not be as far-fetched as it seems! Scientists from the Max Planck Institute and the Austrian Academy of Sciences have uncovered fascinating insights suggesting that- just like some mammals do. And this discovery could have big implications for, especially in treatments like in-vitro fertilisation (IVF).In the animal kingdom, some mammals, like kangaroos and bears, can naturally hit the pause button on pregnancy . Known as, this process allows the embryo to float freely without implanting in the uterus for weeks or even months. The pregnancy is paused, giving the embryo and the mother extra time to prepare for the challenges of birth and nurturing the newborn. Its natures way of saying, Lets take it slow.But until recently, we were not sure if human cells could do the same. The idea of hitting a developmental pause in humans seemed like a distant possibility. That is, until a team of researchers found a way to trigger this effect in the lab using human stem cells. And heres where things get even more interesting.The study, published by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics and IMBA, reveals that human cells might also have the potential for a development pause- thanks to a chemical cascade known as the).In simple terms, the mTOR pathway is a key regulator of growth. When its active, cells divide and grow; when its suppressed, the process slows down, allowing development to pause. Researchers used stem cells and stem cell-based blastocyst models (also known as) to mimic early human development. When they blocked the mTOR pathway, they observed a- a sort of pause in progress.These findings are exciting because they suggest that even though we dont naturally hit this pause in real life, we still have the potential to do so under the right conditions.Now, heres where things get truly groundbreaking. The discovery of a possible human "pause button" could be a game-changer for in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments. IVF relies on precise timing for embryo implantation. Too fast or too slow, and the chances of success plummet. But what if we could control the timing better?By tapping into the power of the mTOR pathway, scientists could slow down the development of embryos during IVF , giving doctors more time to assess embryo health and synchronize implantation with the mothers body. In theory,by ensuring that everything is perfectly aligned.While the idea of pausing embryo development is still in its early stages, it opens up fascinating possibilities for the future. Nicolas Rivron, one of the lead researchers, suggests that this discovery could lead to. For example, manipulating the mTOR pathway could allow embryos to develop at just the right speed for optimal health and implantation, reducing the likelihood of complications during pregnancy.On top of that, the use ofin this research provides a more ethical approach to studying human development. Instead of experimenting on actual embryos, scientists can use blastoids- lab-grown clusters of cells that mimic the earliest stages of human life- to make their discoveries. Its a win-win for both science and ethics.It is still too early to say if we will ever be able to pause human development naturally, like some mammals do. But this research shows that the potential is there, buried deep within our cells. Whether or not well harness it for reproductive medicine remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: the ability to control the timing of development has the power to change the way we approach fertility treatments, giving new hope to families worldwide.In the words of one of the studys authors, Dhanur P. Iyer, The developmental timing of human blastoids can be stretched around the blastocyst stage, which is exactly where diapause works in most mammals. Its a fascinating reminder that sometimes, the key to solving the mysteries of human development can be found by looking to the animal kingdom.So, next time you think about pausing a movie, remember: one day, we might just be able to pause the earliest stages of human life too. Who knew science could be this cool?This discovery may not be a fully realized tool yet, but it gives us a glimpse into how science can help us better understand- and potentially control- the incredible process of human development.Source-Medindia The command chief of the 81st Training Wing at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi was removed from his leadership role this week following an internal investigation into the senior noncommissioned officer, according to the Air Force. Chief Master Sgt. Michael Venning was removed from his position on Monday by Col. Billy Pope, the 81st Training Wing commander. The senior noncommissioned officer had been reassigned earlier this summer as officials investigated him, a wing spokesperson told Military.com. "Col. Pope temporarily reassigned Chief Master Sgt. Venning on July 30 to allow for a command-directed investigation to take place," Capt. Paige Skinner, a spokesperson for the 81st Training Wing, told Military.com in an emailed statement. "Col. Pope determined the findings of the investigation warranted the removal of Chief Master Sgt. Venning from his position." Read Next: Army Surpasses its Goal for Recruiting Active-Duty Soldiers, But Just Barely Skinner, in response to questions from Military.com, said, "There are no charges filed in this case" and added that a service member's administrative disciplinary history can't be released and is protected under the Privacy Act of 1974. "In accordance with Air Force regulations, removal from a position for cause may be used as a basis to support subsequent collateral adverse administrative action in some situations," Skinner added. "We would be unable [to] provide information on nonjudicial punishment actions." Venning entered the Air Force in 2000, according to his biography posted online. He had been in his role at Keesler since July 2023. In his role, Venning advised "commanders and staff on mission effectiveness, professional development, military readiness, training, utilization, health, morale and welfare of the wing's 12,000 military and civilian airmen," according to his biography. Prior to that assignment, he was the command chief of the 100th Air Refueling Wing at RAF Mildenhall in the United Kingdom and also served as the superintendent of the 422nd Air Base Group at RAF Croughton. Venning could not be reached and did not respond to phone calls and text messages left at numbers associated with him in public records. A command-directed investigation is an administrative probe and is described as "an extension of the commander's authority to investigate and to correct problems within the command," according to the Department of the Air Force manual. Eric Carpenter, an associate professor of law at Florida International University who specializes in military justice, told Military.com in an interview Thursday that command-directed investigations often lead to administrative actions and, in some cases, can lead to separate criminal investigations, depending on the nature of the alleged actions. But in any circumstance, depending on the findings, such investigations are often capable of harming careers. Carpenter also added that it's not easy to find many senior enlisted leaders with the experience to fill those leadership roles in the Air Force. "Even though it's just an administrative action for that service member, that's crushing," Carpenter said. "Being taken out of a leadership role like that, when you're a senior leader, is pretty shameful." Venning's firing comes after several major leadership changes across the Air Force in recent months. Earlier this month, the commander of the 28th Force Support Squadron at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota was fired from his leadership role. In August, the 28th Operations Group commander at Ellsworth was also removed from his command. Related: Ellsworth Air Force Base Fires Second Commander in Just 2 Months The White House claimed that thousands of veterans could benefit when President Biden announced this summer he was issuing pardons to gay veterans who were forced out of the military because of their sexual orientation and have carried the burden of this great injustice for decades. But three months later, only eight veterans have applied for pardons -- six from the Air Force, two from the Army, and none from the Coast Guard, Navy, or Marines. The dismally low numbers are disappointing advocates who say the promise of Bidens pardons raised hopes that thousands of LGBTQ veterans would not only lose the stigma of courts-martial but also qualify for long-denied veterans benefits. The War Horse discovered only eight veterans have applied for pardons since Bidens June 26 announcement after reaching out over the last two weeks to each branch of the military. The White House did not respond to questions about the lack of applicants or whether it was doing anything more to promote the pardons. Steve Marose, an Air Force veteran who lives in Seattle, is among the eight whove applied, and his case is still under review. Marose said he was shocked by the response and wondered if the pardons limitations have discouraged other veterans. Only those convicted in a military court of consensual sodomy qualify, but experts say many LGBTQ veterans were forced from the military for decades simply under the threat of a court-martial. It sounds like its very broad, that thousands of people will be positively impacted, Marose says. When you look under the hood, he said, it seems doubtful that such a large number of veterans will benefit. Marose was convicted in 1990 of two counts of conduct unbecoming an officer in addition to three counts of consensual sodomy, so he is worried he may not receive a full pardon but decided to submit an application anyway. His case is not unique. As The War Horse has reported, gay service members who wound up in a military court often faced other charges, including misconduct or conduct unbecoming, putting their eligibility for the pardon in question. Michael Wishnie, a professor at Yale Law School and veteran law expert, was also surprised to learn that so few have jumped at the opportunity to apply for a pardon. Its early, but these numbers are disappointing, he told The War Horse. Neither the Biden administration nor the Department of Defense could tell The War Horse how they came up with the claim that thousands of veterans would be eligible. In July, The War Horse submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for Defense Department memos or reports that informed the White House that thousands of veterans wouoreld benefit from Bidens act of clemency. However, the agency denied the request, saying the documents were part of the decision-making process, and therefore protected. This week, The War Horse is filing a lawsuit to compel each branch of the military to turn over court-martial records that will help determine how many service members were convicted for consensual sex or other charges that criminalized their sexual orientation. "Hopefully this lawsuit will make it easier for thousands of service members to receive some measure of recognition for how they were unfairly treated ... and also allow the public to fully appreciate the scale of this injustice, said attorney Joel Richert, an associate with Davis Wright Tremaine, a law firm that represents The War Horse. The Department of Defense had no comment about the lawsuit. Wishnie and other attorneys familiar with the military justice system believe that some veterans have likely found the pardon process too cumbersome. Veterans must gather documents related to their conviction, and submit a personal statement of why a pardon is being sought. If a pardon is granted, theres also an entirely separate process for upgrading dishonorable discharges and earning VA eligibility for benefits including health care. The pardon Biden issued this past summer is known as a mass pardon, meaning individuals arent named. That places the onus on veterans to work out whether theyre eligible and then commit to the application process. Wishnie and other advocates say the Defense Department should take the lead in identifying veterans who were harmed and automatically upgrade their discharges. Until then, he said, little progress will be made in the effort to rectify the harms of past anti-LGBTQ policies. Rather than do the work itself to correct the Pentagons wrongdoing, the administration put the burden on veterans to prepare lengthy applications, Wishnie said. These low figures are the natural and foreseeable result of that choice. A Defense Department official told The War Horse that it isnt practical to notify every person who is eligible for a pardon. Because the pardon period spans 60 years -- from the end of World War II up until the repeal of dont ask, dont tell in 2011 -- a majority of the court-martial records are not digital, meaning thousands of cases would have to be reviewed one by one. Instead, the same official said, veterans who think they may be eligible are encouraged to apply. This week, The War Horse is filing a lawsuit to compel each branch of the military to turn over court-martial records that will help determine how many service members were convicted for consensual sex or other charges that criminalized their sexual orientation. In 2013, a House bill to upgrade discharge records for LGBTQ troops indicated that between the end of World War II and the repeal of dont ask, dont tell, about 114,000 service members were involuntarily separated based on sexual orientation. A class action lawsuit filed last year in the Northern District of California found more than 29,000 service members were booted between 1980 and 2011 without receiving an honorable discharge due to real or perceived homosexuality or sexual perversion. That case seeks automatic discharge upgrades for gay veterans forced to leave the military. Many of those like Army veteran Mona McGuire wont qualify for the pardons. Earlier this year, The War Horse told the story of McGuire, a military police officer who in 1988, at the age of 20, was outed by a fellow soldier, taken into custody and told she either had to accept an other than honorable discharge or face a court-martial and possibly prison. She chose the less than honorable discharge in lieu of court-martial and gave up VA benefits and her dream of a career in the Army. Without an actual court-martial, she doesnt qualify for Bidens pardons. There is still hope for some veterans who are not eligible. Last September, the Defense Department announced it would proactively review about 2,000 military records of service members who served during the dont ask, dont tell era and whose sexual orientation resulted in a separation. An update to this effort is expected sometime this fall. But it appears that too wont help McGuire or Marose, who were discharged before dont ask, dont tell, a 1993 policy that forced gay service members to stay quiet about their sexual orientation or face punishment. President Barack Obama signed the repeal of dont ask, dont tell in December 2010. (White House photo) In 1990, Marose, a former Air Force second lieutenant, was sent to federal prison at Fort Leavenworth for 18 months following his convictions for consensual same-sex relationships and sharing an apartment with a fellow airman. Marose is pursuing every possible path to clear his record and access VA benefits. Along with his pardon application, hes appealed his case directly to an Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records, which cant forgive his convictions but can upgrade his dishonorable discharge. Hes also made his case directly to the VA, which has become increasingly accepting of veterans who did not separate from the military with spotless records. More than 30 years after Marose was kicked out of the military for his sexual orientation, he understands why some LGBTQ veterans are not up for the lengthy process that may only lead to frustration or disappointment. And there is also the added question about who will be in the White House in the fall and how that could impact the pardon process. I have a lot of balls in the air, and I was hoping something would land, Marose says, but instead I feel like Im constantly having to argue and defend and hope and pray. This War Horse investigation was reported by Anne Marshall-Chalmers, edited by Mike Frankel, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Abbie Bennett wrote the headlines. Editors Note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter Veterans can now access emergency care from a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital by telephone or video under a new program that links patients experiencing medical distress with a VA provider. The VA announced Thursday that its tele-emergency care program, called tele-EC, is now available across the country, following a gradual rollout this year that has helped 61,182 veterans get care. According to the VA, nearly 60% of callers who contacted the department through the program had their health needs solved at home without requiring a visit to urgent care or an emergency room. Read Next: Army Surpasses its Goal for Recruiting Active-Duty Soldiers, But Just Barely "It might seem a little strange that we can treat a medical emergency through a telephone call. ... But we've all been there -- we have a cut and don't know if we need stitches. We may have fallen and don't know if we broke our wrist. ... For many of these concerns, simply talking to an emergency care provider can help determine if you need emergency care," said Dr. Neil Patel, VA National Emergency Medicine Office acting director, during a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. The benefit works like this: Veterans enrolled in VA health care contact VA Health Connect, which links them with a triage nurse who, in turn, connects them to a VA emergency physician if needed. The provider, who has access to a veteran's VA medical records, assesses the patient over the phone or by video and recommends treatment, follow-up or, in the case of a life-threatening emergency, calls 911 and stays on the line until emergency medical services arrive. "Veterans can simply pick [up] the phone, call VA, and we can give them advice on what to do and where to go for care. ... Now, every veteran can feel like they have a doctor in the family," Patel said. From 2016 through 2022, 3.9 million veterans made nearly 20 million visits to an emergency room, with roughly 73% going to the VA and the remainder landing in a civilian emergency department, according to research published earlier this year in JAMA Network Open. The study found that, from 2016 to 2022, the cost to the VA of visits by veterans to a civilian emergency room rose from $1.18 billion to $6.14 billion. The program should reduce the VA's emergency medical budget and also lower wait times in VA facilities as more veterans learn about it and use it. Patel said that, as an example, he handled a call from an 80-year-old veteran who was feeling lightheaded but lived more than an hour away from an emergency department. During the tele-EC call, Patel learned that the veteran had recently changed medications, with dizziness being a common side effect of the new regimen. Patel was able to advise the veteran to drink fluids, change his dose, and take it at a different time to reduce side effects. Then, Patel followed up with the patient a few days later. "He was feeling great and was so, so thankful that he didn't need to go to the ER and spend hours in a waiting room," Patel said. The program, now available in all 18 VA network regions, has been gradually introduced this year. With the emergency provider's access to VA medical records and the ability to prescribe medications and order lab tests and imaging, the program is able to provide "whole health" services to veterans that become integrated into their record and follow-on care. "There are health care systems out there that are doing virtual care options. What we are doing at VA is, to my knowledge, unique in that we get to do it in an integrated health care system ... as opposed to treating the acute issue and hoping they get care later on," Patel said. VA Secretary Denis McDonough said at the press conference that tele-EC will benefit veterans in rural areas, especially "extremely remote locales." He added that he was meeting with Indian Health Service Director Roselyn Tso to discuss the new capability for Native American veterans. "This is how we are thinking about this, not only as a geographic expansion, but also with a particular target of veterans ... in highly remote areas," McDonough added. To access tele-emergency care, veterans should reach out to VA Health Connect or the VA Health Chat app. Veterans also can find their local VA Health Connect number by searching for their facility. Patel said if vets are experiencing a life-threatening emergency, they should call 911 or go to an "emergency room right away." Related: VA Surge Operations Resulted in Increased Appointments and Reduced Wait Times, Department Says A mariner sailing in the path of Hurricane Helene was rescued in dramatic fashion when his boat started sinking off southwest Florida, according to the U.S. Coast Guard Station in Clearwater. The distress call was received around 11 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 26, with a 64-year-old man reporting his 36-foot sailboat was disabled and started taking on water approximately 25 miles off Sanibel Island. Helenes winds were intensifying at the time, from a Category 2 storm to a Category 3 storm, and U.S. Coast Guard air units took a calculated risk the mission could be completed without additional loss of life, officials said. A mariner and his dog were rescued from a sailboat as it sank off southwest Florida in the wake of passing Hurricane Helene, the U.S. Coast Guard reports. USCG photo edited by LCDR Scott Kellerman Video shared on social media shows the boat was still afloat when an MH-60 helicopter crew arrived around 2:45 p.m. and a guardsman was lowered by cable to the water. The dog, wearing a life preserver, was the first to be pushed off the teetering boat, followed by its master. The two then swam to a basket and were hoisted into a helicopter. Hurricane Helenes winds were near 120 mph at the time, making it an extremely dangerous storm, according to the National Hurricane Center. The seas were terrible and the winds were worse, Chief Petty Officer Nicole J. Groll told McClatchy News. If rescuers go down, nobody is getting rescued. This was a calculated risk we took to go out there, but we were confident wed find him and bring him back. The mariner, who was not identified, was taken to Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers and examined for injuries, officials said. He then coordinated transportation to his home, officials said. Helene made landfall in Taylor County in the Panhandle at approximately 11:10 p.m. as a Category 4 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center. Sanibel Island is about a 160-mile drive south from Tampa. Related: Coast Guardsman Becomes 5th Member of Service Awarded for Rescues During Maui Wildfire Related; California to Deploy Surplus C-130 Aircraft from Coast Guard to Fight Wildfires Related: Violent Seas, Boat Sinking: Rescue 95 Miles Off Oregon Tests Coast Guard ___ (c)2024 the Merced Sun-Star (Merced, Calif.) Visit the Merced Sun-Star (Merced, Calif.) at www.mercedsunstar.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Reports that welds on Navy submarines and aircraft carriers being built at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia may have been purposely faulty have prompted a congressional investigation. In a joint statement Friday, leaders on the House Armed Services Committee from both parties demanded "absolute transparency" from the Navy on the issue. "It is deeply concerning to learn that faulty welds may have been knowingly made to U.S. Navy submarines and aircraft carriers," said the statement from committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala.; Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., ranking member of the committee; seapower subcommittee Chairman Trent Kelly, R-Miss.; and Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., ranking member of the seapower subcommittee. Read Next: ROTC Scholarships Could Be Slashed This Decade as Army Deals with Glut of Officers "The House Armed Services Committee is investigating how this occurred," the statement continued. "The safety of our sailors is our top concern, and we need to immediately understand any risks associated with the faulty work. The Department of Defense needs to immediately provide our committee with answers and a plan for how they will protect U.S. Navy vessels against tampering." A Navy spokesperson confirmed the welding issue Friday, but offered few additional details, including what safety risks sailors on the ships face, whether the ships are inoperable or need significant repairs, and exactly how the problem might have occurred. "The Navy is aware of the issue and a thorough evaluation is underway to determine the scope," the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. "The safety of our sailors and our ships is of paramount importance. We are working closely with industry partners to address this situation and will provide additional information when available." The issue was first reported by USNI News. Citing an internal memo from the Navy's acquisition chief to service leadership, the news outlet reported that early indications suggest some of the welding errors were intentional and that the shipyard has referred the case to the Justice Department. Todd Corillo, a spokesperson for Huntington Ingalls Industries' Newport News Shipbuilding division, acknowledged Friday that some welders "knowingly circumvented certain welding procedures" but stressed that an initial investigation uncovered "no indication of malicious intent." "We do not tolerate any conduct that compromises our company's values and our mission of delivering ships that safeguard our nation and its sailors," Corillo said in an emailed statement. "Upon this discovery, we took action to communicate with our customers and regulators, investigate, determine root causes, bound the issue, and put in place immediate corrective actions as we work through longer-term solutions." Newport News is one of two nuclear shipyards in the country. It is responsible for building Ford-class aircraft carriers, as well as parts of several different submarine classes. In their statement, the House Armed Services Committee leaders noted the importance of the work being done at Newport News. "These vessels are critical to U.S. defense in the Indo-Pacific," they said. "We must ensure that these vessels are protected against any bad actors seeking to put U.S. national security or our service members at risk." Related: Amphibious Ship Suffers Breakdown, Marking at Least Third Navy Mechanical Issue This Year WASHINGTON Local and state law enforcement members from Pennsylvania told lawmakers Thursday that they did precisely what the U.S. Secret Service asked of them, with little or no follow-up direction from the agency leading security at the Butler rally where a would-be assassin nearly took Donald Trump's life in July. The bipartisan House task force investigating a pair of attempts on Trump's life in two months held its first hearing Thursday, with the Secret Service facing intensifying scrutiny for admitted breakdowns in communications and protocol in Butler. Edward Lenz, an Adams Township Police Department sergeant and commander in the Butler County Emergency Services Unit, testified that the Secret Service "never gave us direction" for the unit's two sniper teams. He also told lawmakers that the Butler County ESU "provided a total manpower of 44 persons, exceeding the number requested by the Secret Service." Butler County provided two counterassault teams, two sniper teams and a quick reaction force, Lenz said. None were ever asked by Secret Service specifically to cover the rooftop of a building where 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks eventually opened fire, Lenz said even though the Secret Service has acknowledged that concerns about sight lines from the AGR complex arose during security checks leading up to the rally. "We were prepared in the mission they had given us," Lenz told task force chairman Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Butler, who pressed witnesses on whether the Secret Service adequately prepared local law enforcement. In hindsight, Lenz said, "there were additional things that needed cover. They never asked us." "At no point during planning was Butler asked to deploy a sniper team to the roof of the AGR complex," he said. "At no point in our operations plan did we ever say that we would deploy a sniper team to the roof of the AGR complex. From their positions inside the AGR building, the snipers were not able to see the roof where the shooter was located, and again, that was not within their area of responsibility." John Herold, a Pennsylvania State Police lieutenant, told the task force, "We provided what they asked for," including more than 30 troopers who assisted with perimeter security and the former president's motorcade. "(Pennsylvania State Police) provided all resources requested by Secret Service," he said, adding that the federal agency did not request that he assign a vehicle or trooper to the AGR property or its rooftop. Drew Blasko, a patrolman in Butler Township Police Department, said that "there's always things you think you can do better," but that local officers were as prepared as possible and did their best "with the information we had." Lenz emphasized that "Butler County is our home," with many at the scene being family members, friends and neighbors. His own wife was embedded with the team providing treatment to those who were shot. Trump and two others were injured and former firefighter Corey Comperatore was killed in the shooting. The local law enforcement at the site "took their jobs serious and their responsibility serious," Lenz said. The local law enforcement witnesses Thursday morning appeared reluctant to criticize the Secret Service directly. But their testimony otherwise aligned with some of the findings detailed in a Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs report released Wednesday that suggested local police in Butler County went into the days leading up to the rally feeling "like there was no plan." The Senate committee noted that even two days before the campaign stop, Secret Service agents still could not answer basic questions such as where the stage would be placed at the Butler Farm Show grounds. Reps. Cory Mills, R-Fla., and Eli Crane, R-Ariz., who were not chosen for the bipartisan task force, challenged the task force to think outside the box in a second panel during Thursday's hearing. The congressmen, who previously launched an independent inquiry into the assassination attempt, have been highly critical of the Secret Service and other agencies, with Mills stating that the events in Butler represented "far more than just criminal negligence" and perhaps that there were "nefarious purposes" involved. Democrats on the task force, who told reporters they were not prepared for the testimony, skipped the second panel. Mills and Crane argued that there were obvious failures at the Butler rally, particularly in planning at an outdoor event with several high-ground points that presented danger. They also noted that the two recent assassination attempts were conducted by people without professional military experience, and that a professional would have a greater likelihood of success, especially without substantial overhauls in Secret Service protocols and culture. Mills and Crane thanked the task force for its work but encouraged lawmakers to not worry about being labeled "conspiracists," and to even consider that there may have been a second gunman. The FBI has said several times there is no evidence Crooks acted with a co-conspirator whether foreign or domestic. Kelly, asked about Democrats' reaction to the second panel, said after the hearing that his aim is not partisan. He said it was natural to hear out Mills and Crane in part due to their military expertise. Ronald Rowe Jr., the acting director of the Secret Service, told reporters last Friday that line-of-sight concerns "were not escalated to supervisors" amounting to "complacency ... that led to a breach of protocols." "These employees will be held accountable," he said, declining to provide details on the personnel involved. Also testifying Thursday were Patrick Sullivan, a former U.S. Secret Service agent, and Dr. Ariel Goldschmidt, Allegheny County's medical examiner. Kelly said the House task force is on track to release its full findings in December. He said the 13-member group had identified security failures on multiple fronts. The chairman highlighted three key factors: the Secret Service failed to adequately plan, creating confusion among local law enforcement partners; public access to the site less than 150 yards from the stage was poorly managed; and communications breakdowns with agencies grappling with heavy radio traffic and unable to fully communicate across various channels leading to "information in a moment of crisis (going) through radio, texts and phone calls, way too slowly." "At the end of the day, I believe all this could have been prevented," Kelly said. _____ (c)2024 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Visit the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at www.post-gazette.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. At its surface, Stolen Valor is a legal term used to describe people who claim gallant military awards -- like the Purple Heart or Medal of Honor -- they did not earn in an effort to gain money, property or other tangible benefits, according to a 2013 congressional act. But the phrase seems to have inhabited a broader meaning and gained a foothold in the public consciousness in recent years, one that has been sometimes divisive, but also critical to identifying when public figures might be embellishing or outright lying about their service records. On this episode, we talk to three experts about Stolen Valor, the historic intertwining nature of service and politics -- and ultimately what it might mean for veterans looking to engage in the democratic process this election. We also look at how these fights over service brew and what they may mean for voters, too. Additional Resources Listen, rate, and subscribe! Spotify Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Editors note: this episode was updated to reflect Gov. Walz rank upon retirement. Transcript: SPEAKERS Gov. Tim Walz, FOX10 Investigates, C-SPAN, Sen. JD Vance, Todd Connor, Anthony Anderson, Drew F. Lawrence, Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky Drew F. Lawrence At its surface, Stolen Valor is a legal term used to describe people who claim gallant military awards like the Purple Heart or Medal of Honor they did not earn in an effort to gain money, property or other tangible benefits, according to a 2013 Congressional act. But the phrase seems to have inhabited a broader meaning and gained a foothold in the public consciousness in recent years, one that has been sometimes divisive, but also critical to identifying when public figures might be embellishing or outright lying about their service records. FOX10 Investigates Tonight on FOX10 investigates. He is a Republican candidate for Arizona House, but now controversy surrounds his military service record. And Republicans in northeastern Arizona have some questions for Steve Slaton, accusing him of Stolen Valor. Drew F. Lawrence Steve Slaton lost Arizonas state Republican primary in late July amid accusations that not only did he lie about his service, but allegedly altered his discharge documents to show Vietnam combat he never participated in. As of this recording, his website is still up and it claims that Slaton served as a co-pilot in a Cobra Attack Helicopter during Vietnam. Slaton did serve in Korea, but his claims to have been deployed to the Vietnam conflict as well as being a pilot were found to be false. And a bevy of veterans from multiple generations of war called him out on it publicly. Anthony Anderson Steve Slaton in Arizona, he was running on a Republican ticket. It was a primary. He was running against several other Republicans. It was two veterans running against each other, and the one veteran he was running against was actually a combat veteran that served in Afghanistan. Drew F. Lawrence Thats Anthony Anderson. Hes an Army veteran of the war in Afghanistan. He founded Guardian of Valor to investigate and report on instances of embellished or false military service in an effort to protect the honorable nature of military awards and the often hard-fought sacrifices they entail. In the months leading up to the election, Anderson dug into Slatons claims, even going as far as contacting pilots who actually did serve in Vietnam and pinning down the exact helicopter Slaton said he flew, which was actually shot down, Anderson told me. Anthony Anderson Well, Steve Slaton claimed to be a Vietnam combat vet, served in Vietnam, claimed to have been a cobra pilot. Come to find out, none of that was true. And I think what it was is Republican against Republican, he was trying to make his record better if not the same as the Republican he was running against, because he thinks in the public's eyes, if he's just, oh, I just served in Korea, I never saw combat and this guy I'm running against saw combat, they're more than likely to vote for him. Drew F. Lawrence On this episode, we talk to three experts about Stolen Valor, the historic intertwining nature of service and politics and ultimately what it might mean for veterans looking to engage in the democratic process this election. We also look at how these fights over service brew and what they may mean for voters, too. For Military.com, my name is Drew Lawrence. It is September 27th. And this is Fire Watch. In 2016 then-Congressman Tim Walz sat down for an interview with C-SPAN alongside Republican Chris Gibson, a former colonel who deployed several times to combat and was awarded the Purple Heart. C-SPAN Congressman Tim Walz, also a member of the Armed Service Committee and Veterans Affairs, Democrat of Minnesota, highest ranking enlisted soldier ever to serve in Congress. Enlisted in the Army National Guard at 17 and retired 24 years later as Command Sergeant Major and served with his battalion in Operating [sic] Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Drew F. Lawrence Walz, now the Democratic pick for Vice President of the United States, acknowledged the host after the brief but only partially correct rundown of his service. Walz retired as a master sergeant, though he did at one point serve as his battalions provisional command sergeant major. He did not complete the course requirements needed by the Army to hold that rank upon retirement. He also never served in Afghanistan or any combat zone, but instead was deployed to Italy in support of those operations. Minutes later in the interview, he said this: Gov. Tim Walz My Guard unit backfilled to Europe to provide the security mission as the 173rd moved to Afghanistan. They rotated back, our Guard unit moves home, many of those same soldiers deployed for 22 months right after that. Drew F. Lawrence The 22-month deployment he was referencing was a taxing one that his Guard unit did to Iraq without him. In 2005, Walz made the decision to retire from the Guard and run for Congress where he championed several veterans and troop issues. But he never deployed to Iraq, which drew ire from some of those who served with him and did go to Iraq. And it was further muddled in recent months by ambiguous timelines about when he dropped his retirement packet, if it was before he knew about the deployment to Iraq, and the often hard and personal decisions that those timelines bring. Then there was this from a gubernatorial campaign speech in 2018: Gov. Tim Walz I'll tell you what I have been doing. I've been voting for common sense legislation that protects the Second Amendment, but we can do background checks we can do CDC, research, we can make sure we don't have reciprocal carry among states, and we can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons are at. Drew F. Lawrence Walz Republican opponent in the vice presidential race, JD Vance a senator from Ohio and a veteran who served four years as a public affairs Marine and deployed to Iraq for six months has used these statements as a cudgel against the Minnesota governor. Sen. JD Vance What really bothers me about Tim Walz: It's not even the positions that he's taken though, certainly he has been a far left radical. You know what really bothers me about Tim Walz as a Marine who served his country in uniform when the United States Marine Corps, when the United States of America asked me to go to Iraq, to serve my country? I did it. I did what they asked me to do, and I did it honorably and I'm very proud of that service. When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him, a fact that he's been criticized for aggressively by a lot of the people that he served with. Drew F. Lawrence Both candidates were honorably discharged from the military, but the mudslinging and statements measured against the complicated narrative of service and a life lived have made it sensitive to parse. Walz served for 24 years in the Guard and has responded to criticism by saying this: Gov. Tim Walz These guys are evening attacking me, for my record of service. And I just want to say: Im proud to have served my country and I always will beand I firmly believe you should never degenerate another persons service record. To anyone brave enough to put on that uniform for our great country, including my opponent, I just have a few simple words: thank you for your service and sacrifice. Drew F. Lawrence At the same time, veterans criticized Vance for deploying to a combat zone, but never seeing combat something, I should note, he hasnt claimed. When I spoke to Anderson, the Guardian of Valor founder, we talked about how these criticisms revealed a self imposed hierarchy in the veteran community, now being played out on the national political stage. If you didnt deploy, youre not good enough. If you did deploy, but didnt see combat, youre not good enough. If you did see combat, but it wasnt the right type, you still might not be good enough. Yeah, and it's, it's interesting, because with Senator JD Vance and Governor Tim Walz, who are on the two major tickets as vice presidents, you know, I think there was a brief naive hope, at least among my friends in the veteran community, that having two veterans, especially with enlisted backgrounds, or running for those positions, would bring positive spotlight to the community. But instead, it seems it's kind of nationalized, this hierarchy that you're talking about, this cannibalization that we the veteran community sometimes does. You know, why do you think that is? Anthony Anderson You know it's to me, that's a big enigma. I don't know why. You know, we police our own, we always have, but sometimes we take that too far. It turns into attacks against each other, like with the Stolen Valor thing, they'll take Stolen Valor, they'll use it as a weapon. I have tried to make people understand that there's a difference between embellishment, Stolen Valor and just some off the cuff remark that is made, that you may not be aware of. With JD Vance and Walz, people online comparing the records, they would post up things about JD Vance that weren't true. They would post up stuff about Walz that wasn't trueI posted both of their records. I said, Look, here's their awards, here's their ranks when they retired, this is the facts.' And people would still post...I don't understand why we do it. It's a big question for me too. Drew F. Lawrence The public discussion of records can be traced to the availability of the records themselves. Veterans know that when you join the service, a long paper trail of what you did, where you went and how you did it begins to pile up. And those records are for the most part publicly available under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA. Do you see people that you report on trying to deny your research when theyre called out for Stolen Valor? Anthony Anderson Most of the time they don't, because they can't. I've had it happen probably twice, and the most recent was the Steve Slaton case out of Arizona. He tried to say that I stole his identity and that I got his records illegally. And that's because most people don't understand what FOIA is and how FOIA works, and that even though your records are your records, they're really not your records. They belong to the government. Drew F. Lawrence What much of the public and apparently some politicians who fib about their records dont account for, is that the military is made up of all kinds of service. Some, like Vance, served for one enlistment. Others served longer. Many were in support roles during the Global War on Terror they too may have seen combat, or not. Others never deployed. Most of that is not by the veterans choice you go where the big military tells you to. But the great equalizer is that all veterans at one point raised their hand to support and defend the Constitution signing a blank check payable up to and including ones life. Is that enough? Going back to Senator Vance and Governor Walz. You know, neither of them were these door kickers or members of Seal Team Six or Delta or anything like that. And I'm wondering, do you think that their services are a bit more representative of the average veteran in America? Anthony Anderson I do, because if you look back over the past 20 years, Tim Walz served in the National Guard. The National Guard was deployed more during the 20 years that we've been at war in the Global War on Terror than they ever have before. I mean, you know, there were National Guard units out there running half the country sometimes, and they played a bigger role, and they play a bigger role now. Walz who deployed to Italy, and then with JD Vance, who was an active duty Marine, who deployed to Iraq, even though neither one ever actually saw combat, I think they represent a broader spectrum of the American veteran, and I think that's why each one draws their own side, their own part of the veteran community. And I think that's why there's been such an uproar about who did what, who said what, who served where and when, and trying to myself trying to stay down the middle and stick to the facts. Drew F. Lawrence These intricacies within the veteran community are often foreign to many Americans. A very small percentage of the American public has served and that number is diminishing as the wave of veterans of WWII and Vietnam pass away. It has led to a divide between the military and civilian communities. That divide also brings misunderstanding of service and in part enables some of the attacks against our own that the veteran community sometimes engages in, especially on the political stage. Todd Connor It's very corrosive. Americans trust veterans, and it's incumbent on the most visible amongst the community of veterans, including the two vice presidential nominees, to not squander that for personal gain. It's a great trend to see veterans running for office, as long as they don't exploit it for personal gain. Drew F. Lawrence Thats Todd Connor. Hes the founder of Bunker Labs, which is an entrepreneurship organization that helps military veterans start businesses, and more recently, the founder of Veterans for All Voters, which is a non-partisan project to reform election systems in an effort to energize voting participation for veterans and the general public. Hes also a Navy veteran. Todd Connor People that are not connected to the military community tend to create these kind of monolithic assumptions about what the military community is. Those of us that have been in the military understand that it is a diverse community. It's neither heroes nor villains. It's oftentimes something in between. It's a slice of America and average people doing exceptional things, in service, in uniform. There does need to be a conversation within the community about what do we expect from our public role models? But I will tell you, having veterans represented on the tickets is great. How they lead we have to have a high expectation, I think a particularly high expectation of what we expect of veterans when they step into the public domain. We do not want to politicize the military. That is not helpful. So we have to be really guarded about trends towards that, politicizing the military. And yet, the voices of military veterans matter. Drew F. Lawrence And just as Americans might not understand the spectrum of service, Anderson said that the public often misunderstands the awards themselves. Anthony Anderson I think it's a misunderstanding overall of what these awards mean. To me and you, some people have served that are veterans. We understand the award system. We understand what these awards are given for. For the average civilian, they don't know what a CIB is. Most of them don't care, but we do, and it's like they, you know, to me, a CIB, a Purple Heart, Silver Star, something like that those awards aren't just given. They're earned by sometimes the lives of our brothers and sisters. Some of these families, that's all they have left of their loved one, is that Purple Heart, that Silver Star, CIB, whatever that might be. Drew F. Lawrence Stolen Valor, as a legal term, is a relatively new thing. The original act banning fraudulently representing ones service was put in place in 2005 but was deemed unconstitutional by the courts for violating the First Amendment. While the legal consequences are from this millennium, the use of service in politics is quite old. Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky I think for many different generations of politicians, military service was almost a box to check, especially in the wake of major conflicts. So after World War Two, after the Civil War, you would see a series of politicians who had been in service, and it wasn't necessarily a central part of their campaign, but it was expected that if you were going to. This monumental country changing event, then people who are interested in the future of the country would have been involved in that process. Drew F. Lawrence Thats Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky, shes the executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library and author of Making the Presidency. Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky I think secondarily, perhaps, the service was often referenced as a demonstration of patriotism or commitment to the nation or willingness to sacrifice on behalf of their fellow citizens, but it was often not made a central part of the campaign, especially when you had huge generations that had widely participated. I think that has shifted somewhat in the wake of the Vietnam War, because the conflict was very controversial and sometimes opposed in American society, and so people wanted to either demonstrate that they were on the right or wrong side of that conflict, and that was something I think we've seen again after the War on Terror. But also as our politics have become increasingly nasty over the last couple of decades although that is certainly not the first time we've had nasty politics as it resumed its nastiness, people have started to attack that service and poke holes, or try and poke holes in it and try and demonstrate certain services being better than others. Drew F. Lawrence I asked her if she thought that the increasing civilian military divide was contributing to these political attacks on service. Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky I do think that the increasing civil military divide and the increasing professionalism of the military, such that a smaller and smaller portion of the American population are actually participating in in the military, has exacerbated this process, but I think it's maybe in a little bit of a counterintuitive way. I think that because fewer and fewer people are serving there has become more of a heroization effect people are treating all veterans as though they are heroes, and I certainly believe they should be celebrated for their service, but my understanding from speaking to veterans is that that is often a very uncomfortable position, because it makes them out to be something other than human, and it forces them to sometimes cover up the challenges that come with service, whether it be for their families or the implications of being in a war zone. And so because we are treating these people as heroes, that inherently means that very few people get to be in hero status, because you can't have tons and tons of heroes, which is one of the reasons I think that we are seeing an attempt in politics to say, well, these people count as heroes and these people don't. And I think that's pernicious, because I don't think that we should be celebrating hero status, but rather sacrifice and commitment, and that can come in a lot of different forms, and we should be grateful that people want to sacrifice and serve for the nation, whether it is as a fireman or as a veteran or as some other form of public service. Drew F. Lawrence Anderson said that veterans should be proud of their service regardless of the job they did. And that we need more vets in leadership roles as the long-lasting effects of these wars continue to rear themselves but that comes with honesty and public trust. Anthony Anderson I think they should be proud of their service. But, you know, because we need veterans in Congress, we need veterans in the government, because they've been down here in the weeds with the average soldier. They know what's going on. They know what the military needsAnd I think with having veterans running for office, if they do it the right way, run on the record like they're supposed to tell the truth about the record. And just run on what they did. Not only will civilians trust them, the veterans trust them. Because if you're a veteran and you know this guy's lying about a service record, you're not going to trust him to support your calls or to support the veterans in Congress. It automatically tells you, Well, wait a minute, why is he lying about his service? Is he in this for himself? Because he's definitely not in it for us if he's lying to us already.' Drew F. Lawrence Beneath the scrum is a choice the choice to vote. And a lot of the attacks or mistruths or political saber rattling weve talked about can make politics unappetizing for veterans and all voters when it comes time to participate in the democratic process of voting. Heres Todd Connor again. Todd Connor The biggest risk is that veterans don't participate, and I get why they don't want to, and young people, and the reason that they won't participate is because they'll look at the reality show that plays out on cable news, which is fueled by anger and outrage, and they won't want anything to do with it. And that's not an irrational response to an irrational system. Drew F. Lawrence Connors group, Veterans for All Voters, is trying to fix some of the disillusionment by putting veterans at the forefront and pushing for election reform for voters who may feel disenfranchised by the current system. Todd Connor The reason we think military veterans, and we've organized military veterans, is because Americans, they don't trust a lot of people. They're skeptical of what they see on the news. They're skeptical of what they see on the internet. They're skeptical of politicians. They're skeptical of lots of folks, lots of institutions. Veterans is sort of the one of the few remaining classes of people that the American people are willing to listen to, particularly when they come from their communities and return home to their communities. And so veterans who have demonstrated their patriotism, who, frankly, have sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution from enemies, foreign and domestic, we face a domestic threat to our democracy, to our national security in the form of calcified political structures that benefit a $12 billion political industry and are hurting the American peopleSo I think we do very much view this as an obligated kind of next form of service that isn't a kinetic warfare mission, but is about dealing with a crisis that really, you know, if you ask me, 'What's the existential threat to the United States of America?' It's this internal division. And so we feel that this is an extension of our time and service of the oath that we swore. Drew F. Lawrence And for active duty service members, theres a lot at stake. Todd Connor Particularly for active duty military service members, they are disproportionately affected and hurt by antiquated election systems. We know that military and overseas votes are disproportionately cast aside because they don't make electronic voting available, or because of registration windows, or because they move a lot, or because it's hard to get ballots returned. Drew F. Lawrence Were going to hang some voting and registration resources in the show notes of this episode. You can find them on Military.coms Fire Watch page. But one thing I want to emphasize is voting by mail. Service members and their families overwhelmingly rely on it to cast their votes, and some states have already started the process. The Federal Voting Assistance Program website is a great resource and Connor also recommended calling your county clerk in your voting state for information, too. Todd Connor Vote, be a poll worker. Ensure that your command has a culture of civic participation. I was the voting officer on the USS Bunker Hill. Make it a command priority, that everyone's registered to vote, knows how to vote, request their absentee ballots, know the timelines for this stuffpeople need to do their homework for their state of record, check their registration, request absentee ballots and vote, participate, be a poll worker and then get engaged in things that are non partisanuse your voice. You don't have to be a partisan take down an artist. You don't have to be on MSNBC or Fox News, but don't hide in the shadows, because Americans need moral leadership. They need role modeling as to what civic behavior, productive behavior, looks like, and they don't often see that from our political figures. And so I encourage veterans to be leaders from their corner of the world. Drew F. Lawrence Thank you for listening to this special episode of Fire Watch. Thank you to our executive producers Zach Fryer-Biggs and Jared Keller. If you enjoyed this episode, give us a rating. Get out and vote. Register. You more than earned it. And as always, thanks for listening. NEW YORK Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived Friday for a meeting with Donald Trump as public tensions have been rising between the two over Ukraine's defense against Russia's invasion. I think we have a common view that the war in Ukraine has to be stopped and Putin cant win, Zelenskyy said referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. After arriving together at a conference room on Friday, Trump said the fact that were even together today is a very good sign. The visit is taking place at Trump Tower in New York, a day after Vice President Kamala Harris, Trumps Democratic opponent, met with the Ukrainian leader and expressed unwavering support. The meeting is highly anticipated and comes as Election Day nears, with Trump and Harris taking sharply different positions on backing Ukraine in the third year of its war with Russia. Trump has in recent days praised Russias historic military victories and insisted the U.S. needs to get out and end its involvement with Ukraine. Friday's meeting almost wasn't scheduled despite Zelenskyys office saying something had been planned during the Ukrainian leaders visit to the U.N. General Assembly, during which he is making his endgame pitch to allies. In an interview with The New Yorker that was published earlier this week, Zelenskyy implied Trump does not understand and oversimplifies the conflict. The Ukrainian leader said Trump's running mate JD Vance was too radical and had essentially advocated for Ukraine to make a sacrifice by giving up its territories. Trump ripped Zelenskyy and Ukraine on two separate occasions this week. Speaking Wednesday in North Carolina, Trump referred to Ukraine as demolished and its people as dead. Any deal the worst deal wouldve been better than what we have now, Trump said. If they made a bad deal it wouldve been much better. They wouldve given up a little bit and everybody would be living and every building would be built and every tower would be aging for another 2,000 years. Meanwhile, Harris on Thursday stood alongside Zelenskyy and said Trump's push for Ukraine to quickly cut a deal to end the war were not proposals for peace, but proposals for surrender. Trump on Thursday said he was not advocating for a surrender. While Trump and Vance have been critical of U.S. backing for Ukraine, other Republican allies of the former president have backed Kyiv's defense against Moscow's invasion and argue supporting Ukraine is in America's interest. One ally of both Ukraine and Trump is Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. At a closed-door meeting Zelenskyy had with senators on Capitol Hill, also on Thursday, Graham stood up and said he had been talking to Trump about the Ukrainian president, according to a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting. Graham told those in the room he would talk to Zelenskyy privately about his conversations with Trump, the person said. As the meeting came to a close, Graham pulled Zelenskyy aside and the two had a private conversation. Graham is close to the former president, despite an on-again-off-again relationship, and has often played a role as an intermediary on various subjects. He did not respond to a message seeking comment Thursday. ___ Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Mascaro from Washington. Title: Understanding Google Vault: Protecting your data securely from the web (Secure Archiving: Understanding Google Vault) Im sure youve heard of Google Vault the security feature that makes it easy to store, manage, and retrieve sensitive information from Googles online storage services. But what exactly is this secur archiving? How does it help protect your data from the web? Let me start by explaining the concept of secur archiving. In essence, Google Vault helps you to create and manage multiple versions of your data that are stored on multiple servers across different regions and countries. This allows you to access your data even if one or more servers are unavailable or fail, giving you peace of mind knowing that your data is protected. One key advantage of using Google Vault is its ability to store large amounts of data in various formats, including databases, images, and other files. This means that you can easily access your data at any time, no matter where you are located. Additionally, because your data is stored on multiple servers, Google Vault provides additional protection against data breaches and unauthorized access. Another benefit of using Google Vault is its ability to comply with various privacy regulations and standards. Google has developed a number of compliance measures that ensure that your data is kept secure and protected from data breaches. For example, Google Vault uses advanced encryption techniques to protect your data from unauthorized access, and it also supports SSL/TLS encryption for secure communication. Finally, there are several ways to use Google Vault. You can either add a new version of your data to the server yourself, or you can upload a copy of your data to Googles existing servers. The amount of data you can store with Google Vault depends on your specific needs and requirements. However, since your data will be stored across multiple servers, Google Vault offers automatic backup and disaster recovery capabilities. In conclusion, Google Vault is an essential tool for anyone who wants to protect their data securely from the web. By creating and managing multiple versions of your data, complying with privacy regulations, and offering automatic backup and disaster recovery capabilities, Google Vault provides a comprehensive solution for protecting your sensitive information from potential threats. (Secure Archiving: Understanding Google Vault) Summary: Google Vault is a powerful feature that allows you to store, manage, and retrieve data from Googles online storage services. It offers several benefits such as the ability to store large amounts of data, comply with privacy regulations, and offer automatic backup and disaster recovery capabilities. By using Google Vault, you can safeguard your data and ensure that it remains safe and secure. Inquiry us if you want to want to know more, please feel free to contact us. (nanotrun@yahoo.com) Title: Why Does Apple Be Involved in Racist Practices? (Corporate Ethics: Is Apple Engaged in Racist Practices?) Apple has been known for its commitment to innovation and technology, but there have also been instances of discrimination and unethical practices that have come under the spotlight. It is important to understand why this has happened, so we can work towards creating a more inclusive and equitable company culture. Firstly, lets examine the history of Apples ethical standards. The company has been recognized for its commitment to using non-discrimination policies throughout its operations. For example, the companys Payroll System ensures that employees are paid fairly based on their level of performance without any form of discrimination or bias. This policy was made in response to concerns about pay disparities among different groups of workers. Next, lets explore how Apple implements its anti-discrimination practices. The company has set strict guidelines for discriminatory conduct within its operations, including minimum standards for workplace diversity and inclusion. For example, it has implemented policies to ensure that all employees are treated equally and have access to equal opportunities in terms of promotion, pay, and other benefits. However, despite its best efforts, Apple has still experienced incidents of discrimination and unethical behavior. For instance, the companys program of diversity training has led to reports of employee harassment and discrimination by some former executives who had already been treated unfairly. Additionally, the companys supply chain has been criticized for being subject to price supports from some customers that have taken advantage of Apples consumer support system. Despite these incidents, it is clear that Apple remains committed to fostering an inclusive and equitable workplace culture. The company has taken steps to address these issues and has emphasized the importance of diversity and inclusion in its business practices. It has established diversity teams and initiatives to promote employee engagement and foster inclusivity, and it is actively working to create a fairer and more just environment for all employees. (Corporate Ethics: Is Apple Engaged in Racist Practices?) In conclusion, Apples commitment to ethics is commendable, and it is important to recognize the challenges it faces in ensuring that its products and services are used ethically. However, it is also essential to take action to create a more inclusive and equitable workplace culture. By following Apples lead, we can help to create a better future for all employees and members of society. Inquiry us if you want to want to know more, please feel free to contact us. (nanotrun@yahoo.com) GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Spring Lake resident Emma Anderson always wanted to submit a piece to ArtPrize never seizing the opportunity until now, with the encouragement from her ambitious daughter, Ivy. Anderson, 51, entered the 16-day international competition with her installation, Ethereal Lantern Tree, a visual and physical metaphor for her growth after the death of three family members. The illuminated tree has become a visual and physical metaphor for my anchoring and growth, branching out into life as big and beautiful as it has always wanted to be, she said in her artist statement. RELATED: Your guide to ArtPrize 2024 around Grand Rapids Working with art supplies and games for creative expression was a staple in the Anderson home. Throughout the years, Emma has practiced artistic expression in the form of acrylic and watercolor painting, stained glass designing and building, jewelry making, batik fabric art quilting, chalk renderings, cake decorating, and even costume making for her children and their peers over the last three decades. In Spring 2023, she acquired an Art Studio in Grand Haven. This sealed the deal, and for the first time, Emma could work on a grand-scale art piece, a large lantern tree to serve as a warm light source. She processed the waves of grief from losing her sister and both her parents in a year as she bent, twisted, glued, balanced and stretched her materials into her studio lantern tree. At the same time, her daughter Ivy, 24, was working to acquire her MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. I was going to be back in Grand Rapids for an artist residency in August, she told MLive. I was like, Huh, I wonder what else is going on in Grand Rapids? And then I realized ArtPrize was going on and that I could apply. Thats when I got in touch with my mom about it. Pictured is Ivy Anderson's ArtPrize entry, "Somewhere Between Something and Nothing." The 3D sculpture is just one out of the 10 displayed at DeVos Place. (Photo/Ivy Anderson)Ivy Anderson Ivys entry, Somewhere Between Something and Nothing, at DeVos Place in Grand Rapids is inspired by her thesis body of art, which captures found objects with acrylic and neon elastic. She said it was her first time showing work near her hometown of Spring Lake, besides exhibitions she hosted in the South. This is my first time diving into my art career since I got my MFA, so Ive learned so much from this experience of putting together a body of work and what it feels like to decide what my voice is, Ivy said. Because Ive been away from my hometown doing all this, coming back and having my work up where people I went to high school with and teachers seeing what Ive been up to has been a really cool part of entering ArtPrize. While Emmas entry falls under the installation category, Ivys entry at DeVos Place falls under 3D because it consists of 10 sculptures. Emma considered making an art quilt or doing a painting but then decided to build a new and improved lantern tree made of wire, paper, tissue paper, glue and flowers. She also made 16 fabric-covered glass pendant lights. The entry can be seen inside the Arts Marketplace at Studio Park in Grand Rapids. The lights represent my inner glow, Anderson said. Everybody has losses, and everybody grieves. We grieve when we move, change jobs, break up over any transition. And that transition when I was working on this tree quieted my mind, and I felt a sense of calm. Related: ArtPrize 2024 kicks off in Grand Rapids with magical displays Ivy gushes about her mom, describing her as always being creative with her and her two siblings growing up, but never putting herself out there. I grew up with her facilitating creativity and exposing us to all these art materials, she boasts. Going into adulthood, my first choice of what I was going to do was fine art, and that has a lot to do with how much she exposed us to that growing up, which I think is beautiful. Its nice circling back and encouraging her to put her work out there because shes never done it before, and now Im in a part of my life where I am. It felt like this beautiful full-circle moment. Pictured (from left to right) is Emma Anderson and her daughter Ivy Anderson after Ivy earned her MFA at Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. (Photo/Ivy Anderson)Ivy Anderson In a big finale, festivities will culminate in the ArtPrize Closing Ceremony on Friday, Sept. 27 outside of the Woodbridge N. Ferris Building (KCAD) at 17 Pearl St. NE. There, organizers will announce and celebrate all the winners, alongside food trucks, a cash bar, a light and laser show, and circus performances. Ivy said she will cheer for her mom virtually during the finale event, as Andersons Etheral Lantern Tree, made the Top 20 in the Southside district. Although her body of work didnt make the Top 20 in each of the five ArtPrize districts, she said she and her mom are already pumped to collaborate on an entry for next year. Im super proud of her, Ivy said. This is an opportunity for her to have her work out where everyone can see what a creative person she is on this large scale. Its been beautiful to see her blossom under the spotlight, and Im really excited to have ArtPrize wrap up, and then hopefully, this will inspire her to do more creative things in the future and show her that her art is something that people want to see. To view more of the art from the mother and daughter, visit their Instagram pages at instagram.com/ivylaurelanderson/ and instagram.com/_artzyemma_/ 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. MANISTIQUE, MI The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will install special equipment in the Upper Peninsula this fall to study the impact of waves on piers and breakwalls. In October, the Army Corps says it will place an Integrated Radar Monitoring System (IRaMS) at Manistique Harbor to collect fall wave data over several months. The system will observe the interaction between waves and the harbor structures during storm events and validate numerical wave model simulations, the agency said. The data collection will feed computer models used to design repairs to the harbor structures in Manistique, which protect a channelized Manistique River mouth. The installation is temporary and people are asked to avoid it. An Integrated Radar Monitoring System (IRaMS).Army Corps Related stories: Ohio firm wins another big Soo Locks contract 2023 was big Lake Michigan dredging season FishPass project begins with TC dam removal HANCOCK, MI Sculptures at this old copper mine are making it easier to imagine what life was like when the place was bustling with activity in the late 1800s. This new art installation breathes life into Quincy Mines dry house ruins, according to Visit Keweenaw. Quincy Mine, affectionately known as Old Reliable, is one of the most visited mine tours in the world. In its heyday, it produced about 20% of the worlds copper supply. Adding people back to the site, four silhouette sculptures are now situated around hillside near the dry house ruins along U.S. 41 near Hancock in Michigans Keweenaw Peninsula. Workers would visit the dry house twice a day when coming to and going from the mine. It was a place for workers to clean up before returning home. They would often leave a change of clothes there at the beginning of the workday. A new art installation is "breathing life" into the dry house ruins at Quincy Mine in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Four steel silhouettes make it easier to imagine what the mine would have been like in its heyday in the late 1800s.A. Kraft | National Park Service The steel sculptures include a group of three miners waiting to cross U.S. 41, a man cleaning up at the dry house, a woman holding a baby, and a man waving hello. These figurines speak to the pride and perseverance of the people who worked, lived and played in the Keweenaw during its copper boom, according to Visit Keweenaw. Quincy Mine tours are across the street from the installation. SUTTONS BAY - Fall walks Up North are always a great way to spend a day. But when you get the chance to climb onto a wagon and take a ride through a picturesque vineyard that produces award-winning wines? Thats a country adventure meets autumn in Northern Michigan. Black Star Farms is offering this opportunity at its huge estate near Suttons Bay. We love coming to this property and its tasting room - and its tasty Bistro Polaris - any time of year. But its trails and scenery are especially lovely in the fall. The family-friendly wagon rides are being offered on Saturdays in October, starting Oct. 5. The rides are 30 minutes long, and a handful will be offered each Saturday between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Find more details and online tickets on the website here. Jump on board for fall colors and an old-fashioned wagon ride past our horses, vineyard and orchards on our 160-acre winery estate, said Sherri Campbell Fenton, managing owner of Black Star Farms. The tractor-drawn wagon will go through a cherry orchard, then wind around Black Stars terraced vineyard section. Afterward, warm up with a glass of mulled wine or hot cider (non-alcohol option available), perfect for enjoying the crisp autumn air, winery staff said. Fall in the vineyard at Black Star Farms. Photo provided by Black Star Farms. Cant make it to Black Star on a Saturday? No worries. The vineyard and winery offers some cool behind-the-scenes tours on Mondays and Fridays. Theyre going on now through the end of October. The guided walking tours last about an hour, and participants get to go through the vineyard, its onsite Inn, the wine cave, a centennial barn and more. "Uncover the history of our 160-acre estate, the fascinating journey from grape to glass, and what sets our wine region apart. Wrap up the tour with a wine and spirits tasting led by your guide. Our tours are a true gem of the Traverse Wine Coast. Group tours are limited to eight people. You can find more details on how to reserve a spot on the website here. Want a private tour? Those can also be arranged in advance. Check here for details. WARREN, MI -- A Canadian man was arraigned Thursday on two counts of second-degree arson and killing animals in the third-degree after he allegedly set his girlfriends Warren home on fire, killing her cats. Jesse Humphrey, 29, was arraigned in 37th District Court where bond was set at $500,000 cash/surety. Humphrey allegedly set the house on fire following an argument with his girlfriend Sunday. The woman was not at the home at the time of the fire, which completely destroyed her home. After setting the fire, Humphrey fled the scene but was eventually arrested in Warren. I am committed to holding those accountable who commit senseless acts of violence and destruction. This individuals alleged actions resulted in the tragic loss of two innocent pets and caused irreparable harm. This act of cruelty and recklessness will not be tolerated, said Macomb County Prosecutor Peter J. Lucido. If Humphrey is able to post bond, he will be required to wear a GPS tether and cannot have contact with the victim. He is due back in court on Oct. 8 for a probable cause hearing. News snippets of flooded streets and lashing rain were seen as Hurricane Helene approached Florida on Thursday night, but one image kept being shared over and over on social media: a U.S. Coast Guard rescue of a man and his dog after his boat became disabled in the ocean ahead of the raging storm. A crew from U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater are getting kudos from across the country and beyond today as news of the rescue continues to be shared. Its become one of the iconic early images of Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in Florida late last night as a monster Category 4 storm. In a short Facebook post, the Coast Guard station described the rescue. It was headlined by the rescue swimmer mantra of So others may live. USCG Air Station #Clearwater saved a man & his dog, Thurs., during Hurricane #Helene after his 36-ft sailboat became disabled & started taking on water approximately 25 miles off Sanibel Island. A video of the rescue later released by the Air Station shows a Coast Guard helicopter approaching the disabled sailboat and a rescue swimmer being lowered into the ocean. The swimmer reaches the boat and first takes the mans dog, which is wearing a vest, then helps the man and dog into a rescue basket. The man and dog are then lifted into the helicopter. The end of the video shows the man with the dog on his lap giving his rescuers a high-five. You can watch the Coast Guard video of the rescue here. The Air Station issued a statement early today, according to ABC News: Coast Guard crews responded to the boaters distress call and rushed to the mans location, approximately 25 miles offshore from Sanibel Island near Fort Myers, authorities said. A successful rescue attempt was made and the unidentified sailor and his dog were saved and brought back to land. On Wednesday, the U.S. Coast Guard released a video showing all the equipment and assets the crews at Air Station Clearwater had prepped to be ready to respond to Hurricane Helene and its aftermath. You can see that video here. Coast Guard crews from Air Station Clearwater stage their resources in preparation to assist post Hurricane Helene, in West Palm Beach, Florida, Sep. 25, 2024. Following the hurricanes departure, Coast Guard crews stand ready for search and rescue and will assess ports and waterways to ensure mariners can transit safely through the area. Bravo Zulu to all! MACOMB COUNTY, MI A Michigan jury has been found a man guilty of abusing his 11-month-old son. Adam Doe, 36, was sentenced to 10-30 years in prison after a jury in Macomb County convicted him of first-degree child abuse in July. The child had multiple severe brain injuries and fractures, prosecutors said. The Macomb County Prosecutors Office will be filing a motion to increase the sentencing guidelines to a range of 10.5 years to 17.5 years. It is my duty to seek justice for the most vulnerable members of our community, said said Macomb County Prosecutor Peter J. Lucido. This defendant was held accountable for the harm he inflicted on this infant and this sentence sends a clear message that we will not tolerate child abuse. The incident occurred on Feb. 22, 2020. Doe was charged in 2020. GRAND RAPIDS, MI A drug rehabilitation organization was ordered to pay $1 million to resolve allegations of violating the Controlled Substances Act after an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration. A consent decree was entered against Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Center, Inc., a behavioral health and addiction treatment services network, as well as its President and CEO, Paula Nelson and Medical Director Janis Romanik, D.O., according to U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan. The decree requires monitoring of the defendants as well as the $1 million civil penalty and resolves the allegations that the defendants violated certain dispensing and recordkeeping requirements of the Controlled Substances Act. Chief U.S. District Court Judge Hala Y. Jarbou entered the court order this week. Now more than ever, Michigan addiction treatment centers like Sacred Heart play a critical role in treating and healing communities plagued by the opioid epidemic and other forms of addiction, Totten said. But as this resolution demonstrates, it is crucial that these organizations and their officers handle controlled substances in a way that maintains the integrity of these services and ensures patient safety. The goal of this consent decree is to provide the necessary support and oversight to ensure that Sacred Heart can continue to provide necessary addiction treatment services, but in a safe and compliant manner, he said. The United States alleged that a DEA inspection revealed multiple violations of the Controlled Substances Act at a Sacred Heart treatment facility in Berrien Center named Serenity Hills Recovery & Wellness Center. An online search shows the facilitys address as 6418 Deans Hill Road. The United States alleged the facilitys staff routinely dispensed controlled substances to treat patients presenting with addiction withdrawal symptoms before a qualified healthcare practitioner evaluated the patients. Some spent days on a regimen of controlled substances without being seen by a qualified practitioner, the complaint alleges. The United States also alleged that Serenity Hills failed to maintain accurate records of the controlled substances dispensed to patients and had other issues with records. The case alleged there was a history of similar violations at other Sacred Heart facilities over the last 12 years. The organizations website shows its corporate offices are in Richmond, with other locations in Bay City, Flint, Madison Heights, Port Huron, Saginaw, St. Clair Shores and St. Ignace. Sacred Heart has agreed to review and revise its controlled substance policies and procedures and to hire an independent monitor to inspect Sacred Hearts facilities and share the findings of the inspections with the DEA. Following a monitoring period, the defendants will enter a probationary period. Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Center is registered in Michigan as a domestic nonprofit corporation, incorporated in 1968. RELATED: Michigan veterinarian fined after DEA probe into thousands of pills When rehabilitation and treatment centers do not live up to their obligations, our office will vigorously pursue the violations, said Orville Green, Special Agent in Charge of the Detroit Field Division of DEA. Careless behavior and failure to adhere to the provisions of the CSA, allows for substances to be diverted and sold without accountability. The claims resolved by the settlement are considered allegations, Totten said. The resolution was the result of a coordinated effort between the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of Michigan and DEAs Diversion Group in the Grand Rapids District Office. Assistant United States Attorney Andrew J. Hull prosecuted the case with assistance from DEA Field Counsel Stacy M. Race. Want more Kalamazoo-area news? Bookmark the local Kalamazoo news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Kalamazoo daily newsletter. BAY COUNTY, MI More than 88% of kindergarten and seventh grade students at each of Bay Countys four school districts had received vaccinations for school entry as of 2023. Thats according to data recently released by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and examined by MLive. Vaccines against certain infectious diseases like measles, mumps, pertussis commonly known as whooping cough and chickenpox are required for students entering kindergarten and the seventh grade, as well as those attending a new school district. However, Michigan is one of the most lenient states in allowing students to waive that requirement for medical, philosophical and religious reasons. For three consecutive years, the state has reported vaccine waiver rate increases, with the 2023-24 school year rate of 5.7% reaching its highest point since 2013. Related: More Michigan students are waiving required vaccines. Check out your schools rate. Heres a closer look at vaccination rates among kindergarteners and seventh graders in Bay County schools: According to the states recently released data, 96.4% of students attending Essexville-Hampton Public Schools were vaccinated. For Pinconning Area Schools, 95.3% of students were vaccinated. More than 92% of students at Bay City Public Schools were vaccinated as of 2023. And 88.2% of Bangor Township Schools students were vaccinated. Bay Countys largest school, Western Middle School of the Bay City Public Schools district, saw 215 of its 234 students vaccinated. Read more: 2 Michigan counties have child vax rates under 40%. See how your area ranks. Several smaller schools, such as All Saints Elementary, Linwood Elementary School and Trinity Lutheran Monitor, saw 100% of students vaccinated. The school with the lowest vaccination rate was Zion-Beaver Lutheran School, which reported 50% percent of students (three of six) were vaccinated. Want more Bay City- and Saginaw-area news? Bookmark the local Bay City and Saginaw news page or sign up for the free 3@3 daily newsletter for Bay City and Saginaw. ANN ARBOR, MI - Two Republicans seek to take a pair of seats on the University of Michigan Board of Regents against Democrats with regent experience and two third-party candidates. Current Regent Denise Ilitch and former regent Shauna Ryder Diggs are on the Democratic ticket, while businessman Sevag Vartanian and former state GOP treasurer Carl Meyers are on the Republican side. The 37th annual Hispanic Heritage Awards will take place Friday, Sept. 27, at 10 p.m. ET on PBS. Join host Annie Gonzalez in celebrating a new class of honorees. Watch the ceremony for free with a trial from DIRECTV Stream. About the show: Join PBS, the Hispanic Heritage Foundation and host Annie Gonzalez as they celebrate a new class of Hispanic Heritage Award honorees. Started by the White House to commemorate the establishment of Hispanic Heritage Month in America, the Hispanic Heritage Awards are among the highest honors given to U.S. Latinos by Latinos. The honorees come from a variety of professional fields. The following people will be honored tonight: Grammy-nominee Omar Apollo Chairman of NBCUniversal News Group Cesar Conde Grammy and Latin Grammy winning musicians Cafe Tacvba Co-Founders of Siete Family Foods Veronica, Miguel and Aida Garza Reggaeton and Urbano Pioneer Wisin Find more information about tonights awards on the PBS website. Tune in tonight, Sept. 27, at 10 p.m. ET on PBS to watch. Where to watch: China, Brazil already mature strategic partners: Chinese FM Xinhua) 16:50, September 27, 2024 NEW YORK, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said here Thursday that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Brazil, underscoring that the two countries have already been mature strategic partners. During his meeting with Celso Amorim, special advisor to the President of Brazil, on the sidelines of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly, Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, emphasized that China is ready to give full support to Brazil in hosting a successful G20 summit. Wang said that China and Brazil, together with other like-minded "Global South" countries, will soon establish a "Friends of Peace" platform on the Ukraine crisis, which is an effort made by China, Brazil and "Global South" countries to strive for peace. For his part, Amorim said Brazil is willing to work with China to make plans for high-level exchanges and deepen cooperation in various fields. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) ATB Capital set a C$36.00 target price on AltaGas (TSE:ALA Free Report) in a research report sent to investors on Tuesday morning, BayStreet.CA reports. The firm currently has an outperform rating on the stock. Other research analysts have also issued research reports about the company. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on AltaGas from C$37.00 to C$40.00 in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. Scotiabank increased their price objective on shares of AltaGas from C$36.00 to C$38.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Tuesday, August 20th. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their target price on shares of AltaGas from C$34.00 to C$37.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Monday, July 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on shares of AltaGas from C$33.00 to C$36.00 in a research note on Friday, July 19th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on AltaGas from C$34.00 to C$37.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Friday, August 2nd. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Buy and a consensus target price of C$37.40. Get AltaGas alerts: Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on AltaGas AltaGas Stock Down 0.2 % ALA stock opened at C$33.40 on Tuesday. The firms fifty day moving average is C$33.32 and its 200 day moving average is C$31.22. The firm has a market cap of C$9.93 billion, a PE ratio of 23.03, a P/E/G ratio of -4.97 and a beta of 1.24. AltaGas has a one year low of C$24.67 and a one year high of C$35.49. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 115.50, a quick ratio of 0.44 and a current ratio of 0.85. AltaGas (TSE:ALA Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported C$0.14 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of C$0.12 by C$0.02. AltaGas had a return on equity of 5.78% and a net margin of 3.58%. The company had revenue of C$2.78 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of C$2.54 billion. On average, research analysts forecast that AltaGas will post 2.299654 EPS for the current year. AltaGas Dividend Announcement The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 27th. Investors of record on Friday, September 27th will be given a dividend of $0.298 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 16th. This represents a $1.19 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.57%. AltaGass payout ratio is 82.07%. Insider Activity In related news, Senior Officer Bertram Grant Bradley sold 7,500 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of C$33.61, for a total value of C$252,075.00. In other AltaGas news, Senior Officer Bertram Grant Bradley sold 7,500 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of C$33.61, for a total value of C$252,075.00. Also, Senior Officer Randy Warren Toone sold 3,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of C$33.82, for a total value of C$101,460.00. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 33,320 shares of company stock valued at $1,125,051. 0.58% of the stock is currently owned by insiders. About AltaGas (Get Free Report) AltaGas Ltd. operates as an energy infrastructure company in North America. The company operates through Utilities and Midstream segments. The Utilities segment owns and operates franchised, cost-of-service, rate-regulated natural gas distribution and storage utilities in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the District of Columbia serving approximately 1.6 million customers. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for AltaGas Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for AltaGas and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Banco del Bajio, S.A., Institucion de Banca Multiple (OTCMKTS:BBAJF Get Free Report) was the target of a significant increase in short interest in September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 970,600 shares, an increase of 218.8% from the August 31st total of 304,500 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 1,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 970.6 days. Banco del Bajio, S.A., Institucion de Banca Multiple Stock Down 0.5 % Shares of OTCMKTS:BBAJF traded down $0.01 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $2.40. The stock had a trading volume of 60,010 shares, compared to its average volume of 13,509. The companys 50 day moving average is $2.70 and its 200-day moving average is $3.24. Banco del Bajio, S.A., Institucion de Banca Multiple has a 12-month low of $2.40 and a 12-month high of $4.01. Get Banco del Bajio S.A. Institucion de Banca Multiple alerts: Banco del Bajio, S.A., Institucion de Banca Multiple Company Profile (Get Free Report) Read More Banco del Bajio, SA, Institucion de Banca Multiple provides banking products and services in Mexico. The company offers electronic banking, insurance products; credit and credit cards, trust contract; online banking; foreign exchange, and derivative finance services. It also offers working capital and fixed asset, and other loans; investment products; payroll advance services; financial factoring and leasing services. Receive News & Ratings for Banco del Bajio S.A. Institucion de Banca Multiple Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Banco del Bajio S.A. Institucion de Banca Multiple and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Denison Mines Corp. (NYSEAMERICAN:DNN Get Free Report) (TSE:DML) was the target of unusually large options trading on Wednesday. Stock traders purchased 6,898 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 102% compared to the typical daily volume of 3,416 call options. Denison Mines Stock Performance DNN stock opened at $1.87 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $1.67 billion, a PE ratio of 26.71 and a beta of 1.70. The stocks fifty day moving average is $1.98. Denison Mines has a one year low of $1.40 and a one year high of $2.47. Get Denison Mines alerts: Denison Mines (NYSEAMERICAN:DNN Get Free Report) (TSE:DML) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The basic materials company reported ($0.01) EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of ($0.01). The business had revenue of $0.97 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $0.80 million. Denison Mines had a net margin of 950.42% and a return on equity of 9.45%. Research analysts expect that Denison Mines will post -0.06 EPS for the current fiscal year. Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. National Bank Financial upgraded Denison Mines to a strong-buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Roth Mkm assumed coverage on shares of Denison Mines in a research report on Thursday, June 27th. They set a buy rating and a $2.60 price target on the stock. Roth Capital raised shares of Denison Mines to a strong-buy rating in a research report on Thursday, June 27th. StockNews.com raised shares of Denison Mines to a sell rating in a report on Wednesday, July 31st. Finally, Scotiabank upgraded shares of Denison Mines to a strong-buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 2nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a buy rating and three have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Buy and a consensus target price of $2.93. Check Out Our Latest Research Report on Denison Mines Hedge Funds Weigh In On Denison Mines Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in DNN. Cetera Investment Advisers lifted its holdings in Denison Mines by 2.5% during the 2nd quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 923,715 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $1,838,000 after purchasing an additional 22,405 shares during the last quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. increased its position in Denison Mines by 0.5% during the 2nd quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. now owns 10,135,800 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $20,170,000 after buying an additional 46,000 shares during the period. Lloyd Harbor Capital Management LLC increased its position in Denison Mines by 168.5% during the 2nd quarter. Lloyd Harbor Capital Management LLC now owns 6,175,016 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $12,288,000 after buying an additional 3,875,016 shares during the period. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company lifted its holdings in shares of Denison Mines by 1.9% during the second quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 689,160 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $1,378,000 after buying an additional 13,144 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Toronto Dominion Bank boosted its position in shares of Denison Mines by 39.4% in the second quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 23,969 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $48,000 after acquiring an additional 6,777 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 36.74% of the companys stock. Denison Mines Company Profile (Get Free Report) Denison Mines Corp. engages in the acquisition, exploration, and development of uranium bearing properties in Canada. Its flagship project is the Wheeler River uranium project covering an area of approximately 300,000 hectares located in the Athabasca Basin region in northern Saskatchewan. The company was formerly known as International Uranium Corporation and changed its name to Denison Mines Corp. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Denison Mines Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Denison Mines and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Amotiv Ltd (ASX:AOV Get Free Report) insider David Robinson bought 1,798 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Monday, September 23rd. The shares were acquired at an average price of A$10.35 ($7.09) per share, with a total value of A$18,609.30 ($12,746.10). Amotiv Price Performance Get Amotiv alerts: Amotiv Announces Dividend The business also recently declared a Final dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, September 11th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, September 11th were given a dividend of $0.22 per share. This represents a yield of 2.07%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 22nd. Amotivs payout ratio is 57.75%. About Amotiv (Get Free Report) Featured Articles Amotiv Limited, through its subsidiaries, manufactures, imports, distributes, and sells automotive products in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, South Korea, France, and the United States. It operates through Automotive, Auto Pacific Group (APG), and Davey segments. The Automotive segment offers automotive and heavy-duty filters for cars, trucks, and agricultural and mining equipment; automotive electrical and lighting products; and fuel pumps and associated products and accessories for the automotive after-market. Receive News & Ratings for Amotiv Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Amotiv and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Zelman & Associates upgraded shares of Lennar (NYSE:LEN Free Report) from a neutral rating to an outperform rating in a research note published on Monday, MarketBeat.com reports. LEN has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Raymond James cut shares of Lennar from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a report on Tuesday, July 2nd. BTIG Research lowered their target price on shares of Lennar from $177.00 to $175.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Thursday, June 20th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on Lennar from $195.00 to $205.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Monday, September 9th. JMP Securities restated a market outperform rating and issued a $170.00 price objective on shares of Lennar in a research note on Thursday, June 20th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group cut Lennar from a buy rating to a neutral rating and cut their price target for the stock from $180.00 to $174.00 in a research note on Monday, July 22nd. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $181.94. Get Lennar alerts: Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on LEN Lennar Stock Performance Lennar stock opened at $183.13 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $50.29 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.45, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.71 and a beta of 1.61. Lennar has a 1-year low of $102.90 and a 1-year high of $193.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08, a current ratio of 4.90 and a quick ratio of 0.98. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $177.67 and a 200-day simple moving average of $164.42. Lennar (NYSE:LEN Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, September 19th. The construction company reported $3.90 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.62 by $0.28. The company had revenue of $9.42 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.14 billion. Lennar had a net margin of 11.51% and a return on equity of 15.47%. Lennars revenue was up 7.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $3.91 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect that Lennar will post 14.13 EPS for the current year. Lennar Dividend Announcement The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 24th. Investors of record on Wednesday, October 9th will be given a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.09%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, October 9th. Lennars dividend payout ratio is presently 13.60%. Hedge Funds Weigh In On Lennar Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Lakewood Asset Management LLC increased its stake in Lennar by 0.8% in the second quarter. Lakewood Asset Management LLC now owns 9,385 shares of the construction companys stock valued at $1,407,000 after purchasing an additional 70 shares during the last quarter. NorthCrest Asset Manangement LLC increased its position in shares of Lennar by 1.5% during the second quarter. NorthCrest Asset Manangement LLC now owns 4,870 shares of the construction companys stock worth $730,000 after acquiring an additional 73 shares during the last quarter. Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Lennar by 5.7% during the second quarter. Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,381 shares of the construction companys stock worth $207,000 after buying an additional 74 shares in the last quarter. Quotient Wealth Partners LLC raised its stake in shares of Lennar by 5.0% in the 2nd quarter. Quotient Wealth Partners LLC now owns 1,540 shares of the construction companys stock valued at $231,000 after purchasing an additional 74 shares in the last quarter. Finally, BBR Partners LLC grew its position in shares of Lennar by 3.4% in the 2nd quarter. BBR Partners LLC now owns 2,427 shares of the construction companys stock worth $364,000 after acquiring an additional 79 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 81.10% of the companys stock. About Lennar (Get Free Report) Lennar Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a homebuilder primarily under the Lennar brand in the United States. It operates through Homebuilding East, Homebuilding Central, Homebuilding Texas, Homebuilding West, Financial Services, Multifamily, and Lennar Other segments. The company's homebuilding operations include the construction and sale of single-family attached and detached homes, as well as the purchase, development, and sale of residential land; and development, construction, and management of multifamily rental properties. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Lennar Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Lennar and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Raymond James downgraded shares of Lundin Gold (TSE:LUG Free Report) from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a research report sent to investors on Monday morning, MarketBeat Ratings reports. They currently have C$29.00 target price on the stock, up from their prior target price of C$25.00. Raymond James also issued estimates for Lundin Golds Q3 2024 earnings at $0.57 EPS, Q4 2024 earnings at $0.64 EPS, FY2024 earnings at $2.09 EPS, Q1 2025 earnings at $0.61 EPS, Q2 2025 earnings at $0.63 EPS, Q3 2025 earnings at $0.63 EPS, Q4 2025 earnings at $0.63 EPS and FY2025 earnings at $2.49 EPS. Other equities analysts have also issued reports about the company. TD Securities raised their price target on Lundin Gold from C$24.00 to C$27.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, July 30th. Cormark lifted their target price on Lundin Gold from C$26.00 to C$27.00 in a report on Friday, August 9th. Jefferies Financial Group upped their price target on Lundin Gold from C$26.00 to C$29.00 in a research report on Monday, September 9th. Canaccord Genuity Group raised their price objective on shares of Lundin Gold from C$27.50 to C$28.50 in a research report on Tuesday, August 20th. Finally, National Bankshares boosted their price objective on shares of Lundin Gold from C$30.75 to C$32.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 14th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, five have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Lundin Gold presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of C$27.42. Get Lundin Gold alerts: View Our Latest Report on Lundin Gold Lundin Gold Trading Up 0.7 % Shares of LUG opened at C$29.93 on Monday. Lundin Gold has a fifty-two week low of C$14.23 and a fifty-two week high of C$30.64. The business has a 50-day moving average of C$26.08 and a 200 day moving average of C$21.87. The firm has a market cap of C$7.18 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.38 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 14.28, a quick ratio of 1.41 and a current ratio of 1.98. Lundin Gold (TSE:LUG Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The company reported C$0.55 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of C$0.62 by C($0.07). The business had revenue of C$412.43 million during the quarter. Lundin Gold had a return on equity of 22.88% and a net margin of 24.30%. As a group, research analysts forecast that Lundin Gold will post 2.5613577 EPS for the current year. Lundin Gold Increases Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, September 25th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, September 25th were given a dividend of $0.551 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, September 10th. This represents a $2.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 7.36%. This is a boost from Lundin Golds previous quarterly dividend of $0.10. Lundin Golds dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 85.16%. Insider Transactions at Lundin Gold In related news, Senior Officer Terrence Smith sold 25,740 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, September 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of C$29.52, for a total value of C$759,826.78. In other Lundin Gold news, Senior Officer Terrence Smith sold 25,740 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of C$29.52, for a total value of C$759,826.78. Also, Senior Officer Sheila Margaret Colman sold 16,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of C$28.74, for a total transaction of C$459,913.60. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 72,840 shares of company stock valued at $2,146,122. Insiders own 58.75% of the companys stock. Lundin Gold Company Profile (Get Free Report) Lundin Gold Inc operates as a mining company in Canada. The company holds interests in 28 metallic mineral concessions and three construction material concessions covering an area of approximately 64,454 hectares located in Southeast Ecuador. It primary holds 100% interests in the Fruta del Norte gold project that comprising seven concessions covering an area of approximately 5,566 hectares located near the city of Loja in Ecuador. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Lundin Gold Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Lundin Gold and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (TSE:CM Get Free Report) (NYSE:CM) Senior Officer Sandy Sharman sold 2,275 shares of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of C$83.04, for a total transaction of C$188,916.00. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Stock Up 0.3 % Shares of CM stock opened at C$83.86 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of C$79.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.14, a PEG ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 1.12. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce has a 12 month low of C$47.44 and a 12 month high of C$84.46. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of C$75.16 and a 200 day moving average price of C$69.59. Get Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce alerts: Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (TSE:CM Get Free Report) (NYSE:CM) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 29th. The company reported C$1.93 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of C$1.75 by C$0.18. The company had revenue of C$6.60 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of C$6.31 billion. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce had a net margin of 29.56% and a return on equity of 12.37%. Sell-side analysts predict that Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce will post 7.5778986 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Dividend Announcement Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, October 28th. Shareholders of record on Monday, October 28th will be given a dividend of $0.90 per share. This represents a $3.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.29%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 27th. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerces payout ratio is 52.10%. Several analysts have recently weighed in on CM shares. TD Securities dropped their price objective on shares of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce from C$93.00 to C$91.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Friday, August 30th. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price target on Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce from C$79.00 to C$78.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Monday, August 12th. National Bankshares lifted their price objective on Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce from C$78.00 to C$86.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Friday, August 30th. Cormark upgraded Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce from a market perform rating to a buy rating and increased their target price for the stock from C$75.00 to C$83.00 in a report on Friday, August 30th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce from C$69.00 to C$74.00 and gave the company a sector perform rating in a report on Friday, August 30th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of C$79.15. Read Our Latest Research Report on Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Company Profile (Get Free Report) Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, a diversified financial institution, provides various financial products and services to personal, business, public sector, and institutional clients in Canada, the United States, and internationally. The company operates through Canadian Personal and Business Banking; Canadian Commercial Banking and Wealth Management; U.S. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. 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. 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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 BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Approximately 17.5 billion manat ($10.2 billion) have been allocated for construction and restoration work in the liberated territories of Azerbaijan to date, Azerbaijani Finance Minister Samir Sharifov said in a statement to media, Trend reports. The minister noted that the total is expected to reach 19 billion manat ($11.1 billion) by the year's end. "This will depend on the performance of executive organizations. In principle, progress is being made. Funds are being allocated from the state budget. The Great Return is one of our country's main priorities, and measures are being taken in this direction," he added. To note, Azerbaijani Prime Minister Ali Asadov said during a speech at the Cabinet of Ministers during the discussion of the draft state budget and consolidated budget for 2025 and the indicators of the consolidated budget for the next three years, the concept and forecast indicators of economic and social development for 2025 and the next three years. Almost 17.5 billion manat ($10.2 billion) have been allocated from the Azerbaijani state budget for the restoration and reconstruction of the territories liberated from occupation since 2020, including 2024. Ali Asadov noted that 4 billion manat ($2.3 billion) are planned to be allocated for these purposes in 2025. According to a report from the Ministry of Finance, this amount will represent 10.1 percent of the state budget expenditures for that year, reflecting a 17.6 percent decrease compared to the 2024 forecast. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. The Azerbaijani Army launched a counter-offensive operation, later called the "Iron Fist", on September 27, 2020, in response to the large-scale provocation of the Armenian armed forces along the frontline. The 44-day second Karabakh war ended with the liberation of Azerbaijans territories from nearly 30-year Armenian occupation and the restoration of territorial integrity. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev made an appeal to the people of Azerbaijan on September 27. Appeal of President Ilham Aliyev to the people: - Armenian armed forced fired on our settlements, as well as our military positions, from several directions this morning, using various types of weaponry, including heavy artillery. As a result of the enemy fire, there are casualties among the civilian population and our servicemen. Some people have been wounded. May God rest our martyrs in peace! Their blood will not remain unavenged. The Azerbaijani Army is currently firing on the enemy's military positions, and as a result of these strikes, many units of the enemy's military equipment have been destroyed. This is another manifestation of Armenian fascism. Armenia's military provocations against Azerbaijan have become regular of late. In July, our servicemen and a civilian were killed as a result of artillery fire in the direction of Tovuz on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. It is no secret that the first fire, including artillery fire, was opened by Armenia, and the first victims were Azerbaijani servicemen. Azerbaijan gave a fitting rebuff to the enemy and they could not move an inch forward. The enemy was stopped and the territorial integrity of our country was protected. As a result of the crushing blows, the Armenian side was forced to accept a bitter defeat. I have said this and I want to say again that if we had wanted, we could have conducted military battles on the territory of Armenia. However, we do not have military targets in Armenia, and this being the case, a ceasefire was introduced a few days later. What objectives did Armenia pursue by committing this provocation? First of all, Armenia plans to occupy Azerbaijani lands and does not conceal that. Their military-political leadership tried to threaten Azerbaijan with a new occupation, a new policy of occupation for new territories this is the policy of Armenias military-political leadership today. Another reason is to distract the population from the very serious social and economic problems in Armenia and portray Azerbaijan as an enemy. Yet another reason is that Armenia is doing everything possible to disrupt the negotiations, and I can say that it has succeeded in doing that. It is as a result of Armenia's hypocritical, unconstructive and false policy that the negotiations have actually stopped and this provocation is aimed at these goals. These are the main goals for them. In July, Azerbaijan gave a fitting response to the enemy, preserved its territorial integrity and once again showed that anyone speaking to Azerbaijan in the language of threats will regret doing that. Unfortunately, this was not a lesson for them. However, after the July provocation, I said that this bitter defeat by Armenia should be a lesson for them. In August, Armenia launched yet another military provocation. This time a sabotage group was sent to Azerbaijan. The head of the sabotage group was detained by the Azerbaijani military and is currently giving evidence. His statements clearly show that this sabotage group came to Azerbaijan with a plan to commit acts of terror. Another military provocation against the civilian population and our servicemen was committed by Armenia today and, as I said, they have received their punishment this time again and will continue to receive it. Armenia's provocations are also reflected in the statements made by the Armenian leadership. A year ago, the Armenian prime minister said in the occupied territories, in Khankandi, that Karabakh is Armenia, full stop. First of all, it is a lie, Karabakh is Azerbaijan, and I have repeatedly expressed my views on this issue. Karabakh is Azerbaijan, an exclamation mark! Secondly, this provocative statement was in fact a major blow to the negotiations. If the prime minister of Armenia says that Karabakh is Armenia, then what kind of talks can there be?! At the same time, the Armenian leadership has been repeatedly stating for two years that Azerbaijan should negotiate not with Armenia, but with the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh republic. This is a big blow to the negotiation process. First of all, Azerbaijan will never negotiate with the puppet junta regime. Secondly, attempts to change the format of talks show once again that Armenia's main goal is to disrupt the talks and maintain the status quo. However, the heads of state of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs have repeatedly stated that the status quo is unacceptable, which means that the occupation must end. Armenia's provocations against us do not end at that. Recently, the swearing-in ceremony of the head of the so-called criminal junta was held in Shusha, an ancient city of our ancient Azerbaijan. Isn't this a provocation? This is an insult to us. They thought that we would put up with this insult. They are deliberately provoking us and they will see the bitter consequences. Recently, a decision was made by the so-called parliament of the Nagorno-Karabakh republic to settle people in the ancient Azerbaijani city of Shusha. This is another provocation. Recently, the prime minister of Armenia announced that voluntary military units would be established, bringing together tens of thousands of people. Why is this necessary? Who will they fight against? This was part of the preparations for today's provocation against Azerbaijan. I have said several times, including from the UN platform recently, that Armenia is preparing for a new war, and Armenia must and will be stopped. Armenia is pursuing a policy of illegal settlement in the occupied territories. Several Lebanese Armenian families have recently been resettled to Nagorno-Karabakh, including Shusha, an ancient city in Azerbaijan. This is a war crime. This is completely contrary to the Geneva Convention. Armenia will be held accountable for this crime. This is another provocation against us. Settlement in the occupied territories is a crime, and this policy has been pursued by Armenia for many years. The fact is that the country's population is declining due to the difficult economic, political and social situation in Armenia. Armenia is experiencing a demographic crisis and does not have the human resources to deploy its people in the occupied territories. That is why they hope for Armenians living abroad. This policy is currently underway. At the same time, according to the accurate information we have, Armenia has carried out illegal settlement in some of our occupied territories. The names of our districts and villages are being changed. The historical heritage of Azerbaijanis is being erased. Our historical monuments are being destroyed. Azerbaijani mosques are being destroyed and desecrated. Armenia keeps cows and pigs in our mosques. This is the greatest insult to the entire Muslim world. The graves of our ancestors are being destroyed by tractors. It is fascists, vandals and savages who have done this. At the same time, the recent military exercises in the occupied territories should be considered another provocation by Armenia. Because these exercises have one purpose: to attack Azerbaijan, to fire on the civilian population and to occupy new lands! All the facts I have mentioned show again that Armenia and its ugly policies are the source of danger in the region. Azerbaijan has not resorted to any provocation. Azerbaijan simply defends its interests, supports its position and pursues its policy openly. We have repeatedly stated that Nagorno-Karabakh is historical and ancient land of Azerbaijan, and this is true. When the prime minister of Armenia says that Karabakh is Armenia, it is a lie. When I say that Karabakh is Azerbaijan, it is true. The whole world recognizes Nagorno-Karabakh as an integral part of Azerbaijan. Historical justice is on our side. Because it is our native land, our ancestral land. International law is on our side. All international organizations recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. All countries recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Decisions and resolutions adopted within international organizations explicitly state that Nagorno-Karabakh belongs to Azerbaijan. Four UN Security Council resolutions call for an immediate, full and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian forces from the occupied territories. These resolutions have been on paper for almost 30 years. Negotiations within the Minsk Group have been going on for almost 30 years and, as a result, Armenia has paralyzed the negotiations by regularly committing military provocations. Besides the United Nations, all other leading international organizations support our rightful position. The Non-Aligned Movement is the second largest international institution after the United Nations, and it is currently chaired by Azerbaijan. It has adopted a fair resolution on the conflict. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation has adopted fair resolutions. The decisions of the OSCE and the resolutions of the European Parliament support our position. Our position is based on international law and justice. We are fighting on our own land. Today, the Azerbaijani Army is dealing crushing blows to the enemy on Azerbaijani soil. Today, the Azerbaijani Army protects the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan on its territory. What are Armenian soldiers doing in our lands?! What is the Armenian army doing in our lands?! It is no secret that 90 percent of the personnel in the Nagorno-Karabakh army are Armenian citizens. Armenia is an occupying state, this occupation must and will end. We are on the right path! Ours is the cause of justice! We will win! Karabakh is ours! Karabakh is Azerbaijan! Cross-border e-commerce exchange meeting held in Nanning, S China's Guangxi People's Daily Online) 09:38, September 27, 2024 The "Digital Trade Leads Trend, Enterprises Gather Around Guangxi" Cross-border E-commerce Exchange Meeting was held in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Sept. 24, 2024. The meeting was attended by over 70 prominent e-commerce enterprises and institutions, who shared their perspectives on the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities in the cross-border e-commerce sector. The "Digital Trade Leads Trend, Enterprises Gather Around Guangxi" Cross-border E-commerce Exchange Meeting is held in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Sept. 24, 2024. (People's Daily Online/Lei Qijun) Ren Xiaotao, deputy general manager of the commercial big data department at the China International Electronic Commerce Center, proposed empowering industrial belts by e-commerce, strengthening market entities, enhancing the digitalization and flexibility of supply chains, aiding enterprises in research and development, quality control, and brand building, establishing overseas brand operation centers, and improving brand competitiveness and industry ecosystem. Li Zhiping, founder and CEO of Guangxi Laizanbao Network Technology Co., Ltd., believes that Guangxi's close proximity to ASEAN countries means the region's talent pool blends well with those of their ASEAN neighbors. He added that his company plans to ramp up support for talents to meet local employment needs and collaborate with local businesses and partners to cultivate cross-border talents. Yang Wenzhao, deputy secretary general of the Economic Joint Committee of China Commercial Stock Enterprises and chairman of Ningxia Iman Technology Co., Ltd., emphasized the importance of adopting an open mindset to facilitate the reuse of global resources, leverage strengths, address weaknesses, and establish a stronger presence in the international market. The guests noted that the event served as a valuable platform for the cross-border e-commerce industry, facilitated knowledge sharing, experience exchange, and business inspiration, and injected fresh momentum into the industry's development. (Web editor: Hongyu, Du Mingming) BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. The Azerbaijani Army launched a counter-offensive operation, later called the "Iron Fist", on September 27, 2020, in response to the large-scale provocation of the Armenian armed forces along the frontline. The 44-day second Karabakh war ended with the liberation of Azerbaijans territories from nearly 30-year Armenian occupation and the restoration of territorial integrity. On September 27, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev chaired a meeting of the Security Council. The head of state made a speech at the meeting. Speech of President Ilham Aliyev: - As you know, early this morning, Armenian armed forces committed yet another military provocation against Azerbaijan. We have losses as a result of this provocation, both among the civilian population and servicemen. This once again shows that Armenia's policy of aggression against Azerbaijan continues, and this policy shows the fascist essence of Armenia to the whole world. As soon as I received the information in the morning, I contacted the Minister of Defense and the heads of other relevant agencies, gave relevant instructions, and on the basis of these instructions, the Azerbaijani Army launched a large-scale counter-offensive. I must say that Armenia's military provocation was pre-planned. They have been preparing for this provocation for a long time, and the intelligence we have shows that Armenia intends to start a new war against us. I have repeatedly talked about this issue in the last week both in my TV interview and from the UN platform. I said that the aggressive state must be stopped. They are preparing for a new war. I addressed the people of Azerbaijan today. In my address, I gave detailed information about the reasons for this provocation and the ugly steps Armenia has been taking in recent times. I have shared my views, so I do not want to repeat them. I simply want to reiterate that the military attack on us early this morning was a pre-planned military provocation. Because our positions were fired on from various directions using different weaponry, including heavy artillery. At the same time, our settlements and villages were fired on. As I said, we have losses among the civilian population. This once again shows the ugly face of Armenian fascism. Because such atrocities against the civilian population can only be attributed to fascist states, and this is not the first time the events in Tovuz and others. The Khojaly genocide was committed by Armenian savages against the civilian population. This time too, Armenias main target is our settlements. By opening fire, they want to create panic among the Azerbaijani public, among the citizens of Azerbaijan, in the villages and towns along the frontline. This morning, I received information from all frontline regions. I can say with full confidence that the citizens of Azerbaijan are showing courage. Everyone is in their place and are ready to support our army and state at any time, and they are doing that. The Azerbaijani Army is currently conducting a counter-offensive in response to military provocation. I can say that the operation has been successful. The Presidential Administration and the Ministry of Defense have been instructed to keep the population informed about the events on a regular basis. I can say that as a result of the successful counter-offensive, the enemy's manpower and military equipment were severely damaged. Several occupied Azerbaijani settlements have been liberated. I congratulate all the people of Azerbaijan on this occasion! I am confident that our successful counter-offensive will end the occupation! It will end injustice! It will end the occupation that has lasted for nearly 30 years! Because the people of Azerbaijan want to live on their lands. Azerbaijani citizen live longing for his homeland. People who were forcibly driven out of their ancestral lands by Armenians, by the Armenian leadership want to return to their native lands even though their homes have already been destroyed by savages. Look at the ruins of Aghdam. Look at the ruins of Fuzuli. Look at the state of our mosques in the occupied territories, the state of our cemeteries. All this was committed by Armenian executioners, and we are absolutely right. Our struggle is a struggle for justice, and the citizens of Azerbaijan fully support the state today. We always feel this support. A citizen of Azerbaijan is with the Azerbaijani Army, and I turn to our compatriots who have not been able to return to their native lands for almost 30 years and say that we will do our best to return you to your native lands. I warned Armenia. After the events in Tovuz, I warned them several times that they would regret it if they did not give up their ugly deeds. We taught them a lesson in 2016, in 2018, in July of this year. But it did not seem to be a lesson for them. This time we are teaching them another lesson and will continue to do that. Today, the glorious Azerbaijani Army is conducting a counter-offensive with great success, and this operation continues. I must also say that there is high morale in all our military units and formations. At the same time, the number of volunteers enlisted in our army has reached tens of thousands. This shows the commitment of our people to their state. The settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue is our historical task. I have said this many times and I want to reiterate today that we must resolve this issue in a way that would satisfy the people of Azerbaijan. We must resolve this so that historical justice can be restored. We must do so in order to restore the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. I have said in different countries many times that we do not need an incomplete solution to this issue, to this conflict. We are on our own lands, we have no claims to the lands of other countries. But we will not give our lands to anyone either. We will never allow for the creation of a second so-called Armenian state on Azerbaijani soil. We will never allow that, and today's events are showing that again. Nagorno-Karabakh is our ancient and historical land. I have repeatedly spoken at various international events on the history and past of Nagorno-Karabakh. I have shared the historical truth with the world community. As a result of our focused and tireless efforts, the world has a broad picture of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict today. But in the first years of the conflict, this was not the case. In the first years of the conflict, Armenians of the world portrayed Azerbaijan as an aggressor. Unfortunately, those who were in the leadership of Azerbaijan at that time could not speak out against this propaganda. Azerbaijan was in such a difficult situation: our lands were being lost but the world thought that Azerbaijan was an aggressor. The cause of the loss of Karabakh lands is the Popular Front Party, the Musavat Party of Azerbaijan. It was during their time that our lands were occupied. As a result of their treacherous and incompetent activities, we lost these lands. I always said that we lost them temporarily and that we must return to these lands. The sale of Shusha took place only as a result of struggle for power at that time. The occupation of Kalbajar and Lachin is the direct responsibility of the Popular Front government of Azerbaijan. It was after this occupation that the next occupation was almost inevitable. Because the occupation of Lachin, Kalbajar and Shusha created a geographical link between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. This being the case, of course, the supply of weapons to those regions, to Nagorno-Karabakh, and then the supply of other material resources became easier. Today, we are wiping out the incompetent actions of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan and the Musavat Party, this stain on Azerbaijan. Today we are restoring our lands. In 2016, part of Aghdara, Fuzuli and Jabrayil districts were liberated from the occupiers. Today, in 2020, I want to emphasize once again that several of our settlements were liberated from the occupiers, several strategic heights came under the control of Azerbaijan. A strong Azerbaijani Army is based on a strong political will. Army building is always the top priority of my activity. Both the military and the Azerbaijani people know this. I have always said that we will do whatever is necessary for our army. We have created a powerful and strong-willed army. All our armed forces meet modern standards and carry out combat missions with dignity, conscience and courage. Today, our various armed units are involved in the counter-offensive, and the counter-offensive is going well under the leadership of a single team. There is full coordination between all armed forces. I am confident that this counter-offensive will continue to be successful. By giving this information to the people of Azerbaijan, I want to say once again that we are on the right path. We are defending ourselves. We do not lay claim to anyone else's lands, Azerbaijani armed forces have no targets on anyone else's lands, in the territory of Armenia. But we will defend ourselves on our own land and liberate our occupied lands from occupiers. Now the floor is given to Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov. Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov said: - Dear President, Mr. Commander-in-Chief. Let me report that a few minutes to 6, Armenian armed forces shelled the villages of Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Tartar and Aghdam districts. There were casualties and wounded among the population. The frontline of the military units was also fired upon. At the same time, a concentration of the enemy's armed forces from the direction of Aghdam, Fuzuli and Jabrayil was in evidence and it was observed that they were preparing for an attack. First of all, it was reported to you and, taking into account the operational situation, the Azerbaijani Army conducted a counter-offensive. As a result of the counter-offensive, the enemy's frontline was broken. I have now been given additional information that seven villages have been liberated. Is it advisable to mention their names here? President Ilham Aliyev: Do mention. Minister Zakir Hasanov: Garakhanbayli, Nuzgar, Yukhari Abdurrahmanli, Boyuk Marjanli, Kand Horadiz and Garvand villages have been liberated. The Azerbaijani Army is conducting a successful counter-offensive in other directions and the enemy is retreating with heavy losses. I want to emphasize that the strikes of the Azerbaijani Army are carried out both on the frontline and deep within the enemy. As you mentioned, the most modern weapons are being used and we do not see much resistance from the enemy. The enemy is fully retreating. Reported by Minister of Defense, Colonel-General Hasanov. President Ilham Aliyev: Clear! We will hold the rest of the Security Council behind closed doors. I am confident that the citizens of Azerbaijan will understand this decision. Many of the issues to be discussed are military secrets. But I want to say again that the population of Azerbaijan is regularly informed by both the Presidential Administration and the Ministry of Defense. Operational information will be shared with the citizens of Azerbaijan. I congratulate the people of Azerbaijan and the Azerbaijani Army on their first successes. Long live the Azerbaijani Army! Long live Azerbaijan! Other members of the Security Council took part in the discussion. BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. On September 26, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Azerbaijan Jeyhun Bayramov met with Foreign Minister of Egypt Badr Abdulati on the sidelines of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said, Trend reports. It was noted that constructive friendly relations between Azerbaijan and Egypt, based on mutual respect and trust, have a long history. The importance of the latest official visit of the President of Azerbaijan to Egypt was emphasized in terms of opening a new page for the development of our bilateral relations and identifying numerous opportunities for cooperation. The meeting included an exchange of views on bilateral and multilateral cooperation between Azerbaijan and Egypt. In addition, topics related to COP29, the post-conflict situation in the region, as well as the process of normalization of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia were discussed. The meeting also included an exchange of views on other bilateral and multilateral issues of mutual interest. BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. On September 26, within the framework of the high-level week of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Azerbaijan Jeyhun Bayramov met with Foreign Minister of Albania Igli Hasani, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said, Trend reports. The issues of bilateral and multilateral cooperation between Azerbaijan and Albania, as well as the current regional situation were discussed at the meeting. The importance of joint efforts to strengthen relations between the two countries based on friendship, mutual respect and mutually beneficial cooperation in political, economic, energy security, culture and education was noted. It was emphasized that cooperation in the energy sector is the main driving force of bilateral economic relations. In addition to bilateral relations, the importance of continuing the existing mutually beneficial cooperation, mutual support and solidarity activities within the framework of multilateral platforms was noted. The meeting also included an exchange of views on other topics of mutual interest. BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. The senior staff of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry and a group of cadets of special training institutions under the National Defense University visited the Victory Park under construction in Baku on Remembrance Day, Trend reports, referring to the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry. Azerbaijani Defense Minister Colonel General Zakir Hasanov and personnel laid flowers at the memorial stone at the entrance to the park. According to the decree of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev dated December 2, 2020, Azerbaijan annually celebrates Remembrance Day on September 27 as a sign of deep respect for Azerbaijani soldiers and officers who heroically fought in the 44-day Second Karabakh War and gave their lives for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. On the occasion of 27 September the Remembrance Day, Prime Minister of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ali Asadov, Head of the Presidential Administration Samir Nuriyev, Speaker of Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova, and other state and government officials, MPs visited the Victory Park, which is under construction in Baku, Trend reports. The state and government officials paid tribute to the martyrs' cherished memory by placing flowers at the memorial stone. According to the Decree of the President, Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev dated December 2, 2020, the day of the beginning of the Patriotic War - September 27 is marked as a Remembrance Day. BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. TURKPA (Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic States) honors the cherished memory of Azerbaijani martyrs who gave their lives for the Motherland with deep respect, Trend reports via a statement from TURKPA in connection with Remembrance Day. "September 27 is observed in Azerbaijan as a Day of Remembrance, as an expression of deep respect for the memory of the martyrs who demonstrated heroism in the 44-day Second Karabakh War of 2020, sacrificing their lives for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. The will of the Azerbaijani people, the perseverance, and the unmatched bravery of the victorious Azerbaijani army, led by the President of Azerbaijan, Supreme Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev, have inscribed a unique event into modern history the great victory," the TURKPA statement emphasized. According to the decree of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev dated December 2, 2020, Azerbaijan annually celebrates Remembrance Day on September 27 as a sign of deep respect for Azerbaijani soldiers and officers who heroically fought in the 44-day Second Karabakh War and gave their lives for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. The Azerbaijani parliament officials have visited the Victory Park, a source in the parliament told Trend. The source noted that in connection with the Day of Remembrance, First Deputy Chairman of the Parliament Ali Ahmadov, Deputy Chairmen Ziyafat Asgarov, Rafael Huseynov, Musa Gasimli, committee chairmen of the Parliament, MPs, Head of the Parliament Administration Farid Hajiyev, deputy heads of the administration, department heads, and the Administration of Affairs visited the Victory Park under construction in Baku. The parliament staff and MPs laid flowers at the memorial stone at the entrance to Victory Park and honored the bright memory of the martyrs who gave their lives for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Motherland. According to the decree of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev dated December 2, 2020, Azerbaijan annually celebrates Remembrance Day on September 27 as a sign of deep respect for Azerbaijani soldiers and officers who heroically fought in the 44-day Second Karabakh War and gave their lives for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Photo: Presidency of the Republic of Turkiye BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan positively views ironing out issues between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Turkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters, Trend reports. "The main topic of the meeting with Pashinyan was the problems between Azerbaijan and Armenia. I saw that Pashinyan has a positive attitude towards resolving these issues," said the president. He also pointed out that Azerbaijan shares a similar approach to this issue. "I hope that these two countries will jointly resolve the problem," Erdogan added. To note, on September 25, Erdogan met with the Armenian prime minister at the Turkish House in New York. The meeting discussed the normalization of relations between the two countries and the ongoing peace process between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 28. On September 27, 2020, in response to a large-scale provocation by Armenian armed forces along the front line, the Azerbaijani Army launched a counteroffensive operation later named "Iron Fist" .The 44-day Patriotic War resulted in the end of nearly 30 years of occupation and the restoration of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity. Trend presents the Chronicles of Victory for September 28, 2020: - Azerbaijani army forces continued to destroy Armenian military equipment - Armenian army suffers heavy losses as result of hostilities - Two more tanks belonging to Armenian armed forces destroyed - Armenian military forces shelled Azerbaijani Terter city - High grounds around Azerbaijani Talysh village cleared of Armenian armed forces - French president makes phone call to President Ilham Aliyev - Azerbaijani Prosecutor General's Office reveals number of injured civilians - Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reports about destroying of two more tanks of Armenian armed forces - Armenia's shelling of Tartar District court in Azerbaijan results in civilian casualties - Azerbaijani schoolchildren killed as a result of Armenia's attack - Azerbaijan declares partial military mobilization - Armenia discloses number of killed servicemen - Azerbaijani interior ministry issues statement on curfew across country - Armenian major general, two colonels killed - Two brothers killed in Terter region as result of shelling from Armenian armed forces - President Ilham Aliyev, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres meet through videoconferencing BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Following a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Trend reports via Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry. The MoU provides for mutual short-stay visa exemptions for holders of diplomatic, special, and service passports. The document was signed by Jeyhun Bayramov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Two inmates at Khami Maximum Prison, Bulawayo, find themselves in deeper legal trouble after allegedly engaging in consensual anal sex, an act forbidden under Zimbabwean law. The incident reportedly occurred on June 8th of this year and has brought to light the ongoing issue of sexual activity within the countrys overcrowded prisons. Godwin Dlomo and Gilbert Shonai appeared before Westcommonage Magistrate Vakayi Douglas Chikwekwe yesterday, charged with contravening the law. They were remanded in custody until October 10th. The illicit act was uncovered when Shonai who is currently serving time for rape, experienced anal pain and subsequently revealed to prison guards that he had engaged in consensual anal sex with Dlomo. Details of Dlomos current sentence were not disclosed in court. Prosecutor Audrey Kufandikamwe outlined the states case, stating, It is the state case that on the 8th June 2024 and at Khami Maximum Prison, the two accused persons had consensual anal sexual intercourse. She further elaborated, The matter came to light when the second accused experienced anal pain and subsequently disclosed that he had engaged in consensual anal sex with the first accused person. This incident at Khami Maximum Prison is not an isolated one. Sodomy is reportedly rampant in Zimbabwes overcrowded prisons and is believed to be a significant contributing factor to the rising prevalence of HIV within these institutions. The cramped conditions and lack of privacy create an environment where such acts can occur, highlighting the urgent need for addressing the underlying issues within the prison system. Just last month, a disturbing case emerged from Harare Central Remand Prison, where three inmates Kingswell Ngwerume (32), Kudakwashe Mazorodze (35), and Lazurus Chinobhururuka (40) were charged with aggravated indecent assault. They allegedly drugged and sexually assaulted a 20-year-old fellow inmate on August 11th. According to the allegations, Mazorodze directed the young inmate to move to Cell C2, where Ngwerume and Chinobhururuka were housed along with other prisoners. Later that night, the complainant awoke to find Ngwerume touching him inappropriately. When the complainant resisted, he was allegedly assaulted by all three accused. The situation escalated further when Chinobhururuka allegedly forced the complainant to drink from a bottle, causing him to feel dizzy. The three accused then allegedly took turns sexually assaulting the disoriented young man via SIM 2. The trio appeared before Harare magistrate Marehwanazvo Gofa on August 22nd and are expected back in court on September 4th for the commencement of their trial. These incidents paint a grim picture of the realities within Zimbabwes prisons. The case of Dlomo and Shonai at Khami, alongside the alleged assault in Harare, underscores the vulnerability of inmates and the urgent need for improved safety and security measures within these facilities. Overcrowding, inadequate supervision, and a lack of resources contribute to an environment where such acts can occur, putting inmates at risk and further complicating the challenges faced by the Zimbabwean prison system. Breaking News via Email Related Zimbabwe Latest News A series of recent drug busts across Zimbabwe have highlighted the ongoing battle against mbanje trafficking in the country. From highway roadblocks to routine patrols, law enforcement agencies are actively working to intercept illicit substances and bring those involved to justice. These incidents underscore the persistent challenge of drug trafficking and the need for continued vigilance. In Chivhu, a Chitungwiza mans trial for mbanje possession has been postponed. Brighton Makoni (42), of Unit K, Chitungwiza, was arrested last Wednesday after a South Africa-bound Meizon bus was stopped at a roadblock near Featherstone. During a search of passengers luggage, officers discovered a bag containing four plastic bags of dagga. The bus conductor identified Makoni as the owner of the bag. When asked for a permit to possess the dagga, Makoni failed to produce one, resulting in his arrest. The dagga weighed 19.7kgs. Provisional Magistrate Thomas Gurajena postponed the trial, and the new date is yet to be determined. Taonga Masaire is prosecuting the case. This incident raises several questions that require further investigation. What was Makonis intended destination for the dagga? Was he travelling alone, or was he part of a larger trafficking network? Understanding these details is crucial for comprehending the scope of the dagga trade and the individuals involved. In another incident, a significant drug bust occurred on September 22, 2023, along the Masvingo-Beitbridge Road. As part of an operation codenamed No to Cross Border Crimes, police stopped an Inter Africa bus at a security roadblock near the 10-kilometre peg. The search yielded a staggering 62 kilograms of dagga hidden on board. Police arrested the bus driver, Tonderai Mafo (48), the bus conductor, Mberikunashe Allen (25), and two female passengers Pauline Mudakuvaka (36) and Alice Mutanda (68). This incident demonstrates the scale of dagga trafficking and the lengths to which individuals will go to transport these illicit substances. It also highlights the importance of strategic police operations in disrupting these criminal activities. Meanwhile, in Bulawayo, an 18-year-old man, Frank Ndlovu, from Umguza, has been sentenced to 12 months in prison for illegal drug possession. Ndlovu pleaded guilty to the charge before Bulawayo Magistrate Mrs Evia Matura. Six months of the sentence were suspended on condition of good behaviour, while the remaining six months were converted to 210 hours of community service. Mrs Matura considered Ndlovus age when passing the sentence but stressed the need for deterrent measures to combat the growing drug problem. Possession of dagga is becoming a common issue, and it is essential to send a strong message to prevent further occurrences, she stated. She further emphasized the need to address the root causes of drug abuse and implement effective prevention strategies. Ndlovus arrest occurred on September 20th when police on patrol observed him retrieving an item from a blue plastic bag concealed in his trousers. Upon searching the bag, police discovered 20 sachets of dagga, leading to his arrest. This incident underscores the importance of proactive policing in tackling drug-related offences. These incidents, taken together, paint a picture of a persistent drug problem in Zimbabwe, requiring a multi-pronged approach involving law enforcement, judicial action, and community engagement. Further investigation is needed to understand the networks involved in dagga trafficking, the routes used, and the ultimate destinations of these illicit substances. Breaking News via Email Related Zimbabwe Latest News Yves here. Tom Neuburger argues that climate change in/insufficient action is a scheme by the elites to reduce global population and keep their position. I have to push back strongly against this. It is sadly too much a part of human nature to want to depict someone or someones as being responsible for bad outcomes. For instance, the idea that SARS-Cov-2 came out of a lab was appealing because the alternative, that nature (admittedly abetted in a big way by terrible animal husbandry practices) could so overwhelm our vaunted sense of safety from disease was in some was even more psychologically troubling. The notion that we are not much in control of our physical environment, as in we are fundamentally unsafe, is not a line of thinking that sits well with most. Key detailsfrom Nature of a in the highly regarded journal, Cell, in COVID pandemic started in Wuhan market animals after all, suggests latest study: The authors of the Cell study also argue that the viral diversity present in the market suggests it was the site of the pandemics emergence. In particular, they say the presence of two SARS-CoV-2 lineages known as A and B circulating in the market suggests that the virus jumped twice from animals to people. The researchers conclude that, although it is possible that infected humans brought the virus to the market on two separate occasions, that is a much less likely scenario than the virus jumping twice from animals, especially since their analysis suggests that very few people would have been infected at that point and it is unlikely that one person seeded both lineages. It really just fits this ongoing infection in animal populations that spilled over multiple times to people, says Gronvall. Returning to climate change, an assumption below is our putative betters will be able to pile into lifeboats and leave the rest of us behind. Thats fallacious. As extreme climate change outcomes take hold, breakdowns in production and transportation will occur. How will the elites fare in a world where pharmaceutical supplies are erratic or not existent? Where chips are not longer made at scale and the scenario of harvesting washing machines for them is a reality? Many of the super rich have built what amounts to large scale safe rooms in the form of well protected compounds. How long do you think they could last in them? What happens when they run of meds, or need an operation and dont have an OR, surgical supplies, extensive advanced imaging equipment, and a doctor who has the foggiest idea of how to perform the operation? These shelters buy them maybe 5, under a super good luck scenario 10, years of lifestyle preservation beyond what dull normals will enjoy. A hidden assumption is that elites are blocking climate action. Ih fact, all of us are. Too many buy into Green New Deal hopium that if we shopped better, as in had incentives to convert to cleaner energy source sooner and did some other tinkering like more high speed rail and building more energy efficient houses and offices, worst outcomes could be forestalled. But as we have regularly inveighted, we are way past that point. An MIT study if anything was more dour that our previous argument that our only hope was radical conservation, as serious reductions in energy use and resource exploitation. And that is never going to happen because we are in a neoliberal system where nearly all people must sell their labor to survive. Radical conservation would destroy many jobs. Just start with the travel and hospitality sectors. The resulting unemployment would be so high as to lead to social and political upheaval. A wake-up call from our post, Preparing for Collapse: Why the Focus on Climate/Energy Sustainability Is Destructive: Key sections from the must read, The Collapse Is Coming. Will Humanity Adapt? from the MIT Press Reader, an interview by science fiction writer Peter Watts, with Dan Brooks, co-author of A Darwinian Survival Guide: Peter Watts: In this corner, the biosphere. Weve spent a solid year higher than 1.5 degrees Celsius; were wiping out species at a rate of somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 annually; insect populations are crashing; and were losing the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, no matter what we do at this point. Alaskapox has just claimed its first human victim, and there are over 15,000 zoonoses expected to pop up their heads and take a bite out of our asses by the end of the century. And were expecting the exhaustion of all arable land around 2050, which is actually kind of moot because studies from institutions as variable as MIT and the University of Melbourne suggest that global civilizational collapse is going to happen starting around 2040 or 2050. In response to all of this, the last COP was held in a petrostate and was presided over by the CEO of an oil company; the next COP is pretty much the same thing. Were headed for the cliff, and not only have we not hit the brakes yet, we still have our foot on the gas. Daniel Brooks: Well, the primary thing that we have to understand or internalize is that what were dealing with is what is called a no-technological-solution problem. In other words, technology is not going to save us, real or imaginary. We have to change our behavior. If we change our behavior, we have sufficient technology to save ourselves. If we dont change our behavior, we are unlikely to come up with a magical technological fix to compensate for our bad behavior. This is why Sal and I have adopted a position that we should not be talking about sustainability, but about survival, in terms of humanitys future. Sustainability has come to mean, what kind of technological fixes can we come up with that will allow us to continue to do business as usual without paying a penalty for it? To clarify, when we talk about survival in the book, we talk about two different things. One is the survival of our species, Homo sapiens. We actually dont think thats in jeopardy. Now, Homo sapiens of some form or another is going to survive no matter what we do, short of blowing up the planet with nuclear weapons. Whats really important is trying to decide what we would need to do if we wanted what we call technological humanity, or better said technologically-dependent humanity, to survive. Put it this way: If you take a couple of typical undergraduates from the University of Toronto and you drop them in the middle of Beijing with their cell phones, theyre going to be fine. You take them up to Algonquin Park, a few hours drive north of Toronto, and you drop them in the park, and theyre dead within 48 hours. What can we begin doing now that will increase the chances that those [desirable] elements of technologically-dependent humanity will survive a general collapse, if that happens as a result of our unwillingness to begin to do anything effective with respect to climate change and human existence? It is conceivable that if all of humanity suddenly decided to change its behavior, right now, we would emerge after 2050 with most everything intact, and we would be OK. We dont think thats realistic. It is a possibility, but we dont think thats a realistic possibility. We think that, in fact, most of humanity is committed to business as usual, and thats what were really talking about: What can we begin doing now to try to shorten the period of time after the collapse, before we recover? Now to the main event, Neuburgers post. By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at Gods Spies Extinction Rebellion protesters blocking traffic on Whitehall at the bottom of Trafalgar Square during a 2019 rally in London. Image credit: Matt Dunham/Associated Press Climate change was a very sophisticated analysis by corporate PR people in the 1990s when they re-fashioned this crisis in terms of a technical phrase, the climate and change. What were dealing with has nothing to do with climate and its certainly not looking at change. What were dealing with is a social project by the global elites to have billions of people die in order to maintain their power. In other words, its a subset of class struggle. Roger Hallam In a Links post for paid subscribers, I recently featured the first quotation above by Extinction Rebellion co-founder Roger Hallam. Hes quite a controversial figure in the climate movement; he and the groups he creates take seriously the fact that billions will die, call the death thats coming a genocide, and recommend strong, non-violent, disruptive responses. Hallam is currently serving a five-year jail term for, technically, conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, i.e., disrupting traffic on Greater Londons ring road for four straight days. But thats just technically his crime. Hes actually in jail for being a longtime pest, the way Socrates was tried and executed for being a gadfly. As Judge Hehir said to Hallam and the other defendants during sentencing, Each of you some time ago has crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic. You have appointed yourselves as sole arbiters of what should be done about climate change. His real crime is crossing a line. For that, five years for Hallam and four for his co-conspirators. The sentence itself is proof that Hallam is right that elite resistance to climate solutions is all about power and control. By the way, evidence for the conspiracy came from a journalist. The Daily Mail: A journalist from the Sun newspaper, who had joined the [Zoom planning] call pretending to be interested in the protest, managed to record some of it and passed the recordings on to the police. Again, a perfect illustration of Hallams point. Here the elites are joined by their retainers, the compliant free press, which seems to see its job as message control. Climate Change or Genocide? Its All in the Frame But rather than deal with Hallam the man, lets look at his ideas in particular, the one in the quote above, said in the course of the following video interview. This was recorded in 2023, prior to his recent jailing. Ive cued it to start at the quote. His full comment is this (lightly edited for clarity): Lets go back to a few fundamentals, right? Climate change was a very sophisticated analysis by corporate PR people in the 1990s when they re-fashioned this crisis in terms of a technical phrase, the climate and change. What were dealing with has nothing to do with climate and its certainly not looking at change. What were dealing with is a social project by the global elites to have billions of people die in order to maintain their power. In other words, its a subset of class struggle, and it needs to be seen as a subset of a wider narrative thats been going on, you know, since the Industrial Revolution and arguably for before that. [] What we need to talk about is the process of oppression and the process of genocide and how that happens historically and how its been replicated in this last chapter of humanity that we face potentially. Is the problem we currently face best understood as climate change, a technical issue with a technical solution? Or is it best understood as elite resistance to a change that would diminish their power a resistance that will lead inevitably to genocide, a global mass death, all so the current elites can stay in power? Thats the question Roger Hallam asks us to ask. As a Class the Rich Always Kill I know there are many in the country who dont think climate change is an issue, but this group is getting smaller. People more and more see that more severe weather now comes faster, stronger, more often. For example: On borrowed time: World marks new global heat record in March (Aljazeera). Or locally, news like this: Sacramento records 45th day of 100-degree heat, setting new record for most in a year (CBS News). Floods, fires, loss of homes and insurance are great convincers. So what should these people be told? What are they being told now? Lets use Hallams language. What were told now the liberal frame that climate change is a technical problem distracts us from identifying actors, doers, and perps; humans responsible, people who get and remain very very rich from fossil fuel sale; people whose power would be lost if technology changed; people whose seat at the feast of government bribes (aka campaign contributions) would be taken away if the flow of money stopped. Instead of identifying actors Who is doing this to us? the liberal frame encourages technical questions: How should this be addressed? With what technology? Where should the technology be applied? How much money should be spent in the attempt? How much is too much? In Hallams view, the liberal elite, which he explicitly says includes the interviewer, has been duped by the corporate elite into retracting from the analysis the simplest historical fact that as a class, the rich will always murder to keep and grow their wealth. The massacre of the Hutu people in Congo (source) Cargo plan for the slave ship Brookes. By using space to the utmost on this not particularly large ship, 452 enslaved laborers could be taken on board. Each adult man was only allotted 182 centimeters x 41 centimeters (71 inches by 16 inches) to lie on and only 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) up to the next layer of people. The enslaved laborers lay here for months on the journey to the West Indies (Thomas Clarkson, The History of the African Slave-Trade, vol. 2, 1808). Hallem: Well, I think the liberal class in 1990 allowed itself to be duped by the corporate class into using the frame of the corporate class. Thats the first thing to say. And I think the left space also allowed itself to be duped, to think that the climate was something separate, the environment was something separate, than the social confrontation of the last 200 years. Its not another chapter in that confrontation. And its the last chapter in that confrontation. Duped or bribed? Thats a separate discussion. The fact is, in no mainstream analysis of climate change are individuals wealthy and powerful ones held to account for their deeds or motivation. Global Genocide A decision by, say, ten individuals at Exxon, all at the top, to monetize enough carbon reserves to drive atmospheric CO2 from 425 to 800 ppm is a choice, by them, to stay wealthy despite the result. If you think the result includes mass death, a global genocide, then you think those ten fit Hallams description perfectly. Should the climate change problem be described with them as the cause? Hallam does. If hes right, then what should be done? Should these actors and their enablers be hid or exposed, protected or forced to stop? Is the CEO of Exxon another Pol Pot, or someone who should be honored, feted and praised? Tables for members of the Oh, its you, senator club (source)You cant solve a problem if you cant name the cause. Yves here. Kamala shamelessly pandering to crypto touts is so depressing. Crypto is among other things the vehicle that has allowed for more and bigger ransomware payoffs, encouraging more attempts. Its use cases are tax evasion, other criminal conduct, and speculation. None of these are socially positive. Note this is another case of Kamala trying to out-do Trump in catering to a pet constituency, as she did with emulating his proposal to exempt tips from income tax. By Jake Johnson, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams Harris promise to balance the industrys interests with those of consumers is an obvious contradiction, said the executive director of the Revolving Door Project. Crypto is a haven for businesspeople with nefarious or criminal intent. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris increasingly open embrace of cryptocurrency during her 2024 bid for the White House has sparked alarm among progressives, who have pointed to the still-nascent industrys pervasive fraud and opposition to regulatory guardrails as all the evidence the vice president should need to end her courtship of the sector. Semafor reported Thursday that in addition to speaking publicly about a friendlier approach to cryptocurrency than President Joe Biden, Harris is dispatching aides to court well-heeled crypto investors and their Democratic allies in Congress. Harris debuted her newly crypto-coded message in remarks to Wall Street donors this past weekend, the outlet added, and her campaigns quiet work with crypto allies indicates that she sees a space to compete on that turf with former President Donald Trumpwho this month endorsed a still-unclear crypto platform launched by his sons. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, said earlier this week that he believes cryptocurrencies have a great future and suggested the U.S. could pay off the national debt with digital assets. Venture capital billionaires Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have donated to Trumps campaigncontributions motivated by areas like crypto and AI regulation, Axiosreported. Trumps running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), is friendly with the crypto industry and personally owns hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin. Harris, for her part, gave a nod to the cryptocurrency industry during a major economic policy speech in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, saying she wants the U.S. to remain dominant in emerging technologies such as the blockchain. Harris economic policy platform states that, if elected in November, she would encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets while protecting our consumers and investors. Billionaire investor and outspoken Harris supporter Mark Cuban told Semafor that he intends to visit Capitol Hill to personally lobby lawmakers on any major crypto bill that gets a vote in the future, whether its industry-favorable or not. In a statement earlier this week, the Revolving Door Project (RDP) warned that the Harris campaigns acquiescence to crypto would lead to disaster. The cryptocurrency industry has doggedly pursued its mission to flout longstanding securities laws and robust SEC oversight, said Jeff Hauser, RDPs executive director. Weak regulation is crucial to the industrys continued business strategy of serving as a conduit for money laundering, assisting ransomware rings, terrorist organizations, and those importing fentanyl. The industry has defiantly moved past the stench of Sam Bankman-Frieds fraud-backed influence campaign to flood key congressional races with cash in a transparent attempt to strongarm Democrats into acquiescing to their demands, he continued. Acceding would not only set the dangerous precedent that motivated industries can purchase the regulatory framework that best suits their interest, but also open Americans to fraud, increased ransomware, and other illicit behavior pervasive across the cryptocurrency industry. Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, toldThe Washington Post on Thursday that while he gets that Harris doesnt want to alienate the crypto folks, the federal government should not be encouraging speculation in this stuff. This is just gambling, said Baker. I dont think we need to make it easier to do illegal transactionsblackmailing, drug dealing, whatever. Crypto industry spending on federal lobbying surged to an all-time high of $24.7 million in 2023, according toOpenSecrets, and the cash blitz has continued this year as major digital currency asset players and their congressional allies in both parties fight off regulatory efforts. The industry has also spent big on the 2024 elections: An analysis released last month by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen found that crypto firms have poured more than $119 million directly into federal elections so far this year, making them by far the dominant corporate political spenders. Crypto-influenced lawmakers bending over backwards to benefit Big Crypto means weaker protections preventing individual consumers from being defrauded by reckless crypto scamsand softened regulations protecting our financial system from destructive innovations that exploit consumers while enriching insiders, Public Citizen said at the time. The influence of Big Crypto is more evidence a constitutional amendment is needed to overturn Citizens Unitedand restore our democracy to one where people call the shots, not corporations. Hauser also expressed concerns about the idea that crypto insiders would have any sway in policymaking, which he warned would just further put Americans in harms way, once again disproportionately harming the poor and communities of color. Harris promise to balance the industrys interests with those of consumers is an obvious contradiction, said Hauser. Crypto is a haven for businesspeople with nefarious or criminal intent. The rampant fraud and criminal behavior in the very young industrynot just from FTX, but from Binance, OneCoin, Digital Currency Group, and countless othersis unprecedented in recent American history. China warns citizens to leave Israel and Lebanon immediately as threat of full-scale war looms China has warned its citizens to leave Israel and Lebanon immediately as the threat of a full-scale war between the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Hezbollah looms. A report from the South China Morning Post indicates that Chinese nationals in Israel and Lebanon have been told to leave due to the border situation becoming "extremely tense." The Chinese embassies in Tel Aviv and Beirut have issued alerts noting that the intense exchange of artillery, drone and air strikes have deepened Beijing's fears of an all-out war between the two nations. "Israeli Channel 13, citing the IDF, reports that the army is ready for a full-scale war in Lebanon to ensure the security of the northern territories," reported American journalist Michael Yon. "The situation along the Israeli-Lebanese border is extremely tense, characterized by frequent military confrontations. The security situation in Israel is serious, complex, and volatile," the embassy warned, advising Chinese nationals in Israel to return to China as quickly as possible or to move to safer areas. Those choosing to stay were asked to follow local security guidelines and stay away from non-essential travel. They have also been advised to prepare for "missiles, rockets, drones and other types of attacks," and to seriously consider moving away from northern Israel, where most of the attacks have taken place. The Chinese mission in the Lebanese capital of Beirut also released a related warning on Monday, Sept. 23, asking Chinese nationals to leave as soon as possible and shun the southern regions near Israel. China had issued a travel warning for Israel in October last year, days after the Israeli army started bombing Gaza, a Hamas-controlled territory, in retaliation for the Palestinian militant group's fatal cross-border raid on Oct. 7. It issued a travel warning for Lebanon in August after clashes on the border with Israel and lethal Israeli air strikes on Beirut targeting the Hezbollah leadership. Cross-border fighting has intensified next to the war in Gaza. The evacuation notice from the embassy in Tel Aviv comes after six safety warnings released this year. Sunday's alert arrived after an exchange of fierce air strikes between Israel and Hezbollah in the wake of the deadly pager and walkie-talkie explosions that rocked Lebanon and Syria in the past week. (Related: Israel launches PAGER ATTACK on Lebanon exploding mobile devices kill nine, wound more than 2,700.) No less than 37 people, including children, were killed and about 3,000 wounded in the attacks on Sept. 17 and 18. Some Chinese nationals are choosing to remain in Israel Some Chinese nationals in Israel remain unfazed and have chosen to remain in the country. Alice Zhang, a Chinese national who resides near Tel Aviv, stated that her everyday life has remained "totally unaffected," and most people she knows in central and southern Israel have been going about their lives as usual. Zhang has resided in Israel for 10 years and is married to an Israeli citizen. She remains hopeful that the potential escalation of the conflict with Hezbollah will die down soon. She further noted that the nearly year-long violence in the Gaza Strip will likely last longer than the conflict in Lebanon. Follow Chaos.news for more news about the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Watch the video below about Israeli forces striking southern and eastern Lebanon. This video is from the channel The Prisoner on Brighteon.com. More related stories: ESCALATING CONFLICT: Israel's covert operations in Lebanon could lead to all-out war with Hezbollah. Lebanon bans all pagers and walkie talkies on flights following deadly Israeli terror operation. British foreign secretary urges U.K. citizens to leave Lebanon as Israeli invasion could trigger all-out war. Lebanon warns of "doomsday" response for West, Asia and Europe if Israel expands war. The stage is being set for the cataclysmic wars of 2025. Sources include: X.com SCMP.com Brighteon.com DOJ releases new guidelines for election officials dictating who can and cant be removed from voter rolls The Department of Justice (DOJ) of the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris has recently released a fresh set of guidelines for state and local election officials, dictating who can and can't be removed from voter rolls This move has sparked an intense wave of criticism, with one former DOJ attorney comparing the move to political intimidation that is meant to discourage election officials from successfully guaranteeing that only eligible citizens can cast ballots. "This is what I perceive as an attempt by the Department of Justice and Civil Rights Division to intimidate state and local jurisdictions and state and local election officials from doing their jobs," said Gene Hamilton, a former attorney with the DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security. Hamilton, who now works as the executive director and senior counsel for America First Legal, added that "what they're trying to do is theyre trying to chill people from actually doing the very things that are common sense." The DOJ issued the new guidance on Sept. 9, focused on state and local election workers and highlighting how the removal of individuals from voter rolls "must be accomplished in compliance with federal law and in a nondiscriminatory manner." Before any election, American states are supposed to examine their registers of eligible voters, assuring they are up to date and any ineligible people are removed. "Ensuring that every eligible voter is able to [vote] and have that vote counted is a critical aspect of sustaining a robust democracy, and it is a top priority for the Justice Department," Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division said in a statement explaining the revised guidance. Clarke added that "as we approach Election Day, it is important that states adhere to all aspects of federal law that safeguard the rights of eligible voters to remain on the active voter lists and to vote free from discrimination and intimidation." While the DOJ claims the guidance does not prevent states from removing ineligible voters, along with noncitizens or those who have committed voter fraud, Hamilton argues that it may still discourage states and local authorities from deciding who is an eligible voter. The amended DOJ rules also prohibit states from removing voters from rolls within 90 days of a forthcoming federal election which ultimately prevents every state in the country from updating their voter rolls to remove ineligible individuals. Some states have already taken care of the matter, with Texas deleting a million ineligible voters from its rolls and Ohio removing over 150,000 non-eligible voters from its rolls. (Related: Texas PURGES one million ineligible voters from voter rolls, including non-citizens and dead people.) 15 Arizona counties sued for refusing to remove thousands of illegal immigrants from its voter rolls Last month, Hamilton's watchdog group pressed charges against 15 counties in Arizona for refusing to eliminate thousands of illegal immigrants from its voter rolls. The lawsuit alleges that more than 35,000 registered voters in Arizona have not given proof of citizenship, which prevents them from voting in state and local races but not in federal elections. Almost 100,000 Arizona voters' citizenships were in question because of a state error just before the rollout of mail ballots. "The problem is that this Department of Homeland Security, in particular, doesn't seem to care and doesn't seem to want to help people find ineligible voters on their voter rolls, and you have a lot of state officials across the country who don't seem to be willing to do their jobs," Hamilton said. Follow VoteFraud.news for more stories about the coming U.S. presidential election. Watch the video below about Washington, D.C. removing 103,000 ineligible names from the voter rolls in response to Judicial Watch's legal actions. This video is from the GalacticStorm channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: CLEANING HOUSE: Ohio removes nearly 155,000 names from voter rolls due to inactive or expired registrations. Milwaukee election director suspected of committing voter fraud in 2020 TERMINATED, but not arrested. 14% of illegal immigrants in Georgia admit they are registered to vote in America's elections. Sources include: TheNationalPulse.com FoxNews.com Brighteon.com FBI claims Iran sent stolen Trump documents to Bidens campaign before he dropped out of the race Iranian hackers sent President Joe Biden's campaign information they had stolen from former President Donald Trump, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other federal agencies said. The hackers sent the communication in late June and early July to people who were associated with Biden's campaign before he dropped out. The emails "contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from Trump's campaign as text in the emails," according to a U.S. government statement. (Related: FBI says Iran hacked Trump campaign materials, gave them to Biden and Kamala why does Trump suddenly believe the FBI?) In August, Trump's campaign reported a hacking incident involving some high-level communications. The campaign attributed the breach to "foreign sources hostile to the United States." It referred to a recent Microsoft report on a hacking attempt by Iranian actors targeting a high-ranking official within a presidential campaign. It was later confirmed that Iranian agents were behind the hack. The FBI informed Trump aides within 48 hours that information hacked by Iran had been sent to the Biden campaign, according to a senior campaign official granted anonymity to speak because of the sensitive nature of the investigation. Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the effort to dangle stolen information to the Biden campaign "further proof the Iranians are actively interfering in the election" to help Harris. After the Trump campaign announcement, Politico revealed that it had received emails from an anonymous source containing internal documents from the former president's operation after an unnamed senior campaign official fell victim to a phishing scam. In a statement, Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein said the campaign has cooperated with law enforcement since learning that people associated with Biden's team were among the recipients of the emails. "We're not aware of any material being sent directly to the campaign; a few individuals were targeted on their personal emails with what looked like a spam or phishing attempt," Finkelstein said. "We condemn in the strongest terms any effort by foreign actors to interfere in U.S. elections including this unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity." Biden-Harris administration, Walz accused of ties with Iranian regime Meanwhile, several members of the Biden-Harris government, including Harris' 2024 running mate, Governor Tim Walz (D-MN), are alleged to have concerning ties to the Iranian regime. During his tenure in Congress, Walz received a 100 percent rating from the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), better known as the Iran lobby. Additionally, Harris' national security advisor, Philip H. Gordon, is allegedly connected to an Iranian influence operation that has also involved the Biden-Harris government's disgraced special envoy to Iran, Robert Malley. Intelligence officials have said Iran opposes Trump's reelection, seeing him as more likely to increase tension between Washington and Tehran. Trump's administration ended a nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions and ordered the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an act that prompted Iran's leaders to vow revenge. Iran's intrusion on the Trump campaign was cited as just one of the cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns identified by tech companies and national security officials at a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Meta, Google and Microsoft executives briefed lawmakers on their plans for safeguarding the election, and the attacks they'd seen so far. "The most perilous time I think will come 48 hours before the election," Microsoft president Brad Smith told lawmakers during the hearing, which focused on American tech companies' efforts to safeguard the election from foreign disinformation and cyberattacks. Visit Trump.news for similar stories. Watch a discussion on Trump Assassination Attempt: A Shocking Revelation About DJT's Threat Level. This video is from Son of the Republic on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Man accused of attempting to assassinate Trump faces 20 years in prison. BIG QUESTION: Is the 2nd Trump would-be-assassin a CIA ASSET? According to his social media connects the answer seems to be an astounding YES. Crooked Hillary Clinton calls Trump DANGEROUS a day after a second assassination attempt against him. TREASON: Ryan Routh reportedly had pre-knowledge that Trump was golfing in West Palm Beach before allegedly trying to kill former president who told him? Poll: 28% of Democrats approve of Trump assassination, 51% dont see need for increased security. Sources: APnews.com NationalPulse.com Brighteon.com AGHDAM, Azerbaijan, September 27. The residents of Azerbaijans Aghdam district gathered to honor the martyrs on September 27 the Day of Remembrance, Trend reports. Families of the martyrs, veterans, and local officials attended the event, including Aghdam District Executive Authority Head Vagif Hasanov, heads of law enforcement agencies, administrations, enterprises, and organizations, religious figures, public representatives, and district residents. Participants observed a moment of silence at the monument dedicated to the martyrs, reflecting on their sacrifices for Azerbaijan's territorial integrity. Following the ceremony, attendees visited the Alley of Martyrs in Guzanli, where speeches highlighted the unity and strength of the Azerbaijani people during the war. At 12:00 (GMT+4) in the Aghdam district and across the nation, a minute of silence was observed to honor the memory of the martyrs. The stream of visitors to the Alley of Martyrs continues. In accordance with President Ilham Aliyevs Decree dated December 2, 2020, as a sign of deep respect for Azerbaijani soldiers and officers, all the martyrs, who fought heroically in the 44-day Patriotic War, and sacrificed their lives for the territorial integrity of the country, September 27 was declared as the Day of Remembrance in Azerbaijan every year. Twice witness to Nakba: Gaza grandmothers story of survival and death in 1948 and 2024 Halima Abu Dayya thought she lived the worst day of her life when Zionist militias expelled her from her home during their ethnic cleansing campaign of Palestine in 1948, known to Palestinians as the Nakba (Article by Maha Hussaini republished from MiddleEastEye.net) But that day turned out to be merely a glimpse of the hardships she endured during the ongoing Israeli campaign of bombardment, starvation and forced displacement in Gaza. Hardships that eventually led to her death in Gaza City, according to her family. Middle East Eye spoke to the grandmother, a resident of Gaza City, in 2018, when she was 91. Then, she recalled her forced displacement from her home in Dayr Sunayd, a village in the Gaza subdistrict, as Zionist massacres and destruction of Palestinian towns paved the way for the creation of the state of Israel. We were forced at gunpoint to get in cars that drove us to a place near the borders with Gaza, where we stayed for three days, and then were moved again to the Gaza Strip, Abu Dayya told MEE at the time. I had three children and was pregnant when we were displaced. It was the hardest day of my entire life. As the ongoing, year-long Israeli war on Gaza escalated, MEE contacted Abu Dayyas family for another interview. The family said Abu Dayya was displaced over 10 times in nearly seven months. They struggled to provide her with food during the Israeli-triggered famine in northern Gaza earlier this year, as she couldnt eat the bread made from animal fodder - the only food available at the time. And ultimately, she passed away. Haunting fear of leaving Afnan Abu al-Qumsan, Abu Dayyas granddaughter, accompanied her during her multiple displacements. She recalled her grandmother's final days as being filled with confusion: as her Alzheimers kept getting worse, Abu Dayya began to think her son was her father. She was constantly asking about her home town and the orchard [owned by her family before the Nakba], Qumsan told MEE. The first displacement was to a neighbour's home, Qumsan added, after their area, al-Tawam in northwestern Gaza City, was carpet-bombed by Israeli fighter jets. We took refuge with our neighbours in their basement and reached out to the Red Cross, but they could only make it [to our area], the 29-year-old said. It was difficult for us to move, especially with the fire belts, which didnt stop. Even an ambulance that came for one of our neighbours was bombed as soon as it reached them. Abu Dayya and her family moved multiple times between different neighbourhoods in Gaza City in the following months, adjusting to the incursions of Israeli troops. While hundreds of thousands of residents were forced to move to the central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip following Israeli ejection orders, Abu Dayyas family preferred to stay in the north, fearing a repeat of the Nakba. The Nakba, or "catastrophe" as it is known in English, refers to the ethnic cleansing of some 750,000 Palestinians from their lands and homes in historic Palestine to make way for the creation of Israel in 1948. Qumsan said that her grandmother still carried a haunting fear of leaving her home behind, just as she did 76 years earlier. She would constantly ask why we left the house, demanding to be taken back and asking about her belongings and clothes. Almost every morning, she asked to return home, Qumsan told MEE. Every house we entered confused her, and she kept asking where she was, pleading to go back. In 1948, Abu Dayya was pregnant with Qumsans father, moving from one area to another while carrying him in her womb. During this current war, her 76-year-old son reversed the roles, carrying his elderly mother during the multiple displacements. Grandma couldnt walk, so she needed a wheelchair, and someone had to carry her. My dad carried her with the help of my 12- and 14-year-old nephews, Qumsan said. One time, on 29 March, we left the al-Shifa Hospital area in the early morning of Ramadan while fasting, having gone days without sleep, food, or clean water. There was a tank in the street. "We left with our neighbours, but we were the last to move because we had to carry Grandma, and it was hard to push the wheelchair. They fired shells towards us after we crossed the intersection, but God spared us. The streets were filled with rubble, and her feet were injured. An even worse Nakba Abu Dayya lived through two major displacements - the Nakba and the current war on Gaza - and her granddaughter says this one might be even worse than 1948. She was twice witness to the Nakba. In 1948, she was displaced once from Deir Sunayd to Gaza. But during this war, she was displaced about 10 times. At her old age and with her inability to walk, the displacement was a thousand times harder for her. Every time we fled, the devastation and shelling left her in shock and tears. Sometimes, she saw martyrs lying in the streets. The scenes triggered painful memories for Abu Dayya, which her children and grandchildren had heard many times before. During the Nakba, the shelling was heard everywhere, she would tell them. The terror was also at its peak, especially after the news of the Deir Yassin massacre spread. The massacre was committed on 9 April 1948 by Zionist militiamen who went house to house, killing more than 100 people in the small Palestinian village near Jerusalem, despite having agreed to an earlier truce. Many of those killed were women, children and the elderly. During that time, they heard that pregnant women in Deir Yassin were being killed or forced to miscarry, Qumsan said. I think this only increased her fear, of being pregnant and having children with her. They were forced out at gunpoint, under bombardment, to Gaza." Today, nearly two million Palestinians are internally displaced in Gaza. Abu Dayya told her grandchildren that when she left her home in Deir Sunayd, she thought that she would return in a few days. [We] dug a pit and put our clothes in it, thinking we would return. We didnt, Abu Dayya said in a video recorded by her grandchildren and seen by MEE. For months, Israels military has prevented or severely restricted the entry of essential, life-saving food into the northern parts of the Gaza Strip, ultimately causing widespread famine that claimed the lives of many Palestinians, particularly children and the elderly. Like most elderly people in Gaza, Abu Dayyas health deteriorated rapidly during that period. In her last days, she stayed with us at my sister's house in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood. Her health began to deteriorate, especially with the lack of basic necessities like fruits, vegetables, milk, or yoghurt," Qumsan recalled. There was a time when we only had bread made from animal fodder, which she couldnt eat. Both she and my father became weaker from their age and the continuous displacement without proper transportation. Returning to Haifa Abu Dayya died on Sunday 26 May. Initially, the family were going to bury her in a stadium-turned-mass grave for people killed in the current war, due to the danger of reaching the Sheikh Radwan Cemetery. But the family took the risk and made their way to the cemetery, burying her next to her husband, Mahmoud Moussa Abu al-Qumsan. At the time of her death, Abu Dayya was separated from most of her family, as some of her daughters and one of her sisters had fled to southern Gaza, while most of her sons were abroad. After her death, we returned to [our neighbourhood] al-Tawam. A large part of the house was destroyed, and the area was almost deserted. Most people had gone south, or their homes were completely wiped out, Abu al-Qumsan recalled. She spoke of how, despite the family's constant efforts to comfort her grandmother and help her move past the traumatic memories of the Nakba, the conditions she endured during the war kept triggering her. She couldnt sleep at night, waking up startled by the sound of bombings. Whenever there was shelling during our displacement, she became terrified of the sound and the destruction, saying, The [Israelis] are going to bomb us,' she explained. Before the war, Grandma loved the series 'Returning to Haifa', based on Ghassan Kanafani's novel about the Nakba. She used to watch it with me on the phone and would always ask about Safiya [a Palestinian refugee], and whether she found her lost son. She would cry for them as if they were her own family. Read more at: MiddleEastEye.net Hundreds dead and more than 1,200 wounded in intensive Israeli airstrikes targeting Lebanon More than 350 people have died following a barrage of Israeli airstrikes in eastern and southern Lebanon. The death toll includes 42 women and 24 children, according to the Lebanese health ministry, while more than 1200 individuals have been injured so far. However, authorities emphasized that the situation is fluid as they continue to determine the overall impact of the attacks while the strikes continue. This makes it the deadliest day of Israeli strikes in Lebanon since the war in 2006. The Israeli army had previously warned Lebanese citizens living in the southern part of the country and the Bekaa area via text message that they should avoid Hezbollah sites. Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) is reporting that a number of civilian homes were targeted and destroyed in villages in the Bekaa area as well as several parts in the South, with at least 58 different villages and towns being hit so far. The NNA stated: The Israeli enemy continues to intensify its raids on all areas, valleys and outskirts of towns in the western sector [of south Lebanon]. A resident of the coastal city of Tyre said that Israeli warplanes had been raining bombs near his home for several hours and that the city was being emptied of its residents after seeing numerous residential buildings collapse. The Lebanese government ordered all classes at universities and schools throughout the country to be suspended amid the ongoing airstrikes through at least Tuesday. Hezbollah is already retaliating, with the group's military media announcing that fighters are targeting sites such as the reserve headquarters of the Northern Corps, the reserve base of the Galilee Division and its logistical warehouses in the Amiad base, and the military industries complexes of the Rafael Company in the Zevulun area north of Haifa with dozens of rockets. Israels Iron Dome intercepted a number of rockets over Haifa, and the IDF claims that more than 200 rockets were fired from Lebanon into the Jewish state on Monday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasized to the Lebanese people that Israel is at war with Hezbollah and not them while continuing to urge them to stay out of the way as they target the terror group. In a televised speech, he asserted: I have a message for the people of Lebanon: Israels war is not with you. Its with Hezbollah. He also tried to justify his actions, stating: For too long, Hezbollah has been using you as human shields. It placed rockets in your living rooms and missiles in your garage. Those rockets and missiles are aimed directly at our cities, directly at our citizens. U.S. military sending more personnel to Middle East As tensions continue to rise, the U.S. military is sending a small number of personnel to the Middle East to support forces that are already positioned there. Pentagon press secretary Major General Patrick Ryder announced: "In light of the increased tensions in the Middle East, and out of an abundance of caution, we are sending a small number of additional U.S. military personnel forward to augment our forces that are already in the region, but for operational security reasons Im not going to comment further. It is not known how many troops are being deployed or where they will be sent. However, there are already thousands of American troops in the region, in addition to assets such as fighter aircraft and destroyers. A spokesperson for the Iranian foreign ministry has warned that there will be dangerous consequences for the strikes while strongly criticizing the U.S. for supporting Israel and the crimes it is committing in Palestinian territories. Sources for this article include: TheCradle.co CNN.com Israels recent attacks on Hezbollah communications devices signal possible ground invasion of Lebanon Israel's recent attacks targeting Hezbollah's communication devices could signal the beginning of a pre-planned invasion of Lebanon , according to Middle East expert Robert Riggs. Over two days, thousands of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies were disrupted, an action widely attributed to Israel. The explosions killed at least 42 people and injured over 3,500 others. The escalation in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has heightened fears that nearly one year of near-daily cross-border exchanges of fire between the two may evolve into a full-scale war. Although Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement, Riggs noted that disrupting Hezbollahs communications is a crucial aspect of military strategy. "These attacks will have a large impact on Hezbollah's ability to coordinate a response to Israel's escalation by disrupting their communications network," he told the Daily Express US. The disruption is seen as a key move to restore Israels reputation as a credible deterrent against Hezbollah and to enhance the Mossad intelligence agency's standing, especially after it faced criticism for its intelligence failures related to the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel. (Related: How thousands of pagers became deadly weapons in Lebanon.) Riggs explained, The Israeli Mossad has a lot to gain by carrying out such an audacious operation in tandem with the IDF, primarily as a restoration of their reputation for top-level intelligence gathering. The timing of these attacks corresponds to a shift in Israel's stance toward Lebanon, with Israeli leaders recently announcing a new objective: the safe return of residents displaced from their homes in northern Israel amid ongoing cross-border exchanges with Hezbollah. In response, Hezbollah and Israel engaged in fresh attacks across the border. During this time, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah described the incidents as a severe blow to the militant group and has vowed to retaliate. Riggs highlighted that by targeting Hezbollah's leadership and communication structures, Israel is sending a strong message to Hezbollah's leaders to reconsider their aggressive posturing. "The main goal of these attacks is to change the security situation along the Lebanon-Israel border by pushing Hezbollah back to the Litani River, significantly reducing their capacity to threaten Israeli border communities." Historically, Israels intelligence agencies have employed cyber technologies to execute strategic attacks. For instance, in 1996, Shin Bet assassinated Hamas bombmaker Yahya Ayyash by rigging his cellphone with explosives. Similarly, in 1972, Mossad agents killed Palestinian Liberation Organization representative Mahmoud Hamshari by remotely detonating explosives packed inside his phone. Riggs anticipates that the international community should expect a continuation of this strategy that combines advanced technology with precise intelligence gathering across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and, to a lesser extent, Yemen. This approach underscores Israel's commitment to maintaining its strategic advantage in the region amid escalating tensions. Fighting along Israel-Lebanon border intensifies On Monday, Sept. 23, fighting intensified at the Israeli-Lebanese border, with Israeli strikes resulting in nearly 500 deaths, primarily in southern Lebanon, according to Lebanese health authorities. Analysts describe this as the largest Israeli aerial campaign against Hezbollah since the 2006 war. The death toll has reached 492, including 35 children, with 1,645 injuries reported. Since the onset of the Gaza conflict last October, Israel and Hezbollah have engaged in reciprocal attacks. Israel aims to degrade Hezbollahs capabilities and protect its northern regions, while Hezbollah claims to act in solidarity with Palestinians. The Israeli military reported striking 1,300 Hezbollah targets, destroying various weapons systems. Recent strikes affected populated areas, and Hezbollah has launched hundreds of rockets at Israel in retaliation. Following a recent airstrike that killed at least 50 Hezbollah fighters in Beirut, many residents in southern Lebanon are fleeing to safer areas. Israeli officials have advised civilians in southern and eastern Lebanon to evacuate as military operations escalate. Watch this clip from the BBC reporting on how Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared the mass attack on communications devices "a declaration of war." This video is from the TrendingNews channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Lebanon warns of "doomsday" response for West, Asia and Europe if Israel expands war. Thousands of handheld radios EXPLODE in second wave of Israeli attacks on Lebanon. Israel launches PAGER ATTACK on Lebanon exploding mobile devices kill nine, wound more than 2,700. Sources include: The-Express.com NPR.org Brighteon.com WSJ report: More liberals are now buying guns in the U.S. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) recently reported that a growing number of liberals are buying firearms in the United States, bucking the historical trend of Democrats eschewing owning guns. In fact, during the last presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris touted how she and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), are both gun owners. In a campaign event with Oprah Winfrey, Harris told the media mogul, "If somebody breaks into my house, they're getting shot." According to the WSJ, gun culture, which conservatives have long dominated, is experiencing "a marked charge" as "a burgeoning number of liberals" flock to gun stores to purchase firearms. Surveys note that the fastest-growing gun groups identify as ethnic minorities or political progressives. The news outlet cited lifelong Democrat and gun control supporter Michael Ciemnoczolowski, who recently bought his first firearm. Ciemnoczolowski, a liquor store clerk in Iowa City, Iowa, said he bought the weapon because he's worried about "street crime" and "armed right-wing extremists." According to the article, liberals have historically been gun owners but veered away from having them in the early 1990s when "increasingly divisive political battles over the role of firearms in American society led the Democratic Party to become an advocate for gun regulation. Republicans became the party of gun rights." Meanwhile, 29 percent of Democrats or those leaning Democrat said they had a gun at home in 2022, up from a four-decade low of 22 percent in 2010, according to a survey conducted by the University of Chicago's NORC research group. Moreover, the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions reported that more than half of Democratic voters who bought guns after 2020 were first-time owners. The WSJ piece also described how liberal gun owners are "much more diverse" than they were in the 1990s, when Democratic gun owners "were typically White men, including auto or steel union workers who grew up hunting." The outlet spoke to pro-gun liberal Tom Nguyen, a Los Angeles resident who founded a pro-gun group for liberals on Facebook in 2020. "People were hungering for a space that was not this hyper-aggressive, male-dominated, toxic gun world," Nguyen said, adding that he instructs 300 people a year on how to handle firearms. Former President Jimmy Carter's grandson Jason Carter, a former Georgia state senator and hunter who spoke at the Democratic National Convention last month, spoke to WSJ about finding a middle ground in America on the gun issue. "There are more people saying, 'Let's look for middle ground. Let's work to respect Second Amendment rights, but let's figure out ways to make us safer,'" he said. Laura Loomer: "Hypocrite Harris" wants to take away people's guns, but wants to keep her own Former Florida congressional candidate Laura Loomer accused Harris of being a hypocrite for admitting she has a gun while campaigning on stricter gun laws. She shared on X a clip of Harris' sit-down interview with Winfrey. The renowned talk show host endorsed Harris and hosted a two-hour "Unite for America" streaming session in Michigan featuring an in-depth interview with Harris. Questions about gun ownership came during a section of the livestream that addressed school shootings. In her social media post, Loomer claimed that Harris wants to "take away people's guns," but wants to keep her own." A lot of Loomer's followers commented and agreed with her accusation of hypocrisy and expressed doubt that Harris is a gun owner at all. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign told Newsweek of the vice president's gun control positions. "She'll ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require universal background checks and support red flag laws that keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people," the source said. But critics pointed out that in 2023, President Joe Biden established the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which Harris oversees. She also supported the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which Biden signed into law in 2022. The act expands background checks and creates new criminal penalties for gun trafficking and for purchasing a gun on behalf of someone banned from doing so. It also invested $1.4 billion in violence prevention and intervention programs. (Related: Kamala Harris calls for renewal of so-called "assault weapons" ban to hurriedly DISARM Americans before the election.) On the other hand, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has aligned himself with the National Rifle Association and is expected to have a more hands-off approach to gun restrictions if elected, claiming that gun laws do not actually work. Head over to SecondAmendment.news for stories related to the constitutional right to bear arms. Watch the video below where Fox's Rob Schmitt says that Kamala Harris "has never been viewed as politically viable." This video is from the TrendingNews channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: POLL: American voters trust Donald Trump more than Kamala Harris on firearms issues. Kamala Harris once supported allowing police to enter homes of legal gun owners. Kommie Harris plans to seize SEMI-AUTOMATIC WEAPONS during her first 100 days in office are they planning a staged mass-shooting false flag tragedy before the election? Kamala posts FAKE anti-Second Amendment letter supposedly written by Tucker Carlson. Sources include: WSJ.com Newsweek.com Brighteon.com Russian television broadcasts simulated NUCLEAR STRIKE on London fireball would instantly vaporize hundreds of thousands of people A Russian media network that the Western media is calling "a staunchly pro-Putin propaganda TV channel" broadcast a shocking four-minute video this week that portrays London being bombed with a nuclear weapon, resulting in 850,000 deaths. Reminiscent of the Operation Blackjack series published by The Telegraph (UK) back on Jan. 12, 2009, the four-minute scene showed a nuclear weapon being detonated in the heart of London. "Imagine for a moment that the unimaginable happens," the video, which aired on Tsargrad's Telegram channel, said. "A nuclear weapon explodes over London. In this documentary, we explore the devastating consequences of this catastrophe." "In the simulation, we will use a warhead with a yield of 750 kilotons. That's a pretty powerful charge. Upon detonation, a fireball as hot as the sun rapidly expands, reaching a radius of 950 meters (1,039 yards). Anything trapped inside this fireball is instantly vaporized." The documentary goes on to explain that in the simulation, the epicenter of the nuclear bombing occurred in Westminster. Those closest to the blast "won't even feel anything because the nerve impulse transmission speed is slower," the video explains. "Within 5 km [3 miles] of the epicenter the blast radius city of London, Camden town, Kensington, Brixton these areas will receive the most destruction." (Related: Moscow claims that Kiev tried, but failed, to attack Russia's nuclear power plant in the Kursk region.) Is it about to go down? After the blast, London's buildings will be left destroyed with debris filling the streets. Everyone who is still alive and remains will face really dangerous conditions well into the foreseeable future. "Given the population density in central London, the initial death toll could exceed 250,000 people and around 600,000 injured within a radius of 10 km (6.25 miles) the radiation will cause third degree burns," the video states. "Within that radius, anything that can burn will catch fire: [petrol] stations, automobiles, power substations, gas infrastructure. Explosive facilities will explode and amplify the effect of the devastation over a huge area, including areas from Camden to Greenwich and Islington to Wandsworth." In addition to the 850,000 expected deaths caused directly by the blast, the video estimates that another 450,000 people will die from burns, debris, injuries, or radiation sickness, while another one million or so will be left traumatized, probably for the rest of their lives. "Radiation sickness in particular will take lives days and weeks later," the video states. "In time, about 100,000 more will be added to the death toll." The video in question actually first came out about three months ago. It did not receive global attention until Tsargrad drew attention to it by sharing it publicly on Telegram. "Within an 18 km (11 mile) radius of the blast, the shockwave will be enough to shatter windows, causing additional casualties to people who come to the windows when they see the nuclear blast," the video further warns. "The shockwave will reach Hounslow, Edgware and Enfield. Depending on the wind, the fallout could spread well beyond the immediate blast zone, potentially affecting areas up to five to 10 km away, causing damage even in regions such as Essex or Surrey." Keep in mind that all of these estimates thus far assume that a nuke is detonated in the air over London rather than on the ground. Should an atomic bomb be detonated on the ground, "the fallout map would be greatly expanded and the radioactive fallout could even reach Manchester, infecting people, land and animals." Tsargrad, by the way, aired a segment back in 2018 of Vladimir Putin ominously stating that in the event of nuclear war, "We will go to heaven as martyrs, and they (in the West) will simply die because they will not even have time to repent." World War III seems to be right around the corner or has it already begun? Find out more at WWIII.news. Sources for this article include: DailyMail.co.uk Telegraph.co.uk NaturalNews.com Ukraine to get secret permission to launch Storm Shadow missiles against Russia The United States and the United Kingdom may allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles for long-range strikes inside Russian territory without it becoming public until the first one is fired, according to a report by The Times on Friday, September 20. Storm Shadow cruise missiles are a joint creation of the U.K. and France, which calls its variant the SCALP-EG. Both British and French variants have a range of about 155 miles and have been supplied to Ukraine. The Times reported that Western diplomats are prepared to renounce Ukraine's use of Storm Shadows in attacks on Russian territory but will refrain from making an official declaration to avoid publicizing the move since it would provide Russia a warning. Previous escalations Ukraine has done with the backing of the U.S. and its Western allies were not declared publicly until after the event. For instance, when President Joe Biden gave Ukraine the authority to use U.S.-supplied weapons in Russian border regions, it was first disclosed by media reports and later admitted by the administration only after they were first used. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the use of American- or North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-provided weapons in long-range strikes on Russian territory would put NATO at war with Russia. (Related: Putin warns of NATO's formal entry into war if it allows Ukraine to carry out long-range missile strikes.) "It would mean that NATO countries, the U.S., European countries, are at war with Russia," Putin said early this month. Storm Shadows and other precision-guided missiles given by NATO countries need Western intelligence to be fired. Early this year, a German military leak showed that British soldiers are "on the ground" in Ukraine to assist in firing the Storm Shadows. One of the sources The Times spoke with said the U.S. wants to move quickly on the escalation because senior members of the Biden administration are concentrated on "legacy building" as the November presidential election nears. Ukraine ambassador issues appeal to use Western long-range weapons to attack Russia Meanwhile, Ukraine's ambassador to the U.K. Valerii Zaluzhnyi on Sunday, Sept. 22, issued a fresh appeal to utilize Western long-range weapons to attack Russian territory, stating they are "critically important" for Kyiv's success. Zaluzhnyi warned it was a "critical time" for allies to display "fortitude" and "patience" in strengthening Ukraine's defense, as U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy asked allies to show "guts." Speaking at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, Zaluzhnyi insisted that lifting restrictions on the weapons would be critical to Kyiv's defense. "Modern weapons with long-range air and ground abilities are critically important. Lifting restrictions on [the] use of weapons against military targets in Russia is critical. This would help protect civilians from Russian missiles and bombs," Zaluzhnyi said. "This winter in Ukraine will be the most difficult. As we know, I believe in the resilience of the Ukrainian people, but without additional help, the price will be very, very high." The U.K. and the U.S. have stopped short of permitting to launch Western long-range missiles like Britain's Storm Shadow weapons at targets within Russia. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer went to Washington early this month to talk about the issue with Biden, but no decision was made, with both leaders continuing to resist authorizing the use of the missiles. Ukraine, meanwhile, said it hopes to organize a second "peace summit" this year to talk about how to end the war, and it wants Russia to attend. However, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated Moscow's representatives "are not going to participate in any" talks on a 10-point "peace formula" proposed by Kyiv to end Russia's occupation of all Ukrainian territory. "This process has nothing to do with a settlement. It is yet another show of fraud by the Anglo-Saxons and their Ukrainian puppets," Zakharova said. Follow WWWIII.news for more stories about the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Watch the video below about Russian specialists being able to extract circuits and control parts for the Storm Shadow/SCALP missile. This video is from the Cynthia's Pursuit of Truth channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Biden could allow Ukraine to use long-range Western missiles against Russia. Netherlands gives Ukraine green light to attack MOSCOW with long-range missiles. Ukraine closing in on deal with U.S. for new advanced long-range missiles that could strike deep into Russia. Downing Street BANS Ukraine from using Storm Shadow missiles to strike Kursk. Italy mulls sending long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine. Sources include: News.AntiWar.com DailyMail.co.uk IrishTimes.com 23-year-old Florida woman develops blindness, autoimmune red blood cell wasting disease after doctors forced her to get three vaccine injections Children's Health Defense (CHD) has released shocking video footage about Alexis Lorenze, a 23-year-old Florida woman whose health and life are now destroyed but hopefully not forever as a result of doctors who force-injected her with three vaccines all in one day. Nurse Angela from CHD joined Lorenze to provide a video update about her condition, which you can watch at CHD.tv. In case you missed it, Lorenze lost her vision and suffered horrific bruising all around her forehead and face after she received the vaccine trio. Lorenze did not want to take the shots, but she had to in order to receive a necessary blood transfusion for a rare autoimmune disorder called Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria, or PHD. "The extremely rare condition affects approximately one in a million people, causing the immune system to attack and destroy red blood cells," reports explain about Lorenze's autoimmune condition. (Related: Did you know that vaccines have destroyed public health and society in such a way that it can never be reversed [apart from an extinction-level event, perhaps].) UCI Medical forces young lady to take life-destroying jabs in order to receive a blood transfusion Lorenze had traveled all the way across the country from Florida to California to receive the blood transfusion. Doctors at UCI Medical in Orange County where Lorenze went told her that in order to proceed, they needed to first inject her all at once for tetanus, pneumonia and meningitis, otherwise Lorenze would be sent back to Florida without her transfusion. Desperate for relief, Lorenze complied with UCI Medical's demands. Within just 10 minutes of getting injected, however, Lorenze's vision darkened in both of her eyes. Her jaw also locked up and she started vomiting as her body swelled and bruised seemingly inexplicably. Administering multiple vaccine injections at once, especially to someone with serious autoimmune disease, is a recipe for health disaster that UCI Medical should have known not to do. They did it anyway, though. "While it's usually safe for most people to get these vaccines together, in her case, the immune response could have been too much and led to complications," commented Dr. Raj. Dasgupta, chief medical advisor for Fortune Recommends Health. "To avoid overloading her system, it would be reasonable to space out the vaccines and closely monitor for any worsening symptoms." Better yet, how about not taking the vaccines at all under any timeframe? The body has an immune system for a reason, and injecting vaccine chemicals into it only damages its ability to fight disease naturally. One silver lining is that Lorenze is said to be doing a lot better than she was. CHD uploaded a video update on Sept. 23, 2024, that shows Lorenze speaking about her improvements: Alexis Lorenze is doing better! And she has a message for those of you following her story. pic.twitter.com/I84mFU4ouP Childrens Health Defense (@ChildrensHD) September 23, 2024 "Poor girl," someone commented on Twitter / X. "I am glad she has gotten some help. I hope she recovers ok." Another shared the follow update to the Federal Register showing that some serious changes have been made to the informed consent model of medicine: I would be extra careful since the "Trust the Science" group made changes to informed consent recently. They no longer need informed consent if it's decided there is "minimal risk". pic.twitter.com/LGhZ5meqVA SouthPaws (@SouthPaws382131) September 23, 2024 The latest news about vaccine injury and damage can be found at BadMedicine.news. Sources for this article include: ChildrensHealthDefense.org NYPost.com NaturalNews.com X.com At least 492 killed, 1,645 injured by Israeli airstrikes targeting residential towns in southern and eastern Lebanon Israelis have launched massive airstrikes on residential towns in southern and eastern Lebanon, killing at least 492 people and injuring at least 1, 645 others. At least 35 children, 58 women and two emergency responders were killed in the Sept. 23 attack, Lebanon's health minister said. Security sources told news outlet Middle East Eye that among the victims of the attack on southern Beirut was the head of Hezbollah's southern command, Ali Karaki. The militant group announced later on that Karaki was alive and had been relocated to a safer place. Amid the chaos, tens of thousands of Lebanese people were forced to move north for safety. Israel warned people to evacuate areas where it said the armed movement was storing weapons. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a short video statement addressed to the public. "Israel's war is not with you, it's with Hezbollah. For too long Hezbollah has been using you as human shields," he claimed. Over the weekend, an Israeli minister called for the "Shia enemy population" of Lebanon to be kept away from the border of Israel, as his country's military steps up its attacks on its northern neighbor. Writing on X, Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli said a buffer zone should be created in southern Lebanon. He said that "even though it has a flag and even though it has political institutions," Lebanon "does not meet the definition of a country." "A renewed buffer zone, free of enemy population is the order of the hour and it is the right and most just thing to do both from a security point of view, both from a political and moral point of view," he added. (Related: UN investigator accuses Israel of "deliberately starving" Palestinians in Gaza; Netanyahu denies allegation.) Netanyahu says "complicated" days are coming as he seeks to "change the balance of power" In further response to the attacks, Netanyahu warned that there would be "complicated" days ahead and that he sought to "change the balance of power." "Israel knows that if it infiltrates Lebanon, the Lebanese army and Hezbollah will have military superiority on the ground," one source told Middle East Eye. "If the Israeli army carries out a ground invasion, the Lebanese army will participate with Hezbollah in confronting and defending." Meanwhile, as Israel targeted locations across the south, including the outskirts of major cities like Tyre, residents of Beirut and southern Lebanon told the media site that they were called on their phones and ordered to move one kilometer away from alleged Hezbollah sites. Some residents also received calls and text messages in Beirut from a Lebanese number ordering them to leave immediately. Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary described the orders as "a psychological war." More than 80,000 call attempts to Lebanese people telling them to flee their homes were made, according to the head of the telecoms company Ogero. "We are deepening our attacks in Lebanon," said Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. When asked about a possible ground invasion, Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said: "We will do whatever is needed." Visit IsraelCollapse.com for similar stories. Watch as Israel launches an unprecedented sabotage attack against Hezbollah in an apparent first step to ignite a full-scale war with Lebanon. This video is from the Prisoner channel at Brighteon.com. More related stories: How thousands of pagers became deadly weapons in Lebanon. Lebanon bans all pagers and walkie talkies on flights following deadly Israeli terror operation. Thousands of handheld radios EXPLODE in second wave of Israeli attacks on Lebanon. Are they trying to start World War 3 before the election in November? UN: Israel is committing unprecedented crimes against children in the Middle East. Sources include: MiddleEastEye.net Reuters.com Brighteon.com Far-left blogger publishes Iranian-hacked dossier on J.D. Vance, doxing his social security number, physical addresses, cell numbers, and e-mails Far-left blogger Ken Klippenstein has published an internal campaign vetting dossier on the 2024 Republican Partys vice presidential nominee, Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH). Klippenstein, who previously worked as a journalist with The Intercept and the far-left progressive commentary web show The Young Turks, posted the material believed to have been hacked by the Islamic Republic of Iran on his Substack on Thursday. The National Pulse is choosing not to link to the dossier, given the plethora of personal information contained therein. (Article by William Upton republished from TheNationalPulse.com) The dossier published by Klippenstein contains a bevy of private information belonging to Vance, including his social security number, personal phone number, physical addresses, and private email addresses. Klippenstein made no effort to conceal other private details and contact information for the vice presidential nominee, potentially constituting a threat to Vance and his family. The 271-page document itself is fairly typical for any campaigns vetting process. It raises several concerns about past policy positions and statements and weighs how these may impact the presidential ticket. The vetting materials make note of Vances early opposition to President Donald J. Trumps 2016 campaign and some concerns over his conservative bona fides. Throughout the vetting document, Vance is revealed to be far less radically right-wing than portrayed by national Democrats and Kamala Harriss presidential campaign. The Ohio Republican comes across as thoughtful and open to a wide array of policies and ideological propositions. While the materials do not appear to be the explosive expose alluded to by some members of the corporate media who received the documents from Iranian agents who hacked the Trump campaign, the publishing of private and personal details is concerning. The American intelligence community has made it abundantly clear that there is a concerted effort by the Iranian Islamist regime aimed at assassinating President Trump in order to prevent him from retaking the White House. Read more at: TheNationalPulse.com Kamala Harris blames Georgia abortion laws for death of two pregnant women who took abortion pills Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris has blamed the anti-abortion laws of Georgia for the death of two women who took abortion pills. During a campaign stop in Atlanta on Sept. 20, Harris spoke about Amber Thurman, a 28-year-old medical assistant and a single mother who died of sepsis after delays in receiving care at a hospital in Georgia. Thurman discovered she was pregnant with twins in August, but her focus was on her nursing career, so she decided to seek an abortion. Thurman traveled to North Carolina to seek a surgical procedure, but she was instead prescribed an abortion pill. However, complications arose after she took the pills, which eventually led to her death. In her speech, Harris claimed that Thurman was a victim of Georgia's pro-life law, which restricts abortion access after approximately six weeks of pregnancy. Harris also argued that the health complications of Thurman were exacerbated after the procedure because state doctors feared legal repercussions for providing post-abortion care. (Related: Kamala Harris releases three pro-abortion ads targeting Trump while advocating a free-for-all of nationwide baby murder.) "When she discovered that she was pregnant, she decided she wanted to have an abortion, but because of the Trump abortion ban here in Georgia, she was forced to travel out of state to receive the health care that she needed. But when she returned to Georgia, she needed additional care, so she went to a hospital. But, you see, under the Trump abortion ban, her doctors could have faced up to a decade in prison for providing Amber the care she needed," Harris said. Harris also mentioned Candi Miller's story, whose life she said had been similarly affected by the state's abortion policies, but Harris did not elaborate on the case. "Now we know that at least two women and those are only the stories we know here in the state of Georgia died died because of a Trump abortion ban," Harris said. Live Action debunks falsehood about abortion law in Georgia Kavitha Surana of ProPublica also made similar claims earlier this September, but pro-life organization Live Action disputed these claims. Surana wrote in her article that Thurman needed a dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure to clear the fetal tissue from her uterus, but Piedmont Henry Hospital refused to do so for fear of violation of the new Georgia law. However, Live Action clarified this is only true when they are used to intentionally terminate a pregnancy. Meaning, D&Cs, in general, remain legal for treating miscarriages or other medical conditions. Additionally, medical professionals involved in the case have not confirmed that the law was the reason for not performing a D&C sooner. The organization also argued that Surana downplayed the known risks associated with the abortion pill, which includes sepsis an improper response of the body to infection. Mifepristone, one of the drugs used in the abortion regimen, carries a black box warning from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about its potential dangers despite claims that it is "safer than Tylenol." The pro-life group also fact-checked the abortion case and the death of Miller with the same claims. All this fact-checking happened before Harris' campaign stop in Atlanta, but it didn't deter her from using Thurman and Miller to repeat falsehoods about abortion laws in Georgia. Visit Abortions.news for similar stories. Watch the video below explaining why Christian voters should not vote for Kamala Harris. This video is from the Friendly Evangelist channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Campaign ads of Constitution Party presidential candidate show graphic images of ABORTED BABIES. Kamala Harris LOSES SUPPORT in latest post-DNC poll. Sources include: LifeSiteNews.com 1 LifeSiteNews.com 2 Brighteon.com SHUSHA, Azerbaijan, September 27. The cherished memory of the 44-day Second Karabakh War martyrs has been honored in liberated Shusha city, as in all regions of Azerbaijan, Trend reports. The event marking the Day of Remembrance has gathered together employees of the Special Representative Office of the President of Azerbaijan in the Shusha district, the Shusha State Reserve Department, law enforcement agencies, as well as schoolchildren and local residents. The participants laid flowers at the memorial plaque on the Alley of Martyrs in Shusha. The prayers were offered for the repose of the martyr souls, and then schoolchildren recited patriotic poems. At 12:00 (GMT+4) in Shusha city and across the nation, a minute of silence was observed to honor the memory of the martyrs. According to the decree of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev dated December 2, 2020, Azerbaijan annually celebrates Remembrance Day on September 27 as a sign of deep respect for Azerbaijani soldiers and officers who heroically fought in the 44-day Second Karabakh War and gave their lives for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Hezbollah fires BALLISTIC MISSILE targeting Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv Hezbollah targeted the headquarters of Israeli intelligence service Mossad on the outskirts of Tel Aviv with a ballistic missile on Wednesday, Sept. 25, marking the first use of such weaponry in the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group. According to Hezbollah, its goal was to target the base from which Israel orchestrated the recent pager terror attack on Lebanon that killed dozens and injured thousands, and where Israel planned the assassination of many high-ranking Hezbollah commanders. "In support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and in support of their valiant and honorable resistance, and in defense of Lebanon and its people, the Islamic Resistance launched a Qader 1 ballistic missile at 6:30 a.m., targeting the Mossad headquarters in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, which is responsible for assassinating leaders and executing explosions of pagers and wireless devices," the group said in a statement. Israeli air defense systems were able to immediately detect the ballistic missile crossing into its airspace, causing warning sirens to be activated in Tel Aviv and the surrounding regions. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) reported that it was able to successfully intercept the missile using a David's Sling anti-ballistic missile system. No injuries or damage to property were reported. The IDF also claimed to have been able to track down the site in Lebanon that launched the ballistic missile and retaliated. (Related: ESCALATING CONFLICT: Israels covert operations in Lebanon could lead to all-out war with Hezbollah.) In addition to the missile strike, the Israeli military reported that Hezbollah had also fired rockets targeting the occupied Golan Heights and near Mount Carmel in northern Israel, all of which were intercepted. This missile launch occured amid Israel's extensive bombardment of southern and eastern Lebanon, which began earlier this week and has seen approximately 1,600 strikes in a single day, marking the deadliest day of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah since the 2006 Lebanon War. Use of ballistic missiles represents new escalation in Israel-Hezbollah conflict Hezbollah has so far refrained from deploying ballistic and precision-guided missiles, opting for a strategy of gradual escalation to avoid triggering a full-scale war. An anonymous Israeli air defense commander remarked in the Hebrew newspaper Israel Hayom that the situation has not yet reached a "tipping point." He noted that Hezbollah had not yet utilized its most advanced missiles, and both sides have been careful to limit the extent of their assaults. He added that a total war would likely only commence if Hezbollah decided to strike deeper into Israeli territory, targeting critical infrastructure. Israel has conducted airstrikes on Beirut three times within the past week, including an attack on the Ghobeiry area that resulted in multiple casualties, including the death of Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Kubaisi. Following these assaults, Hezbollah responded by firing numerous rocket barrages into northern Israel, targeting military airports and other sensitive sites in Galilee, Tiberias and Haifa. A security source informed Israel's Channel 13 that Israeli forces aim to compel Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to agree to a ceasefire through military means, stating: "We continue to follow the strategy of gradual escalation, and each time we go up one step after another." Hezbollah has consistently declared its intent to persist with its operations until the conflict in Gaza is resolved. The backdrop to this escalating confrontation is the ongoing Israeli airstrikes across southern and eastern Lebanon, which left over 550 people dead and injured more than 1,800 since Monday, Sept. 23. Thousands more have been displaced as a result of these attacks. Hezbollah's missile strike on the Mossad intelligence agency headquarters is a significant escalation in the conflict. Watch this short clip of an air raid warning in Tel Aviv. This video is from the Cynthia's Pursuit of Truth channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Israel's "exploding pagers" attack qualifies as a WAR CRIME under Geneva Conventions of 1949. Lebanon bans all pagers and walkie talkies on flights following deadly Israeli terror operation. Delta Airlines extends suspension of flights between New York and Tel Aviv until the end of 2024. Lebanon warns of "doomsday" response for West, Asia and Europe if Israel expands war. British foreign secretary urges U.K. citizens to leave Lebanon as Israeli invasion could trigger all-out war. Sources include: TheCradle.co MiddleEastEye.net Brighteon.com A Haitian sex offender immigrant has been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the sanctuary city of Boston after he was released from state custody. On Sept. 11, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) arrested a 30-year-old Haitian national named Jefferson Jerome in Dorchester, Massachusetts. The suspect had been arraigned on July 26 in Nantucket District Court on charges including one count of rape of a child with a 10-year age difference and two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, a crime he allegedly committed against a Massachusetts resident. (Related: ICE agents arrest two illegal immigrants suspected of heinous sexual offenses.) "Jefferson Jerome stands accused of a horrific crime against a resident of our Massachusetts community," said ERO Boston Field Office Director Todd M. Lyons following the arrest. "We will not tolerate the victimization of our neighbors. ERO Boston will continue to prioritize public safety by apprehending and removing egregious noncitizen offenders from New England." Jerome has a history of unlawful entry into the United States. He was first arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol on Sept. 21, 2021, after unlawfully crossing near Del Rio, Texas and was returned to Mexico. Despite this, Jerome attempted to enter the U.S. again on Dec. 15, 2022, at the Brownsville, Texas, port of entry. He was apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and was issued a notice to appear before an immigration judge with the Department of Justice. On Sept. 11, Jerome was arraigned in Dorchester District Court for the sexual assault charge and was released on pretrial conditions, including the use of a GPS monitoring device. ERO Boston officers arrested him immediately after his release from state custody. Jerome is currently in ERO custody, pending further legal proceedings. ICE has been arresting Haitian nationals involved in high-profile assault cases Putin warns West of nuclear retaliation if Ukraine fires Western-supplied long-range missiles into Russian territory Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that the country may resort to using nuclear weapons if Ukraine launches Western-supplied long-range weaponry deep in Russian territory. Putin made these comments on Wednesday, Sept. 25, during a meeting of the Russian Security Council, where he unveiled crucial changes to the country's nuclear doctrine, reflecting the Kremlin's growing concerns over perceived military threats from the West. During the meeting, Putin stated that Russia would consider nuclear retaliation if it received "reliable information" about a large-scale missile or drone assault against it. He emphasized that military aggression from any state, particularly if backed by nuclear-armed nations, could lead to a nuclear response. "We reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against Russia and Belarus," he declared, underscoring the seriousness of the updated doctrine. These statements mark Russia's most recent warning to Western nations regarding Ukraine's newfound capability to launch deep strikes into Russian territory using long-range weapons supplied by the United States, the United Kingdom and other allies. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been advocating to be given permission to use such advanced munitions, including the Franco-British Storm Shadow cruise missiles and U.S.-made ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles, to target military installations deep within Russia, particularly airbases. Putin claims change in nuclear policy is a response to NATO threats Putin's response reflects a determination to deter such actions, suggesting that the use of these weapons would be tantamount to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) being directly involved in the conflict. Putin articulated that any attack on critical Russian infrastructure such as aerospace systems, strategic or tactical aircraft, cruise missiles and drones would also be viewed as grounds for nuclear retaliation. "These emerging military threats necessitate adjustments to our nuclear policy," he asserted. This stance aligns with his long-standing view that NATO's involvement in Ukraine represents a direct challenge to Russian security interests. Furthermore, Putin's remarks highlight an increasing concern over NATO and U.S. military involvement in the region. He warned that should Ukraine be permitted to strike Russian territory with long-range weapons, it would signify a shift in the nature of the conflict. "If such permission is granted, it would mean that NATO, the U.S. and European countries are at war with Russia," he cautioned. In that scenario, he vowed that Russia would respond appropriately, though he did not specify what those measures would entail. The updated nuclear doctrine comes in the context of rising tensions and ongoing discussions among Western military experts about the potential use of low-yield nuclear arms. It also comes after influential foreign policy hawks in Russia have spent weeks urging Putin to adopt a more assertive nuclear posture, suggesting that lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons could serve as a successful deterrent against continued Western support for Ukrainian aggression. This shift in policy marks a departure from earlier rhetoric, where Putin had seemed to moderate his language regarding nuclear threats. Zelenskys chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, dismissed Putin's revised nuclear doctrine, stating: "Russia no longer has any instruments to intimidate the world apart from nuclear blackmail. These instruments will not work." His comments suggest a belief that the international community will not be swayed by Russias threats, highlighting the potential for further escalation. As tensions between Russia and NATO continue to rise, the implications of these developments could significantly alter the strategic calculus in the region. The potential for miscalculation is high, with both NATO and Russian forces actively engaged in military operations across Eastern Europe. Watch this clip of President Vladimir Putin claiming that Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons when threatened. This video is from the channel The Prisoner on Brighteon.com. Sources include: InfoWars.com YourNews.com TheGuardian.com Brighteon.com Bernie Sanders introduces joint resolution seeking to block the sale of American weapons to Israel Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has introduced a joint resolution of disapproval seeking to block the sale of more than $20 billion worth of American weapons to Israel, following up on a promise he made on the Senate floor last week. Although Sanders concedes that Israel does have a right to respond to the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas last October, he maintains that Israel is targeting not only Hamas but all of the Palestinian people, as evidenced by the fact that they have already killed more than 41,000 people there and injured more than 95,000. Making matters worse, 60% of these are elderly people, women and children. Sanders says that helping Israel in its acts is not just unethical; it is also against the law. He cites the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which specifies that countries that deliberately block U.S. humanitarian aid are not eligible to receive security assistance from the U.S. He also drew attention to some of the policy implications of continuing to sell arms to Israel. While the Biden administration says that it has been trying to coordinate a ceasefire deal to allow more aid into Gaza while releasing the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, Netanyahu keeps coming up with new demands that cause talks to collapse. Sanders theorizes that Netanyahu is simply trying to keep the war going so he can stay in power as he is widely expected to be prosecuted for corruption when he is no longer in office. Therefore, given that the U.S. policy is pursuing a ceasefire for hostage deal in Gaza to prevent further escalation, it does not make sense to keep supplying Israel with more weapons that they are using for attacks that put such deals in danger. Sanders also drew attention to the fact that Israel has been bombing hospitals and schools, destroying infrastructure and housing in Gaza, starving children and generally making life unlivable there. We simply cannot continue to provide them with the weapons they are using to cause so much harm and carry out these genocidal acts that have been going on for almost a year now. Sanders was joined in the resolution by Senators Peter Welch (D-Vermont) and Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) in calling for blocking the sales of 120mm tank cartridges and high-explosive mortar cartridges, Joint Direct Attack Munitions and enhanced receivers. He and Welch also called for blocking the sale of modified M1148A1P2 Medium Tactical Vehicles, while Sanders alone wants to block the sale of 50 F-1IA aircraft, weapons, parts and upgrade kits. Sending more weapons to Netanyahu's extremist government is immoral & illegal: U.S. weapons are responsible for far too many civilian casualties in Gaza. We must end our complicity in this atrocity, he posted on X. Sanders' resolutions are unlikely to pass, but they'll send a strong message to Israel When Sanders announced last week that he was working on these resolutions, many believed that it was a long shot. Nevertheless, it represents the most notable pushback from Congress so far when it comes to Israels actions in Gaza. The resolutions will eventually force a vote on blocking the sales of arms to Israel, although they are unlikely to pass despite Sanders already having some backing for his proposal. Nevertheless, Sanders took the opportunity to remind everyone: Much of this carnage in Gaza has been carried out with U.S.-provided military equipment. Even if the measures do not pass, it will still send a strong message to Israel and Netanyahu that it is starting to lose the bipartisan support from the U.S. that it has long enjoyed thanks to its genocidal acts in Gaza. Sources for this article include: X.com APNews.com Key Ukrainian stronghold of Vuhledar about to fall to Russia as Zelensky begs for more U.S. taxpayer cash in Washington as part of victory plan Former LGBT pride marcher and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is back in Washington begging for U.S. taxpayer cash as part of his "victory plan" for Kiev. Even as Moscow is on the verge of taking over Vuhledar, a key Ukrainian stronghold in eastern Europe, Zelensky is ordering Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to funnel him more money and weapons so he can achieve his goals. "I think that we are closer to peace than we think," Zelensky told ABC News in an interview, clarifying that peace can only come if Ukraine is able to gain a "strong position" with the help of Western cash and weapons of war. Zelensky says he has no plans to negotiate with Russia, but is rather looking at a victory plan that will create "a bridge to a diplomatic way out, to stop the war." "We just have to be very, very strong," Zelensky said, stating that he and his regime are largely dependent on the "quick decisions." Zelensky also says that Washington must be "bold" in supporting Kiev's desire to use long-range, Western-made weapons deep within Russian territory. "Everybody's looking up to [Biden], and we need this to defend ourselves," Zelensky whined to ABC News about how desperately he needs another welfare handout to keep his regime 'in power'. Zelensky is pulling out all the stops in a final push to wring U.S. taxpayers for more money. He knows the policies of unlimited funding and escalation supported by the Harris-Biden Admin have an expiration date. https://t.co/GeeUC6lMEA Rep. Eli Crane (@RepEliCrane) September 24, 2024 (Related: Over in the Middle East where another war rages on, Lebanon is warning of "doomsday" for the West, Asia and Europe if Israel continues its aggression.) Ukraine demanding entry into NATO In addition to demanding more welfare checks from Washington and other Western backers, Zelensky also wants NATO to accept Ukraine as a member. This, he says, will strengthen Ukraine and allow the Zelensky regime to "push Putin to stop the war the diplomatic way." "That is why we are asking our friend," Zelensky continued, playing the friendship card as if Ukraine has ever done anything on its end except constantly take cash and guns to show friendship towards its sponsors. Reuters, meanwhile, is reporting that Russia is also advancing on Donetsk, another key stronghold for Ukraine that is about to fall. By all appearances, Ukraine is losing the war and Zelensky, apparently, is grabbing every last dime he can before exiting stage left. "Russian forces have begun storming the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar, a stronghold that has resisted Russian attack since the beginning of the 2022 war, according to Russian war bloggers and state media," Reuters reported. "Russian forces in eastern Ukraine advanced at their fastest rate in two years in August, according to multiple open source maps, even though a Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk region sought to force Moscow to divert troops." Leonid Ragozin, formerly of the BBC, commented that things are looking really bad for Ukraine. "The situation on the frontline couldn't be worse for Zelensky-Biden summit," Ragozin wrote on Twitter / X. In the comments, someone joked that Zelensky, a drug-addicted pervert, has much different plans for "victory" than he is letting on. "Zelensky's victory plan involves an 8-ball of coke and gay sex in his Swiss villa," this person said crudely. "What must it feel like in one of those trenches accomplishing nothing but complete desolation of your soul and sanity ... but knowing you are literal cannon fodder for the U.S. presidential election?" asked another about the troops that are fighting Zelensky and Putin's war. More related news about the Ukraine-Russia war can be found at Chaos.news. Sources for this article include: ZeroHedge.com NaturalNews.com KHOJALY, Azerbaijan, September 27. The remembrance of the martyrs was honored in Khojaly district on the occasion of September 27 - the Day of Remembrance, Trend's Karabakh bureau reports. According to the information, the ceremony was attended by senior officials of the Special Representative Office of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan for Khankendi City, Aghdara, and Khojaly districts, as well as other state structures operating in these territories, teachers, students, and pupils. The bright memory of the martyrs was honored with a minute of silence. Furthermore, it was emphasized that the state of Azerbaijan highly appreciates the bravery of its sons and daughters who participated in the Second Karabakh War and honors the heroic memory of all martyrs. To note, according to the decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev dated December 2, 2020, Azerbaijan annually celebrates Remembrance Day on September 27 as a sign of deep respect for Azerbaijani soldiers and officers who heroically fought in the second Karabakh War and gave their lives for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Sorry, something doesn't look right. Something seems unusual about your device or browser. Please contact support. KHANKENDI, Azerbaijan, September 27. An event dedicated to Remembrance Day has been held at Secondary School No. 4 under the Karabakh Regional Education Department in Khankendi, Trend reports. The event, attended by the schools teaching staff, families of martyrs, and students, began with the National Anthem of Azerbaijan, followed by a minute of silence to honor the memory of the martyrs. The schools principal, Jamila Ahmadova, spoke about the significance of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyevs decree regarding September 27 as Remembrance Day. She emphasized that, as a result of the reforms in the Azerbaijani Armed Forces and the continuous efforts of the victorious Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Ilham Aliyev, in military development, the occupation of Azerbaijani lands came to an end. "The whole world witnessed Azerbaijans glorious victory in the Second Karabakh War," she added. Other speakers also highlighted the heroic deeds of the countrys sons during the war and the glorious victory. The students recited patriotic poems, and musical performances were held during the event. According to the decree of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev dated December 2, 2020, Azerbaijan annually celebrates Remembrance Day on September 27 as a sign of deep respect for Azerbaijani soldiers and officers who heroically fought in the 44-day Second Karabakh War and gave their lives for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel New York Mayor charged with bribery over trip to India E ric Adams, the outspoken Mayor of the largest US city, has been charged with bribery and campaign financing irregularities by Federal prosecutors, and one of the allegations relates to a trip he took to India. The charges released on Thursday said that after he purchased economy class tickets for himself and his domestic partner to India in 2016 on Turkish Airlines he accepted upgrades to business class, which prosecutors assert was valued at nearly $13,000 that he did not disclose receiving it in his official filings. The prosecutors put the amounts he illegally benefitted from at $100,000. No one connected to India is mentioned in the indictment which centres on his alleged ties to Turkey. Most of the allegations, including that about the trip to India, relate to the period he was the President of the city's Brooklyn borough before he became Mayor in 2022. Adams, who is African-American -- only the second from the community of the city's 110 Mayors -- and is a Democrat. However, he has been at odds with the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, criticising their border policies that let in more than 12 million illegal immigrants overwhelming New York and other cities. In a statement professing his innocence, he cited his criticism of the Federal government's inaction on "its broken immigration policies". On a day he was on his way to Washington to lead a group of Mayors in a protest over the fallout of illegal immigration, Federal agents launched a search of the house of his campaign finance official causing him to abandon the protest and turn back to New York. A former police captain, he has also been tough on crime, drawing criticism from the party's Left and at variance to some of the lenient policies that Harris had once advocated. The Turkish government, businesses, educational institutions, and local administrations allegedly gave him free hospitality and funneled campaign contributions illegally to him through third parties. Besides his trip to India, he is alleged to have received free tickets, upgrades, or hospitality for visits to Turkey, China, Hungary, and Sri Lanka In return, among other things, he helped the 36-storey Turkish Consulate tower get a fire department clearance, according to the indictment. The charges against him were unveiled two days after Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan severely criticised the West in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly. The city of 8.25 million people has been in turmoil for several weeks with several top officials, including the Police Commissioner and the schools Chancellor resigning after they came under investigations. The Federal prosecutors have been going after foreign interference in US politics occurring in the New York area. Earlier this month, Linda Sun, a former senior aide to Governor Kathy Hochul was arrested and charged with secretly wporking for China. In May, Bob Menendez, a powerful Senator who headed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was convicted on bribery charges relating to his illegal collaborations with Egypt and Qatar. At a flag-hoisting ceremony honouring India's Independence last month, he recalled his visit to the country. He said, "I recall in my trip to India, and the most significant part of that trip that I remember, I remember watching the last footsteps of our leader, Gandhi, and where the assassin took his life, and how we have a responsibility and obligation to continue those footsteps." New York Mayor charged with bribery over trip to India Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. YARAT Contemporary Art Space invites participants to delve deeper into how we communicate with ourselves and others at this years Museum Night, taking place on October 12th. Based on topics from previous editionsunderstanding our inner worlds and accepting our surroundingsthis years event will emphasize how we express our thoughts, emotions, and challenges through various forms of communication. YARAT Centre, 1st Floor, Exhibition Hall Ilhama Babayevas Sound Therapy Under Ilhama Babayevas guidance, the workshop will include: - Lecture on Sound Therapy and Singing Bowls - Sound Therapy session - Vocal Yoga - Q&A - Mantra singing Participants will learn how to reach a meditative state through sound, release suppressed emotions, and establish healthy communication. 18:00 20:00 Age limit: 18+ Participant limit: 70 YARAT Centre, 2nd Floor, MFR Saint Twins Detective Intellectual Game: The Creator from the Alleyways The St. Twins detective game offers a thrilling noir-style adventure. You must solve a complex criminal case within a limited time by gathering evidence from case files, police reports, newspaper articles, and witness statements to bring the criminal(s) to justice. Feel like a real detective in the dark jazz and rainy streets of 1950s America! 18:00 22:00 Age limit: 18+ Player limit: 85 Language: Russian Theatre O2 Performance: 5 This five-part performance explores communication difficulties and the need for live interaction. It highlights the limitations of social networks and shows problems through participant collaboration. 22:30 23:30 Age limit: 18+ Participant limit: 150 Museum of Azerbaijani Painting of the XX-XXI Centuries, 1st Floor, Exhibition Hall Masterclass: "Unspoken narratives" with Leyla Gabulova This masterclass invites participants to explore the subjectivity of individual experience and perception. Working in pairs, participants will portray the emotions presented to them from their own perspectives, then share and discuss how the same feelings can be perceived differently. This process promotes mutual understanding and encourages better acceptance of others. 21:30 23:30 Age limit: 18+ Participant limit: 30 Museum of Azerbaijani Painting of the XX-XXI Centuries, 2nd floor Performance: XITAB Featuring DEWAR, Shahriyar Imanov, Punhan Azim, and Rashad Rayyan This event offers participants a chance to feel the purest form of artistic communication through DEWARs electronic music, Shahriyar Imanovs tar performance, and the rich emotions of ghazals interpreted by Punhan Azim and Rashad Rayyan. 20:00 21:00 Age limit: 18+ Participant limit: 300 Baku Boulevard (Next to the Surakhani Ship Museum) Live performance: Okaber Opening: Neocortex Attendees will experience the power of rhythmic and emotional expressions as they immerse themselves in the dynamics of modern spoken art. This unique event will demonstrate how rap music influences communication and shapes emotional expression. 00:00 01:05 Age limit: 18+ Participant limit: 600 This event is supported by Baku Boulevard Administration, iTicket platform, Meatadore, and United Coffee Beans. All events are free of charge. Registration is required via iTicket. For more information: +994 50 246 92 92 Trump to meet Zelensky in New York today F ormer US President Donald Trump has said that he would meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Trump Tower in New York on Friday one day after the White House hopeful slammed Ukraine's leader for refusing to strike a deal with Russia over the war. "President Zelensky has asked to meet with me, and I will be meeting with him tomorrow morning at around 9:45 in Trump Tower," Trump told reporters in New York on Thursday. "And it's a shame what's happening in Ukraine. So many deaths, so much destruction. It's a horrible thing." Trump spoke hours after the Ukrainian President met with his US counterpart Joe Biden and Trump's November election rival Kamala Harris at the White House. Zelensky is in the US this week participating in the UN General Assembly in New York. Trump said: "I look forward to seeing him tomorrow." But the Republican also suggested he was displeased with Zelensky's recent comments to The New Yorker magazine in which Ukraine's leader said he believed Trump "doesn't really know how to stop the war". When asked about Zelensky's comments by a reporter at the press conference, Trump said: "I do believe I disagree with him. He doesn't know me." "I believe I will be able to make a deal" to end the war, Trump added, repeating a longstanding claim that he would swiftly bring about an end to the conflict which began when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Trump has frequently claimed that he would be able to end the war in Ukraine quickly, in as little as "a day". Trump has been highly critical of funding to Ukraine and at times, Zelensky -- an uneasy relationship that was made even less comfortable after the Ukrainian President announced a visit to an ammunition plant in battleground state Pennsylvania. Trump frequently says Russia "would have never attacked Ukraine" if he was President. Trump has frequently claimed that he would be able to end the war in Ukraine quickly, in as little as "a day." "I don't want to tell you what that looks like," he responded. He said of Ukraine that Russian leader Vladimir Putin "told me often it's the apple of his eye". Trump claimed he warned against invading Ukraine and said, "'Vladimir, don't even think about doing it.'" Trump also told reporters of his meeting with Zelensky, "We'll see what happens, but I believe I can work that out." Asked whether Ukraine should cede land to Russia to end the war, Trump did not answer directly. "Let's get some peace," he said. "We need peace. We need to stop the death and destruction. Don't you think? Wouldn't that be nice?" Earlier on Thursday, Trump posted to his social media platform, Truth Social, a message purportedly from Zelensky requesting a face-to-face meeting with Trump while Zelensky would already be in New York. Trump's announcement that he would meet with Zelensky came shortly after that post. Trump to meet Zelensky in New York today Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! 'Russia Won't Prevail', says Biden as he hosts Zelensky in White House U krainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with US President Joe Biden at the White House to present his wartime "victory plan," after Biden announced an $8 billion surge in military aid for Kyiv's fight against Russia. "Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail, and we'll continue to stand by you every step of the way," Biden said on Thursday as he hosted Zelensky in the Oval Office, after thanking him for presenting the so-called victory plan. Dressed in his trademark military-style outfit, Zelensky replied that "we deeply appreciate that Ukraine and America have stood side by side". But Zelensky's visit was clouded by a blazing row with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that underscored how November's US election could upend the support that Kyiv receives from its biggest backer. Zelensky is looking to shore up support for his war effort at the same time as Biden tries to lock in aid for Ukraine, ahead of the white-knuckle vote pitting Biden's Vice-President Kamala Harris against firebrand Trump. The Democrat pledged nearly $8 billion in military aid in his announcement on Thursday, including $5.5 billion to be authorised before it expires at the end of the US fiscal year on Monday. Biden said in a statement that the "surge in security assistance for Ukraine" would "help Ukraine win this war". Biden also announced Washington would provide Ukraine with the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) long-range munition and called a summit of allies in Germany in October. The White House however played down Ukraine's hopes that Zelensky's visit would achieve his long-held goal of getting permission to fire long-range Western-made missiles into Russian territory. "I'm not expecting there to be any new announcements on this particular action or a decision coming out of this meeting," Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. Harris was due to meet Zelensky separately at the White House on Thursday. Zelensky also visited the US Congress -- where his government said he had also presented his victory plan -- and gave a defiant address at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday. But Zelensky's visit has prompted fresh nuclear saber rattling from Moscow, which has repeatedly warned the West against giving Ukraine long-range arms. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday announced plans to broaden Moscow's rules on the use of its atomic weaponry in the event of a "massive" air attack. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the nuclear threat "totally irresponsible" while EU foreign policy spokesman Peter Stano said Putin was making a "gamble with his nuclear arsenal". Kyiv faces an increasingly difficult battlefield situation two and a half years into Russia's invasion, with Russian forces continuing to push into eastern Ukraine. But the US presidential election means Washington's support now hangs on the balance -- and with Zelensky apparently at odds with Trump and the Republicans. Trump had also been due to meet Zelensky during his US visit, but their talks now appear to be on ice. Trump accused Zelensky on the eve of the visit of refusing to strike a deal with Moscow and once again questioned why the United States was giving billions of dollars to Kyiv. At an election rally on Wednesday, the Republican called the Ukrainian President "probably the greatest salesman on Earth". Republicans were livid after Zelensky visited an arms factory in Biden's hometown in the battleground state of Pennsylvania earlier this week, with House Speaker Mike Johnson calling for the Ukrainian ambassador to be sacked. Zelensky also sparked fury in Republican ranks when he told The New Yorker magazine this week that Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance did not understand the war's complexity. Trump has echoed many of Putin's talking points about previous US policy being to blame for the Russian invasion, and has been critical of Zelensky for years. The US has provided around $175 billion in both military and economic assistance to Ukraine during the war, despite frequent opposition from Republicans. 'Russia Won't Prevail', says Biden as he hosts Zelensky in White House Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! UK PM Starmer backs India for permanent UNSC membership, calls for comprehensive reforms B ritish Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday voiced strong support for India's inclusion as a permanent member of a reformed United Nations Security Council (UNSC), along with permanent African representation, Brazil, Japan and Germany and more seats for elected members as well. "If we want the system to deliver for the poorest and most vulnerable then their voices must be heard. We need to make the system more representative and more responsive to those who need it most. So we will make the case not just for fairer outcomes, but fairer representation in how we reach them. And this also applies to the Security Council. It has to change to become a more representative body, willing to act -- not paralysed by politics. We want to see permanent African representation on the Council, Brazil, India, Japan and Germany as permanent members, and more seats for elected members as well," Starmer said while addressing the general debate at the 79th session of the UN General Assembly in New York early Friday, India time. Earlier on Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron had voiced strong support for India's inclusion as a permanent member of a reformed United Nations Security Council (UNSC), along with Germany, Japan, Brazil, and two African nations. "Germany, Japan, India and Brazil should be permanent members, as well as two countries that Africa would designate to represent it. New elected members should also be admitted," Macron said while addressing the general debate at the 79th session of the UN General Assembly in New York. The French President stressed the need for reforms within the UN to make it more effective and representative, particularly in light of the challenges posed by the current structure of the Security Council. "The United Nations should not be discarded, but rather reformed to reflect today's realities," he said. He said that the current Security Council, often blocked by conflicting interests, needs to evolve. "Is there a better system? I don't think so. So let's just make these United Nations more effective, first by perhaps making them more representative. That is why France and I repeat here, is in favour of the Security Council being expanded," Macron said. The French President said that he hopes that "this reform will also make it possible to change working methods, to limit the right of veto in the event of mass crime and to focus on operational decisions that are necessary to maintain international peace and security. This is what we must have the courage and audacity to do and that we must carry forward with the current permanent members." Earlier, Chilean President Gabriel Boric Font also advocated for India's inclusion, proposing a deadline for the reform to align the UNSC with modern geopolitical realities by the UN's 80th anniversary. The call for India's permanent membership has also been echoed by other global leaders, including US President Joe Biden, who reiterated Washington's full support for India's bid during his recent bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Russia, too, continues to back India's aspiration for a permanent seat, with the country's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphasising the need for greater representation of developing countries in the council during the ongoing annual UN event. The growing consensus among world leaders highlights the urgency of reforming the UNSC to reflect the contemporary global order and ensure more inclusive and effective international governance. UK PM Starmer backs India for permanent UNSC membership, calls for comprehensive reforms Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! Antara Cruises to launch service from Kolkata to Varanasi A fter Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the MV Ganga Vilas from Varanasi last year, Antara Cruises is all set to launch service from Kolkata to Varanasi. Antara Cruises, owners of the MV Ganga Vilas, promoted by the Ministry of Tourism and Incredible India, announced the launch of a 19-night, 20-day journey from Kolkata to Varanasi on the recently refurbished vessel MV Bengal Ganga. "Guests would get a feel of Kolkata's bustling flower market at Mullick Ghat, just next to the iconic Rabindra Setu or Howrah Bridge. There will be stops at key destinations like Kalna, Matiari, Murshidabad, Bateshwarthan, Sultanganj, Munger, Simaria, Patna, Buxar and Ghazipur," said Annapurna Garimella, Director, Antara Cruises while promising to deliver an immersive river cruising experience, steeped in India's rich culture, history and luxury. Annapurna Garimella added that the guests will get to explore the terracotta temples at Kalna and the Katra mosque in Murshidabad, among other things. "Throughout the cruise, guests will have the opportunity to engage with local traditions, arts and spirituality, witnessing the vibrant crafts and culture of the region," Garimella said. The MV Ganga Vilas from Varanasi which was flagged off by the Prime Minister in January last year created history by covering 3,200 km to Dibrugarh, Assam, in 51 days. During this voyage, the cruise liner passed through 27 river systems in India and Bangladesh. This was recorded as the longest river trip by a single river ship in the world. The experience became extremely popular, particularly among foreign tourists. Annapurna Garimella said that the MV Bengal Ganga has 20 suites with all modern amenities. "There are three categories to cater to all, from solo adventurers to families, hence the suites are between 145 sq feet to 290 sq feet in area, depending on the requirements of guests. The dining room, on the main deck, will serve Satvik (vegetarian) Indian dishes and international cuisine. Guests can also unwind at the lounge bar on the upper deck," said Garimella. Garimella said that once the MV Bengal Ganga anchors mid-river at Varanasi, guests can opt for short-time river cruises. "They can watch the awe-inspiring Ganga Aarti at Dashashwamedh Ghat and offer prayers at the Kashi Vishwanath Temple. They can also visit the world-famous Buddhist centre at Sarnath." A senior official in the Ministry of Tourism said that the government plans to utilise the National Waterways to promote tourism. "A lot of effort is on to make these routes navigable for cruise liners. There is immense potential. It is good that this initiative has been taken," the official said. Antara Cruises to launch service from Kolkata to Varanasi Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! Media plays an important role in building a developed India: Union Minister U nion Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting L. Murugan on Friday said that the media plays an important role in building a developed India while inaugurating the National Media Conference organised at the headquarters of Brahma Kumaris Institute in Abu Road. "The media is a powerful medium which provides information from different parts to the citizens of the country. That is why it is called the fourth pillar of democracy," the Union Minister said while addressing the national conference organised on the topic 'Spiritual Empowerment for a Healthy and Happy Society - Role of Media' in which more than one thousand journalists, editors, bureau chiefs, radio and web journalism from all over the country are participating. The Union Minister said that India is a country full of diversity where there are many languages, cultures, and traditions. "There is a need for the media to provide correct information to the citizens of the country sitting at the last end of the nation," he said. He said that in the era of information revolution and social media, today any person can play the role of a journalist and can write news and create literature. However, with the expansion of technology, today, good news does not go viral as fast as wrong one, fake news goes viral. "Journalists should first check the veracity of the news and then publish it. Creating a healthy and happy society is possible only by promoting good news. He said that the New Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill 2024 is being brought to stop the broadcast of misinformation." The Union Minister said that if a negative environment is being created in society today, then we need to think about what we are sending to society. "To build a value-based society, we have to incorporate values in life," he added. Brahma Kumaris is an internationally renowned spiritual organisation spread all over the world, affiliated to the United Nations in consultative status for peacekeeping in the world. It is committed to the cause of moral and spiritual upliftment of mankind. IT conducts a number of programmes all over the world to bring awareness to every cross-section of society in fulfilling the key objective of peace-giving through various wings. Media plays an important role in building a developed India: Union Minister Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! Meta fined $101.5 million for 2019 breach involving Facebook passwords I reland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) on Friday fined Meta 91 million euros (around $101.5 million) for 2019 breach that exposed hundreds of millions of Facebook passwords. The Irish regulator announced its final decision following an inquiry into Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (MPIL) which was launched in April 2019, after meta said it had inadvertently stored certain passwords of social media users in 'plaintext' on its internal systems (without cryptographic protection or encryption). "It is widely accepted that user passwords should not be stored in plaintext, considering the risks of abuse that arise from persons accessing such data," said Graham Doyle, deputy commissioner at the DPC. "It must be borne in mind, that the passwords the subject of consideration in this case, are particularly sensitive, as they would enable access to users' social media accounts," Doyle added. Meta had published information regarding this incident in March 2019. These passwords were not made available to external parties. "This decision of the DPC concerns the GDPR principles of integrity and confidentiality. The GDPR requires data controllers to implement appropriate security measures when processing personal data, taking into account factors such as the risks to service users and the nature of the data processing," said the Irish regulator. In order to maintain security, data controllers should evaluate the risks inherent in the processing and implement measures to mitigate those risks. This decision emphasises the need to take such measures when storing user passwords, it added. The penalty is bigger than a 17 million euro fine the DPC placed to Meta in March 2022 over a 2018 security breach. Meta's earlier security lapses affected up to 30 million Facebook users compared to the hundreds of millions whose passwords were exposed as a result of its failure to secure passwords in 2019. Meta fined $101.5 million for 2019 breach involving Facebook passwords Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. Numerous events dedicated to September 27, the Day of Remembrance, were organized in Azerbaijani Houses across various countries, with the support of these cultural centers, the State Committee for Work with Diaspora of Azerbaijan told Trend. Memory spots for the martyrs were created, and exhibitions were opened at these events. According to the statement from the State Committee, expatriates participated in the events to honor the memory of those who sacrificed their lives for the independence and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. "Discussions at the events highlighted the historical significance of the brilliant victory achieved by the heroic Azerbaijani army under the leadership of the President of Azerbaijan, our victorious Supreme Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev, and the bravery displayed by the sons of Azerbaijan during the Patriotic War," the statement noted. Currently, 30 Azerbaijani Houses are operating in 17 countries around the world. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Jamir Lewis wades through floodwaters Friday with his daughters, Nylah and Aria, in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Crystal River, Fla., about 80 miles north of Tampa. Cleveland Clinic researchers have discovered a new bacterium that weakens the immune system in the gut, potentially contributing to certain inflammatory and infectious gut diseases. The team identified the bacterium, Tomasiella immunophila (T. immunophila), which plays a key role in breaking down a crucial immune component of the gut's multi-faceted protective immune barrier. Identifying this bacterium is the first step to developing new treatments for a variety of inflammatory and infectious gut diseases. These conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's and ulcerative colitis, are associated with decreased levels of secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA), an antibody that protects mucosal surfaces. The study, published in Science, was led by Thaddeus Stappenbeck, M.D., Ph.D., chair of Cleveland Clinic's Department of Inflammation and Immunity, and Qiuhe Lu, Ph.D., research associate and the paper's first author. Our research represents a critical role of a specific component of the gut microbiome in human health and disease. By identifying this specific bacterium, we have not only enhanced our understanding of gut diseases but also opened a promising new avenue for treatment. Pinpointing the culprit behind the breakdown of the gut's protective adaptive immune barrier is a significant step toward developing much-needed therapies for conditions like inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's and ulcerative colitis." Dr. Thaddeus Stappenbeck, M.D., Ph.D., Chair of Cleveland Clinic's Department of Inflammation and Immunity In the gut, SIgA binds continuously to microbes, preventing them from reaching and damaging the body's tissue. In previous research, the team discovered that intestinal bacteria could reduce SIgA levels, which can lead to increased risk of infection and excess inflammation. In this new study, researchers found that T. immunophila's presence in the gut increases susceptibility to pathogens and delays repair of the gut's protective barrier. T. immunophila's name is an homage to a pioneer in immunology. SIgA was discovered by Dr. Thomas Tomasi, who published his findings in a foundational paper in Science in 1963. "Drs. Stappenbeck and Lu's rigorous and elegant study provides a key insight and an exciting potential mechanism for why some people have low or absent levels of SIgA in their gut, yet retain normal levels of SIgA in their bloodstream," says Michael Silverman, M.D., Ph.D., a physician with the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Silverman, whose expertise includes immune system development, provided input on the research findings. "This discovery is quite important, as SIgA in the intestine functions as a critical component of the barrier for the trillions of microbes that live in our intestines," Dr. Silverman said. "This study provides a new avenue to develop therapeutics to manipulate SIgA in the gut and improve health." "We know that there are a substantial number of patients that have this defect in are at risk for infection and inflammation in the intestine," said Dr. Lu. "We surmised that a gut microbe that can degrade SIgA was the culprit. We believe that important therapeutic targets for a variety of inflammatory and infectious diseases in humans can be found through our work." Pregnant women who do not get enough sleep may be at higher risk of having children with neurodevelopmental delays, according to new research published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Short sleep duration (SSD) is defined as sleeping less than seven hours per night. Pregnant woman may have trouble sleeping due to hormonal changes, pregnancy discomfort, frequent urination, and other factors. It's been reported that almost 40% of pregnant women have SSD. These women may have a higher risk of impaired glucose tolerance, insulin resistance and gestational diabetes, and their children may be at higher risk of experiencing neurodevelopmental delays. These children are slower to develop their social, emotional, behavioral, motor, cognitive, or speech skills. This study highlights the necessity of managing sleep health during pregnancy. By shedding light on the connection between maternal sleep during pregnancy and children's neurodevelopment, our study empowers families with knowledge that can shape healthier pregnancy habits and contribute to the well-being of the next generation. Improving sleep habits during pregnancy may prevent or reduce the risk of neurodevelopmental issues in children." Peng Zhu, M.D., lead study author of Anhui Medical University and the MOE Key Laboratory of Population Health Across Life Cycle in Hefei, China The researchers analyzed sleep data from 7,059 mother-child pairs from 3 different hospitals in China. They screened the children for developmental delays from 6 months to 3 years old and analyzed the link between maternal sleep duration and neurodevelopmental delay risk. They also evaluated the role of cord blood serum C-peptide levels, which are a stable indicator of fetal insulin secretion. The study found: Insufficient sleep during pregnancy may be associated with an increased risk of neurodevelopmental issues in children, affecting their cognitive abilities, behavioral development and learning capabilities. Boys appear to be at a higher risk of neurodevelopmental delays when their mothers experience SSD during pregnancy, suggesting that gender plays a crucial role in offspring response to prenatal environmental factors. SSD during pregnancy might affect the mother's glucose metabolism, thereby influencing the fetal development environment. There may be a positive correlation between C-peptide levels in umbilical cord blood and neurodevelopmental delays in offspring, indicating that a mother's glucose metabolism during pregnancy may impact the insulin secretion of the fetus and, consequently, their neurodevelopment. "Prenatal health is important not only for the expectant mother but also for the long-term health of the unborn child," said Zhu. Other study authors include: Lei Zhang, Hai-Xia Wang, Yuan-Yuan Zhu, Rui-Rui Ma, and Yu-Hong Wang of Anhui Medical University and the MOE Key Laboratory of Population Health Across Life Cycle; Wen-Xiang Li of Anhui Medical University; and Yu Zhang and Dao-Min Zhu of the Affiliated Psychological Hospital of Anhui Medical University, the Hefei Fourth People's Hospital and Anhui Mental Health Center in Hefei, China. This research received financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Innovative Research Group Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Key R&D Program of China, the Research Funds of Center for Big Data and Population Health of IHM, and the Foundation for Scientific Research Improvement of Anhui Medical University. When a woman becomes pregnant, her iron requirements increase almost tenfold to support fetal development as well as her own increased iron needs. Her ability to meet these increased iron needs depends on her iron stores at the beginning of the pregnancy as well as the physiological adaptations that enhance iron absorption as pregnancy progresses. These physiological adaptations, however, are not always enough to support a pregnant woman's iron needs, especially among the estimated 50% of women who begin pregnancy with depleted iron stores. While often thought of as a problem in low-resource settings, recent studies have documented iron deficiency rates of 33-42% among pregnant women in high-resource settings. Iron deficiency can lead to anemia, a condition in which the body can't produce sufficient hemoglobin, which, in turn, limits the red blood cells' ability to carry oxygenated blood throughout the body. Anemia during pregnancy is associated with a higher risk of both adverse maternal outcomes and adverse infant outcomes, including postpartum depression, postpartum hemorrhage, preterm birth, low birth weight, and small-for-gestational age birth. Even without the presence of anemia, maternal iron deficiency can result in long-term neurodevelopmental challenges for the child. At the moment, screening for iron deficiency during pregnancy is not universally routine. Moreover, there is no generally agreed upon diagnostic criteria for iron deficiency during pregnancy. The most recent draft recommendation from the US Preventive Services Task Force, for example, states that "the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of screening for iron deficiency anemia in pregnant women." In contrast, the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics and European Hematology Society recommend all pregnant women in their first trimester irrespective of the presence or absence of anemia be screened for iron deficiency. Moreover, they also recommend that all women of reproductive age irrespective of the presence or absence of anemia be screened for iron deficiency. Even when screening is conducted, it may be insufficient to detect iron deficiency. In clinical practice, for example, hemoglobin is frequently the only benchmark used to evaluate iron status among pregnant women. Hemoglobin, however only provides an indication of anemia. As a result, poor maternal and infant health outcomes that may develop before iron deficiency advances to anemia may arise undetected. Unfortunately, well-designed studies of the changes in iron status during the course of pregnancy are limited. In response, the authors of "Longitudinal Evaluation of Iron Status during Pregnancy: A Prospective Cohort Study in a High-Resource Setting" evaluated the changes in iron biomarkers throughout pregnancy, established the prevalence of iron deficiency, and proposed iron status benchmarks in early pregnancy that predict iron deficiency in the third trimester. The authors, Elaine K. McCarthy et al., also sought to determine how common risk factors for iron deficiency such as obesity and smoking affected iron status throughout pregnancy. The results of the study, one of the largest studies ever to document the changes in iron status during pregnancy, were published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a publication of the American Society for Nutrition. To conduct their research, the authors worked with data collected from 641 women in Ireland who were pregnant and had a successful delivery for the first time and who participated in the IMproved PRegnancy Outcomes via Early Detection (IMPROvED) consortium project. Samples were taken from the women at 15 weeks, 20 weeks and 33 weeks of pregnancy to determine iron status. Within 72 hours following delivery, information about the pregnancy, delivery, and the baby were obtained from the mother via an interview with a research midwife. Information pertaining to clinical outcomes and complications during pregnancy and delivery were confirmed by reviewing medical records. "In this high-resource setting," the authors found that "iron deficiency defined by a variety of biomarkers and thresholds, was very common during pregnancy, despite the cohort profile as generally healthy." Interestingly, none of the study participants were anemic in the first trimester, yet more than 80% of the women were iron deficient by the third trimester. In particular, the authors noted that "our cohort had higher rates of deficiency in the third trimester than even some low-resource settings." In this study, almost three-quarters of the participants took an iron-containing supplement that contained the Irish/European recommended daily iron allowance of 15-17mg. The authors did note that "iron-containing supplements (mainly multivitamins) taken pre/early pregnancy were associated with a reduced risk of deficiency throughout pregnancy, including the third trimester." According to the authors, these findings draw attention to "the benefit of screening for iron deficiency with hemoglobin and ferritin in defined low-risk populations." Moreover, based on their findings, the authors proposed a threshold for ferritin, a protein that stores iron, of 60g per liter or less at 15 weeks of pregnancy that predicted the presence of iron deficiency at 33 weeks of pregnancy, defined as 15g of ferritin per liter or less. The authors noted that "this has previously been identified as the inflection point at which fetal iron accretion is compromised, leading to poorer neurocognitive function and earlier onset of postnatal iron deficiency in the offspring." In an accompanying editorial to this study, "Finally, a Quality Prospective Study to Support a Proactive Paradigm in Anemia of Pregnancy," also published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, authors Michael Auerbach and Helain Landy bluntly labeled the medical community's approach to women, including the lack of screening and treating iron deficiency and anemia among pregnant women, as "misogyny." Given the study's findings, the editorial calls upon the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the United States Preventive Services Taskforce to "change their approach to diagnosis to screen all pregnant women for iron deficiency, irrespective of the presence or absence of anemia, and recommend supplementation when present for the most frequent nutrient deficiency disorder that we encounter." Looking to the future, the authors of "Longitudinal Evaluation of Iron Status during Pregnancy: A Prospective Cohort Study in a High-Resource Setting" believe that "further good-quality, large-scale longitudinal studies of iron status, with concurrent inflammatory status, are needed to provide the evidence base to help establish much-needed consensus. Moreover, the use of early pregnancy iron biomarkers and thresholds should be instituted in better alignment with clinically meaningful health outcomes." Researchers discover a startling diversity of viruses in Japanese bats, with over 60% infected, including novel strains, highlighting the urgent need for viral surveillance to prevent future pandemics. Study: Detection of various DNA and RNA viruses in bats in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. Image Credit: Agami Photo Agency / Shutterstock In a recent study published in the journal Microbes and Infection, researchers conducted an intensive survey of bat-derived DNA and RNA viruses from the Yamaguchi prefecture, Japan. They sequenced tissue from more than 130 bats (4 species) from four sampling locations and found that more than 60% (n = 80) of them were infected with at least one strain of potentially zoonotic viruses. Alarmingly, the study revealed significant genetic divergence in some viral strains, particularly adenoviruses, and astroviruses, indicating that these viruses may be evolving rapidly. Notably, the study identified ten novel herpesvirus strains, reported the first occurrence of astrovirus in Japanese bats, and revealed numerous representatives of adenovirus and coronavirus families. Over 60% infection rate: The study revealed that more than 60% of bats sampled were infected with at least one viral strain, with 36% showing multiple infections, highlighting the high prevalence of zoonotic pathogens in Japanese bats. These findings highlight the hitherto unknown diversity of viral pathogens in Japanese bats and their surprisingly high prevalence across sampled bat species. The detection of viral sequences that were genetically identical to strains found in China and Korea underscores a potential connection between Japanese and mainland Asian bats despite the general belief that these populations do not intermingle. The study found viral sequences identical to those of Chinese and Korean origins, suggesting limited chiropteran migration between these landmasses. However, the possibility of occasional bat migration or viral exchange through other mechanisms, such as human or animal movement, cannot be ruled out. Additional research to characterize these viruses' life histories and pathophysiologies is imperative before action plans against zoonotic transmission can be formulated, thereby preventing future bat-transmitted disease outbreaks. Background Bats are speciose (>1470 species) and highly successful members of the order Chiroptera, representing at least 20% of all known mammalian species. Unlike other mammals, bats are capable of true flight, with some species known to embark on seasonal migrations of hundreds of miles. These fascinating animals are almost ubiquitous in their distribution, found on every major landmass except the Arctic and Antarctic zones. Capture site of bats in Yamaguchi prefecture, Japan. Capture of the bats was carried out in two tunnels in Iwakuni city (1, located at 34210276N, 13200068E; and 2, located at 34173127N, 131581558E) and in two caves in Mine city (3, located at 34144836N, 131143558E; and 4, located at 34143567N, 131154676E). Individual capture site are indicated on the map by red (Iwakuni city) and blue (Mine city) arrowheads labeled with the corresponding site number. Collection dates are indicated in the YYYY/MM/DD format. Unfortunately, bats are also known reservoirs (natural hosts) for more than 20,000 viral species (33 families), some of which cause zoonotic diseases, including rabies, Nipah, Hendra, Ebola, and coronavirus. Recent research suggests that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, arguably the worst pandemic in human history, originated in Chinese bats. Therefore, monitoring bats and their viral parasites is imperative to prepare for future zoonotic outbreaks. While bats in China and the Western world have been the subject of extensive research, Japanese bats have been comparatively ignored. Hitherto, the limited number of bat-derived virus investigations have only revealed 109 strains (9 families) from the country, a probable severe underestimate of these viral carriers' true pathogenic potential and diversity. This limited research also leaves gaps in understanding how virus strains in Japanese bats genetically differ from those found in other regions, particularly Southeast Asia. Unraveling the viral populations in Japanese bats would allow the island nation and (given bats long-range dispersal ability) the rest of the SE Asian and Australasian region to better prepare for future zoonotic events. About the study The present study comprised a year-long (2021-22) intensive investigation of DNA and RNA viruses inhabiting Japanese bats (n = 132, 4 species) from four locations within the Yamaguchi prefecture, Japan. Bats were captured in nets, and morphological examinations were conducted to classify individuals as Miniopterus fuliginosus, Myotis macrodactylus, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, or Rhinolophus cornutus. Of the 132 individuals captured, 85 were euthanized and harvested for lung (n = 40), brain (n = 40), and rectal swab samples (n = 85). Additionally, oral swab samples were collected from all 132 captured individuals. DNA extracted from samples was amplified using nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to identify and characterize DNA viruses. Similarly, RNA was extracted and amplified using reverse transcription (RT) -PCR followed by nested or semi-nested PCR to identify RNA viruses. While 178 samples were screened for the presence of calicivirus, paramyxovirus, flavivirus, and rotavirus, all were negative for these pathogens. Finally, the Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis (MEGA) software package was used for sequence cleaning and alignment (ClustalW). Cleaned sequences were compared with preexisting genetic data from the GenBank database. Neighbor-joining (NJ) trees were constructed for phylogenetic analysis using MEGA, with visualization done in R Software. Study findings Of the 297 samples collected, 124 (~42%) were positive for viral nuclear material. Notably, more than 60% of screened bats (80 of 132) were found to be infected with one or more virus strains (36% of infected bats presented multiple viral strains). Herpesvirus was the most prevalent viral family, infecting all sampled bat species and present in 42.4% (56/132) of screened oral swabs. In particular, the herpesvirus strains identified in this study displayed phylogenetic similarities to previously identified strains from China and Spain, suggesting a more complex evolutionary history of these viruses than previously thought. Astroviruses (15.2%) and coronaviruses (9.4%) were represented in all sampled species except R. cornutus. Adenovirus was the rarest viral family observed in only five R. ferrumequinum and My. macrodactylus individuals. Herpesviruses isolated in this study were found to belong to subfamilies Betaherpesvirinae and Gammaherpesvirinae, 10 of which were novel to science. Bats infected with herpesviruses often presented multiple strains (a superinfection). In the present study, we also observed some mixed peaks in the Sanger sequencing chromatograms, precluding the accurate determination of nucleotide sequences in these samples (data not shown). Considered together, these lines of evidence strongly suggest that bats may be superinfected with multiple herpesviruses, meaning that the detection of bat herpesviruses by sequencing may be complicated by the presence of mixed sequences derived from distinct viruses. Surprisingly, each of the five animals depicting adenovirus infections presented a unique viral strain, all aligned with sequences from the genus Mastadenovirus. These adenoviruses showed significant genetic divergence from previously sequenced Japanese bat-derived viruses, suggesting a rapid evolutionary process, possibly driven by host-specific factors. This study is also the first report of astroviruses from Japanese bats. Since adenoviruses and astroviruses are often implicated in mammalian interspecies transmission (including humans), additional research on these strains' pathogenicities, transmission routes, and transmission cycles is required to help prepare policymakers and clinicians for future viral outbreaks. To date, many coronaviruses belonging to the genus Betacoronavirus, including merbecoviruses isolated from Vespertilio sinensis and Eptesicus japonensis and sarbecoviruses isolated from R. cornutus, have been detected in eastern Japan. In the present study, only alphacoronaviruses were detected in R. cornutus, although this correlation may reflect the small sample size employed in our study. Further investigation will be needed to identify possible infection of bats by betacoronaviruses, especially sarbecovirus and merbecovirus in the western part of Japan. Conclusions The present study reveals an unexpectedly high prevalence (>60%) of zoonotic viral infections among Japanese bats from the Yamaguchi prefecture. At least 10 novel species of herpesvirus and five novel strains of adenovirus were obtained from genetic analysis, some of which displayed genetic sequences identical to those found in mainland Asia, raising questions about bat migration patterns or alternative routes of viral transmission. The rapid evolution of these viruses highlights the need for routine monitoring and screening of bat populations and parallel epidemiological research on identified strains to help prevent or address future epi- or pandemic viral outbreaks in bats, mammals, and humans. In 2022, nearly 619,000 global deaths due to malaria were caused by Plasmodium falciparum, the most virulent, prevalent, and deadly human malaria parasite. For decades, the parasite's resistance to all antimalarial drugs has posed a big challenge for researchers working to stop the spread of the disease. A team led by scientists at UC Riverside, UC Irvine, and Yale School of Medicine has now designed a new drug against malaria and identified its mechanism of action. The researchers found the drug, called MED6-189, is effective against drug-sensitive and drug-resistant P. falciparum strains in vitro as well as in a humanized mouse model (the mice were engineered to have human blood). The researchers report in the journal Science this week that MED6-189 works by targeting and disrupting not only the apicoplast, an organelle found in P. falciparum cells, but also the vesicular trafficking pathways. They found that this dual mode of action prevents the pathogen from developing resistance, making the drug a highly effective antimalarial compound and a promising new lead in the fight against malaria. Disruption of the apicoplast and vesicular trafficking blocks the parasite's development and thus eliminates infection in red blood cells and in our humanized mouse model of P. falciparum malaria. We found MED6-189 was also potent against other zoonotic Plasmodium parasites, such as P. knowlesi and P. cynomolgi." Karine Le Roch, professor of molecular, cell and systems biology at UCR and the paper's senior author MED6-189 is a synthetic compound inspired by a compound extracted from marine sponges. The lab of Christopher Vanderwal, a professor of chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences at UC Irvine, synthesized the compound. "Many of the best antimalarial agents are natural products, or are derived from them," he said. "For example, artemisinin, initially isolated from the sweet wormwood plant, and analogues thereof, are critically important for treatment of malaria. MED6-189 is a close relative of a different class of natural products, called isocyanoterpenes, that seem to target multiple pathways in P. falciparum. That is beneficial because had only one pathway been targeted, the parasite could develop resistance to the compound more quickly." When researchers at GSK, a pharmaceutical company in Spain, administered MED6-189 to the mice infected with P. falciparum, they found it cleared the mice of the parasite. In collaboration with Choukri Ben Mamoun, a professor of medicine and microbial pathogenesis at the Yale School of Medicine, the team also tested the compound against P. knowlesi, a parasite that infects monkeys, and found it worked as intended, clearing the monkey's parasite-infected red blood cells. Next, the team plans to continue the optimization of MED6-189 and further confirm the modified compound's mechanisms of action using a systems biology approach. Systems biology is a biomedical research approach to understanding the larger picture of a biological system. It offers researchers a way to examine how different living organisms and cells interact at larger scales. Le Roch, Vanderwal, and Ben Mamoun were joined in the research by fellow scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, Missouri; GSK; and the University of Georgia. The research was supported by a grant to Le Roch, Vanderwal, and Ben Mamoun and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health. At UCR, Le Roch directs the Center for Infectious Disease and Vector Research. 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. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and their colleagues have identified a gene responsible for some inherited retinal diseases (IRDs), which are a group of disorders that damage the eye's light-sensing retina and threatens vision. Though IRDs affect more than 2 million people worldwide, each individual disease is rare, complicating efforts to identify enough people to study and conduct clinical trials to develop treatment. The study's findings published today in JAMA Ophthalmology. In a small study of six unrelated participants, researchers linked the gene UBAP1L to different forms of retinal dystrophies, with issues affecting the macula, the part of the eye used for central vision such as for reading (maculopathy), issues affecting the cone cells that enable color vision (cone dystrophy) or a disorder that also affects the rod cells that enable night vision (cone-rod dystrophy). The patients had symptoms of retinal dystrophy starting in early adulthood, progressing to severe vision loss by late adulthood. The patients in this study showed symptoms and features similar to other IRDs, but the cause of their condition was uncertain. Now that we've identified the causative gene, we can study how the gene defect causes disease and, hopefully, develop treatment." Bin Guan, Ph.D., chief of the Ophthalmic Genomics Laboratory at NIH's National Eye Institute (NEI) and senior author of the report Identifying the UBAP1L gene's involvement adds to the list of more than 280 genes responsible for this heterogeneous disease. "These findings highlight the importance of providing genetic testing to our patients with retinal dystrophy, and the value of the clinic and lab working together to better understand retinal diseases," said co-senior author on the paper, Laryssa A. Huryn, M.D., an ophthalmologist at the NEI, part of the National Institutes of Health. Genetic evaluation of the six patients revealed four variants in the UBAP1L gene, which encodes for a protein that is abundantly expressed in retina cells, including retinal pigment epithelium cells and photoreceptors. More research is needed to understand the UBAP1L gene's exact function, but scientists were able to determine that the identified variants likely cause the gene to produce protein that lacks function. Future studies will also be informed by the fact that variants appear to be distinctive to geographic regions. Five of the six families in this study were from South or Southeastern Asia, or Polynesia, regions that have been underrepresented in genetic studies. The research was co-led by investigators at Moorfields Eye Hospital and University College London. The study was funded by the Intramural Research Program at the NEI, and by NEI grants R01EY022356 and R01EY020540. Researchers at the University of Liverpool (UK), and Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tx also contributed to this report. Research reveals potential drug targets for heart disease and stroke, using a combination of genetic and observational data to separate causal from non-causal proteins. Letter: Measured and genetically predicted protein levels and cardiovascular diseases in UK Biobank and China Kadoorie Biobank. Image Credit: Lightspring / Shutterstock In a recent study published in the journal Nature Cardiovascular Research, researchers assessed the association between 2,919 distinct plasma proteins and cardiovascular disease (CVD) outcomes in the UK Biobank (UKB) and China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB), identifying potential causal proteins for novel drug targets. Background Many studies have measured plasma protein levels in individuals with CVD outcomes. However, due to the interrelated nature of proteins, observational studies often struggle to pinpoint those with true causal relevance. One approach to address this is through Mendelian randomization (MR) and genetic analyses, investigating whether genetic loci regulating protein levels are also associated with CVD outcomes. Previous research has found hundreds of proteins linked to myocardial infarction (MI) (a heart attack caused by blocked blood flow to the heart), ischemic stroke (IS) (a stroke caused by a blockage in blood vessels supplying the brain), and heart failure (HF) (a condition where the heart cannot pump blood efficiently), with a limited number showing evidence of causality. Further research is needed to better understand these causal relationships and discover new therapeutic targets for CVD treatment. About the study The UKB is a large, multicenter, prospective cohort study conducted across the UK between 2006 and 2010, involving over 500,000 individuals aged 40-69. Data from 52,164 participants with valid proteomics data were included. The North West Multicentre Research Ethics Committee (UK) and the Swedish Ethical Review Authority granted ethical approval, with participants providing written informed consent. Baseline measurements, including plasma levels of glucose, cholesterol, and creatinine, were collected alongside blood pressure and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). Participants ethnicity was categorized, and socioeconomic status was assessed using the Townsend social deprivation index. Smoking status was recorded as never, previous, or current smokers. Disease outcomes, including MI, IS, and HF, were classified using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) codes. Plasma levels of 2,923 proteins were initially measured using the Olink EXPLORE assay, with 2,919 passing quality control. The CKB study included 512,000 Chinese adults recruited between 2004 and 2008. Data were collected on smoking, medical history, and education. Plasma proteins were measured using the same analytical platform as in UKB. Key findings from UKB were successfully replicated in CKB, strengthening the studys conclusions. Study results In the UKB, 126 proteins were found to be significantly associated with all three CVD outcomes. Of these, 118 were associated with at least one CVD outcome in the replication phase conducted in CKB. Among these, 87 proteins were linked to more than one CVD, while 31 proteins were related to all three CVD outcomes (MI, IS, and HF) at a significance level of P < 0.05. Using Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis, genetically predicted levels of 33 proteins were linked to coronary heart disease (CHD), with the top proteins being Lipoprotein(a) (LPA), Cadherin EGF LAG Seven-Pass G-Type Receptor 2 (CELSR2), Apolipoprotein E (APOE), Feline Sarcoma Oncogene (FES), and Vesicle-Associated Membrane Protein 5 (VAMP5). Four proteins were linked to IS, while 18 proteins were associated with HF, with LPA, CELSR2, and Fibroblast Growth Factor 5 (FGF5) emerging as key players in CHD and HF. Sensitivity analyses using multiple cis-SNPs for MR analysis produced results consistent with the initial findings, enhancing the robustness of these associations. a, A Venn diagram visualizing the overlap of measured protein levels associated with incident CVDs by Cox proportional hazards regression after Bonferroni correction (P < 0.000017, two sided). Only the numbers of proteins are given. For details, see Supplementary Tables 68. b, A Venn diagram visualizing the overlap of genetically predicted levels of proteins associated with the three CVDs (CHD, IS and HF) on MR analysis (Wald ratio method). Only proteins with an FDR <0.05 (two sided) are shown. c, The expression levels of genes coding proteins found to be significant by MR analysis were looked up in human heart and artery tissues on the GTEx Portal. TPM, transcripts per million. Colocalization analysis provided further evidence, showing that 10 proteins had strong shared causal variants with CVD outcomes. Notably, CELSR2 and FGF5 were associated with both CHD and HF, while FURIN was linked to both CHD and stroke. These proteins, especially FURIN, were identified as promising targets for future drug development, supported by additional findings in subclinical CVD markers. Interestingly, observational analyses demonstrated a weaker relationship between protein levels and CVD outcomes compared to MR results. Only 6% of proteins associated with CVD outcomes in the observational analyses were found to have causal relationships in the MR analysis, suggesting that many observational associations were non-causal. This discrepancy is likely due to biases such as residual confounding and reverse causality in observational studies. Proteins like FGF5, Protein C Receptor (PROCR), and FURIN showed consistent evidence of causal involvement in CVD outcomes across both observational and genetic analyses, highlighting their potential as therapeutic targets. FGF5 was implicated in hypertension and carotid artery distensibility, while FURIN, a protease involved in protein activation, was associated with both MI and IS. Conclusions To summarize, the study identified numerous proteins associated with CVD outcomes, but genetic analyses revealed that only a small subset showed evidence of causality. Key proteins such as FGF5, PROCR, and FURIN emerged as potential targets for CVD prevention and treatment. The findings highlight the importance of distinguishing between observational and causal associations in protein studies. Although many observational associations were non-causal, the use of Mendelian randomization and colocalization analyses provided a clearer understanding of which proteins may have direct roles in CVD pathogenesis, offering promising directions for future drug development. Researchers pinpoint brain lesions that reduce PTSD symptoms in veterans, showing that targeting the PTSD circuit with TMS could lead to a breakthrough in noninvasive treatments for trauma survivors. Study: A potential target for noninvasive neuromodulation of PTSD symptoms derived from focal brain lesions in veterans. Image Credit: Andrew Angelov / Shutterstock.com A recent Nature Neuroscience study explores the optimal neuroanatomical target to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in veterans. Neuromodulation and PTSD Approximately 30% of military combat veterans and trauma survivors develop PTSD, a condition that is characterized by depression, suicidal tendencies, and substance use. Existing PTSD therapies include medications and psychotherapy, both of which are moderately effective; therefore, there remains an urgent need to develop more effective treatments for PTSD. Neuromodulation is a powerful technique that activates or inhibits brain circuits associated with a given symptom or disorder. Preliminary assessments have shown that focal modulation of the amygdala with deep brain stimulation (DBS), responsive neurostimulation, and laser ablation are effective for managing PTSD. Circuit-Based Approach: The study highlights the importance of identifying precise brain circuits that are functionally connected to PTSD symptoms, allowing for more targeted neuromodulation therapies. Non-invasive techniques like transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) cannot directly access deep targets within the brain, particularly the amygdala. Nevertheless, this approach can target the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), which has been shown to alleviate major depression. Importantly, two multi-center clinical trials have indicated that effective antidepressant targets may adversely affect PTSD, thus emphasizing the importance of developing targeted treatments specific to PTSD. About the study Based on a previous causal lesion-derived circuit model of PTSD, the current study identified TMS targets associated with PTSD symptoms independent of depression. All relevant data were obtained from the Vietnam Head Injury Study (VHIS). Participants who suffered severe traumatic injuries during the Vietnam War were recruited for the study, 197 of whom had a history of penetrating head injury that caused a focal brain lesion. Fifty-five study participants sustained non-neurological injuries of comparable severity and were considered controls. The boundaries of each lesion were identified through head computed tomography (CT) scans. Study participants with incomplete data were excluded from the analysis. The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV-TR Axis I disorders, Non-Patient Edition (SCID) was considered as the primary outcome. To determine whether a particular brain lesion influenced PTSD symptoms, an unpaired t-test was performed to compare PTSD scores between the brain lesion and control groups. Voxel lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) was used to determine specific voxels associated with PTSD. The resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) between each lesion location and all other brain voxels was estimated using a normative human connectome database. This approach created a whole brain connectivity map for each participant. A total of 193 military veterans with penetrating traumatic brain injury (TBI) were considered to assess whether brain connectivity influences PTSD. Furthermore, 20 veterans were selected to determine whether TMS-induced change in this circuit improves PTSD severity. Study findings Patients with amygdala lesions had lower PTSD scores than those with other lesions, whereas most patients without PTSD symptoms developed lesions outside the amygdala. Brain lesions that were associated with lower PTSD incidence included the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), medial temporal lobe, and anterolateral temporal lobe, which were collectively referred to as the PTSD circuit. Within the PTSD circuit, the tapetum of the corpus callosum, which connects both medial temporal lobes together, was identified as the peak region. The PTSD circuit was not associated with comorbidities like anxiety, alcoholism, or cognitive impairment. When a whole-brain analysis was conducted using the VLSM map, no individual locations associated with PTSD were identified. To clarify the generalizability of the circuit, the lesion-derived PTSD circuit was compared with a map of published PTSD-related neuroimaging findings. To this end, the previously published neuroimaging correlates of PTSD were consistent with the lesion-based PTSD circuit identified in the current study. The researchers also conducted a connectome-wide association study (CWAS), which indicated that PTSD-associated voxels were more likely to be present inside of the PTSD circuit. The default mode network (DMN), which refers to regions of the brain that are active during self-directed thought, contained a significant proportion of PTSD-associated voxels, though to a lesser extent than the voxel density present within the lesion-based PTSD circuit. Targeting the PTSD circuit with TMS Previous studies involving targeted TMS indicate that this treatment induced increased changes in fear when the PTSD circuit was targeted. Additional studies were also reviewed and found to confirm the researchers hypothesis that inhibitory TMS reduces fear conditioning, thereby increasing the effects of a traumatic event in the affected individual, whereas excitatory TMS to the PTSD circuit may improve fear. In the current study, the researchers treated a 62-year-old man with treatment-resistant PTSD due to childhood physical abuse with TMS targeted to the PTSD circuit. The patient underwent a total of 50 sessions of accelerated intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) over a seven-day period, following which the patient reported sustained improvements in his PTSD symptom severity for four weeks. The peak superficial node in the PTSD circuit, the medial prefrontal cortex, may serve as a promising TMS target for PTSD. New study reveals that 12-week supplementation with the coffee compound cafestol significantly reduces body weight and visceral fat in individuals at risk for type 2 diabetes. Study: Effects of 12-Week Supplementation with Coffee Diterpene Cafestol in Healthy Subjects with Increased Waist Circumference: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trial. Image Credit: PeopleImages.com - Yuri A/Shutterstock.com Researchers conducted a randomized, controlled trial (RCT) in a recent Nutrients study to assess the effects of pure cafestol on insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance in healthy individuals with an elevated waist circumference at risk of developing insulin-independent diabetes. Background Diabetes is a rising metabolic disorder that affects millions of individuals throughout the world. It is critical to discover safe and cost-effective approaches to prevent and manage diabetes. Studies demonstrate an inverse relationship between coffee consumption and insulin-independent diabetes, although causative evidence is lacking. Most coffee intervention studies employ instant coffee, which has a low quantity of diterpenes like kahweol and cafestol. Cafestol, a bioactive molecule found in coffee, has been demonstrated to reduce blood glucose levels and increase insulin secretion. However, its long-term effects on fat mass, glucose metabolism, and potential as a type 2 or insulin-independent diabetes prevention strategy remain unknown. About the study In the present double-blinded RCT, researchers investigated whether administering cafestol to healthy individuals with large waist circumferences could enhance mixed-meal reactions, insulin sensitivity, and body fat proportions. The researchers conducted the trial at the Steno Center in Aarhus, Denmark, including 40 adults aged up to 80 years with waist circumferences exceeding 102 cm for males and 88 cm for females. None were pregnant or breastfeeding, had type 2 diabetes or other significant comorbidities, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) exceeding 6.5%, or consumed antidiabetic medications. Participants were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to receive 6.0 mg capsules of cafestol (intervention) or a placebo twice daily over 12 weeks. They visited the center six times for the study. At the initial visit, researchers inserted continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) sensors on one arm of the participants to measure glucose levels. They placed ambulatory blood pressure monitors (ABPM) on the alternate arm to record blood pressure over 24 hours. At the subsequent visit, individuals underwent mixed-meal testing (MMT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and provided blood samples. At the third study visit, individuals completed insulin suppression tests (IST), following which the researchers initiated the intervention. Six weeks post-intervention, they assessed kidney and liver function using participant blood samples. The fourth (10 to 11 weeks post-third visit), fifth, and sixth visits were similar to the first, second, and third visits, respectively. Participants filled out questionnaires to indicate intervention adherence at six weeks. The primary outcomes included steady-state plasma glucose (SSPG) levels during IST and four-hour total area under the curve (tAUC) values for glucose during MMT. Secondary outcomes included tAUC values for triglycerides (TG), glucagon, and insulin during magnetic resonance spectroscopy, HbA1c, and MMT. Other outcomes included subcutaneous and visceral fat volumes measured by MRI, blood pressure while awake and asleep, mean blood glucose, glucose variability, and time within the normal range measured by CGM. Study recruitment began on April 23, 2022. The intervention commenced on June 22, 2022, and the final participant visit occurred on December 22, 2022. Participants were allowed to drink drip coffee and instant coffee with low diterpene levels in unrestricted amounts but only one cup of unfiltered coffee beverage (French press coffee, expresso, or boiling coffee) per day. Results Participant ages ranged between 25 and 78 years. Among the participants, 6.0 mg of cafestol consumed two times per day did not improve glucose tolerance or insulin sensitivity but significantly reduced body weight, visceral fat volumes, and gamma-glutamyl transferase levels by 2.0%, 5.0%, and 15%, respectively, compared to the placebo. Mean visceral fat volumes were significantly decreased by 400 mL among cafestol recipients. In addition, the team observed a statistically significant inter-group difference in weight/body mass index change. Cafestol users lost 880 g of weight, whereas placebo users gained 920 g. Further, the intervention group showed significantly higher free-fatty acid (FFA) levels in the initial (hypoinsulinemic) than in the subsequent (hyperinsulinemic) stage of IST compared to the placebo group. The initial FFA levels could indicate increased insulin resistance in the adipose tissues of cafestol consumers. No participant showed abnormal liver or renal function changes. Cafestol modestly increased alanine aminotransferase levels in one individual with infectious mononucleosis. Side effects included increased flatulence, nausea, loose stools, and mild headaches. Six mg of cafestol did not alter low-density lipoprotein (LDL), total cholesterol, or blood pressure. The findings indicate that the dosage used in the present study is unlikely to pose a cardiovascular risk. Conclusion The study found that cafestol could lower body weight, visceral fat, and gamma-glutamyl transferase levels. Cafestol did not affect glucose tolerance or insulin sensitivity, but it may contribute to the observed inverse correlations between coffee consumption and insulin-independent diabetes. Future studies must determine the effects of higher doses provided over prolonged periods, especially among individuals with impaired glucose metabolism and insulin-independent diabetes. During the 15th Annual Meeting of the World Mitochondria Society (WMS), taking place in Berlin, Germany, groundbreaking research on mitochondria-targeted medicine in military settings will be highlighted. This research, particularly focused on Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and polytrauma, is of significant interest due to the high incidence of such injuries in combat, where multiple organs are affected by mechanical trauma, thermal injuries, or exposure to harmful agents such as chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear materials. Mitochondria-targeted medicine has emerged as a crucial area for military medicine, especially for addressing TBI. Research from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research has emphasized the essential role of mitochondrial function in the acute phase following TBI. The research shows that TBI leads to bioenergetic failure and disruptions in calcium and redox balance, which are critical for recovery. The findings suggest that therapies aimed at restoring mitochondrial function may serve as an effective neuroprotective approach. Moreover, the detection of mitochondria-specific markers in biofluids presents exciting opportunities for advancing diagnostics and therapeutics for TBI. These discoveries could lead to more accurate diagnoses and the development of personalized therapies that enhance recovery for military personnel. "The potential to target mitochondrial function in TBI treatment opens new doors for more effective interventions, offering hope for improved outcomes for service members affected by combat injuries", said Dr. Jignesh Pandya, a leading researcher on the project. These findings, which underline the military's growing focus on mitochondria-centric therapeutic strategies, will be a focal point of discussion at the WMS Annual Meeting, attracting attention from the global scientific and medical community. The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) has announced a delay in the opening of the final 76-km stretch of the Samruddhi Mahamarg, which runs from Igatpuri to Amane in Thane. This stretch was expected to open around September-October after finishing work on a massive 84-meter-high bridge at Shahpur, equivalent to a 28-story building. However, the opening will now be postponed until all roadwork is completed, as confirmed by The Indian Express. Anil Kumar Gaikwad, the vice-chairman and managing director of MSRDC, stated that the delay is mainly due to ongoing work on a crucial 1-km section that connects Amane to the Sangrilla Resort on the old Mumbai-Nashik Highway. This segment is essential for improving connectivity. The roadwork is part of the under-construction Vadodara-Mumbai Expressway leading to JNPT Road. This project, managed by MSRDC on behalf of the NHAI, is expected to finish by November. The 4.5-km road will link the end point of Samruddhi Mahamarg at Amane to the old Mumbai-Nashik Highway. While 3.5 km of this road is complete, the remaining 1 km involves the demolition and relocation of several warehouses and godowns, which will take some time, according to Gaikwad. He emphasized that opening the Samruddhi Mahamarg without completing the Vadodara-Mumbai JNPT road could lead to significant traffic issues. Once operational, the 76-km stretch of Samruddhi Mahamarg will cut travel time between Amane and Igatpuri to just 40 minutes, down from over 90 minutes via the old route. Currently, 625 km of the total 701 km Samruddhi Mahamarg is already open to traffic, allowing travel from Nagpur to Amane in Thane in about eight hours, compared to the previous 16-hour journey. Diffusion Engineers IPO: The initial public offering of Diffusion Engineers Ltd, which was opened for public subscription on September 26, received 7.34 times subscription on the first day of bidding. The price band of the Rs 158-crore IPO has been fixed at Rs 159 to Rs 168 per share for the public issue. On the second day of bidding on Friday, September 27, the IPO received a 27.22 times subscription garnering bids for 17,95,82,744 shares as against the 65,98,500 shares on offer. The category for non-institutional investors received 47.08 times subscription, while the portion for retail individual investors (RIIs) got subscribed 33.95 times. The QIB category received a 28 per cent subscription. Diffusion Engineers Limited, founded in 1982, is active in the manufacture of welding consumables, wear plates and parts, and heavy machinery for core industries. Diffusion Engineers IPO: Key Dates The IPO will remain opened for public subscription between September 26 and September 30. The share allotment of the Diffusion Engineers IPO will likely be finalised on October 1, while its shares will be listed on both BSE and NSE on October 4. Diffusion Engineers IPO: Price Band The price band of the Rs 158-crore IPO has been fixed at Rs 159 to Rs 168 per share for the public issue. Diffusion Engineers IPO: GMP Today According to market observers, unlisted shares of Diffusion Engineers Ltd are trading Rs 90 higher in the grey market than its issue price. The Rs 90 grey market premium or GMP means the grey market is expecting a 53.57 per cent listing gain from the public issue. The GMP is based on market sentiments and keeps changing. Grey market premium indicates investors readiness to pay more than the issue price. Diffusion Engineers IPO: Analysts Recommendations Master Capital Service Ltd in its IPO note said Indias heavy engineering capital goods industry is estimated to be Rs 3,100-3,200 billion as of fiscal 2024 and is projected to clock a CAGR of 7.5-8.5 per cent over fiscals 2023- 27 to reach Rs 3,800-3,900 billion. Diffusion Engineers plans to take advantage of this growth-fueled environment by focusing on a strategic expansion into nickel, cobalt, and iron-based powder manufacturing for an enhanced welding consumables portfolio. The company also intends to expand its geographical reach and increase its exports through its subsidiaries and joint ventures. Further, the company is focusing on diversifying its Anti Wear Solutions and Heavy Engineering Equipment business into new industries and providing customized solutions for the same across various industries. Investors looking to invest can invest in the IPO for the medium to long term, Master Capital Service stated. SIMFS in its IPO note the welding consumables market in India, estimated at Rs 51 billion in FY24, is projected to reach Rs 64-66 billion by FY27, driven by rising infrastructure investments. The wear plates market is also expected to grow from Rs 22 billion in FY24 to approximately Rs 28 billion in FY27, supported by rapid industrialisation. DELs strategic expansion into manufacturing nickel, cobalt, and iron-based powders will enhance its portfolio, reduce import dependence, and align with the Make in India initiative, boosting profitability through in-house production. Geographic expansion, notably in Turkey with the incorporation of Diffusion Eurasia Muhendislik Sanayi Ve Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, and exports to 26 countries, further solidifies DELs global footprint. We recommend to subscribe to the issue as a good long term investment as the company is expected to clock steady growth rates aided by capex and expanding international footprint coupled with reasonable valuations and backward integration and product diversification aiding margin improvements, SIMFS stated. Diffusion Engineers IPO: More Details Diffusion Engineers IPO is a book built issue of Rs 158 crore. The issue is entirely a fresh issue of 0.94 crore shares. Diffusion Engineers IPO opens for subscription on September 26, 2024 and closes on September 30, 2024. The allotment for the Diffusion Engineers IPO is expected to be finalized on Tuesday, October 1, 2024. Diffusion Engineers IPO will list on BSE, NSE with tentative listing date fixed as Friday, October 4, 2024. Diffusion Engineers IPO price band is set at 159 to 168 per share. The minimum lot size for an application is 88 Shares. The minimum amount of investment required by retail investors is 14,784. The minimum lot size investment for sNII is 14 lots (1,232 shares), amounting to 206,976, and for bNII, it is 68 lots (5,984 shares), amounting to 1,005,312. The issue includes a reservation of up to 50,000 shares for employees offered at a discount of Rs 8 to the issue price. Unistone Capital Pvt Ltd is the book running lead manager of the Diffusion Engineers IPO, while Bigshare Services Pvt Ltd is the registrar for the issue. Sugar Stocks Rally Today: Sugar stocks saw ample sweetness during the morning session after Food Minister Pralhad Joshi announced the government is mulling increasing ethanol prices and raising the minimum selling price (MSP) of sugar. At 9.40 am, EID Parry, Balrampur Chini Mills, Bajaj Hindusthan Sugar, Shree Renuka Sugars and Triveni Engineering shares jumped over eight per cent in trade. The petroleum ministry is seized of the matter. We are in touch with petroleum ministry. It is well under consideration to hike the ethanol price, Joshi told reporters on the sidelines of an industry conference here. Regarding sugar exports, Joshi stated, We will take a decision after looking into next years production and availability of sugar. The minister also said a committee of secretaries is deliberating on a proposal to increase the minimum selling price of sugar, which has remained unchanged at Rs 31 per kg since February 2019. Joshi was optimistic about sugar production for the 2024-25 season starting October, citing favourable monsoon conditions. Ethanol prices, set by the government, have not been raised since the 2022-23 ethanol supply year (November-October). Current rates of ethanol produced from cane juice, B-Heavy molasses, and C-Heavy molasses are Rs 65.61, Rs 60.73 and Rs 56.28 per litre, respectively. The food minister highlighted that the introduction of sugar MSP in 2018 has significantly reduced cane dues to farmers, with about 99 per cent of Rs 1.14 lakh crore paid. Indias sugarcane cultivation area has increased by 18 per cent to 6 million hectares in the last decade, with production up 40 per cent to 491 million tonne, Joshi added. Speaking on the occasion, Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said the sugarcane crop outlook for 2024-25 is very good due to favourable monsoon conditions. In his welcome address, industry body ISMA President M Prabhakar Rao requested the government to increase the sugar MSP to at least Rs 39 per kg and allow exports of 2 million tonne. ISMA has projected gross sugar output at 33.9 million tonne in the 2024-25 season (October-September) with upward revision looking into good monsoon. With diversion of 4-4.5 million tonne for ethanol production and a closing stock of 8.3 million tonne, there will be 2 million tonne available for exports in the 2024-25 season. Exports should be allowed immediately as the global prices have firmed in the last two weeks on reports of likely drop in Brazil crop. We can regain the lost market, ISMA Vice President Gautam Goel added. Analysts Take Even if sugar export is allowed, the subsidy on exports is a thing of the past. Sugar prices currently do not favor exports. Industry had hoped that MSP would be fixed at over Rs40/kg, with current demand at Rs45/kg. However, the prevailing macroeconomic environment does not provide a conducive environment for changing the MSP, said InCred Equities. In a move aimed at curbing the arbitrariness and dictatorship of builders in Noida, the district administration has taken strict action against defaulting builders to recover dues under the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA). Around 60 builders owe nearly Rs 2,600 crore to the Noida Authority. The district administration is taking concrete steps to recover this amount. Recovery certificates (RCs) are being issued against defaulting builders, and strict actions are being taken to recover the dues under RERA. This firm stance has caused panic among builders in Noida and Greater Noida. The district administration has already issued RCs against builders and companies in Noida and Greater Noida that are not complying with orders from the Uttar Pradesh Real Estate Regulatory Authority (UP RERA). Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) for Finance and Revenue, Atul Kumar, stated that RCs are being continuously issued because it involves peoples hard-earned money, and the administration is handling the matter strictly. In April, Rs 15.63 crore was recovered. The amount rose to Rs 46.05 crore in August. In an exclusive conversation with Local 18, Atul Kumar said that a total of Rs 148 crore has been recovered in this financial year. Some builders are from Delhi or other districts. The District Magistrate is coordinating with the respective district officials for those recoveries. The SDM said that letters are being sent, discussions are ongoing, and action is being taken against the defaulters. We are hopeful that in the coming days, we will achieve even better results. The accounts of defaulting builders are being seized continuously, he added. Polling in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as Haryana is yet to be completed, but the Election Commission of India has already held back-to-back visits to Jharkhand and Maharashtra in the last few days. The Election Commission (EC) may soon announce dates for the assembly elections in these two states, sources said. News18 has learnt that the dates for Jharkhand and Maharashtra are likely to be announced in the first half of October while elections could be held mid-November after festivals, including Diwali and Chhath Puja. While the EC team, headed by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar, visited Jharkhand on September 23 and 24, it is currently in Maharashtra since Thursday (September 26). Maharashtra The poll body reached Mumbai in the night and held review meetings with different agencies for the upcoming assembly elections on Friday (September 27). The CEC team also held back-to-back meetings with 23 central and state enforcement agencies, for an inducement-free election in the state; with the chief secretary, director general of police (DGP) and other administrative secretaries of Maharashtra; as well as national and state parties for their feedback. The term of the 288-member Maharashtra legislative assembly will end on November 26. It is a normal practice for the CEC to visit poll-bound states to finalise preparations ahead of announcing election dates. Only a week before it announced the dates for Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, the team had visited the state and the UT. Kumar went to J&K between August 8 and 10, and then to Haryana on August 12 and 13 before announcing dates on August 16. The elections in Jammu and Kashmir are underway and the third and last phase will be held on October 1. Haryana will go to polls on October 5. The counting of votes will be held on October 8. Jharkhand The term of the 81-member Jharkhand assembly is due to expire on January 5, 2025. When the CEC met with political parties in Ranchi, the poll body was urged to ensure that festivals like Diwali, Chhath, Durga Puja and the state foundation day in October and November should be considered before deciding on the election schedule, so that there is enhanced participation in the poll process. The EC was told many voters in the state will be travelling during Chhath, while many parties also requested a single-phase election. During its two-day review, the panel also held a meeting with the chief secretary and DGP to review the overall poll preparedness, as well as law and order. It directed the chief secretary that assured minimum facility should be ensured at all polling stations while the DGP was asked to ensure regular coordination meetings with counterparts in border states. Jharkhand shares a long border with five states Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh. Kumar highlighted that the implementation of law and the EC guidelines should be in letter and spirit without any bias. Last month, News18 reported that the ECI may announce election dates for Maharashtra soon after completing the J&K and Haryana polls, like in 2014. Back then, the poll body completed the polls for Haryana and Maharashtra on October 19 (Sunday) and, by October 25 (next Saturday), it announced the schedule for Jharkhand and J&K. A similar practice could be expected this time as well, although the pairing of the states will change. At least 11 of the 26 seats from Jammu and Kashmir that went to polls in the second phase saw more women voters in attendance than men, data released by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday shows. The average voter turnout was 57.31%. The male voter turnout was 58.35% against the female turnout of 56.22%. However, there were 11 seats 10 from Jammu division where the female voter turnout was higher than male. The 10 seats of Jammu division that went to polls earlier this week and witnessed higher women voter turnout were Gulabgarh, Reasi, Kalakote-Sunderbani, Nowshera, Rajouri, Budhal, Thannamandi, Surankote, Poonch Haveli and Mendhar. Shri Mata Vaishno Devi was the only seat from the Jammu division where male voter turnout was higher. In Kashmir, Khansahib seat reported higher female voter turnout. In terms of overall voter turnout, the newly formed Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Assembly constituency saw higher voter turnout at 80.45%. The seat also saw the highest male voter turnout (80.78%) as well as female (80.08%) among all seats. It was the only seat that reported more than 80% voter turnout in the 26 seats. On the other hand, Kashmirs Habbakadal seat saw just 19.81% voter turnout. The male voter turnout in Habbakadal was 22.96%, while female was 16.70% lowest in respective categories across the 26 seats. As many as eight seats witnessed less than 50% voter turnout Eidgah (36.95%), Lal Chowk (34.15%), Hazratbal (32.39%), Central Shalteng (31.84%), Zadibal (30.78%), Channapora (29.53%), Khanyar (26.09%), and Habbakadal (19.81%). ALSO READ | In Phase 1 of J&K Polling, Women Voters Outnumbered Men in Six Assemblies Last week, News18 reported about the voter turnout in the first phase of polling and that in at least six of the 24 seats that went to polls first, women voters outnumbered men. The six seats where women outnumbered men in voter turnout were Bhadarwah, Doda, Doda West, Inderwal, Kishtwar and Kokernag. Five were from Jammu division while one, Kokernag, was from Kashmir. Jammu and Kashmir, an erstwhile state, is going to polls for the first time after 2014 and post the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019. The 90-seat assembly will have three-phase elections. The first phase covering 24 seats was held on September 18, the second phase covering 26 seats went to polls on September 25. The third and the biggest phase with 40 seats will vote on October 1 before counting of votes on October 8. It was an election rally in a state where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is facing 10 years of anti-incumbency and in a Jat capital Sonipat where the community is seen to be anti-BJP. While using other metaphors and tools, Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned something that would blur the communitys preference or geographical distance Kashmir. Referring to the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) polls, the Prime Minister accused the Congress also considered the leading party in the Haryana polls and its allies of not liking peace there. Several brave soldiers from Haryana are safeguarding the countrys borders. But the Congress and their associates do not like peace in Jammu and Kashmir. The Congress wants to bring back Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir. It wants to promote terror and algav (separatism) there, he said. Modi said that when the polls are held peacefully in J&K, brave mothers of Haryana feel happy. Haryana, with 2% of the total population of India, accounts for 11% of the soldiers in the Indian Armed Forces. A rough estimate suggests that 10% of Haryanas population belongs to the immediate family of soldiers with 200,000 on active duty. A fact the Prime Minister is well aware of, which is why he addressed the mothers of those serving on duty, appealing to their sensibilities. A significant portion of the population includes dependent spouses or children of Haryanvis in the armed forces and those who are retired. Almost every second family in Haryana has someone who works for the Indian Armed Forces be it the Army or paramilitary forces. Theres a reason why Modi kicked off his 2014 Lok Sabha campaign from Rewari in Haryana, promising ex-servicemen One Rank One Pension on September 15, 2014. LIVE: PM Shri @narendramodi addresses public meeting in Sonipat, Haryana https://t.co/HJUGBmD9zn BJP Madhya Pradesh (@BJP4MP) September 25, 2024 THE SONIPAT BREATHER, QUESTION FOR CONGRESS When Modi said in Sonipat that there are many from the state who helped normalise the situation in J&K, he created a stake for Haryana in this Naya Kashmir a term he often refers to while describing a Jammu and Kashmir that is development-oriented. A week ago at another election rally in Katra, he said, The huge participation is proof of Naya Kashmir. In Sonipat 619 km away from Katra the Prime Minister accused the Congress and NC of wanting to reinstate Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and said that would shatter the Naya Kashmir many, including the brave sons of Haryana, risked their lives to create. What Modi did amid his dalal, damaad attacks was make Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Kumari Selja, Devender Hooda, Randeep Surjewala and others answerable for Congresss promise and alliances in Kashmir. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJPs performance in Haryana was a wake-up call for the party. In Haryana, the BJP managed to win five of the 10 Lok Sabha seats with 46.1% votes, while the Congress won five seats and polled 43.7% votes. The BJPs vote share declined by 12 percentage points, from 58% in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Meanwhile, the Congress added 15.3 percentage points to its 28.4% vote share in 2019. This shift in votes during the past five years was a reason the BJP had to ask for its finest option Narendra Modi. But in an anti-incumbency election, even masters like Modi have their limitations, beyond which the state leadership will have to deliver. However, everyone in the state BJP you speak to now is happy with this breather Modi has given in Sonipat. They will use it as a template from here onwards till the campaigning loudspeakers fall silent ahead of the election on October 5. Shiv Sena MP Milind Deora on Friday said the ruling Mahayuti alliance BJP, Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led NCP is confident of returning to power in Maharashtra in the upcoming assembly elections. He slammed the opposition for creating obstruction in the progress of the state as well as its capital Mumbai. Speaking at the CNN-News18 Town Hall event, Deora also responded to questions on the real Shiv Sena the faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the other by his predecessor Uddhav Thackeray. He said the Election Commission of India backs the Shinde camp, but the electorate will decide who it favours in the elections ahead. #CNNNews18Townhall | Who is the real Sena is something which the strike rate of both the parties defines. Politically in 2019, Maharashtra voted for NDA, its the UBT faction which insulted the verdict of people : @milinddeora, Shinde Sena#Maharashtra | @Zakka_Jacob pic.twitter.com/qHYVcsWjR0 News18 (@CNNnews18) September 27, 2024 Who is the real Sena is something that the strike rate of both the parties defines. What will happen at the assembly elections, is left to the electorate. Whats most important is how we take Maharashtra and Mumbai forward, he said during the event in Mumbai, when asked about which Sena faction is the real legacy-keeper of the historic party. Politically in 2019, Maharashtra voted for NDA, it was the UBT (Uddhav Thackeray) faction that insulted the verdict of people and took a U-turn. Things will be laid to rest in these elections, he said. Talk is cheap, action very difficult to implement; they had two years, but nothing happened. So, we have a very good chance of coming back to power. UBT Sena used BMC as an ATM Deora further spoke about what can be done to transform Mumbai and Maharashtra. He said as a Mumbaikar, he is passionate about his city and is excited by the transformation it undergoing. My own personal journey has been extraordinary; in our state, country, even world in fact, there are ideological divides. But, my father always told me that more than ideology, trust ideas. Projects I have been trying to push through, since a decade or so ago, are taking shape now, he said. On major incidents of civic infrastructure collapse in Mumbai like the billboard collapse that claimed 14 lives he said the UBT Sena used the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) as an ATM for 30 years. #CNNNews18Townhall | Pothole debate in Mumbai has reduced because the roads have started to improve. For 25-30 years Uddhav sena used municipal corporation as an ATM : @milinddeora, Shinde Sena #Maharashtra | @Zakka_Jacob pic.twitter.com/jhyuCngGB3 News18 (@CNNnews18) September 27, 2024 For 25 to 30 years, Uddhav Thackeray Sena used the BMC (largest corporation in the world) as an ATM. Im not saying its perfect now, but it cannot change in one year. But, people are talking about the roads now and, during the monsoon, the pothole debate has also reduced, he said. He further said the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) spends 2 per cent of its annual budget on repairing Mumbais roads, which is an indication of corruption. We have tried to break this contractor-politician nexus. It will take time to unravel this, to carry out the reforms needed, he added. Asked about why the BMC elections were still pending, the Rajya Sabha MP said the EC is responsible for calling the local body polls. The next election, not just in Mumbai, but also Maharashtra will be the civic body elections. For six months, when the MVA was in power, it did not call an election. It was pending before the Supreme Court due to the OBC quota issue. But, were ready now, he said. He said the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) is set to expand, and will be the economic as well as social growth driver for not only Maharashtra but India; especially in the light of some big projects coming up Atal Setu, coastal road, Phase II Metro, and now the Dharavi redevelopment project. #CNNNews18Townhall | Metro was delayed due to a young man's ego. If you're in power or in opposition & deliberately delaying projects, how will it work? By opposing developments, you are hurting Mumbai: @milinddeora, Shinde Sena#Maharashtra | @Zakka_Jacob pic.twitter.com/gNmtpwr48G News18 (@CNNnews18) September 27, 2024 Metro was delayed due to a young mans ego. If youre in power or in opposition and deliberately delaying projects, how will it work? By opposing developments, you are hurting Mumbai, he added. Popular American rapper Sean Diddy Combs was arrested on September 16 after accusations of sex trafficking were levelled against him. As reported by the Department of Homeland Security in their investigation report, the rapper forced women to participate in sexual activities with male sex workers and recorded it to blackmail them later. Amidst this, a former colleague has come forward and claimed that no one was safe at the parties after a certain hour. In a new TMZ documentary The Downfall of Diddy: The Indictment, Dr. LaJoyce Brookshire opened up about the atmosphere at Diddys parties. Brookshire worked closely with Diddys label when she was a past publicity director at Arista Records. She revealed that she did not stay at the parties to witness what happened but sensed that something was wrong. She said, My spidey senses were always on high alert. I know that theres no safety after a certain hour when youve got drinks flowing people behind your back doing drugs in bathrooms, and two or three people walking out of a bathroom together. So could there potentially be? Absolutely. Did I see it? No. I never stayed at the party late enough to see. Additionally, the host of the No Jumper podcast Adam22- also shared similar sentiments. He said, There was a lot of talk of Diddy parties. It was always known if you went to a party at Puffs house, and were you to stay past certain hours, you might be introduced to a massive orgy. I dont think it was common knowledge that there was nonconsensual stuff going on or any of the seedier allegations. But it was definitely discussed. Diddys attorney, Marc Agnifilio, has dismissed these allegations. A recent report has revealed that the rapper is willing to testify at his criminal trial. Star Plus most popular show, Anupamaa, has been making headlines as many prominent actors took an exit from the show. The storyline is also reportedly headed for a significant leap with major plot twists that are expected to keep the viewers hooked. Recently, Madalsa Sharma and Sudhanshu Pandey bid farewell to the show, and post leap, Rupali Ganguly and Gaurav Khanna are said to be retained on the show. A latest Pinkvilla report has shed light on the new lead character, who is expected to be introduced after the leap. As per the report, the new character in Anupamaa post leap would be named Kajal. According to sources, the producers are looking for an appropriate actress who can play this independent, feisty, fun-loving and vulnerable character in the show after the leap. The publication quoted the source as saying, Kajal will be free-spirited and spunky but will have a lot of emotions hidden. The makers are penning a tragic backstory for Kajal, who has lost her father because of her mothers mistake and thus is quite cold towards her. She holds her mother responsible for her fathers death and this is living away from her. She wishes to fulfill her fathers lost dream. She is a person who finds a way to help the poor and can even con the rich people to help the poor. After announcing her exit from Anupamaa recently, Madalsa Sharma had also confirmed the news regarding the leap. During an interview with a media portal, the actress noted, Right now the show is taking a leap of 15 years; this has been discussed for a long time. 15 years is not a small time, and I think that many people (actors) are going to say goodbye to the show right now. Anupamaa started airing on Starplus back in 2020, and is available digitally on Disney+ Hotstar. It is produced by Rajan Shahi and Deepa Shahi under the name Directors Kut Productions. It starred Rupali Ganguly, Sudhanshu Pandey, Madalsa Sharma and Gaurav Khanna in lead parts, along with Kunwar Amar Singh, Gaurav Sharma, Alpana Buch, Nidhi Shah, Arvind Vaidya, Aurra Bhatnagar and others in key roles. The current storyline of the show revolves around Anupamaas former in-laws, the Shahs, who have sought refuge in Asha Bhavan, where Anupamaa, is looking after them. Close to a year into conflict in Gaza, Israel and Hezbollah are locked in fierce cross-border fighting and are on the verge of a full-blown war. This conflict, which is intensifying with every passing day, could leave Lebanon in ruins a country already grappling with severe political and economic hurdles. Despite its small size, the strategically located nation has often been at the centre of major conflicts in the Middle East due to its borders with Syria and Israel. Years of civil wars and regional conflict left much of the capital city in ruins, with neighbourhoods like West Beirut bearing scars from bombings and sectarian violence. Once dubbed the Paris of the Middle East, Beirut has become a city marred by rubble. Its History and Geography The countrys troubled history dates back to the end of WWI, which led to the establishment of the French Mandate over Lebanon in 1920. The French created Greater Lebanon and included several religious communities in the mix, which laid the groundwork for future sectarian tensions between Christians and Muslims. During the mandate period, Lebanon experienced both economic growth and social unrest. The capital city of Beirut emerged as a cultural hub, attracting intellectuals and artists from across the Middle East region. However, claims of preferential treatment to certain communities fostered resentment among others, setting the stage for future conflicts. The mostly Arabic and French-speaking countrys geographic location has made it a battleground for regional powers. Nestled between Syria to the north and Israel to the south, Lebanon has often been caught in wars involving its neighbouring countries. Its coastal position along the Mediterranean Sea further enhances its strategic importance. The presence of Palestinian refugees since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War has also complicated Lebanons internal dynamics. Palestinian factions used Lebanon as a base for attacks against Israel, prompting retaliatory strikes that have destabilised the country further. The Lebanese Civil War The Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) was a key moment in the countrys history. The conflict began from a deep-seated sectarian divide worsened by political corruption and foreign influences. Various factions, including Christian militias and Palestinian groups like the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), vied for power. The war resulted in over 100,000 deaths and massive destruction of infrastructure. Hezbollah emerged during this tumultuous period as a Shiite militant group backed by Iran. Initially formed to resist Israeli occupation following its invasion in 1982, Hezbollah quickly evolved into a key military force within Lebanon. Backed by Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hezbollah developed into one of the most powerful paramilitary outfits in the region. Over the years, it expanded its influence beyond military operations and became an integral part of Lebanese politics. Hezbollah Strongholds In the fateful year of 2006, Hezbollah fighters ambushed an Israeli patrol and took two soldiers hostage in a cross-border raid. That sparked a monthlong war between Hezbollah and Israel that ended in a draw, but Israeli bombardment wreaked widespread destruction in southern Lebanon. Israels objective was eliminating Hezbollah, but the Lebanese group came out stronger and became a key military and political power on the Jewish countrys northern border. Military experts often underline how Hezbollah operates primarily from southern Lebanon but has established strongholds in multiple locations throughout the country. These locations are strategically chosen not only for their military advantages but also because they are often densely populated areas, where civilian presence complicates retaliatory actions. In southern Lebanon, cities like Tyre and Sidon serve as launch points for rocket attacks against Israel. These areas provide the Iranian-backed outfit with direct access to the border. In Beirut, the Dahiyeh neighbourhood is known for its dense population and serves as a key base for Hezbollahs activities. The Bekaa Valley is another critical region for Hezbollah, offering logistical support due to its proximity to Syria. Growing capabilities Hezbollahs military capabilities have surged over the years, and it has played a key role in the Syrian civil war, helping keep President Bashar Assad in power there. It has also helped train militias in Syria and Iraq, as well as Yemens Houthi rebels. Israel estimates Hezbollah has some 150,000 rockets and missiles, including guided missiles and long-range projectiles capable of striking anywhere in Israel. Throughout its latest conflict with Israel, Hezbollah has gradually introduced new weapons to its arsenal. While Hezbollah initially began launching anti-tank missiles and rockets, it eventually introduced explosive drones and surface-to-air missiles for the first time. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has warned Israel that his group has new weapons and capabilities, and it has published surveillance drone footage taken deep inside northern Israel that showed the port of Haifa and other sites far from the Lebanon-Israel border. History Repeats Itself In the past few days, Hezbollah has struck deeper into Israel than at any time in the past year. Since Monday, Israel has responded strongly by targeting thousands of locations across Lebanon, killing over 600 people and wounding 1,645. This military response has caused a wave of displacement as thousands fled from southern Lebanon to the north. It was a staggering one-day toll that shocked a nation accustomed to war. This was by far the deadliest barrage since the monthlong 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, when an estimated 1,000 people in Lebanon were killed. In the coming days, how the two warring sides act could have far-reaching effects on the fate of Lebanon. Turkish President Erdogan, known to criticize India over the Kashmir problem chose to keep silent in the United National General Assembly and did not say a word in criticism of India. This has led to speculations that India has become important for Turkey because it intends to join the BRICS group which has India, Brazil, Russia, South Africa and China as its members. Turkey has applied for full membership of the BRICS group. To include Turkey as one of its members, all the member countries have to agree to it. In the recent past, there has been some discomfort in Turkeys relations with the major countries of NATO. Several challenges have mounted up before Turkey in the European economy, and hence it is on the lookout for new markets. Turkey is also keen on building a different identity for itself in the changing global era, which can give it more strength. Why Do Turkey, Which is in Europe and a part of NATO Want to Join BRICS? Turkey is looking for new economic platforms outside Europe. It is believed that by joining BRICS, Turkey aims to strengthen its role as a bridge between the East and the West, which will increase its strategic importance in international affairs. Turkey wants to bring changes in its foreign policy, which will bring about a change in its image of aspiring to be a leader of all Islamic countries. A change in Turkeys attitude has been recently observed. It seems to be moving away from its hardline Muslim-centric approach. BRICS Largely Works As An Economic Organization. How Can It Help Turkey? BRICS may provide Turkey access to new markets. By joining BRICS, Turkey can get easy access to emerging markets and its trade relations can be diversified. Till now, Turkeys economy was dependent on the European market, which has declined in the last few years. The attempt to become the leader of the Islamic countries could not help Turkey in creating a Muslim market for itself. Now, Turkey wants to get its foothold in two largest Asian markets- China and India. Out of these two, it is mainly targeting the Indian market. What Other Benefits Can Turkey Reap From Joining BRICS? Turkey estimates that close relations with the BRICS countries can attract new investments. It can create employment opportunities for itself. It also sees the possibility of funding from the BRICS New Development Bank for infrastructure and renewable energy projects. Are Changing Equations In the World Forcing Turkey To Take Such A Step? According to analysts, Turkeys changing tone is more about making a place for itself in the changing geopolitical scenario. Turkish President Erdogan, who was usually seen taking aggressive stances is now showing signs of being restrained. There is a change in the tone and content of his speeches in global forums. In BRICS, Brazil, China and India are currently emerging as the worlds largest economies. By joining BRICS, Turkey will place itself in a group that advocates a more equitable global order, challenging the dominance of West-led institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. This can also be a strategy aimed at maintaining relations with both Eastern and Western powers. This dual approach can make Turkey a major player on the global stage. What effect will Turkeys efforts to join BRICS have on its relationship with NATO? Turkeys desire to join BRICS is being seen as part of its broader strategy to diversify its international partnerships beyond the West. This move allows Turkey to assert its autonomy in foreign policy while maintaining its membership in NATO. Analysts believe that Turkey will not exit from NATO but will try to boost its geopolitical advantage by joining both Western and non-Western powers. Will this move worry NATO? The presence of countries like Russia and China in the BRICS group and Turkeys move for its membership in the bloc will undoubtedly worry NATO. Membership in BRICS can certainly be considered to be contrary to the spirit of NATO. There will be conflict of interests which will affect Turkeys relations with other NATO members. For instance, when Turkey purchased Russias S-400 missile system, it led to tension among the NATO countries. Hence this move is bound to complicate Turkeys trade relations with its NATO allies. However, this economic diversification will be important for Turkey. This is because Turkey is currently facing challenges in the process of joining the European Union. In any case, Turkeys relations with the NATO countries have entered a stage of uneasiness. Will this further increase Turkeys regional influence? Turkeys possible BRICS membership can increase its influence in the Balkan, Middle East and Central Asia. This can establish it as a major player in global affairs. Will this also affect its relations with Muslim countries? Turkeys participation in BRICS could facilitate stronger diplomatic and economic ties with Muslim-majority countries, such as Iran and Egypt, which have not been the case so far. However, many Muslim countries, including Iran and Egypt, did not like Turkeys attempt to establish itself as a leader within the Islamic world. What is the status of Turkeys membership in BRICS at present? Has Turkey applied for it? According to a senior Kremlin official, Turkey has officially applied for full membership in the BRICS group of emerging economies. In September 2024, President Putins foreign affairs advisor Yuri Ushakov confirmed that Turkey had submitted an application for full membership in BRICS. Turkish President Erdogan has expressed in several occasions that Turkey intends to join BRICS. Russia is currently chairing the BRICS group. It said that Turkeys application for membership will be considered. The 2024 BRICS summit is scheduled to be held in Russia next month, in which the expansion of the group and the possible membership of Turkey can be considered. How many full members are there in BRICS? When did it start? BRICS took shape as a group in September 2006. It was started by Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). After South Africa was accepted as a full member in September 2010, its name was changed to BRICS. However, now the bloc has a total of 10 full members. The new full members are Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In recent times, it has been seen that Muslim and African countries are being attracted to this organization. Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, at the CNN-News18 Town Hall on Friday, said incidents such as the Badlapur one shouldnt be glorified with slogans. I was the CM and home minister of the state from 2014-19. For the past 2.5 years, I have been the home minister. I dont believe in fake encounters. People should be punished as per the law. The sooner, the better. Rule of the law should be followed. In this case, we had filed the charge sheet in record time. One of the three wives of the accused filed a sexual assault case against him. We were taking him for investigation when he attacked. If someone attacks police, they will retaliate. This led to a storm on social media. It is a medium which praises you, and even brings you down. So many reactions [such as Badla Pura Hua] came on social media. We shouldnt praise such incidents. ALSO READ | Fake Narrative, Vote Jihad Hurt BJPs Lok Sabha Show, Maharashtra Polls Are Different: Fadnavis At News18 Town Hall Akshay Shinde was killed in an exchange of fire inside a police vehicle when he was being taken to Badlapur from Taloja jail on Monday evening (September 23). He was a sweeper on contract at a kindergarten school in Badlapur, where he allegedly sexually assaulted two four-year-old girls. The Bombay High Court on Wednesday noted there were discrepancies in the entire timeline leading to Shindes death and asked for the call records of all the five people present in the police van at the time of the incident. The court also said the CCTV footage from the time Shinde emerged from the barrack and entered the van, till the time his body reached the hospital, should be seized. On the courts reaction to it, Fadnavis said, The court is doing its job. When it sees the material, there will be observation. Remarks are not observation. #MaharashtraPolitics: The incident in #Badlapur, where the accused was shot in an encounter, should not be glorified. I have never supported the idea of fake encounters says @Dev_Fadnavis, Maharashtra Dy CM @AnchorAnandN | #CNNNews18Townhall #BadlapurEncounter pic.twitter.com/GEOcEXEVgd News18 (@CNNnews18) September 27, 2024 About the Friday morning incident, where a woman entered the home ministers office, he said, She is mentally disturbed. She had attacked others also. The court released her taking it into account. She keeps going around saying she wants to marry actor Salman Khan and asking for his number. She used to sit outside his house, but now the security is beefed up in the wake of Bishnoi threats to the actor. So she is angry that she cant sit there. She is mentally disturbed, what can we do about it? ALSO READ | CNN-News18 Townhall 2024 LIVE Updates HERE When asked if he was comfortable in his chair, Fadnavis said, Whichever chair you get, be comfortable in it, or else you will never get a chair. Fadnavis was part of a session, Can BJP Get Its Math Right?, held as part of the CNN-News18 Town Hall in Mumbai on September 27. Ahead of the Maharashtra elections, the theme of this edition was Road to Delhi via Mumbai? A wedding proposal, heated altercation, multiple affairs, and blind rage led to the gruesome murder of Mahalakshmi in Bengaluru. Glaring similarities between the murders of Shraddha Walkar and Mahalakshmi have led the police to suspect that the prime accused, Mukti Ranjan Roy, may have drawn inspiration from the Walkar case by watching videos recreating the Delhi crime on social media. For 18 days, Mahalakshmis body lay stuffed inside a refrigerator after it was cut into 59 pieces, allegedly with the help of a sharp cleaver knife by Mukti Ranjan Roy, who escaped from Bengaluru, days after committing the gruesome crime, News18 has learnt. BENGALURU CASE: MUKTI RANJAN SAT WITH MAHALAKSHMIs BODY ENTIRE NIGHT Both Mukti Ranjan Roy and Mahalakshmi were allegedly in a relationship for nearly six months, but their affair was tumultuous. They often had arguments, and physical fights, and at times their disputes spilled into the street just outside her house in Vyalikaval, said local police sources. Complaints regarding their altercations were lodged at the Malleshwaram police station, and there had been attempts to settle the matter amicably, explained an official. On the fateful night of September 3, Mukti Ranjan Roy is said to have allegedly come to Mahalakshmis residence. Once again, they argued, as she had been pressuring him to marry her. Mahalakshmi was already married to Hemanth and had a young daughter from that marriage. The couple had separated in September 2023 after she was suspected of having an affair with a man called Ashraf. Her husband named Ashraf as the reason for their separation in his statement to the police. Mukti Ranjan Roy, who knew about the earlier marriage, also suspected that she had other affairs and refused to marry her. They would often argue on this issue, an officer working closely with the case told News18. Mukti Ranjan Roy had once seen pictures of other men on Mahalakshmis phone and was upset about it. He had discussed her aggressive behaviour and the photographs on her mobile with his younger brother, Smriti Ranjan Roy, who lived in Bengaluru, the officer said. Additional Commissioner (West), Sathish Kumar, told News18 that Mukti Ranjans younger brother had confessed to the police about Mukti contacting him after the murder, and his detailed statement was being recorded. We are recording his statement under Section 164 of the CrPC. His statements match to what the accused has mentioned in his suicide note, Kumar said. According to the police, Mahalakshmi was known to be hot-tempered, and complaints of physical assault between the two parties were lodged with the local police. There was also a similar case registered by her estranged husband Hemanth at Nelamangala police station. He had complained that she bit him during an argument and demanded money, said investigators working on the case. The investigation further revealed that the murder took place between September 3 and 4. On that fateful night, after a heated argument, Mukti Ranjan Roy allegedly lost his temper. After assaulting Mahalakshmi, leading to her death, a furious Mukti Ranjan allegedly sat with the dead body through the night, planning ways to dispose of it. The police suspect that this is when he watched videos on how to dispose of the body. MUKTI RANJAN BOUGHT A KNIFE TO CUT MAHALAKSHMIs BODY The next morning, on September 4 at 11 am, CCTV footage confirms Mukti Ranjan Roy going to a utensil shop in Malleshwaram and buying a cleaver knife. We have footage of the accused entering the shop, and later evidence indicated that the accused threw away an item, which was later discovered to be the knifes cover, said a police source. After committing the heinous crime, Mukti Ranjan switched off his phone and went into hiding. His younger brother, Smriti Ranjan, who lives in Hebbagodi near Electronic City, tried to contact him but found his number switched off. After a few days, when Mukti Ranjan Roy switched his phone back on, Smriti Ranjan asked him why he had gone incommunicado. This is when Mukti Ranjan Roy confessed to his brother that he had committed murder. He asked him to immediately vacate the room where he was staying. He explained that he was very upset with the way Mahalakshmi treated him. He also complained to him about their constant fights and that her violent behaviour had frustrated him, leading to her murder, explained an investigating officer. Mukti Ranjan instructed his brother to flee the area, warning him that the police would come after him as well. The younger brother, Smriti Ranjan, confessed to the police that Mukti Ranjan even borrowed money from him after confessing to the murder, informing him that he was heading towards their hometown in Odisha to escape from the police. The police traced Mukti Ranjans mobile in West Bengal. However, it was switched off. After more technical analysis, it was found that Mukti Ranjans number was active in Odisha, and the Bengaluru Police dispatched three teams to track and apprehend him. Technical data, scientific analysis, and CCTV images helped us track the prime suspect in this case. Based on the enquiry of Mukti Ranjans brother, residing in Bengaluru, we found that Mukti Ranjan had confessed to murder before him. Further, Mukti Ranjan had confessed to killing Mahalakshmi in his suicide note, which was found near his body. We will continue our investigation after receiving more details from our teams and our counterparts in Odisha, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) Shekhar HT. BENGALURU MURDER CASE: MUKTI RANJANs SUICIDE On September 25, Mukti Ranjan Roy was found hanging from a tree in Bhadrak, Odisha, near his hometown. It is learnt that he had sought help from a friend in Balasore for a two-wheeler, promising to return the vehicle later that day. In his handwritten suicide note, Mukti Ranjan confessed to murdering Mahalakshmi. I did it. I killed her. I was fed up with her. Her constant fights and demands for money were very frustrating, the note, written in Odia, read, according to police sources in Odisha. The police suspect that Mukti Ranjan Roy may have ridden the two-wheeler to Odisha in his attempt to escape. They are in the process of tracking down who provided him with the vehicle and what route he took. The police teams from both states, Odisha and Karnataka, have been coordinating with each other to piece together this heinous murder, which has shaken the country much like the Shraddha Walkar case. The ongoing tussle between the Delhi Lieutenant Governor and the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to an abrupt halt on Thursday evening after the election for the last member of the Standing Committee of the civic body was called off. The postponement of the election was followed by a day-long gridlock, despite an eight-hour stand-off on the House floor, three adjournments, protests, and the intervention of VK Saxena, who insisted it be held by 10 pm. Later, the officials from the Raj Bhavan announced that the fresh date for polls is Friday at 1 pm. Referring to the Lieutenant Governors message that the election has to be held by 10 pm, AAP leader Manish Sisodia said, How can elections be held without councillors? AAP and Congress councillors have gone home. He added that Elections on one hours notice is unconstitutional. The election for the standing committee of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was postponed on Thursday as the house meeting was adjourned, following a protest by AAP councillors against the decision to ban mobile phones in the house. Mayor Shelly Oberoi postponed the election and adjourned the house till October 5. LG VK Saxena Overturns Decision Lieutenant-Governor VK Saxena, however, intervened and overturned the poll postponement decision and directed MCD Commissioner Ashwani Kumar to submit a report about the conduct of the election by 10:00 pm on September 26. He also ordered the Deputy Mayor be made the presiding officer for the poll if the Mayor refuses to hold it. In case the Deputy Mayor also refuses, the senior-most member of the House will preside over the election, he ordered. The order read, Whereas, the Lt Governor, while passing the directions for conducting the election, also directed that if Mayor is not available or refuses to preside over the meeting, the Dy Mayor may be requested to do the same and if both are unwilling or unavailable, the senior most member in order of seniority may be requested to discharge the function, the order further said. Uncertainty loomed large till late evening. Around 11 pm, the MCD officials confirmed that the election was postponed again for Friday. BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. The 79th session of the UN General Assembly has featured a High-Level Forum on Climate Transparency in New York at the initiative of Azerbaijan, the presiding country of COP29, Trend reports. The event gathered high-ranking officials from nearly 80 countries and international organizations. The main goal of the forum was to support the process of preparing Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs), a key component of the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) under the Paris Agreement, and to strengthen cooperation in this area between partner countries, donor organizations, and other stakeholders. COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev highlighted the importance of climate transparency in his opening remarks, informing participants about the work undertaken by the COP29 presidency on this issue and outlining future action plans. He noted that the BTRs, which will be presented for the first time this year, play a vital role in objectively assessing progress in climate change efforts. Babayev also emphasized the importance of training workshops organized in Baku and other regions worldwide under the COP29 presidency in cooperation with the UNFCCC Secretariat and other partners for the development of BTRs. The event included a presentation of the Baku Global Climate Transparency Platform (BTP), which is considered a key legacy of COP29 on climate transparency and aims to build trust between countries and enhance capacity in developing BTRs. COP29 Chief Negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev stressed in his speech that the BTP will become an important platform for global climate transparency. He highlighted that the main goal of the BTP is to foster trust among participating states and support developing countries in creating and improving BTRs, continuing the transparency agenda beyond COP29, and promoting universal participation in the ETF. During the event, Kazakhstan's Presidential Adviser and Special Representative on International Environmental Cooperation Zulfiya Suleimanova and Italys Special Envoy on Climate Change Francesco Corvaro presented a roadmap for climate transparency and BTRs, along with upcoming action plans. The event's panel discussions featured speeches by ministers and deputy ministers from Japan, Egypt, Samoa, the US, Turkiye, Switzerland, Germany, France, Georgia, and Hungary, along with lead climate negotiators and representatives of the UN, UNDP, UNEP, and the OECD. They emphasized the importance of the COP29 presidencys contribution to climate transparency and expressed their support for the BTP. 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. 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 at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla stressed on accountability and transparency for public representatives in a thriving democracy like India, as he gave the inaugural address of the 21st Annual Conference of CPA India Region, Zone III in the Mizoram Legislative Assembly. As representatives of the public, we are all accountable to the public. We need to ensure not just that, but also need that we promote transparency, Birla said. Speaking about the immense potential of the Northeast, he urged, In a democracy like India, we are very competitive. We should be using this competitive spirit for the welfare of the people and adopt best practices. Birla said that in democracy, there is enough space for dialogue, discussion, debate and dissent. The Lok Sabha Speaker also spoke about the role that can be played by the Chair. It is up to each one of us what legacy we want to live behind for the generations to come. It is our responsibility to see that the dignity of democratic institutions is protected, Birla said. Speaking on the first day of the two-day conference, deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha Harivansh Narayan Singh highlighted the work done by the Centre in the Northeast over the past decade. He highlighted how more than Rs 50 lakh crore has been allotted, in addition to the boost in the annual budget from Rs 25,000 lakh crore in 2014 to Rs 1 lakh crore. The progress of the north-eastern states has been marred by geographical issues and legacy problems over the years. But it is well on track now, especially with the commitment of Prime Minister Narendra Modi towards making India Viksit Bharat by 2047, he said. He further highlighted that PM Modi has made an unprecedented 70 visits to the Northeast, making road and air connectivity possible. More than eight new airports have been opened in this region since 2014, and railways has also progressed in many ways. In 2022, Nagaland got its second railway station after a century. Now Nagaland can be connected to Guwahati in Assam. Vande Bharat trains have also become a reality in many states in this region, he said. Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma highlighted the need for transparency in legislation. Legislative sanctity refers to the integrity, credibility and inviolability of our laws and processes. It is the foundation upon which democratic governance stands. In a region as diverse and vibrant as Northeast India, fostering legislative sanctity is not just important; it is imperative, he said. Legislative processes should involve diverse stakeholders, including civil society, local communities, and marginalised groups. We need to implement civic education programmes that inform citizens about their rights and the legislative process. Awareness campaigns can empower individuals to engage actively with their representatives and hold them accountable, said the CM. The central theme of the two-day conference is Fostering the Legislative Sanctity. The conference will also focus on the inclusion of the Northeast Region in the India-ASEAN Vision for Trade and Cooperation and Merging the Ministry of DONER with NEC for better strategic planning and coordination of various projects in the region. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) is an international community of Commonwealth Parliaments and Legislatures working together to strengthen the Commonwealths commitment to high standards of democratic governance and the parliamentary system. The CPA is one of the oldest organizations in the Commonwealth. Established in 1911, the federation is made up of more than 180 legislatures divided between nine geographical regions of the 54 Commonwealth countries. It provides an opportunity for MPs and parliamentary staff to collaborate on issues of mutual interest and share good practices. So far, 20 Regional Conferences have been organised in the Northeastern States including the programmes organized by the North Eastern Region Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (NERCPA) and CPA Zone-III. CPA North East Region has been organizing this regional Conference regularly since 1997. The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) on Friday launched a probe against former RG Kar Medical College principal Sandip Ghosh over illegal construction of his four-storey residence in Kolkata, said officials. The KMC served notice to Ghosh under Section 544 of the CMC Act, 1980, which gives the Municipal Commissioner and other authorised officers the power to enter and inspect land and buildings to ensure compliance with the Act, rules, and regulations of the corporation. Located on Badan Ray Lane off CIT Road, the house has been under the spotlight of law enforcement agencies since multiple allegations of Ghoshs involvement in the cover-up of the RG Kar rape and murder case and financial irregularities tumbled out of the closet in the aftermath of the incident on August 9. The local residents reportedly said that Ghoshs residence has illegal construction on the terrace and extension of the boundary wall. Acting on the complaint, the municipality launched a probe into the alleged construction irregularities. Ghosh came under the scanner after the rape and murder of a doctor at the hospital on August 9, which sparked nationwide outrage demanding justice. At the time of the incident, Ghosh was the principal of RG Kar. The former principal of RG Kar Medical College was arrested by the CBI for allegedly misleading evidence and delaying filing the FIR in the rape and murder case of the medic. Ghosh has also been booked by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case pertaining to alleged financial irregularities at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital during his tenure as principal. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu hit back at YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday for claiming his government blocked his visit to Tirumala temple. Stating that no notices have been served to Reddy questioning him for cancelling his visit to Tirupati temple, Naidu attacked him in a similar tone saying, He is spreading lies. The Chief Minister statement came after former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy accused Naidu of spreading sinister lies against him regarding the usage of animal fat in the laddoos at Tirupati temple. He Is Lying: Reddy Accuses CM Naidu Attacking Naidu over his criticism, Reddy said, Animal fat was used in laddus is a sinister lie (spread) by Chief Minister Naidu. He had earlier scheduled a visit to the Lord Venkateswara Swamy temple at Tirumala Hills on Saturday which he cancelled citing security reasons. Reddy said Naidu was spreading lies because he wanted to shift the focus from the his misgovernance in the past 100 days. This is all diversionary tactics. The importance of Tirupati is known worldwide Protecting its sanctity has been the focus in my regime, he said. The entire country, the state, knows my religion. My late father became the chief minister twice and he always took blessings of Lord Balaji. I read the Bible, I respect Hindu religion, traditions and rituals. I also respect Islam and Sikhism. My religion is humanity, write that in the declaration, he said. The Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) chief had said he would visit the temple as part of the statewide temple rituals called for by the party to atone for the sin allegedly committed by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu through his allegations on Tirupati laddus. The sin was referred by his party to Naidus accusations against Reddy, alleging his government used substandard ingredients and animal fat for making prasad laddoos at the Tirupati Temple. However, referring to the demands made by the ruling NDA that he declare his faith before entering the hill shire, he said that one should look at the manner in which people are asking me about my religion to enter the temple. I watch the TV and I am surprised that BJP leaders from other states are targeting me. I am surprised that leaders from other states are trying to stop me from visiting, the former Andhra Pradesh chief minister said. The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) took to social media to respond the Jagans remarks. Who stopped? According to the law, I have to sign that I believe that Swami is the one, if you dont want to do that, then go away.. Who told you not to sign? the TDP questioned in a social media post on X. Naidu Counters The Chief Minister refuted his predecessors claims and said that no one has barred him from visiting the shrine. He further asked Reddy to show the notice if received by the Naidu government. Speaking over Reddys being secular comment, Naidu said, Being secular doesnt mean you have complete disregard for the existing norms at the temple. TTD norms were changed during your time. You should be ashamed of yourself. There is no harm in reading the Bible at night, or anytime of the day, but who gave you the authority of mocking the rules that are in place and above all, hurt the morale of the pilgrims, he added. Accusing him of pushing a false narrative, Naidu said, EO clearly said that after four tankers of AR Foods were utilised by the temple, they started receiving complaints about the quality of ladoos, and eventually sent the samples that arrived later for testing at NDDB, the most credible testing organisation in the country. Jagan pushing a false narrative. Naidu further claimed that several temples were desecrated across the state during Jagans regime. Not just Tirumala, temples were desecrated across the state during Jagans regime. In the last 5 years, there was no investigation into temples where idols were vandalised, a century old wooden chariot was torched by miscreants in Antarvedi yet there are no findings, even in Durga Mata temples. Recently in Anantapur a chariot was torched by YSRCP supporters, he said. Claiming to have set up a robust system, the YSRCP chief said the best ingredients were used for the prasadam. The Naidu government has accused the former YSRCP government of using low quality material for the prasad. The allegations then sparked a massive controversy across the country. But on Friday, Reddy accused the Naidu government of using low-grade material for the laddoos. During the Chandrababu Naidu regime, from 2014 to 2019, nearly 14 to 15 times, the ghee was rejected due to quality issues. There is a robust process. Similarly from 2019 to 2024, 18 times it was rejected and sent back. Whatever I am saying are all facts, the former Andhra chief minister said. Why did Naidu procure ghee of cheap quality during his tenure at 270/- Reddy asked. Jagan Reddy Cancels Temple Run On Friday, ahead of Jagan Mohan Reddys planned visit, the district police issued notice to several leaders and cadre of his party, YSRCP, warning them to not defy Section 30 of the Police Act which is in force. The police were forced to issue notices to the YSRCP leaders at several places in the district as messages are being spread on social media platforms asking the party cadre to gather at some locations in Tirupati in a show of solidarity with the former chief minister, news agency PTI reported. Soon after Reddy had announced his visit to Tirumala, the ruling NDA demanded that the former Chief Minister should declare his faith before entering the hill shrine. He said he visited the temple 11 times and also before he became chief minister. Back then they never asked me about my religion. And now you are slapping me with this notice to prove my allegiance? he said. According to rules, foreigners and non-Hindus should declare their reverence for Lord Venkateswara to have a darshan of the presiding deity at the hill shrine, PTI quoted a former bureaucrat as saying. In todays evening digest, News18 brings latest updates on Tirupati Laddoo Prasadam Controversy, Class 2 Student Killed In Black Magic Ritual In Hathras, and other top stories. My Religion Is Humanity: Jagan Reddys Comeback After Calls To Reveal His Faith Amid Tirupati Laddoo Row Former chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Saturday said that he respects all religions and that his religion is humanity after ruling NDA demanded that he declare his religion before visiting the Tirupati temple. The entire country, the state, knows my religion. My late father became the chief minister twice and he always took blessings of Lord Balaji. I read the Bible, I respect Hindu religion, traditions and rituals. I also respect Islam and Sikhism. My religion is humanity, write that in the declaration, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy told reporters. Read More Class 2 Student Killed In Black Magic Ritual To Bring Success To School In UPs Hathras, Five Arrested A Class 2 student killed in his hostel last week was allegedly sacrificed as part of a black magic ritual to bring success and prosperity to the school in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras, the police said on Thursday. They added that five people, including the director of D L Public School at Rasgawan under Sahpau police station limits, his father and three teachers, have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the incident, reported news agency ANI. Read More Ex-RG Kar Principal Sandip Ghosh Gets KMC Notice For Illegal Construction In Kolkata House The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) on Friday launched a probe against former RG Kar Medical College principal Sandip Ghosh over illegal construction of his four-storey residence in Kolkata, said officials. The KMC served notice to Ghosh under Section 544 of the CMC Act, 1980, which gives the Municipal Commissioner and other authorised officers the power to enter and inspect land and buildings to ensure compliance with the Act, rules, and regulations of the corporation. Read More Unlike The Last 5 Years: Erdogans UN Speech Omits Kashmir In Big Policy Shift, Sparks Debate In Pakistan Pakistan has claimed that Turkeys stance on Kashmir remains unchanged, despite President Recep Tayyip Erdogan omitting mention of it during his speech at the UN General Assembly for the first time since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. Read More Virat Kohli & Ravindra Jadeja Copy Jasprit Bumrahs Bowling Action, Video Breaks Internet WATCH Batting superstar Virat Kohli and world No. 1 Test all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja were seen mimicking star Indian pacer Jasprit Bumrahs bowling action in front of him on Friday (September 27) during Day 1s play of the ongoing second Test between India and Bangladesh in Kanpur. Read More Mahesh Babus Wife Namrata Shirodkar Spoke About Akshay Kumar Hitting On Her: Acting Opposite Him Is Mahesh Babus wife, Namrata Shirodkar, was a popular actress in Bollywood in the 90s. She officially debuted in 1998 with the movie Jab Pyaar Kisi Se Hota Hai. However, she was initially set to make her lead debut alongside Akshay Kumar and Sunil Shetty in Purab Ki Laila Aur Bassim Ki Chaila. This film was never released. Back then, Namrata did an AMA with her fans on Rediff and one person asked if Akshay had flirted with her. Read More Adult star Riya Barde has been arrested by the Maharashtra Police on charges of illegally staying in India. According to the charges against the porn star, she is a resident of Bangladesh and had been staying in India with her family based on forged documents. The police were also on the lookout for her mother, sister, brother, and father in the case. Riya Barde, popularly known as Arohi Barde and Banna Sheikh, in the adult industry, was arrested from Ulhasnagar in the state. A case against her was registered under Sections 420, 465, 468, 479, 34, and 14A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The matter was reported by one of Riyas friends, identified as Prashant Mishra, who told the police that Riya was illegally staying in India. Upon his complaint, the police investigated the case and examined her documents. According to the details, Riya Bardes mother originally hails from Bangladesh but had married Arvind Barde (Riyas father), who belonged to Maharashtras Amravati. Thereafter, she presented forged documents to prove her nationality as Indian. Her family members were identified as Anjali Barde alias Ruby Sheikh (mother), Arvind Barde (father), Ravindra alias Riyaz Sheikh (brother), and Ritu alias Moni Sheikh (sister). Her parents were presently reported to be in Qatar. The police said they had earlier too arrested Riya Barde in connection with a case related to prostitution. A 16-year-old girl was gang-raped by four unidentified persons for six months at a college in Maharashtras Pune. The shocking revelation was made by the minor herself, during a counselling session at the college over the Badlapur sexual assault case, the accused of which, Akshay Shinde, died some days back. The minor said she was gang-raped by the four people inside the washroom and some other places on the college campus. She also claimed the four had filmed the act and had uploaded the same on social media. According to the girls statement, as her videos and photos went viral, she started receiving many calls wherein unknown people spoke to her in an objectionable manner. The accused befriended the survivor on social media. However, they did not know each other personally, news agency PTI reported. The gangrape happened between April and September, the report stated. Soon after the revelation, the police swung into action and arrested the four accused, two of whom were minors. The police also registered a case against them under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. Akshay Shinde, the accused in the Badlapur sexual assault case, was killed in an alleged police shootout earlier this week. He was arrested last month for allegedly sexually assaulting two kindergarten girls at a Badlapur school. Amid the Tirupati Laddu row, Acharya Satyendra Das, the chief priest of Ayodhyas Ram Janmabhoomi Temple, questioned the purity of oil and ghee being sold across the country and demanded an investigation into them. The chief priest said that the prasad offered to the deities should be prepared under the supervision of the priests of the temple. Dass statement on Thursday came amid the controversy over the adulteration of animal fat in the ghee used to make laddu prasadam offered in the Tirupati temple of Andhra Pradesh. Commenting on the recent Tirupati temple prasad controversy, Acharya Satyendra Das has demanded a complete ban on prasad prepared by outside agencies in all major monasteries and temples. The controversy over the use of fat and meat in the prasad of Tirupati Balaji is increasing across the country. Both saints and devotees are expressing anger over this and demanding an investigation, he said. Appealing to all monasteries and temples across the country, Das said that the prasad offered to the deities should be prepared under the supervision of the temple priests. He reiterated the need to check the purity of oil and ghee being sold across the country and alleged that there is an international conspiracy to defile the monasteries and temples of the country by mixing meat and fat in prasad. Speaking about the Tirupati Prasadam (laddu) controversy, former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy gave the idea of conducting an apology ritual in temples on September 28. Jagan Mohan said that Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has sinned by making false claims about Tirupati Prasadam. The former Chief Minister has appealed to the people of Andhra Pradesh to also participate in this apology ritual. Earlier Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu made serious allegations against Jagan Mohan Reddy. On September 18, the Chief Minister had claimed that during the rule of the YSR Congress in the state, vegetable oil with animal fat and fish oil was mixed during preparation of the laddus offered at Tirupati temple. The next day, TDP claimed to have confirmed its allegations by showing a lab report. Following this claim, Andhra Pradesh Deputy CM Pawan Kalyan started observing an 11-day fast on September 22 for atonement. I regret why I could not find out about the adulteration earlier. I apologized to God, I will atone for this, he said. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) urgently needs reform to become more effective, democratic, and accountable, the Secretary (West) of the Ministry of External Affairs said on Thursday, reiterating Indias longstanding bid to make changes to the horseshoe table. During an Open Debate on Leadership for Peace here, Indian diplomat Tanmaya Lal stressed the urgent need for reform of the UNSC and argued that the outdated structure fails to address the escalating global conflicts and security challenges effectively. Lal pointed out that the UNSC was established over eight decades ago, a time when many member states were still colonies. The UNSC has to become representative, transparent, efficient, effective, democratic, and accountable, Lal said while urging for the need for text-based negotiations. Without naming any country, he slammed those resisting meaningful changes to the global governance framework, asserting that such opposition undermines the UNs legitimacy and its contributions to development efforts. READ MORE: Lets Make The UN More Efficient: Frances Macron Backs Indias Bid For Permanent Security Council Seat #IndiaAtUNStatement delivered by Secretary West @meaindia, @Tanmaya_Lal at the UNSC Open Debate on Leadership for Peace. pic.twitter.com/JxVXGZTR5a India at UN, NY (@IndiaUNNewYork) September 26, 2024 UNSC reform India has long sought a permanent seat on the UNSC to better represent the interests of developing nations and the geopolitical realities of the current world order. This push has gained momentum recently, with increased support from various countries. The UNSC currently consists of 15 members: five permanent membersChina, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United Stateswho hold veto power, and ten non-permanent members elected for two-year terms. Lals comments came as part of broader discussions among nations advocating for UNSC reform. The Group of Four (G4), which includes India, Brazil, Germany, and Japan, has reiterated calls for an expanded UNSC that reflects current geopolitical realities. They stress the necessity for greater representation from Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America within both permanent and non-permanent categories. Condemned Pakistan While delivering his remarks, Lal also condemned Pakistan for its support of terrorism. The Indian diplomat highlighted that Pakistans involvement in training and harbouring terrorists is well-documented and called on the international community to reject these actions. It is high time that Pakistan starts working for its own people, he said, stressing that its ongoing export of terror cannot succeed. A Class 2 student killed in his hostel last week was allegedly sacrificed as part of a black magic ritual to bring success and prosperity to the school in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras, the police said on Thursday. They added that five people, including the owner and director of D L Public School at Rasgawan under Sahpau police station limits, and three teachers, have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the incident, reported news agency PTI. Police said the postmortem report revealed that he was strangled. Nipun Agarwal, Hathras Superintendent of Police, confirmed the arrest and said, The child was strangled with the intent to bring prosperity to the school and secure its future. The reports claimed that the accused strangled the child to death on September 22. A boy studying in class 2 has been murdered in the school hostel for a black magic ritual in Hathras UP@Join_AmitSingh with more inputsAvantika Singh | #BlackMagic #Hathras #murder pic.twitter.com/mORMqTXs3W News18 (@CNNnews18) September 27, 2024 Who Planned The Ritual? The initial probe into the case revealed that DL Public School Director Dinesh Baghels father Jashodhan Singh believed in black magic, and together with his son, principal Laxman Singh, and two teachers Ramprakash Solanki and Veerpal Singh they planned to sacrifice a child to bring them fame. Reports claimed that the accused planned the black magic ritual initially for September 6, but it failed after the child smelled foul. Despite attempts to strangle the student, he was saved. The medical reports confirmed signs of strangulation. The accused attempted the ritual on September 22 when they again intended to sacrifice the boy near a tube well of the hostel for the success and prosperity of the school. When the boy became conscious while being taken there, the accused panicked and strangled him to death, the reports claimed. Body found in directors car The boys father lodged the First Information Report (FIR) at Sahpau police station on September 23 blaming the school director for the death of his son. He said that Baghel called him in the morning on September 23 saying that his son was ill and was being taken to the local hospital for immediate medical help. The father further said that when he and his family rushed to the hostel, they didnt find Baghel and the child. The boys family got suspicious and informed the area police. They further traced Baghel and found the boy lying dead in his car. Police has lodged an FIR against them under the section 103 (1) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 against five of them and they have been sent to jail. School functioning without permission Hathras District Basic Education Officer (BSA) Swati Bharti further issued an order to register a case and shut the residential school as it was operating illegally. The school from classes 1-8 was being run permission. The DL Public School hosts around 600 students and the hostel where the boy was killed has students of classes 1 to 5. Reports claimed that the victim was the son of a software engineer in Delhi, Krishna Kushwaha. An investigation into the matter is underway, the police said. With the monsoons final curtain call, its the perfect moment to grab your bags and escape to the stunning mountains for a refreshing getaway with family and friends. India, with its rich history, diverse landscapes and cultural vibrancy, is a treasure trove for travellers. While well-trodden spots like Manali, Shimla, and Rishikesh are beautiful, why not venture off the beaten path? Instead of the usual tourist traps, consider exploring some hidden gem mountain destinations that are waiting to be uncovered. If an adventure in the lesser-known hills sounds appealing, here are some of the best underrated spots to add to your travel itinerary! Chakrata, Uttarakhand:This hidden gem in Uttarakhand is located around 295 kms from Delhi. Surrounded by majestic peaks and lush vegetation, this quaint town offers scenic views, peaceful hikes, and natural wonders like the breathtaking Tiger Falls. The Chilmiri Neck, the highest point in Chakrata, provides a panoramic view of the Himalayan mountain ranges. This could be your best budget-friendly trip. Chopta, Uttarakhand:Another underrated destination in Uttarakhand is Chopta, which is about 416 kms from Delhi. Due to its greenery and scenic vistas, the place is fondly referred to as the Mini Switzerland of India. For trekking enthusiasts, Chopta serves as the base for the famous Tungnath Temple trek, which is the highest Lord Shiva temple in the world. Dharamkot, Himachal Pradesh:Located 476 kms from Delhi, Dharamkot is a stunning hill station that exudes untouched beauty and tranquillity. This hidden paradise, a stones throw from McLeodganj, is perfect for those craving a peaceful escape. For a touch of local charm, hop on a rickshaw for a quick ride to this serene haven your idyllic getaway awaits! Khajjiar, Himachal Pradesh:This hill station, nestled in the Chamba District and 587 kms from Delhi, looks as though it has leapt straight from a postcard. A mere 21-km from Dalhousie, Khajjiar boasts the revered Khajji Nag Temple, a stunning shrine dedicated to Lord Shiva and Goddess Hidimba, built in the 10th century. The crown jewel of this picturesque town is its lake, beautifully framed by lush green meadows, making it a perfect spot for a tranquil retreat. Ziro Valley, Arunachal Pradesh:If youre planning to explore the Northeast region, Ziro Valley is a must-visit. This is the perfect destination for those seeking solitude in the mountains. October is the ideal time to witness the post-harvest beauty of the landscape, with vibrant greenery and clear skies. Located in Arunachal Pradesh, the valley is around 115 km from the state capital, Itanagar. It is known for its gentle hills covered in pine trees and rice farms. These hidden gems invite travellers to uncover the secrets of Indias lesser-known wonders. So, why not add these destinations to your bucket list for your next adventure? The journey awaits! DUSHANBE, Tajikistan, September 27. Tajikistan has officially established diplomatic relations with Namibia, Trend reports via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan. The joint communique was signed by Tajik Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin and Namibia's Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Peya Mushelenga, on the sidelines of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The foreign ministers emphasized the importance of developing bilateral and multilateral relations between Tajikistan and Namibia, noting that this new partnership undoubtedly opens up additional opportunities for both countries. Over the past 30 years, Tajikistan has established diplomatic and friendly relations with more than 180 countries worldwide and has become a full-fledged member of 57 international and regional organizations. Meeting your partners parents is a significant milestone in any relationship, marking the beginning of a new journey as a couple. It is a clear indication that both of you are committed to each other and envision a future together. However, the prospect of meeting your future in-laws can be both exciting and nerve-wracking, especially when it comes to making a great first impression. If youre preparing to take your relationship to the next level and feeling anxious about meeting your future in-laws for the first time, dont fret! We have gathered some helpful tips to keep in mind to ease your nerves and ensure a positive encounter. Check them out! First Impression As the saying goes, First impressions are lasting impressions. Your future in-laws are likely to notice every detail, from your appearance and mannerisms to your conversation style. To ensure you make a positive impact, put in the extra effort to look your best, feel confident, and arrive on time. Being late can leave a bad impression and may be perceived as disrespectful. Ask Questions Dont hesitate to engage with your partners parents by asking them questions. This not only helps you learn more about their family but also demonstrates your genuine interest in getting to know them. A great conversation starter could be asking about your partners childhood or any amusing anecdotes they might have. Avoid Debatable Topics Steer clear of contentious subjects like politics or religion that could spark heated debates. It is best to keep the conversation light and friendly during your first meeting. If sensitive topics arise, try to remain calm and avoid getting too involved in the discussion. Avoid Using Phones Remember, youre meeting your partners parents, not your friends. Excessive phone use can leave a negative impression. Focus on giving them your full attention, as the goal of this meeting is to connect and understand one another better. Be Yourself A common mistake is pretending to be someone youre not to impress your partners parents. Theres no need for that. Authenticity is key; your partner loves you for who you are, and chances are their parents will appreciate your genuine self as well. Avoid putting unnecessary pressure on yourself. Be Respectful Your manners can leave a lasting impression on your future in-laws. Treat them with the same respect you show your own parents, and dont forget to thank them for their hospitality and any food they provide. Bring a Small Present Since this is your first meeting with your partners parents, its thoughtful to bring a small gift. A nice, presentable item can help create a positive impact and show your appreciation for their hospitality. Make sure to keep these tips in mind when meeting your future in-laws, and youll set the stage for a successful and enjoyable introduction. India has reported its first Clade 1b strain mpox (monkeypox) case in Kerala. The patient, a 38-year-old man from Malappuram, recently travelled to the United Arab Emirates, announced the central government officials. His condition is reportedly stable but he is being monitored. More than 70 people are in contact with the infected person as per the Kerala health department and none of them have symptoms till now. This is the first case associated with the new Clade 1b strain that has been associated with increased virulence, an official was quoted as saying by Business Today. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared Mpox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) in 2022, and 30 cases have been documented in India since then. These cases were primarily linked to the Clade 2 strain. The WHO again declared Mpox a PHEIC on August 14, 2024. The monkeypox virus comprises two clades: Clade 1 and Clade 2. Patients in Clade 1, previously known as the Congo Basin clade, have increased severity and have been confirmed in countries other than Africa such as Sweden and Thailand. On the other hand, Clade 2 used to be referred to as the West African clade is mild and has a low R0, currently accounting for the majority of global monkeypox cases in 2022 and 2023. Common Symptoms of Clade 1b Mpox as per WHO: Rash: The rash usually starts in the face and disseminates to other parts of the body such as the palms and soles. It begins on flat areas that gradually become red spots and swelling that turns into painful water-filled blisters. The rash may take two to four weeks to heal after which the skin will return to its normal colour but may be prolonged in immunocompromised individuals. Fever: It is one of the earliest signs that may develop along with the rash or be the first noticeable sign, and is common among patients. Swollen Lymph Nodes: Lymphadenopathy, in particular, is the symptom which can help different mpox from other similar diseases. Other symptoms include headache, muscle ache, back pain, low energy, and sore throat. Dr Badal Taori, Consultant General Medicine at Medicover Hospitals in Navi Mumbai, told HT Lifestyle, Mpox is a type of serious viral infection caused by monkeypox virus (MPXV). It can manifest a range of symptoms like fever, chills and swollen lymph nodes often accompanied by painful rashes that may look like pimples or blisters. Transmission of Mpox Mpox mostly spreads through respiratory droplets and direct skin-to-skin, mouth-to-skin, face to face contact with an affected person. This high risk is associated with those people who have multiple sexual partners. It can also be transmitted via contaminated clothing, through a needle stick and during pregnancy subjecting the fetus to risks. Transmission from animals to humans occurs through contact with infected animals, especially through bite, contact with body fluids and consumption of infected animals or parts of animals. The origin of the virus from animals has not been identified. Dr Manjusha Agarwal, Senior Consultant Internal Medicine at Gleneagles Hospitals in Parel, Mumbai, told HT Lifestyle, One will notice the symptoms of Mpox within 6-15 days after exposure. This disease tends to spread from person to person mainly when one comes in contact with someone who has Mpox. Self-Care And Prevention As Per WHO: Dos Depending on the severity of the side effects, see your doctor or other health care provider. Self-isolate in a well-aerated room. Wash hands often. Wear a mask and cover lesions when in contact with other people. Avoid skin contact with other people. Disinfect shared spaces. The mouth sores should be rinsed with salt water and the body sores in a warm bath. Take medicines like Paracetamol for pain relief and control. Donts With the winter season approaching, the next few months are considered by many as an ideal time for international trips. During this time, several destinations experience pleasant weather with various cultural festivals. One must plan their itinerary with precautions as not all countries are safe for foreign guests. The Indian Government recently advised its citizens to refrain from travelling to Bangladesh due to the ongoing cases of violence in the neighbouring nation. Given that, today, lets look at the countries you should avoid visiting on your next international trip. They include Bangladesh Bangladesh recently erupted into a state of unrest due to the tense political conditions within the country. There have been several violent demonstrations and clashes in urban areas, including the nations capital, Dhaka. The student-led protests due to a shift in government policies have transitioned into widespread violence across the nation. Israel The recent assassination of important Hamas and Hezbollah leaders within certain regions of Israel has resulted in panic. It led to Air India cancelling several flights to cities like Tel Aviv. Some airlines are even avoiding the Middle-Eastern nations airspace due to the conflict. Hence, travel within the country should be avoided to stay out of trouble. Ukraine Visiting Ukraine right now could be extremely dangerous due to their ongoing war with Russia. The country has to deal with frequent missile and drone strikes that target civil infrastructure in populated areas like Kyiv. It has made the situation unpredictable with risks of military attacks and crime. There have also been several reports of foreigners being detained in Russia-occupied areas. Afghanistan Ever since the United States Armed Forces withdrew from Afghanistan, the country has been plagued by several issues. The ongoing security turmoil in Afghanistan has led to an increase in crimes and instability. Taliban have seized control of the governance, resulting in violent incidents in the nation. Syria Visting Syria on your next international trip could prove to be extremely dangerous due to the ongoing armed conflict, acts of terrorism and civil unrest within the nation. The country has been dealing with a civil war since 2011, resulting in widespread violence and instability. The country is also infested with terrorist military factions including ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Iran Another Middle Eastern country on the list, it would be best to avoid Iran on your next international trip. The country has been dealing with protests and unrest for a while, especially for womens rights. Given the harsh restrictions imposed on women, Iran would be an unwise choice for a vacation. World Tourism Day is celebrated annually on September 27 to promote tourisms potential to boost economic growth and foster cultural exchange. The day aims to encourage responsible, sustainable and accessible tourism for all, a mission initiated by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) in 1980. The day is marked by various events, including workshops, conferences, and cultural exhibitions, to encourage sustainable practices in the tourism industry. So ahead of World Tourism Day, lets have a quick overview of the history, theme some inspiring quotes, government initiatives and more. World Tourism Day 2024: Theme This year, the theme for World Tourism Day is Tourism and Peace. Tourism plays an important role in promoting peace as it encourages cross-cultural interactions while also supporting the economies of host countries. The more people travel, the more they encounter different cultures, resulting in greater tolerance and understanding. Moreover, tourism breaks down barriers and creates lasting bonds between nations. World Tourism Day 2024: History World Tourism Day was established in 1980 to commemorate the adoption of the UNWTO Statutes in 1970. This significant moment laid the foundation for the establishment of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation five years later, in 1975. Since then, the day has evolved into a global movement, bringing together governments, individuals, and businesses to highlight the advantages of tourism. Over the decades, World Tourism Day has seen various initiatives in celebrating the potential of tourism to promote peace and sustainability and create a more inclusive and sustainable tourism industry globally. World Tourism Day 2024: Inspiring Quotes Life is short, and the world is wide. Simon Raven Adventure is worthwhile in itself. Amelia Earhart To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries. Aldous Huxley Travel makes one modest; you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. Gustave Flaubert A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Lao Tzu Travellingit leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller. Ibn Battuta The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page. Saint Augustine The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust The traveller sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see. Gilbert K. Chesterton The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are. Samuel Johnson World Tourism Day 2024: Host Country This year, Georgia will host the World Tourism Day. With its picturesque landscapes, the country is the perfect setting to highlight how tourism fosters peace and cultural exchange. The countrys tourism sector has been growing rapidly, enticing millions of international tourists. Located at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, Georgia is rich in history, culture, and breathtaking landscapes. It offers a unique blend of cultures, ancient churches, stunning mountain ranges, and wine regions. Earlier, countries like India, Spain and Mexico have hosted the event. World Tourism Day 2024: Indian Tourism Statistics The tourism industry in India has grown remarkably in the last few years. The tourist sector is expected to contribute over Rs 21.15 trillion (roughly $253 billion) to Indias GDP in 2024. This represents a notable growth over previous years. Here are some key insights from the Ministry of Tourisms Annual Report 2023-24: Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs)9.24 million, indicating a growth rate of 43.5 percent in comparison to the previous year (2022). Foreign Exchange Earnings (FEEs)Rs 2,31,927 crore, a substantial increase of 65.74 percent in 2023. Domestic Tourist Visits (DTVs)India recorded 1,731.01 million domestic tourist visits in 2022, which helped to revitalise the industry after the pandemic. These statistics highlight how Indias diverse offerings, rich cultural heritage and ongoing government initiatives to enhance tourism infrastructure and services are all contributing to the countrys rising prominence as a major global travel destination. World Tourism Day 2024: Government Initiatives to Promote Tourism in India India is all set to become the fifth-largest travel and tourism market worldwide, according to a report by Bernstein. By 2027, the country is expected to have spent $89 billion on foreign travel, up from $38 billion in 2019. In an unending effort to do so, the Indian government is actively working to boost the tourism sector through various initiatives and schemes. Look below the list of key initiatives Binny And Family Movie Review: Binny And Family sees the makers thanking the whos who of the film industry in its opening credits, which, needless to say, is a healthy sight reiterating how Bollywood is one big, happy family. From Vikrant Massey to his toddler son Vardaan, everyone seems to have come together to support this family drama. But does that mean the film is a flawless portrayal of flawed family dynamics? The bond between a grandparent and grandchild is precious. Despite a wide generation gap, theres a beautiful thread woven with empathy, love, warmth, and care that ties them together. Attempting to explore the nuances of this priceless relationship is Binny And Family, which marks the acting debut of Anjini, a third-generation Dhawan. Ssanjay Tripaathis directorial is like a pastel-colored gift box tied with a cute ribbon bow. But what lies within can disappoint you. On paper, the film has all the ingredients to be a heartwarming, tear-jerking relationship drama, but its laidback writing becomes its weakest link. As the title suggests, Binny And Family revolves around a teenager named Binny who lives in London with her parents. Her father is originally from Bettiah, a small town in Bihar, and his parentsBinnys grandparentsstill reside there. Every year, they pay a two-month visit to London. This annual visit freaks Binny and even her mother out, as it means changing their lifestyle to accommodate her grandparents. We come to know that she, along with her parents, moved to the UK five years ago. Currently, shes in the twelfth grade and heads the dramatics society at her school. Like most teenagers, shes a party animal. She spends some nights partying and drinking with her best friend, another Gujarati NRI obsessed with high-end fashion brands and social media. As usual, her grandparents decide to visit her. Once they leave, she sighs in relief. But back in Bettiah, her grandmother falls severely ill. When they decide to fly to London for her treatment, Binny opposes it vehemently, stating that their presence interferes with her life and freedom. She leaves the house at night after her father reprimands her for her behavior, only to learn that her grandmother has passed away. She returns to India to pay her last respects and is struck by guilt, believing that her refusal to allow her grandmother to come to London cost her life. Had she let her come for better treatment, she might still be alive. Driven by guilt, Binny forges a bond with her grandfather, who starts staying with Binny and her parents after his spouses death. After some fits and starts, they get along well, until a predictable anticlimax strikes. Binny And Family takes a one-line plot and stretches it into a 2-hour-20-minute film, which, truth be told, turns into an excruciatingly long and endless affair. The film introduces far too many subplots that dont contribute to the core narrative. Case in point: Binnys grandfather being a beacon of hope for the retired population in his town, and Binnys infatuation with her classmate, Dhruv. The film clings to far too many tropes, but they add no depth or substance to the plot. Binny is portrayed as an angry, moody, rebellious, and nonchalant teenager, which might resonate with many people her age, but it comes off as excessive and unnecessary at times. Teenage pangs are something we can all relate to, but Binnys character leaves little room for empathy. It feels like a forced attempt to justify the upheavals in her life and interpersonal relationships. Early on, we witness an argument between her and her parents where her father complains that she casually throws around the F-word and addictively listens to rap music, emphasizing the generational and communication gap between them. He also mentions that they belong to a middle-class family, yet this piece of information is never highlighted throughout the narrative. Their habits and lifestyle never bear testament to this claim. The director indulges too much in establishing Binnys background, and almost the entire first half is spent doing so. The film only picks up in the second half, but by then, its too late. While the post-interval portion is better than the first, its overloaded with events, leaving you waiting for the rusty ride to end. The makers also try too hard to make it a sappy affair, which comes across as a little too contrived. Despite its heartwarming theme, youll barely find yourself getting emotional. The evolution of Binnys relationship with her grandfather is drawn out over too many sequences, which, honestly, werent necessary, as the point is made early on. The soap-opera-like treatment further slows down the pace. Long, didactic speeches about loving your grandparents turn the film into a damp squib. The makers also attempt to touch upon themes like cultural displacement and the bittersweet complexities of a father-son relationship, but they never dive deeply enough to impact the narrative compellingly. Despite the numerous writing flaws, Anjini delivers a brilliant performance for her debut. Shes confident and possesses stunning screen presence. In confrontational scenes, she gives her all, and in others, she strikes a fine balance between bitterness and sweetness. She brims with potential, and it will be interesting to see what she does next. Pankaj Kapur, as her grandfather, is perfectly cast for the part, and Rajesh Kumar also excels. Their emotional scenes are filled with warmth and restraint and are beautifully portrayed. Himani Shivpuri deserves a mention as the avuncular grandmother. Charu Shankar, on the other hand, suffers from a poorly developed character, and in most scenes, she merely serves as an anchor for Rajesh, despite opposing him a few times. Binny And Family is a one-time watch. You might watch it for the love of your grandparents, but dont expect it to leave you feeling like hugging them. Elizabeth Olsen, best known for her role as Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), has recently expressed her views on acting in front of a green screen. While CGI and green screens are crucial in bringing Marvels larger-than-life visuals to the screen, Olsen admitted it is not her favourite part of the process, claiming its like playing make-believe on camera. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Olsen described how challenging it is to perform in scenes that rely heavily on special effects. She even suggested that Marvel should release the raw versions of their films, without any effects, so that people can see how difficult these scenes are for actors. Its like acting with nothing. You really have to embrace this dumb point of view, where you feel like a 7-year-old playing make-believe. I do believe that at some point they should release a full version of one of the movies, without any of the special effects, so people can see how hard it is, Olsen said. In MCU, all actors face the challenge of performing with extensive visual effects, but Olsens character uses spell-casting abilities, meaning relying heavily on CGI to bring her magical powers to life. As a result, much of Olsens time in front of the green screen is spent performing dramatic arm movements and intricate hand gestures which may appear visually stunning once the effects are added but often feel awkward and exhausting during the actual shoot. Olsen isnt the only actor to speak about the challenges of working with green screens. Game of Thrones fame Emilia Clarke who joined Marvels Secret Invasion, discussed a similar issue last year. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, Clarke said, The stigma is that people dont do any acting in these shows. [But] then youre like, Well, then why are they asking all these great actors to do it, and why are they saying yes? However, there have been actors who have shared a negative mindset about green-screen acting. Anthony Hopkins, who portrayed Odin in the first three Thor films, had expressed his frustration on Marvels reliance on green screens. In a 2021 interview with The New Yorker, Hopkins referred to acting in front of a green screen as pointless acting. Christian Bale, who played Gorr the God Butcher in Thor: Love and Thunder, shared a similar sentiment, calling the experience of green screen acting the definition of monotony. Olsen is busy promoting His Three Daughters, an intense drama where she stars alongside Natasha Lyonne, known for The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Carrie Coon from The Leftovers. Fawad Khan-Sanam Saeed starrer Barzakh made against the breathtaking backdrop of the Hunza Valley, is all set to receive a huge milestone. Directed by Asim Abbasi, the Pakistani drama is based on the liminal space between life and death in Islamic tradition. It is a Pakistani-Indian co-produced drama which got its worldwide premiere on Zee Zindagis YouTube and ZEE5 on July 19. The storyline revolves around a 76-year-old man who shocks his family members by announcing his engagement to the churail (female spirit) of his first love, leading to a whirlwind of emotional confrontations among the bittersweet relations of his family. Waqas Hassan and Shailja Kejriwal co-produced the drama for Zee Zindagi, a programming block on ZEE5 Global that focuses on the Indian subcontinent. Now, Barzakh has been nominated for the Best Drama Series category at the Asian Academy Creative Awards 2024. The awards show will be held in December in Singapore, and the series will compete against entries from 13 other countries in the same category. Elated with the latest recognition, Asim Abbasi in a statement, mentioned how the nomination is an appreciation for the immense hard work of the entire Barzakh team. Writing & directing this show was one of the most surreal experiences. I am truly grateful for the dedication of the exceptional cast and crew, whose unwavering commitment brought this story to life. This recognition not only highlights their excellent performances but also the creative collaboration that made Barzakh possible. I would like to take this moment as an opportunity to thank everyone who believed in this vision and helped us create this show, he said. Indian acclaimed producer Shailja Kejriwal also expressed gratitude to the Barzakh team after it was nominated at the Asian Academy Creative Awards. She said, Being nominated for Best Series at the Asian Academy Creative Awards is a deeply meaningful milestone for our entire team. Were incredibly thankful to everyone who has supported us, especially the global audience that has embraced Barzakh. This story explores universal themes of family, loss, and the emotional bonds that connect us all, regardless of culture or geography. Although the series received much recognition worldwide, it drew criticism from Pakistani audiences. Barzakh was taken down from YouTube in Pakistan on August 9, three days after the finale aired online. It landed in trouble in the country after showing a gay romantic track featuring Fawad Khan, portraying Saifullah with an Italian character named Lorenzo, played by Franco Giusti. The queer angle in the series ignited much debate as a section of Pakistanis believed it was a clash with the Islamic values. Soon, the show makers confirmed that the six-episode series will be pulled down in an Instagram post by Zee Zindagi. We at Zindagi and Team Barzakh extend our heartfelt gratitude to our global audience for their unwavering support for Barzakh a show that was created to bring people together everywhere. But in light of the current public sentiment in Pakistan, we have made the decision to voluntarily withdraw Barzakh from YouTube Pakistan, effective August 9, 2024. This decision underscores our dedication to honouring our audiences without causing alienation, read the statement on behalf of the entire team. View this post on Instagram A post shared by ZINDAGI (@zindagiofficial) While Fawad Khan played the role of Shehryar, Sanam Saeed was seen as Scheherezade in the series. At the IIFA Utsavam 2024 in Abu Dhabi, the legendary duo Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi took to the green carpet, sharing their thoughts on the evolving landscape of cinema and the empowerment of women in the industry. When discussing the changing significance of writers in the film industry, Akhtar expressed optimism about the new generation of talent. Even before us, it wasnt as valued, he noted. There was a large island formed in the ocean, and more will form again. The work Im seeing from the new boys and girls is very good. There are some excellent writers emerging, with a lot of talent, and thats what makes a difference. Youll see, theyll make their mark. Akhtar also hinted at a potential reunion with his longtime collaborator Salim Khan, stating, Dekhiye kya pata kuch bhi ho sakta hai, hum log ek baar phir kar de kuch kamaal, indicating that fans might witness a new script from the iconic duo. Shabana Azmi, known for portraying powerful female characters, addressed the ongoing challenges women face both on and off-screen. India is a country that lives in several centuries simultaneously, she explained. There will be contradictions in terms of how empowered women are. In some instances, theres been huge progress, while in others, we still have much more to give. When asked about contemporary actors embodying superstar status, Azmi pointed to Alia Bhatt. Alia is a very, very fine actor. Although she gives the effort on set of being very effortless, I think her instincts are very good. Shes shown her versatility in diverse roles, she said. Azmi was also asked about which of her films she would recommend to todays audiences if given the chance to re-release one. Without hesitation, she mentioned Mahesh Bhatts Arth, a film she believes served as a beacon for the womens movement in India. Its significant for its portrayal of womens struggles and empowerment, she asserted. Kanye Wests Malibu home has officially been sold, with the sale closing on September 26. The Tadao Ando-designed property has found a new owner after a $21 million (Rs 175 crore approx) deal, according to a TMZ report. Kanye Wests Malibu residence often made headlines for various notorious reasons. West, who had originally planned to renovate the beachfront home, found himself surrounded by controversy before the plans could take off. Ultimately, he decided to sell the property. It was initially listed in December 2023 for $53 million (Rs 433 crore approx) slightly below the $57.3 million (Rs 477 crore approx) he paid in 2021. However, after facing a series of setbacks in selling the place, he sought the assistance of Selling Sunsets Jason Oppenheim, only to chop $14 million off the original asked price. It was reduced to $39 million in April this year. However, it was eventually sold for a much lower $21 million to Belwood Investment, a California-based real estate crowdfunding firm, as reported by the news outlet. According to the Los Angeles Times, Belwoods CEO, Bo Belmont, now plans to invest an additional $6-$8 million to restore the property. This stands completely different from Wests previous plan, which included transforming the stairs into a slide and the floor into trampolines. Belmont commented on Wests decisions, noting that removing the glazing from the floor was a mistake. He emphasised that the city of Malibu holds all property owners accountable, regardless of their fame. For taking on the new venture, Belmont will collaborate with Marmol Radziner, a design-build firm initially involved in the houses construction, and hopes to turn a profit for them. My goal is to make it as though Kanye was never there. The house will be restored right back to what it was. The changes he made were mostly cosmetic. The biggest gripe is with the removal of the glazing of the floors. That was a really dumb move. Really no purpose, he told The Times. The house was originally owned by Richard Sachs a financier and art collector before Kayne West bought it in 2021. Mahesh Babu and Namrata Shirodkar are among the most loved couples in Indian cinema today. They often take to social media to share glimpses of their lives with their fans. Recently, Mahesh and Namrata showed up to celebrate their friends birthday and their pictures have left their fans gushing over the couple. Namrata took to her Instagram to share photos from the event. The post was captioned, About last night!! Happy birthday, @sabina.xavier stay blessed always . In one photo, Mahesh held Namrata close as they posed with their friends before cutting the cake. They were all smiles as they fed cake to their friend. Check out the post here: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Namrata Shirodkar (@namratashirodkar) Namrata Shirodkar is widely known today as Telugu superstar Mahesh Babus wife. However, Namrata Shirodkar was a popular actress in Bollywood in the 90s. She officially debuted in 1998 with the movie Jab Pyaar Kisi Se Hota Hai. However, she was initially set to make her lead debut alongside Akshay Kumar and Sunil Shetty in Purab Ki Laila Aur Bassim Ki Chaila. This film was never released. Namrata began her Bollywood journey in 1977 as a child actor in the Shatrughan Sinha film Shirdi Ke Sai Baba. After her official debut in Jab Pyaar Kisi Se Hota Hai, she followed it up with films with average business like Mere Do Anmol Ratan and Hero Hindustani. Her big breakthrough came with the crime drama Vaastav opposite Sanjay Dutt, which was both critically acclaimed and a box-office success. The song Meri Duniya Hai Tujhme Kahin picturised on her, became very popular. She was unable to replicate that success in her future projects. Her subsequent films did not perform well, failing to achieve the anticipated success. In the six years of her film career, 16 films in which she acted turned out to be flops. Namrata Shirodkar tied the knot with Mahesh Babu in 2005 after dating for five years. She completely gave up acting after marriage as the actor did not want a working wife. They have two children, Gautam Ghattamaneni and Sitara Ghattamaneni. Namrata now resides in Hyderabad with her family. DUSHANBE, Tajikistan, September 27. Tajikistan and Iran have explored potential opportunities for oil and gas exploration in Tajikistan, Trend reports via the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources of Tajikistan. The discussions took place during a meeting between Tajik Minister of Energy and Water Resources Daler Juma and newly appointed Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad as part of Juma's working visit to Iran. The two sides discussed expanding sectorial cooperation, including attracting investment to the oil and gas sector, the import of crude oil from Iran to Tajikistan with proposed discounts, and sharing expertise between specialists from both countries. Earlier during his trip to Iran, Juma also met with the Iranian Energy Minister Abbas Aliabadi. They exchanged views on Tajikistan's international initiatives regarding water and climate issues, the significance of the Rogun hydroelectric power plant for the region, and the project for reconnecting Tajikistan to the unified energy system of Central Asia. The topic of oil was also addressed, specifically regarding the transportation of crude oil for Tajikistans oil refineries. Meiyazhagan Movie Review: If director Prem Kumars debut film 96 was a nostalgic journey about unrequited love, his second film Meiyazhagan is an emotional odyssey of Arul Mozhi (Arvind Swami) in search of his lost home. While 96 has predecessors like Hollywoods Before trilogy, Meiyazhagan stands unique. Though it is primarily about Aruls return to his native village in Thanjavur for his cousins wedding, when Karthis character enters the scene, the film evolves into a deep exploration of Dravidian identity, Tamil culture and history. Arul Mozhi cannot recall the name of this person who claims to be his relative. However, this unnamed character seems to know everything about Arul and, in a sense, worships him. What begins as an annoying presence transforms into the most lovable person imaginable. By the films end, Arul realises something similar to Charlie Mackesys famous line from The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse: Home isnt always a place. Meiyazhagan feels like a fantasy because Karthis character is impossibly ideal. Even Arul wonders, asking his wife, I dont know how one can live like this, or whether everyone should live like him. Karthis character represents an impossible amalgamation of altruism, rationality, spirituality, innocence, chivalry, sarcasm, pride and valora paradox. One brilliant expression of his enigma is the presence of Periyars photo next to the Tamil god Murugan (Karthikeya in the North) in his home. Periyar, an atheist who opposed Hinduism, is garlanded and worshipped alongside Murugan. This might signify inclusivityhe embraces both the Tamil god and the Tamil leader. It can be seen as either naive or unfathomably mature, representing the complexity of Tamil identity itself: a state with the most temples also reveres EV Ramasamy, known as Periyar. Meiyazhagan is more of a character study than a typical film about the bromance of two contrasting individuals. Even its structure is unusual. The interval arrives unusually early for a film nearly three hours long, occurring just as Arul is forced to spend a night with Karthis character. The second half follows their interrupted journey, bonding over beer, old Tamil songs, and reflections on the Sri Lankan Civil War. Watching Meiyazhagan feels like reading a novelbrilliant moments hidden amidst loose strands. The only conflict is that Arul cannot remember the name of this person who adores him, claiming they grew up together. Guilt consumes Arul, yet the conflict isnt strong enough to sustain the films length. However, Prem Kumar uses this conflict as a vehicle to explore other aspects of the story, some connected to the main plot, others not. At the end of the day, Meiyazhagan is bound to be divisive. It offers little in terms of story and relies heavily on its powerful moments. Its easy to say the film works in parts but fails as a whole. Yet, perhaps theres no other way to present this potpourri of all things Tamil. The film can also be criticised for its romanticisation of rural life and exclusion of systemic issues like casteism. However, as mentioned earlier, it offers an idealistic view through a rosy lens, much like its unnamed character. Just as 96 was critiqued for Ram (Vijay Sethupathi) being a man-child and the unrealistic platonic relationship between Ram and Jaanu (Trisha), Meiyazhagan may face similar criticism. Prem Kumar once again imagines a utopia, embodied in characters like Ram, but it may not resonate with everyone. Many Indian stars have left Bollywood to see success in other industries. But very few have found success outside. There are a few names like Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan who have become real stars abroad. Among them was a star who became the biggest star in Bangladesh and was often compared to Shah Rukh Khan. The father of Ananya Panday, fondly called Akhri Pasta, a character from his film Housefull, was once a big deal in Bangladesh. At one point, he shifted his residence to the country because he was unable to get work in Bollywood. Chunky Panday shared that despite his super hit Aankhen in 1993, he was unable to find work for six months. When he got an offer to do a film in Bangladesh, he did not say no. The film turned out to be the biggest blockbuster in the country and after that, he never looked back. Talking about this phase when Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan were gaining popularity in Bollywood, Chunky Panday told IANS in 2018, The money was good and I was in dire need of money at that time, so I accepted the offer. It was a kind of gamble for me. But my first film became such a huge hit that I never looked back and worked there for five years until I got married in 1998. After marrying Bhavna Panday, he went to Bangladesh with her for his honeymoon. It was she who advised him to remember that the people of this country love him very much, but at the same time, he should never forget his roots. He said, When I came back, I learned and appreciated the value of success. I had a game plan in my mind which was not there in the beginning. Maybe I was too young. One tends to blame others, but one should not do that. You are the creator of your success and failure. So, a year later, he decided to return to his home country and try his luck again. But by that time, Bollywood had already forgotten him. However, Chunky Panday did not give up. He went from office to office asking for work, which benefited him. After that, he played some of the most memorable roles. While Chunky Panday was a big star in Bangladesh, Indian films found it difficult to release films in the country as they did not want Hindi films to ruin the business of their domestic films. Did you know that Shah Rukh Khans film Pathaan was the first Hindi film to be released in the country, which is currently facing violent protests after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned after 50 years and fled the country? Palak Sidhwani, better known for her role in Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah, has been grabbing attention following the legal notice she has received from the makers. Well, the actress has dismissed all allegations and mentioned that she has already quit the show. In an exclusive conversation with The Times Of India, Palak said that makers are making her exit difficult. The Times of India quoted her saying, I had informed the production house on August 8 about my decision to quit the show. They decided to take some time and then told me that I will be given an official email to which I could mail the resignation letter but that never happened. They delayed approving my resignation and after a few weeks to my surprise I saw articles in media about how I had breached the contract. I signed their contract 5 years ago and they denied giving me a copy of it. I received a copy on September 19, 2024. They had agreed to let me continue brand endorsements and post the pandemic I also started brand endorsements on social media. They didnt say anything then but after I announced my decision to quit they have started this plan of action. I have also taken legal advise and will follow whats right for my career. I wanted to quit the show for health reasons and professional growth. I have had several meetings but there is no solution yet. This is exploitation and I never expected this after working with them for five years. Just because I want to quit Taarak Mehta, they are making my exit difficult. Money Control also mentioned that Palak has issued a statement saying, She expresses her deep disappointment over the false allegations and legal actions regarding her exit from Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah. Her statement further read: Palak denies all allegations, asserting that no breach of agreement occurred as the same is bad in law. Palak had communicated her intention to leave well in advance on 8th august, 2024 due to ongoing health and personal issues and even met with the producer to discuss this, expressing her willingness to serve a reasonable notice period. Vicky Kaushal has been basking in love for his outstanding dance moves in the song Tauba Tauba. The video song has garnered millions of views with fans recreating the viral hook steps. While cinema enthusiasts cant move on from the actors infectious skills in the song, he recently sang it live for IIFAs press conference. When Shahid Kapoor coaxed Vicky to sing a Punjabi song, the actor sang his famous Tauba Tauba on stage. Kriti Sanon, Ananya Panday and Abhishek Banerjee cheered for the actor. Vicky even flaunted his dance moves. Watch here: View this post on Instagram A post shared by IIFA Awards (@iifa) Vicky Kaushal is currently in Abu Dhabi for the 2024 IIFA Awards. The actor is all set to host the prestigious award show alongside Shah Rukh Khan and Karan Johar. Teasing his fans regarding his appearance at the IIFA Awards, the actor recently took to his social media to drop the latest pictures from his rehearsals. Taking to his Instagram, Vicky Kaushal shared a series of pictures and videos from his rehearsals for the IIFA Awards. He also dropped a major hint about his performance at the award show. The actor was seen taking a stance as his latest song Tauba Tauba starts playing in the background. The other pictures show the actor breaking into a dance and posing with his background dancers. Sharing the post, he wrote, Lets do this! #iifa2024. The 2024 IIFA Awards will be organized at the Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. Several celebrities have been spotted leaving the Mumbai airport for the event. Recent videos also reveal that Rekha and Kriti Sanon are some of the actors who will be performing at the event. The event will kickstart on September 27 and conclude on September 29. Meanwhile, Vicky Kaushal will soon be seen in his next project, the eagerly anticipated film Chhava. It will be a period drama, where Kaushal will share the screen with Rashmika Mandanna. According to sources, Kaushal is set to portray the role of Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, the eldest son of the Maratha Empires founder, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. The film is expected to delve into Sambhaji Maharajs bravery, sacrifice, and wartime strategies while incorporating an emotional love story between him and his wife. Ananya Panday is making heads turn in Yas Island and how. Jetted off to Abu Dhabi to attend the IIFA Awards Ceremony 2024, the actress made a stunning appearance at a press release event ahead of the three-day cinematic extravaganza. Now, a video of the actress from the event has surfaced online and it shows her exuding confidence and style. Wearing a fiery red strapless dress paired with sleek stockings and pointed heels, Ananya Panday made sure to put her best fashion fit at the event. In the clip, she is seen smiling at the shutterbugs, posing for them with grace and feminine allure. Later, she makes her way to the venue while being surrounded by her fans and team associated with the event. Ananya Pandays video featuring her glamorous avatar comes a day after she was snapped at the Mumbai airport. She was heading to attend the IIFA award ceremony, scheduled to be held from September 27 to 29 at the Etihad Arena in Yas Island. For her jet-set look, Ananya was dressed in a casual yet chic outfit, comprised of a black top paired with dark brown jeans. She completed her look with a neat bun for a fuss-free appearance. The video shared by Viral Bhayani featured Ananya Panday getting out of her car and entering the airport premises. Apart from Ananya Panday, Bollywood celebrities like Shahid Kapoor, Vicky Kaushal, Kriti Sanon, Janvhi Kapoor and the legendary actress Rekha will also be performing at the IIFA 2024, impressing fans with their electrifying dance moves. Notably, Shah Rukh Khan will be hosting the award ceremony alongside Karan Johar and Vicky Kaushal. Meanwhile, following the success of her debut web series Call Me Bae, Ananya Panday is now set for her upcoming project CTRL. Vikramaditya Motwanes cyber-thriller film is set to premiere on Netflix on October 4 and in Call Me Bae Season 2. Besides, she has also tried her hand at voice acting, lending voice to the character of Riley in the Hindi version of Inside Out 2. FYI, Inside Out 2 narrates the story of Riley dealing with mental health issues as she enters the phase of puberty. The Hindi version of the film was released on DisneyPlus Hotstar on Wednesday. Yash Chopra is celebrated as one of Indias greatest filmmakers. He is known for reshaping Indian cinema with iconic films like Chandni, Silsila and Veer Zaara. However, after dominating the industry for decades, there came a moment when he felt it was time to step back. In a 2012 interview with Shah Rukh Khan on his birthday, the legendary director revealed that after finishing Jab Tak Hai Jaan, his heart told him, Bohot hogaya (Its enough). Previously, during a chat with Shah Rukh Khan on his birthday, Yash Chopra was asked about his future films after Jab Tak Hai Jaan. Shah Rukh asked, When is your next film? When is the next one? Because this has been a great experience and Id like to do it again. In response, the famed filmmaker provided a highly thoughtful comment, stating that he had never lived his life with planning. Instead, he is guided by his heart. Yash Chopra revealed that his heart felt it was time to step away, signalling the end of an outstanding career. He said, Meine life bitayi hai dil mera kya kehta hai. Jab mera dil kuch kahe phir mein logo ki parwah nahi karta. Mera dil kehta hai bohot ho gaya. (I spent my life listening to my heart. When my heart says something I dont care what people have to say. My heart says Ive had enough). He added, I have got lot of love in all these years. I think now the time has come to pay back. I want to help directors, actors, technicians who I could not help all these years. He added that he wanted to do other things, such as mentor new filmmakers and share his experiences. Yash Chopras journey in the film industry began with humble origins. Arriving in Mumbai after partition with just Rs 200 and a dream of becoming a filmmaker, he initially planned to pursue engineering but was drawn by his passion for cinema. He started his career as an assistant director, working first with I. S. Johar and then with his brother, the renowned director-producer BR Chopra. After a prolific career that spanned decades, Yash Chopra passed away at the age of 80 in Mumbai due to dengue on October 21, 2012. As Anura Kumara Dissanayake takes over as the President of Sri Lanka, India faces a pivotal moment in its relations with its southern neighbour. Dissanayake, a Marxist, will lead a nation fraught with economic instability and a population desperate for change. His governments handling of the IMF bailout and broader economic reforms will directly affect not just Sri Lankas future but also regional stability, with serious implications for Indias interests in the region. New Delhi will need to carefully monitor his policies to safeguard its investments and economic ties. A major challenge for India will be the evolving geopolitical dynamics in the Indian Ocean. Sri Lankas strategic location has long placed it at the focal point of the competition between India and China. Under Dissanayake, Colombo may tilt further towards China, emboldening Beijings influence in the region. India will need to bolster its diplomatic engagement to counterbalance this potential shift and protect its strategic interests. The unresolved grievances of Sri Lankas Tamil community add another layer of concern. With a large Tamil population in India, New Delhi has a stake in ensuring their rights and dignity are upheld. How Dissanayake addresses this sensitive issue will shape Indias response, demanding careful diplomatic handling. Moreover, Dissanayakes past as a Marxist and his present political ideology could alter Sri Lankas internal security landscape. Any rise in militancy or instability could have direct consequences for Indias own regional security interests. In essence, Dissanayakes presidency presents India with a complex mix of challenges across economics, geopolitics, and security, requiring a calibrated and forward-looking approach. Geopolitical Challenge As Dissanayake assumes the presidency of Sri Lanka, India faces a challenge. His rise, rooted in Marxist ideology and historical proximity to China, brings a new dimension to Indias already complex regional relations. His ascent signals a potential shift in Sri Lankas foreign policy that could deepen Chinas influence in the Indian Ocean, a region critical to Indias strategic and economic interests. Historically, Dissanayake has expressed anti-India sentiments, and this past, combined with his inclination towards China, adds to Indias concerns. Simultaneously, Indias other neighbour, Bangladesh, is grappling with political unrest. The rise of anti-India and anti-Hindu factions, such as the Jamaat-e-Islami, poses a direct threat to Indias influence in the region. This political instability in Bangladesh could further embolden anti-India forces, weakening the traditionally friendly ties between the two nations. In addition, Indias relationship with Pakistan remains fraught with challenges, ranging from border tensions to diplomatic confrontations, creating a geopolitical conundrum on multiple fronts. In this context, Dissanayakes presidency in Sri Lanka only compounds Indias concerns. This may further lead to the encircling of India within a growing sphere of Chinese influence in South Asia. Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Sri Lanka, especially infrastructure developments like the Hambantota port, have already raised alarms in New Delhi regarding Chinas expanding foothold in the Indian Ocean. For India, managing these simultaneous regional challenges will require deft diplomacy. Balancing relations with Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan while countering Chinas strategic advances demands a renewed focus on South Asia. As these nations navigate their internal political turmoil, India must act decisively to preserve its influence and safeguard its interests in the region. Dissanayakes presidency is a test of Indias geopolitical agility in an increasingly complex neighbourhood. Navigating Economic Uncertainty Dissanayakes presidency ushers in a transformative phase for Sri Lanka, a nation grappling with one of its worst economic crises. Known for his Marxist leanings, Dissanayake has pledged to renegotiate the terms of Sri Lankas International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout, aiming to ease the burden on the working class. While his promises resonate with a populace exhausted by austerity, these moves introduce a level of economic unpredictability that could reverberate across the region. India, having extended nearly $4 billion in financial aid to Sri Lanka during the crisis, now faces a complex diplomatic challenge. This assistance, which included currency swaps, credit lines, and deferred loans, was instrumental in preventing Sri Lankas financial collapse. However, with Dissanayake potentially reconfiguring the nations economic trajectory, India must act cautiously to secure its investments and ensure regional stability. Any renegotiation of the IMF deal could recalibrate Sri Lankas debt policies, potentially altering public spending and repayment schedules. For India, this means vigilant diplomacy to protect its economic interests and prevent broader instability that could disrupt regional trade and cooperation. Additionally, Indias strategic concerns in Sri Lanka go beyond economics. With Chinas growing influence in the region, Indias aid was partly aimed at countering Beijings sway. Dissanayakes leadership could shift this delicate balance, making it critical for India to engage diplomatically. In sum, Dissanayakes presidency presents both challenges and opportunities for India. A nuanced approach will be essential to supporting Sri Lankas recovery while safeguarding Indias strategic and economic foothold. Advocating for Sri Lankas Tamils Under Dissanayake The Tamil community in Sri Lanka has faced decades of marginalisation and conflict, leading to deep-rooted grievances that require urgent attention. Anuras presidency offers a unique opportunity to address these longstanding issues. His governments approach, however, could either bring much-needed relief or further exacerbate the challenges. Dissanayakes administration holds the potential to introduce policies aimed at inclusivity and justice for the Tamil population. His leftist ideology hints at a shift towards more equitable resource distribution and greater political representation for minorities. However, there are concerns that Tamil issues may not be a priority, given the broader economic and political crises confronting Sri Lanka. India, with its sizable Tamil population, has a direct interest in the well-being of Tamils in Sri Lanka. The historical and cultural ties between the Tamils of both nations compel New Delhi to take a proactive role. India must engage diplomatically with Dissanayakes government to advocate for the rights of the Tamil community. This includes urging for the full implementation of the 13th Amendment, which promises greater autonomy and devolution of power to Tamil-majority regions. While Dissanayakes presidency brings the possibility of change, it demands vigilant and sustained efforts from India to ensure the Tamil communitys grievances are addressed and their rights safeguarded. Ensuring Stability Dissanayakes election as Sri Lankas president brings both opportunities and challenges for regional security, particularly for India. With a history rooted in the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a group known for its violent insurrections, there are concerns over how Dissanayakes administration will handle internal security. His government could either alleviate economic and social grievances or exacerbate tensions, leading to potential instability within the region. For India, this political shift necessitates vigilance. Sri Lankas internal security policies under Dissanayake could influence regional dynamics, and any increase in militancy might spill over into Indian borders. Indias response should include strengthening intelligence and security cooperation with Sri Lanka, alongside proactive diplomatic engagement to ensure that peace is maintained. The challenge for India lies in balancing support for Sri Lankas economic recovery while safeguarding its own strategic interests. Maintaining a close watch on internal developments and engaging in constructive dialogue will be critical in mitigating potential security risks. In conclusion, while Dissanayakes presidency may reshape Sri Lankas internal policies, Indias careful approach will be essential to preserve regional stability and prevent security threats. The author, a columnist and research scholar, teaches journalism at St. Xaviers College (autonomous), Kolkata. He tweets at @sayantan_gh. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views. The Delhi assembly on Thursday passed a resolution for the permanent reinstatement of bus marshals in the city for the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and cluster buses, a year-long pending demand of the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). In 2023, Delhi lieutenant governor Vinai Kumar Saxena ordered the termination of the services of all civil defence volunteers working as marshals on buses. The AAP government came up with the Bus Marshal Scheme in 2015 to ensure the safety and security of women and children on buses in the national capital as they lack control over police. Since the past over one year, the L-G and AAP government have been in a tussle on the issue. AAP had been demanding that the service of these marshals should be reinstated. Last year, the government even approached the Supreme Court which refused to entertain the plea challenging the L-Gs decision. Instead, it asked the AAP government to go to the High Court. On Thursday also, AAP and BJP had heated arguments over the issue in the House but the two ended up on the same page later. While, initially, the Aam Aadmi Party MLAs accused the Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre of being anti-poor, the BJP said that it is the politics of AAP that they promise fake jobs and cheat people. Leader of opposition Vijender Gupta said that even in the case of teachers the same thing happened. You have shattered the dreams of these young men and women. They come from very poor families. They get hope but little they know they will be cheatedThe same happened with teachers in Delhi. They were promised permanent jobs but nothing happenedI present a resolution that the bus marshals should be reinstated immediately and their jobs should be made permanent, Gupta said. Dictating the resolution verbally, AAP minister and MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj said that unless they get a signature from the L-G on the resolution, they will not stop. Guptaji has said that those bus marshals who were removed should be reinstated permanentlyAAP ministers, MLAs, along with BJP MLAs, will go to L-Gs house at 11 am on October 3. Our government promises that it will return only after the files are signed, he said. In February 2024, a little before his arrest, then Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal also raised the same issue in the House and said that the scheme worked smoothly until 2022. This is the first assembly session since Atishi took over as the Delhi chief minister. She is expected to seek a vote of trust in the House on Friday. The total strength of the MLAs in the 70-member Delhi assembly has dropped to 66 now after AAP lost three legislators in the last few months. It now has 59 MLAs, while the BJP has seven. AAP MLA Rajendra Pal Gautam, also a former cabinet minister, has moved to the Congress and resigned, while two more AAP MLAs, Raaj Kumar Anand and Kartar Singh, were disqualified after they moved to the BJP. During the day, the House also saw AAP in a heated argument with the BJP, demanding that pending CAG reports be tabled in the House. The two parties also clashed over the illegal tree-cutting in Delhi. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday won the last vacant seat of the Municipal Corporation of Delhis (MCD) 18-member Standing Committee unopposed as the councillors of the ruling AAP and Congress boycotted the election. The BJPs candidate Sunder Singh got all 115 votes of the partys councillors while the AAPs Nirmala Kumari did not receive any vote as the AAP boycotted the polls saying that the voting process is illegal. With this, the BJP now has 10 members in the panel while the AAP has eight. The standing committee is the highest decision-making body of the national capitals civic body. AAP Reacts AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal alleged that the BJP wrongly overpowered the MCD and stole the mandate. Addressing the Delhi Assembly, Kejriwal said that according to rules only the mayor can convene a meeting of the MCD House but the lieutenant governor changed it and directed an additional commissioner of the civic body to do it. Is this election? he posed and accused the BJP of resorting to hooliganism. Ahead of the polls, former deputy CM Manish Sisodia and Mayor Shelly Oberoi called L-Gs orders unconstitutional and said the AAP councillors will only participate in the polls on October 5, as officially stated in Thursdays MCD session. Why AAP boycotted standing committee polls? Amid a high-drama voting process, the election to the last vacant seat began earlier today, as per MCD Commissioner Ashwani Kumars order issued upon L-G V K Saxenas directions late Thursday. The election was scheduled to take place on Thursday. It was not conducted and the MCD session marred by protests, was adjourned to October 5 by Mayor Shelly Oberoi on the ground that the councillors be allowed to carry mobile phones inside the voting hall/polling booth. Councillors from the AAP refused to enter the house protesting against security checks that were put in place at Thursdays session. The civic body had also pasted an order prohibiting mobile phones in the House. Following disruption over frisking of the councillors, the election was postponed with the meeting of the House being adjourned till October 5. However, LG Saxena overturned the mayors decision and asked the municipal commissioner to conduct the election on Friday. Anguished over this, the AAP refused to participate in the election. The polling was held in the presence of Additional Commissioner Jitendra Yadav, who was made the Presiding Officer in the absence of the Mayor and Deputy mayor. Why election took place? The seat had fallen vacant after BJP councillor Kamaljeet Sehrawat was elected as the Lok Sabha MP from West Delhi. (With inputs from agencies) The Lokayukta police on Friday registered a First Information Report (FIR) against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in connection with alleged irregularities in the allotment of sites by Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA). The FIR names Siddaramaiah, his wife BM Parvathi, brother-in-law Mallikarjun Swamy, and one Devaraj, from whom Mallikarjuna Swamy purchased land and gifted it to Parvathi, reported news agency PTI. The move came a day after a special court in Bengaluru ordered the Lokayukta police to probe against Siddaramaiah on accusations of irregularities in allotment of 14 sites worth 56 crore to the chief ministers wife by the Mysuru development authority. The special court, which handles criminal cases involving former and current MPs/MLAs, directed the Lokayukta police in Mysuru to initiate an investigation based on a complaint filed by RTI activist Snehamayi Krishna. The court issued directions to take up investigation under section 156 (3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) (that gives a magistrate the power to order an investigation into a cognisable offense.) It also directed the police to file the investigation report by December 24.Acting under Sec.156(3) of Code of Criminal Procedure, the jurisdictional police i.e., Superintendent of Police, Karnataka Lokayukta, Mysuru is hereby directed to register the case, investigate and to file a report as contemplated under Sec.173 of Cr.P.C., within a period 3 months from today.. the court had said. HCs SETBACK TO KARNATAKA CM The order came after Karnataka high court upheld Governor Thaawarchand Gehlots sanction to investigate Siddaramaiah in the case. Delivering the verdict, the single judge bench of Justice M Nagaprasanna noted that the order of the Governor on August 17 approving the investigation and sanction for prosecution of the Chief Minister in MUDA was not taken in haste. The court further observed that the complainants were justified in registering the complaint and seeking approval from the Governor. WHAT IS THE MUDA CASE? In the MUDA site allotment case, it is alleged that compensatory sites were allotted to Siddaramaiahs wife in a prime area of Mysuru, which has a higher property value than the location of her land that was acquired by MUDA. The MUDA had allotted plots to Parvathi under a 50:50 scheme in exchange for 3.16 acres of her land, where it developed a residential layout. Under this controversial scheme, MUDA allocated 50 per cent of the developed land to landowners in lieu of undeveloped land acquired for residential layouts. It is alleged that Parvathi did not have legal title over the 3.16 acres of land located at survey number 464 in Kasare village, Kasaba hobli of Mysuru taluk. However, the Karnataka Chief Minister had rejected the allegations, claiming that the land deal was completed as per mandates and there were no irregularities. He had also dismissed the Oppositions call for his resignation, which grew louder after the courts order directing a case against him. (With inputs from agencies) Maharashtra MLA Aditi Tatkare, who is part of the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, on Friday said it is never easy to see two halves of a party but there is no point regretting a decision once it is made. Talking about the NCP split, which was engineered by Ajit Pawar, Tatkare said he was more a state leader who represented regional politics and, hence, it will be different for their faction in the upcoming assembly elections. All the parties have their plans, what matters most is whose plan works. Governance during the MVA (Maha Vikas Aghadi) was stagnant. Our priority is to perform better, she said during the CNN-News18 Town Hall event in Mumbai. She, however, said she still has immense respect for Sharad Pawar, who was beyond party politics. I was brought up in this set up when the party was formed in 1999. I have seen the party growing while I was growing. So, its never easy to see the party split in two halves, and then to choose a leader. Since I contested my first election in 2019, it was easy for me as compared to my father (Sunil Tatkare) and leaders of his generation, she added. She added: Ive seen Pawarsaheb closely and have looked up to him. Thatll always be there and will never change. But, now weve chosen our new leader who will lead us. Aditi Tatkare, the daughter of veteran politician Sunil Tatkare, further spoke about her conversation with her father about the split. Once a decision has been made collectively, theres no point regretting it. Now were on a different path, so no point changing anything now, she said. Ajit dada more prominent in state politics Tatkare further said Ajit Pawar is a more prominent face in Maharashtra, and he is also more interested in state politics and decision making. She said, for her party, she is confident that the results of the upcoming assembly elections will be different as compared to a poor performance in Lok Sabha elections. Ajit dada has always been more prominent and interested in state politics and decision making. Compared to what we faced in Lok Sabha, we contested on a few seats as we have hardly four; of these, two were difficult. Assembly could be different. People see him as state leadership, so state elections will be different, she said. On how the NCP and Sena will contest together, and this could affect the cadre on the ground, she said all elections have their own calculations and narratives. In 2019, when I contested election, it was against a candidate from Sena. But I never thought well sit with them in government. But, we made it happen. They all are strong ideologies on their own NCP, Sena and Congress, she said. She added: But, I personally believe every election comes with its own calculations and narratives. People are more concerned about MLAs as they have day-to-day connection with them. We cant assume or presume what happened in Lok Sabha will be copy pasted in assembly polls. Maharashtra a progressive state Asked about the pulse of Maharashtra during voting, whether it was caste or sentiment, Tatkare said the state is more progressive and secular in nature. She said while factors like caste and reservation matter, people give more weightage to development. Maharashtra is more progressive as a state, and has always been like that. It is more secular. Caste and reservation matter but people give importance to progress and development, she said. She added: How we contest is more important, our priority is to collectively perform better and have more members of the NCP elected to the assembly. It is very early to call who has the edge. We are only few days away from the code of conduct, so things would be clear after that. Voters have decided and analyse, theyre just waiting to vote. Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, at the CNN-News18 Town Hall on Friday, said the split in Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) was a result of their internal family power struggles. He said while the alliance with Eknath Shinde was emotional, the one with Ajit Pawar was political. There used to be a time when the Congress blamed the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for everything. The parties split owing to struggle for power or legacy within the family. How would it have been possible for us to break Sharad Pawars party, the man who broke so many parties? He wanted to give legacy to Supriya tai, which is a common fight in parties run by families. Ajit Pawar felt he was pushed to the wall and he came with us. The same was the case with the Shiv Sena, when Eknath Shinde realised everything was being done for Aaditya Thackeray to get power. Because Shinde was growing in statureAfter leaving Hindutva [based on Shiv Senas alliance with other parties], he thought how would he ask for votesIf somebody comes with us, we will take them along, after all, we are in politics. ALSO READ | Badlapur Accuseds Killing Shouldnt Be Glorified: Devendra Fadnavis At CNN-News18 Town Hall On Ajit Pawars ideology, Fadnavis said, In politics, you have to care about political arithmetic. When we were running the government with Shinde, our vote share and popularity was rising. We wanted to increase our vote share further. At that time, when Ajit Pawar left the NCP, we thought of fixing the arithmetic and took him along. We are not ideologically aligned. With Shinde, our alliance was emotional. With Ajit dada, it was purely political. Maybe, if he keeps going the way he is, he might bond with us emotionally. #MaharashtraPolitics: We believed our political strategy would strengthen with Ajit Dada on board. While Eknath Ji supports us on an emotional level, our alliance with Ajit Dada is driven by political reasons says, @Dev_Fadnavis, Maha Dy CM@AnchorAnandN | #CNNNews18Townhall pic.twitter.com/Fu8knLN3QW News18 (@CNNnews18) September 27, 2024 Amid the laddoo controversy at Tirupati temple, he said, We are against state control on temples. Temples have been made by society for faith. Society should run it with faith. State should just form regulations for administration, to take action in case of some wrong actions. In Maharashtra, Shirdi, Vithhal and Siddhivinayak temple in cases when it gets huge to handle, the state needs to run it professionally to avoid mismanagement. These are exceptions. But it is the societys rule These things hurt sentiments. Prasad gives us purity. It is considered unadulterated. When suddenly you find out it has animal fat, it hurts faith. Playing with faith is not good. On vendors verification and display of names of owners in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Himachal to prevent adulteration, he said, For consumer protection, any rule should not be seen as bad, nothing else should be implied. There was a time when we didnt know about ingredients, now the new rules prevent exploitation. If states are forming rules to protect their consumers, there is nothing wrong in it. ALSO READ | Fake Narrative, Vote Jihad Hurt BJPs Lok Sabha Show, Maharashtra Polls Are Different: Fadnavis At News18 Town Hall Fadnavis was part of a session, Can BJP Get Its Math Right?, held as part of the CNN-News18 Town Hall in Mumbai on September 27. Ahead of the Maharashtra elections, the theme of this edition was Road to Delhi via Mumbai? How many times have you gone to a restaurant or a nearby shop based on the reviews on Google Maps? Chances are they might be fake and the company plans to put an end to this malaise on the platform. Google has started to get strict with businesses who indulge in these activities and warns them about being publicly shamed for posting fake reviews. End Of Fake Reviews? Google will be on the prowl for businesses that put fake reviews for the users and put restrictions on the culprits that can impact their overall earnings. The company is setting up a Fake Engagement Policy that includes measures like removing reviews or even blocking the new ones temporarily and even put a warning sign for the users telling them, fake reviews were deleted from the profile. These rules are already in force for businesses in the UK but Googles recent changes suggest the practice will be applied globally from here on. The policy also includes any practice of getting reviews written by offering money or freebies. Google will even hunt down profiles that can manipulate the ratings of a place by making one person write from multiple accounts to inflate the numbers and its ranking. Better Days Ahead The company doesnt tell us how it plans to identify such business profiles who might have indulged in these practices for many years. But it is likely that any profile having a public notice on such unethical activities will not only encourage people to stay away from them, which in return could be the catalyst for the business to engage with the users in the right way. Maps is used widely by billions of users, including those on iPhones in some regions but the platform has always needed new additions. For instance, Maps couldnt tell people when they have to take a flyover, instead calling it a ramp which confused everyone. But the company finally altered the feature to be more effective. It even has AI-based features on Maps now and more likely to be introduced in the near future. Abhinav Shukla entered the world of glamour as a model, gaining early recognition by participating in the 2007 Gladrags Manhunt contest. He soon made his mark on television with memorable roles in shows like Jersey No. 10, Chotti Bahu and Geet-Hui Sabse Parayi. Shukla also showcased his adventurous side by competing in reality shows such as Survivor India (2012) and Khatron Ke Khiladi 11 (2021). He made his Bollywood debut with the film Bhindi Baazaar Inc. in 2011 and has since shifted his focus to web series and short films, with notable projects like Bhaukaal, Shukla The Tiger and Chubhan. Up next, he will be seen in the biographical film Major Rajan. Coming to his personal life, Abhinav is married to actress Rubina Dilaik. The actor couple was blessed with twin daughters, Jeeva and Edhaa, on November 27, 2023. Today, September 27, marks Abhinavs first birthday as a doting father. So, without much ado, lets dive into his fatherhood journey so far- Sleepless nights, Long Walks Abhinav recently gave fans a glimpse into his life as a father in a video shared on his Instagram handle. Despite challenges, the actor was found enjoying every moment of the new chapter in his life. The video began with the caption Journey So Far, following multiple slides of his memories, including the sleepless nights, joyful mornings and long walks. Sharing the video, he wrote, E & J have brought not only discipline and responsibility but also an abundance of positivity into my life. Forestry outing Abhinav once took their twins to an undisclosed foresty destination and shared glimpses of the same on their social media handles. The adorable post featured Jeeva and Edhaa enjoying themselves while mommy Rubina could not accompany her family on the holiday. His daughters were crawling upon the open backseat of a 44 truck, and the place was surrounded by thickly-clustered alpine trees with lush greenery everywhere. Planted trees Rubina and Abhinav planted trees to mark the little ones sixth-month birthday. The nature-lover parents shared a video on Instagram featuring how they celebrated Jeeva and Edhas special day in an unconventional way. In the video, the actor was seen planting a tree, while Rubina and their daughters also took part in it. Atop the clip, the note read, E & J planted tree for their 6month milestone. Local at heart, global at reach, and the caption of this post read, values that matter to us. Partied with his twins Dads are immensely loved for spoiling the kids, while mommies used to be unavailable to look after them. Abhinav is no exception. When Rubina shared a video on Instagram and wrote, Now theres no me-time left, but I am loving it, her husband soon commented by saying, Dont worry, Daddy is having a party with E & J, had 60 -90ml milk respectively watching the ceiling lamp & listening to some Punjabi music. The post revealed how Abhinav cared for his little ones and acquainted them with some Punjabi music. Watched rainbows together Abhinav experienced an array of sweet and sour moments with his twins. Once, he shared a lovely video on his Instagram handle featuring how he and one of his daughters, Jeeve, made a new experience amidst nature. The father-daughter duo was seen witnessing their first rainbow. He captioned the joyful moment as First rainbow with my daughters. Abhinav is a doting daddy, and his Instagram posts testify to them. Apart from the above posts, he also shared many others. In one of them, he also revealed how much grateful he feels after holding his baby girls in the baby carriers and more such emotional posts. A 30-year-old Thai factory worker died allegedly after her manager refused to approve her sick leave. The woman, identified as May, reportedly died after she collapsed at work. The worker hailed from Sukhothai province and worked at an electronics company in Bang Pu Industrial Estate in Muang Samut Prakan province. According to the Bangkok Post report, she was suffering from an inflamed large intestine and went on medical leave from September 5 to September 9 on the doctors advice. She was sent home after four days in the hospital, but her condition did not improve. May asked for approval for another sick leave on September 12 because her condition was deteriorating. Her manager dismissed the request, saying she needed to go back to work and present a fresh medical note. Due to the fear of losing her job, May went back to work on September 13. Unfortunately, she started feeling unwell after 20 minutes. As per reports, May was admitted to a nearby hospital and had emergency surgery. Sadly, she died the next day because of NEC-related complications. Delta Electronics Thailand issued a statement on the incident on September 17. The company apologised for the incident and the death of its employee. At Delta Electronics, our people are the foundation of our success, and we are devastated by this loss," said CEO Victor Cheng, Delta Electronics (Thailand) PCL. It said that it would carry out a detailed inquiry into events that led to Mays death, and it would publish the results. Cheng said that the primary idea of the company was to help the employees family in such challenging times. He insisted that Delta Electronics will continue to do its part to be as open and accountable as possible while pointing out that the company will provide updates as they become available. With reference to Thailands Labor Protection Act passed in 1998, the standard working week is 48 hours and workers are paid extra for working beyond it. Workers engaged in hazardous employment are allowed to work only 42 hours a week. The employees have specifically been provided with the right to be given at least 6 days of paid annual leave. Pregnant employees can availed up to 98 days of maternity leave of which the employer must pay for 45 days. However, the law does not provide for a situation where an employee suffers from a health complications that will prevent them from working. A court hearing was recently held for a British couple who was kicked off an EasyJet flight in March this year due to an obscene act. Bradley Smith, 22, and Antonia Sullivan, 20, were returning to Bristol from a vacation in Tenerife, Spain when numerous passengers on their EasyJet flight complained about their unacceptable behaviour to the flight crew. Bradley and Antonia are both from Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. Bradley Smith was seated in seat 16A and Antonia Sullivan, his girlfriend, was seated in seat 16B on the 7 am flight. According to The Sun, three people, including their fellow passenger in seat 16C, witnessed their act. The couple was also noticed by a mother and daughter duo seated in the row behind them. Minutes after the plane took off from Spain, witnesses claimed that Bradley Smith requested Antonia Sullivan to engage in sexual activity. After that, the couple covered Bradleys lap with some clothes and started their explicit act in the crowded aircraft. After a few minutes the witness was aware that the couple had re-arranged some coats over Smiths lap and there followed vigorous hand movements beneath the coat, Maree Doyle, the prosecutor, told the Bristol magistrates court quoted by The Sun. The witness sitting next to them could see what was happening while a mother and teenage daughter sitting behind the couple could also see what was going on, the prosecutor added. When the enraged mother complained to the cabin crew, Antonia argued that she was merely stroking her boyfriends leg. The duo was later escorted off the plane by authorities for interrogation. Earlier this week in court, Bradley and Antonia entered guilty pleas to one count of outraging public decency by engaging in sexual activity in a public setting. They have been directed to provide compensation to each of the three witnesses for 100 GBP (roughly Rs 11,000). Bradley was also mandated to complete 300 hours of community service, whereas Antonia was required to complete 270 hours. Reportedly, the pair was scolded by Judge Lynne Matthews for their explicit behaviour in public. A new joinee at a Chinese educational firm was temporarily dismissed from her job after she refused to fulfil her bosss alleged daily breakfast demands. According to the South China Post, the woman identified by her surname Lou, shared the incident on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese social media app, recalling how her supervisor, named Liu, demanded that she bring her a hot Americano and an egg every morning, as well as keep a bottle of water ready. In her post, Luo said these chores were not part of her job and expressed her frustration online, claiming her supervisor was unfair in demanding personal favours on a daily basis. I wasnt hired to be a personal assistant, yet my boss expected me to handle her breakfast needs every morning, she wrote. However, when she spoke up in a work chat group about these unfair demands, she was reprimanded and later fired without compensation by the Human Resources department, as per the report. After the incident came to light, it sparked outrage on social media, with netizens condemning the company and demanding an internal investigation. Following the widespread criticism online the company decided to reinstate the employee and instead, the supervisor was terminated for making absurd requests from the team members. The company, earlier this month, issued an official statement confirming Lius termination due to her inappropriate actions. Wang, the companys HR head, while talking to Dafeng News said that Lous termination was Lius decision and not by company policies. Though she has resumed employment, it is questionable whether she will be compensated. Incidents related to workplace harassment and bullying are not new. Earlier this year, a female employee of HSBC described her terrible office experience and how the corporation ignored her complaints about the toxic workplace. In a long post on LinkedIn, the employee recalled an incident where a colleague made an ethnically insensitive remark. She quoted the colleague saying, EK CHAMAAT MAARENGE, BIHAR PAHUCH JAOGI (I will slap you so hard, you will go back to Bihar). Despite reporting this to her manager, no action was taken. Have you ever faced any such incidents at your workplace? Two fishermen, Curtis Peterson and his friend, recently discovered a rare and elusive sea creature known as the doomsday fish near Tiwi Island, Australia, around 80 kilometres from Darwin. They caught a massive oarfish, scientifically named Regalecus glesne, during a moonlight fishing session and shared the photo on the Facebook page of Fishing Australia TV. The image quickly went viral, sparking curiosity and debate among social media users. Oarfish can grow up to nine meters in length and are rarely seen by humans, as they usually swim at depths of around 3,000 feet. Often, they are mistaken for serpents when they appear near the surface, and their bodies are more commonly found washed ashore after death. The fishermens capture of the live oarfish was especially remarkable, given how uncommon it is to see one in such circumstances. Some sceptics online questioned the authenticity of the photo, speculating it could have been created using artificial intelligence. The oarfish has a long history of being associated with bad omens in ancient folklore. In Japan, it has been considered a harbinger of natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis for centuries. This belief persists, even though scientists have found no evidence linking oarfish sightings to seismic activity. A notable example occurred recently when a dead oarfish was discovered off the coast of La Jolla, California, just days before a 4.4 magnitude earthquake struck Los Angeles. Despite the lack of scientific proof connecting oarfish appearances to disasters, each sighting remains a rare and extraordinary event. The oarfishs unique appearance and elusive nature make it an object of fascination. According to UK media reports, Petersons catch has been described as an ancient-looking rarity for Australia, further adding to the mystique surrounding this deep-sea creature. A homestay owner in Nainital has shared a horrifying experience of guests who left his property damaged. During one of the latest stays, the owner found a broken television and bottles scattered around the property. The owner also complained that guests from the Delhi-NCR region were inconsiderate, adding they were advised by some people about problems with visitors from this area. The video was uploaded by Nature View Villa, a vacation home in Nainital. The caption that accompanies the Instagram video read, Fellow homestay owners, have you had similar experiences with your guests? The recording begins with a text message that rolls on the screen stating, Before starting this, many fellow homestay owners warned us about people from Delhi/NCR. Then the property owner shows the room with bottles and cans lying broken and empty, the food on the table which seems to have grown stale, and the Television set with a cracked screen. The individual mentioned that complaints have been filed but would like to remind the public and other Airbnb hosts of such wrongdoing. They noted that any destruction that occurs wont go undocumented. Fortunately, the homestay was operational under Airbnb and the company compensated the owners for all their losses. A user commented saying, Reveal their identities. Show their photos too. Let the world know about them. Another user went on to say, Tourists from Delhi, Haryana and Punjab cause most nuisance in mountains. Yet another user shared the same sentiment stating, Have travelled extensively around India. Delhites causing nuisance in homestays have been a recurring story around the country. Sorry for your loss. Its not all of the NCR bros, but its always the NCR bros, read a comment. The video has almost 3 million views on the social media platform. Hotels.coms Hotel Room Insights Report enumerates the number of, frequently peculiar, objects that guests have left behind. The study, released following the collection of information from more than 400 hotels from across the globe, claims that phone chargers, cosmetics, soiled clothes, bathroom amenities, and battery chargers are the most often forgotten goods. According to the study, a chick, a pet lizard, an engagement ring, luxury car keys, and paperwork are just a few of the bizarre objects individuals have left behind. An airport X-ray has arrested a Namibian woman who had swallowed dozens of cocaine bullets. As per reports, the woman, a 30-year-old was arrested upon her arrival at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. Her identity remains disclosed. She was arrested following a tip-off to the police about a drug carrier on a flight from Sao Paulo, Brazil. After an X-ray was performed on the woman, the authorities managed to recover over 60 of these cocaine bullets. National police spokesperson, Brig Athlenda Mathe, told the Express, The team immediately intercepted the drug mule as she was making her way through immigration. She was immediately arrested, and taken to a local hospital where a medical X-ray confirmed and detected foreign objects in her stomach. She has already released more than 60 bullets of suspected cocaine thus far. She is currently under police guard and custody. Athlenda further added that the value of the drugs could not be determined yet. This is because the process of releasing all suspected drugs from the suspects body may take some time. According to The Mirror report, General Fannie Masemola, the national commissioner of the South African Police Service, lauded the efforts of the authorities. The National Commissioner has appreciated them in their fight against criminal activities at OR Tambo International Airport. He stated that their men and women in blue are hard at work intercepting hardened criminals. As per the National Commissioner, South Africa is not a playground for criminals and transnational organised crime. He said that they are squeezing the space for criminals and leaving nothing to chance. This news has been in the headlines amidst the capture of more than 560,000 (Rs 6.27 crore) worth of drugs at the airport in the last two months. Last week, a man was apprehended with 450 grams of cocaine hidden inside headphones after travelling from Sao Paulo. He was about to catch a connecting flight to Nigeria. At that moment, a cleaner allegedly handed him the headphones at the airport and quickly left the scene, as per the police. In another incident, a South African woman stopped at the same airport and was found carrying a consignment of narcotics. ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, September 27. Turkmenistan is ready to build partnership relations with companies with solid experience, such as French Bouygues, President Serdar Berdimuhamedov said while receiving Deputy CEO of the company Edward Bouygues, Board member William Bouygues and head of the company "Bouygues Batiment International" Pierre-Eric Saint-Andre, Trend reports via Turkmenistan's official media. Turkmenistan is always open for cooperation and is ready to build partnerships with companies with solid experience, which certainly includes Bouygues, the head of state emphasized. The President noted that the company has been a reliable partner of Turkmenistan for many years, investing in the development of infrastructure and strengthening the economic potential of the country. In turn, the leaders of the company confirmed their interest in further strengthening their positions in the promising Turkmen market, assuring that they would continue to fulfill all their commitments. To note, " Bouygues Batiment International" specializes in complex construction projects around the world. The company operates on all continents, drawing on the expertise of local offices and central teams to provide global, innovative, and sustainable solutions. Bouygues offers a full cycle of services including design, construction, financing, and operation to provide high added value to clients. Mumbai has a completely different set of rules when it comes to rental accommodation. The combination of high price and the cramped area is a tradition of the Maximum City where 1 BHK flats in large buildings may cost as much as fabulous 3 BHK villas in small towns. Recently one of the X users demonstrated how absolutely strange the situation with real estate in Mumbai is. The user, from Jaipur, highlighted an unusual fact about a two-BHK flat in Mumbais Pali Hill area. The apartment, available at a rent of Rs 1.35 lakh per month, has a washing machine mounted above the toilet bowl. The post humorously highlighted the absurdity of the design with the caption: Only in Mumbai can you front load your washing machine while top loading your commode. There is also a Rs 4 lakh security deposit for a potential tenant alongside the monthly rent. Only in Mumbai, you can front load your washing machine while top loading your commode.At an affordable price of 1.35L per month! pic.twitter.com/texU5hUwMC Utkarsh Gupta (@PaneerMakkhani) September 22, 2024 The apartment, listed on Housing.com, is on the fourth floor of an eight-floor building and has an 850 sqft area. There are two bedrooms, two bathrooms and no balcony, and all the apartments are fully furnished. A Housing.com analysis of the rent shows the price falls within the average range for apartments in Bandra, but the design of the bathroom left many shocked and curious. A user commented, So if you look from outside theres protruding metal box with washer just like the window air conditioner! I hope they havent weakened the structural strength of the building. So if you look from outside there's protruding metal box with washer just like the window air conditioner ! I hope they haven't weakened the structural strength of the building. Sunil Sane (@SunilSane2) September 26, 2024 Another user humorously mentioned, It can serve as a backrest for those who read ( study) newspaper while seated on commode. It can serve as a backrest for those who read ( study) newspaper while seated on comode . starry World (@Star30313852) September 27, 2024 One user even went on to give it a tagline, stating, Load! While you unload! Mumbai saves you time! Load ! While you unload!Mumbai saves you time! deepak shetty (@deepaks43293256) September 27, 2024 Yet another user jokingly said, Pali hill mein sab kuch jayaz hai (Everything is fair in Pali Hill). Pali hill mein sab kuch jayaz hai Pradnya (@musttravelmore) September 22, 2024 The median rent is higher in South Mumbai, especially because this area is home to most of the citys commerce and upscale apartments. Housing-wise, in this zone, the average price of apartments falls in the range of Rs 1,55,000 to Rs 1,60,000 per month, as per Statista. While rental prices rose to highs of 50-60% in the past two years, the growth rate in premium gated societies is at 5-9% at the moment. For instance, the rent for a 3BHK apartment in Andheri, which was at around Rs 77,000 in 2021, increased to around Rs 1.18 lakh in 2024. On September 9, a 37-year-old man, Lu Thanh Nam, a resident of Thanh Hoa province of Vietnam, stole his uncles bones from his grave and used them to extort money from his family. According to reports, the man attempted to extort 5 billion Vietnamese dong from his extended family to settle his gambling debts. This incident has ignited fear and garnered a lot of attention among the public on social media. He dug a 20-centimetre hole in the grave of his uncle to steal his bones. He stole his uncles bones and left the remains hidden under a heap of garbage. Then, the next day, he sent a threatening message to his cousin Luu Thanh Hois wife using an unknown phone number and demanded payment for the return of the bones. He also warned his cousins family not to report this incident to the police. After receiving this threatening message, Hois family checked the grave and found a hole in the coffin cap, leading them to inform the authorities immediately. After the police investigated the scene, they discovered that 37-year-old Lu Thanh Nam was the perpetrator. Later, he confessed his crime after proper interrogation. He cited he conducted this activity to overcome his gambling debt. However, the police recovered the stolen bones and returned them to the family. On September 12, Lu Thanh Nam was arrested for grave violation and extortion, with detailed penalties that are yet to be unveiled. Particularly, penalties for grave violations in Vietnam can be up to 7 years in prison, and those convicted for extortion may face sentences of up to 20 years, depending on the amount involved. According to Vietnamese tradition, disturbing a grave is considered highly disrespectful and it is believed that digging up a grave can cause unrest to the deceaseds soul, impacting the lives of people. So, Mr Hoi reinterred his fathers remains according to local customs, hoping to restore peace to the spirit. A woman reportedly misled a popular Delhi-based social media influencer by posing as an admirer and robbed him during a photoshoot. The incident took place on September 18, when the influencer met the woman at a Chhatarpur office, where she had asked him to wear his jewellery for the pictures. While they were posing for pictures, the influencer received a phone call, the woman seized the moment and fled with 100 grams of gold jewellery worth lakhs. The unexpected incident left the influencer shocked, who immediately informed the police. Thanks to a quick investigation, authorities tracked down the woman and her husband in Manali, Himachal Pradesh. They were arrested and the stolen jewellery was recovered from their home in Jhajjar, Haryana. According to The Indian Express, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Ankit Chauhan revealed that the woman was identified after the theft was captured on CCTV footage. The video helped police confirm the womans identity and found out that she was in Manali. Interestingly, during the investigation, the 21-year-old woman insisted that stealing jewellery from the influencer was not part of their plan. The police said, She saw his videos in which he was donating money to people and showing off his lifestyle. She claimed that she wanted to meet him. She and her husband are jobless. Once she saw the chain and the jewellery, she waited and ran away with them after sensing an opportunity. The accused revealed that she had hidden the jewellery in her house in Jhajjar, Haryana. To avoid the police, she ran away to Manali after securing them. She planned to sell them. The woman stole several items, including a 40 gram gold chain, a 60 gram gold kada and an artificial chain, the report added. Meanwhile, the Deputy Commissioner of Police explained that the investigators thoroughly questioned the influencer to gather more information about the incident. They looked into the social media account connected to the case and carefully reviewed the CCTV footage from the location where the woman had met the influencer. The police team reviewed every detail of the case and pinpointed her location in Manali. A team was quickly sent to the region, where they successfully arrested the woman. During questioning, the accused revealed that she wanted to live a lavish lifestyle. US President Joe Biden told Volodymyr Zelensky that Russia will not prevail as he hosted the Ukrainian president at the White House Thursday for talks on Kyivs victory plan against Moscow. Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail, and well continue to stand by you every step of the way, Biden said as he hosted Zelensky, who wore his trademark military-style clothes, in the Oval Office. Zelensky presented a so-called victory plan to President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris at the White House, with Biden announcing a new military aid package worth nearly $8 billion for a struggling Kyiv. Surrender policy on Ukraine Kamala Harris meanwhile criticized her US election rival Donald Trumps surrender policy on Ukraine, while the Republican said he would meet Ukraines president despite a bitter row over the war with Russia. Standing with Zelensky at her side, Harris did not mention Trump by name but said there were some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory. These proposals are the same of those of (President Vladimir) Putin. And let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, she said, referring to the Russian leader. During a separate meeting in the Oval Office with Zelensky, Biden pledged that Russia will not prevail in the war it launched in February 2022. Ukraine will prevail, and well continue to stand by you every step of the way, Biden said. Dressed in his trademark military-style outfit, Zelensky replied that we deeply appreciate that Ukraine and America have stood side by side. But Zelensky is navigating the choppy waters of a US presidential election on November 5 that could sink the staunch support that he has received from Washington in the past two-and-a-half years. Make a deal Trump, who has long been critical of the billions of dollars in US support for Ukraine, accused Zelensky on the eve of the visit of refusing to strike a deal with Moscow. But after the row had appeared to derail any meeting, Trump announced that he would hold talks with Zelensky at Trump Tower in New York on Friday. President Zelensky has asked to meet with me, and I will be meeting with him tomorrow morning at around 9:45, the Republican told reporters in New York. Trump also repeated his longstanding claim that he would swiftly cut a peace deal which Kyiv fears would involve giving up land Moscow has already captured. I believe I will be able to make a deal between President Putin and President Zelensky and quite quickly, he said. He also suggested he was displeased with Zelenskys recent comments to The New Yorker magazine in which Ukraines leader said he believed Trump doesnt really know how to stop the war. Republicans have also been livid after Zelensky visited an arms factory in Bidens hometown in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, accusing the Ukrainian ambassador of organizing a partisan political event and calling for her to be sacked. They beat Napoleon Trump has echoed many of Putins talking points, saying at a rally earlier this week that Ukraine could not win as Russia beat Hitler, they beat Napoleon, thats what they do. When Trump was president he also asked Zelensky for potentially damaging political material on Biden ahead of the 2020 election which led to the first of the Republicans two impeachments. Biden seems to be doing whatever he can to Trump-proof support for Ukraine as it faces an increasingly difficult situation on the battlefield against Russia. He pledged nearly $8 billion in military aid on Thursday to win this war, including $5.5 billion to be authorized before it expires at the end of the US fiscal year on Monday. Biden, whose term ends in January, also called a summit of allies in Germany in October. The White House, however, played down Zelenskys hopes of getting permission to fire long-range Western-made missiles into Russian territory. Im not expecting there to be any new announcements, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. Zelensky earlier visited the US Congress and gave a defiant address at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday. Zelenskys visit has prompted fresh nuclear saber-rattling from Moscow. Putin on Wednesday announced plans to broaden Moscows rules on the use of its atomic weaponry in the event of a massive air attack. Chinas ambitions to enhance its naval capabilities have encountered a setback following the sinking of its newest nuclear-powered attack submarine, the Zhou-class, at a shipyard near Wuhan. The incident, which occurred in late May or early June, was confirmed by US officials and first reported by the Wall Street Journal. US media reports said that the Zhou-class submarine was the first of its kind and represented a new generation of Chinese nuclear submarines designed for stealth and efficiency. It was intended to bolster Chinas undersea warfare capabilities, particularly in monitoring and potentially confronting US naval forces in the region. However, the submarine sank while moored at the Wuchang shipyard, raising questions about the quality of construction and operational protocols in the military. Satellite images Satellite images captured by analysts revealed unusual activity at the shipyard, including the presence of floating cranes, which suggested that something had gone wrong, the New York Post reported. Former US submarine officer Thomas Shugart underlined these anomalies on social media and speculated about a possible accident. By July, images showed cranes clearing the area, indicating salvage operations were underway. Senior U.S. Officials have now revealed that the Chinese Navys Newest Nuclear-Powered Attack Submarine, dubbed the Zhou-Class, suffered a Major Technical Malfunction in May or June while Pier-Side at a Shipyard in Wuhan, leading it to Sink into the Yangtze River; something which pic.twitter.com/b068J0jNor OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) September 26, 2024 While the exact cause of the sinking remains unclear, it is still unknown whether there were any casualties or if the submarine was carrying nuclear fuel at the time. US officials reported no evidence that Chinese authorities had tested nearby waters for radiation, raising concerns about environmental safety and transparency. Real setback for China Retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery believes that losing the first vessel in a new class is a real setback for Chinas naval modernisation efforts. In a report published in The Post, he said that delays in repairing this submarine could hinder future production of similar vessels. This incident reflects broader issues within Chinas military development, particularly as it strives to catch up with US capabilities. The Zhou-class submarine was part of Chinas strategy to expand its fleet amid rising tensions over Taiwan and territorial disputes in the South China Sea. The Pentagon has identified Chinas shipbuilding industry as crucial to its military ambitions, with plans to increase its fleet significantly over the coming years. Experts suggest that this incident may indicate that China is pushing too quickly to modernise its navy without adequate oversight or quality control measures in place. As China continues to develop its military assets, this setback could slow its progress towards achieving maritime parity with the United States. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep striking Hezbollah and fight until victory against Hamas, in an address to world leaders on Friday that defied calls for ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza. He also shot a warning at Iran and said Israel would retaliate if Tehran carries out a direct attack. If you strike us, we will strike you, there is no place in Iran where the long arm of Israel can not reach, the Israeli PM said. Israels aerial bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon has killed around 700 people this week alone, according to the health ministry, but a US-led bid for a ceasefire has failed to take hold. As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safe, Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly, adding that operations against the Iran-backed militant group will continue until we meet our objectives. Nearly a year into the war with Hamas in Gaza, Israel shifted its focus to its northern front with Lebanon, with its wave of aerial bombardment sparking an exodus of around 118,000 people. On Friday, Lebanons National News Agency said Israeli air strikes had intensified overnight, and that one strike had killed a family of nine in south Lebanon. Tanks Prepare For Ground Offensive Israel said on Friday that any ground operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon would be swift. We will try to do it as short as we can, said the official, without providing a clear timeline or specifying what would be the objectives of a ground campaign. The goal of Israeli military operations in Lebanon is to downgrade Hezbollahs capacity to fire on Israel, eliminate the groups military leadership and clean the border areas from fighters, he said. Photos released by news agency Reuters showed Israeli soldiers working among tanks lined up along the Israel-Lebanon border. Hezbollah fighters began firing on Israel shortly after Hamass October 7 attack that triggered the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, in what the Iran-backed Lebanese movement says is in support of its allied Palestinian group. Hezbollah, a part of Iran-led Axis of Resistance, is also being supported by the Houthi militia of Yemen, who earlier attacked Israel with a missile and a drone that was intercepted by the Israeli air defence system. Iran and the militias it backs in the neighbouring countries of Israel have vowed to support Hamas by attacking Israel until it does not stop its operation in Gaza. Fresh Strikes Shortly after the speech by Benjamin Netanyahu at the UNGA, the Israeli military said it was carrying out fresh strikes against Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon. Israels military is currently striking terror targets belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation in southern Lebanon, the military said in a statement. Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu on Friday said that the archipelago nation has a very strong bilateral ties with India and he is planning to visit the country as soon as possible. I am planning to visit (India) as soon as possibleWe have a very strong bilateral relationship, President Muizzu said to news agency ANI on sidelines of 79th United Nations General Assembly in New York. Several media reports say that Muizzu may visit India in the second week of October. The visit is seen as an attempt to reset bilateral ties after an acrimonious period in the relationship. Muizzu last visited New Delhi in June this year to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Ahead of his expected visit, Muizzu denied claims of following an India Out policy, and asserted that the archipelago had a serious problem with the presence of foreign military on its soil. While speaking at US Princeton Universitys Deans Leadership Series, the archipelago nations President said, We have never been against any one country at any point. Its not India Out. Maldives faced a serious problem with foreign military presence on this soil. The people of Maldives do not want a single foreign soldier in the country, he added. In August, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar visited Maldives. He, along with his Maldivian counterpart, Moosa Zameer inaugurated High Impact Community Development Projects and exchanged MoUs in Male. Earlier this year, President Muizzu thanked India for its support of the island nation in easing its debt repayment and affirmed hope that New Delhi and Male would forge stronger ties and sign a free trade agreement. The ties between India and the Maldives came under severe strain since November last year when Muizzu, known for his pro-China leanings, took charge as Maldivian president riding on an India Out plank. He has taken several steps that have been unconventional from the point of view of India-Maldives ties. Earlier almost every Maldivian President used to make his first foreign visit to India, but Muizzu changed the trend by first visiting Turkiye and then China, after coming to office earlier this year. A day after he was sworn in as President, Muizzu formally requested the Indian government to withdraw its military personnel from the island nation. India withdrew its military personnel by May 10 and replaced them with civilian personnel to operate a Dornier aircraft and two helicopters. Earlier this year, deputy ministers in Maldives youth ministry were suspended for derogatory social media posts against PM Modi following a backlash, with New Delhi strongly raising the matter with Male. The deputy ministers criticised PM Modi for his post on social media platforms following his visit to Lakshadweep, inferring that it was an attempt to project the Union Territory as an alternative tourist destination to the Maldives. PM Modi was in Lakshadweep on January 2 and 3 earlier this year to inaugurate several projects. (With inputs from agencies) The Israeli military said Friday it struck the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut, where a series of massive explosions leveled multiple buildings and sent clouds of orange and black smoke billowing in the skies in the biggest blasts to hit the Lebanese capital in the past year. Three major Israeli TV channels said Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target of the strikes in Beiruts southern suburbs. The unsourced reports could not immediately be confirmed by The Associated Press, and the army declined comment. But given the size and timing of the blasts, there were strong indications that a senior leader may have been inside the buildings struck. Israeli news media outlet Channel 13 claimed that Nasrallah was inside the headquarters at the time of the strike while Iranian PressTV citing a Hezbollah source said the Hezbollah chief is safe. Israeli news media outlet Channel 12 said that Nasrallah was at least wounded in the attack. There are indications that Nasrallah was in the compound that was attacked. Those who were there have a very small chance of getting out alive, an Israeli official said while speaking to US-based news outlet Axios. A Hezbollah source speaking to Reuters said that another senior official of the militant group, Hashem Safieddine, is alive. The speaker of the Iranian parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said that Iran will always be on Hezbollahs side as comrades in battle until the last moment after he was briefed on the Israeli air raid on Hezbollahs headquarters. Moments ago, the Israel Defense Forces carried out a precise strike on the Central Headquarters of the Hezbollah terror organizationtaking the necessary action to protect our people so that Israeli families can live in their homes, safely and securely.Listen to IDF pic.twitter.com/I4hbN7KkO8 Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) September 27, 2024 Moments ago, the Israel Defense Forces carried out a precise strike on the Central Headquarters of the Hezbollah terror organisationtaking the necessary action to protect our people so that Israeli families can live in their homes, safely and securely, IDF Spokesperson rear admiral Daniel Hagari said in a video statement released on X. In a possible further sign of the strikes significance, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly cut short a visit to the United States and was returning home instead of waiting until the end of Sabbath on Saturday evening, his office said. Hours earlier, Netanyahu addressed the UN, vowing that Israels campaign against Hezbollah would continue further dimming hopes for an internationally backed cease-fire. News of the blasts came as Netanyahu was briefing reporters traveling with him. A military aide whispered into his ear, and Netanyahu quickly ended the briefing. To a degree unseen in past conflicts, Israel this past week has aimed to eliminate Hezbollahs senior leadership. Defense Minister Yoav Gallants office said he was huddled with the head of Israels air force and other top commanders at military headquarters, following updates. Israeli army spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the strikes targeted the main Hezbollah headquarters, located beneath residential buildings. Six buildings in the Haret Hreik neighbourhood of Dahiyeh were reduced to rubble, according to Lebanons national news agency. The blast rattled windows and shook houses some 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of Beirut. Ambulances were seen headed to the scene, sirens wailing. Officials at a nearby hospital said they received at least 10 wounded, three critically, including a Syrian child. The Pentagon said Friday the US had no advance warning of the heavy strikes in Beirut. Israel dramatically intensified its airstrikes in Lebanon this week, saying it is determined to put an end to more than 11 months of Hezbollah fire into its territory. The scope of Israels operation remains unclear, but officials have said a ground invasion to push the militant group away from the border is a possibility. Israel has moved thousands of troops toward the border in preparation. At least 25 people were killed in Israeli strikes early Friday, Health Minister Firass Abiad said, bringing the death toll in Lebanon this week to more than 720. He said the dead included dozens of women and children. A predawn strike Friday in the mainly Sunni border town of Chebaa hit a home, killing nine members of the same family, the state news agency said. A resident identified the dead as Hussein Zahra, his wife Ratiba, their five children and two of their grandchildren. At the UN, Netanyahu vowed to continue degrading Hezbollah until Israel achieves its goals. Netanyahus comments have damped hopes for a US-backed call for a 21-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah to allow time for a diplomatic solution. Hezbollah has not responded to the proposal. Iranian-backed Hezbollah, the strongest armed force in Lebanon, began firing rockets into Israel almost immediately after Hamas Oct. 7 attack, saying it was a show of support for the Palestinians. Since then, it and the Israeli military have traded fire almost daily, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes on both sides of the border. An Israeli security official said he expects a possible war against Hezbollah would not last for as long as the current war in Gaza, because the Israeli militarys goals are much narrower. In Gaza, Israel has vowed to dismantle Hamas military and political regime, but the goal in Lebanon is just to push Hezbollah away from the border with Israel not a high bar like Gaza in terms of operational objectives, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to military briefing guidelines. The Israeli military said it carried out dozens of strikes over the course of two hours around the south on Friday, including in the cities of Sidon and Nabatiyeh. It said it was targeting Hezbollah rocket launchers and infrastructure. It said Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets toward the northern Israeli city of Tiberias. In the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, civil defence workers pulled the bodies of two women 35-year-old Hiba Ataya and her mother Sabah Olyan from the rubble of a building brought down by a strike. Thats Sabah, these are her clothes, my love, one man cried out as her body emerged. Israel says its accelerated strikes this week have already inflicted heavy damage on Hezbollahs weapons capabilities and a string of its top commanders have been assassinated in strikes. Officials have suggested its limited fire of missile and rockets the past week show it has been set back. But the group boasted a large arsenal of rockets and missiles and its remaining capacities remain unknown. Hezbollah officials and their supporters remain defiant. Not long before the explosions Friday evening, thousands were massed in another part of Beiruts suburbs for the funeral of three Hezbollah members killed in earlier strikes, including the head of the groups drone unit, Mohammed Surour. Men and women in the giant crowd waved their fists in the air and chanted, We will never accept humiliation as they marched behind the three coffins, wrapped in the groups yellow flag. Hussein Fadlallah, Hezbollahs top official in Beirut, said in a speech that no matter how many commanders Israel kills, the group has endless numbers of experienced fighters who are deployed all over the front lines. Fadlallah vowed that Hezbollah will keep fighting until Israel stops its offensive in Gaza. We will not abandon the support of Palestine, Jerusalem and the oppressed Gaza, Fadlallah said. There is no place for neutrality in this battle. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday accused India of massive expansion of its military capabilities and issuing threats to cross the LoC for taking over Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, as he raised the Kashmir issue again in his address at the United Nations General Assembly. Sharif demanded that New Delhi should reverse the 2019 abrogation of Article 370, which gave Jammu and Kashmir a special status, and also charged India of trying to subjugate its Muslim population and obliterate its Islamic heritage. Pakistan routinely raises the Kashmir issue at the annual UN debate. India was expected to exercise its right of reply to counter Sharifs allegations. Sharif said like the people of Palestine, the people of Jammu and Kashmir have struggled for a century for their freedom and right to self-determination. Referring to the abrogation of Article 370, Sharif said India must reverse the unilateral and illegal measures to secure durable peace, and enter into a dialogue for a peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir issue in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions and wishes of the Kashmiri people. In his speech lasting about 20 minutes, Sharif claimed that instead of moving towards peace, India has moved away from its commitments to implement the Security Council resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir. These resolutions mandate a plebiscite to enable the people of Jammu and Kashmir to exercise their fundamental right to self-determination, he said. Even more worryingly, he said during the General Debate of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, it is engaged in massive expansion of its military capabilities which are essentially deployed against Pakistan. Its war doctrines envisage a surprise attack and a limited war under the nuclear overhang, he added. Sharif said India has spurned his countrys proposal for a mutual strategic restraint regime, and its leadership has often threatened to cross the Line of Control and take over what Pakistan refers to as Azad Kashmir. Let me state in no uncertain terms Pakistan will respond most decisively to any Indian aggression, he added. The Pakistan prime minister said the escalation of Islamophobia is a troubling global development. The most alarming manifestation of Islamophobia is the Hindu supremacist agenda in India. It aggressively seeks the subjugation of 200 million Muslims and the obliteration of Indias Islamic heritage, he claimed. Responding to allegations on Jammu and Kashmir in previous UN debates, New Delhi has emphasised that the region is an integral and inalienable part of India. Sharif also spoke about the situation in Gaza, Ukraine and Afghanistan. Today, we are facing the most daunting challenges to the world order, he said, mentioning Israels genocidal war in Gaza, a dangerous conflict in Ukraine, destructive conflicts across Africa and Asia, rising geopolitical tensions, resurging terrorism, galloping poverty, stifling debt and the mounting impact of climate change. On Gaza, he said, This is not just a conflict. This is systematic slaughter of innocent people of Palestine we must act now and demand an immediate end to this bloodshed. He said Pakistan seeks an immediate end to the tragic conflict in Ukraine and its peaceful resolution in accordance with the UN Charter and international agreements. Sharif said Pakistan seeks the earliest possible normalisation of the situation in Afghanistan and the interim government must take effective action to neutralise all terrorist groups within Afghanistan, especially those responsible for cross-border terrorism against neighbouring countries. These include ISIL-K, Daish, al Qaeda-associated Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other terrorist groups which unfortunately are seen on Afghan territory, he said. Canadian MP from Nepean constituency Chandra Arya said demands for a fresh enquiry into the 1985 bombing of Air India flight 182 saying that it promoted conspiracy theories by Khalistani extremists. The Indian-origin member of the Canadian House of Commons told the House that two Canadian public inquiries had already found Khalistani extremists responsible for the bombing of Air India Kanishka flight. The terror attack led to the deaths of 329 people. 39 years back, Air India Flight 182 was blown-up mid-air by a bomb planted by Canadian Khalistan extremists. Even today, the ideology responsible for this terrorist attack is still alive among a few people in Canada, Arya said. Two Canadian public inquiries found Khalistani extremists responsible for the bombing of Air India flight, he further added. The Air India Flight 182 was en route from Montreal to Mumbai (then-Bombay) when a bomb planted by Khalistani separatists blew up the plane mid-air. The flight disintegrated at an altitude of 31,000 feet and its remnants fell into the sea off the coast of Ireland. All 329 people on board, including 268 Canadian citizens, 27 British citizens, and 24 Indian citizens died in the attack. Now, there is a petition on the parliament portal asking for a new enquiry promoting conspiracy theories promoted by Khalistan extremists, Arya said, referring to the fresh plea. Its deeply frustrating. It opens up old wounds all over again. Its all garbage. Its an attempt to gain publicity and support for terrorist activities, he further added, this time citing an account of Bal Gupta, a Canadian citizen whose wife Rama was killed in the attack. Khalistani elements this year disrupted a tribute programme held to commemorate the 39th anniversary of the bombing. ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, September 27. German agricultural machinery manufacturer CLAAS aims at further mutually beneficial cooperation with Turkmenistan, Trend reports via Turkmenistan's official media. According to the information, this became known after the meeting between President Serdar Berdimuhamedov and the Chairman of the Joint Stock Company of the company, Chairwoman of the Eastern Committee of the German Economy Katrina Klaas-Muhlhauser. In the course of the conversation, Katrina Klaas-Muhlhauser reiterated CLAAS' aspiration to expand its business ties with Turkmenistan, noting the favorable conditions for effective cooperation in the country. President Serdar Berdimuhamedov expressed confidence that the visit would serve as a basis for deepening relations and the implementation of new mutually beneficial projects. Cooperation with Germany, as the President emphasized, covers a wide range of spheres, including industry, agriculture, and healthcare. In particular, German companies are actively involved in supplying modern equipment for medical institutions in Turkmenistan, which is a vivid example of a successful partnership. At the conclusion of the meeting, the parties expressed confidence in continuing the dynamic development of bilateral cooperation, filling it with new concrete content. To note, CLAAS is the European leader in the production of combines and the world leader in the market of self-propelled silage harvesters. The range includes tractors, wheel loaders, and other machinery, as well as information technology systems for agriculture. CLAAS employs around 11,500 people and recorded sales of around 3.9 billion euros in 2019, with around 78.5 percent of sales coming from exports. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel At the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday announced his support for Indias bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). This endorsement follows a similar call from French President Emmanuel Macron. Speaking at the UN General Assembly here, Starmer said that the Security Council has to change to become a more representative body, willing to act not paralysed by politics. We want to see permanent African representation on the Council, Brazil, India, Japan and Germany as permanent members, and more seats for elected members as well, he said. Watch: While addressing the general debate at the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer says, We want to see permanent African representation on the council, Brazil, India, Japan, and Germany as permanent members, and more seats for elected pic.twitter.com/mOSdCsk8P4 IANS (@ians_india) September 27, 2024 UN Security Council The United Nations Security Council consists of 15 members: five permanent members with veto power (the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom) and 10 non-permanent members elected for two-year terms. The Councils primary functions include the investigation of conflicts, the establishment of peacekeeping operations and the imposition of sanctions when necessary. It plays a crucial role in addressing global crises and conflicts, making it a key player in international diplomacy. Make UN more efficient A day earlier, Macron strongly advocated for Indias inclusion as a permanent member of the UNSC during his address at the UN General Assembly. Lets make the UN more efficient. We need to make it more representative and thats why France is in favour of the Security Council being expanded, he said. The question of equitable representation has been on the Assemblys agenda since 1979. However, the calls for reform grew louder amid widening conflict worldwide. Several nations, including permanent UNSC members like the US, have expressed support for Indias inclusion in this powerful group. However, China has opposed such a move. Under successive governments, India has continued its efforts to move the process of UNSC reforms forward, including by engaging actively in the ongoing Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) on the Security Council reform. As part of the G4, which includes Brazil, Germany, and Japan, New Delhi has advocated for expanding the UNSC to include more nations as permanent members to reflect current geopolitical realities. Representative, transparent, democratic Reiterating its longstanding position, India on Thursday once again called for urgent reform of the UN Security Council to make it more effective, democratic, and accountable. During an Open Debate on Leadership for Peace here, Indian diplomat Tanmaya Lal stressed the urgent need for reform of the UNSC and argued that the outdated structure fails to address the escalating global conflicts and security challenges effectively. The Secretary (West) of the Ministry of External Affairs pointed out that the UNSC was established over eight decades ago, a time when many member states were still colonies. The UNSC has to become representative, transparent, efficient, effective, democratic, and accountable, Lal said while urging for the need for text-based negotiations. Without naming any country, he slammed those resisting meaningful changes to the global governance framework, asserting that such opposition undermines the UNs legitimacy. Pakistan has claimed that Turkeys stance on Kashmir remains unchanged, despite President Recep Tayyip Erdogan omitting mention of it during his speech at the UN General Assembly for the first time since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. After India abolished the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, Erdogan referred to Kashmir every year in his address to world leaders at the UNGA session, while advocating talks between New Delhi and Islamabad. However, this time, Erdogan focused his address on the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza. Erdogans decision to skip the mention of Kashmir during his UNGA address was seen as a diplomatic win for India and a source of concern for Pakistan. We should not draw any undue inferences from one statement, the Dawn newspaper quoted Pakistani Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch as saying during a media briefing on Thursday. Unlike the last five years Former Pakistani diplomat Maleeha Lodhi noted Erdogans historical advocacy for Kashmir at the UN but acknowledged this years omission as a notable departure from previous years. She stressed that Erdogan had consistently raised the issue from 2019 through 2023. Unlike the last five years, President Erdogan did not mention Kashmir in his speech to the UN General Assembly. He did so in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, Pakistans former ambassador to the UN in New York, Maleeha Lodhi, said in a post on X. Unlike the last 5 years, President Erdogan did not mention Kashmir in his speech to the UN General Assembly. He did that in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. https://t.co/rtA4XC3xBV Maleeha Lodhi (@LodhiMaleeha) September 25, 2024 Whats The Pak Angle Pakistan continues to engage in hostile, fabricated anti-India propaganda and disinformation operations, particularly regarding Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian government has completely and unequivocally rejected all such actions and statements by Pakistan, especially on Indias internal matters. According to the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi has engaged with the international community at high levels regarding Indias position and Pakistans role in aiding and abetting terrorism in the region, particularly in the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir. During a recent meeting between Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif on the sidelines of the UNGA, there was no mention of Kashmir. Instead, they focused on regional issues like Gaza. Sharif later posted on social media about their discussions but did not highlight Kashmir as a topic of concern. Whats Behind Turkeys Omission This omission is seen as a shift in Turkeys stance on the Kashmir issue, especially given that just a few months ago, the Islamic country had aligned itself with Pakistan to address the matter at a multilateral forum. Erdogans decision to skip Kashmir comes at a time when Turkey is seeking to strengthen its global alliances, particularly its bid to join the BRICS grouping. The Turkish government is eager to forge ties beyond its traditional Western allies, and this shift in rhetoric may reflect that ambition. Erdogan has consistently raked up the Kashmir issue in his UN speeches since 2019. However, his recent silence has raised eyebrows. Earlier in February, Turkey joined Pakistan in condemning Indias actions in Kashmir at the 55th Human Rights Council session. Following that meeting, India issued a strong rebuttal, asserting that Kashmir is an internal matter. BRICS Bid Erdogans omission of Kashmir may signal Turkeys growing interest in improving relations with India, particularly in economic terms. The geopolitical landscape surrounding Turkeys BRICS application is complex. The BRICS bloc recently expanded to include new members such as Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the UAE. Turkeys inclusion would be significant as it seeks to position itself as a counterweight to Western alliances while maintaining its NATO commitments. Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky held high-stakes talks Friday following a series of attacks by the White House hopeful on the Ukrainian president as the looming US election raises questions over long-term US support for its ally in its war with Russia. Foreign policy hawks have voiced fears that a second Trump administration would spell disaster for Ukraines defense, as the Republican has repeatedly defended Russias President Vladimir Putin while voicing skepticism over US funding for Kyiv. Zelensky had met Trumps election rival Kamala Harris, as well as President Joe Biden, on Thursday and both pledged their support for Kyiv in its US-funded defense against Putins invasion. Trump who this week accused Zelensky of refusing to make a deal to end the conflict vowed to bring peace if he wins a second term in office as the two men addressed reporters after the tete-a-tete at Trump Tower in New York. Its a shame but this is a war that should have never happened and well get it solved, said the Republican White House hopeful at Trump Tower. It is a complicated puzzle Too many people dead. Too many beautiful cities. Putin cant win Before the meeting which lasted less than an hour Trump had hailed his alliance with Zelensky but added: I also have a very good relationship as you know with President Putin. I think we have common view that the war in Ukraine has to be stopped, and Putin cant win, and Ukraine has to prevail, Zelensky added. The meeting initially looked like it would be scrapped after Zelensky told New Yorker magazine in an interview that Trump doesnt really know how to stop the war and that his running mate J.D. Vance is too radical. The interview was published amid Republican outcry over the Ukrainian leaders trip to Pennsylvania with Democratic politicians to thank US workers for manufacturing ammunition that is helping Ukraines war effort against Russia. Trump, who refused to say whether he wants Ukraine to defeat Russia during his debate with Harris earlier this month, hit back at Zelensky at a campaign rally in North Carolina on Wednesday, berating him as a man who refuses to make a deal for peace. Zelensky is in New York this week for the UN General Assembly, and has been looking to shore up support for his countrys war effort as it struggles on the battlefield in the third year of Moscows invasion. The Ukrainian leader presented a so-called victory plan to Biden and Harris at the White House on Thursday, with Biden announcing a new military aid package worth nearly $8 billion for Kyiv. Sovereign territory Standing with Zelensky at her side, Harris did not mention Trump by name but said there were some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory. The row with Trump underscored how Novembers US election could upend the support that Ukraine receives from its biggest backer. Trump has echoed many of Putins talking points, saying at a rally earlier this week that Ukraine could not beat Russia, highlighting its 1812 defeat of Napoleon but ignoring more recent military defeats. House Republicans have launched investigations into Zelenskys Pennsylvania trip, suggesting it amounted to election interference, and calling for the Ukrainian ambassador in Washington to be fired. When Trump was president, he asked Zelensky for potentially damaging political material on Biden ahead of the 2020 election while withholding vital military aid that had already been approved by Congress leading to the first of his two impeachments. But the Republican had maintained good relations with Zelensky, pleased that the Ukrainian defended him over his conduct. Trump spent much of the impromptu news conference reminding reporters of Zelenskys support. Israels Arrow air defence system on Thursday intercepted a surface-to-surface ballistic missile fired from Yemen overnight, triggering sirens across the central part of the country. Yemens Iran-aligned Houthis later on Friday said they had targeted Israels cities of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon with a ballistic missile and a drone in support of Gaza and Lebanon. The Iran-backed Huthis fired a ballistic missile at a military target in the Tel Aviv area, and also launched a drone towards Ashkelon just north of the Gaza Strip, a statement from the rebel forces said. The Israeli military reported that the missile was intercepted outside the countrys borders by the long-range defence system, according to the Jerusalem Post. The IDF noted that warning alerts were activated due to concerns about falling shrapnel from the interception. The IDF has deployed the Arrow air defence system multiple times during the war to intercept Houthi attacks. This includes a missile that targeted Eilat in February and another that aimed for Tel Aviv on September 14, which entered Israeli airspace. The latest attack comes as Yemens Houthis seek to overwhelm Israel by opening another front amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Retaliation For Mohammed Srur There were no reports of direct injuries from shrapnel or falling debris during the attack, though Israeli media reported that a 17-year-old girl was moderately injured after being struck by a car that pulled over to the side of the road amid the chaos. At least 17 others sustained minor injuries while rushing to shelters. A Houthi official suggested the attack was retaliation for an Israeli airstrike that killed senior Hezbollah leader Mohammed Srur on Thursday, according to The Times Of Israel. Nasruddin Amer, chairman of the Yemeni state news agency Saba, confirmed on social media that the strike was in retaliation for the killing of Sarur. #WATCH: Israels Arrow missile defense system intercepts ballistic missiles launched at Tel Aviv by the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen pic.twitter.com/IqHAE6qmcK Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) September 26, 2024 Will not hesitate to support Srurs death was confirmed by Hezbollah shortly before sirens sounded in Israel. He had been one of several top advisers sent by Hezbollah to Yemen to train the Houthis, who are also backed by Iran, the Israeli newspaper reported, citing a source close to Hezbollah. As cross-border fire between the Lebanese group and Israel intensified, the leader of Yemens Houthi rebels, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, said in a televised address earlier Thursday the Iran-backed group will not hesitate to support Lebanon and Hezbollah. Since November, the Houthis have targeted Red Sea shipping with drones and missiles. The Houthis, one of the key wings of Irans Axis of Resistance, have intensified their attacks against Israel, as a show of solidarity with the Palestinians amid the ongoing war that was sparked by Hamass October 7 attack. From Gaza to Hezbollah After a year-long military campaign in Gaza, Israel this month said it was shifting its militarys focus to Hamas ally and another Iranian proxy Hezbollah, which has clashed with Israeli forces since the Gaza war began. As the conflict in Gaza continues to escalate, Israel finds itself facing multiple fronts, including the increasing threat posed by Hezbollah in Lebanon and missile strikes from Yemens Houthi rebels. Earlier on Thursday, Israel rejected a push led by its key backer the United States for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, vowing to keep fighting Hezbollah until victory. Before this week, the cross-border exchanges had killed about 600 people in Lebanon, and about four dozen people in Israel, roughly half of them soldiers and the rest civilians. The fighting also forced tens of thousands to flee homes on both sides of the border. Israel says its escalated strikes across Lebanon over the past week are targeting Hezbollah rocket launchers and other military infrastructure. Since Monday, strikes have killed more than 690 people in Lebanon, according to local health authorities. (With agency inputs) ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, September 27. The increasing supplies of sowing and harvesting equipment from the American company John Deere will contribute to the renewal of Turkmenistan's agro-industrial complex, Trend reports via Turkmenistan's official media. According to the information, this was stated at the meeting of the Chairman of the People's Council of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov with the General manager at John Deere Walldorf International Gmbh Company Csaba Lejko. In the course of the conversation, the parties discussed the importance of agriculture for Turkmenistan's economy and steps to modernize it, including the introduction of advanced technologies and innovations. One of the brightest evidences of successful cooperation is the increasing supplies of John Deere sowing and harvesting machinery, which is effectively used in local conditions. The company's machinery has become an important tool for increasing the production potential of agriculture in Turkmenistan. The aspect of training qualified personnel for the agro-industrial complex was also emphasized, which is a key area of long-term partnership between Turkmenistan and the American company. The parties agreed to strengthen joint work in this area. To note, John Deere is an American corporation specializing in the production of agricultural and forestry equipment, as well as heavy road-building machines. Deere & Company ranked 84th on the list of the largest corporations in the United States in 2022. The company reported revenues of $2.1 billion in 2023 from the Central Europe and CIS regions. Meteorologist/Multimedia Journalist Per grew up in Sioux Falls and graduated from South Dakota Mines. He found his passion for weather reporting by the impact it has on the community, both in how people work and how it brings people together through severe weather preparation. He also has a passion for preventing health issues with Air Quality Index awareness. Per can be found enjoying outdoor activities in the Black Hills when the weather allows. ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, September 27. Turkmenistan and the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) will strengthen their partnership to increase the potential of transport and transit corridors in North-South and East-West directions, Trend reports, referring to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan. According to the information, the issue was discussed at the meeting of Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov with ECO Secretary General Asad M. Khan on the margins of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly in New York. The sides emphasized the importance of strengthening cross-border economic activities through corridors, which play a strategic role in the integration of regional economies. The meeting discussed prospects for further cooperation in areas such as energy, communications, trade, and digitalization and cultural ties. The minister also reiterated his readiness to actively participate in strengthening the international legal framework within the ECO framework and enhancing the human resource potential of the organization. Furthermore, the sides considered strengthening partnerships within the framework of the UN platforms. Turkmenistan actively participates in the development of the North-South and West-East transport corridors, which increases the country's role in regional logistics. Turkmenistan, together with Russia, Kazakhstan, and Iran, signed a roadmap in July 2024 to promote the eastern branch of the North-South corridor. The initiative aims to increase the capacity of the corridor to 15 million tons per year by 2027 and 20 million tons by 2030. The corridor is designed to provide efficient multimodal transport routes linking the Indian Ocean with the Caspian and Baltic Seas, significantly reducing transit costs and time compared to traditional routes. Four countries have initiated legal proceedings against the Taliban for alleged violations of a UN convention on women's rights. Australia, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands announced their action during the UN General Assembly in New York, condemning the Taliban's restrictions on women and girls in Afghanistan. "We condemn the gross and systematic human rights violations and abuses in Afghanistan, particularly the gender-based discrimination against women and girls," the countries stated. Despite claiming to govern more moderately since their 2021 takeover, the Taliban have severely curtailed the rights of women and girls. Girls are barred from education beyond sixth grade, as well as from many public spaces and most jobs. In August, rules were implemented banning women from showing their faces in public and prohibiting them from raising their voices in public. Hamdullah Fitrat, the Taliban's deputy spokesman, dismissed these accusations as "an attempt to spread propaganda" and denied any discrimination. Human Rights Watch researcher Fereshta Abbasi urged greater international support for the legal action and called for the involvement of Afghan women in the process. Over 20 countries have expressed backing for the initiative, emphasizing that Afghanistan's non-compliance with human rights obligations hampers the normalization of relations. The Taliban continue to reject criticism, asserting that their policies align with Islamic law. (This story was generated by Newser's AI chatbot. Source: the AP) South Korea plans to compensate farmers affected by a forthcoming dog meat ban, set to take effect in 2027. The landmark legislation, passed in January, prohibits slaughtering, breeding, or selling dogs for human consumption, punishable by up to three years in prison. The Agriculture Ministry announced compensation ranging from $170 to $450 per dog should they agree to abandon their business before that date. Farmers wanted much more: $1,505 per dog. They argue the ban impinges on their freedom and economic stability. Even supporters have mixed reactions. Sangkyung Lee from Humane Society International called the policy "an important milestone" but expressed concerns that compensation based on dog numbers might unintentionally promote breeding. Dog meat consumption, a centuries-old practice in the region, has persisted despite declining public favor; South Korea remains the only nation with industrial-scale dog farms. The government's approach includes facilitating adoptions and care facilities for approximately 466,000 dogs currently farmed for food, rather than euthanization. Authorities will also dismantle existing farms and provide loans to former dog farmers and butchers to transition to other agricultural ventures. Despite some opposition, surveys indicate that most South Koreans no longer consume dog meat and support the ban. (This story was generated by Newser's AI chatbot. Source: the AP) Mark Kotsay treated this moment like the World Series he has never had as a player or manager. Kotsay fought tears, just like so many others Thursday, as the Oakland Athletics bid an emotional farewell to the Coliseum they've called home since 1968, complete with all its quirks like plumbing problems and rally possumsand those stray cats that helped inspire Hall of Famer Tony La Russa's former Animal Rescue Foundation. The A's beat the Texas Rangers 3-2, and Kotsay took the microphone afterward for a thank-you to a sellout crowd of 46,889 before leading one last chant of "Let's go Oakland!" Third baseman Max Schuemann grabbed a huge A's flag and ran it around the field, the AP reports, stopping to wave it in front of different sections. "I've never been to a World Series before," Kotsay said. "But I feel like today is one of those days that you can kind of experience the emotion of that, the magnitude of it. Driving in the gates today and seeing the fullness of a parking lot, feeling the energy and the emotion is something I'll treasure for the rest of my life." Longtime supporters and kids alike stole away from work or school to attend the matinee finale, per the AP. Kotsay made one request for a memento: The manager took home three bases, which were changed out every inning so 27 were available as keepsakeswith longtime groundskeeper Clay Wood gifted the first-inning bags. From Kotsay's days of playing outfield and back to the 1989 earthquake-interrupted World Series when the A's swept the Giants, to Bash Brothers Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire and that special 20-game winning streak of 2002 and the Big Three of Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, and Barry Zito before "I Believe in Stephen Vogt" became a battle cry, this building has been home to glory moments transcending eras and spanning stars of different generations. Zito sang the national anthem to huge applause, while former stars Rickey Henderson and Dave Stewart tossed out ceremonial first pitches. Not far from the A's dugout, Kelly Mattson of the grounds crew let fans scoop dirt right out of his shovel. The A's plan to play the next three years in Sacramento with hopes of opening a new ballpark in Las Vegas ahead of the 2028 season. (More Oakland A's stories.) Newsmax has settled a defamation lawsuit filed by Smartmatic over the cable channel's false claims that the voting technology company rigged the 2020 presidential election to favor Joe Biden. Terms of the deal, reached as jury selection was underway, were not announced, NBC News reports. The trial was to begin next week. One of Smartmatic's arguments was going to be that since it was only operating in Los Angeles County during the election, it could hardly have thrown the national result. The company's defamation case was centered on 24 claims made on Newsmax, some by network employees and some by guests supporting Donald Trump. To win, Smartmatic would have had to convince the jury that Newsmax hosts and executives knew the claims were false but allowed them anyway, satisfying the "actual malice" legal standard. Newsmax contends it was just reporting on newsworthy accusations by people close to Trump's campaign, per the Washington Post. Newsmax is based in Florida and was counting on a state law that specifies media outlets can report on judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings, provided they do it fairly and impartially. Smartmatic also has sued Fox News, a case that could go to trial next year. The voting company settled a similar defamation lawsuit against One America News in April; terms were not announced in that case, either. Fox News' parent company, Fox Corp., settled a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems last year, agreeing to pay $787.5 million, also avoiding a trial. Newsmax and Smartmatic said they were pleased at the settlement, per the Post. "Lying to the American people has consequences," a Smartmatic spokesperson said Thursday in a statement. "Smartmatic will not stop until the perpetrators are held accountable." (More Newsmax stories.) New York governors have the power to kick New York City mayors out of office, and there's a chance Gov. Kathy Hochul could be the first to use it. Eric Adams is the first of the city's 110 mayors to be criminally charged while in office, Reuters notes, and the indictment has left Hochul in what the New York Times calls an "awkward position." So far, she has chosen her words carefully. On Thursday night, she called the indictment "the latest in a disturbing pattern of events that has, understandably, contributed to a sense of unease among many New Yorkers" but she didn't call for Adams to step down, the Times reports. Removing Adams from office would give the governor a "chance to shatter any perception of weakness and distance herself from a mayor under federal indictment," per the Timesbut it could also alienate many of his supporters ahead of next year's election. Another potential problem for Hochul is that New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams is next in the line of succession, the Albany Times Union reports. Williams ran against Hochul in the 2022 Democratic primary and has criticized policies including her congestion pricing plan. The Times Union predicts that there would be "a tense relationship between City Hall and the state Capitol" if Adams were removed. Prosecutors say Adams, who arrived at a federal courthouse to be arraigned Friday morning, took bribes including travel perks from Turkish officials and business execs, the AP reports. The Times notes that with no precedent for a governor removing a New York City mayor, it's not clear how the process would unfold if Hochul decides Adams has to go. In 1932, Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt, fearing the issue could affect his presidential campaign, considered removing Jimmy Walkerdescribed by Avenue as "a Prohibition-era dandy who stuffed his pockets with bribes while proving to be a remarkably effective civic manager"but the mayor resigned instead and moved to Europe with his showgirl mistress. (More Eric Adams stories.) Germany's most powerful union is clashing with Tesla over the automaker's decision to send bosses to check up on workers who reported being sick. In recent weeks, managers have visited the homes of around two dozen workers on sick leave from Tesla's gigafactory around 10 miles east of Berlin, the Guardian reports. The IG Metall union, which represents a growing proportion of the factory's 12,000 workers, blames stress and a "culture of fear" for high rates of sick leave at the factory, where it's common for more than 15% of workers to be off sick, reports the Times of London. The union has protested conditions at the factory, including what it says are unreasonably long hours and violations of safety rules. Nearly 700 people have been killed in Lebanon this week, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. Israel has dramatically escalated strikes, saying it's targeting Hezbollah's military capacities and senior Hezbollah commanders. The International Organization for Migration estimated Thursday that more than 200,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas after it stormed into Israel last October, sparking the Israel-Hamas war. Top Israeli officials have threatened to repeat the destruction of Gaza in Lebanon if the Hezbollah fire continues, per the AP . Lebanon says a total of 1,540 people have been killed within its borders in that time. The United States, France, and other allies have jointly called for a 21-day ceasefire. Lebanon's foreign minister said the country welcomed the ceasefire efforts and decried Israel's "systematic destruction of Lebanese border villages." Israeli military vehicles were seen transporting tanks and armored vehicles toward the country's northern border with Lebanon, and commanders have issued a call-up of reservists. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is striking Hezbollah "with full force" and won't stop until its goals are achieved. The UN refugee agency says "well over 30,000" people have crossed from Lebanon into neighboring Syria over the last 72 hours in the wake of fighting between the militant group Hezbollah and Israeli forces in Lebanon. Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, the representative for refugee agency UNHCR in Syria, said roughly half of the people who have fled were children and adolescents. He said about 80% were Syrians returning to their home country and the rest were Lebanese. "I think that this just illustrates the kind of extremely difficult choices both Syrians and Lebanese are having to make," he said. Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike on a border village has killed nine members of the same family in the village of Chebaa, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said Friday. (More Lebanon stories.) The death toll from Hurricane Helene has risen to more than 35 in four states and authorities say they expect the toll to keep rising as they search homes in the hardest-hit areas. In North Carolina, authorities are worried about a potential dam collapse. Coverage: Georgia: Gov. Brian Kemp said at least 11 people had died in the state, including a firefighter who was killed when a tree fell on his vehicle, 11Alive reports. He said crews are working to rescue people in more than 100 homes. Gov. Brian Kemp said at least 11 people had died in the state, including a firefighter who was killed when a tree fell on his vehicle, 11Alive reports. He said crews are working to rescue people in more than 100 homes. Florida: CNN reports that eight hurricane-related deaths have been reported in Florida so far. Drowning accounted for at least two of five deaths reported in Pinellas County near Tampa. CNN reports that eight hurricane-related deaths have been reported in Florida so far. Drowning accounted for at least two of five deaths reported in Pinellas County near Tampa. North Carolina . Gov. Roy Cooper said the storm killed two people in the state, including a person who was killed when a tree fell on a home in Charlotte, WXII 12 reports. . Gov. Roy Cooper said the storm killed two people in the state, including a person who was killed when a tree fell on a home in Charlotte, WXII 12 reports. South Carolina: The AP reports that officials say at least 17 people were killed in South Carolina, including two firefighters who died while responding to calls in Saluda County. ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, September 27. Turkmenistan and the Czech Republic will develop a memorandum of understanding and a cooperation program between the foreign ministries of both countries, Trend reports via the Turkmen Foreign Ministry. This issue was announced following a meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries, Rashid Meredov and Jan Lipavsky, on the sidelines of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly in New York. The parties emphasized that the memorandum and cooperation program will strengthen bilateral political and diplomatic relations. Additionally, the ministers discussed expanding trade and economic partnerships, noting the upcoming visit of a Czech business delegation to Ashgabat in October 2024. The ministers also raised issue of inter-parliamentary dialogue in light of the planned 2025 visit of the Czech Parliament's Deputy Speaker to Turkmenistan. To achieve the outlined goals, the parties agreed to establish a Turkmen-Czech working group on economic cooperation, which will help boost bilateral trade activities. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel The Israeli military said it struck the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut on Friday. The series of evening explosions is the most powerful yet seen in the Lebanese capital over the past year; the blasts leveled multiple buildings and were felt some 18 miles away, the AP reports, sending huge clouds of orange and black smoke billowing into the skies. The Israeli army spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the attack targeted the main Hezbollah headquarters, located beneath residential buildings. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short a visit to the US and was returning home instead of waiting until the end of Sabbath on Saturday evening, his office said. Hours earlier, Netanyahu addressed the United Nations, vowing that Israel's campaign against Hezbollah would continuefurther dimming hopes for an internationally backed ceasefire. Israel has dramatically escalated strikes, saying it is targeting Hezbollah's military capacities and senior Hezbollah commanders. The Pentagon said the US was given no notice of the headquarters strike. Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the attack proves "that the Israeli enemy does not care about all international efforts and calls for a ceasefire." Lebanon's Health Ministry says at least two people were killed and at least 76 wounded in the strikes at first count. First responders are still searching for others in the rubble. At least 60 of the injured suffered light wounds while 15 were admitted to the hospital, according to the statement. Local TV stations showed emergency workers running through the rubble of destroyed buildings, struggling to put out a fire. The missiles appeared to have caused massive craters. (More Israel-Hamas war stories.) We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune - www.newsofbahrain.com Email: anchalo@newsofbahrain.com Ali Hassan Al Ahmadi, the Ambassador of Yemen to the Kingdom of Bahrain, has confirmed that the five Bahraini nationals detained in Yemen are still under investigation by the relevant authorities in Marib province. He stated that the embassy does not have information regarding the nature of the investigations or the expected duration of the proceedings The Ambassador emphasised that Bahrains Ministry of Interior is in direct contact with its Yemeni counterpart to monitor the situation. The five Bahraini citizens were detained last month by Yemeni security forces in Marib, located northeast of the capital, Sanaa, after crossing into Yemen from Oman to travel to southern Saudi Arabia, as confirmed by their families. Health conditions Meanwhile, the Bahraini Ministry of Interior is actively monitoring their health conditions to ensure their safety and well-being, as well as keeping track of the legal proceedings initiated by the Yemeni authorities. The father of one of the detainees in Yemen had reported receiving reassuring calls from his son and the other detainees, indicating that investigations into their case have concluded and their release is imminent. Speaking to our sister newspaper Al Ayam, the father stated that his son informed him of a verbal notification from the Yemeni authorities confirming the completion of the investigation and the absence of any legal complications. Release The detainees were assured of their release and expected return to Bahrain soon, the father stated. He also expressed his gratitude for the efforts of Bahraini authorities, particularly the Ministries of Interior and Foreign Affairs, in following up on the case and facilitating the release of the detainees. The Daily Tribune reported earlier this month that MP Jalal Kazim had briefed the families of Bahraini citizens detained in Yemen on the latest developments regarding their loved ones situation, while the families appealed to the government to intervene and end the suffering of their detained relatives. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune - www.newsofbahrain.com Email: anchalo@Newsofbahrain.com Bahrain Islamic Bank (BisB), the leading provider of innovative Islamic financial solutions for simplifying money matters in the Kingdom of Bahrain, has launched an exclusive personal finance solution to Bahraini employees in the education sector. The campaign will be available for a limited time from 26th to 30th September, providing unique opportunities for eligible customers to access reduced profit rates on BisBs Personal Finance. This exclusive offer targets Bahraini employees working in educational institutions listed on BisBs approved list. These employees can take advantage of the competitive rates available on financing to meet various needs, including travel, education, home renovations, and other personal goals. Mr. Faisal Hamed Al Abdulla, Acting Head of Branches and Sales at BisB said, We are pleased to launch this promotional campaign that is specially designed in appreciation of the Bahraini employees working in the education sector, by offering them bespoke financing solutions at competitive rates. At BisB, we remain committed to delivering personalised Islamic banking products that cater to the needs and wants of our key customer segments, particularly those in essential professions such as education. This promotional campaign underscores BisBs commitment to providing tailored financial services that enable its clientele to achieve their financial goals. With this exclusive offer, the Bank continues to position itself as a leader in Shariaa compliant financial solutions dedicated to supporting key communities within the Kingdom. To learn more about BisBs Personal Finance solutions and the campaign, please visit BisBs website at https://ebisb.com/, call the contact centre at 17515151, or follow the Banks official Instagram page @bahrainislamicbank. ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, September 27. The UN highly appreciates the role of Turkmenistan in the implementation of the counter-terrorism strategy in Central Asia, Trend reports via the Turkmen Foreign Ministry. This issue was announced following a meeting between the foreign ministers of Turkmenistan Rashid Meredov and UN Under-Secretary-General, Head of the UN Counter-Terrorism Office Vladimir Voronkov on the sidelines of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly in New York. The parties discussed the further development of cooperation in the fight against terrorism, emphasizing the importance of the UN Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy located in Ashgabat, where representatives of the Counter-Terrorism Office are actively working. The discussion also touched upon the implementation of planned activities that will help strengthen security and stabilize the situation in the region. In this regard, the upcoming regional meetings on critical infrastructure and energy interconnectivity, scheduled for October and November in Ashgabat, were also discussed. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BMO Wealth Management joins BMO Capital Markets fundraiser for first time Over C$33 million raised in support of more than 5,500 students since 2005 TORONTO, NEW YORK, and LONDON, Sept. 26, 2024 /CNW/ - BMO today announced that its 2024 Equity Through Education (ETE) trading day, held on September 25, 2024, raised C$1.5 million toward educational assistance for thousands of students around the world, for a total of more than $33 million since the program began twenty years ago. BMO-celebrates-Equity-Through-Education-with-TMX-Closing-Bell-Ceremony-on-September-25th. (CNW Group/BMO Financial Group) Each year, BMO donates all North American and European institutional equity commissions from one day of trading to select charitable organizations helping diverse, bright, and deserving students in support of their post-secondary educational ambitions. Joining the program this year was BMO Wealth Managements InvestorLine and other business operating groups, to donate equity & ETF trading commissions earned from the September 25th trading day. Hippolyte Agkpo and John Mitrano (Co-Heads of BMO Global Equities, BMO Capital Markets), Andrea Casciato, (Head of Digital Investing, BMO InvestorLine), Camilla Sutton (Head of Equity Research Canada & UK, BMO Capital Markets), BMO colleagues and several Equity Through Education Scholars joined Rizwan Awan (President, Equity Trading, TMX Group) to ring the closing bell on Sept 25th. "I want to thank the employees and clients who make this event happen every year, and a special shout-out to Deland Kamanga and the team at BMO Wealth Management for joining us on the 20th anniversary of this incredible program," said Alan Tannenbaum, CEO, BMO Capital Markets. "BMO exemplifies its Purpose, to Boldly Grows the Good in business and life by annually donating 100 per cent of the funds we raise on this day to charities that promote progress, diversity and inclusion through scholarships, bursaries, mentoring programs, and development opportunities to promising students." "This year, for the first time, BMO Wealth Management proudly joined BMO Capital Markets in their annual Equity Through Education trading day," said Deland Kamanga, Group Head, BMO Wealth Management. "It is exciting to be a part of such a successful program and to be able to offer a remarkable opportunity for our clients to make a meaningful difference through the donation of 100 per cent of our InvestorLine and partner equity and ETF trading commissions made on September 25th." The Jackie Robinson Foundation is one of the organizations supported by BMO's Equity Through Education program. 2005 Equity Through Education Scholar Karmyn McCloud, now Senior Legal Counsel at Shell USA, Inc., described the impact it had on her life: "Marian Wright Edelman once said, 'You can't be what you can't see.' The Jackie Robinson Foundation expanded my horizons by exposing me to hundreds of brilliant students of color from all over the United States. JRF's networking weekends were profound, providing extraordinary personal and professional development, exposure to unique cultural activities and engagement in community service. My JRF experience was unparalleled and instrumental to who I am today." The proceeds from this year's Equity Through Education trading day will go to the following charities: For more information about the program visit: BMO Gives. Good grows here. Helping communities thrive by supporting the organizations that sustain them and encouraging employee giving and volunteerism is at the heart of BMO's Purpose, to Boldly Grow the Good in business and life. In 2023, our social impact included more than $84 million donated to hundreds of charities and non-profit organizations across North America to help drive progress by enabling individuals to thrive and communities to prosper. Our colleagues spent almost 62,000 hours volunteering in the community and contributed more than $31.2 million of donations through our annual employee giving program. For more information, please visit BMO.com. About BMO Financial Group BMO Financial Group is the eighth largest bank in North America by assets, with total assets of $1.4 trillion as of July 31, 2024. Serving customers for 200 years and counting, BMO is a diverse team of highly engaged employees providing a broad range of personal and commercial banking, wealth management, global markets and investment banking products and services to 13 million customers across Canada, the United States, and in select markets globally. Driven by a single purpose, to Boldly Grow the Good in business and life, BMO is committed to driving positive change in the world, and making progress for a thriving economy, sustainable future, and inclusive society. SOURCE BMO Financial Group For News Media Enquiries: Kelly Hechler, Toronto, [email protected], (416) 867-3996 Town of Lunenburg proclaims December 12 'High Liner Foods Day' LUNENBURG, NS, Sept. 27, 2024 /CNW/ - High Liner Foods Incorporated, prominent North American value-added frozen seafood company, is proudly celebrating a landmark 125th anniversary this year. In honour of the company's anniversary and the impact they've made in the community, the Town of Lunenburg Council has declared December 12 as 'High Liner Foods Day'. "For 125 years, High Liner Foods has been reimagining seafood to nourish families across North America," said Paul Jewer, President & CEO High Liner Foods. "High Liner has quite a storied history, all of which started in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and we are deeply honoured that the community has recognized us by declaring our anniversary, December 12, High Liner Foods Day." At its September 24 meeting, the Town of Lunenburg Council officially proclaimed December 12, 2024, as 'High Liner Foods Day' in celebration of the company's 125th anniversary. This day will recognize the long-standing contributions that High Liner Foods has made to Lunenburg's economic development and maritime heritage since its founding in 1899. Mayor Myra expressed the Town's gratitude, stating: "High Liner Foods has been part of Lunenburg's story for 125 years. From supporting our fishing fleet back in the day to now providing seafood to homes across North America, they've always stayed connected to this community. We're proud to recognize their hard work, commitment, and all they've done for our town and beyond." High Liner Foods is marking this milestone in the company's history, through a series of events including a recent celebratory reception held on September 23 at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic which was attended by the following local dignitaries to honour the company: The Honourable Susan Corkum-Greek, Minister of Economic Development The Honourable Kent Smith, Minister of Fisheries & Aquaculture Mayor of the Town of Lunenburg, Jamie Myra Mayor of The Municipality of the District of Lunenburg, Carolyn Bolivar-Getson High Liner Foods was acknowledged with certificates of congratulations and appreciation from both the Municipality of the District of Lunenburg and the Town of Lunenburg. About High Liner Foods Incorporated High Liner Foods Incorporated is a leading North American processor and marketer of value-added frozen seafood. High Liner Foods' retail branded products are sold throughout the United States and Canada under the High Liner, Fisher Boy, Mirabel, Sea Cuisine, and Catch of the Day labels, and are available in most grocery and club stores. The Company also sells branded products to restaurants and institutions under the High Liner, Mirabel, Icelandic Seafood and FPI labels and is a major supplier of private label value-added seafood products to North American food retailers and foodservice distributors. High Liner Foods is a publicly traded Canadian company, trading under the symbol HLF on the Toronto Stock Exchange. For further information about the Company, please visit our website at www.highlinerfoods.com SOURCE High Liner Foods Incorporated For more information Contact: Jaclyn Atwood-Powell, AP Communications, jaclyn@apcommunications CALGARY, AB, Sept. 26, 2024 /CNW/ - Vencanna Ventures Inc. (CSE: VENI) ("Vencanna" or the "Company"), an Alberta-based go-to capital provider for early-stage cannabis initiatives, was issued a management cease trade order (the "Order") on August 29, 2024, by its principal regulator, the Alberta Securities Commission, pursuant to National Policy 12-203 Management Cease Trade Orders ("NP 12-203"). The Company sought the Order because it needed to delay filing its audited annual financial statements for the year ended April 30, 2024, the related management's discussion and analysis and related CEO and CFO certificates (collective, the "Required Documents"), all of which had a required deadline of August 28, 2024. The delay is attributable to the reasons outlined in the default announcement which was filed by the Company on SEDAR+ on August 27, 2024 (the "Default Announcement"). The Company expects to file the Required Documents on or before October 25, 2024 (the "Extension Period"). Since the filing of the Default Announcement, the Company has worked with its audit team to answer the necessary questions for the audit team to complete its review in a timely manner. Related to the Company's acquisition of The Cannavative Group, LLC, which closed earlier this year, the Company engaged with third-party consultants preparing the purchase price adjustment (the "Price Adjustment"), which the Company understands will be completed shortly, and the fair value of the personal property assets (the "Property FV"), which report has now been completed. Progress continues to be made in the preparation of the Price Adjustment, Property FV reports, and the audit team's field work so that the Company may file the Required Documents within the Extension Period. Except as described herein, there have been no material changes to the information contained in the Default Announcement or the default status report the Company filed on SEDAR+ on September 11, 2024. The Company has encountered no failures in fulfilling its stated intention in its Default Announcement with respect to satisfying the provisions of the alternative information guidelines under NP 12-203 (the "Alternative Information Guidelines"). The Company does not anticipate any specified default subsequent to the default which is the subject of the Default Announcement, except for the need to additionally delay the filing of its interim financial report for the period ended July 31, 2024, the related management's discussion and analysis and related CEO and CFO certificates, all of which have a filing deadline of September 30, 2024. The Company anticipates that such filings will be made on or before October 25, 2024. Subject to section 11 of NP 12-203, there is no other material information concerning the affairs of the Company that has not been generally disclosed. The Company confirms that it will satisfy the provisions of the Alternative Information Guidelines by continuing to issue biweekly default status reports in the form of news releases for so long as it remains in default of the above-noted filing requirements. About Vencanna Vencanna is dedicated to offering investors a diversified and high-growth cannabis investment strategy. It proposes to achieve this through strategic investments and acquisitions spanning the entire cannabis value chain, encompassing cultivation, processing, distribution, retail, and ancillary businesses, with a particular focus in the Unities States of America. Reader Advisory Neither Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. The use of any of the words "expect", "anticipate", "continue", "estimate", "objective", "ongoing", "may", "will", "project", "should", "believe", "plans", "intends" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking information or statements. More particularly, and without limitation, this news release contains forward-looking statements and information concerning the anticipated filing of the financial statements. Vencanna believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements and information are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements and information because Vencanna can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. By its nature, such forward-looking information is subject to inherent risks and uncertainties, which could cause the actual results and expectations to differ materially from the anticipated results or expectations expressed. SOURCE Vencanna Ventures Inc. For additional information regarding Vencanna, please contact: David McGorman, Chief Executive Officer, Email: [email protected] ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, September 27. Turkmenistan and Serbia have confirmed their interest in realizing the economic potential between the two countries, Trend reports via Turkmenistans MFA. The foreign ministers of the nations, Rashid Meredov and Marko Djuric, discussed cooperation during the 79th session of the UN General Assembly in New York. A key aspect of their meeting was the exploration of ways to enhance trade and economic relations, underscoring both countries' commitment to more active engagement. The ministers also examined opportunities for expanding bilateral ties and strengthening the legal framework for collaboration. Additionally, a Memorandum of Cooperation was signed between the Institute of International Relations of the Turkmen Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Diplomatic Academy of the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, September 27. The Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan and Austria signed a program of cooperation for 2024-2026, Trend reports. We held a meeting with the Federal Minister for European and International Affairs of Austria, Alexander Schallenberg. We signed the program of cooperation between our ministries for 2024-2026, which covers priority areas of cooperation in all areas, Uzbekistans Minister of Foreign Affairs Bakhtiyor Saidov wrote in his Telegram channel. During the meeting, the sides also discussed regional and global dynamics. Meanwhile, Uzbekistan and Austria have signed a memorandum of cooperation. The document was signed during an online meeting between the Minister of Investment, Industry, and Trade of Uzbekistan Laziz Kudratov and the Deputy Minister of Finance of Austria Andreas Reichardt. The memorandum covers cooperation in the field of innovative technologies, best practices, and economic interaction. Two Bergen County men have been accused of sexually assaulting children in separate incidents in North Jersey, investigators announced Thursday. Jayden Maneiro, 24, of Garfield, was arrested after authorities said he sexually assaulted a child under the age of 13 in Garfield at an unspecified time in the past, according to a statement from the Bergen County Prosecutors Office. He was taken into custody in Paramus and charged with second-degree sexual assault, third-degree endangering the welfare of a child and was taken to the Bergen County Jail, the office said. In a separate, unrelated incident, Junior Reyes-Tejada, 33, of Lodi, was also accused of sexually assaulting a child under the age of 13 at unspecified time in his town of residence, authorities said. The investigation into that allegation began on Wednesday after the Lodi Police Department contacted the prosecutors office. Reyes-Tejada was arrested in Paramus and charged with first-degree aggravated sexual assault, second-degree sexual assault by contact and second-degree endangering the welfare of a child and was also taken to the Bergen County Jail, the office said. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription. Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com. A former employee at a real estate company in Bergen County was arrested Thursday and charged with theft after nearly $100,000 in business funds went missing, authorities said. Maria Vega, 52, of Leonia, was charged with second-degree theft by deception and released on a summons to appear in court. The investigation began on Sept. 11 when the accounting staff at a realty company on Passaic Street in Rochelle Park noticed a series of wire transfers from a business account to a personal checking account. The transfers began in March 2023 and ended in May with a total loss of $99,342, according to Rochelle Park police. Vega had worked for the company in the past. Police did not say why she was no longer there, but detectives linked Vega to the transfers, according to borough police Capt. James DePreta. Bank records and subpoenas revealed a former employee wired the funds to the same account in which she received legitimate direct deposit payments, DePreta said. Attorney information for Vega was not listed Friday in online court records. Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook. A Pennsylvania man who authorities said tried to lure a teenager to a local hotel for sex has been arrested, the Bergen County Prosecutors Office announced Thursday. Thomas G. Rutledge, 37, of Green Lane, Pennsylvania was charged with second-degree luring and third-degree endangering the welfare of a child after authorities alleged he communicated with a teenager through Snapchat and planned to meet her at a hotel in Teaneck. Teaneck police contacted Bergen County authorities on Feb. 19 regarding a potential incident of luring in the borough, officials said. An investigation by the Special Victims Unit of the county prosecutors office discovered that an unknown person had engaged in sexually explicit conversations with a child under 16 years old on Snapchat, the office said. Officials said the unknown person had arranged transportation for the child to meet him at a Teaneck hotel under the pretense of a sexual encounter. After a months-long investigation, detectives determined that Rutledge was the unknown user and notified the Department of Homeland Security and Pennsylvania State Police. Authorities did not share additional details into the investigation Thursday. Rutledge was charged on Tuesday and arrested at his residence by state police, according to officials. He is being held at the Bucks County Correctional Facility in Doylestown pending extradition to New Jersey, authorities said. An attorney for Rutledge was not able to be reached for comment Thursday. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Matthew Enuco may be reached at Menuco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Matt on X. A wife-and-husband team making nearly $600,000 in combined total compensation running a small, publicly funded charter school in Newark do not appear to live full-time in New Jersey and actually reside in Florida, an NJ Advance Media investigation has found. The arrangement is believed to violate the New Jersey First Act, which requires public employees to live in-state, including public school teachers and administrators. Teresa Segarra, the superintendent of Maria L. Varisco-Rogers Charter School, and her husband, Jose Segarra, the school business administrator, live in Coral Gables, Florida, according to housing and voting records and two sources familiar with the inner workings of the institution. The sources asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. The Segarras, who are among the highest-paid educators in New Jersey, only make a few in-person visits to the school during the year, one source said. NJ Advance Media has made repeated attempts to reach Teresa Segarra, beginning in June. She did not respond to multiple phone messages and emails over the summer seeking comment on the charter school and its seemingly exorbitant salaries. In the past two weeks, as details of the Segarras apparent living arrangement emerged, NJ Advance Media attempted to reach both Teresa and Jose Segarra by phone and email. None of those messages were returned. On Tuesday afternoon, an attorney representing the school contacted NJ Advance Media. NJ Advance Media presented the findings of its investigation to the attorney and again requested comment, but as of Thursday evening received no response. With a salary of $301,600, Teresa Segarra, 79, is the states fourth-highest paid superintendent, outearning the leaders of nearly 600 other school districts, according to the states salary database. She made an additional $22,036 for the fiscal year ending June 2023, tax filings show, pushing her total compensation to $323,636. Jose Segarra, 79, earns $257,802 as the schools business administrator, records show. Despite serving in a lesser capacity, he makes more than all but 22 superintendents in New Jersey, according to the states database. Maria L. Varisco-Rogers Charter School, a kindergarten through eighth grade institution in Newarks North Ward, has 570 total students. About 93% of its students are economically disadvantaged. Like most publicly funded charter schools in New Jersey, the schools revenue is derived from taxpayer funds, state financial reports show. Under the New Jersey First Act, all public employees are required to live in-state, including public school teachers and administrators. The law has stirred controversy in recent years due to teacher shortages, and the fact that many school employees seek to live in neighboring states like New York or Pennsylvania. Lawmakers have tried to change it without success. Current legislation is pending to repeal the act, but it remains the law. Workers can file for exemptions with the state, but few are granted. A review of the states Employee Residency Review Committee rulings did not show exemptions granted to the Segarras. According to public records, Teresa and Jose Segarra are registered to vote in Florida. Teresa Segarra has voted regularly in Florida since 2016, and Jose Segarra since 2014, records show. The federal government defines voting residence as the address that you consider your permanent home. The Segarras also are registered to vote in New Jersey. According to an unofficial New Jersey voter database, however, Teresa and Jose Segarra last voted in the state in 2012. Its unclear when the Segarras began working at Maria L. Varisco-Rogers. But Teresa Segarra has appeared in the state salary database connected to the school since at least the 2016-17 school year. Marc H. Zitomer, a school district attorney representing dozens of districts and charter schools across the state, spoke generally about the New Jersey First law, saying the state defines a principal residence with three components, including where the person spends most of their non-working time, the place thats the center of the persons domestic life and where the persons legal address and legal residence for voting is. If a person is a legal voter in the state of Florida, to me that raises red flags that the person does not satisfy the requirements of the New Jersey First statute that their principal address is not in New Jersey, Zitomer said. In my opinion, if the persons legal residence for voting is in the state of Florida, its basically a prime indicator under the law that New Jersey is not their principal residence, Zitomer added. The couples current primary address is a home in Coral Gables, Florida, purchased in 2022, housing records show. Prior to that, the Segarras owned a condo in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, from 2020 to 2022, and a home in Melbourne, Florida, from 2012 to 2020, according to housing records. The Segarras also have owned a home in Livingston, New Jersey, purchased in 2000 and sold in June, housing records show. Additionally, Jose Segarra was cited for three traffic violations between 2021 and 2022, according to police records, and all three citations listed the Coral Gables property as his home address. The vehicle he was driving also had Florida license plates, records show. One ticket was issued on a Saturday in May of 2022, and another was issued on a Thursday at 1:07 p.m. in early December of 2022, when school is believed to have been in session. Publicly funded charter schools in New Jersey recently have come under scrutiny from lawmakers after a series of NJ Advance Media investigations uncovered some charter school leaders have been earning salaries that far outpace top officials in public districts. The reports also uncovered allegations of nepotism and financial and ethical improprieties in some charter schools. Four New Jersey senators have called on the state Department of Education to open a formal inquiry into the states charter school sector. And two senior state senators Vin Gopal, D-Monmouth, and Paul Sarlo, D-Bergen have announced plans to initiate legislative hearings and a review of the states charter school policies and regulations. Charter schools receive public tax dollars, and as a result must be held accountable for how they are spending taxpayer dollars in the same way we make sure that public schools are, Gopal said. Our committee will be responding in the weeks ahead. NJ Advance Media research editor Vinessa Erminio contributed to this report. Our journalism needs your support. Please consider subscribing to NJ.com. Matthew Stanmyre may be reached at mstanmyre@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X @MattStanmyre. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Just who will Stephen Colbert be in conversation with at this years Montclair Film Festival? Well, cut yourself a slice of chocolate cake and pour yourself a cosmopolitan, because Ina Garten is coming to town. Organizers say the celebrity chef, aka the Barefoot Contessa, will be the focus of the festivals storyteller series as she sits down with Colbert Oct. 20 (a Sunday) to talk about her new memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens. Anyone who buys a ticket to see Garten at the Wellmont Theater will receive a copy of the book (Watchung Booksellers is participating). Garten, 76, a James Beard Award winner known for her Food Network show Barefoot Contessa, formerly owned a gourmet food store by the same name in Westhampton Beach, New York (she lives in East Hampton). Garten, who has hosted the TV series since 2002, is the author of 13 cookbooks and also hosts the Food Network show Be My Guest with Ina Garten. Colbert, 60, a Montclair resident, is a fixture of the Montclair Film Festival. In July, the Late Show host was in conversation with Oscar nominee Paul Giamatti for a Montclair Film benefit at NJPAC. Colberts wife, Evelyn Evie McGee Colbert, is president of the Montclair Film board. Garten will join Colbert noon Sunday, Oct. 20 at the Wellmont Theater. The Montclair Film Festival runs from Oct. 18 to Oct. 27. For the full festival lineup and tickets on sale Monday, Sept. 30 at 10 a.m. for Montclair Film members and Oct. 4 at 10 a.m. for the public visit montclairfilm.org. 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. When word got around that Oasis would be reuniting to play a tour, an image circulated showing a list of unconfirmed tour dates. On that list: New Jerseys very own MetLife Stadium. Now NME reports that the band is indeed headed to the East Rutherford venue as part of its reunion tour next year. As brothers Noel Gallagher and Liam Gallagher announced last month, Oasis Live 25 is set to kick off in Cardiff, Wales July 4 and 5 before heading to their hometown of Manchester, England July 11, 12, 16, 19 and 20. The band plays London July 25, 26, 30 and August 2 and 3; Edinburgh, Scotland August 8, 9 and 12; and Dublin, Ireland August 16 and 17. All of the above dates are sold out. The date of any MetLife shows are unknown, and the Gallaghers have not confirmed the report that theyll play Jersey, but NME says an announcement is expected in a week or so. Yep its already finished Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) September 7, 2024 The previously rumored dates for the MetLife gigs were August 30 and 31, which would be almost two weeks after their shows in Ireland. Liam Gallagher and Noel Gallagher are known for their feuds as well as their music. They went their separate ways and broke up the band 15 years ago their last show together was in 2009. The guns have fallen silent, the band said in its reunion tour announcement in August. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over. Come see. It will not be televised. But now not only are they reuniting for a tour, theyve also apparently made a new album, according to one very vocal Gallagher. Yep its already finished, Liam Gallagher, 52, told a fan earlier this month on X (formerly Twitter). Liam, who is known for his prolific tweeting, also confirmed via tweet that the band would be playing the United States. The MetLife concerts so far look to be the only ones scheduled for the New York-New Jersey area. NME says the band is also playing Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles as well as Mexico, Canada, South America, South Korea, Japan and Australia. Since 2010, Noel Gallagher, 57, has played with his band Noel Gallaghers High Flying Birds. Liam Gallagher performs as a solo act, and from 2009 to 2014 was frontman of the band Beady Eye. Oasis guitarists Andy Bell and Gem Archer played in Beady Eye, as did drummer Chris Sharrock. Archer and Sharrock then toured with Noel Gallaghers High Flying Birds. We are im there now I love it Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) September 7, 2024 Oasis broke out in 1994 with the debut album Definitely Maybe, which topped the album chart in United Kingdom and went platinum in the U.S. The single Live Forever made the UK top 10. The Live 25 reunion tour coincides with the 30th anniversary of the bands 1995 sophomore album, (Whats The Story) Morning Glory? which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 in 1996. The hit song Wonderwall charted at No. 8. Oasis, founded in Manchester in 1991, has released seven studio albums. Be Here Now (1997), the bands third album, reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200. The groups most recent release, the 2008 album Dig Out Your Soul, hit No. 5. 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. A longstanding New Jersey restaurant has closed and its building is up for sale after 48 years of operation. The Edison Family Restaurant, best known for its lengthy menu of homemade soups, shuttered last week after the tenants who were renting the building and operating the business were evicted for unpaid rent. An eviction notice was posted on the Oak Tree Road business door last week. Peggy Trstensky and her husband, Theodore Zervos, own the building and ran the business for 40 years before selling it in 2016 to Jun S. Oh. Trstensky told NJ Advance Media that Oh wasnt a hands-on operator. Oh could not be reached for comment. We feel very bad, Trstensky told NJ Advance Media. The place just died a slow death. The Edison Family Restaurant originally opened in 1976 and became locally beloved for its quart-sized soups like chicken noodle, beef barley, matzoh ball soup and more. Citing her age, Trstensky says she will now sell the building. MyCentralJersey.com reported court records showed Oh owed more than $49,000 in rent and fees dating to March and that the business representatives failed to appear in court last month. Trstensky would not specify how much rent was owned, but confirmed the total was in the tens of thousands. Trstensky confirmed a commercial warrant for removal signed by a Middlesex County Superior Court judge was served to the tenant as well. The future of the building is unclear, but Trstensky said there has already been interest from potential buyers. Weve had many different people approach us, Trstensky said. The best deal would probably be either a restaurant or office, because thats basically whats along Oak Tree Road. More food coverage Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Christopher Burch can be reached at cburch@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter: @SwishBurch. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us at nj.com/tips/. happiness is being able to secure concert tickets to the last leg of the Eras Tour. With September swiftly coming to an end, the month of October means that the final leg of the Eras Tour is about to begin, and Swifties are more than ready to see Taylor Swift live again. Swift will pick up the final leg of the Eras Tour on Oct. 18 in Miami, Fla., and will wrap up on Dec. 8 in Vancouver, BC. Fans who thought these last-minute tickets would be as cheap as the international leg of the Eras Tour will be sadly mistaken, as tickets are in the high thousands, especially for front-row tickets. Some of the most expensive tickets on the market are listed for over $5,000. However, there is no need to panic over the price tag just yet, because we are here to help you get the cheapest tickets on the market. Here are how much the cheapest tickets on the secondary market for the Eras Tour currently cost. The cheapest Eras Tour tickets in 2024 Miami, Florida (Oct. 18) Cheapest tickets: $1,414 on StubHub | $1,333 on Vivid Seats | $1,302 on SeatGeek Miami, Florida (Oct. 19) Cheapest tickets: $2,331 on StubHub | $1,255 on Vivid Seats | $1,335 on SeatGeek Miami, Florida (Oct. 20) Cheapest tickets: $1,179 on StubHub | $1,271 on Vivid Seats | $1,308 on SeatGeek New Orleans, Louisiana (Oct. 25) Cheapest tickets: $1,211 on StubHub | $1,177 on Vivid Seats | $1,249 on SeatGeek New Orleans, Louisiana (Oct. 26) Cheapest tickets: $1,249 on StubHub | $1,193 on Vivid Seats | $1,153 on SeatGeek New Orleans, Louisiana (Oct. 27) Cheapest tickets: $1,290 on StubHub | $1,075 on Vivid Seats | $1,148 on SeatGeek Indianapolis, Indiana (Nov. 1) Cheapest tickets: $1,684 on StubHub | $1,590 on Vivid Seats | $1,599 on SeatGeek Indianapolis, Indiana (Nov. 2) Cheapest tickets: $1,832 on StubHub | $1,877 on Vivid Seats | $1,920 SeatGeek Indianapolis, Indiana (Nov. 3) Cheapest Tickets: $1,565 StubHub | $1,681 Vivid Seats | $1,690 on SeatGeek Toronto, Ontario (Nov. 14) Cheapest tickets: $1,540 on StubHub | $1,333 on Vivid Seats | $1,959 on SeatGeek Toronto, Ontario (Nov. 15) Cheapest tickets: $1,582 on StubHub | $1,471 on Vivid Seats | $2,010 on SeatGeek Toronto, Ontario (Nov. 16) Cheapest Tickets: $1,478 on StubHub | $1,356 on Vivid Seats | $1,943 on SeatGeek Toronto, Ontario (Nov. 21) Cheapest tickets: $1,220 on StubHub | $1,255 on Vivid Seats | $1,834 on SeatGeek Toronto, Ontario (Nov. 22) Cheapest tickets: $1,540 on StubHub | $1,341 on Vivid Seats | $1,978 on SeatGeek Toronto, Ontario (Nov. 23) Cheapest tickets: $1,417 on StubHub | $1,285 on Vivid Seats | $1,806 on SeatGeek Vancouver, British Columbia (Dec. 6) Cheapest tickets: $1,480 on StubHub | $1,254 on Vivid Seats | $1,797 on SeatGeek Vancouver, British Columbia (Dec. 7) Cheapest tickets: $1,232 on StubHub | $1,294 on Vivid Seats | $1,892 on SeatGeek Vancouver, British Columbia (Dec. 8) Cheapest tickets: $1,725 on StubHub | $1,549 on Vivid Seats | $2,274 on SeatGeek Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Nicole Iuzzolino can be reached at niuzzolino@njadvancemedia.com. Have a tip? Tell us at nj.com/tips. A Trenton man was convicted Wednesday by a Mercer County jury on all counts stemming from a 2022 shooting that left one person paralyzed, acting Mercer County Prosecutor Theresa L. Hilton announced Thursday. Henry Hutchinson, 40, of Trenton was convicted of first-degree attempted murder and weapons offenses in the July 16, 2022 shooting of a person in Trenton. Authorities said Hutchinson shot the victim twice around 11 p.m. in the area of the 100 block of Chambers Street and then stood over the man before shooting him a third time. The victim was left a paraplegic as a result of the shooting, authorities said. Trenton police arrested Hutchinson two days later and recovered a .38 revolver that was alleged to have been used in the shooting, officials said. Hutchinson is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 4 and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison after the jury found him to be a persistent offender under New Jerseys Three Strikes Law, officials said. His attorney did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Matthew Enuco may be reached at Menuco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Matt on X. Another fire ripped through a former South Jersey community center last week, further damaging a building that once served as a hub for essential community support services. Vandals set fire to the former John B. Campbell Community Center in Salem City for the second time in three years, local officials said. But, they are moving forward with long-awaited plans to foreclose on the property later this year. TIANJIN, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Ice Cream China 2024 exhibition kicked off in north China's Tianjin Municipality on Thursday, showcasing new products and technologies in the ice cream industry. The three-day exhibition has attracted more than 450 domestic and international companies and over 1,000 business people from over 50 countries, with activities including new product releases, professional seminars and business matchmaking. With an exhibition area of over 45,000 square meters, the event displays ice cream and its ingredients, as well as refrigeration facilities and other machinery. Zhang Xiaohong, head of the organizing committee of Ice Cream China, said the fair shows the vitality of China's ice cream industry and the new trends in the huge market, such as rising health and environmental protection consciousness. Albert Vega Duran with IBK Tropic, a Spanish ice cream ingredients supplier who has exhibited in the fair for over 10 years, said that China is a big producer and consumer of ice cream and still has growth potential. "We visit this exhibition to meet clients and see more orders. We try to improve our product," said Duran. Held since 1998, the exhibition facilitates international exchanges within the ice cream industry. TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, September 27. Uzbekistan and Egypt have initiated negotiations to establish a joint chamber of commerce, Trend reports. This was announced during a meeting between the representatives of the Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Uztextileprom Association, and the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt. During the meeting, the sides noted that the main objectives of the chamber will be to develop trade relations, attract foreign direct investment, and promote cooperation in the textile industry, tourism, leather production, and pharmaceuticals. Additionally, the participants discussed opportunities for joint projects aimed at enhancing the export potential of both countries and introducing modern technologies into key sectors of the economy. Earlier, Uzbekistan and Egypt agreed to increase practical implementation of joint investment initiatives and increase the volume of mutual trade. The issue was reviewed at a G2B format meeting, where Uzbekistans Ministry of Investment, Industry, and Trade rubbed elbows with the bigwigs of major Egyptian companies. An Ocean County man was sentenced Friday to five years in state prison after pleading guilty to distributing child pornography, authorities said. Andrew Anastasio, 60, pleaded guilty April 11 in state Superior Court to distribution of child pornography, according to Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer. Anastasio, of Jackson Township, will be required to register as a sex offender under Megans Law and must serve three years before he is eligible for parole supervision, which he will be placed on for life, Billhimer said. Anastasio was arrested on Sept. 23, 2021, after investigators received tips that a person in the area was sending and receiving child sex abuse materials on the internet. An investigation by the Ocean County Prosecutors Office High Tech Crime Unit identified an IP address associated with a Jackson Township residence. That individual was ultimately identified as Anastasio, Billhimer said. Investigators from the prosecutors office and Jackson Police Departments SWAT Team searched the house and seized a laptop computer and the illegal images, Billhimer said. Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Good grief, yet another charter salary scam: A married couple who run a small, 570-student charter school in Newark for disadvantaged kids are earning a combined total of nearly $600,000, paid for by taxpayers, folks. And thats not all. Theyre also apparently living down in sunny Florida, which violates a state law that requires public employees to live in New Jersey. More outrageous abuses for the state Legislature to review, as it already plans to tackle the obscene salaries at the College Achieve charter network, which runs 11 schools from Paterson to Asbury Park. Its CEO, Michael Piscal, was earning about $800,000 a year until this was exposed by Matthew Stanmyre of NJ Advance Media, whos done a real service in highlighting the greed and opportunism of folks like this. Now add the Florida couple, Teresa and Joe Segarra, of Maria L. Varisco-Rogers Charter School in Newark, to that list. This is crying out for reform, but legislators will have to tread carefully finding ways to prevent absurd salaries without the unintended consequences of Chris Christies superintendent salary cap in 2021, which ended up driving away some of the states best superintendents. Scandals like this also speak to the weak governance of Gov. Phil Murphys Department of Education, which even under existing law should be doing more to crack down on and close the worst charter schools. During Christies eight years as governor, his DOE shut down 24 charter schools; in Murphys nearly seven years in office, his DOE has shut down just three. Now, the disgrace of scandals like these could jeopardize the success of all the top-performing charters in cities like Newark. Some crucial context here: Overall, charters not only outperform district schools but cost taxpayers less to boot. This is because they get no money to construct school buildings and less money for operating costs. They also pay lower salaries to their superintendents, principals and teachers when compared with district schools, based on state data. Yet theyre doing better: Kids in charter schools outscore their district peers on math and reading tests, are more likely to be poor, and are 85 percent Black and Hispanic, according to state data compiled by the Charter School Association of NJ. And in Newark, where families are given a menu of schools to rank by preference, they consistently choose charters over district schools. So for their sake, lets hope we can weed out the bad actors without a backlash that hurts families in poor cities, who desperately want this chance for their kids. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. One candidate in the 2024 presidential race has the edge when it comes to six battleground states that could determine the election. A new Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll, released Thursday, found Vice President Harris narrowly leading former President Trump in the swing states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and North Carolina. She is tied with Trump in the battleground state of Georgia. Harriss biggest lead is in Nevada, where she has a 7-point lead over the former president with 52 percent of support compared to 45 percent of support. Her second largest lead is in Pennsylvania, which is seen as a must-win state for Democrats. She leads Trump by 5 points in the state with 51 percent of support. Her support echoes other recent Pennsylvania polls that found Harris leading in the state. She also has a 3-point lead over Trump in each of the swing states of Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin. She has a 2-point lead in North Carolina, which President Biden narrowly lost to Trump in 2020. The election will likely come down to the battleground states due to the Electoral College system. Across all swing states, Harris is leading by 3 percentage points, according to the poll. The poll surveyed 6,165 registered voters across seven swing states Sept. 19-25. This comes as Harris will be traveling to the border in Arizona on Friday to court voters. Immigration and border security are top issues in Arizona, the only battleground state that borders Mexico and one that contended with a record influx of asylum seekers last year. Trump has an edge with voters on migration, and Harris has gone on offense to improve her standing on the issue and defuse a key line of political attack for Trump. Meanwhile, Trump will be appealing to voters in the battleground state of Michigan on Friday. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Clark Township is playing hardball with a whistleblower who documented racism at town hall, charging he should return the money it paid to keep him quiet. In 2020, Clark quietly inked a $400,000 settlement with former police Lt. Antonio Manata after he threatened to expose secret recordings of Mayor Sal Bonaccorso and police brass using racial slurs that included the N-word. The settlement was denounced last year by Attorney General Matthew Platkin as a misuse of public resources to cover up wrongdoing by town officials. Still, the township claims Manata failed to live up to his end of the bargain in that agreement and is seeking damages to recoup its money. 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. SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan, September 27. Uzbekistan and the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) have reached an agreement to initiate several joint projects totaling $3.3 billion, including 5 non-sovereign projects slated for this year, Trend reports. This was announced during a meeting between Uzbekistan's Minister of Investments, Industry and Trade Laziz Kudratov, and EDB Chairman Nikolai Podguzov, held on the sidelines of the recently concluded 9th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Podguzov emphasized that Uzbekistan remains a key partner for the EDB in the region and shared plans to include several major countries as shareholders soon. Additionally, a country office of the EDB is set to open in Tashkent by the end of the year to enhance collaboration and expedite financing for priority projects. Podguzov also indicated that Uzbekistan may join the EDB by the end of 2024. "I can say that now, having already received Uzbekistan's application to join the bank, Uzbekistan's participation in the bank will be approximately 10 percent. We hope that this year all legal issues related to the accession will be completed," he said. The historic Barnstaple Guildhall has been unveiled in its full splendour following significant renovation works. The iconic Grade II* listed building, designed by local architect Thomas Lee and built between 1826 and 1828, now stands proudly restored to its neo-Classical grandeur. Thomas Lee, who is also known for designing Somersets Wellington Monument and Arlington Court, left an architectural legacy in the Guildhall that continues to serve the community. The building, maintained by Barnstaple Town Council, once operated as a courthouse and still holds Town Council meetings and ceremonial events, including the recent Fair Proclamation Ceremony. It also remains a popular visitor attraction, hosting various events and exhibitions. The renovation project, which began in February, was made possible through funding from Historic England's Repair Grants for Heritage at Risk and the Governments Future High Street Fund Programme, administered by North Devon District Council. The project was undertaken by local firms Pearce Construction, an employee-owned company with expertise in heritage restorations, and Nova Surveyors, who managed the works. Restoring the Guildhall was not without challenges. As a pre-1919 listed building, extensive repairs were needed, including replacing sections of the render and three pillars, renovating much of the roofs lead, the bells cupola, stonework on the plinth, window casements, and the clock on the Butchers Row side. Guidance from Historic England and local Conservation Officer Colette Hall helped ensure the work preserved the building's historic character while making it more resistant to North Devons weather. Barnstaples Mayor, Councillor Janet Coates, expressed her delight at the restoration: The Guildhall looks splendid. It was wonderful to have it restored to its former glory in time for the Fair Proclamation. The Mayor also emphasised the Town Councils commitment to ongoing maintenance to ensure the Guildhall remains in excellent condition for years to come. Future restoration work is already planned, with the next focus being the Council Chamber, a significant space used for Town Council meetings and events. Visits to the Guildhall can be arranged by contacting Barnstaple Town Council. If you think Latin American history starts with Christopher Columbus, John Leguizamo would like to have a word. He points out there were great empires and civilizations during the thousands of years before 1492 like the mighty Incas, Aztecs and Maya, whose great strides in medicine, engineering and science echo today. I get power from that, says the actor and activist. It helps me to keep going in todays America that is a difficult landscape at the moment. Leguizamo is spreading the word with a new PBS three-part series, VOCES American Historia: The Untold History of Latinos, which unspools the fascinating history and often overlooked contributions of Latino people. It starts airing Friday. John Hopkins University did a study and found that 87% of Latino contributions to the making of America are absent in the history textbooks. And the 13% thats there gets less than five sentences. So this is our corrective for that, Leguizamo says. The first part includes the legacy of the Taino, Maya, Aztec and Inca, or as Leguizamo calls them, the OG civilizations of Latin America. Then the show explores the Latino roles in the American Revolution and Civil War and the building of the United States. The third part is about the fight for Latino civil rights and preserving their cultural history. I want my daughter to feel very proud of the ancestry and the roots that she came from and hopefully other Latino kids and adults will get the same feeling from it, says co-creator and director Ben DeJesus. American Historia features over a dozen leading historians, anthropologists and experts, as well as actors reading source material, including Benjamin Bratt, Bryan Cranston, Rosario Dawson, Laurence Fishburne, Ethan Hawke, Edward James Olmos, Rosie Perez, and Liev Schreiber. This is only the beginning for us. We look at this as volume one. We look at this like our virtual visual history book. And the history book is incomplete unless we keep digging deeper and further, says DeJesus. It is often a tough series to watch, especially when Columbus brought three boats with troops and billions of germs that would mean an apocalypse for Indigenous people disease, enslavement, rape and forced displacement. Gold that was plundered from the Americas funded the Enlightenment and the European commercial revolution. To me, Latin people are the most resilient people on Earth because we came from almost complete genocide," says Leguizamo. Our culture was destroyed, our religion, our language. And yet here we are adding $3.6 trillion to the U.S. GDP annually. For Leguizamo and DeJesus, this is a very personal mission. The Incas were famous for developing drug compounds still in use today and for their skill with skull surgery, with relative higher survival rates than in Europe. Leguizamo wonders if that kind of knowledge and pride might help boost the relatively low number of Latin physicians today. Imagine how others would see us if they knew our rich history. Imagine how we would see ourselves if we knew our own stories, he says to the camera. The show was inspired in large part by Leguizamo's latest one-man show on Broadway, Latin History for Morons, an examination of Latin heroes prompted by a school essay requested by his son's private school. Onstage, there was only so far that John could go. As you get closer to Broadway, John had to keep paring down the script, says DeJesus. Now, all of a sudden, we have hours of national broadcast. There are many tales of heroes, like Rear Admiral David Glasgow Farragut, who during the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864 famously said: Damn the torpedoes. Or 17-year-old housekeeper Carmelita Torres, who in 1917 tied up the Juarez Port protesting humiliating inspections at the border. When I do a show like this, its for every single person in this country and outside this country to feel that theyre important, that they matter, that they have self-worth, that their contributions will not be forgotten, Leguizamo says. We have made strides, huge strides. We deserve a lot more and we need to get more because were 20% of the population and yet not getting 20% value for our buck. Viewers will see a history of a complex people gradually unerased but its creators hope there are lessons and a blueprint forward for more than just Latinos. This is not just a Latino project for Latino audiences," says DeJesus. "No, this is meant for everyone. Just like when I watch a documentary of Ken Burns or somebody like that, all of a sudden I come out of it with a new perspective and more enlightened. So thats our hope for all kinds of audiences. BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. The new Cabinet appointed by Emmanuel Macron will make the policy towards Muslims even more discriminatory, and Islamophobia, in general, is becoming a kind of state ideology in France, Jean-Michel Brun, chief editor of the Paris-based online newspaper La Gazette du Caucase, said in his article, Trend reports. The piece talks about the racist scandal in France caused by the sensational statement of former French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin. My name is Gerald Moussa Jean Darmanin (his middle name comes from his grandfather, an Algerian gunman who served France). It is quite obvious that if I were honest, if my name was Moussa Darmanin, I would not have been elected mayor, deputy, or interior minister," the article quotes the former minister. The author emphasizes that thereby Darmanin confirms the existence of racism in France. It's a pity he is no longer Minister of the Interior. However, before this statement, Moussa Darmanin, who authored the term Islamist separatism, was the initiator of discrimination against Muslims. Under his leadership, there have been administrative closures of mosques for frivolous reasons and of Muslim schools on equally flawed pretexts, the dissolution of the Collective against Islamophobia in France, and the banning of imams from speaking about state Islamophobia. He is also the initiator of the famous Control of Immigration law. Nowadays, no longer a minister, Darmanin is once again Gerald Moussa, a citizen with an Arab name. Welcome to the real world! the material notes. Brun mentions that immediately afterward, Darmanin became the object of sharp criticism from the French right-wing National Rally party. This statement insults France, which gives a chance to all who respect it, the author quotes the leader of this party, Jordan Bardella. Will Bardella, who is of Algerian descent, be so emphatic when he becomes an ordinary citizen again? writes Brun. The article further notes that, as a result, a few hours later, the outgoing government's spokeswoman, Prisca Thevenot, who was born into a Mauritian family, also spoke about her family's history. 'My name is Prisca Thevenot. But my name is also Prisca Balasoobramanen. I am the daughter of immigrants who taught me to love France and to respect our republic. I am an example of how one can be a binational and deeply patriotic French person, she stated, undoubtedly forgetting that the government she was part of had started hunting migrants. This government, which continues to take a hostile stance towards Muslim-majority countries such as Algeria, Turkiye, and Azerbaijan, is unwavering in its support for those who have occupied their territory for 30 years under the pretext that they represent the Christian world against Islam. The new government team of Michel Barnier, appointed by Macron, is determined not only to continue the policies of the previous one but to make them even more discriminatory, the author argues. The material emphasizes that the terror of multiculturalism in France also explains a significant part of that country's foreign policy. In the Caucasus, for instance, support for Armenian separatists cannot be explained only by electoral goals. The 'Armenian vote' as French-Armenian journalist Leo Nikolian points out, is a myth. The real reason is that Azerbaijan is one of the most multiethnic countries in the world, and for fear of spreading this model, France is rushing to support monoethnic Armenia, the article says. The author notes that the Prime Minister has formed a government that word for word repeats the terms of the National Union party's program. So, will Gerald Darmanin now advocate the reopening of establishments that he closed and the return of wrongly exiled imams? Of course not. On the other hand, it is quite possible that the French people will eventually rise against it, Brun writes. Jerry Davich Metro columnist Follow Jerry Davich 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 When Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb announced last week the appointment of Porter Circuit Court Judge Mary DeBoer to a vacant seat on the Indiana Court of Appeals, he described her having an approachable personality. This is precisely what DeBoer flashed when we met Wednesday at a park near the Porter County Courthouse in Valparaiso. I requested the location so it wasnt inside a courthouse or courtroom, which can feel too stiff and formal for casual conversations. I didnt expect to write about DeBoer, who will be serving on Indianas second highest bench in Indianapolis beginning next month. But after experiencing her approachable personality firsthand, I felt compelled to share it with readers. DeBoer is affable, funny, curious and passionate about the justice system in our Region and in our state. She talks fast, thinks faster, and has the ability to convey complex topics without sounding condescending. Its not as easy as it appears. Some judges Ive known carry over their courtroom persona and power into the public domain, where they are just another person in society. Were just people like everyone else, DeBoer told me as we talked on a park bench. In 2019, she was appointed by Holcomb to replace the late Mary Harper as Porter Circuit Court Judge. Harper, whose personality was sharply different to DeBoer, invited me for similarly casual chats when she was in office. She helped mentor DeBoer, a Republican who was elected into that courtroom the following year. DeBoer was giddy as a schoolgirl after she replaced Harper. She always shined when she talked about her work with our youth. Now I see why. I love trying to impact our future, DeBoer told me last year. DeBoer, 57, also oversees the juvenile justice center and three problem-solving courts involving youth and families. Her fingerprints can be found at every court she has held or practiced in since graduating from Valparaiso University Law School in 1993. The Chicago native moved to Valparaiso three years earlier after living in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where she graduated from Western Michigan University. Her personality even shows flashes when she is serving behind the bench in a judges robe. She wont hesitate to engage with litigants in a personable manner, which helps to break down walls or put them at ease. Walking into a courtroom, for any reason, can be an intimidating experience. Our states newest Court of Appeals judge has a long history of impressive achievements and accomplishments in the legal system. Her impeccably detailed 34-page application form for that new position proves it. Her employment history began as a restaurant server for five years before working as a law clerk, voluntary intern and deputy prosecuting attorney in Porter County and Starke County, where she later served as a magistrate in both counties. I was fortunate enough to serve as a magistrate in a courtroom between Judge Harper and Judge (Roger) Bradford, DeBoer told me. Over her 32-year legal career, DeBoer has worked on or presided over civil and criminal cases of practically every type for juveniles and adults. Her courtroom is currently presiding over two high-profile criminal cases involving an arsonist and the death of an 87-year-old woman, and a foster mother charged with reckless homicide of a 10-year-old boy. I thoroughly enjoy my varied caseload, DeBoer wrote in her application form. Her enjoyment of the U.S. justice system and its nuanced complexities is impossible to ignore. Her voice rises in excitement talking about the role of a judge, affecting thousands of lives, cases and verdicts. However, as with all judges these days, DeBoer also must deal with the ripple effects of national politics that have planted seeds of doubt about fair trials, fake news and courtroom decorum. Im hearing this observation more than ever from judges in our Region. Judges at any level are expected to make sacrifices in their personal and public life, such as no longer having anonymity, not saying anything to disrespect the courts, and not embarrassing themselves in a way that the rest of us dont have to worry about. As a judge, we are always trying to get the best right answer for any case in our courtroom, DeBoer said. With some court cases, an absolute right answer simply doesnt exist so its a judges job and responsibility to render the best right answer. Thats what we do, she said. And thats what she will continue to do on the states 15-judge appellate court, which rules on more than 2,000 cases each year from across the entire state. Beginning next month, her fingerprints will be found on civil and criminal decisions in the Court of Appeals. Before she leaves her Porter County courtroom, DeBoer and two colleagues started a Little Free Courthouse Library at the Valparaiso location. It will be the third in the state, following ones in Gary and Newton County, designed to offer something positive, informative and entertaining to the courthouse experience for families and visitors. The three judges hope to expand the program statewide. DeBoer, in her new role, can be instrumental in making it happen, amid many other new challenges as a Court of Appeals judge. I cant wait to get started, she said before hurrying off to the juvenile justice center on Route 2. Opinion How Fentanyl Drove a Tsunami of Death in America Overdose deaths per 100,000 people, by drug Fentanyl Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Last year over 70,000 Americans died from taking drug mixtures that contained fentanyl or other synthetic opioids. The good news is that recent data suggests a decline in overdose deaths, the first significant drop in decades. But this is not a uniform trend across the nation. To understand this disparity, its important to examine how we got here. Todays crisis is often described as a series of waves. But if you look at the data, it was more like a couple of breakers followed by a tsunami. First, prescription opioid fatalities rose. Then heroin deaths surged. And finally, illicitly manufactured fentanyl overtook all that preceded it. Once fentanyl and other synthetic opioids dominate a market, whether a state is red or blue doesn't matter. Skyrocketing overdose deaths are nearly unavoidable, regardless of whether a state enforces tough penalties for drug possession or decriminalizes it. Understanding how fentanyl saturated the drug supply, moving from the East Coast of the United States to the West, is critical to ending the worst drug crisis in American history. 2000 Percent of drug seizures containing fentanyl 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80% Overdose death rate per 100,000 people 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 In 2000, America was in its first wave of the opioid crisis. This was dominated by deaths from prescription painkillers like OxyContin. As you can see in the first map, though not entirely new to the country, illicitly manufactured fentanyl made up a tiny percentage of total drug seizures nationwide. Because escalations in opioid prescribing to treat pain were seen as the cause of the overdose problem, doctors began cutting off patients and law enforcement shuttered so-called pill mills. The number of opioid prescriptions began plummeting. But little was done to offer alternative treatments for pain, or to help people addicted to opioids. This helped spur the heroin wave of the crisis, which started around 2011. Then came the tsunami. By 2013, drug cartels had realized that they could slash their labor, manufacturing and transit costs by replacing heroin derived from farm-grown opium with a powder made in a lab fentanyl. Illegally manufactured fentanyl and similar synthetic drugs spread across the United States over several years, starting in the East and gradually moving to the West. Before 2018, 80 percent of all deaths associated with fentanyl occurred east of the Mississippi. Now it dominates American drug markets. Since 2021, at least two-thirds of Americas 100,000 annual overdose deaths involved a synthetic opioid like fentanyl. Sources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Forensic Laboratory Information System People who use drugs and those who work with them can often cite a specific month, sometimes a particular day, when fentanyl entered the local drug supply. Its as if bartenders suddenly replaced light beer with a drink that tasted the same but was 95 percent alcohol and customers unwittingly chugged it. Many drinkers would rapidly pass out, and some might die. When fentanyl arrives in a community, local responders go from dealing with, say, a few overdoses a week or a month to half a dozen or more per day. Once a drug market is saturated by synthetic opioids, the death rate skyrockets immediately. Thats because they are much stronger: For example, fentanyl itself is 50 times more potent than heroin and another synthetic, carfentanil, is 5,000 times stronger. This explains why after these synthetics enter a market, a large spike in deaths will happen regardless of whether the state has felony-level penalties for personal drug possession, like Texas and Idaho do, or whether it is experimenting with decriminalization, as Oregon did for a few years. Synthetic opioids hit Oregon and its neighbors at roughly the same time but nearby states that didnt decriminalize still saw deaths skyrocket. Historically, longer jail or prison sentences and higher arrest rates at the state or country level have not reduced opioid use or overdose death rates. Preliminary data from the C.D.C. shows that between April 2023 and April 2024, the United States experienced its first national decline in overdose deaths in decades the rate fell by 10 percent. But this good news hides regional variation. Some states in the West, where fentanyl generally arrived later, are still seeing sharp increases. Overdose deaths in the Northeast Deaths per 100,000 people Looking at regional overdose deaths shows this pattern clearly. Each of these charts shows death rates from fentanyl, cocaine, psychostimulants, heroin, methadone and other opioids from 2000 through 2023. Heroin has historically been associated with cities, and New York City as the nations capital of distribution and use. However, increased opioid prescriptions followed by sharp reductions resulted in new heroin users in rural areas. Illegally manufactured fentanyl began appearing in both urban and rural drug markets in the East Coast. Before illegally manufactured fentanyl took off across the country, Chicago got a brief taste of its power in 2005 and 2006, experiencing a spike of over 300 deaths. For unknown reasons, these drugs then disappeared and deaths did not rise dramatically again until 2014, when the drugs washed over the whole region. Rural West Virginia and other Appalachian regions were the center of the earliest prescription opioid wave of the crisis, which led to the establishment of new heroin markets in places facing job loss. When pill mills in Florida that provided much of the regions supply were closed, heroin, and then fentanyl, moved in. One potential reason fentanyl spread more slowly to the West Coast is that heroin there has long been sold in a dark, sticky form known as black tar. In the East, heroin was sold as a light-colored powder, so it was easier to conceal fentanyls presence. Nonetheless, synthetic opioids have now spread fully to the West, in black tar and powder form and pressed into counterfeit prescription pills. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Combating this problem is deeply challenging, for several reasons. Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids are much cheaper and easier to make than heroin. To produce heroin, cartels need many acres of suitable land to grow poppies, hundreds of farmers and laborers to plant and harvest them, dozens of small, secure processing plants to turn raw opium into heroin, numerous guards and enforcers for protection and smugglers to get the product into the United States. To produce fentanyl, they need a few chemists in a lab, some commercially available substances and some distributors; it is often simply sent through the mail. The amount needed to provide everyone in the United States who uses fentanyl with a years supply would require only a single trailer truckload of pure drug. To deliver the same amount for heroin would require six trailer truckloads. Consider that the U.S.-Mexico border is crossed daily by some 20,000 trucks, 200,000 cars, 100,000 pedestrians and a huge number of flights, trains and boats. The difference in the size and weight of fentanyl, compared to heroin, makes significantly interrupting the supply at the border nearly impossible. So, what can be done? The answer is to focus on the drivers of demand, not supply. This means addressing the roots of addiction and treating it compassionately. Addiction is most often an attempt to escape despair. The condition itself is defined by compulsive drug use despite negative consequences, which is why threats of punishment or even death rarely yield recovery. We have a great generic opioid overdose antidote, naloxone. It needs to be cheaper and available everywhere, not hidden behind pharmacy counters but placed near every defibrillator and in every first aid kit. Two medications methadone and buprenorphine have proved to cut the risk of death among people with opioid addictions by 50 percent or more when used long-term. They also need to be made accessible to all people with opioid addiction. Right now, most rehabs still fail to adequately provide them. Most addiction results from attempts to self-medicate isolation, social disconnection, psychiatric disorders, trauma and severe economic distress. Its not coincidental that the exponential rise in overdose deaths has occurred in tandem with a profound increase in income inequality. Punishing people for trying to feel better in a world that doesnt seem to want them doesnt help. A 20-year-old Taiwanese man got so mad after his elderly mother threw away his prized manga collection without his consent that he took her to court and refused to reconcile with her. A 64-year-old woman from Chiayi City, Taiwan, landed in hot water after throwing away her young sons 32-volume Attack on Titan manga collection. The two were living together, and the 64-year-old woman had become fed up with her sons ever-growing comic collection, so when she stumbled over his Attack on Titan manga collection and determined that the volumes were a little damp, she decided to recycle them and free up some much-needed space. She never checked with her son if it was ok, and when he came home and learned that his 32 volumes were gone, he was extremely angry and ended up calling the police on his mother. Photo: Miika Laaksonen/Unsplash The scorned son filed a complaint against his mother with the local police and later took her to court for destroying his personal property without his consent. In court, the 20-year-old man argued that Attack on Titan is a very popular manga, so finding another complete collection would be extremely difficult, considering that some of the 32 volumes are no longer in print and can be considered collectors items. On the other hand, his mother argued that some of the manga volumes were damp, and they were taking up so much room, so throwing them out of her home was justified. However, she expressed her desire to reconcile with her son, but he was unwilling to talk to her. The incident took place in February of this year, but the Chiayi District Court only recently issued a verdict in this case, fining the mother 5,000 Taiwanese dollars ($160) for property damage, a sentence that can be commuted to community service. Her failure to respect her sons property rights was inappropriate, the Court ruled. According to Taiwanese media, the son is still unwilling to reconcile with his elderly mother. DGA Group represents Acelen Renewables, a Brazilian firm focused on accelerating the global transition to renewable fuels produced from 100 percent sustainable and innovative feedstocks. The Sao Paulo-based company has investments of more than $2.5B to produce fuels derived from the macauba plant. Native to Brazils savannah, macauba has high-energy potential, and grows on degraded or unproductive lands, which eliminates concerns about deforestation. Acelen is concentrating on developing sustainable aviation fuel, and hyrotreated vegetable oil for diesel transport. It says macauba power can cut CO2 emissions by 80 percent compared to fossil fuels. DGA partner Sander Lurie, who was chief of staff to Democratic Senators Frank Lautenberg and Debbie Stabenow, monitors DC legislative action regarding renewables for Acelen. He is joined by DGA associate partner Nicole Frazier, a special assistant to President Donald Trump. The inexpensive Skoda Yeti crossover was a very popular car and the first model of the brand in the urban SUV segment. However, many people have forgotten about the Yeti today. The crossover has just been shown with a new design. ADVERTISIMENT At one time, the Skoda Yeti was succeeded by the Skoda Karoq crossover. And TALK WHEELS has prepared a new design for the Yeti. It turned out to be spectacular and very modern. Although the Czech manufacturer does not plan to return this name to the model line. The budget crossover Skoda Elroq is being prepared for the premiere and will soon be fully disclosed. The electric model will replace the Skoda Karoq. The Elroq electric car, which is about 4.5 meters long, will have a spacious interior and wide functionality. Several variants are expected: with power from 170 to 299 hp and a range of up to 560 km. The car will offer a very practical and spacious interior. Earlier it was reported that the interior of the 2025 Skoda Elroq will have special finishes. ADVERTISIMENT We are talking about Recytitan and Technofil materials. This is a finish made from recycled water bottles, old fishing nets, and used clothes. MI State Wants to Tout Economic Impact Thu., Oct. 3, 2024 Michigan State University wants bids from PR and communications firms to promote its University Research Corridor alliance with the University of Michigan and Wayne State University. A former Longford county councillor accused of assault was given the benefit of the Probation Act at Longford District Court after he pleaded guilty to the offence. Gerald Farrell (43) of Aughamore, Lanesboro, Longford came before Judge Bernadette Owens charged with a Section 2 assault on Sara O'Connor at Adie Farrell's Bar, Main St, Lanesboro on January 8, 2022. Counsel for the State, Shane Geraghty BL, said the matter originally came before the court in March of this year when the defendant was facing a sexual assault charge in respect of the incident, however this was changed to the lesser assault charge. Prosecution witness Detective Garda Deirdre Morris outlined the details of the matter before the court. The witness said the incident took place on Saturday, January 8, 2022. The injured party, Ms O'Connor, was visiting a friend in Lanesboro and they went to Adie Farrell's Pub with a group of her friends at about 7:30pm on the evening in question. The Detective Garda said the group were drinking and went out to the smoking area in the course of the evening. Mr Farrell, who was known to other members of the group, engaged in conversation with them. When speaking to Ms O'Connor he said he was low on staff and the victim said she had bar and waitress experience. Mr Farrell asked for her Snapchat details and in the course of the evening exchanged messages with her on the online platform. Mr Farrell closed the pub, but the group stayed on chatting and singing. The defendant got a round of drinks for the group and sat in on the couch beside Ms O'Connor. At around 1:07am Ms O'Connor felt a flick on her right thigh, she was shocked, upset and welled up. Mr Farrell got another round of drinks, but Ms O'Connor did not drink hers. The group left the bar at 1:50am. The following day Ms O'Connor returned home and when she spoke to her mother about what had happened she got upset, started crying and became hysterical about the incident, which was described as a pinch. Detective Garda Morris told the court that on April 27, 2022 she met Mr Farrell by arrangement to speak to him about the matter. She said he was 41 years of age at the time and in a relationship, and his partner had given birth to a child three months earlier. The defendant said he had just sent some silly Snapchats and denied sexual assault. He volunteered passwords for his phone and allowed access to the pub CCTV. Most of the group with Ms O'Connor declined to make a statement. One female member of the group expressed reluctance, saying that they knew both parties and didn't want to get involved, however they added that if sometime of that order (sexual assault) had happened I would have got up and left. The CCTV footage of the incident was shown to the court. Ms O'Connor could be seen sitting on the couch in the bar with her legs tucked up and her arms wrapped around them. The defendant was on his phone sitting beside her. Mr Farrell was visible in the footage moving his hand toward the victim, who made a sudden movement. In cross examination Michael Bowman SC, counsel for the defendant, put it to Detective Garda Morris that there were discrepancies between the account Ms O'Connor initially gave to Gardai and what is visible on CCTV. You can see from the footage that she did not say get off me, she did not jump up and she did not say what the f**k when the incident happened, Mr Bowman said. Counsel explained that a family member of Mr Farrell had died in a car accident on the day of the incident. Mr Bowman described a split second of gross stupidity that brought his client before the court. He said his client is an active member of the local IFA and GAA. Counsel said Mr Farrell's relationship at the time had been in difficulty, and has since broken down and he now has limited access to his son. Ms O'Connor took to the witness stand to give her victim impact statement. The victim described suffering behind closed doors for two years awaiting the trial. She said at that time she had wanted to end it all and said it could have ruined her relationship, but the support and love of her partner and her family had helped her through. The victim acknowledged she had accepted 5,000 in compensation from the defendant. In closing Mr Bowman asked Judge Owens to consider a number of factors. He pointed out that Mr Farrell had been drinking during the day and that violence or threats were not a factor in the case. He said the defendant approached the prosecution responsibly, realistic and as faithfully as he could. Mr Bowman asked to judge to note the considerable contribution Mr Farrell makes to his community. In concluding matters Judge Owens commended the victim on her impact statement. The judge observed that the court has the benefit of an independent eye in the CCTV, which she said gave a clear picture of the assault and the aftermath. It's my job to impose a penalty that is proportionate, Judge Owens said. The judge noted a number of factors including that Mr Farrell had no relevant previous convictions, cooperated fully with the investigation and assisted the progress of the prosecution with a guilty plea. Judge Owens also pointed out the defendant had apologised to the injured party, expressed remorse and paid a sum of compensation. Taking all the facts into consideration the judge said the matter would be dealt with by Section 1.1 of the Probation Act. A ten-year driving ban was imposed on a man after he was convicted of having no motor insurance for a fifth time. Judge Andrew Cody also sentenced Jakub Kondrat (29), Woodlawn Drive, Clonbullogue to six months in prison but suspended the sentence for three years. Judge Cody further fined Mr Kondrat a total of 3,000, comprising a fine of 2,500 for driving without insurance and 500 for having no driving licence. Sergeant Richard Thornton told Tullamore District Court the man had been detected driving while disqualified at Francis Street, Edenderry on September 4 last. He had four previous convictions for driving without insurance, had three separate road bans, two for four years and another for two years and had also been convicted of being an unaccompanied learner driver. A plea of guilty was entered by defending solicitor Patrick Martin who said Mr Kondrat, a Polish man, was a father of one who worked full-time in a sweet factory in Edenderry. He had driven a short distance to get medication for his parents, said Mr Martin, adding that he earned 500 a week and had to pay rent for his parents. The solicitor said he usually used a low powered electric bike to get around. Gardai are appealing for witnesses following the death of a cyclist in a fatal road traffic collision in Monaghan in the early hours of Saturday morning. Gardai and emergency services were alerted to a "single vehicle road traffic collision involving a male pedal cyclist" near Gort an Teannal, Knockatallon, at approximately 1.15am on Saturday, September 21. The cyclist, aged in his 30s was seriously injured and removed from the scene to Enniskillen Hospital. He passed away soon after, on the night of Tuesday, September 24. Read Also: Man hospitalised following 'serious' stabbing incident at industrial estate in Dublin Gardai are appealing for any witnesses to this collision to come forward. Any road users who may have camera footage (including dash-cam) and were travelling in the area at the time of the incident, are asked to make this footage available to investigating Gardai. Anyone with any information is asked to contact Monaghan Garda Station on 047 77 200, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda Station. On the morning of September 26, air alerts were issued three times across Ukraine due to an attack by Kinzhal missiles flying in the direction of Starokonstantyniv, Khmelnytsky region. However, sounds similar to explosions could be heard in Kyiv and a number of other regions, so many media outlets reported a large-scale attack. ADVERTISIMENT However, the Kyiv City Military Administration emphasized not to spread disinformation, as there were no explosions in the capital at that time. Most likely, the powerful sounds were caused by the Mach Cone phenomenon, in this case caused by a Kinzhal air defense missile flying over Kyiv. The Mach Cone phenomenon According to scientists, Mach's Cone is a surface that appears when a sound-emitting body moves at a speed greater than the speed of sound. That is, the Mach Cone appears when a body moves faster than the waves it generates. Most often, this phenomenon is manifested by the sound shock wave of a supersonic aircraft. Unfortunately, during more than 10 years of war, many Ukrainians have seen a supersonic aircraft flying overhead and remembered the powerful sound of a shock wave accompanying the movement of a body at a speed of more than Mach 1, i.e., more than the speed of sound in this environment. ADVERTISIMENT The propagation area of a shock wave from a supersonic aircraft is limited by the Mach cone. A group of scientists from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA) and Tsinghua University (China) managed to record a "shock wave" of photons. Like sound, photons of light have a wave nature, so they form the same Mach cone if a body moves faster than the speed of light in the environment. Scientists emphasize that the light shock wave has the shape of a cone, just like the sound wave, Science Advances writes. To record this phenomenon on video, the researchers used laser pulses as a moving body. Accordingly, the light pulses moved at "superluminal" speed, that is, faster than the speed of light in the environment. ADVERTISIMENT What did Kyiv residents hear? So, the sounds of explosions that Kyiv residents heard in different aspects that coincided with the trajectory of the Kinzhal missile are the sounds of the sound barrier being broken. Scientists emphasize that the rocket flies at almost hypersonic speed at the final stage. Accordingly, loud noises were heard along its path, which included Chernihiv, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, and Khmelnytskyi regions. This was reported by the specialized Telegram channel monitor. "We hear the sound as the shock wave travels along the missile's body in a cone. That is, observers can hear the sound of the shock wave along the trajectory of the missile," the experts emphasized. ADVERTISIMENT F Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory have published the largest infrared map of the Milky Way ever made, which contains more than 1.5 billion objects. The work lasted more than 13 years and contains more than 500 terabytes of data. ADVERTISIMENT This project was the largest in the history of the European Observatory, as it contained more than 200,000 images taken by VISTA, the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The researchers emphasize that the new map will "change the view of our Galaxy forever," LiveScience reports. To create the most detailed infrared map of the Milky Way, astronomers used the VISTA InfraRed CAMera (VIRCAM), an infrared camera that searched through dust and gas to detect radiation from previously unseen sources. This allowed the telescope to capture infrared glow from "failed stars" - objects that straddle the line between giant planets and small stars, also known as brown dwarfs - and gravitationally unbound rogue planets. ADVERTISIMENT "We made so many discoveries, we have changed the view of our Galaxy forever," said Dante Minniti, project leader, co-author of the study, and astrophysicist at the Universidad Andres Bello in Chile. According to the scientists, the resulting dataset is huge: it covers an area of sky equivalent to the width of 8,600 full moons and contains 10 times more objects than the map published by the same team of scientists in 2012. Now that the project is complete, the researchers will be waiting for the upgrade to VISTA and the ESO Very Large Telescope. This will allow experts to split the incoming light into its component spectra so that researchers can better understand the chemical composition of the newly discovered objects. ADVERTISIMENT Scientists emphasize that the collected dataset contains millions of objects that will allow for new discoveries over the years. Only verified information is available on OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! On the morning of September 27, an explosion occurred in Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovs'k region. The city reported a missile attack on the district police department: there were victims, and there may be people under the rubble. ADVERTISIMENT The head of Kryvyi Rih's Defense Council, Oleksandr Vilkul, reported the Russian attack. He urged the citizens not to film or post anything online. "Kryvyi Rih. A missile attack. Do not film or post anything online," Vilkul wrote at 09:19. The head of the Kryvyi Rih District State Administration, Yevhen Sytnychenko, confirmed the arrival. "A missile attack on Kryvyi Rih. There was a hit. All the details later," he said at 09:39. At 09:27, the head of the Dnipropetrovs'k regional military administration, Serhii Lysak, also confirmed the attack. According to him, one explosion was heard in the city. "The enemy hit the administrative building. There may be people under the rubble," Lysak said. Local social media started reporting about the explosion in Kryvyi Rih at 09:16. "Sirens are heard in the city, there is bad news. Rescue services have arrived at the scene and are already working, "First City. Kryvyi Rih." ADVERTISIMENT A photo of cars damaged near the arrival site was also posted online. The district police department came under attack of the occupants, the NPU reported. "At about 9:15 the enemy launched a rocket attack on the district police department, it is known that there are victims. There may be people under the rubble. As a result of the hit, the administrative building was destroyed, and private houses located nearby were damaged. Police and rescuers are now working at the scene, law enforcement officers are documenting and collecting evidence of another war crime of the Russian Federation," the National Police said. ADVERTISIMENT As of 10:28 a.m., the first information about the victims was available. "There are victims of a rocket attack on the district police department in Kryvyi Rih. A 45-year-old man has already been hospitalized. His condition is moderate. The administrative building was destroyed, private houses were damaged. Emergency services are working at the scene. They are looking for people under the rubble," said Lysak. According to Vilkul, the hit was direct. He did not provide data on the number of victims, but noted that "there are those who are already on the operating table." "The headquarters for helping people is being deployed at: 2 Liberation Square. This is the building of the National Committee of Economy. There will be everything you need: a board, a first aid kit, and film. Utility crews are on the spot," he added. ADVERTISIMENT The Dnipropetrovs'k regional prosecutor's office showed a photo from the place where an enemy missile hit the police department building. "Under the procedural guidance of the Dnipropetrovs'k Regional Prosecutor's Office, a pre-trial investigation was launched in criminal proceedings over violation of the laws and customs of war (Part 1 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine)," they said. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine stated that as of 10:20 a.m., three victims were reported. Emergency rescue operations are underway. ADVERTISIMENT Around 11:00, four injured were reported. "There are already four injured men in Kryvyi Rih. Two of them are hospitalized in moderate condition. The fate of four people is currently unknown. The search and rescue operation continues," noted Lysak. At 09:15, the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine warned of the threat of enemy ballistic missile attacks from the south. At the same time, the Air Force called on the residents of Kryvyi Rih to immediately go to the shelter. According to monitorwar and monitor, the Russians launched a ballistic missile (most likely an Iskander-M) in the direction of Kryvyi Rih at about 09:13 from the temporarily occupied Crimea. At the same time, an enemy reconnaissance drone was spotted over the city, which was adjusting the strikes. ADVERTISIMENT "There are risks of repeated ballistic missile strikes. Everyone is in shelters until the alarm is over," Vilkul added at 09:37. As a reminder, on the morning of September 27, Russians attacked Izmail in Odesa region with Shaheds. Residential buildings were destroyed. There are three known casualties and wounded. Since the morning, the occupants have been striking at Kherson and the region. There are also wounded there, including a 4-year-old boy who sustained concussion and injuries. Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber . Do not fall for fakes! The U.S. Department of State has imposed new sanctions against the aggressor country Russia, which concern virtual financial transactions. In particular, Russian virtual currency exchange services PM2BTC and Cryptex have been subject to restrictions. ADVERTISIMENT This was reported on the website of the US department on Thursday, September 27. As noted, the Ministry of Finance is taking measures "part of a coordinated international effort to disrupt Russian cybercrime services." Thus, the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) imposed sanctions against PM2BTC, a Russian virtual currency exchange service associated with Russian citizen Sergei Ivanov. This exchange was identified as a "primary money laundering concern" in the Russian Federation. At the same time, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed restrictions against Ivanov and Cryptex, a virtual currency exchange service registered in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and operating in Russia. "The FinCEN and OFAC actions are being issued in conjunction with actions by other U.S. government agencies and international law enforcement partners to hold accountable Ivanov and the associated virtual currency services," the statement said. ADVERTISIMENT The U.S. State Department has announced a reward of up to $10 million through its Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Ivanov. Also, the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia unsealed an indictment against Ivanov and another Russian citizen, Timur Shakhmametov. According to the Secret Service, Shakhmametov is likely the creator of Joker's Stash, one of the most lucrative online platforms for stealing credit card data. Ivanov was laundering the proceeds of Joker's Stash. The Secret Service claims that since about 2005, Ivanov has been a reliable and long-term provider of money laundering services for high-ranking cybercriminals. As reported, starting from September 12, US IT sanctions came into force, which prohibit foreign technology companies from providing services in Russia. A number of companies have already restricted their access to Russia, but it is expected that after the sanctions come into force, there will be even more of them. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information is available on OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! On the occasion of the seventh "Chinese Farmers' Harvest Festival" in the refreshing autumn air and bountiful harvest season, the 2024 Ma'anshan City Chinese Farmers' Harvest Festival kicked off in Xiushan Ecological Park in Huashan District, Ma'anshan City, amidst the expectations of urban and rural citizens and farmers. The festival featured singing and dancing, a grand exhibition of agricultural products, live streaming sales of specialty agricultural products, and an exhibition of achievements in rural revitalization. In the first half of this year, Ma'anshan City had a wheat sowing area of 761,000 mu with a total output of 262,200 tons. The rapeseed planting area covered 484,000 mu, vegetable sowing area was 275,300 mu, facility-grown vegetable production reached 541,600 tons, aquatic product output was 57,600 tons, and the total area for integrated rice-fish farming reached 322,000 mu. Ma'anshan City established 23 provincial-level green agricultural product production and processing supply bases in the Yangtze River Delta region, and Hexian County successfully created a national rural industry integration development demonstration park and was selected as one of the top ten counties for characteristic agricultural industries in the province in 2023. In 2023, the full industrial chain output value of the green food industry reached 60.7 billion yuan. In the first half of 2024, the city's rural e-commerce online sales amounted to 3.285 billion yuan, marking a 38.37% increase compared to the same period last year. The city has achieved a "twenty consecutive years of abundant harvest" in grain production, and farmers' incomes have consistently ranked first in Anhui Province for many years. The construction of economically strong villages continues to be in the lead in the province, and the experience in standardizing the enforcement system of the Yangtze River fishing ban has been promoted nationwide. Focusing on the goal of building a "high-quality and efficient agricultural powerhouse," efforts have been made to create a model area for rural revitalization in the province, painting a new picture of strong agriculture, beautiful countryside, and wealthy farmers. Source: anhuinews.com The Swiss Zurich Film Festival has canceled the screening of the propaganda film "Russians at War," directed by journalist and former Russia Today employee Anastasia Trofimova. The organizers of the event responded to the outrage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, to which diplomats expressed their gratitude. ADVERTISIMENT However, there is one caveat: "Russians at War" will still compete for the award in the documentary category. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine drew attention to this on Facebook. "Russia should not be present in the international cultural arena. There should be no chance for its voices to whitewash war criminals in front of the general public. At the same time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on the festival organizers to completely remove the film "Russians at War" from the documentary competition," the post reads. The authors of the post noted that the only threat to the safety of those present is the influence of Kremlin propaganda that justifies the atrocities of the occupiers. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working to isolate Russia in the international arena and make it impossible to use cultural, sports, and other platforms to spread Russian disinformation. ADVERTISIMENT As a reminder, the premiere of "Russians at War" took place at the Venice Film Festival. The film was created on the basis of material filmed during 7 months of staying with a battalion of the Russian Armed Forces in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories. According to the Kremlin's mouthpieces, the film is "absolutely anti-war," and the Russian military appear as "ordinary people." Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Japan to resume 11 projects and support Sri Lankas anti-corruption efforts Posted by Editor on September 27, 2024 - 11:37 am The Japanese government has reiterated its commitment to fully supporting Sri Lankas efforts to combat corruption and irregularities, a key priority of President Anura Kumara Dissanayakes administration. The Japanese Ambassador to Sri Lanka, MIZUKOSHI Hideaki, made this pledge during a meeting with the Secretary to the President, Dr. Nandika Sanath Kumanayake, at the Presidential Secretariat on September 26, 2024. Ambassador Mizukoshi expressed Japans readiness to continue close collaboration with Sri Lanka and announced that work on 11 stalled projects funded by the Japanese government would promptly resume. These projects include several critical infrastructure and development initiatives, such as: The Kandy City Water Management Project Phase II of the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) Development Project The Terrestrial Television Broadcast Digitization Project The National Transmission and Distribution Network Development Project Phase II of the Anuradhapura North Water Supply Project The Rural Infrastructure Development Project The Kalu Ganga Water Supply Project Improvements to health and medical services The Ambassador highlighted the swift completion of the first phase of the Habarana-Veyangoda transmission line project and the Anuradhapura North Water Supply Project, both nearing completion with Japanese assistance. He also mentioned payments related to the recently completed Kelani Ganga new bridge construction project. The meeting was attended by Deputy Head of the Embassy of Japan in Sri Lanka, Nayoki Kamoshida, First Secretary of the Embassy of Japan, Ohashi Kenji, and Senior Additional Secretary to the President, Roshan Gamage. This renewed commitment from Japan underscores the strong bilateral ties between the two nations and their mutual interest in supporting Sri Lankas development and governance goals. Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121 "There's no dispute that we now live in a hyper-connected, globalized world--but plenty of argument over the type of globalization that's best for our collective future. In this timely work, Rob Kall makes a persuasive case for 'trickle-up' globalization from below and that the truest, best, and most long-lasting fundamental change always comes from the bottom up. Read this book""then act on it!" Rory O'Connor, award-winning filmmaker and author of Friends, Followers, and the Future: How Social Media are Changing Politics, Threatening Big Brands, and Killing Traditional Media Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator US Vice President Kamala Harris was born to support Palestine. Her parents were both born under British colonial occupation that denied the original population their civil and human rights, like the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Her ancestry may have instilled in her the love of freedom, independence, and social justice. Being raised by two activists committed to equal rights and social justice, Kamala Harris would have heard her parents' opinions and been shaped by them. Kamala Harris is the most uniquely qualified person who may choose to champion the Palestinian call for the end of occupation, apartheid, and the creation of a two-state solution. Kamala Harris' mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was born in 1938 in British India. While the history books focus on the peaceful resistance of Mahatma Gandhi, some may have forgotten the use of violence, and what today would be called terrorism, which resulted in India gaining its independence in 1947 after 89 years of British occupation. The 1919 Rowlatt Act allowed Indians to be imprisoned without trial and allowed political cases to be tried without juries. In April 1919, British Empire troops opened fire on a crowd of unarmed protesters, killing at least 379 people and galvanizing the call for resistance to colonial occupation. The current situation in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank bears a striking resemblance to colonial India. According to research by the economic historian Robert C Allen, British colonialism killed 100 million Indians between 1880 and 1920. In 1958, Shyamala Gopalan was accepted to the master's program in nutrition and endocrinology at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), and by 1964 she earned a Ph.D. there. At a meeting of the Afro-American Association at UCB, in the fall of 1962, she listened to a speaker, Donald J. Harris, a graduate student in economics from Jamaica. Their interests were civil rights, freedom, independence from colonial rule, and social justice. They soon fell in love and were married in July 1963, and their next shared interest was to be their two daughters, Kamala and Maya. Donald J. Harris was born in Brown's Town, Jamaica, under British colonial occupation. His parents were Afro-Jamaicans, descendants of African slaves brought to work the sugarcane fields for their British owners. Jamaica became a British colony in 1707 and a Crown colony in 1866. While a colony, most top seats in government were strictly held by the British colonizers. As Donald J. Harris was growing up, he witnessed and experienced many forms of inequality and, understandably, he chose economics as his life's work and social activism. Jamaica was granted independence in 1962. In the fall of 1961, Donald J. Harris arrived at UCB on the Elias A. Issa scholarship to study economics. The Issa scholarship, which continues today, was founded in 1938 at the behest of Issa, who was born in Bethlehem, Palestine, in 1876, and had immigrated to Kingston, Jamaica, in 1894. Issa became a very successful merchant in Kingston and founded a family dynasty that survives. He valued education and founded the scholarship to support the educational aspirations of Jamaican students. Donald J. Harris was sent to America by a Palestinian, and in 1966 he earned his Ph.D. at UCB. In 1998, he retired from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, becoming a professor emeritus, and continued developing public policies to promote economic growth and advance social equality. The science of economics is political because it deals with governments and how they interact with the society. The civil rights movement Donald J. Harris was passionate about in 1962 dovetails with his professional work. Shyamala Gopalan and Donald J. Harris divorced in the early 1970s; however, the children remained connected to their father, and his family in Jamaica, although they were raised by their mother, who died in 2009. Shyamala Gopalan and Donald J. Harris were involved with the Afro-American Association (AAA), which was founded in 1962 at UCB. The group's mission was to educate African Americans about their history and took inspiration from the anti-colonial victories throughout Africa. By spring 1962 the group reported 150 members, and by fall the group reported 5,000 members nationwide. Black power was coming to the stage as racial issues and social equality were discussed and debated at UCB. This was the society Kamala Harris' parents found themselves drawn to. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Burnley, UK - 27 September 2024 - Douglas Hall Kennels LTD reaffirms its commitment as one of the most reputable and trusted puppy breeders in the UK, offering high-quality puppies for sale to families and dog lovers across the country. With years of experience and a solid reputation, the family-run business continues to provide pups for sale, ensuring that every pet finds its perfect home. Established as a go-to puppy breeder, The Astoria Police Department has publicly identified the man and woman who died Wednesday in what authorities believe was a murder-suicide at an apartment building in the city. Scott Mathew, 57, shot his wife, 51-year-old Denise Lynn Mathew, before shooting himself, police said. A maintenance worker found the pair dead inside their apartment in the Bayshore Apartments at 1400 West Marine Drive Wednesday morning, Astoria Police Chief Stacy Kelly said earlier this week. The Astoria Police Department asks anyone with information about the case to contact Det. Madyson Hanna at 503-325-4411 ormhanna@astoria.gov. -- The Oregonian/OregonLive On the night of September 27, Russian occupation forces launched a missile attack on Dnipro. An industrial facility was hit and a fire broke out. ADVERTISIMENT Fortunately, no people were injured. This was reported by the head of the regional military administration Serhiy Lysak. According to him, the shelling took place after midnight on Friday. Destruction was recorded on the territory of the affected promotional facility. Rescuers quickly extinguished the fire caused by the enemy strike. According to the city council, the nighttime rocket attack in Dnipro damaged about 60 windows in 14 houses and two communal dormitories. At the same time, last night it was restless in Nikopol district of Dnipropetrovs'k region. The enemy attacked Nikopol itself and the Marhanets community, using a kamikaze drone and heavy artillery. ADVERTISIMENT Infrastructure in the settlements was damaged. No one was killed or injured. On the morning of September 27, Russian terrorists launched a missile attack on Kryvyi Rih. An administrative building was hit, and people were injured. As reported by OBOZ.UA, last Friday, September 20, Russia destroyed the building of an educational center with a missile strike on Dnipro, and a dozen cars were damaged. A 19-year-old boy was injured in the shelling. Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Molalla River Schools closed its doors Friday following the arrest of a student who was allegedly making online threats, according to a police spokesperson. Molalla police spokesperson Nicole Ricker said the student was taken into custody Wednesday after they allegedly posted a threat of violence targeting Molalla River Middle School on Instagram. Investigators determined the threat itself was not credible but transported the student for possible charges at the Clackamas County Juvenile Department, she said. We took it very seriously, she said. The safety of our school is a top priority. Ricker declined to identify the student, citing their age. In a message to parents, middle school Principal Randy Dalton said students reported seeing a post using the gun emoji early Wednesday morning. Your [sic] next Molalla river middle school September 26/27, the post read, according to Dalton. False threats have caused real-life alarm across the region over the past week, leading to the arrest of a Newport High student on Tuesday for making threats and a lockdown at Rex Putnam High in Milwaukie last Friday in response to a menacing statement scrawled in a bathroom. Several students across the region are also facing repercussions for bringing weapons to campus, including a 17-year-old who allegedly brought a gun to Gresham High last Friday. An 11-year-old also allegedly brandished a pistol near a Camas middle school on Wednesday evening. Zane Sparling covers breaking news and courts for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach him at 503-319-7083, zsparling@oregonian.com or @pdxzane. Our journalism needs your support. Please become a subscriber today at OregonLive.com/subscribe. Portland police say the man they shot and injured on Thursday evening fired on them as officers tried to arrest him for violent felonies involving a firearm. The 6:21 p.m. shooting happened in the 7000 block of Northeast 17th Avenue and involved detectives and officers from the Special Emergency Reaction Team. When they approached the suspect, police wrote in a news release late Thursday, there was an exchange of gunfire. Three PPB officers assigned to SERT discharged firearms and injured the suspect. One woman, who declined to give her name, described hiding in the basement with her children. She heard a barrage of gunshots in the area as she hid to keep safe and saw the Police Bureaus Special Emergency Reaction Team arrive in large numbers. She said she saw more cops than she had ever seen before. Neighbors described seeing two large police vehicles parked outside of their homes. One resident was told by police to stay overnight at a different location as she arrived home. Pieces of a broken rearview mirror and remnants of glass from a broken brake light were scattered near the area. A small tree was toppled near the broken glass. No officers were injured, police said. The unidentified injured person was taken to a hospital. Zaeem Shaikh covers the Portland Police Bureau and criminal justice issues for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach him at 503-221-4323, zshaikh@oregonian.com or on X @zaeemshake. Tyler Brown is a breaking news reporter for The Oregonian/OregonLive. You can reach him at tbrown2@oregonian.com or 503-221-8243. Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com/subscribe. A Vancouver police officer shot and killed a man who was reportedly shooting at law enforcement early Friday morning in north Vancouver, according to the Clark County Sheriffs Office. The shooting marked the end of a three-hour confrontation in which the suspect repeatedly shot at law enforcement officers with a high-powered rifle and damaged at least one armored vehicle, the sheriffs office said in a press release. Clark County Sheriffs deputies first responded at 11:11 p.m. to a disturbance call of a neighbor threatening to harm another neighbor in the 5400 block of Northeast 71st Street in Vancouver. The caller said the suspect had used a knife to puncture several tires on the neighbors cars, the press release said. While this call was being taken, another area resident called to report the same subject was being aggressive and that they had possibly shot a gun into the air, the press release states. The original caller then reported seeing the subject armed with a handgun. Upon arriving at the scene, deputies used a drone to get an overhead view of the suspect and saw that he was carrying a rifle. Around 12:45 a.m., the man fired at least one round into the air, the release said. Deputies contacted the man by phone, but he was uncooperative and made threats to shoot at deputies, according to the press release. Between 1 a.m. and 2:30 a.m, the suspect fired several shots at authorities using his rifle, according to the release. The Southwest Washington Regional Special Weapons and Tactics Team arrived at the scene around 1:30 a.m. and set up a perimeter around the house. Law enforcement officers warned neighbors to shelter in place around this time, the release states. The subject continued to yell at deputies from the residence and appeared to be setting up barricaded shooting positions inside his residence, the release states. The subject took several more shots at the other armored vehicles and possibly other houses in the area. At one point, the suspect shot at and shattered the windshield of an armored vehicle, the release said. One police officer was sitting in the vehicle at the time. At 2:36 a.m., an officer on the SWAT team saw the suspect wearing what appeared to be a ballistic helmet and gas mask. The officer shot and killed the suspect, the release said. Two Vancouver police officers, including the officer who shot the suspect, have been placed on critical incident leave. The Lower Columbia Major Crimes Team, led by the Cowlitz County Sheriffs Office, will be investigating, the sheriffs office said. Following the investigation, the case will be sent to the Clark County Prosecutors Office for further review. Carlos Fuentes covers state politics and government. Reach him at 503-221-5386 or cfuentes@oregonian.com. Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com. From classics like The Big Lewbowski to the recent Yellowstone prequel series, 1883, actor Sam Elliott has won fans who appreciate his resonant voice, his rugged appeal, and how at home he seems in Western settings. Elliott is not so well known, however, for politics. But Elliott lends his distinctive voice to a new video that supports Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for President. The video features inspiring music, and such images as rural landscapes, a fisherman in a river, the American flag, and Vice President Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. It also features images of former President and Republican nominee Donald Trump. Whatever their political stance, Oregonians may feel a particular kinship to Elliott, who was born in Sacramento, but moved with his family to Portland when he was in his teens. Elliott graduated from David Douglas High School, and attended the University of Oregon in Eugene, and Clark College, in Vancouver. In the video, Elliott says, I cant believe were having this conversation again. So here we go. You know who the candidates are. You know whats at stake. One candidate promises a divided America, filled with lies and hate. And one stands for change. Kamala Harris has more courage, more honor, more guts, than this guy ever had, as images of Trump play in black and white. The video continues, with Elliott saying, So you decide. Are we really going back down that same (bleeping) broken road, or are we moving forward, towards hope, towards freedom, towards change? As an image of the White House appears, Elliott goes on. The time for change is now. So, what the hell are you waiting for? Because if its the woman thing, its time to get over that. Its time for hope, for change. Its time to be a man, and vote for a woman. Related: Sam Elliott apologizes for blasting Power of the Dog in podcast where he also talked about Portland The video comes from the Lincoln Project, the organization launched in late 2019 by former Republican strategists. As the Lincoln Project website says: We entered the political arena with two stated objectives: first, to defeat Donald Trump at the ballot box in 2020. (Done.) The second was to ensure Trumpism failed alongside him. We understand that the real fight against Trumpism is just beginning and were committed to seeing it through. Kristi Turnquist covers features and entertainment. Reach her at 503-221-8227, kturnquist@oregonian.com or @Kristiturnquist Our journalism needs your support. Please become a subscriber today at OregonLive.com/subscribe More than 80,000 birds have died over the past two and half months at a network of wildlife refuges on the Oregon-California border, the largest outbreak in the recorded history of the refuges in a region roiled by drought and water uncertainty. The deaths, linked to a rare combination of botulism and avian flu, increased sharply since the end of August when about 5,000 dead birds had been counted. And because botulism thrives in warm, stagnant water, many more birds are likely to die before the rainy season and cold temperatures begin, said John Vradenburg, supervisory biologist at the refuge complex. Due to the current temperature patterns, we see little sign of relief in the forecast until early to mid-October, Vradenburg told The Oregonian/OregonLive. Most of the birds have died at the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge, one of the refuges in the network. The refuge staff must pick up the dead birds because leaving them in the water could worsen the outbreak, spreading more disease. The outbreak has surpassed the outbreak of 2020, when at least 60,000 waterfowl and shorebirds died of botulism at the refuges. It comes at a time when the wetlands are teeming with birds, including ducks, geese, grebes and shorebirds, Vradenburg said. Virus-caused avian flu has been on the rise in recent years, killing poultry and wild birds alike. Botulism, which paralyzes birds from the bottom up until they are unable to fly and then to breathe, is caused by a natural toxin produced by soil-dwelling bacteria, but typically doesnt lead to large-scale die-offs. But as wetland habitat continues to shrink, forcing birds into smaller patches of water, and climate change dries up whats left of the habitat, the toxin has infected many more birds. Competition for water in the Klamath Basin makes the situation worse. The six refuges, known collectively as the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex, contain the largest wetland network west of the Mississippi River. Theyre a stopping point for 80% of the birds that migrate on the Pacific Flyway, a major north-south path for a diverse number of migratory birds in the Americas. Last month, conservation groups called for the Klamath Project to release more water to the refuge complex and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation delivered some of the water but it was not enough to slow down the outbreak, according to the Bird Alliance of Oregon. The group says long-term solutions are needed, especially as climate change will lead to even more frequent, longer high heat conditions. The devastation happening here due to the botulism outbreak will have long lasting impacts across the entire West Coast, said Teresa Wicks, a Bird Alliance biologist who visited the refuge this summer. Gosia Wozniacka covers environmental justice, climate change, the clean energy transition and other environmental issues. Reach her at gwozniacka@oregonian.com or 971-421-3154. Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com. Somehow former President Donald Trumps supporters can overlook his questionable morals, dubious legal history and propensity for lying. But they should not overlook the fact that over 100 Republican former national security leaders and members of Congress are supporting Vice President Kamala Harris for president, stating that Trump is unfit to serve again as President. In a letter to the public, 111 former, high-ranking Republican officials who know what its like to work with Trump stated that as president, Trump promoted daily chaos in government, praised our enemies and undermined our allies, (and) prioritized his personal interest above American interests. The letter goes on to say he demonstrated unethical, erratic, irresponsible, reckless and dangerous behavior, and that he betrayed our values, democracy and this countrys founding documents. In other words, Trump was an imprudent, self-serving, unprincipled president, and we do not want him to be president again. Scott McNiven, Tualatin To read more letters to the editor, go to oregonlive.com/opinion. By all accounts, Wayne Wirt didnt have to die. The 66-year-old retired Hollywood prop and set builder, father of two and licensed pilot had for years been itching to fly his 1966 Piper Cherokee from his home in California to his new property in Chehalis, Washington. There were signs that the journey hed planned was overly risky. His wife and younger son had tried to warn him. Wirt didnt listen, and he died on Sept. 22, 2022, his body torn apart when his plane smashed, nose-first, into a cinder cone in the Mount Jefferson Wilderness in central Oregon at 2:39 p.m. Wirt likely got disoriented in the clouds, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded, according to the agencys report on the crash, released in May. While its unknown exactly why Wirt crashed or why he decided to fly towards bad weather when he had safer options, the traits that made Wirt the man he was doggedness, independence and a confidence that he could overcome any challenge may have been precisely the traits that sealed his fate. Two years after the crash, Wirts wife, his youngest son and his pilot friends still cannot figure out his decisions that day. A satellite image analyzed by the National Transportation Safety Board indicated that Wayne Wirt had a path north with clear skies, though he chose, instead, to fly towards the clouds. Wirt, 66, died when his plane crashed into a cinder cone Sept. 22, 2022.National Transportation Safety Board Why would you fly over a black cloud, a thunderstorm, a rainstorm, when you have another path to go that would get you to the same place that has clear skies? Wirts youngest son, Corey Winters, said. Thats the question that Ill never have answered. Wirt wouldve seen clear skies in every direction that day except the one he flew in, satellite images taken at the time show. Wirts death prompted an odd bureaucratic diktat: the U.S. Forest Service said his family would have to pay the cost to remove his remains and the plane wreckage from the wilderness area. One contractors estimated cost to do the job: $50,000. Another, less-surprising effect of the family patriarchs death followed: His devoted wife, who was looking forward to a quiet retirement in the company of her best friend, suffered in unexpected late-life solitude on the couples new property in rural Chehalis. I feel like I lost my compass, Cindy Wirt said. CAN-DO Cindy and Wayne, after dating for five years, married in 1984 on St. Patricks Day, so that he could remember our anniversary, Cindy Wirt said recently, with a laugh. They were too busy working and had little money, so they had no honeymoon, she said. She worked as an accountant for a car dealership and Wayne Wirt was a carpenter on Hollywood sets. Wayne Wirt wanted to buy a piece of land in the California desert and live off the grid, and the couple did exactly that, having two children in the process. It was difficult, but they managed. He showed me that whatever he put his mind to, he could figure it out, Cindy Wirt said. It didnt seem like there was anything he couldnt really do. Along with his can-do approach to life came an attitude of good enough, Corey Winters said, an outcome of his fathers Hollywood career. Wayne Wirt would regularly see his work on sets torn down after it was no longer needed, and so he developed a mindset that what he needed had to be only good enough to pass muster in the moment, Winters said. In the mid-1980s, Wayne Wirt got interested in flying, and he used a tractor to clear a stretch of land to make a dirt landing strip on his California property. He built hangars that he rented out to people with airplanes. Then he got his own pilots license and bought a four-seat, single-engine airplane. Wayne Wirt, left, is pictured in this 2018 photo with his wife, Cindy Wirt.Courtesy of family In 2012, Wayne Wirt retired and went on disability because of severe knee problems. Three years later, he and Cindy bought a piece of land in Chehalis. They wanted to move to Washington to be closer to Cindy Wirts mother, in Port Angeles, and Winters, who lived in Portland at the time. Just like they had done about 30 years earlier, the land they bought was a fresh slate and, after signing the paperwork in 2015, they got to work building a house. A key feature, though, was already in place: The plot of land was adjacent to a private landing strip. Over the years that followed, the couple would take multiple trips back and forth from their Llano, California, home to Chehalis, carting their belongings and building out the new property. THE PLAN Almost immediately, Wayne Wirt started thinking about flying his Piper Cherokee to Washington. The journey would be by far the longest flight he had ever taken in the small plane a major trip compared to the short, sunny-day jaunts he would take with his flying buddies in California. Although Wirt had logged more than 950 hours of flight time, he had little experience flying in bad weather, because conditions in southern California are usually clear. And he had no experience flying in bad weather in the mountains, where treacherous conditions can easily arise in the interaction between winds and the terrain. And, in the five years before his fatal flight, Wirt barely had time to fly his plane at all, too busy moving and working on the new house. And yet, he persisted in his goal to fly from California to Washington. Knowing she couldnt dissuade him from his plan altogether, Cindy Wirt urged him to at least take somebody with him to have an extra pair of eyes on the controls and on the ground, or to take over for him if he got tired. I dont feel comfortable with you flying that far alone, she recalled telling him about a month before his final flight. Oh, well, he replied, confident as ever. What if you get tired? she asked. Then Ill land and Ill stay there, he replied. In mid-September 2022, he drove south to the Llano property with his older son, who then drove back to Chehalis with a trailer. Wayne Wirt was making plans to fly to Oregon the second weekend in September when a friend, Bill McClellan, urged him to reconsider because of the weather forecast for Oregon. McClellan, a more experienced pilot than Wayne Wirt, had become a sort of intermittent, informal flight consultant for Wirt. He was concerned about Wirts plan to fly such a long distance solo with no experience doing so and little recent flying at all. But he felt he wasnt in a position to tell Wirt what to do, he said recently. He did try to steer him in the right direction, though, and the weather forecast leading up to that weekend showed storms ahead. Wayne Wirt agreed to wait until the weather improved, and he checked the weather every day until eventually settling on the following Thursday as his departure day. McClellan told him that if he was set on going despite poor weather in Oregon, he should fly east of the Cascade Mountains, where he could expect clear skies. But eventually he would still have to turn west to get to Chehalis. McClellan hoped Wayne Wirt would wait even longer for the weather to improve, he said, but Wirt seemed to be in a hurry. Winters, the Wirts youngest son, was on the Columbia River on his sailboat, between Astoria and Scappoose, when he got a message from his mom telling him that his father was finally planning to fly to Washington. Winters called his father, who told his son he was planning to fly within days. Like his mother, Winters was worried about Wayne Wirt flying by himself. It was a very long flight, and the plane didnt have an autopilot system, which meant that Wayne Wirt would have to be actively flying the plane the entire time, an exhausting and mentally straining task for anyone, let alone a man in his mid-60s. Winters urged his father not to fly alone. He basically blew me off and was, like, Im fine, Winters recalled. THE FLIGHT Bill McClellan checked the weather forecast again before his friends flight on Sept. 22, 2022, planned for 7 a.m. that morning. The forecast called for clouds over the Cascade Mountains that afternoon, and McClellan sent Wayne Wirt a text message to make sure he knew. Looks like Oregon will have lots of clouds breaking in afternoon, McClellan wrote at 6:40 a.m., receiving no reply. Wayne Wirt departed around the scheduled time and called his wife at his first stop, at an airport east of San Francisco. How are things going? she asked him. Very well, he told her. Be safe, Cindy Wirt said, and they hung up. Wayne Wirt then flew to Sisters, where he took on more gas at 2:10 p.m. and lifted off again. According to weather readings at the time, the skies directly north of Sisters were clear, while clouds were gathering over the Cascades. Almost exactly 29 minutes later, Wayne Wirts plane slammed into South Cinder Peak, about 500 feet below the summit, obliterating the airplane. Wirt died of massive blunt and sharp force trauma, according to a Linn County Medical Examiners report cited by federal officials. Besides likely becoming disoriented by the cloud cover, he was almost certainly tired after seven hours flying, investigators wrote. In this screengrab from a video about the recovery operation on the HeavyDSparks YouTube channel, the wreckage of Wayne Wirt's Piper Cherokee is seen resting on the side of South Cinder Peak, a cinder cone in the Jefferson Wilderness Area.HeavyDSparks YouTube channel Cindy Wirt had been following her husbands progress using the Find My iPhone application and, that afternoon, was surprised to see that the blue dot identifying his phones location on the map had stopped moving. At first she assumed it was a tech glitch, but an hour after his scheduled 4 p.m. arrival time in Chehalis came and went, she began to seriously worry. A neighbor who was a commercial pilot called Seattle-Tacoma airports air-traffic control for Cindy Wirt and asked if there had been reports of a plane down, and they said yes. The next day, the Coast Guard informed Winters they had found the wreckage of a plane, but it wasnt until three days after the crash, a Sunday, that she got confirmation that the plane was her husbands. The weeks that followed were a daze for her as the grief and shock overwhelmed her. THE AFTERMATH Wayne Wirts death triggered an unexpected consequence the airplane was uninsured, which meant the family had to get the wreckage off of the slope themselves or pay the U.S. Forest Service to do it. A contractor told them it would cost about $50,000, Cindy Wirt said. Winters wife set up a GoFundMe page. And then a YouTube star got involved. A viewer of the HeavyDSparks YouTube channel reached out to David Sparks and told him about the problem Cindy Wirt faced. It was a perfect challenge for Sparks, who documents on the channel how he and his friends pull off difficult recovery operations. Sparks got permission from the U.S. Forest Service to haul the wreckage and Wayne Wirts remains and film the operation. It took two hours and multiple helicopter flights to put Wirts remains into body bags and to get him and the plane off of the mountain on Oct. 20, about a month after the crash. Sparks team put the airplane wreckage onto a trailer, and he drove it to Chehalis, arriving at Cindy Wirts house around nightfall. The work went unexpectedly smoothly, Sparks told Cindy Wirt in a video about the recovery operation that has been viewed nearly 3.9 million times. He was definitely tired of being up there, Sparks said, adding that Wayne Wirt had a million-dollar view, for sure. The U.S. Forest Service, Linn County Sheriff's Office andU.S. Forest Service The YouTuber saved the family $50,000 and a host of bureaucratic hassles, but the grief and the nagging, unanswerable questions remain. Winters, who is himself a licensed pilot and aircraft mechanic, said hes trying to use what happened to his father to help educate others about the dangers of mountain flying. Cindy Wirt, meanwhile, has become worried that she is isolating herself in her grief. She is looking for a regular counselor. Two years after the crash, the planes wreckage remains in Cindy Wirts hangar. Shes not ready to let it go, Winters said. So it just sits. Fedor Zarkhin is a breaking news and enterprise reporter. Do you have a story? Reach him by phone or text at 971-373-2905 or by email at fzarkhin@oregonian. Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com The situation around the town of Vuhledar in the Donetsk region is very threatening. The enemy has managed to approach the city from the western and eastern flanks, forming a semi-encirclement. ADVERTISIMENT And the reasons why this situation became possible are not so much the quality of the fortifications near the city as the lack of personnel defending Vuhledar. This was stated in an interview with OBOZ.UA by former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko. According to him, the threat of Russian capture of Vuhledar is greater than ever. "The situation there is very difficult. For two years, the Defense Forces held their positions, but now the enemy has managed to advance and enter the flank from the rear from the east and the west. A semi-encirclement, or as it is popularly called, a "cauldron" has been formed. The enemy has approached the outskirts of the city. Today the situation there is the worst compared to previous attacks on the city," noted Romanenko. ADVERTISIMENT At the same time, he emphasized that the reasons for the deterioration of the situation around the city cannot be reduced to insufficiently reliable fortifications in the area. The key problem is the lack of people. "The issue is not only in the fortifications. First of all, the issue is the personnel. The law on mobilization does not quickly resolve the issue of manning the brigades that are already in combat and creating reserve brigades. Therefore, even if there are appropriate engineering facilities, we need trained personnel, which we lack," the former Deputy Chief of the General Staff emphasized. As a reminder, on September 24, Russia announced that its army had launched an assault on Vuhledar. During the assault, the occupiers use a huge number of anti-aircraft gunships and aircraft, which allows them to advance. ADVERTISIMENT Western media, including Forbes, began to claim that a Ukrainian brigade of about two thousand people was "under the threat of encirclement in the city." The very next day, on September 25, the Land Forces stated that Vuhledar was not currently surrounded, but that there was an advance by the occupiers. Meanwhile, the ISW said that the Russians could capture the city. However, they noted that even if Russian troops capture Vuhledar, it is unlikely to provide them with a significant operational advantage for further attacks in the western part of Donetsk region. Although, according to the Russian command, the offensives near Vuhledar and Pokrovsk are mutually reinforcing and are intended to stretch Ukrainian forces on a wider front in the Donetsk region. Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber . Do not fall for fakes! ADVERTISIMENT A 26-year-old woman in California was arrested and hauled out of Disneyland in handcuffs after she snuck into the park with her children without paying for admission. Video footage posted on social media showed 26-year-old Jessinia Diaz being led away by guards from Disneyland in handcuffs. She was also seen screaming profanities at police officers and refusing to provide identification. Moreover, the video showed her two young children crying and pleading for help from bystanders. Nashville Mother Arrested in Disneyland Diaz was allegedly arrested after she disguised her children as toddlers so she would not have to pay for their tickets and, instead, enter the park for free, as reported by the Los Angeles Times. Children aged two and under are admitted to Disney's theme parks for free. However, her children were aged three and four. Authorities said it was the fourth time Diaz had snuck her children into the park over the last two months. It was noted, however, that Diaz had a valid pass for herself. It was the first time authorities caught Diaz. She was arrested for trespassing and obstructing a peace officer's investigation after she refused to cooperate. She was later released with a citation. It is unclear if she will be banned from entering Disney parks in the future. A single-park adult ticket costs $154 for visitors aged 10 and up. Children aged three to nine would pay for a ticket $146. Pricing varies depending on the day, time of visit, and if there is a holiday, with tickets going as low as $109. Other Incidents Diaz was not the only one who attempted to sneak their children into the park. In 2022, for instance, a TikTok video showed a woman disguising an elementary school-age child as a baby to avoid paying the $140 admission fee. The child was placed in a stroller with a blanket covering her legs. Disney cast members were also seen glancing into the stroller. The video later showed the mother helping the child out of the blanket once the workers had walked past them. It is unclear if any actions were taken against the guests. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators is now working to expand a child tax credit program that would help workers afford child care. A recent proposal would give incentives to businesses in rural and lower-income areas if they provide employees with childcare facilities in their workplaces. The incentive would grant employers up to $150,000 a month or $1.2 million a year in tax credits. The amount would depend on the size of the business. For the new legislation, Sen. Michael Bennet, D-CO, teamed up with Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-TN, as reported by The Hill. Bennet introduced a separate legislation in 2019 that sought to overhaul the existing Child Tax Credit and expand the amount to $300 per month for children under age 6 for a total of $3,600 per year. At the time, he teamed up with Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-OH, in an effort to make childcare services more affordable. For perspective, childcare services typically cost American households $700 a month, on average. In some states and cities, this can go up to $1,600. Other Child Tax Credit Bills Bennet was not the only senator to have proposed expanding employer-child tax credits. Sens. Tim Kaine, D-VA, and Katie Britt, R-AL, also introduced the Child Care Affordability and Availability Act that would increase the maximum credit for businesses to $500,000 from $150,000. If passed, that bill would also expand the share of childcare expenses covered to 50% from the current 25%. Furthermore, the bill would offer small businesses filing for joint applications a maximum credit of $600,000. How Popular Are Employer Child Tax Credits? Despite providing businesses tax credits, the take-up rates of the 45F credit are low. In fact, only 11% of companies said they offered any on-site childcare facility, per a 2023 report. Among companies with over 1,000 workers, the take-up rate rises to only 16%. Of all types of businesses, those in the education sector had the largest share of on-site childcare facilities with a 90% take-up rate, the report noted. Tonight is the night! For the very first time, the new Interpreter Foundation film Six Days in August will be publicly screened in theaters. Although the formal public opening in theaters wont take place until Thursday, 10 October, advance showings of the film will occur tonight at 7 PM in nine Cinemark theaters along the Wasatch Front in American Fork, Draper, Farmington, Midvale/Sandy, Ogden, Orem, Provo, Salt Lake City, and West Jordan. Tickets can be purchased at Six Days in August Early Access. Or, if youre lucky, youll be able to buy them at the door. Incidentally, one of the regulars on the Peterson Obsession Board, my Mini-Stalker, claims to have bought a ticket for one of tonights screenings and has promised to post a review of Six Days in August for the enjoyment of his associates there by sometime tomorrow. Im on pins and needles. Will he love the movie? Will his review be gushingly positive? I doubt it. In fact, I wouldnt be at all surprised if his review were already largely written and complete. One or two others on the Obsession Board have announced that they have or will have bought tickets to another movie, adjacent to Six Days but more worthwhile (a very low bar!), and that, when its over, they plan to sneak into the auditorium where Six Days is showing, in order to catch it for free. Which, if they do it, will obviously be a kind of theft. A new article of mine went up in Meridian Magazine this morning: Understanding Brigham Youngs Spiritual Depth: A Fresh Perspective. If you have absolutely nothing else to do today, if youve tired of playing tic-tac-toe against yourself and you dont have the cards available to play Solitaire, you might find it of interest. Im unaware, thus far, of any archived recording of the three brief two- to three-minute interviews that John Donovan Wilson (Brigham Young) and I did on KSL-Radio yesterday morning between 8 AM and 9 AM, but heres a link to the six-minute interview that the Wilsons (John Donovan and his wife, Twyla, who plays Mary Ann Angell Young) did with Brooke Walker on Monday for Studio 5, on KSL Television: New Film Explores 1844 Succession Dilemma of the Church of Jesus Christ And, incidentally, for those who have expressed interest in the question (as well as for those who havent), a video of last nights well-attended Six Days in August fireside will be published online within the reasonable future, either on the Six Days in August website or on the Interpreter Foundation website or both. This went up two or three days ago but, in the press of this weeks public (and private) events, Ive neglected to call attention to it: Interpreter Radio Show September 15, 2024. In the 8 September 2024 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, Bruce Webster, and Kris Frederickson hosted special guests Dan Peterson and Russ Richins. They discussed Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson 41, and the new film by Interpreter, Six Days in August. The conversation has been edited to remove commercial breaks, and the Book of Mormon in Context portion of the show, for the Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson 41, will also be posted separately on Tuesday, 1 October. The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard on Sunday evenings between 7 PM and 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com. And these items have been posted on the (barely active, nearly comatose) Interpreter Foundation website more recently: Nibley Lectures: Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Lesson 40 I Am the Law, and the Light: 3 Nephi 12-16 This week for Come, Follow Me lesson 40 covering 3 Nephi 12-16, we have lectures 84 and 85 from Hugh Nibleys Book of Mormon classes at Brigham Young University, covering 3 Nephi 11-20. These were the last two classes in semester 3. At the start of semester 4, the lectures jump back to the beginning of 3 Nephi and lectures 86 through 100 discuss chapters we have already covered and on up through 3 Nephi 18 in more detail. Therefore, this week, we have a total of 17 lectures! During 1988, 1989, and 1990, Hugh Nibley taught Honors Book of Mormon classes for four semesters at Brigham Young University. The lectures were video-taped and audio cassettes and printed transcripts were made of the lectures. We believe these recordings will be interesting to listen to and valuable to your Come, Follow Me study program this year. Each week, we will include the lectures covering the Book of Mormon chapters being studied that week. The Book of Mormon in Context Lesson 40: I Am the Law, and the Light 3 Nephi 12-16 In the 8 September 2024 Come, Follow Me segment of the Interpreter Radio Show, Terry Hutchinson, Kevin Christensen, and Mark Johnson discuss Book of Mormon lesson 40, I Am the Law, and the Light covering 3 Nephi 12-16. The other segments of the September 8 radio show can be accessed at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-september-8-2024. Come, Follow Me Study and Teaching Helps (2024): Lesson 40, September 30-October 6: 3 Nephi 12-16: I Am the Law, and the Light After speaking with lawmakers of both parties, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with U.S. President and Vice President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in Washington, DC. The Ukrainian leader discussed with them the promising victory plan. ADVERTISIMENT There can be no just peace without the support of the United States, Zelenskyy said during his meeting with Harris. In particular, the Ukrainian president called on the United States to continue sanction pressure on Moscow. "We must keep sanctions against Russia tough and use the proceeds of frozen Russian assets to protect Ukraine, our people, our cities, our front line from the Russian evil. And, of course, we must work hard to bring all Russian war criminals to justice," he emphasized. "It is very important for us to be fully understood and to work in full coordination with the United States. This morning I spoke with congressmen from both houses, both parties. And I am grateful for the bipartisan support. We believe that this war can be won and that a just peace can only be closer with the United States," Zelenskyy added. ADVERTISIMENT In her turn, Kamala Harris noted that this was her seventh meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. She also assured him of unwavering support for Ukraine. According to her, the United States will continue to provide the security assistance necessary for Ukraine's victory. "We must defend our democratic values and stand up to aggressors. And we must uphold the international order, rules and norms. Each of these principles is at stake in Ukraine, and that is why Ukraine's fight matters to the American people," she said. ADVERTISIMENT Meanwhile, according to Voice of America journalists, Zelenskyy's stay in Washington has been extended for another day. As reported, the victory plan that Zelenskyy brought to the United States should provide Ukraine with long-term guarantees of support from the West. The President emphasizes that the plan needs the urgent support of Joe Biden and other Western leaders so that Ukraine can start negotiations by the end of the year from a favorable position. Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! In times of ever-increasing subscription fees and license costs for software, many people are looking for cost-effective alternatives. Fortunately, there are a variety of powerful free tools that can compete with the expensive market leaders in many areas. Here are the best free alternatives you can turn to. Image editing and graphic design Adobe Photoshop is considered the ultimate in image editing software, but at $19.99 per month its not exactly cheap. Here are three good freeware alternatives for design and image editing purposes: GIMP: GIMP is one of the most popular alternatives to Photoshop and offers a similar range of image editing tools such as layers and masks, selection tools, cloning, filters, and image adjustments. Although GIMPs user interface is less intuitive and lacks some advanced features (such as Smart Objects and CMYK support), it is still a comparable solution to Photoshop and is completely free. See also: GIMP basics: Best tips and tricks for beginners. GIMP is one of the most popular alternatives to Photoshop and offers a similar range of image editing tools such as layers and masks, selection tools, cloning, filters, and image adjustments. Although GIMPs user interface is less intuitive and lacks some advanced features (such as Smart Objects and CMYK support), it is still a comparable solution to Photoshop and is completely free. See also: GIMP basics: Best tips and tricks for beginners. Paint.NET: Although this Windows tool is nowhere near as comprehensive and professional as Photoshop, it is the quickest way to achieve your goals when it comes to simple image editing. Paint.NET supports layers, selection tools and image adjustments, an unlimited undo function and a number of other practical functions for editing graphics. Although this Windows tool is nowhere near as comprehensive and professional as Photoshop, it is the quickest way to achieve your goals when it comes to simple image editing. Paint.NET supports layers, selection tools and image adjustments, an unlimited undo function and a number of other practical functions for editing graphics. Canva (free version): The free version of Canva offers a lot of potential for professional social media graphics and presentations. Thanks to the intuitive interface, creating graphics is childs play even for non-professionals, but editing images is reduced to the basics of all basics. For more functions, templates and elements, you need the paid Pro version ($10 per month). Canva is web-based and therefore platform-independent. GIMP is one of the best alternatives to Adobe Photoshop. GIMP is one of the best alternatives to Adobe Photoshop. GIMP GIMP is one of the best alternatives to Adobe Photoshop. GIMP GIMP Another firm favorite in the field of graphic design is CorelDRAW, which offers a comprehensive suite of tools that will make many a designers heart beat faster. However, the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2024 costs $549 for a single license or $22.42 per month for an annual subscription a considerable investment. It is also possible to use Inkscape, for example, completely free of charge. Inkscape is a strong open-source alternative to CorelDRAW, especially when it comes to vector graphics. It offers extensive tools for creating and editing vector designs and is excellent for projects such as illustrations, technical drawings and diagrams. Although it cant quite compete with CorelDRAW in some areas (for example, it doesnt offer native support for multi-page documents and has fewer plug-ins), Inkscapes versatility and ability to achieve impressive results without high costs is impressive. Inkscape is a favorite freeware for designers. Inkscape is a favorite freeware for designers. Kristian Kask Inkscape is a favorite freeware for designers. Kristian Kask Kristian Kask Video editing software Adobe Premiere Pro is an industry standard for professional video editing, but it too costs $22.99 per month. Two good free alternatives are: Kdenlive: Kdenlive is a comprehensive open-source video editing software that offers many features found in more expensive programs. With multi-track timelines, effects, transitions and even keyframe animations, Kdenlive offers an impressive range of functions that is more than sufficient for many projects. It is an excellent choice for Linux users in particular, but is also available for Windows and macOS. Kdenlive is a comprehensive open-source video editing software that offers many features found in more expensive programs. With multi-track timelines, effects, transitions and even keyframe animations, Kdenlive offers an impressive range of functions that is more than sufficient for many projects. It is an excellent choice for Linux users in particular, but is also available for Windows and macOS. Shotcut: Shotcut also offers a wide range of video editing tools and supports a variety of video formats. The software is cross-platform and despite its lack of user-friendliness is a solid and powerful solution that you can test risk-free. Kdenlive offers professional video editing features completely for free. Kdenlive offers professional video editing features completely for free. Kdenlive Kdenlive offers professional video editing features completely for free. Kdenlive Kdenlive Livestreaming software Many people rely on paid tools such as Vimeo or Streamyard for live streaming. If you want to save the subscription costs, it is better to use the open source tool OBS Studio. This tool offers a wide range of functions for professional live streaming, including scene transitions, source management, and support for various platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook Live. OBS Studio is available across all platforms and, despite being free of charge, offers powerful options for customizing your livestreams and broadcasting them in high quality. Professional streaming doesnt have to cost anything OBS Studio proves it. Professional streaming doesnt have to cost anything OBS Studio proves it. OBS Studio Professional streaming doesnt have to cost anything OBS Studio proves it. OBS Studio OBS Studio Office software Microsoft 365 is the most widely used Office package in the world and offers a wide range of applications that are indispensable for everyday office work such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. However, with an individual license costing $69.99 for an annual subscription, the Office suite quickly adds up. A great offline alternative is LibreOffice. It may look a little old-fashioned, but it combines all the essential Office applications and also offers some additional features for editing PDFs. A bit old-school, but still powerful: the Word alternative LibreOffice. A bit old-school, but still powerful: the Word alternative LibreOffice. PC-Welt A bit old-school, but still powerful: the Word alternative LibreOffice. PC-Welt PC-Welt For those who prefer to work online, there are also powerful free alternatives. Microsoft itself offers a slimmed-down online version of Word, Excel and PowerPoint that can be used free of charge as long as you are logged in with a Microsoft account. While these versions are not quite as feature-rich as the full versions, they offer enough tools for most everyday tasks. Another excellent option is the Google Suite (Google Docs, Sheets, Slides). These online tools are free, available across all platforms, and enable seamless collaboration in real time. All you need is a free Google account. There are also free alternatives for editing PDFs that can prove useful. ONLYOFFICE PDF Editor (the free version), PDFgear, and PDF24 Creator offer a solid basic set of features that are sufficient for many everyday tasks. With these tools you can edit PDFs, comment on them, fill in forms, and even convert documents without paying a cent. Antivirus software Instead of paid antivirus software such as Norton or Avast Premium, there are also a few free alternatives that offer solid protection. One of these alternatives is Windows Defender. The tool is integrated into Windows and offers basic protection against viruses, malware, and other threats. It is particularly user-friendly and uses few system resources. Another free option is Avast Free Antivirus, which offers protection against malware, viruses, and phishing and is available for Windows, macOS, and Android. Chris Hoffman/IDG Chris Hoffman/IDG Chris Hoffman/IDG Important note: While free antivirus software offers good protection, it cant always keep up with the latest threats. If you want to be on the safe side, its better to opt for a paid solution. When it comes to security, the savings factor should not take center stage. Further reading: The best antivirus software for Windows PCs Microsoft has released a white paper of sorts outlining what the company is doing to secure user data within Windows Recall, the controversial Windows feature that takes snapshots of your activity for later searching. As of late last night, Microsoft still hasnt said whether they will release Recall to the Windows Insider channels for further testing as originally planned. In fact, Microsofts paper says very little about Recall as a product or when they will push Recall live to the public. Recall was first launched back in May as part of the Windows 11 24H2 update and it uses the local AI capabilities of Copilot+ PCs. The idea is that Recall captures periodic snapshots of your screen, then uses optical character recognition plus AI-driven techniques to translate and understand your activity. If you need to revisit something from earlier but dont remember what it was or where it was stored, Recall steps in. However, Recall was seen as a privacy risk and was subsequently withdrawn from its intended public launch, with Microsoft saying that Windows Recall would later re-release in October. Microsoft latest post, authored by vice president of OS and enterprise security David Weston, details how the company intends to protect data within Recall. Though journalists previously found that Recall was on by default with an opt out, it will now be opt in for everyone. Users will be offered a clear choice on whether they want to use Recall, said Weston, and even after Recall is opted into, you can later opt out or even remove it entirely from Windows. What youll see as part of the out of the box experience with Windows 11 and Windows Recall. What youll see as part of the out of the box experience with Windows 11 and Windows Recall. Microsoft What youll see as part of the out of the box experience with Windows 11 and Windows Recall. Microsoft Microsoft The post goes into more detail about how data is stored within Windows, which has become one of the focal points of Recalls controversy. In May, cybersecurity researcher Kevin Beaumont tweeted that Recall stored snapshots in plain text, and he published screenshots of what the database looked like within Windows. Beaumont has since deleted his tweet and removed the image of the database from his blog post outlining his findings. Alex Hagenah then published TotalRecall, a tool designed to extract information from the Recall stored files, as reported by Wired. That tool, stored on a GitHub page, still includes screenshots of the Recall database, or at least what was accessible at the time. Microsoft never publicly confirmed Beaumonts findings, and doesnt refer to them in its latest post. The companys representatives also did not return written requests for further comment. Microsoft now says that Recall data is always encrypted and stored within what it calls the Virtualization-based Security Enclave, or VBS Enclave. That VBS Enclave can only be unlocked via Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security, and the only data that ever leaves the VBS Enclave is whatever the user explicitly asks for. (PIN codes are only accepted after the user has added a Windows Hello key.) A technical diagram of how Recall stores data, according to Microsoft. A technical diagram of how Recall stores data, according to Microsoft. Microsoft A technical diagram of how Recall stores data, according to Microsoft. Microsoft Microsoft Biometric credentials must be enrolled to search Recall content. Using VBS Enclaves with Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security allows data to be briefly decrypted while you use the Recall feature to search, Microsoft said. Authorization will time out and require the user to authorize access for future sessions. This restricts attempts by latent malware trying to ride along with a user authentication to steal data. Weston also strove to make it clear that if you use private browsing, Recall never captures screenshots. (Its not clear whether this applies only to Edge or to other browsers as well.) Recall snapshots can be deleted, including by a range of dates. And an icon in the system tray will flash when a screenshots is saved. What we dont know is whether Recall will store deeply personal data (like passwords) within Recall. Sensitive content filtering is on by default and helps reduce passwords, national ID numbers, and credit card numbers from being stored in Recall. (Emphasis mine.) Microsoft said they have designed Recall to be part of a zero trust environment, where the VBS Enclave can only be unlocked after its deemed secure. But trust will be an issue for consumers, too. It appears that Microsoft is at least offering controls to turn off Recall if users are worried about what the feature will track. QNET proudly announces the launch of HomePure Rayn, the latest in its innovative home care range of products, that aims to transform the users daily shower routine. HomePure Rayn is a unique showerhead that promises to turn daily showers into a rejuvenating spa-like experience while supporting healthy skin and hair. This innovative product, developed by water purification experts in South Korea, features the Amezcua Resonance Technology (ART), which energizes water to improve hydration and bio-energetic properties. ART is a proprietary innovation by QNET designed to enhance the quality of water by improving its molecular structure. This technology works by harmonizing the natural frequency of water through energy resonance, resulting in structured water that is more bioavailable and beneficial for the body. The impact of this technology includes improved hydration, better taste, increased energy levels, and overall health benefits. Additionally, the HomePure Rayn includes Activated Carbon Fiber (ACF) filter capsules certified by the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF), guaranteeing excellent water filtration quality. The soft yet strong water pressure created by 259 micro-holes has proven to be gentle on the skin, especially for children, the elderly, and pets. Trevor Kuna, Chief Marketing Officer of QNET, expressed his enthusiasm: "The HomePure Rayn showerhead represents a significant advancement in personal wellness technology. By incorporating Amezcua Resonance Technology (ART), we have created a product that not only purifies but also revitalises water, offering a unique and refreshing shower experience. The ART plate in the shower head increases the biofield in water droplets, resulting in smoother water that benefits both skin and hair. The showerhead itself is designed for easy installation and maintenance. All you need to do is to twist off yourexisting showerhead from your shower- and twist on the new Rayn showerhead. Kuna also clarified that the HomePure Rayn was designed in such a way that it is easy for users to maintain. There are two parts that users need to replace from time to time, and it can be done without external help. These would be the sediment filter located in the handle and the filter capsules located at the head cap; be it the Activated Carbon Fiber (ACF) capsules or the Vitamin C capsule stated Kuna. Key Benefits of the HomePure Rayn include: Deep Purifying Cleanse: The advanced filtration system removes sediments, rust, foreign matter, residual chlorine, and impurities, ensuring a thorough cleanse. Spa-like Shower Experience: Choose from stress-free aromatherapy options like Bahama Blue, Black Cherry, or Lavender scented capsules Nourishing for Skin & Hair: The showerhead offers head-to-toe moisturizing effects due to hydration that is properly absorbed by the skins cells using the Vitamin C and ACF Filter Capsules and stronger hair with reduced hair loss and effective scalp exfoliation. Energised Innovation: The HomePure Rayn showerhead uses the exclusive ART Plate to infuse water with energy, reducing stress and boosting vitality, providing a natural energy boost in the morning, and stress- relieving experience at night. Prof. Dr. Konstantin Korotkov, a professor at St. Petersburg's National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics, and Optics in Russia, has conducted studies indicating that structured water can positively affect the body's energy fields and contribute to overall well-being. According to Dr. Korotkov, structured water offers improved moisturizing benefits and is easier for the body to absorb. His findings support claims that Home Pure Rayn can transform regular water into a revitalizing and health-enhancing resource. With its combination of advanced technology, user-friendly design, and health benefits, the HomePureRayn showerhead is set to revolutionise personal wellness and hygiene. HomePure Rayn is the latest addition to QNETs home and living range called HomePure. Existing products in this category include Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman/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 Hollard Insurance, a subsidiary of Hollard Ghana, the countrys favourite insurer, has been recognised with the prestigious Marketing-Oriented Insurance Company (General) of the Year award at the 2023 Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana (CIMG) Awards. The accolade, presented during a remarkable ceremony at the LabadiBeach Hotel, underscores Hollards commitment to delivering innovative and accessible insurance solutions for all Ghanaians. This milestone win was driven by Hollards focus on three key innovations: 1. Hollard On-the-Go, a partnership with Melcom and Vivo Energy, brings insurance directly to customers where they shop via Hollard on-the-go booths. 2. Asomdwee MSME Insurance tailored comprehensive product with life and non-life components for small businesses. 3. Insure Pack is an on-the-go motor insurance product available at some select shell shops and accessed via Araba Hollard, an AI chatbot on WhatsApp. These solutions demonstrate Hollards dedication to simplifying insurance and expanding accessibility. Speaking on the back of the award, Daniel Boi Addo described the win as a testament to the companys efforts of courageously pursuing a better way of increasing insurance penetrating through innovative products and marketing. This recognition reflects our strategy of leveraging the full marketing mix to deliver the right products to the right people at the right time. By understanding and responding to our customers evolving needs, weve successfully positioned Hollard as the countrys favourite insurer that treats everyone with care and dignity. Considering the low insurance uptake in the country, our goal is to reach the served, underserved and all in-between through innovations and diversity. At Hollard, our purpose is to enable more people to create and secure a better future by achieving exceptional, sustainable, and inclusive growth. This award reaffirms our commitment to that vision. A big thank you to all our customers, partners and hard-working staff at Hollard, fondly called Hollardites, for driving our vision. Kudos to more wins and future successes. This win is dedicated to you all, he noted. The award, under the theme: Harnessing the Power of AI as a Transformative Tool for Marketers, the CIMG annual national marketing performance awards sought to honour businesses and products demonstrating exceptional market insights while promoting high professional standards to encourage excellence among marketing practitioners. About Hollard Insurance Hollard Insurance, a subsidiary of Hollard Ghana, combines its deep local knowledge of the market, having previously operated in Ghana for 25 years as Metropolitan Insurance, with the world-class expertise of an international insurance brand in 18 countries worldwide. With feet firmly planted on Ghanaian soil but headquartered in South Africa, Hollard delivers innovative insurance solutions customised to the unique risks Ghanaians face. Hollard offers various general insurance products, including personal accident, motor, business, travel, home, and more. Reach Hollard via 0800 444 999. Beyond various nationwide office branches and Hollard 2U franchise shops, Ghanaians can find Hollard at Shell Fuel Station Welcome Shops, Melcom stores and online at www.hollard.com.gh, www.melcom.com/hollard-insurance and www.jumia.com.gh for all their insurance needs. Source: Josephine Acheampomaa/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 recent uproar by Ghanaians calling for the release of arrested protesters who were demanding the cessation of galamsey activities by the government has generated numerous talking points on social media, particularly on X. Topics like Kantanga, Sarkodie, Cheddar, Ga Mantse, Ghanaians, #FreeTheYouth, #ReoccupyJulorbiHouse, Nana Addo, #FixTheCountry, Akua Donkor, and NPP and NDC are trending for Thursday, September 26, 2024. Heres a breakdown of why these topics are trending: Katanga The Kantanga fraternity of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has announced plans to embark on a naked demonstration in Accra over the pollution of river bodies by activities of illegal mining. Netizens are supporting them with money to facilitate their travel from Kumasi to Accra. Sarkodie The Ghanaian musician is trending for his silence over recent events in the country, despite allegedly being a harsh critic of the previous John Dramani Mahama administration. Cheddar Nana Kwame Bediako, a presidential candidate widely known as Cheddar, has incurred the anger of netizens following his comments accusing the NDC of orchestrating the #StopGalamsey protests, which have led to the arrest and detention of protesters. Ga Mantse The issue of tribalism among Ghanaians once again has trended with the Ga Mantse for differing reasons. #FreeTheYouth The campaign ad vocating for the release of arrested protesters fighting against galamsey is still trending after 24 hours.Protesters have been remanded for 2 weeks into police and prison custody respectively. Here are some tweets under the trending topics below:
Tertiary institutions must join this fight!
Katanga Fellowood (@KatangaFellows) September 25, 2024
The Twitter boys cant win this galamsey battle alone.
Katanga is ready by the way!
Imagine all of us captured by the police and placed in one cell. We go shit spoil there all.#FreetheCitizens pic.twitter.com/r7P02fbB7w
Conti, Katanga, Casford, Vandals & Ghanaian youth have promised to join the next protest. We should establish a united front right NOW to pick a date & venue to organize the most effective protest in the history of our country. We should NOT let this heat die. #FreetheCitizens pic.twitter.com/BQ9c0Tweve
Hubert (@KwesiHubert) September 26, 2024
We need logistics to bus Fellows from all 16 regions in Ghana to embark on a naked demonstration in Accra!
Katanga Fellowood (@KatangaFellows) September 25, 2024
Who will sponsor us? Kindly message us!#FreeTheCitzens pic.twitter.com/BVjXRCiUvd
We are so proud to set the stage running to demonstrate to safeguard our future.
Katanga Fellowood (@KatangaFellows) September 25, 2024
Its a tough call and its so sad and disheartening to have 6-member executive of our global alumni wanting to stop over 50,000 Katanga alumni from protesting!
Ghana is bigger than their pic.twitter.com/ah9uZF6LaX
Our global alumni president said he is the boss of Ghana Real Estate Company Limited so we should not demonstrate. Hence, has labeled us not legitimate!
Katanga Fellowood (@KatangaFellows) September 26, 2024
Edey funny we sef
Just look at our water now and you are here to dirty play party cards?
Masa, enfa!
Our lives pic.twitter.com/RUOk70cIxL
They said Sarkodie's mouth that he used to say Nana Toaso 4years ago is what has brought wahala for him . pic.twitter.com/rCEp8yz8zz
Headless YouTuber (@HeadlessYouTube) September 25, 2024
He influenced millions of Ghanaians to vote for criminals who arrested pregnant women, asthmatic patients, and children under 13 years old, and they still prevented them from accessing food. In 2020, even Nigerians were protesting, and he supported them. But today, he can't say a pic.twitter.com/hHwBAyeRv2
Tech In Twi (@tech_twi) September 25, 2024
Source: Twitter/ghanaweb.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Progress Peoples Party (PPP) has condemned the Ghana Police Service and the Judiciary for what the party describes as the high handedness of some protestors who took to the streets on Sunday, September, 22 to demonstrate against the menace of illegal mining. The PPP stated in a letter dated 26th September, 2024, that the Police Service and the Judiciary of Ghana dealt wrongly with the protestors protesting within the remits of the law. A group of demonstrators, otherwise known as the 'Democracy Hub', on Sunday, September 22, embarked on a demonstration across some principal streets in Accra to register their displeasure about the negative impact of illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey, thereby calling for the declaration of a state of emergency as a way of putting a stop to all forms of small scale mining. The demonstration saw a turn of events as the police arrested some persons supposed to be flouting the law. However, the PPP maintains that the arrest of minors, as well as a 4-month-old pregnant woman and others who clearly could not have been part of the demonstration as such, was against their fundamental human rights. PPP further expressed disappointment over the inability of the police to clamp down on persons who have been fingered to be the kingpins in galamsey activities rather, they resorted to the arrest of persons who have committed what the PPP describes as minor crimes. "It is even very disappointing that for persons who are alleged to have been engaged in minor offenses like unlawful assembly, an independent Judge decided not to even take their pleas but remanded them into prison and police custody including the 4-month-old pregnant woman and her husband who were simply bystanders but were mistakenly arrested. We call on the Judiciary to be bold to defend the rights of all Ghanaians and the vulnerable. Your browser does not support iframes. Source: Kobina Darlington/peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Denkyira Traditional Council has expressed absolute confidence in Vice President and flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, to become President. Welcoming Dr. Bawumia to Duayaw Nkwanta on Wednesday, the Traditional Council, in a speech read by Nana Kwame Nkrumah II, said Dr. Bawumia has been blessed and no one can stop it. "Who the Lord has blessed, no one can destroy", Nana Kwame Nkrumah II said. He continued; "Your presence here is a blessing for all of us...The first sign of blessings you have brought to us is the rain. We have not seen the rains here for sometime now but today that you have been here, God has opened the Heavens for the rains to fall to coincide with your visit which is indeed a sign of blessings. It signifies victory." The Denkyira Traditional Council also commended Dr. Bawumia for his conduct and decency in his campaign. "Since you were elected flagbearer, we have noticed the decency in your communication. You do not insult. You are always talking about your policies and preaching against indecent comments...We have not heard you insulted anyone since you started your campaign and this shows that indeed you are a man of wisdom who thinks deeply." The Council added; "You are humble and you have lots of respect for the elderly and for everybody. May God bless you more." The Chiefs further applauded President Nana Akufo-Addo for his good works, particularly regarding the Free SHS policy. 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 Former President and flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has described the two-week remand of the Democracy Hub protesters as 'high-handed'. Thirty-nine (39) participants from the Democracy Hub protests have been remanded into custody by an Accra Circuit Court. They face multiple charges, including conspiracy to commit a crime (specifically unlawful assembly), unlawful assembly, causing unlawful damage, offensive conduct conducive to a breach of peace, assault on a public officer, and defacement of public property. The case has been adjourned until October 8, 2024. Reacting to this in a tweet on X, Mahama said the "Draconian judicial decisions such as this" wont stop Ghanaians from speaking out. Mahama's tweet read: High-handedness! We must balance our need to maintain law and order with protecting the rights and freedoms of our citizens. Remanding Democracy Hub demonstrators for two weeks is high-handed and an abuse of their rights. The youth of Ghana have a right to engage in manifestations to protect their future, especially on key issues like the destruction of the environment through illegal mining. Draconian judicial decisions such as this wont stop them from speaking out. The authorities must request the judge to review the remand decision and grant them bail immediately. High-handedness! We must balance our need to maintain law and order with protecting the rights and freedoms of our citizens. Remanding Democracy Hub demonstrators for 2 weeks is high-handed and an abuse of their rights. The youth of Ghana have a right to engage in John Dramani Mahama (@JDMahama) September 26, 2024 Source: Rebecca Addo Tetteh/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 Denkyira Traditional Council has applauded Vice President and presidential candidate of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia over his good conduct and decency exhibited in his campaign. Welcoming Dr. Bawumia to Dunkwa-On-Offin on Wednesday, the Denkyira Traditional Council said they have observed Dr. Bawumia's campaign focuses on issues and not mixed with insults. "Since you were elected flagbearer, we have noticed the decency in your communication. You do not insult. You are always talking about your policies and preaching against indecent comments", Nana Kwame Nkrumah II said on behalf of the Council. The Council stressed "we have not heard you insult anyone since you started your campaign and this shows that indeed you are a man of wisdom who thinks deeply...You are humble and you have lots of respect for the elderly and for everybody. May God bless you more." They also complimented the New Patriotic Party under the leadership of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia for their good works and development projects. The Council was of a firm belief that the December 7 elections will favor the party and their flagbearer, Dr. Bawumia. "Who the Lord has blessed, no one can destroy", they established. 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 Elon Musk has denied having an affair with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, after pictures of them together were shared online. Pictures shared online showed the Tesla founder and the Italian Prime Minister gazing into each other's eyes at the Global Citizen Awards in New York City on Monday as Musk handed Meloni the titular award. 'Find someone who looks at you the same way the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni looks at Elon Musk,' one X user wrote, sharing a photo of Musk touching Meloni's shoulder. 'You can't have mELONi without ELON,' another added. Meanwhile, Musk quickly denied having any romantic relationship with Meloni at the black-tie event. 'I was there with my Mom. There is no romantic relationship whatsoever with PM Meloni,' Musk wrote on X in response to a post of a photo showing them gazing into each other's eyes at a banquet table, which had the joking caption, 'We all know what happened next.' Musk and Meloni have met several times before, with the Italian prime minister hosting the billionaire at her official residence in Rome in June of last year. "Someone who is even more beautiful on the inside than She is on the outside." -Elon Musk to Giorgia Meloni. pic.twitter.com/7iYfY1FWMG SMX (@iam_smx) September 24, 2024 Elon Musk meets Prime Minister of Italy, Georgia Meloni. pic.twitter.com/HDkDVLXkIU SMX (@iam_smx) June 20, 2024 Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Ukraine will soon receive long-range Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) glide bombs from the United States. These munitions can hit a target at a distance of up to 150 km and weigh up to 500 kg. ADVERTISIMENT This was reported by the White House press service. US President Joe Biden announced the decision, emphasizing that it is aimed at strengthening Ukraine's capabilities to conduct long-range attacks. "To enhance Ukraines long-range strike capabilities, I have decided to provide Ukraine with the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) long-range munition," Joe Biden said. In addition, Biden instructed the U.S. Department of Defense to repair and transfer to Ukraine another Patriot air defense battery along with additional missiles for this system. The decision is part of a broader strategy that will provide Ukraine with hundreds of additional Patriot and AMRAAM missiles over the next year to better protect cities and civilians. "This builds on my decision earlier this year to divert U.S. air defense exports to Ukraine, which will provide Ukraine with hundreds of additional Patriot and AMRAAM missiles over the next year and will help Ukraine defend its cities and its people," Biden emphasized. ADVERTISIMENT The US President also emphasized the expansion of the training program for Ukrainian F-16 pilots, in particular by training 18 more pilots in 2025. What we know about JSOW The AGM-154 JSOW is a gride bomb developed for use by the U.S. Navy and Air Force. It is designed to provide high-precision strikes against protected targets beyond the reach of standard air defense, increasing the chances of aircraft survival and reducing battlefield losses. The basic version, the AGM-154A, was first deployed in Iraq during the 2003-2011 war and in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. In total, more than 400 JSOW bombs have been used, of which about 300 were in Iraq. The JSOW has a guidance system based on GPS, inertial navigation (INS) and an infrared sensor (only for the C model). The bomb is 4.06 meters long, 33 cm in diameter, weighs 483 kg and has a wingspan of 2.7 meters. The JSOW is compatible with a variety of aircraft, such as the F/A-18, F-16, B-1B, B-2A, B-52H, F-15E, F-35A/C and JAS 39 Gripen. The range of its use varies from 22 km when launched from a low altitude to 130 km from a high altitude, and with an engine (JSOW-ER) - up to 560 km. ADVERTISIMENT The JSOW is an important tool for modern military operations, ensuring the accuracy and effectiveness of air strikes. According to the Defence Express, the transfer of the new bombs is a "strange decision" because "the Ukrainian Air Force is unable to use high-altitude flight due to the threat of Russian long-range SAMs and the superiority of fighter jets." As a result, Ukrainian pilots are forced to launch bombs during low-altitude flights. This means that the previously delivered JDAM-ER bombs could only be launched at a distance of 40 km. Defense Express predicts that the performance of the AGM-154 JSOW will be similar, although these bombs cost ten times more than JDAM-ER. ADVERTISIMENT It is worth noting that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the United States has decided to provide Ukraine with significant defense assistance totaling $7.9 billion. Additional sanctions will also be imposed against the aggressor country Russia. Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! One candidate in the 2024 presidential race has the edge when it comes to six battleground states that could determine the election. A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll, released Thursday, found Vice President Harris narrowly leading former President Trump in the swing states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and North Carolina. She is tied with Trump in the battleground state of Georgia. Harriss biggest lead is in Nevada, where she has a 7-point lead over the former president with 52% of support compared to 45%. Her second largest lead is in Pennsylvania, which is seen as a must-win state for Democrats. She leads Trump by 5 points in the state with 51% of support. Her support echoes other recent Pennsylvania polls that found Harris leading in the state. She also has a 3-point lead over Trump in each of the swing states of Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin. She has a 2-point lead in North Carolina, which President Biden narrowly lost to Trump in 2020. The election will likely come down to the battleground states due to the Electoral College system. Across all swing states, Harris is leading by 3 percentage points, according to the poll. The poll surveyed 6,165 registered voters across seven swing states Sept. 19-25. This comes as Harris travels to the border in Arizona on Friday to court voters. Immigration and border security are top issues in Arizona, the only battleground state that borders Mexico and one that contended with a record influx of asylum seekers last year. Trump has an edge with voters on migration, and Harris has gone on offense to improve her standing on the issue and defuse a key line of political attack for Trump. The Associated Press contributed to this report. The Democratic challenger running for state treasurer is calling for more transparency from her Republican incumbent opponent while being accused of creating conspiracy theories and unable to accurately complete a campaign finance report. The race to be custodian of the commonwealths money is heating up as the Nov. 5 general election nears. The two major party candidates incumbent GOP Stacy Garrity and Democrat Erin McClelland engaged in some political sparring this week. McClelland said she wants to participate in a public debate with Garrity to air out issues that involve the state Treasury. But she said Garrity refused the two televised debate requests making it seem like the only person in the race for treasurer she believes should be held accountable is me. Garritys campaign spokesman Dennis Roddy responded, When Erin McClelland can get her own house in order then we can talk about a conversation in public. At this point, shes not a serious candidate. She is at most a serious nuisance. He was referring to a discrepancy that was noticed in McClellands latest campaign finance filing that has Garritys campaign considering calling for an audit. It noticed McClellands campaign finance filing included two $10,000 contributions from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 5s political action committee, both of which were dated July 9. McClelland said one of those checks came in shortly after the April primary but it wasnt deposited in her campaign account until July when a second $10,000 contribution from that same PAC was received. She reported the first $10,000 contribution in her post-primary filing submitted in May but upon advice from her financial advisers, decided to include it in her most recent filing to reflect the date she deposited the money in her account. She then amended her earlier filing to reflect that change. I think it reflects on my ability to handle records meticulously to the point that we were willing to say everything else was reported on predominantly a cash basis and this one check went in on an accrual basis and we corrected that, McClelland said. There was never any misinformation. The donation was reported. We simply moved it to the cycle in which it was deposited instead of when it was received. The Department of State advises candidates to report contributions when they are received, said department spokesman Matt Heckel. McClellands explanation doesnt square with Roddy but besides that, he said it means McClelland possessed a $10,000 uncashed check for two months. If she is leaving $10,000 checks laying around uncashed, people ought to worry about the idea of her watching the Treasury, he said. This isnt the first time McClelland has found herself in disputes over her campaign finance filings. Democratic party supporters accused McClelland of demonstrating a pattern of campaign violations in her prior runs for other public offices. However, investigations into those claims by the state attorney generals office and the Department of State resulted in no charges being filed. McClelland accuses Garritys campaign of making accusations of campaign finance impropriety in order to deflect attention from her alarming foreign investments of taxpayer dollars. In a campaign video on social media, McClelland blasts her opponent for investing commonwealth funds, specifically school employees pension dollars, in the Saudi Arabian Stock Exchange. That is not what we should be doing with our state dollars, she said in the ad. Officials from the Public School Employees Retirement System, the State Employees Retirement System and the Pennsylvania Municipal Retirement System said their plans have no direct investment in the Saudi stock exchange but have limited indirect exposure to Saudi Arabia through commingled investment of funds. McClelland isnt convinced. She shared a custodial agreement with the Bank of New York Mellon to invest pension funds in the Saudi stock exchange that Garrity, among others signed. She said she wants to know more about that contract, why it exists, and if any pension funds are invested in Aramco, the state-owned oil company of Saudi Arabia that supports its crown prince who had a role in killing Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Garritys campaign manager Jim Tkacik said, Erin McClellands Saudi conspiracy theory is further evidence that she has no idea how the states pension boards work, nor how treasury functions. The Saudi Prince theory is the conclusive proof. Stacy Garrity gets her information from experienced financial experts from both sides of the political aisle. Erin McClelland seems to get hers from internet conspiracy sites. McClelland said she has other issues shed like to vet in a debate and looks forward to her Republican opponent agreeing to one. Other candidates vying for the treasurers post are Constitution Party candidate Troy Bowman, Libertarian Nickolas Mark Ciesielski, and Forward Party candidate Christopher Foster. Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on X at @JanMurphy. The Bureau du Champagne, USA, earlier this week announced its annual list of the Top 10 bars and restaurants where Champagne plays a starring role. The list, now in its third year, recognizes establishments that elevate and celebrate the uniqueness of the sparkling wine that comes only from Champagne, France. Released ahead of Champagne Day 2024 on Oct. 25, the list showcases Champagne standouts in every U.S. region. It recognizes restaurants and bars that take special care to offer Champagnes from a wide variety of producers, list them properly on their menus, and serve them with enthusiasm. We received nominations for spectacular bars and restaurants across the country, and selected from them a list of destinations that embody the spirit of Champagne, Lori Russo, director of the Bureau du Champagne, USA, said in a press release. While these restaurants and bars differ in style, spanning the spectrum from fine dining to fried chicken, they all have one thing in common: they understand what makes Champagne special. For that, we couldnt be prouder to raise a glass to them on Champagne Day and the rest of the year. The full list of this years featured bars and restaurants can be found below in alphabetical order: Apero , Washington, DC: Aperos list of more than 700 wines places special emphasis on Champagne. The intimate setting in DCs popular Georgetown neighborhood is an ideal spot to explore an extensive list of Champagnes smartly organized by style. Be Bubbly , Napa, Calif.: In the heart of California wine country, Be Bubbly takes care to showcase Champagne with a menu that includes a map of the regions five wine-producing districts and a philosophy of Champagne as a celebration of life. Boiler Room , Omaha: The wine list at this terroir-focused restaurant, originally conceived by a Master Sommelier, offers a broad range of Champagnes at varying price points so everyone can join in the celebration. Charleston , Baltimore: The wine program at Charleston emphasizes the special relationship between wine and food. The Champagne list, which spans three pages of its menu, explains the magic of Champagne along with a diversity of tasting profiles. Coqodaq , New York: Proving the versatility of Champagne, Coqodaq pairs the sparkling wine with both caviar and its signature bucket of Korean fried chicken. Coupes , Dallas: Coupes bills itself as a bar for Champagne. True to its name, its vast menu of Champagnes explains that Champagne is a sparkling wine, but not all sparkling wines are Champagne. Fizz Champagne & Bubbles Bar , Sacramento, Calif.: Fizz believes in celebrating everyday triumphs with Champagne. Its menus and events elevate Champagne from France and distinguish it from other sparkling wines. La Vie, Waikiki, Hawaii: La Vies emphasizes farm-to-table dining with French flair, so its large selection of vintage and non-vintage Champagnes creates the perfect complement, and the view is special, too. Pops for Champagne , Chicago: Known for its special events, tastings, Champagne education and a vast list of Champagnes of every style, Pops has been dazzling Chicago with Champagne since 1982. Sexy Fish , Miami: The extraordinary interior of this Brickell restaurant is matched only by its extensive list of Champagnes both accessible and rare. To find an event near you marking Champagne Day, click on this link. More events will be added in the near future. In less than 100 days, Pennsylvanias largest indoor agricultural event kicks off in Harrisburg. During a visit in Lancaster County on Thursday, Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding and Secretary of Community and Economic Development Rick Siger shared details about the 2025 Pennsylvania Farm Show. Powering Pennsylvania is the theme for the Farm Show scheduled for Jan. 4-11 at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center. Redding shared the news while visiting Oregon Dairy Farmstead in Manheim Township. Agriculture powers Pennsylvania, Redding said. He added that thousands of farm families throughout the state power the economy, noting the $132.5 million industry supports about 593,000 jobs. Oregon Dairy is an example of the Farm Show theme, Redding said, adding it is a family-run agritourism destination, green-energy producer and community economic driver. The Farm Show is the Keystone States largest agricultural event and similar to a state fair. It attracts more than half a million people for eight sensory-filled days. Visitors encounter the sights, smells and tastes, from baby animals to tractor square dancing to gooey fried cheese cubes and batter-dipped vegetables. Fan favorites such as a 1,000-pound butter sculpture, famous food court and sheep-shearing competitions are on tap to return. NEW COLUMBIA A Dauphin County firms $58 million investment on what two years ago was a 173-acre farm in central Pennsylvania is ready to pay dividends. Country View Family Farms (CVFF) of Middletown on Friday held the ceremonial opening for its mill in Union County that is capable of producing 8,000 tons of finished feed a week. A new speed record has been set for completing the Appalachian Trail, according to media reports and the feat-tracking website fastestknowntime.com. Tara Dower finished the 2,189-mile trail southbound from Katahdin, Maine, to Springer Mountain, Georgia, on Sept. 21, in just 40 days, 18 hours and 6 minutes, the website states. Supported by a crew, Dower had set out Aug. 12. The site lists the previous fastest known time as set northbound in the summer of 2018 by Karel Sabbe, in 41 days, 7 hours and 39 minutes. Dower surpassed her goal, shared via social media, of raising $20,000 during the trek for the Charlotte, North Carolina-based nonprofit Girls on the Run International. Virginia-based Tara Dower, 31, on Sept. 21, 2024, completed the 2,189-mile Appalachian Trail in under 41 days, setting the fastest known time. Here, she is seen during her trek in a photo taken by friend Rascal.Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com Dower spoke with Easton-based Runners World magazine following her journey, saying her crew shares in her record and detailing the grueling schedule that kept her on pace. The 31-year-old is an ultra-runner and long-distance hiker originally from North Carolina and now based in Virginia, according to a profile by Outside. With a vertical gain of 465,000 feet, the Appalachian Trail is known for its scenic beauty but also challenging, rugged stretches. Pennsylvania is home to 229 miles of the trail, the fourth-longest stretch among the 14 states it passes through, according to the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Another 72 miles cross through northern New Jersey. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. By Kate Payne and Heather Hollingsworth, The Associated Press CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla. Hurricane Helene made landfall Thursday night in northwestern Florida as a Category 4 storm as forecasters warned that the enormous system could create a nightmare storm surge and bring dangerous winds and rain across much of the southeastern U.S. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Helene roared ashore around 11:10 p.m. EDT near the mouth of the Aucilla River in the Big Bend area of Floridas Gulf Coast. It had maximum sustained winds estimated at 140 mph ( 225 kph). Helene prompted hurricane and flash flood warnings extending far beyond the coast up into northern Georgia and western North Carolina. Before it made landfall, strong winds had already cut power to nearly 900,000 homes and businesses in Florida, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us. The governors of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, the Carolinas and Virginia all declared emergencies in their states. One person was killed in Florida when a sign fell on their car and two people were reported killed in a possible tornado in south Georgia as the storm approached. When Floridians wake up tomorrow morning, were going to be waking up to a state where very likely theres been additional loss of life and certainly theres going to be loss of property, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday night. The National Weather Service in Tallahassee had issued an extreme wind warning for the Big Bend as the eyewall approached: Treat this warning like a tornado warning, it said in a post on X. Take shelter in the most interior room and hunker down! Helene arrived barely a year since Hurricane Idalia slammed into Floridas Big Bend and caused widespread damage. Idalia became a Category 4 in the Gulf of Mexico but made landfall as a Category 3 near Keaton Beach, with maximum sustained winds near 125 mph (205 kph). Camryn Frick, left, and Jillian Sternick, both 22, and of Tampa, hold hands as they cross a flooded street together along Bayshore Boulevard on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (Jefferee Woo/Tampa Bay Times via AP)AP The storms wrath was felt widely, with sustained tropical storm-force winds and hurricane-force gusts along Floridas west coast. Water lapped over a road in Siesta Key near Sarasota and covered some intersections in St. Pete Beach. Lumber and other debris from a fire in Cedar Key a week ago crashed ashore in the rising water. Beyond Florida, up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain had fallen in the North Carolina mountains, with up to 14 inches (36 centimeters) more possible before the deluge ends, setting the stage for flooding that forecasters warned could be worse than anything seen in the past century. Heavy rains began falling and winds were picking up earlier Thursday in Valdosta, Georgia, near the Florida state line. The weather service said more than a dozen Georgia counties could see hurricane-force winds exceeding 110 mph. In south Georgia, two people were killed when a possible tornado struck a mobile home on Thursday night, Wheeler County Sheriff Randy Rigdon told WMAZ-TV. The damage was reported as heavy thunderstorms raked much of the state. Wheeler County is about 70 miles (113 kilometers) southeast of Macon. Forecaster Dylan Lusk said the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Wheeler County at 8:47 p.m. on Thursday. He said its one of 12 tornado warnings the office near Atlanta issued for parts of Georgia between 1 p.m. and 11 p.m. The storm made landfall in the sparsely-populated Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Floridas Panhandle and peninsula meet. Please write your name, birthday, and important information on your arm or leg in a PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified, the sheriffs office in mostly rural Taylor County warned those who chose not to evacuate in a Facebook post, the dire advice similar to what other officials have dolled out during past hurricanes. Still, Philip Tooke, a commercial fisherman who took over the business his father founded near the regions Apalachee Bay, planned to ride out this storm like he did during Hurricane Michael and the others on his boat. If I lose that, I dont have anything, Tooke said. Michael, a Category 5 storm, all but destroyed one town, fractured thousands of homes and businesses and caused some $25 billion in damage when it struck the Florida Panhandle in 2018. A man in a kayak uses a makeshift paddle Thursday as he travels through a street flooded in the passing of Hurricane Helene in Batabano, Mayabeque province, Cuba.(Ramon Espinosa, Associated Press) Many, though, were heeding the mandatory evacuation orders that stretched from the Panhandle south along the Gulf Coast in low-lying areas around Tallahassee, Gainesville, Cedar Key, Lake City, Tampa and Sarasota. Among them was Sharonda Davis, one of several gathered at a Tallahassee shelter worried their mobile homes wouldnt withstand the winds. She said the hurricanes size is scarier than anything because its the aftermath that were going to have to face. Federal authorities were staging search-and-rescue teams as the weather service forecast storm surges of up to 20 feet (6 meters) and warned they could be particularly catastrophic and unsurvivable in Apalachee Bay. Please, please, please take any evacuation orders seriously! the office said, describing the surge scenario as a nightmare. This stretch of Florida known as the Forgotten Coast has been largely spared by the widespread condo development and commercialization that dominates so many of Floridas beach communities. The region is loved for its natural wonders the vast stretches of salt marshes, tidal pools and barrier islands. You live down here, you run the risk of losing everything to a bad storm, said Anthony Godwin, 20, who lives about a half-mile (800 meters) from the water in the coastal town of Panacea, as he stopped for gas before heading west toward his sisters house in Pensacola. This graphic shows an approximate representation of coastal areas under a hurricane warning (red), hurricane watch (pink), tropical storm warning (blue) and tropical storm watch (yellow). The orange circle indicates the current position of the center of the tropical cyclone.National Hurricane Center School districts and multiple universities canceled classes. Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed Thursday, while cancellations were widespread elsewhere in Florida and beyond. While Helene will likely weaken as it moves inland, damaging winds and heavy rain were expected to extend to the southern Appalachian Mountains, where landslides were possible, forecasters said. The hurricane center warned that much of the region could experience prolonged power outages and flooding. Tennessee was among the states expected to get drenched. Helene had swamped parts of Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula on Wednesday, flooding streets and toppling trees as it passed offshore and brushed the resort city of Cancun. In western Cuba, Helene knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses as it brushed past the island. Over portions of the Southeastern U.S. into the Southern Appalachians, Helene is expected to produce total rain accumulations of 6 to 12 inches, with isolated totals around 20 inches. This rainfall will likely result in catastrophic and potentially life-threatening flash and urban flooding, along with significant river flooding.National Hurricane Center Areas 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of the Georgia-Florida line expected hurricane conditions. The state opened its parks to evacuees and their pets, including horses. Overnight curfews were imposed in many cities and counties in south Georgia. This is one of the biggest storms weve ever had, said Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. For Atlanta, Helene could be the worst strike on a major Southern inland city in 35 years, said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd. Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures. In further storm activity, Tropical Storm Isaac formed Wednesday in the Atlantic and was expected to strengthen as it moves eastward across the open ocean, possibly becoming a hurricane by the end of the week, forecasters said. Officials said its swells and winds could affect parts of Bermuda and eventually the Azores by the weekend. The St. Pete Pier is pictured Thursday among high winds and waves as Hurricane Helene makes its way toward the Florida panhandle.(Martha Asencio-Rhine, Tampa Bay Times via AP) In the Pacific, former Hurricane John reformed Wednesday as a tropical storm and strengthened Thursday back into a hurricane as it threatened areas of Mexicos western coast with flash flooding and mudslides. Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador raised Johns death toll to five as communities along the countrys Pacific coast prepared for the storm to make a second landfall. Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri. Associated Press journalists Seth Borenstein in New York; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Russ Bynum in Valdosta, Georgia; Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Andrea Rodriguez in Havana; Mark Stevenson and Maria Verza in Mexico City; and Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, contributed to this report. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin's new threats to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries will not change the European Union's support of Ukraine. The nuclear rhetoric of the president of the aggressor country once again demonstrates his irresponsible behavior. ADVERTISIMENT This was stated by the EU External Action Service Spokesperson Peter Stano during a briefing in Brussels on Thursday, September 26. This is how he answered the question of how the EU will respond to the Kremlin's expansion of the list of "threats" that could result in the use of nuclear weapons. The European diplomat reminded that this is not the first time Putin has relied on his nuclear "gamble." "This is just a continuation of a very irresponsible and unacceptable behaviour on the side of Putin, showing basically to the whole world especially during the United Nations General Assembly. He does not doesnt shy away from playing nuclear gamble over and over again. We, of course, strongly reject these threats and the position of the European Union remains unchanged," Stano said. The diplomat reminded that Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, an organization whose duty is to maintain peace in the world, but which Putin openly undermines. ADVERTISIMENT The day before, the Kremlin admitted that it had decided to change its nuclear doctrine in order to threaten Western countries. According to Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Russia is "warning" the West of the consequences in the event of an attack. At the same time, he made it clear that it does not necessarily mean nuclear weapons. On September 25, at a meeting of the Russian Security Council on nuclear deterrence, Putin said that Russia was adjusting its nuclear doctrine to make "clarifications" regarding the necessary preconditions for the use of such weapons. As reported, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken once again criticized Russian dictator Putin's threats to use nuclear weapons. Washington considers the Kremlin leader's rhetoric irresponsible. Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! ADVERTISIMENT We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Poland seeks to resolve painful issues in the history of relations with Ukraine, first of all, it wants to dot the i's and cross the t's regarding the Volyn tragedy. At the same time, official Warsaw prefers to resolve these issues through negotiations rather than by blackmailing Ukraine with EU membership. ADVERTISIMENT At least, this was stated by Polish President Andrzej Duda in an interview with the Polish TV channel Polsat News. He said that he hopes to achieve a diplomatic "breakthrough" in the exhumation of Polish victims of the Volyn tragedy by the end of his presidential term. Duda said that during his last meeting with Zelenskyy in the United States, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, he did not raise the issue of the Volyn tragedy: instead of controversial historical events, the two presidents focused on the present, which united Poland and Ukraine. "We met at the UN headquarters. We exchanged a few words. We talked about frontline issues and how the situation looks today," Duda said. However, the topic of the Volyn tragedy comes up regularly in contacts between Kyiv and Poland, and Duda has discussed it with Zelenskyy more than once. ADVERTISIMENT "The result of these talks and my slow progress on this issue, because these are delicate and difficult issues, was the presence of Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Lutsk Cathedral, where we gathered together on the anniversary of the Volyn massacre. It was an important symbol," the President of Poland is convinced. In particular, Duda raised the issue of exhumation of the Poles killed in Volyn during those tragic events during his visit to Ukraine on August 24 this year, on Ukraine's Independence Day. And, according to the Polish president, the two countries will eventually be able to reach an understanding, but only through diplomacy. "I hope that by the end of my presidency there will be some kind of breakthrough in this matter. But I would not want this to be done through scandalous blackmail, which, in my opinion, will not bring good results," Duda emphasized. ADVERTISIMENT This opinion seems to be shared by not all representatives of the Polish government. A number of Polish politicians, including National Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, have indeed made statements resembling blackmail: they insist that without clarifying the past, Ukraine's accession to the European Union is "out of the question." However, Duda, according to him, opposes this position. He is convinced that "this issue needs to be resolved in a different way, not by threatening to block Ukraine's integration with the West." "Blocking Ukraine's integration with the West is one of the reasons why Putin attacked Ukraine. Therefore, to enter into relations with Ukraine in this way is to follow Putin's path," the Polish president emphasized. As a reminder, during his visit to Ukraine on Independence Day, Duda spoke out against the intention to block Ukraine's accession to the EU because of the Volyn tragedy. At that time, he also compared the actions of politicians who advocate such a way of resolving controversial issues to the actions of the Kremlin dictator. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber . Do not fall for fakes! US President Joe Biden said that Russia will not win this war. He clearly and confidently said that Ukraine will win, and that the United States will support and strengthen Ukraine "in this battle" and help it in the long run. ADVERTISIMENT Biden said this at the beginning of his meeting with Zelenskyy at the White House. The US President also announced a new military aid package and a discussion of a plan for Ukraine's victory. "You have already presented us with a rough plan for winning this war. And that's exactly what we're going to discuss today so that you can win this conflict," Biden said. According to him, the first task is to strengthen Ukraine's position on the battlefield. "Right now, we have to strengthen Ukraine's position on the battlefield. And thats why today I am proud to announce a new US$2.4 billion package of security assistance. The Department of Defense will also allocate the remaining Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funds by the end of this year. This will strengthen Ukraine too," he said. ADVERTISIMENT "Second, we look ahead to help Ukraine succeed in the long term," the US President added. He noted that Ukraine should be supported on its path to EU and NATO membership and emphasized that Kyiv should be provided with sufficient capacity to defend itself against future Russian aggression. "So Im proud of the steps weve taken in our partnership on these fronts," Biden said. In this context, he mentioned the signing of security treaties with more than 20 countries. "So with both these actions, we're making it clear we stand with Ukraine now and in the future, and weve got a lot to discuss. These two elements are critical to how this war ends. Let me be clear: Russia will not prevail in the war. Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail, and well continue to stand by you every step of the way," Joe Biden said. ADVERTISIMENT As a reminder, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday, September 26, to present his victory plan. As reported, on the same day, Zelenskyy met with delegations from the US Senate and House of Representatives in the Capitol. He showed them the key points of the plan. Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber . Do not fall for fakes! Play with PokerNews Podcast Hosts in Resorts World Meet-Up Game Ahead of NAPT Connor Richards Editor & Live Reporter U.S. Copy link Want to have some fun with the hosts of the PokerNews Podcast and Life Outside Poker? Well, now is your chance. A PokerNews meet-up game will take place on Saturday, October 12 at Resorts World Las Vegas in anticipation of its hosting of next month's North American Poker Tour (NAPT) Las Vegas festival. PokerNews Podcast co-hosts Chad Holloway, Kyna England and Mike Holtz will attend, as will Life Outside Poker host Connor Richards, not to mention any poker friends they may rope into making an appearance. PokerNews Podcast co-hosts Chad Holloway, Mike Holtz and Kyna England Starting at 7 p.m. local time, the PokerNews meet-up game will kick off with a $200 buy-in nightly tournament. There will also be multiple cash game tables running $1/$3 and $2/$5 games and a similar Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) game. Find Out More About PokerNews Podcasts! Win a $10,000 Gold Pass to NAPT Las Vegas The Saturday meet-up game will take place on the tail end of a giveaway courtesy of PokerStars that will see one lucky podcast listener winning a $10,000 Gold Pass to NAPT Las Vegas. Simply listen to six episodes, note the keyword in each episode, and then put them together to spell out a six-word phrase. The first keyword appears in an already aired episode of Life Outside Poker with Scottish poker pro and Triple Crown winner Niall Farrell, while the sixth and final keyword will appear in an Oct. 11 episode of the PokerNews Podcast. The meet-up game is the perfect opportunity to ask the hosts more about the Gold Pass giveaway, and they may even offer up the key phrase. Get more information about the giveaway here. Podcast Schedule Date Show Tuesday, Sept. 17 Life Outside Poker w/ guest Niall Farrell Friday, Sept. 20 PokerNews Podcast Friday, Sept. 27 PokerNews Podcast Tuesday, Oct. 1 Life Outside Poker w/ guest Maria Konnikova Friday, Oct. 4 PokerNews Podcast Friday, Oct. 11 PokerNews Podcast Win an NAPT Gold Pass By Listening to PokerNews Podcasts! Gear Up for PokerStars NAPT Las Vegas The meet-up game at Resorts World is the perfect way to gear up for NAPT Las Vegas taking place Nov. 1-10. Last year, the luxurious casino hosted the first major NAPT festival in 12 years. Poker dealer Sami Bechahed took down the $1,650 Main Event for $268,945, while other festival winners included Jesse Lonis and Poker Hall of Famer Eli Elezra. This year's Main Event will be a $5,300 buy-in tournament after the success of last year's festival. Once again, PokerStars will shoot a season of The Big Game on Tour during the festival. Find Out More About NAPT Las Vegas! Share this article For the second time in the RunGood Poker Series history, the tour has made its home at Hollywood Casino in St. Louis, Missouri this week. This triumphant return sees a total of 11 ring events, the largest being the$800 Main Event that boasts a $200,000 guarantee. This is the second stop on RunGood Poker Series Resort tour after a successful destination at the Horseshoe in Tunica, Mississippi and the Hollywood Casino is ready to pull out all of the stops. This event looks to be a big draw for many big names around the Midwest. RGPS Ambassadors Preston McEwen, Cody Stanford, Daniel Lowery, and Craig Welko are all here and going to play. Iman Alsaden 2024 RGPS Destination RunGood St. Louis Main Event Final Table Results Place Player Hometown Prize 1 Iman Alsaden Kansas City, MO $77,192 2 Michael Chilton Paduca, MS $51,548 3 Phil Youngclaus St. Louis, MO $37,915 4 Jeff Riebeling Columbia, IL $28,252 5 Paul Fehlig St. Louis, MO $21,292 6 Chris Audrain St. Louis, MO $16,233 7 Mike Hurley St. Louis, MO $12,521 8 Brian Jones St. Louis, MO $9,773 9 Jesse Watson Canton, IL $7,719 Players will begin the tournament with 30,000 in chips with blinds beginning at 100/200 and a 200 big blind ante. Levels will last 30 minutes each with a 10-minute break occurring after every four until Level 8. After Level 8, registration will close and the levels will be upped to 40 minutes, with a 10-minute break occurring after every three levels. Play will conclude once the field has shrunk to 12.5% remaining. Players will bag after that with the intention to return to play on Day 2 on Sunday, September 29 at 12 p.m. Stay tuned to PokerNews for all updates regarding The RunGood Poker Series. Long before the problematic dynamics of 50 Shades of Grey, the Twilight-driven vampire craze of the 2010s, or the sheer radiance of Harry Styles in a skirt, there was Mr. Darcy. The male protagonist of 1813's Pride and Prejudice and a literary heartthrob for more than 200 years, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy is one of Jane Austen's most enduring characters. As it turns out, the sullen sad boy trope was alive and well even in Georgian England (thanks a lot, Lord Byron), during which time Austen wrote at least 13 novels and mostly published in secret. "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife," beginsPride and Prejudice and introduces us to the timeless will-they/won't-they dance of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. The Myth of Jane Austen But what do we actually know about Jane Austen? We know little, but we assume much. Born on December 16, 1775 to a prominent family in Steventon, Hampshire, Jane Austen lived a quiet and unmarried life, gaining little attention for her work. Much of her public image that of a private gentlewoman who didn't think of herself as an author and didn't care if her work was published or her genius was recognized, as she didn't recognize it herself is now known to be a false projection created by her brother Henry. To be a female author, after all to criticize British society, express political dissent, and project the female gaze onto male characters was patently dangerous. As one female writer of the time, Mary Hays, noted: "The penalties and discouragements attending the profession of an author fall upon women with a double weight." She wrote that society would scrutinize all female authors "not merely as writers, but as women, their characters, their conduct," using "malignant ingenuity" to uncover "their errors and exposing their foibles." Portrait of Jane Austen, believed to be sketched by sister Cassandra Austen National Portrait Gallery One thing we do know is that Jane Austen found inspiration in her own desires and unmet longings; there's a reason most of her novels are variations of the same themes: the emptiness of social mores, family duty vs. individual desire, the triumph of unlikely love. So, really, it's no wonder that Mr. Darcy is such an enduring character; perhaps Jane Austen isn't so much reflected in Elizabeth Bennet as Mr. Darcy: an individual plagued by misunderstandings and presumptions and burdened with a wealth of love that isn't safe to express. Mr. Darcy On-screen When it comes to adapting Jane Austen's work to film, well... sometimes Mr. Darcy is depicted as a complex character with human flaws and a redeeming desire to live an authentic life, sometimes he's portrayed using the familiar sad-boy trope, and sometimes he's a veritable Magic Mike background dancer in a thin white shirt wet. Jane Austen's female gaze helped lay the foundation for feminist writers for centuries to come, sure; but she also imbued her characters with natural desires, not just conflicted plot points. As Megan Garber at The Atlantic wrote, "But while Austen may be, today, most readily associated with drawing rooms and dainty dances, she was also an impressively early champion of that quintessentially feminist perspective. She looked at men, and saw not just marriage and family and financial security, but also, simply, sex." So on Jane Austen's 245th birthday, we pause to remember the top five Mr. Darcys to ever grace the screen for all our modern female/male/non-binary gazes to enjoy. Who's your favorite Mr. Darcy? Tell us at @Popdust. 5. David Rintoul in "Pride & Prejudice" (1980) PBS's miniseries brought a Jane Austen TV adaptation to US audiences for the first time...That's about the best part of the otherwise dull production. David Rintoul seems to think that a frozen face conveyed the complexities of Mr. Darcy's character. 4. Colin Firth in "Pride & Prejudice" (1995) If your favorite Mr. Darcy is the BBC's 1995 adaptation, then die-hard Austenites might have a bone to pick with you. Some of the most cinematic and memorable scenes, like Colin Firth in virtually a wet t-shirt, misconstrued what Austen was trying to convey about romance: It's ugly. "Diving Darcy, the criticism goes, celebrates Pride and Prejudice less for its adjacency to Romanticism, the period, and more for its adjacency to romance, the genre," as Megan Garber wrote in The Atlantic. 3. Laurence Olivier in "Pride & Prejudice" (1940) Olivier's performance in 1940 set the bar for every Mr. Darcy to come. He plays Darcy as an unnerved elitist who's earnestly surprised that his social status won't win him Elizabeth's love, which ultimately drives his character to grow. 2. Matthew Macfadyen in "Pride & Prejudice" (2005) Pretty much everyone loved Matthew Macfayden's performance as Mr. Darcy in 2005, from Roger Ebert giving the award-nominated film four stars to literally anyone who's seen Macfayden walk through mist. South Carolinas tech sector produces an almost $52 billion annual economic impact, according to new research released this fall. North Augusta hosted the SC Decoded tech conference Sept. 10-11, and it was during this conference that it was revealed just how much and just how quickly South Carolinas tech sector has grown since the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. About 6.5% of South Carolinas employment base can be traced back to tech. For another metric, employment in South Carolina's tech firms has grown twice as fast as total employment in the past decade, according to data compiled in SC Competes 2024 Economic Impact of SC Tech study. Weve seen dramatic growth in recent years, and the tech cluster overall is continuing to expand its footprint in South Carolina, Dr. Joey Von Nessen said. Von Nessen is a research economist at University of South Carolinas Darla Moore School of Business and author of the SC Competes study. The 2024 study presented in North Augusta as part of SC Decoded is only the second of its kind, the original research having been published in 2020 and using data that only went up to 2019. In other words, using data that didnt capture the impacts of the pandemic on the tech industry in South Carolina. This is a fairly new cluster; its one thats evolving and its one of those exciting ones to really look at because it is new and evolving, Von Nessen said. Von Nessen contrasted tech with South Carolinas already well-established industries, notably manufacturing, agribusiness and tourism. These industries, he said, arent evolving in the way that tech is. Except in ways that trace back to tech: agriculture in South Carolina saw the largest annual percent increase in its reliance on tech during the 2019-2022 period, according to the study, with this industry being 27% more reliant on tech each of those four years versus the annual 8% of the preceding decade. As we mark National Newspaper Week 2024, it is crucial to reflect on the role newspapers play in our democracy. Despite the digital revolution and a fast-changing media landscape, newspapers continue to provide the foundation for reliable, well-researched and accountable journalism. This wee Read moreCelebrating trust, accountability and the power of newspapers Wits End Comedy Club and Lounge in North Charleston, the newest fixture in the regions comedy scene, recently played host to a national tour spotlighting Black voices. The neighborhood lounge on Rivers Avenue was a packed house on Sept. 21 when the Black Power Rangers Comedy Tour took over for the evening. Charleston native Rossi Brown joined the lineup that night to deliver his from-the-heart humor. To be from Charleston and be part of a show that is all about people of color is amazing, Brown told The Post and Courier. The national tour features headlining comedians Wills Maxell and Jordan Centry from North Carolina and Brandi Augustus from Tennessee, who are joined by different comedians in every city. Maxwell founded the Black Power Rangers Comedy Tour in 2022 to highlight Black comedians and create lasting connections. In the United States, 73 percent of comedians are White and 11 percent of comedians are Black, according to 2019 statistics from CareerExplorer. Some of the biggest names in the industry, Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle, performed in Charleston last year. Many Black comics have a harder time rising through the ranks in their local scenes, Centry said, So teaming up to do the Black Power Rangers Comedy Tour is our way of taking our careers into our own hands. As my tourmate Brandi Augustus says, We make the path by walking. Wits End is carrying on what The Sparrow, a former bar that hosted regular comedy shows in Park Circle, started by giving local comedians a chance to perform with nationally known names, said Brown, the Charleston comic. The new space is supplying comedy lovers with a diverse slate of performers from all over the country. Getting older is a gift, says Jessica Miller, reflecting on what it means to still be working as a model at 40 after having worked for brands such as Chanel and Marc Jacobs. Miller who was born in Las Vegas, Nevada is the face of Chloes New Era, led by its new creative director, Chemena Kamali. Its an opportunity she considers one of the greatest honors of her career. When her agency asks her for recent photographs, she has extra help at home: her husband, Lars Ulrich, drummer and co-founder of the iconic heavy metal band Metallica, who takes the snapshots. Ive never felt that before with anyone, not even with family: its unconditional love. Yesterday he took a ferry to come here, he brought all my bags Hes the sweetest man in the world! We have been married for almost 10 years and I love him even more now, because we have been through a lot, she says with a sparkle in her eyes. Embroidered net halter dress and fur coat, by TOM FORD, and underwear by CALZEDONIA. NICO BUSTOS Question. You have just turned 40, and you are still working for the fashion giants. Do you feel that you are an exception, or that is this becoming more and more common? Answer. At 22, I was called an old model, which was nice for my self-esteem I would say that I enjoy the fashion industry a lot more now that Im older because I feel more and more confident. I know that Im very lucky to have the job that I have, but its not as easy a job as people think. At 14, I had to learn to travel constantly and work with new people every day, so it was hard for me to appreciate the creativity of the job and the clothes because I struggled to adapt to the logistics of being a model and having the right tools to emotionally deal with it. Now I can see how blessed I am and I know how to deal with the ups and downs in a healthier way. Printed chiffon shirt, skirt and pants with boa and leather sandals, all from ETRO. NICO BUSTOS Q. You were called an old model at 22, but before that, you were called fat A. Thats a thing that I struggle with still a little bit. When the #MeToo movement came about, I was asked a lot about stories of abuse, but the truth is that Ive only had bad stories with women. When I was 16, in Paris, a stylist told me to my face: Youre fat. I feel that thanks to this movement, the fashion industry is kinder. For example, I notice that models now celebrate each other a lot more, something I didnt experience when I was 20. But were human, so were always going to be terrible to each other. The model with cape and long dress, ring and D-Pepite necklace in antiqued metal, all from DIOR. NICO BUSTOS Q. After hearing phrases like that, do you have a healthy relationship with food? A. Its definitely something Ive struggled with, as most women have too. During this photo shoot, I had something on that was particularly tight, and I realized that if I had been faced with a situation like this 10 years ago, I would have been very upset. When I became vegan, I gained weight from eating fake burgers that, although they have no cholesterol, are high in fat, and it was when I started doing therapy that I realized that I had to eat what really made me feel good. I used to be in the gym every day, but it was something I didnt like. Now I feel fit and healthy. When I exercise, I dont think about calories. I dont train anymore: I move. Its not a struggle anymore. I used to torture myself, and now it all seems easier. Jessica Miller wears wool knit sweater and ruffle pants by CAROLINA HERRERA NEW YORK. NICO BUSTOS Q. And does getting older bother you? A. No, and I thought that it would. I was happy to turn 40 in February. I love my job, my husband, my family There is so much to be grateful for that I dont worry about age, because aging is a journey. I didnt feel that way before, so I guess its because of the work Ive done in therapy. I know how to set boundaries now. Plus, I think the fashion industry is starting to celebrate age. Bodi con escote en uve profundo y falda lapiz, ambos en gasa de seda; cinturon de piel; pendientes y brazaletes de resina, medias de cristal y sandalias de saten de seda, todo de SAINT LAURENT x ANTHONY VACCARELLO. NICO BUSTOS Q. Do you think diversity is more of a marketing tool? A. I have never seen diversity in the fashion world when it comes to sizes. Although fortunately there are now models of different sizes, I dont think that everyone can gain weight whenever they want. In fact, I dont know if I would work as much as I do if I gained five kilos. Although I have to applaud the way the industry is starting to celebrate age, I think that in terms of weight, there is still a lot to do. Q. Did you feel pressure being the first model to sign an exclusive contract with Calvin Klein after Kate Moss? A. I remember riding the subway and knowing that my life was going to change. I felt like what I had worked for was finally paying off. It was an iconic campaign. My dad always thought modeling was pointless, but when I signed that contract and there was an article in The New York Times, he said, Now you have a real job! Inez & Vinoodh, who I now consider my aunt and uncle, were the photographers, and I learned how to model by working with them. On the shoot, I also worked with the choreographer Stephen Galloway, and I really came into my body. It put extra pressure on my career, so the highs and lows were much higher and much lower, but I feel Iike those ads is when I like really came into my body and taught me how to be a good model. Q. What did it feel like to attend your first Metallica concert, when you were 12 years old? A. My mom took me to the show because I was a huge fan of the band, and since we were so far away from the stage, we had binoculars. My friends and I loved Metallica, which is crazy when you look at it from the present. Every now and then, Ill watch my husband play and think, What the hell is going on here? I was a fan of the band! I spent every day of my 13 years listening to the Master of Puppets album. There are times when Ill watch them play and say, Did I marry Lars? Printed wool coat, high leather boots and leather belt, all from ALAIA. NICO BUSTOS Q. But it wasnt love at first sight, was it? A. We were in a relationship! We were friends. I remember always being shocked by how nice he was, but I was so in love with my boyfriend. I met Lars at a concert when I was newly single. He appeared out of nowhere, came up to me, and I saw him in a different way. Hes such an incredible partner. Q. Would he say that you are his muse, a somewhat controversial term? A. Ive never heard him say it. I think we balance each other out. He wakes up and can make calls, while I have to have my coffee and clear my head. Even though were opposites, we balance each other out, and when things get crazy, he helps me look at things from a different angle. Ive heard him say something similar from a business perspective or creatively, but Ive yet to hear him say that Im his muse Ill have to ask him! Coat with leather trim and knitted dress, both by HERMES. NICO BUSTOS Q. Why do you think its so common for models to end up with musicians? A. I cant imagine dating someone who doesnt travel for work or have the ability to work in remote locations because its hard. I guess understanding each others schedules is essential. Travel is amazing; were both dedicated to our jobs and were aware that when we travel were traveling for work, but I think it can be hard to be in a relationship with someone whos waiting for you at home. I can imagine how stressed that person might get thinking about what the other person might be doing. Lars and I have always understood each other because the nature of our jobs is similar in some ways. LOEWE draped dress. NICO BUSTOS Q. You have said that your parents had problems with addictions, but you always speak positively about your childhood. Why? A. They both tried to do the best they could and thankfully there was no abuse whatsoever, but they werent always present. I have an older sister and a younger sister, so we were always together. One time, my father was driving under the influence and we were in the car with him. We got pulled over by the police and because my mother was out, we were sent to an orphanage for two nights. Ive always known they loved us and now I feel sorry for them. When we couldnt wake my father because he had too much to drink, we had each other. I cant imagine what it would have been like to go through that alone. My father had a liver transplant in 2010, and I put my life on hold for a year. He now has more energy than anyone else. Q. And then you got into fashion, where addictions are the order of the day, and ended up with a musician A. With so much traveling and meeting so many people every day, alcohol, which is everywhere, became an easy tool to get out of it all. Drinking became an excuse and although I would never hope for Covid, it happened just when I was at a point where I was sick of self-medicating. I knew I didnt want to drink that way. I struggled with alcohol and in 2020 I started going to therapy. There was a point where I was seeing three different therapists at once. The one I saw daily, which I still see today, I felt like I needed another specialist to delve into the traumas and help me feel them in my body, and then I had a DBT [Dialectical Behavioral Therapy] therapist, with whom I analyzed how I communicated with people and who helped me to have healthy conversations. Leopard print fur coat by DOLCE & GABBANA; crocodile effect leather boots by GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI and crystal tights and underwear by CALZEDONIA. NICO BUSTOS Q. Youre on the board of directors of the farm animal sanctuary Animal Place, do you think the world will go vegan? A. I volunteered with them seven years ago and they have changed my life. Being able to work with farm animals has helped me understand humans in a more organic way. I feel like I am kinder and more willing to listen. Vegans will kill me for saying this, but I think we are not made to be vegan. What I wonder is if the climate situation will force us to end the commitment to farm animals. I am completely vegan and I do not buy leather, but if I were in the middle of nowhere and starving, I would eat meat. We are made to survive. I have never said that I am the perfect vegan, and if I refused to wear leather in photos, I dont think I would work. I love my job too much and I think I am doing the best I can. Q. What do you think of Chemena Kamalis work at Chloe? A. Her passion is contagious. After her first show at the helm of the brand last February, she and her team burst into tears of joy, something I had never seen before during my career. That says a lot about what Chemena feels and evokes. I feel like I am part of something personal when I wear her designs. Team Model Jessica Miller (Next Managemet Madrid) Styling Juan Cebrian Make-up Manuela Pane (Kasteel Artist Management) for Dior Hair Jordi Fontanals (Ana Prado) for Aveda and GHD Production Cristina Serrano Digital assistant Lorenzo Profilio Photography assistants Marta Paba and Anna Perez Styling assistant Diego Serna Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition BEAUFORT The Beaufort-Jasper Water and Sewer Authority wants customers to limit water usage to essential needs due to widespread power outages caused by the remnants of Hurricane Helene. The authority is still able to provide water, according to spokesperson Jeff La Rue, but two-thirds of their water and wastewater system pump stations are without power. The authority has generators operating, but officials expect the issue to last multiple days. "It's the worst damage our system has seen since Hurricane Matthew in 2016," La Rue said. Area residents are asked to: Suspend all non-essential water use, including irrigation; Keep stormwater out of sanitary sewers; Stay out of floodwaters that may contain dangerous organisms and wildlife; and Do not pile storm debris near water meter shutoff valves or fire hydrants. Downed trees and widespread power outages were left in Helene's wake as the massive storm's outer bands lashed the Lowcountry the evening of Sept. 26 into early Sept. 27. Thousands of Beaufort County residents were without power as crews with Dominion Energy and the Palmetto Electric Cooperative worked through high winds. As of 10 a.m., nearly 55,000 residents or more than a quarter of the county's population were among the more than 1.3 million statewide without power. The Beaufort County School District held an e-learning day and canceled after-school events for Sept. 27 due to power outages at multiple schools. Road blockages have caused delays to the county's Emergency Medical Services, according to spokesperson Virginia Marshall, who urged patience from 911 callers. Helene has caused minimal delays for travelers in the area, according to Savannah-Hilton Head International Airport spokesperson Lori Lynah. The handful of delays and cancellations were caused by flights unable to land as the storm passed through or by destinations experiencing bad weather. Top officials from multiple federal agencies came together Sept. 27 for an update on Helene, describing the enormous storm's destruction as well as recovery efforts underway. Among the biggest area of concern was the western Carolinas, where rainfall in excess of two feet in some areas is prompting landslides and flash floods. Rainfall of 9 to 11 inches was widely reported in the western portions of South Carolina, said National Weather Service Director Ken Graham. Saturated ground could also loosen up thousands of local and privately owned earthen dams, making them vulnerable to failure, said Brig. Gen. Daniel H. Hibner of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' South Atlantic Division. Corps-controlled reservoirs such as Hartwell Lake are not at risk, Hibner said, pointing out that many were already in semi-drought conditions going into the week's weather. Graham urged residents to keep channels of communication open, including radios and smart phones, in case smaller, privately controlled levies or dams do start to fail. The National Weather Service, he said, would be the quickest to issue alerts in such an event. The NWS office for the Greenville-Spartanburg area just before noon posted warnings to social media about the imminent failure of Lake Lure Dam just across the state line in Rutherford County, N.C. "RESIDENTS BELOW THE DAM NEED TO EVACUATE TO HIGHER GROUND IMMEDIATELY!," part of the X post read. The Helene-related death toll in South Carolina is climbing, with two confirmed in Anderson County, another three reported in Spartanburg County and four each confirmed dead in Aiken and Greenville counties. I have probably mentioned John Gerard before, but I can do it again. Gerard (1545-1612) was what we would call an herbalist," in addition to working at least for part of the time as a surgeon." At this time, medicine was absolutely tied in with a knowledge of plants, for the obvious reason Read moreMystery Plant: The lettuce weed 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. In a decision with unpredictable consequences, the Israeli army attempted to assassinate Hezbollahs top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, on Friday by dropping bombs weighing up to a ton on residential buildings, according to Israeli media. At around 6:00 p.m. local time, F-35 jets launched at least eight projectiles, which left four buildings in Dahiye, Hezbollahs stronghold south of Beirut, in ruins, shortly after a belligerent speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the United Nations General Assembly that ruled out any form of negotiation over a ceasefire agreement. A large cloud of smoke rose over the suburbs of the capital and, a few minutes later, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) acknowledged an attack against Hezbollahs main headquarters, which it said was located under residential buildings in Dahiye. The official Iranian news agency, Tasnim, stated that Nasrallah is safe. The militia has not yet commented on the strike. At least four buildings have been reduced to rubble and the wounded started arriving at hospitals. Images show a large crater and buildings completely razed to the ground or blown off their foundations by the power of the explosion. It was the largest bombing in Beirut in a year of clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, using missiles used to penetrate bunkers, according to Israeli public television. Netanyahus office released a photo of him on the phone from New York. He then brought forward his return to Israel from Saturday to Friday night. Smoke billows south of Beirut following Israeli airstrikes on Friday. Mohamed Azakir (REUTERS) According to Israeli state television, Israel informed its American allies of the operation minutes beforehand, but the Pentagon has denied this. The United States was not involved in this operation and was not warned in advance, said Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh. Earlier, in his speech at the UN, Netanyahu said that Israel would not stop until the Lebanese militia had been defeated, including Hezbollah in what he termed as an axis of curse, led by Iran, facing one of blessing, in which Israel is included, underlining his point with the use of maps he displayed from the podium. On the one hand, a bright blessing a future of hope. On the other hand, a dark future of despair [...] As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, said Netanyahu, after five days of bombings that have killed more than 600 people in Lebanon. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition PR-Inside.com: 2024-09-27 11:00:24 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 896 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 DENVER, CO / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / AI Financial Education Foundation Ltd (AFEF) is a private foundation focused on investor education, established in the United States in September 2018. AFEF is committed to helping investors improve their financial knowledge, develop rational investment concepts, and identify financial fraud through professional investment education services.Notably, AFEF recently announced a deep collaboration with Blockchain Technology company Sylth Blockchain Technology Co., Ltd. (Sylth Exchange). The AFEF token has been successfully listed on the Sylth Exchange, marking a strategic alliance between the two companies in the investment education sector.The AFEF team consists of a number of senior CFA holders and NAIFA members with extensive experience in financial markets. The Foundation has independently developed the fifth-generation intelligent investment education system FBDR, which provides investors with personalized portfolio analysis and advice. The system integrates cutting-edge technologies such as big data and machine learning to help investors make more intelligent and accurate investment decisions.In addition,AFEF is supported by relevant tax incentives, which can help investors significantly reduce investment costs. In the coming year,AFEF will also carry out investment education and training activities covering stocks, foreign exchange, options, cryptocurrencies and other fields through a combination of online and offline methods.The head of AFEF said that through the cooperation with Sylth Exchange, the foundation's investment education services will be further extended to the blockchain field, providing more rich and intelligent financial knowledge training for global investors. In the future, AFEF will continue to deepen its layout in the domestic market of the United States, and actively explore the global market, committed to promoting the sustainable development of the capital market.In addition, AFEF has set clear development goals and a global vision: Short-term goal: In the next year,AFEF plans to provide high-quality investment education services to 100,000 investors, helping them increase their investment returns by 100-300%.Medium-term goal: Within 3 years,AFEF plans to become the leading investment education institution in the United States with more than 1 million investors, creating a cumulative wealth appreciation of more than $10 billion.Long-term vision: AFEF is committed to establishing a nationwide investment education service network, and actively exploring the global market, helping investors establish scientific and rational investment concepts, and promoting the sustainable development of the U.S. and global capital markets.It is worth noting that in order to ensure the sustainable development of the Foundation,AFEF has established a comprehensive risk control mechanism. It regularly trains the investment education team to ensure continuous improvement in service quality. At the same time,AFEF will continue to strengthen technology investment and market analysis, pay close attention to financial policy changes, and flexibly adjust operational strategies to help investors avoid market risks and achieve safe investment.In addition, AFEF will carry out online and offline investment and education activities through various channels in the coming year to meet the needs of investors at different levels. Online activities include live courses, investment and education salons, smart investment practice, etc., while offline activities include live lectures, expert discussions and investor experience days. Through these activities, investors will not only be able to learn the latest investment theories, but also experience the personalized investment advice provided by the intelligent AI system in practical operation.In addition, AFEF is stepping up its branding efforts globally. The Foundation will further enhance brand awareness and market influence through content marketing, search engine advertising, social media engagement, and participation in industry conferences. Through these measures, the foundation will not only be able to steadily develop in the domestic market, but also attract more investors around the world to join and promote the internationalization of the brand.AFEF's future growth strategy is not only focused on the U.S. market, but also looks globally. Through cooperation with Sylth Exchange, AFEF tokens have successfully entered the blockchain space, laying a solid foundation for the foundation's global expansion. At the same time, the foundation will continue to improve the technical level of intelligent AI systems, combined with the needs of the global market, to provide investors with more intelligent and personalized services.In order to ensure the sustainable development of the Foundation, AFEF has also established a comprehensive risk control mechanism. The Foundation regularly conducts training for the investment and education team to ensure the continuous improvement of service quality. At the same time, AFEF will continue to strengthen technology investment and market analysis, pay close attention to financial policy changes, and flexibly adjust operational strategies to help investors avoid market risks and achieve safe investment.In general,AFEF is striving to become a trusted education partner for global investors with its professional investment education team, advanced intelligent investment systems, and deep cooperation with Sylth Exchange. Whether individual investors or institutional clients,AFEF will provide intelligent investment education services to help them make informed decisions and achieve wealth growth goals in a complex and volatile market environment. Whether you are an individual investor or an institutional client, AFEF wants to help you make informed decisions in a complex market, grow your wealth and realize your investment dreams through intelligent investment education services.Source link:Media ContactOrganization: Sylth ExchangeContact Person Name: Alice WatsonWebsite: https://www.sylthbtc.com Email: service@ sylthbtc.com City: DenverCountry: United StatesSOURCE: Sylth Exchange PR-Inside.com: 2024-09-27 13:45:21 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 561 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / A new report from activist short seller Viceroy Research has intensified scrutiny on Arbor Realty (NYSE:ABR), a prominent player in structured finance. Viceroy's latest report, "Arbor - September 2024 CLO Update," paints a bleak picture of the company's financial health, alleging widespread distress within its loan portfolio.Hagens Berman urges Arbor Realty Trust, Inc. investors who suffered substantial losses to submit your losses now.Class Period: May 7, 2021 - July 11, 2024 Lead Plaintiff Deadline: Sept. 30, 2024 Visit: www.hbsslaw.com/investor-fraud/ABRContact the Firm Now:ABR@ hbsslaw.com844-916-0895 Viceroy's September 19 ReportViceroy's latest report details a series of troubling indicators. Despite significant modifications to its CLO book, Arbor's loans remain deeply troubled, with debt service coverage ratios (DSCRs) plummeting to 0.48x. The report contends that federal rate cuts will provide little relief, as even a 200 basis point reduction would only marginally improve underlying investment losses, according to Viceroy.Moreover, Viceroy claims Arbor's net interest spread is under threat due to declining cash interest income rates and the growing prevalence of interest-only loans. Viceroy further points out that the company's origination activity has also slowed to an all-time low, while it continues to pay dividends using principal repayments from its distressed loan book.Arbor's troubles have not gone unnoticed by regulators. According to Bloomberg, Arbor is under investigation by both the DOJ and FBI, and Viceroy claims that the SEC denied its Freedom of Information Act requests on the basis that their release may interfere with enforcement proceedings.Arbor Realty Securities Class ActionThe mounting scrutiny has led to a class-action lawsuit against Arbor Realty. Investors who purchased or acquired Arbor Realty Trust securities between May 7, 2021, and July 11, 2024, are alleging that the company misled them about the health of its loan portfolio. The lawsuit seeks to represent the interests of these investors and is currently pending in the Eastern District of New York.These serious allegations prompted prominent shareholder rights firm Hagens Berman to launch an investigation into potential securities fraud. Reed Kathrein, a partner at Hagens Berman, stated, "We are investigating whether Arbor Realty may have misrepresented the quality of its loan book." If you invested in Arbor and have substantial losses, or have knowledge that may assist the firm's investigation, submit your losses now If you'd like more information and answers to frequently asked questions about the Arbor case and our investigation, read more Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding Arbor should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 844-916-0895 or email ABR@ hbsslaw.com # # #About Hagens Berman Hagens Berman is a global plaintiffs' rights complex litigation firm focusing on corporate accountability. The firm is home to a robust practice and represents investors as well as whistleblowers, workers, consumers and others in cases achieving real results for those harmed by corporate negligence and other wrongdoings. Hagens Berman's team has secured more than $2.9 billion in this area of law. More about the firm and its successes can be found at hbsslaw.com . Follow the firm for updates and news at @ClassActionLaw.Contact: Reed Kathrein, 844-916-0895SOURCE: Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP PR-Inside.com: 2024-09-27 04:50:42 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 453 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NEW ORLEANS, LA / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2024 / Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") and KSF partner, former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have until September 30, 2024to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Arbor Realty Trust, Inc. ("ABR" or the "Company") (NYSE:ABR), if they purchased the Company's securities between May 7, 2021 and July 11, 2024, inclusive (the "Class Period"). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.What You May DoIf you purchased securities of ABR 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-abr/ to learn more. If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court bySeptember 30, 2024 .About the LawsuitArbor Realty and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws.On March 14, 2023, NINGI Research reported that "ABR has been hiding a toxic real estate portfolio of mobile homes with a complex web of real and fake holdings companies for more than a decade." On this news, the price of ABR shares fell from $12.99 per share on March 13, 2023, to $12.12 per share on March 14, 2023, and then $11.53 per share on March 15, 2023. Then, on July 12, 2024, Bloomberg reported that the Company was the subject of a probe by federal prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New York that were "inquiring about lending practices and the company's claims about the performance of their loan book." On this news, the price of ABR shares fell from $15.53 per share on July 11, 2024, to $12.89 per share on July 12, 2024.The case is Martin v. Arbor Realty Trust, Inc., No. 24-cv-05347.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 Partner lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com 1-877-515-18501100 Poydras St., Suite 960New Orleans, LA 70163SOURCE: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC PR-Inside.com: 2024-09-27 21:16:39 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 522 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / Leading securities law firmBleichmar Fonti & Auld LLPannounces an investigation into Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE:BEN) for potential violations of the federal securities laws.If you invested in Franklin Resources, you are encouraged to obtain additional information by visiting https://www.bfalaw.com/cases-investigations/franklin-resources-inc Why Did Franklin Resources's Stock Drop?Franklin Resources is a $1.7 trillion asset management company better known as Franklin Templeton. One of its key divisions is Western Asset Management ("WAM"), which is a fixed income manager.On July 26, 2024, Franklin Resources revealed that "following the launch of an internal investigation focusing on certain past trade allocations of treasury derivatives in select" WAM accounts, "WAM received notification of parallel investigations by the SEC and U.S. Department of Justice." Then, on August 21, 2024, Franklin Resources disclosed that WAM co-Chief Investment Officer Ken Leech had been placed on leave "effective immediately" after he "received a Wells Notice from the Staff of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission." The company further stated that, "[i]n light of Mr. Leech's leave of absence, the Company has determined that closing its Macro Opportunities strategy (approximately $2.0 billion in AUM as of 7/31/2024) is in clients' best interests." On the same day, Bloomberg reported that federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York are investigating whether Leech allocated winning trades to favored accounts, as part of a criminal probe into a practice known as " cherry-picking." The news caused a precipitous decline in the price of Franklin Resources stock. On July 26, 2024, the price of the company's stock fell 2.4%, from a closing price of $23.64 per share on July 25, 2024, to $23.08 per share on July 26, 2024. Then, on August 21, 2024, the price of Franklin Resources stock fell 12.5%, from a closing price of $22.62 per share on August 20, 2024, to $19.78 per share on August 21, 2024.Click here for more information: https://www.bfalaw.com/cases-investigations/franklin-resources-inc What Can You Do?If you invested in Franklin Resources, Inc. 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 Shikowitzross@ 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: 2024-09-27 09:00:14 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 501 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Business Kitz, a leader in AI-assisted document and data management, is thrilled to announce the launch of its latest platform update, featuring both an advanced digital signature feature and a new AI-assisted workflow. These updates are designed to streamline how businesses create, sign, and manage their documents, providing greater efficiency, security, and compliance.BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / The new AI-assisted workflow allows users to upload documents in any format, and Business Kitz's AI will automatically extract key data such as important dates, clauses, and essential information. This new feature provides a summarized overview, helping businesses process their paperwork faster and with greater accuracy. It eliminates the need for manual document review, enabling users to focus on the most important tasks while improving overall productivity.Business Kitz logoComprehensive Digital Signature SolutionIn addition to the AI workflow, Business Kitz is also introducing a digital signature feature aimed at businesses that need a fast, secure, and legally compliant way to sign documents on the go. With this feature, users can not only easily sign and share documents but also reap the benefits of AI-assisted intelligent storage features, which will be released soon.Key Highlights of the Update:- AI Workflow for Document Processing: Upload any document, and the AI will extract key data points, providing a summary of essential clauses, deadlines, and more.- Seamless Digital Signatures: Track the status of signatures with a full audit log and digital certificate for each signed document.- Global Legal Compliance: Business Kitz's digital signature meets key global standards such as eIDAS Level 1, UETA, and ESIGN (pending final verification).- User-Friendly and Secure: Both features are designed to be easy to use with built-in guidance and the highest level of encryption, ensuring full data protection.Streamlining Document Management for All BusinessesThis platform update is designed for businesses of all sizes that need a smarter, faster way to manage documents. From contracts to compliance paperwork, Business Kitz's new AI-assisted workflow and digital signature feature empower users to handle critical tasks more efficiently, while minimizing errors and ensuring long-term compliance.Supporting Business Kitz's Mission and Future GrowthThe release of these new features supports Business Kitz's vision of becoming the go-to platform for AI-assisted business document management. The company is committed to solving real problems that businesses face in managing back-office operations and has exciting plans to enhance these features further with storage, cryptographic signatures, and more integrations.Availability and PricingThe new AI-assisted workflow and digital signature features are now available. They are included as part of the Business Kitz subscription plan, which starts at $14/month, with users receiving seven free signed documents per month.After closing an oversubscribed $3.3M pre-seed round and launching its global product, the company is now opening its seed round. Visit businesskitz.com.au to create a free account or get involved in the seed funding round by contacting us.Contact InformationMarlise LachatHead of Marketingmarlise.lachat@businesskitz.com.au + 34 651 337 440SOURCE: Business KitzView the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-09-27 14:00:34 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 535 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 WESCHESTER COUNTY, N.Y. / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP , with offices in White Plains and Somers, N.Y., is proud to announce its 20th anniversary as one of New York's premier law firms. Over the past two decades, the firm has demonstrated its commitment to seniors and their families through expert legal guidance in elder law, Medicaid planning, guardianships, and wills, trusts & estates. This anniversary highlights not only the firm's legal accomplishments, but also its long-standing commitment to giving back to the community.To commemorate their 20-year milestone, Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP will participate in several charitable initiatives in the coming months, including their sponsorship of the 2024 Westchester Walk to End Alzheimer's. The Walk, taking place at Westchester Community College on Sunday, October 6th at noon, will see the firm's team, including partners and staff, unite to raise awareness and funds in the fight against Alzheimer's disease. Attendees are encouraged to visit their exhibitor booth before and after the event."Alzheimer's affects many of our clients and their families, making it a cause close to our hearts," said Anthony J. Enea, Esq., managing partner of Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP. "For several years, our firm has proudly supported the Walk to End Alzheimer's. This year, our participation is especially meaningful as we celebrate 20 years of service. It reflects our firm's ongoing commitment to helping those in need." The Alzheimer's Association estimates that over six million Americans live with Alzheimer's disease, a number expected to rise significantly in the coming years. By sponsoring and participating in the Westchester Walk to End Alzheimer's, Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP supports critical research and services for families affected by dementia."Reaching 20 years is a celebration not just of our accomplishments, but of the many relationships we've built with our clients and community partners," said Enea. "We look forward to continuing our efforts both as legal advocates and active participants in community causes." Since its inception, Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP has grown in both size and scope. Today, the firm is comprised of six full-time attorneys supported by a dedicated team of paralegals and administrative staff. Over the past year, the firm's partners and associates have presented over 75 educational programs and are regularly recognized by Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers, and Martindale-Hubbell for their excellence in elder law and estate planning.Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP is located at 245 Main Street in White Plains, N.Y. with additional offices in Somers, N.Y. For more information or to schedule a consultation, call 914-948-1500 or visitwww.esslawfirm.com About Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP is an AV preeminent-rated elder law firm with offices in White Plains and Somers, N.Y. The practice concentrates on Elder Law; Medicaid Planning; Nursing Home and Home Care Applications; Wills, Trusts and Estates; Guardianships; Estate Litigation; Supplemental Needs Trusts; and Special Needs Planning. Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP serves Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, the Bronx, Manhattan, Long Island and Queens and is committed to providing the highest quality legal services to seniors, the disabled and their families. Visit the firm online atwww.esslawfirm.com Press Contact Kelly LeeCo-Communications914-666-0066 x107klee@ cocommunications.com SOURCE: Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP PR-Inside.com: 2024-09-27 03:00:12 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 895 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2024 /Final Bell Holdings International Ltd. ("Final Bell" or the "Company"), a premier cannabis hardware and packaging manufacturer, is pleased to announce the successful completion of its rights offering. The rights offering, which expired on September 10, 2024, resulted in the issuance of 89,261,454 Class A Subordinate Voting Shares (the "SV Shares") at US$0.015 per share, and 1,627,771 Class B Proportionate Voting Shares (the "PV Shares") at US$1.50 per share, for approximately US$3,780,600 in aggregate proceeds raised, including certain debt settlements.Of the securities sold, 3,308,369 SV Shares and 108,725 PV Shares were issued under the basic subscription privilege, and 707,785 PV Shares under the additional subscription privilege, to insiders of the Company. The foregoing subscriptions include settlement of US$375,000 of indebtedness owing to insiders. Non-insiders of the Company purchased an aggregate of 31,000,230 SV Shares and 597,621 PV Shares under the basic subscription privilege, and 54,952,855 SV Shares and 213,640 PV Shares under the additional subscription privilege. The foregoing subscriptions include settlement of US$500,000 of indebtedness owing to non-insiders. To the knowledge of the Company, no shareholders became insiders as a result of their participation in the Rights Offering. The offering did not feature a stand-by commitment. As at the closing date, the Company has 186,202,234 SV Shares and 4,201,846 PV Shares issued and outstanding, representing an aggregate of 606,386,834 voting shares on an as-converted basis to SV Shares."We are incredibly proud of the trust our shareholders have placed in us, and we see this majority subscribed rights offering as a strong endorsement of our strategic direction," commented Robert Meyer, CEO of Final Bell. "The rights offering was met with robust participation from our shareholders, with a significant percentage taking part, reflecting solid confidence in our growth potential and strategic initiatives. This rights offering signifies a pivotal moment for Final Bell and underscores our shareholders' commitment to the Company's vision. The capital raised will enable us to accelerate our strategic plans and continue delivering outstanding value to our customers and stakeholders." The proceeds raised will be used for funding debt service requirements and professional fees and expenses, and is expected to further empower Final Bell's product innovation, enhance its "cannabis as a service" model, and support the expansion of its subsidiary, 14th Round, a leader in cannabis vaporization devices in North America.Final Bell continues to lead the way in the cannabis industry, offering comprehensive solutions that span device manufacturing, supply chain management, and the licensing of top-tier cannabis brands.About Final Bell Holdings International Ltd. Final Bell operates at the cutting edge of the regulated cannabis industry. Pioneering the "Cannabis as a Service" business model, Final Bell's operations span product innovation, device & hardware manufacturing, supply chain management, facility management, and brand development. Final Bell's subsidiary, 14th Round, is the leading cannabis vaporization device company in the United States and Canada. 14th Round also provides child resistant packaging solutions for cannabis vaporizers, edibles, and related products.For further information please contact:Kiarash HessamiDirector of Business Analytics and IR604-365-6099 IR@ finalbell.com Forward-Looking InformationThis news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein are forward- looking information. In particular, this news release contains forward-looking information regarding: the use of proceeds from the rights offering, anticipated benefits from same and future business plans. There can be no assurance that such forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information. This forward-looking information reflects management's current beliefs and expectations and is based on information currently available to Final Bell and on assumptions Final Bell believes are reasonable. These assumptions include, but are not limited to: the Company's financial condition remaining constant and the success of Final Bell's business strategy. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Final Bell to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such risks and other factors may include, but are not limited to: general business uncertainties; general capital market conditions; the actual results of future operations; changes in legislation, including health or cannabis legislation; the timing and availability of external financing on acceptable terms; sustaining expected growth trajectory; the continued acceptable and success of the Company's brands and strategic initiatives; and those risks described in the Company's other filings with the securities regulatory authorities which have been filed on the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca . 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. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive, and should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are placed will occur. The Company does not intend, nor undertakes any obligation, to update or revise any forward-looking information contained in this news release to reflect subsequent information, events or circumstances or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities law.SOURCE: Final Bell Holdings International Ltd. Without alluding to possible pressure from Washington, Israel has softened it objection to a proposal for a 21-day ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon. On Thursday, Israel had roundly opposed the plan which is backed by the United States and France , but on Friday, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli authorities were discussing the initiative. Israel shares the aims of the U.S.-led initiative of enabling people along our northern border to return safely and securely to their homes, the statement from Netanyahus office read. Israel appreciates the U.S. efforts in this regard because the U.S. role is indispensable in advancing stability and security in the region. The statement refers to the 60,000 Israelis evacuated from around the border with Lebanon, who have been living for months in hotels, rented houses or hosted by relatives in different regions of the country. It comes after Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) intercepted a ballistic missile fired from Yemen Friday morning, when sirens were activated in Tel Aviv. The change in tone coincides with Netanyahus arrival in New York, where he will address the United Nations General Assembly. Pro-Palestine rallies were held outside his hotel ahead of his speech on Friday. The conciliatory statement is in stark contrast to his comments on Thursday, when he said that he had not responded to the ceasefire proposal and had instructed the IDF to continue fighting with full force. Fridays statement reveals that while Netanyahu was publicly slamming the diplomatic initiative, his aides were meeting on Thursday to push it forward. Earlier this week, the United States shared with Israel its intention to put forward, together with other international and regional partners, a ceasefire proposal in Lebanon. Our teams met [on Thursday, September 26] to discuss the U.S. initiative and how we can advance the shared goal of returning people safely to their homes. We will continue those discussions in the coming days, the statement from Netanyahus office added. Both the U.S. and France were unwilling to abandon the proposal, despite the difficulty involved in deescalating the tensions. White House security spokesperson John Kirby said that Israel had been fully informed and fully aware of every word of the truce proposal. For his part, French President Emmanuel Macron said: I think it would be a mistake for the [Israeli] prime minister to refuse it because he would have to take responsibility for a regional escalation far beyond what anyone could control. The statement from Netanyahus office says that Israel wanted to clarify its position on the ceasefire proposal due to the vast amount of misinformation that had been spread. This appears to be an allusion to the international uproar that was sparked after Israel dismissed the plan while hinting the IDF was preparing for a possible ground invasion of Lebanon. Indeed, the IDF announced that thousands of troops from Gaza were being deployed to the north and that it was launching airstrikes against Lebanon to prepare the ground for a possible entry into the neighboring country. Hezbollah, for its part, continues to fire dozens of rockets at different regions of Israel, most of which are intercepted after triggering warning sirens. A ground incursion into Lebanese territory would greatly complicate the plans for a ceasefire and raise many questions. Once Israeli troops enter Lebanon: how and when will they leave? The IDF entered Gaza on October 27, three weeks after the war began. Almost a year later, with more than 41,000 dead in Gaza, there is no sign that Israel has any plans to withdraw from the territory. Meanwhile, the Houthi militia has launched a new long-range missile at Israel. This time, unlike in previous occasions, Israeli anti-aircraft defenses specifically the Arrow system intercepted the missile before it reached Israeli airspace, the army reported in a statement. The target, as shown by the alarm map activated by authorities, was an area near Tel Aviv, a large city on the Mediterranean coast. No victims were reported, and operations at Ben Gurion Airport were not affected. Israel is defended by a multi-tiered air defense system. The lowest tier, in terms of altitude, is the Iron Dome, which has been in operation since 2011. It intercepts short-range rockets and artillery, such as those frequently fired by Hamas and Islamic Jihad from Gaza, or Hezbollah from southern Lebanon. The mid-tier is the so-called Davids Sling, which has been in operation since 2017 and is designed to stop ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as medium- and long-range rockets. The top tier is the Arrow system, which has also been in operation since 2017. It intercepts missiles that fly outside the atmosphere. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition PR-Inside.com: 2024-09-27 18:00:29 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 584 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / Maple Leaf Critical Minerals 2024-II Enhanced Flow-Through Limited Partnership (the "Partnership") is pleased to announce that it has filed a final prospectus (the "Prospectus") dated September 25, 2024 with the securities commissions or similar authorities in each of the Provinces of Canada relating to the initial public offering of units of the Partnership. The books will close on Thursday, October 3, 2024 at 12 noon (EST) for its initial closing on Friday, October 4, 2024.Partnership Objectives & Benefits - National Class UnitsThe Partnership is designed to provide holders of National Class Units ("National Class Limited Partners") with an investment in a diversified portfolio of Flow-Through Shares of Resource Companies incurring Eligible Expenditures (as those terms are defined in the Prospectus) across Canada with a view to maximizing the tax benefits of an investment in National Class Units and achieving capital appreciation and/or income for National Class Limited Partners. National Class Limited Partners must be residents of Canada or liable to pay Canadian income tax.Investors are expected to receive tax deductions for 2024 of approximately 144%-152% of the amount invested based on and subject to certain conditions as set forth in the Prospectus.Partnership Objectives & Benefits - Quebec Class UnitsThe Partnership is designed to provide holders of Quebec Class Units ("Quebec Class Limited Partners") with an investment in a diversified portfolio of Flow-Through Shares of Resource Companies incurring Eligible Expenditures principally in the Province of Quebec with a view to maximizing the tax benefits of an investment in Quebec Class Units and achieving capital appreciation and/or income for Quebec Class Limited Partners. Quebec Class Units are most suitable for investors who reside in the Province of Quebec or are liable to pay income tax in Quebec.Investors are expected to receive tax deductions for 2024 of up to approximately 154% of the amount invested based on and subject to certain conditions as set forth in the Prospectus.Liquidity EventThe investment portfolios of both the National and Quebec Class Units will be actively managed in such a way as to preserve the ability to undertake a future liquidity event, such as a rollover into a mutual fund corporation.The SyndicateThe syndicate of agents for the offering is being led by Scotia Capital Inc. and includes National Bank Financial Inc., BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc., CIBC World Markets Inc., iA Private Wealth Inc., Richardson Wealth Limited, Canaccord Genuity Corp., Desjardins Securities Inc., Manulife Wealth Inc., Raymond James Ltd., Ventum Financial Corp. and Wellington-Altus Private Wealth Inc. A copy of the Prospectus can be obtained from any agent.Offering JurisdictionsEach of the Provinces of Canada.FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACTHugh Cartwright, ChairmanMAPLE LEAF SHORT DURATION FLOW-THROUGH PROGRAMS Tel: 1-866-688-5750Email: info@ mapleleaffunds.ca Web: www.MapleLeafFunds.ca A final prospectus dated September 25, 2024 relating to these securities has been filed with the securities commissions or similar authorities in each of the Provinces of Canada. This release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of any offer to buy the securities. This release is provided for information purposes only. Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with investment funds. Please read the Prospectus before investing. Investment funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently, and past performance may not be repeated. Capitalized terms not defined herein have the meanings set forth in the Prospectus.SOURCE: Maple Leaf Funds PR-Inside.com: 2024-09-27 08:45:16 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 1066 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 GODALMING, UK / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / Condor Gold plc ("Condor Gold", "Condor", the "Group" or the "Company"), (AIM:CNR)(TSX:COG) presents its unaudited interim financial report for the six-month periods to 30 June 2024. It has been posted on the Company's websites www.condorgold.com and ca.condorgold.com . It is also available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com Highlights for six months to 30 June 2024There continues to be significant interest in the sale of the Company's assets.The Company remains in discussion with a number of interested parties, both longer term and more recent, with several new parties having expressed an interest, been given access to the data room and indicating a wish to conduct site visits.The "Geological setting of gold-silver mineralisation in the La India mining district, Nicaragua" by English, L.T.P., Galvan, V.H. and Pullinger, C.R. was published in the first edition of open-access online journal Naturalis Scientias .Land acquisition continued at the La India open pit and associated mine site infrastructure. To date, 99.6% of the core areas have been purchased.Site clearance of 14 hectares has been completed for the processing plant location, including areas for offices, warehouses, a stockpile, and a buffer zone.On 23 May the Company announced it had raised 500,000 via the exercise of warrants by Galloway Limited, a company wholly owned by Burnbrae Group Limited, which is, in turn, wholly owned by Jim Mellon, Condor's Chairman, increasing Galloway's shareholding to 26.13% of Condor Gold.Post Period HighlightsOn 15 July 2024 the Company raised 220,000 via the exercise of options, The proceeds came from Galloway Limited, a company wholly owned by Burnbrae Group Limited, which is, in turn, wholly owned by Jim Mellon, Condor's Chairman, increasing Galloway's shareholding to 26.12%, Mark Child, the CEO, increasing his shareholding to 2.38% of the Company, Dave Crawford the CTO and other employee option holders.On 31 July 2024 the Company provided an update on the sales process.The significantly higher gold price has resulted in more interest in the acquisition of the Company's assets.Chairman's Statement for the Six Months to 30 June 2024Dear Shareholder,I continue to be impressed by the executive team's dedication to getting our project shovel ready. This has elicited considerable interest in the current sales process, which has been aided by a 35% increase in the gold price since the lows of 2023.The focus during the 6-month period to 30 June 2024 has been on the sale of the Company's assets in Nicaragua. On 22 November 2022, the Company announced a strategy update and informed the market that it had appointed an advisor to sell its assets. The Board carefully reviewed the Company's options as the Project is "construction ready" with an 18-month construction timeline. Such options included going through a financing and construction phase but, as a single asset, single jurisdiction company without an experienced mine building team and without gold production from other mines, the Board formed the view that this would not be in the Company's best interests, and concluded that it was in the best interests of the Company and all stakeholders to sell the assets of the Company to a gold producer with mine building expertise, thus ensuring a new mine at La India and significant investment in the local area, which will regenerate the local communities. The focus for 2024 is to execute a successful sale of the assets while maintaining a social licence to operate at the fully permitted La India Project.By way of an update on the sales process as at 26 th September 2024 there are currently eight companies under Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), five non-binding offers received and three site visits completed. Although none of the non-binding offers have progressed to firm proposals to date, the Company is in discussions with several gold producers. The Board is optimistic that a sale will be concluded in the near future.Wholly owned, fully permitted, construction ready gold mines, with a Feasibility Study completed, with potential production of 150,000 oz gold per annum, in major Gold Districts, with the land acquired and a new SAG Mill package purchased are rare and in demand by gold producers replenishing depleting reserves. We are very aware of the value of our assets and will not allow them to go at anything other than a fair price.Turning to the financial results for the 2024 6-month period, the Group's loss for the period was 518,217 (2023: 965,815). The net cash balance of the Group at 30 June 2024 was 1,084,498 (2023: 584,837). During the period, there was a 1,379,784 foreign exchange gain (2023 2,294,117 loss). This is as a result of significant changes in USD against GBP. The Board is aware of currency fluctuations and is working to mitigate any further losses.I would also like to draw your attention to the Corporate Governance Report on Pages 26 - 30 which details how we comply with the QCA Code.Finally, it remains for me to thank our executive and also our team on the ground in Nicaragua for their unstinting efforts in continuing to maintain and develop our Project.Jim MellonChairmanCEO'S Report for the Six Months to 30 June 2024Dear Shareholder,I am pleased to present Condor Gold Plc's ("Condor", the "Company" or the "Group") report for the 6-month financial period to 30 June 2024.The Chairman has provided an update on the sales process. I would like to add that it has been a difficult period for Condor Gold shareholders. At the time of writing our shares are broadly unchanged since the 1 st January 2024, while the gold price have increased from US$2,043 oz gold to US$2,665 oz gold or 30.4% and gold related equity indices are up significantly. Nevertheless, by almost any measure, Condor Gold's assets are considerably more attractive than at any time in the past, a fact that is clearly demonstrated in the tables below, which compare a Feasibility Study and PEAs conducted at US$1,600 oz gold and US$1,550 oz gold respectively with a US$2,400 oz gold price. In all 3 scenarios, NPVs increase 3 to 4 fold to a maximum of US$907 million, IRRs average 100%, the payback period reduces in 2 cases to only 6 months and the EBITDA more than doubles, in one scenario to US$2.3Bn. In my view, the extremely attractive project economics will lead to a successful sale of the assets particularly as advanced exploration work indicates La India Project has the potential to host a major gold district. The engineering studies in the Feasibility Study demonstrate th PR-Inside.com: 2024-09-27 18:15:22 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 639 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 HOUSTON, TX / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / MasterWord is honored to announce its partnership with UNESCO, within its actions linked to multilingualism online (2003 Recommendation concerning the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace) and theInternational Decade of Indigenous Languages (IDIL 2022-2032) , in advancing the preservation of the linguistic and cultural heritage of Mayan speakers through the Mayan Languages Preservation and Digitization Project. This partnership aims to preserve, revitalize, digitize and promote Mayan languages by leveraging cutting-edge technology and fostering community-driven solutions, in support of UNESCO's global mission to protect and promote multilingualism online and indigenous languages worldwide.Ludmila Golovine and Winston Scott at the UNESCO Meeting on Multilingualism, Paris, France Two individuals are standing together in front of a blue background featuring UNESCO logos and the United Nations flag. The individual on the right is wearing a black jacket and a long green skirt, and the individual on the left is dressed in a suit."The partnership with UNESCO allows us to share what we're learning with a global network," said Ludmila Golovine, CEO of MasterWord. "By fostering collaboration between indigenous communities and linguistic experts, we are building a practical roadmap for digitizing and preserving these vital languages, ensuring that future generations can have digital access and continue their rich traditions." Launched in May 2023, the Mayan Languages Preservation and Digitization Project is an open-source initiative dedicated to safeguarding Mayan languages, spoken by over seven million people in Guatemala and across North and Central America. The project provides innovative digital tools, including talking glossaries, a universal Mayan language keyboard, and community-driven resources to ensure that Mayan language speakers have equitable digital access. "By preserving Mayan languages and creating digital spaces for indigenous languages to thrive, we seek to increase educational and economic opportunities for millions of people through a grass-roots effort," explains project director, Dr. Winston Scott.Notable Achievements of the Mayan Languages Preservation and Digitization Project:28 talking glossaries created for cultural understanding, including terms related to kinship, nature, and professions.Over 2 million words collected and documented in 11 Mayan languages.200+ hours of audio content uploaded, preserving spoken records of Mayan languages.Development of a universal Mayan language keyboard, a first step in bringing Mayan text to digital devices.Developing a Roadmap for Language DigitizationThe project is currently developing a technical document that outlines a practical roadmap to digitization, building on both existing knowledge and available resources and new insights gained along the way. This roadmap can serve as a resource for replication for other communities globally.Thanks to the partnership with UNESCO and its global reach, the Mayan project will be able to both learn from the work done by other Indigenous communities and share the practical roadmap and lessons learned through IDIL 2022-2032, accelerating the impact on language preservation and digitization efforts worldwide.Support for UNESCO's IDIL 2022-2032 GoalsThrough this partnership, MasterWord and the Mayan Languages Preservation and Digitization Project are actively supporting the Global Action Plan of the IDIL 2022-2032, including:Fostering multilingualism and digital empowerment for indigenous languages.Empowering Indigenous communities by providing equitable access to information, education, public services, and economic opportunities.Promoting cultural diversity and heritage through the preservation and promotion of indigenous languages.By aligning with these goals, the Mayan project is contributing to a broader global mission of empowering communities through the preservation and promotion of indigenous languages.About MasterWord: MasterWord is a language services company that is committed to supporting language access, digitization, and preservation for the world's indigenous languages. Through partnerships and impact-driven projects, MasterWord advances the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by fostering multilingualism and promoting linguistic rights.For more information on the Mayan Languages Preservation and Digitization Project, visit: mayanlanguagepreservation.org Contact InformationRyan FoleyDirector of Communicationsrfoley@ masterword.com 346-744-7158SOURCE: MasterWordView the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-09-27 13:30:43 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 1068 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 UPPSALA, SWEDEN / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / The shareholders in Senzime AB (publ)(STO:SEZI)(OTCQX:SNZZF) corp. reg. no 556565-5734 (the "Company") are hereby convened to an extraordinary general meeting on 23 October 2024 at 10.00 at Advokatfirman Lindahl's premises on Vaksalagatan 10 in Uppsala.Notice etc.Shareholders who wish to participate in the general meeting must:- be registered in the share register kept by Euroclear Sweden AB on Tuesday 15 October 2024 (the record date), and- notify his or her intention to attend the general meeting to the Company no later than Friday 18 October 2024, by mail to Advokatfirman Lindahl KB, Att: Michaela Larsson, Box 1203, 751 42 Uppsala stating "general meeting" or by e-mail to michaela.larsson@lindahl.se Such notification shall include the shareholder's name, personal identification number or corporate registration number, address and telephone number, number of shares, details on advisors (no more than two), if any, and, where applicable, details of representatives or proxies.Nominee-registered shares Shareholders whose shares are registered in the name of a nominee through a bank or other trustee must, in addition to notify his or her intention to attend the general meeting, register their shares in their own name so that the shareholder is included in the share register kept by Euroclear Sweden on 15 October 2024. Such registration may be temporary (so-called voting rights registration) and shall be requested by shareholders in such time and in accordance with the routines that the nominee determines. Voting rights registrations that have been completed by the nominee no later than 17October 2024 will be considered in the preparation of the share register.Proxy Shareholders represented by proxy must submit a dated power of attorney. If the power of attorney is executed by a legal person, a certified copy of the certificate of registration or equivalent must be attached. The power of attorney may not be valid for a period exceeding five years from its issuance. The original power of attorney and certificate of registration should be submitted to the Company by mail at the address mentioned above in due time prior to the general meeting. Alternatively, the original power of attorney and certificate of registration may be brought and presented at the general meeting. The Company provides a power of attorney form at request and on the Company's website, www.senzime.com Number of shares and votes As of the date of this notice, there are a total of 119,705,523 shares and votes in the Company.Proposed agenda 1. Opening of the general meeting and election of chairman of the general meeting2. Preparation and approval of the voting list3. Election of one or two persons to verify the minutes4. Approval of the agenda5. Determination as to whether the meeting has been duly convened6. Resolution on the approval of the board of directors' resolution on a directed share issue7. Closing of the general meetingProposals to resolutionsItem 1 - Election of chairman of the general meeting The nomination committee proposes that Mattias Prage, lawyer at Advokatfirman Lindahl KB, is elected as chairman of the general meeting or, in his absence, the person otherwise appointed by the board of directors.Item 6 - Resolution on the approval of the board of directors' resolution on a directed share issueOn 27 September 2024 the board resolved, subject to approval by the general meeting, on a directed share issue on the terms and conditions set out below (in italics). The board proposes that the general meeting approves the board's resolution.Subject to approval by the extraordinary general meeting, the board of directors of Senzime AB (publ), corp. reg. no. 556565-5734 (the "Company") resolves to carry out a directed issue of maximum 1,104,000 new shares, entailing an increase in the share capital of maximum SEK 138,000. The resolution shall further be governed by the following terms and conditions.The right to subscribe for new shares shall, with deviation from the shareholders pre-emption rights, belong only to the following persons and in accordance with the specified allocationNameNumber of sharesAdam Dahlberg700,000Sorin J. Brull404,000The reasons for deviating from the shareholders' preferential rights are that the board of directors has assessed that it would not be doable to in a time- and cost-effective manner successfully carry out rights issue on terms favorable to the Company, at the same time as the Company is in need of capital. The board of directors considers it favorable for the Company and the shareholders to take advantage of the opportunity to inject new capital from strong and reputable investors on attractive terms and in a time and cost-effective manner. The board of directors' overall assessment is that the reasons for carrying out the new share issue with deviation from the shareholders' preferential rights overweigh the principal rule that new share issues shall be carried out with preferential rights for existing shareholders, and that a new issue with deviation from the shareholders' preferential rights is therefore in the interest of the Company and its shareholders.Subscription of shares shall be made either by payment or on a subscription list not later than October28, 2024. The board of directors shall have the right to extend the subscription period.Payment for subscribed shares shall be made not later than October 28, 2024 (same date as the subscription). The board of directors shall have the right to extend the payment period.The new shares are issued at a price of SEK 6.20 per share. At full subscription, the Company will thus receive SEK 6,844,800 (before issuing costs). The share premium shall be transferred to the unrestricted premium reserve.The subscription price corresponds to the price used at re-transfer to investors pursuant to the resolution to issueshares in Appendix 3. The board of director's assessment is that the price is at market terms, since it is based on the market price at the time of the board's resolution.The new shares entitle to dividends for the first time on the first record date for dividend that take place after the issue of new shares has been registered with the Swedish Companies Registration Office and been recorded in the share register kept by Euroclear Sweden AB.The Managing Director is entitled to make any minor changes necessary for the registration of the resolution with the Swedish Companies Registration Office and Euroclear Sweden AB.Majority requirements A Resolution in accordance with item 6 above requires, for its validity, support from shareholders holding not less than nine-tenths of both the shares voted and of the shares represented at the general PR-Inside.com: 2024-09-27 15:31:30 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 542 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 WASHINGTON, DC / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 / On September 17th, World Patient Safety Day (WPSD), the Biden-Harris Administration announced new actions to improve patient and workforce safety during a White House Healthcare Safety Forum. These actions include commitments made by Patients for Patient Safety US (PFPS US) and others in government and private sector organizations, rounding out a year of federal leadership actions recognizing patient safety as a systemic, pervasive public health challenge. Earlier initiatives include transformative recommendations in a September 2023 report by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) and the adoption of a Patient Safety Structural Measure by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that goes into effect on October 1st."We established PFPS US in 2021 to call for federal leadership to prioritize patient safety," said Carole Hemmelgarn, PFPS US Board Chair. "We are excited to see the Biden-Harris Administration do just that." Commemorating WPSD, PFPS US launched a commitment acknowledged by the White House: Project PIVOT (Patients Involved in deVeloping Outcomes Together) at our WPSD Summit. The launch convened diverse stakeholders in an immersive workshop hosted by Johns Hopkins University to begin a process of identifying and prioritizing patient-reported experience to address patient safety events such as missed or delayed diagnoses as well as bias and discrimination. "Measuring patient-reported harm, missed or delayed diagnoses, and experiences of bias and discrimination were a key recommendation by PCAST. We are excited to advance this patient-developed and patient-led initiative," said Sue Sheridan, PFPS US President and CEO.Alongside the White House event, PFPS US organized a march to the US Capitol and remembrance ceremony on the Capitol lawn highlighting patient safety as the third largest cause of preventable death in the United States, and a Leadership Briefing connecting federal agency leaders with patient safety advocates.One in four patients in U.S. hospitals have experienced harm events and that rate isn't improving, according to Office of the Inspector General reports highlighted at the Leadership Briefing. "Patients today face the same systemic risks of sepsis and inappropriate care that led to the death of my son, Josh, in 2006. Reduction in central line infections and urinary tract infections are an encouraging step, but not enough," said Armando Nahum, PFPS US co-founder.More than 40 PFPS US Champions - including sepsis survivors, persons who lost children, spouses or parents to medical error, patients who experienced missed or delayed diagnoses, and wrong site surgery victims - also visited their lawmakers at the US Capitol during the WPSD events. "We asked Congress to use its levers to track harm events: if we can't see it, we can't fix it. We also want Congress to expand patient reporting options, close loopholes that hide patient harm, and to stop paying for unsafe care," said Beth Daley Ullem, PFPS US co-founder and Hill visit organizer.About PFPS USWe work to make healthcare safer. Learn more: www.pfps.us Media contact: Martin Hatlie, mhatlie@ pfps.us Contact Information:Martin HatlieFounding Member / Executive Leadershipmhatlie@ pfps.us 312-543-5658Sue SheridanFounding Member / Executive Leadershipssheridan@ pfps.us 208-867-3479Armando NahumFounding Member / Executive Leadershipanahum@ pfps.us 404-510-8787SOURCE: Patients for Patient Safety USView the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-09-27 20:01:13 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 604 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 BUFFALO, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 27, 2024 /POP Biotechnologies (POP BIO), a Buffalo, NY-based biopharmaceutical company, is pleased to announce the publication of positive findings in a peer-reviewed paper in the Journal of Medical Virology entitled " Interim safety and immunogenicity analysis of the EuCorVac-19 COVID-19 vaccine in a Phase 3 randomized, observer-blind, immunobridging trial in the Philippines ".EuCorVac-19 EuCorVac-19, a COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by EuBiologics and POP BiotechnologiesDeveloped by POP BIO's partner EuBiologics of South Korea, the COVID-19 vaccine, EuCorVac-19 (ECV-19), demonstrated promising safety and immunogenicity in a large-scale Phase 3 clinical trial conducted in the Philippines. Developed as a recombinant vaccine displaying the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus on immunogenic liposomes, ECV-19 is designed to generate an immune response targeted against the RBD while maintaining a favorable safety profile. The vaccine utilizes POP BIO's spontaneous nanoliposome antigen particle (POP BIO SNAP) technology to display the RBD on the surface of nanoparticles, thereby enhancing vaccine efficacy.The study, involving 2,600 participants, compared ECV-19 to the COVISHIELD adenoviral-vectored vaccine. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either vaccine, following a two-dose regimen spaced four weeks apart. Interim results indicate that ECV-19 not only produced significantly higher levels of neutralizing antibodies but also showed a reduced incidence of mild side effects after the first dose."ECV-19 elicited a strong immune response, with a higher seroresponse rate and greater neutralizing antibody levels against both the original Wuhan strain and the Omicron variant," said lead author Jonathan Lovell, a cofounder of POP BIO and a professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University at Buffalo. "These findings suggest that ECV-19 could be a tool in the ongoing fight against COVID-19 but also establish proof of principle for the underlying liposome-display of protein antigens." The interim analysis also highlighted that ECV-19 maintained a favorable safety profile, with fewer reported cases of localized and systemic side effects compared to the CS vaccine after the initial dose.A EuBiologics official said: "Based on the clinical results, the process for registration is currently underway in the Philippines. Moving forward, we can update the COVID-19 vaccine by simply replacing the antigen, depending on strategic decisions. With the platform technology now validated, we expect to accelerate the development of vaccines not only for COVID-19 but also for other indications, including RSV and HZV, both in Phase 1 testing, as well as Alzheimer's Disease." Further analysis will provide additional insights into the long-term protection offered by ECV-19. The trial is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov ( NCT05572879 ).About POP Biotechnologies (POP BIO): POP Biotechnologies is a privately held biotechnology company focused on the research and development of novel therapeutics and vaccines employing its proprietary porphyrin-phospholipid (PoP) liposome technologies. POP Biotechnologies has been granted the exclusive license to the PoP platform from the State University of New York Research Foundation.About POP BIO SNAP: POP BIO SNAP technology enables the rapid development and manufacturing of highly immunogenic particle-based vaccines and immunotherapies directed against infectious disease and cancer through the rapid and seamless generation of stable particle formation and liposome display of protein and peptide antigens, resulting in substantial improvements in immune responses.About EuBiologics : EuBiologics is a South Korean Biotechnology company that is advancing the EuHZV vaccine and other vaccine products. EuBiologics has two main animal-based bioreactors (1,000L) to produce recombinant protein antigens at Chuncheon Plant 1(C-Plant) and EcML(Monophosphoryl Lipid A), which is an adjuvant at Chuncheon Plant 2(V-Plant). The total capacity of Eubiologics facilities is currently in the hundreds of millions of doses per year.Contact InformationJonathan SmythPresidentjrsmyth@ popbiotech.com +13152200087SOURCE: POP Biotechnologies, Inc.View the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-09-27 04:50:29 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 414 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NEW ORLEANS, LA / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2024 / Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") and KSF partner, former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have untilOctober 15, 2024to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Stellantis N.V. (NYSE:STLA), if they purchased the Company's securities between February 15, 2024 to July 24, 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 Stellantis 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-stla/ to learn more. If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court byOctober 15, 2024 .About the LawsuitStellantis and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws.On July 25, 2024, the Company announced its first half 2024 financial results, disclosing disappointing news, including "[n]et revenues of 85.0 billion, down 14% compared to H1 2023, primarily due to the decline in volume and mix; net profit of 5.6 billion, down 48% compared to H1 2023, primarily due to lower volume and mix, headwinds from foreign exchange and restructuring costs; adjusted operating income of 8.5 billion, down 5.7 billion compared to H1 2023, primarily due to decreases in North America." On this news, the price of Stellantis' shares fell from a closing price of $19.60 per share on July 24, 2024 to $17.66 per share on July 26, 2024.The case is Long v. Stellantis N.V., et al., No. 24-cv-06196.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: 2024-09-27 09:16:03 Press Information Published by ACN Newswire +65 6304 8926 e-mail https://www.acnnewswire.com/ # 499 Words ACN Newswire+65 6304 8926 - TEC achieves 50,000 Members, reflecting its exceptional workspace solutions- Celebrating 30 years of innovation and excellence in the industry- TEC continues to enhance Member experiences through premium servicesHONG KONG, Sept 27, 2024 - (ACN Newswire) - The Executive Centre (TEC), Asias leading premium flexible workspace provider, is proud to announce that it has signed up 50,000 Members within its global network of premium flexible workspaces, coinciding with the celebration of its 30th Anniversary. This extraordinary milestone not only marks a significant moment in the company's history but also underscores its enduring commitment to redefining the future of work.Since its inception in 1994, The Executive Centre has been at the forefront of the flexible workspace revolution, adapting to the changing dynamics of the modern workforce. The growth to 50,000 Members reflects the trust and loyalty of TECs diverse clientele with 83% of its client portfolio being multinational companies (MNCs) and the balance being high-net-worth small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) all seeking the premium, versatile workspace solutions that TEC provides.We are thrilled to welcome our 50,000th Member into The Executive Centre community, said Paul Salnikow, Founder and CEO of The Executive Centre. As we celebrate our 30th Anniversary, we remain committed to enhancing the Member experience, supporting our vibrant community, continuously growing with our Members and providing exceptional work environments that foster collaboration and innovation. In the past three decades, The Executive Centre has grown to become one of the largest flexible workspace providers in Asia-Pacific, boasting an expansive portfolio of over 220 locations, generating USD 315 million in annual revenue, and an annual compounded growth rate of 18%.As TEC looks to the future, the company is well-positioned to maintain its leadership in the premium workspace sector. TEC is committed to delivering best-in-class services that empower Members to succeed while fostering a thriving community for innovation, connection, collaboration, and growth.About The Executive CentreThe Executive Centre (TEC) is Asias premium flexible workspace provider, opened its doors in Hong Kong in 1994 and today boasts over 220+ Centres in 36 cities and 16 markets. It is the third largest serviced office business in Asia.The Executive Centre caters to ambitious professionals and industry leaders looking for more than just an office space - they are looking for a place for their organisation to thrive. TEC has cultivated an environment designed for success with a global network spanning Greater China, Southeast Asia, North Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and Australia, with sights to go further and grow faster. Each Executive Centre offers a prestigious address with the advanced infrastructure to pre-empt, meet, and exceed the needs of its Members. Walking with Members through every milestone and achievement, The Executive Centre empowers ambitious professionals and organisations to succeed.Privately owned and headquartered in Hong Kong, TEC provides first class Private and Shared Workspaces, Business Concierge Services, and Meeting & Events facilities to suit any business' needs.Press EnquiriesFGS GlobalKitty Lam Kitty.Lam@fgsglobal.com / +852 6306 8851The Executive CentrePebble LeePebble_lee@ executivecentre.com / +852 3951 9888 The chairman of top-tier banking group FBN Holdings, Femi Otedola, has purchased 534.1 million shares in recent deals in the Lagos-quoted financial institution. A regulatory filing from FBN Holdings, whose principal operating company, First Bank, is Nigerias oldest commercial lender, indicated the multi-sector investor acquired the shares in separate transactions within 23 and 25 September at a cost averaging N30 per unit. Mr Otedola is the corporations top shareholder, at the same time the holder of the controlling interest of Geregu Power, an electricity-generating public company backed by Kigali-based Fund for Export Development in Africa. The transactions put Mr Otedolas latest spending on additional stakes in the group at over N16 billion. However, the data provided on the website of the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX), where the financial services groups shares are listed, shows the shares traded by FBN Holdings in the three days the transactions were said to have been conducted totalled 144.3 million. That is far less than the 534.1 million units the businessman acquired during the period, suggesting a gap in the records kept by the NGX. The NGX did not immediately respond to PREMIUM TIMES enquiry seeking clarification on the discrepancy. 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 billionaire magnate has actively been in the hunt in the market this year for new shares to firm up his status as the corporations prime shareholder after toppling its closest contender Barbican Capital Limited in June. Barbican Capital has FBN Holdings Ex-chairman Oba Otudeko as its beneficial owner. Spending on 1.67 billion units in new shares earlier in the year came to N36.2 billion taking his stake in the holding company to 11.6 per cent. With his latest acquisition of shares, Mr Otedolas holdings now stand at 13.16 per cent. FBN Holdings shares have added 25.3 per cent this year, outpacing the NGX Banking Index, the industry index that monitors the progress of the performance of the most capitalised and liquid stocks in the banking sector, which has advanced 4.5 per cent so far. FBN Holdings profit for the first half of the year roughly doubled to N360.3 billion, helped by a major boost to the interest charged on loans. Total assets for the period jumped 38.3 per cent to N23.4 trillion, compared to the end of last year, according to its latest earnings report. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print March 2022 was the month of unforgettable slaps. Hollywood actor Will Smith slapped Chris Rock for mocking his wife, Jada, during the Oscars in Los Angeles; a similar showdown happened in Nigeria, catching everyone off guard, between two influential women. The showdown was between Bianca Ojukwu, the widow of Biafran leader Odumegwu Ojukwu, and Ebelechukwu Obiano, the wife of the then-outgoing Governor Willie Obiano, during the inauguration of Anambra State Governor Charles Soludo on 17 March 2022. What was meant to be a political celebration transformed into a dramatic scene when Bianca slapped Mrs Obiano in front of numerous dignitaries and attendees. The incident became historic, not only for its political significance but also for an unexpected clash between the two influential women, a moment that will be remembered in the annals of Nigerian politics. The drama The incident unfolded during the swearing-in ceremony at the Government House in Awka. Mrs Obiano arrived late and made her way to where Bianca was seated. Bianca later explained what happened precisely, stating that she initially believed the ex-governors wife was approaching to greet her, but it was a confrontation. The ex-beauty queen stated, She (Mrs Obiano) verbally attacked me with her voice raised, taunting me and asking me what I was there to do and using unprintable vile language. Then she kept aggressively putting her hands on my shoulders and shouting. While I ignored her verbal onslaught, as advised by those sitting around me, I requested twice that she refrain from touching me with her hands. She proceeded to do so again and grabbed my head tie, which she attempted unsuccessfully to remove. As she made towards me, I then pulled away her wig. She held her wig with her two hands and tried to take the wig away from me. This very act is considered a sacrilege to a titled matriarch such as myself in Igbo culture. It was at this point that I stood up to defend myself and gave her a dirty slap to stop her from attacking me. 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 Separation The altercation disrupted the ceremony and drew the attention of security personnel and other guests, who rushed in to separate the two women. Governor Soludo, however, continued with the event, maintaining his composure despite the unexpected drama. Bianca, a former Nigerian ambassador to Spain, revealed that Mrs Obianos return to her seat required the intervention of the former national Chairperson of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, Victor Umeh. Meanwhile, Mr Obiano reportedly sat through the ordeal without saying a word, only to leave soon after the incident with his wife. Bianca later described the episode as highly embarrassing for the former governor, who seemed unable to control the situation. History of tension The slap went viral almost immediately, sparking widespread commentary on social media. Many speculated that the confrontation stemmed from long-standing tension between the two women. Bianca has been openly critical of Governor Obianos administration. Just hours before the inauguration, she posted a celebratory message on Facebook and expressed joy over the end of Obianos tenure. A month later, PREMIUM TIMES reported that Bianca shared a clearer video of the altercation titled Zero Tolerance for Executive Bullies, The Raw Facts on her official Facebook page. The video, posted on 11 April, revealed Mrs Obiano approaching Bianca and hitting her on the shoulder, which prompted Bianca to respond by reaching for her headgear. Onlookers intervened, but not before Mrs Obianos headgear fell off. During the exchange, Mrs Obiano allegedly mocked Bianca by saying, I thought you said we would never be governor, with a derogatory term, b**ch, heard in the background. However, it remained unclear who said it. Apology In the aftermath, Governor Soludo reportedly apologised for the incident. In response to the incident, Mrs Obiano, through her media aide, Chidiebele Obika, expressed shock, stating she only approached Bianca for their usual friendly banter, only to be slapped and pushed. On 31 March 2022, Mrs Obiano announced her intention to contest in the Anambra North Senatorial District election and apologised to Mr Soludo over her spat with Bianca. Many netizens supported Biancas action, while others criticised the women for causing such a disturbance at a formal event. Netizens described it humorously as the Festival of Slaps, suggesting that it could become an annual event. The inauguration slap will be remembered as one of the most talked-about moments in Anambras political history. Though both women are highly respected figures in Nigerian society, their public confrontation showed how deep-seated rivalries can erupt even in the most unlikely settings. You can listen to PREMIUM TIMES podcast of how the slap match went down Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print A belligerent Benjamin Netanyahu has torn up the weak and contradictory signals that Israel was willing to accept a U.S. and French ceasefire proposal to stop the escalation of the conflict in Lebanon. As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, he stated. The Israeli prime ministers speech to the United Nations General Assembly, interrupted several times by boos and discreet applause to the point that the diplomat presiding the session had to call the room to order twice, was a repetition of his governments arguments throughout the Gaza war and his defiant tone was the same as that displayed in his message to the U.S. Congress at the end of July. It was a rhetorical and geopolitical flight forward, in a forum where most countries have demanded a ceasefire in Gaza, but also in Lebanon. Netanyahu lashed out in several directions: against the legitimacy of institutions such as the UN and the International Criminal Court, whose accusations against Israel he termed absurd, and the forum that hosted him, which he accused of being anti-Semitic. Netanyahu assured that the war against Hezbollah would not stop until the 60,000 displaced Israelis from the north of the country could return to their homes. There were more protagonists in his speech than just Hamas, which has become almost a footnote in the face of his frequent references to Iran as a global sponsor of terrorism and the pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli demonstrations that have swept the world since the war in Gaza began. Although the Israeli prime ministers office had in recent hours given signals of considering the ceasefire proposal to halt its campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Netanyahus tone on the speakers platform silenced them. Brandishing a school-style map, simple and striking, which in his opinion exemplarily reflects the only two options for the future that the Middle East, and by extension the world, has the axis of good and the axis of evil, in his words, literally, that of blessing versus that of curse he again leveled accusations against Iran. On the one hand, a bright blessing a future of hope. On the other hand, a dark future of despair, he said, accusing Tehran of trying to impose its radicalism well beyond the Middle East. I didnt intend to come here this year [to the UN]. My country is at war, fighting for its life. But after I heard the lies and slanders leveled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight [...] And heres the truth: Israel seeks peace. Israel yearns for peace. Israel has made peace and will make peace again. Yet we face savage enemies who seek our annihilation, and we must defend ourselves against them, an emboldened Netanyahu said to open his speech, despite the notable absence of numerous delegations and resounding boos. Among those not in attendance were diplomats from Saudi Arabia, to whom Netanyahu has extended his hand to, with the help of the U.S., advance his particular regional map after the alliances forged by his country with other Arab nations in recent years. As he has done since the beginning of the Gaza war, Netanyahu lashed out at the United Nations itself, accusing it of blatant anti-Semitism and double standards that condemn Israel exponentially more than the entire world combined, alluding to the resolutions issued by the Security Council and the Assembly. All the hostility directed at Israel this year its not about Gaza; its about Israel. Its always been about Israel. About Israels very existence. And I say to you, until Israel, until the Jewish state, is treated like other nations, until this antisemitic swamp is drained, the UN will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous farce, the Israeli prime minister said, calling the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court pure antisemitism. Much of his speech was directed against Iran, as was his delivery to the U.S. Congress earlier in the year. Netanyahu boasted that Israeli actions a veiled but clear allusion to the attacks on several scientists had succeeded in delaying Tehrans nuclear program by at least 10 years, but that was not enough, he said, to avert what he presented as a threat not only to the region, but to the world. I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran: If you strike us, we will strike you. There is no place there is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach. And thats true of the entire Middle East [] And I have another message for this assembly and for the world outside this hall: We are winning. As Israel defends itself against Iran in this seven-front war, the lines separating the blessing and the curse could not be more clear. Netanyahus long-awaited speech at the UN, especially given its predictable allusions to the escalation of the conflict in Lebanon, ended almost at the same time as the first clouds of smoke appeared in the sky over Beirut from the impact of Israeli strikes. Netanyahu made it clear: not a single mention of the truce advocated by the U.S. and France; on the contrary, a resounding no to any form of compromise with Hezbollah. Enough is enough, he said. We wont rest until our citizens can return safely to their homes. We will not accept a terror army perched on our northern border, able to perpetrate another October 7-style massacre. As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice. And Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their homes safely, and thats exactly what were doing. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Actor and movie producer Fred Amata has criticised his ex-wife, Agatha Amata, famous for her talk show, Inside Out with Agatha, for giving their daughters hand in marriage without his consent. Agatha, the CEO of RaveTV Lagos and Trend FM100.9, Asaba, divorced the famous actor in 2005. The divorce was reportedly amicable, and they have two children, Oreva and Stephanie. Three years after their divorce, her ex-husband welcomed a daughter, Zino, with actress and ex-beauty queen Ibinabo Fiberisima. Amata, absent at their daughters wedding in the UK, reunited with his ex-wife for their son Orevas traditional wedding in Lagos in June 2023. However, he was absent at the white wedding held in the United States in May of the same year. Amatas latest allegations have brought their past issues back into the spotlight. On Wednesday, Agatha announced on her Instagram page the marriage of her daughter, Stephanie and wished her a blissful union, sharing a video from the wedding ceremony. In the video, she could be seen walking her down the aisle, a tradition that fathers or males typically carry out. Reacting to the marriage in a post on his social media accounts, the actor Fred Amata expressed his shock and disbelief at his ex-wifes action, describing it as a grave injustice in their culture. 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: Abomination, embrace taboo, stare Africa in the eyes to manipulate my daughter and her husband, hoodwink the lovebirds, and walk my daughter down the aisle to give Stephanie away to a husband. I cant keep quiet anymore. Its time to speak up. This is an abomination. This is taboo. Nowhere in the world, nowhere in Africa, nowhere in Delta State, and the lands where we come from can a woman give away her child in marriage, especially when the father is alive. Especially when the father is willing and able. Worse still, when the father is in the same city. What malice would drive a woman, in an attempt to rubbish her ex-husband, to lead his daughter to marriage? What manipulation would warrant concealing the date and time from a father who has already given his blessing? Even if the daughter forgets when the father and daughter are in the same city of London, is it not the place of The Good Wife? Heartbroken father The 61-year-old questioned his ex-wifes audacity to give their daughters hand in marriage without his knowledge. Amata, who rose to fame in 1986 for his role in Legacy, sought advice from Nigerians and well-wishers on what to do next. He stated that a good wife would never do such a thing simply to make a man look bad. Good people, netizens, well-wishers, haters, and influencers. What options are left to this heartbroken father? How do you throw away the baby with the bathwater? Do you cast away the ones you will forever love because a good wife has been blinded by wealth and fury to jeopardise the fathers blessings on his daughter? They came to me in London; Aaron brought drinks as kola to me, the father, as the pictures show. Do you throw away the baby with the bathwater? Do you cast away the ones you will forever love because a good wife has been blinded by wealth and fury to jeopardise the fathers blessings on his daughter? What kind of good wife does a thing like this simply to make a man look bad? Tarnished image The actor also alleged that his ex-wife had tarnished his reputation, belittled his achievements, and exploited his name for her selfish gain since their divorce. He said he had remained silent and refrained from commenting on their failed marriage, hoping that the wounds would heal and reconciliation might be possible. He said, It was over 25 years ago that I came up with the unique idea of Inside-Out with Agatha, a talk show with six informed and opposing points of view represented by a person with oratorial skills, now male, now female. We had seen a talk show by Regina Askia, and Agatha wanted to be a host. I told her not to worry: I will come up with something; it will make you like Oprah Winfrey, and I did it ingeniously. I was the dedicated creator, throwing in flesh, blood, and sweat to create and deliver a concept that had never before been done in Nigeria, save for a similar, perhaps less engaging, six episodes of a programme called MEE to You, or something like that, by the late May Ellen Ezekiel, who was married to RMD. A programme that could stand the test of time and put bread on the table of the young marriagea programme so versatile it is still relevant today. Inside Out with Agatha my idea Fred Amata Amata further revealed that his ex-wife had leveraged his programme, Inside Out with Agatha, which has been recognised as Nigerias longest-running television talk show, airing for over twenty years, against him. He added that he sacrificed his initial bid for the presidency of the Directors Guild of Nigeria in favour of Inside Out with Agatha, which ultimately became a runaway hit. However, he said he did not realise the programmes success would threaten his marriage. He said the concept and vision he introduced in Inside Out with Agatha were unprecedented in Nigeria. Inside Out with Agatha was an instant hit. The genius of the angle, the production values, the directorial approach, the lighting, and the production design were so engaging that it was irresistible. I was at the height of my directorial rendezvous and had gathered a production crew of the best technical hands in what is now early Nollywood. TV soaps were the biggest things because we dared to stand out from the emerging crowd of Nollywood directors. Kingsley Ogoro, my friend, brother, and nemesis, would lead a high. I co-opted Nollywood greats: Zack Orji, Okey Bakassi, Sunny McDon, Francis Onwochei, Emeka Ossai, Zik Zulu Okafor, Francis Duru, Prince Jide Kosoko, and numerous friends who looked up to me. I asked for their support for the first episodes, and soon everybody who was anybody wanted to be part of Inside Out. I staked every resourcefriends, favours, loyalties, family, extended family, and links. I was involved in the creme de la creme of big productions and studios: Tunde Kelani, Wale Fanu, Tade Ogidan, Tunde Oloyede, Pat Nebo, Uzor Okpeche, Simi Opeoluwa, Opa Williams, the late Chico Ejiro, and numerous othersto ensure no failure of the programme. He described the program as one that could endure over time and provide financial stability for young couples. Fred Amata on Marriage resolution He stated that during a resolution meeting to their marital crisis, the families (his and his ex-wifes) agreed that Inside Out with Agatha proceeds would continue to support the children. He said they permitted Agatha to continue the programme because she was the marketing representative. He alleged that she changed after Inside Out with Agatha became the financial backbone of his ex-wife, whom he described as the Good Wife. With the influence it wielded and the contacts and connections it gathered, The Good Wife soon built an empire with no emperor. She employed maligning my name to acquire favours and contracts. Inside Out is the source of all the Good Wifes wealth. My genius, my sweat, my vision, and for 20 years, I swallowed it. My reputation diminished as the Good Wifes gathered momentum. So today, the Good Wife, using my brainchild, has become a billionaireno credit to me. No compensation, no royalty. But the Good Wife is good; let raising the children be my royalty. Buoyed by her success without recourse to the creator, the Ebu Delta State-born Good Wife has gathered a litany of resentment. She has registered a new company to own the programme, discarding the company we set up. She has sued for and obtained a divorce, and 20 years on, she still carries bitterness and will go to extremes to tarnish my image, he added. He says everything his ex-wife owns directly results from his programme, Inside Out with Agatha. But understand this, Good Wife Agatha: everything you have ever owned and will ever own is because of Inside Out. It is my brainchild, my intellectual property. You have yet to bury me with your silence and indifference to the billions you have reaped while remaining oblivious to your extravagant wealth. This so-called Good Wife dares defy tradition, challenge societal norms, and embrace taboos. She dares to confront Africa, attempting to manipulate my daughter and her husband, to deceive the lovebirds and lead my daughter down the aisle to give Stephanie to her husband. Agatha hasnt responded to her ex-husbands allegations as of press time. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print World leaders have committed to tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR), setting a target of reducing deaths by 10 per cent by 2030. This 2030 goal was set at the 79th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA79), Political Declaration of the High-level Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance, where countries agreed to tackle the growing threat of AMR. The 15-page political declaration obtained by PREMIUM TIMES was approved Friday and signed by 193 member states to scale up action to address the looming threat that AMR poses to global health, food security and achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). AMR occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites become resistant to the medicines used to treat infections, making these medicines ineffective. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), AMR is the third leading cause of mortality in the world, with over one million deaths directly linked to bacterial AMR, and five million deaths indirectly. WHO projected that AMR will cause 39 million deaths worldwide over the next 25 years, equivalent to over three deaths every minute. Key commitments to 2030 goal In the political declaration, the member states committed to strengthening governance mechanisms for the response to AMR, using a One Health approach, which involves addressing AMR in human, animal and plant health. 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 They committed to increasing sustainable investments at national, regional and global levels to strengthen national capacities for the AMR response. The document also stated that they will ensure equitable and timely access to antimicrobials, vaccines and diagnostics in developing countries, especially in low- and middle-income countries. They committed to strengthening national infection prevention and control programmes in health-care facilities, and to promote innovative financing mechanisms for multisectoral health research and development. Among other commitments, the declaration recognises the leading roles of the WHO, United Nations Environment Programme, World Organisation for Animal Health, and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN, as the Quadripartite organisations, and the work of the standing Quadripartite Joint Secretariat on AMR. Reacting to the development on his LinkedIn account, WHOs Director General, Tedros Ghebreyesus, said: The irony of AMR is that its fuelled by the overuse of antibiotics yet more people die from lack of access to antibiotics. World Health Organization welcomes the target set by countries to reduce annual global deaths associated with bacterial AMR by 10 per cent by 2030. Together, we can protect these powerful medicines and the people whose lives depend on them, now and in the future. Nigerias efforts Speaking Monday at a side event on AMR at the UNGA79, organised by the Management Science for Health (MSH), the NCDC Director-General, Jide Idris, warned that AMR threatens the food system and national health security. Mr Idris said AMR is part of Nigerias broader health sector reforms. He said: Our four-point agenda reflects this commitment were investing in modernising healthcare facilities to enhance AMR surveillance and treatment capabilities, improving diagnostics and integrating data systems for better tracking of resistance patterns. Enhancing laboratory capacity for surveillance is one of the cornerstones of an effective AMR response because surveillance is critical for understanding the spread of antimicrobial resistance and informing evidenced based policies. He added that through the NCDC, Nigeria has made significant strides in improving diagnostic laboratory networks across the country to enhance the ability to track and monitor AMR, and also improve early detection of outbreaks. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The National Hydro-Electric Power Producing Areas Development Commission (N-HYPPADEC) has distributed 31 fibreglass boats to riverine communities in its member states. The distribution, which coincided with the World Maritime Day celebration, took place at the N-HYPPADEC Headquarters in Minna on Thursday. The managing director of N-HYPPADEC, Abubakar Yelwa, said the distribution was part of the Commissions broader vision to revolutionise marine transportation in the states. Mr Yelwa said the boats are a significant improvement over the traditional wooden boats as they are more durable, safer and offer superior performance in navigating rivers using minimal human labour, which would reduce risks associated with human error. The official said one of the primary goals of the agency is to enhance marine transportation and reduce boat mishaps that have caused loss of lives and livelihoods. Mr Yelwa expressed hope that the initiative would prompt state governments to recognise the importance of water transportation and invest in it as a vital component of the national transport infrastructure. Niger State received eight boats, Kebbi six, Kwara and Kogi four each, while Benue got two. 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 Taraba and Nasarawa also got two each while Gombe and Kaduna got one each. Niger State Governor, Umaru Bago, said the boats will facilitate the movement of goods and services, strengthen trade networks, and enhance community connectivity. Represented by his deputy, Yakubu Garba, the governor said the N-HYPPADEC gesture will not only save lives but give a sense of belonging to riverine communities. While recounting the loss of lives and livelihoods, as well as challenges faced by the communities over the years, the governor said his government will continue to partner with N-HYPPADEC and other stakeholders to develop the riverine communities. Also speaking, the Chairman of the Niger State Association of Boat Operators, Attahiru Isah, thanked N-HYPADDEC for the intervention and called for the establishment of water and rescue marshals to complement the activities of water marshals. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Nigerian police have summoned a human rights lawyer, Funke Adeoye, over her post on X concerning the detention of a 26-year-old photographer. Ms Adeoye, the founder of Hope Behind Bars, a nonprofit organisation, a criminal justice reforms-oriented nonprofit organisation, is currently in the United States for work purposes. The organisation shared via its X account a statement about the police invitation on Friday. The post said Ms Adeoye received the police invitation on Friday, stating that she is being investigated for defamation of character, conspiracy and cyber bully. She would honour the invitation of the police today through her lawyers as she is currently out of the country on a work trip. We will update the public as soon as we get more details about the case at hand, the statement stated. Speaking with PREMIUM TIMES, Emmanuel Okorie, a lawyer and Edo State lead of the organisation, said that the invitation stemmed from Ms Adeoyes post on social media. From studio to police custody Ms Adeoye shared the post that triggered the police summon on X on 27 August. The post was about the ordeal of a 26-year-old graduate, identified as Nicholas, who was detained for months after he resigned from a studio where he worked as a photographer and keyboardist. 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 Sometime in October 2023, Nicholas sent a text message to his boss resigning his role as a photographer in the photo studio. His boss was angry at the content of the text message & got him arrested, Ms Adeoye wrote. She said Nicholas spent two days in police detention and was charged with intentional insult. According to her, he was then locked up at a prison in Keffi, Nasarawa State, because he could not afford the initial bail sum of N100,000, and later N50,000. He remained there even after the said boss, a politician in the current administration & owner of a popular photography studio in FCT, wrote a letter to the court withdrawing the charge, the post read further. She wrote that her organisation intervened in his case after his case was reported to it sometime in August. The N50,000 bail sum was then donated anonymously, Ms Adeoye said. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) has said the Saudi authorities will, from the 2025 Hajj, take charge of feeding and accommodation of Pilgrims in Mecca and Medina. The commission stated this in a statement by its spokesperson, Fatima Usara, on Friday. Mrs Usara said the arrangement was agreed on during a virtual meeting between the commission and the Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah. She said as preparations for the 2025 Hajj advanced, the commission convened a crucial meeting with the Executive Secretaries (ES) of State Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Boards (MPWB) on Monday, 23 September. The spokesperson said during the meeting with the ES, NAHCON Commissioner of Operation, Anofi Olanrewaju-Elegushi, provided updates on recent developments from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, specifically from the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah (MoHU). She quoted Mr Olanrewaju-Elegushi as saying that the Saudi Companies of Pilgrims Establishments, known as muassasa under the supervision of MoHU, would henceforth be responsible for the feeding and accommodation of pilgrims in Makkah and Madinah, similar to the current practices in Mashair, Arafat and Muna. This policy, which impacts all countries participating in Hajj, will be implemented starting with the 2025 pilgrimage. It is noteworthy that MoHU had previously proposed taking over feeding in Mashair in 2022, which was subsequently put into action that year, she 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 Olanrewaju-Elegushi, according to the statement, reiterated NAHCONs commitment to align with Saudi Arabias Hajj calendar and emphasised the need for cooperation among all stakeholders. He praised the state executive secretaries for their proactive approach in announcing the minimum Hajj deposits. He urged them to collect their letters regarding slot allocations and the 2025 Hajj licence. Furthermore, he provided an update on the pending refunds from the 2024 Hajj, which are still awaiting resolution from the Saudi authorities. Responding, Idris Almakura, the chairperson of the Forum of States (FoS) and executive secretary of the Nasarawa State Pilgrims Board, commended NAHCON for its efforts and urged the commission to sustain the tempo. The FoS called on NAHCON to address specific issues of concern to the members, including the Hajj Savings Scheme, policy regarding the National Medical Team, and matters of pilgrims refunds, among others. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Commissioner for Insurance, Olusegun Omosehin, has said over 70 per cent of insurance businesses recorded annually were contributed by insurance brokers. Mr Omosehin, also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), said this in a statement made available on Friday in Lagos. He was presenting the outcome of a courtesy visit by a delegation of the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers (NCRIB) led by its President, Babatunde Oguntade, to the commissioner recently. He said the visit underscored the pivotal place insurance brokers occupied in the nations insurance ecosystem. According to him, this necessitated the commissions intention to further strengthen and support its regulatory body so that it could effectively discharge its self-regulatory functions. Mr Omosehin said that the commission was ready to maximise the brokers vantage points and drive the desired industry growth initiatives under its new leadership. The NAICOM boss said the insurance industry had the potential to play a catalytic role in buoying the nations economy. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later He said that the industrys current contributions to the nations Gross Domestic Product must be enhanced to earn the industry its desired position within the nations financial ecosystem. Mr Omosehin said that the commission had been restructured into new directorates to meet the need for effective regulation of the ever-evolving insurance industry. The commission regulates professionals who operate in the private sector, and as such must adapt itself to the dynamism and dynamics of the sector for effective regulation, he said. Responding, the NCRIB President, Babatunde Oguntade, applauded the new leadership and management of NAICOM. Mr Oguntade said that the council was in tune with the innovative and progressive initiatives being berthed in the commission to deepen insurance growth in the country. He pledged NCRIBs support in mobilising insurance brokers contributions to improve the insurance industrys performance. According to him, this is also in compliance with Anti Money Laundering and Countering Financing Terrorism (AMCFT) law, with a view to removing the country from the unenviable gray list. Mr Oguntade stated that the council had strengthened its internal disciplinary organs to ensure the enforcement of required high ethical standards and discipline amongst its members. He said that by so doing, NCRIB would play up its self-regulatory roles to complement the efforts of NAICOM in ensuring sanity in the insurance market. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State has commended the opening of the UK visa application centre in the state. Mr Mbah, in a post on his X handle on Thursday, said the opening of the visa centre in Enugu will benefit residents of South-east and South-south Nigeria. PREMIUM TIMES reports that the British High Commission in Nigeria, in September 2023, announced the opening of the facility in the South-eastern state. Im impressed by the prompt and courteous services being rendered at the UK Visa Application Centre in Enugu, the governor wrote on the microblogging platform on Thursday, hours after visiting the facility. No more long trips in search of visa Mr Mbah said the visa centre will benefit the people of South-east and South-south Nigeria. Having this centre domiciled in Coal City means that our people in the South-east and South-south no longer have to travel long distances to Lagos or Abuja for their UK visa applications. I encourage everyone in these regions to take full advantage of this facility, and I also invite Nigerians from other parts of the country to do the same, 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 Coal City is a nickname for Enugu because of its abundant coal deposits. Set up your consular services in Enugu, Mbah woos US, China Mr Mbah urged the US and Chinese governments and other foreign governments to join the UK in setting up their consular services in the Enugu State. Our state, with its rich history and large population, remains central to economic activities and travel in the South-east and South-south, he boasted. The governor expressed happiness that the state has continued to grow as a hub of opportunities and service delivery. He assured that his administration will remain committed to making life easier and more convenient for our people. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Abubakar Kyari, minister of agriculture and food security, says the Nigerian government is investing in dry season farming to address nutrition and food insecurity in the country. Part of the measures to curtail the ravaging food crisis in the country, the minister, said include making available to farmers improved seedlings and fertilisers to boost farm productivity. Mr Kyari said this at a one-day workshop for stakeholders on policies for food and nutrition security, on Thursday in Abuja. The workshop was organised by the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) in collaboration with Joint Research Centre (JRC), an agency of the European Commission. Represented by Nuhu Kilishi, the director, nutrition and food safety, the minister called for a stakeholders partnership to address food insecurity in the country,saying food security requires a multisectoral approach rather than a one-industry approach. He said that within the available budget, the ministry was investing more in dry season farming by providing access to irrigation facilities, improved seeds and agro chemicals for farmers. He said the 11 Global Food Security Index published last year showed Nigeria ranked 107 out of the 113 countries globally. According to him, this suggests that about 12.9 per cent of the globally poor people are found in Nigeria as at 2022 to date. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later The minister said the high level of poverty made it difficult for people to access nutritious and healthy food, and for them to perform both economically and socially. Mr Kyari, who blamed the situation on insecurity, climate change, herder/farmer crisis, said that measures were being put in place to address it. No fewer than 35 million Nigerians under 85 million are severely malnourished, 12 million stunted, three million wasted, 23.5 million anemic, then 7.7 million almost going hungry on daily basis. This is not good for us, and therefore we have to tighten up our belt to make sure that we are able to get out of this. It is making us to have a lot of issues, and it is important for us to, therefore, gather together and put our heads together to solve this, he said. The Director-General of the NILDS, Abubakar Sulaiman, said that government spending in the food and nutrition sector had increased over the years, adding that the nutrition capture in the budgets remained a concern. He said that with less than seven years to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set date, it was clear that Nigeria needed to do more to address its food and nutrition challenges. Mr Sulaiman, a professor, said there was need to close the funding gap required to enable the country to return to a steady trajectory for food and nutrition security. This workshop, therefore, offers an opportunity for the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission and NILDS to share findings and experience with stakeholders on how best to tackle food and nutrition insecurity in Nigeria. I believe this will also include ways on how to curtail the external shocks that worsen Nigerias food and nutrition security, such as the Russia-Ukraine crisis and other concerns from the global economy, he said. In her remarks, Lara Cockx, a scientific officer in JRC, said the mission of the commission was to support evidence based policy-making, not only in Europe, but also in African. She said the centre was keen to have a fruitful collaboration with NILDS, saying that the nutrition workshop was the second project implemented by the centre and NILDS. It is to look at these very important issues for Nigeria, and we will look forward to a very fruitful workshop and hear all your inputs to address these important issues and do research that is actually useful for the policy makers and for the different stakeholders, she said. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print President Bola Tinubu has called on the Edo Governor-elect, Monday Okpebholo, to prioritise the development of Edo State. The president assured Mr Okpebholo of the full support of the federal government and the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF). President Tinubu said this on Thursday in Abuja at a meeting with the leadership of the All Progressives Congress party (APC), where the Edo governor-elect and the Deputy Governor-elect, Dennis Idahosa, presented their certificates of return. President Tinubu emphasised the importance of good governance and delivering results to the people of Edo. Governor-elect, you can now face the task of development. We are here to work with you. You have seen the progressive governors of APC. They are truly progressive. Work with them. Learn the ropes, and I believe you are up to the task, he said. Acknowledging the challenges of democracy, particularly in emerging economies like Nigeria, the president added, You have earned the victory. Democracy is difficult, particularly in emerging democracies and economies like ours. 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 you hear complaints from places like America, you know how difficult it is to navigate democracy. But it remains the best form of government. Mr Tinubu congratulated Mr Okpebholo and his deputy, and described them as a good symbol of people ordained by God to work together. You started as rivals and ended as partners. You are a symbol of good understanding in politics; the man at our partys helm has been through it before, he said. Mr Tinubu acknowledged the role played by former Edo state governor, Adams Oshiomhole, the progressive governors and the APC leadership in the APC success in the Edo election. I saw Adams Oshiomhole radiating in joy. Sincerely, the governors showed up in Edo, they impressed me. They defended the party. They worked hard for the party, he stated. The President also commended INEC and the security agencies for ensuring a peaceful and organised election, with no reports of violence or disturbances. I must thank the security agencies. There was no bloodshed, no riot, people voted and went back to their houses in peace, and the fears dissipated instantly, he said. He urged the party leadership and membership to remain united and focused on achieving the Renewed Hope Agenda. Never mind the noise makers. I do a lot of statistical sampling and results. When you hear politicians saying all politics is local, you must respect that notion. When you see the stability in the Edo North Senatorial District, we see a man that won the Central Senatorial District and a candidate who has won a seat in the south senatorial district; we did a match, which turned out to be a winning match, he said. President Tinubu also commented on the heavy rainfall on the Election Day in Edo and the electorates commitment to voting in the rain without using an umbrella. It is a very punching illustration, the president said, referring to remarks made by the National Chairperson of the party, Abdullahi Ganduje, about the election day rainfall in Edo. In his remarks, Mr Ganduje commended the leadership and support of the president, the governors, and all stakeholders. On the day of the election, there was an exciting scenario: it was raining heavily, yet people came out to vote without using an umbrella. The people were convinced that our party is the party to be voted for, and we won the election, he told Mr Tinubu. Mr Ganduje said that the partys next focus was securing victories in the forthcoming gubernatorial elections in Ondo and Anambra states. The election in Anambra is part of our programme, political de-marginalisation of (the) South-east geopolitical zone. Having only two states in the South-east as APC is too small for us. We need more states from the South-east geo-political zone, he said. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Akwa Ibom State has suspended its political campaign for local elections in the state following the death of the Akwa Ibom First Lady, Patience Eno. Local elections in Akwa Ibom will be held on 26 October. Mrs Eno died on Thursday in a hospital following an undisclosed illness, according to a statement issued on Friday morning by the Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Akwa Ibom, Ini Emembong. She passed away peacefully at the hospital on 26th September 2024, in the presence of her family, Mr Ememobong said in the statement. The PDP spokesperson in Akwa Ibom, Edwin Ebiese, who announced the suspension of the partys campaign in a statement on Friday morning, said, This devastating news has left our party, and indeed the entire state, in a state of mourning. As we struggle to come to terms with this immense loss, we are compelled to pause our campaign activities as a mark of respect for the departed First Lady. Mr Ebiese said the PDP regrets the inconvenience the suspension of the campaign may cause and appealed for understanding from the party supporters and the general public during this difficult time. 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 extend our heartfelt condolences to Pastor Umo Eno, Executive Governor of Akwa Ibom State and his immediate family, the government, and the people of Akwa Ibom State. May God grant the family of the deceased and our state the fortitude to bear this irreparable loss, the statement added. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Spain formally protested Mexicos decision not to invite King Felipe VI to the inauguration of Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexicos first female president. On Tuesday the same day that EL PAIS revealed that Mexico had not sent the King of Spain an invitation the Spanish Foreign Affairs Ministry sent a formal complaint to the Mexican Foreign Affairs Ministry. The Foreign Affairs Ministrys note verbale as it is called in diplomatic language, although it is actually a written text stated that King Felipe is the head of state and, as such, assumes the highest representation of the Spanish state in international relations. After stressing that the intensity of bilateral relations between the two countries makes it advisable for institutional relations to be developed at the highest level and that Felipe VI has attended previous inaugurations, including that of the current president, Andres Lopez Obrador in 2018, it concluded that, in an act of such importance for the people of Mexico, Spain must be represented by its head of state. Despite the friendly tone of the official message, it ended by saying that, having exhausted all channels to respectfully convey the level of representation that corresponds to Spain, [] there will be no representation of the Kingdom of Spain at the Transfer of Federal Executive Power in Mexico City, on October 1. The message was delivered in two ways: the Mexican ambassador in Madrid was summoned to the headquarters of Spains Foreign Affairs Ministry; while the Spanish ambassador in Mexico went to the Mexican Foreign Affairs Ministry to deliver it personally. Spain's King Felipe. Juan Medina (AP) That same day, the Spanish Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a statement which described King Felipes exclusion from the inauguration of the Mexican president as unacceptable and announced that Spain would not participate at any level. The following day, in New York, Spanish Prime Minister Sanchez expressed his great sadness that two brother nations because of the political interest of some cannot have the best relations between peoples and between two progressive governments that share values and probably policies. The note verbale in protest of Mexicos decision was the culmination of a tug-of-war that began on July 22, when Mexican authorities invited Sanchez to Sheinbaums inauguration, but not Felipe de Borbon, who has been present at more than 80 inaugurations throughout Latin America, first as Prince of Asturias and then as King. In response, the Spanish government marked Sanchezs invitation as not received and began a series of diplomatic efforts to try to convince the Mexican authorities to address the invitation to the king. The last of these efforts was a personal call from Sanchez to the president-elect of Mexico, which also did not achieve results. On Wednesday, Sheinbaum made public a statement in which she justified her decision not to invite the King of Spain to her inauguration. In the missive, she confirmed that she did not invite Spains King Felipe because he did not respond to a 2019 letter sent by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, which demanded an apology for the harm caused by the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Regrettably, this letter [sent by Lopez Obrador] did not merit any direct response, as would have corresponded to the best diplomatic practice of bilateral relations, said Sheinbaum, who will assume the presidency on October 1. The president-elect, however, expressed confidence that this difference will also be a starting point for Spain and Mexico to improve their bilateral relations. While no representative from the Spanish state will be president at Sheinbaums inauguration on Tuesday, several Spanish politicians will be in attendance, including Gerardo Pisarello, Jon Inarritu, Ana Ponton and Irene Montero. The secretary general of the left-wing Podemos party, Ione Belarra, has described Sanchezs decision not to attend the ceremony as an unbearable exercise in monarchical servility. On the other hand, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, the leader of the conservative Popular Party (PP), described the Spanish governments response as logical in the face of what he called an unacceptable provocation. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition The Enugu State Government has summoned traditional rulers and the president-generals of the communities in Nsukka where Oriokpa masqueraders attacks resulted in two deaths. The state government also ordered an investigation into the activities of the Oriokpa masquerade groups in the area and vowed to prosecute the perpetrators. This is contained in a statement issued by the state Commissioner for Local Government, Rural Development and Chieftaincy Affairs, Okey Ogbodo, in Enugu. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports violence, which occurred earlier this week, follows a history of alleged misconduct by the Oriokpa masquerades, who were also involved in a widely condemned attack on a female nurse in April. NAN reports that on 19 September, hundreds of women from Eha-Alumona, a community in Nsukka Council Area of Enugu State, took to the streets to protest the constant attacks and harassment by masquerades in their community. Mr Ogbodo said the Enugu State Government received reports on the untoward activities of Oriokpa masqueraders in some parts of Nsukka Council Area, which had reportedly caused pandemonium, bodily harm, and deaths in the area. Consequently, and following the express directive of Governor Peter Mbah, traditional rulers and Presidents-General of the town unions of the affected communities are hereby invited to meet with me on Friday. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later The venue is my office and the time is 1 p.m. prompt. The affected communities are Nguru, Isiakpu, Echara, Nru, Edem-Ezema, Iheagu, Ihe, Owere, and Umuoyo. Furthermore, the governor has equally directed the Commissioner of Police to immediately institute a full-scale investigation into the incidents. The investigation includes the reported fatalities resulting from the activities of the said masquerade groups with a view to bringing whoever is culpable to book, Mr Ogbodo said. While commiserating with families of those said to have lost their lives in circumstances connected with the activities of the masquerades, the commissioner said the government had also warned that it would not condone any further excesses by any persons or groups. Our people should never be made to live in fear, as the rights and security of our women, children, youth, and indeed every citizen and resident of Enugu State must be guaranteed at all times. Consequently, any such excesses by the Oriokpa masqueraders or any group for that matter will be met with the commensurate sanctions by the government, Mr Ogbodo added. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Federal High Court in Abuja, on Friday, granted bail to Isaac Bristol, who was arrested in connection with online activities of PIDOM Nigeria on X, in the sum of N5 million with one surety. Mr Bristol denied being PIDOM as widely claimed in his statement to the police. In a ruling on the defendants bail application moved by his lawyer, Deji Adeyanju, the judge, Emeka Nwite, held that the bail is a constitutional right. Mr Nwite said he was inclined to grant Mr Bristol bail except where there was reasonable ground to believe that the defendant might evade trial or attempt to destroy evidence. He said that all factors must be considered in granting bail, especially since criminal justice provides safeguards for both prosecution and defence. The judge held that based on the submissions of counsel, he would grant the defendant bail in the interest of justice. He subsequently granted him N5 million bail. 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 judge directed that Mr Bristol must provide one surety in like sum, who must be a reasonable citizen, whose tax clearance certificate and address must be verified by the court. He also ordered that the defendant must deposit his international passport with the court. Mr Nwite warned that if the defendant fails to comply with the conditions, his bail would be revoked. The judge, who said Mr Bristol should be remanded in the correctional service pending the perfection of his bail, adjourned the matter until 5 November for trial. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Bristol was arrested by the police on Aug. 5 in his hotel room in Rivers. The Force spokesperson, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, announced his arrest, alleging he committed serious offences that undermine the integrity of government operations. He was arraigned on 3 September on nine charges filed against him by Simon Lough, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), on behalf of the Inspector-General of Police. He was alleged to have unlawfully obtained and distributed classified government documents, destroying evidence, and contravening relevant money laundering and cybercrime laws. Police counsel, Mr Lough, contended that the defendant shared documents alleging that President Bola Tinubu released N24.1 billion to the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) through Vice President Kashim Shettimas office. He was accused of later claiming that the fund was increased to N90 billion. Mr Bristol, however, denied the allegations. Mr Bristols lawyer, Mr Adeyanju, then applied for bail on liberal terms, stating that his client is presumed innocent until proven guilty by the court. Mr Lough opposed the bail application, insisting that the nature of the offence does not warrant bail. He expressed concern about the high likelihood of the defendant evading trial. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has arrested a former Governor of Taraba State, Darius Ishaku, and charged him with misappropriation of more than N27 billion belonging to the state government. EFCC filed the indictment with 15 counts against Mr Ishaku and a co-defendant at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court in Abuja on Thursday. The co-defendant is a former Permanent Secretary of the Taraba State Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Bello Yero. EFCC alleged that, at various times, Mr Ishaku, diverted billions of naira from the contingency funds belonging to the states Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs and certain local governments of the states into their private uses. The total amounts allegedly diverted summed up to N27 billion. The commission alleged that the defendants committed the offences of criminal breach of trust and misappropriation while Mr Ishaku served as governor from 2015 to May 2023. At the time, Mr Yero was also said to be the Permanent Secretary of the states Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs. PREMIUM TIMES learnt on Friday that Mr Ishaku was arrested by the EFCC on Wednesday, and has since spent three days in custody of the commission in Abuja, sources familiar with the development but were not authorised to speak on the matter told PREMIUM TIMES on Friday. This comes ahead of the scheduled arraignment of the defendants, which PREMIUM TIMES learned, was already scheduled for Monday (30 September). 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 When contacted over the development on, the spokesperson for the EFCC, Dele Oyewale said, Yes, former Governor Ishaku is in our custody, confirming his arrest. He, however, declined further comments on the matter. Before becoming governor in 2015, Mr Ishaku, 70 years old, was at various times the supervising minister for power, supervising minister for environment and the Minister of State for Niger Delta Affairs. He won his first governorship election in 2015 and a second term in 2019. He completed his second and final four-year term in 2023. IN 2022, he won his party, the People Democratic Partys ticket to represent the Taraba South Senatorial District. But, in 2023, he was defeated in the senatorial election by a political newcomer David Jimkuta. Mr Jimkuta polled 85,415 votes to defeat the then outgoing governor Mr Ishaku who scored 45,708 votes. Read the 15 charges in full here. COUNT 1 DARIUS DICKSON ISHAKU BELLO YERO CHARGES That you DARIUS DICKSON ISHAKU whilst being the Governor of Taraba State and BELLO YERO whilst being the Permanent Secretary, Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State between 25th August, 2015 and 21st March, 2016 ni Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, and in such capacity entrusted with dominion over certain property, to wit: an aggregate sum of N1, 010, 000, 000 (One Billion and Ten Million Naira), which sum formed part of the 2.5% contingency funds belonging to Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said property, when you dishonestly diverted the said sum to your own use and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 315 of the Penal Code Aul, Cap 532, Laws of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria 2007 and punishable under the same section. COUNT 2 That you DARIUS DICKSON ISHAKU whilst being the Governor of Taraba State and BELLO YERO whilst being the Permanent Secretary, Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State between 25th August, 2015 and 21st March, 2016 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, dishonestly misappropriated certain property, to wit: an aggregate sum of N1, 010, 000, 000 (One Billion and Ten Million Naira), which sum formed part of the 2.5% contingency fund belonging to Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State and you thereby committed an offence contrary to section 308 of the Penal Code Act, Cap 532, Laws of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria 2007 and punishable under section 309 of the same Act. COUNT 3 That you DARIUS DICKSON ISHAKU whilst being the Governor of Taraba State and BELLO YERO whilst being the Permanent Secretary, Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State between July, 2015 and May, 2019 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, and in such capacity entrusted with dominion over certain property, to wit: an aggregate sum of N1, 138, 082, 097.71 (One Billion, One Hundred a n d Thirty-Eight Million, Eighty-Two Thousand, Ninety- Seven Naira, Seventy-One Kobo), which sum formed part of the 2.5% contingency fund belonging to Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said property, when you dishonestly diverted the said sum to your own use and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 315 of the Penal Code Act, Cap 532, Laws of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria 2007 and punishable under the same section. COUNT 4 That you DARIUS DICKSON ISHAKU whilst being the Governor of Taraba State and BELLO YERO whilst being the Permanent Secretary, Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State between July, 2015 and May, 2019 ni Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, dishonestly misappropriated certain property, to wit: an aggregate sum of N1, 138, 082, 097.71 (One Billion, One Hundred and Thirty-Eight Million, Eighty-Two Thousand, Ninety-Seven Naira, Seventy-One Kobo, which sum formed part of the 2.5% contingency fund belonging to Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State and you thereby committed an offence contrary to section 308 of the Penal Code Act, Cap 532, Laws of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria 2007 and punishable under section 309 of the same Act. COUNT 5 That you DARIUS DICKSON ISHAKU whilst being the Governor of Taraba State and BELLO YERO whilst being the Permanent Secretary, Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State between 6th January, 2019 and 29th April, 2021 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, and in such capacity entrusted with dominion over certain property, to wit: an aggregate sum of N193, 030, 0 0 0 (One Hundred and Ninety Three Million, Thirty Thousand Naira), which sum formed part of the fund belonging to Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State and Donga Local Government Council in Taraba State committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said property, when you dishonestly diverted the said sum to your own use and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 315 of the Penal Code Act, Cap 532, Laws of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria 2007 and punishable under the same section. COUNT 6 That you DARIUS DICKSON I S H A K whilst being the Governor of Taraba State and BELLO YERO whilst being the Permanent Secretary, Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State between 6th January, 2019 and 29th April, 2021 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, and in such capacity entrusted with dominion over certain property, to wit: an aggregate sum of N650, 686, 369.99 (Six Hundred and Fifty Million, Six Hundred and Eighty-Six Thousand, Three Hundred and Sixty-Nine Naira, Ninety-Nine Kobo, which sum formed part of the funds belonging to Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State and Gassol Local Government Council committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said property, when you dishonestly diverted the said sum to your own use and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 315 of the Penal Code Act, Cap 532, Laws o f the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria 2007 and punishable under the same section. COUNT 7 That you DARIUS DICKSON ISHAKU whilst being the Governor of Taraba State and BELLO YERO whilst being the Permanent Secretary, Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State between 6th January, 2019 and 29th April, 2021 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, and in such capacity entrusted with dominion over certain property, to wit: an aggregate sum of N170, 549, 842.00 (One Hundred and Seventy Million, Five Hundred and Forty-Nine Thousand, Eight Hundred and Forty-Two Naira), which sum formed part of the funds belonging to Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State and Gashaka Local Government Council committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said property, when you dishonestly diverted the said sum to your own use and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 315 of the Penal Code Act, Cap 532, Laws of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria 2007 and punishable under the same section. COUNT 8 That you DARIUS DICKSON ISHAKU whilst being the Governor of Taraba State and BELLO YERO whilst being the Permanent Secretary, Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State between 6th January, 2019 and 29th April, 2021 ni Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, and in such capacity entrusted with dominion over certain property, to wit: an aggregate sum of N201, 917, 450.73 (Two Hundred a n d One Million, Nine hundred and Seventeen Thousand, Four Hundred and Fifty Naira, Seventy Three Koo), which sum formed part of the funds belonging to Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy! Affairs, Taraba State and Ardo Kola Local Government Council committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said property, when you dishonestly diverted the said sum to your own use and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 315 of the Penal Code Acc, Cap 532, Laws of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria 2007 and punishable under the same section. COUNT 9 That you DARIUS DICKSON ISHAKU whilst being the Governor of Taraba State and BELLO YERO whilst being the Permanent Secretary, Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State between 6th of January, 2019 and 29th April, 2021 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, and in such capacity entrusted with dominic over c e r t a i n property, to wit: an aggregate sum of N132,113,750.34 (One h u n d r e d and Thirty-Two Million, One hundred and Thirteen Thousand, Seven Hundred and Fifty Naira, Thirty-Four Kobo), which s u m formed part of the funds belonging to Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State and Yorro Local Government Council : committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said property, when you dishonestly diverted the said sum to your own use and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 315 of the Penal Code Act, Cap 532, Laws of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria 2007 and punishable under the same section. COUNT 10 That you DARIUS DICKSON ISHAKU whilst being the Governor of Taraba State and BELLO YERO whilst being the Permanent Secretary, Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State between 19th July, 2019 and 5th February, 2021 ni Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, and in such capacity entrusted with dominion over certain property, to wit: an aggregate sum of N3,348,942,411.15 (Three Billion, Three Hundred and Forty Eight Million, Nine Hundred and Forty Two Thousand, Four Hundred and Eleven Naira, Fifteen Kobo), which sum formed part of the funds belonging to Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State and Local Government Councils in Taraba State, and you thereby committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said property, when you dishonestly diverted the said sum to your own use and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 315 of the Penal Code Act, Cap 532, Laws of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria 2007 and punishable under the same section. COUNT 11 That you DARIUS DICKSON ISHAKU whilst being the Governor of Taraba State and BELLO YERO whilst being the Permanent Secretary, Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State between 19th July, 2019 and 5th February, 2021 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, and in such capacity entrusted with dominion over certain property, to wit: an aggregate sum of N639,435,000.00 (Six Hundred and Thirty-Nine Million, Four Hundred and Thirty-Five Thousand Naira), which sum formed part of the funds belonging to Bureau of Local Government: and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State andLocal Government Councils in Taraba State, and you thereby committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said property, when. you dishonestly diverted the said sum t o your own use and you thereby committed a n offence contrary to Section 3 1 5 of the Penal Code Act, C a p 532, Laws of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria 2007 and punishable under the same section. COUNT 12 That you DARIUS DICKSON ISHAKU whilst being the Governor of Taraba State and BELLO YERO whilst being the Permanent Secretary, Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State between 30th September, 2016 and 23rd February, 2021 ni Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, and in such capacity entrusted with dominion over certain property, to wit: an aggregate sum of N993,102,053.63 (Nine Hundred and Ninety-Three Million, One Hundred and Two Thousand, Fifty-Three Naira and Sixty-Three Kobo, which sum formed part of the funds belonging to Taraba State Government and Local Government Councils in Taraba State, and you thereby committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said property, when you dishonestly diverted the said sum to your own use contrary to Section 315 of the Penal Code Act, Cap 532, Laws of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria 2007 and punishable under the same section. COUNT 13 That you DARIUS DICKSON ISHAKU whilst being the Governor of Taraba State and BELLO YERO whilst being the Permanent Secretary, Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State between May, * =9 2015 and December, 2015 ni Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, and in such capacity entrusted with dominion over certain property, to wit: an aggregate sum of N90, 000, 000 (Ninety Million Naira), which sum formed part of the funds belonging to Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Taraba State and you hereby committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said property, when you dishonestly diverted the said sum to your own use and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 315 of the Penal Code Act, Cap 532, Laws of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria 2007 and punishable under the same section. COUNT 14 That you DARIUS DICKSON ISHAKU whilst being the Governor of Taraba State on or before 19th October, 2016 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, and in such capacity entrusted with dominion over certain property, to wit: an aggregate sum of N23,200,000 (Twenty Three Million, Two Hundred Thousand Naira), which sum formed part of the funds belonging to Taraba State Government and Local Government Councils in Taraba State and you hereby committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said property, when you dishonestly diverted the said sum to your own use to buy a Duplex property known as Apo 3, Abuja from Brains and Hammers Limited and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 315 of the Penal Code Act, Cap 532, Laws of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria 2007 and punishable under the same section. COUNT 15 That you DARIUS DICKSON ISHAKU whilst being the Governor of Taraba State between 3rd September, 2015 and 29th January, 2018 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, and in such capacity entrusted with dominion over certain property, to wit: an aggregate sum of N761,301,000 (Seven Hundred and Sixty One Million, Three Hundred and One Thousand Naira), which sum formed part of the funds belonging to Taraba State Government and Local Government Councils in Taraba State and you hereby committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said property, when you dishonestly diverted the said sum to defray the loan of One Billion Naira granted by Zenith Bank Plc. to your company, Worthy Construction Limited and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 315 of the Penal Code Act, Cap 532, Laws of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria 2007 and punishable under the same section. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The legal team of Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has accused Nigerias secret police, the State Security Service (SSS), of blocking the teams access to the IPOB leader. Mr Kanu, who is facing terrorism charges, has been in detention since he was repatriated to Nigeria from Kenya in June 2021 under controversial circumstances. Aloy Ejimakor, special counsel to Mr Kanu, disclosed this in a video clip uploaded on his X handle on Friday. Mr Ejimakor said the alleged action by the SSS was in violation of court orders and the Nigerian Constitution which provided for the IPOB leaders freedom to meet with his lawyers. The special counsel, who was flanked by three other members of the legal team, said the clip was recorded within the SSS premises in Abuja on Friday. He identified the three others in the clip as Nnaemeka Ejiofor, Patrick Agaezi and Mandela Umegbogu all lawyers. All four of us came to the premises of the SSS to meet with our client (Kanu) today, Mr Ejimakor said in the clip. 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 lawyer said they were at the SSS facility to discuss with Mr Kanu the next line of action following the withdrawal of Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja from his trial. But we were not allowed by the SSS to meet with our client. We came by a few minutes before 2 p.m. and till now that I am speaking to you, which is a few minutes before 5 p.m., we have not been allowed to meet with our client. Our suspicion, which is credible, is that the SSS and the federal government of Nigeria are not happy that our client requested the judge handling this matter to withdraw from handling his case, he said. It appears that the SSS has cancelled all future visitations to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu as a retaliation against Mazi Nnamdi Kanu for chasing away Justice Binta Nyako from the case and causing her embarrassment, the lawyer wrote on X. Mr Ejimakor said the latest development was similar to previous actions by the SSS and the Nigerian government which has now complicated the IPOB leaders trial. He argued that such actions were responsible for Mr Kanus growing frustration with the trial and eventual loss of confidence in Mrs Nyakos handling of the case. What this means is that the SSS, acting on behalf of the federal government of Nigeria, has unlawfully isolated Mazi Nnamdi Kanu from his lawyers, thus making his solitary confinement absolute, Mr Ejimakor further wrote. I dont know when next, if ever, it may be possible to see Mazi Nnamdi Kanu again. PREMIUM TIMES could not immediately get a response from the SSS. The secret police recently redeployed its spokesperson, Peter Afunanya, without announcing a replacement. Background This is not the first time the SSS would prevent lawyers from meeting with Mr Kanu. The secret police, for instance, allegedly prevented some lawyers from seeing the IPOB leader in 2021. A similar incident reoccurred in 2022, about a year later. Mr Kanu was first arrested in 2015 under the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari. The Court of Appeal, Abuja, on 13 October 2022, ruled that the IPOB leader was extraordinarily renditioned to Nigeria and that the action was a flagrant violation of the countrys extradition treaty and also a breach of his fundamental human rights. The court, therefore, struck out the terrorism charges filed against Mr Kanu by the Nigerian government and ordered his release from the facility of the SSS. But the government refused to release the IPOB leader, insisting that he (Kanu) could be unavailable in subsequent court proceedings if released, and that his release would cause insecurity in the South-east, where he comes from. The government, through the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, later appealed the court ruling and subsequently obtained an order from the Supreme Court staying its execution. Delivering judgement on the appeal on 15 December 2023, the Supreme Court reversed the acquittal granted to Mr Kanu by the lower court and consequently ordered continuation of his trial at the Federal High Court Abuja. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Ebonyi State Government says the death toll from the cholera outbreak in Ndibokote Village in Ezza-Inyimegu Community has hit 15. The Commissioner for Health, Moses Ekuma, confirmed the number of deaths from the epidemic in the locality to reporters in Abakaliki on Friday. Mr Ekuma said that three emergency centres had been designated for the treatment of patients. Meanwhile, Steven Nwankpa, the chairperson of Izzi Local Government Area of Ebonyi, has warned the people of the affected community to desist from open defecation practices and other unhealthy lifestyles. Mr Nwankpa issued the warning, while monitoring the extent of the epidemic in the community and sensitising the natives on the dangers of open defecation. He said that ending the unwholesome practice would help to check the spread of the disease in the area. He said that the warning became necessary following the increasing number of cases and deaths from the scourge. 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 Nwankpa said, The number of death has risen to 15 since Wednesday, when the epidemic broke out in the Ndibokote Village in Ezza-Inyimegu Community. He described the incident as shocking and appealed to the community to avoid holding burial ceremonies until the scourge had been controlled. Ensure that you maintain proper personal hygiene, the chairperson said. A community leader, Stephen Nwamkpuma, linked the outbreak to some natives, who allegedly brought home some pieces of beef from a burial ceremony. After eating the meat, the people started vomiting, resulting in the spread of the disease, Mr Nwamkpuma said. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print To the man whose ministry has been of immense blessing, not only to me and my family, but millions of others across the world; to the man who is an epitome of what it means to walk by faith, live by the word and demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit; to the man who has made the Bible as real as ever, teaching and leading by example; to the man, who I am ever proud to call a father in the Lord, and many more, this is wishing you a very happy platinum celebration. Your target is 120. You will live it in health, strength and grace if the Lord tarries, in the name of Jesus. Dr David Olaniyi Oyedepo, founder of the Living Faith Church Worldwide and Presiding Bishop of the Faith Tabernacle in Ota, Ogun State turns 70 years old today. The name, David Oyedepo, registers differently in different peoples minds. To some, he is that controversial and flamboyant prosperity preacher with arrays of vehicles, properties home and abroad, and multiples of aircraft. To others, he is seen as a strong voice in Nigerias Christian charismatic movement. And to many, Oyedepo, a PhD holder in Human Development from Honolulu University, Hawaii, United States, is a revolutionist, especially in Nigerias educational system, where he championed the establishment of Covenant University, a leading educational institution in Nigeria, and Landmark University, in Omu Aran, where a new form of agricultural revolution is being rebirthed in Nigeria. It is no longer news that Covenant university, in barely two decades of existence, is ranked above most federal and state universities in Nigeria. It was ranked the seventh best university in Sub-Saharan Africa during the first Times Higher Education Sub-Saharan Africa Rankings 2023. The university has consistently ranked among the best 800-1000 universities in the world between 2019 and 2024, according to Times Higher Education. His impact in the educational sector is not limited to universities alone, as the church also runs a network of primary and secondary schools known as Kingdom Heritage Model School and Faith Academy, not only in Nigeria but outside its shores. Yet, to many others, Bishop David Oyedepo, who incidentally was born inside the church, although his father, Ibrahim, was a Muslim, but his mother, Dorcas, was a member of the Holy Order of the Cherubim and Seraphim Movement Church (C&S), is that bold preacher who speaks to power without any iota of intimidation. He received lots of flak from some quarters for his position on the COVID-19 pandemic, especially when authorities failed to reopen churches, despite the re-opening of other institutions. But his continuous interventions led to the reopening of churches, with regulations put in place to curb the spread of the deadly virus. His voice was also loud during the plan of the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari to introduce Ruga, a settlement scheme for the Fulani across Nigeria. He spoke against Boko Haram and openly prayed that God would give former President Goodluck Jonathan the heart of a lion to tackle the issue frontally during his administration. While the above summations and much more could aptly describe Bishop David Oyedepo, those who really know him will describe him as a consummate lover of God and an insatiable hunter for souls. Only real WINNERS the moniker for members of the Living Faith Church worldwide can tell you the extent of his love for God and how he drives them to win souls, which, according to him, is the true proof of the believers love for God. He will tell you, if you love God, you will love what he loves, God so loved the world that he gave his son. Prove your love for him by ensuring that you bring one soul to church next Sunday. To show the extent of his passion for souls, he boldly announced that church members should not bother to give him any gift for his platinum celebration; all he wants from them is just one soul per person for Christ. Dont give me gifts, I dont need them, dont bother to give me cake, I dont eat it. Give me souls. Make that your birthday gifts to me. Thats all I want from you, he had announced. To press this home, a week preceding his birthday was declared, A week of Sacrifice For Soul. Trust him, he will always do what he asks the church members to do. So, in fulfilment of his own sacrifice for souls, he still went out a week to his birthday to haunt for souls for Christ and he got 177 souls, according to his testimony shared on the pulpit. The bishop still goes on the streets of Ota and environ to haunt for souls for the kingdom. He has his target for every year and he always delivers beyond his target. Thousands of souls in the church today are his direct converts and he nurtures them to remain in the faith, as any would like to nurture a new believer. This is a total assignment asides his pastoral roles. You may think his passion for souls is just an avenue to keep the church growing, which ordinarily isnt even a bad idea if you ask me, but the bishop has always been a consuming lover of God. Imagine this. As a teenager, in less than three months, he singlehandedly built a church in a village where he had gone to work, from the scratch to the finish. He practically led the villagers to Christ one by one. The villagers gave him a bush lamp as a gift and told him that the light he brought to them would shine across the world. That is exactly what is happening now. The light is shining across the world. The Living Faith Church has its network of churches in 147 countries across the continents. The church has 38,000 house fellowship centres in Lagos alone. Although his ambition was to be a businessman supporting the works of God, fate had another assignment for him. You dont have to be close to the bishop to know that everything about God moves him. He demonstrates this in different ways. I cant tell the number of churches the bishop and his family have built. Only him and his family would have the details but going by his testimonies, they must be in thousands. These churches are also not necessarily branches of the Living Faith Church; they could be for other denominations. He is simply a very keen kingdom promoter. 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 have been a member of the Living Faith Church for over two decades now and I still wonder where outsiders get this impression that the only thing preached in Winners is the prosperity message. Is Bishop David Oyedepo rich? The answer is a capital Yes. He was named as Nigerias wealthiest pastor by Forbes magazine in 2011, with over $150 million in net worth, but the bishop will dispute this figure and tell you that his wealth is underestimated. His point is that he is worth everything in God by redemption. In other words, such wealth is unquantifiable. Are Winners rich? The answer is also in the affirmative. But does the bishop pursue prosperity? The answer is No. Every living Winner knows the scripture that rules the bishops life. It is in Mathew 6:33 which says Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all other things (that men are dying to have) shall be added unto you. I am not sure I have attended any service in my last over 20 something years in Winners where this scripture is not quoted by the bishop. And by extension, this has become the mantra of every Winner. It works like fire. Winners dont pursue wealth. They simply obey the covenant of prosperity, obey scriptures and God pours His blessings in unimaginable and undeniable ways on them. Mind you, this wealth is not measured in monetary terms only, they are riches that are all encompassing. In Winners, it doesnt matter what you do, you will prosper, albeit everyone at their own level. That is basically the secret behind the wealth of Bishop David Oyedepo and members of the church who are truly committed to his teachings and walk by them. I have seen and heard countless testimonies from ordinary church members, of exploits that are not shared on the pulpit people doing marvelously well in their chosen fields. The bishop describes such testimonies as though noiseless but undeniable. The secrets of men are in their stories. The Bible says if you see a man who is diligent in his work, he will stand before kings, and not mere men. Bishop David Oyedepo is an epitome of diligence. It is impossible for a man as diligent as him not to be wealthy, even if he is a pure water seller. He prepares for every service as if it is his first sermon. He works a minimum of 16-18 hours daily. I once attended a vigil where the bishop flew in from outside the country and came straight to the pulpit to preach. He once laid hands on people from morning till evening standing on his feet for more than 10 hours. The bishop is a workaholic, if Im permitted to use that word. He takes his assignment with every sense of commitment and seriousness. He quotes scriptures effortlessly. As editor of the Saturday PUNCH title, I once asked the bishop during an interview how he was able to do this. Was he cramming the scriptures, I wanted to know. To my dismay, he said, I dont read scriptures, I eat them. For those who dont know, the bishop does not go to bed until he reads certain chapters of scriptures. To him, he does this to cleanse any debris that might have entered him in the course of the day. Such is the level of his diligence in taking care of himself, as well as the congregants. Let me share this interesting story here. My family moved from our previous place of abode in Lagos to another area and we joined the Winners zonal centre in our new area as newcomers. Soon, we interacted with other members and my husband discovered that one of the pastors in the zone was unusually meticulous, organised and, of course, prosperous. We found out that the pastor, Mike Ewewie, was Bishop Oyedepos personal assistant for 17 years. That is how contagious the bishops organisational prowess is. In the Living Faith Church, time is precious. Service starts by 6 a.m. Nobody waits for anyone. And that has been the order of the church since inception, even when they were less than four members in church. Bishop David Oyedepo is also bold and audacious. The church planted 10,000 churches during the COVID-19 lockdown. At the beginning of the year, the bishop had announced that God told him that the church would plant 10,000 churches. When the lockdown came unexpectedly, one would have thought that it was impossible for this to happen again. But alas, the church planted 10,400 churches amidst the lockdown. We do not do anything unless it is commanded, and whatever He commands, He creates, he always says. That also explains the movement of the church from town to a so-called wilderness now known as Canaan land. And not just that, it was responsible for the audacious declaration of building a 50,000-seater auditorium within one year the first of its kind in world history. Today, Bishop David Oyedepo and, by extension, the Living Faith Church, is fulfilling prophecy. The things that were told of God and documented more than 40 years ago are seen coming to pass. It is easy to refer to past prophecies and confirm them in the present. God spoke about the 50,0000-capacity auditorium, aircraft, global connectivity and many other prophecies at the inception of the ministry. It is indeed gratifying seeing these prophecies fulfilled word for word. The church has four aircraft and those who know how expensive it is to maintain an aircraft will tell you this is no cheap feat. For those who think the bishop flies around the world in jets, let me shock you. The bishop has not stepped out of Nigeria not even to Togo or Benin Republic, which is very close to Ota in the last five years. Why? God says so. It is impossible to share all I know about Bishop David Oyedepo. But let me say a little bit about his giving lifestyle. His family started giving scholarships to students in 1992. He doesnt even know most beneficiaries of his scholarships. In 2016, he gave all first-class graduates of Covenant University scholarships to pursue their Masters programme. My son was a beneficiary of that slot. We didnt even know. We had paid his tuition. We got our money refunded. Till date, he has a scholarship fund for the indigent and beneficiaries dont have to be Winners members. To the man whose ministry has been of immense blessing, not only to me and my family, but millions of others across the world; to the man who is an epitome of what it means to walk by faith, live by the word and demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit; to the man who has made the Bible as real as ever, teaching and leading by example; to the man, who I am ever proud to call a father in the Lord, and many more, this is wishing you a very happy platinum celebration. Your target is 120. You will live it in health, strength and grace if the Lord tarries, in the name of Jesus. Happy 70th Birthday, Bishop David Oyedepo. We love you. Olabisi Deji-Folutile is the publisher of franktalknow.com and director at AF24News. Email bisideji@yahoo.co.uk Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The book is a clarion call for policy makers, educational institutions, students, and job seekers to embrace this new paradigm of skills-based education. Pantami insists that degrees still matter; however, the future shall be fully left in the court of those who have the ability to adapt, learn new skills, and apply them in continuously changing and dynamic environments. Arguably one of the most widely discussed Nigerian books in recent times, Skills Rather Than Just Degrees generated a lot of discourse in circles of academics, readers, policymakers, and other industry experts. But people failed to understand that Mr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, the author, never dispelled the importance of degrees. He understands their importance; how they serve as ingredients for success and how they are just metrics for determining whether one passes through stipulated training. Skill Rather Than Just Degrees delves into one of the most pressing issues facing modern education and employment the growing disparity between academic qualifications and practical skills. The book highlights the increasing importance of skills over JUST qualifications in the 21st century, where employers and industries are prioritising individuals with demonstrable competencies that meet current market demands. At the bottom of Pantamis crusade against the acquisition of just degrees lies a triangle of wisdom: education, knowledge, and skills. Professor Isa Ali Pantami, a multidisciplinary figure in Nigerias tech and academic sectors, argues that skills acquisition and practical experience are critical to bridging the gap between education and the real-world workforce. By focusing on skills, both in technical and non-technical areas, individuals can enhance their chances of success in a competitive, technology-driven economy. The title of the book, Skill Rather Than Just Degrees, generated widespread controversy in the Nigerian social media space, with some quarters insinuating that he denigrated degrees, especially in a country where school enrollment is abysmally low. Even with numerous clarifications from several quarters, these conversations resurface once in a while and brings a fresh bout of arguments and debates, especially on Facebook and X (formally known as Twitter). The central theme of Pantamis work revolves around the concept that while degrees still hold value, they are not sufficient on their own to guarantee employability or entrepreneurial success. Pantami has always been critical of the system of education that places an emphasis on rote learning, memorisation, and accumulation of academic certificates with no complementary practical training, innovation, and problem-solving skills. He says that many graduates leave universities with only theoretical knowledge but not necessarily with what it takes to tackle the actual demands of the work environment. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later In the book, he urged for a revolution in education to have curricula that incorporate practical skills into academic learning and an overhaul in the educational system. It further advocates that technical and vocational training is not to be regarded with a view inferior from formal education but rather a complementary pathway which can result in equal, if not greater success, in the job market. The book also emphasises that, given the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the current demand of the time is digital literacy and technological preparedness. Most of the industries require workers who can work with modern tools, emerging programming languages, data analytics, and new technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and cybersecurity, says Pantami. For this, he calls on governments, education systems, and individuals to invest in training for digital skills, coding, entrepreneurship, and innovation. Different examples show how those countries and organisations embracing this shift are faring much better globally in regard to economic growth and employments. The other important aspect that Pantami looks into is the role of entrepreneurship. With the challenges of unemployment growing, especially in developing countries, the book calls for a mind of entrepreneurship at early childhood. Pantami insists that white-collar jobs are no longer an option for most, and people have to be able to make their own opportunities through innovation and entrepreneurship. He believes that skills development in technology, craftsmanship, agriculture, or service sectors can provide the foundation for self-reliance and avenues to financial independence. Entrepreneurship is a method to utilise these skills to solve local-level problems, create jobs, and contribute to a countrys economic growth. Another neglected aspect that Professor Pantami harps on is the importance of mentorship and reading, urging every young person to be versatile, diverse and practice self-development through research, mentorship and other conventional and unconventional methods. The book is a clarion call for policy makers, educational institutions, students, and job seekers to embrace this new paradigm of skills-based education. Pantami insists that degrees still matter; however, the future shall be fully left in the court of those who have the ability to adapt, learn new skills, and apply them in continuously changing and dynamic environments. In Skills Rather Than Just Degrees, Professor Pantami provides an argument on the need for reforming both education and employment policies in this modern century. It is thus an appeal to divert effort to build a generation of problem-solvers, innovators, and skilled professionals who can actually face the brunt of challenges in todays fast-moving world. Salim Yunusa is a PRNigeria Young Communications Fellow. He can be reached at syunusa@gmail.com and writes from Abuja. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print As far as Islamic Shariah is concerned, Prophet Muhammads name is not sacred, rather it is an honourable, highly respectable name. As for us, Muslims, we highly respect our Prophets name as well as all the names of Allahs Prophets (Peace be upon them all). As it is an honourable name, a Muslim is not allowed to name a teddy/toy or the like with any of the names of Allahs Prophets. In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Bestower of Mercy All praise is due to Allah, Lord of all the worlds. May His blessings and benedictions be upon the Messenger, his household and companions. Dear brothers and sisters! Recently, a photo showing His Highness the Emir of Kano, Khalifah, Dr Muhammad Sanusi II, sitting beside a rug engraved with his name, The Emir of Kano Khalifah Muhammad Sanusi II, has generated controversy in Nigeria, especially in northern Nigeria. Some Islamic clerics, and the Emirs enemies have wrongly accused him of disrespecting Prophets name and a religious creed through his actions. However, the emir and we his supporters have responded to the allegations, saying that actions are judged according to intention. After citing some references, we insisted that the Emir was not wrong because his intention was not to disrespect the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), which is very true. The clerics who accused the Emir of wrongdoing probably did not understand him. His Highness would accept any superior argument over his own in the debate. Disrespecting the name of Allah or any Prophet among the Prophets of Allah by directly making reference to them is what is considered an offence in Islam. 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 Emir Sanusis intention was never to disrespect the name because the carpet only bore his name, not that of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him). Respected brothers and sisters! We want the Muslim Ummah to understand that the name Muhammad is not sacred as Islamic scholars explained. Allah the Almighty says in the Quran: Say [O Prophet]: I am but a mortal man like all of you. [Quran, 18:110] And Allah the Most High says: Say [O Prophet]: I am but a mortal like you. It has been revealed to me that your Lord is the One Lord. [Quran, 41:6] Therefore, Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) is, as the Quran clearly states, a mortal like us and his name is like our names, in principle. Sacred Names are only for Allah Almighty. This means that the names of Allahs attributes are names that no one and nothing else should be named. Allah the Almighty says in the Quran: The Sustainer of the heavens and the earth and all that is between them! Worship, then, Him alone, and remain steadfast in His worship. Do you know any whose name is similar? [Quran, 19:65] Thus, it is forbidden to call somebody Allah, God, or any of the rest of the names for Allahs attributes, which are well-known, such as Ar-Rahman (The All-Compassionate), Ar-Rahim (The All-Merciful), Al-Malik (The Absolute Ruler), Al-Quddus (The Pure One), Al-Jabbar (The Compeller), Al-Mutakabbir (The Greatest), Al-Khaliq (The Creator), and so on. No one and nothing should be given or called by these names, except with clear distinction from Allah. For example, someone could be called creative or merciful, but not The Creator or The Most Merciful, and so on. Thus, the name Muhammad can and is used for human beings other than the Prophet (Peace be upon him). Having said that, I would like to assert that some social and political correctness should be observed when one uses the name Muhammad for an inanimate object since Muslim have a strong filial association with that name. Social and political correctness is something that clearly is relative to each society. Each society establishes traditions and the amount of popular respect or disrespect associated with a certain person or object. For example, referring to the 2007 incident where the school teacher in Sudan allowed students to name their teddy/toy bears Muhammad, my humble opinion is that it is a story that belongs to a certain political propaganda and has nothing to do with Islamic law. Thus, it is not a matter of whether the name Muhammad is a sacred name or not. The issue is that we are dealing with: 1. Repressed societies needing any non-anti-government story to allow them to sound their frustrations and depressions without fear of persecution. 2. Media agencies spreading Islamophobia, inhibiting cross-cultural communication and cooperation, and promoting the clash of civilisation theories. 3. A lack of cross-culture dialogue and mutual learning on all sides. As far as Islamic Shariah is concerned, Prophet Muhammads name is not sacred, rather it is an honourable, highly respectable name. As for us, Muslims, we highly respect our Prophets name as well as all the names of Allahs Prophets (Peace be upon them all). As it is an honourable name, a Muslim is not allowed to name a teddy/toy or the like with any of the names of Allahs Prophets. Sheikh Muhammad Al-Mukhtar Al-Shinqiti, director of the Islamic Center of South Plains, Lubbock, Texas, states: The name of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) is not sacred but it is honourable and highly respected. Therefore, we should show the utmost respect for the Prophet (Peace be upon him). That is why we should not name a teddy/toy or the like Muhammad because this contradicts the respect we owe to the Prophet (Peace be upon him). To know more about the veneration we ought to show to the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), please lets refer to the beginning of Chapter 49 in the Quran (Surah Al-Hujurat). Moreover, Sheikh Abdul-Majeed Subh, a prominent Azhar University scholar, adds: The name Muhammad in itself is not sacred. It was known in Jahiliyyah (the pre-Islamic period of ignorance), and Muslims in millions are named Muhammad despite the fact that some of them do not act in accordance with the kind of responsibility such a name implicates. So, the name itself is not sacred. Only the Names of Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) are sacred; therefore, when a person misuses a certain name of Allah, then he or she is included in the meaning of the Quranic verse: Allahs are the fairest names. Invoke Him by them And leave the company of those who blaspheme His names. They will be requited what they do. [Quran, 7:180] Having stated the above, naming a teddy/toy or the like Muhammad bears some sort of insult to the Prophet (Peace be upon him). This ruling is not only confined to Prophet Muhammads name (Peace be upon him). Rather, it applies to all the names of all Prophets (Peace be upon them all). So, this is a general human legislation that includes all Prophets names: Whoever insults or humiliates Muhammads name has the same ruling of one who insults or humiliates any of Allahs Prophets. This is one of the virtues and characteristics of Shariah that is humane, general, and not limited to a certain nation or country. Furthermore, Sheikh Abdul Khaliq Hassan Ash-Shareef, an Egypt-based renowned Islamic scholar and Daiyah, states: Muhammad is a human name that is honourable and respected. Many people are called Muhammad; had the name been sacred, no human would have been named Muhammad. As it is an honourable name, it is not allowed to name a teddy/toy or the like with it as it may lead to some sort of humiliation and degradation to the Prophets name. No one would be content to associate anything, even remotely, humiliating to his or her name or that of his or her parent. If this is the case with ones own name or that of a parent, what would it be with the Prophets name? Respected servants of Allah! No doubt, it is prohibited to throw a paper containing the name of a Prophet from the Prophets, into impurity, or to throw it in a manner of insult and belittlement in other than impurity, and this act is considered disbelief. It is stated in Al-Mawsuah Al-Fiqhiyyah, volume 14, page 59: It is obligatory to protect the books of Tafsir (exegesis), Hadith, and Islamic sciences from being treated with disrespect. Whoever throws a paper containing something from Islamic knowledge, or containing the Name of Allah, or the name of a Prophet, or an angel into impurity, or smears it with impurity even if it is overlooked (a small quantity) is judged as a disbeliever, if it is proven that he intended to insult the Shariah. It is prohibited to show disrespect (to the name) if the intention is to refer to the Prophet by the name, such as by accompanying it with Peace be upon him, or if the context of the speech indicates that intention. However, if the name refers to a person other than the Prophet, then it is not prohibited to disrespect it, such as if the persons name is Isa (Jesus) or Muhammad or Ibrahim. Sheikh Ad-Dusuqi said: Like throwing the Quran, which is apostasy: throwing the Names of Allah, etc., and the names of the Prophets, if that is with the intention of belittling and making light of them; by way of throwing them because they are the name of a Prophet. And his saying: and the names of the Prophets means: those accompanied by what indicates that, such as: Peace and blessings be upon him. [See Hashiyat Ad-Dusuqi, volume 4, page 301] And Sheikh As-Sawi said: His saying: [and the Names of Allah]: meaning: and the names of the Prophets if it is with the intention of belittling and making light of them, where they are specified with a description that distinguishes them, like Muhammad the Messenger of Allah, or accompanied by prayer. [See Hashiyat As-Sawi on Ash-Sharh As-Saghir, volume 4, page 433] Ibn Al-Hajj Al-Maliki, (may Allah have mercy on him) said: It is common among some craftsmen in this time that they use paper without knowing what is in it. And this is not permissible; because it may contain the Noble Quran, or a Hadith of the Prophet (Peace be upon him) or a name from the names of the angels or the Prophets (peace be upon them). Whatever is of that nature, it is not permissible to use it, nor to disrespect it; out of sanctity for it and reverence for its status. If it (paper) contains the names of scholars or the righteous predecessors may Allah be pleased with them or the Islamic sciences, then it is disliked, and it does not reach the level of prohibition like the one before it. [See Al-Madkhal, volume 4, page 89] Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Barrak (may Allah preserve him) was asked about throwing papers in the trash while they contain the name of a Companion and he said: If the intention is not to insult: then it is not prohibited. Dear brothers and sisters! This is the Islamic rulings pertaining to this matter. And alhamdulillah, I learned that lastly the rug have been removed, but not because His Highness the Emir Sanusi was wrong, or he committed any offence in Islam, but it has been removed for peace to reign. 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, 24 Rabiul Awwal, 1446 AH (September 27, 2024). Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print A support group of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Tinubu Youth Network (TYN), has called on President Bola Tinubu to seize the opportunity of his planned cabinet reshuffle to offload the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle from his cabinet and order his investigation over alleged misappropriation of public funds and ties with bandits in Zamfara State. Addressing a press conference on Thursday in Kaduna, the Secretary General of the group, Yusuf Muhammad said there were so many allegations bordering on insecurity against Mr the Matawalle to justify his removal from the presidents ministerial team. Mr Matawalle was governor of Zamfara State from 2019 to 2023. The TYN stated that the welfare and security of the people of Zamfara State should be treated as paramount by the federal government. The group claimed to have made several unsuccessful attempts to contact the leaders of the ruling APC regarding the allegations made by the current Governor of Zamfara State, Dauda Lawal, against his predecessor, Mr Matawalle. Mr Lawal had in a recent interview with Channels Television claimed, among others, that a staggering N250 billion funds belonging to Zamfara state government was unaccounted for during Mr Matawalles tenure. The allegation was later denied by the former governor. The TYN drew attention to various allegations of misappropriation of state funds and alleged link with bandits leveled against the former governor by his successor, Mr Lawal describing them as grave. The group stated further: These are serious matters that strike at the heart of governance, security, and the welfare of the people of Zamfara State and should not be handled lightly. We consider it our responsibility as youth to seek a thorough investigation into these serious claims to uphold the integrity of our party and our esteemed leader, the president. Failing to address these issues could hurt our party in the future. We want to emphasize that the issues at stake here are not just political problems. They encompass matters of life and death, economic survival, and the fundamental human rights of the citizens of Zamfara State, the Northwest, and Nigeria as a whole. This is why we are urging our esteemed leader, the President, to launch an investigation into the numerous allegations levelled against the state minister for Defence, Bello Matawalle. 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 must be concerned as loyal party members about these issues. Serious challenges and campaigns are underway across the country, targeting the hard-earned reputation of our leader, the president. Part of this is caused by the previous actions of people such as Bello Matawalle. The investigation we want our leader, the president, to conduct is not to castigate the State Minister for Defence, Bello Matawalle, but to safeguard the integrity of the All Progressives Congress and the presidents good image. It is imperative that Bello Matawalle be removed from his position and an investigative panel be formed to investigate the allegations. The state minister for Defence should clarify his connections with dangerous individual bandits. Kachalla Auwalun Daudawa is a bandit who abducted the Kankara students in 2020. There are heavy allegations that Matawalle bought a house for him in the Damba area of Gusau, the capital of Zamfara State. These are not abstract concerns. They represent actual, tangible violations of the rights of Zamfaras citizens the right to education, healthcare, economic security, and to live free from the constant threat of banditry and violence. It is precisely these issues that should be at the forefront of any reasonable Nigerian who means well for the country and our dear party. The claim that Matawalle remains loyal to President Bola Tinubu and has the full trust of the administration is quite concerning. Since when has loyalty to a sitting president become a measure by which an individual accused of associating with dangerous bandits should be unquestionably protected? Bello Matawalle is not the only minister in our government. Why is he the only one with so many questionable pasts and heavily surrounded by allegations? Why is it that nobody is accusing the substantive and senior Defence Minister, His Excellency Badaru, of involvement with bandits or any killer group? Any sensible person who has our party at heart must be worried. The Tinubu Youth Network (TYN) believes that where there is smoke, there is fire. In the interest of upholding transparency and fairness, we strongly urge Bello Matawalle to step down from his position and subject himself to a thorough investigation. This is imperative to ensure accountability and maintain the integrity of his person as a parent and a member of the biggest and greatest political party in Africa, the APC. Muhammad said. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The food industry is a vital component of the global economy, projected to reach a staggering value of $8.9 trillion by 2026. This sector encompasses various segments, including retail, manufacturing, and food service, and employs millions of people worldwide. In the United States alone, the grocery industry generated revenues of approximately $660.6 billion in 2018, with grocery stores holding a dominant market share of 92.4% in traditional food sales. As consumer preferences evolve, companies must continuously innovate to remain competitive and relevant in this dynamic landscape. One such company that has successfully navigated these challenges is GBFoods. GBFoods, a prominent player in the food industry, has established a strong presence in over 50 countries, including Nigeria and Ghana. With a rich history dating back to 1937, the company has built a portfolio of well-known brands such as Gino, Bama, and Jago. GBFoods is dedicated to Celebrating local flavours, which reflects its commitment to understanding and integrating the culinary traditions of the regions it serves. By focusing on local tastes and preferences, the brand has developed a range of innovative products that resonate with consumers, ensuring its continued relevance and dominance in the competitive food landscape. For decades, GBFoods has maintained a formidable presence in the food industry, becoming a household name across Nigeria and beyond. Their ability to consistently deliver quality products that resonate with the diverse taste preferences of their target audience has solidified their position as a market leader. The key to this success lies in its innovative approach to product development and its deep understanding of consumer needs. The Business has maintained its dominance in the food industry through a combination of innovative products, a strong commitment to local flavours, and strategic growth initiatives. In 2023, the company celebrated its 50th anniversary, a milestone achievement that reiterated its commitment to continuing to invest in Africa with its partners to create a delicious future for the continent. GBFoods has always placed innovation at the heart of its product offerings. By continually refining and expanding their product range, they have ensured that their products remain relevant and appealing to consumers. A prime example of this is Gino Tomato Paste, one of their flagship products. Recognising the varied culinary preferences across Nigeria, the company has introduced multiple variants of Gino Tomato Paste, each catering to different tastes and cooking styles. This ability to adapt and innovate has allowed the brand to stay ahead of the competition. Innovative Product Range The brand boasts a diverse range of products that cater to the Nigerian palate, each designed to enhance culinary experiences. Notable products include: Gino Tomato Paste: This product has become a staple in many Nigerian households. Its various innovative variants, Gino tomato paste, Gino Peppe and Onions and Gino Party Jollof cater to different cooking styles and preferences, making it a versatile choice for consumers. Bama and Jago Mayonnaise: These mayonnaise brands have gained popularity for their quality and taste, appealing to a growing market that values convenience and flavour in meal preparation. 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 Gino Curry and Seasoning Cubes: Ginos curry and seasoning cubes are designed to enhance traditional Nigerian dishes, providing authentic flavours that resonate with local cooking practices. The various ranges of seasoning cubes, from beef to chicken, allow for customisation in flavour profiles, catering to diverse consumer preferences. Strategic Growth and Recognition GBFoods growth strategy includes mergers and acquisitions that enhance its market presence. For instance, the joint venture with Helios has enabled the company to expand its footprint across Africa, acquiring assets that bolster its product offerings and operational capabilities. The companys commitment to innovation and quality has not gone unnoticed. GBFoods Ghana has received multiple awards, including Culinary Brand of the Year for Gino Tomato Mix and Innovative Company of the Year at various industry awards. These accolades reflect the companys focus on delivering exceptional products and its leadership in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector. Building Trust Through Consistency A significant factor in GBFoods dominance is the trust they have built with their consumers. This trust is born out of a consistent commitment to quality. GBFoods ensures that every product that carries its name meets the highest standards of quality and taste. This consistency has fostered strong brand loyalty, with consumers returning to its products time and again. Continuous Improvement and Community Engagement GBFoods has also invested in local production capabilities, such as the recent opening of a state-of-the-art tomato processing plant in Kebbi, Nigeria. This facility not only reduces reliance on imported goods but also creates job opportunities for the local community, further solidifying its role as a responsible corporate citizen. As the company continues to evolve and adapt to changing consumer preferences, it remains a trusted partner for families seeking quality and authentic culinary experiences. Their deep understanding of the market, coupled with their commitment to quality and innovation, positions them well for future success. As they continue to cater to the evolving tastes and preferences of their target audience, GBFoods is set to remain a trusted and beloved brand for generations to come. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Space is populated by countless objects. And when one of them gets trapped by Earths gravity, we have a new lower-case moon, although only temporarily. The 2024 PT5, a rock the size of a truck, is such a mini moon and will hang around for the next two months, according to calculations made by researchers. When an object that passes close to the Earth, known as NEO, is drawn in by the Earths gravity, it moves in an elliptical orbit around us and is referred to by scientists as a mini moon. The term mini moon was invented by my former supervisor Robert Jedicke of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii, explains astronomer Peter Veres of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Minor Planet Center. Five temporary mini moons have been recognized so far. The first one, 2006 RH120, was the size of a small car, and circled the Earth four times between 2006 and 2007. It was followed by 2020 CD3, which stayed with us for about three years. These objects remain in a chaotic orbit near Earth for days or weeks; their orbits are wildly affected by the Moon, and they are eventually ejected from the Earth-Moon system, Veres says. Two other objects, 1991 VG and 2022 NX1, did not stay long enough to complete an orbit, so some scientists dispute their status as mini moons. This is also the case for the new 2024 PT5, an asteroid of about 11 meters discovered in August 2024 by the ATLAS project through its Sutherland telescope in South Africa. ATLAS co-director John Tonry of the University of Hawaii explains that it is the only telescope system that is spread out around the planet, so it is always looking at the whole sky. Once 2024 PT5 was discovered, the calculation of its trajectory was left in the hands of Carlos and Raul de la Fuente Marcos, research brothers at Madrids Complutense University who are globally recognized experts in orbital dynamics. According to their study, which has just been published by the American Astronomical Society, the 2024 PT5 turns out to be a mini moon pulled into Earths gravity that will draw a loop around us from September 29 to November 25, before emerging from Earths gravitational pull and spinning back off into space. Uncertain origin As for the origin of 2024 PT5, Carlos de la Fuente Marcos explains that it belongs to the Arjunas, a small secondary belt of asteroids that follows an orbital path similar to that of the Earth. The Arjunas can come from the main asteroid belt, or from lunar material ejected during the kind of impacts that create craters, or they could come from the region of the Solar System inside the Earths orbit. According to De la Fuente, in the case of our new mini moon, a lunar origin would seem to be the most reasonable working hypothesis, according to the evidence. So, does Earth have only one moon, or more than 170 million? According to the European Space Agency (ESA), 170 million is the approximate number of space junk pieces larger than one millimeter orbiting the Earth. As Ian Whittaker, an astrophysicist at Nottingham Trent University, wrote: While the term planet has a clear definition, there is no strict definition of a moon. According to NASA, only naturally formed bodies count as moons, which rules out space junk. But when it comes to naturally formed objects, the Moon is not the only one that hovers near us. At the end of the last century, an asteroid called 3753 Cruithne, discovered in 1986, was presented by some media outlets as the Earths second moon. In reality, this rock, measuring about 3 miles, does not revolve around the Earth but around the Sun, yet it follows a path similar to ours a horseshoe-shaped trajectory with respect to us. Several naturally formed objects are known to be co-orbital with the Earth; some are called quasi-satellites because they seem to revolve around the Earth when, in fact, theirs is a non-elliptical orbit as they are really going around the Sun in our vicinity. But even if none of these objects stay with us for long, they often return. They are temporary because the conditions that contribute to their stability an absence of disturbers are not present, explains De la Fuente Marcos. The calculations of the orbits make it possible to know when the asteroids will come back; 2024 PT5 will do so in 2055. Monitoring NEO trajectories is vital to predicting possible impacts. Projects such as ATLAS, and Pan-STARRS in Hawaii, are dedicated to monitoring these risks: the acronym ATLAS stands for Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System. Veres, who participated in the discovery of thousands of minor planets while working on the Pan-STARRS project, also got to work on ATLAS, and adds that this latter system, while smaller than Pan-STARRS, has a field of vision much larger and it can cover much more of the night sky every night. Thus, ATLAS is today the best choice for detecting small objects that pass us almost in the blink of an eye. If an asteroid is visible only a day or two before colliding with us, ATLAS has the best chance of seeing it, Tonry says. According to Tonry, the risk of threatening space objects is often misunderstood: The probability of a serious impact is low, but the chance of a person dying from an asteroid impact is greater than from a shark attack or a plane crash, he says. In other words, it is not a constant threat, but if there is a collision, its consequences can be disastrous. However, Tonry points out that the good thing about an asteroid collision, compared to other natural hazards, is that it can be seen to be coming and is one hundred percent predictable. Tonry explains this system could warn of an event like the one in 2013 in Chelyabinsk, Russia one day in advance, and of a major one like the one in 1908 in Tunguska, Siberia one week in advance, while a civilization-destroying event could be detected years in advance. New observatories such as Vera C. Rubin or LSST, which will start operating in Chile in 2025, and NASAs future NEOSM space telescope, will improve the chances of predicting potential space threats. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Prudential plc has reached an agreement to acquire the remaining shares of Prudential Zenith Life Insurance Limited (PZL), its joint venture business in Nigeria. PZL has existing bancassurance partnerships with Zenith Bank in Nigeria and Ghana. Zenith Bank is a leading bank headquartered in Nigeria, with a network of over 400 branches and approximately 29 million customers across the region. The increase in ownership of the PZL business is a further step in executing Prudentials focus in Africa on deploying capital in its existing operations that have the greatest potential. Prudential originally purchased a 51% stake in Zenith Life Insurance Limited in Nigeria in 2017, which benefited from an existing bancassurance partnership with Zenith Bank. The consideration for this transaction will be payable in cash and includes a performance-based element. Commenting on the deal, Solmaz Altin, Managing Director, Strategic Business Group, Prudential said: We are delighted to take full ownership of the business and have the opportunity to better serve the needs of our customers and create long-term value for our shareholders. Acquiring the remaining stake is consistent with our new strategy to build a sustainable multi-channel growth platform, through targeted investment in structural growth markets across Asia and Africa. We see substantial long-term opportunities in Nigeria and plan to build on our existing agents, bancassurance partnerships and direct distribution capabilities. PZL is a great business and one we know well, and our relationship with Zenith Bank further strengthens our distribution capabilities in the region. Emmanuel Aryee Mokobi, CEO, Africa, Prudential said: This transaction increases our participation in an attractive market with significant growth potential. 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 Insurance penetration remains low in Nigeria (less than 0.2% of GDP) and there is a significant growth runway. Nigerias life insurance market is the fifth largest African market with a gross written premium of US$770 million, and we have an established presence there. Prudential Africas strategy is to focus on building its presence and investing in growth and scale in our chosen insurance markets in Africa. The Nigerian business is profitable, and the acquisition of the remaining stake will allow us to realise the full potential of the platform by implementing initiatives in areas such as customer, technology-powered distribution and health. Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa, with a GDP of US$477 billion as at 2022[1] and a population of 218 million people. Its population is fast growing and is expected to increase to over 370 million by 2050[2], by which time Nigeria is expected to be the third most populous country in the world (currently 6th). The transaction remains subject to the satisfaction of the applicable conditions precedent for completion. Prudential plc provides life and health insurance and asset management in 24 markets across Asia and Africa. Prudential Zenith Life Insurance Limited, formerly known as Zenith Life Insurance, was established in 2006 as a subsidiary of Zenith Bank Plc. In 2017, Prudential Group UK acquired a 51% stake in Zenith Life Insurance, leading to the formation of Prudential Zenith Life Insurance Ltd. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Anambra State Independent Electoral Commission (ANSIEC) says it would not use the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), for the Local Government elections on 28 September. Anthony Nnalue, the commissioner in charge of Information and Logistics, ANSIEC, made the disclosure at a sensitisation programme organised by the International Peace and Civil Responsibility Centre (IPCRC), on Thursday in Awka. The programme was organised for accredited election observers and media personnel. Mr Nnalue said that the BVAS was unreliable after the devices disappointing performance in previous elections in the country. He said the commission would deploy manual accreditation, saying it was more reliable. We will not use BVAS but manual. BVAS is not reliable; it has distorted the electoral process in Nigeria. We do not want a situation where election results are tampered with, he said. Mr Nnalue also assured of the early arrival of election materials, saying the era of delayed arrival of material was over in the state. Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later He said that non-sensitive materials were already on their way to the local government councils, and 5,720 ad-hoc staff had been trained to conduct the elections across the states polling units. We are fully prepared for Saturdays election in terms of security, materials, and other logistics. Elections will not be held in Nnewi South, Orumba South and Idemili South. Voters from those areas will be voting at the council headquarters. We do not want to risk the lives of both officers and voters. We urge the electorate to come out en masse and vote, your vote will count, he said. Also speaking, Chris Azor, the coordinator of IPCRC, urged politicians and the electorate to be vigilant and shun vote buying, violence, gender discrimination, and over-voting. Mr Azor called on security agencies to maintain neutrality while respecting human rights and the rule of law. READ ALSO: Labour Party NWC supports boycott of Anambra local elections He also announced that the organisation would establish a Situation Room in Awka for real-time coordination and reporting. As accredited observers, we are committed to ensuring a free, fair, credible, and peaceful local government election in Anambra state, he said. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print President Bola Tinubu has sent condolences to Governor Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom State on the passing of his dear wife, Patience. Mrs Eno, a pastor, died on Thursday in a hospital following an undisclosed illness, according to a statement issued on Friday morning by the Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Akwa Ibom, Ini Emembong. In a statement from his media aide, Bayo Onanuga, President Tinubu described the death of the Akwa Ibom first lady as shocking. On behalf of the Federal Government, the President commiserates with the Eno family, the government, and the people of Akwa Ibom state during this grim time. The President joins them in mourning the painful and profound loss of the states First Lady, who has supported Governor Enos administration, the statement said. Mr Tinubu said Mr Eno is a visionary governor and that the late wife embodied humility, resilience, and loyalty. Through her Golden Initiative for All, she demonstrated her passion for serving the people and residents of Akwa Ibom State with love, honesty, and dedication, leaving a positive impact that will continue to inspire future generations. 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 (Tinubu) trusts that her selfless service to improve the lives of women, children, and the vulnerable will forever remain an important part of Akwa Iboms history, a legacy that will continue to inspire and be appreciated by future generations. The president prays to God to comfort the family, friends, and relatives of the departed first lady. Meanwhile, the Akwa Ibom State Government, through the Secretary to the State Government, Enobong Uwah, has directed that the Nigerian flags be flown at half-mast in government buildings and facilities across the state as a symbol of our collective grief and mourning. The ruling Peoples Democratic Party in the state has suspended its campaign for local elections because of the passing of the first lady. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The police in Nigeria have arrested four Nigerians for allegedly blackmailing an unnamed Croatian man with his nude photographs. The Force spokesperson, Muyiwa Adejobi, disclosed this in a statement on Thursday in Abuja. Mr Adejobi, an assistant commissioner of police, said operatives from the National Cybercrime Center (NCC) of the Nigerian police arrested the suspects. The spokesperson said the arrested suspects included Abodunrin Rasheed, Abodunrin Tunde, and Abodunrin Rokeeb. He did not mention the name of the fourth suspect. How it happened Mr Adejobi said the suspects met the Croatian on a dating app where they pretended to be a woman to extort him. He said the suspects continued chatting with the victim on Instagram and WhatsApp, where the Croatian, apparently thinking the suspects were a woman, agreed to an intimate relationship. 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 Croatian was deceived into sending nude pictures of himself through the dating app. The suspects subsequently conspired and pressured him (the Croatian) to pay ransom or have his pictures sent to his family and friends, he said. Arrest of the suspects Mr Adejobi said the suspects were arrested following receipt of a report through the police cybercrime centres electronic reporting portal. The operatives of the NPF-NCCC conducted a due investigation, following the obtained information from the report, which led to the apprehension of the suspects, he said. The force spokesperson said further investigations showed that the suspects had previously engaged in similar cybercriminal activities in the past where they allegedly defrauded and extorted numerous victims globally. The proceeds of these crimes were primarily received through gift cards like the iTunes gift cards, steam gift cards etc., he stated. The suspects will be charged in court upon completion of the investigations. Six iPhones, two Android mobile phones Techno and Samsung and a Lexus car were recovered from the suspects, according to the police. The Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, has urged Nigerians to be careful about the activities of online fraudsters, Mr Adejobi said. Mr Egbetokun also warned individuals and groups involved in similar cybercriminal activities to desist immediately. The Nigeria Police Force will not relent in its fight against all sorts of crime and criminality, he vowed. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed stressed the value of humanitarian efforts and charitable initiatives aimed at providing support to the unwell and those in need worldwide, which leads to the launch of several philanthropic projects, such as establishing hospitals, providing care and support to patients, and setting up drinking water networks globally. He stated that the United Arab Emirates, particularly the Emirate of Sharjah, is committed to this duty through the guidance and vision of wise leadership, which aims to provide everyone with a stable, secure, and healthy life. The Chairman of the Sharjah Media Council noted that the establishment of the clinic, which will feature a range of medical specializations, as well as repairs to the drinking water system in October Village, Kyrgyzstan, is part of the charitable initiatives that got underway in Aswan, Egypt, in July, which aims to help the greatest number of sick and destitute people worldwide. Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed confirmed that the humanitarian medical campaigns would go on in other countries. According to Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed, the purpose of these humanitarian medical campaigns is to offer healthcare and treatment services to those in need who are unable to pay the expenses and treatment costs. The initiatives also aim to use formal channels in the country to distribute donations and philanthropic aid from generous individuals to those in need. The Chairman of Sharjah Media Council expressed his heartfelt thanks to the donors and contributors to the various charitable campaigns and programs, who are part of the medical support provided by hospitals to those in need through their generous donations via charitable initiatives such as "Pain and Hope" and " Al Reeh Al Mursala," which highlight humanitarian cases. Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed prayed to God Almighty to accept their contributions, bless their work, and grant swift healing to every patient. Upon his arrival, the Chairman of the Sharjah Media Council planted saplings at the site of the Al Reeh Al Mursala Clinic, laying the foundation stone for the clinic. He then visited the accompanying exhibition, which includes plans and information about the new building, covering a total area of 350 square meters. The clinic will include various specialties, such as general medicine, consulting physicians, and radiology, as well as maternity clinics and medical laboratories. Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed listened to a detailed explanation about the steps involved in establishing the new clinic building, which will serve 14,000 beneficiaries from the local population and surrounding areas. He learned about the processes of renovation and expansion, as well as the increase in capacity and the number of departments and medical specialties, all aimed at providing healthcare, meeting the needs of the community, and offering various specialized medical services to save time and costs. The Governor of October Village delivered a speech welcoming the Deputy Ruler of Sharjah, expressing his gratitude and appreciation to the Emirate of Sharjah for its charitable efforts and support for those in need around the world. He explained that the residents of the area had to travel long distances to access medical services due to the limited capabilities of the clinic and the lack of specialized medical fields. He noted that with the establishment of the Al Reeh Al Mursala Clinic, it would be easier for all residents in nearby areas to receive medical services. Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed then moved to the site of the drinking water network in October Village, which aims to cover the entire area, as well as reduce the spread of diseases caused by contaminated water and alleviate the residents' struggles in fetching drinking water from distant locations. The Deputy Ruler of Sharjah laid the foundation stone for the new drinking water network, which includes a water distribution system with an artesian well spanning 15,000 meters and a water tank with a capacity of 21,000 gallons. Additionally, modern extensions will be established for 700 homes, benefiting 4,000 people, along with two distribution points serving those passing through the area. The Chairman of the Sharjah Media Council, received commemorative gifts from the delegation of the Kyrgyz October Village and took group photos with them. The radio program " Al Reeh Al Mursala" is broadcast during the holy month of Ramadan each year, in collaboration with the Sharjah Charity International (SCI) . The program highlights various charitable and humanitarian projects and campaigns, aiming to encourage generous individuals to contribute to funding and providing a range of goodwill and benevolence in remote areas of the countries covered by the SCI's work and projects, which reach 110 countries worldwide. The foundation stone was laid in the presence of the Chairman of the Sharjah Media Council, along with Sheikh Saqr bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Chairman of the Sharjah Charity International (SCI) ; Muhammad Hassan Khalaf, Director General of the Sharjah Broadcasting Authority; Tariq Saeed Allay, the Director General of the Sharjah Government Media Bureau; Hassan Yaqoub Al Mansouri, Secretary-General of the Sharjah Media Council; Rashid Abdullah Al Obeid, Director of Sharjah Media City "Shams"; Salem Ali Al Ghaithi, Director of the Sharjah Broadcasting Authority; Abdullah Sultan bin Khadim, Executive Director of the Sharjah Charity International ; and several directors and officials from the October Village in the Kyrgyz Republic. Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517540/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau_1.jpg Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517541/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau_2.jpg Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517542/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau_3.jpg Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517543/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau_4.jpg Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517544/Sharjah_Government_Media_Bureau_5.jpg KUNSHAN, China, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report from chinadaily.com.cn: For Jiang Yuqin, head of a community in Kunshan, Jiangsu province, also a deputy to Suzhou People's Congress, listening to people's ideas, providing a voice for them, and helping them solve difficulties in their work and life are her major jobs. How do deputies fulfill their duties? And why they can serve as a bridge between the people and country? Click this video to find out more. Video SOURCE chinadaily.com.cn TAIPEI, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The 2024 Tang Prize Award Ceremony was grandly held this afternoon, September 27th, at the Globe Playhouse of the Taipei Performing Arts Center. The ceremony commenced with the majestic sounds of the "Tang Prize Overture," bringing together the 2024 Tang Prize Laureates, hailing from countries including the United States, Denmark, and Ireland, both in person and virtually. Dr. Chao-Han Liu, Dr. Wen-Chang Chang, Dr. Der-Wei Wang, and Professor Jiunn-rong Yeh, serving as chairs for the respective Tang Prize categories, introduced the laureates and presented the awards. Over 800 international guests and representatives from industry, government, and academia witnessed this glorious event. 2024 Tang Prize Award Ceremony The second half of the ceremony featured captivating performances by the Taipei Philharmonic Orchestra, including Beethoven's vibrant "Overture" to Fidelio, Bao Yuan-Kai's whimsical "Sketches of Taiwan," and the first movement of Schubert's majestic Symphony No. 9, delighting the Tang Prize Laureates and guests. The ceremony was also live-streamed globally, sharing this international event with the world. The six recipients of the 2024 Tang Prize include Omar M. Yaghi for Sustainable Development; Joel F. Habener, Svetlana Mojsov, and Jens Juul Holst for Biopharmaceutical Science; Hsu Cho-yun for Sinology; and Mary Robinson for Rule of Law. Dr. Jenn-Chuan Chern, CEO of the Tang Prize Foundation, commenced by extending a warm welcome and marking the 12th anniversary of the foundation's establishment. He spoke on behalf of the founder, Dr. Samuel Yin. In June, the 2024 Tang Prize Laureates were announced, bringing the total number of laureates honored over six ceremonies to 39 (including 3 NGOs). A series of Tang Prize Week events have also been meticulously planned. Dr. Chern expressed his distinct honor in hosting this grand award ceremony to recognize the six distinguished laureates. He believes that the laureates' groundbreaking achievements and profound insights will chart a course through these turbulent times in an era fraught with global challenges such as the misuse of energy and resources,accelerating climate change, and frequent conflicts. Dr. Shu Chien, President of the Tang Prize Selection Committee, stated that the Tang Prize, established in 2012, has become a globally recognized and prestigious international award. Each category is evaluated by an independent selection committee composed of renowned experts, ensuring an objective, fair, and professional selection process regardless of race, gender, or nationality. He further extended his heartfelt congratulations to the six outstanding 2024 Tang Prize laureates, whose extraordinary achievements have made substantial contributions to human health, science, and society. Upon receiving the Tang Prize in Sustainable Development, Professor Yaghi expressed immense gratitude to the founder, Dr. Yin. He was deeply moved and inspired by Dr. Yin's vision of establishing the Tang Prize to make the world a better place. Growing up in an impoverished environment, Yaghi keenly felt that waiting for ideal conditions often meant stagnation, and that the most remarkable achievements usually stemmed from the humblest beginnings. At the age of 10, he stumbled upon a book in the school library and was captivated by the beautiful molecular structures within, sparking a lifelong passion for chemistry. "As I stand here today, accepting this award," said Yaghi, born into a refugee family, "I do so not just for myself, but for everyone who has ever felt that their beginnings were too humble to make a difference. My journey is proof that remarkable things can emerge from the most unremarkable starts." Professor Habener is deeply honored to be chosen as one of the three recipients of the 2024 Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science. He finds it immensely rewarding to have his lifelong dedication to GLP-1 research acknowledged in this way. Witnessing the positive impact of his contributions in alleviating the suffering of individuals with type 2 diabetes and obesity worldwide brings him immense satisfaction. Professor Mojsov is privileged to receive the Tang Prize for her contribution to the discovery of GLP-1. Her curiosity about peptides' impact on glucose metabolism and their therapeutic applications ignited during her graduate studies in the 1970s. Under the mentorship of Professor Bruce Merrifield at Rockefeller University, she delved into glucagon and solid-phase synthesis. This expertise laid the foundation for her groundbreaking identification of the bioactive GLP-1 (7-37), comprising 31 amino acids, leading to the collaboration with Professor Joel Habener to showcase its promise in combating type 2 diabetes. This achievement accomplished her four-decade-long scientific journey that commenced at the Endocrine Unit of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Fellow Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science Laureate, Professor Holst also shared his 50-year journey in discovering GLP-1, a path that began with his interest in incretins as a gastroenterological surgeon. Key milestones included his observation of the change in patients' blood sugar levels after surgeries, exploring the biosynthetic precursor of glucagon from gut cell molecules, predicting its structure, and confirming its role in stimulating insulin secretion. This is how GLP-1 was brought to Copenhagen. With the support of the pharmaceutical industry, GLP-1 therapies have now benefited millions, effectively treating obesity and type 2 diabetes while also decreasing related complications and premature deaths, an outcome that Professor Holst finds deeply gratifying. Professor Hsu expresses his gratitude to the Tang Prize Foundation, emphasizing the distinct mission of the Sinology award compared to the other three categories. While the other awards focus on solving contemporary global issues, Professor Hsu believes the Sinology award seeks to identify the position of Chinese civilization within the broader tapestry of world history - past, present, and future. This resonates deeply with his own lifelong pursuit: dedicating his early career to studying Chinese history and his later years to extracting wisdom from Chinese culture to address global challenges. While humbled by this prestigious honor, he embraces the responsibility it entails. Professor Robinson expressed her profound honor and gratitude to be recognized by the Tang Prize Foundation and the Selection Committee in the name of the rule of law. She acknowledged the remarkable contributions of previous laureates who have championed human rights and the rule of law globally, emphasizing the ongoing tasks and shared responsibility to uphold these principles, a theme she intends to explore further in her Laureate's Lecture. Professor Robinson is acutely aware that despite its crucial importance, the rule of law has faced increasing challenges and threats in recent decades. She recognizes the concerted efforts of authoritarian and nationalist leaders to erode the foundations of legal and ethical norms, making the defense of the rule of law an increasingly complex endeavor. Yet, she remains steadfast in her commitment and champions human rights and the rule of law. SOURCE The Tang Prize Foundation - Teliso-V is an investigational antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) for patients with previously treated nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with c-Met protein overexpression. - Biologics License Application (BLA) submission for accelerated approval is supported by data from the Phase 2 LUMINOSITY trial (M14-239). Review of the BLA will be conducted under FDA's Oncology Center of Excellence (OCE) Real-Time Oncology Review (RTOR) program. - There are currently no approved anti-cancer therapies specifically for c-Met overexpressing NSCLC and if approved Teliso-V would be the first-in-class therapy for this patient population. NORTH CHICAGO, Ill., Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) today announced submission of a Biologics License Application (BLA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for accelerated approval of telisotuzumab vedotin (Teliso-V) in adult patients with previously treated, locally advanced or metastatic epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) wild type, nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with c-Met protein overexpression. Approximately 85% of lung cancers are classified as NSCLC1 and despite advances in treatment, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths throughout the world.2 The c-Met protein is a receptor tyrosine kinase found to be overexpressed in approximately 25% of advanced EGFR wild type, nonsquamous NSCLC patients3 and is associated with a poor prognosis.4,5,6 Teliso-V is being evaluated within this patient population who currently have very limited treatment options. "Patients with non-small cell lung cancer have unmet medical needs and oncologists are looking for new treatment options for these patients who unfortunately have a poor prognosis," said Roopal Thakkar, M.D., executive vice president, research and development, chief scientific officer, AbbVie. "We are hopeful that Teliso-V will be a differentiated treatment for certain patients as we look to elevate the standards of care in oncology." In December 2021, Teliso-V was granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation by the FDA. The BLA submission is supported by data from Phase 2 LUMINOSITY trial (Study M14-239), an ongoing study designed to characterize the safety and efficacy of Teliso-V in c-Met overexpressing NSCLC populations. Data from the LUMINOSITY study were recently presented at the 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology congress and topline data from this trial were shared in 2023. Teliso-V is being further evaluated as a monotherapy in patients with previously treated c-Met overexpressing NSCLC in the randomized Phase 3 confirmatory global study TeliMET NSCLC-01. Enrollment in the study is underway and continues across global clinical trial sites. Additional information on clinical trials for Teliso-V is available at www.clinicaltrials.gov. About Telisotuzumab Vedotin (Teliso-V) Teliso-V is an investigational, first-in-class, c-Met protein directed antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) designed to target c-Met overexpressing tumors. c-Met is a receptor tyrosine kinase that can be overexpressed in many solid tumors including NSCLC. Further information on clinical trials for Teliso-V is available at https://clinicaltrials.gov/. Teliso-V is not approved by any health regulatory authority. About the LUMINOSITY Trial The LUMINOSITY trial (M14-239), is an ongoing Phase 2 study designed to identify the target NSCLC populations that overexpress c-Met best suited for Teliso-V monotherapy in the second-line or third-line setting, and then to expand the groups to further evaluate efficacy in the selected populations. The endpoints include overall response rate (ORR), duration of response (DoR), disease control rate (DCR) and progression-free survival (PFS) per independent central review (ICR) as well as overall survival (OS). About AbbVie in Oncology At AbbVie, we are committed to transforming standards of care for patients living with difficult-to-treat cancers. We are advancing a dynamic pipeline of investigational therapies across a range of cancer types in both blood cancers and solid tumors. We are focusing on creating targeted medicines that either impede the reproduction of cancer cells or enable their elimination. We achieve this through various, targeted treatment modalities including antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), immuno-oncology, bi-specific antibody and CAR-T platforms. Our dedicated and experienced team joins forces with innovative partners to accelerate the delivery of potential breakthrough medicines. Today, our expansive oncology portfolio comprises approved and investigational treatments for a wide range of blood and solid tumors. We are evaluating more than 20 investigational medicines in multiple clinical trials across some of the world's most widespread and debilitating cancers. As we work to have a remarkable impact on people's lives, we are committed to exploring solutions to help patients obtain access to our cancer medicines. For more information, please visit http://www.abbvie.com/oncology. About AbbVie AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas immunology, oncology, neuroscience, and eye care and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us at www.abbvie.com. Follow @abbvie on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube. Forward-Looking Statements Some statements in this news release are, or may be considered, forward-looking statements for purposes of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The words "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "project" and similar expressions and uses of future or conditional verbs, generally identify forward-looking statements. AbbVie cautions that these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, challenges to intellectual property, competition from other products, difficulties inherent in the research and development process, adverse litigation or government action, and changes to laws and regulations applicable to our industry. Additional information about the economic, competitive, governmental, technological and other factors that may affect AbbVie's operations is set forth in Item 1A, "Risk Factors," of AbbVie's 2023 Annual Report on Form 10-K, which has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as updated by its subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. AbbVie undertakes no obligation, and specifically declines, to release publicly any revisions to forward-looking statements as a result of subsequent events or developments, except as required by law. References: 1 National Cancer Institute. Non-small cell lung cancer treatment health professional version. https://www.cancer.gov/types/lung/hp/non-small-cell-lung-treatment-pdq#_37_toc. Accessed December 8, 2021. 2 Bray F, Laversanne M, Sung H, Ferlay J, Siegel RL, Soerjomataram I, et al. Global cancer statistics 2022: GLOBOCAN estimates of incidence and mortality worldwide for 36 cancers in 185 countries. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. 2024;74(3):229-63. 3 Ansell PJ, Baijal S, Liede A, et al. Prevalence and Characterization of c-METOverexpressing Non-small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) Across Clinical Trial Samples and Real-world Patient Cohorts From the City of Hope National Medical Center. Cancer Research UK (CRUK) - Lung Cancer Conference; Manchester, UK2022. 4 Liang H, Wang M. MET Oncogene in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Mechanism of MET Dysregulation and Agents Targeting the HGF/c-Met Axis. Onco Targets Ther. 2020;13:2491-510. 5 Park S, Choi YL, Sung CO, et al. High MET copy number and MET overexpression: poor outcome in non-small cell lung cancer patients. Histol Histopathol. 2012;27(2):197-207. 6 Guo B, Cen H, Tan X, et al. Prognostic value of MET gene copy number and protein expression in patients with surgically resected non-small cell lung cancer: a meta-analysis of published literatures. PLoS One. 2014;9(6):e99399. SOURCE AbbVie A person holds an American flag and is splashed by a breaking wave as Hurricane Helene intensifies ahead of its expected landfall in Florida's Big Bend, at Alligator Point, Florida. Hurricane Helene made landfall just after 11:00 p.m. (local time) in Florida as a Category 4 storm. After quickly strengthening from tropical storm to hurricane on Wednesday, Helene continues to produce catastrophic winds, warned the U.S. National Hurricane Center, which described the situation as extremely dangerous and life-threatening. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in Florida, as did the governor of Georgia and South Carolina. U.S. President Joe Biden warned Americans to take Hurricane Helene extremely seriously. On Thursday, he issued two emergency declarations for the states of Alabama and South Carolina. Authorities have asked citizens to remain in their homes or stay in the shelters that have been set up. So far, one death was reported in Tampa after a highway sign hit a car, and two other people died due to the effects of a tornado in Georgia. Both events occurred before Helene made landfall on the Florida coast. Florida is hurricane country, but even though hurricane season hits the south-east of the country every year, the winds and storm surges never fail to be terrifying and devastating. Comparisons are commonly used to understand the scale of the disaster. And there is a long history to draw from. Amid the threat of Helene, meteorologists have reached back more than a century, citing the historic flooding of Asheville, North Carolina, in 1916 and the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Hugo in Charlotte, NC, in 1989 relevant comparisons given Helenes potential to severely impact inland areas. But there is no need to go that far back, more recent hurricanes are still fresh in peoples memories: Hurricane Ian in 2022 and Hurricane Idalia in 2023. These two hurricanes followed relatively similar paths to Helene, moving from the Caribbean into the Gulf of Mexico, where they strengthened over the warming waters, before making landfall in Florida. At the time, Ian was at the third-costliest weather disaster in U.S. records, causing an estimated $113 billion in damages, and, killing 161 people the highest death toll since the Labor Day hurricane of 1935. Beginning off the coast of West Africa, Ian crossed the tropical Atlantic and entered the Caribbean past Trinidad and Tobago. A few days later, it hit Cuba as a Category 3 hurricane, causing severe flooding and power outages nationwide. Although Ian lost some strength after passing over the island, it quickly regained strength over the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, reaching Category 5 strength with sustained winds of 160 mph moments before making landfall in southwest Florida. Given this force, Ian tied several other storms to become the fifth-strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in the continental United States. After moving inland, it quickly weakened to a tropical storm before moving back out into the Atlantic. There it strengthened again into a hurricane before making landfall in South Carolina. Damaged homes and debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers Beach. Wilfredo Lee (AP) Idalia, on the other hand, had an even more similar path to Helenes. It formed near the coast of Yucatan as a tropical storm, before entering the Gulf of Mexico where it quickly intensified, becoming a Category 4 hurricane before hitting the Big Bend region of Florida precisely where Helene made landfall on Thursday night. As it moved north, Idalia remained a hurricane, as Helene is expected to do, until it crossed the border with Georgia, finally downgrading to a tropical storm as it entered the Carolinas. Idalia caused significant damage to thousands of homes, businesses, and other infrastructure as it moved inland, primarily in Florida, which was the hardest hit by the winds and flooding. Its storm surge was record-breaking from the Big Bend region south to Tampa Bay. Roads in Tampa Bay were flooded and hundreds of cars were submerged. The system also triggered a tornado outbreak, with about 12 tornadoes confirmed in states north of Florida. This year, the Caribbean hurricane season has been unusual. In June, Beryl became the earliest Category 5 storm on record, but August and September were unusually calm despite Francine hitting the Louisiana coast. But now Helene is one of the largest storms ever recorded, at 420 miles (675 km) in diameter. This is different from strength, which is measured by the intensity of the winds at the epicenter. Weather experts have pointed to unusually warm water in the Gulf of Mexico. Simply put, warmer water evaporates more easily, and the rising plumes of warm, moist air from that evaporation are what drive hurricanes and their rapid intensification. Helene is threatening homes and lives across a triangle of the southern United States stretching from southern Florida, north along the coast of South Carolina, to eastern Arkansas. Hurricane-force winds are forecast for the Atlanta area, the sixth-most populous metropolitan area in the country, tornadoes are forecast for the Carolinas border area, and historic flooding is possible for virtually all of the southeastern states, especially along the triple border of Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Accruit Private Client Group is proud to recognize attorneys specializing in real estate who have been named to the 2025 edition of The Best Lawyers in America through a collaboration with Best Lawyers. DENVER, Sept. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Accruit Private Client Group, a boutique 1031 Exchange group within Accruit, is proud to help recognize numerous attorneys specializing in real estate who have been named to the 2025 edition of The Best Lawyers in America through a collaboration with Best Lawyers, the oldest and most respected peer-review research and publication company in the legal profession. For over four decades, Best Lawyers has been recognized for its rigorous peer review process, where tens of thousands of leading lawyers confidentially evaluate the professional abilities of their colleagues within the same geographical area and legal practice area. Recognition by Best Lawyers is regarded as a significant honor, conferred on a lawyer by their peers. Best Lawyers' founding principles align with Accruit Private Client Group's commitment to providing tailored and expert solutions in the field of 1031 Qualified Intermediary services. Accruit Private Client Group is dedicated to offering specialized 1031 Exchange services. Their collaborative approach involves coordinating with a client's trusted team of professional advisors, including CPAs, attorneys, and financial planners to develop a unified strategy. Accruit's initiative with Best Lawyers underscores their dedication to trusted expertise and strategic planning. "We are thrilled to collaborate with Best Lawyers to further recognize numerous real estate lawyers across 12 states that were newly named to the 2025 edition of The Best Lawyers in America," said Brent Abrahm, Chief Executive Officer at Accruit Private Client Group. "Best Lawyers not only recognizes the top legal professionals in real estate but also aligns with our mission to provide unparalleled service and expertise to our clients." The award recipients of the 2025 The Best Lawyers in America recognition for Real Estate Law were selected based on comprehensive peer reviews and were recognized for their excellence and contributions to the legal profession. About Accruit Accruit, an Inspira Financial Solution, is a leading full service Qualified Intermediary and developer of the industry's only patented 1031 Exchange technology. Founded in 2000 and acquired by Inspira Financial in 2023, Accruit has gained the trust of thousands of clients and become a leader in the industry through its highly credentialed experts, consistent delivery of service, innovative technologies, robust security protocols and financial strength. About Best Lawyers Best Lawyers is the oldest and most respected peer-review research and marketing company in the legal profession. Best Lawyers compiles extensive recognitions by conducting exhaustive peer-review surveys in which tens of thousands of leading lawyers confidentially evaluate the work of their fellow legal professionals within their local market and specialty. Lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed; therefore, recognition by Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. For more information, visit www.bestlawyers.com. Press Contact: Karlee Kilbey 3038657321 http://www.accruit.com/pcg SOURCE Accruit This is the Company's third annual sustainability report, which discloses progress against its environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics in 2023 BUFFALO GROVE, Ill., Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Advancion Corporation ("Advancion" or "Company"), one of the world's largest suppliers of life science buffers and other proprietary ingredients, today released its 2023 Corporate Sustainability Report. This is the Company's third annual public report, which is available through the Advancion website at https://www.advancionsciences.com/sustainability . The theme of this year's report, "Empowering Impact: Driving Sustainable Progress with Purpose," focuses on the positive contributions Advancion's ingredients and people are making to improve the environment, society and the economy. Advancion's 2023 Sustainability Report highlights the Company's progress against its environmental, social and governance (ESG) targets, including: Overview of the essential ways that Advancion's ingredients and specialized knowledge is enabling and enhancing the performance, efficiency and sustainability of end products and industries critical to modern life. Reduction of Advancion's Total Recordable Case (TRC) injury rate from 0.65 in 2022 to 0.42 in 2023, including zero injuries across the Company's major manufacturing, research and development (R&D), and administrative facilities. Expansion of the Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions data to include the Sterlington and Ibbenburen manufacturing facilities, the Buffalo Grove Corporate Office and R&D Center, and the Expression Systems manufacturing and research site in Davis, California . . Overall reduction in energy and water consumption, and waste generated during the year, as well as the positive increase in total hazardous waste diverted to beneficial reuse and energy recovery. Updates on the Company's progress in further integrating sustainability into its core business strategy with the launch of new products developed from renewable raw material sources. Reporting prepared in accordance with the GRI Sustainability Reporting Standards 2021, as well as other standards issued by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). "We are proud to share our latest sustainability report, which not only highlights our significant progress but also reflects the core values that guide every decision we make at Advancion," said David Neuberger, President and Chief Executive Officer. "As a leading global producer of specialty ingredients, we recognize our responsibility extends beyond delivering innovative solutionswe must also address the environmental, social and economic challenges of our time. This report underscores our progress and our dedication to driving positive changes across the markets and communities we serve. Our goal is clear: to deliver long-term value for our customers, employees and communities while safeguarding the health of our planet. We remain focused on accountability, transparency and continuous improvement as we work toward a more sustainable future for all our stakeholders." For more information about Advancion's sustainability platform and to download the 2023 Corporate Sustainability Report, visit advancionsciences.com/sustainability . ABOUT ADVANCION Advancion, formerly ANGUS Chemical Company, is a leading global producer of specialty ingredients and consumables for biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, home and personal care, and other consumer-oriented and industrial markets. The Company is one of the world's largest producers of life sciences buffers and other proprietary ingredients, providing high-performance products, best-in-class quality and guaranteed supply security for more than 80 years. Through Expression Systems, an Advancion company, the Company produces innovative cell culture media formulations, cell lines, molecular tools and reagents used in the development and commercial manufacturing of advanced therapies. Advancion operates three manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and Germany and serves its global customers through six regional Customer Application Centers located in Chicago, Illinois; Paris, France; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Singapore; Shanghai, China; and Mumbai, India. The Company is privately owned by Ardian and Golden Gate Capital, and is headquartered in Buffalo Grove, Illinois. For more information, visit advancionsciences.com. Follow Advancion on LinkedIn . FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Advancion Media Relations Scott C. Johnson +1 847-808-3769 [email protected] SOURCE Advancion Corporation MONTEBELLO, Calif., Sept. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Adventist Health White Memorial Montebello celebrated its 100th surgery utilizing the da Vinci Xi Surgical System, a medical milestone that has helped patients in the community achieve better outcomes with minimally invasive surgery procedures. Nani Gelvezon (center, black scrubs), DO, General Surgeon, Adventist Health White Memorial Montebello, with the Surgery team. Dr. Gelvezon completed the hospitals 100th robotic surgery procedure. "Adventist Health White Memorial is pleased to bring the advanced technology of the da Vinci Xi system to the patients and surgeons of Montebello. Also known as "robotic surgery" the minimally invasive procedures performed with the Da Vinci system allow more patients to get the best surgery to meet their needs without leaving their community," said Mark Dumais, MD, Medical Officer, Adventist Health White Memorial Montebello. Surgeons at Adventist Health White Memorial Montebello began offering robotic surgery for our community in April of this year. Already 100 patients have benefited from this technology. The da Vinci Xi surgical system can be used across a spectrum of minimally invasive surgical procedures and may result in smaller incisions, less blood loss, and shorter hospital stays when compared to traditional open surgical procedures. The surgeons at Adventist Health White Memorial Montebello are leaders in this field and look forward to continually bringing advanced minimally invasive surgical options to their community. About Adventist Health White Memorial: Keeping communities healthy has been our mission ever since our Los Angeles hospital was founded in 1913. Today, Adventist Health White Memorial boasts two sites: Los Angeles is an inner-city safety net medical center with a 353-bed acute care hospital, providing a full range of inpatient, outpatient, emergency, and diagnostic services. Embracing our legacy as a teaching hospital, we continue to pioneer physician and nurse residency programs, shaping the future of healthcare professionals. We recently acquired our Montebello facility, established in 1949, to expand our reach. Comprising a 192-bed hospital equipped with emergency services, a wound care clinic, and medical offices, we extend our commitment to quality medical care and community service. As part of Adventist Health, a faith-based, nonprofit health system, we serve over 100 communities across the West Coast and Hawaii through more than 440 sites of care, including 28 acute care facilities. SOURCE Adventist Health White Memorial Springfield, OR - Fri Oct 4: Richard E. Wildish Community Theater, 6pm Eugene, OR - Sat Oct 5: University of Oregon - Beall Concert Hall, 12pm For more information and to reserve FREE tickets please visit www.afbandconcerts.com. About The U.S. Air Force Band of the Golden West Clarinet Quartet The Clarinet Quartet is part of the United States Air Force Band of the Golden West from Travis Air Force Base, California. Providing musical support to Air Mobility Command, sustaining community relations and engaging in school outreach in a five-state area of responsibility; Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, and California. This ensemble supports a wide variety of musical events, ranging from military ceremonies and educational programs to recitals debuting new works that push the boundaries of the traditional clarinet quartet medium. As part of the Band of the Golden West, the mission of the Clarinet Quartet is to Honor, Inspire, and Connect through musical excellence. About the U.S. Air Force Band of the Golden West The United States Air Force Band of the Golden West is dedicated to telling the Air Force story, honoring military heritage, and enhancing the morale of service members and civilians. The Band of the Golden West is proud to represent Air Mobility Command and the 680,000 Airmen in over 130 career fields serving around the world. These concerts are our way of saying thank you for your continued support to the men and women of the Armed Forces, at home and abroad. For more information, go to www.afbandconcerts.com. "Such talented musicians and vocalists. Touched my soul and brought tears to my eyes. Makes me proud to have served my country in the United States Air Force! Thank you for an extraordinary musical performance!!" Concertgoer, December 2023 Shareable media including pictures, videos, and recordings is available here. Media Contact: Andrew Payton; [email protected] SOURCE Air Force Band of the Golden West WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM? 440k+ Newsrooms & Influencers 9k+ Digital Media Outlets 270k+ Journalists Opted In GET STARTED WASHINGTON, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Amen Clinics, a renowned leader in brain and mental health care, is proud to celebrate its 35th anniversary with an open-house event at its Reston, VA clinic. Amen Clinics has been providing cutting-edge services to individuals seeking improved brain health and wellness since its inception in 1989. The mental health practice, founded by double-board certified psychiatrist and neuroscientist Daniel G. Amen, MD, is dedicated to revolutionizing mental health treatment by integrating state-of-the-art brain SPECT imaging technology with personalized, integrative care plans. This commitment to innovation and patient-centered care has made Amen Clinics a trusted name in the field for over three decades. The public is invited to attend this free, in-person celebration where Dr. Amen will be speaking. This anniversary celebration promises to be an exciting opportunity for individuals to learn more about the transformative work of Amen Clinics. Attendees will have the chance to meet the physicians and staff at the Reston facility, which features the latest advancements in diagnostic imaging and integrative treatments. "We are thrilled to mark 35 years of serving people in need," said Dr. Amen. "This milestone is a testament to our enduring commitment to providing compassionate, evidence-based care that empowers individuals to lead healthier, more fulfilling lives." For details about the event, see below: Event: Amen Clinics 35th Anniversary Celebration Date/Time: Wed., Oct. 9 at 6pm ET Location: Amen Clinics, 10701 Parkridge Blvd., Suite 110, Reston, VA 20191 Notes: Brain-healthy hors d'oeuvres will be served. RSVP required. Seats are limited. RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/amen-clinics-35th-anniversary-celebration-registration-984106999527?aff=oddtdtcreator ABOUT AMEN CLINICS Amen Clinics, Inc. was established in 1989 by Daniel G. Amen, MD, who is a psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and 12-time New York Times bestselling author. Amen Clinics has the world's largest database of functional brain scans relating to behavior, totaling over 250,000 scans on patients from 155 countries. Press Contact: Natalie Buchoz [email protected] SOURCE Amen Clinics, Inc. TAIPEI, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Anbogen, a clinical-stage biotech company, today announced a drug supply collaboration to evaluate the combination of Anbogen's HDAC inhibitor, ABT-301, with BeiGene's anti-PD-1 antibody tislelizumab, in patients with mismatch repairproficient (pMMR) or microsatellite stable (MSS) metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) in a global Phase II trial. Under the terms of the agreement, BeiGene will supply tislelizumab to Anbogen for the study. In 2020, over 1.9 million new cases of colorectal cancer were diagnosed globally. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have emerged as a primary treatment for metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) with mismatch repair deficiency (dMMR) or high microsatellite instability (MSI-H). However, this innovative therapy benefits only a small fraction of patients, as less than 5% of mCRC cases exhibit dMMR/MSI-H. Consequently, there remains a significant unmet need for the 95% of patients with pMMR/MSS tumors, who do not respond to ICIs. ABT-301, a novel HDAC inhibitor, has shown promising safety and pharmacokinetic profiles in a prior Phase 1 study as a single agent. Preclinical studies indicate that ABT-301 enhances the effectiveness of anti-PD-1/anti-PD-L1 therapies by increasing CD8+ cytotoxic T cells and decreasing monocytic myeloid-derived suppressor cells within both the tumor and circulation, and inhibiting angiogenesis. These immune response enhancements may broaden the efficacy of ICIs in colorectal cancer patients. The upcoming Phase II study will investigate the effectiveness of treatment regimens combining ABT-301 and tislelizumab, with and without Bevacizumab, in pMMR/MSS mCRC patients with significant unmet needs. "We are excited to partner with BeiGene to investigate this promising combination therapy," said John Hsu, CEO of Anbogen. "ABT-301 has shown potential in preclinical studies, and we believe that combining it with tislelizumab could provide a new therapeutic option for patients with colorectal cancer." The clinical trial will be conducted in multiple centers and will evaluate the safety, tolerability, and preliminary efficacy of the combination therapy in patients with advanced MSS CRC. The study is expected to begin enrollment in the first quarter of 2025. About Anbogen Anbogen is a clinical-stage biotech company that completed a US$20M Series A in 2024. We are dedicated to developing precision anti-cancer drugs and are committed to R&D innovations to improve the lives of cancer patients around the world. The company was founded by Dr. Joe Shih in response to national science and technology policy. The team has years of experience in new drug development while working at the National Health Research Institutes and in the biopharma industry. Currently, there are two clinical-stage assets being developed. ABT-101 is being investigated in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who harbor HER2 exon20 insertion mutations, and ABT-301 and being investigated in pMMR/MSS mCRC patients in combination with anti-PD-1. For more information, please visit www.anbogen.com. SOURCE Anbogen Therapeutics GREEN BAY, Wis., Sept. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Associated Banc-Corp (NYSE: ASB) today announced it expects to release third quarter 2024 financial results on Thursday, October 24, 2024, after market close. The Company also expects to host a conference call for investors and analysts at 4:00 p.m. Central Time (CT) on the same day. Interested parties can access the live webcast of the call through the Investor Relations section of the Company's website, http://investor.associatedbank.com. Parties may also dial into the call at 877-407-8037 (domestic) or 201-689-8037 (international) and request the Associated Banc-Corp third quarter 2024 earnings call. The financial tables and an accompanying slide presentation are expected to be available on the Company's website just prior to the call. An audio archive of the webcast is expected to be available on the Company's website approximately fifteen minutes after the call is over. ABOUT ASSOCIATED BANC-CORP Associated Banc-Corp (NYSE: ASB) has total assets of $42 billion and is the largest bank holding company based in Wisconsin. Headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Associated is a leading Midwest banking franchise, offering a full range of financial products and services from nearly 200 banking locations serving more than 100 communities throughout Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota. The Company also operates loan production offices in Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio and Texas. Associated Bank, N.A. is an Equal Housing Lender, Equal Opportunity Lender and Member FDIC. More information about Associated Banc-Corp is available at www.associatedbank.com. FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS Statements made in this presentation which are not purely historical are forward-looking statements, as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This includes any statements regarding management's plans, objectives, or goals for future operations, products or services, and forecasts of its revenues, earnings, or other measures of performance. Such forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of words such as "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "plan," "estimate," "should," "intend," "target," "outlook," "project," "guidance," "forecast," or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are based on current management expectations and, by their nature, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Factors which may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in such forward-looking statements include those identified in the Company's most recent Form 10-K and subsequent Form 10-Qs and other SEC filings, and such factors are incorporated herein by reference. Investor Contact: Ben McCarville Vice President | Director of Investor Relations 920-491-7059 | [email protected] Media Contact: Andrea Kozek Senior Manager, Public Relations 920-491-7518 | [email protected] SOURCE Associated Banc-Corp BEIJING, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The year 2024 marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Over the long course of human history, 75 years is just a fleeting moment in time. But during this time in China, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has united and led the Chinese people to write an epic exploring the development of socialism, and draw a majestic picture in the history of human advancement. A state system must be established when founding a country It has guided the people in establishing and improving the Chinese socialist system, in forming and developing systems for Party leadership, politics, economy, culture, society, eco-civilization, the military and foreign affairs, and in enhancing state governance. The Chinese nation has stood up, achieved higher quality of life and become stronger. "A state system must be established when founding a country." On October 31, 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping quoted this ancient proverb in his speech at the second full assembly of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee. He stressed that a well-founded system is a country's biggest strength, and competition in terms of systems is the most essential rivalry between countries. A country cannot remain stable without a sound system in place. The quote derives from the Book of Lord Shang (Shang Jun Shu) of the Warring States Period (475-221 B.C.). It expressed the view that rules and regulations must be clear when establishing and consolidating state power. A sound system ensures the country's effective governance. Since the launch of reform and opening up in 1978, China has created a rare miracle of rapid economic growth. It has achieved a degree of industrialization that took developed countries several centuries to reach, becoming the world's second largest economy, and its leading manufacturer and trader in goods. Today, it also has the world's largest foreign exchange reserves. China has maintained social harmony and stability for a long time, with people living happy and stable lives, and has been recognized as one of the countries whose residents enjoy a strong sense of security. It is a multi-ethnic country where 56 ethnic groups live together in harmony. The Party and the Central Government consistently uphold and fine-tune the system of regional ethnic autonomy, focus on forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation, and ensure that all ethnic groups work together toward common development and prosperity. For instance, Dulongjiang Township in Yunnan Province, southwest China, once one of the country's poorest areas, has achieved 5G coverage and developed industries with local features. The Dulong ethnic group, who had been living an almost primitive life before 1949, have vanquished absolute poverty, and now enjoy moderately prosperous lives, just like other ethnic groups nationwide. In Altay Prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the horse industry, ice-snow economy, talent cultivation, tourism and folk customs are deeply integrated, culminating in unique industries and tourist destinations. From the east to the west, from the south to the north, projects for ensuring and improving people's well-being have been conducted, enabling residents from all ethnic groups to share more fully and fairly in the benefits of national development. Today, all 56 ethnic groups jointly promote Chinese modernization with full enthusiasm, and are closer than ever in history to realizing the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The closer we get to our goals, the more we need to leverage the political strengths of the Party's leadership and the institutional strengths of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Guided by a well-founded system, the Chinese people are striving to, by the 100th anniversary of the founding of the PRC, develop their country into a great, modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful. TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@cachinachic/video/7419225117999353118?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7227134149436605995 X https://x.com/BeijingReview/status/1839568564954739021 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=467231026278337 YouTube https://youtu.be/zgw4csxw1NA Weibo https://weibo.com/1719349955/OyVrfDAbc Website https://www.bjreview.com/Multimedia/Video/Wisdom_Without_Borders/202409/t20240927_800378900.html SOURCE Beijing Review BEIJING, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Vietnam's aromatic Trung Nguyen coffee, Malaysia's Musang King durian, Thailand's fragrant jasmine rice and Laos' refreshing beerwhat do they all have in common? The answer is they've all made an entrance into the vast Chinese market through the China-ASEAN Expo (CAEXPO), earning rave reviews from delighted consumers. On September 24, the 21st CAEXPO and China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit kicked off in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Like a foodie's fantasy come true and a business bonanza wrapped into one, the expo promised not just to tantalize taste buds but also to turbocharge trade ties between China and its Southeast Asian neighbors. In addressing the opening ceremony, Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang said interactions between China and ASEAN have served as the most successful and dynamic model of cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region, and are a vivid example of the building of a community with a shared future for humanity. Along with the flourishing ties, the expo has become an important supplement to the 10 Plus One cooperation framework between China and ASEAN, providing strong support for regional high-quality development, Luo Yongkun, Deputy Director of the Institute of Southeast Asia and Oceania Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told Beijing Review. The expo has been standing as a testament to the enduring friendship, cooperation and shared prosperity between China and ASEAN countries over the years, Kao Kim Hourn, Secretary General of ASEAN, said at the opening ceremony, adding that since its inception in 2004, the event has evolved into an important platform for dialogue, cooperation and development, covering sectors such as infrastructure, agriculture, technology, education and tourism. "China considers ASEAN a priority in its neighborhood diplomacy and a key region in high-quality Belt and Road cooperation," Ding said. "ASEAN countries, on their part, see in China a trustworthy and close partner." The shared values of peace, cooperation and mutual respect between China and ASEAN form the foundation of their partnership, Vongsey Vissoth, Deputy Prime Minister of Cambodia, said, adding he believes that the two sides can achieve more fruitful results through their cooperation in trade and economy, with the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area bringing new opportunities. China has been ASEAN's largest trading partner for 15 consecutive years, while ASEAN has been China's top trading partner since 2020. The cumulative two-way investment has exceeded $400 billion, according to China's Ministry of Commerce. The CAEXPO has made important contributions to the economic integration between ASEAN and China, facilitating investment flows and cross-border economic opportunities, laying the foundation for building a more connected, resilient and dynamic region, Kao said. In 2010, the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area was officially launched, opening a channel for ASEAN enterprises to gain more efficient and convenient access to the Chinese market. China's Vice Minister of Commerce Li Fei said mutually beneficial cooperation between China and ASEAN countries has reached new levels. Bilateral economic and trade cooperation has continued to upgrade over the years, with positive progress achieved in negotiations for version 3.0 of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area, he added. As early as 2015, China and ASEAN initiated the construction of the China-ASEAN Information Harbor to cultivate new drivers of economic development. Today, nearly 20 projects across nine ASEAN countries in fields such as digital government, digital industries and new communications have been conducted under the framework, Luo said. "We need to leverage the harbor to promote digital connectivity and information sharing, and work for a digital Silk Road," Ding said in his speech. At this year's CAEXPO, a new section was conducted to highlight strategic emerging industries, showcasing the latest progresses and technologies in fields such as digital technology, new energy and intelligent connected vehicles. Leading Chinese green technology companies are also working closely with ASEAN enterprises and investing in new facilities to produce innovative and locally adapted products, contributing to ASEAN's green transition. The ongoing efforts to advance the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 will lead to a broader opening up in investment and services trade, Lei Xiaohua, a researcher with the Southeast Asia Research Institute at the Guangxi Academy of Social Sciences, said, adding that the CAEXPO will be endowed with a new mission in future regional industrial and supply chain cooperation. SOURCE Beijing Review MARLBOROUGH, Mass., Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX) announced it has received Pharmaceuticals and Medical Device Agency (PMDA) approval in Japan for the FARAPULSE Pulsed Field Ablation (PFA) System. The FARAPULSE PFA System, which is indicated for the isolation of pulmonary veins in the treatment of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF), is a novel alternative to standard-of-care thermal ablation treatment. "The FARAPULSE PFA System is the most clinically studied PFA system and its use in treating more than 125,000 patients globally to date continues to reinforce its strong safety, efficacy and efficiency profile," said Nick Spadea-Anello, president, Electrophysiology, Boston Scientific. "The rapid adoption of the FARAPULSE PFA System, which is now approved in more than 65 countries, indicates a paradigm shift for the treatment of paroxysmal AF one that has clinical benefits to both physicians and patients and we look forward to bringing this differentiated technology to Japan." AF can lead to increased risk of death, stroke and heart failure1 and affects more than one million people in Japan,2 while worldwide AF prevalence is conservatively estimated to impact 38 million individuals.3 Unlike traditional thermal ablation, which uses extreme heat or cold to ablate cardiac tissue associated with AF, the FARAPULSE PFA System uses non-thermal electrical fields that avoid damage to surrounding structures. "Clinical evidence and extensive real-world use have demonstrated the FARAPULSE PFA System to be an efficient and more predictable procedure than traditional thermal ablation and a proven safe technology," said Kazuhiro Satomi, M.D., Ph.D., professor, Department of Cardiology and director, Heart Rhythm Center, Tokyo Medical University Hospital. "This technology has the potential to rapidly advance clinical practice and improve outcomes and is anticipated to further expand the range of treatment options for AF that can be tailored to each patient's condition." Adding to its robust body of clinical evidence for the FARAPULSE PFA System, Boston Scientific expects to initiate the OPTION-A clinical trial in Japan, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong in early 2025 to study the safety and efficacy of concomitant procedures using the FARAPULSE PFA System for cardiac ablation and the WATCHMAN FLX Pro Left Atrial Appendage Closure Device. Boston Scientific plans to launch the FARAPULSE PFA System in Japan in the coming weeks, following reimbursement approval. More information on the FARAPULSE PFA System is available here. About Boston Scientific Boston Scientific transforms lives through innovative medical technologies that improve the health of patients around the world. As a global medical technology leader for more than 45 years, we advance science for life by providing a broad range of high-performance solutions that address unmet patient needs and reduce the cost of health care. Our portfolio of devices and therapies helps physicians diagnose and treat complex cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, oncological, neurological and urological diseases and conditions. Learn more at www.bostonscientific.com and connect on LinkedIn and X, formerly Twitter. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements may be identified by words like "anticipate," "expect," "project," "believe," "plan," "estimate," "intend" and similar words. These forward-looking statements are based on our beliefs, assumptions and estimates using information available to us at the time and are not intended to be guarantees of future events or performance. These forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements regarding our business plans, clinical trials, and product launches, performance and impact. If our underlying assumptions turn out to be incorrect, or if certain risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results could vary materially from the expectations and projections expressed or implied by our forward-looking statements. These factors, in some cases, have affected and in the future (together with other factors) could affect our ability to implement our business strategy and may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by the statements expressed in this press release. As a result, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any of our forward-looking statements. Factors that may cause such differences include, among other things: future economic, competitive, reimbursement and regulatory conditions; manufacturing, distribution and supply chain disruptions and cost increases; variations in outcomes of ongoing and future clinical trials and market studies; new product introductions; demographic trends; intellectual property; litigation; financial market conditions; and future business decisions made by us and our competitors. All of these factors are difficult or impossible to predict accurately and many of them are beyond our control. For a further list and description of these and other important risks and uncertainties that may affect our future operations, see Part I, Item 1A Risk Factors in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which we may update in Part II, Item 1A Risk Factors in Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q we have filed or will file hereafter. We disclaim any intention or obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect any change in our expectations or in events, conditions or circumstances on which those expectations may be based, or that may affect the likelihood that actual results will differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, except as required by law. This cautionary statement is applicable to all forward-looking statements contained in this document. CONTACTS: Becca Johnson Media Relations [email protected] Jon Monson Investor Relations +1 (508) 683-5450 [email protected] 1 Bordignon S, Chiara Corti M, Bilato C. Atrial Fibrillation Associated with Heart Failure, Stroke and Mortality. J Atr Fibrillation. 2012 Jun 15;5(1):467. doi: 10.4022/jafib.467. PMID: 28496747; PMCID: PMC5153082. 2 Ohsawa M, Okayama A, Sakata K, Kato K, Itai K, Onoda T, Ueshima H. Rapid increase in estimated number of persons with atrial fibrillation in Japan: an analysis from national surveys on cardiovascular diseases in 1980, 1990 and 2000. J Epidemiol. 2005 Sep;15(5):194-6. doi: 10.2188/jea.15.194. PMID: 16195640; PMCID: PMC7904304. 3 Lippi G, Sanchis-Gomar F., et al. Global epidemiology of atrial fibrillation: An increasing epidemic and public health challenge. Int J Stroke. 2021; Feb 16:217-221. SOURCE Boston Scientific Corporation Hurricane Helene has weakened as it moved across the Gulf of Mexico toward the northwest coast of Florida. The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) has reported that the storm, which hit the state as a Category 4 hurricane, has been downgraded to a tropical storm. The center warned, however, that the front remains dangerous and that it expects catastrophic and life-threatening flash flooding, as well as landslides and burst river banks. Below are the key points about this natural phenomenon and the precautions that residents of the southeast coast of the United States should take. Helene has wreaked havoc across nearly 800 miles, from South Florida to the Appalachian Mountains, as it moved inland with devastating consequences. Coming ashore as one of the strongest hurricanes to hit Florida, Helene brought intense winds and powerful surf that inundated neighborhoods in the densely populated Tampa Bay area, leaving behind scenes of destruction and despair. Recovery efforts are focused on clearing debris and fallen trees, particularly in the Big Bend region, where residents reported extensive damage reminiscent of the aftermath of a nuclear bomb. Emergency services in Pinellas County received an unprecedented volume of 911 calls, conducting hundreds of rescues in response to the flooding. As Helene continues its path north, the storm has left an estimated 4.5 million people without power across multiple states, exacerbating the risks of heat-related illness as temperatures rise. Flash flood emergencies have been declared in parts of North Carolina, with mandatory evacuations ordered due to dangerously high river levels. Where could Hurricane Helene impact? The NHC has reported that Helene is now a tropical storm after hitting the coast of Florida on Thursday night. During the early hours of Friday morning it will advance to Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, where power outages affecting more than two million people have already been reported. The state of emergency has also been extended to Virginia and Alabama. Authorities had issued warnings for coastal areas, urging residents to complete necessary preparations and evacuate if instructed to do so. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency and has ordered response teams to restore power services after the storm passed. What rank is Helene and what rank could she reach? Helene is currently a tropical storm; forecasters had warned Thursday that Helene would reach Category 4 status and bring heavy rain and destructive winds along its path. It made landfall Thursday along the Big Bend coast, an area that has experienced several severe weather events in the past year, including Hurricane Idalia and Hurricane Debby. It was downgraded Friday, but maintained damaging wind gusts, with maximums of 110 kilometers (68 miles) per hour. A man covers the windows of a business with wood to protect them from the arrival of Helene in Tarpon Springs, Florida. Joe Raedle (Getty Images) Hurricane victims At least 19 people have died as a result of the passage of Helene: Seven in Florida, 11 in Georgia and one in South Carolina. One person died and another was injured in Charlotte, North Carolina, after a tree fell on a house. In Tampa, Florida, one fatality was also reported when a fence hit a vehicle that was on a highway. In Georgia, there were two deaths due to a tornado. A landslide has affected four homes near the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, and the residents have reportedly not yet been found. Authorities say workers are still searching for the residents, but have had not yet located them. Preparations and alerts for the arrival of Helene Authorities had issued evacuation orders in several areas, especially in Big Bend, where the storm surge was potentially deadly, covering areas with enough water to submerge two-storey homes. The state government had urged residents to seek shelter on higher ground and avoid long drives. Hours before the hurricane made landfall, the NHC noted that Helene had such a wide wind field that up to 60 of Floridas 67 counties would experience gusts exceeding 39 miles per hour, with the exception of the western Panhandle. Residents on Floridas west coast also prepared for the storm, filling sandbags and protecting their properties. In North Carolina, local officials ordered mandatory evacuations along the Swannanoa River due to expectations that it would reach its highest level ever recorded. A flash flood emergency was issued for Asheville, North Carolina, as forecasters warned of a high risk in the area. In Georgia, the Fulton County Emergency Management Agency initially warned of the threat of high winds, but later lifted that warning while continuing to urge residents to avoid travel until conditions improved. The region experienced significant rainfall prior to Helenes landfall, making it more susceptible to flooding. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition BEIJING, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report from chinadaily.com.cn: It's hard to imagine that Mohamed Jihad, a young man from Egypt, could perform a traditional Chinese tongue twister in such an articulate way. Learning Chinese When Mohamed was choosing his university major, he initially intended to apply to the English department. His mother, however, offered him different advice: "You've known English since you were young." "Look, everything, including what we buy, is made in China, so choosing the Chinese language should be helpful for you." Thanks to his mother's wisdom, Mohamed embarked on his journey of learning Chinese. Mohamed graduated from Ain Shams University in Egypt with a degree in Chinese in September 2019, and then pursued his master's degree in broadcasting and anchoring from the Communication University of China. When Mohamed first began studying broadcasting and anchoring in Chinese, he often found himself confused what is the lower abdomen (dantian)? How does one sink qi to the dantian (abdomen)? During that time, Mohamed practiced how to open his voice, reciting tongue twisters, and even performing xiangsheng (cross-talk comedy) and reciting guankou (rapid-fire storytelling). After a while, his classmates were astonished to find that he had become the best Chinese speaker in the class. After graduating from the Communication University of China, Mohamed became a foreign expert at the China International Communication Group, focusing on the dissemination of Chinese culture. He says that, in the past, he used to strive for every word and pronunciation to be standard, but now he rarely considers pronunciation: "Because what people want to hear is not how standard the pronunciation is, they want to hear if the story is true and if it can attract them." Explaining China to the world After learning the operating model of shared bikes in China, Mohamed shared his thoughts on how Egypt could emulate this on his Facebook account, tagging the Egyptian Minister of Transport. Two days later, he saw the official account of the Egyptian Ministry of Transport reposting his thoughts, commenting, "Great idea, looking forward to implementation." A year later, Egypt's capital began implementing the "Cairo Bike" sharing project as a pilot for addressing traffic congestion issues. "We learn a lot of things from China. The power of humanity lies in its unity," Mohamed says. "I think China can really set a very good example for the whole world in this respect." During his studies in China, Mohamed says he could feel the friendliness of the Chinese people towards Egypt and their enthusiasm for learning about foreign cultures. In July 2023, when Mohamed graduated from the Communication University, he wore Egyptian pharaoh attire to receive his certificate on stage. The photo of him wearing the pharaoh attire soon went viral. Many Chinese people began to learn about Egypt and pharaoh clothing. This gave Mohamed the opportunity to tell Egyptian stories to Chinese audiences and he subsequently changed the name of his Chinese social media account to the "Egyptian Pharaoh." Mohamed says he is continuously working to build a bridge that allows his Egyptian friends to better understand China: "If I can be this bridge, it would be a great honor; truly, a very, very significant one." SOURCE chinadaily.com.cn C3's 29th Dispensary Nationwide Offers Exceptional Value, Deals, and Customer Service to Cannabis Consumers in Metropolis and Surrounding Areas ANN ARBOR, Mich., Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- C3 Industries ("C3" or "the Company"), a leading multi-state cannabis company dedicated to crafting premium cannabis experiences for consumers, announced the opening of High Profile Metropolis; the Company's third retail location in Illinois and 29th nationwide. C3 Industries Opens Third Illinois Dispensary with Launch of High Profile Metropolis IL Post this High Profile Cannabis Shop Dispensary Metropolis High Profile Metropolis is located at 1801 E. 5th St., Metropolis, IL 62960 , the new dispensary is now open and serving cannabis consumers 21 and older in-store and through online pre-order services starting today, with a grand opening celebration where shoppers can take advantage of 25% off the entire store, 9/27 - 9/29. "High Profile Metropolis broadens our retail presence in Illinois, enabling us to connect with a wider customer base through our exceptional customer care, diverse product range, and competitive pricing," said Ankur Rungta, CEO and cofounder of C3 Industries. "We are thrilled to bring the full C3 experience to the Metropolis community, from our high-quality cannabis to our commitment to exceptional customer service. Our new location provides a welcoming environment for both new and experienced consumers to discover premium products at great prices." Famously known as the "Home of Superman," Metropolis is well-positioned for the growth of C3's retail expansion in Illinois. With Kentucky located right across the Ohio River, and Paducah just 15 miles away, High Profile Metropolis is strategically located to serve communities in southern Illinois and surrounding areas. "High Profile Metropolis represents an important milestone in our continued expansion across Illinois and the Midwest," added Vishal Rungta, President and cofounder of C3 Industries. "By establishing a strong presence in southern Illinois, we are able to better serve the broader region and contribute to the growth of the state's cannabis industry. We look forward to becoming an integral part of the Metropolis community and offering residents a premier cannabis shopping experience." The new dispensary boasts a knowledgeable, friendly staff dedicated to providing personalized recommendations and educational insights to both seasoned cannabis enthusiasts and first-time consumers. Open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., High Profile Metropolis features a variety of value offers, including: Pre-Packed Eighths: $79 (Quarter Oz) / $149 (Half Oz) / $279 (1 Oz) $79 (Quarter Oz) / (Half Oz) / (1 Oz) Carts: 2 for $85 / 4 for $159 2 for / 4 for Pre-Rolls: 3 for $29 / 6 for $57 / 15 for $139 3 for / 6 for / 15 for Edibles: 2 for $25 / 5 for $59 New customers can also take advantage of a tiered discount program, saving $10 off their first two visits with a minimum purchase. In addition to these deals, High Profile Metropolis offers everyday discounts, including: Medical Patient Discount: 25% off 25% off Veterans, Wisdom (55+), and Industry Professionals: 10% off (with valid ID, not stackable) High Profile Metropolis offers customers the opportunity to join the High Roller Loyalty program with the ability to earn points on every dollar, with the option to redeem points for discounts and reduce cannabis pricing. High Roller members also have the ability to earn points upon signing up, along with early access to special events and offers, referral perks, double points on select days and members-only bonus discounts. For more information or to place an online order, visit highprofilecannabis.com or download the High Profile Cannabis Shop mobile app . About C3 Industries C3 Industries is a multi-state, vertically integrated cannabis company headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with multiple product brands including the award-winning Cloud Cover Cannabis and Galactic Cannabis, and a retail network, High Profile Cannabis Shop. The Company, through its subsidiaries, retails high-quality cannabis products at its High Profile locations in Michigan, Missouri, Massachusetts, Illinois, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Additional High Profile retail locations are scheduled to open throughout 2024 in New Jersey, Missouri and Connecticut. C3 currently operates almost 220,000 sq. ft. of total cultivation and processing facilities, with 125,000 sq. ft in Michigan, 37,000 sq. ft. in Massachusetts, 55,000 sq. ft. in Missouri. The company also has a 55,000 sq. ft. expansion nearing completion in Missouri and a 58,000 sq. ft. Connecticut facility in development. For more information about C3, visit www.c3industries.com . Additional information about High Profile Cannabis Shop can be found by signing up for the company's newsletters at www.highprofilecannabis.com and on Instagram at @highprofileofficial. Additional information on Cloud Cover Cannabis can be found at www.cloudcovercannabis.com and @cloudcovercannabis on Instagram. Additional information on Galactic Cannabis can be found at www.galacticcannabis.com and @galactic.cannabis on Instagram. Media Contact: Scott Franco VP Marketing, C3 Industries [email protected] SOURCE C3 Industries ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- As Hurricane Helene brings devastating, life-threatening conditions to communities across the Southeast, Catholic Charities USA (CCUSA), the official domestic relief agency of the Catholic Church in the U.S., has launched a dedicated disaster relief donation campaign. All funds raised will assist those displaced or suffering because of the storm. To make a gift today in support of families and individuals whose lives have been upended by Hurricane Helene, please visit the CCUSA Hurricane Helene relief donation page. One hundred percent of all donations will be allocated to local Catholic Charities agencies, which will provide critical relief including shelter, food and other humanitarian aid to members of their communities. Gifts can also be made by texting "Hurricane" to 20406. Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane, and the storm continues to wreak havoc as it moves north. Dangerously powerful winds and record storm surges have driven thousands from their homes, and millions have lost power. Tragically, at least three people have died. CCUSA and its member agencies around the country have a long history of rapidly mobilizing following disasters not only to meet the immediate needs but also to provide critical, long-term support to communities as they rebuild. Every year, thanks to the generosity of thousands of concerned donors, the Catholic Charities network responds to roughly 60 disasters, from hurricanes and tornadoes to fires and floods. "Hurricane Helene is one of the most dangerous storms to hit the United States in years, and we won't know the full extent of the damage for some time," CCUSA President and CEO Kerry Alys Robinson said. "As always, the staff and volunteers of Catholic Charities agencies are springing into action to bring comfort and hope to their neighbors in need. Please join us in providing critical support to the immediate and long-term relief efforts." To support survivors of Hurricane Helene, make a gift today. A member of Caritas Internationalis, Catholic Charities USA (CCUSA) is the membership office for Catholic Charities agencies nationwide. CCUSA's members provide help and create hope for more than 15 million people a year regardless of religious, social or economic backgrounds. To learn more about CCUSA, please visit our website at CatholicCharitiesUSA.org or contact Kevin Brennan, Vice President for Media Relations and Executive Communications, at [email protected]. SOURCE Catholic Charities USA BEIJING, Sept. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Fan Zaixuan, an expert in mural restoration, still vividly remembers the moment he first arrived at the Mogao Grottoes in the city of Dunhuang on the night of March 31, 1981. "I could only hear the sound of the wind chimes from the Nine-story Building, which was very mysterious, and I was so excited that I didn't sleep for the whole night." The Mogao Grottoes is the world's largest and best-preserved Buddhist cave art site, with 735 caves spanning a cliff face 1,700 meters long, containing over 45,000 square meters of murals and more than 2,000 polychrome sculptures. Fan, who is now in his 60s, has been working to restore the murals in the Mogao Grottoes for more than 40 years. "So far, I have restored an area that's probably the size of a large cave in the Mogao Grottoes," he told CGTN. Fan knows better than anyone that restoring ancient artwork requires continuous and meticulous work from generation to generation. He developed his skills with the help of older preservers, such as Li Yunhe, who is in his 10th decade. Li was the Dunhuang Academy's first full-time cultural heritage restorer. He has been dedicated to the cause since 1956. Now, Fan is the mentor, passing down his knowledge and experience to students. He hopes the younger generation will, in turn, continue the "Mogao spirit." Dai Chuan, one of Fan's students, was born in the 1990s. However, he has already spent over a decade working to protect the murals in the Mogao Grottoes. "I am also willing to make the inheritance of Dunhuang culture my lifelong endeavor," Dai said with determination. Chinese President Xi Jinping made the Mogao Grottoes the first stop on his inspection tour to northwest China's Gansu Province in August 2019. He hailed Dunhuang culture as "a bright pearl in the long river of world civilization, and precious historical material for the study of the politics, economy, military, culture and art of various ethnic groups in ancient China." By the end of 2022, the academy had compiled a digital data collection on 278 caves, image processing for 164 of them, and the 3D reconstruction of 145 painted sculptures and seven ruins while delivering a panoramic tour program for 162 caves. 'Preserving the roots' An old Chinese proverb goes, "All things in the world have their laws for survival and development, but they know how to preserve their roots." President Xi has echoed this sentiment, often emphasizing the importance of protecting cultural heritage. He believes that the longevity of Chinese civilization is due to this fundamental understanding of its roots. "Because of this sense of roots, Chinese civilization has grown and flourished till today." Over the past decade, China has enhanced its systems and policies for protecting cultural heritage. By the end of 2021, there were 108 million sets of state-owned movable cultural relics and about 767,000 immovable ones in China. To date, China has 59 sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, ranking second globally. It also has 43 items on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List, making it the country with the most listings in the world. Initiated by China and joined by over 20 Asian countries, the Alliance for Cultural Heritage in Asia (ACHA) was established in 2023, putting a spotlight on promoting Asian cultural heritage conservation cooperation and inheriting and developing Asian civilizations in various forms. Under the framework of the ACHA, China has been involved in 33 joint archaeological projects in 19 Asian countries and participated in conservation projects at 11 historical monuments in six Asian countries. The establishment of the ACHA is a major part of the Global Civilization Initiative proposed by President Xi, which called for respecting the diversity of civilizations, advocating the common values of humanity, valuing the inheritance and innovation of civilizations, and strengthening international people-to-people exchanges and cooperation. Over the years, China has stayed committed to and taken concrete actions toward the harmonious coexistence of various civilizations in the world. The country has signed cooperation agreements with 157 countries in the fields of culture, cultural heritage and tourism. https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-09-23/What-is-China-doing-to-preserve-pass-on-and-share-its-culture--1x87ZjqBig0/p.html SOURCE CGTN Chinese and Russian Influence Rising, US and Europe in Decline African Youth Survey 2024 Coinciding with UN General Assembly and Summit of the Future Africa's youth reveal which foreign powers will be the Most Influential Partners in Africa's Future African youth urging their leaders to play a stronger role on global affairs By 2030, one in three youth on the planet will be African a critical demographic in shaping the world's future Youth want Change Now findings of African Youth Survey across 16 African nations NEW YORK CITY, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ - As world leaders are meeting in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, findings of the African Youth Survey 2024, the most comprehensive research into Africa's youth, reveals that China and Russia are winning the war for the hearts and minds of Africa's youth, a critical demographic for the future of the planet, as Africa is increasingly finding itself as a proxy for conflict between East and Western powers. Published by the Ichikowitz Family Foundation, a leading African NGO, the recently launched African Youth Survey 2024, provide unparalleled insights on how Africa's youth regard the role of global powers, in view of Africa's growing global significance and the reinforcement of multiple poles of power in the world order that have diversified Africa's pool of potential international partners. The findings arrive as a clarion call to the UNGA's 'Pact For The Future,' serving as a critical input to the Summit of the Future's quest for groundbreaking interventions. With a laser focus on the Global South and the urgent necessity to meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Africa's youth are unapologetically asserting their influence, demanding that their continent's leaders seize the reins of their own destiny. "Africa's youth are no longer content to be bystanders in global discourse. They are ready to rewrite the narrative, and they have every intention of wielding the pen themselves," said Ivor Ichikowitz, Founder and Chairman of the Ichikowitz Foundation. "The world must pay attention to Africa's emerging force the youth. As the fastest-growing demographic, they are the heartbeat of the future. But will they rise as architects of a new era, or be relegated to passive spectators? Our African Youth Survey 2024 reveals that they are sounding the alarm, urging politicians and decision-makers across the region and globally to importantly navigate modern foreign influence with caution. The West can no longer afford to ignore the reality: disengagement and disregard for Africa's youth will have far-reaching consequences. This is not a plea for attention; it's a demand for action." "The historic disparities in influence are clear - Our continent represents nearly 30% of votes as the largest regional bloc in the U.N, yet not one of our countries holds a permanent seat at the U.N. Security Council. But we have in New York City a landmark opportunity for African voices to be heard by leadership at home and abroad - and for global action to be taken in response to them". Foreign Influences The Survey reveals that China has been ultimately seen as the most influential global power, and in fact, the most beneficial global power (76 percent say it has influence while 82 percent call the character of that influence positive), followed then by the United States (70 percent influential: 79 percent positive influence). The EU's influence has declined from 72% (2020) to 59%, the United Kingdom is down from 64% in 2020 to 56% and France has dropped from 58% (2020) to 51%. 72 percent of youth polled suggest concern today about foreign influence on their countries and Africa as a whole, reflecting a greater awareness of Russia's rising role. Ukraine-Russia War In The Eyes Of African Youth Russia's influence in Africa has risen since 2020, with 41% suggesting it is a leading foreign influencer on the continent, and 68% suggesting that influence is positive. Indeed perceptions of Russian influence have spiked markedly in several African states since 2022 notably in Malawi, where it rose from 14 to 49 percent, and in South Africa, where it grew from 34 to 57 percent in the same two-year period. Directly or indirectly, these shifts trace back to its war against Ukraine, as more than half (57 percent) of those who have a positive view of Russia say it is because they are providing grain and fertilizer, and this is an area in which it has forcibly displaced Ukraine a historic supplier to Africa. The question of who is to blame for the Russian-Ukrainian War is also mixed, as more than two-thirds 68 percent of respondents believe Russia's war in Ukraine could have been avoided, yet surprisingly, nearly a third (32 percent) lay blame for the war at the feet of the U.S., NATO and the EU. Only 23 percent specifically say that Russia is to blame (another 21 percent say all actors share blame). "Let's be clearRussia's influence campaign is not only deliberate but effective. Africa is now the frontline of a struggle for global influence, and the youth are the prize," warned Ichikowitz. "Our leaders must wake up to this reality and protect the sovereignty of the next generation. This is not just about land or resources; it's a battle for the very soul of the continent." Yet despite high levels of concern about the influence of foreign powers, African youth do not want their leaders to shy away from the global platform - When asked what the main priority for national leaders should be, youth are looking to their leaders to balance both international and domestic issues nearly half want the focus to be on addressing domestic matters (45%), while the other half are split between increasing their country's regional influence (23%) and expanding their country's influence on the global stage (29%). However, regardless of where youth want their leaders to focus attention, there is clear confidence in the ability of African leaders to influence issues on the global stage with two-thirds (64%) agreeing. "The African Youth Survey is a vital pulse check on the hopes, fears, and demands of Africa's next generation. As the world convenes in New York, it is clear: Africa's youth are not just participants in this storythey are its protagonists. The question is no longer whether they will be heard, but whether the world will finally listen." NOTES TO EDITORS: Fielded across 16 African countries, the African Youth Survey offers an unprecedented sounding on how Africa's rising generation sees their current situation, and is now in its third iteration since its launch in 2020. Over this period, the one-of-a-kind, multi-country poll has identified trends across a range of issues of importance to young Africans. Conducted by PSB Insights, a global leader in public opinion research, to-date there is no comparable barometer of the opinions of African youth in size or scope - The African Youth Survey is widely recognized as one of the most important research studies on young people living, learning, and working across Africa. Six new countries have been included in the 2024 Survey: Botswana, Cameroon, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Tanzania, and Namibia. The ten other countries surveyed are Congo Brazzaville, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zambia. This brings the total number of countries polled to 25, with almost 15,000 interviews having been conducted since the inception of the African Youth Survey in 2020. SOURCE Ichikowitz Family Foundation Firm's staff has grown by 20% in 2024, prepared to deploy significant capital NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- CoinFund , one of the world's oldest and most experienced cryptonative investment firms and a registered investment adviser, today announced the growth of its Investment Team with three new hires. In addition, the firm announced the internal appointment of a new Head of Business Development and Investor Relations. The moves reflect CoinFund's deep conviction in the investment potential of the new internet, and ensures the firm is well-positioned to continue to deploy significant seed and early venture stage capital. Across its current $157M Seed IV (2023) and $320M Ventures I (2022) funds, CoinFund invests in early stage crypto, blockchain and web3 companies, working to champion and back the leaders of the new internet. The firm partners with visionary founders throughout the lifecycle of their companies to assist them to become category leaders in emerging sectors. The CoinFund portfolio spans a nearly a decade of investments in the crypto ecosystem, including such areas as developer infrastructure, DeFi, fintech and real world assets, DePIN, DeAI, a variety of consumer services, as well as major base layer blockchains themselves. Growing the Team as Crypto Adoption Continues, More Hires Expected The global cryptocurrency market has evolved through 2024 with a wave of developments, signaling an environment ripe for new projects and emerging sectors. This year has brought a sharper focus on regulatory clarity, alongside the introduction of ETFs in the U.S. that directly invest in Bitcoin and Ether, marking significant milestones toward the industry's pursuit of institutional adoption. As of September 18, 2024, DeFi total value locked has once again grown to nearly $80B , up from a high of $54B in 2023, signaling onchain activity is slowly trending back toward prior cycle highs. Globally, crypto market capitalization has surpassed $2.14 trillion as of September 18, 2024; in March of this year, Bitcoin set a record high of $73,750 and continues to outperform the S&P on an annualized basis. These developments contribute to the firm's positive long-term outlook for blockchain and digital asset adoption worldwide. David Pakman, Managing Partner and Head of Venture Investments at CoinFund commented: "As digital assets continue to become a globally accepted investment category, CoinFund believes the best investing performance requires deep specialization in the crypto and blockchain ecosystems. The blockchain investment landscape is expanding: by geography, with more fruitful sub-sectors, more credible baselayers and a more mature developer stack, made more interesting as we get closer to regulatory clarity in the most critical regions. All of this is leading to more users onchain, more use cases for crypto and more and more developers building on decentralized platforms. To maintain our edge, we are excited to add to our investment team, enhancing our ability to identify and capitalize on the most promising high-growth opportunities in a rapidly evolving landscape." Seasoned blockchain investor Bobby Beniers joins CoinFund as a Principal Investor focused on opportunities from Seed to Series A. He brings deep crypto infrastructure expertise and a passion for disruptive use cases like DePIN and DeAI. Before CoinFund, he served as an Investment Partner at Polychain Capital where he made a number of high quality investments including Movement Labs (Series A), Rio Network (Seed, acquired), and others. Beniers began his investing career at the tiger-cub hedge fund Matrix Capital covering crypto and software. Prior to becoming an investor, Beniers developed his passion for technology as a software engineer. Beniers holds a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science and Economics from Williams College. Beniers commented: "Since 2015, CoinFund has managed to remain on the bleeding-edge of crypto innovation while molding an organization that, today, is purpose-built to amplify the efforts of founders. I'm thrilled to join them for my next chapter and look forward to support the mission to produce extraordinary outcomes for our LPs." CoinFund also announced the addition of two Associates for its Seed and Venture investment strategies: George Christopher has joined CoinFund as a Senior Associate, applying his experience evaluating, investing in, and supporting best-in-class technology companies. Christopher was formerly at Battery Ventures where he focused on investments in growth-stage software. Prior to Battery, he worked as an investment banking analyst at AGC Partners. Christopher graduated from Dartmouth College with a Bachelor's Degree in Economics. The firm welcomes Jonathan Rotbard as an Associate. Rotbard brings more than four years of expertise analyzing and investing in the digital asset landscape. Prior to CoinFund, Rotbard served as a Venture Investor at Corner Ventures where he focused on both private and liquid crypto investments. He began his career in blockchain as an Investment Banking Analyst at Moelis where he worked on deals across the crypto ecosystem, including the Voyager and BlockFi bankruptcies. Rotbard holds a Bachelor's of Business Administration from the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business. All three hires will bolster the Seed and Ventures Investment team led by Pakman, Alex Felix and Jake Brukhman. CoinFund expects to continue hiring investors in addition to subject matter experts across the organization. Pakman added: "Achieving outstanding returns for our LPs is our true north star. I believe we've honed an approach over nearly ten years that challenges our investors to think long-term, encourages non-consensus thinking and mixes individual responsibility with the value of a seasoned and proven investing team. It has never been more important to invest in and nurture a free and decentralized internet. CoinFund is an exceptional place to advance your investing career and build a better future." Institutional-Grade Service CoinFund's staff has grown by 20% in 2024, with the addition of four subject matter specialists previously announced in July. Equally important to its culture, CoinFund strives to promote from within; the firm shares that Abbey Hamstra has been promoted to Head of Business Development and Investor Relations. Hamstra joined CoinFund in November 2021 as an Associate and has held roles of increasing responsibility since, most recently serving as Director of Business Development and Investor Relations. "As CoinFund continues to scale its investments in blockchain and digital assets, we've seen more established and long term institutional backers seeking manager relationships," commented Alex Felix, cofounder and Chief Investment Officer, CoinFund. "The ongoing maturation of the industry represents one of the most compelling mega-trends of our time. Abbey has a seasoned view and proven ability to help our partners understand this unique opportunity and we're proud to announce her appointment." Founded in 2015 at a Brooklyn kitchen table by Highbridge Capital Management and Amazon alum Jake Brukhman, and later joined by co-founder and American Capital alum Felix, CoinFund is now supported by a world class interdisciplinary global team of 30 people with more than 100 investments across six investment vehicles. Some of the firm's recent seed and venture fund investments include liquid restaking platform Ether.fi ; the onchain open professional network Icebreaker ; global compute resource platform Prime Intellect ; blockchain climate technology company Raad Labs ; smart account module innovator Rhinestone ; and STON.fi , leading decentralized exchange in the TON ecosystem. More detail on CoinFund's portfolio companies can be found at https://coinfund.io/portfolio/. CoinFund is committed to supporting the development of the decentralized ecosystem and leveraging the potential of blockchain innovation to drive long-term value creation. About CoinFund CoinFund is one of the world's first cryptonative investment firms and a registered investment adviser founded in 2015. The firm champions the leaders of the new internet, powered by foresight as active investors to achieve extraordinary outcomes. CoinFund invests in seed, venture, and liquid opportunities within the blockchain sector with a focus on digital assets, decentralization technologies, and key enabling infrastructure. For more information, visit www.coinfund.io, LinkedIn or join us on X. SOURCE CoinFund TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ - ContactMonkey is pleased to announce it has ranked No. 163 on the 2024 Report on Business magazine's ranking of Canada's Top Growing Companies. Canada's Top Growing Companies ranks Canadian companies on three-year revenue growth. ContactMonkey earned its spot with three-year growth of 279%. In 2023, while still fully bootstrapped and profitable, ContactMonkey surpassed $10 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) leading to its recognition as one of Canada's top-growing companies for three consecutive years. This is a milestone revenue achievement that less than 0.4% of B2B SaaS companies ever realize. Further, the company ranked 47th in Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 program (2023), secured $55M in Series A funding from Updata Partners, and was accepted into the C100 Growth Program - all while maintaining its growth trajectory. "ContactMonkey is constantly evolving to meet the changing needs of internal communicators. Our global clients struggle to reach employees across languages and time zones. This is why we launched our multi-language email feature that allows organizations to send and measure campaigns in multiple languages. We operate with a deep curiosity and bias for action which helps us anticipate and act on market demandI attribute this to our growth," says Scott Pielsticker, founder and CEO of ContactMonkey." Canada's Top Growing Companies is an editorial ranking that was launched in 2019 to celebrate the achievements of innovative businesses in Canada. To qualify for this voluntary program, companies had to complete an in-depth application process and fulfill revenue requirements. In total, 417 companies earned a spot on this year's ranking. The full list of 2024 winners along with editorial coverage is published in the October issue of Report on Business magazine. The list is out now and online here . "Our annual ranking of Canada's Top Growing Companies reflects the sector-spanning ingenuity of this country's entrepreneurs and corporate leaders," says Dawn Calleja, Editor of Report on Business magazine. "And we think it's important to tell their stories, to help inspire the next generation of up-and-comers across the country." "The Globe and Mail congratulates this year's Canada's Top Growing Companies' winners for achieving exceptional growth and resilience in facing business challenges," says Andrew Saunders, CEO of The Globe and Mail. "It is a testament to dedication, strategic vision, and innovative drive." About The Globe and Mail The Globe and Mail is Canada's foremost news media company, leading the national discussion and causing policy change through brave and independent journalism since 1844. With our award-winning coverage of business, politics and national affairs, The Globe and Mail newspaper reaches 6.2 million readers every week in our print or digital formats, and Report on Business magazine reaches 2.9 million readers in print and digital every issue. Our investment in innovative data science means that as the world continues to change, so does The Globe. The Globe and Mail is owned by Woodbridge, the investment arm of the Thomson family. About ContactMonkey ContactMonkey is an internal communications platform that integrates with Outlook, Gmail, Microsoft Teams, HRIS platforms, and SMS to streamline employee engagement. With a powerful email builder and advanced analytics, it enables communicators to create, send, and measure engaging employee emails. ContactMonkey also offers data-driven insights through click maps, real-time surveys, and comprehensive metrics to help organizations optimize their internal communications and boost productivity. To learn more, visit www.contactmonkey.com . SOURCE ContactMonkey Minimal residual disease (MRD)-negativity rate of 10-5 more than doubled by 12 months with DARZALEX FASPRO in maintenance therapy compared to lenalidomide alone, resulting in improvement in 30-month progression-free survival RIO DE JANEIRO, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) today announced data from three studies highlighting clinical efficacy of DARZALEX (daratumumab) and DARZALEX FASPRO (daratumumab and hyaluronidase-fihj) in maintenance regimens. Data from the Phase 3 AURIGA study show DARZALEX FASPRO plus lenalidomide (D-R) maintenance therapy following autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) significantly increases MRD-negative conversion rates at 12 months compared to lenalidomide (R) maintenance alone in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (NDMM). DARZALEX FASPRO plus lenalidomide maintenance therapy also demonstrated a potential benefit in progression-free survival (PFS) with no new safety concerns.1 Data were featured in an oral presentation at the 2024 International Myeloma Society (IMS) Annual Meeting (Abstract #OA 45). "The significant improvement in MRD-negative conversion rates and the promising progression-free survival data suggest that this maintenance regimen has the potential to improve longer-term outcomes for patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma who are transplant-eligible," said Dr. Ashraf Badros, professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Director of the Multiple Myeloma Service at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center within University of Maryland Medical Center in Maryland.* "Combining DARZALEX FASPRO with lenalidomide in the maintenance setting offers an advantage over lenalidomide alone for patients who are newly diagnosed with multiple myeloma and anti-CD38 naive." In the AURIGA study, the D-R arm demonstrated a higher MRD-negative (10-5) conversion rate by 12 months compared to the R arm (50.5 percent vs 18.8 percent, odds ratio [OR] 4.51, P<0.0001) and a superior > 6-month sustained MRD-negative rate (35.4 percent vs 13.9 percent, OR 3.40, P=0.0005). Complete response (CR) or better rates were also higher with D-R: 75.8 percent vs 61.4 percent (P=0.0255). The increased MRD-negative conversion rate resulted in a PFS favoring D-R (hazard ratio 0.53; 95% CI, 0.29-0.97) with an estimated 30-month rate of 82.7 percent compared to 66.4 percent for the R arm.1 "MRD-negativity is an important predictor of long-term progression-free survival for patients with multiple myeloma, and the FDA Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee emphasized the value of this when it unanimously decided that MRD could be used as a primary endpoint in multiple myeloma clinical trials as a surrogate for PFS," said Imran Khan, Vice President, Medical Affairs, Hematology, Innovative Medicine, Johnson & Johnson. "These results, along with the data being presented from the Phase 3 CEPHEUS study, further underscore the promising potential of DARZALEX FASPRO for newly diagnosed patients, regardless of their transplant status." Grade 3/4 treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs) occurred in 74 percent of patients treated with D-R and 67.3 percent of patients treated with R; infections (18.8 percent and 13.3 percent) and neutropenia (46.9 percent and 41.8 percent) were most common.1 Additional data from Phase 3 PERSEUS study demonstrate benefit of DARZALEX FASPRO-based induction, consolidation and maintenance regimens across cytogenetic risk populations Expanded analyses of the Phase 3 PERSEUS study show that DARZALEX FASPRO in combination with bortezomib, lenalidomide and dexamethasone (D-VRd) in induction/consolidation followed by a maintenance regimen of D-R induced deep and sustained MRD-negativity compared to VRd regardless of disease stage based on the second revised International Staging System (R2-ISS). In the revised high-risk subgroup, treatment with D-VRd followed by D-R maintenance results in higher rates of overall MRD-negativity at 10-6 with complete response or better compared to VRd (63.1 percent vs 32.4 percent; P<0.0001) with sustained MRD-negativity status for at least 12 months (42.3 percent vs 15.5 percent; P=0.0007).2 These data, including high-risk cytogenetic abnormalities (HRCAs), including gain(1q21) and amp(1q21), will be presented in an oral presentation at IMS (Abstract #OA 48). Phase 3 CASSIOPEIA MRD update shows deep and durable responses with DARZALEX in maintenance therapy Updated MRD data from the Phase 3 CASSIOPEIA study demonstrate that including DARZALEX in both induction/consolidation and maintenance regimens resulted in deeper and more durable MRD-negative responses at 10-5 level vs bortezomib/thalidomide/dexamethasone (VTd) and observation: 77 percent vs 71 percent (P=0.0417). The benefit of DARZALEX monotherapy maintenance was demonstrated in both patients who received VTd induction and consolidation, as well as those who received DARZALEX and VTd. DARZALEX maintenance reduced the risk of progression or death by 24% in patients who received DARZALEX and VTd as induction and consolidation. These results will be presented in an oral presentation at IMS (Abstract #OA 47).3 In the AURIGA, PERSEUS and CASSIOPEIA studies, the safety profiles were consistent with the known safety profiles for DARZALEX and DARZALEX FASPRO. About the AURIGA Study The randomized study (NCT03901963) included 200 patients aged 18-79 years with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma who are minimal residual disease (MRD)-positive after frontline autologous stem cell transplant. Patients received 1800 milligram (mg) daratumumab by subcutaneous (SC) injection in combination with lenalidomide (orally) as maintenance therapy for a maximum of 36 cycles. Each cycle is 28 days. Patients in the comparative arm will receive lenalidomide (orally) alone as maintenance therapy for a maximum of 36 cycles. Each cycle is 28 days.4 About the CEPHEUS Study CEPHEUS (NCT03652064) is an ongoing, multicenter, randomized, open-label, Phase 3 study comparing the efficacy and safety of D-VRd vs VRd in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma who are transplant-ineligible or for whom transplant is not intended as initial therapy. Primary endpoint is MRD-negativity rate at 10-5 sensitivity threshold. Secondary endpoints include PFS, MRD-negative rate at 1 year, durable MRD negativity, ORR, time to and duration of response, PFS on next line of therapy, overall survival and safety. The trial has enrolled 396 patients in 13 countries. About the PERSEUS Study The PERSEUS study (NCT03710603) is being conducted in collaboration with the European Myeloma Network as the sponsor. PERSEUS is an ongoing, randomized, open-label, Phase 3 study comparing the efficacy and safety of DARZALEX FASPRO -VRd during induction and consolidation versus VRd during induction and consolidation in patients with NDMM eligible for ASCT. Following consolidation, patients received an investigational treatment regimen for maintenance that included DARZALEX FASPRO in combination with lenalidomide or lenalidomide alone. The trial was not designed to isolate the effect of DARZALEX FASPRO in the maintenance phase of treatment. The efficacy of DARZALEX FASPRO in combination with lenalidomide for maintenance has not been established. The primary endpoint is PFS, and secondary endpoints include overall CR or better rate, and overall MRD-negativity (in patients with CR or better). The median age is 61.0 (range, 32-70) years for patients in the D-VRd arm and 59.0 (range, 31-70) years for patients in the VRd arm.5 The study is being conducted in 14 countries in Europe and Australia. About the CASSIOPEIA Study The randomized, open-label, multicenter, Phase 3 (NCT02541383) study is sponsored by the French Intergroupe Francophone du Myelome in collaboration with the Dutch-Belgian Cooperative Trial Group for Hematology Oncology and Janssen Research & Development, LLC. This Phase 3 study included 1,085 newly diagnosed patients with previously untreated, symptomatic multiple myeloma who were eligible for high-dose chemotherapy and stem cell transplant. Part one of the study compared DARZALEX (D) in combination with bortezomib, thalidomide and dexamethasone (VTd) versus VTd induction and consolidation therapy in patients with NDMM who were eligible for autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) and demonstrated that D-VTd yielded deeper responses and improved PFS. Part two of the study compared D-maintenance therapy given every 8 weeks (at a reduced frequency treatment schedule compared to the standard long-term dosing frequency of every 4 weeks) versus observation. The primary endpoint in this part of the study is the proportion of patients who achieve a stringent complete response (sCR) 100 days after transplant. In the second part of the study, which is ongoing, patients who achieved a partial response or better in part one will undergo a second randomization to receive maintenance treatment with DARZALEX 16 mg/kg every eight weeks for up to two years or will be observed with no further treatment. The primary endpoint in this part of the study is PFS.6 About Multiple Myeloma Multiple myeloma is a blood cancer that affects a type of white blood cell called plasma cells, which are found in the bone marrow.7 In multiple myeloma, these malignant plasma cells proliferate and replace normal cells in the bone marrow.8 Multiple myeloma is the second most common blood cancer worldwide and remains an incurable disease.9 In 2024, it is estimated that more than 35,000 people will be diagnosed with multiple myeloma in the U.S. and more than 12,000 will die from the disease. People with multiple myeloma have a 5-year survival rate of 59.8 percent.10 While some people diagnosed with multiple myeloma initially have no symptoms, most patients are diagnosed due to symptoms that can include bone fracture or pain, low red blood cell counts, tiredness, high calcium levels, kidney problems or infections.11,12 About DARZALEX FASPRO and DARZALEX DARZALEX FASPRO (daratumumab and hyaluronidase-fihj) received U.S. FDA approval in May 2020 and is approved for nine indications in multiple myeloma, four of which are for frontline treatment in newly diagnosed patients who are transplant eligible or ineligible.14 It is the only subcutaneous CD38-directed antibody approved to treat patients with MM. DARZALEX FASPRO is co-formulated with recombinant human hyaluronidase PH20 (rHuPH20), Halozyme's ENHANZE drug delivery technology. DARZALEX (daratumumab) received U.S. FDA approval in November 2015 and is approved in eight indications, three of which are in the frontline setting, including newly diagnosed patients who are transplant-eligible and ineligible.6 DARZALEX is the first CD38-directed antibody approved to treat multiple myeloma.6 DARZALEX-based regimens have been used in the treatment of more than 518,000 patients worldwide and more than 68,000 patients in the U.S. alone. In August 2012, Janssen Biotech, Inc. and Genmab A/S entered a worldwide agreement, which granted Janssen an exclusive license to develop, manufacture and commercialize daratumumab. Since 2020, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) has recommended daratumumab-based combination regimens for the treatment of newly diagnosed multiple myeloma and relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma. For newly diagnosed multiple myeloma in non-transplant candidates, the NCCN guidelines recommend daratumumab in combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone as a Category 1 preferred regimen; daratumumab in combination with bortezomib, melphalan, and prednisone as another recommended Category 1 regimen; and daratumumab in combination with bortezomib, cyclophosphamide, and prednisone as another recommended Category 2A regimen. For newly diagnosed multiple myeloma in transplant candidates, the NCCN guidelines recommend daratumumab in combination with bortezomib, lenalidomide and dexamethasone as another recommended Category 2A regimen; daratumumab in combination with bortezomib, thalidomide and dexamethasone as a Category 2A regimen useful in certain circumstances; daratumumab in combination with carfilzomib, lenalidomide and dexamethasone as a Category 2A regimen useful in certain circumstances; and daratumumab in combination with cyclophosphamide, bortezomib and dexamethasone as a Category 2A regimen useful in certain circumstances. For maintenance in transplant candidates, the NCCN guidelines recommend daratumumab in combination with lenalidomide as useful in certain circumstances. In relapsed/refractory myeloma, four daratumumab regimens are listed as Category 1 preferred regimens for early relapses (1-3 prior therapies): daratumumab in combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone; daratumumab in combination with bortezomib and dexamethasone; daratumumab in combination with carfilzomib and dexamethasone; and daratumumab in combination with pomalidomide and dexamethasone [after one prior therapy including lenalidomide and a proteasome inhibitor (PI)]. The NCCN also recommends daratumumab in combination with cyclophosphamide, bortezomib and dexamethasone as another Category 2A regimen for early relapses (1-3 prior therapies) and as monotherapy as a Category 2A regimen useful in certain circumstances for early relapse patients after at least three prior therapies, including a PI and an immunomodulatory agent, or for patients who are double refractory to a PI and an immunomodulatory agent. For more information, visit www.DARZALEX.com. DARZALEX INDICATIONS AND IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION INDICATIONS DARZALEX (daratumumab) is indicated for the treatment of adult patients with multiple myeloma: In combination with bortezomib, melphalan, and prednisone in newly diagnosed patients who are ineligible for autologous stem cell transplant In combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone in newly diagnosed patients who are ineligible for autologous stem cell transplant and in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma who have received at least one prior therapy In combination with bortezomib, thalidomide, and dexamethasone in newly diagnosed patients who are eligible for autologous stem cell transplant In combination with pomalidomide and dexamethasone in patients who have received at least one prior line of therapy including lenalidomide and a proteasome inhibitor In combination with carfilzomib and dexamethasone in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma who have received one to three prior lines of therapy In combination with bortezomib and dexamethasone in patients who have received at least one prior therapy As monotherapy in patients who have received at least three prior lines of therapy including a proteasome inhibitor (PI) and an immunomodulatory agent or who are double-refractory to a PI and an immunomodulatory agent CONTRAINDICATIONS DARZALEX is contraindicated in patients with a history of severe hypersensitivity (eg, anaphylactic reactions) to daratumumab or any of the components of the formulation. WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS Infusion-Related Reactions DARZALEX can cause severe and/or serious infusion-related reactions including anaphylactic reactions. These reactions can be lifethreatening, and fatal outcomes have been reported. In clinical trials (monotherapy and combination: N=2066), infusion-related reactions occurred in 37% of patients with the Week 1 (16 mg/kg) infusion, 2% with the Week 2 infusion, and cumulatively 6% with subsequent infusions. Less than 1% of patients had a Grade 3/4 infusion-related reaction at Week 2 or subsequent infusions. The median time to onset was 1.5 hours (range: 0 to 73 hours). Nearly all reactions occurred during infusion or within 4 hours of completing DARZALEX. Severe reactions have occurred, including bronchospasm, hypoxia, dyspnea, hypertension, tachycardia, headache, laryngeal edema, pulmonary edema, and ocular adverse reactions, including choroidal effusion, acute myopia, and acute angle closure glaucoma. Signs and symptoms may include respiratory symptoms, such as nasal congestion, cough, throat irritation, as well as chills, vomiting, and nausea. Less common signs and symptoms were wheezing, allergic rhinitis, pyrexia, chest discomfort, pruritus, hypotension and blurred vision. When DARZALEX dosing was interrupted in the setting of ASCT (CASSIOPEIA) for a median of 3.75 months (range: 2.4 to 6.9 months), upon re-initiation of DARZALEX, the incidence of infusion-related reactions was 11% for the first infusion following ASCT. Infusion-related reactions occurring at re-initiation of DARZALEX following ASCT were consistent in terms of symptoms and severity (Grade 3 or 4: <1%) with those reported in previous studies at Week 2 or subsequent infusions. In EQUULEUS, patients receiving combination treatment (n=97) were administered the first 16 mg/kg dose at Week 1 split over two days, ie, 8 mg/kg on Day 1 and Day 2, respectively. The incidence of any grade infusion-related reactions was 42%, with 36% of patients experiencing infusion-related reactions on Day 1 of Week 1, 4% on Day 2 of Week 1, and 8% with subsequent infusions. Pre-medicate patients with antihistamines, antipyretics, and corticosteroids. Frequently monitor patients during the entire infusion. Interrupt DARZALEX infusion for reactions of any severity and institute medical management as needed. Permanently discontinue DARZALEX therapy if an anaphylactic reaction or life-threatening (Grade 4) reaction occurs and institute appropriate emergency care. For patients with Grade 1, 2, or 3 reactions, reduce the infusion rate when re-starting the infusion. To reduce the risk of delayed infusion-related reactions, administer oral corticosteroids to all patients following DARZALEX infusions. Patients with a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease may require additional post-infusion medications to manage respiratory complications. Consider prescribing short- and long-acting bronchodilators and inhaled corticosteroids for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Ocular adverse reactions, including acute myopia and narrowing of the anterior chamber angle due to ciliochoroidal effusions with potential for increased intraocular pressure or glaucoma, have occurred with DARZALEX infusion. If ocular symptoms occur, interrupt DARZALEX infusion and seek immediate ophthalmologic evaluation prior to restarting DARZALEX. Interference With Serological Testing Daratumumab binds to CD38 on red blood cells (RBCs) and results in a positive indirect antiglobulin test (indirect Coombs test). Daratumumab-mediated positive indirect antiglobulin test may persist for up to 6 months after the last daratumumab infusion. Daratumumab bound to RBCs masks detection of antibodies to minor antigens in the patient's serum. The determination of a patient's ABO and Rh blood type is not impacted. Notify blood transfusion centers of this interference with serological testing and inform blood banks that a patient has received DARZALEX. Type and screen patients prior to starting DARZALEX. Neutropenia and Thrombocytopenia DARZALEX may increase neutropenia and thrombocytopenia induced by background therapy. Monitor complete blood cell counts periodically during treatment according to manufacturer's prescribing information for background therapies. Monitor patients with neutropenia for signs of infection. Consider withholding DARZALEX until recovery of neutrophils or for recovery of platelets. Interference With Determination of Complete Response Daratumumab is a human immunoglobulin G (IgG) kappa monoclonal antibody that can be detected on both the serum protein electrophoresis (SPE) and immunofixation (IFE) assays used for the clinical monitoring of endogenous M-protein. This interference can impact the determination of complete response and of disease progression in some patients with IgG kappa myeloma protein. Embryo-Fetal Toxicity Based on the mechanism of action, DARZALEX can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman. DARZALEX may cause depletion of fetal immune cells and decreased bone density. Advise pregnant women of the potential risk to a fetus. Advise females with reproductive potential to use effective contraception during treatment with DARZALEX and for 3 months after the last dose. The combination of DARZALEX with lenalidomide, pomalidomide, or thalidomide is contraindicated in pregnant women because lenalidomide, pomalidomide, and thalidomide may cause birth defects and death of the unborn child. Refer to the lenalidomide, pomalidomide, or thalidomide prescribing information on use during pregnancy. ADVERSE REACTIONS The most frequently reported adverse reactions (incidence 20%) were: upper respiratory infection, neutropenia, infusionrelated reactions, thrombocytopenia, diarrhea, constipation, anemia, peripheral sensory neuropathy, fatigue, peripheral edema, nausea, cough, pyrexia, dyspnea, and asthenia. The most common hematologic laboratory abnormalities (40%) with DARZALEX are: neutropenia, lymphopenia, thrombocytopenia, leukopenia, and anemia. Please click here to see the full Prescribing Information. DARZALEX FASPRO INDICATIONS AND IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION INDICATIONS DARZALEX FASPRO (daratumumab and hyaluronidase-fihj) is indicated for the treatment of adult patients with multiple myeloma: In combination with bortezomib, lenalidomide, and dexamethasone for induction and consolidation in newly diagnosed patients who are eligible for autologous stem cell transplant In combination with bortezomib, melphalan, and prednisone in newly diagnosed patients who are ineligible for autologous stem cell transplant In combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone in newly diagnosed patients who are ineligible for autologous stem cell transplant and in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma who have received at least one prior therapy In combination with bortezomib, thalidomide, and dexamethasone in newly diagnosed patients who are eligible for autologous stem cell transplant In combination with pomalidomide and dexamethasone in patients who have received at least one prior line of therapy including lenalidomide and a proteasome inhibitor (PI) In combination with carfilzomib and dexamethasone in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma who have received one to three prior lines of therapy In combination with bortezomib and dexamethasone in patients who have received at least one prior therapy As monotherapy in patients who have received at least three prior lines of therapy including a PI and an immunomodulatory agent or who are double refractory to a PI and an immunomodulatory agent IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION CONTRAINDICATIONS DARZALEX FASPRO is contraindicated in patients with a history of severe hypersensitivity to daratumumab, hyaluronidase, or any of the components of the formulation. WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS Hypersensitivity and Other Administration Reactions Both systemic administration-related reactions, including severe or life-threatening reactions, and local injection-site reactions can occur with DARZALEX FASPRO. Fatal reactions have been reported with daratumumab-containing products, including DARZALEX FASPRO. Systemic Reactions In a pooled safety population of 1249 patients with multiple myeloma (N=1056) or light chain (AL) amyloidosis (N=193) who received DARZALEX FASPRO as monotherapy or in combination, 7% of patients experienced a systemic administration-related reaction (Grade 2: 3.2%, Grade 3: 0.7%, Grade 4: 0.1%). Systemic administration-related reactions occurred in 7% of patients with the first injection, 0.2% with the second injection, and cumulatively 1% with subsequent injections. The median time to onset was 2.9 hours (range: 5 minutes to 3.5 days). Of the 165 systemic administration-related reactions that occurred in 93 patients, 144 (87%) occurred on the day of DARZALEX FASPRO administration. Delayed systemic administration-related reactions have occurred in 1% of the patients. Severe reactions included hypoxia, dyspnea, hypertension, tachycardia, and ocular adverse reactions, including choroidal effusion, acute myopia, and acute angle closure glaucoma. Other signs and symptoms of systemic administration-related reactions may include respiratory symptoms, such as bronchospasm, nasal congestion, cough, throat irritation, allergic rhinitis, and wheezing, as well as anaphylactic reaction, pyrexia, chest pain, pruritus, chills, vomiting, nausea, hypotension, and blurred vision. Pre-medicate patients with histamine-1 receptor antagonist, acetaminophen, and corticosteroids. Monitor patients for systemic administration-related reactions, especially following the first and second injections. For anaphylactic reaction or life-threatening (Grade 4) administration-related reactions, immediately and permanently discontinue DARZALEX FASPRO. Consider administering corticosteroids and other medications after the administration of DARZALEX FASPRO depending on dosing regimen and medical history to minimize the risk of delayed (defined as occurring the day after administration) systemic administration-related reactions. Ocular adverse reactions, including acute myopia and narrowing of the anterior chamber angle due to ciliochoroidal effusions with potential for increased intraocular pressure or glaucoma, have occurred with daratumumab-containing products. If ocular symptoms occur, interrupt DARZALEX FASPRO and seek immediate ophthalmologic evaluation prior to restarting DARZALEX FASPRO. Local Reactions In this pooled safety population, injection-site reactions occurred in 7% of patients, including Grade 2 reactions in 0.8%. The most frequent (>1%) injection-site reaction was injection-site erythema. These local reactions occurred a median of 5 minutes (range: 0 minutes to 6.5 days) after starting administration of DARZALEX FASPRO. Monitor for local reactions and consider symptomatic management. Neutropenia Daratumumab may increase neutropenia induced by background therapy. Monitor complete blood cell counts periodically during treatment according to manufacturer's prescribing information for background therapies. Monitor patients with neutropenia for signs of infection. Consider withholding DARZALEX FASPRO until recovery of neutrophils. In lower body weight patients receiving DARZALEX FASPRO, higher rates of Grade 3-4 neutropenia were observed. Thrombocytopenia Daratumumab may increase thrombocytopenia induced by background therapy. Monitor complete blood cell counts periodically during treatment according to manufacturer's prescribing information for background therapies. Consider withholding DARZALEX FASPRO until recovery of platelets. Embryo-Fetal Toxicity Based on the mechanism of action, DARZALEX FASPRO can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman. DARZALEX FASPRO may cause depletion of fetal immune cells and decreased bone density. Advise pregnant women of the potential risk to a fetus. Advise females with reproductive potential to use effective contraception during treatment with DARZALEX FASPRO and for 3 months after the last dose. The combination of DARZALEX FASPRO with lenalidomide, thalidomide, or pomalidomide is contraindicated in pregnant women because lenalidomide, thalidomide, and pomalidomide may cause birth defects and death of the unborn child. Refer to the lenalidomide, thalidomide, or pomalidomide prescribing information on use during pregnancy. Interference With Serological Testing Daratumumab binds to CD38 on red blood cells (RBCs) and results in a positive indirect antiglobulin test (indirect Coombs test). Daratumumab-mediated positive indirect antiglobulin test may persist for up to 6 months after the last daratumumab administration. Daratumumab bound to RBCs masks detection of antibodies to minor antigens in the patient's serum. The determination of a patient's ABO and Rh blood type are not impacted. Notify blood transfusion centers of this interference with serological testing and inform blood banks that a patient has received DARZALEX FASPRO. Type and screen patients prior to starting DARZALEX FASPRO. Interference With Determination of Complete Response Daratumumab is a human immunoglobulin G (IgG) kappa monoclonal antibody that can be detected on both the serum protein electrophoresis (SPE) and immunofixation (IFE) assays used for the clinical monitoring of endogenous M-protein. This interference can impact the determination of complete response and of disease progression in some DARZALEX FASPRO-treated patients with IgG kappa myeloma protein. ADVERSE REACTIONS In multiple myeloma, the most common adverse reaction (20%) with DARZALEX FASPRO monotherapy is upper respiratory tract infection. The most common adverse reactions with combination therapy (20% for any combination) include fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, dyspnea, insomnia, headache, pyrexia, cough, muscle spasms, back pain, vomiting, hypertension, upper respiratory tract infection, peripheral sensory neuropathy, constipation, pneumonia, and peripheral edema. The most common hematology laboratory abnormalities (40%) with DARZALEX FASPRO are decreased leukocytes, decreased lymphocytes, decreased neutrophils, decreased platelets, and decreased hemoglobin. Please click here to see the full Prescribing Information for DARZALEX FASPRO. About Johnson & Johnson At Johnson & Johnson, we believe health is everything. Our strength in healthcare innovation empowers us to build a world where complex diseases are prevented, treated, and cured, where treatments are smarter and less invasive, and solutions are personal. Through our expertise in Innovative Medicine and MedTech, we are uniquely positioned to innovate across the full spectrum of healthcare solutions today to deliver the breakthroughs of tomorrow, and profoundly impact health for humanity. Learn more at https://www.jnj.com/ or at www.janssen.com/johnson-johnson-innovative-medicine . Follow us at @JanssenUS and @JNJInnovMed . Janssen Research & Development, LLC and Janssen Biotech, Inc., Janssen Global Services, LLC and Janssen Scientific Affairs, LLC are Johnson & Johnson companies. Cautions Concerning Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding product development and the potential benefits and treatment impact of DARZALEX and DARZALEX FASPRO. The reader is cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations of future events. If underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or known or unknown risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results could vary materially from the expectations and projections of Janssen Research & Development, LLC, Janssen Biotech, Inc. Janssen Global Services, LLC, Janssen Scientific Affairs, LLC and/or Johnson & Johnson. Risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: challenges and uncertainties inherent in product research and development, including the uncertainty of clinical success and of obtaining regulatory approvals; uncertainty of commercial success; manufacturing difficulties and delays; competition, including technological advances, new products and patents attained by competitors; challenges to patents; product efficacy or safety concerns resulting in product recalls or regulatory action; changes in behavior and spending patterns of purchasers of health care products and services; changes to applicable laws and regulations, including global health care reforms; and trends toward health care cost containment. A further list and descriptions of these risks, uncertainties and other factors can be found in Johnson & Johnson's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, including in the sections captioned "Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" and "Item 1A. Risk Factors," and in Johnson & Johnson's subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Copies of these filings are available online at www.sec.gov, www.jnj.com or on request from Johnson & Johnson. None of Janssen Research & Development, LLC, Janssen Biotech, Inc., Janssen Global Services, LLC, Janssen Scientific Affairs, LLC nor Johnson & Johnson undertake to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information or future events or developments. Source: Johnson & Johnson * Dr. Ashraf Badros, University of Maryland Medical Center in Maryland has provided consulting, advisory, and speaking services to Johnson & Johnson; he has not been paid for any media work. The NCCN Content does not constitute medical advice and should not be used in place of seeking professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment by licensed practitioners. NCCN makes no warranties of any kind whatsoever regarding their content, use or application and disclaims any responsibility for their application or use in any way. See the NCCN Guidelines for detailed recommendations, including other treatment options. 1 Badros, A., et al. Subcutaneous Daratumumab Plus Lenalidomide Versus Lenalidomide Alone as Maintenance Therapy in Newly Diagnosed Multiple Myeloma After Transplant: Primary Results from the Phase 3 AURIGA Study. IMS 2024. September 27, 2024. 2 Dimopoulos, M., et al. Daratumumab (DARA)/Bortezomib/Lenalidomide/ Dexamethasone (D-VRd) With D-R Maintenance (Maint) in Transplant-eligible (TE) Newly Diagnosed Myeloma (NDMM): PERSEUS Cytogenetic Risk Analysis. IMS 2024. September 27, 2024. 3 Corre, J., et al. Daratumumab (DARA) + Bortezomib/Thalidomide/ Dexamethasone (D-VTd) and DARA Maintenance in Transplanteligible Newly Diagnosed Multiple Myeloma (NDMM): CASSIOPEIA Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) Update. IMS 2024. September 27, 2024. 4 ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT03901963. Accessed August 2024. https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT03901963 5 Pieter Sonneveld, Dimopoulos MA, Boccadoro M, et al. Daratumumab, Bortezomib, Lenalidomide, and Dexamethasone for Multiple Myeloma. The New England Journal of Medicine. Accessed August 2024. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2312054 6 ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT02541383. Accessed August 2024. https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT02541383 7 Rajkumar SV. Multiple Myeloma: 2020 Update on Diagnosis, Risk-Stratification and Management. Am J Hematol. 2020;95(5):548-5672020;95(5):548-567. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32212178 8 National Cancer Institute. Plasma Cell Neoplasms. Accessed August 2024. Available at: https://www.cancer.gov/types/myeloma/patient/myeloma-treatment-pdq 9 Multiple Myeloma. City of Hope, 2022. Multiple Myeloma: Causes, Symptoms & Treatments. Accessed August 2024. Available at: https://www.cancercenter.com/cancer-types/multiple-myeloma 10 American Cancer Society. Myeloma Cancer Statistics. Accessed August 2024. Available at: https://cancerstatisticscenter.cancer.org/types/myeloma 11 American Cancer Society. What is Multiple Myeloma? Accessed August 2024. Available at: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/multiple-myeloma/about/what-is-multiple-myeloma.html 12 American Cancer Society. Multiple Myeloma Early Detection, Diagnosis, and Staging. Accessed August 2024. Available at: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/multiple-myeloma/detection-diagnosis-staging/detection.html SOURCE Johnson & Johnson VANCOUVER, BC, Sept. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ - Defense Metals Corp. ("Defense Metals" or the "Company"; (TSXV: DEFN) (OTCQB: DFMTF) (FSE: 35D) is pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") with The Saskatchewan Research Council ("SRC") that will benefit both parties by promoting a collaborative and strategic approach to help strengthen the rare earth element ("REE") supply chain within Canada. Guy de Selliers, Executive Chairman of Defense Metals, commented: "We are excited to collaborate with The Saskatchewan Research Council, a recognized leader in rare earth processing and technology development. This MOU represents a significant step forward in our goal of becoming part of a secure and sustainable supply chain for rare earth elements in North America. By working together with SRC, we believe we can make substantial progress toward closing the rare earth supply chain loop and ensuring the availability of these critical materials for green energy and defence applications that are essential for national security." The MOU outlines a framework for Defense Metals and SRC to leverage their respective capabilities and interests in the supply and processing of rare earth materials that are especially critical to the production of rare earth magnets. The proposed objectives of this collaboration include: Exploring potential collaborations using each Participant's respective capabilities and interests in the process and supply of rare earth products used in the rare earths magnet value chain; Enabling discussions in connection with the separation of the Defense Metal's mixed rare earth carbonates into separated rare earth oxides employing SRC's separation technology design, installation, and operational expertise; and Facilitating negotiations of a long-term agreement with SRC for the sale and purchase of Defense Metal's mixed rare earth carbonate. This collaboration aligns with the broader Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy, which is focused on developing a domestic industry, reducing reliance on foreign sources of critical minerals and bolstering national security. Furthermore, it supports broader North American goals for economic competitiveness and technological innovation in clean energy and defence technologies. About The Saskatchewan Research Council SRC is Canada's second-largest research and technology organization, providing services and products to its 1,400 clients in 22 countries around the world for more than 77 years Since 2020, SRC's Rare Earth Processing Facility in Saskatoon has received $71 million in funding from the Government of Saskatchewan, as well as $30 million in combined funding from the Government of Canada. This funding has been instrumental in helping SRC construct a vertically and laterally integrated "minerals to metals" facility equipped with state-of-the-art, proprietary technology developed by SRC. Development of the facility continues ahead of schedule, producing rare earth metals at a commercial scale in the summer of 2024 making Saskatchewan the first and only jurisdiction to do so in North America. About Defense Metals Corp. and its Wicheeda Rare Earth Element Deposit Defense Metals Corp. is focused on the development of its 100% owned Wicheeda REE deposit, for which a mineral resource estimate was reported in 2023 in a Technical Report prepared in accordance with the Canadian Securities Administrators' National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"), which is available for review on the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca and the Company's website at www.defensemetals.com. The 8,301-hectare (~20,534-acre) Wicheeda Project, located approximately 80 kilometres (~50 miles) northeast of the city of Prince George on the traditional territory of the McLeod Lake Indian Band in British Columbia, Canada, is readily accessible by a paved highway and all-weather gravel roads. Nearby, superior infrastructure includes hydro power transmission lines, gas pipelines, the Canadian National Railway and major highways that allow easy access to the port facilities at Prince Rupert, the closest major North American port to Asia. Defense Metals is a proud member of Discovery Group. For more information please visit: www.discoverygroup.ca. For further information, please visit www.defensemetals.com or contact: Alex Heath Senior Vice President, Corporate Development & Interim CFO Tel: +1 604-354-2491 Email: [email protected] 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. Notice Regarding the Wicheeda REE Deposit Mineral Resource Estimate The mineral resource estimate for the Wicheeda rare earth element (REE) deposit is disclosed in a Technical Report dated October 27, 2023, effective August 28, 2023, entitled "Technical Report on the Wicheeda Property, British Columbia, Canada", which was prepared by APEX Geoscience Ltd. The results of the 2023 MRE were previously disclosed in summary form in the Company's news release dated September 12, 2023. The Technical Report was prepared in accordance with the Canadian Securities Administrators' National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") and is available for review on the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca and the Company's website at www.defensemetals.com. Readers are encouraged to read the Technical Report in its entirety, including all qualifications, assumptions, and exclusions. Cautionary Statement Regarding "Forward-Looking" Information This news release contains "forward-looking information" or "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. 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. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Such statements and information are based on numerous assumptions regarding present and future business strategies and the environment in which the Company will operate in the future, including the price of rare earth elements, the anticipated costs and expenditures, the ability to achieve its goals, that general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner, that financing will be available if and when needed and on reasonable terms. Such forward-looking information reflects the Company's views with respect to future events and is subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including the risks and uncertainties relating to the interpretation of exploration and metallurgical results, risks related to the inherent uncertainty of exploration and development and cost estimates, the potential for unexpected costs and expenses and those other risks filed under the Company's profile on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca/). While such estimates and assumptions are considered reasonable by the management of the Company, they are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive and regulatory uncertainties and risks. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward looking statements include, but are not limited to, continued availability of capital and financing and general economic, market or business conditions, adverse weather and climate conditions, failure to maintain or obtain all necessary government permits, approvals and authorizations, failure to maintain or obtain community acceptance (including First Nations), risks relating to unanticipated operational difficulties (including failure of equipment or processes to operate in accordance with specifications or expectations, cost escalation, unavailability of personnel, materials and equipment, government action or delays in the receipt of government approvals, industrial disturbances or other job action, and unanticipated events related to health, safety and environmental matters), risks relating to inaccurate geological, metallurgical, engineering and pricing assumptions, decrease in the price of rare earth elements, the impact of viruses and diseases on the Company's ability to operate, restriction on labour and international travel and supply chains, loss of key employees, consultants, officers or directors, increase in costs, delayed results, litigation, and failure of counterparties to perform their contractual obligations. The Company does not undertake to update forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, except as required by law. SOURCE Defense Metals Corp. Communicators from Bloomberg, Chobani, Paramount, Boston Consulting Group, and more celebrated at High Profile NYC Event NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Diversity Action Alliance (DAA), a coalition of public relations and communications leaders, announced this year's G.E.M.S. at an honoree ceremony hosted by Omnicom PR Group in New York City. The prestigious honor, 'Growth in Equity as a Measure of Sustainability' (G.E.M.S.), recognized 50 Public Relations and Communication leaders from across the U.S. who are elevating leadership, innovation, and excellence in communication, significantly contributing to the industry and who identify as racially or ethnically diverse. The Top Five Honorees include: Diversity Action Alliance logo Omnicom PR Group logo Kelli Hammersmith , Chief Communications Officer, Advantage Solutions , Chief Communications Officer, Advantage Solutions Nisa Horwitz , Senior Vice President, Zeno Group , Senior Vice President, Claudine Moore , Managing Director, Allison Worldwide , Managing Director, Arielle Patrick , Chief Communications Officer, Ariel Investments , Chief Communications Officer, Jeff Wilson , APR, Vice President of Social Impact, Padilla Adding to the night's prestige, seven Industry Legends were honored for enduring contributions to the profession and unwavering advocacy for underrepresented groups: Dr. Rochelle Ford , RTillery Communications , RTillery Communications Bill Imada , IW Group , IW Group Andrew McCaskill , LinkedIn , LinkedIn Soon Mee Kim , Omnicom CCN , Omnicom CCN Torod Neptune, Medtronic Patrice Tanaka , Joyful Planet , Joyful Planet Dr. Natalie Tindall , University of Texas Austin The ceremony started with a moving opening address from DAA Board Chair Soon Mee Kim, who poignantly redefined 'DEI': Defend against Exclusion and Ignorance Develop Emotional Intelligence Drive Economic Impact Deliver Excellence and Innovation Definitely Earned It Programming commenced with an engaging fireside chat between Chris Foster, CEO of Omnicom PR Group, and Doug Melville, CEO of Jodie AI, discussing their career journeys, and emerging business and communications trends. In a private pre-ceremony Town Hall, DAA unveiled the results of its Equity and Inclusion Survey: Voices of Impact, highlighting the evolving workplace experiences of people of color. Panelists Sabrina Browne, Citibank; Jen Cho, Creator Deck; Denise Penagos, Egami Group; and Eric Winkfield, M Booth, shared expert reflections in a lively panel moderated by Lauren Strayhorn of Notedd. Researchscape International and Notedd sponsored the programming and report. Further driving the conversation, the Alliance Roundtable assembled leading trade and advocacy organization leaders to glean expert perspectives, insights and solutions based on the industry's latest developments regarding equity, representation, inclusion. A report of the findings will be issued in a publication authored by researchers from Howard University and the University of Texas at Austin. "This year's G.E.M.S. honorees are shaping the future of communications, breaking barriers and setting new standards for industry leadership and recognition," said Carmella Glover, President of the DAA. "Their work and presence exemplify the benefits of commitment to equity and belonging that we at the DAA champion every day." To become a sponsor, signatory, or partner of the DAA, visit https://www.diversityactionalliance.org/joindaa About the Diversity Action Alliance The Diversity Action Alliance (DAA) is the Public Relations and Strategic Communication profession's only industrywide non-profit coalition combatting the lack of racial and ethnic diversity in the field as measured by recruitment, retention and representation at all levels. Bringing together leaders and organizations to drive and support transformative change toward shared workforce representation and inclusion goals, the primary focus of DAA is those most harmed by racial exclusion. For more information, visit the website and follow the DAA on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. About Omnicom PR Group (OPRG) Omnicom PR Group (OPRG) is the largest global network of communications and consulting agencies in the world. It is home to three of the top global PR agencies FleishmanHillard, Ketchum, Porter Novelli and more than a dozen specialist agencies in corporate and public affairs, political consulting and advertising, language strategy, global health strategy and organizational transformation. OPRG is part of Omnicom Group Inc. www.TeamOPRG.com. SOURCE Diversity Action Alliance The anti-immigrant discourse of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has reached worrying levels. Not content with promising the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, Trump is now threatening to expel 1.3 million immigrants who have arrived legally in the country in the last two years thanks to Biden administration programs such as humanitarian parole (created in 2022 for Venezuelan immigrants and extended to citizens of Haiti, Cuba, and Nicaragua the following year) and CBP One, the cellphone application that allows asylum seekers to request asylum at eight ports of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border. Figures from the Customs and Border Protection Office indicate that between January 2023 and August 2024, around 800,000 immigrants arrived in the United States thanks to CBP One and another 530,000 on humanitarian flights. I would revoke it and they get out. And, the app is bad, but the worst is is the flights (parole) because they tried to say we are going to toughen up the border a little bit, they have planes flying over the border loaded up with illegal migrants, people that shouldnt be in our country, going to the Midwest, going to all places because everything now is a border state, he said in a telephone interview with FOX News, sending this message to migrants who have been paroled in the U.S.: Get ready to leave, especially quickly if theyre criminals. Get ready to leave because youre going to be going out real fast. The statements have especially alarmed immigrants granted humanitarian parole, who are uncertain about their future after the November 5 elections. Trumps comments come after his running mate, J.D. Vance, questioned the legality of the 20,000 Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio falsely accused by Trump of eating locals pets who received temporary protected status from the Obama administration based on the 1990 law, which allows foreigners who have had to flee their homes due to natural disasters to work and live in the United States. Thousands of Haitians were living illegally in the United States after the January 2010 earthquake that devastated the island. If Kamala Harris waves the wand illegally and says these people are now here legally, Im still going to call them an illegal alien, Vance told reporters at an event in North Carolina earlier this month. An illegal action by Kamala Harris does not make an alien legal. When asked by reporter Bill Melugin about the Republicans attacks against the CBP One cell phone app and humanitarian flights, Mia Ehrenberg the spokesperson for the Kamala Harris campaign replied: As a prosecutor for over 20 years, Vice President Harris has spent her career putting criminals behind bars and upholding the rule of law in this country [...] As vice president, she supported the bipartisan border security bill, the strongest reform in decades to deliver needed resources for greater border security. As president, she will sign that bill and will fight for tough, smart solutions to secure the border, keep communities safe, and reform our broken immigration system. With this statement, the Democratic campaign is not sending a reassuring message to the immigrants who arrived in the U.S. thanks to the two programs promoted by the Biden-Harris administration. Instead, it is a defense of the bipartisan border security bill, which is not the great immigration reform the U.S. has been in need of for years. The Democratic Party has gone completely to the right with this project, immigration lawyer Ezequiel Hernandez told EL PAIS. It is a taxing, punitive, exclusionary law that only seeks money to stop the flow of immigrants, and leaves out the 15 million illegal immigrants that we already have here. It also does not talk about the Dreamers, she said, in reference to the individuals who were brought to the U.S. as children. Hernandez added: Harris is not at all popular among undocumented immigrants who have American children and pay taxes and dont have a work permit, and see others arrive with the possibility of requesting one without having to do anything. The lawyer dismisses Trumps threats against humanitarian parole, arguing it is not a feasible move. He could eliminate both programs upon entering the White House, but the people who arrived with parole have power because they are legally here even if Trump says otherwise, said Hernandez. These immigrants could go to court to protect themselves, but if they have exceeded the time stipulated by the program [two years] and have not requested asylum or some other option for immigration relief, they are at risk of deportation. Those who entered with CBP One would also be protected. Both programs were designed to prevent immigrants from being exposed to the risks of the Darien crossing and other dangerous migration route, and to reduce illegal crossings. The truth is that parole is a very generous program because you can come with just a sponsor, there is no filter to see if you really qualify for asylum. There are 30,000 people per month from four nationalities, which is not a lot, and the truth is that few people will be affected if this shut down, said Hernandez. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Company restored more than 380,000 customer outages as of 4 p.m. Approximately 1.34 million customers, mostly in western N.C. and the Upstate of S.C., remain without power and should prepare for potential multiday outages About 11,000 workers working quickly and safely on repairs, including additional crews from 19 states and Canada Customers urged to be cautious of damaged equipment, rising lake levels along the Catawba-Wateree River Basin CHARLOTTE, N.C., Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Duke Energy lineworkers, tree trimmers and other storm support workers have begun to assess damage and restore power following Helene's historic destruction in the Carolinas. Wind damage, flooding, adverse road conditions and power outages are particularly widespread across the western portions of North Carolina and South Carolina. As of 4 p.m.: Approximately 1.34 million Duke Energy customers in the Carolinas are without power. This includes nearly 703,000 customers in North Carolina and about 639,000 customers in South Carolina . and about 639,000 customers in . Duke Energy has already restored more than 380,000 customer outages in the Carolinas, including roughly 281,000 in North Carolina and 99,000 in South Carolina . Duke Energy also reports that the effects of flooding and road closures will impede efforts to restore power, especially in western North Carolina and the Upstate of South Carolina, where outages are most prevalent. As workers continue performing damage assessments, Duke Energy said it plans to communicate additional information regarding restoration times to customers through dukeenergyupdates.com, Outage Alerts and its Outage Map. "Helene's winds were powerful and destructive and its rains were historic," said Jason Hollifield, storm director for Duke Energy in the Carolinas. "We started monitoring Helene when it was first identified and prepared well in advance for its impact. Even so, the damage is extensive and it could take days to restore power to all customers. "We have over 11,000 storm workers who are committed to doing everything possible to restore service as quickly and safely as possible. We're also bringing in thousands of additional resources to help with power restorations in the hardest hit areas." Reporting a power outage Duke Energy advises customers to report power outages via the Duke Energy app or website, by texting OUT to 57801 or by calling 800.POWERON (800.769.3766). Power restoration process Workers must assess the extent of storm damage before being able to restore most power outages. This process can take 24 hours or more and is necessary to determine what types of workers, equipment and supplies are needed to repair a particular outage. Duke Energy focuses on restoring power as safely and quickly as possible and in a sequence that begins with public health and safety facilities, while also considering how to impact the greatest number of customers. Learn more about how Duke Energy restores power. Thousands of workers from U.S. and Canada In advance of the storm, Duke Energy strategically staged equipment and approximately 11,000 workers power line technicians, damage assessors and vegetation workers at strategic locations across the Carolinas. The workforce includes Duke Energy employees and contractors normally based in the Carolinas and individuals from other electric companies in 19 U.S. states and Canada. Safety recommendations for customers Duke Energy asks customers to stay tuned to local news for the latest advisories from state and local emergency management officials. The company also offered these safety tips and reminders: Stay away from power lines that have fallen or are sagging. Consider all lines energized as well as trees, limbs or anything in contact with lines. If a power line falls across a car that you are in, stay in the car. If you MUST get out of the car due to a fire or other immediate life-threatening situation, do your best to jump clear of the car and land on both feet. Be sure that no part of your body is touching the car when your feet touch the ground. Do not walk, swim or drive through floodwaters. When using a power generator, always follow the manufacturer's instructions to ensure safe and proper operation. This includes operating the generator outside in a well-ventilated area and never inside a building or garage. Please watch for utility crews and turn the generator off when crews are in your area. The electrical load on the power lines can be hazardous for crews making repairs. If rising water threatens your home or if you evacuate your home turn off your power at the circuit breaker panel or fuse box. Electric current passes easily through water, so stay away from downed power lines and electrical wires. Don't drive over or stand near downed power lines. Downed lines may be hard to see in the rain and can potentially be hidden in standing water. If you encounter large pools of standing water, stop, back up and choose another path. If your home or business is flooded, Duke Energy cannot reconnect power until the electrical system has been inspected by a licensed electrician. If there is damage, an electrician will need to make repairs and obtain verification from your local building inspection authority before power can be restored. Potential flooding due to rising lake levels Lake levels continue to rise sharply as heavy precipitation from Helene adds to the many inches of rain the region already received this week. This is especially true for the Catawba-Wateree River Basin, which is composed of a chain of 11 lakes and 12 hydroelectric stations connected by the Catawba River. Duke Energy manages the lakes' water levels while balancing inflows, including from events such as this. The company does this by moving water through its generating units and, where possible, operating spillway gates and flood gates. Because water management in one lake often impacts others, Duke Energy manages the river basins as an entire system. The company began aggressively moving water through the Catawba-Wateree River Basin earlier this week in anticipation of Helene's arrival as well as a separate weather system that dumped heavy rains in the region. Rainfall over the past 48 hours, however, has exceeded initial national and global forecasts. So, even with Duke Energy's aggressive preparations, lake levels have risen sharply and will likely continue to rise, some to historic levels. This has increased major flooding risks in the Catawba-Wateree River Basin. The high-water conditions can also create dangerous conditions such as floating debris and electrical hazards. Those living along lakes and rivers should move loose objects away from the shoreline to prevent additional hazards and contact local law enforcement to report dangerous situations involving floating debris. Duke Energy encourages communities along the Catawba-Wateree River Basin to use caution, stay informed and pay close attention to changing streamflow conditions. In addition, the company advises residents to follow the directions of state and county emergency management and watch for emergency notification messages on their mobile phones. Company representatives are actively collaborating with local emergency management officials to ensure they are informed of any changes in water levels. Local authorities will notify residents should evacuations, road closures or electrical disconnects be necessary. Real-time lake level information is available at duke-energy.com/lakes or by calling 800.829.LAKE (5253). Updates are also available through the Duke Energy Lake View mobile app, which is available from the App Store and Google Play. Duke Energy Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), a Fortune 150 company headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., is one of America's largest energy holding companies. The company's electric utilities serve 8.4 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, and collectively own 54,800 megawatts of energy capacity. Its natural gas utilities serve 1.7 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky. Duke Energy is executing an ambitious clean energy transition, keeping reliability, affordability and accessibility at the forefront as the company works toward net-zero methane emissions from its natural gas business by 2030 and net-zero carbon emissions from electricity generation by 2050. The company is investing in major electric grid upgrades and cleaner generation, including expanded energy storage, renewables, natural gas and nuclear. More information is available at duke-energy.com and the Duke Energy News Center. Follow Duke Energy on X, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook, and visit illumination for stories about the people and innovations powering our energy transition. 24-Hour: 800.559.3853 SOURCE Duke Energy Euziel's General Manager Kong Yi opened the celebration by thanking the company's partners for their crucial support. He reviewed Euziel's journey, emphasizing its key role in logistics and warehousing for SONGMICS HOME. To date, Euziel has achieved seamless control over product development, design, sourcing, sales, warehousing, logistics, and supply chain management, ensuring consistent premium home furnishings for consumers globally. The Company's rapid growth in Germany and across Europe in recent years has garnered widespread attention and praise from multiple sectors. Six key partners took the stage to relate their experiences with Euziel. Notably, Markus Bangen, Chairman of Duisburger Hafen AG, affirmed, " We look forward to further fruitful endeavors at the port of Duisburg and wish them continued success and rising customer satisfaction in Europe." Recently, SONGMICS HOME has introduced an innovative serialization concept in product development, significantly enhancing user experiences. The company has launched multiple product collections with unique styles. Peter Lee, Vice President of Product, highlighted the effectiveness of the concept, noting, "Brand serialization is a potent strategy. By unifying product design elements materials, craftsmanship, and colors we enhance product recognition and ensure consistency in user experience, providing a strong foundation for our long-term growth." Additionally, guests were invited to the display area to explore the company's latest TOOLLESS technology. The innovation offers a quick and easy furniture assembly process, which garnered applause from the audience. Euziel's event ended with a guided tour of the new warehouse, showcasing a significant expansion aimed at reducing delivery costs and boosting consumer satisfaction. In 12 years, SONGMICS HOME has transformed the group company into a significant international enterprise. Europe is where the company started its business in. Looking forward, the company plans to enhance its trio of core competenciesproducts, supply chain, and salesproviding families worldwide with stylish, valuable home furnishing solutions with efficient experience, helping everyone to create their ideal living spaces. About SONGMICS HOME SONGMICS HOME was officially established in 2010. We own 3 major product brands including SONGMICS for home furnishings, VASAGLE for stylish furniture, and Feandrea for pet supplies. With the mission of "Complete Your Dream Home", we strive to provide global consumers with stylish and valuable furnishing products. Together with an efficient experience, we are enabling everyone to effortlessly create their dream homes. To date, our products have successfully entered more than 70 countries and regions, including Europe, North and Central America, and Asia, serving over 20 million families worldwide. [email protected] Video - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517486/11.mp4 Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2515117/DSCF9596.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2515118/DSCF9619.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2515119/DSCF9766.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2515120/DSC05808.jpg WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM? 440k+ Newsrooms & Influencers 9k+ Digital Media Outlets 270k+ Journalists Opted In GET STARTED PORTLAND, Ore., Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- GiGi's Playhouse, the only network of Down Syndrome Achievement Centers, is proud to announce the grand opening of its newest Playhouse in Portland, OR, on Saturday, September 28. The Portland Playhouse marks GiGi's first brick-and-mortar location in Oregon and the organization's 61st Playhouse. The journey to bring a GiGi's to Portland began in 2017 and involved over 50 dedicated community members. The Portland Start-up team's efforts gained new momentum when Brad Johnston joined as Start-up Lead in 2022. Brad and his wife Niki are proud grandparents to nine incredible grandchildren, including Jack, who was born in 2019 and has Down syndrome. With 40 years of experience leading companies, Brad applied his expertise to Portland's Start-up team, helping raise more than $500,000, propelling the Portland Playhouse to open its doors. "I'm thrilled to welcome GiGi's Playhouse Portland as our 61st Playhouse," said Nancy Gianni, Founder and Chief Belief Officer. "The GiGi's Portland team has worked so hard, and now, all of Portland gets to experience our lifetime commitment and free programming!" Nancy and her daughter, GiGi Gianni, the namesake and inspiration of GiGi's Playhouse, will attend the Portland grand opening to usher the new Playhouse into the community. The Portland Playhouse marks a significant expansion since the organization's inception in 2003. After her daughter GiGi was born with Down syndrome, Nancy Gianni was determined to change how the world views Down syndrome. With that in mind, she opened the very first GiGi's Playhouse in Hoffman Estates, IL. In addition to celebrating Down syndrome, GiGi's Playhouse provides free therapeutic, educational, and career programming to individuals with Down syndrome and their families. GiGi's free programming model has expanded to over 61 locations, as well as GiGi's Virtual Playhouse. Portland is the latest city to welcome a GiGi's Playhouse to its community and exemplifies the GiGi's entrepreneurial model created by Nancy Gianni. About GiGi's Playhouse: GiGi's Playhouse is the only international network of Down Syndrome Achievement Centers dedicated to providing free therapeutic, educational, and career programs for individuals with Down syndrome and their families. With over 61 locations across the United States and Mexico, GiGi's Playhouse offers a lifetime commitment while providing individuals with Down syndrome the opportunity to maximize their potential to further grow acceptance, inclusion, and empowerment. For more information, visit here. Contact: Kevin O'Brien, [email protected] SOURCE GiGis Playhouse Down Syndrome Achievement Centers Rebel Wilson, Hiroshi Fujiwara Confirmed to Attend Critically Acclaimed MAISON YOSHIKI PARIS Show at Milan Fashion Week Has Garnered 10M Views on YouTube Paris Event Follows YOSHIKI's Performance Honoring Miky Lee, Vice Chairwoman of CJ Group, at Global Citizen Awards in NY LOS ANGELES, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Anticipation continues to mount for the debut of MAISON YOSHIKI PARIS at Paris Fashion Week, where global superstar YOSHIKI will present his latest ready-to-wear collection on September 30 at Palais de Chaillot. YOSHIKI has already solidified his reputation for pushing boundaries with his genderless style and breathtaking presentations. Celebrities including actress Rebel Wilson and streetwear legend Hiroshi Fujiwara are confirmed to attend. Global superstar YOSHIKI will present his high-fashion line MAISON YOSHIKI PARIS at Paris Fashion Week on September 30 at Palais de Chaillot. The YouTube video of the brand's premiere at Milan Fashion Week has garnered over 10 million views. YOSHIKI stunned the worlds of fashion and rock music after he debuted MAISON YOSHIKI PARIS at Milan Fashion Week earlier this year. The debut received overwhelming attention from major fashion media around the world including Vogue who said, "At MAISON YOSHIKI, modern tailoring and hard-edge details make perfect harmony." FAB UK called it "cutting-edge", and Rain Magazine dubbed the collection "a new era in fashion" and "a beacon of innovation and elegance." The video of the dramatic runway show in Milan is still garnering attention and has been viewed over 10 million times on YouTube. VIDEO: MAISON YOSHIKI PARIS at Milan Fashion Week 24/25 (Full Show) https://youtu.be/gVBknbEPi3Y YOSHIKI's upcoming Paris Fashion Week show is the latest event in his whirlwind schedule, including a series of sold-out dinner shows in Japan last month and recording sessions in his L.A. studio for several upcoming releases, like the highly anticipated international theme song to celebrate Hello Kitty's 50th anniversary. Earlier this week, YOSHIKI was also invited to perform at the Atlantic Council's Global Citizen Awards in NY, as a special guest of honoree Miky Lee, Vice Chairwoman of CJ Group, who is credited with playing a significant role in elevating the international influence of Korean culture including serving as the Executive Producer of the Academy Award winning film Parasite and Academy-Award nominated film Past Lives. YOSHIKI gave a solo piano performance of his chart-topping X JAPAN song "Endless Rain" to an audience of the world's top industry and government leaders, including co-founder of DreamWorks SKG Jeffrey Katzenberg and Pachinko author Min Jin Lee. The prestigious event, which was held during the 2024 United Nations General Assembly, will be broadcast starting Thursday, October 3, at 9:00am ET at https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/global-citizen-awards/ ABOUT YOSHIKI YOSHIKI is a composer, classically trained pianist, rock drummer, and the leader of the rock group X Japan. YOSHIKI was named "one of the most influential musicians and composers in Japanese history" by Consequence and is described by Billboard as "a musical innovator". In addition to MAISON YOSHIKI PARIS, the multi-faceted creator has introduced a new collection of crystal stemware in collaboration with French crystal maker Baccarat. YOSHIKI's collaboration with Baccarat began in 2021 when he was selected as one of the designers to commemorate Baccarat's 180th anniversary in 2021.This project also stems from YOSHIKI's creation of Y by YOSHIKI wine with the Mondavi family in Napa, California, and the establishment of YOSHIKI's own premiere Champagne brand with renowned French house POMMERY. YOSHIKI launched Yoshikimono in 2009 as a fusion of tradition and innovation. Yoshikimono was chosen to be displayed at the prestigious V&A Museum in London and at the Musee du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac in Paris alongside works from other prominent fashion designers Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint Laurent, Jean-Paul Gaultier, and John Galliano. YOSHIKIMONO has headlined Tokyo Fashion Week multiple times since 2015, and he is the first Japanese male talent to be featured on the cover of Vogue Japan. In 2023, YOSHIKI's directorial debut feature film YOSHIKI: Under the Sky premiered in New York, Tokyo, London, and Los Angeles, followed by showings in over 130 theaters in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. MAISON YOSHIKI PARIS Official Website: https://www.maisonyoshikiparis.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maisonyoshiki/ YOSHIKI Official Website: https://www.yoshiki.net/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yoshikiofficial/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/yoshiki SOURCE YOSHIKI NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Guild Garage Group ("Guild"), a newly formed alliance of residential garage door service companies focused on replacement, repair and installation, has announced the completion of its strategic partnership with A Plus Garage Doors ("A Plus"), a portfolio company of Salt Lake City-based investment firm Asilia Partners ("Asilia"). Under the terms of the agreement, Asilia principals will serve on Guild's advisory board to support Guild's founders and management team in executing its buy-and-build strategy. Guild Garage Group has announced the completion of its strategic partnership with A Plus Garage Doors. Post this A Plus Garage Doors is a locally owned and operated garage door services business established in 2005. The business is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. A Plus Garage Doors offers a range of services related to garage doors, including repair options, garage door replacement, and installation. More information about A Plus can be found at https://utahgaragedoors.net/. The strategic partnership combines Guild's eight existing service brands with A Plus, whose more than 140 employees and 80 service trucks make it one of the largest and most profitable standalone garage door service companies in the United States. "We are absolutely thrilled to welcome A Plus to the Guild team. A Plus' scale and sophistication are second to none, and being able to share best practices with and learn from Carrie and the rest of the A Plus team will enable us to maximize the full potential of each of our incredible brands," said Tim O'Reilly, CEO of Guild. Carrie Kelsch, Co-Founder and CEO of A Plus, noted, "We are excited about the growth opportunity that Guild's unique partner model provides, and we are looking forward to working with like-minded companies who share our commitment to providing top-level service. I believe that through our collective partnership, we can be successful in continuing to grow A Plus, while preserving the core attributes of the company that make it so special and distinctive." A Plus' COO, Parker Kelsch, added: "This is a pivotal moment for us. Joining forces with Guild not only expands our capabilities but also reinforces our commitment to providing top notch garage door services to our customers. Together, we are set to redefine excellence in the garage door industry." "This strategic partnership with A Plus marks a significant milestone in Guild's early history," said Jordan Dubin, Co-Founder of Guild. "Carrie is truly an industry icon, and I am honored to call her and the rest of the A Plus team partners." Jordan continued, "Additionally, Asilia's experience building HVAC and other technician services platforms will be an invaluable asset to our leadership team. I could not be more excited for the future of Guild." Blake Boardman, Managing Partner at Asilia, said "We are excited to partner with Guild to help build the market-leading garage door service platform. We have continued to be impressed by how the Guild Team has established themselves as preferred partners to the leading owner operators in the industry. Furthermore, we believe the addition of A Plus to Guild's already dominant group of brands will further establish Guild as the partner of choice within the industry and create an unparallelled opportunity for business owners to unlock the embedded value of their businesses." Guild is actively looking for leading garage door service businesses across the country. Founders and advisors interested in learning more should contact Jordan Dubin at [email protected] . About Guild Garage Group Guild Garage Group is a newly formed alliance of residential garage door service companies and is actively looking to partner with owners of industry-leading companies. Guild is guided by the vision of being the preferred partner to business owners through a "made for you" brand positioning and invests in companies with strong management teams and cultures to create unmatched growth opportunities for them. Guild allows owners to take chips off the table while retaining "unit level ownership" so they continue to benefit from annual distributions and an eventual full exit as their business grows. Guild retains the employees and management teams of the companies it partners with and provides them with the resources and processes they need to better serve their customers, employees, and communities. More information about Guild can be found at https://www.guildgaragegroup.com/ . About A Plus Garage Doors A Plus Garage Doors is a locally owned and operated garage door services business established in 2005. The business is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. The company boasts over 18,000 positive Google reviews and maintains an A+ Rating by BBB and 5.0 Stars on Google, making it the preferred choice for garage door replacement and repair in Utah. A Plus Garage Doors offers a range of services related to garage doors, including repair options, garage door replacement, and installation. More information about A Plus can be found at https://utahgaragedoors.net/ . About Asilia Partners Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, Asilia Partners is a private investment firm that provides flexible equity and debt capital to middle market businesses primarily in the residential and business services sectors. Asilia partners with family- and entrepreneur-owned companies and seeks to create value by focusing on organizational health and using data, technology, and capital resources to grow and improve operations. Its nimble organization and investor base enable it to offer non-traditional capital and business solutions, over short or long hold periods, and across all market cycles. More information about Asilia Partners can be found at https://www.asiliainvestments.com/. SOURCE Guild Garage Group BOCA RATON, Fla., Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Hair Club for Men, Ltd., Inc. ("HairClub"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tokyo-based Aderans Co. Ltd., the world's leading provider of total hair loss solutions, partnered with Girls and Boys Club of America to give free haircuts to kids for back-to-school. At HairClub, we help people step into confidence with the hair they envision for themselves. Our stylists understand every appointment has the potential to change someone's life, and we approach each session with this belief in mind. That's why we're thrilled to announce that during August and September, select HairClub centers partnered with local Boys & Girls Clubs chapters to offer free haircuts to kids in need so they can start the school year with enthusiasm. Our commitment to changing lives has always been extended to people of all ages. After a few successful years of partnering with the Boys & Girls Clubs, we are proud to continue this relationship, giving back to communities and making a tangible difference in the lives of young students. This isn't "just" a free haircut. To the kids of the Boys & Girls Clubs, it means facing the new school year with a strengthened sense of self-esteem, ready to take on any challenge. When children feel proud of their appearance, it sets a positive tone for their academic and social success. This aligns with both HairClub's mission and the goals of the Boys & Girls Clubsto uplift, empower, and provide opportunities for growth. We're committed to making this difference in our communities. With nearly 50 years of experience, HairClub is a leader in understanding the deep personal connection people have with their hair and how their hair impacts their confidence and self-esteem. While we primarily focus on providing solutions for hair loss, we also believe in offering support to all members of the community. That's why this initiative is especially important to us. As we continue to partner with organizations like the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, we remain committed to serving our communities with care, passion, and gratitude. "A heartfelt thank you to HairClub Stylists for their incredible support and generosity to offer their time and skills to Boys and Girls Club. They made a lasting impact and should inspire us all", says Michele Avis, VP of Human Resources. About HairClub Founded in 1976, HairClub is North America's leading provider of proven hair loss prevention and regrowth, hair replacement, and hair restoration solutions. For nearly 50 years, HairClub has helped hundreds of thousands restore their hair and transform their lives. Today, HairClub has over 100 locations throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tokyo-based Aderans Co. Ltd., the world's leading provider of total hair loss solutions. For more information, visit hairclub.com . SOURCE HairClub New York fashion brand, HIROMI ASAI, develops men's wears all made of Japanese Kimono textiles since 2017. HIROMI ASAI presents Spring/Summer 2025 collection in Paris during Paris Fashion Week at 4pm CET on September 30th, 2024. NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- New York based fashion brand, HIROMI ASAI, (www.hiromiasainy.com) has been trying to revive the essence of Japanese Kimono for modern luxury fashion. The designer, Hiromi Asai, first presented authentic Kimonos on the runway at New York Fashion Week in 2016. Subsequently, HIROMI ASAI has been developing men's wears made of Japanese Kimono textiles, which were presented at Pitti Uomo, New York, Miami, and Paris Fashion Weeks every season since 2017. HIROMI ASAI gets international acclaims for its unique styles and concepts, and outstanding qualities. HIROMI ASAI returns to Paris Fashion Week for SS25 collection, following to the presentation at New York Fashion Week and Milan Fashion Week HIROMI ASAI returns to Paris Fashion Week for SS25 collection, following to the presentation at New York Fashion Week and Milan Fashion Week Following the successful presentation at New York Fashion Week and Milan Fashion Week, HIROMI ASAI returns to Paris Fashion Week and presents Spring/Summer 2025 (SS25) collection on the runway in Paris, starting at 4pm CET on September 30, 2024. The show is held with Flying Solo designers. The collection title is "TRANSITIONING SEASONS," which represents the sequence of seasons and unveils once-in-a-lifetime encounter clothing. This collection features patchworks and vivid colors. Japanese traditional motifs are excellently integrated in this collection, which implies the course of nature during the transitional seasons. HIROMI ASAI always respects Japanese tradition and evolves traditional Japanese textiles to worldwide high fashion by progressive forms with all details inspired by Kimono. Japanese craftsmen, who usually manufacture textiles for authentic Kimono, and Hiromi Asai developed new textiles for this collection. The collection was tailored by Japanese unparalleled techniques. HIROMI ASAI collection should be recognized as treasures created by Japanese artisanship. "I am excited to present my new collection in Paris again. On this collection I feature a variety of colors, which represents the transitioning seasons. I am truly inspired by beauty of the transitional reasons which can be seen in Japan." Ms. Hiromi Asai said. "The essence of Kimono stays in the fabrics rather than in its forms. We continue evolving Japanese traditional textiles to luxury high fashion for all over the world." After this presentation, SS25 collection will be available at the boutique and showroom in New York; Flying Solo (flyingsolo.nyc) or its online store (flyingsolo.nyc/designer/hiromi-asai). In addition, it will also appear at Maison Privee in West Hollywood, California (www.instagram.com/maisonpriveepr_la). DETAILED INFORMATION OF THE RUNWAY SHOW HIROMI ASAI @ Flying Solo Spring/Summer 2025, Flying Solo Paris Fashion Week Show Date and Time: Monday, September 30, 2024; 4:00pm CET (Central European Time) Location: La Galerie Bourbon - 79 bis Av. Marceau, 75116 Paris, France (Only by invitation) DETAILED INFORMATION OF SALES and SHOWROOM For Sales Flying Solo, The Store 420 W Broadway, New York, NY 10012, USA 646-982 1133 https://flyingsolo.nyc Also available at Online Store https://flyingsolo.nyc/designer/hiromi-asai For PR and Showroom Flying Solo PR - The Copper Room 419 Broome St, New York, NY 10013, USA https://www.instagram.com/flyingsolo_pr Maison Privee 8285 Sunset Blvd. Suite #1, West Hollywood, CA 90046 https://www.maisonpriveepr.com HIROMI ASAI WEB AND SOCIAL MEDIA HP: https://www.hiromiasainy.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hiromi.asai Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/modeandclassic Media Contact: Hiromi Asai +1-646-242-4156 [email protected] SOURCE HIROMI ASAI - Mode & Classic LLC CHANGCHUN, China, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- October 14th - 20th, HONGQI, the "World's New Luxury" automotive brand, will make its debut at the Paris Motor Show 2024, introducing its latest electric vehicles: the EH7 sedan and the EHS7 SUV. Both models will be available for open orders in Europe during the event, marking a significant milestone in HONGQI's expansion into the European market. HONGQI The two all-electric models, the EH7 and EHS7, showcased at this event blend Chinese craftsmanship with cutting-edge engineering. Built on the "TianGong" Electric Platform, these vehicles seamlessly integrate "beyong driving", "beyong comfort" and "beyong technology" reflecting HONGQI's vision for the future of mobility. HONGQI's new models aim to deliver a powerful yet smooth driving experience, showcasing exceptional driving dynamics and comfort. Both the EH7 and EHS7 are equipped with a 22,500 RPM electric motor, allowing for top speeds of up to 200 km/h. The EHS7 achieves 0-100 km/h acceleration in just 3.9 seconds, while the EH7 reaches the same speed in a remarkable 3.5 seconds, offering supercar-level performance. The rear-wheel steering and advanced braking system (with a braking distance of just 36 meters from 100 km/h) further enhance precise handling, ensuring a thrilling and responsive driving experience. Inside the cabin, the vehicle offers a world of comfort and luxury. With hand-stitched NAPPA leather seats, passengers can enjoy the utmost comfort on any journey. The premium finishes, on par with top-tier luxury vehicles, exude an air of prestige and elegance throughout. Additionally, the advanced "iDCS Self-Adjusting Continuous Damping Shock Absorbers" easily adapt to various terrains, providing a smooth driving experience. Both models feature dual-screen displays and a 63-inch AR-HUD, alongside comprehensive driver assistance. Fast-charging capabilities enable a 10% to 80% charge in just 20 minutes, ideal for long-distance travel. Their sleek, nature-inspired exterior combines power and elegance, while impressive range capabilitiesup to 655 km for the EH7 and 600 km for the EHS7ensure sustainability without compromising on performance, positioning HONGQI's new models at the forefront of luxury electric vehicle technology. In addition to delivering world-class electric mobility solutions, HONGQI has established a robust after-sales network across multiple European countries, offering customers comprehensive service and support. HONGQI invites European users to explore open order options and experience the future of driving at the Paris Motor Show 2024. Website: https://www.hongqi-auto.com Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2517869/HONGQI.jpg HANGZHOU, China, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Hikvision made a significant impact at the ITS World Congress in Dubai with its captivating theme, "Embrace AIoT for safer, smarter, and greener mobility." Its booth became a hub of innovation, where visitors explored AIoT solutions that are reshaping the transportation landscape, sparking deep conversations on the future of urban mobility. Road safety revolution: harnessing AIoT for secure transportation How AIoT shapes the future of mobility: Hikvision at ITS World Congress 2024 Hikvision's commitment to road safety was on full display at its booth through the impressive array of AIoT solutions designed to create secure and reliable traffic environments. The company's technology provides 24/7 traffic monitoring, ensuring continuous oversight of motor vehicles, non-motorized vehicles, pedestrians and environmental factors. This comprehensive, real-time information collection enables traffic managers to prevent accidents and enhance road safety. Among the showcased products was the 20 MP IR ANPR Checkpoint Capture Unit, renowned for its high-definition capture capabilities, bolstering traffic safety measures. A standout innovation was the integration of advanced radar and camera technologies, ensuring uninterrupted, comprehensive detection even in adverse weather conditions. The Radar-Video Fusion Incident Detection Cameras, featured prominently in the product experience area, enable early detection and warning of potential hazards. They are particularly effective in challenging situations such as curved roads, blind spots at intersections, and obstacles beyond visual range. Attendees also engaged with onboard monitoring products on the simulated bus, including dome network cameras, which is designed to enhance passenger safety. Driving assistance products, such as the Driver Status Monitor (DSM), were demonstrated to mitigate unsafe driving behaviors and ensure safer journeys. Urban mobility redefined: smart traffic innovations In the realm of smarter mobility, Hikvision showcased its multidimensional sensing technology, which integrates visible light sensors, infrared sensors, radar, and sonar. This technology expands perception capabilities, significantly improving traffic management and situational awareness. The use of AI-powered comprehensive sensing elevates incident monitoring and violation detection to unprecedented levels of accuracy and efficiency. A major attraction was the Radar-Video Fusion TandemVu PTZ Camera, which integrates millimeter-wave radar with high-resolution cameras for extensive traffic detection and data analysis. AI-based algorithms combine these two systems to enhance target information, detecting up to 16 types of incidents. This leads to the development of a large-scale fusion model that merges spatial physical data with image semantic information. The result is ultra-long-range perception, achieving over 95% accuracy in vehicle trajectory detection. This robust system improves traffic violation management and optimizes traffic flow, significantly enhancing road efficiency. At the simulated bus station, visitors observed how AI-assisted people counting automated the collection of passenger flow statistics at peak stop hours and bus line frequency during busy periods. Paired with smart bus stop digital signage, the solution improves bus service quality, operational efficiency, passenger experience, and overall public transport effectiveness. Sustainable transportation: leading the charge for greener cities Hikvision's commitment to sustainable urban mobility was evident through its innovative green wave technology and eco-friendly checkpoint solutions. Green wave technology efficiently manages traffic flow to reduce congestion and lower carbon emissions, aligning with global sustainability goals. Visitors were particularly impressed by a case study showcasing a green wave solution implemented in Zhoushan, China. Over a stretch of 21 kilometers and 34 intersections, this main road cut travel times by 50%. The use of DarkFighterX technology in checkpoint cameras also received significant attention. This technology senses both visible and invisible light, resulting in more accurate and realistic images. It enhances traffic violation enforcement efficiency while minimizing the need for high ambient light levels, thus reducing light pollution. The 9M DarkfightX ANPR Checkpoint Camera exemplified this dedication to environmental stewardship. Frank Zhang, President of Hikvision MEA, remarked, "Hikvision supports sustainable urban planning by empowering traffic departments to address congestion and transportation challenges." He further emphasized, "Our system's openness fosters a secure and reliable platform for developing smart and green cities. Additionally, our solar technology is extensively utilized in remote areas, while our smart street lighting solutions reduce energy consumption by 20-30%, promoting intelligent urban transportation and advancing global sustainability objectives." Hikvision's presence at the ITS World Congress in Dubai underscored its leadership in integrating AIoT technologies to drive safer, smarter, and greener mobility solutions. The engaging presentations and advanced product demonstrations captured significant attention from industry partners and customers, reaffirming the company's role as a pioneer in shaping the future of urban transportation. As the world moves towards more intelligent and sustainable transportation systems, Hikvision remains at the forefront, embracing AIoT to create a safer, smarter, and greener future for all. To find out more about Hikvision's advanced traffic and public transport solutions, please explore the Hikvision official website. SOURCE Hikvision Digital Technology BEIJING, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- This is a report from China.org.cn about how people in Kubuqi, China's seventh-largest desert, utilize high technology to create green miracle concerning both desert greening and green energy development. How China turned the 'Sea of Death' into a solar oasis The Kubuqi Desert, China's seventh-largest desert, is nestled in the northern part of the Ordos Plateau in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. It was once called the "Sea of Death" because of its harsh conditions. For generations, local people battled the expanding desert, and this harsh environment shaped their lives. As the dunes grew, many were forced to abandon their homes. But today, something amazing is happening here a green revolution! The Dalad Photovoltaic Power Base in Ordos is the first PV power project in the Kubuqi Desert. It started construction in 2017, with full capacity grid connection achieved by the end of 2019. The project has a capacity of 1 million kilowatts, covering a total area of 50,000 mu (around 3,333.33 hectares). It generates approximately 2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, which can meet the yearly electricity needs of 300,000 to 400,000 urban residents. The solar panels and their supports do more than just generate power. They also help stop sand dunes from moving and keep moisture in the soil, which fights against the spread of the desert. There is an innovative model: generating power above, restoring land below, and cultivating crops between panels. This approach has helped reclaim 50,000 mu of desert land. Besides growing grass, what other new possibilities are there under the solar panels? During our visit to a 2-million-kW photovoltaic sand control project in Hanggin Banner, Ordos, we discovered some exciting new developments. It's not just fruits and vegetables; there are chickens, too! In the Kubuqi Desert, once one of China's driest areas, people are leveraging solar power not just for energy, but as a tool to help care for the environment. Ordos has changed a lot. Before, the desert was taking over the land where people lived. Now, plants are growing back and covering the area again. Local people are feeling hopeful; young folks are choosing to stay and explore the treasures of their hometown. The two PV power bases in Dalad and Hanggin banners are part of Ordos' efforts to build a "Great Wall of Solar Panels" across the Kubuqi Desert. This project aims to create a "Great Wall" that promotes ecological conservation, green energy production, industrial growth, innovation, and shared prosperity for the local people. Ordos, once known as the "coal capital," is now embracing a cleaner future. The city is building a new system that combines different types of green energy. This system works like this: Wind turbines and solar panels generate clean energy. The power is then stored in batteries or converted to hydrogen fuel. Finally, eco-friendly trucks use this green energy to run. All parts of this process work together seamlessly. And the story of green development in Ordos is just getting started. Official: http://www.china.org.cn/china/2024-09/24/content_117446966.htm SOURCE China.org.cn KYODO NEWS - Sep 27, 2024 - 13:22 | All, World The U.S. government on Friday quadrupled the tariff rate on Chinese electric vehicles to 100 percent and sharply raised tariffs on Chinese goods in other areas of strategic importance, such as steel and solar products. With China only hinting so far about the possibility of countermeasures, the steep U.S. tariff hikes have come into effect. The rate on steel and aluminum products was lifted to 25 percent from the previous range of zero to 7.5 percent, while duties on solar cells and semiconductors were doubled to 50 percent. The hikes were first announced by President Joe Biden in May, about two months before he ended his reelection campaign, amid an intensifying race with his predecessor Donald Trump for the White House. Biden has criticized China for flooding global markets with products made through massive governmental subsidies and sold at unfairly low prices. He has said the raising of tariffs is aimed at preventing China from threatening U.S. manufacturing jobs. Many other Western countries have also stepped up pressure on China, criticizing its overcapacity for potentially distorting global prices and impacting their workers. The European Commission has announced plans to impose tariffs of up to 36.3 percent on Chinese-made electric cars. Canada is due to impose a 100 percent tariff on Chinese EV imports starting next month. But when it comes to the new U.S. rate on Chinese EVs, it is widely seen as a symbolic step ahead of the November presidential election in which Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, now faces the Republican Trump. Unlike in Europe, where many low-priced Chinese EVs are sold, there are hardly any driven in the United States. The U.S. market was also largely shielded from them by the duty imposed by Trump during his term in the White House. All the concerned tariffs fall under Section 301 of the U.S. 1974 trade law, which authorizes the use of levies against a foreign country's allegedly unfair practices. The section was a favorite tool of Trump in justifying the imposition of higher duties on Chinese imports when he started a trade war with Beijing in 2018. Related coverage: Biden hits Chinese EVs, other key goods with much higher tariffs HandicapMD.com Offers Easy Online Certification for Disabled Parking Permits in California SAN DIEGO, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Navigating the process of obtaining a handicap parking placard in California just became simpler and more accessible, thanks to HandicapMD.com, the state's premier resource for disabled parking permits. Whether due to a temporary injury, pregnancy, or a permanent disability, Californians can now secure disabled parking permits through a HIPAA-compliant online platform. What Is a Handicap Placard and Why Is It Important? A handicap placard allows individuals with qualifying disabilities to park in designated accessible parking spaces, improving access to closer parking. HandicapMD.com simplifies this process by providing the required medical certification from licensed professionals, all from the convenience of your home. Simplifying the Process for a Disabled Parking Permit in California California requires medical documentation to verify an individual's eligibility for a disabled parking placard. This is where HandicapMD.com steps in, offering convenient telemedicine evaluations by experienced doctors who specialize in ADA eligibility guidelines. The service is available for both permanent and temporary disabilities, including conditions like arthritis, heart disease, mobility impairments, and post-surgical recovery. Here's how to get a California handicap placard through HandicapMD: Sign up on the HandicapMD.com website. Schedule a video consultation with one of HandicapMD's licensed medical professionals. Once approved, receive your completed DMV form, ready for submission. Why Choose HandicapMD.com? HandicapMD stands out as a trusted resource for obtaining disabled parking permits in California. By utilizing this online platform, patients save time, avoid unnecessary trips to the doctor's office. With a growing demand for telemedicine services, HandicapMD.com is proud to provide this service for California, as well as Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas, New York. Georgia, & most states About HandicapMD.com HandicapMD.com is an innovative telemedicine platform that offers certified medical evaluations for individuals seeking online disabled parking permits. Fully compliant with state and federal guidelines, HandicapMD specializes in providing expert consultations for handicap placard. For more information on how to get a handicap parking permit in California, visit HandicapMD.com. Contact: Ena D [email protected] (833) DMV-3825 Photo(s): https://www.prlog.org/13040588 Press release distributed by PRLog SOURCE HandicapMD CHICAGO, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- North Park University proudly hosted its annual Service Day this month, uniting 230 students, faculty, and staff in a shared commitment to community engagement and social responsibility. University Ministries (UMin) organized the event under the joint leadership of Ben Swihart, coordinator of global partnerships and community outreach, and third-year student Davianna Schuh. They began planning months ago, organizing lists of local volunteer sites, recruiting volunteers, and communicating with local aldermen and community groups. "The groups we landed on took inspiration from the climate survey," Schuh said, referring to the Culturally Engaging Campus Environments Survey conducted spring 2023. "Across all demographic backgrounds, students felt they wished they had more opportunities give back to their communities." Many North Parkers are commuter students from nearby neighborhoods, so Swihart and Schuh chose organizations primarily on the North and West Sides. Volunteers could choose from sites such as Concordia Place, Nourishing Hope, and Sarah's Circle, a women's shelter with multiple locations on the North Side. "Everyone has something they can feel excited about helping with," Swihart said. Several students addressed their concern for the disadvantaged by aiding refugees and the homeless, while the environmentally minded cleaned the Chicago River. Swihart said he hopes this year's event is the first of many and that North Park continues to build long-term relationships with its partner organizations. "The idea is for them to get to know us, to say, 'Oh, this North Parker came and built this shelving unit for us last year, or painted this room,' and they trust us and what we do," he said, adding he hopes the service also leads to internships and other opportunities for students. Service is a core pillar of NPU's mission, which is to foster a culture of empathy and civic responsibility that encourages the campus community to engage with local organizations, thus enhancing our students' educational experiences and making a tangible impact on the neighborhoods we serve. North Park University is city-centered, intercultural, and emerging as the model for Christian higher education in 21st-century America. SOURCE North Park University Revolutionary Solution for Smoother Healing and Significantly Reduced Scar Visibility MARIETTA, Ga., Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- BRIJ Medical is excited to announce the launch of Brijjit Scar Therapy, a game-changing solution that allows surgeons to grow their practice and helps patients take proactive control over scar prevention from the second the incision is closed throughout all of the key stages of wound healing. Tissue Bridge Technology BRIJ Medical Launches Brijjit Scar Therapy - Help Prevent Bad Scars Before They Start Powered by Brijjit Force Modulating Tissue Bridges, this groundbreaking approach tackles scar formation from the outset, unlike traditional treatments that focus on scars after they form. Brijjit addresses the issue right at the source by relieving tension on the incision immediately after surgery. Proven in a randomized clinical trial with UT Southwestern Medical Center and a study led by Dr. Holly Wall, published in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal, Brijjit has been shown to reduce scar area by 38% and decrease wound breakdown by 90%. By eliminating up to 100% of tension on the incision, Brijjit empowers patients with greater control over their recovery and scar outcomes. "Scarring is a major concern for surgical patients, something I encountered firsthand as a plastic surgeon. It's what inspired the creation of Brijjit," said Dr. Monte Eaves, Founder and Chief Medical Officer of BRIJ Medical. "Brijjit Scar Therapy is a true game changerhelping surgeons achieve better scar outcomes while empowering patients to take an active role in their recovery." As featured in the recent New York Times article, "The Power of a Smaller Breast," there is a growing trend of patients opting for breast reduction surgery, even if it means accepting the potential for scars. Now, surgeons can offer a comprehensive solution that addresses both wound breakdown and scar therapyall in a single device. Dr. Killeen, the surgeon featured in the article, uses Brijjit devices to Relieve the Tension on her breast surgeries, including with Cheyenne, the patient featured in the article. Program Details By offering Brijjit Scar Therapy direct to patients, surgeons can improve patient outcomes, grow their practice, and empower patients to take control of their scar healing through every stage of post-surgical recovery. BRIJ Medical now offers a detailed guide with best practices and a step-by-step implementation guide to streamline the integration of Brijjit Scar Therapy into their practice. For more information, visit BRIJmedical.com and discover how the Brijjit Scar Therapy Program is transforming post-surgical care and patient healing. About BRIJ Medical Our flagship product, the Brijjit Force Modulating Tissue Bridge, is clinically proven in multiple studies, including a randomized clinical trial, to reduce wound breakdown by 90% and reduce scar area by 38%. It eliminates up to 100% of tension on incisions and healing wounds, while also saving surgeons time (up to 9x faster than sutures), and is a cost-effective solution for practices, ASCs and hospitals alike. At BRIJ, we provide enhanced control and confidence at every step of the healing journey. For more information, visit BRIJmedical.com. SOURCE BRIJ Medical The brand's latest innovation includes the SENSONIC Toothbrush that cleans deep in hard-to-reach areas with contoured bristles that hug tooth surfaces plus three (3) cleaning modes: clean, stain removal, and gum care. Alongside the SENSONIC Toothbrush, the WATERPIK water flosser comes with five (5) specialty flossing tips, 360-degree tip rotation to reach the whole mouth, and ten (10) water pressure settings, delivering a truly customizable experience. The five (5) flossing tips include: two (2) Precision Tips for general use, one (1) Orthodontic Tip for braces and orthodontics, one (1) Plaque Seeker Tip for crowns and bridges, and one (1) Implant Denture Tip for implant retained dentures. Each tip is specially designed to address the most common dental needs. "WATERPIK'S latest innovation is a true testament to the brand's commitment to developing personalized oral care solutions that allow consumers to truly take control of their oral health," said Charisse Winecki, WATERPIK Vice President of Global Marketing. "Harnessing the power of water, SENSONIC Complete Care combines two of the brand's fan-favorite products into one device, making it easy to improve oral health at home." SENSONIC Complete Care transforms the power of water with PRECISIONPULSE technology, proven to deliver an effective combination of water pressure and pulsations removing up to 99.9% of plaque bacteria2 that can cause gingivitis, cavities, and bad breath. When the WATERPIK water flosser and SENSONIC Toothbrush are used together as directed, SENSONIC Complete Care is up to 3X as effective as manual brushing for improving gum health. The new WATERPIK SENSONIC Complete Care is now available for purchase at Amazon and Walmart.com. For more information, visit waterpik.com. About The Waterpik Brand WATERPIK is the #1 water flosser brand recommended by dental professionals in the U.S.1 and are proudly engineered in Colorado, USA. The company, founded in 1962 by a dentist and hydraulic engineer, has a rich history of innovation and design, engineering their products to deliver the wellness benefits of water in multiple new-to-the world products including the iconic original WATER FLOSSER and the world's first flossing toothbrush SONIC FUSION. Water Pik, Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Church & Dwight Co., Inc. 1 Professional AAU, 400 Dental Professionals, October 2023. 2 From treated areas. In vitro, data on file. Media contact: [email protected] SOURCE Waterpik LISBON, Portugal, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Gotbit Hedge Fund , a leading performance-focused market maker, participated at TOKEN2049 Singapore , one of the world's most famous crypto events. TOKEN2049 Singapore, which took place from September 18th to 20th, attracted over 20,000 participants from 7,000+ companies in 150+ countries. The event brought together leading entrepreneurs, investors, and media representatives, creating a unique platform for fostering collaboration in the crypto economy. With its own booth and an exclusive party, Gotbit Hedge Fund participated in high-level networking and presented its industry insights to attendees. The company's booth attracted over 2,000 visitors, and they hosted over 500 meetings. Gotbit Hedge Fund raffled off 2,000 boxes of company merch, containing t-shirts, power banks, and water bottles. As a gold sponsor, they also participated in Memecon and co-hosted the Triangle's " Accelerating Telegram & TON " event. Gotbit Hedge Fund had 10 representatives at the event, including Founder & CEO Alex Andryunin, COO Mark Strelchik, CBDO Grant Khalapian, and others. Moreover, Gotbit's Hedge Fund's exclusive OG party, known for bringing together top industry leaders, hosted over 700 guests. With 5,000 requests for tickets to the party, their event further cemented its reputation as one of the top networking hubs. "Our participation in TOKEN2049 Singapore allowed us to interact with key industry players and gain valuable insights. The main narratives of the event highlighted the early potential of meme tokenswith Binance listing memes twice a week, investors are eager to discover new opportunities in the 2050 million range. We will use these insights and connections to further strengthen our influence in the crypto market," said Alex Andryunin, Founder & CEO of Gotbit Hedge Fund. About Gotbit Hedge Fund Gotbit Hedge Fund a leading performance-focused market maker. The company's team includes 200+ experts who come from top financial and mathematical institutions, as well as former employees of leading traditional financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, PwC, and McKinsey. Gotbit Hedge Fund, with a proven track record of over 500 successful use cases, has provided market-making services for leading projects such as GT protocol, ChainGPT, Powerpool, Walken, Scallop, and others. As for the meme field, notable token cases include Myro, Ponke, Bonk, MUMU, and BEER. SOURCE Gotbit Hedge Fund RICHMOND, Va., Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- LandGate, a leading provider of comprehensive data and analysis in the real estate and energy sectors, has released a groundbreaking white paper for the state of Virginia on data center development. This in-depth report offers a detailed examination of Virginia's pivotal role in the burgeoning data center market, positioning it as a crucial pillar in the ongoing digital revolution. In today's rapidly evolving digital economy, data centers serve as the backbone for diverse industries, facilitating essential data storage, processing, and management. LandGate's analysis reveals that the data center market is poised for significant growth, with power capacity expected to double by 2029, reflecting an impressive growth rate of 51.4% over the next decade. "Ashburn is often dubbed as the 'Data Center Alley.' Virginia has established itself as a major hub for data centers across the United States. The state's wealth of land, robust infrastructure, reliable power supply, and favorable economic conditions continue to attract numerous data centers annually," says Yoann Hispa, CEO of LandGate. LandGate's data highlights Virginia's dominance, hosting over 420 data centers across colocation, hyperscale, and enterprise projects. Remarkably, Virginia accounts for over 35% of all known hyperscale data center projects worldwide, underscoring its leadership in data storage resources across the nation. The white paper is an essential resource for investors and developers looking to capitalize on this thriving market. It provides valuable insights into the factors driving Virginia's growth, the state's competitive advantages, and the future opportunities within the data center sector. Key Highlights Include: Virginia's role as a major data center hub within the United States . role as a major data center hub within . Projected growth of data center power capacity in Virginia , doubling by 2029. , doubling by 2029. Factors contributing to Virginia's dominance, including land availability, infrastructure, and economic conditions. Click here to download the full white paper. About LandGate LandGate is the leading provider of data solutions for site selection, origination, development, financing, and market analysis of US renewable energy and infrastructure projects: solar, data centers, EV's, energy storage, wind, carbon, and CCS. SOURCE LandGate NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of Pre-IPO shares through funds issued by Late Stage Asset Management, LLC between March 2019 and March 2023, both dates inclusive (the "Class Period"), of the important September 30, 2024 lead plaintiff deadline. So what: If you purchased Pre-IPO shares through funds issued by Late Stage Asset Management, LLC between March 2019 and March 2023, you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement. What to do next: To join the Late Stage class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=27548 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email [email protected] for information on the class action. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than September 30, 2024. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. Why Rosen Law: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually litigate securities class actions, but are merely middlemen that refer clients or partner with law firms that actually litigate the cases. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020, founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs' Bar. Many of the firm's attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers. Details of the case: According to the complaint, during the Class Period, the defendants orchestrated a scheme whereby a network of unregistered sales agents fraudulently offered and sold retail investors purportedly "no-fee" unregistered securities in private (Pre-IPO) companies, which turned out to have artificial prices inflated with fees that the defendants took as profit. The complaint further alleges that the defendants made numerous false and misleading statements during the sale of these illegal, unregistered securities in violation of the federal securities laws. To join the Late Stage class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=27548 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email [email protected] for information on the class action. No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investor's ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff. Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Contact Information: Laurence Rosen, Esq. Phillip Kim, Esq. The Rosen Law Firm, P.A. 275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor New York, NY 10016 Tel: (212) 686-1060 Toll Free: (866) 767-3653 Fax: (212) 202-3827 [email protected] www.rosenlegal.com SOURCE THE ROSEN LAW FIRM, P. A. JERSEY CITY, N.J., Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma America, Inc. (MTPA) today announced seven presentations on investigational ND0612 in Parkinson's disease (PD) will be shared at the 2024 International Congress of Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders (MDS), being held September 27-October 1 in Philadelphia, Pa. ND0612 is being evaluated as a continuous, 24 hours/day subcutaneous infusion of liquid levodopa/carbidopa. "We're looking forward to showcasing an exciting array of Parkinson's disease research from our Phase 2 and 3 studies at MDS, including one-year outcomes from the open-label extension period of our pivotal Phase 3 BouNDless trial, whose 12-week results were published earlier this year," said Gustavo A. Suarez Zambrano, M.D., Vice President of Medical Affairs, MTPA. "These data presentations reinforce our dedication to the ongoing evaluation of investigational ND0612 and commitment to learning more about Parkinson's disease that nearly one-million people are living with in the U.S."1 MTPA's posters will be presented in Exhibit Hall A on September 29, 1:00-3:00 p.m. ET: Presentation Details: Presentations include a range of data from the pivotal Phase 3 BouNDless trial (NCT04006210) evaluating ND0612 in people with PD experiencing motor fluctuations, utilizing data derived from patient-reported outcomes assessing quality of life and motor experiences of daily living, among other findings. Additionally, one-year outcomes from the ongoing open-label extension phase of the BouNDless trial will be presented. Quality of Life with 24-hour Subcutaneous Levodopa/Carbidopa Infusion (ND0612): PDQ-39 Results from a Phase 3 Randomized, Active-Controlled Study Abstract #: 648 Efficacy of Continuous Subcutaneous Levodopa/Carbidopa Infusion (ND0612) on Motor Signs of PD and Experiences of Daily Living Abstract #: 685 Impact of 24-hour Subcutaneous Levodopa/Carbidopa Infusion (ND0612) on Motor State Transitions Throughout the Day Abstract #: 683 Subgroup Analyses of a Phase 3, Randomized Study of Levodopa/Carbidopa Infusion (ND0612) for Parkinson's Patients Abstract #: 666 Long-Term Efficacy of 24-hour Subcutaneous Levodopa/Carbidopa Infusion (ND0612) for Motor Fluctuations in Parkinson's Disease Abstract #: 653 Additional presentations will highlight findings from analyses of Phase 2 and Phase 3 studies evaluating treatment outcomes from a 24-hour regimen of ND0612, including the characterization of infusion site reactions in patients reported as adverse events (AEs) and the characterization of dopaminergic treatment-emergent AEs reported in patients. Characterization of Infusion Site Reactions With 24-hour Subcutaneous Infusion of ND0612 Abstract #: 665 Dopaminergic Adverse Events With 24-hour Subcutaneous Infusion of ND0612 Abstract #: 684 MTPA will also host an educational disease awareness discussion on PD during the Corporate Therapeutic Symposium on September 29, 1:00-2:00 p.m. ET. About ND0612 ND0612 is an investigational drug-device combination therapy a 24-hours/day, continuous subcutaneous (SC) infusion of liquid levodopa/carbidopa (LD/CD) for the treatment of motor fluctuations in people with Parkinson's disease (PD). Development of investigational ND0612 is being led by NeuroDerm, Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation (MTPC). About Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma America, Inc. Based in Jersey City, N.J., Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma America, Inc. (MTPA) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation (MTPC). It was established by MTPC to develop and advance our pipeline as well as commercialize approved pharmaceutical products in North America. For more information, please visit www.mt-pharma-america.com or follow us on X (formerly Twitter) , Facebook and LinkedIn . About Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation (MTPC), the pharma arm of Mitsubishi Chemical Group (MCG), is one of the oldest pharmaceutical companies in the world, founded in 1678. MTPC is headquartered in Doshomachi, Osaka, the birthplace of Japan's pharmaceutical industry. MCG has positioned health care as its strategic focus in its management policy, "Forging the future". MTPC sets the MISSION of "Creating hope for all facing illness". To that end, MTPC is working on the disease areas of central nervous system, immuno-inflammation, diabetes and kidney, and cancer. MTPC is focusing on "precision medicine" to provide drugs with high treatment satisfaction and additionally working to develop "around the pill solutions" to address specific patient concerns based on therapeutic medicine, including prevention of diseases, pre-symptomatic disease care, prevention of aggravation and prognosis. For more information, go to https://www.mt-pharma.co.jp/e/ . About NeuroDerm, Ltd. NeuroDerm, Ltd. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation (MTPC), based in Israel, inspired to reduce disease burden and improve the quality of life of patients and their families through innovative drug-device combination therapies and technologies. NeuroDerm is an integrated pharmaceutical and medical technology company developing central nervous system (CNS) product candidates. For additional information, please visit NeuroDerm's website at www.neuroderm.com or follow the Company on LinkedIn . Media inquiries: [email protected] 1 National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Parkinson's Disease: Challenges, Progress and Promise. https://www.ninds.nih.gov/current-research/focus-disorders/parkinsons-disease-research/parkinsons-disease-challenges-progress-and-promise#:~:text=Approximately%20500%2C000%20Americans%20are%20diagnosed,1%20million%20Americans%20have%20PD. Accessed August 2024. SOURCE Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma America HOI AN, Vietnam, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Namia River Retreat, the only 5-star villa resort in the heart of Hoi An is set to welcome guests from 15 December 2024, just in time for the festive holiday season. Located on a tranquil islet overlooking the Thu Bon River, the resort is just a short bicycle ride from the UNESCO Heritage Town of Hoi An. Here, visitors can explore vibrant streets adorned with colourful facades and lanterns, relax in quaint cafes serving authentic Vietnamese coffee, and witness local artists beautifully capturing daily Vietnamese life on canvas. Namia River Retreat - Hoi An's Newest Cultural Wellness Resort Opening December 2024 Namia River Retreat elevates the concept of luxury, with 60 spacious villas, each equipped with a private pool that ensures privacy and tranquillity. Guests can indulge in traditional wellness therapies and take part in authentic cultural activities that draw inspiration from the rich heritage of the ancient town. During their stay, guests are encouraged to fully immerse themselves in the vibrant local culture through unique experiences. Options include a bamboo bicycle ride through the lush Nipa Forest, encounters with local artisans, or a serene sunset riverboat cruise. Namia River Retreat promises an unforgettable experience that combines luxury with cultural immersion, making it a perfect destination for relaxation and exploration. Daily rates will start from USD700 ++ and include: Pool Villa on an islet in Thu Bon River (with either Nipa Palm Forest or River Views) All-Day Breakfast and complimentary mini-bar excluding alcohol for two guests Daily Wellness Journey per person, per night (herbal steam & traditional spa therapy for 90 minutes) Complimentary Cultural Experiences (bamboo bicycle trail & sundowner cruise) Personalised 'Meet a Local 'in Hoi An (craft your own story - via APP or in-person) DESIGNED WITH NATURE Each of the resort's 60 pool villas is designed with elegance and comfort in mind, drawing inspiration from the lush Nipa palm forest that envelops the resort. The open-plan living area invites guests to relax and unwind, while the outdoor terrace provides a perfect spot to take in the breathtaking views of either the verdant forest or the serene Thu Bon River. Inside, the spacious bedroom serves as a private retreat, featuring a sunken bathtub with picturesque views of the private pool. The en-suite bathroom is thoughtfully designed with a refreshing shower, ensuring every aspect is geared toward relaxation. CULINARY DELIGHTS INSPIRED BY LOCAL FLAVOURS Culinary delights await at the poolside restaurant and bar, Nam Eatery, which serves an all-day menu inspired by the local fishing culture. At Mia Dining, guests are immersed in a culinary journey that celebrates the rich flavours and vibrant ingredients of Hoi An. The chefs skilfully draw upon the area's local spices and farm-to-table fresh produce to craft distinctive Vietnamese dishes that cater to the tastes of discerning palates. For those seeking an unforgettable experience, a leisurely riverboat dinner cruise offers a romantic setting to savour these culinary delights while enjoying the picturesque scenery of the waterway. To enhance the experience further, visitors can also explore a thoughtfully curated market display featuring locally sourced spices, artisanal coffee, and unique handicrafts. WELLBEING AND MINDFULNESS Staying at Namia River Retreat offers guests an unparalleled opportunity to immerse themselves in a uniquely crafted wellness journey tailored to individual needs. Each stay includes a complimentary 90-minute daily well-being experience including a 30-minute herbal hammam, followed by a 60-minute traditional therapy session. In addition to these experiences, the retreat features an on-site apothecary that draws from ancient healing methods. Guests can participate in traditional Duong Sinh (a morning movement practice that harmonises the body and mind), Xong Hoi (a folk remedy steam prescription), and Dien Chan (oriental facial reflexology) for a comprehensive and nourishing wellness journey. To enhance their stay, guests are encouraged to partake in daily mindful rituals such as a silent meditation walk, a lantern lighting ceremony, or visiting the wishing tree. These experiences allow guests to connect deeply with themselves and the serene surroundings of Namia River Retreat. Here, wellness transcends the physical, inviting guests to embark on a holistic journey of renewal and peace. AUTHENTIC VIETNAMESE EXPERIENCES Namia River Retreat isn't just a place to stay; it's a gateway to the rich culture and vibrant traditions of Hoi An. The resort's immersive mini tours are designed to deepen guests' connection to the region, where every experience, from engaging with skilled artisans to embarking on bamboo bicycle rides through the lush Nipa Forest or enjoying a sunset river cruise, reveals the essence of local life. Moreover, the resort's commitment to responsible tourism is reflected in every aspect of its operations. By integrating sustainable practices into daily routines, Namia River Retreat is not only minimising its environmental impact but also enhancing guests' experiences. Namia River Retreat is now a member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH)'s Considerate Collection, a bespoke booking service featuring hotels that prioritise their local communities and celebrate their unique cultures and environments. SLH is one of the most desirable communities of independently minded travellers and spirited hotels in the world, and is renowned for its carefully curated selection of independent hotels across 90 countries. Namia River Retreat is deeply committed to caring for our community and pioneering modern hospitality rooted in rich cultural traditions. As part of SLH, the wellness-inclusive resort aligns with a network of independently minded hotels across the world, all dedicated to providing the highest standards of luxury and guest wellbeing. Soft Opening and taking bookings from: 15 December 2024 Grand Opening event celebrations on: 19 February 2025 Visit our website on www.namiariverretreat.com To make a booking: Email: [email protected] For media enquiries or interview requests: To download the press kit, fact sheet, and our latest image gallery, visit HERE Find the teaser video of the resort HERE To stay up to date with Namia River Retreat news, follow us on social media: Facebook https://www.facebook.com/namiahoian Instagram https://www.instagram.com/namiariverretreat LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/namia-river-retreat/ Address - 252 Tran Nhan Tong, Cam Chau, Hoi An, Quang Nam Province, Viet Nam For further information: Owning Company HG Holdings & Bhaya Cruises: www.bhayacruises.com Management Company Lumina Wellbeing: www.lumina-wellbeing.com ABOUT NAMIA RIVER RETREAT Nestled on the Con Ba Xa Islet in Hoi An, Namia River Retreat is thoughtfully crafted with genuine cultural journeys and wellness-inclusive therapies inspired by Vietnamese herbology. With 60 private pool villas, locally inspired dining experiences and stunning pools with Thu Bon River views, the resort opens new ways to explore and connect with the lantern-lit ancient town of Hoi An. SOURCE Namia River Retreat Colorado Springs, CO claims the overall top spot as the most neighborly city LEHI, Utah, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In celebration of National Neighbor Day (September 28), Neighbor.comthe leading peer-to-peer storage and parking marketplaceunveils the results of its fifth annual " Most Neighborly Cities in America " ranking. To establish the grading criteria, Neighbor surveyed 1,000 individuals on how they define neighborliness. The most common factors included charitable contributions, volunteer participation, and community engagement. Map of the 25 Most Neighborly Cities In addition to an overall winner, Neighbor added subcategories by population. After all, community engagement and spirit thrive across cities of all sizes. Claiming the top spots as the "Most Neighborly City in America" by metro area are: Seattle, WA (Large City). Seattle's high charitable giving, voter turnout, and innovative community programs propelled it to the top of the large cities category. Despite recent narratives, Seattle's violent crime rate is middle of the pack for large cities which led to only a small impact on its overall ranking. high charitable giving, voter turnout, and innovative community programs propelled it to the top of the large cities category. Despite recent narratives, violent crime rate is middle of the pack for large cities which led to only a small impact on its overall ranking. Colorado Springs, CO (Medium City). Taking the top overall winner and medium-sized metro for 2024. Colorado Springs stands out for its packed community event calendar as well as its high rankings in both volunteerism and voter turnout. Taking the top overall winner and medium-sized metro for 2024. stands out for its packed community event calendar as well as its high rankings in both volunteerism and voter turnout. Provo, UT (Small City). The winner for small cities. Provo's strong commitment to the community is clear from its emphatic support of local businesses and volunteer programs. "In a time where social media often amplifies our differences, real-world neighborliness is making a surprising comeback," said Joseph Woodbury, CEO of Neighbor. "Our data shows that despite the divisive narratives we often hear, Americans are actually craving and creating stronger local communities. This is especially crucial during this polarizing election season when loneliness and division seem to be on the rise. At Neighbor, we're all about building a network of community thinkers who are willing to help their neighbors in small and meaningful ways." Top 5 Most Neighborly Large Cities: Seattle, WA Phoenix, AZ Tampa, FL El Paso, TX Portland, OR Top 5 Most Neighborly Medium Cities: Colorado Springs, CO Madison, WI Virginia Beach, VA Des Moines, IA Richmond, VA Top 5 Most Neighborly Small Cities: Provo, UT Ogden, UT Rochester, NY Harrisburg, PA Augusta, GA 2024's Overall Most Neighborly Cities in America Colorado Springs, CO Madison, WI Virginia Beach, VA Des Moines, IA Provo, UT Ogden, UT Rochester, NY Seattle, WA Richmond, VA Minneapolis, MN Mayor Yemi of Colorado Springs said, "I'm incredibly proud and honored that Colorado Springs has been ranked the most neighborly city in the United States. Strong communities are built on the foundation of connectedness, where neighbors get to know, uplift, and support each other. One way we've promoted the spirit of neighborliness is our 1,000 Neighborhood Gatherings initiative, where we challenged residents to connect in meaningful wayswhether through lively block parties or casual hangouts. This initiative is about connecting and activating our community, all in the spirit of addressing loneliness. We are on a mission to build a city of great neighbors." Neighbor also surveyed 1,000 Americans on what they consider "neighborly"turns out people have stronger connections with their neighbors than you might think: Importance of Community: 60% of Americans rated living in a neighborly community as either "very high" or "high" priority when choosing where to live, emphasizing that people still highly value close-knit connections. 60% of Americans rated living in a neighborly community as either "very high" or "high" priority when choosing where to live, emphasizing that people still highly value close-knit connections. Supportive Networks: Nearly 65% of people feel they can rely on their neighbors for help when needed. About Neighbor Founded in 2017, Neighbor is a community marketplace based in Silicon Slopes, Utah. The company connects people with unused space in their garages, basements, and driveways to renters looking for closer and more affordable self-storage or parking. One neighbor saves money, while the other is able to earn thousands of dollars per year from their unused space. Neighbor is the first storage provider in history to serve renters in all 50 states, with availability across cities, suburbs and rural areas. Neighbor's investors include leaders in real estate and marketplaces, including Andreessen Horowitz, Fifth Wall, and the CEOs of marketplace businesses DoorDash, Uber, Overstock and StockX. Contact: Casey Schow 8017538114 [email protected] SOURCE Neighbor.com KYODO NEWS - Sep 27, 2024 - 20:31 | World, All, Japan China reiterated its opposition to Japanese politicians' visits to Taiwan on Friday after Shigeru Ishiba, the former defense minister who visited the self-ruled island in August, won the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's presidential election. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters that China hopes for stable ties with Japan but declined to comment on the result of the election, calling it an internal affair. Lin also said Japan should "establish an objective and correct perception of China, and seek a positive and rational policy toward China." In August, Ishiba as the co-head of a Japanese lawmakers' delegation to Taiwan met its leader Lai Ching-te. Beijing views the self-ruled island as a renegade province to be unified with the mainland, by force if necessary. Taiwan's Foreign Ministry congratulated Ishiba over his election win and expressed hope in a statement that the LDP will "continue to deepen its cooperation with Taiwan" and "jointly safeguard peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region." Touching on Ishiba's August trip to the island, the ministry said LDP lawmakers "actively promote cooperation and exchanges" between Taiwan and Japan and take concrete actions to deepen bilateral "value diplomacy." Meanwhile, South Korea, whose ties with Japan have improved since President Yoon Suk Yeol took office in 2022, said it will maintain "positive momentum" by communicating with the next Japanese government, set to be led by Ishiba. A senior official of the presidential office stressed South Korea and Japan are close neighbors and cooperative partners, saying "Our government expects both countries to make joint efforts...for the development of future-oriented relations." In late August, Yoon told reporters that he will continue to work for the future of relations with Japan regardless of who succeeds Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Related coverage: Taiwan lifts Fukushima-related restrictions on Japanese food imports Japan defense force ship sails through Taiwan Strait for 1st time APHRS: New data confirm robust long-term durability and highly efficient procedure performed without fluoroscopy Successful launch in Japan follows recent reimbursement approval follows recent reimbursement approval Approvals across APAC including China and Australia broaden reach for patients GALWAY, Ireland and SYDNEY, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Medtronic plc (NYSE: MDT), a global leader in healthcare technology, today announced the presentation of clinical study results demonstrating a high rate of durable lesion formation for the PulseSelect Pulsed Field Ablation (PFA) System in treating atrial fibrillation (Afib). Invasive remapping conducted approximately two months post-ablation with the PulseSelect PFA System demonstrated durable isolation in 98% of pulmonary veins (PV) and 96% of patients had all veins isolated. Results were presented as a late breaking clinical trial at the Asia Pacific Heart Rhythm Society (APHRS) meeting in Sydney, Australia. "Real-world evidence on chronic lesion formation and durability is critical as use of PFA for the treatment of Afib rapidly increases, making these results impactful and timely for the electrophysiology community," said Devi Nair, M.D., FHRS, Director of Cardiac Electrophysiology & Research, St. Bernard's Medical Center & Arrhythmia Research Group, Jonesboro, Arkansas. "Our research shows that treatment with PulseSelect results in durable lesion formation, which is the cornerstone of successful pulmonary vein isolation and an important addition to previous evidence establishing the safety and effectiveness of this technology." About the Study A total of 25 AFib patients with persistent or paroxysmal AFib (56% paroxysmal, 52% male, 699 years) undergoing pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) with the PulseSelect PFA System were evaluated. Invasive remapping conducted in all patients (579 days post-ablation) demonstrated durable isolation in 98% of PVs (102/104), and 96% of patients (24/25) had all veins isolated. All index ablation procedures were conducted using intracardiac echocardiography and electroanatomical mapping (EAM) without fluoroscopy. General anesthesia was used in 24 of 25 patients, and all patients were discharged on the same day. Average skin-to-skin procedure time was 36 minutes. Acute PV isolation was achieved in 100% of patients. There were no complications during an average follow-up of 74 days. PulseSelect Global Expansion Broad adoption of PulseSelect continues globally, with more than 10,000 cases performed worldwide. In the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, milestones include regulatory approvals in China and Australia and launch in Japan following reimbursement approval. Prof. Hiroshi Tada, Professor of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Japan, and President of the Japanese Heart Rhythm Society, said "PulseSelect is the first PFA catheter to receive reimbursement approval in Japan based on clinical trial results that include Japanese patients. We believe that the future widespread availability of this breakthrough technology under insurance coverage will be of great significance in the history of arrhythmia treatment in Japan." "These important results clearly address the durability question and add to the real-world evidence for PulseSelect," said Rebecca Seidel, president, Cardiac Ablations Solutions business, which is part of the Cardiovascular Portfolio at Medtronic. "With expansion in new markets across the Asia Pacific region, physicians around the world are experiencing the benefits of PulseSelect, including proven safety, efficacy, efficiency and now durability as well. We are thrilled to provide this important tool to physicians for the treatment of patients with AFib." AFib is one of the most common and undertreated heart rhythm disorders, affecting more than 60 million people worldwide.1 Afib is a progressive disease, often beginning as paroxysmal AFib (presents intermittently) and progressing to persistent (lasts for more than 7+ days without stopping). As the disease progresses, the risk of serious complications including heart failure, stroke and risk of death increases.2-5 For more information on PulseSelect, visit Medtronic.com. About Medtronic Bold thinking. Bolder actions. We are Medtronic. Medtronic plc, headquartered in Galway, Ireland, is the leading global healthcare technology company that boldly attacks the most challenging health problems facing humanity by searching out and finding solutions. Our Mission to alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life unites a global team of 95,000+ passionate people across 150 countries. Our technologies and therapies treat 70 health conditions and include cardiac devices, surgical robotics, insulin pumps, surgical tools, patient monitoring systems, and more. Powered by our diverse knowledge, insatiable curiosity, and desire to help all those who need it, we deliver innovative technologies that transform the lives of two people every second, every hour, every day. Expect more from us as we empower insight-driven care, experiences that put people first, and better outcomes for our world. In everything we do, we are engineering the extraordinary. For more information on Medtronic (NYSE:MDT), visit www.Medtronic.com and follow Medtronic on LinkedIn. Any forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties such as those described in Medtronic's periodic reports on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Actual results may differ materially from anticipated results. References Roth GA, Mensah GA, Johnson CO et al. Global Burden of Cardiovascular Diseases and Risk Factors, 1990-2019: Update From the GBD 2019 Study. J Am Coll Cardiol 2020;76:2982-3021. Miyasaka Y, Barnes ME, Bailey KR, et al. Mortality trends in patients diagnosed with first atrial fibrillation: a 21-year community-based study. J Am Coll Cardiol 2007;49:986-92. Hindricks G, Potpara T, Dagres N, et al. 2020 ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and management of atrial fibrillation developed in collaboration with the European Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS). Eur Heart J 2020. Wolf PA , Abbott RD, Kannel WB. Atrial fibrillation as an independent risk factor for stroke: the Framingham Study. Stroke 1991;22:983-8. Lubitz SA, Moser C, Sullivan L, et al. Atrial fibrillation patterns and risks of subsequent stroke, heart failure, or death in the community. J Am Heart Assoc 2013;2:e000126. Contacts: Leslie Williamson Ryan Weispfenning Public Relations Investor Relations +1-612-227-5099 +1-763-505-4626 SOURCE Medtronic plc A project, backed by climate tech fund, Regeneration.VC, to cut 120,000 tonnes of microfibre pollution and save millions of kilowatt-hours (KWh) of electricity a year at textile manufacturing sites has launched at New York Climate Week today. NEW YORK, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Bristol based Matter and leading textile manufacturer, Paradise Textiles have announced a groundbreaking collaborative project to bring Matter's Regen. for Textile Production to market, a pioneering technology to stop microfibres from textile production from entering waterways. Regen. for Textile Production could reduce carbon emissions by over 2000 tonnes annually per manufacturing site, reduce chemical use, prolong the life of water reuse systems and significantly cut operating costs. The global fashion industry is responsible for around 120,000 tonnes of pre-consumer microfibre emissions per year, resulting from production, dyeing and washing. Unveiling Regen. for Textile Production during Regeneration.VC's Annual Meeting in New York, Matter and Paradise Textiles launched a groundbreaking collaborative project to implement the technology at Paradise Textiles' new state-of-the-art low impact fabric mill in Egypt. Once operational, it will serve as a showcase for manufacturers and brands around the world to adopt the new filtration device. The two companies say the solution could reduce microfibre pollution across all 150,000 global textile factories. Powered by Matter's patented self-cleaning filtration technology Regen. for Textile Production is a low energy, low cost microfibre capture solution that offers effective wastewater filtration without the carbon impact. This announcement builds on the launch of Matter's successful microfibre filter for home laundry systems with BSH, under the brands Bosch and Siemens. The British company raised $10 million in their Series A funding round in 2023, and is backed by investors including S2G Ventures, SOUNDwaves, and Regeneration.VC, the climate tech fund backed by Leonardo DiCaprio. Microfibre shedding is a major contributor to microplastic pollution in water, air, soil and food sources. Scientific studies have revealed alarming evidence that microplastics infiltrate the human body and have been linked to serious health concerns, including cardiovascular issues and chronic conditions. Adam Root, Founder and CEO of Matter, said: "We are delighted to collaborate with Paradise Textiles on this groundbreaking project. It will show the fashion industry that a viable solution to this colossal problem of microplastic pollution is within reach. As this technology scales, there will be no reason and no excuse for letting microfibre pollution continue." The collaboration between Matter and Paradise Textiles has been instrumental in advancing Matter's industrial programme for textile manufacturing. Leveraging their expertise in textiles and fibre pollution mitigation, Paradise Textiles, part of the Alpine Group, collaborated closely with Matter to explore how this innovation could be adapted and scaled within textile manufacturing, setting the stage for this groundbreaking collaboration. Over the last 2.5 years, they have provided insights into textile processes, funded early research, and helped shape Matter's Microfibre Assessment Program (MAP) to establish a service model and maximize fibre capture across Alpine Group's facilities. Alpine Group is a major producer of materials and apparel, and manufactures for brands including The North Face, Lululemon, American Eagle Outfitters and Puma. With over 15 facilities worldwide, Alpine represents the breadth of the apparel industry. Lewis Shuler, Head of Innovation at Paradise Textiles, said: "At Paradise we are committed to collaborating with industry innovators and brands to make a material difference for the future of the fashion and textile industry." "Matter's Microfibre filter presents us with an effective way to reduce the environmental impact of the textile and apparel manufacturing process, whilst also reducing operational costs, which is a real game-changer for the industry. "We look forward to continuing to drive this exciting project forward and exploring new ways to implement sustainable technologies that can transform the industry at scale." For more information about Matter, visit https://matter.industries/ . Assets: BFA Imagery Credit: Yvonne TNT/BFA.com, Benicia King/BFA.com SOURCE Matter and Paradise Textiles Katrina E. Bell-Jordan, Ph.D. will be inaugurated Oct. 4. Celebratory activities to be held Oct. 3-5. CHICAGO, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) will celebrate the inauguration of its eighth president, Katrina E. Bell-Jordan, Ph.D., with three days of activities from Oct. 3-5, 2024. The theme of the inauguration festivities is "Education, Excellence and Empowerment." "We invite our University community, alumni, neighbors and friends to join us for this inspiring celebration of the next chapter in the history of Northeastern," said Michelle Morales, Vice Chair of Northeastern's Board of Trustees. "We are delighted to come together in acknowledging President Bell-Jordan, a distinguished leader who will undoubtedly strengthen our unwavering dedication to providing the excellence that NEIU students rightfully deserve." Dr. Katrina E. Bell-Jordan Northeastern Illinois University Main Campus Bell-Jordan joined Northeastern in 1997 as an assistant professor in the Department of Communication, Media and Theatre (CMT). Since then, she has held various leadership roles, including serving as CMT department chair, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. She was appointed dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in March 2020 and served for one year as interim president of Northeastern prior to becoming president on Aug. 1, 2024. Inauguration Events (free and open to the public) Peacefire Ceremony, Oct. 3 at 9:30 a.m. on the Main Campus, 5500 N. St. Louis Ave. at on the Main Campus, 5500 N. St. Louis Ave. CMT Expo, Oct. 3 at 12:15 p.m. on the Main Campus, 5500 N. St. Louis Ave. at on the Main Campus, 5500 N. St. Louis Ave. Oktoberfest, Oct. 3 , various times across University locations , various times across University locations Day of Service, Oct. 5 , various times across University locations Inauguration Ceremony (free and open to the public) WHEN: Friday, Oct. 4, from 2:00-4:00 p.m. WHERE: Northeastern Illinois University, Main Campus, University Commons, 5500 N. St. Louis Ave. in Chicago PARKING: Parking will be available in Lot L. (Handicapped parking will be available in Lot J.) See the Parking Map for directions. RSVP: Members of the public are asked to RSVP to attend the ceremony by Friday, Sept. 27. Inauguration Celebration (Semi-Formal) WHEN: Saturday, Oct. 5 beginning at 6:30 p.m. WHERE: Northeastern Illinois University, Main Campus, Alumni Hall, 5500 N. St. Louis Ave. in Chicago COST: $100 per person. PARKING: Parking will be available in Lot F. See the Parking Map for directions. RSVP: RSVP to attend the celebration is required by Friday, Sep. 27. Visit neiu.edu/2024inauguration for complete details and to RSVP for the Inauguration ceremony or celebration. ABOUT NORTHEASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY Northeastern Illinois University offers more than 40 undergraduate degree and certificate programs and more than 50 graduate degree, certificate, licensure and endorsement programs. The Main Campus is located on 67 acres in an attractive residential area on the Northwest Side of Chicago. Founded in 1867, Northeastern is a Minority-Serving Institution and the longest-standing four-year public Hispanic-Serving Institution in the Midwest. The University has additional Chicagoland locations, including the Jacob H. Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies, El Centro, and the University Center of Lake County. SOURCE Northeastern Illinois University BROOKVILLE, Pa. and KILGORE, Texas, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- OCI, LLC, a manufacturer of custom-built foundation drilling components for the infrastructure and construction end markets, today announced that it has acquired DRILLTOOLS, an industry-leading domestic manufacturer of rotary drilling tools and excavation products. Since its founding in 2010, DRILLTOOLS has established itself as a trusted partner to many large infrastructure, utility, and commercial contractors with an extensive line of drilling products and flexible, agile manufacturing processes that enable the business to support a diverse suite of unique production needs. The company's core products include a wide range of auger systems, drill bits, material removal tools, rock boring tools, conveying tools, formed steel plates, replaceable wear products, and consumables that can be customized for specific customer use cases. DRILLTOOLS's products are engineered and produced in-house and supported by a domestic supply chain with a reputation for quality designs, exceptional lead times, proven reliability, and superior customer service across the full drilling products lifecycle. DRILLTOOLS will continue to serve customers primarily out of its Texas headquarters. "We are excited about the partnership with DRILLTOOLS and the opportunity to expand our product suite, manufacturing capabilities, and technical expertise to better serve our collective customer base. DRILLTOOLS has built a reputation for world-class customer service, and a culture that aligns well with OCI," said Tim Lautermilch, CEO of OCI. "We look forward to working alongside DRILLTOOLS founders Bo, Chris, Karl and the entire DRILLTOOLS team to continue to grow our industry-leading presence and provide our customers a more complete solution." "Over the past 15 years, we've built a best-in-class business with a differentiated suite of customizable, mission critical products, all domestically manufactured and sourced," said Bo Steding, Co-founder of DRILLTOOLS. "In OCI, we found a partner with a complimentary product line and a shared vision for how to best serve the industry. We are excited about the prospects for joint growth in the years to come alongside OCI." About OCI: OCI is a market leader in supplying a wide range of equipment to geotechnical service companies and drilling contractors including micropile casing, drill string, hammers and bits, augers, core barrels, swivels, and other customized products. Founded in 1998, the company is headquartered in Brookville, PA. For more information, visit www.ocidivision.com. About DRILLTOOLS: DRILLTOOLS is the leading domestic manufacturer of quality drilling & excavating products, utilizing the finest materials and high production standards. Founded in 2010, the company is headquartered in Kilgore, TX. For more information, visit www.drilltoolsinc.com . SOURCE OCI, LLC OSLO, Norway, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Photocure ASA (OSE: PHO), the Bladder Cancer Company, announces that it entered into an agreement with Equity Pharmaceuticals PTY Limited, part of the Clinigen group, in September, to initiate a Named Patient Program (NPP) enabling bladder cancer patients in South Africa to receive blue light cystoscopy (BLC) with Hexvix. Named Patient Programs (NPPs) provide access to medicines in response to requests by physicians on behalf of specific, or 'named,' patients when those medicines are not licensed or available in the patients' home country. Photocure's NPP with Equity Pharmaceuticals is designed to ensure that physicians can request Hexvix on behalf of individual patients residing in South Africa, with suspected or recurring bladder tumors. Hexvix blue light cystoscopy is indicated as adjunct to standard white light cystoscopy to contribute to the diagnosis and management of bladder cancer in patients with known or high suspicion of bladder cancer. Equity Pharmaceuticals will administer the NPP, and product sales are anticipated to begin in Q4 2024. "Without this NPP, BLC with Hexvix would not otherwise be available to bladder cancer patients in South Africa. Photocure is committed to ensuring global access to Hexvix as part of its sustainability goals," said Dan Schneider, President and CEO of Photocure. "We see this program as a stepstone to trialing various ways in which Hexvix can be made available to patients and urologists in countries where BLC equipment is already accessible." Note to editors: All trademarks mentioned in this release are protected by law and are registered trademarks of Photocure ASA. This press release may contain product details and information which are not valid, or a product is not accessible, in your country. Please be aware that Photocure does not take any responsibility for accessing such information which may not comply with any legal process, regulation, registration or usage in the country of your origin. About Bladder Cancer Bladder cancer ranks as the 8th most common cancer worldwide the 5th most common in men with 1,949,000 prevalent cases (5-year prevalence rate)1a, 6,14,000 new cases and more than 2,20,000 deaths in 2022.1b Approx. 75% of all bladder cancer cases occur in men.1 It has a high recurrence rate with up to 61% in year one and up to 78% over five years.2 Bladder cancer has the highest lifetime treatment costs per patient of all cancers.3 Bladder cancer is a costly, potentially progressive disease for which patients have to undergo multiple cystoscopies due to the high risk of recurrence. There is an urgent need to improve both the diagnosis and the management of bladder cancer for the benefit of patients and healthcare systems alike. Bladder cancer is classified into two types, non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) and muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC), depending on the depth of invasion in the bladder wall. NMIBC remains in the inner layer of cells lining the bladder. These cancers are the most common (75%) of all BC cases and include the subtypes Ta, carcinoma in situ (CIS) and T1 lesions. In MIBC the cancer has grown into deeper layers of the bladder wall. These cancers, including subtypes T2, T3 and T4, are more likely to spread and are harder to treat.4 1 Globocan. a) 5-year prevalence / b) incidence/mortality by population. Available at: https://gco.iarc.fr/today, accessed [February 2024]. 2 Babjuk M, et al. Eur Urol. 2019; 76(5): 639-657 3 Sievert KD et al. World J Urol 2009;27:295300 4 Bladder Cancer. American Cancer Society. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/bladder-cancer.html About Hexvix/Cysview (hexaminolevulinate HCl) Hexvix/Cysview is a drug that preferentially accumulates in cancer cells in the bladder, making them glow bright pink during Blue Light Cystoscopy (BLC). BLC with Hexvix/Cysview, compared to standard white light cystoscopy alone, improves the detection of tumors and leads to more complete resection, fewer residual tumors, and better management decisions. Cysview is the tradename in the U.S. and Canada, Hexvix is the tradename in all other markets. Photocure is commercializing Cysview/Hexvix directly in the U.S. and Europe and has strategic partnerships for the commercialization of Hexvix/Cysview in China, Chile, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. Please refer to https://photocure.com/partners/our-partners for further information on our commercial partners. About Photocure ASA Photocure: The Bladder Cancer Company delivers transformative solutions to improve the lives of bladder cancer patients. Our unique technology, making cancer cells glow bright pink, has led to better health outcomes for patients worldwide. Photocure is headquartered in Oslo, Norway and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSE: PHO). For more information, please visit us at www.photocure.com, www.hexvix.com, www.cysview.com. About Clinigen Clinigen is a global, specialist pharmaceutical services company focused on providing ethical access to medicines. Its mission is to accelerate access to medicines for patients in every corner of the globe. The Group supports pharmaceutical and biotech companies across the medical product lifecycle, from clinical through to commercial and operates from sites in North America, Europe, Africa and the Asia Pacific. Clinigen has more than 1,000 employees across five continents in 15 countries and provides access in more than 130 countries every year. For more information on Clinigen, please visit http://www.clinigengroup.com. For further information, please contact: Dan Schneider President and CEO Photocure ASA Email: [email protected] Erik Dahl CFO Photocure ASA Tel: +4745055000 Email: [email protected] David Moskowitz Vice President, Investor Relations Photocure ASA Tel: +1 202 280 0888 Email: [email protected] Media and IR enquiries: Geir Bjrlo Corporate Communications (Norway) Tel: +47 91540000 Email: [email protected] This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com https://news.cision.com/photocure/r/photocure-establishes-named-patient-program-to-provide-access-to-hexvix-in-south-africa,c4043607 The following files are available for download: SHANGHAI, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- On September 26, 2024, Ping An Healthcare and Technology Company Limited ("Ping An Good Doctor", "Ping An Health", or "the Company", Stock Code: 1833.HK), China's leading healthcare ecosystem platform, saw its share price surge by nearly 10% during the trading session, peaking at HK$12.08. The U.S. Federal Reserve's recent announcement of a 50 basis point decrease in the federal funds rate target has further boosted liquidity, fueling the rally of internet healthcare stocks in the Hong Kong market. Additionally, on September 23, the State Council Information Office held a press conference focused on "Promoting High-Quality Development." According to publicly available data, as of the end of 2023, China's population aged 60 and above had reached 297 million. During the press conference, the Ministry of Civil Affairs emphasized that effective measures would be taken to address the challenge, including the development and implementation of an effective senior care service system tailored to China's needs. Since 2024, the term "silver economy" has emerged as one of the most talked-about topics in China, with the senior care industry experiencing rapid growth and presenting immense opportunities. In response to this demographic shift, Ping An Health has intensified its investments in the sector in line with its proactive growth strategy. Over recent years, the Company has intensified its efforts to develop a comprehensive "3-in-1" senior care concierge system integrating smart concierges, daily life concierges, and doctor concierges. By providing personalized and comprehensive senior care services, the Company aims to meet the diverse needs of the senior population while expanding the company's service boundaries and revenue streams. Currently, the Company's home-based senior care benefits are available in 64 cities across China, up by 10 cities from 31 December 2023. Ping An Health 2024 interim report showed that in the first half of the year, the Company's revenue reached RMB2.09 billion, turning a profit for the first time with earnings exceeding RMB60 million and an adjusted net profit nearing RMB90 million. Following optimization of its business structure, coupled with steady performance in F-end (insurance and financial service customers) and rapid growth in B-end (corporate clients) operations, the Company achieved profitability for the first time, marking a milestone and further showcasing the growth and the development potential of its Strategy 2.0. The core business model of Ping An Health's Strategy 2.0 is to act for three main payers, including integrated finance business (F-end), corporate clients (B-end) and individual customers (C-end), and integrate providers. By focusing on the development of family doctors and senior care concierges, the Company aims to provide customers with high-quality, cost-effective health care and senior care services. Corporate health management is a pivotal element within the Company's Strategy 2.0 Continuum and a key engine of its long-term growth. During the first six months of 2024, the Company's B-end strategic business revenue reached RMB710 million, a year-on-year increase of 58.8%. By the end of June 2024, the total number of corporate clients served by the Company grew 46% year-on-year to 1,748, consolidating its leadership within the sector. During the reporting period, Ping An Health consistently improves its "Enterprise EZHealth" corporate health management product portfolio, including "Health Management +" and "Health Checkup +". These enhancements aim to establish a more competitive and differentiated product service matrix to meet the diverse needs of corporate clients. Looking ahead, the strong foundation of China's economy and the sustained momentum of its recovery bode well for Ping An Health. As the flagship and sole online platform for Ping An Group's healthcare and senior care ecosystem, Ping An Health will continue to further develop a Chinese "managed care model", in alignment with the group's strategy of "integrated finance + health and senior care". SOURCE Ping An Healthcare and Technology Company Limited Relativity's annual Innovation Awards recognize the change agents of its user community CHICAGO, Sept. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Relativity, a global legal technology company, today announced the winners of this year's Innovation Awards at Relativity Fest. The Innovation Awards celebrate the trailblazing individuals and teams building custom solutions, empowering their peers and forging new paths to improve the legal industry and its communities. "Another year of the Innovation Awards signals another opportunity to celebrate our community's dedication to making a positive impact whether that be through developing new solutions, providing excellent customer service, or elevating and advocating for their peers in the legal industry," said Laurie Usewicz, Chief Partner Officer at Relativity. "This year's winners exemplify the impassioned and innovative spirit that makes the future of our industry a bright one." The winners hail from, or work directly with law firms, financial institutions and consultant management companies large and small, private and public. Through a combined process of a judging committee and a community vote, Best Innovation winners are selected based on how they've leveraged the Relativity application programming interfaces in creative ways to solve Relativity's customers' most unique challenges. In addition to the standard six individual and two Best Innovation awards, a new Best Innovation category was added for this year, Developer Partner. This award recognizes solutions created by Relativity's independent software vendor (ISV) community that are offered directly to customers. Eligibility is restricted to solutions that are not owned by an Enterprise or Solution, Advisor, or Provider Partner. The 2024 Innovation Awards winners are: Each of the award winners above exemplify what it means to be a changemaker at the individual, organizational and industry levels. All award winners are determined by a combination of Relativity judging committees unique to each category and a community vote. Relativity congratulates all submissions for the innovative work delivered this past year. About Relativity Relativity makes software to help users organize data, discover the truth and act on it. Its SaaS product, RelativityOne, manages large volumes of data and quickly identifies key issues during litigation and internal investigations. Relativity has more than 300,000 users in approximately 40 countries serving thousands of organizations globally primarily in legal, financial services and government sectors, including the U.S. Department of Justice and 198 of the Am Law 200. Please contact Relativity at [email protected] or visit www.relativity.com for more information. SOURCE Relativity LOS ANGELES, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- SCORE, the nation's largest network of volunteer, expert business mentors, announced the three winning small business owners of its 60th Anniversary Pitch Competition held on Sept. 26 at The Kimpton Everly Hotel in Los Angeles, one of the host cities of the nationwide event. The competition is an avenue for small business owners to showcase their presentation and selling skills to industry experts, win funding and gain valuable knowledge and mentorship, all at no cost. More than 2,200 small business owners applied to participate. Winners of SCOREs 60th Anniversary Pitch Competition in Los Angeles: Brice Sokolowski - Vaucluse Gear LLC; Diana Jarrar - Magic Dates; and Jon Mowl - Play With ASL. The three winning businesses in the Los Angeles pitch event are: First Place: Diana Jarrar - Magic Dates (Los Angeles, CA) Magic Dates, LLC offers innovative snack bites made from dates and other nutritious ingredients, such as walnuts and cacao. Inspired by Diana's Syrian heritage, the products are designed to be healthy alternatives to traditional snacks, being plant-based, paleo, gluten-free and grain-free, with no added sugars. Popular flavors include Triple Choco Crunch and Salted Walnut Brownie. Diana earned the top prize of $20,000 for her pitch. She plans to use her prize to enhance inventory and production, establish affiliate influencer partnerships, fund pay-per-click campaigns on Amazon, and refresh the website with new imagery. Second Place: Jon Mowl - Play With ASL (Riverside, CA) Play With ASL is an innovative mobile application designed to make learning American Sign Language (ASL) engaging and accessible through gamification. Founded by a Deaf entrepreneur, the platform addresses gaps in existing ASL education by combining fun gaming elements with structured language learning, catering to diverse learning needs. Jon earned $10,000 for his pitch, which he plans to use to enhance the app's capabilities by developing additional educational games, integrating Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) standards for use in educational institutions, and improving user experience. Funds will also support marketing efforts and expand the app's availability to Android devices, broadening its user base. Third Place: Brice Sokolowski - Vaucluse Gear LLC (Scottsdale, AZ) Vaucluse Gear LLC specializes in innovative backpack ventilation solutions, including attachable ventilation frames, mesh sleeves and ultralight framed backpacks. The company aims to enhance comfort for backpackers by reducing sweating and increasing airflow, all while ensuring quality through American-made products. Brice received $5,000 for his pitch. He will use the prize to support the company's research and development to advance the next version of their ventilation frames, helping accelerate the design process by six months. The funding will also aid in building brand awareness. "Congratulations to the winners of our 60th Anniversary Pitch Competition event in Los Angeles," said SCORE CEO Bridget Weston. "It takes ingenuity, passion and dedication for small business owners to succeed. SCORE is honored to provide mentorship and resources to our pitch contestants, just as we have for more than 17 million entrepreneurs over the past 60 years." As part of the pitch competition, contestants were matched with one of SCORE's free, expert business mentors to guide them to prepare and deliver a compelling pitch. Judging criteria included the effectiveness of the presentation, brand identification, uniqueness and viability of the product or service, the thoroughness of the business plan, scalability and any sustainability or social impact. Financials were also assessed on overall potential. Shellie Peters, Head of Benefits and Charitable Giving at Global Atlantic, said "Global Atlantic is thrilled to support SCORE's pitch competition and is committed to fostering the growth of small businesses that contribute to the economic landscape of this dynamic city. We applaud all participants for their creativity and determination and look forward to seeing their positive impact on the Los Angeles community." The 10 finalists from the Los Angeles event also included: Donna Lee - R- YOLO ( Harvard, MA ) R- ( ) Max Goldberg - Shuki ( Los Angeles, CA ) - Shuki ( ) Alejandra Garcia - Moon & Milk ( Los Angeles, CA ) Moon & Milk ( ) Melody Brown - L&M Hair Company ( Portland, OR ) L&M Hair Company ( ) Chris Sward - LA Cleaning LLC ( Lawndale, CA ) LA Cleaning LLC ( ) Danika Frandsen - Baby Steps Concierge Nursing ( Camarillo, CA ) - Baby Steps Concierge Nursing ( ) Anastasia Miles - The City Loo ( Kirkland, WA ) In addition to Los Angeles, regional contests were held in Philadelphia on Aug. 28 and in Des Moines on Sept. 12. A nationwide virtual competition took place Sept. 17-19. The final event in the series will be held on Oct. 3 in Houston. In total, SCORE's 60th Anniversary Pitch Competition will award $175,000 to 15 winning small businesses. For more information or to download photos of the Los Angeles event, click here for the press kit. To schedule interviews with winners of SCORE's 60th Anniversary Pitch Competition, finalists, mentors, or representatives from SCORE, please contact [email protected]. To learn more about SCORE, request a mentor or volunteer to be one, visit score.org. About SCORE Since 1964, SCORE has helped more than 17 million entrepreneurs start, grow or successfully exit a business. SCORE's 10,000 volunteers provide free, expert mentoring, resources and education in all 50 U.S. states and territories. Visit SCORE at score.org. Funded [in part] through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. Media Contact Maria Coder, SCORE, 954-379-2115, [email protected] SOURCE SCORE TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- On September 26, 2024, SOUEAST Motor hosted the Global Brand Launching Ceremony in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. This conference unveiled the brand's new strategy, along with the new products: the Smart Premium D-class SUV S09 and the Urban Intelligent C-class SUV S07, starting a new chapter in SOUEAST's global expansion. New Proposition Leading an EASE Lifestyle During the Conference, SOUEAST introduced its new brand slogan, "EASE YOUR LIFE," which represents SOUEAST's commitment to integrating a relaxed and carefree lifestyle into every detail of its products and services. SOUEAST also announced the development of a new product and service system centered around three Product DNA: STYLISHCOMFORT and WARM-TECH, providing urban youth with an EASE experience amidst their fast-paced lives. Strategic Plan: Expanding to 80+ Markets in Five Years SOUEAST has fully integrated top-tier international suppliers, a global R&D system, smart manufacturing technology, laying a solid foundation for its global strategy. Mr. Ke, Vice President of SOUEAST Motor, said, "We are establishing 3 manufacturing centers and 10 KD plants globally and currently have 10 global R&D centers. In the next five years, SOUEAST plans to enter over 80 global markets, establish more than 1,500 outlets." Dual Models for Pre-sale: Unveiling the Urban Premium Series S09 is the flagship SUV, focusing on the daily commuting and family outdoor traveling needs of new urban elite users. It focuses on luxurious appearance, comfortable 7-seat space, and excellent driving ability. The hybrid version: S09DM was released at the same time. S07 offering both five-seat and seven-seat optionsfocusing on trendy design and intelligent technology, aiming to bring comfortable and trendy traveling experience to the new young users. Mr. Dai, Executive Vice President of SOUEAST Motor, pointed out that"S09 and S07 is just the beginning, officially marks SOUEAST's entry into the Uzbekistan market, and means a new chapter for the brand globally. Over the next 5 yearswe plan to launch eleven products in two segments and four categories, including SUVs and sedans. The SUV lineup will cover B, C, and D segments. These products will include ICE, PHEV, and even BEV models for the future." Starting from Uzbekistan, SOUEAST has officially taken its first step towards globalization. With its leading products and services, SOUEAST will continue to exceed customer expectations, delivering a relaxed and enjoyable driving experience. SOURCE SOUEAST Motor Missouri Court of Appeals Affirms $28.4 Million Jury Verdict for Missouri Policyholders, Increasing Total Recovery to $47.2 Million After Pre-Judgment Interest KANSAS CITY, Mo., Sept. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the full $28.4 million jury verdict obtained by Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP and co-counsel Schirger Feierabend LLC on behalf of policyholders of the Defendant Kansas City Life Insurance Co. Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP logo In the fall of 2019, Stueve Siegel Hanson and Schirger Feierabend filed the lawsuit on behalf of Missouri policyholders of certain universal life insurance products issued by the Defendant. The jury reached a verdict in their favor on December 9, 2022. The decision on appeal reflects the culmination of a long fight that has resulted in Stueve Siegel Hanson obtaining full damages for the Missouri policyholders caused by Defendant's 40-years-long breach of contract. In its decision, the Missouri Court of Appeals found that the policyholders suffered lower cash accounts "than they should have been because more was deducted for the cost of insurance than the Policies permitted" Kansas City Life to deduct. The Court rejected Kansas City Life's numerous arguments seeking to have the verdict set aside, finding that the unambiguous provisions of the Policies did not permit Kansas City Life to make the deductions it had taken for over 40 years. The Court also rejected Kansas City Life's challenges to the order certifying the class and the testimony of the policyholders' actuary who calculated damages. In a significant further victory for the policyholders, the Court concluded that the policyholders were entitled to pre-judgment interest on the $28.4 million award, increasing the judgment to the policyholders by approximately $14.6 million dollars. With post-judgment interest also accruing, the total damages recovered for Missouri policyholders stands at approximately $47.2 million. "We are continuing to fight the good fight for our Missouri policyholders. To date, our efforts to settle with KCL have been unsuccessful but hopefully this complete victory on appeal will help finally get policyholders the relief they deserve," said lead trial counsel Patrick Stueve of Stueve Siegel Hanson. Stueve Siegel Hanson and Schirger Feierabend are currently defending two other judgments against Kansas City Life on appeal, including one that was argued to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on the same day that the Missouri Court of Appeals issued its decision. The firms are also prosecuting cases at the trial level on behalf of California and Maryland policyholders. And they continue to investigate claims on behalf of Kansas City Life policyholders in other states and claims against other insurance companies for improper Cost of Insurance charges. This class-action trial and appeal represents one of many wins secured by Stueve Siegel Hanson's Class Trials & Appeals team. The Class Trials & Appeals team consists of attorneys with experience winning class-action jury trials and successfully defending the verdicts on appeal in cases in federal and state appellate courts across the country. Stueve Siegel Hanson handles high-stakes appeals, like this case, on a contingent-fee basis. SOURCE Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP KYODO NEWS - Sep 27, 2024 - 12:14 | All, Japan Bereaved families and local officials on Friday marked the 10th anniversary of the Mt. Ontake eruption, Japan's deadliest postwar volcanic disaster, in a ceremony in central Japan, as efforts continue to keep the memory of the tragedy alive. In a memorial service held in the village of Otaki at the foot of the 3,067-meter mountain straddling Nagano and Gifu prefectures, attendees observed a moment of silence at 11:52 a.m., the time of the eruption, which claimed 58 lives and left five others unaccounted for. Before the ceremony, nine members of a group of victims' families handed out keychains with safety messages to hikers at the trailhead. Among them, 66-year-old Hiromi Noguchi, who lost her husband in the disaster, told reporters, "I want people to evacuate immediately if they sense danger." Eight hikers who survived the eruption issued a statement. "We must not let the disaster fade and be forgotten amid disasters that occur almost every year and allow another eruption to claim many lives," it said. Following the eruption, the government has strengthened disaster prevention measures, including improving information-sharing and promoting volcanic research. Nagano Prefecture has also mandated climbers to submit hiking plans. Individual efforts are also under way to prevent the disaster from fading from public memory. Kiyokazu Tokoro, a 62-year-old from Aichi Prefecture, whose son Yuki Tokoro, 26, and his fiance Yuki Niwa, 24, died in the eruption, has been organizing educational hikes and talks for local children, sometimes showing his son's ash-covered belongings. "I will continue these activities as long as my strength allows," he said, adding, "This is my way of honoring my son and his fiance." The eruption occurred on Sept. 27, 2014, when the alert level for the volcano was at 1, the lowest on a scale of five. The current alert level for Mt. Ontake remains at 1, indicating hikers should be aware of its status as an active volcano. Related coverage: Japan eyes steps to limit ash fall damage in event Mt. Fuji erupts Indonesian volcano erupts again, local residents evacuated SUWON, South Korea, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Park Systems announced the successful conclusion of the NANOscientific Symposium SE Asia 2024. The event was held at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, on August 6-7. It brought together leading experts, researchers, and scientists from around the globe. This year's symposium was a vibrant hub for discussing the latest advancements in nanoscience and nanotechnology, further solidifying its reputation as a premier platform for innovation and collaboration in the field. Assoc. Prof. Charusluk Viphavakit NANOscientific Asia highlights & Interview Highlights from the NANOscientific Symposium SE Asia 2024 The symposium featured distinguished speakers, including experts from Chulalongkorn University, Nanyang Technological University, TMEC-NECTEC, IISER TVM, and Park Systems Corp. Discussions covered a range of topics, with a focus on scanning probe microscopy (SPM) and imaging spectroscopic ellipsometry (ISE) in various applications. Speeches highlighted advancements such as an optical fiber sensor for detecting diabetes biomarkers and nanomechanical mapping of viral proteins. Cutting-edge AFM techniques like scanning microwave impedance microscopy and 3D-AFM were showcased for nanoscale imaging. Other topics included improvements in piezoelectric nanogenerators, scalable perovskite solar cell processes, and light-responsive nanoparticles for drug delivery. A poster session featured innovative research from Asia, with Kankan Swargiary from Chulalongkorn University winning the best poster award for a cost-effective method of growing ZnO nanostructures on optical fibers. Participants also experienced live demonstrations of Park's advanced AFM technologies at the Nano-Engineering Innovative Design Center, gaining hands-on insights into nanotechnology applications. The event fostered collaboration and networking among academics, industry professionals, and researchers, with attendees praising its impact on their work. Looking Ahead: The 2024 NANOscientific Symposiums Building on the success of the NSS SE Asia symposium, Park Systems announced the upcoming schedule for the 2024 NANOscientific Symposiums, set to take place in major global regions. These events, known for uniting thousands of international attendees and promoting rich discussions and collaborations in nanoscience, will be held as follows: Japan : Tokyo Institute of Technology October 18 : Tokyo Institute of Technology China : SINANO, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou October 25-26 Europe : Fraunhofer EMFT, Munich, Germany October 29-31 : Fraunhofer EMFT, Americas : Arizona State University , Phoenix, Arizona November 13-14 : , Korea: Paradise Hotel, Busan November 21 Each symposium will cover a broad spectrum of topics, including electrical properties in semiconductors, 2D materials, surface science, and molecular biology, with a special emphasis on the practical applications of nanoscience in both industry and academia. Researchers worldwide are encouraged to submit their papers and posters for consideration, with prizes awarded for outstanding presentations. For more information on the regional symposiums, including registration details, please visit NANOscientific.org/nss2024. Updates on symposium topics, keynote speakers, and other event details will be progressively announced on the website. About NANOscientific Symposiums The NANOscientific Symposiums are a series of events sponsored by Park Systems that bring together the global nanoscience community to share research, foster collaboration, and explore the latest innovations in nanotechnology. Since their inception, these symposiums have grown into a key platform for advancing the field of nanoscience, connecting researchers, and inspiring the next generation of scientific breakthroughs. About Park Systems Corp. (KOSDAQ: 140860) Park Systems is a leading manufacturer of atomic force microscopy (AFM) and nano metrology systems, catering to researchers and engineers in diverse fields such as materials science, physics, chemistry, life sciences, semiconductors, and data storage. The company's mission is to drive nanoscale innovations that address global challenges and advance scientific discoveries. Park Systems's clients include top semiconductor companies and research universities worldwide. With headquarters in Suwon, Korea, and regional offices across the Americas, Europe, and Asia, Park Systems is publicly traded on the Korea Stock Exchange. Learn more at www.parksystems.com. SOURCE Park Systems Corp. ROSEVILLE, Calif., Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Prominently featured in The Inner Circle, Denise R. Bogard, MD, FAARFM, ABAARM is acknowledged as a Pinnacle Lifetime Member for her contributions in Anti-Aging and Integrative Medicine. Denise R. Bogard Dr. Denise R. Bogard, MD, FAARFM, ABAARM, is a renowned figure in the field of anti-aging and integrative medicine, dedicated to enhancing wellness through personalized treatments. As the founder and lead practitioner at her acclaimed medical practice, Dr. Bogard offers a comprehensive range of services including weight management support, IV therapy, nutrition counseling, peptide therapy, bioidentical hormone replacement, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy, and specialized testing tailored to individual needs. With a holistic approach to wellness, Dr. Bogard combines her expertise in anti-aging medicine with a commitment to patient-centered care. Her qualifications include a Registered Nurse (RN) background, an MD from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and completion of an Anesthesiology Residency at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). She is certified in biofeedback and holds fellowships in anti-aging and regenerative medicine. Dr. Bogard's dedication to excellence has been recognized through numerous accolades, including being honored as a Best Doctor and her practice being named the Best Medical Clinic in the region for four consecutive years. Her career journey began as a certified registered nurse anesthetist, and she later transitioned to specialize in integrative and anti-aging medicine, impacting the lives of thousands of patients. Beyond her professional achievements, Dr. Bogard enjoys activities such as softball, pickleball, and traveling, with a particular fondness for Hawaii. She attributes much of her success to the guidance of her mentor, Dr. Pam Smith, and holds dear the memory of her son Jerry Bogard. Dr. Bogard's guiding philosophy in patient care is encapsulated in the principle of "Do no harm," ensuring that her treatments prioritize patient safety and well-being above all else. Contact: Katherine Green, 516-825-5634, [email protected] SOURCE The Inner Circle Local 251 Members Prepare to Strike Amid Stalled Contract Negotiations PROVIDENCE, R.I., Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- After several months of negotiations with Transdev for a first contract, members of Teamsters Local 251 have voted to authorize a strike and are prepared to act if necessary to secure a fair and equitable agreement. These 51 workers provide bus and transportation services for Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and Rhode Island College (RIC) and are integral to the Providence student community. "We see our vote to authorize a strike as a signal to Transdev of our solidarity in the fight for fair compensation and safe working conditions," said Robin Cox, a shuttle bus driver at Transdev. "We love our jobs and the students we service. We have no desire to strike, but we will exercise our right to withhold our labor if necessary. We are moving forward with the hope that Transdev will now, with this vote, view us with the strength that we see in ourselves." Teamsters are demanding that Transdev offer a strong first contract that includes a fair wage, improved health care coverage, and retirement benefits. These workers voted overwhelmingly to join Local 251 in November 2023 in the face of low wages, poor benefits, and concerns over job security and have been working toward a first contract. "Money talksand we want fair pay," said Tarsa Lockley, a dispatcher and shuttle bus driver at Transdev. "We can only overcome these challenges if we stand together." "Transdev Teamsters are determined to get the strongest possible first contractand they aren't afraid to strike to get it," said Matt Taibi, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 251 and Director of the Teamsters Passenger Transportation Division. "Transdev needs to skip this song and dance of undercutting their workers because we have made it clear to them that the Teamsters across the nation won't stand for it. We look forward to securing these workers their first Teamsters contract and getting them what they deserve." Negotiations will continue next week with a federal mediator. Teamsters Local 251 represents over 6,300 workers in a wide variety of industries throughout Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts. For more information, visit teamsterslocal251.org. Contact: Kara Deniz, (202) 497-6610 [email protected] SOURCE Teamsters Local 251 This time, immerse yourself in the music, live for live NEWARK, Calif., Sept. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- TRIBIT, a global audio brand, targets the mid-October launch of the upgraded StormBox Blast 2 portable Bluetooth speaker. Following on from the success of its predecessor, StormBox Blast, the StormBox Blast 2 now has upgraded features including a higher IP67 waterproof rating, Bluetooth 5.4 and a huge 200W output power. Explosive 200W* Output TRIBIT StormBox Blast 2 Bluetooth speaker is scheduled for release in mid-October. Featuring an 80W subwoofer with diamond reinforcement ribs, dual 45W mid-range drivers, and two 15W silk dome tweeters, the StormBox Blast 2 delivers precise beats and notes. Its 2.1 channel design, powered by two advanced Ti amplifiers, ensures balanced and dynamic sound, while dual large passive radiators enhance the bass for deeper resonance. *AC Power: 200W; Battery Power: 180W Fun & Interactive Karaoke Host a karaoke party with the TRIBIT speaker which boasts the professional-grade karaoke function with an adjustable Reverb effect! Supporting dual wired or wireless microphone connections, this party speaker enables you to sing solo or in a duet. Better still, state-of-the-art Bluetooth 5.4 ensures an optimal listening experience with TWS connectivity. What's more fun than getting friends or family together for a good old sing song? Customized Dynamic Lighting The StormBox Blast 2 also features customizable dynamic lighting for a fantastic light show! The speaker can be synced to the pulse and rhythm of the song playing or users can pick a favorite color in the TRIBIT App to add a stunning touch to bars, weddings, festivals, and everything in between. Unstoppable 30hrs Playtime Worried about the tunes suddenly stopping mid-event? The StormBox Blast 2 has a 30-hour playtime to ensure there's enough power to keep party goers dancing into the night! Thanks to the colossal battery capacity, the speaker can also be used to charge phones or other electric gadgets to be certain nothing will run out of juice! About TRIBIT: Back in 2017, TRIBIT was born with one singular focus: to inspire outdoor exploration while embracing the beauty of nature and the magic of sound. Just like stepping into a journey where melodies of innovation resonate with your soul, TRIBIT decodes the music mystery with the notes of "do re mi". We strive to make high-quality audio accessible to all, orchestrating auditory brilliance. So now turn up the volume on your TRIBIT and treat yourself with better beats! Contact: Miriam Lin [email protected] SOURCE TRIBIT National Citizens Panel finds that contempt continues to pervade political speech and damage national unity SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- UNITE, the non-profit founded by Tim Shriver to ease the country's political divisions, today released its Dignity Index scores on campaign fundraising appeals. The 80-member National Citizens bipartisan panel, which has been using The Dignity Index to score political speech since March of this year, continues to find that contempt dominates political language. In response to a PAC-sponsored fundraising appeal, a 33-year-old white conservative woman from the South wrote, "Donation bits like these are so exhausting because of the major strings they try to pull to make you feel the need to give something even if you have nothing but prayers for the country as a whole." One liberal panelist responded to an appeal by writing, "Hatred and anger, accusations without any proof. This is just getting old. I expect better from someone asking me to let them run things." On the positive side, one fundraising appeal that 87 percent of the panelists scored on the dignity side was greeted with praise, "Almost refreshing to hear from a campaign that does not denigrate the other side but just shares the vision the candidate has for the country." Another wrote: "Finally, a quote that isn't attacking the other side." A third panelist wrote: "I am glad to hear this. It makes me feel like there is still hope for this country." Dignity Index co-creator Tim Shriver has been calling on candidates to adopt a "dignity strategy" in the final weeks of the campaign to improve their chances of winning over crucial swing voters. "Every candidate in a tight race faces the same question," said Shriver. "How do you win over the voters who are sick of division?" "The answer is not complicated," he said. "Contempt has made them turn away from politics. Dignity gives us a chance to bring them back." SCORES Panelists score by matching language from the speech passage with descriptions in the Dignity Index scoring guide, which is available here . The first half of North Carolina Democratic Candidate for Governor Josh Stein's Campaign Fundraising Email: "If you're not 100% ready to donate, can I remind you what we're fighting for? Protecting reproductive rights and blocking a TOTAL ban on abortion here in North Carolina . Ensuring every North Carolinian has access to affordable, quality healthcare. Supporting our public schools and teachers. Defending democracy and protecting voting rights." 72% of panelists agree that this was dignity The most frequently chosen score was a FIVE The reasons given the most were "speaks openly, explaining their views, but never with contempt" and "I share my views with no contempt, so they're easier for others to hear" 64% of panelists scored within +1 or -1 the score of FIVE The Conservative average score was 4.381, and the Liberal average score was 5.417 The second half of North Carolina Democratic Candidate for Governor Josh Stein's Campaign Fundraising Email: "To help us win this toss-up race and keep delivering for North Carolina , will you chip in $15 or any amount now? While we fight for progress, my opponent, Mark Robinson , is busy promoting far-right extremism and undermining North Carolina values. He's made it no secret that he plans to ban abortion with no exceptions, reject more than $1 billion of our own federal tax dollars intended for North Carolina public schools, and undermine our democracy. His vision is dangerous and reckless, but he has a real shot at winning this whole thing. National Republicans are pouring in millions of dollars to see this seat flip red and support his radical agenda it's up to our grassroots team to stop him." 89% of panelists agree that this was contempt The most frequently chosen score was a THREE The reasons given the most were "makes a personal attack on the other, targeting performance, competence, appearance, background, character or morals." and "Ascribes all the good qualities to 'us' and all the bad qualities to 'them.'" 88% of panelists scored within +1 or -1 the score of THREE The Conservative average score was 2.857, and the Liberal average score was 3.417 Four More Years PAC raising money for Trump: "We must fight the big money pouring in to elect lunatic liberals like Harris and Walz who want to turn our entire country into San Francisco . Without your help today, we could be looking at a true disaster in November with big money and the media doing everything they can to elect Harris. There's no sugarcoating it: this next election will be the fight for the very soul of our nation. We need every dollar possible to combat the radical left while we still can. Do your part and help now before it's too late." 97% of panelists agreed that this was contempt The most frequently chosen score was a THREE The reasons given the most were "makes a personal attack on the other, targeting performance, competence, appearance, background, character or morals." and "those are bad people trying to hurt us" 93% of panelists scored within +1 or -1 the score of THREE The Conservative average score was 2.857, and the Liberal average score was 2.833 Trump - Vance Campaign requesting donations: "THE ELECTION IS BEING RIGGED AGAINST OUR MOVEMENT. But I don't want you to lose hope. We're going to SAVE AMERICA from total destruction, and it will all be because of YOUR support. If you can, and only if you can, please chip in any amount today to help us WIN!" 83% of panelists agree this was contempt The most frequently chosen score was a TWO The reason most given was "Those people are evil. They're going to ruin our country if we let them. It's us or them." and "Those people are a danger to everything we value." 60% of panelists scored it within +1 or -1 of a TWO The Conservative average score was a 3.619, and the Liberal average score was 3 Jamie Raskin Campaign asking for support: "...while Lincoln's party of "liberty and Union" becomes Trump's cult of chaos and disunion, Democrats will continue fighting hard to make democracy deliver for the American people, just as we always have. Every bit of support makes a big difference and I am grateful for any amount you can give." 86% of panelists agree this was contempt The most frequently chosen score was a THREE The reasons most given were "We're the good people; they're the bad people. It's us versus them." and "makes a personal attack on the other, targeting performance, competence, appearance, background, character or morals." 80% of panelists scored within +1 or -1 the score of a THREE The Conservative average score was 3.238, and the Liberal average score was 3.625 Mike Rogers Campaign Fundraising email: " Mike Rogers is a Trump-endorsed former law enforcement officer who's proud to be running to represent the people of the great state of Michigan in the US Senate. He will work day-in and day-out to fight to secure our border, squash the threat of China , and bring our economy back under control, while upholding the values of Michiganders from all across the Great Lake State. So, after reading all of that, would you consider chipping in today to help Mike forge his path to victory this November?" 87% of panelists agree this was dignity The most frequently chosen score was a FIVE The reasons given the most were "speaks openly, explaining their views, but never with contempt" and "I share my views with no contempt, so they're easier for others to hear" 83% of panelists scored within +1 or -1 the score of FIVE The Conservative average score was 5, and the Liberal average score was 4.917 Kamala Harris Campaign's donation request: " $25 . That is the donation we are asking you to make to Kamala Harris' campaign today. We know what you are thinking and we get it: How is it that $25 can make a difference against all that money being spent by Trump's allies? The answer is simple: because while a few super wealthy people try to buy this election for Trump, we are running a people-powered campaign. Made up of lots and lots of people." 66% of panelists agree that this was contempt The most frequently chosen score was a FOUR The reasons most given were "They're working for those people, not for us" and "We're better than those people. They don't really belong. They don't really share our values." 63% of panelists scored within -1 the score of FOUR The Conservative average score was 3.762, and the Liberal average score was 4.708 Kari Lake Campaign asking for donations: "The left has willingly let in millions of migrants and illegal immigrants, letting THOUSANDS OF POUNDS of illegal drugs through our porous border as a consequence. They're willing to sacrifice this entire nation for their woke, radical agenda. Securing the border means kicking out the people who have caused this disaster, AKA Ruben Gallego and his friends. I will bring some common sense to Washington D.C. I'm in this fight for ALL OF US. Click HERE to donate & join the fight and help take back America." 93% of panelists agree that this was contempt The most frequently chosen score was a TWO The reasons given the most were "Those people are a danger to everything we value." and "Tells stories that 'prove' the evil of the other side." 75% of panelists scored within +1 or -1 the score of TWO The Conservative average score was 3.143, and Liberal average score was 2.667 For more information about The Dignity Index and to access the complete analysis please visit www.dignity.us. Contact: Nicole Tidei Phone: 203.376.1192 SOURCE Project UNITE, Inc. Vendasta places No. 235 on The Globe and Mail's sixth annual ranking of Canada's Top Growing Companies. SASKATOON, SK, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Vendasta is pleased to announce it has ranked No. 235 on the 2024 Report on Business magazine's ranking of Canada's Top Growing Companies. Canada's Top Growing Companies ranks Canadian companies on three-year revenue growth. Vendasta earned its spot with a three-year growth of 178%. "We're thrilled to once again be named among Canada's Top Growing Companies," said Vendasta CEO Brendan King. "Our AI-powered platform enables businesses to unlock the power of their data, boosting productivity by 10x and giving them a competitive edge. This recognition is a testament to the technical innovation and dedication of our incredible team." Vendasta's continued growth is driven by its comprehensive platform, empowering businesses to efficiently market, sell, and support their customers using AI and automation. With a global network of channel partners and cutting-edge solutions, Vendasta remains at the forefront of digital transformation, meeting the evolving needs of businesses worldwide. Canada's Top Growing Companies is an editorial ranking that was launched in 2019 to celebrate the achievements of innovative businesses in Canada. To qualify for this voluntary program, companies had to complete an in-depth application process and fulfill revenue requirements. In total, 417 companies earned a spot on this year's ranking. The full list of 2024 winners along with editorial coverage is published in the October issue of Report on Business magazine. "Our annual ranking of Canada's Top Growing Companies reflects the sector-spanning ingenuity of this country's entrepreneurs and corporate leaders," says Dawn Calleja, Editor of Report on Business magazine. "And we think it's important to tell their stories, to help inspire the next generation of up-and-comers across the country." "The Globe and Mail congratulates this year's Canada's Top Growing Companies' winners for achieving exceptional growth and resilience in facing business challenges," says Andrew Saunders, CEO of The Globe and Mail. "It is a testament to dedication, strategic vision, and innovative drive." About Vendasta Vendasta is a global leader in AI-powered digital solutions, helping businesses thrive in today's competitive marketplace. Headquartered in Saskatoon, Canada, Vendasta's end-to-end commerce platform enables businesses to market, sell, bill, and fulfill digital solutions with unmatched efficiency. Trusted by a global network of channel partners and direct brands, Vendasta is recognized for its rapid growth and commitment to innovation. With offices in Saskatoon, Boca Raton, and Chennai, and a team of over 700 passionate professionals, Vendasta continues to expand its global footprint, driving business success through cutting-edge technology. Learn more at www.vendasta.com . About The Globe and Mail The Globe and Mail is Canada's foremost news media company, leading the national discussion and causing policy change through brave and independent journalism since 1844. With our award-winning coverage of business, politics, and national affairs, The Globe and Mail newspaper reaches 6.2 million readers every week in our print or digital formats, and Report on Business magazine reaches 2.9 million readers in print and digital every issue. Our investment in innovative data science means that as the world continues to change, so does The Globe. The Globe and Mail is owned by Woodbridge, the investment arm of the Thomson family. SOURCE Vendasta Technologies Inc. "Our Bodies, Our Votes", the third installment in Her Campus's award-winning editorial project, is a collection of stories, underpinned by original data, that amplifies the voices of Gen Z around reproductive rights as the 2024 presidential election draws near. BOSTON, Sept. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Her Campus, the leading media brand for college women with chapters at hundreds of colleges, is proud to launch Our Bodies, Our Votes , the third iteration of its award-winning editorial project. With an exclusive foreword penned by Vice President Kamala Harris, this initiative explores the intersection of the 2024 election and reproductive freedom, underscoring the high stakes of this year's presidential election for women across the United States through the eyes of Gen Z. In her foreword, Vice President Harris highlights the pivotal role young voters have played in shaping the political landscape: Vice President Kamala Harris pens exclusive foreword for Her Campus's "Our Bodies, Our Votes" Project. Post this "Young people have always been at the forefront of change. In 2020, young voters elected me the first woman Vice President in the history of our country. In 2022, young voters turned out in historic numbers to protect abortion rights in states from Michigan to Kentucky. And this November, it will be young people again who lead the fight to restore reproductive freedom across our nation." Her message is a clear call to action, urging young people to recognize that, "Your vote is your voice and your voice is your power." Our Bodies, Our Votes is a comprehensive editorial project that delves into the concerns and perspectives of Gen Z voters, with a specific focus on reproductive rights, which has emerged as the number one issue in the election for this demographic, according to Her Campus surveys conducted in 2024. This project will release Her Campus's original data that highlights the overwhelming concern young people have regarding threats to reproductive freedom, particularly around women's right to make their own healthcare decisions. In addition to data-driven insights, Our Bodies, Our Votes shares powerful and personal stories from young women courageously speaking out about their experiences with reproductive rights, including prominent reproductive rights activist Hadley Duvall . " Our Bodies, Our Votes is about amplifying the voices of Gen Z around this critical issue in the lead-up to this historic election," said Stephanie Kaplan Lewis, Co-founder & CEO of Her Campus Media. "Through hard data that is then brought to life through deeply personal narratives, we aim to inform, empower, and galvanize Gen Zers to take action and ensure their voices are heard by voting." This latest installment follows the success of previous editions in the series: Our Bodies, Our Rules (published in 2017 after the election of Donald Trump) and Our Bodies, Our Rights (published after the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022). Both were met with widespread acclaim and received industry awards for their impactful data-driven storytelling and relevance. To read the Vice President's foreword and the courageous stories, and learn more about the data and Gen Z's priorities for this election, visit hercampus.com/ourbodiesourvotes . About Her Campus Media: Her Campus Media is the #1 Gen Z media and marketing ecosystem, reaching this generation better than anyone else across its family of media brands and communities, including Her Campus, College Fashionista, InfluenceHer Collective, Spoon University, and Generation Hired, with a highly curated community of 50,000+ creators, influencers, ambassadors, and student journalists across 2,000+ colleges. Her Campus Media provides award-winning integrated marketing programs that drive consumer engagement and loyalty for the world's leading brands. Her Campus has been named to Fast Company's World's Most Innovative Companies, Adweek's Campaign of the Year, and Entrepreneur magazine's Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America among other accolades. SOURCE Her Campus Media KYODO NEWS - Sep 27, 2024 - 10:13 | All, Japan Japan's next prime minister is set to face growing pressure from the LGBT community and courts to do more to protect sexual minorities, including legalizing same-sex marriage, but most candidates for the post have remained low-key on the issue. Among the nine running in Friday's presidential election of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, only Digital Minister Taro Kono supports allowing same-sex marriage, according to a survey by the Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislation. Former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said he will approach the issue by taking into consideration relevant court rulings, while former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi refrained from answering, citing what he said was an instruction from the party. The remaining six candidates did not give responses by the Sept. 18 deadline. "It is extremely regrettable that many did not respond," said Yuichi Kamiya, secretary general of the group, which is seeking to remove social barriers based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The survey results contrasted with the responses from the four candidates in the leadership race of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, with all supporting legalizing same-sex marriage ahead of Monday's election won by former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. "The endorsement by the four CDPJ candidates was encouraging," said Gon Matsunaga, director for Marriage For All Japan, a group working to realize same-sex marriage. He said that for those who did not give responses, their lack of an answer "mirrors their awareness" on the issue. "I want people who are in the position to legislate to provide a remedy for human rights" violations, Matsunaga said. Japan remains the only Group of Seven major industrialized country that has not legalized same-sex marriage or civil unions, despite growing pressure from the LGBT community and its supporters. Japanese courts have also questioned the country's lack of legal recognition of same-sex marriage, with a high court in March calling the current provisions unconstitutional as they violate the right to equality. The court also said the provisions violate Article 24 that says marriage shall only be by mutual consent of "both sexes," arguing that this can be understood as also guaranteeing marriage between individuals of the same sex. In the lawsuits, the government has argued that the Constitution presumes marriage is only between heterosexual couples. The Japanese parliament in June last year enacted legislation to promote understanding of sexual minorities and to eliminate "unfair discrimination" of people based on their sexual orientation. But conservative LDP lawmakers, who hope to maintain what they consider are traditional family values, opposed the bill. Regarding whether to permit separate surnames for married couples, a hot-button issue in Japan, Koizumi and Kono have endorsed the proposal, which also has the backing of Japan's largest business lobby. Ishiba has also said he "personally agrees" with the idea but has called for gathering opinions, while conservative candidates such as Sanae Takaichi have voiced opposition. In Japan, the Civil Code requires that married couples share the same surname, resulting in the overwhelming majority choosing the husband's name. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, a U.N. rights watchdog, has said the law forcing married Japanese couples to have the same surname is discriminatory against women. Related coverage: Japan high court rules same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional Japanese court approves nonsterilized trans man's gender change Japan firm nixes translation of U.S. book questioning trans surgery KYODO NEWS - Sep 27, 2024 - 19:55 | All, World, Japan The Japanese government said Friday it will dispatch Self-Defense Forces airplanes to prepare for a possible evacuation of its citizens in Lebanon amid fears of the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah escalating. Upon the request of the Foreign Ministry, Defense Minister Minoru Kihara instructed the SDF to send transport aircraft to Jordan and Greece, where they will be placed on standby. Earlier in the day, Kihara told a press conference that SDF planes, including C2 transport aircraft, were already on standby in Japan in case its citizens need to be evacuated from Israel, and added that the government will "appropriately deal with the situation" depending on how events unfold. According to Japan's Foreign Ministry, about 50 Japanese nationals are living or working in Lebanon. Israeli air strikes in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah, Iran's proxy, have intensified lately after the militant group began firing rockets into Israel in an unprovoked attack the day after the Oct. 7, 2023, surprise assault by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. The United States and its allies have called for a 21-day cease-fire on the Israel-Lebanon border to prevent a further escalation of violence. Related coverage: Exploding walkie-talkies in Lebanon may be product of Japanese firm 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 United Nations, Sep 27 : Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas received a long round of applause as he addressed the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), insisting that "we will not leave, Palestine is our homeland," and "if anyone were to leave it would be the occupier". He proceeded to accuse Israel of perpetrating a "full-scale war of genocide," dismissing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that Israel didn't kill civilians in Gaza. "I ask you, who is it then that killed more than 15,000 children?" he said on Thursday. "Stop this crime. Stop it now. Stop killing children and women. Stop the genocide. Stop sending weapons to Israel. This madness cannot continue. The entire world is responsible for what is happening to our people," Abbas said. During his speech, Abbas called on the international community to impose sanctions on Israel and also its exclusion from the United Nations following the "genocide in Gaza". "We call for sanctions against Israel. Israel does not deserve to be part of this organisation. I don't know how the US can insist on depriving us of our rights," the Palestinian President said. He also touched upon the situation with settlers in the West Bank, specifying that 600,000 settlers currently live there. "We want ICJ (the International Court of Justice) ruling on Israel to be implemented," he noted. "Palestine will be free, despite anyone who objects. Our people will live in the land of their fathers and grandfathers... The occupation will end," Abbas concluded. Meanwhile, Netanyahu instructed his military to keep fighting "with full force" on Thursday, as a high-stakes international diplomatic effort was underway to pause the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. Netanyahu is heading to New York for the UNGA, even as members of his government dismissed a ceasefire proposal that the US, European allies and several Arab nations put forward. Israel's military carried out new strikes in Lebanon, including one in Beirut, the capital, that targeted the commander of Hezbollah's drone unit. The UNGA adopted a resolution on May 10 supporting the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member and recommending that the Security Council "reconsider the matter favourably". The resolution was adopted with 143 votes in favour and nine against, including the US and Israel, while 25 countries abstained. China voted for the resolution. The resolution states, "The State of Palestine... should therefore be admitted to membership" and "recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favourably". New York, Sep 27 : Eric Adams, the outspoken Mayor of the largest US city, has been charged with bribery and campaign financing irregularities by Federal prosecutors, and one of the allegations relates to a trip he took to India. The charges released on Thursday said that after he purchased economy class tickets for himself and his domestic partner to India in 2016 on Turkish Airlines he accepted upgrades to business class, which prosecutors assert was valued at nearly $13,000 that he did not disclose receiving it in his official filings. The prosecutors put the amounts he illegally benefitted from at $100,000. No one connected to India is mentioned in the indictment which centres on his alleged ties to Turkey. Most of the allegations, including that about the trip to India, relate to the period he was the President of the city's Brooklyn borough before he became Mayor in 2022. Adams, who is African-American -- only the second from the community of the city's 110 Mayors -- and is a Democrat. However, he has been at odds with the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, criticising their border policies that let in more than 12 million illegal immigrants overwhelming New York and other cities. In a statement professing his innocence, he cited his criticism of the Federal government's inaction on "its broken immigration policies". On a day he was on his way to Washington to lead a group of Mayors in a protest over the fallout of illegal immigration, Federal agents launched a search of the house of his campaign finance official causing him to abandon the protest and turn back to New York. A former police captain, he has also been tough on crime, drawing criticism from the party's Left and at variance to some of the lenient policies that Harris had once advocated. The Turkish government, businesses, educational institutions, and local administrations allegedly gave him free hospitality and funneled campaign contributions illegally to him through third parties. Besides his trip to India, he is alleged to have received free tickets, upgrades, or hospitality for visits to Turkey, China, Hungary, and Sri Lanka In return, among other things, he helped the 36-storey Turkish Consulate tower get a fire department clearance, according to the indictment. The charges against him were unveiled two days after Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan severely criticised the West in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly. The city of 8.25 million people has been in turmoil for several weeks with several top officials, including the Police Commissioner and the schools Chancellor resigning after they came under investigations. The Federal prosecutors have been going after foreign interference in US politics occurring in the New York area. Earlier this month, Linda Sun, a former senior aide to Governor Kathy Hochul was arrested and charged with secretly wporking for China. In May, Bob Menendez, a powerful Senator who headed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was convicted on bribery charges relating to his illegal collaborations with Egypt and Qatar. At a flag-hoisting ceremony honouring India's Independence last month, he recalled his visit to the country. He said, "I recall in my trip to India, and the most significant part of that trip that I remember, I remember watching the last footsteps of our leader, Gandhi, and where the assassin took his life, and how we have a responsibility and obligation to continue those footsteps." New York, Sep 27 : Former US President Donald Trump has said that he would meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Trump Tower in New York on Friday one day after the White House hopeful slammed Ukraine's leader for refusing to strike a deal with Russia over the war. "President Zelensky has asked to meet with me, and I will be meeting with him tomorrow morning at around 9:45 in Trump Tower," Trump told reporters in New York on Thursday. "And it's a shame what's happening in Ukraine. So many deaths, so much destruction. It's a horrible thing." Trump spoke hours after the Ukrainian President met with his US counterpart Joe Biden and Trump's November election rival Kamala Harris at the White House. Zelensky is in the US this week participating in the UN General Assembly in New York. Trump said: "I look forward to seeing him tomorrow." But the Republican also suggested he was displeased with Zelensky's recent comments to The New Yorker magazine in which Ukraine's leader said he believed Trump "doesn't really know how to stop the war". When asked about Zelensky's comments by a reporter at the press conference, Trump said: "I do believe I disagree with him. He doesn't know me." "I believe I will be able to make a deal" to end the war, Trump added, repeating a longstanding claim that he would swiftly bring about an end to the conflict which began when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Trump has frequently claimed that he would be able to end the war in Ukraine quickly, in as little as "a day". Trump has been highly critical of funding to Ukraine and at times, Zelensky -- an uneasy relationship that was made even less comfortable after the Ukrainian President announced a visit to an ammunition plant in battleground state Pennsylvania. Trump frequently says Russia "would have never attacked Ukraine" if he was President. Trump has frequently claimed that he would be able to end the war in Ukraine quickly, in as little as "a day." "I don't want to tell you what that looks like," he responded. He said of Ukraine that Russian leader Vladimir Putin "told me often it's the apple of his eye". Trump claimed he warned against invading Ukraine and said, "'Vladimir, don't even think about doing it.'" Trump also told reporters of his meeting with Zelensky, "We'll see what happens, but I believe I can work that out." Asked whether Ukraine should cede land to Russia to end the war, Trump did not answer directly. "Let's get some peace," he said. "We need peace. We need to stop the death and destruction. Don't you think? Wouldn't that be nice?" Earlier on Thursday, Trump posted to his social media platform, Truth Social, a message purportedly from Zelensky requesting a face-to-face meeting with Trump while Zelensky would already be in New York. Trump's announcement that he would meet with Zelensky came shortly after that post. United Nations, Sep 27 : The Foreign Ministers of BRICS met here on Thursday ahead of next month's summit in Kazan in Russia. External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar said on X the meeting "underlined its significance for multi-polarity and global diversity". Sharing a post on X, EAM Jaishankar wrote, "Just concluded the BRICS Foreign Ministers Meeting on the sidelines of UNGA79. Underlined its significance for multi-polarity and global diversity. Focused on reforming multilateralism and strengthening development." He added that they "focused on reforming multilateralism and strengthening development" and also "discussed achieving SDG (UN Sustainable Development Goals) targets, addressing debt, promoting fair trade, and overcoming poverty". "Thank FM Mauro Vieira for convening and chairing the meeting," the post on X added. Meanwhile, in a series of other tweets, EAM Jaishankar posted pictures of his meetings with several foreign ministers on the sidelines of UNGA. In a post, he wrote, "Happy to see FM Tim Kabba of Sierra Leone on the sidelines of UNGA79. Appreciate their leadership on reformed multilateralism." In another post, he wrote, "Good to meet the new Egyptian FM Badr Abdelatty on the sidelines of UNGA 79." "With FM Seyed Abbas Araghchi of Iran ahead of the BRICS meeting," another post on X by EAM Jaishankar said. Meanwhile, EAM Jaishankar attended the first-ever Joint Ministerial Meeting of L.69 and C-10 groupings of nations on the sidelines of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday. During the meeting, EAM Jaishankar highlighted the need for reform of United Nations Security Council membership in permanent and non-permanent categories. The L.69 Annual Ministerial Meeting meeting was chaired by Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister, Ralph E Gonsalves, in his capacity as Spokesperson of the L.69, according to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) press statement. Created as an economy-focused group by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, it has expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, and evolved to also consider geopolitical issues.. With BRICS emerging as a new point of focus in a multipolar world, several more countries are seeking membership. This week, Afghanistan's Taliban regime asked to attend the summit meeting in Kazan. United Nations, Sep 27 : External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar on Thursday met with the top leaders of the world organisation, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and President of the General Assembly Philemon Yang, who expressed appreciation for India's global role. At their meeting, Guterres "expressed appreciation for India's cooperation with the UN," according to his Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric. "They discussed the Summit of the Future and its implementation, climate change, Artificial Intelligence, and geopolitical developments," he added. The Summit earlier this week adopted the Pact for the Future setting the course for the UN and for collectively dealing with the looming crises for the world. Yang said on X that he "appreciated India's role in advancing the interests of the Global South". "We discussed the priorities and key issues for #UNGA79 (current General Assembly session), and building on the outcomes of the Summit of the Future," he added. EAM Jaishankar posted on X that he "assured him of India's full support to his vision of Unity in Diversity, Peace, Human Sustainability, and Dignity for everyone everywhere". The Minister met several other leaders on the sidelines of the General Assembly's high-level meeting. EAM Jaishankar wrote on X that at his meeting with Sierra Leone Foreign Minister Tim Kabba, he expressed appreciation for that country's leadership on reformed multilateralism. Sierra Leone as President of the Security Council last month brought Security Council reform to the fore. EAM Jaishankar posted on X that he and Belarus Foreign Minister Makshim Ryzhenkov "discussed possibilities in health, education, technology, and deepening economic linkages". Romania's Foreign Minister Luminita Odobescu and he "took stock of our growing bilateral engagements in tourism, defence and mobility" and "exchanged perspectives on Ukraine," EAM Jaishankar reported on X. He posted on X that he had a "good first meeting" with Maria Stenergard and they spoke "about deepening our bilateral relationship in fields of sustainable development, investments, and skilled workers' mobility". They also exchanged perspectives on Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific, he added. With Jordan Deputy Prime MInister Ayman Safadi his "discussions revolved around the ongoing situation in West Asia," he wrote on X. He also met Foreign Ministers Badr Abdelatty of Egypt, Seyed Abbas Araghchi of Iran, Albert Shingiro of Burundi, and Kamina J Smith of Jamaica. Tel Aviv, Sep 27 : Israel has said it has killed another top Hezbollah commander -- Muhammad Hussein Srour, the commander of Hezbollah's Aerial Command -- in a "precise" strike on Beirut. At least two people were killed, and 15 others were injured in a strike on Dahieh in Beirut, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health on Thursday. Hezbollah has not yet commented on the death of its commander. This comes hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will "continue the fighting with full force". Sharing a post on X, the IDF wrote, "Eliminated: Commander of Hezbollah's Aerial Command, Muhammad Hussein Srour, in a precise IAF strike in Beirut." The IDF further said that Srour was responsible for advancing numerous aerial terrorist attacks targeting Israeli civilians. "Srour advanced and directed numerous aerial terrorist attacks aimed at Israeli civilians. During the "Iron Swords" war, he executed several terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers using UAVs and explosive devices," the post said. "In recent years, Srour led the manufacturing project of UAVs in southern Lebanon and established UAV manufacturing and intelligence gathering sites in Lebanon, located adjacent to civilian infrastructure in Beirut and southern Lebanon," the post added. The IDF also said that Srour's role extended to the commander of the surface-to-air missile unit, as well as the "Aziz" Unit of the Radwan Force. It said, "He was also the commander in the surface-to-air missile unit, commander in the "Aziz" Unit of the Radwan Force and Hezbollah's emissary to Yemen and the Houthi terrorist regime's Aerial Command." At least 23 people were killed -- including 19 Syrian refugees -- and four others were injured after Israel struck a building on the Syrian-Lebanese border in another strike on Thursday, officials said. Nearly 700 people were killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since Monday, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health. Strikes this week follow the explosion of pagers and walkie-talkies throughout the country last week. Netanyahu shot down the possibility of a cease-fire that could end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon after the US and France said they have put a proposal on the table for a 21-day stop in fighting. He also said fighting in Gaza will continue until the goals of the war are achieved. Despite the proposal on the table, all signs point to Israel preparing for a possible ground invasion into Lebanon. US President Joe Biden told reporters on Wednesday that there is global support for a 21-day cease-fire proposal that he and other leaders have called for. "We were able to generate significant support from Europe, as well as the Arab nations. It's important this war not widen," Biden told reporters as he returned to the White House on Thursday. The President was returning from the UN General Assembly, where he met with French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday to discuss details of a joint statement announcing the proposal, according to senior administration officials. The Israel Ministry of Defence secured a $8.7 billion US aid package from Washington to support its ongoing military efforts. The package includes $3.5 billion for essential wartime procurement, which has already been transferred, and $5.2 billion designated for air defence systems, according to the Ministry of Defence. Israel has said it is attacking Hezbollah in order to allow residents to return to the north. As tensions continue to rise in the region, Iran "will not remain indifferent in case of a full-scale war in Lebanon," the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in comments to reporters on Wednesday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. He also warned Israel's "crimes will not go unpunished," and said the Middle East region "risks full-scale conflict" if the UN Security Council does not "act now to halt Israel's war and enforce an immediate cease-fire". "The Israeli leaders must understand that their crimes will not go unpunished. The path to de-escalation is clear. Israel must immediately stop its attacks on Gaza and Lebanon. Without a cease-fire in Gaza, there will be no guarantee of peace in the region," Araqchi said on Wednesday. "Iran will not remain indifferent in case of a full-scale war in Lebanon. We stand with the people of Lebanon with all means," he added. Washington, Sep 27 : Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with US President Joe Biden at the White House to present his wartime "victory plan," after Biden announced an $8 billion surge in military aid for Kyiv's fight against Russia. "Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail, and we'll continue to stand by you every step of the way," Biden said on Thursday as he hosted Zelensky in the Oval Office, after thanking him for presenting the so-called victory plan. Dressed in his trademark military-style outfit, Zelensky replied that "we deeply appreciate that Ukraine and America have stood side by side". But Zelensky's visit was clouded by a blazing row with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that underscored how November's US election could upend the support that Kyiv receives from its biggest backer. Zelensky is looking to shore up support for his war effort at the same time as Biden tries to lock in aid for Ukraine, ahead of the white-knuckle vote pitting Biden's Vice-President Kamala Harris against firebrand Trump. The Democrat pledged nearly $8 billion in military aid in his announcement on Thursday, including $5.5 billion to be authorised before it expires at the end of the US fiscal year on Monday. Biden said in a statement that the "surge in security assistance for Ukraine" would "help Ukraine win this war". Biden also announced Washington would provide Ukraine with the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) long-range munition and called a summit of allies in Germany in October. The White House however played down Ukraine's hopes that Zelensky's visit would achieve his long-held goal of getting permission to fire long-range Western-made missiles into Russian territory. "I'm not expecting there to be any new announcements on this particular action or a decision coming out of this meeting," Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. Harris was due to meet Zelensky separately at the White House on Thursday. Zelensky also visited the US Congress -- where his government said he had also presented his victory plan -- and gave a defiant address at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday. But Zelensky's visit has prompted fresh nuclear saber rattling from Moscow, which has repeatedly warned the West against giving Ukraine long-range arms. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday announced plans to broaden Moscow's rules on the use of its atomic weaponry in the event of a "massive" air attack. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the nuclear threat "totally irresponsible" while EU foreign policy spokesman Peter Stano said Putin was making a "gamble with his nuclear arsenal". Kyiv faces an increasingly difficult battlefield situation two and a half years into Russia's invasion, with Russian forces continuing to push into eastern Ukraine. But the US presidential election means Washington's support now hangs on the balance -- and with Zelensky apparently at odds with Trump and the Republicans. Trump had also been due to meet Zelensky during his US visit, but their talks now appear to be on ice. Trump accused Zelensky on the eve of the visit of refusing to strike a deal with Moscow and once again questioned why the United States was giving billions of dollars to Kyiv. At an election rally on Wednesday, the Republican called the Ukrainian President "probably the greatest salesman on Earth". Republicans were livid after Zelensky visited an arms factory in Biden's hometown in the battleground state of Pennsylvania earlier this week, with House Speaker Mike Johnson calling for the Ukrainian ambassador to be sacked. Zelensky also sparked fury in Republican ranks when he told The New Yorker magazine this week that Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance did not understand the war's complexity. Trump has echoed many of Putin's talking points about previous US policy being to blame for the Russian invasion, and has been critical of Zelensky for years. The US has provided around $175 billion in both military and economic assistance to Ukraine during the war, despite frequent opposition from Republicans. KYODO NEWS - Sep 27, 2024 - 14:03 | All, Japan Special permission to stay in Japan has been granted to 212 foreign minors and their family members who did not have residence status and could have been deported, the immigration agency said Friday. The humanitarian measure at the justice minister's discretion was applied to minors under 18, born and attending school in Japan, and with parents without criminal histories. Calls have been rising for consideration for such foreign children, many of whom only speak Japanese. The measure, which also extends to 183 of their family members, was described as a one-time provision by then-Justice Minister Ken Saito when announcing it in August 2023. However, the Immigration Services Agency has said it could make extraordinary recognitions in future cases. As of June 10, when the revised Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act came into effect, there were 263 children who were without visas and facing the risk of being deported, the agency said. The revised legislation allows individuals to apply for special permission when previously it was only possible once deportation proceedings began. Of the children who did not receive special permission, 11 returned to their home countries of their own volition, while 40 were not granted it due to factors including their parents entering Japan illegally and not reaching school age, the agency said. Among the 212 minors, 155 received student visas, 29 were granted designated activities visas, and 23 received long-term resident visas. Amid wider issues over groups wishing to stay due to difficulties in their home countries, the agency also said it will tighten from October its review process on Myanmar nationals changing residence status from technical intern, which limits them to the same employer for three years, to designated activities, which has no such restriction. Japan has been allowing the switch as an emergency measure after a military coup in Myanmar in 2021 but decided on the policy change following a recent surge in people terminating the training program midway through. The agency said the number of technical intern visa holders from Myanmar disappearing from their workplaces rose to 1,765 in 2023, up roughly 1,100 from the previous year, with 1,739 of them later switching to designated activities visas. Related coverage: Japan to address issue of foreign trainees quitting in record numbers Court grants Japan nationality to Afghan refugees' child in rare move United Nations, Sep 26 : British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday voiced strong support for India's inclusion as a permanent member of a reformed United Nations Security Council (UNSC), along with permanent African representation, Brazil, Japan and Germany and more seats for elected members as well. "If we want the system to deliver for the poorest and most vulnerable then their voices must be heard. We need to make the system more representative and more responsive to those who need it most. So we will make the case not just for fairer outcomes, but fairer representation in how we reach them. And this also applies to the Security Council. It has to change to become a more representative body, willing to act -- not paralysed by politics. We want to see permanent African representation on the Council, Brazil, India, Japan and Germany as permanent members, and more seats for elected members as well," Starmer said while addressing the general debate at the 79th session of the UN General Assembly in New York early Friday, India time. Earlier on Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron had voiced strong support for India's inclusion as a permanent member of a reformed United Nations Security Council (UNSC), along with Germany, Japan, Brazil, and two African nations. "Germany, Japan, India and Brazil should be permanent members, as well as two countries that Africa would designate to represent it. New elected members should also be admitted," Macron said while addressing the general debate at the 79th session of the UN General Assembly in New York. The French President stressed the need for reforms within the UN to make it more effective and representative, particularly in light of the challenges posed by the current structure of the Security Council. "The United Nations should not be discarded, but rather reformed to reflect today's realities," he said. He said that the current Security Council, often blocked by conflicting interests, needs to evolve. "Is there a better system? I don't think so. So let's just make these United Nations more effective, first by perhaps making them more representative. That is why France and I repeat here, is in favour of the Security Council being expanded," Macron said. The French President said that he hopes that "this reform will also make it possible to change working methods, to limit the right of veto in the event of mass crime and to focus on operational decisions that are necessary to maintain international peace and security. This is what we must have the courage and audacity to do and that we must carry forward with the current permanent members." Earlier, Chilean President Gabriel Boric Font also advocated for India's inclusion, proposing a deadline for the reform to align the UNSC with modern geopolitical realities by the UN's 80th anniversary. The call for India's permanent membership has also been echoed by other global leaders, including US President Joe Biden, who reiterated Washington's full support for India's bid during his recent bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Russia, too, continues to back India's aspiration for a permanent seat, with the country's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphasising the need for greater representation of developing countries in the council during the ongoing annual UN event. The growing consensus among world leaders highlights the urgency of reforming the UNSC to reflect the contemporary global order and ensure more inclusive and effective international governance. United Nations, Sep 27 : While most of the leaders speaking at the General Assembly's high-level meeting have called for reforming the Security Council, three countries, specifically, said that India should get a permanent seat. The Council, struggling to tackle major security and peace issues, highlights the need for a comprehensive reform, Micronesia's President Wesley Simina said on Thursday. "It is time for permanent membership of the Security Council to be expanded to include Japan, India, Germany, Brazil, and representation from the African continent," he said. Portugal's Prime Minister Luis Montenegro expressed support for two countries with which Lisbon has historical ties, India and Brazil, getting permanent seats. Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer voiced strong support for India's inclusion as a permanent member of a reformed United Nations Security Council (UNSC), along with permanent African representation, Brazil, Japan and Germany and more seats for elected members as well. "If we want the system to deliver for the poorest and most vulnerable then their voices must be heard. We need to make the system more representative and more responsive to those who need it most. So we will make the case not just for fairer outcomes, but fairer representation in how we reach them. And this also applies to the Security Council. It has to change to become a more representative body, willing to act -- not paralysed by politics. We want to see permanent African representation on the Council, Brazil, India, Japan and Germany as permanent members, and more seats for elected members as well," Starmer said while addressing the general debate at the 79th session of the UN General Assembly in New York. In earlier sessions this week, Chile's President Gabriel Boric Font and France's President Emmanuel Macron backed India's quest for a permanent seat on the Council. Two other permanent members of the Council, the US, and Russia, are also backing India. Mumbai, Sep 27 : Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar-headed Election Commission of India (ECI) team will hold two-day discussions starting from Friday with various stakeholders, and also review the preparations for the upcoming Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election. The team, which was welcomed by the state chief electoral officer S. Chockalingam on Thursday night, will hold discussions with the political parties, state government officers, enforcement agencies, district collectors and Superintendents of Police from 10 a.m. onwards on Friday and Saturday. The CEC along with two Election Commissioners, Ganesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, will address the media on Saturday. The ECI team on Friday will meet political parties to seek their views. During the day, it will have discussions with the state Chief Electoral Officer, enforcement agencies, the state chief secretary, the director general of police and other administrative secretaries and senior police officers with regard to the deployment of the necessary manpower and law and order situation. On September 28, the ECI team will hold an interactive meeting with the district collectors and superintendents of police to take stock of the ground-level preparations. Thereafter, CEC will address the press conference. The ECI teamas visit is important as Chief Minister Eknath Shinde had recently said that the Assembly election may take place in the second week of November. The term of the present Assembly ends on November 26. The ECIas visit comes after the state CEO on September 12 and 13 met the deputy district election officers, district collectors and chief district election officers and reviewed the preparations for the elections in 288 Assembly constituencies. The CEO reviewed the status of electronic voting machines, the updated votersa list, the status of polling material and district-level poll management, especially, the availability of the required number of staff and security arrangements for free and fair elections. Further, the CEO also took stock of the situation of the district-level preparedness for conducting counting smoothly. He also reviewed the plan to start polling stations in high-rise buildings and cooperative societies with over 200 families. Maharashtra has added 2.4 million new voters during the special drive conducted between August 6 and 20. In view of this, the number of total voters in the state rose to 95.4 million, up from 92.94 million at the end of the Lok Sabha election. Over 2.08 million applications for voter addition and 370,000 applications for name deletion due to death or duplication were received by the Election Commission of India during the special drive. Jammu, Sep 27 : The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday was raiding seven places in Jammu and Kashmir as part of its probe into the deadly terror attack on a bus carrying pilgrims in Reasi district in June. Officials said the local police and the CRPF were assisting the NIA during the raids. "These raids are being carried out in connection with the Reasi bus attack by the terrorists," the officials said, adding that the locations under investigation are connected to hybrid terrorists and over-ground workers (OGWs). Officials said that multiple teams from the NIA have been conducting searches in the Rajouri and Reasi districts since this morning. On June 9, terrorists targeted a bus carrying pilgrims from Shiv Khori temple to Katra town, the base camp town of Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in Reasi district of Jammu division. The attack was carried out at Teryath village in the Poni area of the Reasi district. Terrorists provided with logistics support by OGWs fired at the driver of the bus after which the bus dropped into a gorge. The terrorists continued firing at the overturned bus carrying men, women and children. Nine pilgrims were killed and 40 others injured in this dastardly terrorist attack. The Resistance Front (TRF) took responsibility for the attack, but J&K Police said the attack was carried out by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror outfit. The TRF is a front outfit meant to own responsibility for terror attacks to divert the attention of the security forces from the actual perpetrators of these terror attacks. A total of 50 suspects were detained by J&K Police in connection with the investigation of this terror attack. The investigation of the terrorist attack was handed over to the NIA on June 17. Mexico City, Sep 27 : At least five people were killed after Hurricane John lashed Mexico's Guerrero state, the government said on Friday. "There are five deaths so far," Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told reporters at his usual daily press conference at the National Palace, Xinhua news agency reported. "There was not much material damage" to the Pacific Coast state, with reports of some "700 homes damaged," he added. The eye of the hurricane made landfall in Guerrero Monday night as a category 3 storm, with maximum sustained winds of 195 kilometres per hour and gusts of 220 kilometres per hour, according to authorities. On Wednesday, Guerrero Governor Evelyn Salgado reported an initial two deaths from the hurricane, which was downgraded to a tropical storm. Authorities, however, warned that John regained strength as a category 1 hurricane, and was expected to dump substantial rain in west and south Mexico. Beirut, Sep 27 : The death toll from 115 Israeli airstrikes on various regions in Lebanon rose to 60, the Health Ministry reported on Friday. Israel conducted attacks across Lebanon on Thursday, the ministry noted, adding the large-scale airstrikes, which started on Monday and have been focused on the south and east of Lebanon, have now spread to include regions in the Mount Lebanon Governorate on its fourth day, Xinhua news agency reported. As of Thursday, the death toll from the Israel-Hezbollah clashes since October 8, reached 1,540, with injuries totalling 5,410, the ministry added. In an airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs earlier Thursday, at least two people were killed and 15 others injured when a residential building near al-Qaem mosque in Dahieh was hit, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. Footage from Lebanese TV channel al-Jadeed showed rescue teams and ambulances rushing to the densely populated area to transport casualties to the hospital and remove victims from beneath the rubble. Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported that it launched three missiles in "an intelligence-guided attack" on Mohammed Hussein Sarour, commander of Hezbollah's air unit, claiming he was killed in the strike. The military stated that Sarour was responsible for multiple drone and missile attacks against Israel. So far, Hezbollah has not commented on the attack nor confirmed Sarour's death. Additionally, the IDF announced that its 7th Armored Brigade concluded a military drill a few kilometres from the Lebanese border, simulating a ground operation in Lebanon. The drill trained troops in "manoeuvring and combat in thicketed, mountainous terrain," the IDF said in a statement, adding that the exercises enhanced their operational and logistical readiness for various combat scenarios in enemy territory on the northern front. This drill followed a proposal by France at a United Nations Security Council emergency meeting for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, in collaboration with the United States "to allow for negotiations." Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati welcomed the proposal; however, Israel denied earlier on Thursday that it had agreed to a ceasefire with Hezbollah or Lebanese political parties. Since Monday, Israel has conducted extensive airstrikes across Lebanon, resulting in over 650 deaths and more than 2,000 injuries. The Israeli military reported that it has targeted over 2,000 locations during this period. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin noted on Wednesday that the bombardment has displaced more than 150,000 residents in the past 72 hours. This sharp escalation has raised concerns about a potential full-scale conflict between Israel and Lebanon, with fears that other regional powers could also become involved. Islamabad, Sep 27 : Eight people were injured in an explosion inside a police station in Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, rescuers said. The accident happened in the Swabi district of the province where a fire broke out before the explosion, severely damaging a room in the police station and reducing it to rubble, Bilal Faizi, spokesperson of the state-owned rescue organisation Rescue 1122, told Xinhua news agency. He said that the fire erupted inside the room where explosive materials, recovered from terrorists during separate operations, were stored. Faizi said the fire was caused by a short circuit, ultimately triggering the explosion. He added that the injured people had been shifted to a nearby hospital, where two of them were in critical condition. An investigation into the accident is underway. Sonipat, Sep 27 : The Jindal India Institute (JII) of O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) hosted 31 foreign diplomats, foreign correspondents and defence attaches from 20 embassies, high commissions, international organisations and new agencies at the third edition of its one-day certificate course on 'Understanding India's Foreign and Security Policy' in New Delhi. The countries and institutions represented in this training event were Australia, Brazil, Canada, European Union, Finland, Kenya, Lithuania, Norway, Russia Today (RT), Rossiyskaya Gazeta, South Africa, Suriname, Sweden, Taiwan, Tanzania, Togo, the UK, the US, Zimbabwe and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The day-long engagement has six modules delivered by expert practitioners and academicians in international and defence matters. They provided a nuanced understanding of India's foreign policy objectives and security strategies in an increasingly complex international landscape. Sreeram Chaulia, Professor and Director General of JII, kick-started the discussion by providing a comprehensive overview of the essentials of India's foreign policy. He discussed how Indiaas foreign policy strategies are informed by its rich strategic heritage, ranging from Kautilyaas realpolitik to the idealism of the Upanishads. He focused on the intent and purpose behind core concepts like strategic autonomy, non-alignment, multi-alignment, net security provider, first responder, Vishwa Mitra and Vishwa Guru and showed how India is extracting maximum benefits from foreign engagements to enable its rise as a aleading powera in the world. The first half of the day also featured a session explaining the detailed organisational structure, functioning and processes of Indiaas Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). Ambassador Sanjay Bhattacharya, Professor of Diplomatic Practice at the Jindal School of International Affairs, amalgamated theoretical knowledge with practical insights to address various queries by the participants on the roles, responsibilities and divisions of the MEA. Hindol Sengupta, Professor and Director of JII, delivered an address on India's changing worldview that has closely shaped its foreign policy since independence. He provided a balanced view of the country's transforming approach to the world under different Prime Ministers from Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi, highlighting the potential and success of major foreign initiatives under each of them. Building upon this foundation, Ambassador Mohan Kumar, Professor and Senior Fellow of JII, shed light on the unique aspects of Indiaas economic diplomacy, including trade negotiations and investment strategies. He stressed on the country's participation in multilateral forums and the strong regional component in its connectivity projects. The session closed with comments from a participating diplomat stating, "India is the future. Africa sees India as the hope for a better world order." India's security architecture was the main focus of the second half of the course. Swasti Rao, Associate Fellow of the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, explored the country's defence partnerships with Western powers. She explained key agreements, collaborative technological advancements and joint military exercises with Europe and the US. Her in-depth analysis of strategic motivations and expertise in weaponry and shifting patterns in Indiaas defence diplomacy enriched the foreign audienceas understanding of India's critical strategic partnerships. India's emerging role in the Indo-Pacific was covered by Pooja Bhatt, Associate Professor of the Jindal School of International Affairs. Using an array of maps, satellite imagery, and flowcharts, she offered a detailed examination of Indiaas strategic priorities such as regional connectivity, maritime security and economic cooperation. The day concluded on a dynamic note with a special address by Air Marshal Anil Chopra (Retd., Indian Air Force), who talked about the Indian military's vital contributions to national security and the main ethos and doctrines which have guided Indiaas armed forces as they remain prepared to tackle Indiaas main external adversaries. In the context of this one-day event, C. Raj Kumar, the President of JII and Vice Chancellor of JGU, commented that "as India takes on a more prominent role in global affairs, initiatives like this certificate course can foster deeper understanding between India and the international community. The Jindal India Institute aims to deliver comprehensive expert-led training programmes that spread international awareness of and support for Indiaas extraordinary accomplishments and potential." "Our mission is to enhance Indiaas leadership role in the world through thought-provoking and educative courses such as these, which can open the eyes of the international community and win more friends for India globally," Raj Kumar said. New Delhi, Sep 27 : The Supreme Court on Monday deferred hearing on Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) MLA Abbas Ansari's plea seeking bail in connection with an unlawful jail visit case. New Delhi, Sep 27 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Monday deferred hearing on Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) MLA Abbas Ansarias plea seeking bail in connection with an unlawful jail visit case. A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan decided to defer the hearing on a request made by senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who appeared on Abbas Ansarias behalf. The apex court posted the matter for hearing on October 14, along with the plea filed by Abbas Ansari, the elder son of late gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari, seeking quashing of the Gangsters Act case. Abbas Ansari, when lodged at Chitrakoot jail, was caught meeting his wife Nikhat illegally in the jail in connivance with prison officials. Earlier in May, the Allahabad High Court had declined to grant bail to Abbas Ansari, considering his "profile, background and family antecedents". A bench of Justice Jaspreet Singh said: "The applicant is a Member of Legislative Assembly. He is a person who holds a responsible position and is a representative of the public. His conduct has to be of a higher standard than other common persons of the society. The members of the Legislative Assembly are also the lawmakers and in juxtaposition, it is not appropriate that a lawmaker may be seen as a lawbreaker." In February last year, Nikhat Bano visited her husband inside the Chitrakoot Jail and was found in possession of two mobile phones and Rs 21,000 cash along with 12 Saudi Riyals, during a raid conducted by the district administration. She, among others, was arrested for "illegally meeting" her husband in jail in contravention of prison rules. Abbas Ansari was subsequently transferred to Kasganj Jail by the Uttar Pradesh government. The state police had also arrested prison officials who allegedly facilitated meetings between the husband and wife in exchange for cash. Mumbai, Sep 27 : The makers of the Vikrant Massey-starrer biographical film "12th Fail" recently hosted a special screening at the Supreme Court of India. The screening served as a unique opportunity to engage with an audience that deeply resonates with the film's powerful message, showcasing the journey of those who strive to overcome challenges and achieve their dreams. The screening was attended by Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud, along with judges and 600 plus officials of the Supreme court and their families. Directed, produced and written by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, the film is based on the 2019 non-fiction book by Anurag Pathak about Manoj Kumar Sharma, who overcame extreme poverty to become an Indian Police Service officer. The screening was followed by an exclusive interaction between CJI and Vidhu Vinod Chopra, along with IPS Manoj Kumar Sharma and IRS Officer Shraddha Joshi, lead actors Vikrant and Medha Shankar. In conversation with the team of the movie, Justice Chandrachud said: "Where we all seek inspiration, our society flourishes on hope, and each one of you has provided that-- not just for this evening but for the whole nation. We need stories of real people who have shown exemplary motivation by rising above their circumstances, and these stories must be conveyed to society at large. I believe every member of our staff family will be truly inspired to encourage their sons, daughters, friends, and mentors them to lead the nation to new heights." "Such films enable and inspire us to do something better every day of our lives for people around us. My compliments to Vidhu for the way he has transformed this real-life story on the screen. Both Vikrant and Medha have done a brilliant job. They have fully embodied the lives and environments of their characters and made it such a part of their existence while doing the film. I could feel that," he said. "There were moments in the movie when I thought I'd need a hanky as my eyes were moist. This film conveys such a strong message of hope. On behalf of the entire staff and my colleagues at the Supreme Court, Iad like to thank the team of '12th Fail' for taking the time to spend the evening with us," he concluded. Vidhu Vinod Chopra commented: "This was one of the most pleasant evenings of my life. Because I was watching the film sitting next to a man (Dr Chandrachud) who understood everything I tried to say in the film. He made me feel that spending five years of my life on this film was worth it. I am grateful to all the esteemed judges and members of the Supreme Court who found time to join us. It was a magical evening." The film also stars Anant V Joshi, Anshumaan Pushkar and Priyanshu Chatterjee in pivotal roles. It was released theatrically on October 27, 2023. By Yuka Matsunaga, KYODO NEWS - Sep 27, 2024 - 10:24 | Feature, All, Japan Nivolumab, an immune checkpoint inhibitor lauded for its groundbreaking approach to cancer treatment, marked its 10th anniversary this month since its release by Ono Pharmaceutical Co. under the brand name Opdivo. But while it is highly effective in treating multiple types of cancer, its extremely high price has reignited the debate over how best to deal with expensive drugs, balancing the financial burden on the healthcare system and patients with the need for pharmaceutical firms to have the incentive to produce life-saving new drugs. "If there had been even the slightest delay in approval (of Opdivo) I would have died," said Koichi Shimizu, 47, a labor and social insurance consultant in Sakura, Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo. Shimizu had come to terms many times with the prospect of dying after the lung cancer found in 2012 spread to his brain and spinal fluid. He received a dose of Opdivo in 2016, when it had just been approved for lung cancer therapy, and the tumor quickly shrank. He is thankful that the drug was approved "just in time to save my life." Opdivo was developed based on research by Tasuku Honjo, distinguished professor at Kyoto University who won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Unlike conventional anti-cancer drugs, Opdivo uses the body's own immune system to kill cancer cells. In 2014, Opdivo was launched for the treatment of melanoma, a type of skin cancer. The application of the medication has since spread to 13 types of cancer, including lung and stomach cancers. An estimated 190,000 patients have been administered the drug. But Opdivo is extremely costly. For the treatment of lung cancer, it was initially said to cost some 35 million yen ($243,000) a year. Since public insurance programs, such as the high-cost medical reimbursement system, cover patients' co-payments, Shimizu needed to pay only about 25,000 yen per month in real terms. Ballooning overall national medical expenditures, however, have squeezed public finances. As a result, Opdivo has seen its price reduced in price six times, and is now less than one-fifth the original cost. Lately, a number of high-cost drugs have been introduced by Japanese pharmaceutical companies, such as Eisai Co.'s Lecanemab, sold under the brand name Leqembi, for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. According to the health ministry, national healthcare expenditures in fiscal 2021 hit a record above 45 trillion yen, and the estimate is that the figure will continue to rise over the following fiscal years and beyond. Although a price cannot be put on a person's life, public expenditures other than insurance premiums and patient co-payments have reached 17 trillion yen, leaving little room for further expansion. Drug makers are aware of the situation. Gyo Sagara, chairman of Ono Pharmaceutical, said, "Holding pharmaceutical prices in check to some extent is unavoidable to maintain universal health insurance." However, if prices are lowered simply on the impression that they are too expensive, investment decisions on new drug development will be affected. If price reductions are imposed on the market, there is also the fear drugs from overseas pharmaceutical companies for rare diseases may stop being available in Japan. Shimizu, who was administered Opdivo for about eight months, is concerned for future cancer patients. "It would be unfortunate for future patients if good drugs are no longer available," he said. It is a difficult issue, but he hopes that a way forward can be forged through broad discussion, including among patients themselves. Related coverage: Japan researchers identify fat-burning proteins Japan halts gene research of athletes amid privacy concerns Government to equalize medical support for Nagasaki A-bomb survivors Abu Dhabi, Sep 27 : Star Rana Daggubati, who is gearing up to share the silver screen with cinematic legends Amitabh Bachchan and Rajinikanth in the Tamil action drama "Vettaiyan," expressed his excitement, calling it a thrilling privilege that also brings a rush of nerves. Abu Dhabi, Sep 27 (IANS) Star Rana Daggubati, who is gearing up to share the silver screen with cinematic legends Amitabh Bachchan and Rajinikanth in the Tamil action drama "Vettaiyan," expressed his excitement, calling it a thrilling privilege that also brings a rush of nerves. Talking to IANS exclusively on the sidelines of IIFA, Rana said: "Working with icons like Mr. Bachchan and Rajinikanth sir is nothing short of a timeless opportunity. It is a privilege that comes with a bundle of nerves, but more than that, it is exciting." "It is a chance to learn, to understand what it takes to reach the zenith of artistic excellence." With such an amazing cast for the film, which also stars Fahadh Faasil, does he agree it is a perfect recipe for a blockbuster? "I am incredibly excited, and yes, the anticipation is palpable. The film boasts an ensemble of immensely talented individuals, and it has the potential to be something special. But it is the audience's verdict that matters most. I truly hope they embrace it with the same enthusiasm we have poured into making it." Over the years, pan-India films such as the "KGF", "Baahubali," and "Pushpa" franchises have not just broken records but also reshaped the box-office landscape, giving strong competition to Hindi films. Along with enchanting the Indian audiences, pan India films have proved that regional storytelling can resonate on a grand scale. Talking about what makes pan India films so popular, the 39-year-old star said: "Cinema is universal, we're just divided by languages just the way the country is - but to the audience, it's an emotion, an excitement, and a story. When you tell stories that touch hearts, language, and region become irrelevant." "The success of "Baahubali," "Minnal Murali" "Hanuman," and "Manjummel Boys" are classic examples of cinema that reverberated globally," added the actor, who made his Hindi film debut in 2011 with "Dum Maaro Dum". Why did it take so long to call Hindi and regional films simply 'Indian films'? Rana, who is hosting IIFA Utsavam, said: "India means unity in diversity - that is our strength. We are able to create more, and more regional power with stories to tell, and only cinema that cuts across five or more states or languages should even be called Indian Films." "The rest I think, will keep identity with language as it is a simple way for audiences." The actor says IIFA Utsavam is all about celebrating the magic of cinema, and he plans to bring a blend of fun, laughter, and a bit of behind-the-scenes magic to the viewers. "It is not just about handing out awards; it is about sharing stories, exploring the passion that makes cinema, truly an incredible medium that we all love, it is a dream, and celebrating the brilliance of those who make it happen. I want the audience to feel that they are a part of this celebration not just watching it." He calls hosting an adventure. "It is all about spontaneity, wit, and the challenge of holding the audience's attention. It keeps me on my toes! I love the interaction, the instant connection with the audience, an exchange that brings the whole event to life." New Delhi, Sep 27 : BJP leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Friday lauded the country's achievement as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan refrained from mentioning the Kashmir issue in his address at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Chandrasekhar said that the world has now come to know that Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) is an integral part of India. "After the revocation of Article 370, J&K is witnessing a festival of democracy through the elections. The voter turnout in J&K is quite high as people are participating in voting in good numbers. People have now understood that the Congress, National Conference (NC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) dynasties were running propaganda for more than 60 years in which they were calling J&K a disputed territory. It has now become history," Chandrasekhar told IANS. He asserted that J&K has now seen rapid development since it was made a Union Territory. "Today, J&K is becoming a prosperous Union Territory, where there will be opportunities and investments for the youth. Youths from J&K will also take part in fulfilling Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dream of a 'Viksit Bharat' by 2047," he asserted. This year, speaking at the UNGA in New York on Tuesday, Erdogan marked a significant departure from his usual stance, where he has consistently raised the issue of J&K, particularly after India abrogated Article 370 and removed the Special Status of the region. Erdogan's comments were seen as unwarranted interference in India's internal matters, and New Delhi repeatedly dismissed them as such. Since 2019, Erdogan has used his UNGA platform to criticise India's policy in J&K, claiming that peace, prosperity, and stability were lacking in the Valley. Shortly after India's decision to revoke Article 370, Erdogan had stated at the UNGA, "In order for the Kashmiri people to look at a safe future together with their Pakistani and Indian neighbours, it is imperative to solve the problem through dialogue and on the basis of justice and equity, not through clashes." Erdogan this year focussed primarily on the Israel-Gaza conflict, sharply criticising the UN for what he described as turning the Palestinian territory into the "world's largest cemetery." His decision to avoid mentioning Kashmir was notable, though the reasons were not clear. India's global standing might have influenced Erdogan's choice and his softened stance on Kashmir could be a diplomatic move to foster better relations with the country. New Delhi/Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 27 : Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, presently in Delhi, on Friday, dismissed all the allegations levelled by Independent legislator P.V. Anvar over the ADGP Ajith Kumar and political secretary P. Sasi matter. "Anvar before also had levelled allegations and we had doubts about them, but we did not dismiss them, instead we took steps for a probe by a top official since a legislator was saying so," said CM Vijayan. "Yesterday he said he is not happy and now it's become very clear that he is against the party, Left and the government. He has aired what the political opponents of the party often say, and it's now clear as he said he will not attend the party legislative meeting, which means we all know where he is heading," said CM Vijayan. "I am dismissing all the statements of Anvar as baseless but the already announced probe will go forward. I will meet again in detail at a later date," said CM Vijayan while walking away. Anvar has accused Ajith Kumar of holding secret meetings with the leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and also alleged that the CM was in the know of this. Anvar has also alleged that CM's political secretary P.Sasi was engaged in numerous nefarious activities. The Kerala unit of the CPI(M) has also slammed Anvar. Anvar has also attacked State Tourism Minister P.A. Mohammed Riyas, who is CM Vijayan's son-in-law. State Fisheries Minister Saji Cherian and a very close aide of CM Vijayan said: "He was standing with the Left and has now turned a traitor. There is no ideological thing that is guiding him, instead, he is going forward with a vested interest and that is now becoming more and more evident. His actions are becoming fodder for those who are against our party." "Anvar has raised issues and is being looked into by both the party and the government and instead of waiting for its outcome, he is continuing his attack, which in no way is acceptable," added Cherian. Kannur strongman and veteran CPI(M) leader P.Jayarajan said Anvar has become a pawn in the hands of those against the CPI(M). The youth wing of the party said Anvar is merely saying what the right-wing media has been saying against the CPI(M). On Friday, unfazed by the remarks of the CPI(M), Anvar said, "I am the least scared or worried about what I have said and I will continue to reveal more and more." Meanwhile, all the state party leaders are in Delhi. CM Vijayan and State party secretary M.V. Govindan held a closed-door meeting and the latter will be meeting the media to outline the party's stand on Anvar. Veteran party central committee member A.K. Balan said Anvar revealed all this based on a conspiracy hatched to target CM Vijayan and his family. "We are not worried as we expected things like this since our 24th Party Congress is around the corner. It is now clear that the Congress is ready to welcome back Anvar from the statements of a few Congress leaders," said Balan. Tehran, Sep 27 : Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian said that the country and the European signatories to a 2015 nuclear deal have discussed the agreement's revival and removal of sanctions on Tehran. He made the remarks upon arrival in the Iranian capital Tehran from his trip to New York, where he attended the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly and held several bilateral meetings, including with his foreign counterparts, Xinhua news agency reported quoting the official news agency IRNA. "Talks were held about the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). We shared our concerns with the European states, and it was decided that (our) foreign ministers follow up on the issue," Pezeshkian said. He described the trip to New York as fruitful, noting he held bilateral meetings with the neighbouring countries' presidents and prime ministers and decided to reach agreements. Iran signed the JCPOA with world powers in July 2015, agreeing to put some curbs on its nuclear program in return for the removal of the sanctions on the country. The US, however, pulled out of the deal in May 2018 and reimposed its unilateral sanctions on Tehran, prompting the latter to drop some of its nuclear commitments under the deal. The talks on the revival of the JCPOA began in April 2021 in Vienna, Austria. Despite several rounds of talks, no significant breakthrough has been achieved since the end of the last round in August 2022. Iran's Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi, who traveled to the US as a member of Pezeshkian's accompanying team, said earlier that Tehran was ready for the start of a new round of negotiations on the JCPOA's revival in New York provided that the other sides were also willing. Jaipur/Jodhpur, Sep 27 : Union Culture and Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Friday slammed former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot saying that the latter never had the intention to seek justice for the victims of Sanjivani Credit Co-operative Society. The Minister accused Gehlot of doing politics on this issue even today. "Now when he sees himself trapped in defamation, he remembers the respect of my late mother," said Shekhawat. Shekhawat got a clean chit in the Sanjivani case from the Rajasthan High Court on Wednesday. Soon after, Gehlot said in a post on Thursday, "After the change of power in the state, SOG took a U-turn in the High Court. The investigating officer (IO) of this case was also removed and the government lawyers nominated by the BJP government also sided with the Union Minister. Despite all this, the High Court has not quashed the FIR as per the petition of the minister. The High Court said that further action can be taken by taking permission from the trial court." Reacting to a statement of the former Chief Minister, Shekhawat said, "Ashok Gehlot is upset with the clean chit I got from the High Court in the Sanjivani case. As long as he was in power, he kept trying to trap me by misusing the resources of the government. He spent Rs 40 crore from the government fund on lawyers to trap me, but the public responded by ousting him from power." Shekhawat said, "It is surprising that he is now remembering the respect for my late mother. When he made baseless statements about my late mother, why did he not have such respect then? Now that the defamation case against him in the court has become stronger, he is afraid of the law." The Union Minister said that Ashok Gehlot has no faith in government agencies at all. Shekhawat said," I have full faith in the Constitution of India and the judicial system. The former Chief Minister will soon be punished for the conspiracy he hatched against his opponents with malice. This has become more clear from his statement in his defence." A day before, Gehlot referred to the letter number SOG/SFIU/INV/2023/220 written to the Government Advocate on April 12, 2023, and said that the SOG had sent a factual report on which it was written that Shekhawat and his family members were involved in the crime and considered them accused. "It was written in this report that Gajendra Singh Shekhawat has a direct connection with the companies which are involved in the Sanjivani scam." He further mentioned Shekhawat's late mother and said, "Shekhawat also mentioned the allegations against his late mother in his statements yesterday. I have full respect for his late mother, but as the Home Minister of the state, it was my duty to present the facts brought before me before the victims and the public," said Gehlot and added, "Now after the change of government in the state, the BJP government put pressure on SOG, due to which SOG took a U-turn in the court and did not consider them accused". "My demand is that for a fair investigation, an SIT should be formed under the chairmanship of a retired High Court judge and this case should be investigated so that it can be known whether the wrong investigation was done by SOG during the Congress rule or whether the SOG has prepared a wrong report under pressure now. During the Congress government, SOG had even conducted a forensic audit of this case. My aim is to ensure justice to lakhs of victims and get their life's hard-earned money back to them," the Minister said. Ottawa, Sep 27 : Canadian Member of Parliament Chandra Arya, a vocal critic of the Justin Trudeau government for giving refuge to pro-Khalistani elements in the country, has slammed a new petition initiated by Liberal Party MP Sukh Dhaliwal relating to the Air India Kanishka bombings of June 23, 1985, that left 329 people dead and was the worst tragedy in the history of aviation terror before the 9/11 attacks. The petition, which is available on the Canadian parliament portal, called upon the Government of Canada to order a fresh inquiry into the Air India episode to determine whether any foreign intelligence was involved in the crime. It mentions that the Sikhs in Canada widely believe that the bombings was the "handiwork of a foreign intelligence to discredit their political activism and undermine their advocacy work for human rights in India". Severely criticising the petition, Arya, who is of Indian origin, made a statement in the Parliament early Friday (India time), calling it as an attempt by the Khalistani extremists to promote new conspiracy theories. "39 years back Air India Flight 182 was blown-up mid-air from a bomb planted by Canadian Khalistan extremists. It killed 329 people and is the largest mass killing in Canadian history. Even today, the ideology responsible for this terrorist attack is still alive among few people in Canada," Arya said in his statement. "Two Canadian public inquiries found Khalistan extremists responsible for the bombing of Air India flight. Now there is a petition on parliament portal asking for a new enquiry promoting conspiracy theories promoted by Khalistan extremists," he added. The Canadian MP then quoted Bal Gupta, whose wife Rama was killed in the attack, telling the Globe and Mail: "It's deeply frustrating. It opens up old wounds all over again. It's all garbage. Itas an attempt to gain publicity and support for terrorist activities". In July, as another Hindu temple in Alberta's capital Edmonton was vandalised with hateful graffiti, Arya had emphasised the urgent need to rein in radicals before it was too late. "The Hindu temple BAPS Swaminarayan Mandir in Edmonton is vandalized again. During the last few years, Hindu temples in the Greater Toronto Area, British Columbia and other places in Canada have been vandalized with hateful graffiti. Gurpatwant Singh Pannun of Sikhs for Justice last year publicly called for Hindus to go back to India," the Indian-origin Canadian MP wrote on X. Be it publicly celebrating in Brampton and Vancouver the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi or brandishing images of deadly weapons, Arya said that Khalistani extremists seem to "get away with ease" with their public rhetoric of hate and violence in Canada. "Again, let me put it on record. Hindu-Canadians are legitimately concerned. Like a broken record, I again call on Canadian law enforcement agencies to take this issue seriously before these rhetorics get translated into physical action against Hindu-Canadians," he said. During his visit to India last month, Arya had held a meeting with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and even called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asserting that the Canada-India relationship remains "very important" for both countries. India has repeatedly asserted that further deterioration in bilateral ties would eventually result in a big loss for Canada. "Freedom of speech cannot be freedom to advocate violence, freedom of speech cannot be freedom to support separatism and terrorism in a foreign country. It cannot be... A group of Khalistanis have been misusing Canada's freedom laws for years. But when the Canadian government has any political compulsions, they accommodate these people who are also their vote bank," said Jaishankar a few months ago while speaking at the 'Vishwabandhu Bharat' interaction in Maharashtra's Nashik. "Our relations have been spoiled today because of the activities of these people who are even threatening our Ambassador and various diplomats posted in the country. They threw smoke bombs inside the High Commission and, at one time, our diplomats were facing great difficulty to get out of the building. People who supported terror activities against India have been given refuge in Canada. The government there should have a relook at the entire situation," the EAM had added. Guwahati, Sep 27 : Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma sharply reacted to Congress leader and Karnataka Minister Priyank Kharge's criticism over the setting up of semiconductor manufacturing units in Assam and Gujarat by the Centre saying that the grand old party has an agenda to oppose the development of the northeastern state. CM Sarma wrote on his X handle on Friday, "Once again, Congress shows its true colors by opposing Assam's development. A Karnataka minister, who is also the son of the Congress national president, claims that Assam has no right to host a semiconductor industry! I urge Assam Congress leaders to reject this divisive thinking and stand up for Assam's rightful growth and progress." Earlier, Priyank Kharge posted on his social media handle, "Five semicon manufacturing units, four are in Gujarat, and one is in Assam, but they don't have an ecosystem of skills there. They don't have an ecosystem of research there. They don't have an ecosystem of incubation. They don't have a system of ecosystem of innovationswhen 70% of the chip designing talent lies in Karnataka, I don't understand why the government wants to push to another state by using political clout. That is unfair." In March this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for four semiconductor projects worth about Rs 1.25 lakh crore. The facilities inaugurated include three semiconductor facilities in Gujarat and one in Assam's Morigaon. Chief Minister Sarma then expressed gratitude towards PM Modi for allotting one semiconductor plant in Assam. He said, "Development of the northeast is the top most priority of the Prime Minister. This semiconductor facility once comes up in the state, will provide a huge boost to the growth of industries here." According to CM Sarma, this plant would give job opportunities to at least 30,000 youths in Assam. More than 27,000 crore are to be invested to build the semiconductor facility here. "This is just the beginning. Assam will create history in the industrial sector in the coming days," he had said then. Manila, Sep 27 : Two people have been killed and another critically injured after a sedan crashed into a motorcycle in Palawan province, Philippine police said on Friday. According to the police, the accident happened on Thursday at 11:25 p.m. local time along a highway in Puerto Princesa City, Xinhua news agency reported. Police rushed to the scene and said that the 19-year-old male sedan driver lost control of the speeding vehicle, swerved to the opposite side of the road, and collided with the motorcycle. The motorcycle riders were thrown onto the road, resulting in the deaths of the 21-year-old male motorcycle driver and one of his two passengers, a 68-year-old female. The driver's 20-year-old partner was also critically injured. Police did not say if the sedan driver escaped the accident unscathed. A police investigation is underway. Rewari : , Sep 27 (IANS) Slamming Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for spreading misinformation, BJP leader and Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said the land of Haryana "is the land of sacrifice and bravery" and added that "it is the BJP's responsibility to ensure jobs for Agniveers from Haryana." Rewari (Haryana), Sep 27 (IANS) Slamming Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for spreading misinformation, BJP leader and Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said the land of Haryana "is the land of sacrifice and bravery" and added that "it is the BJP's responsibility to ensure jobs for Agniveers from Haryana." Saying that the people have decided to give the BJP a chance to serve once again, HM Shah, while delivering a power-packed speech in Rewari, said, "About Agniveer, Rahul baba is misguiding the youths. I am firm in what I say, and today I make a promise that none of the Agniveers of Haryana will be left without a pensionable job. The Central government and the Haryana government will provide them with a job having pension facility." The BJP-led Union government on June 14, 2022, introduced short-term induction of personnel in the armed forces. Hitting out at the Congress by saying it "always insults the Army", he said the BJP undertook equitable development in Haryana. He added, "Corruption has been finished in the last ten years. The middlemen are waiting for the Congress to come to power in Haryana, I want to ask the people, would you want to give Haryana in the hands of middlemen?" Slamming leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, he said, "The Congress cannot do overall development of Haryana. Some people have gone against the party discipline and are contesting as Independent candidates. I appeal to the public to vote only for those who have the BJP's Lotus symbol." "Rahul (Gandhi) baba has no work other than spreading rumours, which is why Haryana has lagged so much," he professed. "During the Congress' rule, whenever a CM came, only one district would benefit, and corruption and hooliganism would increase. But when the BJP came to power, it worked for entire Haryana and ensured the development of all 36 communities. In these ten years, the BJP has wiped out every trace of corruption from Haryana. Under the Congress, the government ran on cuts, commissions, and corruption," he said. "From Indira Gandhi to Sonia Gandhi, for 40 years they did not fulfill their promise. Then, in 2015, our PM Modi implemented 'One Rank, One Pension'. The Congress has always disrespected the Army. This is the same Congress that dared to call the Army chief a goon", he added. Slamming the Congress, HM Shah said, "Not just you, even your coming generations can't bring back Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir." Wooing the growers, the HM said the farmers would harvest what they have sown and it will be the BJP government that will buy it. He said the BJP government in the state has been purchasing 24 crops under the Minimum Support Price (MSP) system. "This land of Haryana is the land of knowledge, spirituality and the Bhagavad Gita. This land of Haryana is the land of power and prosperity. Today the borders of the country are safe, Jammu and Kashmir is safe, and this includes the sacrifice, bravery and courage of the soldiers of Haryana," he said while seeking votes for the party. Haryana will go to polls for the 90-member Assembly on October 5 with the ballot count on October 8. Mumbai, Sep 27 : In a remarkable medical feat, a teenage Mumbai schoolgirl has become the youngest in the world to undergo an arm transplant from the shoulder level at a private hospital with a donated arm flown by a special flight from Surat, officials said here on Friday. The successful transplant operation with a donated arm of a 9-year-old 'brain dead' girl from Surat -- was performed on Anamta Aqeel Ahmad, 15, of Goregaon (Mumbai suburb) by a team of surgeons led by a specialist Dr Nilesh G. Satbhai. "This a historic set of events The donor was the youngest ever in India, the recipient (Anamta) is the youngest in the world to undergo such an arm transplant from her shoulder level, after a complicated 12-hour long surgery," Dr Satbhai told IANS. Then 13 years old, Anamta's ordeal started in Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh) when she was playing with her cousins on the terrace of their home. She accidentally happened to touch a live 11-KV electric wire, resulting in a massive shock with significant burns, screamed and collapsed, as her family members rushed her to a local hospital for treatment. However, her right hand soon developed gangrene and had to be amputated, while her left arm was also badly injured with critical wounds and poor functioning. The distraught Anamta and her family did not lose hope as she recovered and tried to restart her broken life, relearning various skills, while choosing to remain absolutely independent by tackling all her personal needs and responsibilities. "She even learnt afresh to write with her left hand and went to score 92 per cent in her SSC examinations, including a staggering score of 98 marks in Hindi in school last year She never despaired, always maintained an optimistic and cheerful outlook throughout despite her handicap at a tender age," said her father, Aqeel Ahmad, a filmmaker. Meanwhile, her anxious family hunted for solutions/options to help her out of the difficult situation and soon realized that a hand transplant could be the only practical way to secure Anamta's future. They scoured several hospitals all over India plus in Thailand and Singapore, but were mostly refused since the amputation was at a very high (shoulder) level, and finally, they met Dr Satbhai at the Gleneagles Hospital in Mumbai, which specializes in such surgeries. "My daughter underwent a detailed pre-operative checkup and was listed for a hand transplantation. After over a year, we got an alert about a suitable hand donor, a small girl declared 'brain dead' from Surat (Gujarat) after battling a brain tumour," Ahmad said. Dr Satbhai said that after counselling by a local NGO, the deceased girl's family readily agreed to donate her arm and prompt arrangements were made to bring it safely by chartered flight from Surat to Mumbai. Describing the procedures, he said hand transplantation is a very complex procedure, a proper assessment of the recipient since the original injury often results in severe scarring of the skin or damage to blood vessels and nerves. "Besides, transplantation at a higher level with bone fixations is another challenge with many technicalities involved. In Anamta's case, who was injured almost at the shoulder level, we had to repair blood vessels and nerves at a very high level under the collar bone (clavicle)," explained Dr Satbhai. A major factor was to restore the blood circulation in the donor's hand within six hours to ensure it survives and functions well without any health risks to the beneficiary (Anamta), hence the donated organ was airlifted to Mumbai. The surgery went on for nearly 12 hours with a team of surgeons, anesthesiologists, immunologists and intensive care physicians for its successful and long-term outcome. "The patient has recovered well and is in ICU for observation and shall be discharged in a fortnight. She will be on life-long immunosuppression and soon start physiotherapy and rehabilitation sessions. It can usually take 9-12 months for near-normal functional recovery after such proximal transplant," said Dr Satbhai. "Our daughter's tragedy was a wrenching experience for the whole family, and Anamta was going through a tough time for the past two years till we got the donor. She was crying with joy and relief, and now looks forward to returning to school and living a full life," Ahmad said gratefully. (Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: qnajmi@gmail.com) BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- As the People's Republic of China approaches its 75th birthday, Xinhua News Agency holds a special photo exhibition in Beijing, celebrating the nation's incredible journey. Join us in this visual dialogue and immerse yourself in the great stories of China! A Xinhua News Agency Production Seoul, Sep 27 : North Korea has increased the number of criminal charges subject to the death penalty to 16 from 11 by revising the penal code several times between 2022 and 2023, as per a report on Friday. According to the report by Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), since revising the criminal law in May 2022, North Korea has further amended it three times, including the latest revision in December 2023, Yonhap news agency reported. North Korea newly added five criminal charges that could lead to the death penalty as a maximum sentence, when compared with the revisions in the penal code between May 2022 and December 2023, according to the report. Anti-state propaganda and agitation acts, as well as illegal manufacturing, use and transfer of weapons, ammunition and explosives, fall under such charges. The report said that North Korea seems to be strengthening state control and punishment over the management of ammunition and explosives in a bid to help fulfil the country's five-year weapons development project and better protect the North's leader Kim Jong-un and his family. "North Korea has revised the criminal law in a way that bolsters the regime's security," it said, adding that the move points to instability in the North Korean regime. Meanwhile, KINU said that North Korea had erased unification-related clauses in the penal code even before a key party meeting in December 2023, when Kim Jong-un defined inter-Korean ties as those between "two states hostile to each other." At a year-end party meeting, Kim said that there was no point seeking reconciliation and unification with South Korea, calling for removing unification references. Thrissur, Sep 27 : In what's believed to be the biggest serial ATM robbery in Kerala, the Tamil Nadu Police shot dead one criminal in Namakkal and took five others into custody on Friday. The serial ATM robbery that began at 2.10 a.m. in Thrissur ended when the gang of six all from Haryana decamped with Rs 65 lakh from three ATMs of State Bank of India in a radius of 17 km. While the first ATM was broken open at 2.10 a.m., the second one took place at 3.40 a.m. and the last one close to 4 a.m. The gang came in a car and after carrying out the ATM robbery took the route towards Tamil Nadu. However, by the time they hit the road, the alarm system in the ATMs sounded the alert and the Kerala Police were on their heels. Incidentally, in Namakkal, the Tamil Nadu police started following a container lorry which was being driven at high speed. In a close encounter, the Tamil Nadu police opened fire and killed one of the gang members, while another person was shot in his leg. Two members of the police team also suffered injuries when the gang attacked them with knives. The police were surprised to see the car, which the gangsters used to travel while they looted the three ATMs, was hidden inside the container lorry. The Tamil Nadu police after overpowering the gang have recovered weapons, including guns, from the thieves. The car used in the robbery has been seized. Gas cutters and other similar equipment were also found in the container. The accused looted three ATMs on Mapranam, Kolazhi and Shornur Road in Thrissur. Amaravati, Sep 27 : Ahead of former Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy's visit to Tirumala temple amid the raging row over alleged adulteration of laddu prasadam, CM N. Chandrababu Naidu on Friday appealed to pilgrims visiting the temple to follow the conventions and traditions. Amaravati, Sep 27 (IANS) Ahead of former Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddyas visit to Tirumala temple amid the raging row over alleged adulteration of laddu prasadam, CM N. Chandrababu Naidu on Friday appealed to pilgrims visiting the temple to follow the conventions and traditions. Hours before the arrival of the YSR Congress Party chief in Tirumala for darshan on Saturday, the Chief Minister issued a statement, making an appeal to the pilgrims. This comes amid the demand by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Jana Sena that Jagan Mohan Reddy should give a declaration of his faith before entering the Sri Venkateswara temple. Both BJP and Jana Sena are partners in the coalition government headed by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). CM Naidu has already slammed Jagan Mohan Reddy for visiting the Tirumala temple during his tenure as the chief minister without signing the declaration of faith which is mandatory for all non-Hindus visiting the temple. Stating that the Tirumala temple is the largest shrine in the world for the Hindus, CM Naidu said on Friday that the people of Andhra Pradesh are fortunate enough to have such a divine place in the state. "My government accords the highest priority to safeguard the sanctity of the Lord of the Seven Hills and to preserve the sentiments of the devotees. Each pilgrim who visits Tirumala for the darshan of the Lord takes utmost care to follow the conventions and traditions to offer prayers to the Lord," the Chief Minister said in a statement. Maintaining that each pilgrim has the bounden responsibility to protect the sanctity of this world-famous pilgrim centre, the Chief Minister stated that he makes a fervent appeal to every devotee to rigidly follow the temple norms, traditions of Agama Sastra and the TTD guidelines. "My sincere request to all pilgrims is that no devotee should act against the sentiments and temple rituals," CM Chandrababu Naidu said. Earlier, BJP state president and MP Daggubati Purandeswari demanded that Jagan Mohan Reddy should give a declaration of his faith before entering the temple. She stated that the practice of declaring one's faith has been in vogue for decades in Tirumala. CM Naidu had last week alleged that ghee used for making laddu prasadam of the famous hill shrine during the YSRCP rule had animal fat in it. The YSRCP denied the allegations and accused CM Naidu of hurting the sentiments of millions of devotees. The YSRCP has called for puja in temples across the state on September 28 to restore the sanctity of Tirumala temple, which it alleged was tarnished by CM Naidu with his false allegations. CM Chandrababu Naidu had earlier questioned Jagan Mohan Reddy why he did not sign an affidavit while visiting Tirumala temple that he was a believer of Lord Venkateswara. The Chief Minister recalled that former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and former President of India A.P.J. Abdul Kalam had signed such affidavits while visiting the temple. Bengaluru, Sep 27 : Karnataka Deputy CM D.K. Shivakumar on Friday said that in the event of an FIR being filed against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah there would be no embarrassment to the party. He said this in response to a question by the media just some time before the Karnataka Lokayukta filed an FIR against CM Siddaramaiah on Friday in connection with the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) case. Dwelling on the state government's decision to curb the CBI's free rein on investigations, he said, "The authority granted to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for unrestricted investigations has been withdrawn to prevent it from becoming a tool for politics of hatred." Speaking to the media near his residence in Sadashivanagar on Friday, he explained, "If at any point we feel that our officials are not suitable for investigating serious cases, we will then consider handing them over to the CBI." "Everyone knows what former PM Deve Gowda and Union Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy had to say about the CBI earlier. The BJP themselves once called the CBI the 'Congress Bureau of Investigation.' What cases were handed over to the CBI? What happened to those cases? I won't get into a discussion about the IMA case," he said. When asked about allegations that the decision was made to protect Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and to block a CBI investigation, he responded, "Let the Opposition talk. We'll discuss this at another time." Regarding the decision to respond to the Governor's letters seeking information only after getting Cabinet approval, he said, "Can decisions be made without bringing many issues to the attention of the Chief Minister and the Cabinet? That is why we decided that the Governor's letter should be answered after obtaining approval from the Cabinet. "I have some understanding of rules and regulations. While I may not be highly educated or intelligent, I do have awareness. There are rules for everything. Responses to the Governor's Office must go through the Chief Secretary." "A few days ago, a file related to denotification or redoing came to my office. My secretary sent it to me. To that, I replied, 'I cannot respond to this. As previously decided in the Cabinet, a subcommittee has been formed for such matters. Send it to them,'" he explained. When asked about the BJP's allegations of information leaks from Raj Bhavan, he said, "This is an internal matter of the Raj Bhavan. I have no information on this. I also have no information on what is happening in the Lokayukta office." When asked if an FIR against the Chief Minister would embarrass the party, he briefly replied, "There will be no embarrassment." Kolkata, Sep 27 : Landslides have been reported from a number of places in the hills of Darjeeling and Kalimpong in northern Bengal, following heavy showers in the entire zone since last night. the state government sources said that following the landslides, several pockets around National High 10 had been cut off from the mainland. The water level at Teesta river has almost reached the danger mark and is rising following constant rains. Those residing on the banks of river Teesta have already been alerted by the local administration. The situation has been reported to be quite critical following massive waterlogging in the plains of Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri districts. "A number of houses have been damaged at Mirik, Ghoom, and Sukhia Pokhari area in Darjeeling district because of the landslide. The residents of these houses have been relocated to safe places. We are trying our best to remove the debris from the National Highways as early as possible so that traffic movement can start there," said a district administration official. As per the prediction, rainfall is expected to continue till Saturday, especially in the districts of north Bengal. However, the situation as on Friday afternoon is slightly better than in north Bengal. Although there had been some rainfall in certain districts in southern Bengal, it did not affect normal life in those districts to that extent. Water levels in the flooded areas in south Bengal districts like Howrah, Hooghly, East Midnapore and West Midnapore have also started declining. With no prediction of heavy showers in the coming two days in south Bengal the situation is expected to normalise in this zone soon. Recently, the rift between the state government and Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) over the flood situation reached its peak with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announcing to withdraw the state government's representation in the Damodar Valley River Regulation Committee (DVRRC). The state government has accused DVC of releasing huge quantities of flood water at one go and that too without informing the state government. The DVC authorities and the Union government have, however, refuted the allegations. Patna, Sep 27 : A bridge in Bihar's Bhagalpur district collapsed due to a strong water flow on Friday, causing disruptions to road traffic for the locals. The structure, constructed by the Public Works Department (PWD) two years ago, was located in Chaukhandi village in Pirpaiti block. According to the villagers, the bridge had shown signs of damage on Thursday, with one side appearing bent. By Friday morning, the entire structure fell into the water. The collapse has severed the connection between the block headquarters and the district, impacting the movement of about 1,00,000 people from six Panchayats. Despite the critical situation, no administrative officials had arrived at the scene, leading to accusations of negligence from the affected villagers. The collapse of the bridge highlights a growing concern over infrastructure stability amid severe flooding in Bihar. The bridge, which broke from the middle and fell into the water due to the powerful flood currents, raises questions about the quality of its construction and the adequacy of flood-resistant measures. An investigation will likely be conducted to identify the reasons for the collapse, including possible structural flaws or oversight during construction. The situation is dire across Bhagalpur, with floodwaters submerging roads and putting other bridges and infrastructure at risk. This marks the third such incident in Bihar within a week. Before the Bhagalpur bridge collapse, a bridge in Munger was submerged in floodwaters on September 23, and a portion of an under-construction four-lane bridge between Bakhtiyarpur in Patna and Tajpur in Samastipur also collapsed. Following the collapse of the Chaukhandi bridge on Friday, Leader of Opposition in Assembly Tejashwi Yadav, criticized the Nitish Kumar-led government, sharing a video of the incident on the social media platform X. In his post, Yadav accused the government of rampant corruption, stating, "In Nitish Kumar's regime, the roots of corruption are as deep as the pillars of the bridge are shallow. In the last 2-3 months, hundreds of bridgesboth completed and under constructionworth thousands of crores of rupees have collapsed across Bihar." Tejashwi Yadav also questioned Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's silence on the issue, suggesting that the government has failed to address or take action against the major culprits behind the alleged corruption. He further said, "Have you ever heard the Chief Minister make any statement on the corruption of these falling bridges or has he ever taken any action against the big whale of corruption? After all, how will he do it? He is the one who has made those small restless fishes into whales by feeding them." Mumbai, Sep 27 : Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Friday skipped the rally to promote the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana at Shirdi following an eye surgery. "Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has undergone eye surgery. So the doctor has advised him to take rest and special care. In the wake of the doctor's advice, the Chief Minister has decided to take a break by cancelling the promotion program of Ladki Bahin Yojana under the Women Empowerment Campaign in Shirdi and the foundation laying ceremony of Onion Mahabank in Rahuri and all other scheduled programs today. However, the media is requested not to make any other arguments in this regard," said the Chief Minister's Office in a release. Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis attended the function at Shirdi while another Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party national president Ajit Pawar skipped it due to his Jansanman Yatra scheduled earlier in Kolhapur district. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and two DCMs have been travelling across Maharashtra to promote the Ladki Bahin Yojana and other welfare and development schemes ahead of the upcoming assembly election. The Chief Minister two days ago said that the state government has so far directly deposited Rs 1,500 each for the months of July and August under the Ladki Bahin Yojana in the bank account of over 1.60 crore eligible women beneficiaries. He further announced that the government will deposit the third instalment for the month of September by September 29. Shinde has reiterated that the government will increase the monthly financial aid to Rs 3,000 from the present level of Rs 1,500 after the MahaYuti government comes back to power. Both Fadnavis and Pawar have criticised the opposition for criticising the Ladki Bahin Yojana saying that the scheme will not be closed but will be implemented in the next five years. Pawar said that the government hopes to provide financial aid under the Ladki Bahin Yojana to 2.50 core eligible women beneficiaries across the state. New Delhi, Sep 27 : Vinod Bansal, the spokesperson for Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), criticised the Sadar Bazar Eidgah Committee on Friday for claiming ownership over a park near the Shahi Eidgah in Delhi. "The mindset of forcibly taking over the holy land was something practised by the Mughals and the British, and now these people want to implement that in independent India. This agenda will not succeed," Bansal told IANS. He added that the land belongs to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA). However, the Waqf Board is trying to interfere. "The DDA owns the land, yet the Waqf Board claims it as their own. For instance, on Rani Laxmibai Road, a flyover was planned to ease traffic, and for that, a statue was relocated. That land still belongs to the DDA. Now, the Waqf Board is suddenly claiming that the land is theirs as if just a mosque on a piece of land makes everything their property," he added. Bansal said that the Delhi High Court has also reprimanded the people for making such claims, but they remain undeterred. "These tactics are part of a larger extremist agenda aimed at hindering development. They challenge justice at every step. If they don't trust the justice system, why do they go to the High Court? First, they go to a single bench, then a double bench, and after losing, they continue to protest. This kind of extremist mentality cannot be allowed to rule in the capital of the country," he said. He added that the recent actions by the Waqf Board further justify the need for the Waqf Board Amendment Bill. The misuse of authority by such groups mirrors the mindset of the Mughals and British colonisers, who forcibly occupied land. "This agenda of blocking progress cannot continue. Their confrontation is with Rani Laxmibai, a heroic figure who played a crucial role in India's independence. They should be ashamed and at least show respect to our national heroes like Rani Laxmibai," Bansal said. Earlier, the statue of Rani Laxmibai was being installed in a park opposite the Shahi Eidgah in Sadar Bazar, Delhi. However, the Eidgah Committee claimed ownership of the park but the Delhi High Court strongly rejected their claim. During the hearing, the court noted that Rani Laxmibai is a national hero, above all religious boundaries. "The Eidgah Committeeas petition promotes communal politics. The park is not part of the Eidgah property, as it falls under the jurisdiction of the DDA," the court observed. New Delhi, Sep 27 : The Indian textiles industry is estimated to grow to $350 billion by 2030, generating 4.5-6 crore jobs, the government said on Friday. Setting a target of 50,000 metric tonne silk production and employment generation of 1 crore by 2030, Union Textiles Minister Giriraj Singh said cultivation of silk is linked to employment generation of farmers. The minister further said that the Eri Sericulture Promotional Project launched in Gujarat will be expanded across the country benefitting castor farmers. He informed that under PM MITRA (Pradhan Mantri Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel) Park, a total of Rs 70,000 crore investment is expected, resulting in the creation of 21 lakh jobs. "Bharat Tex is a huge platform that will help India attract foreign investment in the textile sector and will help India achieve 4S style, scale, skill and sustainability," the minister added. As part of the government's transformative vision for the textiles sector, the ministry has taken several initiatives during the first 100 days, covering all segments of textile sector (infrastructure, technical textiles, research and development, startups, empowering artisans/weavers, strengthening natural fibre sectors like silk and jute). The minister further said that there is huge potential for technical textile in the country as it is used in all sectors and set an export target of $10 billion by 2030. The global trade of technical textiles is around $300 billion while India's domestic market size stands at $25 billion with an export of $2.6 billion. Highlighting handloom and handicraft, Minister Singh said that 1 crore artisans are connected and there are efforts to organize craft village initiatives in tourist places in the country. The ministry has approved 11 startup proposals under the component for Grant for Research and Entrepreneurship across Aspiring Innovators in Technical Textiles (GREAT) initiative under National Technical Textiles Mission. Support up to Rs 50 lakh per startup is provided under the scheme. Agartala, Sep 27 : Ahead of the festive season, the Tripura government would provide flour, semolina (suji) and sugar to 9.83 lakh ration cardholder families free of cost in view of catastrophic floods in the state last month. Announcing the decision on Friday, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha said that the state government would give two kg of flour, one kg of sugar and 500 grams of semolina (suji) freely to 9.83 lakh ration cardholders ahead of the Durga Puja festival. In his social media posts, the Chief Minister said that these flour, sugar, and semolina would be provided through the Public Distribution Systems (PDS). Earlier the state government sold these items along with other essentials at subsidised rates but this time in view of the catastrophic floods, these three items would be given to the ration card holders for free. "In view of the upcoming Sharadotsav (Durga puja), the state government has decided to provide two kg flour, one kg sugar and 500 grams semolina to people across the state. These three items would be provided free of cost," Saha said in his different social media posts. Food and Civil Supplies and Transport Minister Sushanta Chowdhury said that the government would spend Rs 6.84 crore to provide 492 MT of semolina, 1968 MT of flour and 984 MT of sugar-free of cost to 9.84 lakh ration cardholder families. He told the media that the Tripura government took this decision in view of the severely affected catastrophic floods last month killing at least 36 men, women and children and affecting 17 lakh people across the state. Chowdhury, who is also the spokesperson of the Tripura government, said that the state government has extended various reliefs for the flood-affected people of the state. He said that 10 kg of rice per ration cardholder per month was distributed free of cost to the 9.84 lakh ration cardholders for two months to further ensure the food security of the flood-affected and homeless people. The Minister announced that the Food and Civil Supplies department would replace existing old paper ration cards with PVC ration cards starting September 30. He said that the state cabinet in its meeting chaired by the Chief Minister on Thursday approved the direct recruitment proposal for filling up 1,265 posts in various departments, including Police, Forest, Education and Revenue. BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- At 93, Li Zhensheng, an esteemed academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), has visited more wheat fields than he could ever count, having enjoyed a 70-year career in wheat breeding. Throughout his life, he has remained devoted to one mission -- ensuring that the Chinese people have enough to eat, and that they eat well. On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Li was awarded the prestigious Medal of the Republic, honoring his decades-long contributions to agriculture and food security. Born in 1931 in Zibo, east China's Shandong Province, Li's early life was shaped by hardship. He was a teenager during the great famine of the 1940s, witnessing first-hand the devastating effects of food shortages. Determined to eradicate hunger in China, Li pursued his passion for agriculture. He was enrolled at Shandong Agricultural College and later joined the CAS. In 1956, he answered the government's call to support the northwestern region, and went to work in Yangling in northwest China's Shaanxi Province. At the time, wheat stripe rust, a destructive wheat disease, was ravaging the Yellow River Basin, slashing annual wheat yields by more than 5 million tonnes. Scientists were struggling to develop disease-resistant wheat varieties, which often took eight years of breeding efforts but lost resistance in five and a half years on average. However, Li sought a novel solution. Inspired by his research on pasture grass, which exhibits strong disease resistance, Li proposed an unconventional idea: hybridizing pasture grass with wheat to produce a disease-resistant strain. The challenge was immense. Crossbreeding such distant relatives posed numerous scientific hurdles. Yet, undeterred, Li and his team toiled relentlessly, walking 10 km each day to monitor their test fields, and braving harsh weather to plant and harvest wheat. After more than two decades of research, their perseverance paid off. Li and his team developed the high-yield and disease-resistant "Xiaoyan" series. Among them, "Xiaoyan No. 6" stood out, resisting eight types of stripe rust while significantly boosting wheat yields. By 2003, over 20 million hectares of "Xiaoyan" wheat had been planted nationwide, increasing wheat production by more than 7.5 million tonnes. Li's breakthroughs didn't stop there. He further revolutionized the wheat breeding system by using chromosome engineering, reducing the timeline for developing hybrid wheat varieties from decades to just three years. Beyond his work in the field, Li also mulled over new solutions for increasing grain output. In 1987, as vice president of the CAS, he proposed a comprehensive plan to revitalize low-yield farmland in the Huang-Huai-Hai region. The project, lasting over six years, added about 25 million tonnes to China's grain production. Li's contributions extended into the 1990s and the 21st century, when he pushed for bold initiatives to boost grain output amid stagnation. In 2011, well into his eighties, Li spearheaded the "Bohai grain silo" project, transforming saline land into productive farmland. The project was launched in 2013, boosting grain production in the Bohai rim region by more than 10 million tonnes over five years. Even at 90, Li proposed the creation of a "coastal grass belt" to enhance China's feed-grain security. "Chinese people feed themselves," Li said. With his actions, he responded to international concerns about who would feed China's massive population. Now in his nineties, Li is unable to visit the fields, but he remains engaged in scientific research, mentoring a new generation of agricultural scientists. "There is a limit to what one can achieve in a lifetime, so the goal must be clear and focused," Li told his students. "Follow the needs of the country and choose wisely what you wish to pursue," he said. Bengaluru, Sep 27 : A city court here on Friday adjourned the bail petition of the jailed Kannada superstar Darshan till September 30 in the fan murder case. The court passed the order after the Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) submitted objections to the bail petition of Darshan. However, the SPP said that he needed more time to submit objections against other accused in the case. Darshan, his partner Pavithra Gowda and 15 others are jailed in the case. The counsel for Darshan will place his arguments on Monday seeking his bail. Kannada actor Darshan, who was arrested in the murder case of his fan Renukaswamy and is presently lodged in Ballari district prison, has said in his bail petition that he is innocent and has been framed. Darshanas bail petition further said that he has been "fixed" in the case. "Barring the major injury on the head, no major injuries were found on the body of Renukaswamy. There is no clarity on his exact time of death. There are contradictions between the statements before the court and the medical reports. There is no evidence to prove that Darshan has committed the crime of murder. The authorities have created evidence against Darshan in the case, the bail petition states. Further, the bail petition states that superstar Darshan has a fan following in Karnataka and other countries. The details of movable and immovable properties have also been mentioned in the petition. Sources confirmed that arrangements are being made by his wife Vijayalaxmi to bring Darshan to Bengaluru from Ballary by helicopter if the court accepts his bail petition. On June 9, Renukaswamy was abducted from Chitradurga and brought to Bengaluru, where he was confined in a shed at Pattanagere and brutally assaulted. Renukaswamy was murdered, and his body was dumped in a drain at Sumanahalli. In connection with this case, 17 people, including Darshan and his partner Pavithra Gowda, were arrested on June 11. All the accused are currently in jail and are under judicial custody. After 102 days of arrest, Darshan had, last Saturday, submitted a bail petition through his counsel at the court. His counsel had also pleaded for an emergency hearing on the matter. Meanwhile, Darshan was grilled at the Ballary prison by Income Tax sleuths in connection with money transactions between the accused linked to the brutal murder of his fan Renukaswamy. Darshan is also facing cases in connection with receiving royal treatment at the Central Prison in Bengaluru. Nine officers attached to the prison department were suspended and three FIRs were lodged against Darshan and others in the case. Kannada actor Darshan admitted to assaulting Renukaswamy -- his fan allegedly killed by him and his aides for sending obscene messages to his partner Pavithra Gowda, but claimed that he was informed about the victim's death later, according to his 20-page statement mentioned in the charge sheet filed by the police probing the case. In the 3,991-page charge sheet submitted to the 24th Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's (ACMM) court on September 4, Darshan has provided graphic details of how he attacked Renukaswamy who was kidnapped and kept in captivity by his gang. The charge sheet also revealed that Renukaswamy chatted with Pavithra Gowda by creating a fake ID on Instagram under the name Gowtham. He also claimed that he was better than Darshan, the charge sheet stated. Islamabad, Sep 27 : A minor dispute between two families over sowing of crops has turned into massive sectarian tribal clashes, leaving at least 46 dead and more than 80 injured within a span of eight days in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province's Kurram tribal district bordering Afghanistan. The district has been one of the most sensitive regions in the Pakistani province, not only in terms of spread of terrorism and militant groups, but also for land claim disputes between rival groups fighting against each other for decades now. "The district administration, police, military and the local tribal elders are putting their best foot forward to convince the warring factions that a ceasefire would be in everyone's best interest," said Javedullah Mehsud, Deputy Commissioner of Kurram. A ceasefire agreement was reached on Wednesday but armed clashes continued in the upper, lower and central tehsils of the Kurram district. Locals of the area said that the claimed number of casualties on both sides will certainly be much higher. "The death toll is much higher than it is being reported. At least 80 people have already been injured. We are still not sure how long this fight will continue because both sides have severe rivalry against each other on not only land claims but also on sectarian terms as one party is from Sunni and the other from Shia sect," said a local. The severity of the conflict is so high that the Parachinar-Peshawar main road and the Pak-Afghan Kharlachi border has been closed. Reports from the area also suggest that due to the blockade of routes, there is a fast-growing shortage of food, fuel and medicines. All educational institutions in the area have also been closed for the past six days. Local sources in the area confirmed that severe clashes are still underway in areas including Baliskhel, Kharkalay, Bagki, Gram Pada, Kunj Alizai, Muqbal, and Pewar Tari Mengal. "These families have been fighting each other for decades. Both have military grade weapons and they do not need support or attention from the government or the military to fight each other. There is a serious sectarian divide here, and we have seen in the past that even the most respected means of dispute resolution through the Tribal Jirgas (councils) have miserably failed to end the conflict," said another local. People in the region complain that missiles are also being fired towards the Parachinar city, leaving the whole population at risk. A Sunni and Shia tribal war is no surprise in Kurram district as Parachinar has been the epicentre of sectarian clashes, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides for a long time now. Vadodara, Sep 27 : A debate about free entry to Garba events during the upcoming Navratri festival has surfaced in Vadodara. The City Congress President Rutvij Joshi has suggested allowing free access to garba while the Vadodara BJP President Vijay Shah has voiced his objections citing financial and cultural reasons. The Garba event will take place from 3rd to 11th October. Navratri approaches, Joshi's called for free Garba entry was aimed at helping citizens affected by the floods, as many families are still struggling to restore their daily lives. However, Vijay Shah, representing the BJP, released a statement firmly opposing the move. Shah highlighted Vadodara's status as Gujarat's cultural capital, noting that the city's Garba events hold a unique and prestigious reputation. He pointed out that in earlier times, when Garba participation was lower, the events were conducted at minimal cost, allowing free entry. Over time, as Garba became more popular, costs rose, leading to the introduction of entry passes - initially for men and eventually for women. Shah emphasised that Vadodara's Garba is incomparable to those held in other cities. He noted that the events are often organised through charitable trusts, with a substantial portion of the funds raised from entry passes going toward social initiatives in the city. He also cited the city's growing international reputation, with the recent visit of ambassadors from over 62 countries and their families to experience the festival. While Shah acknowledged the need for event organisers to assist those facing financial difficulties, he clearly did not support the idea of making Garba entry free of charge. "Free entry is not the solution, and I believe Garba organisers should help individuals in need," he said. In 2023, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) officially recognized Gujarat's iconic Garba dance by adding it to the prestigious Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of Humanity. The announcement was made during the 18th session of the Intergovernmental Committee held in Botswana. Garba is now India's 15th cultural heritage element to be included in UNESCO's esteemed list. The last Indian addition was Kolkata's Durga Puja, which gained recognition in 2021. New Delhi, Sep 27 : Chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) Priyank Kanoongo on Friday expressed concern over the safety of schoolchildren over the Hathras incident and called it "horrible and unforgivable." In Hathras, an 11-year-old boy, Kritarth Kushwaha, was brutally murdered in what police have described as a case of human sacrifice. This incident took place in a residential school in Rasgawan village under the Sahapau police station area, Hathras. Investigations have revealed that the killing was orchestrated as part of a tantric ritual, purportedly to bring success and fame to the school. Speaking to IANS, Kanoongo said, "NCPCR has taken cognisance of the Hathras matter. I have spoken to the Chairman of the State Child Commission and we are sending a team from here which will investigate this entire matter. Then, we will also give recommendations to the government according to the report of the team." "I would also like to mention that the Government of India made a guideline in 2021 to fix the accountability of schools which will ensure that there is no negligence in schools regarding the safety of children. Even before this matter, the Supreme Court directed all the states to follow this guideline. However, some states are not following this and I would like to remind them all again to follow these guidelines sincerely. Also, I want to know who has given the order to the Hathras school to open it. The officials who allowed such people to open the school are also culprits," he stated. On September 23, the boy's father, Krishna Kumar had filed a complaint, on the basis of which police started the investigation. Meanwhile, the police have arrested the director Dinesh Baghel and his father Jasodhan Singh, along with three teachers Ramprakash Solanki, Veerpal Singh and Laxman Singh who were accused of orchestrating the boy's murder as a ritual sacrifice. Bengaluru, Sep 27 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka has challenged Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to face an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with his alleged involvement in the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) land scam case, while wondering why the senior Congress leader has to fear if is honest. Addressing the media in Bengaluru, BJP MLC C.T. Ravi on Friday said that "Siddaramaiah's public life is not clean". "He is a criminal... a corrupt politician who engages in pre-planned corruption. He also ensures that his wrongdoings are not exposed. Over 65 complaints have been filed against CM Siddaramaiah. In order to prevent these cases from coming to light, he weakened the Lokayukta and formed the ACB (Anti-Corruption Bureau), and obtained a clean chit in more than 15 cases under its jurisdiction. Over 50 cases remain uninvestigated," Ravi said. The BJP leader claimed that Siddaramaiah, by pretending to be honest, has taken steps to prevent any investigation. "Yesterday, the Cabinet revoked the CBI's authority to conduct free investigations. If you are honest, why are you afraid of a CBI investigation? Your action clearly indicates that you and your government are deeply corrupt," C.T. Ravi said. He further said that out of fear that his corruption would be exposed, Siddaramaiah made the unconstitutional decision to withdraw the CBI's investigative powers, a move only a corrupt person would make. He criticised the decision, stating that merely responding to the Governor's letter with a Cabinet decision is laughable. Ravi said "the Congress came to power under the pretense of 'Mohabbat Ki Dukan' (a store of love), but now there is only a shopping mall of corruption". He also accused Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and the Congress party of being in a state of fear, acting against democracy and the Constitution to prevent their corruption from being exposed. "Court orders have revealed the stains of their corrupt administration on their public image. The governor's approval for prosecution led to demeaning criticism," Ravi said, slamming the Congress leaders, while warning of (possible) protests similar to those witnessed in Bangladesh. "This behaviour reflects arrogance and the belief that they are above the law," he slammed. Ravi emphasised that the High Court had upheld the Governor's order to open a probe, affirming that in the eyes of the law, Siddaramaiah and others are equal. He also said that Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, and other Congress leaders should apologise to the Governor. Shimla, Sep 27 : Former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Friday slammed the state government led by Sukhvinder Sukhu for first ordering the implementation of the street vendor policy and then revoking it. He said the government has bowed down to the pressure of the Congress high command. "This rule is being opposed because it is the (Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister) Yogi model. It is condemnable that the Sukhu government is withdrawing the action. This rule has been in place since the previous government. "Under the street vendor policy, provisions were made for verification of all shopkeepers, registration and various types of regulations, which were stopped by the Sukhu government as soon as it came to power. It is the government's job to protect the interests of the state and its people, but the Sukhu government is working to protect the interests of the Congress." Leader of Opposition Thakur said the government is working against the public sentiment and the law, keeping in mind the political intentions of its high command. "This is not in the interest of the state in any way. Do the regulatory bodies and the people of the state not have the right to know about the people who set up shops and sell various types of products in the state? Will the state be run according to the political intentions of the Delhi high command instead of being run according to the rules?" The Leader of the Opposition said that some Congress leaders put forward their views after understanding the public sentiment, but as soon as the high command showed its anger, they got disturbed and retracted their statements. "A minister of the Congress government backtracks from his statement in the House due to fear of losing his chair, while another minister posts on social media and informs about the implementation of the Yogi model, after which he says that the Uttar Pradesh model has been implemented keeping in mind the interests of Himachal, and retracts as soon as he receives a call from Delhi," Thakur added. A day after Urban Development Minister Vikramaditya Singh courted a controversy by saying the government had decided to make it mandatory for all street vendors in Shimla to display their name, photograph and identification as per their ID cards, the state government on Thursday clarified that no decision to display nameplates by the vendors had been taken. A spokesperson for the government said numerous suggestions have been received from different sections of society regarding the street vendor's policy. "So far, the government has not taken any decision to mandatorily display nameplates or other identification by the vendors on their stalls," he said, adding the government was committed to addressing the concerns of street vendors of the state and would consider all suggestions carefully before taking any decision. The spokesperson said a committee, comprising both Congress and BJP MLAs, has already been constituted to address the matter. Kolkata, Sep 27 : A staffer at the office of Trinamool Congress' general secretary and MP Abhishek Banerjee has filed an extortion complaint against the officer on special duty (OSD) to the Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim. The complaint has been filed against OSD Kalicharan Bandopadhyay by one Ayan Ghosh Dastidar, who is attached to the office of the MP at Camac Street in Kolkata. The complaint has been filed at Shakespeare Sarani Police Station. Although the OSD concerned was not available for his comments, Hakim said that he got information about the complaint from the media persons only. "I could have been informed about the allegations. In that case, I could have initiated a departmental probe into the matter. I was not aware of the complaint," Hakim said. Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari said that everyone in the ruling party was aware of the extortions being carried out by the OSD concerned. "Even I had flagged this issue before. I also highlighted before about the OSD's huge assets disproportionate to his income. He owns seven residential flats. His property is more that of the former state education minister and Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee," the Leader of the Opposition said. However, Kolkata Police officials are maintaining silence on the entire issue. Meanwhile, a senior leader of the party, on condition of anonymity, said that the entire development caused embarrassment for the leadership. "The opposition parties have got yet another chance to attack the ruling party on the issue," he said. Recently, Banerjee's 11-year-old daughter was given a rape threat by one of the agitators protesting against the August 9 incident. A junior doctor was allegedly raped and murdered in the state-run R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9. Islamabad, Sep 27 : The targeted terror attack on the convoy of dozen foreign ambassadors in Swat district on Monday has become a serious bone of contention between the Pakistan Foreign Office in Islamabad and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, both surprisingly claiming that they were not aware of the visit of foreign diplomats to the region. One security official was killed as the convoy carrying diplomats from several countries - including Russia, Portugal, Iran, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, Bosnia and Herzegovina - was attacked by a planted roadside bomb on Malam Jabba Road in Swat district on September 23. During a weekly press briefing on Thursday, Pakistan Foreign Ministry's spokesperson said that the foreign office had no idea about the travel plan of foreign diplomats to the tourist spot of Malam Jabba for an event organised by the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI). "With regards to this particular incident of 23rd of September, this was a trip which was organised by the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and not by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or any other government institution. We have taken a serious note of the lapses which were made by the concerned individuals, including their failure to inform the Ministry about such a high profile visit," said Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch. The statement by the foreign office spokesperson came as a big surprise to all as foreign diplomats are required to inform the country's foreign office about their travel plans within the country for proper protocol and security arrangements. Baloch claimed that the information regarding travel of certain ambassadors, who had contacted the Pakistan Foreign Office, was shared with the KP government in writing, adding that she had documentary evidence for that as well. "We have undertaken an internal investigation and have come to the conclusion that as far as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is concerned, all protocols were followed. This includes information regarding the travel of ambassadors who contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs individually regarding their travel to the KP province," she said. "The fact that there would be so many ambassadors traveling together for a particular event was not shared... We are in the process of discussions and internal deliberations on how to rectify what has happened and how to fix this for the future," the spokesperson added. However, the KP government led by PTI leader Ali Amin Gandapur rejected foreign office's claim, stating that it was kept in the dark about the visit of foreign diplomats to the region. Everyone agrees though that it was a major security lapse on part of the authorities as lives of at least 12 diplomats were put at risk. While the security forces are investigating the incident and collecting evidence, the KP government too is not ready to take responsibility for the security lapse for the Swat incident. The Pakistan Foreign Office also claims that it follows proper security protocols for all diplomats present in the country, the Swat incident and the startling revelations by the foreign office of it being unaware that so many ambassadors were traveling together for a particular event, has raised serious questions over the coordination between Islamabad and provincial governments. Experts say that the Swat attack has exposed the major differences between the Shehbaz Sharif led federal government and the PTI's provincial regime. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been a hotbed of terrorism and unrest with Swat district being one of the many regions used by the militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to regain its control. New Delhi, Sep 27 : In the Ernakulam district of Kerala, the Waqf Board has claimed ownership over the land where Christian families have lived for generations in the villages of Cherai and Munambam. This issue has stirred up a major controversy, and on Friday, BJP MLA Anoop Antony Joseph criticised the Waqf Board for its actions. While speaking to IANS, Joseph said, "While the country is discussing the Waqf Bill, people must be aware of the injustice happening in Kerala." Joseph further explained, "In Kochi, near Ernakulam, a conspiracy is being hatched to force Christian families out of their homes under the pretext of Waqf claims. Around 600 families, who have been living there for generations with proper documentation, suddenly faced claims from the Waqf Board a few years ago, stating that the land belongs to them. Is this not an injustice?" "These families, who have lived there for nearly 100 years, are being told that their land is not theirs and that all their documents are invalid. The situation has worsened to the point that even Kerala's Syro-Malabar Church and Latin Catholic Church have had to take to the streets in protest. From priests to poor families, everyone is fighting to protect their land," Joseph added. He emphasised that Christians in Kerala are now in favour of amending the Waqf Bill because they have experienced this injustice first-hand. Joseph also criticised the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) government, which often speaks about equality and justice, but stays silent to protect its vote bank when real justice is needed. The BJP MLA added, "In the area where this is happening, the local MP belongs to the Congress, and instead of taking a strong stand for his people, he has done nothing. As a result, the BJP has had to step in to support the poor and fishermen of Munambam, and it is now our responsibility to bring this issue to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC). The BJP will go to any lengths to ensure justice for the people of Munambam." The Syro-Malabar Catholic Church has written to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) regarding the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, suggesting changes to the Waqf Act of 1995. In a letter dated September 10, Archbishop Andrews Thazhath, President of the Syro-Malabar Public Affairs Commission, stated that the Waqf Board has illegally claimed ownership of several properties belonging to Christian families in Cherai and Munambam villages in Ernakulam. The issue has gained significant attention, and many are calling for action to address the alleged misuse of power by the Waqf Board in these areas. Kolkata, Sep 27 : In a major crackdown against cattle smuggling, the Border Security Force (BSF) nabbed five smugglers, including two Bangladeshis, and recovered 32 heads of cattle along the Indo-Bangladesh Border (IBB) in West Bengal's Malda district on Friday. The smugglers were attempting to take the cattle across the River Ganga, which flows as a natural boundary between India and Bangladesh in Malda when they were arrested. "The incidents occurred at Baishnabnagar and Aradhpur in Malda where the IBB is riverine and unfenced. The smugglers were attempting to use the rising water level of the Ganga to move the cattle to Bangladesh. They even attacked the BSF jawans with sharp weapons but retreated after the border guards opened fire in self-defence. The first incident took place around 3.10 am on Friday when troops of the 88 Bn BSF from the Kedaripara Border Outpost spotted 5-6 smugglers moving cattle near the Dalla village, about 500 metres from the IBB. After the shots were fired, the smugglers took advantage of the darkness and tried to flee. Two of them were arrested though, with six heads of cattle. Both of them are Bangladeshis," a senior official of the South Bengal Frontier, BSF, said. In another incident, troops of the 115 Bn BSF from the Nimtita Border Outpost, who were out on a patrol in a speedboat, managed to nab three Indian smugglers and recovered six more heads of cattle. Twenty more heads of cattle were recovered by troops of the Bajitapur, Taltoli, Kathakali, and Sowapur Border Outposts, the official claimed. The Indian smugglers are from Lohpur in the Murshidabad district and Sowapur in Malda. During interrogation, they claimed that they were offered Rs 1,500 for every head of cattle that they managed to take across into Bangladesh. The Bangladeshis, identified as Mohammad Rubel and Amanurla, from border villages Dwarpal and Jugidanga in the Naugaon district in Bangladesh were apparently offered 4,000 Bangladeshi Takas for each head of cattle. All five have been handed over to the police. The rescued cattle will be handed over to the Dhyan Foundation after e-tagging. A displaced baby sleeps in a temporary shelter at a school in Beirut, Lebanon on Sept. 26, 2024. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said Wednesday that Israel's bombardment had displaced over 150,000 residents over the past 72 hours. (Xinhua/Bilal Jawich) JERUSALEM, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Israel's military said its air force carried out 220 airstrikes in Lebanon on Thursday, claiming that all targets were linked to Hezbollah. According to a statement released by the military, among the targets that were struck were Hezbollah infrastructure sites, launchers from which projectiles were fired toward Israeli territory, and weapons storage facilities. The army also struck Hezbollah militants. The military said it was "continuing to operate to degrade and dismantle Hezbollah's terrorist capabilities and infrastructure." Since Monday, Israel has conducted extensive airstrikes across Lebanon, resulting in over 650 deaths and more than 2,000 injuries. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin noted on Wednesday that the bombardment has displaced more than 150,000 residents this week. Displaced people from southern Lebanon are seen in a temporary shelter at a school in Beirut, Lebanon on Sept. 26, 2024. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said Wednesday that Israel's bombardment had displaced over 150,000 residents over the past 72 hours. (Xinhua/Bilal Jawich) People transfer aid to the displaced people from southern Lebanon in a temporary shelter at a school in Beirut, Lebanon on Sept. 26, 2024. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said Wednesday that Israel's bombardment had displaced over 150,000 residents over the past 72 hours. (Xinhua/Bilal Jawich) Boys displaced from southern Lebanon are seen in a temporary shelter at a school in Beirut, Lebanon on Sept. 26, 2024. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said Wednesday that Israel's bombardment had displaced over 150,000 residents over the past 72 hours. (Xinhua/Bilal Jawich) A woman prepares food for the displaced people from southern Lebanon in Tripoli, Lebanon, on Sept. 26, 2024. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said Wednesday that Israel's bombardment had displaced over 150,000 residents over the past 72 hours. The sharp escalation has raised concerns about a potential full-scale conflict between Israel and Lebanon, with fears that other regional powers could also be sucked in. (Xinhua/Khaled Habashiti) People prepare food for the displaced people from southern Lebanon in Tripoli, Lebanon, on Sept. 26, 2024. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said Wednesday that Israel's bombardment had displaced over 150,000 residents over the past 72 hours. The sharp escalation has raised concerns about a potential full-scale conflict between Israel and Lebanon, with fears that other regional powers could also be sucked in. (Xinhua/Khaled Habashiti) A man prepares food for the displaced people from southern Lebanon in Tripoli, Lebanon, on Sept. 26, 2024. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said Wednesday that Israel's bombardment had displaced over 150,000 residents over the past 72 hours. The sharp escalation has raised concerns about a potential full-scale conflict between Israel and Lebanon, with fears that other regional powers could also be sucked in. (Xinhua/Khaled Habashiti) A woman prepares food for the displaced people from southern Lebanon in Tripoli, Lebanon, on Sept. 26, 2024. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said Wednesday that Israel's bombardment had displaced over 150,000 residents over the past 72 hours. The sharp escalation has raised concerns about a potential full-scale conflict between Israel and Lebanon, with fears that other regional powers could also be sucked in. (Xinhua/Khaled Habashiti) People deliver food for the displaced people from southern Lebanon in Tripoli, Lebanon, on Sept. 26, 2024. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said Wednesday that Israel's bombardment had displaced over 150,000 residents over the past 72 hours. The sharp escalation has raised concerns about a potential full-scale conflict between Israel and Lebanon, with fears that other regional powers could also be sucked in. (Xinhua/Khaled Habashiti) People prepare food for the displaced people from southern Lebanon in Tripoli, Lebanon, on Sept. 26, 2024. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin said Wednesday that Israel's bombardment had displaced over 150,000 residents over the past 72 hours. The sharp escalation has raised concerns about a potential full-scale conflict between Israel and Lebanon, with fears that other regional powers could also be sucked in. (Xinhua/Khaled Habashiti) Kochi, Sep 27 : On World Tourism Day, Kerala state's Responsible Tourism (RT) initiative received two national awards for the Best RT Village and the Best Agri Tourism Village for the schemes it implemented at Kadalundi and Kumarakom respectively. This is the second consecutive year that Kerala has received top honours of Tourism Village Awards instituted by the Union Ministry of Tourism after Kanthalloor in the Idukki district bagged the Gold Award last year. The awards were presented by Union Minister for Tourism and Culture Gajendra Singh Shekhawat in the presence of the Vice President of India Jagdeep Dhankhar at a function held at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi on Friday. Kerala Responsible Tourism Mission (KRTM) Society has implemented a slew of initiatives as part of its STREET (Sustainable Tangible Responsible Experiential Ethnic Tourism) project at Kadalundi in Kozhikode district in collaboration with the Grama Panchayat. The famed backwater destination Kumarakom in Kottayam district adjudged as the Best Agri Tourism Village, has been turned into a major farm-tourism destination through the schemes initiated by KRTM in partnership with the village panchayat. "These awards clearly acknowledge that Kerala has set a successful model before the entire nation on how tourism is to be promoted by complying with sustainable and inclusive goals, which have become all the more relevant now," said Kerala Tourism Minister P. A. Mohamed Riyas. The RT initiatives in Kadalundi are being implemented as part of the comprehensive tourism project planned around Beypore. A number of schemes to turn the area into a major Green Destination have been implemented at Kadalundi, which is one of the 10 STREET destinations across the state. The projects were conceived and implemented with the participation of the local community, starting with the convening of the 'special tourism grama sabha.' This was followed by an awareness campaign, resource mapping, preparation of a resource directory and formulation of village life experience packages. Globally renowned for its stunning scenic charm, lake-side Kumarakom has been one of the first RT destinations of Kerala. A traditional agricultural belt with a vast expanse of paddy fields crisscrossed by canals, the farm tourism potential of the area has been tapped fully by the RT Mission by carrying out projects in a systematic fashion. Visitors to Kumarakom are treated to a range of enjoyments such as a fishing experience, a farming experience and a day with a farmer, complete with a stroll through the green paddy fields. Deesa, Sep 27 : The 14th edition of Gujarat's Garib Kalyan Mela has been launched to distribute over Rs 4,568 crore in financial assistance to more than 12 lakh beneficiaries. Deesa, Sep 27 (IANS) The 14th edition of Gujaratas Garib Kalyan Mela has been launched to distribute over Rs 4,568 crore in financial assistance to more than 12 lakh beneficiaries. Inaugurated by Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel in Deesa, Banaskantha, the melas aim to empower the underprivileged by delivering direct benefits from various government schemes. On the first day alone, over 1 lakh people received assistance worth Rs. 318 crore, marking a significant step in the governmentas ongoing efforts to uplift economically disadvantaged communities. At the event, the Chief Minister emphasised that the Garib Kalyan Melas, which began under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership in 2009-10, have become a public movement to empower the poor. He noted that the Prime Ministeras welfare schemes, like the Pradhan Mantri Vishwakarma Yojana, Jan Dhan Yojana, and Ayushman Bharat PMJAY, have provided a new chapter of economic and social empowerment for the underprivileged. During the Deesa event, Chief Minister Patel distributed Rs 45 crore in aid to over 11,000 beneficiaries. Simultaneously, Garib Kalyan Melas, held across Gujaratas 33 districts, assisted more than 1 lakh beneficiaries, amounting to over Rs 318 crore in financial support. This phase of the melas is expected to benefit 12 lakh people, with a total of Rs 4,568 crore earmarked for the initiative. Patel stressed that the stateas welfare schemes focus on the poor, youth, farmers, and women, as these pillars are vital to building a developed India. Water Resources Minister Kunwarji Bawaliya highlighted a significant group water supply scheme for Banaskantha, benefiting 156 villages in Disa, Lakhani, and Amirgarh talukas. Based on the Narmada Main Canal, the multi-phase project is expected to improve water supply and overall development in the region. Nearly one-third of Gujaratas population, amounting to over 31 lakh families, lives below the poverty line (BPL). The poverty threshold is Rs 816 per capita per month in rural areas and Rs 1,000 per capita per month in urban areas - equating to Rs 32 per day for rural areas and Rs 26 for urban areas. Responding to a query from Congress MLA Tushar Chaudhary on September 14, 2023, State Minister for Rural Development Bachubhai Maganbhai Khabad revealed that 31,61,310 BPL families have been identified in Gujarat. Of these, 16,28,744 families are categorised as extremely poor, while 15,32,566 are classified as poor. The data also shows a trend: in 2020-21, 1,047 families fell into the BPL category, while only 14 families rose above it. In 2021-22, 1,751 families entered the BPL list, with only two families escaping poverty. In 2022-23, 303 additional families were added to the BPL category, but only one family managed to exit. Mumbai, Sep 27 : Maharashtra political parties on Friday made various demands before the Chief Election Commission Rajiv Kumar including polling in a single phase instead of multiple phases, increase in expenses, immediate action against those spreading fake news on social media and providing facilities to the voters at the polling stations. The Election Commission of India (ECI) team is in Mumbai to meet various stakeholders to review the preparations for the upcoming Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election. The Shiv Sena UBT delegation comprising veteran leader Subhash Desai and party MP Anil Desai pleaded that the ECI should not go for polling in multiple phases but instead conduct it in one phase while citing past instances. The duo demanded that the staff on election duty should properly manage the votersa queues so that they can exercise their votes early and the staff should undergo training for time management if the ECI expects 60 per cent or more voting. The Shiv Sena delegation led by former MP Rahul Shewale pressed for voting in a single phase and demanded that the voters should be provided with various amenities at the polling stations to increase the voting percentage and complete the polling in a hassle-free manner. A delegation of NCP SP led by party general secretary Ravindra Pawar demanded that the ECI should increase the present expenditure limit of Rs 40 lakh per candidate. Incidentally, the Ajit Pawar faction delegation comprising minister Anil Patil and general secretary Shivajirao Garje also made a similar demand. Both NCP factions argued that the rise in expenses is also required as the candidates have to spend Rs 10 to 15 lakh in releasing the commercial advertisement for giving details with regard to criminal cases. They pointed out that it would not be possible for a candidate to contest the election in a balance of Rs 25 lakh and therefore reiterated that an increase in polling expenditure is necessary. Both factions also made a case for ECI to take immediate action against those spreading fake news on social media. Mumbai BJP chief Ashish Shelar demanded that the polling day should not fall on consecutive holidays and if the polling will be held in November considering the hot weather during the Lok Sabha elections the voters standing in long queues should be provided facilities such as sheds, fans and drinking water. Shelar said that as per the ECI rules the voters are prohibited from carrying mobile phones and bags. However, he pointed out that due to this condition some people avoid going to the polling stations to cast their votes. Therefore, he demanded that a token facility be provided to the voters at the polling stations to keep their mobiles and bags at a given place till they exercise their voting rights. He further demanded that the ECI should carve out a booth to accommodate a smaller number of voters than its present norm of 1,500 voters. He said this is needed to avoid crowding at the polling stations. The Congress opposed the ECIas move to open polling stations in cooperative societies saying that it may lead to bogus voting. The Congress delegation comprising general secretary Munaf Hakim and senior leader Gajanan Desai also pressed for the removal of the state Director General of Police Rashmi Shukla from her post to safeguard the democratic process and ensure that the forthcoming elections are conducted in a fair, free, and transparent manner. Further, the Congress also demanded that the state government staff from the level of clerks up to senior officers working in the same posts for many years should be immediately transferred for free and fair election. (Sanjay Jog can be reached at sanjay.j@ians.in) Chandigarh, Sep 27 : The Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), which is in an alliance with the Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram), on Friday promised to launch the Jannayak Fasal Suraksha Bima Yojana for the prosperity of farmers, if the combine forms the government in Haryana. Under this scheme, the government will bear the insurance premium of each farmer, JJP national President Ajay Singh Chautala said during an election campaign in Cheeka and Kalayat. Chautala said the JJP has worked continuously for the empowerment of farmers and due to the JJP, the number of crop procurement centres in the state has increased. He said the JJP has not only created a better procurement system for crops, but also made a system of making direct payment to the farmersa accounts within 48 hours. He said during the JJP's participation in the government, compensation was also given on time for the losses incurred due to any natural calamity. Chautala said on Friday that farmers have to understand who can take them forward by implementing new schemes in their interest and who deceives them by telling lies. He said that for the last 20 years, only the Congress and the BJP were running the government in Haryana and both the national parties have deceived the farmers. After the alliance was announced, former Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala said it would take Haryana on the path of progress and both parties would fight for the poor, farmers, and labourers together. Stating that the alliance has infused enthusiasm among the youth across the state, Dushyant Chautala said this time a triangular contest would be seen in the Assembly elections in which the JJP-ASP alliance would play an important role. Eyeing the Dalit voters who constitute 21 per cent of the state's population, out of the total 90 seats, the JJP, an offshoot of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), will contest 70 seats while the Azad Samaj Party will field candidates in the remaining 20 seats. Interestingly, the INLD has already stitched an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to woo the Dalits with leaders of both parties agreeing to project INLD legislator Abhay Singh Chautala as the chief ministerial face. As per the alliance, the INLD will contest 53 seats, while the BSP will field candidates on 37 seats. At the launch of the JJP-ASP alliance, both Dushyant Chautala and Chandra Shekhar Azad, who are both 36-years-old, promised to fight for the rights and welfare of the farmers and to form a "government of the youth". The BJP, which is in power in the state, is eyeing a third-consecutive term in the polls scheduled on October 5. Results will be declared on October 8. New Delhi, Sep 27 : Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) Admiral Dinesh Kumar Tripathi, who is on an official visit to Greece, met VAdm Dimitrios E Kataras, Chief of the Hellenic Navy General Staff on Friday. An official said that during this maiden visit by an Indian Navy CNS to Greece. "Both the Chiefs held discussions on strengthening navy to navy partnership by augmenting operational interactions, maritime security cooperation and streamlining shared goals for a stable and secure maritime environment," the official added. He said that the discussions focussed on the criticality of open sea trade routes, laying the groundwork for advancing Indo-Greek defence collaboration with a focus on strategic naval opportunities, capacity building, shared training initiatives, and enhancing interoperability. Collaboration in niche technologies and defence industry opportunities were also deliberated. "Avenues of furthering training cooperation were also explored along with laying emphasis towards enhancing interoperability and capacity-building, during this meet," officials added. He said that the CNS also met Ioannis Kefalogiannis, Deputy Minister of Defence, Greece and VAdm Christos Sasiakos, Deputy Chief of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff, marking a significant step in deepening defence ties and fostering a robust strategic partnership towards enhancing maritime security in the Mediterranean and the IOR. "On arrival in Greece, Adm Tripathi was received by the Chief of the Hellenic Navy General Staff with a ceremonial Guard of Honour at the Papagos Camp, Athens. Admiral Tripathi, Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS), is on a for-day official visit to Greece from 26 to 29 September. This visit is part of ongoing efforts to further consolidate bilateral defence relations between India and Greece, with a focus on enhancing the Naval Corporation," he said. The official added that the discussions are expected to cover a broad spectrum of defence cooperation areas, particularly maritime security, joint training initiatives, and exploring avenues for future operational collaboration between the two navies. New Delhi, Sep 27 : In the first 100 days of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government, 1,005 Ayushman Arogya Mandirs have earned certification by the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH), Union Minister of State for Ayush (Independent Charge) Prataprao Jadhav said on Friday. Prataprao Jadhav said this in a media briefing on Friday, while highlighting the major achievements of the Ministry of Ayush in the first 100 days of the government. "Under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Ministry has made remarkable progress in promoting traditional Indian systems of medicine and strengthening Ayush in the field of international cooperation," Prataprao Jadhav said. The Ayush Minister stated the Ministry convened a review meeting to incorporate about 170 Ayurvedic packages under the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) to incorporate Ayush treatment into mainstream healthcare. It has also established a Strategic Purchasing Committee to finalise cost structures and guarantee the affordability of Ayush treatments under the programme. Stressing the importance of the health of each and every citizen, Jadhav said a special drive has also been initiated to have Prakriti Parikshan for the citizens. Key achievements of Ayush in the 100 days include NABH evaluation of 1,489 Ayushman Arogya Mandir, of which more than 1,000 secured certification; donor agreement with the World Health Organization (WHO); MoU with Vietnam, Malaysia; and special medical stores for Ayush medicines, among others. According to the report received from the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH), the evaluation of 1,489 Ayushman Arogya Mandir (Ayush) has been completed, and 1005 of these AAM (Ayush) have been certified for Ayush Entry Level Certification (AELC). "Certification from NABH is an important step in ensuring quality healthcare services under the National Ayush Mission," said Secretary Ayush Vd. Rajesh Kotecha. The Ministry signed a donor agreement with the WHO in July, demonstrating India's dedication to working with international health organisations and improving the integration of Ayush systems into the global healthcare system. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Vietnam centered on cooperation in medicinal plants. The MoU with Malaysia on Ayurveda will promote research, knowledge exchange, and the creation of Ayurvedic treatment regimens. Further, the Ministry also promoted the "One Herb, One Standard" initiative to standardise herbal medications, and improve the quality of medicine in the sector. Special medical stores have also been set for Ayush Medicines at every tehsil level. "Access to a variety of herbal and traditional medicines will be made possible by these stores, improving public healthcare in both urban and rural areas," Kotecha said. The ministry also undertook major campaigns and initiatives, including "Har Ghar AyurYog", "Bharat Ka Prakriti Parikshan", Ayush camps for the elderly population, Centers of Excellence in Ayush in partnership with esteemed establishments like IISc Bangalore, IIT Delhi, TMC Mumbai, and JNU New Delhi. "In the first 100 days of the current government, we have laid a solid foundation for the advancement of traditional medicine both domestically and internationally," Prataprao Jadhav said. "These programmes are significant steps in the direction of creating a healthier and wealthier India," he added. Galle, Sep 27 : Kamindu Mendis scored an unbeaten 182 as he became the fastest Asian batter to complete 1000 Test runs on the second day of the second Test against New Zealand at Galle International Stadium here on Friday. Mendis scored his fifth Test century along with Kusal Mendis, who compiled the third century of the innings for the hosts, powering Sri Lanka to a monumental 602/5 before declaring in the final session. Kamindu reached his 1000 Test runs in 13 innings, equalling Don Bradman as the joint second-quickest to the feat. Kamindu reached the milestone during his 200-run partnership with Kusal for the sixth wicket before Dhananjaya de Silva called them back to the pavilion. Kamindu might have missed the opportunity to score his first Test double-century but he reached his highest score in the format with a knock of 182 including 16 fours and four sixes. Overnight batters, Angelo Mathews and Kamindu added just 28 runs to the scoreboard before the former was removed by Glenn Phillips while playing a sweep early in the day. Mathews departed after scoring 88 with the help of seven fours. However, the support from the other end didn't stop for Kamindu as he went on to stitch partnerships of 74 and 200 with Dhananjaya de Silva and Kusal, respectively. During the process, Kusal smashed his 10th Test hundred to add to the hosts' batting dominance. The other wicket of De Silva (44) was bagged by Phillips while attempting a similar shot in the opening session of the day. However, as the pitch began to offer more turn, Kamindu and Kusal took control. Facing a tiring attack, Kusal's aggressive approach found the perfect rhythm. Kamindu capitalised on every chance for a lofted shot, smashing four sixes, and his growing confidence began to influence Kusal. Kusal reached his half-century in style, hitting Phillips for 4, 6, and 4 in quick succession, effectively dismantling the off-spinner's lengths. This contrasted sharply with how Kamindu started his day following Mathews' early departure. He adopted a cautious approach in his partnership with De Silva, who, in contrast, began assertively. De Silva's intent was clear from the start with a six off Phillips, and he repeatedly employed the sweep shot to find boundaries. At one point, he even encouraged Kamindu to attempt a reverse sweep. However, just as they were beginning to solidify their partnership, De Silva fell as Phillips claimed his second wicket of the day. After the break, Kamindu reached his fifth Test century in only his eighth match. He survived a few close calls, including an LBW review, a missed stumping, and an overturned-caught decision as the spinners started to extract more from the surface. But with Sri Lanka already in a commanding position, both he and Kusal turned the pressure back on the spinners. Phillips, who had been a consistent threat during the first session with occasional drift troubling the right-handers, was later dominated by the duo, posing little danger. In stark contrast, Sri Lanka's spinners found a significant turn when they got their opportunity, raising puffs of dust from the pitch. Prabath Jayasuriya dismissed Devon Conway at slip, while earlier, New Zealand had already been on the back foot with the loss of Tom Latham, who edged Asitha Fernando to the slips. By the end of the day, New Zealand was in a precarious position of 22/2, trailing by 580 runs. Brief scores: Sri Lanka 602/5 decl. in 163.4 overs (Dinesh Chandimal 116, Kamindu Mendis 182*, Kusal Mendis 106*; Glenn Phillips 3-141) lead New Zealand 22/2 in 14 overs (Asitha Fernando 1-5, Prabath Jayasuriya 1-3) by 580 runs. Chennai, Sep 27 : As the strike by more than 1,000 workers at Samsung India's plant in Sriperumbudur entered its third week, the South Korean electronics major on Friday said the management is willing to negotiate with the workers directly for an amicable resolution of the dispute. A Samsung India lawyer, representing the company in Madras High Court as well as the Kanchipuram District Court, said in a statement that workers at the factory in Tamil Nadu get all statutory benefits and their wages are far higher than what is prescribed by the government for the electronics industry. "I want to inform you that the ongoing strike is illegal because, the conciliation process regarding the demands made by workers is in progress and the workers' union is unregistered till today," the lawyer said. He further stated that under such circumstances, the management of Samsung India is justified in imposing appropriate action on the striking workers. "However, Samsung India management has been patient and is willing to negotiate with the workers directly for an amicable resolution of the dispute. Samsung India management is willing to sit down with the workers, in the presence of officials of the labour department," said the lawyer. The workers have been on strike since September 9 to get their demands implemented, including wage hike, union recognition and 8-hour work. The strike at the factory has hit the production of consumer goods such as televisions, refrigerators and washing machines initially. According to the lawyer, the management has conveyed its willingness to sign a long-term wage settlement with the workers. "However, Samsung India management will negotiate only with our workers and not with a third party. On behalf of Samsung India management, I am requesting the workers to call off the illegal strike, return to work, and come forward for negotiations with the objective of resolving all the differences in an amicable manner at the earliest," the lawyer maintained. New Delhi, Sep 27 : Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's "Khatakhat" scheme created significant headlines during the Lok Sabha elections, and discussions around it continue to echo on political platforms. After the Lok Sabha elections were over, crowds even gathered outside Congress offices across the country, eager to receive the promised a8,500 monthly instalment that was promised under the "Khatakhat" scheme. New Delhi, Sep 27 (IANS) Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's "Khatakhat" scheme created significant headlines during the Lok Sabha elections, and discussions around it continue to echo on political platforms. After the Lok Sabha elections were over, crowds even gathered outside Congress offices across the country, eager to receive the promised 8,500 monthly instalment that was promised under the "Khatakhat" scheme. However, Congress leaders have repeatedly explained that they could not fulfil these promises because their government was not in power at the Centre. Despite this, Congress and various opposition parties are presenting populist promises as they campaign for upcoming Assembly elections in several states. These parties seem to be less concerned about the impact on the government's finances. In this context, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has delivered a strong counter to Congress' "Khatakhat scheme." While the public is still waiting for the benefits of Congress' scheme, PM Modi has made a decision that will bring a significant gift to the country's workers just before Diwali, with monthly payments of 26,000. While Congress has opened a box of guarantees, PM Modi has made a masterstroke. The Modi government has amended the Variable Dearness Allowance (VDA) for workers, announcing an increase in the minimum wage to 1,035 per day. The government has made a substantial increase in minimum wage rates, aiming to help workers cope with rising living costs. For unskilled workers in Sector A, the minimum wage has been set at 783 per day, amounting to 20,358 per month. For semi-skilled workers, the minimum wage is now 868 per day, leading to monthly earnings of 22,568. Skilled workers, such as clerks or those performing unarmed tasks, will earn a minimum wage of 954 per day, which translates to 24,804 per month. Highly skilled workers will receive 1,035 per day, totalling 26,910 per month. This new minimum wage rate is set to be implemented with the VDA amendment. These minimum wage rates will take effect from October 1, and the government has also decided that workers will start receiving the benefits retroactively from April 2024, meaning any pending amounts will be paid from that month. This amendment was also made in April earlier this year. ULAN BATOR, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The final of the seventh edition of a Chinese speech contest for middle school students took place in Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia, on Friday. Titled "China-Mongolia Friendship: Promising Youths," the contest was co-organized by the Chinese Embassy in Mongolia and the Confucius Institute at the National University of Mongolia. A total of 59 students from 14 schools across Mongolia participated in the final round. Ganbat Bulgantamir, an 11th-grade student from the Confucius Classroom at Yucai Chinese School in Ulan Bator, took first place with her speech titled "China Through My Eyes." Rajkot, Sep 27 : Rajya Sabha MP Parimal Nathwani has backed the proposal to name Rajkot's newly constructed airport at Hirasar after former Gujarat Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel. Nathwani took to social media to express his endorsement, saying, aI support Bharat Patel's proposal to rename Rajkot Hirasar Airport after the late Shri Keshubhai Patel. Keshubhai Patel was a distinguished leader from Saurashtra and served as Gujarat's Chief Minister. It would be a matter of pride to honour his legacy by naming the airport after him." The naming of Hirasar Airport has been a topic of discussion ever since its construction, following controversies over land issues, the commencement of international flights, and the collapse of a canopy during the monsoon. The focus has shifted to the name, with increasing support for honouring Keshubhai Patel. The proposal to name the airport after the former CM was initially put forward by his son, Bharat Patel, and has now received strong backing from Parimal Nathwani. This development has further intensified the ongoing discussions about the airportas official name. Keshubhai Patel was an Indian politician from Gujarat and a key leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Born on July 24, 1928, in Visavadar, Gujarat, Patel served as the Chief Minister of Gujarat twice -- first in 1995 and again from 1998 to 2001. He played a crucial role in the political rise of the BJP in Gujarat and was known for his focus on rural development, agriculture, and welfare programmes. Keshubhai Patel was deeply respected in Saurashtra, where he had a political base. He was often referred to as a leader of the farming community. During his tenure, efforts were made to improve irrigation systems, strengthen the agricultural sector, and promote infrastructure development in rural areas. In 2001, Patel was succeeded by Narendra Modi as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, marking a significant shift in the state's politics. Although he later distanced himself from the BJP and briefly formed his own party, the Gujarat Parivartan Party, he remained influential in Gujaratas political landscape. Jaipur, Sep 27 : Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma will lead a delegation to Delhi for the investors' meet and outreach programme from September 30 to exhort the business community to make investments in the state. Jaipur, Sep 27 (IANS) Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma will lead a delegation to Delhi for the investorsa meet and outreach programme from September 30 to exhort the business community to make investments in the state. An official said that the investor meet and outreach will also be attended by State Industry and Commerce Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore, Chief Secretary Sudhansh Pant, Principal Secretary (Industries) Ajitabh Sharma and other senior officials of the state government. The Delhi investorsa meet and one-on-one meetings of delegation with the CEOs of select business groups have been organised on day one of this outreach programme. The state governmentas delegation shall participate in two other programmes a" CPSEs Conclave and Ambassadorsa Roundtable a" on the second day, to network with the business leaders from public and private sectors and seek help from diplomats of different countries to attract foreign investment in the state. Officials said that the two-day Delhi investors roadshow and outreach is part of the state governmentas efforts to invite the business and investor community, the corporate world and national and international agencies to explore the opportunities available and making investments in the state and is part of aRising Rajasthana Global Investment Summit 2024, which is scheduled for 9th-10th-11th December in capital Jaipur. During the Ambassadorsa Roundtable, the delegation members will apprise the ambassadors and diplomats of different countries about the instrumental policy changes being ushered in by the government and the series of fiscal/non-fiscal incentives across sectors that are being offered to the investors. The ambassadors/diplomats of several leading countries, including that of the U.S.A, the UK, Germany, Japan, Italy, South Korea, Australia, the UAE, Denmark, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey, Spain, Switzerland, Brazil, Qatar, South Africa etc. have been invited to attend the event. On the same day, the delegation will partake in the Central PSEsa roundtable and interact with the Chairman and other senior officials of the Union government-owned Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) and invite them to work on new projects in the state or explore further collaboration opportunities. A large number of CPSEs such as HPCL, NHAI, NTPC, GAIL and DMRC etc. already operate across sectors in the state. The delegation will impress upon the officials of the CPSEs about new avenues and nodes of growth in the state across sectors like agriculture, renewable, education and skilling, auto and EV, infrastructure, chemical and petrochemical, tourism, startups, mining and ESDM/IT and IteS among others. Rajasthan government is undertaking an extensive domestic and global outreach for the aRising Rajasthana Global Investment Summit 2024 scheduled to be held under the leadership of Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma on 9th, 10th and 11th December in Jaipur and march towards attaining the dream of aViksit Rajasthana. A number of high-level investor meets, and one-on-one business meetings have been organised in the last month at Mumbai, Seoul (South Korea), Tokyo and Osaka in Japan, Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the UAE, and Doha (Qatar), so as to attract investor attention, connect with the business community around the world and apprise them of the investor-friendly policies and opportunities available in the state. The state government had signed investment proposals (MoUs) worth over INR 4.5 lakh crore during the Mumbai investorsa meeting, which was held on August 30, 2024. Kolkata, Sep 27 : Senior doctors participating in a mass convention organised by the West Bengal Junior Doctors' Forum on Friday, called for a bigger platform involving people from all walks of life to clean up the health system in the state. The mass convention comes amid the protests over the rape and murder of a junior doctor of R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital last month. While emphasising on the need to carry on the movement, veteran medical practitioner Dr Arnab Goswami said that there is a need for a bigger and joint platform for that purpose, involving not just representatives from the medical fraternity but people from different walks of life. "The joint platform is necessary to prolong the movement," he said. Describing junior doctors as the pillar of the medical system, the Director of the state-run S.S.K.M. Medical College & Hospital Manimoy Bandyopadhyay said that the macabre tragedy at R.G Kar was unimaginable. "All those who are directly and indirectly involved in it should be identified and punished," he said. Medical teacher, writer and documentary film- maker Tirthankar Guha Thakurta said the recent 'threat culture' in medical colleges is a matter of concern. "We were brought up being rebuked by our teachers. That was a different thing. But the trend of passing people in examinations against money is simply unacceptable. At the same time both male and female students should be protected from being victims of sexual exploitation," he said. Also invited as a speaker at the mass convention was the noted film director Kaushik Ganguly. According to him, when the junior doctors have to come out on the streets in support of their demands, it is clear that nothing is right in the system. "I want to assure the protesting junior doctors that this is not just their movement. People like former R.G. Kar principal Sandip Ghosh are there everywhere. It is time to wipe them out of the system completely. I will ask the junior doctors to have patience and continue their movement," he said. Amaravati, Sep 27 : Forced to drop his planned visit to Tirumala temple following demands from his political rivals for declaration of faith, former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday said that humanity is his religion. "Humanity is my religion. If you want to have a declaration on that please go ahead and have it as mine," he told a news conference while announcing that he is postponing his visit to Tirumala temple as he does not want to allow Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to divert the issue as he was exposed with his lies on adulteration of laddu prasadam. Questioning the silence of the BJP, the YSR Congress Party chief said if the BJP was sincere as the representatives of Hindutva values, it should publicly reprimand Chandrababu Naidu and send him to jail for bringing down the reputation of Lord Venkateswara Swamy and prasadam for political gains by spreading lies. "I tell those people who want to know my religion. Everybody in Andhra Pradesh knows who I am. Everybody in this country knows who I am and who my father is. Everybody also knows how many times I have been to Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam before and after becoming the chief minister," he said. Recalling that he accompanied the Prime Minister, the President and the Chief Justice of India to the temple and offered clothes to Lord Venkateswara on Brahmotsavam for five years, he asked why nobody then asked him about his faith. "If somebody were to ask what my religion is, I once again reiterate to everybody. Between the four walls of my house, I read the Bible. When I go out of the house, I am a Hindu, I am a Muslim and I am also a Sikh. I practise their religions. I respect their religions," he said. Reading out the preamble of the Constitution of India, the YSRCP leader said everyone should seriously start contemplating where they stand on secularism. "A person visiting a temple needs to disclose his religion before he is permitted to enter the temple. What kind of secularism is this? What kind of secular country are we living in?" he asked. "If a former chief minister and someone who visited Tirumala not once but 10 times before is being given these kinds of notices for political reasons, barring him from entering temples what about the poor, what about Dalits? Can they enter these temples? What kind of message we are sending? What is BJP doing? Is this what they stand for?" Jagan Mohan Reddy asked while displaying notices served on YSRCP leaders and cadres. He slammed the BJP for allowing a person like Chandrababu Naidu who was misusing power and bringing down the reputation of the temple and prasadam and lying for political gains was allowed to go scot-free. "Because he is a part of NDA, is he at liberty to spread these kinds of lies? How can BJP support such a person instead of sending him to jail," he asked. "Why is the BJP sitting silent? The worst thing is BJP has joined the party bandwagon. BJP leaders from Hyderabad have come down to Tirupati. They are trying to cover up Naidu's crime and deviate the issue from laddu to my declaration," he said. New Delhi, Sep 27 : The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Centre to respond to a petition challenging the lack of transparency in the conduct of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance (NEET)-PG 2024 examination. A bench presided over by CJI D.Y. Chandrachud was apprised by senior advocate Vibha Datta Makhija, representing the petitioners, that the Union Health Ministry has failed to appear before the court despite due notice. At this, CJI Chandrachud-led Bench asked advocate-on-record Parul Shukla to inform the office of the Solicitor General, the second-highest law officer of the Centre, and posted the matter for hearing September 30 since NEET-PG counselling has already commenced. The NEET-PG exam was conducted by the National Board of Examinations (NBE) on August 11 and the results were announced on August 23. Last week, the Bench, also comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, agreed to examine the plea and sought the response of the NBE and the Union government in the matter. In their plea, NEET-PG aspirants claimed that the introduction of two shifts, normalisation method, and change in the tie-breaker criterion just three days before the examination affected the students adversely. The petitioners contended before the SC that the NEET-PG information bulletin could be amended at the whims and fancy of the authorities and no rules or regulations existed governing the conduct of examinations. The plea challenged the NBE's practice of not disclosing question papers, answer keys, or response sheets of candidates for the exam this year. The plea said that there was a clear lack of transparency in the conduct of the examination since none of the documents allowed students to check their performance, adding that neither the question paper, nor the response sheet filled in by candidates, nor an answer key was supplied to the students, and merely a scorecard had been provided. The petition, filed by advocate Shukla, highlighted that unlike previous years where the candidate used to receive their total score along with the number of correctly attempted questions and the number of incorrectly attempted questions, the results released on August 23 did not provide the total score of the candidate. "The method/manner in which examination under the NEET PG 2024 is conducted by the Respondents (authorities) is manifestly arbitrary and against the principles of transparency and fairness in state action as enshrined under Article 14 of the Constitution of India," it added. The plea said that NEET-PG had never been held in two shifts before and had always remained a single-shift and single-day examination to ensure a uniform examination standard and fairness of the national exam. It highlighted a "serious patent defect in the conduct of the examination", requiring redressal in order to achieve a clean, transparent and effective system of examination which gives the best candidates. "The NEET-PG being a multidisciplinary exam where oneas rank also determines their ability to opt for the course and field of their choice. Any slight variation in marks would bar several candidates from specialising in their field of interest," it added. Kolkata, Sep 27 : After Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the MV Ganga Vilas from Varanasi last year, Antara Cruises is all set to launch service from Kolkata to Varanasi. Antara Cruises, owners of the MV Ganga Vilas, promoted by the Ministry of Tourism and Incredible India, announced the launch of a 19-night, 20-day journey from Kolkata to Varanasi on the recently refurbished vessel MV Bengal Ganga. "Guests would get a feel of Kolkata's bustling flower market at Mullick Ghat, just next to the iconic Rabindra Setu or Howrah Bridge. There will be stops at key destinations like Kalna, Matiari, Murshidabad, Bateshwarthan, Sultanganj, Munger, Simaria, Patna, Buxar and Ghazipur," said Annapurna Garimella, Director, Antara Cruises while promising to deliver an immersive river cruising experience, steeped in India's rich culture, history and luxury. Annapurna Garimella added that the guests will get to explore the terracotta temples at Kalna and the Katra mosque in Murshidabad, among other things. "Throughout the cruise, guests will have the opportunity to engage with local traditions, arts and spirituality, witnessing the vibrant crafts and culture of the region," Garimella said. The MV Ganga Vilas from Varanasi which was flagged off by the Prime Minister in January last year created history by covering 3,200 km to Dibrugarh, Assam, in 51 days. During this voyage, the cruise liner passed through 27 river systems in India and Bangladesh. This was recorded as the longest river trip by a single river ship in the world. The experience became extremely popular, particularly among foreign tourists. Annapurna Garimella said that the MV Bengal Ganga has 20 suites with all modern amenities. "There are three categories to cater to all, from solo adventurers to families, hence the suites are between 145 sq feet to 290 sq feet in area, depending on the requirements of guests. The dining room, on the main deck, will serve Satvik (vegetarian) Indian dishes and international cuisine. Guests can also unwind at the lounge bar on the upper deck," said Garimella. Garimella said that once the MV Bengal Ganga anchors mid-river at Varanasi, guests can opt for short-time river cruises. "They can watch the awe-inspiring Ganga Aarti at Dashashwamedh Ghat and offer prayers at the Kashi Vishwanath Temple. They can also visit the world-famous Buddhist centre at Sarnath." A senior official in the Ministry of Tourism said that the government plans to utilise the National Waterways to promote tourism. "A lot of effort is on to make these routes navigable for cruise liners. There is immense potential. It is good that this initiative has been taken," the official said. Phnom Penh, Sep 27 : Cambodia received 4.29 million foreign visitors in the first eight months of 2024, up 22.5 per cent from 3.5 million over the same period last year, said a Ministry of Tourism's report released on Friday. Thailand still topped the chart among the international tourist arrivals to the Southeast Asian country during the January-August period this year, followed by Vietnam and China, the report said. About 1.34 million Thais traveled to Cambodia, up 13 per cent, the report said, Xinhua news agency reported. According to the report, 35.8 per cent of the total international tourists reached Cambodia by air, and 64.2 per cent by land and waterways. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said in a message to mark the World Tourism Day that tourism is the kingdom's "green gold," importantly contributing to boosting socio-economic development. He said the country is expected to "attract nearly 6 million international tourists in 2024 and up to 7 million in 2026." He is confident that the Chinese-invested 4E-level Siem Reap Angkor International Airport, which commenced commercial operations in November 2023, and the 4F-class Techo International Airport, which is expected to be put into use in the first half of 2025, will play an important role in serving tourists in the long run. Tourism is one of the four pillars supporting the country's economy. The sector made a gross revenue of 3.08 billion U.S. dollars in 2023, creating some 450,000 direct jobs, according to the Ministry of Tourism. Nairobi, Sep 27 : Kenya on Friday launched nine regional tourism circuits as part of a market diversification strategy aimed at attracting both foreign and domestic tourists. Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife Rebecca Miano announced that these circuits, spread across the country, are designed to revitalize Kenya's tourism industry by catering to current demands and emerging trends while aligning with conservation priorities. "We have incorporated emerging niches such as adventure, sports, culture, eco-tourism and wellness tourism. Each region offers a unique reason to visit, and we encourage travelers to savor the diverse experiences," she said in a release from Kenya's lakeside city of Kisumu, Xinhua news agency reported. According to the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife, Kenya's tourism sector experienced significant growth in 2023, with arrivals reaching 2 million, up from 1.48 million in 2022. The East African nation aims to welcome 3 million tourists by the end of 2024, with plans to reach 5 million visitors within the next two to three years. Miano said that the newly unveiled circuits are part of ongoing efforts by the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife to reimagine tourism experiences by showcasing hidden gems, which aim to boost both domestic and international travel. She noted that the ministry will invest in targeted marketing campaigns to promote the circuits as part of the broader Tembea Kenya agenda, the flagship program for boosting domestic tourism. "We invite Kenyans to share and showcase the best of their regions through a photo contest," she announced during the Kenya Tourism Week celebrations in the city of Kisumu. The week-long festivities included various events, activations, and showcases of Kisumu's unique tourist attractions. Each of the nine circuits -- Nairobi Circuit, Central Kenya Circuit, Coastal Circuit, Northern Circuit, Western Circuit, Southern Circuit, North Rift Circuit, South Rift Circuit and Eastern Circuit -- highlights some of the most iconic attractions within its region, supporting the ministry's efforts to diversify and enhance the visitor experience. Chief Executive Officer of Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) June Chepkemei said that the KTB will market the circuits to showcase Kenya's diverse attractions, playing a pivotal role in ensuring tourism opportunities reach every county, driving inclusive growth, and solidifying Kenya's status as a must-visit destination. Kolkata, Sep 27 : West Bengal Junior Doctors' Forum (WBJDF), which is spearheading the movement against the brutal rape and murder of the trainee doctor at R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital, will stage a mega rally on October 2. The rally will coincide with the twin occasions of Mahatma Gandhi's birthday and Mahalaya Amavasya (A significant day in Hinduism for performing rituals to honour ancestors). The decision was taken at a mass convention organised by the forum at the auditorium of state-run S.S.K.M. Medical College & Hospital in Kolkata on Friday evening. The rally will be followed by a meeting at Esplanade in Central Kolkata. At the same time, a symbolic statue representing a "woman in pain" will also be placed at R.G Kar in memory of the victim, said a WBJDF representative. Before that on September 29, the protesting junior doctors will be organising protests at their respective localities associating with the local people. The unique protest programme on September 29 has been christened as "Parai thkachi eksath, Utsave Noi Protibade" (Together at locality, but in protest and not celebrating festival). "We are not in a mental state to celebrate the festival on the occasion of the forthcoming Durga Puja. We are not asking anybody to be away from the festival. But enjoying the festival is simply not possible for us this year," said a forum representative. Noted social activist Bolan Gangopadhyay, who was present at the mass convention as a speaker, said that only spontaneous mass protests can send a message to the judicial system that people want quick justice in this case. "Common people are no longer relying on political parties to spearhead the movement," she said. A crucial hearing on the rape and murder case is scheduled at the Supreme Court on September 30. Originally the hearing was scheduled on September 27 but it was postponed to September 30, following a plea from the state government. Chandigarh, Sep 27 : Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has been undergoing some heart-related tests and examination, the results of which are still awaited, the hospital said on Friday. "Due to an increase in pressure in the Chief Minister's pulmonary artery, there was pressure on his heart, leading to irregular blood pressure. Currently, all vitals of the Chief Minister are completely stable," Fortis Hospital in Mohali said in a medical bulletin. "The doctor will make further decisions only after the results of the heart tests and examinations are available. The Chief Minister is responding well to treatment, and it is hoped that his condition will improve soon," it added. Mann was admitted to the hospital late Wednesday night. "The Chief Minister has been hospitalised as heas undergoing a thorough examination," a senior AAP leader said. He refused to reveal Mann's ailment, adding the Chief Ministeras health is "fine", and that, he will be discharged from the hospital "after a few more necessary tests". The Fortis Hospital, where he is undergoing treatment, refused to comment. Chief Minister Mann was admitted to Delhi's Apollo Hospital last week for observation, according to hospital sources. Hospital sources told IANS that CM Mann came for a routine checkup and was doing fine. There was no official statement either by the AAP or the Punjab government about CM Mannas condition. Opposition parties, like the Akali Dal and the Congress, had fired salvos at CM Mann and the AAP over the matter, demanding that they reveal his whereabouts and ailments. They also took a jibe over the tall claims of the AAP governments in Punjab and Delhi for the best state-run hospitals and clinics. CHONGQING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Business leaders from Fortune 500 and multinational corporations convened in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality on Friday to discuss opening-up and development strategies with local government officials. A total of 17 attendees contributed insights during the 18th Annual Meeting of the Chongqing Mayor's International Economic Advisory Council, addressing key issues such as enhancing smart manufacturing capabilities, exploring green industrial development, expanding market access, and fostering the exchange of leading technologies. This year, the council announced the addition of two new advisory members. Since its inception in 2006, the council has grown to include 38 overseas companies spanning such sectors as commerce and trade, energy supply, finance, insurance, and information technology. "Chongqing listens to global voices through this channel, while we contribute ideas and suggestions for the city's social, economic and industrial development," Wu Shengbo, vice president of Ford Motor Company, said during the meeting. He noted that the municipal government has translated the council's suggestions into policies and measures that boost social vitality, and that this approach has strengthened the confidence and commitment of companies in their development in Chongqing. Over the past 18 years, the advisory panel has submitted more than 1,000 recommendations to the local government, helping to address issues that foreign investors face in the local market. Islamabad, Sep 27 : A United Nations (UN) expert has called on Pakistan and Kenya to step up efforts to fully probe and investigate the killing of Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif in Kenya and prosecute those responsible. Sharif, a well-known Pakistani investigative journalist, was forced to leave Pakistan after allegedly being on the hit list of some terror outfit. He later moved to Kenya and was shot dead by the Kenyan police - claimed as a case of mistaken identity - on October 23, 2022. The journalist's autopsy revealed that he was subjected to brutal torture, leading to suspicions that the shooting incident may have been used as a cover-up. Arshad Sharif's family claimed involvement of Pakistani intelligence agencies in the murder, naming then Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and the then Director General of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Nadeem Anjum for the "targetted, premeditated, planned and well-coordinated" murder. The Kenyan High Court on July 8, this year, also termed the killing as unlawful, arbitrary and disproportionate in a landmark judgement. However, the probe seems to have been kept on the back burner by both the countries. "It is now almost two years since Arshad Sharif's death and several months since the Kenyan High Court delivered a historic judgment ruling his killing as arbitrary, disproportionate and unlawful. None of the police officers linked to the shooting has been arrested and no charges have been filed by prosecutors in Kenya yet," said UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Irene Khan. "I am deeply concerned that neither the Kenyan authorities, nor the Pakistani government has stepped up their efforts to fully investigate the case," she added. Khan acknowledged that the Kenyan High Court judgment is an important victory for Sharif's family, who had filed a civil suit. "But, its real impact will only be felt if the two governments bring the perpetrators of Sharif's murder to justice. I urge the Kenyan and Pakistani government to muster the political will to ensure full accountability and bring to justice all those responsible for Arshad Sharif's murder, so that this case can become a landmark reference in the fight against impunity for the killing of journalists," said Irene Khan. In October 2023, UN experts wrote to Kenyan and Pakistani authorities demanding investigations into the killing and the charges that led to Sharif's exile from Pakistan. An investigation committee was formed and a fact-finding team was sent to Kenya to investigate the case even as the victim's family directly blamed Pakistan's former army chief and the former ISI boss for being the main culprits behind the murder. "Justice for Mr. Sharif and his family will not be done until the circumstances behind his murder are fully clarified, including whether it was a transnational crime, and all responsible actors are identified, prosecuted and punished in Kenya and Pakistan," said Khan. London, Sep 27 : Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) on Friday fined Meta 91 million euros (around $101.5 million) for 2019 breach that exposed hundreds of millions of Facebook passwords. The Irish regulator announced its final decision following an inquiry into Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (MPIL) which was launched in April 2019, after meta said it had inadvertently stored certain passwords of social media users in 'plaintext' on its internal systems (without cryptographic protection or encryption). "It is widely accepted that user passwords should not be stored in plaintext, considering the risks of abuse that arise from persons accessing such data," said Graham Doyle, deputy commissioner at the DPC. "It must be borne in mind, that the passwords the subject of consideration in this case, are particularly sensitive, as they would enable access to users' social media accounts," Doyle added. Meta had published information regarding this incident in March 2019. These passwords were not made available to external parties. "This decision of the DPC concerns the GDPR principles of integrity and confidentiality. The GDPR requires data controllers to implement appropriate security measures when processing personal data, taking into account factors such as the risks to service users and the nature of the data processing," said the Irish regulator. In order to maintain security, data controllers should evaluate the risks inherent in the processing and implement measures to mitigate those risks. This decision emphasises the need to take such measures when storing user passwords, it added. The penalty is bigger than a 17 million euro fine the DPC placed to Meta in March 2022 over a 2018 security breach. Meta's earlier security lapses affected up to 30 million Facebook users compared to the hundreds of millions whose passwords were exposed as a result of its failure to secure passwords in 2019. New Delhi, Sep 27 : The country has seen two significant purification ceremonies that have sparked discussions about corruption and religious sanctity. The first took place at the renowned Tirupati Temple in the wake of allegations of adulteration in its famous laddus. The second occurred at the Jaipur Municipal Corporation, where a BJP MLA aimed to "cleanse" the civic body of corruption. These events have ignited a debate, with many arguing that purification rituals highlight broader concerns regarding trust and accountability in society. The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) conducted a purification ritual on September 23 in response to claims that the ghee used in the preparation of the renowned Tirupati laddus contained beef tallow. This controversy erupted after Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu ordered a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the allegations. The TTD admitted to the use of adulterated ghee and organised a "Shanti Homam", a purification ceremony aimed at rectifying this perceived wrongdoing. TTD officials reported that panchagavya -- five sacred products derived from cows -- was utilised in the purification process, and all temple premises were cleansed accordingly. In a separate yet equally contentious event, BJP MLA from Hawa Mahal seat in Rajasthan, Balmukund Acharya conducted a purification ceremony at the Jaipur Municipal Corporation Heritage (JMCH) office. This ceremony aimed to cleanse the civic body of corruption and coincided with the welcoming of Congress councillors into the BJP fold. Acharya, who is also the mahant of the Hathoj Dham temple, sprinkled a mixture of Gangajal (holy water from the Ganges) and gomutra (cow urine) on councillors and officials, asserting that it would eliminate corruption. During the ceremony, Acharya emphasised that the cleansing process would create an environment of purity within the JMCH. He claimed that the act of sprinkling the mixture symbolically purified the officials and councillors, and even encouraged them to partake in the concoction. His statements about carrying the mixture with him daily underscored his belief in its sanctifying properties. The BJP recently removed the sitting JMCH Mayor amid corruption allegations, replacing her with Kusum Yadav, who secured a majority with the support of turncoat seven Congress councillors and one independent. Observers are of the view that the purification ceremony could be seen as both a religious and political manoeuvre, aiming to present a united front against corruption while attracting new party members. The controversies surrounding the laddus and the JMCH ceremony also highlight a broader societal dialogue about corruption and moral integrity within public institutions. As public trust wanes, such events may serve as attempts to restore faith, albeit in ways that can provoke further scrutiny and debate, say analysts. Bhopal, Sep 27 : Two days after the violence between two groups turned out to be fatal in Shajapur, former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh on Thursday accused the Superintendent of Police (SP) of being 'biased' in taking action. Digvijaya Singh said the tension between the two groups had started three days before the deadly violence occurred, and Maksi police station and Shajapur SP were informed with written complaints. However, neither the Maksi police station nor SP acted on those complaints. "A group of persons opened fire for two conservative days and when the police were informed in writing, Maksi police station did not file a case. SP (Yashpal Singh Rajput) was also informed but didn't take action. How can an SP, who is the head of district police, be silent when firing incidents were going on for two days," Singh asked. He demanded that an independent inquiry should be conducted into the matter and SP's role should also be examined. "I would hold Shajapur SP and Maksi police station responsible for this deadly violence. It could have been averted had they acted swiftly after receiving complaints," Digvijaya Singh said after visiting Amjad Khan, who died in violence. Singh also said, "Today, when I asked Shajapur SP that what action he has taken in the matter, he said the investigation is under process. It seems SP is under pressure from the ruling BJP. It is a matter between two persons but the BJP trying to give it a Hindu-Muslim angle and the police are acting accordingly." The deceased family had lodged written complaints at Maksi police station on September 23 and also to SP Yashpal Singh Rajput on September 24. "Sameer Khan and Mahendra Patel along with several others outside my home started abusing Aneesh Khan (brother-in-law of Tabassum). They fired several shots and left the place threatening to teach a lesson to Aneesh," said Tabassum Khan, a woman from the deceased family told the police in her complaint. A day after, the deadly violence occurred when two groups pelted stones at each other late on September 25 and fired shots, during which, Amjad Khan died of bullet injuries, and one minor child (Junaid Khan) received bullet injuries and was admitted at a hospital in Indore, as police have stated after the incident. At least 10 people were injured in the violence. Police have arrested Amjad's (deceased) brother Aneesh Khan, who had a personal enmity with Mahendra Patel and Sameer Khan (who allegedly fired shots outside Tabassum's home for two days before deadly violence). United Nations, Sep 27 : Totally isolated at the world organisation in trying to raise the Kashmir issue, Pakistan Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif in a sabre-rattling speech at the General Assembly, on Friday threatened a decisive response to a "limited war" by India that he made up. He made up the claim that India's "war doctrines envisage a surprise attack and a limited war under the nuclear overhang" to capture the Kashmir territory it occupies "Let me state in no uncertain terms that Pakistan will respond most decisively to any Indian negation," he said of the imagined threat in a bid to get attention to Pakistan's version of the Kashmir issue. It takes an ominous tone because on at least three occasions Pakistan launched invasions of India under various pretenses, leading to two wars and a more limited conflict. Sharif asserted that "thoughtlessly, India has spurned Pakistan's proposals for a mutual, strategic, restrained regime" and "its leadership has often threatened to cross the line of control and take over territories it occupies". Sharif set revoking the changes made in August 2019 a condition for a dialogue. India's condition for talks, on the other hand, is an end terrorism emanating from Pakistan. In setting the condition, Sharif was referring to India ending the special status Kashmir had under Article 370 of the Constitution and integrating Kashmir more closely with the rest of the country. He said: "To secure durable peace, India must reverse the unilateral and illegal measures it has taken since 5th of August 2019 and enter into a dialogue for a peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN Security resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people." However, in fact, Security Council Resolution 47 adopted on April 21, 1948, requires the Pakistani government to first withdraw all its troops and infiltrators from the State of Jammu and Kashmir. That resolution also requires Islamabad not to fund or arm terrorists who continue attacks in Kashmir, an element Pakistan ignores. None of the world leaders who have spoken so far have even mentioned Kashmir a" not even Turkey, which had made an anodyne reference last year. Given the isolation, Sharif tried to link the Kashmir issue to Palestine, which has roused widespread attention. "Like the people of Palestine, the people of Jammu and Kashmir, too, have struggled for a century for their freedom and right to self-determination," he asserted. The leader of the Islamic Republic that denies equal rights to non-Muslim minorities, also tried to link the wider concerns over Islamaphobia to India. He claimed that the "Hindu supremacist agenda in India" foments Islamaphobia and "aggressively seeks the subjugation of 200 million Muslims and the obliteration of India's Islamic heritage". He said that Pakistan and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation "will work with the UN Secretary General and a special envoy to implement a plan of action to combat the scourge". While Pakistan exports terror, Sharif played the victim of terrorism, rattling of a string of names of terrorist organisations like ISIL-K, al-Qaeda, and TTP. He also spoke of the "90,000" Indian troops stationed in Kashmir, what he said were human rights violations there, and attempts to turn Muslims into a minority there. Bhopal, Sep 27 : At least two persons were reported dead and four injured after a wall of a school located adjacent to Mahakal temple in Ujjain collapsed on Friday evening. The incident occurred at gate number 4 of the Mahakal Lok Corridor. Senior officials and police reached the spot and rescued the persons trapped under debris and they were rushed to a nearby hospital. Ujjain SP Pradeep Sharma confirmed the report, saying that two bodies were recovered. He also informed that injured persons are being treated in different hospitals. One minor girl, who received severe injuries, has been referred to Indore. Preliminary information received from local residents suggested that the wall collapsed due to heavy rain in Ujjain. Maharajwada School, which is located near gate number 4 of the Mahakal Lok Corridor, was being renovated and a portion of the wall collapsed. Construction for the second phase of the Mahakal Lok Corridor is also underway, and the renovation of the school was carried out to give it a new look as it is located near the religious site. Notably, the first phase of Mahakal Lok Corridor was completed and was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 11, 2022. The project - Ujjain Mahakal Corridor - has been divided into two phases in which the temple complex will be expanded nearly eight times its present size from 2.82 hectares to 20.23 hectares by August 2023. --IANS pd/dan Mumbai, Sep 27 : The Election Commission of India (ECI) has expressed serious displeasure over non-compliance by the Maharashtra government with regard to the transfer of officials ahead of the upcoming Assembly election. The ECI in its letter had sought an explanation from the state Chief Secretary and Director General of Police to explain the circumstances as to why the compliance reports have not been furnished even after the lapse of the stipulated time limit despite the reminders in the matter. The issue was discussed during the meeting between the Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar led the ECI team and the state government officials comprising the Chief Secretary Sujata Saunik, and DGP Rashmi Shukla and other senior bureaucrats. Sources said that the ECI was not happy over the state governmentas non-compliance with its directives relating to the transfer of officials who have completed their three-year tenure and continue in the same posts. ECI during the Lok Sabha elections had sent reminders asking the state government to transfer some of the officers accordingly the state government had shifted the BrihanMumbai Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Chahal, additional commissioner Ashwini Bhind and a couple of others. However, the ECI was reportedly not happy for not complying with its directives regarding the transfer of other officers. ECI had sent three reminders but there was reportedly no response from the state government. Further, sources said that at todayas meeting the ECI also expressed displeasure over the inconvenience caused to the voters at the polling stations especially in Mumbai during the Lok Sabha elections. ECI instructed the state government to ensure minimum amenities such as benches, fans, drinking water and sheds to protect from the sub at the polling stations. However, the ECI pointed out that despite its advisories such facilities were missing at many polling stations during the Lok Sabha elections. ECI hinted at strict action on complaints with regard to inconvenience to the voters on the polling day. Sources said that the ECI also ordered proper management of queues at the polling stations and asked the Chief Secretary to ensure that the vacancies of assistant returning officers, which have been pending for a long time, are filled up soon. The CEC emphasised the need for conducting the election in a free and fair manner. Meanwhile, the state Chief Electoral Officer S Chockalingam in his presentation told the ECI team that as of September 22, there are 9.59 crore voters comprising 4.95 crore male and 4.64 crore female voters in the state. The number of total polling stations will be 52,789 comprising 39,048 in rural areas and 13,741 in urban areas. Bhopal, Sep 27 : The Madhya Pradesh government received an investment proposal worth over Rs 23,000 crore in the regional industry conclave held in Sagar district on Friday. The proposed investment, which involves the establishment of industrial units in several parts of the Sagar division, will pave the way for employment for over 27,000 youths, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav said. He emphasised that the implementation of the Ken-Betwa project, which has been approved by the Centre, will boost irrigation capacity across 2.5 lakh hectares in Bundelkhand, significantly transforming the region. "Additionally, the construction of an airport in Sagar will open new opportunities in the aviation sector," the Chief Minister said while addressing the inaugural session of the regional industry conclave in Sagar on Friday. During the conclave, Chief Minister Yadav issued letters of intent for 96 industrial units. About 240 acres of land are to be allotted to these units. With this, it is proposed to make a capital investment of Rs. 1,560 crore, the MP government said in a statement. Meanwhile, he inaugurated the investment facilitation centre in six districts of the Sagar division - Sagar, Panna, Tikamgarh, Niwari, Chhatarpur, and Damoh. Along with this, Chief Minister Yadav also virtually inaugurated the office of MPIDC in Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu). "On this occasion, an MoU was also signed between Municipal Corporation Sagar and MPIDC for the supply of treated water from the industrial area to Sindhgawan," the MP government said. It was the fourth regional industry conclave organised after Mohan Yadav became the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh after the BJP returned to power with absolute majority in the assembly elections held in November-December last year. Previously, the regional industry conclaves were held in Jabalpur, Indore, Ujjain and Gwalior while the next two conclaves scheduled in Rewa and Shahdol divisions in October. United Nations, Sep 27 : Supporters of imprisoned former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan held a protest demanding his freedom on Friday while Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif was speaking inside the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Gathering behind a huge flag with a picture of Khan, the participants in the protest organised by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) sympathisers demanded Khan's release and an end to crackdown on the opposition. Separated from them by a group of yellow-clad anti-Beijing regime protesters from the Falun Gong movement, a bigger group gathered to show their support to Muhammad Yunus, the de facto prime minister of Bangladesh. Wearing teeshirts proclaiming their allegiance to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, they waved Bangladesh flags and held aloft posters with pictures of the party's leader Khaleda Zia and Yunus welcoming the interim leader. Sharif spoke before Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, launching a vicious attack on him and his country. Sharif's motorcade took a route far from the protesters, which he could not see. Bhutan's Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay and Yunus spoke later in the morning session. Imran Khan is in prison after his conviction on corruption and state secrets violation charges. Several members of his party are also in detention, either convicted, on trial or as a preventive measure. Imran Khan was banned from contesting the February elections. The protesters demanded scrapping the election results as it was "rigged". New Delhi, Sep 27 : More than 67 crore Ayushman Bharat Health Accounts (ABHA) have been created, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday, marking the third anniversary of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). The ABHA service, a key feature under the ABDM, provides citizens with unique digital health IDs for secure access and sharing of health records. More than 42 crore health records have also been linked to ABHA, enabling seamless access to medical histories and enhancing healthcare delivery, the Ministry said. The ABDM was launched on September 27 to establish a robust digital health infrastructure. "ABDM has embarked on a transformative three-year journey with the aim to revolutionise the nation's digital healthcare ecosystem to enhance healthcare accessibility, efficiency, and transparency," the Ministry said. It has made significant progress by involving major private and public players in the digital health ecosystem since its launch. The Ministry said that more than 236 private entities including labs, pharmacies, and digital solution companies have integrated with the ABDM ecosystem, joining hands to achieve interoperability. "The public sector, institutions such as AIIMS Delhi and AIIMS Bhopal and many more have emerged as top performers in generating Scan and Share OPD registrations," the Ministry said. Currently, over 1.3 lakh facilities are ABDM-enabled, including more than 17,000 private facilities, it added. ABDM works by creating a single source via registries like ABHA, Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR), and Health Facility Registries (HFR). With ABDM patients can scan the QR code of the hospital and share their demographic details to register, minimising the long queues at the registration counter and reducing the risk of incomplete and inaccurate data. "It has recorded over 5 crore OPD tokens, significantly reducing waiting times from one hour to half an hour, further saving 2.5 crore man-hours," the Ministry said. Further, to encourage the adoption and implementation of digital health practices, the ABDM also gives the opportunity to earn incentives of up to 4 crores and has gained significant traction among private and public players. The mission has made significant progress by involving major private and public players in the digital health ecosystem since its launch, the Ministry said. DAMASCUS, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Twenty-three Syrian refugees, mostly women and children, were killed on Thursday in an airstrike on Lebanon's Younine area, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said. In a statement, the ministry said the airstrike was launched just hours before Israeli forces struck the Matrabah border crossing between Lebanon and Syria, injuring several refugees fleeing the violence. The statement accused Israel of deliberately targeting innocent civilians, including refugees seeking safety. It condemned Israel's "blatant disregard" for international law, humanitarian law, and human rights, saying that Israel's actions reflect its long-standing indifference to human lives. The ministry urged the international community to hold Israel accountable for its repeated violations of international law and to prevent further escalation of violence in the region. Bengaluru, Sep 27 : Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in Karnataka Assembly R. Ashoka on Friday criticised Congress after an FIR was lodged against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in the MUDA case. "Where is Rahul Gandhi, let him come to Karnataka. Let him come here and deliver a speech that his Congress government is corruption-free. No one is opening their mouths after the lodging of FIR," he said. He added that Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge being a senior leader is also tight-lipped like Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi. "Karnataka in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala has gone missing. It is proved that there is a corrupt government in Karnataka," he said. He said that the Karnataka High Court and Supreme Court have upheld decisions against CM Siddaramaiah and ordered FIR, adding that the Lokayukta has lodged cases under various sections including 420. "There is no reason as such for Siddaramaiah not to tender his resignation," Ashoka stated. "We are demanding the resignation of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. He controls all departments and how can investigations be conducted against him by those who are under him? The Chief Minister has powers to transfer and post senior police officers. The Home Minister can only transfer and post officers of the rank of police inspectors and below. The Lokayukta SP in Mysuru who is probing the case is posted by the Chief Minister," he pointed out. He said that in the history of Karnataka, no Chief Minister has continued in their positions after such allegations. "Former Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa submitted resignation when the Lokayukta filed an FIR against him", Ashoka stated. He added that the Late CM Ramkrishna Hegde submitted his resignation merely after surfacing allegations against him before the filing of the FIR. "We can't draw a parallel to Delhi's former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal," Ashoka stated. "Our state has got higher standards. The chief ministers of this state have resigned after the surfacing of allegations against them traditionally. The Lokayukta after dilly-dallying for three days have finally lodged the FIR against Siddaramaiah. The complainant Snehamayi Krishna has openly expressed his displeasure over the response of the Lokayukta even after the court judgement," Ashoka stated. He said that Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi criticised us as a 40 per cent government during the election campaign. "They maintained that if the Congress government is formed, they will deliver a corruption-free administration. What happened now," Ashoka questioned. He also said that in the last 14 months, a minister has resigned in the Rs 187 crore scam, "Now, the case has been lodged against the Chief Minister and his entire family. This is peculiar. What Rahul Gandhi is going to speak in other states while delivering speeches." He said that they came to power after branding us as corrupt. "No charges have been proved against us in the last 14 months. It is also proved that 40 per cent of allegations against us are also false. The person from the Karnataka Contractors' Association who made a 40 per cent corruption allegation against us, had announced that the Congress is an 80 per cent corrupt government," he stated. Srinagar, Sep 27 : Jammu and Kashmir Police at Awantipora in south Kashmir's Pulwama district arrested six terrorist associates and recovered IEDs, arms and ammunition and other incriminating materials from their possession, a police statement said on Friday. "Awantipora police got specific input that a Pakistan-based Kashmiri terrorist of JeM outfit was into the process of identification of youth who can be motivated to join terror ranks and after finding such youth, arms/ammunition/explosives was being delivered to these youth to commit terror acts before their formal joining into terror ranks," police said. Police added that upon this information, an FIR was registered at Police Station Tral, adding that during the investigation, the youth who were part of this module were identified. "It came to fore that Pakistan-based terrorists with the assistance of an OGW in jail identified many youth who were motivated by them to join terror ranks in the Tral area of Awantipora and Kulgam district," police said. Police added that the youth so identified were provided pistols, grenades, IEDs and other explosive materials to facilitate their joining into terror ranks. Before inducting them into terror ranks, they were instructed to do some terror activity either by target killing, throwing grenades on SFs /Public places, non-local labourers and laying and detonating IEDs. Police said during investigations, it also came to fore that Pakistan based terrorist handler had chosen some places for planting of IEDs with the assistance of these youth. The terrorist handler has also pumped in some money to carry out the tasks and to procure material for fabrication of more IEDs. So far six terrorist associates have been arrested in the case and from possession and upon disclosures of these accused persons, large quantity of arms /ammunition and explosives including five IEDs with remotes, 30 Detonators, 17 Batteries for IEDs, two Pistols, three Pistol Magazines, 25 live rounds of Pistol, four Hand grenades and Cash amount of Rs 20000 have been recovered. Police said that the investigation of the case is underway and more arrests and recoveries are likely in the case. Bengaluru, Sep 27 : In a major development, Karnataka Lokayukta Police has filed an FIR against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday in connection with the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) case, sources confirmed. In the FIR, CM Siddaramaiah has been named accused number one, his wife Parvathy the second accused and his brother-in-law Mallikarjun Swamy the third accused. The FIR copy mentions the period of occurrence of offence as between October 27, 1968, to October 9, 2023. The Mysuru Lokayukta Superintendent of Police (SP), T. J. Udesh, filed the FIR against CM Siddaramaiah and others at 1.15 p.m. and launched an investigation officially. The FIR is lodged under the IPC Sections 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy); 166 (disobey of law by public servant); 403 (dishonest appropriation of property); 406 (criminal breach of trust); 420 (cheating); 426 (mischief); 465 (forgery); 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating); 340 (wrongful confinement); 351 (intentional use of force or threat of force against another person without their consent). The FIR also mentions that the accused are booked under the Sections 9 and 13 of the Prevention of the Corruption Act; Section 3, 53 and 54 of the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988, and Sections 3, 4 of Karnataka Land Grabbing Prohibition Act, 2011. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah (75) is named as the prime accused; his wife Parvathy (65) is second accused; his brother-in-law Mallikarjuna Swamy (68) is third accused. Devaraju J alias Javara (70) is named as the fourth accused. The roles of others have also been registered. The FIR document has been submitted to the court. The Special Court for MLAs/MPs had directed the Mysuru Lokayukta to register the case under Section 156 (3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) against Siddaramaiah in the MUDA scam. The court had pronounced the order on Wednesday. The copy of the order further said: "Acting under Section 153 (6) of Code of Criminal Procedure, the jurisdictional police i.e. Superintendent of Police, Karnataka Lokayukta, Mysuru, is hereby directed to register the case, investigate and to file a report as contemplated under Section 173 of CrPC within three months from today." "Further, the office is directed to communicate the above orders of the court forthwith to the aforementioned jurisdictional police," the order said. The matter will be heard before the court on December 24, 2024." MUDA scam case petitioner and RTI activist Snehamayi Krishna has registered a complaint naming CM Siddaramaiah and others. United Nations, Sep 27 : Defying calls for a ceasefire and the harsh criticism from many world leaders, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday vowed to continue the military campaign against Hezbollah and Hamas till there is "total victory". "Enough is enough," he said at the high-level General Assembly meeting. "Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their homes safely. And that's exactly what we're doing. Israel has been tolerating this intolerable situation for almost a year," he said, defending the campaign against Hamas and Hezbollah. Netanyahu also gave a stern warning to Iran, which he accused of being behind the attacks on his country: "If you strike us, we will strike you." His defiant stance raised the threat of the continuing attacks on Lebanon-based Hezbollah turning into a broader conflict and the hopes of a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza receding. On Thursday, Lebanon's Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib gave his own warning. "From this rostrum we warn against this aggression and the propensity to play with fire," he said, "will set aflame the entire Middle East". Most speakers so far at the UN session called for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the campaign against Hezbollah, while some like Pakistan Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif who preceded him made vitriolic attacks on Israel. The Gaza war, which has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people, most of them civilians, and the attacks on Hezbollah, which recently resulted in booby-trapped pagers exploding in Lebanon killing or maiming several people, including children, were mentioned by several of the speakers. Netanyahu said that he did not intend to come to the UN, but "after I heard the lies and slanders leveled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight". He recounted the terrorist attack by Hamas almost a year ago on Israel that resulted in about 1,200 deaths and about 250 kidnappings. Nearly 100 of the hostages are still held by Hamas or other terror groups, while some have died and others have been released on escape. "This war can come to an end now," he said, adding: "All that has to happen is for Hamas to surrender, lay down its arms and release all the hostages." Netanyahu used maps to illustrate his point that Tehran's campaign against Israel stretched in an arc from Yemen to Lebanon. "There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach and that is true of the entire Middle East,"he warned. Hyderabad, Sep 27 : Industrial houses have come forward to restore and preserve the ancient stepwells in Hyderabad and promote them as tourist spots. Telangana's Tourism Department signed an agreement with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in this regard on Friday. The agreement was signed in the presence of Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy and Tourism Minister Jupally Krishna Rao. According to an official release, Infosys has taken responsibility for the renovation of the Mahalaka stepwell at Osmania University. Sai Life adopted Manchirevula stepwell while Bharat Biotech will restore the Salar Jung and Ammapalli wells. Adikmet stepwell will be renovated by Dodla Dairy while Falaknuma stepwell will be restored by Telangana State Road Transport Corporation. Koti Women's College will restore the Residency stepwell. Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister said that the historic buildings located along the Musi River will be developed as tourist spots. He appealed to the industrialists to come forward for the preservation of buildings that reflect the culture of Hyderabad. The CM said that the government is committed to promoting the tourism sector along with making Telangana a welfare state. Revanth Reddy said that the government has taken up the Musi Riverfront development project ambitiously. He criticised the previous government for neglecting the numerous historical buildings which have reached the dilapidated stage. The Chief Minister said the state government has taken up the renovation of the Old Assembly building and the state Legislative Council will be shifted to the renovated building soon. The famous Jubilee Hall, which is currently being used for the Legislative Council, has historical significance. The CM observed that the building was built with special technology, and it needs to be preserved in the future. He suggested CII adopt and preserve the historical Jubilee Hall. The Chief Minister said preservation of the old Osmania Hospital was also being taken up and a new building for the hospital will be constructed at Goshamahal Stadium soon. He emphasised the need for protection of the High Court building. He mentioned that the government has already allocated 100 acres of land for the construction of a new High Court building at Rajendra Nagar. There is also a need to preserve historical structures like Puranapool along with the Hyderabad City College building, the CM said, adding the Charminar conservation project was already under progress. The Chief Minister also stated that students studying in government schools are being provided an opportunity to visit tourist and historical places in the state free of cost. For this, the government launched the Telangana Darshini program and a government order has already been issued. Jaipur, Sep 27 : Deputy Rajasthan Chief Minister Diya Kumari on Friday said that the role of youth is important in promoting tourism. She was addressing a cultural programme on the occasion of World Tourism Day on Friday. The programme was organised by the Tourism Department at Albert Hall where Diya Kumar was the chief guest. While congratulating all on World Tourism Day, the Deputy Chief Minister said that "we are proud of the tourism, art and culture of Rajasthan". "We will make Rajasthan a leader in tourism and will make Rajasthan number one in tourism in the whole world. Social media influencers will play an important role in this endeavour," she added. Diya Kumari said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had brought Jaipur's global brand image into the limelight by getting the French President to visit Jaipur. She said that when the head of state of a country or any other big personality visits a tourist spot and gets photographed, the common people of that country become more curious about that place, eventually increasing tourism at the same place. Diya Kumari further said that "today is the era of social media". "Through social media, influencers are able to promote tourism at any place. Social media influencers click photos and shoot videos of any tourist spot and share them with common people," she said. She called upon the youth to promote "the tourist spots in the state as ambassadors of our Rajasthan tourism". Diya Kumari also honoured social media content creators on this occasion. Earlier, she also inaugurated the Marwar Hall of RTDC Jodhpur. She said that the contribution of tourism in the economy of Rajasthan is about 15 per cent of the state GDP. She said that along with our palaces, forts, stepwells, historical monuments, we also have many opportunities for rural tourism, wildlife tourism and many more The Deputy Chief Minister said that the theme of World Tourism Day this year in 2024 is Tourism and Peace. She said that the development of tourism is possible only with peace in the world. Diya Kumari said that Rising Rajasthan this year and IIFA Award in March 2025 next year will also prove to be a milestone for the tourism of Rajasthan. Investors can participate enthusiastically in the upcoming Rising Rajasthan Summit and become a part of the economic success story of the state. Similarly, IIFA Awards will develop tourism in the state. The walled city of Jaipur is our heritage, a UNESCO heritage site. As responsible citizens, we should preserve the heritage of our walled city and save it from being defaced, she added. New York, Sep 28 : Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's request for a meeting with former US President Donald Trump materialised on Friday, during which he said Kyiv counts on US support to defeat Russia regardless of who occupies the White House after the November 5 US presidential election. "It's very important to share, to share all the plan, all our steps, how we can strengthen Ukraine," Zelensky said while standing next to Trump in New York. "And of course, we have to decide it now, because after November, we don't know who is, only Americans decide who will be the President, but we understand that till November, we can't stop (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. We have to do it. We will try on the battlefield with our heroic soldiers. But we understand that after November, we have to decide, and we hope that the strengths of the US will be very strong, and we count on it. That's why I decided to meet with both candidates," the Ukrainian President added. Trump, for his part, said the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, which has been going on for more than two years now, has to end, Xinhua news agency reported. "At some point, it has to end," he added. The Trump-Zelensky meeting, which was held at Trump Tower in New York and confirmed by Trump only one day prior -- making Zelensky to change his itinerary and stay for an extra day in the US -- came on the heel of the Ukrainian leader's respective meetings on Thursday with President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, who's also the Democratic presidential nominee running against Trump. Both Biden and Harris vowed continued US support for Ukraine. Ahead of his meeting at the White House with Zelensky, Biden announced additional military assistance worth a total of $7.9 billion. He directed the Department of Defence to allocate all of its remaining security assistance funding that has been appropriated for Ukraine by the end of his presidential term in January. Harris, while meeting Zelensky, grasped the opportunity to slash Trump for the latter's criticism over what he said was Zelensky's lack of willingness to negotiate a peace deal with the Russians. "In candor, I share with you, Mr. President, there are some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality, and would require Ukraine to forego security relationships with other nations," Harris said in remarks alongside Zelensky on Thursday, in what appeared to be a thinly veiled reference to Trump. During a speech at a campaign rally in Mint Hill, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Trump gave what was his most explicit criticism of Zelensky's handling of Ukraine's conflict with Russia. "Those cities are gone, they're gone, and we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal, Zelensky. There was no deal that he could have made that wouldn't have been better than the situation you have right now. You have a country that has been obliterated, not possible to be rebuilt," Trump said. At Thursday's press conference in the Trump Tower lobby, the former President was asked whether Ukraine will have to give up any of its sovereign territory in order to reach a deal with Russia that brings an end to the conflict. "We'll see what happens," Trump said in response. New York, Sep 28 : Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's met with former US President Donald Trump on Friday, during which he said Kyiv counts on US support to defeat Russia regardless of who is elected to the White House after the November 5 US presidential election. "It's very important to share, to share all the plan, all our steps, how we can strengthen Ukraine," Zelensky said while standing next to Trump in New York. "And of course, we have to decide it now, because after November, we don't know who is, only Americans decide who will be the President, but we understand that till November, we can't stop (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. We have to do it. We will try on the battlefield with our heroic soldiers. But we understand that after November, we have to decide, and we hope that the strengths of the US will be very strong, and we count on it. That's why I decided to meet with both candidates," the Ukrainian President added. Trump, for his part, said the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, which has been going on for more than two years now, has to end, Xinhua news agency reported. "At some point, it has to end," he added. The Trump-Zelensky meeting, which was held at Trump Tower in New York and confirmed by Trump only one day prior -- making Zelensky to change his itinerary and stay for an extra day in the US -- came on the heel of the Ukrainian leader's respective meetings on Thursday with President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, who's also the Democratic presidential nominee running against Trump. Both Biden and Harris vowed continued US support for Ukraine. Ahead of his meeting at the White House with Zelensky, Biden announced additional military assistance worth a total of $7.9 billion. He directed the Department of Defence to allocate all of its remaining security assistance funding that has been appropriated for Ukraine by the end of his presidential term in January. Harris, while meeting Zelensky, grasped the opportunity to slash Trump for the latter's criticism over what he said was Zelensky's lack of willingness to negotiate a peace deal with the Russians. "In candor, I share with you, Mr. President, there are some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality, and would require Ukraine to forego security relationships with other nations," Harris said in remarks alongside Zelensky on Thursday, in what appeared to be a thinly veiled reference to Trump. During a speech at a campaign rally in Mint Hill, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Trump gave what was his most explicit criticism of Zelensky's handling of Ukraine's conflict with Russia. "Those cities are gone, they're gone, and we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal, Zelensky. There was no deal that he could have made that wouldn't have been better than the situation you have right now. You have a country that has been obliterated, not possible to be rebuilt," Trump said. At Thursday's press conference in the Trump Tower lobby, the former President was asked whether Ukraine will have to give up any of its sovereign territory in order to reach a deal with Russia that brings an end to the conflict. "We'll see what happens," Trump said in response. Washington, Sep 28 : The US has announced an agreement with the Iraqi government to end the military mission in Iraq of an American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group by next year. But the Biden administration refused to provide details on how many of the nearly 2,500 US troops still serving in Iraq will remain there or acknowledge it will mark a full withdrawal from the country. "I think it's fair to say that, you know, our footprint is going to be changing within the country," Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters on Friday without providing specifics. The announcement comes at a particularly contentious time for the Middle East, with escalating conflict between Israel and two Iranian-backed militant groups a" Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza a" threatening a broader regional war. Bases housing US forces and contractors have been regularly targeted by Iran-backed militias over the last several years, and those attacks intensified late last year and early this spring after the Israel-Hamas war broke out nearly a year ago. For years, Iraqi officials have periodically called for a withdrawal of coalition forces, and formal talks to wind down the US presence in the country have been going on for months. US officials who briefed reporters on Friday said the agreement will bring about a two-phase transition in the troops assigned to Iraq that began this month. In the first phase, which runs through September 2025, the coalition mission against ISIS will end and forces will leave some longstanding bases. Following the November election, American forces will start departing from Ain al-Asad airbase in western Iraq and from Baghdad International Airport, according to Iraqi government officials who spoke to media on the condition of anonymity. Those forces will be moved to Hareer base in Erbil, in northern Iraq's Kurdistan region. In the second phase, the US will continue to operate from Iraq through 2026 to support counter-ISIS operations in Syria, a senior Biden administration official and a senior defence official said on the condition of anonymity on a call with reporters to provide details ahead of the announcement. Ultimately, the US military mission would transition to a bilateral security relationship, the US officials said, but they did not indicate what that might mean for the number of American troops who remain in Iraq in the future. The Iraqi officials said some American troops may stay at Hareer base after 2026 because the Kurdistan regional government would like them to stay. "We have taken an important step in resolving the issue of the international coalition to fight ISIS," Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani said in a speech this month. He noted "the government's belief in the capabilities of our security forces that defeated the remnants of ISIS". The continued presence of US troops has been a political vulnerability for Sudani, whose government is under increased influence from Iran. Iraq has long struggled to balance its ties with the US and Iran, both allies of the Iraqi government but regional archenemies. "We thank the government for its position to expel the international coalition forces," Qais Khazali, founder of Asaib Ahl al-Haq a" an Iran-backed Iraqi Shia militia that has conducted attacks against US forces in Iraq a" said last week. The agreement marks the third time in the last two decades that the US has announced a formal transition of the military's role there. The US invaded Iraq in March 2003 in what it called a massive "shock and awe" bombing campaign that lit up the skies, laid waste to large sections of the country and paved the way for American ground troops to converge on Baghdad. The invasion was based on what turned out to be faulty claims that Saddam Hussein had secretly stashed weapons of mass destruction. The US presence grew to more than 170,000 troops at the peak of counterinsurgency operations in 2007. The Obama administration negotiated the drawdown of forces, and in December 2011, the final combat troops departed, leaving only a small number of military personnel behind to staff an office of security assistance and a detachment of Marines to guard the embassy compound. In 2014, the rise of the Islamic State group and its rapid capture of a wide swath across Iraq and Syria brought US and partner nation forces back at the invitation of the Iraqi government to help rebuild and retrain police and military units that had fallen apart and fled. After ISIS lost its hold on the territory it once claimed, coalition military operations ended in 2021. An enduring US presence of about 2,500 troops stayed in Iraq to maintain training and conduct partnered counter-ISIS operations with Iraq's military. In the years since, the US has maintained that presence to pressure Iranian-backed militias active in Iraq and Syria. The presence of American forces in Iraq also makes it more difficult for Iran to move weapons across Iraq and Syria into Lebanon, for use by its proxies, including the Lebanese Hezbollah, against Israel. United Nations, Sep 28 : Bangladesh leader Muhammad Yunus said that his government will uphold its bilateral treaties and is open to friendly relations with all countries based on mutual respect. Speaking in Bengali at the high-level session of the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, the de-facto Prime Minister, said, "I wish to assure that our government shall adhere to all international, regional and bilateral instruments that Bangladesh is party to." "Bangladesh is open to nurture friendly relations with all countries based on mutual respect, upholding our dignity and pride and shared interests," he said. The Nobel Prize-winner and microfinance pioneer holds the title of Chief Adviser of the interim government and functions as the de-facto Prime Minister. Yunus, who was invited by President Mohammed Shahabuddin to head the interim government after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned from her position as a wave of protests swept Bangladesh, said the Armed Forces backed the "Monsoon Revolution" by "standing firmly with the people". "During the recent revolution, our valiant armed forces have once again shown their commitment to peace by standing firmly with the people in fulfilling their aspirations for freedom during a most difficult time in our history," he added. Yunus called the protests in July and August the "Monsoon Revolution" that "primarily brought together people who were long left (out) in politics and development". "The people aspired for a just, inclusive, and functioning democracy for which our new generations made supreme sacrifice," he said. "We believe, the "Monsoon Revolution" that the world witnessed in Bangladesh in the span of few weeks, may inspire many across communities and countries, to stand for freedom and justice," he added. He asserted that when he took over, "justice, ethics and morality, almost at every level, reached a low". Oligarchs took over businesses and corruption was endemic, he said. "We are committed to promote and protect the fundamental rights -- for people to speak in freedom, to assemble without fear or inhibition, to vote whosoever they choose, to uphold the independence of the judiciary and freedom of press, including in the cyber domain," Yunus added. But he did not mention freedom of religion given that the country has seen a paroxysm of violence against Hindus and other minorities. Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, presides over a remote meeting held by the CPPCC National Committee in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 27, 2024. (Xinhua/Yan Yan) BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese national political advisors suggested improving relevant land, fiscal, tax and financial policies to support the country's urban renewal and transformation, at a remote meeting held Friday in Beijing. The seminar, held by the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, China's top political advisory body, was presided over by Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the CPPCC National Committee. Speaking at the meeting, Wang called on political advisors to participate in research and investigations on new urbanization and provide targeted advice regarding the topic. He also encouraged political advisors to help improve the public's understanding of urban renewal and respond to their concerns about the project. The attendees to the meeting advised better reconstruction of existing buildings, as well as renovation of old communities and urban infrastructure. They also called for efforts to improve urban ecosystems and promote the protection and adaptive reuse of historic buildings and blocks. The Association of American Publishers (AAP) has awarded Januskevic Publishing House, the Belarusian publisher now headquartered operating in Poland, its 2024 International Freedom to Publish Award. The annual award recognizes a publisher operating outside of the United States that has demonstrated "courage and fortitude" in defending the freedom of expression. "We are honored to accept AAPs Freedom to Publish Award, and we are thankful for the acknowledgment of our work in Belarus and in exile," said Andrej Januskevic, founder of Januskevic Publishing House, in a statement. "The Belarusian language illuminates our culture and heritage, and together with our friends and colleagues at other houses that have seen their licenses revoked... We vow to keep that light alive in hopes that it may serve as a beacon, giving comfort to citizens of our homeland, and hope to those who must live in exile." Januskevic launched in 2014, publishing fiction and nonfiction in the endangered Belarusian language. It has found itself increasingly under fire from the Belarusian government over the past decade, as the heavily contested administration of Alyaksandr Lukashenkawhose sixth term, which began in 2020, is not recognized by the European parliament or the governments of the U.S., U.K., or Canada, among othersbecame ever more characterized by Russian influence. In 2022, founder Januskevic was arrested for selling books and imprisoned for 28 days, forcing Januskevic to flee to Poland. There, the publishing house continued to publish materials for the Belarusian market until 2023, when Belarus revoked its publishing license, which the Belarusian government requires publishing houses to obtain in order to publish in the country. (Other independent publishers whose licenses have been revoked by the Belarusian Ministry of Information include Haliyafy, Knihazbor, Limaryus, Medysont, and Zmicier Kolas.) "This year we recognize a publishing house of extraordinary persistence and courage," said Maria A. Pallante, president and CEO of the AAP, in a statement. "The leaders of Januskevic Publishing House have braved censorship, suffered incarceration, and endured exile, all in service of their mission to provide readers with literature in the Belarusian language. Together, the Board, membership, and staff of the AAP applaud Januskevic for preserving and celebrating a language that has long been under attack, and for demonstrating why the freedom to publish is an essential element of democratic society." Januskevic continues to publish physical books and e-books in the Belarusian from Poland. Among its titles deemed "extremist" by the Belarusian government are The Dogs of Europe by Alhierd Bacharevic and the illustrated childrens book The Ballad of the Little Tugboat by Joseph Brodsky. Following an August 9 ruling by the Eighth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals, a coalition of publishers, authors, and advocates this week filed a new complaint seeking to strike down the sweeping book ban provision in Iowas controversial law, SF 496. The new filing features an expanded roster of plaintiffs, including all of the Big Five publishers and the Authors Guild, as well as the Iowa State Education Association (ISEA), four authors (Laurie Halse Anderson, John Green, Malinda Lo, and Jodi Picoult), two educators, and a high school student. And, according to a release by the plaintiffs, it narrows the suits claims to focus exclusively on the prohibition against any books containing sexual content. First signed by Iowa governor Kim Reynolds in May 2023, SF 496, among its provisions, bans books and materials with depictions of sex from school libraries. In response, various Iowa school districts have reportedly pulled hundreds of titles from their shelvesmore than 3,400, according to one study by the Des Moines Register. Following two lawsuits filed in November 2023, judge Stephen Locher blocked key provisions of the law on December 29, 2023. On appeal, however, the Eighth Circuit in August vacated the injunction and remanded the case back to Locher for a more thorough analysis of whether the plaintiffs' "facial challenge" to the lawa legal term that applies to claims that a government policy is unconstitutional as writtenwas proper at this juncture. But in vacating the injunction, the appeals court also handed the plaintiffs a significant legal victory, rejecting the states core legal defensethat the placement and removal of books from public school libraries and classrooms is government speech, and thus not subject to First Amendment claims. We must continue to stand togetheralongside educators, librarians, students, authors, and readersto protect the freedom to read... The government speech doctrine holds that the First Amendment does not impose a requirement of viewpoint-neutrality on speech undertaken by the government. The renewed action in Iowa comes after lawyers for Llano County pressed a similar government speech argument this week, before the full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, in another closely-watched book banning case. In their arguments, lawyers for Llano County urged the Fifth Circuit to respectfully disagree with the Eighth Circuits decision. In addition, on August 29, the publisher plaintiffs, along with Sourcebooks and other advocates, filed a lawsuit against the state of Florida challenging what the suit alleges is an unconstitutional book removal provision in Florida House Bill 1069. In a September 12 report, PEN America found that book bans in school libraries have surged from 3,362 in the 2022-2023 school year to more than 10,000 in the 2023-2024 school year. Some 8,000 of those bans came in Iowa and Florida following the enactment of new legislation. We must continue to stand togetheralongside educators, librarians, students, authors, and readersto protect the freedom to read and fight against the unconstitutional censorship measures being imposed by the state of Iowa, reads a joint statement issued by the plaintiffs. We will do everything we can to strike down SF 496s remaining book ban provision and defend the fundamental rights of Iowans to read, think, and learn freely. Washington State University Press, which had been slated for closure after university officials voted to eliminate its $300,000 annual funding, has been granted a second chance. WSU provost Chris Riley-Tillman, who joined the university on July 1, has committed funds from central administration for the press, and were going to be collaborating on different kinds of in-kind support, interim dean of libraries Trevor Bond told PW. As of September 1, WSUP is being managed under the umbrella of the libraries, with our fiscal officer providing support, Bond said, and the main goal will be to reduce expenses while maintaining revenue. Because the press is a nonprofit, we're not trying to make money, he explained. Were just trying to meet our production costs. Editor-in-chief Linda Bathgate and marketing manager Caryn Lawton will continue to lead the press, which was founded in 1928 and has published more than 260 titles. WSUPs offices will move into the library building on the main campus in Pullman, Wash., and, although the press and library will continue to function as separate entities, this affiliation gives the press access to a development director. Im looking forward to learning a lot about fundraising and working with donors, Bathgate said. Bond looks forward to working side by side with WSUP. One of the realities of the library is that weve shrunk our staff about 40 percent, he said. Im excited about the intellectual energy that the press generates, and the chance for the library to become a little more entrepreneurial as well. WSUPs threatened closure was not without its consequences. One full-time WSUP staffer was let go, and a half-time position was returned to the campus design and printing office when the budget cuts were announced. Bathgate said she and Lawton were given six months notice, with the objective that we would disassemble the press, get to work on returning rights to authors, and get rid of inventory by the end of December. Even when the provost saved the presswith encouragement from alums, donors, and WSUP authorsbudgetary limitations made it impossible to bring back the lost position. Now, Bathgate and Lawton continue to process orders and returns in addition to their regular work of acquisitions and marketing, because WSUP has its own warehouse and does much of its paperback printing and binding on-site. This means were doing all of our distribution ourselves, Bathgate said. We do use Ingram and Baker & Taylor as our wholesalers, but everything comes out of our warehouse. So its been a real challenge. She and Bond are discussing how student employees might help maintain the business part of the press until we either find an outside distributor or enough funds to support a staff. The temporary pause also interrupted the publishing timeline. We had a list of seven titles for the fall, and the catalog had gone out, Bathgate said. We were never instructed to stop production, so we kept moving forward. Once the new arrangement with the library was in place, Bathgate talked with Bond about how to space out that fall list and move some books into the spring season, to manage our expenses and keep things more sustainable. Current and forthcoming titles include Thomas Bancroft's Beyond the Wonder: An Ecologist's View of Wild Alaska, Dennis Crockett's Northwest history Becoming Walla Walla, Tony Tekaroniake Evans's Believing in Indians (Nov.), and Bruce A. Ramsey's Seattle in the Great Depression (Jan. 2025). In the near future, the central WSUP brand will be Bathgates top priority, because it involves peer-reviewed, editorial boardapproved scholarship. Yet WSUP remains committed to its imprints, the regionally focused Basalt Books and collaborative venture Pines Press. Pines Press is a new imprint, and a lot of the editorial work is done through Whitworth University in Spokane, Bathgate explained. So were providing the marketing and production expertise to help Whitworth have a publishing arm and plan one book per year. WSUP also serves as distributor for Spokane independent poetry publisher Lost Horse Press, which focuses on Ukrainian poetry. WSUP has come through a rocky year, and its restoration is a dream come true, Bathgate said. Were turning 100 in four years, so its nice to think we can plan for our 100-year anniversary. This weekends Mancunian trip between Manchester and Bridgnorth will raise money for Maggies charity. Maggies offer emotional and practical support to those with cancer and their loved ones. The train will run on the 28th of September, with the locomotive starting as LMS Black 5 No. 44871. 44871 will head from Manchester Piccadilly (departing at 07:26) to Kidderminster (arrival at 11:39), passing through places like Stockport (07:38), Stoke-on-Trent (08:29), Stafford (08:56), Penkridge (10:10) and Rowley Regis at 11:09. On arrival at Kidderminster, 44871 will make way for 45596 Bahamas for the trip to Bridgnorth. The tour is close to the hearts of those working for 45596s owners, the Bahamas Locomotive Society, as Maggies supported long-serving volunteer, Steve Peach. 41241, 4079 and 45596 at Haworth Sheds, Keighley and Worth Valley Railway // Credit: RailAdvent The tour runs in memory of Peachy, who Keith Whitmore, BLS Chairman, says was one of the backbone of the BLS loco team. 45596 Bahamas will take the train from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth and return, before swapping back to 44871 at Kidderminster for the return to Manchester Victoria (not Piccadilly). The return trip will depart Kidderminster at 16:45 and will head back to Manchester via Bescot Stadium (17:34), Stafford (18:16), Macclesfield (19:55), Stockport (20:36), Denton (20:50), Guide Bridge (21:25 train reverses here, diesel hauled to Manchester Victoria), and Manchester Victoria at 21:54. Would you like to know if 44871 is due to pass through your local station? As a RailAdvent Plus member, you can do just that with our Station News And Tours page! To view the train times, please click here. Peachy was one the backbone of our loco team, and the support provided by Maggies brought great comfort to him and his family when needed most. I would like to thank the Railway Touring Company for continued desire to operate the train, and also the Severn Valley Railway for their willingness to accept an unusual request for assistance at short notice. Keith Whitmore, BLS Chairman If you do go out and see 44871 or 45596, why not sign up to LocoStop. This is our free-to-join railway community, and allows you to share your photos from your adventures! Click here to share your railway pictures. As always, please respect the dangers of the railway. Please do not trespass on the railway to see this iconic locomotive stay to public access spots. The death sentences keep coming from Branch 26 of Tehrans Revolutionary Court. In July, the courts presiding judge, Iman Afshari, pronounced the dreaded verdict for Pakhshan Azizi, a prominent Iranian womens rights activist and social worker, who had already spent the previous year in prison. The trumped-up charge: Rebellion against the Islamic Republic. The reality: She had angered the theocracy with peaceful activism for human rights. For Judge Afshari, it was a routine day in court. In his six years on the job, he has repeatedly imposed draconian sentences including capital punishment, lengthy prison terms, exile, and even lashes for the crime of expressing disagreement with the clerical dictatorship. His cruelty has drawn the attention of Western nations like Canada and the United Kingdom, both of which sanctioned the judge in 2022 as part of a name-and-shame campaign. However, while the United States has previously attempted to apply diplomatic pressure on Tehran by sanctioning other Iranian judges, it has yet to target Afshari. It should. Irans judiciary purports to consist of independent and impartial courts of law that dispense justice. Theyre anything but. The very existence of the Revolutionary Court system a parallel judicial body, separate from the countrys criminal and civil courts, that tries political prisoners and dissidents, among others reflects Tehrans ideological agenda, which seeks to enforce the laws and norms of radical Shiite Islam. In a 2023 human rights report, the U.S. State Department noted that the Revolutionary Courts were responsible for routinely holding grossly unfair trials without due process, handing down predetermined verdicts, and rubberstamping executions for political purposes. Afshari helps perpetuate this system. According to the California-based nonprofit United for Iran, the judge has issued more than 330 sentences over the course of his tenure, imposing a combined total of some 1,060 years of prison terms. He has targeted dissidents, human rights activists, artists, journalists, and ethnic and religious minorities. He has directed particular ire at women who defy the regimes mandate to wear the hijab, or headscarf, in public. For example, in 2019, the judge sentenced Saba Kord Afshari (the two are not related), at the time only 20 years old, to 24 years in jail for a range of charges that included protesting the hijab laws or, as the court put it, inciting and facilitating corruption and prostitution by promoting unveiling. In a rare stroke of good luck, however, the regime ultimately released her in 2023 as part of a general amnesty for hundreds of prisoners to mark the 44th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. In another prominent case, Afshari sentenced two Bahai women, Mahvash Sabet and Fariba Kamalabadi, in 2022 to 10-year prison terms for their leadership roles in their religious community. Their trial lasted only one hour. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom condemned the ruling, noting that the Islamic Republic has subjected the Bahai to systematic religious discrimination for decades. Most jarringly, both Sabet and Kamalabadi previously served a decade-long prison sentence between 2008 and 2017 for their religious activities. That didnt stop Afshari from imposing another one. Christians in Iran havent fared any better. For example, in February 2024, Afshari sentenced Hakop Gochumyan, an Armenian Christian, to 10 years in prison for allegedly engaging in deviant proselytizing activity that contradicts the sacred law of Islam. In March, Afshari sentenced Laleh Saati, a Christian convert, to a two-year jail term for allegedly acting against national security through association with Zionist Christian organizations. Score of other Christians have received prison sentences in recent years merely for practicing their faith. Afsharis fabricated charges often lack any meaningful evidence. In January 2024, Tehran hanged four ethnic Kurds, after 18 months in prison, for allegedly plotting with Israels Mossad intelligence agency to blow up a missile and weapons factory belonging to Irans defense ministry. Tellingly, the court announced the sentence only after a brief, secret trial devoid of due process. The regime even broadcast the four defendants forced confessions, extracted through torture, on state television. In another case with implausible charges, Afshari sentenced Iranian-Swedish dual national Saeed Azizi to five years in jail in January 2024 for alleged assembly and collusion against national security. In a trial beginning in December 2023, Afshari also advanced spurious charges of espionage and corruption on earth against Swedish diplomat Johan Floderus, whom Tehran had imprisoned in 2022. In reality, the regime and Afshari were apparently working together to use both men as bargaining chips to secure the release of a former Iranian official from a Swedish jail. Tehrans scheme succeeded. In June 2024, before Afshari could announce Floderuss sentence, Iran traded the two Swedes for Hamid Nouri, whom Stockholm had previously sentenced to life in prison for his role in Irans 1988 massacre of thousands of political prisoners. Afsharis victims are legion, and they deserve support from Washington. While U.S. sanctions are unlikely to exert any significant economic impact on Afshari, naming and shaming him would send a powerful message to the Iranian people that America stands with them in the face of severe domestic repression. Its long past time for the Biden administration to act. Tzvi Kahn is a research fellow and senior editor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on X @TzviKahn. ANKARA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Turkish forces have "neutralized" 22 "terrorists" in operations in northern Iraq and northern Syria, the country's Defense Ministry said on Friday. Twenty-one members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were "neutralized" in the Gara and Asos regions of northern Iraq, the ministry said in a statement, adding one more "terrorist" belonging to the PKK's Syrian branch, the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), was killed in northern Syria's "Operation Euphrates Shield" region. The ministry did not specify the exact dates of the operations. The Turkish army launched Operation Euphrates Shield in 2016, Operation Olive Branch in 2018, Operation Peace Spring in 2019, and Operation Spring Shield in 2020 in northern Syria to create a YPG-free zone along the Turkish border within the neighboring country. The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkiye, the United States, and the European Union, has been rebelling against the Turkish government for more than three decades. Turkish authorities often use the term "neutralized" in their statements to imply the alleged "terrorists" have either surrendered, been killed, or been captured. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale Buy real estate. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale in US and Canada. Search Real Estate By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 09/26/2024 ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade. couple Annie Suwan and David Toborowsky have revealed the sex of their first child together."We are having a baby girl! So humbled by all the love and support that we've received throughout this journey with IVF," Annie and David said in a statement posted on 's official Instagram page."We really experienced taking the impossible to reality. I'm so happy I get to experience the feeling of being a mom. We are over the moon."The couple added, "We can't wait for the newest 90 Day arrival!"While Annie is "so happy" to become a mom, David already has two daughters, Ashley and Brittani, and a son Jacob from a previous relationship.Annie and David announced in early July that Annie is pregnant following an IVF journey.Annie had a successful embryo transfer procedure done on June 26, and she took to Instagram on July 5 to share her big news with the world."The test results said I'm pregnant !!!!" Annie wrote in her caption at the time, along with a handful of red heart and smiling emojis.In the video, Annie said, "Hi everyone! I just want to update you. I got the news. David just got an email [from the doctor]. Come on, tell them!"David proceeded to enter the room, showing off his phone."We got a phone call, and Annie is pregnant," David shared in the clip alongside an ecstatic and smiling Annie."Thank you all for the prayers, and your support has been overwhelming."Annie added, "Thank you everyone! Thank you so much. Thank you for your love and support. I can't wait... and keep sending prayers because I still need it. I'm so excited!"David also wrote in the comments of Annie's post, "I am so happy my love you are going to be an amazing Mom. I love so proud of you."David was a 48-year-old from Louisville, KY, and Annie was a 24-year-old from Bueng Kan, Thailand when she arrived in America on a K-1 visa.After originally appearing on Season 5 of , David and Annie -- who met in a bar in Thailand -- also returned for Season 3 of : Happily Ever After?.David struggled financially, especially when it came to impressing and receiving approval from Annie's parents. And despite allegations against David of substance abuse and infidelity, Annie still married him.In 2019, David was working a part-time job teaching English as a Second Language classes to adults in the Lexington area, but the couple was still living in an apartment above a storage facility owned by David's friend Chris that Annie hated.Once Annie received her travel and work permits after waiting over five months for her paperwork to be processed, she and David moved out of their apartment and began traveling the country and staying with family and friends.In August 2019, the couple -- who have also continued to make appearances on TLC's : Pillow Talk commentary show -- announced they had decided to settle in Arizona and were living in an apartment in Scottsdale.At the time, David was making money by teaching online classes.During a September 2020 episode of : Pillow Talk, David and Annie were shown celebrating their move to a new home in Fountain Hills, AZ.David and Annie then starred on two seasons of David & Annie: After the 90 Days, which aired from 2022 to 2023.The series showed the couple returning to Thailand to attempt to bring Annie's teenage brother Jordan and cousin Amber to America. It also documented David's weight-loss journey and the couple as they navigated marriage.Annie said in late 2022 that she and David try to stay positive during challenging times and have fun given "life is not easy.""Life is not perfect, [often] being too up and down," Annie explained at the time."But, you know, at the end of the day, I appreciate everybody who [has been] on my side no matter what I want to do, what I want to be and accept that the un-perfect part of myself and be my friend [or] my family and my husband."Annie officially became a U.S. citizen in February 2024.Want more spoilers or couples updates? Click here to visit our homepage! Instagram By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 09/26/2024 ADVERTISEMENT FOLLOW REALITY TV WORLD ON THE ALL-NEW GOOGLE NEWS! Reality TV World is now available on the all-new Google News app and website. Click here to visit our Google News page, and then click FOLLOW to add us as a news source! ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade. alum Artem Chigvintsev has spoken out about his domestic violence arrest and estranged wife Nikki " Nikki Bella " Garcia's divorce filing.Artem, 42, was arrested on a felony domestic battery charge in Yountville, CA on August 29 and released on $25,000 bail that same day, but it's unclear whether Nikki was involved in the incident that led to Artem's arrest."I am incredibly relieved and grateful that the domestic violence charges against me have been dropped," Artem, 42, wrote via Instagram Stories on Wednesday.Napa County District Attorney Allison Haley shared on September 24 that charges will not be filed against Artem following a "thorough review of the criminal investigation and careful evaluation of the evidence presented to the DA's Office," according to E! News."We are required to prove any and every criminal charge 'beyond a reasonable doubt' which is the highest standard in the American criminal justice system," Haley added in her statement."If the available evidence doesn't rise to this level of proof, then we cannot ethically file charges."About two weeks after Artem's arrest, Nikki filed for divorce from Artem on September 12 and requested joint custody of their four-year-old son Matteo.Artem reportedly responded on September 13 by asking for joint legal and physical custody of Matteo, in addition to spousal support from Nikki."This has been an extremely difficult time for me. I am thankful that the truth has prevailed," Artem continued in his Instagram statement.The former pro went on to explain how Matteo, who was born in July 2020, will remain his No. 1 priority going forward."My focus has always been and will always be, our son Matteo. He is my world, and being his father is the greatest blessing in my life," Artem wrote."All along, my main concern has been for him. I am committed to continuing to provide him with the love, support, and care he needs as we move forward. I am hopeful that securing an equal custody arrangement will help us move on."Artem's lawyer Ilona Antonyan told Us Weekly that the pro dancer and choreographer was not the "primary aggressor" in the August domestic violence incident for which very few details have been publicly released."We can now focus on negotiating a shared 50/50 custody schedule. Fortunately, Artem has been able to spend time with Matteo almost every day since 8/29/2024 incident," Antonyan told the magazine on Wednesday."He is a very dedicated, interactive, nurturing, and loving parent. My understanding of the facts surrounding the 8/29/24 incident have led me to believe that Artem was not the primary aggressor."Antonyan continued, "I believe that to be true even if the burden of proof would be the preponderance of evidence, which is the standard of proof in family court. He was protecting himself and Matteo."Antonyan added that Artem has a "strong support group of loving family and friends" by his side in the aftermath of Nikki's divorce filing."I am confident he will move forward from this situation with strength and dignity. Artem is fully committed to fostering a positive co-parenting relationship with his ex," Antonyan concluded."Divorce is never easy, but once custody is settled, the remaining issues tend to be less emotionally charged and easier to resolve."Napa Valley Sheriff PIO Henry Wofford told Us after Artem's arrest that the pro dancer was "not fighting or combative" with police and was taken into custody "without incident."While Artem was arrested on the grounds of allegedly injuring a spouse, cohabitant or fellow parent, officials have refused to confirm anything about the victim in question.The alleged victim reportedly "requested complete confidentiality" and so prosecutors will not be sharing details about the case. However, the case may be revisited if the court learns of other incidents or facts not previously known.Nikki's representative told Us the day after Artem's arrest, "This is a private matter, and Nikki asks for privacy for her and her family at this time."TMZ recently obtained a 911 dispatch recording in which Artem can be heard asking for medical attention after Nikki -- a former WWE wrestler under the name Nikki Bella -- allegedly threw shoes at him.However, Artem reportedly called the police back shortly afterward and said he no longer needed assistance.Nikki and Artem, who got married in 2022, were celebrating their second wedding anniversary in Napa just days before Artem was taken into custody.Nikki and Artem's relationship appeared to be thriving as recently as August 27, when Nikki gushed on Instagram, "I'll never forget where I was when I asked Jesus about Artem. Having a conversation with He & God. How my feelings felt too soon. It all felt too fast."Alongside a clip from their wedding day, Nikki continued, "And then this song ['Can't Help Falling in Love'] came on. And that's when I knew that I was falling in love with him and that it was all meant to be."Artem, for his part, posted a carousel of photos from his wedding day, and he wrote alongside them, "Happy anniversary my love, can't see my life without you. You are my everything."Nikki and the pro dancer met when they were partnered together for ' 25th season in Fall 2017.At the time of Nikki's stint, she was engaged to her now ex-fiance John Cena However, after Nikki and John called it quits on their six-year romance in April 2018, Nikki began dating Artem and John seemed happy for them.The former Total Divas star and Artem were eliminated from during a double elimination on Season 25's Halloween-themed broadcast.Nikki announced her engagement to Artem in January 2020 after the pair had dated for less than one year. Artem popped the question in November 2019 during a trip to France.Artem and the former Total Bellas star then revealed they were expecting their first child together.Two years after Matteo's Summer 2020 birth, the couple tied the knot in France for a wedding special that aired on E!.Artem is not competing on ' currently-airing 33rd season, but he did make it to the finals and finish the reality dancing competition in fourth place with The Bachelorette alum Charity Lawson last season. Disney/Eric McCandless By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 09/26/2024 ADVERTISEMENT FOLLOW REALITY TV WORLD ON THE ALL-NEW GOOGLE NEWS! Reality TV World is now available on the all-new Google News app and website. Click here to visit our Google News page, and then click FOLLOW to add us as a news source! ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade. pro Ezra Sosa has reacted to his celebrity partner Anna Delvey's "nothing" remarkEzra, 23, took to Instagram Stories on Wednesday and wrote of Anna's "nothing" comment, which has since gone viral, "I think she was referring to taking anything away 'physically.'"But earlier this week, Ezra suggested that Anna was taking a shot at and didn't really care how her remark would be perceived by the public."I knew she was going to say something very iconic and something very Anna Delvey with her exit," Ezra told Extra on Tuesday, September 24."Of course, she has to. It's very typical. We would expect nothing less of her."After Anna, a convicted felon, and reality TV star Tori Spelling were both eliminated during ' Season 33 episode on Tuesday night, Tori happily called her short-lived experience on the show "unbelievable."But when co-host Julianne Hough asked Anna to share her takeaway, Anna replied, "Nothing," as Ezra shook his head and smiled."There you have it! Absolutely nothing," Julianne said with a laugh, before host Alfonso Ribeiro quipped to Anna, "You had fun, stop it."But Ezra revealed to Extra that Anna was actually very kind and gracious to him behind the scenes.In fact, Anna allegedly felt guilty about Ezra's early ouster from his debut season."She honestly kept on apologizing to me," Ezra shared. "She felt super sorry that my first season was cut short."Ezra said he wishes that he and Anna could have "stayed longer" in the competition."I honestly wanted to stay longer for my partner. I really wanted to give her a chance to really grow on camera and let America really see who she really is," Ezra said.The pro dancer and choreographer insisted that Anna is actually "incredibly sweet" and so she's "misunderstood" in the eyes of viewers."I really tried my best to see her for the person she is outside the persona," Ezra added.But Anna has faced a lot of backlash and criticism for appearing on after spending time in jail.Former pro and guest judge Maksim Chmerkovskiy even called Anna "a professional liar" and a flat out "sh-tty dancer" who doesn't really deserve anyone's respect.According to a TikTok video Ezra posted earlier this week, he found Anna crying in the bathroom and it "broke [his] heart" to see that."Anna is a tough cookie, so seeing her in that state really shocked me and made me sad. In that moment, I just grabbed her hands and told her, 'When you are in the competition with me, whatever you are going through, I am going through with you,'" Ezra recalled.When looking back on his self-described "memorable" experience on , Ezra wrote on Instagram how he feels the "deepest gratitude" to Anna."Yes, she's been controversial," he wrote, "but working with her gave me the chance to see a different side -- one filled with her hard work, determination, and resilience."Ezra went on to thank the family as well as friends and fans."[Anna], I want to thank you for dancing with me and for opening up. You allowed me to see a side of you that not many have, and I'm grateful for that," Ezra concluded in his post."I truly hope that one day, America gets to meet that side of you too. They will love her just as much as I do. Wishing you the best and can't wait to hangout and make TikToks soon. xx #dwts."The day after Anna's departure from in the special double elimination, Anna appeared to stand by her cutting comment when she reposted praise from her friend and publicist Kelly Cutrone via Instagram Stories."Loving the real of @theannadelvey. I could give 2 fks flex," Kelly wrote on Wednesday.Maksim didn't hesitate to slam Anna when discussing her casting on the September 23 episode of the "TMZ Podcast.""If you want an ankle [bracelet] and sort of this, 'Damn, this is going to draw attention,' and the scandalousness of it all -- I mean, man, there's so many other people you can choose from," Maksim complained.Maksim confessed he was "absolutely not" a fan of Anna and he couldn't believe a word that she said.Maksim went on to critique Anna's first cha cha performance with Ezra for which she had bedazzled her ankle monitor."She wasn't great. She was very kind of standoffish in a lot of things," Maksim explained."You can blame the nerves and say, 'Hey, everybody's human and this person is not used to that stage.' Bullsh-t. Hold on a second -- didn't she con people into believing she was, like, fully fashion this and special like that?"Maksim said fooling the world "takes a lot of guts" and so he wasn't buying that Anna was "nervous" to be on TV either."She's just a sh-tty dancer, and her personality is not really going to help her in this competition," Maksim said.When asked to share how many weeks he thought Anna would remain in the competition, Maksim responded, "I don't care."The pro dancer and dad admitted, "She's not somebody I'd tune in to watch. I feel for [Ezra], he's got an uphill climb -- just even the dancing part of it."Maksim concluded, "You're going to have to do a lot more to win somebody like me over after everything that you were accused of. But now you get to [serve] your time by bedazzling your ankle brace and being on national TV? I'm not about that."On ' premiere , Anna had chosen "Espresso" by Sabrina Carpenter as her anthem. She and Ezra ended up in a three-way tie for eighth place on the judges' leaderboard after receiving a total of 18 out 30 possible points from Derek Hough Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli Following their performance, Carrie Ann asked viewers to give Anna a chance because she could tell the studio audience wasn't very supportive or receptive of her.Anna was arrested in 2017 and indicted on multiple counts of grand larceny and misdemeanor theft.Anna was released from prison on parole in 2021. Her story about fraudulently posing as a wealthy German heiress was developed into the 2022 miniseries Inventing Anna on Netflix.On ' latest broadcast, Anna and Ezra only received 17 points for their quickstep performance to "Suddenly I See" by KT Tunstall. BAGHDAD, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a Shiite militia group, on Friday claimed responsibility for several drone and missile attacks on Israeli targets. The group said in separate statements that its fighters fired at dawn an al-Arqab upgraded cruise missile at a vital Israeli site in the "occupied (Palestinian) territories" and launched two drone attacks on two other sites in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The statements did not provide further details about the attacked sites or report any casualties. Since the onset of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq has executed numerous attacks on Israeli and U.S. targets in the region to support Palestinians in Gaza. The group escalated its attacks on Israel following the recent flare-up between Israel and Hezbollah. Georgia Power is warning that Hurricane Helene is expected to bring strong rains, hail and excessive lightning across the state Thursday through Friday. This weather may cause power outages. In case this happens, the University of Georgia Enterprise Information Technology Services suggests following these tips. As an English and journalism double major at the University of Georgia, Ive read my fair share of controversial and interesting texts for various courses. I was even more shocked to discover that some of the books Ive read have found their spots on the ALAs banned and challenged books list. In honor of last weeks celebration, I decided to compile a list of my top five banned and challenged titles. Following up on the Texas Roadhouse donations to the Barrow Community Foundation, the restaurant located in Athens donated $3,000 towards the organization from their fundraiser that took place from 3-10 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 23. In total, locations across Georgia raised $48,000 for the cause. Concerned over the fallout of the Red Sea crisis and severe shortage of containers against the backdrop of a steep decline in merchandise exports in August, the Union government is pulling out all the stops to find a solution. Image used for representation purpose only. Photograph: Aly Song/Reuters To begin with, the government has devised a strategy aimed at boosting container supply and supporting exporters. An inter-ministerial meeting chaired by trade minister Piyush Goyal decided that the state-owned Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) will start operating a large container ship and purchase five additional second-hand container vessels apart from reducing loading and handling cost of empty containers by the Container Corporation of India (Concor). A simultaneous container scanning will also begin at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA) for faster clearances and reduction in turnaround time. "I am confident that it (decisions taken today) will result in bringing down the shipping cost, improve the availability of empty containers, help faster evacuation of export consignments, and significantly reduce the congestion at ports", Goyal told reporters during a briefing. Average price cargo-worthy container up sharply in September. The meeting, chaired by Goyal, was attended by officials from shipping, railways, civil aviation, finance and commerce & industry. One of the major issues that was pointed out was that foreign shipping lines are not giving us slots. So one problem we have been facing is the lack of Indian container lines. Now SCI has started this ship and we will operate it regularly. Every three-four days we will be able to use it. SCI will purchase containers on a regular basis, then the stock of containers available with SCI will increase and therefore handling capacity will also increase, Ports, Shipping and Waterways Secretary TK Ramachandran told reporters. The next meeting, scheduled for October, will review and assess the impact of the latest decisions. Industry officials expect these decisions to show results in two to three months. The top level meeting comes within days of the commerce ministry data showing 9.3 per cent contraction of merchandise exports in August. Earlier, the fresh attacks by Houthi rebels at the Red Sea resulted in diversion of ships to longer routes. The impending tariff hikes by the US on a host of Chinese products have also caused frontloading of shipments by China, adding to the container shortage for other countries. The average price of a cargo-worthy 20 ft container in India rose to $1,113 in September from $1,010 in August, according to Container XChange, an online container leasing platform. While average prices for 40 ft high cube cargo-worthy containers ranged between $1200-$1500 across major Indian ports like Mundra, Nhava Sheva, and Chennai in the June quarter, these prices have surged to an average of $2000 - $2600 in August, reflecting sustained demand and capacity constraints. Aniket Dani, director, research at CRISIL Market Intelligence and Analytics, explained that there's a global shortage of containers, mainly due to the logistical inefficiencies like port congestion in South-East Asia and Red Sea disruption. Consequently, freighters must take a detour and opt for a longer route around the Cape of Good Hope. This detour has increased not only the shipping costs but also delivery time, further exacerbating the challenges, Dani said. Addition of new vessels is expected to reduce the time for exports and raise the container capacity by 10-12 per cent. Currently, India's container capacity is 40,000-45,000 TEU. Officials from the Railway Board and CONCOR said that empty containers can now be stored at the yard at zero cost for 90 days. The charges of Rs 3,000, that is being levied beyond 90 days, are now halved to Rs 1,500. Further, the storage and handling rates will be reduced for containers from Rs 9,000 to Rs 2,000 (for a 40 ft container) and from Rs 6,000 to Rs 1,000 (for a 20 ft container). That apart, shipping lines assured that all charges such as container transportation and lift-on-lift-off at yards would be embedded in the delivery order given to shippers. Goyal said that he expects shipping and transportation costs for Indian exports to fall over the next few months. Prominent ports such as Adani-owned Mundra Port have been experiencing major backlogs, sector watchers say. Ajay Sahai, director general and chief executive officer at the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), however, said that there is no shortage of containers per se, but a specific variety of container may be in short supply. The real problem is lack of space on the ship because of which there's a perception of container shortage because once the shipping line allocates space, they can allocate containers, Sahai said. According to Delhi-based think tank GTRI, India can lower its risk of global supply chain disruptions by boosting domestic container production, encouraging the use of locally made containers, and increasing the use of Indian shipping companies for transporting goods. Disclaimer: This article is meant for information purposes only. This article and information do not constitute a distribution, an endorsement, an investment advice, an offer to buy or sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any securities/schemes or any other financial products/investment products mentioned in this article to influence the opinion or behaviour of the investors/recipients. Any use of the information/any investment and investment related decisions of the investors/recipients are at their sole discretion and risk. Any advice herein is made on a general basis and does not take into account the specific investment objectives of the specific person or group of persons. Opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) may extend the deadline to whitelist URLs (Uniform Resource Locators), APKs (Android Package Kit), or OTT (Over The Top) links through which it intends to curb their misuse is likely to be extended by 30 days as only over 3,000 registered senders (businesses) have complied, officials indicated. According to Trai officials, over 3,000 registered senders have whitelisted more than 70,000 links, but many more (thousands of others) are yet to comply with the directive as the mandatory norms are set to come into effect from October 1. As a result, the order may be postponed by another 30 days, Trai officials indicated to Business Standard on Wednesday. The telecom regulator had mandated the whitelisting, or registration, of internet links, APKs, and call back numbers sent through text messages by September 1, which was extended by a month. An URL is essentially the link for a website, or the address of a unique resource on the internet while an APK is an executable file that contains all the data needed to install and run an Android App. On Thursday, TRAI again asked the Joint Committee of Regulators (JCOR) which includes the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), various sector regulators, and government agencies to implement the mandatory whitelisting by October 1. The decision is billed to have a major impact on curbing spam, and potential frauds given that many users unknowingly click on links which act as phishing tools for data hackers. But it has also sparked concerns that consumers of banks, financial institutions, and e-commerce companies may face interruptions in receiving service and transactional messages and especially One Time Passwords (OTPs). At present, the telcos get the headers and the templates from the businesses. However, now they will also require the content to be submitted. This will then be verified by the telcos and only then will be sent to the customers. Lenders of bankrupt airline Jet Airways, led by the State Bank of India (SBI), on Thursday told the Supreme Court that successful bidder Jalan Kalrock Consortium (JKC) was unwilling to pay the dues and that the liquidation was the only option left. Photograph: Punit Paranjpe/Reuters The bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud was hearing the SBI-led consortium plea against the NCLATs March order upholding ownership transfer of the bankrupt airline to JKC. "Enough is enough. They cant play with the law. Liquidation is the only option remaining, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) N Venkataraman said. SBI told the court that the total admitted claim of the financial creditor is close to Rs 7,800 crore and the financial package offered by the SRA (Successful Resolution Applicant, that is, JKC) in the Resolution Plan was Rs 4,783 crore, which is payable in tranches in five years. The first tranche payment of Rs 350 crore was required to be made by March 21, 2022. This amount has not been paid to date despite several extensions and exclusions granted to the SRA by the NCLT, NCLAT, and SC. We are struggling for the first tranche of Rs 350 crore. "The resolution plan is effective for 180 days. "Lenders are incurring Rs 22 crore every month to maintain the Corporate Debtor (Jet Airways), the ASG said. He had also told the court earlier that even the NCLATs order directing the SRA (to belatedly) create security by mortgaging Dubai properties within 30 days of its order, has not been complied with. Meanwhile, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for JKC, the successful bidder for bankrupt Jet Airways, alleged in the Supreme Court that the SBI brought down Air India and Kingfisher airlines. They have brought down Air India, Kingfisher. "Ten separate pleas have been filed by them (SBI) against airlines. "Only two airlines are left. They will bring down everything. No airline will remain, Rohatgi alleged in the court. JKC told the court that the lenders do not "give them the key to access their grounded aircraft on the airport premises. The apex court will now hear the arguments by JKC on Tuesday. The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) had on March 12 greenlit the transfer of ownership of Jet Airways to JKC. NCLAT had told JKC to obtain an air operators certificate within 90 days from March 12. It had also given it more time to pay Rs 175 crore to SBI as 107 days had passed since NCLAT's order allowing the transfer of ownership. It upheld the order of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), which had permitted the transfer of ownership to JKC in January last year. Consequently, the appeal by the SBI against the takeover of the airline by JKC was dismissed. The lenders then appealed against this order in the Supreme Court. Among the airlines in India, Go First had filed for voluntary insolvency on May 2, 2023, under Section 10 of the IBC, and on May 10, 2023, and the NCLT admitted its insolvency plea. The grounded airline joined the ranks of major carriers such as Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways, which went to the wall in 2012 and 2019, respectively, underscoring the challenges inherent in navigating Indias aviation industry. On the other hand, the Tatas took over Air India on January 27, 2022 and chose SBI, Bank of Baroda and HDFC Bank as preferred bankers for the airline. On February 29, 2024, Air India refinanced short-term loans with the SBI and Bank of Baroda (BoB) for a three-year loan, replacing the short-term Rs 18,000 crore bridge loan Air India had availed from SBI and BoB to complete the Tata group's takeover of the national carrier in January 2022. A Singapore court on Thursday granted a four-month moratorium to Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX, a period which the embattled firm will use to restructure its business without worrying about legal proceedings. IMAGE: Kindly note the image has been posted only for representational purposes. Photograph: Kind courtesy Alesia Kozik/Pexels.com A moratorium offers applicant temporary relief from legal proceedings. WazirX, Indias biggest crypto exchange, suffered a major hacking attack in July this year losing close to $230 million. Since then, it has been trying to deal with the crisis. It had asked for a six-month moratorium, but the Singapore court gave it four months. And with conditions. The crypto exchange is required to make wallet addresses public via a court affidavit, respond to user queries raised in the courtroom, release financial information, and ensure future voting for court applications is scrutinised by independent parties. We are thankful for the courts decision, which allows us to focus on our path to resolution, recovery and restructuring, said Nischal Shetty, co-founder, WazirX. Zettai, which operates WazirX in India has an overseas jurisdiction in Singapore. Following the heist, the company approached a Singapore court for restructuring on August 23. Earlier this month, WazirX had said customers affected by the cyberattack will not be able to recover their full funds even as the firm looks to restructure. At a virtual press conference earlier this month, the firms advisors had explained that the company might look to return 55-57 per cent of the capital. The crypto exchange platform said it was restructuring and as part of that it was looking for a white knight to provide capital and pursue partnership and collaboration. This entails implementation of revenue-generating products and mechanisms to share profit with users, tracing and recovering stolen crypto assets, and/or allowing users who need liquidity urgently to withdraw crypto assets more quickly and exit restructuring. The company had blamed its third party wallet service provider Liminal Custody for the security breach. Liminal has denied the charge. 'Will President Dissanayake calibrate his foreign policy taking into account India's immediate security concerns? We need to watch.' IMAGE: Anura Kumara Dissanayake takes oath as the 9th executive president of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka in the presence of Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya at the presidential secretariat, Colombo, September 23, 2024. Photograph: Kind courtesy Anura Kumara Dissanayake/X "There are several ways how the Chinese capture the political elites in society, and the JVP is already inclined towards China. Therefore, I'm 100% certain that India is concerned," says Asanga Abeyagoonasekera author of Teardrop Diplomacy, China's Sri Lanka Foray, and three other books on Sri Lanka. Abeyagoonasekera is a security, geopolitical analyst and strategic advisor from Sri Lanka. He is a senior fellow and executive director of the South Asia Foresight Network at the Millennium Project in Washington DC, and a technical advisor to the International Monetary Fund where he contributed to Sri Lanka's IMF Governance Diagnostic Report 2023. In a phone interview with Rediff.com's Archana Masih from Washington, DC, Asanga Abeyagoonasekera discusses the Dissanayake-led JVP's Marxist ideological inclination towards China and what it means for India. Part I of a multi-part interview: Indian observers are wary of President Dissanayake's ideological origins and suspect he will lean more towards China than even the Rajapaksas. Do you see this presidency becoming hostile towards India? That is a factor that we will have to see in the months to come. Dissanayake comes from a Marxist-leaning party which means it has a close connection to China. In the past, his party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, JVP, has stood against Indian policy. They took up arms against the Indo-Lanka Accord in 1988 because they saw it as a threat to the sovereignty of the country. They have projected India as a huge threat in the past. I hope he will navigate through these challenges because this is a different era and we are not in the 1980s any more. India's security concerns must be understood by this leadership. The JVP maintains that it has taken a reformist turn and has moved away from the past. Anura Kumar has said that he would execute a balanced policy, but the concern is that during his campaign he spoke about cancelling a major Indian project, the Adani wind power project. That's not a good sign. The JVP has concerns about transparency and the process that was followed to sign that agreement. We have highlighted in our report that the process can always be corrected rather than scrapping the project. Previous regimes have also suspended and reinstated certain projects which have resulted in a loss for Sri Lanka. In the past Sri Lanka has received political funding from countries which has come in the way of adopting a balanced foreign policy. A good example was Gotabaya Rajapaksa'S statement that Sri Lankans need to move out of the existing market-oriented model, and move closer to a Chinese development model. I have highlighted this in my book that this is a danger point because it means moving away from liberal, democratic values. There's a huge concern because of this past orientation. For example, there's a moratorium on Chinese research vessels in Sri Lanka. Will Dissanayake continue with that, or not -- is to be seen. Will he calibrate his foreign policy taking into account India's immediate security concerns? We need to watch. IMAGE: India's High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Santosh Jha called on Sri Lanka President Anura Kumara Dissanayake soon after his election, September 22, 2024. Photograph: Kind courtesy India in Sri Lanka/X Does he want the Adani project to be cancelled because he wants to portray himself as the custodian of Sri Lankan national interest? The JVP's stance towards such foreign projects comes from the Marxist ideology that we can do everything ourselves and don't need assistance. This is an inward looking approach. The danger lies in Sri Lanka moving towards subsidisation and a closed economy like it was in the 1970s. Some of their comments indicate a renegotiation on the IMF terms. Sri Lanka is not in a position to do these experiments. IMAGE: The Indian Navy's INS Mumbai in Colombo, September 1, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo Does India have to be concerned about the new president and his policies, especially towards China? Of course, China is the main concern and it has been documented in many research reports as well. How Dissanayake navigates China is going to be a concern for India because of India's own security interests. Former presidents Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Maithripala Sirisena are clear indications of that failure. They followed a China-tilted policy towards the latter part of their presidencies. They started with India and ended with China -- that's what I say in my book Teardrop Diplomacy, China's Sri Lanka Foray. There are several ways how the Chinese capture the political elites in society, and the JVP is already inclined towards China. Therefore, I'm 100% certain that India is concerned, but India probably is looking at the positive things, like their new reformist agenda and liberal values. On hearing Dissanayake's comments about the cancellation of the Adani project, few of our researchers did see a pattern similar to the India Out campaign in Maldives and Bangladesh which started in a similar manner. There is a possibility of such a campaign happening in Sri Lanka in the long run and we have to keep an eye out for that, but we'll be able to give a clear picture after the general election. Part 2 of the Interview: 'Cancelling Adani Project Not Good Sign' Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com 'The other panelists (Praniti Shinde and Priyanka Chaturvedi) were misbehaving with me.' 'Despite that I kept quiet because I have witnessed many such scenes in the 25 years of my public life and debates.' 'Amid all the ruckus, when I heard Praniti calling me out for 'cheap behaviour' I couldn't take such misbehaviour anymore.' IMAGE: A screen grab of the video of the India Today conclave debate shows Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Nirupam, third from left, along with Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, India Today's Preeti Choudhry, BJP MLA Ashish Shelar and Congress MP Praniti Shinde. Photograph: Screen grab of the video from X Former Shiv Sena and Congress Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Nirupam, who has now joined the Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, explains why he got agitated during the India Today conclave debate where he had heated arguments with Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray's Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi and the Congress's Solapur Lok Sabha MP Praniti Shinde. The clip of the video (external link to X) where Nirupam is seen walking up to the anchor and the two women MPs has since gone viral on social media and Nirupam is being trolled for showing disrespect to women. "I believe that in a democracy every individual has the right to express herself fearlessly and without being heckled. I believe in getting the same treatment when I am speaking," Nirupam tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com. What happened at the India Today conclave? You were seen leaving your seat and moving towards Priyanka Chaturvedi and Praniti Shinde and having a heated argument with them? Nothing big happened. It was a debate and everybody wanted to express their views. Wasn't it bad optics for you? Social media is abuzz that you were disrespecting the women MPs. I did not show any disrespect towards anybody. My only contention was that I would rather walk out if some fellow panelist felt that my behaviour was 'cheap'. Is there anything wrong in what I said? You were seen getting up from your seat and moving towards them... No. That is not what happened. That is what one can see in the video that has now gone viral on social media... I was seated, but when there was a ruckus being created I went to the anchor (India Today editor Preeti Choudhry) and said 'If my behaviour is so cheap, I'd rather walk out.' What upset you? There was nothing much in what happened. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to make it an issue. It has already become an issue with many social media handles levelling the charge that you misbehaved with and disrespected Praniti Shinde and Priyanka Chaturvedi, As I see it, we were having a debate and I was expressing my point which they were objecting to. First, Priyanka Chaturvedi objected; she did not let me speak. Then the anchor asked me to sit next to Sahil (Joshi, one of the India Today editors who were on the dais) and I sat next to him. After this, I was being called out for cheap behaviour to which I objected to because I did not indulge in any such behaviour. On the contrary, I was being heckled when I was trying to put forth my views. If I was indulging in cheap behaviour, then I didn't deserve to be there. So, I decided that I should walk out. For me it is not a big deal because such heated exchanges are quite normal and one has to understand that everybody on the stage is trying to express their views through such heated exchanges. In a live democracy, each one of us has the right to freely express ourselves. Do you regret that you should not have stood up from your seat and walked towards the anchor and the two MPs even as you made your point to walk out? This is what everybody is objecting to... Is it written somewhere that I cannot stand up from my seat and speak to the anchor during a live debate? If I am sitting across at some distance and I get to repetitively hear that my behaviour is cheap, then I have all the right to walk towards the anchor, who invited me to this debate, that I'd rather walk out if somebody has any problem with what I am saying. One can clearly see in the video that first you walked towards the anchor and then towards Praniti Shinde and later towards Priyanka Chaturvedi and gesticulated at her even as you exchanged a few heated words with her... you looked quite worked up If I were to keep repeatedly haranguing you that you are indulging in cheap behaviour, then you would also get worked up. Wasn't this the first time you got so agitated and worked up during a live debate? Let me apologise to you because you saw me so agitated during a debate for the first time. Would you like to say anything to the two women MPs who felt that you misbehaved with them? These things are routine. Mutual respect for each other is very important and I respect both Priyanka Chaturvedi and Praniti Shinde. They should also respect their seniors and I have never ever insulted any woman. I strongly believe in respecting women. That is my culture, our culture, and I have breathed in that culture all my life. During any debate there is limited time for every panelist in which he or she has to express their views. Having a heated argument is not tantamount to insulting somebody. Do you regret that you should not have stood up from your seat and walked up to the two women MPs? How can standing up from my seat be seen as disrespect for somebody? If I stand up and walk towards the anchor because she was also sitting in that direction then how does it become disrespecting somebody. Praniti toh mere liye beti ki tarah hai (Praniti is like a daughter to me). Sushilkumar Shinde mere dost hai aur woh unki beti hai. Agar aap apne pitaji ki umr ki kisi vyakti ke liye kah rahi hai ki woh cheap behaviour hai toh woh mere liye sharmnak hai (Sushilkumar Shinde is my a friend and Praniti is his daughter. If you are charging someone your father's age that he is indulging in cheap behaviour then it is very shameful for me). I was just expressing an argument and putting forth an argument in a debate cannot be equated with cheap behaviour. When you were making your point and walked towards the anchor and Praniti Shinde, Priyanka Chaturvedi was heard telling you 'We all know how good your behaviour is', that you don't respect women and that your voice was raised and you were wagging your hands... This kind of words can always be used (to malign somebody). I didn't stop anybody from making their point. I was heckled while I was speaking. If you are going to disallow me to speak then I am going to retaliate. Is this -- disallowing somebody from making his point -- not disrespect? Did I stop anybody from speaking? I didn't. I believe that in a democracy every individual has the right to express herself fearlessly and without being heckled. I believe in getting the same treatment when I am speaking. The two anchors, who were also visibly disturbed because of my heckling, are witness to it. Both the anchors were saying that I should be allowed to speak. Then I was asked to change my seat and sit next to Sahil Joshi, which I did without politely. If you look at it objectivelym then I was being misbehaved with. When I am not allowed to speak up without being shouted at then I am being misbehaved with. The other panelists (Shinde and Chaturvedi) were misbehaving with me. Despite that I kept quiet because I have witnessed many such scenes in the 25 years of my public life and debates. You can put forward your point, and then you can either agree or disagree with my point of view and put forward your arguments, but why should I not be allowed to speak without any heckling? I was already hurt with this behaviour. To top it all, amid all the ruckus, when I heard Praniti calling me out for 'cheap behaviour' I couldn't take such misbehaviour anymore and couldn't hold myself back. I then decided to stand up, walk up to the anchor and told her that I'd rather walk out of the debate. My point was if they thought I was indulging in cheap behaviour then I didn't deserve to be there. I should walk out from there. Do you regret that whatever happened during that debate should not have happened the way it happened? India is a democratic country and in this democratic set up everybody has the right to express their views freely. When each one of us express our views passionately such sparks are only natural to fly. We must accept it gracefully. Was your behaviour graceful to walk up to the anchor, to the two women MPs and say that you would rather walk out? You are now trying to act smart as well as speak like a fool. I have already told you at least three times that I walked up to the anchor. Is it a sin or crime to stand up from one's seat and walk towards the anchor? Was I going to attack anybody? So, you don't think that you charged at them? I have told you more than 10 times now I stood up and walked up towards the anchor to tell her that I was feeling like walking out if somebody felt that my behaviour was cheap. But you have been asking me the same question again and again. What's the point of asking me the same question again and again? Do you have an agenda? Will I not lose my temper, if you ask me the same question sixth time, after having already answered the same question five times before? I am also a human being. I am not god. What's the point of so much heckling? I have myself worked as a journalist for 25 years; I have edited a very popular newspaper (Dopahar Ka Saamna). I would never heckle anybody. You have a right to ask question. You must ask questions. That is the duty of a journalist. My duty is to answer your questions. To end this interview, let me reiterate my points: I take it gracefully when heated debates take place. That is not a big deal. I believe in respecting women and I have always respected women. I was being intimidated by the two women MP fellow panelists When I was being heckled and asked to take another seat I did that politely, but after that when I was charged with 'cheap behaviour' I got hurt. I have a right to get hurt and at that very moment I got up from my seat, walked up to the anchor and told her that I would rather leave the debate if somebody felt my behaviour is cheap and I don't deserve to be on the stage. Did you speak with Praniti Shinde and Priyanka Chaturvedi after the debate got over? No. I was very hungry so I went straight to eat food. And since it were raining heavily and I was worried it would take me another 90 minutes to reach home; I decided to go home and have my food. Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York, Sept. 26, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Rui) NEW YORK, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China will continue to support Cyprus in safeguarding its national sovereignty and territorial integrity, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said here on Thursday. Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks during talks with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York. China and Cyprus should work together to uphold the international system with the United Nations at its core, closely coordinate and cooperate on multilateral occasions, and safeguard multilateralism and international fairness and justice, Wang said. For his part, Christodoulides said that Cyprus is committed to deepening cooperation with China and firmly upholds the one-China principle. Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Balmukund Acharya performed a "purification ceremony" at the municipal corporation here to convert Congress councillors who crossed over to his party into "Sanatanis" and cleanse the civic body of "corruption". IMAGE: BJP MLA Balmukund Acharya. Photograph: @BMacharyaBJP/X Acharya, who is also the mahant of the Hathoj Dham temple, said 'Gangajal' and 'gaumutra' was sprinkled on officials and councillors of the Jaipur Municipal Corporation Heritage (JMCH) as part of the ceremony on Wednesday since they were had been forced to "indulge in corruption". The move follows the ousting of former JMCH Mayor Munesh Gurjar, who was removed after facing allegations of corruption. In her place, the BJP appointed as the mayor Kusum Yadav who received support from seven Congress councillors and one independent. All eight councillors have joined the BJP. Before Yadav formally assumed office at the JMCH office on Wednesday, the BJP MLA performed the "purification ceremony" for the councillors, and officials. "We have purified the corporation with 'Gangajal', removing all impurities," said Acharya, who led the ceremony with Vedic mantras and chants. "Now, with the new mayor taking charge, we will work in an environment of purity," he said. During the ceremony, Acharya sprinkled a mix of 'Gangajal' and gaumutra on the Congress councillors who joined the BJP, claiming that this transformed them into "Sanatanis". "They have been cleansed of any impurity or corruption," Acharya said. The BJP leader said even the the officials of the municipal corporation were subjected to the purification process as "they were under the influence of impurity" and were "forced to indulge in corruption". "But now, after this ceremony, they have been cleansed and will work with honesty and integrity," Acharya said. The unusual ceremony raised some eyebrows, but the councillors who made the switch to BJP said the ceremony was intended to rid the corporation of corruption and negativity. "It's a normal practice in Hindu culture to use 'Gangajal' and 'gaumutra' for purification," councillor Manoj Mudgal said. Paras Jain, another councillor, echoed the sentiment, adding, "Acharya ji was performing a ritual to cleanse the office of corruption." Councillor Sushila Devi clarified that the intention was not to label anyone as corrupt. "He was purifying the entire premises, not just us," Devi said. Acharya, speaking to reporters, emphasised that the ceremony symbolised a new beginning for the JMCH. "From today, this corporation is corruption-free," he claimed. Reacting to the "purification ceremony", Congress state general secretary Swarnim Chaturvedi said that it is strange that all those who defect from the Congress to join the BJP "get absolved of all their sins". "BJP leaders in the state and Centre first accuse Congress leaders of corruption. They are threatened by the investigating agencies like ED, IT and CBI, but when they join the BJP they get absolved of their crimes," Chaturvedi said. Poet, writer and former IPS officer Keki N Daruwalla, whose magic with words gained him national and international repute, has died at a Delhi hospital after prolonged illness and a spell of pneumonia. He was 87. IMAGE: Keki N Daruwalla. Photograph: ANI Photo Daruwalla, one of India's best known writers in English, died on Thursday night. "He had a stroke a year ago and hadn't been keeping well since. There were stroke related complications. But it wasn't a stroke this time, he basically died of pneumonia," his daughter Anaheita Kapadia told PTI. Daruwalla, also known for his short stories, is survived by Anaheita and his other daughter Rookvain, sons-in-law and four grandchildren. Born in Lahore in 1937, Daruwalla studied at Government College in Ludhiana. He joined the Indian Police Services (Uttar Pradesh cadre) in 1958 and rose through the ranks to becoming special assistant on international affairs to then prime minister Charan Singh. He later joined the Research and Analysis Wing where he was promoted to the rank of secretary, R&AW. Even though he led a successful career in police and later at R&AW, it was his literary acumen that was most recognised. Daruwalla's first book of poetry, Under Orion, was published in 1970. Two years later, he received the Uttar Pradesh state award for his second book, Apparition in April. He also won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1984 for his poetry collection, The Keeper of the Dead, which he returned in October 2015 in protest against Sahitya Akademi's failure 'to speak out against ideological collectives that have used physical violence against authors'. Daruwalla was also awarded the Padma Shri in 2014. His latest book of poetry, Landfall: Poems, was published in 2023. Earlier this year, the Sahitya Akademi published A House of Words- Festschrift: In Honour of Keki N Daruwalla to celebrate a life dedicated to the written word. Messages of condolence poured in on X as writers and readers paid homage to the poet for the 'uncompromising truthfulness of his words' and 'the most intense visually dramatic and fascinating poetry'. Writer Namita Gokhale saluted Daruwalla for the 'tenderness of his vision'. '...for the unrelenting, uncompromising truthfulness of his words, for the creative genius of his imagination,' Gokhale said. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh aremembered Daruwalla as a 'man of great compassion and empathy'. 'Keki Daruwalla, one of the most delightful persons I have known, has just passed away. He was a distinguished IPS officer of the 1958 batch and had spent much time in India's intelligence establishment, including R&AW. 'Keki was also a very well known poet and fiction writer. He had won prestigious awards for his works, which have been translated into different languages. Tremendously witty and always with a smile, he spoke truth to power at all times. A man of great compassion and empathy, he reflected all that is noble in our syncretic culture,' Ramesh said. Rajya Sabha MP and author Sagarika Ghose said Daruwalla was an old friend of the family who wrote the 'most intense visually dramatic and fascinating poetry and was at the same time a policeman and a RAW officer! Who says cops don't make great poets?' Some also remembered Daruwalla's short story collection Love Across the Salt Desert that 'overturned the tragedy of Laila-Majnu'. 'I'm not very familiar with Keki N. Daruwalla's poetry, but I fondly recollect our excitement when Love Across the Salt Desert was taught in the English course at school (CBSE, early 80s, Assam). Najab taking Fatemah home as it rained, overturned the tragedy of Laila-Majnu. RIP,' Manash Firaq wrote in a post. Historian Samyak Ghosh said the story made him think about 'borderlands as a distinct place'. 'I was in 9th standard when I read an exquisite story about border crossers in the Rann of Kutch. It made me think about borderlands as a distinct place, always made in difference. An early lesson that I remain indebted to. Rest in power, Keki N. Daruwalla,' Ghosh said. Writer Nilanjana Roy shared a few lines from Daruwalla's poem Notes From Underground. 'I think I am at peace now,/he said, for my dreams/move like the thinnest/veil of mist over water.' ~ Keki Daruwalla, Notes from the Underground. (24 January 1937 - 27 September 2024). Go gently, and thank you for the words, the heart, that conscience,' Roy posted on X. In a significant blow to Hezbollah, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) announced the elimination of Muhammad Hussein Srour, Commander of the organisation's Aerial Command, in a precision airstrike in Beirut. IMAGE: Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following an Israeli strike, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Tyre, Lebanon September 26, 2024. Photograph: Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters Sharing a post on X, the IDF wrote, "Eliminated: Commander of Hezbollah's Aerial Command, Muhammad Hussein Srour, in a precise IAF strike in Beirut." The IDF further said that Srour was responsible for advancing numerous aerial terrorist attacks targeting Israeli civilians. "Srour advanced and directed numerous aerial terrorist attacks aimed at Israeli civilians. During the "Iron Swords" war, he executed several terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers using UAVs and explosive devices," the post said. "In recent years, Srour led the manufacturing project of UAVs in southern Lebanon and established UAV manufacturing and intelligence gathering sites in Lebanon, located adjacent to civilian infrastructure in Beirut and southern Lebanon," the post added. The IDF also said that Srour's role extended to the commander of the surface-to-air missile unit, as well as the "Aziz" Unit of the Radwan Force. It said, "He was also the commander in the surface-to-air missile unit, commander in the "Aziz" Unit of the Radwan Force and Hezbollah's emissary to Yemen and the Houthi terrorist regime's Aerial Command." Meanwhile, amid the escalating tensions between Israel and Lebanon, the United States has called for a 21 day ceasefire on the Israel-Lebanon border to prevent an escalation of war and give diplomacy a chance there and in Gaza. Voicing their support for this plan are US Secretary of Defence Lloyd J Austin III, British Defence Secretary John Healey, and Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles, who met in London on Thursday at the AUKUS defense ministerial meeting, the Pentagon said in a press release. "The situation in Lebanon and northern Israel is deeply troubling. Lebanese Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group, began firing rockets into Israel in an unprovoked attack the day after the October 7, 2023, terrorist assault by Hamas, Austin said. "Hezbollah has not stopped since. Like any other state, Israel has a right to defend itself. And almost a year later, tens of thousands of Israeli and Lebanese civilians still cannot safely return home, and we now face the risk of an all-out war, another full-scale war, which could be devastating for both Israel and Lebanon, he added. Austin further said that despite the sharp escalation in recent days, a diplomatic solution is still viable. "A diplomatic solution, not a military solution, is the only way to ensure that displaced civilians on both sides of the border can finally go back home," he said. Calling for an immediate ceasefire, Austin said, "An immediate 21-day ceasefire will provide time for the diplomacy needed to achieve a durable arrangement that will allow Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return safely to their homes. This time can also be used to conclude and implement a deal to secure a cease-fire in Gaza and to bring all of the hostages home." Opposition YSR Congress Party chief YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday said he has indefinitely postponed his planned trip to the Tirupati Lord Venkateshwara Temple, coming in the midst of the Laddu controversy, while Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said no one stopped the opposition leader from visiting the shrine. IMAGE: Sanskriti Bachao Manch supporters protest against Andhra Pradesh ex-CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy over the alleged use of 'Animal Fat' in the preparation of laddoos (prasad) of Tirupati Balaji temple, in Bhopal, September 20, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo Jagan's decision came amid growing demand by NDA allies in Andhra Pradesh to declare his faith before entering the temple. Reacting to Reddy's decision, Naidu, while maintaining that no person is above traditions and customs, also said no one prevented the former CM from going to the temple. All he was asked, was to follow temple rules. The former CM's much hyped Tirumala tour was announced as part of the YSRCP's call for prayers in temples to atone for Telugu Desam Party supremo Naidu's 'sin' through his allegations on the quality of Tirupati laddus. Addressing a press conference, Jagan said he could not go to Tirupati as his party leaders and workers were issued notices by police warning them not to participate in his temple visit. Hours after Jagan's announcement, Naidu in a press conference appealed that every visitor to Sri Venkateswara Swamy temple must follow the rules and refrain from hurting devotees' sentiments. According to rules, non-Hindu pilgrims should declare their reverence for Lord Venkateswara to have a darshan of the presiding deity at the hill shrine. They, requesting the temple authority to give permission for admission, should declare their religion on a printed form available at the temple. Dubbing Chandrababu Naidu's rule as "Rakshasa Rajyam" (kingdom of demons), Jagan also attacked BJP for turning a blind eye on the laddu issue. Naidu had last week alleged the use of substandard ghee and presence of animal fat in the famous Tirupati laddus during the previous YSRCP regime. Jagan reiterated the ghee which was rejected by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams on account of quality issues was never used in making the Laddu Prasadam (consecrated food, sweet in this case). "On one side, all our people are being issued notices threatening that they (police) will file cases. On the other side they are bringing BJP people from the neighbouring state to create a law and order problem and a religious issue to cover up Chandrababu's misdeed," he said. "As a person who respects and loves Venkateswara Swamy, I do not want to go there and divert the topic. So I am postponing my tour," he said without announcing any fresh date of the visit. Dismissing Jagan's allegations, Naidu said he does not know for what reason the opposition leader had to avoid his Tirumala tour. "He was saying as if he was prevented and issued notices. I am asking you directly--have you been given any notices? Did anybody ask you not to go there?," the CM asked. Further, the CM said Jagan's stand of him having earlier visited the Tirumala shrine by not 'signing the declaration' form affirming his faith in the presiding deity does not entitle him to repeat it. Naidu further said there were reports that YSRCP was spreading information to mobilise people for Jagan's visit, forcing police to clampdown restrictions. "Traditions and customs should be respected. No person is greater than the traditions and customs," he asserte. Earlier, sources close to Jagan Mohan Reddy said he had cancelled his scheduled Tirumala temple plan. Reddy said everyone in the country knows his religion and he has visited Tirumala temple several times even before becoming the CM. "They are saying I cannot go to Tirupati because of my religion. They are asking what my religion is. My religion is humanity. If you want to write it in the declaration, write it," he said. He said though he reads the Bible within four walls, he respects Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism. He said TV channels were showing thousands of police personnel being deployed in Tirupati to prevent his leaders from going to the temple. "In order to divert the failures of his (Chandrababu Naidu) 100 days rule and to divert attention, Chandrababu Naidu brought up the Laddu issue. To cover up his failures on the Laddu issue, he came up with the faith declaration issue. He intentionally planted seeds of doubts on the Laddu quality," Reddy said. "I had the opportunity to offer silk robes to Lord Venkateswara Swamy for five years (while as CM). I can understand it. It is not my first time (Tirumala visit)," he said. According to the earlier itinerary of Reddy's two-day visit to Tirumala, the former CM was supposed to depart from Gannavaram Airport for Renigunta at 4 pm on Friday and from there to Tirumala and visit the temple on Saturday morning. National Democratic Alliance constituents--ruling TDP and the Bharatiya Janata Party have been raising the faith declaration issue, vis-a-vis Jagan over the past two days. Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu has denied having an "India Out" agenda, asserting that the island nation had a "serious problem" with the presence of foreign military on its soil. IMAGE: Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu. Photograph: Maldivian President's Office on Facebook Muizzu, who is in the United States to attend the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, made the remarks on Thursday while responding to a question at Princeton University's Dean's Leadership Series. "We have never been against any one country at any point. It's not India Out. Maldives faced a serious problem with foreign military presence on this soil," Maldivian news portal adhadhu.com quoted him as saying. "The people of Maldives do not want a single foreign soldier in the country," Muizzu said. The ties between India and the Maldives came under severe strain since November last year when Muizzu, known for his pro-China leanings, took charge as Maldivian president. Muizzu had asked India to withdraw nearly 90 Indian military personnel operating three aviation platforms gifted by the country. India withdrew its military personnel by May 10 and replaced them with civilian personnel to operate a Dornier aircraft and two helicopters. Muizzu further stressed he had taken action against deputy ministers for insulting Prime Minister Narendra Modi on social media. "No one should say such a thing. I took action against it. I will not accept insulting anyone like that, whether he is a leader or an ordinary person. Every human being has a reputation," the report quoted him as saying. Earlier this year, deputy ministers in Maldives' youth ministry were suspended for derogatory social media posts against Prime Minister Modi following a backlash, with New Delhi strongly raising the matter with Male. The deputy ministers criticised Modi for his post on 'X' following his visit to Lakshadweep, inferring that it was an attempt to project the Union Territory as an alternative tourist destination to the Maldives. Prime Minister Modi was in Lakshadweep on January 2 and 3 to inaugurate several projects. Turkish President Recap Tayyip Erdogan did not mention Kashmir in his address at the United Nations General Assembly this year, the first time he has skipped the issues since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. IMAGE: Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York, US on September 24, 2024. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters The focus of his 35-minute speech this year was the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where over 40,000 people have died in Israeli attacks against Hamas. After India scrapped the special status Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed under the Constitution in 2019, Erdogan has referred to Kashmir every year in his address to world leaders at the UNGA session in New York, while advocating talks between New Delhi and Islamabad. This time, on September 24, Erdogan drew the international community's attention to the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza, accusing the UN of failing to stop the deaths of civilians. "The world is bigger than five," he repeated his well-known remark, about the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. "Gaza has become the largest cemetery for children and women in the world", he said, urging Western countries, including the US and major European Union countries to act to stop the killings. Erdogan's skipping of the Kashmir reference is being seen as an apparent shift in Turkiye's stance and comes at a time when the country is trying to become a member of the BRICS grouping to forge alliances beyond the West. Former Pakistani diplomat Maleeha Lodhi, who has also served as her country's ambassador to the UN, commented on the apparent shift in Turkiye's stance. "Unlike the last 5 years, President Erdogan did not mention Kashmir in his speech to the UN General Assembly. He did that in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023," she posted on X. Erdogan, an ally of Pakistan, has repeatedly in the past raked up the Kashmir issue, causing a strain in relations between India and Turkiye. "Another development that will pave the way for regional peace, stability and prosperity in South Asia will be the establishment of a just and lasting peace in Kashmir through dialogue and cooperation between India and Pakistan," Erdogan had said in his address during the General Debate at the UN last year. India in the past has termed his remarks as "completely unacceptable", saying Turkiye should learn to respect the sovereignty of other nations and reflect on its policies more deeply. The Aaditya Thackeray-led Yuva Sena, youth wing of the Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray, on Friday won eight of the ten seats in the senate election of the University of Mumbai, and was set to win the remaining two seats, an official said. IMAGE: A view of the University of Mumbai. Photograph: Courtesy MU Online The results of the two seats were not yet announced as counting was underway, the varsity official added. The much-delayed election for ten seats was held on September 24 following a Bombay high court directive. The RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad too had fielded ten candidates, while the student wing of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena contested one seat. Nearly 55 percent turnout was recorded in the election held on Tuesday. The senate is the highest elected decision-making body and watchdog of Mumbai University. It has representatives of teachers, principals and college managements as well as registered graduates, and is empowered to pass the varsity's budget. There is a ban on students' council polls in Maharashtra. Senate elections of the University of Mumbai are unlike the students' union polls of Delhi University or Jawaharlal Nehru University where those contesting polls have to be students of the respective varsities. The Bombay high court had last week directed that the senate elections be held on September 24 after staying a state government circular postponing them. A student of class 2 was killed in an alleged "sacrificial ritual" performed by the owners of his school in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras to make it more "prosperous", police said on Friday. Image only for representation. Photograph: Pixabay.com Besides the owner and director of the school, the principal and two teachers were also arrested for their alleged involvement in the killing on Monday, they said. Police said the postmortem report of the class two student revealed that he was strangled. DL Public School owner Jasodhan Singh, who is said to believe in 'tantrik rituals', asked his son Dinesh Baghel, the director of the school, to sacrifice a child for the "prosperity" of the school and his family. Principal Laxman Singh and two teachers -- Ramprakash Solanki and Veerpal Singh -- have also been held by police. Police has lodged an FIR against them under the section 103 (1) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 against five of them and they have been sent to jail. "The student has been identified as Kritarth studying in class 2 of DL Public school," Ashok Kumar Singh, Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP), Hathras told PTI. "On September 23, the student was abducted from the school's hostel by teacher Ramprakash Solanki, Dinesh Baghel and school owner Jasodhan Singh. Jasodhan Singh believes in 'tantra' practice and asked his son to sacrifice a child for the prosperity of school and his family," he said. They took the student to a secluded place for the sacrifice but the student woke up and began crying, the officer said. "After that he was strangulated. Another teacher Veerpal Singh and school principal Laxman Singh were also present at the spot and were guarding the place," he said. Police further said that the accused told the child's parents that Kritarth was not well as was being taken to a hospital in Baghel's car. Family members of the child, however, stopped the car and informed police about Kritarth's death, police said. Later, postmortem report showed that he died due to strangulation. In the police investigation, the accused informed police that the student was killed for 'sacrifice' for the prosperity of school and the owner's family, the ASP said. Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan has praised Rahul Gandhi, saying the Congress leader has changed people's perception about him by working hard on himself. IMAGE: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi waves during an election rally for the Haryana assembly elections. Photograph: ANI Photo At the India Today Mumbai Conclave 2024 on Thursday evening, the actor said he likes a politician who is brave and honest. Asked about the politician, from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gandhi and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal, who is brave and can lead India into the future, Khan said they are all "brave politicians". Khan then praised Gandhi and said he used to be disrespected for the things he used to do and say. "I think what Rahul Gandhi has done has also been very impressive because there was a point where people were disrespecting things he was saying and things he was doing. And I think he's turned that around by working very hard, in a very interesting way," the 54-year-old actor said. "Beyond that I don't want to get into a thing of who I support and what my politics is because I want to be apolitical in my outlook. And I think the country has spoken quite clearly. I'm happy about one thing. That democracy is alive and thriving in India," he added. Khan also said he has no intention of joining politics. "I'm not a politician. I don't really want to be a politician. And if I had strong views, I think I would become one and then share them in that way," he said. "I mean, you guys (journalists) are really brave and much braver than me. I'm not looking for that kind of heat. But if I was, then I would go all the way and become. And join a political party. But I'm not ready to do that yet," he added. Bangladesh's chief advisor Muhammad Yunus introduced to an American audience in New York the brains behind the "meticulously designed" protests that led to the ouster of Sheikh Hasina from power. IMAGE: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina being received by Muktesh Pardeshi, secretary (CPV & OIA), as she arrives to attend Prime Minister designate Narendra Modi's swearing-in ceremony, in New Delhi, June 8, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo Introducing the students at Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting on Tuesday, where Yunus was welcomed by former US president Bill Clinton, the Nobel laureate suggested the protests against then prime minister Hasina and her Awami League were planned. "These are known to be the brains behind the whole revolution. They look like any other young person, you will not recognise them. But when you see them in action, when you hear them speak, you will be shaking. They shook the whole country," said the 84-year-old Nobel laureate while introducing Bangladeshi student leaders. Yunus specifically pointed towards student activist "Mahfuj Abdullah", and called him the "brains behind the whole revolution". "He denies it repeatedly, he said not me many others. But that's how he is recognised, that he is the brain behind the whole thing," Yunus said. "It was a meticulously designed thing. It just did not suddenly come. Very well-designed. Even the leadership did not know (him) so they could not catch him," Yunus said about the protests in Bangladesh that left more than 600 persons dead. "This is the Bangladesh. They are the ones creating the new version of Bangladesh," Yunus said of the student activists. The leader said the protesting students "courageously stood against bullets" when the previous government acted against them. Suddenly all the young people of Bangladesh got together and said, Enough is Enough.' We are not going to take it anymore. And they didn't, Yunus said, adding that everyone in the country supported the "new Bangladesh". The economist was appointed as the country's chief advisor in August after the bloody student-led movement led to the resignation of Hasina and her escape to India. "Conspiracies are still on to carve a new country out of Bangladesh, like East Timor," Hasina had said in an earlier interview, raising concerns the protests were hijacked by external forces. Hasina had claimed she was approached by a "white man" for a smooth re-election in the 2024 general elections boycotted by the opposition parties in return for an airbase in the country. The Awami League supremo also said the "white man" was also targeting several other nations with his offers. UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- As the world marks the 10th International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a stark warning at the 79th session of the UN General Assembly about rising global tensions and the resurgence of nuclear arms proliferation. In his message, Guterres highlighted the growing geopolitical divisions and mistrust, which have escalated tensions and spurred a new nuclear arms race, saying that "instead of dialogue and diplomacy being deployed to end the nuclear threat, another nuclear arms race is taking shape, and saber-rattling is re-emerging as a tactic of coercion." The secretary-general called on the international community to deliver a united and resolute message: the only way to eliminate the nuclear threat is to eliminate nuclear weapons. He stressed the interconnectedness of disarmament and non-proliferation, noting that progress in one area encourages advancement in the other. "States must pursue both as a matter of urgency," Guterres stated. Addressing the responsibilities of nuclear-armed nations, Guterres urged them to lead by example by honoring disarmament obligations and committing to never use nuclear weapons, nor threaten to use them. He also emphasized the need to strengthen and adapt existing treaties and instruments aimed at preventing the spread and testing of nuclear weapons, particularly in light of technological advancements that could heighten the threat. Guterres noted the recent Summit of the Future, where global leaders recommitted to revitalizing the disarmament regime through the Pact for the Future. This new global agreement, according to Guterres, is a critical step toward bringing the world closer to achieving the total elimination of nuclear weapons. "Our future hangs in the balance," the secretary-general warned. "Let's eliminate these weapons from our world for good." The International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, observed annually on Sept. 26, serves as a reminder of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and the urgent need for their complete elimination. The General Assembly declared the International Day in December 2013 as a follow-up to the high-level meeting of the General Assembly on nuclear disarmament held on Sept. 26, 2013, in New York. A land-owning class, the Jats are a powerful community and account for 28 per cent of Haryana's population. The time, they believe, has now come for them to take revenge. IMAGE: Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda being garlanded at an election meeting in Nilokheri. Photograph: ANI Photo The residents of the premier Haryana constituency with the tongue twisting nomenclature of Garhi-Sampla-Kiloi (GSK) in Rohtak district are on an all-time high. If the constituents of Julana have no hesitation in declaring that their candidate, woman wrestler Vinesh Phogat is not merely an MLA candidate but the future minister of sports, the 300,000 voters at GSK have dubbed Bhupinder Singh Hooda the chief minister elect. Sixty-year old Savita Devi from the village of Bakheta in GSK speaks with a sense of pride when she declares, "We are voting for the next chief minister, we are not voting for a mere vidhayak (MLA)." She lives with her daughter-in-law and her two young children. Her son works as a bus conductor and is away at work. Why does she admire Hooda so much? Her smile becomes even broader. "He may be 77 years of age but he once told us, 'I am never tired. I will never retire.' He has promised all us old people a pension of Rs 6,000 every year that can meet some of my daily needs. He has also promised free medical treatment up to Rs 25 lakhs and a legally binding MSP to our farmers. Obviously, we will support him." This new found confidence is this septuagenarian, who has registered four consecutive victories from here in 2005 by poll, 2009, 2014 and 2019, is understandable because he is poised to achieve a record-breaking victory. He was elected chief minister in 2005 and completed his second term in 2014 after which the baton of chief ministership passed on to Manohar Kal Khattar, a Punjabi, who on taking over the reins of government did his best to break the Jat dominance by giving prominence to Punjabi and non-Jat leaders. The Jats have never forgiven Khattar for refusing to defend their demand to be given a ten per cent quota in jobs. Their demand was set aside by the Supreme Court. Hooda has bestowed his trust in the people of GSK and informed them that while he is not going to personally come and seek their vote, as he is spending his time travelling to other constituencies, each one of them must work towards ensuring his victory. The public are living up to this trust because in several interactions people speak highly of many of his transformative projects such as the Metro-Lane extension to Bahadurgarh and Gurugram, and also the 'Padak Lao, Pad Pad Pao' (Bring a medal, get a government job) which proved a big incentive for youngsters. A land-owning class, the Jats are a powerful community and account for 28 per cent of Haryana's population. The time, they believe, has now come for them to take revenge. In a chaupal in the village of Atail, where grey-haired elders sit on their charpois smoking hookahs and playing cards, the only topic of discussion is politics and how the time has come to make a Badlao (Change). The village of Atail, like all semi-urbanised villages across Haryana is a mix of concrete houses built around courtyards on one side of which have been tied buffaloes that provide an income as also help meet each family's need for milk. Anything extra is sold. An elderly Jat looked up from his cards and said, 'Ab to roti badlein gae (A colloquial to state the time for change has come).' A largely farming community, the average Haryanvi is in no mood to forgive the Khattar government for its mishandling of the entire MSP crisis. To show their anger towards the state government, farmers bodies including the Bharatiya Kisan Naujiwan Union and the Bharatiya Kisan Union Ekta Sidhupur have been camping at Shambu border along with farmers from Punjab from the month of February. "How many of our have brothers died? And when they gathered at the Shambu border earlier this year, this Khattar ordered tear gas to be fired at them. He put up concertina wires and broke up the roads and iron barricades treating them like criminals," said Pahalwan Singh inhaling the smoke from his hookah with great relish. IMAGE: Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Narendra D Modi and Nayab Singh Saini during a public meeting for the Haryana assembly elections in Sonipat, September 25, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo His words meet with the approval of his hookah smoking mates. Amar Singh, a white-haired farmer sitting to his right, nods in agreement. "They have destroyed the future of thousands of young boys who used to join the army every year with that hare-brained Agnipath scheme," said Amar Singh. "From the time the scheme has been introduced, only 500 boys have been taken from our state. After four years, what will these boys do once they leave the army -- they will not get jobs even as peons? The Jat regiments are the pride of the Indian army. They have ground our honour to the dust," stated Amar Singh. He speaks for his community and because this is a refrain heard throughout the state across all communities. The mishandling of the women wrestlers' protest against former Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh for sexual harassment also continues to find a resonance across the state. 'Hamari betien se cher char kari hai or hamare mukhya mantri kahte hein ki ye shuroo se ek political saajish thi,' remarked another oldie. Hooda and the Congress party in the state are taking advantage of this sentiment. 'During my regime, Haryana was known for empowering farmers, jawan (youths) and pehlwans (sportspersons) but this government has attacked them by using batons when they were seeking their rights," Hooda repeats in speech after speech. He assures the public that once the Congress forms the government, each senior citizen will be given Rs 6,000 pension, 200,000 vacant posts in government departments will be filled up and gas cylinders will be sold at Rs 500 each, there will be a legal guarantee on the MSP, and they will receive free medical treatment of Rs 25 lakh. IMAGE: Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and other Indian wrestlers take part in a protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, India, January 19, 2023. Photograph: Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters A resident of Bohar village in GSK says "The BJP has ignored Rohtak district in the last ten years and they are responsible for dividing out society along caste lines. Haryana was never known to be a casteist society, but this saffron party by its very nature is divisive." "During Hooda's regime, two universities, Indian Institute of Management and many other projects were completed but the BJP has not brought a single big project to our state,' he said. What is a matter of distress for the public at large is that a small state like Haryana suffers from the highest unemployment rate in the country at a staggering 38 per cent which is 4.5 times more than the national average. The Opposition parties have gone to town on these alarming figures. Hooda points out that instead of providing 'permanent jobs to the youth, the government is hiring contractual employees through the Employment Corporation.' Another complaint being frequently expressed in the state is how the government has set up 40 portals which the public must use to apply for Aadhar card, ration card, house tax, property tax, old age pension and other amenities. A large cross section of people, especially those in rural parts, do not possess Android phones. Many remain unlettered. Said one 40-year-old fruit seller, "I have been going week after week to try and get a health card made, but each time, I am told to bring some additional certificate. From where am I expected to produce it?" IMAGE: Farmer Union members hold a protest against the central government over their various demands at the Shambhu border (Punjab-Haryana border). Photograph: Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters Some critics including a former sarpanch believes that whatever Hooda's mistakes may have been in the past, and there were many, for he was charged with favouring the Jat community as also of allegedly amassing huge sums of money in land deals, there is no doubt that he has emerged as the tallest leader of Haryana. No other leader can match the goodwill he enjoys today across all communities. Badan Singh, a farmer, says with a sense of pride that Hooda is responsible for putting Garhi-Sampla-Kiloi on the world map. Elaborating on his unhappiness with the BJP regime, Singh said, "We farmers are still waiting to get compensation for our damaged crops during the last two years. During the Congress regime, we received better rates for our crops. Our electricity bills had been waived off and canals were full of water. The BJP government has worked to push us backward," he added. This is the language being spoken across the state. The Jat community is known to be dominant in 37 constituencies from which 30 are located in the Rohtak and Hisar divisions. Interestingly these elections are witnessing the decline of the three powerful families of Devi Lal, Bhajan Lal and Bansi Lal who had dominated Haryana politics from the time of its inception. The only exception to this trend is the Hooda family which has succeeded in maintaining a significant political presence not just in Rohtak and Sonepat but across Jhind, Sirsa, Panipat and Jhajjar. IMAGE: Bhupinder Singh Hooda during the election campaign in Rohtak. Photograph: ANI Photo The extent of Khattar's unpopularity can be gauged from the fact that just two months before the Lok Sabha election, he was removed and Nayab Singh Saini was brought in the hope that he would help the party win the OBC vote bank since OBCs comprise 40 per cent of the state's population. Sadly, Saini was been given no say in ticket distribution resulting in several old timers being denied a ticket. The result several old timers claim the BJP has gone on to reward many new entrants and turncoats with tickets while ignoring those who have been working for years. The powerful BJP leader Rao Inderjit Singh went public on Saini's selection as chief minister stating that 'even today people wish that I had become CM', he stated. Not that Congress has not seen its share of revolts with Sirsa MP Kumari Selja staying away from campaigning for over two weeks resulting in rumours that she was switching over to the BJP. Selja has also been nurturing chief ministerial ambitions and was unhappy that the Hooda camp had succeeded in bagging a lion's share of the assembly tickets. The problem is that in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, as is the habit with the Congress, ticket distribution was done just four weeks before voting. Hooda, who had used his last ten years to create networks across the state, used all his skills to ensure that his camp succeeded in securing victories in four key parliamentary constituencies namely Sonepat, Rohtak, Ambala and Hisar. The Congress won five seats while the BJP had to settle for five. IMAGE: Congress leader Deepender Hooda addresses a public meeting in support of party candidate Balram Dangi from the Meham assembly at Lakhan Majra village in Rohtak, September 25, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo Hooda is pitted against BJP candidate Manju Hooda who is the daughter of a retired deputy superintendent of police. She is at the receiving end of much internal bickering as the party ignored senior leaders like Satish N and former MLA Krishan Murti Hooda. Hooda is being helped by his son Deepender Singh Hooda under whose leadership, the Haryana Congress has launched a state wide 'Haryana Mange Hisaab' Yatra to highlight key issues such as unemployment, irregularities in the Parivar Pehchan Patra, Agniveer recruitment, drug addiction, and corruption scandals in the past decade of BJP governance. With voting a mere ten days away, the Haryana public are convinced the time is ripe for a change of leadership and hopefully of better governance. Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com Brian Robertshaw, owner of Beadniks on Main Street in Brattleboro, talks on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024 about the water damage that his business Brattleboro, VT (05301) Today A few clouds. Low 42F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight A few clouds. Low 42F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. This screenshot shows the short video posted by British TikTok influencer, the Hutchinsons, demonstrating their first experience of drone delivery service in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province. By Liu He "China is already in 2030!" said the Hutchinsons, a British family who owns almost 200,000 followers on TikTok, when they experienced their first drone delivery service in Shenzhen. So far, this vlog has topped all of their posts, gaining an eye-catching 7.8 million views. The rapid development of smart technologies in China has amazed many foreign visitors as they flock to China after its launch of the 144-hour visa-free policy. For instance, videos of a robot delivering food to the corresponding hotel room have swept across social media and gained lots of likes. Allison Paige, a travel vlogger, shared her video showing a robot delivering food to her hotel room with just several taps on her mobile. "This is just so great and convenient. This is something I absolutely love about staying in hotels here," she said. After "China Travel" went viral, the hashtag "China Hotel" has also become a hit on many social media and video platforms overseas. This increasingly intelligent travel experience is a result of China's accelerated efforts to build smart cities over the years. A nationwide network of integrated intelligent vehicles, smart roads, and real-time cloud technologies is being rolled out. Visitors can even enjoy the high-tech facilities one step ahead of the public. In late June, passengers traveling between Beijing Daxing International Airport and Yizhuang were able to choose the services provided by driverless robotaxis with advanced reservations on mobile. Although these robotaxis are operating under the supervision of safety drivers behind for security concerns, this breakthrough in self-driving technology marks a significant step for China's intelligent transportation. "Driverless taxi in China" is also among the popular searches on social media. Italian influencer Andrea posted a video on Tiktok of himself taking a driverless taxi in Guangzhou. The built-in screen showed the surrounding situation to him as the taxi went. After a short yet smooth ride, Andrea got to his destination and waved goodbye to this taxi. "This is mindblowing," said Andrea. His video got over 121,500 views within half a month. In May, China unveiled a guideline on promoting the development of smart cities and urban digital transformation to make urban management smarter. By 2027, China expects to see significant progress in the digital transformation of urban areas and will have built a number of smart cities that are more livable and resilient, according to the guidelines. This screenshot shows the short videos posted by influencers on TikTok, showing their experiences of driverless taxis in China. An autonomous driving taxi, operated by Chinese autonomous vehicle company Pony.ai, runs on a road in Nansha District of Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, June 15, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Dawei) Staff members check an unmanned aerial vehicle at the China National Convention Center in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 11, 2024. (Xinhua/Ju Huanzong) NAIROBI, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The 42nd edition of the International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation (IASP) World Conference will be held in Beijing, China, in September 2025, organizers announced Friday in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. The Chinese delegation led by Ma Jun, deputy mayor of Beijing Municipality, graced the flag handover ceremony to host the conference during the conclusion of the 41st IASP World Conference, which began on Tuesday in Nairobi. Ma said delegates will have an opportunity to attend sub-forums at the foot of the Great Wall, visit specialized industrial parks and leading companies, and have a taste of famous cuisine in Beijing. Kenya hosted the four-day conference that attracted more than 1,500 participants from 400 science parks and innovation hubs. In addition to exhibitions, the conference featured side events that discussed opportunities in the fintech industry, fostering the growth of youth-led startups and the future of work amid technological disruption. Lena Miranda, board president of the IASP, said next year's conference in China will offer an opportunity for players in the digital space to reconnect and witness the technological advances the Asian country has made, impacting the entire globe. According to Miranda, China has emerged as a major player in helping countries in the Global South, especially Africa, leapfrog to a knowledge-based economy that promises jobs, enhanced connectivity, and inclusive growth. John Paul Okwiri, chief executive officer of Konza Technopolis, Kenya's envisioned smart city located about 70 km southeast of Nairobi, said China has excelled in innovations and emerging technologies, hence earning the privilege of hosting next year's IASP World Conference. Okwiri added that a partnership with the Chinese government and firms has been pivotal in advancing Kenya's digitization agenda that has addressed youth unemployment while improving service delivery. Australian data and analytics consultancy Altis Consulting has appointed Nick Yager as its New Zealand regional leader. Yager joins Altis from CyberCX where he director of AWS solutions. He previously worked for Consegna and Sky New Zealand. The potential to drive real-world impact with data is immense, and Im looking forward to being part of a team thats helping clients change the way they see and understand their business, Yager said. He will report to Altis chief commercial officer Katrina Pilcher. Were really excited about the energy, experience and strategic vision Nick brings to drive our New Zealand business forward, Pilcher said. Auckland-based Altis NZ has been operating locally since 2002 and counts Partners Life and SmartParking among its customers. In the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States, Secretary of State Colin Powell gave assurances that America would deal with the tragedy by bringing those responsible to justice while protecting the world's democracies. "They will never be allowed to kill the spirit of democracy," Powell said. "They cannot destroy our society. They cannot destroy our belief in the democratic way." President George W. Bush, who won office in 2000 as a candidate who would be cautious about committing U.S. troops to foreign wars, quickly made fighting global terrorism a top policy, and set about establishing an international "coalition of the willing" to carry out the mission. The U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan had the primary goal of punishing the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, which had been given refuge in Afghanistan and carried out the deadly 9/11 attacks. And once on Afghan soil, Washington quickly ousted the Taliban regime accused of sheltering Al-Qaeda from power. Costly Campaign But the U.S. experience in Afghanistan ultimately ended in failure, and with the hard-line Taliban group back in power. The nearly 20-year war ended with immense costs in terms of lives lost and money spent. And it made the U.S. public and politicians on both sides of the aisle in Washington reluctant to get involved in "forever wars" that could not be won. "More than $2 trillion spent in Afghanistan," U.S. President Joe Biden said on August 31, 2021, in announcing the official end of the United States' longest-ever war. "20,744 American servicemen and women injured, and the loss of 2,461 American personnel." In explaining to the U.S. public that he was "not going to extend this forever war," Biden did not mention the estimated 70,000 deaths among Afghan security forces, more than 46,000 Afghan civilian deaths, and the deaths of more than 4,000 allied troops and U.S. contractors. The withdrawal under Biden has become a lightning rod for debate ahead of the U.S. presidential election on November 5. Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump has blasted Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running against Trump, for the "humiliation in Afghanistan," with much of the criticism centered on the chaotic last days of the withdrawal, when 13 U.S. soldiers and 170 Afghan civilians died in a bombing by the Islamic State-Khorasan extremist group. Harris's campaign, meanwhile, has highlighted Trump's role as president in signing the 2020 deal with the Taliban that paved the way for the withdrawal and provided a "virtually impossible" deadline. But experts who spoke to RFE/RL stressed that multiple U.S. administrations, beginning with Democratic President Barack Obama's from 2009 to 2017 -- had come to the realization that what had begun as a fight against terrorism had become an overly costly and potentially "forever" endeavor. "It was an extremely expensive war in a place that was probably least important to the United States," said Vali Nasr, a professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University. "It was a war that the United States started to destroy Al-Qaeda, which it did very quickly, then to dislodge the Taliban from Afghanistan, which it did, and then it became something much bigger, like how to establish a democracy and a functioning government in Afghanistan and sustain it." The question asked by Obama, who initiated an exit strategy by reducing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and later Trump, was whether there was a compelling reason to stay. The United States "was becoming committed to a forever war, or a forever presence at the tune of billions of dollars a year and tens of thousands of troops, in a condition that the threat from Afghanistan had declined and the strategic value of the country was declining," Nasr said. And the economy and civil society established under the protection of the U.S. military, he says, was not something Afghanistan could sustain on its own. "What the United States created is like a tree that never grew roots," Nasr said. "So, at some point you're going to say, 'I'm going to stop watering it, and I'm going to take my hand off from trying to forcibly keep it upright.'" No Good Outcome Rajan Menon, an emeritus professor of international relations at the City College of New York and director of the Grand Strategy Program at Defense Priorities, said that "no matter how long [the United States] had stayed, I don't see what a good ending could have been." The minimal good outcome, Menon says, would have been "a stable country with a government that may not have been democratic, but which could be counted upon not to serve as a platform for terror and which would have a positive relationship with the United States." But in attempting to realize that goal, what you are essentially "trying to do is engage in nation-building," Menon said. Even a "very, very powerful military machine" like the United States has difficulties pulling that off, he said, and there "are no pretty exits." To avoid the chaotic type of withdrawal that took place in Afghanistan, Menon said, "you have to build institutions, political and military and civic in nature." Without that, "once you leave and remove the military protection, the institutions will start crumbling, and that is exactly what happened." U.S. wars and democracy-building efforts were not isolated to Afghanistan during its nearly 20-year campaign there. There were others -- most notably the costly war in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 -- that former Secretary of State Powell argued was necessitated by an alleged Iraqi program to build weapons of mass destruction that was later determined to be nonexistent. Prior to his death in 2021 just six weeks after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Powell said that his arguments before the UN Security Council "was a great intelligence failure." Baghdad and the United States, which sent troops back to Iraq in 2014 to help fight the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, are still trying to repair relations. According to the Soufan Center think tank on September 9, the two sides reportedly have reached an agreement to transition from the United States leading the effort against IS to a bilateral partnership. 'Forever' Ending? So is the U.S. era of "forever wars" over? Many of the unique circumstances that accompanied the Afghan invasion -- a direct attack on U.S. soil, counterterrorism becoming a focal point of U.S. policy, and the idea that nation-building is an effective solution -- are unlikely to repeat themselves, Nasr says. And the mood in the United States amid a hotly contested election campaign could indicate that it will at least think twice. With both Trump and Harris there is "a little bit of a backlash against the so-called forever wars...and I think the American public probably will be much less supportive" of involvement in them in the future," Menon said. But Madiha Afzal, a fellow in the foreign policy program at Brookings, said in written comments that while "some of the lessons from the Afghanistan war" had started being discussed, particularly in the last couple of years of the conflict, "the disaster of the withdrawal...really focused the conversation in America on Afghanistan to be just about the withdrawal." The larger discussion about the war, Afzal said, "has been entirely obscured," with much of the conversation becoming intensely partisan. "I fear that the larger lessons of the 20-year war have been lost along the way," Afzal concluded. Welcome to The Azadi Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter that unpacks the key issues in Afghanistan. To subscribe, click here. I'm Abubakar Siddique, a senior correspondent at RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. Here's what I've been tracking and what I'm keeping an eye on in the days ahead. The Key Issue The Taliban has imposed new restrictions on Afghan broadcasters, banning live broadcasts of political shows and on-air criticism of its policies. Afghan broadcasters must now prerecord their shows, obtain prior approval of their guest lists, and remove criticism of the Talibans laws. Media outlets and individual media workers will face consequences for failing to adhere to the new rules. Afghan and international media watchdogs have condemned the new restrictions. The New York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on September 24 called on the Taliban to immediately reverse its draconian media restrictions and stop dragging Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. [It is yet] another attempt to further weaken and suppress free media in the country, the Afghanistan Journalist Center (AFJC) said in a September 23 statement. Why It's Important: The new rules are the latest setback to Afghanistans once vibrant media scene. Since the Taliban seized power, it has waged a brutal crackdown on dissent, including beating, detaining, and jailing dozens of journalists. The hard-line Islamist group has forcibly shut down independent media outlets and prohibited virtually any critical reporting about its unrecognized government. These new restrictions signal the end of fundamental media freedoms in Afghanistan, where the Taliban is attempting to transform the press into a propaganda tool, said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. AFJC said the Taliban wants media organizations to remove weak points, sensitive topics, and criticisms of its government and leaders. According to the organization, the Taliban has issued at least 21 directives to the media in recent years that have significantly limited press freedom in the country. What's Next: Despite local and international criticism, the Taliban is unlikely to halt its war against the free press. The extremist group is likely to keep targeting journalists and others who are critical of its brutal rule. What To Keep An Eye On Some Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives have proposed new legislation that would halt all aid to Afghanistan until the Taliban frees three American citizens. Fox News on September 25 published a draft of The No Funding Without Freedom Act, which if passed would require the State Department to regularly update Congress about U.S. citizens detained in Afghanistan regularly. The United States has provided over $2.5 billion to Afghanistan in humanitarian assistance through the United Nations and other NGOs since American military forces withdrew from the country in 2021. The Taliban has held three American citizens since 2022. They are aid worker Ryan Corbett, tourist George Glezmann, and Mahmood Shah Habibi, who led the Afghan Aviation Authority under the previous Afghan government. Why It's Important: The suspension of American aid to Afghanistan would be a significant blow to more than 23 million Afghans currently in need of humanitarian assistance. While the Taliban benefits from U.S. aid dollars pouring into the country, the most vulnerable Afghans will be hit the hardest as they reel from the worlds worst humanitarian crisis. That's all from me for now. Don't forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you have. You can always reach us at azadi.english@rferl.org Until next time, Abubakar Siddique If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every Friday. Israel on October 7 marked the somber anniversary of the Hamas attack on the Jewish state that killed more than 1,200 people and took some 250 hostages as the Israeli military continued its massive air strikes on Beirut and its incursion in southern Lebanon that aims to destroy the Iran-allied Hezbollah militant group. Israeli President Isaac Herzog led a national moment of silence at 6:29 a.m., the time the attack started, at Kibbutz Reim, the site of the Nova music festival where hundreds of mostly young revelers were killed by gunmen from Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by both the United States and the European Union. In Washington, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris 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. The Israeli military said that during the ceremony led by Herzog, four projectiles were launched from Gaza toward the same Israeli communities targeted at the start of last year's attack. The military said the ceremony was not disrupted. In Jerusalem, relatives of the some 100 hostages still in Hamas captivity, many of whom are believed dead, gathered outside the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 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. 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. 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. The conflict in Gaza is still raging while Israel is now fighting on a second front in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah. Early on October 7, Hezbollah, designated a terrorist organization by the United States, fired rockets into the north Israeli cities of Haifa and Tiberias, causing damage and some minor injuries, Israeli police said. The European Union has blacklisted Hezbollah's armed wing but not its political unit, which holds seats in the Lebanese parliament. Amid the military activity at the individual level, the private lives of civilians throughout the region have been disrupted. In the ancient city of Beersheba in southern Israel, Irena Stein, who left Albania in 1991 to resettle in the country, told RFE/RL's Kosovo Service that life in recent times had been filled with "sadness and pain." "We had several months of rockets. Then, the number of rockets decreased, and we continued with daily life, like someone who goes on with their life after the seven days of mourning with a great pain in the heart," said Stein, who is in her late 60s. "There's this feeling like something might happen, that we should be cautious. But I believe you can't live with fear, so we've continued our lives, always praying to God that nothing happens to us." She said that in Beersheba -- where human activity can be traced to the fourth millennium BC -- things have been calm since rockets were last heard on September 29. But she lamented that throughout Israel, "We suffer from this situation, and the Palestinian people suffer from it, too." "The Lebanese people also suffer...everyone suffers. But as they say, peace must be decided at the highest level." Meanwhile, in a Lebanese mountain village southeast of Beirut, local resident Hadi Zahwe told reporters an Israeli strike on October 6 was "terrifying." "There were children killed, there were children's body parts. This enemy is targeting civilian women and children," he said. Netanyahu has insisted that Israeli forces are targeting terrorist strongholds and that civilian fatalities have been extremely low in the recent military actions. Israel in recent weeks has been bombing Beirut's southern suburbs and has staged a ground incursion into south Lebanon in its drive to wipe out Hezbollah's capabilities and leadership. The Israeli campaign on Hezbollah prompted the group's patron, Iran, to respond by attacking the Jewish state 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 a larger regional conflict. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav 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. "The Iranians did not touch the air force's capabilities. No aircraft were damaged, no squadron was taken out of order," Gallant said in reference to the Iranian missile strike, which caused few injuries and slight damage to two air force bases. "Whoever thinks that a mere attempt to harm us will deter us from taking action should take a look at [Israels operations] in Gaza and Beirut." Israel earlier said it conducted a series of "targeted strikes" on "weapons storage facilities" and infrastructure sites that belong to Iran-backed Hezbollah. Lebanon's official National News Agency said Hezbollah's stronghold in the area was hit by more than 30 strikes. A petrol station and a medical supplies warehouse were hit by the air raids. Video footage showed huge flames and plumes of smoke billowing into the night sky as residents fled their homes in panic with explosions echoing in the background. Many observers said the attacks were the strongest yet of Israel's recent air strikes. Beiruts Skyline Lit Up Amid New Israeli Airstrikes No media source currently available 0:00 0:00:59 0:00 Israel has bombed Beirut's suburbs for days, killing Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and possibly his potential successor, Hashem Safieddine. Security sources have said Safieddine had been out of contact since October 4 after an Israeli air strike near Beirut's international airport that was reported to have targeted him. Hezbollah has not commented on Safieddine. Israel says Nasrallah was killed in a strike on the group's central command headquarters in Beirut on September 27. Two senior Iranian security officials told Reuters on October 6 that Ismail Qaani, commander of the Quds Force -- the overseas arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) -- also had not been heard from in recent days since traveling to Lebanon. Statements on October 6 out of the United States -- Tel Aviv's most important ally -- indicated some frustrations with the scope of Israel's military action. "Military pressure can at times enable diplomacy. Of course, military pressure can also lead to miscalculation. It can lead to unintended consequences," a U.S. State Department spokesperson said in a statement. The spokesperson said Washington supported Israeli actions in going after extremist elements but added that U.S. leaders but did not approve of the targeting of civilian infrastructure. Israel says the attacks on Hezbollah are aimed at enabling the safe return of tens of thousands of citizens to homes in northern Israel, bombarded by the group since last October. With reporting by RFE/RL's Kosovo Service and AP One year ago, Hamas -- the U.S.- and EU-designated Palestinian terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip -- carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel, the deadliest in the countrys history. In response, Israel launched an aerial bombardment and ground invasion of the Palestinian enclave to destroy Hamas and rescue the 251 hostages taken by the group. Israel has expanded its war in recent weeks by invading Lebanon and launching air strikes targeting Hezbollah, the armed group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon. RFE/RL spoke to Lior Yohanani, manager of quantitative research at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem-based independent research center, which on October 7 released a wide-ranging survey of Israeli public opinion after one year of war. RFE/RL: Can you explain what your study found as to how Israelis view the past year since Hamas's October 7 attack? Lior Yohanani: Well, I think Israelis still don't see October 7 as an event that's over. Sure, the actual horrific events of that day ended, but Israelis are still living with the consequences. There are two main aspects to this. First, since October 7, Israel has been in this multifront war that doesn't seem to have an end in sight. And then, of course, there is the issue of the hostages still being held in Gaza. So, we're seeing a sharp drop in people's sense of personal security. Almost three quarters of the public feel less safe compared to before October 7, and that's despite a year of war and some significant military achievements. On the flip side, we're also seeing that most people say their lives have returned to normal when it comes to things like work, media consumption, and family and social gatherings. Another thing we're noticing is that the Israeli public is giving pretty low marks to all the political and military leaders for the performance since October 7. For example, almost two-thirds of Israelis are rating Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu's performance since then as poor or not good. RFE/RL: How has Israel's involvement in a two-front conflict, in both Gaza and Lebanon, as well as a confrontation with Iran affected public opinion among Israelis? Yohanani: It's tough to answer that question, because we're at the point where things could go in a few different directions. In the last few weeks, we've seen a major escalation in the conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and just last week, Iran launched nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, which Israel is expected to respond to. In a survey we just did recently, we asked whether Israeli society and the military could handle fighting on two or more fronts for an extended period of time, and the results were pretty striking. Over 70 percent believe that yes, both Israeli society and the military can handle that kind of prolonged fighting. So, while the situation is complex and evolving, there seems to be a strong sense of resilience and capability among Israelis, even in the face of these multiple threats. But of course, public opinion could shift depending on how events unfold in the coming weeks or months. RFE/RL: Is there support for Netanyahus response to October 7? Is there debate in Israeli society, as well as political circles, over Netanyahus strategic choices? Yohanani: First of all, it's important to say that the Israeli public has largely supported significant military operation against Hamas in Gaza. That said, the Israeli discourse around the October 7 events, the ongoing war, and especially toward Prime Minister Netanyahu, is very polarized between right-wing supporters on the one hand and left and center supporters on the other. People are hoping for a future where Israel can exist without constant threats, rather than expecting a harmonious relationship with its neighbors in the near-term." So, on the left and the center, there is a high level of distrust and suspicion toward Netanyahu and his government. For instance, Netanyahu's apparent reluctance to pursue a deal for returning the hostages in exchange for ending the fighting in Gaza is seen by large parts of the public, even on the right, as resulting from Netanyahu's dependence on far-right, ultranationalist members of his government who refuse any compromise or ceasefire. Now for a long time, Netanyahu and his ministers argued that only significant military force would lead Hamas to compromise and release the hostages. Now, with military attention and resources shifting to the north, people are asking, where is this massive military force that was supposed to bring the hostages home? One question we have asked several times since October 7 in our polls is what should be the main goal in Gaza: Dismantling Hamas or bringing back the hostages? And as time goes on, public opinion is increasingly supporting the return of hostages. In our current survey, 62 percent saw bringing the bringing back the hostages as Israel's main goal, while only 29 percent pointed to dismantling Hamas as the primary objective. RFE/RL: How do ordinary Israelis see the question of the remaining hostages amid the continued protests by the hostages' families? Yohanani: As I mentioned before, most of the public supports a deal to release the hostages, even if it means ending the war and withdrawing the military forces from Gaza. There's this widespread feeling that we've left the hostages behind, and that's really hitting at our sense of solidarity, which is a deep and fundamental value, I think, in Jewish history in general and in Israel society in particular. At the same time, the campaign run by the Hostages And Missing Families Forum has become very politicized. Many right-wing supporters see it as weakening Israel. As time goes on, we're seeing more and more harassment of protesters who support bringing the hostages back. There are cases of passersby cursing, even hitting and throwing eggs, at hostages' families. In our latest survey, we asked about the effectiveness of the protests and actions taken by the hostages' families. Despite most of the public feeling empathetic toward the hostage issue, only less than a third think these actions are actually helping to advance a deal for the hostages' release, while almost 40 percent think they're actually hurting the cause. So, you've got this complex situation where people want the hostages back, but there is disagreement and some backlash about how to make that happen. RFE/RL: Can you explain the reasons behind the apparent contradiction in views regarding prioritizing a negotiated return of the hostages, or destroying Hamas? Yohanani: You're right to point out that apparent contradiction. Let me break it down a bit. As I mentioned earlier, a clear majority of the public sees a deal to release the hostages as the main goal. But there is a big gap between political camps on this issue. In the center and left, about 80 percent support the deal for the hostages' release, while the opinions on the right are evenly split. So, for most of the left and center, the fighting in Gaza has run its course. They feel most military objectives have been achieved, and Hamas's military power has been significantly weakened. From their perspective, continuing the fight now only puts the hostages at greater risk. It's important to know that about half of the right-wing also shares this view of prioritizing the hostages' release, but the other half of those on the far-right thinks dismantling Hamas is more important. Why? For a couple of reasons. First, there's a security stance that Hamas must be wiped out and not allowed to recover. There is also a very strong sentiment of revenge, with minimal consideration for the cost, whether it's the lives of the hostages, soldiers, let alone innocent civilians in Gaza. Another significant component openly discussed in religious nationalist circles is the return of Jewish settlement to the Gaza Strip after Israel evacuated Jewish settlements from there in 2005. RFE/RL: Is there public confidence that Israel will ultimately be able to remove the threat of Hamas and Hezbollah and come out of this conflict with greater prospects for a peaceful and stable near-term future? Yohanani: Right now, the Israeli public isn't showing a lot of optimism. In our current survey, when we asked people if they're optimistic or pessimistic about Israel's future, we found more pessimists, 48 percent, than optimists, 45 percent. I also think it's important to note that a peaceful future, as you put it, or peace in general, isn't really a common concept in the current Israeli discourse. I would say the hope of Israelis is that the military actions against Hezbollah and Iran will lead to a situation where Israel's existence isn't in question, and that Israeli military superiority will prevent events like October 7 from happening again. So, it's less about peace in the traditional sense, and more about security and deterrence. People are hoping for a future where Israel can exist without constant threats, rather than expecting a harmonious relationship with its neighbors in the near-term. Israel's military widened its attacks on Iran-backed militant groups, striking the Yemeni port city of Hodeida that is held by Tehran-allied Huthi rebels, even as it intensified air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon, raising fears among global leaders of an all-out Middle East war. "In a large-scale air operation today, dozens of air-force aircraft, including fighter jets, refueling planes, and reconnaissance aircraft, attacked military-use targets of the Huthi terrorist regime in the Ras Issa and Hodeida areas of Yemen," military spokesman Captain David Avraham told AFP on September 29. The military said the air strikes targeted a Huthi-operated power plant and seaport used to import oil and to allegedly receive Iranian weapons. Israel has previously attacked the port, most recently in July. Yemen has endured a civil war since 2014, when Huthi rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, prompting Saudi-led forces to intervene in support of the internationally recognized government and leading to a massive humanitarian disaster in the country of some 40 million people on the southern Arabian Peninsula. The vast majority of humanitarian aid arrives through Hodeida's deep-water port, although much of that has been disrupted since the Huthis seized the facility. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on September 29 that Israel would strike at foes no matter the distance. Yemen's Huthi rebels, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza are considered to be Iranian proxies in the region. The Huthi rebels have been targeting ships in the Persian Gulf and launching missiles toward Israel over the past year, claiming it is in support of Hamas fighters in Gaza. Hezbollah and Hamas have been designated as terrorist organizations by the United States. The European Union also designates Hamas as a terrorist organization, as it does Hezbollah's armed wing but not its political party. Israel's continued aerial attacks on Lebanon and now in Yemen come amid mounting calls from the United Nations and major powers including close ally Washington -- for an easing of hostilities. France announced that Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot had arrived in Beirut late on September 29 after Barrot spoke by phone with caretaker Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati. Paris also called for "an immediate halt to Israeli strikes in Lebanon." Mikati said in a televised speech earlier in the day that Lebanon had "no option but the diplomatic option." U.S. President Joe Biden on September 29 told reporters that he would soon being speaking to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, although he didn't give a date. Asked if an all-out war in the Middle East could still be prevented, he said: "It has to be. We really have to avoid it." U.S. national-security spokesman John Kirby earlier warned that all-out war would not help Israel safely return people to their homes in the north of the country near the Lebanese border, where many thousands have been evacuated. "An all-out war with Hezbollah, certainly with Iran, is not the way to do that. If you want to get those folks back home safely and sustainably, we believe that a diplomatic path is the right course," Kirby told CNN. Kirby also said Washington was talking to Israeli leaders about what the best next measures in Lebanon might be and reiterated that U.S. support for Israels security was "iron-clad." But he added that "we have made no bones about the fact that we don't necessarily see the tactical execution the same way that they do in terms of protection [of civilians]." Iran has vowed a response for the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a massive Israeli air strike in Beirut on September 27 and has signaled continuing support for groups confronting Israel, but it is also seeking an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. Israel's defense forces said on September 29 that they had conducted a "precise strike" on Hezbollah's southern Beirut stronghold. Mikati has warned that the fighting could be displacing as many as 1 million Lebanese civilians. Hezbollah confirmed that Israel's attacks killed the seventh of its leaders to die since mid-September, when Nabil Kaouk died on September 28. Hezbollah also confirmed Israel's earlier assertion that another of its senior commanders, southern forces commander Ali Karaki, had died in the strike that killed Nasrallah. WATCH: Police in Pakistan's biggest city, Karachi, fired tear gas and warning shots after protesters rallying against the death of Hassan Nasrallah threw stones and tried to cross barriers blocking access to the U.S. Consulate. In response to the Israeli assault on Lebanon, Hezbollah has intensified its strikes on Israel, firing several hundred missiles a day, causing some injuries and property damage, although most have been intercepted by Israeli defense systems. Netanyahu described the assassination of Nasrallah as a necessary move toward "changing the balance of power in the region for years to come." Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi was quoted by the official Fars news agency as saying in New York that "Everyone should be aware that the situation is extremely explosive, and that everything is possible...even war." He said that "this horrible crime...will not go unanswered." But with analysts expressing doubt about Tehran's willingness to risk a direct conflict with Israel or its ally the United States, he also signaled a diplomatic push. "The diplomatic apparatus will also use all its political, diplomatic, legal, and international capacities to pursue the criminals and their supporters," Araqchi said. UN Security Council permanent members the United States and China urged de-escalation, while Russia warned of "fraught" and "dramatic" consequences for the region. In his first statement since Israeli forces and Hezbollah confirmed the death of Nasrallah in massive air strikes in Beirut, Netanyahu said "Nasrallah was not a terrorist, he was the terrorist." AFP and Reuters, both citing sources, reported on September 29 that Nasrallah's body had been recovered in Lebanon but that no date had been set for a funeral. The Lebanese escalation comes as Israel's war in Gaza nears the one-year mark since U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist group Hamas launched a cross-border attack that killed more than 1,200 people in Israel on October 7, many of them civilians. There are fears of a rapidly expanding conflict that could include an Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon and eventually draw Iran and the United States directly into the fighting. Israeli officials have said that a ground invasion of Lebanon is among their potential options. Iranian media reported that Israel's September 27 attacks in Beirut had also killed a senior commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). On September 28, Iran's mission to the United Nations reportedly called in a letter for an emergency meeting of the 15-member Security Council. Iranian Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani is said to have accused Israel of committing "a flagrant act of terrorist aggression against residential areas in Beirut, using U.S.-supplied thousand-pound bunker busters." On September 29, official media quoted the speaker of Iran's parliament, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, as pledging ongoing Iranian support for groups that "resist" Israel. "We will not hesitate to go to any level in order to help the resistance," Qalibaf said, adding an accusation that the United States was "complicit" and "has to accept the repercussions." UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "gravely concerned" by the "dramatic escalation" in Lebanon. "This cycle of violence must stop now, and all sides must step back from the brink," Guterres said in a statement. "The people of Lebanon, the people of Israel, as well as the wider region, cannot afford an all-out war." Security Council member Russia has condemned the killing of Nasrallah as "yet another political assassination" that is "fraught with even greater dramatic consequences for Lebanon and the entire Middle East." On September 29, China's Foreign Ministry urged all parties, but especially Israel, to act to de-escalate the situation. Pope Francis appealed to all parties involved in the ongoing violence "to cease fire immediately in Lebanon, in Gaza, in the rest of Palestine, and in Israel." With reporting by Reuters and dpa In the latest grim uptick of Russia's nuclear weapons policy, President Vladimir Putin suggested on September 25 that the Kremlin could use nuclear weapons against any state attacking Russia if that country was supported by a nuclear power. If Russia were to launch a massive nuclear strike on Ukraine or Western Europe, there is not much the continent could do to stop it. Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), is widely considered to be the world's leading Western expert on Russia's nuclear weapons. He says there is no indication such a catastrophe is anywhere close to becoming a reality, but he paints a bleak picture of how a nuclear strike on Europe would unfold. "If there were to be some kind of a massive launch -- or several [Russian] missiles have been launched -- then it's pretty much impossible to guarantee that everything will be intercepted," he said. NATO's internal calculations reportedly predict that in the event of an all-out attack from Russia, the military bloc has "less than 5 percent" of the air defenses needed. Russia is believed to hold some 1,700 nuclear warheads inside more than 500 missiles able to be launched within minutes from silos, mobile launchers, submarines, and aircraft. The United States would probably be the primary target, but many of those missiles are known to be intended for Europe. But if missile barrages are effectively unstoppable, what should civilians do in the event of a nuclear strike? Some European capitals maintain Cold War-era nuclear shelters that are quietly being refreshed. In Kyiv, a nuclear bunker was recently reopened and made available for use. In Prague, a network of Cold War bunkers has seen a spike in interest from locals since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The bunkers "are still functional since the fall of socialism and can be activated if necessary," Jan Mikes, the head of the mayor's crisis management department in the district of Prague 2, confirmed to RFE/RL. A spokeswoman from the Czech Republic's Fire Rescue Service told RFE/RL that, beginning in 2023, the service began updating "requirements for the shelter system and the shelters themselves," without elaborating further. In Germany's Ahr Valley, near Bonn, Heike Hollunder, the director of a nuclear bomb shelter that now operates as a museum, reported a significant recent jump in visitors. "The interest increased, especially from younger people, because of the war in Ukraine," she told RFE/RL. "Could the bunker still be used? Is there a nuclear bunker for the government in Berlin? These are the main questions." But such drastic precautions are probably futile. Podvig says a Russian nuclear strike would offer precious little time to escape to a hardened shelter. From launch to impact over a target in Central Europe, Podvig estimated, "would be in the order of 10 minutes or so." The United States maintains a network of satellites able to instantly spot the plume of a rocket being launched, but that system would probably be useless to countries close to Russia. "The United States has all these sorts of warning systems -- the satellites and all that. But I would doubt that this information could be shared very quickly or at all with U.S. allies in the European states," Podvig said. Models of what modern nuclear weapons would do to cities make for bleak reading. A single Russian Topol-M missile would explode into a kilometer-wide ball of fire that would incinerate every living thing it touched. Within a 7 kilometer radius, countless civilians would die from severe burns and be crushed under the rubble of buildings destroyed by the shock wave. Then would come radiation that would saturate the blast site and poison air and water. British military historian Basil Liddel Hart was witness to a 1955 war game in which NATO ran through a scenario of full-scale nuclear war with the Soviet Union. NATO won the exchange, but as the hypothetical dust settled, nearly every treasure of the Western world lay in ruins. Hart later described the experience as "very disturbing." Victory, he wrote, "had lost its point." Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev is reported to have said that after all-out nuclear war, "the living will envy the dead." UNIDIR's Podvig is cautious about revealing his own calculations. "I just try not to think about it because I know some catastrophic scenarios that are pretty bad," he said. As at the height of the Cold War, the only hard deterrent today is the mutually assured destruction that the West's own stockpiles of hundreds of nuclear missiles ensure, along with a controversial policy of launch on warning (LOW). The LOW posture allows for the United States to launch retaliatory strikes if incoming missiles are detected, before any impact on U.S. soil. The policy would prevent America's own nuclear weapons from being destroyed in situ, but leaves open the possibility of a civilization-ending error. Chinese Ambassador to Slovenia Wang Shunqing speaks at a reception marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Sept. 26, 2024. (Photo by Zeljko Stevanic/Xinhua) LJUBLJANA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Embassy in Slovenia held a reception here on Thursday to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. At the event, which was attended by more than 200 people, a short film about Ferdinand Augustin Hallerstein, a Slovenian scientist who lived some 300 years ago and spent most of his working years in China, was screened. Chinese Ambassador to Slovenia Wang Shunqing said at the reception that the story of Hallerstein, whose Chinese name was Liu Songling, demonstrates the history of friendly exchanges between China and Slovenia. Noting that China has achieved remarkable development over the past 75 years, Wang said China stands ready to make joint efforts for the common development of the world. Musicians also played distinctive melodies such as the Chinese "Jasmine Flower" at the reception. Slovenian musicians perform at a reception marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Sept. 26, 2024.(Photo by Zeljko Stevanic/Xinhua) WASHINGTON -- In 2020, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was dragged into the U.S. presidential election campaign. This time, just weeks before a vote that could have a massive influence on Kyiv's defense against the Russian invasion, he walked right into it. On September 22, Zelenskiy toured a munitions factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, that makes ammunition for his armed forces, thanking workers and signing one of the 155 mm shells that are crucial for Kyiv's war effort. He was joined by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and two members of the House of Representatives, all Democrats. Had Zelenskiy visited the plant during any of his four previous trips to the United States since Russia launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022, it might have been long forgotten by now. Instead, it has turned into a flashpoint for Republicans, creating controversy that marred his the nearly weeklong visit to the United States, Ukraine's biggest backer, at a time when Russia is making gains on the battlefield, decimating Ukraine's energy infrastructure as winter approaches, and counting on Western support for Kyiv to wither. Battleground Scranton is President Joe Biden's hometown. Pennsylvania is a crucial battleground state whose voters could end up deciding the November 5 election between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. For Zelenskiy, the factory tour was meant "to demonstrate and showthat the assistance to Ukraine is beneficial to the United States itself, because this assistance makes it possible to create new jobs," Alyona Getmanchuk, director of the Ukrainian think tank New Europe Center and a nonresident senior fellow at the U.S.-based Atlantic Council Eurasia Center, told RFE/RL in Kyiv. Trump, she said, apparently "perceived this as an attempt toinfluence the electoral balance, which is very fragile in the state of Pennsylvania. That is, he saw it exclusively in the context of the election." As Zelenskiy's U.S. trip continued with speeches at the United Nations and meetings with Biden and Harris at the White House, Republicans lashed out over the factory tour. The speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, called it "a partisan campaign event" and demanded Zelenskiy "immediately fire" his ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova. Charles Kupchan, an analyst at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, said the munitions plant visit "backfired." "It's more an indication of the polarized debate between Democrats and Republicans than it is about any missteps taken by Zelenskiy," he told RFE/RL. 'Much More Difficult' Mykola Byelyeskov, an analyst at the Ukrainian government-backed National Institute for Strategic Studies in Kyiv, suggested the U.S. election campaign makes navigating ties with Kyiv's most crucial backer particularly tricky. "Zelenskiy is doing his best" on the U.S. trip, Byelyeskov told RFE/RL. "We see some results. I'm sure that we'll see more results. And we need to deal with every single faction in U.S. politics. And we are trying to do this. And it's much more difficult during the election season." For Biden, it's also "very difficult to take radical steps that in his mind might bring the issue of escalation closer. Because all the surveys in the U.S., domestic ones, they say that the American population is indeed concerned with hypothetical nuclear escalation," he said. "That's why it makes it more difficult for Ukraine to argue for various things that we need." During the visit, Zelenskiy did not secure a public promise that the United States would permit Kyiv to strike deeper into Russia with U.S. long-range missiles. A group of Republicans in the House held up $61 billion in mostly military aid for Ukraine for six months, leading to a deficit of ammunition on the battlefield, in part on the grounds that the money could be better spent at home. The United States spends the majority of the aid money at home on restocking arms and equipment sent to Ukraine, and the trip to Scranton highlighted that fact. Johnson had been instrumental in eventually getting the package through; his public ire over the plant visit signaled goodwill over that development is gone. Kurt Volker, a Pennsylvania native who served as a special envoy to Ukraine under Trump in 2017-2019, called the timing of the factory tour "a huge mistake." "It is a very sensitive time, a sensitive issue, a sensitive state -- like, the key swing state. It is just playing with fire, and Ukraine should do everything possible to avoid being a political subject in our election," said Volker, who is now an analyst at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington. Way Back When Lucian Kim, senior Ukraine analyst for the Crisis Group, called the visit a "misstep" on Zelenskiy's part that opened him up for criticism from opponents of aid for Ukraine within the Republican Party faction known as MAGA Republicans for their unyielding support for Trump and his policies. "Bilateral U.S. support has been one of the foundations of Ukrainian foreign policy," Kim said. "That level of bipartisan support now seems to be in question. The MAGA wing, which is unsympathetic to Ukraine, is increasingly defining the Republican party." The Pennsylvania plant visit was at last one factor raising doubts about an expected meeting between Zelenskiy and Trump -- whose relationship has been colored for years by a phone call in 2019, just months after the Ukrainian leader's election, that led to Trump's impeachment -- would take place. Trump was impeached by the then-Democratic-controlled House of Representatives in December 2019 over the phone call in which he was accused of pressuring Zelenskiy to dig up dirt on the Biden family's activities in Ukraine. He was acquitted by the Senate, then controlled by the Republicans, in February 2020. Trump took aim at Zelenskiy several times. At a campaign stop on September 25, he repeated his description of the Ukrainian president as "the greatest salesman in the world" -- a reference to the tens of billions of dollars in aid lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have approved since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion. 'Proposals For Surrender' He also repeated his argument that Kyiv should have reached an agreement with Russia to stave off or end the invasion. "Any deal -- the worst deal -- would've been better than what we have now," he asserted. "If they made a bad deal, it would've been much better. They would've given up a little bit and everybody would be living." Trump has said he would bring an end to Russia's war against Ukraine quickly if he is elected, several times saying it would happen even before the inauguration in January -- a claim he made again when he and Zelenskiy met in New York on September 27. He has not said how he would accomplish this, but his comments have raised concerns his efforts would involve exhorting Ukraine to hand territory to Russia. On the main purposes of Zelenskiy's U.S. trip was to present Biden and others with a "victory plan" for the war against the Russian invasion, though details have not been released. Trump, in his debate against Harris on September 10, declined to answer directly when asked whether he wants Ukraine to win, saying, "I want the war to stop." On September 26, Harris said suggestions that Kyiv should cede territory for the sake of peace are "dangerous and unacceptable." Such calls are "proposals for surrender," she said. A Meeting In New York In an interview with The New Yorker ahead of his U.S. visit, Zelenskiy said, "Trump doesn't really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how." He also said JD Vance, Trump's running mate, is "too radical" and has suggested he wants Ukraine "to give up our territories." The atmosphere seemed warmer when Zelenskiy and Trump held talks at the Trump Tower in New York, with Trump praising Zelenskiy for his conduct during the impeachment process -- "he was a piece of steel" -- but there was no sign of a change in Trump's attitude toward the Russian invasion. Trump again offered no details on how he would seek an end to the war, saying he believes that "we're going to get it resolved very quickly" if he wins the presidency. "If we have a win, I think long before January 20we can work out something that's good for both sides this time," Trump said before the two sat down for the meeting. "It's a shame but this is a war that should have never happened, and we'll get it solved," Trump said after the meeting. "It is a complicated puzzle.... Too many people dead." In a Telegram post after what he called a very meaningful meeting, Zelenskiy said that he had presented his victory plan to Trump and that they discussed used many details. "We have a common view that the war in Ukraine must be stopped. Putin cannot win. The Ukrainians must win," he said. Whether Zelenskiy's visit will affect the outcome of the U.S. election is an open question. "Foreign policy issues in general don't determine [U.S.] electoral outcomes. People vote on the economy, on immigration, on crime, what's on their radar screen on a day-to-day basis," Kupchan said. And exactly how a win for Trump or for Harris might change the course of the war is also unclear. Kupchan said that despite Trump's rhetoric, he will struggle to cut a deal with Putin if elected and likely end up approving aid for Ukraine. "Trump would not want to be the American president who lost Ukraine. And so even if he gets elected and tries to negotiate an end game, he too is going to end up having to send support to Ukraine," he said. Prince reported from Washington, Palikot from Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he had "very meaningful" discussions with former U.S. leader Donald Trump amid tensions over what critics call the ex-president's pro-Russia stance. "A very meaningful meeting with Donald Trump," Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram following the September 27 talks at Trump Tower in New York. "I presented him with the Victory Plan. It set out in detail the situation in Ukraine and the consequences of the war for our people. We discussed many details." "We have a common view that the war in Ukraine must be stopped. [Russian President Vladimir] Putin cannot win. The Ukrainians must win," Zelenskiy added. Standing next to Zelenskiy prior to the talks, Trump said that if elected in November, "We're going to work with both parties" to end the war in Ukraine. "[I] have a very good relationship [with Zelenskiy], and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin," Trump said. Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here. "I think if we win [in November], I think we're going to get it resolved very quickly," he added. Prior to the meeting, U.S. media had speculated the session might not take place after Trump took offense to Zelenskiy's comments in a magazine interview that stated Trump "doesn't really know how to stop the war." "The fact that were even together today is a very good sign," Trump said as the two arrived at a conference room at Trump Tower. Zelenskiy met with Trump after holding talks with U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in Washington as Russia keeps pounding Ukraine with deadly strikes. Relations between Zelenskiy, who is looking to shore up support for his war effort, and Trump are cool, and the meeting comes after the former U.S. president and current Republican presidential candidate reiterated his doubts that Ukraine can repel Russia's unprovoked invasion and win the war. In a debate with Harris, Trump refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war. Trump has also said that Ukraine should cut a deal to end the war and suggested that Kyiv should have made concessions to Russia in the months before Moscow's invasion, saying that "any deal -- the worst deal -- wouldve been better than what we have now." On September 26, Biden welcomed Zelenskiy to the White House on September 26 after announcing billions in military aid for Kyiv and insisting again that Russia "will not prevail" in its invasion of Ukraine. Zelenskiy presented Biden with what he has referred to as his "victory plan" and again requested that the United States lift restrictions on the use of long-range weapons it has provided to strike deep inside Russia at military targets. Few details are known about the "victory plan" put together by Zelenskiy, who has been on an intensive diplomatic mission since he arrived in the United States for the annual UN General Assembly earlier this week. Zelenskiy has indicated he would again seek permission to use long-range missiles to strike military targets deep inside Russia to prevent attacks on its cities and infrastructure, a move Ukraine's allies are divided upon. "Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail, and we'll continue to stand by you every step of the way," Biden said as he hosted Zelenskiy in the Oval Office after thanking him for presenting his plan. "We deeply appreciate that Ukraine and America have stood side by side," said Zelenskiy, dressed in a dark green military-style outfit. Zelenskiy later shared his "victory plan" with Harris at the White House. Harris told Zelenskiy that her support for the people of Ukraine was unwavering. Harris also took a swipe at her opponent in the upcoming presidential elections, saying that Trump's suggestions about Ukraine cutting a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war were not proposals for peace but "proposals for surrender." Biden earlier on September 26 announced more than $8 billion in military aid for Kyiv and repeated in a statement that the United States will "provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win this war." The package includes for the first time a system called Joint Standoff Weapon -- a precision-guided glide bomb with a range of up to 130 kilometers launched from fighter aircraft -- as well as an additional Patriot air-defense battery and hundreds more Patriot missiles and AMRAAMs (advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles). The United States, Ukraine's main supporter, and Western allies have given Kyiv billions of dollars in military aid and other assistance while also slapping several rounds of sanctions on Moscow. Zelenskiy also met with U.S. lawmakers at the U.S. Capitol. After the meeting, Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican-South Carolina) said the Ukrainian president asked for only one thing: permission to use U.S. weapons to strike "legitimate military targets" deep inside Russia. Zelenskiy told senators he planned to hit specific targets, including air bases, that the Russian military uses in its attacks on Ukraine. In the latest massive Russian drone attack on September 27, three people were killed and another 11, including a child, were wounded in Ukraine's Danube port of Izmayil, Odesa regional Governor Oleh Kiper reported. Izmayil is a critical hub for Ukraine's grain exports located on the border with NATO member Romania, and has been repeatedly targeted by Russian strikes. Romanian authorities in the Tulcea region just across the border from Izmayil issued an alert for the public, warning that drones had been located close to the frontier. Later, Romania's Defense Ministry said in statement that its national airspace was likely breached for under 3 minutes by a Russian drone. The ministry said it had scrambled two F-16 fighters belonging to the Romanian Air Force, which were later joined by two F-18 warplanes belonging to fellow NATO member Spain. All four fighter planes returned safely to their air bases in southeastern Romania, the ministry said. SGPC Backs Diljit Dosanjh's Film "Punjab 95" Amid Censor Board Controversy SGPC's endorsement has amplified attention to the film and its significance in portraying Khalra's life and fight for human rights. Diljit Dosanjh Jaswant Singh Khalra Biopic Punjab 95 CBFC Obstacle in Release: The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has extended its full support to Diljit Dosanjh's upcoming film Punjab 95, a biopic on human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra. The film has been embroiled in controversy due to objections from the Censor Board, which has called for 120 cuts, a title change, and alterations to the portrayal of Khalras character. The board has suggested renaming the film to Satluj. Advertisement The SGPC's endorsement has amplified attention to the film and its significance in portraying Khalra's life and fight for human rights. The organization's support highlights the ongoing debate over creative freedom in Indian cinema, particularly when it comes to telling real-life stories that carry historical and social weight. The SGPC has firmly opposed the Censor Board's demands, advocating for the film to retain its original title and content. Advertisement The controversy has sparked broader conversations about the challenges faced by filmmakers in addressing sensitive subjects while maintaining artistic integrity. (For more news apart from Diljit Dosanjh Jaswant Singh Khalra Biopic Punjab 95 CBFC Obstacle in Release Controversy, stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman) Malaysia's national news agency Bernama Chairman Wong Chun Wai speaks during an interview with Xinhua in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Sept. 13, 2024. (Xinhua/Cheng Yiheng) KUALA LUMPUR, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A modern and seamless system to welcome travelers combined with favorable policies including visa free travel for Malaysians entering China are boosting people-to-people ties between the two nations by enabling increased tourism and interactions, a Malaysian expert has said. Having traveled to China extensively especially in 2024 in conjunction with official duties related to the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between Malaysia and China as well as in his personal capacity, Malaysia's national news agency Bernama Chairman Wong Chun Wai told Xinhua in a recent interview. Wong said that free travel to China was impressive, and it was easy to find steps taken by Chinese authorities in welcoming travelers, from automatic entry gates at airports which relay instructions in different languages to the welcoming attitude of local officials. He was amazed by the service at the immigration. "I can't speak Chinese. You don't even need to speak Chinese because you put your passport on the machine and they know you're from Malaysia, and the voice from the machine says 'Welcome to China' in Bahasa Malaysia," he said. Wong also spoke highly of China's railway transport infrastructure, which allowed easy rapid travel from Hangzhou to Shanghai via high speed railway. "I wish that the world could see more of this technology advance in transportation which is carried out by China ... the advancement of technology in transport is really amazing for me. That to me is number one thing that hits me the most every time I go to China," he said. "I will say that, China's biggest eye opener for me is the transformation of the railway network. The railway network is really, really amazing. I think it's the most extensive in the world in terms of high-speed railway," he said. On the significance of the 50th anniversary milestone, Wong said that while a lot have already been accomplished, there is even more to look forward to going forward particularly in economic cooperation as the nature of Malaysia and indeed the whole Southeast Asian region is undergoing a rapid transformation, buoyed by China's economic success. "While Malaysia is small, but we have a big middle-class market. That means there's good purchasing power. So, it's really good that (Chinese automaker) Geely and Proton have come together to work in Malaysia," he said. "It's not just for the Malaysian market but to use it as a leaping hub to send to other countries. But I would really love to see Malaysia and China working together more on technology, and also transportation, I'd say, because there's so much to learn from China in terms of technological advancement," he added. For the upcoming China's National Day, Wong gave his best wishes. "On behalf of Bernama, the Malaysian national news agency, I wish the people of China, the government of China, every success and prosperity in the years to come," he said, hoping that Malaysia and China could go further in terms of people-to-people friendship. Malaysia's national news agency Bernama Chairman Wong Chun Wai speaks during an interview with Xinhua in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Sept. 13, 2024. (Xinhua/Cheng Yiheng) Haryana Farmers Organize Training Sessions to Confront BJP Leaders Ahead of Polls BJP candidates have faced angry crowds during recent campaign efforts. Haryana Farmers Ahead of Assembly Elections 2024: In the lead-up to the October 5 Haryana elections, farmers in the state have been organizing "training sessions" to prepare for confrontations with BJP leaders during their campaigns. On Wednesday, Amarjeet Singh Mohri, a 44-year-old local farm leader, held one such session at a gurdwara in Mardon Sahib village, Ambala district, where around 100 farmers gathered to listen. Mohri, who established the Bhartiya Kisan Union (Shaheed Bhagat Singh) in 2022, aims to arm farmers with questions to challenge BJP candidates about the government's handling of the Dilli Chalo protests earlier this year. The strategy appears to be working, as BJP candidates have faced angry crowds during recent campaign efforts. Advertisement On September 22, Naraingarh candidate Pawan Sainis convoy was surrounded by farmers on tractors in Fatehgarh village, Ambala, as they demanded answers. Other BJP leaders, including former state Home Minister Anil Vij, Assembly Speaker Gian Chand Gupta, and several other candidates, have faced similar pushback from farmers across the region. Farmers anger is rooted in the police response during the protests, where authorities sealed the Haryana-Punjab border to prevent demonstrators from reaching Delhi. The government, led by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, was accused of using tear gas, pellet guns, and drones against the farmers, though the police deny the use of anything beyond tear gas. The death of protester Shubhkaran Singh has further fueled resentment, with farmers determined to hold BJP leaders accountable during the election campaign. Advertisement (For more news apart from Haryana Farmers Ahead of Assembly Elections 2024, stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman) Bengaluru Mahalakshmi murder case: Killers Diary Reveals Chilling Confession Police recovered a notebook in which Ray detailed the gruesome murder. Bengaluru Mahalakshmi murder case latest news: In a shocking development in the Mahalakshmi murder case, the prime suspect, Mukti Ranjan Ray, reportedly confessed to the crime in a diary entry and to his mother before taking his own life near his home in Dhusuri, Odisha. Police recovered a notebook in which Ray detailed the gruesome murder, writing in both Odia and English. He claimed that Mahalakshmi, with whom he was in a relationship, had physically assaulted him multiple times for refusing to marry her. Ray also alleged that Mahalakshmi exploited him financially and had planned to kill him, which led him to murder her. Advertisement Ray's mother confirmed that he had confessed to her as well. "He was disturbed because Mahalakshmi was exploiting him. She even took his gold chain and ring," she stated. Ray and Mahalakshmi, who worked together at a garment store in a Bengaluru mall, had been in a troubled relationship. Tensions escalated when Mahalakshmi, who had separated from her husband, pressured Ray for marriage. According to police, fearing arrest as they tracked him down in Odisha, Ray committed suicide. His brother, Satya, revealed that Ray had strangled Mahalakshmi on September 3 during a fight, dismembered her body, and stored the remains in a refrigerator, with plans to dispose of them months later. Advertisement (For more news apart from Bengaluru Mahalakshmi murder case latest news, stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman) Ladowal Toll Plaza Reopens After Employees' Strike Ends It is estimated that over 70,000 vehicles pass through the Ladowal toll plaza daily. Ladowal toll plaza News: The Ladowal toll plaza, one of Punjab's busiest and most expensive tolls, resumed operations on Friday after a brief closure due to an employee strike. Toll workers had shut down the plaza earlier in the day to press for their demands, but the strike was called off following successful negotiations with the management. The employees of the toll plaza had stopped collecting toll fees, but after the company's assurance to meet their demands, they returned to work, and toll collection has since resumed. (Ladowal toll plaza) Advertisement It is estimated that over 70,000 vehicles pass through the Ladowal toll plaza daily, with a revenue of approximately Rs 70 lakh per day. Strike Details Bachittar Singh, President of the Toll Plaza Employees Union District, confirmed that the toll remained closed for about an hour. Punjab Police officials mediated a meeting between the union and the company, leading to an agreement that addressed the workers' concerns. After the agreement, toll collection resumed, and the strike was officially called off. Advertisement Employee Grievances Union leader Darshan Singh Ladi had earlier raised concerns over the lack of basic employee benefits at the toll plaza. Workers were reportedly denied government holidays, PF contributions, and access to welfare schemes like ESI. The toll plaza workers' union had initially announced an indefinite closure starting September 27 but ended the strike after reaching a settlement with the management. With operations back to normal, vehicles are once again being charged toll fees, bringing the brief disruption to an end. Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann Hospitalized with Artery Inflammation, Still Under Observation The state government initially described his hospital visit as a routine check-up and tests. Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann Health Update: Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann was rushed to the emergency ward of a private hospital in Sector 62, Mohali, around 12:30 a.m. on Thursday. The Chief Minister is currently under observation after being admitted due to health concerns. The state government initially described his hospital visit as a routine check-up and tests, with further updates provided later in the day. Advertisement In an official statement, the Chief Ministers Office (CMO) confirmed that various tests were being conducted to assess Mann's condition. "Doctors have found signs of inflammation in one of the arteries in his lungs, which is exerting pressure on his heart, causing fluctuations in his blood pressure," the CMO reported. Additional tests and blood work have been conducted, and Mann is expected to remain under observation overnight. A decision regarding his discharge will be made based on test results expected by Friday morning. This hospital visit follows recent health concerns, as the Chief Minister has fainted three times in the past few days. Most recently, on September 17, Mann fainted after de-boarding a chartered flight at Chandigarh airport, citing low blood pressure. After initial medical attention at his residence, he was advised to fly to a private hospital in Delhi for further evaluation. Sources report that Mann, who arrived at the hospital around midnight, is in stable condition and recovering on the second floor of the Mohali facility. Advertisement (For more news apart from Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann Health Update, stay tuned to Rozana Spoksesman) Via Danubiana A trail along the Romanian segment of river Danube is about to be created Via Danubiana Eugen Nasta, 27.09.2024, 14:00 Work is in progress, in Romania, for an ecotourism route, meant to provide the explorer with one-of-a-kind experiences, ranging from the natural and cultural heritage to the landscapes, unique in Europe. The Danube Gorges, the Iron Gates, the islands and islets the river forms in its course, the Danube Delta or the spectacular areas where the river flows into the Black Sea, all these are but a few of the Danubes attraction points. The project has been developed by the Greener Association. With more on the association itself, here is its PR director, Alexandra Damian. We have been developing projects in several fields since 2008, when the Association was founded. We seek to build a culture of responsibility and of the volunteering for people and nature, in Romania. We plant trees, we get involved in combatting river Danubes pollution with plastic, we have a large-scale program With Clean Water, where we carry activities of sanitation on banks of the Danube and its tributaries. We installed several floating dams in a bid to stem the flow of waste that are carried by the course of the river and its tributaries, and, basically, we promote the natural areas that can be found in Romania, so we somehow get closer to nature in a way we have forgotten to that, sort of, as of late. Through the creation of a wide-scope ecotourism route along the Danube, tourists who love natural areas will discover the tremendous potential the area offers. Also, the local community will benefit from a sustainable economic development. With details on that here is the Greener Associations PR director, Alexandra Damian. But how the idea of the Via Danubiana came about? The idea of the project has laid dormant for a couple of years now, with us, it existed in a drawer. We very much wanted to create this ecotourism route since we all know the Danube offers unique experiences. From the point where it enters Romania and all the way to the point where if flows into the Black Sea, we come across many beautiful places, a natural and cultural heritage, landscapes which are unique in Europe, reason enough for us to bring to the fore one of Romanias less-promoted areas. In the region, a series of protected areas and Natura 2000 sites have been identified, while the trail crosses forest areas along the shore, islands, canals and islets. As we speak, these are not accessible to the lay public because of the lack of infrastructure and poor promotion. We continue to map the more than one thousand kilometres river Danube flows in Romania. Were speaking about the mapping of the natural objectives, of the cultural and historical assets, of the local cuisine, all that can be found along the river. In the initial stage, we marked the segment flowing through Giurgiu County along a distance or around 100 kilometers, a zone which is rich in protected areas, in Natura 2000 sites, in cultural and historical objectives, which are very important yet very little promoted. The route we have mapped also goes through shore forests, islands, canals, islets lovers of nature will definitely want to discover. In September we placed the first milestone in Giurgiu Countys commune of Gaujani, at the Youth Educational Centre. It is one of the milestone points along the route. Were next going to place two other milestones, in two other strategic points along the route. The route offers a great many ways to spend your leisure time, only one hours drive from Bucharest. For the lovers of nature, the area benefits from an attractive list of species and can become the perfect place for birdwatching and the observation of the fauna and flora that are typical for river Danube. Along the route, we come across several natural protected areas, with more than 300 species of extremely rich flora and fauna, with very important invertebrate species, birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals. From a cultural and historical point of view, there are several points of interest, which are nonetheless unbeknownst to the lay public and hitherto un-signalled, such as the ruins of Mircea the Elders fortress in Giurgiu, a period half-buried house or the range of bunkers in Slobozia. Also, for those who love the local cuisine, some of the culinary traditions can be revitalized, such as the pies that are specific for the Romanian-Bulgarian space, riparian to the Danube Delta, the pepper salads or the salads prepared with aubergines baked on glowing embers, or the goose thick soup. All the details needed for the journey along the Danube have already been published in a Travellers Guide you can access at viadanubiana.ro. We have already launched the site. There we have GPS coordinates for those who want to walk along the trail, at viadanubiana.ro. Weve also published a Travellers Guide in Giurgiu County. We very much want those who love nature, those who are into outdoor walks, those who love the Danube and the Delta, we want them to come join us. Given that, as we speak, we only map a segment, 100 out of the 1,000 kilometres, they can get involved in all sorts of ways so that we can extend the route, so we can map just as weve mapped Giurgiu County and the other regions along the Danube. Also, donations are welcome, products can be bought in the shop that has especially been created for Via Danubiana. They can obviously get involved as volunteers in the activities we are going to stage and can of course become ambassador of the new route. At vianubiana.ro you can access the whole range of options for the lovers of nature to get involved, in a bid to support the project. So far, appeals to volunteering have been successful, said Greener Associations PR director, Alexandra Damian. Volunteers from outside Romania have also joined in. Weve had, were open and, of course, we shall continue to have volunteers from many countries, especially along the river. We had volunteers from Germany, Austria, Ukraine who helped us in the activities we have staged so far. Thats for sure, we wait them to join us in the future as well. Who has walked a segment along the Danube at least once, theyre sure to have unforgettable memories, related to the impressive landscape offered by the river in certain areas, or to the historical vestiges people come across along the route or to the traditional food carefully prepared by the locals. Added to that are the species of birds and animals that are typical for the region and which, on the banks of the river, they can find food, resting or nesting areas. Furthermore, the Danubes Romanian segment flows through 11 of Romanias main 28 protected areas. Romania, increasingly attractive for immigrants Romania attracts an increasing number of foreign workers, who come to the country for higher salaries and better working conditions. Photo: pixabay.com Mihai Pelin, 27.09.2024, 13:50 Romania is becoming increasingly attractive for foreign workers, according to a study carried out by the Civil Society Development Foundation. In recent years, the labor market has seen a significant increase in the number of foreign employees, exceeding the 200,000 threshold in 2023. This trend reflects an increasing diversification of the workforce, at a time when the country is facing a crisis of human resources in certain sectors. There are several reasons why Romania is becoming a favorite destination for foreign workers. First, the wages offered are often higher compared to those in their home countries, especially for Asian workers. In addition, many Romanian and international companies operating in Romania face a shortage of skilled labor, and bringing in workers from abroad becomes an attractive solution. Although foreign workers contribute to economic growth, they also deal with many challenges, such as abuse by employers. According to the study, the countries of origin of most foreign workers in Romania are Nepal, Turkey, Italy, the Republic of Moldova, Sri Lanka and India. Foreign labor force is hired mostly in sectors like constructions, hospitality and retail. Data from the General Inspectorate for Immigration show that 80% of them do unskilled work. The integration of foreign workers is not easy, but it is important for Romanias economic growth, says Ramona Chiriac, head of the European Union Representation in Romania. Ramona Chiriac: The FDSC study will highlight the language barriers, the ill-adjusted legislation regarding social insurance, in some cases a limited access of workers to quality public services, the various abuses by employers, all of which require new appropriate public policies to transform this phenomenon in a success story, both for Romania and for those who come to Romania. On her part, Victoria Stoiciu, state counsellor with the Prime Ministers Chancellery, said that the representatives of several ministries are working jointly on a legislative framework to help immigrants. This would mean strengthening state control institutions, such as the Labor Inspectorate and ensuring decent working conditions, good wages and protection against human trafficking for immigrants. Hiring foreign workers is a win-win situation, increasing companies efficiency and productivity, while workers enjoy better working and living conditions. Cultural and linguistic differences can, however, create communication barriers, and the working and living conditions for these workers are not always optimal. However, many of them say they are satisfied with the opportunities found in Romania, appreciating both the stability of their jobs and the possibility of sending money home to support their families. After Boris Ashley comes The weather will be getting significantly cooler in Romania starting Sunday due to Ashley Storm, which is expected to arrive here from the Mediterranean Photo: eyeonicimages / pixabay.com Corina Cristea, 27.09.2024, 14:00 Never before had Central Europe seen such heavy rainfalls as those registered over September 12th and 16th when Storm Boris struck Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Austria, Czechia, Italy and Germany, killing 24 and causing significant material damage. Thousands had to leave their houses after their buildings had been affected, bridges collapsed and local infrastructure deteriorated. Effects have not been removed yet and a cyclone from the Mediterranean called Ashley is already visible in Western Europe heading for Romania, whose weather is going to radically change starting Sunday. Authorities are bracing themselves for potential extreme weather phenomena, with highs sharply dropping from 34 down to 15 degrees Celsius, 22 on Sunday and Monday when heavy rainfalls are being expected to hit 90 liters in the countrys south and part of the Carpathians. An exchange of air masses are expected to cause a series of extreme weather phenomena, which require attention in the following period, the head of the National Meteorological Administration, Elena Mateescu says. According to her, we are speaking about significant weather instability, mainly in the west, north-west, of code yellow alerts with the quantities of precipitations estimated at 30-40 liters/square meters, after which we are going to have yellow and orange code alerts all over the country. Code red alerts cannot be excluded if the expected rainfalls are going to hit 100 liters per square meter in 24 hours. Additional intervention forces are to be deployed to the areas the authorities consider of higher risk. The city halls in the aforementioned areas are to take all the necessary measures and get ready to evacuate the vulnerable persons in time. They must also be keeping in touch with the Emergency situation inspectorates. (bill) German automotive parts supplier HELLA GmbH & Co. KGaA (HLKHF), called FORVIA HELLA, said it cut its fiscal year 2024 outlook due to lower-than-expected production volumes, customer-related postponements of series launches, and effects from customer and product mix. The company now expects annual currency and portfolio-adjusted sales to be in the range of around 7.9 billion euros to 8.1 billion euros, compared to the previous estimate of the lower half of the range of about 8.1 billion euros to 8.6 billion euros. The company now projects an operating income margin for fiscal year 2024 to be between around 5.5% and 6.0%, compared to the previous outlook of the lower half of the range of approximately 6.0% to 7.0%. The company now anticipates a net cash flow in relation to reported sales for the year to be between around 2.2 and 2.7 percent compared to the earlier estimation of at approximately 3 percent. FORVIA HELLA said it decided to expand activities in the American and Asian markets. On the other hand, cost structures are to be further improved overall and the competitiveness program for Europe launched in February of this year is to be accelerated. The company expects positive effects from this as early as 2025. For more earnings news, earnings calendar, and earnings for stocks, visit rttnews.com. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- China's broadcasting, television and online audio-visual service industry generated total revenue of 668.3 billion yuan (95.3 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of 2024, representing 7 percent year-on-year growth. The development of cable TV networks and 5G is progressing in tandem, with over 28 million users now on the broadcasting 5G network, said Zhu Yonglei, deputy head of the National Radio and Television Administration, at a press conference Friday. Official figures show that online audio-visual services continue to thrive -- boasting a user base of 1.07 billion. Zhu emphasized that China has become a major player in the production of broadcasting, TV and online video content, with excellent works produced in various genres. From January to August this year, 148 TV dramas and web series were approved for release. Notably, variety shows have gained immense popularity among viewers. After a flat start, the Indian stocks moved up a bit Friday morning, lifting the benchmark indexes Sensex and the Nifty50 to fresh record highs, but changed course and kept drifting lower as the day progressed as investors chose to take some profits amid a lack of any significant triggers. The BSE benchmark Sensex, which hit a new all-time high at 85,978.25, ended the day with a loss of 264.27 points or 0.31% at 85,571.85, while the broader Nifty50 index of the National Stock Exchange settled with a loss of 37.10 points or 0.14% at 26,178.95, after hitting a new high at 26,277.35. Power Grid Corporation lost about 3%. ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, Kotak Bank and Larsen & Toubro lost 1.4 to 2%. Adani Ports ended down 1.1%, while Larsen & Toubro and Hind Unilever closed moderately lower. HeroMotoCorp, Ultratech Cement, Tata Consumer Products and Nestle Industries also closed weak. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries climbed about 2.7%, and index heavyweight Reliance Indutries gained 1.72%. Titan, HCL Technologies, Asian Paints, NTPC, IndusInd Bank, Tata Steel, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys gained 0.4 to 1.5%. BPCL jumped about 6.25%. Cipla gained 3.25% and Divi's Laboratories ended 2.4% up. Eicher Motors, Grasim Industries, Hindalco and Apollo Hospitals Enterprises advanced 1.1 to 1.4%. Shares of Zee Media Corporation soared 10% after the company's board approved issue of up to 13.33 crore warrants worth Rs 200 crore. The market breadth was neutral. On BSE, 1,979 stocks closed higher, while 1,957 stocks ended weak. 124 stocks settled flat. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Market Analysis President Joe Biden has announced a huge military aid package totaling $7.9 billion to Ukraine. Announcing the biggest U.S. military assistance to Ukraine so far, Biden said that to enhance Ukraine's long-range strike capabilities, he has decided to provide Washington's ally with the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) long-range munition with a range of up to 130 kilometers, which are compatible with F-16 fighters. The AGM-154 JSOW is a glide bomb that deploys a standardized medium range precision guided weapon, especially for engagement of defended targets from outside the range of standard anti-aircraft defenses. The US president also directed the Department of Defense to allocate all of its remaining $5.5 billion security assistance funding that was approved by Congress last fall. This aid expires on September 30, but Biden authorized it under Presidential Drawdown Authority to ensure the funds can be used until the end of his term in office. Additionally, the Pentagon is announcing $2.4 billion through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative to provide Ukraine with additional air defense, Unmanned Aerial Systems, and air-to-ground munitions, as well as strengthen Ukraine's defense industrial base and support its maintenance and sustainment requirements. To further strengthen Ukraine's air defenses against Russian missile attacks, Biden directed the Department of Defense to provide Ukraine with an additional Patriot air defense battery and Patriot missiles. This builds on Biden's decision earlier this year to divert U.S. air defense exports to Ukraine, which will provide Ukraine with hundreds of additional Patriot and AMRAAM missiles over the next year and help its security forces defend its cities. Biden said he directed the Department of Defense to expand training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots. American experts will support the training of an additional 18 pilots next year. Biden announced the assistance after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House Thursday. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Political News Concord Medical Services Holdings Ltd. (CCM), a Chinese diagnostic imaging centers company, on Friday reported a wider net loss for the first-half, amidst wider foreign exchange loss, negative change in fair value of derivative liability, decline in income from equity investments, and above all, a drop in revenue. For the six-month period to June 30, Concord Medical posted net loss of RMB172.258 million or RMB1.31 per share, wider than RMB90.985 million or RMB0.69 per share, registered for the same period last year. Pre-tax loss stood at RMB337.382 million as against RMB233.761 million in 2023. Foreign exchange loss soared to RMB30.269 million from the prior year's RMB2.444 million. Change in the fair value of derivative liability was negative RMB108.777 million, compared with zero change in fair value of derivative liability a year ago. Operating loss, however, narrowed to RMB197.744 million from last year's RMB214.025 million. Revenue for the first half was RMB218.810 million, down from last year's RMB284.513 million. Revenue from the Hospital segment decreased to RMB137.772 million from RMB158.707 million in 2023. The company said this is due to downsizing certain of its hospital with lower profit margin. The network segment revenue declined to RMB81.038 million from last year's RMB125.806 million. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met separately with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House to discuss U.S. support for Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression. Biden outlined his decision to surge U.S. security assistance to Ukraine, and his Ukrainian counterpart presented his plan to achieve victory over Russia. The two leaders discussed the diplomatic, economic, and military aspects of Zelensky's plan and tasked their teams to engage in intensive consultations regarding next steps. In her meeting with Zelensky, the U.S. Vice President expressed her unwavering commitment to stand with Ukraine. The two leaders discussed the latest developments on the battlefield, and ongoing U.S. military assistance to Ukraine. Harris welcomed continued progress by Ukraine on rule of law reforms and anti-corruption efforts. The two leaders discussed continued U.S. support for bolstering Ukraine's civilian energy infrastructure after renewed attacks from Russia. In a read out about the meetings, the White House announced that on October 12, President Biden will host a leader-level meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany. There, Biden and Zelenskyy will review progress on the consultations they had on Thursday, and coordinate with international partners on additional assistance for Ukraine. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News In Outagamie County, Wisconsin, the Public Health Division has reported a concerning increase in whooping cough (pertussis) cases, with seven confirmed cases since August, bringing the total for 2024 to eight, all involving children. This surge is particularly alarming as the last confirmed case of pertussis in Outagamie County was in 2020, with a total of four cases reported then. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services has issued a warning, urging vaccinations due to a significant twelve-fold rise in cases across the state. Sharon Rink, a pediatric physician with ThedaCare in Darboy, highlighted the symptoms of whooping cough. She explained that the initial symptoms include a runny nose, cough, low-grade fever, and feeling unwell. However, about a week or two into the illness, the cough takes a turn for the worst, becoming very frequent and harsh. In severe cases, the coughing fits can lead to gagging, vomiting, or difficulty breathing, often accompanied by the characteristic "whooping" sound. Rink emphasized that while anyone can contract pertussis, infants are especially at risk. She stressed the importance of vaccination as the most effective way to prevent infection. She advised seeking treatment at any stage of the illness to reduce the likelihood of transmitting the disease to others. Pertussis can lead to serious complications such as pneumonia and can be fatal, particularly for very young children. Without appropriate treatment, an infected person can spread the disease for up to three weeks after the onset of the cough, as it easily spreads through airborne droplets during talking, sneezing, or coughing. Health officials are urging parents to ensure their children receive the pertussis vaccine. It is recommended that children receive five doses of the DTaP vaccine between the ages of 2 months and 6 years, followed by a dose of the Tdap vaccine at ages 11 or 12. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Health News An article from The Wall Street Journal reports that Google has made a substantial investment of $2.7 billion to bring back Noam Shazeer, the 48-year-old co-founder of Character.AI. Shazeer, who had previously worked at Google, left the company in 2021 to pursue his own entrepreneurial ambitions after Google decided against launching a chatbot he had developed in collaboration with his colleague Daniel De Freitas. This decision led Shazeer and De Freitas to establish Character.AI, which quickly gained traction as a leading AI startup in Silicon Valley, achieving a remarkable valuation of $1 billion just last year. The $2.7 billion deal is not merely a financial transaction; it encompasses a licensing agreement that allows Google to leverage Character.AI's innovative while simultaneously facilitating the return of Shazeer, De Freitas, and several key members of their research team to Google's AI division, DeepMind. This strategic move, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, is designed to enhance Google's capabilities in the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence. Rather than pursuing a full acquisition of Character.AI, which would have involved lengthy regulatory processes and potential delays, Google opted for this licensing arrangement. This approach enables the tech giant to access and utilize Character.AI's intellectual property more swiftly and efficiently, thereby accelerating its AI development initiatives. Shazeer's return to Google is seen as a pivotal element of this agreement, with many insiders at the company expressing optimism about the potential impact of his expertise. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has publicly voiced his confidence in Shazeer's abilities, suggesting that he possesses the talent and vision necessary to create an AI model that could exhibit human-like intelligence. "If there's anybody I can think of in the world who's likely to do it, it's going to be him," Schmidt was quoted as saying of Shazeer during a talk at Stanford University in 2015. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News The new Maruti Swift CNG variants commands the highest mileage (fuel efficiency) in its segment at 32.85 km/kg The 2024 Maruti Suzuki Swift premium hatchback, launched in May this year, is a consistent top ranker in its segment after the WagonR. To add further impetus to this model, the company has introduced the S-CNG version earlier this month. The Swift CNG is Maruti Suzukis latest CNG powered vehicle for the Indian markets and initial models have started moving into showrooms. Maruti Swift CNG Reach Showrooms Presented in 3 variants of VXi, VXi (O) and ZXi, the new Maruti Swift S-CNG is priced from Rs 8.19-9.19 lakh (ex-showroom), a premium of Rs 90,000 over its petrol counterpart. Maruti Suzuki is also offering buyers of the new Swift CNG via the subscription program. This allows buyers to use the car at a monthly fee from Rs 21,628 that includes registration, insurance, maintenance, etc. Though priced higher than its arch rivals such as the Tata Tiago CNG and Grand i10 Nio CNG, the Maruti Swift does bring more to the table. This is not only in terms of features, technology and safety but more particularly where its claimed fuel efficiency is concerned. Fuel efficiency is ranked highest in its segment at 32.85 km/kg. In contrast, the Tata Tiago CNG offers 26.49 km/kg while the Hyundai Grand i10 NIOS offers 27 km/kg. The new CNG powered Swift hatchback retains its sporty stance but gets added features lower variants in the form if Smart Play Pro infotainment system with wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. As seen in the video by sansCARi sumit, Maruti Suzuki has added an external CNG filler with 4th Gen Swift S-CNG, which needs manual locking and unlocking. Previous gen model had it integrated in the petrol filler cap, which was internally operated. Also, the CNG cylinder is still a single-piece unit, unlike immediate rivals offering vastly more convenient twin-cylinder setup. Maruti Suzuki Swift S-CNG Engine Specs Maruti Swift S-CNG is powered by a 1.2 liter, 3 cylinder, Z Series petrol engine that offers 80 hp power and 112 Nm torque in standard mode. In CNG model this output decreases to 69 hp power and 102 Nm torque. The engine is mated to a 5 speed manual gearbox with significantly higher fuel efficiency at 32.85 km/kg. However, fuel efficiency can vary depending on the driving conditions, driving skills, and various other factors. In contrast, the earlier 3rd-gen Swift CNG model offered fuel efficiency at 30.9 km/kg. Apart from improved mileage, Maruti also claims that the new Swift S-CNG offers around 6% lower CO2 emissions as compared to its earlier model. With the new Maruti Swift S-CNG having been moved into company showrooms, deliveries are set to commence from this weekend. Deliveries are being initiated in Gujarat first and will be followed in states of Maharashtra, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. Deliveries will subsequently commence in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana. CONAKRY, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- A spokesperson for the Guinean presidency on Thursday officially denied rumors of gunfire in the commune of Kaloum, home to the presidential palace. "On the afternoon of Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, a wild rumor of alleged gunfire at the Presidency of the Republic was spread in the city and abroad," said General Amara Camara, the spokesperson for the Presidency of the Republic, in an official statement. He noted that this misinformation caused panic in places in the commune of Kaloum and throughout Conakry. In response, he reassured both national and international audiences that these rumors are "false and fabricated," as outlined in the statement. The spokesperson urged the people of Conakry to "continue to freely go about their daily business." However, unofficial sources indicated that gunfire was reported in the vicinity of the Mohammed V Palace, which is located in the Boulbinet district near a military camp of the presidential guard. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Sept. 26, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Rui) NEW YORK, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said here Thursday that China is ready to work with Denmark to plan for the next stage of high-level exchanges and guide the development of bilateral relations. Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks during talks with Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. He also noted that next year will mark the 75th anniversary of China-Denmark diplomatic ties. China, Wang said, is committed to the path of green, low-carbon and sustainable development, and is willing to strengthen cooperation with Denmark and other European countries in green transformation. For his part, Rasmussen said Denmark adheres to the one-China policy. He also said that his country, whose development has benefited from free trade, will continue to stick to free trade and promote economic globalization, adding he hopes that the EU and China can find a proper way to handle trade frictions. Maria's job involves extensive driving, but not just around the block. She drives BEV buses across Europe to test them in different weather conditions, road types, traffic situations and charging stations. She has driven BEV buses and trucks for over 20,000 km across Europe and charged heavy-duty BEVs at more than 70 different stations. Maria meticulously prepares each vehicle with the latest software and hardware and ensures compliance with testing regulations. Accompanied by a team of two to three persons, they measure the energy consumption, the driveline performance, the gear-changing capability, the temperature control and other parameters. She leverages apps for navigation and truck charging stations, while also evaluating the drivers impact on vehicle performance. Because the work is unpredictable, her ability to adapt is crucial. She is prepared for unexpected delays, setbacks, and even public applause. Post-trips, Maria's analyses lead to actionable improvements, collaborating across teams to enhance vehicle software and hardware. BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Driven by a surge in demand for cross-border tourism, China is projected to see 1.75 million inbound and outbound trips per day during the upcoming National Day holiday period, up 18.5 percent year on year, authorities said on Friday. Traffic peaks are expected to fall on Oct. 1 and Oct. 6, the National Immigration Administration (NIA) said, adding that passenger flow is climbing at major international airports, while remaining high at land ports adjacent to Hong Kong and Macao. The NIA has asked border officers to strengthen their monitoring of traffic and port operations and to release traffic updates early to help travelers plan their trips. Additionally, guidance and organization will be enhanced, with sufficient personnel deployed and extra inspection lanes opened to accommodate the surge, according to the NIA. China celebrates its National Day on Oct. 1. The holiday runs from Oct. 1 to Oct. 7. GENEVA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- China is making steady progress thanks to higher spending in education and the country's vast talent pool, with a three-place increase in the 2024 World Talent Ranking, an expert from the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) has said. The 2024 World Talent Ranking report, released by the IMD on Sept. 19, combines survey data from the IMD's World Competitiveness Center (WCC) with external sources and sets both in the context of findings from the International Labour Organization (ILO). China increased by three positions in the ranking this year, from 41st to 38th place, said Professor Arturo Bris, director of IMD's WCC. "The strength of China lies in the country's ability to tap the talent that they need. The country is so big, and the talent pool is so large that they find the skills that they are looking for," Bris told Xinhua in a virtual interview. "China needs to employ a lot of people ... China has the ability to invest in education. This is what we call internal development, and here you see significant improvement," he added. "This year is an important year because of the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and technology on jobs, on talent, and on the competitiveness of countries," Bris said. "We need to realize that there are two different forces. The first force is that AI is going to replace jobs and eliminate certain tasks. This can be detrimental to the competitiveness of countries," he said. "But on the other hand, AI is going to make countries more productive and competitive. The result of this technology will be going in one direction or the other," Bris said. He added that the most developed economies will suffer the most from jobs being replaced by AI as "5 percent of jobs in developed economies are in danger, while only 0.6 percent of jobs in developing economies are in danger." The report also emphasized how much AI is seen to enhance tasks in different economies, the likelihood of men's versus women's employment to be affected by automation, and how talent competitiveness requires a reassessment of educational systems and corporate training programs. "For countries to be talent-competitive, governments need to take a very important stance on their education systems," Bris said, stressing the need to make sure that education systems incorporate technology and AI into the skills of both students and employees. HANGZHOU, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- East China's Zhejiang Province is becoming friendlier to newlyweds after it moved to extend marriage leave. On Friday, the Standing Committee of the 14th Zhejiang Provincial People's Congress, the local legislature, passed a regulation extending paid marriage leave from three to thirteen days. The regulation took effect the same day. Economic and social development and increased population mobility have led to a higher proportion of inter-city and inter-provincial marriages, accounting for about one-sixth and one-ninth, respectively, said Wang Renyuan, director of the Zhejiang provincial health commission. As a result, the current three-day marriage leave is difficult to meet the time needed for pre-marital examination, marriage registration, wedding banquet, traveling between hometown and workplace, and honeymoon trip, Wang said. Nationwide, 24 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions have extended marriage leave with local regulations, Wang said. In the Yangtze River Delta region, marriage leave is ten days in Shanghai and 13 days in Jiangsu and Anhui provinces. China's provincial-level regions have the autonomy to determine the length of marriage leave, often influenced by local customs and demographic policies. Some regions have introduced generous benefits to encourage marriage and childbirth in response to demographic challenges. Shanxi Province, for example, offers newlywed couples 30 days of paid marriage leave. "Since 2016, especially since 2023, there have been more public calls for the extension of marriage leave," Wang said. "Many provincial people's congress deputies and political advisors also have put forward relevant suggestions and proposals." Local authorities in Zhejiang also hope to encourage marriage and childbirth by extending marriage leave. In recent years, the province has seen a decline in the number of marriages, while people are also marrying at an older age. Local data showed that Zhejiang recorded 301,000 registered marriages in 2023, sharply down from 442,000 in 2012. Meanwhile, the average age of first marriage for women rose from 24.2 to 27.5. Under the new regulation, employees who register their marriage under the law are entitled to 13 days of paid marriage leave within one year of registering their marriage. Holidays and weekends are not counted. With the employer's consent, the validity date for marriage leave could be extended by half a year. Trade unions at all levels should fully participate in the consultation and effectively safeguard employees' and employers' rights and interests, said Lyu Zhiliang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Zhejiang Provincial People's Congress. Couples may take their marriage leave in one go or in stages after consulting with their employer. People who married less than a year before the new regulation was adopted are still entitled to extended leave. Extending marriage leave will not necessarily increase the birth rate, but such policies, including longer marriage leave and maternity leave, could have some impact on the operation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), according to Xu Ming'en, another member of the Standing Committee of the Zhejiang Provincial People's Congress. SMEs should be watched over the implementation of the regulation, and efforts should be made to protect the rights and interests of employees while taking into account their actual situation, as they often have a small number of employees, Xu said. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, attends a meeting of foreign ministers of BRICS countries at the UN headquarters in New York, Sept. 26, 2024. (Xinhua) UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The BRICS countries should contribute to the promotion of an equal and orderly multi-polar world and economic globalization that benefits all, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday. Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks during a meeting of foreign ministers of BRICS countries. Common security must be advocated to achieve lasting peace, Wang said. No country has the right to control the global security agenda, let alone to build its own security over the insecurity of others, he added. Wang said the BRICS countries must give priority to development and solve development problems, focus on the urgent needs of developing countries in poverty reduction, development financing, energy and food security, and seize the opportunities of technological revolution and industrial transformation. The BRICS countries should practice multilateralism and improve global governance, support the full participation of the Global South countries in international economic decision-making, governance and rule-making, and enhance their voice and representation. On the same day, during a meeting among the Committee of Ten (C10) Heads of State and Government on UN Security Council Reform and foreign ministers of five UN Security Council permanent members, Wang called for continuously increasing representation and voice of developing countries. He said it is necessary to anchor the reform path that gives priority to special arrangements for Africa. President of Xinhua News Agency Fu Hua meets with Brazilian Ambassador to China Marcos Galvao in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 27, 2024. (Xinhua/Huang Jingwen) BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- President of Xinhua News Agency Fu Hua on Friday met with Brazilian Ambassador to China Marcos Galvao in Beijing. Noting that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Brazil, Fu said that Xinhua is willing to work with Brazilian media organizations to earnestly implement the important consensus reached by the heads of state of the two countries, continue promoting people-to-people exchange between the two nations, and make contributions to the next "50 golden years" of bilateral relations. Noting that Brazil will host this year's G20 Leaders' Summit, Fu said that Xinhua will leverage its advantage of global presence to cover the event, making contributions to the modernization of the Global South. Galvao said that the Brazilian embassy in China is willing to facilitate exchange and cooperation between Xinhua and people from all walks of life in Brazil, help enhance mutual understanding between the two peoples, and promote further development of the Brazil-China friendship. DAMASCUS, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Around 42,000 people have entered Syria to flee the Israeli offensive in Lebanon between Tuesday and midday Thursday, according to a Syrian official. The arrivals, via the Jdeidat Yabous border crossing, include 31,000 Syrians and 11,000 Lebanese nationals. Jassem Al-Mahmoud, a local deputy governor, said that the Lebanese arrivals have been accommodated in shelters prepared by the governorate, including three hotels in south of Damascus and centers in rural Damascus. Shelters have been erected throughout the province, and all necessary services are being provided to those staying in the centers, as authorities work to manage the growing number of arrivals, the deputy governor added. The surge in crossings followed days of Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah positions in Lebanon, prompting a mass exodus of families seeking refuge in Syria. Syria and Lebanon share some 375 km of border, with the Jdeidat Yabous crossing, also known as the Masnaa crossing in Lebanon, being one of five major routes between the two countries. London stocks were set to rise at the open on Friday following gains on Wall Street, as investors eyed the release of the Federal Reserves favourite gauge of inflation. The FTSE 100 was called to open around 10 points higher. Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, said the core PCE index for August is expected to remain unchanged at 0.2% on a monthly basis and print a small uptick - from 2.6% to 2.7% - on a yearly basis. "Additionally, the personal income may have risen faster, but personal spending a bit slower than the previous month. A set of data in line with expectations will certainly keep the soft-landing vibes in play and secure a 43rd record high for the S&P 500 before the weekly closing bell," she said. "But a stronger-than-expected PCE read, God forbid, could bring the idea that the Fed and the dovish Fed expectations may have gone ahead of themselves and call for some correction. Yesterdays robust GDP read brough the probability of 50bp cut at the November meeting slightly below 50%, but the chances are still very close to a coin toss." In corporate news, food producer Cranswick said it expected annual results to be at the upper end of expectations after first-half trading came in ahead of the previous year. The company said it was still cautious about current market and wider economic and geopolitical conditions, but noted that trading since the end of the first quarter has been stronger than previously expected, underpinned by continued robust volume growth in our core UK food business (and) a positive ongoing contribution from our expanding pig farming operations. Market expectations for adjusted pre-tax profit at 27 September 2024 between 179.2m and 191.7m. Clinical-stage biotherapeutics company PureTech Health announced that the schizophrenia treatment it developed, which was later sold to Bristol Myers Squibb, has been approved by US regulators, triggering a $29m payment and unlocking potential future royalties. Lauren Appelbaum (photo: Kiersten Marie) In Rachel Weiss's Group Chat (Forever, $17.99; reviewed in this issue), Lauren Appelbaum explores the delights and travails of being an American millennial. When Rachel Weiss's circle of friends find significant others and meaningful careers, she is forced to consider her own lifestyle and what she truly wants. Appelbaum lives in Seattle with her family. The Pride and Prejudice/Bridget Jones's Diary connections in your book are done so well. Did you begin planning Rachel's story knowing that you wanted to give a nod to those classic novels? The first spark of an idea I had for this book was, "What if it was an homage to Bridget Jones's Diary, but with a group chat instead of a diary?" Then the characters and plot points came to me from there. So it was definitely intentional, and I had a blast with it, because I've always been a big fan of both. Pride and Prejudice was the original enemies-to-lovers story, right? I just love how Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy's relationship forces them to reckon with parts of themselves that might need some work. I tried to capture that dynamic with Rachel and Christopher. And I always loved the character of Bridget Jones, because it was such fun to watch her try her best and yet make so many mistakes. The other thing I've always loved about that story is the friend group, the way they are always there to rehash everything that is going on in each other's lives. My mom once told me that friends can come and go, but your spouse is with you forever--but when you're young and single it's very much the opposite. Your friends are there through every relationship and breakup. With Rachel Weiss, I wanted to explore the awkwardness that happens within a friend group when that starts to shift. The Seattle insider references are great fun. Do you think the story could have been set elsewhere, New York or Los Angeles, for example, without impacting the story? I love this question! Rachel's worldview, sense of self, and social circle are all shaped by the culture she lives in, which is Seattle. Anyone who lives around here can tell you we're a bit weird and quirky. I've heard other cities have started doing naked bike rides, but one of my favorite scenes in the book is set on the river in the Bavarian town of Leavenworth, which I don't think you could quite replicate anywhere else in the country. The river float scene was inspired by true events that happened during my bachelorette party. The absurd hilarity of a group of possibly drunken women trying to rescue one another from the river's current is burned into my memory. Regarding the naked bike ride, I have never participated, being more inclined to watch from the sidelines, but one of my sisters has! I would love to be that bold. The main reason it had to be Seattle is that it's the place I know best, having lived in the area since I was a tween, so I might not have done another city justice in the same way. Rachel's evolvement from carefree single person to a more thoughtful, emotionally mature woman who contemplates her place in the wider world seems on point for contemporary 20-somethings. Did you base her journey on observation of friends or your own experiences? It's human nature to be entirely focused on yourself when you're younger, and everyone has to evolve past that in their own way, which is harder for some people than others. Rachel is sort of my exact opposite (I'm a classic introvert), but her flaws might (might!) be amplifications of my own flaws. It feels to me like it's not unusual for millennials and younger generations to be more self-centered, because we are often told to tune into our feelings (not to mention that we often have to self-advocate in so many ways), and that's not always a bad thing. But Rachel learns, like we all have to at some point, that the world doesn't revolve around her, and that her actions and words impact other people. Learning these lessons at the ripe age of 30, Rachel is in a kind of arrested development, but that's pretty typical in my experience. A lot of us don't even think about settling down in the traditional sense until our 30s. There's an interesting divide between those who have settled down and those who are still dating or single. It may cause rifts or changes in friendships, but it's always fun to hear the stories from the other side. So I wanted to write about that time in a person's life, when things start changing around Rachel but she's not sure if she's ready to change yet. Rachel's relationships with her chat group friends, her sister Jane, her mother, and younger sisters are an important part of her life, and the theme of "sisterhood" and what that means in a woman's life runs through the plot. Did you intentionally create that theme or did it evolve as the plot unfolded for you? The theme of sisterhood unfolded naturally and inevitably. Rachel's friends are incredibly important to her, and she grew up in a family full of women. Having other women around is so important at every life stage--people to make sense of the world with. At various points, Rachel looks up to her older sister, wants to differentiate herself from her mother, learns from her friends, and gains a new sense of who she is based on how they all see her. I've always felt that we have a kind of primal need for Girl Talk, so it makes sense that Rachel's group chat is like a lifeline to her. Your bio says you're a tech editor. Did being an editor, although in a field separate from fiction writing, help while writing a novel? Definitely! My editing background helps me ask, why is this here? What is the reader gaining from this part? Actually, when I first submitted the book to my editor, it was about 10,000 words too short. So I had to put my writer's hat back on and fill it out a bit more. I got to add more scenes with certain friends and with the love interest, Christopher, so that was really fun, getting to dive back in and write new stuff. Can you tell us a bit about your writing process? I have one superstition that I think a lot of writers probably share, which is that I won't talk about a book idea until it's pretty solidified. It feels like Ideas with a capital I are flighty creatures that get scared away easily, so I try to keep my mouth shut. Other than that, I follow a pretty basic trajectory that involves outlining on index cards, then drafting linearly in Scrivener, preferably while sitting in a cafe and listening to moody music. --Lois Faye Dyer, writer and reviewer Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, attends a reception to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China held for foreign experts in various fields at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 27, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Xiang) BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- A reception to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China was held for foreign experts in various fields on Friday evening at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang attended the reception and, on behalf of the Chinese government and President Xi Jinping, conveyed thanks and regards to foreign experts and China's international friends for their support of China's reform, opening-up and modernization drive. Ding, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that China's progress over the past 75 years has been a result of the unremitting efforts of Chinese people of all ethnic groups and the hard work of foreign experts in various fields. "Over the past 75 years, groups of foreign experts have made indelible contributions to the construction of China's socialist modernization, which the Chinese people will always remember," Ding said. He noted that the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made systematic arrangements for the deepening of reform on all fronts, and for the promotion of Chinese modernization. China adheres to a more active, open and effective talent policy, which will provide greater convenience, improved services and a better environment for foreign experts living and working in China, he said. It is hoped that the vast number of foreign experts in China will continue to care for and support China's development, and be good builders of Chinese modernization, good bridges for exchange and cooperation between China and foreign countries, and good non-governmental ambassadors to enhance friendship, Ding said. China also hopes that foreign experts in the country will make new, greater contributions to the construction of a community with a shared future for humanity, he added. India signs treaty to conserve marine biodiversity in high seas. External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar signed Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction(BBNJ) Agreement know as 'High Seas Treaty', the treaty is aimed to improve its strategic presence in areas beyond its normal Exclusive Economic Zone(EEZ) for a step towards ensuring that the marine life and the entities associated with it remain healthy and resilient. The BBNJ Agreement, or the 'High Seas Treaty' is an international treaty under the United Nations Conservation on the Law of the Sea(UNCLOS).It marks a significant step towards the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond EEZ in the global common oceans open to all international lawful activities. The goals of the treaty allies with protection of marine biodiversity in high seas by all a coordinated effort aiming to improve marine health. All Parties who signs the treaty cannot claim or exercise rights over marine resources sourced from high seas. Bodies of United Nations will administrate the ocean bodies and conduct environmental impact due to the treaty, In hopes to bring about collaborative permanent positive change for a harmonious future. The coworking industry of India is undergoing a dramatic transformation, and MySoho, co-founded by Tushar Mittal, Ashu Kapoor, and Navneet Gill is at the forefront of this shift. Born in 2020, MySoho offers premium, private office solutions in Indias Tier-II cities, attracting businesses seeking flexible, fully serviced workspaces. With an asset-light model and a focus on growth, MySoho is making waves in the Indian real estate and coworking sectors. The Rise of Coworking: Indias Next Big Business Revolution Coworking, once perceived as a niche market, has become a game-changer in the global workspace industry now. These are shared spaces that offer businesses the opportunity to rent short-term office spaces with premium amenities, minus the cost and commitment of long-term office leases. Traditionally, coworking spaces were designed as community-driven environments where freelancers, startups, and small businesses could work flexibly. However, the sector has since evolved into a mainstream solution offering private offices, conference rooms, and even virtual office services. India has been experiencing a boom in coworking since 2015 in metros like Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru. According to industry reports, Indias coworking market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 15-20%. With businesses increasingly adopting hybrid work models and seeking cost-effective office solutions, coworking has quickly become the preferred choice for new-age enterprises. Tier-II Cities of India: The Explosive Growth Hubs for Coworking Although the coworking wave started in India's major Tier-I cities, Tier-II cities are quickly becoming the next hotspots for expansion. Especially Since the 2020 pandemic, talent has returned home, prompting businesses to prioritize local infrastructure improvements in these so-called small towns. Cities like Chandigarh, Jaipur, Bhubaneswar, Lucknow, and Indore are witnessing a seismic hike in demand for flexible workspaces. But why are these cities so attractive for coworking expansion? Lower Costs: Office spaces in Tier-II cities are significantly more affordable than their Tier-I counterparts. This allows coworking operators to offer premium services at a fraction of the cost. Office spaces in Tier-II cities are significantly more affordable than their Tier-I counterparts. This allows coworking operators to offer premium services at a fraction of the cost. Rising Business Opportunities: With improved infrastructure and government initiatives focused on regional development, businesses are increasingly setting up operations in these smaller cities. The availability of skilled talent in these regions is also expanding, creating a demand for office spaces. With improved infrastructure and government initiatives focused on regional development, businesses are increasingly setting up operations in these smaller cities. The availability of skilled talent in these regions is also expanding, creating a demand for office spaces. Growing Office Space Market: According to a report, flexible workspace absorption in Tier-II cities reached 1.6 million sq. ft. by September 2023, with coworking operators actively seeking to expand in cities like Ahmedabad, Kochi, and Chandigarh. Tier-II cities now offer modern office parks that rival those found in larger metros, attracting more businesses and professionals. MySoho: Leading the Charge in the Coworking Revolution Among the many coworking players in India, MySoho has carved out a unique position for itself. Unlike traditional coworking models that emphasize open spaces and community-driven work environments, MySoho offers fully serviced, private offices tailored to businesses specific needs. Tailor-Made Solutions: MySoho provides aesthetically designed, customizable office layouts, from open seating to private cubicles, allowing businesses to build their workspace according to their preferences. MySoho provides aesthetically designed, customizable office layouts, from open seating to private cubicles, allowing businesses to build their workspace according to their preferences. One-cheque solution: From administrative tasks to managing resources and equipment, MySoho ensures smooth operations, all included in a simple monthly rent payment. As MySoho co-founder Navneet Gill says, MySoho is fully committed to delivering operational excellence. We don't just offer office spaceswe deliver a complete ecosystem with end-to-end office solutions at transparent pricing. At MySoho, our mission is to empower businesses to focus solely on their growth, while we handle everything else. Client-Centric Experience: The company focuses heavily on offering an exceptional client experience, bearing the burden of entire office operations management, along with services like boardrooms on-demand and flexible lease terms. MySohos focus on Tier-II cities gives it an edge. By tapping into underserved markets, the company has been able to offer high-quality, affordable office solutions. We designed essential features in Tier-II towns that enable businesses to set up, scale, or downsize effortlessly. This flexibility has been the driving force behind MySoho's rapid expansion across multiple cities, says co-founder Tushar Mittal. Why MySoho is Set to Dominate Coworkings Future MySohos innovative business model, focus on high-growth markets, and efficient cost structure make it a compelling investment opportunity. EBITDA-Positive Business: MySoho has demonstrated a strong financial performance, maintaining profitability while expanding rapidly. Their asset-light model ensures scalability without the heavy capital investments typical in real estate. MySoho has demonstrated a strong financial performance, maintaining profitability while expanding rapidly. Their asset-light model ensures scalability without the heavy capital investments typical in real estate. Capex-Lite Model: MySohos asset-light approach means the company does not own the properties it manages. Instead, they lease and customize spaces, sharing revenue with landlords. This allows for rapid expansion without the capital-intensive requirements of traditional office real estate. MySohos asset-light approach means the company does not own the properties it manages. Instead, they lease and customize spaces, sharing revenue with landlords. This allows for rapid expansion without the capital-intensive requirements of traditional office real estate. Strategic Expansion into High-Growth Markets: With a clear focus on Tier-II cities, MySoho is positioned to capture a significant share of the coworking market in emerging regions. With a clear focus on Tier-II cities, MySoho is positioned to capture a significant share of the coworking market in emerging regions. Proven Market Opportunity: The coworking market in India is poised for exponential growth. Mittal highlights, "The market potential in Tier-II towns is immense, valued at 9,000 to 10,000 crores. MySoho is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this opportunity." MySohos Vision: Scaling New Heights Co-founder Ashu Kapoor explains, MySoho is already thriving in key locations like Chandigarh Tricity, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Ambala, and Bhopal. But this is only the beginning. Over the next two years, we plan to expand nationally into 25 Tier-II cities, including Jaipur, Lucknow, Indore, and Gurgaon. Each new location will deliver over 25,000 square feet of premium, flexible workspacedriving growth for businesses across Indias most dynamic markets. By targeting Central Business Districts, and ensuring accessibility and compliance, the company is strategically positioned for sustainable growth. With demand for coworking spaces surging in Indias Tier-II cities, MySoho stands out for its growth potential, scalability, and profitability. As a pioneering force in this evolving market, they offer investors a prime opportunity to shape the future of workspaces in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting with the leadership team of Tata Sons and Taiwan-based Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (PSMC), where they discussed progress on semiconductor manufacturing projects in India. PSMC expressed keen interest in expanding its presence in the country. In a post on X, Prime Minister Modi said, Had a great meeting with the leadership team of Tata Sons and PSMC. They shared updates on their semiconductor manufacturing projects. PSMC expressed enthusiasm to further expand its footprint in India. The Government of India previously approved a proposal from Tata Electronics to establish a large semiconductor fabrication facility (Fab) in Dholera, Gujarat, in collaboration with PSMC. The Fab, with an investment of up to Rs 91,000 crores (around USD 11 billion), is expected to create over 20,000 direct and indirect skilled jobs in the region. This marks Tata Electronics' entry into the global semiconductor market. Tata Electronics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons Pvt Ltd, is collaborating with Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (PSMC) to construct Indias first AI-enabled, state-of-the-art semiconductor fabrication facility. This Fab will have a production capacity of up to 50,000 wafers per month and will feature advanced factory automation using data analytics and machine learning to achieve industry-leading efficiency. Stocks to Watch, Friday, September 27, 2024: Indian equity benchmark indices are poised for a positive start on Friday, following gains in the US markets and rising trends in Asia. This upward movement is reflected in GIFT Nifty futures, which were trading at 26,349 at 7:10 AM, indicating an increase of approximately 40 points from the last close of Nifty futures. Most markets in the Asia-Pacific region saw upward movement, spurred by gains in Chinese stocks. In Hong Kong, futures for the Hang Seng index reached 20,575, suggesting an opening gain of over 3 percent compared to the previous close of 19,924.58. HDFC Bank: HDFC Bank Ltd. has divested a housing loan portfolio valued at Rs 60 billion ($717 million) as part of its strategy to lessen credit exposure in response to increasing regulatory pressures. The portfolio was sold through private transactions to approximately six state-owned banks, as per sources familiar with the situation. Furthermore, the bank also securitized a separate pool of car loans amounting to Rs 90.6 billion, which was structured into pass-through certificates. Godrej Properties: Godrej Properties has announced plans to explore fundraising options, with the board meeting set for October 1 to consider various methods. According to a regulatory filing, options include issuing equity shares and other securities via public offerings, private placements, or rights issues. IT Stocks: Major IT companies such as Infosys, TCS, HCL Tech, and Tech Mahindra are likely to attract attention following Accenture's positive revision of its revenue guidance for FY25. The IT consulting and services leader has raised its projected growth rate for FY25 to between 3% and 6%, despite falling short of its FY24 target of 1.5% to 2.5%. Accenture, which operates on a SeptemberAugust fiscal year, also announced a $4 billion share buyback and surpassed quarterly earnings expectations. This strong performance was largely fueled by robust demand for services related to generative AI technologies, which assist businesses in improving their operational efficiency. RITES: RITES Limited, a government-owned engineering consultancy, has been selected as the lowest bidder for a competitive tender issued by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (DMRC). The contract, valued at Rs 87.58 crore, was announced in a recent exchange filing. Leading the consortium, RITES will undertake the project, enhancing its presence in the urban transport sector. Indian Bank: The board of Indian Bank has sanctioned the raising of Rs 5,000 crore through long-term infrastructure bonds to finance projects across multiple sectors. This issuance adds to the Rs 5,000 crore the bank has already secured in FY25, underscoring its commitment to supporting long-term infrastructure development. Prataap Snacks: Authum Investment and Infrastructure, in partnership with Mahi Madhusudan Kela, has signed a share purchase agreement to acquire a controlling stake in Prataap Snacks Ltd., as per an exchange filing. The agreement involves acquiring a 46.85% stake from the company's private equity promoters. Upon completion of the deal, Authum will hold a 42.31% stake in the snack manufacturer. The total transaction is valued at Rs 846.6 crore, with shares being purchased at Rs 746 each. NIFTY Rejig: The NIFTY50 index is set to undergo a semi-annual rejig, with Tata Group's retail subsidiary Trent and state-owned Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) being added to the index. They will replace Divi's Laboratories and IT company LTIMindtree, resulting in a change to the index's composition. Railtel: Railtel Corporation has recently obtained a significant work order worth Rs 155 crore from the Rural Development Department of Mantralaya, Maharashtra. This order pertains to the operationalization of the ASSK-GP project in areas such as Konkan, Pune, and Nashik. Renowned for its telecom infrastructure services, Railtel will oversee the project's implementation, which includes a substantial technological upgrade. Reliance Power: has announced that its subsidiary, Rosa Power, has repaid Rs 850 crore of its outstanding debt to Singapore-based lender Varde Partners. This repayment is a major milestone in Rosa Power's aim to become debt-free. The company anticipates settling the remaining debt in the next quarter, with plans for full repayment before the conclusion of the current fiscal year. Reliance Power has announced that its subsidiary, Rosa Power, has repaid Rs 850 crore of its outstanding debt to Singapore-based lender Varde Partners. This repayment is a major milestone in Rosa Power's aim to become debt-free. The company anticipates settling the remaining debt in the next quarter, with plans for full repayment before the conclusion of the current fiscal year. Torrent Pharmaceuticals: Torrent Pharmaceuticals has categorically denied allegations that its Shelcal 500 product did not pass a quality test conducted by the Central Drug Standards Control Organisation (CDSCO). In a regulatory filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the company stated that the claims relate to a single batch of Shelcal 500, which was marked as "Not of Standard Quality" (NSQ) in CDSCOs monthly drug alert for August 2024. Torrent asserts that Shelcal 500 continues to comply with all necessary quality standards. People are seen at Waterloo Station in London, Britain, on May 8, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Ying) Network Rail in the United Kingdom (UK) said Thursday it is investigating a "cybersecurity incident" that disrupted public Wi-Fi networks at some of the country's largest railway stations. LONDON, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Network Rail in the United Kingdom (UK) said Thursday it is investigating a "cybersecurity incident" that disrupted public Wi-Fi networks at some of the country's largest railway stations. Passengers attempting to connect to Wi-Fi at stations including Manchester Piccadilly, Birmingham New Street, Edinburgh Waverley, Glasgow Central, and 11 London terminuses on Wednesday evening were met with a page reading "We love you, Europe," followed by an anti-Islam message listing a series of terror attacks in Europe, according to reports from local media. Network Rail, which operates these stations, said in a statement that the Wi-Fi, provided by a third-party company, has been suspended. The Wi-Fi service is "self-contained and is a simple 'click & connect' service that doesn't collect any personal data," the statement added. Passengers walk past a notice of industrial action at Waterloo Station in London, Britain, on May 8, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Ying) The company said a full investigation is underway. The incident follows a similar cyberattack in early September that targeted Transport for London, comprising personal details of some 5,000 customers. External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar engaged in discussions with key United Nations leaders, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and President of the General Assembly Philemon Yang, who commended India's influential role on the global stage. During their meeting, Guterres expressed gratitude for India's collaboration with the UN, as noted by his Spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric. The trio discussed various pressing issues, including the Summit of the Future and its implementation, climate change, advancements in Artificial Intelligence, and current geopolitical developments. This Summit recently adopted the Pact for the Future, which sets a strategic direction for the UN in addressing looming global crises. Yang acknowledged Indias significant contributions to advancing the interests of the Global South. He mentioned their discussions regarding the priorities for the ongoing 79th session of the General Assembly (UNGA79) and building upon the Summit's outcomes. EAM Jaishankar affirmed India's commitment to supporting Yang's vision of "Unity in Diversity, Peace, Human Sustainability, and Dignity for everyone everywhere", through a post on X (formerly Twitter). In addition to these high-level discussions, EAM Jaishankar met with several other leaders on the sidelines of the General Assemblys high-level meeting. He noted a productive conversation with Sierra Leone's Foreign Minister Tim Kabba, praising Sierra Leone's leadership in promoting reformed multilateralism. As the President of the Security Council, Sierra Leone has highlighted the need for reform in recent discussions. Jaishankar also spoke with Belarus Foreign Minister Makshim Ryzhenkov about potential collaborations in health, education, technology, and enhancing economic ties. He and Romania's Foreign Minister Luminita Odobescu reviewed their growing bilateral engagements in tourism, defense, and mobility, while also exchanging views on the situation in Ukraine. bilateral relationships in sustainable development, investment, and the mobility of skilled workers, alongside perspectives on Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific region. Furthermore, Jaishankar shared that he had a 'good first meeting' with Maria Stenergard, discussing the deepening ofinvestment, and the mobility of skilled workers, alongside perspectives on Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific region. Finally, he met with Jordan's Deputy Prime Minister Ayman Safadi, focusing their discussions on the ongoing situation in West Asia, and engaged with other Foreign Ministers, including Badr Abdelatty of Egypt, Seyed Abbas Araghchi of Iran, Albert Shingiro of Burundi, and Kamina J Smith of Jamaica. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. The $111 million Living Breakwaters project off the Tottenville coast is officially complete, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Friday. New York is leading the nation in combatting the climate crisis and building resilient communities, Hochul said. As we have experienced several historic storms this summer, extreme weather is the new normal and it is vital that we adapt to our changing climate. Living Breakwaters exemplifies our long-term strategy to lessen the impact of storms, improve our shorelines and protect homes and businesses for generations to come. The project, which has been underway for the past few years, is made up of a series of eight separate in-water structures spanning 2,400 linear feet off the South Shore of Staten Island. They are designed to break turbulent wave energy that swings into the shore of Tottenville during serious storms, so that the resulting waves that pass through the gaps arent as vicious. Using a combination of engineering, massive stones and ecologically-enhanced concrete, the effort is expected to reduce the impact of waves, foster habitat for marine life and mitigate beach erosion. At a May beach walk and kayaking event, Pippa Brashear, resilience principal and partner at SCAPE Landscape Architecture passed around Styrofoam information boards that depicted different parts of the Living Breakwaters, including 800 horseshoe-shaped tide pools made of ECOncrete, which helps build up local marine life, supporting the food chain for top predators, like seals, and mitigate climate change by storing carbon in calcitic organisms like oysters,according to the ECOncrete website. Pippa Brashear of SCAPE Landscape Architecture speaks about the Living Breakwaters project on May 19, 2024. (Staten Island Advance/Jillian Delaney) Staten Island Advance/Jillian Delaney Live oysters are expected to be given homes in the Breakwaters, with their installation being in the early permitting phase, and is expected to be completed by 2027, according to a written statement from the governors office. Brashear had discussed the need for the project, which was sparked after the devastation inflicted by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Multiple lives and homes were lost in Tottenville, including 13-year-old Angela Dresch and her father, George. Through conversations with residents and stakeholderswalling off the beach here wasnt really something that was feasible. But how do you take the risk and damage of what happened during Sandy out of the equation? Brashear explained. What came out of this was the Living Breakwaters, which are designed to break waves. One of the final stages of the project included a sand restoration project to help rebuild the lost coastline that was taken by Hurricane Sandy. From January 2024 to April 2024, 22,000 tons of sand were trucked in from New Jerseys North American Aggregates in Perth Amboy. Thats approximately 35 truckloads of sand being brought in daily while the zone was active. But will the breakwaters truly help stop flooding and rising tides when it comes down to it? Construction equipment is seen near a breakwater on May 19, 2024. (Staten Island Advance/Jillian Delaney) Staten Island Advance/Jillian Delaney National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Oceanographer William Sweet, who holds a doctorate degree, isnt convinced. Thats really for more of a storm surge, right? Waves and surge, lets slow it down. .. Thats not going to do much just [for] the high tides as they just creep in and out. The tides are going to go wherever they want to go; nothings going stop them. You might put a storm surge gate up. Thats what theyre talking about for New York City and Boston Lets put these giants storm surge gates up, we gotta protect ourselves and the surges of the future. But those arent meant to shut during high tides. These are meant to shut maybe once a year, [with] the amount of money it cost to shut them and operate them but its not going to feed navigation, he said in an interview earlier this summer. As sea levels rise and high tides, full moon tides, prevailing wind tides, start hitting up against the coast, its not necessarily violent. These Breakwaters are going to do nothing. Water is just going to go right by them and its just going to flood the coast. There are some shared solution spaces with storm surge and rough waters and sea level rise, but theyre not one in the same, Sweet explained. Broken and downed construction fencing is pictured at the end of Manhattan Street in Tottenville as another part of the Living Breakwaters project is seen in the water on April 16, 2024. (Staten Island Advance/Jillian Delaney)Staten Island Advance/Jillian Delaney The projects cost bounced around prior to and throughout its construction, with predictions ranging from $107 million to $114 million. In the final breakdown, the project was funded by $97 million of HUD Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funding and by $14 million from a direct capital allocation in the FY 2022 state budget, the written statement detailed. It was administered by NYS Homes and Community Renewals (HCR) Office of Resilient Homes and Communities, a permanent office which assumed the portfolio of the Governors Office of Storm Recovery in 2022. The governors announcement comes during Climate Week, which is an annual gathering of leaders from across the world to champion climate action. Americans can once again order free, at-home coronavirus (COVID-19) tests from the federal government. Every household in the country can now place an order to receive four more free COVID-19 rapid tests capable of detecting current variants from COVIDTests.gov. The tests will be delivered directly to your home, with shipments starting Monday, Sept. 30. And if you already have at-home tests, make sure to check if expiration dates have been extended before you throw them away. Rapid antigen tests can be self-administered. Results are available within 15 to 30 minutes. How do you order the rapid at-home kits? Americans can order a test online at COVIDTests.gov or go directly to the United States Postal Service (USPS) at special.usps.com/testkits. The program will limit the number of tests sent to each household to four. Do you need to pay? Orders will ship free and will be delivered by USPS through First Class Package Service, with shipments to Alaska, Hawaii and the United States Territories and APO/FPO/DPO addresses sent through Priority Mail. Once your order is shipped, you will receive an email with an estimated delivery date and a tracking number. You can track the status of your delivery on USPS.com. What if you dont have access to the website? People who have difficulty accessing the internet or need additional support placing an order can call 1-800-232-0233 (TTY 1-888-720-7489) to get help in English, Spanish and more than 150 other languages 8 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week. Do you need health insurance? The four tests will be provided free via the website, and health insurance is not required. What if the tests arrive with expired dates? Many COVID-19 tests have extended expiration dates, so you may be able to use your COVID-19 tests after the expiration date that is printed on the box, according to the federal government. To find out if your test has an extended expiration date, check the FDAs list of extended expiration dates. When should I test for COVID-19? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), if you have symptoms, test immediately. If you were exposed to COVID-19 and do not have symptoms, wait at least five full days after exposure before testing. If you test too early, you may be more likely to get an inaccurate result. You may also consider testing before contact with someone at high risk for severe COVID-19. How do I know if I have COVID-19? People with COVID-19 have had a wide range of symptoms reported ranging from mild symptoms to severe illness, the CDC states. Symptoms may appear two to 14 days after exposure, and anyone can have mild to severe symptoms. Symptoms include: STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. A Clifton man found guilty this past May in the shooting death of a Staten Island grandmother was sentenced in state Supreme Court, St. George on Wednesday. Shaheem Chavis, 46, received life without parole for first degree murder and was handed an additional 35 years for attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon in connection to the 2022 slaying that played out inside 260 Park Hill Ave. in his community. The victim, 61-year-old Nadine Davis Russell, was found shot execution style in her apartment in the early morning hours of Sept. 21, 2022. Another man, reportedly a longtime friend of Russells and who was shot twice that day testified as a witness in the case. Chavis testified at trial he was in the middle of using Russells bathroom on the morning of the slaying when he heard two loud bangs and emerged to find Russells male friend pointing a gun at him. The two bullet holes in the other man, Chavis claimed, were the result of a violent struggle between the two, and that it was the other man who killed Russell. But prosecutors contended it was the other man who dialed 911 and remained at the scene. That call was played multiple times for the jury. When Executive Assistant District Attorney Adam Silberlight asked if he noticed Russells lifeless body on the floor in what one detective described as a large pool of blood and brain matter in a narrow hallway, Chavis said he did not. I was out of my mind, he said. I needed to get the hell out of there. Prosecutors contended that following the shooting, Chavis was tracked by cameras throughout the Park Hill apartment complex running home to his own building where he was living with his mother, and that the gun used to kill Russell was taken from the scene by Chavis and placed inside a meter room in his own building, which he claimed was for safe keeping until he could relay his side of things to his parole officer, whom he claimed he trusted more than police. Skin cell DNA from Chavis was ultimately found on the bottom of the guns magazine, while the other mans blood was found on the top of the gun. As the only defense witness to take the stand, Chavis also admitted to tossing the clothes he was wearing down a garbage chute in his own apartment building, saying he didnt want to be falsely accused of something he didnt do, but also wanted to erase any memory of what happened for his own psyche. According to Chavis, Russell, who had grown up with his mother and whom he referred to as big sis, wanted to bail her boyfriend out of jail, but didnt have the $500 to do so. He told three different stories, said Silberlight at trial, referring to interviews with detectives, then his grand jury testimony and finally what he stated on the witness stand. In the days leading up to the slaying, a series of texts and conversations between Chavis and Russell about a domestic incident with her boyfriend and her then trying to bail the boyfriend out of jail, show the defendant saw an opportunity to get cash, pills or both from the victim while her boyfriend was not around, suggested Silberlight. He intended to blow her head off so he could go ahead and take what he wanted, Silberlight said. Prior homicide sentence In this 1993 photo, Shaheem Chavis, left, is escorted into the NYPD's 120th Precinct stationhouse in St. George by a detective following an armed-robbery turned homicide in Clifton. (Staten Island Advance)Staten Island Advance The 2022 shooting wasnt Chavis first violent brush with the law, as he was previously sentenced in 1995 to 25 years to life for a botched robbery that turned into a fatal shooting in Clifton. The 45-year-old victim, Mahmoud Addelrehiem, who was found shot twice in the back of the head at point-blank-range, was a husband and father of three who prior to immigrating to the U.S. was an officer in the Egyptian army. At a 2021 parole hearing, Chavis explained his actions in the November 1993 shooting, his experiences while incarcerated and plans following his release coupled with letters from third parties and a message of apology he had sent to the victims family. The parole board would go on to deem him rehabilitated and capable of rejoining society without posing a threat to the public. Brutal and senseless Two years ago this week, Shaheem Chavis committed a brutal and senseless act of gun violence inside of a Park Hill apartment. Fatally shooting Nadine Russell, a 61-year-old grandmother, and seriously injuring a second victim, this defendants vicious actions warranted nothing short of a lifetime behind bars, District Attorney Michael E. McMahon said in a statement. I commend our partners in the NYPD for their expert investigative work throughout the course of this case and Executive Assistant District Attorney Adam Silberlight and Assistant District Attorney Melanie Sommer for securing a significant prison sentence which holds this dangerous defendant fully accountable and for their relentless commitment to securing justice for the Russell family and all involved in this harrowing case, McMahon added. An attorney for Chavis could not be immediately reached for comment. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. The Richmond County District Attorneys Office was awarded a $500,000 federal grant to establish a cold case unit on the borough. The grant will supply the office with the funding needed to establish the unit and dedicate more time to investigating violent cold cases that already have suspect DNA profiles. The money was administered through the Bureau of Justice Assistance and awarded under the FY24 Prosecuting Cold Cases Using DNA grant program. The funding was announced Thursday in a press release by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island/South Brooklyn) and District Attorney Michael E. McMahon. The money will help the office close an estimated 100 violent crime cold cases where DNA forensic evidence exists, the release states. DNA analysis is a powerful tool that enables law enforcement to catch and prosecute violent perpetrators, especially in long-unsolved cold cases where crucial evidence has been awaiting testing, said Malliotakis. I am proud to have supported District Attorney McMahon in pursuit of this grant and happy it was awarded. By using advanced DNA technology, prosecutors will have the ability to efficiently re-examine violent cold cases and bring justice to victims while also putting violent offenders behind bars. McMahon added that he is dedicated to making sure that all victims of violent crime and their families receive justice no matter how old the case. Whether recent or decades-old, unresolved crime cases have a devastating impact on our community, robbing victims and their families of closure and preventing the perpetrators of these crimes from ever being held accountable in the courtroom, said McMahon in the statement. Cold case crime victims and their families are no less deserving of justice. McMahon went on to thank the U.S. Department of Justice and Malliotakis for their efforts in realizing the grant and the opportunity it provides to help enhance his offices ability to better serve victims families. A couple has been permanently banned by a major airline following a heated spat about seat-reclining etiquette, according to CNN. Cathay Pacific, a Hong Kong-based airline, has banned two passengers from its flights, following a Sept. 17 incident during a flight from Hong Kong to London, with a female passenger from mainland China posting a video of the experience onto Xiaohongshu, Chinas version of Instagram. According to her Xiaohongshu account, the incident unfolded when the woman seated behind her requested that she return her seat to an upright position, because it was obstructing her husbands view of the in-flight television. The passenger politely declined, which provoked an aggressive reaction from the woman behind her. She started stretching her feet onto my armrest, kicking my arm, and cursing at me like crazy, the passenger said. A flight attendant then tried to intervene, suggesting the woman raise her seat, but woman wouldnt budge. When she realized my Cantonese wasnt so great, she started throwing around some nasty comments, calling me a Mainland girl and using other derogatory language, the passenger said. In video footage of the incident, a voice in Mandarin can be heard criticizing the older woman, saying, Youre old enough why are you bullying a young girl? The exchange underscored cultural and linguistic differences, as Cantonese is predominantly spoken in Hong Kong, while Mandarin is the primary language in mainland China. The situation worsened when the husband of the aggressive passenger became involved, reportedly shoving his hand on the armrest of the reclining passenger and shaking it. I felt my personal space had been completely violated, she expressed. A Cathay Pacific airplane taxis at Hong Kong International Airport in Hong Kong, Friday, Nov. 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Vernon Yuen)AP As the situation escalated, other passengers chimed in, voicing their support for the reclining passenger. Some shouted in Cantonese, Youre embarrassing us Hongkongers! and Stop saying youre from Hong Kong! Eventually, after receiving support from fellow passengers, the flight attendant permitted the reclining passenger to switch seats. In a statement released on Saturday, Cathay Pacific expressed its sincere apologies for the unpleasant experience, emphasizing that it upholds a zero-tolerance policy for any behavior that violates aviation safety regulations or disrespects fellow customers. We maintain a zero-tolerance policy for any behavior that violates aviation safety regulations or disrespects the rights of other customers, the statement read. We will deny future travel on any Cathay Group flights to the two customers involved in this incident. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - After serving Staten Islanders for more than a century, the Visiting Nurse Association of Staten Island (VNASI) has shut down, laid off its nurses and sold its remaining assets. It was just a very unfortunate situation. We were all very happy and then it was very sudden, said one of the 15 nurses who was let go, and spoke to the Advance/SILive.com on the condition of anonymity. I wish there was a little bit more transparency to what was going on because it felt very blindsiding. VNASI, a non-profit agency, had been providing in-home health care to the community since 1917. Staffed by registered nurses, the agency assessed patients home health needs and, according to their website, provided high-quality therapeutic, supportive and preventive health care services outside of the hospital setting. The agencys former building was located in Mariners Harbor, which was then transitioned to Randall Manor. As of today, the non-profit agency is no longer active, but for years it was an important part of the community. VNA is known as part of the fabric of Staten Island health care and my career has come full circle as a Staten Islander returning to service my own community, Hope Iliceto, a registered nurse who became president and CEO of VNASI in 2020, told The Advance/Silive.com. During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, VNASI also played a vital role in supporting the recovery of discharged COVID-19 patients. Lisa Mandell, a Registered Nurse with the Visiting Nurse Association of Staten Island (VNA) checking the lungs of a patient recovering at home from the COVID-19 virus in 2020. It was not immediately clear why the agency was shuttered, or what precipitated the move, but VNASI was officially operating under Richmond University Medical Centers (RUMC) umbrella since 2022 before it was sold this year, according to the hospitals spokesperson Alex Lutz. Prime Home Health Services, LLC has acquired some of the remaining assets of VNASI, said Lutz. Prime Home Health Services is a Brooklyn-based Certified Home Care Agency serving New York City and Long island. The agency did not respond to multiple requests for comment. All of VNASIs staff and patients were given a 30-day notice, according to the nurse who spoke with the Advance/SILive.com. And 30 days may seem like a long time, but it is not a very long time, especially since we were union employees and it was difficult to find comparable employment, the nurse said. All the nurses received severance packages based on their years of service, capped at four weeks, according to the source. As for all the patients, the source said they were transferred to other agencies and informed that VNASI was closing. When youre with patients for that long, they obviously get accustomed to you and your agency even if theyre on and off service. They get used to you, the nurse explained. I dont know if it was specifically because the agency closed or because they were losing their nurse that they had become accustomed to, but it was hard for them. As VNASI prepared to shutter, the staffs caseloads gradually decreased. At their peak, however, the nurses were seeing an average of up to 30 patients each, the source recalled. According to the source, most of the patients were elderly, and they would receive care for periods of up to 60 days. Many were repeat patients if they went back into the hospital for any reason because they had built strong relationships over the years. They all loved us, the source added. According to the source, many staff members were taken aback by the short notice about the agencys closure. We are extremely grateful to the entire VNASI staff for their commitment to upholding the strong tradition and outstanding reputation of VNASI, Lutz said. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. In honor of those who have died, here is a compilation of obituaries posted on SILive. Viewing times and guest books can be seen here. Stephanie Marie Orr, 47, a lifelong Staten Island resident, passed away on Sept. 15, 2024. Born on Sept. 17, 1976, she was the beloved daughter, sister, fiancee, and aunt. An alumna of St. Joseph Hill Academy and MBCC, Stephanie worked at Staten Island University Hospital and the NYS Court System, never losing her beautiful smile and personality despite facing illness and injuries. Read the full obituary on SILive. Georgiana DiMauro, 91, founder of the Staten Island Chamber Music Players, passed away. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, she settled in Charleston in 1962. A graduate of Tulsa University and Wichita State University, Mrs. DiMauro had an early career as a French Hornist in New York City. She founded the Staten Island Chamber Music Players in 1972, directing and performing with them for over 35 years. Mrs. DiMauro was a 1991 Staten Island Advance Woman of Achievement and received numerous awards for her community service through the arts. Read the full obituary on SILive. Maria M. Hernandez, 83, passed away on Sept. 22, 2024. Born on July 22, 1941, Maria was known for her strong-willed nature, deep faith, and creativity expressed through sewing, knitting, and arts and crafts. She was an active member of her local Pentecostal Church. Maria is survived by her sons Antonio and Wilfred Hernandez, and granddaughters Tabitha and Lauriann (Zoe) Hernandez. Read the full obituary on SILive. Robert Lombardi, 71, passed away on Sept. 11, 2024. Raised on Staten Island, Robert became a successful builder in both New York and New Jersey. A passionate musician, martial artist, and dog lover, Robert devoted himself to his varied interests and family. He is lovingly remembered by his three children, Kim, Blake and Sara. Read the full obituary on SILive. Dr. Michael A. Paglia, 95, a distinguished surgical oncologist who practiced medicine for over 40 years in New York City, died June 27. He was a beloved father, grandfather and family member, a dedicated physician and a friend to many. Read the full obituary on SILive. Generative AI was used to produce an initial draft of this story based on data from Legacy.com. It was reviewed and edited by Staten Island Live staff. Travelers, be forewarned about your upcoming travel plans. In recent weeks, the United States has issued, revised, or reissued multiple travel advisories, including warnings for popular European destinations like Italy and the United Kingdom, now classified under the exercise increased caution or Level 2 alert category, with Level 4 being the highest level of warning. In addition, travel advisories to Denmark, Lesotho, and Haiti, were updated last week, with Haiti being classified as a Level 4: Do not travel. The U.S. has released three new travel advisories including a Level 2, a Level 3, and a Level 4: Do not travel warnings. On Sept. 23, the U.S. issued a Level 2: Excercise increased caution advisory for Panama, recommending increased caution in Panama due to crime and potential for civil unrest. Some areas have increased risk, including theft, pickpocketing and purse snatching, in tourist areas. On Sept. 10, the U.S. issued a Level 3: Reconsider travel advisory to Pakistan, due to terrorism. Travelers are advised to not avoid travel to Balochistan province and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, including the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), due to terrorism. On Sept. 24, U.S. issued a Level 4: Do not travel advisory for Venezuela, due to the high risk of wrongful detentions, terrorism, kidnapping, the arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest, poor health infrastructure. The warning for Venezuela highlights high levels of violent crime, including homicide, armed robbery, kidnapping, and carjacking. Political rallies and demonstrations are frequent and often occur without warning. Authorities have responded to anti-Maduro protests with harsh crackdowns, which sometimes escalate into looting and vandalism. Additionally, Colombian terrorist groups are active in Venezuelas border regions with Colombia, Brazil, and Guyana. Widespread shortages of gasoline, electricity, water, medicine, and medical supplies persist throughout much of the country. Security forces have detained U.S. citizens for periods of up to five years. (AP Photo/Eileen Putman, File)AP If you are considering travel to Venezuela: 1. Avoid all travel to Venezuela, including through land border crossings, due to significant risks. 2. Nighttime travel between cities or from Simon Bolivar International Airport to Caracas is especially unsafe. 3. Entering Venezuela without a valid visa can result in indefinite detention without access to consular support. 4. U.S. citizens should draft a will and update insurance beneficiaries and power of attorney. 5. Establish a communication plan with family, employers, or host organizations, including a proof of life protocol in case of kidnapping to verify safety and avoid hoaxes. 6. Do not rely on U.S. government assistance in Venezuela; they cannot help replace lost or expired travel documents. 7. Avoid using unregulated taxis and ATMs around Simon Bolivar International Airport due to increased risks. 8. Consider hiring a professional security organization while in Venezuela. 9. Over-the-counter and prescription medications are scarce for U.S. citizens in Venezuela. 10. The U.S. government cannot assist in the event of a medical emergency; consider purchasing medical evacuation insurance. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Soon all New York City residents, including Staten Islanders, will be required to separate their organic waste from the rest of their trash as part of a mandatory, citywide residential curbside composting program. The new initiative, billed as the nations largest compost collection program, is just one of many new efforts in Mayor Eric Adams push to modernize trash collection across the five boroughs. Were saying loud and clear that this city deserves better, and taking steps incrementally in each area that feeds our trash problem and our landfills is what we are focusing on, Adams said when announcing the citywide program in February. Starting Oct. 6, owners of all residential buildings in the five boroughs, including single-family home owners, will have to begin separating organic waste from the rest of their trash. So what exactly is organic waste? It includes yard waste, like plants, leaves, twigs and grass, as well as food waste, like meat, bones, dairy, fruits and vegetables. Food-soiled paper products like napkins, tea bags, paper plates and pizza boxes will also need to be separated. Non-soiled paper products should remain with traditionally-recycled materials. Items like wrappers, pet waste, medical waste, diapers, foam and hygiene products should remain in the traditional trash, according to the Department of Sanitation (DSNY). DSNY is offering free composting bins for Staten Island, Manhattan and Bronx residents, which can be ordered through the departments website. Additional official 21-gallon New York City composting bins are available for purchase through a private vendor for $43.47. New Yorkers can also use their own bins, so long as they are 55 gallons or less, have a secure lid and are labeled with a free composting bin decal. Curbside collection of organics will mirror that of traditional recyclable materials. When the curbside compost program starts, residents should put their organic items out the same day and time they do for their recyclables. The city will have a three-month grace period for yard waste, like leaves and grass trimmings. There will also be a grace period through next spring for food waste and food-soiled materials like paper plates. Once the grace periods have expired, residential penalties for non-compliance with the new organic waste rules will be the same as recyclable violations. Residential buildings with fewer than nine units will be charged $25 for a first offense, $50 for a second, and $100 for subsequent offenses. Larger residential buildings face fines of $100 for first offenses, $200 for second offenses and $400 for subsequent offenses in a six-month period. Most organic waste collected citywide gets anaerobically processed at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. On Staten Island, the organic materials will be transported to a DSNY compost facility located on part of the former Freshkills Landfill. Waste processed at the Newtown Creek facility is broken down into gases, mainly methane. The process is similar to what would happen at a landfill, but instead, the city collects that natural gas to be used as a resource. The Staten Island facility, which saw an expansion earlier this year, will turn the organic waste into compost. The city will sell 60% of that compost to landscapers while distributing the remainder to city parks, community groups and residents. CHANGSHA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- When someone with an emotional issue or mental illness struggles with the idea of seeing a therapist in person, there is now another option: speaking to an artificial intelligence (AI) therapist through a WeChat mini program. The AI therapist can answer questions about mental health, conduct mental health assessments and judge a person's emotional state by capturing facial expressions with the camera on the mobile phone. It was presented at the two-day 2024 World Computing Conference held this week in Changsha, the capital of central China's Hunan Province. "The AI therapist will reply accordingly with its diagnosis and recommendations, speaking in an appropriate tone that should help comfort the person," said Yu Min, executive dean of the innovation research institute of Hunan Trasen Science & Technology Corp., Ltd., developer of the AI medical system. People can also reach out to an AI doctor that can diagnose users after they describe their symptoms. It can also carry out traditional Chinese medicine tongue diagnosis and provide recipes and exercise recommendations to achieve improved balance and harmony within the body. "Traditional models cannot meet the need to develop such systems in medical services, which require a high level of accuracy. However, fast-developing computing power has provided us with strong support to develop this medical system in a more accurate way," Yu said. According to Pan Yunhe, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, new models are expected to help us become more knowledgeable and work toward preventive treatments for diseases in the coming years if data gathered from physical examinations, disease cases, families and regions is combined. With extreme weather events increasing in frequency, computing power also has a huge role to play in the prevention and control of natural disasters. Thanks to a disaster monitoring and early warning platform, six households in Dayingang Village, Hunan's Changde City, were able to relocate before a landslide occurred due to a week of rainfall in June. The platform, developed by Hunan BDS Micro-chipset Data Technology Co., Ltd., is able to capture subtle changes in mountains by deploying high-precision monitoring equipment and sensors based on the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, said Long Pengyu, the company's deputy general manager. "The platform can analyze the monitoring data to determine the mountain's status and predict natural disasters such as mudslides and landslides more than three hours in advance of their occurrence," he said. The prevention of geological disasters such as landslides is an important task during the flood season in Hunan. Landslides develop quickly in extreme weather, and early warnings can now be sent via radio and text messages to help residents relocate in advance to avoid deaths, injuries and financial losses, Long added. To date, the monitoring and early warning platform has been applied in more than 10 provinces in China. "With accelerating technological innovation and algorithm improvement, we now have better warning results and accuracy levels. As a developer, we're also making efforts to reduce costs so that the platform can be used over a wider range and benefit more residents," he said. The scale of China's computing industry reached 2.6 trillion yuan (about 370 billion U.S. dollars) in 2022, according to official statistics. JD Vance shares the GOP ticket with former President Donald Trump in the 2024 race for the White House. But the U.S. senator from Ohio and veep candidate wasnt always enamored of the presidential performance of the man who could be his boss in a couple of months. Vance during Trumps re-election campaign in 2020 said that Trump had thoroughly failed to deliver on the economy and would probably lose the election, the Washington Post reported. Vance made the comments in February 2020 while writing a direct message to an unnamed user on Twitter. The messages were obtained by the Post. Vance wrote, Trump has just so thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism (excepting a disjointed China policy.) In June of that year, Vance wrote to the same user, I think Trump will probably lose the race for re-election. Vance also suggested that he had refused an offer to serve in the first Trump administration, writing that he turned down my appointment from the emperor. Vance spokesman William Martin told the Post that Vances criticism of Trumps economic policies was not meant to be a condemnation of the former president. Martin suggested the comment was aimed at establishment Republicans who thwarted much of Trumps populist economic agenda. Vance had also been critical of Trump in 2016, according to Axios, saying that he had the potential to be Americas Hitler and that Trump was like cultural heroin. Vance after joining the ticket has said that he had changed his mind about Trump and that his earlier judgments of the former president shouldnt be held against him. Trump lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Vance on Tuesday is set to debate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic candidate for vice president. NEW YORK CITY -- Mayor Eric Adams is due to appear in a Manhattan courtroom Friday to face charges of years-long bribery, illegal foreign campaign contributions and wire fraud. Federal prosecutors unsealed a 57-page grand jury indictment against Mayor Eric Adams Thursday making him the first New York City mayor charged with crimes in the modern era. According to published reports, Adams is scheduled to appear before Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker, and will have to again appear next Friday for an initial conference. He is expected to be arrested, booked and fingerprinted ahead of his appearance before the judge, according to ABC.com. It is not yet clear of the location where he is expected to turn himself in to federal authorities. Adams attorney initially requested a Sept. 27 court date, but later asked for an extension until Monday, which appears to have been denied, the report said. Adams was indicted by a grand jury on Wednesday amid a flurry of searches, resignations of top city officials and subpoenas, with the indictment unsealed on Thursday morning by U.S. Attorney Damian Williams of the Southern District of New York. Federal prosecutors alleged Adams received lavish travel perks from the Turkish government and some of its nationals that date back nearly 10 years. The indictment alleged that the mayor took bribes from Turkish nationals that included trips to Turkey, Hungary, France, China, India and Ghana. Alleged gifts Adams received included flight upgrades valued at tens of thousands of dollars, and luxurious hotel stays in suites across the globe, which Adams was often undercharged for in an attempt to hide the improprieties, Williams alleged. Graphic showing Eric Adams' alleged undisclosed travel benefits. (Courtesy of U.S. Department of Justice)Courtesy of U.S. Department of Justice Turkish nationals also allegedly filled Adams campaign coffers ahead of the 2021 collection, so much so that it resulted in the mayors campaign receiving more than $10 million in public matching funds. The mayor, along with several members of his administration, have been the subject of a federal investigation regarding donations related to his 2021 campaign, with the phones of multiple members of Adams inner circle seized by federal investigators and several individuals in top positions having already resigned their posts. Will Adams Step Down? Adams said Thursday that he has no intention of stepping down and asked New Yorkers to withhold judgement until theyve heard his side of the story. This is not surprising to us at all. The actions that have unfolded over the last 10 months, the leaks, the commentary, the demonizing. This did not surprise us that we reached this day, and I asked New Yorkers to wait to hear our defense before making any judgments, said Adams. From here, my attorneys will take care of the case so I can take care of the city, my day-to-day will not change. I will continue to do the job for 8.3 million New Yorkers that I was elected to do and the 300,000 plus employees of our city government will continue to do their jobs, because this is what we do as New Yorkers, he added. What Happens Adams Resigns? But if Adams were to resign, or be removed from office by Gov. Kathy Hochul, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a Democrat who has served in his role since 2019, would temporarily replace him. The City Charter also contains a mechanism by which a host of city officials, including the council speaker, public advocate and comptroller, can form a commission to declare the mayor unable to fulfill his duties. A special election, which would be nonpartisan and utilize New Yorks ranked choice system, would be held on the first Tuesday at least 80 days from when Williams assumed mayoral control. However, if Adams were to resign within 90 days of the June 2025 primaries, there would be no special election and Williams would remain mayor until a new one is elected in November of next year. NEW YORK (AP) New York Citys embattled mayor, Eric Adams, arrived at a federal courthouse Friday morning to be arraigned on charges that he accepted illegal campaign contributions and free overseas trips from people looking to buy his influence in city government. Adams gave a thumbs up but did not pause to speak to reporters as he headed into the Manhattan court, flanked by his own police security. He was scheduled to appear before Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker at noon. RELATED: STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE/SILIVE.COM CALLS FOR ERIC ADAMS TO STEP DOWN >> An indictment unsealed Thursday accused the Democrat of taking a variety of improper gifts from Turkish officials and businesspeople, including free hotel stays and deeply discounted airline tickets to destinations including France, China, Sri Lanka, India, Hungary, Ghana and Turkey. In return, prosecutors said, Adams did favors for his patrons. That included helping Turkey get fire department approvals to open a new diplomatic tower in Manhattan, despite concerns about its fire safety system, prosecutors said. New York City mayor Eric Adams arrives at Manhattan federal court, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)AP Adams says he is innocent. His lawyer has said it was neither unusual nor improper for a government official to accept some travel perks. The mayor has denied ever knowingly accepting an illegal campaign contribution and said any help he gave people navigating city bureaucracy was just part of doing his job. It was unclear how the mechanics of Adams trip through the courthouse might unfold. Many people charged with federal crimes are arrested at their homes early in the morning, booked, and then brought before a judge after spending hours or even days in detention. But that isnt always the case and it didnt happen with Adams. When former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, of New Jersey, was arraigned on corruption charges in the same courthouse a year ago, he also arrived as a free person in the morning, had a short appearance before a judge and walked out after around 4 hours in the building. He was never seen in handcuffs. RELATED: STATEN ISLAND COUNCILMAN EYES RUN IF MAYOR STEPS DOWN >> The Lower Manhattan courthouse is less than two blocks from the one where former President Donald Trump was tried and convicted of falsifying business records, and the same court where a jury found Trump civilly liable for sexually assaulting the writer E. Jean Carroll in 1996. Other prominent cases there now include the sex trafficking case against hip-hop mogul Sean Diddy Combs. The mayor tried to project a sense on his daily schedule that hes continuing to go about the citys business. He listed meetings at 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. with senior city officials and staff. He also planned afternoon meetings, starting with one at 3:30 p.m. with the Mayors Advisory Committee on the Judiciary, a committee that screens candidates for judicial appointments a reminder that Adams even while under indictment retains all of his official powers, including the ability to appoint certain judges. Adams faces conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery charges in a five-count indictment. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams on Thursday said that several businesspeople and a Turkish diplomat had engaged in a multiyear scheme to buy favor from Adams. In public remarks Thursday, Adams asked New Yorkers to avoid making any judgments until they heard his defense. His lawyer, Spiro, told reporters the travel perks and seat upgrades Adams accepted were commonly offered to VIPs and members of Congress. Thats what airlines do, he said, noting that many of the charges relate to trips Adams took years ago when he was Brooklyn borough president. It was unclear whether this weeks indictment was the last word on federal investigations involving the administration. Federal prosecutors are believed to be leading multiple, separate inquiries involving Adams and his senior aides and relatives of those aides. In early September, federal investigators seized devices from the police commissioner, schools chancellor, two deputy mayors and other trusted Adams confidants. In the last two weeks alone, the police commissioner resigned and the schools chancellor announced he would retire. Neither has been charged with a crime or been publicly accused of wrongdoing. CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla. (AP) The Georgia governor says at least 11 people in his state have been killed and dozens are still trapped in homes damaged by Hurricane Helene. Gov. Brian Kemp made the statement Friday at a news conference. He said authorities believe there are 115 structures with people trapped inside. The storm made landfall late Thursday in Floridas sparsely populated Big Bend area, which is home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways. Its where the Panhandle and peninsula meet. A Citrus County Firefigher carries 11-year- old, Michael Cribbins, while conducting rescues from floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Crystal River, Fla. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP)AP THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. APs earlier story follows below. CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla. (AP) Emergency crews rushed Friday to rescue people trapped in flooded homes after Helene roared ashore as a powerful Category 4 hurricane in Florida, generating a massive storm surge and knocking out power to millions of customers in several states. At least six people were reported dead. The storm made landfall late Thursday in a sparsely populated region with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph) in the rural Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Floridas Panhandle and peninsula meet. But the damage extended hundreds of miles to the north, with flooding as far away as North Carolina, where a lake used in scenes from the movie Dirty Dancing overtopped a dam. Multiple hospitals in southern Georgia were without power. Thank God were both alive to tell about it, Rhonda Bell said after a towering oak tree outside her home in Valdosta, Georgia, smashed through the roof. Jamir Lewis wades through floodwaters with his two daughters, Nylah and Aria, in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Crystal River, Fla. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP)AP Video on social media sites showed sheets of rain coming down and siding coming off buildings in Perry, Florida, near where the storm arrived. One local news station showed a home that was overturned, and many communities established curfews. Its really heartbreaking, said Stephen Tucker, after the hurricane peeled off the brand-new roof at her church in Perry, Florida. It had to be replaced after last years Hurricane Idalia, and the congregation was just weeks away from moving back into the newly renovated sanctuary. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the damage from Helene in the area appears to be greater than the combined damage of Idalia and Debby last August. Its demoralizing, he said. President Joe Biden said he was praying for survivors as the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency headed to the area. The agency has deployed more than 1,500 workers, and they helped with 400 rescues by late morning. Workers remove debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Cedar Key, Fla., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)AP County officials immediately launched boats to reach stranded people, warning that the water could contain live wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris. If you are trapped and need help please call for rescuers DO NOT TRY TO TREAD FLOODWATERS YOURSELF, the sheriffs office in Citrus County, Florida, warned in a Facebook post, while raising concerns that the tide could bring another surge of up to 10 feet (3.05 meters). Rescuers in Tampa also used boats to reach stranded residents. Flooding was what we had warned everyone about, Mayor Jane Castor said. Thomas Chaves, left, and Vinny Almeida walk through floodwaters from Hurricane Helene in an attempt to reach Chaves's mother's house in the Shore Acres neighborhood Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson)AP More than 4 million homes and businesses were without power Friday morning in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports. One person was killed in Florida when a sign fell on their car, and two people were reported killed in a possible tornado in south Georgia as the storm approached. Trees that toppled onto homes were blamed for deaths in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Anderson County, South Carolina. The hurricane came ashore near the mouth of the Aucilla River on Floridas Gulf Coast. That location was only about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of where Hurricane Idalia hit last year at nearly the same ferocity and caused widespread damage. A vehicle is submerged outside a home near Peachtree Creek in Atlanta Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Jason Allen)AP As the hurricanes eye passed near Valdosta, a city of 55,000 near the Florida line, dozens of people huddled early Friday in a darkened hotel lobby. As the wind howled outside, water dripped from light fixtures in the lobby dining area. Fermin Herrera, 20, his wife and their 2-month-old daughter left their room on the top floor of the hotel, where they took shelter because they were concerned about trees falling on their Valdosta home. We heard some rumbling, said Herrera, cradling the sleeping baby in a downstairs hallway. Helene is the third storm to strike the city in just over a year. Tropical Storm Debby blacked out power to thousands in August, while Hurricane Idalia damaged an estimated 1,000 homes in Valdosta and surrounding Lowndes County a year ago. Workers clear debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Cedar Key, Fla., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)AP Soon after it crossed over land, Helene weakened to a tropical storm, with its maximum sustained winds falling to 70 mph (110 kph). At 11 a.m. Friday, the storm was about 105 miles (165 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta, moving north at 32 mph (52 kph) with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (75 kph), the National Hurricane Center in Miami reported. Forecasters expected the system to continue weakening as it moves into Tennessee and Kentucky and drops heavy rain over the Appalachian Mountains, with the risk of mudslides and flash flooding. Even before landfall, the storms wrath was felt widely, with sustained tropical storm-force winds and hurricane-force gusts along Floridas west coast. Officials begged residents to evacuate. Please write your name, birthday, and important information on your arm or leg in a PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified, the sheriffs office in mostly rural Taylor County, Florida, warned those who chose not to evacuate in a Facebook post. The dire advice was similar to what other officials have dolled out during past hurricanes. Beyond Florida, up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain had fallen in the North Carolina mountains, with up to 14 inches (36 centimeters) more possible before the deluge ends, setting the stage for flooding that forecasters warned could be worse than anything seen in the past century. Evacuations were underway in several areas of the state, and the sheriffs office in Haywood County declared all roads closed. School districts and multiple universities canceled classes. Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed Thursday, and cancellations were widespread elsewhere in Florida and beyond. A day before hitting the U.S., Helene swamped parts of Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula, flooding streets and toppling trees as it brushed the resort city of Cancun and passed offshore. In western Cuba, Helene knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses as it brushed past the island. At one point, forecasters feared that hurricane conditions could extend as far as 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of the Georgia-Florida line. Overnight curfews were imposed in many cities and counties in south Georgia. Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures. Juan Soto is about six weeks away from becoming a free agent when all the rumors and speculation about his long-term home and huge payday will begin to get more real. Even though New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner said earlier this season he wanted to keep Soto in pinstripes for the rest of his career, will he ultimately offer him the most money, and how much will that matter? One MLB insider has some doubts. Want to bet on MLB? See the best NYC Sports Betting sites We dont know really whats in Sotos heart does he really want to stay with the Yankees, or like a lot of players, and by the way, this is totally their prerogative, some players equate money for respect, ESPN MLB insider Buster Olney said Sept. 25 on Pinstripe Territory. Is Soto looking to get a record number of dollars from one of these teams? And I do think in the end, the Yankees are going to be outbid by somebody. I cant see Hal (Steinbrenner) going to nutty numbers and we dont know if (New York Mets owner) Steve Cohen is going to do like he does with some of his art and just blow the competition out of the water. Soto is days away from concluding a standout regular season with the Yankees, where the outfielder has hit .288/.419/.574 (178 OPS+) with 41 home runs and 108 RBIs. And then he will begin his quest for a second World Series; he won his first in 2019 with the Washington Nationals, the team that drafted Soto and then traded him away in 2022 after he declined a 15-year, $440 million extension. Thats when it became clear that Soto, a Scott Boras client, was interested in testing the open market during his first opportunity. Free agency is where the threat of the Mets and owner Steve Cohens deep pockets could loom. I was told in spring training: thats our (the Mets) guy, Olney said. Like Soto is the focus on what the Mets are going to try to do. The author of this article is a Staten Island Academy student who participates in the Advance/SILive.com High School Journalism Immersion program. The initiative is designed to help young people explore the world of community journalism. Editors note: Suicidal thoughts and behaviors can be reduced with the proper mental health support and treatment. If you are in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- On Sunday, Sept. 29, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) will host a Staten Island Out of the Darkness Community Walk to help raise awareness around suicide prevention. Registration begins at noon, and the event is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. at the Stone House at Clove Lakes Park. The walk itself is an amazing opportunity to bring together the community to fight against this leading cause of death. We hope to continue our work in advocacy, education and funding research to help save lives and bring hope to those impacted by suicide, said Felicia Gambino, an organizer of the event, which is being held in partnership with Richmond University Medical Center and Reflective Lily, an organization promoting self-expression and self-healing. The event is aimed at honoring those who have passed away by suicide and showing support for individuals who struggle or have struggled with lived experiences. Donations from the walk will support AFSP and its ongoing mental health advocacy efforts. After the event, there will be an after-party at Flagship Brewery, Tompkinsville, from 4 to 8 p.m. This drink-to-donate event, featuring music and raffles, will also support AFSP. Those interested in registering for the walk can go to the event page on the AFSP website. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with Costa Rican Foreign Minister Arnoldo Andre Tinoco on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Sept. 26, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Rui) NEW YORK, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said here Thursday that China is willing to work with Costa Rica to maintain the momentum of development of bilateral relations. Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks during talks with Costa Rican Foreign Minister Arnoldo Andre Tinoco on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. He also said that the fruitful cooperation between the two countries should be cherished, which fully demonstrates that the development of bilateral ties conforms to the common interests of both sides and the trend of the times. For his part, Andre said Costa Rica will undoubtedly continue to firmly abide by the one-China principle and maintain the political foundation of bilateral relations, adding that his country welcomes more Chinese investment in Costa Rica. People visit an exhibition featuring more than 400 relics retrieved from two ancient shipwrecks discovered in the South China Sea at the China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea in Qionghai, south China's Hainan Province, Sept. 27, 2024. The exhibition covers an area of nearly 1,000 square meters. A total of 408 artifacts from the two ancient shipwrecks are on display, along with 34 borrowed artifacts from the Palace Museum and other museums, bringing the total number of exhibits to 442. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu) HAIKOU, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- An exhibition featuring more than 400 relics retrieved from two ancient shipwrecks discovered in the South China Sea kicked off on Friday afternoon in Qionghai, a city in the island province of Hainan in southern China. These artifacts, which had been submerged in the sea for over 500 years at a depth of more than 1,500 meters, are being showcased for the first time. Located at the China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea, the exhibition covers an area of nearly 1,000 square meters. A total of 408 artifacts from the two ancient shipwrecks are on display, along with 34 borrowed artifacts from the Palace Museum and other museums, bringing the total number of exhibits to 442. The most eye-catching exhibit is Fahua-colored porcelain, with 13 pieces (sets) on display. The archaeological discovery of Fahua-colored porcelain is very rare, and it is the first discovery in a shipwreck. These archaeological discoveries prove that Jingdezhen colored porcelain was exported in the middle of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), providing facts for finding the kiln sites. The exhibition also features one red and green bowl with the mark "made in the year of Bingyin." This confirms that the sunken ship belonged to the Zhengde period of the Ming Dynasty, which is of great value and contributes to the study of trade routes in the South China Sea. Further investigation of the two shipwrecks will be conducted, so the exhibition will adopt a dynamic update mode and update the cultural relics on display according to the new archaeological findings. The exhibition also sets up a special zone for the protection of cultural relics, presenting cultural preservation work via multimedia to allow the audience to understand its process and significance. These two ancient shipwrecks from the Ming Dynasty were discovered near the northwest continental slope in the South China Sea in October 2022. More than 900 pieces of cultural relics have been retrieved from the two ancient shipwrecks during three investigations from 2023 to 2024. Xin Lixue, curator of the China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea, said this collection of high-grade cultural relics is substantial in size, diverse in variety, and well-preserved. "Through this exhibition, we hope to show the social and economic development in the middle of the Ming Dynasty and inform the audience about the prosperity of the Maritime Silk Road in ancient China and the exchanges between Chinese and foreign civilizations," said Xin. The exhibition will officially open to the public starting on Saturday. This photo shows an exhibit at an exhibition featuring more than 400 relics retrieved from two ancient shipwrecks discovered in the South China Sea at the China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea in Qionghai, south China's Hainan Province, Sept. 27, 2024. The exhibition covers an area of nearly 1,000 square meters. A total of 408 artifacts from the two ancient shipwrecks are on display, along with 34 borrowed artifacts from the Palace Museum and other museums, bringing the total number of exhibits to 442. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu) A visitor looks at an exhibit at an exhibition featuring more than 400 relics retrieved from two ancient shipwrecks discovered in the South China Sea at the China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea in Qionghai, south China's Hainan Province, Sept. 27, 2024. The exhibition covers an area of nearly 1,000 square meters. A total of 408 artifacts from the two ancient shipwrecks are on display, along with 34 borrowed artifacts from the Palace Museum and other museums, bringing the total number of exhibits to 442. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu) This photo shows an exhibit at an exhibition featuring more than 400 relics retrieved from two ancient shipwrecks discovered in the South China Sea at the China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea in Qionghai, south China's Hainan Province, Sept. 27, 2024. The exhibition covers an area of nearly 1,000 square meters. A total of 408 artifacts from the two ancient shipwrecks are on display, along with 34 borrowed artifacts from the Palace Museum and other museums, bringing the total number of exhibits to 442. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu) This photo shows an exhibit at an exhibition featuring more than 400 relics retrieved from two ancient shipwrecks discovered in the South China Sea at the China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea in Qionghai, south China's Hainan Province, Sept. 27, 2024. The exhibition covers an area of nearly 1,000 square meters. A total of 408 artifacts from the two ancient shipwrecks are on display, along with 34 borrowed artifacts from the Palace Museum and other museums, bringing the total number of exhibits to 442. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu) This photo shows an exhibit at an exhibition featuring more than 400 relics retrieved from two ancient shipwrecks discovered in the South China Sea at the China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea in Qionghai, south China's Hainan Province, Sept. 27, 2024. The exhibition covers an area of nearly 1,000 square meters. A total of 408 artifacts from the two ancient shipwrecks are on display, along with 34 borrowed artifacts from the Palace Museum and other museums, bringing the total number of exhibits to 442. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu) Visitors look at an exhibit at an exhibition featuring more than 400 relics retrieved from two ancient shipwrecks discovered in the South China Sea at the China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea in Qionghai, south China's Hainan Province, Sept. 27, 2024. The exhibition covers an area of nearly 1,000 square meters. A total of 408 artifacts from the two ancient shipwrecks are on display, along with 34 borrowed artifacts from the Palace Museum and other museums, bringing the total number of exhibits to 442. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu) This photo shows an exhibit at an exhibition featuring more than 400 relics retrieved from two ancient shipwrecks discovered in the South China Sea at the China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea in Qionghai, south China's Hainan Province, Sept. 27, 2024. The exhibition covers an area of nearly 1,000 square meters. A total of 408 artifacts from the two ancient shipwrecks are on display, along with 34 borrowed artifacts from the Palace Museum and other museums, bringing the total number of exhibits to 442. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu) Visitors view an exhibition featuring more than 400 relics retrieved from two ancient shipwrecks discovered in the South China Sea at the China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea in Qionghai, south China's Hainan Province, Sept. 27, 2024. The exhibition covers an area of nearly 1,000 square meters. A total of 408 artifacts from the two ancient shipwrecks are on display, along with 34 borrowed artifacts from the Palace Museum and other museums, bringing the total number of exhibits to 442. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu) This photo shows the opening ceremony of an exhibition featuring more than 400 relics retrieved from two ancient shipwrecks discovered in the South China Sea at the China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea in Qionghai, south China's Hainan Province, Sept. 27, 2024. The exhibition covers an area of nearly 1,000 square meters. A total of 408 artifacts from the two ancient shipwrecks are on display, along with 34 borrowed artifacts from the Palace Museum and other museums, bringing the total number of exhibits to 442. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu) This photo shows exhibits at an exhibition featuring more than 400 relics retrieved from two ancient shipwrecks discovered in the South China Sea at the China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea in Qionghai, south China's Hainan Province, Sept. 27, 2024. The exhibition covers an area of nearly 1,000 square meters. A total of 408 artifacts from the two ancient shipwrecks are on display, along with 34 borrowed artifacts from the Palace Museum and other museums, bringing the total number of exhibits to 442. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu) This photo shows exhibits at an exhibition featuring more than 400 relics retrieved from two ancient shipwrecks discovered in the South China Sea at the China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea in Qionghai, south China's Hainan Province, Sept. 27, 2024. The exhibition covers an area of nearly 1,000 square meters. A total of 408 artifacts from the two ancient shipwrecks are on display, along with 34 borrowed artifacts from the Palace Museum and other museums, bringing the total number of exhibits to 442. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu) A visitor views an exhibition featuring more than 400 relics retrieved from two ancient shipwrecks discovered in the South China Sea at the China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea in Qionghai, south China's Hainan Province, Sept. 27, 2024. The exhibition covers an area of nearly 1,000 square meters. A total of 408 artifacts from the two ancient shipwrecks are on display, along with 34 borrowed artifacts from the Palace Museum and other museums, bringing the total number of exhibits to 442. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu) A visitor views an exhibition featuring more than 400 relics retrieved from two ancient shipwrecks discovered in the South China Sea at the China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea in Qionghai, south China's Hainan Province, Sept. 27, 2024. The exhibition covers an area of nearly 1,000 square meters. A total of 408 artifacts from the two ancient shipwrecks are on display, along with 34 borrowed artifacts from the Palace Museum and other museums, bringing the total number of exhibits to 442. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu) People visit an exhibition featuring more than 400 relics retrieved from two ancient shipwrecks discovered in the South China Sea at the China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea in Qionghai, south China's Hainan Province, Sept. 27, 2024. The exhibition covers an area of nearly 1,000 square meters. A total of 408 artifacts from the two ancient shipwrecks are on display, along with 34 borrowed artifacts from the Palace Museum and other museums, bringing the total number of exhibits to 442. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu) Federal police have quietly dropped a years-long investigation into an Australian mining company once accused of bribing government officials in the Republic of Congo. Sundance Resources was under investigation following revelations in this masthead almost a decade ago that the firm may have bribed the countrys president, as well as the mines and geology minister, to progress an iron ore venture that was set to be one of the biggest projects in Africa. The Mbalam-Nabeba project was set to be the biggest iron ore venture in Africa. Credit: Sundance Resources During Operation Downton, AFP investigators encountered several difficulties in gathering evidence that would be admissible during criminal proceedings in Australia regarding the alleged historical offending, an AFP spokeswoman said. This included identifying, accessing and obtaining historical records and data, and the deaths of several potential witnesses/persons of interest in a plane crash in June 2010, prior to the start of the AFPs investigation. This investigation did not establish sufficient, admissible evidence to refer a brief of evidence to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions. Renters in Melbourne are being given more choice than their Sydney counterparts as the build-to-rent sector takes off in the southern state, leaving the rest of the country to play catch-up. While traditional high-density development is in the doldrums, build-to-rent apartments have almost doubled in the past year, swelling to more than 40,000. Build-to-rent projects could account for a sizeable proportion of much-needed apartment projects. Credit: Darrian Traynor Well over half (58 per cent) are under development in Melbourne, JLL research suggests. Brisbane and then Sydney make up the majority of the remainder. If enough projects finish this year, they will make up about 10 per cent of an average years new apartment supply. Australias housing crunch is putting pressure on all levels of government. Investors have wiped more than $500 million off the value of the Star Entertainment Group in a brutal trading session, after the companys shares emerged from a near month-long suspension and new boss Steve McCann this week warned it faced more financial and regulatory hurdles. Shares in the casino operator plummeted 44 per cent to 25 on Friday, the first time that shares in the Star have traded on the ASX since late August, when the company sought a trading halt. The Stars CEO Steven McCann. Credit: Dominic Lorrimer In early September, the ASX suspended Star shares after it failed to release its full-year results within the required period, and this Thursday the company finally reported it had made a full-year loss of $1.7 billion. Fridays plunge in Stars share price means the companys market value has tumbled from about $1.3 billion to less than $750 million. Homes and businesses in eastern Australia are running dangerously short of gas as supplies tighten ahead of next winter, prompting the consumer watchdog to launch an appeal for gas exporters to consider increasing deliveries to the local market instead of their customers overseas. Despite Australia ranking as one of the worlds biggest natural gas shippers, homes and businesses in Australias most populous south-eastern states are heading for a gas shortage within as little as three years, warns the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). Australias enduring reliance on gas has come into sharper focus as governments step up commitments to decarbonise. Credit: Getty Images Surging demand on cold winter days when many households crank up their heaters at once could lead to shortages hitting even sooner, the watchdog says. The ACCCs warnings underscore a deepening challenge for state and federal political leaders who are being forced to balance efforts to slash emissions with the need to shore up traditional energy supplies for homes and businesses that depend on them. Governments are heeding the warnings, and are increasingly promoting projects to boost supplies of the fuel. In Victoria, Energy Minister Lily DAmbrosio, who has overseen the countrys most aggressive plans to curb gas usage, recently shifted the state governments tone on the future of the fuel, and opened the door to new projects to store gas in depleted reservoirs beneath the sea. The Albanese government on Friday awarded two permits to tap more offshore gas for the domestic market from Victorias Otway Basin. 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 After 18 years on US network television, where he clocked up 173 episodes on the medical drama House, and then another 205 episodes on Chicago Fire, Jesse Spencer knew he was home in Australia when he turned up for work late one day, and no one blinked. In the States, its such a factory mindset, and youve got to be there on time, and if youre not on time, theyre calling up the production office, and calls go around if youre five minutes late and everybody knows, says Spencer. So I come in with this [US mindset] you show up, early, preferably, and if youre on time, youre late but I showed up once, like, 10 minutes late to the set, and I was panicking, How did this happen? And I walked in, and the crew looked at me, shocked that I was even there. Jesse Spencer and Radha Mitchel play Tony and Judy Bissett in 1979 Perth in Last Days of the Space Age. And they said, Well, do you want to get a coffee? I thought it was going to be like, Hey, go get into make-up, now. We gotta go here. I had to learn to undo that production-line [mentality]. I had to learn to lay back. The 45-year-old actor was back home for the retro Disney+ series, Last Days of the Space Age. Its Spencers first starring role on Australian television in more than 20 years, where he became a household name in Neighbours as Billy Kennedy, the spunky youngest son of Karl and Susan Kennedy, boyfriend of Anne Wilkinson and all-round teen heart-throb. I was looking for an Australian production, probably since 2004, says Spencer over Zoom from his home in Boston. We have this hiatus, but network TV, the schedule of it sometimes I had six weeks off, sometimes a little more but to make a production work is really difficult. Once youre in [network TV], its very hard to get out of. Advertisement So when Spencer left Chicago Fire in 2020 (hes been back since in a guest role), he jumped at Last Days of the Space Age and the opportunity to return to Australia. Did he realise he was coming, well, semi-circle, playing a dad who lives in a cul-de-sac? Its Neighbours on steroids, he says, laughing. [Reading the scripts], I never saw it as a cul-de-sac. And then when we showed up, Radha Mitchell, who plays Judy, my wife we never really worked together on Neighbours, but we met on Neighbours we were just going, Oh my god, are we Neighbours in the 70s? The Kennedy family (clockwise from top left): Malcolm (Benjamin McNair), Susan (Jackie Woodburne), Karl (Alan Fletcher), Billy (Jesse Spencer) and Libby (Kym Valentine). Theyre not. Im pretty sure Neighbours has never touched on industrial disputes, Aboriginal land rights or the Miss Universe pageant, as Last Days of the Space Age does. This ones a little edgier, says Spencer. We could take this project in different directions that they probably cant do on Neighbours. Set over six weeks in 1979, it follows the Bissett family dad Tony, mum Judy and their teenage daughters Mia (Emily Grant) and Tilly (Mackenzie Mazur) who live in Perths beachside suburb of Scarborough, as well as their neighbours, relatives and friends. Created by Australian-Welsh writer David Chidlow, it also stars Deborah Mailman as their neighbour Eileen Wilberforce, Scottish actor Iain Glenn, as Judys dad Bob, Jacek Koman as the handler of the Russian Miss Universe entrant and Heartbreak Highs Thomas Weatherall as Eileens grandson Bilya. Tony Bissett (Jesse Spencer) leads striking power plant workers in Last Days of the Space Age. Although everything about their lives screams 1970s the gloriously yellow and brown interiors, the Tupperware parties and the school careers counsellor who suggests working in a department store is the best career a girl can hope for change is happening. And while some cope with it better than others, Spencers character, who is leading workers on strike at the local power plant, struggles to find a place for himself in the coming new world order. Advertisement Hes got his family and hes got his job and hes got to keep those workers together, says Spencer. In the meantime, his wife is working for the company, so technically, shes crossed the picket line, and its a fracture in their relationship. And then as we go on in the series, things get worse for Tony, his pride is kicked, and his wife has a coming-of-age, almost. As a housewife, she just wanted a stable family and for everything to be normal, and shes propelled into this rise where she finds the potential in herself is brought forwards and she starts to believe in herself. Jesse Spencer (second from right) with the cast of House (from left) Omar Epps, Jennifer Morrison, Hugh Laurie, Robert Sean Leonard and Lisa Edelstein. Spencer then wonders if he can say audiences will be rooting for the families in the show. Since hes been in the US for the last 20 years, Ill allow it. That ones stuck in my craw, and I dont know why I cant get rid of it, he says, shaking his head. Stuck in my craw! That is a very American expression. Hes fully gone to the other side. Advertisement Its terrible, Ill tell you, he says. OK, we are barracking for these families, how about that? That Spencer slips in the odd Americanism he later struggles to pronounce the Sydney suburb of Kirribilli, but puts that down to being raised in Melbourne more than anything else is no great surprise. When he left Neighbours after more than 400 episodes in 2000 (Billy was sent to the place from which characters rarely return, Queensland), Spencer spent a few years in the UK, before a call from his manager changed his career. I wasnt sure if I was going to quit acting, he says. I was in my fourth year in the UK, I got a place at Monash [University in Melbourne], and I was like, Yeah, Im working occasionally I did a film in New York, and even did [the Geoffrey Rush/Judy Davis film] Swimming Upstream but I was like, Im not feeling like Im actually getting anywhere or going in the direction I really wanted. Jesse Spencer as Captain Matthew Casey in Chicago Fire. And then House came along, and I think thats why I got it because Id sort of given up and I didnt [want to] go in for that audition because I was like, well, Im not going to get it. And my agent was like, Jesse, what else are you doing today? I was like, Im going to the pub. She went, Just do me a favour. So I ended up flying over to the States, I bought my own ticket it was 800, probably the best 800 Ive spent one way over to LA to audition in front of the network. The medical drama, which starred Hugh Laurie as the shows irascible namesake, was an international hit, picking up Emmys, Golden Globes and a Peabody award. In 2008, it was named the most watched show in the world. Apart from Laurie, Spencer was the only cast member to stay with the show for its entire eight-season run. He then jumped straight into Chicago Fire, cementing a career thats quite unusual for many actors unless youre on Neighbours or Home and Away 18 years of steady employment. Advertisement It taught me a lot, he says of the experience of working in the US. The long days that we used to do on network TV, sometimes we used to do 16, I think the max was an 18-hour day. I was driving home at 6am or 7am, going, I probably shouldnt be driving right now, I feel a bit weird, but I think Im gonna be OK. Its this work ethic in the States, they work so hard here [in the US], and its driven into them quite early. I dont mind doing that, but I was glad to step away from that because after 20 years, network TV can burn you out. Spencer still gets recognised from his Neighbours days and has made a couple of video cameos since he left, including in a message for the shows final episode on Ten in 2022 (it has since been resurrected on Amazon Prime Video). A 40-something British friend, who watched the show religiously after school, was in raptures when I told him I was interviewing Spencer. No way, he said. I was so Team Billy when he and Anne were in a love triangle with Fanto. Loading Ive been in the industry 30-plus years, so you see different generations that react to different things, he says. So, any Brit around my age, it will all be Neighbours. With House, its a different set [of fans]. House is a weird thing because its still got academics and physicians that watch it now, so it covers a really wide range, but a lot of intellectual types and people in academia who are more brainy and they like that sort of stuff. And then Chicago Fire, whenever Im in Chicago, any Midwestern family knows me. They have no idea what Neighbours is. Advertisement TikTok is rife with scandal. Whether its someone exposing their ex-partner for alleged abusive behaviour, or a mother hand-making sunscreen for her children, controversy litters the platform. But while they are plentiful, TikTok scandals generally dont have much of a shelf-life, as users bore of them and move on to the next juicy titbit quickly. But one scandal seems to have beaten these odds: #MomTok. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives may have been inspired by a TikTok scandal, but it has become so much more. Credit: Disney/Ashley Rose Ramirez On the surface, #MomTok is a group of Utah-based Mormon women who create viral TikTok content about being modern, religious mothers (this usually involves lots of dancing and an array of sponsorships). However, following a TikTok Live in 2022, salacious gossip about the group was unearthed. It was so salacious, in fact, that American streamer Hulu decided to transform it into a reality TV show: The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The China Coast Guard (CCG) has monitored the whole process of a supply mission conducted by a civilian Philippine vessel at the waters of China's Ren'ai Jiao in the South China Sea. The supply of daily necessities to the illegally grounded Philippine warship at Ren'ai Jiao on Thursday was a temporary arrangement agreed upon by the Chinese and Philippine sides, CCG spokesperson Liu Dejun said on Friday. Liu urged the Philippines to honor its commitment and work with China to manage the maritime situation well. He said the CCG will continue its law enforcement activities in China's Nansha Qundao and the surrounding waters, including Ren'ai Jiao. When we lived in Glen Waverley in the 1970s, my mum Helene was a Tupperware dealer. By night, shed head off in a suede midi skirt for buzzing Tupperware parties in suburban homes, and by day shed rope in my brother and me to be part of the empire. Pre-schoolers, wed help Mum pack orders (two Shape O Balls please, and there should be a Jifi Sifter somewhere) then drive around suburbia in the maroon Datsun 180B to drop them off. Sammy and I could have spruiked the products on street corners if need be. We knew our Tupperware. One fantastic day, we pulled up at Tupperware HQ and Mums name was up in lights as dealer of the month. Even then, to a little girl it had an air of glamour about it. Which I now recognise was probably empowerment, independence and social connection. At a time when many women were homemakers with limited career opportunities, Tupperware let them earn money, build a small business and network. Five decades on, Helene still has plenty of the original products. Open her pantry, and youll find a square container loaded with a pumpkin fruit cake, rice and flour in their dedicated storers, some with fantastic old labels. The 1980s square containers with the pop lids. A former Commonwealth Bank manager convicted of pocketing almost $US2 million in kickbacks for facilitating business deals with his employer has been jailed for his role in the scam. NSW District Court Judge Phillip Mahony said it was unlikely Jon Waldron would be able to obtain employment in any position of trust in the future as he sentenced him in Sydney on Friday to a maximum of six years and eight months in prison with a non-parole period of four years. Jon Waldron, second from left, outside the Downing Centre District Court last month. Credit: Kate Geraghty The offender has continued to protest his innocence and has appealed his convictions, Mahony said. Thus he has shown no remorse for his offending conduct and has made no progress in his rehabilitation. They are critical minerals needed for renewable technologies, but a plan to dig them up in Victorias food bowl has been met with fierce resistance from farmers who fear it will kick up radioactive dust and damage the landscape. But mining company VHM Limited insists its proposal is safe and the mineral sands and rare earths it intends to extract are crucial for the development of technologies used in renewable energy projects. Farmland near the proposed mine site. Credit: Jason South VHM wants to build the 1534 hectare Goschen Rare Earth and Mineral Sands Project about 25 kilometres south-west of Swan Hill, about 300 kilometres north-west of Melbourne. It intends to mine and process 5 million tonnes of heavy mineral sands annually. The company is on a collision course with some farmers who argue contaminated dust from the project may drift across their crops and onto the rooftops that provide their drinking water. Opponents are also concerned the project will drive a wedge in the community between those who support it and those who dont. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size The pitch was compelling, if not a little familiar. Standing surrounded by three small dogs, two ministers and a rental commissioner at the Domain in Sydney CBD on Monday, Premier Chris Minns trumpeted a raft of renter-friendly policies, signalling the next stage of his governments housing reforms. Pets would be allowed in rentals, tenants would have to be offered a fee-free means of paying rent, and no-grounds evictions barring landlords from punting renters during their leases without reasonable cause would proceed to parliament. But after the election commitment was rolled out at Labor state conference in July, Mondays announcement felt like Groundhog Day to some MPs, with one Labor backbencher musing: I woke up, read the media release and thought: Whats new here? Moreover, Minns initial plans to pass the legislation in September would now be kicked back to October. The government has landed some reforms but other aspects have remained elusive. Credit: Peter Rae The case for reform No-fault or no-grounds evictions has become NSW Labors forever policy, documented in an archive of media releases stretching back four successive leaders to Luke Foley. Advertisement Addressing the housing crisis is a central part of the Minns governments narrative: renters rights will sit alongside changes to antiquated development policies to deal with the states anaemic housing supply. The groundwork for change has been laid: the governments End of Tenancy survey shows around 10 per cent of the 320,000 tenancies that end in NSW each year are no-grounds evictions. And despite having the nations largest rental market, NSW remains one of only three jurisdictions without some form of no-grounds policy. Loading Yet, for reasons insiders cant explain, the state governments appetite for reform appears to have ebbed and flowed in the 18 months since Labor took office, despite Minns consistently articulating the magnitude of the housing crisis. While the Minns government has landed some of its promised reforms transferring rental bonds from one property to another, and appointing Trina Jones as a rental commissioner other aspects have remained elusive. They started the consultation [on no-grounds evictions] in late July or August 2023. Then came a report over summer. It is fair to say theres been periods of time when it wasnt clear work was happening to progress the reform, Tenants Union of NSW chief executive Leo Patterson Ross says. I can only assume its because the government decided there were other priorities. Advertisement Whats the hold up? The wait, according to one senior Labor source speaking anonymously to discuss confidential party matters, is primarily a consequence of a tortured effort to reach consensus by Anoulack Chanthivong, the minister with carriage of rental reforms. According to insiders, Chanthivong has been wringing his hands over whether all leases should be included, or just periodic leases, as is the position of the Coalition. Loading Periodic leases are where theres no agreed amount of time covered by the rental agreement, usually where a fixed-term lease has lapsed, and the lease is running month to month. In NSW, you can be evicted for no reason from a fixed-term lease at the end of the lease, and at any time for no reason with 90 days notice during a month-to-month lease. Another MP said the no-grounds legislation had been written ages ago, and the delays seemed to have faced some sort of external pushback. The legislation passed through cabinet shortly before Minns speech at Labor state conference. With five portfolios building, better regulation and fair trading, industry and trade, innovations, science and technology and corrections, two of which are legislatively demanding MPs acknowledge Chanthivong has been lumped with a mountain of work. Advertisement Exacerbating the workload, one former Coalition staffer notes, is a lack of resources: the Macquarie Fields MP has to manage more portfolios with fewer staff than his predecessors the manifestation of Minns ministerial staffing budgets cuts. Premier Chris Minns was forced to drop a key plank of his rental reform bill after experts warned it would drive up prices. Credit: Rhett Wyman Even so, Labor sources question why the substantive consultative work underpinning the policy had not already been done, particularly given the commitment ahead of the 2019 and 2023 state elections. It should have been done nine months before Julys state conference. It was starting to lose us a lot of credibility among renters and young people, one source says. But nailing no-grounds has not been Chanthivongs only rental headache. The party was forced to abandon ending secret rent bidding in June last year after pushback from the Greens and Coalition over concerns it would inadvertently cause rental prices to increase. Nor have the problems been confined to rental reform. On August 19, an alliance of furious peak bodies went over the ministers head, writing directly to the premier about Chanthivongs reform of building regulation, the Building Bill 2024. The extremely tight consultation timeframe will mean there is insufficient time to properly test the proposed reforms, stated the August 19 letter, whose nine signatories included the Australian Institute of Architects, Engineers Australia, and Property Council of Australia. Advertisement Therefore there is a significant risk that the reforms may severely hamper industrys ability to deliver the governments housing targets. In response to questions, a spokesman for Chanthivong said his approach to rental reforms had been informed by extensive engagement with industry and the community, and he wanted to take the time to get this right. Of course there will be a range of views on such significant reforms, he said. The key political players The other issue at play, one Labor source suggests, is the premiers natural caution. Already facing a scrap over rezonings around transport development sites, Minns and his office have been reluctant to open up another front with landlords without the Coalition backing him in. Wanting bipartisan support is probably fair dinkum, the Labor insider suggests. He would genuinely be afraid of backlash. Hes trying to hold off long enough to force the Coalition to back them in, while Libs are trying to hold off long enough to force him to go it alone. Advertisement Sydney publican Ben May has had a busy 12 months expanding his hospitality empire, but he has also found the time to dabble in residential property. The co-owner of Joeys, which is the born-again Barrenjoey Boatshed in Palm Beach, and the proposed beachside mega-venue Terrigal Pavilion on the central coast, is looking for a buyer for his Tamarama pad that comes with an asking price of $16 million. The Tamarama home is a stones throw away from the beach. Since it was last purchased, the five-bedroom home has had a full renovation designed by architect Kelvin Ho of Akin Atelier, who has worked on the likes of Merivale venues and Camilla and Marc stores, turning it into a quintessential designer beach pad. May bought the 386-square-metre home in 2020 for $5.45 million from producer Jonathan Shteinman, who has worked on films like Rabbit-Proof Fence. In the countdown to todays AFL season-decider, catch up on the best of our up-to-the-minute coverage. The last time the Swans did an AFL grand final parade they were so far away from the people who came to see them that they may as well have been floating down Sydney Harbour, not the Yarra. Indeed, the return to land-based vehicles has been warmly welcomed by all concerned. Im glad theyve got rid of the boats, said Sydney forward Will Hayward. Much happier to be sitting in the car; I get seasick. I think its good to be back to how its always been. Sort of. Another year, another tweak to the parade route: on Friday it snaked through the Melbourne Park precinct, avoiding the CBD entirely before spilling out into the footy festival in Yarra Park, just in front of the MCG, where both teams and their coaches were presented to the masses on a perfect afternoon. Emergency crews rushed to rescue people trapped in flooded homes after Helene generated a massive storm surge and knocked out power to millions of customers in several states. Governor Brian Kemp said at least 11 people in his state of Georgia were killed and dozens were still trapped in homes damaged by Helene. At least six others died in Florida and the Carolinas. A vehicle is submerged outside a home near Peachtree Creek in Atlanta on Friday. Credit: AP More than 1.2 million homes and businesses were without power in Florida, more than 190,000 in Georgia and more than 30,000 in the Carolinas, according to the poweroutage.us tracking site. The governors of those states and Alabama and Virginia have all declared emergencies. One person was killed in Florida when a sign fell on their car and two people were reported killed in a possible tornado in south Georgia as the storm approached. When Floridians wake up tomorrow morning, were going to be waking up to a state where very likely theres been additional loss of life and certainly theres going to be loss of property, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said at a news conference. Hurricane Helene in the Gulf of Mexico moving towards Florida on Thursday. Credit: NOAA/AP Helene continues to produce catastrophic winds that are now pushing into southern Georgia, the hurricane centre said in an update. Persons should not leave their shelters and remain in place through the passage of these life-threatening conditions. Even before landfall, the storms wrath was felt widely, with sustained tropical storm-force winds and hurricane-force gusts along Floridas west coast. Water lapped over a road in Siesta Key near Sarasota and covered some intersections in St Pete Beach. Lumber and other debris from a fire in Cedar Key a week ago crashed ashore in the rising water. Beyond Florida, up to 25 centimetres of rain had fallen in the North Carolina mountains, with up to 36 centimetres more possible before the deluge ends, setting the stage for flooding that forecasters warned could be worse than anything seen in the past century. The St. Pete Pier is pictured among high winds and waves as hurricane Helene makes its way toward the Florida panhandle, passing west of Tampa Bay. Credit: AP In south Georgia, two people were killed when a possible tornado struck a mobile home, Wheeler County Sheriff Randy Rigdon told WMAZ-TV. The storm made landfall in the sparsely populated Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Floridas Panhandle and peninsula meet. Please write your name, birthday, and important information on your arm or leg in a PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified, the sheriffs office in mostly rural Taylor County warned those who chose not to evacuate in a Facebook post, the dire advice similar to what other officials have issued during past hurricanes. Still, Philip Tooke, a commercial fisherman who took over the business his father founded near the regions Apalachee Bay, planned to ride out this storm like he did during Hurricane Michael and the others on his boat. If I lose that, I dont have anything, Tooke said. Michael, a Category 5 storm, all but destroyed one town, fractured thousands of homes and businesses and caused some $US25 billion ($36 billion) in damage when it struck the Florida Panhandle in 2018. Charles Starling, a lineman with Team Fishel, is pelted with rain as he walks by a row of electrical line trucks in a field in The Villages, Florida, in preparation for damage from Hurricane Helene. Credit: AP Many, though, were heeding the mandatory evacuation orders that stretched from the Panhandle south along the Gulf Coast in low-lying areas around Tallahassee, Gainesville, Cedar Key, Lake City, Tampa and Sarasota. Among them were Cindy Waymon and her husband, who went to a shelter in Tallahassee after securing their home and packing medications, snacks and drinks. They wanted to stay safe given the magnitude of the storm, she said. This is the first time weve actually come to a shelter, because of the complexities of the storm and the uncertainties, she said. A petrol station employee wraps fuel pumps ahead of hurricane Helene. Credit: AP Federal authorities deployed search-and-rescue teams as the weather service forecast storm surges of up to six metres and warned they could be particularly catastrophic and unsurvivable in Apalachee Bay. Please, please, please take any evacuation orders seriously! the office said, describing the surge scenario as a nightmare. Rescue crews assist residents after conducting door-to-door wellness checks, in coastal areas of Florida. Credit: AP This stretch of Florida known as the Forgotten Coast has been largely spared by the widespread condo development and commercialisation that dominates so many of Floridas beach communities. The region is loved for its natural wonders the vast stretches of salt marshes, tidal pools and barrier islands. You live down here, you run the risk of losing everything to a bad storm, said Anthony Godwin, who lives about 800 metres from the water in the coastal town of Panacea, as he stopped for gas before heading west toward his sisters house in Pensacola. School districts and multiple universities cancelled classes. Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed, while cancellations were widespread elsewhere in Florida and beyond. Loading This is one of the biggest storms weve ever had, said Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. For Atlanta, Helene could be the worst strike on a major Southern inland city in 35 years, said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd. Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures. September 27, 2024 Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands;--- Since 2015, when it launched its Regional Internship Programme, CCRIF has been providing internships to recent university graduates and postgraduate students from the Caribbean, who have earned degrees in areas such as disaster risk management, environmental management, geography, civil engineering, or climate studies, at regional and national organizations. This year, CCRIF has placed 27 interns in 10 organizations across the Caribbean. CCRIF has invested over US$530,000 to support 198 internships over the last nine years. Host organizations for CCRIF interns this year include among others: the Anguilla Department of Disaster Management, Office of Disaster Preparedness Trinidad and Tobago (ODPM TT), Tobago Emergency Management Agency (TEMA), Turks and Caicos Islands Airports Authority (TCIAA), Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH), CCRIF, and various departments and centres from The University of the West Indies. Since 2023, CCRIF has been collaborating with non-governmental organizations that CCRIF has worked with under its Small Grants Programme. Two NGOs from Trinidad and Tobago Carbon Zero Institute of Trinidad and Tobago (CZITT) and IAMovement are part of the Internship Programme this year. This is the 2nd year that IAMovement has been participating in the programme. Some 24 organizations (and 12 centres and departments at The UWI) have participated in the programme over the years. Interns are placed in host organizations for 10 weeks between July and December each year. CCRIF provides these interns with monthly stipends as well as accommodation, travel insurance and return airfare to those that travel to host organizations outside their home country. Today, CCRIFs Regional Internship Programme is one of the largest internship programmes in the Caribbean for areas related to disaster risk management, meteorology, environmental sustainability, and climate change adaptation. CCRIFs internships are designed as a core component of students academic and professional journeys, acting as the intersection of the two. Through internships, students become actively engaged with the concepts and theories that they learn in the classroom, which they can put into practice in a professional setting. All CCRIF interns, along with several other young persons in the region, also benefit from a CCRIF-UWI online summer course in disaster risk financing, for which they receive an official certificate and 2 continuing education units. The 2024 interns are working on a range of projects, including among others: Conducting research and development activities to support the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Severe Weather Forecasting Programme for the Eastern Caribbean at the Caribbean Meteorological Organization. Supporting the development of an e-learning platform focused on climate-smart agriculture to provide resources for farmers and other stakeholders at CZITT. Evaluating infrastructure to ensure that urban planning and development contribute to the overall resilience of cities against climate-related hazards at ODPM TT. Designing and implementing Automated Public Weather Forecast Templates to reduce the time required to produce accurate and informative forecasts at TCIAA. Supporting the update of the Special Needs Database and Implementation Plan and assisting with the execution of plans for the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction at TEMA. Assessing rain gauge measurements in comparison to satellite-derived precipitation estimates over the island of Jamaica at The UWI Department of Geography and Geology, Mona. Conducting a feasibility study on developing a consortium of all English-speaking universities in the region that offer postgraduate programmes related to the built environment at the University of Technology, Jamaica. The CCRIF Regional Internship Programme is part of CCRIFs wider Technical Assistance (TA) Programme which was launched in 2010 three years after the Facility was established and operates as the Facilitys corporate social responsibility programme, further underscoring its value proposition as a development insurance company. For more information on the CCRIF TA Programme and to see how you can benefit, please visit: https://www.ccrif.org/ta-programme. About CCRIF SPC: CCRIF SPC is a segregated portfolio company, owned, operated, and registered in the Caribbean. It limits the financial impact of catastrophic hurricanes, earthquakes, and excess rainfall events to Caribbean and Central American governments by quickly providing short-term liquidity when a parametric insurance policy is triggered. It is the worlds first regional fund utilising parametric insurance, giving member governments the unique opportunity to purchase earthquake, hurricane and excess rainfall catastrophe coverage with lowest possible pricing. CCRIF offers parametric insurance policies to Caribbean and Central American governments for tropical cyclones, earthquakes, excess rainfall and fisheries and also to electric and water utility companies in the Caribbean. CCRIF was developed under the technical leadership of the World Bank and with a grant from the Government of Japan. It was capitalized through contributions to a Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) by the Government of Canada, the European Union, the World Bank, the governments of the UK and France, the Caribbean Development Bank and the governments of Ireland and Bermuda, as well as through membership fees paid by participating governments. In 2014, the Central America and Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Program (CACCRIP) MDTF was established by the World Bank to support the development of CCRIF SPCs new products for current and potential members and facilitate the entry of Central American countries and additional Caribbean countries. The MDTF currently channels funds from various donors, including Canada, through Global Affairs Canada; the United States, through the Department of the Treasury; the European Union, through the European Commission, and Germany, through the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and KfW. Additional financing has been provided by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), with resources provided by Mexico; the Government of Ireland; and the European Union through its Regional Resilience Building Facility managed by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) and the World Bank. In 2024, CCRIF received funding from CDB, through the Canada-CARICOM Climate Adaptation Fund, to enable seven CCRIF members to increase their coverage and make their national social protection systems more shock responsive. For more information about CCRIF SPC: Website: www.ccrif.org | Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The dynamic Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) has continuously enhanced the construction of "blue granary," providing a model for realizing high-quality development of the marine economy. In the Nansha Fishery Industrial Park in Guangzhou, monitoring of water quality index data, collection of fish production data and optimization of the breeding process are part of intelligent aquaculture. The Guangzhou Nansha SCAU Fishery Research Institute has established a marine ranching technology R&D center to conduct in-depth research. In Donghai Island, Zhanjiang, deep-sea farming is redefining the future of aquaculture. Intelligent and green aquaculture is boosting the sustainable development of fishery production. UK govt buys semiconductor facility key to defence London, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 The UK government announced on Friday that it had acquired a key semiconductor factory after fears its imminent closure would hamper a crucial supply chain to Britain's armed forces. The facility at Newton Aycliffe in northeast England is the only secure site in Britain with the capability to produce gallium arsenide chips, used in electronic devices. The semiconductors are used in a number of military platforms, including to boost fighter jet capabilities. "Semiconductors are at the forefront of the technology we rely upon today, and will be crucial in securing our military's capabilities for tomorrow," said Defence Secretary John Healey. "This acquisition is a clear signal that our government will back British defence production," he added in a statement released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The government has bought the factory from US company Coherent Inc and will be named Octric Semiconductors UK, the MoD said. The ministry did not specify how much the government had paid but a source close to the matter told AFP it was around pound20 million ($27 million). The purchase will secure up to 100 jobs, according to the ministry. The Telegraph newspaper reported in August that its future had been jeopardised by the end of a major contract with US tech giant Apple. Italian aerospace company Leonardo was among Coherent's customers, but did not have any outstanding orders with it, the paper added. More than a trillion semiconductors are manufactured each year, with the global semiconductor market forecast to reach a total market size of $1 trillion by 2030, according to the UK government. Used in smartphones, cars and weapons, semiconductors are indispensable to modern economies and have become a major source of competition between the United States and China. They are also crucial to future technologies, such as artificial intelligence and 6G wireless networks. ode/zap/pdh/phz/gv NANNING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- At Youyiguan, or Friendship Pass, on the China-Vietnam border, trucks loaded with Vietnamese durians are entering China one after another. This bustling scene at the border port, located in Pingxiang, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, mirrors the growing popularity of Vietnamese durians among Chinese consumers. Guan Caixia, a fruit wholesaler in Nanning, capital city of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, testified to the existence of durian fever. Vietnamese Kanyao durians have become a top seller at her stall, often selling out by the afternoon. "Many consumers and retailers return for more after tasting Vietnamese durians for the first time," she said. The rise of Vietnamese durians in China is a recent phenomenon. Fresh Vietnamese durians didn't enter the Chinese market until 2022, but they have quickly captured the palates of Chinese consumers. Last year, some 493,000 tonnes of fresh Vietnamese durians were sold to China. China is the world's largest importer and consumer of durians, and its demand for this thorny fruit has continued to soar, with data showing its durian imports surging over 70 percent year on year to about 1.43 million tonnes in 2023. This rapid growth presents a golden opportunity for durian exporters, especially those from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). China's continuous efforts to facilitate trade with ASEAN countries, including the building of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area and the implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), have further opened up its door to durian producers. In June, China greenlighted fresh durian imports from Malaysia, making that country the fourth Southeast Asian nation to gain access to the lucrative Chinese market -- following Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines. Analysts believe that the influx of more durian varieties is set to reshape China's market landscape and predicted that the battle for market share would get more intense down the road. Ye Hongxiang, a fruit dealer from Pingxiang, has businesses in both Thailand and Vietnam. According to Ye, weather conditions this year have affected the quality and yield of durians in Thailand's orchards, making high-quality Vietnamese durians a more attractive option for buyers. "Chinese customers are more familiar with Thai durians as they were the first to enter the market. However, with the introduction of Vietnamese durians, I believe more domestic consumers will come to appreciate their high quality thanks to promotions via channels such as e-commerce," Ye said. Facing increasing competition, Niti Pratoomvongsa, director of the commercial office of the Royal Thai Consulate General in Nanning, sees both opportunities and challenges for Thai durians. Thailand plans to continuously improve product packaging, preservation and transportation while also holding events like durian festivals to build brand awareness among Chinese customers, and to develop more products made from durians to win over the Chinese market, the director said. DSR Taiko Berhad, a major Malaysian fruit producer, debuted at this year's China-ASEAN Expo with its signature products made from Musang King durian, the priciest cultivar known for its richness and smooth texture, as well as diverse downstream products like durian pizza, Musang King coffee and Musang King milk tea. Recognizing the vast potential of the Chinese market, with a population of over 1.4 billion, Ng Lian Poh, the company's CEO, said he is targeting the high-end market. Their newly opened durian-themed restaurant in east China's Zhejiang Province has received fantastic feedback. Ng believes that Malaysian durians "are more on quality than quantity," while adding that this is "one of the advantages of Malaysia's durians." "In recent years, Chinese consumers' acceptance and appreciation of durians and durian-related products have steadily increased, and the durian consumption market in China has continued to expand," said Lei Xiaohua, a researcher with the Guangxi Academy of Social Sciences. For durian-exporting countries, maintaining price competitiveness while ensuring consistent and reliable product quality is crucial for sustainable growth, Lei added. Iran shows 'willingness' to re-engage on nuclear issue: IAEA chief to AFP United Nations, United States, Sept 26 (AFP) Sep 26, 2024 The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog on Thursday said Iran is showing "willingness" to re-engage on the nuclear issue, but that Tehran will not reconsider its decision to deny access to top UN inspectors. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said Tehran was "showing signs of willingness to reengage, not only with the IAEA, but also... with our former partners in the nuclear agreement of 2015." Grossi spoke after meeting this week with Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who played a key role in the negotiations that culminated in the 2015 landmark nuclear deal with world powers which has since unraveled. "It's a moment where there is a possibility to do something" on the nuclear question, Grossi told AFP on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. "The advantage Araghchi has is that he knows everything about this process, so that allows us to move faster," Grossi said at the IAEA's New York offices. In recent years, Tehran has decreased its cooperation with the IAEA, while significantly ramping up its nuclear program, including amassing large stockpiles of uranium enriched to 60 percent -- close to the 90 percent needed to develop an atomic bomb. But since the July election of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Tehran has signaled openness to relaunching talks to revive the nuclear agreement. The landmark deal -- also known by its acronym JCPOA -- started to unravel in 2018 when then-US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from it and reimposed sanctions, and Iran retaliated by stepping up its nuclear activities. - 'For them to decide' - Efforts to revive the deal -- bringing the United States back on board and Iran back into compliance -- have so far been fruitless. "If things move in a positive way... and I think this is the intention of the president and the foreign minister (of Iran), there will be a return to the conversations with the former partners," Grossi said. Tehran, however, is not willing to walk back on a decision it took last year to ban some of the IAEA's "best inspectors," Grossi said, a move Teheran initially described as retaliation for "political abuses" by the United States, France, Germany and Britain. "They are not going to restore the inspectors to the list," Grossi said. "Maybe there will be a review of that. I will keep pushing," he added, explaining that he is due to visit Tehran in the "coming weeks." During his visit, Grossi plans to discuss "different monitoring and verification measures that we could agree on prior to a wider agreement." "I think getting an agreement with Iran on these things would be a very constructive indication... towards a future negotiation," Grossi said. "If you do not allow me to establish a baseline of all the capacities that the country has at the moment, then what kind of confidence and trust are you injecting in the system for a negotiation with other partners?" he added. According to a diplomatic source, the European side is skeptical about the possibility of returning to the framework of the initial pact. Grossi said the actual framework of the deal would be left to Iran and Western powers. "Will it be the same? Will it be updated? Will it be something completely different? This is for them to decide," Grossi said. Marshall Islands demands UN apology for nuclear tests United Nations, United States, Sept 26 (AFP) Sep 26, 2024 Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine has called for an apology from the United Nations for the organization's indirect involvement in nuclear tests on its territory in the wake of the Second World War. The United States detonated 67 nuclear bombs in Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958, and the health and environmental impacts are still felt today in the Pacific Ocean country, which is home to 42,000 people. At the time of some of the tests, Washington was the UN's administering authority for Marshall Islands, with Heine charging it was "the only time in which any UN organ has ever explicitly authorized the detonation of nuclear weapons." "We can't undo the past. But as a United Nations, we owe it to ourselves to make amends through the adoption of a resolution which formally apologizes for the failure to heed the petition of the Marshallese people," she said in a speech to the UN Wednesday. Residents of the chain of islands and atolls had petitioned against the UN Trusteeship Resolutions that led to the territories falling under US control, she said. The US State Department says that in 1947, the UN assigned the United States "administering authority over the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands," which included Marshall Islands. Washington says it has given more than $1 billion at current rates "to the affected communities." - 'Deep scars' - Heine said the tests had left an "ongoing legacy of death, illness and contamination. The impacts are handed down, generation to generation." Thousands of Marshall Islanders were engulfed in a radioactive fallout cloud following the 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear test by the US military, and many subsequently experienced health problems. Heine said Thursday the exposure was the "equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima shots, every day, for 12 years." Tonnes of contaminated debris from the testing was dumped in a crater on the Enewetak Atoll and capped with concrete that has since cracked, sparking health concerns. Hundreds of islanders from the Marshalls' Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap and Utrik atolls have also had to relocate due to nuclear contamination. Many are still unable to return home. "Testing impacts left behind deep scars, with communities remaining in exile from their home islands, billions of dollars in unmet adjudicated claims, and a social and environmental burden upon our youngest and future generations," she said from the General Assembly rostrum. "We did not choose this nuclear fate -- it was chosen for us." A study issued by the US National Cancer Institute in 2004 estimated around 530 cancer cases had been caused by the nuclear testing. Israel strike kills 5 Syrian soldiers near Lebanon: state media Damascus, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 An Israeli air strike on Friday killed five Syrian soldiers near the border with Lebanon, the official news agency SANA reported, citing a military source. "The Israeli enemy carried out an aerial attack... on one of our military positions near Kfar Yabus on the Syrian-Lebanese border," SANA quoted the source as saying, adding that five Syrian soldiers were killed and one was wounded. The raid came a day after the Israeli army said its warplanes struck "infrastructure along the Syria-Lebanon border used by Hezbollah to transfer weapons from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon". The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Israeli warplanes targeted a crossing that links Syria's Qusayr area to Lebanon, causing "a number of wounded". The Britain-based monitor, which relies on a network of sources on the ground, said it was the first such strike on Syria since Israel intensified its attacks on Lebanon's Hezbollah this week. Myanmar junta bombs opposition-held town hours after talks offer Yangon, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 Myanmar's junta carried out fresh air strikes on an opposition-held town Friday, hours after issuing an unprecedented invitation to its enemies for talks on the country's civil war. Thursday's surprise call for discussions is likely a sop to main ally China and a nudge towards controversial fresh elections, analysts say, and two prominent armed groups swiftly dismissed it. The offer came with the junta reeling from battlefield reverses to ethnic minority armed groups and pro-democracy "People's Defence Forces" that rose up to oppose the military's seizure of power in 2021. The groups have seized several lucrative border crossings and last month took Lashio, a city of 150,000 people -- the biggest urban centre to fall to rebels since 1962. The call was "the first time that the regime has expressed a willingness to have a dialogue with the post-coup resistance forces", said Richard Horsey of the International Crisis Group. Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing has long spoken of "annihilating" the groups, he pointed out. Hours after the offer, military jets bombed Lashio, in northern Shan state, now in the hands of fighters from the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA). "I heard two explosions," a resident told AFP, asking for anonymity for security reasons. "I heard five people were killed and a lot of people were wounded." One Yangon-based diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said of the junta's offer: "So far I haven't seen the inclination towards serious reconciliation." - 'No change' - AFP has contacted for comment the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), ethnic armed groups that hold territory in the north. The MNDAA could not be reached. The Karen National Union, which has fought for decades for autonomy along the Thai border, said talks were only possible if the military agreed to "common political objectives". That included the military staying out of politics, accepting a new, federal constitution, and being held accountable for "war crimes and crimes against humanity", spokesman Padoh Saw Taw Nee said. "If they don't agree with it, then nothing will happen... We will keep putting pressure on them politically, militarily," he told AFP. The military is highly unlikely to agree to such terms. A spokesperson for the "Mandalay PDF" which has seized territory in the hills around second city Mandalay also dismissed the offer. "This invitation won't make any changes to our way," said Osmond, who goes by a pseudonym. "We will keep doing what we have to do." - 'Divide and rule' - But even if nothing comes of the invitation, just issuing it could still have value for the regime, said Horsey. "It would allow them to portray themselves -- for example to China, which is pushing for a deal -- as wanting peace, even while they continue with their campaign of indiscriminate airstrikes." China is a major ally and arms supplier to the isolated junta and its sprawling Belt and Road Initiative includes key projects in Myanmar. Last month Beijing's foreign minister said it supported the junta's plan to hold fresh polls and return the conflict-torn country to a "democratic transition". AFP has asked China's embassy in Yangon for comment. Independent analyst David Mathieson said that as well as Beijing, the offer was likely aimed at neighbouring countries and some western diplomats who may see elections as a "vehicle to reduce violence and pursue a process of de-escalation", despite their inevitable flaws. The military, which justified its coup with unsubstantiated allegations of fraud in the 2020 elections won by Aung San Suu Kyi's party, has long pledged to hold fresh polls when conditions permit. It has since dissolved Suu Kyi's popular National League for Democracy (NLD) and introduced tough new rules governing political parties. Census takers are due to start collecting data in early October in preparation for possible polls in 2025, but analysts say any vote would be a sham and would likely be targeted by the military's opponents. "Hovering above all of this is the Myanmar military's tried and tested divide and rule strategy," said Mathieson, adding it "may be soiled and strained but still effective". Sweden to start building new nuclear reactor by 2026: PM Stockholm, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 Sweden will begin construction on a new nuclear reactor before the country's next legislative election in 2026, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said in an interview published on Friday. His right-wing coalition government, propped up by the far-right Sweden Democrats, has vowed to massively ramp up nuclear energy in Sweden but a formal decision on the type of reactor to be built has yet to be taken. The government said in November 2023 it wanted to increase nuclear power production equivalent to two nuclear reactors by 2035, with a "massive expansion" to follow by 2045. State-owned utility Vattenfall is in the process of conducting a feasibility study on the construction of at least two small modular reactors (SMRs) at the Ringhals nuclear power station in the southwest of the country. It aims to put the first one into commission in the first half of the 2030s. It has begun acquiring land in the area but has not yet applied for environmental permits. Asked by daily Dagens Nyheter if construction would begin before the next general election, Kristersson replied: "Yes, it will." "The decisions required to build new nuclear power will have been taken. And hopefully that will be combined with a physical spade in the ground," he said. "We are totally committed. If we are going to succeed at electrification then we need to double electricity production, and nuclear power is an integral part of that." SMRs are advanced nuclear reactors that have a power capacity of up to 300 megawatts of electricity per unit, which is about one-third of the generating capacity of a traditional nuclear power reactor. They are relatively simple to build, as their systems and components can be factory-assembled and transported as a unit to a location for installation, which also makes them more affordable than large power reactors. Sweden currently has six reactors at three nuclear power plants, which generated about 30 percent of the electricity used in the country. Finland to place NATO base near Russian border Helsinki, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 Finland will place a key NATO base less than 200 kilometers (125 miles) from its border with Russia, "sending a message" to its eastern neighbour, the defence ministry said Friday. Finland became a NATO member last year, dropping decades of military non-alignment after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Defence Minister Antti Hakkanen said NATO's new headquarters for the Northern European land command unit will be in Mikkeli, one of the closest cities to Finland's 1,340-kilometre (830-mile) border with Russia. "Finland is sending a message to Russia that we are a full member of NATO and that NATO has a very strong role also in Finland's defence", Hakkanen told a press conference. The Finnish defence forces' army command is already located at the site of the future base. "By combining the locations, we achieve the best possible synergy between national defence management and NATO defence management", Hakkanen said. The military alliance's Multi Corps Land Component Command will operate under NATO's Norfolk command in the United States, which oversees the Atlantic and Arctic regions. Hakkanen said the headquarters would be staffed by a few dozen people from different NATO countries. In June, NATO defence ministers gave the green light for Finland to host the Multi Corps Land Component Command as well as the Forward Land Forces (FLF). Details about the FLF -- NATO's rotating, multinational ground forces based in several countries on NATO's eastern front -- will be announced at a later stage, Hakkanen said. China, Brazil urge against nuclear threats over Ukraine United Nations, United States, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 China and Brazil led a joint call Friday against any use or threat of nuclear weapons over Ukraine, in a thinly veiled criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin's saber-rattling. "We call on refraining from the use or the threat of weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons and chemical and biological weapons," said a joint statement issued at the United Nations that was also signed by South Africa and Turkey. Putin this week threatened to use nuclear weapons in the event of a major attack on Russian soil as Ukraine, which his forces invaded in 2022, seeks Western weapons to strike deeper across the border. Two days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a UN address accused Russia of planning to attack his country's nuclear reactors, China, Brazil and the other emerging powers said: "Civilian infrastructures, including peaceful nuclear facilities and other energy facilities, should not be the targets of military operation." China, itself a nuclear power, and Brazil have led calls for mediation to resolve the conflict. Zelensky criticized them by name in his UN address, saying that forcing Ukraine to accept a peace deal was akin to colonialism. The emerging powers on Friday reiterated "the importance of peaceful solutions for all international conflicts." "We call for support for a comprehensive and lasting settlement by the parties to the conflict through inclusive diplomacy and political means based on the UN Charter," they said. Other signatories to the statement were Algeria, Bolivia, Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya and Zambia. NEW DELHI, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Three Naxal commanders were killed in a five-day-long fierce gunfight with government forces in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, police said Friday. The gunfight between Naxals and joint contingents of the paramilitary and police began on Sept. 22, according to police. The government forces have not suffered any damage in the gunbattle, the police said, adding that one AK-47, two SLR rifles, and other arms and ammunition have also been recovered. Reports said since the beginning of this year, 160 Naxals have been killed in separate gunfights with government forces in the state. Currently, Naxals are active across the central and eastern parts of India. Israel says strikes Hezbollah HQ in Beirut Beirut, Lebanon, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 Israel carried out air strikes on the south of Lebanon's capital Beirut on Friday that it said targeted Hezbollah's headquarters, moments after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep fighting the militant group. The strikes, heard across the city, sent huge clouds of smoke soaring above the densely populated south of Beirut, the main bastion of Iran-backed Hezbollah. Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the strike targeted "the central headquarters" of Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of the city. While Israel has carried out several strikes on south Beirut this week, Friday's attack was by far the largest in scale. There was no immediate information on any casualties, though a source close to the group said the strikes had levelled six buildings. The source also said Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was unharmed in the strikes, after Israeli television networks reported he was the target. The bombing came moments after Netanyahu concluded his address to UN General Assembly delegates in New York, at which he vowed to keep up strikes against Hezbollah and fight "until victory" against Hamas. Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in a deadly exchange of cross-border fire since the group's Palestinian ally, Hamas, attacked Israel on October 7. Israel's aerial bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon has killed around 700 people this week alone, according to the health ministry, but a US-led bid for a ceasefire has failed to take hold. Israel has carried out several strikes on south Beirut this week, but Friday's was by far the largest. "As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safe," Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly, adding that operations against the Iran-backed militant group will "continue until we meet our objectives." Nearly a year into the war with Hamas in Gaza, Israel shifted its focus to its northern front with Lebanon, with its wave of aerial bombardment sparking an exodus of around 118,000 people. Earlier Friday, Hezbollah fired rockets into the northern Israeli city of Tiberias, saying it was responding to "savage" strikes on Lebanese towns and villages. - 'Deadliest in a generation' - "Everything is collapsing around us," said Lebanese businessman Anis Rubeiz, 55. "People are tired mentally... I don't see (hope) on the horizon... or even a ray of light." The UN children's agency condemned the violence, saying the attacks on Lebanon were killing children "at a frightening rate". "We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation, and many express their fear that this is just the beginning," the UN humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, Imran Riza, said. In Israel, too, many were weary of the violence. "It is incredibly exhausting to be in this situation. We don't really know what's going to happen, there's talk of a ground offensive or a major operation," said Lital Shmuelovich, a physiotherapy student. Netanyahu also addressed the war in Gaza, saying that Israel's military would continue to fight Hamas until the Islamist movement was crushed. "If Hamas stays in power, it will regroup... and attack Israel again and again and again... So Hamas has got to go," Netanyahu said, vowing to fight the group until "total victory". Diplomats have said efforts to end the war in Gaza were key to halting the fighting in Lebanon and bringing the region back from the brink of all-out war. But despite months of mediation efforts, a Gaza ceasefire remains elusive. Hamas's October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity. Of the 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead. Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,534 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable. After the Hamas attack, the deadliest in Israel's history, Netanyahu vowed to bring the hostages home and to crush Hamas. This month, he said securing Israel's border with Lebanon was also a war objective, to allow residents of northern Israel who have had to flee the area to return to their homes. - 'We will strike you' - The Lebanon violence has raised fears of wider turmoil in the Middle East, with Iran-backed militants across the region vowing to keep up their fight with Israel. On Thursday, the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen. The leader of Yemen's Huthi rebels, Abdul Malik al-Huthi, said in a televised address Thursday that the Iran-backed group would "not hesitate to support Lebanon and Hezbollah". An Israeli air strike on Lebanon's border with Syria killed five Syrian soldiers, according to state news agency SANA. Iran is a key ally of Syria, where it has helped prop up President Bashar al-Assad since the start of the civil war in 2011. Netanyahu also took aim at Iran in his UN General Assembly address, saying: "I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran. If you strike us, we will strike you." He added: "There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that's true of the entire Middle East." Analysts say Iran will try to resist being dragged into the conflict but it is walking a tightrope trying to support Hezbollah without getting dragged into a full-blown war and playing into its enemy's hands. burs-ser/kir US says it did not receive advanced warning about Israeli strike in Beirut Washington, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 Washington was not informed in advance about a huge air strike in Beirut's southern suburbs that Israel says targeted Hezbollah's headquarters, US officials said Friday. "The United States was not involved in this operation, and we had no advanced warning," Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told journalists. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin -- who is returning from a trip to London -- spoke with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant "as the operation was already underway," she said. "We're still pulling for more details and trying to understand the operation itself," Singh added. President Joe Biden later confirmed that "the United States had no knowledge of or participation in the (Israeli) action," adding in remarks to reporters that, "We're gathering information." The Israeli military said it carried out "a precise strike on the central headquarters" of Hezbollah on Friday, while leading Israeli television networks reported that the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target. "Sayyed Nasrallah is fine," a source close to Hezbollah said. Since last week, a series of Israeli strikes have hit the southern Beirut suburbs, targeting senior Hezbollah commanders. Anti-jihadist coalition mission in Iraq ending in 2025 Washington, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 The international coalition against the Islamic State jihadist group will end its decade-long military mission in Iraq within a year, Washington and Baghdad said on Friday. The announcement follows months of talks between Washington and Baghdad on the future of the coalition, which was established in 2014 to help local forces retake swathes of territory seized by the jihadists in Iraq and neighboring Syria. The coalition's military mission in Iraq will conclude "no later than the end of September 2025," a joint US-Iraqi statement said. A senior US administration official said the two sides have agreed on a "two-phase transition plan," the first of which lasts until September next year and will involve "ending the presence of coalition forces in certain locations in Iraq." The coalition will continue its military operation in Syria, with international troops permitted to support anti-IS operations there from Iraq through the second phase of the plan, which runs until September 2026, the official said. But neither the joint statement nor US officials shed light on the key question of the future number of US troops in Iraq, where there are about 2,500 American personnel deployed as part of the coalition. A senior defense official said that "we're not going to speak to our plans concerning specific base locations or troop numbers," adding: "We have been and will continue to be in active dialog with the government of Iraq about how our bilateral relationship will evolve." The joint statement says that "Iraq continues to engage with the United States and other members of the coalition to establish bilateral security relations where appropriate." Iraqi Defense Minister Thabet al-Abbassi said earlier this month that the coalition would pull out of bases in Baghdad and other parts of federal Iraq by September 2025 and from the autonomous northern Kurdistan region by September 2026. Abbassi told pan-Arab television channel Al-Hadath that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had said two years was not enough to complete the process, but that "we refused his proposal regarding an (extra) third year." Coalition forces have been targeted scores of times with drones and rocket fire in both Iraq and Syria, as violence related to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza since early October 2023 drew in Iran-backed armed groups across the Middle East. US forces have carried out multiple retaliatory strikes against these groups in both countries. IS was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, but jihadist fighters continue to operate in remote desert areas although they no longer control territory. Israel army says to strike three south Beirut buildings 'in short while' Jerusalem, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 The Israeli military said late Friday it would strike three buildings in south Beirut "in a short while" where the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah had stored weapons, and called on residents to evacuate them. "In a short while, we will attack the weapons under these buildings. The force of the explosions as a result of the missiles which are under the buildings may cause damage to the buildings and even their collapse," military spokesman Daniel Hagari said at a televised briefing. Hagari said Hezbollah had constructed three buldings in the south Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh with designated underground spaces for "storing strategic weapons, with the buildings above acting as a shield". "The way the missiles are stored in these buildings allows them to be moved and launched outside of the buildings within minutes." In new toll, Lebanon says 6 dead, 91 wounded in Israeli strikes on south Beirut Beirut, Lebanon, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 Lebanon's health ministry said early Saturday that Israeli air strikes in Beirut's densely populated southern suburbs killed six people and wounded 91, adding the toll was provisional. The strikes Friday "on Haret Hreik in Beirut's southern suburbs led to the death... of six people and the wounding of 91", a ministry statement said, raising an earlier toll of two dead and 76 wounded. "Rubble is still being removed" from the site, it added. Hezbollah's Al-Manar television said late Friday that the amount of rubble was hampering efforts to find survivors. The Israeli military said it "carried out a precise strike on the central headquarters" of Hezbollah, which it said was "located under residential buildings in the heart of Dahiyeh", referring to Beirut's southern suburbs. Al-Manar said seven residential buildings were destroyed in the targeted area, while Hezbollah cordoned off the site and told journalists to move away. Israel army says striking Hezbollah weapons in south Beirut Jerusalem, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 The Israeli military said Saturday that it was conducting strikes targeting Hezbollah weapons stored beneath residential buildings in the south of the Lebanese capital, Beirut. "The IDF (military) is currently conducting targeted strikes on weapons belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation that were stored beneath civilian buildings" in a southern suburb of Beirut, the military said in a statement. A source close to Hezbollah, requesting anonymity, said that "a new Israeli strike" hit south Beirut's Laylaki neighbourhood. The Israeli army had earlier said it would attack the area and warned residents to evacuate. burs/jj Zambian Vice President Mutale Nalumango (1st R, front) and Chinese Ambassador to Zambia Han Jing (1st L) visit a photo exhibition in Lusaka, Zambia, Sept. 26, 2024. The Chinese Embassy in Zambia hosted a reception on Thursday in Lusaka, the capital, celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. This event also marked the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Zambia. (Xinhua/Peng Lijun) LUSAKA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Embassy in Zambia hosted a reception on Thursday in Lusaka, the capital, celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. This event also marked the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Zambia. The reception was attended by Chinese Ambassador to Zambia Han Jing, Zambian Vice President Mutale Nalumango, government officials and members of the Chinese community. The occasion featured vibrant cultural displays, including dance, music and traditional Chinese kung fu. In his remarks, Han said the past 75 years have been an epic journey for the Chinese people, transitioning from poverty to prosperity while achieving rapid economic growth and long-term social stability. "When China began engaging in the global modernization process led by the West in the late 19th century, it was not by choice; it was a traumatic experience marked by injustice. However, through strong leadership, determination and hard work, China has embarked on a modernization drive that aims to build a great modern country capable of sharing experiences and opportunities with the rest of the world," Han said. He expressed China's willingness to offer support to other developing countries striving for modernization and reaffirmed China's commitment to peaceful development and promoting a shared future for humanity. Regarding relations with Zambia, the ambassador said that the two countries have supported each other's core interests. He said that since elevating their relationship to a comprehensive strategic and cooperative partnership last year, political trust and practical cooperation have deepened significantly. Underlining the signing of several bilateral cooperation documents during the recent Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, Han said that both countries will work to translate these agreements into actionable initiatives. Nalumango reflected on the shared history between the two countries, expressing gratitude to their founding leaders for establishing a lasting friendship. She said that over the past 60 years, Zambia and China have nurtured a partnership built on mutual respect and shared goals of freedom and prosperity. Highlighting major projects between the two sides, including the Tanzania-Zambia Railway (TAZARA), Nalumango said it is important to revitalize TAZARA, which not only exemplifies the enduring relationship with China but also fosters regional connectivity and trade in southern Africa. She further said that the recent FOCAC summit reaffirmed the commitment to advancing sustainable development between China and Africa. Vernon Mwaanga, Zambia's former ambassador to the United Nations when Zambia was pushing for the adoption of a resolution to restore China's lawful seat in the world body, praised China's economic transformation over the past 75 years as historic and inspiring for developing countries. Having visited China 19 times, he commended successive Chinese leaders for their vision and hard work, saying that China has set development standards that should serve as a model for many nations worldwide. A martial art master (1st R, front) and students from the Zambia Shaolin Temple cultural center perform Chinese Kung Fu at a reception hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Zambia, in Lusaka, Zambia, Sept. 26, 2024, The Chinese Embassy in Zambia hosted a reception on Thursday in Lusaka, the capital, celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. This event also marked the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Zambia. (Xinhua/Peng Lijun) Vernon Mwaanga, Zambia's former ambassador to the United Nations, addresses a reception hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Zambia, in Lusaka, Zambia, Sept. 26, 2024, The Chinese Embassy in Zambia hosted a reception on Thursday in Lusaka, the capital, celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. This event also marked the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Zambia. (Xinhua/Peng Lijun) Chinese Ambassador to Zambia Han Jing addresses a reception hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Zambia, in Lusaka, Zambia, Sept. 26, 2024, The Chinese Embassy in Zambia hosted a reception on Thursday in Lusaka, the capital, celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. This event also marked the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Zambia. (Xinhua/Peng Lijun) Zambian Vice President Mutale Nalumango addresses a reception hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Zambia, in Lusaka, Zambia, Sept. 26, 2024. The Chinese Embassy in Zambia hosted a reception on Thursday in Lusaka, the capital, celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. This event also marked the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Zambia. 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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. And he added: Telling an English judge we have political prisoners in this jurisdiction when you think of people suffering in dungeons under tyranny across the world...what you are doing is what many people would regard as an offensive comparison. SANAA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's Houthis said on Friday in a statement that they had fired "a ballistic missile and a drone" deep into Israel. "In support of Palestine and Lebanon, we carried out a military operation against an Israeli target in the Jaffa area, Tel Aviv, using a ballistic missile, and launched a drone attack on another vital Israeli target in the coastal Israeli city of Ashkelon," the statement, aired by the Houthi-run al-Masirah TV, quoted Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea as saying. "The two operations achieved their goals successfully," Sarea noted. Meanwhile, the Israeli military confirmed earlier in a statement that militants in Yemen launched at least one missile toward Israel overnight between Thursday and Friday, setting off air raid sirens across central Israel, including Tel Aviv. The army said the missile was "successfully" intercepted and that the details were still under review, reporting no casualties. The presidential candidate added praise for Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. He said: I think Nigel is great, Ive known him for a long time. He had a great election too, picked up a lot of seats, more seats than he was allowed to have actually. They acknowledged that he won but for some reason you have a strange system over there, you might win them but you dont get them. SANAA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's Houthis said on Friday in a statement that they had fired "a ballistic missile and a drone" deep into Israel. "In support of Palestine and Lebanon, we carried out a military operation against an Israeli target in the Jaffa area, Tel Aviv, using a ballistic missile, and launched a drone attack on another vital Israeli target in the coastal Israeli city of Ashkelon," the statement, aired by the Houthi-run al-Masirah TV, quoted Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea as saying. The two operations, occurring on Thursday night, "achieved their goals successfully," Sarea noted, vowing to continue strikes against Israeli targets to support the resistance of "brothers in Palestine and Lebanon." Meanwhile, the Israeli military confirmed earlier in a statement that militants in Yemen launched at least one missile toward Israel overnight between Thursday and Friday, setting off air raid sirens across central Israel, including Tel Aviv. The army said the missile was "successfully" intercepted and that the details were still under review, reporting no casualties. This latest Houthi attack on Tel Aviv follows two previous ones targeting central Israel -- a drone attack in July that killed one person and a missile attack earlier this month that caused a fire in an empty area in Kfar Daniel, another location in the region, according to Israeli media outlets. The Houthi group, which controls large swathes of northern Yemen, has been attacking "Israeli-linked" shipping near the country's coastline since November 2023, allegedly to support Palestinians in their conflict with Israelis. The group is aligned with the anti-Israel "axis of resistance," which also includes Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and militant groups in Iraq and Syria, among others. The General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations (IGSU) issued, on the night of Thursday to Friday, a RO-ALERT message for the population in the northern area of far eastern Tulcea County after which, the structures with the role of defense and monitoring of the border airspace spotted a group of UAVs (drones) heading towards targets on the Ukrainian territory on the border with Romania, informs Agerpres. The RO-ALERT message was sent around 2:00 a.m. and was followed shortly after by the specific noises of airplanes flying over Romanian airspace. "There were two calls to the 112 dispatch center in Tulcea, one to ask for information, and the second to report that they heard explosions in the northern area on Ukrainian territory," the Delta Emergency Situations Inspectorate (ISU) mentioned. The message sent to the population by IGSU appeals to calmness, and in case objects fall from the airspace, to respect the shelter and self-protection recommendations sent by the RO-ALERT message. "The areas targeted by the attacks of the Russian Federation are on Ukrainian territory, a short distance from the border with Romania, and thus there is a possibility that certain objects, following the response of the Ukrainian army, will fall on Romanian territory. Once again we announce the people in the northern Tulcea County, but also those who arrive in the respective area as tourists, that no targets or areas on the territory of Romania are targeted," the ISU Delta announcement also mentions. China adheres to a high-level opening up and welcomes more high-quality Romanian products to enter the Chinese market, said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday, during talks with Romanian Foreign Minister Luminita Odobescu on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York, Xinhua reports. China hopes that Romania will uphold the principles of free trade and provide a fair, non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese enterprises, Wang said. For her part, Odobescu said Romania is committed to promoting cooperation, strengthening economic and trade ties with China and hopes to increase agricultural exports to the Asian country. Romania stands ready to facilitate dialogue between Europe and China to properly address trade disputes, the Romanian official added HONG KONG, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The outlook for RMB internationalization remains promising supported by a combination of cyclical as well as structural factors, said Eddie Yue, chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) on Friday. In the near to medium term, the accommodative monetary policy environment on the Chinese mainland is expected to continue, and this will incentivize banks and corporates to use RMB as a funding currency, Yue said in a keynote speech at the Treasury Markets Summit 2024 held in Hong Kong. Yue went on to expound on an array of favorable factors in the longer term. More mainland companies in the real economy are seeking overseas expansion as the global supply chain continues to reconfigure. RMB-based activities in sectors of the real economy will further increase demand for RMB products, treasury management, longer-term investment and risk management. Hong Kong, as the premier offshore RMB hub, is uniquely placed to serve as the go-to platform that serves different stakeholders while enabling its financial sector to capture the ever-growing opportunities, he said. To foster Hong Kong's offshore RMB business, Yue said the HKMA is studying possible ways to enhance the availability of RMB liquidity to banks and will work with fellow regulators to keep expanding the suite of connectivity schemes between the capital markets of the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong. A truck loaded with 20 tons of goods from Belgium and declared in documents as second-hand products, such as agricultural machinery, tires or metal profiles, turned out to be waste, so the authorities did not allow the transport to enter the country, the Arad Border Police informed on Friday, informs Agerpres. The truck, driven by a Romanian, was checked at the Nadlac II Border Crossing Point. The authorities ordered that the goods be returned to the sender in Belgium. More than 15 tons of waste and approximately 1.5 tons of used oil were made unavailable as part of an action in an integrated system, the spokesperson of the Gorj County Police Inspectorate (IPJ), Miruna Prejbeanu, reports on Friday. Waste and used oil were discovered at several commercial companies in a number of communes in Gorj county, the source says. In all cases, criminal files were drawn up in which investigations are carried out under the aspect of committing the crimes of not taking or not complying with the mandatory measures in carrying out the activities of collection, treatment, transport, valorization and disposal of hazardous waste and the disposal, possession, keeping of waste outside the authorized premises. Romania will host the headquarters of the European Competence Center (ECCC) in Bucharest, in accordance with an Agreement that was signed on Friday at Victoria Palace (headquarters of the Romanian Government), informs Agerpres. The document was signed, on behalf of the Government of Romania, by the head of the Prime Minister's Chancellery, Alexandru-Mihai Ghigiu, and on behalf of the European Center of Competences in the Industrial, Technological and Research Fields of Cyber Security by Luca Tagliaretti, Executive Director of the Center. The Romanian official emphasized, on this occasion, the importance of establishing the seat of the European Competence Center in the field of cyber security in Bucharest, the first EU structure that our country hosts as a member state. "Hosting the headquarters of the European Competence Center in Bucharest is a major achievement for Romania. It is the first time that our country hosts a European agency, a fact that reconfirms the increasingly important role of Romania in strengthening European cyber security, especially in the current international context marked of numerous security challenges," said the head of the Prime Minister's Office, according to a Government press release. The event was attended by representatives of the General Secretariat of the Government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Investments and European Projects, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Development, Public Works and Administration, the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, the National Cyberint Center and the National Directorate for Cyber Security. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) condemns the fact that Russia opened investigations against three journalists, stressing that media representatives must be protected and not silenced. "We strongly condemn Russia's decision to open criminal cases against journalists, including Mircea Barbu for reporting from Kursk. This is a blatant attack against press freedom and fundamental rights. Journalists must be protected, not silenced", the Romanian ministry transmitted on the X online platform. Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has opened criminal investigations against three journalists, two Americans and one Romanian, who allegedly "illegally" crossed the Russian border from Ukraine to report in the occupied part of the Kursk region, Russian news agencies announced on Friday, taken over by AFP. The two Americans, Kathryn Diss and Fletcher Yeung, work for the Australian ABC channel, while the Romanian journalist Mircea Barbu works for HotNews.ro, according to Russian news agencies. They are accused by the Russian authorities of having "illegally crossed the border of the Russian Federation in the Kursk region", announced the FSB, in a release taken over by news agencies. On August 6, the Ukrainian army launched a surprise offensive in this border region, the first by a foreign army in Russia since World War II. Russian forces have since launched a counteroffensive and claim to have recaptured ground. However, Ukraine still claims that it has control over about a hundred localities and about 1,000 square kilometers, and several foreign media have made reports in the area occupied by the forces of Kiev. In total, investigations were launched against "12 foreign journalists" for accusations of this type, starting from August 17, stated the FSB, quoted by the RIA Novosti agency. Proceedings were launched including against some journalists of the American television channel CNN, the Italian channel RAI or the German Deutsche Welle. The journalists targeted by these investigations do not seem to be in Russia, but there they risk up to five years in prison, according to the Russian Criminal Code. President Klaus Iohannis announced on Friday that he will not run for the December elections for the future Legislature. "As I have stated on several occasions, I will end my mandate as president of Romania on time and I will not resign from my position. I will not run for the parliamentary elections in December, regardless of the decision that the Central Electoral Bureau will adopt today. No I supported and do not support the amendment of the electoral legislation in favor of a single person," said the head of state. Iohannis said on Wednesday, in New York, about the amendment of the law that would have allowed him to run for the Senate, that he did not want a law for him and that he will make sure that it does not exist. "I didn't want a law for myself, I don't want a law for myself and I can tell you with certainty that I will make sure that this law does not exist. It is not possible to make a law for a person and then I think that I- I expressed it very clearly. In short, this law will not exist and I do not want it to exist", he assured in a statement given to journalists on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. The Central Electoral Bureau should, on Friday, give a point of view in the case of the request of the liberals regarding the candidacy of the head of state in the parliamentary elections. National Liberal Party (PNL) parliamentarians Daniel Fenechiu and Gabriel Andronache submitted, last week, to Parliament, a legislative proposal that provides that the Romanian president can run as an independent on the lists of a party or alliance in the parliamentary elections, in the last three months of the mandate. The project modifies, in this sense, article 52 of the law on the election of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies The Iranian film "My Favorite Cake" directed by Maryam Moghadam and Behtash Sanaeeha will be presented in the national premiere, in Romania, on Sunday, during the closing evening of the 20th edition of the Bucharest International Film Festival - BIFF, inform the organizers in a statement sent to AGERPRES on Friday. On the same evening, the BIFF Awards Gala will take place, at which the outstanding films entered in this year's competition will be awarded. During the same event, the renowned French director of Romanian origin Radu Mihaileanu will receive the BIFF 2024 Excellence Award - XX edition. The honorary president of the BIFF XX anniversary edition is the film critic Irina-Margareta Nistor, and the BIFF 2024 International Jury was formed by Canadian director and screenwriter Philippe Lesage, president, Paul Cozighian, French-Romanian independent director and journalist, actress Ana Ularu, director , screenwriter and actor Valeriu Andriuta and Lithuanian film producer Marija Razgute. Tickets for BIFF can be purchased from www.eventbook.ro (https://eventbook.ro/festival/bucharest-international-film-festival). Also, tickets can be purchased, subject to availability, from the ticket offices of the cinemas that will host the BIFF 2024 screenings. Bucharest International Film Festival (BIFF), a cultural project financed by the Ministry of Culture, is organized by the Charter Foundation and Grigore Vasiliu Birlic Cultural Association and under the High Patronage of His Royal Highness Prince Radu of Romania. BIFF is the only international film festival in Bucharest that has a documentary and historical film section to honor the King Michael Centenary in 2021, 100 years after his birth, initiated by Dan Draghicescu. The National Press Agency AGERPRES is the media partner of the event. AGERPRES special corespondent Cristian Lupascu reports: The Republic of Moldova will never be isolated again, declared on Friday the President of the Parliament in Chisinau, Igor Grosu, after signing the contract on the design and construction of the bridge over the Prut, between Iasi and Ungheni. He specifies that the new road bridge will facilitate access to the highway network of the European Union, but also to the highway lot that will connect Ungheni with Chisinau. "Today we witnessed a moment that Ungheni and the entire Republic of Moldova have been waiting for since the Flower Bridge in the '90s. (...) If our parents' generation, 34 years ago, built a flower bridge, we will be the generation that builds bridges to facilitate our connection between the two banks of the Prut. Access to the highway network of the European Union will be facilitated, as well as to the highway lot that will connect Ungheni with Chisinau. These are steps that prove to us that we are part of the great European family and that our place is in the European Union. With Romania's help and being part of this family, we will thus ensure that the Republic of Moldova will never be isolated again and that our citizens will have the same standard of living, income and freedom of movement as all the citizens of the European Union", stated Grosu. The contract for the construction of the new bridge over the Prut was signed on Friday. It stipulates that the design will be done within six months, and the works will be executed in 24 months. The value of the investment is 151.6 million RON. AGERPRES special corespondent, Cristian Lupascu, reports: Romania will donate 100,000 books to the Republic of Moldova, announced, on Thursday evening, at the opening of the International Festival of Literature and Translation, the state secretary of the Department for Relations with the Republic of Moldova (DRRM), Adrian Dupu. According to him, the books will arrive in the Republic of Moldova at the beginning of October, and will be distributed in all libraries in this country. "In all these years, the Department and I have supported everything that means Romanian literature, reading in the Romanian language. (...) At the beginning of October, the DRRM will bring a donation of approximately 100,000 books for the libraries of the Republic of Moldova, which represents the biggest donation of books that Romania is suddenly making in the Republic of Moldova. Through this, we want to encourage reading," said Dupu. The International Festival of Literature and Translation - FILIT is organized for the second consecutive year in Chisinau, being an extension of the festival hosted for 11 years in Iasi. With Germany ramping up border controls earlier this month and other EU countries contemplating stricter migration rules, the Schengen zone of free movement - and no internal border checks - seems to be crumbling, informs Agerpres. In mid-September, Germany expanded border controls to the frontiers with all its nine neighbours in hopes of curbing the flow of irregular migrants, addressing threats from Islamist terrorist groups and cross-border criminal organisations. The move has sparked protests from other EU members. Germany lies at the heart of Europe and of the visa-free Schengen zone, which is designed to allow the free movement of people and goods, long a core idea of the European project. After deadly knife attacks in the German cities of Mannheim and Solingen causing outrage and horror, long-standing debates over how to handle migrants seeking asylum in Germany have intensified in recent weeks. The suspected attacker in Solingen, a Syrian citizen, had evaded an order to be deported from Germany to Bulgaria, where he first entered the EU. Poland, Austria and Greece have been among countries to complain about the introduction of border checks, which are set to last an initial six months. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk condemned the move as 'unacceptable' and his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in an interview with Talk Radio that an 'unilateral abolition of Schengen' was not the answer. The Czech Interior Minister Vit Rakuan said that he does not expect any change at the Czech-German border. Border controls with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland were already in place before and have been expanded to the borders with France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark. With national elections looming in Germany next year, the attacks in the country put intense political pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government to toughen its stance on migrants and asylum seekers. But this is not exclusive to Germany: The success of far-right parties in elections in key European countries is prompting even centrist and left-wing governments to tighten policies on migration, creating cracks in European unity and sparking concern among activists. Experts: Border checks won't curb illegal migration The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told the German daily Stuttgarter Zeitung there were 'alternatives to restrictive measures' such as turning migrants back at the border. 'A fixation on border controls will not deter the truly desperate,' Grandi said. 'The reintroduction of temporary internal border controls in the Schengen area is almost the automatic consequence of the lack of a common understanding of who is allowed to enter and for what purpose', Jean-Louis De Brouwer, director for European affairs at the Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations in Brussels, told Romanian news agency AGERPRES. In his opinion, the reintroduction of internal border controls in Schengen would, in one way or another, 'be detrimental to the internal market'. He believes that very soon - it could be at the next European Council - the member states will have to answer a very difficult question: whether they want to keep Schengen or not. Migration researcher Gerald Knaus does not expect the extension of border controls to all German land borders to lead to a noticeable decrease in the number of asylum seekers. 'Anyone who expects border controls to lead to a reduction in irregular migration is creating an expectation that is unrealisable,' he said on Deutschlandfunk radio. Border controls were also not a means of preventing Islamist terrorism, for example, as many of the perpetrators became radicalised in Germany, the researcher further said. What is Schengen and who's part of it? The border-free Schengen area allows free movement for more than 425 million EU citizens and non-EU citizens who legally live, work, travel or study in the European Union. Named after a small village in Luxembourg, the Schengen zone started as an intergovernmental project with five countries in 1985: Luxembourg, Germany, France, Belgium and Netherlands. In waves, the Schengen zone grew and now incorporates most EU countries - except Cyprus and Ireland - as well as non-EU states Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Lichtenstein. Today, it is the biggest zone of free movement in the world. According to the Council of the European Union, 3.5 million people cross internal borders every day. Even though Germany's decision has sparked controversy, it's not the only Schengen member having border checks in place. Austria, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden also have temporary measures in place. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled in 2022 that a Member State can only extend temporary border controls if it is faced with a new threat affecting its public policy or its internal security that is different from the threat initially identified. Bulgaria and Romania: Half in, half out? As of March 31, 2024, Bulgaria and Romania have partially joined the Schengen area. Controls for internal sea and air travel have been lifted while controls at land borders remain. EU officials expect a decision on full Schengen membership until the end of the year. In December last year, Austria was the only EU country that did not support a complete abolition of border checks at the Bulgarian and Romanian Schengen borders. Countries such as Spain and Slovakia are in favour of Bulgaria and Romania becoming full members of the Schengen zone. 'I am very pleased that in 2024 internal air and sea controls between Bulgaria and Romania and the other Schengen countries will become a thing of the past, after twelve years of negotiations,' said Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska last year during Spain's presidency of the Council of the European Union. Visiting Austria, Slovak President Peter Pellegrini stated that the Schengen accession of the two countries is 'important' for investments and also for the effective protection of the EU's external borders. The Head of the European Commission Representation to Bulgaria, Yordanka Chobanova said, on Tuesday in Sofia a decision about Bulgaria's and Romania's entry into the Schengen area by land is expected by the end of this year. In July, a report by the Institute of Economic Research with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences showed that the direct losses for Bulgaria from the delay of full accession to Schengen amounted to over 400 million Euro. Schengen and Migration: Austria's veto and its new migration portfolio Austria will no longer be able to use the migration problem as a pretext to block Bulgaria and Romania from Schengen, Romanian MEP Siegfried Muresan, who is a Vice-President of the European People's Party (EPP), said in a BTA interview in Strasbourg last week. 'Austria has been given the portfolio of Commissioner for Migration and Home Affairs, so it has the tool it needs to solve migration problems. The solution to this problem will depend on their own commissioner,' Muresan said. Austria's EU commissioner-designate is Finance Minister Magnus Brunner who is a member of the Austrian People's Party (OVP). The OVP belongs to the EPP, a centre-right group in the European Parliament. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's decision to give the migration portfolio to Brunner has stirred some controversy in Brussels as he has little experience on the subject. Taking Austria's opposition of the Romanian and Bulgarian Schengen accession and the fact that the migration and internal affairs portfolio has been assigned to an Austrian into account, a Commission spokesperson said that Commissioners do not represent their Member State of origin, but work to contribute to the EU project, in the interest of all European citizens. The President of the European Movement Austria (EBO), Christoph Leitl, said: 'This is an opportunity for Austria, namely to turn criticism into participation!' The new European Commissioners are yet to pass their 'grilling' by the European Parliament before the new Commission can be finally confirmed. Historically, not all candidates pass which means their countries need to nominate a new person. The content is based on news by agencies participating in the European Newsroom (enr, a cooperation project between news agencies from all over Europe) - in this case AFP, AGERPRES, APA, BTA, CTK, dpa, EFE, STA. TOKYO, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Shigeru Ishiba on Friday won the presidential election of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to succeed Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The 67-year-old lawmaker, set to become Japan's next prime minister, has mainly worked on security issues and the revival of Japan's rural communities in his 38 years of political life. Ishiba served as the country's minister of defense from 2007 to 2008, minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries from 2008 to 2009, and minister in charge of countryside revitalization from 2014 to 2016. The veteran politician was also the LDP's Policy Research Council chairman from 2009 to 2011 and its secretary-general from 2012 to 2014. A long-time aspirant for the top job, Ishiba previously ran in four LDP leadership contests in 2008, 2012, 2018, and 2020, never winning. Making his fifth bid this time, he called the race his "last political battle." Originally from Yazu in the western Japan prefecture of Tottori, Ishiba has been elected 12 times to the House of Representatives from Tottori's 1st district. He was first elected to the lower house in 1986 after a short banking career. Born on Feb. 4, 1957, Ishiba is married and has two daughters. Editor's note: This story has been updated to note that the Schnarr's Hardware building has been purchased, not the business itself. ST. LOUIS The Hoffmann Family of Cos. said Friday that its real estate branch is buying the building that's home to Schnarrs Hardware in Ladue. Greg Hoffmann, principal and CEO of Hoffmann Commercial Real Estate, said in a statement that the company is looking forward to continuing to invest in the area. We are excited to welcome 9800 Clayton Road to our portfolio, he said in a press release. This is a prime property cherished by the local community. The Hoffmann Family of Cos. has not purchased the Schnarr's Hardware business, which has been owned by Frank Blair since 1995. Commercial real estate website LoopNet lists the property at 12,400 square feet. Earlier this month, the firm announced that it is under contract to acquire the Pierre Laclede Center in Clayton. It also owns nearby buildings at 100 South Brentwood Boulevard. And the real estate branch of the company is headquartered at 8000 Maryland Avenue, though its lender, Wells Fargo, sought court action to foreclose on the property. The Hoffmanns said they are nearing a deal with the loan servicer that would enable them to keep the building. The Hoffmann Family of Cos. owns businesses and properties across the country. In Missouri, the firm has attempted to create a Napa Valley-esque wine country in the Augusta area. And though theyve had to cut back on plans and sell some properties, they say the plan is still in place. ST. LOUIS Police on Friday morning identified the man who was shot and killed by officers after he wandered into a St. Louis office building and began stabbing himself and his puppy. Investigators said Gregory Maxwell was staying at a hotel near the office building in the 5700 block of Oakland Avenue, in the citys Cheltenham neighborhood. About 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, a caller told police the man had come into the private offices of Renaissance Financial and refused to leave. Police said Maxwell was on the third floor of the office building and appeared to be having a mental health crisis." When officers arrived, the man grabbed a pair of scissors and began stabbing his pit bull puppy. Eventually, officers opened fire and struck Maxwell. He later died at a hospital. The puppy was being treated and is expected to survive, the Human Society of Missouri said in a social media post on Thursday. CARACAS, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- At least two people died and four others are missing after a service barge used in the maintenance of oil wells sank in Lake Maracaibo, in western Venezuela's Zulia state, state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) said Thursday. In a statement, the firm said the incident was caused by "bad weather conditions that affected the area at the time of the accident," and said the barge named "Chantase G" belongs to SOSCA, the firm currently providing oil well maintenance services. "Search and rescue work continues in conjunction with public safety organizations," the company said, adding a PDVSA High-Level Investigation Committee will look into the matter to definitively determine the causes of the accident and support will be provided to the relatives of the victims. The state-run company offered its condolences to the families of the deceased. JEFFERSON CITY After three days of battling over scientific papers and expert testimony, the trial of a lawsuit challenging Missouris restrictions on gender-affirming treatments on Thursday turned to the impact the law has on patients and providers. Nicole Carr, a nurse practitioner at Southampton Community Healthcare in St. Louis, said anxiety, fear and depression first increased in transgender patients when Attorney General Andrew Bailey published an emergency rule that established barriers to care in April 2023. No one thinks about how these laws affect the actual people they are supposed to protect and they are supposed to serve, she said. Patients were crying in the clinic in fear, she testified. Im trying to give them hope that they dont have to fear being in Missouri, that they dont have to fear coming to me as a provider, that they can move past this, Carr said. Its sad because Im referring a lot of people to therapy that, before these rules, were fine. She worries about youth in foster care, which she worked with frequently in a previous position. Transgender teenagers in foster care often must wait until they turn 18 to go to the doctor alone for assessment to obtain hormone-replacement therapy. But if they are on Medicaid, as most are soon after foster care, Missouri wont pay for the treatment. (The law) has impacted the quality of care I can give my patients when I know the solution to their problem is out there and I cant do anything about it, she said. Carr and Southampton Community Healthcare are among 11 plaintiffs hoping to block enforcement of a 2023 law banning gender-affirming medical treatments for minors. Other plaintiffs include parents of transgender children, transgender adolescents, other medical care providers and organizations supporting gender-affirming care. Their attorneys began putting witnesses on the stand Monday in the Cole County Circuit Court trial scheduled to continue through next week. The lawsuit asks Judge Craig Carter, assigned to the case from Wright County, to declare the law unconstitutional, alleging violations of equal protection, due process and other rights guaranteed by the Missouri Constitution. Although the law does not ban counseling or the continuation of treatments begun before it passed, several providers ceased all gender-affirming treatments for minors soon after it took effect on Aug. 28, 2023. First University of Missouri Health, then Washington University in St. Louis, ended their programs, citing the threat of future litigation allowed in the law. Neither provider is a party to the lawsuit. Over the first three days of the trial, assistant attorneys general defending the law have repeatedly sought to discredit plaintiffs expert witnesses. The painstaking cross examinations have slowed the pace of the trial to two experts per day and led to a late recess on Wednesday. Carter, however, has declined to limit the cross-examination, despite arguments from plaintiffs attorneys that it means the trial will exceed the time allotted to complete it. During cross-examination, members of the defense team have read scientific articles, news articles and editorials on gender-affirming care. Almost invariably, that leads to objections that the exhibits are new. Carter has allowed reading as a way to challenge the credibility of witnesses by showing deficiencies in their testimony, such as bias or poor memory. They seem to be reading a lot of newspaper articles and a lot of opinion pieces, Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, an attorney for plaintiffs, told reporters. If they wanted to introduce the opinion of some random person in the United Kingdom, they could have called them. During one question to Dr. Armand Matheny Antommaria from Solicitor General Joshua Divine, plaintiffs attorney Nora Huppert objected, arguing that it was as if Divine was testifying himself. It came as Antommaria, a pediatric hospitalist and bioethicist at Cincinnati Childrens Hospital, answered questions slowly, often with a yes sir or no sir, correcting Divines questions. If you go to the key findings, the statement youve pulled out is not part of the key findings, he said, after a question in which Divine asked about a singular sentence of a scientific article. The context is important, Antommaria told him, saying the overall report was the opposite of Divines characterization. Divine also asked if Antommarias religious beliefs or divinity degree should disqualify him as an expert. Given the nature of that particular degree, that does not disqualify myself, he said. Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, an adolescent medicine physician at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and medical director of the hospitals center for transgender youth health and development, testified about her research linking distress about breast development to depression and anxiety. She also discussed benefits of gender-affirming care she has seen in her clinical experience. Hal Frampton, senior counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom, brought one of the 11 three-ring binders prepared for the Olson-Kennedy testimony to the podium. He flipped through the approximately three-inch binder, presenting studies and articles to question Olson-Kennedys research and concluding with videos from talks she gave years ago. In one talk, she said people get worked up about certain surgical procedures that are part of gender-affirming care. Frampton asked if she doesnt like people that get worked up. Olson-Kennedy said she was emphasizing the difference between gender-affirming surgeries. The seriousness of getting a sterilizing surgery is more severe than someone who needs a chest surgery, she said. He also asked about an interview she gave in which she spoke about being involved in social justice efforts. People being able to get access to medically necessary care is an advocacy issue, she responded. The defense is scheduled to begin arguments Monday, with a scheduled final day of Oct. 4. Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and X. Little ladies of America, put down your sewing kits and listen up: Donald Trump and the Republican Party have your cute little backs. Theyre going to protect you from making your own choices about reproduction, from deciding whether to own a cat, maybe even from traveling between states. Heck, girls, todays GOP will even protect you from the burden of thinking! WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE! YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION! the former president recently posted helpfully putting it in all-caps so even female readers can understand it. I WILL PROTECT WOMEN AT A LEVEL NEVER SEEN BEFORE. Of course, youve already sampled Trumps idea of protection, in the form of abortion bans in half the country that have now been officially confirmed to have cost womens lives. Trump who is more singularly responsible for those bans than any other individual in America, thanks to his three Supreme Court appointments knows how grateful you are to him. But its not just Trump for whom you should be knitting scarves of gratitude, ladies. Other Republican luminaries these days are also offering invaluable advice on how the fairer sex can be happy, healthy and compliant. Theres JD Vance, Trumps running mate. When recently confronted with a 2021 interview in which he derided childless cat ladies who want to make the rest of the country miserable too, he doubled down, snarking: Ive got nothing against cats. Its hard to believe this duo is trailing among women by double digits in polls. Dont you chicks know whats good for you? Vance has also suggested that parents should have more votes in elections than non-parents, and that women who dont have their own kids arent qualified to teach in schools. Setting aside what generations of nuns might think of that suggestion, its a useful reminder, ladies, that to todays Republican leaders, you are, first and foremost, incubators reproductive systems that also happen to be capable of speech. Arent you honored? Speaking of reproductive systems: All girls should watch that educational 2022 video that recently surfaced of Mark Robinson, the North Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee, waving his hand around his groin area and declaring that one of the biggest problems in society today is that women need to just get this under control. (How to do that? In the immortal words of Trump himself, Grab them by the Yknow.) Then theres Bernie Moreno, the GOPs Senate nominee in Ohio, who recently derided those single-issue voters meaning, women who have the gall to vote in the interest of their own bodily autonomy. He declared it crazy that women over 50 would care about reproductive rights. Im thinking to myself: I dont think thats an issue for you. Hmm. Not to overload your female brains here, but is Mr. Moreno suggesting that anyone who cant get pregnant should keep their damned noses out of other peoples reproductive decisions? What an unintentionally intriguing concept! Discuss among yourselves, girls. But dont discuss too much. Todays Republican Party which, remember, is protecting you wants to ensure that you dont have access to information that isnt good for you. For example, Missouris Republican lawmakers have considered outlawing billboards and websites that might provide you with dangerous information about out-of-state abortion options. (Sorry, honey, the First Amendment is only for men.) In Texas, theyve even tried to prevent women from driving to other states for abortion services. Women behind the wheel is generally a bad idea anyway, are we right? So come Nov. 5, ladies, you should walk to the polling places and vote to protect yourselves. Displaced people from southern Lebanon are seen in Tripoli, Lebanon, on Sept. 27, 2024. This week's violence in Lebanon has forced more than 90,000 people from their homes, with 70,000 cramming into 400 schools and other sites, UN humanitarians said on Thursday. (Photo by Khaled Habashiti/Xinhua) UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- This week's violence in Lebanon has forced more than 90,000 people from their homes, with 70,000 cramming into 400 schools and other sites, UN humanitarians said on Thursday. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) tallied the number of displacements since Monday with data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which reported it expects the numbers to increase. OCHA said it is gravely concerned over the safety of civilians on both sides of the Blue Line between Israel and Lebanon. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Syria estimated that more than 10,000 people -- both Lebanese and Syrians -- have crossed from Lebanon into Syria due to the hostilities. The office said the world body and its partners provide food, water, mattresses and hygiene kits. The recent escalation of violence is also affecting education, health and other vital civilian facilities in Lebanon. OCHA said Lebanon's Ministry of Education postponed the start of the school year until Oct. 14, which affects thousands of students nationwide. The office said Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday damaged four more water stations, bringing the total number of such facilities impacted since October 2023 to 24, affecting access to clean water for more than 250,000 people. OCHA said the fighting forced 18 primary healthcare centers to close on Thursday. The UN Population Fund said it provides productive health and dignity kits to displaced women and girls. At the same time, the UN Children's Fund, UNICEF, delivered essential supplies, including water, blankets, and hygiene kits, to collective shelters. The World Food Programme reported pre-positioning enough food to support 250,000 people for five days, with the UN relief agency for Palestinians, known as UNRWA, and IOM also providing mattresses, blankets and additional supplies to support displaced people. OCHA said that the United Nations and its humanitarian partners need additional resources to sustain the response to urgent needs. On the margins of the annual General Debate in the great General Assembly Hall, a ministerial-level meeting was held on UNRWA, its funding and the situation in Gaza, where the current hostilities began on Oct. 7, 2023, before spilling over into the West Bank and Lebanon. "We have failed the people of Gaza," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the meeting. "They are in a living hell that somehow gets even worse by the day." Yet, he said, if there is any outpost of hope in the hellscape, it is UNRWA. He defended the agency mandated to support Palestinians whether in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria or the West Bank. After the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, the Israeli government accused staff members of UNRWA of participating in the deadly raid and donor contributions for the agency plummeted. "In the face of the catastrophic conditions, UNRWA perseveres," Guterres said, adding that donations are recovering. "This is a tribute to the resilience of the women and men of UNRWA." He voiced complete confidence in UNRWA's continued commitment "to upholding the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality, and humanity." An 80th Fighter Squadron pilot lands an F-16 Fighting Falcon at Kunsan Air Base, South Korea, Oct. 8, 2019. (Joshua Edwards/U.S. Air Force) SEOUL, South Korea The crash of an Air Force fighter jet off South Koreas western coast last year was due to the loss of instrumentation and poor weather, according to a 7th Air Force news release Friday. The F-16C Fighting Falcon was over the Yellow Sea on Dec. 11 when it crashed due to loss of primary flight and navigation instruments during adverse weather conditions, the release states. The fighter belonged to the 8th Fighter Wing at Kunsan Air Base, 115 miles south of Seoul. The pilot survived the crash although the aircraft was a total loss, according to 7th Air Force. The Accident Investigation Board found that the F-16s loss of flight and navigation instruments was prompted by the failure of an embedded GPS inertial navigation system. That systems failure, along with the unidentified pilots reliance on other indicators that showed inaccurate readings, led to spatial disorientation, according to the release. Weather conditions, including dense cloud coverage 13 minutes after takeoff, exacerbated problems that popped up during the flight, the release said. Guided by navigation and altitude information from a wingman, the pilot attempted to fly at a lower altitude to find a cloud-free sky. However, the mismatch in data between the standby indicator and the wingmans cues resulted in further spatial disorientation and prompted the pilots decision to eject over water at 1,730 feet, according to the release. The pilot was later rescued by the South Korean navy and coast guard and airlifted to Kunsan by a South Korean air force helicopter, 7th Air Force said at the time. Another F-16 assigned to the 8th Fighter Wing crashed into the Yellow Sea on Jan. 31. The investigation into that crash is ongoing. Preliminary findings indicate the two crashes are unrelated, the release said. A Kunsan-based F-16 crashed into a farm field near Osan Air Base during a routine flight on May 6, 2023. That crash was caused by power loss and adverse weather conditions, according to the Accident Investigation Board report. The pilot suffered minor injuries. Air Force Uniform Office members 1st Lt. Avery Thomson and 2nd Lt. Maverick Wilhite model updated versions of the Air Force physical training uniform at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, Feb. 25, 2021. (Jim Varhegyi/U.S. Air Force) After a two-year delay, the Air Force anticipates the new gender-specific uniform for physical training to be available on a limited basis in November. The PT uniform short-sleeve shirt, running shorts, all-purpose shorts and warm-up suit was originally scheduled for release in 2022, Air Force spokeswoman Ciara Travis told Stars and Stripes by email Thursday. The uniform is now expected in November at select Army and Air Force Exchange Service locations in the continental United States, she said. When the Air Force announced the new uniform back in 2021, it planned on a four-year transition before it became mandatory wear. Travis did not say when the new workout clothing would be available at bases overseas. Some optional items, including a long-sleeve shirt and sweatshirt, are in development and will be available later, she said. That process took longer than expected, she said. Fielding the new uniform required time to find mandatory government sources and collaborate with domestic fabric manufacturers to meet technical requirements for the materials, Travis said. The Berry Amendment and Buy American Act require certain products purchased by the Department of Defense to be manufactured and purchased within the United States. The Space Force launched its new physical training uniforms in March for basic trainees; the Air Force followed shortly thereafter. The Air Force began providing the new AF PT uniform to Airmen in basic training as of July 2024, Travis said. The items issued included the short-sleeve shirt, running shorts, all-purpose shorts and track suit. The Space Force PT uniform is based on the latest Air Force PT uniform designs, the Defense Logistics Agency announced in June. The outfit will have improved fabrics that include soft, quick-drying material with antimicrobial technology that helps with moisture and odor control, and fabric that minimizes noise. The 10-piece gender-specific PT uniform five pieces each for men and women replaces a four-piece unisex uniform, according to the agency release. Adding additional production lines to the already fragile industry base came with challenges, David James, clothing and textiles customer operations cell chief for Air Force and Space Force clothing, said in the release. The Myrtle Hazard, one of three Guam-based Coast Guard fast-response cutters, is pictured near the island on May 13, 2024. (Sara Muir/U.S. Coast Guard) The Coast Guard will double its Guam fleet to six cutters but doesnt plan to accompany the Philippine coast guard as it struggles to maintain territorial claims in the South China Sea, the services Pacific-area commander said Friday. The service is part of the U.S. military expansion on Guam, Vice Adm. Andrew Tiongson said during a video call from Japan with news reporters. Billions are already invested in building a new Marine Corps base and improving Andersen Air Force Base on the island. We are also expanding our footprint in Guam, Tiongson said, adding that funding is already secured for three more Sentinel-class fast-response cutters to be homeported on the island. The Coast Guard will not escort Philippine resupply missions to the BRP Sierra Madre, a grounded warship garrisoned by Filipino troops at the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea, according to Tiongson. No, he answered succinctly when asked during the call. Three fast-response cutters have been stationed at Coast Guard Forces Micronesia Sector Guam since July 2021. Each of the 154-foot-long vessels has a crew of 24 and is equipped with advanced command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, according to the Coast Guards website. The cutters can move faster than 28 knots and cover 2,500 nautical miles during a five-day patrol. They are armed with a stabilized 25-mm machine gun mount and four crew-served .50-caliber machine guns, the website states. The Coast Guard exercised a $113.1 million contract option May 8 with Bollinger Shipyards of Lockport, La., for two more Sentinel-class cutters. Sixty-seven are planned. Fifty-five FRCs are in operational service, operating out of 13 homeports located across the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf Coasts, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Guam, the service said in a May 16 news release. The fast-response cutters are ideal for the Pacific, Tiongson said. A lot of our partners dont have big navies, but they have patrol vessels like that 150-foot cutter, he said. The cutters are outfitted for search and rescue, maritime law enforcement, maritime security and humanitarian assistance and disaster response. Tiongson didnt say when the new cutters would arrive on Guam, but said the Harriet Lane, a medium-endurance cutter homeported since December at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, patrols the Western Pacific. Its possible we may get another Indo-Pacific support cutter, he said. The Harriet Lane visited Australia in March. And one of the Guam-based cutters, the Frederick Hatch, went to the Philippines last fall. The service is looking for a port in Japan or Australia where cutters can routinely replenish and allow crew some time ashore, Tiongson said. A Coast Guard patrol is planned for next year in the West Philippine Sea, with observers aboard from Australia, India and Japan, Tiongson said. The four nations leaders agreed to the patrol on Sept. 21 in Delaware. Tiongson said he anticipates no aggression aimed at U.S. cutters by either Chinese or Russian vessels. The Philippines has clashed repeatedly this year with the Chinese coast guard in disputed territory in the South China Sea. The Philippines has not asked for escorts, Tiongson said. We do advise, and we do assist, he said. We provide what we would do in this situation. A sailor welds metal to the deck onboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis in Newport News, Va., in October 2023. (Curtis Burdick/U.S. Navy) Newport News Shipbuilding has notified the Navy and Department of Justice that welding done on some submarines and aircraft carriers at its shipyard was defective, according to a report Thursday by USNI News. The faulty welds, which may have been done intentionally, were made on noncritical components on in-service subs and carriers, the report states. Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, is the sole maker of carriers for the Navy and one of only two firms that make submarines. Huntington Ingalls told the Navy that welding not following proper procedure was discovered on new construction and submarines and on Ford-class aircraft carriers now in service, USNI reported. The report cited a memo from Nickolas Guertin, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, to Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti. The memo said welders did not follow proper methods in welding certain joints, and it appeared that the faulty work was done intentionally, USNI reported. The shipbuilder informed the Department of Justice of its findings, the report said. In a statement to USNI on Thursday, Newport News said its internal reporting discovered that some welds did not meet its quality standards. Upon this discovery, we took immediate action to communicate with our customers and regulators, investigate, determine root cause, bound these matters and insert immediate corrective actions to prevent any recurrence of these issues, the statement read. HIIs Newport News Shipbuilding is committed to building the highest-quality aircraft carriers and submarines for the U.S. Navy, the statement continued. We do not tolerate any conduct that compromises our companys values and our mission of delivering ships that safeguard our nation and its sailors. The Navy said in a statement to USNI Thursday that a thorough evaluation is underway to determine the scope of the problem. The safety of our Sailors and our ships is of paramount importance, the statement read. We are working closely with industry partners to address this situation and will provide additional information when available. Americas shipyards have been grappling for years with a shortage of workers, a problem exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Del Toro, while speaking in April at the Stimson Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said supply-chain issues arising from the pandemic had hindered shipyards ability to meet delivery schedules for ships. A bigger problem, however, was the lack of blue-collar workers that we have in this country, Del Toro said. M23 rebels stand with their weapons in Kibumba, in the eastern of Democratic Republic of Congo, Dec. 23, 2022. (Moses Sawasawa/AP) KINSHASA, Congo Rwandas army and a militia it backs shelled camps for displaced people in eastern Congo, Human Rights Watch said. It also accused Congo of abuses against civilians. A report by the group released Thursday said that since the beginning of the year, Rwandas army and the M23 rebel armed group, which it supports, have indiscriminately shelled camps in eastern Congo where tens of thousands of people are sheltering. Congos army, meanwhile, has put displaced people at increased risk by deploying artillery near the camps, the report said. Both sides have killed camp residents, committed rapes and obstructed aid, it said. Eastern Congo has struggled with armed violence as more than 120 armed groups fight for power, land and valuable mineral resources while others try to defend their communities. Some armed groups have been accused of mass killings, rapes and other human rights violations. The violence has displaced some 6 million people in the east. The March 23 Movement, or M23, is a rebel military group mainly made up of ethnic Tutsis that broke away from the Congolese army just over a decade ago. They staged a large offensive in 2012 and took over the provincial capital of Goma near the border with Rwanda, the same city they are threatening again. Congo alleges that Rwandan forces have been involved in aggression and war crimes in the east and U.S. and U.N. experts accuse it of giving military backing to M23. Rwanda denies the claim, but in February admitted that it has troops and missile systems in eastern Congo to safeguard its security, pointing to a buildup of Congolese forces near the border. In July, U.N. experts estimated that between 3,000 and 4,000 Rwanda government forces are deployed in eastern Congo alongside the M23 armed group, which has been making major advances. On Thursday, a regional court in East Africa opened proceedings in a case filed by Congo against Rwanda, accusing it of violating Congos sovereignty and territorial integrity by sending troops to help rebels in the countrys east. Earlier this week, Congos President Felix Tshisekedi called for sanctions on neighboring Rwanda for its alleged support of the M23 in his speech at the U.N. General Assembly. McMakin reported from Dakar, Senegal A hypersonic glide body launches from the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii, March 19, 2020, during a Department of Defense flight experiment. (U.S. Navy) FORT SHAFTER, Hawaii The Navy intends to significantly increase the level of training on Kauai and an uninhabited island that would exponentially step up the tempo of missile and rocket launches, amphibious and drone operations and airport use by helicopters by the joint force. The Navy laid out its plans for the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai in a draft environmental assessment issued in August. The plan would increase the frequency of 13 types of training and testing activities that take place on the Barking Sands installation on Kauai and on Kaula, an uninhabited Hawaiian island to the southwest. Barking Sands lies on a coastal strip on the west side of Kauai and is part of a missile range with an operational area that includes more than 1,100 square miles of underwater range and more than 42,000 square miles of controlled airspace, according to the Navy. The range is capable of simultaneously supporting surface, underwater, air and space operations. The Missile Defense Agency routinely uses the range for testing ballistic missile prototypes. Under its proposed plan, the Navy would continue using the range as it has in the past but increase training and testing conducted by the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and the Missile Defense Agency. Training and testing activities may also include the participation of foreign militaries under U.S. sponsorship and oversight, the draft assessment states. The assessment concludes that the added activities would not significantly affect air quality, climate change and greenhouse gases, noise, public health and safety and biological and cultural resources, The Navy is not proposing new types of training or testing at Barking Sands or Kaula, a 135-acre crescent-shaped isle about 55 miles southwest of Kauai. Kaula would see increases in air-to-ground bombing exercises, and air-to-ground gunnery exercises. About 11 acres in the south of the island is used for those exercises. Live fire is prohibited on Kaula. The number of bombing exercises, which involve training of strike fighter aircraft delivering inert ordnance on the island, would increase from 12 to 31. In gunnery drills, strike fighters and helicopter crews use guns and inert rockets to attack the island. Those exercises would increase from 14 to 24 per year. Some activities on Kauai would increase far more dramatically, in certain cases by more than 2,100%. Among the plans expected annual increases for activities are: Drone and counter-drone operations, from two to 45, a 2,150% increase. Movements by units over land to new locations, from one to 22, a 2,100% increase. Helicopter and Osprey landing-zone operations at airport, from one to 12, a 1,100% increase. Establishing and operating tactical field command posts, communication systems, radar tracking and surveillance systems, optical tracking systems and electronic warfare equipment, from nine to 70, a 678% increase. Amphibious operations, from four to 26, a 550% increase. Launches of missile, rockets and aerial-target drones, from 25 to 35. Non-live fire missile or rocket system launch preparations, from one to six. Establishing and operating forward arming and refueling points for fighter jets, helicopters, cargo planes and Ospreys, from one to 20. The Navys plan was developed with the joint services and the MDA to identify training and testing activities that were not being supported at other locations and for which [the missile range] was already supporting due to the availability of facilities and range assets, the assessment states. Then, taking into consideration factors such as safety, range capability and test scheduling, the Navy determined the tempo of training and testing activities the range could support into the reasonably foreseeable future, the assessment states. The draft assessment is posted at www.pmrf-kpgo-eis.com/media/2lspojsq/pmrflbtdraftenvironmentalassessmentaugust2024.pdf. A final environmental impact statement is expected to be released next year for public review and comment. Chung Pui-kuen, the former chief editor of Hong Kong's now shuttered pro-democracy news outlet Stand News, arrives at the Wanchai District Court ahead of the final sentencing of Stand News sedition case in Wan Chai district court in Hong Kong on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (May James/AP ) HONG KONG A Hong Kong court sentenced a former editor of a shuttered news publication to 21 months in prison on Thursday in a sedition case widely seen as an indicator of media freedom in the city, once hailed as a beacon of press freedom in Asia. A second editor was freed after his sentence was reduced because of ill health and time already served in custody. Former Stand News editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen and former acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam are the first journalists convicted under a colonial-era sedition law since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Chung was sentenced to 21 months but is expected to stay in prison for about 10 months given his pre-conviction detention. Lam was also sentenced but allowed to go free. The online news outlet was one of the last in Hong Kong that dared to criticize authorities as Beijing imposed a crackdown on dissidents following massive pro-democracy protests in 2019. Its closure in December 2021 came months after the demise of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, whose jailed founder Jimmy Lai is battling collusion charges under a tough national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020. Last month, the court found Chung and Lam guilty of conspiracy to publish and reproduce seditious materials, along with Best Pencil (Hong Kong) Ltd., Stand News holding company. They faced up to two years in prison and a fine of 5,000 Hong Kong dollars (about $640). The company was fined that amount. Judge Kwok Wai-kin began Thursdays sentencing hearing two hours after the scheduled time. The journalists lawyer, Audrey Eu, requested sentence mitigation, saying Lam had been diagnosed with a rare disease and she was concerned that he could not be treated by the hospital handling his case if he were sent to jail again. A member of the public stands outside the District Court in Wan Chai, Hong Kong, ahead of a sentencing hearing for two former Stand News editors convicted of sedition, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (May James/AP) She argued that they should be sentenced to up to time served, saying their case was different because they were journalists whose duties were to report different peoples views. The defendants were detained for nearly a year after their arrests before being released on bail in late 2022. In his sentencing, Kwok dismissed the defenses argument that the journalists had unintentionally fallen afoul of the law, and accused them of siding with the protesters. Since Stand News had a mass following, the seditious articles caused serious harm to the Beijing and Hong Kong governments, he said. The three defendants were not engaged in genuine media work but were instead participating in the so-called resistance of that time, he said. Eu told the court that the articles in question represented only a small portion of what Stand News had published. The defendants also stressed their journalistic mission in their mitigation letters. On Thursday morning, dozens of people waited in line to secure a seat in the courtroom. Former Stand News reader Andrew Wong said he wanted to attend the hearing to show his support, though he felt it was like attending a funeral. Wong, who works in a non-governmental organization, said he expected the convictions last month, but still felt a sense that weve passed a point of no return when he heard the verdict. Everything we had in the past is gone, he said. Their trial, which began in October 2022, lasted some 50 days. The verdict was postponed several times for reasons including a wait for an appeal outcome in another landmark sedition case. Rights groups swiftly expressed concern about media freedom in the city after Thursdays sentencing. The Hong Kong Journalists Association said the sentences reflect the ongoing decline of press freedom and the real dangers faced by journalists. Patrick Lam, the former acting editor-in-chief of Hong Kong's now shuttered pro-democracy news outlet Stand News gestures to the gathered media as he leaves the Wanchai District Court after the final sentencing of Stand News sedition case in Wan Chai district court in Hong Kong on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (May James/AP ) There is nothing wrong with safeguarding national security, but allowing journalists to speak out and enabling society to speak freely is necessary to maintain Hong Kongs prosperity and stability, it said in a statement. Cedric Alviani, Asia-Pacific director for media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, said Chung and Lam were serving the publics interest and should never have been detained. He urged the international community to increase pressure on China to secure the release of Chung and other journalists detained in the city. Amnesty Internationals China director, Sarah Brooks, said the sentences given to the defendants simply for doing their job makes this another bleak day for press freedom in Hong Kong. The government said in a statement that justice was upheld in the sentencing, adding that foreign media and both anti-China politicians and organizations have made false comments to smear the city since the verdict was delivered. In the United States, Rep. Michael McCaul, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the court ruling showed Beijings political motivations and pervasive control over society. Hong Kong is no longer the vibrant, free city it once was; citizens now face the chilling reality that exercising their civil liberties including free speech can lead to prosecution under Chinese law, the Republican congressman said in a statement. Sen. Ben Cardin, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on social platform X that the 21-month sentence for Chung was another indication Hong Kongs once free press has been trampled by Beijing and Hong Kong authorities. Hong Kong was ranked 135 out of 180 territories in Reporters Without Borders latest World Press Freedom Index, down from 80 in 2021 and 18 in 2002. Self-censorship has also become more common during the political crackdown on dissent following the 2019 protests, with increased reports of harassment against journalists in recent months. In March, the city government enacted another new security law that raised concerns about further curtailment of press freedom. Hong Kong officials insist the two security laws are necessary to maintain stability and that there are no restrictions on media freedom when journalists report the facts. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, watches a missile launch alongside military officials in this image released by the state-run Korean Central News Agency on Sept. 19, 2024. (KCNA) SEOUL, South Korea Pyongyang could test a nuclear weapon or launch an intercontinental ballistic missile on the heels of the U.S. presidential election, South Koreas spy agency recently told lawmakers, according to a local media report. The National Intelligence Service believes North Korea has 154 pounds of plutonium and an unspecified amount of highly enriched uranium to craft nuclear weapons, according to the Yonhap News report, which cited South Korean lawmakers reportedly briefed by the agency. A show of force by North Korea could be an attempt to boost confidence among the population amid the extremely dire economic situation, Rep. Lee Seong-Kweun of the ruling People Power Party said in the report. South Korean national security adviser Shin Won Sik, during a separate televised interview with Yonhap on Monday, said it was entirely possible that Pyongyang could conduct a nuclear test around the time of the U.S. presidential election. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un can conduct a nuclear test at a time of his choosing, Shin said, adding the dictator would likely do so after considering its strategic advantages. A Sept. 13 report by the Norths state-run Korean Central News Agency unveiled a purported uranium enrichment facility at an undisclosed location. Kim at the time said increasing the production of nuclear materials was necessary for the manufacture of tactical nuclear weapons, according to KCNA. North Korea has detonated six underground nuclear devices since 2006. The regime last tested what it claimed was a hydrogen bomb in 2017. It has also fired more than 40 ballistic missiles in 10 separate days of testing so far this year. The communist regime last fired several short-range ballistic missiles on Sept. 18 that flew northeast roughly 250 miles from South Pyongan province, according to the Souths Joint Chiefs of Staff. Those short-range ballistic missiles were upgraded to carry a 4.5-ton warhead, KCNA reported the following day. Locals lead a multinational force of service members to unexploded ordnance in Ringgi Cove, Kolombangara, Solomon Islands, Sept. 9, 2024. (Kassie McDole/U.S. Marine Corps) Explosive ordnance technicians from six countries helped remove more than 3,200 World War II-era bombs, shells and bullets from the Solomon Islands this month. Sixty-five U.S. soldiers and Marines supported the largest iteration of Operation Render Safe in the islands, Army 1st Lt. Joe Gardner, who led American troops during the mission, said by phone Friday. The operation, in its 20th year, is an annual Australian-led mission to clear World War II ordnance from the Pacific, according to the Australian Defence Force website. Troops from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea also took part in the mission. The Allies liberated the Solomons from the Japanese during the war. More than 7,000 Marines died during the seven-month Battle of Guadalcanal. However, U.S. and Australian officials were stunned when Solomon Islands announced in early 2022 that it was entering into a security agreement with China, opening the possibility that Beijing could use the nation to bolster its military presence in the region. Marine Corps Sgt. William Barker, an explosive ordnance disposal technician with Marine Rotational Force Darwin, uncovers a World War II-era shell in Munda, New Georgia, Solomon Islands, Sept. 9, 2024. (Juan Torres/U.S. Marine Corps) China has no such long-serving commitment as Render Safe in the region nor do Chinese troops have the experience that previous bomb disposal projects have brought to American, Australiana and New Zealand teams, New Zealand-based security expert Paul Buchanan said by email Friday. This and previous exercises of the kind simply reaffirm the WW2 allies commitment to the people of the Solomons and elsewhere in Melanesia that they will continue to do their part in making regional landscapes safe again, he said. If that helps off-set or balance PRC [Peoples Republic of Chinas] diplomatic efforts in the region, then as far as the WW2 allies are concerned, that is an added bonus. U.S. personnel involved in Render Safe included bomb technicians from U.S. Army Pacific and Marine Rotational Force Darwin, which will soon wrap a six-month mission in Australia, said Gardner, an explosive ordnance disposal officer with 303rd EOD Battalion, 8th Military Police Brigade, 8th Theater Sustainment Command. Explosive ordnance disposal teams worked on three small islands in the Solomons with an aviation component based in the capital, Honiara, 217 miles to the east, the Australian Defence Force said in a Sept. 19 statement. Soldiers and Marines encountered numerous battle remnants, from rusting helmets to downed aircraft, in the jungle and underwater during the mission, Gardner said. With the vegetation, a lot of stuff is relatively untouched, he said. Divers saw a bomber with its wings attached underwater. Disposing of conventional munitions is the core mission of explosive ordnance troops, Gardner said. In recent years, the technicians have been focused on that mission after years of dealing with improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said. This (work in the Solomons) is the same job we would be doing downrange, he said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to press during a joint press conference with Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Israel, April 12, 2021. (Jackie Sanders/U.S. Air Force) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to hold talks on a U.S.-proposed cease-fire in Lebanon aimed at averting a major war, appearing to soften his stance after earlier pushing back on the plan amid domestic opposition. Israel will take part in deliberations on the proposal for a three-week truce with Hezbollah in the coming days, Netanyahus office said in an overnight statement. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer have already held talks on the matter, according to the White House. Israel appreciates the U.S. efforts in this regard because the U.S. role is indispensable in advancing stability and security in the region, the statement from Netanyahus office said. The U.S.-led diplomatic push is seen as a last-ditch attempt to prevent this weeks escalation of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah from spiraling into a full-scale conflict. Israel has said its preparing to stage a potential ground invasion of neighboring Lebanon, which would risk dragging in key ally Washington as well as Hezbollahs sponsor Iran. Israel has been targeting the militant group with intensive air strikes since Monday, killing more than 600 people, including at least 50 children, according to Lebanese officials. Tens of thousands of Lebanese have fled the bombardment in the countrys south. Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at Israel in response including its first-ever attempt to target Tel Aviv in the worst violence between the two sides since a 2006 war. Netanyahu who is in New York to address the annual United Nations General Assembly later Friday had earlier vowed the military would maintain its bombardment of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon until all Israels objectives have been achieved. Chief among those is the return of Israels northern residents to their homes, the Israeli premier said, and thats likely to be achieved only if Hezbollah is persuaded to stop firing missiles permanently and moves its fighters back from the border. Foreign Minister Israel Katz posted on X that there will be no cease-fire, while Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the aim of the armed forces is to keep throwing Hezbollah off balance and deepening their loss. The statements by Israels top ministers appeared to block attempts led by U.S. President Joe Biden and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, to secure a halt to the fighting. Washington has previously been unable to clinch a cease-fire agreement in Gaza, where Israel has been at war with Palestinian group Hamas for almost a year, despite repeated attempts alongside Egypt and Qatar. U.S. officials expressed some frustration. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday that the Biden administration had coordinated the truce initiative with Israel. We wouldnt have made that statement, we wouldnt have worked on that if we didnt have reason to believe that the conversations that we were having with the Israelis in particular were supportive of the goal there, he told reporters. Netanyahu initially made verbal commitments to support the Lebanon cease-fire proposal but backtracked after mounting political pressure inside Israel, Haaretz newspaper reported, citing unidentified diplomats familiar with the matter. One of his far-right allies, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, threatened to quit the ruling coalition if a permanent truce is reached. Such a move has the potential to bring down the government, which depends on the support of various factions for its majority. Netanyahus domestic critics have long accused him of sustaining the Gaza war to ensure political survival, though Hamas has taken a similarly uncompromising line, despite the destruction of much of its military capability. Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging rocket fire since the start of the war in Gaza, and the militant group has long said it would keep up the attacks as long as Israel maintains its offensive against Hamas. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are backed by Iran and are designated terrorist organizations by the U.S., although Hezbollah is considered much more powerful. The U.S., European states and Arab powers including Saudi Arabia and Qatar unveiled the proposed truce on Wednesday, saying it would allow time for negotiations on a broader agreement between Israel and Hezbollah. The United Arab Emirates urged the U.S. not to shy away from exercising its influence over Israel to push for a halt in hostilities. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking in London, told reporters Thursday that another full-scale war could be devastating for both Israel and Lebanon. He said a diplomatic solution, not a military solution, is the only way to ensure that displaced civilians on both sides of the border can finally go back home. In the past week, Israel has killed top Hezbollah commanders with strikes, and many members were maimed in an operation in which thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies exploded. Hezbollah and Iran blamed Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility. Israel says it has destroyed a significant part of Hezbollahs missile arsenal. Overnight, Israel said it intercepted a missile from Yemen outside its territory. Yemens Iran-backed Houthi rebels have fired missiles and drones at Israel in solidarity with Hamas amid the almost year-long war with the Israeli military in Gaza. PHNOM PENH, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia received 4.29 million foreign visitors in the first eight months of 2024, up 22.5 percent from 3.5 million over the same period last year, said a Ministry of Tourism's report released on Friday. Thailand still topped the chart among the international tourist arrivals to the Southeast Asian country during the January-August period this year, followed by Vietnam and China, the report said. About 1.34 million Thais traveled to Cambodia, up 13 percent, the report said. According to the report, 35.8 percent of the total international tourists reached Cambodia by air, and 64.2 percent by land and waterways. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said in a message to mark the World Tourism Day that tourism is the kingdom's "green gold," importantly contributing to boosting socio-economic development. He said the country is expected to "attract nearly 6 million international tourists in 2024 and up to 7 million in 2026." He is confident that the Chinese-invested 4E-level Siem Reap Angkor International Airport, which commenced commercial operations in November 2023, and the 4F-class Techo International Airport, which is expected to be put into use in the first half of 2025, will play an important role in serving tourists in the long run. Tourism is one of the four pillars supporting the country's economy. The sector made a gross revenue of 3.08 billion U.S. dollars in 2023, creating some 450,000 direct jobs, according to the Ministry of Tourism. Navy ships shot down a barrage of missiles and drones launched by Houthi rebels from Yemen at the shipping lanes of the Red Sea, the Pentagon said Sept. 27, 2024. (Daniel Kimmelman/U.S. Navy) Navy ships intercepted a Houthi barrage of missiles and drones launched from Yemen at the shipping lanes of the Red Sea, the Pentagon confirmed Friday, while also denying reports that any ships were hit in the attack. We did see a complex attack launched from the Houthis that ranged from cruise missiles and [unmanned aerial vehicles], said Sabrina Singh, deputy press secretary for the Defense Department. The Iran-backed Houthi claimed Friday to have damaged three U.S. Navy warships in a bombardment of 23 missiles and bomber drones. The Navy destroyers, the Houthis military spokesperson said in a televised speech, were targeted as they transited the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea. The Bab al-Mandeb Strait connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, between Yemen. My understanding is that those were either engaged and shot down or failed, Singh said, referring to the Houthi missiles and drones. No U.S. military ships were struck, and there were no injuries to U.S. service members, she also said. The USS Abraham Lincoln and its carrier strike group are in the region. The strike group includes three destroyers: USS Spruance, USS Stockdale, and USS OKane. Singh on Friday declined to say whether the destroyers were the intended targets of the Houthi missiles. We did what we had to do to protect our forces, and at the end of the day, no ship was hit -- no damage and no injuries to our personnel, she said. U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for military assets across the Middle East, and the Navy Office of Information confirmed the sea service intercepted the missiles but referred additional questions back to the Pentagon. U.S. soldiers with the 630th Ordinance Company, assisted by French troops, conduct a controlled detonation at al Asad Air Base in Iraq on Dec. 29, 2023. (Quince Lanford/U.S. Army) WASHINGTON U.S. troops will remain in Iraq as the two countries agree to a two-phased transition of the American-led mission to defeat the Islamic State, U.S. officials said Friday. To be clear, the United States is not withdrawing from Iraq, a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity told reporters. This announcement comes after a decade of success from extraordinary international cooperation between coalition partners, Iraqi security forces and the U.S. military in territorially defeating ISIS in the core regions of Iraq and Syria. The first phase will conclude the anti-ISIS coalitions military mission in Iraq and end the deployment of coalition forces in certain locations in Iraq by September 2025, the U.S. official said. Officials did not say how many troops will remain in Iraq or where they will be stationed. Were not going to speak to our plans concerning specific base locations or troop numbers, said a defense official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. For now, that remains in a planning process and under review. But U.S. and Iraq officials have agreed to allow coalition troops to continue to support anti-ISIS operations in Syria from Iraq through the second phase of the transition until at least September 2026. For 10 years, U.S.-led coalition forces have battled ISIS, since the terrorist group launched a blitzkrieg across eastern Syria and into Iraq, capturing massive swaths of both countries, including about one-third of Iraq. Then-President Barack Obama amassed the coalition to launch an air campaign against ISIS. Later that year, the U.S. began sending forces back into Iraq to train and advise Iraqi military forces to fight off the group. That campaign has continued, despite ISIS fighters having lost almost all their land in Iraq by 2017. The U.S. declared an end to its combat portion of the anti-ISIS mission in 2021 but retained about 2,500 troops in Iraq, saying they would remain indefinitely in a support role. There are also about 900 troops in Syria. A defense official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, said were not going to speak to our plans concerning specific base locations or troop numbers. Iraqi Defence Minister Thabet al-Abbassi earlier this month told Saudi news channel Al-Hadath that the coalition would pull out from bases in Baghdad and other parts of federal Iraq by September 2025 and from the autonomous northern Kurdistan region by September 2026, Agence France-Presse reported. He also said U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had said in a meeting that two years were not enough to carry out the withdrawal. The justifications are no longer there, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said Sept. 15 in an interview with Bloomberg. There is no need for a coalition. We have moved on from wars to stability. ISIS is not really representing a challenge. The two countries agreed to form a Higher Military Commission last August for discussions about the U.S.-led military coalitions next phase in its mission to defeat ISIS. The U.S. and Iraq began formal conversations in January about ending the coalition. A defense official at the time said the High Military Commission meeting was not a negotiation about the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. U.S. bases in the region have been prone to attacks. After the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants on Israel, Iran-linked groups launched some 175 rocket and drone strikes on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria. The announcement follows a recent increase of attacks between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon as fighting in the Middle East continues to intensify. The U.S. has expanded its forces in the region in the last several months to help defend Israel, as well as protect American and allied personnel and assets. Army Maj. Michael Stockin, 38, is a doctor charged with molesting soldiers and veterans during medical appointments at Madigan Army Medical Center at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington. He faces 47 counts of abusive sexual contact. (Abner Guzman/U.S. Air Force) An Army doctor charged in one of the militarys largest sexual abuse cases is expected to plead guilty during a hearing scheduled for early next year, according to the service. Maj. Michael Stockin, 38, is charged with molesting 41 soldiers and veterans during medical appointments at Madigan Army Medical Center at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington. He faces 47 counts of abusive sexual contact and five for wrongfully viewing another persons private area. The guilty plea was posted on the Armys online court docket. But the court listing does not state to which charges Stockin will plead guilty, and his attorney and Army officials declined to provide further details. Robert Capovilla, Stockins attorney, confirmed Friday that a plea agreement had been reached between Stockin and the Army. He had previously said his client would fight all accusations before a jury. A court-martial for Stockin is scheduled to begin Jan. 7 and will be held with only military judge, according to the docket. Military Judge Col. Larry Babin has overseen the case since Stockins arraignment in February. If convicted of all charges, Stockin could face a maximum penalty of more than 300 years in jail effectively a life sentence. Stockin, an anesthesiologist and pain management specialist, arrived at Lewis-McChord in June 2019 and the charges accuse him of criminal behavior that began three months later. Patients told investigators that Stockin would touch their private areas under the guise of medical necessity. Army Maj. Michael Stockin, an anesthesiologist and pain management specialist, arrived at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., in June 2019. (MDedge News) Stockin is also locked in civilian court case with his former wife, who filed for divorce in 2022. She also requested a protective order last year to block Stockin from their children, according to Pierce County, Wash., court records. She has accused Stockin of having a problem with alcohol and a history of physical and sexual abuse to his family. Eighteen service members and veterans have also filed administrative claims seeking in total $90 million against the Army, accusing the service of not doing enough to prevent Stockin from harming patients. The Army did not remove him from treating patients immediately upon receiving complaints in February 2022, according to the filings. The administrative claims, all filed under pseudonyms by the law firm Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight, state Stockin abused more than 100 patients and more could be out there who have not chosen to come forward. Stockin holds medical licenses in Nebraska and Washington and both appear in good standing, according to online state records. He attended Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and graduated in 2013 the same year he joined the Army. He deployed to Iraq from October 2020 to February 2021. Other assignments include Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu from June 2013 to July 2014 and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., from July 2014 to July 2019. Stars and Stripes reporter Gary Warner contributed to this report. An F-35B Lightning II idles on the flight deck of amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli during night flight operations Jan. 19, 2022. (Peter Burghart/U.S. Navy) (Tribune News Service) Two former employees are suing an Oregon-based aerospace company, alleging it supplied substandard parts to defense contractors for installation in the U.S. militarys F-35 fighter jets. Selmet Inc. in Albany allegedly falsified records and shipped improperly inspected and poorly finished plane parts to customers to meet production quotas and deadlines, the ex-employees say in the federal suit filed in Eugene. The company fired one of the two workers and pushed the other out by offering him a lower-level job after they both repeatedly reported the alleged fraud to their supervisors, the suit alleges. The F-35s are built with stealth technology for bombing and strafing ground targets and reconnaissance. Selmet is the major subcontractor for engine exhaust nozzle parts and Pratt & Whitney is the governments primary contractor for the engines, according to court records. Imagine a pilot going in to drop bombs and his thrusters go out because we didnt do our work properly, former inspector Stephen Cardwell would frequently say in front of co-workers when raising concerns internally, according to the suit. A judge recently unsealed the whistleblower complaint against Selmet. It was originally filed in 2020. The U.S. government is continuing to investigate the claims and last month notified the court that it hasnt yet decided whether to intervene on behalf of the two whistleblowers, according to court documents. The complaint accuses the manufacturer of violating the False Claims Act. False Claims Act litigants can sue on behalf of the government and be rewarded up to 25% of any settlement if the government intervenes and up to 30% if the government decides not to intervene. Success rates greatly improve when the government signs on to a case. Its typical for the government to seek the sealing of a complaint during its investigation in such cases. The federal act was enacted in 1863 in response to defense contractor fraud during the Civil War. We look forward to litigating the case, said attorney Patrick S. Almonrode, who represents the former employees. Selmet officials and an attorney who represented them in the past didnt respond to email or phone messages seeking comment. John LaPlant of Albany joined the company in October 2017 and was eventually promoted to be a night supervisor in an area of the plant where parts underwent final inspections, testing and finishing steps before shipping, according to the complaint. He was fired July 31, 2019. Cardwell was an inspector on the evening shift from March 2019 until about October 2019, when he was pressured to leave, the complaint says. Selmet, which produces cast titanium parts for the aerospace industry, makes flaps for the exhaust nozzles on the F-35s. Pratt & Whitney buys the flaps from Selmet using U.S. Department of Defense funds. Selmet is expected to put the exhaust nozzle parts through multiple inspection steps before shipping them to customers for installation in military and other civilian planes. At various stages, the part may be welded, ground, heat-treated and subjected to a chemical bath to ensure it fits and functions properly when installed, the suit says. According to the two whistleblowers, Selmet supervisors typically encouraged line workers to cut corners and skip some of these steps or perform them in a slipshod manner to meet production demands. The two defect-detection processes most frequently skipped were liquid-penetrant testing and visual/dimensional inspections using the human eye, X-ray and measurements of a part, according to the suit. The workplace culture at Selmet valued throughput above all other metrics and supervisors typically encouraged workers to ignore flags or inadequate attempts to fix flaws to meet production deadlines, the complaint alleges. The supervisors falsified documents or required workers to falsify documents showing that work had been performed when it had not, and that parts were ready to ship when they were not, the suit says. Pratt & Whitney and other government contractors returned many parts to Selmet, including the exhaust nozzle parts for the F-35 as unserviceable, but the company would sneak them back into the production line with paperwork that didnt show a customer had rejected them, according to the former employees. LaPlant and Cardwell believe that many substandard parts were installed in F-35s and other military planes, according to their complaint. When LaPlant raised concerns, supervisors told him that he was worrying about things that were not part of his job, that he had to pick his battles, and he needed to do things, the Selmet way, according to the suit. When LaPlant was called into a supervisors office on July 31, 2019, he was told he was being fired for not responding to work emails promptly what he contends was a pretext for getting rid of him because of his concerns. Cardwell alleged that supervisors frequently overrode his rejection of parts that failed his inspection and falsified paperwork to be able to ship them, the suit says. In some cases, someone else at the company put his employee number on the paperwork to indicate he had cleared the parts, the suit alleges. In October 2019, Cardwell was given the choice of taking a lower-level job or moving to day shift as an inspector but report to two supervisors who had already demeaned and mocked him whenever he complained, according to the suit. The complaint seeks a civil penalty against Selmet, as well as a court order directing the company to cease its alleged fraud, help the government and contractors find and remove any faulty parts on military aircraft and replace them at Selmets expense. The two former employees are also seeking reinstatement to their jobs and back pay. The F-35 was one of the most expensive weapons systems ever developed, with each jet costing between $89 and $115 million, according to the complaint. Its production came under harsh criticism years ago because the Pentagon, along with Lockheed Martin, planned to test the jets during production and fix problems on the assembly line as they were found to get more of the jets in the air faster, according to an ABC News report in 2012. In 2020, Oregon OSHA fined Selmet $27,500 for violating safety rules after an Aug. 15, 2019, furnace explosion at the foundry injured two workers. The blast blew the roof off part of the building and left one worker with multiple burns to his head, neck, arms, and chest. The force of the blast threw another worker into a parts table. The investigation identified three serious violations, including problems with the plants layout and design and inadequate work clothing and equipment, according to OSHA. 2024 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. JD Vance speaks during a campaign event in Asheboro, N.C., on Aug. 21, 2024. (Chuck Burton/AP) Elon Musks X suspended an independent journalist on Thursday for sharing an unverified dossier on vice presidential candidate JD Vance containing his personal information, with the billionaire CEO calling the spread of the document one of the most egregious, evil doxing actions weve ever seen. The incident hearkened to another moment, just weeks before the 2020 election, when the social media platform took the unusual step of restricting a news article based on documents purported to be lifted from the laptop of President Joe Bidens son Hunter Biden. The company, then Twitter, initially cited its policies against sharing hacked materials in doing so but later similarly blamed the publication behind it for disclosing private information. Musks reaction to that episode was notably different. Top Republicans and the tech billionaire railed against the decision regarding Hunter Bidens laptop as an attempt to suppress a potentially compromising story and alter the campaign. The mogul later bought the company in a bid partly to prevent such acts, vowing that he would run the company as a free speech absolutist. But content moderation experts said the two incidents bear a striking resemblance, highlighting the thorny calls social networks have been forced to make when facing dubiously sourced or potentially revealing materials in a polarized political environment. Thursdays incident unfolded after reporter Ken Klippenstein shared the 271-page dossier in a newsletter posted on X, claiming the contents were a vetting document on Vance purportedly created by former president Donald Trumps campaign. Several news organizations, including The Washington Post, reported being offered in August what appears to have been a version of the Vance dossier by an anonymous source, and the Justice Department on Friday charged three men with carrying out the alleged hack and leak against the Trump campaign on behalf of the Iranian government. Within a few hours of Klippenstein posting the dossier, X suspended his account. Some other users reported having their accounts locked after sharing his newsletter. In an emailed statement, an X spokesman said Klippenstein was temporarily suspended for violating our rules on posting unredacted private personal information, specifically Sen. Vances physical addresses and the majority of his Social Security number. The company declined to confirm whether it was blocking users from sharing links to the newsletter. Klippenstein disputed Xs rationale for the suspension in a blog post, saying that he never published any private information directly on X only links to the document and that the information contained in the dossier is readily available to anyone to buy. Klippenstein also jabbed Musk for the decision to boot him, despite Musks claim to be a free speech warrior. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, confirmed Friday that it would also block users from sharing Klippensteins newsletter as well as other sources containing the Vance dossier. But unlike X, the company cited its policies against foreign meddling and the sharing of hacked materials as its rationale. Our policies do not allow content from hacked sources or content leaked as part of a foreign government operation to influence US elections, the company said in a statement. We will be blocking such materials from being shared on our apps under our Community Standards. For years, Musk and top Republicans torched Twitters leadership for its decision to temporarily block users from sharing a controversial New York Post article on Hunter Biden during the 2020 campaign. The episode continues to spark outrage on the right, prompting numerous congressional hearings during which the companys former leadership was grilled about the saga. The veracity of the report, which centered on Bidens purported laptop, has been heavily scrutinized. In 2022, The Washington Post verified the authenticity of thousands of emails purportedly taken from the laptop, but found that they made up a small fraction of the data the New York Post story was based on. Just weeks before the 2020 election, the social network took the rare step of locking the New York Posts account and barring users from posting links to the story over concerns it was based on hacked materials, amid concerns over a potential foreign hack-and-leak operation. Facebook, since renamed Meta, also temporarily limited the storys circulation pending a fact-checking review but later lifted the restriction. Twitter soon reversed its decision but continued to block users from sharing the report under a separate rule prohibiting users from publishing private user information the same principle X is now citing to suspend Klippenstein. The story featured screenshots and documents containing peoples email addresses. Twitter ultimately relented and allowed users to share the New York Post story ahead of the election, saying the personal information contained in the story had become readily available and public, and lifted a suspension against the New York Posts account. While Twitter pointed to its policies at the time, worries about a repeat of the Russian hack against Democratic officials during the 2016 campaign loomed over the ordeal. But both companies later said the actions were a mistake, with former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey apologizing for blocking the story and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying they were wrong to demote the article. Conservatives criticized the companies for blocking the New York Post article while allowing some other publications to publish stories based on leaked or hacked materials or that include private information. Musk himself has been a vocal critic of those moves, calling it free speech suppression and questioning whether those who suppressed the story should face jail time. After acquiring the company in October 2022, Musk released internal company communications dubbed the Twitter Files to a Substack writer and announced in a series of threads that they would tell the tale of what really happened with the Hunter Biden story suppression. The threads contained screenshots of messages by Twitter employees including their email addresses discussing various content moderation calls internally and externally. One exchange with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who was critical of Twitters handling of the Hunter Biden story, also contained his email address. Given that history, Evelyn Douek, an assistant professor at Stanford Law School, said the companys decision to restrict the Vance dossier looks like a hypocritical move. Xs blocking of the Hunter Biden laptop story is a cause celebre on the right and the go-to example for them of platform overreach. Here, the information is about not a relative of a political candidate, but a candidate themselves, Douek said. You would think that this is exactly what a free speech platform would protect. Still, Douek said, Xs action appears to follow the spirit of its rules banning users from publishing or posting other peoples private information without their express authorization and permission. Two physical addresses are listed in the vetting document, and both were already public: Vances Washington address is listed on a deed for the home, and the address for his property in Ohio appears in a listing for Kentuckys legal bar. Vance separately owns a home in Alexandria, Va., but the address is not listed in the dossier. The vetting document also contains Vances partial Social Security number, with the last four digits obscured; its not clear whether that had previously been made public. A spokesman for the Trump campaign did not return a request for comment. Quinta Jurecic, a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, said that after taking a more aggressive posture toward content moderation in 2020, social media companies have largely taken a U-turn in 2024 due in large part to the backlash over the Hunter Biden story. Nonetheless, she said, Twitter/X now seems to have decided to take that approach anyway as to this specific piece of content. Will Oremus and Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report. Cameron Coyne (26) was now working with an addiction support team. Judge David McHugh convicted and fined Coyne 350. A father of two caught with cocaine after gardai stopped the car he was in had been battling an addiction to the drug, a court heard. Cameron Coyne (26) was now working with an addiction support team. Judge David McHugh convicted and fined Coyne 350. The defendant, with an address at Kilbreena Crescent, Dunboyne, Co Meath, admitted possession of cocaine for the purposes of sale or supply. Garda Declan Bambrick told Blanchardstown District Court that he was on mobile patrol at Nangor Road in Clondalkin on July 22, 2022, when he stopped and searched a vehicle. Gda Bambrick said Coyne was a front-seat passenger in the car. He tried to run from the vehicle and evade gardai, but he was stopped and taken back to Clondalkin garda station, where cocaine, with a street value of 900, was found. The court heard that Coyne had no previous drug-related convictions. Defence lawyer Mark McMahon said that Coyne, who was an unemployed father of two, was battling an addiction to cocaine at the time of this incident. Mr McMahon said the defendant was working with the Finglas Addiction Support Team (Fast) and was focused on keeping clean. Police said Stella Doyle-Daly had travelled from Thailand via Doha and Heathrow airport. Photograph of the cannabis seizure at Belfast Airport. Photo: NCA A Dublin teenager has been charged after more than 1.1 million worth of cannabis was seized at Belfast Airport. Stella Doyle-Daly (18), from Hanover Street, Dublin, was arrested by officers from the UKs National Crime Agency after she was stopped at the airport on Tuesday. Police said she had travelled from Thailand via Doha and Heathrow airport. A search of two suitcases by Border Force officers found almost 48 kilos of cannabis. The drugs have an estimated street value of more than 1.1 million (956,000). Ms Doyle-Daly was interviewed by NCA officers yesterday and charged with drugs importation offences. She appeared at Laganside Magistrates Court this morning and was remanded in custody until a bail hearing on Tuesday. NCA Belfast Branch Commander David Cunningham said: "The NCA continues in our work to prevent drugs from reaching the streets of Northern Ireland. "We will pursue the organised crime groups behind importations and the couriers paid to transport the drugs across the border. "The gangs behind these smuggling attempts are only interested in making money. Their couriers, who are likely to be arrested and prosecuted, are expendable. "We would appeal to those thinking of getting involved drug smuggling on behalf of these gangs to think about the consequences of their actions you will be identified and prosecuted." The Taicang High-tech Zone (Rhein-Neckar) Innovation Center is officially unveiled at the Taicang Day event held in Hamburg, Germany, Sept. 26, 2024. The Taicang Day event was held Thursday in the northern German city of Hamburg, with participants highlighting the broad prospects for continued win-win cooperation between China and Germany. Neighboring Shanghai, the city of Taicang, spanning approximately 800 square kilometers, is known as the "hometown of German enterprises" in China, with over 530 German enterprises flocking here. Nearly 200 representatives attended the Taicang Day event, including those from Chinese and German business sectors, leaders of German companies and project stakeholders. (Xinhua/Du Zheyu) HAMBURG, Germany, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Taicang Day event was held Thursday in the northern German city of Hamburg, with participants highlighting the broad prospects for continued win-win cooperation between China and Germany. Neighboring Shanghai, the city of Taicang, spanning approximately 800 square kilometers, is known as the "hometown of German enterprises" in China, with over 530 German enterprises flocking here. Nearly 200 representatives attended the Taicang Day event, including those from Chinese and German business sectors, leaders of German companies and project stakeholders. Zhai Qian, minister of economic and commercial affairs at the Chinese Embassy in Germany, noted that the Taicang story perfectly exemplifies the win-win nature of China-Germany economic and trade cooperation. "As China accelerates the development of new quality productive forces, there is significant potential for expanding China-Germany cooperation in emerging fields such as scientific and technological innovation, green and low-carbon development, clean energy, the circular economy, and the digital economy," he said. Hans-Peter Friedrich, a member of Germany's Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, said in a video address that Taicang symbolizes the progress of China-Germany economic relations and serves as a hub for exploring new drivers of economic growth. "German companies have found strong partners in Taicang, partners who bring both expertise and openness to new ideas," said Michael Schumann, chairman of the Board of the German Federal Association for Economic Development and Foreign Trade. "Whether in industrial manufacturing, the automotive sector, environmental technology, or renewable energy, the potential for mutual benefit is immense. This cooperation not only fosters job creation and economic growth in both countries but also drives technological advancements and innovations that are crucial in addressing the global challenges of our time," he said. Kersten Janik, president of VAST LLC, told Xinhua, "We are in Taicang because we believe it offers the best opportunities for us to tap into the Chinese auto market." "I first worked in China in 1990, and since then, I've witnessed the tremendous development in the country's industry and society. I deeply appreciate this progress, and I believe China is a perfect partner for Germany," he said. Michael Schumann, chairman of the Board of the German Federal Association for Economic Development and Foreign Trade, addresses the Taicang Day event held in Hamburg, Germany, Sept. 26, 2024. The Taicang Day event was held Thursday in the northern German city of Hamburg, with participants highlighting the broad prospects for continued win-win cooperation between China and Germany. Neighboring Shanghai, the city of Taicang, spanning approximately 800 square kilometers, is known as the "hometown of German enterprises" in China, with over 530 German enterprises flocking here. Nearly 200 representatives attended the Taicang Day event, including those from Chinese and German business sectors, leaders of German companies and project stakeholders. (Xinhua/Du Zheyu) Guests attend a signing ceremony of related industrial cooperation projects at the Taicang Day event held in Hamburg, Germany, Sept. 26, 2024. The Taicang Day event was held Thursday in the northern German city of Hamburg, with participants highlighting the broad prospects for continued win-win cooperation between China and Germany. Neighboring Shanghai, the city of Taicang, spanning approximately 800 square kilometers, is known as the "hometown of German enterprises" in China, with over 530 German enterprises flocking here. Nearly 200 representatives attended the Taicang Day event, including those from Chinese and German business sectors, leaders of German companies and project stakeholders. (Xinhua/Du Zheyu) Guests attend a discussion at the Taicang Day event held in Hamburg, Germany, Sept. 26, 2024. The Taicang Day event was held Thursday in the northern German city of Hamburg, with participants highlighting the broad prospects for continued win-win cooperation between China and Germany. Neighboring Shanghai, the city of Taicang, spanning approximately 800 square kilometers, is known as the "hometown of German enterprises" in China, with over 530 German enterprises flocking here. Nearly 200 representatives attended the Taicang Day event, including those from Chinese and German business sectors, leaders of German companies and project stakeholders. (Xinhua/Du Zheyu) Killian McNay (39) rented the truck, bought the trailer and hired a driver to transport the drugs from the Netherlands to Ireland, gardai alleged AN OUT-of-work haulier has been accused of orchestrating the importation of 2.8m worth of cocaine that was found in a truck in Dublin Port. Killian McNay (39) rented the truck, bought the trailer and hired a driver to transport the drugs from the Netherlands to Ireland, gardai alleged. Judge Bryan Smyth granted the father-of-four bail at Dublin District Court but set it at 101,000 and remanded him in custody until he is able to take it up. Mr McNay, with an address at Ardilaun Green, Mullingar, Co Westmeath, appeared in court today charged with importation of cocaine and possession of more than 13,000 worth of the drug with intent to sell or supply. The seizure took place at Dublin Port last Sunday, September 22. Detective Garda Philip Walsh told Judge Smyth he arrested the accused for the purpose of charging him at Store Street station at 10pm last night. Mr McNay made no reply after caution and was handed copies of the charge sheets, the court heard. Objecting to bail, the garda said 40kg of cocaine was seized at the port with an estimated street value of 2.8m. Det Gda Walsh said it was alleged Mr McNay bought the trailer and rented the Scania truck that was used in the importation of the drugs. According to the prosecution, Mr McNay hired a co-accused to drive the truck from Holland to Dublin for monetary gain. It was alleged Mr McNay orchestrated the importation and delivery of the drugs and that he had been identified by the examination of digital media. The garda said the charges carried a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years and up to life imprisonment. A full investigation file was being prepared and would be submitted to the DPP, he said. Applying for bail, defence barrister Ciara Murray said it was accepted that the charges were very serious. Mr McNay was previously a man in business, having had a haulage company that went bust. He is now considerably in debt as a consequence, and was on social welfare, Ms Murray said. The accused, who had a partner and four children, had strong ties to the community and a permanent address. Judge Smyth set bail in the accuseds own bond of 1,000, with an independent surety of 100,000. Half of the surety is to be lodged in cash. Under conditions, the accused is to surrender his passport, not apply for any new travel documents, keep a night time curfew, sign on daily at Mullingar garda station and be contactable by phone at all times. He was remanded in custody with consent to bail to appear in Cloverhill District Court on October 2. Mr McNay, who has not yet entered pleas to the charges, is the second man to be arrested as part of the investigation. Yesterday, Noel Smullen (57) of Silverdale, Clara, Co. Offaly, appeared in court charged with the same offences. He made no bail application and was remanded in custody to next week. Sam Walker has become a TikTok star in recent years telling stories from his days in Liverpools criminal underworld. A self-confessed gangster has been attacked in Dublin while livestreaming on TikTok - just hours after walking free from court on a contempt charge. In the video clip, career criminal Sam Walker can be seen walking near Busarus in Dublins north-inner city and talking into his camera phone last night when he is attacked by a man, who he claims was carrying a knife. Walker has become a TikTok star in recent years where he describes his days in Liverpools criminal underworld. The 41-year-old, who has more than 400,000 followers on the social media site, has spent most of his adult life behind bars as a result of amassing more than 130 convictions. On Thursday, Walker was given a suspended sentence after he was caught live-streaming his court case for driving offences in Dublin District Court. But just hours after walking out of court, Walker was attacked while livestreaming in Dublin city centre. In the TikTok clip, Walker can be seen talking to the camera while a young man wearing a hoodie comes up behind him and launches an attack. Walker then falls to the ground while the man runs off. The UK crime figure can then be heard shouting at his attacker, calling on him to retrurn saying: "Gowan, gowan you s**tbag. Let's have it, why are you running away you s**tbag." Sam Walker outside Dublin District Court In a follow up TikTok video posted later last night, Walker again accuses his attacker of being a coward. He said: "I have respect for all the people in Dublin, all the lads, I don't give a s**t what gang you are from...I don't care about anything like that - everyone of you have treated me good. "But this person who pulled a knife on me last night.My son was watching my 'live' when you pulled that knife on me "For that alone, I want you to back your f**kin mouth up tonight cause all of your mates are laughing at you because you went running. "Back your mouth up lad because I am going to be live, as I said, for another half hour." He then adds: "But when you pull a knife on me on a 'live' and try and stab me and my son gets to see it it's a different kind of f**kin' thing. In court this week, Judge Gerard Jones gave Walker a one-month suspended sentence for contempt of court by breaching the ban on recording or broadcasting Irish court proceedings without permission. "This is not a public bar, its a court of law and we can't have this carry on," Judge Jones said. Walker, from Liverpool but with an address at the Plaza Hotel in Tallaght, Dublin had pleaded guilty to driving without insurance and in possession of false UK and Irish licences. The offences happened at Aston Quay in central Dublin on September 21. Walker first came before the court on Monday when he entered his plea and was granted bail. Sam Walker The case had been put back to for gardai to enquire if he had previous convictions from the UK. Detective Garda Paul Cummins said he had still not received this information from the UK authorities. Defence solicitor Brian Keenan asked Judge Jones to finalise the case today as it was unlikely that he would receive a sentence. On the false document charges, it was not a case where he sought to rely on them and he immediately gave the gardai his correct details, Mr Keenan said. Walker had no prior convictions in this jurisdiction, the court heard. The accused was due to travel back to Sierra Leone, where he was living, Mr Keenan said. His business is there, hes engaged in charity work which is something hes very proud of, Mr Keenan said. Judge Jones imposed fines of 400 and 100 on the insurance and licence charges, with the other charge taken into consideration. Sam Walker However, at the end of his case, a garda sergeant seized Walker's phone. The sergeant said while Gda Cummins had been giving evidence, it transpired that Walker's phone had been "broadcasting events" to his TikTok account, which had 400,000 followers. The live stream was being viewed by 2,500 people at the time. A garda unconnected to the case said she had been outside in the foyer at the Criminal Courts of Justice when she saw a man viewing TikTok on his phone. This was shown to her and she could see it was live and comments were coming through, though the picture was not visible. The stream was from Sam Walker's account Walker said in evidence he had been streaming outside the courtroom and when his case was called, he put his phone in his pocket and went in. "I thought the live stream had ended, it was a genuine mistake," he said."If the officer says it was (still) streaming, then I apologise, it wasn't my intention. I'm not going to dispute it." Mr Keenan said the accused had a following on social media from documenting his charity work. The sergeant said the state "wouldn't accept that is the reason for his following." Walker said he had been in Sierra Leone for six months and installed water in villages for 25,000 people where charities had failed and he had documented that online. "I could see with my own two eyes what was going on in this court and it wasn't accidental in my view," Judge Jones said. "It was deliberate." He held Walker in contempt and sentenced him to a month in prison, suspended for two years. There has been turmoil in the area in response to the Government's decision to use the disused Crown Paints factory to accommodate hundreds of international protection applicant Gardai outside the proposed accommodation centre in Coolock in July A FATHER of two accused of taking part in violence and a "scuffle" with a journalist at an immigration protest outside the former Crown Paints site in Dublin has been sent forward for trial. Christopher Byrne, 27, of Marigold Crescent in Darndale, Dublin, was accused of violent disorder with others on the same occasion at the disused factory on Malahide Road in Coolock on April 6 last. There has been turmoil in the area in response to the Government's decision to use the disused factory to accommodate hundreds of international protection applicants. The landscape and construction worker was denied bail. He appeared again at Cloverhill District Court to be served with the prosecution's book of evidence. Judge Mark O'Connell noted the DPP directed the case to be dealt with on indictment in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, which has broader sentencing powers. He agreed to grant a return-for-trial order and told the accused the case would be listed on November 21 next. Legal aid has been granted to Mr Byrne, who was warned to notify prosecutors if he will rely on alibi evidence in his defence. Gardai must also hand over copies of video evidence to his legal representatives. Earlier, Detective Garda Katie Lennon objected to bail, telling the court the journalist went to Coolock Garda station on April 6 to report the theft of his phone. She alleged footage appeared on social media of a person "in a scuffle with the Newstalk journalist". Gardai also obtained CCTV footage, the court heard. The offences carry a maximum sentence of ten years, but Mr Byrne has yet to indicate a plea, and the case will go to a jury trial if he contests the charges. I The badly beaten and burned body of the 23-year-old nursing assistant was discovered outside flats on Edward Street in Lurgan on December 3 last year A woman who had been charged with removing the body of Odhran Kelly has been charged with his murder. The badly beaten and burned body of the 23-year-old nursing assistant was discovered outside flats on Edward Street in Lurgan on December 3 last year. Andrea Catherine Stevenson was later charged with assisting an offender by removing his body. Her case was listed at Craigavon Magistrates Court on Friday, with court papers confirming the 43-year-old now faces a murder charge. Five people - two men and three women - are currently facing charges in relation to the killing of Mr Kelly. Lurgan men Shane Harte, from Garland Avenue, and Gary Damien Scullion, from Edward Street both aged 32 are in custody charged with the murder, while Stephanie McClelland (36) and Crystal Angela Redden (30) also face charges arising from the death. McClelland, from Shan Slieve in Lurgan, faces a single charge of assisting an offender by assisting in the removal and destruction of Odhran Kelly's body. Redden, from Fort Mhaoilir, Raheen, Athenry, Co Galway, is accused of perverting the course of justice in that on December 7 last year, she made and signed a false statement of evidence to police investigating the murder. Previous courts have heard claims that Mr Kelly was subjected to a prolonged violent assault using weapons and in circumstances where he was unable to defend himself. Officers investigating the murder found a machete in the shower of the flat opposite the property where he was assaulted. During an earlier bail application by one of the alleged killers, the court heard that while police found a horrific scene in one flat, including large amounts of congealed blood and blood spatters on the walls and ceilings, in the flat opposite a machete was found in the shower. One of the investigators previously described how police discovered the badly burnt body of Mr Kelly after they were called to a burning car on Edward Street just after 4am on December 3. Officers called at the last registered address of the vehicle, which was Stevensons flat on Edward Street. However, on their way to her flat, they spotted a large amount of blood on the door of Scullions flat opposite and when they went inside officers discovered parts of the floor saturated in blood, blood-covered beer bottles, a significant amount of congealed blood, drug paraphernalia, a large amount of cash and disposal gloves with blood on them. When officers went into Stevensons flat, there was a strong smell of bleach and they found Scullion dressed in just his boxer shorts, sitting in the kitchen. There was also clothing and blood-stained washing in the washing machine and the machete was in the shower cubicle. According to the police case, Scullion, Stevenson and McClelland were captured on CCTV carrying the body from Scullions flat. The day after the killing, Harte and his girlfriend Redden travelled to Galway, booking a hotel while en route, with Harte stopping to buy 120 of clothes at a shopping centre. The case against the five defendants had been scheduled for a preliminary enquiry on Friday, which, if it had gone ahead, would have seen the case elevated to the Crown Court, but Stevensons defence counsel Gavin Cairns said that with the new, more serious charge now levied against his client, he was seeking an adjournment. Lawyers for her co-defendants confirmed they had been put on notice of the adjournment application and with no objections raised, District Judge Michael Ranaghan put the case back to October 11. Gary Byrne (19) had no explanation for having the tool after gardai spoke to him. A would-be thief was caught with a screwdriver after he was overheard on train station CCTV cameras telling two other men he planned to break into cars and steal, a court heard. Gary Byrne (19) had no explanation for having the tool after gardai spoke to him. Judge Gerard Jones ordered Byrne to enter into a peace bond for 12 months. The defendant, of Curragh West, Naul, Co Dublin, admitted possession of a screwdriver for use in a theft at Balbriggan train station on March 13 last year. Read more Pictured: Man accused of hijacking car with baby girl inside in Dublin Sergeant Shane Griffin told Swords District Court that Byrne was caught on CCTV cameras at the train station in possession of a screwdriver. Sgt Griffin said the CCTV was audio as well as visual, and Byrne was seen meeting up with two other men, and telling him that his intention was to travel to Malahide and break into cars and steal. The court heard Byrne had seven previous convictions. Defence lawyer Deirdre Flannery said the defendant was hanging around with a bad crowd at the time of this offence. Ms Flannery said Byrne was born with foetal alcohol syndrome, and there were addiction issues in his childhood home. Byrne was currently doing a course to learn independent living skills, and was completing a pre-apprenticeship course. Ms Flannery also said Byrnes partner was pregnant, and that he was focused on staying out of trouble and being a good father to his child. She asked the judge to be as lenient as possible, saying Byrne was doing well and now had direction in this life. The eight, aged in their 20s, 30s, 50s and a teenager are being held as part of an investigation into the alleged false imprisonment of a female at a property on Bolton Street Seven men and a teenager have been arrested after a woman was held captive and reportedly beaten in Dublin last night. The eight, aged in their 20s, 30s, 50s and a teenager are being held as part of an investigation into the alleged false imprisonment of a female at a property on Bolton Street, Dublin 7 on Thursday evening. The woman, in her 30s, is being treated in hospital for serious injuries, it has been reported. "Gardai in Bridewell arrested eight males in relation to an investigation into alleged false imprisonment of a female, aged in her 30s at a property in Bolton Street, Dublin 7 on the evening of Thursday 26th September 26, a spokesperson said this afternoon. Eight males, (aged in their 20s, 30s , 50s and one juvenile) are all currently detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984 at Garda stations in the Dublin region. Investigations ongoing. Weir, from the New Road in Hillsborough, confessed to offences of cultivating cannabis, using criminal property and converting criminal property. A Co. Down farmer today admitted involvement in a massive cannabis factory uncovered on his land as well offences of laundering thousands of pounds. Standing in the dock of Craigavon Crown Court, 56-year-old Clive Weir was re-arraigned on three of the four charges against him, all committed between 14 January 2022 and 2 February 2023. Weir, from the New Road in Hillsborough, confessed to offences of cultivating cannabis, using criminal property and converting criminal property. The charges outline that Weir used criminal property, namely funds in the sum of 184,536.66 for the purchase of fuel from Victor Walker Fuels and also that he converted criminal property by lodging 41,495 into a Bank of Ireland account and by lodging 132,571.50 into a Clear Bank bank account. Following Weirs admissions, prosecution counsel Ian Tannahill asked Judge Donna McColgan KC to mark as left on the books a second offence of converting criminal property and she so ordered. Defence KC Michael Chambers revealed that according to Weir, who at one time before he was charged complained to the press about how long the police were taking to investigate the case, his gain was about 42,000 while the prosecution contend his profit was around 100,000. He does not accept the figure of 100,000, said the senior barrister who conceded the court may need to conduct a Newton hearing. A Newtown hearing is held when a defendant accepts their guilt but not the full extent of criminality alleged by the PPS so each side has to call evidence and potentially witnesses for a judge to decide where the criminality lies. Mr Chambers told Judge McColgan if there was to be a Newton hearing, he would be calling not just the defendant but also his accountant and a number of other witnesses. Mr Tannahill highlighted however that the ultimate figure of Weirs criminal proceeds and laundering may not materially affect the sentence as the headline offence is the cannabis cultivation. Yes absolutely, the judge declared but she ordered each side to lodge written submissions on the issue. The charges arise following the discovery of a sophisticated cannabis factory on land belonging to Weir who has close ties to the DUP and Free Presbyterian Church. Speaking at the time the cannabis factory was uncovered, Detective Inspector Kelly said: "This is a large and sophisticated cannabis farm, which required searches by specialist police teams due to the size and set up. "It is clearly a well organised operation which bears the hallmarks of an organised criminal gang. The closure of this operation will likely cause massive disruption to the criminals involved. Charged alongside Weir in relation to cultivating cannabis are Vietnamese brothers 39-year-old Quy Nguyen and Anh Nguyen (35), also from the New Road in Hillsborough. The brothers entered guilty pleas to cultivating cannabis at an earlier hearing. In court today Judge McColgan adjourned the case until Wednesday when she will tell the lawyers whether she feels it necessary to have a Newton hearing. While she freed Weir on continuing bail, she warned him that is no indication [of the sentence] as Im sure you know. Parole system is retraumatising families sentencing group SAVE QUADRUPLE killer John Geary, who stabbed his former partner, their daughter, her son and her friend to death, has had his second bid for freedom denied. The murders by John Geary in County Limerick 14 years ago shocked the nation and in 2013, the killer was given four concurrent life sentences. He pleaded guilty to the murder of his ex-partner, Sarah Hines (25), their five month old daughter Amy at Hazelgrove, Newcastle West, on November 15, 2010. The court heard he carried out the murders after Ms Hines had left him out of jealousy and control. He also fatally stabbed Ms Hines son, Reece (4), and her friend Alicia Brough (20), after they arrived on the scene. Alicia was killed just days before her 21st birthday as she tried to save Amy from the attack by Geary. She had just returned to the house with Reece and both were attacked. Their four bodies were not discovered until the following day. The Central Criminal Court was told his motive for the murders was most likely jealousy that his former girlfriend had started a new relationship. Five weapons were used in killings, including two knives and a screwdriver. In a letter read out in court prior to his sentencing, he said he was truly sorry. He received four concurrent life sentences. At an inquest into the deaths, the coroners court heard that all four victims were stabbed multiple times. Following the inquest, the coroner, Brendan Nix, said the deaths of the children along with people they loved and trusted, was difficult to comprehend. He also said two blameless women and the children were done to death in a most awful and violent way. After a previous bid for parole was unsuccessful, Geary became eligible to again for parole late last year. But it has now emerged this appeal too has failed. Chairperson of SAVE (Sentencing and Victim Equality) John Whelan, whose own sister Sharon and her two daughters Zara and Nadia were murdered by Brian Hennessy, said the current system of parole is retraumatising families and urgently needs reform. It is retraumatising families as it stands because it allows the person who has murdered their loved one to apply for parole after 12 years and then again every two years after that time, he said. Families dont have time to recover after one parole appeal is refused before they have to start preparing for the next. And if they engage with the parole board, they feel they are leaving their loved one down by not fighting for them. We are still calling for changes to the system and we have heard a lot of positive rumblings from the Department of Justice about tariffs and set sentences for murder. Theyre saying judges can make a recommendation of a minimum sentence but that the parole board wouldnt necessarily have to follow that up. Were hoping to change that and I know its being considered because Simon Harris, the Justice Minister and some judges themselves have spoken about it. All along, we were told set tariffs would require a change to the Constitution but we argued that is not the case. We already have mandatory minimum sentences for some drug offences and for murders involving for example a member of An Garda Siochana. "I still feel the panic go through my body when I think about it Mandy is begging the Irish authorities to help get her children back Mandy Kelly holding pictures of her sons Kareem and Zayn, who are in Egypt. Photo: Mark Condren An Irish mother, who hasnt seen her children in nearly three years after they were abducted by their Egyptian father, is begging Irish authorities to help get her kids back. Mandy Kellys boys; six year old Zayn and three year old Kareem were taken by their father Ramy Gamal Maamoun Mohamed after a family holiday in 2022 turned into a kidnap nightmare. Despite the fact that Egyptian courts have given full custody to Mandy, the children remain on the run with their father somewhere in Cairo, a city of 11 million people. My two sons are actually being held as hostagesI havent seen them since they were three years old and 18 months, Mandy says. I have to put my faith in Egyptian police to find them. Mandys story however, began long before the custody battle. In 2009, she moved to Dubai, where, in September 2013 she met her future husband. A year later she went to Egypt to meet his family. By 2017 the couple moved to Ireland and she quickly found herself pregnant with Zayn. Looking back, I could have been more wary of his motives she says. It started with a phase of love bombing, then slowly he devalued and degraded me.If the abuse was everyday, you would leave, but when you get sprinkles of kindness, it can be very difficultthey distort your reality. Mandy is begging the Irish authorities to help get her children back Once Zayn was born, Mandy says her husband became even more controlling. He knew he had me she explained, I had a very young baby at the time, I just wanted to keep the peace. In Ireland Mandy found herself trapped in a cycle of control despite being the breadwinner and primary caregiver. There were incredibly aggressive outbursts and he used disgusting, manipulative tactics, preventing me from socializing and isolating me from my family, so I had to rely on him, she said. During her second pregnancy in the COVID-19 lockdown Mandy says spells of isolation and lockdown only gave Ramy more power but when travel opened up in March of 2022 she agreed to travel to Egypt so his family could meet the new addition to their family; baby Kareem. I hoped the trip would help him destress and return to Ireland in a much better place, she said during a recent interview for the Crime World podcast. It was ultimately one of the worst decisions I have ever made. The day of their planned return, the 12th of March 2022, the kidnapping nightmare began. As they prepared to leave, Rami suddenly declared he didnt want to go back and, more shockingly, that their two sons would not be returning with her. "I still feel the panic go through my body when I think about it," Mandy recalls, her voice trembling. In a frantic bid to prevent their departure, Rami refused to take a COVID test required for their flight, fled to their apartment, and then made his way to another city, leaving Mandy with a heart-wrenching ultimatum: she might never see [her] children again. Since then Mandy has been using the legal systems in both Ireland and Egypt in the hope that she can have her children returned to her. Orders have been made in the Irish High Court for their immediate return while Egyptian courts have granted her full custody. Her husband, however, remains in hiding with the boys in the vast city of Cairo. "Hes threatened to physically hurt me," she revealed. "He even said the only way Id see my boys again was if I went back to Ireland, sold the family home, and returned My sons are being held for ransom. While police in Cairo are actively seeking her children, Mandy says Ramy moves from place to place and has refused to comply with court orders. Mandy has tried everything, including mediation through Egyptian Islamic clerics, but all offers have been ignored. Ive been very reasonable throughout the whole process, she said. I offered to have both his Irish arrest warrant and a European arrest warrant dropped, in exchange for my children. But that was also ignored.And all the while I know my children are in the hands of people that dont really care. Theyre just using them as pawns. While Mandy is grateful for the efforts of the Irish government so far, she believes the quiet diplomatic approach is no longer enough. She has made the brave decision to go public with her story, hoping it will spark action. Ive been told by someone within the Egyptian legal system that being a nuisance is the only way. For now Mandy's main hope is that the Irish and Egyptian governments, and anyone who can, will step in to bring her nightmare to an end. She can be contacted on her social media accounts. You can hear Mandys story here on Nicola Tallants Crime World podcast The collision occurred on the coast road in Baldoyle, Dublin 13 in the early hours of July 17 Gardai today announced that a second suspect has been arrested in connection with the collision Gardai have arrested a man in his late teens over the fatal hit-and-run which killed a pedestrian in north Dublin in July. The collision occurred on the coast road in Baldoyle, Dublin 13 in the early hours of Wednesday morning, July 17. The victim, 40-year-old pedestrian Michael Mikey Farrelly, was pronounced dead at the scene. Michael Farrelly was killed in the hit-and-run. It is understood Mr Farrelly was walking to his home when he was struck by a stolen car, a Hyundai Kona. Gardai today announced that a second suspect has been arrested in connection with the collision. The male juvenile (aged in his late teens) was detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984, at a Garda station in Dublin, a spokesperson said. He has since been released without charge and a file will be prepared for the Garda Youth Diversion Office. A representative said: The previously arrested individual, a man (aged in his late teens) was released without charge and a file is being prepared for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Investigations are ongoing. On September 10, Gardai arrested a key member of the Lucky Dip gang over his alleged involvement in the death of Michael Farrelly. The arrested teenager was a central member of the so-called Lucky Dip gang made up of juveniles and teenage males mainly from the Ballyfermot, Inchicore and Blanchardstown areas. The 'Lucky Dip' group is said to have stolen several dozen automobiles over the past year, mostly for joyrides rather than for resale. The 18-year old was a part of the car-theft gang causing disruptions in Leinster. At Mr. Farrelly's Co Meath funeral, it was revealed that he had recently completed his long-held goal of producing an album of original music. Li Shulei, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, opens the 2024 China International Confucius Cultural Festival in Qufu, east China's Shandong Province, Sept. 27, 2024. The 2024 China International Confucius Cultural Festival kicked off on Friday in Qufu, Shandong Province, the birthplace of Confucius. (Xinhua/Ding Lin) JINAN, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The 2024 China International Confucius Cultural Festival kicked off on Friday in Qufu, Shandong Province, the birthplace of Confucius. Li Shulei, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, opened the festival. Guests from home and abroad attending the event said that Confucianism has profoundly influenced China's development and played a positive role in advancing human civilization. The festival is an effective platform for the implementation of the China-proposed Global Civilization Initiative and deepened cultural exchange. It is making increasing contributions to promoting global dialogue on civilization, and to fostering friendship between peoples of various nations, guests said. This year's festival, themed "conversation with Confucius, mutual learning among civilizations," was launched by the provincial government of Shandong, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and the Chinese National Commission for UNESCO. Robert Deegan from Kildare was killed on the front line while fighting for the Ukrainian special forces in the ongoing war against Russia A fundraiser launched to bring the body of an Irish soldier killed fighting in Ukraine back home to Ireland has raised over 21,000 is less than 24 hours. Robert Deegan (29), from Newbridge in Co Kildare died fighting for the Ukrainian special forces while on the front line earlier this month. Mr Deegan was a highly skilled and dedicated soldier who had formerly served in the Army Ranger Wing and the Engineers Unit of the Defence Forces Training Centre. He joined the Ukrainian effort fighting against the Russian invasion in 2022, shortly after the start of the war. Later that year, he was medically evacuated back home to Ireland after losing an eye in a bomb attack. Following his recovery, he returned to Ukraine for a second time to continue the fight, but tragically died in combat. In a statement issued following his death, Mr Deegan's family said he died like a warrior as he protected his fellow soldiers. To help the family with the costs of bringing Mr Deegan home to his family and friends in Ireland, a former colleague, Rossa ODonnell, has set up a GoFundMe page to cover the repatriation costs. "I am part of a community who knows the Deegan family through shared time in the Irish Defence Forces as well as being from the Curragh Camp in Co Kildare, said Rossa. "On behalf of the Deegan family and with their permission, we are raising funds for the repatriation costs of their son Robert, who was killed tragically in battle while fighting for Ukraine as part of the ongoing war." Rossa continued: Any funds raised will be used to help Robert and his family. Support has poured in for the Deegan family with a considerable amount of money already raised, despite the fundraiser only being set up less than 24 hours ago. To donate to the fundraiser please click here Domestic abuse victims speak out in the hope it will encourage others to come forward A victim of domestic violence has told about the moment she thought her partner was going to kill her. Chelsea Hamilton (32) was subject to three years of coercive control and physical abuse by north Belfast man Samuel Tufts (32). She waived her right to anonymity in an attempt to encourage other women to seek justice. I really thought I was going to die, said Chelsea. I was like: This is it, Im actually going to die here. Wed got into the relationship really quickly, we moved away together, and during Covid we came back to Belfast and things got really, really bad from there. When she tried to leave him, she was shot at with a crossbow, the bolt narrowly missing her. Her former partner inflicted hours of physical abuse, including choking her until she was unconscious. He was just in my ear, he was saying: Im going to kill you, Im going to kill you, shut up. And while he was saying that I was starting to pass out, she recalled. He was training to become a professional MMA fighter at the time, and left her with multiple injuries one of them that hindered her ability to control her bladder for a number of months. She added: I felt so alone and I never thought anyone would believe me or understand what was happening to me, and that was why I never reported it. When Chelsea finally went to the PSNI, the support she received was invaluable. She explained: I was so afraid of reporting anything because I generally didnt think the police would take it seriously. But the police could see how much of a bad person he was... it was just so reassuring. Last October Tufts, originally from Carrickfergus, was convicted of assault, threats to kill and possession of an offensive weapon. He was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison, with an extended licence period of three years due to being deemed a dangerous offender. While in jail, he was sentenced to a further two years for stabbing Chelsea. She was also granted a five-year restraining order from the date of his release. She said: It took a really long time for me to feel like a normal person again. Now that I got through all that time and got court out of the way I can finally start being me. I never knew who that was when I was in that relationship. I got to a point where I almost died because I didnt speak out. You need to realise that, yes, its hard leaving but its harder staying. Jane, a survivor of stalking Jane (not her real name), who is a survivor of stalking, also shared her story in an effort to encourage other victims to come forward. The 23-year-old said: My message is: get the help you need, there is support out there. It might not seem like a big deal, but once you get speaking to the right people they realise what a big deal it is. Jane joined a band in the summer of 2022. One of the members was a 50-year-old man who, without ever even speaking to Jane, developed a serious fixation for her. For the next six months he persistently contacted her online, followed her and her family members, gave her unwanted gifts, and threatened to kill himself if she didnt speak to him. The man told Jane he believed she was an angel sent to him. She added: I listened to other people who told me: Aww, there might be something wrong with him, he has no friends. It doesnt matter, he didnt have the right to do that to someone. After a period of time she decided to contact the PSNI. She said: I couldnt praise the police higher. The two investigating officers I had are two real gentlemen, they were so amazing, nothing was a bother. If I had a problem at one oclock in the morning they would have been out within 10 minutes. In January this year the man was arrested and charged with stalking. He was later sentenced to 10 months in jail. Earlier this month the PSNI also successfully secured a stalking protection order. This means if the man makes contact with or comes near Jane again, he would go to jail for the maximum term of five years. I feel like I have got my whole life back; because of this legislation I can now go outside my house and know that if he even so much as looks in my direction, Im safe, she said. Anyone that even suspects someone is texting them a wee bit too much or being a bit creepy, or they notice anyone hanging outside their place of work or home, just report it, dont wait. I waited six months. Both women spoke out as the PSNI launched the next phase of its Tackling Violence against Women and Girls action plan. The revised framework, which covers the next five years, is the latest step in ensuring policing is focused on outcomes that make a real difference to tackling the epidemic of violence against women. In February 2023 the Home Secretary included tackling violence against women within the strategic policing requirement, meaning it should be treated as importantly as terrorism and serious and organised crime. Detective Chief Superintendent Anthony McNally, the PSNIs lead in the action plan, said: Violence against women and girls and femicide across Northern Ireland, and indeed the world, is an epidemic. It would be remiss of us as a police service to not fully acknowledge and appropriately respond to that. The investiture of Taurangas Dan Allen-Gordon, along with other NZ honours recipients, took place at Government House in Auckland. Allen-Gordon, who was made a Companion of the Kings Service Order in this years Kings Birthday Honours, attended the ceremony with family on Thursday. I have brought my wife Josie, my daughter Larissa, son Sam, Carter my grandson, and my brother Heemi Allen, Allen-Gordon said. It was such a moving experience meeting her excellency Dame Cindi Kiro. She has such mana and is so genuine. Twice a year, the Governor-General, on behalf of King Charles, holds investiture ceremonies at Government House in Wellington and Government House in Auckland for the people named in the New Year and Kings Birthday honours lists. Honours recipients travel to these ceremonies from throughout the country. Each recipient brings close family or friends. At the ceremony, the citations for the honours recipients are read out, and the Governor-General presents their insignia, medal or decoration to them. Dame Cindi Kiro with Dan Allen-Gordon at the investiture ceremony. Photo: Supplied. Allen-Gordon, who received his Companion of the Kings Service Order for services to youth and charitable governance, said of his award in June that he felt quite blessed to be able to help our young people in our long-term programmes and to continue long after theyve graduated. As Bay of Plenty regional manager and top regional manager for the Graeme Dingle Foundation nationwide, Allen-Gordon has raised about $14 million, which has helped more than 49,000 young people in long-term programmes across the Western Bay. He joined the Graeme Dingle Foundation, then known as the Project K Trust, in 2002, initially as a fundraiser in Auckland before establishing the Graeme Dingle Foundation Bay of Plenty in 2004. After becoming chairman of the Bay of Plenty Kiwi Can Charitable Trust in 2002, he introduced the Kiwi Can programme into the region in 2005. It is now taught in 10 Western Bay of Plenty schools. He also runs the Mount Maunganui Project K programme and has a skilled and dedicated team delivering the Foundations Kiwi Can, Project K, Stars and Career Navigator programmes. His team delivers these programmes to nearly 4000 young people in the Western Bay of Plenty annually, empowering them at a personal level to succeed in their lives under difficult circumstances, empower them to succeed no matter what the world throws at them. What made it possible is having a family that supports me to do it. He said what he does is his lifes work. Ill never stop doing work for the trust. There is such a growing need for what we do for young people, and I wish I had another 20-odd years to do it, or find more people to do it. He personally mentors young people, often after the programmes are over, to ensure the young person is on the right track. Informetric research completed this year has found there is a $10.50 return for every $1 invested in the Graeme Dingle Foundations Youth Development programmes. With a 30-year history, the foundations programmes have long made an impact on youth, enhancing wellbeing, engagement, and commitment to society through increased aspirations, positive trajectories and pipelines to the workforce - ultimately benefiting our countrys economy. With a return of $10.50 for every dollar invested, supporters of the foundation and its programmes know that, for example, for $100,000 invested, their organisation is providing over $1,000,000 return to New Zealands economy. Allen-Gordon works to reduce at-risk behaviours such as truancy, bullying, suicidal ideation and other risks to help young people to succeed. We see change every day, Allen-Gordon said. I feel honoured to have received this KSO for the very thing I love, along with my team making Aotearoa a better place for our young people. Since the full reopening of Aotearoas borders on 31 July 2022, Immigration New Zealand has decided upon over one million visitor visas. This milestone highlights the significant effort made by our team and their commitment to delivering timely decisions for our customers, Immigration New Zealands Visa Director, Jock Gilray, said. More than 914,000 were approved, and around 114,000 applications were declined, with an average wait time of seven weeks. Demand from people wanting to visit New Zealand is strong. Nearly 350,000 visitor visas have been approved already in 2024, with the busiest months of the year yet to come," Gilray said. Christmas is the peak processing time when visitor visa applications surge as families and friends connect during the Kiwi summer holidays. "While we are well prepared to manage the surge, we encourage people to submit their applications as early as possible to give themselves the best possible chance of having their application decided in time for them to plan their trips with confidence, Gilray said. In addition to submitting applications well in advance, Immigration New Zealand strongly encourages travellers to provide complete applications with all necessary documentation, which helps speed up application processing. Anyone wanting to spend Christmas in New Zealand should submit their visitor visa application no later than 15 October 2024. Those hoping to ring in the New Year, including the Lunar New Year, in New Zealand should submit their applications by 15 November 2024." Bay of Plenty exports are set to grow following the signing of a trade agreement with the UAE, said Bay of Plenty MP Tom Rutherford. New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates have concluded negotiations on a trade agreement, which will grow and embed economic opportunities for Bay of Plenty exporters and create stronger supply chains with one of New Zealands most important trading partners in the Gulf region. This trade agreement was concluded in record time, in just over four months and is already being welcomed by our growers across the Bay of Plenty. The trade agreement is the most trade liberalising of any of the UAEs CEPAs to date. Our Government is fully committed to opening doors, embedding market access and continuing to grow our presence as a supplier of safe, healthy food to the Gulf region. This trade agreement is a really positive step towards achieving this and helping us double our exports by value in ten years - which creates more jobs and opportunities in our region. Rutherford said. The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the UAE will eliminate duties on 98.5 per cent of New Zealands exports immediately on entry into force, rising to 99 per cent within three years. This will create new opportunities for New Zealand businesses in the dynamic UAE market. Our horticulture exports to the UAE currently sit at $44 million. The increased engagement and market opportunity this agreement will secure will see this number increase as UAE citizens seek our high quality, safe produce. The UAE is a key export destination and hub in the Gulf region. In the year to June 2024, two-way trade was valued at NZ$1.3 billion. The UAE is one of our largest markets in the Middle East, and a top 20 export market overall. New Zealand dairy exports to the UAE amounted to $718 million, industrial products $237 million, red meat $46 million, horticulture $44 million, and tourism $31 million. The Bay of Plenty relies on horticulture. Our whole region feeds off this sector. The more we can grow horticulture, the more we will grow our local economy. I am so excited to see our Bay of Plenty exporters benefit from this Trade Agreement with the UAE. The CEPA also includes chapters on intellectual property, sustainable development, labour, sustainable agriculture, climate, and on indigenous trade. We have also secured New Zealands Treaty of Waitangi exception to allow us to meet treaty obligations. David Seymour is urging parents and teachers to tell students not to attend todays climate strike Seymour says striking counts towards students 15-day absence allowance and learning science is more important He confirmed students attending the strike would be marked with an unjustified absence The Government is urging parents and teachers to tell students not to attend todays climate strike because it will count towards their new 15-day allowance for absences. Associate Education Minister David Seymour says learning about science is more important than striking and it could have waited. In announcing the new truancy policy yesterday, Seymour said it would be mandatory for schools from 2026. The protest organised by School Strike 4 Climate NZ (SS4C) is set to take place in seven cities nationwide. Seymour told Newstalk ZBs Mike Hosking he would urge teachers to mark students as having an unjustified absence if they attended todays climate strike. I know some schools in the past have tried to say going on this school strike for climate is somehow a useful academic exercise. He said this worried him because students needed to be in class to learn the science that would improve their living standards. He confirmed if students attended a strike, it would count towards the 15-day allowance for absences. On the new policy announced yesterday, Seymour said students, teachers the Government and the school played a part in accountability. Ultimately, we just get the data. He urged schools to take this seriously. The strikes will take place in Christchurch starting at 1pm, Auckland starting at 3pm, Otago at noon, Gisborne at 1pm, Whanganui at noon, New Plymouth at 1.45pm and Wellington at noon. School Strike 4 Climate protesters marching down Lambton Quay in Wellington in April. Photo / Mark Mitchell. Yesterday, SS4C spokesperson Kereama Allen told the Herald it motivated students more to strike. I would say that this just goes to show that this Government does not care about rangatahis (young people) voice in Aotearoa New Zealand. It shows that they have no intention to listen to us. Now is a crucial time to strike because if we want results with this new Government, we need to push as hard as possible to better our future. Seymour announced a new policy yesterday the Stepped Attendance Response scheme or Star which would be mandatory for all schools from the beginning of the 2026 school year. He said it would place obligations on the school and parents to ensure their children were attending classes regularly. Seymour provided examples of how the scheme could work: Five days absent : The school gets in touch with the parents/guardians to determine the reasons for absence and to set expectations. : The school gets in touch with the parents/guardians to determine the reasons for absence and to set expectations. 10 days absent : The school leadership meets with the parents/guardian and the student to identify barriers to attendance and develop plans to address this. : The school leadership meets with the parents/guardian and the student to identify barriers to attendance and develop plans to address this. 15 days absent: Escalating the response to the ministry and steps to initiate prosecution of parents could be considered as a valid intervention. -NZ Herald In a significant and historic step, His Majesty King Charles III has approved a recommendation to award 22 First World War battle honours to Te Hokowhitu a Tu - the New Zealand Maori Contingent and New Zealand Maori (Pioneer) Battalion. The award of these battle honours will add to the korero of the actions of Te Hokowhitu a Tu at Gallipoli and the Western Front in the First World War, and of their courageous service and sacrifice. They are a source of pride for all of those who have and continue to serve in Ngati Tumatauenga, the New Zealand Army, said Chief of Army Major General Rose King. The tradition of awarding battle honours in Commonwealth countries dates back to the 18th Century, when they were sewn onto the flags of infantry battalions (colours) and cavalry regiments (guidons) to recognise feats of courage and steadfastness on the battlefield. Although colours and guidons are no longer carried into battle, they continue to represent the spirit, history, service, and sacrifice of the units which carry them. The New Zealand Maori Contingent at No 1 Outpost in Gallipoli, Turkey. Credit: Alexander Turnbull Library natlib.govt.nz/records/22330949. Earlier this year, a battle honours committee of senior serving and retired New Zealand Army personnel, chaired by former Chief of Defence Force, Lieutenant General Rhys Jones CNZM, considered New Zealand Defence Force historians research regarding the failure to award battle honours to the New Zealand Maori Contingent and the New Zealand Maori (Pioneer) Battalion. The units served at Gallipoli and on the Western Front during the First World War and were disbanded in 1919. The research identified the main failing was in trying to adapt the historic British Army tradition of awarding battle honours to the New Zealand Armys post-war structure. The two units were considered to have no direct links to the post-war Army, and therefore no successor units which could carry their battle honours. Because of this, no battle honours were ever awarded to them, despite the fact that their entitlement had been clearly established and a list of eligible battle honours placed on a file, said Major General King. The New Zealand Maori (Pioneer) Battalion being inspected while over in England Credit: Alexander Turnbull Library natlib.govt.nz/records/22690188. The committee recommended that a total of 22 battle honours be granted to the New Zealand Maori Contingent and the New Zealand Maori (Pioneer) Battalion. The Army then formally sought approval for the award of these battle honours, and this was supported by the Minister of Defence and recommended by the Prime Minister for approval by The King. Major General King particularly acknowledged the work of her predecessor, Major General John Boswell, who instigated this kaupapa, and the contributions made by leaders from the wider Army whanau. Two of the 22 honours awarded to the New Zealand Maori Contingent and the New Zealand Maori (Pioneer) Battalion are unique to those battalions, which means they were not awarded to any other New Zealand infantry unit. The New Zealand Maori Contingent is the only New Zealand infantry battalion to be awarded the Gallipoli battle honour Hill 60 (Anzac), and the battle honour Delville Wood (an engagement fought during the 1916 Battle of the Somme) is unique to the New Zealand Maori (Pioneer) Battalion. This recognition restores to our tupuna and to all who have served their rightful place in our shared history. "It is a moment to reflect on the enduring spirit of those who served, Major General King said. The New Zealand Maori Contingent on parade. Credit: Auckland War Memorial Museum PH-ALB-382-p23-5. The New Zealand Maori Contingent at Gallipoli has also joined other New Zealand infantry units in holding the battle honour Sari Bair, which was awarded to those who fought at Chunuk Bair in August 1915. It was on the eve of this battle, the Contingents first, that Chaplain Henare Wainohu delivered an emotional and now famous address to the men encamped at the Maori Pah: "Fellow members of a brave family you are the descendants of warlike ancestors, a handful of warriors amongst the many thousands of men here. "The name and honour of the Maori people lies in your hands today. "Therefore, my brothers, you will by your noble deeds light such a fire on the mountains that it can never be quenched. "Ahakoa iti te Kopara, kai takirikiri ana i runga i te Kahikatea. "Accordingly, I desire you to reach the top of those mountains. The group of English-speakers at the Palma familys home near Almachar, with raisins drying in the background. Jennie Rhodes Axarquia Friday, 27 September 2024, 11:30 Opciones para compartir Copiar enlace WhatsApp Facebook X (antes Twitter) LinkedIn Telegram Threads While the Axarquia at this time of year might be synonymous with the height of the mango harvest season and avocado trees beginning to bulge with fruit almost ripe for picking, the sight of raisins drying in the sun at the end of the grape harvest or 'vendimia' shouldn't be overlooked. The 'vendimia' traditionally started in early to mid-August but has been getting under way earlier in recent years due to increasing temperatures and more frequent heat waves, due to climate change and this year it started at the end of July. Although climate change and soaring temperatures is a challenge for the sector, the heavy rainfall in March this year has meant around a 30 per cent increase in this year's harvest compared to last year. "We can be happy because production in the Axarquia has increased by 30 per cent compared with last year" While visiting one of the main Muscat of Alexandria (or Malaga grape) growing villages in the Axarquia, El Borge, in September, the Junta de Andalucia's agriculture spokesman Fernando Fernandez explained that the rain had "been fundamental for the productive potential of the vines". He added, "This season we can be happy because production in the Axarquia has increased by 30 per cent compared to last year." A number of villages in the Axarquia have recently celebrated the grape harvest, as they do every year, with probably the most well-known festivity being 'La Noche del Vino' (wine night) in Competa which took place on 15 August. Between mid-August and mid-September other villages including El Borge, La Vinuela, Iznate and Moclinejo all have a day dedicated to the grape (uva Moscatel), raisin (pasa) or the people who go out into the vineyards to pick the grapes (vineros). Now the 'route of the vineyards of Al-Andalus', part of the Innova Experiencia Andalusi project launched by the Spanish tourism ministry with Next Generation EU funds and in the Axarquia the Mancomunidad association of town halls, has been offering a number of tours to different sectors involved in tourism. On Friday 13 September a group of English-speaking residents and visitors got the opportunity to part in the project. Guided tour In partnership with Elena Sanchis Sanz from Plan A Malaga tour company, the group visited a vineyard near Moclinejo, which is the home to the family-run Antonio Munoz Cabrera bodega. They also went to Almachar which has a museum dedicated to the Malaga grape and the raisin and sweet wine-making process. Just outside Almachar the group visited a vineyard where the Palma family continues to dry grapes and produce raisins and sweet wines as part of the Ucopaxa cooperative, using the traditional methods which in 2018 was recognised by the United Nations as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS). Traditional, manual technologies are still used today in the cultivation, harvesting and drying process. This 'low-tech agriculture' and way of life has been handed down through generations, with the entire process done by hand using centuries-old methods. Families will soon tell you that it is more a labour of love, steeped in tradition, that keeps them doing it. Many have also turned to the subtropical 'cash cows' of the Axarquia to support the traditional grape and raisin sector. Now authorities in the Axarquia are looking at ways to promote this important heritage as a way of encouraging tourists to visit the inland villages of the Axarquia and tackle the issue of depopulation. The president of the Mancomunidad, Jorge Martin Perez, explained that professionals from the tourism sector and the general public have been able to "enjoy the experience of participating in the process and traditional techniques related to the raisin and its production". The idea is that the tours will culminate in information available online and with the possibility of running other tours in the future. There are a number of bodegas that can be visited along the wine route to learn more about the process and the different kinds of wines that are produced, not only with the Muscat of Alexandria grape, but with other varieties. Bodegas Bentomiz in Sayalonga is one of them and is owned by Dutch couple Clara Verheij and Andre Both. They have previously told SUR in English that they would like to see the authorities promote the area's traditional crops, which would also help to tackle the drought crisis. They have called for "more support for viticulture and for people who are focusing on native species". As well as the Munoz Cabrera bodega, there's also Sedella Vinos in the village of the same name and a new bodega has recently opened in Torrox, Vinedos de la Axarquia. As autumn commences and Malaga province looks to the skies for the much-needed rain, it is the ideal time to sample some local homegrown raisins and sweet wine and find out more about the Axarquia's important, traditional agricultural heritage. A Chinese contestant competes in a water technology contest during the 47th WorldSkills Competition in Lyon, France, Sept. 12, 2024. (Xinhua/Luo Yu) "The strength of China lies in the country's ability to tap the talent that they need. The country is so big, and the talent pool is so large that they find the skills that they are looking for," said a professor at the International Institute for Management Development. GENEVA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- China is making steady progress thanks to higher spending in education and the country's vast talent pool, with a three-place increase in the 2024 World Talent Ranking, an expert from the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) has said. The 2024 World Talent Ranking report, released by the IMD on Sept. 19, combines survey data from the IMD's World Competitiveness Center (WCC) with external sources and sets both in the context of findings from the International Labour Organization (ILO). China increased by three positions in the ranking this year, from 41st to 38th place, said Professor Arturo Bris, director of IMD's WCC. "The strength of China lies in the country's ability to tap the talent that they need. The country is so big, and the talent pool is so large that they find the skills that they are looking for," Bris told Xinhua in a virtual interview. "China needs to employ a lot of people ... China has the ability to invest in education. This is what we call internal development, and here you see significant improvement," he added. "This year is an important year because of the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and technology on jobs, on talent, and on the competitiveness of countries," Bris said. Visitors watch an AI-powered orthopedic surgical robot during the 2024 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) at the China National Convention Center in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 13, 2024. (Xinhua/Ju Huanzong) "We need to realize that there are two different forces. The first force is that AI is going to replace jobs and eliminate certain tasks. This can be detrimental to the competitiveness of countries," he said. "But on the other hand, AI is going to make countries more productive and competitive. The result of this technology will be going in one direction or the other," Bris said. He added that the most developed economies will suffer the most from jobs being replaced by AI as "5 percent of jobs in developed economies are in danger, while only 0.6 percent of jobs in developing economies are in danger." The report also emphasized how much AI is seen to enhance tasks in different economies, the likelihood of men's versus women's employment to be affected by automation, and how talent competitiveness requires a reassessment of educational systems and corporate training programs. "For countries to be talent-competitive, governments need to take a very important stance on their education systems," Bris said, stressing the need to make sure that education systems incorporate technology and AI into the skills of both students and employees. Irene Quirante Malaga Friday, 27 September 2024, 13:24 Opciones para compartir Copiar enlace WhatsApp Facebook X (antes Twitter) LinkedIn Telegram Threads Tamara Navarro's family had been waiting for months for this day to arrive. Today she was supposed to board a plane at Malaga Airport to enjoy a trip to Disneyland Paris, but this trip, which her daughter and her two little nieces were so excited about, has been cancelled at the last minute."We have been struggling for four years with my brother's illness and after he got better, we finally decided to go, as we had promised the girls," she explained. She is one of the victims of the alleged scam of the Florin travel agency in Malaga, in front of which she stood yesterday along with other affected people. Like hers, there are at least twenty other families who entrusted their savings to this company, which they have denounced for fraud. In Tamara's case, she says, they finished paying the costs of the trip in August. The tickets were supposed to arrive in two weeks, but they never did. In total they paid about 5,500 euros, she says. National Police officers have arrested five people, including the owners and staff of the agency, which has premises in Malaga city and another in Alhaurin de la Torre. The investigators of the case estimate that the suspects have illegally taken around 40,000 euros, although they believe that the amount could be higher, as they assume that there will be victims who are not yet aware of the alleged scam. Tamara learned from her brother that the agency had closed its doors a fortnight ago, although she never imagined what it would mean for them. "I thought something had happened, but I didn't think the worst," she said. According to him, it was the wholesaler itself that confirmed to him a few days ago that absolutely nothing had been paid for. Not the tickets, not the hotel, not the insurance, nothing. "We found out last Thursday out of the blue and it has been a real blow," she said. Above all, she stressed, because of the disappointment that the girls have felt. "My daughter, the poor thing, cried when I told her; she even blamed me for having given the money to bad people... she is too young to understand what has happened," she explained. Jorge and his wife had also promised their eight-year-old daughter that, if she got good grades, they would go to Disney, which was her dream. They were supposed to take a flight on 7 September, but they discovered that the reservation had been cancelled. They found out on 15 August, just two days after they had finished paying for the entire trip, which amounted to 3,395 euros. Faced with this situation, and having received no response from the owner of the agency, Jorge went to the police to file a complaint, which was one of many that they have received recently. "We still don't know why they have acted like this," he said. The hardest thing for him was also giving the bad news to his eight-year-old daughter. "She spent two days crying," he added. Sergio Rosas is also in this situation: he explained that he and his wife had planned to enjoy an idyllic Mediterranean cruise with his brother and his wife. "We had the illusion of going on holiday, even if it was only for a week, but this has ruined it," he explained. According to him, they made a first payment of 400 euros in May and in August they called him from the agency to settle what was left to be paid. "I was surprised because there was still quite a lot left, but they told me it was to get things moving," he said. So they paid out the remaining 5,080 euros. "On 18 September, my brother told me that the travel agency had closed; I tried to call all the phones, but they were all switched off," he said. That same afternoon, he filed a complaint with the police. In the case of Juan Carlos Fernandez, as he tells it, he and his wife arranged a trip to see northern Italy for which they first gave a deposit of 900 euros and, later, another 1,500. "The departure was on 4 October, and when my wife went to pay the balance, she found that the agency office was closed." Surprised, they returned to the area to ask around the nearby shops and, in the absence of explanations, they turned to social media, again in search of answers. "We found that there were more people with the same problem," he said. Regina Sotorrio Friday, 27 September 2024, 13:08 Opciones para compartir Copiar enlace WhatsApp Facebook X (antes Twitter) LinkedIn Telegram Threads It was called the Grand Tour, a trip for young British aristocrats to Europe to visit other royal courts, their many palaces and their art. They were eager to discover the world and they travelled with pockets full of money. For this reason, at each stop along the Grand Tour, artists, merchants, booksellers and musicians awaited them with pieces that would later decorate the enormous state rooms and libraries of many a British stately home. I am sending the painting on a very safe ship, one of these travellers wrote in a letter to his father. He was right. Up to fourteen insurers and bankers had guaranteed the cargo on board the Westmorland with all the souvenirs that one such band of merry young men had acquired en route. Sadly, it never reached its destination. Two French warships captured the frigate at sea, a few miles from Malaga, and offloaded the dozens of bundles it had stored in its hold. It was 8 January 1779. Two and a half centuries later, some of these unique and valuable souvenirs of these mens travels return to Malaga to bring to life this part of the history of the Westmorland. The Unicaja foundation and the San Fernando royal academy of fine art of Madrid (where a large part of the goods bought by Charles III at the behest of his prime minister, the Count of Floridablanca, ended up) have brought together the marble pieces, watercolours, books and even the sheet music that the British frigate was carrying, all now back at the Unicaja foundation cultural centre in Malaga city where the Grand Tour came to a less grand end. Perhaps above all the exhibition entitled The Westmorland in Malaga is here to remind us of a little-known historical event that speaks of a time of great political turmoil. Only months after the seizure of this cargo, Spain would also enter into war with Great Britain. Both countries had their own high society with exquisite taste and this can be seen in the exhibition. It does so through works that contextualise the event with press cuttings, notarised documents from the provincial archive of Malaga, even an oil painting with a view of Malaga port in the 18th century brought directly from the royal palace El Pardo in Madrid, with paintings and sculptures that put faces to the distinguished travellers on this Grand Tour and with pieces that reveal their individual artistic interests. The exhibition, curated by the archaeologist, researcher and member of San Fernando, Jose Maria Luzon, can be visited until 12 January at the cultural centre in Plaza del Obispo. Here's an unusual recommendation for an exhibition of a historical event: keep your mobile phone handy. "Technology is a fundamental ally" in this wander through the treasures of the ship, as indicated by Rafael Valentin Lopez, head of the plastic arts department at the Unicaja Foundation (the team that oversees and catalogues the foundation's art collection). Through QR codes, the exhibition allows visitors to circle a sculpture, turn the pages of a book or listen to the sheet music found on the Westmorland. Zoom Institutional representatives and organisers at the opening of the exhibition. Nito Salas The identity of the owners For years, the identity of the owners of the Westmorland shipment was a mystery. But a small detail, a very unusual acronym on one of the packages, revealed to researchers at the San Fernando academy that the letters on the wrappings were in fact the initials of their owners. The main clue was in the letters 'H.R.H.D.G': His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester, the brother of King George III. So from there they went on to discover that, along with this member of the royal household, there travelled aristocrats such as Francis Basset (future Baron of Dunstanville), George Legge (Viscount of Lewisham and future Earl of Dartmouth) and John Henderson (son of the owner of Scotland's coal mines), among others. The portraits that Francis Basset and George Legge had painted of them in Pompeo Batoni's studio in Rome as souvenirs of their Grand Tour are on display in Malaga on loan from El Prado museum. Unfortuantely the Museo del Prado had kept them for decades under erroneous titles or names and even had marked them as "anonymous". In the background are elements of what they saw on their travels, such as Roman architecture in the case of Basset and a recently discovered bust of Faustina Minor in Legge's portrait. Classical-style works of art in marble Zoom Sculptures from the atelier of Bartolomeo Cavaceppi. Nito Salas It was one of the favourite souvenirs of King George III's brother, who owned most of the classical and Renaissance sculptures aboard the Westmorland. An elegant and beautiful Head of the Medici Venus stands out, together with two delicately-embracing couples, Bacchus and Ariadne then Eros and Psyche, from the atelier of Bartolomeo Cavaceppi. Also in marble are a Roman funerary urn, which reflects the interest in archaeology of British high society at the time, and another very similar one from the 18th century, which ended up in Spain's National Archaeological Museum. Watercolours and gouaches of monuments and sites Zoom Watercolours by John Robert Cozens. Nito Salas They functioned as travel postcards for the aristocracy, the only way to capture the places and monuments that had bedazzled them along the way. The watercolours by John Robert Cozens bought by the young Francis Basset are worth mentioning, not only because of the artist - the great watercolourist of the period - but also because of the fantastic state of preservation of these pieces. "When the specialists saw these, they almost fainted: the colour was intact because the light had never hit them", explains Jose Maria Luzon, who then reveals his favourite: Lago Albano, from the Galleria di Sopra (Lake Albano is a volcanic crater lake just south-east of Rome). Another room displays numerous gouaches handmade in Giovanni Battista Piranesi's atelier, with a view of the Arch of Titus, the Mausoleum of Cecilia Metella and the Temple of Vesta. The books and music of the youth of the 18th century Travellers on the Grand Tour carried books and sheet music to liven up their trip, but they also acquired new material along the way. "There were more than 40 books on board," says Luzon. Titles like Campi Phlegraei by the erudite British antiquarian William Hamilton and the artist Pietro Fabris, or the volume with 116 etchings from Piranesi's workshop bound in parchment with a gold border. A small book published by Thomas Jenkins, an antiques dealer who acted as a go-between for the British clientele on the Grand Tour, is of particular interest. This copy was intended as publicity to sell the product that appears on the cover, which is an antique vase. Besides books, the Westmorland haul also provided an insight into the music in vogue among the youth of the time. Composers sold their most recent creations to these young Brits. These unpublished scores can now be heard in the exhibition using a QR code. Copies of masterpieces Zoom Copy of The Cardsharps by Caravaggio. Nito Salas But the young travellers could not take everything they liked home with them, so they commissioned copyists to reproduce the works that had made the greatest impact on them. In the hold of the British frigate were packed copies of The Cardsharps by Caravaggio, The Madonna della Seggiola by Raphael, The Callipygian Venus by Cavaliere D'Arpino and Aurora (Dawn) by Guido Reni. Particularly beautiful is the replica on silk of one of the first paintings found in the buried ruins of Pompeii in what is known as the House of Cicero. The Westmorland in Malaga exhibition can be visited from Monday to Saturday from 10am to 2pm and from 4pm to 7pm, and on Sundays and public holidays from 10am to 2pm. Admission to the centre is a donation of 3 euros, the proceeds of which will go entirely to the social work of the Ciudad de los Ninos project in Malaga. Current Print Subscribers will be prompted to either login to their current site user account or to create a new one. A confirmation email will be sent when a new user account is created, which must be confirmed within three days in order to provide uninterrupted online access through your Print Subscription. Once the email address is confirmed please provide your Account Number to activate your Print Subscription Service. Buffalo, N.Y. Taylor Tomlinson is paying a visit to the City of Good Neighbors. The After Midnight host and popular TikTok comedian is kicking off her Save Me tour on Oct. 4 at the iconic Sheas Buffalo Theatre in Buffalo. And before she heads to Western New York, Tomlinson has a question for her fans: What should she do in Buffalo and the other 14 cities on her tour? To help, the comedian offered examples of what she does (and doesnt) enjoy. I am not fun. I am not cool. I am not what you would call a free spirit, Tomlinson said in a video posted on TikTok and Instagram. I dont really drink. I do not dance. This is important information. Tomlinson told her fans she likes bookstores, museums, hiking trails and cool coffee shops that offer unsweetened matcha. Unless they have a very weird, fun theme, she said bars are out. Again, anything too cool or fun, she said, pausing to shake her head, its not going to work for me. Tomlinson asked, and her fans happily delivered dropping a heap of ideas in the comments suggesting how she should spend her free time in Buffalo and beyond. Here are the top four activities fans told Tomlinson to put on her Buffalo itinerary: The Buffalo AKG Art Museum's Jeffrey E. Gundlach Building as viewed from the portico of the Robert and Elisabeth Wilmers Building in Buffalo, N.Y. Photo by Marco Cappelletti and courtesy of Buffalo AKG Art Museum, OMA, and Cooper RobertsonPhoto by Marco Cappelletti and courtesy of Buffalo AKG Art Museum, OMA, and Cooper Robertson Go to the Buffalo AKG Art Museum At Tomlinsons mention of museums, her Buffalo fans had one unanimous suggestion: the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. Housed in Delaware Park overlooking Hoyt Lake, Buffalo AKG has an impressive collection that includes works by Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo and Georgia OKeefe. The sprawling museum formerly called the Albright-Knox Art Gallery reopened with a new name in 2023 after workers completed a years-long expansion. Fans on TikTok and Instagram repeatedly mentioned the Buffalo AKG. For museums definitely check out the AKG, one person commented on TikTok. It is amazing. The restaurant inside is also super good. Duff's Famous Wings, at 3651 Sheridan Drive in Amherst, N.Y., is one of the stops on the Buffalo Wing Trail a food trail that was just named one of the top food and drink trails in America by Time Out. Katrina Tulloch | ktulloch@syracuse.comKatrina Tulloch | ktulloch@syracuse.com Get wings in the birthplace of wings Buffalonians agreed Tomlinson should treat herself to wings when she visits Buffalo, the birthplace of Buffalo chicken wings. Just eat wings the whole time, one person joked on TikTok. Just consume as many wings as possible. But the consensus stopped when fans debated which Buffalo restaurant serves the best wings. Some directed Tomlinson to Anchor Bar, where Buffalo wings were invented, and Duffs Famous Wings. Others urged her to avoid the classic spots and instead head to Adolfs Old First Ward Tavern or Bar-Bill. Fans also urged the comedian to try other Upstate New York specialties like garbage plates, Paulas Donuts and cider doughnuts. Grab a drink and a new read at a quirky bookstore Bookish fans readily responded to Tomlinsons request for Buffalo bookstore recommendations. On both TikTok and Instagram, commenters repeatedly mentioned Talking Leaves...Books, an independent shop on Elmwood Avenue. Afterglow Books, an Allentown shop specializing in romance reads, also got a few shout-outs. Fans also followed through on suggesting coffee shops. Buffalo recs from a fellow non-bar goer with anxiety: Pennys Coffee Shop (they have matcha, havent confirmed its unsweetened but the vibes here are so peaceful), wrote one commenter on Instagram. A view of Niagara Falls, NY at the bottom of Wildplay's zipline in Niagara Falls, CA. Joed Viera | nyup.com Take a hike at Niagara Falls Tomlinson, a California native, has visited the famous Niagara Falls. When she announced her 2024-2025 tour, Tomlinson took to social media to describe what she love about each city shes visiting starting with Buffalo. I went to Niagara Falls last time I performed in Buffalo, and, oh my God, changed my life, she said on TikTok. So much water and you can see it from so many different angles if youre willing to spend a little extra money, which I was. Still, fans encouraged the comedian to hike at Niagara Falls during her upcoming Buffalo trip highlighting Devils Hole as a particularly good trail. Delaware Park is the largest park in Buffalo and was designed by Fredrick Law Olmsted. This is a view of Hoyt Lake and the Marcy Casino. Matthew Digati for NYup.com SYR Eating wings and hiking at Niagara Falls were far from the only suggestions Western New Yorkers had for Tomlinson. Buffalonians encouraged the comedian to do everything from exploring Panama Rocks and seeing fall foliage at Delaware Park to paying a visit to The Merry Shelley, a literary-themed Romantic horror bar, and driving to charming East Aurora. Looking to catch Tomlinson during her Save Me tour? Seats are still available in Buffalo and beyond. Tickets to her Buffalo shows on Oct. 4 and Oct. 5 can be purchased online through Ticketmaster or secondary market platforms like Vivid Seats, SeatGeek and StubHub. Update: Central NY high school girl charged with making threat on social media to shoot up school Original article Central Square, N.Y. The Central Square School District was on a brief lock out on Friday after it was notified of a threat made in a social media post. On Friday afternoon, State Police spoke to the student suspected of making a threat and determined it was not credible, according to a letter the districts Superintendent Thomas Colabufo sent to parents. The district was notified of the threat around 12:10 p.m. by an FBI hotline, Colabufo wrote. The threat was allegedly made by a high school student in the district in a Snapchat post, he said. State Police quickly responded to the school and headed to the students home, according to the letter. The student had already left school for an early dismissal, it said. Three of the schools were on a lock out while troopers worked to find the student, Colabufo wrote. No one was able to go in or out of the schools unless it was through a locked vestibule where police were stationed, he wrote. The three schools impacted were Paul V. Moore High School, Millard Hawk Elementary and Central Square Intermediate School, Colabufo said. All three schools are located on the districts main campus. Colabufo informed parents that the district believed the threat was a hoax but would be taking it seriously until the student could be located, according to the letter. Your children are all safe, he wrote in the initial letter to parents. After the student was located around 1:10 p.m., Colabufo sent another letter to parents updating them on the situation. He said that troopers spoke to the student and deemed the threat not credible. The student told troopers that they were only joking with another friend in a private chat group, he wrote. Colabufo urged parents to speak to their kids about the serious nature of posting threats online. It is not perceived as a joke by law enforcement and it created needless concern and frustration for students, staff and the greater community, he wrote. The student will face school disciplinary action, he said. Central Square, with about 3,400 students, is the second largest district in Oswego County and the 10th largest district in Central New York. Staff writer Anne Hayes covers breaking news, crime and public safety. Have a tip, a story idea, a question or a comment? You can reach her at ahayes@syracuse.com. Fulton, N.Y. Funeral arrangements have been set for Oswego County deputy Cailee Campbell, who died in a car crash Wednesday. The crash happened at about 6:42 a.m. when Campbell, 33, was driving east on Rowlee Road in a 2016 Ford Explorer Police Interceptor, according to the sheriffs office. Campbells car had its lights and sirens on and was responding to a call about a vehicle off the road, deputies said. A man driving a 2023 Toyota Highlander south on Route 176 T-boned Campbells car which had crossed into the intersection of the two roads, deputies said. The driver, whose identity has not been released, was taken to a hospital with minor injuries, deputies said. Campbell was with the Oswego County Sheriffs Office for 17 months and before that worked for the Onondaga County Sheriffs Office. Her funeral will be held noon Tuesday at Fulton Alliance Church at 1044 State Route 48 in Fulton, according to a news release from the Oswego sheriffs office. A reception for family, friends and law enforcement will follow the funeral. Calling hours will be private, at the request of Campbells family. Anyone seeking information about refreshment donations should call the Dispatch Desk at 315-349-3411. Flowers and other memorial gifts can be arranged with Thomas J. Pirro Jr. Funeral Home at 315-451-9500. Donations can be made to Deputy Campbells Memorial Fund with the Oswego County Deputies Association. 16 1 / 16 Police, firefighters pay tribute to Oswego County deputy killed in crash Staff writer Rylee Kirk covers breaking news, crime and public safety. Have a tip, story idea, photo, question or comment? Reach her at 315-396-5961, on Twitter @kirk_rylee, or rkirk@syracuse.com. Update: Charles Soriano, 2, has been found and is safe and well, the Owego Police Department said. "Thank you to everyone who shared this post and provided information, police wrote on Facebook. We are always grateful for the support of this community! No additional information was immediately provided. Owego, N.Y. Police have asked the public for help finding a missing 2-year-old boy in Upstate New York. Charles J. Soriano went missing Wednesday evening in Owego, a village in the Southern Tiers Tioga County. He is believed to be endangered and was last seen with his mother, Lauren Danvers, the state Division of Criminal Justice Services reported in a missing child alert. Charles was last seen at 6:14 p.m. Wednesday on Adeline Street in Owego, the state said. Investigators said Charles mother, Danvers, does not have custody of him. They are traveling in a 2018 black Honda CRV with New York plates numbered KSY-4729, the state said. Police are searching for Charles J. Soriano, a 2-year-old boy investigators say was last seen in Owego, N.Y. with his mother, Lauren Danvers, who does not have custody of him. This photo shows Lauren Danvers, 29.Provided Here is how the state described Charles: 3 feet tall and 27 pounds Blonde hair and brown eyes Last seen wearing a white shirt and black pants Here is how the state described Danvers, Charles mother: 29 years old 5 feet 3 inches tall and 120 pounds Blonde hair and hazel eyes Last seen wearing a black sweatshirt The state asked anyone with information to call 911 or the Owego Village Police Department at (607) 687-2233. As of 4:15 p.m., there were no active Amber Alerts listed in New York state. Amber Alerts are generally issued in New York when a child has been abducted and is considered in danger of serious bodily harm and/or death., according to criteria listed by the state. by Raheela Nazir ISLAMABAD, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Over the last few decades, China has made remarkable achievements, serving as a model for countries around the globe including Pakistan, Pakistani officials said here on Thursday during a ceremony celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. The visionary leadership of China played a vital role in initiating a new era of development for China, transforming it to a thriving society while sharing the dividends with the world, said officials and experts from the country's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. Speaking at the event, Babar Saleem Swati, speaker of the provincial assembly of KP, said that Pakistan has a lot to learn from China in pursuit of shared economic prosperity and development, highlighting the importance of further deepening ties between the two friendly countries. Acknowledging the significant role of China in Pakistan's development, Swati said that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, has brought socio-economic benefits to the people of Pakistan, including KP. He also called for deepening parliamentary connections and dialogues between Pakistan and China to foster meaningful connections, enhancing the already exemplary relations. "It is a joint responsibility of leaders of both countries to foster and pass on the resilient ties between Pakistan and China to the coming generations, guaranteeing sustainable development for both nations." Talking about the cooperation between China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Pakistan's KP province, Arshad Ayub Khan, provincial minister for local government, elections and rural development, said that the two regions need to further promote economic cooperation and people-to-people contacts. Under CPEC, special economic zones are being established in the province, opening new avenues of prosperity for Pakistan by spurring economic activities and promoting industrialization in the country, especially in KP. Launched in 2013, CPEC is a corridor linking the Gwadar Port in southwest Pakistan's Balochistan province with Kashgar in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which highlights energy, transport, and industrial cooperation in the first phase, while the new phase expands to fields of agriculture and livelihood, among others. Skaneateles, N.Y. A man is in critical condition after a crash in the town of Skaneateles on Thursday night, deputies said. At 9:27 p.m. a man in his 70s driving a pickup truck crashed into a telephone pole on East Genesee Street, said Tom Newton, a spokesperson for the Onondaga County Sheriffs Office. The crash was visible from the Skan-Ellus Drive In parking lot. Dispatchers said that the man was in full arrest when they arrived and asked the ambulance to make their best time getting to the crash, according to dispatches from the Onondaga County 911 Center. The man was taken to Upstate University Hospital in critical condition, Newton said. Deputies are still working to determine a cause, he said. Staff writer Rylee Kirk covers breaking news, crime and public safety. Have a tip, story idea, photo, question or comment? Reach her at 315-396-5961, on Twitter @kirk_rylee, or rkirk@syracuse.com. Montour, N.Y. A town justice from Schuyler County has resigned after being notified that he was under investigation for attending the Jan. 6 rally in Washington D.C., among other misconduct allegations. Donald R. Spaccio, a justice for the Montour Falls Village Court and the Montour Town Court, submitted his resignation letter on Sept. 4, according to a news release from the state Commission on Judicial Conduct on Friday. In April, the commission notified Spaccio that they were investigating the following: His attendance at the Jan. 6 rally. An incident where he is accused of yelling at police and invoking his office when officers asked him to remove a propane cannon from the roof of his building. Propane cannons can be used to scare away wildlife by causing a loud sound. An incident where he is accused of yelling at a Montour code enforcer during a dispute. Spaccio, who is not an attorney, had been a justice in Montour Falls since 2001 and a judge for Montour Town Court since 2005. His current terms would have expired in March 2026 and December 2025. As part of his resignation, he agreed to never hold a judicial office at any point in the future. He will officially leave office on Oct. 7, according to the commission. One of the primary concerns the commission had was Spaccios attendance of the Jan. 6 rallies in Washington, D.C. It was determined he did not participate in the assault of the Capitol building later that morning. Judges in New York state are not allowed to engage in any political activities outside a brief window of campaigning according to the commission. Spaccio told the New York Law Journal that he doesnt regret his actions. He said that he went to Trumps rally because he feels there are a lot of things wrong with the country. Judges may not engage in political activity except for a limited time when running for office, and even then there are constraints on what they may do, Commission Administrator Robert H. Tembeckjian said. Whether or not a judge was a candidate, attending the rally in Washington on January 6, 2021, was impermissible. Tembeckjian said judges are also barred from invoking their office when involved in personal disputes. Spaccio told the Law Journal that he was shouting at police because they were threatening to arrest him. He said that the propane canon was to scare off birds and made just as much noise as a neighbors vacuum. He also said that he was told the village did not have a noise ordinance. He told the Law Journal that he decided to resign rather than pay for a lawyer to mount a defense. Staff writer Anne Hayes covers breaking news, crime and public safety. Have a tip, a story idea, a question or a comment? You can reach her at ahayes@syracuse.com. By Josephine Stratman | New York Daily News NYC Mayor Adams said he wont step down amid growing pressure for him to resign on Thursday following his indictment on charges he raked in $10 million in illegal campaign donations as part of a scheme in which he received flight upgrades and travel perks in exchange for carrying out favors for the Turkish government. The escalating calls for the mayor to resign began flooding in on Wednesday when news of the indictment first broke. On Thursday evening, Gov. Hochul who has the power to remove Adams from office called the indictment the latest in a disturbing pattern of events but did not call for him to step down. My focus is on protecting the people of New York and ensuring stability in the city, she said in a statement. While I review my options and obligations as the governor of New York, I expect the mayor to take the next few days to review the situation and find an appropriate path forward to ensure the people of New York City are being well-served by their leaders. Several New York City elected officials called for his resignation earlier Thursday, including Antonio Reynoso, Adams successor as Brooklyn borough president. The mayor cannot lead this city, nor can he in good faith ask the public to put their trust in him, he said. The City Councils Progressive Caucus issued a scathing statement that slammed him as a failed leader and accused him of finger-pointing to distract from the federal investigation. This administration has operated with an alarming level of political favoritism, akin to a system of patronage and cronyism we have not seen in almost a century, read the caucus statement. As progressives, weve long been alarmed by his mismanagement of vital public resources and questionable ethics. The details of todays indictment make it clear that we have been right to call him out. City comptroller and mayoral challenger Brad Lander also called for the mayor to resign, saying that while everyone deserves the presumption of innocence the charges pose too much of a distraction for Adams to effectively do his job. These arent small charges, and its going to take his and his lawyers a lot of attention, Lander said outside City Hall. And New Yorkers need the mayors attention, the leaders attention on the critical problems that the citys facing, and right now they just dont have it. Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who has often butted heads with the mayor, did not say he should step down but said there are major questions about his ability to govern given the charges. I ask the mayor to seriously and honestly consider whether full attention can be given to our deserving New Yorkers who need our government to be sound and stable, she said at a Thursday press conference. New Yorks congressional leaders also stopped short of saying Adams needs to step aside. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, said in a statement that Adams is entitled to the presumption of justice. A jury of the mayors peers will now evaluate the charges in the indictment and ultimately render a determination, he said. In the meantime, I pray for the well-being of our great city. In a statement, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said no one is above the law, including the mayor of New York City, adding that the charges are serious, and the legal process should now play out speedily and fairly. Adams is the first sitting New York City mayor to be indicted. If he were to resign, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams would take over as mayor. It is federal officials obligation to prove their case. It is the mayors obligation to prove to New Yorkers that there is a real plan and path to govern the city effectively and regain trust, and his time to show that plan is rapidly running out, Williams said in a statement. State Attorney General Letitia James, a longtime Adams supporter, did not issue a statement until Thursday afternoon. She did not call for his resignation. The allegations outlined in the indictment are serious and troubling, James said. The foundation of our justice system presumes that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and we will continue to follow the facts of this case as they become available. I am focused on working with my fellow leaders to ensure our city continues to operate for all New Yorkers who depend on it. The indictment, unsealed Thursday morning, alleges that Adams engaged in a yearslong scheme to solicit and accept illegal straw donations to his campaign in exchange for luxury travel perks. The charges include conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, receiving campaign contributions by foreign nationals and solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national. Turkish foreign nationals sought to cash in on Adams rising political star, according to prosecutors. In 2021, when it became apparent that Adams, who was Brooklyn borough president at the time, would become mayor, they called in their chips on the relationship telling Adams it was his turn to repay them, according to the indictment. Adams denied the charges, stating that he follow[s] the law. This is not surprising to us at all, he said outside the mayors official residence on the Upper East Side. The actions that have unfolded over the past 10 months the leaks, the commentary, the demonization this did not surprise us that we reached this day. - At a raucous press conference outside Gracie Mansion early Thursday, hecklers shouted over the mayor, calling him disgrace to this city and an embarrassment to black people, as he denied the charges and dismissed the indictment as a story, asking New Yorkers to wait and hear our side of the narrative. Its an unfortunate day, and its a painful day, Adams said, flanked by many of the citys Black faith leaders. But inside of all of that, its a day that will finally reveal why for 10 months I will have gone through this. And I look forward to defending myself. With Anusha Bayya, Graham Rayman and Evan Simko-Bednarski 2024 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. By Maria M. Silva | Times Union, Albany Kingston, N.Y. The arrival of more than 100,000 asylum-seekers in the state over the last year and a half has left local officials looking for ways to meet their needs. Enter the Ellis Island Initiative, a bipartisan coalition of statewide leaders and advocacy groups that seeks to help communities realize the potential migrants present to stimulate the local economy. On Wednesday, the coalition brought that message to a group of 30 local elected officials and labor, nonprofit and business leaders in a gathering at Kingstons Good Work Institute to discuss how to welcome new immigrants. Among the participants of the two-hour convening were state Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha, Kingston Mayor Steve Noble, New Paltz Mayor Tim Rogers, Ulster County Chief Diversity Officer Esi Lewis, New York State Farm Bureau Director of Public Policy Jeff Williams and RUPCOs Vice President of Real Estate Development Timothy Allred. Attendees split into two groups to discuss current obstacles and possible solutions and strategies to help asylum-seekers revitalize local economies, including filling open jobs in industries like home care, providing housing, legal assistance, child care, and language access as well as utilizing existing skills that migrants have to benefit the workforce. Maria Espinal, a caseworker at Ulster Immigrant Defense Network, a Kingston-based nonprofit that assists immigrants with household needs, rent, utilities, legal support and transportation, said the organization has discussed the possibility of creating a buddy system to connect immigrants with residents and employers. In addition to those resources, Espinal said a mindset change needs to happen in local communities. The narrative has to be changed so that what is not predominant in the media is the story of cats and dogs being eaten by immigrants, Espinal said, referring to the false claims, spread by far-right figures, that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Ohio. We need to make the narrative be ... on the numbers: jobs that need to be built, an economic base that needs to be tapped into. That needs to be the narrative and not, Theyre taking something away from me because theyre coming. Theyre giving. This population is going to infuse a life into the community. The busing of migrants upstate in 2023 and subsequent attempts by local governments to stop them renewed concerns about the U.S. immigration system and the countrys ability to handle the influx of migrants arriving at the Southern border issues that have grown increasingly contentious, particularly in the months leading up to the presidential election. The Ellis Island Initiative was created last fall in response to the New York City Mayor Eric Adams administration sending busloads of asylum-seekers upstate and the political backlash and the fear that ensued, said the coalitions Lead Strategist Steven Choi. One of the goals of the convenings is to bring people together in a nonpartisan way focused on what Choi described as common sense solutions. When you get past the political headlines and the way this issue has been polarized, there are so many local leaders who recognize that asylum-seekers can be super helpful to local communities, upstate communities across New York state, said Choi, the former executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition. They can help stem population loss. They can fill the 500,000 job openings that exist across the state, and they can really catapult these communities to the next level of economic prosperity if we figure out the right common sense solutions. Choi highlighted the need to educate employers who are interested in hiring migrants once they receive work authorization to foster longstanding relationships as well as strengthen the pipeline between migrants and the workforce on a local and statewide level. Choi said employment has to go hand-in-hand with access to transportation, childcare, affordable housing, and language support to migrants services that would also benefit domestic workers as they face the same challenges, he said. The Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation lauds the efforts of the Ellis Island Initiative to shift the narrative surrounding immigration in New York State, Sparrow Tobin, president of the Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation, said in an emailed statement. We must combat the disgusting and demonizing messaging that is normalized via mass media, as showcased at the recent presidential debate. The labor movement is stronger because of generations of immigrant workers, and with other stakeholders, we will fight to ensure that all workers including recent arrivals can fulfill the American dream by getting good union jobs. The next steps for the Ellis Island Initiative will be bringing together key participants from the six regions it has toured and elevating the findings and solutions from sessions like Kingstons to the state as the Legislature enters the next session, Choi said. The state and the city have spent billions of dollars providing some of these emergency needs, like shelter, housing, and food for the 100,000-plus asylum-seekers who have come here. I think the big challenge for the state is, whats the next step? Choi said. How do we take the next step and really integrate them in ways that are going to help our state go to the next level? ___ (c)2024 the Times Union (Albany, N.Y.) Visit the Times Union (Albany, N.Y.) at www.timesunion.com By Dave Goldiner | New York Daily News Former President Trump was hit on Thursday with reams of new evidence from special counsel Jack Smith in the federal Jan. 6 case but the public wont immediately get to see any of it. Smith, who has been blocked from taking the case to trial, submitted a 180-page dossier backing up his claim that Trumps alleged misdeeds are not covered by the Supreme Courts ruling granting him significant immunity for crimes committed in office, a spokesperson said. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan did not immediately rule whether or when she might allow the filing to be made public. The document dump could include bombshell new details about Trumps scheme to stay in power after losing the 2020 election to President Biden, and would likely mark the last chance for voters to see evidence of the former presidents alleged actions before Election Day. It might also include excerpts from interviews prosecutors have conducted with some of Trumps top lieutenants like Vice President Mike Pence and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about Trumps efforts to cling to power, which culminated with the rally that preceded a mob of extremist Trump supporters storming the Capitol building. Trump accuses Smith and other officials and judges of smearing him with a witch hunt in hopes of preventing him from winning a return to the White House. Chutkan ruled Tuesday that Smith can submit the longer than expected filing, noting that it doesnt amount to proof Trump did anything illegal. (It) does not conclusively establish anything it merely provides evidence for the judicial factfinder to consider, Chutkan wrote. A trial in the momentous case has been sidetracked by the Supreme Courts ruling in July that Trump enjoys immunity for alleged crimes committed while serving in the White House, if the misdeeds can be considered to his official actions. The divided top court instructed Chutkan to hold a judicial proceeding to determine whether alleged crimes fall into the category of official acts or alternately if they were carried out in Trumps private capacity as a candidate for reelection. Smith last month obtained a new superseding indictment of Trump that streamlines the accusations and drops some altogether. Whatever ruling Chutkan makes on that issue is likely to be appealed back to the Supreme Court. That suggests the case would not go to trial until mid-2025 at the earliest. Trump makes no secret of his intention to order an end to the prosecution if he wins a second term in the election pitting him against Vice President Kamala Harris. The federal January 6 case is just one of four criminal cases Trump faces. He was convicted and is awaiting sentencing after Election Day in the Manhattan case accusing him of paying hush money to cover up an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels. Trump faces a sprawling RICO election conspiracy case in Georgia state court, a case that is on hold indefinitely as a court hears an appeal over Trumps effort to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over an affair with a top lieutenant. The former president was also charged by Smith with improperly taking classified documents to his Florida resort when he left office and defying efforts to get them back. Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case, agreeing that Smith was improperly appointed, but most legal experts expect an appeals court to reinstate the charges. _____ 2024 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. The Taos News delivered to your Taos County address every week for a full year! We offer our lowest mail rates to zip codes in the county. Click Here to See if you Qualify. Plan includes unlimited website access and e-edition print replica online. Your auto pay plan will be conveniently renewed at the end of the subscription period. You may cancel at anytime. Photo taken on Sept. 26, 2024 shows the rubble of buildings damaged in Israeli airstrikes in Saksakiyeh, South Lebanon. As of Thursday, the total death toll from the Israel-Hezbollah clashes since last October has reached 1,540, with injuries totaling 5,410, according to the Lebanese health ministry. (Photo by Ali Hashisho/Xinhua) BEIRUT/JERUSALEM, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from Israeli airstrikes on various regions in Lebanon on Thursday reached 60, with injuries rising to 81, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported. Israel conducted 115 attacks across Lebanon on Thursday, the ministry noted, adding the large-scale airstrikes, which started on Monday and have been focused on the south and east of Lebanon, have now spread to include regions in the Mount Lebanon Governorate on its fourth day. As of Thursday, the total death toll from the Israel-Hezbollah clashes since October 8, 2023, reached 1,540, with injuries totaling 5,410, the ministry added. In an airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs earlier Thursday, at least two people were killed and 15 others injured when a residential building near al-Qaem mosque in Dahieh was hit, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. Footage from Lebanese TV channel al-Jadeed showed rescue teams and ambulances rushing to the densely populated area to transport casualties to the hospital and remove victims from beneath the rubble. Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported that it launched three missiles in "an intelligence-guided attack" on Mohammed Hussein Sarour, commander of Hezbollah's air unit, claiming he was killed in the strike. The military stated that Sarour was responsible for multiple drone and missile attacks against Israel. So far, Hezbollah has not commented on the attack nor confirmed Sarour's death. Additionally, the IDF announced that its 7th Armored Brigade concluded a military drill a few kilometers from the Lebanese border, simulating a ground operation in Lebanon. The drill trained troops in "maneuvering and combat in thicketed, mountainous terrain," the IDF said in a statement, adding that the exercises enhanced their operational and logistical readiness for various combat scenarios in enemy territory on the northern front. This drill followed a proposal by France at a United Nations Security Council emergency meeting for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, in collaboration with the United States "to allow for negotiations." Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati welcomed the proposal; however, Israel denied earlier on Thursday that it had agreed to a ceasefire with Hezbollah or Lebanese political parties. Since Monday, Israel has conducted extensive airstrikes across Lebanon, resulting in over 650 deaths and more than 2,000 injuries. The Israeli military reported that it has targeted over 2,000 locations during this period. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin noted on Wednesday that the bombardment has displaced more than 150,000 residents in the past 72 hours. This sharp escalation has raised concerns about a potential full-scale conflict between Israel and Lebanon, with fears that other regional powers could also become involved. People search among the rubble in Saksakiyeh, South Lebanon, on Sept. 26, 2024. As of Thursday, the total death toll from the Israel-Hezbollah clashes since last October has reached 1,540, with injuries totaling 5,410, according to the Lebanese health ministry. (Photo by Ali Hashisho/Xinhua) A man holding a picture is seen among the rubble in Saksakiyeh, South Lebanon, on Sept. 26, 2024. As of Thursday, the total death toll from the Israel-Hezbollah clashes since last October has reached 1,540, with injuries totaling 5,410, according to the Lebanese health ministry. (Photo by Ali Hashisho/Xinhua) Photo taken on Sept. 26, 2024 shows the rubble of buildings damaged in Israeli airstrikes in Saksakiyeh, South Lebanon. As of Thursday, the total death toll from the Israel-Hezbollah clashes since last October has reached 1,540, with injuries totaling 5,410, according to the Lebanese health ministry. (Photo by Ali Hashisho/Xinhua) A man is seen in a building damaged in Israeli airstrikes in Saksakiyeh, South Lebanon, on Sept. 26, 2024. As of Thursday, the total death toll from the Israel-Hezbollah clashes since last October has reached 1,540, with injuries totaling 5,410, according to the Lebanese health ministry. (Photo by Ali Hashisho/Xinhua) Photo taken on Sept. 26, 2024 shows the rubble of a building damaged in Israeli airstrikes in Saksakiyeh, South Lebanon. As of Thursday, the total death toll from the Israel-Hezbollah clashes since last October has reached 1,540, with injuries totaling 5,410, according to the Lebanese health ministry. (Photo by Ali Hashisho/Xinhua) Photo taken on Sept. 26, 2024 shows vehicles damaged in Israeli airstrikes in Saksakiyeh, South Lebanon. As of Thursday, the total death toll from the Israel-Hezbollah clashes since last October has reached 1,540, with injuries totaling 5,410, according to the Lebanese health ministry. (Photo by Ali Hashisho/Xinhua) Photo taken on Sept. 26, 2024 shows the rubble of a building damaged in Israeli airstrikes in Saksakiyeh, South Lebanon. As of Thursday, the total death toll from the Israel-Hezbollah clashes since last October has reached 1,540, with injuries totaling 5,410, according to the Lebanese health ministry. (Photo by Ali Hashisho/Xinhua) Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. Dairy Calf-to-Beef International Conference A major Dairy Calf-to-Beef International Conference will take place in county Wexford, Ireland on 16th and 17th October. Teagasc with the support of the British Society of Animal Science (BSAS) and ABP are hosting this Technical Conference in Ireland focusing on the production of beef from the dairy herd. This conference will provide the latest information and new innovations to promote sustainability within the sector and to underpin the future viability of dairy and beef sectors. A major Dairy Calf-to-Beef International Conference will take place in county Wexford, Ireland, on 16th and 17th October. The conference is organised by Teagasc with the support of the British Society of Animal Science (BSAS) and ABP. Pictured launching the conference were (l-r): Dr David Kenny, President of the BSAS; Dr Ellen Fitzpatrick, Teagasc Research Technologist in Livestock Systems; Professor Frank OMara, Teagasc Director and Kevin Cahill, Managing Director of ABP Ireland & Poland. Photo: Finbarr ORourke, Photographer Dairy Calf-to-Beef International Conference In recent years there has been a major increase in research efforts to address challenges around the production of beef from the dairy herd, including the development of a number of large-scale joint initiatives with industry partners. The latest results from these studies, as well as updates on state of the art technological advances in dairy-beef production, internationally will be communicated at this two day conference. Leading national and international scientists from Ireland, the UK, New Zealand, Belgium, Denmark and Spain will present the latest science. Speaking in advance of the conference, Teagasc Director Professor Frank O Mara said; I am looking forward to hearing about the latest innovations in the sector and the efforts to promote sustainability within the dairy-beef sector. Leading national and international scientists will compare intensive concentrate-based and pasture-based dairy-beef systems and their impact on financial and environmental sustainability; the impact of new developments in beef cattle genetics targeted for use in the dairy herd; nutrition of dairy-beef calves in early life; health of dairy-beef calves in intensive and pasture-based systems, as well as measures to support better vertical integration of the dairy-beef industry. Kevin Cahill, Managing Director of ABP Ireland & Poland said: ABP is delighted to partner with and support Teagasc and the British Society of Animal Science (BSAS) at the upcoming Dairy Calf-to-Beef International Conference. This innovative event has the opportunity to provide insights into the economic and environmental sustainability of beef production in Ireland and across the world. As a beef processor, evidence-based research is an integral part of our operation. ABP has a long-standing relationship with Teagasc on key dairy beef projects. In 2014, we developed the dairy beef breeding programme in collaboration with Teagasc and the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF), and in 2015, we established the ABP Trial Farm, providing industry-leading research to inform our Advantage Beef Program which supports Irish farming families. President of the BSAS, Dr David Kenny said ; BSAS is delighted to partner with Teagasc and ABP in the delivery of this exciting, timely and hugely warranted technical conference. As the leading society in the UK and Ireland, for the dissemination of livestock science, BSAS is acutely aware of the requirement for an objective scientific forum to discuss state-of-the-art science based best practice in the breeding, nutrition and health management of dairy origin beef cattle. Dr Ellen Fitzpatrick, Teagasc Research Technologist in Livestock Systems said; This conference will give a platform to leading national and international scientists to give their prospective on optimising dairy-beef production. The topics that will be covered over the two day event include; dairy-beef production systems, animal health and welfare, calf nutrition, a session on vertical integration, and breeding and reproduction. Delegates will also get the opportunity to visit the Teagasc dairy-beef research herd at Johnstown Castle and the ABP demonstration farm. View the programme and register here In a nutshell: After refreshing the Evo line of NVMe SSDs earlier this year, Samsung is now introducing another upgrade for storage-hungry customers: the 990 Evo Plus drives. Samsung assures that these drives are not only very fast but also reliable and power efficient. There's a new Samsung SSD in town that nearly matches the maximum data throughput provided by the PCI Express 4.0 interface. The new 990 Evo Plus solid-state drives are said to be 50 percent faster than the previously introduced 990 Evo models, although they utilize the same PCIe Gen 4 (x4) or Gen 5 (x2) interface within a traditional M.2 (2280) form factor. The 990 Evo Plus SSDs offer sequential read speeds of up to 7,250 MB/s and write speeds of up to 6,300 MB/s. Samsung states that the 50 percent performance improvement compared to the 990 Evo is made possible by the latest 8th generation V-NAND (3-bit TLC) technology used in the drives, along with an in-house controller manufactured on a 5-nm process. The 4TB model of the 990 Evo Plus delivers best-in-class random input/output operations per second (IOPS), achieving 1,050K IOPS for random read and 1,400K IOPS for random write speeds, according to the South Korean giant. The company touts this "remarkable feat," which nearly rivals the performance of SSDs that use DRAM memory chips, despite the 990 Evo Plus not employing any DRAM-based cache at all. The new 990 Evo Plus would be an ideal hardware purchase for customers interested in gaming, AI tasks, and other applications requiring high storage performance, according to Samsung. James Fishler, SVP of Samsung Electronics America, stated that the average user now produces more than 100 megabytes of data every minute while capturing new photos, editing videos, or gaming on dedicated consoles. In addition to performance, the 990 Evo Plus line of SSDs features a novel nickel-coated heat shield designed to minimize overheating issues, thereby improving data transfer performance over extended periods. Samsung noted that the new heat shield delivers 73 percent greater power efficiency compared to the 990 Evo drives. While not entirely new, the line includes support for Samsung TurboWrite 2.0, which was first introduced with the SSD 980 NVMe drives and has now been revamped for maximized performance. This technology can accelerate transfer speeds and reduce lag, improving data management when handling larger files. The 990 Evo Plus SSD line includes 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB drives, all backed by a five-year limited warranty. Full-disk data encryption is achieved through an AES 256-bit algorithm, while Samsung's Magician Software provides additional tools for managing the drives. MSRPs range from $110 for the 1TB model to $345 for the 4TB model. Something to look forward to: TeamGroup aims to "push the boundaries" of memory technology with new DDR5 kits that deliver overclocking performance on both Intel and AMD motherboards. While this solution isn't entirely new, it is expected to gain broader adoption from more chip manufacturers in the future. Taiwanese manufacturer TeamGroup recently introduced its new "dual-mode" DDR5 memory modules, designed to support one-click overclocking on both Intel and AMD systems. The DDR5 modules will be available through the company's gaming brand, T-Force, as well as the T-Create line, which targets creators. TeamGroup, known for its DDR kits, solid-state drives, and other memory-related products, offers these new DRAM modules to either prioritize top performance (T-Force) or ensure stable and efficient speeds (T-Create). The DDR5 kits are fully compatible with Intel XMP 3.0 (Extreme Memory Profile) and AMD EXPO (Extended Profiles for Overclocking) standards. Both XMP and EXPO simplify overclocking by allowing users to bypass manual timing adjustments in the motherboard firmware, offering an easier way to optimize memory performance. TeamGroup recommends pairing the new DDR5 kits with the latest AMD X870E and Intel Z790 platforms, suggesting Intel 14th Gen and AMD Zen 5 processors will be required to maximize performance. The dual-mode modules will be available in eight different speeds, ranging from 6,400 MHz to 8,000 MHz. TeamGroup offers two "capacity options" with kits that include either 2 x 16 GB or 2 x 24 GB modules. The company suggests that the 24 GB sticks are better suited for memory-intensive applications like DaVinci Resolve or Google Chrome. As a result, users dealing with larger computing workloads are encouraged to choose the bigger kit for smoother performance. TeamGroup has confirmed that dual-mode overclocking support will be featured in six T-Force kits: Xtreem ARGB DDR5, Xtreem DDR5, Delta RGB DDR5, Delta RGB DDR5, Vulcan DDR5, and Vulcan DDR5. The T-Create Expert DDR5 modules will also support dual-mode overclocking. Additionally, the company is collaborating with major motherboard manufacturers (ASRock, Asus, Biostar, Gigabyte, MSI) to validate QVL (Qualified Vendor List) compatibility, ensuring that the DDR5 dual-mode kits work seamlessly across a wide range of motherboards. The QVL includes memory kits that have been successfully tested for compatibility with specific motherboard models. TeamGroup has not yet announced when the DDR5 kits will be available for purchase or how much they will cost. Dual-mode memory kits, supporting both XMP and EXPO, were introduced by Corsair earlier this year, and there's hope that this technology will become more common among memory manufacturers as DDR5 adoption continues to grow. X may be all about free speech, but it recently suspended a journalist's account, particularly with the incident brought by Ken Klippenstein when he posted sensitive personal information of a U.S. politician. More particularly, Klippenstein was said to have included on his post-Senator J.D. Vance's physical address and other private personal information, hence the strike. This took place after Senator Vance's recent dossier was leaked by unknown hackers and shared with several news outlets, with the Republican presidential candidate previously blaming Iran for the illegal access. X Suspends Ken Klippenstein After Posting Sen. J.D. Vance's Personal Info Ken Klippenstein's X account is now suspended by the platform after the journalist posted Senator J.D. Vance's personal information online, with X claiming that the account violated its rules. In a follow-up statement made by X Safety, the social media denounces Klippenstein's act, which further shared Sen. Vance's 'unredacted' private information, which was evident on the post. Klippenstein was regarded to be among the journalists who received the leaked copy of the dossier of Republican candidate J.D. Vance, who was subjected to a recent hack where their files were stolen. It was revealed by Engadget that other news outlets avoided sharing his personal information online, but Klippenstein posted it, claiming it was 'newsworthy.' Read Also: Why Did DeportElonMusk Trend on X? Musk Deletes Harris-Biden Assassination Joke Ken Klippenstein was temporarily suspended for violating our rules on posting unredacted private personal information, specifically Sen. Vances physical addresses and the majority of his Social Security number. Safety (@Safety) September 26, 2024 Dossier Leak: Trump Accuses Iran Of 'Hacking' Their Files Vance's dossier leak contained his physical address and the last four numbers of his social security number, with the other parts of it being redacted by Klippenstein. It was revealed that Trump previously accused the Iranian government of hacking into their files and leaking the dossier last June. With X suspending him, Klippenstein posted Vance's dossier on his Substack and other social media accounts. X's Account Suspensions and Content Moderation Since 2022, Elon Musk faced massive controversies when he took over Twitter (now X) because of his massive beliefs in free speech and was said to be leaning into far-right ideologies for the platform. Musk and X were heavily criticized for their lackluster content moderation, which allowed its users to exercise their freedom, which led to infamously losing advertisers because of anti-semitic propaganda. However, to regain the lost partner companies advertising on X, Elon Musk and the company looked into expanding its content moderation efforts in the platform earlier this year, beginning with a hiring spree for monitoring the social media. That being said, the tech billionaire and his social media platform also gained a notorious status with Brazil earlier this year when it ignored Justice Alexandre de Moraes' order to block certain accounts, upholding the Brazilian's rights to free speech. In this latest development, X is turning to a new light for its content moderation and account suspensions with the recent suspension of the journalist responsible for leaking sensitive information on its platform. X shows that it does not tolerate leaking personal information online despite being released as news, especially for a prominent personality running for the Vice Presidential office. Related Article: X Transparency Report Details Content Moderation, Suspensions; The First Since Musk's Takeover Typically, note-taking applications are intended to ensure maximum productivity and allow individuals to capture ideas to enable minimal brainstorming but excellent organization of all thoughts. Napkin takes this one step forward by shifting its focus from productivity to mindfulness and self-reflection. It presents itself as a companion to journaling--more thoughtful regarding capturing and re-capturing ideas. Napkin's Approach to Note-Taking with Mindfulness In 2022, the app's co-founders, David Felsmann and Fabian Wittel, collaborated further on an app they had begun to develop in the innovation department at BMW. The first web-based prototype of Napkin was meant to order and outline thoughts about a given subject; however, when more users began using it as a space for mindfulness and reflection, the founders opted to adapt the app for that purpose. Now, Napkin is designed as a service that is supposed to facilitate mindful pause among its users by providing an outlet to reflect on ideas significant to them. The shift in focus led the company to concentrate on health and fitness in the App Store rather than productiveness or utility as its core market. Read Also: #TechTimesLifeHack: How to Use YouTube Like a Pro Using These Essential Keyboard Shortcuts How Does Napkin Work? With Napkin, users can develop ideas in various wayssnapping pictures of quotes they find in books or, alternatively, typing the thoughts directly into the application. The software will classify these ideas according to auto-generated tags so that users are on top and revisit themes they have run through. Ideas curated for initial sessions are also included in the user library, contributing to a more personalized experience. According to TechCrunch, a great feature of the application is that users can easily archive their reflected ideas, and subsequently, these would no longer appear with corresponding flags. The app supports many languages, including Spanish and German, but it is significantly better optimized for use in the English language. Non-Obtrusive Experience Based on Coherence Perhaps the most crucial feature differentiating Napkin from other apps is its sense of coherence model, which lets users build a holistic mental model of the world. Instead of drowning users with notifications and nudges, the app lets self-reflection quietly occur in the background. As co-founder Felsmann pointed out, "We do not want to add more noise to users' lives. We want to be a quiet place for retention and reflection.". Many users have Napkin as the first thing they open in the morning, with its calming alternative to social media. Therefore, this routine gives them ample time for reflection on valuable thoughts rather than catapulting into the noise of the digital world. How Much is Napkin? Napkin is now available in the App Store, and a working subscription will cost $6 a month or as little as $50 a year. The app also features a free seven-day test period. The company has not raised institutional funding yet, but it has raised about $150,000 from believers and backers through convertible loan agreements. Napkin has around 4,000 paying subscribers. To continue scaling, the company said it would not consider funding or adding more features until its user base expands to 10,000 subscribers. At that point, the company said it would release integrations with popular journaling apps and services including Amazon Kindle to make capturing ideas easier and journaling about them. Journaling Companion, Not a Replacement However, rather than replacing traditional journaling applications, Napkin sees itself as a complement. Napkin focuses on mindful reflection, and the experience it offers people who want to build into their journaling habits or add some self-reflection into their lives will be great. Related Article: Top 5 Best AI Note Tools in 2024 Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Chinese Ambassador to Uganda Zhang Lizhong plant a tree together at the Karuma dam site in Kiryandongo, Uganda, Sept. 26, 2024. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has commissioned the Chinese-built 600-megawatt Karuma Hydropower Station and the Karuma Interconnection Project in the midwestern Ugandan district of Kiryandongo. (Photo by Hajarah Nalwadda/Xinhua) KARUMA, Uganda, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has commissioned the Chinese-built 600-megawatt Karuma Hydropower Station and the Karuma Interconnection Project in the midwestern Ugandan district of Kiryandongo. A special ceremony was held Thursday to mark the occasion, which was also attended by Uganda's Vice President Jessica Alupo, ministers, senior officials, and development partners among others. Museveni thanked China for financing the construction of the hydropower project, noting that access to adequate and affordable electricity is one of the key factors that can fast-track his country's economy. "I am very grateful that our Chinese friends came in, they said not only can we do it technically (construction), but we can co-fund it. That is how we have been able to build this wonderful facility," the president said. The president hailed China for its announcement at the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing early this month, where the Asian country gave all the least developed countries it has diplomatic relations with, including 33 countries in Africa, zero-tariff treatment for 100 percent tariff lines. Museveni said China by opening up its market would benefit African countries. The hydropower project, constructed both on the surface and underground River Nile, the world's longest river, was jointly financed by the Export-Import Bank (EXIM) of China and the Ugandan government. The project, believed to be Uganda's largest of the kind, cost 1.7 billion U.S. dollars. Ugandan Minister of Energy and Mineral Development Ruth Nankabirwa said the project would be a vital part of Uganda's electricity infrastructure to supply power to different parts of the country and the region. She said the commissioning of the Karuma project is also a signal of Uganda's transition to green energy. Chinese Ambassador to Uganda Zhang Lizhong said the commissioning of the hydropower project represented a milestone in the cooperation between China and Uganda. "Karuma Hydropower Project would not only connect millions of households with affordable electricity, supply power for some of the most dynamic industrial areas in Uganda, and promote its green economic transformation, but also give the Pearl of Africa a huge boost as the regional electricity hub and contribute to sustainable clean energy for East African development," said Zhang. China's state-owned engineering and construction company Sinohydro Corporation Limited started the construction of the hydropower project in 2013, employing more than 50,000 workers. Karuma is the second power plant financed by China after the 183-megawatt Isimba Hydropower Plant, which was commissioned in 2019. This photo taken on Sept. 26, 2024 shows the Karuma dam at the Karuma Hydropower Station in Kiryandongo, Uganda. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has commissioned the Chinese-built 600-megawatt Karuma Hydropower Station and the Karuma Interconnection Project in the midwestern Ugandan district of Kiryandongo. (Photo by Hajarah Nalwadda/Xinhua) Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni (in white) is briefed during the commissioning of the Chinese-built 600-megawatt Karuma Hydropower Station in Kiryandongo, Uganda, Sept. 26, 2024. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has commissioned the Chinese-built 600-megawatt Karuma Hydropower Station and the Karuma Interconnection Project in the midwestern Ugandan district of Kiryandongo. (Photo by Hajarah Nalwadda/Xinhua) As you scroll through Instagram, you should likely have seen the viral warning about Meta's new AI features. Users, including celebrities like James McAvoy and Tom Brady, share the "Goodbye Meta AI" message regarding their discontent with the tech giant's data usage in training AI models. Beware: it's a new privacy hoax to avoid. Is that virus notice legally adequate? No, and here is why. Meta's AI Features and What is Scaring People Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, recently rolled out some artificial intelligence features. Some of the new AI features released include an AI chatbot meant to answer users' questions, digital stickers, and photo editing services. While these improving user experiences are excitedly embraced, data behind the new features concerns most people. According to a report from Meta, public posts on both Instagram and Facebook are used to update its generative AI models. The Guardian spotted that a public notice about these revelations has increased anxiety among users so much that it has been shared everywhere. It is a "Goodbye Meta AI" message that claims Meta does not have permission to use personal data as part of training AI. However, the notice has no legal standing. Read Also: Deepfake Scam: AI-Generated Video Call Deceives Arup Employee into Sending 20 Million to Criminals Reality About Meta's Terms of Service The problem here is that users registering on Instagram and Facebook accept the terms of service of Meta. Under these terms, Meta has wide rights in using, distributing, and modifying content contributed by users. According to assistant professor of digital media technology at The University of Alabama, Jessica Maddox, via Huff Post, "Just posting it is not going to be enough because you have already agreed to it by having created your account.". More precisely, when logging in and using the company's various platforms, you've given Meta permission to use the content you upload in all the ways it currently uses, which includes training its AI. That means posts going back as far as 2007, according to Meta's lawyer during an Australian Senate inquiry. The 'Goodbye Meta AI' Message: A Modern Chain Letter The "Goodbye Meta AI" meme is similar to the old-school chain email of the '90s -- ones in which users were supposed to send the message to avoid some bad luck. As Maddox says, such a viral posting spreads when people start thinking that others must also have a reason for doing that. Just like those chain emails, this Instagram trend holds no real power. While the message could resonate with real fears over privacy, simply posting a statement on your Instagram story won't override the terms of service you've already agreed to. How to Protect Your Data from AI Training While reposting the "Goodbye Meta AI" notice won't stop Meta from using your data, there are legitimate steps you can take to protect your privacy. Meta claims to use only public posts as material for training its AI, so making your posts private could constrain how your data is used. Meta also publishes a form users can use to request the deletion of personal information it may use for its AI training. However, proof that your data was used is required and is subject to local laws. AI and Data Privacy Concerns Are Real Although the viral notice itself is an ineffective tool, the issues it raises are not illegitimate. As Meta and others in the tech industry continue to develop their AI technologies, many people feel uncomfortable regarding how personal data are being used without explicit permission. In places like the European Union, tighter regulations around privacy exist, thus better safeguarding against such practices. However, for US-based users, fewer protections exist at the legal level, and more procedures are needed to opt out when using AI-related data collection. Related Article: Mark Zuckerberg's Meta AI Update Overshadowed by Viral Fake Image WELLINGTON, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- A tourist safe-driving week was launched on Thursday in New Zealand by the Chinese embassy and consulates and Zuzuche, a global self-driving tour platform, to promote safety awareness among self-driving tourists. At the launching ceremony, the Chinese embassy and consulates in New Zealand, together with more than 30 leading car rental companies operating in New Zealand, released two initiatives to promote industry responsibilities and self-driving tour safety. Chinese Consul General in Christchurch He Ying told the online launching ceremony that in recent years, an increasing number of Chinese tourists have chosen to travel in New Zealand by self-driving, which raises higher safety requirements for travel. The two initiatives have been launched to create a safer and more orderly self-driving environment for Chinese tourists visiting New Zealand, as well as further establish a good cooperation and communication mechanism among car rental platforms, rental companies, travel agencies, and tourists, He said. Since January 2023, the number of Chinese tourists traveling to New Zealand has rapidly increased, with a significant surge in self-driving tourists. Plan to overturn commercial whaling moratorium sinks in Peru Lima, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 A four-decade-old moratorium on commercial whaling will remain in force after a proposal to overturn it was withdrawn Thursday at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Peru's capital Lima. Another proposal to declare whaling a source of global food security was also abandoned in a plenary session after failing to gain consensus among delegates from 60 countries. "We are relieved that the dark and dangerous resolution to resume commercial whaling has been withdrawn," said Grettel Delgadillo, Latin America representative for Human Society International (HSI). The first proposal was submitted by Antigua and Barbuda, which is not a whaling nation but has said it would pursue the matter at the next IWC meeting in Australia in 2026. Delgadillo said pro-whaling stances by countries that do not consume whale meat "demonstrates how Japan continues to influence the IWC despite not being a member anymore." The food security proposal, in turn, was submitted by a host of African countries which also have no whaling tradition but are allies of Japan, according to NGOs. Japan is one of three countries to continue whale hunting, along with Norway and Iceland. It continued the practice for "scientific" purposes after the moratorium was introduced in 1986, killing hundreds of whales in the Antarctic and North Pacific. After years of tensions took a toll on its international reputation, Japan quit the IWC in 2019 and resumed commercial whaling inside its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone (EEZ). An estimated 1,200 whales are killed by hunters every year. Climate change is another threat to the creatures, with whale numbers in the North Pacific decreasing 20 percent between 2012 and 2021 due to a shortage in their main food source, plankton, according to an Australian study. In the 20th century, nearly three million cetaceans were harpooned by humans, according to figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and several species became threatened. On remote Greek island, migratory birds offer climate clues Potamos Antikythiron, Greece, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 Gently holding a blackcap warbler in his palm, ornithologist Christos Barboutis blew on its feathers to reveal the size of its belly: a good indicator of how far the bird can migrate. Acutely vulnerable to climate change, migratory birds offer valuable clues to scientists about how our warming planet is affecting wildlife: from their shifting migration patterns to their body weight. "Observing them warns us if something is changing or going wrong," said Barboutis, a researcher at the Hellenic Ornithological Society. Birds "are among the first to be affected by climate change such as drought, which poses a big problem for their distant travel," he told AFP at an observation station on the small Aegean island of Antikythera. At the crack of dawn, the researcher and his colleagues lay out nets to capture and ring the birds. The tiny island in the eastern Mediterranean lies on a popular corridor for birds migrating from northern Europe to Africa in the autumn, and in the opposite direction in springtime. Barboutis came to the sparsely populated rock between the Peloponnese and the western tip of Crete some 15 years ago. His team have seen and observed a variety of birds: from turtle doves and warblers to colourful bee-eaters and buzzards. The rare Eleonora's falcon with its distinctive, elegant wings often nests on the cliffs of the island. Greece becomes host to around 80 percent of the bird's population during their breeding season. - 'State of nature' - At sunrise, volunteers Nefeli Marinou, a 21-year-old biology student, and Jennifer Evans, a 25-year-old environmentalist from Canada, scour the deployed nets for trapped birds and carefully place them in small bags. A metal ring placed on a bird's finger bears a unique identification number. In a book, Marinou notes the species, age, sex, date and time. "From this number we deduce how long it took the bird to get here, whether the population is declining or stable," Evans said. Around 40 birds were ringed in a day's work. The bird capturing programme began 20 years ago, Barboutis said, although he cautioned it was a scientifically short period to make long-term conclusions about the impacts of climate change. From the top of a rock, student volunteer Nikolas Promponas, using a telescope and binoculars, watched for falcons and white-headed vultures, a species whose numbers are declining in Europe. Many species of birds including birds of prey need coastlines and ridges to gain height before taking off, he said, a resource that is abundant on Antikythera. Unlike the nearby tourist islands of Kythera and Crete, rugged Antikythera has just two restaurant-cafes and can only handle around forty tourists in summer. Like other islands in the southern Mediterranean, Antikythera serves as a vital stopover point where migratory birds can replenish ahead of their long journey. It is part of the EU Natura network of nature protection areas due to its biodiversity. Declining insect populations have made it harder for some species to find food, while human activity, intense droughts and wildfires worsened by climate change have contributed to the loss of their habitat. Forest fires, the use of pesticides, and urban expansion are also factors that affect their population. This year, Greece experienced its warmest winter and warmest summer since detailed records began in 1960. Less greenery means less food. "If there are fewer birds feeding on insects, it probably means that insects are also in decline," Evans said. "Whatever the case, birds are a very good indicator of the state of nature." 15 dead, dozens missing after landslide at illegal Indonesia mine Jakarta, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 A landslide at an illegal gold mine in western Indonesia has killed at least 15 people and buried dozens of others in the abandoned pit with rescue workers struggling to locate the missing, officials said Friday. Unlicensed mines are common across the mineral-rich Southeast Asian archipelago, where abandoned sites attract locals who hunt for leftover gold ore without proper safety equipment. The landslide hit a remote site in West Sumatra province on Sumatra island Thursday evening after heavy rains in the area, provincial disaster mitigation agency spokesperson Ilham Wahab told AFP. "The information we can provide was that a landslide occurred at a gold mine last night, causing several people to be buried. Efforts to search for the victims are ongoing," he said. Ilhan added that 15 people were killed and three injured, with rescuers searching for 25 others. Footage seen by AFP showed rescuers loading one of the dead into an ambulance near the disaster site in the district of Solok. The Solok district disaster agency said in a statement sent to AFP that the landslide took place at an abandoned "illegal" mine. "The landslide location is on an old mining pit that had been abandoned by previous miners," it said. Ilham said all activities at the site had been halted as search efforts for the missing were ongoing. - Arduous search effort - Search efforts were being hindered by the remote location, with rescuers including police officers, soldiers and civilians having to walk for hours from the nearest village to reach the area, Ilham said. "The location is quite far, the terrain is tough. This has hampered evacuation efforts but people are helping so that this evacuation process can be carried out quickly," he said. The Solok district disaster agency said in its statement that the area had no mobile phone signal, making it hard for rescuers to communicate with each other. Agency official Irwan Effendy said "the victims include people who conducted manual gold mining activities". Indonesia is prone to landslides during the rainy season, typically between November and April, but some disasters caused by adverse weather have taken place outside that season in recent years. In July, at least 27 people were killed after a landslide struck near an illegal gold mine on the central Indonesian island of Sulawesi. In May, at least 15 people died after landslides and flooding in South Sulawesi province swept away dozens of houses and damaged roads. A landslide in the same province a month before killed 20 people. US officials warn weakening storm Helene still 'dangerous' Tallahassee, United States, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 Helene weakened to a tropical storm Friday hours after it made landfall as a powerful hurricane in the US state of Florida, with officials warning the deadly storm remained "dangerous" as it surged inland, leaving flooded roads and homes in its wake. The storm tore a destructive path through Florida into neighbouring Georgia, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said, warning residents to stay sheltered "through the passage of these life-threatening conditions." "Helene continues to produce hurricane force winds that are moving further into Georgia," the center said in a recent bulletin. "Life-threatening storm surge, winds, and heavy rains continue." Three people had died from conditions caused by Helene as of early Friday -- one in Florida and two in Georgia -- the states' respective governors said. One person was killed when a sign fell on a highway in coastal Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis said. Two people were killed in Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp said, with local media reporting the man and woman were killed when their trailer was picked up by a tornado. Images on US media showed ripped billboard signs whipping in high winds and sparks flying from power lines, as more than two million people were without power across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, according to tracking site PowerOutage.us. The National Weather Service (NWS) warned of "catastrophic and life-threatening flash/urban flooding, including landslides," across swathes of the region many miles inland from the coast. The agency had warned the region could be hit extremely hard, with floods not seen in more than a century. "This will be one of the most significant weather events to happen in the western portions of the area in the modern era," it said. The warnings came even as the storm had weakened to a Category 1 on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale and then to a tropical storm with maximum sustained wind speeds of 70 miles (110 kilometers) per hour, having slammed into the southeastern US coast as a powerful Category 4 hurricane packing winds of 140 miles per hour. - 'Biggest flood' - The storm flooded homes and roads in Florida, where residents had been warned of "unsurvivable" storm surge. Tampa Bay resident Matt Heller told CNN his home had been submerged in four feet (1.2 metres) of water within a half hour of the storm hitting, as he took refuge in a kayak in his flooded living room. "This is definitely the biggest biggest flood we've ever had," he said. US President Joe Biden and state authorities had urged people to heed official evacuation warnings before Helene hit, though some chose stay in their homes to wait out the storm. "I am going to hunker down" and ride out the hurricane, said Patrick Riickert, as he did in 2018 when deadly Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 mega storm, blew through the Florida panhandle. He had refused to budge from his small wooden house in Crawfordville, a town of 5,000 people a few miles inland. Most residents had bolted, but Riickert, his wife and five grandchildren were "not going anywhere," the 58-year-old told AFP. In Taylor County, officials had asked residents who did not act on mandatory evacuation warnings to write their names on their bodies with permanent marker, to aid in identification if they are killed. - 'Remain vigilant' - Rescue workers were deployed in Lee County on Florida's coast, the sheriff said on X, sharing videos of men in high-vis gear battling against high winds to launch a rescue boat. DeSantis had mobilized the National Guard and ordered thousands of personnel to ready for search and rescue operations, urging residents to take precautions. "We can't control how strong this hurricane is going to get. We can't control the track of the hurricane, but what you can control is what you can do to put yourself in the best chance to be able to ride this out in a way that's going to be safe," DeSantis said. Georgia's Kemp, in a message of condolences for the two killed by the tornado, urged "all Georgians to brace for further impact from Helene, remain vigilant, and pray for all those affected" in a post on X. Scientists say climate change likely plays a role in the rapid intensification of hurricanes, because there is more energy in warmer oceans for them to feed on. gma-mlm-hg/aha/sw/rsc UK watchdog bans Naomi Campbell from running charity over 'misconduct' London, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 Former supermodel Naomi Campbell has been barred from running a charity after an inquiry found funds raised by an organisation she founded was spent on spa treatment and room service charges. The inquiry into Fashion for Relief, released on Thursday, identified "multiple instances of misconduct", including use of charity money to pay for a five-star hotel stay for Campbell in the south of France. The finding by the UK Charity Commission means Campbell, 54, has now been disqualified from running a charity for five years. Two other trustees also received bans. The watchdog probe found that between April 2016 and July 2022, only 8.5 percent of Fashion for Relief's overall expenditure went on grants to charities. Campbell, who in 1987 became the first black model to feature on the cover of UK Vogue in 20 years, achieved worldwide fame in the 1990s and remains a highly influential figure in the industry. In June, an exhibition dedicated to her opened at London's Victoria and Albert Museum. Speaking in Paris on Thursday after receiving an honour from the French government, the British celebrity denied any responsibility for the mishandling of donations. "I was not in control of my charity. I put the control in the hands of a lawyer," she told reporters after she was made a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. The model added that she was "investigating to find out what and how -- as everything I do and every penny I ever raised goes towards charities". - Star-studded events - Campbell's charity held a string of glitzy, star-studded events to raise funds for good causes in London and Cannes. These were said to include projects ranging from supporting child refugees, to helping victims of the Ebola crisis and the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami. One event in the French Riviera resort in 2017 was attended by over 1,000 guests including stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Antonio Banderas, Faye Dunaway, Jane Fonda and Uma Thurman. A three-night hotel stay for a similar event in 2018 cost pound7,800 ($10,400). The Charity Commission said it saw no evidence the trustees had made sure that such costs were "reasonable". The regulator also looked at additional expenses totalling pound6,600 for Campbell's hotel stay, including spa treatments, room service and the purchase of cigarettes. It said the trustees had argued hotel costs were usually met by a donor but failed to provide any supporting evidence. "The commission concluded that there had been serious misconduct and/or mismanagement in the administration of the charity by the trustees since it was established," the report said. Fashion for Relief was dissolved and removed from the register of charities earlier this year. Set up in 2005, it described itself as "dedicated to improving the lives of those living in adversity by uniting the fashion industry as a force for good". Turkey jails builder of quake-razed apartments for 865 years Istanbul, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 Turkey on Friday handed 865 years in prison to a man behind the construction of a building which collapsed during a powerful 2023 earthquake, killing 96, state media said. The 14-storey apartment block in the southern Turkish city of Adana was destroyed by a massive 7.8-magnitude quake in February 2023 that killed more than 53,500 people in Turkey and nearly 6,000 in neighbouring Syria. Only one of the building's residents survived. Built in 1975, the building's collapse immediately aroused suspicions as Adana, located less than 200 kilometres (about 120 miles) from the earthquake's epicentre, was largely spared from the violent tremors. The man in the dock, Hasan Alpargun, was convicted on Friday of "having caused the death and injury of more than one person with possible intent", according to the official Anadolu news agency. Alpargun is reported to have fled to Turkish-backed Northern Cyprus on the day of the quake, before turning himself over to police a week later. During the trial experts pointed to serious deficiencies in the construction of the building's support columns, as well as the quality of concrete used. Alpargun defended himself by stating that the construction was approved by the authorities. More than 260 people involved in the construction of buildings that collapsed during the February 2023 earthquake were arrested in the aftermath, some while trying to flee Turkey. The trials of several of these entrepreneurs have opened this year. Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' targeted again with soup in UK after activists jailed London, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2024 Three climate activists on Friday threw soup over two Vincent van Gogh paintings at the National Gallery in London, just hours after two others were jailed for committing the same act two years ago. The gallery said "a soup-like substance" had been thrown over "Sunflowers" (1888) and "Sunflowers" (1889) and that three people had been arrested. The Just Stop Oil group (JSO) said it had staged the "sign of defiance" after two of its activists were jailed earlier Friday for throwing soup at the "Sunflowers" (1888) painting in October 2022. The attacks are the latest in a series of protests by the group, which seeks an end to the extraction and burning of oil, coal and gas, that have prompted an increasingly hard line by the authorities. Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were convicted in July of criminal damage after pouring tomato soup over the screen protecting the still life masterpiece. Plummer was on Friday jailed for two years and Holland for 20 months. Both had pleaded not guilty. Greenpeace UK's co-executive director, Will McCallum, called the sentence "a draconian and disproportionate punishment for a protest that caused minor damage to a picture frame". Sentencing the pair, Judge Christopher Hehir said the painting could have been "seriously damaged or even destroyed". "Soup might have seeped through the glass. You couldn't have cared less if the painting was damaged or not," he added. "You had no right to do what you did to 'Sunflowers'." Supporters of the pair gathered outside Southwark Crown Court in south London, holding banners calling them "political prisoners". But Hehir dismissed the argument. "You think your beliefs entitle you to do anything," he told Plummer. "The suggestion that you and others like you in a democracy are political prisoners is ludicrous, offensive and idiotic." - 'Grim milestone' - The National Gallery said the jailed protesters caused around pound10,000 ($13,420) in damage to the frame but the painting itself was protected by a screen and was unharmed. Holland and Plummer also glued themselves to the gallery wall during their protest. Plummer has already spent 58 days on remand in prison for another protest at London's Heathrow Airport in July. Greenpeace UK's McCallum called the sentencing "another grim milestone in the ongoing crackdown on peaceful protest". "Protest is by its nature inconvenient and occasionally messy. These defendants do not deserve to spend years behind bars for standing up for a liveable planet." Holland said before she was sentenced that they would not be deterred by prison sentences. JSO named the supporters in Friday's incident as Phil Green, 24, Ludi Simpson, 71, and Mary Patricia Somerville, 77, confirming they had thrown soup on the art works. "We will be held accountable for our actions today, and we will face the full force of the law," said Simpson. "When will the fossil fuel executives and the politicians they've bought be held accountable for the criminal damage that they are imposing on every living thing?" she asked. - Paintings 'unharmed' - The gallery said the incident occurred at 2:30 pm (1330 GMT) and that the paintings were found to be unharmed after being examined by a conservator. "We are aiming to reopen the exhibition as soon as possible," it added. Just Stop Oil has staged a number of high-profile stunts in recent years. In July 2022, protesters glued themselves to the frame of John Constable's pastoral masterpiece "The Hay Wain", also in the National Gallery. Five activists, including the climate group's founder, were given between four and five years in jail in June for conspiring to plan protests that blocked the M25 motorway surrounding London. JSO activists were also arrested as they intended to protest at King Charles III's coronation in May last year. The group called the detentions "massive authoritarian overreach". A child clicks on an electronic screen to color an opera mask at the interactive experience space of a museum dedicated to local operas in Kunshan City, east China's Jiangsu Province, Sept. 8, 2024. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenqian) NANJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- In Kunshan City, east China's Jiangsu Province, the melodies of Kunqu Opera, one of China's most ancient and treasured art forms, are not confined to the stages of grand theaters, but ring out in unexpected scenes - school bells, fitness routines and even bus stop illustrations where lively cartoon figures greet passersby every day. Kunshan is the birthplace of Kunqu, which blends poetry, music, intricate costumes and graceful performances. The 600-year-old Chinese tradition earned its place on UNESCO's list of World Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2001. But Kunqu is far from a relic. In the bustling streets of Kunshan, this ancient art form continues to find new life, delicately balancing between preserving its timeless beauty and embracing the demands of modernity. For performers like You Tengteng, an actress at the Kunshan Contemporary Kunqu Theater, the act is both a challenge and a passion. After a long day of rehearsal, You and her colleagues discussed their latest performance strategies, not in a traditional theater but on Douyin, a Chinese video-sharing platform. In partnership with the platform, You and seven other performers livestream their Kunqu shows for at least 20 hours each month. The goal is simple yet ambitious: to reach a new generation of audiences who might hesitate to sit through two or three hours-long performance in an opera house. One of the challenges for them is interpretation - not from language to language, but from centuries-old art to the flickering screens of smartphones. To draw audiences in the digital age, the performers have condensed the intricate art form into digestible one-hour segments, inviting viewers to experience Kunqu in more relaxed settings, whether over tea at a cafe or within the walls of a museum. The strategy seems to be working, particularly among Chinese youth. After performances, it is not uncommon to see young fans eagerly lining up for selfies and autographs with the performers, their newfound enthusiasm for this ancient art is a testament to its evolving relevance. You was not so surprised to see the heartening trend. "The aesthetics of Chinese culture, ancient and modern, are continuous," she said. "What we strive to inherit is not just the technique, but the pursuit of beauty that has always existed." "And Kunqu is a reflection of societal values, many of which were born in the feudal era. This tension between the past and present is where we find space for innovation, reimagining the stories of old to resonate with modern audiences," she added. One such innovation was seen in the Kunshan Contemporary Kunqu Theater's production of The Story of Washing Gauze, a play originally written in the 16th century. The story centers on Xi Shi, a legendary beauty from ancient China, who sacrifices her personal happiness to serve her country. In the original ending, after years of separation and war, Xi Shi reunites with her lover and they live happily ever after. However, the modern production altered the ending, leaving it open and tinged with sorrow. The reimagining struck a chord with audiences, many of whom praised the new ending for its emotional depth and realism, noting that it made Xi Shi's character more relatable to modern viewers. Kunshan's commitment to preserving and promoting Kunqu goes beyond the stage. Over the last few years, the Kunshan Kunqu theater has held more than 2,500 performances and tours, drawing over 20 million visitors from China and abroad. In addition, the local government has invested 177 million yuan (about 25.2 million U.S. dollars) to fund new productions, support rehearsal spaces, and subsidize performances since 2018. Kunshan's commitment extends to preserving not only Kunqu but the diverse operatic traditions of China. Since 2018, the annual Chinese Opera Gala (Kunshan) has been hosted by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and provincial government. The gala showcases 348 traditional operas, including puppetry and shadow plays, bringing these art forms - many of which are endangered - into the spotlight and providing a platform for artistic exchange. Wang Wei, an actor of Liuzi Opera from Shandong Province, performed the role of General Zhang Fei to the gala, who is a famous character from the classic Chinese novel "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms." To play the role more impressively, Wang often learns from other versions of this character to enrich his performance and finally he creates a brave and lovable General Zhang Fei. "This gala is such a good opportunity to learn from each other, I am very glad to stand on this stage to let more people know our Liuzi Opera," Wang said. In addition to performances, the gala includes training workshops for performers of minor or endangered operatic forms. Xu Min, a composer and performer of tea-picking opera from Jiangxi Province, has attended these workshops for years. "If you focus only on your own art, you become isolated," she said. "But here, I'm exposed to so many different plays, rhythms, and techniques. I feel like a sponge, absorbing everything." Kunshan's role as the birthplace of Kunqu Opera has positioned the city as a guardian of traditional Chinese opera, said Zhou Wei, Party chief of Kunshan. Through the construction of a museum dedicated to local operas and the host of annual national event, Kunshan endeavors to offer a space for art exchange and growth. "We want to create a broad stage for different operas to flourish and to integrate traditional culture with the modern world," Zhou said. You Tengteng, an actress at the Kunshan Contemporary Kunqu Theater, performs during "The Story of Washing Gauze" in Kunshan City, east China's Jiangsu Province, Sept. 17, 2021. (Kunshan Contemporary Kunqu Theater/Handout via Xinhua) Wang Wei (C), an actor of Liuzi Opera from Shandong Province, performs the role of General Zhang Fei, who is a famous character from the classic Chinese novel "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms," during the annual Chinese Opera Gala (Kunshan) at a Kunqu theater in Kunshan City, east China's Jiangsu Province, Sept. 9, 2024. (Liuzi Opera from Shandong Province/Handout via Xinhua) Chinese Ambassador to South Africa Wu Peng addresses a reception to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in Pretoria, South Africa, Sept. 26, 2024. (Photo by Shiraaz Mohamed/Xinhua) JOHANNESBURG, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Embassy in South Africa held a reception on Thursday in Pretoria, the country's administrative capital, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC). In his welcoming speech, Chinese Ambassador to South Africa Wu Peng said that although China and South Africa are separated by oceans, the friendship between the two peoples dates back a long time and has grown stronger over the years. He said that during South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's state visit to China in early September, the two countries agreed to elevate their bilateral ties to an "all-round strategic cooperative partnership in the new era," marking another significant step forward in their relations. "China stands ready to take the implementation of the consensus reached by the two heads of state as an opportunity, join hands with South Africa in the pursuit of modernization, and work together to build a higher level of a China-South Africa community with a shared future, benefiting both of our countries and peoples," said Wu. Mmamoloko Kubayi, South Africa's minister of human settlements, who attended the reception, said that the bilateral relationship between South Africa and China has continued to grow since the establishment of diplomatic relations. President Ramaphosa's recent visit to China has set the stage for enhanced cooperation not only between South Africa and China but also between China and the entire African continent, Kubayi said. "South Africa looks forward to continuing close cooperation with China. We appreciate China's commitment to supporting our G20 presidency objectives next year, as the two countries work closely to advance the legitimate interests and views of the Global South in addressing economic development and inequality," Kubayi added. The event was attended by over 600 guests, including South Africa's Minister of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities Sindisiwe Chikunga, Treasurer General of the African National Congress Gwen Ramokgopa, as well as various government officials, diplomats and representatives of Chinese businesses. Guests attend a reception held by the Chinese Embassy in South Africa to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in Pretoria, South Africa, Sept. 26, 2024. (Photo by Shiraaz Mohamed/Xinhua) Tully, who also has a senior role at the Bureau of Meteorology, said the Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987, and tightened progressively. It took until 2000 for the ozone layer to start healing, and until 2018 for scientists to be sure of the recovery trend. Its often called the most successful international environmental agreement, and it certainly shows what can be achieved if governments, scientists and industry work together, he said. We still need to keep carefully monitoring ozone to make sure it is recovering as we expected, and to keep measuring ozone-depleting substances to make sure that all countries are keeping to their commitments. In recent years there was some illegal production in China, and they were using it for styrofoam. The ozone hole worsened rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s, Tully said, while the recovery was much slower. It took a long time for the ozone-depleting substances to travel to the stratosphere, and they would remain and cause damage every year until they deteriorated. At this rate, the hole is expected to recover to 1980 levels by about 2066 for the hole over Antarctica, by 2045 for the smaller hole over the Arctic, and by 2040 for the thinning over the rest of the world, including Australia. Professor Sharon Robinson, a climate change biologist and Antarctic researcher at the University of Wollongong, warned that mega bushfires and increased space activity such as rocket launches for civilian satellites could set back the long-term recovery. The Montreal Protocol is an amazing treaty, and it has banned all those CFCs and also HCFCs, but there are new threats, which we need to be aware of, Robinson said. Why did the ozone hole form late this year? The hole normally forms in late winter and early spring, and closes by summer. Dr Martin Jucker, an atmospheric dynamics and climatology expert at the University of NSW, explains this is because it needs to be very cold to form stratospheric polar clouds, which act as the catalyst for the chemical reactions that destroy ozone. If its warmer, there are [fewer] clouds, and therefore less ozone destruction, Jucker said. The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service attributed the delay to disruptions in the polar vortex, after two episodes of sudden stratospheric warming in July. Loading Tully said the polar vortex was a high-altitude wind - much higher even than the jet streams - that swirls above Antarctica. This year, in July, there was quite a disturbance to the polar vortex, and the temperature in the stratosphere jumped up by more than 15 degrees, roughly, Tully said. Thats had an effect on the ozone hole this year it got off to a slow start because of that disturbance but the connection to weather on the ground is less clear. Jucker said the disturbance was probably caused by warm ocean temperatures and melting sea ice having a ripple effect in the stratosphere. The polar vortex usually stays in a circle over Antarctica, but this year it was pushed into an elongated elliptical orbit. Jucker said the altered path took in part of Australia, and was the likely cause of the freezing, unsettled weather in the south of the continent in early August. He noted the southern annular mode a climate driver for rainfall and temperatures was extremely negative at the time. The disturbance in the stratospheric polar vortex over Antarctica in early August 2024. The colours show the air temperature at 10hPa, from less than -75 Celsius (black) to more than 35 degrees (yellow). Credit: NASA Earth Observatory I think theres a relationship there, Jucker said. It was just a few days, but it looked like it was a reaction from the stratosphere being disturbed. Jucker said the stratospheric disturbances were concerning, and while it was tempting to think of the delayed ozone hole formation as a silver lining, it was only a reprieve of a few weeks and would not have a long-term benefit. Robinson said the ozone hole normally disappeared in November, but for the past four summers in a row it had persisted into December because of bushfires and volcanic activity. This put flora and fauna at risk of sunburn because the lower ozone protection coincided with more direct UV rays and less protection from sea ice and snow cover, she said. Loading Associate Adjunct Professor Craig Sinclair, a skin cancer expert from Cancer Council Victoria, said Australians had the highest rates of skin cancer of almost anywhere in the world, but the ozone recovery meant this should not get worse. It did not take long for Magistrate Sally McLaughlin to realise the modest third courtroom at Albury Local Court would not be big enough to accommodate the family and friends of Ken Toll. Five years after his death, they were here for answers. They wanted to know how the beloved husband, father and grandfather went to hospital for what they believed was a routine knee replacement surgery and never came home. A coronial inquest is examining how Kenneth Toll, 62, died following bilateral knee replacement surgery five years ago. The unexpected passing of Ken has left a huge hole in our family that will never be filled or repaired, the Toll family said in a statement read to the court on Friday. As a family, we have all suffered some level of mental illness following Kens passing [his death] is so vivid in our memory it haunts us every day. The 62-year-old army veteran collapsed and went into cardiac arrest at Albury Wodonga Private Hospital on July 20, 2019, three days after surgery to replace both his knees. The court heard Toll suffered a pulmonary embolism as a result of developing deep vein thrombosis. ISLAMABAD, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said on Friday that his country has been making efforts to promote tourism to build bridges of understanding and contribute towards a more peaceful and interconnected world. "Tourism serves as a powerful bridge that connects nations and promotes understanding among people from diverse cultures around the globe. As tourists explore different countries, they come across diverse cultures and traditions that help promote peace, harmony, and goodwill worldwide," the president said in a message to celebrate World Tourism Day, which is annually marked on Sept. 27. He said that Pakistan has enormous tourism potential as it is blessed with spectacular landscapes, majestic mountains and peaks, vast deserts, and beautiful coastlines, adding that the country is home to the Indus and Gandhara civilizations, making Pakistan an attractive destination for spiritual exploration and cultural discovery. Highlighting the need to further boost tourism in the country for economic uplift, Zardari said that tourism is a significant source of revenue, and to maximize its potential, the country would prioritize the development of roads and tourism infrastructure. "Enhancing essential facilities for tourists will encourage and motivate them to explore our landscape and religious sites. By creating a more accessible and welcoming environment, Pakistan can attract more tourists which would greatly contribute towards improving the national economy," he said. The president also reaffirmed the commitment to making Pakistan a global hub for tourism, where tourists from all over the world can experience not just enchanting landscapes and historical and religious sites but also the warm hospitality of local people. An indelible impression The path from being a boy in the 1970s inner west to homicide squad commander at NSW Police started for Doherty with early interactions with police as a child. He grew up in a loving and musical household, but one marred by violence. His father would lash out, and Doherty grew to see police officers as positive influences who protected his mum. Theres a perception from young wannabe gangsters they see the bling. That comes crashing down when they end up in a gutter with a bullet in their head. Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty It left an indelible impression, but I also only have happy thoughts about home I know thats mixed messaging, but I felt safe because my family made me feel safe, then those interactions with police were positive. We had the somewhat unprecedented double murder of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies [allegedly] by a certain police officer, Doherty said. That was pretty strange, and that was a very challenging time for investigators. Not in his wildest dreams did Doherty think one of his leading investigators would be tasked with interrogating a serving police officer. That was pretty daunting and obviously that pressure just multiplied. Doherty was among the senior police officers, including Commissioner Karen Webb, who faced the media almost daily with updates about the case as public scrutiny piled on. Webb, Dohertys boss, made headlines for all the wrong reasons when she called the incident a crime of passion. But as tough as that time was, in Dohertys mind it pales in comparison with the pressure the police were under during the height of Sydneys gang wars just a few years ago. It doesnt sit right That has something to do with the double murder he nominates when I ask him which is the unsolved case he would love to crack the most. He talks about Amneh Amy al-Hazouri and Lametta Fadlallah, two women who were gunned down in what police suspect was a premeditated shooting in Panania in 2022. No arrests have been made. Police allege that Fadlallah had underworld connections. It was a difficult time for police because we had just been through all the organised crime murders and, right at the tail end of all that, two women get shot dead in a targeted attack, which is just abhorrent, Doherty said. Amy was a hairdresser there to visit Lametta with two kids, a 16 and 20-year-old in front, it just doesnt sit right with me. Doherty addresses the media after the alleged underworld-connected murders of two women. Credit: Dean Sewell The press conference that came after those murders was one of the most difficult of Dohertys life, and a rare instance where he says he lost his cool. The police force was facing sustained criticism as the bodies kept piling up in Sydneys cocaine fuelled gang wars, prompting the question had police lost control of the streets? What those watching at home didnt know was that the police force had just days earlier farewelled one of their own. One of Dohertys colleagues, Detective Sergeant Adam Child, took his own life at Ermington police station while on duty. We were getting all this criticism at the same time [as] we lost one of our own and then the double murder happened. That was a tough weekend. It was so sad, and it really knocked us for six. It was one of the few times Ive been a bit more cranky. Doherty believes one of the greatest challenges in policing is trying to steer young people away from crime gangs involved in the drug trade, as Sydneys love of cocaine shows no sign of slowing. Theres a perception from young wannabe gangsters they see the bling, they say I want to be that person and we do see them drawn into that area from an early age, and they get attracted by the money, the cash, the power and the identity of it all, he said. That comes crashing down when they end up in a gutter with a bullet in their head. Unsolved cases Throughout his career, Doherty has stayed in touch with several victims of crime, mostly in connection with unsolved cases. Paul White, who found his wife Lynettes body in their Coogee apartment in 1973, has remained hopeful that police will one day solve his wifes murder. Loading The case is one that weighs on Doherty. White was a key advocate in getting the unsolved homicide playing cards program off the ground; a unique initiative which involves printing the names and pictures of homicide victims on playing cards distributed in prisons with the aim of triggering a memory in those behind bars. Lynette White is the Queen of Hearts. We had a lot of things against us, Doherty says of the White murder. Because of the age and issues around witnesses and exhibits, and he [Paul] was quite understandably upset with things that had happened so thats one Id really love to solve, we got to know him and hes actually a really decent man, a really tremendous fellow. So how does Sydneys top homicide detective relax with decades worth of unsolved murders on his mind? For Doherty, ideally, the shop talk finishes at the end of his commute home with his wife from the Curtis Cheng Police Centre. His wife just happens to be Detective Superintendent Jayne Doherty, commander of the NSW sex crimes squad. The pair have been together for around 30 years after meeting at, you guessed it, a horrific crime. A woman was abducted and sexually assaulted, and the pair clicked as fellow investigators on the case. The bill for lunch at Arc Cafe. Credit: When we drive back, we do all our exhaling then and then venting, and then when we get home its back to being husband and wife, mum and dad being just normal. Its not a hard and fast rule, however: I think you need to vent anytime you need to vent, especially as our jobs are quite high stress. Another way Doherty deals with the pressure is through music. The detective plays guitar and sings in a band think the great Aussie classics like AC/DC and The Angels. By the time he was incarcerated, prison was a fate then-30-year-old Richard Brooking had been tempting for more than a decade. Born in New Zealand, he moved to Mount Tamborine on the Gold Coast with his mum when he was a child. We left the family. Part of it was [because] my father was in jail. And my mum was quite young and from a rough area, so she had her ups and downs, he said. Sunshine Coast local Richard Brooking will travel to over 10 states in the USA in early 2025 to research lived-experience programs and their benefit for at-risk youth. Credit: Churchill Fellowship Like many young individuals affected by intergenerational trauma and instability, Brooking searched for a sense of community and found it in the wrong place, which is how he became involved in drugs. Top earners are among the most likely to have at least one negatively geared property, with more than one in five surgeons and anaesthetists being negatively geared investors, opening up debate about the distribution of benefits from tax concessions. Nurses and accountants comprise the largest number of people with negatively geared investment properties according to data from the Australian Taxation Office for the 2021-22 period. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has not ruled out changes to negative gearing. Credit: Chris Hopkins This masthead revealed on Wednesday that the Albanese government has asked Treasury for expert advice on possible changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions. While the Liberals have warned changes would hit mum and dad investors, the Greens have demanded a phasing out of both practices, which they say amount to billions of dollars in lost tax revenue with the benefits flowing to wealthy property investors. Credit: Illustration: Alan Moir To submit a letter to The Age, email letters@theage.com.au. Please include your home address and telephone number below your letter. No attachments. See here for our rules and tips on getting your letter published. AFL GRAND FINAL While Australia does not have an officially designated national sport, as the country prepares for an all-interstate AFL grand final, it would seem that football does take this mantle for at least a distinct season this spring. We have always punched above our weight in cricket and swimming, two of our other de facto national sports, yet there is something distinctly Australian about the footy which only really works within our unique social context. There are apparently AFL teams in more than 60 countries, and despite the admirable efforts in the past to stir up enthusiasm in overseas cities such as Los Angeles and Shanghai, unlike other team sports, the oval ball game remains unique and ubiquitous within Terra Australis. This is something to take pride in, rather than seek to expand. Furthermore, regardless of who gets their hands on the cherished premiership trophy, it is worth us collectively giving thanks for the fact that unlike other countries, there will be no need for MCG security personnel to carry loaded weapons; riot police squads wont be needed at nearby railway stations; and the barrackers of the losing side wont resort to field invasion and physical assault of opposition players. Perhaps it is starry-eyed, but in such a current global climate of animosity, we should celebrate the sensory solidarity that the pure enjoyment of sport will bring to not just the 100,000 people assembled at one ground, but all throughout this contest-loving nation. Peter Waterhouse, Craigieburn Strange days for celebration Public holidays are great, and more would be better than fewer, but having a holiday the day before a sporting event is a little absurd. And yet, this is probably only the fourth-most strange holiday we have. The birthday of a foreign monarch when it isnt their birthday, the day the harbour in Sydney was forcibly occupied, and the running of a horse race are all worth reconsidering. A community-based review seems in order and could well come up with more worthwhile suggestions spaced better across the year. Celebrating International Womens Day, or democracy, or nature, or children could be far more popular. Peter Allan, Brunswick West Reactions to yesterdays announcement that design work would begin on a new $100 million youth justice facility next to Banksia Hill Detention Centre have trickled in overnight and the responses have been lukewarm to say the least. Artist impression of the new $100 million high-risk youth justice facility. Police Minister Paul Papalia announced $11.5 million would be spent on design and forward works on the 30-bed facility for the states highest-risk youth detainees. The purpose-built facility would replace the one at Casuarina Prison known as Unit 18. Whilst saying he wanted the notorious Unit 18 to close as soon as possible, Papalia was unable to provide a firm timeframe. The Law Society of WA cautiously welcomed the announcement, but president Paula Wilkinson said the timeline was obscure. The allocated funding is for design planning only and the chosen site still needs state and federal environmental approvals, so any new facility is a long way off, Wilkinson said. Long-term, it all sounds promising but the issue is the length of time it will take to be up and running. Also, the children at the new facility will have access to the same facilities as Banksia Hill which have proven to be inadequate. Wilkinson urged the government to conduct an independent review into the states whole youth justice system. Greens MP Brad Pettitt took his criticism further. You can read more below. The union representing youth custodial officers, the CPSU/CSA welcomed the announcement. Thanks in no small part to the tireless advocacy of union delegates and members, the youth justice system in WA is turning a corner, into a system that is adequately staffed, better supported and a growing culture of workplace health and safety, acting branch assistant secretary, Ness Brett said. 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 When John Pesutto realised there was a narrative building within the Liberal Party that he wasnt negotiating in good faith with Moira Deeming, he decided to set the record straight. He provided details of the mediation attempts to senior Liberal figures, including former premier Jeff Kennett, in the hope it would reassure them he was doing everything he could to stop the messy saga reaching court. To borrow a phrase from Pesuttos barrister, Dr Matthew Collins, KC: Politics is a brutal game. Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto on Thursday. Credit: AAP Over three days of cross-examination in the Federal Court defamation case, Pesutto the Victorian opposition leader hasnt always answered like a man who is trying to win a high-stakes and potentially costly court case. Sue Chrysanthou, SC, who is representing ousted Liberal Moira Deeming, accused him of giving speeches in his political interest instead of answering her questions. Observing Pesutto over three days, his responses and demeanour have shifted between his two realities. The first as a father of three from Hawthorn fighting a costly civil suit, and the second as a senior politician trying to hang on to his job. Advertisement Away from of the courtroom, the Victorian Liberal Party remains split about what the parliamentary team will look like on October 15 when its 30 MPs will meet on Spring Street for their regular sitting-week meeting. By that time, about a quarter of Liberal MPs will have faced cross-examination and many of those remaining will have had their text messages, private comments and opinions aired in courtroom 6K. Pesutto has repeatedly tried to explain the realities of his position to Justice David OCallaghan, whose decision will have more of a sway on the Liberal leaders future than any of his colleagues. Moira Deeming. Credit: Simon Schluter Admitting he had shared the mediation details to maintain the confidence of his colleagues, Pesutto told the court: I felt it was necessary, given my role. Pesutto has provided a similar justification for his decision to urgently respond to Deemings attendance at the Let Women Speak Rally in March 2023, which was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis last year. He insists he was acting to protect the broader opposition. He couldnt, as the alternative premier, be forever responding to questions from journalists about her views and associates. Advertisement It would derail what we were trying to achieve. The court has heard that his response to push for Deemings expulsion ultimately split the party and resulted in some of his own MPs, including former treasurer Kim Wells, giving damaging evidence against him. If this was his own decision, it showed a dreadful lack of political judgment, Wells said in his affidavit. Deputy Liberal leader David Southwick, left, and Opposition Leader John Pesutto. Credit: The Age Deeming has told the court she helped organise the rally on the steps of the Victorian parliament and alleges Pesutto defamed her as a Nazi sympathiser, which he rejects. The court heard Pesutto was already considering whether to expel Deeming from his party room by the evening after the rally, egged on by former MP Louise Staley and former leader Matthew Guy, who offered to move the motion against her. The next day, Pesutto began drafting a statement on a possible resignation for the Upper House MP, before the leadership team hauled her into a meeting and eventually told her they would seek her expulsion. Advertisement Pesutto described this as dealing with a hypothetical, but its the sort of admission that will make his political aspirations to lead the party much more difficult. Liberals, above most things, dont enjoy being pre-empted or told what to do. Deeming was suspended for nine months in a last-minute compromise, but was ultimately expelled weeks later after threatening to bring in lawyers. Loading Early next week, deputy Liberal leader David Southwick, who secretly recorded that 70-minute meeting with Deeming and the leadership team, will face cross-examination. His actions have also soured the mood among Liberal MPs who have questioned his trustworthiness and whether he can remain in the leadership role. Pesutto told the court he was surprised, but not shocked, to learn of the audios existence after his deputy had kept it from him for about nine months. Pesutto was challenged by Chrysanthou on Southwicks loyalty, but so far, has refused to waver. We are about to learn if such loyalty goes both ways. Advertisement The court is also yet to hear from upper house leader Georgie Crozier or her former deputy Dr Matthew Bach. Few of those who have provided evidence in the past nine days have left unscathed. That includes Eastern Victoria MP Renee Heath, who admitted she shared draft minutes from the meeting in which Deeming was suspended with three MPs. Moira Deeming addresses the Let Women Speak rally in Melbourne on March 18, 2023. Credit: Youtube The trial has also sought to rake over old ground that the Liberals would rather forget. Its dredged up Guys lobster with a mobster dinner and Pesuttos comments on the so-called African gangs debate from 2018. Pesutto was also challenged on whether the Hamas October 7 attack was a legitimate form of resistance. At times, its been difficult to see how these questions some historical, others outright hypothetical relate to the defamation claim, but if Deemings aim is to destroy Pesuttos chance of leading the party to the election, then they are proving effective. From the start, Pesutto a moderate was never going to be embraced by the conservative side of the party, despite, as he told the court, approaching Sky News anchor and Liberal operative Peta Credlin in the early days of his leadership for help setting up his office. Advertisement Most people visit Todos Santos on a day trip from Cabo San Lucas, the fashionable resort city on the southern tip of Mexicos Baja California Sur. Busloads of visitors make the one-hour drive north to spend a few hours exploring the towns picturesque squares and bunting-festooned backstreets, browsing its art galleries and boutiques, and just generally having a break from the manicured luxury of Cabos high-rise resorts. Then, at 5pm, they leave, and the town all but shuts down, allowing its 7000 or so residents to savour the tranquillity that probably lured them there in the first place. Todos Santos, Baja California, Mexico. Credit: Getty Images I can attest to this firsthand because Im one of the few visitors that has remained, choosing to spend two nights at the swish new Todos Santos Boutique Hotel. Housed in a handsome 19th-century brick building that was originally a hacienda for a Spanish countess, the 10-suite hotel is the towns first centrally located luxury accommodation. Gorgeously decorated with rich fabrics, antiques and hand-painted murals, its also home to La Copa, an elegant speakeasy-style bar serving innovative cocktails, and 1890, an intimate French restaurant overseen by English chef Gaz Herbert, who worked at Michelin-starred London eateries Ikoyi and River Cafe. Todos Santos Boutique Hotel is housed in a handsome 19th-century brick building that was originally a hacienda for a Spanish countess. From these agreeable surrounds, Im ideally placed to explore the town and learn why in 2006 the Mexican government deemed it so enchanting that it was awarded Pueblo Magico status. Washington: Chinas newest nuclear-powered attack submarine sank earlier this year, a senior US defence official has revealed, a potential embarrassment for Beijing as it seeks to expand its military capabilities. China already has the largest navy in the world, with more than 370 ships, and it has embarked on production of a new generation of nuclear-armed submarines. China has been pushing to expand its navy to compete with the US, including its fleet of nuclear-powered submarines. Credit: File/Bloomberg A senior US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Beijings new first-in-class nuclear-powered attack submarine sank at a pier sometime between May and June. A Chinese embassy spokesperson in Washington said: We are not familiar with the situation you mentioned and currently have no information to provide. The youngest candidate at 43, Koizumi has vowed that in his first year as prime minister, he would pass a law allowing married couples to retain separate surnames. Koizumi, who made waves when he took a short paternity leave after the birth of his first child in 2020, is the only candidate who has promised to overturn the law. The leading conservative candidate, Sanae Takaichi, 63, would become Japans first female prime minister. She has said that while she supports married couples use of different surnames in professional settings, the naming law should remain in place to preserve family unity and protect future offspring from confusion. Both Shigeru Ishiba, 67, a four-time contender for the prime ministers seat and a leading candidate in public opinion polls, and Yoko Kamikawa, 71, the current foreign minister and the other woman in the race, have said that more discussion is needed. Kamikawa said she recognised the risk of division over the issue. For three decades, reformers both inside the party and from the opposition have proposed changes to the law. Two cases made it to Japans Supreme Court, with the justices ruling that Parliament ultimately must decide the matter. A third case is being heard before district courts in Tokyo and Sapporo. Yukari Uchiyama, 56, a high school teacher and plaintiff in the current lawsuit on the issue, raised three children and is legally divorced from her husband, Yukio Koike, so that she can keep her original surname on legal documents. She said that giving up her surname made her feel as if my very existence, which is the very foundation of my rights as a human being, is being ignored, or cut off from the roots. When even something as simple as this doesnt pass, she said, I think that various gender issues that are being raised are not acknowledged. Japanese media polls indicate that about two-thirds of the public supports a change in the naming law. This year, Japans largest business group issued a statement calling for the government to allow married people to keep their birth names in the official family registry. Citing an issue that invokes gender equality helps a candidate like Koizumi define himself as breaking with the partys traditional patriarchal leadership, said Mireya Solis, director of the Centre for Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington. This is why this is really touching a nerve, she said. Its an issue that signals an appetite for change. For Takaichi, taking the opposite tack is a way to signal her hard-line bona fides to the partys small but powerful right wing. While the debate is unlikely to sway the election on its own, it highlights a generational divide inside the party, with older voters supporting the status quo. I think a lot of senior politicians believe this in their bones, said Kenneth McElwain, a professor of political science at the University of Tokyo and a visiting professor at Columbia University. They are representing people in their 60s-plus for whom this is crucial. In the past, candidates for prime minister were likely to tussle most visibly over matters like defence and national security. Liberals and conservatives were defined by how hawkish and dovish they were on foreign policy, Solis said. But that doesnt seem to be the cleavage any more, she added. Even politicians previously considered doves like Kishida have come to support an expansion of the Japanese defence budget and increased militarisation. Takaichi has invoked some nationalist tropes that could spook Japans Asian neighbours, such as promising to visit Yasukuni Shrine, where Class A war criminals from World War II are enshrined. But her basic foreign and defence policies do not differ markedly from those of her more progressive rivals. Votes are counted during the Liberal Democratic Partys (LDP) leadership election in Tokyo, Japan, on Friday. Credit: Bloomberg The candidates have discussed other policy positions, such as how to change the rigid labour market and whether to restart nuclear reactors that have been shut down since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami triggered a nuclear meltdown. But they have been almost uniformly vague in addressing the scandals that have led to high voter dissatisfaction and declining trust in the governing party. After the assassination of Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister, in 2022, the news media unearthed extensive ties between the fringe Unification Church and a group of conservative politicians. The killer had been angered by Abes ties to the church. LDP MPs scurried to contain the political fallout, but party leaders have failed to persuade voters that they have fully purged the churchs influence. Loading Since late last year, the party has also been contending with a financial scandal in which some LDP MPs were accused of taking kickbacks from sales of tickets to political fundraisers. With none of the candidates offering clear plans to address the public discontent, the LDP election represents further stagnation, said Chiyako Sato, an editorial writer with The Mainichi Shimbun, a centrist newspaper. The Liberal Democrats, she told reporters last week, are simply changing faces to simulate a change in government. In later years, she further cemented herself in popular affection as imperiousness personified playing Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in ITVs stately-home drama Downton Abbey, though she revealed that she never watched the series and was relieved when it finished. Although her performances in the theatre were inevitably passing wonders fading from shared cultural memory as generations have gone by she may perhaps be best remembered for playing the part of Miss Mary Shepherd, the elderly, cantankerous down-and-out who ended up living in a battered van on the Camden driveway of playwright Alan Bennett for 15 years. Bennetts memoir-play The Lady in the Van opened to a blaze of glowing reviews at the Queens Theatre in late 1999. Her comic timing is irresistible, her vocal delivery lethal in its precision, the Telegraph raved. Better still, there are sudden moments when Smith seems to peer deep within, capturing a terrifying sense of anguish and fear. A performance that again proved she could inhabit lower-class characters with the same ease as she did the aristocracy, it was immortalised in a popular 2015 film version, directed by Nicholas Hytner. The youngest of three children, Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford, Essex, on December 28 1934; she had identical twin brothers, six years her senior. When she was four the family moved to the outskirts of Oxford, where her Newcastle-born father, Nathaniel, was employed as a lab technician at the Dunn School of Pathology. Her biographer Michael Coveney characterised her early years as Spartan, though certainly not deprived. According to her brother Ian, however, it was a very rigid, inflexible upbringing and a humourless childhood. That Maggie managed to break out of it as she did is all the more remarkable. She was educated at Oxford High School for Girls, but left aged 16 to train for the stage at the Oxford Playhouse Theatre School. After jobs with the repertory company at Oxford Playhouse, she made her stage debut aged 18 as Viola in Twelfth Night for the Oxford University Dramatic Society and her professional debut, in New York, in the revue New Faces of 56. Following other revues at the Edinburgh Festival and the Watergate Theatre, London, she found herself as the leading comedienne opposite Kenneth Williams in Bamber Gascoignes revue Share My Lettuce (Lyric, Hammersmith, and Comedy, 1957). After a small (but typically telling) part in Warren Chetham-Strodes The Stepmother (St Martins), she joined the Old Vic Company. As Lady Plyant in Congreves The Double Dealer, Celia in As You Like It (to Barbara Jeffords Rosalind), the Queen to John Justins Richard II, Mistress Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor and Maggie in What Every Woman Knows, she proved more than just another revue actress trying to go straight. In 1960 she replaced Joan Plowright in Ionescos Rhinoceros when it transferred to the West End from the Royal Court. Later that year she was cast as the talkative blonde mistress of a Home Office baronet in Beverley Crosss second play, a nuclear-warning farce, Strip the Willow, which folded at Golders Green on its pre-West End run. She was to marry the author some 15 years later. Her first major West End success and it glittered came as Lucile in Jean Anouilhs The Rehearsal (Globe, Queens and Apollo, 1961), a Bristol Old Vic production in which she played a young girl employed to care for orphans in a chateau who is callously seduced by the debauched hero. The Daily Mail hailed the seduction scene as one of the most affecting things to be seen in London at the moment, while Harold Hobson in The Sunday Times found her touching, sincere and sometimes devastating. Soon afterwards came Peter Shaffers equally popular double-bill, The Private Ear and The Public Eye (Globe). In the first, she played Doreen, an office typist on a first date; in the second, the young wife of a jealous accountant who sets a peculiar private detective on to her the latter part bringing her face to face again with her old revue sparring partner, Kenneth Williams. According to the director Peter Wood: They were like greyhounds, the speed at which they could bat and ball it. For the double-bill the Evening Standard judged her Best Actress of 1962, the first of five ES awards. The next season brought another prize, from the Variety Club, as best actress for her performance in Jean Kerrs Mary, Mary (Queens, 1963), after which she joined Laurence Oliviers first National Theatre season at the Old Vic. As Silvia to Robert Stephenss Captain Plume in The Recruiting Officer in 1963 she gave the first of many performances with that actor (whom she married in 1967), though as a Restoration actress in her own right her talent was exceptional. In his autobiography, Knight Errant, Stephens recalled their early encounters: She impressed me then as being a miserable, rather forlorn creature. But she struck across my bows in those opening months of the National like a salt-sprayed sea breeze. A stagehand is said to have warned him: Watch out for her, she drinks like a fish and swears like a trooper. A publicity still from Othello, in 1965, showing Maggie Smith as Desdemona. Credit: BFA / Eagle Films / Alamy Stock Photo Maggie Smiths Desdemona to Oliviers Othello was surprisingly moving for an actress of such natural, comic instinct; the celluloid incarnation earned her an Oscar nomination. Her stave-carrying, head-scarved Hilde Wangel in The Master Builder, and her vampish Myra (to Stephenss Sandy Tyrell) in Noel Cowards production of Hay Fever at the Old Vic in 1964, reminded everyone of her range beyond the favoured smart snarl or drawling put-down. In her third season with the new National Theatre, in 1965, she confirmed her serious-mindedness, first with an elegantly superior Beatrice to Stephenss battling Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, then with a thoroughly modern Clea in Shaffers Black Comedy, and lastly as Strindbergs Miss Julie, these two one-act dramas forming a double-bill at Chichester Festival which transferred to the Old Vic in 1966. Her elder son Christopher was born in 1967; her younger, Toby, arrived two years later. In the midst of this came one of her biggest triumphs, as the Edinburgh schoolmistress Jean Brodie in the Ronald Neame-directed adaptation of Muriel Sparks novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which resulted in her first Oscar. After repeatedly stealing other peoples pictures, she now becomes a star in her own right, said the Mail. Coveney argues that she modelled the anti-heroine in part on the icy temperament and brusque organisational manner of her Scottish Presbyterian mother Meg (Margaret). In a scene from Tea with the Dames. As Margery Pinchwife in Wycherleys The Country Wife at Chichester in 1969 she seemed as much at home as ever in Restoration comedy. Encouraged, she returned to the Old Vic in 1970 as Mrs Sullen (to Stephenss Archer) in William Gaskills revival of Farquhars The Beaux Stratagem. As a London beauty bored by rustic tedium, she made the treasurable most of her disastrous marriage to a drunken squire. When she came to advise a countrywoman to treat her husbands sore leg by boning, seasoning and baking it, her deadpan delivery enriched the line with sly spite. In Ingmar Bergmans revival for the National Theatre of Ibsens Hedda Gabler (Cambridge, 1970, with Stephens as Loevborg), she created as chilly a heroine as any could recall, a glacial malice glittering beneath her politeness. She won the Variety Club award for best actress as the acidic divorcee Amanda in Cowards Private Lives (Queens, and Globe), playing opposite her husband, Stephens; their success, however, was piquant, drawing on the disintegration of their marriage. As Stephens recalled in his memoir: It was just how we talked to each other at home. He claimed that the couples malaise had set in during the filming of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, when she took an amphetamine called Drinamyl, making her intolerable to live with, but his affairs at one point he had three women on the go, one of them their secretary took a major toll. A year later, in 1973, ever keen to demonstrate versatility, she played, without a trace of snideness, the title role in Peter Pan (Coliseum), and then Connie Hudson in the sex comedy Snap! (Vaudeville, 1974), a flop that coincided with her final break-up with Stephens; their divorce went through in April 1975, and in June she married the playwright Beverley Cross. Then, determined to have a damned good try at a lot of things that I would probably never be cast for in England, she spent three classical seasons at Stratford, Ontario. There she played Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra; Millamant in Congreves The Way of the World; Masha in Chekhovs Three Sisters; Titania and Hippolyta in A Midsummer Nights Dream; Queen Elizabeth in Richard III; Rosalind in As You Like It; and Lady Macbeth. Bolstered by these experiences, back in London in 1979 she took over from Diana Rigg in Tom Stoppards Night and Day (Phoenix), returning to Stratford, Ontario, to play Virginia Woolf in Edna OBriens Virginia (seen later at the Haymarket, London), Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing and Masha in The Three Sisters. In the 1980s her London stage performances indicated a marked preference for modern character rather than for classical acting, starting with Ronald Harwoods Interpreters (1985). As a refugee from Warsaw in Stephen Poliakoffs Coming in to Land (1986) the actress showed National Theatre audiences a sterner and refreshing side to her talent. In Lettice and Lovage (1987), Shaffers satire about a stately-home tour guide who embellishes her descriptions with fictions to keep the punters engaged, and gets found out, she revelled in a subversive, eccentric role specially written for her. Maggie Smith stands her ground as The Lady in the Van. Credit: Lindy Percival If some pointed out that the performance restored some of the semaphoring tricks and vocal mannerisms from earlier days, they were widely welcomed, all the same, and when the show crossed the Atlantic she won a 1990 Tony Award further proof, if proof were needed, that she excelled at isolated characters whose strangeness generated a funny-peculiar charm. In 1988, she was diagnosed with Graves disease, for which she had radiotherapy treatment and optical surgery. Her stage appearances became less frequent in the ensuing decades, but made no less impact for that. She triumphed, as expected, as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest (1993, Aldwych), then starred in a string of major Edward Albee productions. In Three Tall Women (1994) at Wyndhams, she played an autocratic but bedbound elderly woman and then a slightly less aged version of her, joining with two younger incarnations to survey her life. Ten years later, she proved her theatrical powers remained undimmed as the mysterious titular character in Albees The Lady From Dubuque. With more than 50 film credits to her name, only a handful can be mentioned. She first drew praise (and a Bafta nomination) for the crime film Nowhere to Go (1958). She was Oscar-nominated for her portrayal of the flamboyant Aunt Augusta in Travels with My Aunt (1973). In 1978 she appeared with Alan Alda, Michael Caine and Jane Fonda in California Suite (1977), in which her performance as an actress who loses out on Oscar night secured her a second Academy Award after The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (for best supporting actress). She was also nominated for Oscars for her roles as Charlotte Bartlett, the chaperone of Helena Bonham Carter in A Room with a View (1986), and as Lady Trentham in Robert Altmans Gosford Park (2002). Other notable successes included Oh! What a Lovely War (1968); Death on the Nile (1978); Clash of the Titans (1981); Quartet (1981); Evil Under the Sun (1982); The Missionary (1982); A Private Function (1984); The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1989); Hook (1991); Sister Act (1992); and Tea with Mussolini (1999). In the popular The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012) and its sequel, she joined an illustrious older cast, playing an enterprising former family-help who gets cured of her racism when she is packed off to India for a hip replacement. In My Old Lady (2014) she played a refined elderly sitting tenant in a Parisian apartment whose young American owner grows to admire and like her. Her television performances included playing a resentful vicars wife in A Bed Among the Lentils (part of Alan Bennetts Talking Heads series), Much Ado About Nothing, Man and Superman, On Approval and Home and Beauty. She was nominated for an Emmy for her performance as Betsey Trotwood in David Copperfield (1999) opposite the future Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe. Loading I think there is an accepted way that a face should be, and Im not like that, she once said, but audiences begged to differ. A somewhat reluctant celebrity, and seldom enthusiastic newspaper interviewee, she published no diaries or memoir. According to her son, Chris Larkin, she was almost terrifyingly sanguine about critics, success, failure. She doesnt worry at all and simply says you can only do what you do. It can be accounted one of her undersung successes that despite being in the public eye for more than six decades, she retained an essential, almost regal, mystique to the last. She was appointed Commander of the British Empire in 1970, made a Dame in 1990 and a Companion of Honour in 2014 . A man visits the booth of China Railway during the 2024 International Trade Fair for Transport Technology (InnoTrans 2024) in Berlin, Germany, Sept. 24, 2024. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei) The biennial expo has seen a growing presence of Chinese companies, according to Messe Berlin, the event organizer. BERLIN, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Around 200 Chinese companies are showcasing their latest innovations in transport technology this week at the 2024 International Trade Fair for Transport Technology (InnoTrans) in Berlin, the world's leading transport expo, with a focus on sustainability, intelligence and digitalization. The biennial expo, featuring over 2,900 exhibitors from 59 countries and regions this year, has seen a growing presence of Chinese companies, according to Messe Berlin, the event organizer. "For example, as the world's largest vehicle manufacturer, the CRRC Corporation Limited is an important exhibitor at global trade shows such as InnoTrans," a Messe Berlin spokesperson told Xinhua. At the expo, CRRC unveiled its hydrogen-powered train, the "CINOVA H2," which can reach a speed of up to 200 km per hour. The train generates electricity through a hydrogen-oxygen reaction, producing only water as a byproduct, said Liang Caiguo, a CRRC technical expert. This zero-emission train can travel up to 1,200 km on a full hydrogen tank at a cruising speed of 160 km per hour, carrying over 1,000 passengers. People visit the booth of CRRC during the 2024 International Trade Fair for Transport Technology (InnoTrans 2024) in Berlin, Germany, Sept. 24, 2024. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei) The "CINOVA H2," with a hydrogen consumption of less than 0.3 grams per passenger per kilometer, is projected to reduce carbon emissions by 730 tonnes annually, based on an estimated operating distance of 300,000 km each year, Liang added. Another major highlight from CRRC is its newly launched Autonomous Rail Rapid Transit (ART) vehicle. This new transit system is medium-capacity and eco-friendly, combining the advantages of rail and road transport. The system runs on rubber tires along virtual tracks, eliminating the need for physical rails or overhead power lines. Currently, nine ART lines are operational in China, serving a cumulative total of 35 million passengers. The system has also been introduced in countries like the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia. A man tries his hands on simulated driving of a Fuxing high-speed train at the booth of China Railway during the 2024 International Trade Fair for Transport Technology (InnoTrans 2024) in Berlin, Germany, Sept. 24, 2024. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei) "Through ongoing technological innovation, we aim to offer a diverse range of rail transit solutions to the world," CRRC's General Manager Ma Yunshuang said, underlining the company's commitment to sustainability and the shift toward intelligent and green rail transport. Huawei also attended this year's InnoTrans. The global leader in telecommunications and technology focuses on solutions for the intelligent and digital transformation of rail transport, showcasing applications integrated with its flagship technologies, including the Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS), AI, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things. Wang Guoyu, vice president of Huawei's Smart Transportation BU, told Xinhua that Huawei's rail digitalization solutions have been deployed on more than 300 urban rail lines across over 70 cities worldwide, covering over 180,000 km of track. Wang noted that the global rail industry is under transition from large-scale construction to a focus on operations and maintenance, leading to new characteristics of cloud-based, broadband-enabled, and intelligent systems. A staff member (L) of China Academy of Railway Sciences Corporation Limited introduces a model of a train for comprehensive testing to a visitor during the 2024 International Trade Fair for Transport Technology (InnoTrans 2024) in Berlin, Germany, Sept. 24, 2024. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei) "By leveraging our expertise in digitalization and intelligent transportation, we provide tailored solutions for various scenarios, helping rail operators build safer, smarter and more efficient digital infrastructures to support the global transformation of rail transit," he said. In a 500-square meter hall, the China State Railway Group showcased its smart high-speed trains, which can reach a speed of 350 km per hour, along with equipment used for China-Europe freight trains. Visitors can enjoy an immersive driving simulator modeled after the nose of a Chinese Fuxing high-speed train, allowing them to operate this technological marvel. Shi Tianyun, deputy chief engineer of the China Academy of Railway Sciences Corporation Limited, emphasized that China's high-speed trains and other technological advancements demonstrate the country's continued progress in independent innovation and technological self-reliance in the rail industry. People visit InnoTrans, a railway industry trade fair, in Berlin, Germany on Sept. 20, 2022. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei) Making its debut at InnoTrans, Chinese automaker BYD presented its lineup of electric buses, featuring its self-developed blade battery and rapid charging systems. According to BYD staff at the expo, the company has delivered more than 82,000 electric buses globally since 2011, with over 6,000 currently in service or on order in Europe. Washington: Former US president Donald Trump, running for the presidency against a strong and confident woman, is facing a historic gender gap. And as he tries to dig himself out of this 21-point hole, he is flailing and likely making his problems much worse. He has turned to all-caps screeds on social media, painting a dystopic present that he alone can undo. At rallies, he makes his appeal to the great women of our country who he claims are more stressed and depressed and unhappy and are less optimistic and confident in the future than they were four years ago. He is here to save them. Republican presidential nominee former president Donald Trump at a campaign event, in Mint Hill, North Carolina. Credit: AP I believe I will fix all of that and fast and at long last, this national nightmare will end. It will end. We gotta end this national nightmare because I am your protector. I wanna be your protector. As president, I have to be your protector, he said at a rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania, on Monday. You will no longer be abandoned, lonely or scared. You will no longer be in danger. You will no longer have anxiety from all of the problems our country has today. You will be protected, and I will be your protector. (Yes, Beyonce has a song called Protector on her excellent Cowboy Carter album where she sings to her children, I will be your protector, born to be your protector. ) Washington: In her first interview in more than two years, former US first lady Melania Trump said she saw her husbands surviving two attempts on his life as miracles and offered new details about the former president, including his desire to have more children. The Slovenian-born former fashion model has remained somewhat of an enigma in the 2024 election cycle, staying largely absent from the campaign trail, breaking norms in not speaking at the Republican National Convention and skipping key moments for her husband, Donald Trump, including his primary night victory parties and court appearances in New York and Florida. Melania Trump says Donald Trump wants more children. Credit: AP In a pre-taped interview aired on Fox News, Melania Trump called for Democrats and members of the media to stop branding her husband as a threat to democracy. She blamed the media for fuelling a toxic atmosphere and empowering those who want to do harm to him. Democrats previously blamed Trump for violent rhetoric, including helping to incite an attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. This is not normal, she told Ainsley Earhardt, a Fox & Friends co-host. You searched for Toyota . Here are your results. Copyright 1996 The Auto Channel. Send your questions, comments, and suggestions to info@theautochannel.com. Submit press releases or news stories to submit@theautochannel.com. Place copy in body of email, NO attachments please. by Xinhua writer Shi Hao BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Over the past three months, Anhui Huasun Energy Co., Ltd. has been racing against time to make solar modules for a gigantic photovoltaic project in China's Xinjiang. These 1.8-gigawatt modules using advanced heterojunction technology will be installed at a 4-gigawatt solar power plant, which is located on the edge of China's largest desert, the Taklimakan. "For Chinese companies in the photovoltaic industry more than 20 years ago, raw materials, technologies and markets relied heavily on foreign countries and regions. But now, the tide has totally turned," Huasun's chairman Xu Xiaohua said. In east China's Anhui Province, where Xu's company is based, the photovoltaic industry has snowballed in the past five years. The number of companies in the business with an annual revenue exceeding 10 billion yuan (about 1.43 billion U.S. dollars) rose to 11 in 2023. The boom, which is also recorded beyond Anhui, is underpinned by China's vigorous efforts to expedite a comprehensive transition to green growth as tasks remain daunting. China aims to raise the proportion of non-fossil energy consumption to around 25 percent of total energy consumption by 2030, which means the country must make every effort to increase the ratio by one percentage point annually in the next few years. "The proportion of coal consumption in China's total energy consumption stood at 55.3 percent in 2023, and thus the potential for green and low-carbon energy transition is great," said Li Zheng, director of the Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development at Tsinghua University. China is already revving up the transition to green energy. Official data released this week showed that the installed capacity of solar power came in at approximately 750 million kilowatts in the first eight months of 2024, rocketing 48.8 percent year on year, and the installed capacity of wind power grew 19.9 percent to some 470 million kilowatts. Pan Huimin, deputy head of the National Energy Administration's new and renewable energy department, said the rapid development of the new energy sector in recent years resulted from full market competition, a sound business environment, constant tech innovation and a complete industrial chain. To meet the requirement of exports and foster green industrial and supply chains, Chinese enterprises' demand for clean electricity is experiencing "explosive growth," Pan said in the latest episode of the China Economic Roundtable, an all-media talk platform hosted by Xinhua. The new episode was broadcast Friday. A key challenge is fully harnessing unstable wind and sunlight and transmitting power to users, often hundreds or thousands of kilometers away. Last month, users in Beijing started receiving solar and wind power generated in the northwestern province of Gansu after the energy was delivered via extra-high-voltage transmission lines, benefiting Gansu companies in the business and meeting the Chinese capital's demand for green energy. China unveiled an action plan last month to speed up building a "new electricity system." According to the document, Chinese authorities will use advanced power generation, regulation and control technologies to increase the transmission of clean electricity through the grid. Local governments and enterprises should seize opportunities and vigorously exploit wind and solar power in line with local resources and with the capabilities of the grid to absorb the generated electricity, Pan said. KIEV, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- At least three people were killed and 11 others injured in a Russian drone strike on the southern Ukrainian port city of Izmail on Friday morning, Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said. The attack damaged private residences, apartment buildings and other structures. Several fires broke out after the strike, but were later extinguished. The Russian forces launched three missiles and 32 Shahed drones at Ukraine in the latest attack, said the Ukrainian Air Force. People search among the rubble after an Israeli airstrike in Shebaa, Lebanon, on Sept. 27, 2024. Nine people were killed early Friday in an Israeli airstrike on the southeastern Lebanese town of Shebaa, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. (Photo by Taher Abu Hamdan/Xinhua) BEIRUT, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Nine people were killed early Friday in an Israeli airstrike on the southeastern Lebanese town of Shebaa, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. The Emergency Operations Center of the Ministry of Public Health said in a statement that the Israeli raids in the past 24 hours on towns and villages in southern Lebanon have killed 49 people and wounded 80 others. Lebanese military sources told Xinhua that an Israeli warplane fired two air-to-ground missiles on Friday at around 3 a.m. (0000 GMT) on a house in the southeastern town of Shebaa. The sources, who spoke anonymously, said the raid killed nine people from one family and destroyed their house. The Lebanese Red Cross have transferred their bodies to Hasbaya Governmental Hospital. They added that Israeli warplanes carried out 39 airstrikes on southern Lebanon and 30 airstrikes on eastern Lebanon at dawn and in the morning, destroying about 80 homes and a fuel station and damaging the electricity network. For its part, the official National News Agency reported that the Israeli warplanes carried out a wide-scale air raid starting at midnight focused on the city of Nabatieh, especially the vicinity of the cemetery in the Al-Masha'a and the Al-Bayad neighborhoods. Confrontations between Hezbollah and Israel have escalated after the latter announced the expansion of its strike targets against Hamas into Lebanon to allow the return of settlers to northern Israel who were displaced, while Hezbollah announced its entry into a new phase in the battle to support Gaza. Since Oct. 8, 2023, Hezbollah and the Israeli army have been exchanging fire across the Lebanese-Israeli border amid fears of a broader conflict as the clashes between Hamas and Israel continue in the Gaza Strip. People search among the rubble after an Israeli airstrike in Shebaa, Lebanon, on Sept. 27, 2024. Nine people were killed early Friday in an Israeli airstrike on the southeastern Lebanese town of Shebaa, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. (Photo by Taher Abu Hamdan/Xinhua) People search among the rubble after an Israeli airstrike in Shebaa, Lebanon, on Sept. 27, 2024. Nine people were killed early Friday in an Israeli airstrike on the southeastern Lebanese town of Shebaa, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. (Photo by Taher Abu Hamdan/Xinhua) People search among the rubble after an Israeli airstrike in Shebaa, Lebanon, on Sept. 27, 2024. Nine people were killed early Friday in an Israeli airstrike on the southeastern Lebanese town of Shebaa, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. (Photo by Taher Abu Hamdan/Xinhua) This photo taken on Sept. 27, 2024 shows smoke rising following an Israeli airstrike around the town of Mashghara, Lebanon. Lebanese military sources told Xinhua Friday that Israeli warplanes carried out 39 airstrikes on southern Lebanon and 30 airstrikes on eastern Lebanon at dawn and in the morning, destroying about 80 homes and a fuel station and damaging the electricity network. (Photo by Taher Abu Hamdan/Xinhua) This photo taken on Sept. 27, 2024 shows smoke rising following an Israeli airstrike around the town of Mashghara, Lebanon. Lebanese military sources told Xinhua Friday that Israeli warplanes carried out 39 airstrikes on southern Lebanon and 30 airstrikes on eastern Lebanon at dawn and in the morning, destroying about 80 homes and a fuel station and damaging the electricity network. (Photo by Taher Abu Hamdan/Xinhua) Glencairn designs bespoke decanters for East Asia Whisky Company Independent bottler East Asia Whisky Company has announced the limited release of three Macallan single malt Scotch whiskies. East Asia collaborated with Glencairn Crystal, Scottish glassware company, for the hand-crafted decanters in which the whiskies are presented. Macallan Mizunara 33 Years Old 1990 Komorebi Edition is the third and final whisky in the bottlers Macallan Mizunara series, last released in 2022. Distilled in 1990, the whisky matured in an ex-bourbon cask for 31 years before a finishing period in Japanese mizunara oak. Just 100 bottles will be made available. The inspiration behind the release was the Japanese term komorebi, meaning sunlight filtering through trees. The bespoke Glencairn decanter also draws on the concept, with an infilled engraving of a silver oak blossom branch. The design has featured on the previous two decanters in the series each release seeing it grow a little around the bottle. The Macallan Mizunara 33-Year-Old 1990 Komorebi Edition will be launched via Bonhams Finest Whisky & Spirits online sale from 23rd September3rd October, before release via selecter retailers from mid-October. Price is available upon request. As well as the Komorebi Edition, East Asia Whisky Company will release a limited edition pair of 33-year-old single malts also from the Macallan. The duo, named Macallan 33 Years Old Origins, is made in partnership with Ephemerus Concepts. Distilled at Macallan, the two whiskies began life in the same sherry cask. Half was then split into a mizumara cask for an almost two-year finish. The project is a study in oak, exploring the differing result between the sherry- and mizunara-cask whiskies. The twinned whiskies are presented in matching crystal handmade Glencairn decanters. Engravings on the bottles a Pictish crescent with an arrow, and a Japanese fan with cherry blossoms speak to the heritage behind each bottling. Macallan 33 Years Old Origins will be launched as a set at Bonhams in late October. Scott Davidson, Glencairn Crystals new product development director said: It has been a privilege to be a part of the journey of these incredible whiskies. The design and creation of these striking decanters has challenged our design team and craftspeople to push beyond their creative limits and the end products are beautiful pieces of art - something to be very proud of. 27 September 2024 - Lucy Schofield Explore the unexplored in Vidarbha Intricate carvings on the pillars of the Hemadpanthi Shiva temple at Neri, in Chimur taluka in Chandrapur district. By Kunal Badge : Vidarbha, often relegated to the shadows in Maharashtra's tourism landscape, is a realm of unbridled beauty and historical significance. The majestic Pench Tiger Reserve, inspiration for Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, beckons wildlife enthusiasts and photographers. The sacred Deekshabhoomi in Nagpur, where Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar embraced Buddhism, stands as a testament to the region's pivotal role in shaping India's social fabric. Every mile explored, every monument visited, and every local encounter reveals a new facet of Vidarbha. September 27 is celebrated as World Tourism Day and this year it is celebrated on the theme Tourism and Peace. With a great legacy of Deekshabhoomi propagating peaceful Buddha dhamma and Sewagram ashram symbolising one of the biggest idols of peace and non-Violence, Mahatma Gandhi, it is important for Vidarbha as a region to embrace its historic, cultural and natural monuments. Vidarbha is famous for its Eco-tourism. Known for Tiger popullation in Tiger reserves of the region, Nagpur city is also called the Tiger Capital of the country. Kunghada Caves near Nagbhid. These Tiger reserves are main attraction that brings approximately 25 lakh tourists annually to the region. Still, it makes mere 15% of Maharashtras total tourist share. Vidarbhas tourism sector is heavily dependent on Eco-tourism which has a limit. This limit is already saturated at most of the tiger reserves and national parks in Vidarbha. Indias tourism sector is expected to grow at around 6.8% in near future. To take advantage of this progress,Vidarbha needs to develop new, unexplored, hidden destinations to attract more tourists to the region. Beyond the well-trodden paths, Vidarbha's hidden treasures await discovery. The town of Amravati, with its intricately carved temples and vibrant markets, is a cultural enthusiast's paradise. The imposing forts of Gadchiroli, nestled deep within the verdant forests, appeal adventure enthusiast. The serene Wainganga River, which cradles the region's fertile landscape, offers a soothing respite from the chaos of urban life. And unseen, untouched gems of Vidarbha offer humongous potential for development, job generation and growth through tourism. One such example is the Kunghada Caves. Situated just 1 km from state highway connecting Nagpur to Nagbhid, 88 km from Nagpur, lie the Kunghada Caves, a group of five caves, echoing the ancient splendor of Madhya Pradesh's Bhimbetka Rock Shelters, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.The five cave complex is built by cutting through a single rock. These caves dates back to second to third century CE. The caves feature engravings on walls and floors which are believed to be some ancient games. As Bhimbetka draws tourists worldwide, Kunghada Caves remain an uncharted territory. Another potential tourist magnet is Hemadpanthi temple in Neri near Chimur. It is situated at a distance of 94 km from Nagpur. This temple, locally known as Rakshsache Mandir, dates back to 11th century. The temples intricate carved pillars and grand Mandapa reminds of temples of Hampi. Despite its rich cultural and natural heritage, Vidarbha's tourism potential remains untapped. Places like Kunghada and Neri are not on any tourism map and are not developed. Not many people know wonders like these are so close to them. This lack of awareness and development is hampering Vidarbhas tourism industry. Dr Priyadarshi Khobragade, Head, Department of Travel and Tourism, RTMNU cited the dominance of eco-tourism in Vidarbha for ignorance of other monuments by tourists. Vidarbha has always been advertised as land of Tigers and tourists only turn towards Vidarbha when they think of Jungle safaris. Even the local population is not aware of these places. These places need to protected, developed, advertised and projected as alternative tourist destinations, he said. Prashant Sawai, Deputy Director, Directorate of Tourism informed The Hitavada that the government is actively working towards developing other tourist attractions in Vidarbha. He listed examples of Navegaon-Nagzira; Saras bird watching facility in Gothangaon in Gondia district; Koka wildlife sanctuary; Ashok time stupas near Paoni; and newly constructed Ambhora bridge as some examples of their efforts. Left-Wing extremists seeking to overthrow Govt with overseas funding: FATF on India By Kartik Lokhande : The Hitavada Research & Analysis A TTEMPTS are on to destabilise India from within, and the funding for this is coming from outside India. The latest report of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) reveals that the most frequent and significant source of terror financing in four of the six theatres of conflicts of India comes from outside the borders of India. And, Left Wing Extremism (LWE) is among these six theatres identified in the report. Apart from other areas of concern, the latest FATF report on India flags the threat of LWE, which is referred to as Naxalism or Maoism in India. Pointing out a disparate range of terrorism threats categorised into six different theatres, the FATF report listsLeft-Wing extremist groups seeking to overthrow the Government as one of these six. A few days ago, the FATF released its Mutual Evaluation Report for India on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing measures. Apart from other things reported by media earlier, the FATF report states, India faces a disparate range of terrorism threats, categorised into six different theatres. These can be summarised as theatres associated with ISIL or Al Qaeda (AQ) linked extremist groups active in and around Jammu and Kashmir, whether directly or via proxies or affiliates, as well as other separatist movements in the region; other ISIL or AQ cells, their affiliates, or radicalised individuals in India; regional insurgencies in the North-East and North of India; and Left-wing extremist groups seeking to overthrow the government. As per the report, the most significant terrorism threats appear to relate to groups linked to ISIL or AQ active in and around Jammu and Kashmir. The terror financing risk assessmentidentifies various modes of terrorist funding. These include through sources outside India, organisedcriminalgangs,extortion, non-profit organisations (NPOs), fake Indian currency notes (FICN), narcotics financing, virtual assets, and illicit arms trafficking. AspertheFATFreport,each demonstrates differing magnitudedependingonthe theatre.Thereport citesexample too. The most frequent and significant source of terror financing in four of the six theatres of conflicts of India comes from outside the borders of India, while extortion is a major source of funds for terrorist groups in the NorthEastandareasaffectedbyLeft Wing Terrorism, it states. TheissueofNPOs hasbeen on radar of the Indian agencies. Stating that India has identified 7,500NPOs ashigh risk,theFATFreportalsonotes instances of abuse of NPOs with links to terrorist organisations and radicalisation, havingreceivedfundingfrom foreigncountriesdisguisedas fundsforcharitableactivities. The authorities have noted theuse ofvirtual assets to be an emerging trend for terror financingmore generallydue to the difficulties faced in tracking the funds flow. Since amendment to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA in 2019, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) hasincreasinglyusedthepower given to the Director General to grant approval to seize property acquired from proceeds of terrorism anywhere in India without having to seek permission from therespectiveStatePolice.The actions taken include seizure of both moveable and immoveable property. The largejumpinamounts frozen inthefirsthalfof2023isattributable to one case relating to Left Wing Extremism which resultedintheseizureofproperty as well as over 150 accounts,FATFreportstates. Thespecificmentionofthe case dates back to March 3, 2023, when the NIA attached over Rs 20 crore inacase involving the proscribed Communist Party of India (Maoist). In the said action, morethan153bankaccounts, mutual fund accounts were attached,anditwasthelargest amount ever to be attached by the NIA in an LWE case. These accounts were earlier frozenundertheprovisionsof CriminalProcedure Codebut had been found to be proceeds of terrorism during investigations warranting their attachment under the UAPA. As per the NIA press release issued back then, the NIA investigations had revealed that the accused MrutyunjayKumarSinghalias Sonu Singh, one of the partners of M/s Santosh Construction, had a close nexus with top CPI (Maoist) cadres.Hehadprovidedcash funds to Maoist cadre Ravindra Ganjhu, a Regional Committee Member of CPI (Maoist) for furtherance of Maoist activities, it had stated.These things had come to lightduring investigationof a casedatingbackto2020when a vehicle of Chandwa police station was attacked killing four police personnel and their arms, ammunition etc looted at Lokaiya More in LatehardistrictofJharkhand. CPI(Maoist)armedcadresled byGanjhuhadcarriedoutthe attack. Naag River Pollution Abatement Project Municipal Commissioner Dr Abhijeet Chaudhari exchanging the agreement documents with B R Parthasarthy, Senior VP, Tata Consultancy Engineers Ltd for the Naag River Pollution Abatement Project. Staff Reporter : TCEL bags contract worth Rs 1,927 cr The start of Naag River Pollution Abatement Project inched a step further with formal signing of agreement between Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) and M/s Tata Consultancy Engineers Ltd. (TCEL) on Thursday at civic headquarters. The consortium led by Tata was shortlisted and later ratified by National River Conservation Directorate (NRCD) to act as Project Management Consultant (PMC) for the nearly Rs 1,927 crore project. A period of five-years is envisaged by NMC for completion of the project even though as per agreement a 8-year time is mentioned. The main focus of pollution abatement is on erecting sewage treatment plants (STPs) with plan to treat 72 million litres of water before same is released in the river. Nag river confluence with Kanhan and that in turn drains into Wainganga river on which Gosikhurd Dam is constructed. Due to pollution in Nag River the water in dam was getting polluted and hence urgent need for starting the work relating to pollution abatement project. PMC task is quite crucial as they need to draw-up execution plan for successful implementation of the project which also involves survey and design of new sewage network in Northern and Central Zones of the city. Thereafter the would also have to guide NMC in preparing tenders for the work. Finally PMC would be responsible for day to day supervision of laying of new trunk lines, its integration with existing and new STPs. Municipal Commissioner Dr Abhijeet Chaudhari from NMC and B R Parthasarthy, Sr Vice President, signed on the dotted lines along with officials of NRCD. With completion of formalities, the Tata led consortium would start work on drawing-up roadmap for executing the pollution abatement project that took quite a long to work out. The project has received funding from Japanese Government agency, JICA, and for the same Central Government shared will be 60 per cent, State Government is contributing 25 per cent while NMC will bear 15 per cent of project cost. During this year's Union Budget about Rs 500 crores are kept aside. It may be remembered that NRCD on September 3, 2024, conveyed to NMC its approval to acceptance of bid of Tata led consortium which also includes M/s NJS Engineers India Pvt Ltd., Mumbai; M/s CTI Engineering International Co. Ltd., Japan, and M/s EPTISA Servicios de Ingenireria, Bengaluru, to act as PMC. Dr Shweta Banerjee, Superintending Engineer, Public Health Engineering (PHC); Rajesh Dufare, Deputy Engineer; Ravi Mange, Assistant Engineer; Mohd. Israel, Technical Advisor; G H Virupaksha, Association Vice-President and Sudil Mani, Deputy General Manager, both from Tata Consultancy Engineers Ltd., were also present during the signing of agreement at Commissioner's office. The process to appoint PMC started from January 2024 and it took nearly nine months to wrap it up showcasing the speed with which the Government machinery works. This being inter-Government project, the clearances takes time. Niranjan Bhata The longest brinjal growing in Cgarh By Mukesh S Singh : Raipur/Dhamtari, In an innovation in agriculturalo field, Chhattisgarhs progressive farmer Leela Ram Sahu has achieved a monumental milestone with the development of Niranjan Bhata, Indias longest Brinjal or eggplant variety. Sahus brinjal not only reinforces the power of local knowledge but also places India on the global agricultural map. This indigenous variety, cultivated in the fields of Dhamtari, measures an astounding 36.92 cm on average, making it the longest brinjal in the country and a potential contender for the worlds largest brinjal. With its groundbreaking registration under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Authority (PPV&FRA), this achievement serves as a testament to the innovative spirit of Indian farmers. Talking to The Hitavada, Dr Deepak Sharma, Professor and Head, and Nodal Officer, Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Authority (PPVFRA), Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya (IGKV), Raipur, remarked, The recognition of Niranjan Bhata is not just a matter of pride for Chhattisgarh but also a significant moment for Indian agriculture. The brinjals unprecedented size and nutritional value reflect the potential that local varieties hold, and this fits perfectly into the narrative of self-reliance and innovation that is being promoted at a national level. The Plant Variety Registration Certificate for Niranjan Bhata was issued on 14th August 2024, after a detailed process that began in August 2017. Sahu, who has been preserving this indigenous variety for generations, now holds the exclusive rights to produce, sell, and distribute the brinjal for the next six years. This legal protection under the PPV&FRA, 2001, safeguards the crops unique genetic lineage and reinforces its importance within the countrys agricultural landscape. Sahus journey began in 2010, when he meticulously selected and refined traditional brinjal strains to create what is now known as Niranjan Bhata. The variety is distinguished not just by its size, but also by its taste and nutritional benefits, making it a standout among other long brinjal varieties like Ankur Vinayak (23.80 cm) and the Pusa Purple Long variety (25-30 cm). With lower water content, fewer seeds, and high fibre, it is known for its sweet flavour and is highly favoured in South Indian cuisine, particularly in sambhar. Sahu expressed his gratitude for the support of the scientific community, especially Dr Deepak Sharma and Dr Dhananjay Sharma, Principal Scientist in the Vegetable Science Department at IGKV, Raipur. The registration of Niranjan Bhata is a moment of immense pride for Chhattisgarhs farming community. It shows that indigenous varieties, when nurtured with dedication, have the potential to compete on the world stage, thus contributing to the vision of self-reliance in Indian agriculture, he said. The recognition of Niranjan Bhata is part of a larger initiative led by the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Authority, chaired by Dr Trilochan Mahapatra, to protect and promote indigenous crop varieties across the country. Chhattisgarh, with 561 registered crop varieties, is now poised to become the state with the highest number of registered varieties in India, once ongoing applications are processed. Vice-Chancellor of IGKV, Dr Girish Chandel, lauded this as a revolutionary step in the agricultural sector, stating, In line with the nations vision for self-reliance, the success of Niranjan Bhata highlights how local innovations can transform the agricultural economy. It is a source of inspiration for future advancements. Sahus success goes beyond brinjal, as he also cultivates crops like rice, chickpea, tomato, and mustard. His work has earned him multiple prestigious awards, including the Plant Genome Saviour Award, presented by the Union Minister of Agriculture, and the Innovation Farmer Award from former President Pranab Mukherjee. No more adjournments, says SC on Godhratrain burning case; next hearing on Jan 15 New Delhi : THE Supreme Court on Thursday said it will hear on January 15 the appeals filed by the Gujarat Government and several other convicts inthe 2002Godhra train burning case. A bench of Justices J K Maheshwari and Rajesh Bindal made it clear that no adjournment will be given in the matter on the next date of hearing. On February 27, 2002, 59 peoplewerekilledwhentheS-6coach of Sabarmati Express was burnt at Gujarats Godhra,triggering riots in the State. Several appeals have been filed in the apex court challenging the October 2017 verdict ofthe Gujarat High Court which had upheld conviction of several convicts and commutedthedeathpenaltiesof 11 to life term. The Gujarat Government had inFebruary last yeartoldtheapex court thatitwillbe seeking award of death penalty to the 11 convicts whose sentences in the case were commuted to life imprisonment by the High Court. The batch of pleas came up for hearing on Thursday before the top court. Gujarat Governments counsel Swati Ghildiyal requested the bench to post the matter for hearing on some other day as she was to argue before another benchoftheapex court in adeath penalty-related matter. We have to first understand what are the cases of individuals. What is the prosecutions case. Then we have to ascertain the roles, the bench observed, adding that hearing in the matter will take at least three days. Now we will not adjourn it on the next date, the bench said. At the request of Swati Ghildiyal, counsel appearing for theStateofGujarat,listonJanuary 15, 2025, it said. President of Xinhua News Agency Fu Hua meets with Jamal Mohammed Al Kaabi, director-general of the national media office of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), also acting director-general of the Emirates News Agency, in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 27, 2024. (Xinhua/Huang Jingwen) BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- President of Xinhua News Agency Fu Hua met with Jamal Mohammed Al Kaabi, director-general of the national media office of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in Beijing on Friday. Fu said that under the guidance of the two heads of state, China-UAE relations have developed in an all-round, rapid and in-depth way. Xinhua is willing to work with the Emirates News Agency to strengthen cooperation on news reporting and personnel exchanges, among other areas, and to report stories of China-UAE friendly exchanges and the efforts to jointly build the Belt and Road, Fu said. Fu hopes the two sides will strengthen coordination and cooperation under multilateral mechanisms such as the World Media Summit, and jointly play a positive role in solidifying and deepening the China-UAE comprehensive strategic partnership. Kaabi, also acting director-general of the Emirates News Agency, said that the UAE side is willing to continue to strengthen cooperation with Xinhua and jointly tell the stories of friendship to help boost the development of bilateral relations. OVATION THE observation by Chief Election Commissioner Mr. Rajiv Kumar that long voters queues in Kashmir meant a standing ovation to democracy, stood endorsed even by diplomats from as many as sixteen countries visiting Jammu and Kashmir during the second phase of legislative elections in the Union Territory. The visiting diplomats found that free and fair elections were being held in Kashmir -- much in contradiction of the picture Congress leader Mr. Rahul Gandhi had sought to paint on most of his trips abroad, the recent one being to the United States. The CEC captured the spirit in apt words when he insisted that history was in the making in Jammu and Kashmir (where earlier elections had seen only marginal voter turn-out). This is a welcome sign -- whose importance can be understood against the background of negative propaganda some elements had launched against the developments in Kashmir in the past five years. It was essential that the world saw the happy reality of changing Kashmir. Hence the presence of the diplomats from as many as 16 countries to watch the electoral exercise on scales that were not imagined in J&K. The world knows that this positive difference came about only after the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A of the Constitution of India. Though the Opposition and Left-liberal intellectuals criticised that move, Modi Government at the Centre went ahead with the decision to scrap special status to Kashmir. The legislative elections first two phases showcase the success of the idea. That the common people defied the fears of terrorism and queued up for casting of their votes in numbers that could not be imagined before, was seen and noticed by the foreign diplomats -- a fact that they would report to their respective Governments. Of course, India does not have any validation or endorsement of the factual success of operational democracy in Jammu and Kashmir. Yet, when diplomats from responsible countries see for themselves a successful working of a democratic exercise, then they become ambassadors of goodwill for India. This move by the Government to invite representatives of sixteen countries, therefore, will pay rich dividends in time to come. There is something positive to report on this count. Even as Kashmir is electing its legislative representation, there is a surprising quiet on the Pakistani front in that regard. Previously, Pakistan expended much of its energies in deriding any and every democratic exercise in Kashmir. This time, no such noise is being heard in a big way. That is due to the fact that the Modi Government handled the transformation in Kashmir -- abrogation of Special Status -- in the most tactful and truthful manner. Each of the moves the Government made in that regard has proved to be worthy of praise because everything was achieved in a peaceful manner and in consonance with the letter and spirit of the Constitution of India. The world has not missed taking note of this fact. And inside the country, the Opposition is totally isolated on the issue just because it is indulging in senseless propaganda against the Modi Government. Nobody believes the Opposition that everything is being done in Kashmir only to defile the Constitution. The common people in the streets of India are aware fully that whatever the Government has done in Kashmir has served a good purpose for the country. Of course, all such moves have long term implications -- whose good impact gets to be known only much later. Yet, the people have not missed the fact that Kashmir is far better integrated into the mainstream than ever before. PWD Minister Rakesh honoured with Green Ribbon Champions 2024 Staff Reporter : The minister was awarded in New Delhi for his contribution in water conservation State Public Works Department Minister, Rakesh Singh was honoured for his outstanding contributions to water conservation at the Green Ribbon Champions 2024 event held in New Delhi. The programme was organised to felicitate people from across the country who have made significant efforts in the fields of environment and water conservation. Addressing a huge gathering, State PWD Minister Singh said viewing water and environmental conservation as solely a social responsibility can lead to distancing ourselves from the issue. He stressed that until we recognize these efforts as a personal responsibility, we will not be able to protect our natural heritage. He said when we think of it as a collective responsibility we often feel that our role is minor, which leads us to gradually shirk that duty. Singh shared the story of "Paniya Kuan" (well) in his maternal aunt's village, which had provided water to the entire village for 70-80 years before drying up. Despite, the villagers were indifferent. This deeply concerned him and motivated his resolve to work towards preserving natural water resources. He even led a 20-day, 480-kilometer-long "Jal Raksha Yatra" in Jabalpur parliamentary constituency during the scorching summer months. Singh highlighted his efforts to restore and preserve historic stepwells. After informing Prime Minister Narendra Modi about these efforts, PM Modi, known for his deep commitment to water conservation and extensive knowledge, suggested that once the restoration is complete these stepwells should be named "Jal Mandir" (Water Temple). Singh and his team worked on two stepwells, including those from the era of Rani Durgavati, which had fallen into disrepair. Today, these restored "Jal Mandirs" have become beautiful landmarks. The water from them is not only safe for drinking, but the locations have also gained popularity as scenic spots for pre-wedding photo shoots. Singh dedicated the honor he received to all the volunteers and workers who stood by him in his efforts, contributing through labor donations during the "Jal Raksha Yatra" and in the restoration of ponds and stepwells. CARACAS, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Latin American regional bloc, Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People's Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), agreed on Thursday to strengthen cooperation and oppose foreign military bases in the region. During the Political Council meeting in New York, representatives from the bloc's 10 member states committed to advancing their Development Cooperation Agency and planned an extraordinary summit of heads of state for December. Venezuelan Jorge Arreaza, the executive secretary of ALBA-TCP, read out the agreed-upon document, highlighting the political principles of the bloc. "It reaffirms the principles and purposes of the UN Charter and opposes the establishment of military bases on our continent," he said. Members of the bloc also condemned the U.S. sanctions on Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil stressed the bloc's willingness to advance agricultural cooperation projects and initiatives to combat climate change. AutoNation (NYSE:AN Get Free Report) was upgraded by investment analysts at Morgan Stanley from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating in a report issued on Wednesday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The firm presently has a $200.00 price target on the stock, up from their previous price target of $145.00. Morgan Stanleys price objective suggests a potential upside of 12.29% from the companys current price. Several other analysts have also recently issued reports on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on AutoNation from $160.00 to $190.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Tuesday, September 10th. Stephens began coverage on shares of AutoNation in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. They set an overweight rating and a $210.00 price objective for the company. Evercore ISI lifted their target price on shares of AutoNation from $200.00 to $220.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Monday, June 10th. Bank of America increased their price target on shares of AutoNation from $210.00 to $220.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Monday, July 22nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on shares of AutoNation from $164.00 to $187.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a research report on Thursday, August 1st. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $201.75. Get AutoNation alerts: Read Our Latest Stock Report on AutoNation AutoNation Stock Performance AN opened at $178.11 on Wednesday. AutoNation has a twelve month low of $123.81 and a twelve month high of $197.18. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.17 billion, a PE ratio of 8.45, a PEG ratio of 3.51 and a beta of 1.20. The company has a current ratio of 0.78, a quick ratio of 0.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.65. The firms 50-day moving average price is $172.82 and its 200 day moving average price is $166.52. AutoNation (NYSE:AN Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The company reported $3.99 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $4.31 by ($0.32). AutoNation had a return on equity of 36.50% and a net margin of 2.93%. The company had revenue of $6.48 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.72 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $6.29 earnings per share. The companys revenue for the quarter was down 5.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that AutoNation will post 17.67 EPS for the current fiscal year. Insiders Place Their Bets In related news, major shareholder Edward S. Lampert sold 39,194 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $183.43, for a total transaction of $7,189,355.42. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 3,786,144 shares in the company, valued at approximately $694,492,393.92. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, major shareholder Edward S. Lampert sold 39,194 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $183.43, for a total transaction of $7,189,355.42. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 3,786,144 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $694,492,393.92. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, major shareholder Edward S. Lampert sold 53,562 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $193.45, for a total transaction of $10,361,568.90. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 3,825,838 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $740,108,361.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 216,959 shares of company stock worth $39,346,744 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.74% of the companys stock. Institutional Inflows and Outflows Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Jones Financial Companies Lllp purchased a new position in shares of AutoNation in the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its holdings in AutoNation by 90.6% in the second quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 202 shares of the companys stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 96 shares in the last quarter. Riverview Trust Co purchased a new position in AutoNation in the first quarter worth approximately $33,000. Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC acquired a new position in AutoNation during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $37,000. Finally, Denali Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of AutoNation by 79.7% in the 1st quarter. Denali Advisors LLC now owns 248 shares of the companys stock valued at $41,000 after purchasing an additional 110 shares during the last quarter. 94.62% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. AutoNation Company Profile (Get Free Report) AutoNation, Inc, through its subsidiaries, operates as an automotive retailer in the United States. The company operates through three segments: Domestic, Import, and Premium Luxury. It offers a range of automotive products and services, including new and used vehicles; and parts and services, such as automotive repair and maintenance, and wholesale parts and collision services. Read More Receive News & Ratings for AutoNation Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for AutoNation and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Bausch + Lomb (NYSE:BLCO Free Report) had its target price lifted by Stifel Nicolaus from $16.00 to $19.00 in a research note released on Monday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a hold rating on the stock. BLCO has been the topic of a number of other research reports. HC Wainwright lowered their price objective on Bausch + Lomb from $20.00 to $19.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a report on Monday, August 5th. Evercore ISI boosted their price target on Bausch + Lomb from $15.00 to $15.50 and gave the stock an in-line rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 2nd. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an outperform rating and set a $20.00 price target on shares of Bausch + Lomb in a research note on Thursday, August 1st. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their price target on Bausch + Lomb from $14.00 to $18.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, August 1st. Finally, Needham & Company LLC restated a hold rating on shares of Bausch + Lomb in a research report on Monday, September 16th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $19.14. Get Bausch + Lomb alerts: View Our Latest Stock Analysis on BLCO Bausch + Lomb Stock Performance Shares of BLCO stock opened at $19.04 on Monday. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.70 billion, a PE ratio of -19.83, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.81 and a beta of 0.46. Bausch + Lomb has a 52-week low of $13.16 and a 52-week high of $21.00. The stocks 50-day moving average price is $16.67 and its 200 day moving average price is $15.78. The company has a quick ratio of 1.01, a current ratio of 1.65 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70. Bausch + Lomb (NYSE:BLCO Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 31st. The company reported $0.13 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting analysts consensus estimates of $0.13. Bausch + Lomb had a positive return on equity of 3.36% and a negative net margin of 10.15%. The company had revenue of $1.22 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.17 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.18 EPS. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 17.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Bausch + Lomb will post 0.6 EPS for the current year. Insider Transactions at Bausch + Lomb In other Bausch + Lomb news, CEO Brent L. Saunders acquired 32,250 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 5th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $15.66 per share, for a total transaction of $505,035.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chief executive officer now directly owns 595,169 shares of the companys stock, valued at $9,320,346.54. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Institutional Trading of Bausch + Lomb Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Blue Trust Inc. grew its stake in shares of Bausch + Lomb by 14,052.2% during the 2nd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 3,255 shares of the companys stock valued at $47,000 after buying an additional 3,232 shares during the period. Squarepoint Ops LLC acquired a new position in shares of Bausch + Lomb during the 2nd quarter valued at $173,000. Fore Capital LLC acquired a new position in shares of Bausch + Lomb during the 1st quarter valued at $384,000. Renaissance Capital LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Bausch + Lomb by 3.0% during the 1st quarter. Renaissance Capital LLC now owns 23,076 shares of the companys stock valued at $399,000 after acquiring an additional 669 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cubist Systematic Strategies LLC acquired a new position in shares of Bausch + Lomb during the 2nd quarter valued at $580,000. 11.07% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Bausch + Lomb Company Profile (Get Free Report) Bausch + Lomb Corporation operates as an eye health company in the United States, Puerto Rico, China, France, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Russia, Spain, Italy, Mexico, Poland, South Korea, and internationally. It operates in three segments: Vision Care, Pharmaceuticals, and Surgical. The Vision Care segment provides contact lens that covers the spectrum of wearing modalities, including daily disposable and frequently replaced contact lenses; and contact lens care products comprising over-the-counter eye drops, eye vitamins, and mineral supplements that address various conditions, such as eye allergies, conjunctivitis, dry eye, and redness relief. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Bausch + Lomb Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bausch + Lomb and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday called for consolidating and developing the unity of the Chinese nation. Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the call at a grand meeting in Beijing to honor role models for ethnic unity and progress. He urged efforts to advance the building of the community for the Chinese nation. Premier Li Qiang presided over the meeting. Top political advisor Wang Huning announced the central authorities' decision to award the models. Senior leaders Zhao Leji, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang and Li Xi attended the event. A total of 352 groups and 368 individuals were honored. Xi and other senior leaders presented the awards to representatives of the models. Addressing the meeting, Xi said the CPC has always attached great importance to ethnic affairs. Over the past more than a century, it has blazed a correct path of handling ethnic affairs with a distinctively Chinese approach. Along this path, Xi said, the CPC has made new advances in developing ethnic relations of equality, solidarity, mutual assistance and harmony, and promoted economic and social development of ethnic areas and the lives of ethnic minority groups to register unprecedented progress. Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, the Party has taken fostering a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation as the focus of its work related to ethnic affairs, and achieved new historic success, he said. Atlas Arteria Limited (ASX:ALX Get Free Report) insider Kiernan Bell bought 3,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 17th. The shares were purchased at an average price of A$4.94 ($3.38) per share, for a total transaction of A$14,820.00 ($10,150.68). Atlas Arteria Stock Performance The company has a current ratio of 2.26, a quick ratio of 1.77 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 27.24. Get Atlas Arteria alerts: Atlas Arteria Dividend Announcement The firm also recently declared a Interim dividend, which will be paid on Sunday, October 6th. Shareholders of record on Sunday, October 6th will be paid a $0.20 dividend. This represents a yield of 4.22%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, September 23rd. Atlas Arterias dividend payout ratio is presently 190.48%. Atlas Arteria Company Profile Atlas Arteria Limited owns, develops, and operates toll roads. It holds a 31.14% of interest in the APRR and A79 and 31.17% interest in the ADELAC located in France; 100% interest in the Warnow Tunnel located in Rostock, Germany; 66.67% interest in the Chicago Skyway situated in Chicago and 100% interest in the Dulles Greenway located in Virginia, United States. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Atlas Arteria Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Atlas Arteria and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Penske Automotive Group (NYSE:PAG Get Free Report) was upgraded by Morgan Stanley from an underweight rating to an overweight rating in a note issued to investors on Wednesday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. The brokerage presently has a $180.00 price objective on the stock, up from their prior price objective of $115.00. Morgan Stanleys target price would suggest a potential upside of 11.20% from the companys previous close. PAG has been the topic of several other reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of Penske Automotive Group from $140.00 to $160.00 and gave the company an underweight rating in a report on Tuesday, September 10th. Stephens started coverage on shares of Penske Automotive Group in a research note on Thursday, September 12th. They set an equal weight rating and a $161.00 price target on the stock. Finally, Bank of America lifted their price objective on shares of Penske Automotive Group from $175.00 to $180.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Monday, July 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Penske Automotive Group has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $175.40. Get Penske Automotive Group alerts: Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on Penske Automotive Group Penske Automotive Group Trading Up 0.5 % Shares of PAG stock opened at $161.87 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.22, a current ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. The firm has a market cap of $10.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.26 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a 50 day moving average of $161.71 and a 200-day moving average of $155.73. Penske Automotive Group has a 12-month low of $137.95 and a 12-month high of $179.72. Penske Automotive Group (NYSE:PAG Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The company reported $3.61 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $3.39 by $0.22. Penske Automotive Group had a return on equity of 19.82% and a net margin of 3.05%. The business had revenue of $7.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.59 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $4.41 earnings per share. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 3.1% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Penske Automotive Group will post 13.83 earnings per share for the current year. Insider Activity In other news, Director John Barr sold 716 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $170.71, for a total transaction of $122,228.36. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 51.70% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Institutional Trading of Penske Automotive Group Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of PAG. Gabelli Funds LLC increased its position in shares of Penske Automotive Group by 6.2% in the first quarter. Gabelli Funds LLC now owns 85,500 shares of the companys stock worth $13,850,000 after purchasing an additional 5,000 shares during the last quarter. State Board of Administration of Florida Retirement System increased its holdings in shares of Penske Automotive Group by 15.4% in the 1st quarter. State Board of Administration of Florida Retirement System now owns 30,466 shares of the companys stock worth $4,935,000 after buying an additional 4,057 shares during the last quarter. OFI Invest Asset Management bought a new position in shares of Penske Automotive Group in the 2nd quarter worth $1,516,000. Manning & Napier Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Penske Automotive Group during the 2nd quarter valued at $3,742,000. Finally, Occudo Quantitative Strategies LP lifted its holdings in shares of Penske Automotive Group by 321.8% during the 4th quarter. Occudo Quantitative Strategies LP now owns 26,675 shares of the companys stock worth $4,282,000 after acquiring an additional 20,351 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 77.08% of the companys stock. About Penske Automotive Group (Get Free Report) Penske Automotive Group, Inc, a diversified transportation services company, operates automotive and commercial truck dealerships worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Retail Automotive, Retail Commercial Truck, Other, and Non-Automotive Investments. It operates dealerships under franchise agreements with various automotive manufacturers and distributors. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Penske Automotive Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Penske Automotive Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Sappi Limited (OTCMKTS:SPPJY Get Free Report) was the target of a large decline in short interest in the month of September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 100 shares, a decline of 66.7% from the August 31st total of 300 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 1,600 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 0.1 days. Sappi Stock Performance SPPJY stock remained flat at $2.81 during midday trading on Friday. The company has a fifty day moving average of $2.70 and a two-hundred day moving average of $2.77. The company has a current ratio of 1.55, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. Sappi has a twelve month low of $1.99 and a twelve month high of $3.16. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.57 billion, a PE ratio of 3.12, a PEG ratio of 0.27 and a beta of 1.07. Get Sappi alerts: Sappi (OTCMKTS:SPPJY Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The basic materials company reported $0.09 EPS for the quarter. The firm had revenue of $1.37 billion during the quarter. Sappi had a negative net margin of 1.60% and a positive return on equity of 6.21%. Sell-side analysts forecast that Sappi will post 0.36 earnings per share for the current year. About Sappi Sappi Limited, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the provision of materials made from woodfiber-based renewable resources in Europe, North America, and South Africa. The company manufacture and sells dissolving pulp, and wood and paper pulp; graphic papers, coated and uncoated papers, and casting and release papers; and packaging and specialty papers, including packaging and specialty papers, including flexible packaging papers, label papers, functional paper packaging products, containerboards, paperboards, silicone base papers, and dye sublimation papers. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Sappi Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Sappi and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Acorn Energy, Inc. (OTCMKTS:ACFN Get Free Report) was the recipient of a significant decline in short interest during the month of September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 100 shares, a decline of 90.0% from the August 31st total of 1,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 5,100 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 0.0 days. Acorn Energy Stock Down 1.3 % ACFN stock opened at $9.62 on Friday. Acorn Energy has a 52 week low of $4.50 and a 52 week high of $11.00. The firm has a market capitalization of $23.93 million, a P/E ratio of 139.29 and a beta of 0.65. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $9.73 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $9.13. Get Acorn Energy alerts: Acorn Energy (OTCMKTS:ACFN Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The technology company reported $0.11 earnings per share for the quarter. The firm had revenue of $2.28 million for the quarter. Acorn Energy had a negative return on equity of 61.26% and a net margin of 5.08%. About Acorn Energy Acorn Energy, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, develops and markets wireless remote monitoring and control systems for various markets in the United States and internationally. It operates in two segments, Power Generation (PG) Monitoring and Cathodic Protection (CP) Monitoring. The PG segment provides wireless remote monitoring and control systems, and services for critical assets, which include stand-by power generators, pumps, pumpjacks, light towers, turbines, compressors, fire pumps, and other industrial equipment; and Internet of Things applications. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Acorn Energy Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Acorn Energy and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. AstraZeneca PLC (OTCMKTS:AZNCF Get Free Report) was the target of a large increase in short interest in September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 42,100 shares, an increase of 352.7% from the August 31st total of 9,300 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 2,800 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 15.0 days. Hedge Funds Weigh In On AstraZeneca A hedge fund recently bought a new stake in AstraZeneca stock. Kennedy Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in AstraZeneca PLC (OTCMKTS:AZNCF Free Report) during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm purchased 37,554 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $5,068,000. 40.87% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get AstraZeneca alerts: AstraZeneca Price Performance Shares of OTCMKTS AZNCF opened at $153.30 on Friday. The companys fifty day moving average price is $162.57 and its 200 day moving average price is $152.89. AstraZeneca has a 1 year low of $118.16 and a 1 year high of $175.00. AstraZeneca Cuts Dividend About AstraZeneca The firm also recently declared a dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 9th. Investors of record on Friday, August 9th were paid a $1.00 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, August 7th. AstraZenecas dividend payout ratio is presently 343.14%. (Get Free Report) AstraZeneca PLC, a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the discovery, development, manufacture, and commercialization of prescription medicines. The company's marketed products include Tagrisso, Imfinzi, Lynparza, Calquence, Enhertu, Orpathys, Truqap, Zoladex, Faslodex, Farxiga, Brilinta, Lokelma, Roxadustat, Andexxa, Crestor, Seloken, Onglyza, Bydureon, Fasenra, Breztri, Symbicort, Saphnelo, Tezspire, Pulmicort, Bevespi, and Daliresp for cardiovascular, renal, metabolism, and oncology. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for AstraZeneca Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for AstraZeneca and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Shares of Smartsheet Inc (NYSE:SMAR Get Free Report) saw unusually-high trading volume on Wednesday after Barclays raised their price target on the stock from $50.00 to $56.50. Barclays currently has an equal weight rating on the stock. Approximately 3,134,250 shares changed hands during trading, an increase of 86% from the previous sessions volume of 1,687,042 shares.The stock last traded at $55.44 and had previously closed at $55.46. Other equities analysts have also recently issued research reports about the stock. Jefferies Financial Group reaffirmed a hold rating and set a $56.50 price target (down previously from $60.00) on shares of Smartsheet in a research report on Tuesday. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a hold rating and set a $57.00 target price on shares of Smartsheet in a report on Tuesday. Wells Fargo & Company reiterated an equal weight rating and issued a $57.00 price target on shares of Smartsheet in a report on Tuesday. Truist Financial reissued a hold rating and set a $56.50 price target (down from $60.00) on shares of Smartsheet in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of Smartsheet from $55.00 to $57.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Friday, September 6th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, fifteen have given a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $56.21. Get Smartsheet alerts: Get Our Latest Stock Report on Smartsheet Insiders Place Their Bets Institutional Inflows and Outflows In other news, insider Jolene Lau Marshall sold 3,994 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Friday, July 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $43.11, for a total transaction of $172,181.34. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 16,567 shares of the companys stock, valued at $714,203.37. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website . In other Smartsheet news, CEO Mark Patrick Mader sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $51.78, for a total transaction of $1,035,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 588,762 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $30,486,096.36. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website . Also, insider Jolene Lau Marshall sold 3,994 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Friday, July 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $43.11, for a total value of $172,181.34. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 16,567 shares in the company, valued at approximately $714,203.37. The disclosure for this sale can be found here . In the last quarter, insiders sold 35,157 shares of company stock worth $1,762,763. 4.52% of the stock is owned by company insiders. A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of SMAR. International Assets Investment Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Smartsheet during the 2nd quarter valued at about $25,000. Versant Capital Management Inc acquired a new stake in Smartsheet during the second quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Banque Cantonale Vaudoise bought a new stake in Smartsheet during the first quarter worth approximately $29,000. First Horizon Advisors Inc. grew its position in Smartsheet by 37.5% in the second quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 894 shares of the companys stock worth $39,000 after buying an additional 244 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Plato Investment Management Ltd bought a new position in shares of Smartsheet in the first quarter valued at $35,000. 90.01% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Smartsheet Price Performance The company has a market cap of $7.69 billion, a P/E ratio of -89.24 and a beta of 0.74. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $49.17 and a 200-day simple moving average of $43.43. Smartsheet (NYSE:SMAR Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, September 5th. The company reported $0.44 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.29 by $0.15. The business had revenue of $276.41 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $274.23 million. Smartsheet had a negative return on equity of 4.29% and a negative net margin of 4.07%. Smartsheets revenue was up 17.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted ($0.23) earnings per share. On average, analysts anticipate that Smartsheet Inc will post -0.05 EPS for the current year. Smartsheet declared that its board has authorized a stock repurchase program on Thursday, September 5th that permits the company to buyback $150.00 million in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the company to repurchase up to 2.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often an indication that the companys board believes its stock is undervalued. Smartsheet Company Profile (Get Free Report) Smartsheet, Inc engages in managing and automating collaborative work. Its platform provides solutions that eliminate the obstacles to capturing information, including a familiar and intuitive spreadsheet interface as well as easily customizable forms. The company was founded by W. Eric Browne, Maria Colacurcio, John D. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Smartsheet Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Smartsheet and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- A report on the navigation and overflight situation in the South China Sea was released Friday by the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative (SCSPI), an international research network. The report has been worked out as a response to the misunderstanding and fake narrative concerning navigation and overflight in the South China Sea, said the SCSPI at a news briefing held in Beijing. It elaborates on topics including rules and regulations for navigation on the sea under international law, navigation and overflight of civilian ships and aircraft, as well as activities of warships and military aircraft. Overall, freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea is fully guaranteed for both military and civilian vessels and aircraft, and the impact of widely discussed geopolitical factors such as major powers competition and maritime disputes is very limited, according to the report. Zhao Leji, chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, holds talks with Tanzila Narbayeva, chairperson of the Senate of Uzbekistan, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 27, 2024. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling) BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Zhao Leji, China's top legislator, held talks with Tanzila Narbayeva, chairperson of the Senate of Uzbekistan, on Friday in Beijing. Zhao, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, said that China and Uzbekistan are trusted friends and mutual-achievement partners. No matter how the international situation changes, China supports Uzbekistan firmly in safeguarding its sovereignty, security and development interests, and believes that Uzbekistan will, as always, provide firm, strong support for China on issues involving China's core interests, Zhao said. He noted that China is willing to work with Uzbekistan to expand cooperation in such fields as the economy, trade, investment, green energy and new quality productive forces, and accelerate the construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway. The two sides should deepen exchange in such fields as culture, tourism and education, Zhao said. He called for the construction of a strong security barrier, opposition to external interference, and the joint safeguarding of the peace, security and stability of the two countries and broader region. China is willing to work with Uzbekistan to implement the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, and to make the global governance system more just and equitable, Zhao added. The NPC of China is ready to work with Uzbekistan's Supreme Assembly to implement the important consensus reached between the two heads of state, give full play to the characteristics and advantages of their legislative bodies, maintain the good momentum of high-level visits, and deepen exchange, he said. He called on the two sides to undertake dialogue and exchange on such topics as the rule of law, economic development and livelihood improvement. The two sides need to approve and revise legal documents conducive to the development of bilateral relations in a timely manner, Zhao said, adding that both sides should expand people-to-people and subnational cooperation to consolidate the social and public support for the China-Uzbekistan friendship. He also provided relevant information on the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee. He noted that China is willing to strengthen exchange and mutual learning on reform and opening-up with Uzbekistan, share development opportunities, and achieve win-win results. With the personal commitments of the two heads of state, the all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership for a new era between China and Uzbekistan has been developing continuously, Narbayeva said. She expressed her congratulations on the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and said that Uzbekistan adheres firmly to the one-China principle and supports China's core interests firmly. The country stands ready to launch the construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, strengthen the synergy of development strategies with China, and deepen cooperation in fields such as the economy, interconnectivity, security, and people-to-people and cultural exchange. Uzbekistan's senate hopes to strengthen its friendly exchange and legislative cooperation with the NPC of China, and to contribute to the construction of an Uzbekistan-China community with a shared future, Narbayeva added. Zhao Leji, chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, holds talks with Tanzila Narbayeva, chairperson of the Senate of Uzbekistan, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 27, 2024. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling) Zhao Leji, chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, holds talks with Tanzila Narbayeva, chairperson of the Senate of Uzbekistan, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 27, 2024. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling) TEHRAN, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Friday condemned recent Israeli airstrikes on Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut, as a "flagrant and unconceivable war crime." In a message carried by Iran's official news agency IRNA, Pezeshkian said Israel's actions against the Palestinian and Lebanese people underscore the international community's failure to halt what he termed the "state terrorism's machine," characterizing Israel as the "biggest threat" to regional and global peace and security. He urged all nations, particularly Muslim states, to strongly condemn the attacks, stating that the airstrikes further revealed the nature of Israel's "state terrorism." The Iranian president extended condolences to the victims' families and vowed that the Iranian government would pursue accountability for the "crime," affirming support for the Lebanese people and the broader resistance movement. Pezeshkian's message followed powerful airstrikes earlier that day, which aimed at Hezbollah's headquarters, resulting in at least six fatalities and injuring 91 others. NEW YORK, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's request for a meeting with former U.S. President Donald Trump materialized Friday, during which he said Kiev counts on U.S. support to defeat Russia regardless of who occupies the White House after the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election. "It's very important to share, to share all the plan, all our steps, how we can strengthen Ukraine," Zelensky said while standing next to Trump in New York. "And of course, we have to decide it now, because after November, we don't know who is, only Americans decide who will be the president, but we understand that till November, we can't stop (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. We have to do it. We will try on the battlefield with our heroic soldiers. But we understand that after November, we have to decide, and we hope that the strengths of the United States will be very strong, and we count on it. That's why I decided to meet with both candidates," Zelensky said. Trump, for his part, said the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, which has been going on for more than two years now, has to end. "At some point, it has to end," he added in repetition. The Trump-Zelensky meeting, which was held at Trump Tower in New York and confirmed by Trump only one day prior -- making Zelensky to change his itinerary and stay for an extra day in the United States -- came on the heel of the Ukrainian leader's respective meetings Thursday with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who's also the Democratic presidential nominee running against Trump. Both Biden and Harris vowed continued U.S. support for Ukraine. Ahead of his meeting at the White House with Zelensky, Biden announced additional military assistance worth a total of 7.9 billion U.S. dollars. He directed the Department of Defense to allocate all of its remaining security assistance funding that has been appropriated for Ukraine by the end of his presidential term in January. Harris, while meeting Zelensky, grasped the opportunity to slash Trump for the latter's criticism over what he said was Zelensky's lack of willingness to negotiate a peace deal with the Russians. "In candor, I share with you, Mr. President, there are some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality, and would require Ukraine to forego security relationships with other nations," Harris said in remarks alongside Zelensky on Thursday, in what appeared to be a thinly veiled reference to Trump. During a speech at a campaign rally in Mint Hill, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Trump gave what was his most explicit criticism of Zelensky's handling of Ukraine's conflict with Russia. "Those cities are gone, they're gone, and we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal, Zelensky. There was no deal that he could have made that wouldn't have been better than the situation you have right now. You have a country that has been obliterated, not possible to be rebuilt," Trump said. At Thursday's press conference in the Trump Tower lobby, the former president was asked whether Ukraine will have to give up any of its sovereign territory in order to reach a deal with Russia that brings an end to the conflict. "We'll see what happens," Trump said in response. Around 30 tonnes (30,000 kg) of Bangladeshi hilsa landed at Petrapole border in North 24-Parganas today, leaded in five trucks, a day after the interim government in the country on Wednesday approved its 49 agencies to export 2420 tonnes freshwater fish from Padma to India. The commerce ministry on Wednesday decided to bring down the quantity to 2420 tonnes from 3000 tonnes, announced earlier. With the gradual increase in supply of hilsa from Padma river in the state, its prices will also come down in the city and the districts, felt fish importers. Advertisement The entire consignment of Bangladeshi hilsa will be exported to India by 12 October. Today, the first consignment of 30,000 kg in five trucks landed at Petrapole in North 24-Parganas. Initially the price of a single piece of hilsa weighing a kilo would be around Rs 1,500 to Rs 1,600. The price will come down to Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,300 of the same size as supply flow will go up, said Sayeed Anwar Maqsood, secretary of Fish Importers Association (FIA) in the city. At a time when the Union jal shakti ministry and the West Bengal government are engaging in a war of words over release of water from dams in Jharkhand, the management of Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) has decided to donate the salary of one day of its employees to the chief ministers relief fund in wake of the recent floods in the state. Rajesh Kumar, senior general manager of DVC has issued an internal notification on 23 September urging its employees to donate the basic pay of one days salary to the CM Relief Fund. If any employee is unwilling to donate then he or she has to inform the concerned authority by today. The donation will be tax free, under the 80 G section of Income Tax Act, the notification states. Advertisement CM Mamata Banerjee has held the Centre responsible for releasing huge quantities of water to Bengal without seeking consent from the dams and reservoirs of Jharkhand. She even claimed that the heavy rainfall and subsequent water release from Jharkhand is responsible for floods in 10 districts of south Bengal and not the rivers and dams of the state. Already, two top officials of the West Bengal government, power secretary from the DVC board and the chief engineer, irrigation and waterways (west) have resigned from the DVRRC five-member committee. The DVRRC is responsible for water release from DVC dams and consists of members of West Bengal & Jharkhand governments, CWC and DVC. The DVC was set up in 1948 under a special act of parliament and is the first multipurpose river valley project in Independent India with the purpose of soil conservation, flood control, irrigation, fish cultivation and hydel power generation. The DVC Karmachari Sangha has appealed to the Bengal government to reconsider its decision of withdrawing two state top officials from DVC board and DVRRC committee. The DVC had reduced its water discharge from the Maithon and Panchet dams after the resignation of the two top officials. A three-day expo to address the growing refrigeration and cold chain needs of East India will be held in Kolkata from October 3 to 5. Indias refrigeration and cold chain industry is evolving rapidly, driven by the increasing demand for temperature-sensitive products in sectors like pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and e-commerce. Kolkata is the gateway to East India which is a huge belt for refrigeration and cold chain applications, covering seafood, agriculture, dairy, floriculture, horticulture, pharma, hospitality, and healthcare. The Indian Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ISHRAE) in partnership with Informa Markets in India, will be organising the 7th edition of REFCOLD India 2024, which is making its debut in Kolkata. Advertisement This expo that showcases innovations in refrigeration and cold chain solutions, to be held at Biswa Bangla Mela Prangan, Kolkata, is set to host over 130 exhibitors and attract more than 10,000 visitors, including innovators and professionals from diverse sectors such as the seafood industry, pharmaceutical industry, cold chain logistics, and food processing industry. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech during the General Debate of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN headquarters in New York, on Sept. 27, 2024. Netanyahu on Friday said at the United Nations General Assembly that there would be no immediate truce in his country's rapidly escalating conflict with Lebanon. (Xinhua/Li Rui) UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said at the United Nations General Assembly that there would be no immediate truce in his country's rapidly escalating conflict with Lebanon. "We face savage enemies who seek our annihilation, and we must defend ourselves against these savage murderers, (who) seek not only to destroy us but also destroy our common civilization and return all of us to a dark age of tyranny and terror," he said. "Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safely. And that's exactly what we're doing ... we'll continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met," added Netanyahu. Meanwhile, he used a large portion of his speech to warn of threats by -- and to threaten -- Iran, suggesting that Israel has had to defend itself on fronts of conflict organized by Tehran. "There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that is true of the entire Middle East," he said. "I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran: If you strike us we will strike you." Israel has increased the scope of its conflict with Lebanon over the past week, launching attacks against Hezbollah that have taken out top leaders of the militant group and led to more than 600 deaths in Lebanon, according to the country's Health Ministry. The Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah continued to exchange fire overnight and Friday as casualties mounted. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (at the podium and on the screens) delivers a speech during the General Debate of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN headquarters in New York, on Sept. 27, 2024. Netanyahu on Friday said at the United Nations General Assembly that there would be no immediate truce in his country's rapidly escalating conflict with Lebanon. (Xinhua/Li Rui) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Front) delivers a speech during the General Debate of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN headquarters in New York, on Sept. 27, 2024. Netanyahu on Friday said at the United Nations General Assembly that there would be no immediate truce in his country's rapidly escalating conflict with Lebanon. (Xinhua/Li Rui) Israeli troops are seen at a staging area near the northern Israeli border with Lebanon, on Sept. 27, 2024. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said at the United Nations General Assembly that there would be no immediate truce in his country's rapidly escalating conflict with Lebanon. (Ayal Margolin/JINI via Xinhua) Israeli troops are seen at a staging area near the northern Israeli border with Lebanon, on Sept. 27, 2024. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said at the United Nations General Assembly that there would be no immediate truce in his country's rapidly escalating conflict with Lebanon. (Ayal Margolin/JINI via Xinhua) Israeli troops are seen at a staging area near the northern Israeli border with Lebanon, on Sept. 27, 2024. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said at the United Nations General Assembly that there would be no immediate truce in his country's rapidly escalating conflict with Lebanon. (Ayal Margolin/JINI via Xinhua) Israeli troops are seen at a staging area near the northern Israeli border with Lebanon, on Sept. 27, 2024. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said at the United Nations General Assembly that there would be no immediate truce in his country's rapidly escalating conflict with Lebanon. (Ayal Margolin/JINI via Xinhua) Israeli troops are seen at a staging area near the northern Israeli border with Lebanon, on Sept. 27, 2024. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said at the United Nations General Assembly that there would be no immediate truce in his country's rapidly escalating conflict with Lebanon. (Ayal Margolin/JINI via Xinhua) Israeli troops are seen at a staging area near the northern Israeli border with Lebanon, on Sept. 27, 2024. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said at the United Nations General Assembly that there would be no immediate truce in his country's rapidly escalating conflict with Lebanon. (Ayal Margolin/JINI via Xinhua) Union minister of state for education, Dr Sukanta Majumdar will be the chief guest and will deliver the annual convocation address of National Institute of Technology (NIT), Durgapur. Dr Sanjeev Kumar Joshi, deputy chief executive officer (CEO), BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited will be the guest of honour and will also deliver a convocation address. The BrahMos Aerospace is an Indo-Russian multinational aerospace and defense corporation, with core manufacturing concentrations in cruise missiles. Headquartered in New Delhi, it was founded as a joint venture between Indias Defence Research and Development Organisation and NPO Mashinostroyenia of Russia. Advertisement The company is responsible for designing, developing, producing and marketing the BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles. Dr Sanjeev Kumar Joshi, has over two decades of experience as a senior defence scientist. He is also technology advisor to the secretary DDR&D, and chairman DRDO. Professor Arvind Choubey, director of National Institute of Technology (Durgapur) has informed that the 19th convocation of NIT Durgapur will be held on Saturday in Durgapur. Indias tourism sector is poised to create approximately 39.5 million jobs by the end of year which is likely to rise to 42.3 million employment opportunities by 2025, a report showed on Thursday. Direct employment will account for 31 per cent of these roles, including positions like tour guides, hotel staff, and tour operators, according to NLB Services, a technology and digital talent solutions provider. Meanwhile, indirect employment will make up 69 per cent with jobs in areas such as local artisans, logistics and transport operators, supply chain workers, IT support for online booking, data analysis, and landscape maintenance, said Sachin Alug, CEO, NLB Services. Advertisement The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) forecasts an annual GDP growth of 7.1 per cent for Indias travel and tourism sector over the next decade. The industry significantly impacts the economy, contributing approximately $199.6 billion to the GDP. In the Union Budget, the government allocated Rs 2,479 crore for tourism in FY25 which will further give a push to the sector. The tourism sector has a strong multiplier effect as each direct job in this field is expected to generate multiple indirect jobs, Alug added. Emerging tourism trends highlight a growing interest in adventure and wellness tourism, along with culinary tourism, as travellers seek to experience local flavours. Spiritual tourism remains a major draw, attracting both domestic and international visitors to cities such as Varanasi, Rishikesh, and Bodh Gaya. Additionally, India ranks 10th globally on the Medical Tourism Index (MTI) for 2020-2021 and is expected to rise in the coming years, leading to projected increases in the number of nurses by 12 per cent, doctors by 10 per cent and other healthcare staff by 15 per cent. According to the report, another significant trend is the growth of the backpacker hostel market which caters to young travellers seeking budget-friendly and socialising options. This segment will create opportunities for hostel managers, event coordinators, and digital marketers, contributing an additional 5 per cent to overall employment in tourism, said Alug. At the Regional Industry Conclave in Sagar, Madhya Pradesh has received investment proposals worth Rs. 23,181 crore, which would help create 27,375 job opportunities. A silver cluster will be developed in Sagar, while Khajuraho will be developed as a film city. Chief Minister Dr Mohan Yadav, while addressing the inaugural session of the Regional Industry Conclave in Sagar, announced that his government will support silver craftsmen, bidi, and agarbatti industries in the region. A silver cluster will be developed in Sagar, and Khajuraho will be developed as a film city, he said, adding that the future of Bundelkhand will now be a developed Bundelkhand. Advertisement The state government will provide full support to even the smallest entrepreneurs. The implementation of the Ken-Betwa project will increase the irrigation capacity in 2.5 lakh hectares of Bundelkhand, changing the regions landscape. An airport will be built in Sagar, increasing aviation opportunities and employment, he further informed. The Chief Minister also virtually inaugurated the MPIIDC office in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, and issued letters of intent to 96 industrial units, allocating 240 acres of land. This will bring an investment of Rs 1,560 crores and employment to over 5,900 people. Foreign dignitaries, including Mongolias Ambassador Ganbold Dambajav, TW CEO Ingo Soeller, and Thailands Consul General Donnawit Poolsawat attended the conclave. Some key investment proposals announced include Pacific Meta-Steels Rs 3,200 crore integrated steel plant in Nivadi, employing 10,000 people, Bansal Groups Rs 1,350 crore investment in super-specialty hospitals, a five-star hotel, and energy sector, Sagar Groups Rs 1,400 crore investment in dyeing and processing, creating employment opportunities and Madhya Bharat Agros Rs 500 crore investment in Sagars Banda area, said a state government spokesman here today. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the election to the lone vacant seat of the Municipal Corporation of Delhis 18-member Standing Committee unopposed on Friday as the councillors of the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had boycotted the elections while Congress councilors had abstained. BJP candidate Sunder Singh got all 115 votes of the partys councillors while AAPs Nirmala Kumari did not receive any votes. This vacancy arose due to the resignation of Kamaljeet Sehrawat, who was elected to the Lok Sabha. Advertisement Despite objections from the AAP, the election was held with Additional Commissioner Jitendra Yadav acting as the presiding officer in the absence of the mayor and deputy mayor. Earlier in the day, Mayor Shelly Oberoi wrote to the MCD commissioner to hold the election for the sixth member of the Standing Committee on October 5. She expressed her concern over the MCD commissioners recent order scheduling the election for September 27, calling it illegal and unconstitutional. The mayor stated that the Lieutenant Governor should not have the power to interfere in the Houses functioning and claimed she was forced to adjourn the House because her orders were not being followed. The Standing Committee plays a vital role in the MCD, making crucial decisions on finances, policies, and key issues. Comprising 18 members, this influential committee oversees the corporations financial management. Delhi Congress president Devender Yadav on Friday slammed Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor and former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal after he inspected a road in the capital and called it a political stunt. Referring to the AAP supremos inspection of the city roads for the second consecutive day, he said, After resigning as Delhi chief minister, Kejriwal is very concerned about the broken roads and other problems facing the people. This is a political stunt as he had not shown any such concern when he paralysed governance by clinging on to the post of chief minister after he was sent to jail in connection with the liquor scam, which was a gross misuse of the office of the chief minister. Kejriwal is still enjoying the facilities of the chief minister by roaming around with dummy chief minister Atishi. He is still staying in the palatial chief ministers residence at Civil Lines, even after resigning from the top post, the city Congress chief remarked. Advertisement Accusing Kejriwal of neglecting Delhis development, Yadav said, Kejriwal should first tell the people of Delhi why he had totally neglected the development of the Capital over the past 10 years ? He destroyed the public infrastructure as his government gave no attention to the proper maintenance of roads, cleaning of drains and sewers, ensuring potable drinking water to people, upkeep of the hospitals and schools, improving the DTC services, removing garbage, and other such issues. On waterlogging issues, he said, When the capital got waterlogged, over 40 people died due to drowning in flooded streets and electrocution, Kejriwal did not show any concern as he was busy writing letters to the LG, suggesting the name of Atishi for the flag hoisting on Independence day, and not in solving the problems of the people. He alleged that the main roads and arterial roads were broken, pot-holed kicking up dust to contribute to the toxic air, and after sunset, the entire city plunges into darkness as the street lights rarely function, with the DISCOMs showing total disregard in the maintenance and upkeep of street lights. In an apparent reference to the upcoming 2025 state Assembly elections, he said, The people of Delhi have now realised that only when Congress was in power for 15 years, the capital witnessed unprecedented development and progress. The people want the Congress back in Government again, as both BJP and AAP have failed in governing the city Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan has officially arrived in Abu Dhabi, ready to host the highly anticipated IIFA Awards 2024. His presence has already created a buzz among fans, who eagerly await the grand event. The International Indian Film Academy Awards, known for celebrating excellence in Indian cinema, will be held from September 27 to 29 at Yas Island. Shah Rukh Khans arrival in Abu Dhabi was celebrated with a series of photos shared on IIFAs official Instagram page. The actor looked effortlessly stylish in a casual yet chic outfit, drawing widespread admiration. The caption on the post read, The King has arrived! We cant keep calmthe Badshah looks absolutely dashing! Its clear that excitement is building for the three-day extravaganza, with Shah Rukh Khan at the center of attention. Advertisement View this post on Instagram A post shared by IIFA Awards (@iifa) Earlier, the actor was spotted at Mumbai airport, where he was greeted by a massive crowd of enthusiastic fans as he departed for Abu Dhabi. Despite the chaos, SRK maintained his signature cool demeanor, dressed casually in a black hoodie, sunglasses, and a cap. Accompanied by his bodyguard and manager Pooja Dadlani, he smiled and waved at fans while making his way through the crowd. The IIFA Awards 2024 promises a star-studded lineup of performances and moments. The event kicks off with IIFA Utsavam, a celebration of Southern cinema, honoring legends like megastar Chiranjeevi. On the second day, Shah Rukh Khan will join other stars, including Vicky Kaushal and Karan Johar, to host the main awards night. The fun between SRK and Karan Johar was evident recently at a pre-IIFA event in Mumbai, where Shah Rukh teased Karan about hosting too many chat shows and focusing less on filmmaking. Karan humorously agreed, acknowledging that he should be dedicating more time to making movies. Their playful banter added to the anticipation for their hosting stint at IIFA. The grand finale of the event, IIFA Rocks, is going to be an exclusive, invite-only affair featuring live performances by artists such as Honey Singh, Shilpa Rao, and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. With Shah Rukh Khan at the helm, IIFA 2024 is shaping up to be an unforgettable celebration of Indian cinema. Actress and dancer Nora Fatehi is currently in the spotlight as behind-the-scenes (BTS) images from her upcoming film, Matka, have surfaced online, with her in an exquisite white floral saree. The actress effortlessly embodies elegance in this traditional attire, and her stunning look has garnered a wave of admiration from fans across social media platforms. The photos feature her alongside co-star Varun Tej and various crew members. Fans are buzzing with excitement, eager to learn more about Noras character in the film. This comes on the heels of a challenging period for the actress, who recently faced a significant setback due to a leg injury sustained while filming in Hyderabad. Doctors had recommended a two-month recovery and rehabilitation process, but Nora has gotten back to work! Advertisement Despite her recent struggles, Nora is back in action, actively participating in another filming schedule for Matka. In addition to her film commitments, she is also gearing up for a high-energy performance at the International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA) 2024, marking her third consecutive appearance at the event. Popular for her dynamic stage presence, Nora will light up the stage with hits from her music career, including her widely acclaimed singles like Light The Sky, featured in the FIFA anthem, and Pepeta. She is also anticipating the release of her upcoming single with international artist CKay. Previously, Nora made headlines in the music industry with her Arabic rendition of Dilbar and her single titled Nora. One of her standout tracks, Dirty Little Secret, has amassed over 33 million streams. BJP State President Dr. Rajiv Bindal slammed the Congress government in Himachal for allegedly ignoring public sentiment and internal contradictions. In a statement issued here on Friday, he raised objections to the governments decision to allocate land belonging to the Palampur Agricultural University for tourism development. Claiming that the move is being met with widespread disapproval from the people of Himachal Pradesh, Bindal said despite heavy opposition, Bindal said the government seems unwilling to reconsider its stance. Advertisement The government is ignoring the crucial role the Agricultural University plays in preparing future scientists for the agricultural sector, which is vital for the states farmers, he said. We have many other places that could be developed for tourism. Why focus on land that is essential for agricultural research and education, he asked. The disagreement over this issue is not limited to public opposition but is creating contradictions within the state government itself, he said. Bindal pointed out that Agriculture Minister Chander Kumar has publicly opposed the use of the universitys land for tourism purposes. When even the Agriculture Minister is against this, why is the government pushing forward? This shows a lack of coherence in their decisions, Bindal questioned. He pointed out that there have been repeated contradictions within the Congress government due to inconsistent policy statements by different ministers. He referred to a recent incident where a state minister suggested adopting the Uttar Pradesh model for managing street vendors, only to backtrack after facing internal pressure. A minister says we should follow the Uttar Pradesh model, and the very next day a chief parliamentary secretary gives a contradictory statement. This government is stuck between its own contradictions, he charged. Another similar inconsistency was exhibited by the Education Minister, who initially advocated following the Uttar Pradesh model in education but later retracted his statement. These flip-flops show that the government is confused and is not serving the interests of the people of Himachal Pradesh, he remarked. He further accused the government of playing the victim card to avoid accountability for its decisions, stating that the people of the state are bearing the brunt of this mismanagement. This government has proved to be the most ineffective in the states history, constantly increasing the burden on the people while failing to deliver results, he alleged. The Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change has successfully met its ambitious goal of planting 80 crore seedlings under the Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam campaign by September 2024. The target was achieved on September 25, five days ahead of the deadline. The achievement was made possible through collaborative efforts from government agencies, local communities, and various stakeholders. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam campaign on the occasion of World Environment Day on 5 June, 2024, in a unique initiative combining environmental responsibility and a heartfelt tribute to mothers. He planted a Peepal tree at Buddha Jayanti Park to launch the campaign in the capital. He said collective efforts were needed to improve the environment, and referred to increasing forest cover in the country over the past decade. The campaign aligned with the nations quest for sustainable development, he said. The essence of Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam is planting a tree in the name of ones mother. This simple act serves a dual purpose: honouring the role of mothers in nurturing life and contributing to the health of the planet. Trees are life-sustaining, and just like mothers, they provide sustenance, protection, and a future for the next generation.Through this initiative, participants can create a lasting memory, planting a tree as a living tribute to their mothers, while also addressing the pressing need for environmental preservation. Advertisement On September 22, the 128 Infantry Battalion and Ecological Task Force of the Territorial Army, a unit under the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), achieved a remarkable feat by planting over five lakh saplings in just one hour. The achievement, carried out under the Special Plantation Drive in Jaisalmer, as part of the Prime Ministers campaign, and the Territorial Armys outreach initiative, Bhagidari & Zimmedari, aimed at promoting ecological restoration and raising environmental awareness among local communities. In fact, the Territorial Army units efforts were recognized by the World Book of Records, London, with several provisional world records, including Most saplings planted by a team in one hour, Most saplings planted by a team of women in one hour, and Largest number of people planting saplings simultaneously at a single venue. In line with the Prime Ministers call, various Ministries also ntook part in the campaign enthusiastically. Each ministry and department has made substantial contributions to this initiative, demonstrating a collective commitment towards sustainability, green cover enhancement, and fostering public engagement, the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) said on Friday. Among the Ministries, the Ministry of Defence announced a nationwide initiative to plant 15 lakh trees on the Independence Day under the banner of this campaign. The effort was carried out through the Indian Armed Forces, Defence PSUs, NCC, and other associated bodies, contributing to a greener and healthier India. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting launched its own plantation drive, planting about 7,000 trees across urban and rural locations nationwide. Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Ayush and Minister of State for Health & Family Welfare Prataprao Jadhav actively participated by planting an Amla sapling in memory of his mother. To support the initiative, Union Minister for Communications and Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) Jyotiraditya Scindia, launched the Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam app. This innovative platform allows users to plant and dedicate a tree in honour of their mothers, with features such as easy image uploads, location tagging, and carbon credit tracking. The app even enables users to monitor the growth of their tree over time, offering a personal way to stay engaged in environmental protection. Noting that the ties between India and the United States continue on an upward trajectory because the two countries are geopolitically, economically and technologically aligned, President & CEO of the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) Mukesh Aghi has said Prime Minister Narendra Modis recent visit to the United States was very successful, very transformational. In an interview with ANI, Aghi said that takeaways from PM Modis three-day visit from September 21 to 23 is that the bilateral ties between two nations are deeper, broader and moving in right direction. I think the visit was very successful. I would say it was very transformational. When you look at the takeaway, it shows that the US-India relationship is deeper, broader and moving in the right direction. But more important is to look at the substance of the takeaway. Both countries agreed to look at India as a potential technological industrial base, all the way from moonshot and cancer research down to setting up chip plants in India for the military, looking at the GE engines manufacturing to atomic drone manufacturing.. So in every aspect, the US is taking its jewels and giving them to India for manufacturing. That means setting up an industrial manufacturing base in India, he said. Advertisement USISPF President stressed that Quad Summit has become much more structured and added that four nations are looking at collaboration on Artificial Intelligence (AI), secure supply chain and sharing intelligence data. Quad Summit, if you look at it, has become much more structured. When it started, it was a summit which was focused more on all the navies getting together and trying to help disaster. But now its become very, very structured. When you look at the economies of four countries, its USD 35 trillion. Theyre looking at collaborating on AI, looking at collaborating on secure supply chain, theyre looking at collaborating on sharing intelligence data. So, I think its become a much more, more, I would say, a non-announced alliances than anything else. Quad is a diplomatic partnership between four countriesAustralia, India, Japan, and the United States. US President Joe Biden hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Australian PM Anthony Albanese for the Quad Leaders Summit at his hometown Wilmington in Delaware on September 21. It was the fourth in-person and sixth overall Quad Leaders Summit. Aghi said that the ties between the US and India will continue on an upward trajectory irrespective of who becomes US President in the elections. He also said that Indian diaspora is playing a pivotal role in the US presidential polls. I think whoever comes in, the impact on the US-India relationship does not go in a downward direction. The relationship continues in an upward trajectory because India and the US are geopolitically aligned, economically aligned, technologically aligned. So, I think its important to understand, regardless of who comes in, now the elections are too close to call, too close in every aspect because when you have an electoral college system, 10,000 votes in a district will make a difference itself. So, I think its too early to say who will win, but the Indian diaspora is playing a very pivotal role. We saw the last data almost 68 per cent are going to vote Democratic, the survey shows, and the remaining are going to vote for Republicans itself. But, the trend is moving in the upward direction in Republicans favour also. Normally, it used to be Indians would vote for Democrats, but now what youre saying is business community is focusing more on Republican candidates itself, he added. Apart from taking part in the Quad Summit, PM Modi had bilateral meetings with serveral leaders including Biden, engaged with the Indian diaspora and important American business leaders and addressed the Summit of the Future at the United Nations. The US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF), formed in 2017, is an independent non-profit, non-governmental, and non-partisan organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices across both countries. ADEN, Yemen, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Yemeni civil war has hit a grim milestone, persisting for a decade, with prospects for peace remaining distant despite international mediation efforts. The protracted war, which erupted in late 2014 between the Houthis and the internationally-recognized Yemeni government, has not only crippled the nation's infrastructure and economy but also led to one of the world's most severe humanitarian crises, which, according to UN estimates, has claimed tens of thousands of lives and pushed millions to the brink of starvation. When addressing the nation to mark the 62nd anniversary of the country's Sept. 26 Revolution Day, Chairman of the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council Rashad Al-Alimi accused the Houthis of "imposing war when everyone turns towards peace." On Friday, Al-Alimi reaffirmed the Yemeni government's openness to various peace initiatives for ending the civil war, in a meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the sidelines of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly. During the meeting, Al-Alimi praised the UN for its efforts to mitigate the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and emphasized the crucial roles of Saudi Arabia and Oman in facilitating a UN-sponsored political process. Relevant diplomatic initiatives proposed over the years culminated in a UN-brokered roadmap released late last year. The proposal, announced by UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg after extensive talks in Saudi Arabia and Oman, includes implementing a nationwide ceasefire, paying public sector salaries, resuming oil exports, and easing restrictions on airports and seaports. However, the implementation of the roadmap remains elusive. Since the path to peace remains fraught with formidable obstacles, some observers perceive the current situation as intractable, while others maintain cautious optimism that diplomatic efforts and growing awareness of the humanitarian crisis will eventually catalyze a resolution. Yemeni political analyst Rashad Sharabi told Xinhua that peace is "out of reach," citing the ongoing military preparations and inflammatory rhetoric by the Houthis. "The group's philosophy is fundamentally rooted in violence and war, making a peaceful transition of power unlikely," Sharabi said. Conversely, a figure close to the Houthis offered a more optimistic view. Abdul-Hafeez Moajab, a member of the Houthi media delegation in peace negotiations, told Xinhua that "peace options are currently available and the peace process is proceeding along two tracks: one between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia, and the other between internal Yemeni parties." Despite that recent developments in the Gaza Strip and the Red Sea have hindered the peace process between Sanaa and Riyadh, significant progress has been made before these escalations, with negotiations reaching a stage resembling a road map for addressing the conflict. Regarding Yemeni internal negotiations, Moajab revealed that "all factions have come to recognize that military victory is unattainable, and establishing peace and partnership is the only viable solution." Sharing a similar sentiment, Yemeni politician Anwar Khaled Shaab said that "a peaceful resolution is still possible," as the international community's awareness of Yemen's humanitarian plight plays a positive role. Furthermore, Shaab highlighted that "mounting public pressure within Yemen is pushing all parties towards ending the war." He argued that "a just and comprehensive peace would benefit all Yemenis, not just specific factions." "Achieving peace in Yemen primarily requires strong political will from all parties involved, with the interests of the Yemeni people prioritized over all other considerations," the politician said. Yemen has been embroiled in a civil war since late 2014 when the Houthi group seized control of much of northern Yemen, forcing the government out of the capital Sanaa. The Saudi-led coalition intervened in 2015 to support the Yemeni government in the conflict. The country has remained in a fragile calm since Oct. 2, 2022, when the UN announced the failure of the two conflicting parties to extend and expand a six-month truce that had been in place. India has signed a bilateral agreement with Uzbekistan at Tashkent assuring appropriate protection to investors of the central Asian nation in India and Indian investors in that country. The Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) was signed by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Khodjayev Jamshid Abdukhakimovich, Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan. The BIT between India and Uzbekistan assures appropriate protection to Uzbekistan investors in India and Indian investors in the former Soviet Republic, in light of relevant international precedents and practices, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement. Advertisement It will increase the comfort level and boost the confidence of investors by assuring a minimum standard of treatment and non-discrimination, while providing for an independent forum for dispute settlement through arbitration, it said. The BIT also provides for protection to investments from expropriation, provides for transparency, transfers and compensation for losses. However, while providing such investor and investment protection, balance has been maintained with regard to States right to regulate and thereby provides adequate policy space. The signing of the BIT reflects both nations shared commitment towards enhancing economic cooperation and creating a more robust and resilient investment environment. The Ministry of Finance said the BIT is expected to pave the way for increased bilateral investments, benefiting businesses and economies in both countries. Notable investments by Indian companies include those in the pharmaceuticals, amusement parks, automobile components, and hospitality industries. A day after CPI-M-backed independent MLA PV Anvar unleashed a blistering attack against him and the Left government, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan dismissed all allegations against the party and the government. The Chief Minister said Anvars departure was expected. His allegations and responses only confirm the partys suspicions, he said. Speaking to mediapersons in Delhi, who had come to attend the CPI-M Politburo meeting, Pinarayi Vijayan said Anvars statements targeted the government, the front and the party. Advertisement Stating that actions have already been taken on Anvars complaints, CM Vijayan said he will respond to all allegations in due time. Anvars claims have been directed against the party, front and the government. Furthermore, his comments are similar to the ones used by the enemies of the LDF. The intention is clear, as Anvar himself has stated that he is distancing himself from the LDF and will not attend parliamentary party meetings. I categorically reject all of Anvars allegations, CM Vijayan said. Pinarayi Vijayan, however, made it clear that Anvars remarks would not in any manner affect the ongoing probes and inquiries into the various complaints and allegations made by him. Virtually ending his association with the ruling LDF, Anvar on Thursday lashed out at CM Vijayan, accusing him of misleading the public and demanding that he give up the charge of the Home department. Anvar, who was the most loyal of his own camp, has unleashed harsh words that Pinarayi Vijayan had never heard even during the height of sectarianism when the VS Achuthanandan faction was at the helm of affairs in the party. Anvar said the issues faced by the ordinary party workers in Kerala have never been the concern of the party bosses. He reiterated that he has been airing the sentiments of the party workers and hundreds of the relatives of the martyrs. Alleging that Pinarayi might have asked ADGP Ajithkumar to disrupt ThrissurPooram to benefit the BJP, Anvar asked the media to find out the truth behind the incident. He alleged that the vested interests in the party totally surrendered before the RSS and the BJP. It was the image of the Chief Minister that helped the LDF return to power in the last assembly elections, but the image has suffered a huge fall since, Anvar said and even alleged that the illegal gold seizures made by the Malappuram police had the blessings of Pinarayi Vijayan. Anvar alleged that Chief Minister Vijayan is being controlled by a coterie led by ADGP Ajith Kumar and CMs political secretary P Sasi. He even scoffed that if things continue this way, Pinarayi Vijayan would be the last Communist Chief Minister of Kerala. If this continues, Pinarayi Vijayan will be the last communist Chief Minister of Kerala. The Chief Ministers office stands over a volcano; it could erupt at any moment, Anvar said. Pinarayi Vijayan, the shining Sun in Kerala, has been extinguished, and the Chief Ministers graph has dropped from 100 to zero, said Anvar. The Kerala High Court on Friday quashed the case registered against Zara Michele Shilansky, an Australian tourist of Jewish origin for allegedly destroying pro-Palestine banners and boards erected by the Students Islamic Organisation, the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami, in Fort Kochi in April this year. Quashing the case registered against Zara Michele Shilansky, a single bench of Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas said the posters did not bear the name of any organization, nor was any permission obtained for their display. Since the posters were admittedly put up without any legal authority and did not contain the name of any organization responsible for them, the act of removing or tearing down the posters cannot be considered illegal or capable of provoking a riot. Therefore, prosecuting the petitioner for an offense under Section 153 of the IPC constitutes an abuse of the process of law, and the proceedings are liable to be quashed, the court said. Advertisement As per the First Information Report (FIR), the foreign woman tourist vandalised the pro Palestine banners, placed in front of jankar jetty protesting against the genocide of Palestine nationals by the Israel, with the intention to incite riot. The court noted that the final report did not suggest that the posters were torn down to provoke, or with the knowledge that it would incite a riot. Kerala has confirmed its second Mpox (monkeypox) case, with a 26-year-old youth from Ernakulam testing positive for the virus. The patient, who recently returned from the UAE, is currently undergoing treatment at a private hospital. His samples were tested at the National Institute of Virology lab in Alappuzha. The samples have been sent for genomic sequencing at the National Institute of Virology, Pune. This is the second Mpox case in the state and third in the country this year. Earlier, a 38-year-old man from Edavanna in Malappuram, who had travelled from the UAE, was tested positive of the disease on September 18. Later it was found that his infection was due to the Clade 1b strain of the virus. Advertisement With two cases now reported in Kerala, health authorities are on high alert, monitoring potential contacts and implementing measures to prevent further transmission. Initially, Mpox was a zoonotic disease transmitted from animals to humans. However, it has now evolved into a disease that can spread directly between humans. Although its severity is lower, monkeypox shares symptoms with smallpox, caused by the orthopoxvirus, which was declared eradicated worldwide in 1980. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Friday inaugurated the 21st Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) Zone III Conference at the Mizoram Legislative Assembly Complex in Aizawl. The conference brought together key parliamentary leaders from the northeastern region, including Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha Harivansh and Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma. The event was also attended by nine presiding officers from the legislatures of the northeastern states. Themed Fostering Legislative Sanctity, the conference is set to focus on maintaining the decorum, integrity, and transparency of legislative bodies, which are essential pillars for a functioning democracy. Advertisement Key sub-themes on the agenda include the integration of the Northeast region into the India-ASEAN Vision for Trade and Cooperation and strategic planning through the potential merger of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) with the North Eastern Council (NEC). Addressing the conference, Birla emphasised the role of legislative bodies in addressing public expectations and fostering socio-economic change through dialogue and productive lawmaking. Our legislative institutions need to be people-centric, result-driven, and future-oriented. Leveraging digital technology and increasing public participation will help create impactful policies for the welfare of the people, he said. The conference is part of an ongoing series aimed at strengthening democratic governance in the Northeast. This year marks the 21st such regional conference organised by CPA Zone III, continuing efforts since 1997 to deepen democratic processes in the region. Since its inception in 1911, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) has worked to uphold democratic governance across the Commonwealth, with over 180 member legislatures. CPA Zone III, covering the Northeastern states of India, has been instrumental in fostering democratic dialogue and legislative engagement. The conference also highlighted the Act East Policy, which aims to position the Northeast as a strategic trade centre, further aligning with Indias foreign policy ambitions to strengthen economic ties with ASEAN countries. Under the PM Surya Ghar Yojana, launched earlier this year, Lucknow has emerged as the frontrunner by installing the highest number of rooftop solar panels in Uttar Pradesh in just seven months. Following closely are Varanasi, Kanpur, Agra, and Kanpur Nagar, which make up the top five districts in that order. The Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath himself is closely monitoring the progress of this scheme. The initiative to permanently resolve the issue of electricity availability in the country through solar energy and provide nearly free power to the public is making rapid strides in the state with the CM setting district-specific targets for all 75 districts to install solar rooftop panels on residential buildings. Officials here on Friday said that recently, Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar Singh conducted a review of the PM Surya Ghar Yojana. During the review, it was reported that 11,435 solar rooftop panels have been made operational in Lucknow, the highest in the state. Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ranks second with 4,088 installations. In Kanpur, 1,909 panels have been installed, while Agra and Prayagraj have seen 1,364 and 1,349 installations, respectively. The campaign is being accelerated in other districts as well, with the Chief Secretary directing the Electricity Department to expedite the work. Sources said over 17.75 lakh registrations have been completed in the state under the PM Surya Ghar Yojana so far, with solar rooftop panels installed on more than 32,000 homes. Under this scheme, a subsidy of Rs 30,000 is provided by the Central Government and another Rs 15,000 by the State Government, totaling Rs 45,000 for a 1-kilowatt rooftop installation. Similarly, for a 2-kilowatt installation, a combined subsidy of Rs 90,000 is available, with Rs 60,000 from the Center and Rs 30,000 from the State. For installations of 3 kilowatts and above, a total subsidy of Rs 1.08 lakh is provided, comprising Rs 78,000 from the Central Government and Rs 30,000 from the State. Launched by Mr Modi on February 15, 2024, the PM Surya Ghar Yojana aims to harness solar energy by installing rooftop panels on one crore homes across the country by 2027. UP has set an ambitious target to install solar panels on 25 lakh homes in the state. To achieve this, specific targets have been assigned to all seven DISCOMs and each district. In view of the advancing winter and annual feature of stubble burning by the farmers in Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh generating smoke that chokes the national capital every year, the Supreme Court on Friday directed the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) to take steps to ensure that farmers use alternatives equipment to remove the rice crop residue instead of usual stubble burning at grassroot level. Noting that the Commission for Air Quality Management has taken certain steps, a bench of Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Augustine George Masih exhorted the Commission to be more active to ensure that its efforts and directions actually translate into reducing the problem of pollution. The bench further said that the Commission must ensure that the equipment provided by the Central government for avoiding stubble burning are actually used by the farmers at the ground level. Advertisement We are of the view that though the Commission has taken steps, it needs to be more active. The Commission must ensure that its efforts and directions issued actually translate into reducing the problem of pollution, said the bench. Expressing its displeasure over CAQMs failure to curb air pollution in Delhi due to crop residue burning in Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh and asking it to be more active in its approach, the bench directed Commission to file a better compliance report and posted the matter for hearing on Thursday-October 3, 2024. The court underlined the need for the CAQM to exercise its power under the Commission for Air Quality Management in National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas Act, 2021. The Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for the Centre, apprised the court about the steps taken including issuing advisories and guidelines, to control stubble burning. Not satisfied with the steps that have been taken by the Commission, the bench said, It is all in the air, nothing has been shown regarding what has been done in the National Capital Region (NCR) states. Chairman of the CAQM for NCT of Delhi, Rajesh Verma, who was present virtually during the hearing, told the court that he has held meetings with the deputy commissioners of Punjab and Haryana where incidents of stubble-burning have been reported. Asking the Commission to pull-up its socks, the bench in its order stated, We would like to know from the Commission about the subcommittee meetings and decisions issued thereunder. It must ensure that the equipment to avoid stubble burning are actually used by the farmers. This apart from certain other methods suggested by Commission that must place on records details of meetings held and decisions taken therein. On September 24, the top court had asked the CAQM i to explain the steps being taken to curb air pollution caused by crop residue burning in the National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas. It had noted that stubble burning was one of the causes for a spike in air pollution in Delhi-NCR during winters. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president JP Nadda, on a one-day visit to Chhattisgarh, urged the states youth to join the party and contribute to shaping Indias future. Addressing students at Raipurs Nalanda Campus, he emphasized the crucial role young people can play in realizing Prime Minister Narendra Modis vision of a developed India. He highlighted the partys commitment to empowering youth and fostering inclusive growth. The youth have immense potential. I invite them to join the BJP and be part of our mission to build a strong, prosperous India, Nadda said. He stressed that young professionals with fresh perspectives are vital to bring positive change in politics. Prime Minister Modi wants young minds to enter politics with new ideas, and that will pave the way for a stronger nation, he said. He also took aim at opposition parties, accusing them of misleading the youth for their own political gains, without naming specific parties. During his visit, Nadda raised the partys membership target for Chhattisgarh from 5 million to 6 million, as part of a broader strategy to expand its base. He emphasized that growing the partys presence at the grassroots is essential for fulfilling its long-term objectives in the state and across the nation.The senior BJP leader also welcomed former Rajya Sabha MP Gopal Vyas back into the party. Vyas rejoined the BJP in a ceremony presided over by Nadda, further highlighting the partys focus on expanding its membership and leadership ranks. Advertisement Prior to reviewing the membership campaign, the BJP chief held a confidential meeting with a group of senior party leaders. The meeting was attended by the state Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai, partys state in-charge Nitin Nabin, state BJP president Kiran Singh Deo, and MP Brijmohan Agrawal. Discussions reportedly covered the functioning of the state government and upcoming appointments to important posts within corporations and commissions. Sources suggest that while some names have been finalized, further appointments may hinge on the performance of the membership drive. The closed-door discussions also touched on potential candidates for the South Assembly seat, which became vacant following Brijmohan Agrawals election as an MP. The party is keen on fielding a strong candidate, particularly as it seeks to consolidate its position ahead of the elections. In fact, Naddas call for the youth to join the party has set the tone for a more aggressive push to meet the heightened membership target, as the BJP gears up for the next electoral battle. His emphasis on youth participation and professional engagement in politics underlines the partys vision of securing a dynamic and forward-looking leadership base. The Odisha Government has extended maternity and paternity leave to State Government employees opting for surrogacy parenthood, an official of the Finance department said. Maternity leave of 180 days to female government employees and paternity leave of 15 days to the male government employees has been extended by the State Government , an office memorandum issued by the state finance department said Thursday. A State Government female employee, having less than two surviving children, who becomes a surrogate mother, shall be eligible for maternity leave of 180 days, it said. Advertisement Proposal for grant of maternity and paternity leave to State Government employees in case of attainment of parenthood by surrogacy has been under active consideration of the State Government for the past some time. The Central Government has in the meanwhile extended maternity and paternity leave benefits to the Central Government employees attaining parenthood by surrogacy. Government of India, has extended maternity leave and paternity leave benefits to Central Government employees attaining parenthood by surrogacy. In view of this, the State Government extended maternity leave and paternity leave benefits to State Government employees, attaining parenthood by surrogacy, the memo added. A State Government female employee, having less than two surviving children who becomes a commissioning mother shall also be eligible for 180-day the maternity leave. The male State Government employee upon attaining surrogate father and commissioning father will be entitled to get 15-day leave. Commissioning mother means a biological mother who uses her eggs to create an embryo implanted in any other woman. If both the surrogate mother and the commissioning mother are state government employees, both will be eligible for 180 days of maternity leave each. Agreement on surrogacy made between the surrogate mother and commissioning parents along with supporting medical documents from either registered doctors or hospitals shall be produced for claiming maternity and paternity leave, it added. Since childhood, weve been singing the lines Bina Sindhu ke Hind kahan hai, Ravi bin Punjab nahi, Ganga aakhir khush ho kaise, jab tak sang Chenab nahi, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said during an election rally in Jammu and Kashmir. He further said, While ordering a review of the 1960 Indus Water Treaty, the Government of India said in clear terms that water and terrorism dont flow together. Until now, Pakistan has been holding a begging bowl, but soon it will be desperate for every single drop of water. CM Yogi campaigned for BJP candidates for the second day in the state for the upcoming assembly elections. He urged voters to support BJP candidates, including Sunil Bhardwaj from Ramnagar, Ranveer Singh Pathania from Udhampur East, Bharat Bhushan from Kathua, and Shagun Parihar from Kishtwar. His rallies drew large crowds with the participants eager to see and hear him speak. Advertisement Highlighting Pakistans current troubles, the CM stated, Pakistan is suffering for two reasons: first, it is facing the consequences of its own actions. Balochistan no longer wishes to remain part of Pakistan because its government treats them as foreigners. Similarly, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is rejecting Pakistans rule, expressing a preference to join Jammu and Kashmir and contribute to realisation of the vision of Akhand Bharat, rather than dying of starvation. He issued a stern warning to those spreading terror at Pakistans behest, stating they would neither have a shroud to cover themselves nor land for burial. Pakistan-backed terrorists know the cost of their actions, and soon Pakistan will be divided into three parts, ceasing to exist as it is known today. CM Yogi stated that the effectiveness of the double-engine government is evident in Uttar Pradesh, where Ram Lalla was finally enthroned in Ayodhya Dham after 500 years. Some claimed that building the Ram Mandir would lead to rivers of blood. We asserted that in New India, rivers of blood do not flow; instead, it knows how to protect itself, he remarked. The CM further noted that in the past seven and a half years, Uttar Pradesh has not witnessed a single riot. He said that UP, Jammu and Kashmir deserves development. Yogi Adityanath accused Congress, the PDP, and the National Conference of exploiting the public by transforming the paradise on Earth into a warehouse of the sin of religious fanaticism. These parties fostered terrorism and corruption for their political gain, but with the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A, development has surged in Jammu and Kashmir. The region has shifted from being a terrorist state to a tourism destination. The countrys largest and highest bridge is currently under construction in Jammu and Kashmir, and a world-class train service like Vande Bharat has begun operations from Jammu to Delhi. While the NC, Congress, and PDP armed the youth with guns, the BJP government under PM Modi is providing employment opportunities by equipping them with tablets, he added. In a scathing attack on the Opposition, CM Yogi said those who claim to restore Article 370 if they come to power are essentially seeking to bring back an era of terrorism, nepotism, and corruption. He emphasized that these individuals do not prioritize peace, harmony, and development; instead, they desire power. There is no room for these three parties here. The public has decided to say goodbye to this trio. When in power, the leaders of Congress, NC, and PDP spent eight months a year in Europe and England and three months in Delhi. With such limited engagement, how can Jammu possibly develop in just one month? Yogi Adityanath stated, The people from the Bakarwal, Gujjar, Dalit, and Valmiki communities have been deprived of their rights for far too long. In contrast, the BJP is effecting positive change in their lives under the leadership of PM Modi. The Ayodhya International Airport in Uttar Pradesh has been named after Maharishi Valmiki, reflecting our commitment to honoring our heritage. Meanwhile, under PM Modis leadership, 80 crore people in India are receiving free rations, while Pakistan finds itself begging for assistance. CM Yogi Adityanath said while Congress claims Haath badlega haalat the reality is that their leadership has only worsened the situation. He urged the public to support the formation of a double-engine BJP government in Jammu and Kashmir to ensure security and development, and to realize Atal jis vision of Akhand Bharat. He said Kathua is historically significant as the district where Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, the founder president of Bharatiya Jana Sangh, faced brutal treatment in 1952 for his democratic protest against the inclusion of Article 370 in the Constitution, which contradicted the sentiments of Baba Saheb Bhimrao Ambedkar. He pointed out that the voices of the people were suppressed by the Congress government. CM Yogi emphasised that Article 370 is at the root of the Congress partys sins, leading to the suffering of Jammu and Kashmir through partition, terrorism, migration, and neglect. He stated that under PM Modis leadership, Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjees vision has come to fruition. BJP and Jana Sangh workers have long chanted the slogan, Jahan hue balidan Mukherjee, woh Kashmir humara hai (the Kashmir where Mukherjee sacrificed his life is ours). He said since the abrogation of Article 370, Jammu and Kashmir has rejoined the path of development. Today, instead of violence, the region hosts G-20 conferences, with opportunities for work for every individual and access to water for every field. Union Minister and Udhampur MP Jitendra Singh, who was present with CM Yogi, remarked that Yogi Adityanath is not mere the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh; he is the Chief Minister of Uttam Pradesh. He emphasised that CM Yogi has transformed the state into an exemplary model, enhancing law and order to a level that serves as a benchmark for all of India. Yogi Adityanath has become an ideal for millions of Indians, Singh stated, adding that he communicates with the people in a way that resonates with their understanding. He embodies the qualities of a Maharaj, chanting mantras, and taking decisive action against land encroachments with a bulldozer. Despite bad weather, CM Yogi fulfilled his promise and came here. Such personalities have come here who have got the Ram temple constructed under the guidance of PM Modi. Scholars from China and Tunisia attend a forum in Tunis, Tunisia, on Sept. 26, 2024. The Chinese-Tunisian Forum on Humanities Exchanges kicked off here on Thursday, focusing on cultural cooperation and exchanges. (Xinhua/Huang Ling) TUNIS, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese-Tunisian Forum on Humanities Exchanges kicked off here on Thursday, focusing on cultural cooperation and exchanges. During the three-day forum, hundreds of officials, scholars and local students, will discuss topics including the mutual learning between Chinese and Arab civilizations, literary translation, and the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. "The Carthage University began cultural exchanges with China half a century ago," said Nadia Mzoughi, president of Tunisia's Carthage University, at the opening ceremony. "Our Higher Institute of Languages of Tunis has been engaged in Chinese teaching for decades and accepts Chinese students who come to study the Arabic language every year," Mzoughi added. Wan Li, Chinese Ambassador to Tunisia, said that more and more Chinese universities have launched student exchange programs and research cooperation with Tunisian higher education institutions. Wan added that cultural and people-to-people exchanges and cooperation between China and Tunisia in such fields as culture, education, science, technology, and tourism have played an important role in enhancing mutual understanding and trust between the people of the two countries. Tunisia is among the first Arab and African countries to offer Chinese language majors at its universities. Currently, Chinese language courses are available in 26 high schools across the country, and China is preparing to establish the second Confucius Institute in Tunisia, according to Wan. He stressed that China is ready to work together with African countries to launch a Cultural Silk Road program as well as an initiative of cooperation on innovation in radio, TV, and audio and visual programs, to promote the implementation of the outcomes of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. The forum was hosted by Carthage University and the Confucius Institute at the university. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated the High-Performance Computing (HPC) system tailored for weather and climate research, acquired by the Ministry of Earth Sciences. The ambitious project represents an investment of Rs 850 crore, marking a significant leap in Indias computational capabilities for more reliable and accurate weather and climate forecasting, particularly extreme events. It is located at two key sitesthe Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune and the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), Noida. The IITM system is equipped with an impressive capacity of 11.77 Peta FLOPS and 33 petabytes of storage, while the NCMRWF facility features 8.24 Peta FLOPS with 24 petabytes of storage. Additionally, there is a dedicated standalone system for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning applications with a capacity of 1.9 Peta FLOPS. Advertisement With this augmentation, the Ministry of Earth Sciences will enhance its total computing power to 22 Peta FLOPS, a substantial increase from the previous capacity of 6.8 Peta FLOPS, an official release said Friday. In keeping with tradition, these state-of-the-art systems have been named after celestial entities connected to the sun. Previous systems were named Aditya, Bhaskara, Pratyush, and Mihir. The new HPC systems are aptly named Arka and Arunika, reflecting their connection to Suryathe sun, the primary energy source for the Earth system. The enhanced computational framework will enable the development of sophisticated models leveraging advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, thereby significantly improving the last-mile services rendered to various stakeholders. The enhanced computational capabilities provided by the HPC System will allow the Ministry of Earth Sciences to further improve existing data assimilation capabilities and refine physics and dynamics of its global weather prediction models at higher horizontal resolution. Furthermore, regional models will achieve finer resolutions of 1 km or less over select Indian domains. These high-resolution models will significantly enhance the accuracy and lead time of predictions related to tropical cyclones, heavy precipitation, thunderstorms, hailstorms, heat waves, droughts, and other extreme weather phenomena. Leveraging these advanced HPC Systems, the Ministry of Earth Sciences aims to significantly improve the precision and reliability of weather forecasts, ensuring better preparedness and response to the challenges posed by climate variability and extreme weather events. The State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) of the Punjab on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the University of Turku, Finland for sending teachers to attend educational workshops for better exposure to its teachers. The MoU was signed at the Embassy of Finland in New Delhi in the presence of Former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Punjab Education Minister Harjot Bains and Ambassador of Finland to India Kimmo Lahdevirta. As part of the agreement, elementary school teachers and school heads from the government schools will participate in a three-week professional training programme at the University of Turku focusing on primary education. Advertisement During the training, the teachers will also visit the schools of Finland to gain valuable insights into the new teaching methods and integration of technology in teaching. Speaking at the Manish Sisodia stated, Teachers in Punjab receiving world-class training marks another step toward a brighter future for the children studying in the state government schools. The AAP leader also praised Finlands teacher training system as the best in the world and stated, When principals and teachers of Delhi schools were sent there, the knowledge they gained was amazing and those who were trained there are doing a great job here today. I am sure that the teachers attending this three-week training program will learn even more and help make the future of Punjab and India safe, educated, and bright, he added. Speaking on the occasion, Punjab Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains said, I am very happy that today MoU has been signed with Finland, which will strengthen the primary education structure in the state of Punjab, besides strengthening the cultural exchange between India and Finland. On the occasion of World Tourism Day today, the Ministry of Tourism launched the Incredible India Content Hub on the revamped Incredible India digital portal (www.incredibleindia.gov.in). The Incredible India Content Hub is a comprehensive digital repository, featuring a rich collection of high-quality images, films, brochures, and newsletters related to tourism in India. This repository is intended for the use of a diverse range of stakeholders, including tour operators, journalists, students, researchers, film makers, authors, influencers, content creators, government officials, and ambassadors. The Content Hub, which is part of the new Incredible India digital portal intends to make it easy and convenient for travel trade (travel media, tour operators, travel agents) across the globe to access everything they might need on Incredible India at one place, so that they can amplify Incredible India in all their marketing and promotional efforts. The Content Hub has around 5,000 content assets currently. Advertisement The content available on the repository is a product of a collaborative effort by multiple organisations, including the Ministry of Tourism, Archaeological Survey of India, Ministry of Culture and others. The Incredible India Digital Portal is a tourist-centric, one-stop digital solution designed to enhance the travel experience for visitors to India. The revamped portal offers essential information and services to travellers at every stage of their journey, from discovery and research to planning, booking, travelling, and return. A press release said the revamped portal offers a wealth of information on destinations, attractions, crafts, festivals, travel diaries, itineraries, and more, utilising multimedia content such as videos, images, and digital maps. The platforms Book Your Travel feature provides booking facility for flights, hotels, cabs, buses, and monuments, thereby enhancing accessibility for travellers. Additionally, an AI-powered chatbot functions as a virtual assistant to answer queries and provide real-time information to travellers. Other features include weather information, tour operator details, currency converter, airport information, visa-guide, and more. The Ministry of Tourism will continue to improve and develop the portal to include new features, add additional content through crowdsourcing, and partner with relevant organisations and institutions to make the digital portal a continual source of inspiration for all those who search and seek Incredible India, the press release added. On the occasion of World Tourism Day, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath extended his best wishes to the people of Uttar Pradesh, highlighting that the state is now drawing tourists across the world. The state is a hub for religious, spiritual, heritage, and eco-tourism, drawing visitors from around the world. In 2023 alone, more than 46 crore tourists visited the state, the CM stated Friday. Speaking at his official residence on Friday, the Chief Minister expressed optimism that the upcoming Maha Kumbh 2025, to be held in Prayagraj from Makar Sankranti to February 26, will attract over 40 crore devotees. Advertisement Reflecting on Uttar Pradeshs tourism achievements, CM Adityanath credited the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for driving the states development. Uttar Pradesh, at the heart of Indias spiritual and religious tradition, has succeeded in drawing tourists from all corners of the globe, he remarked. He further highlighted that tourism not only boosts the states cultural heritage but also plays a crucial role in generating employment opportunities. In terms of spiritual tourism, we have the Ramayana Circuit, Krishna Circuit, Buddhist Circuit, and Jain Circuit, among others. Today, Baba Vishwanath Dham in Kashi is attracting crores of devotees, while Ayodhya, Vrindavan, Gokul, and Barsana have become global tourist hotspots, Yogi added. The CM emphasised Uttar Pradeshs growing prominence as a global tourist destination, particularly in the realms of Buddhist, Jain, heritage, and eco-tourism. He said that sites such as Sarnath, Kushinagar, Shravasti, Kaushambi, and Sankisa are drawing Buddhist devotees from across the world. He also noted the significant opportunities for Jain tourism in the state, with Ayodhya being the birthplace of many Jain Tirthankaras, and Kushinagar remaining a revered site for Jain pilgrims. In addition to spiritual tourism, the CM underscored the rich heritage tourism offerings in the state, from the Lakshmibai Fort in Jhansi and Kalinjar Fort in Banda to Forts in Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, and the Imambara in Lucknow. The forts of Prayagraj, Ramnagar Varanasi, and Chunar in Mirzapur further contribute to the states historical significance, he said. Eco-tourism is another area of growth, with destinations such as Dudhwa, Chuka, Katarniaghat, Hastinapur, and Okhla Bird Sanctuary attracting nature lovers, the CM mentioned. The Chief Minister further emphasised that under the double engine government, Uttar Pradesh is fully committed to enhancing tourist convenience and promoting the states interests. He highlighted UPs impressive infrastructure, noting the states road, rail, water, and air connectivity, which is further boosting its appeal as a tourism hub. CM Adityanath also looked forward to the upcoming Maha Kumbh 2025 in Prayagraj, where more than 40 crore devotees from across the globe are expected to participate, showcasing Uttar Pradeshs spiritual and cultural heritage on the world stage. Confident in the states future, he expressed his belief that, under PM Modis vision, Uttar Pradesh will continue to thrive as a premier tourism destination, attracting visitors from both the country and around the globe. Bharat Chamber of Commerce in association with the Indian Council of Arbitration organised a symposium on Legal Reforms for Sustainable Growth, which was addressed by Guest-in-Chief Mr Arjun Ram Meghwal, Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India where Mr Meghwal observed, The purpose of the Indian Penal Code, enacted by the British in 1860, was not to ensure justice but to give punishment. The criminal laws have been reformed with the objectives of justice, equality, and fairness, added Mr Meghwal. Along with Mr Meghwal, the symposium was also addressed by Mr N. G. Khaitan, President of the Bharat Chamber of Commerce (ICA), who, in his opening speech, congratulated Mr Meghwal for the introduction of three new laws, setting a new path of administration of criminal justice. Khaitan emphasised further simplification of land acquisition processes and of bringing greater clarity on compensation rules while balancing the rights of landowners and promoting industrial projects. In the course of the discussions, Mr Meghwal assured that the rules for the Digital Personal Data Protection Act will be released soon. He further added that digital integration in the legal framework through e-Prisons, e-Forensics, e-Prosecution and e-Courts implemented by the Government of India has ensured seamless transfer of data and information among different pillars of the criminal justice system, like courts, police, jails and forensic science laboratories, from one unified platform. During the pandemic, the Indian judicial system worked effortlessly with the support of the strong digital infrastructure, added Shri Meghwal. Advertisement In the context of Ease of doing business, Mr Meghwal emphasised that the introduction of the Jan Vishwas Bill marks a milestone in the Indian judicial system as it aims to decriminalise 183 provisions in 42 legislations, including over half a dozen colonial-era laws. Punishments for small and minor offences have been done away with community service, and this has been a critical reform in the legal system, observed Mr Meghwal. The symposium was also addressed by Shri Arun Chawla, Director General, ICA and Principal Advisor. Mr Chawla, in his opening address, underscored the importance of the Mediation Act 2023 in promoting Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). Chawla stated that settlements for domestic and international disputes through mediation in India now have the same legal standing as a court decree or arbitral award. This legal recognition not only boosts the credibility of mediation but also makes it a reliable and efficient option for resolving disputes, he added. Speaking on the scope of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, Mr Chawla observed that recent rulings of the court have reinforced the emergence of arbitration awards, providing quicker relief in urgent cases, and recognised third-party funding, making arbitration more accessible to businesses of all categories by easing the financial burden of pursuing claims. Earlier in his welcome address, in the context of the Arbitration Amendment Act 2019, Khaitan asserted that an autonomous Council should be established with representation from various stakeholders to make the arbitration architecture in India functional as a legal entity. The Palestinian death toll from an Israeli attack on a school housing displaced persons in the northern Gaza Strip has risen to 15, including children and women, the Civil Defence in Gaza said Thursday. Palestinian security sources told Xinhua news agency earlier on Thursday that Israeli aircraft bombed the al-Faluja school west of the Jabalia refugee camp with at least one missile. Medical sources said 10 people were injured in the attack, all of whom have been taken to the hospital. Advertisement Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Thursday that the Israeli Air Force conducted a precise strike on militants operating in a command and control center inside a compound that previously served as the al-Faluja school in northern Gaza. Israel launched a large-scale offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to retaliate against a Hamas rampage through the southern Israeli border on October 7, 2023, during which about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage. The Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks in Gaza has risen to 41,534, Gaza-based health authorities said in a statement on Thursday. Several teams of the Enforcement Directorate Friday conducted raids at the properties of Telangana minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy. A total of 16 teams comprising ED officials conducted raids simultaneously at several locations in Hyderabad and Khammam, including his residences, offices in Banjara Hills and Jubilee Hills as well as in some properties belonging to his relatives. The raids are said to be over money laundering linked with the customs duty evasion case against the ministers son Harsha who allegedly purchased two luxury watches worth Rs 1.7 crore. The watches, a Patek Philipe 5740 and a Breguet 2759, were seized from Mohammed Mubeen who was apparently acting as a courier, when he was returning from Singapore. The raids began early morning and CISF provided security to the ED teams. Advertisement An MLA from Palair in Khammam, Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy holds several portfolios including revenue, housing, information and public relations. He was initially with the YSRCP and represented Khammam as MP but then switched to BRS. After failing to secure a ticket from BRS in 2019 he turned a rebel and finally joined the Congress last year. Even last year, ahead of Assembly elections in the state, ED and IT officials raided his residences in Hyderabad and Khammam as well as the office of his infrastructure firm. The 8th meeting of the India-Myanmar Joint Trade Committee (JTC) was hosted by India at Vanijya Bhawan in New Delhi on Friday. The meeting was aimed to discuss the potential areas of cooperation to drive mutual growth between the two countries. Both the parties conversed about the focus sectors like Shipping, Textile, Health, Indian Pharmacopoeia, Power, Transport and Connectivity, ICT, 5G Telecom Stack and MSME Sector as key avenues for collaboration. The discussion also touched on how this cooperation could lead to long-term benefits, helping both the countries to achieve their goals more effectively while fostering a spirit of mutual support and collaboration. Advertisement India also welcomed the creation of the Rupee-Kyat trade Settlement Mechanism and anticipated fostering increased bilateral commerce with Myanmar in local currencies following its implementation. The meeting reiterated the commitment of completion of review of ASEAN- India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA) in an expeditious manner to make it simple, mutually beneficial, user-friendly and trade-facilitative for businesses. Notably, Myanmar is the 7th largest trading partner of India within ASEAN. The total bilateral trade in 2023-24 was 1.75 USD Billion. The meeting was co-chaired by Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Siddharth Mahajan and Director General, Department of Trade, Myanmar, Myint Thura. The representatives of stakeholder Ministries also participated in the meeting. As some nations are increasingly choosing unilateralism and militarization over dialogue and diplomacy, the them versus us mentality has escalated tensions and eroded trust in the global multilateral system, said Kenya President William Ruto on Thursday at the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). These challenges are complex, interconnected, and escalating at an alarming pace, said the president. From Gaza to Darfur, Ukraine to Yemen, the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to Sudan, the Sahel region, and Haiti, conflicts are leaving a devastating trail of destruction, according to Ruto. Advertisement Climate change is increasingly fueling instability and conflict around the world, he added, Xinhua news agency reported. Additionally, the President said cybersecurity breaches and sophisticated cyberattacks on critical infrastructure threaten national security and global stability. We must rise to the occasion, summon the political will, and strengthen our diplomatic efforts to address security threats through comprehensive, coordinated and context-specific solutions, he said. Ruto made these remarks at the General Debate of the 79th UNGA, which began on Wednesday. Sri Lankas new President Anura Kumara Dissanayake announced late Thursday that his government has reinstated the previous visa issuance system, effective midnight. The government has officially reinstated the previous visa issuance system, effective from 12.00 midnight today, Dissanayake posted on X. Last month, Sri Lankas Immigration Department reverted to issuing on-arrival visas at the points of entry, and airports after the Supreme Court suspended a controversial deal outsourcing online visa issuing to a tripartite joint venture. Advertisement The government led by Ranil Wickremesinghe was accused by the opposition parties of amassing $10 million from the controversial deal. The petitioners had charged that the procedural violations and abuse of public trust had been caused by officials in the procurement of private entities to handle the Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) system for issuing visas to tourists visiting Sri Lanka. They claimed the deal had affected the tourism industry, national economy and national security. While suspending the operation of foreign companies from issuing online visas, the Lankan Supreme Court had ordered the Immigration Department to return to the ETA system that was there before April 2024 and run by a local company which provided the service at a cost of one dollar while VFS Global was charging different prices from $10 to much more depending on the category of visa. However, the Public Security Minister in Wickremesinghes Cabinet, Tiran Alles asserted that the ETA system run by Mobitel cannot be restored as many changes have been introduced and there were changes in laws which were passed in Parliament. Minutes after Dissanayake announced the decision late Thursday evening, Vijitha Herath, the new Minister of Public Security, said that all foreigners will now be able to apply for visas under the previous system. The visa facility provided by VFS Global has caused significant difficulties for many. Foreigners arriving in Sri Lanka experienced considerable challenges in obtaining their visas. In response, and following a court decision, the Ministry of Public Security has intervened to resume the issuing of visas under the previous system, Herath was quoted as saying by Daily Mirror. From 12.00 midnight today, foreigners can easily apply for visas online, which will be processed within 24 hours. This marks a significant improvement. Furthermore, we have initiated an immediate forensic audit to investigate the irregularities associated with the VFS Global. Any discrepancies found will be subject to legal action in the future. As a result, those in business and investment sectors will now have access to the same visa facilities, he added. TRIPOLI, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Representatives of the Libyan High Council of State and the House of Representatives on Thursday signed an agreement, sponsored by the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), to end a crisis related to the central bank governance. According to Stephanie Koury, UNSMIL officer-in-charge, the agreement provides for consultations by the High Council of State and appointment of the governor and deputy governor by the House of Representatives within one week from the signing of the agreement, and a board of directors to be appointed within two weeks from the appointment of the governor. The agreement also includes provisions on good governance, transparency, and independence concerning the central bank. "Despite the complex challenges associated with this crisis, this agreement could mark a new beginning for future agreements that the Libyan people aspire to and that Libya urgently requires," said Koury during the agreement signing ceremony. Koury called on all parties to constructively engage and collaborate to address outstanding issues through inclusive and meaningful dialogue, paving the way for the unification of institutions and restoring their legitimacy. "I also want to emphasize the urgent need to end the closure of oil fields and disruption of oil production and export," Koury said. The Tripoli-based Presidency Council recently announced the decision to replace the central bank governor. However, the Eastern-based House of Representatives rejected this decision, calling it outside the Presidency Council's authority. In retaliation to the Presidency Council's decision, the Eastern-based government announced closing the country's oil ports and fields. Since the fall of the late leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011, Libya has been struggling with fragmentation. The country is now divided between two main rival administrations: the eastern-based government, backed by the House of Representatives, and the western-based government in Tripoli, supported by the Presidency Council. The divide has led to frequent clashes, competing claims of legitimacy, and struggles over control of resources, including oil. Thailands foreign film production incentives have generated over 2.87 billion baht (about 88.32 million US dollars) in revenue in the 2024 fiscal year, official data showed on Thursday. According to the Department of Tourism (DOT), 15 international films have benefited from the cash rebate incentive programme during the fiscal year ending in September, creating more than 43,000 jobs across the Southeast Asian countrys film and related industries. In 2017, Thailand introduced its cash rebate incentive program, which allows filmmakers that spend at least 50 million baht (about 1.53 million dollars) in the kingdom to receive up to 20 percent in rebates, with a cap of 150 million baht (about 4.61 million dollars) per production. Advertisement DOT Director-General Jaturon Phakdeewanit said that over 22 additional film and television productions have applied for the rebate, with projections indicating that these large-scale productions could bring in over 7.05 billion baht (about 217 million dollars) in revenue, underscoring Thailands growing reputation as a major hub for international film production in the region, Xinhua news agency reported. Thailand remains committed to enhancing the nations competitive edge in the global film industry, boosting the local economy, generating employment and promoting its cultural heritage and tourist destinations to a global audience, Jaturon said in a statement. ACCRA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A charity project to extend free surgical treatment in Ghana was relaunched on Wednesday by the Chinese medical team with the support of some Chinese enterprises and charity organizations. Under the project titled "Minimally Invasive Surgery in Ghana & Seeing the Beautiful World," the 13th batch of the Chinese medical team will continue to provide free surgical treatment for cataract patients, in addition to free laparoscopic surgeries at the China-Ghana Friendship Hospital, also known as the LEKMA Hospital in Accra, the capital of Ghana. Chinese Ambassador to Ghana Tong Defa said during the project's relaunch that medical and health care are two of the most important parts of the China-Ghana cooperation. For that reason, China has been actively supporting the development of Ghana's health system for many years. Tong said China has, therefore, been taking various steps to help Ghana improve access to and quality of healthcare. "China has been upgrading Ghana's healthcare infrastructure, including funding and building the China-Ghana Friendship Hospital, helping build the capacity of local ophthalmologists, and sponsoring cataract surgeries for Ghanaians for years." The ambassador noted that over the past 15 years, China has sent 13 batches of medical teams with more than 100 highly skilled doctors from various specialties to Ghana, and part of their focus has been free cataract surgeries. "By providing free surgeries for local cataract patients, Chinese medical teams have helped many Ghanaians restore vision and improved their quality of life," Tong added. Hafiz Adam Taher, director of external health cooperation at the Technical Coordinating Department of Ghana's Ministry of Health, thanked Chinese doctors for bringing hope to Ghanaians through their interventions. "This initiative represents not only the advancement of medical technology in Ghana but also the power of cooperation between nations and institutions for the greater good," Taher said. Akua Gyimah-Asante, medical superintendent of the LEKMA Hospital, noted that minimally invasive surgery is the cornerstone of modern medicine, providing patients with safer, faster, and more efficient surgical care. Gyimah-Asante said the initiative by the Chinese medical team has enabled patients to heal faster, reduce their risk of complications, and return to their daily activities sooner. Since December 2022, the Chinese medical teams have conducted 94 free successful cataract surgeries and 25 free laparoscopic surgeries for Ghanaians under the charity project. ADDIS ABABA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- A total of 32,407 cases of mpox, including 6,441 confirmed cases and 840 deaths, have been reported across the African continent since the start of this year, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). During an online media briefing on the multi-country mpox outbreak in Africa Thursday evening, Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya said the continent reported 2,910 new cases in the past week alone, including 436 confirmed cases and 16 deaths, bringing the total number of cases this year to 32,407. Kaseya warned that mpox cases in Africa are steadily increasing across all affected countries, saying that gaps and challenges are hindering the continent's response efforts, such as limited surveillance, contact tracing, follow-up, and poor data quality. According to Africa CDC data, less than 4 percent of contact tracing is being conducted in affected countries, while more than 68 percent of cases lack an epidemiological link. Citing gaps in case identification and clinical diagnosis, Kaseya called for an urgent need to enhance mpox surveillance, contact tracing, and laboratory testing. The Africa CDC reported a 194 percent increase in mpox cases this year compared to the same period in 2023, with the Central African region accounting for 90 percent of all reported cases. In mid-August, the Africa CDC declared the ongoing mpox outbreak a Public Health Emergency of Continental Security. Soon after, the World Health Organization also declared mpox a public health emergency of international concern, activating its highest level of global alert for the second time in two years. Job Title: Manager Bids Organisation: MTN Uganda Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda Reports to: Senior Manager Large Enterprises About the Company: MTN Uganda is a subsidiary of MTN Group, a multinational Telco operating in Africa and Middle East, with over 280milllion subscribers, making it the largest in Africa Job Summary: To scan for business opportunities especially in Large Enterprises business segment and Public Sector to position the company for effective and competitive bid response. The bidding process has become so competitive and complex especially with the increased number players in the telecom industry. Key Duties and Responsibilities: Overseeing and managing the end-to-end bid process, from identifying opportunities, understanding of customer requirements, submitting winning proposals through to contract renewal strategy. Formulating effective strategies for the bidding process, managing resources and ensuring compliance with client requirements. Define potential partnerships needed for effective bids response. Qualify opportunity and customer context, including incumbent provider(s) and competitive landscape to the bids Profile customers including key decision maker mapping. Present estimated deal value and fit with MTN strategy, capabilities and business objectives. Manage virtual bid teams and inputs from key stakeholders, typically engaging with sales, marketing, product teams, finance, commercial, legal and project management / delivery. Work with the Sales lead to develop a clear win strategy for each bid and ensure win themes are clear and compelling. Understand and resolve complex technical, strategic and business issues. Review potential discretionary discounts applied to the client and confirm final pricing and margins. Prepare and review the commercial aspects of the bid, ensuring all products / services are included in the final price to the customer. Risk tracking and management throughout the bid process. Contributing to the written proposal both in terms of content and presentation (such as providing guidance around the executive summary). Ensure timescales are achieved at each step of the bid process, including all internal governance, while taking the initiative in setting realistic deadlines. Co-ordinate and plan all client presentations required as part of the bid submission. Ensure in-time submission of compliant and commercially sound bids. Provide initial go/ no go decision and final approval to the bid response document. Drive continuous improvement, through post-bid reviews, both internally and with customers. Qualifications, Skills and Experience: Education: Bachelors degree in Business Management/ Engineering or computer Science Experience: 3-5 years of relevant experience Management in a busy a large commercial enterprise Analytical skills Management Skills Skills / Competencies / Attributes Required Good negotiations and presentation skills Financial deal analysis calculations Identify Partnership opportunities. Computer proficiency and excellent analytical skills. Good communication and excellent interpersonal skills Commitment to quality, customer service and high performance Good planning and organization skills Leadership / Managerial Tasks Manage and ensure adherence to turnaround Time in responding to bids Taking Initiative to drive results. Review documentation submitted to understand customer requirements. Engage other stakeholders for better quality submissions of bids. Manage customer relationships in terms of service level delivery. Knowledge, Skills and Competencies: Exercise excellent judgement, integrity and discretion at all times. Organized, self-motivated and should have initiative. Results orientation Pro-activity Objectivity Team player Female candidates are encouraged to apply. Note: In compliance to the Data Protection & Privacy Laws of Uganda, MTN Uganda will use your application documents for purposes for which they were intended for. How to Apply: All candidates who wish to join MTN Uganda in this capacity should apply online at the link below. Click Here Deadline: 6th September 2024 For more of the latest jobs, please visit https://www.theugandanjobline.com or find us on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline Date Posted 2024-08-28T12:39 Valid Through 2024-09-07T00:00 Employment Type FULL_TIME Hiring Organization MTN Group Job Location Kampala, Kampala, Kampala , 0256, Uganda Related Jobs August 28, 2024, was one of those days that caught me off guard. It began like any other with my routine uphill run, my 44th consecutive day at it. But something had felt off for a whileshortness of breath, a lingering weakness that wasnt part of the usual exertion. My GP, Dr Cinzia, had wisely sent me for a battery of tests, and by the time I saw the cardiologist in Piano di Coreglia, the news wasnt great. My heart wasnt functioning as it should be. The ECG showed irregularitiesa leaky tricuspid valve, delays on the right side of my heart. The GPs immediate text was clear: I needed to head to Castelnuovo Hospitals Emergency Department. It was surreal. One moment I was enjoying lunch, overhearing an Englishman trying to convince an Italian of the virtues of Brexit and Trumpism, and the next, I was preparing to get my heart checked in a hospital that looked like a sanatorium out of a movie. I walked in, expecting perhaps some sympathetic smiles from fellow expats who saw me as a picture of health, an avid runner. But when I explained that I was there for heart issues, their jaws dropped. It was a reminder that appearances arent always what they seem. After a round of testsmore ECGs, blood work, X-raysI found myself in a side room, waiting. Sitting in a wheelchair for the first time after having just been on a mountain run was sobering. Here I was, facing an undeniable truth: I was vulnerable. It was a far cry from the days spent trekking across Argentina or battling jet lag in India. Yet, through it all, I couldnt help but reflect on the small blessingshow efficient the Italian healthcare system is compared to the NHS. In moments like these, you realise youve made some good life choices, like leaving England for Italy. Still, I wasnt about to wallow in self-pity. Sure, life had thrown a curveball, but thats the nature of life, isnt it? It twists and turns, and sometimes, all we can do is ride the wave and adapt. I was admitted for overnight monitoring. Debora, my lifesaver, rushed over with my essentialschargers, clothes, toothbrushensuring Id be comfortable. Geetha and friends from around the world texted, offering encouragement and love. It was a reminder that even in moments of solitude, were never truly alone. The night passed in a blur of reflections. My lawyers mind kicked inI needed to draft a will pronto. I wasnt getting any younger, and procrastination wasnt going to protect me from the inevitable. But more than that, I realised that lifeour greatest giftdemands resilience. Setbacks will come, whether in the form of health issues or something else. But that doesnt mean we stop. We adjust, we recalibrate, and most importantly, we keep going. Ive always believed in facing adversity head-on, whether in the courtroom or on a treacherous hiking trail in Patagonia. Its not the obstacle that defines us, but how we choose to respond to it. As the hospital stay stretched into the night, I tuned into Coronation Street, a show Ive followed since 1973. It was a comforting escape from the harsh reality of medical charts and slow heartbeats. But even in that moment of escape, my mind wandered back to the essentials of life: how, even in this hospital room, my spirit remained unbroken. The next morning, with my heart still monitored by Wi-Fi-linked devices, I was eager to get back to San Romano, to feel the fresh mountain air and to challenge myself once more. I imagined hopping back into my car and daring the universe to stop me from running again. But maybe not right awayno wild leaps while on blood thinners. Im reckless but not stupid after all. Life has a funny way of reminding us of our mortality, but it doesnt mean we have to retreat into a shell. Im not planning to wrap myself in bubble wrap. My advice? Stay informed, engage with your health, and trust that setbacks are just a part of the journey. Whether its learning from doctors or debating lifes big questions with friends, the key is to stay active in the dialogue. Its easy to let illness or adversity define you, but why should it? Theres so much life to liveso many adventures left to embark on, even if theyre a bit slower-paced. My journey may now include more mindful decisions, like taking my time with household chores, learning a new language, or jogging up hills instead of running up them. But thats life, isnt it? Full of surprises, some pleasant and some challenging. And as long as we face them with an open mind and an indomitable spirit, nothingnot even a leaky valvecan truly hold us back. Life goes on. China suffered a major embarrassment as various reports revealed that its newest nuclear-powered attack submarine sunk in port during sea trials even as Beijing is in the process of ramping up its maritime might. The Zhou class vessel may have sank in May or June and China apparently tried to cover up the incident that happened at Wuchang shipyard near Wuhan. Satellite imagery showed that the submarine sank alongside a pier while under construction. Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC, analysed by The Associated Press, show what appears to be a submarine docked at the Shuangliu shipyard on the Yangtze River before the incident. READ MORE: China flexes naval power: All three aircraft carriers at sea for first time in history. What does it mean? An image taken June 15 appears to show the submarine either fully or partially submerged just under the river's surface, with rescue equipment and cranes surrounding it. Booms surround it to prevent any oil or other leaks from the vessel. A satellite image taken August 25 shows a submarine back at the same dock as the submerged vessel. It is not clear if it was the same one. A Chinese embassy spokesperson in Washington said said they are not aware of the situation. "We are not familiar with the situation you mentioned and currently have no information to provide," Reuters quoted the Chinese official as saying. A US official said it was not surprising that China's navy would hide it. "In addition to the obvious questions about training standards and equipment quality, the incident raises deeper questions about the PLA's internal accountability and oversight of China's defence industry - which has long been plagued by corruption," the official has been quoted as saying. ALSO READ: Understanding 'Project 33', the US Navy's ambitious plan to outpace China by 2027 Some media reports suggested that the vessel may have been carrying nuclear fuel when it was sunk. The setback comes even as Beijing has become increasingly assertive in pursuing its claim to virtually the entire South China Sea, which is crucial to international trade. As of 2022, China had six nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, six nuclear-powered attack submarines, and 48 diesel-powered attack submarines, a Pentagon report on China's military claimed. The Bombay High Court on Friday directed Maharashtra police to find a secluded spot to bury the body of Akshay Shinde, the accused in Badlapur sexual assault case who was gunned down by the police. The High Court was hearing a plea moved by Shindes father Anna Shinde saying he couldnt find a burial ground for his son. A division bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and M.M. Sathaye directed the police to inform Shindes family once the spot has been identified so that the burial rituals could be done. Though the state government argued there was no such custom of burial in Shinde community, the High Court rejected those arguments and said the community would not decide what the parents want. Nobody has the right to decide. It is the parents' choice, HC said. Shindes family informed the Court that they were facing threats and bench directed them to file a police complaint. The High Court had posed tough questions to police while hearing Anna Shindes earlier plea demanding SIT probe into his sons alleged fake encounter. Akshay Shinde (24), who was accused of sexually assaulting two minor girls at a school in Badlapur, was shot dead in a police shootout on Monday. Shinde was being taken from Taloja Jail to Badlapur in connection with a case registered against him on a complaint by his second wife. Shinde allegedly snatched the pistol of a police officer and opened fire. Shinde was killed near Mumbra bypass and he was killed in retaliatory firing, police claimed. With only three days left before the final phase of elections, the BJP has launched an aggressive campaign to corner the Congress in the Jammu province, where polling will take place for 24 Assembly seats. As the last phase is scheduled for October 1, the BJP is going all out to mobilise support and finish the election on a strong note. In this phase, 40 seats are up for grabs16 in Kashmir and 24 in Jammu, across districts of Samba, Kathua, Udhampur, and Jammu, known as the Dogra heartland. These Hindu-majority districts are critical for the BJP's goal of emerging as the single largest party. In the previous elections, the BJP won 19 seats in these districts and six more in other parts of Jammu, including the Muslim-majority Chenab region, thanks to a divided Muslim vote. Recognising the importance of preventing Congress from gaining ground, the BJP has ramped up its campaign in the Dogra heartland. Union Minister Amit Shah led a series of rallies on September 26, spanning constituencies from Bani to Marh in Udhampur district. Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, one of BJP's star campaigners, addressed public meetings in Jammu and Samba districts. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already visited Jammu and Kashmir twice for the campaign, and he is scheduled to arrive again on Saturday for a major rally at Maulana Azad Stadium in Jammu. This rally is seen as a critical moment for the BJP as it aims to secure 35 out of 43 seats in Jammu. Preparations for the event are in full swing, with local BJP leaders and workers actively shoring support. Throughout their campaign, the BJP has focused on attacking the NC-Congress alliance and the People's Democratic Party (PDP), blaming them for decades of misrule and terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. In his speeches, Amit Shah targeted the Congress for backing the National Conferences separatist agenda, particularly its support for the restoration of Article 370. Political observers believe that if Congress manages to secure a significant number of seats in this phase, it could weaken BJPs chances of emerging stronger in the final tally. Meanwhile, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah has expressed frustration with the Congress's efforts in Jammu and has urged Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to intensify the party's campaign in the region. I hope after Rahul wraps up campaigning in one or two seats in Kashmir, he turns his attention to Jammu. Ultimately, Congresss actions in Kashmir arent what matters most; its what happens in Jammu that counts. Ultimately, what the Congress does in Kashmir is not that important, but what the Congress does in Jammu is important, he said in reaction to Gandhi's address to a rally in Sopore on September 25. Former RG Kar Medical College and Hospital principal Sandip Ghosh was denied bail by a designated CBI court, which observed that the nature and gravity of the accusation against him is "grave" to attract capital punishment if proven. It granted the CBI's request for his judicial custody of Ghosh and co-accused Abhijit Mondal till September 30, Monday. It was Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate S Dey who observed that the nature and gravity of the accusations against Dr Sandip Ghosh qualify to fall under the rarest of rare cases category. The judge added that the court is of the opinion that it would be injustice flouting the principle of equity to release the accused on bail, PTI said in a report. READ HERE | Kolkata doctor rape-murder: CBI detains former RG Kar Medical College principal as demand for justice grows louder Ghosh's counsel claimed before the judge that he was falsely implicated in the case, and that there was no act on his part to commit the crime as alleged. However, the court disagreed and observed in its order that a person may commit an offence with the help of other/s, and there is no need to be present for the other accused at the place of occurrence. READ HERE | Kolkata rape-murder: CBI arrests former RG Kar principal Sandip Ghosh The court also rejected the bail prayer of Abhijit Mondal, the former officer in-charge of Tala police station. Mondal is accused of allegedly tampering with evidence and delay in filing of FIR in the rape and murder of a doctor at the state-run hospital on August 9. Kolkata doctor's rape-murder case A postgraduate trainee's body was found with severe injuries in the seminar hall of the state-run RG Kar Hospital in Kolkata on August 9. The horrifying crime resulted in state-wide protests by trainee doctors against the West Bengal government that remain unresolved fully to this day. Sanjay Roy, a Kolkata Police civic volunteer, was arrested in connection with the case and said to be the only accused in the rape and murder of the lady doctor. Ghosh resigned from his post days after the incident, taking moral responsibility, but within hours the West Bengal government appointed him as the principal of Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital. The governments move sparked a fresh wave of protests, prompting the Calcutta High Court to intervene and send him on long leave. The hospital's former deputy superintendent Dr Akhtar Ali had lodged complaints of financial irregularities on multiple counts at the establishment during Ghosh's tenure as principal. West Bengal Junior Doctors Front (WBJDF), the collective under which junior medicos across West Bengal built their movement in the aftermath of the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital rape and murder case, held a mass convention in Kolkata on Friday to decide the future course of their movement. In the convention held in the auditorium of IPGME&R and SSKM Hospital, a proposal to place a symbolic statue of an oppressed woman in RG Kar premises was passed. Junior doctors also announced that there would be a rally and a mass gathering in the Esplanade area on October 2, the day of Mahalaya which marks the beginning of Durga Puja festivities. ALSO READ | 'Abhaya Clinics': West Bengal junior doctors provide medical care to flood victims while keeping movement alive The doctors made it clear that they would continue their movement unless all of their five demands were met. The convention was attended by doctors from RG Kar MCH and other state-government medical colleges and hospitals along with people from other sections of life, including film personalities and social activists. Dr. Aniket Mahato of RG Kar, a leading face of the junior doctors movement said, People generally dont get justice thats why they have joined our movement. We must not let this fire go off. We dont seek anything but justice. Everyone must understand why we want justice. Dr. Mahato questioned the delay in the investigation, emphasising that the junior doctors' decision to end their strike and resume work should not be mistaken as a sign of weakness. ALSO READ | Kolkata doctor rape-murder: Medical services affected, patients suffer as doctors continue protests Dr. Manimoy Bandyopadhyay, the director of IPGME&R and SSKM Hospital, hoped everyone involved with the heinous crime would be convicted. It is unimaginable that such a heinous incident could happen in any hospital. All those who are directly or indirectly connected with it should be identified, he said at the convention. Doctors demanded that the system of intimidation and threats by the politically powerful be eliminated from hospitals. They also raised questions about why some developments about the CBI investigation were not being made public. ALSO READ | Ex RG Kar Medical College Hospital principal Sandip Ghosh may get death penalty if found guilty: CBI Court The Chief Justice was distressed upon reviewing the contents of the envelope provided by the CBI, which contained details about the death. Had he spoken for just three to four minutes about what was inside, it might have eased the concerns of the 10 crore people in West Bengal, Dr. Diptendra Sarkar, a senior surgeon in Kolkata, said at the convention. Director Kaushik Ganguly demanded the removal of people like Sandip Ghosh, the former principal of RG Kar who has been arrested by the CBI, from all sections of the society and urged junior doctors and others at the convention to keep faith in the judicial system for justice. Justice will take time but we must be patient, he said. KHARTOUM, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- At least 8 people were killed and 95 others injured in an attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on Friday in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State in western Sudan, a local official stated. "The RSF shelling targeted the Souq Al-Mawashi (livestock) market, south of El Fasher, which was crowded with civilians," Ibrahim Khatir, director-general of North Darfur State's health ministry, told Xinhua. The RSF has not yet commented on the attack. Since May 10, fierce clashes have raged in El Fasher between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF. According to UN estimates, El Fasher is home to about 1.5 million people, 800,000 of whom are internally displaced persons. Since April 15, 2023, Sudan has been embroiled in a violent conflict between the SAF and the RSF. The conflict has resulted in approximately 20,000 deaths, thousands of injuries, and the displacement of millions of people, according to the most recent estimates by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the last vacant seat of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi's 18-member standing committee on Friday. BJP won the seat unopposed as the ruling AAP and Congress boycotted the election. The BJP's candidate Sunder Singh got all 115 votes of the party's councillors while the AAP's Nirmala Kumari did not receive any votes. The standing committee is the highest decision-making body of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. STORY | Voting for MCD standing committee polls begins; AAP, Cong councillors absent READ: https://t.co/pWR5o69Xve VIDEO: #MCD #DelhiNews (Full video available on PTI Videos - https://t.co/n147TvqRQz) pic.twitter.com/SIdyQd5FNd Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) September 27, 2024 ALSO READ | Delhi civic body polls to be held today after L-G overturns Mayor's decision in a dramatic turn With this poll result, the BJP now has 10 members in the panel while the ruling AAP has only eight. While hitting out at the BJP, former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said it is "hooliganism". "Is this election?" he said. "BJP wrongly overpowered MCD, stole mandate," he added. "As per the rule, a notice has to be sent to every councillor 72 hours before the meeting, but it was not followed," Kejriwal was quoted by PTI. The seat had fallen vacant after BJP councillor Kamaljeet Sehrawat was elected as the Lok Sabha MP from West Delhi. Delhi mayor Shelly Oberoi had termed the election as "unconstitutional". Kejriwal also added that as per rules, only the mayor can convene a meeting of the MCD House but the lieutenant governor changed it and directed an additional commissioner of the civic body to do it. Meanwhile, Sunder Singh thanked the top leadership and said AAP might not had any trust in their own councillors, so they ran away from the election. They were given opportunities multiple times...everybody was given time of 1 pm today but they did not show up...the Presiding Officer conducted the election free and fair...I won, Tanwar told ANI. Lokayukta police on Friday registered a First Information Report (FIR) against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and others in the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) site allotment case, following the court order. Congress President M Mallikarjun Kharge, meanwhile, came to Siddaramaiah's defence, stating that the party is standing with him and will support him. Siddaramaiah, who began his three-day visit to his home district of Mysuru, claimed that he was being targeted in the MUDA issue as the opposition is "scared" of him and said it's the first such "political case" against him. He also reiterated that he won't resign following the court ordering a probe against him in the case as he has done no wrong and asserted that he would fight the case legally. While Siddaramaiah is accused number one (A1) in the case, his wife B. M. Parvathi (A2), brother-in-law Mallikarjuna Swamy (A3), Devaraju (A4) -- from whom Mallikarjuna Swamy purchased land and gifted it to Parvathi -- and others are named in the FIR registered by Lokayukta police in Mysuru. A Special Court in Bengaluru on Wednesday ordered a Lokayukta police probe against Siddaramaiah in the case, setting the stage for filing an FIR against him. The order of the Special Court Judge, Santhosh Gajanan Bhat, came a day after the High Court upheld the sanction granted by the Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot to conduct an investigation against Siddaramaiah on the allegations of illegalities in the allotment of 14 sites to his wife by the MUDA. The Special Court exclusively to deal with criminal cases related to former and elected MPs/MLAs issued the order directing the Lokayukta police in Mysuru to initiate an investigation on the complaint filed by RTI activist Snehamayi Krishna. "Acting under Sec.156(3) of Code of Criminal Procedure, the jurisdictional police i.e., Superintendent of Police, Karnataka Lokayukta, Mysuru is hereby directed to register the case, investigate and to file a report as contemplated under Sec.173 of Cr.P.C., within a period 3 months from today.." the court had said. Accordingly, the FIR has been registered Sec.120B (Punishment of criminal conspiracy), 166 (Public servant disobeying law, with intent to cause injury to any person), 403 (Dishonest misappropriation of property), 406 ( Punishment for criminal breach of trust), 420 ( Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 426 ( Punishment for mischief), 465 (Punishment for forgery) , 468 (Forgery for purpose of cheating), 340 (Wrongful confinement), 351 (Assault) and other relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code. The court had also listed offences punishable under sections 9 and 13 the Prevention Of Corruption Act, 1988 and under Sec.3, 53 and 54 of the Prohibition Of Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988 and 3, 4 of Karnataka Land Grabbing Prohibition Act, 2011. Snehamayi Krishna, expressing displeasure over "delay" on the part of Lokayukta SP, Mysuru, Udesha T J, in filing of the FIR, said this is another victory for his fight. He said he will be approaching the High Court seeking handing over the case to the CBI. "At the initial stage during the filing of FIR itself there is a delay...can it be believed that there will be an honest probe against the Chief Minister? No. So we will fight to get this case handed over to the CBI." Siddaramaiah arrived in Mysuru on a three-day visit to a rousing welcome by party workers and supporters in a show of strength and support. The opposition BJP staged a protest demanding his resignation; many of the saffron party workers were whisked away by the police as they tried to march towards the venue of the meeting that the CM was attending. Regarding BJP holding protests demanding his resignation, the CM said, "why should I resign? If one has committed wrong he has to resign, when we are saying that no wrong was done, where is the question of resigning?" Kharge too rejected BJP's demand for Siddaramaiah's resignation, as he noted that "neither a chargesheet is filed, nor he is convicted," and said, "let the law take its own course, and when a situation comes, the party will examine." "When the Godhra incident happened, whether (Narendra) Modi ji had resigned (as the then Gujarat CM)? Several cases were also pending against him at that time, even against Mr Shah (Union Home Minister Amit Shah)," Kharge said in response to a question on BJP questioning CM's moral right to continue, with FIR registered against him. Let the law take its own course, and when a situation comes, the party will examine it at that time, he further said. "Now nothing is there, (but) every day I'm seeing that MUDA, MUDA. Crores of rupees (have been) swallowed by industrialists, Rs 16 lakh crore of their debt have been written off, and now you are taking one small issue and fighting. That too neither chargesheet is filed, nor he is convicted. Every day this is news. I'm fed up seeing all these things." In the MUDA site allotment case, it is alleged that compensatory sites were allotted to Siddaramaiah's wife in an upmarket area in Mysuru, which had higher property value as compared to the location of her land which had been "acquired" by MUDA. Odishas new BJP government has toed the Centre's line by extending maternity leave and paternity leave benefits to state government employees attaining parenthood by surrogacy. An official memorandum by the state Finance department says: "A maternity leave of 180 days to female government employees and paternity leave of 15 days to male government employees have been extended by the state government. The proposal for grant of maternity and paternity leave to state government employees in case of attainment of parenthood by surrogacy has been under active consideration of state government for some time past. The Government of India has extended maternity leave and paternity leave benefits to central government employees attaining surrogacy. In view of this, the state government extended maternity leave benefits to state government employees attaining parenthood by surrogacy." It added that the key conditions are a state government female employee, having less than two surviving children who becomes 'surrogate mother' shall be eligible for maternity leave of 180 days. A surrogate mother is a woman who agrees to bear a child and who is genetically related to the intending couple or intending woman through surrogacy from the implantation of the embryo in her womb and fulfils the conditions as provided in the law in the 2021 Surrogacy Act. A state government female employee, having less than two surviving children who becomes a commissioning mother shall be eligible for maternity leave of 180 days. A commissioning mother is a biological mother who uses her egg to create an embryo implanted in any other woman. A state government male employee having less than two surviving children, who becomes a commissioning father shall be eligible for paternity leave of 15 days within the period of six months from the date of delivery of the child. A commissioning father is the biological father of the child born through surrogacy. If both the surrogate mother and commissioning mother are state government employees both will be eligible for 180 days of maternity leave each. The surrogacy agreement made between the mother and commissioning parents along with supporting documents from registered doctors or hospitals shall be produced for claiming maternity/paternity leave. In a shocking incident, a class 2 student studying at a private school in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh was sacrificed in a black magic ritual for fame and prosperity. Hathras police said five persons including DL Public Schools director have been arrested in connection with the murder. The incident came to light after the boy was found dead under mysterious circumstances by his father, Krishan Kushwaha, an IT professional working in Delhi. According to police, school authorities have reportedly informed Kushwaha that the student had fallen ill on Monday. VIDEO | A class 2 student at a private school died under mysterious circumstances in Hathras. The body of the student was recovered from school director Dinesh Baghel's car, the police said. The family of the child has alleged that he was killed as part of 'black magic' rituals. pic.twitter.com/MqbnbgIoiw Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) September 27, 2024 On reaching the school, Kushwaha was told school director Dinesh Baghel has rushed the boy to the hospital in his car, police said. However, Kushwaha later recovered his sons body from Baghels car, police said. Hathras police said post-mortem was conducted and the boy was allegedly strangulated to death. Nipun Agarwal, Hathras Superintendent of Police told News 18, The child was strangled with the intent to bring prosperity to the school and secure its future. The reports claimed that the accused strangled the child to death on September 22. According to police, DL Public School Director Dinesh Baghels father, Jashodhan Singh, believed in black magic, and together with his son and three teachers, they planned to sacrifice a child to bring them fame, the publication reported. The gang had initially planned to murder the boy near a tube well outside the school, however, they strangled him to death after he resisted. Police also recovered items related to black magic from the school premises. Reportedly, the accused had earlier planned to conduct the ritual on September 6. However, it got foiled after the child became suspicious. The Supreme Court on Thursday granted bail to former Tamil Nadu Minister Senthil Balaji in a case related to cash-for-jobs scam. Balaji was arrested in June 2023 by the Enforcement Directorate on allegations of money laundering in the cash-for-jobs scam. The Supreme Court had reserved its judgment in the case on August 12 flagging delay in trial. A bench of Justices Abhay Oka and Augustine George Masih allowed his bail plea considering the delay in trial. Stringent bail provisions and delay in trial cannot go together, Justice Oka observed while pronouncing the verdict. With the Supreme Court pronouncing his bail, Balaji walked out from the Puzhal prison late in the evening, after 471 days of incarceration. He a surety for Rs 25 lakh as ordered by the Supreme Court. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam organising secretary R.S. Bharathi and several thousands of cadres accorded him a grand welcome. While Balaji still has a long legal battle ahead to fight the three cases filed by the ED, the cadres in his hometown Karur celebrated by bursting crackers and distributing sweets. Who is Senthil Balaji? Balaji was the minister for electricity, excise and prohibition in the M.K. Stalin government. Hailing from Karur, he is considered to be the face of the DMK in western Tamil Nadu. A master strategist, Balaji was behind the DMKs idea of appointing polling agents for the party, ahead of the 2024 polls, across the state. The work to appoint the polling agents began as early as January 2023. Balajis idea of appointing the agents and training them to do election work on the ground got him high in the line among the seniors in the party. #WATCH | Former Tamil Nadu minister and DMK leader V Senthil Balaji leaves from the hotel he is staying in, in Chennai. He is going to the ED office to sign documents. He was released from Puzhal Central Prison in Chennai yesterday after SC granted him bail in a money laundering pic.twitter.com/UNhtrxNlF6 ANI (@ANI) September 27, 2024 Senthil Balaji was once the blue-eyed boy of Jayalalithaa, during her term as chief minister from 2011 to 2016. He was the transport minister in her cabinet. It was the time when Jayalalithaa was on a spree promoting the brand Amma. She launched Amma Unavagams aka Amma eateries, Amma salt and Amma water. As the transport minister, Balaji recommended that the Amma water be packed in pet bottles and sold in all the government bus stations. He worked on designing a water bottle that will be easy to carry for the travellers. This got him close to Jayalalithaa. However, Balaji fell from the good books of Jayalalithaa following allegations of corruption and intra-party politics. In 2016, the assembly election in the Aravakurichi constituency was countermanded allegedly due to cash for votes. But when Jayalalithaa was hospitalised, Balaji won from the same Aravakurichi constituency only to go with T.T.V. Dhinakaran who had walked out of AIADMK against Edappadi Palanisami. Later in 2018, when Dhinakaran launched his own party, Balaji went to join the DMK under M.K. Stalin. The case and why was he arrested? Balaji was arrested by the ED after a daylong closed-door enquiry and searches in his official residence, on June 14, 2023. Balaji is accused in a money laundering case involving a cash-for-jobs scam during his tenure as the transport minister in Jayalalithaas cabinet. He is accused of working out a scheme with his personal assistants and brother Ashok Kumar to collect money from job seekers for the posts of drivers, conductors and other posts in the Tamil Nadu transport department when he was the minister. He is accused of taking several crores of money for offering the jobs. The ED has also said that he had a deposit of Rs1.34 crore in his bank account from 2013 and 2021. While Balaji argued that the money was his MLA salary and agricultural income, the ED allegedly attributed the money to proceeds of crime. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for ED in the Supreme Court, earlier argued that Rs. 1.34 crore in cash deposits had no connection to his MLA salary or agricultural income as MLA salary is usually deposited by the government directly into the bank account. The ED also said that a pen drive seized during the search had a file named csac.xlsx" with the details of the amounts allegedly received through the job scam. However, in the past few months, while hearing the bail plea, the Supreme Court had raised questions about the proceeding with the trial in the PMLA case without the completion of the trial in the predicate offence. According to the ED, the predicate offence involves more than 2,000 accused. The Court observed that the ED must either rely on a complete trial of all three predicate offences in the money laundering case against Balaji or let go of some of the cases. Stalins praise for Balaji As soon as the Supreme Court pronounced its verdict, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, in his message on social media platform X hailed Balaji as a martyr. Even during the Emergency, the duration of imprisonment was not this long... You have made a huge sacrifice and have emerged even stronger, though they tried to weaken you. I welcome you, he wrote, before leaving for Delhi to call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to seek financial assistance for various schemes in Tamil Nadu. Stalin described the Supreme Courts decision to release the former minister a triumph over a prolonged political conspiracy designed to crush his spirit. What next for Balaji? Balaji is likely to be re-inducted into the Tamil Nadu cabinet soon. Sources say that Stalin, for the past two months had put on hold his cabinet reshuffle plans awaiting Balaji's release. Two days ago, during an event in Chennai, on a question on cabinet reshuffle and Udhayanidhi Stalins elevation as deputy chief minister, he hinted saying, There will be change and no disappointments. In fact, the party insiders say that he will discuss about cabinet reshuffle, about Udhayanidhi and Balaji, during his meeting with Modi. Incidentally, the electricity and excise and prohibition portfolios once held by Balaji have been allotted as additional portfolios with Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu and Housing Minister P. Muthusamy. Sources say that the state government had already sought time with the governor for a swearing-in ceremony on Monday. But the governor had reportedly not obliged. So the government has proposed October 2 for swearing-in. The BJP assuming power in the states of Odisha and Chhatisgarh has generated the hope that the long-standing Mahanadi river water-sharing dispute will finally be solved. Union Minister for Jal Shakti C R Patil, during his visit to Odisha, assured on Thursday that the issue would be resolved soon. Mahanadi is a major river in India with a length of 900 km. It originates from a pool at Farsiya village in the Dhamtari district of Chhatisgarh and ends in the Bay of Bengal in Odisha, covering both states. It drains an area of around 132,100 sq. km. and is the oldest river in East-Central India. Besides major parts of Chhattisgarh and Odisha, the catchment area of its basin also extends to Jharkhand, Maharastra and Madhya Pradesh. The basin receives about 90% of its rainfall during the monsoon season. The average annual rainfall of Mahanadi is 66.9 billion cubic metres. Out of the total length of Mahanadi from origin to outfall, 357 km lies in Chhatisgarh and 494 km in Odisha. Mahanadi is more known for Hirakud Dam in western Odisha which was the first major multi-purpose river valley project after Indias independence in 1947. It provides irrigation and generates hydel power besides meeting the water needs of industries set up in nearby areas. Lately, it has been helping tourism besides fish production through cage culture. It has also been proposed to produce solar power by spreading solar panels upon vast tracts of the reservoir. During the last few years particularly after the formation of the new Chhattisgarh state, the issue of the Mahanadi water dispute has arisen. Sharing of Mahanadi river water has been a bone of contention between Odisha and Chhattisgarh. The main complaint of Odisha is that the Chhatisgarh government has been building dams and barrages on the upper stream of Mahanadi, and in the process, reduced the flow of water into the Odisha part of Mahanadi, especially during the lean season. The earlier Naveen Patnaik government in Odisha filed a complaint before the Union Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation (now Ministry of Jal Shakti) under the inter-state River-Water Disputes Act. The state requested the centre to constitute a Tribunal under the act for adjudication of the water disputes over river Mahanadi and its basin between the riparian states of Odisha and Chhatisgarh and refer the complaint to the tribunal. The Government of India constituted a negotiation committee for the settlement of the dispute through negotiations. As it did not serve the purpose, the central government constituted the Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal on March 12, 2018. The matter is under adjudication of the Tribunal. The Tribunals time has been extended ever since citing reasons, including Covid. Now its tenure has further been extended up to April 13, 2026. The government of Odisha approached the Centre because the many upstream projects built by Chhatisgarh will have long-term effects on the flow downstream, especially during the lean period. While it will affect the ecologically sensitive coastal and delta area of Mahanadi, the projects upstream of Hirakud will also impact the long-term flows downstream in Odisha. That prompted Odisha, at one point, to demand that Chhatisgarh stop all construction works for a few months. Chhatisgarh said 52.9% of the catchment of Mahanadi and 89.9% of the catchment up to Hirakud lie in their state and they had a right to use the water of Mahanadi. The state pointed out that Odisha had also started certain major and medium projects without informing them as an upper riparian state. In 2016, the Union Water Resources Minister held two meetings with the Chief Ministers of both states where some decisions were taken. The issue, however, could not be settled, resulting in the formation of the Tribunal. Now that Naveen Patnaik has been replaced by the BJP government led by Mohan Charan Majhi, hopes are that the dispute will be amicably settled since the party also rules Chhattisgarh. Patil told media on Thursday that the Tribunal is leaving no stone unturned to resolve the matter as soon as possible. "We are committed to finding a fair and equitable solution that benefits both states." But, how the solution will satisfy the people of Odisha, mainly the public in western districts bordering Chhatisgarh, is to be seen. When the dispute arose, the BJD, which was in power in Odisha, had made it a political issue. Now, the BJD is the main opposition party with very good strength in the state assembly. The party has already taken an aggressive approach against BJP, particularly the state government. If the Mahanadi solution doesnt satisfy it, then the issue will likely remain. After French President Emmanuel Macron, it was the turn of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to support Indias bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Starmer, speaking at the UN General Assembly, said it was important that the Security Council changes to become a more representative body which is not paralysed by politics. "We want to see permanent African representation on the Council, Brazil, India, Japan and Germany as permanent members, and more seats for elected members as well, he said. Starmer's statement comes a day after Macron advocated the expansion of the UN body, stating that the current UNSC is blocked. "Let's make the UN more efficient. That's why France is in favour of the Security Council being expanded. Germany, Japan, India, and Brazil should be permanent members, as well as two countries that Africa will decide to represent it," Macron said. Earlier, US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken too had vocalised US's endorsement for permanent seats in the council for India, Japan and Germany. "The United States believes that this should include two permanent seats for Africa, one rotating seat for Small Island Developing States, and permanent representation for Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition to the permanent seats for countries, we've long endorsed Germany, Japan, and India," he said. Speaking at Summit of the Future at the @UN. https://t.co/lxhOQEWEC8 Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 23, 2024 This comes as Prime Minister, during his recent visit to the United Nations, called for reforms in the United Nations. He had earlier too slammed the skewed geographical representation in the UNSC. "How can we talk of it as a primary organ of a global body, when entire continents of Africa and Latin America are ignored? How can it claim to speak for the world when its most populous country, and its largest democracy, is not a permanent member," Modi asked. However, experts believe despite the push, it is unlikely that India would win a permanent seat at the UNSC, the major reason being China's opposition. All five permanent security council members, except China, have endorsed India's candidature in the past, including Russia. However, China refuses to follow suit, considering it is a close competitor of India in regional and international politics and the current border disputes between the countries. Not just India, even Japan might find China's opposition a hindrance for its bid for a permanent seat. Experts add though there were propositions from Groups that India could be added as a member without a veto power, India is not reportedly happy with this proposition. Even the US would want to protect its veto power, and though has endorsed India gaining a permanent seat in principle, it won't do so in practice. US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said in 2008 that the country would want to preserve the veto and "do not want to extend a veto to new permanent members." Many also suggest India's foreign policy- non-commital stance Western interests, including in Russia-Ukraine conflict, could be a reason for the Western nations to adopt such a stance in principle. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) has said it has killed a senior Hezbollah leader in an air strike on Beiruts southern suburbs. This comes as Israel rejected global calls on Thursday for a ceasefire. The airstrike in the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiyeh targeted and eliminated Mohammed Srur, who is said to be "the commander of Hezbollah's air unit". The militant group too confirmed Srurs death in a statement released early Friday. The IDF also sent a warplane to the edges of the capital Beirut, killing two people and wounding 15, bringing the death toll to over 600 since Monday. The slain leader was considered one of the top advisors of the group who allegedly directed various aerial attacks on Israel, including explosive-laden drones and cruise missiles. He is also said to led Hezbollahs drone manufacturing and establish sites in Lebanon. He was recently sent by Hezbollah to Yemen to train the country's Huthi rebels. Both Hezbollah and Houthis are backed by Iran. This is the fourth attack on Hezbollah's top leadership in recent days. The IDF had recently killed missile chief Ibrahim Qubaisi and Ibrahim Aqil, the head of Hezbollahs military operations. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi confirmed the killing and said they will continue to strike the Hezbollah. "We need to continue attacking Hezbollah. We have been waiting for this opportunity for years, Halevi said. "We have constantly working to make achievements, to eliminate more senior officials, to thwart the transfer of weapons, to [destroy] Hezbollahs firepower [capabilities], and to attack it in all of Lebanon," he added. Israel said its warplanes targeted 220 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley on Thursday. Hezbollah too fired over 175 rockets at northern Israeli cities. The IDF also added that it intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard early on Friday. "Following the sirens that sounded in central Israel, the surface-to-surface missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted by an 'Arrow' interceptor outside of Israeli territory," the army said in a statement. "There is currently no change to the IDF Defensive guidelines," it said. Yemen's Houthi militants have also targeted Israel repeatedly since the Gaza war began. In July, the Houthis fired a drone at Tel Aviv for the first time, killing a man and wounding four people. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday said that Israel is seeking peace despite fighting for its life. My country is at war, fighting for its life, stressed Netanyahu at the UN General Assembly. Netanyahu said he did not plan to come to the UN as his country is at war. "I decided to come to UN to set the record straight." As Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu came to address the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, many delegations walked out in protest. pic.twitter.com/xZ2R99ND7P Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) September 27, 2024 Since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Tel Aviv has been fighting with the aim to 'destroy' the Hamas group. Tensions in the Middle East intensified sine the Israel-Hamas war. Netanyahu said that if Hamas stays in power in Gaza, it will regroup, rearm and attack Israel again. "We must defend ourselves against these savage murderers. Our enemies seek not only to destroy us, they seek to destroy our common civilization and return all of us to a dark age of tyranny and terror, he added. Amid the rising tensions in the Middle East, Netanyahu added that there is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach. Its true of the entire Middle East, he added. While calling for an end to the appeasement of Iran, Netanyahu said Israel is winning the war. Earlier, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had vowed 'harsh punishment' for Israel in retaliation for the killing of Hamas's senior leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Netanyahu called on the UN Security Council to reimpose sanctions on Iran to ensure it does not get nuclear weapons. Israel will do everything in its power to make sure Iran doesn't get nuclear weapons, he said. Amid the ongoing Gaza war, Netanyahu said the Israel military has killed or captured more than half of Hamas' 40,000 fighters and destroyed 90 per cent of Hamas rockets. While addressing the world leaders at the UN, Netanyahu said Israel will continue to 'degrade' Hezbollah until it achieves its goals along the Lebanon border. "Just imagine if terrorists turned El Paso and San Diego into ghost towns ... How long would the American government tolerate that?" he said, shaking his fist in emphasis. Yet Israel has been tolerating this intolerable situation for almost a year. Well, I've come here today to say: Enough is enough," said Netanyahu. Since the Israel-Hamas war, tensions along the cross-borders with Lebanon also increased with Tel Aviv and Hezbollah exchanging strikes almost every day. Amid India-Maldives tense relations, president Mohamed Muizzu denied having an 'India Out' agenda. Muizzu stressed that New Delhi was asked to withdraw its military personnel as the nation wanted to avoid the 'problem' with the presence of foreign military on its soil. Muizzu made his remarks at Princeton University's Dean's Leadership Series in the United States. Maldives president is currently in the US to attend the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). "We have never been against any one country at any point. It's not India Out. Maldives faced a serious problem with foreign military presence on this soil," Muizzu was quoted by Maldivian news portal adhadhu.com. People of Maldives do not want a single foreign soldier in the country, Muizzu added. Also, reportedly, Muizzu is likely to travel to India in October in an attempt to reset bilateral ties after tensions in the relations. Muizzu had visited India on June 9 during Modi's swearing-in ceremony. He is likely to hold bilateral talks with Modi. This will be Muizzu's first bilateral trip to India since he became president in November 2023 on the back of an 'India Out' campaign. While speaking at the event, Muizzu also said that his government had taken action against deputy ministers for insulting PM Modi on social media. "No one should say such a thing. I took action against it. I will not accept insulting anyone like that, whether he is a leader or an ordinary person. Every human being has a reputation," he said. Deputy ministers in Maldives' youth ministry were suspended for derogatory social media posts against PM Modi after his Lakshadweep visit. KIGALI, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Rwanda's Ministry of Health has called for heightened preventive measures following reports of confirmed cases of Marburg virus disease (MVD) in the country. In a statement released Friday, the ministry outlined ongoing efforts to contain the spread of MVD, which has resulted in the hospitalization of a few patients. With investigations underway to determine the source of the infection, authorities have implemented enhanced preventive protocols across all health facilities, including rigorous contact tracing, and the affected patients have been isolated for treatment. The health ministry explained that MVD is transmitted through contact with the blood or body fluids of visibly sick individuals, adding that the virus is not believed to spread through the air. Members of the public experiencing symptoms such as high fever, severe headaches, vomiting, muscle pain, or stomach aches are urged to contact the Rwanda Biomedical Center or visit their nearest health facility, according to the statement. While monitoring the situation closely, the Ministry of Health suggested that the public should remain calm and maintain their regular activities, provided they follow heightened hygiene and safety practices. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's much-awaited speech at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Friday was pure political theatre. It was particularly aimed at addressing the constituencies in the US and Israel, making it clear to them that Israel was not going to end the war against Hamas unless its objectives were met. Netanyahu had vowed to destroy Hamas. He said that if Hamas retook political power in Gaza, it would regain its military strength, too, and would attack Israel again, a risk he did not want to take. Netanyahus speech conveyed the sense that he was not yet prepared for negotiations. There have been efforts by Egypt, the United States and Qatar to put an end to the war, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives. But Netanyahu, it seems, wants to finish off Hamas once and for all. "Israeli forces have destroyed 90% of Hamas' rockets and killed or captured half of its forces," he said. Peace will be back in Gaza only after Hamas is destroyed completely, he said. The only other way to end the war, in his view, was for Hamas to surrender unconditionally and return all the remaining hostages. While Netanyahu sounded uncompromising on Hamas, he did not rule out negotiations completely regarding the ongoing operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, Hezbollah has been attacking Israel, using rockets and missiles. "Israel has been tolerating this intolerable situation for almost a year. Well, I've come here today to say: Enough is enough," Netanyahu said. It has forced nearly 70,000 Israelis in the northern parts of the country bordering Lebanon to evacuate. Israel vowed to continue the attacks against Hezbollah till its citizens can return safely to their homes. As Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu came to address the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, many delegations walked out in protest. pic.twitter.com/xZ2R99ND7P Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) September 27, 2024 Moreover, compared with the Gaza war, the attacks on Hezbollah enjoy Israeli public support as well. So those attacks, too, could continue. However, it appears that negotiation is possible at least when it comes to Hezbollah once the primary Israeli objectives are met, given it's a more powerful entity, unlike Hamas. It is not easy for Israel to wage another long, sustained and large-scale war with Hezbollah at this point. Netanyahu will not forget the fact that Israel had to end its occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, as Hezbollah proved a tough nut to crack. Later, in 2006, Hezbollah fought a war against Israel and the result was a stalemate. So it was not surprising that Netanyahu's speech hinted that he was not completely against the 21-day ceasefire proposal put forward by France and the US on Wednesday. There are also domestic political reasons why Netanyahu wants to continue with the war. He faces corruption charges and other legitimacy issues, and staying on as prime minister offers him immunity from arrest and jail. The moment the war ends, the anti-Netanyahu factions within Israeli politics and the existing public sentiment against him could force him out. So Netanyahu is keeping his far-right wing coalition happy, which does not want any sort of compromise with Hamas or Hezbollah. The upcoming US elections also play a role in Netanyahus calculations. Till the elections end, the Biden administration is unlikely to put any significant pressure on Netanyahu to make compromises as it would be detrimental to Kamala Harriss chances. And if Trump wins on November 5, it will be a win-win situation for Netanyahu. So, in a sense, he is also playing for time. Netanyahus speech, meanwhile, was not all threats and bluster. He also tried to appear like a statesman by speaking about peace and prosperity in the wider Middle East, displaying two maps, which he titled the Curse and the Blessing. One showed the India-Middle East Europe economic corridor that will pass through Israel and Saudi Arabia--it was pitched as a great civilisational linkage between the continents and a major economic opportunity. On the other hand, he pointed out how Iran had created an arc of terrorism and uncertainty in the region. In this context, he pitched hard to normalise ties with Saudi Arabia and stressed taking forward the Abraham Accords. While he threatened Iran with destruction, he literally spoke like a salesman while addressing the Saudi leadership, imploring them for a normalisation of relations and mutual diplomatic recognition. Even as Netanyahu was speaking at the UN, Israeli warplanes targeted several residential buildings south of Beirut in an attempt to kill Hezbollah supreme leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was reportedly holding a leadership meeting in an underground headquarters. Based on the scale of the ammunition used and the information collected from within Hezbollah, Israeli intelligence thinks that Nasrallah has been killed. If it is indeed true, it could be another major turning point in the turbulent Middle East politics. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told world leaders at the United Nations on Friday that his nation will continue degrading Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran until it achieves its goals. Netanyahu's speech at the UN General Assembly on Friday was a clear hint that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) may bnot come around for a cease-fire despite Lebanon suffering heavy losses in the war. FULL REPORT | Israel seeks peace but fights for life: Netanyahu declares at UN General Assembly Since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Tel Aviv has been fighting with the aim to 'destroy' the Hamas group. Tensions in the Middle East intensified since the Israel-Hamas war. Netanyahu said that if Hamas stays in power in Gaza, it will regroup, rearm and attack Israel again. Here are five notable parts from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the UN General Assembly on Friday amidst the ongoing war in the Middle East: 1. On war with Hezbollah: Ive come here to say, enough is enough... We wont rest until our citizens return safely to our homes. ALSO READ | Why Hezbollah chose to fire 'Qader-1', a ballistic missile with a 500-kg warhead and a range of 190 km, to Tel Aviv For 18 years Hezbollah brazenly refuses to implement UNSC resolution 1701, and puts a missile in every kitchen, a rocket in every garage, endangering their own people. Israel has every right to return its citizens safely and we will continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met, he said. 2. On war with Hamas in Gaza: According to the Israel PM, Hamas has got to go. because, If Hamas stays in power, it will regroup and rearm and attack Israel again and again and again as it has vowed to do. Elaborating on his plans for Tel Aviv's relationship with Gaza, Netanyahu said Israel will support any local civil administration in Gaza that is committed to coexistence, 3. On Israel-Saudi relations: Netanyahu hit a tone of positivity when he said that this country must achieve a historic peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. What a blessing such a peace with Saudi Arabia would bring... It would be a true pivot of history, he said. According to him, a reconciliation between Mecca and Jerusalem could bring a boon to tourism, trade, energy, AI, and much more. 4. On Israel-Iran relations: He launched a scathing attack against Tehran, he said, "For too long, the world has appeased Iran," and that appeasement must end. If you strike us, we will strike you... We dont want to see a single innocent person die, thats always a tragedy... Yes we are defending ourselves, but we are also defending ourselves against a common enemy, he said. 5. Criticises UN for backing Israel's foes: "...This UN house of darkness... In this swamp of antisemitic bile, there is a majority willing to dehumanise the Jewish state" he said. Netanyahu told the House that in the last decade, there have been more resolutions passed against Israel than against the entire world combined. The real war criminals are in Iran, Gaza, Syria and Lebanon, he said. "What hypocrisy. What a double standard. What a joke." World Tourism Day has been celebrated annually on September 27 since 1980. An initiative by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, the aim of the celebration has been to focus on looking at tourism from a global scale beyond economic impact and more in line with fostering socio-political as well as cultural dialogue, exchange and harmony. Culture is one of the primary motivations for travelling. Be it nationally or internationally. In India, we are fortunate to have historic marvels in every nook and corner. Places of religious worship, archaeological sites, monuments, forts and palaces. Sadly, many of these are either poorly preserved and maintained or simply not marketed and promoted. For the financial year of 2024-2025, the Union Budget allocated Rs 2,479 crore with the hope of improving infrastructure and marketing tourist destinations. The budget allocation also led to a direct increase in travel and tourism stocks. Despite this, the recent events at Taj Mahal make me wonder if the celebration of World Tourism Day serves a larger, deeper impact or is it merely a day to inundate social media with travel photographs and videos? Does allocating large budgets materialise in good practice conservation or mass tourism? Taj Mahal is one of the seven wonders of the world and receives an approximate of eight million visitors annually. Overtourism and visitor numbers had surged to the point where the authorities were forced to charge a fine to people lingering for longer than three hours. Despite these growing numbers, the positive economic impact and hefty revenue the monument generates for all of Agra, the historic marvels condition is dismal at present. There is vegetation cutting into ornate marble work and cracks developing in the walls. A lone peepal tree has sprouted on the grand dome of the magnificent structure as water leaks on the tombs of Shah Jahan and his wife Mumtaz, the eternal love story that the Taj is an ode to. To add to the sorry state of affairs is water flooding around the monument. A testament to poor city planning and unplanned development, which is a growing concern with cities across India. Is this really the way a UNESCO World Heritage site should be preserved? Does having a single day to celebrate world tourism make a difference? While it does encourage dialogues on nurturing peaceful coexistence and mutual cultural appreciation globally, I am not certain of the onground impact such celebrations make. The Archaeological Survey of India, the custodian of the Taj is now left with the arduous task to build the trust back of locals and tourists who rely on the national bodys expertise in preservation and maintenance of the monument. It must also respond to the rising questions of corruption and mismanagement of funds. There is also the larger question of a clash of political ideologies as the possible cause of neglect. Could the Mughal history of the monument be the reason for the lack of attention and preservation? Historically, politics and religion have heavily influenced the commissioning of a building. Be it the temples of ancient India or Taj Mahal of Mughal India. However, we do live in a democracy with a culturally diverse landscape. The historic sites, the broad range of languages and dialects, the regional cuisines, crafts, arts. The list is endless. If we subtract politics and religion from this equation, heritage, cultural marvels can be preserved for the power they have. To be meeting points for cultural diversity and to bring together communities in peace and harmony. Saudi Tourism for example, has recently launched a week long exhibition titled Spectacular Saudi in Mumbai. The event, inaugurated on September 24 aims to give the cultural connoisseur a taste of Saudi. Thus, not only luring and intriguing more tourists to visit Saudi Arabia but also encouraging cross-cultural dialogues, which foster good socio-political relations. True to this year's theme for World Tourism Day of Tourism and Peace. There is a 6.54 per cent projected growth rate in the global cultural tourism market by 2030 and the Indian tourism ministry reports suggest that almost 40 per cent of tourists who arrived in India last year could be categorised as cultural tourists. Should these figures not be a compelling enough reason to preserve cultural heritage sites not just on World Tourism Day, irrespective of religious and political divides? Immersive experiences are captivating audiences globally. For almost a decade now, the way we view and experience art has drastically changed with the influence and emergence of cutting-edge technology. VR, AR, AI...the list of sophisticated technology is long and tedious. But are these experiences anything more than an Instagram trending bubble waiting to burst? Similar to the viral cafes with floral decor and beautifully presented brunch food where meals are photographed more than consumed, art consumers too may be slowly losing their appetite and attention span for authentic art. Housed in museums and galleries, works of art take years of continuous research and documentation to be vetted and displayed. Even after being displayed, there is a range of conservation methods, temperature temperature-controlled facilities that allow these artworks to continue being displayed for decades at a stretch. There are curatorial and programming teams, working tirelessly to continue making these collections relatable and relevant year after year. In comparison, immersive art experiences put together in a matter of a few months or years seem to have visitors flocking in thousands. I too am one of those visitors who has had many splendid experiences at immersive shows. There was a sense of excitement in watching a painting of Claude Monets Water Lilies consume an entire wall. The painting would slowly dissolve into smithereens and then the screen would be overwhelmed by his magnificent work of art, Bridge over a Pond of Waterlilies. What a sensory delight to see these artworks in such grandeur! However, as momentarily exciting as the experience was, I knew nothing of the painting, the artist, or the influences that led him to create this piece of art. Nor did I learn anything about impressionism, the art movement Monet is connected witha movement and style of art that continues to inspire artists for its delicate brush strokes, nature and play of light. Definitely, no intellectual stimulation or in-depth analysis here. Immersive exhibitions of deceased Masters such as Vincent Van Gogh, Gustav Klimt, Salvador Dali, have made their way to India as well. The Vincent Van Gogh immersive exhibition took place in various cities across India from Mumbai and Delhi to Pune and Bangalore. With tickets selling out in minutes, the exhibition invited people from all age groups to see up close the works of Van Gogh. Yes, these immersive experiences do democratise art, allowing audiences to access art they would not normally have the opportunity. They also build for a community experience, tapping into a new way of experiencing art. However, with expensive tickets ranging from 20 to 40 pounds and Rs 1000 to Rs 2500, are these really democratising art? A museum in India costs an average of Rs 100 while in countries such as the United Kingdom national museums are free of charge. If funds of this scale were allotted to museums and institutions that house priceless works of art, they may perhaps be able to create experiences revolving around their collections. Invigorating the audience with similar technology but the visitor may leave learning a thing or two in the process or be inspired by the said artist. These are historic landmarks that need funding to keep their buildings and collections in pristine condition. I was not creatively inspired or awed after visiting the Van Gogh immersive exhibition. Nor did I learn anything about the artist. Immersive experiences do have their advantages and perks when planned effectively. But travel shows such as these are simply a sad reflection of the way we are viewing art. Art, which is supposed to touch the soul and not just exist simply as an Instagrammable moment. Keeping artistic integrity in mind and prioritising art history perhaps it is time museums and galleries do more to captivate an audience and combat the gimmick of commercially benefiting immersive experiences. Perhaps then art would be consumed in its purest form and may perhaps be freed from the shackles of technology. The visitor left to dissect and disseminate, to ponder and reflect. Viewed 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. A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate fluoride in drinking water because high levels could pose a risk to the intellectual development of children. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen cautioned that its not certain that the amount of fluoride typically added to water is causing lower IQ in kids, but he concluded that mounting research points to an unreasonable risk that it could be. He ordered the EPA to take steps to lower that risk, but didnt say what those measures should be. Its the first time a federal judge has made a determination about the neurodevelopmental risks to children of the recommended U.S. water fluoride level, said Ashley Malin, a University of Florida researcher who has studied the effect of higher fluoride levels in pregnant women. She called it the most historic ruling in the U.S. fluoridation debate that weve ever seen. The judges ruling is another striking dissent to a practice that has been hailed as one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century. Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last month, a federal agency determined with moderate confidence that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. The National Toxicology Program based its conclusion on studies involving fluoride levels at about twice the recommended limit for drinking water. The EPA a defendant in the lawsuit argued that it wasnt clear what impact fluoride exposure might have at lower levels. But the agency is required to make sure there is a margin between the hazard level and exposure level. And if there is an insufficient margin, then the chemical poses a risk, Chen wrote in his 80-page ruling Tuesday. Simply put, the risk to health at exposure levels in United States drinking water is sufficiently high to trigger regulatory response by the EPA under federal law, he wrote. An EPA spokesperson, Jeff Landis, said the agency was reviewing the decision but offered no further comment. In 1950, federal officials endorsed water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay, and they continued to promote it even after fluoride toothpaste brands hit the market several years later. Fluoride can come from a number of sources, but drinking water is the main source for Americans, researchers say. Nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population currently gets fluoridated drinking water, according to CDC data. Since 2015, federal health officials have recommended a fluoridation level of 0.7 milligrams per liter of water. For five decades before that, the recommended upper range was 1.2. The World Health Organization has set a safe limit for fluoride in drinking water of 1.5. Separately, the EPA has a longstanding requirement that water systems cannot have more than 4 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water. That standard is designed to prevent skeletal fluorosis, a potentially crippling disorder which causes weaker bones, stiffness and pain. But in the last two decades, studies have suggested a different problem: a link between fluoride and brain development. Researchers wondered about the impact on developing fetuses and very young children who might ingest water with baby formula. Studies in animals showed fluoride could impact neurochemistry cell function in brain regions responsible for learning, memory, executive function and behavior. The court case, argued in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, started in 2017. The lead plaintiff was Food & Water Watch, a not-for-profit environmental advocacy organization. Chen paused the proceedings in 2020 to await the results of the National Toxicology Program report, but he heard lawyers arguments about the case earlier this year. In our view, the only effective way to eliminate the risk from adding fluoride chemicals to water is to stop adding them, said Michael Connett, the plaintiffs lead attorney, in an email Wednesday. (AP) ISLAMABAD, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Eight people were injured in an explosion inside a police station in Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Thursday night, rescuers said. The accident happened in Swabi district of the province where a fire broke out prior to the explosion, severely damaging a room in the police station and reducing it to rubble, Bilal Faizi, spokesperson of the state-owned rescue organization Rescue 1122, told Xinhua. He said that the fire erupted inside the room where explosive materials, recovered from terrorists during separate operations, were stored. The fire was apparently caused by a short circuit, ultimately triggering the explosion, Faizi said. The injured people have been shifted to a nearby hospital, where two of them were in critical condition, he added. An investigation into the accident was underway. U.K. transport officials and police said Thursday they are investigating a cyber-security incident after users of public Wi-Fi networks at the countrys biggest railway stations reported being shown anti-Muslim messages. Passengers trying to log onto the Wi-Fi at 19 stations, including Manchester Piccadilly, Birmingham New Street and several London terminuses, on Wednesday evening were met by a page reading We love you, Europe, followed by an anti-Islam message listing a series of terror attacks. Network Rail, which manages the stations, said the Wi-Fi had been switched off and no passenger data was taken. British Transport Police are investigating the incident, Network Rail said in a statement. This service is provided via a third party and has been suspended while an investigation is under way. The police force confirmed it was investigating reports of Islamophobic messaging on some Network Rail Wi-Fi services. Telent, the company that provides the stations Wi-Fi, said an unauthorized change to the landing page was made from a legitimate administrator account and that the matter was now subject to criminal investigation. The incident follows a more disruptive cyberattack in early September on Transport for London, which runs the capitals bus, subway and suburban train system. TFL said some customer names, contact details and potentially bank account details were exposed in the attack, which is being investigated by the National Crime Agency. A 17-year-old was arrested over the attack, questioned and bailed without being charged. Weeks on, the attack continues to affect the transit companys ability to provide some online services such as refunds and real-time transit information. (AP) Ukraines air defenses battled an overnight Russian aerial attack on the capital Kyiv for five hours, officials said Thursday, as missiles and drones again hammered the Ukrainian power grid. The Kyiv attack injured at least two people, Ukraines Emergency Service said. A kindergarten, a gas pipe and around 20 cars were damaged in the city, said the Kyiv Military Administration. In western Ukraine, the air force said, Russia fired three Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missiles one of Russias most advanced weapons in the direction of Starokostiantyniv, a city in the Khmelnytskyi region, on Thursday morning. The air force said it could not make further information public, suggesting the missiles were aimed at a sensitive site. Long-range strikes have been a hallmark of Russias military campaign in Ukraine, now deep in its third year, often hitting civilian areas. Attacks on the electricity network have knocked out around 70% of Ukraines energy generation capacity, according to the United Nations, bringing blackouts as winter approaches. Air defense systems are a critical need for Ukraine, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to meet President Joe Biden in Washington on Thursday in an effort to ensure continuing U.S. military support for his country. Energy infrastructure was hit in Ukraines western Ivano-Frankivsk region, causing a blackout in parts of the regional capital of the same name, regional Gov. Svitlana Onyshchuk said. The power grid was also targeted in the southern Mykolaiv region, local authorities said without immediately providing further details. Russia launched six missiles and 78 Shahed drones at Ukraine overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, Ukraines air force said. Defenses destroyed four of the missiles and 66 drones in the air, it said. In the south, a missile killed a 62-year-old woman in the Odesa region, where homes and cars were damaged, regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said. In the city of Zaporizhzhia, at least 10 people were injured in the overnight attack, including a 14-year-old, said regional governor Ivan Fedorov. He published photographs of houses with their windows blown out and walls riddled with shrapnel. The Emergency Service said 12 residential buildings were damaged in the city and 18 people were evacuated. Meanwhile, in the northeastern Sumy region ordnance experts defused a 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) glide bomb that landed without exploding next to a bridge over the River Psel. (AP) A CNN report showcased the political opinions of fourth graders across New Jersey, Texas, and Arizona, as they shared their candid thoughts on Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. The report, introduced by CNNs Kasie Hunt, was created in partnership with a Stanford political scientist and an Arizona State University psychologist. When asked what came to mind when seeing a picture of Harris, one boy quickly responded, Liar. Meanwhile, another girl described Trump as pure evil and added, I feel like all he does is complain and, like, yell. Despite some of the harsh criticisms, there were also positive comments. One girl praised Trump, saying, Donald Trump, hes given his life and his heart. The boy who called Harris a liar then made a sharp comparison between the two candidates, asking, Convicted felon against a liar, who do I pick? The interviews also touched on Harriss potential to make history. One girl said she believed Harris would help inspire kids, and CNNs data found that two-thirds of the children interviewed felt the country was ready for a black woman president. CNNs analysis indicated that Democrat-supporting kids drove polarization, while children supporting Trump were more likely to repeat misinformation. One girl expressed that while Harris becoming president would be historic, she still supported Trump. Itd be good for us to have a black woman as president for the first time in history, she said, but my votes kind of still on Trump. (YWN World Headquarters NYC) Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime murderous radical Islamist leader of the Iran-backed, Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorist organization, is dead, the IDF confirmed on Motzei Shabbos. Nasrallah was killed along with other senior Hezbollah officials. IDF Chief of Staff Herzi HaLevi said: Nasrallah indiscriminately murdered Israeli civilians and intended to end this war with the destruction of the State of Israel. We made sure that did not occur. We eliminated him and we will continue to grow stronger. Hezbollah has murdered innocent people worldwide, hiding weapons under the homes of families, women and children and turning them into human shields. As we have shown, we will not allow such a threat to our citizens. We are determined to continue destroying Hezbollah and keep fighting. On Friday, Israeli Air Force jets rained over 80 tons of bunker-buster bombs on a massive, high-rise civilian building complex in southern Beirut that housed Hezbollahs primary headquarters deep underground. The resultant explosions leveled at least six large buildings and left a gaping crater at the site, with almost no chance of survival for anyone inside or below. Irans state-sponsored media and Hezbollah sources at first claimed that Nasrallah is safe, but have since retracted the claim eerily reminiscent of when they did the same when the IDF assassinated top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, and following the helicopter crash that killed former Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi. Nasrallahs death is the heaviest blow against terrorists since the war began on October 7. Since September 17 the day that Hezbollah pagers mysteriously began exploding, wounding and maiming thousands of terrorists Israel has effectively wiped out the entire leadership of the terrorist organization. On September 18th, Hezbollah walkie-talkies exploded, and on September 22nd, the IDF launched a blist.ring succession of bombings and targeted airstrikes across southern Lebanon that have decimated the terrorist force. (YWN World Headquarters NYC) An official from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus team says that there are ongoing efforts to advance negotiations for the release of hostages, with Mossad chief David Barnea frequently traveling to move talks forward. There are attempts all the time, the official said, adding that the current focus is on resolving less contentious issues to create momentum, such as exchanging hostages for Palestinian security prisoners. However, communication has hit a significant roadblock, with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar being out of touch for weeks, according to the official. Despite Israel requesting assistance from Egypt and Qatar to reach Hamas, there has been no response. While Sinwars status remains uncertain, the official stated that Israel does not currently believe he is dead but noted that if he were killed, we believe it will help us reach a deal. (YWN World Headquarters NYC) As Operation Northern Arrows continues, Hezbollah on Friday fired multiple rocket barrages at northern Israel, Haifa and Tiveria. Beginning early Friday morning, Hezbollah fired a missile at the Tiveria area. The missile fell in the Kinneret and bChasdei Hashem, there were no casualties. Tiveria Mayor Yossi Neveah called the first missile that fell in the sea a Rosh Hashanah neis, saying: The missile fell 20 meters from the shore its a Rosh Hashanah neis for Tiveria residents. Rocket interceptions over Tiveria: Later in the morning, Hezbollah fired another barrage of about 10 rockets at the Haifa area and nearby cities and yishuvim. A number of rocket hit sites were reported. Shrapnel fell near several private homes, on a car, and in a forest. BChasdei Hashem no one was injured by shrapnel but two people were lightly injured as they ran to shelters. Another barrage was later fired at the Tiveria area and nearby areas in the Lower Galil. A construction worker was moderately to severely wounded by shrapnel from one of the rockets. The other rockets were intercepted or fell into the sea. Later on Friday morning, Hezbollah fired four suicide drones at the coastal area of Rosh HaNikra. All the drones were intercepted. Overnight Thursday, a missile fired by the Houthis was intercepted over Tel Aviv. (YWN Israel Desk Jerusalem) Time for change: Chancellor Rachel Reeves Labour has an uphill task fulfilling its growth mission. The bible of 'Mission Economics' was written by University College of London professor Mariana Mazzucato. She took as her blueprint John F Kennedy's race to the moon amid fears that the old Soviet Union's Sputnik programme was winning in space. The US eventually triumphed by incorporating the mission into every relevant part of government, from the Treasury to the Pentagon and university research programmes. Growth is a much more nebulous concept, and in the past has left many government efforts sinking in the treacle of bureaucracy. Harold Wilson's 1960s vision of an economy propelled by the 'white heat of technology' ended in failure. A newly created Department of Economic Affairs was gobbled up by the Treasury. British Leyland effectively sank the ambitions of the National Enterprise Board. There has been a perpetual struggle between the UK's vulnerability on global markets and efforts to power up output. Wilson was defeated by a trade deficit and a run on the pound. George Osborne's austerity was the result of the 2008 great financial crisis. Liz Truss's supply side zeal was crushed in the gilts market. Rachel Reeves' dismal narrative stems from concerns that the new Labour Government could be smashed by borrowing and debt. Much of what Reeves has done, or is planning so far, is anti-growth. Policies such as closing loopholes on North Sea oil exploration, the threats of increases in capital gains, inheritance and pension taxes all run counter to endeavour and enterprise. Nevertheless, the Chancellor is not totally immune to pressure, as her willingness to dilute plans to close non-domiciled loopholes suggests. Similarly, she and the Treasury are set to change fiscal rules, which guide budgetary policy, to create as much space as possible for investment. If the growth mission is to have any real chance of lift-off, the Chancellor will need buy-in from the City and asset managers. Both former chancellor Jeremy Hunt and now Reeves are striving to unlock pension fund cash for investment in start-ups, infrastructure, green energy and equity investment. The fall in pension fund investment in UK equities to less just 3pc on some measures is usually ascribed to Gordon Brown's removal of the tax relief which was received on dividends. There also is a body of opinion in the Square Mile and Whitehall, which now thinks that Osborne's post-financial crisis reform of City regulation has played a big role in suppressing animal spirits. After the supervisory laxity of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the Bank of England in the run-up to the banking implosion, which began with Northern Rock in 2007, City regulation was turned on its head. It moved from its traditional principles based regime, which offered flexibility, to a cumbersome rules based system. Banks, insurers and pension funds were compelled or required to hold vast amounts of capital, much of it tied up in government bonds. The separation of 'casino' style investment banking from commercial and consumer banking, led to most of the High Street banks becoming risk averse, shedding trading and broking activities. Only Barclays, with the help of gung-ho former chief executive Bob Diamond, stuck with the riskier mandate. The malfunctioning FSA was replaced by the Financial Conduct Authority, which has ladled on layers of ever more complex rules. Even the most simple tasks, such as winning approval for lowly executives to be approved persons, became doggedly bureaucratic. The hopelessly intrusive rules and disclosure requirements governing company listing on the London Stock Exchange sent many promising new and established companies off to New York and Amsterdam. The only flourishing areas were the wholesale markets, such as foreign exchange and derivatives. They are so large, established and powerful that they were effectively uncontrollable. The ultimate irony would be the sight of a Labour government sweeping the rule-based system put in place by the Tory dominated coalition into the sea. Under Nikhil Rathi, the FCA rapidly has sought to simplify enforcement and make listings easier. Reeves is set to formally remind the FCA and the Bank of England's rigid Prudential Regulatory Administration of the 'growth' mission at the time of the budget. Lighter touch regulation is to make a comeback. An Australian property giant owned by Rupert Murdoch was told last night it needs to offer at least 7billion for Rightmove to be in with a chance of a deal. It came after Rea Group made a fourth bid for the British home listings giant, which valued the company at 6.2billion. Rightmove said yesterday that it will consider the latest proposal, having already rejected three earlier bids worth 5.6billion, 5.9billion and 6.1billion. And the FTSE 100 property website group did not grant Rea's request to extend the bid deadline from 5pm on Monday. Shares in Rightmove rose 0.5 per cent, or 3.6p, to 668.6p yesterday, still languishing below the 781p offer price in a sign that investors do not believe an agreement will be reached. No deal: Rupert Murdoch's Rea Group was told it needs to offer at least 7billion for Rightmove to be in with a chance of a deal Rea said it was 'disappointed' that Rightmove's board, led by chairman Andrew Fisher, had not yet engaged in takeover talks. The Melbourne-based group's chief executive Owen Wilson flew to London yesterday in the hope of meeting Rightmove directors. He joined Rea chairman Hamish McLennan, who jetted in earlier this week to meet Rightmove shareholders. They will hold further talks with Rightmove shareholders over the weekend, urging them to pressure the firm's board to engage. 'Rea has repeatedly requested meetings with Rightmove but no meetings have taken place and as such there has been no substantive engagement beyond cursory procedural telephone calls with the Rightmove chairman,' a Rea spokesman said. Several investors including Axa have broken cover to say Rightmove directors should come to the table. But others said the property platform should hold its nerve. 'The Rightmove board should be in no rush, if at all, to engage with Rea based on its slightly sweetened offer,' a spokesman for Sanford DeLand Asset Management, which holds a 16m stake in the firm, told the Mail. 'We do not share Rea's logic that a combination will realise value given it has no existing operations in the UK.' He said there was 'zero appeal' in 'exchanging 100 per cent of what is a great British organic growth story for part cash and part paper in Rea which has been assembled largely through M&A'. 'It would take nothing short of a knockout bid with full cash alternative to change our view,' he added. Peel Hunt analysts Jessica Pok and Melanie Yang said the new offer was 'not strong enough' and cast doubt on Rea's ability to increase its bid further. They said Rightmove is worth at least 7billion. 'If Rightmove agrees to extend the deadline for a formal bid, it opens the possibility for Rea to increase its offer,' they said. 'However, we do not believe Rea can significantly increase the bid price.' Dan Coatsworth, investment analyst at AJ Bell, said: 'Rea doesn't seem to get the message. To really get this deal over the line, Rea needs to consider an all-cash offer. Shareholders know they are holding a unique asset for the UK stock market and the UK market leader for property portals. They aren't going to give that up unless Rea pays a premium price.' Suggesting Rea would need to pay over 800p a share, he added: 'It needs to dig a lot deeper or walk away.' Rea offered 781p per Rightmove share, including a special dividend of 6p. It has committed to a secondary listing in London that would allow British investors to own Rightmove shares. Titanic shipmaker Harland & Wolff has fallen into administration for the second time in five years putting 66 jobs at risk. The Belfast-based company warned such a move was imminent after a review found that its holding company, Harland & Wolff Group, was insolvent. Harland & Wolff is best known for building the ill-fated Titanic in Belfast and also runs the historic Appledore shipyard in Devon and two more sites in Scotland. The 163-year-old firm has been hunting for cash in recent months as it struggles to keep up with competitors and deal with its debts. The group said it has appointed Gavin Park and Matt Cowlishaw of Teneo Financial Advisory Limited as joint administrators. Uncertain times: Harland & Wolff is best known for building the ill-fated Titanic in Belfast It warned there would be job losses but did not disclose how many of its 66 employees would be affected. The insolvency process does not include subsidiaries in Northern Ireland and Scotland or Devon. Another London-listed company looks set to fall prey to private equity predators from the United States. Learning Technologies, which provides software to help businesses recruit and train employees, said it has been approached by buyout company General Atlantic about a takeover worth 100p a share or 800m. The company said it was likely to recommend a formal bid at that price to shareholders. Shares soared 28.2 per cent, or 21.1p, to 96p, but the stock is still trading below its peak of 236p in September 2021. Learning Technologies said the proposal, which follows earlier approaches, includes an option for its shareholders to co-invest in General Atlantic's unlisted acquisition vehicle. In demand: Learning Technologies has been approached by buyout company General Atlantic about a takeover worth 100p a share or 800m The US private equity firm has until October 25 to announce whether it wants to make an official offer or walk away. Green energy firm Ceres Power more than doubled its revenues after landing a major deal. Sales rose to 28.5m in the six months to the end of June, up from 11.7m during the same period in 2023. The group also reported record orders worth 46.9m in the first half, taking the total to 103.3m since the start of 2024. The gains were driven by a major manufacturing licensing deal announced in January with Taiwan's Delta Electronics. Ceres will share and licence its hydrogen technology to Delta, which wants to start making fuel cells by the end of 2026 that can be used to power its products. The London-listed firm landed a similar contract with Japan's Denso in July. As a result, Ceres reiterated its upgraded annual forecast for revenues of 50m to 60m in 2024. Shares surged 26.6 per cent, or 53.2p, to 253.4p. Clean Power Hydrogen's losses widened from 1.6m to 2.3m in the first half of 2024. The results came a day after the firm reported its 'most significant milestone' as new test results paved the way for the commercial roll-out of its technology. Shares, which soared 28 per cent on Thursday, fell 4.9 per cent, or 0.55p, to 10.65p. On the wider market, the FTSE 100 rose 0.4 per cent, or 35.85 points, to 8320.76 and the FTSE 250 added 1.1 per cent, or 230.12 points, to 21240.56. Prudential has signed a partnership with the sixth largest bank in Indonesia. The London-listed firm will become the life insurance provider of Bank Syariah Indonesia (BSI), which has more than 20m customers and more than 1,000 bank branches, from early next year. Shares gained 2.7 per cent, or 18.4p, to 700p. Health care group Haleon is to pay 500m to increase its stake in Tianjin Pharmaceutical (TSKF), its joint business in China, from 55 per cent to 88 per cent. Haleon will also have an option to buy the remaining 12 per cent stake in TSKF. Shares rose 1.7 per cent, or 6.5p, to 396.6p. Tech firm Big Technologies launched its maiden share buyback. It will purchase nearly 6m worth of shares from investors. Shares rose 6.8 per cent, or 8p, to 125p. By Xinhua writer Tang Binhui LAHORE, Pakistan, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- "The Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT) is a very good project and I hope China will further engage such projects in Pakistan," said Safdar Husain, an advocate at Lahore High Court, who is a frequent commuter of the metro service. The Orange Line subway project was jointly constructed by China Railway Group Corporation and China North Industries Corporation under the framework of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Pakistan's east Lahore city. It was put into operation on Oct. 25, 2020. Syed Sana, a student of Lahore College for Women University, told Xinhua that before the introduction of the OLMT, she relied on public transportation, which was time-consuming and very expensive. "After its completion, traveling within Lahore has become incredibly easy, affordable and comfortable. As a female, I appreciate the security and convenience it offers," said Sana. She added that it efficiently connects one end of Lahore to the other, reducing the need for personal vehicles and consequently decreasing pollution. Talking to Xinhua, Adnan, an employee working at a private office near the OLMT route, said he used to go to work by motorcycle, regardless of winter, summer, or rainy days. "Now my difficulties are gone and all sorts of people, like blue workers, students and professionals, are using the metro train service," Adnan said. According to the project staff, the Orange Line has been operating safely for 47 months, with train punctuality and fulfillment rates at the industry's leading level. The total passenger flow exceeded 10 million on March 12, 2021, and exceeded 200 million in September 2024. "Due to the construction of this massive project, there are a lot of business activities going on in this area," Husain said. The train also passes by some of the cultural and historical sites of the city, helping tourists to get there easily and promoting tourism of the millennium-old city known as the cultural hub of Pakistan. Launched in 2013, CPEC, a flagship project of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, is a corridor linking the Gwadar Port in southwest Pakistan's Balochistan province with Kashgar in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. It highlights energy, transport, and industrial cooperation in the first phase, and expands to areas such as agriculture and livelihood in the new phase. Electron Capital Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR Free Report) by 220.7% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,041,594 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock after acquiring an additional 716,816 shares during the period. Digital Realty Trust makes up about 3.6% of Electron Capital Partners LLCs investment portfolio, making the stock its 4th largest holding. Electron Capital Partners LLC owned about 0.33% of Digital Realty Trust worth $158,374,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Several other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. APG Asset Management N.V. increased its position in Digital Realty Trust by 226.1% during the second quarter. APG Asset Management N.V. now owns 36,634 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $5,197,000 after acquiring an additional 25,400 shares during the period. AXA S.A. increased its holdings in Digital Realty Trust by 23.6% in the 2nd quarter. AXA S.A. now owns 335,564 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $51,023,000 after buying an additional 64,017 shares during the period. Trinity Legacy Partners LLC increased its holdings in Digital Realty Trust by 1.3% in the 2nd quarter. Trinity Legacy Partners LLC now owns 23,089 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $3,511,000 after buying an additional 286 shares during the period. Fred Alger Management LLC increased its holdings in Digital Realty Trust by 87.0% in the 2nd quarter. Fred Alger Management LLC now owns 7,035 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $1,070,000 after buying an additional 3,273 shares during the period. Finally, BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp boosted its stake in shares of Digital Realty Trust by 65.4% in the 2nd quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 59,815 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $9,095,000 after purchasing an additional 23,657 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 99.71% of the companys stock. Get Digital Realty Trust alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on DLR shares. Mizuho assumed coverage on shares of Digital Realty Trust in a research note on Thursday, July 11th. They issued an outperform rating and a $170.00 price target on the stock. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their price target on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $143.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research report on Thursday, May 30th. TD Cowen dropped their price target on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $122.00 to $120.00 and set a hold rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, July 26th. BMO Capital Markets upgraded shares of Digital Realty Trust from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $144.00 to $170.00 in a research note on Wednesday, June 26th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $155.00 to $170.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 23rd. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating, ten have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Digital Realty Trust presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $154.00. Digital Realty Trust Stock Performance NYSE:DLR opened at $162.90 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $53.34 billion, a PE ratio of 45.25, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.14 and a beta of 0.60. Digital Realty Trust, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $113.94 and a fifty-two week high of $165.17. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81, a quick ratio of 1.78 and a current ratio of 1.78. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $152.17 and a 200-day moving average price of $147.46. Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 25th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.20 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $1.63 by ($1.43). Digital Realty Trust had a return on equity of 5.93% and a net margin of 20.58%. The business had revenue of $1.36 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $1.38 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.68 EPS. The businesss revenue was down .7% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts predict that Digital Realty Trust, Inc. will post 6.65 earnings per share for the current year. Digital Realty Trust Announces Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 30th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 13th will be given a dividend of $1.22 per share. This represents a $4.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.00%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 13th. Digital Realty Trusts dividend payout ratio is currently 135.56%. Insider Buying and Selling at Digital Realty Trust In other news, Director Jean F. H. P. Mandeville sold 600 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $150.26, for a total transaction of $90,156.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,055 shares in the company, valued at $1,360,604.30. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Insiders own 0.17% of the companys stock. Digital Realty Trust Company Profile (Free Report) Digital Realty brings companies and data together by delivering the full spectrum of data center, colocation, and interconnection solutions. PlatformDIGITAL, the company's global data center platform, provides customers with a secure data meeting place and a proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx) solution methodology for powering innovation and efficiently managing Data Gravity challenges. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding DLR? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Digital Realty Trust Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Digital Realty Trust and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Frederick County Bancorp (MD) (OTCMKTS:FCBI Get Free Report) shares passed below its 200-day moving average during trading on Tuesday . The stock has a 200-day moving average of $36.00 and traded as low as $36.00. Frederick County Bancorp (MD) shares last traded at $36.00, with a volume of 600 shares traded. Frederick County Bancorp (MD) Price Performance The company has a market cap of $57.85 million, a P/E ratio of 25.35 and a beta of 0.34. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $36.00 and a 200 day moving average of $36.00. About Frederick County Bancorp (MD) (Get Free Report) Frederick County Bancorp, Inc operates as the holding company for Frederick County Bank that provides various banking services to individuals and commercial enterprises in the Frederick County, Maryland. It offers deposit products, including personal checking accounts, savings accounts, money market accounts, certificates of deposit, individual retirement accounts, and health savings accounts; and business checking accounts, savings and money market accounts, and certificates of deposits. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Frederick County Bancorp (MD) Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Frederick County Bancorp (MD) and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Invesco High Income Trust II (NYSE:VLT Get Free Report) saw a significant decrease in short interest in September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 14,600 shares, a decrease of 60.5% from the August 31st total of 37,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 27,700 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 0.5 days. Institutional Trading of Invesco High Income Trust II An institutional investor recently raised its position in Invesco High Income Trust II stock. Park Avenue Securities LLC boosted its stake in Invesco High Income Trust II (NYSE:VLT Free Report) by 4.0% in the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 67,370 shares of the financial services providers stock after purchasing an additional 2,595 shares during the period. Park Avenue Securities LLC owned about 1.04% of Invesco High Income Trust II worth $723,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. 21.63% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Invesco High Income Trust II alerts: Invesco High Income Trust II Stock Up 0.7 % Shares of NYSE:VLT traded up $0.08 during trading on Thursday, hitting $11.49. 15,878 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 22,188. Invesco High Income Trust II has a 1-year low of $9.29 and a 1-year high of $11.50. The businesss 50 day moving average is $11.08 and its 200-day moving average is $10.76. Invesco High Income Trust II Announces Dividend Invesco High Income Trust II Company Profile The business also recently disclosed a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 30th. Investors of record on Tuesday, September 17th will be issued a $0.0964 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 17th. This represents a $1.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 10.07%. (Get Free Report) Invesco High Income Trust II is a closed ended fixed income mutual fund launched by Invesco Ltd. The fund is co-managed by Invesco Advisers, Inc, INVESCO Asset Management (Japan) Limited, INVESCO Asset Management Deutschland GmbH, INVESCO Asset Management Limited, Invesco Hong Kong Limited, INVESCO Senior Secured Management, Inc, and Invesco Canada Ltd. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Invesco High Income Trust II Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Invesco High Income Trust II and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. iShares MSCI Colombia ETF (NYSEARCA:ICOL Get Free Report)s stock price fell 0.2% during trading on Thursday . The stock traded as low as $9.00 and last traded at $9.02. 4,100 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 89% from the average session volume of 36,905 shares. The stock had previously closed at $9.04. iShares MSCI Colombia ETF Stock Down 0.2 % The firm has a fifty day moving average of $9.02 and a 200 day moving average of $9.02. Read More Receive News & Ratings for iShares MSCI Colombia ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for iShares MSCI Colombia ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. iShares Currency Hedged MSCI Switzerland ETF (NYSEARCA:HEWL Get Free Report) were down 0.1% on Thursday . The company traded as low as $30.02 and last traded at $30.02. Approximately 700 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 54% from the average daily volume of 1,519 shares. The stock had previously closed at $30.04. iShares Currency Hedged MSCI Switzerland ETF Trading Down 0.1 % The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $30.02 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $30.02. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for iShares Currency Hedged MSCI Switzerland ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for iShares Currency Hedged MSCI Switzerland ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol Europe ETF (NYSEARCA:EUMV Get Free Report) shares dropped 0.1% during mid-day trading on Thursday . The company traded as low as $25.89 and last traded at $25.90. Approximately 74,000 shares were traded during mid-day trading, an increase of 299% from the average daily volume of 18,565 shares. The stock had previously closed at $25.92. iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol Europe ETF Trading Down 0.1 % The firms 50-day moving average is $25.90 and its 200-day moving average is $25.90. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol Europe ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol Europe ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol Asia ex Japan ETF (NYSEARCA:AXJV Get Free Report)s share price fell 0.4% on Thursday . The stock traded as low as $33.63 and last traded at $33.67. 600 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 82% from the average session volume of 3,339 shares. The stock had previously closed at $33.80. iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol Asia ex Japan ETF Stock Down 0.4 % The stocks fifty day moving average price is $33.67 and its 200-day moving average price is $33.67. See Also Receive News & Ratings for iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol Asia ex Japan ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol Asia ex Japan ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Bank of Ireland Group plc (LON:BIRG Get Free Report) shot up 4.6% during trading on Thursday . The company traded as high as GBX 10.74 ($0.14) and last traded at GBX 10.71 ($0.14). 50,869 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 88% from the average session volume of 440,827 shares. The stock had previously closed at GBX 10.24 ($0.14). Bank of Ireland Group Stock Up 4.6 % The firm has a market capitalization of 108.17 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.29 and a beta of 1.15. The firms 50 day moving average is GBX 10.06 and its 200 day moving average is GBX 9.94. Bank of Ireland Group Company Profile (Get Free Report) Bank of Ireland Group plc provides various banking and financial products and services. It provides current and savings accounts, and business deposits and accounts; personal, car, home improvement, graduate, motor finance, and student loans, as well as overdrafts; and business and farming loans, green business, insurance premium finance, invoice finance, hire purchase, and leasing services. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Bank of Ireland Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bank of Ireland Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Newmont Co. (NYSE:NEM Free Report) Equities research analysts at Raymond James boosted their Q3 2024 earnings per share estimates for shares of Newmont in a report released on Monday, September 23rd. Raymond James analyst B. Macarthur now forecasts that the basic materials company will earn $0.88 per share for the quarter, up from their previous estimate of $0.73. The consensus estimate for Newmonts current full-year earnings is $2.88 per share. Raymond James also issued estimates for Newmonts Q4 2024 earnings at $0.96 EPS, Q1 2025 earnings at $0.91 EPS, Q2 2025 earnings at $0.95 EPS, Q3 2025 earnings at $0.97 EPS, Q4 2025 earnings at $0.97 EPS and FY2025 earnings at $3.80 EPS. Get Newmont alerts: Newmont (NYSE:NEM Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 24th. The basic materials company reported $0.72 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.62 by $0.10. The company had revenue of $4.40 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.13 billion. Newmont had a negative net margin of 13.16% and a positive return on equity of 8.35%. The firms revenue was up 64.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.33 earnings per share. Several other brokerages have also commented on NEM. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on Newmont from $56.00 to $57.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Thursday, July 25th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut shares of Newmont from an overweight rating to a neutral rating in a research note on Monday, July 8th. CIBC upgraded shares of Newmont from a neutral rating to a sector outperform rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $46.00 to $61.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 10th. Scotiabank upgraded shares of Newmont from a sector perform rating to a sector outperform rating and lifted their target price for the company from $48.00 to $59.00 in a research report on Monday, August 19th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group upped their price target on shares of Newmont from $50.00 to $54.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Friday, July 12th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, ten have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Newmont has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $52.62. View Our Latest Analysis on NEM Newmont Price Performance NYSE:NEM opened at $55.54 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.85, a current ratio of 2.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. Newmont has a 52 week low of $29.42 and a 52 week high of $56.30. The stocks 50-day moving average price is $50.54 and its 200-day moving average price is $43.99. The stock has a market capitalization of $64.05 billion, a PE ratio of -20.80, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.47 and a beta of 0.49. Newmont Announces Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 30th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 5th will be given a dividend of $0.25 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 5th. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.80%. Newmonts payout ratio is -37.45%. Insiders Place Their Bets In other Newmont news, EVP Peter Toth sold 3,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $52.47, for a total value of $157,410.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 94,596 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $4,963,452.12. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other news, EVP Peter Toth sold 3,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $52.47, for a total value of $157,410.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 94,596 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $4,963,452.12. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Thomas Ronald Palmer sold 20,000 shares of Newmont stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $49.51, for a total transaction of $990,200.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 311,469 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,420,830.19. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 56,000 shares of company stock valued at $2,744,700. Insiders own 0.06% of the companys stock. Hedge Funds Weigh In On Newmont Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. LRI Investments LLC acquired a new position in Newmont in the first quarter valued at about $25,000. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC acquired a new position in shares of Newmont in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $25,000. Meeder Asset Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Newmont during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $27,000. Heritage Wealth Advisors increased its holdings in Newmont by 1,310.4% in the 1st quarter. Heritage Wealth Advisors now owns 945 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $34,000 after purchasing an additional 878 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Crewe Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Newmont in the first quarter valued at approximately $35,000. 68.85% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Newmont Company Profile (Get Free Report) Newmont Corporation engages in the production and exploration of gold. It also explores for copper, silver, zinc, and lead. The company has operations and/or assets in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Peru, Suriname, Argentina, Chile, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Ecuador, Fiji, and Ghana. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Newmont Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Newmont and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. IAMGOLD Co. (NYSE:IAG Free Report) (TSE:IMG) Stock analysts at Raymond James increased their Q3 2024 earnings estimates for IAMGOLD in a research report issued to clients and investors on Monday, September 23rd. Raymond James analyst F. Hamed now anticipates that the mining company will post earnings per share of $0.18 for the quarter, up from their previous estimate of $0.10. The consensus estimate for IAMGOLDs current full-year earnings is $0.45 per share. Raymond James also issued estimates for IAMGOLDs Q4 2024 earnings at $0.18 EPS, FY2024 earnings at $0.63 EPS, Q1 2025 earnings at $0.24 EPS, Q2 2025 earnings at $0.24 EPS, Q3 2025 earnings at $0.24 EPS, Q4 2025 earnings at $0.24 EPS and FY2025 earnings at $0.97 EPS. Get IAMGOLD alerts: Several other research firms have also weighed in on IAG. BMO Capital Markets reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $5.00 price objective on shares of IAMGOLD in a research note on Thursday, June 6th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of IAMGOLD from a sell rating to a hold rating in a report on Saturday, August 17th. Scotiabank raised their target price on IAMGOLD from $4.75 to $5.50 and gave the company a sector perform rating in a research note on Monday, August 19th. Finally, CIBC upped their price target on IAMGOLD from $4.90 to $5.40 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Monday, August 12th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, IAMGOLD presently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $4.73. IAMGOLD Stock Up 0.2 % Shares of IAMGOLD stock opened at $5.51 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $3.14 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.68 and a beta of 1.58. The stocks 50-day moving average is $4.72 and its 200 day moving average is $4.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30, a current ratio of 1.34 and a quick ratio of 0.90. IAMGOLD has a one year low of $1.99 and a one year high of $5.60. IAMGOLD (NYSE:IAG Get Free Report) (TSE:IMG) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The mining company reported $0.16 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.08 by $0.08. IAMGOLD had a net margin of 10.36% and a return on equity of 6.70%. The firm had revenue of $385.30 million for the quarter. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted ($0.01) EPS. Institutional Trading of IAMGOLD Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Van ECK Associates Corp grew its holdings in IAMGOLD by 8.2% during the first quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 52,053,035 shares of the mining companys stock worth $173,340,000 after buying an additional 3,935,250 shares in the last quarter. Donald Smith & CO. Inc. raised its holdings in shares of IAMGOLD by 0.8% in the first quarter. Donald Smith & CO. Inc. now owns 36,077,268 shares of the mining companys stock valued at $120,137,000 after purchasing an additional 298,959 shares during the last quarter. Helikon Investments Ltd raised its holdings in shares of IAMGOLD by 250.5% in the first quarter. Helikon Investments Ltd now owns 32,861,554 shares of the mining companys stock valued at $109,429,000 after purchasing an additional 23,485,183 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of IAMGOLD by 1.0% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 17,678,843 shares of the mining companys stock valued at $58,871,000 after purchasing an additional 168,302 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Polunin Capital Partners Ltd boosted its holdings in IAMGOLD by 12.1% during the first quarter. Polunin Capital Partners Ltd now owns 8,995,059 shares of the mining companys stock worth $29,954,000 after purchasing an additional 968,104 shares during the last quarter. 47.08% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. About IAMGOLD (Get Free Report) IAMGOLD Corporation, through its subsidiaries, operates as an intermediate gold producer and developer in Canada and Burkina Faso. It owns 100% interest in the Westwood project that covers an area of 1,925 hectare and located in Quebec; a 60% interest in the Cote gold project, which covers an area of 596 square kilometer located in Ontario, Canada; and a 90% interests in the Essakane project that covers an area of 274,000 square kilometer situated in Burkina Faso. Read More Receive News & Ratings for IAMGOLD Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for IAMGOLD and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. JAKARTA, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia and Papua New Guinea on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to promote political dialogue between the two countries' parliaments. The MoU was signed during a bilateral meeting between Speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives Puan Maharani and Speaker of the Papua New Guinea Parliament Job Pomat in Jakarta. "This allows both countries to discuss various issues, including parliamentary cooperation, economic collaboration, and border cooperation," said Puan. She hopes the MoU will maintain good relations and enhance cooperation between the neighboring countries in all fields, including trade and security. Centerra Gold Inc. (NYSE:CGAU Free Report) Raymond James increased their Q3 2024 earnings per share estimates for Centerra Gold in a report released on Monday, September 23rd. Raymond James analyst B. Macarthur now anticipates that the company will post earnings per share of $0.20 for the quarter, up from their prior estimate of $0.16. The consensus estimate for Centerra Golds current full-year earnings is $0.82 per share. Raymond James also issued estimates for Centerra Golds Q1 2025 earnings at $0.12 EPS, Q2 2025 earnings at $0.12 EPS, Q3 2025 earnings at $0.12 EPS, Q4 2025 earnings at $0.12 EPS and FY2025 earnings at $0.49 EPS. Get Centerra Gold alerts: Several other analysts have also recently issued reports on CGAU. Cibc World Mkts cut shares of Centerra Gold from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Wednesday, July 10th. CIBC reissued a neutral rating and issued a $13.00 target price (up previously from $11.00) on shares of Centerra Gold in a research report on Wednesday, July 10th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, Centerra Gold presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $11.00. Centerra Gold Stock Performance Shares of NYSE CGAU opened at $7.79 on Thursday. Centerra Gold has a 1 year low of $4.47 and a 1 year high of $7.82. The stocks 50-day simple moving average is $6.87 and its 200-day simple moving average is $6.61. The firm has a market cap of $1.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.83 and a beta of 0.98. Centerra Gold (NYSE:CGAU Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported $0.23 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.16 by $0.07. The firm had revenue of $282.31 million for the quarter. Centerra Gold had a net margin of 10.68% and a return on equity of 10.72%. During the same period last year, the firm earned ($0.20) EPS. Institutional Inflows and Outflows Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Mackenzie Financial Corp boosted its position in Centerra Gold by 111.3% during the 2nd quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 1,493,717 shares of the companys stock worth $10,046,000 after acquiring an additional 786,688 shares during the period. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company lifted its holdings in Centerra Gold by 1.2% in the second quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 178,489 shares of the companys stock worth $1,199,000 after purchasing an additional 2,120 shares during the period. AXA S.A. bought a new position in Centerra Gold in the 2nd quarter valued at about $2,096,000. Toronto Dominion Bank increased its stake in Centerra Gold by 184.6% during the 2nd quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 27,614 shares of the companys stock valued at $186,000 after buying an additional 17,912 shares during the period. Finally, Marshall Wace LLP raised its position in shares of Centerra Gold by 94.6% during the 2nd quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 1,037,839 shares of the companys stock worth $6,974,000 after buying an additional 504,636 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 55.40% of the companys stock. Centerra Gold Dividend Announcement The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 29th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 15th were given a $0.051 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 15th. This represents a $0.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.62%. Centerra Golds dividend payout ratio is presently 74.07%. Centerra Gold Company Profile (Get Free Report) Centerra Gold Inc, a gold mining company, engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, and operation of gold and copper properties in North America, Turkey, and internationally. The company explores for gold, copper, and molybdenum deposits. Its flagship projects are the 100% owned Mount Milligan gold-copper mine located in British Columbia, Canada; and the Oksut gold mine located in Turkey. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Centerra Gold Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Centerra Gold and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Spruce Power (NYSE:SPRU Get Free Report) and Fortis (NYSE:FTS Get Free Report) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, valuation, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, profitability, risk and earnings. Earnings & Valuation This table compares Spruce Power and Fortiss gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation. Get Spruce Power alerts: Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Spruce Power $79.72 million 0.63 -$65.83 million ($2.68) -1.01 Fortis $8.53 billion 2.63 $1.17 billion $2.32 19.56 Fortis has higher revenue and earnings than Spruce Power. Spruce Power is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Fortis, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks. Analyst Recommendations Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Spruce Power 0 0 0 0 N/A Fortis 3 1 0 0 1.25 This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Spruce Power and Fortis, as provided by MarketBeat. Fortis has a consensus price target of $61.00, suggesting a potential upside of 34.42%. Given Fortis higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Fortis is more favorable than Spruce Power. Volatility & Risk Spruce Power has a beta of 1.2, indicating that its stock price is 20% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Fortis has a beta of 0.47, indicating that its stock price is 53% less volatile than the S&P 500. Profitability This table compares Spruce Power and Fortis net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Spruce Power -76.20% -10.61% -2.61% Fortis 13.90% 7.04% 2.34% Insider and Institutional Ownership 20.8% of Spruce Power shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 57.8% of Fortis shares are held by institutional investors. 9.6% of Spruce Power shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term. Summary Fortis beats Spruce Power on 10 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks. About Spruce Power (Get Free Report) Spruce Power Holding Corporation owns and operates distributed solar energy assets in the United States. The company provides subscription-based services for homeowners and businesses to own and maintain rooftop solar and battery storage. It offers its subscription-based services to approximately 75,000 customers. The company is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. About Fortis (Get Free Report) Fortis Inc. operates as an electric and gas utility company in Canada, the United States, and the Caribbean countries. It generates, transmits, and distributes electricity to approximately 447,000 retail customers in southeastern Arizona; and 103,000 retail customers in Arizona's Mohave and Santa Cruz counties with an aggregate capacity of 3,408 megawatts (MW), including 68 MW of solar capacity and 250 MV of wind capacity. The company also sells wholesale electricity to other entities in the western United States; owns gas-fired and hydroelectric generating capacity totaling 65 MW; and distributes natural gas to approximately 1,087,000 residential, commercial, and industrial customers in British Columbia, Canada. In addition, it owns and operates the electricity distribution system that serves approximately 592,000 customers in southern and central Alberta; owns four hydroelectric generating facilities with a combined capacity of 225 MW; and provides operation, maintenance, and management services to five hydroelectric generating facilities. Further, the company distributes electricity in the island portion of Newfoundland and Labrador with an installed generating capacity of 145 MW; and on Prince Edward Island with a generating capacity of 90 MW. Additionally, it provides integrated electric utility service to approximately 69,000 customers in Ontario; approximately 275,000 customers in Newfoundland and Labrador; approximately 34,000 customers on Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; and approximately 17,000 customers on certain islands in Turks and Caicos. It also holds long-term contracted generation assets in Belize consisting of 3 hydroelectric generating facilities with a combined capacity of 51 MW; and the Aitken Creek natural gas storage facility. It also owns and operates approximately 90,500 circuit Kilometers (km) of distribution lines; and approximately 51,600 km of natural gas pipelines. Fortis Inc. was founded in 1885 and is headquartered in St. John's, Canada. Receive News & Ratings for Spruce Power Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Spruce Power and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Heartland BancCorp (OTCMKTS:HLAN Get Free Report) and Shinhan Financial Group (NYSE:SHG Get Free Report) are both finance companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, dividends, earnings, analyst recommendations, profitability, institutional ownership and risk. Dividends Heartland BancCorp pays an annual dividend of $3.03 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. Shinhan Financial Group pays an annual dividend of $1.21 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.7%. Heartland BancCorp pays out 30.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Shinhan Financial Group pays out 19.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Shinhan Financial Group is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio. Get Heartland BancCorp alerts: Valuation & Earnings This table compares Heartland BancCorp and Shinhan Financial Groups revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation. Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Heartland BancCorp $104.83 million 2.77 $19.52 million $9.94 14.49 Shinhan Financial Group $19,510.39 billion 0.00 $3.49 billion $6.07 7.32 Institutional & Insider Ownership Shinhan Financial Group has higher revenue and earnings than Heartland BancCorp. Shinhan Financial Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Heartland BancCorp, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks. 7.5% of Heartland BancCorp shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 7.8% of Shinhan Financial Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 22.7% of Heartland BancCorp shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of Shinhan Financial Group shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term. Volatility and Risk Heartland BancCorp has a beta of 0.41, indicating that its share price is 59% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Shinhan Financial Group has a beta of 0.92, indicating that its share price is 8% less volatile than the S&P 500. Analyst Ratings This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Heartland BancCorp and Shinhan Financial Group, as provided by MarketBeat. Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Heartland BancCorp 0 1 1 0 2.50 Shinhan Financial Group 0 0 1 0 3.00 Heartland BancCorp currently has a consensus price target of $122.50, suggesting a potential downside of 14.93%. Given Heartland BancCorps higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Heartland BancCorp is more favorable than Shinhan Financial Group. Profitability This table compares Heartland BancCorp and Shinhan Financial Groups net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Heartland BancCorp 17.89% N/A N/A Shinhan Financial Group 12.23% 7.16% 0.58% Summary Shinhan Financial Group beats Heartland BancCorp on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks. About Heartland BancCorp (Get Free Report) Heartland BancCorp operates as the bank holding company for Heartland Bank that provides various banking and financial services to individual and corporate customers. The company offers personal and business checking and savings accounts. It also provides various lending solutions comprising agricultural loans, commercial and business lending, home and personal loans, and title services. In addition, the company offers online banking, treasury management, credit and debit card, and mobile wallet services. Further, it provides education planning, insurance, wealth management, and retirement planning services. Heartland BancCorp was founded in 1911 and is based in Whitehall, Ohio. About Shinhan Financial Group (Get Free Report) Shinhan Financial Group Co., Ltd. provides financial products and services in South Korea and internationally. The company operates through six segments: Banking, Credit Card, Securities, Insurance, Credit, and Others. It offers retail banking services, including demand, savings, and fixed deposit-taking; checking accounts; mortgage and home equity, and retail lending; electronic banking and automatic teller machines (ATM); and bill paying, payroll and check-cashing, currency exchange, and wire fund transfer services. The company also provides corporate banking services, such as investment banking, real estate financing, overseas real estate and development project financing, infrastructure and structured financing, equity/venture investments, mergers and acquisitions consulting; securitization and derivatives services comprising securities and derivative products, and foreign exchange trading; business expansion financing and consulting services; and working capital loans and facilities loans. In addition, it is involved in treasury and investment activities in international capital markets consisting of foreign currency-denominated securities trading, foreign exchange trading and services, trade-related financial services, international factoring services, and foreign banking operations. Further, the company offers real estate trust, investment advisory, venture business investment, life and non-life insurance, trust account management, securities brokerage, and asset management services, as well as leasing and equipment financing, savings banking, loan collection and credit reporting, collective investment administration, private equity investment, and financial system development services. Additionally, it provides transaction history inquiries and fund transfers, opening letters of credit, trade finance, payment and collection management, sales and acquisition settlement, business-to-business settlement, sweeping, pooling, ERP interface, host-to-host banking, SWIFT SCORE, and cash and liquidity management service. Shinhan Financial Group Co., Ltd. was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. Receive News & Ratings for Heartland BancCorp Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Heartland BancCorp and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Trilogy Metals Inc. (TSE:TMQ Free Report) Equities researchers at Raymond James issued their Q1 2025 earnings per share estimates for shares of Trilogy Metals in a note issued to investors on Monday, September 23rd. Raymond James analyst B. Macarthur anticipates that the company will earn ($0.01) per share for the quarter. The consensus estimate for Trilogy Metals current full-year earnings is ($0.07) per share. Get Trilogy Metals alerts: Trilogy Metals (TSE:TMQ Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 10th. The company reported C($0.01) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of C($0.01). Separately, TD Securities lowered Trilogy Metals from a buy rating to a hold rating and set a C$0.75 price target on the stock. in a research note on Thursday, July 11th. Read Our Latest Stock Report on TMQ Trilogy Metals Price Performance Shares of TSE:TMQ opened at C$0.66 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of C$105.96 million, a P/E ratio of -6.00 and a beta of 1.34. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of C$0.75 and a 200-day simple moving average of C$0.69. Trilogy Metals has a 52 week low of C$0.34 and a 52 week high of C$0.98. The company has a quick ratio of 5.25, a current ratio of 30.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.02. About Trilogy Metals (Get Free Report) Trilogy Metals Inc, a base metals exploration company, engages in the exploration and development of mineral properties in the United States. The company explores for copper, cobalt, lead, zinc, gold, and silver properties. It principally holds interests in the Upper Kobuk mineral projects that include the Arctic, which contains polymetallic volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits; and Bornite that contains carbonate-hosted copper cobalt deposits covering an area of approximately 448,217 acres located in the Ambler mining district in Northwest Alaska. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Trilogy Metals Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Trilogy Metals and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO Get Free Report) has been given an average rating of Moderate Buy by the twenty research firms that are currently covering the stock, Marketbeat reports. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating on the company. The average 12 month target price among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $647.78. Several analysts have recently weighed in on TMO shares. Wells Fargo & Company started coverage on Thermo Fisher Scientific in a research note on Tuesday, August 27th. They set an overweight rating and a $670.00 target price for the company. Royal Bank of Canada restated an outperform rating and set a $767.00 target price on shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific in a research note on Friday, September 20th. Bank of America raised their target price on Thermo Fisher Scientific from $600.00 to $675.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Monday, September 16th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on Thermo Fisher Scientific from $655.00 to $680.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, September 20th. Finally, Barclays decreased their price target on Thermo Fisher Scientific from $615.00 to $600.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research note on Friday, June 28th. Get Thermo Fisher Scientific alerts: View Our Latest Stock Analysis on TMO Insider Activity Institutional Investors Weigh In On Thermo Fisher Scientific In other news, SVP Michael A. Boxer sold 2,000 shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $600.85, for a total transaction of $1,201,700.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 13,083 shares of the companys stock, valued at $7,860,920.55. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link . In related news, SVP Michael A. Boxer sold 2,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $600.85, for a total transaction of $1,201,700.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 13,083 shares of the companys stock, valued at $7,860,920.55. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website . Also, CEO Marc N. Casper sold 10,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $617.21, for a total value of $6,172,100.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 123,816 shares in the company, valued at approximately $76,420,473.36. The disclosure for this sale can be found here . Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 23,084 shares of company stock valued at $14,094,292. Insiders own 0.34% of the companys stock. Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Signature Resources Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Thermo Fisher Scientific by 318.2% during the second quarter. Signature Resources Capital Management LLC now owns 46 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $25,000 after buying an additional 35 shares in the last quarter. LifeSteps Financial Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific in the 1st quarter worth $31,000. New Millennium Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific during the second quarter worth $29,000. Stephens Consulting LLC boosted its position in shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific by 116.0% in the 2nd quarter. Stephens Consulting LLC now owns 54 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $30,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the period. Finally, True Wealth Design LLC raised its holdings in Thermo Fisher Scientific by 1,275.0% during the 4th quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 55 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $29,000 after buying an additional 51 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 89.23% of the companys stock. Thermo Fisher Scientific Trading Up 3.3 % NYSE:TMO opened at $619.45 on Tuesday. The businesss 50-day moving average is $602.90 and its two-hundred day moving average is $581.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64, a current ratio of 1.72 and a quick ratio of 1.37. Thermo Fisher Scientific has a 12 month low of $415.60 and a 12 month high of $627.88. The firm has a market capitalization of $236.63 billion, a PE ratio of 39.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.88 and a beta of 0.78. Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE:TMO Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 24th. The medical research company reported $5.37 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $5.13 by $0.24. The company had revenue of $10.54 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $10.50 billion. Thermo Fisher Scientific had a return on equity of 18.22% and a net margin of 14.69%. The firms revenue was down 1.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $5.15 earnings per share. Research analysts predict that Thermo Fisher Scientific will post 21.72 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Thermo Fisher Scientific Announces Dividend The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 15th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 13th will be issued a dividend of $0.39 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 13th. This represents a $1.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.25%. Thermo Fisher Scientifics dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 10.01%. About Thermo Fisher Scientific (Get Free Report Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc provides life sciences solutions, analytical instruments, specialty diagnostics, and laboratory products and biopharma services in the North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company's Life Sciences Solutions segment offers reagents, instruments, and consumables for biological and medical research, discovery, and production of drugs and vaccines, as well as diagnosis of infections and diseases; and solutions include biosciences, genetic sciences, and bio production to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agricultural, clinical, healthcare, academic, and government markets. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Thermo Fisher Scientific Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Thermo Fisher Scientific and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. trimmed its holdings in Infosys Limited (NYSE:INFY Free Report) by 10.3% in the second quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 567,743 shares of the technology companys stock after selling 65,523 shares during the period. Envestnet Asset Management Inc.s holdings in Infosys were worth $10,571,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Several other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in the business. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its holdings in Infosys by 22.6% during the second quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 2,931 shares of the technology companys stock worth $55,000 after buying an additional 541 shares in the last quarter. D Orazio & Associates Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Infosys by 4.1% during the 2nd quarter. D Orazio & Associates Inc. now owns 14,724 shares of the technology companys stock worth $274,000 after acquiring an additional 584 shares in the last quarter. Somerset Trust Co grew its holdings in shares of Infosys by 4.2% in the 2nd quarter. Somerset Trust Co now owns 15,140 shares of the technology companys stock worth $282,000 after acquiring an additional 611 shares during the last quarter. Seed Wealth Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Infosys by 5.6% in the 2nd quarter. Seed Wealth Management Inc. now owns 18,260 shares of the technology companys stock worth $340,000 after acquiring an additional 970 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Hilltop National Bank raised its position in shares of Infosys by 50.8% during the second quarter. Hilltop National Bank now owns 2,979 shares of the technology companys stock worth $55,000 after purchasing an additional 1,004 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 10.89% of the companys stock. Get Infosys alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on INFY shares. Erste Group Bank raised Infosys from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 11th. Macquarie raised shares of Infosys from an underperform rating to a neutral rating in a research report on Friday, July 19th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Infosys from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Saturday, September 21st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $19.27. Infosys Price Performance Shares of INFY opened at $22.96 on Friday. The businesss 50-day moving average is $22.36 and its 200-day moving average is $19.47. The company has a market capitalization of $95.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.29, a P/E/G ratio of 3.59 and a beta of 0.99. Infosys Limited has a fifty-two week low of $16.04 and a fifty-two week high of $23.48. Infosys (NYSE:INFY Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 18th. The technology company reported $0.18 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.18. The firm had revenue of $4.71 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.67 billion. Infosys had a net margin of 17.18% and a return on equity of 32.01%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.17 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that Infosys Limited will post 0.75 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Infosys Profile (Free Report) Infosys Limited, together with its subsidiaries, provides consulting, technology, outsourcing, and next-generation digital services in North America, Europe, India, and internationally. It provides digital marketing and digital workplace, digital commerce, digital experience and interactions, metaverse, data analytics and AI, applied AI, generative AI, sustainability, blockchain, engineering, Internet of Things, enterprise agile DevOps, application modernization, cloud, digital process automation, digital supply chain, Microsoft business application and cloud business, service experience transformation, energy transition, cyber security, and quality engineering solutions; Oracle, SAP, and Saleforce solutions; API economy and microservices; and Topaz, an AI-first set of services, solutions, and platforms using generative AI technologies. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding INFY? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Infosys Limited (NYSE:INFY Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Infosys Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Infosys and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. trimmed its position in shares of JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal ETF (BATS:JMST Free Report) by 13.8% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 210,206 shares of the companys stock after selling 33,759 shares during the quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc.s holdings in JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal ETF were worth $10,667,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A number of other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in JMST. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal ETF by 325.3% during the second quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 395,478 shares of the companys stock worth $20,069,000 after buying an additional 302,492 shares during the last quarter. CWA Asset Management Group LLC increased its stake in JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal ETF by 58.0% in the 4th quarter. CWA Asset Management Group LLC now owns 493,838 shares of the companys stock valued at $25,057,000 after buying an additional 181,337 shares during the last quarter. LPL Financial LLC increased its position in shares of JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal ETF by 10.9% during the 2nd quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 1,757,832 shares of the companys stock worth $89,201,000 after purchasing an additional 172,347 shares during the last quarter. Resonant Capital Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal ETF by 22.5% in the 2nd quarter. Resonant Capital Advisors LLC now owns 892,834 shares of the companys stock valued at $45,307,000 after acquiring an additional 163,699 shares during the period. Finally, Quotient Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new position in JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal ETF during the second quarter worth approximately $7,871,000. Get JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal ETF alerts: JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal ETF Stock Up 0.0 % BATS:JMST opened at $50.94 on Friday. The businesss fifty day moving average price is $50.86 and its 200 day moving average price is $50.74. JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal ETF Increases Dividend JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal ETF Company Profile The company also recently disclosed a dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 5th. Investors of record on Tuesday, September 3rd were paid a $0.1451 dividend. This is a boost from JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal ETFs previous dividend of $0.14. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, September 3rd. (Free Report) The JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal Income ETF (JMST) is an exchange-traded fund that mostly invests in investment grade fixed income. The fund is an actively managed portfolio of US municipal bonds with a weighted average maturity of two years or less. JMST was launched on Oct 16, 2018 and is managed by JPMorgan Chase. Recommended Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding JMST? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal ETF (BATS:JMST Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Kimberly-Clark de Mexico, S. A. B. de C. V. (OTCMKTS:KCDMF Get Free Report) saw a significant growth in short interest in the month of September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 1,321,300 shares, a growth of 53.0% from the August 31st total of 863,800 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 0 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently ? days. Kimberly-Clark de Mexico, S. A. B. de C. V. Trading Down 2.4 % OTCMKTS:KCDMF traded down $0.04 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $1.63. 1,001 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,336. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $1.70 and a 200 day moving average of $1.92. Kimberly-Clark de Mexico, S. A. B. de C. V. has a twelve month low of $1.63 and a twelve month high of $2.34. Get Kimberly-Clark de Mexico S. A. B. de C. V. alerts: About Kimberly-Clark de Mexico, S. A. B. de C. V. (Get Free Report) Featured Stories Kimberly-Clark de Mexico, S. A. B. de C. V., together with its subsidiaries, manufactures, distributes, and markets disposable products in Mexico. The company offers baby diapers, training pants, swim pants, wet wipes, shampoos, creams, bar soaps, and feeding products. It also provides toilet papers, napkins, facial tissues, paper towels, feminine pads, panty liners, tampons, intimate wipes, and menstrual cups. Receive News & Ratings for Kimberly-Clark de Mexico S. A. B. de C. V. Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Kimberly-Clark de Mexico S. A. B. de C. V. and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. National Bank of Greece S.A. (OTCMKTS:NBGIF Get Free Report) was the target of a large growth in short interest in September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 1,186,400 shares, a growth of 53.1% from the August 31st total of 774,700 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 2,700 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 439.4 days. National Bank of Greece Trading Up 3.0 % NBGIF stock traded up $0.26 during trading on Friday, reaching $8.80. 550 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 5,225. National Bank of Greece has a 1-year low of $5.37 and a 1-year high of $9.30. The companys fifty day moving average price is $8.48 and its 200-day moving average price is $8.40. Get National Bank of Greece alerts: About National Bank of Greece (Get Free Report) Read More National Bank of Greece SA, together with its subsidiaries, provides financial products and services primarily in Greece, Cyprus, North Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It operates through Retail Banking, Corporate & Investment Banking, Trouble Assets Unit & Specialized Asset Solutions, Global Markets and Asset Management, Insurance, International Banking Operations, and Other segments. Receive News & Ratings for National Bank of Greece Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for National Bank of Greece and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Intertek Group plc (LON:ITRK Get Free Report)s share price reached a new 52-week high during trading on Wednesday . The company traded as high as GBX 5,155 ($69.03) and last traded at GBX 5,155 ($69.03), with a volume of 714868 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at GBX 5,130 ($68.69). Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of equities research analysts have commented on ITRK shares. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and issued a GBX 5,200 ($69.63) price target on shares of Intertek Group in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. Berenberg Bank reiterated a buy rating and issued a GBX 5,500 ($73.65) price target on shares of Intertek Group in a research note on Wednesday, July 17th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Intertek Group currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of GBX 5,351 ($71.65). Get Intertek Group alerts: Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on ITRK Intertek Group Stock Up 0.1 % Intertek Group Cuts Dividend The business has a fifty day moving average price of GBX 4,864.63 and a two-hundred day moving average price of GBX 4,872.88. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 100.41, a current ratio of 1.27 and a quick ratio of 1.19. The firm has a market capitalization of 8.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 2,731.58, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.98 and a beta of 0.63. The company also recently disclosed a dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 8th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, September 12th will be issued a GBX 53.90 ($0.72) dividend. This represents a dividend yield of 1.09%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 12th. Intertek Groups dividend payout ratio is presently 6,736.84%. About Intertek Group (Get Free Report) Intertek Group plc engages in the provision of quality assurance solutions to various industries in the United Kingdom, the United States, China, Australia, and internationally. The company operates in five segments: Consumer Products, Corporate Assurance, Health and Safety, Industry and Infrastructure, and World of Energy. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Intertek Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Intertek Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. VIENTIANE, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Laos' Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment hosted the first Forum on Carbon Markets to foster Laos' participation in international carbon markets. The forum, held in Lao capital Vientiane on Thursday, gathered around 150 participants from the Lao government, civil society, development partners, and the private sector. The forum provided the Lao government with an opportunity to share important updates on its policy landscape and strategic directions with project developers and international partners, Lao National Radio reported on Friday. It facilitated discussions among partners on strategies for international carbon trading in alignment with the Paris Agreement. Laos has been working to align its laws and policies with international standards to engage in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, while also improving the efficiency and integrity of voluntary carbon markets. "As of September 2024, the Lao government has progressed on an advanced draft of the Decree on Carbon Credits, which establishes a comprehensive framework for carbon project development and trading," Amphayvanh Oudomdeth, Deputy Director General of the Department of Climate Change under Laos' Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment said at the forum. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in Unum Group (NYSE:UNM Free Report) by 19.4% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 32,737 shares of the financial services providers stock after acquiring an additional 5,326 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc.s holdings in Unum Group were worth $1,673,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its holdings in Unum Group by 7.1% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 3,071 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $165,000 after buying an additional 204 shares during the period. Benjamin F. Edwards & Company Inc. increased its holdings in Unum Group by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter. Benjamin F. Edwards & Company Inc. now owns 10,126 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $518,000 after buying an additional 217 shares during the period. QRG Capital Management Inc. increased its holdings in Unum Group by 1.8% in the 2nd quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 12,786 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $654,000 after buying an additional 226 shares during the period. FinTrust Capital Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Unum Group by 20.4% in the 1st quarter. FinTrust Capital Advisors LLC now owns 1,457 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $78,000 after buying an additional 247 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of Nova Scotia increased its holdings in Unum Group by 2.8% in the 4th quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia now owns 9,193 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $416,000 after buying an additional 249 shares during the period. 86.57% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Unum Group alerts: Insider Buying and Selling at Unum Group In other Unum Group news, CEO Richard P. Mckenney sold 67,795 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $54.98, for a total value of $3,727,369.10. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 1,065,868 shares in the company, valued at approximately $58,601,422.64. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, CEO Richard P. Mckenney sold 67,795 shares of Unum Group stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $54.98, for a total transaction of $3,727,369.10. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 1,065,868 shares in the company, valued at approximately $58,601,422.64. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Timothy Gerald Arnold sold 10,000 shares of Unum Group stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $54.11, for a total value of $541,100.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 64,821 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,507,464.31. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.93% of the stock is currently owned by insiders. Unum Group Price Performance Unum Group stock opened at $58.12 on Friday. The companys fifty day moving average price is $54.80 and its 200 day moving average price is $52.85. Unum Group has a 1 year low of $41.75 and a 1 year high of $58.69. The stock has a market capitalization of $10.80 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.64, a P/E/G ratio of 0.85 and a beta of 0.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33, a quick ratio of 0.28 and a current ratio of 0.28. Unum Group (NYSE:UNM Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 30th. The financial services provider reported $2.16 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $2.02 by $0.14. The firm had revenue of $3.23 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $3.23 billion. Unum Group had a net margin of 10.40% and a return on equity of 15.55%. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 3.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.06 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Unum Group will post 8.48 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Unum Group declared that its board has approved a stock repurchase program on Tuesday, July 30th that authorizes the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the financial services provider to buy up to 10% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often an indication that the companys leadership believes its shares are undervalued. Unum Group Increases Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 16th. Shareholders of record on Friday, July 26th were issued a $0.42 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, July 26th. This represents a $1.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.89%. This is a positive change from Unum Groups previous quarterly dividend of $0.37. Unum Groups dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.96%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several brokerages recently weighed in on UNM. Citigroup increased their price target on shares of Unum Group from $62.00 to $69.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Evercore ISI raised their price objective on shares of Unum Group from $56.00 to $58.00 and gave the stock an in-line rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 26th. Jefferies Financial Group raised their price objective on shares of Unum Group from $63.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 10th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Unum Group from $66.00 to $69.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Monday, August 12th. Finally, Truist Financial raised their price objective on shares of Unum Group from $62.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, August 1st. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $62.90. View Our Latest Stock Report on Unum Group About Unum Group (Free Report) Unum Group, together with its subsidiaries, provides financial protection benefit solutions primarily in the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, and internationally. It operates through Unum US, Unum International, Colonial Life, and Closed Block segment. The company offers group long-term and short-term disability, group life, and accidental death and dismemberment products; supplemental and voluntary products, such as individual disability, voluntary benefits, and dental and vision products; and accident, sickness, disability, life, and cancer and critical illness products. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding UNM? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Unum Group (NYSE:UNM Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Unum Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Unum Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Essent Group Ltd. (NYSE:ESNT Free Report) by 17.8% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 26,706 shares of the financial services providers stock after purchasing an additional 4,043 shares during the quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc.s holdings in Essent Group were worth $1,501,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Essent Group by 3.8% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 11,917,819 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $709,229,000 after purchasing an additional 440,385 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its holdings in shares of Essent Group by 10.5% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 4,680,074 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $262,973,000 after purchasing an additional 445,853 shares during the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Essent Group by 10.7% during the 1st quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,247,184 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $74,220,000 after buying an additional 120,881 shares during the period. Jennison Associates LLC increased its holdings in shares of Essent Group by 94.1% during the 1st quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 739,688 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $44,019,000 after buying an additional 358,621 shares during the last quarter. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP raised its position in shares of Essent Group by 31.2% in the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 650,270 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $34,295,000 after buying an additional 154,591 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.00% of the companys stock. Get Essent Group alerts: Essent Group Stock Up 0.2 % Shares of NYSE:ESNT opened at $63.35 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $62.00 and a two-hundred day moving average of $58.17. Essent Group Ltd. has a 52-week low of $45.63 and a 52-week high of $65.33. The company has a market capitalization of $6.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.58, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.59 and a beta of 1.12. Essent Group Announces Dividend Essent Group ( NYSE:ESNT Get Free Report ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, August 2nd. The financial services provider reported $1.91 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.68 by $0.23. Essent Group had a net margin of 61.31% and a return on equity of 14.40%. The business had revenue of $272.90 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $308.33 million. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.61 EPS. The businesss revenue was up 9.5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Essent Group Ltd. will post 7.02 earnings per share for the current year. The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 10th. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 30th were given a dividend of $0.28 per share. This represents a $1.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.77%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, August 30th. Essent Groups payout ratio is 16.94%. Analyst Ratings Changes A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised Essent Group from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and boosted their price target for the company from $65.00 to $70.00 in a research report on Monday, August 5th. Barclays boosted their target price on Essent Group from $63.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Tuesday, July 9th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on shares of Essent Group from $61.00 to $67.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Monday, August 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Essent Group from $62.00 to $63.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Finally, BTIG Research raised their target price on shares of Essent Group from $61.00 to $64.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $64.33. Read Our Latest Analysis on Essent Group Insider Buying and Selling In other Essent Group news, CFO David B. Weinstock sold 2,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $63.59, for a total transaction of $127,180.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 25,416 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,616,203.44. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, SVP Vijay Bhasin sold 11,188 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $60.14, for a total transaction of $672,846.32. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 199,359 shares of the companys stock, valued at $11,989,450.26. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CFO David B. Weinstock sold 2,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $63.59, for a total value of $127,180.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 25,416 shares of the companys stock, valued at $1,616,203.44. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 18,188 shares of company stock worth $1,094,076. 2.90% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. Essent Group Profile (Free Report) Essent Group Ltd., through its subsidiaries, provides private mortgage insurance and reinsurance for mortgages secured by residential properties located in the United States. Its mortgage insurance products include primary, pool, and master policy. The company also provides information technology maintenance and development services; customer support-related services; underwriting consulting; and contract underwriting services, as well as risk management products and title insurance and settlement services. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding ESNT? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Essent Group Ltd. (NYSE:ESNT Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Essent Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Essent Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its position in Waters Co. (NYSE:WAT Free Report) by 14.3% during the second quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 5,242 shares of the medical instruments suppliers stock after buying an additional 656 shares during the quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc.s holdings in Waters were worth $1,521,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Indiana Trust & Investment Management CO acquired a new stake in Waters in the first quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Riverview Trust Co purchased a new stake in shares of Waters during the 1st quarter valued at $28,000. Blue Trust Inc. boosted its position in shares of Waters by 190.2% in the 2nd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 119 shares of the medical instruments suppliers stock worth $35,000 after purchasing an additional 78 shares in the last quarter. TFC Financial Management Inc. grew its stake in Waters by 19,900.0% during the 2nd quarter. TFC Financial Management Inc. now owns 200 shares of the medical instruments suppliers stock worth $58,000 after buying an additional 199 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. purchased a new stake in Waters in the second quarter valued at about $59,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 94.01% of the companys stock. Get Waters alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on WAT shares. Evercore ISI dropped their price target on Waters from $320.00 to $300.00 and set an in-line rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, July 2nd. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Waters to a hold rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 31st. Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of Waters from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an underweight rating in a research note on Thursday, August 1st. Jefferies Financial Group began coverage on Waters in a research report on Monday, June 3rd. They issued a hold rating and a $320.00 target price on the stock. Finally, Leerink Partners raised Waters from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $325.00 to $375.00 in a research report on Thursday, August 1st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have issued a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Waters presently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $318.50. Waters Trading Up 4.6 % Waters stock opened at $355.73 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $21.12 billion, a PE ratio of 34.91, a P/E/G ratio of 5.96 and a beta of 0.95. Waters Co. has a 12 month low of $231.90 and a 12 month high of $367.21. The stocks 50 day simple moving average is $332.44 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $324.32. The company has a current ratio of 2.10, a quick ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.42. Waters (NYSE:WAT Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The medical instruments supplier reported $2.63 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.55 by $0.08. The company had revenue of $709.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $700.09 million. Waters had a net margin of 20.71% and a return on equity of 56.81%. The firms revenue was down 4.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $2.80 earnings per share. Analysts anticipate that Waters Co. will post 11.6 earnings per share for the current year. Waters Company Profile (Free Report) Waters Corporation provides analytical workflow solutions in Asia, the Americas, and Europe. It operates through two segments: Waters and TA. The company designs, manufactures, sells, and services high and ultra-performance liquid chromatography, as well as mass spectrometry (MS) technology systems and support products, including chromatography columns, other consumable products, and post-warranty service plans. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding WAT? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Waters Co. (NYSE:WAT Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Waters Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Waters and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. First County Bank CT decreased its stake in shares of Entergy Co. (NYSE:ETR Free Report) by 13.9% during the second quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 6,474 shares of the utilities providers stock after selling 1,042 shares during the quarter. First County Bank CTs holdings in Entergy were worth $693,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ETR. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company lifted its holdings in shares of Entergy by 4.2% during the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 461,175 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $49,346,000 after buying an additional 18,422 shares during the period. Millennium Management LLC lifted its holdings in Entergy by 185.5% in the second quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 1,876,672 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $200,804,000 after acquiring an additional 1,219,419 shares during the period. MBB Public Markets I LLC bought a new position in Entergy in the second quarter valued at about $1,637,000. Dark Forest Capital Management LP grew its stake in shares of Entergy by 122.0% during the 2nd quarter. Dark Forest Capital Management LP now owns 6,887 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $737,000 after purchasing an additional 3,785 shares during the period. Finally, Decade Renewable Partners LP increased its position in shares of Entergy by 45.0% during the 2nd quarter. Decade Renewable Partners LP now owns 115,118 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $12,318,000 after purchasing an additional 35,716 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 88.07% of the companys stock. Get Entergy alerts: Entergy Price Performance Shares of NYSE:ETR opened at $129.58 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a current ratio of 0.94. The firm has a market cap of $27.67 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.00, a P/E/G ratio of 2.46 and a beta of 0.73. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $120.18 and a 200 day moving average price of $111.56. Entergy Co. has a fifty-two week low of $87.10 and a fifty-two week high of $131.03. Entergy Dividend Announcement Entergy ( NYSE:ETR Get Free Report ) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The utilities provider reported $1.92 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.76 by $0.16. Entergy had a return on equity of 10.10% and a net margin of 14.75%. The firm had revenue of $2.95 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.98 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $1.84 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Entergy Co. will post 7.22 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, August 13th were issued a dividend of $1.13 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, August 13th. This represents a $4.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.49%. Entergys dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 45.34%. Analyst Ratings Changes Several analysts recently issued reports on ETR shares. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on shares of Entergy from $124.00 to $131.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Monday, August 5th. LADENBURG THALM/SH SH reissued a neutral rating and set a $109.50 price target (down previously from $117.00) on shares of Entergy in a report on Wednesday, June 12th. Guggenheim raised their price objective on Entergy from $118.00 to $128.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. Mizuho boosted their price objective on Entergy from $107.00 to $114.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Friday, May 31st. Finally, Bank of America raised their target price on shares of Entergy from $135.00 to $138.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, ten have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Entergy has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $127.81. Check Out Our Latest Research Report on ETR Insider Activity In related news, COO Peter S. Norgeot, Jr. sold 7,922 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Monday, September 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $130.00, for a total value of $1,029,860.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 34,993 shares in the company, valued at $4,549,090. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, COO Peter S. Norgeot, Jr. sold 7,922 shares of Entergy stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $130.00, for a total value of $1,029,860.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 34,993 shares in the company, valued at $4,549,090. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, COO Peter S. Norgeot, Jr. sold 3,250 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $122.56, for a total value of $398,320.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 34,993 shares in the company, valued at $4,288,742.08. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 50,810 shares of company stock worth $6,140,626. 0.39% of the stock is currently owned by insiders. Entergy Company Profile (Free Report) Entergy Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the production and retail distribution of electricity in the United States. It generates, transmits, distributes, and sells electric power in portions of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, including the City of New Orleans; and distributes natural gas. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding ETR? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Entergy Co. (NYSE:ETR Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Entergy Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Entergy and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. iShares Russell Mid-Cap Value ETF (NYSEARCA:IWS Get Free Report) shares saw an uptick in trading volume on Wednesday . 792,831 shares were traded during trading, an increase of 86% from the previous sessions volume of 426,385 shares.The stock last traded at $130.69 and had previously closed at $131.42. iShares Russell Mid-Cap Value ETF Stock Up 0.5 % The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $127.26 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $123.72. The stock has a market capitalization of $13.82 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.15 and a beta of 0.97. Get iShares Russell Mid-Cap Value ETF alerts: Institutional Investors Weigh In On iShares Russell Mid-Cap Value ETF Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Able Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in iShares Russell Mid-Cap Value ETF during the 4th quarter worth $26,000. Rothschild Investment LLC acquired a new stake in shares of iShares Russell Mid-Cap Value ETF during the second quarter valued at about $27,000. Tortoise Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of iShares Russell Mid-Cap Value ETF in the second quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Kimelman & Baird LLC bought a new position in iShares Russell Mid-Cap Value ETF in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Finally, LifeSteps Financial Inc. bought a new position in iShares Russell Mid-Cap Value ETF in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $38,000. iShares Russell Mid-Cap Value ETF Company Profile iShares Russell Mid-Cap Value ETF (the Fund), formerly iShares Russell Midcap Value Index Fund, is an exchange-traded fund (ETF). The Fund seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance of the Russell Midcap Value Index (the Value Index). The Value Index measures the performance of the mid-capitalization value sector of the United States equity market. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for iShares Russell Mid-Cap Value ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for iShares Russell Mid-Cap Value ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Marshall Wace LLP trimmed its stake in The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (NYSE:SAM Free Report) by 26.8% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 100,623 shares of the companys stock after selling 36,892 shares during the period. Marshall Wace LLP owned about 0.84% of Boston Beer worth $30,695,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. LRI Investments LLC acquired a new stake in Boston Beer during the first quarter worth about $28,000. Quarry LP acquired a new stake in shares of Boston Beer during the 4th quarter worth approximately $42,000. ORG Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Boston Beer during the second quarter valued at approximately $48,000. Sachetta LLC raised its stake in shares of Boston Beer by 1,533.3% in the second quarter. Sachetta LLC now owns 245 shares of the companys stock valued at $68,000 after purchasing an additional 230 shares in the last quarter. Finally, DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale lifted its position in Boston Beer by 61.3% in the second quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 250 shares of the companys stock worth $75,000 after purchasing an additional 95 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 81.13% of the companys stock. Get Boston Beer alerts: Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on SAM shares. Roth Mkm dropped their price objective on shares of Boston Beer from $395.00 to $389.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Friday, July 26th. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Boston Beer from an underweight rating to an equal weight rating and set a $290.00 price target for the company in a research report on Wednesday, June 5th. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price objective on Boston Beer from $332.00 to $318.00 and set a sector perform rating on the stock in a report on Friday, July 26th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their target price on Boston Beer from $273.00 to $283.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a report on Wednesday, July 17th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered Boston Beer from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Boston Beer has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $326.92. Boston Beer Stock Up 2.3 % Boston Beer stock opened at $276.96 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $275.33 and a 200 day simple moving average of $284.30. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.75, a P/E/G ratio of 1.12 and a beta of 1.05. The Boston Beer Company, Inc. has a 12-month low of $254.40 and a 12-month high of $395.52. Boston Beer (NYSE:SAM Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, July 25th. The company reported $4.39 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $4.99 by ($0.60). Boston Beer had a return on equity of 9.69% and a net margin of 4.39%. The company had revenue of $579.10 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $597.33 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $4.72 earnings per share. The companys revenue was down 4.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that The Boston Beer Company, Inc. will post 9.65 EPS for the current year. Boston Beer Profile (Free Report) The Boston Beer Company, Inc produces and sells alcohol beverages primarily in the United States. The company's flagship beer is Samuel Adams Boston Lager. It offers various beers, hard ciders, flavored malt beverages, and hard seltzers under the Samuel Adams, Twisted Tea, Truly, Angry Orchard, Dogfish Head, Angel City, and Coney Island brand names. Recommended Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding SAM? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (NYSE:SAM Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Boston Beer Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Boston Beer and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board grew its position in MasterBrand, Inc. (NYSE:MBC Free Report) by 7.5% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 279,389 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 19,558 shares during the period. Public Sector Pension Investment Boards holdings in MasterBrand were worth $4,101,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in MBC. Covestor Ltd boosted its holdings in MasterBrand by 71.4% in the 1st quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 1,596 shares of the companys stock valued at $30,000 after purchasing an additional 665 shares in the last quarter. Arizona State Retirement System lifted its holdings in shares of MasterBrand by 2.1% in the 2nd quarter. Arizona State Retirement System now owns 35,554 shares of the companys stock valued at $522,000 after buying an additional 717 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its stake in shares of MasterBrand by 51.2% in the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 2,208 shares of the companys stock valued at $41,000 after buying an additional 748 shares in the last quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC grew its holdings in MasterBrand by 1.5% during the second quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC now owns 63,799 shares of the companys stock worth $937,000 after acquiring an additional 942 shares during the period. Finally, Louisiana State Employees Retirement System raised its position in MasterBrand by 1.8% in the second quarter. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System now owns 63,900 shares of the companys stock worth $938,000 after acquiring an additional 1,100 shares in the last quarter. 87.32% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get MasterBrand alerts: Insider Transactions at MasterBrand In related news, Director Ann F. Hackett sold 17,589 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.95, for a total value of $280,544.55. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 45,520 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $726,044. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other MasterBrand news, CAO Mark A. Young sold 4,715 shares of MasterBrand stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $16.33, for a total transaction of $76,995.95. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 45,148 shares in the company, valued at $737,266.84. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Ann F. Hackett sold 17,589 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $15.95, for a total transaction of $280,544.55. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 45,520 shares in the company, valued at $726,044. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 22,806 shares of company stock valued at $365,567 in the last quarter. 1.38% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. MasterBrand Price Performance Shares of NYSE MBC opened at $17.74 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.43 and a current ratio of 2.24. MasterBrand, Inc. has a one year low of $10.53 and a one year high of $19.10. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.25 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.49 and a beta of 1.49. The companys fifty day moving average is $16.47 and its two-hundred day moving average is $16.57. MasterBrand (NYSE:MBC Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 6th. The company reported $0.45 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.41 by $0.04. MasterBrand had a net margin of 6.69% and a return on equity of 16.58%. The firm had revenue of $676.50 million for the quarter. MasterBrand Profile (Free Report) MasterBrand, Inc engages in the manufacture and sale of residential cabinets in the United States and Canada. The company offers a range of residential cabinetry products for the kitchen, bathroom, and other parts of the home. It sells its products to remodeling and new construction markets through dealers, retailers, and builders. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MBC? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for MasterBrand, Inc. (NYSE:MBC Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for MasterBrand Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for MasterBrand and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Scientech Research LLC boosted its position in shares of The Travelers Companies, Inc. (NYSE:TRV Free Report) by 635.0% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 12,003 shares of the insurance providers stock after purchasing an additional 10,370 shares during the period. Travelers Companies comprises 0.5% of Scientech Research LLCs holdings, making the stock its 18th biggest holding. Scientech Research LLCs holdings in Travelers Companies were worth $2,441,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Several other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in TRV. Y.D. More Investments Ltd bought a new position in Travelers Companies during the 2nd quarter valued at about $25,000. Pathway Financial Advisers LLC bought a new position in shares of Travelers Companies during the first quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Beacon Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Travelers Companies by 74.2% during the first quarter. Beacon Capital Management LLC now owns 155 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $36,000 after purchasing an additional 66 shares in the last quarter. Opal Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Travelers Companies during the first quarter valued at approximately $42,000. Finally, Tributary Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Travelers Companies during the first quarter valued at approximately $45,000. 82.45% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. Get Travelers Companies alerts: Insider Buying and Selling at Travelers Companies In other Travelers Companies news, EVP Michael Frederick Klein sold 10,000 shares of Travelers Companies stock in a transaction on Thursday, July 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $211.44, for a total value of $2,114,400.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 22,798 shares of the companys stock, valued at $4,820,409.12. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. 1.33% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders. Travelers Companies Trading Down 0.1 % NYSE TRV opened at $236.10 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $54.07 billion, a PE ratio of 17.54, a P/E/G ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 0.62. The company has a fifty day moving average of $222.96 and a 200 day moving average of $218.07. The Travelers Companies, Inc. has a 1 year low of $157.33 and a 1 year high of $243.48. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a current ratio of 0.33 and a quick ratio of 0.33. Travelers Companies (NYSE:TRV Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Friday, July 19th. The insurance provider reported $2.51 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $3.23 by ($0.72). The business had revenue of $11.28 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.35 billion. Travelers Companies had a net margin of 8.37% and a return on equity of 15.90%. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.06 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that The Travelers Companies, Inc. will post 17.19 earnings per share for the current year. Travelers Companies Announces Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 30th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 10th will be issued a $1.05 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 10th. This represents a $4.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.78%. Travelers Companiess payout ratio is 31.20%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on TRV shares. Barclays assumed coverage on shares of Travelers Companies in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. They set an overweight rating and a $286.00 price objective on the stock. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their target price on shares of Travelers Companies from $221.00 to $234.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Piper Sandler lowered their target price on shares of Travelers Companies from $213.00 to $207.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Monday, July 22nd. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on shares of Travelers Companies from $220.00 to $210.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research note on Friday, July 19th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Travelers Companies from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note on Friday, September 20th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, thirteen have assigned a hold rating, five have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $227.05. Get Our Latest Report on Travelers Companies Travelers Companies Profile (Free Report) The Travelers Companies, Inc, through its subsidiaries, provides a range of commercial and personal property, and casualty insurance products and services to businesses, government units, associations, and individuals in the United States and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Business Insurance, Bond & Specialty Insurance, and Personal Insurance. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding TRV? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for The Travelers Companies, Inc. (NYSE:TRV Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Travelers Companies Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Travelers Companies and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Marshall Wace LLP lifted its holdings in shares of Cushman & Wakefield plc (NYSE:CWK Free Report) by 98.7% in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 2,252,780 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 1,119,141 shares during the period. Marshall Wace LLPs holdings in Cushman & Wakefield were worth $23,429,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Several other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of CWK. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Cushman & Wakefield by 4.0% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 28,788,309 shares of the companys stock worth $301,126,000 after buying an additional 1,110,076 shares in the last quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Cushman & Wakefield by 31.2% during the 2nd quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 10,395,027 shares of the companys stock worth $108,108,000 after acquiring an additional 2,469,831 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in Cushman & Wakefield by 23.1% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 10,173,171 shares of the companys stock worth $105,802,000 after acquiring an additional 1,910,212 shares in the last quarter. Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P. increased its stake in Cushman & Wakefield by 12.7% in the second quarter. Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P. now owns 6,208,780 shares of the companys stock valued at $64,571,000 after acquiring an additional 697,890 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Janus Henderson Group PLC raised its position in Cushman & Wakefield by 18.8% during the first quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 4,400,751 shares of the companys stock valued at $46,032,000 after purchasing an additional 695,005 shares in the last quarter. 95.56% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. Get Cushman & Wakefield alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several equities analysts have recently commented on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on Cushman & Wakefield from $12.00 to $14.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 30th. Raymond James increased their price target on shares of Cushman & Wakefield from $14.00 to $16.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Thursday, July 25th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, Cushman & Wakefield presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $12.80. Cushman & Wakefield Trading Up 2.1 % NYSE CWK opened at $13.81 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $3.17 billion, a PE ratio of 345.25 and a beta of 1.31. Cushman & Wakefield plc has a 1-year low of $6.24 and a 1-year high of $13.99. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $12.90 and a 200-day moving average of $11.29. The company has a current ratio of 1.21, a quick ratio of 1.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.83. Cushman & Wakefield (NYSE:CWK Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, July 29th. The company reported $0.20 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.19 by $0.01. Cushman & Wakefield had a return on equity of 12.08% and a net margin of 0.22%. The firm had revenue of $2.29 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.63 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.22 earnings per share. The businesss revenue was down 4.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Cushman & Wakefield plc will post 0.87 EPS for the current year. About Cushman & Wakefield (Free Report) Cushman & Wakefield plc, together with its subsidiaries, provides commercial real estate services under the Cushman & Wakefield brand in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and internationally. The company operates through Americas; Europe, Middle East and Africa; and Asia Pacific segments. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding CWK? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Cushman & Wakefield plc (NYSE:CWK Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Cushman & Wakefield Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Cushman & Wakefield and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Marshall Wace LLP reduced its holdings in shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE:ARE Free Report) by 14.5% in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 228,232 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock after selling 38,704 shares during the period. Marshall Wace LLPs holdings in Alexandria Real Estate Equities were worth $26,696,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the business. Mather Group LLC. bought a new stake in shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities in the 1st quarter worth approximately $30,000. UMB Bank n.a. raised its stake in Alexandria Real Estate Equities by 132.8% during the second quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 270 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $32,000 after buying an additional 154 shares during the last quarter. Rothschild Investment LLC bought a new stake in Alexandria Real Estate Equities in the second quarter worth $33,000. Riverview Trust Co purchased a new stake in shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities in the first quarter worth $37,000. Finally, Global X Japan Co. Ltd. bought a new position in shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities during the second quarter valued at $43,000. Institutional investors own 96.54% of the companys stock. Get Alexandria Real Estate Equities alerts: Alexandria Real Estate Equities Price Performance Shares of ARE opened at $121.54 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $118.64 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $119.80. The firm has a market cap of $21.26 billion, a PE ratio of 113.59, a P/E/G ratio of 4.26 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a current ratio of 0.23, a quick ratio of 0.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. has a 1-year low of $90.73 and a 1-year high of $135.45. Alexandria Real Estate Equities Dividend Announcement Alexandria Real Estate Equities ( NYSE:ARE Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, July 22nd. The real estate investment trust reported $0.25 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $2.34 by ($2.09). The firm had revenue of $766.70 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $775.03 million. Alexandria Real Estate Equities had a net margin of 5.09% and a return on equity of 0.68%. The firms revenue was up 7.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.24 EPS. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. will post 9.47 EPS for the current year. The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 15th. Investors of record on Monday, September 30th will be given a dividend of $1.30 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, September 30th. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.28%. Alexandria Real Estate Equitiess dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 485.98%. Analyst Ratings Changes A number of brokerages recently issued reports on ARE. Evercore ISI upped their price target on shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities from $126.00 to $127.00 and gave the stock an in-line rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 28th. JMP Securities reaffirmed a market outperform rating and issued a $140.00 target price on shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities in a report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Citigroup cut shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities from a buy rating to a neutral rating and cut their price target for the company from $130.00 to $125.00 in a report on Friday, September 13th. Jefferies Financial Group downgraded shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities from a buy rating to a hold rating and reduced their price target for the company from $136.00 to $127.00 in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. Finally, Bank of America downgraded Alexandria Real Estate Equities from a buy rating to a neutral rating and cut their target price for the company from $151.00 to $126.00 in a research note on Monday, July 29th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $130.70. View Our Latest Stock Analysis on Alexandria Real Estate Equities Alexandria Real Estate Equities Company Profile (Free Report) Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc (NYSE: ARE), an S&P 500 company, is a best-in-class, mission-driven life science REIT making a positive and lasting impact on the world. As the pioneer of the life science real estate niche since our founding in 1994, Alexandria is the preeminent and longest-tenured owner, operator, and developer of collaborative life science, agtech, and advanced technology mega campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations, including Greater Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, San Diego, Seattle, Maryland, and Research Triangle. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding ARE? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE:ARE Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Alexandria Real Estate Equities Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Alexandria Real Estate Equities and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. KHARTOUM, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Sudan's army launched a significant offensive on Thursday against rival paramilitary forces in the capital, Khartoum, marking its most substantial effort in months to regain control of the city, according to military sources and witnesses. Heavy fighting was reported in central Khartoum and its neighboring cities of Omdurman and Bahri, with eyewitnesses noting air strikes, artillery fire, and clashes involving light and medium weapons. The army targeted several areas controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in central, western, and southern Khartoum, a military source said on condition of anonymity. "Today, the army launched a ground attack on strategic areas in central Khartoum, marking the largest and most extensive assault of its kind to expel the militia from key locations," the source told Xinhua. Witnesses reported violent explosions near the army's General Command, the General Intelligence Service headquarters, and Khartoum International Airport. The army has not issued an official comment regarding the operations. Meanwhile, RSF advisor El Basha Tabig denied any army advances, claiming on social media platform X that RSF forces had destroyed an army unit attempting to cross the El Fitihab bridge toward Khartoum. Video clips purportedly showing army units entering the Al Souq Al-Arabi Market in central Khartoum, identified as an RSF stronghold, circulated on social media. The civil war that erupted on April 15 last year has wreaked havoc on Khartoum and other urban areas. Previous ceasefire agreements have failed to halt the conflict, which has resulted in a humanitarian crisis, leaving aid agencies struggling to deliver essential supplies amid ongoing fighting. ISLAMABAD, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is focusing on strengthening economic cooperation and enhancing connectivity in the region and beyond, the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday. Commenting on the upcoming prime ministers' meeting of the SCO in Islamabad, spokesperson of Pakistan's Foreign Office Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said that subjects pertaining to the economy, trade, finance, investment, trade facilitation and economic collaboration, as mentioned in Astana Declaration, will be further elaborated. Highlighting joint building of China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as mentioned during the SCO Astana Summit, the spokesperson said that Pakistan has been supporting initiatives in the SCO that foster connectivity and establish new linkages among member states. "Pakistan fully supports the Belt and Road Initiative, which is also an important connectivity project for the region and Pakistan. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of the BRI, is critical for Pakistan's economic prosperity and development," she said. Launched in 2013, the CPEC is a corridor linking Gwadar Port in southwest Pakistan's Balochistan province with Kashgar in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which highlights energy, transport and industrial cooperation in the first phase, while in the new phase expands to the fields of agriculture and livelihood. The jury is out on whether the new UK Government will live up to the commitments of the Good Friday Agreement, Michelle ONeill has said. Sinn Feins vice president also told her partys Ard Fheis that it is ready to fight the general election in Ireland, pointing to its historic success in emerging as the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Ard Fheis is taking place in Athlone amid increased speculation that Irelands coalition Government could be poised to call a Dail election. As it attempts to recover from a recent slide in the polls in Ireland, Sinn Fein will focus over the next two days on housing and supporting workers and families. Delivering her keynote speech, Ms ONeill said things can ebb and flow in politics. She said: In the lead-up to the (Northern Ireland) Assembly election, with many challenges and unpredictability, the political situation was very uncertain. We refused to be defined by that. We rallied our support and communicated our vision. And a few weeks later we witnessed historic success at the polls. This demonstrates that Sinn Fein can reaffirm our mission and that change can happen. Sinn Fein is the catalyst for change across this island. We are going into our Ard Fheis ready to fight the general election. Ms ONeill pointed to her position as the first nationalist First Minister at Stormont. She said: My election was a moment of equality and progress. For the first time in the history of the north, an Irish nationalist, a republican, is First Minister. What was unthinkable to my parents and grandparents generation is now a reality. The Sinn Fein vice president said the Stormont powersharing Executive is committed to delivering an ambitious agenda for change. She added: Over the past eight months I have been working across key sectors and with local communities from Pomeroy to the Shankill Road, from Newcastle to the Bogside, to ensure their voices are heard in the corridors of power and that the Executive responds to their needs. The four Executive parties are working with a unity of purpose. We are determined to deliver the public services, good governance, economic growth and strong communities that we all depend on. Our work aims to improve lives, build prosperity and create hope and opportunity. Ms ONeill said the change of government in London offered an opportunity in Irish-British relations. She added: However, the jury is out on how this new British Government will live up to commitments set out in the Good Friday Agreement. Their initial actions demonstrate more of the same: failed austerity and broken promises. This is simply not good enough. Cutting winter fuel payments for older people is wrong and the Executive is united against it. We will continue fighting for investment in public services decimated by 14 years of British austerity. She said financial limitations restricted the Executives ability to act, adding: Further financial powers are required. Only through governing ourselves can we build a better future. All powers and all decisions should be taken here on this island. Ms ONeill repeated her insistence that Casement Park in Belfast would be rebuilt and said the Legacy Act must be repealed in full. The Sinn Fein vice president also referenced a rise in racist incidents. She said: Over the summer, there were racist attacks and intimidation on our streets. This is totally unacceptable. As political leaders we will continue to face down division, sectarianism and racism and will not be deterred from building an inclusive future for all who live here. Hope will always win over hate. TASHKENT, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev met with Chen Wenqing, a senior Communist Party of China (CPC) official here on Thursday. Chen, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the CPC Central Committee, highlighted that China and Uzbekistan are sincere friends, partners in mutual development and brothers who support each other. He said that in January and July this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping met twice with President Mirziyoyev, during which they outlined a new blueprint for advancing the China-Uzbekistan all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership for a new era and building a China-Uzbekistan community with a shared future. Noting that law enforcement and security cooperation is a key component of the bilateral relationship, Chen said that China is willing to work with Uzbekistan to implement the consensus reached by the two heads of state, uphold a vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and give full play to the role of China-Uzbekistan law enforcement and security cooperation mechanism. China is also ready to strengthen exchanges between law enforcement and security departments of the two sides, and deepen cooperation in counterterrorism, anti-interference and counter-infiltration, so as to provide solid security guarantees for the development of both countries, he said. Mirziyoyev, for his part, said that the relationship between Uzbekistan and China serves as a model for inter-state relations in the region. Uzbekistan is firmly committed to combating any actions that threaten the sovereignty, security and development interests of both countries and resolutely opposes the "three forces," he said. Mirziyoyev expressed Uzbekistan's willingness to enhance law enforcement and security cooperation at all levels with China to effectively maintain the prosperity, stability and peace of both nations. Chen and Viktor Makhmudov, secretary of the security council under the president of Uzbekistan, co-chaired the first meeting of China-Uzbekistan law enforcement and security cooperation mechanism and signed a memorandum of understanding on establishing the mechanism. ISLAMABAD, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan has received a Special Drawing Right (SDR) of around 1.03 billion U.S. dollars from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said on Friday. The inflows will be reflected in the SBP's liquid reserves, which will be released on Oct. 3, the bank said in a statement. A day earlier, the country's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed appreciation for the IMF's technical assistance and capacity-building programs, which have helped to strengthen the country's institutions and improve its economic management, in a meeting with Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the IMF on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The IMF staff and the Pakistani authorities reached the staff-level agreement on a 37-month Extended Fund Facility Arrangement (EFF) of about 7 billion dollars in July this year, according to the lender. The new program aims to support the Pakistani authorities' efforts to cement macroeconomic stability and create conditions for stronger, more inclusive and resilient growth, the IMF said. People visit the exhibition area of the "Robotics Strategy Forum 2024" in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Sept. 26, 2024. The event was held on Thursday at Sofia Tech Park for the sixth consecutive year, continuing its mission to boost innovation in robotics and autonomous technologies. (Photo by Marian Draganov/Xinhua) A woman fine-tunes a product at the exhibition area of the "Robotics Strategy Forum 2024" in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Sept. 26, 2024. The event was held on Thursday at Sofia Tech Park for the sixth consecutive year, continuing its mission to boost innovation in robotics and autonomous technologies. (Photo by Marian Draganov/Xinhua) People visit the exhibition area of the "Robotics Strategy Forum 2024" in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Sept. 26, 2024. The event was held on Thursday at Sofia Tech Park for the sixth consecutive year, continuing its mission to boost innovation in robotics and autonomous technologies. (Photo by Marian Draganov/Xinhua) Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Sept. 26, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Rui) NEW YORK, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday met with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. China attaches great importance to China-Poland relations and is ready to work with Poland to uphold the core of China-Poland friendship based on mutual respect, equality, mutually beneficial cooperation, and mutual learning, said Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. Expressing hope that Poland will provide a fair and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese enterprises, Wang urged both sides to promote the healthy and stable development of China-Europe relations. Sikorski said that Poland adheres to the one-China policy and is committed to developing constructive bilateral relations with China. Poland is willing to provide a favorable business environment for Chinese enterprises, Sikorski said, noting that keeping trade between Europe and China open serves the interests of both sides. This photo taken on Sept. 24, 2024 shows containers of the China-Europe Railway Express (CRE) at the Duisburg port in Duisburg, Germany. (Xinhua/Meng Dingbo) Bangen described the railway as a new international transportation model between Asia and Europe, replacing traditional modes of transport and unlocking trade opportunities that were previously inaccessible. DUISBURG, Germany, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The China-Europe Railway Express (CRE) is playing an increasingly important role in stabilizing global industrial and supply chains in a complex geopolitical environment, a German executive at the port of Duisburg, Europe's largest inland port, has said. "In today's increasingly complex geopolitical climate, the China-Europe Railway Express minimizes the impact of external factors, playing a crucial role in ensuring the stability of global supply chains," said Markus Bangen, chief executive officer of Duisburger Hafen AG (Duisport). The Duisburg port now serves as a key European terminus of the CRE. When the CRE went into operation in 2011, many saw the idea of a rail connection between Europe and China as "crazy," Bangen said in a recent exclusive interview with Xinhua. Thirteen years later, the service has dispatched more than 90,000 trains, linking 224 cities across 25 European countries. Markus Bangen, chief executive officer of Duisburger Hafen AG (Duisport), receives an interview with Xinhua in Duisburg, Germany, Sept. 24, 2024. (Xinhua/Meng Dingbo) The CRE now complements shipping and maritime transport, strengthening connections between China's inland and major European hubs. Bangen described the railway as a new international transportation model between Asia and Europe, replacing traditional modes of transport and unlocking trade opportunities that were previously inaccessible. He noted that the service has gained the trust of businesses and the public, proving rail transport a reliable option for fostering cross-Eurasian trade. The reliability and stability of the CRE have been proven at critical moments. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, when maritime and air transport were disrupted, the CRE emerged as the only reliable transportation option, keeping trade routes open. Today, amidst international crises, the CRE continues to serve as a stabilizing force. In light of the situation in the Red Sea and shipping delays due to capacity shortages, many companies are turning to this rail link to ensure the safety and stability of their supply chains, Bangen said. This photo taken on Sept. 24, 2024 shows a view of the Duisburg port in Duisburg, Germany. (Xinhua/Meng Dingbo) The CRE has been advancing rapidly in recent years. In July this year, a new direct route from Chongqing to Duisburg, traversing the Caspian Sea, was put into operation, covering over 11,000 km and further enhancing sea-rail intermodal transportation. The new route provides a new option for transportation along the so-called Middle Corridor, a trade link between China and Europe that passes through several central Asian and southern Caucasian countries. The development of the Middle Corridor for the CRE addresses customer needs by reducing the impact of geopolitical issues on logistics amid global supply chain disruptions caused by geopolitical conflicts, Bangen said, adding that Turkey presents strong market demand and growth potential as a key hub along this route. "The expansion of the Middle Corridor has enriched the route choices of the China-Europe Railway Express, and we are likely to see even more growth opportunities in the near future," Bangen said. This photo taken on Sept. 24, 2024 shows a view of the Duisburg port in Duisburg, Germany. (Xinhua/Meng Dingbo) Cargo volumes between China and Europe via the railway have remained stable since the beginning of this year, supported by a strong customer base, he added. Bangen expressed his confidence in the future of the railway, saying, "We see more possibilities for the China-Europe Railway Express, as well as enormous demand and opportunities for further growth." Bangen added that Duisburg has gained increasing recognition as a key stop along the railway, attracting more Chinese companies to invest in the city. The logistics industry has become one of Duisburg's most vital sectors, creating job opportunities and benefiting local businesses and residents. Duisport has established a strong partnership with China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. and China Railway Container Transport Corp., Ltd. (CRCT), marked by continuous improvement through effective communication, Bangen said. Aerial photo taken on June 23, 2022 shows a cargo train, which marks the 10,000th trip made by China-Europe freight trains operated by the China-Europe Railway Express (Chongqing), waiting for departure at Tuanjie Village Central Railway Station in Chongqing, southwest China. (Xinhua/Huang Wei) Laszlo Kover, the speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly, delivers a speech at a reception hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Hungary, in Budapest, Hungary on Sept. 26, 2024. The reception was held here on Thursday to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China as well as the 75th anniversary of China-Hungary diplomatic ties. (Photo by Attila Volgyi/Xinhua) BUDAPEST, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China has achieved a level of development that the world admires, the speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly said here on Thursday. Laszlo Kover made the remarks on the sidelines of a reception hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Hungary to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China as well as the 75th anniversary of China-Hungary diplomatic ties. Underlining the importance of China's contribution to world peace and progress, Kover told Xinhua that "China is playing a significant role in making the world safer and better through its international cooperation." Kover said that China is Hungary's most important trading partner outside Europe and ranks ninth overall, adding that Chinese investment in Hungary has also been substantial. "We also see that the connections between people, whether in the fields of science, student exchanges, or tourism, are growing, and these opportunities for cooperation are expanding, which is undoubtedly advantageous for Hungary," he said. "We can set an example for others in terms of the credibility of our cooperation and mutual respect," he said, expressing optimism about the development of bilateral relations. Chinese Ambassador to Hungary Gong Tao addresses a reception hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Hungary, in Budapest, Hungary on Sept. 26, 2024. The reception was held here on Thursday to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China as well as the 75th anniversary of China-Hungary diplomatic ties. (Photo by Attila Volgyi/Xinhua) Dancers perform at a reception hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Hungary, in Budapest, Hungary on Sept. 26, 2024. The reception was held here on Thursday to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China as well as the 75th anniversary of China-Hungary diplomatic ties. (Photo by Attila Volgyi/Xinhua) A reception hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Hungary is held in Budapest, Hungary on Sept. 26, 2024. The reception was held here on Thursday to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China as well as the 75th anniversary of China-Hungary diplomatic ties. (Photo by Attila Volgyi/Xinhua) The latest note from the Kansas legal maverick puts a national medical association on notice and signals scrutiny of "best practices" for youngsters going forward. Here's the word sent that www.TonysKansasCity.com readers might fight instructive . . . Kobach, AG coalition question pediatrics academy on possible violations of gender care recommendations TOPEKA - (September 26, 2024) - Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and a coalition of 20 state attorneys general are putting the American Academy of Pediatrics on notice for possible violations of state consumer protection laws over the AAPs recommendation that puberty blockers are safe and reversible for children. The letter, led by Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador, demands that the AAP retract a policy statement that calls puberty blockers reversible. Parents should be able to trust that guidance from the AAP and its member pediatricians is rooted in safety and reality and not in woke gender ideology, Kobach said. A child changing his or her gender identity has long-term major medical and psychological ramifications." The letter requests detailed information from the AAP regarding its communications and practices related to youth gender dysphoria and substantiation of the Academys claims regarding the safety and reversibility of puberty blockers. Telling parents and children that puberty blockers are reversible at the very least conveys assurance that no permanent harm or change will occur, but that claim cannot be made in the face of the unstudied and novel use of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria, the letter reads. In addition to Idaho and Kansas, other states joining the letter include: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and the Arizona Legislature. ### Developing . . . Lots to consider for our most loyal readers who enjoy this selection of EXCEPTIONAL crime reporting along with updates on police action, court cases and community outreach. Of special note . . . Tonight we're starting out with an important short Kansas City documentary on the very real protocols for coping with the aftermath of tragedy. Check TKC news gathering . . . Behind the Scenes of Crime Scene Cleanup Jeremy Cumberford of Crime Scene Cleaners shares the methodology of remediation after tragedies such as homicides, suicides, and unattended deaths. Pedestrian on scooter killed in Kansas City crash by speeding vehicle A pedestrian operating a motorized scooter was struck and killed by a speeding car at 51st and Troost in Kansas City on Thursday. Scooter driver killed after being hit by car near 51st, Troost Avenue in Kansas City One person was killed after being hit while on a motorized scooter in Kansas City, Missouri, on Thursday, police said. Woman stabbed in KCK hopes sentencing brings relief John Eugene McGriff is set to be sentenced on Wednesday after reaching a plea deal. Scene is safe after Independence Police Department bomb squad investigates suspicious package The scene is safe after the Independence Police Department investigated a suspicious package. Police said the package was just filled with paper. Kansas Turnpike Authority warns of new text scam asking to pay for tolls It involves "smishing" - text messages that ask you to pay for tolls, but the texts come from a scammer. Two children almost died at a Kansas foster care office One child cut their arm and neck with glass. Another found muscle relaxants. The two children almost died at a foster care office. What if Missouri got it wrong and executed an innocent man? Abolish the death penalty | Opinion Missouri executes Marcellus 'Khaliifah' Williams despite doubts about his guilt. Is the death penalty inhumane and prone to errors? From Toriano Porter: Kansas City, Kansas, man sentenced in father's death, woman's stabbing John McGriff will serve just under 14 years without parole in the fatal stabbing of his father, Samuel, 72, and a knife attack on Stephanie Perez in July 2023. Independence police looking for suspects in hit-and-run that injured man and dog The victim is still in the ICU at a local hospital. The victim's dog suffered a broken spine and had to be put down by a vet. Kansas City leaders answer illegal street racing concerns by installing rumble strips The Kansas City, Missouri, City Council is warning dangerous drivers who attempt the illegal sideshow spin-outs and racing that have been plaguing the Crossroads Art District. Suspect arrested for 2018 killing of teen outside Cascone's Restaurant Erick Estrada, an employee of Cascone's Restaurant on North Oak Trafficway in Kansas City, Missouri, was shot and killed on March 25, 2018 Public safety concerns linger in Platte County 1 month after voters rejected jail expansion Platte County leaders are trying to figure out next steps after voters rejected a proposal to build a new jail in the county. Police attempt to identify woman who may be involved in KCK robbery, shooting Police in Kansas City have called on the public to help identify the woman behind a robbery who may also have information about a shooting. At vigil for homicide victims, KC nonprofits encourage families to seek help Friends and family of those lost to homicide in Kansas City united in grief Wednesday to mark National Day of Remembrance for Homicide Victims. Good Samaritans detain man accused of break-in, vehicle fires in Kansas City A group of Good Samaritans detained a man accused of a break-in and two vehicle fires which led to his arrest in Kansas City. KCPD wants to shatter the stigma and promote mental health in law enforcement September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. KCPD is highlighting resources available to officers and their families to support mental health. Developing . . . Once again we share our late night reading for late night & early morning readers as we hope (but don't promise) to share another update before the crack of noon. For now . . . Check TKC news gathering . . . Show Must Go On . . . Starlight's 2025 Broadway Series Is All Debuts - IN Kansas City Magazine The Starlight Theatre announced its 2025 Broadway series lineup last week, and each production will be appearing on the Starlight stage for the first time. The 2025 AdventHealth Broadway Series-which consists of Mean Girls, School of Rock, Ain't Too Proud, Disney's Frozen, and Life of Pi-marks the theater's 75th anniversary in Kansas City. Community Support Endures After Tragedy 'We will do whatever we can': KCK farm, local chef host fundraiser for family of Shaun Brady The Kurlbaum family and chef Stephanie Cashion, owner of The Glass Cat, used comfort food to raise money for Shaun Brady's family. Background On Another Local Loss Aviation leaders mourn loss of airport mechanic after fatal medical emergency Kansas City aviation leaders are mourning the loss of a dedicated airport maintenance mechanic after he suffered a fatal medical emergency at work. Transit Budget Debated 'A tremendous blow': What bus route cuts could mean for Wyandotte County neighborhoods Two fixed routes are being eyed for elimination in 2025 to fill a $2.4 million budget shortfall. Tribute To Troops Heartland Honor Flight gives KC-area veterans homecoming they didn't get more than 50 years ago Community members gave Kansas City-area Vietnam War veterans a warm welcome home from their Heartland Honor Flight at KCI Thursday afternoon. Progress Toward Post Season Adam Frazier and the bullpen saves the day in 7-4 win. Kansas City's magic number is two Our Favorite Brit Stays Winning Elizabeth Hurley Celebrated Bring Crowned No. 1 World's Sexiest Woman for Maxim With a Stripped-Down Photoshoot Elizabeth Hurley is oh-so stunning, and now, Maxim has crowned her the world's sexiest woman. In case you missed it, Hurley posted the newest Maxim cover, featuring her looking as radiant as can be. She shared the photo to her Instagram with the caption reading, "Thank you @maximmag for making me your No 1 ... Fighting Against Future Tech Biden and Harris unveil measure to tackle gun violence amid Trump clash Executive order aims to crack down on conversion devices and 3D guns as Harris and Trump spar on campaign trail MAGA Campaigns For Time Trump promotes watches branded with his name Former President Donald Trump promoted watches branded with his name, his latest involvement in business endeavors as he campaigns for the White House. Holy Land War Promise Israel's Netanyahu says troops will keep fighting Hezbollah "with full force" as U.S., France propose cease-fire President Biden and his French counterpart say an Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire is needed now to avoid a potentially "much broader conflict." Show-Me Local Solidarity U.S. Mo. Senator Josh Hawley states he fully supports Israel during the ongoing conflict with Hamas U.S. Mo. Senator Josh Hawley states he fully supports Israel during the ongoing conflict with Hamas Last Picture Show Honored Boulevard Drive-In announce passing of longtime owner Wes Neal The Boulevard Drive-In Theatre in Kansas City, Kansas announced Thursday the passing of longtime owner Samuel Wesley (Wes) Neal. Plans For Last Remaining People Who Aren't Couch Potatoes Fourteen Things To Do In KC This Weekend, September 26-29 here are fourteen things to do n KC this weekend, September 26-29, including: Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Two Door Cinema Club and Dionne Warwick. Buzz On Autumn 2024 . . . Kansas City weather: Pleasant weather through the weekend Mostly clear skies and warm conditions are expected Thursday evening, with lows dropping into the 50s. And this is the OPEN THREAD for right now. A recent local report noted threats targeting local schools coming from overseas. Actually . . . There's a very good chance that it could be tech savvy students who know how to use a VPN or have experience with IP spoofing . . . It's not exactly rocket science but good enough to trick some lower level security personnel. In the meantime . . . Fears about safety for students and the exorbitant cost to address security fears persist at the outset of the school year . . . Check-it: A report by TDR Technology Solutions found that 16 million students have been impacted by school threats, costing taxpayers over $1 billion in the last two years. Just 5 years ago, they averaged 29 threats a month. Last year, that number jumped to 785 threats a month. These types of threats usually come from one of three sources: a student who attends the school, a person associated with a national group that attacks schools nationwide, or foreign actors. The latter was the case for the shooting reported here in Kansas City. That's really scary," said John, a resident. "Crazy it came from overseas. I wonder what their agenda was. Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . . Unfounded threats cause frustration among Northland residents Two school shooting threats reported in Missouri Thursday turned out to be just a hoax but as swatting calls continue to increase across the country, so does the emotional and financial impact. Threats against Kansas City-area schools could cost districts hundreds of thousands of dollars Missouri State Highway Patrol has received 102 tips about school shooting threats since July 1. Schools around the Kansas City area have increased security in response to a wave of threats. Developing . . . BERLIN, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese and German rail transit companies have expressed their intention to collaborate at a transport fair here on Friday. During the 2024 International Trade Fair for Transport Technology, known as InnoTrans, Chinese transportation technology enterprises showcased their low-carbon, intelligent, and digital credentials. They also demonstrated their latest progress in equipment manufacturing, solutions, and international cooperation. Zhongguancun Science Park Fengtai Park Management Committee from Beijing, which took part in the event for the first time, brought its 13 rail transit enterprises, focusing on the latest scientific and technological achievements in the planning and design, equipment development, operation and maintenance management of rail transit. The Committee signed strategic cooperation agreements with Steinbeis Transfer Center Smart Electronic Systems for Industry Medical Technology, MM China Link e.K., Automotive BerlinBrandenburg e.V., and other German institutions to foster a new ecology for industrial collaboration. The Committee also signed agreements with companies from other countries regarding procurement, service, and technical cooperation. Liu Jingquan, Deputy director of the Committee, told Xinhua that he is optimistic about the potential for more foreign rail transit enterprises to cooperate with Chinese enterprises and jointly promote the development of the global rail transit industry. Chinese and German enterprises also held extensive exchanges at the Sino-German Rail Transit Industry Cooperation Forum, reaching various cooperation intentions and jointly drawing up a blueprint for further collaboration. CargoBeamer AG, a rail transportation enterprise from Germany, showcased its latest technology with its Chinese counterparts. "China is a very important market player. We have a good understanding of the quality of Chinese products and the capabilities of Chinese companies, and our technology can help rail transit logistics companies improve transfer rates and reduce transportation costs. We believe that good cooperation with Chinese enterprises can keep China's rail transit logistics transportation speed at the top of the world," Anna Muller, project manager for Strategy and Business Development at CargoBeamer AG, told Xinhua. Harald Bleimeister, chairman of the board of directors at Automotive BerlinBrandenburg e.V., said the association has been working with Chinese companies for more than four years to build a motor vehicle network. As China is the technology leader in electric vehicles, German companies need to cooperate with Chinese companies if they wish to remain competitive in the international market, he added. "We hope to have more communication and cooperation with Chinese companies to promote the development of science and technology," he told Xinhua. "I see the positive attitude of Chinese companies to cooperate. Our technology to cooperate with the Chinese side, it will be a win-win situation," said Benjamin Schreiber, head of the China Department of the Steinbeis Transfer Center Smart Electronic Systems for Industry Medical Technology. China's universities and research institutes are rich in transportation talent. Further communication and trade between China and Germany will bring more development opportunities for both sides, Schreiber added. More than 2,900 exhibitors from 59 countries and regions attended the event, which ended on Friday. CARACAS, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The United States has relied mainly on "psychological warfare" to attack Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro said Thursday. "The hybrid, multidimensional war against Venezuela, directed by the United States of America and the imperial power of the United States, has psychological warfare as its main element," the president said in a speech marking the 19th anniversary of the Strategic Operational Command of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces. Today psychological warfare "has greater firepower because it has social media," in addition to traditional media, he said. As part of its campaign, Washington imposes its narrative globally, but there is still "an immense majority" of people and governments worldwide that support Venezuela, said Maduro. He also denounced the ongoing "electrical war" against Venezuela. "We have suffered electrical attacks on the transmission systems in recent days, which have been immediately replaced by the heroic work of the country's electrical workers," he said. Canada and France will jointly help Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression in cyberspace. As Ukrinform reports, this is stated in the joint French-Canadian declaration adopted during the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to Canada. "Our armed forces will continue to deepen their strategic cooperation in the field of cyber defence in support of Ukraine. We are determined to work with Ukraine and our partners to support Ukraine in defending its sovereignty, independence and its territorial integrity against Russian aggression, both in the traditional domains and in cyberspace," the statement reads. It is noted that Canada and France will also strengthen cooperation in the area of military equipment support to Ukraine and training as part of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG), also known as the Ramstein group. Paris and Ottawa also promised to continue efforts to ensure the return of the Ukrainian children deported to Russia. "Canada and France will support Ukraine for as long as it takes to thwart Russias war of aggression, which is a flagrant violation of international law, including the Charter of the United Nations. Our support for Ukraines independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders is unwavering," the document emphasizes. Note that French President Emmanuel Macron is currently on a two-day visit to Canada, where he arrived after participating in the UN General Assembly. Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi and Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Slovakia General Daniel Zmeko have agreed on further joint efforts to deepen the development of Ukrainian-Slovak military cooperation. According to Ukrinform, Syrskyi posted this on Facebook. During the meeting, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine also informed Zmeko about the course of hostilities in various areas of the front and the current needs of the Defense Forces. He emphasized the violation of international humanitarian law by the Russian military and their war crimes. This is the third personal visit of General Daniel Zmeko during the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation. I am grateful to the government and people of Slovakia for the military and technical assistance provided to the Ukrainian army, noted Syrskyi. The Commander-in-Chief noted the effectiveness of the combat use of the weapons provided by Slovakia and emphasized that he appreciates the country's assistance in training the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As Ukrinform reported, Ukraine has offered Slovakia to sign a bilateral security agreement. Photo: Oleksandr Syrskyi / Facebook NEW YORK, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Hurricane Helene has led to the death of more than 30 people in the United States though it has weakened to a tropical storm after landfall. The death toll has reached at least 35 across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, including the death of at least 17 people in South Carolina, according to a report by The Associated Press on Friday. Hurricane Helene hit Florida's Big Bend area Thursday night as a Category 4, but its impact carried far beyond into the states of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Once expected to reach eight feet of rainfall, Florida's Big Bend area received more than 15 feet. Near 4 million people have had their power lines cut due to the storm and are without power, according to PowerOutage.US., which tracks and records power outages across the country. There is no news on when the outages will be restored. In Georgia, around 115 buildings have been made structurally unsound, as officials rush to rescue those trapped inside. It has been reported that 50 Tennessee citizens are stuck on the roof of Unicoi County Hospital due to rising floodwaters. In North Carolina, 290 roads have been closed due to severe flooding and landslides. The state received close to 30 inches of rain due to the hurricane. Currently, efforts are underway to free people trapped in buildings and areas inaccessible by foot. State patrols are sending out boats and choppers as part of their water rescue teams. The National Guard has deployed teams to Florida to help with any requests for assistance. U.S. President Joe Biden has approved emergency declarations in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Alabama prior to the landfall of Hurricane Helene. The international community must not turn a blind eye to Russia's aggression against Ukraine, otherwise similar wars may start all over the world. This was stated by Prime Minister Robert Golob of Slovenia, who spoke at the the general debate within the 79th session of the UN General Assembly. "What we are witnessing in Ukraine is aggression of a stronger and powerful neighbor into a smaller and weaker one. This is clearly a blatant violation of the UN Charter. If we are to let this aggression pass, we open doors to many similar wars across the globe," he said. The head of government emphasized the need to reform the UN Security Council, whose work is effectively blocked because the five permanent members misuse the right of veto and put national interests first. "We urgently need a Council that is a true representation of the international community. A Council that is fit for the world of today. We need to ensure that the distribution of seats is fair.The Council needs stronger voices of the regions that have been underrepresented, such as the African continent. Reform of Council's composition needs to be accompanied with the reform of the veto powers," said Golob. As Ukrinform reported earlier, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Austria, Alexander Schallenberg, in his speech at the UN General Assembly, stated that a peaceful settlement in Ukraine should be based on the UN Charter, and not on Moscows dictates. Also, he believes there can be no negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine. WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-led international mission formed a decade ago to combat the Islamic State extremist group in Iraq will cease to exist by September 2025, said a joint statement issued Friday by the U.S. and Iraqi governments. There will be, however, a "transitioning to bilateral security partnerships in a manner that supports Iraqi forces and maintains pressure on ISIS," said the statement, which on the U.S. part was carried by the State Department's website, using the abbreviation of an alternative name of the Islamic State known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The coalition's military mission in neighboring Syria, where the Islamic State also operates, "will continue until September 2026," the statement said. The statement provided few details as to what, if any, number of U.S. troops will leave Iraq as a result of the end of the mission. "I just want to foot stomp the fact that this is not a withdrawal. This is a transition. It's a transition from a coalition military mission to an expanded U.S.-Iraqi bilateral security relationship," a senior U.S. official told reporters during a briefing Friday. The United States has some 2,500 military personnel in Iraq and roughly 900 troops in Syria, tasked with the mission of fighting Islamic State militants while also serving as trainers and advisors to local security forces. Full-time Arizona State University students will see a $350 hike in their tuition bills next semester, as the school looks to overcome budget shortfalls. The recent state budget passed by the state legislature and signed by Gov. Katie Hobbes reduced the school's budget by $11 million, as well as funding for the Arizona Teachers Academy and the Arizona Promise Scholarship Program, "pushing the estimated real ASU impact from the budget reductions to about $24 million when compared with the prior year," the university said in a Monday statement. Part-time ASU students will also see a proportionate tuition increase. "We have to consider our options to advance the university in a financially sound way," ASU President Michael M. Crow said. "For whatever reason, state leaders want the public universities to be tuition-driven, independently funded and to advance on their own." ASU officials noted that more than 2,600 Arizona resident students could be impacted by the expected decrease in funding for its scholarship program, which typically ensures all tuition and fees are covered at Arizona's public universities for eligible residents. The university also plans to close its Lake Havasu Center in the summer of 2025. Its discontinuation will affect approximately 225 students and 20 employees. "These necessary actions reflect the continuing lack of public investment from state government for higher education in Arizona,'' Crow said. "ASU simply cannot be asked to fund the expansion of higher education across the state without state investment as a part of the financial structure to do so." According to University Provost Nancy Gonzales, the school will meet with current Lake Havasu students and create personalized plans to ensure that they finish their degrees online or at one of the ASU campuses. "It's disappointing that state leaders do not see the value of higher education in places like Lake Havasu City," Gonzales added. "ASU will continue to do all that it can to serve that portion of the state through ASU Online and agreements with our community college partners." Brandeis University President Ronald D. Liebowitz will resign, effective Nov. 1, following a $2 million budget deficit revealed over the summer and a narrow no-confidence vote by the university's faculty this week. The motion passed with 159 votes in favor, 149 against and 26 abstentions, with over 75% of eligible voters casting ballots, according to Boston.com. "This reveals what our multiple faculty conversations and debates on it made clear: while faculty are united in their care for Brandeis and their great desire for it to flourish, they are divided on this motion," professor and Faculty Senate Chair Jeffrey Lenowitz told the outlet. According to the Justice, the Brandeis student newspaper, faculty have been in talks about a no-confidence vote since May, and criticized Liebowitz for "badly handled budget shortfalls, failures of fundraising, excessive responses to student protests, indifference to faculty motions, and the recent damaging staff layoffs." The budget shortfall led to plans to eliminate 60 positions at the institution, and over the past five years, Brandeis has seen a roughly 9% drop in overall enrollment. A pro-Palestinian protest last fall, which led to the arrest of seven individuals, and the banning of Students for Justice in Palestine at Brandeis after it reportedly expressed open support for Hamas, also drew criticism. Leibowtiz's resignation makes him the latest major university president to resign following controversial responses to campus protests over the Israel-Gaza war. In a Wednesday announcement to the school community, the Board of Trustees expressed gratitude toward Liebowitz for the role he played last year in speaking against antisemitism on college campuses. Approximately one-third of Brandeis' student population is Jewish. "He has continually reminded us that we are animated by Jewish values and identity, including a reverence for knowledge, a commitment to repairing the world, and openness to all," board Chair Lisa R. Kranc said. Arthur Levine, a Brandeis graduate and former president of Teachers College at Columbia University, will take on the role of interim president. In his letter to the Brandeis community, Leibowtiz said leaving the university would provide him a "valuable moment" to create new pathways for innovation and reform in higher education. "It has been gratifying to advance the university's unusual mission of providing an undergraduate liberal arts education of excellence along with first-rate doctoral programs and world class scientific research," he said. During suspected University of Idaho quadruple murderer Bryan Kohberger's first appearance in a Boise courtroom Thursday, the defense revealed they've suffered a major setback as they prepare to go to trial. "We had an expert that we were working with, and that expert passed away," defense attorney Anne Taylor told Ada County Judge Steven Hippler during the hearing, as she hinted toward moving the trial further away from its anticipated June 2025 start date. "We have been able to refill that role, to have a new expert to do the work that that expert was hired to do, but we are not progressed to the point that I'd hoped to be, through no fault of the new expert." Taylor declined to go into specifics regarding the type of expert, only describing them as a "very necessary expert for us to have on board." She agreed to an ex-parte hearing with Judge Hippler following the court's adjournment, after he also suggested either moving the trial's start date to either May or September, citing his concern over potential jurors' summer plans. Earlier this month, Judge John Judge sided with the defense when he granted their motion for a change of venue over fears Kohberger would be denied a fair trial in Latah County. Kohberger allegedly stabbed University of Idaho students Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, to death in their off-campus apartment in November 2022. Mogen, Goncalves and Kernodle were roommates at the Moscow, Idaho residence, and Chapin Kernodle's boyfriend was spending the night, when they were slaughtered in their sleep, authorities determined. Kohberger was arrested for the murders six weeks later, after DNA evidence, surveillance video and cell phone records allegedly tied him to the scene of the crime. He was taken into custody while visiting his parents in Pennsylvania on Dec. 30, 2022. Kohberger pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary in the college students' slayings. A motive remains under investigation. Originally published on Lawyer Herald. ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Sep, 2024) In a crucial meeting led by Federal Minister for Commerce Jam Kamal Khan, stakeholders from Pakistan's tourism and hospitality sector highlighted the vast potential of tourism in increasing foreign exchange and driving trade enhancement. The meeting took place on World Tourism Day, a day dedicated globally to recognizing the importance of tourism in fostering international understanding, economic growth, and cultural exchange, according to press release issued by commerce ministry. Acknowledging the opportunities in this sector, Jam Kamal assured full support from the Ministry of Commerce, including the provision of Export Development Fund (EDF) for tourism-related export initiatives. The meeting was attended by high-level officials, including Nawabzada Mir Zarain Khan Magsi, Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism and Culture, secretaries from all four provincial tourism departments, the Managing Director of Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) Aftab Ur Rehman Rana, and representatives from the public and private sectors. The gathering sought to address challenges in the tourism sector and explore avenues for exponential growth. In a presentation, Aftab Ur Rehman Rana, Managing Director of PTDC said that Pakistan was blessed with a diverse range of tourism attractions, including natural landscapes, rich cultural heritage, adventure tourism opportunities, and religious tourism. Despite this wealth of resources, the tourism sector contributes only 5.8% to Pakistan's GDP, amounting to PKR 5.59 trillion, with domestic tourism spending at PKR 3.85 trillion and 2.2 million international visitors in 2023. Jam Kamal Khan emphasized that few countries in the world have the level of tourism potential that Pakistan possesses, remarking that the sector, connected with various industries, can significantly boost revenue streams. He lauded the new visa policy, which grants visa-free entry to citizens of 126 countries, positioning Pakistan as a competitive global destination. The recent relaxation in Pakistans visa regime, which waives fees for citizens of 126 countries, has rapidly increased tourist arrivals. According to PTDC data, domestic tourism is also on the rise, with 10 million Pakistanis visiting the northern areas in 2023 alone. However, the council members called for the removal of post-visa hurdles to further facilitate foreign tourism. Despite the progress, stakeholders believe there is potential for even greater growth. Aftab Ur Rehman Rana projected that with the removal of policy impediments and improved tourism infrastructure, Pakistan could earn up to $6 billion from tourism. Key recommendations included developing 30 countries as friendly tourist destinations and improving direct flight connections to attract more international visitors. Nawabzada Mir Zarain Magsi highlighted the untapped potential in Balochistan, a region with vast opportunities for coastal and religious tourism. He emphasized that Balochistan's beautiful beaches and deserts, coupled with religious heritage sites, could attract more tourists with better collaboration between the federal and provincial governments. The minister pointed to Islamabad's strategic importance as a gateway for international tourists. He revealed that 12 to 13 major hotel chains are planning to establish themselves in the capital, further boosting Islamabad's appeal as a prime tourist destination. MD PTDC said to overcome the barriers, the PTDC is working on restructuring its governance, introducing a National E-Portal, and launching a branding campaign to promote Pakistan as a tourist destination globally. The governments efforts to revive the tourism sector post-COVID, including participation in international expos and fairs, have already begun to yield positive results. However, stakeholders stress that sustainable tourism development, with a focus on preserving Pakistan's natural and cultural heritage, will be key to ensuring long-term growth. With the backing of the Ministry of Commerce and new initiatives aimed at making tourism a major contributor to Pakistans economy, the countrys tourism sector is set for a transformative phase, potentially bringing in billions in revenue and positioning Pakistan as a top global destination. (@Abdulla99267510) Test, held on 22 September, is a prerequisite for admissions into medical and dental colleges LAHORE: (UrduPoint/UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News-Sept 27th, 2024) The University of Health Sciences (UHS) Lahore announced the results of the Medical and Dental College Admission Test (MDCAT) 2024 on Friday. The test, held on 22 September, is a prerequisite for admissions into medical and dental colleges. A total of 56,519 candidates appeared for the MDCAT in Punjab, out of which 48,051 secured more than 55% marks, while 51,018 candidates achieved over 50%. The highest score recorded was 199 out of 200, equivalent to 99.50%. The top position was jointly secured by two female students, Zainab Munir, daughter of Munir Ahmad Qadir, and Iqra, daughter of Muhammad Azam, both appeared from Lahore, who scored 199 marks each. According to the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) regulations, the minimum passing marks for medical admissions are set at 55%, while for dental college admissions, candidates must score at least 50%. The results are available on the UHS website at www.uhs.edu.pk. Prior to the announcement of the results, UHS Vice Chancellor, Prof. Ahsan Waheed Rathore, expressed his gratitude to the university staff for successfully conducting the MDCAT. In his address, Prof. Rathore emphasized that UHS managed the examination with transparency and in a peaceful environment, thanking Allah Almighty for this achievement. He praised the dedication and teamwork of the faculty, staff, and students and announced an honorarium for the university staff in recognition of their efforts. Geneva, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Sep, 2024) More than 3,600 people have been killed this year in the "senseless" gang violence ravaging Haiti, the United Nations said on Friday. The Western Hemisphere's poorest country has plunged into virtual anarchy, with gangs taking over the capital, Port-au-Prince, and the security and health systems collapsing. About 600,000 people were displaced in the first six months of 2024 and 1,280 were injured in gang violence, including 295 women and 63 children, the UN rights office (OHCHR) said in a report. In that period, at least 893 individuals, including 25 children, were kidnapped and held for ransom by criminal groups, who are vying for power in a vacuum left by a political crisis and weak state authority. "Latest figures documented by the UN Human Rights Office indicate that at least 3,661 people have been killed since January this year, maintaining the high levels of violence seen in 2023," the rights office said. "No more lives should be lost to this senseless criminality," said Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The OHCHR urged the Haitian authorities and the international community to do more to protect people on the Caribbean island. It said the gangs had changed their modus operandi this year. While some victims were struck by random gunfire, others were executed in broad daylight for allegedly informing the authorities or opposing gang activities. "Some of those victims had their bodies mutilated with machetes and then burned. "Gangs filmed the scenes and shared them widely on social media to instill fear and control the population," the report said. The report said gangs had continued to use sexual violence "to punish, spread fear and subjugate populations". It said that at least 860 people were killed and 393 injured during police operations and patrols across Port-au-Prince, including at least 36 children, in what could constitute use of unnecessary and disproportionate force. The gangs have also recruited large numbers of children into their ranks, it added. An estimated 1.6 million people in Haiti face emergency-level food insecurity. In October 2023, the UN Security Council gave the green light to send a multinational stabilisation force, led by Kenya, to assist the Haitian police. Kenyan President William Ruto told the UN General Assembly on Thursday his country would complete the deployment of the 2,500-strong Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) by January. rjm-nl/gil (@ChaudhryMAli88) ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Sep, 2024) Secretary Tourism Punjab Farid Ahmad Tarar marked World Tourism Day by urging tourists to embrace tolerance, underscoring the government's dedication to transforming Pakistan into a premier tourist destination. This vision aligns with the global "Tourism and Peace" theme, highlighting tourism's potential to foster international understanding and cooperation, he highlighted in an Interview with a private news channel. The Secretary of Punjab is encouraging neighboring countries to explore the state's rich cultural heritage, emphasizing the importance of tolerance and cultural exchange. The Secretary highlighted the need to preserve the state's cultural heritage, which is a unique blend of various civilizations, and to share it with the world. Secretary Tarar emphasized, tourism has the power to bridge cultural divides, and Punjab is committed to creating a welcoming environment for visitors from around the world. The Punjab government is taking concrete steps to promote eco-tourism under the vision of the Chief Minister, he mentioned, adding, this includes promoting half-timber houses and minimizing unplanned constructions to preserve the natural beauty of the region. The government's eco-tourism policy aims to provide a framework for sustainable tourism growth, balancing environmental, social, and economic considerations, he added. Pakistan is gearing up to showcase its rich cultural heritage and natural beauty to the world. The government is promoting Lahore's diversity, the historic Hiran Minar monument, and Kotli Sattian's breathtaking tourist spots to boost tourism, he highlighted. The government is also promoting Desert Safari car rallies, which promises to be an adrenaline-packed adventure, he added. These initiatives aim to position Pakistan as a premier tourist destination, showcasing its unique blend of history, culture, and natural beauty, he said, adding, with enhanced infrastructure and promotional efforts, Pakistan is set to welcome more visitors in the coming year. Secretary Tourism Punjab Farid Ahmad Tarar announced that Murree, Changa manga forest, kallar kahar and Cholistan will become major tourist hotspots, offering a unique blend of natural beauty and cultural experiences. Murree, a popular hill station will showcase its breathtaking views, vibrant marketplace, and thrilling chairlift rides to tourists, he added. Changa Manga and KalarKahar, unexplored gems, will reveal their hidden treasures, while Cholistan' s majestic desert landscapes will provide an unforgettable desert safari adventure. These destinations will position Punjab as a premier tourist destination, attracting visitors from around the world and boosting the local economy, he concluded. (@FahadShabbir) ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Sep, 2024) UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences, Lidia Brito, met with Chairman NDMA, Lieutenant General Inam Haider Malik to discuss Pakistans innovative approach to Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in Paris. The meeting emphasized Pakistans DRR model, recognized globally as a best practice, integrating science, technology, and data-driven methodologies for risk management, a news release on Friday said. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) emerged as key components of modern DRR strategies, underscoring their role in predictive analytics and enhancing early warning systems. The Chairman NDMA stressed the importance of a regional approach to collaboration for effective disaster management. He introduced Disaster Impact Reduction (DIR) as an innovative concept aimed at minimizing the aftermath of disasters through timely action and resource allocation. Both leaders emphasized the need for credible early warning systems, stating that timely information-sharing and resource allocation are vital to prevent unnecessary losses. Lt. Gen. Malik also highlighted the importance of simplifying complex scientific data to make it accessible to at-risk communities and decision-makers. Lidia Brito lauded Pakistans efforts in DRR and its integration of early warning systems. She emphasized that Scientific data including AI and ML will play a critical role in mitigating disaster impacts globally. This meeting marks a significant step forward in global cooperation for disaster risk reduction and resilience-building, in line with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. Parc Zoologique dAmneville Luminescences (Janine Rodriguez) The Amneville Zoo in France hosts a yearly Luminescences festival during the winter months. This beautiful nighttime display features thousands of light installations and lanterns along a 1.4km trail. Stars and Stripes reader Janine Rodriguez visited the display last year and sent us this incredible image. In 2024, the display will begin on Oct. 19 and runs through the end of January. This year the them is Magic Indies and includes illuminated lanterns from all over southeast Asia. Roughly one and half hours from the KMC area and two hours from Spangdahlem, the Amneville Zoo features over 1500 animals in habitats from around the world. There are also immersive experiences like farm animal visits, raptor shows and wallaby feeding. Visit the Amneville Zoo website for tickets to the animal displays and the Luminescences festival. Washington, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Sep, 2024) Kamala Harris criticized her US election rival Donald Trump's "surrender" policy on Ukraine on Thursday, while the Republican said he would meet Ukraine's president despite a bitter row over the war with Russia. Volodymyr Zelensky presented a so-called "victory" plan to President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris at the White House, with Biden announcing a new military aid package worth nearly $8 billion for a struggling Kyiv. Standing with Zelensky at her side, Harris did not mention Trump by name but said there were "some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory." "These proposals are the same of those of (President Vladimir) Putin. And let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender," she said, referring to the Russian leader. During a separate meeting in the Oval Office with Zelensky, Biden pledged that "Russia will not prevail" in the war it launched in February 2022. "Ukraine will prevail, and we'll continue to stand by you every step of the way," Biden said. Dressed in his trademark military-style outfit, Zelensky replied that "we deeply appreciate that Ukraine and America have stood side by side." But Zelensky is navigating the choppy waters of a US presidential election on November 5 that could sink the staunch support that he has received from Washington in the past two-and-a-half years. (@FahadShabbir) Galle, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Sep, 2024) Middle-order marvel Kamindu Mendis's record fifth Test century propelled Sri Lanka to a commanding 519-5 against New Zealand at tea on day two against New Zealand in Galle. The 25-year-old resumed from overnight after making his world record eighth consecutive fifty from eight Test appearances since his debut against Australia at the same venue two years ago. He was an unbeaten 135 at the second break alongside Kusal Mendis, who became the fourth batsman to make a half-century in the innings with his 70, in the third century-plus partnership of the match so far. Kamindu's five centuries from 13 innings makes him third-fastest to the milestone, tied with Australian great Donald Bradman and George Headley of the West Indies. Kamindu was also the only batsman from either team to make a century in the first Test. He has been in excellent form this year and was also Sri Lanka's highest run-scorer in their last two series against Bangladesh and England. Kamindu's overnight partner Angelo Mathews departed for 88 when Glen Phillips got him caught at square leg by rookie quick Will O'Rourke. Phillips then sent back Dhananjaya de Silva for 44 when the skipper swept a delivery into the gloves of wicketkeeper Tom Blundell. It was Phillips's third wicket for the innings after he bowled Dinesh Chandimal 116 on the last session of the opening day. O'Rourke had impressed in the first Test with his second five-wicket haul in three matches, but has toiled without result in the innings so far, conceding 81 runs without reward. Sri Lanka won the opening match of the two-Test series by 63 runs and are eyeing their first Test series win against the Kiwis since 2009. Friday was the first time Sri Lanka surpassed 500 against New Zealand from 40 matches. New Zealand have not won any of their five previous Tests at Galle. Brussels, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Sep, 2024) Pope Francis said Friday that the Catholic Church must "seek forgiveness" for the "scourge" of child sexual abuse, during a visit to Belgium where the clergy's dark past looms large. In a speech to political and civil society leaders beginning his three-day visit, Francis denounced the "tragic instances of child abuse" as a stain on the Church's legacy. "It is our shame and our humiliation," Francis told the gathering at the Laeken Palace royal residency. "The Church must be ashamed and must seek forgiveness," he said. The 87-year-old pontiff was to meet with clerical sexual assault victims in Brussels as part of his stay in the European nation tarred by decades of scandals and cover-ups. The meeting with around 15 victims at the Vatican's diplomatic mission, was being held on Friday with the "utmost discretion", according to the Belgian church. It was arranged after a hard-hitting documentary last year put Belgium's abuse scandal back on the front pages, prompting new victims to come forward. In an open letter this month, some demanded the pope address paedophilia and set up a process for financial reparations. "Words alone are not enough. Concrete measures must also be taken," Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said in a preamble to the pope's speech. The pontiff said the abuse was "a scourge that the Church is addressing firmly and decisively by listening to and accompanying those who have been wounded, and by implementing a prevention programme throughout the world". - Forced adoptions - Francis has made combatting sexual assault in the Church a main mission of his papacy, and insisted on a "zero tolerance" policy after wide-reaching abuse scandals around the world. He has lifted papal secrecy on sexual abuse by clergy and obliged both clergy and lay people to report all cases to their superiors. During his speech, Francis said he was "saddened" to learn about a forced adoptions scandal in Belgium that saw institutions run by nuns give up the babies of thousands of underage girls and unmarried women. "We see how the bitter fruit of wrongdoing and criminality was mixed in with what was unfortunately the prevailing view in all parts of society at that time," he said. Belgium's HLN news site estimates that up to 30,000 children were taken from their mothers in Belgium between 1945 and the 1980s. Bishops in Belgium apologised in 2023 and requested an independent investigation after fresh testimonies emerged from women and people claiming to have been "sold" by the Catholic Church to adoptive families. Child sexual abuse and forced adoptions have "badly damaged trust" between the Church and society, De Croo said. In a sign of the work yet to be done, the programme of an open-air mass concluding Francis's trip on Sunday had to be changed at the last minute after it emerged that the closing hymn was composed by a priest accused of sexual abuse. The blunder prompted the head of the Belgian bishops' conference, Archbishop Luc Terlinden, to admit that the Church needed to better monitor cases and perpetrators. - On the wane - The Argentinian pope arrived in Belgium Thursday evening after a day in neighbouring Luxembourg, where he made a plea for international diplomacy amid flaring conflicts across the globe. He was welcomed by King Philippe and Queen Mathilde. Francis later met with academics at the Catholic university of Leuven in Dutch-speaking Flanders -- whose 600th anniversary next year is the official reason for his visit -- and called for refugees to be welcomed. On Saturday, during his 46th trip abroad, Francis will meet the clergy at the vast Basilica of the Sacred Heart before holding discussions with students at Louvain-la-Neuve in French-speaking Wallonia, notably on climate issues. The last papal visit to Brussels was in 1995, when John Paul II attended the beatification of Saint Damien, who dedicated his life to lepers. Nearly 65 percent of Belgium's population is Christian, including 58 percent who are Catholic, according to Louvain university figures. But their numbers are on the wane, reflecting a decline across Europe. During his weekly general audience, Francis said he hoped his visit could be "the opportunity for a new impetus of faith". (@FahadShabbir) Tokyo, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Sep, 2024) Shigeru Ishiba, who will be Japan's next prime minister after winning his party's leadership vote on Friday, is a seasoned lawmaker known for his in-depth security policy knowledge. A former defence minister, Ishiba's push to boost the military and call for the creation of an Asian NATO could rile Beijing, but he is careful with his words concerning China. He argues that Japan's military should be able to take a stronger response when territorial airspace or waters are breached. Currently a warning shot is the only option, and China is "well aware" of that, he has said. Although he is relatively popular with the public, Ishiba has had four failed bids to lead his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), including a 2012 try against his arch-rival Shinzo Abe before prevailing this time against a nationalist. For a long time Ishiba alienated party heavyweights with his "outspoken criticism of LDP policies under Abe", said Yu Uchiyama, a politics professor at the University of Tokyo. But recently he has been "vocal about the need for the LDP to turn over a new leaf when it comes to the funding scandal and other issues", which may have worked in his favour. He has also proposed creating a government agency in charge of disaster prevention in the earthquake-prone country that is also frequently hit by typhoons and heavy rains. "My life's work is security, disaster prevention, and the revitalisation of rural regions," Ishiba said in a recent interview with the Mainichi Shimbun daily, pledging to focus on these issues as prime minister. Vietnam Briefing has developed into a premium source for insight on doing business in Vietnam. It publishes business news concerning foreign direct investment into Vietnam, including the most important tax, legal and accounting issues. The Vietnam Briefing Magazine was first published in 2009, and is contributed to by investment professionals based in Vietnam. In this article, we will be taking a look at the 15 unhealthiest countries in Latin America. You can also skip our detailed analysis on the topic and directly head to the 5 Unhealthiest Countries in Latin America. Global and Latin American Trends in Healthcare Market The healthcare services market is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.3%, or $9.8 trillion, through 2027. The global healthcare market is divided into several segments, including hospitals, digital health, and healthcare services. The hospital market alone is predicted to grow by 4.18% a year between 2024 and 2029, reaching a market volume of $5.19 trillion by that point. According to estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO), at least half of the world's population lacks access to basic medical care. The healthcare industry in the United States is one of the largest and most complex in the world, accounting for around 20% of the country's GDP. In 2021, patient care brought in 65% of the total revenue for the US health sector. On the other hand, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a severe financial downturn, with the US healthcare system's revenue plummeting by almost 50% in 2020. Latin America's healthcare market is witnessing substantial growth driven by demographic shifts and increasing demand for healthcare services. The region's healthcare expenditure is rising, with Brazil and Mexico leading in current healthcare spending. In 2023, the home healthcare market in Latin America was valued at USD 28.08 billion and is projected to reach USD 46.12 billion by 2029, registering a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.43%. According to a report by McKinsey, a significant portion of healthcare costs in Latin America is borne out-of-pocket, averaging about 24% of total healthcare costs, compared to 14% in the European Union and 10% in the United States. Accessibility and affordability remain major barriers, with 62% of surveyed individuals deferring medical care due to these issues. The prevalence of chronic diseases is also increasing, necessitating more healthcare resources. The region is experiencing a demographic shift with an aging population, projected to reach 193 million people over 60 by 2050. Key Players in the Global Healthcare Market Key players like AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV), Humana Inc., and UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH), among others, have been at the forefront of the healthcare market. For example, AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV) is a prominent global biopharmaceutical company that focuses on discovering, developing, manufacturing, and commercializing drugs for the treatment of chronic and complex diseases. In July 2024, AbbVie received approval from the European Commission for SKYRIZI to treat adult patients with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Additionally, the company submitted applications to the U.S. FDA and the European Medicines Agency for a new indication of upadacitinib (RINVOQ) to treat adult patients with giant cell arteritis. Recently, in August, the company acquired Cerevel Therapeutics, which is a biotechnology and pharmaceutical company. Financially, AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV) reported revenues of $14.462 billion for the second quarter, which is up from $13.865 billion in the same period last year. Total operating costs and expenses for the quarter were $10.464 billion, compared to $9.352 billion the previous year. Operating earnings were $3.998 billion, down from $4.513 billion in Q2 2023. AbbVie's net earnings for the quarter were $1.373 billion, down from $2.027 billion in the same quarter the previous year. Net earnings attributable to AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV) were $1.370 billion. The immunology segment delivered total revenues of approximately $7 billion, with strong performance from Skyrizi and Rinvoq. On the other hand, UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH) is also one of the biggest healthcare companies in the world. UnitedHealthcare has announced plans to offer individual and family plans on the Health Insurance Marketplace in 26 states for 2024, focusing on affordable coverage and access to care. The company has invested $180,000 in the United Disabilities Services Foundation to support aging and disability services in Pennsylvania. Financially, UnitedHealth Group reported total revenues of $98.9 billion in Q2 2024, marking a 6.4% increase year-over-year which is driven primarily by robust performance in its Optum and UnitedHealthcare divisions. The Optum segment generated revenues of $62.9 billion, reflecting an 11.7% year-over-year growth. This growth was supported by strong contributions from Optum Health and Optum Rx, with Optum Health nearing 5 million patients in value-based care arrangements by year-end. UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH) reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $6.80 in the same period, which exceeded analysts' expectations and represented a 10.7% increase from the previous year. However, GAAP earnings per share were impacted by the cyberattack, coming in at $4.54. UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH) updated its full-year net EPS guidance to a range of $15.95 to $16.40 per share, while reaffirming its adjusted EPS outlook of $27.50 to $28.00. The company remains optimistic about its growth prospects, particularly in the Medicare Advantage sector. AUNA, a Latin American Health Company, Makes its Debut in Global Equity Market In March, 2024, Auna S.A. (NYSE:AUNA) became the first Latin American health company to be listed in the US stock exchange. Auna operates in Mexico, Columbia and Peru. It raised $300 million in gross proceeds after issuing 30 million Class-A shares. The company is primarily focused on prevention and treatment of high-complexity diseases in the region. Auna S.A. (NYSE:AUNA)'s 2023 revenues were US$1.05 billion and Adjusted EBITDA was US$223 million, representing year-over-year increases of 58% and 90%, respectively. Auna S.A. (NYSE:AUNA) is likely to benefit a lot from a healthcare market of US$313 billion in Spanish-speaking South American countries, it is estimated to grow further to reach US$469 billion by the end of 2028. While we acknowledge the potential of AUNA as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than TSLA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock. READ ALSO: Top 20 Largest Publicly Traded Healthcare Companies and 10 Best Healthcare Stocks to Buy Under $20. 15 Unhealthiest Countries in Latin America Pixabay/Public Domain Our Methodology For our list, we looked at two indexes: the GHS index of 2021 and the health pillar of the Legatum Prosperity index of 2023. The 2021 Global Health Security (GHS) Index assesses 195 countries' preparedness for epidemics and pandemics across six categories. The global average score is 38.9, indicating weak international readiness despite COVID-19 efforts. Similarly, The Health pillar of the 2023 Legatum Prosperity Index assesses health outcomes, systems, risk factors, and mortality rates, highlighting the importance of physical and mental health and access to effective healthcare services for individual and national prosperity. Hence, we averaged the scores of GHS, and the health pillar's from Legatum index and the final rankings in our list were adjusted according to the post-normalization average rankings we obtained from our two sources. We call these Insider-Monkey Scores. At Insider Monkey we are obsessed with 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). Here is our list of the 15 unhealthiest countries in Latin America. 15. Brazil Insider Monkey Score: 13.5 The life expectancy at birth in Brazil is around 76 years, which is five years lower than the OECD average of 81 years. Women in Brazil have a life expectancy of 80 years, while men have a life expectancy of 72 years. In 2023, Brazil allocated 10.7% of its GDP to healthcare, approximately $161 billion. This is a high rate compared to Latin America but still a lot of work needs to be done. Per capita spending was about $1,258. 14. Nicaragua Insider Monkey Score: 13.5 The life expectancy in Nicaragua, as of 2023, is 74.8 years, which is lower than the average for Latin America. This reflects the broader health challenges faced by the country, including high rates of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as obesity and diabetes. For instance, 32.1% of adult women and 20.6% of adult men are living with obesity, and diabetes affects 12.5% of adult women and 10.5% of adult men, according to data from the Global Nutrition Report. 13. Mexico Insider Monkey Score: 12.5 The life expectancy in Mexico is approximately 75 years, which is six years lower than the OECD average of 81 years. Women in Mexico tend to live longer than men, with a life expectancy of 78 years compared to 72 years for men. However, Mexican women spend more years in poor health conditions compared to men, with an estimated 11.8 years spent with some disease or disability. In 2022, Mexico's health spending per capita was $1,181, less than half of Chile's and below the OECD's recommended 6% of GDP, with Mexico spending 5.5%. Medication was the largest household health expense at 43%, followed by hospital services at 15%. The Mexican health system faces challenges like obesity, diabetes, and health inequity, with 14% of the population lacking financial protection. Nearly 70% were covered by public health insurance in 2020, and the System of Social Protection in Health (SPSS) provides care for those not covered by Social Security. 12. Paraguay Insider Monkey Score: 11.5 The prevalence of obesity is a huge concern in Paraguay, with a national obesity rate of 15.1% and even higher rates in certain areas, such as Limpio, where it reaches 26.5%. In 2021, Paraguay's health spending reached 8% of GDP, the highest in a decade, but dropped to $0 in 2022. Public health expenditure was 4.12% of GDP in 2020, with out-of-pocket spending at 38.37%. The healthcare system faces challenges such as access gaps, discrimination, and shortages. Rising healthcare costs and a growing middle class have increased demand for affordable health insurance. By 2024, average spending per capita in Paraguay's health insurance market is expected to be $50.86, with the market volume projected to reach $412.10 million by 2028. 11. Dominican Republic Insider Monkey Score: 9.5 As of 2024, the life expectancy at birth in the Dominican Republic is estimated to be 72.6 years for the total population, with 71 years for males and 74.4 years for females. This is lower than the average life expectancy for the Americas. In 2021, 23.9% of the population lived in poverty, and 3.1% lived in extreme poverty, indicating a slight increase due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 10. Ecuador Insider Monkey Score: 9.5 Ecuador stands tenth among the unhealthiest countries in Latin America. Since 2021, Ecuador's health spending has ranged from 68% of GDP, with public spending at 4.97% of GDP in 2020 and out-of-pocket costs at 33.83% of total health expenditure. Ecuador's publicly funded healthcare system provides free care to all residents, but access remains limited, especially in rural areas and among indigenous populations. Ecuador spends significantly less on healthcare per capita than the U.S., with fewer hospital beds and doctors. Health spending is projected to increase by $3.2 billion between 2024 and 2029, reaching $13.85 billion in 2029. 9. Belize Insider Monkey Score: 8 The life expectancy in Belize was 74.9 years as of 2021, which is lower than the average for the Region of the Americas. In 2021, Belize's healthcare spending was 5% of GDP, consistent since 2014. Per capita health expenditure rose to $310 from $173 in 2002. Out-of-pocket spending reached $28 million, 5% of total health expenditure, continuing its rise since 2010. Government health spending has also increased, covering 71.8% of total health spending in 2020, reducing the financial burden on individuals. 8. Suriname Insider Monkey Score: 8 The prevalence of obesity is notably high in Suriname, with 36.7% of adult women and 21.5% of adult men being classified as obese. Diabetes is also prevalent, which affects 15.4% of adult women and 12.5% of adult men, contributing to the country's health burden. The life expectancy in Suriname is 72.8 years as of 2023, which is lower than the average for the Region of the Americas but has improved by 7.3 years since 2000. In 2021, Suriname's health spending was about 5% of GDP, reflecting a general increase since 2002. In 2020, public health spending was 4.38% of GDP, with out-of-pocket costs making up 20.52% of total health spending. 7. Guyana Insider Monkey Score: 7 Guyana stands seventh among the unhealthiest countries in Latin America. The Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese populations, which form the majority, experience high rates of hypertension and diabetes, particularly among those over 50 years old. In 2021, Guyana's health spending was 5% of GDP, down from 6% in 2020, with public health spending at 4.02% of GDP. In 2024, Guyana allocated $620.86 million to health, aiming to improve standards and resources. The World Bank prioritized health in its 2023-2026 engagement with Guyana, focusing on public health preparedness. 6. Venezuela Insider Monkey Score: 6.5 The Venezuelan healthcare system has faced a collapse due to ongoing political and economic crises which has led to a resurgence of communicable diseases that were previously under control, such as measles, malaria, and diphtheria. In 2021, Venezuela's healthcare spending was 4% of GDP, down from 7% earlier in the decade, below the WHO's 5% recommendation. Public health spending was 1.68% of GDP, with out-of-pocket costs rising to 28% of total health spending. The healthcare system struggles with shortages of surgical supplies, food insecurity, and water shortages, worsening conditions for patients, particularly children under two. 5. El Salvador Insider Monkey Score: 6.5 Conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and chronic kidney disease are the most common in El Salvador. For instance, there are approximately 487,875 cases of diabetes mellitus, 1,446,381 cases of hypertension, and 459,114 cases of chronic kidney disease nationwide. In 2021, El Salvador's health spending was 10% of GDP, well above the regional average of 3.8%. In 2022, the health budget was $1.09 billion, mainly funded by the government, with contributions from foreign loans and donations. The government also relied on international aid and loans to manage the pandemic. 4. Honduras Insider Monkey Score: 5 Honduras is a low-middle-income country with over 60% of its population living in poverty. The country experiences a double burden of malnutrition, with 23% of children under five experiencing stunting due to chronic malnutrition, while 51% of women of reproductive age are overweight or obese, according to USAID data. There are only 3.9 physicians per 10,000 individuals in the country, far below the World Health Organization's recommended 25 per 10,000. As of May 31, 2024, Honduras's health expenditure was 9.2% of GDP, up from 9.1% in 2021, the highest since 2010, which marks a two-percentage-point increase since 2017 when it was nearly 7%. 3. Guatemala Insider Monkey Score: 4 Life expectancy in Guatemala is relatively low compared to other Latin American countries. As of 2024, the life expectancy at birth is estimated at 73.5 years, with males having a life expectancy of 71.5 years and females 75.6 years. A significant portion of the population lacks access to basic health and nutrition services, with more than six million people, or about 35% of the population, affected, per figures from USAID. In 2023, Guatemala's Ministry of Health allocated $6.4 million to UNICEF for health and nutrition programs. In 2021, household out-of-pocket health spending reached $3.66 billion, with per capita health expenditure rising to $341 from $107 in 2002. 2. Bolivia Insider Monkey Score: 4 Malnutrition is a significant issue in Bolivia, with 7% of children under five and 23% of the population suffering from malnutrition. Additionally, less than 10% of rural Bolivians have access to improved sanitation facilities. Bolivia ranks poorly in reproductive health, fulfilling only 58% of what is expected based on its income. The country has a high fertility rate of approximately three children per woman, sustained by limited access to family planning services. Contraceptive use is low, with only 35% of married women using modern methods, according to PRB.org. 1. Haiti Insider Monkey Score: 1 Haiti tops the list for being the unhealthiest country in Latin America. Haiti faces numerous health challenges, including low access to primary and preventive healthcare, high infant and maternal mortality rates, and a lack of vaccination coverage. Only 68% of children under 24 months have received vaccines for diseases like diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis, according to the World Bank. The average life expectancy in Haiti is approximately 50 years, which is significantly lower than the regional average. In 2023, Haiti's health spending is $1.07 billion, or $93.87 per capita, making up 7% of GDP. This is relatively low compared to other low-income countries, where average spending is around $13 per person. More than half of Haiti's health budget is spent on curative rather than preventive care. Health spending as a percentage of GDP has decreased from 4% in 2019 to 3% in 2021, though international aid and private funds can raise this percentage. READ NEXT: $30 Trillion Opportunity: 15 Best Humanoid Robot Stocks to Buy According to Morgan Stanley and Jim Cramer Says NVIDIA Has Become A Wasteland. Disclosure. None: The 15 Unhealthiest Countries in Latin America is originally published on Insider Monkey. We bring you the story of President Bidens final address in NY at the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly. Plus, we report on the potential shifts in foreign policy and what they might look like after Americans vote in their presidential election this coming November. This week on The Inside Story: USA VOTES 2024. Israels prime minister told the U.N. General Assembly Friday that Israel is winning in its fight against terrorists and their patrons in Iran who perpetrated the October 7 terror attacks on his country. I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran, Benjamin Netanyahu said. If you strike us, we will strike you. There is no place there is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach. And that's true of the entire Middle East. He said Israels soldiers have fought with incredible courage and with heroic sacrifice for the past 11 months. And I have another message for this assembly and for the world outside this hall: We are winning, said Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister took the stage to a mix of boos and cheers from the gallery, where some visitors are permitted. A stream of diplomats rose from their seats and left the hall as he strode onto the stage. But Netanyahu was not fazed. He said Hamas must go, and he would not accept their participation in any post-war Gaza governing structure. Just imagine, for those who say, well, Hamas has to stay, it has to be part of a post-war Gaza. Imagine in a post-war situation in World War II. Imagine allowing the defeated Nazis in 1945 to rebuild Germany, he told the U.N. General Assembly. It's inconceivable. It's ridiculous. It didn't happen then, it's not going to happen now. Lebanon escalation Turning to Lebanon, where there has been a dangerous and deadly escalation between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters in the past week, Netanyahu said Israel must also defeat them so thousands of Israeli citizens can return to their homes in northern Israel. I've come here today to say enough is enough! he said. We wont rest until our citizens can return safely to their homes. We will not accept a terror army perched on our northern border able to perpetrate another October 7-style massacre. Shortly after Netanyahu spoke, the Israel Defense Forces hit what they said is Hezbollah's headquarters in Beirut's southern suburbs. At least six buildings were flattened. The fate of Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was not immediately clear. Arab ministers at the U.N. condemned the escalation, saying it is pushing the region closer to a full-scale war. "It is time to face the truth, and the truth is unless Netanyahu is stopped, unless this government is stopped, war will encompass all of us," Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told reporters. "We need this cease-fire now," U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said of an American and French proposal for a 21-day truce to calm the situation in Lebanon. "We cannot afford endless negotiations, as we have on Gaza," Guterres said. "We must avoid a regional war at all costs." Talk of peace Despite his hard line, the Israeli prime minister told the General Assembly that his government wants peace. He did not, however, refer to the American and French cease-fire proposal for Lebanon or one for Gaza, or a two-state solution. Instead, he pointed to the success of the 2020 Trump-brokered Abraham Accords that led to normalization of relations with the UAE, Morocco, Bahrain and Sudan. While landmark agreements, they are all nations Israel has never fought a war with. Netanyahu said he still hopes to achieve normalization with Saudi Arabia, which had been a real possibility before the October 7 attacks. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told reporters that a Palestinian state is the key to normalization between Israel and Arab states, including his own. "And that will indeed open up the horizon, not just for normalization, but also for integration, for cooperation," he said. "It offers huge potential for all of us in the region, but again, without addressing the issue of the Palestinians, this is not going to happen." Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the assembly the day before Netanyahu and called for an end to his peoples suffering. Shortly before Netanyahu spoke on Friday, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob called on the Israeli leader to end the suffering in Gaza. "I want to say this out loud and clear to the Israeli government: Stop the bloodshed! Stop the suffering! Bring the hostages home and end the occupation!" Golob said to loud applause in the General Assembly hall. "Mr. Netanyahu, stop this war now!" he said, slamming his hand on the podium. No media source currently available The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. The war in Gaza returned to center stage at Thursdays United Nations General Assembly, with a speech from the Palestinian president. VOA's U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer has more. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. This meeting between the countries top diplomats comes amid growing U.S. concerns over Chinese firms supplying chips and drones to Moscow, which have significantly bolstered Russia's battlefield capabilities in its war against Ukraine. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell has told the Congress that China's material support for Russia's war effort "comes from the very top." Blinkens talks with Wang will take place ahead of a call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, expected later this fall. Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the U.N. General Assembly that Ukraine would never accept a deal imposed by other nations to end Russias 31-month invasion, questioning the motives of China and Brazil in pushing for negotiations with Moscow. For months, U.S. officials have accused China of actively aiding Russia's war effort. Washington has sanctioned Chinese firms providing crucial components to Russia's defense industry. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller recently told VOA that the U.S. openly discusses its differences with China to ensure that both countries "at least understand where the other is coming from, even if we cant reach an agreement." He added that Washington is managing its relationship with China to prevent it from "veering from competition into conflict." U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to talk with the opposition about the country's disputed presidential election. Such engagement must lead to "a peaceful return to democracy," Blinken said on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. "The United States and its partners stand fully ready to support this process." Maduro claimed victory in Venezuela's July 28 election over opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez. Venezuela's electoral authority, which declared Maduro the winner of the vote within hours of the polls closing, reported that the president won more than half the votes, without publishing any results. Maduro remains in power, and his claim to a third six-year term was backed by the Supreme Court, which includes Maduro loyalists. The opposition, however, contends Gonzalez won the election in a landslide. It backed its claims with voting tallies it said had been gathered from 80% of the country's 30,000 voting booths showing that Gonzalez won by a ratio of more than 2 to 1. "After Venezuelans turned out to vote in historic numbers, the regime refused to release detailed electoral tallies," Blinken said. "It tampered with election results. It falsely declared Maduro the winner. It cracked down brutally on peaceful protesters, political opponents. It unjustly issued a warrant for the arrest of the opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez." Gonzalez sought asylum in Spain earlier this month after Venezuelan authorities issued an arrest warrant for him, accusing him of conspiracy and other crimes. Blinken said there has been extensive and impartial documentation of Maduro's repressive actions by nongovernmental organizations, human rights groups, journalists, citizens and others. "We come here united in the commitment to defend the human rights of the Venezuelan people and committed to bring about an inclusive, Venezuelan-led effort to restore the nation's democratic future," Blinken said. Some information for this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse. Ethnic Chin refugees from Myanmar in Malaysia are accusing the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR of abuse and of not providing necessary protection, potentially putting lives at risk. Hundreds of members of the Alliance of Chin Refugees held a demonstration Thursday outside the UNHCR office in Malaysias capital, Kuala Lumpur. Chins, most of whom are Christians, are an ethnic and religious minority in Buddhist-majority Myanmar who face repression that has led to violent conflicts there. In recent decades, waves of ethnic Chins have fled the country, many to Malaysia. U.N. figures from last month show there are about 27,250 ethnic Chin refugees and asylum-seekers in Malaysia registered with UNHCR. But James Bawl Thang Bik, chairman of the Alliance of Chin Refugees, told VOA on Thursday there are tens of thousands more who are not registered. He also said the UNHCR takes too long to make decisions for asylum-seekers who have applied for refugee status. The process can take years, he said. VOA asked UNHCR Malaysia how long it typically takes for an applicant to get a decision on their case but did not receive an immediate answer. Further complicating matters, Malaysia has not signed the United Nations refugee convention and does not officially recognize refugees, viewing them as illegal immigrants. UNHCR registration provides some protection that typically prevents arrest, but the refugees are still not allowed to attend government schools or work legally although many take off-the-books jobs, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation by employers, according to migrant rights groups. James Bawl Thang Bik said that after Myanmars 2021 coup approximately 50 ethnic Chin Myanmar soldiers and police officers fled to Malaysia because they refused to fight for Myanmar's military. He said some of them have been arrested and are in detention in Malaysia because they lack UNHCR documentation. If these former soldiers and policemen get sent back to Myanmar their lives could be in danger, he said. UNHCR needs to prioritize these types of cases and register them quickly. UNHCR documentation also gives refugees access to medical care at public hospitals for lower prices than what foreigners typically pay but the Alliance of Chin Refugees said asylum-seekers without UNHCR documentation frequently need medical treatment but cannot get it. The UNHCR needs to meet with these people immediately and give them the necessary status and documentation, Bik said, mentioning cases of people with broken bones and serious infections. Responding to media inquiries after Thursdays demonstration, the United Nations refugee agency released a written statement that said: UNHCR wishes to emphasize that we recognize the frustration felt by many refugee communities living in the complex protection environment in Malaysia where they lack legal status, are unable to access legal work or formal education. UNHCR is doing its utmost to protect and assist refugees. This includes prioritizing protection and assistance interventions for highly vulnerable refugees. Additionally, Bik said he has received reports about security guards outside the UNHCR office punching and kicking ethnic Chins trying to get in without appointments. UNHCR responded in its written statement saying it has zero tolerance for this type of treatment but also said: At this time, we have not received any reports of abuse by security personnel from any individual refugee from the Chin Community. The alliance chairman dismissed the UNHCRs response as false. We have told them about mistreatment many times, he said. Among those in New York City for the 79th United Nations General Assembly is exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. On Monday, Tsikhanouskaya and Evgenia Kara-Murza, the Russian human rights activist and wife of former political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza, received the annual human rights prize awarded by the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, founded by the late Tom Lantos, who was the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to the U.S. Congress. Addressing the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva that same day via video link, Tsikhanouskaya said she was speaking on behalf of the more than 1,400 Belarusians imprisoned for political reasons by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenkos government. Many of them are held in complete isolation, incommunicado no letters, no phone calls, no contact with the outside world, she said. My husband, Syarhei, has been cut off for over a year. I do not know if he is alive. Tsikhanouskaya was interviewed in New York by Victoria Kupchinetsky of Voice of Americas Russian Service. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. VOA: What is the purpose of you coming here to New York to the General Assembly? Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: The U.N. is a good platform where you can meet not only your allies, but also the countries who might be useful to your cause. We are, as Belarusians ... fighting for the restoration of democracy in Belarus, for the release of our political prisoners. And we are looking for world leaders who can somehow assist us with these questions. People in Belarusian prisons are dying. This is the most painful topic for us in the democratic movement. And I think that countries who still have some relationship with this [Lukashenko] regime, they can assist us in solving the humanitarian crisis. VOA: Why do you think Lukashenko released those dozens of political prisoners? Do you know if there are any negotiations about an exchange similar to the recent prisoner exchange with Russia? Tsikhanouskaya: Lukashenko wants to sell the release of about 100 people as an act of humanity. But it has nothing in common with this. I think this release is connected with the pressure that is imposed on Lukashenkos regime. They want to have the sanctions lifted, they want to be relevant in the political world, but they are not. Our task is to make sure that the policy of our democratic allies will not change toward Belarus. And, of course, putting pressure on the regime, strengthening Belarusian civil society, agents of democratic forces. We are looking for venues how we can release political prisoners [for] humanitarian reasons. People are dying. We are looking for countries, for organizations, that can be mediators on this issue. VOA: Are you collecting materials, evidence, against Lukashenko to present in The Hague, at the international tribunal? Tsikhanouskaya: Im totally sure that in the world, justice has to be restored, and Lukashenko has a long list of crimes crimes against humanity, crimes of the deportation of Belarusians, crimes of the abduction of Ukrainian children, the immigration crisis, the hijacking of airplanes, bringing our country into the war [against Ukraine], and so on and so forth. And, of course, for years we have been collecting evidence of these crimes, and we want to use international mechanisms the ICC [International Criminal Court], ICJ [International Court of Justice, aka World Court] [words indistinct] to bring Lukashenko and his cronies to account, though these instruments are rather slow, honestly speaking. But we are consistent in our approach, and hopefully very soon will start a special investigation against the crimes. VOA: What is the ultimate goal of your struggle to actually remove Lukashenko from power or something else? Tsikhanouskaya: Our goal is to restore justice in Belarus, hold free and fair elections in my homeland, but I understand that we cant do this while Lukashenko is there. So, our ultimate goal is to release political prisoners, hold free and fair elections, but before this, of course, we have to weaken the regime as much as possible and strengthen national identity, civil society, democratic forces, to have a smooth and fast transition period. And of course, we want Belarus to return to the family of European countries. The challenge the United States faces in confronting China on the global stage is "almost overwhelming" and exceeds some of the worst historical crises the country has ever encountered, former Trump administration national security adviser Robert C. O'Brien said during an appearance Thursday in Washington. "I'm not sure America has faced a threat like Communist China in our history," O'Brien said in a conversation hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank. "Maybe the Revolutionary War, when we fought the British who were the leading superpower in the world at the time?" he said. "I think that the threat that we face from China is far more serious than we faced against the Soviet Union in the Cold War." O'Brien said he believes China's ultimate plan is to force the country's "Marxist-Leninist" ideology on the rest of the world. "They have an ideology that they believe they can use to organize, to govern the world," he said. "So it's a danger to all of us, to our kids and grandkids. It's a danger to everyone around the world, because they see themselves as being able to govern the entire world based on their ideology." Future US-China policy O'Brien's remarks come at a time when experts are trying to parse what U.S. relations with China will look like in the next presidential administration, whether it is a second Trump term or a first term for current vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. In a report issued Thursday morning, Bonny Lin, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, suggested that future U.S. policies toward China will likely trend in the same direction regardless of who wins the election. "U.S. policy toward the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan is likely to maintain its broad contours under a Harris or a Trump administration," Lin wrote."The Harris and Trump teams share the view that China challenges and threatens the established international order, peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, and the United States. 'Managing' China or 'winning' against China will be a top priority for the next U.S. administration, as intense U.S. competition with China will likely continue." However, Lin pointed out several areas where a Trump administration might differ, including by implementing harsher trade policies and imposing more far-reaching crackdowns on Chinese influence operations in the U.S. What is unclear, she said, is the degree to which Trump would continue to nurture some of the Indo-Pacific region alliances that the Biden administration has been working to strengthen, and whether he would continue U.S. support of Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as its own. In his remarks Thursday, O'Brien touched on all of those subjects. Not speaking for Trump O'Brien served in the administration of former President Donald Trump first as a special envoy for hostage affairs, and then as national security adviser from September 2019 until January 2021. During the 90-minute appearance on Thursday, O'Brien made clear he was not speaking for the former president. "Anyone who says they're speaking for Donald Trump, whether it's on personnel or policy, is not speaking for Donald Trump," he said. "Donald Trump is going to speak for Donald Trump." However, his observations about China might provide some insight into the mindset of people likely to populate a second Trump administration, should the former president win reelection in November. O'Brien said that a future Trump administration would be focused on signaling American economic, diplomatic and military strength to China and combating what the former president sees as China's unfair practices. Those include theft of intellectual property, flooding Western economies with Chinese goods subsidized by Beijing, and keeping the value of the Chinese yuan artificially low. "President Trump has said what he's going to do," O'Brien said. "He's going to raise tariffs on the Chinese and send a strong message that we're not going to tolerate intellectual property theft any longer. We're not going to tolerate the dumping, we're not going to tolerate the currency manipulation, and we're going to have an incentive for American manufacturers to come home." China's 'relentless' aggression O'Brien said that when he was in the White House, he saw that China is tireless in its effort to expand Beijing's influence, whether by using its military to harass its neighbors in the Indo-Pacific region or by engaging in espionage and influence operations. "Every time we fought them somewhere espionage at a Confucianist institute that we got closed, if it was a cyber intrusion, if it was some sort of military action against our allies every time you shut that down, they popped up somewhere else. I mean, they operate across every spectrum. They're in space, they're in the air, they're in the sea, they're on the land," he said. "They just operate in every sector. They're attempting to wear down the free world, and they've done a pretty good job of it." AK-47s in Taiwan Earlier this year, O'Brien sparked an angry reaction from Beijing when he suggested arming every military-aged male in Taiwan with an AK-47 in order to resist a potential Chinese invasion. On Thursday, he repeated the suggestion, saying, "Every military-aged male should have an AK-47 and two [ammunition magazines]. Make sure they're interoperable so you can get your follow-on ammunition from the patrols that you ambush and kill when they invade your country." The object, he said, is to "strike a little fear into the hearts" of China's leadership. "You may invade, but every time you walk down the street, every window's going to have an AK-47 pointed out." He went on to say that under the first Trump administration, "China did not harass Taiwan the way that they're doing it now." He said that under a Harris administration, "You're not going to see the kind of strength that you get from President Trump that will keep Taiwan free." US alliances O'Brien said that in his view, it is essential that the U.S. continues to cultivate close alliances in the Indo-Pacific region. The "good news," he said, is that those alliances are strong. "You take the combination of the 'Quad' with India, Australia, the U.S. and Japan; you take the Japan-South Korea-America trilateral alliance; you take a look at AUKUS, with the U.K. and Australia and the U.S.; and the treaty alliances with Thailand and with the Philippines," he said. "Those alliances scare the Chinese, because they see us operating together," he said. "And together, we can contain, and we can push back against the Chinese. When they drive wedges between us, that's where they get the big advantage." Return to nuclear competition O'Brien said it is becoming increasingly important for the U.S. to revitalize its nuclear "triad" the combined capacity to launch missiles from air, land and sea because in addition to the threat the country faces from Russia, China's nuclear capacity is surging. "If we don't take steps soon to both modernize our triad and expand our capabilities, we're going to be in real trouble, because you have the Russians with 1,250 or 1,500 strategic weapons. They've got about another 2,500 tactical nukes that they can deploy. And the Chinese are going to have 1,500 strategic weapons pointed at us, and who knows how many tactical weapons. "That's going to be a 2- or 3-to-1 overmatch on us, and that's not a recipe for deterrence," he said. "We've got to get back in the nuclear game," he said. "It's unfortunate, because we thought that was a day that was gone that we were past that. But our adversaries have decided that they're going to still play it. It would be nice to say, 'Yeah, we don't want to play that game.' But we have to have an effective deterrence." The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. With violent gangs controlling most of Haitis capital, Port-au-Prince, calls for a formal U.N. peacekeeping mission are growing. The countrys prime minister says the current international effort lacks resources, manpower and the capability to face the gangs. Celia Mendoza reports. This week at U.N. meetings in New York, the United States said that two African countries should have permanent seats on one of the worlds major decision-making bodies, the United Nations Security Council. For years, numerous African leaders have called for the continent to have representation on the U.N. Security Council, which since World War II has had just five permanent members: the U.S., France, the UK, Russia and China. This week, the top representative of one of those permanent seats, U.S. President Joe Biden, threw his weight behind the idea. However, there was one major caveat, which Kenyan analyst Cliff Mboya said is not going over well on the continent. The new African members would not have veto power on decisions. Weve already seeing a lot of backlash like this is a big joke, the question is what is the point in joining the Security Council if you dont have veto powers, what are you going to do there? asked Mboya. That could play in Chinas favor, as it has long positioned itself as a fellow developing country and leader of whats become known as the Global South, while disparaging the West for its colonial past, said Mboya, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Africa-China Studies at the University of Johannesburg. So I dont think this helps the U.S. and the West in terms of perception and narratives, and it will only embolden African countries to lean more to the East because it just speaks to the hypocrisy," he said. "Chinas been able to, you know, build this coalition of emerging and developing countries against the U.S. and Western-led world order. But Paul Nantulya, a research associate with the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, said he thought the announcement was a win for U.S. diplomacy and would mostly be welcomed by African nations as it opens the door to further negotiations. Regarding China, China has been very, you know, kind of like sitting on the fence. So rhetorically China has said all the right things, supporting Africas, what it calls Africas legitimate interests in the United Nations, including the United Nations Security Council, he said. But its plan for that has been hazy, he added. When it comes to specific details, in terms of whether China supports permanent African representation on the council with veto power, when it comes to that China has not articulated a position. Among those in New York this week calling for U.N. reform was South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. He said, quote: Africa and its 1.4 billion people remain excluded from its key decision-making structures. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has also called for reform, saying the UNSC hasnt kept up with a changing world and Africa is underrepresented. Some African countries want veto power in the Security Council dispensed with entirely. If there is reform, and Africa gets the two seats on the Security Council that the U.S. proposes, key contenders could include the continents largest economy, South Africa; most populous country, Nigeria; or North African heavyweight Egypt, Nantulya told VOA. However, analysts say any future process of adding African countries as permanent members is likely to face hurdles, as there will be problems reaching consensus. Nantulya said some African politicians think it could even drive a wedge between countries on the continent. There are also concerns the U.S. statement could just be rhetoric and so far no timeline has been given regarding the next steps. Under U.N. rules, any change to Security Council membership would need approval from two-thirds of the General Assembly, including all five permanent members. In this article, we will look at the 20 geopolitical events with highest impact on S&P 500. If you want to skip our detailed analysis, go directly to the 5 Geopolitical Events with Highest Impact on S&P 500. The Significance of Geopolitical Events The geopolitical events impact the financial markets across the world depending on the nature of the event. The assassination attempt on former US President Donald J. Trump is the latest geopolitical event investors have had to grapple with in recent years, alongside two major wars including Russia-Ukraine and ongoing Israels aggression on Gaza. Wars have far-reaching effects such as an impact on financial markets, in addition to enormous human toll. Geopolitics events that affect the economy drastically caution investors to look for safe haven investments or be out of the market until the situation comes to normal. According to JP Morgan Private Banks recent client survey, 34% of the investors were potentially worried about geopolitical risks, while 29% of investors were bothered by potential recession fears in 2024. Whereas, almost 90% of the geopolitical events have not changed the direction of the world economy, as per Citigroup Inc.s Global Wealth Report 2024. Geopolitical events mostly have short-term impacts on global asset prices. However, World War II and the 1973 OPEC Oil Embargo had the gravest impact on the financial markets. The 1973 oil shock did have a lasting impact on equity returns. During the first 90 days, the S&P 500 plunged by nearly 13.04%, the highest among geopolitical events since 1940. The oil supply was limited for an extended period, leading to a macro state of stagflation. In simple terms, high oil prices essentially stopped the economy from operating efficiently in the 1970s. On the other side, Russias invasion of Ukraine shocked global energy markets in 2022. However, additional oil supply limited the economic and market impact compared to its 1970s counterpart. Today, the US has a more secure oil supply compared to its heavy reliance on the Middle East. In recent times, the rising conflicts in the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine war have had major consequences. The US has been aiding Ukraine and Israel with military assistance. According to the US State Department, the US government has provided more than $55.7 billion in military assistance to Ukraine to fight against Russian invasion since the war began in February 2022. Whereas, the US government has supported Israel through legislation providing at least $12.5 billion in military aid, as of April 2024. Story continues It has been a see-saw year for the global economies. The intensified conflict in the Middle East may impact oil prices with a potential disruption in regional supply. As of September 23, oil prices have been high as the conflicts soar, and due to last week's outsized US interest rate cut expectations. As reported by Reuters, Yeap Jun Rong, the market strategist at IG International, said: Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East have edged up a notch between Israel and Hezbollah, which could leave oil prices well-supported on the risks of a wider regional conflict." Brent crude futures for November were up $0.60, or 0.8% at $75.09 per barrel, while the US crude futures for November were up $0.64, or 0.9%, at $71.64, as of September 23. In addition, both oil benchmarks soared over 4% last week due to the US rate cut, weaker demand sentiment in top oil importer China is capping the upswing, reported Reuters. READ ALSO: 30 Least Peaceful Countries in the World and 12 Countries With Best Moodys Credit Rating For Sovereign Bonds. A Leader in Oil and Gas Sector Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) is one of the leading American multinationals in the oil and gas sector. The company engages in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas both domestically and internationally. Exxon Mobil Corporation recently signed a MOU with an EV maker SK On. The oil and gas company has agreed to provide 100,000 metric tons of MobilTMLithium from its first planned project in Arkansas. This deal will help ExxonMobils goal of supplying lithium for almost 1 million EV batteries annually by 2030 and support the build-out of a US EV supply chain. For the second quarter of 2024, Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) surpassed earnings estimates, reporting an EPS of $2.14, up by 6.51% compared to anticipated earnings of $2.02 per share. Exxon Mobil posted $9.2 billion in earnings, making its second-best Q2 performance in the past decade. The company achieved this feat following record production in Guyana and the Permian Basin, where the output reached 1.2 million barrels per day. The companys revenue came in at $93.06 billion, exceeding estimated revenue of $89.68 billion. Alongside strong operational results, Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) gave back $9.5 billion to shareholders, including $4.3 billion in dividends. XOM has more than 40 years of consistent dividend growth and averaged a 2.20% yield over the past five years. In addition, Exxon Mobil plans to invest between $20 billion and $25 billion annually in capital expenditures through 2027. With strong hedge fund sentiment, XOM is one of the 10 Best Affordable Stocks To Buy Right Now. Hedge fund interest in Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) soared from 81 in Q1 2024 to 92 in Q2 2024. Madison Dividend Income Fund pointed out regarding XOM in the Q1 2024 investor letter: Our thesis on XOM is that it will grow production volumes of oil and gas moderately over the next few years, while limiting excessive capital investment that plagued the industry from 2014-2020. Production growth will come from its 2023 acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources, which is the largest producer in the Permian basin. XOM plans to double its Permian output by 2027, to 2 million barrels per day. Capital spending will be limited to $20-25 billion per yearthrough 2027, which should allow for significant amounts of cash to be returned to shareholders including a $35 billion share repurchase program and continued dividend increases. Higher oil prices would provide a tailwind to our thesis but are not necessary. We think XOM can grow earnings and cash flow if oil prices remain above $60 per barrel (Click here to read the full text) While we acknowledge the potential of XOM as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NVDA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock. Now, lets take a look at the 20 geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. 20 Geopolitical Events with Highest Impact on S&P 500 Our Methodology To compile the data for 20 geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500, we gathered the data from Citigroup Inc.s Global Wealth Report 2024. We have ranked the 20 geopolitical events in descending order of the highest average impact on the S&P 500, which includes initial impact, 30-day impact, and 90-day impact. At Insider Monkey we are obsessed with 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). 20 Geopolitical Events with Highest Impact on S&P 500 20. Cuban Missile Crisis (10/19/1962) Initial Impact: -3.78% 30-days Impact: 7.61% 90-days Impact: 17.16% Average impact: 6.99% The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was a confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This was one of the moments two superpowers came close to nuclear conflict. The initial impact of this event was critical and the S&P 500 dropped by almost 3.78%. In the next 30 days and 90 days, the S&P 500 recovered and surged by 7.61% and 17.16%, respectively. The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the most significant geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. 19. US Invasion of Iraq (3/20/2003) Initial Impact: 2.49% 30-days Impact: 2.06% 90-days Impact: 15.57% Average impact: 6.70% In March 2003, the US forces invaded Iraq to destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and end the dictatorial rule of Saddam Hussein. Today, the Iraqi government is asking the US government to withdraw the left troops from their soil. The US invasion of Iraq did not hurt the market and the average impact was on the S&P 500 index was a rise of nearly 6.70%. The US invasion of Iraq ranks among the 20 geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. 18. JFK Assassination (11/21/1963) Initial Impact: -2.81% 30-days Impact: 3.06% 90-days Impact: 8.28% Average impact: 2.84% The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who served as the 35th US President, was one of the biggest events in modern history and had a far-reaching impact on US politics. JFK assassination slowed the market and the average impact was around 2.84% of growth. JFK's assassination ranks 18th among the geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. 17. Gulf War (12/24/1990) Initial Impact: -4.16% 30-days Impact: 0.09% 90-days Impact: 12.1% Average impact: 2.67% The Gulf War was an armed conflict between Iraq and a 42-country coalition led by the US. The initial impact of the Gulf War on the S&P 500 index was quite notable with the market dropping by more than 4%. However, within three months the market had recovered but the war had an intense impact on the market during the initial period. The Gulf War ranks among the 20 geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. 16. Brexit (6/23/2016) Initial Impact: -2.30% 30-days Impact: 4.30% 90-days Impact: 3.72% Average impact: 1.91% Brexit is one of the biggest events in Europe in recent times. Brexit is a portmanteau of the words British and exit, referring to the UKs referendum to leave the European Union (EU) on June 23, 2016. Brexit is one of the recent geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. 15. 2017 Escalation (8/7/2017) Initial Impact: -0.24% 30-days Impact: -0.64% 90-days Impact: 4.44% Average impact: 1.19% The 2017 escalation began with North Koreas testing of ballistic missiles over the Sea of Japan. This event was of grave concern to the US government. The 2017 escalation negatively impacted the market during its initial 30-day period. 14. World Trade Center Bombing (2/26/1993) Initial Impact: -0.31% 30-days Impact: 1.67% 90-days Impact: 2.04% Average impact: 1.13% Before the 9/11 event, the World Trade Center suffered from a bombing terrorist attack. The market slowed down during the initial days of the event. The World Trade Center bombing ranks among the 20 geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. 13. US Bombs Libya (4/15/1986) Initial Impact: 2.95% 30-days Impact: -1.39% 90-days Impact: 0.16% Average impact: 0.57% The US government under President Ronald Reagan carried out air strikes, code-named Operation El Dorado Canyon, against Libya on 15 April 1986. The air strikes were carried out in retaliation for the West Berlin discotheque bombing 10 days earlier, which the Reagan regime blamed on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The US bombing of Libya had a negative impact during the first month after the air strikes and overall the market slowed down with an average of 0.57% increase in the S&P 500 index. This event ranks 13th among the geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. 12. 2016 Nuclear Test (9/9/2016) Initial Impact: -2.55% 30-days Impact: -0.81% 90-days Impact: 2.97% Average impact: 0.13% In September 2016, North Korea claimed that it successfully conducted what the world was worried about - a miniaturized hydrogen bomb that could be loaded onto a long-range missile. The 2016 Nuclear tests impacted the market as it was one of the major geopolitical developments of the decade. The 2016 Nuclear test ranks among the 20 geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. 11. USSR Invades Afghanistan (12/24/1979) Initial Impact: -2.27% 30-days Impact: 5.37% 90-days Impact: -7.78% Average impact: -1.56% The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 and the war ended after 9 years, breaking the backbone of the USSR. The Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan was one of the turning events in the region and ranks among the geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. 10. Operation Paul Bunyan (8/18/1976) Initial Impact: -3.15% 30-days Impact: 1.64% 90-days Impact: -4.32% Average impact: -1.94% Operation Paul Bunyan was carried out by the US in collaboration with South Korea to revenge the murder of two United Nations Command Officers, Captain Arthur Bonifas and First Lieutenant Mark Barrett, by North Korean soldiers on August 18, 1976. Operation Paul Bunyan ranks 10th among the geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. 9. September 11 Attacks (11/9/2001) Initial Impact: -11.6% 30-days Impact: 0.45% 90-days Impact: 4.34% Average impact: -2.27% The September 11 Attacks famously known as 9/11 were plane hijacking terrorist attacks by Al-Qaeda on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. These attacks had one of the devasting impacts on the market initially, causing a $1.4 trillion loss in market value. The S&P 500 plunged over 14% after the first week of attacks. The September 11 Attacks were one of the biggest geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. 8. US Invades Panama (12/15/1989) Initial Impact: -2.06% 30-days Impact: -3.73% 90-days Impact: -3.43% Average impact: -3.07% The US invaded Panama during the presidency of George H. W. Bush in mid-December 1989. The US invasion of Panama was one of the biggest geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. 7. 2009 Nuclear Test (4/25/2009) Initial Impact: -1.28% 30-days Impact: 5.09% 90-days Impact: -13.05% Average impact: -3.08% The 2009 Nuclear test was one of the initial tests carried out by North Korea. The market reaction to the 2009 Nuclear tests was intense. This makes the 2009 Nuclear test one of the major geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. 6. Clinton Intern Scandal (8/20/1998) Initial Impact: -12.3% 30-days Impact: -6.20% 90-days Impact: 5.59% Average impact: -4.30% US President Bill Clinton was involved in a sex scandal with his intern Monica Lewinsky. This event impacted the market quite hard and the S&P 500 index dropped over 6% in the first month after the sex scandal leaked. 5. Nixon/Watergate (3/15/1974) Initial Impact: -1.72% 30-days Impact: -7.28% 90-days Impact: -8.04% Average impact: -5.68% The Nixon/Watergate scandal was a major political controversy in the US during the presidency of Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974. This event ended with the resignation of Richard Nixon, the President of the US. The Nixon/Watergate scandal was one of the biggest geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. 4. Korean War (6/23/1950) Initial Impact: -12.8% 30-days Impact: -8.67% 90-days Impact: 1.20% Average impact: -6.76% The Korean War was fought between North Korea and South Korea and their allies on the Korean Peninsula. The Korean War had a devasting impact on the market and on average the S&P 500 fell by nearly 6.76%. The Korean War ranks fourth among the 20 geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. 3. Pearl Harbor (12/7/1941) Initial Impact: -6.87% 30-days Impact: -2.90% 90-days Impact: -12.02% Average impact: -7.26% The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service surprised the US. The Pearl Harbor event was the beginning of the World War II. The Pearl Harbor attack is one of the major geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. 2. US Bombs Cambodia (4/29/1970) Initial Impact: -15.3% 30-days Impact: -6.43% 90-days Impact: -4.94% Average impact: -8.89% The US bombing of Cambodia was one of the biggest geopolitical events with the highest impact on the S&P 500. The Operation Menu was a covert US Strategic Air Command tactical bombing campaign conducted as part of both the Vietnam War and the Cambodian Civil War. 1. Arab Oil Embargo (10/18/1973) Initial Impact: -16.23% 30-days Impact: -8.45% 90-days Impact: -13.04% Average impact: -12.57% The Arab oil embargo is the most significant geopolitical event with the highest impact on the S&P 500. The Arab oil embargo was a temporary cessation of oil shipments from the Middle East to the US. The OPEC ceased oil supply to the US due to its support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. READ NEXT: $30 Trillion Opportunity: 15 Best Humanoid Robot Stocks to Buy According to Morgan Stanley and Jim Cramer Says NVIDIA Has Become A Wasteland. Disclosure. None. This article was originally published on Insider Monkey. Eswatini Sexual and Gender Minorities, an LGBTQ advocacy group, was denied registration by authorities in 2019, and even after seeking relief from the Supreme Court, which had ruled the group must be registered, its efforts have been unsuccessful. Human rights lawyer Sibusiso Nhlabatsi said the harsh legal environment for LGBTQ individuals in the southern African kingdom causes significant problems. There is denial that they exist, so they do not have any form of protection as a group," Nhlabatsi said. "They only rely on protection from the law or enjoyment of any rights from the law as human beings under Chapter 3 of our Bill of Rights of our Constitution. So I can say its quite challenging, because theres no instrument that seeks to protect them. Theres no instrument that seeks to recognize them as a group of people that exist. I dont think theres any progress that has been made. Besides the lack of legal recognition, LGBTQ individuals in Eswatini often face discrimination in gaining access to services, high rates of intimate partner violence, and exclusion from public discussions. Sisanda Mavimbela, executive director of Eswatini Sexual and Gender Minorities, said the idea of LGBTQ rights is considered contradictory to traditional African values and religious beliefs, perpetuating a climate of exclusion and marginalization. The community cannot equally enjoy rights like all Swazis do, as per their birthright," Mavimbela said. ESGM has been denied "a right to associate, which is a right to all Swazis as per the Constitution." Eswatini is also known by its former official name, Swaziland. In the LGBTQ community, "justice comes hard and sometimes is not reached at all," for what are usually quoted as "non-African, unreligious or cultural reasons, Mavimbela said. Colonial-era laws In refusing to register Eswatini Sexual and Gender Minorities, the government cited the countrys colonial-era laws, which still have a profound influence on the countrys legal framework. Registration of the group would allow it to operate as a nonprofit organization with the ability to, among other things, open a bank account and receive international funding. If the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry continues to refuse to register ESGM despite the Supreme Court ruling, the court could issue a mandamus order requiring the government to carry out the action. However, no such order has been issued, and it remains to be seen if the court will do so. The ESGM case reached the Supreme Court after the group appealed a ruling by the High Court, a lower-level body. The appellants argued that the High Court had erred in law, and in fact, by stating that the applicants sought to create rights that don't exist. On June 16, 2023, a five-panel bench of the Supreme Court set aside the High Courts decision to dismiss ESGMs application to register as a nonprofit organization. But on September 27, 2023, the Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry ordered the Registrar of Companies not to register ESGM, citing the organizations name and objectives and asserting that it offends the customs and principles of Eswatini. Despite the opposition to LGBTQ rights in Eswatini, Bishop Zwanini Shabalala, the former secretary-general of the Council of Swaziland Churches, has called for understanding and acceptance of the LGBTQ community without discrimination. This is an area that still needs more and more dialogue in churches and in society. ... Our position as the church is that we should welcome everyone who comes to church and also advocate for access to services that are rendered by the country from government to all other institutions," Shabalala said. LGBTQ citizens "should also be treated like anyone else, without looking at their sexual orientation. With little to no local support, the LGBTQ community finds solace and support in the Eswatini offices of the European Union and the U.N. Development Program. The EU and the U.S. Embassy to Eswatini backed LGBTQ residents throughout the court battle, and the development program continues to run dialogue sessions and workshops. The situation remains dire, however, as the community faces a lack of recognition, acceptance and equal rights. The United Nations General Assembly continues on Friday with an address by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this follows Thursdays speech my Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Meanwhile, ceasefire negotiations continue on the conference's sidelines. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is still in the US, he meets with presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday, he met with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Thursday, all as Russian shelling continues. And the mayor New York, the USs most populous city, is under federal indictment. On September 24, the United States charged Ryan Routh, a 58-year-old American citizen, with plotting to assassinate former U.S. President and Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump. Routh is known as an outspoken supporter of Ukraine's self-defense against the Russian aggression, The Associated Press reported. In Russia and in the U.S., pro-Kremlin sources leveraged Routh's history of supporting Ukraine to claim he acted on Kyiv's behalf. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggested in his September 16 post on X that Ukraine "hired" Routh to assassinate Trump. The fact-checking outlet News Guard's Reality Check debunked Medvedev's claim as "baseless." A U.S. conservative commentator, Tim Pool, accused by the U.S. Department of Justice of receiving $100,000 from the Russian government for each of his podcast videos, advanced a similar claim, saying in his September 17 podcast: "We must investigate Ukrainian involvement in the attempted assassination of Donald Trump." Other state media and officials in Russia, including Maria Zakharova, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, repeated that narrative. "Having analyzed the social media of the detained Ryan Routh, who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump, journalists came to the conclusion that representatives of the Kiev regime most likely involved him in recruiting foreigners, including from Afghanistan, to replenish the brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine." The claim is unsubstantiated. Neither the Russian authorities nor the Kremlin-aligned social media influencers provided evidence connecting the Ukrainian government to Routh. Kyiv denied any collaboration with him. The FBI Miami special agent in charge, Jeffrey Veltri, said on September 16 that Routh had "an active online presence, and we are going through what he posted," analyzing "media reports and public statements he made that he wanted to recruit Afghan soldiers and others to fight for Ukraine." Veltri said the investigation was in its early stages and the information obtained "at present" suggests that Routh acted alone. In several interviews for news outlets and on his social media accounts, Routh claimed that he had been trying to recruit foreign soldiers to fight for Ukraine. But there is no evidence that his attempts to recruit volunteers into the Ukrainian army were successful. Contrary to the Russian claims, Routh expressed frustration with the Ukrainian state for ignoring his repeated communication attempts. In a June 2022 interview with Newsweek Romania, Routh stated that he had recently traveled to Ukraine to join the army but was turned away due to his age, being in his mid-50s, and lack of military experience, making him "not an ideal candidate" for combat. In a March 2023 interview with The New York Times, Routh said he was in Washington and claimed to have spent "some time" in Ukraine. He again acknowledged he had never fought in the war with Russia, citing his age and lack of military experience. After his rejection, Routh began attempting to recruit volunteer soldiers for Ukraine's International Legion, a part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In a March 7, 2023, interview with the news site Semafor, Routh said Ukraine was reluctant to admit foreign fighters, including Afghan commandos. He criticized Ukraine for being difficult to work with, claiming it feared foreign volunteers might be Russian spies. Chelsea Walsh, a nurse and aid worker in Kyiv during the early days of the Russian invasion, told The Associated Press that Routh was unsuccessfully attempting to recruit foreign soldiers. The failures made him "increasingly angry and unhinged." Upon returning to the U.S. in June 2022, Walsh warned U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents that Routh was "a ticking time bomb" and later shared her concerns with the FBI and Interpol. Evelyn Aschenbrenner, a U.S. citizen who worked with the Ukrainian International Legion for two years, described Routh as "delusional and a liar" in a Newsweek interview. She warned on social media that Routh was "not, and never has been, associated with the International Legion or the Ukrainian Armed Forces at all." Oleksandr Shahuri of the Foreigners Coordination Department of the Ukrainian Ground Forces Command stated that Routh never served in the Ukrainian army or collaborated with its military. Shahuri told the New York Post that Routh visited Kyiv in 2022 and periodically approached the International Legion of Ukraine with "nonsensical ideas" that "can best be described as delusional." On September 16, Ukraine's International Legion told the BBC that Routh had "never been part of, associated with or linked" with the legion ... in any capacity." Ukrainian military intelligence stated on the same day that Routh "has never served in the International Legion of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and has no connection to the unit." Sudans de facto ruler said Thursday that he wants to end the war in his country, but he said he will not sit with his rival general unless he withdraws his fighters. "We are keen on stopping the war and restoring peace and security, without any pre-conditions," Army Chief Abdel-Fattah al Burhan told reporters in New York, where he was attending U.N. General Assembly meetings. However, he stated several conditions for talks to start. "We will never sit with Hemedti unless his forces pull out, and unless they implement what we agreed to," he said referring to his rival, the head of the Rapid Support Forces, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as "Hemedti." Once allies in Sudan's transitional government following a 2021 coup, the two generals have turned into bitter rivals for power. On April 15, 2023, fighting erupted between their forces in the capital, Khartoum. It has since spread across Sudan, resulting in widespread atrocities and killing. Burhan was asked about new fighting that erupted between his forces and the RSF in Khartoum on Thursday, but did not offer any new details. Earlier Thursday, Burhan addressed the U.N. General Assembly annual debate. He used most of his speech to talk about the war in his country. Not to be outdone, his rival, Hemedti, issued a "General Assembly speech" of his own, on the social media platform X. Ten million people have been displaced and half of Sudans population, 26 million people, are struggling with crisis levels of food insecurity. Famine was confirmed in August in Sudans Darfur region, which has seen heavy fighting. At least 14 other areas of Sudan are considered at risk of famine in the coming months. "The food gap is there, but it hasnt reached the level of famine yet," Burhan told reporters. Regarding efforts by the United States and Saudi Arabia to bring the parties to the negotiating table in Switzerland in August, the army chief said it didnt happen because "external parties interfered" with the process. The Sudanese military accuses the United Arab Emirates of arming and equipping the RSF. The UAE was invited to a meeting in Switzerland in August and Burhan did not attend. He said he was also not happy with how the invitation was sent to him in his personal capacity, not as head of state. He added that any peace process should be purely Sudanese-led. Asked about a July phone call he had with the leader of the UAE, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Burhan said he told the Emirati that the RSF has received either direct or indirect assistance from the UAE in the forms of weapons and training. He said MBZ, as the UAE leader is known, "promised to reconsider the situation." A report by a U.N. panel of experts earlier this year said there was substance to media reports that cargo planes originating in the UAE capital had landed in eastern Chad with arms, ammunition and medical equipment destined for the RSF. Publicly, the UAE denies that it arms the RSF and says it has only sent humanitarian aid to Sudan. Former U.S. President Donald Trump met Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York, where Trump repeated claims that he would be able to end the war in Ukraine by making a deal with Russia. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report. Former President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York on Friday, promising that he "can work out something that's good for both sides" to end the Russia-Ukraine war, if elected. In response to VOA's question, the Republican presidential nominee repeated his claim he will quickly end the fighting that began with Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. "We have a very good relationship, and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin. And I think if we win, I think we're going to get it resolved very quickly." It's a significant meeting for Zelenskyy as he works for assurances that Washington will continue to support his war efforts no matter who wins in U.S. presidential election in November. "We have a common view that the war in Ukraine has to be stopped, and Putin can't win," Zelenskyy said as he stood next to Trump. Trump has repeatedly said he wants the Russia-Ukraine war to end but has not stated whether he wants Kyiv to win or keep all its territories. "We'll see what happens," he said Thursday in response to a question about whether Ukraine should turn over some of its own land to Russia to end the war. Zelenskyy admitted he cannot win against Russia before the tightly contested presidential election. "We understand that after November we have to decide, and we hope that the friends of [the] United States will be very strong, and we count on it," he said. "That's why I decided to meet with both candidates, with all honor to them." Trump is virtually tied in the polls with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. Zelenskyy with Harris in Washington on Thursday, following a separate meeting with President Joe Biden. Unlike Trump, who is pushing for Kyiv to strike a deal with Moscow, Harris underscored that it's up to Ukraine to decide how the war will end. "I will continue to stand with Ukraine, and I will work to ensure Ukraine prevails in this war," she vowed. Without mentioning names, Harris criticized Trump by denouncing calls for Ukraine to end the war by ceding territory to Russia, focusing on a proposal from Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance that would mean Ukraine is left with less land and no path to an alliance with the West. Vance suggested in a recent interview that Ukraine and Russia halt fighting and create a demilitarized zone at the current battle lines. Kyiv would need to adhere to a neutral status and stop its bid to join NATO. "These proposals are the same as those of Putin, and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace," Harris said. "Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable." "It's not a surrender," Trump responded Thursday. "What my strategy is, to save lives." Tension between Trump and Zelenskyy Tension has been brewing between the two leaders. During a campaign event in North Carolina on Wednesday, Trump slammed Zelenskyy for making "little, nasty aspersions" toward him. He appeared to be referring to Zelenskyy's comments in a recent New Yorker magazine article that Trump "doesn't really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how." Trump suggested the Ukrainian leader together with the Biden administration are at fault for prolonging the war that followed Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. "Biden and Kamala allowed this to happen by feeding Zelenskyy money and munitions like no country has ever seen before," Trump said. He argued that Kyiv should have made concessions to Moscow before Russian troops attacked, asserting that Ukraine is now "in rubble" and in no position to negotiate the war's end. Zelenskyy, who has been in the United States since Sunday to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York, was scheduled to depart Thursday but extended his visit as Trump announced the meeting. Trump complains of impeachment Trump spent a significant part of the open-to-press portion of his Friday meeting with Zelenskyy complaining about his 2019 impeachment by Democrats in Congress. The impeachment was triggered by a phone call he had with Zelenskyy in July of that year in which Trump, who was president at the time, asked the Ukrainian leader to start an investigation into Biden then his Democratic presidential rival and his son Hunter Biden. "It was a hoax, just a Democrat hoax, which we won," said Trump, who was acquitted by the Republican-majority Senate at that time. Trump praised Zelenskyy for being "like a piece of steel" in supporting his claim that he did nothing wrong during their phone call. Zelenskyy did not respond to Trump's remarks related to the impeachment. Zelenskyy is also dealing with attacks from congressional Republicans loyal to Trump demanding that the Ukrainian leader fire his ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, over Zelenskyy's visit earlier this week to an ammunition factory in Pennsylvania, a hotly contested battleground state in the November U.S. presidential election. Zelenskyy met with the Democratic governor of the state, Josh Shapiro. In a letter to Zelenskyy, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday said the visit to the factory that makes munitions for Ukraine was a "partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats," that amounts to "election interference." The White House called Johnson's letter a "political stunt" and pointed out that Zelenskyy recently met Republican Governor of Utah Spencer Cox in a "similar event." Ahead of Zelenskyy's visit, the U.S. administration announced $8 billion in new aid for Ukraine. In a statement, Biden said the aid includes a Patriot missile battery and missiles, as well as air-to-ground munitions and a precision-guided glide bomb with a range of up to 130 kilometers. The White House said no announcement is imminent regarding Ukraine's request for weapons donors to allow Ukrainian forces to use the weapons to strike targets deeper inside Russia. Iuliia Iarmolenko, Tatiana Koprowicz and Iryna Solomko Bonenberger contributed to this report. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that the overwhelming majority of countries at the U.N. Security Council meeting this week condemned Russias brutal war of conquest on Ukraine and called for a just and lasting peace on the basis of the United Nations Charter. Crucial to that lasting peace, Blinken said, is pressing Iran, North Korea and China, a permanent member of the council, to stop providing weapons, artillery, machinery and other support [that Russian President Vladimir] Putin is using to devastate Ukrainian homes, energy grids and ports. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is in the U.S. to meet with President Joe Biden and presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, said in his daily address Friday that Ukraines plan for victory has been presented to America. The Ukrainian leader said key items discussed included long-range capabilities, the defense package, sanctions against Russia [and] steps on Russian assets. It is important for Ukraine that America has a direct understanding of Ukraine. And it absolutely does, Zelenskyy said. This Russian war must be stopped, and it must be stopped with fairness, so that no aggressor will ever do what Russia is doing. Russian attacks Regional officials in Ukraine reported eight people killed and dozens injured Thursday and Friday by Russian attacks on the country. The Ukrainian air force reported that it shot down 24 of 32 Iranian-made Shahed drones. On its Telegram social media account, the Ukrainian air force reported another attacking drone was lost in Romanian airspace, and still another was "lost in location" because of Ukraine defense forces countermeasures. The air force statement said Russia fired a North Korean-made Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missile from occupied Crimea and two Kh-22 cruise missiles from Tu-22M3 bombers from the Black Sea, all which were shot down by anti-aircraft missile forces, mobile fire groups, and electronic warfare units. In southern Odesa Oblast, Governor Oleh Kiper reported from his Telegram account the Russian drone strikes hit the town of Izmail early Friday, killing three people and injuring at least 11. He said the drone strikes damaged homes, residential buildings and other structures, as well as cars. Video released by the Odesa regional emergency service showed firefighters battling fires and searching the rubble of buildings. In Donetsk Oblast, Governor Vadym Filashkin reported four people killed and 11 injured Thursday, adding that there were additional deaths and injuries in attacks on Mariupol and Volnovakha without providing figures. A Russian attack on the city of Kharkiv injured three women and two men, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said. Three men aged 77, 74 and 46 suffered injuries after Russian attacks on Kupiansk, Vuzlovyi, Vovchansk and Ivashky in Kharkiv Oblast. In Kherson Oblast, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported Russian forces Thursday targeted 24 settlements, including the regional center of Kherson. He said one person was killed and 19 were injured, while residential high-rises, homes, and critical infrastructure including a school were damaged. Also Thursday, the Ukrainian military reported that a Ukrainian drone strike battalion foiled a Russian armored assault near the village of Pishchane in the northeastern Kharkiv region. Commander of the Achilles drone strike battalion, Yuriy Fedorenko, reported Russian forces had attempted to advance in the area, using around 50 armored vehicles and troops. Video released by Fedorenko showed repeated drone strikes on what he reported were Russian vehicles. The commander reported that the drone strikes damaged or destroyed 40 Russian vehicles. Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. The global coalition to ensure the defeat of the Islamic State terror group is set to wind down its military mission in Iraq, part of a two-phased plan that U.S. officials say will not hinder counter-IS operations elsewhere in the region. Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Friday that the mission would be changing to a bilateral security partnership with the Iraqi government. "The U.S. is not withdrawing from Iraq," Singh told reporters in response to a VOA question at the briefing. "I cannot get into more details on what that front footprint is going to look like." The first phase of the agreement, set to start immediately, will see coalition forces wrap up their efforts in Iraq no later than a year from now, senior U.S. officials said Friday. The second phase, they said, will start next September and will last at least one year, allowing a remnant of coalition forces to remain in Iraq for the sole purpose of supporting anti-IS efforts in neighboring Syria. The U.S. officials, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, declined to say what impact the two-phased agreement would have on the 2,500 U.S. forces in Iraq and the 900 troops in Syria, but, like Singh, rejected characterizations of the agreement as a U.S. pullout. "This is an evolution of the military mission in Iraq," the official added. "We are moving toward the type of productive, long-term security relationship the United States has with partners around the world." Other officials said that despite a broad agreement on ending the coalition's military role in Iraq, key details have yet to be decided. The number of U.S troops in Iraq and the fate of U.S. bases "remains in a planning process and under review," said a senior U.S. defense official, emphasizing that no matter what changes are ultimately implemented in the first phase of the transition, it will not adversely affect support for U.S. forces helping to counter IS in Syria. "Our footprint is going to be changing," said Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh, briefing reporters Friday. She said the U.S. relationship with Iraq remains crucial, however, even if the threat from IS in Iraq is not as dire as it once was. "The strongholds that they had in Iraq, they don't have those anymore, or not what they used to," she said in response to a question from VOA. Friday's long-awaited announcement comes 10 years after the U.S. and dozens of other countries joined forces to help roll back IS' self-declared caliphate, which at its peak covered nearly one-third of Iraq and Syria. It also comes more than a year after the U.S. and Iraq first proposed talks to wind down the counter-IS mission and following rocket and drone attacks on U.S. troops, including by Iraqi militias backed by Iran. The U.S. officials said under the transition agreement, the Iraqi government will remain responsible for protecting U.S. and coalition forces from attacks from Iranian-backed militias, though that will not stop U.S. forces from responding. "We've made it clear also that [the U.S.] will not hesitate to take all appropriate actions to protect our personnel," said the senior administration official. "Attacks against the U.S. and the coalition service members, as well as Iraqi security service members, undermine Iraq's sovereignty and security and stability." Some public statements from Iraqi officials, including Iraqi Defense Minister Thabit al-Abbasi, have stressed that the deal would see most of the U.S. troops in Iraq leave within the next two years. In an interview with Al-Hadath television earlier this month, al-Abbasi said U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had pushed for a longer transition period, but that Iraq said no. "We refused his proposal regarding a third year," said Abbasi. U.S. officials said they view the agreement to end the coalition military mission in Iraq not as an end, but a transition to a potentially stronger relationship with Baghdad. "The government of Iraq has expressed continual willingness and interest to solidify and expand that partnership, including on counterterrorism cooperation," said the senior U.S. defense official. "We're very confident that we have a good partner in Iraq, in the government of Iraq." The defense official also said the two-phase agreement to end the coalition military mission does not preclude cooperation between U.S. and Iraqi security forces against IS, like a joint operation earlier this month which killed a senior IS commander in Iraq's western Anbar province. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani also seemed to leave open the possibility of continued cooperation with U.S. forces despite a desire for counter-IS coalition forces to leave. "We celebrate the coalition," al-Sudani told a conference on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, adding, "this mission is finished." "We hope we will have a wider relationship, a more profound relationship with the United States," he said. "It's a strategic relationship." Singh called the United States' military partnership with Iraq "crucial." "We are in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government, and our partnership has led to the success of diminishing ISIS from what it was 10 years ago to where it is today," she told reporters Friday, using an acronym for the terror group. Despite statements by Iraqi officials downplaying the need for coalition forces in Iraq to combat IS, some U.S. officials and independent analysts have expressed growing concern that the terror group is rebounding. U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces across the Middle East, warned in July that IS in Iraq and Syria "was on pace to more than double the total number of attacks they claimed in 2023." The warning noted that beyond reconstituting its operations in Iraq and Syria, IS officials appear to be expanding their efforts to plan and carry out attacks elsewhere in the world. Charles Lister, the director of the Countering Terrorism and Extremism Program at the Middle East Institute, has tracked about 500 IS attacks this year and warned that an IS rebuild, years in the making, in the central Syrian desert has been flowing across the Euphrates River since January. "That spillover across the river is now a very real reality," he said, pointing to a "huge surge" in Islamic State attacks in both Syrian regime-held areas and in areas held by U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces. "It's more than predictable that the next phase of this recovery will be a spillover into Iraq," Lister said. A recent United Nations report, based on intelligence from member states, estimated IS has between 1,500 and 3,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria. It said the majority of the terror group's senior leaders remain in hiding in Syria. U.S. intelligence officials have put the number of IS fighters in Iraq and Syria at about 2,500. Some information from Agence France Presse was used in this article. The U.S. State Department announced a $20 million reward on Thursday for information leading to the arrest of the alleged Iranian mastermind behind a plot to assassinate former White House official John Bolton. U.S. officials said in August 2022 that they had uncovered a plot by Shahram Poursafi, a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), to kill Bolton, who served as national security adviser to former President Donald Trump. The State Department's Rewards for Justice program "is offering a reward of up to $20 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction" of Poursafi, a notice said Thursday. The move came as Trump, 78, who is running for a new White House term, claimed there were "big threats" on his life by Iran. Bolton, considered a foreign policy hawk, is a fierce critic of Iran and advocated that Trump unilaterally withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018. Poursafi allegedly offered an unidentified person inside the United States $300,000 to kill Bolton in the capital area. The plan was likely set in motion after the U.S. killing of top IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in January 2020, the Justice Department said at the time. But it never made headway because the ostensible assassin became an informant of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Iranian authorities have dismissed the allegations as "fiction." The United States designated the entire IRGC a "foreign terrorist organization" in 2019, after previously designating its external operation, the Quds Force. Tension remains high in Tanzania days after officials arrested eight prominent figures of the opposition, including leaders of the CHADEMA party on Monday, releasing them in the evening, The Associated Press reported. The main opposition party, CHADEMA, earlier called for nationwide rallies against what they say is the state-orchestrated abduction of opposition members. Among those arrested was former presidential candidate Tundu Lissu. Tanzania will be holding elections in October 2025. Key party figure Ali Kibao was found dead September 7 after he was abducted from a bus in broad daylight by people suspected of being state security agents. Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu condemned his killing and ordered a thorough investigation while claiming she leads a democratic government that does not tolerate political assassinations. The United States Embassy in Tanzania, along with the European ambassadors, called for an independent, transparent and prompt investigation into the ongoing abductions and the murder of Ali Kibao. In response to criticism, Suluhu cited the assassination attempts in a developed country, which observers interpreted as a reference to the attempts on the life of former U.S. President Donald Trump, who is the Republican Party nominee for president in the November 5 election. Suluhu went on to accuse Western envoys of interfering with Tanzanian domestic affairs by calling for investigations of human rights violations. Tanzania has "never directed its ambassadors to interfere in other nations' internal affairs. ... The statements that have been made, instructing us to do one, two, three we know what to do as Tanzanians and as a country, she said. That is misleading. The Tanzanian president appealed to the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, arguing that it prohibits diplomats from making statements about the domestic politics in the countries of deployment. However, the convention does not prevent the envoys from advocating for the rights of the host country's citizens. In fact, the international law drafted in 1948 calls for the protection of human rights regardless of the persons political parties and nationalities. Suluhu claimed that the statements made were not the directive of the heads of state from where they [envoys] came. That claim is also misleading: The convention specifies that one of the functions of the diplomats is protecting in the receiving State the interests of the sending State and its nationals, within the limits permitted by international law. According to the U.S. State Department, an ambassador is the president's highest-ranking representative to a country or international organization abroad and issues statements on behalf of the United States government," and the main goal of U.S. foreign policy abroad is to advance democracy, human rights, and other global interests. Responding to the accusations, U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania Michael Battle said on September 19 that the U.S. is not immune to challenges and imperfections but remains true to an obligation for fundamental and paramount human dignity and human respect. The United States has been the single largest bilateral donor to Tanzania for the last six decades, contributing over $7.5 billion in aid. That aid will now depend on respect for democracy and human rights, Battle said earlier in an address to a democracy conference in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. As long as we remain Tanzanias partner, we will speak openly and honestly about these principles, he said. The September 23 arrest of the opposition leader Tundu Lissu and other members of the CHADEMA party is the second in the last month. Notably, protesting is a civil right guaranteed by Tanzanian constitution. In August, the police arrested Lissu and 520 young men and women who had planned to protest bad governance on International Youth Day, accusing them of planning to cause violence. The abduction and arrests taint Suluhus public image: She had been seen as a reformist after lifting a ban on opposition rallies put in place by her predecessor, the hardliner John Magufuli, who died in office in 2021. Eyewitness accounts and investigations by international human rights organizations have detailed dozens of abductions and, in some cases, killings of innocent civilians allegedly by the Tanzanian security agencies. The New York-based Human Rights Foundation said at least three opposition figures remain missing weeks after suspected security agents abducted them. Key Insights Institutions' substantial holdings in Irish Continental Group implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price The top 7 shareholders own 52% of the company Insider ownership in Irish Continental Group is 19% A look at the shareholders of Irish Continental Group plc (LON:ICGC) can tell us which group is most powerful. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 41% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company. Given the vast amount of money and research capacities at their disposal, institutional ownership tends to carry a lot of weight, especially with individual investors. Hence, having a considerable amount of institutional money invested in a company is often regarded as a desirable trait. In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Irish Continental Group. View our latest analysis for Irish Continental Group What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Irish Continental Group? Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing. As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Irish Continental Group. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Irish Continental Group, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too. It looks like hedge funds own 5.7% of Irish Continental Group shares. That catches my attention because hedge funds sometimes try to influence management, or bring about changes that will create near term value for shareholders. The company's CEO Eamonn Rothwell is the largest shareholder with 19% of shares outstanding. Wellington Management Group LLP is the second largest shareholder owning 10% of common stock, and Kinney Asset Management, LLC. holds about 5.7% of the company stock. We did some more digging and found that 7 of the top shareholders account for roughly 52% of the register, implying that along with larger shareholders, there are a few smaller shareholders, thereby balancing out each others interests somewhat. Story continues While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. There is a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage. Insider Ownership Of Irish Continental Group The definition of company insiders can be subjective and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO. Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group. It seems insiders own a significant proportion of Irish Continental Group plc. Insiders own UK148m worth of shares in the UK760m company. That's quite meaningful. It is good to see this level of investment. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently. General Public Ownership The general public-- including retail investors -- own 33% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies. Next Steps: It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Irish Continental Group better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 1 warning sign for Irish Continental Group you should be aware of. Ultimately the future is most important. You can access this free report on analyst forecasts for the company. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Amos Hochstein, in his capacity as President Joe Bidens special representative and not as an Israeli officer, suggested to French President Emmanuel Macron to propose a peace initiative for Lebanon. Presidents Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron immediately issued a statement: "It is time to reach a settlement on the Israeli-Lebanese border that guarantees security and allows civilians to return to their homes. The exchanges of fire that have taken place since 7 October, and particularly in the last two weeks, threaten to widen the conflict and harm civilians. That is why we have been working together in recent days on a joint call for a temporary ceasefire to give diplomacy a chance to succeed and avoid further escalations on both sides of the border. This declaration was approved within the hour by Australia, Canada, the European Union, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and Qatar. Washington and Paris hope to negotiate a ceasefire or a three-week truce, during which Amos Hochstein will shuttle diplomatically between Lebanon and Israel, until a comprehensive agreement is reached, similar to what happened in 2022 when a deal on the delimitation of the maritime border between the two countries was reached. Of course, Israel rejected this proposal, as it did the one for peace in Gaza. All this fuss on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly was nothing more than a show to allow the IDF to continue its war while world leaders took turns at the podium. The Israeli-Lebanese maritime border agreement provided for the distribution of areas for the exploitation of hydrocarbon resources. It subsequently turned out that the data available at the time was false and that the part allocated to Lebanon is far less abundant than previously thought. Amos Hochstein is a world-renowned expert in oil development. It is important to recall that during the five weeks following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood (October 7, 2023), the IDF shelled the extreme south of Lebanon to prevent any incursion by Hezbollah. The latter reacted only after the displacement of about 100,000 Lebanese, the murder of a Reuters photographer and the wounding of six other journalists. When the international press refused to cover this dangerous front, Hezbollah decided to retaliate and cause the displacement of 100,000 Israelis. There is no doubt, therefore, that Israel is solely responsible for the ongoing conflict. On September 17 and 18, the Mossad launched an operation to detonate the pagers and walkie-talkies of Hezbollahs civil security service (cf. VIN 1964). This equipment was not used by Hezbollah fighters, but by its security service, equivalent to the municipal police in the towns where Hezbollah won the elections. This operation constitutes a violation of Article 7 of the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices (known as the Geneva Convention of 10 October 1989). It has been unanimously condemned by all UN member states and has not been publicly claimed by Israel. Immediately thereafter, the IDF began bombing many Lebanese cities and targeted assassinations of Hezbollah commanders, while Hezbollah fought back. These operations correspond to a declaration by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, on 23 September, before the Israeli High Court, acknowledging that it had lost to Hamas in Gaza (cf. VIN 2000) Photo: Universal Pictures/DreamWorks Chris Sanders has spent his career making movies about outcasts building new families. His first feature, co-directed with Dean DeBlois, was Disneys Lilo & Stitch (2002), maybe the ultimate animated film about the power of finding your people in an unexpected place. (Sanders also did the voice of Stitch in the film and, indeed, continues to do the voice to this day in Stitchs many iterations, including the upcoming live-action remake.) His latest, The Wild Robot, could give that Disney classic a run for its money. Its the story of a robot, Rozzum Unit 7134 (voiced by Lupita Nyongo), who finds herself lost in the middle of a forest and struggles to assimilate into the animal world, which rejects her. As the robot, nicknamed Roz, tries to care for a young orphaned gosling named Brightbill (Kit Connor), she continues to deal with the woodland creatures who see her only as a monster. If that sounds like a tearjerker, youre right: It is. But the film is devastating precisely because its not cloying; its striking visual design merges computer animation with rough, almost Impressionistic hand-painted characters and backgrounds, and both the sharp screenplay and the irreverent voice performances avoid fuzzy cliches at every turn. And although The Wild Robot is based on a childrens book by Peter Brown, Sanders admits that it carried some surprising personal resonances even he wasnt aware of at first echoes that reach all the way back to the Disney movie that put him on the map in the first place. Your original idea for Lilo & Stitch, long before you made that movie, had Stitch landing in a forest and living among the animals. That concept obviously evolved and changed dramatically. But seeing The Wild Robot, I realized it was very similar to that. Did that resemblance ever strike you? Heres the weird thing: I didnt even make that connection until about two weeks ago. I went over to visit Dean DeBlois, my co-director on Lilo & Stitch, who is in the midst of working on the How to Train Your Dragon live-action reboot. And he pointed that out! He said, Its kind of like you went full circle and went back to the film that you were trying to make before you moved Lilo & Stitch into the human world. The thing that Tom Schumacher at Disney said to me at the time was The animal world is, in a sense, alien to us, so were not going to get the greatest contrast with an alien among animals. We should maybe consider moving it into the human world. So this is really the same thing but the opposite, where we do want Roz to be in an alien world. The animation style in The Wild Robot is unique. The textures of the characters and the environments look like brushstrokes from a painting. How did that develop? As I read the original book, imagery was flooding into my imagination. I knew that, given the nature of the story, it could skew unintentionally young if we didnt have a sophisticated look. So I asked our production designer, Raymond Zibach, for something more in the realm of Bambi. We were already creating some color sketches, explorations for what this film might look like. Several images were looking very, very loose and painterly because people are just doing these very quickly. I loved that look. I always bemoan the loss of that kind of spontaneity in animation, as things are formalized and cleaned up and imagery is perfected. So I asked Raymond, Would it be possible for the finished film to be indiscernible from these rough sketches? And he said, Lets go for it! Ever since CG came into the picture, we have all been struggling as filmmakers to make our worlds look more handmade, because thats where you get this emotional resonance. Usually, we battle this by wrapping geometry with textures. So backgrounds, rocks, trees they have geometry inside them, just like our characters do. But in the case of The Wild Robot, we no longer have geometry under the background, under the trees. As far as its art direction is concerned, for the very first time we have 100 percent painted environments; from the sky to the ground, to trees, to bushes, everything is hand-painted. In order for the characters to fuse and to wed with the rest of the world, they too needed to be hand-painted. The birds feathers, the fur for the animals, are simply not there its just brushstrokes that are rough. Its like when you go to a gallery and you see a beautiful painting, but then you happen to get real close to it and all of a sudden it just becomes these blobs of color that dont make a lot of sense. Thats what our characters are like. If you get very, very close to them, its just these rough brushstrokes. So there are no individual hairs that are represented. An exception to that would be that Fink, the fox, has these whiskers but if you look at the whiskers, those are also brushstrokes. But then, into this beautiful painted environment. Roz deliberately arrives on the island as a CG element. We did not give her surface a painted texture in the beginning. As Roz spends more time on the island, we replace her CG surface with a painted surface. And by the middle of the film, by the beginning of the third act, she is now a 100 percent hand-painted-surface character, just like the animals are. She literally begins to fuse with the island as she adapts and becomes a resident. You just mentioned that animators have been trying to make their work look more handmade. Obviously, in the U.S. particularly, computer animation has taken over everything. But even now, 30 years into the revolution, filmmakers are trying to get back to that hand-drawn style? Yeah, its because back in the day, changing the style of your film was relatively easy and exciting. We would always have different styles, depending on the kind of film that we were making. But when CG came along, we were gravitationally obligated to this particular look, just because the technology wouldnt let us escape. Everybody has struggled with that because we lost that ability to be as dynamic and as surprising visually as we used to be. When we saw Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, that was a revelation. Somebody finally escaped that gravitational field, that gravitational pull! And at DreamWorks, they followed up with Bad Guys and with Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. So wed already gone a certain distance down that amazing road leading away from CG looks. I was really asking, How much further can we go? And I will say the entire crew adopted this film in a way that I have never seen before. For example, with our animation crew, usually well launch a scene: Ill sit down and talk to an animator after all, they are our actors and say, Well, this is what the scene is about, and well have a long discussion before they go off to animate it. In the case of The Wild Robot, I would come into some of those sessions, I would begin to describe a moment, and the animator would say, Actually, I already animated it! And I would say, Excuse me what? And they had broken into the database, removed the scene, and had gone ahead and just they did it. They animated it! Its funny artificial intelligence really became a thing in the news as we were making this film. And oddly enough, The Wild Robot is more human-made than anything Ive worked on since CG started. Again, we go back to the hand-painted surfaces and the analog warmth that we get from a hand-painted sky. Theres no replacement for that. But theres also no replacement for the interaction we have with humans on our crew. You could never have typed in enough commands to make this film with AI. You have to sit with people, and you have to debate things. I have a head of story named Heidi Jo Gilbert, and she would push back on things and disagree with me. Our editor, Mary Blee, very same thing. When I come into editorial, its not just What do you want, Chris? Its human interaction that created this film. Director Chris Sanders. Photo: KC Armstrong/Deadline via Getty Images You made the transition from hand-drawn animation to CG animation back with How to Train Your Dragon. Was that a challenge to go from one format to another? How to Train Your Dragon was a crash course for me in all things CG. By the time I arrived on that film, they had already been working on it for some time. The characters were designed, rigged, finalized, a lot of the environments were finished, and we only had a certain amount of time to make some changes based on what Dean and I decided needed to be done. One exciting thing was the ability to move the camera in space. Its something that we dont talk enough about. Of all the gifts that we got that came along with this whole CG phenomenon was the ability to finally use a camera like you would on a live-action set. You can change lenses; you can move the camera; you can push; you can pull. Theres a gigantic emotional component that comes from that it cannot be understated. Of course, some people went a little bit too far, and theyd zoom through coffee-cup handles for no reason whatsoever. In Lilo & Stitch, there was one scene where we had a jet flying straight down a main street in Honolulu. And we wanted that dimensional push with the camera, which means it wasnt just a zoom. We had to move things in dimension to get the feeling that the cameras pushing forward. But it was traditional animation, so we started to work on that shot very early in the process. It was the longest-running shot in production. And we eventually had to cut the scene because of 9/11! Its not in the movie. But with CG, you can do all that much more easily. Also, in Lilo & Stitch, the original design for Nani had a little coffee cup drawn on her shirt. And in traditional animation, there comes a day when people sit down with you and say, Okay, that coffee cup is going to increase our production time by three months. We couldnt have that coffee cup. (At the very end of the movie, in the last title sequence, Stitch picks up a shirt, turns it backward, and it has the coffee cup on it; they did that as a freebie just for me, because they knew it was sad for me to lose the coffee cup.) But they would actually have people sit with stopwatches and time the colorists on how long it took to color each of the characters and then they would do these serious calculations to see if they could hit their deadline how long it takes to clean up a character, how long it takes to color a character. I actually learned about this while we were making Aladdin. I was in the Ink & Paint department. Someone came in and said, Okay, were going to have to lose three colors off of Jasmine! They said, literally, We will miss our deadline for the film by four weeks if we dont take three colors off of Jasmine. She had maybe 15 different-colored lines, and they had to maybe take it down to ten. Now, suddenly, with CG, we had all these textures and we had reflections and all these amazing things. And you could change things much easier. That was another big plus. But we also lost the squash and stretch that just came along with the party as youre doing a hand-drawn character. One of the things we were battling in CG was this weird sort of puppet feel with the characters, particularly in their shoulders and their elbows and their arms. They had this strange marionette quality to them. Writing software that would allow the animators to change the exterior shapes was a huge goal for us in animation to try to make the characters look easier on the eyes, to get some of that life back. Now, I feel like weve finally come out of this tunnel and anything is possible again. Stylistically, we are much freer to maneuver than we ever have been before. I feel like what Lupita Nyongo does in The Wild Robot is really fascinating. She has to portray a robot voice and then slowly the voice changes but without ever really going overboard with the shift. She never entirely stops being a robot. Its incredibly moving. I think Lupita shares more in common with Roz than I wouldve known at first. She has a very thoughtful process of understanding the character and understanding the story. She takes things very seriously, in the best way possible. We would typically start our recording sessions with an hourlong discussion about just whats up with Roz, and what are her motivations throughout the sequences were looking at? Trying to find Rozs voice, we began in a more robotic place. Rozs delivery was never I. Am. A. Robot. What. Is. Going It was never that 1950s sort of robot. However, trying to find the angle at which we would enter the story with Roz took a lot of work, and Lupita was the key in finding that. We realized, when she begins the story, Roz should have enthusiasm but also some emotional availability, because we need to connect with her as a character. Shes in a sympathetic position as an outsider who is lost and overwhelmed by this situation. And when she is rejected by the animals around her, she does react not in a big, huge way but in a very tangible way. When shes following this deer and trying to strike up a conversation and the deer simply kicks her in the face and her head sinks into her shoulders, theres a kind of sound. Shes discouraged, and that helps us connect to her as a character. One of the first things we did was call Peter Brown, the author, and just have a chat. And in our very first conversation, Peter said something that we never forgot, which is that the guiding principle going through his head as he wrote the book was that kindness can be a survival skill. He never memorialized that in the pages of the book, but we were very grateful that he revealed that to us. This is never a mission statement for Roz, but she has an unrelenting kindness that begins to change the culture of the island and the animals around her. In terms of Lupita manipulating her voice, I would visualize it as, like, taking a guitar string and tightening it slightly. The voice that Roz presents at the beginning of the movie is a more tensioned voice. Its like if youre walking to a party and youre nervous about making a good impression, you might be like, Hello, my name is Chris. Hows it going? Its this higher register that she creates when she says, Hello, my name is Roz. Do you need assistance? But as the movie continues, Roz relaxes her voice and she starts using contractions, and she starts sounding more down to earth and more human. People sometimes look down on voice performances these never get honored during awards season but in cases like this, you realize how much genuine acting skill is required to pull off a part like this. There is this tired trope that actors like to do animated films because they can show up to recording sessions in their pajamas. And its a lot more work than that, both emotionally and physically. Lupita would go into a recording session and she would work four hours nonstop. And because of the number of takes, the number of iterations, by the end of the session she would be almost voiceless. So physically, its very demanding. And Lupita, in particular, had the largest task of any of our voices because Roz has no facial articulation save for her lenses. That was something that I insisted upon. I think that robots work best when they dont have a lot of articulation on their faces. We, as an audience, tend to project emotions onto things, and I think the only robot with facial articulation that was truly effective was the robot from The Iron Giant. In all the other cases, C-3PO, R2-D2, the Forbidden Planet robot they dont have any articulation on their faces, and, boy, do they work great. But it means that Lupita carried 100 percent of the burden of the emotional transmission for Roz through her voice. Photo: Walt Disney/Everett Collection I see that youre still doing the voice of Stitch in the live-action Lilo & Stitch. Is it weird to be involved in that way in a new version of something that you originally created? As a matter of fact, Im going in this afternoon for a four-hour recording session. Being a voice on a version of the film that I did not write or direct is not new to me. After Lilo & Stitch was finished, they came to me and said, We want to play some voices for you. And they played people trying to sound like me, and I was confused. Im like, Why am I listening to these? They said, Oh, well, were going to replace you, because going forward, there will be many, many needs for Stitch voice recordings. And I immediately said, Oh, no, no, no, no! This is my guy! I will be the voice. That was one of the best decisions I think Ive ever made in my career because its kept me close to a character that I created in a way that means I get to check in and see him in these different things. During a year, I will routinely come into a recording studio and record for toys, for parades, for ice shows. I even did a thing for a TikTok voice, which was one of the most amazing recording sessions Ive ever been in. Its hard to even describe that recording session. So Im not a stranger to being just a voice actor in these situations. The difference here is that I know this particular movie pretty well, so I might see a couple shots and Im like, Oh, I know where this is from. Have they consulted with you at all on the new movie? Not really. I would say that I had a lovely conversation with director Dean Fleischer Camp very early, before they began shooting. He gave me a call and asked if I wanted to return as the voice. I had yet to meet him in person, but we spoke until the battery on my phone gave out. He seemed to have a great enthusiasm for the project and seemed like a thoughtful guy. I only knew him from his film Marcel the Shell With Shoes On. Had I not been deeply embroiled in The Wild Robot, I may have tried to fly out there and visit the set or something. But this was their baby. Photo: Steve Granitz/FilmMagic The Menendez brothers have made it quite clear that the new Ryan Murphy joint about them is not their favorite thing, calling the portrayals of them vile and appalling. But the distain is not mutual. Cooper Koch, who plays Erik Menendez on Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, is still speaking very lovingly about the men who called his show disheartening slander. Koch told Variety on September 27 that he has talked to Erik twice now once during a previously reported visit to the prison with Kim Kardashian, and once previously, on the night before the shows September 19 premiere, over the phone. I did everything I could as an actor to advocate for him and portray him as authentically as possible, Koch says he told Erik on the phone call, adding that, I think the show does a really good job of representing him. Once the show actually premiered, Eriks wife, Tammi, put out a statement from Erik on X criticizing the show. Koch got to talk to Erik again, in person, following the familys statement. They hugged it out and he told them that he understands their critiques. I cant imagine what it would be like to have the worst part of your life, such a traumatic and tragic thing, be televised for millions of people to see in a dramatized Hollywood TV way, Koch told Variety. I just said, I understand, I get it, and I stand with you. Describing his talk with the brothers, Koch takes on the position that sounds kind of like a fanboy meeting a pop star. I always knew I wanted to meet them, he said. I always knew I wanted to tell them that I believe them and that I want to be an advocate for them. So then when it happened, it felt weirdly normal. Normal is definitely the word wed use here. Photo: Photo by Dave J Hogan/Getty Images) Dame Maggie Smith, an iconic actress for multiple generations, is dead at 89. Her sons, Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin, said she died peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday, 27th September, per a statement to the BBC. An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end, they added. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother. A two-time Oscar winner, Smith was one of the most celebrated actresses of the 20th century and became known to younger generations through her portrayals of Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter series and Lady Violet Crawley in Downton Abbey. Smith was born in Essex in 1934 to a pathologist father, Nathaniel, and a pathologist mother, Margaret, known as Nat and Meg. The family moved to Oxford when Smith was 4. Smith enrolled in a local drama school at 16 after a teacher recommended it, despite never having acted before. What did the teacher see? I think I was just very odd, Smith told The Guardian in 2004. Smith made her Broadway debut in 1956, as part of the revue New Faces of 56, and joined the National Theatre Company at the Old Vic in 1962, at the behest of Laurence Olivier. She won her first Academy Award for her leading role in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1970 she starred in the film alongside her then-husband Robert Stephens, father to both her children. The two separated in 73 and she married playwright Beverley Cross in 75. She won her second Academy Award for California Suite in 1979. Smith was made a dame in 1990 by Queen Elizabeth II. She was nominated for four Academy Awards, six Olivier Awards, and three Tony Awards, winning one for Lettice and Lovage in 1990. In 2001, she joined the Harry Potter franchise as the stern but intelligent Professor Minerva McGonagall, a role that would endear her to audiences in an entirely new way. A lot of very small people used to say hello to me, and that was nice, Smith told The Graham Norton Show when asked how the films changed her life. Another iconic role arrived in Lady Violet on Downton Abbey, which earned her three Emmy Awards, making her a Triple Crown of Acting. Her character died at the end of the second Downton Abbey film adaptation, Downton Abbey: A New Era, in 2022. As she dies, she admonishes her ladys maid: Stop crying, Denker. I cant hear myself die. (Bloomberg) -- Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., JD.com Inc. and Meituan enjoyed their best trading days in years after the Chinese government announced measures to stimulate the troubled domestic economy. Most Read from Bloomberg Consumer tech firms were swept up in a buying spree that extended across sectors on bets that Beijings wide-ranging new policies will have the desired effect. Meituan and JD rose more than 20% in Hong Kong trading across Thursday and Friday, marking each firms best two-day performance since 2022, while Alibaba rose as much as 15% over the period. The Chinese government surprised many with the breadth of its stimulus actions, offering support for the ailing property sector, cash handouts to residents facing hardship and more social security benefits for unemployed graduates. The announcements helped ease concern about the debt-ridden property market and high youth unemployment figures, boosting consumer and internet firms. Cash-rich tech firms like Hangzhou-based Alibaba are leading a surge in repurchases of shares listed in Hong Kong this year. Returns from Chinas biggest tech stocks are surpassing those of global rivals, with Alibabas shareholder yield at more than 8% at the start of this month, more than double that of any company in the Magnificent Seven in the US. Up until this week, the repurchases had largely been a defensive move to staunch stock declines as doubts about economic weakness persisted, though together with the new announcements from Beijing, the buyback spree is helping revive interest in Chinas embattled tech firms. What Bloomberg Economics Says Together with the Peoples Bank of Chinas surprise stimulus Tuesday, and the strong statement of intent from the Politburo Thursday to use fiscal and monetary measures to support growth, the program suggests policymakers are getting more serious about reviving the recovery, stabilizing employment and maintaining social stability. Given the growing policy momentum, more support in other areas looks likely especially steps focusing on stabilizing the job market and lifting consumption demand. Eric Zhu, Bloomberg economist Click here for the full analysis Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. What the hell happened to Catherine Fox? Yes, shes always been a manipulator, but remember when she was a manipulator with trailblazing hot-surgeon energy and a libido to match? Now shes a Scrooge-like money-grubbing villain whose gratuitous corporate cheapness feels a little too close to home in these layoff-ridden times. Not only has she fired half her staff, but during this weeks season 21 premiere, she decides to do the unthinkable and call Miranda Bailey the Miranda Bailey replaceable. This used to be a woman with vision and va-va-voom; now shes the kind of person wholl admit that she only kept her (excellent) intern class around to save her government funding. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Wheres George Union Guy OMalley when we need him? Can we resurrect his spirit to kick Catherines cheap butt around Grey Sloan until she sees the light? We open this week on Bailey dreaming about slapping Catherine in the face (great work if you can get it). As if waking up from that beautiful dream isnt rough enough, our surgeons also get stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the way to work, thanks to some pesky climate protesters who shut down the bridge. Of course, one of those protesters a grandmother named Wanda becomes our Problem Patient of the Week when she decides to crawl into the ceiling to avoid arrest and then collapses. Sigh. As if thats not enough drama, one of the protests bungee jumpers (why were there bungee jumpers again?!) decides to make like Hilary Bankss ill-fated fiance in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and go splat thanks to a defective cable. Unlike that fiance, however, this guy crashes into a windshield, so the panicked teenage driver promptly races him to Grey Sloan for life-saving care right after Webber tells Winston that hes thinking of giving up the surgical gloves for good this time. If anyone needed confirmation that Greys is so back, look no further than Windshield Guy pulling up right after Webber says, Im not scrubbing in on complex procedures. Welp! All of this honestly feels secondary to the interpersonal drama unfolding up and down every hallway in the hospital. Catherine is burying Meredith and her research project in cease-and-desist letters, effectively killing her funding. And if any of us thought that the return of Jackson might introduce a little sanity, think again; he might know his mom is being petty, but hes here to back her up and tell Meredith to apologize. (I know Jackson has fully stepped into running the foundation mode, but did anyone else find his corporate-stooge routine a little disappointing?) Meanwhile, Adams is still thinking over that residency offer in Chicago, and Griffith is doing her best not to interfere, even though she is clearly dying inside at the thought. Mika and Jules spend the episode trying to act like they didnt almost kiss during last seasons finale, and Kwan is reeling from seeing his ex-fiancee, who drove away from him after a fight only to get into a car accident that destroyed her memory rendering him a stranger. And in perhaps the most comical turn of events, Link has yet another baby on the way from yet another mother who has yet to tell him that hes going to be a father. This poor guy will always be the last to know. Worthy as these struggles might be, they all pale in comparison to this weeks emotional albatross: Bailey getting replaced by the one, the only, the absurdly annoying Sydney Heron. As if being called replaceable to her face was not bad enough, now Baileys archnemesis has returned from Florida to take her job and probably do worse at it. Did you see how devastated Bailey looked when Heron shooed her away after she freed Wanda from inside the hospital wall? How much more heartbreak can we be expected to take? Theres nothing worse than getting replaced by a person whose biggest claim to fame might just be going on one passionless date with McDreamy way back when. Thank God Bailey decides by the end of the episode to fight for her job and you know shes serious, because she takes off her earrings when she says it. By the end of the episode, most of our favorite surgeons have found at least some catharsis. Adams shows up at Griffiths doorstep and makes our dreams come true by saying hes not taking the job and sealing the deal with a kiss. (Thank GOD.) Mika tries to give Jules a just friends handshake, only for Jules to twirl her around and make out with her against a locker. (First of all, !!!! but wait, isnt Midori Francis on her way out? Damn it!) Kwans ex-fiancee recognizes him from their old photos and basically tells him that she thinks hes the piece thats been missing from her life ever since she pieced it back together, which almost made me ugly cry into my Doritos, and Link figures out Jo is pregnant when she turns down a glass of wine, and hes totally cool with it. Alls well that ends well. Except, maybe, for Meredith, who approaches Catherine to apologize (well, apologize) for using foundation funds for unsanctioned research only to watch her collapse. Her only reward for saving her boss? Some good old-fashioned blackmail: Catherine swears Meredith to secrecy about the return of her sinister secret spinal tumor and refuses the interventions that Meredith recommends. She also swears that if Meredith tells Richard or Jackson about her tumors progression, she and her colleagues will never get their jobs back. By the end of the episode, Meredith confirms that everyone can have their jobs back except, it seems, for her. While Amelia and others can return to work in Seattle and the cease-and-desists will stop, Meredith says, the research will just go in a different direction. Huh? Im guessing well get more clarity on this next week, but for now, what the hell? Greys mightve hit a(nother) slump for a season or two, but ever since this new intern class joined the team, its been pure magic again. Not MAGIC magic, but pretty damn close. I just wish that some of these characters cough, like Catherine felt a little less two-dimensional. As much as I love Meredith, even she could use a quick sit-down from someone about just how ridiculous it is to flout black-and-white contracts and expect to get away with it just because youre researching a worthy cause. Jackson, if youre listening, this could be your time to shine. The OR Board Is it just me or is When was the last time you actually stepped into an OR? the most brutal insult anyone can hurl on this show? I swear, when Miranda lobbed that one at Catherine in her dream, I gasped louder than when she slapped her. I love that Baileys interns immediately miss her yelling at them when Heron takes over. And what the hell was that Get to Know You game about? Will knowing what novel her residents have always wanted to write really make them better doctors? I didnt think so. (That said, I firmly believe that theres a nonzero chance that Jules writes vampire fiction.) Which specialty do we think Schmitt will finally pick? Because it sure wont be peds. Theres no way he becomes an ortho god, right? Right now, it seems most likely hell go the way of Meredith Grey and stick with general surgery, but who knows! To extend the quidditch metaphor Link uses with him this week, maybe itll just take a little more time for Schmitt to find that golden snitch of inspiration. VULTURE NEWSLETTER Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows! 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. Photo: Joseph Okpako/Getty Images for ABA/WireImage Is Lana Del Rey dating a swamp-tour-giving, fanboat-driving good ol boy from Louisiana? Read on for the latest on Lana and her maybe-hubby Jeremy Dufrene. A country boy for her country album August 29, 2024: Nobody is doing it like Lana Del Rey. And by it, we mean America. Remember when she did a music video that positioned her as both Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy, with A$AP Rocky as JFK? Her mind. Lana has announced that her next album will be country, and shes apparently going Method by dating a country boy. Lana Del Rey may be seeing an airboat captain/swamp-tour guide. Del Rey was spotted holding hands with Jeremy Dufrene before her set at Leeds Festival. They met in 2019 which is several (???) love interests ago for Lana when he let her steer his boat through the bayou. It sounds like a double entendre, but we assure you its a factual account of events that transpired on planet Earth. In the five years since first meeting, the pair appear to have taken their relationship on land. Lana recently made an IG post where she called Dufrene my guy. And in a recent performance of Chemtrails Over the Country Club, she changed the line Hes born in December, Im born in June to Hes born in March. Dufrenes birth month? Well, it aint December. Weirdly, both Dufrene and Del Rey are cuspers on the zodiac Del Rey between Gemini and Cancer, and Dufrene between Pisces and Aries. | Lana Del Reys lyric change, performing Chemtrails Over The Country Club Hes born in March, and Im born in June pic.twitter.com/OCSenCAt2I Season Of Lana (@SeasonOfLana) August 21, 2024 Lana says lol, no September 1, 2024: Lana Del Rey has officially denied a relationship with alligator boat captain Jeremy Dufrene. No, she commented on thejustnlifes IG post about the alleged affair. Also, thats not his daughter on Twitter, she added, referring to someone who had been on Elons site claiming to be Dufrenes daughter. GHIS IS HOW I FIDN OUT MY DAD IS DATING LANA DEL REY?(!2!;? HELLO??????? they wrote on Twitter. The poster kept up the facade for a while, then reposted Pop Bases debunking of their claim. Lana says I do ??? September 26, 2024: Did you know that theres a wedding at the bayou? After several reports that the two received a marriage license, it looks like Lana mightve said I do to alligator-boat captain Jeremy Dufrene. People confirmed that the pair did, in fact, pick up a marriage license, and on Thursday, September 26, they may have gotten married. Vulture has reached out to Del Reys reps for comment. Daily Mail posted several photos of what looked like a wedding in a bayou in Des Allemandes, Louisiana, where Dufrene conducts his swamp-boat tours. Del Rey was seen wearing a white dress, and her father walked her down an aisle; her sister, Caroline, also attended the event. Time to keep an eye on the Instagram comment section for another statement. Confirmation in the comments section October 2, 2024: LDR once again speaking through the comments section on IG. Replying to @lanaboards.ig, Lana Del Rey said Jeremy Dufrene is the one and only for her. And amazing. And were very happy. The only snag in their newfound happiness is, per Lana, the Nawlins paparazzi. Unfortunately, a local couple from Houma wont stop flying drones into our windows every morning and following us with a tracker, she wrote. She also asked for a local pap to stop switching vehicles following the family- and stop following us around remote parts of the country and photo shopping my wedding ring into a pearl- I know we would feel a lot safer. Page Six did have recent pap shots of the Del Dufrenes, with a ring they said has a pearl setting rather than being just a pearl. The film is a vibrant story of gentrification and generational divides in Miamis Little Haiti, brought to life by tremendous performances. Photo: Music Box Films In his 1976 book-length essay The Devil Finds Work, James Baldwin wrote of film stars, One does not go to see them act: one goes to watch them be. One does not go to see Humphrey Bogart, as Sam Spade: one goes to see Sam Spade, as Humphrey Bogart. Ive never fully agreed with Baldwins reading of the movie-star persona as wholly separate from the pleasures of watching acting as a craft, but its an instructive thought. Dont we all want to watch a performance that transcends from acting to being? The kind of performance that feels seamless, as if the actor slipped into the skin of another and brought their soul from the ether to embody them? Acting, at its most divine, is simply being. This idea bubbled to the surface of my mind when I watched Mountains and the whisper-still, evocative lead performance of Atibon Nazaire as Xavier, a middle-aged Haitian immigrant construction worker in his adopted home of Miamis Little Haiti neighborhood. Mountains begins with a Haitian proverb set against a black background that translates to Behind mountains are mountains. Xavier is watching gentrification pick apart his second home like a vulture gorging on a carcass. Little Haiti isnt dead, but its changing. Rapidly. The film, meanwhile, unfurls at the languid, gentle pace established in its opening moments. Homes demolished. Yellow hard hats dotting the eyeline. Xavier eating mango with his hands on a brief work break. The verdant expanse of the yard, with palm trees, octopus trees, live oaks, interrupted by the machinery of demolition. As Xavier heads home his drives are often set to the sounds of a Haitian radio program (voiced by Henri Claude Douze) that updates him on the flowing political and social change of his first home the blue real-estate signs that punctuate the lawns start to feel oppressive. Houses up for sale. A neighborhood in the midst of erosion. Xavier returns to the squat one-story pale terra-cotta home he shares with his wife, Esperance (Sheila Anozier), and 20-something son, Junior (Chris Renois). This is director Monica Sorelles feature debut (alongside her co-writer Robert Colom, a Miami-born Cuban film producer and artist) and a vision of Miami rarely seen onscreen. When a film is particularly geographically piquant, a compliment soon follows that the city itself feels like a character. But every film should treat its setting as a character. Geography is identity. This isnt the Miami of South Beach denizens, transplants dripping in wealth, taut young bodies supine in the brilliant sunlight. This is the Miami of Haitian Creole spoken with loving reverence. This is the Miami of sos pwa served over rice at the family dinner table, of griot brought to the communion party of a young relative. This is Miami at the pitch of a life you can imagine, of a worker you pass on the street. The Black South is eroding because of the swirling forces of racism, gentrification, and climate disaster the same forces that encroach on the doorstep of Xavier and his kin. Sorelle and Colom build out a truthful vision of these characters lives, touching on the people and neighbors who populate their existence. But the film is most intrigued by how this family functions and what remains unspoken between them. Xavier sees a nicer one-story home in the neighborhood that he imagines as a great fit for his family, a place with more and softer space to lay your head. When Esperance and Xavier attend an open-house tour, theres a sense that theyre trying on a new future. Xavier encourages them both to dream about what life could be like in a home like this. But its evident theyre not regarded as attractive homeowners, not like the white people inhabiting the background of the scene. Sorelle crafts a Miami that is both naturally gorgeous and politically fraught in a way that is stitched into the fabric of these characters lives. An intriguing tension occurs when Xaviers Black co-worker Daniel (Roscoe B. Thicke III) is derided with the N-word by a Latino co-worker who is related to the boss. Xavier understands the precarity of their situation as Black men in such a world and holds Daniel back from rightfully stomping on this man. Things go askew when Xavier overhears the boss tell his relative-underling in Spanish, Dont you know we have a contract with the county and the Blacks need to be here? Dont let the Black stench get to you. Sorelle doesnt mine this moment for melodrama or neat racial lessons. There are no dramatic disagreements, no fatalistic ruptures, no grand pronouncements in this film. Movies are rarely close to the rhythms of life, but this ones strength is in finding beauty and meaning in the minor key. Mountains demonstrates two exceedingly great strengths in Sorelles work. The first is undoubtedly how she directs actors. She grants them the space to breathe life and complication into the gestures, expressions, and postures of their characters. Anozier gives Esperance a knowing posture. When I watched her sew clothes a side job alongside her main one as a school crossing guard I thought you can find the divine anywhere. And what is more holy on this Earth than the calloused hands of a loving mother? Renois limns quite impactfully the contradictions and yearnings that come with being the son of Haitian immigrants, trying to balance his desires with their expectations of him. Nazaire brings Xavier to life with a sense of history always flowing around him in a performance that is humble yet extraordinary in its physical detail. This is a man who has lived. Theres a scene in which he sits on the bed, his unclothed back to the camera, and I could see in his tense stretching a lifetime of a back burdened by more than it should have to carry. In many ways, Mountains reminds me of director Charles Burnetts study of the beauty and complication of the Black quotidian in films like My Brothers Wedding (1983) and my personal favorite, To Sleep With Anger (1990). Sorelles second strength is her keen eye. When her camera enters into the family home, I was immediately bowled over by the production design from Helen Pena, the art direction by Nadia Wolff, and the set decoration by Dezray Smith, all of which Sorelle and cinematographer Javier Labrador Deulofeu frame with structured, angled grace. Walls are painted a carmine red and pale peach. Black art marks them. The sewing corner where Esperance holds court is festooned with pattern after pattern, an array of colors for the eyes to feast upon. Sorelles gaze is gentle in how she brings Miami to life, but under that naturalism is a sharp understanding of how to frame a Black body in motion. There are certain shots so powerful in their use of color, blocking, framing, and physical truth when I rewatched the film a second time for this review, I would pause to drink in the imagery. Sun-kissed lens flares. Xavier nestled in the crook of a tree at a Communion party, framed by brilliant green leaves that complement the amber liquor he swirls in his glass. Esperance at her crossing-guard job. A triangular archway frames her and a friend conversing near the center. Laughter overlaying the score. Aqua-green light streaming into the bedroom, brightening Xaviers skin as he talks to his son about his relationship to their homeland, a country that has been suffering for hundreds of years for daring to enact a slave rebellion that proved so successful it continues to shake the foundations of the world order. This is why Haiti suffers for daring to fight back brutally against western powers like the United States and France in favor of Black life and safety. Black futures are explicitly possible and imaginable because of the Haitian people. One intelligent ripple in the film I noticed fairly early on is that Junior doesnt speak Haitian Creole with his parents. When they speak to him, he responds in English, not because he cant speak their language but, for some reason, he chooses not to. The lack of alignment between father and son ebbs into the background until about 44 minutes into the film, when the son comes into better focus, the story no longer content to leave him in the background as a foil. The sequence that reveals more about Junior occurs at a stand-up comedy event. Its Junior onstage, aware that his parents regard him as a failure. He has a lanky, easygoing charm up there. Why you listen to your dreams? Youre sleeping, he says, mocking his mothers voice and demeanor. His cousin Farrell (Farley Louis), who recorded the set for Junior, makes an astute point: You said nothing about us. That us means Haitians. Theres no specificity in Juniors set. His parents are broadly defined as Black immigrants, but nothing about the place or the rhythms of who they are and where theyre from comes into focus. This allows the film to be a bit more emotionally revealing, even bruising, building to a crucial scene at the end between father and son. The last 15 or so minutes distill its strengths with elegance the lived-in performances, the revealing understanding of Miami, the precise yet lush framing and use of color that dances on dark-brown skin, the writing that feels revelatory in how it molds its themes, and the rhythmic editing of Jonathan Cuartas, which reflects Sorelles strengths as an artist spearheading this project. When Esperance says, You dont own anything in this country, I was pierced by the truth of that statement. The film leaves us with no easy answers, no sense of finality about this family and the project of gentrification that is rewriting the culture of Miami. Mountains is a film smart enough to forgo simplistic melodrama or narrative neatness. Its the kind that dares us to look back and consider what it means to create a home away from the shores where you were born, in a country hostile not just to your betterment but to your very survival. Mountains arrived in theaters last month and is available to rent or purchase on Amazon Prime Video now. Photo: Amazon MGM Studios In finding a new way to adapt Colson Whiteheads Pulitzer Prizewinning novel Nickel Boys, director RaMell Ross changes the way we perceive the world itself. The directors previous feature, the Oscar-nominated 2018 documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening, was a lightning-strike cinematic discovery. With its fragmented, intimate lyricism, it immersed us in the details of Black life in a small Alabama town, gradually centering on a few years in the lives of two teens. Hale County was an outgrowth of Rosss work as a photographer, but as a moving picture it was revelatory: The directors intense focus on mundane but lovingly captured details allowed us to imagine a whole world beyond the frame in all its wonder and sadness. Ive never seen anything like it, before or since. Until now. The opening-night picture of the New York Film Festival, Nickel Boys takes that formal effort even further, despite being a period piece and a scripted literary adaptation. Telling the stories of two Black teens confined to a brutal Florida reform school, Ross almost entirely adopts a subjective camera, shooting from the point of view of his protagonists. Its a huge swing, partly because others have tried it in titles as varied as Lady in the Lake (1947) and Hardcore Henry (2015) and failed. Usually, a movie shot like this is either a curio or a catastrophe, too practiced and deliberate to ever be spontaneous or convincing. But in Rosss hands, the conceit never feels like a gimmick, or a flourish. Because hes fused it with the impressionistic sensibility of Hale County, it is now organic, immersive, essential. Anyone whos read Whiteheads novel can tell you that its a sad and infuriating work. It starts off as the story of Elwood Curtis (played as a youngster by Ethan Cole Sharp), a precocious, kind introvert growing up in the Jim Crowera South in the Frenchtown neighborhood of Tallahassee, Florida. Raised by his doting but world-weary grandmother (a very touching Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), the boy is infinitely curious about all he sees. He winds up at Nickel Academy after he hitches a ride with the wrong man on what would have been his first day taking classes at a nearby college. Even after he arrives at this so-called reform school modeled after the real-life Dozier School for Boys, a monstrously abusive institution from whose grounds nearly a hundred burials have been discovered in recent years Elwood retains some semblance of optimism and innocence. Hes determined to excel and graduate, returning to the world outside and to his beloved grandmother. Then, he meets the laid-back cynic Turner (Brandon Wilson), a Houston native whos on his second stint at Nickel and has few illusions about anyones chances of getting out of this nightmare through official means. Like the novel, the film begins from young Elwoods perspective, as we see delicate glimpses of a child discovering the world around him. An orange hangs from a tree. A deck of cards is riffle-shuffled. A bare knee lounges in a tub. Ross finds images and sounds that are warm, textured, and evocative: Voices drift, faces pass, hands dance in ways both familiar and beautiful to us as viewers. Christmas trees and imagined family talismans. Subtly, we imagine Elwood through the filter of our own lives. As a result, his gathering tragedy starts to feel like our own. When Turner enters the picture, Rosss camera begins to shift between the two characters points of view, and suddenly, we get to see Elwood onscreen, played now by the actor Ethan Herisse. Before, we had only caught brief glances of him as a child, his face reflected in steam irons and shop windows. Now, we witness him as the awkward, hesitant, head-down young man that he is and its like weve known him for years. One could almost view it as a cinematic corollary of the mirror stage of a childs psychological development, when an infant recognizes itself in a reflection and begins to conceive of itself as a person: When we, as viewers, finally see Elwood, he becomes agonizingly real to us. Its one of the most breathtaking things Ive ever experienced in a film. This unique form of identification is at the heart of Rosss picture. In fact, its been at the heart of his entire project as a filmmaker. Back in 2018, Hale County served as a gentle rebuke to the totalizing, omniscient approach of so many au courant and supposedly objective longitudinal documentaries, movies shot over years that purported to examine and explain the lives of marginalized people. Running just 76 minutes, Hale County contained more humanity and understanding in its slim margins than plenty of longer, more acclaimed efforts. With Nickel Boys, Ross takes the accumulation of lived-in detail that made the earlier film so bracing and turns it into something more collagelike and formally daring but without sacrificing narrative power. The switch in perspective between Elwood and Turner inaugurates a formal shift as if the movie were slipping our perceptual bonds, drifting in unexpected directions. As these young mens lives become more distressed and precarious, we start to see visions of an older Elwood (played in his later years by Daveed Diggs) doing archival research into what happened at Nickel Academy. And so we experience the movie as Elwood, as Turner, as an older Elwood, as an outside observer, in the present tense and the past, within and without, each perspective informing and subtly undercutting the others. And the closer we get to the truth of these lives, the more we understand that we may never fully know them the great paradox of human interaction. Nickel Boys is the kind of story that probably could have been adapted in more conventional fashion. It could have jerked easy tears from us earned tears, to be sure, prompted by our horror at what wed be seeing onscreen and everything it implied. But theres something truer and more unshakable about what Ross has given us. In refusing a conventional, objective (and objectified) approach to suffering, he resists easy attempts at pathos. What he achieves here is more powerful and complex. When were finally wrenched out of this film, we sense that something very real has been taken away from us. Greetings and welcome back to The Great British Copyright Infringement. The wonderful thing about this show is that it is classic, timeless, and unanchored by time but very obviously in a space. (That space is the tent and also whatever planet Noel is from.) I was a little saddened by the Barbie-themed opening sketch. I dont like them tying the show too closely to pop culture, especially when Barbie was the vibe of summer 2023. Everyone, including Kamala Harris, knows that summer 2024 was Brat Summer. We didnt need a hot pink tent; we needed a neon green one. The other wild thing about life in the tent is that, for the first time, people are complaining about how cold it is. Usually, theyre all winging that their chocolate is melting or their jams wont set because of the heat. Not this year. I joke that the U.K. is 50 degrees and raining every day from October to March. Its not much of a joke because its true. This year, it was 50 degrees, and it rained from October until June. Summer didnt properly start until July this year. The weather was so bad that even English people were complaining about it. Do you know how bad something has to be for an English person to complain? And do you know how bad the weather has to be for these waterlogged people to pipe up about it? Yeah, it was that bad, so have a bit of sympathy for our bakers. Speaking of which, we get to go around and meet them all during the signature challenge, which is to make an elevated version of their signature loaf cake. I love this new Baking Show where the concepts are down to earth, no one has to have a degree in architecture to complete the brief, and were back to basics in the best way. The first one is Illiyin from Norfolk, who is making a cinnamon-roll cake. Will it or will it not get out of the pan safely? This was a good week, so you know it did! Next is Gill, pronounced Jill, and she loves to play boules (which is what English people call bocce) with her mother; shes making a chocolate-and-orange loaf because the only thing the English love more than not having screen windows for some reason is a chocolate-and-orange flavor combination. John is from the West Midlands, just like Allison. They are called Brummies, which comes from the old English name of Birmingham. Every time I meet someone from Birmingham, I say, Ive never been! and to a person, they reply, Dont. John, whose eyes are so blue Paul Hollywood says he will never make him star baker, is making a chocolate-cherry loaf. Andy, who is this years working-class man with a pencil behind his ear, is from Essex because, as we all know, that is the only way. Mike is a gay farmer, and I need to know everything about his life and I will probably follow him on Instagram because every gay in the U.K. already follows that one hot gay farmer, so we should all follow the less hot ones who can also bake, right? Mike uses eggs from his farm to make lemon-and-linseed loaf. Georgie is a yummy mummy from the Welsh countryside, and though she is not a farmer, she does have a lot of animals, including a chicken named Fanny. In the U.K., fanny is a cute way of saying vagina. Its like if she lived in Nebraska and had a chicken named Vajayjay. Georgie is working on a chocolate marble loaf that looks sure to be disgusting. Sumayah is this years precocious 18-year-old who is way better at baking than she should be. Shes also making a loaf with halwa, a carrot-based sweet, in the middle. I feel like shes already made the final three. Next up is Jeff, who you can tell is American because hes not Geoff. I believe that this is the first American ever on the show, which makes me a little sad that its not me. He was born in the Bronx and now lives in Yorkshire, which is like the Bronx of England. Its up north, its a little rough, and they have a crazy accent. Basically the same place. And Yorkshire is named for York, and the Bronx is in New York, and that, my friends, is how colonialism works. Jeff is making a raspberry, lemon, and almond sponge, and Im a little disappointed hes not making a Betty Crocker pound cake from a box. Thats the American way. Nellie is from Slovakia. Shes making a coconut loaf cake, and shes making her love for Noel her whole personality. I would have gone with Allison, personally, but she and John are already sitting around talking about the Aston Villa squad so I guess shes taken. Dylan is this years certified hottie, and I didnt hear anything he said because I was staring into his eyes and thinking about how much hotter hed be without the man bun. Then they cut away to him at home in Buckinghamshire saying hes a skateboarder, but all we do is watch him fall. It is the meanest Baking Show has ever been, and I am here for it. I dont remember what Dylan is making because I was too busy thinking about the buns I want him to put in my oven. Christiaan with two As is Dutch, which I believe means he only pays for himself on dates. Hes making some kind of apple cake with miso in it and it sounds disgusting, so hes not going to get an A+ from me. Finally, we meet Hazel, this years bless-her-heart-shes-71-and-will-be-gone-by-episode-three contestant. I also love that the only humans currently named Hazel are pensioners from Kent and babies born to hipster parents in Brooklyn. When Paul and Prue come around and inspect all the loaves (should we call this spreading the loaf around?), Christiaans is just as bad as I thought. Not only did Paul hate the miso, it was also overbaked. Also doing terribly was our countryman Andy, whose loaf was messier than Paul Hollywoods divorce, and Georgie, whose loaf looked like someone pinched it. Yeah, it looked like a turd. Sorry, Georgie. The stars of this first round are Nelly, whose coconut loaf looks like a monochrome outfit from The Row, Sumayah, whose halwa fully wows everyone, and Iliyin, whose perfect cinnamon-roll loaf earns her a handshake. A handshake? In the first episode? Are we back to the days when Paul was giving them out like free matchbooks at the bar? The technical challenge is a first. The bakers have to eat a mini Battenberg and then replicate it based on taste without a recipe. I dont think they even need to make the bakers taste these because everyone in England knows what they are: Mr Kiplings, which is like the Little Debbie of the U.K., makes an excellent one. Its a checkerboard sponge with buttercream and apricot jam wrapped in marzipan. These are also all elements that the bakers should know how to bake without a recipe, so I think this fits perfectly: something that is both challenging and attainable. I would say that is like having sex with me, but there is nothing at all challenging about that. I give it out like Paul Hollywood gives out handshakes these days. At the bottom (no I am not still talking about my sex life) is Mike, Hazel, and the formerly fantastic Sumayah. At the top are John and both Christiaan and Georgie, redeeming themselves from their horrible loaves. Jeff had to leave the tent because he wasnt feeling well and will be back next week. Everyone who has ever watched a season of this show now knows that no one will be going home this week cause thats how they roll. Usually, I would say I hate this, because why watch an episode without an elimination? Its like spinning your wheels and getting nowhere. But I dont mind if no one goes home the first episode, something they do regularly on RuPauls Drag Race. Everyone worked really hard to get here; give us two episodes to get to know them before someone gets the boot. Also, this way they can just randomly kick off two people during an upcoming episode and well be shocked. The showstopper is now a regular feature on the show: Make an illusion cake. Its like Is This Cake, but we all know its cake because its a baking show. Everyone seems to be doing shockingly well, including my lover Dylan, who is making a sesame-flavored Canopic jar, which is a very odd choice but I will not question him because we are deeply in one-sided love. The only person who is a mess is Georgie, who is making a real-life version of her chicken Fanny. Her cake looks kind of like an old boot with a pencil for a beak. She also made 300 individual feathers to go on her, and that is best part of the whole bird. When she presents her creation, Allison watches the judges try the lemon curd and elderflower-buttercream cake and then asks, How does Fanny taste? and I cant believe that this show is working so blue! I also love it. Loving Allison is now my entire personality. Mike makes a stack of books that look absolutely amazing, and theyre all separate so the judges can pick them up and open the covers. Thats pretty rad. They also love the chocolate cake and butterscotch frosting even though I think butterscotch tastes like fanny. Andy makes an excellent-looking overnight bag and its not even leath-ah. (I said that last bit in my Joan Cusack Working Girl accent.) Georgie somehow ends up in the race to be Star Baker along with Sumayah, who made a cake model of her duck Pato, which is Spanish for duck. I mean, this thing looked like a plastic model. This could have been on Is It Cake and I would have been like, Do not kill that adorable duck. John is also in contention for Star Baker because he has good genes that gave him blue eyes and good jeans made out of cake. John is awarded Star Baker, and I am very happy for him and hope he dresses as Paul Hollywood for Halloween. In the bottom are Hazel, who made a cake handbag that she carried by the strap to the judges table and it was cool as shit but the cake looked like it was made out of sponges used to clean a prison shower for 20 years. Christiaans sewing machine looked super-realistic and could even be threaded, but inside it was drier than an AA meeting in Salt Lake City. They would have been in danger of going home, but once again, an American saved all of these British peoples asses. Its just like WWII but with way more butter. Youre all welcome. USA. USA. USA. Photo: FX Spoilers follow for The Old Man through episode XI, which premiered on FX on September 26. In its second season, The Old Man is less a show about old spies getting their spook on and more about those old spies realizing the personal impact of their imperialist shenanigans. That shift in perspective drives the action of episode X, in which American intelligence agents Dan Chase (Jeff Bridges) and Harold Harper (Jeff Lithgow) reunite with their daughter figure Emily/Angela (Alia Shawkat) in Afghanistan and find that shes bonded with her biological father, Faraz Hamzad (Navid Negahban), the man Chase and Harper told her was an evil warlord. And it underscores the final good-bye in XI between Hamzad and Emily/Angela, now going by her birth name, Parwana. Weeks before, theyd tried to kill each other. But on his deathbed, Hamzad tells Parwana that she belongs among her Afghan family and is accepted by them, an emotional moment that Negahban says both he and Shawkat who previously played father and daughter in the 2013 film The Moment felt on set. People who have left home and theyre coming back, it doesnt matter where in the world they are, theres a sense of belonging, Negahban says of the inclusion Parwana feels through Hamzad. We all want to be part of something. And that realization is the moment of levitating you, giving you what you have been searching for your entire life. Negahban played the misunderstood and principled Hamzad with dignity and gravitas that came through whether he was singing along to a lullaby he used to entertain a young Parwana or smirking at a Taliban spys threats; he was always as foreboding or as vulnerable as a scene required. That emotional range comes from decades of experience; if youve watched a project set in or about the Middle East in the past couple decades, chances are Negahban was in it. The prolific Iranian American actor is getting into writing and directing with his short film, The Apple Tree, inspired by a fable told to him by his great-grandmother, and a completed script for a feature called Tosca Tehran, about an Iranian theater group performing the opera as an act of resistance against the government. Both his acting and his filmmaking are shaped by his past as a refugee after leaving Iran during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. That journey, with lots of ups and downs, it allows me to delve deeper into characters and discover more and look at all these different perspectives and corners. In season one, all we hear from Chase and Harper is that Hamzad is a warlord, but when we meet your version of the character, it becomes clear how much his daughter being stolen from him by Chase and his wife affected who he was. And then in season two, we see him standing up to the Taliban and protecting women and young boys. How much of that storyline did you know when you signed on? I knew enough about it. The way that John [Steinberg, series creator] was describing the character to me, he feels betrayed by his best friend, by someone who he considered a brother. I was familiar with that relationship. I left Iran during the war and I was a refugee in Germany. Along the way, you are meeting people; you leave your family and you are on your own and youre kind of isolated and youre not connecting with anyone. You want to create a family for yourself, and sometimes along the way, you feel betrayed, and thats just because of your expectations. Jeffs character, in his mind, hes doing the right thing. Hes protecting the woman and hes protecting the child. But hes not realizing or considering that, by thinking he is protecting them, he is betraying his friend. The characters, the relationship, and the way that theyre dealing with each other, that was very intriguing. When my father left Iran, he was in Austria for six months. He would say there are people that you meet when youre waiting that you create this really tight relationship with, and then you just might never see them again. Yeah. I was in a refugee camp in Germany for about five, six months. I was transferred to Kaiserslautern, and from that group of people in the camp, Im in touch with only three of them. We bonded and we stayed friends. We became one when none of us had anything, when all of us were struggling, and we didnt know what the future will bring us. We were stuck in limbo, and we didnt know where we were going. That was scary. You didnt know if youre getting accepted, if you are being returned, if you are being sent somewhere else. I think that struggle, it helped to shape me to become who I am, and at the same time, Im using it. Hamzad has different motivations than Alia Shawkats character expects. How did he feel compared with other characters youve played? I dont judge my characters when I play them. I just play the man. Each character has different nuances. Have I played characters who were struggling to achieve a better life or achieve a better future for their families or for their environment? Yes. Have I ever played a character that has such a complex relationship with his daughter? No, that was something new. And the way that I was seeing Faraz is that he is really in search of a better life for himself, his people, his family. For his environment, he might have been too advanced, too far ahead. He was dreaming of something bigger and better for his people, and thats sometimes scary for lots of people. I mean, see what happened to Iran, and what happened to the Shah. You can find lots of similarities there. How did you and Alia build that relationship? It starts very combative, and then it really goes to a place with more understanding. Alia was on another project where she was playing my daughter, The Moment, so we already had some kind of relationship. And on this set, we tried to avoid each other we tried to stay truthful to the story. For me, it was important to rediscover her. The funny thing was that I knew her, and then we lost touch, and now Im reconnecting with her. That dynamic was very helpful. The physical altercation between the two of you really lays out the resentment and baggage youre both initially bringing to this relationship. How did you approach that? It was a struggle. On one side, Hamzad has the emotions of a father-daughter relationship, and on the other side, he feels betrayed by his daughter, because shes an FBI agent and she came to kill him. Shooting that scene, for me, it was a struggle to find the motivation behind it, and that helped with my frustration in the moment. The scene was about these two people discovering each other. They go at each other. Theyre very close to killing each other. But at the same time, at the last minute, there is a love. There is anger, rage, but at the same time, How can I do that? How can I hurt you? I love you. It was frustration, rage, anger, disappointment, love. Everything was mixed together. In the span of an episode and a half, we get Hamzad outside the room where hes holding her captive, singing along to the lullaby he used to sing to her as a child, and then hes holding a gun to her head, and then hes crying after trying to kill her. Thats a real emotional roller coaster that you have to play. Partially its Johns sick mind that is doing that. [Laughs.] He was putting us through hell emotionally. But it was good. The conversations that we had, he was very invested in those moments and he wanted to create something very rich. He gave us a very nice playground to play in. Hamzad comes back to his family compound to make a last stand against the Taliban. Before he goes, he says to Chase, Who are you to have an opinion about what is best for me, and the people I lead? How did you react to that turn for Hamzad? I always saw Hamzad as willing to sacrifice himself for his people. Thats all he lives for. There are people who live for themselves and there are people who live for others happiness; others joys, it becomes your joy. It was a moment that hes finally able to really show who he is. I think even Dan realizes what he has done to Hamzad in that moment. Him coming down is his legacy. And Parwana following him and having that moment where she says, I am Parwana Hamzad, thats his gift, thats his reward. This is all he wanted his entire life, to have his daughter, and now he has it. Its a real passing-of-the-torch moment. Thats exactly what it was. The moment that was very precious to me was the final touch, when theyre holding each others hands, when hes in the bed. That was very emotional for me, the way that theyre connecting with each other. Shes becoming him, hes transferring everything he has to her. We felt it in the room, and we both felt it when we were holding each others hands. We had one season where her two American dads, Chase and Harper, are very important to her life. And now we have Hamzad, the Afghan father who is giving her what she needed. That was beautiful. When we are standing by the horse and we are trying to get back, and all three of us are standing there, the way that John, Jeff, and I were going at each other like, No, she is mine. No, she is mine. No, I know better. No, I know better. It was a funny moment. Photo: Hopper Stone Saturday Night director Jason Reitmans dramatized retelling of the 90 minutes leading up to Saturday Night Lives October 11th, 1975 premiere episode is often, quite literally, a portrait of insanity. There are llamas, a stage catches fire, you see meltdowns and fistfights and crying and a lot of fake blood. That Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) survived that night (let alone 50 more years worth of similar Saturday nights at Studio 8H) feels like, well, something a movie might make up. So we went and compared some of the films key plot points to a few of the definitive SNL texts, including Tom Shales and James Andrew Millers Live From New York and Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrads Saturday Night, to see whats real history, whats fiction, and what falls somewhere in between. After the shows disastrous dress rehearsal, NBC exec David Tebet nearly pulled Saturday Night Live right before it was about it air. HALF TRUE: The movie suggests that, until the last possible second, network hands hovered over a button that would throw on a Johnny Carson rerun in place of the first SNL episode. While that detail is fictionalized, the reality of whether the show would air did go pretty much go down to the wire: there was a disastrous dress rehearsal, the stage was still in progress (yes, the production team spent that first night laying real bricks), and NBC fretted about what might come out of George Carlins mouth. According to Live From New York, Tebet was mostly concerned with Carlin his casual attire, his foul mouth and not what would become SNL itself. As portrayed by Willem Dafoe in the film, Tebet lingers around like a threat, eager to sniff out blood and throw the show out if it cant live up to expectations. John Belushi refused to sign his contract. TRUE: John Belushi (played in the film by Matt Wood) put off signing his contract, skeptical not only about the enterprise of SNL but of being on TV in general. Per Live From New York, an oral history of the show, Belushi finally signed his contract five minutes before the show was due to air, and only because Bernie Brillstein, who soon after became Belushis manager, lied and said hed written it himself. Belushi wasnt the only contract skeptic, though; Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) never signed a performer contract, only one for a head writer. No one could decide how Rosie Shuster should be credited. NOT TRUE: Michaels and Michaelss then-wife Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott) waffle on how to credit her as a writer on the opening show, specifically whether they should use her last name or his. Theres no mention of this in Live From New York or anywhere else; Shuster appears to only ever have been credited with her own name. Dan Aykroyd was hooking up with everyone. TRUE: The Canadian comedian was everyones favorite cast member, per both the movie Saturday Night and the shows core texts. Ever-flirtatious and obviously funny, Aykroyd (Dylan OBrien) struts around the office with easy-going sex appeal. During the run-up to the first episode and during the early years of the show, Aykroyd was dating Shuster (who was still married, at least on paper, to Michaels), but he was also briefly involved with Laraine Newman (Emily Fairn). Though Saturday Nights take on Newman makes her out to be something of a doe-eyed yearner, waiting for Aykroyd to throw her a bone, their relationship IRL was much more laid back. In Live From New York, Newman describes him as adorable and irresistible, which makes OBriens casting perhaps all the more apt. Lorne was maybe supposed to do Weekend Update himself. NOT TRUE: Weekend Update was always a Chevy Chase joke vehicle. Lornes sweaty take on the segment seems to have been invented for the film, in order to make Chases take seem all the funnier by contrast not that he needed the help. The malevolent Milton Berle stalked around Studio 8H being an asshole ahead of the premiere. NOT TRUE: Berle or Mr. Television was one of SNLs early hosts in the 1970s and proved himself so unpleasant to most of the cast and crew that Michaels banned him for years after. But he didnt actually stalk around the studio, waiting for the show to fail on opening night. (He did flash SNL writer Alan Zweibel during his hosting gig, not Chevy Chase, as the movie suggests.) The cast didnt want to do product placement. NOT TRUE: Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman) runs around Studio 8H trying, against Michaelss wishes, to get a cast member to hold a Polaroid camera in one of the sketches. While the matter of product placement doesnt come up in Live From New York, the original cast seemed otherwise game to do commercials. Belushi did them because he wanted that money, and fast, said producer Craig Killem. The sketches Wolverines, Trojan Horse Home Security, Hard Hats, The French Chef, and the bee costumes all made it to air. MOSTLY TRUE: The shows first-ever sketch which starred Belushi and writer Michael ODonoghue (Tommy Dewey) involved a language lesson known as Wolverines, and the shows core members cast did frequently appear in bee costumes for early parts of the first season to differentiate them from guests and hosts. We see the cast in rehearsal for what would become Trojan Horse Home Security, which also aired that first night. But Hard Hats, in which the female cast catcalled Aykroyd, didnt happen until Lily Tomlin hosted a few weeks later. We also get a glimpse of writers Al Franken and Tom Davis figuring out the physics of fake blood for what would eventually become The French Chef, a sketch in which Dan Aykroyd played Julia Child having a workplace accident. Backstage easter eggs like the llama, showgirls, and Abe Lincoln were never part of sketches that made it to air so much as they were a running gag that started with Eric Idle-hosted episodes in the late 70s. Garrett Morris had an identity crisis. KINDA TRUE: Per Live From New York, Morris (Lamorne Morris) struggled to find his place among the early SNL cast because he came from the world of theater and not underground comedy. That was more of an ongoing struggle than it was a night-of meltdown, though. The SNL writers hung Big Bird. KINDA TRUE: In the movie, Jim Henson (Nicholas Braun) pulls Lorne aside to complain: not only did the SNL writers neglect to write him a sketch for the Muppets, but they also hung a Big Bird plushie in the writers room. This did happen but not before opening night. In general, the SNL writers didnt like writing for the Muppets due to Hensons protectiveness over what his fuzzy friends would (or more likely, wouldnt) say on television. Lorne met and hired Alan Zweibel at a bar. KINDA TRUE: In the film, as the minutes tick down ahead of the premiere, Michaels takes himself for a walk and pops into a bar to see a bad older comic (Brad Garrett) stumbling through otherwise strong material written by a nebbish comedian named Alan Zweibel, whom Michaels hires on the spot. This did more or less happen Michaels saw Zweibel himself tanking, not another comedian using his one-liners but long before the show went to air. Neil Levy got too high. KINDA TRUE: Michaelss cousin Neil Levy (Andrew Barth Feldman) helped out in production on the early seasons of the show, and in the film, smokes too potent a joint and gets so high he panics and locks himself in a room. This also did happen, according to Levy per Live From New York, just not the night of the films premiere. It was Aykroyd, ever the mensch, who got Levy to come out of the room, easing his paranoia with a couple of good jokes. Overview of Altium Capital's Recent Investment On September 23, 2024, Altium Capital Management LP (Trades, Portfolio) marked a significant portfolio addition by purchasing 1,257,519 shares of Elevai Labs Inc (NASDAQ:ELAB). This transaction introduced a new holding for the firm, reflecting a strategic investment move. The shares were acquired at a price of $0.1064 each, summing up to a modest portfolio impact of 0.05%. This acquisition not only diversifies Altium Capital's investment portfolio but also underscores its interest in the biotechnology sector. Altium Capital Management LP (Trades, Portfolio), based in New York, is a prominent investment firm with a keen focus on the healthcare sector. The firm manages an equity portfolio worth approximately $245 million, with significant positions in companies like ADMA Biologics Inc (NASDAQ:ADMA) and Sarepta Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SRPT). Altium Capital is known for its strategic investments in biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, aiming to capitalize on transformative health solutions. Altium Capital Management LP Acquires New Stake in Elevai Labs Inc About Elevai Labs Inc Elevai Labs Inc, headquartered in California, operates within the biotechnology industry, focusing on advanced skincare solutions. Since its IPO on November 21, 2023, Elevai has been dedicated to the development and distribution of its flagship ELEVAI Exosomes products. Despite its innovative approach, the company faces significant market challenges, reflected in its current market capitalization of just $1.852 million and a substantial decline in its stock price since the IPO. Financial Health and Market Performance of Elevai Labs Elevai Labs Inc's financial metrics reveal a challenging landscape. The company's stock price has plummeted by 95.29% year-to-date, with a current price of $0.089, significantly below the initial trading price. The firm's profitability and growth ranks are alarmingly low, with a GF Score of 19/100, indicating poor future performance potential. Furthermore, the company's Altman Z score of -4.70 suggests a high risk of financial distress. Altium Capital Management LP Acquires New Stake in Elevai Labs Inc Strategic Implications of Altium's Investment in Elevai The decision by Altium Capital to invest in Elevai Labs may seem counterintuitive given the latter's current financial health. However, this could be a strategic move to leverage potential turnaround opportunities within the biotech sector. Altium's expertise in healthcare investments might provide the necessary oversight to steer Elevai towards profitability. Story continues Biotechnology Sector Analysis The biotechnology sector is known for its high volatility and significant investment risks, but it also offers substantial rewards for successful innovations. Elevai Labs operates in a niche market of skincare biotechnology, which presents unique growth opportunities despite the current financial downturns observed in its performance metrics. Risks and Considerations Investors considering following Altium Capital's lead into Elevai Labs should be wary of the company's low profitability, growth, and Profitability Rank. The high risk of bankruptcy indicated by its negative Altman Z score and the overall downward trend in its stock price are significant concerns that need careful evaluation. Conclusion Altium Capital Management LP (Trades, Portfolio)'s recent acquisition of shares in Elevai Labs Inc represents a calculated risk in a sector known for its potential high returns. This move could either signal a potential upside seen by Altium's analysts or a strategic play within their broader investment portfolio in the healthcare sector. Investors should monitor Elevai's upcoming financial reports and market performance closely, considering the high-risk nature of this investment. 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. Salvini slams "shameful" move to challenge new name of Milan airport. Milan's city council has voted to appeal against the Italian government's controversial decision to rename Malpensa airport after the late former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. The move, announced by Milan's centre-left mayor Beppe Sala on Friday, is set to be backed by other municipalities in the vicinity of Malpensa. The appeal will be filed with the Lombardy regional administrative court (TAR), possibly as early as next week, to challenge the decision by the transport ministry to name the airport after the three-time premier and media mogul who died last year aged 86. The appeal will reportedly centre on the rushed manner of the renaming procedure, with Sala alleging that the approval from civil aviation authority ENAC was given without consulting SEA, the company that runs Milan's airports, Malpensa and Linate, or the administrations of neighbouring municipalities. On 11 July the transport ministry announced that Malpensa was "officially named after Silvio Berlusconi", stating that the ordinance established by ENAC took "immediate effect". The airport's renaming after Berlusconi went ahead despite major opposition, particularly from within Sala's centre-left Partito Democratico (PD) party. The move sparked a wave of indignation on social media, with more than 170,000 people signing an online petition calling on Italian premier Giorgia Meloni to stop the airport from being named after "such a divisive and controversial figure". Anche dopo la sua scomparsa non si fermano lodio e il rancore nei confronti di Silvio Berlusconi, proprio dalla sua Milano, al cui benessere - e a quello di tutta Italia - ha contribuito con tanto amore e passione, al di la delle appartenenze politiche. Vergogna! Silvio, sei e pic.twitter.com/0Z9JkNmPMJ Matteo Salvini (@matteosalvinimi) September 27, 2024 Italy's transport minister and Lega leader Matteo Salvini, who launched the renaming bid, on Friday slammed the appeal to challenge the airport's new name. "Even after his death, the hatred and resentment towards Silvio Berlusconi does not stop, right from his hometown of Milan, to whose well-being - and that of all of Italy - he contributed with so much love and passion, beyond political affiliations" - Salvini wrote on X - "Shame! Silvio, you are and will always remain in our hearts." Photo credit: Alessia Pierdomenico / Shutterstock.com. (Bloomberg) -- Aster DM Healthcare Ltd.s newly-hived off Gulf entity is considering acquiring assets worth as much as $250 million in a bid to expand its footprint in Saudi Arabia. Most Read from Bloomberg The deals are likely to be for medical centers and hospitals and completed in the next three to five years, said Alisha Moopen, managing director and group chief executive officer of Asters Gulf Cooperation Council unit. We have a very solid lineup of acquisitions that we are evaluating right now, she said in an interview. We are not only doubling down, we are tripling down on Saudi Arabia. Health care is one of the main focus areas of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans trillion-dollar Vision 2030 plan, as the government makes a push to draw in expatriates to the biggest Middle Eastern economy. Aster aims to have more than 1,000 hospital beds, 180 pharmacies and more than two dozen medical centers across Saudi Arabia in the next three to five years. It currently operates one hospital in Riyadh and expects to run about 20 pharmacies in the next few months. Get the Mideast Money newsletter, a weekly look at the intersection of wealth and power in the region. The United Arab Emirates-based firm, which is listed in India, agreed last year to sell a majority stake in its Gulf business for $1 billion. A spin off of the unit, which now operates as a private entity, was completed in April. Its a good time to build before we take the company public, but the end goal is in the next few years to look at a listing, Moopen said. She declined to comment on where in the GCC Aster may pursue a public offering but shes closely watching companies including Lulu Group International, which Bloomberg News reported is eying a dual listing in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. Also Read: Asters $1.5 Billion India Unit Draws BPEA EQT, OTPP Interest The Saudi health-care sector has seen some listing activity of late, with Dr. Soliman Abdel Kader Fakeeh Hospital Co. raising $763 million in the countrys biggest IPO of the year. Meanwhile, the Saudi wealth fund is preparing to list the kingdoms largest medical procurement firm, Bloomberg News has reported. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Waterford Forest Owners Group visited the farm of Patrick Trihy recently, where they saw Patricks forest of 23-year-old conifers, which have been thinned twice. The trees all straight and standing showed the importance of good plants on day one. Item which were discussed included the cost of the roadway and turn table. All figures were available, and those gathered were shown good drain maintenance. The foresters also learned something new and interesting on the night how to use Google Chrome to identify trees and plants. Irelands Woodlands Show takes place at the JFK Arboretum outside New Ross on Friday and Saturday, October 4-5, opening at 10am both days and closing at 3.30pm. A Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine funded event, the show will demonstrate the benefits of planting trees, with 4,500 different species of trees in JFK Arboretum, a beautiful location. For any queries contact Tom Hickey, Secretary, on 087 9386209. A controversial podcast is appearing at Glencomeragh House Retreat Centre in Co. Waterford next month. 'Catholic Unscripted' have garnered scrutiny for their criticism of Pope Francis and praise of far-right agitators like Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson). The group are holding a retreat at the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore-owned house, for a a weekend of talks, conversations, reflections, prayers and fellowship. In July 2024, a picture of Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan standing with the hosts was published on the podcast's Twitter, captioned: "Fantastic meeting with Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan to discuss our October retreat in Ireland." According to the event page, the weekend will see the podcast group covering subject matter, including "return of the dark gods/spiritual warfare", "the antidote to feminism", "feminism - its history and devastating impact" and "recovering lost femininity". In recent times, the UK-based podcast, hosted by Gavin Ashenden, Katherine Bennett and Mark Lambert, alleged that Pope Francis had "deserted Jesus". In July 2024, a picture of Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan standing with the hosts was published on the podcast's Twitter, captioned: "Fantastic meeting with Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan to discuss our October retreat in Ireland." A statement from the Diocese read: "The Diocese does not endorse the views expressed in these podcast episodes, particularly those that are critical of Pope Francis. We were not aware of any such comments made by this podcaster until they were brought to our attention through your query. The Diocese wholeheartedly supports the Holy Father and his teachings, which are fundamental to our faith and mission as Catholics." It continued: "Additionally, it is worth noting that Glencomeragh House serves as a retreat centre for a diverse range of groups, including Catholics, non-Catholics, and secular organisations. The management of Glencomeragh House provides excellent facilities for all who wish to use them for retreats and gatherings. "However, it is neither feasible nor appropriate for the management to scrutinise every interview or statement made by potential speakers who utilise these facilities. Our focus remains on fostering an environment conducive to spiritual growth and dialogue among various groups." The statement ended: "We wish to reaffirm our support for Pope Francis and clarify that the Diocese does not align with the alleged views expressed in the mentioned podcast episodes. We remain committed to promoting unity within the Church and encouraging respectful discourse among all members of our community. The subject of social housing and landbanks arose at the recent meeting of the Comeragh District. Councillor Liam Brazil (Fine Gael) asked the Executive: "Have we got any land in our villages, the likes of Leamybrien, Stradbally, and all other villages throughout the area? I do believe that if we had landbanks there, the Government would give money to build houses on these banks." Cllr Declan Clune (Independent) said: "In terms of landbanks, we're actually waiting a year this month to get this report on any available landbanks in the Comeragh district." Cllr Clune also asked about the potential of Government funding for housing on landbanks. "Is there funding available; if there was, for example, residentially zoned sites in a town or village that have not currently been developed? He added: "Is there funding available just for the council to approach those developers and potentially buy that zoned land off them to either sell as affordable sites or to put some housing on them." Social Housing Cllr Clune referenced Council landbanks in Coolfin and Beechwood Drive in Portlaw that could be appropriate locations for the development of social housing. He said: "Now, I totally accept that social housing isn't the answer to everything. There has to be a private element to it as well. But we do have a considerable amount of local people that are on the social housing waiting list, and there's little or no social housing units coming available in Portlaw." He went on: "Obviously, there's been huge focus in the bigger areas in the last few years, like Waterford City, Dungarvan and Tramore, but I think we need to see a bit more focus now on the rural areas because no matter where you look in the city there's houses being built, but there's been little or no development over the last 10 years in the Comeragh district, except for a couple of houses in Kilmac and the 12 houses in Portlaw." Cllr John O'Leary (Fianna Fail) inquired into the current state of derelict sites, and their potential for social housing. He asked: "What is the potential in the Comeraghs in relation to derelict sites? Will it be satisfactory? Can we recoup or can they be turned into livable accommodation?" A member of the Executive responded: "I am working with the Chief Executive at the moment to pull together all the information in terms of where the landbanks are, what's the housing need and what are the funding opportunities available." "I would hope to come back to the October meeting with the report on that; if it's not ready I will commit to it being by the November meeting, because it's certainly information I'm pulling together." A status yellow rain warning has been issued for Waterford on Sunday by Met Eireann. The national weather service is warning that heavy, persistent rain is predicted to hit Waterford, Cork and Wexford over the weekend. Met Eireann is warning that localised flooding is possible all day on Sunday with poor visibility and difficult travelling conditions also forecasted. Off the coast, a small craft warning is active on Friday, September 27, which will continue into the weekend with winds forecast to reach force 6 or higher. On Sunday, while a status yellow weather warning is in place on shore, a status yellow gale wind warning is in place from Howth Head in Dublin all along the southern and western coast to Galway. Winds could reach gale force 8 during this period. Speaking to Waterford News & Star, Met Eireann meteorologist Rebecca Cantwell said that the weather conditions have been caused by a "low pressure system moving the south coat moving eastwards throughout Sunday. The warning we have out at the moment is a status yellow rain warning for the entire day on Sunday." "The rain is going to start in the morning and will be fairly persistent through the day. It will be heavy at times, with heavy rain bursts so we are expecting heavy rain throughout the counties of Cork, Waterford and Wexford." The Met Eireann meteorologist warned that strong winds are expected on Sunday in addition to the rainy conditions, "a mixture of rain and wind is going to make for a very unpleasant day on Sunday". Met Eireann have urged drivers to be especially careful in the rainy conditions over the weekend, "with the heavy rain there is going to be poor visibility which will make for difficult travelling conditions, possibly with some delays and obstructions to travel". The national weather service has warned that spot flooding is expected on roads in the south east due to the "intensity of rain that is going to be falling which will make driving conditions very hazardous". Met Eireann has urged people in Waterford to keep an eye on their website to keep up to date on the latest weather warnings. The Arts & Library Service of Waterford City and County Council have announced the programme for the Waterford Writers Weekend taking place from October 24 to 27. Waterford Writers Weekend announce full programme for 2024. There is a broad range of events and workshops to suit writers and readers alike of all ages. This year, the festival will continue the West Waterford programme in Dungarvan, in addition to the usual city offerings. Thursday, October 24 The festival is introducing their Schools Outreach programme, which takes childrens authors and illustrators into libraries across the county, celebrating writing and literature through creative experiences. Authors appearing include Olivia Hope, Niamh Donnellan and Brian Gallagher. Also on Thursday there will be a Mor Artists Collective: Spoken Word Seminar, supporting artists living and working in rural East Cork and West Waterford. In Dungarvan at 7pm, author Sylvia Cullen will present Outlasting, a quartet of new short stories written and read by Sylvia. Centered around the theme of overcoming, this new body of work will be inspired by the people of Waterford and their stories of prevailing over adversity. Friday, October 25 The Writing Life, A Facilitated Gathering, will bring together members of WORD and other professional writers in a facilitated discussion about the writing life at Waterford Gallery of Art from 3-5pm. Also on Friday, SpeakEasy will host an open mic night with guest writer Danielle McLaughlin at 8pm Upstairs in Phil Grimes, with music plus the usual open mic to showcase the talents of Waterford poets and writers, and those from the region. At Town Hall Theatre in Dungarvan, Dr. Marie Cassidy will be in conversation with Damien Tiernan. Saturday, October 26 Saturday will feature various workshops alongside acclaimed authors and poets, including short story writer Danielle McLaughlin, Lismore poet Molly Twomey, Poet in Residence with Poetry Ireland Anne Tannam and wellbeing artist Lucy Hyland. Acclaimed fictional author Claire Keegan will also be in conversation with Mary Conway. Sunday, October 27 The weekend's closing event will be the journal launch of Waxed Lemon, a dynamic literary journal from Waterford, which publishes poetry, fiction, art and piosai as Gaeilge freisin. Join editors Joanne McCarthy and Derek Flynn at Waterford Gallery of Art for the launch of their 8th edition with readings, coffee, sweet treats and chat. This event will incorporate the announcement of the winners of the national Waterford Poetry Prize 2024 by writer and adjudicator Colm Keegan. Additional info and booking is available at waterfordarts.com London: Maggie Smith, who won an Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1969 and won new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, has died. She was 89. The news was confirmed by her sons Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens who said in a statement: She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27 September. An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother. Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey. Credit: Actors who worked with Maggie Smith paid tribute to the award-winning actor, including Hugh Bonneville who starred alongside Smith in Downton Abbey. Theres a popular and trusted adage that is often used to discount the contributions of young people and forgive them for their mistakes. It has been cited in government recommendations, gun ownership discourse and sentencing laws. It has featured as an explanation for school shootings and as an argument against lowering the voting age. The human brain does not reach full developments at the age of 25. Credit: Getty Images It has also formed the longstanding basis of my mothers reluctance to let me ride a motorbike. You might have heard it: The human brain does not develop fully until 25. Semiconductor stocks have been soaring, led by Nvidia. But that's been far from the only winner -- other popular names like Taiwan Semiconductor, Advanced Micro Devices, and Broadcom have all surged since the start of 2023, shortly after ChatGPT was launched. If you want exposure to a group of stocks, a smart way to do so is through an exchange-traded fund (ETF). These funds trade like stocks but hold a range of companies instead of just one. An ETF is the easiest way to quickly diversify your holdings across a sector like semiconductors. The two largest semiconductor ETFs are the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ: SMH) and the iShares Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ: SOXX). Let's compare the two to see which one is the better option. Image source: Getty Images. A choice of two types of semiconductor ETFs You might think the composition of these two ETFs would be the same, but that's not the case. Unlike rival index funds, which have similar compositions due to tracking the same underlying index, these two ETFs are based on different indexes. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF tracks the MVIS US Listed Semiconductor 25 Index, while the iShares version follows the NYSE Semiconductor Index. As a result, there are significant differences between their five biggest holdings, as you can see from this chart. VanEck ETF iShares ETF Nvidia:19.5% Broadcom: 8.7% Taiwan Semiconductor: 12.5% Advanced Micro Devices: 8.7% Broadcom: 8.1% Nvidia: 8% Texas Instruments: 5.1% Qualcomm: 6.2% Advanced Micro Devices: 4.9% Texas Instruments: 6.1% Source: company websites. Data as of 9/20/24. The VanEck ETF has more than double the exposure to Nvidia that the iShares ETF does. Importantly, the iShares ETF doesn't own foreign stocks, such as Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) and the Netherlands-based ASML, two of the top semiconductor stocks. Arguably, that gives the VanEck ETF an advantage. While TSMC is the second-largest holding in the VanEck fund, ASML is the sixth-largest. The VanEck ETF holds 26 stocks, while the iShares ETF owns 30. The performance comparison Based on the chart above, it probably won't surprise you that the VanEck Semiconductor ETF has outperformed the iShares Semiconductor ETF recently since it has greater exposure to Nvidia. In the 10 years before the start of the generative AI boom at the beginning of 2023, the iShares ETF outperformed the VanEck, as you can see from the chart below. SMH Chart But since then, the VanEck ETF has dominated, dating back to 2013. SMH Chart Since the beginning of 2023, the difference between the two funds is even clearer. SMH Chart Based on recent performance, it seems like the VanEck ETF has the edge here. Story continues Other metrics to consider While current holdings and past performance are probably the two most important factors for judging an ETF to buy, other key metrics are worth considering. First, the expense ratio, which measures the cost of holding an ETF, is always important when investing in them. The VanEck ETF and the iShares ETF have the same ratio: 0.35%. Semiconductor stocks aren't typically known for high yields, but dividends can make a difference to some investors. Here, the VanEck ETF has a 0.49% 30-day yield, an estimate of annual dividends, while the iShares ETF's yield is 0.62%. Lastly, the VanEck ETF is the bigger of the two funds by net assets ($23 billion), showing it has attracted more investment than the iShares ETF ($15.3 billion). Which ETF is the winner? Based on its recent performance as well as its holdings, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF has the edge over the iShares Semiconductor ETF. The increased exposure to Nvidia should continue to be an advantage because that company is dominating the market for AI chips, and the exposure to foreign companies like TSMC and ASML is a plus since those two stocks are well-positioned for growth. Both ETFs are good candidates to outperform, but the VanEck is the better bet right now. Should you invest $1,000 in VanEck ETF Trust - VanEck Semiconductor ETF right now? Before you buy stock in VanEck ETF Trust - VanEck Semiconductor ETF, 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 VanEck ETF Trust - VanEck Semiconductor ETF 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 $756,882!* 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 September 23, 2024 Jeremy Bowman has positions in Broadcom. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends ASML, Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, Texas Instruments, and iShares Trust-iShares Semiconductor ETF. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Best ETF to Buy: VanEck Semiconductor ETF vs. iShares Semiconductor ETF was originally published by The Motley Fool Grant Halverson / Stringer / Getty Images David Tepper, founder of Appaloosa Management. Key Takeaways Billionaire David Tepper, in an interview with CNBC Thursday, said that following China's massive stimulus effort announced Tuesday, it's time to invest in the country. The Appaloosa Management founder said he would buy everything in China. ETFs, I would do futures. Everything, said Tepper, who also owns the Carolina Panthers. Tepper said many Chinese companies were attractive because they had low price-to-earnings multiples and good growth prospects. Billionaire hedge-fund manager David Tepper has an ambitious call: Go big on China. In an interview with CNBC Thursday, the founder of Appaloosa Management said that following China's massive stimulus effort announced Tuesday, it's time to pile in. "It has implications in bonds, currencies, and stocks," said Tepper. After Beijing's stimulus announcement, Tepper said, he would invest in ETFs, I would do futures, Everything." Tepper, who earlier this year doubled his stake in e-commerce giant Alibaba Group (BABA), Chinese ISP Baidu (BIDU), and online agriculture retailer PDD Holdings (PDD), also owns the Carolina Panthers. The renowned investor said he favored many large Chinese companies because they had "single-digit [price-to-earnings] multiples with double-digit growth." Tepper added that Beijing's push to allow stock buybacks also made them attractive. Tepper said he'd made a similar call in 2010, a period that followed huge growth in Chinese stocks before a crackdown by Beijing on its tech giants and the country's slowing economy started a downward spiral in shares. Bank of America Sees Fiscal Measures Coming in Next Few Weeks Still, most economists and analysts were disappointed with Tuesday's swath of measures, noting that a big fiscal push rather than monetary measures is what's needed to boost the countrys weak domestic demand levels. In a note Wednesday, Bank of America analysts said they expect China to announce a fiscal package in the coming weeks, including "demand-boosting stimulus on consumption and investment, as well as further enhancement of social security, healthcare, and pro-birth measures." Read the original article on Investopedia. Total Revenue: $145 million, exceeding the upper end of the guidance range of $144 million. IoT Revenue: $55 million, representing 12% year-over-year growth and 4% sequential growth. Cybersecurity Revenue: $87 million, 10% year-over-year growth. Gross Margin: Improved by 1 percentage point sequentially to 82% for IoT; total company gross margin consistent year on year at 66%. Operating Expenses: Decreased to $99 million, 24% lower than the $130 million baseline. Non-GAAP Operating Loss: $4 million. Adjusted EBITDA: Breakeven for the quarter, $22 million better year-on-year. Non-GAAP EPS: Breakeven. Operating Cash Usage: Improved by $2 million sequentially to $13 million, $43 million better than Q2 last year. Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR): Flat year over year at $279 million. Dollar-Based Net Retention Rate (DBNRR): Improved year on year by 7 percentage points to 88%. Licensing Revenue: $3 million, gross margins at 67%. Release Date: September 26, 2024 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Positive Points Both IoT and cybersecurity divisions delivered solid year-over-year and sequential revenue growth. Gross margin improved by 1 percentage point sequentially to 82% due to favorable product mix. Secured significant design wins in automotive and other sectors, including Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and digital cockpit solutions. Achieved breakeven ahead of plan for non-GAAP EPS and adjusted EBITDA. Cash used by operations came in better than expected, improving by $2 million sequentially to $13 million. Negative Points Development seat revenue remained subdued due to delays in automaker software development programs. Cylance endpoint security business experienced churn in its customer base, leading to a year-over-year decline in revenue. Annual recurring revenue (ARR) for the cybersecurity division remained flat year over year at $279 million. Dollar-based net retention rate (DBNRR) for the cybersecurity division, although improving, is still not at desired levels. IVY auto software program delays have impacted potential revenue, with no material revenue expected in the near term. Q & A Highlights Q: What magnitude of opportunity does QNX containers and the HaleyTek integration and launch open up on that side of the business? How can we think about new product unlocking design wins? A: (Tim Foote, CFO) Containers are part of the ongoing expansion of the TAM. As we move QNX towards the cloud, safety-certified containers are a natural evolution. The traction from the cloud side and the productization of what we did with Stellantis are significant. HaleyTek's integration of QNX Sound into their digital cockpit architecture is another step in expanding QNX content in vehicles. Q: The Q3 guidance implies a modest sequential increase for cyber before a sharper increase in Q4. Is there anything specific to consider this year? A: (Tim Foote, CFO) At the midpoint, it's a continuation of the trend. Traditionally, Q4 is strongest for us from a billing standpoint. Sequential growth is expected through Q3 and Q4. Q: Can you reconcile the EBITDA progression with the full-year guidance being maintained at breakeven to $10 million? A: (Tim Foote, CFO) We're being prudent with our guidance. Q1 was negative 7%, and we achieved breakeven ahead of schedule in Q2. Sequential improvements are expected from Q2 into Q3 and Q3 into Q4. Q: Can you elaborate on the organizational changes in IVY and integrating it more into the QNX organization? A: (John Giamatteo, CEO) We invested heavily in IVY and reached a point where operational efficiencies could be gained by integrating the team with QNX. This leverages synergies in sales and R&D while maintaining progress on the platform. Q: Could you provide an update on the separation process and what's remaining from an operational perspective? A: (John Giamatteo, CEO) We've made significant progress in aligning resources to the BUs. Some components within networking and cyber protection solutions are more intertwined and take longer to unravel. We're balancing operational agility with cost efficiency. Q: Are there structural differences in profitability between the two organizations as you untangle them? A: (Tim Foote, CFO) The separation process has allowed us to take a fresh look. More details on divisional profitability will be provided at the Investor Day on October 16. Q: Was the higher mix of license revenue a major driver of the upside relative to guidance in cyber? A: (John Giamatteo, CEO) It was a combination of license and hardware, particularly from Secusmart and German customers. The durability of the UEM business and ad hoc business also contributed to the broad-based achievement. Q: Any potential impact from the proposed ban of Chinese auto software and hardware? A: (Tim Foote, CFO) We're watching closely. QNX is well-diversified geographically and industrially. Being a Canadian company puts us in a more neutral position, but China remains an important market. Q: How should we think about the impact of delayed or canceled design programs on potential royalty revenue? A: (Tim Foote, CFO) The work has not gone away; it's a question of timing. The secular trends are still there, and we have $850 million in backlog. We're confident that the industry trends will continue to drive progress. Q: What changed over the last three months to reverse the momentum in ARR for cybersecurity? A: (John Giamatteo, CEO) The year-over-year ARR was relatively flat. The variability is likely due to Cylance churn, offset by positive trends in UEM and ad hoc. Long-term stability is improving. Q: Is the improvement in net revenue retention due to better upsell and cross-sell or reduced churn? A: (John Giamatteo, CEO) It's a combination of both. Good upsell in ad hoc and UEM, offset by some Cylance churn. The overall trend is stabilizing and moving in the right direction. Q: Can you elaborate on the adoption of managed services in Cylance and its impact on revenue? A: (John Giamatteo, CEO) The product-only segment of Cylance has seen sluggishness, but the managed services (MDR) segment has shown good pipeline and conversions. The shift to MDR is offsetting some of the product-only segment's weakness. For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. If you have an event you'd like to list on the site, submit it now! Submit A Mayo town has been left horrified after a criminal damage spree saw homes, cars, and community buildings targeted. A man in his 30s has been arrested following a criminal damage rampage in the St John's Place area of Westport. It is believed that the suspect was wielding a hammer when the carnage occurred. In the early hours of this morning, 21 windows in the Order of Malta building were broken. Damage was caused to multiple parked vehicles with motorists waking up to smashed windows and windscreens. A HSE residential home for people with additional needs was also targeted and a window in the local library was broken. There were no attempts made to enter any premises. Broken windows from the Order of Malta at St John's place. Photo: Conor McKeown Eamon Berry, of Westport Order of Malta, told the Western People that he was left incensed when he learned of what happened. This is a quiet area in an old established part of town. Its absolutely shocking what has happened. We have 21 windows broken but what Im absolutely horrified by is what happened to our neighbours across the road where there is sheltered housing for very vulnerable people, said Mr Berry. He said It does not bear thinking about what was going on in the mind of the person responsible. Im not often lost for words but I am about this, said Mr Berry. He said it was shocking for their neighbours in local houses to wake up and see the windows of their vehicles completely smashed. It is understood some of the incidents will have been captured on CCTV. The amount of damage that has been done is incredible, said Mr Berry but he is concerned that the fear and psychological damage caused will be even greater. A Garda statement said: "Gardai are investigating a criminal damage incident that occurred in Westport, Co. Mayo this morning, Friday 27th September 2024 at approximately 3am during which a number of vehicles and properties had their windows broken. "A man (aged in his 30s) was arrested and is currently detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984, at a Garda station in the Western Region. "Investigations are ongoing." Caseys Londis, Castlebar has been shortlisted for two awards at the National Checkout National Grocery Retail Awards 2024. The National Grocery Retail Awards annually highlight best-in-class performance in retailing and honour the companies and suppliers that help Irelands pioneering stores and retail chains achieve levels of service and product excellence that set them apart from their competitors. Caseys Londis has been shortlisted in the Excellence in Fresh Food Retailing in a Forecourt Store category and in Ireland's Best Food-to-Go Offering category. Complimenting the team in Caseys Londis, Londis Sales Director Conor Hayes said, I want to offer my wholehearted congratulations to Gerry Casey and David Tarrant and all the team in Caseys Londis Castlebar on being shortlisted for two awards. The whole team is so very deserving of this acknowledgement and they are great champions for the Londis brand. The National Grocery Retail Awards are one of the most eagerly anticipated events in the Irish grocery retail calendar and those honoured are recognised as being true industry standard bearers. It tells you plenty of where Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are at - and where they see themselves - that they have each only put two candidates forward at their selection conventions for the next general election in Mayo. Its only 13 years since Fine Gael won four out of the five seats on offer in Mayo in the 2011 election. That was a big reversal from the traditional Fianna Fail dominance in the county. In every general election from 1977 to 1992 (thats seven elections), Fianna Fail returned four out of the six TDs in Mayo two in West Mayo and two in East Mayo. It was a spectacular run of dominance. Now, where once either party could reflect on having four TDs in Mayo in the not-too-distant past, it appears four between them is the most they can hope for. It is perhaps telling of a general fall in support for both the main parties but you have to think it is also instructive on how many politicians are unwilling to stand in Mayo. Because, make no mistake about it, both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael would run at least three candidates if they could get people of serious calibre willing to stand. Indeed, it is far from impossible that Fine Gael might have a third candidate put forward by party HQ. But for now, we have to go on the basis of what came through the selection conventions. Weve spoken here in the past about concerns of the quality of people putting themselves forward for political office in Mayo, both for Mayo County Council and Leinster House. Thats no slight on any one general politician; more so an across-the-board observation. Now a five-seater constituency again, never has Mayo been as wide open. But you also get the feeling it will be a long time since Mayo had such a weak overall list of candidates. The county with the part of south Mayo which was marooned in Galway West now back in its natural political habitat has been bumped from a four-seater to a five-seater. That means there was always one extra seat on offer. There are at least two now with the retirement of Fine Gael maestro Michael Ring. Of course, that doesnt mean the three outgoing TDs Rose Conway-Walsh, Dara Calleary and Alan Dillon are assured of anything. The seats are there to be decided by the electorate. But when there are just three outgoing TDs in a five-seater, they are in a most advantageous position. Typically Mayo has been a hornets nest for outgoing TDs with plenty of high profile losses over the years. In 1997, outgoing TDs Seamus Hughes and PJ Morley lost their seats. Tom Moffatt and Jim Higgins suffered a similar fate in 2002. That was the election where Enda Kenny famously had his political obituary written and in his suit pocket ahead of expecting to lose his seat but for an unexpected transfer of votes from Frank Chambers which saw Kenny leapfrog party colleague Higgins. Two more outgoing TDs lost their seats in 2007 Jerry Cowley, who was first past the post in 2002 only to get less than half of that vote five years later, and John Carty. Michelle Mulherin lost her seat in 2016 and Lisa Chambers was unseated in 2020 which means the only time no TD lost their seat in Mayo since it became a countywide four or five-seater was in 2011. The retirement of Beverley Flynn saw her replaced by Michelle Mulherin and the other four outgoing TDs were returned. The next General Election looks odds on being a repeat of that. So, if we take it that the three outgoing TDs will be returned for the purposes of my next point, that means there are a minimum of two seats on offer. It represents the perfect opportunity for anyone who may have been waiting to time their run for the opportune moment to do so. The only one who seems to be an illustration of that is Cllr Patsy OBrien, whose strong electoral showings at county council level have always hinted at a possible run. Now that he is Independent having been expelled from Fine Gael three years ago in circumstances that have never been published he is free to declare without needing the partys imprimatur. He also has a large area free from Fianna Fail and Fine Gael candidates. Sinn Feins Gerry Murray is another man who may well strike while the iron is hot. Though he was the only Sinn Fein candidate elected to Mayo County Council this year, the party may try to take two seats here. It would be incredible to get just one out of 30 council seats and two out of five Dail seats but you could not rule it out. Overall though, plenty have ruled out running. Witness Michelle Mulherin herself a TD from 2011 to 2016 and the Fianna Fail trio of Paul McNamara, Brendan Mulroy and Damien Ryan. They are all county councillors who were nominated for the selection convention but withdrew for a variety of reasons. Keira Keogh is running for Fine Gael after a reasonable, if ultimately unsuccessful maiden run in the local elections this year. She will be hoping to capitalise on the giant Michael Ring-shaped gap in Mayo politics. Ring is supporting her too which is a vital boost. Chris Maxwell is running for Independent Ireland after topping the poll in the Westport Electoral Area. There isnt room for two TDs from the general Westport area. It remains to be seen if theres room for one or if Keogh and Maxwell may cut across each other and leave the area with no TD for the first time since 1987 (Castlebars Enda Kenny and Padraig Flynn and Achills Denis Gallagher were the three elected to West Mayo). Rose Conway-Walshs sensational performance for Sinn Fein in 2020 was the first time a party from the broad left had a TD elected in Mayo in modern times. You could make an argument for Jerry Cowley, who subsequently ran for Labour, but he was elected in 2002 as an Independent. Labour have never had a strong presence in the county, save for the enduring career of the great Johnny Mee, whose vote was far more a personal vote than a sign of the party getting a grip in the county. Newer parties like the Social Democrats, Greens and PeopleBeforeProfit have not gained any meaningful foothold in Mayo yet either. Independent Irelands Maxwell and Paul Lawless of Aontu both already elected this year could be interesting propositions. But while every candidate declared so far has plenty to offer, you get the sense not enough of our brightest and best are interested in standing for politics these days. It is very hard work, time-consuming and not very compatible with family life dont let anyone convince you otherwise. And thats before you consider the shocking abuse (not criticism, theres a big difference) politicians are subjected to on social media these days and, increasingly commonly, on streets as well. One of the most common refrains Ive heard when people are talking about potential candidates who withdrew is could you blame them? Not for a second. But where will this all leave us a few elections down the road? A meeting of Brics foreign ministers in New York on Thursday ended without a joint statement for the first time since the group's founding, reflecting difficulties reaching a consensus with the addition of new members last year. The meeting convened on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly and was expected to produce a 52-paragraph text on several issues, including the Middle East conflict, plans for a common currency and preliminary talks on the accession of more Brics countries to the summit slated for October in Kazan, Russia. But according to reports from Brazilian news portal UOL, independently confirmed by the Post, the meeting ended in a stalemate. Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. One condition set by Indian and Brazilian diplomats for the bloc's expansion last year was that the new members support the aspirations of India, Brazil and South Africa for permanent seats on the UN Security Council, the Brazilian website added. The meeting on Thursday ended in an impasse with no joint Brics statement issued. Photo: Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on X alt=The meeting on Thursday ended in an impasse with no joint Brics statement issued. Photo: Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on X> However, at Thursday's meeting, Egypt and Ethiopia refused to sign the communique mentioning the issue on the grounds no consensus had been reached as to which country should be Africa's representative on the UN's highest body. Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, who chaired Thursday's meeting, argued that both countries understood the condition under which they had been accepted into Brics last year. In view of the Egyptians' and Ethiopians' stance, he decided to end the meeting. Joel Souza Pinto Sampaio, who leads Vieira's communications team, confirmed the impasse in New York but refrained from elaborating on the meeting's specifics. "There was no consensus here," Sampaio told the Post. "Our sherpas will continue working to reach a consensus until the summit in Kazan next month." Sherpas are diplomats responsible for negotiating details ahead of major international summits or conferences. Another person familiar with the matter described the situation as a "serious disagreement". The Chinese and Indian missions in New York did not immediately respond to questions about the stalemate. Story continues Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar (centre) attends a Brics meeting in New York on Thursday. Photo: Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on X alt=Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar (centre) attends a Brics meeting in New York on Thursday. Photo: Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on X> Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, New Delhi's foreign minister, refrained from mentioning it when after the meeting he posted on X, formerly Twitter, saying the ministers "focused on reforming multilateralism and strengthening development". Created as Bric in 2006 with Brazil, Russia, India and China as its founding members, Brics came into being after South Africa joined the bloc in 2010. Last year, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were invited to become members with effect from January 1, 2024. Riyadh has yet to confirm its membership. The Brics leaders' summit, taking place from October 22 to 24, will be only the second since the group's expansion in January. Reaching consensus on issues, however, could prove more elusive as the group of non-Western countries adds to its ranks. Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting in St. Petersburg in June said 34 countries had shown interest in joining the bloc "in one form or another". Putin at the time said Russia wanted to address this "growing interest" and discuss how new members could participate. Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Thailand and Turkey are among the countries that have now formally applied for full Brics membership. Ankara sent observers to a Brics summit in South Africa in 2018 and its application is expected to be considered at the coming summit in October. If approved, Turkey would be the first Nato member to join Brics. Following Thursday's Brics meeting, Russia and Turkey were expected to meet separately with Egypt and Ethiopia. This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2024. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Hurricane Helene roared ashore in a sparsely populated region of Florida as a powerful Category 4 storm, peeling the siding off buildings, trapping residents in rising floodwaters and knocking out power to millions of customers. At least four people were reported dead. Details with Axelle Simon and Emerald Maxwell. An overpass above a swollen and rushing Peachtree Creek, the site of a major Civil War battle, is seen overflowing its lower banks after Hurricane Helene passed the area on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Ron Harris) Investors often turn to recommendations made by Wall Street analysts before making a Buy, Sell, or Hold decision about a stock. While media reports about rating changes by these brokerage-firm employed (or sell-side) analysts often affect a stock's price, do they really matter? Before we discuss the reliability of brokerage recommendations and how to use them to your advantage, let's see what these Wall Street heavyweights think about Alaska Air Group (ALK). Alaska Air currently has an average brokerage recommendation (ABR) of 1.50, on a scale of 1 to 5 (Strong Buy to Strong Sell), calculated based on the actual recommendations (Buy, Hold, Sell, etc.) made by 12 brokerage firms. An ABR of 1.50 approximates between Strong Buy and Buy. Of the 12 recommendations that derive the current ABR, nine are Strong Buy, representing 75% of all recommendations. Brokerage Recommendation Trends for ALK Broker Rating Breakdown Chart for ALK Check price target & stock forecast for Alaska Air here>>> While the ABR calls for buying Alaska Air, it may not be wise to make an investment decision solely based on this information. Several studies have shown limited to no success of brokerage recommendations in guiding investors to pick stocks with the best price increase potential. Are you wondering why? The vested interest of brokerage firms in a stock they cover often results in a strong positive bias of their analysts in rating it. Our research shows that for every "Strong Sell" recommendation, brokerage firms assign five "Strong Buy" recommendations. This means that the interests of these institutions are not always aligned with those of retail investors, giving little insight into the direction of a stock's future price movement. It would therefore be best to use this information to validate your own analysis or a tool that has proven to be highly effective at predicting stock price movements. Zacks Rank, our proprietary stock rating tool with an impressive externally audited track record, categorizes stocks into five groups, ranging from Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) to Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell), and is an effective indicator of a stock's price performance in the near future. Therefore, using the ABR to validate the Zacks Rank could be an efficient way of making a profitable investment decision. ABR Should Not Be Confused With Zacks Rank Although both Zacks Rank and ABR are displayed in a range of 1-5, they are different measures altogether. Broker recommendations are the sole basis for calculating the ABR, which is typically displayed in decimals (such as 1.28). The Zacks Rank, on the other hand, is a quantitative model designed to harness the power of earnings estimate revisions. It is displayed in whole numbers -- 1 to 5. Story continues Analysts employed by brokerage firms have been and continue to be overly optimistic with their recommendations. Since the ratings issued by these analysts are more favorable than their research would support because of the vested interest of their employers, they mislead investors far more often than they guide. In contrast, the Zacks Rank is driven by earnings estimate revisions. And near-term stock price movements are strongly correlated with trends in earnings estimate revisions, according to empirical research. Furthermore, the different grades of the Zacks Rank are applied proportionately across all stocks for which brokerage analysts provide earnings estimates for the current year. In other words, at all times, this tool maintains a balance among the five ranks it assigns. There is also a key difference between the ABR and Zacks Rank when it comes to freshness. When you look at the ABR, it may not be up-to-date. Nonetheless, since brokerage analysts constantly revise their earnings estimates to reflect changing business trends, and their actions get reflected in the Zacks Rank quickly enough, it is always timely in predicting future stock prices. Is ALK Worth Investing In? Looking at the earnings estimate revisions for Alaska Air, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has increased 15.2% over the past month to $4.70. Analysts' growing optimism over the company's earnings prospects, as indicated by strong agreement among them in revising EPS estimates higher, could be a legitimate reason for the stock to soar in the near term. The size of the recent change in the consensus estimate, along with three other factors related to earnings estimates, has resulted in a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) for Alaska Air. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here >>>> Therefore, the Buy-equivalent ABR for Alaska Air may serve as a useful guide for investors. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Alaska Air Group, Inc. (ALK) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Quite a few insiders have dramatically grown their holdings in Indiana Resources Limited (ASX:IDA) over the past 12 months. An insider's optimism about the company's prospects is a positive sign. While we would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing, we do think it is perfectly logical to keep tabs on what insiders are doing. Check out our latest analysis for Indiana Resources The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Indiana Resources The insider Peter Koller made the biggest insider purchase in the last 12 months. That single transaction was for AU$800k worth of shares at a price of AU$0.058 each. We do like to see buying, but this purchase was made at well below the current price of AU$0.097. While it does suggest insiders consider the stock undervalued at lower prices, this transaction doesn't tell us much about what they think of current prices. Over the last year, we can see that insiders have bought 20.82m shares worth AU$1.2m. But insiders sold 11.65m shares worth AU$737k. In the last twelve months there was more buying than selling by Indiana Resources insiders. You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction! Indiana Resources is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at this free list of under-the-radar companies with insider buying. Insiders At Indiana Resources Have Bought Stock Recently Over the last three months, we've seen significantly more insider buying, than insider selling, at Indiana Resources. In total, three insiders bought AU$940k worth of shares in that time. But we did see insider Peter Koller sell shares worth AU$737k. We think insiders may be optimistic about the future, since insiders have been net buyers of shares. Does Indiana Resources Boast High Insider Ownership? Looking at the total insider shareholdings in a company can help to inform your view of whether they are well aligned with common shareholders. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. Insiders own 26% of Indiana Resources shares, worth about AU$16m. We've certainly seen higher levels of insider ownership elsewhere, but these holdings are enough to suggest alignment between insiders and the other shareholders. So What Does This Data Suggest About Indiana Resources Insiders? It's certainly positive to see the recent insider purchases. We also take confidence from the longer term picture of insider transactions. But we don't feel the same about the fact the company is making losses. Given that insiders also own a fair bit of Indiana Resources we think they are probably pretty confident of a bright future. So while it's helpful to know what insiders are doing in terms of buying or selling, it's also helpful to know the risks that a particular company is facing. For instance, we've identified 3 warning signs for Indiana Resources (1 is significant) you should be aware of. Story continues But note: Indiana Resources may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt. For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions of direct interests only, but not derivative transactions or indirect interests. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Image source: Getty Images Fueling up for less is one of the ways people save money at Costco (even if it occasionally means waiting in a line of cars to do so). On average, Costco gas is less expensive than area competitors. What keeps this perk so exclusive, however, is that you're required to scan your membership card at the pump. This can be your physical card or a digital card through the Costco app. Either way, no card, no gas. This is where the scam starts. Oh, no, I forgot my membership card! "Darn it, my phone died and I can't scan my membership card. Can you scan your membership for me so I can fuel up and go charge my phone?" The request could seem innocent enough. We've all had our phones die at the wrong moment or forgotten our wallets without realizing it until we're at the register. Unfortunately, extending a kind gesture could get you into a bit of hot water if the person on the receiving end is up to no good -- such as trying to milk every potential dollar out of stolen credit cards. (According to online lore, the core of this scam is that Costco doesn't require ZIP codes to use a credit card, unlike other gas stations. It also helps muddy the waters, since the police have an easy line right to you.) Your purchases are tied to your account Part of scanning your card for access means that each time you fuel up at a Costco gas station, that purchase is tied to your Costco account. This includes information about the payment method you use. Stolen credit cards get reported, and then authorities track down the purchases made. If your Costco account is tied to purchases made from a stolen credit card, you'll likely have some serious explaining to do. At best, you get charged for the stolen gas and the cops don't show up. At worst, you're having to prove you didn't steal the credit card in the first place. But even if you wind up with the best-case scenario here, you still have to admit to Costco that you broke the terms of your membership agreement. Costco can (and does) close accounts for breaking rules The Costco membership rules are very clear about not letting other people use your membership card. Moreover, Costco has been very vocally cracking down on membership sharing over the last year. If you're caught sharing your membership -- and yes, scanning your card that one time for that one person counts -- Costco can, and likely will, close your account and cancel your membership. Costco has every right to prohibit you from ever joining again, too. And then you'd never have another Costco hot dog. Story continues How to properly share your membership Costco's rules are pretty strict, but there are still a few ways you can share the Costco love with your friends and family. If you're the Primary Member (or Account Manager), you can assign one free membership card to a member of your household. Each cardholder can bring up to two guests to the store on a trip. However, only the member can make purchases. Members can purchase Costco Shop cards, which are gift cards for Costco. A Shop card gives non-members entrance into Costco and the ability to shop, but they'll need to use the Shop card to pay. What to do if you're approached at the pump Never scan your membership card for someone else to make a purchase. Instead, you can advise the struggling person to contact the station attendant. If the person is really a member and having an actual issue, the attendant can help them. If the person isn't a member, they'll likely scurry away. It's great to want to help our neighbors, but let's not forget common sense, too. Fueling up at Costco is rarely life or death, so the person can head home for their card or head to another gas station. You don't need to put your membership at risk. Top credit card to use at Costco (and everywhere else!) We love versatile credit cards that offer huge rewards everywhere, including Costco! This card is a standout among America's favorite credit cards because it offers perhaps the easiest $200 cash bonus you could ever earn and an unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases, even when you shop at Costco. Add on the competitive 0% interest period and it's no wonder we awarded this card Best No Annual Fee Credit Card. Click here to read our full review for free and apply before the $200 welcome bonus offer ends! 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.Brittney Myers has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Costco Wholesale. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Buy Gas at Costco? Watch Out for This Scam was originally published by The Motley Fool Agricultural Bank of China Limited (OTCMKTS:ACGBY Get Free Report) saw a significant decline in short interest in the month of September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 14,800 shares, a decline of 55.8% from the August 31st total of 33,500 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 12,200 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 1.2 days. Agricultural Bank of China Price Performance Shares of ACGBY opened at $13.08 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $11.30 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $11.04. The stock has a market cap of $183.11 billion, a PE ratio of 4.72 and a beta of 0.09. Agricultural Bank of China has a 1-year low of $8.76 and a 1-year high of $13.08. Get Agricultural Bank of China alerts: Agricultural Bank of China (OTCMKTS:ACGBY Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Friday, August 30th. The company reported $0.62 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. The firm had revenue of $25 billion for the quarter. Agricultural Bank of China had a return on equity of 9.30% and a net margin of 19.55%. About Agricultural Bank of China Agricultural Bank of China Limited, together with its subsidiaries, provides banking products and services. The company operates through Corporate Banking, Personal Banking, and Treasury Operations segments. It offers demand, personal call, foreign currency call, time or demand optional, foreign exchange call, foreign exchange time, savings, agreed term, and negotiated deposit accounts, as well as certificates of deposit; and loans, including housing, consumer, business, fixed asset, working capital, real estate, and entrusted syndicated loans, as well as trade finances, guarantees and commitments, and loans with custody of export rebates accounts. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Agricultural Bank of China Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Agricultural Bank of China and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Nabors Industries Ltd. (NYSE:NBR Get Free Report) has received an average recommendation of Hold from the six research firms that are covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and one has issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 12 month price objective among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $104.50. A number of research firms have issued reports on NBR. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated a sector perform rating and issued a $114.00 target price on shares of Nabors Industries in a research note on Thursday, July 25th. Citigroup downgraded shares of Nabors Industries from a buy rating to a neutral rating and cut their price target for the company from $110.00 to $75.00 in a report on Friday, September 13th. Get Nabors Industries alerts: View Our Latest Research Report on NBR Institutional Trading of Nabors Industries Nabors Industries Price Performance Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in NBR. Quadrant Capital Group LLC increased its position in Nabors Industries by 202.4% in the 4th quarter. Quadrant Capital Group LLC now owns 750 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $61,000 after buying an additional 502 shares during the period. Russell Investments Group Ltd. increased its position in Nabors Industries by 2,022.2% during the first quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 764 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $67,000 after acquiring an additional 728 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its stake in Nabors Industries by 29.1% during the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,474 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $127,000 after purchasing an additional 332 shares during the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC bought a new stake in Nabors Industries in the 2nd quarter valued at $159,000. Finally, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company grew its position in Nabors Industries by 5.3% in the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 3,567 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $254,000 after purchasing an additional 181 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 81.92% of the companys stock. Shares of NYSE:NBR opened at $60.95 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $582.07 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -4.41 and a beta of 2.12. Nabors Industries has a 1 year low of $59.67 and a 1 year high of $129.85. The company has a current ratio of 1.82, a quick ratio of 1.57 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.01. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $78.02 and a 200 day simple moving average of $77.06. Nabors Industries (NYSE:NBR Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The oil and gas company reported ($4.29) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of ($1.77) by ($2.52). The firm had revenue of $742.98 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $737.91 million. Nabors Industries had a negative return on equity of 28.10% and a negative net margin of 4.73%. The firms revenue for the quarter was down 4.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned ($2.26) earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Nabors Industries will post -12.47 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Nabors Industries Company Profile (Get Free Report Nabors Industries Ltd. provides drilling and drilling-related services for land-based and offshore oil and natural gas wells in the United States and internationally. The company operates through four segments: U.S. Drilling, International Drilling, Drilling Solutions, and Rig Technologies. It provides tubular running services, including casing and tubing running, and torque monitoring; managed pressure drilling services; and drilling-bit steering systems and rig instrumentation software. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Nabors Industries Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Nabors Industries and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Brandywine Realty Trust (NYSE:BDN Get Free Report) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, September 25th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, October 9th will be paid a dividend of 0.15 per share by the real estate investment trust on Thursday, October 24th. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 11.08%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, October 9th. Brandywine Realty Trust has decreased its dividend by an average of 1.8% per year over the last three years. Brandywine Realty Trust has a payout ratio of -181.8% indicating that the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Equities research analysts expect Brandywine Realty Trust to earn $0.97 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.60 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 61.9%. Get Brandywine Realty Trust alerts: Brandywine Realty Trust Price Performance Shares of BDN stock opened at $5.42 on Friday. The firms 50 day moving average price is $5.08 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $4.73. The stock has a market cap of $935.01 million, a PE ratio of -4.44 and a beta of 1.33. Brandywine Realty Trust has a 52-week low of $3.62 and a 52-week high of $5.67. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.73, a quick ratio of 2.07 and a current ratio of 2.07. Analysts Set New Price Targets Brandywine Realty Trust ( NYSE:BDN Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 23rd. The real estate investment trust reported $0.17 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.22 by ($0.05). The company had revenue of $125.30 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $119.47 million. Brandywine Realty Trust had a negative return on equity of 12.16% and a negative net margin of 32.27%. The firms revenue for the quarter was down .5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.29 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that Brandywine Realty Trust will post 0.93 EPS for the current year. Several brokerages have issued reports on BDN. Evercore ISI lifted their price target on shares of Brandywine Realty Trust from $5.50 to $6.00 and gave the company an in-line rating in a research note on Monday, September 16th. StockNews.com upgraded Brandywine Realty Trust from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, July 25th. Get Our Latest Research Report on BDN About Brandywine Realty Trust (Get Free Report) Brandywine Realty Trust (NYSE: BDN) is one of the largest, publicly traded, full-service, integrated real estate companies in the United States with a core focus in the Philadelphia and Austin markets. Organized as a real estate investment trust (REIT), we own, develop, lease and manage an urban, town center and transit-oriented portfolio comprising 160 properties and 22.6 million square feet as of September 30, 2023 which excludes assets held for sale. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Brandywine Realty Trust Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Brandywine Realty Trust and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Broadridge Financial Solutions (NYSE:BR Get Free Report) issued an update on its FY 2025 earnings guidance on Wednesday morning. The company provided EPS guidance of 8.350-8.660 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of 8.500. The company issued revenue guidance of -. Broadridge Financial Solutions Trading Up 1.6 % BR stock opened at $211.70 on Friday. Broadridge Financial Solutions has a 12 month low of $166.73 and a 12 month high of $223.81. The firms 50-day moving average is $210.67 and its 200 day moving average is $203.54. The company has a market capitalization of $24.71 billion, a PE ratio of 36.13 and a beta of 1.05. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.55, a current ratio of 1.08 and a quick ratio of 1.08. Get Broadridge Financial Solutions alerts: Broadridge Financial Solutions (NYSE:BR Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The business services provider reported $3.50 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $3.49 by $0.01. Broadridge Financial Solutions had a net margin of 10.73% and a return on equity of 42.77%. The business had revenue of $1.94 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.96 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $3.21 earnings per share. The companys quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that Broadridge Financial Solutions will post 8.51 EPS for the current year. Broadridge Financial Solutions Increases Dividend Analysts Set New Price Targets The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 3rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, September 12th will be given a dividend of $0.88 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 12th. This is a positive change from Broadridge Financial Solutionss previous quarterly dividend of $0.80. This represents a $3.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.66%. Broadridge Financial Solutionss payout ratio is 60.07%. Several brokerages have recently commented on BR. StockNews.com upgraded Broadridge Financial Solutions from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 10th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on shares of Broadridge Financial Solutions from $239.00 to $246.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. DA Davidson reaffirmed a neutral rating and issued a $185.00 price target on shares of Broadridge Financial Solutions in a research report on Tuesday, June 11th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on shares of Broadridge Financial Solutions from $224.00 to $225.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 20th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Broadridge Financial Solutions currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $213.33. Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on BR Insider Buying and Selling at Broadridge Financial Solutions In related news, CEO Timothy C. Gokey sold 25,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $209.11, for a total transaction of $5,227,750.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 200,675 shares of the companys stock, valued at $41,963,149.25. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In other Broadridge Financial Solutions news, VP Laura Matlin sold 673 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $216.00, for a total value of $145,368.00. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now owns 5,530 shares of the companys stock, valued at $1,194,480. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Timothy C. Gokey sold 25,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $209.11, for a total transaction of $5,227,750.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 200,675 shares in the company, valued at approximately $41,963,149.25. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 134,386 shares of company stock valued at $28,112,824. 1.60% of the stock is currently owned by insiders. Broadridge Financial Solutions Company Profile (Get Free Report) Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc provides investor communications and technology-driven solutions for the financial services industry. The company's Investor Communication Solutions segment processes and distributes proxy materials to investors in equity securities and mutual funds, as well as facilitates related vote processing services; and distributes regulatory reports, class action, and corporate action/reorganization event information, as well as tax reporting solutions. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Broadridge Financial Solutions Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Broadridge Financial Solutions and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Hugoton Royalty Trust (OTCMKTS:HGTXU Get Free Report) saw a large growth in short interest in September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 5,200 shares, a growth of 550.0% from the August 31st total of 800 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 30,900 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 0.2 days. Hugoton Royalty Trust Trading Up 1.6 % Shares of OTCMKTS HGTXU traded up $0.01 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $0.50. The company had a trading volume of 15,287 shares, compared to its average volume of 32,754. The businesss 50-day simple moving average is $0.50 and its 200 day simple moving average is $0.51. Hugoton Royalty Trust has a 1 year low of $0.42 and a 1 year high of $0.78. The stock has a market cap of $19.92 million, a P/E ratio of 1.84 and a beta of 0.17. Get Hugoton Royalty Trust alerts: Hugoton Royalty Trust Company Profile (Get Free Report) Featured Stories Hugoton Royalty Trust operates as an express trust in the United States. It holds 80% net profits interests in various natural gas producing working interest properties in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming under conveyances. The company was founded in 1998 and is based in Dallas, Texas. Receive News & Ratings for Hugoton Royalty Trust Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Hugoton Royalty Trust and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Lithia Motors (NYSE:LAD Get Free Report) was upgraded by equities research analysts at Morgan Stanley from an underweight rating to an equal weight rating in a research note issued on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has a $310.00 price objective on the stock, up from their previous price objective of $225.00. Morgan Stanleys price objective suggests a potential downside of 1.63% from the stocks previous close. Several other brokerages also recently commented on LAD. Stephens began coverage on Lithia Motors in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. They issued an overweight rating and a $360.00 price target on the stock. StockNews.com lowered shares of Lithia Motors from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 13th. Bank of America increased their price target on shares of Lithia Motors from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Monday, July 22nd. Guggenheim upgraded shares of Lithia Motors from a neutral rating to a buy rating and set a $338.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Friday, August 9th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of Lithia Motors from $315.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 10th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $334.00. Get Lithia Motors alerts: Check Out Our Latest Research Report on LAD Lithia Motors Price Performance NYSE LAD opened at $315.14 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $8.43 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.30, a P/E/G ratio of 0.30 and a beta of 1.64. Lithia Motors has a 1 year low of $231.36 and a 1 year high of $331.96. The company has a current ratio of 1.19, a quick ratio of 0.30 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.26. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $283.36 and a 200 day simple moving average of $271.86. Lithia Motors (NYSE:LAD Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported $7.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $7.09 by $0.78. Lithia Motors had a return on equity of 13.84% and a net margin of 2.52%. The company had revenue of $9.23 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.29 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $10.91 earnings per share. The firms revenue was up 13.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Lithia Motors will post 28.78 EPS for the current year. Insider Buying and Selling In other news, Director Sidney B. Deboer sold 10,777 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $275.93, for a total value of $2,973,697.61. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 35,352 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,754,677.36. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, Director Sidney B. Deboer sold 10,777 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $275.93, for a total transaction of $2,973,697.61. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 35,352 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,754,677.36. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, Director Shauna Mcintyre sold 306 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Friday, August 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $289.65, for a total value of $88,632.90. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 1,922 shares in the company, valued at $556,707.30. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 23,021 shares of company stock valued at $6,534,617 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 1.79% of the companys stock. Institutional Investors Weigh In On Lithia Motors A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Point72 DIFC Ltd acquired a new position in Lithia Motors in the second quarter valued at about $143,000. Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. acquired a new position in shares of Lithia Motors in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $80,000. Clearbridge Investments LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Lithia Motors by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 119,963 shares of the companys stock worth $30,285,000 after acquiring an additional 2,638 shares in the last quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers increased its holdings in Lithia Motors by 1.3% during the 2nd quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 3,862 shares of the companys stock valued at $975,000 after purchasing an additional 48 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. increased its holdings in Lithia Motors by 23.8% during the 2nd quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 8,767 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,217,000 after purchasing an additional 1,688 shares in the last quarter. About Lithia Motors (Get Free Report) Lithia Motors, Inc operates as an automotive retailer worldwide. It operates in two segments, Vehicle Operations and Financing Operations. The companys Vehicle Operations segment sells new and used vehicles; provides parts, repair, and maintenance services; vehicle finance; and insurance products. Its Financing Operations segment provides financing to customers buying and leasing retail vehicles. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Lithia Motors Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Lithia Motors and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Susquehanna started coverage on shares of Valaris (NYSE:VAL Free Report) in a report published on Tuesday, MarketBeat reports. The firm issued a neutral rating and a $62.00 price target on the stock. VAL has been the subject of several other research reports. Citigroup dropped their target price on shares of Valaris from $95.00 to $71.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. Barclays reduced their target price on shares of Valaris from $98.00 to $91.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Friday, August 9th. Pickering Energy Partners lowered shares of Valaris from an outperform rating to a neutral rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 16th. Finally, Benchmark reaffirmed a buy rating and issued a $90.00 price target on shares of Valaris in a research note on Monday, August 5th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Valaris currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $86.50. Get Valaris alerts: View Our Latest Analysis on VAL Valaris Stock Performance NYSE:VAL opened at $53.77 on Tuesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.73, a quick ratio of 1.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.70 and a beta of 1.17. The firms fifty day simple moving average is $63.25 and its 200 day simple moving average is $69.50. Valaris has a twelve month low of $53.06 and a twelve month high of $84.20. Valaris (NYSE:VAL Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The company reported $2.03 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.96 by $1.07. Valaris had a net margin of 49.33% and a return on equity of 12.58%. The firm had revenue of $610.10 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $545.00 million. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Valaris will post 4.37 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Insider Activity In other news, COO Gilles Luca sold 30,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $56.86, for a total transaction of $1,705,800.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 108,342 shares in the company, valued at $6,160,326.12. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other Valaris news, SVP Davor Vukadin sold 15,403 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $56.64, for a total value of $872,425.92. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 13,334 shares in the company, valued at approximately $755,237.76. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, COO Gilles Luca sold 30,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.86, for a total transaction of $1,705,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 108,342 shares of the companys stock, valued at $6,160,326.12. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.12% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Institutional Trading of Valaris Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in VAL. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in Valaris by 180.8% in the first quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 365 shares of the companys stock worth $27,000 after acquiring an additional 235 shares in the last quarter. Assetmark Inc. grew its position in Valaris by 88.3% in the 4th quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 1,747 shares of the companys stock worth $120,000 after purchasing an additional 819 shares during the last quarter. Headlands Technologies LLC acquired a new stake in Valaris in the 1st quarter worth $149,000. Choreo LLC bought a new position in shares of Valaris during the 2nd quarter worth about $204,000. Finally, Evergreen Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Valaris during the 2nd quarter worth about $204,000. 96.74% of the stock is owned by institutional investors. About Valaris (Get Free Report) Valaris Limited, together with its subsidiaries, provides offshore contract drilling services Gulf of Mexico, South America, North Sea, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. The company operates through four segments: Floaters, Jackups, ARO, and Other. It owns an offshore drilling rig fleet, which include drillships, dynamically positioned semisubmersible rigs, moored semisubmersible rig, and jackup rigs. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Valaris Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Valaris and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Cathie Wood is the head of Ark Investment Management, which operates a family of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) focused on innovative technology stocks. Last year, Wood said software companies could be the next big opportunity in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. She predicts they will eventually generate $8 in revenue for every $1 they spend on AI data center chips from suppliers like Nvidia. And Wood has put her money where her mouth is. Since making that call, she has piled into AI software companies like xAI, Anthropic, and OpenAI through the private Ark Venture Fund. Plus, Ark's ETFs hold several AI software stocks, including Tesla, Palantir, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft. If Wood is ultimately right about AI software companies, here's why Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL) could be among the biggest winners. Image source: Alphabet. Alphabet is transforming Google Search using AI Alphabet is a tech conglomerate that is home to Google, YouTube, self-driving vehicle company Waymo, and a host of other businesses. Google Search accounted for more than half of Alphabet's $84.7 billion in revenue during the second quarter of 2024, driven by its 90% market share in the internet search industry. But that dominance faces its greatest-ever test because of AI. AI chatbots, like OpenAI's ChatGPT, provide direct responses to users' queries, giving them rapid access to information on almost any topic. Google, on the other hand, requires users to sift through web pages to find the information they need and generates revenue by charging businesses money to promote their websites in the search results. As a result, the traditional search model is very important for Alphabet. But rather than defend what could eventually become obsolete, Alphabet decided to make drastic changes. In many cases, users who run Google Search queries will now receive AI-generated, text-based responses above the web search results to give them faster access to information. Google also launched AI Overviews earlier this year, taking that concept a step further. Overviews incorporate text, images, and links to third-party websites to provide more complete answers to prompts within Search. Plus, with the click of a button, the user can simplify or break down responses to gain a better understanding of the content. Alphabet has already discovered that links within Overviews receive more clicks compared to the same links in the traditional search format, so this new feature could be a big driver of advertising revenue in the future. On top of that, Alphabet now offers its own family of AI models called Gemini (and a chatbot with the same name), which can answer complex questions and generate content like text and images. For an additional fee, Gemini is already available as an add-on in Google Workspace, which is home to productivity apps such as Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and more. As a result, it could become a powerful driver of subscription-based revenue over time. Story continues Google Cloud is Alphabet's fastest-growing business Search might be Alphabet's largest business, but Google Cloud is growing at twice the pace. It generated a record $10.3 billion in revenue during the 2024 second quarter, a 29% increase from the year-ago period -- compared to 13.7% growth in Search. Google Cloud provides a portfolio of services to help businesses succeed in the digital age, such as data storage, web hosting, and software development tools, among others. However, the platform has also become a leading provider of AI services. Developers can access the computing power they need to create AI software through Google Cloud's data centers. To accelerate their progress, they can even use the latest ready-made large language models (LLMs). That includes Gemini and over 130 others from leading start-ups and third-party developers. Google Cloud is also designing its own data center chips to give AI software developers more choices, which helps differentiate the platform from other cloud providers that rely primarily on suppliers like Nvidia. Google recently launched its sixth-generation tensor processing unit (TPU) called Trillium, which achieves almost five times the peak computing performance of the previous generation. Most AI developers pay for computing capacity by the minute, so faster chips can substantially reduce costs. Plus, circling back to Wood's forecast, if Google makes its own chips at scale, the payoff could be significantly larger when it uses them to create software -- or leases them to other developers -- because it won't have to send billions of dollars to suppliers like Nvidia. Alphabet stock is cheap, but there is one big caveat Alphabet generated $6.97 in earnings per share during the past four quarters, and based on its stock price of $161.85 as of this writing, it trades at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 23.2. That makes Alphabet the cheapest of all the U.S. technology companies valued at $1 trillion or more: NVDA PE Ratio Chart But there is one glaring problem, and it has nothing to do with the company's growth or its position as an AI powerhouse. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an antitrust lawsuit against Alphabet in 2020, alleging the company engaged in monopolistic practices by paying Apple as much as $20 billion a year to make Google the default search engine on its devices. Unfortunately for Alphabet, the judge in the case handed down a decision last month and sided with the DOJ. It's unclear what the consequences will be. Alphabet might have to pay a financial penalty, or the government could force a breakup of the entire company. The latter would create significant uncertainty for investors because Alphabet would likely have to sell certain parts of its business to satisfy the DOJ that it won't engage in anti-competitive behavior in the future. Many Wall Street analysts say a breakup would be an extreme and unlikely outcome. Technology analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities thinks Alphabet will reach a settlement with the DOJ within the next 18 months to bring the matter to a close. That could involve a financial penalty and some changes to how Alphabet structures deals with its partners. Absent a settlement, it could take years to reach a final resolution while Alphabet appeals the judge's decision, so the status-quo should prevail for now. Therefore, Alphabet stock looks like a great value at the current price, and if the company does emerge from this regulatory situation intact, it could look like an absolute bargain, considering Cathie Wood's AI software forecast. 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 $756,882!* 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 September 23, 2024 Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Anthony Di Pizio has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, Palantir Technologies, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Cathie Wood Says Software Is the Next Big AI Opportunity -- 1 Spectacular Stock You'll Regret Not Buying if She's Right was originally published by The Motley Fool Tourists take photos of citizens practicing Tai Chi at the Tiantan (Temple of Heaven) Park in Beijing, capital of China, July 2, 2024. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong] BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) Beijing has entered a moderate aging society, with the permanent elderly population in the city reaching 4.95 million by the end of 2023, a civil affairs official said Thursday. Guo Hanqiao, deputy chief of the municipal civil affairs bureau, told a press conference that the elderly accounted for 22.6 percent of the city's total permanent population. Guo, also a bureau spokesman, said the city has developed a community-based nursing service model and plans to establish 100 elderly care service centers at subdistrict and township levels. As of Sept. 20, 60 of them had been completed. In addition, the city has stepped up professional home care to serve the bedridden elderly at home. He Jingtao, deputy director of the city's commission of housing and urban-rural development, said other measures included elderly-oriented housing modifications, such as installing elevators at outdated residential communities. By the end of August, more than 4,200 elevators had been installed for such communities in the city, benefiting approximately 50,000 households, He said. (Source: Xinhua) Editor: Wang Shasha 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. Cathie Wood's Ark Invest Dumps Palantir Shares Amidst S&P 500 Inclusion And Extended AI Alliance Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. On Wednesday, the Cathie Wood-led Ark Invest made a notable move by selling a significant portion of its stake in Palantir Technologies Inc (NYSE:PLTR). The Palantir Trade: The ARK Innovation ETF (NYSE:ARKK) offloaded 62,809 shares of Palantir. The sale came just days after Palantirs inclusion in the S&P 500 index, replacing American Airlines Group, Inc. This inclusion could potentially boost Palantirs stock as it gains wider exposure to investors and as shares are accumulated to be included in index funds that mirror the S&P 500. Despite the positive news, Ark Invest decided to reduce its exposure to the company. Dont Miss: A billion-dollar investment strategy with minimums as low as $10 you can become part of the next big real estate boom today . This is a paid advertisement. Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of the Fundrise Flagship Fund before investing. This and other information can be found in the Fund's prospectus. Read them carefully before investing. Your biggest returns may not come from the stock market. Invest the way colleges, pension funds, and the 1% do. Get started investing in commercial real estate today. Moreover, the sale occurred on the same day Palantir announced a multi-million-dollar extension of its deal with APA Corporation. The deal, which builds on three years of collaboration, introduces new AI capabilities through Palantir's Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) software. Despite these developments, Ark Invests move suggests a strategic shift in its investment approach towards Palantir. The value of the trade, based on Palantirs closing price of $37.12 on the same day, is approximately $2.33 million. Trending: This billion-dollar fund has invested in the next big real estate boom, here's how you can join for $10. This is a paid advertisement. Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of the Fundrise Flagship Fund before investing. This and other information can be found in the Fund's prospectus. Read them carefully before investing. Other Key Trades: Ark Invests ARK Genomic Revolution ETF (ARKG) sold shares of Veeva Systems Inc (VEEV) and shares of Butterfly Network Inc (BFLY). The ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (ARKQ) sold shares of Materialise NV (MTLS) and also shares of Vuzix Corp (VUZI). The ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) sold shares of Roku Inc (ROKU). The ARK Space Exploration & Innovation ETF (ARKX) bought shares of Blade Air Mobility Inc (BLDE) and sold shares of Mynaric AG (MYNA). Story continues Wondering if your investments can get you to a $5,000,000 nest egg? Speak to a financial advisor today. SmartAssets free tool matches you up with up to three vetted financial advisors who serve your area, and you can interview your advisor matches at no cost to decide which one is right for you. Keep Reading: Fractional real estate is the next big opportunity for building passive income get started for just $100 . With returns as high as 300%, its no wonder this asset is the investment choice of many billionaires. Uncover the secret. This article Cathie Wood's Ark Invest Dumps Palantir Shares Amidst S&P 500 Inclusion And Extended AI Alliance originally appeared on Benzinga.com HMS Dragon granted Freedom of Wrexham with minor debate if it is an inanimate object A Royal Navy ship has been awarded the freedom of landlocked Wrexham despite a group of councillors questioning the logic of the move. HMS Dragon became the first warship to be affiliated with Wrexham since World War Two following a ceremony held in Portsmouth in April. The majority of politicians supported giving the top civic honour to the Type 45 air defence destroyer at a full council meeting at the citys Guildhall on Wednesday. Beverley Parry-Jones, the local authoritys armed forces champion, said the award would pay tribute to the Royal Navys contribution to the county borough. However, Plaid Cymru councillor Carrie Harper said her party would be abstaining due to their unease at the accolade being given to an object. Previous recipients of the award include Wrexham AFC owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, who were recognised in April 2023 for their work to boost the areas profile, as well as the Royal Welsh army regiment and the RAF. Speaking at the start of the meeting, Cllr Parry-Jones (Cons) said: The Royal Navy has recently affiliated its ship HMS Dragon, one of the advanced Type 45 air defence destroyers, to Wrexham in a ceremony at her home port of Portsmouth. All major Royal Navy ships have affiliations as part of a long-standing custom that binds their crews to the land via a network of relationships which spread across the United Kingdom. It is the first time since the Second World War that a Royal Navy warship will be affiliated to Wrexham. I am recommending that the council invites the Royal Navy to accept the honorary freedom of the county borough for HMS Dragon to formally recognise its contribution to the county borough. HMS Dragon is currently undergoing a refit in Portsmouth, including upgrades to its engines, sensors and weapons system. The vessel has more than 200 crew members and its main purpose is to defend other ships using its anti-air missile system. The ship was previously affiliated with Cardiff but the association was taken on by Wrexham earlier this year due to the creation of a new Type 26 frigate named HMS Cardiff. While most councillors supported the move to give the freedom of Wrexham to the HMS Dragon, Cllr Harper said the Plaid group was not happy with the reasoning. She said: Weve had quite a discussion about this as a group. We dont feel we can support the recommendation on the basis that were just not comfortable with the idea of awarding freedom of the borough to an inanimate object. Were happy to consider freedom of the borough for individuals and organisations. Its not a comment on the affiliation, but just the technicality around it. However, Cllr Hugh Jones (Cons) said he believed the honour would be well received by Royal Navy personnel and their families. He said: Its not an inanimate object. It is a ship containing a huge number of serving officers and men. The families of the officers and men who serve on these ships benefit greatly from having this type of association, so I fully support this motion. Cllr Jeremy Kent (Cons) also said he supported the award, despite joking that he did not expect to see the ship being sailed down a local river. He said: Whilst we might have the Royal Welsh parading through the streets or the RAF on their flight paths, I doubt were going to have HMS Dragon coming up the River Gwenfro. But its really important that we acknowledge this affiliation by offering them the freedom of the borough. HMS Dragon is the fourth ship to be associated with Wrexham after the HMS Veteran, HMS Begonia and HMS Anemone were adopted during World War Two. The decision to honour it with the freedom of Wrexham was approved, with 37 councillors voting in favour and three abstentions. A formal ceremony will be arranged to confer the award upon the Royal Navy at a later date. By Liam Randall BBC Local Democracy Reporter Senedd hears of four-week wait in Cheshire and a three-year wait in Wrexham for glaucoma operations Cross border working, and a comparison of wait times in England and Wales has been raised in the Senedd. Sam Rowlands MS asked the Health Minister, The First Minister has said that shes ready to use the private sector in the Welsh NHS. Are you ready? The Minister Jeremy Miles replied, The Welsh Government has made use of private sector capacity for the common good, if you like, for many years. We recognise that the priority that the Government attaches to reducing waiting lists means that we will have to look at whatever options are available. Rowlands pushed back at a section the Ministers answer, noting for glaucoma operations in Wrexham at the moment, patients there are waiting three years on a waiting list for a disease that clearly has a massive impact on their daily lives. If you live in Cheshire, its a four-week wait, just across the border, because the health trust there has a partnership arrangement with a private sector company to deliver those operations. A four-week wait in Cheshire, a three-year wait in Wrexham. So, there are huge opportunities. In terms of those targets that we mentioned, as well, it is disappointing that it seems as though many of the targets that are in place are not worth the paper that theyre written on. And the consequences of those targets not being met seem to pretty weak, to say the very least. And it is remarkable, as we heard again yesterday from the First Minister about this collaboration between the Welsh and UK Governments on cutting waiting lists and working together, it is remarkable that it was so light on the detail of what the collaboration should look like, because you would agree, Im sure, that cutting waiting lists is surely one of your top priorities here in Walesits what the people of Wales want to see. So, why is it that there does not seem to be a concrete plan for cutting those waiting lists? The Minister replied, I think there is a plan for cutting those waiting lists. The point that the First Minister was making yesterday reflects the point that I have just made to the Member in my reply now, which is how important it is for the health service to look to best practice both within other parts of the organisation and also further afield, just as all the public services that were responsible for here in Wales take inspiration from best practice wherever that is. The point that the First Minister was making was that where we have seen, in parts of NHS England in this particular case, successful strategies for supporting reductions in waiting listsand, absolutely, targets arent being met in England either, but there are elements of progressthe question is how we can work together to learn from that. Some of those will work, perhaps, for us in Wales, and some of them will not, but I think having that collaborative approach, where we can learn from things that have worked, is just sensible. Wrexham digital bank CEO stepping down after almost 10 years The chief executive of a digital bank in Wrexham is stepping down after almost 10 years in the role. Andy Mielczarek co-founded Chetwood Financial in 2016. He will be replaced by Paul Noble, subject to regulatory approval. The Wrexham-based digital bank received a restricted banking licence in late 2017 before being granted a full UK banking licence in December 2018. Since 2019, more than 3.5 billion has been deposited with Chetwood Financials savings proposition SmartSave. Earlier in 2024, the company also entered the buy-to-let mortgage market with the acquisition of the specialist lender CHL Mortgages for Intermediaries from Barossa Asset Purchaser Sarl in May and will launch ModaMortgages in the near future. Mielczarek has been Chetwood Financials CEO since its inception. Before this he was the deputy head of HSBCs UK Retail Bank, having previously been Commercial Director and Head of Retail Products for HSBC Europe. Prior to that he held roles including CFO at M&S Bank, Head of Commercial Finance at MBNA, and Brokerage Operations Director at Charles Schwab. Mielczarek will leave the company at the end of this month. He is taking some time out before deciding on his next move. Paul Noble will join Chetwood Financial from JN Bank UK, where he was CEO of the banking outfit whose products and services include savings accounts, loans and mortgages. Noble has over 25 years experience in financial services, spanning startups and large banks. Before JN Bank, Noble spent six years at Pollen Street Capital, an asset manager focussed on financial services. There he led the investment into Tandem Bank which was complemented with additional business acquisitions. Noble previously co-founded 118 118 Money to provide an alternative for customers unable to borrow from their bank. Mielczarek said: What a journey its been. Starting a new bank was never going to be easy, and I am proud to see the progress Chetwood has made. From opening our first office in Wrexham and getting a banking licence, to taking billions of pounds in deposits and expanding into different markets, the company has gone from strength to strength over the years. Its a testament to the brilliant people who work here, and the unwavering focus on creating financial products that make people better off. After ten years, nows the right time for me to hand over the reins to someone new. There are such exciting, bold plans for Chetwood over the coming months and years, and nows a logical time for a change in leadership to inject fresh life into the business and guide it through the next stage of its journey Ive no doubt Paul is the right person to do just that, and I wish him and the entire organisation all the very best. Ian Lonergan, Group Chair of Chetwood Financial, added: Firstly, we must recognise what an incredible job Andy has done in building Chetwood Financial from just an idea to being a fully-fledged digital bank that delivers market-leading products. He has an inspiring level of drive, determination and vision, and he leaves the business in an extremely strong position. Were really excited to now welcome Paul as CEO given his vast experience and superb leadership skills, we have every confidence that he will steer us confidently through the next chapters of our story. Noble commented: I am delighted to join Chetwood Financial. Andy and the team have built a brilliant digital bank here, and the opportunity to now help drive the company forward was one that I simply had to grab with both hands. There are really exciting plans in place, and I cant wait to play my part. The emphasis will remain on delivering exceptional products and service to all our customers, but we have ambitions to enter new markets and fast-track our growth in the future. Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) designation has been awarded to more than 100 new candidates in Gaborone, Botswana. This took place at a convocation held by American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), together as The Association of International Certified Professional Accountants. This recognition is expected to meet the growing demand for skilled accounting and finance professionals within the Botswana economy, reported Bizcommunity. The CGMA designation, established in 2012 by AICPA and CIMA, is claimed to be a verification to the high standard of quality and competence in the field of management accounting. It is designed to help professionals have necessary business, digital, people, and leadership skills to thrive in their careers in accounting, business, and finance. AICPA & CIMA Botswana country director Letus Chinyepi said: Our CGMA candidates and CIMA members are at the heart of everything we do, recognising and celebrating their achievements is always a significant moment for us. It is great to see how far they have come while studying for CIMAs CGMA Professional Qualification in order to earn the CGMA designation. Their dedication and hard work are truly commendable, and we are proud to support them on their journey to becoming accounting, finance, and business leaders who will benefit the Botswana economy. This development follows closely on the heels of AICPA & CIMA's announcement of the Registered Apprenticeship for Accounting and Finance Associate earlier in September 2024. This programme is aimed at strengthening the accountancy talent pipeline through an earn and learn model. "CGMA designation awarded to more than 100 candidates in Botswana " was originally created and published by The Accountant, 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 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) proceeded Tuesday, September 17 with screenings of Russians at War in the face of an ongoing government-backed campaign to smear the film as Russian propaganda and prevent it from being shown. The far-right Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC), backed by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and threats of violence by outright fascists, has sought to censor the film, because it portrays ordinary Russian soldiers in a humane mannerand not, as per western propaganda, rapists, child-killers and monsters. Due to have its first public screening in North America September 13, the film was suspended from the program by TIFF on September 12 after numerous anonymous threats of violence against festival organizers and visitors were made by fascists. The deluge of threats followed the announcement of a campaign against the film September 6 by the far-right UCC and a September 10 statement by Freeland declaring, Its not right for Canadian public money to be supporting the production and screening of a film like this. Both the film and TIFF received government funding. Several of those involved in making the film fielded questions following TIFF's screening of it on the afternoon of Tuesday, Sept. 15, two days after the festival ended. "Russians at War" director Anastasia Trofimova is on the far right. Liberal Party MPs have made no bones about their collaboration with outright fascists in their effort to suppress the film, and have even publicly exulted about the impact of the fascists threats of violence on the world-renowned film festival and its attendees. Following TIFFs initial announcement suspending the screenings, Yvan Baker, the Liberal MP for the Toronto riding of Etobicoke Centre, wrote on X, We did it! TVO will no longer be supporting or airing the film Russians at War. Thank you to everyone who worked and advocated to make this happen. No government representative so much as criticized or distanced themselves from the threats of violence. This open embrace of fascists should come as no surprise. The Trudeau Liberal government has worked tirelessly to whitewash the far-right character of the Kiev regime and Ukrainian fascism more broadly as part of its key role in supporting the US-NATO war on Russia. Following the fascist-spearheaded coup in 2014 that brought to power a pro-Western puppet regime in Kiev, the Canadian military was instrumental in integrating far-right militias, like the Azov Battalion, into the Ukrainian military. Since the US-instigated Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Canada has funneled billions of dollars in weaponry and over $10 billion of total aid to the Zelensky regime, which rules Ukraine with an iron fist and has detained opponents of the war like socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk. Canadas parliament applauds Yaroslav Hunka, a former member of the Waffen-SS. Canadas then Chief of Defence Staff General Wayne Eyre is on the far left. The Canadian state has enjoyed for more than three-quarters of a century close ties with Ukrainian Nazi collaborators and their political descendants. Freelands grandfather was the editor of a pro-Nazi Ukrainian newspaper, and the UCC has served for decades as the advocate for tens thousands of Ukrainian Nazis and Nazi collaborators who were given refuge in Canada after World War II. Members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, a fascist movement led by Stepan Bandera that participated in the Holocaust and other atrocities, were welcomed to Canada and received state backing to whitewash their crimes and promote their far-right nationalist ideology. The close relationship between these reactionary forces and the Canadian political establishment was summed up in September 2023, when the House of Commons rose as one to give a standing ovation to Yaroslav Hunka, a veteran of the 14th all-Ukrainian Grenadier Division of the Waffen-SS. Its members swore personal fealty to Adolf Hitler, and assisted in the Holocaust and the massacring of Slovak partisans. UCC organized protest against the screening of "Russians at War" The UCC and its far-right supporters organized protests outside and during the two screenings that went ahead September 17. A World Socialist Web Site correspondent in attendance at the 2 p.m. screening noted two attempts to disrupt the screening inside the theatre. The film provides a chronological review of Russian soldiers on the front lines, starting in late 2022. It begins with Ilya, an injured soldier on leave to see his family. Dressed in a Santa Claus costume, he is travelling home in Donetsk to celebrate the New Year. He explains that many children wont have a Christmas this year, and he wants to bring them any joy he can. The filmmaker asks several soldiers in the first part of the film what their reasons for fighting are. Some declare themselves to be Russian patriots, but almost as many explain they are there because they need the money or out of sheer desperation as there is nothing else for them to do. In the second portion of the film, Trofimova asks many of the same soldiers at the end of 2023 what their views are now in order to capture the change. None of those who previously expressed sympathy for the patriotic ideals put out by the Great Russian chauvinist regime of Putin, to justify the war, still advocate these positions. Anchar, one of the main characters, who was initially a patriotic supporter of the war, is seen pregnant towards the end on New Years Day 2024, stating that she will never talk to her child about war, because 90 percent of it is lies. Although the filmmaker did not intend to provide an historical analysis of the wars causes, a few moments capture the devastating consequences of the Stalinist bureaucracys dissolution of the Soviet Union and subsequent US-led expansion of NATO up to Russias borders that triggered the conflict. One soldier observes, Ive always thought of Ukrainians as friendly my roots are from Ukraine, west Ukraine actually. In another scene, an enraged Russian soldier fires at a swastika displayed on the wall of a captured building. TIFFs courageous decision to screen the film in the face of a government-sponsored campaign of censorship and threats of violence provided Trofimova with the opportunity to defend her movie against the critics. She told the audience after the 2 p.m. screening on September 17 that she wanted to make a movie about the small man who is a cog in every war machine. She expanded on her view of the war in extended comments to the CBC podcast Front Burner, saying of the Russians fighting on the front lines: I think in a sense they are victims of this big geopolitical situation, which is the war. And so are the Ukrainians. And it is very unfortunate that what is happening now is happening. And you have people who just want to go home and just want for this war to be over. And thats what I hope for as well. And maybe, just maybe, this film could be the starting point for some sort of dialogue. Addressing those who denounced her for not toeing the pro-war line advanced by the Canadian government and UCC, Trofimova added: People believed that they were helping the Russian-speaking Eastern Ukrainian population of Donbas. People believed that they were fighting against the Western expansion of NATO For Russia, NATO is a pretty scary thing. It is the worlds biggest military alliance. It is expanding closer and closer to Russian borders. So for a lot of people, even in my grandmothers generation and my mothers generation, NATO was always this constant, big looming maybe not an active threat, but at least somewhere there. Israeli government officials delivered a uniform, savage rebuttal Thursday to the ceasefire proposal for the war with Lebanon proposed by 12 of Tel Avivs close allies, including the United States, UK and the European Union. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office announced bluntly: The news about a ceasefirenot true. This is an American-French proposal, to which the prime minister did not even respond. The news about the supposed directive to moderate the fighting in the north is also the opposite of the truth. The prime minister instructed the IDF to continue the fighting with full force, and according to the plans presented to him. Also, the fighting in Gaza will continue until all the goals of the war are achieved. Touching down in the US, where he will speak at the United Nations, Netanyahu said, We are continuing to strike Hezbollah with full force. And we will not stop until we reach all our goals, which he claimed was the return of evacuated Israeli residents to the north of the country. A man carries pictures of his relatives standing at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Saksakieh, south Lebanon, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. [AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari] No effort was made to suggest that Israel would consider future proposals. The line from the prime minister on down was that the war would continue as long as they wished. Far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened, as he has over Gaza, to lead his Jewish Power party out of coalition with Netanyahu and collapse the government if a ceasefire were agreed. He said, according to Haaretz, Every day that this ceasefire is in effect and Israel does not fight in the northOtzma Yehudit [Jewish Power] is not committed to the coalition. His close political ally, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich commented, The campaign in the north should end in one scenariocrushing Hezbollah Surrender of Hezbollah or war, thats the only way. The sentiment of these two most openly fascist members of the Israeli cabinet is shared by them all. Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared, There will be no ceasefire in the north. We will continue to fight against the terrorist organization Hezbollah with all our might until victory and the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant confirmed that the Israeli military would continue throwing Hezbollah off balance and deepening their loss, including by eliminating Hezbollah terrorists, dismantling Hezbollah's offensive infrastructure and destroying rockets and missiles. Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi was even more bloodthirsty: We need to continue attacking Hezbollah, we have been waiting for this opportunity for years. After Halevi said Wednesday that the Israel Defense Forces were preparing for a ground invasion of Lebanon, the IDF announced Thursday that it had carried out exercises simulating combat in thicketed, mountainous terrain, adding, During the exercise, the troops enhanced their operational and logistical readiness for various combat scenarios in enemy territory on the northern front. The belligerence of the Israeli government comes in the face of an extremely muted response from its target in Lebanon, Hezbollah. The organisation released a video Wednesday stating, We can escalate, but we are choosing to de-escalate at the moment. Israeli negotiators strung along the idea of de-escalation in pantomime ceasefire talks over the last few days. Jacob Magid, US bureau chief for the Times of Israel, wrote after speaking with a senior Western diplomat, Netanyahus conduct is extension of how he handled the Gaza hostage talks where he has privately agreed to show flexibility only to make public statement immediately afterward thwarting progress. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters that the statement endorsing the ceasefire US President Joe Biden had released with French President Emmanuel Macron was indeed coordinated with the Israeli side. Nevertheless, over Wednesday night and into Thursday, IDF airstrikes continued on scores of targets across Lebanon, and over the border with Syria. The worst was on a three-storey building in the Lebanese town of Younine, where 23 Syrians were killedmostly women and children. Sixty people were killed in total in the latest 24-hour period reported by the Lebanese authorities, and 81 injured, taking the total killed since Monday to more than 600, roughly a quarter of them women and children. These deaths bring the number slain in Lebanon since the genocide in Gaza and cross-border hostilities with Israel began to more than 1,500 people, plus over 5,400 injured. A new round of strikes began Thursday night. At least 200,000 people are now displaced in Lebanon, with more than 70,000 living in over 500 shelters around the country. Its interior minister, Bassam Mawlawi estimated that the real number of displaced is approaching half a million, in a country which hosts 1.5 million displaced Syrians and the largest number of refugees per capita and square kilometre anywhere in the world. Over 15,000 Syrian citizens have now fled back to Syria, alongside more than 16,000 Lebanese. Luna Hammad, medical coordinator in Lebanon for Doctors Without Borders, explained that the injuries and displacements were placing immense pressure on an already fragile health system, adding that Health facilities are operating with extremely limited capacity due to the shortages of fuel, supplies and staff People here are already facing immense hardship due to the economic crisis and this has deepened their suffering. The response from Israels imperialist backers has been to issue new ineffectual calls for a ceasefire. Lloyd Austin, the US secretary of defence, told reporters, A full-scale war between LH [Lebanese Hezbollah] and Israel could be devastating for both parties and it could lead to a larger conflict throughout the region. Thats not in the best interests of anyone. Asked if the US would withhold military support to Israel if the country refused a ceasefire and proceeded to a ground invasion, however, he answered that Washington had been committed from the very beginning to providing Israel with things that are necessary for them to be able to protect their sovereign territoryand that hasnt changed and wont change. Underscoring the point, Israel announced that it had secured an $8.7 billion military aid package from the US, including, according to Reuters, $3.5 billion for essential wartime procurement, which has already been received and earmarked for critical military purchases, and $5.2 billion designated for air defense systems. Reuters added that Israels Defense Ministry said the deal underscores the strong and enduring strategic partnership between Israel and the United States and the ironclad commitment to Israel's security, particularly in addressing regional security threats from Iran and Iranian-backed militias. Confirming this ultimate target of US-backed Israeli aggression, the Jerusalem Post, sure of a warm audience, editorialised Thursday that the West and the US should not fall for new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who spoke at the UN that day, and grant any kind of relief to the country that is the source of so much of what ails the region. On Tuesday, October 1, the online meeting of the Volkswagen Action Committee will take place at 7 p.m. to discuss the announced attacks on plants and wages. To take part, send a message via Whatsapp to +491633378340 or register using the form below. Demonstration by VW workers in Hanover, 25.09.2024 Around 3,000 workers from German Volkswagen sites, including Emden, Zwickau, Braunschweig, Kassel-Baunatal, Wolfsburg, Salzgitter and Hanover, demonstrated in Hanover on Wednesday morning against the cutbacks recently announced by VW CEO Oliver Blume. The IG Metall trade union and the works council had called for the protest in front of Herrenhausen Palace, where negotiations with the management on a new contract and the announced mass layoffs began Wednesday morning. At the beginning of September, Blume had announced he would cut a large number of jobs and close at least two of the ten VW plants in Germany. To this end, the company has terminated the employment security agreement, which has been in force for 30 years and is supposed to prevent compulsory redundancies and site closures, effective the end of the year. Since that announcement, Blume has repeatedly stated that he will stick to his plan and implement the rigorous attacks on behalf of the shareholders. Demonstration by VW workers in Hanover, 25 September 2024 The works council, IG Metall and VW management immediately set about coordinating behind the scenes how they should proceed in order to implement these savings at the expense of the workforce. They are all pulling in the same direction. The report by the usually well-informed Manager Magazine that the VW board was discussing cutting 30,000 of the 130,000 jobs in Germany was first denied by Cavallo and the works council and then by the companys top management. At no time did Cavallo and her colleagues say that they did not know what the board was discussing. The works council in Wolfsburg only said: This figure has no basis in reality and is just nonsense. The works council did not reveal what figures are being discussed and on what basis. This already shows that the wage negotiations between VW management, the works council and IG Metall, which have been brought forward by a month because of the cuts announced by Blume, are pursuing a different goal from that of the protesting workers and apprentices, who on Wednesday made up a large proportion of the 3,000 participants who had travelled to Hanover. While Cavallo and her entourage, and IG Metall are negotiating how best to implement the savings, many of the employees are not willing to make any further concessions. Samed Benni has been working at the Braunschweig plant since 2010. If the companys top management gets its way with its demands, it will be very, very difficult for me, he said. Benni is part of the team for the battery cell and, along with many of his colleagues, has just spent nine months in China. He explained, None of us did it because we said, China is the country we really wanted to see. We did it for Volkswagen to get ahead because we realised that a transformation was taking place here and we could be part of it. Now we come back and hear, Oh by the way, your jobs are in jeopardy. Benni The mood among the workers is not the best right now, reports Benni. He took part in the demonstration because he wanted to fight for keeping our jobs and to continue to work for fair wages. And, of course, to be able to counteract the job cuts worldwide in solidarity. Many VW workers were visibly angry about the audacity with which management unilaterally demanded cuts from them, instead of saving where there really is something to save. VW made a profit of over 22 billion euros last year, said Nazim, who works at the commercial vehicles plant in Hanover. Now they were acting as if VW were destitute. But the money that is supposed to be saved will not benefit us, only the shareholders. The billionaires wanted more money, said Nazim, and he was not alone in this opinion. We always have to foot the bill, the bill for billions or millions that they [shareholders and managers] earn, said Tino, who works at the VW plant in Zwickau. Ive been with the company for 33 years, but weve never had a situation like this before. Tino This statement was underlined by a letter from the company via the internal communication platform 360 . In it, the 130,000 employees are once again informed why they are facing the closure of their plants and the loss of their jobs: Ten years agoin 2013the VW brand generated a margin of 2.9 percent, Stellantis 2.0 percent and Renault 1.3 percent. While VW was currently at a margin of 4.1 percent, Renault is now operating at a level of 6.9 percent, and Stellantis at 11.8 percent. This is the main reason why the board is announcing the jobs massacre. The return or margin goes exclusively to the shareholders in the form of dividends. All the talk about investing in the transformation to EVs and the production of low-priced affordable vehicles for a population hit by real wage cuts, is intended to distract from this. The shareholdersmainly the Porsche/Piech families (fortune: 42 billion), then the sheikdom of Qatar and the state of Lower Saxony led by Minister President Stephan Weil (Social Democrat, SPD), as well as, to a lesser extent, the large funds and stock corporationsare demanding more and more money. IG Metall and its VW works council are not proposing cutting the dividend, amounting to 4.5 billion this year. They have already suggested that costs could be reduced by introducing a four-day work week with corresponding wage cuts and various forms of socially acceptable job cuts. Similar cuts, for example in holiday and Christmas bonuses, were already part of the old employment security agreement, which has now been terminated by VW. As a result, the old collective bargaining conditions would apply at the beginning of 2025 and personnel costs would then even increase. The first meeting on Wednesday morning at the luxurious Herrenhausen Palace conference centre, the former residence of the Electors and Kings of Hanover and rebuilt by the VW Foundation, was aimed at preventing this. Hardly anything was said about it in public afterwards. Thorsten Groger, IG Metalls chief negotiator, said afterwards that possible plant closures and layoffs were not substantiated, but remained in general terms. The VW board rejected the demand of IG Metall for a 7 percent wage increase. Instead of cost pressure, we need cost relief, said VW negotiator Arne Meiswinkel. A new negotiation date has not yet been agreed. Groger hopes that this will take place before the end of November. By then it may be too late for one or another of the plants. Investment decisions, which are mostly made for a period of five years, will already have been taken. VWs financial director, Arno Antlitz, has already announced that investments will be cut by 10 billion, to 160 billion, in order to increase profit margins. All this shows that it is urgently necessary for the VW workforce to take action itself. IG Metall and its works council under Cavallo stand on the side of the company. They both share the view that savings must be made at the expense of the workforce. Members of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party) distributed the founding appeal of the Volkswagen Action Committee to the VW workers. It begins with the urgent statement: Preparations must be made immediately to avert the threat of cutbacks at VW! Waiting is not an option. The call is addressed to all workers, whether union members or not, and urges them to join the rank-and-file action committee to organise independently of the IG Metall bureaucracy. The statement declares: All jobs at all locations must be defended in principle! No concessions on wages, pensions or other gains! The next online meeting of the action committee, at which these questions will be discussed, will take place on Tuesday, October 1 at 7 p.m. We call on all VW employees and their supporters to attend. Register via Whatsapp at +491633378340 and fill out the form below! Autoworkers: Join the fight against mass layoffs! Sign up to be contacted about getting involved in the Autoworkers Rank-and-file Committee Network by filling out the form below. The World Socialist Web Site recently held a conversation with a veteran worker from the Stellantis Warren Truck plant in suburban Detroit. On October 8, the company plans to lay off more than 2,500 workers at the factory, as part of its worldwide job cutting campaign. In Italy, Stellantis workers are set to strike on October 18 to oppose plans by the global automaker to cut as many as 12,000 jobs in the country. Stellantis workers at Warren Truck arrive for second shift on June 27, 2024 The labor agreement signed by the United Auto Workers bureaucracy in late 2023 provided Stellantis, General Motors and Ford with a green light to slash thousands of jobs and force workers to pay the costs of the riskier than expected transition to electric vehicles. On Tuesday, UAW Local 1700 sent out a notice to members at the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant informing them that 177 supplemental or part-time workers were being terminated by September 28. In addition, 14 full-time workers will be laid off indefinitely at the plant, which is located a few miles from Warren Truck. GM also announced plans to lay off 250 temporary workers at its Fort Wayne, Indiana plant and to terminate 250 temps at its Fairfax Assembly plant in Kansas City, Kansas. At Fairfax, GM is planning to temporarily lay off roughly 1,450 full-time workers between November and January as the company retools the plant for production of the Chevy Bolt EV and Cadillac XT4 on one assembly line. The company has stated it does not plan to recall workers from the temporary layoffs for one year, with production resuming between late 2025 and early 2026. This reporter held the following discussion with the Warren Truck worker who is using the pseudonym John to protect him from possible retaliation by the company and the UAW bureaucracy. WSWS: What is the present situation at the Warren Truck plant? John: We are coming to work in the morning, until October 8. But we dont know exactly what is going to happen. Nobody knows. Every week they add more names to the list of people being laid off. Only one shift is working now, theres no second shift. Last week, it was day shift working in the morning and second shift was laid off. They go weekly. The next week the second shift works but they start in the morning too. The only ones working afternoons are shipping and repair. WSWS: Does anybody know how many workers are transferring, and who is keeping their jobs? John: No. In the beginning they said everyone hired after June 24, 2018, would be laid off. This week they put out a new seniority list and more people are going to be out. The people, the union says, have the opportunity to go to SHAP [Sterling Heights Assembly Plant] or the Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio. But nothing is sure. Toledo is working on and off too. Nobody knows. At Warren Truck, you hear there is no future for this Wagoneer model. Its an expensive car. With the economy as it is, nobody is going to buy a car for $80,000 and up. How long Warren Truck will stay open, nobody knows. In the union contract, they promised job security and said they were going to reopen the Belvidere plant. Now, nobody is saying anything. Everything is coming to a head next month. WSWS: Nobody believes Shawn Fain when he talks about writing grievances, calling a strike and all the rest? John: No. Nobody trusts the union. Even the local. Before the layoff announcements, we had a steward who worked in chassis and told the people the truth about what was coming. They had a meeting and Local 140 President Eric Graham yelled at the steward, Why did you tell the people that? He shouted at him for telling the members about the job cuts that were coming. Even the local works against workers. Last week, at 1:00 p.m. management came around and told the workers they had to work nine hours. There was a big fight between the workers and management. The supervisors threatened the workers: If you walk off the line at 2:30 youre fired. Were supposed to be informed at least by lunchtime if they want us to stay an extra hour. They came at the last minute and people rejected that. Management threatened to fire us and the union did nothing. They write up and suspend people for small things. Fifteen people just got written up in shipping. They trick the workers. A supervisor looks at a car and says its okay to ship. When the audit comes back and they find a defect, they blame it on the workers. But we dont have the gauges and measurements management has. WSWS: Boeing workers on the picket lines told us they warned management about unsafe procedures, but they were ignored because all the company wanted was to get airplanes out the door. Thats how the door plug on the Boeing jet blew out. Management is under enormous pressure from the top shareholders to cut corners, and that led to hundreds dying. John: The companies dont care about quality, only about quantity. Ok, just ship it. They want to make money. They dont care. I support the Boeing workers 100 percent. They are on the right path. They have to fight because in the end if we dont stand together, were all going lose our jobs. A section of the picket line of Boeing machinists in Renton, WA. WSWS: The International Association of Machinists union bureaucracy have repeatedly extended their contracts, and workers havent had a real wage increase in over a decade. In 2014, the company, with the help of the IAM bureaucracy, blackmailed workers into giving up their pensions by threatening to ship their jobs to non-union plants in South Carolina. Now, the workers want their pensions back, and they want at least a 40 percent increase in wages because of the high cost of living. Boeing has refused. They have pointed to last years UAW contract, where workers only got a 25 percent raise over almost five years, to claim that Boeing workers are demanding too much. John: Its a game, brother. Its a game they use against the workers. Right now, the workers consider ourselves like middle class, but they want to destroy that. The corporations want more money and dont care about us. WSWS: Workers are learning they are the working class, not middle class. Were wage slaves who can be fired and stripped of our livelihoods if we dont fight. John: Yes. Where we work, we make this vehicle. Do you think we can afford one? No way. Under the contract, the company has a new lease program for workers. Okay, you get a car. But right now, people are getting laid off, they dont have the seniority and they are getting kicked out of the plant. What happened to those people who got a lease from Stellantis and lost their jobs? They got a letter in the mail telling them to send the truck back. They put pressure on people losing their jobs. They dont care. The only thing they care for is their business. WSWS: What is this doing to workers? They know that they may not be able to provide for their families. What is it doing to people? John: Yeah, if your name is on the list and you have bills, the first thing you think about is how your life is going to change. Do I sell my house? What things do I have to cancel to save on expenses? I have to find another job to put food on the table for my kids. Autoworkers arrive at the UAW Local 140 hall for a meeting on mass layoffs at Warren Truck, August 15, 2024. A lot of workers, especially the ladies, they have kids, and they are 22-23. I see them crying. One girl lived in Ohio and had a long drive to Warren Truck. So, she moved to Sterling Heights with her two kids. Right now, her dreams are gone. She asked me: What am I going to do? I left my family and moved here to start a new life. Now, I have to go back to Ohio and hopefully my family will open the door for me. You hear a lot of these sad stories. People are breaking apart. Hopefully, the union will do something. It would be a miracle if one day they would stand and work for the workers, not just sell us words and promises. But were getting nothing. WSWS: Well, thats the bitter truth. The unions which once defended workers have become instruments of the corporations and the government. The UAW has lost a million members since 1979, but its assets have risen to over $1 billion. John: Did you hear about the worker in Toledo who was killed? WSWS: Yes. His name was Antonio Gaston and he transferred to Toledo from Belvidere after the UAW did nothing to stop the plant closure. John: Yes, its horrible what Stellantis is doing. WSWS: It is not only Stellantis. Tywaun Long, a 46-year-old Ford worker at the Dearborn Truck Plant, died of a heart attack after he tried to get medical help. Its not just Stellantis, its capitalism. The global corporations are saying the industry is plagued with overcapacity because the transition to EVs has not been as quick and easy as they thought. Volkswagen is closing plants and planning permanent layoffs in Germany for the first time. The Stellantis workers in Italy are planning a strike on October 18 because of the threat to cut 12,000 jobs. So, its all the companies, and its worldwide. John: Yes, we live in a crazy world, and day after day there are more wars. What Israel is doing in Lebanon is just horrible. I have a co-worker from the Middle East who just lost three cousins in the bombing. He said they were working in a small tile-making factory that the Israelis blew up. If you watch the news, Israel dropped 3,000 bombs and missiles on Lebanon, including 2,000-pound bombs, and this is while they are still killing and starving people in Gaza. WSWS: Yes, and all these bombs and missiles are supplied by the US and the Biden-Harris administration. John: Yes, that is why we are disgusted that our tax money is paying for that. WSWS: These are imperialist wars. They want a war against Iran, against Russia, and China. Biden was in the UN talking about escalating the war against Russia even if it risks starting a nuclear war. Harris says the US will give Israel all the arms they need to fight Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, and that she is committed to making sure that the US has the strongest and most lethal military force in the world. John: If they were fighting these organizations, you might say it is a war. But this is not a fight between two armies. They killed 500 people in Lebanon on the first day. They are killing women and children. In Gaza, theyve already killed 51,000 people and injured 120,000. Tens of thousands more have not been recovered from the rubble. Its the civilian people who pay the price. WSWS: They want to fund these wars by cutting public education, Social Security, Medicare and cutting the wages and benefits of workers. Inside the aerospace and defense industry factories, they have ruthless exploitation. Workers are beginning to resist being forced to pay for these endless wars. The Boeing strike has halted the production and shipment of tankers to refuel Israeli fighter jets, and the Biden administration fears that the continuation of the strike will encourage 45,000 workers on the East Coast and Gulf ports to strike on October 1. That would disrupt military shipments to Israel and Ukraine and further disrupt corporate profits. John: That is good news. WSWS: In all these cases, the workers want to fight but are blocked by the trade union bureaucracies. UAW President Shawn Fain keeps referring to what the union did during World War II as the model for today. They banned strikes and worked with the companies and the government to transform the US economy for war, the so-called Arsenal of Democracy. To unite Boeing workers, port workers, autoworkers, it has to be done not from the top but from below, through building rank-and-file committees, workers organizing themselves. John: Right. I agree with every word you said. To the Boeing workers, I say dont give up. What you are doing right now is going to be for our future, our kids futures, for the generations to come. All workers have to be united. If we dont, it will be easy to break us. We have to stand together. We cant fight them if we are divided, and we wont be successful. But if we are united together, our voice is going to be louder, and the community in general will support us. And this is global, like you said. If the Italian Stellantis workers are going to strike, we should join them to save our jobs too. If something happens in Europe or South America, it is going to affect us here too. If people are losing their jobs anywhere, it affects us all. We are connected together and have to fight together. I know that its hard for workers, but we have to take the decision to determine our future. If we dont fight hard now and show them that we are together, they are going to take our jobs. If you have a job, you can pay your bills and take care of your family. If we dont strike to fight for all our jobs, its going to be, Hey, you know what, we dont need you anymore. That is not acceptable. We sacrifice. We leave our houses for 10 hours or more every day. We leave our families and work hard. Who makes the profits for the companies? The workers. We have to take the decision that we are going to protect our jobs. Otherwise, believe me, in the end they are going to close one plant after another and throw everybody in the streets. They dont care. Autoworkers: Join the fight against mass layoffs! Sign up to be contacted about getting involved in the Autoworkers Rank-and-file Committee Network by filling out the form below. HOUSTON (Reuters) -U.S. antitrust regulators will bar Hess CEO John Hess from taking a board seat as a condition of its go-ahead of oil producer Chevron's $53 billion purchase of Hess, people close to the matter said. The Federal Trade Commission's consent for the deal will not allow Hess to become a board member, the people said, without explaining why the ban was imposed. Chevron's proposed all-stock acquisition of Hess, first announced in October, was one of a string of multi-billion-dollar U.S. oil and gas industry deals that began with Exxon Mobil's purchase of Pioneer. In a crackdown on the megamergers, the FTC similarly barred Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield from taking a seat on Exxon board as a condition of its approval earlier this year of their $60 billion merger. It was not immediately clear if Hess would be allowed to take another position at Chevron. He recently joined the board of financial firm Goldman Sachs. Neither Hess nor Chevron immediately replied to requests for comment. The FTC declined to comment. Hess and Chevron shares each fell 1% in midday trading. The expected go-ahead would leave Exxon's challenge to the Chevron-Hess deal as its final hurdle. Exxon and China's CNOOC Ltd have filed an arbitration case that could block the deal, claiming the merger is a ploy to gain Hess's lucrative Guyana assets. Hess owns 30% of Guyana's giant Stabroek offshore block, which has been the site of more than 30 oil and gas discoveries since 2015. Exxon, which is the operator of the block owns 45% and CNOOC owns 25%. Bloomberg News earlier reported the FTC would block Hess from taking a board seat on the combined company. In the Exxon merger, the FTC alleged that Sheffield had colluded with other U.S. oil firms and with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries "to keep production artificially low" and increase oil companies' profits. The FTC had pointed to meetings that shale and OPEC officials held over several years, including a series of private dinners at a Houston energy conference. (Reporting by Sourasis Bose and Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Sabrina Valle in Houston and Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Anil, Krishna Chandra Eluri and Marguerita Choy) Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayakes address to the nation on Wednesday evening must serve as a warning to the working class. His Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)/National Peoples Power (NPP) government will be a right-wing capitalist administration beholden to global capital and the Sri Lankan bourgeoisie. Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake addresses the nation, September 25, 2024 [Photo: Screenshot/Sri Lankan Presidenti's Media Division ] Dissanayake made clear that the first order of business will be to impose savage International Monetary Fund (IMF) austerity. From start to finish, Dissanayakes speech was a nationalist diatribe that demanded all must work under the government in a disciplined society to build the nation. While claiming that the JVPs aim is to build a country where everyone can proudly say, We are Sri Lankan citizens, the speech was laced with Sinhala chauvinist appeals and pledges to uphold the unitary Sinhala-dominated capitalist state. Delivered against the background of giant national flags and an atmosphere of nationalistic Sinhala-Buddhist fervor, the speech was only broadcast in Sinhala, ignoring the more than 20 percent Tamil-speaking people across the country. Reassuring big business and international finance, Dissanayake emphasised his total commitment to debt repayments to foreign creditors and the IMFs austerity program. Achieving stability and confidence in the current economy is crucial. We plan to begin negotiations with the International Monetary Fund immediately and proceed with activities related to the extended credit facility, he declared. The next stage of the IMF program Dissanayake is committed to involves the mass privatisation of state-owned enterprises, the destruction of hundreds of thousands of jobs, and the imposition of regressive tariffs and tax increases. Immediately following his election, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, the islands most powerful business lobby group, congratulated Dissanayake with a ten-point slate of demands, including no disruption to IMF austerity. While the Colombo stock market and sovereign bond prices initially dipped on Monday, it rose again after Dissanayakes brief pro-business comments at the official poll declaration and his swearing-in ceremony on September 22 and 23 respectively. On Tuesday IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva wrote to Dissanayake stating: I look forward to deepening the mutually beneficial relationship between the IMF and Sri Lanka In his speech Dissanayake said it was necessary to dissolve parliament and hold national elections to implement his governments program. We require a parliament that accurately reflects the will of the people. The existing parliament does not represent that will, he claimed. But the will of the people is not the IMFs brutal social austerity measures. On the contrary, the millions of working people who voted for the JVP/NPP did so as part of the ongoing mass opposition to all the traditional parties of the political establishment that have imposed unprecedented social attacks. Months of mass protests and two general strikes in AprilJuly 2022 drove Gotabaya Rajapakse and his government from power. This movement has now voted out his replacement, Ranil Wickremesinghe and his administration. The real reason Dissanayake has called a snap election is to try and transform the initial groundswell of support for the JVP/NPP, which only had three MPs in the outgoing 225-member parliament, into a parliamentary majority before realisation sets in that the JVP is another political instrument of big business and international finance capital. Dissanayake and the JVP are desperately attempting to consolidate their power and move onto the next stage of IMF-dictated measures, which will involve suppressing the inevitable eruption of popular opposition by the working class. In a thinly veiled threat against political opponents, he declared, At this moment, I want to highlight the importance of engaging in politics with a collective focus on building our country. We are committed to providing that leadership Our doors are open to all who are genuinely and positively committed to the progress of our nation. In other words, Dissanayakes administration will not tolerate any dissent. These threats are directed against the tens of thousands of workers who protested and took strike action against the Wickremesinghe governments attacks. The JVP-controlled trade unions played a critical role in suppressing these struggles, telling workers that they should not strike but vote for Dissanayake and support the election of a JVP/NPP government which would ensure workers demands were granted. Dissanayakes reference to creating a law-abiding nation and fostering a disciplined society must be considered in this light. But what sort of laws is he referring to? Successive Sri Lankan governments have imposed a barrage of reactionary laws, including a new version of the prevention of terrorism act to detain opponents without charge and the Essential Public Services Act to punish striking workers with harsh prison sentences. Confronted with mass action against IMF austerity by the working class, Dissanayakes administration will not hesitate to use these repressive laws. But for all his declamations Dissanayakes administration has no popular support for the IMF measures it has promised to implement and faces deep skepticism, if not outright hostility amongst the Tamil masses. Almost at the very outset of his speech, Dissanayake, made a chilling declaration: We honour and remember the courageous men and women of previous generations who made sacrifices, some with their lives, for this victory. I see this victory and the prosperous nation we aim to build as a tribute to their legacy. This was a homage, not to the tens of thousands of rural youth killed by government security forces in two JVP-led armed uprisingsin 1971 and later in 198889. Rather it was a tribute to Rohana Wijeweera and other senior JVP leaders who were summarily executed by the Sri Lankan state in 1989, after they had colluded with the prime minister and later President Ranasinghe Premadasa in a rebellion against any weakening of the unity Sinhala-dominated state. The JVP targeted hundreds of leftists and leaders of worker organisations, including members of the Revolutionary Communist League, the forerunner of the Socialist Equality Party, in these fascistic attacks. The JVP has never repudiated its murderous attacks or the extreme Sinhalese chauvinism that motivated them, and, beginning with Wijeweera, routinely celebrates those who ordered them. Dissanayake cynically declared that his administration was launching a permanent program to build a unified Sri Lankan nation that respects diversity, fully ending the era of division based on race, religion, class, and caste. This claim is bogus. Translated into plain language this will mean the suppression of the rights of Tamils and other minorities. While appealing for votes in the majority Tamil north earlier this month, Dissanayake made a veiled threat, warning that the Tamils should not be seen as blocking the will of the people in the south for a new government. Please think, he said, what type of mentality could develop among southern people if you become opponents of change when people have lined up for change in the south. Would you like Jaffna [the principal city in the North] to be branded as opponents of that change? Do you want the north to be branded? In one of his first decisions as president, Dissanayake appointed an accused war criminal Sampath Thuyacontha as the new secretary of defence. He takes over the post from another accused war criminal Kamal Gunaratne. Thuyacontha was Wing Commander of the No 09 squadron, a helicopter gunship squadron that fired almost 20,000 rockets, killing hundreds of Tamils in Puthukkudiyiruppu, an urban area, in April 2009. Dissanayakes demagogic assertions that his government is poised to build the nation are a pledge to big business that his administration will do whatever is necessary to squeeze out of the working class and the oppressed the necessary funds to pay international finance capital. The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) warns the working class that the JVP/NPP is rapidly preparing to crush the ensuing struggles that will erupt against the new regimes imposition of the IMF demands. We call on workers to make the necessary political and organisational preparations to fight this onslaught. This means taking this fight into your own hands by building action committees of workers in every factory, workplace and in the plantations and neighborhoods, as well as among the rural poor, independent of all capitalist parties and union bureaucracies. What is required is the development of a Democratic and Socialist Congress of Workers and Rural Masses, based on democratically elected representatives of these action committees. Such a congress must discuss and fight for an independent political movement of the working class and an internationalist perspective, which rallies the rural poor, to overthrow capitalist rule and establishes a workers and peasants government to implement a socialist program. A CPKC rail yard is seen Wednesday, August 21, 2024, in Kansas City, Missouri. [AP Photo/Charlie Riedel] The Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) union has endorsed fascist senator from Missouri Josh Hawley for reelection this month. RealClearPolitics reported that SMART legislative director Greg Hynes sent a letter to Hawley on September 13 informing the senator of the unions support. Hawley is currently running for his second term as senator against Democrat Lucas Kunce. SMART also earlier endorsed Joe Biden, and then his replacement Kamala Harris, in the presidential election. SMART justified their endorsement of Hawley on the grounds of his dedication to enhancing rail safety and protecting railroad employees. The SMART bureaucracy, which controls over 200,000 members, is only the latest to throw in its lot with fascism. Earlier this month, the Teamsters announced they would not formally endorse a presidential candidate, a move universally acknowledged as de-facto endorsement of Trump. The move came after months of courtship between Teamsters General President Sean OBrien and Trump, culminating in OBriens appearance at the Republican National Convention. Hawley praised OBriens ultranationalist speech at the RNC in a fascistic op-ed blending criticism of corporations for outsourcing jobs overseas and for pushing the religion of the trans flag. OBrien, in turn, voiced his support for Hawleys statement on X/Twitter. In justifying its endorsement, SMART referenced Hawleys support for a federal bill that would have required railroad companies to maintain two-person crews. Union statements on Hawley in the past have also praised him for supporting legislation to provide railroaders with seven days of paid sick leave, while failing to note that the bill was part of a strike-breaking operation from Republicans and Democrats to prevent a national rail strike in late 2022. This justification is false to the core. The SMART bureaucracy has spent decades helping impose these exact same concessions. It has just released an agreement with BNSF to impose one-person crews. SMART, along with the other major rail unions, blocked a national strike in 2022 until it was pre-emptively banned by President Biden and Congress. The reality is that SMART has endorsed Hawley not in spite of, but because of his fascist, America-First politics. Hawleys politics Hawley is a leading figure in the Republican fascist right. He was a leading co-conspirator in Trumps efforts to overturn the 2020 election on January 6, 2021, has routinely attacked LGBTQ and trans people, opposes the right to abortion and is a supporter of Trumps vicious attacks on immigrants. Senator Josh Hawley raises his fist in support of insurrectionists who attacked the US Capitol on January 6 [Photo: January 6 Committee] While supporting the Israeli genocide in Gaza, he has used antisemitic rhetoric, criticizing what he called cosmopolitan elites for abandoning the American middle in the interests of a powerful upper class and their cosmopolitan priorities. The term cosmopolitan elites was used by the Nazis as an antisemitic code word for Jews. Hawleys remarks, given during a speech in 2019 at the National Conservatism Conference, laid out his fascistic views. He decried that The cosmopolitan elite look down on the common affections that once bound this nation together: things like place and national feeling and religious faith. They regard our inherited traditions as oppressive and our shared institutionslike family and neighborhood and churchas backwards. This conception of shared institutions returned in his response to OBriens speech. There was a time, he wrote, when Republicans knew that American strength depends squarely on American workersand their way of life: family, neighborhood, church, union hall. Right-wing populism With the Republican Party, Hawleys role in recent months has been to help craft a right-wing populist appeal, building up alliances in particular with sections of the union apparatus. Once a supporter of right-to-work and an opponent of raising the minimum wage, Hawley has over recent years embraced a number of reformist policies, including raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour for large corporations, capping insulin prices at $35, reversing the Citizens United ruling that allowed unlimited corporate money into elections, and rail safety legislation. Hawley has even gone so far as to call himself the most pro-labor Republican and has criticized members of his own party who supported corporate tax cuts and low barriers for corporate trade then watched those same corporations ship American jobs overseas, saying the Republicans should start prioritizing the working man. He even visited the picket lines of striking auto workers last fall. He has also made certain criticisms of the unpopular war in Ukraine, opposed bringing Ukraine into NATO, voted against bringing Finland and Sweden into NATO, and voiced opposition to US military operations in the Middle East. However, Hawley opposes the war in Ukraine mainly because he believes these resources would be better put to use in the upcoming war against China. American might is not limitless, said Hawley at the Center for a New American Security, nor are the lives and treasure of the American people. Now we must make hard choices and articulate clear priorities in order to meet the challenge before us. In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken opposing plans to bring Ukraine into NATO just prior to the outbreak of war, Hawley argued that Ukrainian membership would not serve US interests. Instead, he argued, China could harness that regions resources to further propel its rise, while restricting U.S. access to many of the worlds most important markets. The bureaucracy and fascism As the WSWS earlier observed when OBrien spoke at the RNC, the union apparatus is a natural base of support for fascism. Because it is completely integrated with management, dependent on its ties with the state, the bureaucracy is deeply hostile to the working class. We continued: The unions are run as bureaucratic dictatorships, never hesitating to resort to fraud and even violence to overcome resistance from the rank and file. Politically, the bureaucracy is dominated by nationalism and anticommunism, which expresses its mortal fear of the revolutionary threat posed by the working class. The bureaucracy finds itself in agreement with the words of Mussolini: Fascism is likewise opposed to trade unionism as a class weapon. But when brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to ... trade unionism. Bureaucrats like OBrien and at SMART are treading the same path of Edmondo Rossoni, the Italian trade union leader who embraced fascism and became Mussolinis leader of the General Confederation of Fascist Syndical Corporations, the fascist-run trade unions. However, the Democratic Party, indifferent to and hostile to the needs of the working class and obsessed with the war in Ukraine, bears their own responsibility for this development. Bidens own trade union policy is aimed at using the apparatus to prepare the home front for war, summed up in his recent statement that the AFL-CIO is his domestic NATO. While Biden is not a fascist, this corporatist alliance bears more than a passing similarity with the policies under Mussolini. Their joining hands with Republicans in slandering all opposition to the Gaza genocide as antisemitic creates the conditions where genuine antisemites like Hawley, Trump and others can operate with virtual impunity. The turn of a section of the bureaucracy toward fascism is a serious warning. It raises the urgent necessity of an independent movement of the rank-and-file against the bureaucracy. This parasitic layer must be smashed, and power returned to the workers on the shop floor. Two years ago, railroad workers rebelled against the sellouts by the SMART apparatus and those of the other rail unions, organizing the Railroad Workers Rank-and-File Committee to push for a national strike and to prepare workers for government intervention by Biden and Congress. The work of this committee must continue, directed against not only the railroads but against the entire rotten corporate political system. The RWRFC is part of a global movement, the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees, which includes striking Boeing workers, autoworkers, UPS workers and others. Only by leveraging the independent power of the working class can the danger of dictatorship and war be stopped. French police shot and killed two men in New Caledonia on September 19, further stoking tensions with pro-independence groups days ahead of the September 24 public holiday which marks Frances annexation of the Pacific archipelago in 1853. Police outside central police station in Noumea, New Caledonia, May 23, 2024 [AP Photo] The shootings bring the number of deaths to 13 since unrest erupted in May over the French governments changes to voting laws that extended the franchise to recent migrants. Indigenous Kanaks feared the move will further marginalise them politically as they face worsening economic and social conditions. The men were killed in a confrontation between French gendarmerie and Kanak protesters in the village of Saint Louis, a centre of the independence movement near the capital Noumea. The pro-independence Front de Liberation Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) condemned the barbaric and humiliating methods used by police that resulted in summary execution and called for an independent investigation. The four-party FLNKS, which is part of the colonys political establishment, moved to defuse anger among the Kanak population. It issued a statement calling on the entire population not to give in to violence, despite their pain and facing provocations. Today, more than ever, peace and justice must guide our actions, with a view to preserving the stability of our country. Public prosecutor Yves Dupas said the police operation using armoured vehicles was to arrest suspects for the attempted murder of officers and armed robbery, with nearly 300 shots noted in recent months. The deceased were the subject of a search warrant among a total of 13 persons implicated, sought and located in the Saint Louis tribe, he said. Dupas claimed police came under fire from up to five people and had responded. Their first shot hit a man, aged 30, positioned as a lone gunman, in the right side of the abdomen, he said. The second shot hit a man, aged 29, in the chest. One died at the scene, while the other died at a local hospital. France is carrying out brutal military operations to maintain their colonial occupation against fierce resistance. French military units have previously deployed to Afghanistan, Kosovo, Cote dIvoire and the Indian Ocean dependency of Mayotte. Saint Louis itself has a long colonial history. After Kanak revolts in 1878, people fled to the area to escape military attacks, where their descendants still live. The crackdown had claimed its 10th victim on July 10 in an exchange of gunfire with militants holed up in a church in Saint Louis. The authorities blamed the victim, the nephew of prominent pro-independence politician and local Congress chairman Roch Wamytan, saying he had shot at the gendarmes, who then returned fire. The uprising is not subsiding. RNZ Pacific reported on September 10 that the Saint Denis Church of Balade, in Pouebo, on the northern tip of the main island of Grande Terre, had been destroyed by fire. The arson attack, the sixth in recent months, was symbolic: it was the first Catholic church, established ten years before France took formal possession of the colony. With the Saint Louis stronghold still firmly in the hands of armed militants, security forces constructed a concrete wall along the provincial road beside the village, cutting off the tribe. French police then began their operations the week before the fatal confrontation. Islands Business correspondent Nic Maclellan reported on X/Twitter that the gendarmes used tear gas during clashes. Speaking with La Voix du Caillou, French High Commissioner Louis Le France claimed the security situation had been much calmer for a month. He was forced to admit: In Noumea, we have recurring problems with the young who live in social housing and squats. Authorities have maintained a nightly curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., restricted alcohol sales, banned the transport of fuel and possession of firearms. Security was beefed up ahead of the public holiday with nearly 7,000 French troops and gendarmes now entrenched in the colony. Le Franc told local media: This has never been seen before, even during the toughest times of the events in 1984 and 1988we have never had this. He was referring to a Kanak revolt in the 1980s that only ended with the 1998 power-sharing Noumea Accord promising a series of independence referenda. The stalemate is likely to be exacerbated by French President Emmanuel Macrons move to install a far-right government in Paris following the July snap election. Prime Minister Michel Barnier has previously sided with pro-France Loyalists in the territory, who promptly applauded his appointment. During the election, fascistic Rassemblement National (RN) leader Marine Le Pen, who demands that Barnier accommodate the RN platform, bluntly declared that New Caledonia was French and would not see independence for 30 or 40 years. Macron has promised talks with New Caledonias politicians to restore dialogue to resolve the crisis and the territorys long-term future. Since the French National Assemblys dissolution in June and the subsequent general election, the Constitutional bill on New Caledonias electoral roll has been in limbo, with Macron declaring it was suspended, but not withdrawn. Indicating an ongoing repressive stance in the colony, the newly-appointed overseas minister is Francois Noel Buffet, a senator from the right-wing Les Republicains, which received just 7.25 percent of the popular vote. Unlike his direct predecessors who were delegate ministers under the minister of home affairs, Buffet is a full minister directly under the prime ministers office. A bipartisan delegation from New Caledonia is currently in Paris meeting with officials. It includes New Caledonian MPs in the French Senate and the National Assembly, two each from the pro-independence and Loyalist factions, as well as caucus leaders in the territorys Congress, the Chair of the customary Senate, a representative of the local government, and the Chair of the Economic and Social Council. On the agenda is the Congress reconstruction plan totaling 4.1 billion over five years, which leaders say is needed to rebuild New Caledonia. The estimate of material damage is 2.2 billion, over 800 businesses destroyed and 20,000 people who lost their jobs. Even if such payments eventuate, they will do nothing to address the grinding poverty, unemployment and social alienation that is the root cause of the rebellion. The crisis has now produced sharp shifts in the colonys political situation. In a surprise vote in late August, pro-independence Congress President Wamytan was replaced by Veylma Falaeo from the Eveil Oceanien (EO, Oceania Awakening) party. EO with only three members in Congress previously provided a majority for the pro-independence faction. But Falaeo won the support of the Loyalists to shift the paper-thin majority in their favour. EOs base is in the community from the neighbouring French territory of Wallis and Futuna, and ostensibly promotes a middle way between the contesting blocs. Following Falaeos victory the Loyalist parties declared their joy at the ending of Wamytans five-year presidency. The FLNKS is meanwhile embroiled in internal crisis. A congress called on the weekend of 31 August saw two of the four constituent partiesthe moderate Kanak Liberation Party (PALIKA) and Melanesian Progressive Union (UPM)refuse to attend. Splitting the organization in two, they said the priority for them was for violence to cease and all roadblocks to be lifted for normalcy to be restored. The leaders of PALIKA and UPM had previously voiced their opposition to the stance of the so-called hard-line faction of the Union Caledonienne (UC) and Rassemblement Democratique Oceanien (RDO). Beginning last year UC mobilised a series of protests coordinated by its CCAT (Field Action Coordinating Cell), which escalated into the months-long riots. The UC announced its intention before the congress to nominate CCAT leader Christian Tein for the post of FLNKS president and to formally integrate CCAT as the recognised mobilisation tool for FLNKS. Tein, who the authorities accuse of being the ringleader of the uprising, has been arrested and deported to pre-trial detention in a French jail. Despite the FLNKS radical posturing, spokeswoman Laurie Humuni told media following the truncated congress that it was willing to resume talks on New Caledonias political future, but only with the French State and not with opposing anti-independence parties. Beijing has this week unveiled a raft of measures to boost its ailing economy, which it has targeted to grow five percent this year (ADEK BERRY) China on Friday opened up over a hundred billion dollars in cash for its ailing economy, capping a week in which its leadership embark on one of their biggest drives in years to kickstart growth. The move by the People's Bank of China comes a day after President Xi Jinping and other top officials admitted to "new problems" in the world's second-largest economy and outlined plans to get it back on track. Beijing this week unveiled a raft of measures to boost the economy, which it has targeted to grow five percent this year -- an objective analysts say is optimistic given the many headwinds it faces. On Friday, it cut the reserve requirement ratio, which dictates how much lenders must hold in reserve. Previewing the move on Tuesday, central bank chief Pan Gongsheng said the move will inject around a trillion yuan ($141.7 billion) in "long-term liquidity" into the financial markets. The bank also trimmed the seven-day reverse repo rate -- the short-term interest paid by the central bank on loans from commercial lenders -- from 1.7 percent to 1.5 percent. Growth in China is being dragged down by a prolonged debt crisis in the property sector, sluggish domestic consumption and high youth unemployment. The ruling Communist Party convened Thursday a meeting of its top body, the Politburo, to "analyse and study the current economic situation". "Some new situations and problems have emerged in the current running of the economy," the Xinhua news agency reported after the gathering. "We must view the current economic situation comprehensively, objectively and calmly, face difficulties squarely, (and) strengthen confidence," it added. The need for action was evident on the streets of Shanghai on Thursday, where one business owner said he was feeling the pinch. "Doing business is even tougher this year than it was during the pandemic," Chang Guiyong told AFP as he stood in his empty hole-in-the-wall eatery in the economic powerhouse. "People no longer want to consume, even white-collar workers are bringing lunchboxes to eat at the office." - 'Bazooka stimulus' - The raft of measures unveiled by Beijing this week, including key rate cuts and policies intended to encourage home purchases, have been welcomed by investors, with stocks in Shanghai and Hong Kong up around 10 percent this week. "Beijing seems determined to roll out its bazooka stimulus in rapid succession," analysts at Nomura said in a note. "Beijing's recognition of the situation of the economy should be valued by markets," they said. Story continues "We believe more supportive measures will be announced in the next couple of weeks and months by various ministries and local governments," they added. And a Bloomberg report Thursday said officials were considering pumping more than $140 billion into the country's large state-run banks, marking the first major capital injection of its kind since the 2008 global financial crisis. The measure -- aimed at giving the banks more room to lend to businesses -- would be implemented mainly through the issuance of "new special sovereign bonds", the report said, citing sources familiar with the matter. The details have not yet been finalised, it added. Markets in Hong Kong rallied more than three percent Friday alone. - 'Too small and too late' - While more work is needed if leaders are to achieve their five percent growth goal, the recent announcements could mean they are increasingly willing to take bolder actions, analysts say. "Beijing seems finally determined to roll out its bazooka stimulus in rapid succession," Ting Lu, Chief China Economist at Nomura, said in a note. "Beijing's recognition of the severe situation of the economy and lack of success in a piecemeal approach should be valued by markets," Lu added. But others warned that the country could still miss its growth goal. "The authorities will likely unveil additional fiscal policy supports in the next few months," ANZ research said in a note. "The package is sufficient for our 4.9 percent GDP forecast this year," they said. "However, it remains too small and too late for the ongoing property woes." bur-oho/hmn China has slapped Three Sheep Group with a 69 million yuan (US$9.8 million) penalty after the company founded by one of the country's top-earning influencers was accused of falsely marketing mainland-made mooncakes as "made in Hong Kong". The market regulator of Hefei, capital of eastern Anhui province, on Thursday ordered the influencer agency to suspend its live-commerce operations, which sell products online through live-streamed sessions. Three Sheep apologised for "falsely advertising and misleading consumers" and vowed to "conduct thorough rectifications within the company", according to a statement published on Thursday on the company's official account on Douyin, the Chinese sibling of TikTok. Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. Founded by Zhang Qingyang - better known by his online name Crazy Little Brother Yang, or Crazy Xiaoyangge - Three Sheep has nurtured some of China's biggest short-video stars. In 2022, Zhang became the first influencer in the country to reach 100 million followers on Douyin. He earned an estimated 3.12 billion yuan last year, surpassing his peers, according to a list published by the Guangdong E-commerce Summit Forum. Zhang Qingyang, known as Crazy Xiaoyangge, presents mooncakes during a live-streaming sale. Photo: Weibo/ alt=Zhang Qingyang, known as Crazy Xiaoyangge, presents mooncakes during a live-streaming sale. Photo: Weibo/> The penalty handed down this week included a fine, as well as an undisclosed sum of seized illegal income, authorities said. Controversies around Zhang and his agency erupted earlier this month after he started promoting "Hong Kong Meisun Mooncakes", calling it a "high-end brand" from Hong Kong dating back to more than two decades ago. It later emerged that the maker of those mooncakes, Guangzhou Meisun Food Company, was not registered in Hong Kong. Neither were its products ever sold in the city. Mooncakes are traditionally consumed during the Mid-Autumn Festival. To boost sales, Zhang invited famous Hong Kong actor Eric Tsang Chi-wai to jointly host a live session. Tsang was appointed representative of Three Sheep's Hong Kong subsidiary, which opened last month, according to various local media reports citing Zhang's previous videos. Tsang did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his current relationship with Three Sheep. Story continues Mooncakes are typically consumed during Mid-Autumn Festival. Photo: LightRocket via Getty Images alt=Mooncakes are typically consumed during Mid-Autumn Festival. Photo: LightRocket via Getty Images> Hefei's market regulator also took issue with claims by Three Sheep influencers that the grain-fed beef they sold were raw cuts, even though they were in fact seasoned. Three Sheep promised to refund customers who bought the mooncakes and beef in question, and provide additional compensation as much as three times the product prices, according to an automated response generated by the agency's Douyin account. This is the latest product quality scandal involving the fast-growing live-streaming e-commerce sector. In late 2020, live streamer Xin Youzhi, or Xinba, incurred a fine of 900,000 yuan for selling fake bird's nests made with sugar and water. Real bird's nests, an expensive Chinese delicacy, are formed from the saliva of swiftlets. In the aftermath, Xin was blocked from hosting live-streaming sessions on short-video platform Kuaishou Technology for two months. In a separate incident, police in the Hefei High-tech Industry Development Zone said a widely circulated audio clip, which purportedly showed Three Sheep co-founder Lu Qingwen admitting to engaging in improper relationships with several female employees, was fake and created with artificial intelligence. This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2024. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. (Bloomberg) -- Beijing is stepping up pressure on Chinese companies to buy locally produced artificial intelligence chips instead of Nvidia Corp. products, part of the nations effort to expand its semiconductor industry and counter US sanctions. Most Read from Bloomberg Chinese regulators have been discouraging companies from purchasing Nvidias H20 chips, which are used to develop and run AI models, according to people familiar with the matter. The policy has taken the form of guidance rather than an outright ban, as Beijing wants to avoid handicapping its own AI startups and escalating tensions with the US, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. The move is designed to help domestic Chinese AI chipmakers gain more market share while preparing local tech companies for any potential additional US restrictions, the people said. The countrys leading makers of AI processors include Cambricon Technologies Corp. and Huawei Technologies Co. Earlier this year, Beijing also told local electric-vehicle makers to procure more of their supplies from local chipmakers, part of its campaign to reach self-sufficiency in critical technologies. Nvidia shares fell as much as 3.9% to $119.26 on Friday, extending an earlier decline, after Bloomberg reported the news. The stock has more than doubled this year. The US government banned Nvidia from selling its most advanced AI processors to Chinese customers in 2022, part of an attempt to limit Beijings technological advances. Nvidia, based in Santa Clara, California, modified subsequent versions of the chips so they could be sold under US Commerce Department regulations. The H20 line fits that criteria. In recent months, several Chinese regulators, including the powerful Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, issued so-called window guidance instructions without the force of law to reduce the use of Nvidia, the people said. The notice was aimed at encouraging companies to rely on domestic vendors like Huawei and Cambricon, they added. Beijing also amplified the message via a local trade group, according to another. At the same time, Chinese officials want local companies to build the best AI systems possible. If that means they need to buy some foreign semiconductors over domestic alternatives, Beijing will still tolerate that, according to people familiar with Chinas AI policy. Story continues Nvidia declined to comment. Chinas Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Information and Technology, and Cyberspace Administration didnt respond to faxed requests for comment. Separately, Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said Friday that hes doing his best to serve customers in China and stay within the requirements of US government restrictions. The first thing we have to do is comply with whatever policies and regulations that are being imposed, he said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. And, meanwhile, do the best we can to compete in the markets that we serve. We have a lot of customers there that depend on us, and well do our best to support them. Nvidia, the worlds most valuable chipmaker, has seen sales soar as data center operators across the globe scramble to buy more of its processors. China continues to be part of that growth, though trade restrictions have taken a toll. In the July quarter, it got 12% of its revenue, or about $3.7 billion, from the country, including Hong Kong. That was up more than 30% from a year earlier. Our data center revenue in China grew sequentially in Q2 and is a significant contributor to our data center revenue, Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said during an earnings call in August. As a percentage of total data center revenue, it remains below levels seen prior to the imposition of export controls. We continue to expect the China market to be very competitive going forward. Why World Powers Are Sparring Over Computer Chips: QuickTake Nvidia chips are the gold standard for companies looking to develop artificial intelligence services. The likes of Meta Platforms Inc., OpenAI and Alphabet Inc. have been racing to scoop up its most cutting-edge products so they can build leading AI models. Several Chinese tech companies, including ByteDance Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., stockpiled Nvidias chips before the export controls took effect. Chinese chip designers and manufacturers, meanwhile, are working to introduce alternatives to Nvidia. Beijing has offered billions in subsidies to the semiconductor sector, but local AI chips remain well behind Nvidias fare. China does have a burgeoning AI sector, though, despite the US restrictions. ByteDance and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. have been investing aggressively, while a flock of startups are vying for leadership. There are six so-called tigers in developing large language models, the key technology behind generative AI: 01.AI, Baichuan, Moonshot, MiniMax, Stepfun and Zhipu. Some of the companies are turning a blind eye to the Chinese decree to avoid H20 chips and rushing to buy more of them before an anticipated sanction from the US by the end of this year, one of the people said, though they are also buying homemade Huawei chips to please Beijing. --With assistance from John Liu, Jessica Sui, Zheng Wu, Ian King and Tyler Kendall. (Updates with Nvidia shares in fourth paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Delaware scores Steve Urkel actor Jaleel White for late fall. Here's what to know Delawareans will have the chance to see one of TV's biggest superstars in person when Steve Urkel actor Jaleel White brings his new book to the Wilmington Public Library on Sunday, Nov. 17. This ticketed event that opens with brunch. Jamar Rahming, director of the Wilmington Public Library, said the library is partnering with Milk and Honey, a Black-owned coffeehouse in Wilmington, owned by Quincy Miller, for this event. Who is Jaleel White? Jaleel White (center) attends Netflix's 'Hustle' world premiere with his wife Nicoletta Ruhl (left) and daughter Samaya at Regency Village Theatre on June 01, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. Actor Jaleel White, 47, is best known for starring as the lovable ultra-nerd Steve Urkel in the hit TV sitcom "Family Matters" (1989-1998). Urkel was the annoying next-door neighbor to the Winslow family, and he usually got on their last nerve while also managing to steal their hearts with his tenderness. People.com reported that White married executive Nicoletta Ruhl at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles on May 4. Ruhl and White first met during the pandemic when they worked out at UCLA's track. The outlet said this is White's first marriage and he has a 14-year-old daughter named Samaya. Who is Steve Urkel? The star of "Family Matters" was Steve Urkel, a genius who was in love with the girl next-door: Laura Winslow. Urkel famously wore signature suspenders, big librarian glasses and high-watered pants. Although the character's appearance was memorable, his voice is just as legendary. Urkel was famous for his nasally, high-pitched voice and catchphrase: "Did I do that?" He would normally say the expression after accidentally damaging or destroying something. Watch Mojo ranked Urkel No. 28 on its list of "Top 100 Greatest TV Characters of All Time." That ranking puts Urkel ahead of TV darlings like Kermit the Frog (No. 36), Stewie Griffin (No. 42) and Will Smith (No. 51). The No. 1 spot on the list was claimed by Walter White from "Breaking Bad." But the impressive thing is Urkel is only eight places behind SpongeBob SquarePants, who ranked No. 20. Flavor Flav heads to Delaware this fall: He'll star in Hip Hop Summit What is Jaleel White's new book about? The upcoming book "Growing Up Urkel" releases Nov. 19. This memoir takes readers on a journey through the highs and lows White has endured over his acting career. He also reminds fans that he auditioned for Family Matters at age 12 and he was supposed to be in only one episode. But he ended up stealing the show and transforming into a mega child star. "After nine years on the popular sitcom 'Family Matters,' Jaleel is 21, a UCLA undergrad, and adjusting to a world and industry that sees him as the nasally nerd in high water pants, suspenders and coke bottle glasses," according to the book's summary on Amazon. "In this wise and witty memoir, 'Growing Up Urkel' takes you on a memorable journey through the peaks, valleys, and plateaus of fame and fortune." Kevin Hart slams Del State University: He said this during 'Fight Night' promo? Hackers attack Delaware libraries: They want a ransom, here's what we know When is Jaleel White coming to Delaware? White is coming to the Wilmington Public Library (10 E. 10th St., Wilmington) on Sunday, Nov. 17. Rahming said more information about tickets and registration will be announced soon. Visit facebook.com/WilmingtonLibraryDE, wilmington.lib.de.us or call (302) 571-7400 (This story has been updated because an earlier version included an inaccuracy. Books by Jaleel White will not be available in time for a booksigning on Nov. 17. The upcoming book "Growing Up Urkel" will be released on Nov. 19. ) If you have an interesting story idea, email lifestyle reporter Andre Lamar at alamar@gannett.com. Consider signing up for his weekly newsletter, DO Delaware, at delawareonline.com/newsletters. This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Jaleel White coming to Delaware in fall. How to see Steve Urkel actor Africa, colonialism, the United Nations, the 1961 assassination of Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nikita Khrushchev, Tesla, iPhones, and jazz music come together in director Johan Grimonprezs Soundtrack to a Coup dEtat. The documentary feels like a concert with academic footnotes and references or performance art. It also investigates the filmmakers native Belgiums colonial history and complicity in stifling Congolese independence. The Hollywood Reporters review of the film, which had its world premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematic Innovation, called it riveting and propulsive, noting that the kinetic doc connects jazz, decolonization and the birth of the United Nations. More from The Hollywood Reporter Kino Lorber has partnered with specialist streamer Kanopy on the U.S. release of the film, which hits cinemas on Nov. 1. The filmmaker will next be honored at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in November. As his latest film screens at the San Sebastian Film Festival, which wraps up on Saturday, Grimonprez spoke to THR about how Soundtrack to a Coup dEtat came about, the dark colonial history it explores, using music as a protagonist, why Khrushchev has become a recurring character in his films, and why humanity needs a shift from a paradigm of profit to a paradigm of kinship. I grew up in Austria, so I know some of the history of the United Nations, which has one of its four major office sites in Vienna. But I was really curious how much you knew about the history of the Congo and Belgiums role there as a colonial power and beyond. How much did you learn about that in school? The Congo was always called lempire du silence, the Empire of Silence. So in essence, we didnt hear much about it, especially the things that are talked about in the film, because thats a black page of our own history here in Belgium. We never learned about that. Even today, well, we have a Lumumba Square here in Brussels Im very close to it. Actually, all the avenues are built with rubber money, so you have to rename them all. In school, we didnt learn about this, definitely not about the murder and the complicity of my country. Is that why you wanted to make this movie? And am I right to assume that you do not see the film as solely a Belgian story but also a universal story, similar to your previous film Shadow World, which was an investigation into the multi-billion dollar international arms trade? Belgium is a small country. We have NATO, which you can actually call [U.S. aerospace and defense manufacturer] Lockheed [Martin] because its the same thing. They sell F-35s to all the NATO countries. But Belgium was not so much part of Shadow World, and I found it necessary to go back and dig into the history of my own country. Belgium really had a big impact at the beginning of the 60s when that [African] independence movement came about and the Global South was steering towards non-alignments. The way that was smothered was ground zero of how the West would deal with this independence and non-aligned movement was actually what happened in the Congo, the overthrow and the murder of Patrice Lumumba. That was just before the UN [General Assemby], and there was so much linked. I didnt know that was when [Soviet Communist leader] Nikita Khrushchev slammed his shoe [banging his UN delegate table with it]. Khrushchev has been very much prominent in my previous films, like in Double Take [which combines documentary and fictional elements to tell the story of a fictionalized version of Alfred Hitchcock], where hes functioning as a Hitchcock doppelganger. I did not know that that was because of the history of Belgium, our colonial history. So all these things are sort of intertwined. He had also invited all world leaders to a dialog about decolonization and demilitarization, and not to make Khrushchev into a saint but its interesting to hear him. Like Hitchcock said: The more you make your villain interesting, and the more handsome and more peculiar and strong character, the more the hero has to work. So I think hearing the story from the point of view of the villain is always more interesting. The music is so integrated into the movie. Talk a little bit about how you came up with the idea to merge the jazz element with the bigger world affairs story here. Well, yeah, the music is also a historical agent. Sifting through all the research and the archives, I knew that Louis Armstrong headed to the Congo twice. He did it during the third week of October and the third week of November 1960. And its exactly those moments. Its the moment that Patrice Lumumba was put in exile in his own country and his own house. On Sept. 14, [Army Colonel Joseph] Mobutu fires the whole parliament, and one week later is the shoe-banging talk. And just weeks later is the moment where Louis Armstrong arrived in the Congo because they had that program. It was the United States Information Agency sending musicians abroad, specifically a lot of Black jazz musicians, like Dizzy Gillespie and Nina Simone. Tracing what was going on with those jazz tours: When Louis Armstrong arrived in the Congo, a plot was being planned by the CIA to overthrow the government. When Duke Ellington arrived in Baghdad in 1963 this is not part of the film, but the same night of his concert there was a coup in the palace in Baghdad. So I was tracing the political parallel story of whats going on with those jazz ambassadors who were always sent to the trouble spots. Its like what the tour organizer says of the Dizzy Gillespie tour [in the film]: We were sent as the Black kamikaze band. Not everyone seemed to be happy about this all the time, right? But I liked that comparison That doesnt mean that theyre passive agents, right? So, for example, Louis Armstrong refused to go play for an Apartheid audience in South Africa. Or he would change his text. In the song Black & Blue? at one point he says, Im white inside. He changed the text to I am right inside, which is very subtle, but its a big difference in meaning. So they were used as a propaganda tool. But that doesnt mean that they were actually reduced to just being passive agents. Theres very much agency. They also went around the world. I also found in the Belgian archives this concert by the Max Roach Quartet, where Abbey Lincoln is screaming her head off. That album, We Insist!, was broadcast in its entirety on Belgian television in 1964. But 1964 is also the moment of the genocide. So this is the flip side again you have that wonderful concert on Belgian television where we were all glued to the television set watching jazz, but at the same time, in all silence, the genocide is happening in Congo. It was also Abbey Lincoln, together with Maya Angelou, who initiated that protest when Adlai Stevenson, the then-U.S. ambassador, announced to his colleagues that Patrice Lumumba had been murdered. So, Lincoln and 60 other protesters stand up and start screaming in the Security Council. And again, its musicians who initiated that protest. So for me, the music is very much a protagonist. Have you ever seen music used in a film in a similar way? Sort of. At IDFA, Im the guest of honor, and Im going to present my top 100 films. I joke about it because its not going to be top 10, as they announced. Its going to be the top 100. And theres a [Jean-Luc] Godard film, Sympathy for the Devil. Its Godard filming in the studio with the Rolling Stones, filming how they come to that song. And all over the film, hes juxtaposing this with political images of that era. And so its quite interesting. I thought the music was really crucial. You write in the editing and in the research [process]. You stumble onto moments that you cannot not include in the film, like the [Abbey Lincoln] scream. Also, the civil rights movement was also very much taking its inspiration from the independence movement. And this went back and forth, of course. Malcolm X makes that relationship very clear. The same is true for the music. The rumba, for example, comes actually from the transatlantic crossing of the slaves to Cuba. And theres a huge Congolese heritage in Cuba that became the conga that led to the cha-cha-cha that then came back. So its a back-and-forth. I thought that was interesting to explore. So if you listen well, just like elephants do every other hour, they stretch their ears, and they listen where theyre going to go next if you listen well to the archives and to the history, you cannot not include that. It was something that we had to take on. Soundtrack to a Coup dEtat producer Remi Grellety at the San Sebastian Film Festival. Your film runs for 150 minutes. It doesnt feel like it, but did you ever think about the length? Actually, a lot of people say: Wow, this was two hours and a half? It was over before we noticed. Its funny with music. If you add music, it accelerates things. You get really drawn in, it really gives an empathic feeling. Thats the emotional side to the film. While politics is all about divide-and-conquer, its the music that brings people together. But I think it also brings the audience together in the viewing of the film. It really takes you through. Its not only a historical agent, but its also an emotional agent that actually gives drama to the historical arc of what that film is about. So its like a two-and-a-half-hour music clip that actually gives you a lot of history at the same time, told through a true story, but as a PDF where you have all the academic notes and even pages of references in the film. Theres all these genres that are clashing. We really wanted to make it that thriller story. It starts off as sort of a comedy, and it leads to where the thriller element sinks in, and then the music takes you all the way to the end where you cannot not scream. But the thriller element was first. Lets make the story of the thriller as clear as possible. Who are the players? The mining industry, the big Western powers, the United Nations, the whole rift between East and West, the independence movement, the musicians. So it was trying to look for what makes this movie, what story makes the movie go forward and really stick to that. Do you think that much has changed in the world since 1960 and 1961 which the film focuses on? Well, it was ground zero, and what was set in motion then is very much whats going on today. Thats why the iPhone and Tesla commercials are actually in the film. And there are more references, such as the 80,000-plus women that are raped. Rape is used as a weapon of war. So all of that is whats going on today, and it has not changed at all if its not worse. Its still the mining industry that holds the strings. Its the same players. If you see Dennis Mukweges [2018] Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, I get tears in my eyes when he says whats still going on. If you put a map of the East Congo, a map of where the mining is and the statistics of how many women are raped, its one on one a complete correlation. So we wanted to allude to that at the very end of the film where [Belgian-Congolese writer] In Koli Jean Bofane says the minerals of all wars in the 20th century and the war in space all come from the Congo, but not even one Congolese is benefiting from it, except for the kleptocracy running the country. And its genocide after genocide after genocide. What will your next film focus on? It seems like every six, seven years, I get another film made. The previous one was on the defense industry. This one was digging into our own backyard and the black page in the history of my own country. But the film that Id love to explore next is what I call Tea With E.T. You could call it a multi-species parliament. Its about the unknown other, or the othering that is happening and our connection to the world. Its about trying to define consciousness. I also teach and lecture, and often my films grow out of that practice. I feel whats really at stake today, and that we have not defined, is consciousness and how our materialist vision of the world is completely obsolete. Matter has never been defined, and were all in relation to one another. And matter has made subject and object into a rift where we all feel separated from one another, and we feel separated from nature. And nature is called nature because then we can exploit it. But if you pollute the river, you pollute yourself. So its conceived as a bigger question: What is consciousness? Its a point of departure, but I dont know yet where it is going to head. Anything else youd like to share? The new territory that Im trying to explore thats so crucial is to get away from the paradigm of profit to the paradigm of connection, to the paradigm of kinship. Thats something that really keeps me busy. Best of The Hollywood Reporter Sign up for THR's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to Killer Heat stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley about the murder mystery movie. The duo discussed their characters, doing dialogue in Greek, and more. Directed by Phillipe Lacote, it is now streaming on Prime Video. A thrilling, contemporary mystery in classic noir style, Killer Heat follows private eye Nick Bali (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an American expat in Greece, hired to investigate the supposed accidental death of young shipping magnate Leo Vardakis (Richard Madden) on the island of Crete. The victims sister-in-law (Shailene Woodley) doesnt believe the official police report. But what exactly happened to Leo, and why? Despite the sun-drenched beauty of its exotic Mediterranean locale, Nick finds darkness at every turn: where the rich and powerful Vardakis family rule like gods, where jealousies run deep, and anyone could be a suspect, says the synopsis. Tyler Treese: Joseph, Killer Heat is based on this great short story and is the title tale of Jealousy Man. In the source text and in the movie, its this exploration of jealousy, not just in the mystery, but also within your character. What about that element really drew you in and made you wanna be in this project? Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Yeah. Those are my favorite detective movies, and it is when the mystery that the detective is solving runs parallel somehow to a mystery within the detective, him or herself. Thats when I feel like these stories can sort of transcend the genre and become about something more than just a murder. Something that we can all relate to whether or not were in the middle of a a murder case. This is a story about jealousy, and jealousy is a demon that human beings all over the world. No matter what country you go to or what time in history, everybody is a universal demon. Theres a story about someone whos succumbed to that monster in their head, telling them that theyre not good enough, that someone else is better, and turning it into a murder mystery. Yeah. I love how this movie ends and how it all comes together thematically. Shailene, I loved your performance in Killer Heat. Your character marries into this rich family, and theres just such a fun dynamic. Theyre all kind of miserable and dysfunctional. How is it acting out those toxic family moments in the film? Its very fun to see. Shailene Woodley: Yeah, I mean, it was fun. I think fun is the perfect word. I had a blast making this movie. Penelope, I felt for her a lot. It was really devastating to be in a situation that you feel stuck in, that you feel like you cant escape. We kind of see where that emotional stasis leads her and the extremes and the journey that she goes on to kind of understand how she can find an outlet to relieve herself of toxicity. But I think its a common thing that a lot of people experience not knowing how to leave a relationship, especially when there is a massive family dynamic around that kind of concretes this bond in a way that doesnt necessarily always lead from a place of love. Joseph, how was it brushing up on your Greek for Killer Heat? You sounded good to me. I dont know Greek, so Im not really the best judge, but you fooled me as you sounded great. Gordon-Levitt: Well, one thing Ive developed as an actor is a strong short-term memory. I can remember things for a few hours while Im shooting them, and unfortunately, I learned a whole bunch of Greek for this movie and I dont remember almost any of it. But we shot in Greece, so I was surrounded by people who could help me. When I was learning those Greek lines, I would just turn to the production assistant or whoever and say like, Will you say this again for me? Because I wanted to hear them say it with a proper accent. That made it fun. The post Killer Heat Interview: Joseph Gordon-Levitt & Shailene Woodley Talk Murder Mystery appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More. The second installment of NOW PLAYING JAPAN, a conference and networking event held by Billboard Japan and Luminate on domestic and international music consumption trends and marketing, was held at Billboard Live Tokyo on Sept. 18. At this event, representatives from Billboard JAPAN and Luminate gave presentations on the latest music consumption trends in Japan and abroad. In addition, Tatsuya Hori of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry appeared as a guest speaker. Using the recently released Report on the Music Industrys Business Model for a New Era as a basis, Hori explained the current status and challenges for Japanese artists to expand overseas. The following is a report on the event. More from Billboard Presentation 1: Scott Ryan (Luminate) Scott Ryan, Executive Vice President of Luminate, took the stage first to introduce the latest trends in music streaming: In the first half of 2024, global on-demand audio streaming increased 15.1% compared to the previous year, which is equivalent to approximately 300 billion new streams. Among countries in the APAC + ANZ, Japan has displayed a steady increase of more than 10% in streaming, while several countries in Southeast Asia have shown growth of 20-30%. He also touched on listening trends that vary by country, including preferred genres (in Japan, jazz, rock, and soundtrack are over indexing compared to other Asian countries), the #1 source of music discovery (streaming in Indonesia, SNS in the Philippines, and TV in Japan), and differences in engagement with foreign content (95% in the Philippines, 74% in Singapore, and 57% in Japan). He also explained a snapshot of Japanese Gen Z music listeners: 44% of Gen Z listeners encounter music via streaming, are 1.4 times more likely to listen to music shared by friends on SNS than Japanese music listeners as a whole, and 27% less likely to listen to music from overseas. Ryan concluded his presentation by giving three key points: Streaming numbers are increasing globally, but the way people enjoy new content differs from country to country, so it is necessary to devise marketing plans and approaches accordingly; The way people encounter new music differs by region and generation, so for effective targeting, it is important to have smart information; and Streaming is still on the rise, and there are opportunities for growth on a global scale across regions. Presentation 2: Helena Kosinski (Luminate) Helena Kosinski, Luminates Global Vice President, presented the challenges and new solutions for the industry in assigning key music data identifiers and metadata, including ISNI, ISRC and ISWC, with examples from Japan. While the assignment of music data identifiers is becoming more widespread in the industry, the importance of ISNI is not yet fully understood. In addition, there are cases where incorrect information is linked due to duplication of artist names and song titles, and where multiple identifiers are registered for the same song. Furthermore, songs having identifiers that are unknown to the rights holders is also an issue. As a result, there are many recordings that are not linked to the correct rights holders (lyricists, composers, etc.), and royalties are not being accurately distributed. In fact, it appears that 16.25% (approximately $120 million) of the royalties that were due to be paid by the MLC in 2022 have still not been distributed as of 2024. As a solution to these issues, Luminate acquired Quansic, a service that collects multiple identifiers and consolidates them in one place, in February 2024 to improve the quality of metadata. Kosinski spoke about the importance and benefits of having correct metadata, with an explanation of this service. For labels, the benefits of having ISNI are increased visibility and clarity of content on DSPs, increased promotional opportunities such as additions to official playlists (as songs with more complete metadata are preferred), and getting paid quickly and correctly. In a test case conducted by Luminate, the number of streams also increased by 6-18%. Benefits for DSPs through Quansic included improved search accuracy on the platform, support for artist names in other languages, and the ability to distinguish duplicate artists by adding more than twice as many new identifiers. For music publishers, the benefits include securing royalties from all the songs and recordings they manage, automatic recognition of new releases in their catalogs, and better predictability of future revenues. A test case for a publisher showed a 3-18% increase in streaming numbers. Kosinski concluded by giving metadata is hard and fix the problem before you lose royalties as key points, and urged a free evaluation with Luminate. Presentation 3: Tatsuya Hori (METI) Tatsuya Hori, Consulting Fellow at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI), Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), gave a presentation on The Potential of the Japanese Music Market based on the Report on the Music Industrys Business Model for a New Era, which was released in July 2024 and attracted wide attention both within and outside the industry. The content industry, which includes music, is growing remarkably on a global scale. In Japan, overseas sales are comparable in scale to exports from the steel and semiconductor industries, and the high economic ripple effect has led to the recognition that this industry could become a key industry in Japan and drive economic growth. Based on this premise and the data used in the report, he indicated that the characteristics of the Japanese music industry are the diversity and accumulation of music. He also noted that, since streaming has become the center of the global music industry, overseas expansion and digitalization are two sides of the same coin, and that it is essential for the music business to respond quickly to the digitalization of the industry. He also stressed the importance of creating an environment that facilitates the activities of creators who are engaged in production and distribution on their own. Presentation 4: Seiji Isozaki (Billboard Japan) Seiji Isozaki of Billboard Japan, gave a presentation on current trends in the world of Japanese music based on the Global chart data for the first half of 2024. In particular, he pointed out that compared to the first half of 2023, the share of Japanese music is increasing in the U.S. and South Korea, and that the share of new releases at the top of the charts is rising in line with the attention paid to anime and game releases. He explained the importance of understanding the market structure of each country and the importance of increasing resolution in order to create hits in Asia & globally. In the U.S. and South Korea, Artists who increased the number of streams per day and increased their market share and Artists who increased the number of streams per day and increased their market share in the corresponding countries were respectively presented in comparison to the previous year. Names such as Azumi Takahashi, known for her singing in the Persona game series, PSYCHIC FEVER from EXILE TRIBE, and eill were mentioned. Text: Haruki Saito, Maiko Murata Best of Billboard Sign up for Billboard's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. At NYs beloved Fall for Dance, highlights come from as far as Ukraine and as close as a few blocks NEW YORK (AP) The eclectic annual Fall for Dance festival is a beloved tradition among dance fans, not least for its $30 tickets still quite a deal in New York, even if they began at $10 two decades ago. But the best thing about it is still the variety it brings to the stage, with 15 acts over 11 days this year from artists around the world. This years highlights have come from as far as the Kyiv Opera House in Ukraine, and as close as a few blocks away. You could call it a veritable United Nations of dance which is exactly how the president of New York City Center, Michael Rosenberg, described it this week, introducing the third of five programs. He didnt explicitly refer to the ongoing U.N General Assembly happening a bit further east, wreaking its usual traffic chaos. There was a happier chaos happening onstage, a mishmash of extremely different styles of dance. As usual, the audience seemed to love it all especially the more out-there elements, like dancers stalking the stage on stilts in the first program, courtesy of choreographer Andrea Miller and her Brooklyn-based Gallim company. Fall for Dance has always lured a mix of known names some of them trying out something new with names unknown to most of the crowd. Among the familiar faces this year so far have been much-loved ballet stars Tiler Peck of New York City Ballet and Herman Cornejo of American Ballet Theatre, both choreographing this time (with Cornejo dancing, too). The emotional highlight, though, was the two-night appearance of the National Ballet of Ukraine, a troupe that has managed to remain operating in Kyiv despite huge hardship. In its first New York performance in decades, the company opened the festival with Wartime Elegy, an evocative piece by one of the worlds leading choreographers, Alexei Ratmansky. Currently an artist in residence at New York City Ballet, Ratmansky has a deep connection to the material. Born in St. Petersburg to a Russian mother and a Ukrainian father, he grew up in Kyiv. When he premiered Wartime Elegy at Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle in 2022, he unfurled and held aloft a Ukrainian flag during curtain calls. In program notes for Fall for Dance, he joins the dancers in honoring their colleagues who have fallen in warfare. The piece, featuring four male and four female dancers, both began and ended on somber tones. But in the middle, men whod been dressed in black suddenly appeared in folk costumes. The moody (and gorgeous) piano and strings music by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov shifted to spirited tunes, and the men leaped into folk-style dancing with abandon. The audience laughed along. But soon the dancers' bodies seemed to be collapsing, as the choreography again reflected pain, not joy. The curtain closed with one woman standing in arabesque, leg raised behind her, as if to say, quite like the troupe itself, that she wasn't going anywhere. Peck, who has been starting to build an impressive choreographic resume as she continues to lead NYCB as one of its top ballerinas, presented one of three pieces commissioned by the festival: Piano Songs, a spirited solo for ABT dancer Aaron Bell, to the music of Meredith Monk. The 81-year-old composer delighted the crowd by appearing for a curtain call. The highlight of another program was The Specter of the Rose, by Cornejo, the Argentine dancer who recently celebrated his 25th anniversary with ABT. It was a reimagining of the short Fokine ballet about a young girl who returns from a ball in her gown and dreams of the spirit of the rose, who materializes to dance with her. Here, it was modernized, with Cornejo bare-chested and in jeans, and his partner, sprite-like ABT ballerina Skylar Brandt, in little jean shorts. The dancing was everything youd hope from two classical dancers at the top of their game, with Cornejo showing that the years have not diminished his high-flying leaps and turns even in denim. The festival continues through Sunday. BEIJING (Reuters) -China's industrial profits swung back to a sharp contraction in August for their biggest decline this year, official data showed on Friday, adding to a recent spate of bleak business readings that point to mounting pressure on the economy. Profits plunged 17.8% in August from a year earlier following a 4.1% increase in July, while earnings rose at slower 0.5% pace in the first eight months compared with 3.6% growth in the January-July period, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The slump in August was due to factors such as "the lack of effective market demand, the greater impact of natural disasters such as high temperatures, heavy rains, and floods in some areas," said NBS statistician Wei Ning. A high statistical base last year also magnified the reversal, with falling profits in the automobile and equipment manufacturing industries weighing on the outcome, said Zhou Maohua, a macroeconomic researcher at China Everbright Bank. A sluggish run of data earlier this month has exacerbated worries about an anaemic recovery, prompting global brokerages to revise down their 2024 China growth forecasts to below the official target of around 5%. Highlighting weak domestic demand, a key bottleneck for the economy amid job security anxiety and worsening slumps in property sales and investment, domestic dairy giant Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co posted a 40% fall in second-quarter net profit. "Domestic consumer demand remains weak while the external environment is complex and changeable," said NBS' Wei. To pump some much-needed optimism into the economy, China's central bank announced on Tuesday the most aggressive stimulus since the pandemic, including a 50 basis point cut on banks' reserve requirements. But analysts warned more demand-side easing, especially fiscal help, would be vital to restore confidence. Chinese leaders on Thursday vowed "necessary fiscal spending" to hit this year's economic growth target. China plans to issue $284 bln of sovereign debt this year as part of a fresh fiscal stimulus, with part of the proceeds raised via special bonds used to provide a monthly allowance of $114 per child to all households with two or more children, excluding the first child, Reuters reported. State-owned firms saw profits down 1.3% in January-August, foreign firms recorded a 6.9% rise, while private-sector companies posted a 2.6% increase, a breakdown of NBS data showed. Industrial profit numbers cover firms with annual revenues of at least 20 million yuan ($2.83 million) from their main operations. (Reporting by Qiaoyi Li and Ryan Woo; Editing by Sam Holmes and Shri Navaratnam) Few foods have such universal appeal as pasta. Historians believe the Chinese were making pasta as far back as 3,500 years ago, and that it spread from Asia to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Now you can find pasta on pretty much every continent and a vast array of recipes, including many that have become iconic dishes. Some of the classic pasta dishes we know and love have intriguing creation stories that go above and beyond someone simply combining pasta with sauce and other tasty ingredients. Have you ever wondered how certain pastas got their name or how they came to be? For example, why does pasta alla puttanesca translate to "prostitute-style pasta" and what does the Stroganoff mean in beef Stroganoff? Is mac and cheese as all-American as we make it out to be, and was Italian wedding soup really created specifically for weddings? These are just a few of the questions we set out to answer. By delving into the origin stories of popular pasta dishes, we discovered some fascinating facts that might surprise you. Read more: Air Fryer Hacks You'll Wish You Knew Sooner Carbonara Pasta carbonara - Everyday Clicks/Shutterstock Nothing says comfort food like a bowl of carbonara pasta. A classic carbonara recipe includes only a few ingredients: pasta, raw eggs, guanciale (cured pork cheek), Pecorino or Parmesan cheese, salt, and black pepper. The dish is often connected to Rome and the Lazio region in Italy, but the true origins of carbonara are hotly debated. There are several theories as to how this creamy, cheesy, pork-flecked pasta dish came to be. According to La Cucina Italiana, carbonara comes from the Italian word "carbonaro," which translates to "charcoal burner." This has caused many to speculate that the dish may have been invented by Italian charcoal workers. Others say the dish was created by American soldiers stationed in Italy at the end of World War II. The story suggests that the soldiers combined their rations of bacon and eggs with Italian cheese and pasta. Some also say that pasta carbonara could be an adaptation of a dish called pasta cacio e uova, which contains pasta tossed with eggs, cheese, and lard. Puttanesca Spaghetti puttanesca - Jacek Chabraszewski/Shutterstock If you're looking for a quick and easy way to jazz up store-bought tomato sauce for a pasta dish, puttanesca is a good way to go. This vibrant dish consists of pasta tossed in a sauce made with tomatoes, garlic, olives, capers, chili flakes, and fresh herbs like parsley and oregano. Some versions also include anchovies. It's fragrant and packed with briney, spicy, umami flavors. Just know though that some believe this pasta dish has a racy past. Pasta puttanesca translates loosely to "in the style of prostitutes." Most historians agree that pasta alla puttanesca was born in Naples and became popular around the 1960s. This reason for the name is up for debate though. Some believe the dish was invented in brothels as a quick and easy meal the ladies could eat in between clients. Another theory is that a man named Sandro Petti created the dish for hungry friends who implored him to throw together any old "puttanata," which is an Italian curse word. According to Gambero Rossi, Petti changed the name to puttanesca to make it slightly less vulgar. Beef Stroganoff Beef Stroganoff - The Washington Post/Getty Images Meaty, creamy, and delicious, beef Stroganoff is the perfect meal for a cold winter night. A typical beef Stroganoff recipe includes strips of sauteed steak, onions, and mushrooms in a sour cream-based sauce. Fancy additions could include cognac, Worcestershire sauce, and Dijon mustard. The stew-like Stroganoff is often served on mashed potatoes, rice, or egg noodles. It's a Russian dish that was named after the aristocratic Stroganoff family. However, people are divided on which Stroganoff family member the dish should be attributed to. The theory that many people find the most plausible is that beef Stroganoff was created for Count Alexander Grigorievich Stroganoff. During the 19th century, the Count would invite people to "open table" dinners at his home in Odessa. Many believe his chef created beef Stroganoff because it was easy to make, appealed to many palates, and was easy to portion out. Another popular story is that an elder Stroganoff had trouble chewing, so his chef created beef Stroganoff because it was easier on the Count's teeth than a larger, tougher piece of meat. Some also say that the dish has French influences thanks to the French chefs who worked for the Stroganoff family. Fettuccine Alfredo Fettuccine Alfredo - SYED IBAD RM/Shutterstock It's easy to see why fettuccine Alfredo is a staple at so many Italian restaurants. This creamy pasta dish is so simple to make, but utterly decadent. A classic fettuccine Alfredo features fresh fettuccine noodles tossed with butter and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Common variations include the addition of cream, parsley, veggies like mushrooms, and protein like chicken. Many will tell you though that there is only one place to get a truly authentic fettuccine Alfredo and that's at its birthplace in Rome. The creator of fettuccine Alfredo was a Roman chef named Alfredo Di Lelio. In 1914, his wife had just given birth to their son and was feeling weak. He wanted to give her something hearty but easy to eat, so he whipped up the buttery, cheesy pasta dish. She loved it so much that he decided to put it on the menu. When Hollywood stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks tried the dish while in Rome on holiday, they were so impressed that they spread the word about fettucine Alfredo and the dish took off in the States. You can try the original version at Ristorante Alfredo alla Scrofa where it was created or Il Vero Alfredo, which is owned by Di Lelio's family. Mac And Cheese Mac and cheese - Tatiana Bralnina/Shutterstock When you think of classic American comfort food dishes, macaroni and cheese probably comes to mind. You may have grown up eating boxed mac and cheese made with fluorescent orange powdered cheese. Or if you were lucky, perhaps someone in your family made it from scratch with real cheese, butter, and milk. It's a staple at potlucks, celebrations, and barbecues and a dish that invokes fond memories of childhood meals and family gatherings for many people. But how American is mac and cheese really? Italians have been combining pasta and cheese for centuries, so it may not be surprising that one of the first recipes for mac and cheese comes from a 13th-century Italian cookbook. How it made its way to America is the more interesting part. In 1784, Thomas Jefferson was appointed Minister to France and brought his enslaved chef James Hemings to Paris with him. While in Europe, Jefferson fell in love with macaroni and cheese, so Hemings learned to master the dish and brought the recipe back to the United States. When dried pasta and processed cheese entered the picture at the beginning of the 20th century, mac and cheese exploded in popularity. Strozzapreti Strozzapreti with seafood - Filefluid/Shutterstock Most chefs will tell you that there is a world of difference between machine and handmade pasta. Pasta made by hand tends to taste fresher and has a better texture for soaking up sauce. If you're looking for an easy type of pasta to make by hand, strozzapreti should be on your radar. All you need to do is roll out your pasta dough, cut it into strips, and twist up the strips. The twisted pasta is perfect for dousing with cream sauce, tossing with meat and veggies, or smothering with ragu. Based on the name, it can also be used for something more sinister. Strozzapreti, also called strangolapreti, translates to "priest choker" or "priest strangler." There are a few different theories as to why this pasta has such a dark name. One is that Catholic priests in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy were known for being greedy and tyrannical. In response, angry housewives created this twisted pasta and cursed it, wishing death on any priests who would eat it. Some say the twisting motion of making the pasta represents strangling the priests. Others say the pasta simply looks like the collars priests wear. Spaghetti And Meatballs Spaghetti and meatballs - Watch And Rewatch/Shutterstock For many people, there's nothing more Italian than spaghetti and meatballs. The dish has classic Italian components like pasta, tomato sauce, meat, and Parmesan cheese. However, you might be shocked to know that spaghetti and meatballs is just one of many "Italian" foods that aren't Italian at all. This rustic dish was actually created in the United States. While it's become a wildly popular dish worldwide, it's not very common in Italy except at some restaurants that cater to tourists. That's not to say that Italians don't eat meatballs or spaghetti with tomato sauce. They just don't typically combine the two. Meatballs are called polpette in Italy and they can be made with anything from beef to turkey and fish. They're often eaten on their own or with a salad on the side. Spaghetti and meatballs came about because the dish combined ingredients that Italian immigrants in 19th and 20th-century America had easy access to and were affordable, namely ground meat, canned tomato sauce, and dried pasta. Pasta Primavera Pasta primavera - Boblin/Getty Images Pasta primavera certainly sounds Italian. Primavera means "spring" in Italian, which is a nod to the spring vegetables in the dish like peas, zucchini, and asparagus. The vegetables are tossed with butter, cream, and cheese for a luscious sauce that pulls everything together. It's colorful, creamy, and has a nice crunch from the veggies and a smattering of pine nuts. One thing it is not though is Italian. Pasta primavera was created in Nova Scotia, Canada. Legend has it that chefs Sirrio Maccioni and Jean Vergnes of Le Cirque restaurant in New York were vacationing at an estate in Nova Scotia with food writers for the New York Times. One day they put together a meal with leftovers they found in the fridge. They called the dish spaghetti primavera and it was a hit. Vergnes didn't want to put the dish on the menu at Le Cirque, so Maccioni included it as a special. That created a huge buzz, and soon the dish was majorly trending. Craig Claiborne of the New York Times even called it, "By far, the most talked-about dish in Manhattan." Cacio E Pepe Cacio e pepe pasta - Tayyab Rajput Bhatti/Shutterstock Sometimes it's the simple dishes that have the biggest impact and endure the longest. That's the case with cacio e pepe, a supremely tasty pasta that utilizes just three ingredients. It's basically just thin pasta like spaghetti tossed with Pecorino cheese and black pepper. A splash of leftover pasta water helps give the pasta a creamy consistency. It's a classic Roman dish that's steeped in history. Cacio e pepe, which translates to "cheese and pepper," was a staple for ancient shepherds in the Apennine Mountains of Italy. When the shepherds were on the move herding livestock, they needed food that would last a long time, keep them warm, and give them a calorie boost. The answer was dried pasta, hard Pecorino cheese, and black pepper. La Cucina Italiana reported that the pasta later became a staple in Roman taverns because the dryness of the pasta encouraged people to drink more. There are many variations of cacio e pepe. Some people use bucatini or other types of long noodles. Some add olive oil or butter to the dish to prevent it from sticking together. However, purists will tell you that less is more when it comes to this time-tested favorite. Lasagna Lasagna on a plate - Everyday Clicks/Shutterstock It's easy to see why so many people love lasagna. This iconic Italian dish features tender pasta noodles layered with hearty meat sauce (or veggies for the non-meat eaters) and gooey cheese. Baked until bubbling and golden on top, the dish offers a beautiful mix of textures and flavors. Another thing people love about lasagna is how versatile it is. From its early days in Greece -- yes, you read that right -- it's undergone countless iterations and can still be prepared in a myriad of ways to this day. Like several of the pasta dishes on this list, lasagna didn't originate in the country you probably think it did. It was likely inspired by a Greek dish named laganon, which included sheets of pasta dough layered with other ingredients like fish. The ancient Romans brought this cooking technique back to Italy where it became lasagne. Depending on where you are in Italy, you'll find the dish made differently. For example, in Bologna, the dish typically includes bechamel sauce, while southern Italians often make it with cheeses like ricotta and mozzarella. With that in mind, you don't have to worry too much about making mistakes with lasagna. Instead, you can have fun with it and add your own unique twists. Italian Wedding Soup Italian wedding soup - Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock With a name like Italian wedding soup, you might think the dish originated out of the desire to create a decadent meal worthy of a joyous celebration. The truth is the soup started out more as a rustic peasant meal than an elaborate matrimonial dish. The version that you may be familiar with in the United States with meatballs, pasta, spinach, Parmesan, and herbs in a herbaceous broth isn't exactly what the dish looked like when it was first created. And it wasn't named for a wedding ceremony between two people. The Italian name for the soup is minestra maritata, which translates to "married soup." However, the name pertains to the marriage of veggies and meat. According to America Domani, it originated in southern Italy around the 15th century and it was originally a winter dish made with tough vegetables that grow year-round and scraps of meat left over from the annual pig slaughter. The broth was typically made with pork bones boiled down. When Italian immigrants made their way to the United States, they adapted the dish with ingredients that were readily available like ground beef, spinach, and pasta. Spaghetti Bolognese Spaghetti bolognese - OlgaBombologna/Shutterstock When many people want a comforting and familiar Italian pasta, they turn to spaghetti bolognese. A traditional "spag bol" usually features diced onions, carrots, and celery simmered in a savory tomato sauce with ground beef or pork. Some people jazz it up with ingredients like bacon, oregano, and cream. It's a dish that is widely considered an Italian classic, but one that you won't find on many menus in Italy. That's because the sauce is actually called ragu alla Bolognese and it's rarely served with spaghetti. The first records of ragu alla Bolognese can be traced back to a man named Alberto Alvisi who was the chef for the Cardinal of Imola in the 18th century. While the dish has been tweaked over the centuries, many agree that certain elements make the dish a classic and must be adhered to. The Accademia Italiana della Cucina says it must be made with ground beef, pancetta, tomatoes, carrots, celery, onions, and wine. You can enhance it with chicken livers or porcini mushrooms, but bacon and garlic are absolute nos. And many will tell you it must be served on fresh tagliatelle. Tortellini Tortellini in a bowl - Watch And Rewatch/Shutterstock Italy has hundreds of different types of pasta, but only one of them has an origin story that involves a peeping Tom and a goddess. The town of Castelfranco Emilia claims to be the birthplace of tortellini. Local legend says the dish was created after the goddess Venus passed through town and stayed at a local inn. The story goes that the owner of the inn spied on the goddess through the keyhole in the door and was immediately inspired to create a pasta dish shaped like the goddess' naval. Whether or not you believe the origin story of tortellini, the truth is this pasta dish can be pretty divine. Flat egg noodles are rolled out until thin, cut into squares, and topped with fillings that often include meat and cheese. The pasta is then folded around the fillings to make circular parcels. In the Emilia-Romagna region where tortellini has been eaten since the 12th century, the pasta is typically served in broth. However, you can also find tortellini fried in butter and served with sauce. There are even sweet tortellini filled with cream and dusted with sugar. Cincinnati Chili Cincinnati chili - Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock To outsiders who aren't from Cincinnati, the concept of adding chili to pasta and topping it with beans, onions, and cheese might seem a bit odd. However, locals are fiercely proud of the dish and consider it as worthy of recognition as Chicago-style hot dogs or hoagies. Like those iconic regional dishes, Cincinnati chili can be traced back to enterprising immigrants who took familiar flavors from their homeland and adapted them to American tastes. In 1920, brothers John and Tom Kiradjieff left Macedonia for the United States. Within a few years, they opened the Empress Chili Parlor. At that time, chili parlors were becoming popular throughout the United States. However, the brothers didn't serve Texas-style chili. They put their own twists on the meaty dish, using Mediterranean spices like nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon. Locals loved it and requested variations that are now commonplace such as adding chili on top of spaghetti and getting it "five-way" with spaghetti, chili, diced onions, kidney beans, and shredded cheddar cheese. Oyster crackers are optional, but highly recommended. Read the original article on Chowhound. 5 signs someone will be a nightmare to divorce, according to a divorce lawyer A divorce lawyer said the person you marry is exactly who you'll divorce. If someone in the equation is even slightly unreasonable, divorce can get ugly, he said. He shared signs a partner will be vindictive and petty should you ever decide to divorce. When you consider marrying your partner, it makes sense to also think about getting divorced. More importantly, who you marry can predict if your divorce will be expensive, messy, and drawn-out. "You divorce exactly the person you married," James J. Sexton, a divorce attorney in New York City, told Business Insider. "If you're married to someone who's spiteful, conflict-oriented, vengeful, or extremely obsessed with money, then yeah, that's what they're going to be like in the divorce." Not all the signs are that obvious, though, and it doesn't take much to make divorce proceedings unbearable. "All you need is one unreasonable person in this equation and you're going to have an ugly divorce," Sexton said, whether it's your partner or the lawyer they hired. From his experience as a divorce attorney, Sexton shared some signs a partner will be unpleasant in divorce court. They're comfortable taking big risks Finance guys have had a moment in the dating scene, but the same thing that makes them wealthy might hint at a rough divorce: their high tolerance to risk. Sexton said that the clients he's represented who work in finance tend to be "very comfortable" with taking risks because it's often a core feature of their jobs. They might continue to fight over a clause, especially if they have the money to do so. Sexton has talked some of these clients down from playing games. For example, Sexton said he has one client who's worth $800 million. Theoretically, he could drop $50,000 to argue over the exact start times of the kids' Thanksgiving visitation days, he said, knowing his spouse won't be able to hold out. "For me, I would eat turkey another day. I'm not going to spend $50,000 arguing over that," Sexton said. They're confrontational If you identify as a people-pleaser or conflict-avoidant person, dating someone who's more confrontational can feel amazing at first, Sexton said. "They can be your champion," he said, being the person to call the super or negotiate better deals on your wedding. "But just remember when you divorce that person, they're not conflict-avoidant," he added. He's had conflict-avoidant clients worry about asking for more and risk upsetting their partner. "I often say to clients: 'You can't divorce someone and have them not notice.'" For those who have especially confrontational exes (but who shy away from conflict themselves), he recommends getting an aggressive lawyer to balance the dynamic out. They're vindictive, especially about money Divorce quickly gets expensive. "You could easily spend $10,000 arguing over a bank account worth $8,000," Sexton said. In his experience, a frugal person might feel incentivized to wrap up the divorce quickly to save money on legal fees. But someone who "will fight over the littlest amount of money" is a red flag. Sexton gave the example of getting a small accidental charge on a restaurant bill. Pointing out the error in a polite way is fine, but if they're rude and demanding to the staff, it shows they're willing to escalate things if they feel entitled to something. In divorce court, this can turn into pettiness over assets, even if (ironically) they financially lose more by prolonging the fight. Sexton has had clients express dismay at how vindictive their exes are. "I'm like, 'Oh, really? Was he not a vindictive person during the marriage?'" Almost always, the ex had those traits all throughout the relationship. They often jump to conclusions Sexton said one of the most important qualities to look for in a partner is how reactive they are. "In a divorce, there are a lot of opportunities to be paranoid, to get upset at somebody, to take something the wrong way," he said, especially if you're communicating through counsel. For instance, moving money into a separate bank account can arouse suspicion in the partner. Someone who goes "from 0 to 100 quick" will increase tensions every time they perceive wrongdoing. They can't take accountability Sexton said that people who struggle to see their own faults such as labeling all their exes as bad people are probably not going to change in divorce court. These people tend to be emotionally immature and bad at handling conflict in general. "When they're cornered, do they attack? Do they concede the possibility of their own error?" he said. If they're unable to apologize or acknowledge their own flaws, it can translate to trouble in divorce when they paint their ex as the villain. More than likely, their lack of self-awareness and inability to be wrong might be why they were served divorce papers in the first place. Read the original article on Business Insider A waterpark in Switzerland hosts an annual dog swim day at its waterslide adventures every year, and it's so cute to see the happy pups! On September 19, 2024, Zurich Restaurants, Bars, Events & Parties (@spazurich) shared a video of their annual dog swim day, and it looks like everyone had the absolute best time. Take a look! In a really fun video shared on Instagram, we get to live vicariously through a bunch of dogs who are having the best day at the waterpark! Related: Water-Loving Golden Retriever Hilariously Changes His Tune When Bath Time Rolls Around "Yearly dog swimming in Zurich, Switzerland," the text on the video reads as we follow a Golden Retriever and a Labradoodle into the waterpark. When the two dogs and their parents enter the park, we see just how many puppies were at the yearly dog swimming and how much fun they all looked to be having. Dogs had fun swimming in the pools and playing with the toys in the water. We watch a brave dog go down the waterslide, and the pup looks like they had the absolute best time! There was one Goldendoodle who looked like they tried the slide a few times and it looked like they were having the best time. Some of the silly dogs tried to climb up the slide, and it was also fun to watch them look like baby deer who were just figuring out how their legs worked. Another pup was getting some great speed, and once they all figured out the best method to get down the slide with speed, it was so fun to watch. In the comments, it's clear that people enjoyed watching the dogs have so much fun. Also, this looks like an event that is absolutely worth the trip if you're not local. One wrote, "Best swim ever! I don't have a dog... But I think I would come only to see this happy dogs!" Another shared, "So bummed I missed it. My lab wouldve loved this." Someone added, "Cutest thing ever. So sad Kitsune (Shiba Inu) doesnt like water." One joked, "Probably the only time the pool doesnt smell like pee." Someone wrote, "Happiest dogs ever." Important Water Safety Reminders for Dog Parents It's so much fun to play at the waterpark, and even though many dogs know how to swim and seem very comfortable, there are some water safety reminders that dog parents should always brush up on if they're planning to take their dogs out for some water fun. According to the American Animal Hospital Association, if you plan to have your dog in the pool, you should ensure there are safe ways to get in and out of the water. "A pet-friendly ramp or steps for pools are also important," they note. "Teaching your pet to use these can help them exit the water easily and safely, reducing the risk of panic or drowning if they become tired or disoriented." You should always be close to your dog when they're in the water and start slowly, even if they're seasoned swimmers. "Before letting your pet dive in, assess their swimming skills in a controlled environment. Start in shallow water and gradually increase the depth as they become more comfortable," the association suggests. "Regardless of your pets swimming prowess, always watch them closely when they are in or near water, as even experienced swimmers can become tired or encounter difficulties." Alpine-style teams in Nepal and Pakistan are setting up their base camps, making plans, and even sharing some details. Facing Jannu Benjamin Vedrines, Leo Billon, and Nicolas Jean have spent their first two nights above base camp, under the immense north face of Jannu East. It is really impressive, Vedrines said. They eyed a possible route and spent quite a tough night in heavy snowfall at 6,100m. They then descended for acclimatization purposes and to take shelter from the storm hitting Nepal. The monsoon has not yet retreated and they expect over a meter of fresh snow on the mountain. It will take some time for the snow to fall, settle, and then clear as the mountain shakes off the excess in the form of avalanches. Meanwhile in Pakistan Adam Bielecki and Louis Rousseau have set up Base Camp at the end of an isolated valley in Hunza. To get there, they trekked for days through glacial terrain, without trails or even cairns to mark the way. The pair have two peaks in mind, and both look large and difficult. There is no reasonable and therefore safe route to the lower peak [but] on the higher one we have spotted several potential climbing lines. They all look difficult but realistic, Bieleki told his home team. We have an idea of how to get up, but we dont yet have an idea of how to get down safely. Bielecki and Rousseau are acclimatizing while trying to find a suitable descent line. Finally, there is also news that Dean Steadman, Cody Winckler, and August Franzen made it safely back to the base of Yashkuk Sar. They just completed a first ascent. The post Himalaya Alpine Style: News from Bielecki and Vedrines appeared first on Explorersweb. Mickey Drexler, the former CEO and chairman of J.Crew, not only has great taste in fashion but also has a keen eye for real estate. The retail legend commissioned the late French architect Thierry Despont to design several personal properties for him over the last few decades, including a rustic alpine retreat in Idaho and a sophisticated 9,000-square-foot townhouse in New York City, and in 2010, the architect completed a beachfront home in The Bahamas for Drexler and his wife Peggy. Known as Zehava and in the hands of only its second owner, the trophy estate is now being offered for a whopping $42 million, a sky-high figure that makes it the islands most expensive single-family residential listing in The Bahamas. Nestled off the east coast of the island of Eleuthera, Zehava occupies three and a half acres within the prestigious Narrows enclave on Harbour Island, along what locals call Billionaires Beach, a pristine stretch of pale pink sand. Harbour Island has long been a somewhat under-the-radar hotspot for the worlds movers and shakers, including Taylor Swift, Tom Cruise, Diane von Furstenberg and Barry Diller, David Letterman, and duty-free tycoon Robert Miller. More from Robb Report Walls of windows give an intimate connection to the tropical surroundings. Zehava represents a rare and unparalleled opportunity, said broker Matthew Marco of Bond Bahamas. With Thierry Desponts visionary touch, this home blends timeless elegance with modern luxury, offering a living experience that is truly one-of-a-kind. Properties of this caliber, crafted by a master architect and located in such a coveted destination, seldom come to marketthis is truly a once-in-a-lifetime chance to own a piece of architectural history in paradise. Sculpted from a combination of solid poured concrete, natural Brazilian hardwood, and cream-colored travertine stone, the 9,500-square-foot structure gains lightness thanks to a butterfly-style roofline that resembles lifted wings. Internally, the design makes the most of its waterfront vantage point with soaring high ceilings, dramatic expanses of glass, and foldable slatted wood walls that open to unite the indoor living spaces to the tropical landscape. A two-bedroom cottage for guests adds to the sense of privacy and retreat. Despite its ample size, the main residence comprises just two bedrooms and two bathrooms, plus a powder room. In the commodious living room, a floor-to-ceiling wall of sliding glass doors lets the ocean air sweep right in while providing direct access to a covered patio. Theres also a more intimate den, a spacious dining room alongside a serving kitchen, with a galley-style chefs kitchen clad in warm paneling off to one side. For visiting friends and family, theres a two-bedroom, one-bath guest cottage. The grounds encompass broad decks that step down to palm-dotted lawns that roll down to the beach, sheltered terraces for escaping the sun, and a sunken pickleball court. Bedrooms spill onto water-view decks. Before the Zehava mansion hit the market, the highest-priced offering in the Bahamas was a $40 million property in Old Fort Bay dubbed Aspara. The oceanfront pad, which sold in April for $39.49 million, came with its own dock, a boat lift, and a private beach. The real estate market in the Bahamas has evolved to rival the worlds most exclusive destinations, such as the Hamptons, Malibu, and Palm Beach, added Marco, who also represented the Aspara deal. The demand for luxury properties here has surged as more discerning buyers seek not only a smart investment but also a serene, breathtaking environment to call home. The Bahamas is now firmly on the map as one of the worlds premier luxury markets. Click here to see more photos of Zehava. zehava bahamas most expensive Best of Robb Report Sign up for RobbReports's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. Irish farmer finds near 60-pound slab of ancient bog butter on his land by pure luck A strange object with a "cheesy" smell turned out to be an ancient discovery, one of the largest of its kind in Ireland. Oftentimes, ancient discoveries come out of archaeological sites, but sometimes, they can be found right in your own backyard. That's how Micheal Boyle's story went. Boyle was conducting work on his farm in County Donegal, when he found what turned out to be an ancient slab of bog butter. While a farmer was working on his land, he came across an ancient chunk of bog butter by "pure luck." Mom, Son Dig Up Ancient Object Often Found Near Burial Grounds While Gardening In ancient times, dairy or animal fat was buried in bogs for preservation or put in a wooden container as an offering to gods or spirits, according to The Irish News. The slab of bog butter on Boyle's farm had a small piece of wood on the bottom, Boyle told the Irish Examiner. This likely indicates that the bog butter once lay in a wooden container that has since decomposed. Read On The Fox News App The unearthing of bog butter is fairly common in Ireland and in Scotland, with around 500 finds recorded in Ireland. This find was especially unique in its large size, and it could very well be "one of the biggest chunks of bog butter found in Ireland to date," according to Paula Harvey, an archaeologist who visited the site, according to The Irish News. Butter used to be preserved in bogs around Ireland. Archaeologists Find Several Rock Carvings Of Ancient Board Game Dating Back 4,000 Years Bog butter chunks are usually around the size of a mixing bowl. Harvey explained, but this one was between 22 kg and 25 kg (around 48 and 55 lbs.) in weight, according to The Irish Examiner. "It was just by pure luck that we came across it," Boyle said, per the Irish Examiner. Boyle explained to the outlet that he had seen something about a foot in the ground, and was quickly encompassed with a "cheesy smell." Right away, Boyle said he knew what he had discovered. It is hoped that the ancient bog butter slab will be displayed at the Kilclooney Doleman Centre in Donegal once research is complete. "It does taste like butter, an unsalted butter at that. I had a sliver, and Im still here to tell the tale," Harvey said of the find, according to The Irish News. Historians say that the ancient bog butter could date back to the Bronze Age, according to the Irish Examiner, but more research is being done at the National Museum of Ireland. It is hoped that once the analysis is complete, it will be displayed at the Kilclooney Dolmen Centre. "The slab of butter wouldnt mean anything to anybody visiting a national institution," Harvey explained, according to The Irish News, "but it certainly would mean an awful lot to the local community here in south west Donegal." Original article source: Irish farmer finds near 60-pound slab of ancient bog butter on his land by pure luck Biscuit was my first rescue dog. I will never forget the way he stretched before a walk, his shake after waking from a nap, the way he fell over effortlessly for a belly rub, the way he raised his paw and pressed it against my leg when he wanted more treats, and most of all, his smile. Before he came into my life, hed been found abandoned wandering rural back roads in North Carolina, terrified, drastically underweight, his fur coat matted and nonexistent in patches, and his rear legs permanently deformed probably because hed spent countless hours in a small wire cage. Biscuit was taken to a rescue in Maryland where he received veterinary care and treatment. When my husband and I adopted him, he began emerging from his shell. Over time, a dog that once cowered behind chairs and tables and avoided humans became a true companion, a best friend. With Biscuit as my inspiration, I began a decadelong project documenting the fate of nearly 60 other abandoned dogs. I photographed them prior to their adoption and learned their stories, then did it all again a year or so later. Sixty dogs are just a sliver of the overpopulation crisis. More than 3 million dogs entered shelters and rescue organizations in 2023; 2.2 million found homes, but 1 million did not. Many of those animals were euthanized. There are so many unwanted dogs in America that the shelters are overwhelmed. In May, some of the Los Angeles Animal Services' shelters were operating at more than double their capacity around 211% full. Biscuit died of a rare cancer in 2013. He rekindled my love of photography and changed my life in extraordinary ways. There are countless reasons why dogs are abandoned some cruel and trivial, some sadly unavoidable. Shelters and rescues do heroic, necessary rehabilitation, providing veterinary care, vaccines, spay and neutering, foster families, adoption services but they are way stations. Happy endings require humans to write them. Jack the english bulldog before and after being rescued. Jacks/Taco English bulldog Jacks was about 5 years old, underweight but sweet and loving when he was surrendered to a shelter and moved to a rescue organization in 2014. Fostered first, he was adopted by a family who had been searching for an English bulldog rescue and spotted him online. They renamed him Taco. Nothing is mundane to Taco, I was told, a year later. He gets excited about a car ride or a frozen yogurt; hes a constant reminder to enjoy the little things in life. Toby the hound shepard mix before and after being adopted. Toby hound/shepherd mix Toby was a senior dog 8 years old when his owner surrendered him to a shelter in 2013. It took three tries before an adoption worked out. All told, Toby spent 1,216 days in the rescue, a record for the dogs I followed on this project, most likely because, as the vets at the rescue put it, he had separation anxiety. In the end, Tobys adopters didnt mind the extra attention he needed: We just felt pulled to him. Treasure the chihuahua mix before and after being adopted. Treasure/Chessie Chihuahua/Chi mix Treasure, renamed Chessie when she was adopted, was rescued in 2014 from a puppy mill where she was probably a breed dog. Estimated to be 4 years old, Chessie was very untrusting, according to the veterinary team at the shelter that took her in, especially of men. Nonetheless, a couple made her their first-ever rescue dog after seeing her on Facebook. A year later Chessie was one of a gang of Chihuahuas, a joy but still skittish around men. Dagwood the golden retrier mix before and after being adopted. Dagwood golden retriever/Labrador mix Found locked in an empty house in Indiana in 2012, Dagwood landed at a rescue in Maryland with basic manners but anxiety and fear as well. After a volunteer took him on a field trip to a nursing home, the manager agreed to a trial-run adoption, and now Dagwood is a professional support dog adopted, unusually, by a business. He lights up the residents day just by being himself, I was told. Everyone loves Dagwood. Dreifuss the labrador mix before and after being adopted. Dreifuss/Dreyfuss orange Labrador mix Dreifuss name got a new spelling when he was adopted in 2014. Transferred to a Maryland rescue from Tennessee, his left front leg had been amputated and he was diagnosed with a condition that causes his limbs to deviate outward. But Dreyfuss compensates. Special needs animals arent the first to be claimed, but as his adopter says, Dreyfuss isnt a dog to feel sorry for. The missing leg? He doesnt seem to miss it. Katherine Carver is an attorney and photographer residing in the Washington, D.C., area. The photographs and text are adapted from her forthcoming book Abandoned: Chronicling the Journeys of Once-Forsaken Dogs. 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. This SC city is one of the few in US folks should visit ASAP, national magazine says. Heres why Charleston has added yet another best of to its ever growing mentions in national publications. This time, its House Beautifuls 35 most beautiful places in the United States. They also added these are places you need to visit ASAP. Charleston has benefited from all the publicity, registering a record tourism impact of $13.1 billion in 2023, according to The College of Charlestons Office of Tourism Analysis. That is a 2.2 % increase over 2022 and a dramatic increase since the COVID pandemic decimated the industry. In the spring of the pandemic, tourism declined by 50%. At the time, Micheal Tall, chairman of Explore Charlestons Board of Governors, called the losses staggering. But in 2023, 7.79 million people visited the Charleston area and area hotels experienced a 70.7% occupancy rate, according to the College of Charlestons report. Charleston has repeatedly been named No. 1 city by Conde Nast and Travel + Leisure, in the top 100 cities by Livability, 41 in best places to retire by IRAInvesting.com. The list goes on. The word repeatedly written is charming and comments typically revolve around how hospitable the people are. House Beautiful selected downtown Charleston as 19th. Charleston is a charming town and hands-down one of the most beautiful cities in the U.S, the magazine said. The magazine noted cobblestone streets, historic sites, seaside resorts and colorful buildings. This South Carolina area will leave you wondering if you should pack up and move after just one visit, House Beautiful said. No other South Carolina city was on the list. Deemed No. 1 best was New York City. You could say were biased since House Beautifuls headquarters is in NYC, but its no secret that the city is a hub of culture, architecture, and design, the magazine said. They said the city teems with beautiful parks, historic buildings, and curated design shops around every corner. And offered a pro tip: Get the perfect mix of natural and man made on the High Line along the Hudson River. PEMBROKE, N.C. (WBTW) One person was killed and another person was airlifted to a hospital after separate shootings in Pembroke on Wednesday, officials told News13. Pembroke police responded at 2:16 a.m. to the 500 block of Lowry Street for a shooting. When officers arrived, they found Keith Oxendine, 53, with a gunshot wound. He later died. A person of interest has been identified in that shooting, according to police. There is no immediate threat to the public. Shortly before 7:30 p.m., officers responded to a shooting at Pembroke Mini Mart on E. Third Street, police said. A woman was shot in the head and airlifted to an undisclosed hospital. She is currently in stable condition. Authorities identified a suspect in that shooting, which is believed to have been domestic-related. That persons name was not immediately available. Police said there is no current threat to the public. Anyone with information about the shootings is asked to call Pembroke police at 910-521-4333. Count on News13 for updates. * * * Caleb is a digital producer at News13. Caleb joined the team in January 2023 after graduating from Liberty University. He is from Northern Virginia. Follow Caleb on X, formerly Twitter, and read more of his work here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBTW. GREENVILLE, Ohio (WDTN) The Greenville Police Department took a man into custody after a woman was found suffering from a gunshot wound. According to the police department, officers were dispatched to the 700 block of Martin Street around 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 26. At the scene, crews discovered a woman who had sustained a gunshot wound. They also determined that a person of interest had fled the area before their arrival, prompting police to establish a perimeter. Mother killed in backseat of car was an innocent bystander Life saving measures were undertaken on the woman, but she was pronounced deceased at 9:17 p.m. She was identified as Brianne Otley, 34, of Greenville. The man who officers were looking for was found at 10:27 p.m., several blocks north of where the shooting took place. The man, reported to be 25 years old, is in police custody on a preliminary charge of murder. The case remains under investigation and will be reviewed by the Darke County Prosecutors Office. The Greenville Police Department was assisted by Greenville Township Rescue, the City of Greenville Fire Department and CareFlight from Miami Valley 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 WDTN.com. By Tom Sims FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Commerzbank's designated CEO Bettina Orlopp met with bankers from UniCredit virtually on Friday morning, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, as the German bank kicked off talks with its Italian suitor. Italy's no 2 bank is pressing for a tie-up after snapping up a stake earlier this month while Germany's no 2 bank is honing its defence as it pursues a strategy of independence. It was not immediately clear which executives from UniCredit were present. Orlopp, who was appointed the bank's new CEO earlier this week, told a financial conference in London on Thursday that the two banks would meet to "exchange views" now that UniCredit was a shareholder. UniCredit caught Commerzbank off guard when it scooped up a 9% stake, saying it planned to buy more shares if it got regulatory clearance while pressing for discussions to explore a tie-up. Shares of Commerzbank traded 0.5% higher in Frankfurt, after a nearly 7% gain on Thursday, while UniCredit was 0.8% lower after a nearly 5% gain on Thursday. Commerzbank's shares have risen around 30% since UniCredit disclosed its stake. UniCredit's move is the most ambitious attempt yet at a pan-European bank merger but it faces considerable political hurdles in Germany ahead of national elections. Commerzbank's management, employees and the nation's chancellor, Olaf Scholz, have all voiced opposition to a potential takeover, but at least one big investor and some business leaders favour talks. Orcel, who has long held an interest in a tie-up with Commerzbank, this week said that it would be the best outcome. Orlopp on Thursday said the bank was open-minded but that the speed of synergies and risks to executing any deal needed evaluation. "Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't make sense, and that is something we need to find out jointly," Orlopp said. Bloomberg first reported Orlopp's participation in the meeting. (Reporting by Tom Sims, writing by Miranda Murray, editing by Thomas Seythal, Elaine Hardcastle) The land was bought by Blackstone earlier this year [QTS/Northumberland County Council] A 10bn investment in a new artificial intelligence data centre will create about 4,000 jobs, the government has said. The site in Cambois, near Blyth, Northumberland, will become one of Europe's biggest AI data centres. The land was bought by private equity giant Blackstone earlier this year, after the collapse of Britishvolt which had planned to build an electric car battery factory on the site. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the investment showed that the UK was "open for business". Sir Keir said Blackstone's investment was a "huge vote of confidence in the UK" and proved Britain was back as a "major player on the global stage". The plan for the data centre was first revealed in April, before Sir Keir's election. Northumberland County Council official Richard Wearmouth said at the time the project would put north-east England "at the heart of the AI revolution". About 1,200 jobs would be dedicated to the project's construction, the government said. The council also previously said the data centre would create about 2,700 related jobs. Britishvolt's plans for a car factory had been slated to create about 8,000 jobs. Construction on the site is expected to start next year, the government said. 'Gamechanger' Blackstone head Jon Gray said the firm was "committed to Britain". The firm also confirmed it would put 110m into a fund for skills training and transport infrastructure for the region. Northumberland County Council leader Glen Sanderson said the investment was a "gamechanger" for the region and welcomed the prime minister throwing "his full support" behind it. "Just yesterday, I wrote to the prime minister inviting him to visit the site at Cambois to see for himself its enormous potential," he said. "I look forward to welcoming him to Northumberland and to discussing with him how further government investment in our infrastructure can unlock even more economic growth." Additional reporting by PA Media. Follow BBC North East on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk. More stories from BBC North East and Cumbria Related internet links AMHERST, Mass. (WWLP) Health advocates from around the state gathered to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Western Massachusetts Health Equity Network. This network is dedicated to seeking strategies and opportunities to create conditions in which communities are able to attain the highest level of health and care. They believe that achieving health equity requires valuing everyone equally with focused societal efforts to address avoidable inequalities, contemporary injustices, and the elimination of health and healthcare disparities. Thursdays showcase is designed as an open house, allowing people to drop in and learn about the resources available. Andrea Freeman, an Organizer with the Public Health Institute of Western Mass. told 22News, We wanted to bring together people in Western Mass who are doing advocacy and lobbying to advance public health and health equity. Lamont Scott, a Project Director at MOCHA said, A lot of folks really dont know about resources available to and throughout our community so we are coming to give this information. Bring it back and share it to educate them on what they have out here to utilize for themselves and for their families in our community. MOCHA, or men of color health awareness is just one of the nearly 300 health advocates present on Thursday. They work to empower men of color to play an active role in our health care through health education and wellness classes. Local News Headlines WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.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 WWLP. $11.9 million secured for revitalization of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Bakersfield BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) The City of Bakersfield Recreation & Parks Department announced big funds going toward a park revitalization project on Thursday. The U.S. Department of Interior awarded $11.9 million to the Recreation & Parks Department on Sept. 25 for the revitalization of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park, according to Joe Conroy, PIO for the City of Bakersfield. KCSO rescues intoxicated female in Frazier Park The MLK Park Revitalization project was just one of 15 projects selected in California for funding. Of all 54 projects selected nationally, the MLK Park Revitalization project received the second most amount of funds. Officials say this project will provide enhanced safety, more play opportunities, a community center and community programming to the 16.1-acre complex. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17. Eleven people died in Georgia, including a first responder, as Hurricane Helene passed through the state Thursday night into Friday morning, Georgia Gov. Kemp said in a press conference Friday. I would ask all Georgians, like the Kemp familys doing, to keep these folks and these communities in your thoughts and prayers, Kemp said. The governor reiterated how important it is for residents to heed warnings about staying off the road and to be patient as storm damages persist. Its because we are trying to get to people, he said. It is a very dangerous environment, and one of our finest has lost his life trying to save others. People trapped in Georgia homes The deadly storm entered the state as a Category 2 hurricane with Alma registering wind speeds around 100 mph, according to forecasters. Helene shifted its path east, going in a slightly different direction than predicted from Valdosta to Augusta, Kemp said. This meant communities in that path and to the east of the storm were hard hit, he said, while others on the western side of the state were spared from the brunt of the storm. Rescue teams from both in and out of Georgia, including the Maryland Search and Rescue team, are working to get into multiple structures with people inside who they cannot communicate with, Kemp said. Teams will have to cut their way inside these buildings, he said. Valdosta has identified 115 structures that are heavily damaged that we that we know there are multiple people trapped inside, Kemp said. Medical facilities that dont have power will be prioritized, he said, asking residents to be patient as agencies work to respond. A medical center in Valdosta lost power after a tree fell on its emergency generator. We and Georgia Power both responded with an emergency generator, Kemp said. And Georgia Power is working hard to get the power back on there. Hurricane Helene made its way through the state of Georgia throughout Thursday and into Friday morning. A large tree fell on part of a house and yard on Forestside Drive. Road closures, power outages all across GA The Georgia Department of Transportation reported 152 road closures across the state Friday. Interstate 16 in Laurens County and Interstate 20 outside of Augusta were closed. Crews are actively assessing the damage and working to restore access where its safe, Kemp said. Generators were being deployed, especially in Valdosta, to help power traffic signals. Bridges around the state are in good condition, Kemp said, and the port is operational, but limited. Officials are planning a water release out of Lake Raybun in Raybun County in northeast Georgia because of the flooding. We are evacuating folks downstream from that, Kemp said. So theyre not cut off from the rest of the community if they dont leave. 911 facilities experienced disruptions because of power outages, he said. Georgia has one million meters, and many more customers, that are without power, Kemp said. (Utility companies) started going in behind the storm as soon as day broke, he said. We remain in constant contact with our utility providers. Flooding concerns havent gone away The state has 17 shelters across the state housing 1,100 people. A Coffee County shelter lost its roof, Kemp said, and resources are being deployed to ensure the people there remain safe. The Red Cross has opened or supported more than 140 shelters for nearly 9,400 individuals across the Southeast in the past two days, Katie Zwerk, regional communications director for the American Red Cross of Georgia, told the Ledger-Enquirer. As deadly flooding continues and threatens additional communities, even more people will urgently need our support, Zwerk said. Red Cross teams managed 50 of these shelters overnight and supported more than 80 partner shelters with staff and supplies. Agriculturally, Helene flattened poultry houses and caused damage to crops and nut trees. Ahead of the storm, Kemp authorized 500 members of the Georgia Nation Guard and 250 were deployed before Helene made landfall. Another 250 members were deployed, and the governor authorized an additional 1,000 members Friday morning. We have 500 in the field as we speak, Kemp said. And well call the rest as needed and as requested. Chainsaw cut teams, heavy equipment teams and pods for supply distribution are being moved across the state, he said. Teams were working to free up roads and move resources. Officials were also assessing the damage by air, Kemp said, but it took some time to get helicopters and drones in the air because of the high winds. It is important for residents to stay off the roads to give responders space to move trucks, equipment and resources. People who want to volunteer to help are encouraged to reach out to their countys emergency management agency, which can help coordinate. This ensures rescue teams arent prevented from reaching people who may be trapped. For people in the metro area, it is still very dangerous out there, Kemp said. A lot of the loss of life has been caused by fallen trees because of the saturated ground. Even though the wind is dying down, trees were still falling Friday afternoon. One fell at the mansion across the driveway after we left this morning, Kemp said. The potential for flash flooding should still be a concern, he said, and water will continue to rise for the next 24 to 48 hours, especially in the northern part of the state. If youre out, you need to be weather aware, Kemp said. If you dont have to get out, I would just tell you to try to hunker down at the house or limit your activities if you can. The intersection of Forrest Road and Alta Vista Drive is blocked in Columbus on Sept. 27, 2024, as a crew works to restore power to the neighborhood after the storm associated with Hurricane Helene came through the city. 11-month-old taken to Upstate Hospital after inhaling narcotic substance SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) Syracuse police were called to a home at the 100 block of Knaul Street off Butternut Street for an 11-month-old baby who inhaled a narcotic substance around 10:20 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 26. Police say the baby was taken to Upstate Hospital and is in stable condition, police say. No charges have been filed. The investigation 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 WSYR. Editors note: This report has been updated to reflect the correct date of Youngs next court appearance. YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) Bond was set on Friday at $15,000 for a woman accused of almost slicing a mans finger off Wednesday. Ashley Young, 31, was arraigned in municipal court before Magistrate Meghan Brundege on charges of felonious assault, a second-degree felony and domestic violence, a fourth-degree felony. Young is expected to have a preliminary hearing on Oct. 4. Young was arrested after police were called about 4:25 p.m. to a home on Lora Avenue for a report of a fight. When officers arrived, a man told them that Young came to his home asking for money to buy drugs, and when he told her no, she became irate and began smashing things and hitting him. The man told police he walked into the kitchen but she followed, throwing things at him and hitting him with a broom. When the broom broke, she grabbed a knife and cut the tip of his finger off, he said. Reports said an ambulance was called and the tip of the finger was hanging off the mans hand. Young was taken into custody at the home and refused to speak to police. She was denied entry to the jail because she complained of chest pains so she was taken to St. Elizabeth Health Center, where reports said she had to be put in a separate room because she was yelling and swearing at hospital workers. She was taken to the jail after she was examined. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com. Authorities identified the victim of a deadly shooting in Bostons Jamaica Plain neighborhood on Monday night. 19-year-old Quami J. Clark, of Boston, was found suffering from multiple gunshot wounds in the area of 277 Centre Street around 9:22 p.m., according to Boston Police. Clark was transported to an area hospital where he later succumbed to his injuries. Edwin Vinales, 19, also of Boston, was arrested in connection to the shooting for allegedly discarding a semi-automatic gun with an extended magazine at the scnee. He was arraigned in Roxbury District Court for unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of a large-capacity firearm, and unlawful possession of ammunition. The shooting remains under investigation and anyone with information is strongly urged to contact the Boston Police Homicide Unit at 617-343-4470. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW ADAMS COUNTY, Miss. (WJTV) Two people are in custody and two others are wanted after a shooting in Adams County. The shooting happened on Myrtle Drive on Thursday, September 26. Adams County Sheriff Travis Patten said dispatch received a call about Emanual Jones shooting at Jeremy Stewart at the location. When deputies arrived at the scene, they said Jones had already fled the scene. Police in small Mississippi city discriminate against Black residents, Justice Department finds Deputies were able to locate Stewart, who had been shot at multiple times. During their investigation, deputies said they discovered that Jones and Stewart had argued about money earlier in the day in front of Jones home. After the argument, Stewart returned home. The sheriff said Jones showed up at Stewarts home and was accompanied by two other people. They got into a fight with Stewart. Patten said Jones fired multiple shots at Stewart, who was not struck, but he did sustain minor injuries when he fled the scene. Emanual Jones (Courtesy: Adams County Sheriffs Office) Jeremy Stewart (Courtesy: Adams County Sheriffs Office) Two people are in custody and two others are wanted after a shooting in Adams County. (Courtesy: Adams Co. Sheriffs Office) Two people are in custody and two others are wanted after a shooting in Adams County. (Courtesy: Adams Co. Sheriffs Office) Two people are in custody and two others are wanted after a shooting in Adams County. (Courtesy: Adams Co. Sheriffs Office) Investigators later arrested Jones after he turned himself in at the Adams County Sheriffs Office. He was charged with aggravated assault and shooting into a dwelling. Patten said Stewart was also arrested after it was discovered that he was wanted in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, for burglary of a business. Anyone with information about the shooting can contact the Adams County Sheriffs Office at 601-442-8333 or Southwest Mississippi Crime Stoppers at 888-442-5001. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily 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 WJTV. 2 arrested after MS Coast chase ends with spike strips deployed at lighthouse, police say Biloxi Police arrested two suspects Thursday after they fled narcotics investigators who found one suspect in a car packaging alleged cocaine into bags, authorities said. Police said Errol Otis, 39, of Gulfport fled investigators who found him allegedly packing cocaine in parked car in the 100 block of Beach Boulevard. An investigator reached in through an open driver-side window and grabbed a bag of alleged cocaine from Otis lap, authorities said. Otis fled immediately. He drove west on Beach Boulevard with another suspect, Miranda Hannon-Mayer, 24, of Louisiana. Two children, ages 3 and 4, were in the backseat, police said. Police said Otis ran red lights and threw bags of alleged cocaine from his window. Officers spike stripped the car and stopped it at the Biloxi Lighthouse on Beach Boulevard and Porter Avenue. Police arrested Otis and Hannon-Mayer and removed the two children to safety, they said. Otis faces one count of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, one count of felony eluding and two counts of child endangerment. Hannon-Mayer faces one count of possesion of a controlled substance with intent to distribute and two counts of child endangerment. Police took Otis and Hannon-Mayer to the Harrison County jail, where they are held on bonds of $175,000 and $125,000. 2 Brothers Spent Decades in Prison After Wisconsin Woman's Rape and Murder. DNA Shows It Was Someone Else David Bintz, 69, and his brother, Robert Bintz, 68, of Green Bay, were exonerated in the 1987 killing Wisconsin Department of Corrections (2) David Bintz and Robert Bintz's mugshots Two Wisconsin brothers who spent nearly 25 years in prison have been exonerated, thanks to genetic genealogy. In 2000, David Bintz, 69, and his brother, Robert Bintz, 68, both of Green Bay, were convicted of the 1987 murder of Sandra Lison. In early August 1987, Lison, a 44-year-old mother of two, vanished from her job as a bartender at Good Times in Green Bay, the Green Bay Press-Gazette reports. Her remains were found shortly after in the Machickanee Forest in Oconto County, 30 miles away. She had been strangled, an autopsy found, local outlet WFRV reports. Authorities said they found evidence that she had been sexually assaulted before she was killed, the outlet reports. Police questioned the brothers, who were at the bar that night. David allegedly got into an argument with Lison over the bill, Fox 11 News reports. For years, the case went cold. Then, in 1998, when David was serving a sentence for another crime, his cellmate told authorities that David had confessed in his sleep to killing Lison, WFRV reports. Despite a lack of physical evidence linking the brothers to the crime, prosecutors said they had robbed Lison before killing her, WFVR reports. Related: 'People Magazine Investigate' s Chronicles How a Professor Helped a Wrongfully Imprisoned Man Get on with His Life In 2000, they were both sentenced to life in prison. Their luck changed in 2018, when the Great North Innocence Project of Minnesota began looking into the case. When local genealogists were unable to find evidence linking the brothers to the murder, Jim Mayer, the projects legal director, enlisted the help of Investigate Genetic Genealogy Center at Ramapo College in New Jersey, Fox 11 reports. In 2023, IGG investigators formed a genetic profile of DNA found at the crime scene and uploaded that to consumer databases, such as GEDmatch, Fox 11 reports. Based on that information, they began looking for any relatives that matched the DNA sample. IGG narrowed the matches to three brothers from Green Bay. One of those brothers was William Hendricks, a convicted rapist who died in 2000. 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 April, the IGG obtained a DNA sample from his disinterned remains and found that there was a one in 329 trillion chance that it belonged to anyone except Hendricks, Fox 11 reports. On Wednesday, Sept. 27, a judge granted a motion to set the two brothers free, NBC 26 reports. Today, Sandra Lison will rest in peace, because her true murderer is now known, Judge Donald Zuidmulder said, NBC 26 reports. It is therefore my bounded duty to exercise and follow the law, well satisfied that I will sign judgments vacating the convictions in both of these for both of these defendants and save them free. Asked how the brothers could have been sentenced to life in prison despite a lack of physical evidence, District Attorney David Lasee told NBC 26, The prosecutors and the law enforcement officers were handling this case at the outset, followed the evidence that they had at that time, and that conviction was sound. If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. SOPA Images/Getty Images A key US license allowing Russian yuan transactions is set to expire mid-October. That could make Chinese banks more hesitant to deal in Russia, worsening Moscow's yuan shortage. Russian banks have already nearly depleted their stash of yuan, Reuters reported last month. It may about to be way harder for Russia to get its hands on Chinese yuan. That's because a key license from the US Treasury that permits transactions from some of Russia's financial institutions is about to expire. The result could involve a worsening yuan shortage in the nation, with Chinese banks possibly completely refusing to process payments from Russia, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday. The license, which is set to expire on October 12, allows some transactions between the Moscow Exchange and the National Clearing Center to gradually wind down, as opposed to being completely halted. Dollar and euro trading on the Moscow Exchange have already been shut down with the latest round of Western sanctions. But once the Treasury license expires, all conversion transactions including those involving Chinese banks and their subsidiaries will be stopped, and their positions on the Moscow exchange will be closed, another source told the outlet. That spells trouble for Moscow, which has come to lean on China's currency heavily under Western trade restrictions. The yuan made up nearly 100% of all foreign-exchange transactions on the Moscow Exchange in June, according to one Bank of Russia review. But Russian banks have nearly run out of their yuan stash, thanks to Chinese firms being more hesitant to do business with the nation. Chinese banks have also held up billions of dollars worth of yuan payments intended for Russia, Reuters reported last month, which has also contributed to the yuan shortage. Read the original article on Business Insider Two men are facing criminal charges after police say they used tech support scam to steal $120,000 from an elderly resident on the South Shore. Shaoquin Liu, 27, and Shiwang Ning, 33, both of Brooklyn, New York, were arraigned Wednesday in Quincy District Court on charges of larceny over $1,200 by false pretenses and two counts of conspiracy, according to the Quincy Police Department. Liu and Ning first contacted the victim with a fake Microsoft notification and informed them that there were suspicious activities on their bank account related to an online poker website, police said. The victim then called a phone number provided by the suspect and was tricked into believing that they were speaking with someone from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, according to police. They were subsequently talked into repeatedly withdrawing large sums of money from the bank. Someone would visit the victims home and pick up the cash each time they withdrew money, police said. As the scam unfolded, the suspects gained remote access to the victims computer, saw what financial institutions they used, and created false correspondence purporting to be from their financial services company, the FDIC, and the Social Security Administration, according to police. The victim ultimately became suspicious and alerted Quincy police. Officers on Tuesday were able to apprehend Liu and Ning when they visited the victim to pick up more cash. Quincy Police Chief Mark P. Kennedy commended the bravery of the victim for coming forward. I am happy that these two criminals were arrested by our detectives and our department will intensify our efforts to educate our citys senior population about these scams and web-based fraud, Kennedy said in a statement. Scams targeting seniors have resulted in losses of more than $12.5 billion in 2023, police noted. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WKRN) Two men wearing Halloween masks were arrested this week after reportedly breaking into a Murfreesboro comic bookstore and stealing thousands of dollars worth of collectible game cards. The alleged break-in happened on the night of Tuesday, Sept. 24, at Grand Adventures Comic and Games on Memorial Boulevard, according to the Murfreesboro Police Department. CRIME TRACKER | Read the latest crime-related reports from across Middle Tennessee Authorities said two men, identified as 42-year-old Phillip Clodfelter and 64-year-old Kelly Garner, smashed the glass of the businesss front door to get inside. They then stole an estimated $8,000 worth of Magic: The Gathering cards. They went straight in there, cleared out the cases, manager Chris Pryor told News 2. The reason why I know they cased [the store] before is because, at the time, we had cards in both cases and I had recently changed that and I put snacks in them. They went right to that case. However, police said the two masked men didnt stop there. Clodfelter and Garner reportedly tried to break into Grand Slam Collectibles on Northwest Broad Street the same night but failed to get inside. (Courtesy: Murfreesboro Police Department) Surveillance footage from the business showed the two suspects wearing distinctive masks. According to Murfreesboro police, one resembled Michael Myers and the other a nun from the 2010 thriller, The Town. I checked the video and theres, of course, two burglars coming in, masked, Pryor said. They broke through the glass. Investigators said the video also identified their getaway car, a red Honda. After issuing a BOLO for the vehicle, Smyrna police reportedly spotted the Honda driving erratically and made a traffic stop. The masks were still in the car. The stuff they stole was still in the car Pryor said. Police try their best and they dont always get the bad guy, but when they do, its awesome. Read todays top stories on wkrn.com Officers said they immediately recognized the masks and stolen collectible game cards, which were sitting in plain sight inside the car. Following further interviews with Murfreesboro detectives, the two men were arrested and charged with burglary, theft and vandalism. Garner and Clodfelter are also suspected of committing similar burglaries at comic stores in Brentwood and Nashville, detectives said. As of Friday, Sept. 27, both were being held at the Rutherford County Adult Detention Center on $48,000 bonds. If they dont want to work to get this stuff, thats pretty terrible on them, Pryor added. Thats them, not me. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Posing as one of the kids who had bought the hallucinogens, Colorado Springs police organized a fake mushroom sale to apprehend 21-year-old Damian Lee Solano Colorado Springs Police Department Damian Lee Solano. The school day was disrupted at a Colorado Middle School earlier this week after two students ingested psilocybin mushrooms they allegedly bought from a local dealer who is now behind bars. The two Fox Meadow middle schoolers were rushed to the hospital Tuesday, Sept. 24, according to the Colorado Springs Police Department. Damian Lee Solano, 21, was booked into El Paso County Jail and held on a $50,000 bond. He is charged with four felony counts of unlawful distribution of a controlled substance, one felony count of an attempted sale and four misdemeanor counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to police. Google Maps The King Soopers in Colorado Springs, where the kids allegedly met Damian Lee Solano in the parking lot and purchased magic mushrooms on Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. Christine O'Brien, a spokeswoman for District 2 Harrison Schools, confirms to PEOPLE that both students were treated and released to family with resources to support them, adding that the district is supporting the students and families as they return to school and learning. While the school disputed the characterization of it as an "overdose," claiming that the students "did not lose consciousness or become disoriented, Caitlin Ford of the police department tells PEOPLE that the students experienced "adverse health effects, which would be the technical definition of an over-dosage." Per the police blotter, during the "overdose drug investigation," detectives learned that four children ages 12 to 16 had allegedly purchased mushrooms from the adult dealer. The kids had allegedly contacted Solano through the Telegram phone app early Monday evening, and met up with Solano at the King Soopers grocery store parking lot, according to police, who say that the students later provided them with a general physical and vehicle description associated to the dealer. 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. Parents of one of the kids helped detectives recover the remaining mushrooms and provided the students phone to reinitiate communication with the alleged dealer, per police. Posing as one of the students, a detective began communicating with the alleged dealer and agreed to meet for another narcotics transaction, per police, who say they were able to draw out the dealer with active communication over Telegram during the undercover purchase. During the undercover operation, detectives allegedly spotted Solano, who they say matched the physical description given by the students. Solano was allegedly carrying about 2 ounces of psilocybin mushrooms as the detective had ordered on Telegram when he was detained, per police. Solano is slated to make his first appearance at El Paso County Courthouse at 10:45 a.m., Oct. 4, per his online court docket. It was not immediately clear if he had yet retained a lawyer. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Editors Note: The video above is previous coverage on the Cuyahoga County Animal Shelter. CUYAHOGA COUNTY, Ohio (WJW) The Cuyahoga County Animal Shelter (CCAS) is responding to a surge in dog intakes by slashing adoption fees to $20 through Sunday, September 29. The reduced adoption fee, down from the standard $95, is intended to encourage community members to bring home a new pet. Adoption includes spay/neuter services, vaccines, a 2024 dog license, a microchip, and a current rabies tag. Watch for deer behaving abnormally in NE Ohio The flow of dogs coming into the shelter has really spiked in recent weeks, and we need the communitys helpeither by adopting or fostering a shelter dog, said Animal Shelter Administrator Mindy Naticchioni in a press release. The Fall Fur Me promotion covers all adult dogs. The shelter is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and Sunday from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. For a complete list of available pets, 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 Fox 8 Cleveland WJW. JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) The Jackson Walk for Diabetes is just around the corner, and theyre celebrating a milestone this year. The event is celebrating its 30th anniversary of raising money to help those with the disease and to find a cure. So, 30 years is a big deal. We think about birthdays, and thats why the whole thing is a birthday theme. That symbolizes 30 years just of Jacksons support, which is where were located, said Faith Ruchti, PR & Special Events Coordinator for Diabetes Foundation of Mississippi. The 2024 walk has moved to a new location. This year, it will be held at LeFleurs Bluff Playground on Saturday, October 5. Diabetes in Mississippi: How the disease affects people Were just going to try it out this year. Dont get scared. Were just going to see how it goes. But with the location being changed, we also had to change the day. So, we changed it to something where it was more kid friendly, said Ruchti. This years honorary chair is Hayden Tucker. She was diagnosed with diabetes as a child. Tucker said its important to recognize the symptoms. So, I had a lot of the classic symptoms. My mom was actually a nurse practitioner, so she was able to recognize it a little bit sooner. Which was good, because I didnt hit any of the super major symptoms, but I just had the frequent, like, thirst. I was always thirsty, and I always had to go to the bathroom, and I was just having a difficult time, like at school with that, she said. Mississippi leads the nation with diabetes. The walk helps educate and support those living with the disease and their families. Th goal for this years walk is to raise $50,000. All of the proceeds will stay in Mississippi. Registration for the walk will begin at 8:30 a.m., and the walk will begin at 10:00 a.m. WJTV 12 News Byron Brown will be the emcee for the event. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily 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 WJTV. (This story was updated to add photo and video, and to add new information.) 29 dogs and 8 cats were removed from a Pontiac home Friday as the Oakland County Sheriff's Department followed up on an animal neglect investigation. In a statement, the Oakland County Sheriff's Office said the removal was done to follow up on "animal neglect charges" against the homeowner, Karmen Schooly, 47 of Pontiac, after obtaining a court order to execute the removal. The animals are being treated by Oakland County Animal Control. Of the cats, one cat will probably have to be euthanized, said Bob Gatt, director of Oakland County Animal Control. Schooly currently has an open case in Oakland County Circuit Court regarding her animal rescue operation, Tri-County Dog Rescue. She faces three charges: health practice-unauthorized practice, abandoning/cruelty to animals and unregistered animal shelters/pounds. An image taken from an Oakland County Sheriff's Officer shows several dogs in cages. The dogs were removed from the house on Friday by Oakland County officials during an investigation into animal neglect charges. Eminent Domain: Detroit files dozens of eminent domain lawsuits for solar neighborhoods project Schooly's home address where the removal took place is also registered online with Tri-County Dog Rescue. The shelter's Facebook page was active on Wednesday, advertising a litter of puppies for adoption. In an emailed statement, Oakland County officials said all animals had been removed from the premises and the City of Pontiac "condemned the home based on several violations." During a phone call, Schooly told the Free Press that the removal was "totally unexpected," adding that she recorded it all and will be getting an attorney involved. Schooly has previously been embroiled in animal-related legal troubles. In January, six sibling dogs brought to Michigan by Tri-County Dog Rescue were caught in legal limbo after they were turned over to Macomb County Animal Control by a separate foster home. The dogs were sick with parvo, a highly contagious canine disease, and Tri-County Dog Rescue refused to take them back. A judge eventually ruled that the dogs would remain with Macomb County Animal Control, and all six have since been adopted. Breaking news reporter Liam Rappleye can be reached at LRappleye@freepress.com Bill Laytner contributed to this report. Editor's note: A previous version of this story had an inaccurate number of cats that were removed from the home, based on information provided by law enforcement. Eight cats were removed from the home. This story has been updated. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 29 dogs, 8 cats removed from Pontiac home Three people have been arrested in connection with a deadly shooting in Anaheim last month that police say was gang-related. Oscar Daniel Aguilar, 30, Daidar Martinez, 33, and an unidentified male teen were arrested for their alleged roles in the Aug. 12 killing of Christopher Monge. Monge, 26, was found in front of his home on the 900 block of North Siesta Street suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was transported to a local hospital and later pronounced deceased. Oscar Daniel Aguilar, 30, and Daidar Martinez, 33, both of Anaheim, were arrested in connection with the Aug. 12, 2024 killing of 26-year-old Christopher Monge. (Anaheim Police Department) Homicide detectives from the Anaheim Police Department have spent the last several weeks investigating the deadly shooting, and last Friday, the three suspects were arrested and taken into custody. All three likely face charges for murder, police said. The Police Department said it would not be providing additional information about the killing of Christopher Monge due to the ongoing nature of the investigation. Anyone with information that may aid in the investigation is urged to contact Anaheim PD at 714-765-1900, or Orange County Crime Stoppers at 1-855-847-6227. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. 3 AZ restaurants just got named best in the US. Here's why they're beloved Arizona restaurants continue to receive high praise from travelers as three one in Phoenix and two in popular tourist spots outside the Valley ranked high in Tripadvisor's 2024 Travelers' Choice Awards. The travel website recently issued its annual Best of the Best restaurants list, which recognizes the nation's top restaurants based on ratings and reviews by TripAdvisor users. This year's list is divided into nine categories: fine dining, date night, casual dining, hidden gems, quick bites, pet-friendly, vegan and vegetarian, outdoor dining and sustainable dining. Arizona's 2024 honorees include a long-running Italian restaurant in Sedona and a fried chicken restaurant in Page. Cocina Madrigal in Phoenix was named the No. 21 hidden gem restaurant. Tripadvisor users frequently lavish praise on Sedona and Page. Both were named among the best places to visit in 2023, and Sedona maintained the designation in 2024. Horseshoe Bend, the Instagram famous landmark near Page, was named the No. 14 U.S. attraction of 2024. Why TripAdvisor users love Dahl & Di Luca Ristorante Italiano in Sedona Dahl & Di Luca Ristorante Italiano, a farm-to-table Italian restaurant that has been part of Sedona's culinary scene for 26 years, was named the No. 7 date night restaurant in the U.S. TripAdvisor users mentioned the quality of the food along with the wine list, service and romantic ambiance - including a piano player - as highlights of their experiences. Most reviewers said they visited the restaurant to celebrate special occasions. Why TripAdvisor users love BirdHouse in Page The Page fried chicken emporium BirdHouse maintains its rank from Tripadvisor's 2023 awards as the No. 6 best quick bite restaurant in the U.S., continued validation of the restaurant's claim that they serve the "best tasting fried chicken in town." At BirdHouse, about 2 miles east of the Glen Canyon Dam Overlook along Lake Powell, people can order chicken breasts, thighs, legs, wings and tenders in original, spicy and honey butter varieties. They can pair their chicken with a wide selection of sauces and sides, as well as local craft beers. Tripadvisor users noted the restaurant has the ambiance of a fast food restaurant, but the quality of the food made up for it, with the chicken described as moist on the inside and crispy on the outside. Tripadvisor is not the only national website that highly recommends BirdHouse. In August, Yelp named it the best fried chicken restaurant in Arizona. Michael Salerno is an award-winning journalist whos covered travel and tourism since 2014. His work as The Arizona Republics consumer travel reporter aims to help readers navigate the stresses of traveling and get the best value for their money on their vacations. He can be reached at Michael.Salerno@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @salerno_phx. Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: These Arizona restaurants were just named the best in the US SIOUX FALLS S.D. (KELO) With the 2024 election in full swing, some ballot questions state that they could require judicial or legislative clarification. There are three ballot questions that state judicial or legislative clarification may be necessary IM 29, which would legalize adult-use recreational marijuana in the state of South Dakota, Amendment G, which would provide a state constitutional right to an abortion under a specific framework, and IM 28, which would begin the process to remove the sales tax from items meant for human consumption. One2 building in downtown Sioux Falls near completion South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley, said its important to clarify the language of the measures. On several of them Ive indicated a concern there may be constitutional challenges or there will be additional work by either the legislature or the courts to further clarify what some of the language is by the sponsors, said Jackley. Emeritus USD Law School Professor, Roger Baron, said what it means for a ballot question to need additional clarification. Many times new provisions go into effect as a result of the referendum or popular vote of the people and invariably the new provisions will have to be interpreted, just as if the legislature passes a new statute and thats subject to being interpreted by the courts or being amended by the legislature the following year, this is something that happens on a regular basis, Baron said in an interview with KELOLAND News. Baron said while uncommon in South Dakota ballot measures, clarifications arent unprecedented. He said this isnt the first general election to have something like this happen. Baron said of the three ballot questions, Amendment G wont be able to be changed by the legislature and can only be amended by the court. On the abortion amendment its interesting to note his (Attorney General Marty Jackley) description there that it may be amended by the judicial clarification, if this is passed as a constitutional amendment the legislature cannot change that, Baron said. If thats enacted then its only going to be up to the courts to interpret. Be informed on the seven 2024 ballot measures Only IM 28 would require both judicial or legislative clarification according to the Final Attorney Generals Statement, while the remaining two may receive additional clarification if passed. Baron said an example of clarification that is required is how tobacco would apply to IM 28. Its not perfectly clear that this measure prohibiting taxes on anything sold for human consumption will apply to tobacco or not. If this measure is passed, the legislature could easily come back and say that this does not extend to tobacco, Baron said. The legislature can come back and clarify. Nathan Sanderson, executive director of the South Dakota Retailers Association, says tobacco and over-the-counter medications would be included among items for which the state could no longer collect sales taxes. Rick Weiland of Sioux Falls, who is the sponsor of Initiated Measure 28, says they are not included. Baron said the legislature can amend these ballot measures if they see the need for further clarification. The legislature can come back and anything thats enacted as a new statute by a vote of the people by the ballot measure can be amended by the legislature, Baron said. The next legislative session, the legislature could come along and basically totally undermine either one of these ballot measures if they are approved. Baron said he thinks the ballot boxes will be pretty full this year and says the election should provide a somewhat clear picture as to what the will of the people is. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KELOLAND.com. Three men convicted of running an organized catalytic converter theft ring that spanned several counties across our region have been sentenced to prison. Christian Buie, Harold Wade and Antonio Johnson, all of Chicago, were sentenced to serve 5 to 15 years in prison. All three men were arrested in January of 2023 and pled guilty earlier this year. Investigators from North Huntingdon Township, State Police in Uniontown and Moon Township police worked collaboratively in this case. The suspects were utilizing two rental vehicles, one traced to Washington D.C., and staying at an Airbnb on Pittsburghs North Side, authorities said. Police said the men targeted car dealerships, towing services and citizens for weeks, overall impacting over 30 people and businesses and causing more than $300,000 in thefts and damages. During the sentencing, Assistant District Attorney Adam Barr said this was one of the more sophisticated and extensive organized thefts weve had in Western Pennsylvania prosecuted at this level. Two of the men, Wade and Buie, were previously arrested for catalytic converter related thefts in January of 2015. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW NYU Sterns Abu Dhabi campus will host the schools 54-credit, one-year full-time MBA program beginning in January 2025. Stern photo It will be the only full-time MBA program brought by a top U.S. business school to the Middle East-North Africa region. It will serve as the key cog in a pipeline of young professionals who want to build their careers in the MENA region. After years of preparation and planning and especially the last year of intense work its almost ready to launch. The NYU Stern School of Business at NYU Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, opens its one-year full-time MBA program in January. The last year has been an absolute whirlwind in a good way, says Robert Salomon, dean of NYU Stern School of Business at NYU Abu Dhabi. Ive never had this kind of experience in my career before of trying to put together an entirely new program, and in some sense a new business school. Raghu Sundaram, dean of NYU Stern School of Business, and Mariet Westermann, vice chancellor of NYU Abu Dhabi, at the 2023 announcement of the launch of the NYUAD one-year MBA program. Stern photo A UNIQUE INTERNSHIP That NYU Stern is the only major U.S. B-school to operate a full-time MBA program in the Middle East is not the only way in which its accelerated one-year MBA is unique. The January-to-December program will be 54 credits, making it comparable to a two-year program in scope but all the more intense for its compressed timeframe. comprised of half a dozen seven-week academic modules complemented with an orientation pre-module, the program is based in Campus Center on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, with a summer term spent learning in two Doing Business in New York City courses on Sterns hometown campus. Faced with the problem inherent to one-year MBAs the lack of a summer internship Stern came up with a unique solution: the Experiential Internship Course, a multi-part learning opportunity that extends across the four Abu Dhabi-based modules. In it, students working in small teams will partner with organizations in the UAE to address real-world business challenges. One of the things that we were very mindful of is that in having a one-year full-time MBA program that runs straight through with no break, there isnt a natural internship, Salomon tells Poets&Quants. Theres no, OK, youre going to go off and do an internship for a little while and then come back to school. So what weve done is, weve built it into the full-time MBA: Students will be doing what we refer to as the signature internship projects where they will be paired with local organizations that need help on specific issues, real-world issues that theyre facing at the moment. We already have 19 projects, which is more than enough that we need for the 50 or so students that well have, because well be working in groups on these projects. And the students will work on real problems with organizations from the get-go. Story continues Shorter and faster is the way of the future for MBA programs, Salomon agrees. I think thats the way the markets going, he says. If you ask me, I think 10, 15, 20 years from now, Id say half the programs will be one-year programs and half the programs will be two-year programs. COST & REWARD NYU Sterns Robert Salomon: Were looking for folks who are smart, yes, have emotional intelligence, yes, but also who have a desire to contribute to the region in whatever way, shape, or form Applications are still open for the first cohort of the NYUAD MBA that begins in January. They close in October. (Click here to learn more.) October also marks the beginning of the application period for the second cohort that will begin the program in January 2026. Tuition is $115,638, plus estimated living expenses of $38,724. Put together, that makes the program among the more expensive for a one-year program but not more so than some peer programs like the Cornell Johnson Tech MBA and the USC Marshall one-year program. And as in those programs, several merit-based scholarships are available to help offset the cost. Upon successful completion of the NYUAD MBA, students will graduate with a fully accredited New York University diploma, jointly conferred by NYU Stern School of Business and NYU Abu Dhabi. And then theyll look for work ideally staying in the region, Salomon says, which is bustling with jobs in industries that wants and need more MBA talent. Consistent with our tradition in New York and how we grew up as a school, obviously finance will be a big component of what we do. And Abu Dhabi is a financial hub, says Salomon, a professor of international management who is in his 20th year with NYU Stern. Its home to some of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world. I think several of the top-10 largest sovereign wealth funds in the world are located in the UAE. Sophisticated financial institutions are located in the UAE, in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. So thats one. Another is consulting. Theres a huge amount of consulting. All the large consulting firms, the BCGs, the Bains, the McKinseys, the KPMGs, the Kearneys, the PwCs, they all have hubs in the UAE and they all have large offices in the UAE. Oil and gas has been a traditional industry there. But when I think about the UAE, theyre also one of the fastest-growing alternative energy markets in the world. For example, they have the largest solar farm in the world. So alternative energy is an industry thats growing and growing very quickly there. Their sustainability at large is growing very quickly there. Tech of all sorts. FinTech, EdTech theyre pioneers in both of those spaces. So there are lots of areas where were seeing interest among the students. And not only that, the employers in the region are very receptive to having a top U.S. business school in the market. A GLOBAL INSTITUTION THATS LOOKING TO ATTRACT STUDENTS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD NYU Stern already offers two one-year accelerated MBA programs, both geared to specific industries: Its Fashion & Luxury MBA and the Andre Koo Tech MBA. Stern also offers its two-year MBA, of course, which P&Q ranks in the top 10 in the U.S. and Bloomberg Businessweek ranks in the top 15. For obvious reasons, the NYUAD MBA will be different, with areas of interest to the MENA region built into the curriculum. One of the similarities between this program and the New York program is, were looking for the best and the brightest from anywhere in the world, Salomon says. Just like the New York program, were looking for people who are intelligent, have the IQ factor and also the EQ factor. That for us is very important. Were looking for folks, just like New York, who have 2 to, lets say, 10-plus years worth of experience commensurate with a full-time MBA program. But there is one difference. And the one difference is that we really are looking to identify people who are interested in building and developing their careers in the region, in Abu Dhabi, in Dubai, in the broader Middle East. And theres a couple of things that make that attractive. The first one is, if you look at the UAE and the Middle East as a region more broadly, its one of the fastest-growing regions in the world. One of the consistently growing regions in the world. There are people coming to the UAE from all over the world. And there is a real desire in the UAE to attract talent and not only attract talent, but keep talent there. And so were looking for folks who are smart, yes, have emotional intelligence, yes, but also who have a desire to contribute to the region in whatever way, shape, or form. So were not looking for local students to go to a local institution. This is going to be a global institution thats looking to attract students from all over the world but what they share in common is a desire to develop their careers in the region. Learn more about the NYU Abu Dhabi one-year MBA program. And see a Q&A with Dean Robert Salomon on the next page, edited for length and clarity. Robert Salomon, dean of NYUAD and professor of international management at NYU Stern: Consistent with our tradition in New York and how we grew up as a school, obviously finance will be a big component of what we do POETS&QUANTS Q&A WITH ROBERT SALOMON, DEAN OF NYU ABU DHABI P&Q: Where are things at right now in preparing for the first year of the NYU Abu Dhabi one-year MBA program, and what has the last year been like for you? Robert Salomon: The last year has been an absolute whirlwind in a good way. Ive never had this kind of experience in my career before of trying to put together an entirely new program, and in some sense a new business school. So weve spent the last year hiring staff, administrators. Weve spent the last year hiring faculty. Were already up to 14 faculty members in C2 (Campus Center), in Abu Dhabi. And were in the throes of the admissions process. So we went from when we announced it was, I think there were two people that were attached to the program at the time from a faculty and staff standpoint. Now were up to 32. And we have plans to grow that from there. The first classes begin in January. Did you receive the volume of applications youd hoped for? The volumes been excellent. We dont release numbers until after the class is admitted, but the class is shaping up really, really, really strong. Once the class arrives in January, well release all those data and class statistics. But just to provide some specificity, for this first class we said that we were looking to have a class of around 50 students in this first cohort. And like I said, the class is shaping up nicely. This program is unique in several ways, but Id like to hear you talk about them. Its fair to say that theres nobody doing quite what youre planning to be doing. Thats fair. I can talk about it on several dimensions. We can talk about it in terms of location, program structure, the composition of the class. Ill talk about all those things. The way in which this program is slightly different than most full-time MBA programs is that this is a one-year, intensive full-time MBA program that goes straight through. Its 12 months long, theres no break. It starts in January and it ends in December. So structurally, its a little bit different than many other programs that are out there. I mean, there are a few other programs that are one year in length, at some schools, at some of our competitor schools, in fact. But thats one thing that makes this unique. Another thing that makes this unique is that its off-cycle in some sense. Typically, were accustomed to programs that start in September and end in May. Thats sort of the classic school-year cycle. We are starting in January and ending in December, for a variety of reasons, but mostly because in the U.S. there is very much a hiring cycle. The hiring cycle starts in September. It usually starts with the financial institutions. Then in November, the consulting companies come by. Then in January you get the tech companies to come and interview. In other markets in Europe, in the Middle East, the hiring calendar isnt as structured as it is in the United States. So we thought to ourselves, Look, theres nothing that says that the program has to be September to May. We can have a program that starts in January and ends in December, and that might speak to a whole set of students for whom that calendaring works better than what a standard academic calendar might look like. So thats another unique aspect of it. And then there is the summer in New York. There you go. The summer in New York, that I think is one of the things that we have at NYU, which is a true advantage as a university: We have whats called the Global Network University with campuses in Shanghai, in Abu Dhabi, with study-away sites, with sites in London and Madrid and Accra, Ghana, and Buenos Aires, and Australia. So the nice thing is, we have the opportunity to bring the benefit of having that Network University to our students and allowing them to study in different places. So for this program, were doing Abu Dhabi for nine months and New York for three months eight and a half and three and a half, lets call it. So everybody in the program will come to New York. Where are you going to put them? Theyre going to all stay at my place. (laughs) One of the cool things about NYU too is that we have a fairly regular cycle. The students are here from September to May. So in the summer months when they leave the dorms, those dorm rooms are available and we will have capacity. So we will offer our students dorms, and there are even apartment-style dorms for graduate students that will be on offer for them as well, which is nice especially for older students, graduate students in an MBA program. We talked about target size for the cohort, but what about target student for the cohort? What are you looking for? Who are you looking for? So thats another thing that I was going to discuss as a difference maybe from this program versus, say, the New York program. One of the similarities between this program and the New York program is were looking for the best and the brightest from anywhere in the world. Just like the New York program, were looking for people who are intelligent, have the IQ factor and also the EQ factor. That for us is very important. Were looking for folks, just like New York, who have 2 to lets say 10-plus years worth of experience commensurate with a full-time MBA program. But there is one difference. And the one difference is that we really are looking to identify people who are interested in building and developing their careers in the region, in Abu Dhabi, in Dubai, in the broader Middle East. And theres a couple of things that make that attractive. The first one is, if you look at the UAE and the Middle East as a region more broadly, its one of the fastest-growing regions in the world. One of the consistently growing regions in the world. There are people coming to the UAE from all over the world. And there is a real desire in the UAE to attract talent and not only attract talent, but keep talent there. And so were looking for folks who are smart, yes, have emotional intelligence, yes, but also who have a desire to contribute to the region in whatever way, shape, or form. So were not looking for local students to go to a local institution. This is going to be a global institution thats looking to attract students from all over the world but what they share in common is a desire to develop their careers in the region. And stay after they graduate, right? Yeah, it would be great if they stayed after they graduated. I mean, you cant force anybody to stay anywhere. But yeah, it would be nice for us as an anchor institution in Abu Dhabi, to see our students graduate, stay, and flourish in the region. For you to become a sort of feeder institution to the local industries, if thats the way it works out. And there are many! There are a lot of industries there. When people think about that region, they probably think oil and gas first. But you also are going to have a focus on sustainability, right? Consistent with our tradition in New York and how we grew up as a school, obviously finance will be a big component of what we do. And Abu Dhabi is a financial hub. Its home to some of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world. I think several of the top-10 largest sovereign wealth funds in the world are located in the UAE. Sophisticated financial institutions are located in the UAE, in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. So thats one. Another is consulting. Theres a huge amount of consulting. All the large consulting firms, the BCGs, the Bains, the McKinseys, the KPMGs, the Kearneys, the PwCs, they all have hubs in the UAE and they all have large offices in the UAE. You mentioned sustainability, and you mentioned oil and gas, and that has been a traditional industry there. But when I think about the UAE, theyre also one of the fastest-growing alternative energy markets in the world. For example, they have the largest solar farm in the world. So alternative energy is an industry thats growing and growing very quickly there. Their sustainability at large is growing very quickly there. Tech of all sorts. FinTech, EdTech theyre pioneers in both of those spaces. Biotech is another area. I would say that biotech is probably more aspirational. Theyre making investments in those areas. Its not like a Boston or a New York or a San Francisco when it comes to biotech. It would be foolish of me to make that kind of comparison. But they do have aspirations there. And its a burgeoning group of pharma-biotech companies that are starting to locate there. So there are lots of areas where were seeing interest among the students. And not only that, the employers in the region are very receptive to having a top U.S. business school in the market. What would you say for someone who may not necessarily be on a track but who is interested in entrepreneurship and doing their own thing after this program? What might interest them about coming to Abu Dhabi? Thats something that is another area that theyre very keen on in the UAE: entrepreneurship. And one of the things that NYU Abu Dhabi is extremely proud of is that on campus it has an accelerator called startAD. Students will be able to connect with this accelerator, and there will be collaborations between Stern and Abu Dhabi Stern and NYU Abu Dhabi and startAD and NYU Abu Dhabi to promote the entrepreneurial education of our students. We have an entrepreneurship track. Students can study entrepreneurship and in addition to studying it, they can also engage with startAD to work with ventures that are already in their accelerator to get help on with ventures that they themselves are thinking about forming. So its nice to have that there. Theres one other thing that I forgot to mention that maybe is slightly unique about the program. Its not a unique concept this concept has been around for a long time. But one of the things that we were very mindful of is that in having a one-year full-time MBA program that runs straight through with no break, there isnt a natural internship. Theres no, OK, youre going to go off and do an internship for a little while and then come back to school. So what weve done is, weve built it into the full-time MBA: Students will be doing what we refer to as the signature internship projects where they will be paired with local organizations that need help on specific issues, real-world issues that theyre facing at the moment. We already have 19 projects, which is more than enough that we need for the 50 or so students that well have, because well be working in groups on these projects. And the students will work on real problems with organizations from the get-go. So then the New York phase of the program will actually be a bit of a break. Right. There are two projects that theyll do during their time in the program. Signature Internship Project one, which is January to May, then a break in New York, and then they do another project: Signature Internship Project two, which runs from the end of August to the end of December. For an example of the kind of projects, one of the projects is that some student groups will be paired with startups: Those students who are interested in entrepreneurship can get paired with a startup for their project so that they help the startup. If you think about a two-year program and you take out all the breaks take out the summer, take out the six-week winter New Year break, take out the one week or two weeks that they get for spring break here and the days they get there, it actually turns into a 12, 13-month program. Thats exactly what an MBA is. So were just taking out all those breaks and helping people get it done. One thing I would say is that this also helps people stay out of the workforce for a shorter period of time. So theyre not out of the workforce for two years. Theyre only out of the workforce for one. So they get their MBA which is equivalent to an MBA that they might get at any other top institution, and they get it in a shorter period of time. And so they minimize the amount of time that theyre out of the office so they can get back to work and start building their careers again. Faster is what people want. I think thats the way the markets going. If you ask me, I think 10, 15, 20 years from now, Id say half the programs will be one-year programs and half the programs will be two-year programs. DONT MISS NYU STERN TO LAUNCH MIDDLE EAST-BASED ONE-YEAR MBA and THE TOP ONE-YEAR MBA PROGRAMS IN THE UNITED STATES The post The Curtain Is About To Rise On NYU Sterns Big Mideast Venture: An Accelerated MBA In Abu Dhabi appeared first on Poets&Quants. 4 Browns players ruled out for Sunday with injuries BEREA, Ohio (WKBN) Four Cleveland Browns players have been ruled out for Sundays road game in Las Vegas. Left tackle Jedrick Wills Jr., right tackle Jack Conklin, tight end David Njoku, and running back Pierre Strong Jr. will not play against the Raiders. Njoku, who practiced on a limited basis on Thursday, has not played since week one when he suffered an ankle injury. Wills sustained a knee injury in his season debut against the Giants in week 3. Conklin was working his way back from a knee injury suffered in 2023. Late last week he suffered a hamstring injury, which has kept him off the field. Strong is likewise nursing a hamstring injury that he suffered in week two in Jacksonville. The Browns and Raiders will kick off on Sunday at 4:25 p.m. on WKBN-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 WKBN.com. A tornado associated with Hurricane Helene, now a tropical depression, touched down in a Nash County city on Friday, Sept. 27, injuring several people. Around 1:30 p.m., the tornado struck two restaurants with people inside, and two other buildings near North Wesleyan Boulevard and Benvenue Road in Rocky Mount, emergency officials said. The damaged buildings include Hing Ta Restaurant, El Tapatio Mexican restaurant and the auto repair shop between the two. Weve had multiple injuries, with four of those being critical, Nash County communications director Jonathan Edwards said at 2:30 p.m. Edwards said EMS was triaging patients and taking those who required hospitalization to UNC Health Nash. He said they didnt have reports of other serious damage to share yet. Helene, which was downgraded to a tropical depression around 2 p.m. Sept. 27, brought heavy rainfall and strong winds to portions of North Carolina. Areas in the west of the state are dealing with flooding and dangerous road conditions in the wake of the storm. The National Weather Service Forecast Office in Raleigh issued tornado warnings for many municipalities across the Triangle, including Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Holly Springs and Fuquay-Varina. Helene and its remnants also caused two deaths in North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper said during a morning briefing Sept. 27. One person died Thursday, Sept. 26, following a motor vehicle crash on a flooded road in Catawba County. Another died Sept. 27 when a tree fell on a house in Charlotte. Check Triangle power outages as Tropical Depression Helene moves through the state Tornado warnings across the Triangle as Helene moves through. Shelter in place urged Four young captive-bred California condors (Gymnogyps californianus) are set to be released on Saturday September 28 at Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in northern Arizona. The 28th annual event celebrating these endangered birds will also be live streamed via The Peregrine Funds YouTube channel, at 1 p.m. MDT/12 p.m. PDT. The young condors all hatched at The Peregrine Funds World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho. The Peregrine Fund worked with the Oregon Zoo, Los Angeles Zoo, and San Diego Zoo Safari Park to bring them to Vermilion Cliffs National Monument to release the endangered birds into the wild. Condors are the largest bird species in North America and a crucial part of the ecosystem, but during the 1980s, the California condor population declined to just 22 individuals. The raptors faced a deadly combination of habitat loss, poaching, lead poisoning, accidents with power lines, the insecticide Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), and most recently, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) or bird flu. California condors are also considered sacred to many Indigenous cultures. The Yurok Tribe of the Pacific Northwest call California condors prey-go-neesh in Yurok, and the birds have been tied to the Yurok Hlkelonah, or the cultural and ecological landscape, since the beginning of time. The tribe has officially been a driving force on condor reintroduction since 2008. This work and the interdisciplinary California Condor Recovery Program has helped save them from the brink of extinction. [Related: CT scans look inside a California condor egg.] As of June 2024, there are 85 condors in the wild in the rugged canyon country of northern Arizona and southern Utah. The total world population of endangered California condors includes more than 560 individuals. Half of these are flying free in Arizona, Utah, California, and Mexico. The first condor release at Vermilion Cliffs National Monument was on December 12, 1996. The event was live streamed in 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions, reaching over 10,000 viewers. Last year was the first year tha that release did not take place due to bird flu. The virus killed 21 condors in the Utah-Arizona flock and officials did not release any condors as a way to prevent additional infections. [Related: Thriving baby California condor is a ray of hope for the unique species.] During the recent HPAI outbreak, one female California condor nestling became a poster bird for resilience, after her mother died from HPAI and was raised by foster parents at The Peregrine Funds propagation facility. She is set to officially enter the wild during this years release event. This years condor release will be especially impactful given the losses we experienced in 2023 from HPAI and lead poisoning, The Peregrine Funds California condor program director Tim Hauck said in a statement. With only 85 condors remaining in the Utah-Arizona flock and lead poisoning still a prominent issue, the release of these four condors will have a significant impact on the recovery program. But the California condor release this year is not just a celebration of these four condors, it is a moment of triumph for the biologists, volunteers, wildlife rehabilitators, recovery partners, and supporters who persevered through the last year. [Related: Inside the Yurok Tribes mission to make critically endangered condors thrive.] The condor team cant predict exactly when the birds will decide to leave the release pen, so the live-stream event will have a picture-in-picture set up with a camera on the pen. It will also include videos and interviews with the condor biologists and conservationists who work with these special birds. This condor conservation effort is a cooperative program by federal, state, and private partners, including The Peregrine Fund, the Bureau of Land Managements Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, and the Bureau of Land Management in Utah (BLM), Arizona Game and Fish Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Grand Canyon, and Zion National Parks, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Kaibab and Dixie National Forests, and tribes (Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians [Kaibab-Paiute Tribe] and Navajo Nation), among several other supporting groups and individuals. SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) A Springfield child was reunited with his family after walking around the neighborhood lost for more than two hours. According to the Springfield Police Department, on Sunday, September 1st, a resident found a 4-year-old boy who she didnt recognize walking around the neighborhood. The woman attempted to find the boys home but was unsuccessful. Child struck by car on Main Street in Holyoke Springfield Police Officers Lindsay Ruby, Ana Quiles, and Detective John Lopez were called to Commonwealth Ave to assist. The officers walked with the non-verbal child in hopes of finding his home and were also approached by Mayor Sarno. An AMR paramedic who was knocking on doors located the childs parents. He was brought to Baystate Health for evaluation. Mayor Sarno contacted Police Superintendent Akers to express his appreciation and thank the officers who showed compassion for this young boy. First of all thank you to everyone involved, from the neighbor who found this boy wandering and called the police, to the officers who cared for this boy and the paramedic who located his home. Without the Mayors message, I would not have known about our officers actions during this sensitive situation. Unfortunately, our officers respond to incidents like this far too often, but I can rest easy knowing that they do so in a professional manner. Thank you to Officers Ruby, Quiles and Detective Lopez for your work in making this boy feel comfortable on what must have been a traumatic day. Every interaction with the public makes a difference and want all our officers serving our community in the same manner that they bravely protect our community, said Superintendent Akers. Local News Headlines WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.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 WWLP. PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) Four Rhode Island men are accused of stealing millions of dollars worth of high-end vehicles from dealerships across several northeastern states, according to U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha. Belter Giron, 28, of North Providence, Alberto Rivera, 24, of Cranston, Richard Robinson, 32, and Onix Eduardo, 27, both of Providence, are charged with conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property and interstate transportation of stolen property. Court documents allege the men burglarized a dozen dealerships between February and July of last year, stealing approximately 120 vehicles valued at around $5 million. The stolen cars included high-end brands like Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, Rolls Royce, Bentley and Land Rover. To date, prosecutors said 41 vehicles and 11 dirt bikes out of the near-120 allegedly stolen by the four men have been recovered. In addition, 19 Husqvarna motorcycles were stolen from a Pennsylvania dealership and 11 dirt bikes were taken from a Massachusetts dealership. The dirt bikes were allegedly stored at Girons home in North Providence. To date, law enforcement has recovered 41 vehicles and the 11 dirt bikes allegedly stolen by the four men. Report: MA, CT among top states seeing increase in car thefts According to the indictment, the group researched dealerships before traveling from Rhode Island to break into businesses in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. The thefts, usually carried out in the early morning hours, involved stealing keys and driving the stolen vehicles back to Rhode Island. The men were reportedly interrupted by police multiple times, during which they drove recklessly and used their phones to coordinate escapes, the indictment states. After the thefts, they allegedly attempted to sell the stolen vehicles. Surveillance footage obtained by Providence police allegedly shows Giron and Robinson covering a Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk in a Providence driveway on March 13, 2023. The SUV, valued at $96,000, was one of four vehicles stolen from a New Hampshire dealership the previous day. Photo of reported stolen vehicle with alleged suspects // Court documents provided by R.I. U.S. Attorney's Office On July 10, 2023, at least one of the suspects allegedly stole two vehicles from a Somerset dealership, including a 2021 Dodge Ram TRX. The following day, a Westport dealership reported the theft of seven vehicles, titles, key fobs, and license plates, including a BMW 428xi recovered in Providence on July 12 and a Mercedes C-Class found in the Bronx, New York. The stolen TRX was also located in the Bronx on July 14, 2023. Giron is accused of selecting the dealerships to target, assembling the crews and brokering the sale of some stolen vehicles. He was arrested on Aug. 2, 2023, and his phone reportedly showed multiple web searches related to stolen vehicles and travel to a New York parking garage near where the TRX was found. In one case, a Range Rover stolen from New Hampshire on March 12, 2023, was found nearly two months later in a shipping container at a New Jersey dock, destined for Africa, according to the affidavit. Rivera and Giron first appeared in federal court in July, while Robinson appeared in August and Eduardo faced a U.S. Magistrate in September. Giron and Eduardo are currently in federal custody, while Rivera was returned to the ACI and Robinson was released on bond. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Breaking 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 WPRI.com. DENVER (KDVR) Three 18-year-olds and a 17-year-old were arrested in connection to an organized crime enterprise following an extensive investigation, according to Aurora police. On Friday, the Aurora Police Departments Crime Gun Intelligence Unit announced the arrests of: Lennon Melgares, 18, of Edgewater Xavier Chavez, 18, of Aurora Jayden Velarde, 18, of Morrison A 17-year-old from Lakewood The 17-year-old will not be identified because he is a minor. Police said Chavez was arrested on Sept. 5 by the Aurora SWAT Team, and Melgares, Velarde and the Lakewood teenager were arrested on Sept. 6 in Jefferson County. Videos show teen suspects using weapons The alleged gang members can be seen on videos shared by the Aurora Police Department. The group in the videos can be seen firing weapons while standing on a street. Another clip shows shots being fired from a moving vehicle. FOX31 Newsletters: Sign up to get breaking news sent to your inbox Aurora Police say the teenagers seen in the videos had connections with various violent crimes. The four suspects face charges filed under the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act. Some of those charges include: Attempted first-degree murder Conspiracy to commit first-degree murder Aggravated intimidation of a victim or witness Felony menacing According to Aurora police, the charges stem from April when investigators were reviewing unsolved shooting cases. Investigators connected multiple shootings in Aurora to other unsolved cases in Wheat Ridge and Lakewood. Through the investigation, detectives said the four suspects were allegedly involved in activities that met Colorados definition of an organized criminal enterprise following weapon offenses through the Denver metro area. Xavier Chavez, 18, was arrested on state organized crime control charges stemming from cases in multiple Denver metro cities. (Aurora Police Department) Lennon Melgares, 18, was arrested on state organized crime control charges stemming from cases in multiple Denver metro cities. (Aurora Police Department) Jayden Velarde, 18, was arrested on state organized crime control charges stemming from cases in multiple Denver metro cities. (Aurora Police Department) Their crime sprees, police say, were becoming more dangerous. Police say three of the four people in the car were identified as having warrants out for their arrest. All four of them were working in concert together to perpetuate violence over and over again, APD Investigation Division Chief Mark Hildebrand said. In court records acquired by FOX31, investigators identified the teens as being members of a violent street gang. Aurora police confirmed the arrests are unrelated to the Tren de Aragua gang. Extensive investigation led to arrests The investigation involved multiple law enforcement officers in multiple jurisdictions. Criminals dont just isolate themselves into one jurisdiction, theyre gonna be all over the Denver area, says law enforcement expert James Allbee with Metro Intelligence agency. Body cam video also shows an arrest taking place after Aurora police focused on finding the suspects with the departments relatively new Crime Gun Intelligence Unit. So, when we recover that evidence, we are able to examine it and see if that firearm is being used in multiple events, Hildebrand said. Investigators say shell casings have markings that are like fingerprints, which can lead them to weapons and suspects. Aurora police say the unit can get results back on shell casings within 24 hours. Hildebrand says the department has identified 400 shell casing linked to other shootings so far this year. FOX31 was able to confirm at least two of the teenage suspects remain behind bars. Download the FOX31 App: Breaking news alerts & Pinpoint Weather Aurora police said the investigations are ongoing. Anyone who has information on the suspects or the crimes is asked to contact the Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867. Tipsters can remain anonymous and be eligible for a cash reward of up to $2,000. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver. DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) More than four years ago, 18-year-old Nascia Goodwin was shot and killed in Dayton. With her case still unsolved, Miami Valley Crime Stoppers is offering a $10,000 cash reward to get the suspect behind bars. I agonize a lot of times. I cry. Its hard not to be, you know, emotional. I loved Cia. I love Cia so much, says Ester Goodwin, Nascias grandmother. The two shared a special bond. Nascia was Esters first granddaughter. She had a good heart, describes Ester. Shes very loving, very loving and kind. In the early hours of August 26, 2020, someone fatally shot Nascia. Her body was found in a grassy area at 926 Gard Avenue near Germantown Street. There are no suspects at this point. No, says Detective Elizabeth Alley. More than four years later, the Dayton Police Department Cold Case Unit is still working the case. These cases do get solved at times. They are definitely solved on tips that come in and thats why were hoping that someone can bring forth some information to bring some closure for the family, states Detective Alley. Thats why Crime Stoppers is stepping up to offer a $10,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest or conviction in Nascias murder. Anything is super helpful, no matter how minor it is. It could be something to help solve the case, reiterates Detective Alley. Nascias grandmother is hoping the money will be enough for someone to come forward, helping give he peace. I hope it can be solved sooner. Really. Yes. Its been a long time. And theres a lot of people that I think know, says Ester. My closure is just knowing what happened to her actually. If you have any information, call Crime Stoppers at 937-222-STOP. You can remain anonymous. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WDTN.com. 5 things to know about the indictment against Eric Adams New York City Mayor Eric Adams faces a five-count criminal indictment stemming from a federal corruption investigation, charges fellow Democrats from New York to Washington have deemed serious. Adams, who has been charged with wire fraud, foreign contribution solicitation and bribery, denied allegations of wrongdoing in a press conference Thursday. He insisted he would not resign from office. Federal officials raided Gracie Mansion Adamss home as the citys top executive on Thursday morning as part of the investigation into improper use of campaign funds and particular connections to Turkey, which traced back to his 2021 bid for mayor of New York. In addressing part of the indictment that focused on Adamss alleged financial conflicts and luxurious travel benefits, Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said: These upgrades and freebies were not part of some frequent-flyer or benefits program available to the general public. Adams, a former New York Police Department captain, is the citys second Black mayor and has been a key ally of President Biden, though the two have sparred throughout his tenure. Here are five things to know about the indictment: 1. Prosecutors say Adamss campaign illegally received $10M in public funds Prosecutors are pointing to Adams allegedly accepting money through a fund-matching program, which effectively matches individuals small-dollar donations with as much as eight times their contribution in public financing. The indictment states that Adamss mayoral campaign applied for matching funds based on known straw donations, fraudulently obtaining as much as $2,000 in public funds for each illegal contribution. It further claims that he and associates falsely certified compliance to give the appearance of adhering to current campaign finance laws. The move ultimately resulted in a total of $10 million in funds from the public, according to the indictment. 2. Adams urged FDNY to OK a new Turkish consulate, at Turkeys request A Turkish official pressed Adams in September 2021 to convince the the New York City Fire Department to allow a new Turkish consular building to open without the proper building inspection. The official wanted the opening before a widely anticipated visit from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. At the time, the building would have failed an FDNY inspection, the indictment reads. Adams, according to the court document, did as instructed, after accepting free travel and other travel related bribes in 2021 and 2022 arranged by the Turkish Official. The U.S. attorney said Thursday that laws that are designed to ensure that officials like him serve the people, not the highest bidder, not a foreign bidder, and certainly not a foreign power. These are bright red lines, and we allege that the mayor crossed them again and again for years, said Williams. That is the only reason we are here. 3. Turkish associates celebrated Adamss election victory Following Adamss win in the New York mayoral election, two Turkish individuals a businessman and a person the indictment lists only as a promoter expressed excitement over the results. The Turkish businessman asked if the elections had finished, to which the promoter responded that he received congratulations messages about Adamss success and predicted that he would be assigned as a representative. Im going to go and talk to our elders in Ankara about how we can turn this into an advantage for our countrys lobby, the promoter went on. The businessman responded positively to the news: That would be nice. 4. Adams told the FBI his phone was locked and he forgot his password The day after FBI agents attempted to search Adamss cellphone and other devices via a warrant, he said that he was not able to get into it because he forgot his password. Adams said, following a federal subpoena, that it was locked and that he had created a new password the prior day. In the indictment, Adams claimed that he deliberately changed the lock code to prevent members of his staff from inadvertently or intentionally deleting the contents of his phone as not to tamper with the current investigation. 5. A staffer left a meeting with the FBI to use the bathroom and deleted phone messaging software while there During a meeting with FBI agents that the indictment describes as voluntary, a staffer working for Adams got up from the interview to use the bathroom. The document states that during her time away from the meeting with FBI agents, ostensibly in the bathroom, she deleted the encrypted messaging applications she had used to communicate with ADAMS, the Promoter, the Turkish Official, the Airline Manager, and others. Ella Lee 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. ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) Six undercover Abilene police officers who assisted in rescuing a kidnapped baby earlier this year have been recognized for their heroic actions. FBI Dallas agents came to Abilene Friday to present the officers with FBI Director Certificates in connection to the arrest of a homicide suspect and successful rescue of a kidnapped infant in Abilene. The FBI contacted Abilene PD the evening of May 5 after learning murder suspect Alek Collins may have been hiding inside an Abilene home after fleeing the scene of a double homicide and kidnapping in Clovis, New Mexico. Abilene police take New Mexico double homicide suspect into custody, recover abducted baby Officers immediately jumped into action, helping with surveillance overnight before completing a successful but risky rescue and arrest after Collins left the residence with the kidnapped baby and attempted to flee. At great risk to themselves, the officers converged on the suspect and placed him under arrest. The infant was rescued from the vehicle and reunited with family members, a press release from the FBI explains. All officers involved in the rescue were awarded during a private ceremony at APD headquarters. Congratulations to each officer for their tremendous accomplishments during this difficult and dangerous investigation and the work you do each day to uphold your oaths of office, Assistant Special Agent in Charge McGuire proclaimed. Read more about the double homicide and kidnapping 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 KTAB - BigCountryHomepage.com. More than 70,000 customers in York, Chester, and Lancaster counties remained without power Friday afternoon after Helene ripped through the Rock Hill region. Wind gusts that reached over 40 miles per hour from the dark hours through the early afternoon caused havoc as damage from the storm spread across upstate South Carolina and around the Charlotte area. Trees were down on roads in Rock Hill, Fort Mill, and other areas from early Friday through the afternoon, although most main roads had been cleared by around 3 p.m. With schools closed but wind gusts still reaching above 30 MPH, emergency officials urged anyone who does not have to be on the roads to stay home until roads are cleared. Rock Hill had anywhere from five to seven inches of rain from Thursday morning until it stopped early Friday afternoon, city officials said. Fort Mill reported about 5.4 inches near Nation Ford High School, while Indian Land had around 4.25 inches, according to weather and emergency officials. SC and NC crews work Rock Hill rescue after tree falls on house Rock Hill, York County deputies and firefighters, and Charlotte Fire Department emergency workers from North Carolina rescued four people from a home on Poinsett Drive in Rock Hill near Celanese Road after a tree fell on the house, sheriffs deputies and Charlotte Fire said in social media postings. TREE DOWN: Deputies are assisting firefighters with rescuing 2 people trapped inside this house on Poinsett Dr. Rock Hill where a huge tree fell on it just around 6 am. #YCSONews pic.twitter.com/pbCyur5mrr York County Sheriff (@YCSO_SC) September 27, 2024 A man was pinned in the house before crews got him out, Charlotte Fire posted online. The extrication took over an hour. The man gave a thumbs up as he was taken out, the fire department reported. Charlotte Fire Assists York County with Rescue Effort This morning, Charlotte Fire responded to assist York County with the challenging extrication of an adult male pinned by a large tree that fell into a home on the 2000 block of Poinsett Dr. When our teams arrived, three of pic.twitter.com/cYGF3JDAvZ Charlotte Fire Dept (@CharlotteFD) September 27, 2024 In a separate incident, a Rock Hill woman was hit by a fallen tree from a neighbors property, deputy city manager Jimmy Bagley said Friday afternoon. The womans husband was able to take the woman to a hospital without the city having to respond, Bagley said. The woman may have a broken arm, he said. A large tree fell in Fort Mill from Helenes rains and wind, nearly hitting a home in the Dobys Bridge Road area. Power outages up from early Friday Outages stood at around 70,000 at 3 p.m. in the three counties, according to outage maps from Duke Energy, York Electric Cooperative, and the city of Rock Hill. The number rose from around 65,000 at 8 a.m. to about 95,000 at 10 a.m. before numbers dropped as repairs were made. Fort Mill, Lake Wylie, and Indian Land also were affected by widespread service disruptions in York and Lancaster counties. Western York County also had thousands of outages around York and west of Rock Hill. Rock Hill had around 3,900 customers without power as of 3 p.m, according to city statistics and Mayor John Gettys. However, that number had dropped considerably from almost 19,000 at 10 a.m., when almost half of the city was without service. Repairs in Rock Hill to restore all power could take a couple of days because some areas are harder to get to, Gettys said at news conference. The city had crews from the Charleston area and Alabama coming later Friday to assist city crews with repairs over the weekend, Gettys said. York Electric Cooperatives outage map showed over 23,000 York County customers without service as of 3 p.m. The co-op reported around another 1,800 outages for Lancaster and Chester customers. Repairs are ongoing but no timetable has yet to be released for customers to be back in service, cooperative vice-president Marc Howie said. Duke Energy reported about 24,000 outages in York County around 3 p.m., according to its outage map. Another 9,000 Duke customers in Lancaster County lost power, while Chester County had around 8,000 outages. Trees in roads, Catawba River levels, regional Helene effects No fatalities were reported in York, Chester or Lancaster counties as of 3 p.m., officials said. Catawba River headwaters could rise higher than they ever have before, due to heavy rain from Helene. Just before 11 a.m. Lake Wylie sat less than a foot below its full pond, or when a lake starts spilling. Four of six upstream lakes on the Catawba were above their full ponds, some by more than four feet. Law enforcement reported trees blocking parts of roads into the afternoon, but most were in the process of being cleared, according to the York County Sheriffs Office. York County Emergency Management was continuing with response and recovery efforts Friday afternoon after the rain cleared, director Chuck Haynes said. In Charlotte, one person died and another was seriously hurt when a tree fell on a house, The Charlotte Observer reported. Trees were reported on a few houses in Lancaster County but did not destroy those buildings, said Darren Player, emergency management director. High winds in southwestern Lancaster County near the Catawba River Friday morning knocked down several trees in a concentrated area off S.C. 200, Player said. Officials from the National Weather Service will likely look in coming days to see if that burst was straight line winds or possibly even a small tornado, Player said. Nearly a million people around South Carolina were without power Friday morning, The State reported. As of 3 p.m., there were over 1.2 million people statewide without service, according to Poweroutage.us, a site that aggregates outages nationwide. Helene was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm Friday. The NWS forecast for the area shows a continued flash flood warning through early next week. By Stefanie Eschenbacher and Shariq Khan (Reuters) - Mexico's Pemex this month shipped its first fuel export cargo from its new Olmeca refinery to India, a sign of progress after multiple delays and spiraling costs, according to shipping data and industry sources. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, whose term ends on Sept. 30, staked part of his legacy on the 340,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Dos Bocas by promising that it would wean Mexico off costly motor fuel imports. Pemex loaded around 112,000 barrels of petroleum coke from Olmeca on the vessel Ocean Royal at the port of Dos Bocas on Sept. 11, according to data from ship-tracking service Kpler. It then picked up a larger cargo of the same industrial fuel from Corpus Christi in Texas on Sept. 15, the data showed. Petroleum coke is used in power plants or in the manufacturing of various items such as glass or steel. Olmeca's cargo is heading for the port of Dahej, an industrial hub in India's west-coast state of Gujarat, home to chemical and petrochemical companies. The cargo should reach its destination by the end of October, according to Kpler. Neither the first exports from the new refinery nor the destination and volume of the deal have previously been reported. Pemex has done another deal to sell petroleum coke from Olmeca, one of the sources said, and is also producing fuel oil and asphalt there but no gasoline. Pemex did not respond to a request for comment. The exports offer an important milestone in efforts to start-up Olmeca, but fall short of government promises that the refinery would be working at full capacity by now. A photograph of the refinery control unit, shared with Reuters in late August, showed some plants at the refinery were working individually but facing issues with their interconnection. As of late September, the refinery is still trialing individual units and is in the process of ramping up its coker, a unit that processes residual oil into petroleum coke or feedstocks for motor fuels, two of the sources said. Some of the units have not reached optimal configuration and some are not yet working in sync with each other, they said. The outgoing president inaugurated Olmeca in July 2022 in his home state Tabasco, billing it as crucial to energy self-sufficiency for Mexico. Delays to the venture, whose costs have more than doubled to $16.8 billion, leave it to his successor Claudia Sheinbaum to turn that dream into reality. Olmeca began diesel production from crude oil in July, according to Pemex. But the output is yet to meet specifications for domestic or international sales, two sources close to the refinery said. Story continues Previously, Pemex had further processed ultra-low sulfur diesel from diesel that was already produced at another refinery. Pemex said in late August that the refinery had further processed 65,046 bpd of crude oil in July, producing 21,511 bpd of diesel and 8,775 bpd of petroleum coke. (Reporting by Stefanie Eschenbacher in Sao Paulo and Shariq Khan in New York; Additional reporting by Nicole Jao in New York; Editing by Simon Webb and Nick Zieminski) CHICAGO A crash involving a multi-passenger van on the citys South Side left at least eight people injured on Thursday afternoon. Officials from the Chicago Fire Department said the crash unfolded near East 98th Street and South Cottage Grove Avenue, in Pullman, and appeared to have involved only one vehicle. Read more: Latest Chicago news and headlines WGNs SkyCam 9 was over the scene around 4:30 p.m. when the van, which appeared to have crashed into a tree in the area, could be seen surrounded by emergency personnel. South Side crash involving van draws heavy emergency response South Side crash involving van draws heavy emergency response South Side crash involving van draws heavy emergency response At least five ambulances and two firetrucks could also be seen from overhead following the incident. According to CFD, eight people were taken to the hospital following the crash and three of them were listed in critical condition. LATEST CASES: Missing people in Chicagoland Authorities have not provided details on how many people were on board the van at the time of the incident, and it is currently unclear what led to the crash. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) Suppose you chat with anyone who grew up in Abilenes historic Barrio Sancudo. In that case, youll likely be regaled with memories of community gatherings, yearly reunions, and a childhood filled with close-knit neighborhood fun. Sandra Rodriguez no longer lives in Abilene but grew up there and holds deep roots in that historic neighborhood. My grandmother and my grandfather came to that neighborhood when there was no houses. And that was like in 1905. Rodriguez told KTAB/KRBC. Barrio Del Sancudo, which roughly translates to Neighborhood of the Mosquito, was well known for the large, pesky mosquitoes that thrived on the nearby creeks. However, the neighborhood is also known for being the only place Hispanic people could live for decades in Abilene. It was family; we were family, and we were all real good friends with the Herreras of Casa Herrera and Farolito restaurant. I grew up on Bois DArc Street. The Garcias and the Diaz down the street. I mean, everyone knew each other. We werent rich folks, but we were happy. Said Rodriguez. Women of the Barrio Sancudo in the 1950s, Credit: Abilene Public Librarys Hispanic Heritage Committee collection At the heart of that community was Sam Houston Elementary. Before it was constructed, many, like Rodriguezs mother, attended the Americanization school. Houston took over in 1949 as the only school Hispanic Abelonians could attend. It means a lot to a lot of us. I know it does. Our mothers made our cheerleading costumes and our little pom-poms. We had some good memories, said Rodriguez. She attended for six years, from 1961 through 1967. She says that at that young age, she was not aware of the segregation she was living through, but looking back, she is able to see just how different things were at that time. The other schools had a lot of privileges that we didnt get. Like the lunch room, for instance. Nowadays, I mean a school would not be without a lunchroom. We didnt have a cafeteria; we had a lunch lady that would make peanut butter, peanut butter, jelly, and sometimes ham sandwiches, and that was pretty much all. Rodriguez said. Houston Elementary 2nd grade class, Date unknown Credit: Abilene Public Librarys Hispanic Heritage Committee collection Integration officially came to Abilene in 1974, although some schools were desegregated before then. Rodriguez shares her memories of her first attendance at an integrated school. My teachers and students were all pretty nice. I remember the white students would sit together, and sometimes, I didnt have any Hispanic kids that I knew in my class, so I felt alone. It was sad. But I started making friends with some white friends, and were having our 50th reunion this weekend, and Im so excited, said Rodriguez. In 1979, the Houston school transitioned to an alternative campus known as the AISD Student Achievement Center. A State historical marker was placed on the grounds in 2019; however, in the 2010s, its doors were shuttered for good. Since then, little has been done to preserve the grounds, and they have fallen to the ravages of time. Houston school interior, 2017 Its sad. I hope they never tear it down. That is a landmark right there, a good historical place. Rodriguez said. She and so many others KTAB/KRBC spoke with in the Barrio Sancudo neighborhood were concerned about seeing the school and, with it, a piece of their history left to decay. It was obvious they had us over there in a little corner. And didnt do much for our school. And thats very important for our kids because they didnt see that. They might catch some kind of prejudice now and then, but not like it used to be. Maybe make it, like I said, a museum Because thats where it all started in that neighborhood. And that school should be very important to everyone. Said Rodriguez. She says the lessons of the past are so often the best teachers. Now, she says that if anything is going to be done to save the school, it might have to be that same family community that comes together to do 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 KTAB - BigCountryHomepage.com. Lesley Chavez, right, canvasser lead at Poder In Action, hands out neighborhood maps during a voter canvassing event Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin) PHOENIX (AP) When Lesley Chavez found out she was pregnant at age 16, she saw her daughter as a blessing from God and never considered an abortion, a view reinforced by her devout Christian mother. If she could have voted at the time, Chavez would have opposed expanding abortion access. But 10 years later as she and other Arizona residents braced for a possible ban on nearly all abortions Chavez drove over 300 miles (480 kilometers) to California to help a friend get one. That experience with someone she knew who was struggling financially and couldn't support another child was the final push that changed Chavezs stance on the issue. I just kind of felt like, dang, if I didn't have nobody, I would want someone like me to be there. I would want someone that's not going to judge me and actually help, she said. Now, she helps deliver that message to other Latinos in Arizona, one of nine states that is considering constitutional amendments to enshrine abortion rights. As abortion-rights groups court Latino voters through door-knocking and Spanish-language ads, they say the fast-growing group could determine the outcome of abortion ballot measures across the U.S., particularly in states such as Arizona and Florida with large Latino populations. Like other Americans, Latinos have an array of personal feelings and connections to the issue that can be impacted by religion, culture, country of origin and other things, organizers say. But their views are often misunderstood and oversimplified by people who assume they are all Catholic and, therefore, anti-abortion, said Natasha Sutherland, communications director for Floridians Protecting Freedom, which is behind an abortion measure in that state. A recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about two-thirds of Hispanic Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. About 4 in 10 U.S. Hispanics identify as Catholic, about one-third as Protestant or other Christian, and about one-quarter as religiously unaffiliated. Efforts to reach Latino voters often hinge on one-on-one conversations old-school, boots on the ground organizing, said Alex Berrios, co-founder of the grassroots Florida group Mi Vecino, or my neighbor. Overall, about 14.7% of eligible voters, or 36.2 million people, are Latino, according to the Pew Research Center. In Florida, 18% of registered voters are Hispanic, or 2.4 million people, according to an October 2023 analysis by the nonpartisan Latino advocacy organization NALEO Educational Fund. More than 855,000 Latinos are expected to cast ballots in Arizona for the November election, making up about 1 in 4 Arizona voters, according to NALEO. As a lead canvasser for the grassroots Arizona group Poder in Action, Chavez has knocked on the doors of ambivalent Latino voters, persuading them to support a measure that would guarantee access to abortion until fetal viability, a term used by health care providers to describe whether a pregnancy is expected to continue developing normally or whether a fetus might survive outside the uterus. Its generally considered to be around 23 or 24 weeks. Living United for Change in Arizona, or LUCHA, moved the measure to the top of its canvassing script because voters kept bringing up the issue. LUCHA campaigns to low-income Latino, Black and Indigenous voters. People initiated the conversation like, Oh yeah I just heard on the news what happened with the 1800 abortion ban," Abril Gallardo, chief of staff for LUCHA, said, referring to the 1864 abortion ban that the Arizona Supreme Court signaled in April the state could enforce but that lawmakers later repealed. Another group, Mi Familia Vota, has put $200,000 toward its efforts to mobilize Latino voters to support the measure. The official campaign against the proposal It Goes Too Far has enlisted Hispanic volunteers in its effort to sway voters. Abortion is one of the most important issues in the upcoming election to about 4 in 10 Hispanic voters, below the economy, crime, and health care, and about on par with immigration, according to the AP-NORC poll. In Florida, abortion is illegal after the first six weeks of pregnancy. The November ballot measure would legalize abortion until fetal viability. The Latino community is a huge part of any campaign in Florida, Sutherland said. We cant win this without Latinos, so Latino outreach is essential. Sutherland said her group uses bilingual phone banking and canvassing efforts, hosted a bilingual campaign launch rally, hired a Latino outreach manager and holds weekly Spanish-language meetings to discuss strategy. The opposing campaign has ads in Spanish and has a Spanish version of its website called Vota No En La 4. Berrios' group, Mi Vecino, has focused on Floridas 9th Congressional District, which includes Osceola County and Orlando and was the first majority Hispanic district to meet the signature requirement for putting abortion rights on the ballot. Berrios tells supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that they can vote for him and for abortion rights. We saw a need for a culturally competent nonpartisan effort to engage and educate Hispanic voters on reproductive freedom, Berrios said. For Latino men especially, it has been helpful to include messaging about limiting government decisions in family and health care decisions, several Florida organizers said. You need to have conversations that are tailored to the person in front of you. For folks in Florida, for example, who escaped communism in their own countries, theyre really moved by things having to do with freedom and the power to determine the conditions of their own lives. We try to be as nuanced as possible, said Lupe Rodriguez, executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice. Rocio Garcia, an assistant professor of sociology at Arizona State University, said that over time, Latinas, including those who are Catholic, have swung toward supporting abortion access, even if they would not get an abortion themselves. Alyssa Sanchez, a 23-year-old Mexican American who is Catholic, plans to vote for Arizona's measure. Her family members have been supportive of the issue as long as she could remember. You do still have to take Bibles, sayings, everything about the Catholic religion to your own interpretation," said Sanchez, a lifelong Arizona resident. And then battling that thought it just comes down to, I believe in peoples choice to their own bodies stronger than I believe in anything else. Sinsi Hernandez-Cancio, vice president for health justice at the National Partnership for Women & Families, said abortion-rights supporters cannot afford to assume Latino voters do not support abortion rights, especially in majority-Republican Florida, which requires 60% voter support to pass a constitutional amendment. If youre going to approach any voter with false assumptions, youre not going to be able to connect," she said. ___ Fernando reported from Chicago. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization in June 2022 ended federal abortion rights. (Photo by Sofia Resnick / States Newsroom) Dr. Kristin Lyerlys placenta detached from her uterus when she was 17 weeks pregnant with her fourth son in 2007. Her doctor in Madison, Wisconsin, gave the devastated recent medical school graduate one option: to deliver and bury her dead child. But she requested a dilation and evacuation abortion procedure, knowing it would be less invasive and risky than being induced. And she couldnt fathom the agony of holding her tiny dead baby. 7 States + 5 Issues That Will Swing the 2024 Election But Lyerlys doctor declined, giving her a direct window into the many ways Americans lack real choice when it comes to their reproductive health decisions. At the time of this miscarriage, Lyerly was getting a masters degree in public health before beginning her residency. She was able to get a D&E at the same hospital by a different doctor. As an OB-GYN, she soon would learn how much abortion is stigmatized and limited throughout the country, but also regularly sought after and sometimes medically necessary, including among her many conservative Catholic patients in northeastern Wisconsin. And then, on June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights, prompting states such as Wisconsin to resurrect dormant abortion bans from the 19th and 20th centuries. Lyerlys job changed overnight. She stopped working as an OB-GYN in Sheboygan and moved her practice to Minnesota. She became a plaintiff in a lawsuit over an 1849 Wisconsin feticide law being interpreted as an abortion ban, which has since been blocked. When a congressional seat opened up in a competitive Wisconsin district this year, the 54-year-old mother of four joined the post-Dobbs wave of women running for office to restore reproductive rights, which this election cycle includes another OB-GYN and a patient denied abortion care. Lyerlys decision to run is emblematic of the nationwide backlash against the Dobbs decision, which altered the reproductive health care landscape, with providers, patients and advocates turning to the ballot box to change the laws to restore and broaden access. Wisconsin is among seven swing states expected to determine the countrys next president and federal leaders. And in many ways theyre being viewed as referendums on how much the right to have an abortion can move the needle in a tight presidential election. What weve seen in every election since the Dobbs decision is that abortion is at top of mind for voters and its not just helping voters decide who or what to vote for. Its actually a turnout driver, said Ryan Stitzlein, vice president of political and government relations at national lobbying group Reproductive Freedom for All. The group is investing in down-ballot races in conservative districts such as Lyerlys, buoyed by cash and momentum from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris reproductive-rights-focused campaign. Anti-abortion money is also flowing through the swing states, led by lobbying groups Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Women Speak Out PAC. Some of their messaging, adopted by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and many GOP candidates, often paints Democrats as champions of infanticide, focusing on the rarest and most controversial type of abortions, those performed in the third trimester. Editors note: This five-day series explores the priorities of voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as they consider the upcoming presidential election. With the outcome expected to be close, these swing states may decide the future of the country. But aside from that rhetoric, many Republican candidates have been quiet on an issue that for years motivated their staunchest supporters. SBA Pro-Life America declined an interview for this story but shared a press release outlining the organizations strategy trying to reach 10 million voters in Montana, Ohio and all of the battleground states except for Nevada. The group endorsed 28 House candidates total this cycle, and a fifth of them are in North Carolina. One of North Carolinas endorsed candidates in a toss-up race is Republican GOP challenger Laurie Buckhout, who does not mention her abortion stance on her campaign website, and did not return a request for comment. Our field team is talking to persuadable and low propensity pro-life voters to urge them to cast their votes against the party that endorses abortion in the seventh, eighth and ninth months, said SBAs national field team director Patricia Miles in the press statement. But throughout this election cycle, polls in the swing states have shown bipartisan support for abortion rights, especially when voters are educated about what abortion bans do. Voters in more than half of the states expected to determine the presidential winner have, to varying degrees, lost access to abortion. And abortion-rights activists across these states told States Newsroom they are determined to protect that access, or to get it back. Fallout from a resurrected Civil War-era abortion ban and a citizen-led abortion-rights ballot measure have put the issue at the center of many critical races in Arizona. (Gloria Rebecca Gomez/Arizona Mirror) Arizona sees backlash after GOP upholds Civil War-era abortion ban In Arizona, the Dobbs decision resurrected a Civil War-era ban that allowed abortions only to save a pregnant patients life. Legislators repealed the law, but abortion-rights supporters fought for more certainty. This fall, Arizonans will vote on a proposed ballot measure that would protect access until fetal viability, around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Now, two of the judges who upheld the abortion ban Justices Clint Bolick and Kathryn King are up for reelection, in races infused with national cash by groups such as RFA and Planned Parenthood. Also on the ballot is Proposition 137, which would give lifetime appointments to state judges. The Republican-initiated measure has garnered controversy in part because it is retroactive to this years election, so if approved, any retention bids would be nullified even if the majority votes to unseat the judge. Ballot organizers turned in more than 800,000 signatures, double the required number, and overcame opponents legal challenges to qualify the abortion-rights ballot measure, Proposition 139. Abortion is legal up to 15 weeks of pregnancy, but there are many state restrictions that the Arizona Abortion Access Act would eliminate, such as a ban on any abortions sought for fetal genetic abnormalities and a blocked law from 2021 granting personhood status to fertilized eggs. Recent deaths reignite controversy over Georgias abortion ban This month, ProPublica reported on the deaths in 2022 of two Georgia women who suffered rare complications after they obtained mifepristone and misoprostol for early-term medication abortions. Both were trying to navigate a new state law that banned abortions at about six weeks of pregnancy and threatened medical providers with up to a decade in prison. In one case, doctors at an Atlanta-area hospital refused for 20 hours to perform a routine dilation and curettage, a D&C, to clear the patients uterus when her body hadnt expelled all the fetal tissue. In the other, a woman who had ordered the pills online suffered days of pain at home, fearful of seeking medical care. Both women left children behind. Georgias law permits abortion if the patients life is at risk, but medical providers have said the laws language is unclear, tying their hands and threatening the health of patients who have high-risk pregnancies. Their cases, which a state medical review committee found to be preventable, have galvanized activists in the state. Harris spoke at length about the women, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, at a recent campaign event in Atlanta. She blamed their deaths on Georgias law, calling it the Trump abortion ban, because the former president appointed three justices hed promised would overturn Roe v. Wade. This is a health care crisis, and Donald Trump is the architect of this crisis, Harris said. Understand what a law like this means: Doctors have to wait until the patient is at deaths door before they take action. Youre saying that good policy, logical policy, moral policy, humane policy is about saying that a health care provider will only start providing that care when youre about to die? Trump has not commented on the deaths. He has repeatedly said this year that abortion access should be left to the states. He has dismissed the idea of a federal abortion ban, but during the presidential debate, he refused to say whether he would veto such legislation. At a recent rally in North Carolina, Trump addressed our great women (a demographic hes trailing among), saying, you will no longer be thinking about abortion, because it is now where it always had to be, with the states, and with the vote of the people. Abortion was a driving concern in this springs qualifying process for Georgias 2024 legislative elections the first opportunity for aspiring state lawmakers to jump on the ballot in response to their states severe abortion restrictions. Melita Easters, the executive director and founding chair of Georgia WIN List, which endorses Democratic women who support abortion rights, was already calling this years general election Roevember back when President Joe Biden was still the partys nominee. But Easters told States Newsroom that having Harris on the ticket instead has elevated the issue of reproductive freedom even more and has breathed new life into down-ballot campaigns. Easters said she is especially encouraged after a Democratic state House candidate in Alabama who ran on abortion rights flipped a Huntsville seat during a special election in March. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Michigan Democrats continue betting on abortion after 2022 successes Michigan was one of the earliest states post-Dobbs to show that abortion rights could be a strong election-winning issue. Months after the Supreme Courts ruling, Michiganders overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to protect abortion rights in the state constitution; reelected Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who vowed to prioritize reproductive freedom; and voted for Democratic majorities in both chambers, giving the party a legislative trifecta for the first time in 40 years. In 2023, the legislature repealed a 1931 abortion ban that was still on the books and passed the Reproductive Health Act, expanding abortion access in the state. This year, state and national abortion-rights groups have campaigned in toss-up congressional districts across Michigan, warning that a federal ban would supersede the states protections. State judicial races, meanwhile, have attracted millions of dollars, as they could determine partisan control of the Michigan Supreme Court. Democrats secured a slim 4-3 majority on the state Supreme Court in 2020 after Republican-nominated justices controlled the court for most of the last few decades. Nevada reproductive rights activists hope ballot initiative improves turnout In Nevada, abortion remains legal through 24 weeks and beyond for specific health reasons. In 2023, the states Democratic-led legislature passed a law shielding patients and providers from out-of-state investigations related to abortion care; it was signed by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo. Seeking to cement these rights in the state constitution, reproductive health advocates mobilized a ballot initiative campaign, which they hope will drive voter turnout that would affect the presidential and down-ballot races. Constitutional amendments proposed through an initiative petition must be passed by voters twice, so if voters approve Question 6 in November, they will have to approve it again in 2026. In the states closely watched U.S. Senate race, Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen currently edges Republican Sam Brown, who has had inconsistent positions on abortion and reproductive rights but opposes the abortion-rights measure. National anti-abortion groups Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Students for Life of America have notably not focused on Nevada in their campaign strategies. Growing Latinx voting bloc in North Carolina In North Carolina many Democrats are campaigning in opposition to a 12-week abortion ban that the Republican-majority legislature passed last year after overriding Democratic Gov. Roy Coopers veto. In a high-profile race for governor, Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein faces Republican opponent Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who has previously said he believes there is no compromise on abortion, according to NC Newsline. The lieutenant governor is now facing calls to withdraw from the race over comments made on a pornography website years ago, and Stein has started racking up endorsements from prominent state Republicans. Iliana Santillan, a political organizer who supports abortion rights, has focused on mobilizing Latinos, a growing voting bloc in the state. The executive director of progressive nonprofit El Pueblo and its political sister group La Fuerza NC told States Newsroom shes talked to many young women motivated to secure their own reproductive rights, including her college-age daughter. She said the Latinx community faces additional reproductive care barriers such as language and transportation, with undocumented immigrants scared to cross state lines without a drivers license. Santillan also said theres a misconception that all Latinos are against abortion because theyre Catholic, when in reality opposition to abortion skews among older voters. With older folks, the messaging that weve tested that has worked is: We dont want politicians to have a say in what we do with our bodies, Santillan said. Motivated voters in Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, with its 19 electoral votes, is the largest swing state and considered essential to win the White House. In a poll conducted this month by Spotlight PA and MassINC Polling Group, abortion ranked as the fifth most-important concern in the presidential race for likely voters, with 49% naming it as among their top issues. The issue is far more important to Democrats, however, with 85% calling it a top issue compared with 17% of Republicans. Among those who arent registered with either major party, 49% called it a top issue. In 2022, voters surprised pundits by sending enough Democrats to the state House to flip it blue. Voters were responding to the Dobbs decision, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro told Pennsylvania Capital-Star at a recent Harris campaign event. Shapiro also won in 2022, and so far his administration has supported over-the-counter birth control pills and ended the states contract with a network of anti-abortion counseling centers. He said his administration would not defend a current state law that prohibits state Medicaid funding from being used for abortions. Abortion isnt protected under Pennsylvanias state constitution, but it remains legal up to 24 weeks gestation, and clinics there have seen an influx of out-of-state patients. The Dobbs decision ended federal abortion rights and spurred voters to the polls in 2022, sending enough Democrats to the Pennsylvania House to flip it blue, says Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro. (Capital-Star photo) Wisconsin abortion services resume After more than a year without abortion access, reproductive health clinics in Wisconsin resumed abortion services in September 2023, shortly after a judge ruled that the 1849 state law that had widely been interpreted as an abortion ban, applied to feticide and not abortion. A state Supreme Court race a few months earlier saw Justice Janet Protasiewicz win in a landslide after campaigning on reproductive freedom. Seven months later when Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher announced his resignation, Lyerly threw her hat in the ring, running as the only Democrat in the 8th District. She now faces businessman Tony Wied. Although in the past it was considered a swing district, it has leaned conservative in recent election cycles. With the redrawn maps and national support, Lyerly said its a competitive race. We have the potential to really fix, not just reproductive health care, but health care, Lyerly told States Newsroom. Bring the stories of our patients forward and help our colleagues understand, build those coalitions and help to gain consensus thats going to drive forward health care reform in this country. Wieds campaign website does not mention abortion or his policy proposals related to health care, though the words Trump-endorsed appear prominently and abundantly throughout the site. Wied hasnt said much about the issue beyond it should be a state issue, but the two are scheduled to debate this Friday night. His campaign declined an interview. Currently the only OB-GYNs who serve in Congress oppose abortion. If Lyerly wins in November, she would not only change that (potentially alongside Minnesota Sen. Kelly Morrison) but also could help flip party control in the U.S. House of Representatives. Most Wisconsin voters oppose criminalizing abortion before fetal viability, according to a poll this year by the University of Marylands Program for Public Consultation. Patricia McFarland, 76, knows what its like to live without abortion access. For more than 50 years, the retired college teacher kept her pre-Roe abortion a secret, having grown up in a conservative Irish Catholic family like many of her suburban Milwaukee neighbors. McFarland told States Newsroom she has been politically active most of her life, but the Dobbs ruling dredged up the physical and emotional trauma from the illegal procedure she had alone in Mexico City. Now, McFarland rarely leaves home without her Roe Roe Roe Your Vote button, engaging anyone who will talk to her about the dangers of criminalizing pregnancy. The mother and grandmother said shes been canvassing and doing informational sessions with her activist group the PERSISTers, as well as the League of Women Voters. As she has warned fellow Wisconsities about the federal power over their reproductive freedom, she said the enthusiasm for abortion rights in her state is palpable. For women my age, McFarland said, we dont want our grandchildren to lose their ability to decide when to become a mother. Georgia Recorders Jill Nolin contributed to this report. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization in June 2022 ended federal abortion rights. (Sofia Resnick/States Newsroom) Editors note: This five-day series explores the priorities of voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as they consider the upcoming presidential election. With the outcome expected to be close, these swing states may decide the future of the country. You can find other stories in the series here. Dr. Kristin Lyerlys placenta detached from her uterus when she was 17 weeks pregnant with her fourth son in 2007. Her doctor in Madison, Wisconsin, gave the devastated recent medical school graduate one option: to deliver and bury her dead child. But she requested a dilation and evacuation abortion procedure, knowing it would be less invasive and risky than being induced. And she couldnt fathom the agony of holding her tiny dead baby. But Lyerlys doctor declined, giving her a direct window into the many ways Americans lack real choice when it comes to their reproductive health decisions. At the time of this miscarriage, Lyerly was getting a masters degree in public health before beginning her residency. She was able to get a D&E at the same hospital by a different doctor. As an OB-GYN, she soon would learn how much abortion is stigmatized and limited throughout the country, but also regularly sought after and sometimes medically necessary, including among her many conservative Catholic patients in northeastern Wisconsin. And then, on June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights, prompting states such as Wisconsin to resurrect dormant abortion bans from the 19th and 20th centuries. Lyerlys job changed overnight. She stopped working as an OB-GYN in Sheboygan and moved her practice to Minnesota. She became a plaintiff in a lawsuit over an 1849 Wisconsin feticide law being interpreted as an abortion ban, which has since been blocked. When a congressional seat opened up in a competitive Wisconsin district this year, the 54-year-old mother of four joined the post-Dobbs wave of women running for office to restore reproductive rights, which this election cycle includes another OB-GYN and a patient denied abortion care. Lyerlys decision to run is emblematic of the nationwide backlash against the Dobbs decision, which altered the reproductive health care landscape, with providers, patients and advocates turning to the ballot box to change the laws to restore and broaden access. Wisconsin is among seven swing states expected to determine the countrys next president and federal leaders. And in many ways theyre being viewed as referendums on how much the right to have an abortion can move the needle in a tight presidential election. What weve seen in every election since the Dobbs decision is that abortion is at top of mind for voters and its not just helping voters decide who or what to vote for. Its actually a turnout driver, said Ryan Stitzlein, vice president of political and government relations at national lobbying group Reproductive Freedom for All. The group is investing in down-ballot races in conservative districts such as Lyerlys, buoyed by cash and momentum from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris reproductive-rights-focused campaign. Anti-abortion money is also flowing through the swing states, led by lobbying groups Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Women Speak Out PAC. Some of their messaging, adopted by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and many GOP candidates, often paints Democrats as champions of infanticide, focusing on the rarest and most controversial type of abortions, those performed in the third trimester. But aside from that rhetoric, many Republican candidates have been quiet on an issue that for years motivated their staunchest supporters. SBA Pro-Life America declined an interview for this story but shared a press release outlining the organizations strategy trying to reach 10 million voters in Montana, Ohio and all of the battleground states except for Nevada. The group endorsed 28 House candidates total this cycle, and a fifth of them are in North Carolina. One of North Carolinas endorsed candidates in a toss-up race is Republican GOP challenger Laurie Buckhout, who does not mention her abortion stance on her campaign website, and did not return a request for comment. Our field team is talking to persuadable and low propensity pro-life voters to urge them to cast their votes against the party that endorses abortion in the seventh, eighth and ninth months, said SBAs national field team director Patricia Miles in the press statement. But throughout this election cycle, polls in the swing states have shown bipartisan support for abortion rights, especially when voters are educated about what abortion bans do. Voters in more than half of the states expected to determine the presidential winner have, to varying degrees, lost access to abortion. And abortion-rights activists across these states told States Newsroom they are determined to protect that access, or to get it back. Arizona sees backlash after GOP upholds Civil War-era abortion ban In Arizona, the Dobbs decision resurrected a Civil War-era ban that allowed abortions only to save a pregnant patients life. Legislators repealed the law, but abortion-rights supporters fought for more certainty. This fall, Arizonans will vote on a proposed ballot measure that would protect access until fetal viability, around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Now, two of the judges who upheld the abortion ban Justices Clint Bolick and Kathryn King are up for reelection, in races infused with national cash by groups such as RFA and Planned Parenthood. Also on the ballot is Proposition 137, which would give lifetime appointments to state judges. The Republican-initiated measure has garnered controversy in part because it is retroactive to this years election, so if approved, any retention bids would be nullified even if the majority votes to unseat the judge. Ballot organizers turned in more than 800,000 signatures, double the required number, and overcame opponents legal challenges to qualify the abortion-rights ballot measure, Proposition 139. Abortion is legal up to 15 weeks of pregnancy, but there are many state restrictions that the Arizona Abortion Access Act would eliminate, such as a ban on any abortions sought for fetal genetic abnormalities and a blocked law from 2021 granting personhood status to fertilized eggs. Recent deaths reignite controversy over Georgias abortion ban This month, ProPublica reported on the deaths in 2022 of two Georgia women who suffered rare complications after they obtained mifepristone and misoprostol for early-term medication abortions. Both were trying to navigate a new state law that banned abortions at about six weeks of pregnancy and threatened medical providers with up to a decade in prison. In one case, doctors at an Atlanta-area hospital refused for 20 hours to perform a routine dilation and curettage, a D&C, to clear the patients uterus when her body hadnt expelled all the fetal tissue. In the other, a woman who had ordered the pills online suffered days of pain at home, fearful of seeking medical care. Both women left children behind. Georgias law permits abortion if the patients life is at risk, but medical providers have said the laws language is unclear, tying their hands and threatening the health of patients who have high-risk pregnancies. Their cases, which a state medical review committee found to be preventable, have galvanized activists in the state. Harris spoke at length about the women, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, at a recent campaign event in Atlanta. She blamed their deaths on Georgias law, calling it the Trump abortion ban, because the former president appointed three justices hed promised would overturn Roe v. Wade. This is a health care crisis, and Donald Trump is the architect of this crisis, Harris said. Understand what a law like this means: Doctors have to wait until the patient is at deaths door before they take action. Youre saying that good policy, logical policy, moral policy, humane policy is about saying that a health care provider will only start providing that care when youre about to die? Trump has not commented on the deaths. He has repeatedly said this year that abortion access should be left to the states. He has dismissed the idea of a federal abortion ban, but during the presidential debate, he refused to say whether he would veto such legislation. At a recent rally in North Carolina, Trump addressed our great women (a demographic hes trailing among), saying, you will no longer be thinking about abortion, because it is now where it always had to be, with the states, and with the vote of the people. Abortion was a driving concern in this springs qualifying process for Georgias 2024 legislative elections the first opportunity for aspiring state lawmakers to jump on the ballot in response to their states severe abortion restrictions. Melita Easters, the executive director and founding chair of Georgia WIN List, which endorses Democratic women who support abortion rights, was already calling this years general election Roevember back when President Joe Biden was still the partys nominee. But Easters told States Newsroom that having Harris on the ticket instead has elevated the issue of reproductive freedom even more and has breathed new life into down-ballot campaigns. Easters said she is especially encouraged after a Democratic state House candidate in Alabama who ran on abortion rights flipped a Huntsville seat during a special election in March. Michigan Democrats continue betting on abortion after 2022 successes Michigan was one of the earliest states post-Dobbs to show that abortion rights could be a strong election-winning issue. Months after the Supreme Courts ruling, Michiganders overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to protect abortion rights in the state constitution; reelected Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who vowed to prioritize reproductive freedom; and voted for Democratic majorities in both chambers, giving the party a legislative trifecta for the first time in 40 years. In 2023, the legislature repealed a 1931 abortion ban that was still on the books and passed the Reproductive Health Act, expanding abortion access in the state. This year, state and national abortion-rights groups have campaigned in toss-up congressional districts across Michigan, warning that a federal ban would supersede the states protections. State judicial races, meanwhile, have attracted millions of dollars, as they could determine partisan control of the Michigan Supreme Court. Democrats secured a slim 4-3 majority on the state Supreme Court in 2020 after Republican-nominated justices controlled the court for most of the last few decades. Nevada reproductive rights activists hope ballot initiative improves turnout In Nevada, abortion remains legal through 24 weeks and beyond for specific health reasons. In 2023, the states Democratic-led legislature passed a law shielding patients and providers from out-of-state investigations related to abortion care; it was signed by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo. Seeking to cement these rights in the state constitution, reproductive health advocates mobilized a ballot initiative campaign, which they hope will drive voter turnout that would affect the presidential and down-ballot races. Constitutional amendments proposed through an initiative petition must be passed by voters twice, so if voters approve Question 6 in November, they will have to approve it again in 2026. In the states closely watched U.S. Senate race, Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen currently edges Republican Sam Brown, who has had inconsistent positions on abortion and reproductive rights but opposes the abortion-rights measure. National anti-abortion groups Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Students for Life of America have notably not focused on Nevada in their campaign strategies. Growing Latinx voting bloc in North Carolina In North Carolina many Democrats are campaigning in opposition to a 12-week abortion ban that the Republican-majority legislature passed last year after overriding Democratic Gov. Roy Coopers veto. In a high-profile race for governor, Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein faces Republican opponent Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who has previously said he believes there is no compromise on abortion, according to NC Newsline. The lieutenant governor is now facing calls to withdraw from the race over comments made on a pornography website years ago, and Stein has started racking up endorsements from prominent state Republicans. Iliana Santillan, a political organizer who supports abortion rights, has focused on mobilizing Latinos, a growing voting bloc in the state. The executive director of progressive nonprofit El Pueblo and its political sister group La Fuerza NC told States Newsroom shes talked to many young women motivated to secure their own reproductive rights, including her college-age daughter. She said the Latinx community faces additional reproductive care barriers such as language and transportation, with undocumented immigrants scared to cross state lines without a drivers license. Santillan also said theres a misconception that all Latinos are against abortion because theyre Catholic, when in reality opposition to abortion skews among older voters. With older folks, the messaging that weve tested that has worked is: We dont want politicians to have a say in what we do with our bodies, Santillan said. Motivated voters in Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, with its 19 electoral votes, is the largest swing state and considered essential to win the White House. In a poll conducted this month by Spotlight PA and MassINC Polling Group, abortion ranked as the fifth most-important concern in the presidential race for likely voters, with 49% naming it as among their top issues. The issue is far more important to Democrats, however, with 85% calling it a top issue compared with 17% of Republicans. Among those who arent registered with either major party, 49% called it a top issue. In 2022, voters surprised pundits by sending enough Democrats to the state House to flip it blue. Voters were responding to the Dobbs decision, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro told Pennsylvania Capital-Star at a recent Harris campaign event. Shapiro also won in 2022, and so far his administration has supported over-the-counter birth control pills and ended the states contract with a network of anti-abortion counseling centers. He said his administration would not defend a current state law that prohibits state Medicaid funding from being used for abortions. Abortion isnt protected under Pennsylvanias state constitution, but it remains legal up to 24 weeks gestation, and clinics there have seen an influx of out-of-state patients. Wisconsin abortion services resume After more than a year without abortion access, reproductive health clinics in Wisconsin resumed abortion services in September 2023, shortly after a judge ruled that the 1849 state law that had widely been interpreted as an abortion ban, applied to feticide and not abortion. A state Supreme Court race a few months earlier saw Justice Janet Protasiewicz win in a landslide after campaigning on reproductive freedom. Seven months later when Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher announced his resignation, Lyerly threw her hat in the ring, running as the only Democrat in the 8th District. She now faces businessman Tony Wied. Although in the past it was considered a swing district, it has leaned conservative in recent election cycles. With the redrawn maps and national support, Lyerly said its a competitive race. We have the potential to really fix, not just reproductive health care, but health care, Lyerly told States Newsroom. Bring the stories of our patients forward and help our colleagues understand, build those coalitions and help to gain consensus thats going to drive forward health care reform in this country. Wieds campaign website does not mention abortion or his policy proposals related to health care, though the words Trump-endorsed appear prominently and abundantly throughout the site. Wied hasnt said much about the issue beyond it should be a state issue, but the two are scheduled to debate this Friday night. His campaign declined an interview. Currently the only OB-GYNs who serve in Congress oppose abortion. If Lyerly wins in November, she would not only change that (potentially alongside Minnesota Sen. Kelly Morrison) but also could help flip party control in the U.S. House of Representatives. Most Wisconsin voters oppose criminalizing abortion before fetal viability, according to a poll this year by the University of Marylands Program for Public Consultation. Patricia McFarland, 76, knows what its like to live without abortion access. For more than 50 years, the retired college teacher kept her pre-Roe abortion a secret, having grown up in a conservative Irish Catholic family like many of her suburban Milwaukee neighbors. McFarland told States Newsroom she has been politically active most of her life, but the Dobbs ruling dredged up the physical and emotional trauma from the illegal procedure she had alone in Mexico City. Now, McFarland rarely leaves home without her Roe Roe Roe Your Vote button, engaging anyone who will talk to her about the dangers of criminalizing pregnancy. The mother and grandmother said shes been canvassing and doing informational sessions with her activist group the PERSISTers, as well as the League of Women Voters. As she has warned fellow Wisconsities about the federal power over their reproductive freedom, she said the enthusiasm for abortion rights in her state is palpable. For women my age, McFarland said, we dont want our grandchildren to lose their ability to decide when to become a mother. Georgia Recorders Jill Nolin contributed to this report. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization in June 2022 ended federal abortion rights. (Sofia Resnick/States Newsroom) Editors note: This five-day series explores the priorities of voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as they consider the upcoming presidential election. With the outcome expected to be close, these swing states may decide the future of the country. 7 States + 5 Issues That Will Swing the 2024 Election Dr. Kristin Lyerlys placenta detached from her uterus when she was 17 weeks pregnant with her fourth son in 2007. Her doctor in Madison, Wisconsin, gave the devastated recent medical school graduate one option: to deliver and bury her dead child. But she requested a dilation and evacuation abortion procedure, knowing it would be less invasive and risky than being induced. And she couldnt fathom the agony of holding her tiny dead baby. But Lyerlys doctor declined, giving her a direct window into the many ways Americans lack real choice when it comes to their reproductive health decisions. At the time of this miscarriage, Lyerly was getting a masters degree in public health before beginning her residency. She was able to get a D&E at the same hospital by a different doctor. As an OB-GYN, she soon would learn how much abortion is stigmatized and limited throughout the country, but also regularly sought after and sometimes medically necessary, including among her many conservative Catholic patients in northeastern Wisconsin. And then, on June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights, prompting states such as Wisconsin to resurrect dormant abortion bans from the 19th and 20th centuries. Lyerlys job changed overnight. She stopped working as an OB-GYN in Sheboygan and moved her practice to Minnesota. She became a plaintiff in a lawsuit over an 1849 Wisconsin feticide law being interpreted as an abortion ban, which has since been blocked. When a congressional seat opened up in a competitive Wisconsin district this year, the 54-year-old mother of four joined the post-Dobbs wave of women running for office to restore reproductive rights, which this election cycle includes another OB-GYN and a patient denied abortion care. Lyerlys decision to run is emblematic of the nationwide backlash against the Dobbs decision, which altered the reproductive health care landscape, with providers, patients and advocates turning to the ballot box to change the laws to restore and broaden access. Wisconsin is among seven swing states expected to determine the countrys next president and federal leaders. And in many ways theyre being viewed as referendums on how much the right to have an abortion can move the needle in a tight presidential election. What weve seen in every election since the Dobbs decision is that abortion is at top of mind for voters and its not just helping voters decide who or what to vote for. Its actually a turnout driver, said Ryan Stitzlein, vice president of political and government relations at national lobbying group Reproductive Freedom for All. The group is investing in down-ballot races in conservative districts such as Lyerlys, buoyed by cash and momentum from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris reproductive-rights-focused campaign. Anti-abortion money is also flowing through the swing states, led by lobbying groups Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Women Speak Out PAC. Some of their messaging, adopted by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and many GOP candidates, often paints Democrats as champions of infanticide, focusing on the rarest and most controversial type of abortions, those performed in the third trimester. But aside from that rhetoric, many Republican candidates have been quiet on an issue that for years motivated their staunchest supporters. SBA Pro-Life America declined an interview for this story but shared a press release outlining the organizations strategy trying to reach 10 million voters in Montana, Ohio and all of the battleground states except for Nevada. The group endorsed 28 House candidates total this cycle, and a fifth of them are in North Carolina. One of North Carolinas endorsed candidates in a toss-up race is Republican GOP challenger Laurie Buckhout, who does not mention her abortion stance on her campaign website, and did not return a request for comment. Our field team is talking to persuadable and low propensity pro-life voters to urge them to cast their votes against the party that endorses abortion in the seventh, eighth and ninth months, said SBAs national field team director Patricia Miles in the press statement. But throughout this election cycle, polls in the swing states have shown bipartisan support for abortion rights, especially when voters are educated about what abortion bans do. Voters in more than half of the states expected to determine the presidential winner have, to varying degrees, lost access to abortion. And abortion-rights activists across these states told States Newsroom they are determined to protect that access, or to get it back. Arizona sees backlash after GOP upholds Civil War-era abortion ban In Arizona, the Dobbs decision resurrected a Civil War-era ban that allowed abortions only to save a pregnant patients life. Legislators repealed the law, but abortion-rights supporters fought for more certainty. This fall, Arizonans will vote on a proposed ballot measure that would protect access until fetal viability, around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Fallout from a resurrected Civil War-era abortion ban and a citizen-led abortion-rights ballot measure have put the issue at the center of many critical races in Arizona. (Gloria Rebecca Gomez/Arizona Mirror) Now, two of the judges who upheld the abortion ban Justices Clint Bolick and Kathryn King are up for reelection, in races infused with national cash by groups such as RFA and Planned Parenthood. Also on the ballot is Proposition 137, which would give lifetime appointments to state judges. The Republican-initiated measure has garnered controversy in part because it is retroactive to this years election, so if approved, any retention bids would be nullified even if the majority votes to unseat the judge. Ballot organizers turned in more than 800,000 signatures, double the required number, and overcame opponents legal challenges to qualify the abortion-rights ballot measure, Proposition 139. Abortion is legal up to 15 weeks of pregnancy, but there are many state restrictions that the Arizona Abortion Access Act would eliminate, such as a ban on any abortions sought for fetal genetic abnormalities and a blocked law from 2021 granting personhood status to fertilized eggs. Recent deaths reignite controversy over Georgias abortion ban This month, ProPublica reported on the deaths in 2022 of two Georgia women who suffered rare complications after they obtained mifepristone and misoprostol for early-term medication abortions. Both were trying to navigate a new state law that banned abortions at about six weeks of pregnancy and threatened medical providers with up to a decade in prison. In one case, doctors at an Atlanta-area hospital refused for 20 hours to perform a routine dilation and curettage, a D&C, to clear the patients uterus when her body hadnt expelled all the fetal tissue. In the other, a woman who had ordered the pills online suffered days of pain at home, fearful of seeking medical care. Both women left children behind. Georgias law permits abortion if the patients life is at risk, but medical providers have said the laws language is unclear, tying their hands and threatening the health of patients who have high-risk pregnancies. Their cases, which a state medical review committee found to be preventable, have galvanized activists in the state. Harris spoke at length about the women, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, at a recent campaign event in Atlanta. She blamed their deaths on Georgias law, calling it the Trump abortion ban, because the former president appointed three justices hed promised would overturn Roe v. Wade. This is a health care crisis, and Donald Trump is the architect of this crisis, Harris said. Understand what a law like this means: Doctors have to wait until the patient is at deaths door before they take action. Youre saying that good policy, logical policy, moral policy, humane policy is about saying that a health care provider will only start providing that care when youre about to die? Trump has not commented on the deaths. He has repeatedly said this year that abortion access should be left to the states. He has dismissed the idea of a federal abortion ban, but during the presidential debate, he refused to say whether he would veto such legislation. At a recent rally in North Carolina, Trump addressed our great women (a demographic hes trailing among), saying, you will no longer be thinking about abortion, because it is now where it always had to be, with the states, and with the vote of the people. Abortion was a driving concern in this springs qualifying process for Georgias 2024 legislative elections the first opportunity for aspiring state lawmakers to jump on the ballot in response to their states severe abortion restrictions. Melita Easters, the executive director and founding chair of Georgia WIN List, which endorses Democratic women who support abortion rights, was already calling this years general election Roevember back when President Joe Biden was still the partys nominee. But Easters told States Newsroom that having Harris on the ticket instead has elevated the issue of reproductive freedom even more and has breathed new life into down-ballot campaigns. Easters said she is especially encouraged after a Democratic state House candidate in Alabama who ran on abortion rights flipped a Huntsville seat during a special election in March. Michigan Democrats continue betting on abortion Michigan was one of the earliest states post-Dobbs to show that abortion rights could be a strong election-winning issue. Months after the Supreme Courts ruling, Michiganders overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to protect abortion rights in the state constitution; reelected Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who vowed to prioritize reproductive freedom; and voted for Democratic majorities in both chambers, giving the party a legislative trifecta for the first time in 40 years. In 2023, the legislature repealed a 1931 abortion ban that was still on the books and passed the Reproductive Health Act, expanding abortion access in the state. This year, state and national abortion-rights groups have campaigned in toss-up congressional districts across Michigan, warning that a federal ban would supersede the states protections. State judicial races, meanwhile, have attracted millions of dollars, as they could determine partisan control of the Michigan Supreme Court. Democrats secured a slim 4-3 majority on the state Supreme Court in 2020 after Republican-nominated justices controlled the court for most of the last few decades. Nevada reproductive rights activists hope ballot initiative improves turnout In Nevada, abortion remains legal through 24 weeks and beyond for specific health reasons. In 2023, the states Democratic-led legislature passed a law shielding patients and providers from out-of-state investigations related to abortion care; it was signed by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo. Seeking to cement these rights in the state constitution, reproductive health advocates mobilized a ballot initiative campaign, which they hope will drive voter turnout that would affect the presidential and down-ballot races. Constitutional amendments proposed through an initiative petition must be passed by voters twice, so if voters approve Question 6 in November, they will have to approve it again in 2026. In the states closely watched U.S. Senate race, Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen currently edges Republican Sam Brown, who has had inconsistent positions on abortion and reproductive rights but opposes the abortion-rights measure. National anti-abortion groups Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Students for Life of America have notably not focused on Nevada in their campaign strategies. Growing Latinx voting bloc in North Carolina In North Carolina many Democrats are campaigning in opposition to a 12-week abortion ban that the Republican-majority legislature passed last year after overriding Democratic Gov. Roy Coopers veto. In a high-profile race for governor, Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein faces Republican opponent Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who has previously said he believes there is no compromise on abortion, according to NC Newsline. The lieutenant governor is now facing calls to withdraw from the race over comments made on a pornography website years ago, and Stein has started racking up endorsements from prominent state Republicans. Iliana Santillan, a political organizer who supports abortion rights, has focused on mobilizing Latinos, a growing voting bloc in the state. The executive director of progressive nonprofit El Pueblo and its political sister group La Fuerza NC told States Newsroom shes talked to many young women motivated to secure their own reproductive rights, including her college-age daughter. She said the Latinx community faces additional reproductive care barriers such as language and transportation, with undocumented immigrants scared to cross state lines without a drivers license. Santillan also said theres a misconception that all Latinos are against abortion because theyre Catholic, when in reality opposition to abortion skews among older voters. With older folks, the messaging that weve tested that has worked is: We dont want politicians to have a say in what we do with our bodies, Santillan said. Motivated voters in Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, with its 19 electoral votes, is the largest swing state and considered essential to win the White House. In a poll conducted this month by Spotlight PA and MassINC Polling Group, abortion ranked as the fifth most-important concern in the presidential race for likely voters, with 49% naming it as among their top issues. The issue is far more important to Democrats, however, with 85% calling it a top issue compared with 17% of Republicans. Among those who arent registered with either major party, 49% called it a top issue. The Dobbs decision ended federal abortion rights and spurred voters to the polls in 2022, sending enough Democrats to the Pennsylvania House to flip it blue, says Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro. (Pennsylvania Capital-Star) In 2022, voters surprised pundits by sending enough Democrats to the state House to flip it blue. Voters were responding to the Dobbs decision, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro told Pennsylvania Capital-Star at a recent Harris campaign event. Shapiro also won in 2022, and so far his administration has supported over-the-counter birth control pills and ended the states contract with a network of anti-abortion counseling centers. He said his administration would not defend a current state law that prohibits state Medicaid funding from being used for abortions. Abortion isnt protected under Pennsylvanias state constitution, but it remains legal up to 24 weeks gestation, and clinics there have seen an influx of out-of-state patients. Wisconsin abortion services resume After more than a year without abortion access, reproductive health clinics in Wisconsin resumed abortion services in September 2023, shortly after a judge ruled that the 1849 state law that had widely been interpreted as an abortion ban, applied to feticide and not abortion. A state Supreme Court race a few months earlier saw Justice Janet Protasiewicz win in a landslide after campaigning on reproductive freedom. Seven months later when Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher announced his resignation, Lyerly threw her hat in the ring, running as the only Democrat in the 8th District. She now faces businessman Tony Wied. Although in the past it was considered a swing district, it has leaned conservative in recent election cycles. With the redrawn maps and national support, Lyerly said its a competitive race. We have the potential to really fix, not just reproductive health care, but health care, Lyerly told States Newsroom. Bring the stories of our patients forward and help our colleagues understand, build those coalitions and help to gain consensus thats going to drive forward health care reform in this country. Wieds campaign website does not mention abortion or his policy proposals related to health care, though the words Trump-endorsed appear prominently and abundantly throughout the site. Wied hasnt said much about the issue beyond it should be a state issue, but the two are scheduled to debate this Friday night. His campaign declined an interview. Currently the only OB-GYNs who serve in Congress oppose abortion. If Lyerly wins in November, she would not only change that (potentially alongside Minnesota Sen. Kelly Morrison) but also could help flip party control in the U.S. House of Representatives. Most Wisconsin voters oppose criminalizing abortion before fetal viability, according to a poll this year by the University of Marylands Program for Public Consultation. Patricia McFarland, 76, knows what its like to live without abortion access. For more than 50 years, the retired college teacher kept her pre-Roe abortion a secret, having grown up in a conservative Irish Catholic family like many of her suburban Milwaukee neighbors. McFarland told States Newsroom she has been politically active most of her life, but the Dobbs ruling dredged up the physical and emotional trauma from the illegal procedure she had alone in Mexico City. Now, McFarland rarely leaves home without her Roe Roe Roe Your Vote button, engaging anyone who will talk to her about the dangers of criminalizing pregnancy. The mother and grandmother said shes been canvassing and doing informational sessions with her activist group the PERSISTers, as well as the League of Women Voters. As she has warned fellow Wisconsities about the federal power over their reproductive freedom, she said the enthusiasm for abortion rights in her state is palpable. For women my age, McFarland said, we dont want our grandchildren to lose their ability to decide when to become a mother. Georgia Recorders Jill Nolin contributed to this report. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX As America nears the home stretch before the Nov. 5 election, its time for those in the military community to make sure theyre squared away if voting by absentee ballot, officials say. If youve already registered to vote, requested your ballot and received your ballot, fill out that ballot and return it as soon as possible, said Scott Wiedmann, director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program, or FVAP. Give it plenty of time to get back to your local election officials. About three-fourths of the 1.4 million active duty service members are eligible to vote by absentee ballot because they are stationed away from their voting residence, according to FVAP. In addition, their family members can vote by absentee ballot. Over the years, FVAP, postal officials, lawmakers, local and state election officials and others have worked to shore up the processes for getting absentee ballots to local election officials in time to be counted. Your voting residence is within your state of legal residence or domicile. For service members, it is typically the same address listed on your Leave and Earnings Statement. Check the deadline for your returned ballot based on your state. According to FVAP.gov, the Military Postal Service Agency also has recommended mailing dates for the Nov. 5 election, although officials recommend returning the voted ballot as soon as you receive from you election officials. Those recommended dates include: From a ship at sea: Oct. 1. From outside the United States: Oct. 24. Stateside: Oct. 31. And again this year, military members and eligible family members living overseas are able to use the free expedited mail service, using the Label 11-DoD at their military post office. Military absentee voters, whether voting from overseas or from another location in the U.S. when theyre away from their voting residence, have certain protections under federal law. The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, commonly referred to as UOCAVA, applies to military members and their eligible family members who are away from their voting residence, as well as U.S. citizens living overseas. Among other things, UOCAVA requires states to transmit absentee ballots to UOCAVA voters who have requested them, no later than 45 days before a federal election. Need to register to vote? If you havent registered to vote, you still have time. The FVAP.gov site can help. Voting assistance offices at military installations can also provide specific information. The services also provide voting assistance officers at the unit level; if you cant find assistance locally, you can contact your service branch voting action officer. Military absentee voters can use the Federal Post Card Application, or FPCA, to both register to vote and to simultaneously request their absentee ballot from their local election jurisdiction. Some states allow voters to send their FPCA electronically. You can download the FCPA from the FVAP.gov site. Deadlines for requesting the ballot also vary depending on the state. Voters can find specifics on states deadlines on the FVAP site. Dont assume youll automatically receive an absentee ballot if you voted by absentee ballot in previous years. FVAP officials encourage military voters to send the FPCA every year and when they move. Voters can also request absentee ballots through state applications. However, officials encourage the use of the FPCA among military absentee voters and U.S. citizens living overseas. Returned ballots requested using the FPCA were counted by local election officials at a higher percentage than ballots requested through state applications, according to an analysis of the 2020 general election conducted by FVAP. Tips to help your vote get counted FVAP reminds absentee voters to provide a complete mailing address to their local election officials, whether they are overseas or stateside. States have reported that common reasons for ballots to be rejected are missed deadlines for ballot returns, and missing signatures on their voted absentee ballot package, Weidmann said. So FVAP encourages voters to stay up-to-date with their respective states deadlines, as well as the absentee voting requirements of their state. What if you dont receive your ballot in time? If voters havent been able to receive their requested state ballot by mail or electronically, Weidmann said, they should download a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot, or FWAB, from FVAP.gov and submit it. If the state absentee ballot arrives after the FWAB has been sent, voters can fill out and mail that state official ballot, too. Only one ballot will be counted. On average, the number of FWAB downloads have been about 50% below the numbers from 2020 at this point in the election cycle, he said. More resources -Check the status of your registration and ballot through your state site at https://www.fvap.gov/links#verification -Check your states specific deadlines at https://www.fvap.gov/military-voter -Add election dates and reminders to your mobile calendar at https://www.fvap.gov/calendar-alerts -The non-partisan Overseas Vote Foundation also offers extensive information and assistance in the absentee voting process. NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) Dozens gathered around the New Haven Police Department (NHPD) on Thursday to peacefully protest the death of a New Haven man last week in an officer-involved shooting. A crowd of around 50 people were calling Justice for Jebrell. Jebrell Conley, 36, was shot and killed by police officers in West Haven at a car wash. Protesters said that they do not believe police claims that Jebrell Conley fired at police. They believe police instigated a violent conflict with him. Inspector General providing new details on incident that led to 3 officers shooting and killing a man in West Haven Police said Jebrell Conley shot at them, and they fired back. Earlier this week, body camera footage was released to show when shots were fired from police and Conley. Protestors claim the edited body camera video released by police does not show Conley firing a gun at police. New Havens chief said in a press conference earlier this week that you can see Conleys car window shatter when he did fire at police, and that is what caused two New Haven officers and a state police sergeant to return fire. According to the inspector generals office, Conley had an outstanding arrest warrant on robbery and firearm charges. On Sept. 19, the police department was told that Conley was at the Splash Car Wash on Boston Post Road in West Haven. When police arrived at the car wash, they allegedly tried to block Conleys car their patrol vehicles. Questions remain for family of man in fatal shooting involving police officers When police moved in attempts to arrest him, Conley allegedly fired one round that shattered the front driver side window of his car, according to the inspector generals office. The officers fired at Conley striking him multiple times until he fell out of the car and into the parking lot. Conley was transported to Yale New Haven Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The officers involved were placed on paid leave by the NHPD. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Two Just Stop Oil (JSO) activists have been jailed for throwing soup over Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers painting after they came close to "destroying" the masterpiece. Phoebe Plummer, 23 and Anna Holland, 22, were previously convicted of criminal damage after the contents of two tins of tomato soup were poured on to the priceless 1888 piece at the National Gallery in central London. They then glued their hands to the wall beneath it. The pair caused 10,000 worth of damage to the gold-coloured frame of the glass-covered painting in the October 2022 attack. Plummer received a two-year jail term at Southwark Crown Court, while Holland was handed 20 months. Outside the court, a number of JSO supporters gathered, some of whom held posters of historical figures jailed for activism. Staff at the gallery were worried the soup may have dripped through the protective glass and destroyed the painting, the court heard. It also heard that the damaged frame had been purchased by the gallery in 1999 and was valued at 28,000. 'No right to do what you did' Sentencing the women, Judge Christopher Hehir said the "cultural treasure" could have been "seriously damaged or even destroyed". The judge, who previously jailed the co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion for five years, added that "soup might have seeped through the glass". "You couldn't have cared less if the painting was damaged or not. You had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers," he said. Raj Chada, defending Holland, said the women "did check" that the painting was protected by a glass cover before throwing the soup. The pair were found guilty of criminal damage by a jury after three hours of deliberation in July. The judge told Plummer, who was also handed a criminal behaviour order: "You clearly think your beliefs give you the right to commit crimes when you feel like it. You do not." Plummer, representing herself, told the hearing: "My choice today is to accept whatever sentence I receive with a smile. "It is not just myself being sentenced today, or my co-defendants, but the foundations of democracy itself." Plummer was also handed a three-month sentence for her part in a slow march which caused long tailbacks in west London in November 2023 and in July, just five days after her guilty verdict, Plummer was arrested for spraying paint on departure boards at Heathrow Airport. Painted in Arles in the south of France in August 1888, van Gogh's painting shows 15 sunflowers standing in a yellow pot against a yellow background. The work was the second from the National Gallery to be selected as a target for protest action by JSO in 2022. Two supporters glued themselves to John Constable's The Hay Wain in July of that year. Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk More on this story Related internet links The Scoop Vice President Kamala Harris campaign is out with a new advertisement pushing back against attack ads by the Trump campaign. Youve probably seen all these negative ads against me. Well, heres the deal. They are designed to tear us apart, Harris says in the direct-to-camera spot, which was shared first with Semafor and will air across battleground states beginning Thursday. Look, everyone is tired of the petty, destructive politics, she says. Lets turn the page and chart a new way forward. Harris goes on in the 30-second spot to tout her work as a prosecutor, saying she took on drug cartels and human traffickers to protect our communities. Titled Lifes Work, the ad is part of a $370 million buy that the Harris campaign announced in August. The script for the new ad resembles a similar moment from the debate earlier this month in which Harris also called on voters to turn the page on the Trump era, which the campaigns research found was among her best-testing clips especially among men. The new TV spot is designed to reach out directly to on-the-fence voters still forming a picture of Harris amid a barrage of competing ads. We have seen in our internal campaign research that the more voters hear directly from her in her voice, the more they like her and are drawn to her agenda, a Harris campaign official said. The Trump campaign has attacked Harris on immigration and sought to paint her as dangerously liberal in their own TV and digital commercials. The new battleground spot comes as Harris embarks on a much-watched trip to Arizona Friday, during which the vice president will try to shore up her vulnerabilities on border security. Notable Both the Harris and Trump campaigns have focused their ad spending mostly on defining Harris , NBC News Ben Kamisar reports, with each side assuming that perceptions of Trump are far harder to change at this point. Have Trumps attack ads worked? Harris is more popular than ever in national polls, according to 538, and often has a positive favorability rating in swing states as well. But likability may not be enough, Washington Post chief correspondent Dan Balz notes: Polls show a virtually tied race, even as Trump scores worse personal ratings. GAC Aion New Energy Automobile (GAC Aion), the main electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing unit of Chinese state owned automaker GAC Group, said it aims to begin vehicle production in Indonesia from early 2025. The company currently sells vehicles imported from China through local distributor Indomobil Group. It is currently building a plant in Cikampek in West Java with an initial production capacity of 30,000 battery electric vehicles (BEVs). Andry Ciu, CEO of local subsidiary Aion Indonesia, said the plant will assemble Aions full range of BEVs mainly for the local market, adding: We will begin production early next year and aim to accelerate the local assembly process. The company said it aims to meet the 40% local content requirement by 2027 with a target to achieve 80% local content later on. Ciu said the first model to be produced at the plant will be the Y Plus, scheduled for the first quarter of 2025, followed by other models. "GAC Aion to begin production in Indonesia" was originally created and published by Just Auto, 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. Afghanistan's embassy in London closed on Friday after Taliban authorities cut ties with diplomatic missions set up by the previous government in Kabul and fired its UK staff. An AFP reporter saw a notice hung on the gate to the consular section reading: "The embassy of the Republic of Afghanistan is closed." No one answered the door but the country's flag was still flying. Afghan ambassador to the UK Zalmai Rassoul announced on social media earlier this month that the embassy would close "at the official request of the host country" on September 27. The UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) denied that it was behind the closure. "This decision was not made by the UK government," a spokesperson said. "The State of Afghanistan decided to close the Afghan Embassy in London and dismiss its staff. "We continue to support the people of Afghanistan and provide humanitarian assistance to those most in need." The FCDO has not indicated whether a new Afghan ambassador would be accredited in London. The UK does not recognise the Taliban government as legitimate and does not have formal diplomatic relations with the country. But in line with the United States and the European Union, London acknowledges that there is "no alternative to engaging pragmatically with the current administration of Afghanistan". The UK mission to Afghanistan is currently based in Doha. The Afghan embassy's consular section in London closed on September 20, according to its website. On Friday, Rassoul reposted an X post in which the German ambassador to the UK said it was a "pleasure" to work with his Afghan counterpart over the years and condemned the "appalling situation for women and girls under the Taliban". Over the past three years, the Taliban has imposed an austere interpretation of Islam and progressively driven women out of public spaces. Despite the Taliban's return to power in August 2021, embassies continued to operate with diplomatic staff loyal to the previous foreign-backed government. At the end of July, the Taliban foreign affairs ministry said it "bears no responsibility" for credentials including passports and visas issued by missions out of step with Kabul's new rulers. These include Afghan embassies in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Canada and Australia. The Taliban government has said Afghans living abroad should deal instead with missions affiliated with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan -- its self-styled name for the country since taking over. The authorities have not been officially recognised by any country, but Pakistan, China and Russia are hosting Afghan embassies working on order from the Taliban government. Diplomats at the UK embassy have reportedly been advised to leave the UK or apply for political asylum, according to the BBC. alm-mhc-aks/phz/js S.African woman turns 118, among the oldest in the world South African Margaret Maritz celebrated her 118th birthday with a party at her care home (RODGER BOSCH) (RODGER BOSCH/AFP/AFP) A South African woman celebrated her 118th birthday Friday as one of the oldest people in the world with a small party at her care home. Margaret Maritz was born on September 27, 1906, according to a copy of her identity card shown to journalists by a charity that helped to organise the party in Touws River, 180 kilometres (110 miles) northeast of Cape Town. The document has not been independently verified but if confirmed would make Maritz older than Japanese national Tomiko Itooka who was born on May 23, 1908 and is listed by the US-based Gerontology Research Group as currently the world's oldest living person. Flanked by two of her 14 children, Maritz blew out a candle on a large pink birthday cake at the party in the small town of Touws River. "She talks about her life as a young woman, (saying) you must respect your mother and your father. She didnt drink, she didnt smoke," a senior nurse at the home, Gregory Elroy Adams, told AFP. "We must be grateful," said one of her daughters, Liza Daniels, 67. "I dont know if I will reach that age one day. But for me its a very, very big privilege to have a mother that reaches this age." According to the Guinness World Records website, the oldest verified person is French national Jeanne Calment, who died in August 1997 at the age of 122 years and 164 days. "Several people have been claimed to be older than Jeanne, but there has never been enough evidence to authenticate them," it says. The oldest known South African died in March 2023 just two months before turning 129. Johanna Mazibuko was born on May 11, 1894 according to her identity papers, although these were not confirmed as authentic by authorities. str-br/kjm These Are All the Airports Closed as Hurricane Helene Barrels Toward Landfall Hurricane Helene is traveling across the Gulf of Mexico and continues to strengthen before its imminent landfall in Florida's Big Bend. If you're flying to the region during the storm, you might want to check your flight status. "It seems likely that Helene will be at or very near Category 4 strength when it makes landfall in the Florida Big Bend this evening," the National Hurricane Center warned the afternoon of Sept. 26, per USA Today. A handful of airports in the area have closed their doors in anticipation of Helene's arrival. See if your travel will be affected. Tampa International Airport (TPA) Tampa International Airport suspended operations at 2 a.m. on Sept. 26 and remains closed until further notice, according to an announcement on X. It also reiterated that "The airport is not a shelter" and shared a list of Hillsborough County shelters. TPA is suspending flight operations at 2 a.m. Thursday The Airport is not a shelter. Click here for a list of shelters and other County resources: https://t.co/yOIqJmsgiq Tampa International Airport (@FlyTPA) September 26, 2024 St. PeteClearwater International Airport (PIE) Nearby St. PeteClearwater International Airport also remains closed through Sept. 26. The airport plans to reopen Friday morning, Sept. 27. Flights operating Wednesday 9/25 as scheduled. Airport terminal closing after last flight arrival Wednesday and remain closed Thursday 9/26 . PIE plans to reopen Friday morning. Contact airlines for flight info https://t.co/nGpLkez9j1. Airport terminal is not a public shelter. St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (@iflypie) September 25, 2024 Tallahassee International Airport (TLH) Florida's capital sits in Helene's direct path. Unsurprisingly, the Tallahassee airport shuttered its doors until further notice. "Operations at Tallahassee International Airport will be suspended Thursday, Sept. 26, and will resume as soon as it is safe to do so," the airport wrote on social media. Operations at Tallahassee International Airport will be suspended Thursday, Sept 26, and will resume as soon as it is safe to do so. For more City of Tallahassee updates, visit https://t.co/Cxr3icByaZ pic.twitter.com/VQWwNzOm6c Tallahassee International Airport (@TLHAirport) September 25, 2024 Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) Jacksonville International Airport is open for now, though the airport warned that "Helene will likely cause additional cancellations later today and into tomorrow." If you're traveling through JAX, check with your airline for the latest updates. The airport is open and operational, but #helene will likely cause additional cancellations later today and into tomorrow. If you have a flight, check with your airline for the most up-to-date information about your itinerary and for rebooking options. pic.twitter.com/Xnljf2gfOC JAXairport (@JAXairport) September 26, 2024 Miami International Airport (MIA) Miami International Airport, the biggest in the state, remains open as of Thursday afternoon. Still, make sure your flight isn't affected. "Due to potential severe weather as a result of Hurricane Helene there may be some cancellations and delays. If youre traveling, please check with your airline for the latest flight information," the airport said. #WeatherAdvisory (09/26/24) MIA is open, and were committed to ensuring your travel plans go smoothly. Due to potential severe weather as a result of Hurricane #Helene there may be some cancellations and delays. If youre traveling, please check with your airline for the pic.twitter.com/PEjhjIUglt Miami Int'l Airport (@iflymia) September 26, 2024 Fort LauderdaleHollywood International Airport (FLL) Fort LauderdaleHollywood International Airport remains open for now. "We continue to monitor Hurricane Helene as it moves closer to Florida's Panhandle," the airport wrote on X. "FLL is open and operational, but if you're traveling today, check with your airline for updated flight status before coming out, as there are some cancellations and delays to affected regions." #WeatherAlert #2: We continue to monitor #HurricaneHelene as it moves closer to Florida's Panhandle. While @BrowardCounty is not in the storm's direct path, we could see some bad weather here. #FLL is open and operational, but if you're traveling today, check with your airline pic.twitter.com/hffJsUt5Kt Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Int'l Airport (FLL) (@FLLFlyer) September 26, 2024 Palm Beach International Airport (PBI) Palm Beach International is open as of Thursday afternoon, though a number of delays are currently affecting outbound flights, per PBI's website. Orlando International Airport (MCO) Orlando airport in central Florida doesn't look to be affected. "[MCO] remains open and operational," the airport said. "We're currently making preparations ahead of Hurricane Helene & will continue to monitor the storm. Please check with your airline directly for updates regarding your flight." Operational Update - Hurricane #Helene Our airport remains open and operational. We're currently making preparations ahead of Hurricane Helene & will continue to monitor the storm. Please check with your airline directly for updates regarding your flight.https://t.co/qaAAWSeMPO https://t.co/0pSi1JxyTW Orlando International Airport (@MCO) September 25, 2024 Mohamed Al Fayed has been accused by dozens of women of sexual abuse [Getty Images] Mohamed Al Fayed's son has said he is "horrified" by allegations of sexual abuse made against his late father, which have "thrown into question the loving memory I had of him". Dozens of women have accused the former Harrods owner - who died last year aged 94 - of multiple rapes and sexual assaults. Lawyers hoping to bring a case against the department store are now representing 60 women, after a BBC investigation revealed the claims of over 20 women last week. Omar Al Fayed said his father had been a "wonderful dad", but added that this "does not blind me from an objective assessment of circumstances". In a public statement, the 36-year-old environmental entrepreneur said: "The extent and explicit nature of the allegations are shocking and has thrown into question the loving memory I had of him. "How this matter could have been concealed for so long and in so many ways, raises further disturbing questions." He continued: "Throughout history, people in positions of power have all too often been shielded from the consequences of their actions, and justice has frequently been delayed or denied to those who have suffered... "I firmly believe that anyone found guilty of such reprehensible actions, including having had facilitated, enabled or helped cover up such actions, no matter their status, must be held accountable. He went on to say: "The alleged victims and public deserve full transparency and accountability." Omar Al Fayed expressed support for "any legitimate investigation into these allegations", adding: "I will continue to support the principles of truth, justice, accountability, and fairness, regardless of where that journey may lead. "No one is above the law, and all victims deserve their day in court." He also criticised the BBC for its extensive reporting on the allegations. Omar Al Fayed (left) said the allegations had "thrown into question the loving memory" of his father [Getty Images] Omar Al Fayed was appointed to the Harrods board of directors in 2006 and remained on it until his father sold the business in 2010. The department store's current owners have said they were "utterly appalled" by the allegations and have condemned his actions "in the strongest terms". They acknowledged that during the time Harrods was owned by Mohamed Al Fayed, "as a business we failed our employees who were his victims and for this we sincerely apologise". They added: "The Harrods of today is a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Al Fayed between 1985 and 2010, it is one that seeks to put the welfare of our employees at the heart of everything we do." Harrods said it has a compensation scheme for ex-employees who say they were attacked by Mohamed Al Fayed, and that it has already reached financial settlements with the majority of people who have approached it since 2023. Victims and former staff have said that he preyed on young women hired by the company, threatening them against speaking out about his behaviour. Lawyers representing many of them said the billionaire used surveillance in Harrods and intrusive medical checks to undertake "systematic abuse". They have also said that there was "credible evidence" of instances of abuse taking place at other businesses and properties once owned by Al Fayed. [BBC] A BBC investigation into allegations of rape and attempted rape by Mohamed Al Fayed, the former owner of Harrods. Did the luxury store protect a billionaire predator? Watch Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods on BBC iPlayer now [BBC] [BBC] Listen to World of Secrets, Season 4: Al Fayed, Predator at Harrods on BBC Sounds. If youre outside the UK, you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. [BBC] A person on a computer with a screen message saying "Hello! I'm chatbot. How can I assist you today?" A person using an AI chatbot. An Alabama task force in Montgomery Thursday reviewed preliminary AI policy recommendations, including frameworks, risk management, and AI literacy ahead of a report due in November. (Getty Images) A state task force formed to regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in state government Thursday reviewed preliminary policy recommendations ahead of a report due in November. Task force members in four separate working groups outlined possible ways to better utilize AIs in government, including definitions of AI policy frameworks; improved risk management practices and enhanced AI literacy across state agencies. I think theres a lot of good ideas and frameworks. Obviously, you cant solve everything through this working group, but theres good, good strawman templates that we can provide for agencies, said task force chairman Daniel Urquhart, secretary of the Alabama Office of Information Technology. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Members of the task force often discussed Generative AI, or GenAI, a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content, such as text, images or audio, according to McKinsey, a management consulting firm. The policies and governance working group proposed developing a comprehensive set of definitions to standardize AI terminology within government. Mike Owens, who presented on behalf of the group, emphasized the importance of a risk management process designed for AI, proposing an oversight board that would ensure agency AI initiatives align with state regulations and promote compliance. Whether it be security systems administration or app development, have a corroboration of those skill sets in the assurance board, Owens said. Laura Crowler, also in the policies and governance working group, said they would not be proposing statutory changes but policy recommendations. The workforce, education and training group discussed efforts to build AI knowledge among state employees. Roger Bowman proposed the development of an introductory AI course developed in partnership with academic institutions and suggested professors who work in the area from the University of Alabama and Auburn University. Weve approached that in two ways: first of all, we have looked at some other introductory AI training courses that other states have put together the other area where were approaching educating the workforce is were looking for an option to spotlight some GenAI functionality and publish that somewhere where it can be consumed and users can test it and see how the capabilities work, Bowman said. A working group evaluating responsible data management proposed guidelines on data ownership and classifying data for use with AI systems that minimize risks of errors or bias. The group also proposed agencies develop a reference guide to ensure the ethical handling of sensitive or restricted information. We want to help make sure that when GenAI systems are used, citizen data, if used with GenAI data, is protected, said Aaron Wright, who presented for the working group. Willie Fields, presenting for the responsible and ethical use of AI group, discussed the need for privacy, bias monitoring and accountability in AI use. Fields also said they would not be proposing legislation, instead focusing on policy recommendations. Fields also pointed to accountability, particularly in determining who is responsible for AI-driven decisions. Who is responsible for the data that comes from these GenAI systems? Ultimately, its the head of the agency, but we need to help that person be prepared to sign off or authorize the system thats going production, Fields said. The task force is expected to finalize their recommendations in their next meeting in late October, with the report to be presented to Gov. Kay Ivey in November. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Alabama carries out second nitrogen gas execution in US Alan Eugene Miller is the second death row inmate in the US to be executed by nitrogen gas [Alabama Department of Corrections] The US state of Alabama has executed Alan Eugene Miller - the second American ever put to death by inhaling nitrogen gas. Miller, 59, was sentenced to death over the back-to-back workplace murders of Lee Holdbrooks, Christopher Scott Yancy and Terry Lee Jarvis in 1999. His execution marks the fifth in the US within a one-week span - its greatest use of capital punishment in more than two decades. Also on Thursday, Emmanuel Littlejohn received a lethal injection in Oklahoma after the state's governor denied a last-minute clemency request. Miller's execution marks the 18th so far this year - and seven more are scheduled over the remaining three months of 2024. It also marks the 1,600th execution in the US since the nation's highest court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) non-profit. Freddie Owens was put to death last Friday in South Carolina, while Tuesday saw the executions of Marcellus Williams in Missouri and Travis Mullis in Texas. DPIC data also indicates that July 2003 was the last time so many inmates have received their death sentences within seven days. Experts have told US media that the timing is a mere coincidence, resulting from changes in execution scheduling as a result of previously botched executions and legal challenges. For years, executions were on the decline across the country. Thirty-five states have either abolished or not used the death penalty for at least the past decade, according to DPIC. But the number of executions has risen over the past three years, with Texas, Missouri, Alabama and Florida leading the way. Last year saw 24 people put to death, up from 18 in 2022 and 11 in 2021. Alan Eugene Miller Miller, 59, was sentenced to death over the back-to-back workplace murders of Holdbrooks, Yancy and Jarvis in 1999. Initially set to die in 2022, he was given a reprieve when officials struggled to connect an intravenous line that would administer his lethal injection. Earlier this year, the Alabama state Supreme Court cleared the way for Miller to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia, a method that involves an inmate inhaling nitrogen gas through a fitted mask until their body is deprived of oxygen. Alabama is one of only three states that sanctions this form of capital punishment and carried out its first such execution this past January. Kenneth Eugene Smith's nitrogen-induced killing was described by the state's attorney general as "textbook" but critics said it appeared painful and inhumane. "In Alabama, we will not deny justice to the victims of heinous murders," attorney general Steve Marshall said in a statement. "Tonight, despite misinformation campaigns by political activists, out-of-state lawyers, and biased media, the state proved once again that nitrogen hypoxia is both humane and effective." Emmanuel Littlejohn [Oklahoma Department of Corrections] Littlejohn, 52, was sentenced to death for his role in a 1992 robbery gone wrong that ended in the murder of convenience store owner Kenneth Meers. Both Littlejohn and his accomplice, Glenn Bethany, were charged and convicted over the incident, but Littlejohn's lawyers argued it was not him who fired the fatal shot and that jurors had been confused by their sentencing options. Littlejohn was 20 years old at the time of his crime and, his lawyers argued, a killing resulting from a robbery should not be subject to the death penalty Two jurors from his 1994 sentencing and 2000 re-sentencing provided sworn affidavits as part of his recent clemency petition, saying they did not believe he should be put to death. But prosecutors said two teenage witnesses claimed it was Littlejohn, not Bethany, who pulled the trigger and killed Meers. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 last month to spare Littlejohn's life and commute his sentence to life in prison without parole. Governor Kevin Stitt declined to grant the reprieve, saying: A jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death. As a law and order governor, I have a hard time unilaterally overturning that decision. Littlejohn's mother, daughter and spiritual advisor all witnessed his lethal-injection execution. Alan Eugene Miller was convicted in 2000 of capital murder in the 1999 deaths of Lee Michael Holdbrooks, Christopher S. Yancy, and Terry Lee Jarvis. He was executed Thursday using nitrogen gas, the second time the state has used that method. (Alabama Department of Corrections) The state of Alabama Thursday executed Alan Eugene Miller by nitrogen gas, the second nitrogen execution carried out by the state this year and the fourth overall. Miller, 59, who was sentenced to death after being found guilty of a triple homicide in 1999, was pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m., according to a news release from the governors office. I didnt do anything to be in here, he said before the execution, and asked family and friends witnessing the execution to take care of someone, which was inaudible. I didnt do anything to be on death row, Miller said again. Media witnesses reported that Miller shook for two minutes while strapped to the gurney. He then intermittently gasped for air for about six minutes. Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was executed by nitrogen gas in January, also shook and gasped while the gas was administered. Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said in a news conference following the execution there were involuntary movements as Miller was deprived of oxygen. That was nothing that we did not expect, Hamm said. Gov. Kay Ivey issued a news release announcing Millers execution. Just as Alan Miller cowardly fled after he maliciously committed three calculated murders in 1999, he has attempted to escape justice for two decades, the statement said. Tonight, justice was finally served for these three victims through the execution method elected by the inmate. His acts were not that of insanity, but pure evil. Three families were forever changed by his heinous crimes, and I pray that they can find comfort all these years later. South Carolina, Missouri, Texas and Oklahoma have also conducted executions in the last week. A jury convicted Miller in 2000 of the murders of Lee Michael Holdbrooks, Christopher S. Yancy, and Terry Lee Jarvis, coworkers who Miller believed were spreading rumors about him. Millers attorneys argued in court that he suffered from mental illness, which contributed to his actions. Miller initially filed a lawsuit to delay his execution, arguing that execution by nitrogen violated his equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment as well as his Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The Alabama Legislature authorized nitrogen gas executions in 2018. Former Sen. Tripp Pittman, R-Montrose, who sponsored the bill, said in an interview last year that he believed it would be a more humane way to die. No nitrogen gas execution had ever been carried out before this year. While it had been used in some animal euthanasia, the American Veterinary Medical Association generally discourages its use and recommends the administration of a sedative if employed. It is not clear if Alabamas protocol includes a sedative for the condemned inmate. The Alabama Attorney Generals Office announced in a news release last month that Miller had dropped his lawsuit after he and the state reached an agreement concerning his scheduled execution. Details of the agreement were not disclosed, but Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said at the time that the resolution of this case confirms that Alabamas nitrogen hypoxia system is reliable and humane. The state used nitrogen gas to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith in January. Media witnesses reported that Smith convulsed for two minutes and went through seven minutes of heavy breathing as he took large breaths. Thursdays execution was the second time Miller had been in the death chamber. In September 2022, officials called off Millers scheduled execution by lethal injection after saying they could not find a vein to administer the drugs. Miller alleged that officials left him upside down on a gurney while bleeding for 20 minutes. It was the second of three botched executions that year. In July 2022, Joe Nathan James Jr.s execution was delayed by hours. A later autopsy found multiple puncture wounds on James body, which suggested that staff tried multiple times to find a vein. The Alabama Department of Corrections said it could not confirm if James was conscious prior to his execution. Miller was the fourth person executed by Alabama this year. After Smith, the state executed Jamie Ray Mills in May and Keith Edmund Gavin in July, both by lethal injection. Alabama is scheduled to execute Derrick Dearman by lethal injection in October and Carey Grayson by nitrogen gas in November. The six executions, if carried out, would be the most in Alabama since 2011. An Alabama man convicted of killing three people in separate workplace shootings was put to death Thursday using nitrogen gas, the second time the method has been used in the country. Alan Eugene Miller, 59, was pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m. local time at a south Alabama prison. He shook and trembled on the gurney for about two minutes with his body at times pulling against the restraints. What followed was about six minutes of periodic gasping breaths. "I didn't do anything to be in here," Miller said in his final words. Miller was convicted of killing three men Lee Holdbrooks, Christopher Scott Yancy and Terry Jarvis, who he believed were gossiping about him. Missouri, Texas Execute 2 Inmtes Over Killings Of Woman, Infant As More Expected In Other States The state tried to execute him by lethal injection in 2022. Miller chose to die from nitrogen gas. Read On The Fox News App Miller was a delivery truck driver for Ferguson Enterprises when he killed the three men on Aug. 5, 1999, in the Birmingham suburb of Pelham. He walked into the company and fatally shot Holdbrooks, 32, and Yancy, 28, before driving 5 miles away to Post Airgas, where he had previously worked, and killing Jarvis, 39. "Youve been spreading rumors about me," Miller said before opening fire, according to a witness. "Tonight, justice was finally served for these three victims through the execution method elected by the inmate, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement. "His acts were not that of insanity, but pure evil. Three families were forever changed by his heinous crimes, and I pray that they can find comfort all these years later." South Carolina Inmate Dies By Lethal Injection, Ending State's 13-Year Pause On Executions A jury convicted Miller after only 20 minutes of deliberation. Efforts to execute him in 2022 were called after officials were unable to find a vein to connect an IV to him. Miller had initially challenged the nitrogen gas protocol but dropped his lawsuit after reaching an undisclosed settlement with the state. The method involves placing a respirator gas mask over the inmates face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death by lack of oxygen. Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma have also adopted the use of nitrogen gas for executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Alabama used the method for the first, and then-only, time earlier this year to execute Kenneth Smith. At the time, United Nations experts condemned Smith's execution, saying it "amounted to torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment." The Associated Press contributed to this report. Original article source: Alabama executes inmate who killed 3 in separate workplace shootings by nitrogen gas Alan Eugene Miller, 59, was executed Thursday evening for killing three people in 1999. Photo courtesy of Alabama Department of Corrections/Website Sept. 26 (UPI) -- Alabama conducted the United States' second execution with the use of nitrogen gas on Thursday evening, finally killing Alan Eugene Miller for the fatal 1999 workplace shooting of three people after the state failed to administer his sentence by lethal injection years earlier. Miller, 59, was executed by nitrogen hypoxia, beginning at 6:16 p.m. at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Ala. The nitrogen gas flowed for about 15 minutes, prison officials said. Media witnesses reported that Miller, strapped to a gurney, was seen shaking for about two minutes straight, followed by about six minutes of him gasping for air. He was pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m., the state's Department of Corrections confirmed to UPI in a statement. Commission John Hamm of the Alabama Department of Corrections told reporters during a press conference following the execution that it went as planned. "Just like in Smith, ... there's going to be involuntary body movements as the body is depleted of oxygen," he said. "So that was nothing we did not expect." Attorney General Steve Marshall explained Miller's shaking in a statement as "some agonal breaths" and "slight movements associated with dying process." Nitrogen hypoxia is a method of execution that deprives the brain of oxygen by forcing inmates to breath only nitrogen. Miller is the second person in the United States to have their sentence carried out by this method after Alabama executed Kenneth Smith with nitrogen gas on Jan. 25. The state originally tried to carry out Miller's execution by lethal injection in September 2022, but it was called off after prison officials failed to access his veins within protocol time limits to administer the injection. When the state originally tried to execute his sentence, Miller was fighting in court to be put to death by nitrogen hypoxia, a method Alabama has made available to death row inmates since 2018. Miller later sued to stop his execution but then later dropped his case, according to Marshall. Miller was convicted and sentenced to death for the killing of three people on Aug. 5, 1999. He killed two of his coworkers at Ferguson Enterprises, shooting them nine times, before killing a third as Post Airgas, a previous place of employment. The Alabama Department of Corrections told UPI that Miller refused breakfast on Thursday morning and had a final meal of hamburger steak, baked potato and French fries. "Justice has been served. After two decades, Alan Miller was finally put to death for a depraved murder spree that cruelly took the lives of three innocent men," Marshall said in a statement. "I ask the people of Alabama to join me in praying for the families and friends of the victims, that they might now find peace and closure." Alan Eugene Miller becomes 2nd inmate in US to be executed with nitrogen gas Alan Eugene Miller became the second death row inmate in the nation to be executed with nitrogen gas on Thursday evening, nearly 25 years after the shooting deaths of his three coworkers who he believed were spreading rumors about his sexuality. Miller, 59, was convicted of murdering Terry Jarvis, Lee Holdbrooks and Christopher Yancy in two workplace shootings on the morning of Aug. 5, 1999, in the suburban Birmingham city of Pelham. He was officially pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m. CT, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections. I didnt do anything to be here," Miller said before he was pronounced dead, reported the Montgomery Advertiser, part of the USA TODAY Network. Miller's next words were inaudible, but he seemed to have asked his family to take care of someone. Then: I didnt do anything to be on death row. Thank you." Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement obtained by USA TODAY that "justice has been served." "After two decades, Alan Miller was finally put to death for a depraved murder spree that cruelly took the lives of three innocent men," he said. "I ask the people of Alabama to join me in praying for the families and friends of the victims, that they might now find peace and closure." Miller's death makes him the fourth inmate to be executed in Alabama this year, the 18th in the nation in 2024 and the 1,600th of all time in the U.S. He is also among five men being executed in the U.S. in just a six-day period: South Carolina executed Freddie Owens on Friday, and on Tuesday, Missouri executed Marcellus Williams less than an hour before Texas executed Travis James Mullis. Miller previously survived the state's initial lethal injection attempt in September 2022, when staff could not find his veins for an IV line before his death warrant expired. Pictured is Alabama death row inmate Alan Eugene Miller. Alan Eugene Miller's final moments, meal The execution began at 6:18 p.m. with gas flow, reported Marty Roney, who was among the witnesses in his role as a reporter with the Montgomery Advertiser, part of the USA TODAY Network. Miller gasped and struggled against restraints for about two minutes until he lost consciousness at 6:19 p.m. He gasped several more times and then appeared to take his last breath at 6:26 p.m., Roney said. The curtain to the chamber closed at 6:32 p.m. On Wednesday, Miller had seven visitors and on Thursday he had nine, according to the Alabama corrections department. Miller' last meal was of a hamburger steak, baked potato and French fries. What was Alan Eugene Miller convicted of? Miller was found guilty by an Alabama jury for shooting Holdbrooks six times, Jarvis five times and Yancy three times. He first shot and killed Holdbrooks and Yancy, his coworkers at Ferguson Enterprises, before driving his truck to Post Airgas, a welding supply store, to murder Jarvis. Pelham police arrested Miller during a traffic stop on the same day of the murders. Once Miller was handcuffed, officers found a Glock lying on the driver's seat and an empty ammunition magazine on the passenger seat, according to court documents. Despite Miller being deemed "mentally ill" by a forensic psychiatrist during his sentencing hearing, the court ordered him to be executed for the shootings, finding that his condition did not meet the level of mania necessary to establish an insanity defense under Alabama law. "Miller suffered from a delusional disorder that substantially impaired his rational ability," according to the court document. "This delusional disorder coupled with Miller's history as a loner resulted in Miller's believing the people he worked with talked about him and that they had spread rumors about him. Miller believed that Terry Jarvis had told other employees at Post Airgas that Miller was a homosexual." How was Alan Eugene Miller executed? Miller was executed using nitrogen gas, the second time that method has been used in the U.S. after Kenneth Eugene Smith execution in January, which one witness described as "horrific." The Rev. Jeff Hood, a spiritual advisor who has witnessed more than a half dozen executions, was at Smith's and described it as being "horrific" and bringing society closer to a "moral apocalypse." "We're talking about minutes and minutes of thrashing and spitting," Hood told USA TODAY. "His head going up and down (and) back and forth. The (expletive) gurney that's bolted to the floor started shaking." With nitrogen hypoxia is used, the inmate breathes pure nitrogen through a mask that displaces oxygen in their system. Proponents claim it is an almost instant and painless method. Opponents, including Hood, claim it is largely untried and torturous. "Although the methods have changed over the years, it remains the judgment of the State of Alabama that some crimes are so horrific as to warrant the ultimate punishment," Attorney General Marshall said in his statement on Thursday. "In Alabama, we will not deny justice to the victims of heinous murders. Tonight, despite misinformation campaigns by political activists, out-of-state lawyers, and biased media, the State proved once again that nitrogen hypoxia is both humane and effective. Millers execution went as expected and without incident." Who were Terry Jarvis, Lee Holdbrooks and Christopher Yancy? Sherry Lawley called her brother, Terry Jarvis, the kindest and most generous person she knew. "He would give you the shirt off of his back if he could," said Lawley, a resident of Maylene in central Alabama. "He would do anything for anybody Terry was my baby brother, but at some point in life, it seemed like I became his baby sister because he took care of me." After Jarvis was killed, she said: "It was just like a piece of my heart was missing that I won't ever get back." Ahead of Miller's execution, she said she wasn't sure whether it would give her closure. "I know it needs to happen, and on one hand, I want it to happen, but I just don't know what to feel about it," she said. Yancy was a faith-driven father of two and a "big teddy bear type," according to the Rev. Chris Joiner, the pastor of the Alabama church that he and his family attended. "It was a strong family," Joiner told USA TODAY. "They were very loving and attentive to one another." Yancy's family suffered another tragedy following his murder when his wife, Kim, was killed at the age of 38 in a car accident in 2012, according to the Shelby County Reporter. USA TODAY could not reach Holdbrooks' family, but according to his obituary, he died a married man without any children. Pictured is Terry Lee Jarvis Alan Eugene Miller's execution commenced despite attorneys' request In March, Miller's attorneys filed for a preliminary injunction in federal court to stop the execution, arguing that it violated his rights to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. "Alabama is evidently unable to carry out a nitrogen hypoxia execution without cruelly super-adding pain and disgrace, and prolonging death," a federal complaint filed by Miller's attorneys says. Alan Eugene Miller is scheduled to be executed in the gas chamber in Alabama this evening. If the execution is carried out, Mr. Miller will become the 1600th person executed in America in modern days. That's why myself and others are gathering outside 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. pic.twitter.com/G7XgyCzT45 Hayden (@AppalachianDem) September 26, 2024 Attorneys also said Miller was obese, had asthmatic bronchitis and received a diabetic food tray where was housed at Holman Correctional Facility, according to the complaint. Miller's attorneys and the state entered into a confidential agreement in August, thus OK'ing the execution, according to court documents. A judge dismissed the attorneys' request without prejudice following the agreement. Contributing: Marty Roney/ Montgomery Advertiser This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Alan Eugene Miller executed with nitrogen gas; 2nd time ever in US Gamuda Berhad (KLSE:GAMUDA) Full Year 2024 Results Key Financial Results Revenue: RM13.6b (up 66% from FY 2023). Net income: RM912.1m (up 12% from FY 2023). Profit margin: 6.7% (down from 9.9% in FY 2023). The decrease in margin was driven by higher expenses. EPS: RM0.33 (up from RM0.31 in FY 2023). All figures shown in the chart above are for the trailing 12 month (TTM) period Gamuda Berhad Revenues Beat Expectations, EPS Falls Short Revenue exceeded analyst estimates by 8.1%. Earnings per share (EPS) missed analyst estimates by 6.9%. Looking ahead, revenue is forecast to grow 8.7% p.a. on average during the next 3 years, compared to a 14% growth forecast for the Construction industry in Malaysia. Performance of the Malaysian Construction industry. The company's shares are down 1.6% from a week ago. Risk Analysis You should learn about the 3 warning signs we've spotted with Gamuda Berhad. 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. The tundra in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta is seen in the evening sun on Oct. 11, 2023. (Photo by Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon) The tundra in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta is seen in the evening sun on Oct. 11, 2023. (Photo by Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon) The U.S. Justice Department has announced more than $86 million in grants for American Indian and Alaska Native communities to support survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking and sex trafficking. Nearly $14 million of those dollars were awarded to Alaska tribes and tribal organizations. The news comes after Alaska lawmakers increased state funding to the states Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault to make up for a decrease in one if its federal funding sources and as advocates have stressed the need for even more financial support. The grants come through the federal Violence Against Women Act, a law that funds the investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women, which had its 30th anniversary this month. The law established the federal Office of Violence Against Women within the Justice Department; its Tribal Affairs Division will administer the grants. Fourteen different tribes or tribal organizations in Alaska have been awarded grants so far and several of them received more than $1 million. The Organized Village of Kake was awarded $1.5 million to support Tribal jurisdiction over crimes committeed in the community, including domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and sex trafficking. Bristol Bay Native Association Inc., Aleutian Pribilof Island Association Inc. and the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe each received roughly $1.2 million to support the response to such crimes in the communities they serve. The Yupik Womens Coalition and the Healing Native Hearts Coalition each received more than $400,000 in grants to continue their work in the Yukon-Kuskokwim and Interior regions. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland weighed in on the awards. Tribal communities, and particularly American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls, have experienced disproportionately high levels of violence for too long, he said in a news release. This $86 million dollar investment represents the Justice Departments commitment to working in partnership with Tribal nations to address and prevent gender-based violence and provide safety and justice for survivors. The Office of Violence Against Women will have made all its grants by Sept. 30, a spokesperson said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX CHICAGO The City Council is signaling once more its commitment to keeping acoustic gunshot detection technology in Chicago, even if that effort continues to pit aldermen against Mayor Brandon Johnson. Aldermen who back the ShotSpotter technology Johnson decommissioned this week showed keen interest in the mayors plan to add a replacement tool for first responders during a City Council hearing Thursday. They are urging Johnson to quickly install new technology and even gearing up to try to force his hand if he does not. I dont know if ShotSpotter is the best thing. We need to look at everything. We need the best, Vice Mayor Ald. Walter Burnett said during the joint Public Safety Committee and Police and Fire Committee meeting. Its life or death. Some aldermen are more closely weighing the option of filing an unprecedented lawsuit against the city if Johnson does not come up with an effective replacement. The suit would seek to enforce two ordinances, passed with large majorities in May and last week, giving the City Council and police superintendent control over ShotSpotters future. Johnson has argued the ordinances are not legal because only he has power over such contracts. But Ald. Brian Hopkins said he and others are working with an attorney who could be retained to sue the city and wrest contracting control from Johnson. There are a variety of places to go for the lawyers, Hopkins said. There are a lot of things happening right now that really dont have any recent precedent, so you have to create it. Hopkins added that a compromise from Johnson could make such a lawsuit unnecessary. Johnson pledged to veto the ordinance passed in a 33-to-14 vote last week. Aldermen expect that veto to come in the next month. Burnett said Thursday that he will not join his colleagues in voting to overturn any mayoral veto. Thirty-four votes would be needed from the council to do so. But Johnson also said he will consider adding other gunshot detection technology. On Sunday, hours before ShotSpotter went offline, that new promise gained momentum as Johnsons administration took the first step in a procurement process for technologies that ensure quick response by law enforcement authorities in emergency situations. The request for information called for a technology with apparent similarities to ShotSpotter, which uses acoustic sensors mounted on light poles, mostly on the South and West sides, to quickly alert police about the location of suspected gunfire. Johnson has decried ShotSpotters cost and blasted its effectiveness, citing reports made by civic groups such as the MacArthur Justice Center and officials such as city Inspector General Deborah Witzburg. Answering aldermens questions Thursday, Witzburg largely stood behind her 2021 report, which found the technology rarely leads to evidence of crimes, investigatory steps or gun recoveries, while tainting officers interactions with residents of neighborhoods most affected by gun violence. But she also pointed out that the report did not focus on the question ShotSpotter supporters have recently argued should be at the forefront of the debate: Does the tool save lives? Youre not going to grade your star pitcher on their sliding percentage, Witzburg said. How successful something is depends an awful lot on what we are measuring for. The city is considering expediting its effort to start using new first responder technology by beginning with a pilot program, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Garien Gatewood told the Tribune Wednesday. Nothing is set in stone but we are looking at options, Gatewood said. Its something we might be willing to explore so long as it doesnt impact the RFI. Gatewood, who had planned to be out of town Thursday, was not present at the hearing, and no representative of Johnsons administration spoke in his place. The ShotSpotter divide has been a recurring point of contention in council meetings this year. As aldermen on either side bitterly disagreed Thursday, even two experts brought in to speak from different University of Chicago schools took opposite stances. Jens Ludwig, director of the University of Chicagos Crime Lab, estimated ShotSpotter saves 85 lives a year, citing a statistical analysis his lab did on the highly politicized issue that he wrote about in a Tribune op-ed last week. Moments later, University of Chicago sociology professor Robert Vargas struck a different tone. He compared the push to stay in Chicago by ShotSpotter parent company SoundThinking to the product defense efforts that industries like tobacco and opioids have used to combat the regulation of their harmful product. By continuing to change their narrative to fit their marketing strategy, ShotSpotter is trying to delay the inevitable scrutiny that comes with evidenced-based policy, he said. Burnett, who is often a close ally of Johnsons, but has supported ShotSpotter in recent months, pushed back. Have you ever lived on the West Side? Or the South Side? Where there is a high crime rate, high death rate, high murder rate? he asked. Vargas answered that he had lived in the areas and has written two books on communities in them. We live with this stuff every day, Burnett said later. Its different for us. ____ Her hair tied back in a ponytail, five-year-old Rayan Shuaib looked on solemnly through the fringe falling across her eyes as they buried her family on Friday. A little over 24 hours earlier she had been celebrating with them. It was her younger brother Alis birthday and their father was determined to celebrate it, despite the Israeli missiles that had upended normal life since the start of the week. The party, like any good Lebanese party, was still at its height at 1am on Thursday morning when at least one Israeli missile struck the building in which the Shuaib family lived in the Karak district of Zahle, the main city in eastern Lebanons Bekaa Valley. By the time the smoke cleared, Rayan was the only one still alive in the house. Her brother, father and mother had all died, along with 12 other members of the extended Shuaib family. Along with southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut, much of the Bekaa Valley is a Hezbollah stronghold and has been repeatedly targeted by the Israeli military in recent days. With few of Bekaas towns and villages unspared, many civilians have either fled the valley altogether or made for the comparative safety of Zahle, perhaps believing that being in a predominantly Christian town would afford a degree of security. Zahle is hardly safe, though. Villages on its outskirts have been struck repeatedly, while districts in the more religiously mixed south-east of the city places such as Karak have also been targeted on several occasions. The Israeli Defense Forces have been sending text messages and voice recordings to residents in the Bekaa Valley warning them to leave dangerous areas and move into nearby schools. Whether in response to those messages or simply because they were terrified of the falling bombs, some 15,000 people have fled to Zahle in the past three days, according to Assad Zogaib, the towns Christian mayor. More than 3,000 of them have taken shelter in Zahles schools. Among them are 350 who have crowded into the Mixed Public School of Maalaka, where Rayans father, Haydar, was working as a volunteer to care for the newcomers. Why Haydar did not move his family to the relative safety of the school, a 10-minute walk from his home, is unclear. Perhaps he believed that his house, on the outskirts of Karak, was safe or that his family would have been in just as much danger at the school. Or he may have calculated that home was more comfortable than a place where many are sleeping on hard classroom floors without mattresses. All Alya Aboudeih, a local government official in charge of the Maalaka school shelter, knows is that her colleague set off home on Wednesday evening and never came back. He left a happy man, said Ms Aboudeih. He was proud that he was going to be able to host his sons birthday even at a time like this. And then, as they celebrated, the whole house was destroyed and three branches of his family were killed except the little girl. A total of 15 members of the Shuaib family died in the Israeli strike on Thursday morning Emotions at the school were perhaps unsurprisingly raw. Furious at the deaths of friends, forced out of their homes and still living in danger, those seeking shelter vented their fury at Britain and the United States, accusing both of complicity in Israels actions. People are very angry, Ms Aboudeih said as she sought to calm flaring tempers. Neither Arab countries nor Western ones are standing up to Israel or trying to help us. In Gaza they hit hospitals and schools just like this one and no one did anything about it. Now the same thing is happening here and no one cares. We will go to sleep tonight not having any idea if we will wake up tomorrow. Those at the school insisted that Haydar Shueib was not a member of Hezbollah. But Mr Zoghaib, the mayor, said we have no way of knowing if there were members of Hezbollah in the house. He said that he feared Hezbollah members were in the city, living among and therefore endangering the civilian population. We have been asking refugees to tell any members of Hezbollah to stay away, he said. If they want to fight Israel, thats up to them but let them stay away from civilian areas so that they can protect their families and their neighbours. For those living in and around Zahle, the past few days have been fearful ones for Muslims and Christians alike. As Mr Zoghaib spoke, smoke rose in the distance from an Israeli air strike on Masnaa, a town in the valley below that straddles the Syrian border, while reports came in of another attack on Bednayel nine miles to the north-east. Your legs turn to jelly Its not the explosions that I mind so much, it is the sound of the missiles going overhead because you dont know where they are going to land, said Moura, a Christian woman living in Ferzol, five miles outside Zahle. Every time it happens, your heart races and your legs turn to jelly. But for me what is worse is how terrifying this is for my eight-year-old daughter. Not only does Moura live in a place surrounded by villages targeted by Israeli forces, but she also has to drive around Karak every day to get to work in Zahle a once-routine commute that is now terrifying. I used to drive through Karak, she said. Now I take the highway around it and really put my foot to the floor when Im close to it. Lebanon, as it perhaps always has been, is a tale of two countries. In parts of it one can almost forget that the country is suffering one of the most intense bombardments anywhere in the world. Drive through the Christian resorts of the Mount Lebanon range and life still has a veneer of normality to it. But that veneer quickly vanishes as one drops down into the Bekaa Valley, where the traffic thins, shops and businesses are shuttered and smoke rises from air strikes in the distance. Im not scared The Maatam Hajji restaurant in the hillside village of Hezarta affords stunning views across the valley, but it was deserted on Friday. Sitting in the gloom, Amal, the elderly proprietress, ate lunch with her son and grandson, who have all chosen to remain at home despite the growing danger. There have been several attacks on the outskirts of Hezarta, including one on a farmstead along the road that killed the couple living there and two relatives who had fled southern Lebanon, assuming they would be safer there. It was a terrible miscalculation. Despite the dangers, Amal and her family have no intention of fleeing. Here at least, she said, pointing to the jars she fills daily with olives and dried cherries, she had something to eat and a bed to sleep on. Many of those sheltering in Zahles schools have no such luxuries. Mr Zoghaib says the catastrophic financial crisis that has devastated Lebanons economy and caused its currency to crash meant that the 30 million the mayors office had in its bank account was only 375,000 today not enough to deal with such a crisis as has now befallen the city. For Amal, that is all the more reason to stay put. Where would I go anyway? she said. Im not scared. When your time comes, it comes. If God wants you to live then you will live, even if the Israelis bomb you. 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. CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour is chastising former first lady Melania Trump over comments she made attacking the mainstream media in a recent interview. Mrs Trump is mistaken, political violence is not the fault of the mainstream media and I wish she would take back this false and dangerous accusation, Amanpour wrote in a social media post Friday morning. The CNN anchor was referencing an interview Trump gave on Fox News a day earlier. When asked about the recent assassination attempts against her husband, the former first lady called it really shocking that all this egregious violence goes against my husband. Especially that we hear the leaders from the opposition party and mainstream media branding him as a threat to democracy, calling him vile names, she said. They only fueling a toxic atmosphere and giving power all of these people that they want to do harm to him. This needs to stop. This needs to stop. The country needs to unite. Amanpours post was first highlighted by Mediaite. Trumps sit-down was the first interview she had granted to a major media outlet in more than two years, and it came as she was promoting a new book. Former President Trump and his allies regularly attack the mainstream media, singling out CNN in many cases as fake news and the enemy of the people. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Amazon to expand electric vehicle fleet with new partnership: 'Enhancing the reliability of Amazon's delivery service' Amazon India and electric mobility solution provider Gentari Green Mobility India have just announced a new partnership that will greatly expand Amazon's already-impressive electric vehicle fleet for last-mile deliveries, the Hindu Business Line reported. Gentari helps procure and manage EVs, including offering vehicle leases, charging points, and parking. Amazon will put its services to use while making EVs available to its smaller delivery service partners. "As part of the partnership, Gentari aims to procure and mobilise EVs across key cities in India over the next three years. These EVs will be strategically deployed, with Gentari also offering comprehensive fleet management services to the DSPs to ensure the seamless operation and upkeep of the EV fleet, enhancing the reliability of Amazon's delivery service," Gentari said, per the Hindu Business Line. Amazon already has a fleet of 7,200 small, three-wheeled EVs used for last-mile deliveries, The Hindu Business Line revealed. They can travel up to 31 miles per hour and cover over 60 miles on a charge. With this new partnership, Amazon will expand its fleet to 10,000 vehicles across India by 2025. That's a win for India's cities, which are famously crowded with traffic and suffer from the drop in air quality that comes with internal combustion engines. Electric vehicles produce no air pollution, which is great for residents and visitors. It's also good for the planet, as heat-trapping air pollution is causing the Earth to overheat. This is also a chance for small businesses to work with Amazon to take over a portion of its last-mile deliveries, opening up opportunities for local entrepreneurs, the Hindu Business Line explained. Abhinav Singh, VP of operations at Amazon India, said: "Our partnership with Gentari will further strengthen Amazon's e-mobility progress in India. We aim to empower our delivery service partners by providing them access to the right electric vehicles, end-to-end vehicle life cycle management services, as well as charging and parking facilities." Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet. DC police cancels AMBER Alert for 14-year-old girl after she was safely found UPDATE, 9/27, 3:08 p.m. D.C. police canceled the AMBER Alert after the girl was safely found. The case is still being investigated. WASHINGTON (DC News Now) The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) has issued an AMBER Alert for a teenage girl, who was last seen in Northwest on Sept. 26. MPD issued the alert early Friday morning for 14-year-old Nevaeha Orellana. According to D.C. police, Orellana was kidnapped in the 1300 block of Longfellow Street. She stands at 53 and weighs around 130 lbs. DC police looking for woman who was abducted in Southeast Police said she has black hair and brown eyes and was last seen wearing a white shirt with pink pants and black sneakers. At this point in the investigation, MPD believes a Black Cadillac SUV and Silver Sedan with the Virginia Tag, 10992U are possibly involved. Anyone with more information is encouraged 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 DC News Now | Washington, DC. TOPEKA (KSNT) A woman convicted of causing a crash that resulted in the deaths of three Topeka children is seeking a new trial. In August, a jury found Amber Peery guilty of charges of involuntary manslaughter, reckless aggravated battery and traffic infractions. Following that verdict, Peery filed a motion requesting new trial on grounds that evidence had allegedly been destroyed and graphic autopsy photos should not have been shown to jurors. Prosecutors have objected to the motion. In October of 2022, Peery was driving a vanload of Girl Scouts on the Kansas Turnpike near Auburn when she made an illegal U-turn through the gap of the highway barrier. The action resulted in a crash with a tractor-trailer that killed three children and seriously injured a fourth. Are common consumption areas coming to Manhattan? According to court documents, Peerys defense team argues that because of the gruesomeness of the victim photographs, they should not have been admissible in the original trial. Her team also claims the state destroyed two additional video recordings from the tractor-trailer which show the driver inside the cab at the time of the crash and the trucks dash camera in the minutes leading up to the crash. The state refuted those claims. Prosecutors reiterated their previous argument the photos were relevant to the case and were not unduly prejudicial or repetitious, as the defense claimed. The state also denied that it failed to preserve evidence, saying the additional video in question never existed. A judge will decide whether to grant Peerys motion for a new trial. 27 News will continue to follow this case and bring you updates as they become available. 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 Eric Adams Indictment Is Wild. Wait Till You Hear About the Rest of What Hes Done. New York City Mayor Eric Adamswho truly believes that God put him in that jobwas indicted this week on five federal charges related to bribery, wire fraud, and accepting straw donations from foreign officials. The acts detailed in the nearly 60-page indictment from the Southern District of New York span a full decade of Adams political career, dating back to his tenure as Brooklyn borough president and extending up through his current mayoral reelection campaign. (He pleaded not guilty to the counts on Friday.) Despite being the only mayor in NYC history to be charged during his tenure, Adams is still doing what he does best: refusing to budge an inch and clumsily making his case before a city thats long tired of his shenanigans. From here, my attorneys will take care of the case so I can take care of the city, he declared during a rainy Thursday morning press conference, sheltering under a pavilion with members of the citys Black clergy. My day-to-day will not change. I will continue to do the job for 8.3 million New Yorkers that I was elected to do. Eric Adams' press conference this morning ends with incredibly loud chants from the crowd of "RESIGN! RESIGN! RESIGN!!" pic.twitter.com/cDzMH7hll2 Read Abolish Rent (@JoshuaPHilll) September 26, 2024 It was another wild moment from a mayor who is perhaps best recognized outside the city for having a long history of wild moments. You know, like claiming his favorite concert experience was the 1990 Brooklyn live show where Curtis Mayfield was paralyzed, or downing two beers at a Midtown Irish pub before noon on St. Patricks Day and deeming himself Eric OAdams, or wearing a lettered bracelet sporting the word HUSTLE while visiting holy sites in Israel. Since he entered Gracie Mansion in 2022, Hizzoner has invited mass vitriol for slashing municipal public services while coddling the brutal, corrupt police department and demonizing the citys immigrants. But now, with the feds pursuing several probes into his inner circle and spurring some of his highest-ranking lieutenants to step down well, lets just say its difficult to imagine how even a mayor as defiant as this one manages to last in the political realm. Well probably learn a lot over the coming months about just how closely intertwined Adams was with Turkeys government, which will surely provide us with much more fodder in evaluating the mans legacy. But in the interim, lets enjoy a trek down memory lane with a highlight reel of his most ridiculous moments. Before Eric Adams entered politics, he served with the New York Police Department throughout the 1980s and 90s. Some highlights of his time on the beat: Adams put a poster with his headshot on a traffic-light pole that made an appearance in the video for Juicy, the rap classic from fellow Brooklynite the Notorious B.I.G. Has anyone noticed that an Eric Adams poster makes a cameo in the video for Biggie Smalls Juicy? (h/t: my son.) pic.twitter.com/xjDPU1LIIy Jesse Drucker (@JesseDrucker) October 22, 2021 He hung out with the Nation of Islam and its virulently antisemitic leader, Louis Farrakhan, while encouraging then-Mayor David Dinkins to place some of the controversial sects members on the citys payroll. He claimed that comptroller candidate Herman Badillo, a Puerto Rican, was not actually concerned about New Yorks Latino community because Badillo was married to a Jewish woman and not a Latina. Adams traveled to Indiana with other NYPD members to act as a police escort for Mike Tyson, who was serving time after being convicted on rape charges. He registered as a Republican and hobnobbed with his onetime ideological enemies before switching back to the Democratic Party on the advice of his political advisers. All very normal stuff, already. But Adams would not relent on the outrageous behavior even after getting elected to the New York state Senate in 2006. His four terms in Albany, throughout which he wore a thin mustache and enhanced his statewide profile, saw him take on some, well, extremely interesting campaigns. Even if you werent in New York at the time, you may recall the national coverage of his 2010 Stop the Sag campaign, a $2,000-dollar effort that saw Adams upload videos and put up billboards across Brooklyn encouraging the citys Black youth to forgo the often-tut-tutted practice of wearing jeans that sank below their waistline and revealed their underwear. The slogan: Raise Your Pants, Raise Your Image! That wouldnt be state Sen. Adams only foray into online virality. In 2011, he filmed a five-minute PSA ostensibly aimed at preventing gun violencebut really, he was offering local parents thorough instruction on how to profile their children at home. Over a soundtrack of drab violins, Adams taught concerned guardians how to IN-spect what you EX-pect, explaining that a gun could be hidden in a jewelry box or a pillow, a used crack pipe in a popular knapsack, bullets behind a picture frame, weed inside a baby doll, and cocaine on a bookshelf. The First Amendment does not apply to the right of parents to go through their homes, to remove contraband or any other unsafe item, he concluded. His time in the state Senate also included his first bout of legal trouble while in public office: He was named in a 2010 governmental probe into local lawmakers who accepted money from a company that wanted to build New Yorks first casino. Adams was, however, not formally charged. In 2013, Adams departed the New York Legislature and became Brooklyns first Black borough president, serving two terms. According to the new federal indictment, it was around this time that Adams allegedly began glad-handing with government officials from Turkey (a country to which he traveled a lot) and accepting funds in exchange for personal favors. During that time, Adams also fell under city investigation regarding allegations that he was funneling money earned renting out space at Brooklyn Borough Hall toward his nonprofit. (He denied the allegations and was not ultimately charged with a crime.) He also earned notoriety for granting unofficial parking spaces outside the hall to city employees whod racked up extensive records of traffic violations, and for telling city transplants to go back to Iowa and go back to Ohio. As borough president, he made a big show of sleeping at the Borough Hall in a makeshift bed and constructing a small gym to go along with it, and encouraged off-duty cops to carry their guns while attending church. Perhaps most notoriously, he presented the public with a rat bucket trap that could drown more than 100 rodentsand showed off the corpses to a crowd of shocked reporters and animal-rights activists. Nobody: Mayor Eric Adams: The rats may be listeninghttps://t.co/8KTT1egyCw pic.twitter.com/NFLOFjksJk Gothamist (@Gothamist) December 15, 2022 But the chaos really ramped up when his campaign for mayor kicked off in earnest. Where even to begin? The time he claimed that the Golan Heights are part of Israel, instead of Syria, and that he wished to retire there? The video where he stated that his favorite New York movie is Taxi Driver but only referred to it as Taxi? The victory lap he took at Claires after winning the Democratic primary, getting his ear pierced to fulfill a promise hed made to young New Yorkers on the campaign trail? Well, there was the point when people began to question whether he even lived in New York City, considering that he kept sleeping at Brooklyn Borough Hall while campaigning for a different position. None of the residents who lived near the Brooklyn properties registered in his name had ever seen him around, and he also owned a place in New Jersey with his partner, Tracey Collins. To clear things up, Adams granted a tour of his Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment to local reporters, although it appeared that his son resided there more often than he didthere was only one bed (??) and Adams never seemed to pick up any of his mail. There was also only one bed in the apartment so the implication was that yes Eric Adams and his 25 year old son slept in the same bed pic.twitter.com/RFzKd0FKTU Gina Raimondos Wins (@RaimondosWins) September 26, 2024 Eric Adams may not be a well-liked mayor, but hes certainly never been an uninteresting one. From Week One, he promised to bring back swagger to the citythen garnered controversy by dissing low-skilled workers, my cooks, my dishwashers, my messengers, my shoe-shine people and appointing a controversial deputy mayor who resigned just this week after being investigated by the feds. Adams kicked off his time as mayor with frequent stops to a Manhattan restaurant run by two convicted felons, dining with such upstanding characters as the now-imprisoned Sam Bankman-Fried. (One wonders whether that was the location of the table of success, where he claimed that all my haters become my waiters.) He partied at a club with Cara Delevingne and ASAP Rocky, suggested that Kansas doesnt have a brand, waxed poetic on the magical properties of crystals, received his first three mayoral paychecks in cryptocurrencies (losing a lot of actual monetary value in the process), and proclaimed himself the hip-hop mayor while demonizing the citys drill rappers (whose ranks include Adams own son). Cara Delevingne dances to ASAP Rocky next to New York City Mayor Eric Adams is a lot for a Monday night. pic.twitter.com/YVGhi2RiRG Jacob Rubashkin (@JacobRubashkin) March 29, 2022 And that was all just in 2022! The following year, he utilized city funds to launch an infrequently updated podcast titled the Get Stuff Done-Cast, awarded a key to the city to one Sean Diddy Combs (yikes!), and got exposed for mocking up a photo of a fake cop that he carried around in his wallet and presented to the public as a former NYPD colleague. He began rolling out robot cops in Times Square (an initiative that, thankfully, didnt last too long), got his phone snatched by the feds, and capped off 2023 with a real humdinger of an interview: When a PIX11 anchor asked Adams to sum up the year in one word, Adams responded, New York, and described it as a city where you could experience everything from a plane crashing into our Trade Center to a person whos celebrating a new business thats open. Mr. Mayor, describe 2023 in one word. "Ugh, New York. This is a place where everyday you wake up, you could experience everything from a plane crashing into our Trade Center to a person celebrating a new business that's open...And that's why it's the greatest city on the globe." pic.twitter.com/0jjv9DMzJ6 Just one person (@Newyorkist) December 18, 2023 That finally brings us up to 2024and you better believe Adams had a lot of weird shit to say even before he got indicted. This was the year when he told a schoolkid that betrayal motivated him to run for mayor; tossed a trash bag into a wheelie bin while Empire State of Mind blasted in the background; addressed the influx of immigrants into NYC by referring to the newcomers as excellent swimmers who should be lifeguards, and engaged in a heated, viral debate with criminal justice attorney Olayemi Olurin on The Breakfast Club, where he referred to himself by the third person pretty much nonstop. Adams also defended a city-funded A.I. chatbot that frequently told its users to break the law in myriad ways, touted faulty A.I.-powered gun-detection systems that police began rolling out in certain subway stations, and got baptized by Al Sharpton on Rikers Island. And Hizzoner kept on, for whatever reason, referring to New York as the Lima/Islamabad/Mexico City/Istanbul of America. Mayor Adams: New York City is the ___ of America pic.twitter.com/sXv3X4Gad5 Gothamist (@Gothamist) March 22, 2024 To take the cake: Earlier this month, as the FBI kept poking into members of his administration, Adams played a game of catch outside City Hall with a representative from 30 Catches in 30 Days, an initiative to raise awareness around prostate cancer. As part of the public campaign, he asked his catching partner if women get prostate cancer as often as men do. the tail end of the exchange here pic.twitter.com/uYFEwi9NbL katie honan (@katie_honan) September 18, 2024 Greatest city in the world, baby. By Mark Trevelyan and Andrew Osborn LONDON (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin has drawn a "red line" for the United States and its allies by signalling that Moscow will consider responding with nuclear weapons if they allow Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia with long-range Western missiles. But some in the West are asking: does he actually mean it? The question is critical to the course of the war. If Putin is bluffing, as Ukraine and some of its supporters believe, then the West may feel ready to deepen its military support for Kyiv regardless of Moscow's threats. If he is serious, there is a risk - repeatedly stated by Moscow and acknowledged by Washington - that the conflict could turn into World War Three. In the latest in a long series of warning signals, Putin on Wednesday extended the list of scenarios that could lead to Russia using nuclear weapons. It could do this, he said, in response to a major cross-border conventional attack involving aircraft, missiles or drones. A rival nuclear power that supported a country attacking Russia would be considered a party to that attack. Both those criteria apply directly to the situation that would arise if the West allows Ukraine to strike deep inside Russian territory with Western long-range missiles such as U.S. ATACMS and British Storm Shadows, something Putin has said would need Western satellite and targeting support. "It was a very clear message: 'Don't make a mistake - all these kind of things may mean nuclear war,'" said Nikolai Sokov, a former Soviet and Russian diplomat. Bahram Ghiassee, a London-based nuclear analyst at the Henry Jackson Society think-tank, linked the timing of Putin's remarks to Ukraine's lobbying of the West for long-range missiles and the fact that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is making his case to U.S. President Joe Biden this week. "Putin is saying: just stop it right there," Ghiassee said. 'NUCLEAR BLACKMAIL' Reaction from Kyiv was swift, with Zelenskiy's chief of staff accusing Putin of "nuclear blackmail". "In my opinion, this is yet another bluff and demonstration of Putin's weakness. He will not dare to use nuclear weapons because that will make him a complete outcast," Anton Gerashchenko, a former adviser to Ukraine's internal affairs minister, said on X. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Putin's warning was irresponsible and poorly timed, and that it was not the first time he had been "rattling the nuclear sabre". Andreas Umland, an analyst at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, accused Putin of playing mind games. "This is a psychological PR operation, by the Kremlin, without much substance. It is designed to scare leaders & voters of countries supporting Ukraine," he wrote. Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral research fellow and defence expert in Oslo, said he did not believe Putin's comments could be ignored, but that it was important not to overreact. "Russian nuclear use is not imminent," he said on X. "Concern is warranted only when Russia signals actual preparations." Hoffmann said next steps could be removing warheads from storage and pairing them with delivery vehicles for a tactical strike, before ratcheting up preparations for large-scale nuclear use by readying silos and putting bombers on alert - all of which U.S. intelligence agencies would detect. And Russia security expert Mark Galeotti wrote: "Talk is easy and has political impact, but evidence of actual willingness to use nuclear weapons is both absent and something we can detect if it ever happens." LOWER THRESHOLD Nevertheless, Putin was more specific than in the past about the circumstances that could prompt nuclear use. His spokesman said on Thursday that his comments were meant as a signal to Western countries that there would be serious consequences if they participated in attacks on Russia. At the same time, the announced changes fell short of what some hawkish commentators have been calling for. The best-known of them, Sergei Karaganov, has argued for a limited nuclear strike in Europe that would "sober up" Russia's enemies and make them take its nuclear deterrent seriously. In practical terms, the changes extend Russia's nuclear umbrella to cover neighbouring Belarus, a close ally. They lower the threshold for nuclear use by stating, for example, that it could happen in response to a conventional strike that posed a "critical threat to our sovereignty". Previously, the nuclear doctrine talked about a threat to "the very existence of the state". Putin made the announcement in a four-minute video in which he was seen addressing the nine members of a security council that meets twice-yearly to discuss nuclear deterrence. He said nuclear use was an extreme measure and Russia had always approached the issue responsibly. Ministers and intelligence chiefs listened intently, occasionally fidgeting or shuffling papers. One participant - Alexei Likhachev, head of state nuclear corporation Rosatom - took detailed notes. But the real addressees of Putin's message were in Kyiv, Washington and London. Yevgeny Minchenko, a Russian political consultant, said the thrust of the revised doctrine was a blunt message to Ukraine and the West not to escalate the war further into Russia. "If you try to kill us with your proxy's hands, we will kill both your proxy and you," was the message, he said. Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, said the changes opened the door to Russia using tactical nuclear battlefield weapons in certain scenarios, namely against Ukraine. "The threshold for the use of nuclear weapons has been lowered. Now it will be easier for Russia to use nuclear weapons," Markov said on his official blog. "The reason for changing the nuclear doctrine was the threat of a full escalation by the West. The West is sure that Russia will not use tactical nuclear weapons first. Russia is now saying it is ready to do so." Markov suggested Russia could use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine, or air bases in Romania or Poland if Ukrainian warplanes flew sorties from there and if Kyiv - backed by U.S. or British satellite support - used the jets to strike Moscow itself or parts of central Russia. 'NO RESPECT' Igor Korotchenko, a military analyst who often appears on state TV, said the changes were necessary because the West had ignored a slew of previous warning signals against further escalation, including Russian exercises in the summer rehearsing the use of tactical nuclear arms. "We see that Western adversaries no longer respect any 'red lines', believing that any acts to arm Ukraine and Western-assisted strikes against facilities deep inside Russian territory will not be met with nuclear escalation," Korotchenko told the daily Izvestia newspaper. Vladimir Avatkov, who sits on an official body that offers advice to Putin on international relations, said announcing the changes to the doctrine had allowed Moscow to get ahead of any Western decision on missiles for Ukraine. "Let them think now," he said on Telegram. "This is an attempt to not just warn them, but to give them back the fear that they have completely lost. And perhaps even some strategic thinking." The changes were strongly welcomed by Russian nationalists and war bloggers, some of whom have long advocated Moscow use nuclear weapons to force a Ukrainian capitulation, and led to a discussion about what could trigger a nuclear response. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council and a former president, warned that Putin's words should give Ukraine and the West pause for thought. "The very change in the regulatory conditions for our country's use of nuclear components may cool the fervour of those opponents who have not yet lost their sense of self-preservation," he said in a statement. 'LIKE SMALL KIDS' Sokov, the former Russian diplomat, said there was a palpable sense of frustration in Moscow that the West appeared deaf to its many nuclear warnings. He said that when Russia staged three rounds of exercises this year to simulate preparations for the launch of tactical nuclear missiles, there were complaints in the media and among experts that Western countries were not paying attention. "So now they decided to strengthen the signal," Sokov said. "Putin decided the West is like small kids, and you have to explain every small thing because they just don't get it." Sokov said he was concerned about "loose talk" among politicians and commentators who argue that the West has crossed a series of Russian red lines with impunity - by supplying Ukraine with tanks and F-16 fighter jets, for example - and that Moscow's warnings can therefore be ignored. In fact, he said, the West had yet to breach two red lines that Russia had spelt out clearly: sending NATO troops to fight in Ukraine, and letting Ukraine fire Western long-range missiles into Russia. "How can we say how (Putin) is going to react, if so far we have not actually crossed any Russian red lines?" he said in a phone interview, arguing that such an approach was based on guesswork, not data."I'm really concerned about all the loose talk, precisely because we run head-on into a situation which is completely unfamiliar to us ... If you do not factor in the risks, you are likely to have a very unpleasant surprise." (Reporting by Mark Trevelyan and Andrew Osborn; Editing by David Clarke) (Bloomberg) -- Angola expects US President Joe Bidens visit next month to help bolster foreign investment, as the nation tries to diversify its economy away from oil and reduce its dependence on Chinese capital. Most Read from Bloomberg Tete Antonio, Angolas foreign affairs minister, said the trip is a very good indicator of the relationship between the two countries. Biden will travel to Germany and Angola from Oct. 10 to 15, in his first trip abroad since withdrawing from the US presidential race in July. It will attract attention to Angola, Antonio, said in an interview on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Thursday. Many people will look at Angola as a destination to go to and to invest. For decades, Angola has relied on Chinese loans to rebuild roads, hospitals and public housing after it emerged from a devastating civil war in 2002. It owes China around $17 billion, mostly in the form of oil-backed loans. While Angolas relationship with China remains good, the minister said the country needs to turn to the private sector for growth. We believe that the private sector is really an engine for what the ambitions the country has for development, said Antonio. The US-backed Lobito corridor, a railway project that will haul critical minerals from central Africas copper belt to an Atlantic port in Angola, is expected to be one of the highlights of Bidens trip to Angola. The railway, stretching 1,300 kilometers, is seen as Washingtons answer to Chinas Belt and Road Initiative in Africa. For Antonio, the multibillion project is an example of the type of investments African nations need to bolster trade, exports and create jobs. The minister said these projects will help Angola and other nations shift from just producing and exporting raw materials into manufacturing. Its a paradigm shift, said Antonio. It brings a lot of opportunities in different areas, not only for transportation, but also areas like agriculture and the transformation of the raw materials. Before the 1975-2022 civil war, Angola was a major exporter of coffee, sisal, corn, bananas and cotton, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Today, Africas second-biggest oil producer relies on crude for more than 90% of its exports and imports most of its goods from abroad. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Google paid $2.7 billion to rehire an artificial intelligence genius who left the tech giant in a huff three years ago to found his own startup, according to a report. Noam Shazeer, a 48-year-old software engineer who was first hired by Google as one of its first few hundred employees back in 2000, left the company in 2021 after it refused his request to release a chat bot that he had developed with a colleague, Daniel De Freitas. Shazeer and De Freitas went on to found Character.AI, which grew to become one of the hottest AI startups in Silicon Valley that would eventually reach a $1 billion valuation last year. Noam Shazeer agreed to return to Google after the company paid $2.7 billion to license the technology of his startup Character.AI. The Washington Post via Getty Images Last month, Google and Character.AI announced that Shazeer, De Freitas and certain members of Character.AIs research team would be joining Googles AI unit DeepMind. At the time of the deal, Character.AI said that it had more than 20 million monthly active users. Google paid Character.AI $2.7 billion to license its technology as well as to get Shazeer and his team to agree to work for the company, according to The Wall Street Journal. The licensing deal, which is short of a full-fledged acquisition, is a unique arrangement that allows Google to immediately access Character.AIs intellectual property without having to wait for the regulatory approvals and bureaucratic sign-offs that would have been required if the company was bought outright. Shazeers return to Google is widely viewed among company employees as the primary reason behind the acquisition of Character.AI, the Journal reported. Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, was reportedly impressed with Shazeer so much so that he was convinced he would be able to build an AI model that could operate with human-level intelligence, according to the Journal. If theres anybody I can think of in the world whos likely to do it, its going to be him, Schmidt was quoted as saying of Shazeer during a talk at Stanford University in 2015. Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas left Google in 2021 after it refused to release the chat bot they had jointly developed. The Washington Post via Getty Images In 2017, Shazeer and another Google colleague, De Freitas, teamed up to create Meena, a chat bot that could engage humans on a range of issues. According to the Journal, Shazeer was so confident of Meenas utility that he predicted it would one day replace Googles search engine. But Google executives thought it was too risky to release Meena due to concerns about safety and fairness, the Journal reported. Google tapped Shazeer, who netted hundreds of millions of dollars in the transaction, to be one of three people who will lead the companys efforts to build the next version of Gemini, Googles next-generation AI model that was built to compete with rivals such as OpenAIs ChatGPT. Story continues Earlier this year, Google temporarily suspended Geminis image-generating feature after it produced inaccurate woke depictions such as minority founding father and diverse popes. Last month, Google lifted the suspension and allowed users to create images using prompts after fixing the bugs. The steep price that Google paid to bring Shazeer and De Freitas back into the fold is indicative of the expensive race among Silicon Valley tech giants to hire the best talent during the AI era particularly in the wake of OpenAIs rollout of ChatGPT. The talent wars have heated up to the point where Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google co-founder Sergey Brin personally wrote notes to recruits urging them to come aboard. Brin is reportedly the key figure in helping to persuade Shazeer to return to Google, according to the Journal. Companies like OpenAI pay prized recruits compensation packages ranging from $5 million to $10 million mostly in the form of stock. Meta has developed a reputation for being somewhat stingy, offering pay packages of between $1 million and $2 million, according to data unearthed by the tech-centric news site The Information. Veterans will get a cost-of-living bump in their benefits next year after Congress passed annual legislation this week to guarantee the increase keeps pace with Social Security rates. Before leaving town for an extended election-season break, the Senate approved the bill by voice vote Wednesday, sending the measure to President Joe Biden's desk for his expected signature. The House previously approved the bill by voice vote last week. "At a time when folks are struggling with rising costs, from housing to groceries, veterans deserve absolute certainty when it comes to providing for their families," Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jon Tester, D-Mont., said in a statement Thursday. "Boosting veterans' hard-earned benefits to keep pace with the cost of living is a necessary cost of war, and I'm proud this bipartisan legislation will deliver a benefits increase to millions of disabled veterans and survivors nationwide -- including 30,000 in Montana." Read Next: Keesler Command Chief Sacked After Investigation Ordered by Training Wing Colonel The increase applies to disability benefits, clothing allowances, and dependency and indemnity compensation for surviving spouses and children. The bill specifically ties the increase to the annual cost-of-living adjustment in Social Security benefits. The 2025 rate for Social Security won't be announced by federal officials until Oct. 10. But the advocacy group Senior Citizens League is projecting the cost-of-living increase will be 2.5%, the organization said in a news release earlier this month. That would be lower than recent years, but in line with historical norms. In 2023, beneficiaries saw their highest increase in decades at 8.7%. This year's increase was 3.2%. In 2010, 2011 and 2016, there was zero increase. While giving veterans an annual bump in their benefits is considered noncontroversial, Congress still must formally approve the increase every year and sometimes comes down to the wire in doing so. The official approval of the increase this year was applauded by lawmakers in both parties. "With the rising costs of goods and living expenses, many disabled veterans and their dependents, including survivors, rely on VA for essential financial support," Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., ranking member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said in a statement Thursday. "Making certain earned benefits stay on pace with rising prices will help provide veterans and their families with much-needed peace of mind." Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, a Navy SEAL veteran who sponsored the House version of the bill, said in a statement after the House passage that the vote was "a testament to our ongoing commitment to America's heroes and their families." Related: VA's Threat to Withhold Disability Checks over Decades-Old Separation Pay Surprises Vets (KRON) San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu filed a final brief in the U.S. Supreme Court against the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday, hoping to save San Franciscans from what he describes as massive bill increases. Millions of PG&E customers to receive credit next month The City could be forced to make at least $10 billion in capital expenditures that would cause water and sewer bills to skyrocket to nearly $9,000 annually per ratepayer over the next 15 years if the terms San Francisco is challenging are held lawful, Chiu said. San Francisco has had a massive sewage water problem so much so that the Environmental Protection Agency filed a complaint against the city in May, claiming that 1.8 billion gallons of sewage were dumped into the citys surrounding waters. Chiu and the city appealed that case, claiming the instructions given to SF needed to be clearer and more affordable. I have a duty to protect San Franciscans from utility rates that would drive many of them into poverty, as well as make sure San Francisco complies with our obligations to protect the environment, Chiu said. In July, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals argued the appeal, claiming federal and state water agencies have broad authority to impose limitations necessary. Chiu appealed the case again, which eventually led to the Supreme Court stepping in on Tuesday. In a statement concerning the brief, Chiu emphasized that this case does not challenge the Clean Water Acta federal bill keeping cities in check by regulating quality standards for surface watersbut rather asks the court to ensure the EPA follows the act by giving permit holders clear standards that actually prevent water pollution before it happens. Dennis Herrera, General Manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the citys water, power and sewer utility, says San Francisco is facing a Catch-22 situation: The EPA is basically saying, You cant pollute too much, but we wont tell you what too much is until after youve already done it. Thats untenable. The financial hit to our customers could be so severe that it would drive more than 8,000 San Franciscans into poverty. Individual ratepayers are expected to pay nearly $9,000 annually in 2039, a tenfold increase from todays average yearly bills of $851, Chius office alleges. According to an analysis commissioned by SFPUC, thousands of San Franciscans would no longer be able to cover their basic needs and go into poverty. Between 8,100 and 10,600 more people would no longer earn enough to cover their basic needs and would be forced into poverty, the analysis reports. San Francisco remains fully committed to complying with the Clean Water Act. We are simply asking the EPA to tell us what the requirements are. Tell us the requirements, and well meet those requirements. Clean Water Act permits should say what they mean and mean what they say. KRON4 has reached out to the EPA for comment and has yet to hear back as of the publishing of this report. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. The tumult of Eric Adamss indictment on federal charges as part of a long-running corruption case has much of New Yorks media and political classes already consumed by speculation around who will take over the mayoralty. But theyre also talking about another New Yorker who is far from likely to be seeking that job: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the rising progressive star of the New York congressional delegation. Ocasio-Cortez, an outspoken backbencher in the Democratic House caucus, was one of the very first state electeds to call for Adams to resign as the feds closed in around him. Her call for the mayor to step down actually came just a few hours before the impending indictment hit the headlines. Absent any comment about the criminal charges themselves, her statement referred instead to the growing staff exodus from the Adams administration and the separate investigations into the mayors political allies. The flood of resignations and vacancies are threatening gov function. Nonstop investigations will make it impossible to recruit and retain a qualified administration, she wrote on Twitter. For the good of the city, he should resign. Adams stands accused of taking illegal campaign contributions, defrauding the citys campaign fund, and even pressuring the New York Fire Department to open a consulate for the government of Turkey without following proper fire code protocols. The five-count indictment describes comical efforts to allegedly cover up the scheme, including an Adams aide reportedly excusing themself to the bathroom during an FBI interview, then deleting messages in the bathroom. Adams denies all the allegations. The impending political vacuum at the top of New York City politics is bound to shake up the political scene at a time when its widely speculated that 34-year-old Ocasio-Cortez is eyeing a greater role in her party. She delivered a primetime address at the Democratic National Convention in August the only backbencher Squad member to do so and received some of the loudest cheers of the night. Her willingness to figuratively stick her neck out on the issue of Adams presumably before knowing the indictment was coming is another sign that shes looking to take on a leadership role. The Independent reached out to Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez as lawmakers were on Capitol Hill to pass a short-term funding bill this week. She declined to talk about her future plans, explaining that her focus was centered on House business. It remains to be seen when or if the congresswoman will pursue her political career beyond the 14th district. She very publicly declined to run for Senate this cycle in a statement last year, a move that likely triggered a few sighs of relief in the office of Senator Kristen Gillibrand, the Democratic incumbent up for re-election. That means shell be waiting until 2028 at least to make a bid for the upper chamber, unless a resignation occurs before then. Waiting is something the third-term congresswoman is good at and thats not a bartending joke. Unlike other progessives in New York politics, particularly in the city, Ocasio-Cortez is not a perennial campaigner. She hasnt sought an office yet besides the one she first won in 2018, declining two opportunities to run for Senate. Chuck Schumer was reported to have been worried about a primary challenge from Ocasio-Cortez in 2022, when he was last up for re-election. His worries in and of themselves are notable, given that hes the senior-most Democratic leader in the entire state, as well as in Congress. If the congresswoman does mount a bid against Schumer in 2028, her decision not to seek a Senate seat in either of the past two cycles will likely play to her benefit. Under Joe Bidens presidency, Ocasio-Cortez has charted a difficult course. She and the progressive Squad of the Houses furthest-left members emerged as some of Bidens loudest allies in the House when it came to passing his signature Build Back Better legislation, which later died due to opposition in the Senate. At the same time, she has continued to stake out positions which keep her in line with her base of leftist supporters both in her district and online, including by being one of the first members of Congress to call the Israeli assault on Gaza a genocide and to support an arms embargo. Her true strength and the reason Schumer fears her possible statewide elected ambitions comes from her proven ability to expand her support beyond the progressive left. It was a failing that hamstrung Bernie Sanders during his two presidential bids, as he was unable to chip away at larger coalitions of voters within the Democratic Party. But Ocasio-Cortez frequently finds herself the target of praise from centrists and even some Trump-opposed Republicans. Such unlikely friends have become enamored with her eloquent remarks in interviews and around Capitol Hill, as well as the level of preparedness she has demonstrated at committee hearings like her grilling of Michael Cohen in 2019. Were still a long way out from AOC even theoretically having an opportunity or reason to make any national ambitions public. But if the Adams indictment reminds us of one thing, its that New York politics is never really very stable, and often throws ones planned political future for a spin. Its the Third World meets Bangkok. In "Squad" member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs district in New York City, those who are described as scantily dressed migrant prostitutes line blocks of a long commercial strip during all hours of the day and night, brazenly soliciting sex to passersby while their pimps strike fear into local business owners, one of whom told Fox News Digital hes been threatened for speaking out and is on the verge of closing his store. The trash-filled streets of Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, which encompasses the migrant-heavy communities of Corona, Jackson Heights and Elmhurst, has become a veritable hotbed for one of the worlds oldest professions, and residents say that most elected officials and police are turning a blind eye to the neighborhood nightmare, which looks more like the famed brothel-filled red-light district streets of Bangkok than one of Americas biggest cities. Illegal vendors also overrun the sidewalks, plying their hustle in what residents have likened to "Third World" conditions, cooking hot food out in the open devoid of any health certifications or inspections as hungry birds swoop down in search of leftovers and leaving their droppings along the way. Aoc District Neighborhood Labeled 'Third World' As Migrants Clog Streets And Prostitutes Overrun Every Block Alleged prostitutes line a street in Queens, New York City. Known to locals as the "Avenue of the Sweethearts," this epicenter of vice is not some desolate area on the outskirts of a city but rather the heart of the borough of Queens underneath the areas main subway track that serves as a vital cog connecting Manhattan and its local schools to families, many of whom stream down the subway steps and are then inescapably met by armies of prowling solicitors. Read On The Fox News App Fox News Digital even recorded a man pushing his young son in a stroller past a group of five sex workers. Residents say that students pass prostitutes every day on their way to school or on their way to local taekwondo centers situated along the busy strip and that the situation has become the norm for their youthful eyes with the alleged sex workers, mostly composed of Asian and Hispanic women, filling the sidewalks. On Sept. 18, the NYPD raided a brothel just off Roosevelt Avenue and arrested three people. The following evening, Fox News Digital was conducting an interview in front of the raided premises when an alleged sex worker and her reported john casually walked out of the same building. On one block along Roosevelt Avenue, Fox News Digital cameras recorded a line of no less than 19 alleged sex workers on the sidewalk. Around the corner, there were at least seven more, and a woman on the next block was witnessed soliciting sex for $60. Nearby, vendors sell everything from used clothes to pots and pans or tools. More recently, female vendors have begun cutting hair and painting nails under canopies on the cluttered sidewalks, with all of these illegal vendors operating feet from legitimate brick-and-mortar stores whose owners rage they are being undercut in prices while also having to pay taxes, unlike the illegal vendors. Shoplifting and pick-pocketing is also widespread, business owners say, and theres a sense here that lawlessness is breeding more lawlessness. Nypd Sweeps Vendors Overrunning Aoc's District But Sellers Swarm The Streets Again, Selling Goods On Sept. 19, the day after the raid, Fox News Digital witnessed a man being arrested for allegedly groping a 17-year-old girl as she walked down the subway steps. In police handcuffs, he denied the accusations to onlookers. The girl, who was being comforted by adults, looked visibly shaken. Ramses Frias, a local resident turned activist, is furious with the deterioration of his neighborhood and says "it feels like Bangkok with women outside locations and pulling men off the street." "This area has been run rampant with prostitution," he told Fox News Digital outside the raided brothel. "It's just been out of control and the lawlessness continues to happen." "This doesnt feel like my home. I've been here my whole life, and this feels like I'm a tourist in a Third World country. This is not how this is supposed to look, this is not how it's supposed to feel," he insisted. "This is a neighborhood and a community full of hardworking individuals, immigrants and second-generation Americans that worked really hard to be here and are facing all this evil and all these bad things. ... And it's just causing more issues daily and our quality of life just continues to drop." Seconds later, an alleged sex worker and her client emerged from the brothel. A neighboring business owner then ushered Fox News Digital into his store, warning that "pimps" were watching via CCTV. The store owner did not want to be named but said he had reported the cathouse to police and had been threatened by those involved with the brothel. "Im so scared, this is my business," he said, adding that his business is suffering because customers are avoiding the area and will likely have to close because of it. Several blocks in "Squad" member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs district in Queens are lined with scantily clad migrant women who reportedly offer illegal services. Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels and a Republican candidate for mayor, says prostitution has exploded in the neighborhood after the pimps and sex workers were driven out of the nearby area of Flushing, well known for its Asian population. "It was never like this. It was a family area with a lot of retail," Sliwa told Fox News Digital of Roosevelt Avenue. "The Chinese community pushed it out [of Flushing] and Asian cops were getting busted because they were on the take, so they just decided, the madams, bring the girls over here and its open prostitution, 24/7. [It's] lawless. Anarchy. You get to do what you want when you want." Two NYPD officers were busted in 2006 on bribery charges relating to the protection of a brothel in Flushing, and there are similar cases stretching back further. Sliwa says the police and New York City Mayor Eric Adams are not doing enough to clamp down on the racket. In January, the NYPD raided six establishments allegedly engaged in prostitution, which were issued closing orders. The raid was well publicized, with Adams and local Democrat City Council member Francisco Moya present. However, it appears to have done little to curb the problem. A group of alleged sex workers on a corner on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, New York City. Sliwa slammed it as a "show raid" and said there were no arrests. "They didn't arrest the johns, prostitutes, madams; they never went after the landlords, and they were back in business the next day," said Sliwa, who joined Fox News Digital and Frias on a walking tour of the area. The Queens District Attorney's Office confirmed that no arrests were made, saying it was strictly carried out to serve court closure orders of nuisance abatement over which the NYPD has jurisdiction. "This would never be tolerated in Manhattan. They tolerate it because it's a poor and impoverished area in the eyes of many New Yorkers, but that doesn't give you a reason to allow this to exist," Sliwa said. "This is so unfair and the mayor is allowing a culture of corruption to exist. These police officers are on the take. It's the only way they could operate openly. They'll say, We deny that. Well, that's what happened in Flushing and that's why they pushed it over here." Adams' office did not respond to a request for comment. The NYPD confirmed the three arrests after the Sept. 18 raid but did not respond to a request for further comment. No police officers have been charged for being involved in prostitution in recent years. In 2018, seven NYPD officers three sergeants, two detectives and two officers were indicted in connection with an illegal prostitution and gambling ring in Brooklyn and Queens, which encompassed Roosevelt Avenue. Separately, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell told Fox News that it suspects members of the brutal Tren de Aragua are linked to prostitution in the area, trafficking women into the industry to pay off the debts the gang is owed for smuggling them into the country. A man asleep on a street surrounded by trash and clothes. Meanwhile, the Queens District Attorneys Office says it is working hard to stamp out prostitution and crime in the area, noting the office has "evicted 13 prostitution locations this year being used for illegal activity on or near Roosevelt Avenue." The office says it's in the process of permanently shutting down the raided brothel. Of Ocasio-Cortez, Frias said the socialist lawmaker has not been seen in the neighborhood since she took part in a rally there in August 2023, where she condemned a city crackdown on illegally operating vendors and called for the city to issue more permits to those vendors. "She does not visit this area; this is actually an area where she campaigned the hardest and a lot of people went out [to vote] for her, and she doesn't come over here. She has totally neglected us," Frias said, noting that other local elected officials are rarely seen in the area, which is only represented by Democrats. "So, we're totally neglected, we're here to fend for ourselves and this is what we have to do now. We're going to organize. We're going to have a rally coming up on Sept. 29, and we're going to let our voices be heard and make sure that the city understands that they need to come over here and do their job," he adds. Ocasio-Cortezs office did not respond to repeated requests for comment on this story or on a March story in which Fox News Digital brought attention to the neighborhoods plight, featuring the additional publication of a now-viral video provided by Frias showing an almost endless stream of vendors with piles of clothes stacked along the streets. Police swept the area days later and Frias a former Democrat who is running for City Council as a Republican next year said vendors have simply set up shop there again. Rep. Grace Meng, whose district also encompasses Roosevelt Avenue, said in a one-line statement, "Quality of life and safety issues need to always be addressed, and I remain in contact with the 110th precinct, Councilman Moya, our local community board and other local elected officials." 'Shark Tank's' Kevin O'leary Shreds Aoc Over Her District Looking Like A 'Third World Country' From left, Ramses Frias, Curtis Sliwa, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, City Council member Francisco Moya Frias also took aim at state Sen. Jessica Ramos, a Democrat who represents the area and is running for mayor. She has previously labeled prostitution on the strip as "survival work" and in 2019 co-sponsored a series of bills that would have decriminalized sex work and vacated the records of people arrested or charged with prostitution or related offenses. Ramos told Fox News Digital she was happy to see the recent raid take place and pitted blame on the mayor for the unsavory situation, saying Adams' office has been sidetracked by scandals rather than addressing the concerns of the community. "No one wants to see people selling sex, especially when theyre being coerced by traffickers. Its unclear what took so long," Ramos said in a statement. "The underground economy has spiraled out of control," she added, referencing the illegal vendors. "Without work permits from the feds, migrants need honest work to provide for themselves. The fact is the migrants are here, and they want to work." Used clothes and other used items for sale are seen along a clogged sidewalk in Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's district in Queens. Meanwhile, Moya, who attended the January raid and has rallied alongside so-called "clean streets" advocates like Frias, said that his fellow Democrats are impeding efforts to shut down the brothels and illegal vendors. "Ive lived my entire life in this district, and Ive never seen it this bad," Moya said of the prostitution. "After COVID, the situation has worsened significantly. The influx of migrants plays a part in this issue, as many have no other means of survival. The federal government has turned a blind eye to the situation and theres only so much the city can do, since we dont have the authority to grant work permits or legal status to those in need." Moya said other elected officials have been calling up city agencies demanding that all enforcement stop. "Some elected officials dont see this as a problem, suggesting that work is work and we should let it be. I believe that if a state representative wants to legalize prostitution, it should be done with strict rules and regulations, in designated areas like the city of Amsterdam not in our community, especially near schools where children pass by and witness these activities daily," he insisted. "Im doing everything in my power to mitigate this issue, as you can see many have been investigated and shutdown but what I have been doing is being undermined by these leaders who dont recognize the urgent need for change. Yet, I assure you, I will not stop until significant change is made." Prostitutes at work in Queens, New York City, in "Squad" member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs district. Original article source: AOC's 'red light' district overrun with prostitutes as locals call out MIA 'Squad' member Thomas Chaves, left, and Vinny Almeida walk through floodwaters from Hurricane Helene in an attempt to reach Chaves's mother's house in the Shore Acres neighborhood Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson) Tangled piles of nail-spiked lumber and displaced boats littered the streets. A house lay crushed under a fern-covered oak tree toppled by the winds. Residents waded or paddled through ruddy floodwaters, hoping to find their loved ones safe, and rescue crews used fan boats to evacuate stranded people in bathrobes or wrapped in blankets. Authorities on Friday were trying to get a handle on Hurricane Helene 's extreme swath of destruction, which stretched across Florida, Georgia and much of the southeastern U.S. on Friday, leaving at least 40 people dead in four states and millions without power. Helene was the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures. The Category 4 hurricane had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph) and made landfall late Thursday where Florida's Panhandle and peninsula meet, a rural region home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways. Floodwaters inundated cars and buildings, and the winds ripped the roofs off businesses, houses and churches. Faith Cotto and her mother, Nancy, stood outside and mourned the loss of their brick home in St. Petersburg, Florida, to another fate: Amid so much water, it burned. A Coast Guard crew in a helicopter rescued a man and his dog after his sailboat became disabled 25 miles (40 kilometers) off southwestern Florida. Firefighters carried children across floodwaters in Crystal River, north of Tampa. But the damage reached much farther. In Atlanta on Friday, streets plunged into reddish-brown water. Hospitals in southern Georgia were left without electricity as officials warned of severe damage to the power grid. In Tennessee, dozens of people were rescued from a hospital roof, and authorities ordered the evacuation of downtown Newport, a city of about 7,000, due to the catastrophic failure of a dam. Fans attend the performance of Canadian singer Shawn Mendes at the Rock in Rio music festival in Rio de Janeiro, Sept. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado) Sept. 20-26, 2024 Rio de Janeiro hosted its annual rock music festival. Mexicans protested on the 10th anniversary of the disappearance of 43 students. Argentinas poverty rate jumped to 53% and Hurricane Helene flooded parts of Cuba. This gallery highlights some of the most compelling images made or published in the past week by The Associated Press from Latin America and the Caribbean. The selection was curated by AP photo editor Leslie Mazoch, based in Mexico City. ___ Follow AP visual journalism: AP Images blog: http://apimagesblog.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apnews X: http://twitter.com/AP_Images "Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Archaeologists digging through a French cliffside located a 200-year-old message in a bottle. Amidst much speculation, the team opened it to find a message from another archaeologist digging at the site200 years ago. The archaeologist was the first to explore the ancient location, and was notable in the area for his work. The idea of a message in a bottle that you might toss out to sea or bury in the earth is an inherently romantic onea bid for connection with a far-off friend, whether that far-off be physical or temporal. A group of students recently experienced the latter, and connected with a 200-year-old predecessor via a recent discovery in France. The message and its vessel were discovered atop cliffs at an old Gaulish village near the port of Dieppe as a team of studentsvolunteering in an emergency effort as erosion chips away at the sites historydiscovered a small glass flask inside an earthenware pot. Inside the glass bottle was a note. It was an absolutely magic moment, said Guillaume Blondel, head of the town of Eus archaeological service, according to the BBC. We knew there had been excavations here in the past, but to find this message from 200 years ago it was a total surprise. After the team speculated about the potential of the notes contents, they carefully extracted the paper and found: P.J. Feret, a native of Dieppe, member of various intellectual societies, carried out excavations here in January 1825. He continues his investigations in this vast area known as the Cite de Limes or Caesars Camp. An archaeologists message to future archaeologists. Sometimes you see these time capsules left behind by carpenters when they build houses, Blondel said. But its very rare in archaeology. Most archaeologists prefer to think that there wont be anyone coming after them because theyve done all the work. Feret is credited as the first archaeologist to sift through the village. He wanted to dismantle an ancient theory which spoke of a Carolingian presence, said Blondel, according to a translation from French-language Actu. He was the first to excavate and discover elements attesting to the Gallic presence. The initial find was made by a history student in Caen named Pierre, Actu reported. Pierre saw the top of a strange object in a trench, and after the team ensured it wasnt a bomb from World War II, they removed the pot. This pot was covered with a small, glazed cup, Blondel said. And we saw a white glass object protruding from it. The glass bottle was a vial, like the kind women once wore around their necks filled with smelling salts. The note was inside, rolled and tied with string. Apart from the 200-year-old message, the students also discovered plenty of 2,000-year-old artifactsmostly pieces of potteryas they searched for evidence of Gallic occupation. Along the way, they found a love letter to their line of work. You Might Also Like An Argentine judge has ordered the publishers of a major Spanish dictionary to remove a pejorative definition of the word "Jewish" from its listing, local media reported late Thursday. The fifth and last definition of the word "Jewish" in the Dictionary of the Spanish Language, which is published by the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), is of a person said to be "greedy or usurious". The dictionary cautions that this usage is "offensive or discriminatory". The other four definitions are "Hebrew", a person "who professes Judaism," a "native of Judea, a country in Asia Minor" and "belonging or relating to Judea or the Jews." Judge Ariel Lijo ordered the academy to "immediately remove the fifth definition of the word 'Jewish' for representing hate speech and incitement to discrimination on religious grounds," according to a ruling cited by the Infobae news portal. He also ordered that the link to the word on the dictionary's website be blocked in Argentina until it complied with the request. It was possible to still access it on Friday morning, however. The ruling stemmed from a complaint filed on August 28 by the heads of the Latin American Jewish Congress and the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations against the RAE and its director, Santiago Munoz Machado, Infobae said. The complaint cited a law banning the "justification or promotion of racial or religious discrimination in any form," a crime punishable by up to three years in prison. Jewish groups and rights groups have asked the RAE twice to remove the definition, but Munoz Machado refused, while agreeing to add the stipulation that the fifth definition given for Jewish is "offensive of discriminatory", according to Infobae. Lijo ruled that RAE's response was "unacceptable." Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America. The Jewish community in Buenos Aires was targeted in two major attacks in the 1990s, one on the Israeli Embassy in 1992, which killed 29 people, and another on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association in 1994, which left 85 people dead. mry/cb/md UPDATE: Authorities said Friday, Sept. 27, they have located the truck and interviewed the male subject. Cynthia McCoy is still missing. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) A 63-year-old woman from Golden Valley, Arizona, has been reported missing, and authorities are looking for a white truck in connection with the investigation. Cynthia Marie McCoy was reported missing on Aug. 22 and she was last seen in the early morning hours of Tuesday, Aug. 20. The Mohave County Sheriffs Office (MCSO) released a photo of McCoy and the truck on Thursday. McCoy is described as a white female, about 5 feet tall and 110 pounds with short black hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a blue spaghetti-strap tank top and carrying a black purse with a Route 66 emblem on the side. Cynthia Marie McCoy of Golden Valley, Ariz., has been reported missing. Authorities are asking for the publics help in finding a white truck as they investigate her whereabouts. (Mohave County Sheriffs Office) Police said McCoy and a friend got a flat tire as they were returning home on Highway 66. A white truck driven by a male subject approached the women offering to help, according to information posted on MCSOs Facebook page. Cynthia left with the male subject and went back to the business looking for a spare tire. Approximately 30 minutes later, Cynthia returned to the friends vehicle, but left shortly after in the truck with the male subject. This was the last time Cynthia was seen. The truck is believed to be an early 2000 model Ford F-150 king-cab truck. The camper shell hangs over the tailgate by several inches. The driver-side rear tire is missing the center dust cover of the rim. The truck was last seen at the business between 7:40 and 7:45 a.m. traveling toward Highway 66 from the parking lot. It left the area in an unknown direction. The man driving the truck is described as an older male with long gray hair and a long gray beard. He was wearing a light blue t-shirt. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Cynthia McCoy or the identity of the male subject is encouraged to contact MCSOs Detective Division at 928-753-0753 or 1-800-522-4312 and reference DR# 24-031983. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. A sign prohibiting firearms is posted outside Little Rock City Hall on Sept. 26, 2024. (Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate) Recommendations from a year-long study on firearm policies, including one that would allow adults in Arkansas to bring firearms to school bus stops, were posted online Friday for public review. Draft firearm legislation, posted Sept. 27 Lawmakers on the Arkansas Legislative Councils Game & Fish/State Police Subcommittee, which is co-chaired by Sen. Ricky Hill, R-Cabot, were tapped last year to conduct a study on the states existing gun laws. Their goal was clarity, and lawmakers are proposing nine bills for consideration during next years legislative session. Any resulting legislation will not be filed until the next session, Hill said. Some recommendations from the study may be turned into bills, while others may not. Additionally, information gathered during the study that is not included in the report could still be introduced as a bill during the session if a legislator chooses to pursue it. In addition to the proposal to remove school bus stops from the list of prohibited carry locations, the draft policy includes recommendations to repeal sections of existing law regarding hunting, implement clarity that carrying firearms is allowed in certain state buildings, and bar municipalities from enacting firearm requirements that are more restrictive than state law. Lawmakers also recommend setting penalties for carrying inside schools at $1,000 per offense, and moving to a single licensing scheme. Adoption of the final report of the study is expected at the subcommittees meeting on Oct. 3. The Arkansas Legislative Council would then consider the proposals at its Oct. 18 meeting. The proposed policies were expected to be published Sept. 26, to give the public a week to review the drafts, but the documents were delayed. Public comment was offered at meetings held over the last year as lawmakers parsed through the thousands of laws concerning firearms. Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View said at a recent meeting that not many people came to share their thoughts. The committee has already considered and voted on member motions regarding changes to this study, Hill said While we welcome public comments at Thursdays meeting, the committee will be voting on the recommendations presented at that time, and no further changes will be made. Please keep in mind that this is just a study. At the subcommittees most recent meeting on Sept. 16, both firearm activists and gun-safety advocates spoke to lawmakers about the proposed legislation. While those who favored the draft rules praised lawmakers efforts, and in some cases recommended looser policies, those who opposed them shared worries about childrens safety. According to Everytown Research and Policy, an organization that advocates for stricter gun laws in the country through various groups like Moms Demand Action, Arkansas has the weakest gun laws in the country. Arkansas also tracks one of the highest gun violence rates of nearly 22 deaths per 100,000 residents; the national average rate is about 14 deaths. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX (Bloomberg) -- The Indonesian government aims to finalize a loan restructuring agreement between the nations biggest steelmaker PT Krakatau Steel and its lenders next month, according to people familiar with the matter. Most Read from Bloomberg The state-owned company and its banks have been in talks recently about the master restructuring agreement, after a similar deal in previous years, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. The total of rupiah-denominated and other loans to be restructured amounts to an equivalent of about $1.5 billion, one of the people said. Founded in 1970, Krakatau Steel once hosted industrialists from China eager to learn how their nation could accelerate its own output. Fast forward several decades and the Indonesian firm was suddenly having to grapple with cheaper imports from a rapidly growing China and elsewhere. It sought government support to protect the local industry as it completed an earlier $2 billion debt restructuring in 2020, after which President Joko Widodoor Jokowi, as hes popularly knowncalled for a cut in imports of low-quality steel. But a fire at one of Krakataus plants last year posed a further setback. After that, its finance director said that the company needed to restructure its loans. A media representative for Krakatau Steel couldnt immediately comment when reached by Bloomberg News. There was no response from a representative for the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry to text messages and phone calls. Debt strains have also beset Indonesias construction industry, after a push by President Jokowi to build new infrastructure like toll roads and railways. PT Waskita Karya and PT Wijaya Karya signed a combined $3 billion of debt restructuring deals with their lenders this year. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. ARKANSAS (KNWA/KFTA) Election day is Nov. 5. Whether its your first time at the ballots or youre an avid voter, it is good to stay informed on who and what will be on your ballot this election. Arkansas has a process for presidential candidates to be on the ballots. Candidates must meet the criteria of their party and have to turn in paperwork and payments to the state secretary for approval by a certain day. Due to this process, Arkansans do not have the chance to write in, a candidate., if they do, their write-in will not be counted for. Below is the approved list of presidential candidates in the Natural State: Jill Stein/Rudolph Ware; Green Party Kamala D. Harris/Tim Walz; Democratic Party Donald J. Trump/JD Vance; Republic Party Peter Sonski, Lauren Onak; American Solidarity Party Michael Wood, John G Pietrowski; Prohibition Party Chase Oliver Mike ter Maat; Libertarian Party Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Nicole Shanahan; Independent On Sept. 13, the U.S. Eighth District Court of Appeals ruled that electronic signatures for voter registrations were invalid. If you registered to vote online it is imperative that you check your voter registration. You can call your county clerk or check here. The last day to register to vote in Arkansas for the November election is Oct. 7. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. This article was originally published in Arkansas Advocate. DUMAS The Dumas School Districts steep enrollment decline is feeding local residents frustration with district leadership and raising fears they will lose their schools. The district, which serves parts of Desha, Drew and Lincoln counties, counted 838 students as of Aug. 30, according to data provided by Superintendent Camille Sterrett. Thats a 13% drop from last school year and an 18% drop since 2021. Dwindling enrollment also means lost revenue more than $7,000 per student, according to the superintendent to a district already struggling financially. Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter If [the district] loses students at the exponential rate its losing them, we will not have a school system in five years, local physician Dr. Sarah Franklin told the school board at its June 25 meeting. Franklin is among the many local residents alarmed at the precipitous enrollment decline which outpaces the citys population decline and what it portends for the future of the district and its students. Related Closing Campuses: How Much Money Does It Save School Districts, Anyway? Do you see that theres a problem? Franklins husband, AJ Franklin, asked district leadership at the June meeting. Or do yall just say, Well, every day of the week, this is just going to happen [and] inevitably Dumas is going to fade to nothing? We all see that problem, and that problem is discussed at school board meetings, Board President Alan Minor replied. Dumas residents fears are shared by families in small districts across Arkansas that face consolidation or state takeover when they cant find a way to survive. Arkansas rural schools struggle with a myriad of challenges, including attracting and retaining educators to regions with fewer economic opportunities and lower wages than more populous communities. Declining populations complicate district finances because most funding comes from the local tax base and per-student state funding. Dumas and the states southeast region have seen steady population declines for years, U.S. Census data shows, but changes in state law have also made it easier for parents to move their children to private schools and other public school districts. While some former Dumas students have gone to private schools or been homeschooled thanks to the school voucher program created through the LEARNS Act of 2023, several have transferred to other public school districts bordering Dumas, including DeWitt, McGehee and Star City. The LEARNS Act mostly eliminated a cap on public school transfers, which made it easier for families to put their children in school districts in which they do not live, Sterrett said. According to data from each district obtained via the states Freedom of Information Act, DeWitt, McGehee and Star City enrollment numbers are similar or slightly higher than Dumas, but none saw a triple-digit enrollment drop in one year in the past three school years, as Dumas did. Star City has gained students every year for the past three years. Enrollment declines also have made the Dumas district more racially segregated as white and Hispanic students have left while Black students remain, said Kitty Greenup, who was a paraprofessional in the district for 27 years before retiring this year. Greenup was appointed to the school board in July. The districts student population was 68% Black, 17% white and 13% Hispanic as of 2023. The remaining 2% were Asian, Native American and multiracial students, according to a district report. As of Aug. 30, the districts students were 75% Black and 23% white with Hispanic students in both populations, according to enrollment data. [Theres been] not only white flight, but weve had brain drain as well, where it seems like everybody who could get out of the district did, Greenup said. This has been going on in earnest for probably the last five years. In a written statement handed out at the June meeting in response to pre-submitted questions, Sterrett and the board said they have absolutely no control over parents decisions to send their children elsewhere. Such responses have not quelled public concern, especially in the wake of recent layoffs aimed at addressing funding shortfalls. A matter of time In April, the school board approved cutting 19% of district employees, closing its K-2 school (Central Elementary) and consolidating all elementary grades into Reed Elementary, which previously housed only grades 3-5. The reduction in force and school closure were recommended by Norman Hill, who until June 30 was interim director of the Southeast Arkansas Education Service Cooperative. The state Department of Education tapped him last year to review the Dumas districts finances. A comparison of the districts active contracts for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years shows a reduction of 39 positions, including 22 teachers, five paraprofessionals, four custodians and four food service workers. Staff cuts saved the district $1.2 million in salaries and fringe benefits, Hill said, and closing the lower elementary school saved about $150,000. He also said some of the positions had already been vacant due to resignations and retirements. Both elementary schools earned an F ranking from the state education department for the 2022-23 school year. The middle and high schools received a D. The school closure, employee cuts and poor rankings have prompted many Dumas residents to vent their frustration during board meetings and voice distrust of Sterrett, who became superintendent in July 2022. Sterrett has defended the cuts and said they had been building for at least a decade. There should have been a change years ago, she said in June. The cuts allowed the district to keep what remains of a $2 million private trust fund to use as needed, Hill said. Without the layoffs and school closure, the district would have drained the remaining $1.2 million from the fund, part of a deceased Dumas couples multimillion-dollar estate, and had no operating funds left by the end of the school year, he said. If we hadnt made the cuts, it would have been a matter of time before the state shut [the district] down because they didnt have the money, Hill said. Hill told the public at the Aug. 27 school board meeting that the trust fund was the sole reason the district did not close last year. Concerned citizen Lonzell Dodds said this was news to him. I dont know why thats been so hard to answer, he said. Blank check concerns In June, the board authorized Sterrett to transfer an unspecified amount of money from the districts building fund and the private trust fund into the net legal fund balance the fund that covers district operations, debt service and teacher salaries in order to balance district revenues and expenditures. Audience members voiced discomfort with the boards unanimous vote. The need for financial solvency doesnt mean boards should give administrators a blank check, Dr. Franklin said. Asked if the district has ever been audited other than by the annual required review by Arkansas Legislative Audit, Sterrett said, We do whats required. Allison Chambers, who taught high school science before resigning in May, stormed out of the meeting and later said she was upset that Sterrett and the board showed absolutely no interest in the publics concerns. They seemed to be more worried about controlling their narrative and what they wanted you to believe about this district than actually speaking truths, Chambers said. An Aug. 21 email sent by education department fiscal services employee Jason Miller noted a steady decline in the districts various funds since 2021. The districts building fund and net legal balance dropped by $1.8 million and $1.5 million, respectively, from June 2021 to June 2024, according to the email. Meanwhile, the student population fell by more than 200 students. Looks like they have been making transfers to simply operate, Miller wrote. Sterretts blank check closed a roughly $1.16 million hole in the districts budget, created when it spent that much more than it received last year, according to Hill. The superintendent transferred more than $357,000 from the building fund and about $800,000 from the trust fund to shore up the net legal fund balance, he said this month. More cuts? The LEARNS Act which raised the states minimum teacher pay to $50,000 a year and guaranteed minimum $2,000 raises to those already earning above that added to the Dumas districts financial strain in the 2023-24 school year, Hill said. The state helped districts pay for the salary increases, but it still wasnt enough to stave off Dumas layoffs and other spending cuts, he said. The Department of Education gave the Dumas district $1,075,667 for teacher salaries and benefits for the 2023-24 school year. Districts will receive the same amount for the 2024-25 school year they received the year prior. Hill said these amounts were based on the number of teachers in each district and their salaries before the mandatory raises: the less experienced a districts teachers were, the more money the state provided to meet the increases. Dumas was among the minority of districts that received more than $1 million, and Hill said this was because it had more early-career teachers. The LEARNS financial aid didnt alleviate the districts financial struggles last year, Hill said, but it should this year because the money now supplements fewer teachers salaries, allowing the declining state and local tax revenue to go toward operating expenses instead of salaries. The districts financial situation remains precarious but will become clearer as this school year progresses, Hill said. Its going to depend on two things: whether our figures were correct and whether they end up losing any more students If they keep losing students, theyll have to make more cuts, Hill said. The layoffs and other financial cuts came as a shock to employees and parents, Hill said, because the district didnt take the incremental steps needed to counter declining revenue and rising expenses during the eight-year tenure of Sterretts predecessor. Sterrett and the board have attributed the loss of students and consequent drop in per-pupil funds to the declining population of the Arkansas Delta region as a whole. Community members say the enrollment drop has outpaced the regional one and the comparison is not fair. U.S. Census data shows Desha County, where Dumas is the largest city, lost 12.4% of its population between 2010 and 2020, and Dumas lost 15% of its residents, leaving the city population just over 4,000. Population declines tend to come with fewer employment, leisure and health care resources, which further discourage people from moving to the area. Former school nurse Isierene Brown said Dumas citizens dont even have a Walmart to draw people in. Too much division All the explanations have done little to cool long-simmering discontent or lessen the disconnect felt by employees and parents, who cited a litany of complaints. Im still just reeling that Ive given 25 years of my life to this district and they can do me like this, said Brown, who was three years away from qualifying for retirement benefits when the district laid her off. Chambers and former high school English teacher Jala Patterson, who resigned in March, both said the district should have supported them enough to keep them from resigning. They said the district does not conduct monthly safety drills, which state law requires, and administrators do not observe teachers job performances. They also cited faulty intercom systems that jeopardize faculty and student safety. Patterson noted the district failed to provide enough textbooks for an Advanced Placement class until the school year was almost over. Were so concerned with raising test scores, but lacking essential resources, Patterson wrote in an October 2023 email to Arthur Tucker, executive director of curriculum and instruction. Please. Please help me help my students. District leadership has just written all of the kids off, Chambers said. When I started [teaching there], I was told, Most of these arent going to college, so dont expect a lot, she said. Instead of ensuring that kids are getting an education so that they can be productive members of society, with or without a degree, they are being dumbed down. The way the school board handles public comments at its meetings also feeds the dissatisfaction. AreOsha Bynum, a mother of a kindergartener, told Minor after the August meeting that the boards responses to public comment come off as shutting down and having an attitude and positioning themselves as against us instead of trying to help us. The school board requires audience questions to be submitted in advance. Some audience members responded negatively in June when Minor asked for public comment to be limited. We can do that, but if you want to get to the bottom of this and get this thing back on the right track, I think you need to listen, Dodds said. From the second row of the audience, Brown added, If you dont want to listen, get off the board. Dr. Franklin said frustrations with district leadership led her family to remove their children from the district and homeschool them. Dodds, Patterson and others have said Sterrett and the board dont seem to understand the gravity of the districts problems. Minor said frustrated meeting attendees dont seem to understand that not everyone can get their way. Theres too much division and not enough communication, Minor said after the August meeting. Sterrett declined an in-person interview about issues raised by others. She also did not answer an emailed list of questions. Dumas resident Onie Norman agreed that the areas overall decline is concerning, but unlike Brown, she said she believes Sterrett has done her job as best she can and the school district isnt responsible for retaining city residents. Theyre disappointed [in the district], but they dont stay and try to help improve it, Norman said. Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com. Follow Arkansas Advocate on Facebook and X. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. A former police officer shared his struggle with mental health and suicide in honor of National Law Enforcement Suicide Prevention Awareness Day. According to First Help, an organization that tracks first responder suicides, since 2023, nearly 190 law enforcement officials have died from suicide. Mother of Arkansas veteran aims to raise awareness for veteran suicides and mental health Also, police officers and firefighters are more likely to die by suicide than in the line of duty. Stephen Wright with the Arkansas chapter of American Foundation for Suicide Prevention says in Arkansas, suicide is the second leading cause of death for people aged 25 to 35. Wright is a former law enforcement officer himself and is passionate about his work because he too was in a dark place where he wanted to end his life. After serving in the army, Wright became a cop and, after serving for 15 years, Wright said he never dealt with any of the issues [he] experienced in combat. Couple that with all the issues I experienced when I was a law enforcement officer, I found myself later in life going down a very dark path mentally, Wright said. Painting a picture of what law enforcement officers go through every day, he says, law enforcement officers see the worst of the worst in humanity. With active ideations of suicide, and a plan to end his life, thankfully Wright found hope by finding someone to talk to. Thats when it kind of resonated with me that community really matters, he said. Arkansas Sen. John Boozman presses for broader, more robust approach to preventing veteran suicides Since joining the Arkansas chapter of American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Ive really been on this journey not just for myself but for others to be that listening ear for other men and women in blue who may be struggling. Im tired of seeing my friends die, he said. AFSP serves as a resource directory to help guide people to the services they need. We provide a lot of educational programs as well, said Wright. The Arkansas chapter of AFSP has partnered with Heroes Behind the Line which, provides immediate crisis response for officers in distress, and have therapists on staff. The Arkansas chapter of AFSP has also partnered with Survivors of Blue Suicide who help law enforcement officers and agencies after suicide. Sometimes coping with losing your buddy can be very difficult and cause problems in your own head, Wright said. In early August, Lieutenant Terry Wingard with the Jefferson County Sheriffs Office committed suicide. Wright said theres a stigma against seeking help in law enforcement. A lot of cops dont talk about it because they are afraid of losing the gun and badge, he said. No matter if you serve and protect, or are just a regular citizen, help is there for you. It is okay to not be okay. Its not okay to let those go unaddressed, because you are not alone, Wright said. Arkansas Sen. John Boozman presses for broader, more robust approach to preventing veteran suicides To learn more about the Arkansas chapter of AFSP, go to ASPF.org/Chapter/Arkansas. The National Suicide Prevention hotline is 988. If you dont want to talk, you can text or have an online chat. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLRT - FOX16.com. Armed man killed by SWAT team after shooting at law enforcement in Vancouver The Clark County Sheriffs Office says a Vancouver police officer shot and killed an armed man Friday morning after an hours-long standoff. According to law enforcement, it all started with a 911 call around 11 p.m. Thursday about a man threatening a neighbor and using a knife to puncture several tires on the persons vehicle. 911 quickly began receiving other calls from concerned neighbors, saying the man started shooting a rifle into the air. Law enforcement first used a drone to get an overhead view of the man and his property. Because he was armed, they called in an armored vehicle for backup. Deputies were able to contact the man by phone, but he was uncooperative and made threats to shoot at them. Neighbors were told by loudspeakers to shelter in place and emergency alerts were sent out to people in the area. Around 12:45 a.m., the man came out of his home and fired off a round into the air. Phone contact was made with two women inside the mans home, who were able to escape. Deputies tried approaching the home again around 1:00 a.m. and were able to negotiate with him for about 20 minutes until they say he shot at their armored vehicle. A SWAT team arrived a brief time later. One of the SWAT officers, a member of the Vancouver Police Department, shot the man at 2:36 a.m. The man was later pronounced dead, according to the Clark County Sheriffs Office. No officers or deputies were injured. The shelter-in-place order was lifted at 2:58 a.m. The Lower Columbia Major Crimes Team is handling the investigation into the shooting. SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) Its Thursday, September 29. Take a look at our top stories in news and weather with KELOLAND On The GO First@4. A Sioux Falls man who has been wanted for over a month is now behind bars in the Minnehaha County jail. 47-year-old man booked into jail for rape, child abuse Jason Jones, the man accused of murdering four people in the small northeast Nebraska town of Laurel, has been convicted on all charges by a jury. Jury finds Jason Jones guilty of murdering 4 people, arson It is another day that feels more like summer than it does fall. We continue to have above-average temperatures due to an upper-level ridge sliding off to the east. A trough will also shift east towards western South Dakota this afternoon and a cold front will follow with it, but that will not create much of a change for us. Storm Center PM Update: Dry and Warm Stretch Continues Download the KELOLAND News app to find the latest headlines while on the go. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KELOLAND.com. What his team is saying: Steven Cheung, communications director for the Trump campaign, told the Press Trust of India that there has been no bigger advocate for the AAPI community than President Trump, noting that he created an environment where diversity, equal opportunity and prosperity were afforded to everybody. Cheung claimed that anyone who says otherwise about Trump is disgustingly using the AAPI community to play political games for their own benefit. He also expressed confidence in their campaign, saying it harnesses the successes of Asian Americans during Trumps first term to propel him to another stint at the White House. What the community remembers: Despite Trumps claims of advocacy, the negative impact of his anti-Asian rhetoric during the COVID-19 pandemic remains felt to this day. Specifically, his use of terms like kung flu and Chinese virus have been widely criticized for contributing to a surge in anti-Asian incidents, many of which were violent. Trump has also been criticized for targeting Asian American figures like Elaine Chao with racially charged remarks. He doesnt seem to understand that, which says a whole lot more about him than it will ever say about Asian Americans, Chao told Politico last year. His continued mockery of public figures ethnic backgrounds, such as his attacks on Nikki Haleys birth name, has drawn parallels to his earlier birther attacks on Barack Obama, further demonstrating how his words continue to harmfully resonate within the community. An aspiring lawyer hasnt been seen since 2007. Broward jury says she was murdered It took less than an hour for a Broward jury to convict a man of killing a 22-year-old aspiring lawyer who vanished on a trip to South Florida 17 years ago. Kendrick Williams, now 49, was arrested in connection to Stepha Henrys murder in 2008, though it took almost two decades for the case to reach trial. Henry and her sister were visiting their aunt in Miami Gardens when Henry, a graduate of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, disappeared. The trial in which prosecutors proved that Henry was killed despite her body never being found began on Sept. 19, days before what would have been Henrys 40th birthday. I hope this verdict has finally given the family of Stepha Henry some sense of justice after a long and painful wait, Miami-Dade County State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, whose prosecutors tried the case, said in a statement Friday. I know that nothing, even this verdict, can ever replace the senseless loss of a young daughter whose life was so full of promise. READ MORE: 17 years ago, an aspiring lawyer vanished. A Broward jury will decide if she was murdered Kendrick Williams During the short trial, Williams defense attorney, Paul Donnelly, called no witnesses. In a brief opening statement, he told the jury that prosecutors had no direct evidence and that his client was an easy target for police. Williams will be sentenced on Nov. 8 and faces the possibility of life behind bars. Stepha Henrys disappearance In 2007, Henry traveled to South Florida hoping to surprise her 16-year-old sister for her birthday she gifted her a dream trip to Miami for Memorial Day weekend. Henry was in the midst of a gap year after graduating from college with plans to attend law school. During their trip, a friend invited Henry to a barbecue hosted by Williams wife. The couple shared two children but had been separated. Williams offered to take Henry and her friend to a nightclub at Peppers Cafe, 3828 N. University Dr. in Sunrise. Around 1 a.m. on May 29, 2007, Williams picked Henry up in an Acura Integra. Henry promised her aunt that she would make it back in time to get on her flight to New York. A camera crew taping a promotional video at the club captured footage of Henry and Williams together. But Williams, prosecutor Abbe Rifkin said during opening arguments, initially denied ever being at the club. He later told investigators that he left the club, but Henry had decided to stay. Stepha Henry, 22, disappeared on May 29, 2007, while vacationing in Miami. That night, there was no activity on Williams phones for a period of 6 hours on one and 3 hours on the another, Rifkin said, indicating that the phones might have been turned off. The evidence that Henry was killed, Rifkin said, is in the Acura. While the car had been thoroughly cleaned and reeked of chemicals, forensic tests revealed that there had been large amounts of blood inside. Whatever happened in that car was violent, and it led to her death... at the hands of the defendant, Rifkin said. Rundle, in her statement, stressed that the blood found inside the Acura was pivotal to the successful prosecution of Williams. Although Williams, charged with 2nd-Degree Murder in December 2007, denied having killed Ms. Henry, the DNA blood evidence found in the car he originally purchased in Brooklyn and later denied ever owning or driving, played an important role in the prosecution of this case. This was particularly true, since Stepha Henrys body has never been recovered, Rundle said. JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) Atmos Energy and the Salvation Army partnered on Thursday to assist metro area residents who are struggling to pay their natural gas bills. The Energy Assistance Blitz allocated more than $200,000 to help customers pay their bills. The event was held at the Salvation Army on Beasley Road in Jackson. Atmos Energy officials said they will host more assistance events as they enter the next fiscal year. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily 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 WJTV. Assisted living resident dies after being left in sun for hours, Oregon officials say A resident died at an assisted living facility in Oregon after she was left outside in the sun for hours, officials said. The woman was found unresponsive in a courtyard Aug. 30 at Aspen Ridge Memory Care in Bend, according to documents from the Oregon Department of Human Services and KTVZ. McClatchy News obtained the documents Sept. 26. When medical responders got to the woman, she was hot to the touch and had an internal temperature of 105 degrees, officials said in the report. She was taken to a hospital where she died from hyperthermia, a heat-related illness, officials said. The resident had been left in the sun wearing a heavy winter fleece, pants, and a long-sleeved thin sweater under the fleece, according to the report. It reached a high of 97 degrees in Bend that day, according to AccuWeather. Aspen Ridge Memory Care did not immediately respond to McClatchy News request for comment on Sept. 27. What is being done to protect residents? The memory care facility was short-staffed that day after two caregivers called out sick, officials said. A med tech was left to take over resident care, officials said. The facility has 43 licensed beds, according to health officials. Ultimately, the facility failed to ensure the safety and well-being of all residents, the report said. Health officials ordered a license condition and halted the facility from accepting new residents. Additionally, officials ordered the facility to ensure enough staff are scheduled at all times, the report says. The facility must also implement a checklist that tracks residents going to and from the courtyard, according to documents. Workers must also check on residents every 30 minutes when they are outside and document when they checked the resident, their condition and any interventions that happened with the resident. Officials said the facility must send written reports to the department every two weeks. Caregiver pleads guilty in death of 86-year-old left in heat for hours, CO officials say Caregiver stole from patients and faked stage 4 cancer to delay trial, officials say Man felt entitled to moms benefits after she died and stole thousands, feds say GLENDALE, Ariz. - An ASU West student walked into a classroom on campus and was stabbed by another student on Sept. 19. Luckily, there were others who intervened and helped the victim from further injury. Court documents tell the story of a 19-year-old student who planned an attack and chose the victim named Mara because she seemed like an "easier target." The quick actions of a witness named Matthew McCormick likely saved Mara's life. "I've never seen anything like this and I hope I never do again," McCormick said. McCormick, an ASU West sophomore, says he was settling in to class last Thursday when he heard his classmate Mara scream. That is when he realized she was being stabbed. "In that moment I didn't really have a thought going through my head I just knew that I felt compelled to do something" McCormick said. Police say fellow student, Kaci Sloan, stabbed Mara twice before McCormick was able to intervene. "As she was going for a third attack, I was able to grab her wrists and apprehend her before further damage could be done," he said. Mara was taken to Banner Thunderbird Hospital and underwent surgery for stab wounds to her tricep and her ribcage area, where the knife cut into her spleen. She's back home now, but has a long recovery ahead. McCormick says he was not the only person in the class to step in and help Mara. "It was a great job by everybody that was in that room; by the EMTs, the paramedics and police. Everybody responded really, really well. 9-1-1 calls were pretty instantaneous and everybody seemed pretty locked in and knew what to do," he said. Watch FOX 10 Phoenix live: McCormick says he hopes to meet Mara's family soon, but for now, hopes for a full recovery for his classmate. "We miss you. To you and your family, I pray for your return and I'm just so thankful that your family was able to remain whole through this tragedy," he said. Sloan is facing several charges in connection to the stabbing, including attempted murder in the first degree. At her first court appearance, the judge said that her actions were comparable to a school shooting, and her bond was set at $250,000 cash only. Mara's family has set up a GoFundMe page to help with medical bills. (Bloomberg) -- Indonesia plans to install less wind power than envisaged under an international energy transition plan, a blow to those hoping for a bigger role for renewables in Southeast Asias top emitter. Most Read from Bloomberg The energy ministry is recommending adding 5 gigawatts of wind power by 2030, compared with 8 gigawatts proposed under Indonesias Just Energy Transition Partnership. By 2060, the ministry sees just 37 gigawatts of wind being installed, compared to 45 gigawatts by mid-century under the partnership plan. Indonesias JETP agreement was announced in 2022, with the aim of mobilizing about $20 billion in grants and loans from wealthy nations and international banks to accelerate the countrys energy transition. But progress has been held back by a reluctance to move away from coal, partially due to laws preventing losses on state-owned assets. Around 80% of the countrys electricity was generated from fossil fuels with coal accounting for the bulk of that in 2022, BloombergNEF data show. Solar and wind generated just 0.3% combined. If the country hits the 5 gigawatts target, that will take wind to around 2% of the total. While wind power is expected to play a relatively small role in Indonesias future energy mix compared to solar, the reduction of targets reflects growing skepticism in Jakarta of the ability to hit goals under JETP. The plan that was jointly authored by Indonesia and its international partners aimed to peak the countrys emissions by 2030, but that now appears to be unachievable. The government is in talks with state-owned electricity firm Perusahaan Listrik Negara to finalize its business plan, which will determine its planned energy additions over the next decade. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. 'Attack on Belarus is World War III,' Lukashenko claims amid calls for changes to Russian nuclear doctrine An attack on Belarus would lead to World War III, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko claimed on Sept. 27, following Russian President Vladimir Putin's call to update Russia's nuclear doctrine, according to the Belarusian state-owned news agency Belta. Putin proposed a series of changes to Russia's nuclear doctrine on Sept. 25 during a Security Council meeting on nuclear deterrence. He announced that Russia could respond to conventional missile strikes with nuclear weapons and indicated that Moscow would treat any attack backed by a nuclear-armed country as a coordinated assault. He also stated that Russia retains the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of an attack, including if an enemy using conventional weapons poses a critical threat to Russia and Belarus. "An attack on Belarus is World War III," Lukashenko said. "Putin recently confirmed this by amending the nuclear doctrine, that in an attack on Russia and Belarus, we use nuclear weapons," Lukashenko added, thanking his Russian counterpart for the recent move. The Belarusian dictator claimed that NATO countries had allegedly deployed troops on the border with Belarus, specifically in Poland. "The red line is the state border. If you step on it, there will be an immediate response. We are preparing for that," Lukashenko said. Russia's decision to modify its nuclear doctrine is a direct response to discussions in the U.S. and U.K. about whether to allow Ukraine to launch conventional Western missiles into Russian territory. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Sept. 26 that updates had been made to a document titled "The Foundations of State Policy in the Sphere of Nuclear Deterrence." While Belarus doesn't have nuclear weapons of its own, Russia has allegedly moved some of its nuclear arsenal to Belarus. Read also: Is Russias new nuclear doctrine saber-rattling or a real threat? Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Attending college in Wisconsin and unsure how to vote? Here's our Election 2024 student voter guide College students can play a pivotal role in a swing state like Wisconsin, where elections are often won by razor-thin margins. For most student voters, Nov. 5 will mark their first time casting a ballot in a presidential election. Voting rules can be confusing to navigate and even more so for college students, most of whom live at a new address each school year. Here's a guide on what to know, where to register and how to vote: Decide where to vote If you are going to college in a different city than your hometown, here are some factors the U.S. Election Assistance Commission offers for consideration when deciding where to vote: Which location is more convenient for you? Who is on the ballot in each place? Are there local policies or particular issues that are important to you in either place? Where you register to vote will not affect your federal financial aid, including FAFSA, Pell Grants, Perkins or Stafford loans. It was cool to be able to vote finally so our voices are heard, said Ellyott Buettner, a Marquette University student who voted in the November 2022 election at Marquette. Determine your eligibility To vote in Wisconsin, you must: Be a U.S. citizen Be at least 18 years old on or before Election Day Have lived at your current Wisconsin address for at least 28 consecutive days before Election Day Not be currently serving a felony sentence, including probation or parole Determine if you need to register to vote You will need to register or re-register if any of the following situations apply: You are a first-time voter You have moved to a new address (or even changed apartment numbers) since the last time you voted You have changed your legal name since the last time you voted. Register to vote in Wisconsin There are several options for voter registration: By mail. Follow the instructions on myvote.wi.gov. Your voter registration form, along with proof of residence, must be postmarked to your municipal clerk no later than Oct. 16. Online at myvote.wi.gov, if you have a current valid Wisconsin driver's license or ID card, or your current name and ZIP code are in the DMV database. Update your information in the DMV database at bit.ly/WIDMVaddresschange. The deadline to register online is Oct. 16. Voter registration events hosted by some colleges and municipalities ahead of the election. Check your municipal clerk and college websites for information. At your municipal clerk's office during business hours. The deadline is Nov. 1. Find your municipal clerk's contact info at bit.ly/WImunicipalclerks. At your assigned polling place on Election Day. You can find your polling place at myvote.wi.gov/en-us/Find-My-Polling-Place. What documents do I need to prove Wisconsin residency for voter registration? If you have a Wisconsin's driver's license that shows your current address, you're all set. That's often not the case for college students, though. To prove residency, you will need one of the following forms of ID that shows your current name and address: An electronically displayed or printed Voter Enrollment Verification Letter from your university's Office of the Registrar A current residential lease (Note: This cannot be used as proof of address if registering by mail.) A university or college ID card with a photograph of the cardholder, accompanied by a fee statement for the current semester A printed copy of your current bursars statement A utility bill for the period commencing not earlier than 90 days before the election. A printed copy of an online bill is acceptable. So is showing the documents electronically on your phone. A paycheck A bank, credit union or credit card statements. A printed copy of an online statement is acceptable A check or other document issued by a unit of government An official identification card or license issued by a Wisconsin governmental body or unit An identification card issued by an employer in the normal course of business, which has a photograph of the cardholder, but not a business card If you have a driver's license or ID card from another state, you will also need to provide the last four digits of your Social Security number. Get a voter ID OK, so you're registered to vote! Now you need a voter ID to bring to the polls. The address on the ID card doesn't matter. Its purpose is to prove your identity. Some acceptable forms of voter ID: Wisconsin driver's license or state ID U.S. passport U.S. Uniformed Services card Veterans Affairs ID Tribal ID Certificate of naturalization Campus-issued voter ID Can I use my college ID card to vote in Wisconsin? Yes, but there are caveats. It must include: Date the card was issued Student signature Expiration date no later than two years after date of issuance Some universities, such as the University of Wisconsin-Madison, have campus ID cards that do not meet these requirements but issue separate campus voter IDs that qualify. What if my college ID card has expired? You can still present your expired college ID at the polls if you also provide a separate document that proves current enrollment, such as a tuition fee receipt, enrollment verification letter or class schedule. Can I vote absentee? Yes. This might be a good option for Wisconsin students who want to vote using their home address but who are living on campus in a different municipality. Request an absentee ballot to be mailed to you at myvote.wi.gov. Once the absentee ballot arrives, complete it and return as soon as possible. The U.S. Postal Service recommends mailing it at least one week in advance of Election Day. Can I vote early in Wisconsin? Yes, in some places. Early voting, also called in-person absentee voting, begins Oct. 22 and run through Nov. 3. Times and locations for early voting vary by municipality. Check MyVote or contact your municipal clerk for early voting hours. Some universities publish this information on their own websites. It's Election Day, and I'm not registered to vote. Can I still vote? Yes! You can register to vote on Election Day. Make sure to bring documentation to the polls. You can only vote at your designated polling place. Find your Polling Place at myvote.wi.gov/en-us/Find-My-Polling-Place. Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. Everyone in line at 8 p.m. gets to vote. Voting in your out-of-state hometown Even if youre away at school for most of the year, you may have the option to vote in your hometown. Other states' rules around voter registration and absentee voting vary, so it's best to consult your local election commission or secretary of state for more information. Some general guidelines: Register to vote using your permanent address in your hometown. Use your college address as your mailing address on your registration. Many states allow you to ask for a mail ballot if youre unable to vote in person. Some states mail every voter a ballot automatically. Each state has its own guidelines, so check to see what the rules are in your state or territory. You can have the mail ballot sent to your college address. If you will be in your hometown during the election, you may also have the option to vote in person. I'm studying abroad. Can I vote? Yes, but study abroad students should budget extra time needed to request, receive and mail your ballot. Wisconsin considers study abroad students to be temporary overseas citizens," which has a similar process to absentee voting by mail. Email your ballot request to your municipal clerk. Include your name, registration address, email address for the ballot to be sent and a copy of an acceptable photo ID. Find information on voter registration, deadlines and more The U.S. Election Assistance Commission is a helpful resource. Go to EAC.gov and scroll down to find a drop-down menu that allows you to look up registration and voting information for each state. For Wisconsin voting information and resources, visit myvote.wi.gov. For more resources and guidelines on voting as a college student, visit vote.gov/guide-to-voting/college-student. Contact Kelly Meyerhofer at kmeyerhofer@gannett.com or 414-223-5168. Follow her on X (Twitter) at @KellyMeyerhofer. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Election 2024: Where to vote, register for Wisconsin college students DENVER (KDVR) The Aurora Police Department said Thursday that one of the 10 Tren de Aragua members it had previously identified was arrested on outstanding warrants out of two Colorado district courts. Roiberth Daniel Mora-Marquez, 23, was arrested Wednesday night, according to police. The arrest was done by the Aurora Police Department Gang Intervention Unit. Aurora police identify 3 more suspects in viral apartment video According to police, Mora-Marquez has been charged in Adams District Court with aggravated first-degree assault, second-degree kidnapping, third-degree assault, and felony menacing. These charges are from an April 4 incident about unpaid rent money in the 1600 block of Lima Street. Aurora police said they arrested him on April 17 in connection to the investigation and he posted a $20,000 bond. Police said a warrant was issued for his arrest when he failed to show up for court for that case. Mora-Marquez also had an active warrant out of Arapahoe District Court on charges of felony menacing, illegal discharge of a firearm, harassment and reckless endangerment. The charges were from a nonfatal shooting on June 28 in the 400 block of Nile Street. The arrest comes after the Aurora Police Department held a press conference regarding a viral video of men entering an Aurora apartment, saying that the individuals seen in the video are involved with any gang, specifically the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Many of the violent crime trends in Aurora have been falsely attributed to migrants, and the Aurora police said last week that it would not over police a population based upon their race or ethnicity, and instead rely on statistics and data of individuals causing the issues. Police said Mora-Marquez was in custody at the Aurora Detention Center on a no-bond hold as of Thursday afternoon. Anyone with information was urged to contact the Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Austin believes casualties in all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah could equal or exceed those in Gaza US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Friday of devastating consequences if Israel engages in an all-out war with Hezbollah, telling CNN in an exclusive interview that casualties would equal or exceed the number in Gaza. An all-out war between Lebanese, Hezbollah and Israel would be devastating for both Lebanon and Israel. And again, we anticipate that wed see a number of people displaced, casualties that, you know, equal or exceed what weve seen in Gaza, Austin told CNNs Wolf Blitzer. The defense secretary, reiterating the US desire for a diplomatic solution, also said a possible ground incursion by Israeli forces into Lebanon risks spiraling the situation into a regional conflict. The US and several prominent allies believed they had achieved a 21-day pause in fighting that would give time for diplomacy and could prevent a full-fledged war from breaking out between Israel and Hezbollah. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said reports of an imminent deal were incorrect and vowed to continue to hit the Iran-backed militant group with all our might. Netanyahu spoke at the United Nations General Assembly Friday morning, where he vowed to continue Israels military efforts and warned that there is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach. US-led efforts to secure a ceasefire appear to have failed, and CNN has reported that the Biden administration has all but paused a push for a ceasefire and hostage deal in the Israel-Hamas conflict. Asked by Blitzer if continued US aid to Israel undermines Washingtons efforts to secure a ceasefire in Lebanon, Austin on Friday reiterated the long-standing alliance. Weve been clear from the very beginning that that were going to support Israel in its efforts to defend itself, Austin said. Weve done that from the very beginning, and were going to continue to do that going forward. Recent hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah began after Israel decided to make returning displaced residents to their homes near the northern border an official goal of its war aims. Tens of thousands of Israelis who live in the area were evacuated shortly after the October 2023 Hamas terrorist attack, when Hezbollah began firing rockets into the region. In recent days, Israel has launched a series of strikes that have targeted Hezbollahs leadership, and Israels military chief said earlier this week that the nation was preparing for a possible ground incursion into Lebanon. Austin also was asked by Blitzer about US support for Ukraine, whose president, Volodymyr Zelensky, met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday and is meeting with former President Donald Trump on Friday. Amid ongoing debates in Washington about continued aid to the eastern European nation especially if Trump, who has been skeptical about such support, is elected the US is under pressure to allow Ukraine to fire long-range weapons deep into Russia. Austin said US policy about the use and range of certain weapons has not changed but said the US cant dictate how Ukraine should use their weapons. What weve seen recently is that Ukraine has the ability to now produce its own weaponry in terms of (unmanned aerial vehicles) that are proving to be very, very effective in that fight, Austin said. And some of these UAVs can range out beyond 400 kilometers, which is beyond the range of (US-provided Army Tactical Missile Systems) or Storm Shadow or anything else that we would be able to provide them. He also declined to answer a question from Blitzer about whether US policy toward Ukraine has been irreversibly politicized in the wake of Republican reluctance to continue arming the US ally. Our focus will remain on making sure that were giving Ukraine everything that we can provide, that will prove effective in this fight, he said. This story has been updated with additional reporting. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia and Britain said they would strike a bilateral treaty to produce a new class of nuclear-powered submarine, under the AUKUS partnership which also includes the United States. Australia will buy U.S. Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines from the United States in the next decade, with Britain and Australia later building a new class of AUKUS submarine at Barrow-in-Furness in Britain, and in South Australia, under the AUKUS pact announced in 2023. "We will be negotiating a treaty, a bilateral treaty, between Australia and the UK to enable our portion of AUKUS," Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles told reporters after a meeting with his British and U.S. counterparts on Thursday in London. "We will be operating the same class of submarine. So when you look at the industrial cooperation, the technology transfer, the way in which all of those mechanisms operate to do that, that is the subject of the treaty," he added. British Defence Secretary John Healey said the meeting of AUKUS defence ministers had also agreed to use British-made Stingray torpedoes in P-8A Maritime Patrol Aircraft which are used as submarine-hunting aircraft in the Indo Pacific region. U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said the AUKUS partners had conducted significant experiments across the ground, undersea and electromagnetic spectrum to enhance warfighting capabilities as part of cooperation under the so-called AUKUS "Pillar Two". A joint statement said the AUKUS partners were increasing their ability to develop and deliver offensive and defensive hypersonic technologies, and will conduct a large scale drone exercise later this year. (Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Stephen Coates) By Lewis Jackson SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia and China agreed to cooperate further on investment, trade and decarbonisation, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Friday during a rare visit to Beijing where he praised the recent stimulus packages announced by China. Chalmers said he met Zheng Shanjie, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's state planning agency, for over three hours on Thursday and discussed the raft of stimulus measures announced this week. "We are very pleased to see the Chinese authorities announce or signal the sorts of steps that we have been hearing about this week publicly and also in our private discussions with our counterparts," Chalmers told a news conference in Beijing, the first visit by an Australian treasurer for seven years. Australia's vast iron ore exports, most of which are sold to China and sensitive to changes in demand in the world's second-biggest economy, are an important source of government revenue. Chalmers said the two men also discussed trade, investment and closer collaboration on decarbonisation, including green steel. In a statement, the NDRC said discussions ranged over both countries' growth prospects, policy formulation and investment policies, with both committing to a transparent and efficient investment framework. Ties between the nations soured in 2017 after Australia accused China of meddling in its politics. An Australian call in 2020 for an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 further infuriated China, which responded with blocks on various Australian imports. China has since lifted almost all trade curbs after an outreach from Australia's Labor government that won power in 2022. (Reporting by Lewis Jackson in Sydney and Liz Lee in Beijing; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Clarence Fernandez) Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer and Secretary General of the Austrian People's Party (OeVP) Christian Stocker (R) speak at the final event of the Austrian People's Party (OeVP) election campaign. Helmut Fohringer/APA/dpa The conservative Austrian People's Party (OVP) of Chancellor Karl Nehammer is holding out for a last-minute victory against its far-right challenger in parliamentary elections on Sunday. "From my point of view, we have now started to overtake after an enormous race to catch up," OVP General Secretary Christian Stocker said at a final campaign event on Friday about the race against the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO). It is clear that the parties were running neck-and-neck at this stage, Stocker said: "It will be a photo finish." Immigration has been a central topic of the campaign. The FPO led by Herbert Kickl intends to crack down on immigration with full force if it takes over government, and also accelerate the deportation of migrants to their home countries. OVP leader and Austrian Chancellor Nehammer on Friday reiterated his refusal to work together with Kickl. While the FPO as such remains a possible partner, Kickl personally does not fulfil the criteria for forming a responsible, viable government. "I have therefore ruled him out," said Nehammer. On Sunday, almost 6.4 million Austrians are eligible to elect a new parliament. The FPO's long clear lead in the polls has recently shrunk to two percentage points ahead of the OVP. Pollsters put voter support for the FPO at 27% and the OVP at 25%, while the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPO) is threatened with a record low of around 20%. The Greens, previously a coalition partner of the OVP, can expect around 9% of the vote, as can the liberal Neos. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer speaks at the final event of the Austrian People's Party (OeVP) election campaign. Helmut Fohringer/APA/dpa Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer speaks at the final event of the Austrian People's Party (OeVP) election campaign. Helmut Fohringer/APA/dpa The conservative Austrian People's Party (OVP) of Chancellor Karl Nehammer is holding out for a last-minute victory against its far-right challenger in parliamentary elections on Sunday. "From my point of view, we have now started to overtake after an enormous race to catch up," OVP General Secretary Christian Stocker said at a final campaign event on Friday about the race against the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO). It is clear that the parties were running neck-and-neck at this stage, Stocker said: "It will be a photo finish." Immigration has been a central topic of the campaign. The FPO led by Herbert Kickl intends to crack down on immigration with full force if it takes over government, and also accelerate the deportation of migrants to their home countries. OVP leader and Austrian Chancellor Nehammer on Friday reiterated his refusal to work together with Kickl. While the FPO as such remains a possible partner, Kickl personally does not fulfil the criteria for forming a responsible, viable government. "I have therefore ruled him out," said Nehammer. On Sunday, almost 6.4 million Austrians are eligible to elect a new parliament. The FPO's long clear lead in the polls has recently shrunk to two percentage points ahead of the OVP. Pollsters put voter support for the FPO at 27% and the OVP at 25%, while the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPO) is threatened with a record low of around 20%. The Greens, previously a coalition partner of the OVP, can expect around 9% of the vote, as can the liberal Neos. While the OVP organized its event shortly before election day on a small scale in front of supporters at the party headquarters in Vienna, the right-wing populists are looking for the big stage. Kickl is due to speak in front of a large crowd in front of the capital's St Stephen's Cathedral at the close of the election campaign in the evening. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer speaks at the final event of the Austrian People's Party (OeVP) election campaign. Helmut Fohringer/APA/dpa John Looney, Sr., owner of Bad Boy Bail Bonds, speak to the A Helena-based bail bonding service told Montanas Special Select Committee on Judicial Oversight and Reform on Friday that not only was the business at risk of closing unless it withdrew a complaint against a sitting Bozeman municipal court judge, but that other counties had begun to refuse to accept its bonds. Additionally, the bonding service said a district court judge has sat on a request for an immediate injunction for more than week while the business loses at least $250,000 a month. Bad Boy Bail Bonds owner James Looney, Sr., told the members of the all-Republican committee that has been investigating changes to the Montana judicial system that a squabble that began more than four years ago now threatens to shut down the business, which has operated across the state. Looney is a veteran and former Gallatin County sheriffs deputy. The case has drawn national attention. At the hearing, a spokesperson for the National Association of Bail Agents told legislators the judicial abuse of power threatens the liberty of those accused of crimes. The issue stems from a bond that was issued by a different bail bonding company using the same name. An outstanding bail bond for $1,585 was issued and not paid, and Bozeman Municipal Judge Karolina Tierney said the court would not accept bail bonds until Looneys company paid the outstanding bond.Looney had purchased the rights to the name but not the bail bonding business, and insisted that the bond in question wasnt made by him, his staff or his company. Still, the municipal court refused to accept the bonds until the bail was paid. Looney then filed a complaint with the judicial standards commission, the states regulatory and oversight body for judicial discipline. Because of strict confidentiality rules, neither Looney nor his attorney, Matthew Monforton, could speak about the pending complaint before the commission, much to the frustration of lawmakers who, on Friday, saw it as a violation of First Amendment rights and vowed to change it. Looney told lawmakers on Friday that his business is losing out on from $250,000 to $350,000 in business every month by the decision not accept his bonds in Gallatin County, one of the states largest and busiest detention facilities. But on Friday, Looney and his attorney,who has led a number of successful civil rights suits, confirmed that the states largest county, Yellowstone, had also stopped accepting his bail bonds. After Looney became aware of the dispute, he originally tried to reason with the Bozeman Municipal Court that the business in question shared the same name, but wasnt the same. Then, Looney said he paid the bond because it made business sense so that he could continue operations. However, after paying the amount due, the municipal court still refused to take Looneys secured bonds, saying that it would not do so until the complaint at the Judicial Standards Commission was resolved or withdrawn. Even more surprising to Looney and Monforton was that the Bozeman Municipal Court also stopped an appeal to the Gallatin District Court, which would be the standard appeals process from the city court. The municipal court ordered the appeal stricken from the record, leaving Looney with no chance at recourse. Monforton filed a separate lawsuit in Gallatin District Court asking for a temporary injunction, which would allow Looney to continue to do business in Gallatin County, but that lawsuit was filed on Sept.18 and the judge has neither responded, nor made any orders. All sitting Gallatin County judges recused themselves from the case, and it was transferred to Park County District Judge Brenda Gilbert, where it remains. The Daily Montanan reached out Yellowstone County Detention Facility on Friday. Clerks and staff there said that Bad Boy Bail Bonds were still being accepted, but a bail bondsman told the publication that hed been there earlier in the week and saw a sign at the counter saying the bonds were not being accepted. He asked to take a picture of the sign and reasons for it, and said he was denied. His name is being withheld for fear of retribution. Courts should serve the public interest, not carry out a personal vendetta, Looney said. In Montana, bail bonding companies and bond professionals are licensed through the Commissioner of Securities and Insurance. A check with that office shows that Bad Boy Bail Bonds is licensed and in good standing, something that was confirmed by Looney and Monforton. Looney told the legislative committee that after the incident started, the municipal judges tried to lodge a complaint against his license, but the CSI office, which has jurisdiction, dismissed the complaint. Members of the committee, including Sen. Carl Glimm, R-Kila, wondered if judges even had the power to revoke a particular companys bond if they were licensed by another branch of government within the state. There is no way to force a jail or judge to accept my bond, even though I am licensed and insured, Looney said. Looney reported that since the problems with the courts, he has lost 85% of his business. A Gallatin County bail bonding company that spoke with the Daily Montanan on Friday said that it didnt want its name being used because it believed it would suffer the same fate as Looney for speaking out. Every word of that complaint is true. I have gotten part of his business, the bail bonding company said. Its ridiculous. I have never seen anything like it. That sentiment was shared by Michelle Esquenazi, the owner of the largest bail bonding company in New York, Empire Bail Bonds. Esquenazi is the president of the National Association of Bail Agents. She said in her career and experience, she had never seen something as egregious as the Looney situation, and said she called to testify to let lawmakers know how concerned the national organization is about what she described as a judicial abuse of power. This is a grave concern because it threatens bail and our offer of swift liberty to those accused. I have never witnessed such unprofessional conduct. This is not only punitive, but left unchecked, it threatens all bail professionals, Esquenazi said. The judicial system can be weaponized against those who file a complaint. Accountability must exist up to and including those who sit on the bench. This has enabled a judge to go awry and put someone out of business. Looney also testified that in addition to helping serve the publics constitutional right to bail, he helps with jail overcrowding, something that is a factor in both Gallatin and Yellowstone counties. However, he said that even if the judicial standards commission finds merit with the complaint, state law makes it nearly impossible to recoup the thousands of dollars hes lost in business. Judges enjoy immunity from lawsuits in their official capacities. The harm may be permanent and may felt for years. This is not a business dispute, Looney said. Meanwhile Monforton said that his client cannot continue to keep staff employed and keep the business operating for much longer and is concerned that he may have to close because of the hardship. I went to about 20 attorneys before Mr. Monforton and all of them said they had never seen anything like this, Looney told Montana lawmakers. But they all said they practice in the Bozeman Municipal Court, and they couldnt take it. Monforton said that the rules around the Judicial Standards Commission are strict and dire, and neither he nor Looney could speak about the case they had before it, not even able to confirm it involves this particular situation. We cannot speak on it unless and until the JSC has weighed in on it, Monforton said. Lawmakers questioned whether that was a violation of the First Amendment, and what punishment the JSC or Montana courts could mete out for talking about it. Monforton told the lawmakers that violating the rule could lead to disciplinary sanctions for attorneys and the court could hold a resident in contempt. Theres a bigger issue here other than the travails of my client, Monforton said. I dont think anyone filing a rationale JSC complaint should have to worry about retaliatory actions the courts are going to take. BALDWIN COUNTY, Ala. (WKRG) Even before the cone of uncertainty became more certain, the call for help went out to Baldwin County utility companies. Crews in Foley, Summerdale and Daphne answered the call leaving for some of the hardest-hit areas on Friday. Foley Middle School evacuated after smell what officials say was the cause Millions were left without electricity after Helenes wind, rain and storm surge ripped through anything that stood in its way. But help is on the way. We sent crews from both our Daphne office and our Foley office to go help the city of Tallahassee with their restoration efforts, Riviera Utilities CEO and President Brian Skelton said. Fourteen linemen and two Riviera engineer technicians headed to Tallahassee where thousands have started the clean-up without electricity. Tracking Three Named Storms in the Atlantic Basin and Two Other Areas Twenty-two Baldwin EMC linemen and support staff are headed to Georgia where the co-op serves seven counties between Macon and Savannah without any idea what they will find. We just know every storm is different, Baldwin EMC District Operations Manager Buddy Miller said. There could be a lot of polls down or a lot of damage. We just plan for the worst case scenario. The rain has stopped, and the winds have died down but getting through the storm is just beginning and these guys will supply the power to jump start the recovery. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit: Colliers Commercial Real Estate Intel has instructed a commercial real estate firm to sell its European headquarters in the UK. The purpose-built offices in Swindon became Intels Euro HQ in 1982 and consist of 187,000 square feet of office space on a 12.87-acre site, according to local media reports. An Intel spokesperson told the local newspaper that the iconic chip firm is shifting our global real estate strategy to focus on fewer, more populated locations and eliminate underutilized space. We arent surprised to see this move after Intels recent announcement that it will exit or reduce its global real estate footprint by two-thirds. However, the writing has been on the wall for this particular HQ for several months, with talk of Intel leaving Swindon first coming to light last year. At the time, it insisted it would retain a presence in the labs and office space, but no new premises were picked. Image 1 of 4 Intel Swindon Image 2 of 4 Intel Swindon Image 3 of 4 Intel Swindon Image 4 of 4 Intel Swindon Looking closer at the sale details, it seems like Intel and its approximately 1,000 local staff will continue to utilize the extensive office space in Swindon until at least 2025. While it sells the extensive commercial property and surrounding land for 9 million ($12 million), it wants to agree to a leaseback at 1.9 million per annum ($2.5 million a year) with any new owner. According to our understanding of the real estate terminology, it wants this agreement to last up to 18 months, with the option to vacate the premises at any date after January 31, 2025, after giving three months notice. Colliers, the estate agent managing the sale with rolling break leaseback, says the site offers numerous value-add development opportunities. The property is just half a mile south of the old town center and has great access to motorways, shops, cafes, and restaurants. The agency also highlights possibilities for the new owner, as it says the site has strong residential and alternative use potential. With Intels newfound dedication to (and need for) thrift, it might not continue to maintain premises for UK staff for long. Its Europe-based staff might be asked to go to Intels offices in Ireland or Germany if and when their physical presence is required. At the time of writing, the effect of property sales on Intels Swindon-based personnel remains to be seen. SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) South Dakota voters have some homework to do before the November 5 election. There are seven ballot questions ranging from abortion to landowner rights. On this years statewide ballot, there are four Constitutional Amendments, two initiated measures and one referred law. It is up to the Attorney General to try to explain each side as fairly as possible. You can find these explanations on your ballot on election day, which is a lot of reading. Or you can access and even print sample ballots on the Secretary of States website. Attorney General Marty Jackley says he only gets 200 words to explain each issue, which can add to the challenge. That explanation has to be fair, not pick sides, talk about the legal affect and assist educating the voters on what they are looking at, said Jackley. DANR approves $24.4 million for SD environmental projects On this years ballot, you will notice on Constitutional Amendment G there is a note that reads Judicial Clarification of the amendment may be necessary. The Legislature cannot alter the provisions of a constitutional amendment. Jackley says his goal is to help the voter be as informed as possible. I felt the voters needed to know that whatever they are voting on may require some additional work either by the legislature or by the courts, said Jackley. Constitutional Amendment H and Initiated Measure 28 also have notes that further court or legislative action may be needed. This is going to be a busy ballot with significant life-changing issues that the voters are going to have to take a lot effort and time making sure they are making an informed decision on, said Jackley. You can find the Attorney Generals explanations about the Constitutional Amendments, the Initiated Measures and the Referred Law on the Secretary of States website along with printable sample ballots. Click here or 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 KELOLAND.com. Fee-nomenal Music is hosting Bass in Your Face event taking place at Uptown Jazz BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) Fee-nomenal Music is hosting the Bass in Your Face event at Uptown Jazz on Friday. Bass in Your Face will feature musicians like Sean Michael Ray, Jay Mick, Alvin Garrett and other guests. Doors will open at 7 p.m., and the show will start at 8 p.m. This event, which first took place 10 years ago, highlights bass instruments in jazz, showcasing them as the foundation of jazz bands. More information and tickets can be found 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 CBS 42. Lebanese Red Cross teams conducted search and rescue operations in the rubble of collapsed buildings following an Israeli army attack in Nabatieh province of southern Lebanon - Anadolu/Anadolu On todays episode of Battle Lines we speak to the Telegraphs Adrian Blomfield in Beirut, and photographer Heathcliff OMalley in Tel Aviv about the possibility of a ground war in Lebanon. The Israeli Defense Forces top general has told his troops to be ready to enter Lebanon to fight Hezbollah on their own turf for the first time since 2006. While American diplomats rush to broker a ceasefire, the Middle East stands on the brink of unlikely peace or an even bloodier war. Across the world, from Europe to Asia, from the Americas to the Middle East, tensions are rising between nation states as the traditional alliances and alignments evolve in the 21st century. This year sees war in Europe and the Middle East, and elections in major economies, from the US and the UK to Taiwan. Insurgencies flare in Yemen and Myanmar, tensions escalate in East Africa, and all around the world the international security architecture buckles under increasing pressure. Battle Lines, a new podcast from The Telegraph, combines on-the-ground reporting with analytical expertise to help the listener to better understand the course of world politics, wars and tensions, as fault lines grind and slip in an increasingly dangerous and confusing multipolar world. Listen to Battle Lines using the audio player in this article or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or your favourite podcast app. 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. PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WMBB) Bay County Sheriffs Officials are preparing to head to Franklin County and assist in Hurricane Helene recovery efforts. We have a team of 20 deputies that are prepared to respond at first light tomorrow to Franklin County, Bay County Sheriff Tommy Ford said. Ford is the Chairman of the Florida Sheriffs Task Force. Hes been working with sheriffs across the state to devise emergency responses to areas severely impacted by Helene. Panhandle shelters available ahead of Hurricane Helene We are working those plans and have been all week to ensure that the sheriffs in these affected counties have the help that they need when the storm passes. I anticipate that to be a massive response, Ford said. The Bay County Sheriffs Emergency Response Team is leaving for Franklin County as soon as weather conditions allow, and theyre making sure they come prepared. Were packing up all the equipment that well take over there. Well need high water vehicles and ATVs and other equipment over there, as well as preparing those deputies to be self-sustaining for seven to ten days, Ford said. Ford said his heart goes out to those impacted by Helene, and Bay County is here to help in the aftermath. Panama City residents urged to report Hurricane Helene flood damages When youve gone through something like that together and see real unity and people looking out for each other and kind of see the best in humanity after something like this. There is a rainbow in the middle of the storm, Ford said. Sheriff Ford says he wants everyone to stay safe at home as well. He urges everyone who can stay off the roads and stay inside. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to mypanhandle.com. HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT) The Kentucky League of Cities (KLC) swore in Beaver Dam mayor Paul Sandefur as the 2024-25 KLC first vice president during a ceremony Thursday night at the 2024 KLC Conference and Expo in Lexington. Officials say Mayor Sandefur will serve alongside newly elected KLC President Benton Mayor Rita Dotson and Second Vice President Pineville Mayor Scott Madon for the following year. Weird Al coming to the Beaver Dam Amphitheater According to KLC, Mayor Sandefur joined the KLC Board of Directors in 2015 and was appointed to the Executive Board in 2020. He has been an advocate for Kentucky cities, bringing his extensive experience and passion for local government to the organization. In his new role, he will work closely with the KLC leadership team to continue advancing the needs of cities across the commonwealth. Family of teen killed in Ohio County plane crash files lawsuit I am honored to serve as the first vice president of the Kentucky League of Cities, said Mayor Sandefur. It has been a privilege to work alongside so many dedicated city officials over the years, and I am excited to continue supporting our cities and communities. I look forward to working with President Dotson, Second Vice President Madon, and the KLC team as we navigate the challenges and opportunities ahead. Officials explain the KLC represents more than 380 cities across the state and provides advocacy, training and resources to help local governments better serve their communities. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Eyewitness News (WEHT/WTVW). BEIRUT (Reuters) - Chains of volunteers spoon rice and vegetables into meal containers while others stir huge pots of boiling rice, as a soup kitchen in Beirut struggles to keep up with demand from displaced people escaping Israeli strikes. Josephine Abu Abdo, a chef and one of the founders of Nation Station, said the kitchen is serving 700 meals a day and is at maximum capacity, but she then hears 1,000 meals are needed. "The challenge is that we can't keep up. We feel like we are just a drop in the ocean," Abu Abdo said, while a team of volunteers of different ages from all over Lebanon hurriedly packaged up food. Nation Station was founded to help victims of the devastating 2020 Beirut port explosion, growing from a team of five to a hundred over time. It serves some traditional Lebanese dishes, such as zucchini stuffed with rice and meat, bulgur and tomato, vegetable soup and cabbage salad. When the Israeli strikes across Lebanon intensified on Monday, forcing around 40,000 into shelters within days, the volunteers cooked more food without any funding, distributing it as an emergency response to the centres housing the displaced. "We worked from the small savings that we had for the first three days. Then, many people started donating," Abu Abdo said. "The donation that we receive will cover us for two or three days. We will see, one day at a time and we will make a decision," she added. Israeli attacks have killed more than 600 people in Lebanon since Monday, with the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah at its most intense in more than 18 years. Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel for almost a year in support of its ally Hamas, which is fighting Israel in Gaza. Tens of thousands of people on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border have fled their homes and Israel has declared the safe return of its residents as one of its war aims. "We are all trying our hardest to make a little bit of a difference and to help out. It's like the least we can do and unfortunately we are used to this," May Ayash, a professional chef who volunteers at the kitchen said. (Reporting by Ahmad Al Kerdi and Emilie Madi, Writing by Nayera Abdallah; Editing by Sharon Singleton) People in Beirut are stepping up to help tens of thousands of Lebanese displaced by Israel's aerial bombardment (Anwar AMRO) (Anwar AMRO/AFP/AFP) Beirut is buzzing with activity as volunteers scramble to aid the tens of thousands displaced by Israel's intense bombardment of Lebanon this week. Despite an economic crisis that has gripped the country for years, people in the capital are stepping up, finding shelter, cooking meals and gathering essentials. In a cramped soup kitchen, dozens of volunteers wearing aprons and hairnets stir steaming pots of tomato bulgur and pack hundreds of meals into plastic containers. "When people began fleeing the south, I had to help in any way possible," said Mehyeddine el Jawhary, a 33-year-old chef originally from Sidon. "The first thing that crossed my mind was to cook meals," said Jawhary, whose parents refused to leave the southern city despite nearby air strikes. Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israel in support of its ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that triggered a devastating war in Gaza. This week Israel dramatically intensified its attacks, mostly on Hezbollah's south Beirut and southern and eastern Lebanese strongholds, killing more than 700 people, according to the health ministry. - 'Help each other' - The International Organization for Migration estimates that around 118,000 people have been displaced by the flare-up in just the past week. Schools turned makeshift shelters are overflowing, and those who can afford it are renting apartments or staying with family. "Now's not the time to say, 'It's not my problem'," said Jawhary. "The state is unable to help us, so we have to help each other." His cooking crew delivered 1,800 meals in a single day, part of a grassroots network of community kitchens feeding those in need since the onset of the economic collapse in 2019. Lebanon's government, strapped for cash, is offering little assistance, forcing communities to organise their own aid. Social media is flooded with people offering free apartments or running donation drives for food and essentials. Engineer Ziad Abichaker has raised enough money for 600 mattresses and blankets and is pushing to reach 1,000. Helping was a "moral duty", he told AFP. - 'We could all become displaced' - In Beirut's Badaro district, a group of mothers collects clothes, blankets and baby formula at Teatrino, a pre-school turned donation hub. Sorting through piles of clothes inside the facility, paediatric dentist Mayssa Blaibel said she had stopped working at her clinic this week to become a full-time volunteer. "It's not easy because demand is very high. We're just ordinary people trying to help, but it seems the crisis will last," said the 36-year-old. "Because I have children, I feel it's my duty to do something. We cannot expect our society to be good if we're not giving a good example ourselves." More than 20 kilometres (12 miles) away, in the lush Shouf mountains, Hala Zeidan has been sharing her home free of charge since Monday with a displaced family of three. "This is our homeland and these are people who were displaced from their villages," said the 61-year-old teacher living in the Druze town of Baakline. "We could all become displaced... we should be compassionate and work hand in hand." aya/dv In a meeting with a top Russian militant, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko admits to a decade-long cooperation with occupied Donetsk and complicity in hosting abducted Ukrainian children. The U.S. condemns Belarusian state-owned TV channel for broadcasting repentance of U.S. citizen turned Belarusian political prisoner Yury Ziankovich. Far-right German politician Jorg Dornau accused of using jailed Belarusian activists for cheap labor at his onion plantation in Belarus. European Parliament adopts new resolution on Belarusian political prisoners, urges Serbia not to extradite the Belarusian activist at the Lukashenko regimes request. Austrias Raiffeisen Bank agrees to sell its stake in its Belarusian subsidiary to UAE investors, marking a full exit from the Belarusian market. International Chess Federation FIDE reaffirms the ban on the participation of Russia and Belarus in its tournaments. Subscribe to the Newsletter Belarus Weekly Join us Lukashenko admits years of cooperation with Russian-occupied Donetsk, defends hosting abducted Ukrainian children in meeting with Russian proxy leader Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has admitted to cooperating with the proxy authorities in Ukraines Russian-occupied Donetsk Oblast for over a decade, also reaffirmed his complicity in hosting children abducted by Russia from occupied Ukrainian territories. Lukashenko made the remarks during a meeting in Minsk on Sept. 19 with Denis Pushilin, the Kremlin-installed leader of the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory. While Minsk hasnt formally recognized Russia's claim to have annexed the occupied territories of Ukraine, Lukashenko claimed that Belarus has always cooperated with occupied parts of Donetsk Oblast for the past ten years. The Belarusian dictator also admitted to hosting Ukrainian children abducted by the Russian authorities while claiming the abductions were for the purpose of recreation. We host your children for treatment and recreation, Lukashenkos press office quoted him as telling Pushilin. However, they threatened me with legal action for allegedly stealing your children. So I told both Ukraine and the United States, Please come and find at least one stolen child. It runs contrary to our principles. Ukraines Foreign Ministry condemned the meeting and Lukashenkos hypocritical rhetoric, underscoring the dependency of Belarus policies on the Kremlin. The stance of the current Belarus authorities with regard to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine is being dictated exclusively by the Kremlin and has nothing to do either with international law or the international obligations of the Republic of Belarus, the Ukrainian ministrys statement reads. This was Pushilins third visit to Belarus. Following the previous meeting of the two on April 18, 2023, in Minsk, Ukraine recalled its Ambassador, Ihor Kyzym, for consultations. Kyzym did not return to the Belarusian capital and was appointed Ambassador-at-Large to support Kyivs dialogue with the Belarusian opposition in exile. Belarus, a close Kremlin ally, has been involved in the abduction of Ukrainian children from the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. Belarus officials have repeatedly confirmed their participation in the abductions, while describing the deportations as recuperation trips. According to official estimates, Russia has abducted over 20,000 children from the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, although the true number is likely much higher. The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Childrens Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for their role in organizing the illegal transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia. The European Parliament has called on the ICC to issue a similar arrest warrant against Lukashenko for his complicity in the crime. Several human rights organizations, including Freedom House, Ukraine's Regional Human Rights Center, and Ukraines Zmina Human Rights Center, have announced that they submitted to the ICC on Sept. 23 new evidence of the abduction, brainwashing, and militarizing of more than 2,219 children from Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories. Read also: What the fall of Vuhledar would mean for Russias war in Ukraine US condemns Belarusian TV for showing US citizen, jailed on political grounds, repenting The U.S. charge d'affaires at the embassy in Minsk, Peter Kaufman, has condemned a Belarusian state-owned TV channel's broadcasting of a documentary featuring U.S.-Belarusian citizen and political prisoner Yury Ziankovich. During the broadcast, Ziankovich was shown pleading for help from U.S. presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. I resolutely condemn the Belarusian regimes reprehensible showing of a detained U.S. citizen on state media for propaganda purposes, and refute the baseless claims made in the program, " reads a statement issued by Kaufman on Sep. 20. The regime's history of using coercive tactics to produce content like this strongly calls into question the voluntary nature of the U.S. citizen's participation. Kaufman reiterated the U.S. government's long-standing advice to U.S. citizens to avoid traveling to Belarus. The statement was released after the airing on Sep. 19 of the film, titled Murderous Conspiracy, on Belarusian television. It shows U.S.-Belarusian citizen and lawyer, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison on trumped-up charges of conspiracy to seize power, appealing to Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko for a pardon, as well as pleading to candidates Harris and Trump to help him return to his family in Houston, Texas. Filmed in prison, Ziankovich is said to have lost a significant amount of weight. Likely under duress, in the film he confesses to conspiring to seize power and gives details of alleged plans to overthrow the Lukashenko regime. The documentary aired as 115 Belarusian political prisoners pardoned by Lukashenko were released. According to Belarusian political analyst Valer Karbalevich, the broadcast was a bargaining offer to Washington from Lukashenko, who is likely testing the West's readiness for negotiations with his regime. As Lukashenko signed the fourth round of pardons releasing dozens of Belarusian political prisoners, his propaganda mouthpiece, Yury Vaskrasenski, urged the West (to have) discussions so that the process could continue. Over 1,300 political prisoners remain behind bars in Belarus following Lukashenkos four-year-long crackdown on dissent after the 2020 presidential election, which he claimed to have won but which was condemned by observers as neither free nor fair. Read also: Kremlin says recent adjustments to Russias nuclear policy intended as a message to Western nations German lawmakers onion farm in Belarus used jailed activists for cheap labor Jorg Dornau, a member of Saxonys State Parliament from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), uses Belarusian convicts including those jailed on political charges as labor on his onion plantation in Belarus, the independent Belarusian news outlet Reform.by claimed on Sept. 24. According to the outlets investigation, Dornaus firm, Zybulka Bel, an agriculture company cultivating several hundred hectares planted with onions, signed a contract with the local Center for the Isolation of Offenders in Lida in western Belarus. As the Lukashenko regime ramped up the repressions against civil society following the disputed 2020 presidential elections in Belarus, the Centers for Isolation of Offenders have regularly held Belarusians sentenced to days of administrative arrest on politically motivated grounds. According to Human Rights Center Viasna, around 30,000 Belarusians underwent detention in 2020 alone. One of the laborers at Dornaus farm, sentenced to 15 days of arrest for liking an online post critical of the regime of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, described the working conditions as harsh. For 5 euros ($5.60) per day, the detainees sorted onions in an underground warehouse in freezing temperatures. The working day commenced at 7 a.m. and finished at 6 p.m. with no breaks or meals provided. According to the report, the labor was not forced; Dornaus foreman collected signed consent forms for daily work and monitored the quality of the labor performed. The funds prisoners earned were reportedly used to cover the costs of their detention. As of 2023, the cost of administrative arrest that prisoners are obliged to pay is roughly $5.70 per day. Dornau himself is claimed to have inspected the work of the farm in person at least once, with one prisoner describing a visit by a tall, bald man similar to Dornau arriving in a German-registered car. Dornaus press office has declined to comment on Reform.bys report. Dornau established Zybulka Bels operations in Belarus in October 2020 while nationwide pro-democracy protests were still sweeping the streets of Belarus. His business relations with Belarus were not revealed until April 2024. While conducting business is not prohibited for members of parliament under Saxonys legislation, Dornau was fined 20,862 euros for failing to disclose his economic interests. The European Union has imposed multiple rounds of sanctions on Belarus for the Lukashenko regimes ongoing human rights violations and its complicity with Russias aggression against Ukraine. European Parliament urges Serbia not to extradite Belarusian activist The European Parliament issued a resolution on Belarusian political prisoners on Sept. 19, calling on Serbia to refrain from extraditing Belarusian activist Andrey Hnyot, and noting that the Belarusian regime was abusing Interpols arrest warrant system. Detained in October 2023 under an Interpol Red Notice international arrest warrant, Hnyot has for a year been battling in the Serbian courts to avoid being extradited to Belarus, where, he claims, he would face prison and torture. While the Serbian Appeals Court recently ordered a retrial, the risk of his eventual extradition remains. MEPs also expressed concern that the estimated 300,000 Belarusians who have fled Belarus since 2020 now risk political persecution in absentia. The EU parliament resolution, adopted with 549 votes in favor, 21 against, and 37 abstentions, demands that the Belarusian authorities unconditionally release all political prisoners, and provide lawyers, family members, and the Red Cross access to the most prominent political prisoners held incommunicado for over a year. It also calls for further sanctions against those involved in organizing repression in Belarus. Following the disputed 2020 presidential election, which Lukashenko claimed to have won by a landslide, mass protests erupted across Belarus. The protests were met by a violent government crackdown, leading to mass arrests and detentions of over 65,000 Belarusians. Human rights organizations say some 1,300 political prisoners are now behind bars, and around 300,000 Belarusians are in exile. Austrias Raiffeisen Bank agrees to sell its Belarusian subsidiary The logo of Raiffeisen Bank's OAO Priorbank sits above a building in Minsk, Belarus, on Wednesday, March 16, 2016.(Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Austrias Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) has signed an agreement to sell its 87.74% stake in Priorbank, its Belarusian subsidiary, to United Arab Emirates investor Soven 1 Holding Limited, the banks press office announced on Sept. 20. The deal, reached after six months of negotiations and first announced on Feb. 14, is now subject to regulatory approval. Upon completion, the deal will mark RBIs full exit from the Belarusian market, reducing operational complexity in line with its risk mitigation strategy in Eastern Europe, as per a press release from the bank. RBI expects to suffer a loss of around EUR 300 million ($335 million), which it said essentially results from the difference between the purchase price and the book value of the equity of Priorbank. The last major Western bank remaining in Russia and Belarus the Kremlins accomplice in its aggressive war against Ukraine RBI has come under heavy criticism from Western institutions for continuing to do business in Russia and Belarus, and thus indirectly financing Russias war by paying taxes to those countries. Russia and Belarus to remain banned from FIDE chess events The General Assembly of the International Chess Federation FIDE voted on Sept. 22 to uphold a ban on chess teams from Russia and Belarus competing in international events. FIDE banned both countries from its events in the wake of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and prohibited holding any of its events on Russian and Belarusian territory. However, individual Russian and Belarusian players were allowed to participate under the neutral FIDE flag. During a meeting in Budapest, 21 delegates supported lifting the ban, whereas 41 countries voted not to admit players at all. With 66 votes in favor, the federation supported a last-minute proposal to consult the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to allow some Russian and Belarusian disabled and junior teams to participate in international chess events. The FIDE Council still has to approve the decision, although there is no expectation that it will be overturned. The proposal to reinstate Russia and Belarus participation in FIDE tournaments was made on June 5 by the Kyrgyz Chess Federation. It provided no arguments to support its proposal. Ahead of the General Assembly of the International Chess Federation, 13 Ukrainian chess players sent a letter to FIDE supporting the ban of Russian and Belarusian players from competitions due to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. During FIDEs Greatest Of All Time award in Budapest, the awards winner, Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, spoke against reinstating the Russian and Belarusian chess federations. Read also: Harris criticizes calls for concessions from Ukraine during joint press conference with Zelensky in Washington Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Belarusian leader claims he allegedly keeps in touch with Ukraine Alexander Lukashenko, the self-proclaimed President of Belarus, has claimed that he allegedly maintains connection channels with Ukraine, but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy does not react. Source: Belarusian state media outlet Belta with reference to Lukashenkos statement Details: Making a speech in front of the students of one of the Belarusian universities, Lukashenko spoke about the necessity of holding negotiations with Ukraine to end the war. Quote by Lukashenko: "I have openly said that we also maintain contacts with the Ukrainians through certain channels. You can also see our relations with Russians. And were trying to achieve good results by maintaining these contacts." Details: Lukashenko claims that the US pushes Ukraine to the war, and thats why Zelenskyy doesnt listen to him. Background: Self-proclaimed Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that he had supposedly made an arrangement with Ukrainians not to "expose" the facts of drones flying into the territory of Belarus. Lukashenko claimed that "Americans told Kyiv, under certain circumstances, to attack Belarus infrastructure on its southern border". Nevertheless, Lukashenko decided to warn his "opponents" that an attack on his country "would mean World War III". Support UP or become our patron! Belarusian leader joins Putin in "intimidating" West with nuclear weapons and mentions "red lines" Alexander Lukashenko, the self-proclaimed President of Belarus, has followed Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin in threatening the West with nuclear weapons. Source: Belarusian state-owned news outlet BelTA, as reported by European Pravda Details: BelTA reported that Lukashenko expressed his gratitude to Putin for stating that he would use weapons of mass destruction if Belarus were attacked. "As soon as they [NATO] attack us, we use nuclear weapons. Russia will defend us," Lukashenko said. The Belarusian leader also claimed that Russia would deploy its entire nuclear arsenal in the event of a potential Western response, adding that such a scenario would lead to "a world war". He noted that Belarus's "red line" is the state border. "You step on it, we will respond immediately. We are preparing for this," he added. Background: On 25 September, Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin made changes to Russia's nuclear deterrence doctrine. In response, the EU stated that Putin's latest threats to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states are yet another indication of his irresponsible behaviour and will not change the EU's stance on continuing to support Ukraine. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg noted he is sceptical of Russian leader Vladimir Putin's threats, which come amid discussions about allowing Ukraine to launch long-range missiles deep into Russia. Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha is convinced that Ukraines allies should increase their support for Kyiv despite Russian leader Vladimir Putin's threats, as he does nothing beyond talking. Support UP or become our patron! (Reuters) -Arm Holdings approached Intel about potentially acquiring the company's product division but was told that the business is not for sale, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday. The British chip firm did not express interest in Intel's manufacturing operations, the report added, citing a person familiar with the matter. The report did not mention any financial details, nor did it say whether the talks are still ongoing or have been abandoned. Arm and Intel declined to comment on the report. Once the dominant force in chipmaking, Intel ceded its manufacturing edge to Taiwanese rival TSMC and failed to produce a widely desired chip for the generative AI boom capitalized on by Nvidia and AMD. Qualcomm has also approached Intel to explore a potential acquisition of the troubled chipmaker, Reuters reported earlier this month, in what could be a transformational deal in the sector. Intel has been attempting to turn its business around by focusing on AI processors and creating a chip contract manufacturing business, known as a foundry. The company plans to pause construction on factories in Poland and Germany, and reduce its real estate holdings. (Reporting by Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Savio D'Souza) Pope gets an earful from Belgian king and abuse victims over scandals and failures to respond ALTERNATIVE CROP OF GB112 - Pope Francis delivers his message during a meeting with the authorities and the civil society in the Grande Galerie of the Castle of Laeken, Brussels, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) BRUSSELS (AP) On a brutal day for the frail and aging Pope Francis, the king of Belgium, its prime minister and the rector of the Catholic university that invited him here all ripped into the institution he heads for a spectrum of sins: for covering up cases of clergy sex abuse and being far behind the times on embracing women and the LGBTQ+ community in the church. And that was all before Francis met with the people most harmed by the Catholic Church in Belgium the men and women who were raped and molested by priests as children. Seventeen abuse survivors spent two hours with Francis on Friday evening, telling him of their trauma, shame and pain and demanding reparations from the church. Through it all, Francis expressed his remorse, begged forgiveness and promised to do everything possible to make sure such abuses never occur again. This is our shame and humiliation, he said in his first public remarks on Belgian soil. Francis has visited countries with wretched legacies of church wrongdoing before. He made a sweeping apology to Irish abuse survivors in 2018 and traveled to Canada in 2022 to atone for the church-run residential schools that traumatized generations of Indigenous peoples. But it is hard to think of a single day where the leader of the 1.3-billion strong Catholic Church had been subjected to such strong, public criticisms from a country's highest institutional figures royalty, government and academia over the churchs crimes and its seemingly tone deaf responses to the demands of todays Catholics. Luc Sels, the rector of Leuven Catholic University, the 600th anniversary of which was the official reason for Francis trip to Belgium, told the pope that the abuse scandals had so weakened the churchs moral authority that it would do well to reform if it wants to regain its credibility and relevance. Wouldnt the church be a warmer place if women were given a prominent place, the most prominent place, also in priesthood? Sells asked the pope. Wouldnt the church in our region gain moral authority if it were not so rigid in its approach to gender and diversity issues? And if it did, like the university does, open its arms more to the LGBTQ+ community? he asked. The comments certainly reflected the views of European social progressives. But they also reflected the reform-minded church that Francis has embraced, to a degree, in seeking to make the universal church more relevant and responsive to Catholics today. The day began with King Philippe welcoming Francis to Laeken Castle, the residence of Belgiums royal family, and citing the abuse and forced adoption scandals in demanding the church work incessantly to atone for the crimes and help victims heal. He was followed by Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, who was also allowed to speak in an exception to typical Vatican protocol. He used the opportunity of a face-to-face public encounter to demand concrete steps to come clean with the full extent of the abuse scandal and put victims interests over those of the church. Victims need to be heard. They need to be at the center. They have a right to truth. Misdeeds need to be recognized, he told the pope. When something goes wrong we cannot accept cover-ups, he said. To be able to look into the future, the church needs to come clean on its past. It was one of the most pointed welcome speeches ever directed at the pope during a foreign trip, where the genteel dictates of diplomatic protocol usually keep public remarks outrage-free. But the tone underscored just how raw the abuse scandal still is in Belgium, where two decades of revelations of abuse and systematic cover-ups have devastated the hierarchys credibility and contributed to an overall decline in Catholicism and the influence of the once-powerful church. Overall, victims welcomed the words from both church and state. Survivor Emmanuel Henckens said that to an extent they went to the crux of the evil. He said it was no longer possible to look the other way. But another abuse survivor, Koen Van Sumere, said it was now essential for the church to provide victims with substantial financial settlements. If you want to move toward forgiveness and reconciliation it is not sufficient to only say I am sorry but you have to bear the consequences it entails and you should compensate the damages, Van Sumere said. He said so far what the Belgian church had paid out amounted to alms and that the settlement he received for his abuse didnt even cover the costs of his therapy. The victims, 17 of whom met with Francis at the Vatican residence Friday evening, had penned an open letter to him demanding a universal system of church reparations for their traumas. In a statement after the meeting, the Vatican said Francis would study their requests. The pope was able to listen and get close to their suffering, expressed gratitude for their courage, and the feeling of shame for what they suffered as children because of the priests to whom they were entrusted, noting the requests made to him so that he could study them," said a statement from the Vatican spokesman. Revelations of Belgiums horrific abuse scandal have dribbled out in bits over a quarter-century, punctuated by a bombshell in 2010 when the countrys longest-serving bishop, Brugge Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, was allowed to resign without punishment after admitting he had sexually abused his nephew for 13 years. Francis only defrocked Vangheluwe earlier this year, in a move clearly designed to remove a lingering source of outrage among Belgians before his visit. In September 2010, the church released a 200-page report that said 507 people had come forward with stories of being molested by priests, including when they were as young as 2. It identified at least 13 suicides by victims and attempts by six more. Victims and advocates say those findings were just the tip of the iceberg and that the true scope of the scandal is far greater. In his remarks, Francis insisted that the church was addressing firmly and decisively the abuse problem by implementing prevention programs, listening to victims and accompanying them to heal. But after the astonishing dressing-down by the prime minister and king, Francis went off-script to express the shame of the church for the scandal and voice his commitment to ending it. The church must be ashamed and ask for forgiveness and try to resolve this situation with Christian humility and put all the possibilities in places so that this doesnt happen again, Francis said. But even if it were only one (victim), it is enough to be ashamed. The prime minister, king and pope also referred to a new church-related scandal rocking Belgium, over so-called forced adoptions, which echoed earlier revelations about Irelands so-called mother and baby homes. After World War II and through to the 1980s, many single mothers were forced by the Belgian church to offer their newborns up for adoption, with money changing hands. Francis said he was saddened to learn of these practices, but said such criminality was mixed in with what was unfortunately the prevailing view in all parts of society at this time. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the APs collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. MANOA, Hawaii (KHON2) A Manoa woman is looking for justice after her beloved dog was killed in August in what she describes as a vicious attack by a dangerous dog. Get news on the go with KHON 2GO, KHONs morning podcast, every morning at 8 She is hoping others will not be its next victim. Emogene Yoshimura was walking her 13-year-old Bichon, Kiki, on Saturday, Aug. 3 along East Manoa Road when she noticed a neighbors large dog loose on the street and charging toward them. Tips on encountering Hawaiis dangerous dogs So we turned to run. He knocked me over and then he grabbed her by her neck and bit down on her trachea, Yoshimura said. Her throat had a hole in it, when I took her to the animal emergency, they had to put her in an oxygen cage and her condition worsened. So, I had to have her euthanized. Bacon made from flowers? Its mind-blowing Experts said pet owners should avoid approaching dogs that look dangerous if possible, but it is not always that easy. Brown bears, you play dead. Black bears, you fight back. So dogs are a little different. You dont want to go aggressive. You dont want to act big and make a lot of noise, that can instigate them more. You want to stay calm, you dont want to make eye contact. One of the big things is, you know, stand up, make sure you dont fall down, said Oahu SPCA Veterinary and Shelter Operations director John LeBron said. HHS, HPD round up aggressive, stray dogs on bike path The owner of the large dog that killed Kiki was issued a dangerous dog citation from Honolulu police, but the case was dismissed without prejudice when it was heard in Circuit Court. Hawaii town ranks 95 out of 100 for this. Do you agree? It could have been a child! It could have been an adult. I think the next time this dog attacks someone, they die and its not taken seriously enough, Yoshimura said. I hope that people will take heed and if they are attacked, to always fall a report. Thats what the prosecutors office said they hope people would do. They told me Im very unusual that I filed a report and I said, Well, thats the only thing I could think of doing because its not going to bring back my dog, but it will make other people aware of the danger.' Emogene Yoshimura, Manoa resident Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news KHON2 reached out to the owner of the large dog but did not hear back. The case can be refiled in the future because it was initially dismissed without prejudice, but in the meantime the allegedly-dangerous dog remains in the neighborhood. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KHON2. READING, Pa. (AP) A Pennsylvania woman was convicted of killing her two young children, who were found hanging in the basement of their home five years ago. Lisa Snyder, 41, was convicted Tuesday of two counts of first-degree murder in the September 2019 deaths of 4-year-old Brinley and 8-year-old Conner, who were taken off life support and died three days after they were found in the home in Albany Township, about 60 miles (95 kilometers) northwest of Philadelphia. The conviction carries an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole. Snyder had told police her son was bullied and had threatened to take his life, but authorities said they found no evidence to support her claim. The boy displayed no signs of trouble that day on a school bus security video. An occupational therapist later said the child wasnt physically capable of causing that kind of harm to himself or his little sister. Police also cited the defendants online searches for information about suicide, death by hanging and how to kill someone as well as episodes of a documentary crime series called I Almost Got Away With It. A coroner said both children were killed by hanging and ruled the deaths homicides. The defense sought an acquittal, saying the case was based on speculation and guesswork. Snyder opted for a judge instead of a jury to hear the case. Berks County Court of Common Pleas President Judge Theresa Johnson took about an hour on Tuesday before issuing a guilty verdict. Snyder also was convicted of child endangerment and evidence tampering. Sentencing was scheduled for Oct. 17. Snyder had sought to plead no contest but mentally ill to two counts of third-degree murder, but Johnson rejected the plea agreement last year, saying it didnt serve the interests of justice. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Helene is expected to stall out over Kentucky this weekend as a post-tropical depression. (NOAA satellite image) Gov. Andy Beshear warned Kentuckians to avoid traveling on roads Friday and to be ready for a risk of flooding and power outages as remnants of Hurricane Helene impact Kentucky. Beshear said in a Friday morning briefing that state employees were being sent home early to get ahead of expected peak wind gusts from the storms remnants expected to be 40- 60 miles per hour throughout much of Central and Eastern Kentucky, according to the National Weather Service. The governor said such wind gusts, expected to pick up in most of the state starting around noon Eastern Time, could make driving in higher profile vehicles including tractor trailers more hazardous, especially on roads that run north to south. If youre out in the middle of this, we need your 100% attention while youre driving for your safety and for the safety of those around you, Beshear said. Certainly a chance for some minor flooding, a chance that we lose power, a chance that we have trees fall over roadways and create treacherous conditions. He said the number of Kentuckians without power is expected to fluctuate throughout the day. Tens of thousands of people mostly in Eastern Kentucky are without power as of Friday morning, according to a website that tracks and compiles power outage numbers from utilities. Most of Kentucky is also under a flood watch and has a slight risk for excessive rainfall leading to flash flooding. The National Weather Service in Jackson, Kentucky is warning that because soil is already saturated from previous rainfall, the incoming rain could runoff quickly. The National Hurricane Centers latest report states Tropical Storm Helene is currently located over western North Carolina as of Friday morning and is expected to stall out over Kentucky this weekend as a post-tropical depression. This is the remnants of a hurricane thats hitting us, and I believe that we all ought to be humble enough to know that this forecast can change and that we may need to get additional information out there as it goes, Beshear said. Bicyclist in serious condition after being struck by SUV in Hooper HOOPER, Utah (ABC4) A bicyclist is in serious condition after being struck by an SUV in Hooper Friday morning, according to the Weber County Sheriffs Office. At around 7:50 a.m. on Sept. 27, Weber County deputies responded to a report of a crash involving an SUV and a bicyclist in the area of 5100 West 4000 South in Hooper. Deputies arrived on scene and found a 62-year-old man with serious injuries. The man had reportedly been riding a bicycle eastbound on 4000 South when he was struck from behind by an SUV. Victims identified in tragic Price crash that left 5 dead The man was taken by ambulance to a local hospital. The driver of the SUV remained on scene and is cooperating with investigators. The case is under investigation at this time. The Weber County Sheriffs Office would like to remind the public that in vehicle-bicycle crashes, the cyclist is often the most vulnerable to injury, a press release from the sheriffs office states. Motorists and cyclists are encouraged to follow the rules of the road and remain vigilant to help prevent these types of accidents. To learn more about bicycle safety and how to prevent injuries, visit the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrations Bicycle Safety page here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. US President Joe Biden will chair a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group (also known as Ramstein-format meetings) on 12 October in Germany. Source: statement by the White House after Biden's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Quote: "On 12 October 2024, President Biden will host a leader-level meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Germany, where the two leaders will review progress on these consultations and coordinate with international partners on additional assistance for Ukraine. President Biden is determined to provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win." Details: Biden also announced his decision to increase US security assistance to Ukraine, and Zelenskyy presented his plan to defeat Russia. The two leaders reportedly discussed the diplomatic, economic and military aspects of Zelenskyy's plan and instructed their teams to begin intensive consultations on the next steps. Background: On 26 September, Zelenskyy met with a bipartisan delegation of the US Senate and briefed them on the key points of the Victory Plan. US President Joe Biden stated shortly before his meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House that Russia will not win the war with Ukraine. Support UP or become our patron! SCRANTON, Pa. President Biden made a trip to his hometown of Scranton on Friday to give an emotional eulogy at the funeral of his best childhood friend. The president returned to the Catholic church where he said he was baptized, St. Paul, to attend the funeral where he was surrounded by old, close friends to mark the life of Thomas Bell, who died on Sept. 18 at the age of 81. Biden called his late friend a man of immense character and recalled their childhood together, during which Bell found the ordinary was boring and the extraordinary was thrilling, Biden said. The president grew emotional twice during his remarks, speaking at the church he knew well and in front of friendly faces. I apologize; Im supposed to be the president and not get emotional, but Tommy brings out all the emotion in me. I could always count on Tommy and hope he knew he could always count on me as well, the president said. Biden recalled when he told Bell his intention to run for president, saying that Bell told him he could win. All the years later, no matter what was going on, I was his Joe and he was Tommy. Nothing changed in our relationship, Biden said. The president, in his typical form, cited Irish poets and spoke about loss, drawing from his own personal experience after the loss of a wife and children. Tommy was a , Biden said, pausing for several sections. All these years, we stayed close, it matters. I apologize for getting emotional. I thank you all for allowing me to participate, he added. After his eulogy, Biden was quickly back to presidential duties in the form of briefings on the Israeli strikes on a Beirut suburb and updates on Hurricane Helene that is ravaging the Southeast. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. (Bloomberg) -- A trio of President Joe Bidens aides are meeting with representatives of ocean carriers and terminal operators Friday with the aim of averting a strike that could shutter every major container port on the US Atlantic and Gulf coasts while also signaling the White House wont intervene to force workers back to the docks if they walk out. Most Read from Bloomberg Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard are urging the United States Maritime Alliance to get to the bargaining table, according to a White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to detail the discussions. The official didnt say who the officials are meeting with from the USMX, as the employer group is known, and said the Biden aides have also been in touch with the International Longshoremens Association this week to deliver the same message. The USMX has accused the dockworker union of engaging in unfair labor practices and has asked the National Labor Relations Board to require the union to resume bargaining in the final days before their contract expires on Sept. 30. ILA President Harold Daggett has been telling union members to prepare for a strike for months and has pledged that dockworkers will walk out on Oct. 1 if theres no deal on a new six-year contract. The USMX says the union has repeatedly refused to bargain since canceling negotiations earlier this summer. The Biden administration has no plans to invoke Taft-Hartley powers that could break a strike, the official said. Biden has never used the power and brands himself as the most pro-union president in American history. Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump are both battling for rank-and-file union votes in their race for the White House. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. DOVER, Delaware (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday his opposition to Nippon Steel's $14.9 billion bid for U.S. Steel hadn't changed despite a decision by his administration to extend a national security review of the proposed tie-up. I havent changed my mind, he told reporters, when asked if the extension indicated a change of heart. Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The remarks threw cold water on hopes by deal supporters that the proposed tie-up could get a green light from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews foreign investments for national security risks. The proposed merger appeared set to be blocked when CFIUS alleged on Aug. 31 the transaction posed a risk to national security by threatening the steel supply chain for critical U.S. industries, as exclusively reported by Reuters. But a move reported by Reuters earlier this month to delay a decision on the politically sensitive merger until after the Nov. 5 presidential election gave hope to proponents of the tie-up that it might yet win approval. Biden, as well as his Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, and Republican challenger Donald Trump, have said U.S. Steel should remain American-owned. The company is headquartered in Pennsylvania, a hotly contested swing state in the November presidential election. The United Steelworkers Union vehemently opposes the deal and both parties have sought to woo union voters. In response to CFIUS's finding of an alleged national security risk, Nippon Steel wrote a 100-page response letter pledging to invest billions of dollars in U.S. Steel facilities that otherwise would have been idled, "indisputably" allowing it to "maintain and potentially increase domestic steelmaking capacity in the United States." The company also reaffirmed a promise not to transfer any U.S. Steel production capacity or jobs outside the U.S. and said would not interfere in any of U.S. Steel's decisions on trade matters, including decisions to pursue trade measures under U.S. law against unfair trade practices. (Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Additional reporting and Writing by Alexandra Alper; Editing by Leslie Adler and Alistair Bell) US President Joe Biden meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (Not Pictured) at the White House. -/Ukrainian Presidency/dpa US President Joe Biden's high-level meeting of some 50 countries that support Ukraine will be held at the US military's Ramstein Air Base in south-western Germany, the government in Berlin said on Friday. Biden announced this week that he would be in Germany from October 10 to October 12 and invited Ukraine's supporters to attend a meeting in the country during that time. But he did not name a location. Such meetings have frequently taken place in Ramstein since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but so far only at the level of defence ministers. The aim is to coordinate military assistance to Ukraine. Biden will also meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. It is the outgoing US president's first bilateral visit to Germany in his nearly four years in office. 'Investor Horror Story in Florida' Warns Reventure CEO: Where Can You Actually Make Money Now? According to Reventure CEO Nick Gerli, the Florida real estate market is teaching investors who bought at the peak harsh lessons. In a thread posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday, Gerli pointed to a troubling, anecdotal case an investor who purchased a home for $325,000 in 2023, hoping to rent it for $3,800 monthly. Today, that property sits vacant despite rent cuts to $2,500 per month. Don't Miss: If rented, the owner would face an $8,300 annual loss after mortgage payments, according to Gerli. That isnt an isolated scenario. The Reventure CEO pointed to a surge in inventory across Florida, with some ZIP codes seeing listings double over the past year. Its a red flag for the markets health. Florida real estate is cyclical, Gerli said. Each boom theres people who think this time is different,' The area is transformed,' But in the downturn, they get reminded of the realities. Timing is critical in Floridas market. The real estate executive said investors who bought between 2010 and 2020 likely have positive returns. But those who entered during the 2005-2007 or recent boom cycles struggle. Trending: Commercial real estate has historically outperformed the stock market, and this platform allows individuals to invest in commercial real estate with as little as $5,000 offering a 12% target yield with a bonus 1% return boost today! Current market conditions are particularly challenging. Rents are stagnating or dropping while property taxes and insurance costs skyrocket. Gerli cites that the 2024 tax bill is $5,500 nearly two months rent. Insurance can add another $4,000 annually in some counties. Many investors overlook crucial details, like the loss of homestead exemptions, when converting owner-occupied homes to rentals. This can lead to dramatic tax increases. Add vacancy periods, maintenance, and management fees, and profit margins evaporate quickly. See Also: Will the surge continue or decline on real estate prices? People are finding out about risk-free real estate investing that lets you cash out whenever you want. Its getting very hard to make money in Florida real estate as an investor, Gerli warns. Do the math carefully before diving in. But where are the opportunities for real estate investors looking to build wealth over the next decade? Several experts weighed in with GOBankingRates: Story continues Boise, Idaho: Jeff Tricoli of Keller Williams cites Boises 218% home appreciation over the past decade as a promising indicator. A growing job market and continued high demand make it attractive. Fort Wayne, Indiana: With median listing prices 102% below the national average, Fort Wayne offers an affordable entry point. Recent price dips could spell opportunity for long-term investors. Trending: Amid the ongoing EV revolution, previously overlooked low-income communities now harbor a huge investment opportunity at just $500. Las Vegas, Nevada: The city's economy and booming tourism industry create opportunities for growth. Median home prices are up 6.3% year over year and rental demand remains strong. Seattle, Washington: Mitchell G. David of Beach Life Premier Team points to Seattles tech-driven economy as a catalyst for long-term growth. Housing prices have doubled in five years, outpacing national averages. Denver, Colorado: Denvers surging population and expanding job market make it appealing. Its proximity to other major Colorado cities adds to its appeal. Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina: The Research Triangles diverse economy and prestigious universities create a stable base of high-earning renters and potential buyers. Trending: Unlock the hidden potential of commercial real estate This platform allows individuals to invest in commercial real estate offering a 12% target yield with a bonus 1% return boost today! Austin, Texas: A young demographic and no state income tax make Austin attractive for residents and investors. Median listing prices are up 9.1% year-over-year. Charlotte, North Carolina: Real estate agent Fant Camak projects potential 145% price growth over the next decade, citing strong job growth and affordability. Phoenix, Arizona: Tech job growth and lifestyle amenities drive demand in Phoenix. Camak suggests that 130% price growth is possible in the coming years. Nashua, New Hampshire: Shaun MacDonald of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Verani Realty sees an opportunity in Nashuas relative affordability compared to nearby Boston. He projects 25% to 50% gains over the next decade. While Floridas cautionary tale demonstrates the risks of poorly timed investments, alternative markets offer the potential for those willing to do their due diligence and take a long-term view. Read Next: Warren Buffett once said, "If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die." Heres how you can earn passive income with just $100. This billion-dollar fund has invested in the next big real estate boom, here's how you can join for $10. Up Next: Transform your trading with Benzinga Edge's one-of-a-kind market trade ideas and tools. Click now to access unique insights that can set you ahead in today's competitive market. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? This article 'Investor Horror Story in Florida' Warns Reventure CEO: Where Can You Actually Make Money Now? originally appeared on Benzinga.com 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. A hiker looks inside an ancient granary, part of the House on Fire ruins in the South Fork of Mule Canyon in the Bears Ears National Monument on May 12, 2017 outside Blanding, Utah. (George Frey/Getty Images) This story originally appeared in Utah News Dispatch. BOULDER, Colo. Thursday was a big day for the future of Utahs Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, as attorneys argued for and against the legality of President Joe Bidens decision to reinstate the monuments after former President Trump reduced their original size. For about an hour, attorneys presented their oral arguments in two lawsuits challenging the monuments Garfield v. Biden and Dalton v. Biden which have now been consolidated into one case, before a panel of three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. The hearing took place at the Wittemyer Courtroom at the University of Colorado Boulder Law School. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Its unclear when or how the panel of judges will make a decision, but one thing is certain the legal challenge to the monuments is far from over. The key question Thursday was whether a court can review challenges to the Antiquities Act, a law passed by Congress in 1906 that gives the president authority to declare national monuments to protect areas of cultural, historical and scientific significance. Its how President Theodore Roosevelt issued protections for the Grand Canyon, and has been used by presidents since, including Democratic presidents Bill Clinton, who designated Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Barack Obama, who designated Bears Ears. In 2017, both monuments were drastically reduced in size by President Donald Trump, who cut Bears Ears from 1.36 million acres to 1 million acres, and Grand Staircase-Escalante from 1.35 million acres to just 229,000 acres. Then, in 2021, President Joe Biden restored the monuments to their original size, again using the Antiquities Act. That authority was promptly challenged by the state of Utah, which in 2022 joined forces with Garfield County to sue the Biden Administration in federal court. Another lawsuit was then filed by local landowners and the BlueRibbon Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for outdoor recreation and has repeatedly protested public land and conservation policies from the federal government. Those suits have now been consolidated. Scope of sovereign immunity The Antiquities Act, the states lawsuit argued, was not intended to enact sweeping, million-plus acre designations. But the suit was dismissed in August 2023 by U.S. District Judge David Nuffer, who wrote that the Antiquities Act grants discretionary authority to the U.S. president when it comes to monument designations. According to Stanford Purser with the Utah Attorney Generals Office, who argued the states case on Thursday, Nuffers decision was based on a lack of guidance guidance that the justices with the 10th Circuit should provide. The court can and should interpret these limits within the Antiquities Act to confirm that Utah and the counties have a stated claim that in turn will provide the guidance that the district court said he needs to proceed in this case, said Purser. He sort of just threw up his hands and said, I dont know what to do here. John Bies, who represented the United States, on the other hand argued that the Antiquities Act grants the president such broad authority that its not the courts responsibility to review monument designations. The judges pushed back, asking him a hypothetical question if Biden designated all federal land in Utah a national monument, should that be subjected to review? If they have a bona fide basis, they can designate any federal land, Bies said. Judge Joel Carson pressed him further. There are all sorts of historic sites and important species in Utah. Could they do it? Bies responded, Yes. But the justices skepticism extended to both sides on Thursday, with Carson pointing out that no matter whats in the monument proclamation, there will be elements of sovereign immunity the premise that the federal government can make certain decisions within its jurisdiction that cannot be challenged. Regardless of what Utah claims, sovereign immunity could stand in their way. Carson was also skeptical of the scope of the review Utah requested, which identifies protections for scores of objects in the monument that the state says are unwarranted. Do you expect that this court would go through your complaint and pass judgment on all 500 objects? he asked. Purser responded that the state has a case if theres even one object. Matthew Campbell, an attorney for the Native American Rights Fund who represented the tribal nations, echoed Bies, telling the court that the question of ultra vires the legal term that in this case refers to Biden going beyond his authority is not applicable. Campbell also pushed back on the states claim that some objects in the monuments dont warrant protection under the Antiquities Act. It identified dwellings, communal houses, burial grounds, he said. Many of the places within Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante were within the presidents jurisdiction to protect. Harry Graver, the attorney for BlueRibbon, boiled their argument down to a simple soundbite. The president has authority under the Antiquities Act to set aside land for A, B and C. Our contention is he set aside land for D, E, F, said Graver. Youre doing something you were never allowed to do. A long road to the U.S. Supreme Court Utah leaders have repeatedly said their goal is to present their case to the U.S. Supreme Court, evidenced by how Purser opened his argument on Thursday, citing U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who in 2021 said the Antiquities Act has somehow been transformed to have no limits. He hoped that the U.S. Supreme Court would get a case where they can review these limits. This is that case, Purser said. Almost immediately, Judge Richard Federico asked Purser if any previous cases challenging the presidents authority have been successful. Purser acknowledged they have not, but said the arguments Utah is now presenting havent been raised in the past, telling the judges, Here we have a clear case of proclamations that exceed any reasonable interpretation of the Antiquities Act. It wasnt immediately clear how the court will rule, as justices pressed attorneys on both sides. Regardless, the path to the high court will be convoluted if the 10th Circuit rules in favor of the federal government and effectively dismisses Utahs lawsuit (which several attorneys after the hearing told Utah News Dispatch would be very unlikely) the state will have a clear path to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. But the appeal would be centered on how courts can review challenges to the Antiquities Act, not whether the monuments are lawful. If theres a remand, the case would go back to Nuffer, although its unclear if he would take it up again or defer to another judge. The legality of the monuments would then be left up to the district courts and its likely that any ruling would result in another appeal, until it gets to the Supreme Court. After the hearing, Steve Bloch with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, an environmental group, said he thinks the 10th Circuit judges will likely send the case back to a lower district but he doesnt expect that to help the state. Im not going to be surprised if theres a remand to the district court, said Bloch, whose organization has challenged multiple decisions from the state of Utah and the Trump administration in court. Were comfortable with that because what the president did here is within the wheelhouse of the Antiquities Act. Bloch said any kind of review ordered by the court will not be as comprehensive as what Utah hopes. Meanwhile Ben Burr, the executive director of the BlueRibbon Coalition, said hes hopeful the court will give them a path forward, providing attorneys representing his group and the state guidance on how challenges to the Antiquities Act should proceed. A good decision for us would be to just give us something to work with, he said. We believe theres an appetite in the Supreme Court, its just getting them the right case. Thats what we believe were doing through this process, but its definitely not a straight line. In a statement following the hearing, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes reiterated the states argument, while telling Utah News Dispatch the state is still seeking appropriate safeguards for the cherished lands in the heart of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante regions. Designations of this magnitude require resources, careful planning, and input from local stakeholders, Reyes said. We have eagerly awaited the opportunity to explain to the Tenth Circuit how the law and facts favor more reasonable-sized monuments. Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com. Follow Utah News Dispatch on Facebook and X. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE The newly installed Bears Ears National Monument sign marking the boundary of Bears Ears National Monument during the sign unveiling on June 18, 2022. (Photo courtesy Bureau of Land Management) Thursday was a big day for the future of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, as attorneys argued for and against the legality of President Joe Bidens decision to reinstate the monuments after former President Trump reduced their original size. For about an hour, attorneys presented their oral arguments in two lawsuits challenging the monuments Garfield v. Biden and Dalton v. Biden which have now been consolidated into one case, before a panel of three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. The hearing took place at the Wittemyer Courtroom at the University of Colorado Boulder Law School. Its unclear when or how the panel of judges will make a decision, but one thing is certain the legal challenge to the monuments is far from over. The key question Thursday was whether a court can review challenges to the Antiquities Act, a law passed by Congress in 1906 that gives the president authority to declare national monuments to protect areas of cultural, historical and scientific significance. Its how President Theodore Roosevelt issued protections for the Grand Canyon, and has been used by presidents since, including Democratic presidents Bill Clinton, who designated Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Barack Obama, who designated Bears Ears. In 2017, both monuments were drastically reduced in size by President Donald Trump, who cut Bears Ears from 1.36 million acres to 1 million acres, and Grand Staircase-Escalante from 1.35 million acres to just 229,000 acres. Then, in 2021, President Joe Biden restored the monuments to their original size, again using the Antiquities Act. That authority was promptly challenged by the state of Utah, which in 2022 joined forces with Garfield County to sue the Biden Administration in federal court. Another lawsuit was then filed by local landowners and the BlueRibbon Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for outdoor recreation and has repeatedly protested public land and conservation policies from the federal government. Those suits have now been consolidated. The Antiquities Act, the states lawsuit argued, was not intended to enact sweeping, million-plus acre designations. But the suit was dismissed in August 2023 by U.S. District Judge David Nuffer, who wrote that the Antiquities Act grants discretionary authority to the U.S. president when it comes to monument designations. According to Stanford Purser with the Utah Attorney Generals Office, who argued the states case on Thursday, Nuffers decision was based on a lack of guidance guidance that the justices with the 10th Circuit should provide. The court can and should interpret these limits within the Antiquities Act to confirm that Utah and the counties have a stated claim that in turn will provide the guidance that the district court said he needs to proceed in this case, said Purser. He sort of just threw up his hands and said, I dont know what to do here. John Bies, who represented the United States, on the other hand argued that the Antiquities Act grants the president such broad authority that its not the courts responsibility to review monument designations. The judges pushed back, asking him a hypothetical question if Biden designated all federal land in Utah a national monument, should that be subjected to review? If they have a bonafide basis, they can designate any federal land, Bies said. Judge Joel Carson pressed him further. There are all sorts of historic sites and important species in Utah. Could they do it? Bies responded, Yes. But the justices skepticism extended to both sides on Thursday, with Carson pointing out that no matter whats in the monument proclamation, there will be elements of sovereign immunity the premise that the federal government can make certain decisions within its jurisdiction that cannot be challenged. Regardless of what Utah claims, sovereign immunity could stand in their way. Carson was also skeptical of the scope of the review Utah requested, which identifies protections for scores of objects in the monument that the state says are unwarranted. Do you expect that this court would go through your complaint and pass judgment on all 500 objects? he asked. Purser responded that the state has a case if theres even one object. Matthew Campbell, an attorney for the Native American Rights Fund who represented the tribal nations, echoed Bies, telling the court that the question of ultra vires the legal term that in this case refers to Biden going beyond his authority is not applicable. Campbell also pushed back on the states claim that some objects in the monuments dont warrant protection under the Antiquities Act. It identified dwellings, communal houses, burial grounds, he said. Many of the places within Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante were within the presidents jurisdiction to protect. Harry Graver, the attorney for BlueRibbon, boiled their argument down to a simple soundbite. The president has authority under the Antiquities Act to set aside land for A, B and C. Our contention is he set aside land for D, E, F, said Graver. Youre doing something you were never allowed to do. A long road to the U.S. Supreme Court Utah leaders have repeatedly said their goal is to present their case to the U.S. Supreme Court, evidenced by how Purser opened his argument on Thursday, citing U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who in 2021 said the Antiquities Act has somehow been transformed to have no limits. He hoped that the U.S. Supreme Court would get a case where they can review these limits. This is that case, Purser said. Almost immediately, Judge Richard Federico asked Purser if any previous cases challenging the presidents authority have been successful. Purser acknowledged they have not, but said the arguments Utah is now presenting havent been raised in the past, telling the judges, Here we have a clear case of proclamations that exceed any reasonable interpretation of the Antiquities Act. It wasnt immediately clear how the court will rule, as justices pressed attorneys on both sides. Regardless, the path to the high court will be convoluted if the 10th Circuit rules in favor of the federal government and effectively dismisses Utahs lawsuit (which several attorneys after the hearing told Utah News Dispatch would be very unlikely) the state will have a clear path to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. But the appeal would be centered on how courts can review challenges to the Antiquities Act, not whether the monuments are lawful. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX If theres a remand, the case would go back to Nuffer, although its unclear if he would take it up again or defer to another judge. The legality of the monuments would then be left up to the district courts and its likely that any ruling would result in another appeal, until it gets to the Supreme Court. After the hearing, Steve Bloch with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, an environmental group, said he thinks the 10th Circuit judges will likely send the case back to a lower district but he doesnt expect that to help the state. Im not going to be surprised if theres a remand to the district court, said Bloch, whose organization has challenged multiple decisions from the state of Utah and the Trump administration in court. Were comfortable with that because what the president did here is within the wheelhouse of the Antiquities Act. Bloch said any kind of review ordered by the court will not be as comprehensive as what Utah hopes. Meanwhile Ben Burr, the executive director of the BlueRibbon Coalition, said hes hopeful the court will give them a path forward, providing attorneys representing his group and the state guidance on how challenges to the Antiquities Act should proceed. A good decision for us would be to just give us something to work with, he said. We believe theres an appetite in the Supreme Court, its just getting them the right case. Thats what we believe were doing through this process, but its definitely not a straight line. In a statement following the hearing, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes reiterated the states argument, while telling Utah News Dispatch the state is still seeking appropriate safeguards for the cherished lands in the heart of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante regions. Designations of this magnitude require resources, careful planning, and input from local stakeholders, Reyes said. We have eagerly awaited the opportunity to explain to the Tenth Circuit how the law and facts favor more reasonable-sized monuments. Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com. Follow Utah News Dispatch on Facebook and X. A hiker looks inside an ancient granary, part of the House on Fire ruins in the South Fork of Mule Canyon in the Bears Ears National Monument on May 12, 2017 outside Blanding, Utah. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images) BOULDER, Colo. Thursday was a big day for the future of Utahs Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, as attorneys argued for and against the legality of President Joe Bidens decision to reinstate the monuments after former President Trump reduced their original size. For about an hour, attorneys presented their oral arguments in two lawsuits challenging the monuments Garfield v. Biden and Dalton v. Biden which have now been consolidated into one case, before a panel of three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. The hearing took place at the Wittemyer Courtroom at the University of Colorado Boulder Law School. Its unclear when or how the panel of judges will make a decision, but one thing is certain the legal challenge to the monuments is far from over. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The key question Thursday was whether a court can review challenges to the Antiquities Act, a law passed by Congress in 1906 that gives the president authority to declare national monuments to protect areas of cultural, historical and scientific significance. Its how President Theodore Roosevelt issued protections for the Grand Canyon, and has been used by presidents since, including Democratic presidents Bill Clinton, who designated Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Barack Obama, who designated Bears Ears. In 2017, both monuments were drastically reduced in size by President Donald Trump, who cut Bears Ears from 1.36 million acres to 1 million acres, and Grand Staircase-Escalante from 1.35 million acres to just 229,000 acres. Then, in 2021, President Joe Biden restored the monuments to their original size, again using the Antiquities Act. That authority was promptly challenged by the state of Utah, which in 2022 joined forces with Garfield County to sue the Biden Administration in federal court. Another lawsuit was then filed by local landowners and the BlueRibbon Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for outdoor recreation and has repeatedly protested public land and conservation policies from the federal government. Those suits have now been consolidated. The Antiquities Act, the states lawsuit argued, was not intended to enact sweeping, million-plus acre designations. But the suit was dismissed in August 2023 by U.S. District Judge David Nuffer, who wrote that the Antiquities Act grants discretionary authority to the U.S. president when it comes to monument designations. According to Stanford Purser with the Utah Attorney Generals Office, who argued the states case on Thursday, Nuffers decision was based on a lack of guidance guidance that the justices with the 10th Circuit should provide. The court can and should interpret these limits within the Antiquities Act to confirm that Utah and the counties have a stated claim that in turn will provide the guidance that the district court said he needs to proceed in this case, said Purser. He sort of just threw up his hands and said, I dont know what to do here. John Bies, who represented the United States, on the other hand argued that the Antiquities Act grants the president such broad authority that its not the courts responsibility to review monument designations. The judges pushed back, asking him a hypothetical question if Biden designated all federal land in Utah a national monument, should that be subjected to review? If they have a bonafide basis, they can designate any federal land, Bies said. Judge Joel Carson pressed him further. There are all sorts of historic sites and important species in Utah. Could they do it? Bies responded, Yes. But the justices skepticism extended to both sides on Thursday, with Carson pointing out that no matter whats in the monument proclamation, there will be elements of sovereign immunity the premise that the federal government can make certain decisions within its jurisdiction that cannot be challenged. Regardless of what Utah claims, sovereign immunity could stand in their way. Carson was also skeptical of the scope of the review Utah requested, which identifies protections for scores of objects in the monument that the state says are unwarranted. Do you expect that this court would go through your complaint and pass judgment on all 500 objects? he asked. Purser responded that the state has a case if theres even one object. Matthew Campbell, an attorney for the Native American Rights Fund who represented the tribal nations, echoed Bies, telling the court that the question of ultra vires the legal term that in this case refers to Biden going beyond his authority is not applicable. Campbell also pushed back on the states claim that some objects in the monuments dont warrant protection under the Antiquities Act. It identified dwellings, communal houses, burial grounds, he said. Many of the places within Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante were within the presidents jurisdiction to protect. Harry Graver, the attorney for BlueRibbon, boiled their argument down to a simple soundbite. The president has authority under the Antiquities Act to set aside land for A, B and C. Our contention is he set aside land for D, E, F, said Graver. Youre doing something you were never allowed to do. A long road to the U.S. Supreme Court Utah leaders have repeatedly said their goal is to present their case to the U.S. Supreme Court, evidenced by how Purser opened his argument on Thursday, citing U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who in 2021 said the Antiquities Act has somehow been transformed to have no limits. He hoped that the U.S. Supreme Court would get a case where they can review these limits. This is that case, Purser said. Almost immediately, Judge Richard Federico asked Purser if any previous cases challenging the presidents authority have been successful. Purser acknowledged they have not, but said the arguments Utah is now presenting havent been raised in the past, telling the judges, Here we have a clear case of proclamations that exceed any reasonable interpretation of the Antiquities Act. It wasnt immediately clear how the court will rule, as justices pressed attorneys on both sides. Regardless, the path to the high court will be convoluted if the 10th Circuit rules in favor of the federal government and effectively dismisses Utahs lawsuit (which several attorneys after the hearing told Utah News Dispatch would be very unlikely) the state will have a clear path to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. But the appeal would be centered on how courts can review challenges to the Antiquities Act, not whether the monuments are lawful. Let us know what you think... If theres a remand, the case would go back to Nuffer, although its unclear if he would take it up again or defer to another judge. The legality of the monuments would then be left up to the district courts and its likely that any ruling would result in another appeal, until it gets to the Supreme Court. After the hearing, Steve Bloch with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, an environmental group, said he thinks the 10th Circuit judges will likely send the case back to a lower district but he doesnt expect that to help the state. Im not going to be surprised if theres a remand to the district court, said Bloch, whose organization has challenged multiple decisions from the state of Utah and the Trump administration in court. Were comfortable with that because what the president did here is within the wheelhouse of the Antiquities Act. Bloch said any kind of review ordered by the court will not be as comprehensive as what Utah hopes. Meanwhile Ben Burr, the executive director of the BlueRibbon Coalition, said hes hopeful the court will give them a path forward, providing attorneys representing his group and the state guidance on how challenges to the Antiquities Act should proceed. A good decision for us would be to just give us something to work with, he said. We believe theres an appetite in the Supreme Court, its just getting them the right case. Thats what we believe were doing through this process, but its definitely not a straight line. In a statement following the hearing, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes reiterated the states argument, while telling Utah News Dispatch the state is still seeking appropriate safeguards for the cherished lands in the heart of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante regions. Designations of this magnitude require resources, careful planning, and input from local stakeholders, Reyes said. We have eagerly awaited the opportunity to explain to the Tenth Circuit how the law and facts favor more reasonable-sized monuments. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE A big rig containing lithium ion batteries overturned in San Pedro Thursday afternoon, sparking a fire that reportedly led at least one battery to explode. (KTLA) A hazardous fire broke out in San Pedro around noon on Thursday after a big rig carrying lithium ion batteries overturned, causing at least one battery to explode, authorities said. Los Angeles City Fire Department officials and a hazardous materials team were sent to 940 N. Seaside Ave. at 11:48 a.m. to combat the dangerous blaze, authorities said. The 47 Freeway was closed in both directions from the Southbound 710 to Harbor Boulevard, including a section of the Vincent Thomas Bridge, according to an LAFD spokesperson. There were no reports of injuries, evacuation orders or widespread hazardous warnings. However, significant traffic gridlock was expected in this major artery for trucks bringing goods to and from the harbor. Read more: Tesla big-rig battery ignites after crash, spewing fumes and shutting California freeway "Any incident that shuts down a highway is going to cause a large impact for the commuters, especially in this area of the port as the Port of Los Angeles is the second-largest port in the world," said California Highway Patrol Sgt. Daniel Keene. "Luckily, in this situation, there are alternative routes around the area." The freeway closure could last up to 24 or even 48 hours as officials deal with the hazardous materials, Keene added. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. A bird that hadn't ever been photographed or recorded was finally documented this summer in the remote reaches of a small island in Oceania, one of the top bird-watching destinations in the world. The Mussau triller hadn't been spotted since 1979 when a group of birders set eyes on the multicolored cuckooshrike in June, Birds of the World reported. The adventurers took photos and recorded sounds of nine trillers in three flocks. The beautiful bird, native to Mussau Island of Papua New Guinea, has distinctive white streaks on its black wings and a chin, chest, and belly that is half white with a rust-color bottom. The group, led by Joshua Bergmark, was an envoy of the Search for Lost Birds project, a collaboration of the American Bird Conservancy, BirdLife International, and Re:wild. "Usually, you often hear these birds before you see them. In this case one of the clients saw it first before he heard anything," Bergmark told Birds of the World. "They were just moving around with the other birds and feeding, doing their own thing while we watched them." On a BirdGuides summary of the news, a commenter pointed out that a detailed description of what seemed to be a sighting of a dozen Mussau trillers was documented in 1999 and that the species was heard as well in 2016. Still, the bird had not been spotted for decades in part because it likes to hide. Its habitat is tall trees in the middle of the island's dense forest, and that has made it mostly inaccessible. But the triller is also losing that habitat to logging, with the forest cut back by 7.2% from 2020 to 2023; the birders were able to find the animal by traversing a logging road, Birds of the World reported. The outlet also noted the birding community's importance in the work of Search for Lost Birds, which found the dusky tetraka last year in Madagascar for the first time in 25 years. This and similar conservation efforts including a habitat restoration that led the Least Bell's Vireo to return to Los Angeles prove essential to understanding these magnificent creatures that can fly through the air. "It is vitally important to check up on island species, like the triller," John Mittermeier, the director of the Search for Lost Birds at ABC, told Birds of the World. "We don't know how a bird like this responds to these habitat changes caused by logging and invasive species. The fact that Josh and his group found the triller and confirmed its presence after so many years is stunning news." Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet. BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) The City of Birmingham has announced the condemnation of Bankhead Towers, a high-rise apartment complex for residents age 62 and older. A notice to vacate was plastered on the front doors of the complex, urging residents to leave as soon as possible. Bankhead Towers was originally built as a hotel in 1926 but was subsequently converted to subsidized apartments in the mid-1970s. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin attends White House address on gun violence in wake of weekend mass shooting The notice reads as follows: Whereas, it has been determined by appropriate inspection that the building to which this order is attached does not comply with the provisions of ordinance No.15-164 of the general code of Birmingham, Alabama, SEC. 108.5 of the property maintenance code as codified in the city of Birmingham Technical Code, 2015. All persons are hereby warned that it is unlawful to rent, lease, occupy, or permit the use or occupancy of this building for human habitation or as a place of employment for humans, or to remove or deface this placard except as provided in section 108.4.1 of the property maintenance code for the city of Birmingham, 2015. Any person failing to comply with said notice shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor or civil infraction as determined by the local municipality and the violation shall be deemed as a strict liability offense which may impose fines up to $500.00 per day for each offense. City spokesperson Rick Journey confirmed that the city is working to determine residents next steps and making sure their well-being remains a top priority. No further information has been 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 CBS 42. Black women bear the brunt of violent crime, but are often overlooked. They see Kamala Harris as an ally. People attend the Crime Survivors Speak March on Washington in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on September 24, 2024. People attend the Crime Survivors Speak March on Washington in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on September 24, 2024. (Courtesy of Sway The Crowd) WASHINGTON, D.C. A march in the nations capital this week drew thousands of crime victims and their loved ones, capturing an often-ignored reality: Women of color bear the brunt of violent crime in the United States. The crowd that gathered near the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday consisted of mostly Black women. Led by the nonprofit Alliance for Safety and Justice, the effort challenges the countrys prevailing law and order approach that has historically encouraged harsh criminal sentences and policing. Now, 30 years after the Violence Against Women Act was enacted, participants called for a new victims rights movement rooted in crime prevention, rehabilitation, economic mobility and trauma recovery over punitive measures that expand incarceration rates. But in conversations with The 19th, Black women both victims of violent crime and mothers of victims expressed more complicated feelings over how to balance seeking justice with prevention efforts. Their thoughts signal how this group is thinking about the stakes of the 2024 election, and how many see Vice President Kamala Harris a presidential candidate with a career in prosecution who centers victims, but also acknowledges harms of the system as an ally. Some people can be rehabilitated, some people are just mean and evil, said Karen Spencer-McGee, a 60-year-old survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault who lives in Memphis, Tennessee. So there are some things that should be punishable. But you cannot address crime without addressing poverty and the miseducation of Black and Brown people. In 2023, Black women faced the highest rates of victimization (27.2 violent crimes per 1,000 women), according to federal data. Despite this, Spencer-McGee and other Black women at the Crime Survivors Speak March on Washington shared a common feeling that they were dismissed by police or treated as suspects after experiencing violence. Research bears this out, indicating that crimes committed against Black people are less likely to be solved by law enforcement and less likely to receive news coverage than crimes targeting White people. Marchers described finding community with women in similar circumstances and working together to advocate for themselves. Sabchilnata Parker, 53, from Eustis, Florida, lost her 21-year-old son Andrew Davon Jones after he was robbed and fatally shot outside a grocery store in 2016. Parker said over the years she has repeatedly tried to get updates from law enforcement, but feels shunned. The case is still open. Id go to talk to the police captain and I would get blown off, like this is just Black-on-Black on crime, and they shove it under the rug, Parker said. When asked her thoughts about incarceration, she said the real problem is access to guns, and that the country needs stricter gun regulations. For offenders who repeatedly commit serious crimes like murder, however, there needs to be more severe punishments like long-term incarceration, she said. Black voters and public officials have grappled with what role punishment should play in the criminal justice system for years. Three decades ago, the country was reeling from record high violent crimes rates that reached a peak in 1991. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, also known at the 1994 crime bill, was pushed by national political figures, including then-U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, as a way to solve the issue. Some Black lawmakers rejected the bill and demanded more attention to prevention, but more broadly, a 1994 Gallup survey indicates that 58 percent of Black Americans also supported the bill, compared with 49 percent of White Americans. Ultimately, the 1994 crime bill passed and has since faced wide criticism for expanding policing and harsh criminal punishments that fell hard on adults and children in Black communities. During peak incarceration levels in the early 2000s, Black people represented about 12 percent of the U.S. population but 38 percent of incarcerated people. Black voters are acutely aware of the harms of mass incarceration and data indicates they want systemic reforms to policing and a reduction in incarceration. The same is true for crime survivors, according to figures from the Alliance for Justice and Safety. A 2022 report by the organization found that most victims prefer crime responses that focus on rehabilitation and access to things like employment and housing over increasing arrests and time in prison. But without the political will from lawmakers to fund evidence-based prevention efforts, the communities most affected by crime are left to turn to existing forms of accountability. People attend the Crime Survivors Speak March on Washington in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on September 24, 2024. (Courtesy of Sway The Crowd) There is this recognition that something needs to be done about violent crime. So for communities that are feeling the brunt of that trauma, that harm, that fear of crime, the thing that is sort of routinely looked at in this country because we dont have a ton of alternatives is the police department, Jocelyn Fontaine, a senior fellow in the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, told The 19th ahead of the march. In many ways, Harris attempt to toe the line between a tough on crime approach and criminal justice reform mirrors that conflict. Harris has said that her journey to becoming a prosecutor began in high school, after learning that her best friend was being molested by her father. It was a desire to protect people like her friend that sparked an interest in the law, Harris said. Early on in her career, Harris was assigned to work on child sexual abuse cases, an experience she carried to her roles as district attorney of San Francisco and California attorney general by setting up units to handle those issues. She has repeatedly positioned herself as a champion for victims and those who feel neglected by the system. It is a myth to say that African Americans dont want law enforcement. We do, Harris said at a 2006 panel when she was the San Francisco DA. We want our grandmothers to be able to walk to church and be safe. We want our babies to be able to walk to the park and be safe. What we dont want is racial profiling. What we dont want is excessive force. What we dont want is to have our civil liberties and civil rights be stripped. Harris went on to say that incarceration without robust reentry services to support people after leaving prison will lead to repeat offenses. Though Harris framing of the issue has evolved, the core message behind those 2006 remarks has remained. Her 2024 presidential campaign website celebrates the Biden-Harris administrations efforts to remove illegal guns and invest in local law enforcement and community safety programs. At the D.C. march, women survivors and mothers of crime victims pointed to similar priorities. I want to see from her more police action, more foot action from sergeants and detectives and homicide cases. I want to see more compassionate officers, said Andrelena Rosser, a Memphis resident who lost her 32-year-old son, DeAndre Rosser, who was a bystander in a shooting in April. Rosser said she supports Harris interest in community policing; she believes that officers taking the time to get to know a neighborhood can help build trust and a sense of safety. She also appeared frustrated when thinking about the harmful effects of policing and prisons. In particular, she was critical of long-term sentences for children, and emphasized that there should be government efforts to reach at-risk youth early on with educational or employment opportunities and mental health services. Its so hard, Rosser said. I know they have to be punished if they commit a crime, but give them something. A 15-year-old never having a chance or possibility of coming back home I hate to even think of that. Despite signs of some uncertainty over how best to navigate the issue, Black women at the march were resolute in their support for Harris. As women at the intersection of violent crime and mass incarceration, Harris legal background and public image as a voice for crime victims gives them hope that they wont continue to be overlooked. We gotta vote, Parker said. Once she steps in, I believe theres gonna be monumental change, especially for the Black women and what we stand for, because sometimes were not heard. The post Black women bear the brunt of violent crime, but are often overlooked. They see Kamala Harris as an ally. appeared first on The 19th. News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday. Subscribe to our free, daily newsletter. By Humeyra Pamuk, Simon Lewis and David Brunnstrom NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken underscored strong U.S. concerns about China's support for Russia's defense industrial base in talks on Friday with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, saying Beijing's talk of peace in Ukraine "doesn't add up." In a meeting with Wang on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Blinken said he also raised China's "dangerous and destabilizing actions" in the South China Sea and discussed improving communication between their militaries. Blinken told a press conference he and Wang also discussed ways to disrupt the flow of drugs into the United States, and the risks posed by artificial intelligence. About 70 percent of the machine tools Russia is importing and 90 percent of the microelectronics come from China and Hong Kong, Blinken added. That was materially helping Moscow to produce the missiles, rockets, armored vehicles and munitions needed to perpetuate its war, he said. "So when Beijing says that, on the one hand, it wants peace, it wants to see an end to the conflict, but on the other hand, is allowing its companies to take actions that are actually helping Putin continue the aggression, that doesn't add up." Wang said his country's position on the war in Ukraine had always emphasized the need for peace through talks, China's foreign ministry said in a statement. "The United States should stop smearing and planting evidence against China, imposing sanctions indiscriminately, and using this (conflict) ... to create and encourage confrontations between different camps," it cited Wang as saying. On Friday, China and Brazil pressed ahead with an effort to gather developing countries behind a Ukraine peace plan, despite President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's dismissal of the initiative as serving Moscow's interests. The meeting of 17 nations was chaired by Wang and Brazilian foreign policy adviser Celso Amorim. Wang told reporters they discussed the need to prevent escalation, avoid use of weapons of mass destruction and prevent attacks on nuclear power plants. The White House and the European Union said this week they were deeply concerned by a Reuters report that Russia has set up a weapons program in China to develop and produce long-range attack drones for use in the war. Earlier on Friday, Wang declined to comment on the report, when queried by a reporter at the U.N. headquarters. Blinken said "pressing Iran, North Korea and China ... to stop providing weapons, artillery, machinery and other support" to Russia was crucial to achieving a lasting peace in Ukraine. China and the United States, the world's two biggest economies, are at odds on a wide range of issues such as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, U.S. export curbs on advanced chip technology, trade tariffs, Taiwan and human rights. Beijing has repeatedly complained about U.S. ties and arms supplies to Taiwan. It has also urged the United States to scrap tariffs on its goods and denounced U.S. proposals to ban its software and hardware in vehicles due to national security concerns. Last week, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said the challenges to the U.S. posed by China exceeded those of the Cold War Relations plummeted last year after the United States shot down a Chinese spy balloon, but both have since sought to keep open lines of communication to prevent, the U.S. says, competition from spiraling into conflict. U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan met Chinese President Xi Jinping last month at the end of talks to ease frictions ahead of November's U.S. election. The White House said then a call was being planned soon between Xi and U.S. President Joe Biden. Asked about this after meeting Wang, Blinken said he had nothing to announce, but the two officials had agreed on the importance of their leaders communicating and added: "I fully anticipate that we'll see that in the weeks and months ahead." (Reporting by David Brunnstrom, Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis; Additional reporting by Joe Cash in Beijing; Editing by Howard Goller and Alistair Bell) Blinken confirms over US$5bn in military aid for Ukraine in coming months US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has confirmed the intention to allocate US$5.55 billion under the presidential weapon stockpile reduction authority for weapons and equipment for Ukraine in the coming weeks and months. Source: European Pravda with reference to Blinken's statement Quote: "The Department notified Congress of the intent to direct the drawdown of up to approximately $5.55 billion in defence articles and services from DoD stocks for military assistance to Ukraine under Presidential Drawdown Authority." Details: This is in addition to the previously announced funds under the Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act 2024, which expires on 30 September 2024. "We are taking this step to ensure this Authority does not expire and the United States can fully utilise the funding appropriated by Congress," Blinken explained. "By doing so, the United States will be able to continue to provide a surge in defence articles and services to Ukraine from DoD stocks under planned drawdowns in the weeks and months ahead," he added. Blinken said the United States is committed to supporting the Ukrainian military with the equipment necessary to strengthen their position on the battlefield, protect their territory and people from the brutal aggression of the Kremlin and achieve victory in this war to ensure a just, lasting and comprehensive peace. Background: The US Department of Defense has also announced a US$2.4 billion package for security assistance through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI). President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with US President Joe Biden at the White House. Before the meeting, Zelenskyy stated that they would discuss the details of the Victory Plan and coordinate further steps. US President Joe Biden stated shortly before his meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House that Russia will not win the war with Ukraine. Support UP or become our patron! Blinken to hold talks with Chinese counterpart amid worries about China's drone assistance to Russia U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Sept. 27 during the United Nations General Assembly in New York. This meeting between the top diplomats of both countries comes in response to increasing U.S. concerns regarding Chinese companies supplying chips and drones to Moscow, significantly enhancing Russia's military capabilities in its ongoing war against Ukraine. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell has informed Congress that China's material support for Russia's war effort "comes from the very top," the Voice of America (VOA) reported. Blinken's discussions with Wang will occur before a scheduled call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, anticipated later this fall. Earlier this week, President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the U.N. General Assembly, asserting that Ukraine would never accept a deal imposed by other nations to conclude Russias 31-month invasion, and questioned the intentions of China and Brazil in advocating for negotiations with Moscow. For months, U.S. officials have accused China of actively supporting Russia's war effort. Washington has placed sanctions on Chinese firms supplying critical components to Russia's defense sector. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller recently told VOA that the U.S. openly discusses its "differences" with China to ensure both countries "at least understand where the other is coming from, even if we cant reach an agreement." Read also: Opinion: As Russia circumvents sanctions, Europe faces a strategic crossroads Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. (Bloomberg) -- Kenyas biggest phone company Safaricom Plc is in talks with Elon Musks Starlink and other satellite providers on potential future partnerships, its Chief Executive Officer Peter Ndegwa said. Most Read from Bloomberg From a satellite perspective, we have to partner with Starlink or other satellite providers in future to make sure that that technology plays right through, he said in an interview in New York. We have had some discussions, and we will continue to have those discussions to the extent that they complement what we are offering. While Musk, the worlds richest man, has won the hearts of consumers by launching satellites into low-Earth orbit to beam down broadband, internet and mobile companies that invested in local networks have raised concerns about whether the service complies with local laws. The governments of Taiwan and India have echoed those worries while the likes of Indonesia, Argentina and Ghana have changed or waived their regulations for the SpaceX unit. Sign up for the twice-weekly Next Africa newsletter for the latest business and economic news from the continent. Starlink has struck partnership agreements to distribute and provide internet services in remote areas in many parts of the world, shying away from equity or ownership deals. It has a license to operate in Kenya. An advocacy group in the East African nation has taken Safaricom to court, claiming the company is actively seeking to block Starlink, according a filing seen by Bloomberg. Ndegwa said during the interview that the company wasnt trying to hinder Starlink, but rather asking regulators for a level playing field. Theres a misconception about Safaricom getting in the way, Ndegwa said. We dont have the ability to prevent anyone from operating in Kenya. That is a regulatory decision. Safaricom sent a letter to regulators in July, asking that foreign satellite providers be required to take local telecommunications operators as partners when doing business in Kenya to boost investment and employment, and comply with local laws, according to advocacy group Kituo Cha Sherias law suit. The wireless operator also told officials that allowing services such as Starlink to operate on independent licenses could lead to security risks and lapses in regulatory oversight, due to the cross-border nature of satellite services, according to the groups court filing. Story continues The advocacy group said any restrictive action by Safaricom or Kenyan regulators would be anti-competitive as it would limit access to faster and cheaper internet. Ndegwa said Safaricom is successful because it invests between $300 million and $350 million to expand telecommunications infrastructure in Kenya each year. We are not worried about competition, well deal with it, Ndegwa said. You can follow Bloombergs reporting on Africa on WhatsApp. Sign up here. --With assistance from Andre-Pierre Du Plessis. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday in New York City, the U.S. State Department said. Ties between the world's two biggest economies have been tense as they clash over U.S. export controls on advanced chip technology to China, trade tariffs, Taiwan, human rights and the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. The meeting between the two top diplomats will take place at 1330 ET (1730 GMT) on Friday, according to the State Department. The Chinese foreign minister is in the U.S. for the United Nations General Assembly session. China this week urged the U.S. to "promptly" remove all additional tariffs on Chinese goods. The United States has expressed concern over Chinese ties with Russia since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine while Beijing has repeatedly expressed worries over U.S. ties with Taiwan. The U.S. is Taiwan's most important international backer and arms supplier even though Washington does not formally recognize its government, maintaining official relations only with Beijing. The challenges to the U.S. posed by China exceed those of the Cold War, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said this month. President Joe Biden's administration has been explicit that it is not seeking a cold war with China, but increasingly analysts and members of the U.S. Congress have said escalating global competition between the two superpowers resembled a new style of cold war. The two sides have kept lines of communication open in recent months. The White House said last month a call was being planned between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Biden soon. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Edwina Gibbs) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (Heather Khalifa) (Heather Khalifa/POOL/AFP) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday questioned China's sincerity in seeking peace in Ukraine as he directly pressed his counterpart over exports that boost Russia's military. Blinken met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, the latest talks as the two powers look to dial down once-soaring tensions. While crediting the diplomacy with bringing progress, Blinken warned that the United States would not back down on concerns over China's exports to Russia and made clear that Washington could impose more sanctions. Blinken said that China is fueling the "war machine" of Russian President Vladimir Putin. "When Beijing says that, on the one hand, that it wants peace, it wants to see an end to the conflict, but on the other hand is allowing its companies to take actions that are actually helping Putin continue the aggression, that doesn't add up," Blinken told a news conference. "Our intent is not to decouple Russia from China. Their relationship is their business," he said. "But insofar as that relationship involves providing Russia what it needs to continue this war, that's a problem for us, and it's a problem for many other countries, notably in Europe," Blinken added. The top US diplomat said that China has provided 70 percent of machine tools and 90 percent of microelectronics needed by Russia for military production that includes rockets and armored vehicles. China counters that it has not directly provided weapons to Russia and draws a contrast with the United States, which has shipped billions of dollars in weapons to Ukraine since the 2022 invasion by Russia. Wang told a Security Council session on Tuesday that China "is not a creator of the Ukraine crisis, nor are we a party to it. China has all along stood on the side of peace." - Keeping up peace push - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a UN address criticized China and Brazil for promoting negotiations to end the war, saying that forcing Ukraine to accept a peace deal was akin to colonialism. The two countries kept up the drive on Friday, leading a statement with other emerging powers that calls for a "comprehensive and lasting settlement" through diplomacy. But in a thinly veiled criticism of Putin's recent saber-rattling, the emerging powers called on all sides to refrain "from the use or the threat of weapons of mass destruction." South Africa and Turkey were among the powers that also signed the statement. Putin this week threatened to use nuclear weapons in the event of a major attack on Russian soil as Ukraine, looking to hit back against the invasion, seeks Western weapons to strike deeper across the border. - Fruits of diplomacy - Since Blinken and Wang last met in July at a regional conference in Laos, China has pleased the United States by releasing an American pastor imprisoned for years, although other Americans are detained. Chinese President Xi Jinping, during a summit in November 2023 with counterpart Joe Biden, agreed to key US demands of restoring military communication between the two powers. He also agreed to taking action against producers of ingredients in fentanyl, the painkiller behind an overdose epidemic in the United States. But a wide range of disagreements remain. Blinken said he also warned Wang against Beijing's "dangerous, destabilizing actions" on the South China Sea, where tensions have risen sharply between China and US ally the Philippines. The latest meeting came ahead of the November 5 election in which Republican candidate Donald Trump has vowed to take a harder line on China. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running against Trump, have said that they seek dialogue to avoid conflict between the two powers, although their administration has also taken a hard line. Blinken's deputy, Kurt Campbell, recently told a congressional hearing that China posed a broader challenge to the United States than the Soviet Union did during the Cold War. sct/gw/bjt U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken attends a meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israel on Thursday that further escalation to the conflict involving Lebanon will only make it harder for civilians to return home on both sides of the border, the State Department said. Israel rejected global calls on Thursday for a ceasefire with the Hezbollah movement, defying its biggest ally in Washington and pressing ahead with strikes that have killed hundreds in Lebanon and heightened fears of an all-out regional war. Despite Israel's stance, the U.S. and France sought to keep prospects alive for an immediate 21-day truce they proposed on Wednesday, and said negotiations continued, including on the sidelines of a United Nations meeting in New York. "The Secretary discussed the importance of reaching an agreement on the 21 day ceasefire across the Israel-Lebanon border," the State Department said in a statement referring to talks between Blinken and Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer. "He underscored that further escalation of the conflict will only make that objective (of civilian return) more difficult." The State Department added that Blinken also discussed efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and steps that Israel needs to take to improve delivery of humanitarian assistance in the enclave where nearly the entire 2.3 million population is displaced and a hunger crisis exists. U.S. President Joe Biden laid out a three-phase ceasefire proposal for Gaza on May 31 but the deal has run into obstacles, mostly over Israeli demands to maintain presence in the Philadelphi corridor on Gaza's border with Egypt and specifics about exchanges of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. Washington has faced mounting global and domestic criticism over its backing of Israel amid the escalation of conflict in Lebanon, where Israeli strikes have killed hundreds in recent days. Critics say Washington has not leveraged its assistance to pressure Israel into accepting ceasefire calls. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to address the United Nations General Assembly on Friday. The latest bloodshed in the decades old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's subequent military assault on Gaza has killed over 41,000, according to Palestinian health authorities. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh, Eric Beech and Costas Pitas; Editing by Stephen Coates) Received a blue booklet in the mail? Heres what it cost to send them to Colorado voters DENVER (KDVR) Voters across Colorado have recently been sent a State Ballot Information Booklet, which includes information on measures that will appear on the ballot for the 2024 General Election on Nov. 5. These booklets are sent to every household with a registered voter in it and this year, around 2 million were sent out. When are ballots mailed out in Colorado? The Colorado Legislative Staff Council, which creates and sends out the booklets for statewide elections, told FOX31 that the booklets for the 2024 election cost around $3.65 million to produce. This does not include the staff costs for creating the material in the booklets. What are the booklets, and why are they sent out? According to the Colorado General Assembly, the booklets are created to provide voters with the text, title, and a fair and impartial analysis of each initiated or referred constitutional amendment, law, or question on the ballot. These include summaries of the measures, major arguments for and against each of them and what fiscal impact the measures may have. There are 14 statewide measures on the ballot in 2024, ranging from tax proposals to creating a ranked-choice voting system for statewide elections. 14 statewide initiatives included on Colorados November ballot The booklets also have performance evaluation information about judges who will appear on the ballot for retention. The state booklets have been sent out since 1954, and have historically been sent out on years when general elections are held in the state. These general elections are held every two years on even-numbered years. While this is usually the case, the booklets have been sent out every year since 2018, including years when general elections were not held. How to register to vote or update voter registration in Colorado The booklets are printed in both English and Spanish. In 2024, the booklets are 244 pages long, with 122 pages in English and 122 pages in Spanish. The booklets were sent out to voters starting Sept. 11, and ballots will be sent out starting Oct. 11. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Bluefield Virginia Police Department advises against travel except in emergency situations BLUEFIELD, VA (WVNS) Due to the weather and multiple fallen trees, a local police department advised people to not travel in the town of Bluefield, Virginia except in emergency situations. According to a post on the Bluefield Virginia Police Departments Facebook page, members of the police department encouraged members of the community to stay home unless there is an emergency. StormTracker 59 Interactive Radar The Bluefield Virginia Police Department stated that there are fallen and actively falling trees, flooded roads, road closures, and downed power lines in town, and it is recommended for people to stay home. The fire department, police department, town crews are working to close and clear trees from roads. Stick with 59News and StormTracker 59 for the most up to date weather 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 WVNS. PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) A Sioux Falls man accused of stealing thousands of dollars from patients has lost his state license to practice addiction counseling or prevention services. The South Dakota Board of Addiction and Prevention Professionals on Friday revoked the license of Earvin Archambeau. Treatment center counselor charged with embezzlement He decided to not attend and wasnt represented. Archambeau previously oversaw the residential program for patients at the Carroll Institute in Sioux Falls. He was terminated after an internal investigation. On December 28, a formal complaint against Archambeau was filed to state board. He filed a two-page response to the complaint. Exhibit-1-ComplaintDownload Sioux Falls police arrested Archambeau in April. On September 16, Archambeau responded to an email from the states assistant attorney general notifying him of the disciplinary hearing. Exhibit-2-ResponseDownload Archambeau wrote, I am unable to attend the hearing due to work training. I have no new information as far as my legal obligations and have no new testimony from what I sent in the response to the complaint. I accept the boards decision on this matter when the hearing is concluded. The board on Friday heard from one witness, Tiffany Butler, executive director at the Carroll Institute, who filed the complaint. Butler is president of the state Board of Examiners for Counselors and Marriage and Family Therapists. In her testimony, Butler explained that the Carroll Institutes residential patients place money they have with the institute for safekeeping and that Archambeau was the employee with access to the bank account. Butler said the institutes finance manager noticed last year that the institutes records didnt match the amounts on the bank statement for three deposits. Butler said she contacted Archambeau and that led to further disclosures. It became a much larger issue than just those three checks, Butler said. Butler said she had confirmed on Wednesday that the total unaccounted amount was $18,500. She acknowledged the possibility of human error and that other Carroll Institute employees have access to the records, but she said Archambeau was the only employee with access to the bank account. According to Butler, Archambeau raised the possibilities that other counselors had access to the institutes spreadsheet and the institutes 24/7 staff receives money and writes receipts. But, Butler said, He could have caught that immediately. She said Archambeau didnt note those discrepancies. Butler said Archambeau repeatedly told her that hes not an Excel expert, referring to a Microsoft software program. After Archambeau was fired, Butler said the institutes training manager and human-resources representative reviewed contents of his former office. Various deposit slips, receipts and a settled judgment for approximately $11,000 were found. Butler said it was later learned that one of the deposit slips contained a name of a woman who had been in a relationship with Archambeau. Butler said the woman told her that Archambeau would have the woman make deposits in her personal account and then use mobile payment systems to transfer the amounts to him. Erin Handke from the state Attorney Generals office asked Butler whether the $18,500 had been recovered. It has not, Butler replied. Handke then asked whether anyone else could have been responsible for the missing money. No, Butler answered. None of the boards members had any questions for Butler. They went into executive session to discuss possible actions against Archambeau. A hour-hour later, they returned to open session. The boards president, Jill Veidt of Pierre, called for Archambeaus license to be revoked. There was no public discussion and the vote to revoke was unanimous. Kristi Jacobsma, a board member employed by Carroll Institute, was recused from the executive session and the 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 KELOLAND.com. An aerial view of the Boar's Head processing plant that was tied to a deadly food poisoning outbreak Thursday Aug. 29, 2024, in Jarratt, Va. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) Boar's Head, the deli meat company at the center of a deadly listeria food poisoning outbreak, is being scrutinized by law enforcement officials, the U.S. Agriculture Department disclosed in response to government records requests. Officials with USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service refused to share documents regarding the agency's inspections and enforcement at the Boar's Head plant in Jarratt, Virginia, plus inspection reports from eight other company factories across the U.S. The records which FSIS acknowledged include dozens of pages of documentation were withheld because they were compiled for a law enforcement purpose, which includes both civil and criminal statutes, according to a letter sent Friday in response to Freedom of Information Act requests submitted by The Associated Press. Releasing the records could interfere with and hinder the government's investigation, the letter said. The AP asked for records regarding the listeria outbreak that, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has killed 10 people and sickened at least 50 in 19 states since May. Listeria bacteria were initially detected in samples of Boar's Head liverwurst and later traced to illnesses in people. Previously released records revealed problems including mold, insects, dripping water and meat and fat residue on walls, floors and equipment dating back at least two years. Boar's Head earlier recalled more than 7 million pounds of deli meat distributed to stores across the country. This month, the Sarasota, Florida-based company said it has closed the Virginia plant and permanently stopped making liverwurst. Boar's Head is facing several lawsuits filed by victims and their families. FSIS officials did not respond to AP's emails seeking additional comment about the records. Justice Department officials declined to comment on potential legal actions against Boar's Head. This week, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Rep. Rosa DeLauro called on the Agriculture and Justice departments to work closely to determine whether to bring criminal charges against Boar's Head in connection with the crisis. In response, USDA's own internal investigators are reviewing the agency's work and will decide by the end of the year whether to open an inquiry, according to Blumenthal's office. Past food poisoning outbreaks have resulted in criminal and civil penalties. In 2020, Chipotle agreed to pay a record $25 million to resolve criminal charges over tainted food that sickened more than 1,100 people in outbreaks between 2015 and 2018. In 2015, former Peanut Corporation of America executive Stewart Parnell was sentenced to 28 years in prison after an outbreak of salmonella in his company's peanut butter killed nine people and sickened more than 700. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content. From the G-File on The Dispatch Dear Reader (except for those of you body shaming the bears), Earlier this week Kamala Harris laid out her economic vision, or something. At Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, she said: As president, I will be grounded in my fundamental values of fairness, dignity, and opportunity. And I promise you, I will be pragmatic in my approach. I will engage in what Franklin Roosevelt called bold, persistent experimentation. Because I believe we shouldnt be constrained by ideology and, instead, should seek practical solutions to problems, realistic assessments of what is working and what is not, applying metrics to our analysis, applying facts to our analysis, and stay focused, then, not only on the crises at hand but on our big goals, on whats best for America over the long term. Now, Ill speak plainly. I dont believe her. But Ill get to that. First, lets discuss this bold, persistent experimentation thing. There are few supposedly glorious lines from American civic history that annoy me more than this. It comes from FDRs Oglethorpe University Commencement Address in 1932. Then-presidential candidate Roosevelt said: The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach. Now, as political boilerplate amid of a deep and lasting depression, I think this was forgivable campaign rhetoric. The problem is that progressives have made this bold, persistent experimentation thing into a kind of catechism for their governing philosophy. And its garbage. If a doctor were stumped about why you had a seething pain behind your right eye, I doubt you would be all that reassured if he said, Huh. Im out of ideas for what this could be. Lets try some bold persistent experimentation and see what works. Let me get my drill. The role of government is not to conduct a science experiment with peoples lives and livelihoods. The scientific method is great, but its great at science. Like in a lab, with petri dishes full of flan or lab animals. But citizensand, yeah, taxpayersarent spores or pink-eyed rats. Every dollar the government spends on one experiment that doesnt work is a dollar it could have spent on something that does work. Or a dollar it could have left in the pockets of the people who earned that money in the first place. Or a dollar it could have used to pay down the national debt. There are lots of better uses for dollars out there than bold experiments. Dont get me wrong, Im not a fanatic on this point. Of course theres room for some pilot programs and government investment. But that has never been the spirit in which that catechism is offered. FDR was famously borrowing language from American philosophical pragmatism. And that school of thought held that ideological constraints on the freedom of action of experts were folly. Why should the Constitution or the law restrain the government during a crisis? The experts know what to do better than the politicians, and if they dont know what to do, let them experiment! In other words this experimentation thing was always an argument for power, not principle. This is my lasting beef with philosophical pragmatism in a nutshell. (Im holding a nutshell full of beef right now, but you cant see it.) Pragmatists used their method to attack competing sources of authority and abstract or antique constraints on their power. Oh your fusty and dusty ideas about the Constitution or free-market principles are dogmatic and hidebound. Were willing to break with tradition. Dont tell us this has never been done or that it cant work! Were not ideologues! Were experimenting here! People know I am a fan of the ideanot coined by methat behind every double standard is an unspoken single standard. Well, the single standard behind all of the experimenters and pragmatists going back a century now is that all of the experiments should involve more government. If these guys were the open-minded, no idea is too crazy, freethinkers they claim to be, something close to half of their ideas would be about closing government agencies, privatizing various functions, cutting subsidies, and clearing away red tape. But it sure seems like the vast majority of these experimentsoutside of drug legalization and defunding the policealways involve more regulations, more government spending, more government workers. FDR was pro-union. But he thought unionizing government employees was a mad idea, calling them unthinkable and intolerable. Tell me, where is the spirit of boldness and the courage to think outside of the box when it comes to teachers unions? The most obvious way you can tell a lot of this stuff was simply an effort to clear the field of competing ideologies is to ask: Where are all of these frank admissions of failure I keep hearing about? If the point is to boldly experiment, then failureand admitting failureis essential. But we get a lot of Shatner-esque pronouncements about bold new initiatives and not very many frank admissions of failure. One explanation for this century-long failure to admit failures is that this was never really about experimentation. But there are a bunch of others. It turns out that even people who brag about their disinterested commitment to follow the facts and data with robot-like dedication are, in reality, human beings. And human beings dont like to admit their pet projects and ideological fixations are wrong. Intellectuals and activists become invested in their causes (for instance, I think it will be a while before, say, political adviser Oren Cass stops fighting with pretty much every economist out there over tariffs). The more human response from all of these fake pragmatists is to say, Real X was never tried! Or, If we only funded it properly it would have worked! And then theres politics. Even if this stupid analogy makes it sound like experimentation is cost-free and always beneficial, politicians actually know that Im right about the scarcity of resources. No politician wants to say, Well, we really thought this gazillion dollar high speed rail system would work. Oy, were we wrong. Oh well, lets move onto the next hugely expensive experiment paid for with your tax dollars! Every Democratic president since FDR has tried to cosplay FDR to one extent or another, and Im pretty sure theyve all quoted this bold, persistent experimentation line. Theyve certainly all invoked its spirit. Off the top of my head I can only recall two instances of Democratic presidents have come close to frankly admitting error: Bill Clinton declaring the era of big government is over and Barack Obama admitting to the New York Times that his whole shovel-ready jobs thing was wrong. I mean this sincerely: Good for Obama for admitting that. But tell me, how many Democrats have scratched the idea of shovel-ready jobs off their ideological lists, and how many have just scratched the slogan off their lists? I see no evidence that Joe BidenObamas vice presidentlearned any important lessons along these lines that he applied during his presidency. And I dont see any evidence that the Democratic Party has either, except again, for the need to avoid saying that phrase until people forget and they can try again. Thats why I dont believe Kamala Harris when she says her priority is to apply facts and metrics to her analysis and to stay loyal to the spirit of experimentation. Politicians have been saying this stuff for a century. And its always been bunk. Various & Sundry You may not know this, but there are six U.S. state capitals west of Los Angeles. But thats not important right now. What is important is that were running a program to provide subscriptions to The Dispatch for college students. Given all of the rage-click stuff out there on the left and the right, we think The Dispatch is a great resource and safe haven for reliable information and nonpartisan journalism. Sponsor a student subscription here. Canine Update: I dont have too much to report because Ive been away from home, where it sounds like things are going well. Zoe seemed to be getting better before I left. But she does have more low-energy days more often than we would like. Hopefully the fall weather will help. Zoe is taking her pack protection responsibilities more seriously these days (while Pippa is thinking deep thoughts). Gracie is a sweetheart. Chester is a pill. And Penny is a doll. Shes been interning at the Dispatch office and shes understandably very, very popular. The Dispawtch Owners Name: Sharon Peterson Why Im a Dispatch Member: Jonah and Steve have always been the ones I turned to for a reasonable take on whatever was going on. So when they created an island of sanity in a world gone crazy, I was in from the beginning. Kevin coming over was pure lagniappe. Thats why I joined. I stay because The Dispatch has assembled not just the most interesting and thought-provoking opinion writers anywhere, but also, with The Morning Dispatch, the most factual, well-informed news team in the business. Pets Name: Sam Pets Breed: Labrador Retriever Pets Age: 6 Gotcha Story: Several years ago, we retired to a small ranch in the Texas Hill Country, bringing with us our previous, mature, calm, well-trained Labrador Retriever. We lost him way too early and took a year to be ready for a new dog. Once we started looking, we quickly found that the fencing out here, designed for livestock, was a concern to the Lab rescues we spoke to. So in the end, we decided to get a puppy from a rural breeder and raise him as a ranch dog from the get-go. When the litter was a few weeks old, we went and picked the yellow male with the big feet and the white paper collar. While waiting for the pups to get old enough to go to their new homes, the breeder sent us periodic photo updates including a video of the whole litter in a play yard, chasing her young daughters back and forth. Eight puppies, run-stumbling across the yard, and one of them suddenly smashes head-first into a pole. We zoomed in for a closer inspection of that little paper collar, and yep! Thats our boy! Pets Likes: Food. Catching frisbees. Food. Chasing armadillos. Food. Pets Dislikes: Thunder, vultures, and things hitting the roof of the motor home we like to vacation in (we cannot park under oak trees). Pets Proudest Moment: The day he succeeded in getting two Kong toys and a deer antler in his mouth all at the same time. Moment Someone (Wrongly) Said Pet Was a Bad Dog: The day Sam snuggled up to my elderly mother for a pat and snatched the muffin off the plate on her tray. She wasnt wrong. ICYMI Bad guys Middle-brow moral authority Pager? I hardly know her! Invasion of the Body Snatchers II: Beltway Bros Much ado about everything Mr. Lonely Cooling your jets Now for the weird stuff The shred of Turin Stuff of nightmares The sexual ratvolution Gone rouge Ratatouilles world tour Partner in name only No, really, Ill sell you to the gypsies! Dual income, one cat General Bucky E. Beaver addresses troops 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. DENVER (KDVR) Boulder secured an agreement with the property owners of an off-campus residence known as the Ash House to return the building to approved conditions within two weeks, the city announced Thursday. However, the city is standing behind its original position that the property is currently presenting life-safety risks to residents. City officials issued notices to tenants of the building, located at 891 12th St., on Sept. 16. The city said the owner had created bedrooms in each apartment unit without city approval. FOX31 Newsletters: Sign up for weather alerts from the Pinpoint Weather team The city had approved plans presented by the property owners, 891 12th St. LLC., to convert the building into 16 three-bedroom apartments, and all of the apartments were required to meet the citys current building code. The city said applications were submitted and approved to allow 48 students to live in the building. However, the city said the closure notices were going to displace approximately 60 student renters. A civil lawsuit was filed to prevent the displacement of those residents, and a hearing was held Friday. The city said the property owners had acknowledged the life-safety threats at the court hearing. A judge ruled that the residents would be allowed to stay in the Ash House as the city and LLC worked toward an agreement. On Thursday, the city said it secured such an agreement with the LLC wherein the property owners committed to addressing current life-safety issues and building code violations at the property and restore it to its approved condition within two weeks. The city has been proactively working with the property owners on a resolution. Our hope is to make this property safe for the students who are living there as quickly as possible, said Brad Mueller, director of Planning & Development Services, in a release. We know this has been a disruptive situation for the students and are committed to doing what we can to work toward a fast resolution with the property owners and bring certainty to tenants. There is another court hearing scheduled for Oct. 8, which the city said will be held if needed. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (FOX 56) The Bowling Green Fire Department has announced the death of one of their first responders. The fire department said 29-year-old Stephen Rosie Rosebrook collapsed due to a severe cardiac event after running the Bowling Green Med Center 10K Classic on Sept. 14. LATEST KENTUCKY NEWS: Around 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, it was announced Rosebrook had died. The Bowling Green Fire Department said Sten began his career with them in 2017 and started working as an engineer in 2021. They said he also served as a paramedic with the Medical Center EMS. Stephen was deeply committed to his community and always willing to lend a hand to his fellow firefighters. His passion for service and his generous spirit have left an indelible mark on all who knew him. Stephen leaves behind his loving parents, brother, fiance, and one daughter. His passing has created a tremendous void, and he will be dearly missed. Our thoughts and deepest sympathies go out to his family, friends, and colleagues during this difficult time, the department wrote on Facebook. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 56 News. Im 26 years old and bought a $1,500/month whole life policy surrendering will cost me $6,500. Did I get scammed? Whole life insurance is often marketed as a potential investment opportunity. You may be told that you get a death benefit to protect your loved ones and an investment vehicle that you can live off of tax-free as a retiree. Sadly, while these promises have some truth to them, the reality is that whole life insurance policies can be needlessly expensive, make accessing your funds cumbersome and offer a poor investment option compared to most others on the market. Don't miss For example, if you've been sold a whole life insurance policy at 26 that requires you to pay $1,500 a month for the foreseeable future, you're likely in a tough position. You may even want to consider cutting your losses and finding a policy thats more suitable for you. Here's why. Who benefits from a whole life insurance policy? Whole life insurance policies arent necessarily the best option for the vast majority of people. As financial radio host Dave Ramsey explains, these policies are "probably one of the worst financial products alive today." Ramsey is strongly against them because, as he said to a caller on The Ramsey Show, they can be 20 times more expensive than term life insurance policies while earning you an average investment return of about 1.2%. Ramsey isn't the only critic, either. Ramit Sethi, host of Netflixs How to Get Rich, has also called whole life policies "a scam," and a "waste of money" that "directs cash into the pockets of salespeople and insurance companies." Most people don't need life insurance coverage for their whole life, as family members stop depending on their income eventually. Unless you fall into one of a few valid exceptions, such as being the parent of a child living with a disability who needs lifelong support, you're likely better off buying a term life insurance policy offering coverage only for the period you need. You can invest the money you save on a term versus whole life insurance premium and put it in an S&P 500 fund that has historically produced an average annual return of 10% significantly higher than what a whole life policy tends to offer. Story continues Read more: These 5 magic money moves will boost you up America's net worth ladder in 2024 and you can complete each step within minutes. [https://moneywise.com/managing-money/how-to-earn-money/money-moves-to-make-right-now?throw=C2HALF_streamline) &placement_syn=placement_2&native_creative_id=295&targeting_group=284 Should you cash out? So, what happens if you bought a whole life policy and then discovered its not benefiting you? Unfortunately, these policies routinely include surrender fees and they're often larger if you cash out quickly. Insurers justify these fees because they claim it costs them money to set up and administer the policy. They're also partially designed to get you to keep the coverage. While it may be painful to pay a surrender fee, it could be more painful to keep paying $1,500 a month on a subpar investment for decades. Unfortunately, you likely wont break even on your cash value investment for the first few years of the policy. As a result, tens of thousands of dollars can go to waste in the process. The money you've already put in, and the surrender fees, may have to be a sunk cost. But its best not to throw good money after bad if the policy doesnt make sense for you. By finding an affordable term life insurance policy and putting the difference into the stock market, you can eventually make up for the lost funds over time by earning higher returns and end up better off in the end. What to read next Cost-of-living in America is still out of control use these 3 'real assets' to protect your wealth today, no matter what the US Fed does or says 'It's not taxed at all': Warren Buffett shares the 'best investment' you can make when battling rising costs take advantage today 82% of Americans are missing out on a savings account that pays over 10 times the national average This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind. Bradenton man pleads guilty after using pepper spray on officers in Jan. 6 Capitol riot A Bradenton man pleaded guilty to felony charges after he joined thousands of other rioters to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Prosecutors say Tom Vournas, 63, known as El Greco and Leonard The Riddler Lobianco, 53, of North Port, disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress that convened to count electoral votes for the 2020 presidential election. They joined other supporters of former President Donald Trump to dispute the official election certification, prosecutors say. Vournas pleaded guilty Thursday to felony charges of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers using a dangerous weapon and inflicting bodily injury, while Lobianco pleaded guilty to civil disorder, according to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. Prosecutors say Vournas and Lobianco were members of a local chapter of the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, and traveled from Florida to Washington D.C. to participate in the events of Jan. 6, 2021. On the morning of Jan. 6, prosecutors say Vournas and Lobianco met a group of around 100 Proud Boys members that marched from the Washington Monument to the Capitol. Bradenton man pepper sprayed Capitol police, prosecutors say Once the Proud Boys arrived at the Peace Circle, a restricted portion of the Capitol grounds, prosecutors say the two men and other members of the crowd violently trampled metal barriers before surging past officers. Prosecutors say they then made their way toward the northwest stairs of the West Terrace of the Capitol, where police struggled to contain the mob while certain members of the Proud Boys assaulted and engaged with police, according to a news release. Prosecutors say Vournas sprayed pepper gel toward police officers, hitting a United States Capitol Police officer in the face and injuring them. Vournas and Lobianco entered the Capitol through the Senate Wing Door and took pictures inside before leaving a few minutes later, according to a news release. The Federal Bureau of Investigations arrested Vournas and Lobianco on Jan. 4, according to a news release. U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth will sentence Vournas and Lobianco in January, according to a news release. Over 1,000 people have been charged after breaching the Capitol that day, according to the Department of Justice. Vournas is the fourth person with ties to the Bradenton area who has pleaded guilty to charges connected to the Jan. 6 riot. Fridays live updates: At least 17 deaths reported across South Carolina due to Helene Hurricane Helene punched the Midlands and South Carolina with high winds and heavy rain Friday, leaving 17 dead statewide, a mess of flooded streets, downed trees and millions of homes without power. Four deaths each have been reported in Aiken and Greenville counties, three in Spartanburg County and two in each of Anderson, Newberry and Saluda counties, the Associated Press tweeted Friday afternoon. Gov. Henry McMaster said at a press conference that two of those who died were Saluda County volunteer firefighters. The Aiken County Coroners Officer confirmed it is investigating four hurricane-related deaths, all of which were due to trees falling through the roofs of homes. The office was unable to provide additional details as of Friday afternoon. As of 2 p.m. Friday, 1.23 million customers were without power in South Carolina, according to PowerOutage.us. The outages were especially widespread across the Midlands and in the southeastern section of the state. More than 91,000 customers were without power in Richland County as of 2 p.m., while Lexington County had nearly 103,000 outages. Spartanburg County had 171,000 outages at that point, while Greenville County had more than 260,000 customers without power. 4:15 p.m. President Joe Biden has approved an emergency declaration for South Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Helene. The presidential declaration authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate all disaster relief efforts in Palmetto State, opening up federal funding to assist in the Palmetto States recovery efforts. Two trees rest on a car on Trenholm Road near the intersection with Churchill Circle after Hurricane Helene hits Forest Acres, South Carolina on Friday, September 27, 2024. 3:31 p.m. One of the Midlands most noteworthy festivals, the Irmo Okra Strut, which was scheduled for this weekend, has been canceled amid the damage from Helene. Due to the ongoing State of Emergency in South Carolina and the significant damage caused by the recent storm, the Town of Irmo has decided to cancel the Lexington Medical Center Irmo Okra Strut, including the parade and all festivities at Moore Park, the town said in a statement. With numerous fallen trees, widespread power outages, debris-strewn streets, and damaged traffic signals, prioritizing the safety of our community is paramount. Our public resources are fully dedicated to recovery efforts, ensuring the well-being of all residents. 3:20 p.m. South Carolina officials are watching the potential impacts of a dam failure in North Carolina. An evacuation order was issued Friday for residents near the Lake Lure dam in western North Carolina, TV station WCNC reported, as officials warned that water could begin spilling over the dam due to the amount of rainwater swelling the reservoir. Lake Lure feeds into the Broad River that connects to the Congaree River near Columbia. Congaree Riverkeeper Bill Stangler said hes monitoring the situation at Lake Lure, but said that many other dams would intervene before any spillage makes its way to the Midlands. Were already expecting pretty significant flooding on the Broad and Congaree, so it depends on how much water (overspills the dam) and when it arrives, Stangler said. Currently, the Congaree is expected to crest at 28 feet late on Sunday, Stangler said. Thats enough to put the river into moderate flood stage. Speaking at a press conference with the governor Friday afternoon, Department of Environmental Services Director Myra Reece said her department is monitoring the situation, but noted that Lake Lure is 53 miles upstream from South Carolina, and any water from a dam failure would take about 13 hours to reach the state. To be conservative, we are looking at structures on the Broad River in Cherokee County and well make notifications, Reece said. Fairfield County on the east side of the Broad north of Columbia called on citizens living near the river to be alert to any possible affects from a dam failure. We ask that everyone stay tuned to their televisions, radios, apps, etc for more information should it need to be disseminated to the public, the county said in a statement at 3 p.m. Trees that fell when Hurricane Helene hit Forest Acres, South Carolina, weigh down power lines near the intersection of Piedmont Drive and Claremont Drive on Friday, September 27, 2024. 2:45 p.m. Saluda County has implemented a countywide curfew beginning at 6:30 p.m. Friday and lasting until 8 a.m. Saturday, the county announced in a Facebook post. The highways and secondary roads still have down trees and power lines blocking lanes and it is very unsafe for travel, the post said. For everyones safety, please make plans to be off the roads before 6:30 p.m. this evening. Saluda is the second Midlands county to implement a curfew because of the damage wrought by Hurricane Helene overnight. The Aiken County Sheriffs Office is also enforcing a curfew from 7:30 p.m. Friday to 7:30 a.m. Saturday. 2:21 p.m. Sumter County felt the impact of Helene on Friday, according to Sheriff Anthony Dennis office. Wind gusts were as high as 52 mph in the county at one point. As of 2 p.m., the Sumter County Sheriffs Office had received 75 reports of downed trees and 50 reports of downed power lines. Never go near downed power lines, Dennis said. They may appear to be inactive but could still be energized and can be deadly. Parents should educate their children on the danger of fallen power lines. If you see a tree downed across a road or power lines down, call 911 and report it. 1:50 p.m. For nearly 10 consecutive blocks on Sunset Blvd (378) in Lexington, traffic lights were out behind a massive power outage, leaving countless businesses, including gas stations, restaurants and retail stores, idle. Downtown Lexington was mostly a ghost town with few people walking out on the streets and multiple businesses and government buildings closed, including the Lexington County Court House. Streets were heavily littered with tree debris. In a residential neighborhood, two massive trees were down, blocking traffic from traveling on Mill Stream Road. Two downed trees block motorists on Mill Stream Road in Lexington from traveling in either direction. 1:19 p.m. Aiken County has issued a curfew for Friday night in the wake of Hurricane Helene. Sheriff Michael Hunt said the curfew will last from 7:30 p.m. Friday until 7:30 a.m. Saturday. This act is being used as a deterrence for anyone who would want to take advantage of our citizens who have been greatly impacted by the storm, Hunt said in a statement. We have a substantial interest in the safety and security of our communities. A release from Aiken County said that violators/looters will be arrested. Hunt issued the curfew under an emergency declaration that had been signed by Aiken County Council Chairman Gary Bunker on Thursday night ahead of the storm. 12:55 p.m. The Newberry County Sheriffs office posted a message about the dire state of storm damage in that county north of Richland as of Friday afternoon. There is widespread damage, the sheriffs office posted to Facebook at about 12:45 Friday. Power is out everywhere. Please stay off roads. Power crews are working but it is all over. Please be patient. Emergency Services are overwhelmed with calls but are still responding. Please be patient. According to PowerOutage.us almost all of Newberry County was without power as of 12:45, with 15,800 outages among 16,000 customers. Meanwhile, in Lexington County, sheriffs department spokesman Adam Myrick said that 68% of the county remained without power as of Friday afternoon. 12:42 p.m. The Columbia Police Department warned residents to watch out for downed power lines across the city, noting there were lines down on Abingdon Road and Hillcrest Avenue, among other locations. Police said that Dominion Energy officials advise residents to stay at least 30 feet away from any downed lines, always assume the lines are energized, and contact the power company immediately. 11:30 a.m. The city of Columbia on Friday morning reopened portions of a pair of streets that had been closed because of significant rainfall from the storm. Whaley Street between Assembly Street and Sumter Street was reopened, as was Main Street between Catawba Street and Whaley Street. The city noted that if trees are down in the public right of way or blocking roadways, residents should call the customer care line at 803-545-3300. 11:25 a.m. The city of Columbia has confirmed a sanitary sewer overflow into Lake Murray Friday morning. The spill occurred near Sail Point Way and Sail Point Court due to a third-party equipment failure. Crews are on scene addressing the issue. 11:20 a.m. In the Midlands, the cities of Cayce, Irmo, Lexington and West Columbia are all closed, as is Richland County. Lexington County and the town of Chapin opened their offices after a two-hour delay Friday morning. The city of Columbia has limited operations on Friday. 11:15 a.m. The Columbia office of the National Weather Service reports that the highest wind gust recorded at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport was 67 mph at 6:12 a.m. That was right as Helenes remnant eye wall approached the area. Meteorologist Pierce Larkin said possible tornado strikes associated with the storm have been reported, but weather service agents have been unable to get out to confirm as of 11 a.m. due to dangerous road conditions around the area. He said the widespread power outages and storm damage were a consequence of the intensity with which Helene, then a Category 3, made landfall in Florida and then quickly pushed over the Southeast. Coupled with the heavy rainfall Thursday that seeped into the soil, the perfect conditions existed to bring down multiple trees. That was 12 hours ago now and its already in central Appalachia, so its been moving rapidly, Larkin said. Weve already had quite a bit of rainfall in northern half of the state, so with really intense winds and saturated soil, thats lead to a lot of the tree damage. Gills Creek is high after Hurricane Helene hit Forest Acres, South Carolina on Friday, September 27, 2024. 11 a.m. The Lexington County Sheriffs Department said first responders continue to assess storm damage and road closures there. Dozens of roads across the county are impassable due to downed trees, power lines and other debris, Public Information Officer Capt. Adam Myrick said. We have no reports of major injuries or deaths associated with the storm. 10:45 a.m. Officials with the Irmo Fire District reported that dozens of trees went down Friday morning, crashing into houses and across yards. No neighborhood was spared, the fire district posted, alongside a photo of a tree that crashed through a house. Stay home. The Irmo Fire District shared a photo Friday morning of a tree that crashed through a house in the town. 10:40 a.m. Dominion Energy said it will be opening a spill gate at Lake Murray, releasing more water into the Saluda River to deal with additional water brought on by Helene. In addition to flowing water through the Saluda Hydroelectric plants generators, Dominion Energy will open a spill gate at the Lake Murray dam around 11 a.m., said Matthew Long, who does media relations for Dominion. This will compensate for a unit at the plant that is out of service for scheduled maintenance. We will continue to monitor the storm and make any adjustments if needed. 10:25 a.m. The University of South Carolina has downed trees around campus, a spokesman said, including one on the Historic Horseshoe, known for its towering oaks. Awaiting info on whether we had any building damage. We have power currently, the spokesman said. The USC Board of Trustees meeting, which was scheduled to be held the systems Bluffton campus, was moved to its Hilton Head campus. The full board will meet, but committee meetings have been canceled. Tree uprooted on USC campus as hurricane blows through Columbia. More at https://t.co/rfKHCoXWsb pic.twitter.com/8GiRnVNEuP Sammy Fretwell (@sfretwell83) September 27, 2024 10:05 a.m. The Columbia Metropolitan Airport is working to continue with flights Friday morning. We have had six delays and six cancellations so far, but we just had our [Dallas/Fort Worth] flight on American Airlines take off, so thats good that they were able to get out, said Kim Crafton, the airports vice president of marketing and air service development. Winds right now are just the biggest issue. As you can guess, the wind gusts make it really challenging for aircraft to take off or land. Currently, we have not had any arrivals this morning, so its just going to be a fluid situation for the next few hours or so, if not the majority of today. Gills Creek is high after Hurricane Helene hit Forest Acres, South Carolina on Friday, September 27, 2024. 10 a.m. Batesburg-Leesville, in the far west of Lexington County, reports a large number of downed trees and other impacts from the storm. The towns police chief, Darren Amick, said they are dealing with about 40 roads blocked by power lines and fallen trees. We have no fatalities, no stranded vehicles. The flooding issue wasnt near as bad as it was last time, Amick said, referring to a storm that caused major flooding issues in the town last summer. So all the roads would be passable, flooding wise, but we got trees everywhere and some roofs off. And of course, some people were stranded in some of their houses and their cars. And we got one family displaced right now thats staying up here at our police department. Impacted roadways include U.S. 1 near Leesville Methodist Church, which is completely blocked by a large tree, and U.S. 23 near Batesburg Baptist Church, which is also completely blocked. 9:48 a.m. City of Forest Acres spokeswoman Lynnsey Baker said the city had more than 30 trees down as of early Friday morning. The spokeswoman advised Forest Acres residents to call their insurance company if a tree is down in their yard, to call Forest Acres Police if a tree is down in a roadway, to contact Forest Acres Fire Department if a tree is on a house and people need to be rescued, and to call Dominion Energy if power lines are down in their yard. A tree toppled over on Juarez Street in Forest Acres on Friday, September 27, 2024. 9:30 a.m. Closed roads due to flooding and debris were widespread throughout Richland County, county spokesperson Susan OCain said Friday morning. Emergency management services across the county asked residents to avoid traveling unless absolutely necessary. Please stay off the roads, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said. We are still experiencing trees and pwoer lines falling. Flooding is occurring throughout Richland County. Please be patient with first responders, they are out there working to protect your life. The county administration asked residents to avoid the following areas: Blythewood: Clamp Road, Roundtree Road, Wren Creek Drive Irmo: Alcorn and Olin Sites Roads, West Ashford Way, Jessie Stoudemayer Road Columbia: Heyward Brockington Court, Riley and Barnes Streets A spokesperson from the Richland County Sheriffs Department said that traffic was restricted along the following roads due to due to downed trees and power lines: Alpine Road, Blossom Street, Forest Drive, Huger Street, Killian Road, South Beltline and the intersection of Hardscrabble Road and Wilson Street. Deputies were working to clear tree limbs while waiting on crews from Dominion Energy to fix the power lines, said a sheriffs department spokesperson. Hurricane Helene uprooted this massive tree on Greene Street by the University of South Carolina campus early on Sept. 27, 2024. 9 a.m. The S.C. Department of Transportation reports that as of 8:52 a.m. the Blossom Street bridge remained closed, as was Kilbourne Road over Gills Creek and South Beltline Boulevard between Plowden Road and Shop Road. There was a lane closure on Two Notch Road between Bayview Drive and Shakespeare Road. Arcadia Lakes Drive was closed in two areas where it passes over water; by Coopers Pond and Arcadia Woods Road, and between Trenholm Road and Sandwood Drive. In the northeast all of Legrand Road between Rabon Road and North Grampian Hills has been closed, as well as Creekwood Drive and Overpond Road, and Alpine Road near Cardinal Newman over Jackson Creek. Killian Road and Killian Loop were closed all the way to Wilson Boulevard, as are Folk Road and Lorick Road between Wilson and View Drive. Forest Lake was overflowing even before Hurricane Helene socked Columbia on Friday Sept. 27, 2024. 7 a.m. In Forest Acres, just east of Columbia, a city spokeswoman said about 15 roads in the city were being affected by downed trees as of 6:53 a.m. Some of the Forest Acres streets and areas with trees down included Linbrook, Gamewell, Pecival near Overcreek, Trenholm and Churchill, Laurel Springs, Spring Lake, Landers Street, Crystakl Drive, Bethel Church and Storkland. Meanwhile, the bridge on Forest Drive over Gills Creek remained closed. Forest Acres officials were urging drivers to stay off city roads early Friday morning. A massive oak tree had fallen and blocked Greene Street on the University of South Carolina campus between Pickens and Laurens streets. The tree was uprooted and lay across multiple cars parked on the two-laned road that is known for its avenue of trees. Students stood near the tree, discussing the mess just after 8 a.m. I was up all night, I was absolutely so scared when we lost power, said USC sophomore Ella McGarrigan, standing outside her home on Greene Street. Hurricane Helene toppled this tree on Greene Street near the University of South Carolina campus early on Friday Sept. 27, 2024. It blocked the street and smashed cars parked there. Branches lay on the ground throughout the Five Points and Shandon areas in the downtown area of Columbia, including near USC. Gusty winds continued through the early morning. Five Points, known for flooding, was relatively dry in the morning. Fridays events followed a watery, flooded Thursday in which creeks overflowed their banks and multiple intersections flooded, including at Whaley and Main Street near USC. As of 7:17 a.m., there were a host of road closures across the town of Lexington, according to the Lexington Police Department. Those included 2400 Mineral Springs Road, 5700 Sunset Blvd/US-378, 4801 Sunset Blvd, South Church Street at Roberts Street, Satcher Road at Pond View Lane, and several streets in the Golden Hills neighborhood. Lexington County offices are operating on a two-hour delay, and the county administration building was without power as of 7 a.m., a county spokesperson said. Richland County offices are closed for the day Friday. The city of Columbia reports trees and power lines are down across roadways and encourages drivers to stay off the roads. This is a developing story. Check back for details. BRANFORD, Conn. (WTNH) Have you received a Hello text from a stranger? A 31-year-old New York man is one of the people behind the scam, according to Branford police. Wenjie He, of Fresh Meadows, 31, worked as a courier as part of a criminal enterprise, according to police. He has been charged with first-degree larceny, conspiracy to commit first-degree larceny, first-degree telephone fraud and conspiracy to commit first-degree telephone fraud. He is being held on a $200,000 bond. The scam He was a part of starts off with a Hello text message, and then builds to try and fake friendships and romances with victims, according to police. From there, scammers try to convince the victims to invest in fake businesses or send them money. His involvement was allegedly to collect the money from the victims. He was arrested on Friday. Police said they plan to make other arrests. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Sir Brian May said the RSPCAs Assured scheme had failed and was continuing to fail - EDDIE MULHOLLAND Sir Brian May has quit the RSPCA in the wake of an investigation into conditions at a flagship Marks & Spencer farm. The Queen guitarist, 77, announced his resignation as vice-president of the animal rights charity after more than 12 years in the role. In a statement released on Thursday night, Sir Brian cited the recent revelations about conditions in some farms as the reason he was stepping down. It comes after an undercover investigation at Charlie Langmeads dairy farm, an RSPCA-assured facility, revealed last week that employees were maltreating the animals. Footage from secret cameras planted by activist Joey Carbstrong showed cows being smacked, kicked and even stabbed with a sharp object at the farm, which has previously been used in M&S advertising. Sir Brian, an outspoken animal rights campaigner, shared a letter he wrote to the board members and trustees of the RSPCA on Instagram in the wake of the revelations. In it, he said: It is with profound sadness and not without massive soul-searching that today I have to offer my resignation as a vice-president of the RSPCA. You have kept me informed through the Save Me Trust of complaints that have been levelled in recent months at the RSPCA over appallingly bad standards of animal welfare in member farms of the RSPCA Assured scheme. The musician continued: I have understood that the RSPCA needed time to evaluate the evidence and make decisions on action to be taken. But as more and more evidence comes to light, I find the RSPCAs response completely inadequate. He added that the charitys Assured scheme had failed and was continuing to fail and urged for the only response to be a complete dismantling of it. In a damning remark, Sir Brian also accused the animal welfare charity of sacrificing their integrity by attempting to defend its position. The RSPCAs Assured scheme covers almost 4,000 farms in the country and its supermarket labels used on items such as chicken, eggs and sausages are intended to inform shoppers that the products have been produced to higher animal welfare standards. The charity has said that it has launched an investigation and wider review into one of the UKs largest food certification schemes by sending welfare inspectors to more than 200 member farms at random. It comes after activists exposed multiple breaches of legal standards at Assured farms earlier this year, including overcrowding, poor hygiene, physical abuse by farm workers in some cases as well as unacceptable health conditions. Sir Brian also announced that his and Anne Brummers wild animal protection charity, The Save Me Trust, has now endorsed the For Charlie campaign, which calls for the RSPCA to abandon its scheme. The campaign has also been backed by celebrity animal rights activists Dame Joanna Lumley, Ricky Gervais and Miriam Margoyles. It is named after Charlie the piglet, who was rescued by activist group Animal Rising from one of the RSPCA Assured pig farms they investigated. She was shown being rescued with a large abscess on her head and later filmed looking healthy and running happily through a grass field. The campaigners are accusing the charity of hiding disease, pain and suffering of the farm animals, stating in a letter: In the 200 years youve been in existence, youve failed to protect the largest group of animals who are suffering the most - animals who are farmed. They cited almost 100 investigations over the past 16 years showing shocking and heartbreaking levels of suffering in the farms and slaughterhouses endorsed by the charity. The RSPCA said that it is still analysing the findings of a comprehensive and independent review of the farms involved in the Assured scheme and will then take any robust action necessary. Sir Brians resignation as vice president comes after 12 years with the charity and decades of vocal animal rights campaigning. He founded the Save Me project in 2010 to promote animal welfare and work against the proposed repeal of the British fox hunting ban. His work in the field was described by an RSPCA spokesman as invaluable and devoted, citing issues he has campaigned on including the badger cull and hunting. Following Sir Brians resignation, a spokesman for the charity said: We have been very proud to have Sir Brian May, a passionate campaigner for animals, as our vice president and we share his desire to create a better world for all animals. We have different views from Sir Brian on how best to approach this complex challenge but we respect his views and understand his decision to step down. They added that improving standards for farmed animals is tough and that they agree with the musician that the rapid growth of low welfare industrial farming is the biggest welfare issue facing animals. Chris Packham, the president of the RSPCA, has previously called on the charity to suspend its Assured scheme, calling it utterly indefensible. Ayesha Smart, the former RSPCA prosecutor and specialist animal welfare barrister, reviewed the footage from Animal Rising and found a total of 280 breaches of the law, and a further 94 breaches of Defra regulations. She said: For the UKs most trusted animal charity to be assuring farms that do not even comply with basic legal requirements is not only misleading the public - it is fraudulent. It is clear the RSPCA Assured scheme cannot legitimately say that it ensures the welfare of its farmed animals and is no longer fit for purpose. 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 policeman in Quetta, Pakistan, shot and killed a man being held in a local police station on charges of blasphemy. The victim, Syed Khan, reportedly made derogatory remarks about Muhammad. The name of the police officer was not reported. The post Brickbat: Bad Words appeared first on Reason.com. Amon G. Carter was another of the larger-than-life figures who dominated Texas business in the early 20th Century. His efforts cemented Fort Worths attempts to become a major industrial and cultural center for the Southwest. Carter was born in 1879 near the small town of Crafton in Wise County. He quit school at the age of 11 to help support the family. In 1905, he settled in Fort Worth, where he soon found work as the advertising manager of the new Fort Worth Star newspaper. However, the newspaper quickly faltered. To save the paper, Carter in 1908 led an effort to raise money to buy the competing Fort Worth Telegram. On New Years Day 1909, he combined the two papers into the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, an extremely successful and profitable publication that became one of the dominant papers of West Texas. He quickly developed a reputation as a civic promoter and eventually made Fort Worths slogan Where the West Begins popular. In 1911, he arranged for the first airplane flight in city history, which began a long relationship between Carter and aviation. By the late 1920s, he was part owner of what became American Airlines and convinced other shareholders to move its headquarters to Fort Worth. In the late 1930s, he convinced what became General Dynamics to open a plant in the city and later attracted Bell Aviation to the area. In 1922, he opened the citys first radio station, WBAP, which for many years shared a frequency with Dallas station WFAA. He also played a role in convincing state leaders to open Texas Tech University in Lubbock in 1923. In the meantime, he bought land and invested heavily in oil exploration. Though Carter never held an elected office, he effectively served as an ambassador for Fort Worths business and cultural interests, becoming one of the most powerful figures in the city. From the 1930s through the 1950s, he nurtured a strong rivalry with Dallas. One story relayed for years was that he had such a dislike for Dallas that he would always bring a sack lunch to any meetings he had in Dallas rather than spend money in the city. Part of this was seen with the fight with Dallas over airports. Carter had supported the creation of Greater Southwest International Airport in the early 1950s, not far from the modern Dallas Fort Worth International Airport while Dallas continued to support its own Love Field. In 1945, he established the Amon G. Carter Foundation to fund cultural and education projects across the state. The foundation has helped fund museums, symphonies, and art projects for decades. It has also established scholarships and provided financing for medical research. After World War II, he expanded his media holdings into television. In 1948, WBAP became the first television station in the South (its call letters changed to KXAS in the 1970s). But after the war, Carter slowed down. His health declined and he suffered the first of several heart attacks in 1953. He died at the age of 76 in 1955. His tireless work for Texas was honored in many ways after his passing. Amon G. Carter Lake in Montague County, constructed in 1956, was named in his memory. In 1961, his daughter, Ruth Stevenson, opened the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, one of the most respected art museums in the state. At Carters request, much of his western art collection was included. The Carter BloodCare Center was founded through donations from the Carter Foundation in 1959 and is one of the largest in Texas, including locations in Bedford and Waco. Amon Carter Riverside High School in Fort Worth is also named in his honor. Buildings at Texas Tech, Texas A&M University, and Texas Christian University are also named after him. Ken Bridges is a writer, historian and native Texan. He holds a doctorate from the University of North Texas. Bridges can be reached by email at drkenbridges@gmail.com. This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Bridges: Amon G. Carter's larger-than-life role in 20th Century Texas NEW BRITAIN, Conn. (WTNH) A 36-year-old New Britain man could spend up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to repeatedly possessing child pornography. Joshua Glaeser was convicted in 2012 of possessing child pornography and spent two years in prison, followed by 10 years of probation. While on probation in 2022, authorities conducted a search warrant on his home, taking electronics that had more than 3,000 images and videos of child sex abuse material. He also used a peer-to-peer file sharing network to distribute the images to others. He faces a minimum of 10 years in prison, and up to 20 years, due to being a repeat offender. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. If you are a Southern Water customer this fjord freshwater could be coming to you, if the companys plan is approved - iStockphoto Southern Water has drawn up contingency plans to ship in water from Norwegian fjords to mitigate against potential supply shortages and drought. The water company, which serves 4.7 million customers, has proposed shipping 45 million litres of glacial water daily for six weeks from Scandinavia to Southampton in a scheme which would be paid for by customers bills. The plan comes after Ofwat, the sector regulator, provisionally agreed that Southern Water could raise bills by 44 per cent over the next five years from April. Southern Water has entered discussions with the UK private company Extreme Drought Resilience Service, according to the Financial Times. The Environment Agency is understood to be in contact with Norwegian regulators over the plan. The agency previously warned that Southern Waters over-reliance on freshwater had left the country more susceptible to droughts. Almost 70 per cent of the companys water supply is currently extracted from groundwater and chalk streams. An environmentally resilient solution Tim McMahon, Southerns managing director for water, described the shipping plans as a last-resort contingency measure that would only be used for a short period in the event of an extreme-drought emergency. Mr McMahon said Southern was working to take less water from its chalk streams and to build new reservoirs such as Havant Thicket in Hampshire, which it hopes to operate from 2034. Southern Water said: Weve adapted our plans to deliver an environmentally resilient solution that meets the requirements of the Environment Agencys abstraction licence reductions, which result in a shortfall of 166 million litres of water a day in Hampshire during a drought. Southern Water received a record fine of 90 million for sewage pollution in 2021, which left it teetering on the brink of collapse before it was taken over by Macquarie, the Australian investment manager, later that year. Water firms have been lobbying regulators to raise customers bills to fund infrastructure development, but campaigners argue consumers have already paid enough for upgrades which have not been undertaken. Parts of England came close to running out of water in the summer of 2022, which was recorded as one of the driest in England on record. Thames Water came within three-and-a-half weeks of exhausting water storage. Meanwhile, March of this year marked the wettest 18 months for England since records began in 1836. 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 A memorial commemorating Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte that misspelled the literary sisters surname has been corrected after 85 years. The editor of the Bronte Society Gazette noticed that a plaque in Westminster Abbeys Poets Corner spelled their last name without the diaereses. She persuaded the abbey to correct the 1939 plaque to reflect Brontes pronunciation as if it rhymed with Monty, not font, The Guardian wrote. The dean of Westminster said he was grateful for the lively remembering of the writers. Memory is not a locked cupboard, but an active thing, he said. BROWN COUNTY, Wis. (WFRV) Since Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach declared fentanyl a public health crisis in September 2022, officials approved a plan to use its opioid settlement funds to implement strategies surrounding raising awareness and addressing the opioid crisis. A key piece to the initiative was the assignment of two drug investigators from the Brown County Sheriffs Office to delve into accidental illicit drug overdoses, which has resulted in significant steps toward justice. Carjacking suspects arrested after shooting toward resident while trying to steal vehicle These investigators dont just look at the tragic event itself, they trace back the pathways of these drugs, says Brown County Sheriff Todd Delain. They work tirelessly to identify the sources of these illicit substances, unearthing the networks that supply them and bringing those responsible to justice. This rigorous approach sends a clear message: if you deal in dangerous drugs that often result in death, you will be held accountable. Since March of 2023, when these investigators started that role with the Brown County Drug Task Force, they have been the primary investigator of 24 illicit drug-related deaths. They have referred charges of first-degree reckless homicide on 12 individuals to the Brown County District Attorneys Office in connection with those 24 deaths. Additionally, two more individuals were charged in the Eastern District of Wisconsin Federal Court system. Over the past 18 months, 14 drug dealers who have distributed illicit drugs resulting in death have been charged. Many of these individuals have already been convicted, including the two in federal court who were sentenced to over 20 years. As a result of these investigations, the Brown County Sheriffs Office has made it more difficult for dangerous drugs to circulate within the community. This accountability not only serves justice but also acts as a deterrent to others who might consider bringing these dangerous drugs to sell in Brown County. Fewer dealers mean fewer drugs on the streets, creating a ripple effect that leads to fewer opportunities for individuals to fall victim to addiction or overdose, said Brown County Deputy Executive Jeff Flynt. The Brown County Drug Task Force seized 1,772.44 grams of fentanyl from Q1-Q3 in 2023. Over that time frame in 2024, the task force has seized 12,659.64 grams of fentanyl, a 614% increase year-over-year. Combating addiction requires a multi-faceted approach, one that includes resources for prevention, treatment, recovery programs, and community outreach; that is what the County Executive envisioned, says Delain. It is a collective effort, one that requires the involvement of all of us. Together, we can create safer, healthier communities and pave the way for a brighter future. In Q1-Q3 of 2023, there were 43 accidental illicit drug-related deaths in Brown County. So far, in Q1-Q3 of 2024, there have been 15 accidental illicit drug-related deaths. Thats a 65% decrease year-over-year. Wisconsin man arrested in connection to bomb threats targeting government buildings Brown County had 62 total drug overdose deaths in 2022, with 50 of those involving fentanyl. The following year saw 63 total drug overdose deaths, with 49 of those involving fentanyl. Now, as of September 10, 2024, Brown County has had just 17 total drug overdose deaths year-to-date, including 11 deaths that involve fentanyl. These numbers are closer to 2018, when Brown County had 24 total drug overdose deaths, with nine of those involving fentanyl. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFRV Local 5 - Green Bay, Appleton. MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - The northern English city of Manchester on Friday opened the first phase of a 1.7 billion pound ($2.3 billion) hub for science and technology companies, part of a large-scale project driven by university and private sector investors. The 'Sister' innovation district on the University of Manchester's former city centre North Campus envisages 2 million square feet (186,000 square metres) of commercial space and 1,500 new homes, and aims to boost the city's status as a science and technology centre. University cities like Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester have been creating environments where investors can be on hand to partner with startup companies, a trend Britain's new Labour government wants to continue to attract more private investment to help upgrade the country's public services and infrastructure. The 15-year project Sister project is a joint venture between the University of Manchester and Bruntwood SciTech, a development company owned by property firm Bruntwood, Legal and General and the Greater Manchester Pension Fund, and will see a total investment value on completion of 1.7 billion pounds. The first tenant, climate tech investment company Sustainable Ventures, moves into the site's Renold Building this November. "This is a significant moment for Manchester," said Bev Craig, leader of Manchester City Council. Sister forms part of the government-funded Greater Manchester Investment Zone, which uses 160 million pounds of public money to help attract businesses to the city over the next decade. Sister said it will announce plans for its first major development zone soon. (Reporting by Andy Bruce; Editing by Susan Fenton) Buckhannon liaison helps police connect with those struggling with addiction: It takes down some of those walls BUCKHANNON, W.Va. (WBOY) According to the American Psychological Association, one out of every five police calls involves a person dealing with a substance use or mental health crisis, and while law enforcement officers are trained to provide help in these situations, the badge can sometimes be a barrier. Law enforcement is just a singular approach, Buckhannon Police Chief Matt Gregory said. You certainly cannot arrest your way out of these types of issues. Six months ago, Gregorys department added peer liaison Erica Bennett to its staff through a state-funded grant and a partnership with Charleston-based nonprofit First Choice Services. My storys a little different from other peoples, said Bennett. Ive been in and out of jails and institutions. Bennett has been in recovery for five years. The last time she was incarcerated, she was offered treatment through the Drug Court Program. Thats the biggest thing, said Bennett. People are afraid to ask for help for fear of judgment and thats kind of where I come in. Why does fentanyl have such a hold on north central West Virginia? Each day, Bennett and her partner, Corporal Angel McCauley, walk a beat thats off the beaten path, checking in on the citys most vulnerable residents in encampments and known hang-outs. When I was solo, without Erica, seeing the badge, people immediately thought they were in trouble, said McCauley. So having someone whos not necessarily in uniform benefits us a lot because it takes down some of those walls. A 12 News reporter rode along on a recent patrol through the city and quickly encountered a man Bennett and McCauley had last seen in the grip of an overdose. Howve you been? asked McCauley. I just got out of jail, he replied. The focus quickly shifted to helping point the man toward resources for permanent housing. You guys dont have to come to the Buckhannon Police Department, Bennett said to the man. I can meet you out. I understand. I used to not feel comfortable there too. With each encounter, Bennett shares her phone number and email address and a reminder about resources for shelter and recovery services. Later on in the patrol, Bennett and McCauley took the reporter to a known encampment where unsheltered people were living. You know, you guys can call me if you need to go somewhere, Bennett said to an appreciative woman who has been struggling with health issues. In the programs first six months, Bennett has guided a dozen people to substance abuse treatment, according to First Choice Services. More stories about the fentanyl crisis A female that I had helped get into to treatment, she walked up and thanked me for helping her, said Bennett. Told me she had a couple of months put together without substances at that point in time. That was a really proud moment for me. I think having us together, not only does it show people that were doing more for the community, said McCauley. It kind of humanizes the badge and gives them the view that Im out there to help as well. When asked if she likes the job, Bennett replied, I do. I love it. Its very rewarding. First Choice Services also has an embedded peer liaison working with the Wheeling Police Department and is in talks with other West Virginia departments about expanding the program. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBOY.com. The first ballots of the November general election will go out to voters in Miami-Dade and Broward counties this week as South Florida enters the final stretch leading up to Election Day. The Miami-Dade Elections Department is set to send out roughly 260,000 mail ballots on Monday to voters who have already requested one. In Broward, the first domestic vote-by-mail ballots more than 230,000 of them will go out on Tuesday, according to the countys elections department. While mail ballots were sent to overseas voters earlier this month, the coming deluge of domestic mail ballots will mark the official beginning of election season in South Florida, a roughly six-week stretch of voting, campaigning and organizing that will culminate with Election Day on Nov. 5. READ MORE: When can you vote by mail in South Florida? How do you get a ballot? Here are the steps At the top of the ballot is the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, who are vying to succeed President Joe Biden in the White House. But voters will also have the chance to weigh in on a handful of other important races. Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott is seeking a second term in the Senate, and faces a challenge from Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who previously represented a South Florida congressional district until losing reelection to U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez in 2020. Theres also a handful of offices on the ballot that Miami-Dade and Broward residents have never voted on before. In Miami-Dade, voters will choose their county sheriff, tax collector and supervisor of elections. Those offices previously fell under the purview of the county mayor. Broward voters will have the chance to choose their tax collector a job that previously fell under the county governments responsibility. Voters who want to vote by mail, but havent requested a ballot yet, will have until 5 p.m. on Oct. 24 to do so. For those who arent registered to vote, the deadline to do so for the November election is Oct. 7 by 11:59 p.m. Theres still the option to vote early in person. Both Miami-Dade and Broward County will open up their early voting sites on Oct. 21, and voters will have until Nov. 3 to cast their ballots at an early voting center ahead of Election Day. SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) A South Dakota scholarship program is taking financial stress off college students and setting them up for success after graduation. The Build Dakota Scholarship allows a student entering a high-demand career to receive a full ride to a South Dakota technical college. This year, the scholarship celebrates its 10th anniversary. Recipients at Southeast Technical College are some of the students seeing positive impacts on their future careers. They come out without any debt, and theyre paired with an industry partner. So, at the beginning of their program, they know exactly where theyre going to be employed and have a job waiting for them when they graduate, Southeast Technical College President Corey Clasemann said. Mountain lion population could be decreased in SD For many students, that guarantee is reassuring. I know that Im set up financially and that I can go home, make my parents proud and have a job that I know Im going to like, Build Dakota Scholarship recipient Christopher Terry said. Its also the reason some students at Southeast Tech are able to attend higher education. Build Dakota is the only reason why Im in college, because my parents do not work. Theyre ill so Build Dakota has helped me a lot financially, second-year surgical technology student Dewas Gajmer said. Southeast Tech welcomed 164 new scholarship students this fall, a record high. Many of those high-demand jobs were demonstrated by students in a simulation on campus Thursday morning. The simulation involved a helicopter landing and students assisting patients involved in an accident. Airean Lange is in her second year at Southeast Tech and hopes to become a traveling surgical technician after school. She said being a Build Dakota scholar is helping her reach that goal. Its important because theres not many people in this career, so its very demanding and its helping to keep that going in the future, Lange said. Other students, like Ellison Hasert whos studying surgical technology, heard about the scholarship opportunity through her sister, who also applied. I always wanted to do this program, so it allowed me to actually focus on the program. And so when I applied for the scholarship, it kind of set in stone that this is what I wanted to do, Hasert said. Dirty Jobs TV personality Mike Rowe was also on campus to celebrate the anniversary and to acknowledge the importance of technical colleges. I think its fair to say, it exceeded everybodys expectations and nobody knew exactly what it was going to be when it got started. But you can tell just the amount of great foresight that went into it, Clasemann said. And the scholarship is only looking to empower more students in the next ten years. Students interested in receiving a Build Dakota Scholarship can apply starting January 1, 2025. A list of eligibility requirements and information on how to apply can be found 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 KELOLAND.com. Devandre Williams A 20-year-old man was sentenced to 55 years in prison for his role in the fatal shootings of two Flagler Palm Coast High School students two years ago in Bunnell. Devandre Williams shot and killed Keymarion Hall on May 3, 2022, according to court records. In the other case, Williams was driving the car from which two other men fired guns, killing Noah Smith, Jan. 12, 2022, according to records. Neither Hall nor Smith were the intended targets; both were innocent bystanders. They were 16-year-old students at Flagler Palm Coast High School. Williams reached a plea agreement with prosecutors which called for him to face between 40 and 60 years for the killings. Circuit Judge Terence Perkins Wednesday sentenced Williams to 55 years in prison. Because Williams was 17 at the time of the crimes, he is entitled to have his sentenced reviewed after serving 15 years for Smiths killing and 25 for Halls. Williams pleaded no contest to two counts of second-degree murder and one count of attempted second-degree murder in the two cases. Tyrese Patterson was indicted on a charge of first-degree murder with a firearm in Smiths killing. Patterson also reached a plea deal to a lesser charge of second-degree murder. Patterson was to be sentenced Wednesday, like Williams, but his sentencing was delayed. He faces between 25 to 50 years in prison. This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Florida man sentenced to 55 years in killing of 2 high school students Nathaniel James McGuire, 20, allegedly arrived with a homemade bomb at Santa Barbara Superior Court ahead of his arraignment in another case Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office Nathaniel James McGuire. A 20-year-old man due in court for an arraignment in a firearms case allegedly bombed the California courthouse in an effort to kill court officials. Nathaniel James McGuire is charged with malicious damage to a building by means of an explosive, per the redacted federal complaint and corresponding affidavit obtained by PEOPLE, which alleges that he bombed the courthouse with the intention to kill the deputies working at the security desk, and that he also had plans to kill a judge. In a statement, Akil Davis, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Los Angeles Field Office, called the Wednesday incident a blatant act of violence, designed to do harm and avoid justice. Department of Justice Inside Santa Barbara Superior Court following the Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024 bombing in Santa Maria, Calif. Related: Man Allegedly Throws Bag with Explosives Inside Calif. Courthouse on the Day of His Arraignment: Police Around 8:48 a.m. ahead of his Wednesday, Sept. 25, arraignment later that day the Santa Barbara County Sheriffs Office says they received a report of an explosion at Santa Barbara Superior Court, after McGuire allegedly threw a bag, which exploded in the hallway, at a screening station. At least five people were injured in the bombing, according to federal authorities. Three people sustained non-life-threatening injuries, including burns, according to the sheriffs office, which said that all five people had been treated and released from the hospital later that day. A deputy allegedly saw McGuire enter the courthouse and yell, Liberty or Death, as he threw the bomb, per the affidavit, which claims that the 20-year-old fled on foot. Subject who is detained is an adult male. Explosion was from an intentionally set improvised explosive device. https://t.co/oNr5kPcnX6 PIO Raquel Zick (@SBSOPIO) September 25, 2024 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. McGuire was detained by law enforcement as he was trying to access a red Ford Mustang outside the Courthouse, per the affidavit. Inside the sedan, the deputy allegedly saw ammunition, a flare gun and a box of fireworks, per the affidavit, which claims that McGuire yelled that the government had taken his guns and that everyone needed to fight, rise up and rebel. A later search of McGuires vehicle revealed a shotgun, rifle, ammunition and 10 Molotov cocktails, per the affidavit. Authorities also recovered a suspected improvised explosive device, which they described in the affidavit as a can wrapped in duct tape and containing a black powder with nails glued to the outside. McGuire allegedly later told authorities that he had purchased nails at a Home Depot that Monday, Sept. 23, per the affidavit, and that he had a list of grievances and goodbyes on his laptop. Inside his bedroom, the FBI found, per the affidavit an empty metal can with nails glued to the outside, a duffel bag containing matches, black powder, used and unused fireworks and papers that appeared to be recipes for explosive/energetic material. McGuire was wearing body armor under his jacket when he was apprehended, according to the sheriffs office, which released a mugshot featuring the 20-year-old with several gashes near his right eye. Santa Barbara deputies previously arrested and charged McGuire with possession of a loaded and concealed revolver that was not registered to him, according to the sheriffs office, which said Wednesday that they were working with local firefighters to explore if the suspect is associated with several recent arson fires. McGuire was initially booked into the Northern branch Santa Barbara County Jail on felony charges including attempted murder, manufacturing an explosive device and use of an explosive device for attempted murder, according to the sheriffs office. He is due for his initial appearance in the U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles Friday afternoon, according to federal prosecutors. His court docket was not available online Friday morning, and it was not immediately clear if he had retained a lawyer. If convicted, McGuire faces a mandatory sentence of between seven and 40 years in federal prison, per prosecutors. This defendants alleged misconduct was chilling, U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement. Not only did he injure five people and traumatize many more, but he possessed a cache of weapons that would have allowed him to wreak even greater destruction had he not been stopped. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Remember last year? When PlayStation tried to sneakily take away the content that users had already paid for? Or even in 2020, when Destiny 2 removed hoards of what was once paid content. These may sound unfounded, but its becoming increasingly the norm in a world shifting away from physical media. To combat this, California is introducing a new law to protect consumers. Sony Interactive Entertainment Today, most people buy media through some sort of digital means, leaving the consumer at the mercy of the distributor. Years ago, when you purchased a DVD, you owned it. Obviously. But with digital media, its completely different. No one can stop a DVD from functioning after youve already bought it. However, PlayStation tried to do just that with digital content from Discovery purchased via the PlayStation Store. The cherry on top? They did it entirely without refunds. After an outcry, Sony rolled back this decision. PlayStation In response to situations like this, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a new law to make the terms of digital purchases more transparent. Digital stores that sell media like films, games, and music will have to disclose to consumers that their purchase does not equate to owning the product. Instead, it is akin to getting a license for it. Digital stores cant use terms like buy or purchase unless they inform customers they dont fully own the product. If the rule is broken, it could invoke a fine for false advertising, as already existing laws state that its unlawful for any person doing business in California and advertising to consumers in California to make any false or misleading advertising claim. The law will go into effect next year. Irwins press release states that the legislation is in direct response to PlayStations situation but also came about as Ubisoft revoked licenses for the video game The Crew, as shown below. Therefore, it takes customers access away from a previously purchased game. California is the first state to recognize the false claims proposed to customers when trying to advertise digital licenses, according to Aaron Perzanowski, a law professor at the University of Michigan. We have an update to share about The Crew 1 and its future: https://t.co/EI9NGueKJf pic.twitter.com/hEwmA8aPKy The Crew Motorfest (@TheCrewGame) December 14, 2023 As retailers continue to pivot away from selling physical media, the need for consumer protections on the purchase of digital media has become increasingly more important, said Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, who authored the original bill. AB 2426 will ensure the false and deceptive advertising from sellers of digital media incorrectly telling consumers they own their purchases becomes a thing of the past. As we shift to digital content and away from physical media, its imperative consumers understand the terms of their purchase. Even though it does not stop stores from removing digital content, Californias law is a good starting place. Hopefully, other states will follow suit to empower customers to have agency over their monetary funds. SACRAMENTO, California Shannon Grove is a Trump-supporting, anti-abortion Republican from the beating red heart of Californias Central Valley. Shes also one of Democratic lawmakers most beloved colleagues in Sacramento. The Bakersfield state senator has gained widespread notoriety in recent years for challenging the majority partys reluctance to increase criminal penalties, often gathering support from even the most liberal Democrats to increase sentencing for human trafficking and set new protections for children. On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1414, Groves bill that charges the solicitation of a minor as a felony, rather than a misdemeanor. It received near-unanimous support in the Senate, and was even championed by First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Groves crusades have been backed, in large part, by the conservatives like her who are outraged over the states approach to crime, but have also gained a boost from the unlikely alliances shes forged with the opposing party over her nearly 15 years in the building. Shes a likable person and she does extend herself and show kindness, said former Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, who previously led the Democrats in the upper chamber and is running for governor in 2026. The two share a close bond and have been known to dress up as one another for the Legislatures annual twin day down to the matching shoes. Im just as surprised some days as others that we have become such friends. Its not unheard of for Democrats and Republicans to find common ground, especially among moderates, but Groves politics dont exactly fall in the middle. Shes a close ally of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and was the first female veteran elected to the California Legislature when she entered the state Assembly in 2010. Since then she has been a fierce opponent of many key Democratic priorities, including efforts to reduce Californias domestic oil production. Her comments outside of the chambers have been known to raise eyebrows: In 2015, she suggested in a Facebook post that God might be responsible for Californias drought, and in 2021 blamed the Jan. 6 riots on antifa a tweet that eventually lost her the top spot in the Senates Republican Caucus. Yet Democrats and Republicans alike routinely praise Grove for her demeanor in the Capitol, describing her as a hardworking, personable lawmaker who will fight you on the dais and bring you birthday cake the next day, or invite you to her district for horseback riding. My colleagues and I may not always agree on everything, but I do have some pretty incredible friends on the other side of the aisle, Grove told POLITICO. And regardless of our differences and the debate that takes place, I really do believe that they know I really do care about them as individuals. Both Grove and Atkins were elected to the Assembly in 2010, but it wasnt until they each moved into leadership positions in the Senate that they discovered all their similarities. Atkins twin sister, like Grove, served in the military; both lawmakers grew up poor in rural parts of the country; and they both share a deep love of Dolly Parton. Do we agree on policy? Not in a million years, Grove said of Atkins. But then we still have a friendship. Thats all friendships, right? You have arguments or disagreements with your friends. It shouldnt be any different in the Legislature. The one time Grove really irritated Atkins, she said, was when the Republican organized a Zoom call with Parton without her. That is the one time I just looked at her like, youre kidding me, right? Atkins recalled. Among Groves other high-profile bills this year is a measure that would require youth centers to disclose more information about potential abuse, going after whats commonly known as the troubled teen industry. Hotel heiress and Hollywood socialite Paris Hilton traveled to the Capitol to support Groves cause in April. But perhaps more unusual were the two Democratic co-authors standing alongside her. Were all here today asking ourselves: what is an heiress, a Republican, a single mom and a former foster youth have in common? Hayward Democratic state Sen. Aisha Wahab told reporters at a press conference. The honest truth is we want to protect children. Groves intentions have not always been well-received, especially in the Assembly. Last year her human trafficking bill, SB 14, was rejected by the progressive Democrats on the Public Safety Committee, resulting in a maelstrom of backlash online, including some from tech billionaire Elon Musk. Eventually, Gov. Newsom stepped in andcompelled the Assembly to reconsider Groves bill, which then led to its passage and his signature. Then-Public Safety Chair, Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, at the time lamented the vicious rhetoric from supporters of the bill, which included a cadre of far-right internet trolls who accused opponents of being pedophiles. There are members on this committee, women, whose lives were threatened because of this, he told reporters last summer. We can have an honest debate, but, my God. Grove passed up an opportunity last year to run for Congress, declining to run for McCarthys empty seat in a race where she would have easily been the frontrunner. She said she plans to continue fighting for kids next year, and terms out of office in 2026. Senate Republican Leader Brian Jones praised Groves tenacity and her adherence to her beliefs. One of the things I think defines Sen. Grove is that shes very vocal about the policies that are important to her, he said. Everybody knows where she stands on things and yet shes flexible enough to build these relationships with members on the other side of the aisle. Like this content? Consider signing up for POLITICOs California Playbook newsletter. Today is California Native American Day, a moment to recall Californias dark and painful history of genocide against Indian peoples. But it is also a moment of hope, as the state is taking notable steps towards equality. This year is the fifth anniversary of Governor Gavin Newsoms formal apology to Native Americans for a war of calculated genocide beginning with the call by our first governor, Peter Burnett, for a war of extermination until the Indian race becomes extinct. My own tribe, the Cahuilla-Serrano, only avoided annihilation at the hands of the militias by escaping into the San Bernardino Mountains during the 19th Century. What state and federal government militias didnt accomplish with their goals of westward expansion and visions of Manifest Destiny miners and settlers achieved by bringing disease and starvation. They took their toll. Historian and author Benjamin Madley observes that between 1845 and 1870, Californias Native American population plunged from perhaps 150,000 to 30,000. By 1880 census takers recorded just 16,277 California Indians. Opinion But we survived. Over time, clashes to prevail between the First People and those who sought to replace us shifted to different battlefields employing different means of extermination: denial of civil rights, the erasure of culture and forced separations of children from their families. Still, we prevailed, which brings us to another 100-year anniversary. It was not until June 2, 1924 that the U.S. granted Native Americans citizenship, making the nations First People become the last people to gain citizenship and suffrage. In California and in most states, the right to vote followed the granting of citizenship. A few states continued to deny suffrage, with Utah contesting Native American suffrage until as late as 1962. Coincidentally, another turning point also occurred on June 2, 1924, this time in the fight for equal education. Alice Piper, a 15-year-old Paiute student, successfully sued the Big Pine School District in Inyo County, California so she could attend a new public school with white students. Her court victory set a precedent that was cited 30 years later in the Brown v. Board of Education decision that declared public school segregation unconstitutional across America. Both centennial milestones falling on the same day affirm rights that so many others in this state and country took for granted. Yet they had been denied to us and those jarring experiences with bigotry and discrimination were not far removed from our parents and grandparents. This year saw some other milestones. In July, Native Americans were rocked by traumatic and somber recollections of another attempt to eradicate our identity. The U.S. Department of the Interior released the second and final volume of its report exposing practices at the federal governments Indian boarding schools. Carefully documented reports of the 417 schools across 37 states or territories confirm that at least 973 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children died at what can only be described as horror factories. Researchers believe the number is likely low because of missing information from the schools. My grandmother was among those sent to one of the 11 boarding schools operating in California. She survived the harsh conditions and maltreatment. For me, she was a living example of strength and resiliency. On August 5, the California Native American Legislative Caucus initiated formal recognition of tribal community heroes. The inaugural class of five honorees performed exemplary work in seeking equity and justice on issues such as missing and murdered Indigenous people, preserving Native American culture, or other forms of leadership and sacrifice. Alice Piper was named as a posthumous honoree. They are among the unsung heroes for our people and for all Californians. So this year Native Americans commemorate the 100th anniversary of our right to vote and the right to attend public schools. We also recognize community heroes who fought for justice. We cannot let the inequities of the past haunt us or stop us. For example, California is fifth in the nation in the number of cases of missing and murdered Native Americans awaiting investigation or resolution. That past reminds and challenges us to keep moving forward. The progress must continue long after this day of recognition is over. Assemblymember James C. Ramos is the first and only California Native American elected to the state Legislature. California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday signed several bills to address the states history of racial discrimination, including a formal apology for its role in the perpetuation of slavery. The State of California accepts responsibility for the role we played in promoting, facilitating, and permitting the institution of slavery, as well as its enduring legacy of persistent racial disparities. Building on decades of work, California is now taking another important step forward in recognizing the grave injustices of the past and making amends for the harms caused, Newsom said in a statement. The states Legislative Black Caucus joined Newsom as he signed Thursdays bills. Along with a formal apology for slavery and strengthening protections against discrimination, some of the key bills noted in the press release increase access to literature in prisons, address employment discrimination, college and career financial aid, mental health disparities, and food and medical deserts. This comes a day after Newsom vetoed a bill that would have helped Black families reclaim or be compensated for property unjustly taken in racially motivated uses of eminent domain. Newsom said in his veto message that while he thanked the bills author for his commitment to redressing past racial injustices, it tasked a nonexistent state agency to carry out its various provisions and requirements, making it impossible to implement. California joins other states including Florida, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Alabama, New Jersey and Iowa that have acknowledged the ongoing impacts and history of racial discrimination, the release said. Newsom also thanked the states Legislative Black Caucus Chair Lori Wilson (D) for her efforts along with the rest of the caucus. As we confront the lasting legacy of slavery, Im profoundly grateful for the efforts put forward by Chair Wilson and the members of the California Legislative Black Caucus, he said in the statement. Wilson said that the reparations are a multi-year effort. These bills lay a meaningful foundation to address the historic injustices faced by Black Californians, and I want to extend my sincere thanks to my fellow Caucus members and the advocacy leaders who have championed this effort. This is a multi-year effort, and I look forward to continuing our partnership with the Governor on this important work in the years to come as we push toward lasting justice and equity, she said. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Canada booking seats on commercial flights to help citizens flee Lebanon Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs Joly speaks to journalists before Question Period in Ottawa (Reuters) - The Canadian government is booking seats on commercial flights to help its citizens leave Lebanon, Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly said on Friday, after Israeli airstrikes rocked the capital Beirut. "Canada has secured seats for Canadians on the limited commercial flights available," Joly said in a statement on social media. "If a seat is available, please take it." This week, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 700 people in Lebanon, an escalation that has raised fears of an even more destructive conflict. Joly urged Canadians to register with the embassy in Beirut if they needed help leaving and said loans were available to those requiring financial assistance. (Reporting by Nia Williams in British Columbia; Editing by Richard Chang) BELLVUE, Colo. (AP) Camille Stevens-Rumann crouched in the dirt and leaned over evergreen seedlings, measuring how much each had grown in seven months. "That's two to three inches of growth on the spruce, said Stevens-Rumann, interim director at the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute. Her research team is monitoring several species planted two years ago on a slope burned during the devastating 2020 Cameron Peak fire, which charred 326 square miles (844 square kilometers) in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. They want to determine which species are likely to survive at various elevations, because climate change makes it difficult or impossible for many forests to regrow even decades after wildfires. As the gap between burned areas and replanting widens year after year, scientists see big challenges beyond where to put seedlings. The U.S. currently lacks the ability to collect enough seeds from living trees and the nursery capacity to grow seedlings for replanting on a scale anywhere close to stemming accelerating losses, researchers say. It also doesnt have enough trained workers to plant and monitor trees. The Forest Service said the biggest roadblock to replanting on public land is completing environmental and cultural assessments and preparing severely burned areas so they're safe to plant. That can take years while more forests are lost to fire. If we have the seedlings but we dont have the sites prepped ... we cant put the seedlings out there, said Stephanie Miller, assistant director of a reforestation program. Scientists, private industry and environmental agencies are acutely aware of the challenges as they consider how to restore forested landscapes in an increasingly arid region. We need to start being creative if we want trees on our landscapes, Stevens-Rumann said. Were in a place of such drastic climate change that we are not talking about whether or not some of these places will be a different kind of forest, but whether or not they will be forests at all. Reforestation gap Four years after the Cameron Peak fire the largest in recorded Colorado history a smattering of wild raspberry bushes and seedlings has taken root. But the mountainside mostly is dotted with charred trees. In burn scars across the West and Southwest, areas of forests may never grow back on their own. Larger and more intense fires destroy trees that normally provide seeds for regeneration or leave burn scars so large trees can't naturally bridge the gap. The climate also has changed so markedly that many forests cant regrow in the same places. Even when seedlings take hold, drought and new fires often kill them. Story continues Nineteen of the 20 largest wildfires ever recorded in the contiguous U.S. have occurred in Western states since 2000, according to Sean Parks, a Forest Service research ecologist. That's when the region slipped into an ongoing megadrought. The U.S. once was able to reliably replant burned forests. But now the gap between areas in the West that need replanting after fire and the ability to do so has grown to at least 3.8 million acres (1.5 million hectares) and that could triple by 2050, said Solomon Z. Dobrowski, a University of Montana forest management expert and a study lead author. Forests are burning more often and especially intense and hot, which can destroy seeds that normally survive fire, harden the ground like concrete and leave barren slopes susceptible to washing away in rainstorms, polluting waterways. In 22 years since the Hayman fire on Colorados front range burned 182 square miles (471 square kilometers) of forest, there has been almost no tree regeneration in the most severely burned areas, researchers and the Forest Service said. In California's Sierra Nevada, where up to 20% of the world's mature giant sequoias and their seeds have been killed by fire in recent years, there are massive openings without seedlings. A U.S. Geological Survey study concluded some groves will never recover without replanting. But researchers say the odds of forests growing back will worsen regardless of fire intensity because of more heat and drought. That means burned forest could convert to shrubland and grassland, leading to loss of snowpack that provides drinking water and helps irrigate crops. Over 70% of our water in the western U.S. comes from our forested ecosystems and our mountains, Stevens-Rumann said. And for that water to come the way we want it ... at the right time throughout the year, we need to have forests, not just grasslands. Targeted tree planting When forest ecologist Matthew Hurteau joined the University of New Mexico nine years ago, he took in the aftermath of the 2011 Las Conchas fire that decimated a huge swath of Ponderosa pine forest. Though the area had been replanted several times, most seedlings died, Hurteau said. While the average survival in the Southwest is about 25%, he said only about 13% of trees planted most recently in the Los Conchas burn scar have survived. So he planted seedlings of different species at various elevations and on slopes facing different directions, then monitored the soil moisture, temperature and humidity. A resulting computer model can predict the probability a seedling will survive in a particular spot with about 63% accuracy. It will be used to inform planting this fall. Let's not do the old plant-and-pray method, said Hurteau. Let's plant where we know that their chance of survival is quite high, and in places where the chance ... is quite low, lets just forego planting there. Researchers say seedling survival is worst at lower elevations, where its hotter, drier and more open so replanting the same trees in the same areas is likely to fail. They're experimenting with planting near surviving trees that might provide shade for seedlings and aid water uptake and with planting in clusters that leave gaps in the landscape. Some are even asking whether different species should replace trees wiped out by fire. Environmental groups working on private land burned by the Cameron Peak fire are replanting Ponderosa pines 500 feet (152 meters) higher because of climate change and near fallen trees that can provide shade, said Megan Maiolo-Heath, spokeswoman for the Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed. So far, 84% of trees planted last year remain alive, though long-term survival is uncertain. Any work in the environmental world at this point can feel daunting and overwhelming, Maiolo-Heath said. So I think just taking small bites ... and trying not to get too overwhelmed is the way to go about it. Forest Service rules generally require planting the same species at the same elevations as before a fire, but it's increasingly clear the agency will need to be flexible moving forward, said Jason Sieg, acting supervisor of the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests & Pawnee National Grassland. Relying on research data, Sieg said, We'll be able to plan a strategy around how we set this landscape up for the greatest chance of success ... long term. For now, that might mean replanting at different elevations or collecting seeds from another location. Eventually, researchers say it could require the controversial option of planting trees not found in an area originally. Additional research and caution are necessary, researchers and the Forest Service said. But more people are warming up to the idea. I've seen people go from saying, Absolutely, we cannot move trees around to, Well, lets maybe lets try it at least, and do a few experiments to see if this will work, said Stevens-Rumann, the Colorado scientist. Restoration challenges Four years ago, researchers and New Mexico's state forester wrote a reforestation plan for the state, where 4,500 square miles (11,655 square kilometers) of forest were charred between 2011 and 2021, leaving up to 2.6 million acres (1.5 million hectares) in need of replanting. That was before the 2022 Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak Fire the most destructive in state history burned another 534 square miles (1,383 square kilometers). They soon discovered a big problem. We realized that we were never going to have enough seedlings to meet the objectives, said Hurteau, the University of New Mexico researcher. The number of Forest Service nurseries once financed by deposits on timber sales dropped from 14 to six in the 1990s as timber harvests declined and habitat protections were enacted, according to a Forest Service report on the nurseries' history. Most Western seedling production is private and occurs in Oregon, California and Washington, Dobrowski said. In places like New Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, we dont really have a base of facilities to support widespread reforestation, the researcher said. Were (asking) Whats going to fill the gap? In New Mexico, several universities and the state's forestry division started the New Mexico Reforestation Center with a goal of building a nursery that can produce 5 million seedlings per year for government, tribal and private lands. The first seedlings will be planted this year. But experts say much more nursery capacity, seed collection and trained workers are needed to make even modest progress in closing the reforestation gap. And they say public and private sector cooperation will be essential. Theres all these bottlenecks," Hurteau said. "Weve just underinvested in reforestation for decades in the U.S. Theres a lot of investment in human capital thats going to have to happen." Seed collection, for example, requires the right weather and is expensive and labor-intensive. It takes a few years for a typical Western conifer to develop cones. Then contractors must harvest them, typically by climbing trees. Growing, planting and monitoring seedlings amid more frequent droughts adds to the uncertainty, time and money. The Forest Service said its biggest challenge is simply that the number of intense wildfires is outpacing the ability to prepare sites for replanting. But the agency is also modernizing nurseries and seeking ways to either expand internal capacity or work with private industry, states and groups like the New Mexico Reforestation Center. This is an all-hands-on effort, said Miller, from the reforestation program. Researchers say the challenges complicate a Biden administration goal to plant a billion trees over 10 years in national forests, where it identified a nearly 4 million-acre (1.6 million-hectare) backlog. But money provided for reforestation in the 2021 infrastructure bill enabled the agency to clear 15% of the backlog, Miller said. If we can get more site preparation done, that would be excellent so that we can move forward a little bit faster. Experts say there clearly will be areas where trees never return but it's critical that the U.S. does as much possible in a thoughtful way. Trees live for hundreds of years so we need to be thinking about whats right as we plant trees today," Hurteau said. Are we putting the right species and densities on the landscape given what the next 100, 200 and 300 years will look like? ___ AP data reporter Mary Katherine Wildeman contributed to this story from Hartford, Connecticut. Webber reported from Fenton, Michigan, and Fassett from San Francisco. ___ The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Canada and France to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia in cyberspace France and Canada have adopted a declaration in which they pledged to work together to help Ukraine counter Russian aggression in cyberspace. Source: a statement on the website of the Canadian government, as reported by European Pravda Details: The Canada-France Declaration on a Stronger Defence and Security Partnership was agreed upon during a meeting in Ottawa on 26 September between Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron. The declaration states that the leaders are calling for joint efforts to promote a stronger defence and security partnership. In particular, they stressed that the armed forces of both countries "will continue to deepen their strategic cooperation in the field of cyber defence in support of Ukraine". "We are determined to work with Ukraine and our partners to support Ukraine in defending its sovereignty, independence and its territorial integrity against Russian aggression, both in the traditional domains and in cyberspace, including by helping strengthen Ukraine's civilian cyber capacity through the Tallinn Mechanism," the document says. Ottawa and Paris are also "committed" to play their part to uphold the principles of the UN Charter, to help "manage international crises and conflicts, including in the cyber domain; and to ensure the collective security and defence of NATO members". "We will therefore expand our defence and security cooperation to support Ukraine, contribute to regional stability and security in the Indo-Pacific, reinforce our collaboration on crisis management and modernisation of our armed forces, and fight against foreign interference and information manipulation," the document says. Background: In December 2023, Estonia and nine other countries launched the Tallinn Mechanism to strengthen cyber support for Ukraine in the civilian sphere. In early September 2024, Germany's BfV intelligence service issued a warning that a group of cybercriminals belonging to Russian military intelligence Unit 29155 was behind a series of online attacks against NATO and EU countries. The Estonian Security Police found that a military unit under the command of the Main Directorate of Russia's General Staff had been conducting cyberattacks against Ukraine, as well as NATO and EU countries, including Estonia, since 2020. Support UP or become our patron! If you want to watch an opportunity slipping awaylook south. On October 1, Claudia Sheinbaum will succeed Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador as president of Mexicoone illiberal left-wing populist taking over the reins of power from another illiberal left-wing populist. Sheinbaum is an avowed enemy of the reforms and liberalization begun at the turn of the century by former President Ernesto Zedillo, who recently warned that Mexico is sliding into tyranny. For most of the 20th century, Mexico was a single-party authoritarian state, without real elections or real political competition. Until a few decades ago, the president, every member of the Senate, and every state governor belonged to the same partythe Institutional Revolutionary Partywhich also controlled the economy and managed elections. Mario Vargas Llosa famously described Mexico in those years as la dictadura perfectathe perfect dictatorship. Sheinbaum wants to recapture some of that dictatorial perfection, reasserting state control over the economy, putting the judiciary under political control, expanding the domestic role of the military, etc. Asked by the Financial Times about such niceties as constitutional checks and balances, Sheinbaum played the good populist: The people should decide, she declared. Ah, yes, the people: those inconvenient hunks of meat in whose name every rapacious and self-aggrandizing autocrat who has ever walked this good green Earth purports to rule. I like Mexico and have spent a fair bit of time there. One of the most useful services the country provides is reminding Americans to be grateful for Canada. And I am not joking about that: Canada is a prosperous, decently governed, largely quiet country, famously polite and deferential, a fact that sometimes obscures how tough the Canadians are and what important allies they have been. As a share of its population, Canadas casualties in World War I were nearly 10 times those of the United States. But Canada is a great neighbor to have in peacetime, too, with a GDP per capita nearly 30 percent higher than the average in the European Union as the International Monetary Fund runs the numbers, a richer country than Germany or the United Kingdom, and a significantly richer country than France or Japan. And that isnt merely a statistical quirk associated with having a relatively small population: Canadas GDP/capita is higher than that of the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, or Israel. Canadanot Chinais the largest trading partner for the United States. Do you know what would make the United States radically better off: Another Canada, one to the south, where theres sunshine and beaches and relative proximity to vital U.S. interests in Central and South America. But Mexico is not going to be that prosperous, happy, decent country. Not without a lot of U.S. help and, to put it bluntly, U.S. interferencewhich Sheinbaum et al. do not want. Mexico has done well economically in the past four decades or so. Mexicos real GDP/capita today is nearly four times what it was in 1980. Trade has been good for Mexico. U.S. investmentand other foreign investmenthas been good for Mexico. But the lesson from Mexico is the same as the lesson from China: Prosperity is not enough. Economic liberalization is a necessary condition for thriving, but it is not sufficient. Unlike China, Mexico has undergone meaningful internal political reforms that have paid real dividends, but it has not been enough. The American political conversation treats Mexico almost exclusively as an economic competitor that inconveniently thrives in areas that put it into competition with politically sensitive U.S. interests (such as automobile manufacturing) and as a source of immigrants who are, if I may be forgiven for putting it plainly, mostly unwantedthe consensus there is much more bipartisan than many of our progressive friends seem to think. But there is more to Mexico than the Nissan Sentra (headquarters in Yokohama, factory in Aguascalientes) and the border. And chaotic and problematic as the border isand that is a longstanding failure for a string of American presidents, most definitely including Donald Trumpthat chaos doesnt begin at the Rio Grande. We dont have a lot of Canadian economic refugees looking for work in Home Depot parking lots, and a Mexico that was more prosperous, more stable, more decent, more liberal, more integrated into North America, etc., would offer less difficulty at the border. In that respect, we must also consider that Mexico is an entrepot for economic emigrants from other countries seeking to enter the United States. It would be nice if Mexico were more help with that problem, but Mexico currently lacks both the incentives and the capacity to be the kind of partner we need on that front. I am tempted to write that what the United States needs is a kind of Marshall Plan for Mexico. But that isnt quite right: What the United States needs is a Marshall Plan for Mexico 30 years ago. Better late than never is a cliche, not a self-evident truth applicable in all situations. We have a good idea what a Donald Trump administration would do in response to the mischief that Claudia Sheinbaum and her allies are going to make, which is the same thing Trump did vis-a-vis Mexico last time around: bluster and then basically nothing. What might a Kamala Harris administration do? Harris will be at the border todayif she has some big ideas, this is the time to make them plain. 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. Some canceled, delayed flights at Savannah-Hilton Head after Helenes wake in Southeast On Friday morning, several outbound flights from Savannah-Hilton Head International had been canceled as a result of the cancellation of other inbound flights from Thursday afternoon and evening. Lori Lynah, the airports spokesperson, said it is likely that other than a few scattered cancellations and delays throughout Friday, flight schedules should be back to normal by the afternoon. Thursday evening flight Savannah-Hilton Head International airport had several flight cancellations and delays Thursday evening as Hurricane Helene rapidly moved, intensifying into a Category 4 storm and expected to make landfall in Floridas Panhandle. Arriving flights from Miami, Newark, New Jersey; New York City and Chicago have been canceled, and seven other arriving flights have been delayed. As of Thursday evening, only one departing flight had been delayed. Lori Lynah, the airports director of marketing and air service development, said Thursday evening that she does not expect widespread flight cancellations into Friday. At 6:20 p.m. Thursday, Helene intensified into a Category 4 hurricane. The storm was 120 miles west of Tampa, Florida, moving toward the north-northeast near 23 mph, with sustained wind speeds of 130 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center advisory. A tornado watch was issued for Beaufort County at about 8:35 a.m Thursday morning and was set to expire by 1:15 a.m. Friday. The county is also under a tropical storm watch until 7:15 p.m. Thursday. The Lowcountry is likely to face strong winds, heavy rain, possible tornadoes and rough seas. Three candidates are running for the Modesto City Schools Board of Education seat for Trustee Area 6. This west Modesto area includes Modesto High School, Mark Twain Middle School and Franklin Elementary. The school board candidates are incumbent Homero Mejia and challengers Rueth Velez-Langrock and Sebastian Jones. The Modesto Bee asked all candidates to fill out a questionnaire, but only Mejia responded. Homero Mejia Mejia was born in Aguililla in Michoacan, Mexico. He is married to Marta Mejia and is a father of two. He attended Modesto City Schools when he moved to the area and he graduated from Modesto High School in 1998. Mejia has been endorsed by the Modesto Teachers Association and North Valley Labor Federation. No members of his immediate family work for the school district. Q: What will be your most important priority if elected? A: Most important priority is making sure our students continue to grow in all students in core subject areas reading, writing, math, and science. I came into office during the pandemic. Our students, like all students across our state, fell behind academically during this time. We provide as many resources as possible with federal and state funding after the pandemic. We have begun to see a rise in scores across our district and we must continue on an upward trajectory. If elected, we must also provide many opportunities for teachers to continue their professional development to have updated tools to support the success of our students. School safety is a priority if I am elected to continue that work that we have done up to this point by having all school gates and single-point entry into our campuses. Providing all the training necessary for staff to be as prepared as possible to keep students safe. Q: With the district preparing for its fourth bond measure in the last six years, do you believe facilities at Modesto City Schools are a big issue? Why or why not? A: Facilities are a major issue in our district because our district has been here for 150 years. Many decades have passed since our facilities have been updated. Q: Many parents of Black and LGBTQ students have said that bullying has been a major issue in their childs lives and education. What are steps or plans you have to make sure schools are fostering an open and welcoming environment? A: Some my plans is to continue providing staff with the skills to: 1. Discuss the diversity of the student body and school community, including their varying immigration experiences 2. Discuss bullying prevention strategies with students, and teach students to recognize the behavior and characteristics of bullying perpetrators and victims 3. Identify the signs of bullying or harassing behavior 4. Take immediate corrective action when bullying is observed 5. Report incidents to the appropriate authorities, including law enforcement in instances of criminal behavior. Encouraging students to notify school staff when they are being bullied or when they suspect that another student is being bullied, and providing means by which students may report threats or incidents confidentially and anonymously Conducting an assessment of bullying incidents at each school and, if necessary, increasing supervision and security in areas where bullying most often occurs, such as playgrounds, hallways, restrooms, and cafeterias Annually notifying district employees that, pursuant to Education Code 234.1, any school staff who witnesses an act of bullying against a student has a responsibility to immediately intervene to stop the incident when it is safe to do so. Q: Modesto City Schools has had a long history with Modesto Junior College and Stanislaus State. What are some plans you have to strengthen these relationships to help promote more students continuing to higher education? A: We have strengthened the relationship with Modesto Junior College and we are offering dual enrollment to hundreds of students. We will continue to work with MJC and other colleges to offer dual enrollment to thousands of students in our district. I truly believe that dual enrollment will help promote higher education in coming years for both MJC and Stanislaus State. Rueth Velez-Langrock Velez-Langrock did not respond to the candidate profile form The Modesto Bee sent out. She was born in Michigan and eventually moved to Hughson. She married her husband, Darrel, and she is a mother of two. She works as a facilitator for teen moms at Modesto High School, Downey High School and Elliott Alternative Education Center. She also worked as a counselor for high-risk youth in Patterson Unified School District and as a substitute teacher in Modesto City Schools. On her candidate website, she said she is concerned with inappropriate materials in schools, involving more parent participation and enforcing strict anti-bullying policies. Sebastian Jones Jones did not respond to the candidate profile form The Modesto Bee sent out. The Bee previously conducted a background check on Jones when he ran in the 2024 primary election to replace Modesto Mayor Sue Zwahlen. Prominent things found in the background check included an arrest for battery in 2008 and California Franchise Tax Board filed a lien against Jones for the 2006 tax year and again in the 2019 tax year. JOPLIN, Mo. A downtown Joplin business suffers structural damage after a car crashes into it. This was the scene around 1st and Main just before noon Thursday. Joplin building partially collapses after car crash Joplin police say the driver of the car was trying to park in front of 106 S Main, but hit the wrong pedal, causing the vehicle to crash into the building. Officers say no one was hurt in the incident. The Joplin city building inspector did come to the scene and determined there was structural damage. The owner of the business is temporarily securing it until a contractor can come in and make permanent repairs. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Darren Eales will continue in the CEO role at St James Park for up to 12 months - Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images Newcastle United CEO Darren Eales has stepped down from position after he was diagnosed with a chronic form of blood cancer. Eales, who arrived from MLS club Atlanta in August 2022, has made the decision after he was told by doctors of the extent of his illness. The 52-year-old will continue in the job until a successor has been identified and appointed but has revealed he needs to walk away in order to prioritise his health and family. It is understood that Eales does not need to start treatment until next year and could continue in his role for up to 12 months if a suitable replacement cannot be found. #NUFC CEO Darren Eales is to step down from his position after being diagnosed with a chronic form of blood cancer. He will continue to lead the club's executive team until a successor is appointed. Our thoughts are with you, @DEalesNUFC. Newcastle United FC (@NUFC) September 27, 2024 Being CEO of Newcastle United is an extraordinary privilege and I am incredibly proud to be part of the clubs exciting journey, Eales said in a statement on the clubs official website. However, it has become apparent to me that now is the right time to make this decision so that I can prioritise my health and my family. In the short term, it will be business as usual in terms of running the clubs day-to-day operations, and I will give my full support to a transitionary period that will enable the board to carefully assess and appoint my successor. I want to extend my sincere thanks to the clubs supporters, ownership, players and staff. Im proud of what we have collectively achieved and Im excited to see whats ahead for everyone as the club builds towards a future of sustained success. Eales arrived at St James Park 10 months after the takeover by Saudi Arabias Public Investment Fund and played a key role in the appointment of Paul Mitchell as Sporting Director earlier this year. He was also crucial in the clubs scramble to avoid breaching Premier League Profitability and Sustainability Rules in June and has been a popular figure behind the scenes. Newcastle United chairman, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, said: All of us who are connected with Newcastle United are very saddened by this news. Our thoughts are with Darren and his family and we send him every good wish for a full recovery. On a personal level, Darren has been a great partner to me and to our fans, players, ownership and staff. On behalf of the club and its owners, I want to thank Darren for his service and dedication to Newcastle United. He has made a significant contribution to the clubs progress during his time as CEO, helping to build a strong foundation for Newcastle Uniteds success. We fully understand the difficult decision he has made. We will work closely with Darren to hand over the CEO role at the appropriate moment following a carefully considered search process, and he will continue to have the full support of the board and the Newcastle United family now and in the future. Catching up with Manchester City will take a long time, says Eddie Howe Newcastle United have unbelievable owners who want to do some amazing things but manager Eddie Howe has once again warned it will take Saudi Arabias Public Investment Fund a long time to close the gap on Manchester City. Next month, it will be three years since the protracted and controversial takeover was ratified by the Premier League and progress has been slower than many people imagined when Newcastle were bought by the largest sovereign wealth fund on the planet. Changes to the rules regarding related party sponsorship deals has prevented companies, linked to their Saudi Arabian owners, pumping money into the club to rapidly improve the squad. That has made it far harder for Newcastle to repeat the sort of rapid growth enjoyed by Chelsea under Roman Abramovich and City under Abu Dhabis ruling family, with Newcastle struggling to comply with the Premier Leagues Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) earlier this year. It led to the unwanted sales of winger Yankuba Minteh to Brighton and homegrown midfielder Elliot Anderson to Nottingham Forest and meant Newcastle did not sign a single player to improve their first team in the summer. Eddie Howe said Newcastles owners have big ambitions but added its not easy at the level were competing against - Serena Taylor/Getty Images Having spent around 415 million on new players since January 2022 initially to avoid relegation before qualifying for the Champions League at the end of Howes first season as manager the lack of player sales meant Newcastle had to scramble to offload players they would rather have kept. The board continues to procrastinate over a plan to rebuild and expand St James Park and there has also been no progress on a new training ground. These projects all fall outside of PSR limits and it is unclear why things have been delayed. This weekends clash with champions City is a timely reminder that, for all the stated ambition of chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan to be the number one club in the country, the gulf between the two clubs remains massive, on and off the pitch and Howe insists people need to be patient. Theres still a big ambition I can only talk about Newcastle and what were doing, he said. And I think that weve got unbelievable owners that want to do some amazing things here. But these things do take time and I think there needs to be patience from everybody connected with the club in terms of how quickly we can move things forward. I know people will always want things sort of in the here and now, but the likes of the new training ground, new stadium plans, redevelopment of St James Park, whatever it is, takes time. And of course then looking at the team with PSR restrictions, that will take time as well. So, I think as long as from my viewpoint that were still trying to move things forward, develop the team in the correct way. Theres still a big ambition, then people can see progress and I think thats a really positive thing. But its not easy at the level were competing against. Newcastle are sixth in the table after just one defeat in their five games this season, but they have not been playing well. And Howe has warned his big name players, like Bruno Guimaraes, Joelinton, Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon that they need to deliver more. Everyone has to earn their place The issue for me is, explained Howe, given a blank sheet of paper and you say go on, write down what your best team is, I dont think that would be difficult for me. The problem is, you have to justify your selection, so those players have to be in their best moment and best form. What you cant do is pick that team if it doesnt deserve to play. Im a big believer in rewarding people that are playing well. Im a big believer in theres no set team, everyone has to earn their place. If youre not earning your place, you cant play. So were in that moment, early season, where players havent been in their best form. Its difficult to pick players if theyre not playing continually well. Im at that stage now where Im going to have to make some difficult decisions, I think. He added: Your collective performance is always defined by the individuals within it, so if your individual players arent performing, youre going to suffer, especially if theyre in the important areas of the pitch that make the difference. We need some people to step up within the team, and that will have a galvanising effect on the group and thats what we need. Ive got no doubt with the players that are in my mind that they can deliver that. Theres no reason why they cant. 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. Hurricane Helene in the Gulf of Mexico moving towards Florida, Thursday, Sept. 26 2024 (AP) Category 4 Hurricane Helene made landfall in Floridas Big Bend region on Thursday night, bringing with it deadly winds of 140mph and a catastrophic storm surge. Helene made landfall at 11.10pm ET at Perry, Florida, just east of the mouth of the Aucilla River, the National Hurricane Center said in an update. This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation, the National Hurricane Center stated an hour before the storm roared ashore. Persons should not leave their shelters and remain in place through the passage of these life-threatening conditions. The center says that storm surge in areas near Helenes landfall could be as high as 20ft and be unsurvivable in some areas. More than 800,000 customers in Florida and Georgia were without power as Helene prepared to make landfall, according to PowerOutage.US. Some counties in the Big Bend area halted emergency service operations as the storm bore down. Helene will remain a hurricane as it moves into southern Georgia overnight before weakening and ending up in Tennessee on Friday afternoon as a tropical storm. A state of emergency was declared in 61 of Floridas 67 counties with several placed under evacuation orders. Earlier, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that one person had been killed when a sign fell and hit a vehicle on Interstate 4 in the Tampa area. So that just shows you that its very dangerous conditions out there, the governor said in a news conference in Tallahassee. You need to be, right now, just hunkering down. Now is not the time to be going out. DeSantis predicted that Floridians would wake up on Friday and find it very likely theres been additional loss of life. He added: Youre going to have people who are going to lose their homes because of this storm, DeSantis said. CBS News on Friday announced rules for the vice presidential debate it's hosting Tuesday night between Democratic vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz and Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance. Notably, the network said that the candidates' microphones will not be muted, but clarified in a press release that it "reserves the right to turn off candidate microphones." This is a shift from the CNN presidential debate in June and the ABC News presidential debate held earlier this month, where microphones were muted unless it was the candidate's turn to speak. PHOTO: Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance speaks at a campaign event on Sept. 25, 2024, in Traverse City, Mich. (Paul Sancya/AP) CBS News also said that Vance won a virtual coin toss for the right to choose the order in which each candidate gives their closing statement, and he decided to speak after Walz. (There will be no opening statements.) Walz will be standing on stage left (the right side of the screen for viewers), and Vance on stage right. Walz will also introduced first, because he is in the incumbent president's party. MORE: Vance preparing for VP debate with Tom Emmer playing Walz MORE: Walz debate prep underway with Pete Buttigieg as Vance stand-in Candidates cannot have notes or props with them. The debate, set to be held in New York City and moderated by CBS journalists Norah O'Donnell and Margaret Brennan, is scheduled to be 90 minutes long and will be held without a studio audience, similar to the debates hosted by CNN and ABC News. Each candidate will have two minutes to answer a question, and then their opponent has two minutes to respond. Candidates then have one minute each for additional rebuttals, and CBS News said that the moderators can choose to give the candidates another minute to finish a topic. The debate likely be the only time the vice presidential candidates face off onstage and comes just over a month before the presidential election. PHOTO: Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a campaign stop at Laborfest, Sept. 2, 2024, in Milwaukee. (Morry Gash/AP) MORE: 'Florida is in play': Democrats put money into states where they were struggling Both candidates have been preparing for the pivotal event. Vance's debate preparations have included sessions at his Cincinnati home and online sessions with his team and with Jason Miller, a senior adviser on former President Donald Trump's campaign, a source told ABC News. And the Ohio senator is turning to Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer to help him in debate rehearsals by playing Walz, sources familiar with the plans told ABC News. PHOTO: Republican Vice Presidential nominee Senator JD Vance speaks in Phoenix, Arizona, Sept. 5, 2024. | Vice President candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz speaks in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Sept. 12, 2024. (Go Nakamura/Reuters | Brett Farmer/Shutterstock ) Walz, meanwhile, has held mock debates, sources told ABC News, with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, in his personal capacity, acting as a Vance stand-in, and held policy sessions with his own longtime aides, Biden White House alumni and members of the Harris-Walz campaign team. ABC News' Hannah Demissie and Isabella Murray contributed to this report. CBS News says mics won't be muted for VP debate originally appeared on abcnews.go.com In the late 1990s and early 2000s, "Nigerian Prince" emails became infamous typically involving someone claiming to be royalty and asking for money that they promised would be paid back with a hefty commission added once the purported royal offspring came into his inheritance. Most people know by now that these outlandish claims are a scam. But as internet connectivity became cheaper and more accessible on the African continent, those scams have morphed into something far more sophisticated, and much harder to recognize. I have traveled with a CBS News team to Ghana fairly often, and every time we've visited, we'd hear about so-called romance scams. For more than a year, CBS News has been investigating the devastating toll that overseas-based scams are taking on Americans of all ages and background. The amount of money flowing from American victims to fraud syndicates has topped $10 billion, according to the Federal Trade Commission. And that number, experts say, is almost certainly an undercount. Over that period, CBS News has tried to understand what and who is driving the criminal activity, but scammers have been unwilling to talk. Why would any fraudster willingly share the tricks of their trade, after all? And make no mistake while many young Ghanaians are lured into potentially lucrative lives of cyber fraud, they quickly become tools of transnational criminal syndicates that work in what's become a billion-dollar industry. But earlier this year, the CBS News team began to peel back the veil of secrecy on one of the criminal enterprises targeting unsuspecting Americans in the perceived safety of their own homes. Ghana's underground "boiler rooms" A CBS News photographer went undercover to film inside a so-called "boiler room" in a dusty part of Ghana's capital Accra, where young men work for a syndicate boss who provides them with laptops, phones, internet and stable electricity. They work late into the night, trawling online dating sites for lonely, older victims they cynically refer to as "clients." Eventually we convinced a junior member of one of the operations to talk to us on the condition we hid his identity. He claimed he didn't do it much anymore, although the evidence we saw suggested it was pretty much his full-time job. In order to persuade him to speak to us, we agreed to conceal his identity, referring to him only as Abdullah. He has a wife and kids who know nothing about his double life. His boss gets 60% of the cut and Abdullah takes home the remaining 40%. He told us he mainly targets American men, as they're easier to trick. Women, he said, take a lot longer to fall in love. He poses as a beautiful woman living in the U.S. His victims on the other end of the dating apps, on the other side of the world, have no idea they're actually talking to a young man in Ghana. "I pretended to be a girl," Abdullah said. He builds trust by sending "flowers and chocolate" after convincing his victims to provide an address. "If you chat like you are in Ghana, they know that Ghana and Nigeria (have) plenty of scams," Abdullah said, explaining that his work requires a fair amount of time spent researching his purported home state: "You have to study, you have to know a lot about it. If you're, like, in California, we have to set our time and everything California time." Abdullah and those like him in the boiler rooms are fairly low down in the criminal hierarchy. Most syndicates have "closers" who step in once a victim is on the hook. The closers The closers are often well-educated young men who speak English well. At first they were skittish and reluctant to talk. But we got the sense they were proud of their work, and wanted to show it off. The two men who finally agreed to speak to CBS News a syndicate boss who called himself Voodu and senior operator who went by Cola (not their real names) said they only agreed to talk because their "motives are misunderstood." And once they started talking, they couldn't stop. (Although they were accompanied by an "enforcer" who glared at us throughout the interview and threatened that his, "boys will hunt you down," if we revealed their identities.) Voodu said he has been in the game for nearly 15 years, and he claims to employ around 50 people. "I'm the mastermind behind the whole thing," boasted the smooth-talking operator, oozing confidence. He even tried to charm us, styling himself as some kind of Robin Hood. "Where I come from, it's very hard. It's very difficult for people to get money," he told us. "So I came up with this whole idea just to support my neighbors, those who do not have it, the poor, the needy, the orphanage just help everybody out." We have no idea if Voodu has actually tried to help his community, but he's certainly living the good life. He claimed he would leave the world of crime once he's made enough money to start his own business. He acknowledged that his work in the meantime does harm many other people, and said, "sometimes, I feel bad." But not bad enough to stop doing it. Cola said he's a university graduate who didn't have enough money to pay his school fees, and then after he'd qualified as a teacher, couldn't find a job. We asked him how he felt about making a living by stealing money from others. "It has both sides. It's a mixed feeling," he said. "Sometimes I feel disappointed, like I didn't go to school to do this. I can do better than this. Sometimes when I take money from people and feel like, 'Oh my God, these people, how are they going to feel?' l imagine that it is my dad. But you know, there's no sympathy, because once you go on the sympathetic side, you go hungry." Debora Patta speaks with members of the Ghanaian syndicate, including leader "If you have the conscience, you can't proceed, you can't push. Because sometimes I need to push people to the limit to get something from them," he said, adding that for many young men in his position, "if this game had not come, they'd have to pull the trigger on people and steal from them." The big con They may not be putting a gun to people's heads, but their criminal actions are still devastating for victims left broken-hearted and financially ruined. "I fish everywhere in the world," Voodu told us, but he said the easiest victims to catch, "they are Americans." He said his team in the boiler room begins by sending a victim little tokens of affection; chocolates, a teddy bear, even ordering their favorite food online and having it delivered to their doorstep. They shower them with attention, messaging them constantly and making them feel loved, adored and special. "I will make you fall in love with me," he boasted. "If you don't hear from me within a second, you know, you wouldn't be happy, you'd be worried." When a victim insists on a video call, Voodu said he hires online porn actors and records them acting out scenarios he directs from the mundane to the more raunchy. "They think they're talking to this beautiful blonde woman (that) I have paid to just have her on video call," he tells us. If a victim gets suspicious, Voodu is ready. He showed CBS News how he uses an image of one of his recruited porn actors to forge an image of an American passport as proof of identity. If the victim demands an in-person visit, they arrange for a meetup with a woman who gets a cut of the profits. Building trust can take months. "We do all that to get his attention and trust," he explained. "Then, boom we chip in business." Then it's time for the big con: Getting their victim to part with huge sums of money. The set-up often centers around Ghana's globally renowned goldmines, the largest in Africa. The scammer, still posing as the woman the victim has come to trust, will claim to be in line to inherit one of these mines. The victim is invited to invest in the mine with the promise of huge returns that will ensure a wonderful future for the happy couple. They show forged ownership documents, complete with official looking seals. The pair claimed to CBS News that their biggest payout was in the millions. One victim's story Gerald Kpangkpari heads up the anti-money-laundering unit in Ghana's Economic and Organized Crime Office. "We have a lot of unemployed youths, people who are talented, who have gone to school, and they don't have anything to do," he explained. He described their main targets: "Male. Caucasian male. They are elderly people who are quite lonely. The Ghanaian scammers we have spoken with told us they prefer targeting men as they're easier to trap and less likely to report it, because of their shame over being conned. Among the victims is a 75-year-old American radiologist who we're identifying only as John. He declined to give an interview for precisely that reason he's ashamed of having fallen into the trap. John's daughter went to FBI agents, who handed the file over to Ghana's organized crime unit. Kpangkpari told us that John believed he was in love with an Australian woman named Grace Erskine who lived in the U.S. He was actually talking to 34-year-old syndicate boss Alfred Kwame Ayivor, posing as Grace. Ayivor controlled the entire scam, which included the extreme measure of hiring a woman to play the part of Grace for any in-person meetings John insisted on. Below is part of a text message exchange between Ayivor and the woman he hired: Woman: What's my cut? Ayivor: How about $100,000? Woman: $250 000. Without me, everyone gets nothing. I could always call him [John] and say it was a scam. She clearly did not follow up on the threat. Pretending to be Grace, she visited John in the U.S., even meeting his family, Kpangkpari told us. She claimed she'd inherited a Ghanaian gold mine, which John was offered a stake in to secure their future together. To seal the deal, the couple were to meet again, in Ghana's capital city, as organized by Ayivor: Ayivor: That's where we stand with John, one week in Ghana with Grace. Woman: Yuck. He's so gross. Ayivor: One week + TLC Woman: I am not opening my legs for him. John did travel to Ghana and stayed for some of the time at the same hotel as Grace in Accra. Ayivor posed as their driver the entire time, apparently to keep an eye on an operation he hoped would yield a big payday. By the time the fraudulent romance was over, Kpangkpari said John had shelled out more than $700,000 on what turned out to be a non-existent investment in a non-existent gold mine. Ayivor and Kpangkpari said the "exchange of information" between his team and U.S. law enforcement agencies is always crucial, but it was the sheer quantity of money flowing into Ayivor's account that raised a red flag for the Ghanaian detectives, as Ayivor was officially unemployed at the time. "We realized that the person did not have any form of work that is commensurate with the amount of moneys that were coming into his account," Kpangkpari told CBS News. Ayivor was arrested in 2019 and his assets were seized, but he died of an unknown illness before facing trial. Kpangkpari's unit has been able to return a little over $36,000 to John, and they're still trying to recover more of the money the American sent to Ghana. As for the mysterious blonde woman who posed as Grace she had vanished after her contacts with John. The Ghanaian authorities identified her as an Australian national named Rebecca Jade Silk. The CBS News team tracked her down in September outside Sydney, Australia. When confronted, she kept her mouth shut and her head down, refusing to confirm or deny the allegations. Silk has not been charged with any crimes. She remains a person of interest for the Ghanaian authorities. Rebecca Jade Silk is seen at the home of No turning back from the life of bling The "Yahoo boys" of the boiler rooms and their so-called hustle kingdoms have been glamorized in popular West African culture, perhaps unsurprising given the millions they claim to be raking in. When asked if their victims go into debt because of what they do, Voodu laughed and said, "yeah." They live a flashy lifestyle complete with expensive clubs, beach parties and fancy cars. We filmed one group celebrating a big payout by just throwing money in the air. Given that they lie and cheat for a living, I put it to the group bluntly: How I could be sure they weren't lying to us in the interview? Cola responded with annoyance: "I don't lie and cheat for a living. I'm using what I have here [pointing to his head] to survive. I decided to be honest to you." In a country where poverty is rife and jobs are scarce, there's a long line of kids ripe for recruitment into a life of crime. Once they've tasted the good life, they seldom turn back regardless of the cost to victims an ocean away. CBS News investigative producer Andrew Bast contributed to this report. Why Hurricane Helene could be catastrophic How Hurricane Helene battered Florida New York City Mayor Eric Adams arraigned New center for organ donors is first of its kind in Illinois CHICAGO -- Tucked away behind unassuming double doors on the fifth floor of Rush University Medical Center sits a new, very different type of medical unit. Its a unit for patients who will save lives, even though they themselves have no hope of survival. The Gift of Hope Organ Donor Care Center at Rush is the first of its kind in Illinois. The center accepts patients from area hospitals whove been declared brain dead and whove been authorized to be organ donors. At the center, doctors and nurses work to keep donors organs functioning and ultimately procure their organs, so they can be transported to some of the more than 104,000 people now on waiting lists for organs in the U.S. The center received its first donor Sunday. Those behind the center say its a more efficient way of recovering organs that will save more lives. It will lead to more organs transplanted, said Lisa Hinsdale, director of organ operations for Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network, the not-for-profit organization thats responsible for recovering organs from deceased donors in the northern two-thirds of Illinois and Lake County, Indiana. If one more organ can be transplanted to each recipient, thats one more person off the wait list, Hinsdale said. Seventeen people die each day waiting for an organ transplant, according to the federal Health Resources & Services Administration. Now, when a person is deemed brain dead in the Chicago area, Gift of Hope evaluates whether the person is medically eligible to donate organs. Organs that can be donated include the heart, lungs, liver, pancreas, kidneys and intestine. Fewer than 1% of people die in such a way that it would even be possible to donate their organs, according to the Health Resources & Services Administration. Theyre most frequently people who suffer strokes, heart attacks or severe head injuries, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the nations organ transplant system. If the patient is eligible to donate, Gift of Hope specialists then talk with the patients family members to explain the donation process and confirm the patients status as a legally registered donor or to confirm the familys permission to donate the persons organs if they were not a registered donor. If the patient can donate, the patient typically remains at the hospital where they died, and its up to that hospital to keep the patient in its intensive care unit throughout the process. Gift of Hope enters information about the donor into a national computer system to match the donors organs with people on the national waiting list. Surgeons sometimes from other areas of the country then often travel to the hospital to remove the organs and transport them elsewhere. Its a complex process that can take about 60 hours from start to finish and it can put pressure on community hospitals, say Gift of Hope leaders. If an organ donor dies at a community hospital, the hospital must often keep the donor in a bed in its intensive care unit until the organs are retrieved, meaning less space for other patients. The hospital must find time in its operating room schedule for surgery to remove the organs a task that might be delayed as hospitals prioritize emergency surgeries. And it must accommodate multiple surgeons and teams who travel to the hospital to retrieve organs for their patients. The new center is meant to streamline that process. Our hope is by moving the donor to the organ care center we can take some of that burden off the referring hospital, said Mike Harmon, vice president of organ operations at Gift of Hope. The center is a collaboration between Gift of Hope and Rush, with Rush providing the space and services such as a pharmacy, labs and respiratory care. Both groups provide staffing. Rush decided to partner with Gift of Hope on the center because it felt the center would be a good match for its mission and value system, said Dr. Edie Chan, division chief for transplant surgery at Rush. Gift of Hope and Rush will now transfer organ donors from community hospitals to the center, where they will be cared for by Gift of Hope and Rush nurses and advanced practitioners until its time for surgery. Hospitals that do their own transplants, such as Northwestern Memorial, Loyola University Medical Center and University of Chicago Medical Center will not transfer patients to the unit. The new 10,000-square-foot space at Rush includes six medical bays that are specifically set up for the needs of donors, with equipment such as ventilators, heart monitors and space for waste, such as from dialysis. The center also has two operating rooms, including one thats about twice the size of a typical operating room space thats needed to accommodate the 40 or 50 medical workers who might be there simultaneously if a donor is donating multiple organs. In the massive operating room, swinging lights hang over an operating table, machines to make sterile ice are at the ready, and metal tables offer a place where organs can be packaged before theyre taken out of the room to waiting patients across the country. The center will also be better for families, say Gift of Hope and Rush leaders. Families can choose to say goodbye to their loved ones before theyre transported to the donor care center or follow them there, if they wish. The medical bays at the center each include a couch that can be used by visitors, if a family member wants to stay with the donor. A small, light-filled waiting room across the hall is designated for family members of donors a place where they can sit quietly, surrounded by huge windows overlooking the United Center. These families have gone through it, said Dr. Harry Wilkins, president and CEO of Gift of Hope. Some families may want to come, and if they do, we want to honor their needs and their loved ones. Donor care units are a growing part of the organ transplantation system in the U.S. In 2022, a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on achieving equity in organ transplantation recommended that the federal government require each organ procurement organization in the country to establish a donor care unit. The reports authors wrote, Donor care units are an innovation in organ procurement and provide an opportunity to bring consistency and high-quality care to donor organ procurement and the donor family care experience. That same report noted that a donor care unit in St. Louis recovered 6% to 18% more organs between 2009 and 2014 than the national average for organs recovered at hospitals. The U.S. organ transplantation system has faced controversy in recent years. In 2023, Congress passed a bill that was signed into law, aiming to reform the system, after allegations of inefficiency and negligence. This month, a House subcommittee held a hearing on the progress made on that legislation, and heard startling anecdotes about problems in the system. In July, the Tribune published an article detailing how an Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network algorithm was supposed to help distribute lungs more fairly, but a flaw in the process meant some people didnt receive the care they should have. Wilkins said the donor care center at Rush is a move in the right direction. The system is not perfect, otherwise there would not be 100,000 people waiting for organs, Wilkins said. Were still evolving, and this is yet another step in that evolution. ____ To register to become an organ donor, go to LifeGoesOn.com, call 1-800-210-2106 or visit an Illinois secretary of state facility. KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Sept. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Moomoo Securities Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. (Moomoo Malaysia) is proud to announce it has become the first platform in Malaysia to offer US Options trading, marking a major milestone in the Malaysian financial market. This significant expansion of Moomoo's product offerings follows the announcement at the recent #MerdekaBersamaMoofest and continues the company's commitment to provide Malaysians with broader access to global financial markets. With the introduction of US Options, Moomoo Malaysia is offering investors the ability to trade options on some of the world's largest and most prominent companies listed on the US stock exchanges. This new feature will allow users to diversify their investment strategies, hedge positions, and gain more control over their portfolios by leveraging options trading strategies. Empowering Malaysian Investors with Advanced Tools According to Moomoo Malaysia's recent Retail Investor Sentiment Survey, 33% of Malaysian investors are actively looking to global markets as part of their strategy to diversify their portfolios, while 37% of Malaysian investors are focusing on high-growth sectors such as technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and finance, especially in global markets like the US. With US Options trading now available, moomoo provides a timely and effective solution for Malaysian investors to gain exposure to the world's largest market, offering them the tools to navigate both local and international financial opportunities. Ivan Mok, Chief Executive Officer of Moomoo Malaysia said, "We're thrilled to be the first in Malaysia to introduce US Options trading. This is a transformative step for the local investment landscape, giving our users access to sophisticated financial tools typically available in more mature markets. With the ability to trade options on major US companies, our users can now tailor their investment strategies to both protect their portfolios from volatility and capitalize on global growth sectors like tech and AI. This is an important step for Malaysian investors looking to diversify beyond traditional stocks and gain access to some of the world's largest markets." He added, "What sets moomoo apart is not just the access to US Options but the complete ecosystem we provideintegrated educational resources, advanced data, and analysis tools. We want to ensure our users, whether they are new to options trading or seasoned investors, can confidently execute their strategies with the support they need at every step." Lowering Barriers through Greater Investor Support In line with its mission to empower investors, Moomoo Malaysia will continue to offer comprehensive educational resources designed to help users of all levels understand the intricacies of US Options trading. These resources include in-depth guides, real-time market data, active community forums, as well as interactive webinars hosted by industry experts, all available within the moomoo app. From a community standpoint, Malaysian investors have the opportunity to tap into a shared, collaborative space on the moomoo app via the "Moo Community", which hosts over 23.8 million investors worldwide. The launch of US Options trading will encourage greater discussions on portfolio management and diversification strategies, through valuable community insights into market trends and investment strategies. Since its launch in February 2024, Moomoo Malaysia has rapidly become the leading digital investment platform in the country, gaining its first 100,000 clients within 6 weeks of their debut. The platform was also recently voted as the 'Best Up and Coming Digital Investment Platform' in Malaysia at the recent PC.com 2024 Readers Choice Award, a recognition of Moomoo's commitment to the local investment landscape by providing greater accessibility and unparalleled resource access. This latest development further strengthens Moomoo Malaysia's position as a pioneer in the financial technology space, continuously setting new benchmarks for the local investment scene. For more information on the new US Options trading service on Moomoo Malaysia, please visit https://www.moomoo.com/my/promotion/us_options. Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/moomoo-malaysia-becomes-first-to-launch-us-options-trading-in-malaysia-expanding-access-to-global-markets-302260826.html SOURCE Moomoo Malaysia CENTERTON, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) The Centerton Police Department is looking for a missing and endangered teen who is believed to be with an unknown adult friend in St. Louis. Courtesy: Centerton Police Department Police say they are looking for Emily Williams, 15, who has been missing since Sept. 9. She was last seen leaving her home in Centerton wearing a red hoodie, yoga pants and an anime backpack. Williams has family ties to Siloam Springs and Springdale. She has dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. She has a tattoo possibly on her left hand of a heart and 444. If anyone has any information on Williams whereabouts, call 479-795-4431 and ask for criminal investigations reference Case#CEP2409-1003. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. A Saint Cloud man was arrested following a road rage shooting on Floridas Turnpike on Thursday, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. Troopers said the shooting happened around 6:30 a.m. in the northbound lanes on the turnpike near the 417 exit in Orlando. The victim, a 33-year-old male, discovered that his Tesla had been hit by gunfire, then realized he had been shot in the right leg, according to a news release. Read: FHP: Man shot in road rage incident on Floridas Turnpike The victim was taken to the hospital and was treated for his injuries. Two bullet holes were discovered on the driver-side door of the victims vehicle. Read: LIVE UPDATES: Tornado watch issued for Central Florida as Hurricane Helene nears landfall Investigators said a gray or silver Volkswagen hatchback was involved in a road rage incident with the victim at the time of the shooting. Troopers arrested 35-year-old Jorge Luis De Jesus Carrasquillo and charged him with attempted felony murder, shooting into an occupied vehicle, and direct discharge of a firearm from a car. Central Florida man arrested after road rage shooting in Orlando Read: Floridas Big Bend prepares for catastrophic damage from Hurricane Helene De Jesus Carrasquillo was booked into the Orange County Jail. Anyone with information regarding this case is asked to contact FHP at 407-737-2213 or CRIMELINE. Central Florida man arrested after road rage shooting in Orlando Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. The Central and Southern Region of the American Red Cross has sent relief vehicles and at least 16 volunteers to areas of Florida, Georgia and North Carolina devastated by Helene and its remnants to provide humanitarian relief, the agency reported Friday. The area Red Cross on Thursday sent two emergency vehicles to Macon, Georgia, to provide support for relief operations. The vehicles, one from Newark and the other from Cincinnati, will be used for mobile feeding and to distribute emergency supplies. They will be joining a fleet of other Red Cross emergency vehicles that are coming in from around the country, the agency said. At least 16 central Ohio Red Cross volunteers were already in areas of Florida, Georgia and western North Carolina impacted by Helene as of Friday. The agency said it plans to send more volunteers in waves since the effects from the storm are expected to last for months. The Central and Southern Ohio Region of the Red Cross said they are also keeping volunteers in the region in case they are needed locally. How can I help those affected by the storm? To make a donation to Red Cross disaster relief efforts visit redcross.org or call 1-800-RED CROSS. The Red Cross will not accept donations of clothing or household items. Donors can make financial donations, which can be used right away to directly help those affected, such as replacing lost items like prescription medications or reading glasses. Those who want to make a financial donation can text "Helene" to 90999. smeighan@dispatch.com @ShahidMeighan This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Hurricane Helene update: Ohio sends Red Cross relief for victims CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, Ill. (WCIA) Champaign County is launching a new program that aims to strengthen gun safety and keep people safe. The Office of the County Executive announced that the county had been awarded a grant from the Illinois Department of Public Health. They intend to use that grant to launch the Champaign County Gun Safety initiative. The initiative is designed to promote responsible gun ownership and reduce the risk of firearm-related incidents in the community. It will include educational programming and outreach that informs people on the importance of secure firearm storage, accidental discharges, theft and restraining orders. Former U of I student gives 10 million for new science center The program will also offer free gun locks and safes paired with educational workshops and outreach efforts. The county is also partnering with local law enforcement, public health officials and community organizations to raise awareness of firearms restraining orders and the benefits of safe firearm storage. Elly Hanauer-Friedman is a County Board Member and a longtime volunteer leader with Champaign County Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. Gun violence, including gun suicide, continues to be a serious concern throughout our community, Hanauer-Friedman said. Champaign County is committed to supporting gun violence prevention efforts and this grant builds on the financial support the county has provided to local gun violence prevention efforts over the past few years. Increased public awareness of and access to safe storage as well as highlighting options to temporarily remove guns from loved ones who pose a threat to themselves, or others will save lives. Surgeon General declares gun violence a public health crisis She knows from personal experience the cost of not storing firearms properly. This particular issue has been on my mind for a long time, because when I was in high school, a boy in my class was shot and killed with an unsecured gun by his best friend, said Hanauer-Friedman. Unfortunately, it seems like we hear about more and more of these types of incidents every day. People can sign up for upcoming trainings and learn more about the program and other events 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 WCIA.com. FILE - In this Oct. 24, 2015 file photo, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah addresses a crowd during the holy day of Ashoura, in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File) BEIRUT (AP) Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah led the Lebanese militant group for the past three decades, transforming it into one of the most powerful paramilitary groups in the Middle East. Hezbollah confirmed Saturday that he was killed in an Israeli air raid that levelled six apartment buildings in Beirut the previous day. Read his full obituary here, and here's a shorter look at the leader: Who was Hassan Nasrallah? An astute strategist, the 64-year-old Nasrallah reshaped Hezbollah into an archenemy of Israel, cementing alliances with Shiite religious leaders in Iran and Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas. Under his leadership, Hezbollah fought wars against Israel and took part in the conflict in neighboring Syria, helping tip the balance of power in favor of President Bashar Assad. Idolized by his Lebanese Shiite followers and respected by millions of others across the Arab and Islamic world, Nasrallah held the title of sayyid, an honorific meant to signify the Shiite clerics lineage dating back to the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam. A fiery orator viewed as an extremist in the United States and much of the West, he was also considered a pragmatist compared to the militants who dominated Hezbollah after its founding in 1982, during Lebanons civil war. Despite the power he wielded, Nasrallah lived largely in hiding for fear of an Israeli assassination. How he rose to power Born in 1960 into a poor Shiite family in Beiruts impoverished northern suburb of Sharshabouk, Nasrallah was later displaced to south Lebanon. He studied theology and joined the Amal movement, a Shiite political and paramilitary organization, before becoming one of Hezbollahs founders. Hezbollah was formed by Iranian Revolutionary Guard members who came to Lebanon in the summer of 1982 to fight invading Israeli forces. It was the first group that Iran backed and used as a way to export its brand of political Islam. Nasrallah built a power base as Hezbollah became part of a cluster of Iranian-backed factions and governments known as the Axis of Resistance. Two days after its leader, 39-year-old Sayyed Abbas Musawi, was killed in an Israeli helicopter gunship raid in south Lebanon, Hezbollah chose Nasrallah as its secretary-general in February 1992. Five years later, the United States designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization. Under Nasrallah, Hezbollah was credited with leading the war of attrition that led to the withdrawal of Israeli troops from south Lebanon in 2000, after an 18-year occupation. Nasrallahs eldest son, Hadi, was killed in 1997, fighting against Israeli forces. After Israels withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, Nasrallah rose to iconic status both within Lebanon and throughout the Arab world. His messages were beamed on Hezbollahs own radio and satellite TV station. That status was further cemented when, in 2006, Hezbollah fought Israel to a stalemate during the 34-day war. When Syrias civil war erupted in 2011, Hezbollah fighters rushed in, siding with Assads forces even though Hezbollahs popularity took a dive as the Arab world ostracized Assad. Nasrallah's role in the current conflict A day after the Israel-Hamas war started on Oct. 7, Hezbollah began attacking Israeli military posts along the border calling it a backup front for Gaza. In speeches throughout the conflict, Nasrallah argued that Hezbollahs cross-border strikes had pulled away Israeli forces that would otherwise be focused on Hamas in Gaza and insisted that Hezbollah would not halt its attacks on Israel until a cease-fire is reached in Gaza. He maintained a defiant tone, even as tensions rose dramatically in recent weeks with Israel announcing a new phase in the conflict intended to push Hezbollah back from the border to allow thousands displaced from northern Israel to return. Israel launched strikes killing top military commanders with the group and was blamed for the explosion of thousands of communications devices, mainly used by Hezbollah members, that killed 37 people and wounded thousands. CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) Charlotte Fire crews responded to more than 550 calls during since midnight while the area has experienced heavy winds and rain from Helene. Out of the 559 emergency calls, 280 were directly related to the storms effects, Charlotte Fire officials say. This includes flooding, downed powerlines and storm damage. LIVE: Helene causing historic flooding, 100+ rescues reported in NC Our firefighters remain on the front lines, still taking emergency and storm-related calls as we continue to serve and protect our residents during this challenging time, the department said. Charlotte Fires commitment to the safety and well-being of our community is a testament to the resilience and dedication of every firefighter in our department. Outside of Mecklenburg County, Charlotte firefighters assisted with the extrication of a York County, South Carolina, man pinned by a large tree that fell into a home As the storm moved in Thursday night, they also responded to a two-alarm fire at a restaurant, unrelated to the storm. As of 4:30 p.m. Friday, there are approximately 93,000 outages in the Charlotte area. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) Emergency management crews across the Carolinas are on standby, ready to respond when the worst of Helene moves through our region. Theyre expecting the activity to ramp up overnight Thursday and want you to know theyve got you covered. But they do have some requests to make your and their lives easier. Helene Timeline: When to expect the greatest impacts for your area in the Carolinas Conditions are going to worsen throughout the next day and a half, said Major Jonathan Thomas with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. Its all hands on deck in North Carolina, as crews brace for the incredibly dangerous and possibly catastrophic storm. Helene was preparing to make landfall as a Category 4 in the Florida Big Bend. While the storms worst impacts are expected in the western part of the state, closer to home, teams are preparing to act. We are prepared to rise and meet any demand which occurs in the next couple of days, said Damian Gonzales, Medic deputy director. Gaston County emergency shelter opens as neighborhoods under voluntary evacuations First responders want to keep you safe, but they also want to protect themselves. Our Charlotte firefighters have to put themselves at risk to rescue folks and we dont want that to occur, said Division Chief Robert Graham with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Emergency Management. Its why theyre asking people to use common sense. If you see flood water, dont drive through it. Officers will be putting out barricades as we find flooded areas that are likely to happen overnight, said Thomas. Do not drive around these barricades. For those living near Mountain Island Lake and the Catawba River, theyre keeping an extra close eye on conditions there. Flood waters are predicted to rise, said Graham. Working with Duke Energy, they believe theyre going to have significant issues in that area. If you have an emergency during the storm, call 911. But leaders are encouraging anyone who doesnt need immediate help to use 311. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Charred, Decapitated Remains of Wis. College Student Were Found in 1985. Now Police Think The Killer Lived Nearby Michael Raymond Popp faces a first-degree murder charge in connection with the 1985 killing of 24-year-old Terry Dolowy Vernon County Sheriff's Office Terry Dolowy Nearly 40 years after authorities discovered the charred and decapitated body of a missing college student in Wisconsin, an arrest has been made in connection with the womans killing. Michael Raymond Popp, now 60, of Tomah, Wis., was arrested Monday, Sept. 23 and charged with one count of first-degree murder in connection with the killing of 24-year-old Terry Dolowy, Monroe County District Attorney Kevin Croninger and Vernon County Sheriff Roy Torgerson announced at a press conference on Tuesday, Sept. 24. Authorities said Popp is being held in the Vernon County Jail and faces life in prison if convicted of the murder charge. Its unclear if he has entered a plea or retained an attorney to speak on his behalf. Dolowy was a senior at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, studying finance, when she vanished in the early morning hours of Feb. 14, 1985, authorities previously said in a statement. She was reported missing by her fiance, Russell Lee, whom she lived with at the Bostwick Valley Trailer Court in Barre Mills, Wis., where she had left her purse and car. Her dog was also missing and authorities subsequently opened a missing persons investigation. At the time of her disappearance, Dolowy worked full time as a bar manager at an upscale restaurant in La Crosse, Wis., known as Piggys, per the statement. Vernon County Sheriff's Office Terry Dolowy Four days later, on Feb. 18, 1985, the Vernon County Sheriffs Department responded to a location about six miles south of La Crosse after receiving a report of something burning in a culvert. It turned out to be the body of Dolowy, who was found decapitated and burned with the use of an accelerant, authorities said. Her head has never been located and decades passed without any arrests. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. According to a criminal complaint filed in Vernon County Circuit Court and reviewed by PEOPLE, authorities said Popp, who wouldve been 21 at the time of the killing, knew Dolowy and lived near the couple. The complaint states that Popp, his girlfriend, Dolowy and Lee all went to pool tournaments together and that he had visited Dolowy and Lees trailer on multiple occasions. It wasnt until January 2023 that through a search warrant, Popps DNA taken from a buccal swab was tested and allegedly matched the seminal fluid collected from Dolowys body during an autopsy back in 1985, per the complaint. He was identified as a person of interest in September 2022 after authorities claimed genealogy testing of the evidence taken from Dolowys body was a match for Popp. Vernon County Jail Michael Raymond Popp While speaking with investigators, Popp initially claimed he only saw Dolowy a few times and that he didnt really know her that well, the complaint states. But when investigators asked him why his buccal swab DNA was allegedly a match for the seminal fluid found inside Dolowy's body, he responded, Maybe, I maybe had a little affair, for six to eight months, according to the complaint. Asked why he declined to previously share that information, Popp said, Well its a pretty serious case there. Didnt wanna be associated with it, per the complaint. Popp denied killing Dolowy, saying, No I am not a violent person." For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. New York (PIX11) In a touching tribute to a beloved school crossing guard, the corner of 26th Street and Tenth Avenue in Chelsea has been officially named Richies Corner in memory of Richard Henderson. The ceremony, held Thursday morning, brought together family and friends to honor Henderson, who tragically lost his life in January while attempting to break up an argument over loud music on a subway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. More Local News This means so much to me and my family. My husband is a legacy, but to have the street sign after him is just mind-blowing. Its heartwarming. said Jakeba Dockery, Hendersons wife. The event was marked by heartfelt speeches and fond memories of Henderson. Dozens of supporters gathered, wearing black shirts emblazoned with Richards Way to commemorate his life and impact on the community. Hendersons character was one of kindness and bravery. Dockery reflected on her late husbands nature. He dont like bullies. He dont like altercation. Hes a friendly person. He stopped a violence person. He just all about love. The street naming ceremony has provided a sense of permanence and pride for Hendersons family. Dockery shared, My grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, we all get to see his name. Forever Legacy. Its wonderful. Richard Henderson Jr., Hendersons son, added his thoughts, saying, I definitely miss my pops. This is him; he should have a street name. This is everything he would want as a person and as a man, everything he supports. This corner represents him. To continue Hendersons legacy of community service, Dockery announced the establishment of a nonprofit organization called Richies Way. This organization aims to give back to the community and children. More information can be found here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. CHESTER, Mass. (WWLP) After more than two months of being told to boil their water or use bottled water, Chester residents can now drink their water straight from the tap. Chester water department investigating water discoloration Thursday, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection lifted the boil water order for Chester Water Department customers, which had been issued back on July 24. The order was issued due to water discoloration and after a review of water system data noted treatment technique violations that occurred on multiple days during both June and July of 2024, which may have resulted in inadequate disinfection. Customers of the system had been told to boil their water before drinking, preparing food, making ice, washing dishes, or brushing their teeth. Bottled water was also distributed to residents out of the Chester Fire Department headquarters. According to a Chester Water Department public notice, the following steps were taken since the boil water notice was issued: All three slow sand filters were re-sanded and conditioned The clearwell was cleaned and inspected The source water was switched back to Horn Pond Reservoir Two rounds of bacteria samples were collected and had no detections The treatment plant has been meeting all turbidity and disinfection requirements daily A separate statement from town officials expressed gratitude to those who helped those affected by the order. The Selectboard and Water Commission wish to thank all the town employees and volunteers who staffed the water tent during this event. They wish to thank the MEMA and DEP staff. They especially want to thank Big Y for providing so much of the bottled water that was given to residents impacted by the boil water order. The water tent at the fire headquarters is now closed. Though the order has been lifted, residents of Chester are being advised to continue monitoring the towns official website TownofChester.net for updates. Local News Headlines WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.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 WWLP. (Bloomberg) -- The obesity-drug hype that fueled huge gains in Novo Nordisk A/S looks to be running out of steam. Most Read from Bloomberg Novo shares fell as much as 4.6% to a seven-month low on Friday after a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst said the Danish firms third-quarter results may show slower-than-expected sales of its blockbuster weightloss drug Wegovy. The drop extended recent declines in the stock, which is now trading about 20% below Junes record high and has lost almost 1 trillion Danish kroner ($149 billion) in market value. JPMorgans Richard Vosser, who still recommends investors be overweight Novo Nordisk shares, said in a note that the Danish companys third-quarter report, slated for Nov. 6, could cause some disappointment. Steady newsflow concerning potential rivals to Novo Nordisks weight-loss and diabetes drugs Ozempic and Wegovy has dented the investment case, said Soren Lontoft Hansen, senior analyst at Sydbank, in emailed comments. He added that the recent release of disappointing data from Novos pipeline weight-loss pill monlunabant, published on Sept. 20, hasnt helped. Novos recent stock-market struggles are in contrast with its biggest obesity-drug rival, US firm Eli Lilly & Co. While Eli Lillys closest Wegovy and Ozempic rivals, Mounjaro and Zepbound, arrived after Novos offering, momentum for the treatments has been building gradually. Novo is however still Europes most valuable firm, with luxury conglomerate LVMH in second place. Second-quarter sales for Wegovy also disappointed, and its August earnings sent shares 6.7% lower in one day, its biggest drop in two years. --With assistance from Sara Sjolin and Joe Easton. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Hes a native Cuban and an award-winning international journalist. Clemente Nicados assignments have taken him around the world. But now hes the visionary creator of a monthly news platform for the growing Latino business community. Nicado started his own publishing company in 2006. With the help of his American-born wife, Nicado launched Negocios Now, Spanish for Business Now. It was the first of many Spanish-language publications he founded that serve the expanding Latino business community. The monthly news magazine spawned the wildly popular 40 Under 40 Gala, a celebration that honors Chicagos top young business leaders. More: Hispanic Heritage Month His other Spanish-language publications include El Viajero, a print magazine for travelers that offers information and discounts to interesting destinations. Another publication focuses on Chicagos Latino real estate market. The Chicago Tribune hired Nicado to launch the ground-breaking Spanish-language daily, known as Hoy. Growing up in Cuba , Nicado never imagining hed someday find himself chasing the American Dream. WGNs Julian Crews has his 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 WGN-TV. UPDATE: This report now includes an update from the U.S. Marshals Service. SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) A Sioux Falls man is in the Minnehaha County Jail accused of rape, sexual contact with a child and child abuse. According to court papers, Orangie Johnson raped and assaulted a 12-year-old child in early April in Sioux Falls. Johnson allegedly told the victim he would purchase a cell phone for them in exchange for touching private parts of the body. But Johnson wasnt arrested in South Dakota. Instead, the Chicago Police Department arrested him on Sept. 9 in Illinois. In Sioux Falls, police department spokesperson Sam Clemens highlighted the value of a forensic interview Thursday. 47-year-old man booked into jail for rape, child abuse Its not detectives that are doing that, Clemens said. Its people that have specific training. So we have somebody local; Childs Voice does that forensic interview in Sioux Falls. This forensics interview took place in another jurisdiction closer to the victims residence. This delicate interview is set up to protect kids from any further abuse. One of the benefits of using that forensic interview is theyre getting information from the victim in a way that the victim doesnt have to relive or go through those situations, those circumstances again, Clemens said. And so the idea behind that is really to protect the children victims as much as we possibly can. Johnson appeared in a Minnehaha County courtroom Thursday where a judge gave him a $100,000 cash bond. The Minnehaha County Sheriffs Office had posted on social media in August that it was looking for information on where Johnson was. Following publication of this report, KELOLAND News received an emailed statement from Gary Bunt of the U.S. Marshals Services District of South Dakota. Minnehaha County requested the assistance of the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) in Sioux Falls to assist in locating and arresting Johnson on his felony warrant, Bunt said in the statement. USMS investigators in Sioux Falls determined Johnson had fled to Chicago, Illinois. USMS investigators in Sioux Falls then reached out to the USMS Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force (GLRFTF) in Chicago for assistance. The Chicago Police Department is a member of this task force. On September 9, 2024, members of the GLRFTF located and arrested Johnson based on information provided to them by USMS investigators in Sioux Falls. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KELOLAND.com. The wait is over for fans of the fast-food chain Chick-fil-A in Roseville. Chick-fil-A's newest metro-Detroit location is set to open Thursday on Gratiot Avenue. Roseville's new Chick-fil-A restaurant is located at 32061 Gratiot Ave. Chick-fil-A is known for its signature fried or grilled chicken sandwiches with a pickle and special sauce, waffle fries and a menu of salads, sides and breakfast items. The new Roseville location will be open 6:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday through Saturday for dine-in, drive-thru and carry-out service. Chick-fil-A restaurants are closed on Sundays. Roseville's Chick-fil-A's owner/operator is Josh Holbrooks, who started in 2019 with the company at a Hickory, North Carolina location. Holbrooks became an executive director and helped the brand expand to Up North Michigan where he became the executive director of operations for the first Chick-fil-A in Traverse City. Fast food giant Chick-fil-A expected to add 25-30 Michigan stores by the end of 2028. When the Roseville location opens on Thursday, Holbrooks will honor "100 local heroes" who are making an impact in metro Detroit with free Chick-fil-A entrees for a year. As with other new openings, Chick-fil-A, Inc. has partnered with Feeding America, donating $25,000 to Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan and Forgotten Harvest, to support hunger relief. The Roseville location, like other Chick-fil-A restaurants, will also support the company's Shared Table program which donates surplus food to area soup kitchens, shelters, food banks and nonprofits in need, according to a news release. The Roseville location will employ about 150 full- and part-time staffers. More recently Chick-fil-A announced a significant investment and expansion of its Michigan footprint. The fast-food giant expects to add more than two dozen locations in metro Detroit and statewide. Across these new Michigan locations, Chick-fil-A expects to create 2,500 jobs. Chick-fil-A operates nearly 30 restaurants across the state and about a dozen in metro Detroit, from Woodhaven to Novi to Shelby Township. A downtown Detroit location is slated to open and other expected openings are in Chesterfield Township and Taylor. More: National Coffee Day is Sunday: Where to find free offers, discounts Chick-fil-A, a cult-like favorite and oft-criticized for its past donations to anti- LGBTQ+ causes) ranks as a popular fast-food chain with consumers. For the 10th year straight, the chain remained in the top spot for fast food on the American Customer Satisfaction Indexs 2024 report released last June. The family-owned Chick-fil-A was founded in 1967 by S. Truett Cathy and is headquartered in Atlanta. There are more than 3,000 Chick-fil-A locations across 48 states and in Canada and Puerto Rico, according to chick-fil-a.com. Contact Detroit Free Press food and restaurant writer Susan Selasky and send food and restaurant news and tips to: sselasky@freepress.com. Follow @SusanMariecooks on Twitter. Subscribe to the Free Press. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Chick-fil-A to new open Roseville location Thursday By Simon Lewis UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -China and Brazil on Friday pressed ahead with an effort to gather developing countries behind a plan to end Russia's war in Ukraine, despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's dismissal of the initiative as serving Moscow's interests. Seventeen countries attended a meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly chaired by China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, and Brazilian foreign policy adviser Celso Amorim. Wang told reporters they discussed the need to prevent escalation in the war, avoid the use of weapons of mass destruction and prevent attacks on nuclear power plants. "Russia and Ukraine are neighbors that cannot be moved away from each other and amity is the only realistic option," Wang said, adding that the international community should support a peace conference involving both Russia and Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking later, after a meeting with Wang, underscored strong U.S. concerns about China's support for Russia's defense industrial base. Addressing reporters, he said that China, while saying it seeks an end to the Ukraine conflict, "is allowing its companies to take actions that are actually helping Putin continue the aggression. That doesn't add up." Separately, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed the conflict in New York with his Brazilian counterpart, Maura Vieira, Lavrov's ministry said on its website. As well as Brazil and China, 10 countries from the Global South that were present at the 17-nation meeting, including Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey, signed a communique that Amorim said builds on a six-point plan proposed by Brazil and China in May. Countries would continue to meet in New York under a grouping of "friends for peace," he added. Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a "no limits" partnership deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2022, less than three weeks before Russian troops entered Ukraine. Beijing says it has not supplied Russia with weapons for use in Ukraine, but Western countries say its companies provide materials that Russia uses in the manufacture of weapons for the war. Zelenskiy, in a speech to the assembly on Wednesday, questioned why China and Brazil were proposing an alternative to his own peace formula. Proposing "alternatives, half-hearted settlement plans, so-called sets of principles" would only give Moscow the political space to continue the war, he said. Asked about Zelenskiy's comment, Amorim told Reuters, "I'm not here to respond either to Zelenskiy or Putin, just to propose a way for peace." (Reporting by Simon Lewis; Editing by Paul Simao, Ron Popeski and Leslie Adler) China nuclear sub sank in its dock, US officials say Satellite images taken in June show what appear to be floating salvage cranes [Planet Labs/Reuters] A Chinese nuclear-powered attack submarine sank in its dock earlier this year while under construction, in a major setback for the Chinese military, according to US defence officials. Speaking on condition of anonymity to the BBC's US partner, CBS, the officials said the loss of the submarine probably happened between May and June. Satellite images taken in June show what appear to be floating salvage cranes at the berth in Wuhan where, a month previously, the vessel had been seen. Beijing has not confirmed the reports. The US officials said it was "not surprising" the Chinese military would have covered up the loss of one of its newest assets. It is unclear whether the submarine was carrying nuclear fuel at the time. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Friday he was not familiar with the topic and did not provide any information when asked about it at a Beijing news conference. The incident raises questions about China's defence industry, which is allegedly riddled with corruption. China has the biggest navy in the world, with more than 370 ships, and is currently producing a new generation of nuclear-armed submarines, the Zhou-class, of which this was the first. Taiwan has said it carried out its own investigations into the fate of the submarine and had "a grasp of the situation through multiple intelligence and surveillance methods", but gave no further details. Thomas Shugart, a former US Navy submariner and an analyst at the Center for a New American Security, first noticed the incident involving the submarine in July. He told the BBC the sinking was a "setback" that would cause "pretty significant embarrassment" for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) navy, but the safety risk was probably "pretty low". However, he added: "If this ship eventually does get repaired, and I'm sure it will, it'll be a far more capable submarine than what they were building before at that shipyard. "I do not see it significantly altering the really impressive upward trajectory of the PLA navys capability." The sinking comes at a time when Beijing been increasingly assertive in laying claim to virtually the whole South China Sea, which is crucial to international trade. It has long-standing maritime disputes with other nations in the region, including Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. The mysterious incident at Chinas Wuchang Shipyard in the spring of this year resulted in the sinking of the countrys latest nuclear-powered attack submarine, according to U.S. officials. The mysterious incident that TWZ previously reported that occurred at Chinas Wuchang Shipyard in the spring of this year resulted in the sinking of the countrys latest nuclear-powered attack submarine, according to U.S. officials. The boat in question, originally identified as a conventionally powered submarine, was the first of the new Type 041 Zhou class SSNs. Citing unnamed U.S. officials, a report in The Wall Street Journal today describes an attempt by the Chinese authorities to cover up the accident, involving a submarine likely carrying nuclear fuel when it sank. The boat had been undergoing its final fitting out before going to sea. American officials havent detected any indication that Chinese officials have sampled the water or nearby environment for radiation, the article continues. It is possible Chinese personnel were killed or injured when the sub sank, but U.S. officials say they dont know if there were casualties. Wellthere it is. DoD confirms: a new-construction PRC submarine sank at the pier in Wuhan the boat was first of a new class, the Type 041 Zhou PRC authorities scrambled to cover it up AND DoD reveals that it is nuclear-powered https://t.co/H09sS0suYv Tom Shugart (@tshugart3) September 26, 2024 There had already been signs that something was amiss at Wuchang Shipyard, part of the state-owned China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), located on the Yangtze River just outside the city of Wuhan. The unusual activity at the Wuchang Shipyard was first observed by Tom Shugart, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) think tank and a retired U.S. Navy submarine warfare officer. TWZ previously examined satellite imagery showing the sudden appearance of four crane barges at the shipyard in China, these being in place at least from June 12 through June 17. A submarine that had been in the berth in May was absent during those dates, but it was not clear when exactly it was last seen. By the first week of July, the barges were gone and activity at Wuchang appears to have returned to normal. A satellite image taken on June 15, 2024, showing a cluster of four crane barges and other unusual activity at Wuchang Shipyard. PHOTOS 2024 PLANET LABS INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION The U.S. officials didnt provide details of the alleged accident, beyond the fact that it involved one of the new Zhou class SSNs, a design that features a distinctive X-shaped stern. This feature is designed for improved maneuverability, efficiency, and safety, and also helps reduce the acoustic signature across significant parts of the submarines operating envelope, as you can read about here. Using those four cranes, the submarine is said to have been salvaged, but the WSJ report suggests it will likely take many months before it can be put to sea presuming that is even possible. If the submarine fully sank, its internal spaces would likely have filled with water, requiring the replacement of all the electronics. Another view of the Wuchang Shipyard on May 29, showing a submarine moored in the same general location where the crane barges appeared some two weeks later. PHOTOS 2024 PLANET LABS INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION Its not surprising that the PLA Navy would try to conceal the fact that their new first-in-class nuclear-powered attack submarine sank pier-side, a senior U.S. defense official told the WSJ. In addition to the obvious questions about training standards and equipment quality, the incident raises deeper questions about the PLAs internal accountability and oversight of Chinas defense industry, which has long been plagued by corruption. Confirmation from U.S. sources of an accident at one of Chinas most important shipyards, and in particular one that constructs new submarines, is certainly significant. As the above U.S. defense official alludes to, there have been questions raised in the past about safety and quality control practices in Chinese naval shipbuilding, which is often observed progressing very rapidly, even when it comes to large and/or complex vessels. A satellite image taken in September 2022 provides a general view of the Wuchang Shipyard outside of Wuhan, China. Google Earth Despite or because of these shortcomings, China has demonstrated its exponentially more capable of building submarines and other warships than the United States, as you can read more about here. Now the comparative quality of those vessels remains debatable. With that in mind, the sinking of a new SSN is a setback, but not one that is likely to hugely change the pace of the countrys submarine-building program, which, in contrast to the U.S. equivalent, involved nuclear-powered and conventionally powered designs. The fact that a new SSN is being built at the Wuchang Shipyard is significant in itself. A stock picture of a Type 039A or Yuan class submarine. via U.S. Navy In the past, the Wuchang Shipyard has been predominantly associated with the construction of variants of the Type 039A series boats, also known in the West as the Yuan class. The shipyard also builds various types of surface warships and supports other naval developmental work, including past testing of an electromagnetic railgun. It produces commercial vessels and now it can also add nuclear-powered submarines to the list. Its very unlikely that Chinese authorities will reveal any details of what happened with the submarine during the incident earlier this year. And while it probably will have little impact on the rapidly growing Peoples Liberation Army, its disclosure by U.S. officials does reveal some interesting aspects of the countrys increasingly diverse submarine-building efforts. Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com China is part of the US election - but only from one candidate The US and China are the two largest economies in the world. They have the two most powerful militaries in the world. The US-China rivalry, in the view of many international analysts, will be the defining global theme of the 21st Century. But at the moment, only one of the two major party presidential candidates is regularly talking about US-China policy - as he has done consistently for years. According to a review by BBC Verify, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has mentioned China 40 times in his five rallies since the presidential debate earlier this month. In just one hour at a town hall forum last week in Michigan, he brought up the country 27 times. And when he talks about China, Trump focuses on matters of tension between the two global powers, painting the country and the worlds second-largest economy, as a kind of economic predator. He has talked about the new tariffs he plans to impose on imports from Chinese companies and those from other nations - should he return to the White House. He has said he wants to prevent Chinese-made cars from being sold because he believes they will destroy the American auto industry. He has warned China not to attempt to replace the US dollar as the worlds reserve currency. And he has blamed the Chinese government for the Covid pandemic. Many economists question the effectiveness of Trumps tariff plans and warn that they would ultimately be harmful to US consumers. The Biden-Harris administration, however, has maintained, and even at times increased, the more narrowly focused tariffs that Trump imposed on China during his first term in office. Trumps protectionist message is tailored to blue-collar voters in the key industrial Midwest battleground states who have felt the impact of increased competition from Chinese manufacturers. Meanwhile, BBC Verify finds, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris did not mention China at all in her six rallies since the 10 September debate. Although, in a speech on the economy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday afternoon, she made a handful of references to the country. I will never hesitate to take swift and strong measures when China undermines the rules of the road at the expense of our workers, communities, and companies, she said at that event. Asked for comment, an aide to the vice-president told the BBC that even if Harris does not talk about China regularly, she has a record of working to counter what they described as Chinas efforts to undermine global stability and prosperity. But when it comes to discussing China, the contrast between Trump and Harris on the campaign trail is unmistakable. On Monday afternoon, at a barn in Smithton, a small town in rural western Pennsylvania, Trump sat down with a group of local farmers and ranchers for a roundtable discussion specifically about China. The town may be just an hour outside of Pittsburgh, a Democratic Party urban stronghold, but this was decidedly Republican territory. Cows grazed peacefully on grasslands lined with dozens of Trump for President signs, while Trump supporters decorated two donkeys in Make America Great Again gear. The topic of the event, hosted by the Protecting America Initiative, a conservative think-tank, was the Chinese Communist Party's growing threat to the US food supply. The forum ended up being a more open-ended conversation about the threat of China, full stop. The farmers, ranchers and business executives on the panel complained about having to compete with heavily subsidised Chinese imports and about the low quality of Chinese goods. While the former president didnt spend much time discussing the perceived dangers of Chinese ownership of US farmland he instead promised that he would convince Chinese President Xi Jinping to buy more US agriculture exports he again emphasised that he would use tariffs to shield the American economy from China. At one point, he spoke of the need to protect the US steel industry - in order to prepare for a hypothetical war with China. If were in a war, and we need army tanks and we need ships and we need other things that happen to be made of steel, what are we going to do, go to China and get the steel? he asked. Were fighting China, but would you mind selling us some steel? Some of the heavier lifting on China during the forum was left to Richard Grenell, a roundtable panelist and senior advisor for the Protecting America Initiative. He warned the country has quietly but strategically worked against the US particularly when Americans were distracted by other global issues. They go after our local and state politicians; they go after our manufacturing, he said. There is no question they are looking to, at some point, leverage that investment and activity. Grenell, who served as US ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence while Trump was in office, is considered a possible secretary of state - Americas top diplomat - if Trump wins another term in November. If Harris wins, on the other hand, there may not be a significant change from the current Biden administration, even if the current president has frequently deployed sharper rhetoric to describe the US-China rivalry. Donald Trump has been campaigning on an economically protectionist message in key Midwestern states [Reuters] [BBC] More on the US election Since the start of his presidency, Joe Biden has identified China as one of the autocracies competing with the worlds leading democracies in what he describes as a historic global inflection point. According to public opinion surveys, China ranks low on the list of issues American voters care about dwarfed by the economy, immigration and healthcare. In a recent National Security Action survey of voters in key electoral battleground states, only 14% listed China as the top national security priority for the next president. Immigration led the list at 38%, followed by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, both at 28%. That could in part explain Harriss seeming lack of interest in talking about China. In this abbreviated presidential campaign for her, she has a shorter timeframe to define herself in the eyes of voters, so focusing on America's main economic competitor may be less of a priority for the Democrat. After the Trump event in Smithton, Bill Bretz, chair of the local county Republican Party committee, said that while China may not be at the top of voter concerns in Pennsylvania, it was important for Trump to talk about it. As the largest up-for-grabs electoral prize, Pennsylvania is perhaps the pivotal state in the 2024 presidential election. Both Trump and Harris will be hard-pressed to win the White House without it in their column. Polls currently show the two candidates in a dead heat there. The majority of people have already picked the camp that they're in, but there are those group of people that are undecided, he said. If China is a straw that sways the scale one way or another, I think it's a great thing to bring up. Additional reporting by Jake Horton and BBC Verify [BBC] North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here. (Bloomberg) -- China and India have reached more consensus on withdrawing troops from some parts of the disputed border between the two countries, Beijing said, in a further sign that tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors are easing. Most Read from Bloomberg A spokesman for Chinas Defense Ministry, responding to a question at a media briefing on Thursday about disengagement at the border, said the two sides have further narrowed differences and broadened consensus. Chinese and Indian officials have maintained close dialog and exchanged opinion on the border issues via diplomatic and military channels, spokesman Zhang Xiaogang said, according to a transcript of the briefing. The two sides agreed to strengthen dialog and consultation, accommodate each others legitimate concerns and reach a mutually acceptable solution at an early date, Zhang added. Ties between the two countries have been frozen since June 2020 when clashes between soldiers along the disputed Himalayan border left at least 20 Indian and an unknown number of Chinese dead. Since then, there have been incremental progress in resolving the border crisis in more than 50 rounds of diplomatic and military talks. The latest remarks from Beijing follow meetings between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Laos in July, and Indias National Security Advisor Ajit Doval on the sidelines of the BRICS meeting in Russia earlier this month. In a speech on Wednesday in New York, Jaishankar said China and India have resolved 75% of disengagement of troops in the eastern Ladakh region. The main issue right now is the patrolling, he said. How do we, both of us, patrol up to the Line of Actual Control? he added. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. This is an adapted excerpt from the Sept. 26 episode of All In with Chris Hayes. On the face of it, this week has not been a great week for New York City. Eric Adams has become the city's first sitting mayor to be criminally indicted. But the charges are also, in a strange way, reassuring. They show we have a functioning federal government that still holds the rule of law to be a bedrock, sacrosanct thing particularly in the Department of Justice. Just take a step back and look at the DOJ that Joe Biden inherited from Donald Trump. During his time in office, Trump tried constantly to subvert federal law enforcement and convert it into a political tool of the president. Thats especially true of the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York, arguably the country's most influential federal prosecutors office, and the one that just indicted Adams. When Trump became president, Preet Bharara was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Wed later learn that Trump was regularly calling Bharara, trying to cultivate a personal relationship that made the U.S. attorney so uncomfortable that he reported the contacts to his bosses at the DOJ and eventually refused a call from the president. Less than a day after Bharara refused that call, he was fired. Trumps personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, would later brag that he convinced Trump to fire Bharara by reportedly telling the president, This guy is going to get you. It was a pattern Trump would replicate over and over again as president. Whether it was firing FBI Director James Comey after Trump asked him to drop the criminal investigation into then-national security adviser Michael Flynn, or having his attorney general, Bill Barr, fire yet another U.S. attorney for the Southern District, Geoffrey Berman. In 2020, after Berman prosecuted former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and opened several other investigations into people and banks in Trumps orbit, he was dismissed by the then-president. Trump was constantly pushing for prosecutions of his perceived enemies, including Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. Barr also distorted and mischaracterized the Robert Mueller report on the Trump campaigns Russia contacts. And he appointed special counsel John Durham to investigate those FBI investigators who had looked into Trump and Russia. Weve blocked much of this out, but Trump was constantly spending his time as president trying to manipulate the DOJ to do his bidding. That pressure culminated in his attempted coup after the 2020 election, when Trump considered naming Jeffrey Clark, a mid-level DOJ lawyer, as attorney general so Clark could use the departments good name to send out a letter saying the election was rigged and get state legislators to overturn the election. Now, compare that to the Biden DOJ under Attorney General Merrick Garland. A Department of Justice that has bent over backward to be independent of the White House. They appointed a special counsel a Republican to investigate Bidens own handling of classified documents. Theyve prosecuted a string of high-profile Democratic officials, including Adams, now former Sen. Bob Menendez, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, and even Bidens last surviving son, Hunter Biden, who is awaiting sentencing on charges that even Trey Gowdy, the far-right former congressman and prosecutor thinks are pretty ludicrous. It is entirely possible that Biden will leave the presidency and never see his son outside of prison again. This is the administration that Republicans say has politically weaponized the DOJ when the opposite is actually true. This is a point the current U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, made when he announced the Adams indictment. The Southern District of New York remains committed to rooting out corruption without fear or favor. And without regard to partisan politics. We are not focused on the right or the left. We are focused only on right and wrong, Williams said on Thursday. This is how the DOJ is supposed to work, pursuing justice even when there is zero political benefit in it for Democrats. But heres the thing: if Trump wins this could all change. These institutions could be put in the hands of his creepiest authoritarian sycophants, like Republican lawyer Mike Davis who is rumored to be in the running for a top DOJ post. Last year, Davis promised to rain hell on Washington, D.C. and fire and indict "a lot of people in the deep state, including Joe and Hunter Biden. Were gonna detain a lot of people in the D.C. gulag and Gitmo, Davis added. Davis says now hes just trolling the libs, but Trump wants it to be policy. Hes said as much on the campaign trail. We will completely overhaul Kamalas corrupt Department of Injustice and turn the Injustice Department back into the best law enforcement agency on the planet, Trump said at a rally in September. Guess who reposted a clip of those comments on social media? Mike Davis did, with a single word of comment: Amen. Trump is promising to manipulate the American justice system to fit his political needs. And thanks to the Supreme Courts immunity decision, Trump would have carte blanche to do it as part of his official duties. So I, for one, am grateful for Adams indictment and the signal it sends. It shows the rule of law still holds up for now. This article was originally published on MSNBC.com A Christian medical group has claimed it will be forced to provide sex-change drugs to patients under a Michigan law. Christian Healthcare Centers argues that it will be punished by the state if it refuses to distribute testosterone and oestrogen, which it says goes against the religious beliefs of staff, under an extreme civil rights law. The group suggested the law tramples on religious liberties. Christian Healthcare Centers also claimed that the states 1976 Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act has been reinterpreted to include gender identity and will compel staff to refer to patients by their preferred pronouns rather than those matching their biological sex. It currently does not prescribe the hormone medications to transgender patients, or those questioning their gender identity and it argues the law has opened the door to a legal challenge that threatens its existence. Michigans law is very extreme in the sense that unlike most other state laws, it has no religious exemption for religious organisations, Brian Neihart, one of the lawyers acting for Christian Healthcare Centers, told The Telegraph. Whats fundamentally at stake here is the right of religious organisations across Michigan to be free to operate and serve the community according to their religious beliefs. Wide reach Mr Neihart, who is special counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom pressure group, which is supporting the medical group, added that the law could create a wider precedent if left unchallenged. I think the principles that are established in this case will have reach beyond Michigan, he said. On the topic of pronouns, for example, by using a pronoun inconsistent with someones sex, youre communicating a view on sex that many religious people fundamentally disagree with. And so that principle that were arguing the First Amendment protects that type of speech would have broader implications beyond this particular case. According to a complaint the medical group submitted in 2022: The law requires Christian Healthcare to check its religious faith at the clinic door the very faith that motivates the clinic to open its doors to help those in need. The case was initially dismissed by a district court when it was first heard, with Michigan arguing there was no credible threat that its laws would be enforced against Christian Healthcare Centers. However, the appeals court disagreed, and the case will now return to the district court following the ruling, on Sept 20. Christian Healthcare Centers had plausibly established a credible threat that [Michigan] will enforce against them at least some of the challenged provisions of Michigans laws, the appeals court said. The healthcare group is now seeking an injunction to ensure that legal action will not be taken against it for refusing to prescribe sex-change drugs. Every day that they decline to prescribe cross-sex hormones or use pronouns inconsistent with sex and operate consistent with their religious beliefs, is another day that this law threatens to punish them for those beliefs, Mr Neihart said. The Michigan attorney-general has been approached 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. Companies and governments are striving to meet net zero carbon goals by 2050, and banks have realized that nuclear power will be an important part of these goals. On Sept. 23, several major financial institutions expressed their desire to triple nuclear energy capacity globally by 2050. The declaration came during discussions at Climate Week in New York and has the backing of Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. With nuclear power becoming a more popular option for companies meeting carbon-neutral goals, small modular reactors (SMRs) are generating a lot of buzz. NuScale Power (NYSE: SMR) is one company working on advancing this technology and could be a critical part of growing nuclear infrastructure. As long-term tailwinds favor nuclear power, does NuScale stock have millionaire-maker potential? Image source: Getty Images. Growing demand for nuclear energy could give NuScale a boost Energy demand will explode over the next few decades as populations grow, emerging economies expand, and artificial intelligence becomes integrated into everything. However, this comes at a time when countries are trying to reduce their carbon footprints. Small modular reactors are an exciting technological advancement in nuclear power generation that could change how we use nuclear energy. SMRs can provide flexible, adaptable energy for remote areas, industrial plants, or data centers that power artificial intelligence. Since 2007, NuScale has invested nearly $1.8 billion in developing SMR technology. This modular design means the SMRs can be manufactured at NuScale's plant and transported to the site for assembly, potentially reducing construction costs and the time it takes to bring a plant up to operation. The design also allows for a scalable plant that can accommodate up to 12 modules supporting an output of 924 megawatts (MW). Recently, there has been a renewed interest in nuclear energy. Last year, several countries, including the U.S., Canada, Japan, France, the U.K., and the United Arab Emirates, pledged to triple nuclear generation capacity by 2050 (compared with 2020). S&P Global Commodity Insights analysts forecast global nuclear capacity will grow by 58% by 2050. Delays and cost overruns resulted in a major project cancellation last year Last November, the Utah Associated Municipal Power System (UAMPS) terminated its agreement with NuScale for its Carbon Free Power Project. The agreement, initially made in 2015, would have involved the construction of 12 reactor modules to generate up to 600 MW, which would have been up and running by 2023. Story continues The termination showed how expensive it could be to get the technology off the ground. Originally, the project's costs were estimated to be around $3 billion. These estimates rose to $6.1 billion in 2023 and $9.3 billion in 2023, finally becoming too expensive for UAMPS. As a result, NuScale's first planned operational SMR plant went up in smoke, and it had to take a $50 million charge. What's next for NuScale? In August, NuScale signed an agreement to bring its SMRs to Ghana. Last year, Standard Power announced plans to develop two of NuScale's SMR-powered facilities in Ohio and Pennsylvania that will produce 2 gigawatts of clean energy to power nearby data centers. NuScale is currently the only company to receive a Standard Design Approval (SDA) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. However, one thing to keep in mind is that this is for its 50 MWe modular reactors, not its current 77 MWe reactors. NuScale had to upsize its original design because the economics of its previous 50 MWe reactors didn't work. The company has requested an SDA from the commission for its 77 MWe reactors and expects this version to be approved by July 2025. However, this isn't a full certification, and it is projected to take another couple of years after that, which means full commercialization is still years away. According to The Fly, analysts at CLSA say much of NuScale's stock performance will be "sentiment-based" as the company achieves regulatory approvals and garners more customer interest. However, those analysts expect the company to continue losing money and don't see it achieving profitability until 2028 at the earliest. Is NuScale a millionaire-maker stock? NuScale is developing exciting technology that could transform nuclear energy as we know it. Its modular reactors are suitable for small communities, growing economies, data centers, or other industrial customers looking to reduce their carbon footprints. However, at this point, it's hard to make projections of NuScale's millionaire-maker potential. The company still has a long way to go before it gets full approval and can achieve large-scale commercialization, and profitable operations may still be four years away at the earliest. The range of outcomes for NuScale is quite wide right now, which is to be expected from a young, cash-burning company developing innovative technology that may (or may not) work out in the long run. Given its uncertain path to profitability, most investors are best off staying on the sidelines and seeing how things unfold over the next few years before investing in the innovative energy company. Should you invest $1,000 in NuScale Power right now? Before you buy stock in NuScale Power, 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 NuScale Power 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 $756,882!* 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 September 23, 2024 Citigroup is an advertising partner of The Ascent, a Motley Fool company. Bank of America is an advertising partner of The Ascent, a Motley Fool company. Courtney Carlsen has positions in Morgan Stanley. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bank of America, Goldman Sachs Group, and S&P Global. The Motley Fool recommends NuScale Power. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Is NuScale Power a Millionaire Maker? was originally published by The Motley Fool This week, sea level rise was a key topic at the UNs General Assembly. The representatives of small island developing states and low-lying countries urged immediate international action to combat the phenomenon - a global crisis threatening the lives and livelihoods of one billion people worldwide. Today is our historical opportunity to turn the global tide and to embark on a common path that secures prosperity, dignity and rights to all affected countries and communities, said the Prime Minister of Tuvalu. The meeting places sea level rise at the top of the international agenda and marks the take-off for global efforts to shape an ambitious Assembly declaration in September 2026. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that by 2050, global sea levels will rise between 15 and 30 centimetres, on average. This will impact dozens of Pacific and Caribbean Islands, many of which remain under the governance of European countries - what responsibility do these nations have to provide protection against climate change? Not everyone has the luxury of high ground Our world is in dangerous waters, warned Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in his introductory remarks at the meeting on Wednesday. We need a strong financial outcome at the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference [COP29]. Echoing such a call was General Assembly President Philemon Yang (Cameroon), who highlighted the need for a collective response that protects those who call the worlds most vulnerable regions home. Not everyone has the luxury of high ground or the financial resources to take precautionary measures, he said. Related There are almost one billion people worldwide living in low-lying coastal areas that are becoming increasingly vulnerable to storm surges, coastal erosion and flooding. This translates as a threat to economic stability and even habitability. Guterres warned of communities swamped, fresh water contaminated, crops ruined, infrastructure damaged, biodiversity destroyed and economies decimated - with sectors such as fisheries, agriculture and tourism pummelled. Many climate-vulnerable islands are overseas territories of European nations A recent study by French climate change group Reseau Action Climat found that overseas territories are the regions of France that are most exposed to the impacts of climate change. The effects are already visible, with low-lying areas of some islands now chronically submerged at high tide. As sea levels rise, some places will no longer be habitable within this century, such as the Tuamotu atolls in French Polynesia. This is also the fate of Pointe-a-Pitre, which is home to more than a quarter of the Guadeloupean population, as well as the Jarry area, the third largest business park in France. The coastal risks here could cost 100 million per year by 2050, while nearly 50 per cent of the inhabitants live below the poverty line. According to the most pessimistic projections, these areas could be submerged for 180 days per year by 2060. Are European nations responsible for climate protection of overseas territories? Despite the vulnerability of their overseas territories, European countries have taken little action to shore them up against climate change. Environmental campaign group Greenpeace has now been given the go-ahead to take the Dutch government to court over failure to protect a former colony in the Caribbean from sea level rise. In January, eight citizens of Bonaire collaborated with Greenpeace to sue the Dutch government for lack of action to safeguard them against climate change. Related The Caribbean island is still part of the Netherlands and is classed as an independent local authority area. It shouldnt matter whether you live on Bonaire, on Ameland or in Valkenburg. Its the Dutch governments duty to protect all of us from the consequences of the climate crisis, said Greenpeace Nederland director Andy Palmen at the time. Parts of Bonaire will disappear underwater with sea level rise and its coral reef, which provides flood protection for the island, is in danger of destruction, according to researchers at Amsterdams VU university. Maj John Mott has worked in numerous roles with The Salvation Army, including leading the branch in Southend [The Salvation Army] A man who has been "the face" of a church and charity in a city centre for more than 25 years is to stand down. Maj John Mott, 91, has been selling the Salvation Army magazine The War Cry outside Marks and Spencer on Sidney Street, Cambridge, in all weathers since 1998. In that time he said he had met and spoken to actors, politicians and even the Archbishop of Canterbury. He said he was standing down reluctantly due to deteriorating health, adding: "I thought to myself 'Winters coming - last winter was quite hard and I shouldnt do that again.'" Maj Mott, pictured with Maj Leanne Cordner, said he had met celebrities and politicians, but that those who had donated to the charity were the "most important" [The Salvation Army] Maj Mott has sold the magazine in various locations across the country since 1972, and led The Salvation Army in Southend until 1998. At Christmas he sold the magazine five days a week and raised about 17,000 in 2023. That money provided toys and gifts to 589 young people and was enough to fund 271 food parcels for families. He said he would miss the job, adding: "I stand on the shoulders of Salvation Army people from all over the world. "I've met the Archbishop of Canterbury here; actors and actresses who have been at the theatre and politicians have stopped to talk to me." But he said the most important people he had met were those who had donated to the charity, and that some had been "incredibly generous." Maj Leanne Cordner, who leads The Salvation Army in Cambridge, said: "He's become the face of The Salvation Army in the city centre and has built up a ministry among the people here. "He's been a great fundraiser for us and while we appreciate the money, we appreciate more the ministry, the spreading of the good news, the praying with people he has been able to do and relationships he has built up. "He has given a huge amount of time and dedication to what he has done and he will be very hard to replace." Follow Cambridgeshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X. More related stories Related internet links NEW MEXICO (KRQE) The U.S. Forest Service is encouraging everyone to get outside this weekend. The Cibola National Forest will waive most day-use fees on Saturday to commemorate National Public Lands Day. Judge hears arguments for a new trial or dismissal for armorer in fatal shooting on set of Rust For those planning on going out, the forest service encourages people to plan accordingly, dispose of their waste properly, and respect wildlife and other visitors. For those who cant make it out this weekend, the Forest Service will waive fees on Veterans Day. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRQE NEWS 13 - Breaking News, Albuquerque News, New Mexico News, Weather, and Videos. The Arkansas Supreme Court building in Little Rock. (John Sykes/Arkansas Advocate) The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the dismissal of a challenge to the states new policy eliminating the gender-neutral X marker on drivers licenses and requiring only M or F to indicate gender. In March, the Department of Finance and Administration issued an emergency rule rescinding the gender-neutral policy, which had been in place since 2010. The Arkansas Legislative Councils executive subcommittee approved the emergency rule. The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas challenged the emergency rule in Pulaski County Circuit Court, and Judge Patricia James temporarily blocked the rule from going into effect. Attorney General Tim Griffins office appealed James ruling. Meanwhile, the full Arkansas Legislative Council implemented the rule on a permanent basis on Aug. 23. The permanent rule rendered the ACLUs challenge moot, Deputy Solicitor Dylan Jacobs wrote in an Aug. 30 request for the Supreme Court to send the case back to circuit court with instructions to dismiss the complaint. ACLU attorneys agreed to the motion because the initial complaint concerned only the procedure by which the emergency rule was passed, communications director Megan Bailey said. The complaint argued that the emergency rule was implemented without documented justification or compliance with the Arkansas Administrative Procedure Act, which stipulates a 30-day public notice comment period unless there is an imminent peril to public health, safety, or welfare or a need to comply with federal law. ACLU Legal Director John Williams argued that the Department of Finance and Administration had not proven that any threat to public safety came from allowing people to change the gender marker on their drivers licenses with no questions asked. Finance and Administration Secretary Jim Hudson told lawmakers in March that the new rule was meant to prevent threats to law enforcement officers safety, though he also said he was not aware of any threats that had occurred over 14 years. Nearly a dozen Arkansans, many of whom are transgender or nonbinary, urged finance department officials later in June not to permanently reverse the policy because it was not causing any problems or harm. No one spoke for the new rule at the public hearing. Several Democratic lawmakers voted against the emergency and permanent rules and cited the same reasons, adding that reversing the policy would be hurtful to transgender Arkansans. Bailey said the ACLU has not yet decided whether to challenge the permanent rule. Griffin called the Supreme Courts order a win for the rule of law in a statement Thursday. ELMIRA, N.Y. (WETM) Over 80 volunteers are signed up to participate in the Cities RISE Community Clean-Up event that will take place on Sept. 27 and Sept. 28 in South Elmira. The Chemung County Habitat for Humanity is partnering with the City of Elmira to host the two-day event to make improvements in the neighborhood from 9 a.m. to noon on both days. Throughout the weekend, volunteers will help with trimming hedges, cutting weeds, picking up trash, making minor repairs and painting on Spaulding Ave., Caldwell Ave., Catherine Street and Lormore Street. Local businesses come together to combat child hunger with Food Bank of the Southern Tier This is the sixth year in a row that the event will take place through a neighborhood revitalization program that was launched by the New York State Attorney Generals Office to help rebuild New York communities. For more information about the event, call the Habitat for Humanity office at 607-734-1361 or info@chemungcountyhabitat.org. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WETM - MyTwinTiers.com. A citizen journalist who was excluded from a press conference because the police deemed him not "media" had his constitutional rights violated and can sue, a judge ruled this month. The decision serves as a reminder that a job in legacy media does not entitle you to a stronger set of free speech protections. Justin Pulliamwhose YouTube channel Corruption Report does not shy away from criticizing law enforcementwas removed from a Texas press conference in July 2021 at the behest of Fort Bend County Sheriff Eric Fagan, who told a deputy to keep Pulliam away under threat of arrest. That violated the First Amendment, concluded U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew M. Edison, in such a clear way that Fagan should not receive qualified immunity, the legal doctrine that dooms federal lawsuits against state and local government employees if the way those public servants allegedly violated the law was not "clearly established" at the time of the violation. That Fagan's conduct was unconstitutional should have been obvious to him, said Edison. "At the outset, I must address the threshold issue of whether the activities undertaken by Pulliama citizen who posts opinion-laden news coverage of law enforcement on social media channelsare protected by the First Amendment," he wrote in an opinion published by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. "The answer is, unequivocally, yes." As one of the most powerful government agents in his community, Fagan should have, in theory, known this. But the notion that citizen journalistsindependent reporters not employed by an outletare less legitimate and thus entitled to a watered-down version of the First Amendment is neither new nor limited to people's perception of Pulliam. It is one of the most relevant media debates currently playing out, in a landscape where legacy media's influence is being supplanted in part by viral social media stars. Another citizen journalistPriscilla Villarreal of Laredo, Texas, which is located 4.5 hours from Fort Bend Countyis asking the Supreme Court to hear her case after local police arrested her in response to some of her reporting. Villarreal runs a massively popular Facebook page where she live streams her journalism, often directly from crime scenes and traffic accidents, and where she has often been critical of law enforcement. In 2017, Villarreal published a story on a Border Patrol agent who had committed suicide and another story on a family involved in a fatal vehicle accident after confirming the information with someone in the Laredo Police Department. That same department then arrested her by leveraging an obscure Texas statute that criminalizes soliciting nonpublic information if the person asking intends to gain from it. She gained, police alleged, by getting popular on Facebook. "They were just looking for something to arrest me," she says in a recent documentary produced by Reason. "Because I was exposing the corruption, I was exposing them being cruel to detainees.They were doing things they weren't supposed to." But Villarreal has not had good fortune in litigation. Earlier this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuitthe same circuit Pulliam is inruled 97 that it was not obviously unconstitutional when the police arrested her for her reporting. In the majority opinion, Judge Edith Jones made a distinction between Villarreal and "mainstream, legitimate outlets." Pulliam was arrested as well, in December 2021, and charged with interfering with police duties after he videoed police at a mental health call. One wonders if that would have happened if he worked for, as Jones says, a "legitimate outlet." The post Citizen Journalist Barred From Press Conference Can Sue Texas Sheriff for Violating His Rights, Judge Rules appeared first on Reason.com. MANHATTAN, N.Y. (PIX11) While Mayor Adams is the first New York mayor to be indicted, he is not the first to be under the microscope of federal investigators. Two previous mayors were the focus of corruption probes that forced them out of office and there were others who were investigated but escaped criminal charges. NYC Mayor Adams charged with taking bribes in federal indictment Democratic political consultant Geoge Artz maintains, Every administration has gone through these scandals. Its part of the territory of being mayor. While Mayor Adams has vowed to fight the charges against him, two previous Mayors didnt stand to fight. They were forced out of office. Flamboyant Prohibition-era Mayor Jimmy Walker bolted under pressure in 1932. Investigators found he had taken large amounts of cash from businessmen seeking city contracts. Artz remembers, Jimmy Walker had a corruption-filled administration. Jobs for sale, permits, everything you could mention was up for sale.. Political consultant Hank Sheinkopf says Jimmy Walker was forced to resign by the Seabury Commission after exposing corruption in city agencies, police department and other places unheard of. Delete all messages: Docs reveal Mayor Eric Adams clumsy bribery coverup Eighteen years later, Mayor Bill ODwyer faced several controversies, primarily a significant police corruption scandal that undermined his administration. According to Artz, Eventually he was forced out of office but Harry Truman made him Ambassador to Mexico. Sheinkopf declares, The third Koch administration was the most corrupt administration in New York City since Jimmy Walker. George Artz was Mayor Kochs press secretary during those tumultuous years. He relates, In a nutshell, two key allies were involved in a scandal over the parking violation bureau. Sheinkeopf adds, Koch himself was not implicated. He brought big city bosses back into power. He looked the other way. We had scandals, arrests, and imprisonment. More recent mayors were under scrutiny. Investigators found evidence of wrongdoing in the DeBlasio and Giuliani City Hall, but neither faced any criminal charges. According to Sheinkopf, DeBlasio and his campaign were investigated for campaign violations by the feds and district attorney but decided not to prosecute. A year later he admitted he violated the law. Mayor Giulianis administration was not immune from scandal he had his share of them. How much prison time could Eric Adams face if convicted? Sheinkopf says, There were people in his administration that had problems but he was never implicated. Artz notes, He had appointed the son of a powerful political ally but he abused the job. This was a nepotism, cronyism appointment. It was a blemish on his administration. Every mayor tries to avoid scandal, but there are so many people in the administration you just never know if something like this could happen, declares Artz. Now the focus is on Eric Adams, the first Mayor in the citys history to be hit with criminal charges. Will he leave? asks Sheinkopf. This guy is very different, hes very tough refuses to give up and sees himself as a loyal friend, not as someone who has been corrupt. Unlike any previous investigations of city government, political analysts claim the federal government has never been so involved in rooting out city corruption. The widespread nature of it, reaching out to the mayors allies, they say it is something that has never been seen here before. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. City of Rochester hopes to secure $10 million to finish Four Corners revitalization project ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) The City of Rochester is looking to apply for another $10 million grant from New York States Downtown Revitalization Initiative. As it fills out the application, the citys Department of Neighborhood and Business Development wants input from area residents and property owners. The city hopes it can secure that $10 million to target the Four Corners section of downtown West Broad Street, the Genesee River, the Inner Loop North, and North Fitzhugh Street. The city received a Downtown Revitalization Initiative Grant in 2022 where $10 million went towards improving the East side of the river. So, from Clinton to the river, along East Main Street, youll notice some projects are already underway, and those were funded by that project, City of Rochester Director of Project Development Anne Dasilva Tella told News 8. Thursday night, building owners, employers, and residents were able to share improvements theyd like to see with the city. Often times, the community feels left out unfortunately, Dasilva Tella said. Were constantly doing our best efforts to make sure that its not a top-down planning effort. So, were hoping to make it more grassroots planning effort. Any property owners and developers who missed Thursdays meeting can submit a Project Interest Form through the City of Rochesters website until October 2. An initiative and planning survey is also active for input. Business owners left sticky notes for the city on what they love about the Four Corners: The river. The history. The feeling of community with the long-term workers and business owners. We have substantially vacant buildings, lighting influences and hoping that we can research these buildings, revitalize it, bring in residents, bring the workers, restaurants, nightlife, just to really surge this area up again, Dasilva Tella said. According to the City of Rochesters website, if City Council authorizes submission, the city will submit its application to the state. It would then be notified if it was awarded in the Spring of 2025, and applications for business owners and developers to request funding would open that summer. Work would begin in 2026, if approved. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to RochesterFirst. JOHNSTON, Iowa Following a lockdown that took place Thursday afternoon at Johnston Middle School, the Johnston Superintendent announced that classes will be held as normal on Friday. The Johnston Police Department was called to Johnston Middle School at 2:45 p.m. on a report of a weapon in an upstairs bathroom. A thorough search was conducted by Johnston PD and school administrators, but no weapon was found. The school entered a lockdown that lasted from 2:48 p.m. to 3:08 p.m. According to police, the student reported to be involved was identified and taken into custody. Classes at Johnston Middle School will be held as normal on Friday and there will be an additional police presence within the district. Webster County man shot during domestic altercation, sheriffs office says Johnston School Superintendent Dr. Nikki Roorda released the following statement: We recognize that being in a lockdown can be unsettling and even scary for students. We want all our students and their families to know that their safety remains our highest priority and we continue to take every measure to ensure that our school is a secure environment for learning. We will have extra staff members in our counseling office tomorrow available to meet with any student who would like to visit with someone about their experience. If you have any worries or concerns regarding your student, please do not hesitate to contact their school counselor. Johnston School Superintendent Dr. Nikki Roorda An investigation into this incident 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 who13.com. CLIFTON, Ill. (WCIA) An Iroquois County high school teacher accused of possessing child pornography submitted his resignation earlier this week as court proceedings begin against him. Matthew Maxwell, the Superintendent of Clifton Central High School, said Brett Sorensen submitted his resignation Monday afternoon. The districts Board of Education accepted it at their meeting later that evening, ending his 13-year tenure at the school. Sorensen resigned just days after his students walked out of the school on Friday, who demanded that the board fire him in light of his charges. The same day Sorensen resigned, he appeared in Ford County court for the first time to face charges of possessing and disseminating child pornography. The hearing on Monday was to determine if Sorensen would remain in custody prior to his trial. As part of the proceedings, Judge Matt Fitton, States Attorney Andrew Killian and Sorensens attorney Lance Cagle viewed some of the videos Sorensen is accused of possessing. The videos, which depicted children under the age of 13, were viewed away from the public. These are well devised scams: UI Detective reacts after 3 students targeted 9 days apart After seeing these videos and hearing from the Office of Statewide Pretrial Services, Judge Fitton denied Sorensen pretrial release. He is due back in court Nov. 25 for a pretrial hearing. WCIA reached out to the Ford County States Attorneys Office for more information and has not heard back yet. We will provide updates as we learn more. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCIA.com. (Bloomberg) -- Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang, who helped create the technology at the heart of the explosion in artificial intelligence computing, said nuclear power is a good option for the renewable energy needed for the growing number of data centers. Most Read from Bloomberg Nuclear is wonderful as one of the sources of energy, one of the sources of sustainable energy, Huang said Friday in an interview with Bloomberg Television. It wont be the only one. Were going to need energy from all sources and balance the availability and the cost of energy as well as the sustainability over time. In some parts of the world, electricity generation is already insufficient to support the building of new data centers. Thats an increasing problem as the worlds largest companies pour hundreds of billions of dollars into new infrastructure that they believe is the future of computing. Its a squeeze thats leading to trade-offs being made on the location of the new AI factories, as Huang refers to them. Some data centers cant be filled to full capacity, and others are being built well away from population centers. Nvidias leader has argued that his companys products, while more power hungry than their predecessors the latest generation chip requires over a kilowatt are more efficient because they can do the work of training and running AI software more quickly and replace multiple older components. Separately, Huang said hes doing his best to serve customers in China and stay within the requirements of US government restrictions on Nvidias exports to that country. The first thing we have to do is comply with whatever policies and regulations that are being imposed, he said. And, meanwhile, do the best we can to compete in the markets that we serve. We have a lot of customers there that depend on us and well do our best to support them. --With assistance from Ed Ludlow and Ian King. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Fresh off the heels of Cascales annual meeting in Munich, the nonprofit held a casual gathering in New York Citys Garment District during Climate Week to continue the conversation on all things decarbonization. Cascale was joined by leaders at collaborators, including Worldly and the Apparel Impact Institute (Aii), on Thursday morning to address the uncomfortable truth: the industry needs to get it together. More from Sourcing Journal Colin Browne, CEO of the multi-stakeholder group formerly known as the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, eased into that truth with a zeitgeist zinger. I love Succession. I just love Logan Roys arrogance and audacity, the former Under Armour executive said, noting that Roy tells his children he loves them, but they are not serious people; a line that hit home for Browne. Its a really interesting quote from the point of view of where we are with regards to global sustainability and the environmental work we have in progress, he continued. I think that over the last 30 yearsand reflecting on thata lot of [that work] has been voluntary: passionate advocates committed to doing the right thing. You only get so far with voluntary measures and advocacy. The time to turn advocacy into action is really starting to happen, he said, and its going to fundamentally change the industry. The Higg Index creators essentially said the same thing last week in Germany, but fellow sustainability leaders in attendance werent concerned. Ive been at many of these events, but this feltfor the first timethat we could have the difficult discussions, Tamar Hoek, senior policy director for sustainable fashion at Solidaridad, said of the Munich event. We could talk about what does not work and, more importantly, we could talk about how collaboration is key. If we put our egos aside as different organizations, we can probably create bigger impacts than when we work on our own. That said, Chatting Climate & Consumer Goods kicked off with a conversation centered around scaling decarbonization. The question isnt if we have the technology to do it, Browne said. The question is, do we have the courage, capacity and commitment to get it done? Lewis Perkins, president of the Aii, thinks so. We know what to do. We have the right partners in place. Weve got all the right people in the room, Perkins said. Its a matter of just leaning into, like, the unlock and we use that world a lot, but it is this catalytic action to lean into over the next five yearsIm very confident we have everything we need. And that can be summarized or understood, Perkins said, as several key components, such as aligning technical tools, developing the facility carbon benchmark and securing funding. This takes shape through data-driven decision-making, collaborative supply chain investments and predictable volume commitments. Above all else, the urgency for action was underscored, calling for collective efforts to continue. We clearly have a snowballs chance in hell of actually getting there if we dont get moving, Browne said. Lets be frank, guys. Weve been talking about this for 30 years. Shit is about to get real. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are tied among likely voters in North Carolina, while Harris holds a comfortable lead in Nebraskas 2nd Congressional District, according to two new CNN polls conducted by SSRS. The North Carolina survey also shows scandal-plagued Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson trailing his Democratic opponent by a wide margin in the states gubernatorial race. Both places could be key to either Harris or Trump winning the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Trump faces limited paths to victory should he fail to hold North Carolina the state where he earned his slimmest margin of victory in 2020 and a win in Nebraskas 2nd District would open up a path for Harris through the northern blue wall states even if she fails to carry any of the Sun Belt battlegrounds. In North Carolina, Harris and Trump stand at 48% each among likely voters. In Nebraskas 2nd District, the so-called blue dot encompassing Omaha, Harris has 53% to Trumps 42%, the poll finds. North Carolina, which narrowly supported Barack Obama in 2008 and has gone red in the past three presidential elections, is a state Democrats hope to make competitive again this year. Nebraska, meanwhile, is one of two states, along with Maine, that splits its Electoral College votes awarding two to the statewide winner, with the other three awarded separately to the winner of each of the states congressional districts. The Cornhusker State has long been a Republican presidential stronghold, but its 2nd District has twice in recent history awarded its vote to the Democratic nominee, breaking for Obama in 2008 and for Joe Biden in 2020. The vast majority of North Carolina voters say theyve made up their minds, and roughly three-quarters of registered voters supporting each of the major candidates say theyre extremely motivated to vote. More than 7 in 10 among both Harris and Trump backers say their choice is a mark of support for their chosen candidate, not just a vote against their opponent. But 12% of likely voters in the state say they could still change their minds about the candidate theyre supporting more than enough to make a difference in a deadlocked race. Trump currently leads Harris among White likely voters in North Carolina, 58% to 39%, a narrower margin than his edge over Biden among White voters who turned out in the 2020 election, according to CNN exit polls. White likely voters with college degrees currently favor Harris over Trump by a wide margin, which would mark a shift from a narrow divide among this group four years ago. Harris leads Trump, 79% to 11%, among Black likely voters, a group that in 2020 made up roughly one-quarter of the states electorate. While Harris standing among Black likely voters in the poll is currently weaker than the share Biden ended up winning in 2020, that does not reflect significantly increased support for Trump rather, about one-tenth of Black likely voters currently say theyre supporting a third-party candidate or are unsure of their choice. Trump addresses supporters at a campaign rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, on September 21, 2024. - Brian Snyder/Reuters Male voters in North Carolina break narrowly toward Trump (51% to 45%) with Harris holding a slight advantage among female voters (50% to 46%), but the gender gap is smaller than that seen in CNNs most recent national survey. Down ballot, Harris is significantly outperformed by Democrat Josh Stein, who leads Robinson, the lieutenant governor, 53% to 36%, among likely voters in the North Carolina governors race. Robinson, who has faced a wave of scandal after CNN uncovered inflammatory comments he made on a porn website, is viewed unfavorably by a majority of the states likely voters (27% view him favorably, 53% unfavorably, 20% have no opinion). Stein, the North Carolina attorney general, is lesser known but viewed far more positively (40% favorable, 23% unfavorable, 36% no opinion). The survey was conducted entirely after the CNN report broke. Robinson faces significant defections from Republican and Republican-leaning likely voters in the state. Overall, 72% of them support him, while 14% say they will vote for Stein and 12% that they would vote for neither of them. Stein, by contrast, has broadly consolidated support among Democratic-aligned likely voters, 95% of whom support him. In Nebraskas 2nd District, the poll finds, Harris broad lead includes a near-universal 96% among Democratic likely voters, with her numbers buoyed by the 61% support she holds among the districts independent likely voters, as well as 10% among Republican likely voters. She leads Trump, 60% to 36%, among women, while Trump holds a much slimmer edge, 50% to 45%, among men. Six in 10 likely voters in the 2nd District say Nebraska should keep its current system for awarding electoral votes, with 40% saying it should switch to a system under which the statewide winner receives all of the electoral votes. An 86% majority of Democratic likely voters and 69% of independent likely voters favor keeping the current system, while 69% of GOP likely voters say theyd rather move to a winner-take-all system in the state. Harris is running ahead of the Democratic nominee in the race to represent Nebraskas 2nd District in Congress, with Democrat Tony Vargas holding a narrow advantage over incumbent Republican Rep. Don Bacon, 50% to 44%. Vargas, a state senator, lost to Bacon by less than 3 points in the 2022 election in which Republicans won a narrow majority in the US House of Representatives nationwide. Whats driving the results Likely voters in North Carolina give Harris a modest edge over Trump as the candidate whos more likely to unite the country (44% Harris to 35% Trump), make them proud as president (46% Harris to 40% Trump) and care about people like them (46% Harris, 42% Trump). Theyre evenly split on whether Harris or Trump more closely shares their view on what the countrys biggest problems are, and closely divided on which candidate would bring needed change (44% Trump, 42% Harris) or has clear policy plans to solve the countrys problems (42% Trump, 39% Harris). A 52% majority of North Carolinas likely voters say Trumps views and policies are too extreme, but a smaller 45% say theyre so extreme they threaten the country. Fewer see Harris policies as dangerously extreme (35%). Trump holds an 8-point advantage over Harris on trust to handle the economy among North Carolinas likely voters, who also side with him on issues relating to crime and safety (by 7 percentage points) and immigration (by 11 points), but give Harris the edge on protecting democracy (by 4 points) and on handling abortion and reproductive rights (by 11 points). As in other battleground states, the economy is cited as the top issue in the presidential race by a plurality of voters. In Nebraskas 2nd District, Trump sees more erosion on the issues on which hes traditionally posted his strongest numbers: likely voters there are closely split between him and Harris on both the economy and immigration, and give Harris the lead on handling crime and safety (by 6 points), democracy (by 14 points) and abortion and reproductive rights (by 21 points). Nearly six in 10 likely voters in the district call Trump too extreme (57%), and about half (51%) say hes extreme enough to pose a threat. Just 36% call Harris views and policies dangerously extreme. Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 12, 2024. - Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images And Harris holds wide margins over Trump as the candidate who 2nd District voters think would unite the country, make them proud as president and care about people like them, with smaller edges over him on the remaining attributes tested in the poll. In both places, the current administration is similarly unpopular Bidens approval rating stands at 44% in Nebraskas 2nd District, and 41% in North Carolina among likely voters. But in the Omaha-area seat, Harris takes 20% support among those who disapprove of Biden, while in North Carolina, that ticks downward to 14%. The vast majority of likely voters in both North Carolina and Nebraskas 2nd District say theyre at least somewhat confident that votes in their state will be accurately cast and counted in this years presidential election. But just 41% in North Carolina say theyre very confident, rising to a 59% majority in Nebraskas 2nd District. The Nebraska seat also sees a far smaller partisan divide in election confidence: while Harris supporters there are 33 points more likely than Trump supporters to express high confidence in their states election system, that expands to a 52-point gap between each candidates supporters in North Carolina. Interviews were conducted September 20-25, 2024, online and by telephone with registered voters, including 931 voters in North Carolina and 749 in Nebraskas 2nd Congressional District. Likely voters include all registered voters in the poll weighted for their predicted likelihood of voting in this years election. Results among likely voters in North Carolina have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points; it is 4 points among likely voters in Nebraskas 2nd District. CNNs Jennifer Agiesta and Edward Wu contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) A man accused of being an accessory to a quadruple homicide in Mojave was formally arraigned Thursday. Jonathan Hernandez appeared via Zoom, lying in a hospital bed. Prior hearings were postponed due to him being medically unavailable. More details as to his condition were not released. Hes charged with being an accessory after the fact, and also faces other felony counts including attempted murder and carjacking. Not guilty pleas were entered on his behalf and a preliminary hearing set for Oct. 7. Hearing continues Thursday for protester charged with threatening Bakersfield City Council Its alleged co-defendant Ricardo Reyes-Partida fatally shot four people inside a trailer on the night of April 30, 2023. Witnesses including Hernandez told investigators the shooting occurred over a missing phone Reyes-Partida believed one of the victims had, according to court filings. Killed were Darius Travon Canada, 31, Anna Marie Hester, 34, Martina Barraza, 33, all of Mojave, and Faith Leighanne Rose Asbry, 20, of California City. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17. The U.S. Coast Guard had to airlift an 8-year-old boy from a cruise ship after he became severely ill. According to a press release, Coast Guard Sector Humboldt Bay watchstanders were notified of the emergency on Tuesday (24 September) at around 7 a.m. local time when the Royal Princess ship was about 20 miles west of Eureka, California. Crew members including aviation survival technician Philip Morie and helicopter pilot Lt. Katherine McDonnell were notified that an 8-year-old male passenger onboard was diagnosed with appendicitis and needed to be medevaced. We didnt have it in sight, which from 10 miles out, flying at like 300 or 400 feet [it] was a giant cruise ship, we should be able to see it, and we couldnt see it, McDonnell recalled to Good Morning America. We were like, Thats unusual. As we got closer and closer, we were out about 5 miles and were like, Well, we still cant see it. Although foggy conditions made it difficult to spot the ship, at around 8 a.m. local time, an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter arrived to evacuate the passenger named Daniel Jiang, and his family. Footage shows Morie rappelling down to hoist the boy into a large metal rescue basket before the helicopter lifted him into its compartment. On the way up, you know, Im just still talking to the kid and, you know, giving him high fives and trying to keep him calm, Morie noted. Throughout the medevac situation, Daniel told the outlet he kept his eyes shut the entire time. Two more of Daniels family members his mother Nicole and brother were taken up in the basket as well. Nicole explained what happened at the time, saying: The doctor in the cruise said the situation is very [much an] emergency ... Daniel got [a] very high fever and the situation [grew] worse and worse. I dont know how to describe [it], she recalled of the experience, noting the rescue was unbelievable. The Coast Guard team was able to rush Daniel and his family in time to a hospital so that he could be immediately admitted into surgery and get an appendectomy. His surgery was thankfully a success and has since remained in the hospital, recovering from the procedure. His doctors have confirmed that he will be alright. The rescue mission was McDonnells first on the job, with the pilot reflecting that it was a pretty incredible feeling knowing that she played a part in saving the youngsters life. Meanwhile, Morie, for whom this wasnt his first rodeo, noted that it was a big win for everybody involved. The climate crisis has different impacts in different regions, and one small town along the coast of Maine is making changes on multiple fronts to maintain its way of life. What's happening? Stonington, an island 50 miles south of Bangor, is suffering from sea level rise and associated cost of living problems, as The New York Times reported. A pair of causeways, at risk every time a storm rolls in, became impassable during two major storms in January, cutting off the village of Oceanside and a link to the mainland. This also prevented lobster fishers from getting their catch to local markets and "destinations around the world," per the Times; Stonington has the state's largest lobster fleet. The rising waters of Penobscot Bay and increasingly intense and frequent storms driven by the human-induced warming of the planet have pushed those who work along the waterfront to raise docks and wharves to prepare as best they can for the next onslaught. Real estate investors are also creating a problem, as deep-pocketed outsiders are snatching up properties while locals spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to rebuild their storm-damaged livelihoods. "We've got a wall of water coming at us, and a wall of money coming at us, and we're fighting these two big forces," Stonington economic and community development director Linda Nelson told the Times. Why is this important? Town manager Kathleen Billings said people can't afford to continue to rebuild. In April, the state earmarked $60 million for recovery efforts, and the city created a resiliency fund, in part to meet the housing demands of the working class, the Times reported. But the hits keep coming. During summer droughts in recent years, Stonington has had to truck in its drinking water since it otherwise relies on rainfall, proving that no matter what measures are taken, this new normal may still require unsustainable changes. "There's so much that needs to happen, and I don't think we'll be able to keep up with all of it," Garrett Aldrich, a boat service operations manager, told the Times. "I think there will be more damage, and more pain, before we're done." What's being done about rising sea levels? While business owners and others in Stonington take action to limit the risk of rising sea levels, there are proactive steps we can take to try to lessen the number of communities that have to react like this. These steps include cutting the consumption of dirty fuels such as coal, oil, and gas, which power much of our world but also spew carbon pollution into the atmosphere, contributing to the rising global temperature, the melting of ice sheets and glaciers, and more. Should new homes be legally required to withstand natural disasters? Click your choice to see results and speak your mind By using clean energy sources such as solar, wind, and water, we can work to reduce the rising temperature and everything that comes with it. You can install solar panels or a heat pump, sign up for community solar, and electrify your home all of which will save you money, too. One expert says merely talking about the issue should be the top priority. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet. COFFEE COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) A Coffee County man has pleaded guilty to tax charges following an investigation by the Tennessee Department of Revenues Special Investigations Section. On Wednesday, Sept. 25, Judge Robert Carter accepted Matthew Aussikers guilty plea to two counts of depriving the state of its lawful revenue stemming from his fraudulent registration of two boats at the Coffee County Clerks Office, according to officials. The judge sentenced Aussiker to two years of supervised probation and ordered him to pay restitution to the Department of Revenue. Lawsuit against Tullahoma High School social media policy drops former principal from complaint The Department of Revenue strives to promote voluntary compliance of Tennessees tax laws by educating taxpayers and pursuing criminal sanctions for accountability of fraudulent actors, said Revenue Commissioner David Gerregano. This guilty plea underscores the departments efforts to ensure fair administration of Tennessees tax laws. The department said it worked with the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference while pursuing this criminal case. No additional details have been released about the investigation. Read todays top stories on wkrn.com If you suspect someone has violated Tennessees revenue laws, you are encouraged to call the toll-free tax fraud hot line at 800-372-8389. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Colorado school district sued for allegedly firing an employee for saying US is the greatest country in the world A Colorado school district faces a lawsuit by an employee who claims they were fired for expressing love of the USA (PA Wire) A Colorado school district is being sued for allegedly firing an educator who claimed the United States is the greatest country ever founded. America First Legal filed the lawsuit Thursday against the Cherry Creek School District claiming that the district violated Patrick Hogartys First Amendment rights when it pressured him to embrace race-based ideologies during a mandatory diversity training in January. During the training organized by Courageous Conversations, Hogarty, who was then Dean of Students at Campus Middle School, was asked, What does it mean to be White?, What experiences define Whiteness? and How do you identify? In response, he allegedly said that he identifies as an American, that he loves his country, and that he believes it is the greatest country ever founded. The program facilitators had assured participants that all comments would remain confidential and would not impact employment status, but the employees comments were reported to the school principal as having racist undertones, according to the lawsuit. Hogarty, who served as the Dean of Students from 2021 to 2024, according to America First Legal, was informed in March that his position was being eliminated by the district, who cited budgetary reasons. When he expressed that he did not believe their justification for eliminating his position, they placed him on administrative leave for unprofessional conduct. As alleged in the complaint, Cherry Creek School District blatantly violated the First Amendment rights of our client when they terminated him because his pride in the United States of America did not align with the districts political ideology that America is a systemically racist nation, America First Legal Senior Advisor Ian Prior wrote in the lawsuit. Like other school districts across the country, Cherry Creek has replaced the Bill of Rights with the DEI Manifesto, and teachers, students, and parents are being silenced for standing up for the values that make America great. He continued: We are proud to stand up for all teachers across America who are being unfairly persecuted for daring to challenge a government-sponsored orthodoxy that teaches hatred of America and seeks to marginalize people based on their viewpoints and the color of their skin. Officials from Cherry Creek School District did not respond to a request for comment in time for this report. (COLORADO SPRINGS) Ahead of National Neighbor Day on Sept. 28, Neighbor.com unveiled the results of its 5th Annual Most Neighborly Cities in America list and Colorado Springs has made the cut once again. The ranking took into account charitable donations, volunteerism, crime rates, voter turnout, and population growth. 2024s Overall Most Neighborly Cities in America are: Colorado Springs Madison, Wisconsin Virginia Beach, Virginia Des Moines, Iowa Provo, Utah Ogden, Utah Rochester, New York Seattle, Washington Richmond, Virginia Minneapolis, Minnesota The results showed that 60% of Americans rated living in a neighborly community as either very high or high priority when choosing where to live. The results also showed nearly 65% of people feel they can rely on their neighbors for help when needed. Im incredibly proud and honored that Colorado Springs has been ranked the most neighborly city in the United States, said Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade. Strong communities are built on the foundation of connectedness, where neighbors get to know, uplift, and support each other. One way weve promoted the spirit of neighborliness is our 1,000 Neighborhood Gatherings initiative, where we challenged residents to connect in meaningful ways whether through lively block parties or casual hangouts. This initiative is about connecting and activating our community, all in the spirit of addressing loneliness. We are on a mission to build a city of great neighbors. The City of Colorado Springs has emphasized community activation as one of its five strategic priority areas. Currently, more than 800 gatherings have been registered with the 1,000 Neighborhood Gatherings initiative. The initiatives goal is to help move people from isolation to community and support mental health. Congratulations to Colorado Springs and Mayor Yemi Mobolade on being named the most neighborly city in the country, said Colorado Governor Jared Polis. The rest of the country is finding out what Coloradans already know about the incredible and friendly community of Colorado Springs. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Columbus didnt take direct hit from Helene, but some residents still dealing with damage Hurricane Helene made its way through the state of Georgia throughout Thursday and into Friday morning. While the storm shifted and moved east of the local area, Columbus wasnt fully unharmed by the effects of the storm. A part of Sherri Priests house and a good portion of her yard on Forestside Drive are covered by a giant oak tree that fell Thursday night. Priest said she wasnt home when the tree fell on her house, but her dogs were. One of her dogs was in the kennel where the tree fell on the roof. Thankfully, the dog is alright, she said.. Priest said the experience has been devastating. The whole inside of my house is flooded, Priest told the Ledger-Enquirer. A large tree fell Thursday night on part of Sherri Priests house and yard on Forestside Drive in Columbus, causing damage. Hurricane Helene swept through the state of Georgia throughout Thursday night and Friday morning, causing damages around Columbus. 09/27/2024 Priest said her homeowners insurance dropped her a few months ago because of low-lying limbs over her house. Those limbs were on the tree that fell. We had somebody planned to come out to cut it, but they had gotten too busy, and then this happened, Priest said. At the time she was interviewed, Priests dad and uncle were there with a chainsaw starting to clear parts of the tree. I was kinda scared Around midnight, another tree had fallen over a roadway one block away on Berkley Avenue andtook down some power lines. Paul Lewis said there was a medium-hard rain when he heard the sound of crashing and told his wife, I think a limb fell or something. The limb actually was a tree which fell from the front yard of a house on the other side of the street, over Berkley Avenue and into Lewis yard. I was kinda scared because a friend of mine had been parking his car in front of my house, and it was raining too hard for me to go out there and look at it, Lewis said. A tree fell early Friday across the roadway of Berkley Avenue in Columbus. Hurricane Helene swept through Columbus Thursday night and Friday morning, causing downed trees around the city. 09/27/2024 When he was able to go out and look, his friends car wasnt there. Lewis said, at the time of the interview, he had been without power since the tree fell. As of 12:46 p.m Friday, the Georgia Power Outage map shows 11 outages in the Columbus area affecting 118 customers. On a scale of 1-10, Columbus emergency management Director Chance Corbett was bracing for Hurricane Helene to hit the area as an 8-10 storm when Thursday night became Friday morning. City officials prepared to respond to the predicted potential of catastrophic damage from Hurricane Helene. After all, it had strengthened to a Category 4 storm as it approached the Big Bend in Florida, and weather forecasters estimated Columbus would be in its path. But around 6 a.m., when the storm had departed the local area after taking a more easterly direction through Georgia, Corbett breathed a sigh of relief. He said the effects of Hurricane Helene on Columbus amounted to a 1 on that scale of 1-10. Weve had worse severe thunderstorms, he told the Ledger-Enquirer. Corbett said he received no reports of injuries or significant damage from the storm overnight in Columbus. Parts of three city roads were closed overnight, Corbett said: Second Avenue ramp at JR Allen Parkway due to mud Double Churches Road due to a tree across the road River Road at Old River Road due to flooding. Trees fell along four more roads, but closures werent required, Corbett said: Lindsay Drive, Chesley Drive, Berkley Avenue and College Drive. A tree fell on College Drive at Columbus State Universitys main campus overnight from the storm associated with Hurricane Helene in the early hours of Sept. 27, 2024. City workers remove tree debris on East Lindsay Drive near the intersection with Meadowbrook Drive on Sept. 27, 2024, after the storm associated with Hurricane Helene. As of 7 a.m., the Georgia Power outage map showed 320 customers out of 89,481 without power from 15 outages. But in the far northeast part of Muscogee County, around Williams Road, 2,479 out of 2,705 Diverse Power customers were without power. Nonetheless, Corbett was grateful for the relatively benign circumstances. We were very nervous that Columbus was going to be inundated with flooding, inundated with trees down, road closures, power outages, he said. We do have some of that, but, honestly, it was a breath of fresh air that we avoided any major damage. People can get up and go to work this morning. Its amazing. We thought we were going to be out clearing streets most of the day, and weve avoided that. Its a very big relief for us. Midday update By midday, Corbett texted the following update to the Ledger-Enquirer: City tree fell in roadway at intersection of Steam Mill Road and Mt. Pleasant Drive. Private tree and limb from city tree fell in roadway at 3100 block of East Lindsay Drive. Private tree fell in roadway at intersection of Foyer Avenue and Evergreen Street. City tree fell on power lines and in road at 1600 block of Berkley Avenue. Private tree fell onto edge of road at 1600 block of Forestside Drive. Private tree fell onto roadway at 3300 block of Chestley Drive. Cooper Creek Park flooding and damage Cooper Creek Park is closed due to flooding, Corbett said. Parts of Cooper Creek Park in Columbus are flooded Sept. 27, 2024, after the storm associated with Hurricane Helene came through the city. Two fallen power poles were seen in the park as well. A fallen power pole is shown Sept. 27, 2024, at Cooper Creek Park in Columbus after the storm associated with Hurricane Helene came through the city. A fallen power pole is shown Sept. 27, 2024, at Cooper Creek Park in Columbus after the storm associated with Hurricane Helene came through the city. Frustrated but grateful Alta Vista Drive resident LaTasha Cloud was relieved Friday morning that Hurricane Helene didnt cause more grief in Columbus. Cloud expressed frustration that her power still hadnt been restored when the Ledger-Enquirer interview her around 9:45 a.m. Friday after it went out around 6:30 p.m. Thursday, but she still was grateful the situation wasnt worse. Workers begin the process of restoring power to residents near the intersection of Forrest Road and Alta Vista Drive in Columbus on Sept. 27, 2024, after the storm associated with Hurricane Helene came through the city. The length of the power outage caused the food she had in the refrigerator to spoil, Cloud said. Her children, including one recovering from surgery, spent the night at their grandmothers home to be safer and more comfortable. And the stretch of Forrest Road from Sheffield Drive to Marthas Loop still was blocked off while a crew worked to restore the power after a pine tree fell and a power pole was snapped in half. The intersection of Forrest Road and Alta Vista Drive is blocked in Columbus on Sept. 27, 2024, as a crew works to restore power to the neighborhood after the storm associated with Hurricane Helene came through the city. But, after she noted her friends in South Carolina lost their house when the roof caved in from the hurricane, Cloud had a brighter perspective. Beyond grateful, she said. I wont complain. I just want my power back on. By Georgina McCartney HOUSTON (Reuters) - Oil prices settled higher on Friday but fell on the week as investors weighed expectations for higher global supply against fresh stimulus from top crude importer China. Brent crude futures settled up 38 cents, or 0.53%, at $71.89 per barrel. Front-month U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled up 51 cents, or 0.75%, at $68.18. On a weekly basis, Brent settled down around 3%, while WTI fell by around 5%. China's central bank on Friday lowered interest rates and injected liquidity into the banking system, aiming to pull economic growth back toward this year's target of roughly 5%. More fiscal measures are expected to be announced before Chinese holidays starting on Oct. 1 after a meeting of the Communist Party's top leaders showed an increased sense of urgency about mounting economic headwinds. "Despite aggressive Chinese stimulus, concerns of oversupply from OPECs plan to bring production back have pushed prices lower," analysts at Aegis Hedging said in a note on Friday. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, together known as OPEC+, will go ahead with plans to increase production by 180,000 bpd each month starting from December, two OPEC+ sources said. A Financial Times report on Wednesday said the planned increase is due to Saudi Arabia's decision to abandon a $100 oil price target and gain market share. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied targeting a certain oil price, and sources at the wider group told Reuters that the plans to raise output from December do not represent any major change from existing policy. And more barrels can be expected to enter the global market, after rival factions staking claims for control of the Central Bank of Libya signed an agreement to end their dispute on Thursday. The row had seen crude exports fall to 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) this month from more than 1 million last. In the U.S., some operators have begun to resume operations in the Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida on Thursday night, with Chevron on Friday redeploying personnel and restoring production at company-operated platforms. Meanwhile, the destruction of the hurricane, counted as the seventh most powerful to slam into Florida, could weigh on fuel demand in the state, which is the third-largest gasoline consumer in the U.S. "The aftermath of the hurricane is bearish really for demand, a large amount of the state got battered enough that demand should take a hit," said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital in New York. Story continues Meanwhile, U.S. consumer spending edged higher in August in a sign that the world's largest economy carried on momentum in the third quarter, as inflation pressures steady. "U.S. inflation data opens the door for further Fed rate cuts," UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said. The U.S. Federal Reserve cut interest rates by half of a percentage point last week, kicking off what was expected to be a steady easing of monetary policy. Putting a floor on prices, Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Israel's attacks on Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday show it "does not care" about efforts to bring about a ceasefire. Rising tensions in the Middle East could pose a threat to global crude supplies. (Reporting by Georgina McCartney in Houston, Robert Harvey and Paul Carsten in London, Gabrielle Ng in Singapore and Shariq Khan in New York; editing by Jason Neely, Kirsten Donovan, Louise Heavens, Alexander Smith, David Gregorio and Cynthia Osterman) Columbus police looking for missing 66-year-old woman last seen on 15th Street COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) Columbus police are searching for a woman who was reported missing on Sept. 26. Barbara Bass, 66, was last seen in the 1100 block of 15th Street after leaving the Stewart Community Home, according to the Columbus Police Department. Police say she failed to return by 9 p.m. on Sept. 26. Bass stands at 5-foot-10-inches and weighs about 305 pounds. She is described as having gray and white hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information is asked to call the CPD Special Victims Unit at 706-225-3449, Sgt. Thomas Hill at 706-225-4345 or 911. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WRBL. Columbus police search for missing man last seen on Portland Avenue COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) The Columbus Police Department is asking for the publics help with finding a man who was last seen over a week ago. Police say Christian Benton, 36, was reported missing on Tuesday, Sept. 24. The last time Benton was seen, he was at the 700 block of Portland Avenue on Thursday, Sept. 19 at about 9:30 p.m. His clothing description is unknown. Police describe Brenton as standing at 5-foot-2 and weighing 150lbs. He has black hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information is asked to call 911, the CPD Special Victims Unit at (706) 225-3449, or lead investigator Cpl. Emily Stice at (706) 225-4366. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WRBL. The late Mark Berman, co-founder of Cell Surgical Network, injects a patient in 2014 with a solution he said was rich in adult stem cells, at his practice in Beverly Hills. A federal appeals court just ruled in favor of the FDA's regulatory campaign against the clinic network. (Raquel Maria Dillon / AP) Just as it began to seem that the battle against pseudoscience in medicine was being lost, a federal appeals court in San Francisco delivered a huge win for the Food and Drug Administration on its science-based regulation of stem cell clinics. The three-member panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the FDA's definition of processed stem cells as a "drug" was correct. The judges also accepted the FDA's definition of its authority to regulate clinics offering purported stem cell treatments. "The FDA's interpretation... is the only interpretation that makes sense," wrote Judge Jennifer Sung in her portion of a two-part unanimous ruling announced Friday. The ruling is important for the FDA's campaign against medical clinics offering unproven treatments using patients' stem cells. Hundreds of such clinics have sprung up around the country, luring customers with claims that their treatments can address conditions including Alzheimer's, arthritis, cancer, macular degeneration, Crohn's disease, Parkinson's and even erectile dysfunction. The FDA says no scientifically validated evidence supports any of those claims, and warns the public against stem cell-related "unscrupulous hype." This case was aimed at clinics operating under the labels Cell Surgical Network and California Stem Cell Treatment Center, which the FDA said were giving patients illegal drugs at clinics in Beverly Hills and Rancho Mirage. Read more: Column: In blow to public health, judge tosses FDA lawsuit targeting a clinic offering unproven stem cell treatments The agency had earlier won a case against a Florida stem cell clinic on claims that were virtually identical to those of the California case; that ruling in federal trial court was upheld by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2021. The defendants also included Drs. Mark Berman and Elliott Lander, the enterprises' founders and operators. Berman died in May 2022, a few months before federal Judge Jesus Bernal of Riverside ruled against the FDA in the case. The appeals court overturned Bernal's verdict and sent the case back to him for further proceedings. Lander and the clinics didn't respond to my requests for comment on the appellate ruling. The clinics operated by extracting a patient's fat by liposuction, processing the fat to extract stem cells and injecting the stem cells back into the patients. They typically charged $8,900 per treatment, or a package of 12 treatments for $41,500, the judges observed. The defendants argued that their procedures fell within exemptions from FDA regulations. The key exemption applies to cells or tissues extracted and reimplanted in patients in a single surgical procedure. That exemption, the FDA argued, applies only when the cells or tissues aren't changed or manipulated between extraction and reimplantation. In sum, the FDA argued that what the clinics reimplanted was no longer identical to the fat, and also that process was more than a single surgical procedure. The appeals court ruled in the FDA's favor on both points. "This is a big victory for the FDA, patients, and the stem cell field," said Paul Knoepfler, a biologist at UC Davis who has been tracking the proliferation of clinics selling unproven stem cell therapies for years. "It also fits nicely with [the] earlier ruling in the FDA's favor...Together, these rulings seem coherent and establish that the FDA has the clear authority to regulate this class of unproven fat cell therapies as a drug." Get the latest from Michael Hiltzik Commentary on economics and more from a Pulitzer Prize winner. Sign me up. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Commuter rail train disabled in Beverly crash after driver ignored safety gates, police say A crash disabled a commuter rail train between Beverly and Newburyport on Thursday. The driver took off but their collision ripped off their bumper, MBTA Transit Police Superintendent Richard Sullivan told Boston 25 News. According to Transit Police, the driver ignored the crossing safety gates that were on. 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 Prosecco 1754 Ltd and its director Marcus Hilton were both fined [West Yorkshire Trading Standards] A man from Wakefield has been fined for selling 'skinny' prosecco that had too much sugar in it. Marcus Hilton, 45, director of, Prosecco 1754 Ltd, admitted selling a misleading product ahead of his sentencing at Leeds Crown Court on Friday. Mr Hilton and the company had each been charged with two counts of breaching the Food Safety Act 1990. Prosecco 1754 Ltd was fined 2,700 plus 2,000 in court costs, while Mr Hilton was fined 1,400 plus 2,000 in court costs. 'Misleading product' Ayman Khokhar, prosecuting on behalf of West Yorkshire Trading Standards, said Prosecco 1754's website offered a low-calorie form of the alcoholic drink for sale, "the presentation of which was likely to mislead". The company also offered for sale Skinny Prosecco Rose 1754, which was the subject of the same charge. Judge Thomas Bayliss said: "The prosecco has got too much sugar in it, more than it should have." The court heard that in May 2019, Trading Standards officer Zafar Shah visited the company premises in Wakefield to follow up a complaint made regarding the 'skinny' branded products being sold online. Mr Shah took samples and a report concluded that the Skinny Prosecco sample and its description on the company website breached food and drink regulations. Mr Khokhar said that the law to market a product as 'reduced' requires a 30% reduction in energy content. However the 'skinny' sample only had a 6.6% reduction. Mr Shah sent an infringement report to the company requesting that the term skinny was removed from the name of the product, but as of December 2021 no changes has been made. On 7 July 2022, Mr Hilton admitted the breaches, describing them as "an oversight". Mr Khokhar said: "Trading Standards did not say that anyone's health was put at risk but there could have been a diabetic consume them. "That's the only risk, other than those who wanted to get slim for their summer holidays." The judge said this customer was "hypothetical" and there was no evidence of anyone being put at risk. He said: "Skinny Prosecco turned out to be not so skinny, and you knew it was not so skinny and yet you continued selling it for quite some time." David Strover, head of Trading Standards said: "We repeatedly advised this business to amend their labelling, but they were intransigent and failed to act on our advice." Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here. More on this story Related internet links ATHENS, WV (WVNS) Concord University called on former Mountain Lions for their Giving Day. Giving day is designated to collecting donations for The Concord Fund. The fund supports scholarships, campus improvements and other University related projects. Concord hopes to hit a goal of 600 donors. Financial pledges and matching gifts are currently being accepted for the 2024 Day of Giving. Concord University gifted a donation from the Enterprise Mobility Foundation Really a great way for our alumni and our friends of Concord and the community to come together to show their support for Concord, said Blake Farmer, the Director of Alumni and Donor Relations. Donations are accepted from September 26th to September 27th at noon. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) Organizations and volunteers from Connecticut are responding to those affected by Hurricane Helene. Joe Apicelli, a volunteer with the American Red Cross, will board a plane from Connecticut to Georgia on Saturday. Helene slams the South with wind, rain and flooding Im going to be driving our emergency response vehicles, he said. Those vehicles are capable of going through the neighborhoods that have been affected by the disaster. Im going to be able to go house to house, door to door with hot meals, food, snacks, water, information. This mission marks his 60th national deployment with the organization. Im honored, Apicelli said. Im blessed to have that much time in. You dont have to go out for two to three weeks like Im about to do. You can do locals, respond to fires, you can find a niche in your life that will change your life. Stamford-based Americares is sending a response team to Florida and will be on the ground this weekend. How to help victims of Hurricane Helene Once our team gets on the ground, they will start immediately connecting with our network of partners across the state to determine what their needs are so we can ensure survivors of this massive storm can still access their healthcare afterward, said Mariel Fonteyn, the director for U.S. Emergency Repsonde for Americares. On Friday, Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Conn.) approved a request for the Connecticut National Guard to respond to North Carolina to assist with disaster response and relief efforts. A chinook helicopter takes off A chinook helicopter takes off A chinook helicopter takes off Lamonts office said a CH-47 Chinook helicopter and five-solider flight crew with the 1-169th Aviation Regiment left Windsor Locks Friday morning. They will be in North Carolina for about a week. The soldiers were assigned primarily to aid in transporting personnel and commodities such as food, water, equipment, and things of that nature, said Maj. Mike Wilcoxson, director of public affairs with the Connecticut National Guard. We love as Connecticuts home team to support our community here in Connecticut within our borders, whenever we can, but that extends to 50 states during times like this. The Salvation Army in Connecticut said it is ready to respond. Later Friday, Lamont also announced that the state will send a search and rescue team to North Carolina. It plans to stay there for seven days. To assist in the response to Helene, our parent company, Nexstar Media, is partnering with The American Red Cross to help with relief efforts. Donations to the Red Cross are critical for relief efforts from this storm and future disasters. People looking to donate to the American Red Cross as they assist those affected by Hurricane Helene can do so 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 WTNH.com. Klaus-Dieter von der Weiden (L), President of the Thuringian Constitutional Court, welcomes the incumbent Minister of the Interior, Georg Maier, while the constituent session of the Thuringian state parliament was interrupted for the second time. For the first time, the AfD, as the strongest parliamentary group, has the right to nominate candidates for the office of President of the state parliament. Martin Schutt/dpa Following a chaotic first session of the Thuringian state parliament in eastern Germany after a far-right party got the most votes in a recent election, the Thuringian Constitutional Court is to decide how to proceed. Chaos broke out on Thursday when the senior legislator of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Jurgen Treutler, refused to grant other parties' requests to speak, or file motions or debate on procedural rule changes. The state constitutional court is due to rule on Friday on an urgent application by the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) faction, which it says other parties will participate in, to allow other parties to put forward candidates for president of the state parliament. The session abruptly adjourned amid a standoff over the AfD's plans to put forward Wiebke Muhsal for the role. The other parties have dismissed her nomination as a mere provocation, pointing in part to a past conviction for fraud, and she has little chance of commanding a majority given the opposition of all other parties. But the AfD refused to consider changes to the rules that would allow other parties to put forward competing candidates, instead abruptly adjourning the meeting. The CDU and newly formed Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) submitted a motion that would allow all parliamentary groups to propose candidates from the outset, but Treutler ignored this, prompting the CDU to accuse him of exceeding his authority "This was an attack on parliamentary rights, on the constitution and on every single member of parliament," said Thuringian CDU leader Mario Voigt. "What you are doing here is a seizure of power," CDU member Andreas Buhl said. It is not yet clear how the Constitutional Court will decide. The AfD can also weigh in. But because this is an urgent matter, the judges will deliberate but decide without an oral hearing, a spokesman said when asked. Although the court is cognizant of the time pressure, the state parliament cannot set the time frame for the court, he said. The constitutional court is not expected to reach a decision until Friday at the earliest. As such, the state parliament session has been postponed until Saturday at 9:30 am (0730 GMT), but it is uncertain if a court decision will have been made by then. According to the lawyer Maximilian Steinbeis, the AfD, as the strongest faction, only has the right to propose the candidate for the state parliament president's job - but does not the right to have that candidate also elected. "That is the free decision of the members of the new Thuringian state parliament as to whom they want to elect as their president. And the constitution doesn't give the AfD any more rights as the strongest faction," Steinbeis said on Thursday evening on the public broadcaster ZDF's evening news show. Steinbeis is the founder of blog that deals with constitutional questions and on what would happen if "authoritarian populist parties were to gain state power." The members of Parliament sit in their seats at the start of the constituent session of the Thuringian state parliament. For the first time, the AfD, as the strongest parliamentary group, has the right to nominate candidates for the office of President of the state parliament. Bodo Schackow/dpa HONOLULU (KHON2) A contentious bill aimed at relaxing fireworks regulations on Oahu has moved forward, advancing to the full city council. Get Hawaiis latest morning news delivered to your inbox, sign up for News 2 You Bill 22 passed its second reading today after a delay in June that allowed for more public input on the issue. If approved, the measure would permit the sale of novelty fireworks, excluding firecrackers, without the need for a permit. However, aerial displays would still require professional handling. Remaining Mountain West members recommit to conference Honolulu City Council member Andria Tupola criticized the current fireworks ban, stating, The fireworks ban is not working. Waipahu lights up, and its a favorite place for everyone to watch. At this point, we would be delusional to think that continuing along this path will yield positive results. Bacon made from flowers? Its mind-blowing Tina Yamaki of the Retail Merchants of Hawaii supported the bill, arguing that allowing consumer fireworks sales would benefit both retailers and the community. All other counties in Hawaii currently permit the sale of these types of fireworks. Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news Under the proposed bill, permits would still be required for the use of firecrackers during New Years, the Fourth of July, Chinese New Year, and other cultural events. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KHON2. Raleigh voters will pick a new mayor and City Council members this November. All eight council seats, including the mayors, are up for grabs, with all the incumbents except for current Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin seeking another two-year term. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5. Early voting runs from Thursday, Oct. 17, through Saturday, Nov. 2. To help inform voters across the state, this candidate questionnaire is available to be republished by local publications in North Carolina without any cost. Please consider subscribing to The News & Observer to help make this coverage possible. Name: Corey Branch District/seat: Raleigh City Council, District C Political party: Democrat Age as of Nov. 5, 2024: 46 Campaign website: www.coreybranch.com Current occupation: Associate Director - Kyndryl (Network Engineer) Education: Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering Offices Sought/Held: Incumbent City Council, District C Please list any notable government or civic involvement. * GoTriangle - Board of Directors (2019Present) * Transit and Transportation Committee Member (2015present), Chair (2017present) * Growth and Natural Resources Committee Vice Chair (2022present) * Economic Development Committee Member (201522) * Lightner Y Achievers Advisory Board (2017present) * ArtSpace Board of Directors (201723) * Leadership Triangle Board of Directors (201721) * Passage Homes Board of Directors (201723) * Evolve Mentoring Board of Directors (201521) * Broadening Corporate Board Diversity: Earning a Board Seat Training (2014) * WakeUp Wake County Board of Directors (201315) * Marrkens Development Group Board of Directors (201215), Chair (201415) * Raleigh Transit Authority Member (201115) * Committee to Keep Judge Craig Croom Treasurer (200415) * Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Leadership at Chapter, State, Regional and National levels (2001present) * Phi Lambda Educational Foundation Board of Directors Member (200608) Which City Council District do you live in? C What is the top issue facing Raleigh now and how would you address it? Economic development, especially through support for small businesses, is a top issue because it plays a significant role in public safety. I plan to review our permitting processes, explore dedicating staff to assist businesses with navigating city procedures, and increase minority and Black business participation in providing city services. Additionally, I will work to expand opportunities for young people to develop skills. By enhancing support for small businesses, we can create more job opportunities for youth and young adults, which will help reduce crime and improve public safety. What is your strategy for increasing affordable housing in Raleigh? During my time on council, we passed and are implementing the citys largest housing bond. Weve also allocated dedicated funds for housing, approved over 3,000 affordable units in District C, and sold land to Habitat for Humanity at a reduced price to promote affordable homeownership. I will continue supporting these policies and work to create new ones that increase housing inventory. A major focus will be streamlining the permitting process to meet housing demand more efficiently. In early 2025, I plan to bring together the Planning and Permitting departments, Triangle Apartment Association, and Home Builders Association to address ongoing permitting challenges. While weve made some progress, delays persist, and Im committed to finding timely solutions. Should the city be more aggressive about requiring affordable units from developers or partner with nonprofits? I support continuing to partner with nonprofits to produce more affordable units and exploring incentives for developers to include affordable units in their projects. We must ensure that affordable housing is available across the entire city. Do you think Raleigh can support concert venues both downtown and in Dix Park? I believe that keeping and supporting the Red Hat Amphitheater downtown is the best option, and I fully support it. Would you describe Raleighs growth as too fast, too slow or just right? Raleighs growth is just right, given that we are among the top five fastest-growing places in the U.S. However, we must ensure that all residents have opportunities to engage positively in this growth, in ways that benefit their lives and communities. Do you think Raleigh is losing too many historic properties? If so, how should this be addressed? We have lost some historic properties for various reasons, and since many of these properties are privately owned, preservation ultimately lies with the owners. The city has worked to save some properties, and I look forward to collaborating with the newly formed Preservation Raleigh group to educate the community and find ways to preserve and utilize historic properties to honor our past while moving the city forward. (Bloomberg) -- Panamas finance chief sees no good reason why First Quantum Minerals Ltd. shouldnt export the large volume of copper stockpiled at its shuttered mine in the country. Most Read from Bloomberg The government is working with a third party on an environmental assessment to quantify the amount of copper concentrate stored at the mine and determine when it was extracted, Finance Minister Felipe Chapman said Friday. The copper cannot lie sitting there forever. It has to be taken out, and if you are going to take it out, you might as well export it, Chapman said in an interview in Bloombergs New York headquarters. We have to complete the due diligence before making a decision. Even Panamas most radical environmentalists havent argued against exporting the copper that has already been mined, he added. The mine has been sitting idle in the jungle for nearly a year after the Supreme Court ruled last year the companys operating contract was unconstitutional. Its closure hit economic growth and government revenue, led Fitch Ratings to cut the nations credit rating to junk. The mine had accounted for about 1.5% of global copper production and about 4% of Panamas gross domestic product. The firm has filed an arbitration suit against Panama. Panamas government is focused on approving a social security reform before this year ends, and will discuss the mines future next year, Chapman said. He said First Quantum must withdraw its arbitration suit before talks can begin between the firm and the administration of President Jose Raul Mulino, who took office in July. We are more than willing to sit down and talk with them as long as they drop their intentions of suing the government, Chapman said. Thats our pre-condition. Writing on the Wall Chapman, a former business consultant, advised the mine when First Quantum was negotiating a revised operating contract under the previous government. The revised contract granted First Quantum an extension to operate the mine for up to 40 years, a tax payment of at least $375 million and a royalty rate of between 12-16% depending on operating margins. He said he warned the company that the revised contract was likely to fail because it didnt include enough revenue for the government, among other reasons. Story continues It was written on the wall, a huge wall, and they just ignored it, he said. The mine was shuttered following months of violent protests that blocked Panamas main roads and highways. Chapman said sentiment has changed in the past two months as the government seeks to regain public trust. He said the government is studying alternatives such as opening the mine for a shorter time frame, improving environmental oversight and regulation of the mine and re-reading public sentiment, which will help guide decisions next year. You have political capital to use it, Chapman said. The current level of political capital is very high, and it will be used in the interest of the people of Panama. Ugly Outlook The government is striving to prevent further downgrades to its credit rating in the short term, and improve on it over the medium-term, Chapman said. This year, its going to look ugly in fiscal terms. Thats anticipated by everyone, including us, he said. Next year is going to be quite different. The government is targeting a fiscal deficit of 3% to 3.5% of gross domestic product for 2025. This year, the government had originally targeted 4%, but now accepts its going to be higher than that, he said. Short term measures to rein in the deficit include an expense freeze, he said. He said that he sees himself as a bad cop, and the complaints he receives reassure him that hes doing his job. The country plans to narrow the deficit in such as a way as to have a soft landing, he said. Panama is not in a financial crisis, we dont need shock therapy, he said. The nations bonds sold off last year after the government moved to shut the mine. In the aftermath of the closure, Fitch cut the the country to junk. Investors then feared a second cut by Moodys Ratings or S&P Global Ratings which would lead to the loss of the nations investment-grade status. The second downgrade has yet to happen. The debt is already being treated as junk by investors, however, who demand a premium to hold Panamas bonds over those of similarly-rated nations. The economy will expand 2.5% this year, accelerating to 4% in 2025, according to the ministrys forecasts. Without the mines closure, this years expansion would have been two percentage points higher, he said. (Updates with additional comment from finance minister in third paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Costco Debunks Diddy's Lawyer's Claim About The 'Bulk' Buying Of Baby Oil From Them Costco has been forced to set the record straight regarding claims that embattled hip-hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs purchased a massive amount of baby oil from their stores. The rapper was recently arrested and slammed with sex trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to engage in prostitution charges. Diddy is reportedly not getting preferential treatment behind bars and has a tight schedule while he awaits his trial. Costco Addresses Claim That Diddy Bought Baby Oil From Them In 'Bulk' MEGA The popular retail chain has distanced itself from claims that the rapper purchased a bulk supply of baby oil and lubricants from them. According to TMZ, a spokesperson noted that none of the company's U.S. stores have the product in question. A search on the members-only warehouse retailer's site shows that it offers nothing like baby oil. However, it does sell hair and cleansing gel for babies, which isn't close to baby oil. Diddy's lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, made the Cosco remark during an appearance on TMZ's new documentary, "The Downfall of Diddy: The Indictment." Agnifilo's claims came after Homeland Security agents released a 14-page indictment against the "Bad Boy For Life" rapper. In it, they disclosed that they confiscated 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricants from his L.A. and Miami homes back in March. The Rapper's Lawyer Doubts There Were Actually 1000 Bottles Of Baby Oil MEGA Agnifilo noted that Diddy had such a large stash of baby oil bottles and lube because he preferred to buy his products in bulk. "I don't know where the number 1,000 came from," he explained to TMZ in a preview of their documentary. "I can't imagine it's thousands." Upon being told that the number came from the indictment against his client, he retorted that he wasn't "really sure what the baby oil has to do with anything." Agnifilo noted, "I don't know what you need 1,000... One bottle of baby oil goes a long way. I don't know what you'd even need 1,000 for." "He has a big house; he buys in bulk," the lawyer continued. "I think they have Costcos in every place where he has a home." He joked, "Have you sat in the parking lot of a Costco and seen what people walk out of there with?" Agnifilo also seemed to disagree with the indictment's claim regarding the exact number of baby oil bottles found in the rapper's home, saying, "Let's just say it's a lot." Diddy To Take The Stand In His Criminal Case MEGA Diddy is currently being held at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center following his September 16 arrest at the Hyatt Hotel in New York City by Homeland Security agents. According to TMZ, his attorney shared that he will take the witness stand to testify in his criminal sex trial. Agnifilo noted that although the move is risky, Diddy is in the best position to defend himself in court. He shared that Diddy's story involves love, hurt, and heartbreak, so "there's no one better to defend Diddy than Diddy himself." Diddy testifying in court will open him up to the possibility of being scrutinized and cross-examined by prosecutors, especially in the face of a viral hotel surveillance footage that saw him physically assault his ex-girlfriend Cassandra "Cassie" Ventura. He may also be asked about his alleged orgies called "freak-offs," as well as other sexual assault allegations that have been leveled against him recently. No Special Treatment For Diddy In Jail MEGA Because of his celebrity status, speculation has been rife about how Diddy is being treated during his jail stay. However, a source told People Magazine that he doesn't get preferential treatment behind bars and has seemingly had to deal with a tight schedule. "He is being treated like any other detainee awaiting trial," the source told the news outlet. "As with all public figures in his position, he was placed on suicide watch upon admittance to the facility as a precaution." The insider added that Diddy is "very concerned about his kids and their well-being." "He has three minor children, two of whom now have no living parent available with him incarcerated," the source shared. "Four of his seven children have neither parent available with him incarcerated. Mr. Combs has been able to speak briefly to family members and his children via phone." A Diddy Docuseries Will Be Released On Netflix MEGA Diddy's longtime rival, 50 Cent, recently gave a statement regarding the release of a Netflix docuseries, which will spotlight abuse allegations made against Diddy. "This is a story with significant human impact," 50 Cent told Variety. "It is a complex narrative spanning decades, not just the headlines or clips seen so far." He continued, "We remain steadfast in our commitment to give a voice to the voiceless and to present authentic and nuanced perspectives. While the allegations are disturbing, we urge all to remember that Sean Combs' story is not the full story of hip-hop and its culture." 50 Cent concluded his statement: "We aim to ensure that individual actions do not overshadow the culture's broader contributions." If you rely on state ferries to get around, the cost of your commute will go up again next week. Washington State Ferries (WSF) is bumping up the price of a ticket by more than 4% on Tuesday, October 1. The change affects every route. It is something the agency warned us about last year when it raised prices by an additional 4%. The new transportation budget requires state ferries to generate about $419 million in revenue by 2025. According to the Washington State Transportation Commission, fares fund 57% of WSFs operations and maintenance. To find the new fares for routes, click here. WSF says that Tuesday is also the first day with no peak season surcharge for vehicles. In May, prices for roundtrips went up nearly $10. A roundtrip from Edmonds to Kingston costing a couple with a standard car just shy of $60. The price is the same for a roundtrip between Bremerton and Seattle. The surcharge will resume on May 1. PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) Mayor Brett Smiley said he believes while Hasbros ancestral home is in Pawtucket, the capital city should be considered if a deal cant be reached to keep the toymaker there. Hasbro executives confirmed last week theyre seeking to relocate and have been exploring new space in the Greater Boston area. The company has been headquartered in Rhode Island for more than century. But Pawtucket leaders are still holding onto hope that Hasbro will keep its headquarters in the city, even if its not on Newport Avenue. The executive director of the Pawtucket Foundation has floated the former Apex site as an alternative location. But even if Hasbro was interested, that may not be possible. The city announced Tuesday it had received four proposals from companies to redevelop the 14-acre Apex site following an open competitive bidding process. Smiley told reporters at an unrelated event in Providence on Friday that he had been in touch with Gov. Dan McKee about the companys future plans. If Pawtucket turns out to not be an option, I would, of course, love for them to be in Providence, Smiley said. I think theres a couple exciting possibilities in Providence. Smiley has had the ear of Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks in recent days. The mayor said he saw Cocks at the Fall 2024 Economic Outlook Luncheon hosted by the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce on Sept. 16. The luncheon also advertised a featured conversation with the companys CEO. I actually sat at his table and hes a resident in city of Providence, so I know him a little bit and we had a chance to chat that day, Smiley said. The Boston Business Journal first reported the companys potential move later that afternoon. Its not the first time Smiley has been involved in talks with the company, which has considered moving to Massachusetts before. He recalled discussions that took place when he was a senior aide to then-Gov. Gina Raimondo, who he said had a close relationship with Hasbros chairman and CEO at the time, Brian Goldner. (Goldner passed away in 2021.) We were starting to work on a really competitive, and I think, compelling proposal to keep Hasbro in Rhode Island; the first choice was Pawtucket, Smiley said. Thats their sort of ancestral home, if you will. The mayor said he had confidence that McKees team is working on a proposal to keep Hasbro in Rhode Island, but said the companys CEO should give Providence another look before deciding to move out of state. Smiley said hes been in touch with the companys chief executive in recent days. I think theres a lot of really exciting things happening in the city, and theres a lot of good reasons for Hasbro to want to be in Providence: access to talent, a dynamic economy, and a really exciting local workforce that would be thrilled to have Hasbro join them as a new corporate partner and neighbor, the mayor added. As for where that may be in Providence, Smiley said he had a few ideas brewing, including the former I-195 land in downtown Providence. The latter idea has been floated publicly by Laurie White, who leads the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce. But I also know that Capital Center, which is the area adjacent to the train station, is hard to beat in terms of connectivity, Smiley said. Train service to Boston, New York and to T.F. Green. Smiley said his team at City Hall is holding internal meetings to consider proposals they could offer Hasbro in order to be ready to go when that moment arises. Alexandra Leslie (aleslie@wpri.com) is a Target 12 investigative reporter covering Providence and more for 12 News. Connect with her on Twitter and on Facebook. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WPRI.com. Some solar farms have been approved by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband [EPA] Nottinghamshire councillors have formally expressed concern at some government decisions to approve large-scale solar farms. A motion, discussed at a county council meeting on Thursday, said the approval of some projects may have been rushed through without considering the views of local residents. It comes after a major solar farm on the border of Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire was given the go-ahead by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. The government said it was important for local views to be taken into account. Ed Miliband has been energy secretary since July [PA Media] The motion, tabled by Conservative councillor Tracey Taylor, says the authority recognises the value of renewable energy, but also expressed concerns that Milibands decisions may not have taken account of previous expert advice. It added the Conservative-run council would make appropriate representations setting out the environmental and infrastructure impacts of any proposals for solar farms in Nottinghamshire. Taylor told the meeting there had been an explosion of applications for nationally significant infrastructure, and a cynical and dangerous change in approach from developers. Labour councillor Penny Gowland said she thought the energy secretary made a "very well informed decision" based on briefings from experts, and that there was "no suggestion he did it at the stroke of a pen." Independent councillor Steve Carr questioned if Conservative councillors were "climate change deniers". "In a hundred years time when people are being threatened by rising sea levels, they won't be saying isn't it a good job back in 2024 that they didn't put solar farms in inappropriate places," he said. The motion passed by 44 votes to 2, with 15 abstentions. Nottinghamshire County Councillors debated the motion at a meeting on Thursday [BBC] A huge solar farm on the border of Rutland and Leicestershire was also approved by the government in July, and a major project near Newark is due to enter a second round of consultation later this year. A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: Solar power is at the heart of our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower and the energy secretary has consented more solar capacity since July than has been installed in the past year. It is also important local views are taken into account, and where communities live near clean energy infrastructure, they should benefit directly from it. "We are considering a range of options and incentives to better match where energy is generated and used. Follow BBC Nottingham on Facebook, on X, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk or via WhatsApp on 0808 100 2210. Related links Couple accused of trying to sell baby for 6-pack and $1K check Couple accused of trying to sell baby for 6-pack and $1K check BENTON COUNTY, Ark. (KSNW) An Arkansas couple are accused of trying to sell their baby for a six-pack of beer and a $1,000 cashiers check. Our sister station KNWA/KFTA reports that Darien Urban, 21, and Shalene Ehlers, 20, are facing charges of endangering the welfare of a minor and attempting to negotiate the relinquishment of a minor for adoption. The couple were arrested on Sept. 21. A witness told investigators that Urban and Ehlers wrote a letter granting custody of their baby to another person in exchange for money. The letter signed by the pair included a disclaimer stating, There will be no changing yall twos minds and to never contact again. Ellis County Sheriff warns of classic car scam Another witness said a man offered to take the baby from the couple for the night for a six-pack of beer. Later, the couple signed the document and were reportedly promised a $1,000 check that would be delivered the following Monday. Another witness noticed the baby had severe diaper rash, blisters, and swelling when they changed the 2-month-olds soil diaper. They took photos to document the injuries that they turned over to investigators. EMS took the baby to a childrens hospital for treatment and evaluation. The couple were arrested and formally charged earlier this week. Urban has bonded out of jail, while Ehlers remains jailed on a $30,000 bond. A trial date is pending. The couple have been appointed public defenders. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Couple who allegedly tried to give away baby for beer, $1,000 arrested: Reports An Arkansas couple was arrested after they allegedly tried to sell their 2-month-old baby at a campground for some beer and $1,000. There will be no changing yall twos minds Benton County Sheriffs deputies responded to the Hide Away Campground in Rogers, Arkansas on Saturday after a caller said a young couple tried to give up their baby in exchange for money and a six-pack of beer, People reported. When officers arrived at the campgrounds, the baby was taken to a local hospital to receive medical attention. Deputies found that the parents of the child, Darien Urban, 21, and Shalene Ehlers, 20, had given their baby to a man to watch overnight in exchange for a six-pack of beer. The man who took the baby spoke with police and said that he was concerned for the babys welfare, according to KWCH 12 News. Ehlers told the man who exchanged the beer for the baby and another person that having three dogs and a baby was "not working" and she was willing to surrender the baby for $1,000. The other man wrote a letter for the couple to sign which read, "I Darien Urban and Shalene Ehlers are signing over to [redacted] of our baby boy [redacted] for $1,000 on 09/21/2024." The letter was signed by both parents and included a disclaimer that read: "Disclaimer: After signing this there will be no changing yall twos minds and to never contact again," according to People. Baby smelled of ammonia, fecal matter A woman who told detectives that Ehlers had come to her earlier that evening asking for beer said the baby smelled like ammonia and fecal matter. The babys diaper was also full, People reported. She changed the babys diaper and saw that he had a heavy rash, blisters and swelling on his buttocks and genitals, according to an affidavit obtained by People. The woman also claimed she saw dog hair in the babys diaper. Parents arrested Both Urban and Ehlers were arrested on Saturday and given a $50,000 bail. Urban appears to have been released while Ehlers remains in custody, according to jail records. The baby is in the care of the Arkansas Department of Human Services, People reported. Antonia Sullivan and her partner, Bradley Smith, were both ordered to complete 270-300 hours of community work - Facebook A couple who engaged in a sex act on a plane in front of other passengers have been convicted of outraging public decency. Bradley Smith, 22, and Antonia Sullivan, 20, were escorted off an easyJet flight by police on March 3. The pair, from Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales, had been returning to Bristol from a holiday in Tenerife, Spain, on a packed 7am flight. Minutes after take-off, unemployed Smith was heard asking his girlfriend to perform a sex act on him, The Sun reported. Sullivan, sitting in 16B, began rearranging coats on Smiths lap, who was by the window in 16A, and obliged, to the shock of fellow passengers. Their neighbour in 16C later reported the couple to the cabin crew. No regard for the feelings of other passengers Prosecutor Maree Doyle told Bristol magistrates court: After a few minutes the witness was aware that the couple had rearranged some coats over Smiths lap and there followed vigorous hand movements beneath the coats. The witness sitting next to them could see what was happening while a mother and teenage daughter sitting behind the couple could also see what was going on. Sullivan pleaded guilty to outraging public decency - Facebook Doyle added that the teenager had told her mother she could see his bits, prompting the parent to also complain. Sullivan insisted to flight attendants that she was only rubbing Smiths leg, but both were escorted from the plane when it reached Bristol by an easyJet manager and police. The couple pleaded guilty on Thursday to one count of outraging public decency by committing a sexual act in a public place. Sentencing the couple, Judge Lynne Matthews said: You had no regard for the feelings of other passengers. There was a child sitting behind you who was able to see what was happening. Who do you think you are and what right do you think entitled you to behave in that way in full view of people on that flight? Smith was ordered to complete 300 hours of community work, while Sullivan, a full-time care worker, received 270 hours. They were both ordered to pay 100 compensation to each of the three witnesses. An easyJet spokeswoman said: We can confirm that this flight to Bristol was met by police on arrival, due to the behaviour of two passengers onboard. 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. MEMPHIS, Tenn. Memphis Police have released new surveillance video of a robbery and shooting at a storage facility in Northeast Memphis that happened on Monday morning. According to police, five suspects held up a woman and her boyfriend at a storage business on Summer Avenue. The boyfriend was shot during the robbery. He told police the robbers demanded his wallet before hitting him in the head and shooting him in the leg. The group then robbed his girlfriend. Justin Johnson found guilty in Young Dolph murder Police say four men and a woman were involved in the robbery. One suspect even fired a shot before the group drove away. Business owners in the area say they fear crime is moving in. We moved down here from White Station because crime was so bad down there, said Susan Tanner, owner of Pink Ribbons. In 2019, Tanner moved her business to Summer Avenue because she wanted to be somewhere safer. Tanner says she noticed the yellow tape in the parking lot but because of the location of her business she didnt think anything of it. MS homeowner shot after attempted home invasion I just thought it was construction tape. We see it all the time, Tanner said. It really bothers me that the crime could be moving down this way. Theres no fear of consequences and the judicial system is just going to have to step up and make them pay for their crimes. This is still an ongoing investigation. If you have any information that could help police, call CrimeStoppers at 901-528-CASH. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner takes questions from reporters after a press conference in Harrisburg on Friday, Oct. 21, 2022 (Capital-Star photo). The impeachment of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner that the Pennsylvania House of Representatives started in 2022 expired with that years legislative session, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday. The impeachment effort of DA Krasner is dead, null, void, over, John Summers, Krasners attorney before the Supreme Court, said. As a result, a Senate trial on charges of misconduct in office against Krasner will not take place. Taken with a January 2023 opinion from a Commonwealth Court panel that the allegations in the articles of impeachment that the House approved in November 2022 were unconstitutional, the Supreme Courts ruling is a double victory for Krasner, Summers said. The ruling today is really an affirmation of the role of an independent court system in a Democracy, Summers said, noting that Krasner has been elected twice by broad margins. He called the impeachment an effort hatched by non-Philadelphia legislators to step in and nullify the votes of Philadelphia voters. State Rep. Craig Williams (R-Delaware), who served as lead impeachment manager in the House, said the Supreme Court decision leaves the substance of allegations in the articles of impeachment unresolved. It is important to note the court did not answer if the allegations of misbehavior in office met the constitutional standard for impeachment and conviction for the same, Williams said in a statement. Those questions must be resolved by the Supreme Court. The rule of law and the publics confidence in the criminal justice system requires it. Krasner, who was first elected in 2018, was criticized for his progressive criminal justice policies and was one of several Democratic prosecutors targeted by Republicans in the backlash of racial unrest following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. Approved by a 107-85 vote, the articles of impeachment charged Krasner with dereliction of duty and refusal to enforce the law, obstructing the select committee empaneled to investigate his office, and violations of rules of professional conduct, judicial conduct, victims rights and the state constitution. In her opinion for the Commonwealth Court, Judge Ellen Ceisler found that the allegations against Krasner did not rise to the required constitutional standard. Instead, the House simply appears not to approve of the way [Krasner] has chosen to run his office, Ceisler wrote. Regardless of whether any of the Houses concerns have substantive merit, it remains that such disagreements, standing alone, are not enough to create a constitutionally sound basis for impeaching and removing [Krasner]. Summers said Thursday that in addition to affirming the Commonwealth Courts decision, the Supreme Court said the plain language of the state constitution instructs that when the House exercises its power of impeachment during one session of the General Assembly, a trial must be held by the Senate of the same session. Pennsylvania legislative sessions are held for about two years, running from the first Tuesday of January following a presidential or midterm election to Nov. 30 of the following year. The articles of impeachment against Krasner were approved in the House on Nov. 16, 2022, and were transferred to theSenate on Nov 30, 2022, the same day both the House and Senate formally ended the 2021-2022 legislative session. In her decision for the Supreme Court majority, Chief Justice Debra Todd wrote that the constitution provides that the House and Senate cease to exist as functioning bodies at the end of each two year session. All powers granted by the Constitution to the House of Representatives and the Senate last only for the duration of the session of the General Assembly in which those bodies came into being, Todd wrote. The Constitution simply does not textually permit the House and the Senate of a subsequent session of the General Assembly to take any further action on matters which the House or Senate of a prior session of the General Assembly may have begun, but not finished during that session, given that they are constitutionally distinct entities, the majority opinion says. The case was decided by five members of the seven justice court, with Justice Sallie Mundy issuing a separate opinion dissenting in part. Justices Kevin Dougherty and Kevin Brobson did not participate in the decision. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE The Michigan Court of Appeals said this week there's not enough evidence to support a charge of involuntary manslaughter against a Detroit gas station clerk, who in May 2023 was accused of locking patrons inside the store during an argument with a man who would go on to shoot three people inside, killing one. The court ruled Wednesday that prosecutors did not present sufficient evidence to prove that the clerk, Al-Hassan Aiyash, was a "proximate cause" of the killing by the suspected gunman Samuel McCray. Maria Miller, a spokesperson for the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, said the charge against Aiyash is "essentially dismissed" following the court's decision. The office is still determining its next steps in the case, Miller said. While prosecutors argued McCray's actions could have been reasonably predicted based on his verbal threats and the ways in which Aiyash escalated the situation, the Michigan Court of Appeals found that none of Aiyash's actions "made it reasonably foreseeable" that the gunman would intentionally kill a patron. Aiyash did not know McCray or that he struggled with mental health issues, the court wrote in its opinion. He also did not know that McCray was armed with a gun, the court wrote. "While it was certainly foreseeable that defendants conduct would anger McCray, it was not reasonably foreseeable that making McCray angry would cause him to intentionally kill another patron, especially considering defendants utter lack of knowledge about McCray," the court opined. "Even McCrays threats to shoot the other patrons did not make it reasonably foreseeable that he would do so because nothing in the record suggests that defendant knew either that McCray was armed or that McCrays judgment was so compromised that he would actually shoot innocent bystanders over a dispute." The court's decision mentioned that it's rare to find someone liable for crimes committed by another person, but acknowledged that did happen in the case of Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley's parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, who were both found guilty of involuntary manslaughter charges. Prosecutors relied on the Crumbley case to secure Aiyash's conviction, but the court argued the facts of the Crumbley case were "extraordinary," and that Aiyash lacked knowledge similar to what Crumbley's parents had known. What happed on May 6, 2023? The incident began about 3 a.m. on May 6, 2023, inside a Mobil gas station on McNichols Road near the Lodge Freeway, after McCray attempted to leave the gas station with about $4 worth of snacks after his card declined. Aiyash had locked the doors electronically in an attempt to prevent theft. Patrons inside the gas station pleaded to Aiyash to unlock them. The gunman, who had been growing belligerent, warned he would shoot every customer in the store if the doors remained unlocked, a surviving victim previously told the Free Press. The clerk eventually did unlock the doors, but prosecutors argued he did so too late and without telling anyone. Video footage of the incident from behind the clerk's counter, previously reviewed by the Free Press, shows Aiyash had told patrons in the store to get out after unlocking the door several minutes into the dispute. "Get the f--- on," Aiyash can be heard repeatedly saying in the video while shooing patrons with his hand. But an enraged McCray soon shot the three other customers inside, authorities said. Gregory Karlos Fortner-Kelly, 37, of Detroit, was shot nine times and killed. Andrea Sahouri covers criminal justice for the Detroit Free Press. She can be contacted at asahouri@freepress.com. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Case tossed against clerk who locked gas station doors before shooting Key Insights Montana Aerospace's significant private companies ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public Montana Tech Components AG owns 52% of the company 25% of Montana Aerospace is held by Institutions A look at the shareholders of Montana Aerospace AG (VTX:AERO) can tell us which group is most powerful. With 52% stake, private companies possess the maximum shares in the company. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn). Private companies gained the most after market cap touched CHF1.3b last week, while institutions who own 25% also benefitted. In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Montana Aerospace. View our latest analysis for Montana Aerospace What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Montana Aerospace? Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index. We can see that Montana Aerospace does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at Montana Aerospace's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters. Montana Aerospace is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Montana Tech Components AG with 52% of shares outstanding. This essentially means that they have extensive influence, if not outright control, over the future of the corporation. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 7.1% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 5.4% by the third-largest shareholder. Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. There are a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future. Insider Ownership Of Montana Aerospace The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO. Story continues I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions. We can report that insiders do own shares in Montana Aerospace AG. The insiders have a meaningful stake worth CHF91m. Most would see this as a real positive. Most would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. Still, it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling. General Public Ownership The general public-- including retail investors -- own 16% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies. Private Company Ownership We can see that Private Companies own 52%, of the shares on issue. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company. Next Steps: It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Montana Aerospace better, we need to consider many other factors. Many find it useful to take an in depth look at how a company has performed in the past. You can access this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow. If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. (KRON) Jordan Cam Walkers short life was filled with neglect at home and red flags raised by concerned adults, according to a new lawsuit filed against Santa Clara Countys Department of Child Protective Services and Department of Children and Family Services. The 6-year-old San Jose boy was stabbed to death at home in the summer of 2023. Jordans uncle is charged with murder. Attorneys representing the boys grandfather, Morian Walker, filed a lawsuit this month against the county for failing to remove Jordan from allegedly neglectful family members. The suit claims CPS agents placed the boy in dangerous home living environments, despite Walkers numerous warnings and attempts to gain child custody through Santa Clara County courts. Jordan Cam Walker (Family photo) The wrongful death and civil rights lawsuit, filed by Costanzo Law Firm, was first reported by the Mercury News. CPS officials received numerous credible complaints and reports that Jordan was living in a dangerous environment, both while in his mothers care, and later, when placed with his great-grandmother, the lawsuit states. Little Jordan was removed from his mothers care after he allegedly brought a bag of his moms methamphetamine to school. When he was placed in his great grandmothers home, neighbors saw Jordan left alone outside for long periods of time, attorneys claim. Jordan was frequently seen on neighbors Ring cameras riding his bike at two and three oclock in the morning, sometimes multiple nights in a row. The apartment was described as an endless revolving door of different drug users and homeless people both short term and long term visitors, including Nathan Addison, Jordans maternal half-uncle and suspected murderer, the lawsuit states. On August 4, 2023, Jordan and his great grandmother, 71-year-old Delphina Turner, were stabbed to death by Addison inside the apartment, according to San Jose Police Department investigators. Addison, 28, was released from jail just weeks before the double homicide. Turner allowed him to live in her apartment with Jordan despite Addisons history of mental illness, drug abuse, and crime, attorneys claim. The lawsuit claims that Walker was the only stable support person in Jordans life. Morian (Walker) purchased Jordans stroller, all of Jordans clothing, every pair of shoes, and every toy Jordan owned until the end of his life, the lawsuit states. He was not able to gain custody of his grandson to protect him, however. Shortly after Jordan was born, his mother entered the Parisi House on the Hill, a drug and alcohol treatment facility on Bernal Road where mothers can stay with their babies. The suit claims that on February 10, 2023, less than six months before Jordans death, Jordan brought a bag of methamphetamine to Washington Elementary School and told his teacher that his mother gave it to him. The school called police. Officials with Santa Clara Countys Child Protective Services, Department of Social Services, Department of Family and Childrens Services, were also called and made the decision to place Jordan in Turners home, attorneys claim. The lawsuit states, Authorities were well aware of the familys troubles, as evidenced by the Investigation Narrative written by social worker Kimmie Tran, where she stated, the generational history of substance use, mental health, and criminal history indicate a risk for the family environment the child is exposed to.' County authorities were allegedly aware that Turner had a full-time job with NASA. They failed to ask questions about who was watching Jordan while Turner was away at work, nor find out who periodically lived in the two-bedroom apartment, attorneys claim. Jordan would wander around his neighborhood alone at all hours of the day and night, the suit states. Morian Walker was upset and appalled that his grandson was placed in Turners home after social workers were told that Walker had a stable environment for Jordan to live in and Jordan loved his grandfather. One social worker, Teana Box, reassured Mr. Walker Sr. that the placement was only temporary until they figured things out on their end, attorneys wrote. On June 26, 2023, Department of Family and Childrens Services employees recommended that Jordan remain in the care of his mother. On July 17, 2023, his mother tested positive for methamphetamine. The court ordered Jordan to be placed into protective custody with Turner, and a judge scheduled a new court date for August 14, 2023. On August 4, 2023, Jordan and Turner were senselessly killed by Nathan Addison, the lawsuit states. Attorneys claim, Jordan was tragically killed at the home he was placed in. This outcome was a direct consequence of the (countys) failure to exercise reasonable care in ensuring the safety and protection of Jordan. The actions of Santa Clara County and its employees in placing Jordan in a dangerous environment constitute a violation of his civil rights. Defendants named in the lawsuit include Santa Clara County and its departments. Defendants also include individuals, including: Damion Wright, director of CPS; Wendy Kinnear-Rausch, assistant director of CPS; Teana Box, DCFS social worker; Sharhonda McGowanhenry, DCFS social worker; Candace Tejuco, CPS worker; and Kimmie Tran, DCFS social worker. Addison is currently incarcerated in Santa Clara County awaiting trial. Why Was Addison Out Of Custody When Jordan Died? Nathan Addisons August 2023 mugshot was released by the San Jose Police Department. The Santa Clara County District Attorneys Office filed five separate criminal cases against Addison. None of the cases went forward to trials because of the courts Mental Health Diversion program. During the three years leading up to the double homicide, Addison was charged with a flurry of felonies for burglary, drug possession, attempted arson, theft, threats, and possession of a knife. During every arrest, Addison was armed with large knives, court records show. All of his criminal cases were suspended by judges who allowed Addison to be diverted out of the criminal justice system, into mental health treatment programs, and freed from custody, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors said they tried, unsuccessfully, to keep Addison in jail in June 2023. Addison was classified as moderate-to-low risk for future violence, according to court records. He lived at Muriel Wright center in San Jose until he tried burning the building down in February 2022. Employees said Addison became enraged when they took his knives away, and he ignited his shirt on fire. He was jailed for the first half of 2022 and was evaluated by Dr. Carolyn Murphy. Murphy noted that Addisons bipolar disorder caused him to experience mania, depression, and impulsive behaviors. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. NASA's 10th Crew Dragon flight to the International Space Station is ready for launch Saturday with two long-duration crew members on board along with two empty seats that will be used next February to carry Boeing's Starliner astronauts back to Earth after an extended stay in orbit. Crew 9 commander Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov are scheduled for liftoff from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station atop a Falcon 9 rocket at 1:17 p.m. EDT Saturday, roughly the moment Earth's rotation carries the rocket into alignment with the station's orbit. Cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov (left) will assist commander Nick Hague (right) during the Crew 9's climb to space. The two empty seats will be used by Starliner commander Barry Already delayed two days by high winds and clouds associated with Hurricane Helene, forecasters predicted a 55 percent chance of acceptable weather along Florida's Space Coast. There was a "moderate" risk of high winds and waves in the Atlantic Ocean along the spacecraft's trajectory where the crew might have to land in an abort. All earlier Crew Dragon flights took off from nearby pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. The Crew 9 launch will be the first piloted flight from pad 40 after decades of service launching military satellites, NASA probes and, more recently, unpiloted SpaceX satellite and ISS cargo missions. NASA required SpaceX to upgrade pad 40 to support piloted flights out of concern that a major launch mishap could knock pad 39A out of action for an extended period, interrupting astronaut ferry flights to the International Space Station. Pad 40 now features a 265-foot-tall launch support tower, a 91.5-foot-long crew access arm for astronauts and technicians to reach a waiting Crew Dragon and a pad escape system to enable flight crews and support personnel to quickly slide to the ground from 220 feet up in a flexible, fire-resistant tube-like chute in an emergency. As with all space station flights, Crew 9 will be launched directly into the plane of the lab's orbit. Twelve minutes after liftoff, the Crew Dragon "Freedom," making its fourth flight, will be released to fly on its own. The original Crew 9 roster included then-commander Zena Cardman (left) and Stephanie Wilson (right), seen during training at the Johnson Space Center with crewmates Nick Hague (back right) and cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov (back left). Cardman and Wilson were bumped from the flight when NASA managers decided to use the Crew Dragon to bring the two Starliner astronauts back to Earth. / Credit: NASA If all goes well, the spacecraft will execute an automated rendezvous, catching up with the space station from behind and below early Sunday, looping up to a point directly in front of the outpost and then moving in for a docking at the lab's forward port around 5:30 p.m. Standing by to welcome Hague and Gorbunov aboard will be their new crewmates, Starliner commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and his co-pilot Sunita Williams, now serving as commander of the space station. Also on board: Soyuz MS-26/72S commander Aleksey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and NASA astronaut Don Pettit, launched Sept. 11, along with Crew 8 commander Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, Jeanette Epps and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, who were launched March 3. The Crew Dragon originally was expected to carry four passengers: Hague, Gorbunov, veteran Stephanie Wilson and rookie Zena Cardman, the mission commander. But Cardman snd Wilson were removed from the flight in late August to free up two of the Crew Dragon's four seats for use by Wilmore and Williams. Clothing, supplies and SpaceX pressure suits also are going up for Wilmore and Williams, who were launched June 5 on the Starliner's first piloted test flight, a mission initially expected to last eight to 10 days. By the time they land aboard the Crew 9 capsule around Feb. 22, they will have logged more than 262 days in space. "There have been a lot of changes to our particular crew, but the mission really hasn't changed," said Hague. "The mission hasn't changed for two-and-a-half decades. It's to get up to the station and do research, and that mission is bigger than any one crew." Starliner pilot Sunita Williams (left) and commander Barry But that doesn't mean the transition from four crew members to two, and his own transition from pilot to mission commander, is not without its challenges. Likewise, Wilmore and Williams must learn the ins and outs of flying aboard a Crew Dragon. "We're going to launch as a two-person crew, and then we're going to land as a four-person crew," Hague said. "And one of the unique challenges of that is, how do we integrate the other two crew members into the Dragon operations when they've had very minimal Dragon training before they launched? "The teams on the ground have helped not only get us ready, but they've already started helping Butch and Suni train to understand what they're going to need to do inside of inside of the Dragon. That's going to be top priority when we get there, (helping) them understand what they're going to need to do to operate as part of the Crew 9 crew." The four Crew 8 fliers Dominick, Barratt, Epps and Grebenkin are expected to head home as early as Oct. 7 to wrap up their own 217-day mission. That will leave the space station with a normal complement of seven full-time crew members, the three Soyuz fliers Ovchinin, Vagner and Pettit along with the revised Crew 9 crew: Hague, Gorbunov, Wilmore and Williams. Hague said he had trained with both Wilmore and Williams over the years, and he expects the crew the mesh smoothly in orbit. "I've had opportunities to work with Butch and Suni," Hague said. "I've had opportunities to train as part of NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) and share a tent with Suni for 10 days in the wilderness. So we know each other, and we're professionals. We step up and do what's asked of us. "So I'm looking forward to working with them, and I think we're going to pull together without a problem." Hague is a Space Force colonel, a former F-16 test pilot and combat veteran who logged 203 days in space on an earlier mission. He also went through a dramatic in-flight abort during launch aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in 2018. His range of experience presumably played a major role in NASA's decision to move him into the commander's seat for the revised mission. The Crew 9 Dragon awaiting launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. / Credit: SpaceX Gorbunov kept his seat aboard the Crew 9 Dragon under a high-priority contract between NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, in which three-seat Russian Soyuz spacecraft carry one NASA astronaut on each flight to the ISS and a cosmonaut launches on each four-seat Crew Dragon. That ensures each country always has at least one crew member on board the lab even if an emergency forces one ferry ship and its crew to make an unplanned return to Earth. Gorbunov is not trained to serve as a Crew Dragon pilot, but he will be sitting in the pilot's seat during launch to assist Hague. "Essentially, we're flying without a pilot, and so fundamentally, the commander is responsible for keeping the crew safe, keeping the vehicle safe and making sure we get the mission done," Hague said. "And so those responsibilities haven't changed. "Alex is going to be working to support me during all the dynamic phases of flight and provide me with the extra set of eyes, the extra set of hands that I would need and that I would leverage if I had a pilot sitting next to me. So in that way, it's not very different." In the wake of the space shuttle's retirement in 2011, NASA awarded contracts to SpaceX and Boeing to build commercial astronaut ferry ships to carry crews to and from the space station. NASA wanted two providers to maintain crew rotation flights even if one carrier was grounded by technical problems. The Starliner test flight, the first with a crew on board, was launched on June 5 with a known helium leak in the propulsion pressurization system. During approach to the space station the next day, four more helium leaks were detected, along with degraded thrust in five aft-facing reaction control system jets. While the docking was successful, the problems kicked off weeks of tests, analyses and debate about the safety of the Starliner during its trip back to Earth. The mission, initially expected to last a little more than a week, was repeatedly extended while testing continued. SpaceX, in the meantime, had its own problems. On July 11, the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket suffered a malfunction that left its payload of Starlink internet satellites in a lower-than-planned orbit. All 20 satellites quickly fell back into the atmosphere and burned up. SpaceX quickly identified the problem, implemented a fix and flights resumed within about two weeks. But Hague said the problems Boeing and SpaceX encountered demonstrated the value of having multiple providers. "We're one launch anomaly from losing our ability to support this amazing thing that we do on the International Space Station," he said. "We're trying to develop Starliner to be that redundant system. And just as we're doing that, we see an anomaly ground the entire Falcon 9 fleet. "And so in an instant, we've lost the ability to support this critical mission, not just for the U.S. but the globe. That underscores why we need redundancy more than anything I can think of." When the decision was made to send the Starliner home without its crew, NASA chief astronaut Joe Acaba had to decide who would fly aboard the Crew 9 mission and who would stay behind. While he did not explain his reasoning in a NASA statement announcing the decision, Hague's spaceflight experience clearly made the difference. "While we've changed crew before for a variety of reasons, downsizing crew for this flight was another tough decision to adjust to given that the crew has trained as a crew of four," he said in a statement. "I have the utmost confidence in all our crew. ... Zena and Stephanie will continue to assist their crewmates ahead of launch." In the same statement, Cardman said "I am confident Nick and Alex will step into their roles with excellence. All four of us remain dedicated to the success of this mission, and Stephanie and I look forward to flying when the time is right." For his part, Gorbunov, the fifth Russian to fly aboard a SpaceX ferry ship, told reporters after arriving at the Kennedy Space Center that he could not wait to fly on the Crew Dragon "and to become part of the ISS crew." "As we are talking in front of you right now, there are hundreds of people from NASA and SpaceX working on, preparing the launch pad, preparing the rocket for our launch," he said through an interpreter. "So I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all of them." Hurricane Helene makes landfall over Florida's Big Bend area as a Category 4 storm From the archives: Maggie Smith Hassan Nasrallah & Hezbollah | 60 Minutes Archive This oil painting by the Belgian marine artist Francois Etienne Musin (18201888) refers to HMS Erebuss Arctic venture under the command of Sir John Franklin in 1845. For Franklins last journey she had been fitted with a steam engine and a screw propeller and was accompanied by HMS Terror. In 1848 both vessels were abandoned in the ice. For over two years, both the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus (Greek mythologys personification of death) remained encased in ice near the top of the world. Amid frigid Arctic conditions, dwindling rations, and no hope in sight, the surviving crew of Sir John Franklins ill-fated 1845 expedition to chart a Northwest Passage to China finally abandoned their two ships on April 26, 1848. However unlikely, the men hoped to make a last-ditch effort to escape across the frozen ice and tundra. Their final months lived up to both vessels names. No one aboard either Terror or Erebus ultimately made it out alive, and many are believed to perish around King William Island in Nunavut, Canadas largest and most remote territory. In the end, evidence even shows the last few sailors eventually resorted to cannibalismand new analysis proves they did so regardless of respect for a superiors rank. Franklins expedition left Kent, England, on May 19, 1845, in the hopes of finally mapping a Northwestern route around the world to Asia. By the time the crew left their ships in 1848, Franklin had been dead for almost a year, so the 105 survivors turned to a senior officer, Commander James Fitzjames, to lead their deadly, futile march. A daguerreotype of Lieutenant James Fitzjames (later Captain) of the Royal Navy, taken by Richard Beard at his temporary dockside studio in Greenhithe, England, shortly before the Northwest Passage expeditions departure on 19 May 1845. Credit: Wikimedia Commons As far back as the 1850s, search parties recounted Indigenous Inuit communities tales of seeing survivors engaged in cannibalisma claim that shocked search parties, given its cultural taboo. Subsequent journeys to the region have since recovered skeletal fragments belonging to dozens of crew member bodies. In particular, one King William Island archeological site has yielded 451 bones from at least 13 sailors. In 1997, archeologists discovered cut marks on almost one-quarter of those remains, finally providing forensic evidence of cannibalism. But only one sample since then has been matched to a crew member using DNA and genealogical evidence: John Gregory, an engineer on the Erebus. According to a report published on September 24 in the Journal of Archeology, researchers at the University of Waterloo and Lakehead University have positively identified one more survivor who made it to King William Island: Commander Fitzjames himself. We worked with a good quality sample that allowed us to generate a Y-chromosome profile, and we were lucky enough to obtain a match [from descendents DNA], Stephen Fratpietro, a researcher at Lakehead Universitys Paleo-DNA lab and study co-author, said in an accompanying announcement on Tuesday. While Fitzjames survived longer than many of his crew, he wasnt the last to die. And those left behind, despondent and starving, apparently didnt let his remains go to waste. Analysis of Fitzjames mandible bone showed clear signs of intentional cuts from a sharp-edged tooltelltale evidence of cannibalism. [Related: Human flesh isnt very nutritious.] This shows that neither rank nor status was the governing principle in the final desperate days of the expedition as they strove to save themselves, added Douglas Stenton, another study co-author and University of Waterloo adjunct professor of anthropology. Archeologists latest finds further confirms the fate of Franklins attempted expedition is somehow bleaker than the 2007 historical horror novel by Dan Simmons that it inspired. Its even grimmer than AMCs 2018 miniseries adaptation of the same book, seeing as how (spoiler alert) none of the 129 officers or crew ultimately survived the multiyear ordeal. Still, Stenton added that his team was extremely grateful to this family for sharing their history with us and for providing DNA samples. He also encouraged any other known Franklin expedition descendants to reach out and see if their own DNA could help identify other remains at the ill-fated crewmembers final expedition stopa site located less than 50 miles from their abandoned ships. The Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), a big-dollar fundraising group affiliated with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), isnt helping two of McConnells biggest critics in the Senate GOP conference Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Rick Scott (Fla.). This has prompted grumbling from conservatives who say McConnell has too much power over Senate Republican fundraising and point out that Cruz, in particular, a longtime McConnell critic, will be heavily outspent by his Democratic opponent, Texas Rep. Colin Allred, and his allies. Some Republican strategists are also questioning whether the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), which is run by Chair Steve Daines (Mont.), a member of McConnells leadership team, is doing enough to protect incumbents like Cruz and Scott. This election cycle, the NRSC has focused like a laser beam on knocking off vulnerable incumbent Democrats including Sens. Jon Tester (Mont.) and Sherrod Brown (Ohio), but now Democrats are shifting money to Texas and Florida to put pressure on Cruz and Scott. Steven Law, McConnells former chief of staff who serves as CEO of SLF and One Nation, two major fundraising groups aligned with the Senate GOP leader, told The Wall Street Journal last week that hes not worried about Cruz or Scott losing. And he pledged: If it gets tough, well be there for them. But thats not providing much comfort to Cruz and Scott, whose races were shook up this week when the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee which had been expected to stay out of Texas and Florida announced a multimillion-dollar TV advertising buy thats designed to motivate Democratic donors to pour more money into those two Republican-leaning states. Its been well-known for over a decade, that since SLF has started, that McConnell has used it to reward his allies and punish conservatives. And its never been more apparent than this year, when two of the strongest allies of President Trump, Sen. Rick Scott and Sen. Ted Cruz, are being left to fight for their reelection on their own, a conservative strategist said. A second Republican strategist said McConnell likes to remind senators how much SLF has helped them in their races, which sends a subtle message to colleagues to get in line on certain issues. Both strategists spoke freely on condition of anonymity. McConnell pointedly reminded Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) how much of a role the group played in his 2018 election when Hawley last year proposed a bill to limit corporate political giving. He warned GOP senators at a Tuesday lunch meeting that they would face incoming from the center-right if they backed Hawleys bill and read off a list of senators who received substantial support from SLF, according to a CNN report of the discussion. McConnell told The Hill in a sit-down interview in his office in February that he doesnt play favorites when it comes to deciding which candidates to back in an election year. He says his calculus is driven by winning and preserving Senate GOP majorities. And when asked about whether SLF and One Nation should play a bigger role in the Maryland Senate race, for which McConnell personally recruited popular former Gov. Larry Hogan (R), McConnell said he doesnt control those groups spending priorities. But many Senate Republican lawmakers and strategists say McConnell exerts enormous influence on spending decisions by signaling his preferences while staying well within the requirements of campaign finance laws. McConnell has raised more than $1 billion for SLF since the group started and his allies cited his enormous fundraising contribution when Scott challenged him in a leadership race after the 2022 election. Some Senate Republican conservatives, however, say SLF should be doing more to help Cruz. And they say that the groups spending decisions sometimes appear to reward senators who work amicably with Senate GOP leadership while snubbing McConnells critics, such as Cruz. Conservative Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), a McConnell critic who has long been a thorn in Senate GOP leaderships side, didnt get any help from SLF when he faced a harder-than-expected reelection race in 2022 against independent Evan McMullin. Lee ended up winning the race by more than 10 points. And the group didnt put any money into Cruzs tough 2018 reelection campaign, when he was outspent by his challenger, then-Rep. Beto ORourke (D-Texas), and allied Democratic groups. Cruz squeaked by with a 2-point win. That same year, SLF poured millions of dollars at least $12.7 million to help Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) beat Democrat Phil Bredesen in the race for Tennessees open Senate seat. She ended up beating her opponent by nearly 11 points. Meanwhile, Cruz led calls earlier this year for McConnell to resign as GOP leader. I think a Republican leader should actually lead this conference and should advance the priorities of Republicans, Cruz told a room full of reporters in the Capitol in February. It was the latest of many clashes Cruz has had with McConnell over the years, stretching back to their 2013 fight over strategy, when Cruz led an effort to repeal ObamaCare that spurred a 16-day government shutdown. Now the two-term Texas senator finds himself once again in a tight race getting dramatically outspent by his Democratic opponent. In 2018, he beat ORourke by convincing voters that the Democratic lawmaker was far too left-leaning to represent the state in the Senate something ORourke helped Cruz do by often speaking without a filter. The Democrat may have committed a big mistake when he endorsed universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons, two unpopular positions in the gun-loving state. In this years tight Texas Senate race, Allred has adopted a much more careful media strategy, picking his media interviews carefully and not straying far from his talking points. This has made it much tougher for Cruz to hammer home the message that Allred has voted often with liberal Democrats in the House. Getting a few more million dollars from SLF or the NRSC might help Cruzs message break through, conservative allies hope. The second GOP strategist who spoke to The Hill argued that the NRSC has lost sight of protecting Republican incumbents as it has focused more on defeating vulnerable Democratic senators in Montana, Ohio, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Ive seen some of the public polling in Texas. I think that race could be close. Certainly, Allred has raised and spent a lot of money. The NRSC has spent some in Texas. SLF hasnt and probably doesnt intend to, the strategist added. The blind spot that the NRSC has toward incumbents is a big problem. NRSC spokesperson Philip Letsou rejected that criticism. NRSCs top priority is protecting our incumbents. We will ensure they defeat Schumers hand-picked candidates and will have their backs, he said, referring to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). The Senate Republican campaign arm has already spent $3 million in coordinated expenditures with the Cruz campaign on television advertising and has transferred $2.5 million to the Texas Republican Party. An Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey published Thursday showed Cruz leading Allred by 4 points, 49 percent support to 45 percent. Other polls show Cruz and Allred in a dead heat. A Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation poll published Monday showed Cruz leading Allred by only 3 points, within the polls margin of error. Cruzs allies warn that Democrats will raise and spend substantially more to help Allred than Republicans will raise and spend to defend Cruz, reasoning the incumbent will be fine with former President Trump projected to win Texas by at least 5 points. Allred reported raising $41.2 million at the end of June compared to the $40 million Cruz had raised at that point in the election cycle. Altogether, Cruzs allies expect Republicans to spend between $50 million and $100 million to defend Cruz, and Democrats to spend $100 million to $150 million to knock him off. Allred raised an astonishing $1 million in 24 hours after speaking at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last month. The boisterous crowd that packed the United Center chanted Beat Ted Cruz! as he walked off the stage. Scott, who challenged McConnell in a bitterly fought leadership race after the 2022 election, is also in a tough race. An Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey conducted in early September found Scott leading former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-Fla.) by only 1 point. But he has a 4.3 percentage point average lead in polls compiled by RealClearPolitics. Mucarsel-Powells campaign reported raising $1 million after the Emerson/Hill poll found she and Scott are in a dead heat. Her campaign is also expected to benefit from voter turnout driven by an abortion-rights initiative on the 2024 Florida ballot. Scott, unlike Cruz, has vast personal wealth to draw on to shore up his own campaign and get his message across in Floridas expensive media markets. He is worth between $270 million and $808 million, according to Finbold. Law, the CEO of SLF and One Nation, told The Wall Street Journal last week that Texas and Florida wont be on the Democrats radar. I think well be OK in both of them. This is a presidential cycle. Neither one of those states is going to be on the radar of the Democrats, he said. The reason why I feel reasonably confident is that both Sen. Cruz and Sen. Scott have done what you want incumbents to do, which is to be prepared to raise money, to take their races seriously and to run good campaigns thus far, he explained. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Crypto mogul known as 'The Godfather' used L.A. deputies for extortion, feds allege Federal prosecutors call him "The Godfather," and like the fictional mafia boss, he allegedly had cops on the payroll to do his criminal bidding. Adam Iza, who ran a cryptocurrency trading platform known as Zort, allegedly paid several L.A. County sheriffs deputies sometimes tens of thousands of dollars to perform unlawful searches and arrests as part of an extortion scheme, according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed this week. Iza hid millions of dollars from tax collectors by failing to report income and funneling money through shell companies with co-conspirators, according to the complaint. He allegedly spent the funds on numerous luxury vehicles, including a Lamborghini Aventador and a Rolls Royce Phantom, nearly a million in rent for a Bel Air mansion and around $64,000 on cosmetic surgery to extend the length of his legs. Iza stands accused of conspiracy against rights and evasion of tax assessments. Authorities arrested him on Sept. 23, according to federal court documents. Records show he is ordered to appear before a judge on Oct. 8. Things arent what they seem to be, said Josef Sadat, an attorney representing Iza in the federal case. The truth is going to come out, hopefully soon. Iza boasted about paying active duty law enforcement $280,000 per month, according to the complaint. The U.S. attorneys office declined to comment on whether the deputies who are not named in the complaint will be charged. Several deputies, including a detective on the departments notorious anti-gang unit, were recently relieved of duty in connection with a federal investigation, authorities said earlier this week. The Sheriffs Department confirmed the move was linked to a probe involving the U.S. Attorneys Office. Read more: Several L.A. County sheriff's deputies relieved of duty in connection with federal investigation "These egregious allegations contradict our Departments values and mission," the agency said in a statement Thursday. "Individuals who use their badge as a license to abuse their power to personally profit on illegal misconduct have no place in law enforcement and must be held accountable." The department said it is fully cooperating with the investigation, adding, "Once we have all the details of this case, we will evaluate the actions internally to ensure that this behavior does not occur again." Tom Yu, an attorney representing one of the three current deputies mentioned in the complaint, told The Times that his client had not been arrested and stressed that he was only being investigated at the moment. I dont think he did anything criminal, Yu said. A cryptocurrency battle A few days before Thanksgiving 2021, the complaint alleges, Iza was involved in a kidnapping and robbery attempt in Riverside County that attracted the FBI's attention. The intended target, federal investigators say, was a business associate of Iza's identified only as E.Z. The two men had known each other for about two years, the complaint says, and theyd recently talked about a business deal involving a medical service platform and cryptocurrency. On Nov. 21, 2021, according to a Riverside County Sheriff Department report reviewed by the FBI, E.Z. was driving his car with Iza in the back seat when Iza asked to stop at a gas station for food. Afterward, according to the complaint, as the two men stood near the back of the car with the trunk open, an SUV pulled up and two men, who authorities later identified as a former L.A. sheriffs deputy and a former custody assistant, hopped out. One of the men allegedly approached with a gun in hand and told E.Z. to get in the car. Instead, E.Z. turned and fled, then called 911. He later told investigators he thought Iza was trying to have him kidnapped in order to get access to digital assets stored on his phone. A responding Riverside County sheriffs deputy interviewed Iza, who claimed he was the one who feared being kidnapped. Iza told the deputy E.Z. had promised to give him $300,000 for cryptocurrency, but that as they were driving, Iza grew worried about where they were really going and texted his bodyguards for help. Read more: Sheriff's Department announces long-awaited policy banning deputy gangs When the Riverside County deputy talked to the men in the SUV, they offered a similar story. One the former L.A. County deputy who wielded the gun during the incident said he owned a security company and had worked for Iza for about two weeks. He told investigators he was supposed to pick up Iza from a restaurant after a business meeting when he got a text from Iza saying, Follow me. When the former deputy got to the gas station, he drew his gun because he feared E.Z. might be armed, according to the complaint. Instead, E.Z. turned out to be carrying an electric screwdriver, according to the complaint. Riverside County authorities decided the information wasn't complete enough to make an arrest, though the complaint says E.Z. continued to feel threatened in the following weeks. On Dec. 2, 2021, E.Z. allegedly got some menacing texts from an unknown number showing pictures of his personal information in a law enforcement database. Next to it was part of a Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department business card. About two weeks later, according to a letter to law enforcement from E.Z.'s lawyer that is referenced in the complaint, Iza and his bodyguards showed up looking for E.Z. at the home of one of his associates. That visit came soon after E.Z. got another threatening text from a phone number Iza had used demanding that he turn over his laptop with cryptocurrency. Its unclear from the complaint whether E.Z. turned over the laptop, but he allegedly suffered other instances of harassment by Iza and his associates. At one point, he received text messages with pictures of his family members and the words: Everyone you know. As the FBI dug into the case, the complaint says, authorities began interviewing people in Izas circle. That included a private investigator identified in the complaint as K.C., whom The Times was able to identify from related civil litigation as Kenneth Childs. According to the criminal complaint, Iza hired Childs in November 2021 to find E.Z. and surveil him. E.Z. allegedly had a laptop that Iza claimed hed stolen. As Childs worked on the case, Iza allegedly texted him photos of sensitive law enforcement data, including images of a computer screen showing DMV license info and photos of a search warrant for E.Z.s phone. At times, according to the criminal complaint, Iza boasted that hed paid law enforcement officials to give him the information. Hows you guys find him Did this location come up on databases? Childs wrote in a text, according to the complaint. We pinged his phone, Iza replied. A few texts later, he added: The ping was done by law enforcement themselves ... It took a Warrant ... And had to get signed by judge. Read more: A Chinese millionaire, a cop for hire and an Irvine family: Inside a twisted global business dispute In January 2022, federal prosecutors said, a current Los Angeles County sheriffs deputy identified as Deputy 1 in the complaint got a warrant for GPS location information on several telephones, including one used by E.Z. The affidavit used to justify the warrant described a gun case that didnt involve or mention E.Z. It appears that LASD Deputy 1 added Victim E.Z.s phone number to a list of phone numbers associated with the firearms investigation and falsely stated that Victim E.Z.s phone number had been used by the firearms suspect, FBI Special Agent Barbara Johnson wrote in the complaint. This sworn affidavit resulted in a warrant for GPS tracking information that identified Victim E.Z.s residence. After getting the warrant approved, prosecutors allege, Deputy 1 sent Iza screenshots to prove it. Damn my guy actually filed the warrant, Iza wrote in a text. Thats some serious s to do for someone...risking 24 years career. Sometime in early 2022, prosecutors allege, Iza called a meeting to plan the heist of E.Z.'s laptop. Childs attended, as did Iza, another L.A. County deputy identified in court filings as Deputy 2 and the deputys brother. Childs told federal investigators he stayed in his car as the robbery unfolded. He alleged that the deputys brother grabbed E.Z.'s associate. The complaint says Iza made payments to Childs for the job, then fired him and took back the money. That same year, in 2022, Childs filed a civil lawsuit against Izas company related to the nonpayment. That case is still ongoing. Ive been litigating this narrative for two years plus now, said James Whitemyer, an attorney representing Childs and his company. I was hoping to have the case settled. A party planner Even before the relationship between Iza and E.Z. turned sour, prosecutors say, the crypto mogul had spent several months harassing another target, an event planner identified as R.C. In the summer of 2021, prosecutors say R.C. got an email from Zort asking for help planning a party for Izas 21st birthday. In exchange for $50,000, R.C. organized an August 2021 bash at Izas Bel Air home. But during the event, R.C. was escorted into Izas office, where Iza told him he was unhappy with the party and that he wanted to be reimbursed for half the cost, according to the complaint. He allegedly demanded R.C.s phone, but R.C. refused until Izas bodyguards pulled their guns. After Iza forced R.C. to reveal the passcode, Iza allegedly transferred $25,000 back to himself. Before letting R.C. leave, Iza took pictures of his license, passport and credit cards, according to the complaint. In the days that followed, Iza allegedly made multiple money transfers from RCs accounts. Read more: Chippendales vs. Strippendales: The battle over a male strip club empire The following month, R.C. was driving in Lakewood with a woman he was seeing when a sheriffs deputy pulled him over to arrest him on a bench warrant. The deputy searched the car and found drugs that R.C. said he didnt know were there. At one point during the arrest, R.C. saw Iza drive up to the scene in a black SUV, talk to the deputy, look at RC and drive away. R.C. spent three days in jail and the charges were later dropped for lack of sufficient evidence, according to the complaint. Afterward, R.C. allegedly received taunting texts from a number linked to Iza, showing photos of the arrest and telling him hed fed with the wrong people. A few weeks later, deputies raided R.C.s home, but didnt find any drugs. Months later, when the FBI tracked down a copy of the paperwork used to justify the search, investigators discovered that Deputy 1 had based it on information from an unnamed confidential informant. The complaint accuses Iza of other extortion schemes for cryptocurrency, including one where he allegedly impersonated an FBI agent and stole a laptop containing cryptocurrency. Altogether, investigators estimate, Iza and his then-girlfriend identified only as "Co-conspirator 1" pulled in more than $30 million from 2020 to 2022. The FBI said it learned that Iza planned to travel from Los Angeles to Zurich on Monday. They arrested him the same day. 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. Editors Note: This article has been updated to reflect the store was a headshop. (COLORADO SPRINGS) The Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD) said a months-long investigation into a headshop in Colorado Springs revealed a variety of illegal drugs and guns being sold at the store. According to CSPD, on April 29, CSPD detectives received information about a store called Trippie Hippie, located in the area of Iowa Avenue and East Kiowa Street. Police said the information alleged the store was selling illicit drugs and illegal guns. Undercover police made six transactions at the store over six months, which resulted in the purchase of multiple guns, LSD, Ketamine, and marijuana concentrate. On Wednesday, Sept. 25, detectives completed multiple arrests and search warrants associated with the criminal activity at Trippie Hippie. The investigation resulted in felony charges of five identified suspects and warrants for two adjacent locations to Trippie Hippie. Metro Narcotics Unit detectives and CSPD Tactical Enforcement Unit (TEU) executed search warrants on all three locations. The search found a total of 10,984.87 grams (24.19 pounds) of marijuana, seven handguns, two short barrel rifles, one rifle, 4,716.05 grams of psilocybin mushrooms, 34.54 grams of cocaine, 7.39 grams of MDMA, 15.1 grams of prescription pills, 9.17 grams of LSD, 0.12 grams of methamphetamine, two grams of fentanyl, and $1,550 in illicit proceeds. The arrest warrants included money laundering charges, unlawful distribution manufacturing, dispensing, conspiracy, offenses related to marijuana, and special offenders. During the warrant execution, one suspect, 41-year-old Paul Timme, was arrested and taken into custody. Four remaining people wanted on warrants were not on the scene. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX21 News Colorado. CubeSats, the tiniest of satellites, are changing the way we explore the solar system Most CubeSats weigh less than a bowling ball, and some are small enough to hold in your hand. But the impact these instruments are having on space exploration is gigantic. CubeSats miniature, agile and cheap satellites are revolutionizing how scientists study the cosmos. A standard-size CubeSat is tiny, about 4 pounds (roughly 2 kilograms). Some are larger, maybe four times the standard size, but others are no more than a pound. As a professor of electrical and computer engineering who works with new space technologies, I can tell you that CubeSats are a simpler and far less costly way to reach other worlds. Rather than carry many instruments with a vast array of purposes, these Lilliputian-size satellites typically focus on a single, specific scientific goal whether discovering exoplanets or measuring the size of an asteroid. They are affordable throughout the space community, even to small startup, private companies and university laboratories. Tiny satellites, big advantages CubeSats advantages over larger satellites are significant. CubeSats are cheaper to develop and test. The savings of time and money means more frequent and diverse missions along with less risk. That alone increases the pace of discovery and space exploration. CubeSats dont travel under their own power. Instead, they hitch a ride; they become part of the payload of a larger spacecraft. Stuffed into containers, theyre ejected into space by a spring mechanism attached to their dispensers. Once in space, they power on. CubeSats usually conclude their missions by burning up as they enter the atmosphere after their orbits slowly decay. Case in point: A team of students at Brown University built a CubeSat in under 18 months for less than US$10,000. The satellite, about the size of a loaf of bread and developed to study the growing problem of space debris, was deployed off a SpaceX rocket in May 2022. Smaller size, single purpose Sending a satellite into space is nothing new, of course. The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 into Earth orbit back in 1957. Today, about 10,000 active satellites are out there, and nearly all are engaged in communications, navigation, military defense, tech development or Earth studies. Only a few less than 3% are exploring space. That is now changing. Satellites large and small are rapidly becoming the backbone of space research. These spacecrafts can now travel long distances to study planets and stars, places where human explorations or robot landings are costly, risky or simply impossible with the current technology. But the cost of building and launching traditional satellites is considerable. NASAs lunar reconnaissance orbiter, launched in 2009, is roughly the size of a minivan and cost close to $600 million. The Mars reconnaissance orbiter, with a wingspan the length of a school bus, cost more than $700 million. The European Space Agencys solar orbiter, a 4,000-pound (1,800-kilogram) probe designed to study the Sun, cost $1.5 billion. And the Europa Clipper the length of a basketball court and scheduled to launch in October 2024 to the Jupiter moon Europa will ultimately cost $5 billion. These satellites, relatively large and stunningly complex, are vulnerable to potential failures, a not uncommon occurrence. In the blink of an eye, years of work and hundreds of millions of dollars could be lost in space. NASA scientists prep the ASTERIA spacecraft for its April 2017 launch. NASA/JPL-Caltech Exploring the Moon, Mars and the Milky Way Because they are so small, CubeSats can be released in large numbers in a single launch, further reducing costs. Deploying them in batches known as constellations means multiple devices can make observations of the same phenomena. For example, as part of the Artemis I mission in November 2022, NASA launched 10 CubeSats. The satellites are now trying to detect and map water on the Moon. These findings are crucial, not only for the upcoming Artemis missions but to the quest to sustain a permanent human presence on the lunar surface. The CubeSats cost $13 million. The MarCO CubeSats two of them accompanied NASAs Insight lander to Mars in 2018. They served as a real-time communications relay back to Earth during Insights entry, descent and landing on the Martian surface. As a bonus, they captured pictures of the planet with wide-angle cameras. They cost about $20 million. CubeSats have also studied nearby stars and exoplanets, which are worlds outside the solar system. In 2017, NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory deployed ASTERIA, a CubeSat that observed 55 Cancri e, also known as Janssen, an exoplanet eight times larger than Earth, orbiting a star 41 light years away from us. In reconfirming the existence of that faraway world, ASTERIA became the smallest space instrument ever to detect an exoplanet. Two more notable CubeSat space missions are on the way: HERA, scheduled to launch in October 2024, will deploy the European Space Agencys first deep-space CubeSats to visit the Didymos asteroid system, which orbits between Mars and Jupiter in the asteroid belt. And the M-Argo satellite, with a launch planned for 2025, will study the shape, mass and surface minerals of a soon-to-be-named asteroid. The size of a suitcase, M-Argo will be the smallest CubeSat to perform its own independent mission in interplanetary space. The swift progress and substantial investments already made in CubeSat missions could help make humans a multiplanetary species. But that journey will be a long one and depends on the next generation of scientists to develop this dream. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Mustafa Aksoy, University at Albany, State University of New York Read more: Mustafa Aksoy works for the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY) and the Research Foundation for SUNY. He receives funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU). He is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). NEW YORK The indictment of Mayor Eric Adams is emboldening former Gov. Andrew Cuomo to jump into the crowded race for New York City mayor. Since last year, Cuomo has been signaling to some insiders he was disinclined to run against Adams, given their shared base of predominantly moderate, Black Democratic voters. But the Democrat's calculus has shifted amid Adams deepening legal troubles, which crescendoed with the unsealing of a five-count criminal indictment that alleged the mayor received favors and campaign contributions from the Turkish government in exchange for official actions. I think hes going to run, said Chris Coffey, a former adviser to ex-Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Andrew Yangs 2021 mayoral campaign. He was probably going to run no matter what, and a weakened, or out-of-the-race Eric Adams is a better bet for him. Cuomo has reached out over the last year to New York business and labor leaders about a run for mayor. He has previously said he has no plans to make plans, and that hasnt changed, said Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi. His political team has laid the groundwork by trying to give Cuomo an aura of inevitability, positing he would be a sure winner in a 90-day, nonpartisan special election if Adams were to leave office though the competition would actually be stiff, and Cuomo has to contend with baggage of his own. Cuomo would, in part, rely on his near-universal name identification. Hed also likely benefit from a special election in which independent voters could cast ballots if Adams doesn't serve out his term though the mayor is vowing to fight the charges and remain in office. But Cuomo is also risk averse. He would not want to run for mayor or his old job as governor unless he views it as a slam dunk. No matter what, he would have to deal with the problems of his recent past in his first political campaign in six years. Cuomo left office amid allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior, which he has denied. He has also been slammed by a Republican-led House panel investigating his handling of the Covid pandemic and nursing home deaths during the public health crisis. Cuomo was accused by the subcommittee of inappropriately contacting a witness in order to influence his testimony. Azzopardi, the Cuomo spokesperson, called the claim a true shark-jumping moment from the MAGA clown car. Still, left-leaning advocates believe Cuomo would be rejected by voters. In this moment, New Yorkers are craving a leader with the utmost integrity and Andrew Cuomo is not that, New York Working Families Party Co-Director Jasmine Gripper said. There are questions, too, over whether he would be able to garner enough support from Black leaders and voters a crucial part of his base if Adams remains in the race. In a show of force, Adams on Thursday morning appeared alongside prominent Black civil rights leaders and clergy during a chaotic news conference at Gracie Mansion who insisted they would remain loyal to the mayor. Im asking all New Yorkers to hear his side and let him have his day in court, said Hazel Dukes, the president of the NAACP New York State Conference. Cuomo last weekend spoke at a Brooklyn church with a predominantly Black congregation and slammed the far left while blasting the citys migrant crisis as out of control. Ruben Diaz Sr., a Pentecostal minister from the Bronx and a conservative Democrat who served in the state Legislature and City Council, has also been courted by Cuomo. The two last spoke during the summer, and Diaz who supports Donald Trump came away from the conversation believing Cuomo was ready to run. He told me the only way that he could run for mayor would be if Adams would not run or if something happens to him, Diaz said. What happened yesterday I believe that he will be running. An electoral victory for Cuomo would also offer a measure of personal redemption following his spectacular fall from power three years ago. The Democrat was a nationally known political celebrity during the early months of the pandemic until a torrent of scandals led to his resignation. Privately, he also has spoken with former New York City Council Member Andy King, a Bronx Democrat expelled from the chamber in 2020 following allegations of sexual harassment and ethical misconduct. King maintains ties to the powerful union 1199 SEIU and has influence in the Co-op City neighborhood in the Bronx. King said in an interview he is praying for Adams but believes Cuomo would be a strong contender in the race for mayor. I would be able to identify anybody whose record was ignored, their lifelong testimony gets discarded, he said. You cant take away someone who has done the work for the last 10 years. Cargo entering and exiting Bangladeshs Chattogram Port has been severely disrupted this week after a software update caused the ports customs clearance systems to malfunction. The incident came when the countrys National Board of Revenue, the parent organization of the Chattogram Customs House, upgraded its automated customs data system on Sept. 20. The system is the customs houses online software through which it gives approval for all kinds of export-import related documents daily. More from Sourcing Journal The update resulted in a glitch that has since prevented customs officials and clearing and forwarding agents from accessing the system properly and submitting import and export data and bills of lading (BOLs). Due to the glitch, import clearance and export shipment processes have been delayed. These entries contain information on the cargo such as product name, type, exporting country, company details, product price and applicable duties. Due to the software issues, much of this data is being scrambled, resulting in inaccurate information regarding the number of containers, the products they hold and their weight. No containers can exit or enter Bangladesh without submitting proper information into the system. Quazi Mahmud Imam, secretary general of the Chattogram C&F Agent Association, told Bangladesh publication The Business Standard that since last Sunday, software issues have slowed operations to the point that tasks that typically take one day are now taking two. Submissions of daily BOLs into the system since Sunday have been almost halved, according to a report from supply chain publication The Loadstar, dropping by 800 against a daily average of 2,000. At least 5,000 import bills have backlogged with no sign of when the glitch will be remedied. We had 20 consignments due for clearance since last Sunday, but as of Wednesday, only 12 have been processed, Sarwar Alam Khan, owner of the clearance and forwarding agent Warisha Enterprise, told The Business Standard. Eight consignments remain stuck, and the delays are holding up shipments at the Chattogram Port. As of Thursday morning, six vessels were at the outer anchorage, with 11 loading and unloading boxes at the port jetties. The ASYCUDA (Automated System for Customs Data) system was introduced at Chattogram Port, also known as Chittagong Port, in 2023 to enable customs authorities to track and manage the flow of goods while reducing paperwork and manual intervention. The automated system is designed to speed up cargo clearance, reduce processing times and enhance port operations. Software issues have hampered ports in the past, with the Port of Charleston in the U.S. having to briefly close for a day and a half earlier this year after one of its servers went down. A global IT outage in July that stemmed from a glitch in Microsofts cloud computing services forced thousands of planes to ground, disrupting the worldwide flow of air cargo for the day. Syed Mohammad Arif, chair of the Bangladesh Shipping Agents Association, plans to meet with customs commissioner next week seeking an immediate solution if the glitch isnt fixed by then. Arif has requested the port create a backup server so work can be continued in case of emergency. Such slowdowns can be dangerous for the apparel industry given the countrys positioning as the second-largest garment exporter worldwide. In 2023, Bangladesh exported $47.4 billion in total apparel, representing 85.3 percent of the $55.6 billion in total goods shipped out of the market, according to the countrys Export Promotion Bureau (EPB). Chattogram Port has seen plenty of calamity in recent months, namely due to the ongoing student protests throughout Bangladesh in the summer, which resulted in the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and forced the port shutter at one point for nearly six days in July. The length of time it took for workers at the port to load and unload containers as space constraints piled up in its yard caused container vessels to wait at berth for an average of seven to 10 days. The Chattogram Port Authority and Chattogram Customs House had to operate 24/7, including weekends and public holidays, to reduce the container congestion. And in late August, torrential downpours pummeled the country for days on end, resulting in the slowed movement of cargo both by rail and by road in and out of Chattogram Port. The flooding impacted 3 million people in the country. Cargo exiting Bangladesh also saw a speed bump at Dhaka Airport on Tuesday. About 250 metric tons of air freight ended up stuck at the airport after all four of the hubs explosive-detection scanners failed, forcing flights to leave without export cargo, which has skyrocketed in price over the past year. Mainly Europe and U.K.-bound cargo was affected, as they require the scanners to operate. Two of the airports scanners are near-permanently out of action. Another was repaired alongside efforts to fix the fourth, after excessive pressure caused faults. UNITED NATIONS, New York - Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky, during an interview with Fox News Digital, bemoaned that Europe now struggles to impact geopolitical issues and lacks clear leadership in the over two dozen member bloc. "I think it's a clear show that Europe has lost its ability to project geopolitical power, especially into Africa and the Middle East, because we are basically not able to do any kind of measures to stop this irregular migration," Lipavsky said. "When somebody who really has no right for asylum is in Europe, there are no true mechanisms so they will need to put more effort into that, definitely," he added. Czechia, also known as the Czech Republic, sits in the middle of Europe and still considers itself the continents "natural crossroads," which places it in a unique position to discuss matters regarding immigration and conflicts on the border. Hungarian Fm Recalls Strong Trump Admin Experience, Claims Our Hope Is All On Former President Despite that prominent perspective, Lipavsky noted that "the leadership must come from the big" countries, as "thats how things are done in international politics." Read On The Fox News App Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky discusses concerns over Russia and the Middle East. Lipavsky argued that this lack of leadership has made the conflict between Ukraine and Russia more difficult, but he admitted the war helped waken the blocs members to certain issues they had ignored. "We have rediscovered our ability, at least in the east, to protect Ukraine, but, still, we need to do more, honestly," Lipavsky said. "I would not say its a dire situation, but certainly the lack of leadership also could be visible." Taliban Dismiss Discrimination Accusations As Absurd Despite Banning Women From Public In Afghanistan "As minister of foreign affairs from Czechia, Im trying to come up with proposals. Im trying to call for common action," he continued. "For example, we are delivering a lot of ammunition to Ukraine. We have this ammunition initiative." "Those are hundreds, thousands of shells, which then make a difference on the battlefields more than words," he added. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky, left, and South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul attend a meeting of the North Atlantic Council with Indo-Pacific partners at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels on April 4, 2024. Lipavsky framed the current state of international politics as one of "global confrontation," with conflicts across multiple regions that impact all nations due to their effects on everything from energy to food supplies and general shipping. "We see many conflicts in the Middle East," Lipavsky said. "Its not only Gaza or now Lebanon, where the north of Israel is being shelled by rockets for many months, but it is also the navigation in Red Sea, which is being endangered by Houthis, and those are supported by Iran." Justice Department Backs Un Claim Relief Workers Accused Of Aiding Hamas Are Immune "This is a very complex matter, and we need to de-escalate," he added. "We need to put a lot of effort into peace, but also not forget that Israel has a right to defend itself." Czechia earlier this year voted against the Palestinian States gaining expanded powers in the United Nations and last week was one of 14 countries that voted against a Palestinian-drafted resolution that adopted the International Court of Justice opinion that demanded Israel leave Gaza and the West Bank. Lipavsky explained that the resolution "skewed in one direction," which was "a very basic reason to vote against" the resolution. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, and Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky speak following their meeting at the Czernin Palace, in Prague on May 30, 2024. However, he stressed that Russia remains "definitely" the most important crisis facing Czechia and other European countries. "Russia wants to destroy the complete Ukrainian nation. They want to include them into Russia and It's like Hitler during the World War. It's absolutely similar," Lipavsky insisted. "We know that we used to be in a sphere of influence of Soviet Union during Czechoslovakia after the Second World War until the fall of the Berlin Wall," he said. "I don't want to happen to Czechia again that some dictator will tell us what to do and what to not and to exploit us. "So we have to defend from this, from this Russian trust, and then of course, to be a good ally to U.S., and good to NATO," he added. Original article source: Czech foreign minister highlights lack of European leadership, failure to 'project geopolitical power' WASHINGTON (AP) Safety investigators are making urgent recommendations to Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration after determining pedals that pilots use to steer 737 Max jetliners on runways can become jammed because moisture can leak into a rudder assembly and freeze. The National Transportation Safety Board issued the recommendations Thursday following its investigation of an incident earlier this year involving a United Airlines plane. The FAA said United is the only U.S. airline affected by the recommendations, and it believes the parts susceptible to jamming are no longer in use. Collins Aerospace, a Boeing supplier, determined that a sealed bearing was incorrectly assembled on actuators for rudders that pilots adjust to stay in the center of the runway after landing. Collins told Boeing that the faulty work affected at least 353 actuators that were installed on some Max jets and older 737s, according to the NTSB. The NTSB recommended that Boeing change flight manuals to remove advice that pilots use maximum pedal force to overpower a jammed rudder. The NTSB said that could create sudden rudder movement that might cause the plane to go off the runway. The NTSB recommended that the FAA determine if actuators with incorrectly assembled bearings should be removed until replacements are available. On Feb. 6, the rudder pedals on a United Airlines Boeing Max 8 became stuck as the plane rolled down the runway after landing at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. The captain resorted to steering by using the tiller, a handle in the cockpit that turns the wheel under the plane's nose. The plane veered on to a high-speed turnoff, but no injuries were reported among the 155 passengers and six crew members. (Bloomberg) -- A red tape controversy has given the Czech prime minister a chance to revamp his government as the populist opposition leads in the polls. Most Read from Bloomberg Premier Petr Fiala rocked the political scene a year before general elections by firing Regional Development Minister Ivan Bartos over alleged incompetence. Bartoss Pirate Party, the smallest of the five members of the ruling coalition, called the decision a stab in the back and started an internal vote on Friday whether to quit the administration. The departure of the Pirates must be an impulse for the entire coalition to consider how the government could be more efficient, more capable and more convincing before voters, Fiala said in a video post on the X website. The unusually aggressive move by the premier comes just days after his center-right coalitions poor showing in regional elections. The winner of that vote was ANO, the main opposition party of billionaire and former Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who is favored by opinion polls to return to power next fall. An ally of Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, Babis ran record budget deficits during his 2017-2021 administration and embraced anti-immigrant rhetoric. Fialas government, by contrast, has reduced borrowing through unpopular spending curbs and tax increases. It has irked fringe voters by sending military aid to Ukraine and hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees. After three years without major government scandal, the Czech media recently focused on Bartoss botched attempt to switch to online processing of building permits. Delays and technical flaws plaguing the new website hindered the coalitions plans to cut bureaucracy and launch infrastructure projects. As prime minister Im responsible for delivering what we promised to our voters, said Fiala. Thats why I decided to resolve the situation quickly and proposed to the president a dismissal of Ivan Bartos. Even if the Pirates leave the coalition, the government will still have a comfortable parliamentary majority needed to meet increased targets for defense spending and to fund a recovery after recent devastating floods. More Homogeneous Fewer governing partners may also more easily agree on policies, as the four remaining ruling parties tend to be more conservative than the Pirates. The cabinet shakeup could make the coalition more popular, according to Lubomir Kopecek, a political scientist at Masaryk University in Brno. This will make the coalition more homogeneous and could give it a fresh start, he said by phone. The same may be true for the Pirates, who as an opposition party will be able to go back to their anti-establishment roots. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. DA in Colorado citing politics of current events resigns and exits race weeks before election A view of the Gunnison County Courthouse, location of one of the offices of Colorado's 7th Judicial District attorney. (Google Maps) The district attorney for Colorados 7th Judicial District is resigning from his seat and not seeking reelection for a second term, he announced earlier this week. Seth Ryan, a Republican, announced on Monday that he plans to resign at the end of October. He then withdrew his candidacy for the November election with the secretary of state. The Republican was running unopposed. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The COVID pandemic and the political aftermath of current events has made it extremely challenging to find, recruit, and retain qualified attorneys, he said in a statement. It is no longer sustainable for me to cover the daily requirements of court schedules across our nearly 10,000 square mile District while effectively managing, developing, and supervising staff; circumstances beyond my control cannot be overcome. District Attorney Seth Ryan. (7th Judicial District attorneys office) The attorney turnover rate in the office was over 50% this year. He also cited physical and mental health concerns. Ballot content was certified on Sept. 9, so that means voters in the 7th Judicial District, which includes Delta, Gunnison, Hinsdale, Montrose, Ouray and San Miguel counties, will still see Ryans name on their ballots. The Colorado Republican Party has the ability to nominate a replacement candidate to fill the vacancy, and votes for Ryan will be counted towards that replacement candidate. It is too late for a write-in candidate to enter the race. Because Ryan is resigning before the end of his term, Gov. Jared Polis will need to appoint his replacement to serve the remainder of the term. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE TULARE COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) A former teacher at a military academy in Porterville was found guilty of child molestation, according to the Tulare County District Attorneys Office on Thursday. According to the DA, the Tulare County Superior Court, South County Justice Center and TCDA sex crimes prosecutors secured a guilty verdict against James Van Norton, 45, for child molestation on Thursday. The DA says Norton was convicted of three felony counts of unlawful sexual intercourse by a jury and 13 felony counts of lewd act upon a child aged 14. Each county, officials say, is enhanced with the special allegation that Van Norton was in a position of trust. Officials say the crimes took place from August 2018 to March 2019 in Tulare County against a single minor victim. At the time of the crimes, Van Norton was employed as a teacher at the Porterville Military Academy. According to the DAs office, sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 6. Van Norton faces up to 14 years and eight months in state prison. Additionally, he must register as a sex offender for life. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CBS47 and KSEE24 | YourCentralValley.com. [Getty Images] The owner of the politically right-leaning New York Sun has emerged as the favourite to acquire the Daily and Sunday Telegraph ahead of Fridays deadline for bids. Though a late entrant to the auction British-born Dovid Efune's bid is considered by several parties as the potential new frontrunner. He is thought able to offer a competitive bid of around 550m while not attracting the political and regulatory objections that saw a bid backed by the United Arab Emirates ruling family blocked by the government. Mr Efune is one of only two bidders to have attended senior management presentations at the Telegraph. They have broadly welcomed the prospect of his ownership while conceding that none of the bidders are perfect. If the bid is successful it could provide a link between the Telegraph and its former owner Conrad Black. Lord Black, who is a regular contributor to the New York Sun, was convicted of fraud and obstructing justice in 2007 and jailed for more than three years, but was pardoned in 2019 by Donald Trump when he was US President. There are several other bidders who remain in the hunt for one of Britains most influential and profitable daily newspapers and its Sunday sister publication. Hedge fund tycoon Sir Paul Marshall recently acquired the Spectator for 100m and appointed former Conservative minister Michael Gove as the new editor. Backed by funds from fellow hedge fund boss Ken Griffin, some have speculated that Sir Paul wants to add to a growing right-leaning media empire that includes GB News. However, sources close to the deal suggest that the bid may be losing momentum. National World, which owns regional titles including the Scotsman and the Yorkshire Post, is also in the running and its owner, David Montgomery, was the other bidder to attend a presentation by the current Telegraph management. Attendees were reportedly underwhelmed by his plans for the group. One attendee described his ideas for the Telegraphs future as dated and a bit like dad dancing he doesnt understand modern media. Lord Rothermere, the controlling shareholder of the Daily Mail, was thought to have refreshed interest in the auction having previously walked away citing inevitable competition objections from regulators and a new Labour government. But a spokesperson for Daily Mail and General Trust said: "Neither DMGT nor Lord Rothermere is currently involved in the Telegraph sales process, nor do they expect to be in future." Former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, who is close to the Telegraphs former owners, the Barclay family, is also thought to be trying to raise money in the Middle East to finance a bid. Story continues Rupert Murdoch's News UK had shown early interest but is no longer considered a bidder, having been more interested in the Spectator. Sources close to the deal say there are other potential bidders who may emerge as Fridays midnight deadline approaches. More on this story The Telegraph is back up for sale after an audacious attempt backed by Redbird IMI a vehicle largely funded by Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour - to take ownership of both the Telegraph and the Spectator by paying off the previous owner's debts collapsed. The bid was vetoed by the previous Conservative government, who balked at the idea of a foreign state having majority ownership of politically influential UK newspapers and periodicals. Titles like the Telegraph and the Spectator dont come up for sale very often and are considered trophy assets". Assets like this have prestige and influence, which means they command a higher price than their financial performance alone can justify. Ian Whitaker, media analyst and founder of Liberty Sky Advisors, told the BBC's Today programme that the strength of the brand was key in deals like these. "What a number of backers have found is [if] you can have a strong established brand, then not only can you take it from domestic markets and sell overseas and potentially globally but also as well you can monetise other areas as well," he said. "The Telegraph, for example, it sells travel and wine and so forth. Redbird IMI effectively paid 600m for the Telegraph and Spectator titles, with many thinking they had overpaid. However, Sir Paul Marshall paid 100m for the Spectator alone despite the fact it only makes around 2m in profit a year. That valuation has fuelled optimism at Redbird IMI that the Telegraph, which makes a profit of over 40m, will fetch north of 500m. If so, the Gulf bidders will be able to walk away from their attempted swoop without damage to their wallets or dignity. It is expected to take several weeks or even months for the ownership to be settled as various legal and regulatory hurdles are cleared. Emergency crews and residents scrambled Friday as Helene the hurricane downgraded to a tropical storm overwhelmed the Lake Lure dam in western North Carolina, causing damage and erosion along its structural supports. A mandatory evacuation was ordered Friday morning after local officials notified the National Weather Service that a dam failure was imminent. By late Friday afternoon, water had crested the dam, but it was continuing to hold despite the structural damage, according to Josh Kastrinsky, a spokesman for the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality. Some erosion was also spotted on the left abutment, where water is flowing uncontrolled, Kastrinsky said. An engineer was expected to inspect the dam late Friday or Saturday and determine the scope of the damage and needed repairs, he said. The dam, built in 1925 and 1926, is a tourist and recreational destination for the rural county. It also harnesses the Broad River and two creeks to power a hydroelectric plant producing electricity for Duke Power Co. from two hydroelectric turbine generators. Dam workers typically lower the water in the lake by as much as 8 inches below the normal lake level before big storms, according to a document posted on the towns website. The town manager approves lowering the lake by more than that amount, it notes. Workers use three flood gates to release excess water, but once the lake reaches 992.6 inches, the dam overflows, the document says. At that point, the docks on the lake are underwater and boat tops have been crunched in boathouses, it says. Gauges operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported the Broad River was nearing 992 feet Friday morning as Helene brought historic flooding to Rutherford County and the surrounding region. URGENT: FLASH FLOOD EMERGENCY FOR THE LAKE LURE DAM! DAM FAILURE IMMINENT! RSIDENTS BELOW THE DAM NEED TO EVACUATE TO HIGHER GROUND IMMEDIATELY! #ncwx https://t.co/InksFUUYF6 NWS GSP (@NWSGSP) September 27, 2024 At 9 a.m. Friday, town officials notified the Rutherford County Emergency Management office about the pending dam failure, saying water from the lake was expected to top the dam before 10 a.m. Sirens were activated to let residents in low-lying areas below the dam know about the pending failure, Rutherford County emergency officials said in a Facebook post. Evacuations have occurred from the Dam to Island Creek Road, they said. Evacuation sirens are sounding downstream of the Dam. Emergency personnel are working with the structural engineers and are going house to house to ensure all citizens have been evacuated. The danger from water overflowing the dam would be largely to homes near the Broad River, which flows southeast of the dam. The flash flood warning for Rutherford County was expected to remain in place until at least 2 a.m. Saturday, the NWS reported. Emergency shelters have been opened at Lake Lure Town Hall on Memorial Highway and the Rutherfordton Presbyterian Church on North Washington Street in the town of Rutherfordton, they said. The area at risk from the Lake Lure dam failure is highlighted on this map from Google Earth. Residents in the surrounding neighborhoods were ordered to evacuate Friday morning. The town has known about problems with the aging dam since a 2018 study that recommended millions of dollars in repairs and upgrades.. The work is underway, according to town updates posted online. The evacuation was expected to displace many residents in the largely rural county, who emergency officials earlier on Friday urged to stay in their homes due to trees and power lines blocking roads across the county. Blocked roads also forced local fire departments to suspend road clearing operations and EMS crews to stop responding to non-life-threatening calls until conditions improved, officials said. Kastrinsky said nearly 30 roads in the dams flood zone were being evacuated at 11 a.m. Friday, and counties downstream were alerted that the situation could require more evacuations later. Helene made landfall late Thursday night in Floridas Big Bend, where maximum sustained winds were 140 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. Buncombe County also issued a mandatory evacuation order for people along the Swannanoa River, from the North Fork Reservoir to Biltmore Village, because of water cresting the spillway. Other parts of the county were also urged to evacuate. The story will be updated. ERWIN, Tenn. Catastrophic flooding from Hurricane Helene led to an urgent rescue mission in the eastern Tennessee town of Erwin, where helicopters raced to pluck dozens of staff and patients stranded on the roof of a flooded hospital. Waters from the swollen Nolichucky River began quickly rising at the Unicoi County Hospital early Friday morning, according to a statement from Ballad Health. Hospital officials called for ambulances to come evacuate 11 patients, but flooding quickly worsened to the point where ambulances could no longer safely reach the hospital. The town of Erwin, Tennessee under flood waters in the wake of days of torrential rains. Emergency officials then sent rescue boats to evacuate the hospital as water began pouring inside the facility, but the water around the hospital "became extremely dangerous and impassable and prevented the boats from safely being able to evacuate the hospital," Ballad Health officials said. High winds from Helene also made it too dangerous to attempt helicopter rescues, officials said. By midday, 54 people had made it to the roof of the building while seven have managed to remain in rescue boats. "The hospital has been engulfed by extremely dangerous and rapidly moving water," officials said. "The situation at the hospital is very dangerous and (Tennessee Emergency managers) and National Guard resources are engaged in what can only be described as a dangerous rescue operation." Helicopters were finally able to begin air evacuations just after 2 p.m., according to a post by Tennessee Rep. Diana Harshbarger. Ballad Health officials said all staff and patients had been safely evacuated by 4:40 p.m., with patients transferred to Johnson City Medical Center. The Unicoi Hospital will remain closed until damage can be assessed after floodwaters recede. The National Weather Service said 5-7 inches of rain fell across the east Tennessee lowlands but rainfall totals reached 15-25 inches in the nearby Appalachians. Original article source: Dangerous rescue operation saves dozens trapped on roof of flooded Tennessee hospital On This Date: Lancaster, Pennsylvania is the Capital of the United States LANCASTER, Pa. (WHTM) Yes, you read that correctly. Lancaster was in fact the Capital of the United States. But there is a catch. It was only the Capital for one day. On Sept. 11, 1777, the Continental Army led by George Washington was defeated in the Battle of Brandywine. This caused panic in the nearby city of Philadelphia, which was the Capital of the United States at that time. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Breaking News It became clear that the city would be taken over by the British Army soon and many patriots fled the city and took anything they could with them, including the Liberty Bell. They took the bell in fear that the British Army would melt it down and turn it into cannonballs. With the British approaching from the south, the Continental Congress was trying to find a new Capital. Baltimore was out of the question since it was south of Philadelphia, and with a strong British military presence in both New Jersey and New York, they were not seen as options either. So, the Congress began to travel west. By Sept. 27, 1777, they ended up in Lancaster. While there, they held an official session within the Lancaster County Courthouse. Because of this, Lancaster, Pennsylvania was the capital of the United States for one day. Lancaster expands bike program after winning bike-friendly community status There were not enough combinations within the city at that time to properly accommodate everyone involved in the Congress. With Philadelphia being a two to three-day march away, the Congress felt they were still at risk from the British Army. Because of that, they continued to march west and settled in another Midstate City: York. York was then made the US Capital for nine months. Afterward, Lancaster was never named the US capital again but was the capital of Pennsylvania from 1799 to 1812. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. DC man identified as victim in triple shooting in Mount Rainier PRINCE GEORGES COUNTY, Md. (DC News Now) The Prince Georges County Police Department (PGPD) has released the name of the man who was shot and killed while sitting in a car outside a liquor store in Mount Rainier on Sept. 23. The victim was identified as 22-year-old Freiver Yanez-Salas, of Washington, D.C. As of Friday, homicide detectives are still working to identify a suspect and a motive for the shooting. AMBER Alert: DC police searching for missing 14-year-old last seen in Northwest Police said on Monday around 7:30 p.m., Mount Rainier police officers were called to the 3400 block of Rhode Island Avenue for a shooting. There, they found Yanez-Salas inside the vehicle with a gunshot wound. He died at the scene. Police said two additional victims, a man and a woman, were also shot and taken to the hospital with critical injuries. PREVIOUS COVEREAGE | Things are kind of getting worse: People respond after one killed in triple shooting in Mount Rainier The shooting left neighbors and customers of the store upset about the growing violence happening across the DMV. Stephon Jackson told DC News Now that he felt like things were getting worse, but for the violence to stop, people have to change. The police frequently [patrol] this area pretty much. Its really the people that have to change, you know, its really nothing we can do about it, said Jackson. PGPD said a reward of up to $25,000 is being offered for information leading to an arrest and indictment in this case. Anyone with information is asked to call PGPD at 301-516-2512. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Washington, D.C. (DC News Now) DC News Now is highlighting stories about iconic Hispanic and Latino leaders and organizations in the D.C., Md., and Northern Virginia areas for this years Hispanic Heritage Month Special. The special features interviews with Washington Nationals Spanish Play-by-Play announcers, the first Latino American Olympic artist living in Prince Georges County, Md. and a Venezuelan American art curator in Loudoun County, VA. The special will air on September 29, 2024. Our host, Brandy Flores, sat down with the Spanish broadcast announcers for the Washington Nationals games to discuss the importance of creating content for all their fans. World Heart Day highlights heart health, disease prevention strategies Jesse Raudales is the first Latino American to represent the USA as an Olympic Artist. He achieved this honor in 2006 while living in Los Angeles and has since moved to Prince Georges County where he continues to create art. In Loudoun County, Maria A. Brito curated an art exhibit called Our Roots to celebrate the contributions and rich culture of the Hispanic and Latino community. Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by watching DC News Nows Hispanic Heritage Month Special on September 29. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. UPDATE, 9/27, 2:56 p.m. Police said the woman returned home unharmed at around 1:15 a.m. Friday. Shortly after midnight, the car was stopped in Temple Hills in Maryland by Prince Georges County Police Department officers, and the driver was arrested for charges unrelated to the kidnapping. MPD said he was not the primary suspect in the kidnapping. WASHINGTON (DC News Now) D.C. police are looking for a woman and a car after it was used used in a potential kidnapping offense Thursday. The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) said a woman was taken in the 400 block of Brandywine Street in Southeast D.C. just before 4 p.m. (Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Police Department) Prince William County Police Department officer arrested, charged with abduction, sexual battery, more MPD said a man forced the woman into a car and then drove away. Police noted that it happened after an argument erupted between the two and that it was domestic in nature. The woman was identified as 21-year-old Amonie Anderson. She is about 53 tall, around 170 pounds and was last seen wearing a light-colored tank top and sweatpants and a black bonnet with writing on it. The car is described to be a white Infiniti Q54 sedan with a West Virginia plate: 34D631. (Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Police Department) DC chefs coming together to set record of worlds largest pupusa Anyone with information was asked to call (202) 727-9099 or text 50411. A reward of up to $1,000 is being offered to anyone with information that leads to an arrest and indictment of those involved. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. ZURICH (Reuters) -Siemens will post lower-than-expected full-year sales growth, its Chief Financial Officer Ralf Thomas said in an interview published on Friday, although profits will not be harmed and its dividend could rise. The German industrial group said in its last results on Aug. 8, that it expected full-year comparable revenue growth of 4% to 8%, although it was likely to be at the lower end of the range. "In terms of sales growth, the trend is not towards 4%, but towards 3%," Thomas told German newspaper Boersen-Zeitung. Thomas was quoted as saying that profitability was "clearly at the level we announced" at Siemens, which is due to report its full-year results on Nov. 14. Siemens previously said it was aiming for full-year earnings per share in a 10.40 euro to 11.00 euro ($11.63-$12.30) range. Although an overall weak economic situation was affecting Siemens, Thomas said it would "probably" raise its dividend. The maker of industrial software and trains was being hit particularly by weak demand for factory automation in China, while Italy and Germany were also struggling. "Automation really has to stretch itself to achieve its goals," Thomas said. "The first half of the next financial year will continue to be a major challenge." It would take time for the latest Chinese economic stimulus to have an effect, said Thomas, and Siemens would focus more of its automation business on the U.S., where demand is growing. "We have a lot of good ideas for the U.S," Thomas said. ($1 = 0.8940 euros) (Reporting by John Revill, Editing by Friederike Heine and Alexander Smith) A Scott County man who admitted to killing his elderly neighbor in a brutal hammer attack in 2022 has been sentenced to 40 years in prison. Cesar Jeff Cervantes-Montoya, 27, began serving 40 years in the St. Cloud prison this month as part of a deal reached with prosecutors, under which Cervantes-Montoya pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder. A 1st-degree premeditated murder charged against Cervantes-Montoya was dismissed. The sentence represents an upward departure from sentencing guidelines in recognition of the cruelty of the unusual murder, which happened the morning of Jan. 5, 2022 at a Main Street residence in Elko New Market. Cervantes-Montoya was initially found incompetent under rule 20.01 and committed to the Anoka Security Hospital as mentally ill and dangerous. He was then declared competent to stand trail in 2023. "We hope the resolution of this case brings some measure of closure to the victim's family, although we recognize that no sentence can truly make up for the loss of a loved one," Scott County Sheriff Luke Hennen stated in a news release. Cesar Jeff Cervantes-Montoya via Minnesota Department of Corrections. According to the criminal complaint, Cervantes-Montoya told police hed hit the victim and believed he was dead when he encountered officers outside the home that morning. Police found the victim, a 70-year-old man, laying face down at the bottom of the basement steps Court documents state Cervantes-Montoya admitted to investigators he'd struck the victim multiple times in the head with a hammer during an argument. He said he "panicked" but also felt "slightly liberated" after the victim fell to the ground and was not responsive. According to charges, Cervantes-Montoya said he didnt intend to kill the victim, but also didnt feel bad if he did, saying, "but I killed him, and I dont care." An autopsy revealed the victim had also been strangled with some type of ligature, which Cervantes-Montoya also admitted to in a follow-up interview with investigators. Court records show Cervantes-Montoya, a graduate of New Prague High School, had never before been convicted of a violent crime in Minnesota. "Our office is dedicated to ensuring the safety of all residents of Scott County," Scott County Attorney Ron Hocevar said in a statement. "We will continue to prosecute cases of violent crime to the fullest extent of the law." He continued: "The outcome of this case should serve as a reminder that we will not tolerate acts of violence in our communities." Related: Artist shot in 'cold-blooded' killing in St. Paul's Lowertown identified by family First responders raced through the devastated streets of southern Lebanon, doing all they could for the wounded, including injured children. One small boy hurt in Israel's latest airstrikes raised three fingers as he was carried away on a stretcher, after being asked his age. Israel says it is targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon and that it has destroyed dozens of the Iran-backed group's rocket launchers and other weapons. On Friday afternoon, the Israeli military said it had carried out a "precise strike" on Hezbollah's "central headquarters," which it said had been "intentionally built under residential buildings" in Beirut. There was no immediate confirmation of casualties in that strike. Many of Israel's airstrikes have hit residential areas, where Israel says Hezbollah has positioned its weapons. Though Israel says it has warned people to evacuate those areas, the strikes have killed civilians including children. Hezbollah says Israel has killed about 30 of its militants in strikes over the last week, but Lebanon's ministry of health says more than 700 people have been killed, including at least 50 children. The Reuters news agency reported Friday that another strike, overnight in southern Lebanon, killed nine members of the same family, including four children. Smoke rises above Beirut's southern suburbs during an Israeli strike on September 27, 2024. A source close to Hezbollah said the massive Israeli strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs flattened six buildings. / Credit: -/AFP via Getty Images More than 100,000 people have also been internally displaced in Lebanon since Israel started launching successive waves of airstrikes more than a week ago, according to a registry maintained by the Lebanese government. Lebanese officials say the real number is likely over half a million. The United Nations said Friday that around 30,000 people, mainly Syrian nationals, had crossed from Lebanon into Syria over the past 72 hours. The Israeli military said Friday that it had carried out dozens more strikes in southern Lebanon, hitting a Hezbollah launcher. Hezbollah said it fired rockets at the Israeli cities of Haifa and Tiberias, which the Israel Defense Forces said were either intercepted or landed in open areas. Houthi rebels in Yemen, meanwhile, said they had also fired a missile at Israel overnight, which Israel said was intercepted. The Houthis, like Hezbollah, are backed by Iran and say they're launching attacks on Israel and its interests in support of Palestinians amid Israel's ongoing war in the Gaza Strip with Hamas. Netanyahu's office seeks to "clarify" stance on cease-fire The latest crossfire over Israel's northern border with Lebanon came against the backdrop of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke Friday. His remarks were highly anticipated given contradictory messaging from his office about an Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire proposal being pushed by the U.S. and France. In his address, Netanyahu said Israel would no longer tolerate daily rocket fire into northern Israel from Hezbollah. "Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safely," Netanyahu said, "and that's exactly what we're doing... we'll continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met." Ahead of his address, Netanahu's office sought, with a social media post, to "clarify a few points" about Israel's position on the cease-fire proposal, which the U.S. and France say has wide international backing. "Israel shares the aims of the U.S.-led initiative of enabling people along our northern border to return safely and securely to their homes," Netanyahu's office said in the statement. It said teams had met "to discuss the U.S. initiative and how we can advance the shared goal of returning people safely to their homes. We will continue those discussions in the coming days." The prime minister's remarks to "clarify" his stance came hours after his office issued a statement on Thursday saying: "This is an American-French proposal that the Prime Minister has not even responded to." That statement added a dismissal of a separate report suggesting Netanyahu had told his military to "moderate" its assault on Hezbollah to give space for discussion about a cease-fire a report his office called "the opposite of the truth." "The Prime Minister has directed the IDF to continue fighting with full force," it said. Why Hurricane Helene could be catastrophic Hurricane Helene makes landfall over Florida's Big Bend area as a Category 4 storm Welcome to the W | Sunday on 60 Minutes Marcellus Williams Credit - Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty/TNS/ABACAPRESS.COM/Reuters More than half of American states have abolished the death penalty or hit pause on executions. Less than half47%of Americans believe the death penalty is administered fairly, a record low. A clear trend line has emerged. Every year, we see fewer new death sentences and fewer executions. So what happened last week? Why did we see five executions of five human beings, by five different states, in the span of only seven days? How do we make sense of the executions of Freddie Eugene Owens (who went by Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah) by South Carolina, Marcellus Williams (who went by Khalifah Ibn Rayford Daniels) by Missouri, Travis Mullis by Texas, Emmanuel Littlejohn by Oklahoma, and Alan Eugene Miller by Alabama? While this series of executions has shocked Americas conscience, the unfortunate reality is that they embody well-documented problems with the death penalty. They have become not the exception, but the rule. And the rule is that executions reflect racism, government error and arrogance, untreated mental illness and trauma, and disrespect for our democracy. The same factors that have driven abolition of the death penalty in a growing number of states remain on display this week. They serve as a five-alarm wake-up call and reminder of the work to be done. Read More: What to Know About the Execution of Death Row Inmate Marcellus Williams Amid Public Outcry Mirroring the overrepresentation of Black men on Americas death rows, three of the five men executed this week were Black: Owens, Williams, and Littlejohn. And mirroring a decades long trend, four of the five executions were punishments for killing white victims. Among its many other flaws, and in line with its history as an outgrowth of slavery and lynchings, the death penalty fails America by vastly preferencing white victims. The executions also confirm that the government makes mistakes and takes shortcuts that lead to wrongful convictions. Defending the sentence is often prioritized over justice. Missouri executed Williams even after so many, including the prosecuting authority, insisted on his innocence. Together with the Innocence Project, District Attorney Wesley Bell argued that no forensic evidence pointed to Williams. Law enforcement had spoiled the evidence and prevented DNA testing, and only two unreliable and incentivized witnesses supported the conviction. As Bell stated after the execution, if there is even the shadow of a doubt of innocence, the death penalty should never be an option. Gov. Parsons defended the indefensible by pointing to the findings of the jury and of the courts, while ignoring that the prosecutor (as so many capital prosecutors do) culled the jury of Black jurors. Neither Missourinor any other state for that mattercan credibly claim to have no doubts. Wrongful convictions are all too common. An estimated 200 innocent people have been falsely convicted and later exonerated from Americas death rows. Missouri is responsible for four. Did we execute the right man is not the question that should be on our minds right now. But Owens Littlejohns cases raise it, too. In Owens, the codefendant swore in an affidavit that Owens was not present for the 1997 robbery murder. In Littlejohns, the Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Parole voted to grant clemency, a recommendation the Governor rejected, after hearing that prosecutors presented conflicting evidence, in different trials, on who fired the fatal shot in 1994. Notably, all three cases of doubt involve Black defendants, and two involve a convenience-store crime, decades ago. These crimes would rarely if ever result in death sentence if tried today. Like so many others on death rows across the country, Miller, in Alabama, and Mullis, in Texas both endured significant mental illness and trauma documented by court and mental-health records. Our social-service institutions failed them both. As I saw firsthand when I travelled to Texas to represent Mullis in 2012after one of the many times he sought to reinstate appeals he had dropped amidst suicidal ideation and mental illnessthese are not the worst of the worst for whom the death penalty is mythically reserved. Errorand crueltyextend through the execution process itself. Alabama executed Alan Miller using an experimental lethal gas protocol that had resulted in an excruciating 22-minute execution in its only prior use. The first attempt against Miller in 2022 was a botched lethal injection in which execution personnel, including those reported to have committed violence against prisoners and other misconduct, struggled to find a suitable vein and then left him, a 350-pound man, strapped hanging vertically on a gurney for an hour after the failure. He is one of only six known persons to survive an execution, with half of these botches occurring in Alabama in the last six years. This week reminds us that the road to abolition does not run in a straight line. As shocked and saddened as we feel, we also need to work towards progress. We must feel moved to keep working for justice and towards a day when the death penalty endsonce and for all. Contact us at letters@time.com. Rescue workers gather at the site of a massive Israeli air attack on pro-Iranian Hezbollah headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Marwan Naaman/dpa At least six people were killed in Israeli attacks on the densely populated Beirut suburb of Haret Hreik, according to the Lebanese authorities. At least 91 people were injured in the attacks, including 14 who required hospitalization, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said. Rescue operations were ongoing, the ministry added. The Israeli military said it attacked the headquarters of the Hezbollah militia in the Beirut suburb. Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari called the strike a targeted attack and said the headquarters was located under a residential building. Rescue workers gather at the site of a massive Israeli air attack on pro-Iranian Hezbollah headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Marwan Naaman/dpa Rescue workers gather at the site of a massive Israeli air attack on pro-Iranian Hezbollah headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Marwan Naaman/dpa Decades-old image shows airshow collision, not 'US fighter jet shot down by Russia' An image of a mid-air accident at an airshow in the United Kingdom has been shared in social media videos that falsely claimed it showed a US fighter jet shot down over the Black Sea. While a US-made F-16 -- supplied to Ukraine by its Western allies -- crashed during a combat mission in August 2024, the image shows a Russian MiG-29 that collided with another aircraft during an airshow on July 24, 1993. "A US F16 fighter jet was shot down on the 28th in airspace over the Black Sea after refusing to obey Russian orders. The video was made public," read the simplified Chinese caption to a TikTok video shared on September 23, 2024. The video appears to show an image of a fighter jet in flames, followed by photos of US defence chief Lloyd Austin and Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. Sticker text on the video claims Zakharova said: "Games shouldn't be played in a war zone." Screenshot of the false TikTok post, captured on September 24, 2024 The image was also shared in similar clips on the Chinese short video app Douyin along with the false claim. Screenshot of the false Douyin posts, captured on September 26, 2024 They circulated weeks after Ukraine said a US-made F-16 fighter jet had crashed in combat, killing the pilot (archived link). The military said the plane and pilot crashed during a combat mission after having shot down incoming Russian missiles. The crash of the F-16 -- the first reported loss of the supersonic aircraft -- was a high-profile setback for Kyiv, which had lobbied the West to send the advanced fighter jet for months. The United States is a key military backer of Ukraine, and has provided around $175 billion in both military and economic assistance to Kyiv since Russia's February 2022 invasion (archived link). The image circulating online, however, does not show the F-16 that crashed and there have been no official reports of Russia shooting down a US military jet in the region. Airshow collision Reverse image and keyword searches on Google led to the same image of the fighter jet in flames on the Air Team Images website (archived link). The picture in the falsely shared video appears to have been flipped horizontally. The Air Team Images photo is credited to photographer Carl Ford, and stated it was taken on July 24, 1993 in Fairford, United Kingdom. Its description read: "The first of a sequence of photos of the mid-air collision between two Russian MiG-29s. No one was killed or seriously injured in the incident. The pilot can be seen ejecting." Below is a screenshot comparison of the image as seen in the falsely shared TikTok video (left) and the photo on the Air Team Images website (right): Screenshot comparison of the image as seen in the falsely shared TikTok video (left) and the photo on the Air Team Images website (right) Ford also posted the same photo on his Flickr account on October 15, 2015 (archived link). The photo has previously been falsely linked to the war in Ukraine, which AFP debunked in March 2022. At the time, Ford told AFP: "This is my photograph and it's one in a sequence of 11 images of Russian planes I took with a motor drive on my Nikon F.3 HP on 24 July 1993." The accident was covered by the UK's Independent newspaper on July 26, 1993, which reported that it had occurred at the International Air Tattoo held at the Fairford Royal Air Force base (archived link). AFP has debunked other misinformation about the war in Ukraine here. Rhode Island Public Defender Collin Geiselman has concerns about the uncertainty surrounding the validity of toolmark testing on firearms submitted as evidence in gun cases after a pause on testing at the state crime lab. (Will Steinfeld/Rhode Island Current) More than a month since the Rhode Island State Crime Lab suspended firearm examinations, the states chief public defender says his office is still in the dark about what happened, leaving cases slated to go to trial in the next couple of weeks in limbo. Unfortunately, at this time we have little, or no more information, than the press has, Collin Geiselman said in an email to Rhode Island Current. Besides being of public concern, this information is necessary for defense attorneys who are preparing to defend cases where the state is attempting to use toolmark evidence. Toolmark analysis, or how examiners determine if a cartridge or shell is fired from a specific gun, halted Aug. 20 after casings matched to a gun allegedly used in a crime in Pawtucket matched a different firearm in possession of the Boston Police Department. The pause was made public on Sept. 3 by the Rhode Island Office of Attorney General. Officials initially declined to say what may have caused the discrepancy or if evidence was mishandled, but Attorney General Peter Neronha told WPRI on Sept. 11 that the state had narrowed its concerns toward cases using particular technology at the lab. Its still too early to really handicap the whole scope of it, but were taking it very seriously, Neronha said. As we can share information with the public, and of course with defense counsel, were going to do that. Since then, the only update Geiselman said his office was given is where their evidence is getting tested. Brain Hodge, spokesperson for the Attorney Generals office, confirmed that 20 criminal cases involving guns were sent out for independent testing by state crime labs in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. The AGs office had initially estimated that 50 cases were affected. Cases sent for retesting are being processed on a mutual aid basis meaning no charge to the state, aside from the cost of overnight delivery, said Rhode Island State Crime Lab Director Dennis Hilliard. So far, in at least two of the 20 or so cases that have been sent out for retesting by other labs, the results came back confirming the test results by the Rhode Island State Crime Lab, Hodge said. All of the additional tests are still outstanding. Hilliard said a report on what happened at the crime lab is expected to be sent to the State Crime Laboratory Commission in the next two weeks. What happened? The discrepancy in the ballistic testing tied to the arrest of Karel Martinez-Scarlet was caught during a routine entry into the National Integrated Ballistic Identification Network (NIBIN) the digital database that captures and compares images of ballistic evidence for police departments to find out whether there are connections between incidents. Martinez-Scarlet was charged with the 2021 death of Keshaudas Spence in Pawtucket, who was a running back at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, between 2011 and 2014. The case is pending in Providence Superior Court, where a trial is tentatively scheduled to begin April 28, 2025. Hilliard declined to state what caused the discrepancy. For the last two weeks, he said an independent assessor who formerly worked for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been at the lab inside Fogarty Hall at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, looking over everything in the facilitys firearms section. Only three employees work solely on firearms forensics at the lab all of whom were removed from casework as the firearms examinations get tested out-of-state, Hilliard said. Making motions One of the two affirmed results involves evidence for the upcoming trial of Shawn Mann, confirmed Providence-based criminal defense attorney Bill Dimitri. Mann is charged with the 2021 murder of Miya Brophy-Baermann, a 24-year-old Warwick woman who was shot while standing along Olney Street in Providence. Dimitri said he received an email from the Attorney Generals office Tuesday detailing results from the New Hampshire state crime lab. They have told me it is the same result, but I will reserve judgment for now, he said. Dimitri said he still questions the reliability of the crime labs initial testing, which is why he filed a motion on Sept. 3 the day the examination pause was announced asking Neronhas office to provide any reports describing what exactly went wrong at the lab. Dimitri declined to comment on the case itself, but told Rhode Island Current his motion was to ensure that prosecutors turn over any evidence favorable to the defendant before trial as required by the U.S. Supreme Courts Brady rule established in 1963. If theres an issue of credibility and malfeasance, incompetence anything that would call into question the opinion methods, equipment we are entitled to fully cross-examine this, Dimitri said. A status conference is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 30, with trial slated to begin Oct. 15. So far Dimitiris motion has gone unanswered in Providence Superior Court, as have similar filings by the Public Defenders Office for the case of Marklyn Brown. Brown was among three men charged for the 2019 shooting death of 19-year-old Berta Pereira-Roldan outside the Noah Lounge in Providence. The public defenders motion asks for a copy of the crime labs toolmark examination protocols and chain of custody records for Browns case, along with co-defendants Johnny Veng and Jimmy Castillo. My office does not know if there was a problem with the way evidence was handled in one individual case, or if there was an issue with a particular examiner, or with the lab protocols, or if this is simply an indication that there is a problem with the toolmark discipline itself, Geiselman said. Junk science? The pause at the crime lab also raises a bigger question: Should prosecutors continue to rely on forensic evidence for most criminal cases? There are quite a number of things that for many years we have allowed into criminal trials that scientific discoveries now conclude mean that they arent what theyre purported to be, said Roger Williams University School of Law Professor Andrew Horwitz. There are serious questions about bite marks, hair follicles, and fingerprints which were seen as the most reliable thing in the world theres significant evidence thats just not the case. A major issue that stems from criminal forensics, Horwitz said, is there is ample room for confirmation bias the principle that if you know what youre looking for, youre more likely to find it. He said forensic experts are too often exposed to contextual information due to their close work with prosecutors and local police departments. If you have evidence submitted to you with a hypothesis connected to it, then confirmation bias becomes a significant issue, Horwitz said. Hilliard said all evidence delivered to the Rhode Island State Crime lab is tested blindly. Crime laboratory employees weigh and measure spent cartridges and shells, use microscopes to look at the tiny imperfections left by the manufacturing process on the weapons from which they were discharged. Guns are test fired in order to see if the casings match those found at a crime scene, Hilliard said. The out-of-state labs retesting the 20 firearm cases were not provided with any previous results of analysis, he added. Horwitz said forensics is mostly used for the jurys sake because of what he calls a CSI effect. Juries watch TV and believe there ought to be science, he said. And some things can be verified, but some cases really do just rise and fall on what a person said happened and we have to decide if we believe that person beyond a reasonable doubt. To Bill Devine, the Providence-based criminal defense attorney who formerly represented Martinez-Scarlet, the states use of firearms forensics is mostly the cherry on top of the rest of their case. A lot of evidence is cumulative, he said. Generally speaking, I dont know of any cases where someone was convicted on just a toolmark. But Devine said he doesnt believe the practice needs to be abolished. If the science is ever in doubt, he said its on the defense to get their own expert. Rhode Islands top prosecutor, meanwhile, feels theres still plenty of merit to firearm forensics. The science has been accepted all over the country, Neronha told Rhode Island Current. I dont think youre going to set a precedent in this state that ballistics comparisons of this nature is junk science. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) Salt Lake City International Airport is doubling down on the international part of its title as Delta announced it is adding nonstop flights to South Korea in 2025. Starting June 12, passengers will be able to take direct flights to Seoul-Incheon International Airport (ICN). This is the first and only direct flight to Asia offered out of Salt Lake City, according to Delta. Flights will be operated on an Airbus A350-900, which features a total of 306 seats. The new route is a joint venture with Korean Air. Delta said it is continuing to invest in SLC as a major hub, with nearly 250 daily flights to 90+ destinations and growing. They also said they believe the new service will increase tourism and economic opportunities while strengthening Salt Lake as a global city. Similar flights to South Korea are offered by Delta in Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Seattle. The launch of Salt Lake City to Seoul service offers customers convenient access to Deltas growing global network and ensures that virtually all U.S. demand is connected to Seoul via nonstop or one-stop service, said Joe Esposito, Deltas Senior Vice President Network Planning. As Salt Lake City continues to grow as a vital Delta hub, our strong joint venture with Korean Air allows us to offer unmatched connectivity between the U.S. and Asia, leveraging strong hubs on both sides. This ensures that customers, including those in the interior U.S., have access not just to Seoul but to key destinations across Asia. As we open this new gateway to Asia, I am excited to expand Utahs global reach and foster new cultural and business partnerships, said Utah Gov. Spencer Cox. Deltas commitment to our state underscores Utahs growing role on the world stage. I was delighted to meet with President Yoon Suk Yeol and discuss how this new route will deepen connections between Utah and Korea. Strong partnerships can often have the biggest impacts on visitors and our residents. From Deltas Salt Lake City hub, the Incheon route will connect our capital city with 80-plus destinations in Asia, expanding our communitys global reach and what so many already know, said Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall. Salt Lake City and the Mountain West are among the best places to visit and an even better place to call home. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Two Delta Air Lines planes pass by each other on the tarmac at Salt Lake City International Airport on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. | Chuck Wing, Deseret News Delta Air Lines just announced plans to launch nonstop service from Salt Lake City International Airport to Seoul-Incheon International Airport in South Korea starting next summer in a first-ever offering from the carriers biggest hub in the western U.S. The new route will be the only direct flight linking Salt Lake City to Asia and is set to begin service on June 12, 2025. The launch of Salt Lake City to Seoul service offers customers convenient access to Deltas growing global network and ensures that virtually all U.S. demand is connected to Seoul via nonstop or one-stop service, Joe Esposito, Deltas senior vice president of network planning, said in a press release. As Salt Lake City continues to grow as a vital Delta hub, our strong joint venture with Korean Air allows us to offer unmatched connectivity between the U.S. and Asia, leveraging strong hubs on both sides. This ensures that customers, including those in the interior U.S., have access not just to Seoul but to key destinations across Asia. Delta is easily the busiest carrier flying out of Salt Lake City, where the Atlanta-based airline operates nearly 250 peak-day departures to more than 90 destinations more flights than all the other carriers at the airport combined. The new direct service to Seoul builds Deltas list of nonstop international flights from Salt Lake City that includes Amsterdam, London, Paris and Mexico City, among others. The announcement comes on the same day Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, on a trade mission to South Korea and Japan, met with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. As we open this new gateway to Asia, I am excited to expand Utahs global reach and foster new cultural and business partnerships, Cox said in a press statement. Deltas commitment to our state underscores Utahs growing role on the world stage. I was delighted to meet with President Yoon Suk Yeol and discuss how this new route will deepen connections between Utah and Korea. ANNOUNCING SLC SEOUL/INCHEON SLC is thrilled to connect to Asia! Starting June 12, 2025, @Delta Air Lines will offer daily, nonstop flights from SLC to Incheon (ICN). Through ICN, travelers can seamlessly connect to 80+ destinations in Asia through Korean AirDeltas joint pic.twitter.com/adlwQIbrSv Salt Lake City Airport (@slcairport) September 27, 2024 Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall celebrated the new service and its potential as a gateway connection to other Asian destinations. Strong partnerships can often have the biggest impacts on visitors and our residents, Mendenhall said in a press release. From Deltas Salt Lake City hub, the Incheon route will connect our capital city with 80-plus destinations in Asia, expanding our communitys global reach and what so many already know. Salt Lake City and the Mountain West are among the best places to visit and an even better place to call home. Also, the University of Utahs Asia Campus in Incheon just marked its 10th anniversary. Demi Lovato Meets With Gavin Newsom as He Signs Legislation to Protect Child Influencers Former Disney star Demi Lovato met with California Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday as he signed into law two pieces of legislation to ensure children and teenagers who perform in online content are protected from financial abuse. Lovato, who starred in Disney movies including Camp Rock and Princess Protection Program and is the subject of the Hulu documentary Child Star, championed the two new bills: SB 764 (Padilla) establishes financial and legal protections for minors featured in monetized online content by mandating their parent or guardian set aside a percentage of their earnings in trust accounts. AB 1880 (Alanis) expands the Coogan Law to include minors who are employed as content creators on online platforms, such as YouTube. The Coogan Law, which dates back t0 1939, protects child performers and creators by ensuring that their employers place at least 15 percent of their gross earnings in trust until they reach adulthood. It was named after child star Jackie Coogan, who appeared in films with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Child Star, which marked Lovatos directorial debut, is co-directed by Nicola Marsh and produced by Michael D. Ratner, Scott Ratner, Miranda Sherman, and Kfir Goldberg for OBB Pictures. It follows child stars from classic Hollywood child stars Shirley Temple to modern social media influencers. The film highlights the advocacy efforts of Chris McCarty (they/them), founder and Executive Director of Quit Clicking Kids, a group advocating for children to receive fair compensation and legal protections when they are featured in their parents social media content. Lovato and Newsom discussed the new child protections on this weeks Politickin podcast with hosts Marshawn Lynch and Doug Hendrickson. Newsom also recently signed a bill to protect actors from having their likenesses copied by AI without their knowledge. The post Demi Lovato Meets With Gavin Newsom as He Signs Legislation to Protect Child Influencers appeared first on TheWrap. To help inform voters about the Nov. 5, 2024, election, this candidate questionnaire is available to be republished by local publications in North Carolina without any cost. Please consider subscribing to The News & Observer to help make this coverage possible. Name: Allen Buansi District/seat: House District 56 County or counties represented: Orange Political party: Democrat Age as of Nov. 5, 2024: 38 Campaign website: allenbuansi.com Current occupation: Attorney Professional experience: Attorney Education: Dartmouth College, BA | University of North Carolina School of Law, J.D. Please list any notable government or civic involvement. Current State House Representative | Former Town Council Member What would be your top priority if elected? Fully supporting public schools. By percentage, what raises should state employees, school staff and teachers receive in the next state budget? I would support a raise of at least 5% for state employees, which includes non-certified school employees. I would support a teacher pay raise by at least 8.5%. This increase in teacher pay would put North Carolina near the first in the Southeast for beginning teacher pay and raise us from the bottom half of the country in average teacher pay. Gov. Cooper has also supported these kinds of raises in the past budget cycle. What legislation would you support to improve Triangle transportation, housing or infrastructure? Please be specific. I was proud to be a primary sponsor of the Transportation for the Future Act to increase the proportion of North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) funds that must go to bicycle lanes, sidewalks and other modes of transportation, such as light rail and commuter rail. Do you think the legislature should fund about $500 million for private school vouchers through the Opportunity Scholarship program? Why or why not? No. Private schools receiving these vouchers are not required to adhere to any state assessments and reports; public schools are required to do this. There are no required federal background checks on employees at schools receiving these vouchers; public schools are required to do this. The curriculum at private schools are not required to align with the North Carolina Standard Course of Study; public schools are required to do so. We need to fully fund public schools, for our childrens sake. Is there an issue on which you disagree with your party? What is your position on that issue? In the 2000s, the Democrat-led General Assembly had an opportunity to create an independent, nonpartisan redistricting commission, in order to ensure fair maps. However, the General Assembly chose not to go that route. We need to rectify that mistake, and I would push for an independent, nonpartisan redistricting commission. This will help restore voters faith and confidence that they have a legitimate chance to elect someone who represents their interests. Under the Dome Get the latest news about North Carolina politics from The News & Observer's award-winning team. Get the free digest sent to your inbox by signing up here. Specialist insurance provider CFC, which focuses on cyber and emerging risks, has launched its first office in Spain, marking a significant milestone in the company's global expansion efforts. This move follows the insurance companys recent growth in North America and Australia. It aligns with its strategy to enhance relationships with broker partners by providing local expertise in key territories. The new Madrid-based operation will be led by Filippo Cibin, who has been appointed team leader for southern Europe within CFC's transaction liability business. Cibin brings more than a decade of underwriting experience in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and financial lines insurance products. Previously, Cibin has worked in Spain, Italy and Germany with companies such as DUAL, Tokio Marine HCC and Fusion Specialty. Cibin said: CFC has a strong reputation for delivering outstanding service to brokers and their customers. By combining that service ethic with CFCs market leading technology and relentless drive to innovate, I am confident that Jorge, Oliver and I can add even greater value to our partners, not only here in Spain but across Europe. Joining Cibin, Jorge Nieto Luque has been named senior underwriter, who will be responsible for handling transaction liability, tax and legal contingency insurance solutions in southern Europe. Luque's background includes more than six years in transaction liability insurance and prior experience as a business and M&A lawyer. Oliver Berridge also joins the team as senior underwriter, bringing nearly ten years of insurance industry expertise, particularly in M&A underwriting. Educated in France, Berridge is also a fluent French speaker, which will be an asset to CFC's operations in the region. Completing the new team, Ilaria Salvato has been appointed as Cyber European team leader. Salvato, who is multilingual in Spanish, Italian and English, transitioned into insurance 14 years ago after starting her career at a leading Italian law company. She joins CFC from Beazley, where she was a cyber underwriting manager. CFC Group CEO Louise OShea said: We have built a strong network of brokers throughout Spain and southern Europe over the past two decades and are experiencing increasing demand for our products and services. To meet that demand and further develop our client base throughout the country, it is the right time to establish boots on the ground. Opening our new office in Madrid also allows us to build a hub from which to grow our presence across southern Europe and in particular deepen our expertise in cyber and transaction liability in the Spanish, Italian and French markets. Story continues "Specialist insurer CFC expands with new Spain office launch " was originally created and published by Life Insurance International, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. To help inform voters about the Nov. 5, 2024, election, this candidate questionnaire is available to be republished by local publications in North Carolina without any cost. Please consider subscribing to The News & Observer to help make this coverage possible. Name: Maria Cervania District/seat: House District 41 County or counties represented: Wake Political party: Democrat Age as of Nov. 5, 2024: 56 Campaign website: mariafornc.com Current occupation: State representative Professional experience: My career as an epidemiologist/biostatistician and a public health professional includes roles in Medicaid, adult and child protective services, disability and behavioral health, maternal-child health, early childhood intervention, minority health and crisis management during the HIV/AIDS epidemic, Chicago heat wave, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and H1N1 Influenza and COVID-19 pandemics. Education: University of Illinois, Chicago, Master of Public Health in Epidemiology and Biostatistics; University of California, Berkeley, Bachelors in Integrative Biology and Physical Education, minor in population studies and demography. Please list any notable government or civic involvement. North Carolina state representative on the following committees: House Oversight and Reform; Appropriations, Appropriations - Health; Health; Energy & Public Utilities; Select Education Reform. Wake County commissioner on the following committees: Economic Strength (chair); Community Health & Vitality; Education; Growth & Sustainability. Civic experience: Poe Center; Wake Smart Start; Wake Pre-K; Alliance Behavioral Health; United Arts Council of Wake County; Town of Cary Police - Citizens Assisting Police Team; Wake Community Health Needs Assessment. What would be your top priority if elected? If reelected, my top priorities: Improve access to quality and affordable health care. Protect professional standards and personal choice in medical decisions, especially with reproductive health care. Fight for fair elections and expand access to voting. Increase funding for public schools, early childhood education and child care. Increase job creation, implement a thriving wage and foster economic growth. Maintain sustainable energy policies and protect North Carolinas natural resources. By percentage, what raises should state employees, school staff and teachers receive in the next state budget? Our state employees, school staff and teachers must receive a respectful and thriving wage. I have advocated using the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a reliable and fair resource for determining a proper wage. The calculator considers the cost of living in different counties and provides a wage for workers to meet their basic needs (livingwage.mit.edu). Then, integrating education, certification and experience is my suggestion on the criteria for how to provide raises. What legislation would you support to improve Triangle transportation, housing or infrastructure? Please be specific. I support: A fully integrated regional transit network that connects all towns in the Triangle, including the RDU Airport. Transit-Oriented Development that promotes development around major transit hubs, creating mixed-use areas where people can live, work and grow. Expansion of biking lanes, greenways and pedestrian pathways to reduce car dependency. Growth of electric vehicle charging infrastructure and incentives for EV adoption to reduce carbon emissions from transportation. Do you think the legislature should fund about $500 million for private school vouchers through the Opportunity Scholarship program? Why or why not? As legislators, we have a constitutional responsibility to provide every child access to sound basic education. When more than 80% of our students attend public schools, we cannot let the political environment continue to underfund public education. The North Carolina public school system was nationally known for being one of the best school systems in the country. Now, we rank in the bottom quarter in America. We are responsible for providing students with the best possible education and future. Is there an issue on which you disagree with your party? What is your position on that issue? No, there are not any issues that I disagree with my party. Under the Dome Get the latest news about North Carolina politics from The News & Observer's award-winning team. Get the free digest sent to your inbox by signing up here. To help inform voters about the Nov. 5, 2024, election, this candidate questionnaire is available to be republished by local publications in North Carolina without any cost. Please consider subscribing to The News & Observer to help make this coverage possible. Name: Evonne S. Hopkins District/seat: House District 35 County or counties represented: Wake Political party: Democrat Age as of Nov. 5, 2024: 48 Campaign website: HopkinsForHouse.com Current occupation: Family Law Attorney & Small Business Owner Professional experience: Evonne is a North Carolina Board Certified Family Law Specialist and Certified Parent Coordinator licensed to practice in North Carolina, California and the District of Columbia. Evonne has helped thousands of families and children navigate through extraordinarily high conflict cases in the Triangle. Evonne is known for her straightforward honest style, powerful advocacy. Evonne utilizes her training, education, and real world experiences to obtain the best results for her clients. Education: JD/MBA from the University of San Francisco (2003) and Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Philosophy from Rollins College (1998) Please list any notable government or civic involvement: 2023 Pro Bono Hero Award Recipient, Former Chair of Family Law Section of North Carolina Advocates for Justice, Former Committee Member of the 10th Judicial District Grievance Committee and Women in the Professions Committee and Committee of Indigent Appointments, Treasurer of the Committee to Keep Judge Christine Walczyk, and former Board President of the Wake Women Attorneys. What would be your top priority if elected? My number one priority is representing my district and the growing needs of our community. Top priorities include infrastructure, economy, taxes, housing (addressed below) and reproductive freedom (addressed herein). Protecting reproductive rights, including access to abortion, IVF and birth control, is crucial for ensuring a fair and inclusive North Carolina. The right to choose should be between a woman, her family, and her doctor not lawmakers. By percentage, what raises should state employees, school staff and teachers receive in the next state budget? I support Gov. (Roy) Coopers 2023-24 proposal for an 8.5% average pay raise for teachers and school staff and 5% pay raise for state employees. This investment in our workforce is essential for maintaining high-quality public services and supporting the dedicated professionals who serve our communities. The nearly $1 billion surplus should be used to fund these pay raises, which will help with employee retention, recruitment, and satisfaction. What legislation would you support to improve Triangle transportation, housing or infrastructure? Please be specific. Currently, it relies heavily on the gas tax, leaving electric, hybrid, and fuel-efficient vehicles untaxed. Replacing the gas tax with a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax would fairly capture all vehicles and boost revenue. This shift would help address DOTs underfunding, which forces local municipalities to raise taxes to cover shortfalls, straining residents. A VMT tax would ensure a sustainable, equitable source of infrastructure funding. Do you think the legislature should fund about $500 million for private school vouchers through the Opportunity Scholarship program? Why or why not? I do not support the recent allocation of nearly $500 million for private school vouchers through the Opportunity Scholarship program. Private school vouchers, pushed through by the supermajority, have effectively defunded the public school system. In the process of funding private education, the Republican supermajority is destroying our public school system and then pointing the finger at our public school system, saying it is not serving the needs of our children. Is there an issue on which you disagree with your party? What is your position on that issue? Our small businesses are the lifeblood of North Carolina and deserve support through tax incentives. Many are unable to afford group insurance, forcing employees to go without or buy private insurance. Currently, both the employer and employee are taxed on the reimbursement. When employers reimburse them, they should be able to write that off. We need to help small businesses by allowing them to reimburse for health care without facing extra tax burdens. Under the Dome Get the latest news about North Carolina politics from The News & Observer's award-winning team. Get the free digest sent to your inbox by signing up here. Democrats on the House task force formed to investigate the assassination attempts against former President Trump boycotted the final portion of the panels first hearing Thursday, which featured testimony from two rabble-rousing Republicans who are leading their own independent investigation into the shooting. It is one of the first partisan cracks in what has been an overwhelmingly bipartisan effort thus far. The first official hearing for the task force, which was approved by the House in a rare unanimous vote in July, focused mainly on testimony from local Pennsylvania officials who were involved with assisting the Secret Service in security for the rally where the shooting occurred, and the communication breakdown that enabled the assassination attempt. But a second panel at the hearing featured Reps. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) and Cory Mills (R-Fla.), who have launched their own independent investigation into the assassination attempt. Democrats on the task force did not stick around to hear from Crane and Mills. Panel one was a very productive panel. It was focused on local law enforcement. That was the panel that we had worked with the majority to prepare for, task force ranking member Jason Crow (D-Colo.) told reporters, adding that everything that weve done has been consensus-based. We did not receive notice of the second panel until late yesterday, Crow said. Its unclear to us what testimony will be provided by these witnesses that relates to todays hearing. Crane and Mills, both of whom have experience as snipers, had hoped to sit on the task force and were disappointed that they were not selected despite their own visits to the Butler, Pa., rally site and other investigation. They and other rabble-rousing Republicans held an unofficial forum about the assassination attempt last month that coincided with the task forces visit to the rally site. Task force Chair Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) said that he invited Mills and Crane to testify because of their expertise, welcoming their assessment of the security perimeter for the rally. And he brushed off Democrats absence during their portion of the hearing, suggesting that some members may have had flights out of Washington. If you want to participate, you can participate. If you decide not to, you can make that decision too, Kelly said of the members. Its not going to shatter my feeling that its bipartisan, Kelly added of the Democrats absence. The biggest takeaway from the hearing, Kelly said, was the communication struggles detailed by local law enforcement. There was a lack of preparation that day. There was not enough concern about the inability to communicate with each other, Kelly said. Kelly was in attendance at the Butler, Pa., rally when 20-year-old suspected shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks fired at Trump from a roof, clipping his ear, killing one rally attendee and seriously wounding two others. Trump is set to return to the site for a rally on Oct. 5, which Kelly said he will also attend. But in the second panel, Crane urged Trump to avoid this site on October 5 and in the future. If there was any tension between Crane and Mills and the task force, their appearance appears to have smoothed things over. Crane said that while the task force is doing great work, he challenged it to think outside the box, challenge the mainstream narrative, and be willing to investigate every theory, regardless of how conspiratorial others might find them to be. Mills said that his independent investigation is not exclusive of the efforts of the task force, and pledged to provide continued support and any additional information to the task force. Medical examiner discusses Crooks autopsy Also appearing via video conference at the panel was Ariel Goldschmidt, Allegheny Countys chief medical examiner who assisted Butler County by performing the autopsy on Crooks. Conspiracy theories about the shooting have swirled in part because the full autopsy report has not been publicly released. Kelly said Goldschmidt testified to answer questions about how Crooks died, and to hopefully put to rest some theories and doubts that often seem to follow high-profile violent events. Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), a member of the panel, independently released a preliminary investigative report in August that raised concern about the fact that Crookss body was released for cremation 10 days after the shooting. Higgins had attempted to examine Crookss body, but said that because he was cremated, he wont know 100 percent if the coroners report and the autopsy report are accurate. Higgins at the hearing said Goldschmidts work was professional but pressed him about the possibility that Crooks was hit by more than one bullet. I accept you have only one observable bullet wound, Higgins said, but he asked if his injuries could have been caused by more than one bullet into the same bullet hole. Goldschmidt said there was no evidence of that. Goldschmidt also testified his offices involvement ended on July 22, when Crookss body was released to a funeral home pursuant to the directives of the Butler County coroner. It was a standard autopsy, Goldschmidt later said at the hearing, adding that some extra toxicology testing and heavy metal screening found a slightly elevated lead level. The task force is in possession of the full autopsy report. The Butler County coroner previously released a one-page summary of the autopsy, saying that the cause of Crookss death was a gunshot wound to the head. New footage revealed of officer looking at roof Kelly also showed never-before-seen footage from a dash cam on a Pennsylvania state police vehicle on July 13 that depicted Crooks in the distance on top of the AGR building from which he eventually fired at Trump. At this point, all law enforcement entities staffing the rally are aware that there is an individual on the roof of AGR, but they do not know he is armed. Behind the trees, you will see one officer attempting to lift another officer up onto the roof. And you will see that officer pull himself up, and look to the left, Kelly said. According to that officers interview with the task force, he sees Crooks with a long gun, and Crooks turns and points the weapon in his direction. The officer then falls to the ground, injuring his ankle, and radios that the man on the roof is armed at 11 minutes after 6:00. Crooks is far away and difficult to see at the start of the video, but after the driver of the vehicle moves closer to the building, the officer who was hoisted up to see onto the roof is much easier to see. We know that the first shot from Crooks was fired 32 seconds later, Kelly said. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced Friday that it would be giving nearly $2.5 million in total grants to more than 30 state parties in an effort to ramp up organizing efforts as Election Day nears, rounding out the committees goal of providing resources to all states and territories in the country. These dollars will go to reaching key constituencies, beefing up organizing operations, and giving our teams on the ground the tools they need to earn every vote in the final stretch before Election Day, DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said in a press release. With less than six weeks to go until Election Day, Harrison added that the investment gives Democrats an extra boost for the campaigns New Way Forward agenda. The stakes couldnt be higher, and this latest investment will give us an extra boost of momentum heading into November so that we can send Vice President Harris and Governor Walz to the White House, drive Democratic victories across the country, and pave a New Way Forward in all 50 states red, purple, and blue alike, he wrote. Some of the newest investments include grants to help down-ballot Democrats in Republican-controlled states, targeted investments specific to what will help in a particular state like support for certain voting blocs and hundreds of thousands of dollars aimed at supporting the hiring of Black, Asian American and Pacific Islander, Latino, youth and Native American organizers. The press release noted that the committee has already invested thousands in several states including Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Minnesota and Missouri. Ken Martin, president of the Association of State Democratic Committees (ASDC), praised the committees new effort, calling state parties the backbone of the Democratic party. Were thrilled to make history with this round of grant money to state parties by investing in all 57 states and territories, he said in the press release. The work that state parties do every day on the ground is absolutely essential to our mission of reaching voters where they are and electing Democrats to office every election cycle. State parties are the backbone of the Democratic Party, Martin added. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. HONOLULU (KHON2) Crews have started demolishing a house that has been falling into the ocean near Sunset Beach on Oahus North Shore. Get Hawaiis latest morning news delivered to your inbox, sign up for News 2 You The Department of Permitting and Planning (DPP) issued an emergency demolition permit just two days after the home began its dangerous descent. The house, located on Ke Nui Road, had accumulated numerous violations for illegal erosion measures over the years and has now been torn down to prevent further collapse. This situation didnt happen overnight, said environmental activist Denise Antolini. The owner was aware it was teetering on the edge. He should have taken preventive actions, like removing the house before it fell in. In a statement, the DPP emphasized its commitment to public safety, stating, Understanding the immediate health and safety situation of the failing structure on Ke Nui Road, the DPP has been working with the landowner and his contractor to quickly demolish the structure to prevent it from further falling onto the beach and into the ocean. State provides $235,000 to support homeless youth services Antolini added, We need to ensure the hazard is inspected and demolished, and the homeowner should be held accountable for the cleanup costs. The demolition comes a day after the state attorney general filed a temporary restraining order and an injunction against the landowner, citing total disregard for conservation district land use and environmental laws. State Representative Sean Quinlan expressed frustration with the homeowners cooperation, saying, He is far and away the most uncooperative homeowner on the entire North Shore. Once he realized the gravity of the situation and the potential financial responsibility for cleanup, he began to cooperate a bit more. Quinlan also noted that the health department is working to inspect the property, as the homeowner has not clarified the location of the cesspool system. The attorney general is seeking an injunction to ensure the site is cleaned up and to recover any costs incurred by the state or county, Antolini said. This is a historic move for the AG to take proactive action in this case. Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news Contractors told KHON2 that they plan to remove the remaining concrete tomorrow, with the landowner covering the costs of the demolition. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KHON2. DES MOINES, Iowa A Des Moines man is behind bars after a dog in his care was found seizing from heat stroke in July. According to court documents, on July 15th at around 12:15 pm, a male dog was found actively seizing in the yard at a home in the 1200 block of 12th Street. The dog, named Master, was immediately transported to an animal hospital for treatment. An evaluation of Master found that his internal body temperature at the time was around 112 degrees, and that the seizures were caused by heat stroke, court documents state. Master couldnt be saved and was euthanized. Man arrested on weapons, drug charges after police respond to report of shooting in Oakridge neighborhood Anthony Delano Bruce, 59, was caring for Master at the time while his girlfriend, Masters owner, was out of town, according to a criminal complaint. Master was left outside without adequate shelter or access to enough water, the complaint states. According to the National Weather Service, the highest temperature recorded on July 15 for the Des Moines area was 95 degrees. Bruce was arrested on Thursday and charged with animal neglect with serious injury or death. He is currently being held at the Polk County Jail on a $10,000 cash-only bond. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for October 7. Latest Metro 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 who13.com. DES MOINES, Iowa A Des Moines man is facing multiple charges after leading troopers on a chase Friday morning the Iowa State Patrol said. At around 11 a.m. an Iowa State Patrol trooper attempted to stop a vehicle after the driver, identified as 44-year-old Demarious Carey, showed signs of potential impairment near the I-235 and University Avenue offramp, the state patrol said. Carey refused to stop for the trooper which initiated a pursuit. Des Moines man charged after dog euthanized due to heat stroke, seizures During the pursuit Carey allegedly threw a firearm out of the vehicle, ISP said. Carey eventually left the vehicle near the intersection of 2nd Avenue and Euclid Avenue and fled the area on foot. A short foot chase ensued until Carey was apprehended near the intersection of 4th Avenue and Euclid Avenue, the ISP said. Carey was booked into the Polk County Jail and faces charges of Operating While Intoxicated, Eluding, Felon in Possession of a Firearm, as well as narcotics charges. Latest Metro 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 who13.com. Gov. Ron DeSantis this month assigned a prosecutor to investigate a complaint of election fraud and unlawful disbursement of funds by both the chair and treasurer of the Florida Keys Republican Party. The issue stems from a vote in April by the Republican Executive Committee of Monroe County to endorse Sherri Hodies, who is the treasurer of the committee, over former Key West City Commissioner Margaret Romero in the GOP primary for supervisor of elections. With the endorsement came a $20,000 contribution to Hodies campaign, according to the July 26 complaint filed by Phyllis May, a Key West Republican. The problem is a simple majority vote out of all of the committees 63 members is required before endorsing a candidate, which did not happen, according to May and other Republicans upset about the decision. According to the complaint and an email that was obtained by the Miami Herald, written by another member of the committee and first reported about by the Key West Citizen newspaper 38 of the 63 members were present at the April 20 meeting, and 20 voted to endorse Hodies while 18 opposed the motion. When you have a 20 to 18 vote, that should tell you that its split. There is no majority, John Dick, a longtime Monroe County School Board member and an REC member, told the Miami Herald. Thats not an affirmative vote. For the endorsement to be official, however, 32 members would have had to vote for Hodies, who went on to win the primary and faces Democrat Ron Saunders, a former state House representative for the Keys, in November. If there was no valid vote which met the requirements to endorse Ms. Hodies and the associated $20,000 contribution, who authorized and/or made the decision to cut the check? Mays wrote to Monroe County State Attorney Dennis Ward in her complaint. Who signed the check, which was subsequently cashed by the Hodies campaign? It appears that the funds were disbursed without substantiation to the Hodies campaign. Monroe State Attorney recuses himself Ward, who is a member of the committee and supported Romero, recused his office from the investigation and asked DeSantis to appoint another State Attorneys Office to take the case. On Sept. 20, DeSantis signed an executive order assigning the case to Amira D. Fox, state attorney for the 20th Judicial Circuit of Florida, which includes Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry and Lee counties. Sherri Hodies The Key West Citizen was first to report the story, which also included an email from committee member Patrick Foley to Chair Rhonda Rebman Lopez telling her there werent enough votes to back Hodies. The motion failed, Foley wrote. Foley declined to comment on the controversy when reached Friday, but he confirmed he sent the email. In DeSantis executive order, he states Foxs office is to assume all duties regarding the investigation and prosecution of the case and all related matters regarding Rhonda Rebman Lopez and Sherri Hodies. Election fraud is a third-degree felony in Florida punishable by up to five years in prison. Accusations of helping Democrats Rebman Lopez, who ran unsuccessfully against state Rep. Jim Mooney for the District 120 state House seat in 2020, blamed Ward for the controversy and accused him in a text to the Herald of doing exactly what the Democrats are doing to Trump. Trying to use the courts to interfere with an election. She said Ward was working on behalf of the Democrats, who Rebman Lopez said in the text are trying to take Sherri Hodies off the ballot the same way they tried to take Trump off the ballot. The frivolous allegations of election fraud center around the local partys endorsement process for Republican candidates which was voted upon by a majority of all members present and subsequently approved by the Republican party of Florida, Rebman Lopez wrote, adding the complaint is meritless and will be dismissed in due time. Hodies told the Herald on Thursday that she would send a statement from her attorney, but it hadnt arrived by Friday afternoon. She told the Key West Citizen that she was told by Republican Party of Florida Chairman Evan Power that the process and vote was approved and that the state party leadership told Rebman Lopez to cut the check and endorse me. I followed the process and all of the rules. Power, however, on Friday, told the Herald he has no knowledge of the details of what happened. The only thing our team would do was point them to the rules on endorsements and expenditures. Power also distanced himself from the issue in an interview with news website Florida Politics on Thursday. I do not get involved in Primaries, nor do I tell any REC how to operate, he said. Party infighting Dick, the School Board member, also noted the decision to endorse Hodies was controversial because the REC had never backed a candidate during primaries. We never endorsed anyone in a primary, he said. The issue has exposed a rift among Keys Republicans, and several say the situation is embarrassing. REC meetings have become so heated that the committee has hired an off-duty Florida Highway Patrol trooper to act as security, several sources have said. Were civilized people, Dick said. To this day, I dont know why they have that trooper there. Online, the mud-slinging was in full force this week, with Rebman Lopez posting a photo of Liz Cheney who is a former Wyoming congresswoman and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and fell out of favor with many conservatives for her attacks on Trump with Wards face pasted over hers. When Ward and others took issue with the post in Facebook comments, a defiant Rebman Lopez stood by it. People r texting me & emailing me calling me telling me they died laughing, she wrote Thursday. While some Keys Republicans blasted Rebman Lopez in the comments, asking her to stop embarrassing our party, others piled on Ward, accusing him of helping Saunders (Hodies Democratic opponent) and in turn somehow helping defeat Trump in November. REC members and high ranking elected Republicans voting [and] endorsing to put Democrat Ron Saunders in [Supervisor of Elections] office is very concerning. Thats like sticking a knife in President Trumps back as well as the sovereignty of our country, wrote Virginia Donaldson, a Keys Republican. Ward responded to his critics by standing by both his Republican bona fides and his duties as the Keys highest elected law-enforcement officer. My oath of office is not a get out of jail free card for Republicans, he commented. Not a difficult concept. Gov. Ron DeSantis signs the six-week abortion ban into law late at night on April 13, 2023. (Governor's office) Legendary reggae superstar Bob Marley warned us decades ago in his song, Revolution, to never trust a politician. Marley was talking about people like Ron DeSantis, who has earned distrust throughout his tenure as Floridas chief executive because of his misuse of his considerable power as governor and efforts to bend those who oppose him to his will. DeSantis ally Attorney General Ashley Moody tried and failed to block efforts by supporters of abortion access and reproductive justice who gathered the necessary petition signatures for Floridians to decide whether to codify abortion rights in the Florida Constitution. Florida election officials verified that Floridians Protecting Freedom had submitted 910,946 petitions, well above the 891,523 needed to add the measure to the ballot. The Florida Supreme Court later approved the ballot measure, which gives voters in the Sunshine State the rare opportunity to take a direct hand in this crucial and life-changing issue. Ten states have proposed constitutional amendments by which voters will directly decide whether to protect or expand abortions in November. Theyre in swing states (Arizona and Nevada), blue-leaning states (Colorado, Maryland, and New York), and red-leaning or red-dominated states (Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, and South Dakota) Floridas ballot initiative would bar state interference with abortion before fetal viability and would include exceptions past that point for the patients health, as determined by the patients healthcare provider. Passage of the amendment would effectively undo the states six-week ban on abortion, which includes exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the patient. The measure must receive the support of 60% of voters in November, rather than a simple majority, to pass. State agency DeSantis is using state agencies and law enforcement to combat the referendum. State police are showing up at Florida voters homes to question them about signing the abortion petitions and the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) has launched a website targeting the initiative with politically charged language. Critics have castigated DeSantis for using these instruments to actively resist the ballot initiative and attempt to subvert the will of the people. By his actions, he may be violating a statute prohibiting the state influencing a persons vote, as the Phoenix has reported. Democrats are fighting back against DeSantis assertions and his claims to have found evidence of fraud. For example, Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried and two private citizens filed criminal complaints against the administration. And a South Florida appellate attorney has asked the Florida Supreme Court to stop DeSantis, AHCA Secretary Jason Weida, and Moody from interfering in the voting on Amendment 4. The states highest court has agreed to expedite that case. DeSantis is brazen in his efforts to game the system. He claims the Florida Department of State found one group that collected petitions on behalf of dead people. Other petition signatures did not match the voter files, he said. It just seems that if there were any fraud allegations, those would have been uncovered much sooner. I think whats really happening is that these extremists are feeling like their backs are against the ropes, said Florida House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell. They feel this is slipping away from them because the people of Florida want Amendment 4 to pass, and so now theyre just grasping at straws and throwing anything at the wall to see what will stick, Driskell added. Political theater State Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, describes the searches a witch hunt and political theater by DeSantis and his cronies who are just so desperate to maintain Floridas near total abortion ban that they were fishing for any type of information. Driskell said DeSantis is desperate following a string of high-profile failures, from his unsuccessful presidential run to the latest backlash over developing state parks. Yet DeSantis command to four county elections supervisors to send 36,000 petitions from those counties to Tallahassee to be reviewed has alarmed critics who are angered by his falsehoods. They fear he will find a way to invalidate the amendment effort even though county supervisor of elections offices led by elected officials from both parties approved the almost 1 million petitions for Amendment 4 that the Florida Department of State already verified. Ron [DeSantis] has repeatedly used state power to interfere with a citizen-led process to get reproductive freedom on the ballot. This is their latest desperate attempt before Election Day, Fried told reporters recently. AHCA published a webpage filled with lies, misinformation, and criticism about the abortion amendment. Doing this, Democratic officials, activists, and other critics vigorously argue, could violate state laws against voter intimidation. Whats clear is that DeSantis, Moody, and other state officials, who ostensibly work for Florida citizens, have abrogated their responsibility to the people. DeSantis actions fly in the face of what the majority of Floridians demand but it doesnt matter to him. In their greed and pursuit of raw power, DeSantis and the others unabashedly represent a mere fraction of Floridas populace. The end of the pro-life movement Conservative theologian R. Albert Mohler Jr. explained in a recent post on his webpage what undergirds DeSantis virulent opposition to reproductive justice and abortion access. The governor said, If you care about building a culture of life in this state or this country, then winning in Florida I think really represents the end of the pro-life movement, Mohler writes. In other words, Amendment 4 would eviscerate Republican and evangelical extremists mission to restrict all abortions, including 15-week and six-week bans, Mohler notes. He acknowledges the electoral beatings Republicans have taken, even in ruby red Kansas and South Dakota, over abortion. If this amendment passes, you really are looking at the end of the pro-life movement in Florida, Mohler notes. But its a bigger question than Florida. I think this may have nationwide repercussions. You look at this amendment in a state like Florida, and if it passes, especially given the supermajority that is necessary there in Florida, you know, thats going to indicate not only that we have been losing ground, it might indicate were losing the argument when it comes to American culture. Mohler may be loath to admit it, but Republicans have already lost this battle. Amendment 4, if passed, would become law and enshrine abortion rights into Floridas Constitution. The procedure would become legal again until the fetus is viable, as determined by the patients health care provider. It is gratifying to see that supporters of Amendment 4 havent been bowed by DeSantis bullying. Lawsuits On Sept. 12, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and Southern Legal Counsel filed a lawsuit in a Leon County Circuit Court on behalf of Floridians Protecting Freedom, calling the anti-Amendment 4 campaign the administrations latest dirty trick. Attorneys are asking the court to immediately halt the messaging, arguing that this constitutes the unlawful use of taxpayer funds by state officials in service of a political campaign. These actions, they add, are infringing on the rights of Florida voters. Unconvincingly, DeSantis said at a news conference that the page is not political or electioneering but offers Floridians factual information about the amendment. I am glad they are doing it, he said. El Jefe DeSantis is an outlier in the abortion battle. Most Republicans, especially former President Donald Trump, have been running away from anything to do with reproductive justice as if they were set on fire. Trump who with Mitch McConnell rammed Justices Cavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Coney Barrett onto the U.S. Supreme Court bench for the expressed purpose of overturning Roe v. Wade are to blame. So is DeSantis, the Republican legislative majority, and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, who as governor shepherded a slew of abortion restrictions into law. Tap dancing The heat is rising, the fire is fierce, and Republicans are tap dancing furiously, ducking dodging and deflecting. Trump, who even now is proudly claiming credit for overturning Roe v. Wade, has tried unsuccessfully to distance himself from the abortion disaster. He refuses to say whether he will sign a national abortion ban if he wins in November. Republicans lies and sleight-of-hand serve to show an aroused and deeply angry electorate in Florida exactly where DeSantis, Trump, and other extremist Republicans stand. Trump says the people wanted the issue returned to the states so they can decide. In November, voters will have the opportunity to make it crystal clear to these political hacks where they stand on this crucial, life-altering issue. DeSantis and his cronies will be sorely disappointed. Burn, baby, burn CAMBRIA COUNTY, Pa. (WTAJ) Police have released new details about the investigation into a Johnstown man who is accused of murdering a woman on Sept. 19. Mugshot of Douglas Yonkers provided by Cambria County Prison Douglas Yonker, 57, was arraigned on Friday, Sept. 20 for homicide charges after police arrived at a home on K Street for a report of gunshots, according to a criminal complaint. On the day of the shooting officers from the Johnstown Police Department were called to a duplex and arrived to find Yonker with wounds to his head and 40-year-old Lenna Azzoli dead. Police spoke with Yonker who told them that he was sitting on the porch with Azzoli when a car came down the road and a man stepped out and allegedly fired two shots at them. Yonker then added that he returned fire at the vehicle. Police noted in the complaint that they searched the area and found three shell casings on the porch and a firearm. The firearm had blood on it which detectives noted only coincides with when a bullet is fired into the flesh at close proximity, according to the affidavit. PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Woman shot, killed after argument in Johnstown Police also noted that the position of the shell casings, located on the porch, was inconsistent with Yonkerss story. Shell casings are ejected back and to the right of a semi-automatic firearm and there were no shell casings located on the street, on the sidewalk or anywhere else besides the porch. According to the affidavit, there were also no signs of bullets hitting the porch, ceiling, brick, siding or anywhere to indicate that someone had fired shots at Azzoli from off the porch. Police noted that Azzoli had at least five gunshot wounds to the right abdomen and right leg. The wounds were described as being large and having stippling, which indicated she was shot at a close range. Police searched the home and noted in the report that there was blood on the floor, on napkins, on the kitchen sink and a washrag by the sink. Police reported that it showed Yonkers was cleaning himself up after Azzoli had been shot. They also wrote that the blood drops were perpendicular with the floor, indicating that Yonker, who was wounded was not in a hurry, but calm and relaxed. According to the complaint, they also found blood on the top of the porch light switch, which indicated that Yonkers turned off the porch lights after the murder had happened. A neighbor told police that she heard arguing across the street and then heard multiple pops so she went to her window and saw an individual on the porch go into the home and turn off the light. Other residents who spoke to police told them they saw Yonker and Azzoli on the porch when they heard Azzoli yelling. They added that she was yelling for help before they heard a crashing noise. No neighbor or witness heard or saw another car driving down the road at the time of the shooting, according to the affidavit. Lastly, officers noted that Azzoli was covered in blood along with the inside of the screen door, which indicated to them that she was shot and died where she was on the porch. Yonker was charged with criminal homicide, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and tampering with evidence. He was placed in Cambria County Prison and his bail was denied. Get the latest news, weather forecasts and sports stories delivered straight to your inbox! Sign up for our newsletters. He has a preliminary hearing scheduled for Oct. 10. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WTAJ - www.wtaj.com. We recently compiled a list of the 10 Best High Volume Stocks To Buy According to Hedge Funds. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) stands against the other high volume stocks. On September 18, the Federal Reserve implemented its first interest rate cut since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, reducing benchmark rates by half a percentage point to counter a potential labor market slowdown. This adjustment brings the federal funds rate to 4.75% to 5%. Aside from the emergency rate cuts during the pandemic, the last time the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) made a half-point reduction was during the 2008 global financial crisis. Following the decision, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell made the following remarks: Were trying to achieve a situation where we restore price stability without the kind of painful increase in unemployment that has come sometimes with this inflation. Thats what were trying to do, and I think you could take todays action as a sign of our strong commitment to achieve that goal." The post-meeting statement emphasized that the Federal Reserve has grown more confident in inflation moving sustainably toward the 2% target. It believes the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are now roughly balanced. Wall Street expects that the ensuing rate cuts will enable well-established, financially stable companies to boost spending and investments, potentially driving up their stock prices through the remainder of 2024 and into early 2025. Similarly, Wells Fargo analysts suggest that the global economy stands to benefit as many major central banks have already announced or are expected to announce rate cuts. However, not everyone is optimistic. Billionaire investor Ray Dalio highlighted that the U.S. economy continues to grapple with an "enormous amount of debt." During an interview, he pointed out that the Federal Reserve faces the challenge of maintaining interest rates high enough to benefit creditors, while not raising them so much that they become burdensome for debtors. Dalio described this as a difficult "balancing act". On another front, the Conference Boards consumer confidence index dropped to 98.7 in September, down from 105.6 in August, marking the largest one-month decline since August 2021. This was below the Dow Jones forecast of 104 and significantly lower than the pre-pandemic level of 132.6 recorded in February 2020. All five components of the index saw declines, with the most significant drop occurring among those aged 35-54 and earning less than $50,000. The last time the index fell this sharply was when inflation was starting its rise to a 40-year high. Commenting on the sentiment shift, Dana Peterson, chief economist at The Conference Board, noted: Story continues Consumers assessments of current business conditions turned negative while views of the current labor market situation softened further. Consumers were also more pessimistic about future labor market conditions and less positive about future business conditions and future income. Within a complex economic landscape marked by mixed signals across sectors, investor sentiment remains cautiously optimistic, with market participants closely watching economic indicators and Fed policies to identify future trends. With this in mind, we present a list of the 10 Best High Volume Stocks To Buy According to Hedge Funds. Our Methodology We used stock screeners to identify stocks that met specific criteria as of September 23. Our selection criteria was focused on stocks with notable market activity, including a 3-month average trading volume exceeding 5 million shares. We also considered companies with a quarterly revenue growth rate of over 15%. Additionally, we highlighted the number of hedge funds invested in each stock, as of Q2 2024. At Insider Monkey, we are obsessed with 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). Is TSM Stock a Good Long Term Buy? A close-up of a complex network of integrated circuits used in logic semiconductors. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) Avg Volume: 16.74 million Quarterly Revenue Growth: 33.01% Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 156 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) is a Taiwan-based semiconductor firm that provides integrated circuits and other semiconductor devices to major tech companies, including Apple and NVIDIA. In the second quarter of 2024, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) reported a 13.6% sequential increase in revenue, driven by rising demand for its advanced nanometer technologies. The company anticipates a 50% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in revenue from AI chips by 2027 and projects overall revenue growth of 20% for the year ending 2024. Bernstein has maintained an Outperform rating on TSM, noting that the stock remains attractively valued, particularly as the company is positioned to perform well during a recession. Analysts from Bernstein expect the company's revenue to grow by 26% and earnings per share by 29% this year, with continued momentum into 2025 and beyond. This growth is fueled by strong demand from data center AI and high-end smartphones utilizing TSMC's advanced N3 and N4/5 nodes. As of the end of Q2 2024, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) was held by 156 hedge funds, with total stakes valued at $21.28 billion. Fisher Asset Management was the largest shareholder, holding a position worth $4.94 billion as of June 30. Ave Maria World Equity Fund stated the following regarding Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) in its Q2 2024 investor letter: Top contributors to performance included SharkNinja, Inc. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM). Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited is the global leader in semiconductor foundry services, with a dominant market share position in advanced semiconductors. The company has significant pricing power and stands to benefit from secular megatrends (5G, high performance computing, AI, rising silicon content per device, etc.) due to its technological leadership. Overall TSM ranks 2nd on our list of the best high volume stocks to buy according to hedge funds. While we acknowledge the potential of TSM as an investment, we believe that certain AI stocks hold promise for delivering high returns and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than TSM but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: $30 Trillion Opportunity: 15 Best Humanoid Robot Stocks to Buy According to Morgan Stanley and Jim Cramer Says NVIDIA Has Become A Wasteland. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Detroit has filed dozens of condemnation lawsuits for the solar neighborhoods project that the city approved this summer. The eminent domain lawsuits are part of a legal process that gives governments authority to take property for public use. Detroit City Council in July backed the project to convert land into solar panel farms, which are expected to generate enough energy to offset the electricity used by the citys 127 municipal buildings. As of this month, the city had filed at least 89 lawsuits. The filings represent less than 10% of the over-900 parcels that are part of Phase 1 of the solar initiative, Trisha Stein, chief strategy officer, said in an email to the Free Press. "All remaining parcels were or are in the process of being voluntarily acquired by the city." Owners include development groups, individual landlords and property owners like Michael Kelly, who's associated with various entities like Detroit Leasing Inc. and was previously sued for predatory contracts in the city. Kelly's attorney could not be immediately reached. The first phase in the solar project will consist of a 40-acre field in the Van Dyke-Lynch neighborhood, which DTE will build out. Lightstar Renewables will build 63 acres of solar arrays in Gratiot-Findlay and State Fair neighborhoods. It is standard procedure for the city, as required by city code, to obtain council approval before acquiring property. City Councils approval of the land acquisition involved significant discussion of the citys legal basis for acquiring the property, including the potential use of the citys condemnation powers, Stein said. The city is confident in its ability to acquire all necessary parcels for the proposed solar project, Stein added. Condemned properties are in blighted areas Alan Ackerman, a Birmingham-based eminent domain attorney, said that in these cases, properties are individually appraised and the city must make a good-faith offer, which could be challenged by the property owners. Ackerman called the use of space for solar farms a good idea. Its a source of revenue, its a use of land, Ackerman said. The lands theyre condemning here are not high-demand land. Its not easily developable. It will be, but its not there yet. Ackerman added that governments generally should not take property, but said the solar project is different because it's part of Detroit's ongoing redevelopment endeavors. "Vacant parcels are hard. There are residential lots ... that are really valuable in the city and others are just not," Ackerman said. "Most of the stuff they're condemning are in the most blighted areas of the city." In announcing the first three neighborhoods, Mayor Mike Duggan said, "These are the most blighted areas of the city. We are not pushing a single owner-occupied homeowner out of these neighborhoods to build the solar fields." Duggan said the first areas included 21 owner-occupied houses, whose owners signed an agreement to sell their homes and move in exchange for $90,000. Mayor Mike Duggan greets Jean Holt, a longtime resident of the State Fair neighborhood, who will move out of her home to make way for the solar neighborhood initiative, Monday, June 24, 2024. The Poletown eminent domain controversy The state's eminent domain policies shifted after residents fought a controversial condemnation in 1981 for General Motors' plant, now known as Factory Zero, in Detroit's Poletown neighborhood. More than 1,000 residents lost their homes after the corporation demolished them to make way for the plant, resulting in backlash against governments from taking land from one private owner and giving it to another. Longtime church members Barbara Sokol, left, and Ann Dolence march to protest the proposed demolition of the Church of the Immaculate Conception and the razing of the surrounding neighborhood of Poletown in order to build a new General Motors plant on the site. "The whole business boils down to what your goal is," while balancing the interests of the city and residents on sites proposed for redevelopment, said John Mogk, a Wayne State University law professor. "If you want to assemble the land in a reasonable period of time, you can't do it by private negotiation, it takes too long. Too many people hold out or won't sell, and therefore, you can't complete the assembly of land. The question becomes, do you want to leave the city the way it is or do you want to repurpose and attempt to improve the population and economy of the city?" The Michigan Supreme Court in 2004 prohibited the use of eminent domain for development purposes similar to the Poletown project. But local governments could use eminent domain on projects that are for public use. "The city has an enormous inventory of vacant land," Mogk said. "The city has to make a decision, the public has to make a decision, whether this is going to be an attempt to repurpose and make the vacant land productive or not. If the decision is to not make the land productive, then eminent domain isnt needed because you leave it as it is." Michigan's Constitution states that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. Public use does not include seizing private property to transfer to a private entity for "economic development or enhancement of tax revenues," according to the law. "There was a question of public use when cities and Wayne County and other units would take land and give it to a private developer," Ackerman said. "I thought it was absolutely nuts that the government would take land ... the constitutional amendment was passed and the government has been very careful not to condemn" for most purposes other than roadways, for example. Wayne County in the early 2000s also tried using condemnation to take over property near Detroit Metro Airport for an industrial park. A family sued to prevent losing their property, but in a 2004 ruling, a more conservative state Supreme Court overruled the earlier Poletown decision, "in order to vindicate our constitution, protect the people's property rights and preserve the legitimacy of the judicial branch as the expositor, not creator, of fundamental law." In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court took the opposite view, ruling in a case known as Kelo v. City of New London, Connecticut, that governments could take private land to give to other private users for economic development. But the U.S. court said individual states could bar such seizures, and Michigan did just that the following year. In November 2006, Michigan voters approved Proposal 4, which put tough new restrictions on the use of eminent domain even when used for government purposes such as building roads and bridges. Former Detroit Free Press staff writer John Gallagher contributed to this article. Dana Afana is the Detroit city hall reporter for the Free Press. Contact: dafana@freepress.com. Follow her: @DanaAfana. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit files dozens of eminent domain lawsuits for solar farm project That Detroit Judge Suspended For Humiliating Black Teen Girl, Just Returned To Work to More Bad News The Detroit judge who got slammed after having a Black teenager cuffed and placed into a jail uniform for dozing off in his courtroom just received more bad news after coming back from suspension. As a reminder, Judge Kenneth King was caught on courtroom Zoom scolding 15-year-old Eva Goodman who was visiting court as part of a field trip this past August. King told local Detroit news he pressed the teen after noticing her fall asleep in the courtroom. However, his form of punishment went beyond rebuke but resulted in ordering her to don a jail uniform, having her placed in handcuffs and threatening to send her to juvenile detention, per the now-deleted court recording. Following the incident, the judge faced his own punishment of temporary suspension and a mandatory social and emotional training class, per The AP. However, upon his recent return back to the courtroom, King was met with more discipline: demotion. Chief Judge William McConico of the 36th District Court stated King is back on the bench but instead of presiding over major crime or felony cases, he will be handling traffic tickets. Not only did King get demoted but he was also let go from his two Fall 2024 courses at Wayne State University amidst the scandal. Hes also facing a lawsuit filed by the girls mother, Latoreya Till. The mother previously told The Detroit Free Press her daughter was exhausted from work and the constant moving because they struggled to find permanent housing. The lawsuit seeks over $75,000 from the judge for ridiculing and berating Goodman both in front of her peers and while live-streaming from his private Facebook page. Till also said in a press conference she seeks a public apology from the judge. That has yet to happen but for now, the report says King is being a good sport about his new job transition. He truly understands and wholeheartedly embraces the concept of teamwork, said Kings attorney, Todd Perkins via The AP. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. A new housing development featuring 14 apartments designed specifically for residents with disabilities recently held its ribbon-cutting ceremony in Detroits Riverbend neighborhood on the east side. Xavier Square, located at 3141 Alter Road, was created to provide affordable housing for low-income Detroiters living with disabilities. Through project-based vouchers from the Detroit Housing Commission (DHC), residents will pay no more than 30% of their income toward rent and utilities. This initiative is part of Detroits ongoing effort to build or preserve $1 billion in affordable housing over the past five years. Xavier Square is a new housing development in Detroit featuring five ground-level ADA-specific units that offer lower light switches and several safety handles in the bathroom, photographed on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. There is also a pocket park with some raised beds behind the building. Mayor Mike Duggan emphasized the significance of Xavier Square, highlighting its focus on inclusivity. "This is the city we are building, where every Detroiter, regardless of their income or physical abilities can live in quality housing that supports their needs at a rent they can afford, Duggan said in a statement. I am so appreciative of Nova Development, our Department of Housing & Revitalization and the Detroit Housing Commission for making this important project a reality. Xavier Square consists of 12 two-bedroom apartments and two one-bedroom apartments, with 13 units offering outdoor access. The building, designed by Steven C. Flum of Steven C. Flum, Inc., an architecture firm based in Hamtramck, is ADA-compliant and incorporates a wide-range of accessibility features. These include: Elevator that provides access to all three floors. Extra-wide stairways. Barrier-free (no-step) entrances at both the property and unit levels. Accessible bathrooms equipped with grab bars. Lowered light switches. Widened doorways for wheelchair access. Lowered cabinets and countertops. Designated accessible parking spots. Xavier Square is a new housing development in Detroit featuring five ground-level ADA-specific units that offer lower light switches and several safety grab handles in the bathroom, photographed on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Each apartment also features in-unit storage, along with washer and dryer hookups. According to Flum, the elevators ensure that the building is accessible not only to residents, but also to visitors, allowing wheelchair users to easily reach any floor, whether they live there or are visiting a third-floor resident. Central City Health will provide supportive services, including life skills case management for qualified residents. Xavier Square architect Steven Flum shows the doorways of ground unit built wider as part of a new housing development in Detroit that features five ground-level ADA-specific units that offer lower light switches and several safety grab handles in the bathroom. The unit was photographed on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. More: Detroit property tax relief program deadline moved up to Nov. 1. What to know. More: More Black Detroiters got home loans since 2018, report shows The development is conveniently located next to a shopping plaza and nearby restaurants. The project was led by Nova Development Group LLC, a minority-owned company headed by Doug Dillard and Andrew Creamer. Creamer, a former DHC employee, and Dillard have spent decades developing affordable housing and improving low-income communities, particularly on Detroits east side. "We are deeply committed to empowering individuals and fostering opportunities for every Detroiter," Creamer said. "The city has been a steadfast partner in this endeavor, and we are truly grateful for its significant investment and unwavering support throughout this project. Nova is privileged to be part of Detroit's growth and is proud to contribute to the community by providing quality, affordable housing for its residents." Xavier Square is a new housing development in Detroit featuring five ground-level ADA-specific units that offer lower light switches and several safety handles in the bathroom, photographed on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. The $5.4 million development was possible through various funding sources, including $1.8 million in federal HOME funds and $179,000 in Community Development Block Grant funding through the Detroits Housing & Revitalization Department. The city also provided a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) program, allowing the developer to pay 10% of annual rental income instead of the regular property tax rate. Additional funding came from the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, with Cinnaire as the tax credit syndicator. Land for the project was purchased from the Detroit Land Bank Authority. According to the city of Detroits Civil Rights, Inclusion, and Opportunity Department, approximately 123,000 residents, or 19.6% of the citys population, are living with disabilities. Several affordable rental housing developments, both new and existing, are available throughout Detroit, and residents seeking housing can go to homeconnect.detroitmi.gov for more information. Creamer anticipates tenants will begin moving into Xavier Square this fall. Julie Schneider, director of the citys Housing & Revitalization Department, summed up in a news release the projects impact: Xavier Square is a testament to our unwavering commitment to inclusivity and accessibility. This project embodies our dedication to ensuring that all Detroiters, regardless of their physical abilities, have access to safe, affordable, and quality housing. Brendel Hightower writes about real estate and other topics for the Detroit Free Press. Contact her at bhightower@freepress.com. Support local journalism: Subscribe to the Detroit Free Press. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: New development provides affordable housing for disabled Detroiters Did Madeline Soto's Mom Tell Police in Interview that Boyfriend's Alleged Sex Abuse of Teen Was 'Fine?' In a recorded police interview, Jennifer Soto then says "it's not fine" when an officer confronts her about her earlier assertion Orange County Sheriffs Office Madeleine Soto (left); Jennifer Soto being interviewed by detective The mother of 13-year-old Madeline Soto, the teen who was found raped and killed in March, appears to have briefly told Florida authorities that it was fine that her 37-year-old boyfriend was allegedly sexually abusing her teenage daughter, according to a police interview clip reviewed by PEOPLE. Madeline disappeared on Feb. 26, in Kissimmee, Fla., leading to the arrest of her mothers boyfriend, Stephan Sterns, 37, on unrelated charges of possessing child sex abuse material, the Orange County Sheriffs Office said at the time. Sterns is now charged with murder in connection with the girl's death. While investigating Madeline's disappearance, police found photos of Sterns allegedly sexually abusing Madeline, according to an arrest affidavit cited by WESH, WFLA and FOX 35. Madeline's mother Jennifer Soto was shown photos of Sterns' alleged abuse, and her reaction was captured in a clip of the interview released by the OCSO and shared by Click 2 Orlando. In the video of the interview, which was conducted a few hours before Madeline's body was found, Jennifer says she initially did not think Sterns was responsible for Madeline's being missing. "When you guys showed me the picture of her, I believed the sexual stuff but I did not want to believe he had done anything evil to her," she says. Then she adds, "I'm like: no, what if he did this stuff fine, but what if shes still out there." Related: Madeline Soto, 13, Allegedly Shared Bed with Mom's Boyfriend, Who'd 'Snuggle' Her, Mom Told Police in Interview "What if she got abducted?" she continues, "But that was me assuming that you guys had the wrong guy. I wanted to believe he was the good guy still." The officer questioning Jennifer then double-checks if Jennifer said the alleged abuse was "fine." At that point, Jennifer says, "It's not fine," and then the officer continues speaking. Orange County Jail; Orange County Sheriffs Office Stephan Sterns (left); and Jennifer Soto being interviewed by detectives Related: Madeline Soto's Mom Allegedly Told Police Boyfriend Was 'Grooming and Abusing' Teen Jennifer also says in the same interview that she was "oblivious" to Sterns' alleged abuse against her teen daughter, who was allegedly made to share the bed with the couple in their home. Jennifer says she often woke up to Sterns allegedly "snuggling" the teenager while in his boxers, per the interview. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. According to the medical examiner, Madeline died from strangulation, FOX 35 Orlando, WESH and Click Orlando previously reported. Sterns was charged with murder in connection with Madeline's death in April, per Osceola County court records. Online court records do not show a plea by Sterns to the murder charge. He has pleaded not guilty to 60 counts of sexual abuse charges, per the Osceola News-Gazette. If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages. If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Diddys attorney Marc Agnifilo has been making headlines as he recently appeared in TMZs Downfall of Diddy: The Indictment documentary. A clip that has been circulating online shows Agnifilo giving his take that the federal government started making their case against Diddy as a take down of a successful Black man. He added that the feds are historically no friend of the successful Black man, and that they are scrutinizing Diddys business and his taxes, as the music mogul does everything right. Claiming that the Feds had nothing else on Diddy, Agnifilo added that as a last vestige, they are attacking the way he is having sex. Earlier this week Agnifilo also gave his reasoning on why there may have been a bulk of baby oil found during the raiding of Diddys homes. While speaking to the New York Post (Sept. 21), Agnifilo downplayed Diddys freak offs and also said that he doesnt believe the music mogul bought 1,000 bottles. He also cited the retailer Costco as a source of where he could have bought the product in bulk, even though the store doesnt sell the body moisturizer. I dont think it was 1,000, he began. I think there was a lot. Theres a Costco right down the street [from Diddys house]. You know, I think Americans buy in bulk as we know this is consensual adults doing what consensual adults do. We cant get so puritanical in this country to think that some how sex is a bad thing, because if it was, there would be no more people. Doubling down on his stance, Agnifilo also spoke about the matter with TMZ for Downfall of Diddy: The Indictment. As Harvey Levin explained how Diddy could have used the baby oil as a lubricant for an orgy, Agnifilo responded, I guess. One bottle of baby oil goes a long way. I dont know what you need a thousand for. He continued, [Diddy] has a big house. He buys in bulk. I think they have Costcos in every place where he has a home. I mean, have you sat in a parking lot of a Costco and see what people walk out of there with? I dont think it was a thousand. Lets just say it was a lot. Since then, Costco has clarified and confirmed that they dont sell baby oil in any of their locations across the country. The 54-year-old was arrested on Sept. 16 at a hotel in New York City by officers following a grand jury indictment. Diddy was then arraigned in a federal court in Manhattan the following day and charged with sex trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to engage in prostitution. Diddy has pleaded not guilty to all charges and has been denied bail twice. He returns to court on Oct. 9. More from VIBE.com Sign up for Vibe's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Diddy's Lawyer Claims Feds Just Want To Take Down 'A Successful Black Man' After Rapper's Arrest Sean "Diddy" Combs' attorney, Marc Agnifilo, has a lot to say about the arrest and charges brought against the disgraced rapper after a grand jury indictment. He recently argued that the federal charges, which include racketeering and sex trafficking, reflect systemic bias against successful Black individuals. Diddy is currently detained at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center following allegations dating back to 2008 that he coerced and abused women. Diddy's Lawyer Claims The Government's Charges Reflect Bias Against 'Successful Black Men' MEGA Agnifilo, a former Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan, criticized the government's actions, arguing that the charges against the music mogul, which includes racketeering and sex trafficking, exemplify the federal government's long-standing hostility toward successful Black individuals. During an appearance on TMZ's "The Downfall of Diddy: The Indictment," Agnifilo stated that the federal government is "historically no friend of the successful black man." He noted: "They start making this case as a takedown of a successful Black man. This is the government scrutinizing his business, scrutinizing his taxes, he does everything right." Agnifilo questioned the motives behind probing into Diddy's personal life, adding: "What's the last vestige, we are going to go into his bedroom because maybe we don't like the way he is having sex." He also highlighted Diddy's achievements as a prominent Black businessman, lamenting that society has unfairly painted him as a "monster." The Rapper Is Facing Serious Charges Over Allegations Of Abuse And 'Freak Offs' MEGA Diddy was taken into custody last week by Homeland Security officials at the Park Hyatt hotel in midtown Manhattan and is currently held at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center as he awaits trial. The charges against him, which date back to 2008, allege that he has abused, threatened, and coerced women over the years to satisfy his sexual desires while protecting his reputation and concealing his actions. More details from the indictment show that the rapper used a criminal organization to perpetrate the crimes he is charged with, as well as other illegal activities, including kidnapping, arson, and bribery. The organization, known as The Combs Enterprise, also appears to be the channel with which Diddy "arranged" and "directed" an illicit venture called the "Freak Offs." According to the indictment, the "Freak Offs" were "elaborate and produced sex performances" that included women who were drugged and made to sleep with male prostitutes. These performances, which could go on for days, were often "electronically recorded," and Diddy "m-sturbated during" these recordings. The indictment claims that some of these "Freak Offs" could last for days, necessitating IV fluids for both Diddy and the participants to recover from physical exertion and drug use. Diddy's Lawyer Addresses The Discovery Of 1000 Bottles Of Baby Oil And Lube In The Rapper's Homes MEGA Federal agents reportedly seized "1,000 bottles" of baby oil and lubricant during raids on his residences in Miami and Los Angeles earlier this year. Speaking to the New York Post, Agnifilo commented on the volume of items seized, suggesting that Diddy's bulk purchasing habits are similar to those of many Americans. "I don't think it was 1,000 bottles; I think it was a lot. I mean, there is a Costco right down the street. I think Americans buy in bulk, as we know." However, Costco clarified that they do not stock baby oil in any of their stores nationwide. Agnifilo has also defended Diddy's "freak offs," noting that "These are consensual adults doing what consensual adults do, you know, we can't get so puritanical in this country to think that somehow sex is a bad thing because if it was there would be no more people." The lawyer expressed confidence in his client's outlook, noting, "He's just laser-focused, he's engaged, he's helpful, he's confident. We're going through our defense as we do every day and his spirits are relatively good." Diddy Is Being Held At The Infamous Brooklyn MDC Jail MEGA The disgraced rapper is held at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center and will remain there until his trial after he was denied bail twice this past week. Federal prosecutors have accused him of "creating a criminal enterprise whose members and associates engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice." According to TMZ, prosecutors argued that he is too dangerous to be released on bail and may resort to coercing witnesses on the case to do his bidding. U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter ruled against Diddy's bail petition, saying he was turning it down because "the government has proven the defendant is a danger. The bail package is insufficient even on risk of flight." The Rapper Will Testify During His Trial MEGA Diddy's lawyer, Agnifilo, has shared that the rapper will be testifying in his criminal trial. He acknowledged that the move might be a gamble because the prosecutors would have a chance to grill Diddy during a cross-examination. However, Agnifilo believes that the Grammy winner is in the best position to defend himself in court. "He has his story, and he has a story that I think only he can tell in the way he can tell it in real-time," Agnifilo said, per The Mirror. "And it's a human story. It's a story of, of, of love. It's a story of hurt. It's a story of heartbreak." District court judge dismisses some but not all charges in Nebraska medical cannabis lawsuit Lancaster County District Judge Susan Strong presides over the first day of hearings in a case related to medical cannabis ballot petitions. Sept. 20, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner) LINCOLN A Lancaster County District Court judge Friday allowed a lawsuit against the states active medical cannabis petitions to move forward. Judge Susan Strong, in a 14-page ruling, determined that the lawsuit from John Kuehn, a veterinarian, rancher, former state senator and former member of the Nebraska State Board of Health, should proceed on two counts that relate to voter signatures. The judge dismissed the other complaints on a ballot sponsor statement and the Nebraska Constitutions single subject rule. For the lawsuit to move forward, Kuehn needed to allege sufficient facts for relief that is plausible on its face, which Strong said she balanced with the publics right to petition. We have repeatedly said that the right to initiative is precious to the people and one which the courts are zealous to preserve to the fullest tenable measure of spirit as well as letter, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled in a related lawsuit two weeks ago, which Strong cited Friday. There are two petitions in circulation that would adopt the following state laws, if given voter approval: Nebraska Medical Cannabis Regulation Act Define cannabis; legalize possessing, manufacturing, distributing, delivering and dispensing cannabis for medical purposes; and create the Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission to oversee the new state law. (Initiative Measure 437). Nebraska Medical Cannabis Patient Protection Act Set an allowable amount of medical cannabis at five ounces; exempt patients and caregivers from using or assisting someone else in using the cannabis; and require a written recommendation from a health care practitioner prior to prescription. (Initiative Measure 438). Alleged invalid signatures Kuehn has alleged there are more than enough improperly counted valid signatures that the two medical cannabis petitions should be withheld from the Nov. 5 ballot. If that is impossible, but there are still enough invalid signatures, Kuehn argued those election results should be void. The campaign needs 86,499 valid signatures on each of its two petitions to regulate and legalize the drug. Secretary of State Bob Evnen, who is also named in the lawsuit, validated nearly 90,000 signatures on both petitions Sept. 13, the final day to do so. That leaves just about 3,000 signatures in wiggle room for the bulk signature requirement. Kuehn has alleged that on at least one petition, upward of at least 17,000 signatures were validated but should have been discarded. Those allegations range from signers not being registered voters or Evnen counting duplicative signatures to improper notarizations, circulator payment disclosures or incomplete voter information like date of birth and home address. Strong cites Kuehns allegations that at least 2,433 signers were not registered voters, that 48 signers didnt register to vote until after the petition was due July 3 or that 67 people signed more than once but were counted both times. The ballot sponsors dont dispute that if some of the laundry list of reasons are accurate, some signatures should not have been counted, Strong wrote. But the sponsors also say the main requirement that a signer be registered to vote wouldnt be enough to invalidate the petitions. Defining a clerical and technical error Strong said state law does allow some clerical and technical errors to be disregarded if certain other signature-gathering requirements are substantially followed. But defining what is a technical error will likely be the next step as Strong said it isnt purely a question of law. The Court agrees with the Sponsors that not every error or irregularity should invalidate a signature, Strong wrote. As an example, she said, whether it is a technical error that some signatures dont include a date when the voter signed but are sandwiched between two other signatures with the same date. Obviously, the language of the Nebraska Constitution and statutes is also relevant to whether a defect is technical or clerical, Strong wrote. But the Court declines to resolve this issue at the pleadings stage based only on the Courts opinion of the relative importance of the statutory requirements allegedly violated. Strong allowed the case to move forward to determine whether there are enough signatures in a broader review. Crista Eggers, campaign manager for the ballot measures, said in a statement the group is grateful for Strongs decision to dismiss two complaints and will continue to exercise all legal options against the signature-based challenges. We have complete confidence that our local election officials correctly and accurately validated the petition signatures, and that our campaign met all legal requirements to appear on the ballot, Eggers said. We remain focused on making sure all Nebraskans have their voice heard on this issue. Kuehns attorneys had no immediate comment. Separate complaint from secretary of state Evnen and Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers specifically asked the court in a separate cross-claim to take up the case, particularly after uncovering at least one instance of alleged petition fraud by a paid petition circulator in Grand Island, who was arrested for allegedly forging signatures. Those signatures were never counted, election officials have confirmed. The two constitution officers have said the case will help election integrity and the bedrock of democratic governance and settle the matter. Strong said Evnen has not requested any relief that would be different than that of Kuehn and said it is unclear whether Evnen has a personal stake in the outcome or a legal or equitable right, title or interest in the subject of the controversy. The judge also pointed to a recent Supreme Court concurrence from Chief Justice Mike Heavican and Justice Lindsey Miller-Lerman that there is no process by which the Secretary can change his mind and rescind his legal sufficiency determination. Ballot sponsor complaint The two other allegations that Strong dismissed were that one of the sponsors, State Sen. Anna Wishart of Lincoln, did not provide her full street address when she filed the petition and that the regulatory petition consists of multiple subjects in violation of the Nebraska Constitution. In Wisharts case, she listed her street address but not her city, state or ZIP code, which Kuehn said should invalidate both petitions. Strong said no other Nebraska case law has defined street address as it relates to the petition laws. Citing Dictionary.com, she said Wishart would still comply as she listed the name or number of a building along with the name of the road or street on which it is located. However, even if accepting Kuehns allegations, Strong wrote, Wishart would still prevail as she is on record in taking responsibility for the petition. Her statement was also notarized in Lancaster County where she lives, Strong said. Single subject requirement On the other side, the Nebraska Constitution prohibits state laws and ballot measures from containing more than one subject in an effort to prevent log-rolling or the swaying of interests. Both Kuehn and the ballot sponsors point to a 2020 Supreme Court decision that argued the creation of the Nebraska Gaming Commission to regulate for-profit gambling was connected to its greater purpose. However, Kuehns attorneys argue there was no executive branch to take up gambling regulation, unlike the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services or Board of Pharmacy that oversees regulation of all other prescriptions. Strong said she did not find that argument persuasive and said the Medical Cannabis Commission is naturally and necessarily connected to the broader initiatives purpose. In liberally construing the initiative to zealously preserve the peoples right to enact laws independently of the Legislature, the Court holds the Regulatory Initiative does not violate the single subject rule, Strong wrote. Evnen similarly denied both allegations against the ballot sponsors. Strong has not scheduled a future hearing for the case but ordered all parties to work together and suggest a timeline for next steps and any related discovery by next Wednesday, Oct. 2. At a hearing last week, Strong and multiple attorneys said a preelection resolution would be most favorable so voters know whether their vote will stand up to a potential infirmity. strong-MTD-kuehn-lawsuit strong-MTD-evnen-claim strong-progression-order SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Dixie Electric workers to help restore power in Florida after Helene LAUREL, Miss. (WHLT) On Friday, September 27, 19 Dixie Electric line workers headed to aid in power restoration at Talquin Electric Cooperative, which took a direct hit from Hurricane Helene. Headquartered just west of Tallahassee, Florida, Talquin has reported that 60-percent of its 57,000-meter system was without power. Helene slams the South with wind, rain and flooding. Millions are without power The damage is extensive, with large trees on power lines and broken poles. Mississippi cooperatives were called on to enact mutual aid, sending 260 personnel statewide. Our crews are ready to answer the call, whether its here at home or across state lines, said Communication Manager Amanda Mills. Their willingness to leave their families and put themselves in tough, sometimes dangerous situations speaks to their dedication and the deep sense of duty they carry. Linemen sacrifice a lot they miss out on time with their loved ones, and they face extreme conditions, all so they can help bring power back to those in need. We couldnt be more proud of them for their bravery and commitment to service, and we pray for their safe return. Once Talquin Electrics power is restored, crews will move to other cooperatives impacted by the hurricane to help restore power. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily Weather Forecast Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJTV. The West Virginia sign at the first night of the Democratic National Convention in August 2024. The Democratic National Committee is investing $50,000 to candidates in the state for the 2024 election. (Ariana Figueroa | States Newsroom) The Democratic National Committee is sending $50,000 to West Virginia for this election cycle, targeting four state legislative races that both the national and statewide Democrats believe could be flipped back to blue. The funds are part of a total $2.5 million investment from the DNC going to dozens of states to aid campaign efforts in the final stretch of the 2024 general election. The races that the money will be focused on were not disclosed. The DNC is committed to electing Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz, and ensuring Democrats have the resources to run competitive races across the map in red and blue states alike, said DNC Chair Jaime Harrison. The investment were announcing today in the West Virginia Democratic Party shows these priorities in action. The money, according to the DNC, will specifically be used for Get Out The Vote efforts, including paying for mailers and supporting local Democrats working on the election to engage with voters. Specifically, per the DNC, the funds should help target youth and minority voters who could be key to flipping competitive seats in the state Legislature. The $50,000 comes as a welcome influx for local Democratic leaders in the deep red state, who are fighting to keep as much power and influence as possible on the state level against an overwhelmingly Republican albeit fractured legislative body. Coming from a red state, [DNC] Chairman [Jaime] Harrison gets it he knows how critical it is to contest every race and rebuild our party from the ground up. Thanks to his leadership and the DNCs financial support, were able to invest in organizing, mobilizing, and reaching voters across West Virginia, said Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, who serves as chair of the West Virginia Democratic Party. The work were doing here is proof that no state is off-limits, and were committed to turning this state blue again. Republicans have held a supermajority in both chambers of the West Virginia Legislature since 2020. Currently, they hold 120 of the total 134 seats in the Legislature 89 out of the 100 seats in the House and 31 of the 34 seats in the Senate. Up until the historic 2014 election, Democrats controlled both chambers of the Legislature for more than 80 years. That year, Republicans flipped 11 seats in the House giving them control with a 64-36 split and seven seats in the Senate, bringing the chamber to a 17-17 deadlock. Shortly after the election, Democratic Sen. Daniel Hall announced he was switching to Republican, allowing the party to take majority control of the chamber. The November election has been and will continue to be an uphill battle for Democrats, who have faced challenges filling the ballot and who are often out-fundraised and outspent by their Republican competitors. According to the West Virginia Secretary of States Office, Republicans are running 48 uncontested races for statehouse seats in November seven in the Senate and 41 in the House. That all but guarantees Republicans will hold those seats following election results. Two more races one in the Senate and one in the House have a Republican candidate running against a third party candidate without a Democrat on the ballot. Conversely, according to candidate listings, Democrats are only guaranteed two seats where they have no competition those held by Dels. Evan Hansen and Anitra Hamilton, both from Monongalia County. Election day is Tuesday, Nov. 5. Early voting starts Oct. 23 and the last day to register to vote in this years general election is Oct. 15. To find your polling place and check your voter registration status, visit the Secretary of States website. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Democrats continue to keep the pressure on Donald Trump and the broader conservative movement over the ending of federal protections for abortion rights but a new memo from the national party indicates that those attacks may expand to encompass another issue: healthcare access. A memo provided to The Indepdendent and issued by the party on Friday outlines angles of attack surrounding the Trump administrations 2017 push to repeal the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. That scheme, which represented a long-held goal of the right under Obamas presidency, ultimately failed after three Republican senators broke ranks with their party to kill the GOPs repeal effort. The drama that played out on the Senate floor culminating in John McCains famous thumbs down belied a larger argument around the issue of healthcare access: the mandated coverage for Americans with pre-existing conditions that was central to the Affordable Care Acts legislation and expanded coverage for millions of Americans people who subsequently would have been ripped off their plans, were it repealed. A so-called skinny repeal bill offered by the GOP in 2017 would have kept that central pre-existing conditions tenet while making other sweeping changes to the bill, including a restructure of Medicare. Experts estimated at the time that millions still would have lost access to health insurance under the Republican plan, and as a result it was sunk. Now, Democrats on the national committee are coming out swinging against their Republican foes over healthcare costs and access to no-cost emergency contraception under the Affordable Care Act. Pointing to parts of the much-maligned Project 2025 that call for an end to FDA approval for mifepristone and other efforts to restrict contraception, the DNC says in the memo that the rollback of access to free emergency contraception would be a blow to the rights of 48 million women who access such treatment, not to mention the milions more who access birth control through subsidized health care plans. Citing Planned Parenthood and other organizations, it notes that contraception accounted for as much as 30%-44% of out-of-pocket healthcare costs for American women prior to the passage of Obamacare. Trump himself has denounced Project 2025 and made multiple efforts to distance himself from the conservative super-group through his public remarks and campaign aides. But the plan was clearly designed with a second Trump presidency in mind and outlines priorities indisputably held by the groups that make up the core of the conservative movement and ones tied to many of his current and former staffers. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, most Americans receive contraception without paying out-of-pocket costs its one of the laws most popular provisions, said DNC press secretary Emilia Rowland on Friday. Democrats are hellbent on linking Donald Trump to Project 2025 over his denunciations and denials (Getty Images) But with Trump hellbent on terminating the ACA if he retakes power, more than 60 million women could lose their access to free birth control under their health plans, and his Project 2025 agenda would rip away access to no-cost emergency contraception for 48 million women, said the DNC spokesperson. This election, Americans have a clear choice: give Trump and Vance unlimited power over our bodies and futures by tearing away access to Plan B and birth control and raising health care costs, or elect Vice President Harris and Governor Walz to defend our freedoms and fight to make access to affordable reproductive care a reality for all. The Independent has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment. The DNCs sharpened edge on the issue of healthcare access may be energized in part by Trumps declaration that he has only a concept of a plan for replacing Obamacare when asked about the issue at the presidential debate in Philadelphia. The moment was somewhat overshadowed by a separate rant dredging up a racist conspiracy about Haitian migrants in Ohio. But the former presidents admission that the GOP still has no central answer for what it would replace Obamacare with has been seized upon by his enemies. Harris herself has taken to making light of the remark. In a sitdown with Oprah Winfrey, the vice president said that the current $5,000 tax credit for starting a small business was inadequate and joked that it would only fund the concept of a business. Whether Trump and the GOP would actually push to repeal Obamacare rather than just carve out the regulations and agencies related to it through political appointments is another story. The ex-president and his party never launched a second bid to replace the legislation after the partys 2017 failure, instead pivoting to a tax plan which passed later that year. It was the last time Trump had majorities in both chambers of Congress, and had the opportunity to try. Trump indicated otherwise during his debate with Harris earlier this month. While largely misrepresenting how he and his party signed on to the legislation aimed at killing the Affordable Care Act, the ex-president insisted that he saved the signature legislation of his predecessor. JD Vance, his running mate, has made similar remarks. Obamacare was lousy healthcare. Always was, said Trump at the debate. I had a choice to make when I was president: Do I save it and make it as good as it can be? Never going to be great. Or do I let it rot? And I felt I had an obligation, even though politically it would have been good to just let it rot and let it go away... And I saved it. I did the right thing. And a Trump campaign spokesperson claimed that the former president had fully moved on from his effort to repeal the legislation. "Kamala Harris is lying because she is losing. President Trump has repeatedly said he is not going to terminate the Affordable Care Act. He is going to make healthcare actually affordable, in addition to bringing down inflation, cutting taxes, and reducing regulations to put more money back in the pockets of all Americans who have been robbed by Kamala Harris and Joe Biden's disastrous economic policies, said Karoline Leavitt. We recently compiled a list of the Best TSX Stocks To Invest In Now. In this article, we will look at where Teck Resources (NYSE:TECK) ranks among the best TSX stocks to invest in now. Canadas Economy Shows Signs of Stabilization According to Deloitte, the Canadian economy is showing signs of stabilisation after three years of turmoil, with inflation steadily declining since June 2022. Canadas economy grew stronger in the first half of 2024 than previously forecast, but the pace of recovery is expected to be limited in the second half of the year due to slower household spending. The updated forecast projects real GDP growth of 1.2% for 2024, followed by 2.6% growth in 2025, with real GDP per person falling by 1.6% in 2024 before clawing back to gain 1.1% growth in 2025. The Bank of Canada has begun to ease its monetary policy, paving the way for stronger economic growth. However, the pace of monetary easing is uncertain, and weak investment and productivity performance continue to pose a risk to Canadas long-term economic outlook. The Bank of Canada is expected to cut interest rates at a gradual pace, with a rate cut in September followed by another in December and March. The overnight rate is expected to settle at a neutral level of 2.75% by the end of next year, assuming inflation continues to decrease and returns to the 2% target by the second quarter of next year. Business sentiment in Canada is beginning to recover, with improved confidence across regions and sectors. However, business investment has been weak, directly impacting productivity and living standards. Since the 2014 commodity price crash, labour productivity in Canada has remained flat, while unit labour costs have increased by over 30%. The economys current challenge is generating enough jobs to keep up with Canadas rapidly growing population. Despite a strong pace of growth, employment has not kept up with population growth over the past 12 months, resulting in a rise in the unemployment rate. Wage growth slowed dramatically in the first quarter of 2024, and slower wage growth is expected to be the norm this year and next. Canadian households are the most indebted in the G7, and the increases in interest rates since 2022 have hit their pocketbooks. Real consumer spending per person has fallen in five of the last six quarters, and the effect on home-building has been even more dramatic. However, consumer spending and residential investment are expected to increase as interest rate decreases work to restore demand. Economist Predicts Stronger Economic Growth for Canada James Orlando, a senior economist at TD Bank, is optimistic about Canadas economic growth prospects, particularly in light of the recent interest rate cuts by the Bank of Canada. According to Orlando, Canadas economic growth has consistently lagged behind the United States, but a change in interest rate policy could help close the gap. The Bank of Canadas decision to cut interest rates is expected to lead to lower mortgage rates and increased consumer spending. This, in turn, could boost economic growth and help Canada catch up with the United States. Orlando notes that the Canadian economy is highly sensitive to interest rates, particularly in the housing market. With high levels of debt and a reliance on variable-rate mortgages, Canadians are more likely to feel the pinch of higher interest rates. However, with the Bank of Canadas rate cuts, Orlando expects to see increased investment in the housing market and potentially improved affordability. While affordability is still a concern, Orlando believes that the rate cuts will help to stimulate economic growth and create jobs. Orlando also notes that the Canadian economy is expected to benefit from increased investment in areas such as the green transition and the production of electric vehicles. With a growing population and a need for more housing, Orlando expects to see increased investment in the housing market and other areas of the economy. While there are still challenges ahead, Orlando believes that the Bank of Canadas rate cuts and the resulting economic stimulus will help to drive growth and create jobs in the Canadian economy. While Canadas economy is showing signs of stabilisation, the economy still faces significant challenges, including weak investment and productivity performance, a rapidly growing population, and high household debt levels. However, with the Bank of Canada easing its monetary policy and interest rates expected to decrease, consumer spending and residential investment are expected to increase, paving the way for stronger economic growth in the long term. With that in context, lets take a look at the 8 best TSX stocks to invest in now. Our Methodology For this article, we used Finviz and Yahoo Finance stock screeners plus online rankings to compile an initial list of the 40 largest companies in Canada by market cap. From that list, we narrowed our choice down to the 8 stocks that were the most widely held by hedge funds, as of Q2 of 2024. The list is sorted in ascending order of the number of hedge fund investors in each stock. Why do we care about what hedge funds do? 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). Teck Resources (NYSE:TECK) Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 69 Teck Resources (NYSE:TECK) is one of Canadas largest integrated natural resources groups. It produces copper from its four mines in Canada, Chile, and Peru. The company also produces zinc from its Alaska operating mine and coal from its mines in British Columbia. Copper is an essential commodity in a wide range of innovations and technologies, including electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind turbines. According to McKinsey, the worlds increasing reliance on electrification is expected to drive up annual copper demand to 36.6 million tonnes by 2031, a significant increase from the current demand of around 25 million tonnes. However, copper supply will only reach 30.1 million tonnes, leaving a substantial gap of 6.5 million tonnes. Furthermore, a net-zero emissions path would require an additional 54% of copper by 2030, highlighting the need for significant investment in copper production to meet the worlds growing demand. Teck Resources (NYSE:TECK) Quebrada Blanca operations are stabilising, and production is ramping up steadily. This will drive up revenue and profitability for the company. Furthermore, the companys commitment to return 30-100% of available cash flow to shareholders. The world is facing a severe copper supply deficit, which is expected to persist beyond 2030. This will drive up copper prices and benefit Teck Resources (NYSE:TECK) due to its exposure to the rapidly growing demand for copper in the clean energy transition. In the second quarter, the companys stock was held by 69 hedge funds with stakes worth $1.95 billion. Overall TECK ranks 1st on our list of the best TSX stocks to invest in now. While we acknowledge the potential of TECK 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 TECK but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: $30 Trillion Opportunity: 15 Best Humanoid Robot Stocks to Buy According to Morgan Stanley and Jim Cramer Says NVIDIA Has Become A Wasteland. Disclosure. None. This article is originally published on Insider Monkey. Maeve Boothby ONeill died in 2021, having suffered with ME for years A bereaved father has told a coroner that doctors must stop believing ME is a mental health problem. Maeve Boothby ONeill died in October 2021, aged 27, after years of suffering from myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). The condition affects the nervous and immune systems and saps energy, making it difficult to perform physical and mental tasks and causing severe pain and fatigue. An inquest into her death found that a lack of understanding by medical staff led to failings in the treatment that Ms Boothby ONeill received, with her family struggling to find proper care from the NHS. In a letter submitted to the coroner ahead of Fridays hearing, Sean ONeill, a Times journalist, said: There is a need to dispel the deeply entrenched view, held especially by older medics, that ME is a psychological condition, that somehow the patient is only ill because they believe themselves to be ill. He added: It is, in my view, shameful that a hospital in the UK in 2021 should be unable to treat a disease that has been recognised by the World Health Organisation for more than 50 years. Sean ONeill wants to see the way ME is treated in the NHS completely change so that it is not viewed as a psychological condition - Lee Thomas On Friday, Deborah Archer, the assistant coroner of Devon, confirmed she would would be drafting a Prevention of Future Deaths report to raise issues that arose in the inquest to authorities including the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), NHS England and Nice (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence). It is understood to be the first time a coroner has taken such a step in relation to a death from ME. Ms Boothby ONeill, who had lived with ME for more than a decade, was admitted three times to Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital over the course of 2021, but refused a fourth admission because no treatment was available to improve or alleviate her condition. Poorly understood disease Giving evidence at Exeter Coroners Court on Friday, Dr Anthony Hemsley, medical director for the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, told the court how he had taken several steps to raise issues in relation to the illness with senior NHS executives and politicians. This included a lack of education among healthcare professionals, and community care specifically tailored for ME patients. In a narrative verdict given last month, Ms Archer ruled that Ms Boothby ONeill had died of malnutrition caused by severe ME after her hospital was unable to treat the condition. There were no policies, protocols or guidelines for the treatment of ME in 2021, and on Friday Ms Archer told the court there were just one or two paragraphs of Nice guidance on the condition. In his submissions to Ms Archer, Mr ONeill asked the coroner to consider writing to a number of bodies to improve care and treatment of patients, training and education for medical professionals, and research into the poorly understood disease. Mr ONeill suggested several organisations as recipients, including, but not limited to, the DHSC, the Medical Research Council, the NHS, and the Medical Schools Council. Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust was also asked to provide a document to Ms Archer detailing its policies on ME patients. Addressing Mr ONeill and Sarah Boothby, Maeves mother, the coroner said: I know that this has been a long and harrowing process and I also understand that at the end of these processes, nobody goes away with all the answers they want and completely happy. But I hope that by making this report it will go some way into starting change into this important area. Sarah Boothby, Maeves mother, was present at Fridays hearing - Lee Thomas Speaking after the hearing, Mr ONeill said: It is hugely significant that the coroner is to write a Prevention of Future Deaths report and direct it to health ministers and NHS bosses. It is the first time a coroner will have taken such a step after a death from ME. He added: Science and medicine have a blind spot where this awful illness is concerned but the coroner has clearly seen the risks posed by that systemic failure. I hope her report will be a spur to action on medical training, much-needed biomedical research and the provision of specialist care for patients with severe ME. 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. Does my vote matter? Where your vote in Oklahoma can make a difference Though it may feel like only a drop in a bucket, your vote in November can still make a difference, experts say. University of Oklahoma Professor Tyler Johnson said voters look at larger races like the presidential race and get frustrated when they see one-party rule or lopsided outcomes with the difference of hundreds of thousands of votes. They don't think one person is likely to be able to make a difference on Election Day or between election days, for that matter, Johnson said. That growing exasperation with politics can turn into apathy, which keeps many would-be voters at home during a critical election year. But that isn't the story for all elections. - many are still determined by razor-thin margins and one person's vote could still turn the tide. Does my vote really matter? Here's where your voice could make an impact. Does my vote actually matter? In short, yes. But it matters in different ways in different elections. For Johnson, he said the idea of a vote mattering must be defined and can ultimately come down to context. If voters are looking for one person's vote to tip the scale, its far more likely to happen in a local election than at the presidential level. When you cast a vote in the presidential election, you're not voting directly for a candidate. Instead, your vote directs Oklahoma's presidential electors, otherwise known as members of the Electoral College, and that group is who actually casts votes for a presidential candidate. In every other election, such as for school board members or state legislators, races are decided by popular vote, so the vote you cast is directly counted for the candidate you choose. This means some local elections can be decided by a single person's vote. Thinking about local power should be one way to motivate turnout even though the presidential vote in this state is out of reach, there are plenty of examples of a few votes here and there impacting State House contests, for example, Johnson said. Additionally, these local officials have more impact on your day-to-day life, given the nature of these positions. Members of the school board, city council, or state legislature have the power to improve roads near your home, direct funds toward your child's school, or create laws to target crime in your neighborhood. Check your voter registration by using this portal. Does Oklahoma matter during the presidential election? Pollster and consultant Pat McFerron previously told The Oklahoman that the Sooner State's presidential election doesn't matter necessarily in the grand scheme of things. Oklahomas smaller media market, Electoral College size, and voting history make it a predictably Republican win, so candidates will skip visiting the state to target so-called swing states instead. These factors create a reality that may make Oklahomans want to stay home instead of going to the polls on Nov. 5. Oklahoma being a deeply red state is definitely demobilizing. It minimizes the conversation here. We don't get candidate visits. We don't get as many ads (and the ads we do get aren't tailored to us). It's harder to generate excitement, he said. However, many activist groups still encourage voters in places like Oklahoma to head to the polls during presidential elections because there are still down-ballot races included that election day. To see a list of elections included in your county, visit the Oklahoma State Election Board website. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Does my vote matter? It's complicated. Explaining vote impact in Oklahoma BRYAN, Texas (FOX 44) A domestic violence abuser has been sentenced to 51 years in prison by a Brazos County judge. The Brazos County District Attorneys Office says Harvey Stockton was sentenced on Thursday for his Assault Family Violence with a Prior Conviction charge in the 85th District Court. This comes after a jury convicted him of this charge on Wednesday. This was Stocktons eighth conviction for domestic violence. The victim ended a romantic relationship with Stockton in August 2022. When the victim returned Stocktons personal property, he assaulted the victim by grabbing her from behind with both hands wrapped around her neck. The victim lost consciousness during the assault and was later awakened by her young daughter. The Brazos County D.A.s Office says Stockton confronted the victim again at her apartment shortly after the assault, forced his way inside and assaulted her again once inside her home. This assault also took place in front of the victims young daughter. The jury heard testimony from two civilian witnesses who saw Stockton force himself into the victims apartment and called 9-1-1. When College Station Police officers arrived, Stockton was no longer on scene but was found in his apartment a short time later. The victim was treated for her injuries by College Station EMS. Long-term meth investigation results in arrest While Stockton was incarcerated on these charges, records from the Brazos County Jail showed him instructing the victim to contact the Brazos County D.A.s Office and defect her story. The Brazos County D.A.s Office says after the jury convicted Stockton, they also found that the way he strangled and assaulted the victim could have caused serious bodily injury. During the punishment phase of the trial, the Court heard evidence that Stockton had seven previous convictions for domestic violence involving a different victim. The state also showed Stockton had been to prison on four prior occasions. During the sentencing, the Judge Kyle Hawthorne stated family violence is rampant in this world [and is] tearing the fabric of this country. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KWKT - FOX 44. Former president Donald Trump is promoting $100,000 watches branded after him as he seeks a return to the White House, the latest - and priciest - product he has helped sell in a string of unusual for-profit enterprises for a presidential candidate. The Trump Victory Tourbillon is almost entirely made out of 18 Carat Gold and decorated with 122 Diamonds, according to the website selling it, which also offers cheaper Trump-branded watches starting at $499. Only 147 Tourbillons are being made. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. Trump, in a social media post Thursday, said the watches are truly special and suggested them as a Christmas gift. Dont wait, they will go fast, Trump said. GET YOUR TRUMP WATCH RIGHT NOW! The $100,000 watch is the most expensive merchandise that Trump has lent his name to during his 2024 presidential campaign. He has pitched $499 sneakers, $99 digital trading cards - even a Bible that is about $60. Trump sometimes offers to autograph the items, sending the price higher. Ethics experts say there is no precedent for someone monetizing the presidency - or a presidential campaign - in the way Trump has. One adviser previously told The Post that Trump relishes the opportunity to cash in on his name as he has dealt with mounting personal legal costs since leaving the White House. The pace of moneymaking ventures has appeared to pick up in recent weeks. Last week, Trump announced he was selling a $100 silver coin with his face on it, days after he debuted a cryptocurrency business, World Liberty Financial, with the help of his sons. His wife, former first lady Melania Trump, has been promoting an upcoming book that has a $250 collectors edition available for preorder. Trump has been unabashed in marketing the merchandise, too. He promoted the coin in a video posted to social media. The medallion more than just a collectors item - its a testament to the resilience and strength of the American people, he said. In a promotional video on gettrumpwatches.com, the former president says the $100,000 model is one of the best watches made and marvels at its features. Thats a lot of diamonds, Trump says. I love gold. I love diamonds. We all do. The watches are only available for preorder on the website, which cautions that the images displayed are for illustration purposes only and may not be an exact representation of the product. A website section for frequently asked questions says none of the proceeds go to Trumps campaign. Vice President Kamala Harriss presidential campaign has been raising more money than Trumps campaign, including by a margin of more than 4 to 1 in August. Trump Watches are not designed, manufactured, distributed or sold by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization or any of their respective affiliates or principals, the website says. TheBestWatchesonEarth LLC uses the Trump name, image and likeness under a license agreement which may be terminated or revoked according to its terms. The LLC is registered in Wyoming under the name of attorney Andrew Pierce, who also filed the paperwork for the LLC that sells the Trump sneakers. Asked for details of the license agreement, Trumps campaign directed questions to the Trump Organization, which did not respond to a request for comment. The Harris campaign has argued that the Trump-branded products underscore how self-interested he is as he runs for president again - a point Harriss team reiterated Thursday. [Forty] days out from election day. Donald Trump is selling $100,000 watches, Harris campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa said on X. Not a joke. Trump is more focused on himself than anyone else. For other Trump critics, the watch sales evoked an earlier chapter of his political life, when Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) attacked Trump during a 2016 presidential primary debate. Heres the guy that inherited $200 million, Rubio said. If he hadnt inherited $200 million, you know where Donald Trump would be right now? Selling watches in Manhattan. Related Content Meet the United Auto Workers members who could swing the election When bear jams close the road, this park brigade comes to the rescue (NewsNation) As cleanup efforts continue after Helene tore through Florida, Georgia, and other states along the eastern seaboard, victims of the Category 4 hurricane that has since been downgraded to a tropical storm will begin to try to recover from the damage done by the storm. As of Friday afternoon., officials announced that at least 30 people have died, and an estimated 4 million people are without power as Helene continues to track north after making landfall on Thursday in Florida. The storm has destroyed homes and businesses, leaving countless residents in four states where deaths have been reported to deal with the damage left behind by Helene. Over 800,000 Floridians left without power from Hurricane Helene Many areas remain under evacuation orders as roads have been deemed inaccessible due to levels of water and debris caused by the storm. As the cleanup effort begins, here is a list of organizations that are assisting in the effort to help victims of Helene and that are accepting donations to assist those affected by the storm. American Red Cross The American Red Cross has been on the ground in areas affected by the storm after moving teams of volunteers to regions in Helenes path to be ready to assist storm victims. The Red Cross has partnered with local shelters, providing snacks and 45,000 ready-to-eat meals. The organization is also deploying emergency vehicles to assist storm victims. How to help: Those wanting to make donations to Helene victims can visit Redcross.org or call 1-800-RED-CROSS (800-733-2767) to make a financial donation or schedule a blood donation appointment. The Salvation Army The Salvation Army has mobilized teams and mobile feeding units, each of which is capable of providing up to 1,500 meals per day. The efforts began in Florida, but the organization said that assistance would also be provided to residents living in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Along with meal service, the Salvation Army said it is dispatching trained emotional and spiritual care personnel who will provide comfort and emotional support for survivors and first responders. How to help: Those wishing to donate to the Salvation Armys efforts to assist storm victims can donate by visiting the organizations website. United Way The United Way offers assistance to residents affected by Helene and other natural disasters by providing evacuation assistance, shelter, food and clothing, and other volunteer-driven efforts. How to help: Those seeking to make monetary donations to storm victims and survivors can do so by visiting the United Way of Florida Disaster Fund website. Catholic Charities Catholic Charities, which is the official domestic relief agency of the U.S. Catholic Church has launched a dedicated effort to assist those affected by Helene. All funds donated to the effort will be directed to those displaced or in need of assistance following the storm. How to help: Those wishing to make donations through Catholic charities can visit the website set up to specifically provide financial help and other assistance to storm victims and survivors. All Hands and Hearts All Hands and Hearts provides immediate and long-term assistance to communities affected by natural disasters. The organization works alongside local residents and deploys teams of volunteers to help rebuild homes, schools, and other community infrastructure damaged or destroyed by storms. Satellite video shows potentially historic Helene from space How to help: All Hands and Hearts accepts financial donations through its website and also allows people to volunteer for teams sent to storm-effected areas to assist in community rebuilding efforts. Florida Disaster Fund The Florida Disaster Fund is the state of Floridas official private fundraising arm for disaster relief. According to the organization, the fund provides financial help to communities devastated by storms in response to emergencies and to provide relief to local residents. How to help: Those wishing to help out with the effort can visit the groups information and donation website. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation. RIDGEVILLE, S.C. (WCBD) Dorchester County is developing two major campuses with a tech giant. Google is expanding its South Carolina cloud region to Ridgeville. It will host two, new data centers that are expecting to hire 200 operational employees. To build the campuses, around 1200 long-term construction jobs will be created. Its a good place, Gov. Henry McMaster said. We know the future is going to rely on data, its going to rely on power, its going to rely on water. Theres no turning back. We need to be very strategic in how we move forward. Our state is a model of commerce, conservation, and preservation we want to keep it that way. Google is expected to impact Dorchester Countys economy and infrastructure. Todd Friddle, Dorchester County Council Chair, said the area is prepared to handle the incoming amounts of people and hopes residents will benefit. I hope that they hire people from around here. Its going to be good paying jobs. The big thing about it is, weve got the base around here for those types of people. Its not going to affect the schools that much 200 jobs. I mean with the amount of tax revenue it is, it puts people in the roads. Weve got more housing facilities now with 1500 people working. Google is working on its initiative to bring clean energy to South Carolina alongside its data centers. Part of the companys $3.3 billion investment goes towards improving energy affordability and a local watershed health project. These new campuses build upon old ones to make them more efficient. With each data center, we do learn, Lilyan Hester, head of Googles Southeast Internal Affairs and Government Relations division, said. Here, we have made a commitment to providing additional infrastructure support and that includes grants to support our sustainability efforts. The tech giant stated it is hoping to run on 24/7 carbon-free energy as well as replenish 120% of the water it consumes by 2030. As for clean energy in the state, Google has reduced energy costs for low and moderate income households in the past two years. Partnerships exist between Google and The Sustainability Institute, Berkeley Electric, and other local companies. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCBD News 2. MSNBCs Jen Psaki asked second gentleman Doug Emhoff if he fears Donald Trump is putting a target on the backs of Jewish Americans with the former presidents warning that Jewish voters will be partly to blame if he loses the 2024 election to Emhoffs wife, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Emhoff, who is Jewish, was unequivocal with his reply. He is, Emhoff, who made history in 2021 when he became the first Jewish spouse of an American president or vice president, told Psaki in a preview clip of an interview that MSNBC aired on Thursday. I mean, take him at his word, Emhoff continued about Trump. He lies about a lot of things but you gotta take him at his word on things like this. So, yeah, this is a disgusting trope, this so-called dual loyalties. Its an outrage. And its not just Jewish people that should be outraged. .@jrpsaki asks @DouglasEmhoff about Trumps recent comments saying Jewish voters would bear a lot of blame if he loses: Jen: Do you worry that he's putting a target on the backs of Jewish Americans? Emhoff: He is. pic.twitter.com/j3wA6hDcBN Inside with Jen Psaki (@InsideWithPsaki) September 27, 2024 Trump, who has a lengthy history of antisemitic comments, last week said any American Jewish person who votes for Harris is a fool and should have their head examined. The Republican nominee warned, The Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss. Its only because of the Democrat hold, or curse, on you. Psaki asked Emhoff if he believed Trump is being antisemitic when he says things like that. Do you look at him and see the repetition of this type of words and language as antisemitic? Of course it is, Emhoff replied. Emhoff has frequently campaigned against antisemitism via his second gentleman role and, earlier his year, slammed Trump as a known antisemite for sharing a video online with references to a unified Reich. Trump, meanwhile, in July agreed with an interviewer who described Emhoff as a crappy Jew, hes a horrible Jew. Related... Doug Emhoff said the remarks Donald Trump made during an appearance at an anti-antisemitic campaign event are only fueling hatred against Jewish Americans. The Second Gentleman responded to the former presidents comments during an interview with MSNBCs Jen Psaki. The political analyst and former White House spokesperson asked if Emhoff felt Trump was putting a target on the backs of Jewish Americans, to which Emhoff replied: He is. I mean, take him at his word. He lies about a lot of things, but youve got to take him at his word on things like this, Emhoff said. So yeah, this is a disgusting trope with this so-called dual loyalties. Its an outrage. And its not just Jewish people who should be outraged. The conversation stems from Trump telling a crowd of Jewish voters on Sept. 19 that it would be their fault if he doesnt get elected come November. The campaign event, titled Fighting Antisemitism in America, was held in Washington D.C. Im not going to call this a prediction, but, in my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss if Im at 40%, Trump said, adding that Democrats have a hold, or curse on the community. You cant let this happen. Forty percent is not acceptable, because we have an election to win. Trump got up there at an event purporting to fight antisemitism, and he said vile antisemitic things, long, tropes that are just terrible. We have to speak out every single time when something like that happens, Emhoff asserted. So Im going to continue not to be afraid, not to be intimidated, not to live in fear, but to live openly and proudly as a Jewish person Blame the Jews, one of the oldest tropes. Before his sitdown with Psaki, Emhoff addressed Trumps statements on X, saying the GOP presidential candidate is fanning the flames of antisemitism. Last night, Donald Trump once again fanned the flames of antisemitism by trafficking in tropes blaming and scapegoating Jews, Emhoff said on Sept. 20, the morning after Trumps remarks. He even did it at an event purporting to fight antisemitism, no less. This is dangerous and must be condemned. We will not be intimidated and will continue to live openly, proudly, and without fear as Jews. Last night, Donald Trump once again fanned the flames of antisemitism by trafficking in tropes blaming and scapegoating Jews. He even did it at an event purporting to fight antisemitism, no less. This is dangerous and must be condemned. We will not be intimidated and will Doug Emhoff (@DouglasEmhoff) September 20, 2024 The post Doug Emhoff Says Trump Is Putting a Target on the Backs of Jewish Americans: Its an Outrage | Video appeared first on TheWrap. Downtown Miamis homeowners and businesses mobilized against a tax increase, telling city leaders in the words of Twisted Sister Were Not Gonna Take It. On Wednesday, Miamis Downtown Development Authority dropped the proposal, alleviating concerns for a community facing rising financial pressures. The quasi-independent city agency funded by a special tax levy eliminated its proposal for a tax rate that would collectively cost current taxpayers some $640,000 more, adjusted for inflation. It would have gone toward future savings and maintaining the quality of existing services. Costs would have varied per household depending on property values. According to the DDAs estimates using data from the property appraiser, for properties in the DDA district ranging from $500,000 to $999,999, the average increase per property for the year would be $2. For properties ranging from $1 million to just under $2 million, the average increase per property for the year would be $6. But the Downtown Neighbors Alliance, a group advocating against the tax increase, said that would have had an unwanted impact on 75,000 residents in the district in downtown Miami, Brickell and Edgewater. On Saturday, the organizations leader and previous political candidate James Torres presented to city leaders and the DDA. He said during the community meeting residents already faced high costs due to inflation, condo assessment fees and special assessments. In addition to the financial burden, quality of life failed to keep up with costs. Overall the savings to the taxpayer is what we have been looking for, Torres said. This is a true win for the community. (Center) Manolo Reyes Commissioner District 4 during a meeting of the city of Miamis urban core plan at Downtown Development Authoritys office in Downtown Miami Travel on Saturday, September 21st., 2024. The new city budget was reviewed and approved on Thursday and set to be approved ahead of the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1. Without the original tax increase proposal, the DDA cut its budget by $1.2 million to avoid owners paying more on the Miami DDA portion of their property taxes, said Manolo Reyes by email, a city commissioner and chairman of the DDA board. Reyes said the DDA will collect the same amount of revenue it has so far and will be able to maintain services, especially on homelessness initiatives, security, sanitation and business incentive grants. We had to make sacrifices to give residents the financial relief they were looking for. Some were easy as we were able to close out contracts and invoices to zero out estimates, Reyes said. Other choices will have greater impact. We will need to hold on some of the items that were noted as being important by residents at the community meetings, like the doggy bag program and parking relief. Downtown Modesto walls getting a makeover. Some will be visible from popular park Audiences listening at next summers MoBand concerts at Graceada Parks Mancini Bowl also will get a visual treat, thanks to DoMo Walls. Four traveling artists and one local artist will create large-scale murals on downtown Modesto walls during the annual DoMo Walls project. They will work from 8 a.m. Monday, Sept. 30, through 9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4. Two of the murals will be visible from the concerts at Graceada Park: on walls at 1414 L St. and 1115 15th St., according to an email from Heidi Savage, CEO at the Downtown Modesto Partnership. Artist Emily Ding works on a mural as part of the DoMo Walls mural festival in Modesto, Calif., Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2023. DoMo Walls is presented by the nonprofit Downtown Modesto Partnership (DoMo) and curated by local artist Aaron Vickery, known as Fasm, according to a press release. The project began in 2018. Over the years, this event has added an impressive 25 world-class murals to the heart of our city, contributing to its cultural richness, the release said. While anyone can stop by daily to view the artists at work, the completed murals will be celebrated Oct. 4 during this seasons last DoMo First Fridays street fair. Artists this year are: Blake Reagan, from Eureka, painting at 1414 L St. Mister Toledo, from Los Angeles, at California Beauty College, 1115 15th St. Miss Teal, from Santa Cruz County, at the Best Western, 909 16th St. Qvo, from San Bernardino, at 1016 12th St. Vickery (Fasm) will paint on a second wall at California Beauty College. Murals help create a more meaningful public space, encourage community engagement and beautify urban spaces, Kathryn Davis, board chair of DoMo, said in the release. They are a key part of downtowns transformation, making it more vibrant and engaging. The project receives resources from community donations, including boom lifts from Thomas Brothers Equipment Rentals and accommodations for the artists from Best Western Town House Lodge, the release said. DoMo Walls donors are listed on the events website, domowalls.com. Public art has the power to transform environments and bring people together, Savage said in the release. We are so grateful for the generosity and faith of community partners who continue to reinvest in downtown Modestos revitalization efforts. Vickery emphasized the attraction such artistic works bring to downtown. With each unique mural, we add a Woah! moment for each first-time viewer, Vickery said in the press release. That makes downtown Modesto a very special place to explore. Star Wars mural on the Never Boring office building on 14th Street in Modesto, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024. By Jasper Ward and Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Former U.S. President Donald Trump, who is the Republican presidential candidate, said on Friday he will seek the prosecution of Google if he wins the Nov. 5 election, claiming that the company only displays "bad stories" about him. Trump, in his post on Truth Social, gave no evidence for his assertion about Google. "It has been determined that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about" Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, Trump said. "This is an illegal activity, and hopefully the Justice Department will criminally prosecute them for this blatant interference of elections," Trump said. "If not, and subject to the laws of our country, I will request their prosecution, at the maximum levels, when I win the election, and become president of the United States." Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump made a similar claim about Google in 2019, according to the Washington Post. He alleged in a series of posts on Twitter, now known as X, that Google favored negative news stories about him in the 2016 presidential election, according to the Post. Google dismissed the claims at the time. However, in recent weeks, some supporters of the former president have renewed the allegations. In July, days after an attempted assassination of Trump, billionaire Elon Musk, in a post on X, accused Google of having a search ban on the former president. (Reporting by Jasper Ward and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Eric Beech) For the 13th consecutive year, Le Bonheur Childrens Hospital, featuring its expert physicians, staff and volunteers, is ranked as 2023 and 2024 Best Childrens Hospitals by U.S. News and World report. Of course, Le Bonheurs success depends on your generosity to serve 250,000 children a year, regardless of their familys ability to pay. Tonight, in this Go Jim Go profile, WREGs Alex Coleman takes us inside Le Bonheur to talk with Dr. Trey Eubanks, the hospitals surgeon-in-chief and its new president. Inside of Le Bonheur Childrens Hospital, its rare to find Dr. Trey Eubanks just seated behind a desk working on his computer. Thats because hes usually making the rounds, interacting with patients, staff and a team of health experts. After serving as interim president, the north Mississippi native was recently named Le Bonheurs new president. For him, its personal. This hospital is dear to me because I know the important role it plays in this community, and how desperately, our community needs great health care for children, Eubanks said. And so I, couldnt say no to that. Dr. Eubanks sees Le Bonheur as a calling for him and the hospitals team of specialists. We want to have the best surgeons. We want to have the best neurologists, the best cardiologists, the best nephrologists, the best intensive care unit doctors that we can get, and so that we can provide the best care for all the kids that may come across our door, he said. Dr. Eubanks proudly took WREG on a tour of the 12-story hospital and gave his diagnosis on the state of the regions only comprehensive childrens facility. Addressing things like preventive health, food shortages, taking, children that are at risk for certain diseases and trying to take them out of those at risk situations, he said. But then again, when there is a need, weve got to always be here. you know, our doors are always open. Le Bonheur, in case youre wondering, is a French term that means happiness, and that happiness and a feeling of home is seen in the artwork throughout the building, and in a new family waiting room and courtyard, along with a chapel for praying. Its about caring not only for the child, but the family as well. Oftentimes, were treating the family more than just the child. So its patient and family centered care is our goal, Eubanks said. The goal of family and patient centered care extends far beyond Memphis by partnering with regional hospitals in Jackson, Jonesboro, and Tupelo as Le Bonheur also expands here in the Bluff City. Were adding more, physician staff, nursing staff, experts in seizure disorder and tumors and, congenital heart disease and things like that, filling and expansion, Eubanks said. Back in May, Le Bonheur unveiled its $95 million expansion, its largest since the current hospital facility opened in 2010, with a major focus now on the Heart Institute adding 31 new beds.. That is going to take care of some of the sickest, children with, either congenital heart disease or children that have been heart failure and need a heart transplant or, you know, our heart transplant program has been going on for some time now, and its really been strong, Eubanks said. He says whats also strong is the neonatal intensive care unit, expanding from what had been a 60 bed unit, to 74 beds, and adding this new MRI guided catheterization lab. In what looks like something from a sci-fi movie or a video game, Le Bonheur is using innovative technology to create this state-of-the-art Virtual Reality Lab. Surgeons wear VR headsets, use video controllers and TV monitors to build a 3-D model and peak inside a patients heart. You can use the VR to see where a valve should be replaced, where actually a stitch should be thrown or should not be thrown, or a device should be placed in with a precision thats going to allow us to do even cooler, more effective treatments in the future, Eubanks said. But hospital expansion, innovative technology and basic patient care dont come cheap. Its why Dr. Eubanks says WREGs Go Jim Go Bike Ride campaign helps get the community involved in raising money for Le Bonheur and many of its vital programs. Obviously, it helps raise money for Le Bonheur. It allows people to have a sense of community because its like Im helping my community, my childrens hospital and its fun, he said. Eubanks says his diagnosis is positive for Le Bonheur, the childrens hospital with the giant heart on the building that serves as a beacon of hope for thousands of kids and their families. Yeah, the diagnosis looks good, and the future is bright. And were very excited. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Jackson County farmer Ben Smith stands in front of some of his cattle. One of Smiths wells has gone dry. He and his family are conserving another for use at their home. Hes one of the West Virginia farmers struggling with the effects of a drought. (Lori Kersey | West Virginia Watch) SANDYVILLE, W.Va. When Ben Smith took over his familys Jackson County farm, he expected floods. After all, he got his start at farming 10 years ago, not long before the deadly 2016 flood hit the state, destroying some of his hay and corn crops. Another flood just last year destroyed some of his corn, too. What Smith didnt anticipate was a 33-foot-deep, hand-dug well on his property drying up. I was told that that well had never gone dry it did this year, Smith said. In a better year, Smith would be using the well to water his cattle, and the grass from his land to keep them fed through the summer and into the fall. But this summer, during a drought, the grass stopped growing. Smith is taking more drastic measures using his cash crop as livestock feed, and making daily trips to the public service district down the road to haul hundreds of gallons of water to the cows. Normally, when we harvest the corn, we sell the grain, he said. Weve got a machine now thats cutting the whole stock and grinding it up to feed the cows. Using the corn as feed now will allow him to save his hay supply for the winter months, he said. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, as of Sept. 24, every county in West Virginia continues to experience drought conditions, and Jackson County is among the worst hit. Its one of 15 counties with exceptional conditions. Rain this week was expected to help lessen dry conditions, but may not be enough to end the drought altogether. In Jackson County, some springs and wells have dried, causing problems for the farmers there. Theres no springs. Theres no creeks The Northern Jackson County Public Service District in Sandyville is one of three places in Jackson County where people can buy bulk water. The agency sells it for a penny per gallon. A federal program allows farmers to be reimbursed for the costs of buying water. I think theyre all being bombarded with folks, but were getting people from Ripley, Evans all around the northern part of the county, Manager Betsy Haught said. Its quiet right now, but theres times that you can look out there and there will be two or three trucks lined up just waiting to get water because theres no springs. Theres no creeks. Theres nothing in the creeks. Haught said the public service district has seen a 116% increase in water sales this summer compared to last year during the same time. I know that a lot of guys have talked about how theyre already taking their cattle to the livestock market over in Fairplain, because they just dont have the water for them, they dont have the hay for them, that type of thing, Haught said. Selling the cattle early can mean the farmer loses out on more money they could have gotten for the animals had they waited until the animals weighed more. Joe Boggess has already sold off some of his cattle because of the drought. He comes to the public service district daily to haul hundreds of gallons of water back to his Jackson County farm. It gets real tiring, Boggess said. Every day, every day Im feeding hay and Ive got to get a load of water every day. And those days when the heat index was over 100, sometimes you wonder, why [am I doing it]? In a good year, Boggess has enough grass to hold off feeding the animals from his supply of hay, allowing him to save it until October and use it on through the winter. This year, he started feeding hay to cattle in July, meaning the supply likely wont last that long. Its a similar story for John Frances, a farmer who has been feeding his animals hay ahead of schedule, and hauling them water since August, he said. Usually, cattle, you dump city water out to them and they kind of snarl their nose, he said. Mine ran straight to the trough and drank it dry, Frances said. With fewer acorns in the woods for them, the deer have eaten more than their usual share of crops this year, too, farmers say. Frances said hes noticed a large herd staying in his eight-acre hayfield along the road. Theyre there probably right now, Frances said. They get done eating and they just lay down there. You never seen that before. Theyd go in the woods or something like that. But theyll go off the side of the shade trees or something, lay down and theyre there. The deer have also been drinking water from a tank Smith has for calves, he said. Frances has cattle and a few donkeys. This year, he sold off calves as expected, along with some heifers. I had five real good heifers, and I debated on keeping them, Frances said. Im glad I sold them now. I probably would have had to sell them anyway. For Smith, feeding his corn to his cows comes with a financial cost. It cost him about $24,000 to grow a field of corn, he said, and he expected to make $35,000 to $40,000 selling it. While the drought has already caused farmers to lose money this year, some are worried its effects could go on next year, even if it rains. Smith would normally use the grain from his corn to feed the pigs and beef cows, next year. Instead, hell have to buy feed next year, he said. So this isnt just this years effect. Its affecting next year already, Smith said. Drought may be on special session call Beth Southern, a spokeswoman for the West Virginia Department of Agriculture, said the state office of the United States Department of Agricultures Farm Service Agency has so far paid out $2.4 million to West Virginia farmers through their disaster relief programs. The numbers change daily as applications are processed, she said. The West Virginia Conservation Agency has also distributed more than $76,000 in assistance for producers. Gov. Jim Justice issued a drought-related state of emergency for all 55 counties in July, and last month he extended it another 30 days, through most of September. The declaration allows the state to access different pools of money and resources to respond to emergencies, but doesnt require the state to provide assistance to farmers. When asked whether the call for a special legislative session planned for next week would include assistance for farmers affected by the drought, CJ Harvey, a spokesman for Gov. Jim Justice, said Wednesday that everything is on the table. Harvey referred a reporter to a state grant program that reimburses fire departments and other public agencies that help reduce drought-related harm to farmers in drought-affected areas of the state. Del. Steve Westfall, a Republican who represents Jackson County in the House of Delegates, said lawmakers were given a general outline of what the governor plans to propose during the special session. The governor alone sets the agenda for special sessions. As of right now, right now the only thing Ive seen on there is just extending the state of emergency for the drought, Westfall said. Thats a concurrent resolution which sounds good in theory, but doesnt do much. It doesnt do anything to help the farmers. Southern said the state Department of Agriculture wants legislators to consider gaps in federal funding for drought relief during the special session. Extending the state of emergency is crucial because state options for funding would dry up without it, she said. The House and Senate leadership teams have been supportive of getting drought on the call and were hopeful the governor will honor the request, Southern said. Westfall said he would vote for any appropriation or other assistance for farmers the governor may suggest. We have a lot of farmers in West Virginia most of them are smaller farmers, so the droughts been hard, Westfall said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX CADDO PARISH, La. (KTAL/KMSS) The Caddo Parish Sheriffs Office is investigating a crash that caused two deaths early Friday morning. A Caddo Parish Sheriffs Office news release said the crash happened just before 7 a.m. on Louisiana Highway 71 just south of the I-49 exchange. Deputies said a small four-door sedan was traveling northbound when it crossed the center lane and collided with a two-car sedan traveling south on Hwy 71. The drivers of both vehicles were pronounced dead on the scene by Caddo Fire District 7. The Caddo Parish Coroners Office identified 31-year-old Gavin Green of Hosston was one victim in the fatal crash. The second vehicle burst into flames, killing its driver. That persons identity is pending the results of forensic testing and will be released when that process is complete and next-of-kin notified. The wreck remains under investigation by the Caddo Parish Sheriffs office. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTALnews.com. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) The 2024 Consumers Energy SmartArt competition was narrowed down to 10 finalists, but only one artist took home the top prize. Nusra Juma, a junior at Ottawa Hills High School, was awarded first place. Juma won a $2,000 scholarship and an Apple laptop courtesy of Consumers Energy. Each of the top 10 finalists received monetary or technology prizes including Apple laptops, iPads and/or Meijer gift cards. Consumers Energy has partnered with ArtPrize for more than 10 years challenging high school students within Grand Rapids Public Schools to create a piece focusing on clean energy and sustainability. You can find the artwork of the top 10 finalists on the Consumers Energy building on the corner of Fulton Street and Market Avenue during ArtPrize. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. This week, the Government published new figures confirming what everyone knows: Britain is paying far too much for its energy. According to the data, UK companies pay the highest electricity prices in the developed world, four times those in the US. No wonder our firms especially our manufacturing firms struggle to compete. Labours answer to this is (surprise, surprise) a state-owned energy company: GB Energy. There are two ways of looking at this initiative. Either it is an Ed Miliband vanity project, in which eco-fanaticism has been substituted for economic nous. Or otherwise its a way for Keir Starmer to keep Miliband and his fellow travellers firmly inside the tent. It may even be both at once. What is not remotely plausible, however, is the idea that GB Energy will help to improve the UKs energy security or to bring down those energy bills (by 300 per household, according to Milibands pre-election prognostications). The rationale behind the new company seems to be as follows. In order to decarbonise Britain, we need more investment in green energy infrastructure. But private industry is unwilling to invest. So we need to de-risk and crowd-in private sector cash by putting the taxpayers money where the governments mouth is. That means the government itself taking equity stakes in energy projects. GB Energy will therefore be a hybrid company, both energy generator and investment vehicle. But the thinking behind GB Energy is completely at odds with reality. First, it is predicated on the idea that the state is the solution to Britains chronic underinvestment. Yet as a brilliant new essay by Sam Bowman, Ben Southwood and Samuel Hughes shows, weak investment is largely due to our sclerotic planning system. This makes it almost impossible to build anything, anywhere. GB Energy and its projects are going to face the same barriers, unless we bring in planning reform. And if planning reform goes ahead, what is the need for GB Energy? Second, the authors make a compelling case that the drive towards plugging renewables into the electricity grid is itself driving up costs. This is due to intermittency problems, and the costs of rewiring the grid to cope with more distributed energy generation. Once you factor in all the costs and constraints, renewables are nowhere near commercially competitive. This may well change in the near future, as technology improves and costs come down. But under a liberalised system, you might expect to see a lot more investment flowing towards nuclear power too. Already, however, it is apparent that on nuclear and other energy sources, Miliband is prioritising ideology over market reality. For example, if Labour genuinely cared about cheap and reliable energy, it wouldnt be gleefully pummelling the North Sea oil and gas sector. The Energy Profits Levy (EPL) imposed by the Tories was already disastrous for investment. Labour have not only increased it but extended it. Miliband has also ruled out granting new exploration licences, and seems more than happy for legal challenges against new developments, notably Rosebank, to succeed. Its hardly a surprise, then, that Grangemouth refinery is closing down, shedding 200 jobs. But with the North Sea oil and gas sector supporting around 200,000 jobs, that could be just the start. Labour activists are fond of talking of a just energy transition, with oil and gas workers moving into comparable green engineering jobs. But to paraphrase Adam Smith, people are not pieces to be moved around on a chessboard. Given the age profile of the offshore workforce, many will just take early retirement. Younger workers will move abroad. Jobs and money will leave. For those in Aberdeen, it might be some consolation that GB Energy will be headquartered there. But swapping high-productivity, high-wage jobs for public sector pen-pushing seems like a pretty poor trade. Of course, for Labour, economic sense probably doesnt really come into it. On reflection, there is in fact a third possible explanation for GB Energy: its a piece of socialist nostalgia for the high tide of British collectivism a throwback to when the commanding heights of the economy were nationalised, rationing was extended and Britons shivered through the 1947 winter fuel crisis. With Miliband intent on using GB Energy to decarbonise the grid by 2030 a date energy experts regard as terrifyingly unrealistic youd be a fool to discount the possibility of another icy winter. 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 they have for several decades now, Democrats are nominating many more women than Republicans are in their party's primaries. And what happens in the primaries doesn't stay in the primaries. These lopsided primary results for women will likely contribute to a growing disparity between the parties' female representation in Congress and governors' mansions: Democratic women currently make up 41 percent and Republican women make up just 15 percent of their respective parties' members of Congress, and eight of the 12 female governors currently serving are Democrats. After the November elections, these gaps could widen. While Republican groups in recent cycles have made efforts to catch up to Democrats by recruiting and supporting their own female candidates, those efforts appear to be flagging. After record numbers of GOP women ran in 2020 and even more in 2022 (though their numbers were still well behind Democrats), 2024 saw a decline in the number of Republican women running, and the share of women winning, in primaries. Throughout the primary season, 538 collected a trove of demographic and political information (such as gender, endorsements from former President Donald Trump, progressive group endorsements and endorsements from pro-Israel groups) for every major-party candidate running for Senate, House or governor in the 2024 election cycle. This update takes a look at where women have run, and where women have won, in these primaries.* Our analysis of this data shows that the overall share of women running is down, likely due to both fewer GOP women running this cycle and less institutional support, which is a sharp departure from 2020 and 2022, when the GOP made some gains in this respect. On the whole, Democratic women's share of their party nominees is up from 2022, and many of these candidates are in a good position to win in November. How many women are running and winning? As we have for past primaries, we identified female primary candidates by using lists from the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University, which has been reliably collecting data on women running for office for decades. Democrats have been electing more women to Congress than Republicans since the 1990s, due in large part to a concerted strategy to recruit and support female candidates. And because a culture of electing women paves the way for electing more women, Democratic women have created a positive feedback loop. For example, studies find a positive relationship between the share of women in state legislatures and the share of women elected to Congress from those same areas. According to CAWP, in 2022 the number of Democratic women who ran in congressional primaries was 1.2 times greater than the number of Republican women who ran (354 Democratic women and 299 Republican women). This cycle, the number of Democratic women running in primaries is 1.8 times greater than the number of Republican women running (330 Democratic women and 186 Republican women). Of course, raw numbers don't tell the full story, because according to CAWP, fewer men filed to run for Congress this cycle, too but a look at the share of total candidates who were women tells a similar story. Overall, we found that 26 percent of candidates who ran in primaries for Senate, House or governor (we include candidates for governors races in most calculations below) in this cycle were women, similar to 2022, when 27 percent of candidates were women. But women are a larger share of Democratic candidates than Republican candidates: 37 percent of all Democratic candidates were women (compared to 35 percent in 2022), while just 17 percent of all Republican candidates were women (compared to 21 percent in 2022). That discrepancy this cycle is even larger when it comes to outcomes, or the share of women winning their primaries to become their party's general election nominees: Among certified primary winners, women make up nearly half (46 percent) of Democratic nominees but just 16 percent of Republican nominees. That represents a 3-percentage-point increase among Democrats over 2022 women made up 43 percent of their nominees last cycle and a 4-point decrease among Republicans women made up 20 percent of their 2022 nominees. Zeroing in on congressional races, we can compare this year's data to CAWP's data on female primary winners in House and Senate races from 2018 through 2022. By this metric, Democratic women in 2024 matched or outran their previous numbers, with women making up 46 percent of Democratic House nominees and 46 percent of Senate nominees. The share of female Republican primary winners, on the other hand, dropped for a second consecutive cycle, with women making up just 16 percent of their party's House nominees and 18 percent of Senate nominees. Democratic women also overperformed in primaries by 9 points, meaning they make up a larger share of Democratic primary winners than they did Democratic primary candidates. Meanwhile, the percentage of Republican women who won their primaries is about the same as the share of women in the overall Republican candidate pool (17 percent compared to 16 percent, respectively). While nominating women is one thing, setting them up to win in November is another, and both parties have some history of setting up female nominees to fail, as "sacrificial lambs" or candidates running for a seat their party is almost certain to lose in November. For decades, women were often recruited for those types of races. However, a lot has changed in the last decade or so, as voters (and party leaders) increasingly perceive women to be viable political contenders, and therefore recruit them to run in winnable districts, especially in the Democratic Party. To see where Democrats and Republicans are nominating women, we also examined where women are winning primary victories, based on race ratings from the Cook Political Report. Here again, we found notable differences between the two parties, as Democratic women are being nominated in large numbers in all types of races, while Republican women seem to be particularly boxed out of races in the reddest territory or in other words, the races where winning a primary is tantamount to winning election. These "safe" seats (for both parties) also happen to be the most abundant, so exclusion from these races is why Republican women's overall share of their party's nominees are so low. Among Democrats, women (who make up 46 percent of their party's nominees in this cycle) are best represented in races rated as lean or likely Republican, making up 55 percent of nominees. But while these nominees may face an uphill battle, they're not "sacrificial lambs" either. For example, Ashley Ehasz and Janelle Stelson were nominated in Pennsylvania's 1st and 10th Districts and, as my colleagues Geoffrey Skelley and Kaleigh Rogers wrote, both those districts are seen as top pickup targets for Democrats this year. Stelson will face Rep. Scott Perry, who is seen as vulnerable in the purple district due to his hard-right tendencies, while Ehasz will challenge moderate Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, whose district has been shifting left since he last beat Ehasz by 10 points in 2022 Biden won the district in 2020, and Democrats swept all five seats up for grabs in a recent local school board election. Democratic women are also well-represented in the races rated as most competitive they make up 44 percent of Democrats' nominees in toss-up races, meaning many will once again run in battleground races that will help determine the balance of the House and Senate. For instance, Rep. Elissa Slotkin got her party's nod in the Michigan open Senate race; Laura Gillen in New York's 4th District will face incumbent Rep. Anthony D'Esposito, who was vulnerable even before news broke earlier this week that he allegedly hired his mistress to work in his Congressional office; and Kristen McDonald Rivet will face Trump-backed Republican Paul Junge in Michigan's 8th District, an open race seen as a top GOP pickup opportunity. And in solid Democratic races, 45 percent of Democrat's nominees are women, and many are non-incumbents likely to expand the ranks of Democratic women in office, such as Lisa Blunt Rochester in Delware's Senate race. The same is true of Maryland Senate nominee Angela Alsobrooks, one of the 42 percent of Democratic nominees in likely and lean Democratic seats who are women. Among Republicans, women (who make up 17 percent of the party's total nominees this cycle) are best represented in likely and lean Republican seats they make up 35 percent of these nominees. However, all seven of these women are incumbents, such as Reps. Young Kim and Michelle Steel in Southern California, and therefore will not add to the ranks of GOP women if they win reelection. Like Democratic women, Republican women are also relatively well-represented in races that are likely or lean for the other party (they are 19 percent of these nominees), where they have an outside shot at winning like Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake. But glaringly, Republican women are most underrepresented in solid Republican races, where they make up just 12 percent of nominees. It is these races where the GOP stood to gain the most ground electing women. Once again, almost all of the women on this list are incumbents all but two: Julie Fedorchak in North Dakota and Sheri Biggs in South Carolina, who are shoo-ins for two open seats currently held by men. But while they may be missing out on safe-seat opportunities, Republican women were nominated in a number of competitive districts, signaling the party's confidence in their strength as candidates. They make up 19 percent of GOP nominees in toss-up races, including Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire's open Senate race and several challengers like Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina's 1st District and Yvette Herrell in New Mexico's 2nd looking to topple vulnerable Democratic incumbents. GOP women's groups were less active in 2024 primaries Financial support and endorsements are crucial for women in the primaries, and historically Republicans have trailed Democrats in this regard. Support for female candidates has become baked into the DNA of the Democratic Party's financial and political networks, and the best-known, and best-funded, of groups that recruit and support women in politics is the Democratic-aligned EMILYs List. Although some Republicans have tried to build similar networks with groups like Elevate PAC (or E-PAC) and VIEW PAC, they have struggled to match the scale of EMILYs List, and they lack the same level of infrastructure, financial resources and widespread influence within the party. "Democratic women can count on having the support they need to run well and will be more likely to take the step to run because of that support," said Melody Crowder-Meyer, a political scientist at Davidson College, who has studied how differences in the parties' donor networks contribute to these gaps. Crowder-Meyer explained that this same support isn't found in the GOP: "Donor groups ostensibly organized around promoting Republican women's representation raise and spend dramatically less and often even use their funds to back male Republican candidates who are opposing women Democrats." And then there's the parties' cultural divide. "The GOP party culture works against [more formal] organizing by eschewing identity-based claims for resources, support or influence," said Erin Cassese, a political scientist and associate director for the Center for Political Communication at the University of Delaware. This reality is reflected in recent comments made by Rep. Elise Stefanik, who founded E-PAC after the 2018 cycle to elect more Republican women to Congress. This year in Washington's 3rd District, Stefanik joined Trump in backing 2022 nominee Joe Kent (who lost that race), while GOP women's groups VIEW PAC, Maggie's List, and Winning for Women all backed Leslie Lewallen, a former King County prosecutor. "I don't endorse women just because they're women," Stefanik told NBC when asked why she backed Kent. Still, Stefanik also highlighted that Republican women have been crucial in flipping battleground districts in recent cycles. To get a sense of the activity and success rates of groups formed to elect more women to office, we've tracked every candidate endorsed by EMILYs List and Republican women's groups (E-PAC, Maggie's List, Winning for Women, VIEW PAC) in incumbent-less primaries (not including runoff endorsements) in the last several election cycles, and how often those endorsed candidates won. As was true in the last two cycles, endorsements from women's groups tend to be a good sign for a primary candidate in either party: Women endorsed by at least one women's group in open primaries this year had a win rate of 67 percent, compared to women without an endorsement from a women's group, who had a win rate of 37 percent. That said, having the support of EMILYs List as a Democrat this year was a much more reliable predictor of success than an endorsement from any GOP women's group. Looking at these open primary races, where endorsements are most crucial, EMILYs List is leading the way in both success rate and number of endorsees, as Republican groups were quieter with their endorsements in non-incumbent primaries this year compared to the 2020 election cycle. In 2024 primaries that we tracked, EMILYs List endorsed 31 candidates in open-seat contests 25 of whom won their races, for a win rate of 81 percent. This includes Senate candidates Angela Alsobrooks in Maryland, for whom EMILYs List launched a $2 million ad buy to help her defeat billionaire Rep. David Trone, and Elissa Slotkin in Michigan, who defeated actor Hill Harper in her primary. The share of EMILYs List endorsees who won their primaries this cycle is slightly lower but comparable to how their endorsees performed in the last two cycles, as is the number of endorsements the group made. Of the Republican groups, VIEW PAC endorsed the most this cycle a total of 17 candidates, eight of whom won their primaries, for a win rate of 47 percent. Winning for Women went three for eight (a 38 percent win rate), while Maggie's List went three for six (a 50 percent win rate). Meanwhile, E-PAC got a slow start on endorsements this cycle, and never caught up, publicly endorsing just three women in open races before their primaries, two of whom won. (E-PAC did endorse other women who ran in open primaries after they had already won those primaries.) All of these groups had lower win rates than last cycle, though small sample sizes this year make it an imperfect comparison all of the GOP women's groups endorsed between 15 and 31 candidates last cycle. This performance by GOP women's groups endorsing fewer candidates and winning less was in some cases complicated by Trump, who has become an increasingly active (and coveted) endorser during each primary cycle since 2018, and competing endorsements and support from other prominent party leaders. A few times in 2024, Trump and the NRCC endorsed against potentially strong female candidates, including some who would have been shoo-ins in a general election. In North Carolina's 13th District, a safe red seat, Kelly Daughtry received the most votes in the primary and qualified for the runoff, but she subsequently dropped out after Trump endorsed her runoff rival, Brad Knott. In Indiana one of 18 states that has never had a female governor Republicans' 2024 gubernatorial primary pitted sitting Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch against sitting Indiana Sen. Mike Braun, but Trump and party leaders lined up against Braun. And in Kansas's 3rd District, Karen Crnkovich had an endorsement from VIEW PAC, but the NRCC endorsed her opponent, Prasanth Reddy, who won in a competitive race. While these represent just a few cases, these examples can be meaningful and contribute to a negative feedback loop for Republican women. As Crowder-Meyer explained, based on her research, "women political figures were more often identified as important inspirations to seek office by women than men, and since the Democratic Party offers more prominent women who could serve as such inspiration, this too might drive more Democratic than Republican women to emerge as candidates." Particularly in this cycle, with a presidential matchup highlighting gender, these choices interact with broader party optics on gender as well. Citing Trump's recent comments to women that he "will be your protector," vice presidential candidate JD Vance's comments about "childless cat ladies" and other disparaging comments toward women, Cassese said "packaged together with a dearth of female candidates, it's hard for the Republican Party to make a credible case that they're working to represent female voters." Couple this with Democrats' selection of Harris at the top of their presidential ticket, and the GOP's struggle with female representation is thrown into sharper relief. Of course, Republican womens progress in recent election cycles has left some infrastructure and precedent for future women in the party. For her part, Nikki Haley made a point of talking about how women in politics bring something unique to the table during and after her presidential run, and groups like VIEW PAC, Maggies List and others plan to play in this years general election contests to move the needle as much as they can. Mary Radcliffe, Irena Li and Holly Fuong contributed research. Footnotes *This analysis includes all primary elections in the 2024 election cycle with the exception of Louisiana, which will hold its primaries on Election Day, Nov. 5. We classified primary winners based on state-certified election results. In California and Washington, primary candidates who advanced to the general election in the top-two primary are classified as primary winners. Efforts to elect more Republican women stalled in the 2024 primaries originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Eight years and 2,000 miles across the ocean. How a message in a bottle penned by three Bay Area friends was found Musicians have penned songs about it. Scientists have deployed them to study ocean currents. People lost at sea or aboard a sinking ship have used them as a last-ditch effort to call for help. In July 2016, a trio of Bay Area friends vacationing on Navini Island in Fiji placed a message in a bottle and set it out to sea, wondering if a stranger would ever read their note. After eight years they finally got an answer, all the way from Australia. "It's like every childhood sort of fantasy fairy tale sort of thing. Send a message away and someone actually reads it," Sandra Lamari, who was among the group of hikers that found the bottle in Queensland, Australia, this month told KABC-TV in Los Angeles. Read more: Message in a bottle found 54 years later in Arctic A group of hikers was cleaning up the beach along Chunda Bay when they stumbled upon a glass bottle containing a piece of paper carefully rolled and secured with a red hair tie. The message written on paper weathered from years drifting at sea was from Savannah, Kate and Janice of Sunnyvale. "Dear reader," the message begins. "We wrote this tonight because we heard so many stories about doing this. We're leaving Navini today at 5:00 Fijian time so please write back..." It included an address on York Town Drive in Sunnyvale. A video of the discovery posted on Instagram shows members of the Townsville Hike and Explore group gasping in surprise when they realized the authors were thousands of miles away in California. It's unknown just how long the bottle had been drifting in the ocean or when it washed ashore. Chunda Bay is about 2,000 miles from Navini. "We're asking for all of your help to track Kate, Janice and Savannah down. Can you please share this post far and wide? We'd love to connect with them to let them know we found it," the group wrote on Instagram. Read more: Unprecedented numbers of gray whales are visiting San Francisco Bay, and nobody quite knows why It wasn't long before news outlets in Australia and the United States began to share the story. Eventually, the Bay Area friends Savannah Green, Janice Pierce and Kate Bonhan discovered the post. Green told Bay Area station KNTV that she remembered writing the message on her first trip to Fiji when she was 11 years old and including the address of her childhood home in Sunnyvale. It kind of felt almost spiritual, like the way that it survived eight years and was still legible and my hair tie was still on the note, she told the outlet. The hikers and the three friends are hoping to meet in person soon. 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. Election 2024: Dates you need to know before voting in November Delawareans go to vote at Immanuel Church Highlands in Wilmington on Tuesday September 10, 2024. When is Election Day 2024? Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. When are the polls open in Delaware? Polling places in Delaware will open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. When is early voting in Delaware? Early voting for the general election begins Oct. 25 and runs through Nov. 3. Early voting sites are open the first five days of early voting from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and the last five early voting days from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. All registered voters can vote early. Voting registration deadline: Need to know how to register to vote in Delaware? The deadline is coming When is the deadline to register to vote in Delaware? The voter registration deadline is the fourth Saturday before the general election. The deadline for the general election is Saturday, Oct. 12. Who can register to vote in Delaware? You must be a resident of Delaware, a United States citizen and be 18 on or before the election. What are the deadlines for absentee voting Nov. 1: Deadline for the Department of Elections Offices to mail absentee ballots for the Nov. 5 general election. Nov. 4: Deadline for the Department of Elections Offices to issue absentee ballots for the Nov. 5 general election. Nov. 5 at 8 p.m.: Deadline for voters to return voted absentee ballots for the general election to the Department of Elections Office of the county in which the voter resides. What do I need to vote in Delaware? At the polling site, a worker will ask you for proof of identity. Permitted forms of ID include: Valid Photo ID Copy of utility bill Bank statement Government check, paycheck, or other government document that displays your address. This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Election 2024: What to know before voting in Delaware YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) Trumbull County Commissioner candidate Dan Polivka spoke to First News about why he is running again for the position. Watch the full interview in the video above. Polivka is running as a Democrat against Rick Hernandez for the position. You can watch Hernandezs interview here. Polivka previously served as a commissioner in Trumbull County and said he wants to come back to help bring unity to the board. He said his experience, as well as his relationships with local and state officials, would help him in the role. Ive had people ask, you know, Whats going on up here? So I just want to really try to unify our office and also, as a real watchdog for the taxpayers money, we stopped the tax, the sales tax, like eight years ago, Polivka said. He said the county is still operating at the same sales tax. Polivka also said when he was commissioner before, there was a lot of progress in the county, including the success of a big waterline project and development in Lordstown. He said some challenges, if elected, would be bringing the commissioners together, revamping the 911 system, and making sure taxpayers money is well-spent. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com. YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) First News sat down with Trumbull County Commissioner candidate Rick Hernandez to discuss the race. Watch the full interview in the video above. Hernandez is running as a Republican against Daniel Polivka for the position. You can watch Polivkas interview here. Hernandez is currently a Hubbard Township trustee and chairman of the board of trustees of the Eagle Joint Fire District. He said since he started, the fire district has grown from volunteer to now full-time fire and ambulance service. If hes elected, he said thats something hed like to do in the townships and villages of Trumbull County. Theyre struggling with EMS services, theyre struggling with fire services. We can as commissioners we can look at regionalizing some of those. Some of those communities, some of the northern communities you know, like maybe Bloomfield or, you know, you have Hartford some of those areas that dont have the money, that we could pull the money together to offer those types of services, Hernandez said. He said for most of his life, he has been self-employed. He said he knows how to negotiate and promote. Hernandez wants to stimulate job growth, as well as make Trumbull County a great place to raise a family and a destination for others. He said, if elected, the biggest challenge will be keeping the countys hospitals in order and providing proper healthcare for residents. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com. Nuclear energy stocks were on fire this week as nuclear energy news became a hot topic again. The energy demands for artificial intelligence data centers are so astronomical that not only are new plants being planned, but old plants are being restarted. According to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence, Uranium Energy (NYSEMKT: UEC) was up as much as 17.1%, Cameco (NYSE: CCJ) popped 9.6%, and NuScale Power (NYSE: SMR) was up 15% this week. Shares of the companies are up 14.8%, 8%, and 15% for the week as of 1 p.m. ET on Friday. Image source: Getty Images. Big tech falls in love with nuclear energy Late last week, Constellation Energy announced it had agreed to a long-term power purchase agreement with Microsoft to sell 100% of the electricity from Three Mile Island's Unit 1 for years to come. Microsoft will use the electricity to power data centers within the PJM area, a portion of the grid on the East Coast of the U.S. This followed comments from Oracle CEO Larry Ellison earlier this month, who said his company is planning a data center that has three small nuclear reactors attached. The consensus is that nuclear energy will play a big role in future energy needs for artificial intelligence. In theory, that should be good for nuclear energy stocks. Timing isn't favorable As much as there's hype about nuclear energy this week, a nuclear power plant takes years and sometimes decades to complete. Three Mile Island operated for decades before closing in 2019 and it will still take until at least 2028 to reopen the plant. Small modular nuclear reactors have been the "next big thing" in nuclear energy for a decade, but they may not be operational until 2030 or after. The market is reacting to nuclear hype in a matter of days and weeks, but nuclear energy will take a decade to become reality. The uranium market tells a different story The other factor for investors to consider is how uranium prices will be impacted by an increase in demand. But there's also supply to consider. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. production of uranium has tripled from a year ago. Even with restrictions on uranium imports from Russia, supply doesn't appear to be a concern for the industry. Prices have reacted negatively, falling more than 20% from their highs earlier this year. For uranium producers like Uranium Energy and Cameco, the supply/demand dynamic and falling prices will hurt the bottom line. Nuclear energy's bright future is far in the distance It's easy to get excited about the future of nuclear energy given the recent nuclear deals and hype around artificial intelligence. But keep in mind the market's reaction this week versus the operational reality these companies face. Story continues It will be many years before there's any kind of windfall and even then it may not be as big as expected if uranium mining picks up or plant costs are higher than expected. For that reason, I think the recent hype will soon wear off. Should you invest $1,000 in NuScale Power right now? Before you buy stock in NuScale Power, 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 NuScale Power 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 $760,130!* 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 September 23, 2024 Travis Hoium has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Constellation Energy, Microsoft, and Oracle. The Motley Fool recommends Cameco and NuScale Power and 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. The Truth Behind Nuclear Energy Stocks Popping This Week was originally published by The Motley Fool Election 2024: Los Angeles Countys registered voters will receive their sample ballots soon With Novembers General Elections fast approaching, voters in Los Angeles County will soon receive their guide on the candidates and issues. The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk announced that its Sample Ballot Books began mailing out on Friday. Every registered voter in the county will receive one in the mail. The books provide information on how and where to vote, the candidates for key elections and ballot measure information. The registrar said that the information will be available online by Sunday, Oct. 6. For those who are voting by mail, those ballots will be sent out on Oct. 3. In addition to the presidential race between Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump, there are several ballot measures that will be key for Los Angeles County voters. More information about all the 2024 California ballot propositions can be found here. More information on Californias voting registration process can be found here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. Ellwood City residents hold prayer vigil following multiple deadly shootings in their community The Ellwood City community came together in a show of support in the wake of two deadly shootings. Organizers put together a community vigil on Wednesday at the community plaza. Last week, a man wash shot and killed inside the Ellwood City Forge Plant. PREVIOUS COVERAGE >>> Man shot, killed inside Ellwood City Forge; suspect in custody About two weeks earlier, a shooting at Breakers Pub left a woman dead and several other hurt. PREVIOUS COVERAGE >>> Man accused of killing woman, injuring 4 other people while shooting at Lawrence County buildings Residents say this kind of violence simply does not happen in their community. Really it was just a whole community effort. Just coming together here to help promote healing for what has been facing Ellwood City, said vigil organizers Ashley Fisher. Along with songs and prayer, therapy dogs were also on hand to help those struggling. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: Acrisure Stadium among 4 NFL venues designated as a Mission Ready Venue. Heres what that means Rachael DelTondos ex-fiance charged with allegedly beating girlfriend Hoda Kotb to step down as co-anchor of NBC News TODAY show VIDEO: 11 Investigates EXCLUSIVE: Police recruiting wars DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts Elon Musks PAC Is Pumping Millions to Help Republicans Keep the House Last week, The Washington Post reported that Elon Musks political action committee is playing a key role in the effort to win Trump a second term. But the billionaires America PAC is also pouring hefty sums into downballot races. Business Insiders Bryan Metzger reports that the super PAC backed by the worlds richest man has spent more than $5 million across 15 competitive House races. In each of those contests, America PAC funds are in support of the Republican candidate and against the Democratic candidate. Heres where Musks PAC is spending most to help out Republican incumbents: $699,000 in Republican Representative Mike Lawlers race against Mondaire Jones in New Yorks 17th district $557,100 in Republican Representative Ken Calverts race against Will Rollins in Californias 41st district $472,700 in Republican Representative Michelle Steels race against Derek Tran in Californias 45th district. In each of the other 12 House races, spending is also in the six figures. And theres likely more on the way for Republican candidates for the House, as the PAC has reportedly set aside $10 million for voter turnout in House races around the country. That this money is going only to Republican candidates is unsurprisinggiven Musks now full-fledged embrace of the rightbut its perhaps worth noting. When Musk announced America PAC in July, he said, Its not meant to be sort of a hyperpartisan PAC. Setting aside America PACs support of the Trump campaign, what other word but hyperpartisan is there for its spending on these House races? Second gentleman Doug Emhoff slammed former President Trump on Thursday evening for not disavowing North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R), calling his previous praise for the gubernatorial nominee shameful. In an interview with MSNBCs Jen Psaki scheduled to air Sunday, Emhoff was asked about past comments reportedly made by Robinson, including calling himself a Black Nazi. The fact that Donald Trump was right here in Wilmington, right where I am sitting, where he could not disavow Mark Robinson. He was trying to ignore it, but he did not disavow what Robinson said, Emhoff told Psaki, who previously served as White House press secretary. It is shameful, he added. CNN released a bombshell report earlier this month linking Robinson to an account that made many offensive statements on a porn sites message board. The lieutenant governor has denied the report and vowed to continue in the race against state Attorney General Josh Stein (D). The former president, during a speech Thursday, dodged on whether he would pull his endorsement from the gubernatorial nominee, telling reporters, I dont know the situation. When asked about what he makes of Robinsons previous comments and the state of the GOP, Emhoff said a strong Republican party is needed. It is pure cowardice. It is shameful. We need a strong Republican Party, Emhoff responded. We need people like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who come out and endorse Kamala Harris. You may not agree on every single idea and policy, but you agree on who we are as Americans. The second gentleman also ripped Trump for previously comparing Robinson to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He said that he is Martin Luther King Jr. on steroids. He has not disavowed any of that, so Donald Trump is supporting Mark Robinson, Emhoff said in the interview. He also condemned the former president last week for his remarks at an event raising awareness for combating antisemitism in which the GOP nominee suggested Jewish people will partly shoulder the blame if he loses in November. It is an outrage, and it is not just Jewish people who should be outraged, Emhoff said. The Hill has reached out to the Trump 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. Employees at all three Mississippi Market Co-op locations in St. Paul are looking to unionize. The workers have filed a petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1189 announced on Thursday. Staff proclaimed its intention to unionize on Sept. 19, but the co-op declined to voluntarily recognize the union, leading workers to file for an election. Mississippi Market Co-op Mississippi Market Co-op/Facebook A date has not yet been set for the election, a UFCW representative tells Bring Me The News, because the two groups have not been able to reach "an agreement on who is eligible to vote." Representatives did not offer details on where the disagreement lies. The union says employees at all three stores are seeking unionization due to "unpredictable schedules, unrealistic attendance policies, and inconsistent management," as well as "unequal enforcement of [the co-op's] own standards." The union declined to share the exact number of employees that are part of the effort, but did say it represents "a majority" of eligible staff. Mississippi Market Co-op did not respond to a request for comment. Unionizing staff from Mississippi Market Co-op Courtesy of UFCW Local 1189 In Thursday's announcement, the UFCW said that workers "are asking their employer to remain neutral during the election process." While the NLRB has rules about what employers are able to do or say leading up to an election, there are certainly gray areas, as Minnesotans have seen in other recent unionization efforts. In a letter posted to social media, the unionizing workers told co-op members they "believe in the values and principles" of co-ops. Related: Union files federal unfair labor practice charge against Kim's after abrupt restaurant closure "We seek to embody those values in our work," the letter reads. "Ideas like a just and inclusive local economy and democratic control are more than abstract concepts to us. For this reason, and many others, we have come together to make our voices heard and join with our fellow workers in a union." The letter goes on to say that staff "have tried going through the channels available to us [to resolve issues] but have found no success." The unionizing staff encouraged co-op members to attend a board meeting on Sept. 24 and also organized a petition for co-op members to show their support. Related: MSP Airport concession workers vote to authorize strike The California State University Employees Union, which sent a petition to its membership last week demanding the resignation of Fresno State president Saul Jimenez-Sandoval, released statements on Thursday more clearly stating its issues, such as the trend of hiring more temporary workers on campus and poor communication. Fortunato Garcia, CSUEU Fresno State chapter president, said in an email to membership that the campus has not been hiring permanent staff more than 11% of CSUEU-represented employees are on temporary status, including eight of the 24 that have been hired this year. The union over the past seven years has also lost 70 staff positions; departments that had four to six employees are down to one or two, the universitys warehouse staff has been reduced from six to two. And while enrollment at the university has been fairly steady since 2017, staff size has been reduced, increasing workload for union employees. Under president Jimenez-Sandovals leadership, the administrations lack of regard for staff is clear, Garcia said. One recent example: As the university first proposed cutting library hours, and then changed course, president Jimenez-Sandoval met with (Associated Students Inc.) but failed to do any outreach with frontline staff who would be directly affected. Jimenez-Sandoval was not available for comment, but a university spokesperson said, The president has met, and is happy to continue to meet, with CSUEU representatives and any members of the campus community to address their concerns. We recognize the impact of the states budget on our campus, and we are fully committed to doing all we can to protect our staff and faculty. The Fresno State president, who was appointed in 2021, released a statement to campus last Friday, the day after the petition went public. I have been in touch with many union members who did not receive this message and were unaware that it was coming, Jimenez-Sandoval said. (Associated Students Inc.) leadership has confirmed that they were not consulted, were unaware of the petition and do not endorse it. Needless to say, I am surprised at this message, especially when Fresno State has a balanced budget and all funding is explained to the Academic Senate, Staff Assembly, and ASI on an annual basis. Garcia, the CSUEU chapter president, also pointed to the Save Mart Center and a $10.3 million principal and interest payment that is due in 2024-25. He also expressed a concern over potential staff layoffs. The university, which paid interest-only on the building for more than a decade, has not disclosed how it plans to make that payment. In 2023-24 and 2024-25, it will make payments totaling more than $16 million and will still owe more than $26 million on the multi-purpose arena at Shaw and Chestnut avenues. The debt on the building, which cost $103 million, will not be retired until 2031. Fresno State faces serious challenges, and we need a leader who respects and listens to all stakeholders, including staff, Garcia said in the email to union membership. The CSUEU represents employees in four units on campus - healthcare, operations, administrative and technical support. It also next week will launch a membership drive for student assistants in the 23-campus California State University system, who voted by an overwhelming margin to form the largest union of undergraduate employees in the country. The employees union released the petition along with the California Faculty Association on Thursday. Shortly after the CSUEU sent out the petition in an email to its members, the CFA retracted its support. CSU staff at Fresno State have significant issues with how the campus is being managed and how resources are used to promote students academic success, Garcia said, in a statement released to the media. Based on our members concerns, we initiated a petition directed at the campus president. Workers issues are real and they affect student success at Fresno State. Inadequate staff affects student learning. Mismanagement of university resources means less funding for vital programs. We call on president Jimenez-Sandoval to demonstrate that he recognizes the valuable services frontline staff provide our campus. For more than a century and a half, California has outlawed forced labor. But there has always been an exception for one group people in prison. The state Constitution specifically prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude except to punish crime. Its time to strike those words from the Constitution by voting "yes" on Proposition 6 on Nov. 5. No one, including state prisoners serving time for serious crimes, should be forced to work against their will. Involuntary servitude is a remnant of a post-slavery practice that is repugnant and has no place in the state, even in its prisons. Proposition 6 will remove the language that allows prisons and jails to force incarcerated people to work and punish them when they refuse. We wholeheartedly endorse it. Read more: L.A. Times electoral endorsements for 2024 November election This is not about coddling prisoners. Their punishment for committing serious crimes is being confined for years and sometimes decades. All this measure does is allow prisoners some agency over how they will spend that time to take advantage of resources such as drug treatment and vocational education that might change their lives once they are out and most people in prison do get out. It's good for everyone when people leave prison better prepared than when they went in. Over the last few years, other states have recognized the injustice of using forced labor in prisons. Shamefully, California is among just 16 states that cling to this odious relic. Assemblymember Lori D. Wilson (D-Suisun City), who was author of the legislation that put the measure on the ballot, says it would allow prisons and prisoners to prioritize rehabilitation over work. Currently, work is first, she notes. And that is a misguided policy. The California Reparations Task Force called for ending forced labor in state prisons as one of its many recommendations. Prisoners can take classes, get substance-use or mental-health treatment, visit with family and friends, or, in fact, pursue work they want to do. All this helps prisoners develop skills and personal insight more than forcing them to do work that may interfere with the classes and treatment they do want to pursue. Read more: Endorsement: Yes on Prop. 5. It's too hard to pass local bond measures Generally, individuals in prison initially are given jobs as kitchen workers, groundskeepers, launderers, mechanics, hospital workers and janitors. More specialized positions, such as machine work, sewing or license plate manufacturing, are considered more desirable, and people apply for them. Prison system regulations say that an incarcerated person's "expressed desires and needs" among other factors will be taken into account when assigning jobs. But former prisoners say even when they do have a chance to express their preferences, they are rarely honored. The more sought-after jobs can take years to get and sometimes require waiting on a list. Jobs are given out as they become available, say former prisoners. So people who may prefer to work in the kitchen may be forced to work in a machine shop while someone more interested in the machine shop is sent to toil in the kitchen. The goal of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is in its name. But formerly incarcerated people and prison reform advocates and researchers say that rehabilitation is hindered by forced labor. People who refused work have said they faced punishment including solitary confinement and losing visitation privileges. Read more: Endorsement: No on Proposition 36. California shouldn't revive the disastrous war on drugs Former prisoners advocating for this proposition recount stories of not being able to take the rehabilitative programs they needed because they interfered with the work assignments. In one case, a man serving time for a manslaughter conviction said he knew that alcohol was a factor in his criminal behavior and wanted to take an alcohol rehabilitation program but the hours of his assigned job in the kitchen conflicted with the program. It would take him several years to finally get into the programs he needed. Passing Proposition 6 is unlikely to result in unfilled jobs. As is it, of the 92,000 people in California prisons about 60,000 have jobs, according to prison officials. The state's legislative analyst says the number of prisoners with jobs is probably much lower. Proponents of the measure say that most prisoners want to work or learn new skills. And work is also a source of income, albeit a pittance in most cases. The pay scale ranges from as low as 16 cents an hour for a less skilled laborer, such as doing laundry or janitorial work, to as much as 74 cents an hour for clerking in an office or working in a warehouse. (And those are the pay ranges after the prison system doubled them earlier this year.) Some skilled jobs can pay significantly more, such as minimum wage. However this proposition has no effect on pay scales for prison work. The prison system has made some changes in the way work is handled, and thats promising. It has eliminated all unpaid work and will be transitioning as much as 75% of full-time work to half-time jobs which would free up time for individuals to attend the programs they want. If we want people to emerge from prison rehabilitated and if we care about public safety, we should that requires allowing them to access as many opportunities as possible to get an education, learn a skill and get treatment to best prepare them for a productive life after prison. Forcing them to work in the kitchen may help officials run their prisons but it doesnt help prisoners transform their lives, and that should be the primary concern for all of us. 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. Six candidates vying for three open seats on Arizona's utility-regulatory panel sparred on Sept. 26 over the state's long-term energy policy, with the three Democrats urging a more rapid embrace of solar power and their three Republican counterparts stressing the need for a broader mix including natural gas to ensure reliability. Democrats including Ylenia Aguilar attacked the current Republican-dominated Arizona Corporation Commission for allowing electricity bills to increase. One of the commission's most visible actions earlier this year was approving a rate hike for Arizona Public Service that boosted electric bills for the utility's residential customers by around 8% on average. "People are suffering and can't pay their bills," Aguilar said. But Republicans including Lea Marquez Peterson, the only commissioner seeking re-election in the Nov. 5 vote, said the commission sliced APS' funding request by more than $200 million from what was requested. She also stressed the need for high energy reliability, along with the investments needed to ensure it. Arizona can't afford temporary power disruptions that, she said, have plagued neighboring California. "If we lost power in Arizona in the summer, it would be a life-or-death issue," Peterson said. Fellow Republican Rene Lopez endorsed an "all-of-the-above" approach. The energy-mix debate largely focused on natural gas plants that can run well into the evening, after the Sun sets. Aguilar complained about air pollution around metro Phoenix and said the natural-gas plants aren't desirable near any neighborhoods. But Republican Rachel Walden noted that these generating stations can be turned on quickly, at any time of day or night. Energy policies and APS' rate hike dominated the debate, though the discussion also veered into water availability and the struggles facing many small water utilities in rural parts of Arizona that have been hiking rates yet, in many cases, have not made necessary infrastructure improvements. Democrat Joshua Polacheck said the dire conditions of many of these companies shows the need for "change, a different approach," at the Commission. Candidates from both political parties spoke out in favor of solar energy, but the enthusiasm from Republicans was more measured. "Solar doesn't work at night, and the wind doesn't always blow," Peterson said. That drew a rebuke from Democrat Jonathan Hill, who advocates for storing solar energy during low-demand periods of the day in industrial-scale battery parks for release later, as APS, Salt River Project and other utilities are doing. "Of course we know the Sun goes down at night," Hill remarked, sarcastically. The hour-long program sponsored by Arizona PBS and moderated by Ted Simons, host of "Arizona Horizon," was more cantakerous, with more interruptions, than a Sept. 2 debate involving the same six candidates and sponsored by the Arizona Clean Election Commission. Republicans hold a 4-1 edge currently on the comisssion, with Republicans Nick Myers and Kevin Thompson not up for re-election this November. Democrats urged voters to set a new course by electing candidates from their party. Democrat Joshua Polacheck implied that Republicans on the panel are too cozy with "rapacious corporations that are picking our pockets." Arizona residents, he said, "know their rates have been going up." Republican candidate Lopez said Arizonans pay the second-lowest rates in the nation, but Hill criticized that finding because it came from WalletHub, a personal finance app that, he said, "most people have never heard of." Walden said it's important to embrace a broad energy mix and to let market forces dictate prices, as that will lead to the "cheapest options." She also said it's important for voters to realize that utilities like APS, in their rate-application cases, are largely seeking to recoup costs on investments they already have made. And because rate cases come up only every few years on average, the increases seem larger compared to more, minor adjustments along the way, she explained. Both sides have focused on the need to keep rates affordable for consumers and businesses while ensuring that Arizona has the power-generation capacity to support population increases and economic growth. Much of that is coming from relatively new entities such as semiconductor-plant expansions and data centers, a power-intensive industry where metro Phoenix has emerged as a national leader. The Arizona PBS date was held on the same day that SRP and NextEra Energy Resources unveiled a new wind farm on private land halfway between Flagstaff and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. All of the clean energy from that project, enough to power around 40,000 homes, has been allocated to a new Google data center in Mesa. Candidates from both parties largely steered clear of presidential politics, though Walden in her closing statement blamed the Biden-Harris Administration for regulations and other policies that, she said, have worsened pricing pressures in the utility industry. Reach the writer at russ.wiles@arizonarepublic.com. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Energy bills, solar power dominate Ariz. Corp. Comm. candidate debate El PASO, Texas (KTSM) The El Paso Police Department (EPPD) urgently needs your help with any information related to a shooting at Zaragoza on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. As KTSM previously reported, the shooting happened at 2000 N. Zaragoza, near the overpass at N. Zaragoza and Loop 375 South. El Paso Police investigating shooting at I-10, Loop 375 We urge anyone who may have witnessed the shooting or has any informationno matter how smallto come forward. Your insights could be vital in helping law enforcement with the investigation and any assistance from the community is appreciated, said EPPD. To submit information about the shooting, you can contact the Crimes Against Persons Unit at (915) 212-4040 or Crime Stoppers of El Paso at (915) 566-8477 to remain anonymous. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. NEW YORK (PIX11) New York City Mayor Eric Adams is expected in court on Friday to face charges accusing him of accepting lavish gifts and trips from Turkish officials looking to buy his influence. The 57-page indictment from federal prosecutors claimed that Adams was given free business-class tickets to France, Turkey and China, upgraded hotel suites and millions in foreign campaign contributions. Foreign donors are illegal in the U.S. so politicians arent influenced by overseas agendas. Investigators alleged Adams had straw donors, which are legal U.S. donors who accepted money from foreign nationals and gave it to the Adams campaign. Prosecutors accused Adams of using those donations to receive up to $10 million in the citys matching funds program for campaigns. Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, laid out five federal charges against Adams during a news conference on Thursday. The charges include bribery, conspiracy, wire fraud and two counts of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national. Extraordinarily difficult: NY Gov. Hochul comments on Eric Adams indictment Adams allegedly returned the favor to Turkish officials when he asked to speed up the opening of a consulate building on the east side of Manhattan, even though the FDNY deemed it unsafe, prosecutors said. The FDNY thought the building had so many issues and defects that the building was not safe to occupy, Williams said. That it was his turn, to support Turkey. And as we allege, Adams delivered and pressured the fire department to let the building open. Can Gov. Hochul remove Mayor Adams from office? The indictment laid out text messages between an Adams staffer and another person identified as a promoter, likely someone trying to raise money for the Adams mayoral campaign. In an exchange from 2018, the fundraiser told the Adams staffer that fundraising in Turkey is not legal, but, I think I can raise money for your campaign off the record. 7 luxury travel benefits Eric Adams allegedly accepted: court documents The staffer asked, How will Adams declare that money here? The fundraiser responded with, He wont declare it. Or well make the donation through an American citizen in the U.S. A Turk. City Hall corruption is nothing new, says political analysts The fundraiser went on to say, Ill give him cash in Turkey, or Ill send it to an American. He will make a donation to you. Adams lawyer, Alex Spiro, said the mayors fingerprints are not on these accusations. How much prison time could Eric Adams face if convicted? They dont have Eric Adams doing anything, Spiro said. They dont have Eric Adams taking in the money. There is no email or text has him doing anything or taking in the money. Adams responded to the lawsuit on Thursday, saying he does not plan to resign. From here, my attorneys will take care of the case so I can take care of the city, he said during a news conference outside Gracie Mansion. My day-to-day will not change. I will continue to do the job for 8.3 million New Yorkers that I was elected to do. He is expected at court at noon. 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. On Thursday (27 September) the Government of Uganda commissioned the Karuma Hydropower Project (KHP), a 600MW hydropower plant on the River Nile. KHP will be the countrys largest power generation facility to date. The $1.7bn project, to be constructed by Chinese hydropower company Sinohydro Corporation, will be fully financed by China. Chinas Exim Bank provided a $1.4bn loan while the Chinese Government covered the remaining costs. The facility will increase Ugandas generation capacity to just above 2GW, according to Reuters. In addition to the commission, a 400kV, 248km transmission line to distribute the electricity from the plant was also launched on Thursday. Another $180m transmission line is currently under construction to share the electricity from Uganda with South Sudan. Chinese Ambassador to Uganda Zhang Lizhong heralded the project as a "flagship project of China-Uganda cooperation", explaining that it will generate clean and affordable energy for the country. It will also support power developments in neighbouring countries such as Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya to which Uganda exports electricity. Construction of the project began in 2013 but was delayed multiple times due to missed completion targets caused by logistical challenges and the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Ugandan Energy Minister Ruth Nankabirwa. KHP is the second hydropower plant in Uganda funded by China, with the 188MW Isimba hydropower dam financed in 2019. The facility is also located on the River Nile. According to Power Technologys parent company, GlobalData, hydropower generation constituted 91.27% of Ugandas electricity generation in 2023. "Uganda commissions $1.7bn hydro plant, countrys largest power generation facility" was originally created and published by Power Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. (NewsNation) New York City Mayor Eric Adams faces federal conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery charges alleging misdeeds spanning nearly a decade. A 57-page indictment accuses Adams of accepting bribes and offering favors in exchange for illegal foreign namely Turkish campaign contributions. Prosecutors say some of those funds poured in as straw donations that is, donations from one entity made to look like they came from someone else. The charging document alleges, in part, that Adams accepted luxury trips and discounted flights on Turkish Airlines and turned a blind eye to fire inspection requirements for a Turkish consulate building. On some occasions, prosecutors say, Adams threatened city employees jobs if they didnt follow his orders. Mayor Eric Adams corruption investigation, indictment: Timeline Adams said he has no plans to resign and told New Yorkers to wait to hear our defense before making any judgments. Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said the investigation is ongoing. The conduct alleged in the indictment, the foreign money, the corporate money, the bribery, the years of concealment, is a grave breach of the publics trust, Williams said. We continue to dig, and we will hold more people accountable. Read the full indictment below: This embedded content is not available in your region. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation. Eric Adams wanted to see the world, to see it in style. But he wasnt a rich man, just a former cop and rising politician in a largely ceremonial job, Brooklyn Borough President. Luckily for him, there were a number of benefactors who federal prosecutors say were ready to help him travel in a manner benefitting the position he was angling for: mayor of New York City. According to a sprawling, 57-page indictment unsealed on Thursday, there was the chairman of a Turkish university; a promoter whose business includes organizing events to introduce Turkish corporations and businesspeople to politicians, celebrities, and others whose influence may benefit the corporations; and a senior official in the Turkish government, who, prosecutors say, later steered illegal contributions and improper gifts to Adams to gain influence with and, eventually, to obtain corrupt official action from Adams. Adams in the summer of 2017 went with his son and a staffer to Nice, Istanbul, Sri Lanka, and Beijing, flying business class the whole way. In October, he went again to Istanbul and Beijing, and then on to Nepal. Those tickets were, all told, worth $51,000. But he got it all for free. The relationship deepened from there, as Adams began to run for mayor in earnest. The Turks allegedly funneled money to his campaign through false entities, or straw donors. Accepting such donations is against the law and Adams allegedly received public matching funds based on these contributions. Adams allegedly returned the favor, in part by pressuring the fire department to allow the opening of a $300 million, 36-story glass tower to house the Turkish consulate, just off of First Avenue and 45th Street, without an inspection and in time for a high-profile visit by Turkeys president a diplomatic coup for a man whos functionally a dictator. Adams has vigorously denied all of the charges. And at least one Adams ally I spoke with in the immediate aftermath breathed a quarter-sigh of relief this person was expecting even more, and more serious, charges. Its obviously not great but this is weaker than I thought it would be, the source tells me. But that exhale assumes that the federal charges against Adams begin and end in this document. They almost certainly do not, with at least four more federal probes reportedly targeting his inner circle and FBI agents searching the mayors residence shortly before the indictment was announced. It also assumes that the Turks were the only government to allegedly turn Adams into an unregistered foreign agent. That, too, could prove to be a dangerous supposition especially given the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyns pursuit of Chinese influence in New York. In the last four years, that federal prosecutors office alone has charged a dozen separate criminal cases of covert Chinese government interference in U.S. politics, business, and civil society. An aide to New Yorks governor was indicted as a foreign agent on Sept. 3. An ex-corrections officer got 20 months for harassing an artist who lampooned Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Two more men were arrested for operating a secret Chinese police station out of the Manhattan headquarters of a group for expats from Fujian province. The examples spiral out from there. In July, a federal jury in Manhattan convicted Robert Menendez, a Democratic U.S. senator from New Jersey, of taking bribes and acting as Egypts agent. In August, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged a hitman with trying to assassinate Donald Trump, allegedly on Irans orders. In September, prosecutors in Manhattan revealed an alleged Russian plot to funnel $10 million to MAGA influencers. This is a partial list. A snippet of a list, really. And all of these developments happened in just the last few months, just in and around this one metro area, where a wide array of foreign actors are looking to turn New York into something like Spy City. The 20 experts, officials, and activists I spoke to couldnt agree on whether these cases represent a major escalation in this covert activity, an increase in Washingtons willingness to combat it, or both. But they all agreed that such efforts are widespread and being directed by countries across the globe. And while it might be tempting to speculate about what this says about the various foreign policy strategies in foreign capitals, the clear takeaway is that malicious actors around the world see America as pliable, and influence as something that can be bought on the cheap. In other words, the most disturbing part about these covert foreign pressure campaigns is what it says about our politics, our society. About us. In 2022, federal prosecutors revealed that Yan Xiong, who had been jailed in his youth for taking part in the Tiananmen Square protests, was being targeted by the Chinese government while trying to run for Congress in New York. ONE OF THE MORE disturbing foreign influence cases to recently come to light begins 35 years ago, in Beijing. Yan Xiong was a student activist there, jailed for being part of the big Tiananmen Square protests. When he got out, he made his way to America, enlisted in the U.S. Army, and eventually served two tours as a chaplain in Iraq. By 2021, Xiong was running for Congress in lower Manhattan. He could tell that something was off. Hed show up to candidate forums, and then wouldnt be allowed to speak. Hed try to raise money, no dice. There was an old man who wouldnt stop taking pictures of Yans campaign. Xiong would go out to his driveway late at night and find a car there, headlights blazing. It was unnerving, but Xiong was used to looking over his shoulder. Nevertheless, Xiong was shocked when, in March of 2022, federal prosecutors revealed that he was being targeted by the Chinese government. The goal: to surveil and sabotage the chaplains long-shot campaign. Go deep and dig up something. Right? For example, past incidents of tax evasion if he used prostitutes in the past if he had a mistress, a member of Chinas Ministry of State Security allegedly told a private investigator here in the U.S. If the private investigator couldnt come up with or make up any dirt, the P.I. was encouraged to use other means to take Xiong out of the race: In the end, violence would be fine too. In the end, Yans campaign netted him only 750 votes not great, but 50 percent more than former Mayor Bill De Blasio received. The P.I. hired by the Chinese government never found any dirt on Yan, or physically attacked him. But the attempt to ratfuck Yans campaign continues to leave a wound. Yans getting ready to move for the fifth time in two years in part for safety, for psychology. In August, prosecutors unveiled another layer to the alleged plot against him. The old man whod been taking all those pictures? He was a former Tiananmen Square veteran, too one who was now accused of working as an unregistered agent for Beijing. To Yan, hes another victim of a regime thats all-too-willing to extend its reach here. Its a tragedy, thats my opinion, Xiong tells me. And Yans case isnt the only one in which there seem to be shadowy figures just out of frame. Shujun Wang, another longtime Chinese dissident, was convicted in late August of working as Beijings spy. The other day, I called his lawyer to ask about a member of the defense team, a man listed in court documents as a paralegal, who was, in fact, a Florida realtor, recently acquitted of rape. What was he doing there? Who was he? He is nobody, the lawyer answered. These influence campaigns by foreign governments, prosecutors allege, reach all the way down to the lowest levels of state and local government. Take Linda Sun, who started in 2012 as one of the more junior aides out of 200 or so in Governor Andrew Cuomos office. The former beauty pageant contestant and Barnard grad, who had come to New York from Nanjing when she was a kid, put in the work as a liaison to the borough of Queens and the states Asian American community. Shed help connect constituents to government services, make appearances at Lunar New Year events, write up proclamations, and liaise with foreign consulates. Over the years, she gained leverage. Cuomos communications shop described by one former colleague as 95 percent Caucasian relied on Sun to tell them how a state proclamation or press release might resonate in Asian communities. She did her job. She went home. Didnt cause any trouble, never caused any drama. But in hindsight, [there was] a lot of trust in that particular position. Because when you ask her opinion about how something plays, we were asking how it plays in, you know, [the Chinese American neighborhoods of] Sunset Park and Flushing. Not how it played in Beijing, that source tells me. By 2015, Sun had a willing ear in Kathy Hochul, the new Lieutenant Governor, who was iced out of Cuomos inner circle and eager to build up her own political constituency. Hochul made sure to attend Chinese American community celebrations and events to promote trade with Beijing. (A Hochul aide notes that she interfaced with all kinds of foreign officials, including a half-dozen such meetings just with the Canadians in 2016.) Sun made sure there were all sorts of meetings Hochul wouldnt take, wouldnt even know were offered. For example, prosecutors allege, when officials from the rival government of Taiwan tried to get together with Hochul in D.C. in mid-2016, Sun scheduled talks with Beijings representatives instead and then bragged to the Chinese consulate about what she had done. Hochul began to be quoted favorably and often by Beijings official state news agency. Sun started to receive gifts from Chinese officials, prosecutors say: tickets to Carnegie Hall, then a wire transfer for $47,895 for travel expenses. Linda Sun (shown here with her husband Christopher Hu after their arraignment in Brooklyn on Sept. 3), a former aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, was charged with acting as a foreign agent. As Suns responsibilities increased, her profile grew. She worked with legislators when Korean American nail salons were revealed to be serially underpaying their workers. She helped steer money to Asian American groups as threats to them rose during the pandemic. By 2021, Hochul was governor. Sun had a bigger title, deputy chief of staff, and was displaying sharper elbows. She felt very emboldened with making sure that there was a focus [on] protecting mainland Chinas agendas, State Assemblyman Ron Kim, who previously held Suns community liaison job, recalls. That was universally understood, because when myself and other[s] carried certain resolutions to celebrate U.S.-Taiwan relations, I got calls from the governors office letting me know that the Chinese consulate is very upset with you, and they would prefer if I dont do such resolutions again. (Sun has pleaded not guilty to charges she acted as an agent of the Chinese government, and her attorneys declined to comment for this story.) This might seem arcane and sort of small-ball. Who cares if some local pol doesnt issue a Taiwan proclamation? But its part of a strategy, says Bethany Allen, author of Beijing Rules, echoing the sentiments of several U.S. officials. If this is done extensively, consistently, quietly across many states, many state capitals, many state governments, local governments, Allen tells me, it can shape the debate. Have a strong downward pressure on the things that China wants to quiet. And its a strategy that Beijing is willing to pursue over the long haul to influence people at the lowest levels of local government, and let those folks rise over time. Back when she was a reporter, Allen broke the news of a suspected Chinese spy in California who cultivated relationships from the political to the romantic with city councilmen, small-town mayors, and at least one Congressman. The spys true motivations werent uncovered until that Congressman, Rep. Eric Swalwell, was on the verge of joining the House Intelligence Committee and gaining access to some of the nations better-protected national secrets. (Swalwell denied any romantic relationship, and a House ethics panel decided to take no action against him after a two-year investigation.) Linda Suns case never reached that kind of crisis point. But her value to Chinese officials was clear. The wire transfers were in the millions by 2021. The Chinese Consul General in New York a sharp, genial diplomat named Huang Ping sent Nanjing-style salted ducks to Suns parents, a half-dozen at a time. According to one source, she started showing up with a fresh tan and a new, high-end handbag to every community event. People were definitely talking about how she went from rags to riches overnight, Kim tells me. Her parents lived in a one-bedroom apartment She was trying to get a mortgage to buy a condo in Flushing, and she could barely get that. But all of a sudden, now shes living in a mansion. And in a sweet vacation home, too. Around the same time Sun and her husband bought a $3.6 million home in Manhasset, New York, they also, according to prosecutors, purchased an ocean-view condominium on the 47th floor of a high rise building in Honolulu, Hawaii, currently valued at approximately $2.1 million. SUN AND ADAMS ARE the first local officials to be charged with acting as agents of a foreign power. They probably wont be the last, or even the last in New York. (What you saw with the governor in New York, thats going to be scratching an itch that tickles in a lot of different places, Bill Evanina, who spent seven years as the federal governments top counterintelligence official, tells me.) The place has long attracted spies and clandestine power brokers, and not just because of the UN, or Wall Street, or all the corporate headquarters. Americas best city is, not coincidentally, also its most diverse; more than three million of the eight million-plus people living here are foreign-born. Those diasporas are often of intense interest to the countries from which they spring, especially if the countries in question are ruled by authoritarians. The revolutionary movements that took down the Czar, the Chinese Emperor, and the Shah were all incubated overseas. These diasporas also can wield outsized power in local politics, too. New Yorks election laws are so labyrinthine and complex, with elections held on off-years and on strange dates, that theyre practically designed to keep people from voting. (Ron Kim has 115,000 people living in his district in Queens, for example; fewer than 3,200 of them voted in his contested primary race, which is the only race that matters in a one-party town.) So if any one group gets behind a single candidate, or gins up turnout, or dumps in a lot of money, it can swing an election. Kim faced off against a primary opponent backed by a well-known local community leader who is openly supportive of the Chinese Communist Party. They each poured more than $600,000 into that tiny-turnout primary race. I felt this was a clear effort to get a political seat for a person who is loyal to their agenda, Kim says. This isnt about lawmaking in [the state capital of] Albany, but its about being the power broker of Flushing that will give them credibility and access. This is all happening in a place where the politics are theres no other way to put this corrupt as fuck. The five federal investigations reportedly swirling around Adams and his closest associates involve everyone from the police commissioner to the schools chancellor to his top fundraisers to a pair of deputy mayors. Adams immediate predecessor, de Blasio, dodged indictment for violating campaign finance laws, but not by much. After leaving office, former mayor Rudy Giuliani took money from a North Korean gangster and then worked with a man he admitted was likely a Russian spy. Long Islands George Santos was expelled from Congress after less than a year; he recently pleaded guilty to identity theft and wire fraud. One of Santos bigger Republican critics on the Island, Rep. Anthony DEsposito, was just exposed for giving Congressional jobs to his lover and his fiancees daughter. You get the idea: plenty of politicians with their hands out; elections practically designed to be swayed by small groups; those small groups susceptible to foreign infiltration and pressure, because theyve all got family back home. New York would be at the top of the list in terms of foreign governments, foreign regimes wanting to target, says Casey Michel, author of the newly published Foreign Agents. Especially New York City. I dont think its any surprise that the major investigation into a municipal authority as a target of potential foreign influence is Adams. So lets talk about the mayor. Adams has been ducking corruption allegations and playing diaspora politics for more than 15 years. According to the New York Times, a grand jury in July issued subpoenas related to Adams ties to six different countries: China, Qatar, South Korea, Israel, Uzbekistan, and, of course, Turkey. In his role as Brooklyn Borough President, Adams attended almost 80 events connected with Turkey, and at least 50 more celebrating China. Some of those events actually upset his Turkish government contacts, according to the indictment. In 2016, a Turkish official told Adams that a community center he used to visit was affiliated with a Turkish political movement that was hostile to Turkeys government If Adams wished to continue receiving support from the Turkish government, Adams could no longer associate with the community center. Adams acquiesced. Eric Adams talks to the press outside Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the New York City mayor, on Sept. 26, 2024, after he was indicted on federal criminal charges. Adams also met multiple times with Huang Ping, the Chinese Consul General who prosecutors later identified as Linda Suns handler. And the politicking seemingly continued overseas. Adams took 13 separate trips to Turkey and China, which is a lot of travel to those two specific nations, considering borough presidents dont really have foreign policy roles. Its totally appropriate, he said after the first of the trips to China, in 2014. Im not going to be a MetroCard borough president Im going to be a passport borough president. City Hall wont say what all of the trips were for. (They didnt respond to requests to comment for this story.) The alleged purpose of the Turkey trips, at least, is now less murky after the indictments release. When it comes to the others, heres what we can say for sure: We know that one of Adams China travel partners, his longtime Asian community liaison Winnie Greco, had her former campaign office and several of her homes raided by the FBI. We know that Greco and another Adams crony met separately in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province, with the man later indicted for operating that secret Chinese police station out of a Fujianese expat society in Manhattan. We know that Adams and Greco appeared onstage at a gala for that charity the American Changle Association, named for a famed neighborhood in Fuzhou shortly before it was exposed as a secret police front by the New York Post. We know Adams was with Association bigwig Lu Jianwang days before Lu was arrested in the secret police affair. We know, thanks to local news outlet The City, that 121 workers at the New World Mall in Queens, the site of Grecos 2021 campaign office, made donations to Adams of precisely $249 each, one buck below the limit for eight-times public matching funds. Several donors said they were reimbursed in cash, or had no idea they had been listed as contributors at all. This has all the hallmarks of illegal straw donations, as Adams team surely knows. One Chinese billionaire who gave money to Adams (and hosted his 60th birthday party) recently pleaded guilty to such charges. MAYBE ALL OF THESE connections were on the up-and-up. Maybe Adams trips to China and extremely odd donations from his campaign office in Flushing were no more nefarious than the 70-plus flag-raising ceremonies for various countries hes attended in his two-and-a-half years as mayor. Maybe its an accident of scheduling that Huang Ping, the Chinese Consul General, asked him to blow off a banquet with the Taiwanese president and Adams wound up doing just that. Adams may have rubbed elbows with people who were later indicted as foreign agents in groups like the American Changle Association, where voters gather for an old-country meal or speak in their parents dialect. Theres hardly an elected official in New York who didnt make such a visit, or get his picture taken at some point with Huang. Of course they did. Huang was a gregarious, effective, charming diplomat. He may be accused of secretly handling alleged agents like Linda Sun, but chatting up local politicians was most definitely Huangs job. You dont have to be some kind of simp for Beijing to find this kind of criminalization of foreign influence a little hypocritical, given all the governments the U.S. helped overthrow in the past century. Youre not necessarily an abolish-the-police type if you think the feds have gone overboard in their hunt for Chinese agents. Were not China. Were supposedly a free country, and the government should take more care in prosecuting and, in turn, persecuting people, John Liu, a state senator from Queens, tells me. This is personal for him. While he was gearing up to run for mayor more than a decade ago, the FBI ran a sting on him and his donors, part of a straw-donor probe he says was oh-so-subtly named Operation Red Money. They did find some straw donors, and a top aide did go to jail. But Liu himself was only fined $26,000 proof, he says, that the whole investigation was overheated. Nor is it a one-off. Liu points to cases like Baimadajie Angwang, the cop accused of spying for China, only to have the charges dropped without explanation. By that time, the NYPD had fired him. You know what? It wouldnt be so bad if the government pursued these cases, made them as visible as they intentionally make them, and actually had a pretty good record of success, Liu says. It bothers me that theres no accountability of any kind. You know, the government does this, and it doesnt matter how many lives are ruined [or] the impact on the wider community. Theres no question theres been overreach, including horror stories of Chinese Americans interrogated by the FBI, seemingly for no reason at all. We should absolutely oppose any effort by any foreign government to undermine our American society, our way of life, our democracy, says Rep. Grace Meng, who hired Linda Sun when she was in the State Assembly and now represents a large part of Queens in the U.S. Congress. But theres a lot of fear right now in the Asian American community, she adds. Every day, young, professional Asian Americans are really scared that these harmful stereotypes are being fueled [by] questions that are asked only of us. As overzealous as some prosecutors may have been, though, and as ugly our recent turn toward anti-China and anti-immigrant politics, there are too many of these foreign influence cases, tied to so many different outside actors, to brush off. A former Republican Congressman is under indictment for covertly working for Venezuelas dictator. A major Trump fundraiser pleaded guilty to doing the same on behalf of the Chinese and Malaysian government officials, in a case so weird and sprawling, a member of the Fugees wound up with a foreign agent conviction as part of it. Things are so bad, the guy thats supposed to be leading the investigations into these cases in New York the head of the states FBI counterintelligence division was himself sentenced earlier this year to federal prison for doing the bidding of a sanctioned Russian oligarch. The MAGA crowd can whine all they want about the #resistance obsession with Russia, Russia, Russia. Folks on the political left can roll their eyes at what feels like a Trumpy obsession with Chinese influence, or another red scare. It takes a kind of willful blindness not to see a pattern here. Liu, for one, called on Adams to resign after prosecutors unveiled their indictment which showed just how deep the mayors ties to Turkey went. This isnt a Republican problem or a Democratic problem its completely bipartisan, Michel tells me. And as were now seeing, its not just one level of government these regimes are targeting. Its everyone. Prosecutors say Huang Ping, the Chinese Consul General in New York (shown here in 2023), was Linda Suns handler, and lavished her with gifts including Nanjing-style salted ducks, sent to her parents a half-dozen at a time. For half a century, the American government hardly bothered to enforce the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires influence-peddlers to disclose their overseas clients, at least. That changed after the 2016 election, when Trump recruited the O.G. of scummy foreign lobbying, Paul Manafort, to run his campaign and publicly begged for a dictators help to win. The Department of Justice went on to prosecute Manafort and so many others from the Russian troll farm to the white-shoe law firm Skadden, Arps for breaking that law. Brandon van Grack, who oversaw many of those prosecutions as head of the Justice Departments Foreign Agents Registration Act unit, says the apparent surge in cases were seeing, eight years later, is a result of that 2016 wake-up call. He credits greater resources and tools to identify and disrupt those influence operations than an increase in the operations themselves, adding, Foreign influence is not novel. Its not exactly dying down, either. A few years ago, you might have thought that prosecuting folks like Manafort would at least serve as a warning shot. The sheer range of regimes trying to influence the 2024 election paints a different picture, and I dont just mean the fact that Manafort is a free man and doing Fox News hits from the Republican convention. I would say that a couple things are true in this specific situation. Yes, there are more investigations, because there are allowed to be. And I think our adversaries are more brazen than they have ever been, Evanina, the former counterintelligence chief, tells me. Theres a good argument that the number of prosecutions isnt even the right metric to gauge foreign influence. Registering as an overseas lobbyist dodging a FARA charge thats the easy part. More than 1,000 foreign principals have done so since 2016, spending more than $5.5 billion to whisper in lawmakers ears. At least 90 former members of Congress have registered since 2000 to push another governments agenda. Scores of U.S. generals and admirals have taken jobs with foreign governments in the last decade, with Saudi Arabia alone hiring 15 retired flag officers. Biden talked in 2020 about banning former officials from lobbying for foreign powers. It was just talk. The Supreme Court in recent years has radically raised the bar on bribery cases, and functionally removed any restrictions on campaign spending. Thats allowed Americans closely aligned with foreign governments to make enormous investments in shaping U.S. policy. The best known of these are the lobbyists pushing the agenda of Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who gave over a million dollars to the now-convicted Sen. Menendez, even after he was indicted, and spent millions more on successful primary campaigns to knock out two of Israels few critics in Congress. None of this violates any laws. But maybe thats beside the point. The real foreign influence scandal, Michel tells me, is how much of it is perfectly legal. If youre mad at outside actors for exploiting Americas system, dont be. The United States is still the worlds biggest power; of course every other nation is going to try to pull us in their direction. Try directing your anger a little closer to home. All of these politicians on the take, we voted for them. The bullshit China or Iran pumps out on TikTok? Its downright factual compared to the nonsense we Americans push one another. And if you think a guy like Eric Adams is an outlier with his, shall we say, open-minded approach to campaign finance and outside influences, allow me to introduce you to the Republican nominee for president and his inner circle. The Congress we elected has bottled up nearly every attempt to close these foreign-funding loopholes. The campaigns we supported went along with the Supreme Courts decision to make elections a feeding frenzy. This is a choice. Collectively, we made it. IN THE HOURS AFTER Linda Sun and her husband were charged as Chinese agents on Sept. 3, Gov. Hochul urged the U.S. government to expel Suns alleged handler, Consul General Huang Ping, and a State Department spokesperson claimed that Huang had rotated out of the position. Yet on the night of Sept. 5, at Manhattans storied Plaza Hotel, Huang Ping appeared onstage at the China Institutes $2,500-per-ticket Blue Cloud gala, looking rather dapper in a well-tailored tuxedo. Pictures were posted to the consulates website two days later. Consul General Huang Ping is performing his duties as normal, read a statement sent out to reporters. A few hours after he was indicted, Huangs longtime interlocutor Eric Adams promised to do much the same. My attorneys will take care of the case, so I can take care of this city, he said. My day to day will not change. More from Rolling Stone Best of Rolling Stone Sign up for RollingStone's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Eric Adams Has Been Indicted, But His Crappy Subway Robot Will Be "Redeployed" In the wake of New York City Mayor Eric Adams' surprise corruption indictment, the politician's pet tech projects may be in limbo but one, apparently, will live on. In an email to Futurism following news of Adams' federal indictment, Stacy D. Stephens, the executive vice president and chief client officer for the robotics company Knightscope, suggested that plans to bring back the New York Police Department's autonomous subway robot are still in motion. Introduced in pilot mode last September to the Times Square subway station and taken out of commission early this year, Knightscope's K5 robot had apparently been collecting dust in an empty storefront for months by the time the mayor commented on its conspicuous absence during a press conference earlier this month. "We have it in a new assignment," the mayor said in the early September press conference, per amNewYork. "Once it goes through his pilot, were going to respond to that, but he has a new assignment right now." Though the mayor didn't elaborate on what "assignment" was and his spokesperson later tried to walk back the comments, Stephens told Futurism today that its "redeployment" is indeed forthcoming. "As the Mayors office previously stated," the Knightscope spox told us, "they are working to redeploy the K5 at a [to-be-determined] location as another time-limited pilot." As amNY notes, the six-month contract the NYPD took out with Knightscope for K5 seems to have expired earlier this year. With little public knowledge about what the plan for the $12,500 robot, last seen sitting sadly inside a Times Square subway storefront in February, it's unclear whether that contract has been renewed. "Unfortunately," the spokesperson told us when we asked about the contract, "I am unable to share any additional information while the redeployment location is being decided." It's also a little hazy why officials would want to keep the robot in circulation. It's unable to make arrests or effectively communicate with members of the public, and requires several police officers to guard it. Besides reaching out to Knightscope, Futurism also contacted the city's Office of Technology and Innovation which Adams created at the beginning of his term to spearhead projects like this one, along with other harebrained uses of taxpayer funds by phone and email to ask if anyone there knew what was up with K5. Given everything that's gone in and around the mayor's office over the past 24 hours, however, we can forgive them for being a bit preoccupied. More on robots: Ukraine Is Getting Ready to Unleash a Swarm of Robot Dogs What the Eric Adams indictment means for New York City's leadership and future What the Eric Adams indictment means for New York City's leadership and future This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter. You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here. Happy Friday! Fall is here, and if you're looking to get into the spirit we have the best fall-themed foods at Trader Joe's right now . In today's big story, the walls are closing in on New York City Mayor Eric Adams after a federal indictment . What's on deck: But first, the charges are in. If this was forwarded to you, sign up here. The big story United States v. Eric Adams Seth Wenig/AP Photo; Alyssa Powell/BI He campaigned on the idea that he'd clean up crime, but prosecutors allege he was the one breaking the law. New York City Mayor Eric Adams was indicted on five criminal counts in a corruption probe accusing him of bribery and receiving illegal campaign contributions from foreign nationals. He is scheduled to be arraigned in a Manhattan federal court today . It marks the first time a sitting NYC mayor has been indicted. Prosecutors accused Adams, a Democrat and retired police captain, of accepting more than $100,000 worth of luxury international travel from wealthy businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official starting after he became Brooklyn Borough President in 2014. The goal, said Damian Williams, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, was to gain influence over Adams so foreign nationals could eventually " cash in on their corrupt relationships ." In one case, according to the indictment, that meant a Turkish Airlines manager offering to charge Adams $50 for two business-class seats worth $15,000 . (An Adams staffer told the manager to "quote a proper price," adding "let it be somewhat real." Adams ended up paying $1,100 for each ticket.) Messages obtained by prosecutors also show Adams promising his staffer he "always" deleted texts following a discussion of alleged Turkish bribes. Gary Hershorn/Getty Images So what were foreign nationals allegedly looking to cash these favors in for? A Manhattan skyscraper that houses Turkey's consulate, among other things, prosecutors say. Adams pressured the FDNY to approve the opening of the building without a fire inspection so it would be available in time for a high-profile visit by Turkey's president, according to the indictment. If convicted, Adams could face 45 years behind bars. But he isn't backing down. Despite calls from other elected officials to step down, the mayor has maintained his innocence. He's also hired high-powered lawyer Alex Spiro , Elon Musk's go-to attorney. But the same can't be said for key people in Adams' office who resigned before his indictment , including the public school chancellor and police commissioner. New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove Adams from office, didn't comment on the matter Thursday morning beyond saying she needed time to review the indictment. If Adams is removed from office or steps down, Jumaane Williams, the city's public advocate, would replace him until a special election is held. News brief Top headlines 3 things in markets Ali Jarekji/Reuters Oil's no good, very bad day. Oil markets dropped Thursday on a report that Saudi Arabia seemed to be saying uncle on its fight against waning demand . The kingdom will no longer seek a $100 per barrel price and is ready to increase oil output, sources told the Financial Times. Not everyone's buying the China stock surge. A new stimulus package has sent Chinese stocks soaring, but many strategists and economists think the country needs even more help before it's a sure bet for investors . Not everyone is playing it safe, though. Hedge fund billionaire David Tepper said he's loading up on Chinese stocks . AI needs lots of energy. That's good news for these stocks. Three market experts shared their picks for companies that can maximize AI energy efficiency. Some produce more specialized chips while others make sure data centers stay cool. Here are the eight stocks set to win the AI energy trade . 3 things in tech A blurred image of Sam Altman's profile. 3 things in business Deliormanli/Getty, Olivier Verriest/Getty, Andrei Akushevich/Getty, Tyler Le/BI The housing market takes a chill pill. Real estate is in the midst of its biggest slowdown since before the pandemic , with sales dropping and homes sitting for longer on the market. In the meantime, there's good news for those who already own homes: Lower rates mean it's prime time to refinance . Is MrBeast the final boss of "founder mode"? A business handbook penned by the embattled YouTube star set the internet abuzz when it leaked this week. In the doc, the creator emphasizes his desire for employees who are "obsessive" about work and thirsty for success so it's strangely fitting that his next venture is apparently promoting access to clean water . It could be the end of an era for publishers on Snapchat. Publishers worry the app's upcoming redesign, which merges Stories and Spotlight into a TikTok-like feed, will deprioritize their content. Snapchat is the latest company to deemphasize traditional media outlets in favor of creators, a move that could hinder publishers' ad revenue and visibility . In other news What's happening today Higher tariffs on multiple Chinese goods take effect, including 100% on electric vehicles, 50% on solar cells, and 25% on steel, aluminum, EV batteries, and key minerals. New York Film Festival begins. The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Jack Sommers, deputy editor, in London. Nathan Rennolds, editor, in London. Amanda Yen, fellow, in New York. Milan Sehmbi, fellow, in London. Read the original article on Business Insider New York City Mayor Eric Adams, indicted on federal fraud, bribery and campaign finance charges, says the Justice Department's case against him is "entirely false, based on lies" and comes in response to his criticism of the White House's botched handling of a crisis at the southern border. While the indictment contains serious allegations that he may have stolen $10 million from taxpayers' pockets, the investigation may have begun as political retaliation, according to David Gelman, a New Jersey-based defense attorney who has been following the case. "Reading between the tea leaves in this indictment, it doesn't look like they really started up their investigation until 2021, 2022, when they raided the house of Eric Adams' fundraiser," he told Fox News Digital. In November 2023, the FBI raided Brianna Suggs, a top fundraiser for the mayor's 2021 campaign. Feds Seize Eric Adams' Phone After Nyc Mayor's Indictment New York City Mayor Eric Adams speaks during a news conference on Sept. 26, 2024. He has been indicted on federal charges after an investigation into alleged campaign corruption. "Now, what happened in 2021 and 2022? That's the time when Eric Adams criticized the Biden administration," Gelman added. The raid on Suggs happened while Adams was visiting Washington, D.C., to raise concerns about the migrant crisis. He cut his trip short. Read On The Fox News App Adams has been a vocal critic of the White House's border policy since migrants began arriving in New York in droves, overwhelming the city's shelter system and allegedly fueling a "wave of migrant crime" involving phone snatchings and other theft. But investigators on Thursday said politics played no role in building their case. New York City Mayor Eric Adams Indicted "We are not focused on the right or the left," U.S. Attorney Damian Williams of the Southern District of New York said during a news briefing on Thursday. "We are focused on right and wrong. That is our duty, and we will fulfill it." A spokesperson for his office declined to comment further in response to Adams' claims of political persecution. Regardless of the motive, Gelman said Adams faces serious charges for allegedly ripping off taxpayers, taking bribes and influence peddling. Adams Office Lashes Out At Fbi Employee Who Might Have Improperly Leaked Details Of Corruption Probe WATCH: NYC Mayor Adams calls pending federal charges 'entirely false' He also said he was shocked at how blatant the accusations are against the former NYPD captain, if they are true. So much so that Williams during his remarks ripped the mayor's alleged attempts at covering his tracks as "a clumsy cover-up." "I honestly am surprised with Adams how sloppy he was and his underlings were," Gelman said. "If you're anybody who knows anything regarding police work and anything in the government, you would think that you would have a much better grasp on how to hide and conceal things. But I guess not." U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams speaks to reporters. During a news briefing Thursday, he denied that the federal investigation into New York Mayor Eric Adams was politically motivated. Anthony Capozzolo, a former federal prosecutor who handled public corruption cases in the neighboring Eastern District of New York, said the "shocking" allegations against Adams are a throwback to the 1800s-era corruption of Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall. "Not many cases involving corruption and illicit benefits to insiders also involve risk to the public safety, but this case carries with it the fact that Adams appears to be willing to push aside safety concerns about the Turkish diplomatic building to get it opened for use in an expedited manner at the request of Turkish government officials," he said. "This was a high-rise building for prosecutors this prevents the defense from trying to deprecate the seriousness of the offense, another common tactic by defense attorneys in corruption cases." Adams has painted the investigation as a smear campaign designed to undermine his credibility and make him look guilty for months before charges were filed. He has condemned leaks from the traditionally tight-lipped SDNY office and questioned the validity of the raids on numerous members of his inner circle. "Just this past week, they searched the home of our new police commissioner looking for documents from 20 years ago, just one week after he joined my administration," he said. "Enough. I will fight these injustices with every ounce of my strength and my spirit." READ The Indictment: The FBI seized his cellphone Thursday morning after returning to Gracie Mansion, the city's mayoral residence, but Adams has not yet been taken into custody. The mayor is now accused of one count of conspiracy to receive campaign contributions from foreign nationals and commit wire fraud and bribery, one count of wire fraud, two counts of soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals, and one count of soliciting and accepting a bribe. Adams could face up to 45 years in prison if convicted of all charges. New York City Mayor Eric Adams and attorney Alex Spiro speak to the press outside of Gracie Mansion in New York City on Thursday, September 26, 2024. Adams faces five federal charges, including alleged conspiracy, wire fraud, two counts of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national and bribery. According to the indictment, federal investigators were looking into whether Adams' 2021 and 2025 mayoral campaigns conspired with Turkish officials, business leaders and other entities to illegally raise funds. Court documents allege wrongdoing as far back as 2016. Original article source: Eric Adams indictment is political retaliation over Biden border criticism, criminal defense attorney claims New York City Mayor Eric Adams has pleaded not guilty to federal charges he accepted illegal foreign campaign donations and lavish trips in exchange for political favors. Adams appeared at a Manhattan federal courthouse Friday morning to enter not guilty pleas on five counts, including wire fraud, bribery and solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national. He gave a thumbs-up to reporters when entering the building. Prosecutors said Friday that Adams faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charge wire fraud, according to The Associated Press. Federal prosecutors allege that, beginning in 2015 as Brooklyns borough president and later as mayor, Adams accepted luxurious trips and travel benefits from Turkish businessmen and at least one government official in exchange for his influence. He did not disclose those benefits in annual financial disclosures and at times created or instructed others to create fake paper trails, they said. The Turkish official eventually sought repayment for the benefits provided to Adams, asking the mayor to facilitate the opening of a new Turkish consular building without a proper fire inspection. Prosecutors say Adams obliged and pressured the citys fire department to allow the building to open, despite the fact it would have failed a safety inspection at the time. Adams is further accused of accepting straw donations to his 2021 mayoral campaign and falsely certifying them as in compliance with campaign finance regulations. Because of the citys donation matching program, Adamss campaign allegedly illegally received more than $10 million in public funds. Prosecutors say that the scheme continued after Adams was inaugurated as mayor, contending he began planning to solicit additional illegal contributions and granting requests from 2021 supporters who made such donations ahead of his next election. At a press conference Thursday, surrounded by supporters, Adams said he expected the indictment and vowed to fight back. He has pushed back against a flood of calls for his resignation. I ask to wait and hear our side to this narrative. From here, my attorneys will take care of the case, so I can take care of the city, Adams said. My day to day will not change. I will continue to do the job for 8.3 million New Yorkers that I was elected to do. The indictment followed a series of investigations into Adamss associates, resulting in FBI raids and resignations from top officials including the citys police commissioner, health commissioner, schools chancellor and chief legal adviser. Federal agents entered the mayors official residence, Gracie Mansion, early Thursday and seized his phone, hours prior to the indictments unsealing. Adams attorney Alex Spiro told The Associated Press their presence was an effort to create a spectacle (again). At a press conference Thursday unveiling the indictment, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York said Adamss alleged conduct violated public trust. These are bright red lines, and we alleged that the mayor crossed them again and again, for years, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. Adamss next court appearance is scheduled for Oct. 2 before U.S. District Judge Dale Ho, who was nominated by President Biden last year. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. As Eric Adams prepares to appear in court, the number of Democrats calling for his resignation keeps growing Eric Adams is the first of New York City's mayors to be charged while in office. AP/Seth Wenig New York City Mayor Eric Adams is set to appear in court over bribery and wire fraud charges. Adams faces five criminal counts related to a federal corruption investigation. Calls for Adams' resignation are growing with some arguing his legal battles hinder city governance. As New York City Mayor Eric Adams prepares for court, the number of Democrats calling for his resignation is growing. Adams was accused of soliciting bribes from wealthy international business associates, including at least one Turkish government official who sought "to gain influence over him" for nearly a decade, according to official documents that were unsealed on Thursday. He was also accused of seeking illegal campaign contributions, wire fraud, and bribery, the documents said. Adams has denied wrongdoing, telling The New York Times on Wednesday that any charges against him are "entirely false." He is set to appear in court before Judge Katharine Parker in Manhattan at 12 pm ET. Several prominent officials and lawmakers have urged Adams to resign. Writing on X before news of the indictment was unsealed, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she couldn't see how Mayor Adams could continue governing New York City and should resign. "The flood of resignations and vacancies are threatening gov function," she said. "Nonstop investigations will make it impossible to recruit and retain a qualified administration. Brad Lander, New York City Comptroller who is second in line to succeed Adams, said in a statement that the mayor deserved due process and the presumption of innocence. "However, it is clear that defending himself against serious federal charges will require a significant amount of the time and attention needed to govern this great city," Lander added. "The most appropriate path forward is for him to step down so that New York City can get the full focus its leadership demands," he added. Democratic congressional candidates John Avlon and Laura Gillen have also called for the mayor's resignation. "I believe in putting principle over partisan politics," Avlon wrote on X. "A Democratic crook is as bad as a Republican crook. While everyone is entitled to a presumption of innocence before being judged by a jury, Mayor Adams should step aside for the good of all New Yorkers & there should be a special election." Meanwhile, at least four members of the New York City Council have encouraged Adams to step back, the outlet said. "New Yorkers have had enough of politicians abusing their positions. We deserve better, which is why Mayor Adams should step down," Sandy Nurse wrote on X. New York state Sen. John C. Liu added that New York residents need a mayor who can devote full time and energy to getting the city on the right track. Adams remains in office as of Friday's writing. As Business Insider previously reported, Gov. Kathy Hochul could remove the mayor if he is charged with a crime. Nonetheless, the likelihood of this scenario is unclear since Hochul and Adams are considered close allies, Gothamist , a New York City-based outlet, reported. Hochul issued a statement on Thursday asking Adams to "find an appropriate path forward to ensure the people of New York City are being well-served by their leaders." "We must give New Yorkers confidence that there is steady, responsible leadership at every level of government," she said. Read the original article on Business Insider Eric Adams' lawyer says he'll ask a judge to dismiss the mayor's bribery indictment as soon as next week Eric Adams' lawyer says he'll ask a judge to dismiss the mayor's bribery indictment as soon as next week Eric Adams appeared in federal court Friday for his criminal arraignment. The New York City mayor entered a not-guilty plea to the bribery and fraud indictment against him. His lawyer, Alex Spiro, said he'll file a motion to dismiss the case on Wednesday. New York City Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty to his sprawling criminal bribery indictment after sitting through a lengthy reading of the charges during his arraignment in a federal courtroom in Manhattan. "I am not guilty, your honor," Adams told the judge. His lawyer, Alex Spiro, said he would move quickly to ask a judge to toss the case. He said in court he plans to file a motion to dismiss the 57-page indictment a step that normally takes months on Wednesday. "We expect these charges to be dismissed," Spiro told journalists outside the courthouse following the arraignment hearing, accusing prosecutors of using a "shaky theory" for the case. Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have accused Adams of participating in a yearslong scheme in which he accepted bribes, including luxury travel perks, from the Turkish government. In exchange, prosecutors said Adams pushed city officials to approve plans for the Turkish House, a 36-story tower near the United Nations that houses Turkey's consulate and other diplomatic functions. Adams has denied wrongdoing. Wearing a dark navy suit, a patterned maroon tie, and a somber expression on his face, he entered his plea before US Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker shortly after noon. Adams was not required to post bail and is allowed to stay out of jail on the condition that he has no contact with the people named in the indictment. Prosecutor Celia Cohen said in court that she would work with Spiro to reach an agreement that would limit the mayor's contact with City Hall staff and family members. Adams would not have contact with certain staffers "concerning the facts and circumstances in the indictment" or beyond "routine business," Parker told the lawyers. The hearing took place in a frigid courtroom on the 26th floor of the courthouse packed with journalists. It was the same room where Sean "Diddy" Combs to whom Adams gave a "key to the city" in September 2023 was arraigned on his own set of criminal charges last week. Adams is being represented in his criminal case by Spiro, Elon Musk's go-to lawyer, who also recently won an acquittal for Alec Baldwin in a criminal case over the "Rust" movie set shooting. Following Friday's arraignment hearing, Adams and Spiro stood outside the courthouse and spoke to members of the press. Adams gave a thumbs-up in the direction of a man who yelled "I love you!" The man appeared to be hosting a comedy show and had been asking journalists whether they were polyamorous in the moments before the mayor appeared outside. Spiro compared the charges against Adams to a criminal corruption indictment against Brian Benjamin, who had served as the lieutenant governor of New York state. A district court judge dismissed the charges in 2022 before they went to trial, ruling that prosecutors did not have sufficient evidence to prove their case. But an appeals court reinstated the charges earlier this year. Spiro also put the blame on one of Adams' staffers, who is featured extensively throughout the 57-page indictment. He said the staffer "lied" and acted independently while currying favors from the Turkish government. "There are no emails, text messages, or any evidence whatsoever that the mayor had anything to do with these donations," Spiro said. Since the indictment, the number of Democrats calling for Adams' resignation has grown. The mayor's trial is set to be overseen by US District Judge Dale Ho, a former top election lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union who was nominated by President Joe Biden. Ho took the bench a year ago, and a trial for Adams would be his first high-profile case as a judge. This story was updated with details from the arraignment and press conference and to correct the spelling of US Magistrate Katharine Parker's first name. Read the original article on Business Insider The past few years might be described as the best of times for big city Democratic mayors but the worst of times for many of the big cities theyre tasked with actually running. Case in point: New York, Americas largest city, where Mayor Eric Adams now finds himself embroiled in the type of unsavoury corruption allegations more typical of the semi-democratic autocrats accused of possibly corrupting him. The case against Adams is dirty and damning. Yesterday, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams revealed the contents of a Federal indictment that accuses Adams of everything from enjoying nearly $125,000 in ill-supplied luxuries to illegally obtaining some $10 million in campaign financing. The Adams saga features a cast of supporting characters as random as they are disreputable: From disgraced boxer Mike Tyson, with whom Adams once associated despite the formers criminal convictions, to Turkeys controversial leader Tayyip Erdogan whom Adams allegedly tried to appease by pressuring city fire officials to approve the opening of a new Turkish consulate despite its inadequate safety measures. Adams has vowed to defend his good name and remain in office insisting hes under attack for refusing to play ball with the Biden Administrations efforts to flood New York with illegal migrants. Theres truth behind this: More than 210,000 migrants have arrived since 2022, costing the city nearly $5 billion a figure Adams himself believes could double by 2025. This issue will destroy New York, said Adams in August, in one of his many barbs directed at the White House, before adding that New York was getting no support [from Washington for] this national crisis. Last evening Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump, himself no stranger to federal indictments, echoed Adams claims of federal lawfare, saying at a Trump Tower press conference, I watched about a year ago when he talked about how the illegal migrants are hurting our city and the federal government should pay us and I said you know what, hell be indicted within the year. Despite the unsolicited Trump support, this weeks indictment follows months of similar corruption charges against nearly a dozen in Adams Administration. Which means that even if the Mayor somehow emerges with his job intact, his City Hall weakened and understaffed is likely compromised beyond repair. New York may be the highest-profile progressive-led city disgraced by lawless leadership, but its certainly not alone. Indeed, nearly every major American city is now being run from the left, if not far-left. Most of these mayors, when elected, were heralded as overdue or transformative. Almost all of these mayors have also succumbed to either malfeasance, mismanagement, or both often with sizable body counts attached. In Philadelphia, for instance, recently released campaign finance reports reveal that new Mayor Cherelle L. Parker paid more than $132,000 to a consulting firm whose founder was convicted of stealing campaign funds. The amount is modest, compared to Adams alleged numbers, but suggests the same type of worrisome inner circle that now sees Adams fighting to keep his job. Like New York, Philadelphia is also under siege from a wave of resource-draining undesirables in this case, encampments of zombie-like addicts hooked on tranq, a powerful animal tranquiliser mixed with fentanyl. Crime, more than anything, has defined big-city America and its city halls since the arrival of the pandemic. In Los Angeles, for instance, shoplifting has surged 133 per cent since the end of 2020, while crimes on the citys subway system were up 65 per cent for the first three months of this year. Despite a decline in violent crime since 2023, Mayor Karen Basss own residence was burglarised in late April. In New York itself, some violent crime levels may have declined this year, but the majority of Adams tenure has been marked by a surge in serious crimes, including record number of assaults even as he tried to claim his war on crime is working. And this was before the arrival of the thousands of pro-Palestine protesters who have taken over much of the city since Hamas attack on Israel nearly a year ago. Many, of course, have been arrested, but Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged almost none of them with an actual crime. And so many of them have returned to the streets including a particularly rowdy crowd last evening, making the most of both Adams sudden lame-duck status and the arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to town. Braggs laissez-faire tactics actually stand in contrast with Mayor Adams more heavy-handed approach to law-and-order, reflecting his past life as a captain in the NYPD. Should Adams resign, however, his interim replacement New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams could truly turn City Hall left. Williams, an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez associate and #blacklivesmatter activist, has often clashed with Adams over efforts at police reform. Like at the White House where an improbable lefty upstart ousted a centrist, establishment stalwart the prospect of the relatively moderate Adams being replaced with a radical like Williams is leaving some City Hall watchers rooting for Adams survival, much like many former liberals are now rooting for Trump. True, Kamala Harris has never faced arrest or indictment like Eric Adams. But she like Jumaane Williams represents a great unknown at a moment where Americans are crying out for stability. 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. Thousands in Ethiopia's capital city defied a downpour to celebrate Meskel, the first big festival of the religious year. It marks the discovery of the cross Jesus was crucified on, according to Ethiopian Orthodox Christian tradition. On Thursday, believers gathered in a large public plaza in Addis Ababa for rituals, speeches and even a spot of theatre. But the highlight was the lighting of a bonfire in the centre of the square. There was heavy security presence at this year's celebration - personnel numbers have been beefed up at many major events in Ethiopia amid sporadic fighting in regions such as Amhara and Oromia. [Amensisa Negera / BBC] [Amensisa Negera / BBC] Traditional instruments play a significant role in Meskel proceedings. Heavy rain fell at one point during the evening, prompting musicians playing the 10-stringed begena to cover their instruments. [Michele Spatari / AFP] [ Tiksa Negeri / Reuters] [Tiksa Negeri / Reuters] Vocalists also put on a show. This all-female choir adorned themselves with mock versions of adey abeba, an indigenous flower that symbolises the Ethiopian New Year, which was marked earlier this month. [Tiksa Negeri / Reuters] [Amanuel Sileshi/ AFP] As is customary, a huge pyre was lit at the centre of the square. The bonfire signifies the efforts made by St Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, to find Jesus' cross while in Jerusalem in the 4th Century. [Tiksa Negeri / Reuters] Sunday school students portrayed this scene for Thursday's crowds, with one young woman donning a huge crown and red cape: [Amensisa Negera / BBC] [Michele Spatari / AFP] During the celebration Abune Mathias, the patriarch of Ethiopia's Orthodox Church, called on Ethiopians to unite and play a part in bringing peace to the country. [Tiksa Negeri / Reuters] One wreath-wearing attendee had a similar message. [ Amanuel Sileshi / AFP] [Tiksa Negeri / Reuters] Correction 30 September: The reference to the person who went to Jerusalem to find the cross has been updated to make it clear it was 4th Century St Helena, and not medieval Ethiopian Empress Eleni. More BBC stories from Ethiopia: [Getty Images/BBC] Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica BBC Africa podcasts (Bloomberg) -- The group spearheading the UKs shift to a faster trading regime is preparing for the possibility that the country makes the switch in advance of the European Union, a move that could create a litany of headaches for financial professionals across the region. Most Read from Bloomberg The UK will follow the US to the one-day settlement cycle known as T+1 in the final quarter of 2027, according to Andrew Douglas, chair of the government-appointed team advising on the transition. The group set out its vision for how firms should prepare in a report published Friday, which laid out two scenarios: One in which the UK and the EU make the switch at the same time, and another in which the UK moves alone. The ideal transition would include coordination between the markets, the report said. Its clear that one solution that suits the UK and our European colleagues is a much better solution than us going down different paths, Douglas said in an interview. The ball is in their court to work out if its feasible. How the New T+1 Rule Settles US Stocks in a Day: QuickTake The proposed time frame leaves the door open for a coordinated switch, since officials in Brussels have previously signaled that a move by the end of 2027 is possible for the bloc. The report said that recent developments in the EU suggest an emerging appetite for the two to align, and institutions from the bloc have been involved in the UKs planning process. Yet dates in 2028 have also been mooted for the EU shift, an operation thats likely to be complicated and costly thanks to its fragmented capital markets. While I do think the UK move to T+1 is attainable by 2027, it will be quite ambitious for the EU to align at the same time, Kaisha Schnoll, an assistant vice president covering trade settlements at STP Investment Services, said. The EU markets are much more complex with specific market requirements, taxes, securities that trade across multiple exchanges. Failure to coordinate could create all manner of funding mismatches and misaligned processes across two closely linked jurisdictions, likely driving up trading frictions and operational costs. Wary of the risks, industry groups such as the Association for Financial Markets in Europe have been pushing hard for the UK and EU to accelerate their settlement cycles at the same time. Story continues Either the UK or EU going it alone before the other is ready is what we dont want to see, Jim Goldie, EMEA head of capital markets, ETFs and indexed strategies at Invesco, said before the report was released. The most important thing is to do it in a harmonized fashion. I hope as an industry, Europe will be ready to migrate by 2027. It feels like three years is enough time. Accelerating settlement is likely to involve both changing operational processes and upgrading technology, as well as making possible adjustments to staffing. But it would realign European markets with the worlds largest, after the US made the leap to T+1 in May alongside Canada and Mexico. A mammoth industry effort helped ensure that was a smooth transition. A consultation published earlier this year by the European Securities and Markets Authority, the EU market regulator, showed many asset managers, banks and trade groups in the bloc are concerned that the move to settle trades on a T+1 basis will prove disruptive. The biggest challenge for Europe as a continent moving to T+1 successfully is disunity between the EU, UK, and Switzerland, said Jesus Benito, head of domestic custody and trade repositories operations at SIX. It will be essential regulators, market participants, and market infrastructure providers collaborate effectively to traverse the fragmented market environment. Alongside Fridays report, which emphasized the importance of automating processes ahead of the switch, the UK group launched a consultation on its proposals with a view to making final recommendations in January. That publication will provide implementation dates for firms, with certain preparations needing to be completed by the end of 2025 at the latest. If the UK and EU transitions dont align, the group recommends some instruments such as exchange-traded products and Eurobonds remain on a slower settlement cycle initially. If the EU and Switzerland decides that our time framework works for them, Im very happy that we work together, Douglas said. Europe will make its own decision but I remain optimistic that we will be able to do something together. (Updates with more details and context from report throughout and quote from SIX.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Somalia has threatened to boot out Ethiopian troops deployed for an African Union mission against Al-Shabaab militants since 2007 (Leonardo Munoz) (Leonardo Munoz/AFP/AFP) Somalia's prime minister on Friday accused Ethiopia of actions that "flagrantly violate" Somalia's territorial integrity after Addis Ababa's shock announcement it would lease a stretch of coastline from the breakaway region Somaliland. The region has been on alert since January when Ethiopia said it intended to build a naval base and commercial port on the area. Landlocked Ethiopia has long sought its own sea access, but the move enraged Somalia which refuses to recognize Somaliland's claim to independence that it first declared in 1991 and has received little international support. "Somalia currently faces a serious threat from Ethiopia's recent actions which flagrantly violate our territorial integrity," Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre said at the UN General Assembly. "Ethiopia's attempt to annex part of Somalia under the guise of securing sea access is both unlawful and unnecessary," he said. Ethiopia's Foreign Minister Taye Atske Selassierejected the Somali prime minister's criticism. "Similar agreements have been concluded by other states, and there is no reason for the government of Somalia to incite hostility that obviously intends to cover internal political tensions," he told the General Assembly. In response to Ethiopia's plan, Somalia has threatened to boot out Ethiopian troops deployed for an African Union mission against Al-Shabaab militants since 2007. Mogadishu has also signed a military deal with Cairo which has seen Somalia receive weapons shipments, alarming the Ethiopians who say the arms may fall into Al-Shabaab hands. The African Union mission is due for a makeover at the end of the year and Egypt has offered to take the place of the Ethiopian troops for the first time. Somalia may also force Ethiopia to remove the estimated 10,000 troops it has stationed along their shared border to prevent incursions by the Islamists. gw/bjt FILE PHOTO: Members of police demining unit remove a warhead from a Russian kamikaze unmanned aerial vehicle landed by a radio electronic warfare during one of latest drone strikes in an unknown location in Ukraine (Reuters) - A report that Russia is developing a China-backed attack drone programme for the war in Ukraine is "deeply concerning", a European Union spokesperson said on Friday. Reuters reported on Wednesday that IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned arms company Almaz-Antey, has developed and flight-tested a new drone model called Garpiya-3 (G3) in China with the help of local specialists. It cited two sources from a European intelligence agency and reviewed documents about the programme. "We have noted the deeply concerning reports alleging that Russia is developing attack drones in China for the use in its war of aggression against Ukraine," said Nabila Massrali, a spokesperson for the EU's diplomatic service. "If these reports are accurate, this would mean that Chinese companies are providing Russia with lethal assistance," she added. "It would go against China's official narrative that it does not provide lethal weapons to support Russia in its war of aggression against Ukraine and therefore we expect the allegations to be thoroughly and immediately examined and addressed by the Chinese authorities." The EU has repeatedly urged all countries, including China, not to provide material or other support for Russias war against Ukraine, Massrali said. China's foreign ministry has told Reuters it was not aware of the project, adding that Beijing had strict control measures on the export of drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Kupol, Almaz-Antey and the Russian defence ministry did not respond to requests for comment for Wednesday's article. (Reporting by Andrew Gray in Brussels and Anthony Deutsch in The Hague; Editing by Gareth Jones) The News Southern European economies are on an upward curve, while Germany is stagnating, as the continents traditional laggards and powerhouses trade places. The Spanish government raised its growth forecast for the next two years by two percentage points, citing private investment and consumption, and said it expects unemployment rates to fall. Its the latest piece of good news for Madrid, while Portugal and Greece traditionally basket cases have also seen years of over-performance: The three economies have grown at more than double the eurozone average since the start of 2023, which Bloomberg credited to austerity measures that cut their crippling debt-to-GDP ratios. Meanwhile, analysts downgraded Germanys projected growth, blaming deep structural problems including a demographic change and international competition. SIGNALS Germany may have become a victim of its own success Sources: Robert Schuman Foundation, The Guardian Germanys stagnating GDP outlook partly derives from its export-oriented economy, which has proven vulnerable to external shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic and Russias invasion of Ukraine, an economics expert argued for the Robert Schuman Foundation. Berlin has sought to maintain a surplus above all else, but can no longer count on an upturn in external demand among trading partners like China to help it pull through these crises, he added. Germany has also been painfully slow to let go of industries past their sell-by date, and become a victim of its own success by seeing little reason to change those models despite the rise of new growth sectors like electric vehicles and artificial intelligence, The Guardians economics editor argued. Spain benefits from tourism Sources: Global Finance, ING, Elcano Royal Institute Spains traditionally in-the-red current account has shifted thanks to a growth in tourism and new export markets including automobiles and services, the success of which is less dependent on the fortunes of its European neighbors, Global Finance reported. However, political uncertainty and a divided Parliament risks derailing that upwards trajectory, a senior economist at CaixaBank added. The countrys economic growth also risks being held back by its more interest-rate-sensitive manufacturing and construction sectors, an economist wrote for ING. Plus, unemployment is double the EUs average, and other issues like a lack of affordable housing and high levels of public debt mean there is no room for complacency, a fellow argued in the Elcano Royal Institute. Europe en route for Moon with new simulator, says astronaut Pesquet Pesquet is a national icon in France for his missions to the International Space Station (ISS) (Ludovic MARIN) (Ludovic MARIN/POOL/AFP) Europe has embarked on the mission to put humans back on the Moon with a new lunar simulator launched in Germany, French astronaut Thomas Pesquet told AFP. Pesquet was at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne on Wednesday to test out LUNA, a facility built to resemble the surface of the Moon. The 46-year-old astronaut, a national icon in France for his missions to the International Space Station (ISS), glowed at the prospect of participating in a lunar mission. "It would be a dream and the high point of my career. The Moon is 1,000 times farther away than the ISS," he said in an interview. "Aboard the ISS, you feel like you're doing something out of the ordinary. But going to the Moon takes the adventure to a whole other level." The newly opened facility was designed to train astronauts and test equipment and material for use on missions to the Moon. International interest in exploring the Moon has surged in recent years. NASA has launched a programme, Artemis, to put astronauts on the Moon in 2026, more than five decades after US space explorers last visited on the final flight of the Apollo missions in 1972. Earlier this year, China sent a probe that collected the first samples from the far side of the Moon. The country aims to send a crewed mission to Earth's satellite by 2030, and wants to build a base on the lunar surface. Japan and India are planning to send a probe to hunt for water near the south pole of the Moon in 2025. The European Space Agency (ESA) hopes to team up with NASA on future Moon missions, Pesquet said. "It's a key moment for Europe, because we're truly jumping into lunar exploration. We're already partnering with NASA on supplying equipment and materials for Artemis," he said. "But LUNA is really the first highly visible sign of the fact that we've embarked on plans to return to the Moon. We're proving that by making long-term investments. This facility will be open to other space agencies, researchers and, we hope, to private firms." - 'Different kettle of fish' - Pesquet described his first test of LUNA as surprising. He and fellow ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer rehearsed walking on the lunar surface, wearing special suits that weighed 25 kilogrammes (55 pounds) and carrying scientific and communications equipment, he said. "I was surprised by the piercing light seen on the Moon, especially at the south pole. It's very hard to evaluate the topography," he said, describing how he sank into the thick layer of dust simulating that found on the lunar surface. "The minute you leave the path, figuring out where to step is a whole different kettle of fish.... It's also incredibly slow. It's not like Earth, you're a lot less coordinated. It reminded me of my spacewalks at the International Space Station." Europe's role providing the service module for NASA's Orion capsule, which will carry the Artemis crew members, has earned the ESA three spots for its astronauts on the programme's first three missions around the Moon. But "NASA has told us, 'To land on the Moon, you need to propose something to do on the lunar surface,'" said Pesquet. "LUNA isn't a contractual part of the deal. But it allows us to show we're serious." ber/jhb/jj Lake Lure Dam no longer at imminent risk of failure, officials say The Lake Lure Dam is no longer at an imminent risk of failure, emergency management officials in Rutherford County posted on Facebook shortly after 8 p.m. Friday. LAKE LURE DAM UPDATE: 9/27/24, 8:00 PM: Engineers have evaluated the Lake Lure Dam and determined it is no longer at... Posted by Rutherford County, NC Emergency Management on Friday, September 27, 2024 >>CLICK here for the latest weather alerts Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over the Chimney Rock and Lake Lure area late Friday afternoon where there was widespread destruction caused by flooding. Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 However, at about 11 a.m. Rutherford County Emergency Management said anyone below the Lake Lure Dam needed to evacuate to higher ground as quickly as possible. Terrible situation takin shape over at Lake Lure. pic.twitter.com/LgvRqlA7lk Keith Monday (@kmondayWSOC9) September 27, 2024 About an hour before that, authorities warned water was overtopping the dam. They asked residents along surrounding roads to move to higher ground. The failure would have impacted neighbors in Cleveland County as well. Once again, emergency officials said the dam is no longer in imminent danger of failure. There is a curfew in place for Rutherford County. CURFEW ANNOUNCEMENT: 9/27/24, 6:30 PM: CURFEW IN EFFECT from 7:30 PM to 7:30 AM. This curfew does not apply to emergency... Posted by Rutherford County, NC Emergency Management on Friday, September 27, 2024 The sheriffs office asked anyone who lives along Waterway Drive, Abes Mountain Road, and the Broad River to evacuate. READ MORE: Western NC sees heavy flooding as Tropical Storm Helene moves through the area In an update around 1:30 p.m., emergency management said water was cresting the dam and flowing around the side walls. While the structural supports have been compromised, the dam wall was holding. Evacuation sirens were sounding downstream and emergency officials went house to house to make sure everyone left the area. Evacuees are being temporarily taken to an Ingles grocery store in Lake Lure. An emergency shelter has also been set up at RS Central High School. Officials asked anyone ordered to evacuate to go to the school, adding that anyone not evacuating should stay home due to hazardous roads with an insurmountable number of trees and electrical lines that are down. Lake Lure is a small lake town located about 30 miles east of Asheville. The town is next to Chimney Rock, which is home to an iconic North Carolina hike of the same name. The town is known for its lake, which sits at the center of the town. It also houses the Lake Lure Inn, a historic inn where the cast and crew of the 1987 film Dirty Dancing stayed during filming. The town is one of many in western North Carolina suffering from the effects of Tropical Storm Helene. State transportation officials told drivers that all roads in western North Carolina should be considered closed. All roads in Western NC should be considered closed Do not travel unless an emergency or seeking higher ground Do not drive through standing water Respect barricades and road closures#TurnAroundDontDrown #Helene #ncwx pic.twitter.com/gjfrZJBPHm NCDOT (@NCDOT) September 27, 2024 Do not travel unless an emergency or seeking higher ground, they said in a post on social media. Early Friday, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said two deaths in the state can be attributed to the storm: One in Catawba County and another in Charlotte. MEDIC told Channel 9 that one person died and another was hurt when a tree fell onto a home around 5 a.m. Friday in northwest Charlotte. On Thursday, a 4-year-old died in a crash in Catawba County. Three other people, including two other children, were hurt in the crash. This is a developing story. Check back for updates. (WATCH BELOW: 5 rescued from rising Linville River as heavy rain moves in) US journalist Evan Gershkovich, pictured during his trial in Russia (Alexander NEMENOV) (Alexander NEMENOV/AFP/AFP) The Russian judge who convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich said the trial was short because it did not examine any "material evidence" and the verdict did not take long because he could "type quickly". "The case itself was small. I don't remember how many folders there were -- three or five," Andrei Mineyev was quoted by RIA Novosti news agency as saying Friday. "Why did it go so quickly? The point is the court did not examine material evidence," the judge said, adding that this was because neither the prosecution nor the defence had requested this. The judge made the comments at a conference in the city of Yekaterinburg, where he spoke about different cases he had worked on, according to Russian media. Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023 while on a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg -- the first foreign journalist held for espionage in post-Soviet Russia. Gershkovich, his employer and the United States have always denied the accusation. His trial in Yekaterinburg, which was held behind closed doors because of the nature of the charges, began in June 2024. Prosecutors accused Gershkovich, the 32-year-old American son of Soviet emigres, of gathering secret information about the activities of a massive tank factory in the region. On July 19, he was convicted to 16 years in prison and then released two weeks later in the biggest Russia-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War. The judge said he was "100-200 percent" sure that Gershkovich was "at the same time a journalist, a spy and a CIA agent", Kommersant newspaper reported. He said Gershkovich always denied his guilt. The judge said he retired to consider the verdict at midday and pronounced it at 5:00 pm, saying this was because he could "type quickly", the paper said. bur/jhb Mark Denning acknowledges he doesn't know a lot about the history of a now defunct Milwaukee area girls asylum. But he's hoping more people become aware of its grim history, and the history of other places like it. An event Saturday will be a step in that direction. The legacy of such places continues to haunt Indigenous people to this day, in Wisconsin and other part of the country. The Good Shepherd Industrial School, also known as House of the Good Shepherd, opened in 1877 in Wauwatosa, just across the Milwaukee border. Denning said it was a boarding school for girls who were impoverished, beggars, vagrants and/or orphans. It served as an asylum or minimum-security prison for girls who were to provide labor, such as cleaning services. This is a story that needs to be told, he said. Denning, who is an Oneida tribal member, said he recently learned about Good Shepherd because it was listed as an Indigenous boarding school by the Department of the Interior. Secretary Deb Haaland, who is the first Native American to head that federal department, has vowed to research and publish information about the hundreds of Indigenous boarding schools that existed in the U.S. Denning said at least 27 girls from the Turtle Mountain Ojibwe Reservation in North Dakota had been sent to Good Shepherd, as well as Indigenous girls from tribal nations in Wisconsin. Like many of the Indigenous boarding schools of the era there were reports of physical and sexual abuse against Indigenous children. The boarding schools were designed to assimilate Indigenous children. Catholic sisters and other teachers would punish the children for speaking their native language or practicing their culture. The Interior Departments report identified there were 11 Indigenous boarding schools in Wisconsin and the Journal Sentinel identified two more for a total of 13 during the era. The Mikwendaagoziwag Heritage Center, a former boarding school on the Lac du Flambeau reservation, is now a museum. The boarding schools were designed to forcefully assimilate Indigenous children. Denning helped to organize an MKE Every Child Matters Walk, taking place Saturday, to focus on what little is known about Good Shepherd. It will start with a "Sunrise Ceremony" at 6:45 a.m. at 5010 W. North Ave., in Milwaukee. A 14.5 mile walk is scheduled to end at Indian Community School in Franklin, where lunch will be offered, along with speakers, a lacrosse game, and talking circles. The walk will be relay-style; no one is required to walk the entire distance. We will learn about the hardships and enduring stories of our relatives and ancestors, the Facebook page for the event reads. By uncovering these truths we can begin to understand our shared history and heal as a community. Nearly 300 people had responded to the event page by Wednesday afternoon. Tammy Swierczynski (Oneida/Menominee), who helped to organize a talking circle for the event, said the story of the Indigenous boarding school era and the generational trauma it caused thats still affecting Indigenous families is one that needs to be told. She said the suffering endured by Indigenous children at those boarding schools was handed down in their families, including her own, and the cycle of abuse and addiction continues to devastate families. Swierczynski believes healing starts with understanding what happened at those boarding schools, followed by reclaiming the culture that was taken away there. Its important for us as Natives to heal, get back to our Indigenous ways and understand it was not our fault, she said. We were not alcoholics. Everybody had a role in the community. Everybody felt worthy. We know this isnt how we lived. We lived as a community. A lot of us feel lost (today) with the suicide and drug epidemics. The more we educate ourselves about what happened to our ancestors, the more people can forgive themselves. The Mikwendaagoziwag Heritage Center, a former boarding school on the Lac du Flambeau reservation, is now a museum. The boarding schools were designed to forcefully assimilate Indigenous children. The Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe community in northern Wisconsin also is educating about Indigenous boarding schools this month. The reservation had a boarding school campus of 25 buildings from 1895 to 1932. Lauren Abel, of the tribes historic preservation office, said children would run away from the school to return to their families on the reservation because they were so close. She said they were caught and returned, and frequent escapees would be sent to even harsher boarding schools in the country, such as an infamous one at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where some children died. Many of the Indigenous boarding schools in Wisconsin were located on or near reservations or tribal land for the 11 federally recognized tribes in the state. They were run by the federal government, as well as the Catholic Church or other Christian denominations. On Indigenous Peoples Day (know to some as Columbus Day) in 2021, Gov. Tony Evers signed an executive order formally apologizing for the states role in allowing these boarding schools to be located in Wisconsin. This is the first Every Child Matters event to be held in Milwaukee and second annual event in Lac du Flambeau as the movement continues to grow throughout the U.S. Every Child Matters started in Canada in 2013 and is also known as Orange Shirt Day. Officially, it is Sept. 30. It was started by boarding school survivor Phyllis Jack Webstad as a remembrance of the boarding school era. She recalled that officials at the boarding school when she was six years old wouldnt allow her to keep an orange shirt her grandmother gave her. Organizers said the orange shirt symbolizes what was taken. In addition, the color orange for many Indigenous communities symbolizes truth-telling, health and regeneration. Several public schools in Wisconsin are recognizing Orange Shirt Day this year by asking students to wear orange shirts and by sharing stories from the boarding schools. More: 'They never broke my spirit': Survivors of Indian schools on Menominee Reservation demand Catholic church to acknowledge abuse More: Gov. Tony Evers apologizes for Indian boarding schools in executive order on Indigenous Peoples' Day More: 'People need to know what happened': Wisconsin tribes, families welcome federal scrutiny of Indian boarding school system Sign up for the First Nations Wisconsin newsletter Click here to get all of our Indigenous news coverage right in your inbox Frank Vaisvilas is a former Report for America corps member who covers Native American issues in Wisconsin based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact him at fvaisvilas@gannett.com or 815-260-2262. Follow him on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin tribes share the grim story of Indigenous boarding schools Erik McGregor/Getty Images Sign up for The Agenda Them's news and politics newsletter, delivered to your inbox every Thursday. The following weekly digest is written and compiled by the Trans Formations Project, a grassroots nonprofit dedicated to tracking and educating about the anti-trans legislative crisis currently sweeping the United States. You can follow their work and latest updates via Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Tumblr, and Facebook. Hello readers. Its Friday, September 27, 2024. As a reminder, legislative sessions are different for each state you can keep track of your state's legislative session here. Currently, bill progressions have slowed or halted entirely following the conclusion of legislative sessions in most states. This week: no new bills were introduced, no bills progressed. Editorial Feature Trans Voter Suppression in the 2024 General Election This month, the Williams Institute at UCLA released its annual report outlining the impact of voter registration laws on transgender voters. In this weeks editorial column, well explore the findings of that report, unpacking its implications for the 2024 general election. In 2024, multiple U.S. states saw a concerted right-wing effort to complicate (or entirely eradicate) the process of altering gender markers on state-issued identification. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton prompted his states Department of Public Safety (DPS) to change its gender marker regulations in August. Under the updated rules, Texas DPS will no longer accept court orders as valid documentation for a gender marker change. In addition to Texas, three other U.S. states have a total ban on updating gender markers, while nine additional states require proof of surgery, a court order, or an amended birth certificate. According to the Williams Institutes reportwhich aligns with TFPs own findingstransgender voters in 27 different U.S. states will face new voter ID restrictions ahead of the 2024 general election. These restrictions were not in place during the last presidential election in 2020. Notably, in the four short years since the last general election, the anti-trans movement in the U.S. gained significant momentum. These newly emergent voter ID restrictions may increase disenfranchisement of transgender voters. The Williams Institute notes that: Approximately 647,000 voting-eligible transgender Americans live in one of the 42 U.S. states that conducts elections primarily in-person, as opposed to via mail-in ballot. 43% of these individuals lack accurate identification documents. Of the total estimated 825,100 transgender adults eligible to vote in 2024, 91,300 live in states that almost entirely prohibit gender marker changes on state identification. Due to the increased difficulty of obtaining accurate, gender-affirming documentation, trans voters are likely to experience discrimination at in-person polling locations during the 2024 election. While this projected disenfranchisement may not be by design, it is certainly a convenient legislative side-effect for anti-trans advocates. The Williams Institute report focuses on identifying the problem rather than proposing solutions. The report does however conclude on a positive note, praising Californias recent initiative to train poll workers on trans/gender-nonconforming inclusivity. More programs like Californias are needed, this much is evidentbut as a community of advocates, our primary focus should be on challenging discriminatory documentation laws ahead of the 2024 election. If you arent already registered to vote, we encourage you to do so here! While federal elections are important, state and local elections have been just as instrumental in the fight for trans rights (if not more so). If you want to learn what your state representatives have been up to, check out our legislator scorecards here. The Things We Won! 354 anti trans bills The Campaign for Southern Equality, a key trans legal advocacy organization, recently published a book about their work entitled Trans Kids, Our Kids. The book includes important resources and action steps for trans advocates. What the Heck Else Happened This Week? 48 anti trans bills passed This week, the Florida Department of Education confirmed its intention to roll back comprehensive sex education in the states public schools. School districts will instead be expected to teach an abstinence-centric curriculum. The Department of Education proposes limiting discussion on a number of topics, including contraception, abuse and domestic violence, and human development, in addition to LGBTQIA+ content. This directive expands upon prior DeSantis Administration attempts at LGBTQIA+ censorship, including the now-defunct Dont Say Gay bill. On Friday, September 20, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court decision in Corbitt v. Secretary of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency . Corbitt v. Alabama challenges Alabama Policy Order 63, which places heavy restrictions on transgender people who wish to alter their gender markers on state-issued identification. According to Policy Order 63, individuals wishing to apply for a gender marker change must submit either an amended birth certificate or receive verifiable gender-affirming surgery. In Corbitt v. Alabama, the lower district court ruled against Alabama Policy Order 63, declaring it unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. The 11th Circuit Court overturned this decision, upholding Policy Order 63. In essence, the appellate court ruling determines that transgender people do not possess equal protection rights on the basis of gender identity. This week, a team of twenty-six U.S. state Attorney Generals (AGs) submitted a letter to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) challenging the approval of puberty blockers for use on trans minors. In their letter, the AGs cite the infamously anti-trans Cass Report as evidence that puberty blockers cause irreparable harm to children later in life. The letter puts the AAP on notice, stating that they may face legal action for violating state consumer protection statutes. A critique of the Cass Report can be found here. 2024 bills passed graph Mental Health Resources We know that staying up-to-date with anti-trans legislation may be distressing to our readers. If you or someone you know needs support, here are a few affirming resources that you can reach out to: If you need support or are in crisis, you can contact the Trans Lifeline hotline at (877) 565-8860. The Trans Lifeline is run by trans people, for trans people, and does not engage in non-consensual active rescue, meaning they will not call law enforcement without your consent. You can connect with a Trevor Project crisis counselor via phone 1 (866) 488-7386, chat, or text (Text START to 678-678). Note: This resource could utilize non-consensual active rescue, including law enforcement, 911, and first responders. You can call the LGBT National Hotline at (888) 843-4564 or connect with a peer via chat. The LGBT National Help Center will NOT call other suicide hotlines, law enforcement, 911, or rescue services. BlackLine is a BIPOC LGBTQ+ support line, run by BIPOC folks, for BIPOC folks. This resource does not involve law enforcement or state agencies. You can call 1 (800) 604-5841 to chat with a peer. For folks under 25, you can call the LGBT National Youth Talkline at (800) 246-7743. The LGBT National Help Center will NOT call other suicide hotlines, law enforcement, 911, or rescue services. Adults (folks 18+) can text the THRIVE Lifeline, which is trans-led and operated. Text "THRIVE" to (313) 662-8209 to begin your conversation. THRIVE Lifeline does NOT call emergency services for people who are at risk of harming themselves without their consent. Get the best of whats queer. Sign up for Thems weekly newsletter here. Originally Appeared on them. BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) - Nearly one week after a deadly mass shooting in Birminghams Five Points neighborhood, the Birmingham Police Department is still searching for suspects. Since the investigation began, BPD created an evidence submission portal for members of the public to provide photos and videos that can aid detectives. This can be accessed by scanning the QR code above or clicking this link. As of Friday, no arrests have been announced in the shooting that killed four people and injured 17 others outside of Hush Lounge. Public information officer Truman Fitzgerald has since revealed that a possibly fully automatic weapon was used during the incident. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. The evolution of devolution: 25 years of the Scottish Parliament The King and Queen are at Holyrood this weekend to attend a celebration marking 25 years since the Scottish Parliament was reconvened. That is how their visit is described in the official news release. Reconvened was the word that MSP Winnie Ewing chose when opening the devolved parliament for business in 1999. As a nationalist politician, Mrs Ewing may have enjoyed the sense of historical continuity with the 18th Century parliament of what had been an independent Scotland. Her choice of words raised a few eyebrows at the time because the new parliament bares little resemblance to the old one. The continuity is mostly myth. Firstly, Holyrood is a democratically elected house rather than an assembly of aristocrats and the landed gentry. Secondly, it represents an experiment in power-sharing within the United Kingdom, rather than a departure from the political Union with England of 1707. Queen Elizabeth attended the state opening of the parliament in July 1999 [Getty Images] For Labour, the party that delivered devolution, one of the key objectives of having more decisions about Scotland made in Scotland was to quell nationalist demands for full independence. Labours shadow Scottish secretary before the 1997 general election, George Robertson, predicted devolution would kill the SNP stone dead. By contrast his Labour MP colleague Tam Dalyell, who opposed devolution, warned that it would become a motorway without exit to a separate state. Either could yet be vindicated but so far both have been wide of the mark. Ten years ago this month, Scottish voters rejected the offer of independence in a referendum. Of course, that referendum only materialised because a few years earlier, the main party of independence - the SNP - won an outright majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament. The voting system was specifically designed for that not to happen. An element of proportional representation was supposed to require minority parties to cooperate and share power. Thats what happened in the first eight years when Labour and the Liberal Democrats ran coalition governments. Far from killing the SNP, Holyrood has given the party a platform to propel itself from protest to power. Over the last 17 years, the SNP has become the dominant force in Scottish politics, keeping constitutional politics to the fore. That has frustrated their opponents, who would prefer to have seen far greater focus on delivery and reform of devolved public services like the NHS and schools. The SNPs unsuccessful pursuit of independence has led to Holyrood accumulating new responsibilities. It has become a more powerful parliament, with almost full control over income tax and the beginnings of a distinctive welfare system. Smoking in public places was banned 2006 [Getty Images] Not that it was without considerable clout. Just think of the life and death decisions made daily by Holyrood ministers during the Covid pandemic. The parliament has passed 370 bills, including landmark legislation to ban smoking in enclosed public places, to introduce minimum unit pricing for alcohol, and to legalise same sex marriage. A hallmark of devolution is that successive governments have expanded the provision of free or subsidised entitlements. These include free personal care for the elderly, free prescriptions and free university tuition. As budgets come under increasing pressure there is a sense that these provisions cannot be expanded much further and may need to become more targeted. Holyrood has been good at spending money. It is less obviously accomplished at growing the economy to generate extra cash to pay for public services. The bulk of its funding has always come from a block grant from the UK Treasury. The Supreme Court was asked to rule on whether a referendum could take place without UK government approval [Reuters] While some of its powers have expanded, the introduction of a UK internal market act following Brexit allowed the last Westminster government to block the introduction of a Scottish bottle deposit scheme. UK ministers also used their reserved powers to stop gender recognition reforms in Scotland and were backed up by the courts. In a separate dispute, their lawyers argued successfully in court that Holyrood could not hold another independence referendum without their approval. As Scottish Secretary, Conservative MP Alister Jack was quite happy to be seen as a muscular unionist, checking the nationalism of the SNP. These clashes poisoned relations between the Scottish and UK governments. There appears to be an attempt at a reset following the general election which saw the SNP lose lots of seats and Labour return to power at Westminster. Labour supporters celebrate their victory at this year's general election [Reuters] These struggles probably say more about the parties in power at Scottish and UK levels at a given time than they do about the the Scottish Parliament itself. That is not to deny there is scope to revise the way Holyrood operates to make it better equipped to hold the Scottish government of the day to account. All parties that have been consistently represented at Holyrood have had a shot in government, except for the Conservatives. It was Labours one time Welsh secretary, Ron Davies, who was fond of saying that devolution was a process, not an event. There has been much evolution in the first 25 years and no doubt more to come. There were points in the early years when the Scottish Parliaments continued existence seemed far from secure. It got off to a shaky start with the sudden death of the founding first minister, Donald Dewar; the resignation of his successor, Henry McLeish, in a property sub-letting row; and the scandalous delays and cost increases to the Holyrood parliament building project. The building of the parliament was beset by delays and cost increases [Getty Images] It fell to Labour First Minister Jack McConnell to steady the ship. His SNP successors, Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, expanded the boundaries of devolved power. The spectacular fallout between Salmond and Sturgeon gripped Holyrood journalists for many months. It was probably not something Donald Dewar had anticipated. In his opening address to the parliament in 1999, he described the institution as a new voice in the land. Twenty-five years later, there is little of consequence in Scotland that does not get discussed there. It is where people come to petition and protest. A traipse to London is no longer a necessity. Holyrood has firmly established itself at the centre of Scottish public life. Few would doubt that it is here to stay - and that, perhaps, is a significant achievement in itself. Unilever (LSE:ULVR) is navigating a dynamic environment marked by both opportunities and challenges. Recent highlights include a significant 17.1% surge in underlying operating profit and strategic investments in sustainability, juxtaposed against disappointing performance in the Ice Cream segment and market challenges in China. In the discussion that follows, we will explore Unilever's financial health, operational inefficiencies, strategic growth initiatives, and external threats to provide a comprehensive overview of the company's current business situation. Click to explore a detailed breakdown of our findings on Unilever. LSE:ULVR Share price vs Value as at Sep 2024 Strengths: Core Advantages Driving Sustained Success For Unilever Unilever's financial health is underscored by its significant profit growth and gross margin expansion. CEO Hein M. Schumacher highlighted that the underlying operating profit surged by 17.1% to EUR 6.1 billion, with the operating margin climbing 250 basis points to 19.6%. This profitability is further supported by a gross margin increase of 420 basis points to 45.7%. The company's strategic focus on its Power Brands, which saw a 5.7% sales growth and a 4% volume increase, showcases its ability to drive growth through its core products. Additionally, Unilever's commitment to sustainability and innovation, with nearly EUR 700 million invested in brand and marketing initiatives, positions it favorably in the market. The current share price of 48.67 is above the estimated fair value of 47.09, indicating it may be overvalued compared to its peers and industry averages. To dive deeper into how Unilever's valuation metrics are shaping its market position, check out our detailed analysis of Unilever's Valuation. Weaknesses: Critical Issues Affecting Unilever's Performance and Areas For Growth Unilever faces several critical challenges that impact its performance. CFO Fernando Fernandez noted the disappointing performance of the Ice Cream segment, which has not met the company's ambitions. Additionally, the company has encountered significant market challenges in China, with tougher market conditions and competitive pressures leading to a negative earnings growth of -19.9% over the past year. This is a stark contrast to the Personal Products industry average growth of 9.4%. Furthermore, Unilever's Price-To-Earnings Ratio of 21.9x is higher than the European Personal Products industry average of 21.3x, suggesting it is expensive relative to its industry peers. The company's valuation, with a current share price of 48.67 above the fair value estimate of 47.09, reflects these financial challenges. Story continues To gain deeper insights into Unilever's historical performance, explore our detailed analysis of past performance. Opportunities: Potential Strategies for Leveraging Growth and Competitive Advantage Unilever has several strategic opportunities to leverage for growth and competitive advantage. The company is focusing on expanding its Power Brands, with Hein M. Schumacher emphasizing the importance of achieving net cost productivity through tight cost control. Geographic growth, particularly in Latin America, presents a significant opportunity, with the company confident in its prospects despite expected consumption slowdowns in regions like Argentina. Additionally, Unilever's stronger innovation pipeline and increased brand investments are set to accelerate performance in key markets. The ongoing productivity drive, including consultations with employee representatives, aims to enhance operational efficiency and support long-term growth. Threats: Key Risks and Challenges That Could Impact Unilever's Success Unilever faces several external threats that could impact its success. Competitive pressures, particularly in markets like the U.S. and India, are increasing, as noted by Fernando Fernandez. Economic factors also pose a risk, with underlying sales growth for 2024 expected to be within a modest range of 3% to 5%. Regulatory risks, especially in markets like Indonesia, require significant portfolio initiatives and strategic adjustments, which may take time to yield benefits. Additionally, market risks in China remain a concern, with the recovery expected to be gradual. These challenges highlight the need for Unilever to navigate a complex and competitive global environment to maintain its market position. Conclusion Unilever's strong financial health, driven by significant profit growth and gross margin expansion, underscores its ability to leverage its core Power Brands for sustained success. However, challenges such as underperformance in the Ice Cream segment and market difficulties in China highlight areas needing strategic focus. The company's emphasis on cost control and geographic expansion, particularly in Latin America, presents viable growth opportunities. The current share price of 48.67, which is above the estimated fair value of 47.09, suggests that investors may be pricing in an optimistic outlook that doesn't fully account for existing challenges and competitive pressures. This discrepancy indicates that while Unilever is well-positioned for future growth, it must navigate its weaknesses and threats effectively to justify its current market valuation. Summing It All Up Already own Unilever? 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. Looking For Alternative Opportunities? Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com Simply Wall St analyst Simply Wall St and Simply Wall St have no position in any of the companies mentioned. This article 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. CHICAGO A former gang member who in recent years has dedicated his life to helping cut the recidivism rate and assist men and women reacclimate to society hosted a job fair Friday. The event with recruiters and representatives from colleges and corporations was open to anyone but geared toward citizens with criminal pasts who are determined to stay on the right path. The Project #HIRED Second Chance Job Fair event at the organization known as ULON United Legion One Nation was held at 7401 South Cottage Grove Avenue from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Theres been success each year, and what we do is we offer people a way to look at being not just productive in society but an asset to society. Build up their self-esteem. Get them something where they can start their day at 8 in the morning and work starting at 9 to 5, just like everybody else, said ULON founder and CEO Peter Keller. Keller has previously served time and has become passionate about offering access to opportunities to people with similar pasts. 2020 | Former Chicago gang member starts organization to help others change their lives Among those seeking jobs Friday was Vernon Chapman who, like many others who visited, have a renewed sense of pride and are eager to find jobs after serving time behind bars. Chapman has been home since April after spending 14 years in federal prison for a drug crime. I mean, we did wrong, but I think we should get a chance to get our life together, and you know, have a good opportunity to contribute to the damage that we done and fix things, he told WGN. In addition to hiring, BMO Bank was on hand to offer financial literary services for those re-entering the workforce. ULON will host another job fair on Dec. 13. Check ulonworks.life/ for the latest 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 WGN-TV. ComingSoon can exclusively debut the trailer for Americans With No Address. Americans With No Address is a new 90-minute documentary about homelessness in the United States. The Robert Craig Films-produced movie is narrated by actor William Baldwin. Check out the exclusive Americans with No Address trailer below (watch more trailers and clips): Photo Credit: Robert Craig Films What is Americans With No Address about? The team interviewed policy leaders, mission directors, clinical specialists, CEOs of national nonprofits, executive directors of local and regional nonprofits, influencers, those who had experienced homelessness, and those who were still struggling, a description of the documentary reads. Trauma, mental health, substance abuse, lack of affordable housing, and economics are all factors for the drastic increase in homelessness in our country. Several scenes from the feature film No Address appear in the documentary, providing a narrative perspective of these various issues. It was important for the team to gather opinions from various individuals on all political spectrums to avoid any bias in their studies. The production team noticed the significant impact of housing and supportive services across the country as an effective way to handle the crisis. Some familiar nonprofits that provide these services include The Salvation Army, Citygate Network, Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and The Gathering Inn. Americans With No Address is part of a five-production approach from Robert Craig Films to raise awareness and provide solutions to homelessness in America. There is also a feature film, titled No Address, starring Baldwin, Xander Berkley, Ty Pennington, and Kristanna Loken, as well as an interactive study guide, a novel, and a soundtrack. Click here for more information. Americans With No Address is getting a limited theatrical release starting on September 27, 2024, as Los Angeles Laemmle NoHo 7. It will then begin playing in New Yorks Cinema Village on October 25, 2024, while individuals will be able to view the documentary thereafter by visiting the No Address movie website. The post Exclusive Americans With No Address Trailer Previews Documentary About Homelessness appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More. U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) delivers remarks during a hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol in the Cannon House Office Building on October 13, 2022 in Washington, DC. Credit - Alex Wong/Getty Images A prominent House Democrat is introducing legislation Friday that would prevent former President Donald Trump from dismissing his ongoing criminal prosecutions if he were to win the presidency again. The new bill, shared exclusively with TIME ahead of its release, is being led by Rep. Adam Schiff, the Democratic nominee for Californias Senate seat who has been a leading Trump antagonist. He says his bill, which would prevent a sitting President from quashing a criminal prosecution against him or herself, aims to ensure that no President can use their position to evade accountability. This is about protecting our democracy and ensuring a President cant place themselves above the law, Schiff tells TIME in a statement. There is every indication that Donald Trump will use the Justice Department to do away with any effort to hold him accountable. Theres a reason Schiff feels urgency to introduce the bill now. Trump is currently facing multiple criminal prosecutions, including charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. The need for swift passage of this bill could become even more pressing, Schiff says, depending on the outcome of the election. Under Schiffs bill, any attempts to dismiss ongoing criminal prosecutions would be subject to strict oversight. It mandates that the President cannot coerce the attorney general to dismiss charges against them, requiring a sworn statement from the attorney general confirming whether the dismissal was ordered by the President or anyone acting on their behalf. Requests for a dismissal would need to be evaluated by a three-judge court, ensuring that the decision to dismiss is not made unilaterally and that the integrity of the judicial process is upheld, Schiff says. If the court finds that a motion to dismiss lacks good cause, Schiffs bill would allow it to impose sanctions. Additionally, any findings indicating that a dismissal request originated from the President's direction would be reported immediately to Congress by the Department of Justice's Inspector General. While Schiffs new bill, called the Investigative Integrity Protection Act, has the backing of seven other Democratic lawmakers, its highly unlikely it would pass the Republican-controlled House. The bill attempts to tackle an unprecedented situationthe first former and perhaps future President facing criminal prosecutionby adding explicit rules to the relationship between the President and the attorney general, which is typically governed by norms. Schiff says his bill is a necessary step in light of what he described as alarming attempts by a sitting President to obstruct justice and evade accountability. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. The effort is particularly poignant for the California Democrat, who sat on the House Jan. 6 select committee that investigated Trumps actions on the day a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, actions that are now at the center of two of Trumps criminal cases. Schiff was also the lead prosecutor in Trumps first impeachment trial in 2019. After years of battling Trump, Schiff was censured by House Republicans in 2023 over his role in the investigations. His proposed legislation comes in the wake of a recent Supreme Court ruling that reinforced presidential immunity, which could significantly impact Trump's ongoing legal battles. The high court determined that actions taken by a sitting President in the course of official duties may be shielded from criminal prosecution. Schiff says his bill does not conflict with the Supreme Courts ruling, and that any claims regarding presidential immunity would still be adjudicated by the courts. Trump has only been convicted in the hush-money case in Manhattan related to falsifying business records ahead of the 2016 election. The judge in that case postponed sentencing until after the 2024 election, meaning voters wont know if the former President will face jail time as they head to the polls. Trump's legal team is attempting to leverage the Supreme Courts recent ruling on presidential immunity to challenge his convictionwhich Schiff argues was an attempt to delay his trial until after the election so he could make his legal troubles go away if elected President. Trumps other cases are mired in procedural complexity. The federal election subversion charges, spearheaded by special counsel Jack Smith, were originally expected to proceed swiftly, but delays from the Supreme Courts intervention have pushed a trial date further into the future. Similarly, the Florida classified documents case has been slowed by drawn-out proceedings under a Trump-appointed judge, who dismissed the case. And the Georgia election interference case is currently on hold as an appeals court considers ethical allegations against the prosecutor. The rule of law is a core foundation of our nation, Schiff says. No one, not even the President, is above it. Write to Nik Popli at nik.popli@time.com. The entrance to the Asian Development Banks Knowledge Management Center (Library) at the ADB headquarters in Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila, Philippines, in 2016. Credit - Mark FloroADB via Flickr Israel is set to become the newest member of the Asian Development Bank, which finances social and economic development projects across Asiaa region where many countries (and members of the ADB) have been outspoken in their criticism of Israels ongoing military campaign in Gaza, and some dont even recognize Israels sovereignty. Along the hallways of the ADBs headquarters in Manila, there have been whispers for months about the plan to welcome the multilateral institutions 69th member, which could be formalized as soon as the coming days, according to multiple sources. Israels application process is ongoing, an ADB spokesperson tells TIME, and a decision will be announced when the process is completed. Israel completed the requirements for ADB membership at the beginning of September and is looking forward to officially joining the Bank, Ohad Niepris, a spokesperson for Israels Ministry of Finance, told TIME on Thursday. Four ADB employees who spoke to TIME on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal say that worries have been circulating among staff in recent months about Israels impending entry to the ADB, which was first approved in April 2022. Since then, the ADB has granted at least two extensions to Israel to meet the requirements necessary to become a member, according to interviews and public records reviewed by TIME, including an extension that came after Oct. 7, 2023, despite growing international concerns about Israels military campaign in Gaza, which has been repeatedly condemned by the United Nations and others for its high civilian death toll and alleged human rights abuses. These deadline extensions were requested and approved for technical reasons, said Niepris, the Israeli spokesperson, adding that: Such deadline extensions are a common practice in international organizations, particularly considering that these processes require legislative and internal government procedures which depend on multiple stakeholders. A lot of us did not know about this last extension of Israel, one ADB staff member tells TIME. So that took us by a little bit of shock in thinking that Israel, whilst carrying out this unwarranted aggression against Palestinians, is being accepted as a member to the Asian Development Bank. I think it just comes across as a bit tactless, both the timing and the occasion upon which its happening. Israel has spent the last few years trying to join the ADB, as part of its plan to expand its footprint in Asia. It brings expertise in water management, which it has over the years shared with institutions like the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, among other resources to the institution. It didnt surprise me too much from a development perspective, Jianzhi Zhao, associate professor of international development and public policy at the University of Exeter, tells TIME of Israels prospective ADB membership, describing it as a win-win situation for both Israel and the ADB. Since 2017, representatives from Israels finance ministry have regularly attended the ADBs annual meeting of the Board of Governorsthe banks highest policy-making bodyas observers; in 2019, Israels then-Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon met his French counterpart Bruno Le Maire in Bercy and returned with what he said was a pledge of support from France for Israel to join the ADB. Those efforts came to fruition in 2022, when Israel was approved to join the ADB, according to a resolution by the Board of Governors, consisting of one representative from each member nation. The ADB did not respond to specific questions from TIME for this story but said in a statement that new membership in the bank is decided in accordance with Article 3 of the Agreement Establishing the Asian Development Bank. Referencing the same charter, Niepris, the Israeli spokesperson, said: The ADBlike all MDBs [multilateral development banks]is an apolitical institution as enshrined in its charter and as such bank activities are guided solely by economic considerations. To complete their ascension to the ADB, prospective members have to fulfill requirements, including implementing specific administrative steps and paying a subscription to shares of the capital stock of ADB. For undisclosed reasons, Israel missed that initial deadline of Dec. 31, 2022. According to publicly available meeting minutes, in December 2022 Israel was granted a deadline extension by the ADBs Board of Directors, 12 directors elected by the Governors and each representing several member countries. In May 2023, the Israeli finance ministry announced that the country was on its way to join the ADB. But Israel apparently missed the deadline again: According to meeting minutes, the Board of Directors recorded its approval for Israel to be given a second deadline extension for its membership in December 2023two months after Israel began its military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas Oct. 7 attack. Its unclear to what extent the directors consult the governments of the members they representwhich include several countries that do not recognize Israel, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Brunei. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim met with Hamas leaders in May and criticized the brutality of the Zionist regime. Pakistans government has labeled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a terrorist. And Indonesia, the worlds most populous Muslim country and a longtime supporter of Palestinian rights, has also consistently condemned Israels actions in Gaza since Oct. 7. In these three countries alone, according to the ADBs website, the bank has hundreds of projects that are either active or approved. Sources tell TIME that its not uncommon for prospective members of multilateral banks to miss such deadlines. But while the first deadline extension of Israel might have been due to more administrative considerations, says Zhao, the second extensiongranted after the explosion of the war in Gazacannot be interpreted without factoring international reputation or international politics into the decision making. Because after all, Zhao says, multilateral development banks [are] a venue for multilateral diplomacy. ADB, for its part, has maintained that its avowedly apolitical as an institution. Its employee code of conduct states that while staff may exercise their political rights, they must refrain from participation in political activities which may interfere or conflict with their duties or their status as Staff of ADB. They are also prohibited from being involved in the publication of documents that are related to any national political questions. The bank has previously faced some criticism for not paying sufficient attention to human rights concerns in its operations. In May, as the ADB held its 57th Annual Meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia, a network of NGOs accused the bank of inadequate safeguards for the environmental and social impact of its projects, which activists have argued dovetail with shrinking civic spaces and suppression of communities across member states, from Georgia to Vietnam to Bangladesh. However, the ADB has in the past cited human rights concerns for sanctioning countries. In 2021, it suspended sovereign project disbursements and new contracts in Myanmar after the countrys military seized power in a coup; that same year, it put on hold its regular assistance in Afghanistan when the Taliban took over the country; it also paused its work on a cross-border gas pipeline project that would have passed through Afghanistan, saying that it would wait until the Taliban-led authorities gained international recognition. To some of the banks staff, its unclear why Israels actions over the past year have not triggered similar sanctions. Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories have been found by the International Court of Justice to be in violation of international law, while Netanyahu faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes. Theres obviously some inherent contradictions and hypocrisy in the move, because ADB does have strict policies on the countries it works with, says an ADB employee of Israel being allowed to join. Accepting a member that overtly violates international law seems a bit hypocritical of the institution. Niepris, the Israeli spokesperson, says that Israel is a strong believer in the power of institutions to bring countries and people together in order to reach shared goals and that it is looking forward to working with all ADB members and staff to advance the Banks mandate to promote sustainable development and the eradication of extreme poverty across Asia and the Pacific. But while the impact of Israels addition to the ADB remains to be seen, some staff are already worried about what it will mean for their work at the bank and the banks broader reputation. Israels membership would impact the way the ADB is perceived in some of the countries where we operate, says the ADB employee. This notion of ADB being more of an Asian institution tailored to the needs of countries in Asia and the Pacific gets a little bit tarnished by this decision. Contact us at letters@time.com. When can you expect impact of Hurricane Helene? A weather timeline for Myrtle Beach area The timeline of events for Hurricane Helene in the Myrtle Beach area has changed overnight. According to information from the National Weather Service Station in Wilmington, North Carolina, the original tornado watch that was supposed to end at 8:30 a.m. this morning has now been extended through 6 p.m. Friday night. Coastal Horry County remains under a severe weather advisory and tropical storm warning through Friday afternoon. High winds and thunderstorms are expected to plague the region for the majority of the day on Friday before tapering off overnight into Saturday. The NWS has also issued a tornado warning until 8:45 a.m. on Friday for south central Horry County in northeastern South Carolina. The Steven Paff, meteorologist-in-charge for the NWS out of Wilmington, in his Friday morning forecast that the majority of the rain will have moved north out of South Carolina by later this morning. He said the main bands of Hurricane Helene will move through this morning into the afternoon, causing rain storms. Showers and storms are to continue through about noon Friday. However, winds are expected to continue through the evening. A high surf advisory will continue through Saturday. Flooding and storm surge are not the main worries in Myrtle Beach, as the potential for a tropical tornado remains moderate, the forecast said. Warnings for dangerous beach conditions have also been extended through Saturday in the Myrtle Beach area, according to NWS. Experts say that recent rainfall will have little effect on drought conditions Experts say that recent rainfall will have little effect on drought conditions BECKLEY, WV (WVNS) Joanna Ransley of Florida was headed to Charleston on Thursday, September 26, 2024. She said she and three friends from Orlando, all who were in need of a getaway, had planned to meet in Charleston, but the rain changed their plans. All three are probably going to have to cancel coming. Im looking forward, or maybe not looking forward, to spending three nights all by myself, Ransley said. But I feel sorry for them, because they really need the break. But no, the weathers going to put the kabosh on that. Dealing with stormwater runoff Ninety-nine percent of the state has been in drought since August, so many West Virginians welcomed the downpour. Rainfall in southern West Virginia continued throuhgout the day on Thursday, flowing into creeks and bringing water to dry vegetation, but experts said the rain was not enough to resolve drought conditions. Eve West, a spokesperson for National Weather Service in Fayette County, said it would take more than a few days of heavy rainfall to get out of the drought. Drought conditions are putting pressure on farmers across the state Weve been in extreme drought conditions throughout the summer, she explained. {Scientists) consider not just precipitation but also heat and soil moisture when they look at drought conditions, and, you know, its been pretty hot and dry, all summer. When the soil is hard because of drought, rain doesnt saturate it as effectively. The rainfall evaporates or flows into bodies of water instead of drenching the soil. West said the state was still in drought on Thursday. Drought across the Mountain State raises fire risks I know, it seems like it doesnt make sense, but technically, we are still in the drought, even though weve had all this rain, West said. Its going to take us probably over a foot of rain to, technically, get out of it. On the bright side, West said, the moisture would help brighten the fall foliage. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Explainer-What government will emerge in Austria after the election? VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria's parliamentary election on Sunday is a tight race between the ruling conservative Austrian People's Party (OVP) and the far-right Freedom Party (FPO). The FPO, which is critical of Islam and wants to stop granting asylum, is just ahead in opinion polls. Whoever wins will fall well short of an absolute majority and would need to form a coalition with at least one other party to command a stable majority in parliament. Here are the most likely coalition scenarios: WHO WINS - NOT NECESSARILY A TICKET TO POWER Austria's president usually invites the winner to hold talks with other parties in pursuit of a coalition. However, President Alexander Van der Bellen, a former leader of the left-wing Greens, has voiced reservations about the FPO and especially its leader Herbert Kickl, noting that the constitution does not oblige him to ask the winner. "It is established practice but as far as I am aware it is not in the constitution," he said last year. So he could take a different approach. With the top three parties currently polling between 20% and 30% support, there are a limited number of pathways to a parliamentary majority. There has been only one postwar minority government, of one party that won nearly half the seats. In 1999, the Social Democrats (SPO) came first in the election with the FPO and OVP almost tied in second and third. An OVP-led coalition with the FPO ultimately formed. FPO-OVP The only two-way tie-up that would command a majority, opinion polls suggest, is one between the FPO and OVP. The OVP is also the only party that has been open to allying with the FPO. The FPO has only ever been junior partner in coalitions with the OVP. Their last alliance lasted less than two years, from 2017 to 2019. It collapsed in scandal and open conflict. The parties overlap on policy, particularly on tougher immigration rules and tax cuts, but Chancellor Karl Nehammer of the OVP, who currently leads a coalition with the Greens, says he and his party will not take part in a government with Kickl in it. Kickl says it would be undemocratic for him not to be asked to form a government if he wins. Given how heavily the FPO have pushed him as future chancellor, he looks unlikely to step aside so that a government could emerge led by another FPO figure. If the FPO wins, the bigger its margin of victory, the stronger Kickl's position will be. OVP-FPO Should the OVP win, many analysts believe a coalition with the FPO has a good chance of emerging quite quickly. If the FPO finishes second, Kickl has said he would not seek to lead the government, removing a potential obstacle to cooperation. The alternative to such a tie-up, an OVP-led three-way coalition, could be more unwieldy. Political opponents have already branded a return to an OVP-FPO coalition as "Ibiza 2.0", a reference to the video sting scandal that brought down the last OVP-FPO coalition in 2019. OVP-SPO-NEOS OR OVP-SPO-GREENS Centrist coalitions between the OVP and the SPO were common for decades after World War Two. Then-OVP leader Sebastian Kurz secured an early end to the last one in 2017, condemning what he called its weak compromises. Today an OVP-SPO coalition would likely require another party such as the liberal NEOS or the Greens, both hovering around 10%. A three-way tie-up could tout its centrist credentials as a bulwark against the FPO, but also be a difficult balancing act. The OVP and NEOS espouse similar economic policies like lower taxes. The SPO's flagship policy is introducing wealth and inheritance taxes, which the OVP and NEOS vehemently oppose. The Greens are currently junior partners in a fraught coalition with the OVP that came close to collapse this year. (Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Dave Graham and Frances Kerry) An air-raid warning has been issued on the morning of 27 September in over half of Ukraines oblasts due to a threat of ballistic missiles being used from the south, and shortly after an explosion was heard in Kryvyi Rih. Source: Ukraines Air Force; Serhii Lysak, Head of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration Details: The Air Forces reported the threat of ballistic missiles being used at 09:11. Local authorities announced an explosion in Kryvyi Rih at 09:23, promising further details later. Quote from Lysak: "Kryvyi Rih. Explosion. Details later." Updated: The all-clear was given at 09:44 in all oblasts, except for Sumy and Donetsk. Later it was revealed that Russian forces had launched a missile attack on a district police headquarters in Kryvyi Rih. People were injured as a result of the attack, and some of them may still be under the rubble. Support UP or become our patron! Explosions heard in Dnipro, Zaporizhia and Odesa Explosions were heard in Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and Odesa after midnight on the night of 26-27 September. Source: Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne with reference to its correspondents; Ukraine's Air Force Details: The Ukrainian Air Force has reported the threat of Russian attack drones in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and said air defence may possibly be responding. Later, the Air Force stated that a Russian reconnaissance UAV had been spotted near the city of Dnipro, conducting further reconnaissance. The Air Force reported the threat of ballistic missiles being used in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Attack drones were detected in the western part of Odesa Oblast near the border, flying towards Tiraspol in Moldova. Support UP or become our patron! An air defence mobile firing group. Photo: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Explosions were heard in the city of Izmail, Odesa Oblast, on the night of 26-27 September. Source: Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne, with reference to its journalists Details: Earlier, the Ukrainian Air Force reported a Russian drone attack on Odesa Oblast. Explosions were also heard in the city of Odesa after midnight. Support UP or become our patron! By Leah Douglas and Tom Polansek WASHINGTON/CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. farmers are increasing pressure on the Biden administration to allow vaccinations for chickens, turkeys and cows to protect them from bird flu infections that have devastated flocks for three years. This autumn, flocks in the $67 billion U.S. poultry industry for the first time face a double risk for infections from dairies and migrating birds that can spread the disease. Bird flu, which is lethal for poultry and reduces milk output in dairy cows, has eliminated more than 100 million chickens and turkeys since 2022 in the biggest U.S. outbreak ever. Rose Acre Farms, the second-biggest U.S. egg producer, wants the U.S. Department of Agriculture to allow vaccinations, CEO Marcus Rust told Reuters. The company lost millions of hens in outbreaks and is relocating an Indiana facility for breeding chickens because it sits across a highway from a wildlife refuge that attracts migratory ducks, he said. "We're farmers. We want our animals to live," Rust said. The virus' jump to cattle in 14 states and infections of 13 dairy and poultry farm workers this year have concerned scientists and federal officials about the risks to humans from further spread. The nation's leading egg, turkey and dairy groups argued in an August letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that the economic toll of the outbreak justifies deploying a vaccine. And federal lawmakers say USDA should accelerate its vaccine research and develop new methods to help farmers avoid outbreaks. "It is obvious that the current outbreak has no end in sight," a dozen members of Congress, led by Representatives Randy Feenstra, a Republican, and Democrat Jim Costa, said in another August letter to Vilsack. A USDA spokesperson said the agency has been collaborating with state and federal agencies and researchers to protect livestock, farmers and farm workers and is researching animal vaccinations. However, Vilsack said in a previously unreported March letter to members of Congress that a vaccine campaign would face challenges including potential barriers to exports. Many countries ban imports of vaccinated poultry because of concerns that the vaccine could mask the presence of the virus. "Widespread vaccination of commercial poultry is not possible in the short term," Vilsack wrote in the letter, which the animal welfare group Farm Forward obtained through a public records request and shared with Reuters. 'REASON TO HAVE HOPE' A growing number of countries are considering once-taboo vaccines. France last year began vaccinating ducks for bird flu. New Zealand, which has never had a case of bird flu, is testing a vaccine on five species of wild birds. Story continues The U.S. approved emergency use of bird flu vaccine to protect California condors last year. "The only use of a vaccine in the U.S. is in this particular case due to the endangered status of that wild bird," said Julianna Lenoch, a USDA wildlife disease expert. The U.S. vaccinated 94 condors and saw deaths from bird flu stop, she said on a Thursday webinar. Bird flu eliminated 17 million egg-laying hens from April through July, according to USDA data. By August, retail egg prices eclipsed $3.20 per dozen and reached a 16-month high, federal data show. The egg industry will need to increase supply to reduce prices and the migratory period creates uncertainty, said Brian Moscogiuri, a vice president for Eggs Unlimited. The migration season for wild birds is underway and will last until December, with waterfowl flying south from northern states like Minnesota, experts said. Blue-winged Teal ducks can travel all the way to South America, said Andy Ramey, research scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey. Brazil, the world's top chicken exporter, could see more cases in wild birds due to migrations, its poultry association said. Migratory birds can carry the virus without dying and transmit it to poultry. However, it appears fewer wild birds are becoming infected, probably because they are building immunity, Ramey said. "There is reason to have hope," he said. (Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington and Tom Polansek in Chicago; Additional reporting by Lucy Craymer in Wellington and Roberto Samora in Sao Paulo; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Bill Berkrot) TUPELO, Miss. (WJTV) Exxel Outdoors, a brand leader dedicated to creating high-quality products for outdoor recreation, commercial uses and the U.S. military, will relocate its national warehousing and distribution center from Reno, Nevada, to Tupelo, Mississippi. The project represents a corporate investment of more than $2 million and will create at least 40 jobs. Officials said Exxel Outdoors new Tupelo distribution center positions the company closer to the majority of its customers. Mississippi sends assets to Florida for Helene response The Mississippi Development Authority and Lee County have provided us with an absolutely stellar experience in bringing our new Tupelo distribution operation to fruition. We look forward to becoming part of Tupelos amazing community, with its business-positive leadership and welcoming environment, said Harry Kazazian, Chairman and CEO, Exxel Outdoors. The Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) is providing assistance through the Mississippi Flexible Tax Incentive, or MFLEX, program. Lee County also is assisting with the project. Exxel Outdoors brands include Kelty, Kelty Tactical, Ultimate Direction, Sierra Designs, Hex, Slumberjack, Wenzel, SJK and X2O. The company will begin hiring immediately. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily 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 WJTV. All eyes on Czech populists as voting begins in run-off Senate races People cast their votes at a polling station during the run-off elections for the Czech Senate. Vondrou Roman/CTK/dpa Run-off elections for the Czech Senate began on Friday, with all eyes on whether the populist opposition can carry the day. In 22 constituencies of the Czech Republic, two candidates are competing against each other. Only five candidates secured an absolute majority in the first round a week ago to win a seat in the upper house of parliament. Polling stations opened on Friday afternoon. Citizens can also cast their votes until 2 pm (1200 GMT) on Saturday. The counting of votes will then begin, with results expected by early evening. Every two years, a third of the 81 seats in the Senate are up for election. The Senate has a say in legislation and can block constitutional changes. Much of the focus is on whether the populist opposition party ANO of former prime minister and billionaire Andrej Babis can repeat its strong showing in last week's regional elections. ANO is fielding the most candidates in the run-off elections. Currently, the liberal-conservative government parties hold a clear majority in the Senate. People cast their votes at a polling station during the run-off elections for the Czech Senate. Vondrou Roman/CTK/dpa People cast their votes at a polling station during the run-off elections for the Czech Senate. Vondrou Roman/CTK/dpa Claim: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has supported a policy that gives transgender people who rely on the government for medical care including those in prison and immigration detention access to transition treatment, including surgical care. Rating: Rating: True In 2019, Vice President Kamala Harris did express support for a policy that would give access to trans people who depend on state-funded health care including inmates and detained immigrants to gender-affirming care, which includes surgery. Harris and her campaign have declined to say whether she still supported it in 2024. However, it has been the policy in federal prisons since at least 2016, according to Bureau of Federal Prisons' guidance issued in 2016 and updated in 2022. Both President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden have maintained it. The policy follows the medical recommendations of every major medical association in the U.S. In 2022, a court ordered the first gender-affirming surgery for a trans federal inmate, affirming this long-standing policy. In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed an appeal to stand that ruled gender dysphoria could be included in the Americans with Disabilities Act. During the Sept. 10, 2024, presidential debate, former U.S. President Donald Trump accused his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, of supporting "transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison." The video clip of the debate circulated widely on social media: Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison." - Donald Trump on Kamala Harris during the presidential debate pic.twitter.com/K31GDQPBoe Pop Crave (@PopCrave) September 11, 2024 This X post (archived) had amassed 12.3 million views and 167,000 likes as of this writing. During the debate, Trump added, "this is a radical left liberal that would do this." Later, X and Tesla owner and Elon Musk shared a video of Harris asserting the same thing. The rumor appeared in the form of a TV advertisement for the Trump campaign at the end of September 2024 that claimed "even the liberal media were shocked" by Harris' stance on gender-affirming surgery for inmates (archived): https://x.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1837095668726333685 Voice-over: Kamala supports taxpayer funded sex changes for prisoners. Harris: surgery for prisoners, for prisoners, every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access. Voice-over: It's hard to believe, but it's true, even the liberal media was shocked. Kamala supports taxpayer funded sex changes for prisoners and illegal aliens. Harris: Every transgender inmate would have access. Voice-over: Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you. Trump: I'm Donald J. Trump and I approve this message. The claim is true. During her first presidential campaign in 2019 and 2020, Harris endorsed gender-affirming surgery for people who depend on the state to receive health care. In a 2019 questionnaire for the American Civil Liberties Union, Harris answered "yes" to question 14, which asked: As President will you use your executive authority to ensure that transgender and nonbinary people who rely on the state for medical care including those in prison and immigration detention will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care? If yes, how will you do so? After ticking the "yes" box, she elaborated, adding that she had already supported those policies in her capacity as attorney general of California (emphasis ours): It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition. That's why, as Attorney General, I pushed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender transition surgery to state inmates. I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained. Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment. By definition, people who are held in federal detention facilities for migrants and federal prisons depend on the state for medical care, which is therefore funded with taxes. It is the position of all reputable medical associations in the U.S. that gender-affirming care is health care, and that the course of treatment should be agreed on by a patient (and their family if they are young) and their doctor. The Federal Bureau of Prisons of the Department of Justice issued guidance in 2022 regarding the treatment of transgender offenders, and it outlines the procedure for inmates to request surgery: 9. Surgery While not all inmates who identify as transgender may be interested in seeking surgical intervention, such a decision does not preclude them from obtaining other accommodations as described in this Program Statement. For transgender inmates in Bureau custody, surgery may be the final stage in the transition process and is generally considered only after one year of clear conduct and compliance with mental health, medical, and programming services at the gender affirming facility. Once that period elapses, an inmate may submit a request to his or her Warden requesting surgical consideration. The Warden will forward the request to the TEC [Transgender Executive Council]. The TEC is the sole body who may determine that all milestones and individual goals for surgical consideration have been met. When this occurs, the case is referred to the agency's Medical Director for medical consideration. He or she may review existing records and/or interview the inmate, institution staff, and members of the TEC. After this individualized assessment, the Medical Director will determine if the surgery is medically appropriate for referral to a gender affirming surgeon. In effect, providing gender-supporting care in federal detention facilities, including surgery, was already the policy by the time this claim began to spread. In fact, these policies have been in place since at least 2016, according to the BOP. In 2022, a district court affirmed this policy by ruling that a federal inmate should receive gender-reassignment surgery. In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed an appeal to stand that ruled gender dysphoria could be included in the Americans with Disabilities Act. In an interview on CNN at the end of August 2024, Harris outlined some of ways she changed her policy proposals, but she also added that her "values have not changed." As of this writing, the campaign hadn't said whether she maintained her support of giving trans inmates access to gender-affirming care, including surgery, only that "that questionnaire is not what she is proposing or running on," the Harris campaign Communications Director Michael Tyler said on Fox News on Sept. 10, 2024. Sources: ACLU Rights for All Candidate Questionnaire 2019 Kamala D. Harris. ACLU, 2019, https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2024/08/Harris-ACLU-Candidate-Questionnaire.pdf. Medical Association Statements in Support of Health Care for Transgender People and Youth | GLAAD. 26 June 2024, https://glaad.org/medical-association-statements-supporting-trans-youth-healthcare-and-against-discriminatory/. MEDICAL MANAGEMENT OF TRANSGENDER INMATES. Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2016, https://www2.fed.bop.gov/resources/pdfs/trans_guide_dec_2016.pdf. Transgender Offender Manual. U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2022, https://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5200-08-cn-1.pdf. Updates: Sept. 27, 2024: This article was updated to report that the Harris campaign declined to say whether she still supported the policy. COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) With less than six weeks until Election Day, campaign ads are ramping up and its not just for candidates. Chances are, youve seen new ads about Issue 1 this week. NBC4 Investigates is fact-checking those ads. Democrats push for changes to Republican-run ballot board after biased Issue 1 wording Issue 1 is about redistricting and who should have the power to draw district lines: citizens or politicians? A yes vote for Issue 1 means a vote for a 15-person, citizen-led redistricting commission. A no vote keeps the redistricting commission as it is, with seven elected officials. The 30-second vote no ad, paid for by Ohio Works, started airing Thursday, Sept. 26 on NBC4. It appeals to voters by pulling on the federal election. Watch: The truth behind Issue 1 political ads Its tying into those Trump voters that we know are going to come out this November to vote for President Trump, and its just trying to make sure they understand what exactly Issue 1 is all about, Republican strategist Bob Clegg said. They know that there are Republicans that are not happy and so theyre trying to bring in this partisanship into it, Democratic strategist Brian Rothenberg said. The ad points to past elections and Ohio voters support for previous redistricting legislation. The ad states, Democrats want to undo the redistricting safeguards that were supported by over 70% of Ohioans. This refers to two pieces of legislation. In 2015, 71% of voters supported a seven-member redistricting commission with requirements for minority party support. A vote in 2018 changed the vote requirement to pass the maps; that change passed by almost 75%. Ohio lawmaker aims to eliminate all lead pipes in the state over 15-year period We did vote on this and we put in place a system, but that system, the (Ohio) Supreme Court, seven times said, Youve done this unconstitutionally, Rothenberg said. We already, as the electorate here in Ohio, have approved reforms to our redistricting reapportionment process, Clegg said. We just approved them not even 10 years ago, it was nine years ago. So why are we already trying to change it again? Now to the vote yes ad: its paid for by Citizens not Politicians, the group behind the ballot initiative. What theyre trying to do is make it look like theyre, you know, the people are, theres a groundswell of demand for this reform to take place when there really isnt, Clegg said. The yes side is using rank and file people to just show that this is about people controlling the process over politicians controlling the process, Rothenberg said. This ad makes the claim the process is rigged, saying, Ohios voting districts were so badly rigged, theyve been deemed unconstitutional seven times. In 2022 the Ohio Supreme Court struck down proposed congressional and state legislative maps seven times combined. Youre going to hear the yes side say, Yeah, because politicians were involved, it didnt work. Because any time politicians have an ability to hold that crayon and draw their own districts, theyre going to do it, Rothenberg said. Immigration targeted by proposed Ohio bill They were ruled unconstitutional, but through our current system, we were able to produce a plan that was ruled as being constitutional, Clegg said. NBC4 reached out to both groups who created these ads. Citizens not Politicians are behind the vote yes ad, and they spoke with NBC4 Thursday afternoon. They say the ballot question is an effort to end gerrymandering in all forms. We have not heard back from Ohio Works, the group behind the vote no ad. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. As General Motors assembly lines in Fairfax prepare for a nap next year, paving the way for a $390 million investment in electric vehicle production, the auto manufacturing giant and a handful of its Kansas City area suppliers have signaled theyll cut some jobs for good. Beginning in November, production will slow at the commercial hub in Kansas City, Kansas, the effects of which will cascade across the Missouri River and into the Northland. Five metro area companies that do business with General Motors recently notified workers of plans to either suspend operations or shut down entirely. The sprawling Fairfax plant, which boasts 95 acres of manufacturing and employs 2,275 workers, makes the midsize models Chevrolet Malibu and Cadillac XT4. Last year the company announced the Malibu would be discontinued. Starting next year the plant will be equipped to produce the Chevy Bolt EV, an all-electric vehicle. In its first round, General Motors plans to lay off 936 of its Fairfax employees. Of those, 686 are union workers whose layoffs will be temporary. Another 250 temporary employees jobs will be eliminated, according to the company. The second phase in January will temporarily affect 759 employees as the retooling and construction process is ongoing through the first half of 2025, according to a WARN letter submitted to the Kansas Department of Commerce last week. Suppliers of parts and services to General Motors have also submitted legally required workforce notifications to Missouri and Kansas agencies. In all, the changeover at General Motors Fairfax and at suppliers spell out 945 local jobs that will go away in the coming months. The largest concentration of permanent layoffs is in the heavily industrialized town of Riverside, Missouri. Yanfeng, an international automotive parts supplier headquartered in China, alerted Missouri officials last week its Riverside plant will permanently close. The facility, which manufactures parts for General Motors, will lay off its 444 employees, including roughly 400 represented by United Auto Workers Local 710, a little more than a year after the companys production floor organized. Also losing jobs in Riverside are union auto workers and non-union employees of Adient, a seat manufacturer. Citing the conclusion of a specific customers production needs, the company said in its official layoff notice that 172 workers would permanently lose their jobs between November and January. Meanwhile, in Fairfax, OPmobility, a French auto parts maker, notified its 72 non-union employees that its doors will shut Dec. 20. The facility began supplying fuel systems to General Motors in 2015. Two other commercial service providers Comprehensive Logistics and Penske will lay off workers temporarily in line with the production slowdown at General Motors. Comprehensive Logistics, a warehouser, will pause all operations by January, affecting approximately 18 workers. Penske offers transportation services for the Fairfax plant. About 70 workers will be laid off temporarily until production picks up again, said Randy Ryerson, a company spokesman. Our customer is GM, so we kind of serve their needs, he said. Were trying to meet the workforce with the work they have, and so well be kind of winding down as we get closer to November. Dontay Wilson, president of UAW Local 31, which represents Fairfax production workers, said production is expected to be almost entirely nonexistent for six months in 2025. He said the union hopes the work of changing over the plant will move faster, allowing for a quicker return. The layoffs of auto workers at Fairfax are not news to the UAW members. As the production ramps down, Wilson said members have provisions in the contract with General Motors to offer supplemental unemployment benefits to help bridge the gap. He said other ideas being considered include establishing a food pantry for workers something typically organized around strikes. Wilson said the investment in the plant will put Fairfax in the rare position of producing either electric or gas-powered vehicles. That flexibility offers some peace of mind for union autoworkers looking toward the future who will have work whether the consumer market drives toward electric or internal combustion engines. Any time you get a level of investment in your plant, that is inarguably a good thing. That, God willing, brings some stability and job security here, Wilson said, adding that the Fairfax plant has been running with virtually no interruptions for the better part of two decades. That is kind of unheard of for a car plant, Wilson said. A mammoth employer of the Kansas City metro, General Motors downtime is expected to have wider economic consequences in the coming months. For example, the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, estimates the electric generation needs of the Fairfax plant to lessen substantially, reducing the companys bills in that time. That reduction is estimated to cost the local government at least $1 million next year in public utility fees alone. The News The letter came from a Pennsylvania government office that didnt exist, informing Elizabeth Bennett of a program that didnt exist, either. You have been selected as a Wayward Steward exchange home for homeless immigrants and victims of foreign wars, read the letter, credited to the Pennsylvania Congressional Office of Immigration Affairs, which arrived at her suburban Philadelphia home on Thursday. Using property records and income records, we have determined that you are capable of housing (5) refugees ranging from ages 1 month to 90 years. Bennett, 62, quickly identified the hoax after a split second, she recalled to Semafor, when she imagined how her family would put up refugees in a minimum of one bedroom with US Government approved bunk beds. She called the number on the letterhead, which went to a helpline for benefits. (As of Friday afternoon, the number has been disconnected.) She confirmed that the PCOIA (the acronym that appeared on the envelope) didnt actually exist. I felt like it was trying to invoke fear about immigrants, and anger toward Biden and Harris, Bennett said. She posted the letter on a Facebook group for the progressive grassroots organization Indivisible, and contacted several levels of law enforcement. The district attorneys office, she said, told her it had been getting reports of bogus political mail, though nothing like hers. Davids view Theres plenty of immigration misinformation floating around swing states. And its not entirely new for a political group to design direct mail that looks like something official. People dont like it, but they open it, and they remember it. But the hoax letter to Bennett, who was not a potential Republican voter, didnt ask for anything and contained no indication of any affiliation with a campaign or advocacy group. It referred, in mangled English, to a fake order (US5Ca12-B) written into Law by President Joe Biden & Vice President Kamala Harris. It promised a weekly county inspection and an $80 supply stipend weekly to pay for the mandatory daily meal Bennett and her husband would provide their charges. It was somewhere between dirty trick, parody, and gibberish; it was also in harmony with the Trump campaigns increased focus on refugees in small towns and cities, like Charleroi, a western Pennsylvania city where about 2,000 migrants and refugees have settled. Federal programs have helped in some cases, including an optional program that places refugees with citizens but its voluntary. Notable Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Julia Terruso also saw the letter after Bennett posted it, and got some more details. In the New York Times, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs reported from Charleroi, where refugee myths ran wild: A musician said his bandmates were now afraid to venture downtown for jam sessions, fearing that migrants were causing a rise in crime, which local officials said was not true. FALL RIVER, Mass. (WPRI) The Fall River Police Department is losing its third chief in four years, as Mayor Paul Coogan announced Friday that Chief Paul Gauvin will step down to the rank of captain. The announcement comes as Gauvin has faced mounting criticism from rank-and-file officers, who have expressed frustration with the chiefs leadership. Two police unions earlier this month voted no confidence in Gauvins leadership. In August, a captain filed a lawsuit against the chief and the city, alleging he was retaliated against for doing internal investigations while serving in internal affairs. It has been an honor to serve the city of Fall River in this capacity, Gauvin said in a statement. However, after much reflection, I believe its time for change. I am proud of the progress weve made, but I recognize that its important to focus more on my family at this stage of my career. Gauvin is slated to step down as chief on Oct. 15 and assume command of the departments Major Crimes Division, according to Coogans office. His three-year contract would have expired in May. Coogan said the personnel decision was mutually agreed-upon, and it was reached amicably. Chief Gauvin has made significant contributions to the department and community turning the department around during difficult times, Coogan said in a statement. We are grateful for his leadership and are confident his continued service as detective captain will be a great asset to our Major Crimes Division. Coogan, who said the unions no-confidence votes played into his decision, said hes interviewing internal candidates to serve as interim chief until Coogans contract would have ended until May. At that point, the mayor said he will decide whether to appoint the interim chief to the position permanently, or look outside the department for other options. Theyre going to get an eight month test to see how they do, he said. If its not the things were looking for as an administration and a city, were prepared to go out of town. Fall River police leadership changes have become common in recent years. Gauvin is the third permanent chief to serve in the position since 2020, when then-Chief Albert Dupere stepped down amid a Target 12 investigation. Dupere was replaced by Jeffery Cardoza, who served as chief until he was replaced by Gauvin in 2022. Coogan acknowledged the frequent turnover in leadership has been tough to manage, and it has created disruption in the department. The mayor said hes hopeful they will find a candidate who will provide long-term stability for the department. Its upheaval we dont want upheaval, Coogan said. We like things steady in the city of Fall River and well work to get there with whoever we put in as an interim probably next week. After stepping down, Gauvin is expected to take vacation until January, Coogan added. Paul has been a friend of mine for a long time, he said. He did a great job. But hes looking for something different in the future and were going to work together to get that done. Eli Sherman (esherman@wpri.com) is a Target 12 investigative reporter for 12 News. Connect with him on Twitter and on Facebook. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WPRI.com. AGAWAM, Mass. (WWLP) Governor Maura Healey has ordered all U.S. American and Massachusetts flags to be lowered to half-staff on Friday. WWII soldier identified to be buried in Agawam The order was issued to honor Private Kwack Woo, a U.S. Army soldier who died in World War II being laid to rest at the Massachusetts Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Agawam. Private Woo died in battle in Germany back in 1945. His remains werent recovered until years later and then he went unidentified for nearly 80 years. His remains arrived at Bradley International Airport last week and his funeral will be held at 1 p.m. Friday. The order calls for the flags to be lowered to half-staff on all state buildings from sunrise until sunset on Friday, the date of interment. Local News Headlines WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.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 WWLP. Indias most popular sweet - the laddu - is caught in an unsavoury row. The controversy erupted last week when Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said that lab reports had shown that laddus offered to the deity and then distributed to devotees every day at the famous Tirupati temple in the state were contaminated with animal and vegetable fat. He said the ghee (clarified butter) used in the sweets was adulterated with beef tallow, fish oil and other impurities. Temple offerings in India are usually vegetarian. On the face of it, it appeared like a matter of food adulteration - something that authorities in India routinely grapple with. But since Naidus announcement, the issue has dominated headlines, caused a major political row and prompted other temples to test their sweets for purity. The Tirupati temple attracts millions of devotees from India every year [Getty Images] The Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh is one of Hinduisms most sacred shrines. Dedicated to Hindu god Sri Venkateswara - popularly known as Balaji the temple owns assets worth tens of billions of dollars and attracts nearly 24 million devotees from India and abroad every year. The famous Tirupati laddus - made with gram flour, sugar, cashews, raisins and cardamom and cooked in pure cow ghee are prized by devotees who consider them gods blessing and carry them back home to share with family and friends. Reports say more than 350,000 laddus are prepared daily in the temples kitchen. So Naidus revelations have been met with dismay, with many religious leaders calling on authorities to protect the sanctity of temples. Care should be taken that such great sins are not repeated in a temple that has tens of millions of devotees, Ramana Deekshitulu, a priest, told news agency ANI. Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, another prominent priest, called it an attack on the faith and belief of tens of millions of Hindus. This is an organised crime and a huge betrayal of Hindus. It should be investigated and strict action should be taken against the guilty, he told a news channel. The issue has also turned into a political slugfest after Naidu blamed his rival and former chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy for the "desecration". Laddus being made in the Tirupati temple kitchen [BBC Telugu] Naidu, who was sworn in as the states chief minister in June, alleged that the impure laddus were distributed to devotees during Reddys term. The temple board is run by the state government, which appoints its chief. Naidu said he had changed the ghee supplier and formed a special investigation team led by a senior police officer to address the issue. An angry Reddy has rejected the allegations and accused Naidu of playing politics. In a strongly-worded letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he asked him to severely reprimand Naidu, whos a key ally in Modis federal government. Naidu is a pathological and habitual liar who was tarnishing the image of the temple trust with false campaigns, he wrote. Reddy said even though the temple did not have a lab to check the ghees purity, its officials were experienced in identifying impurities by appearance and smell and that there had been instances - both during his government and also earlier when Naidus party had been in power - when ghee tankers were sent back to suppliers. Reddy's party has also invited people to take part in religious rituals in temples across the state to "atone for the sin" that, they say, Naidu has committed by making allegations about the laddus. Meanwhile, the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) the board that manages the nearly 2,000-year-old temple - has been trying to do damage control. A board spokesperson told reporters that they were sourcing ghee from five companies via tenders. After complaints from pilgrims and laddu makers, they sent samples for lab tests which revealed that four tankers from AR Dairy in Tamil Nadu were of substandard quality. In response, AR Dairy, which has been producing ghee since 1998 and claims to conduct 102 quality checks on its milk, dismissed the allegations as absurd and stated that they are severely damaging to our business. It said a quality control officer at the firm had called the allegations that fish oil was added nonsensical, as fish oil costs more than ghee, and that any form of adulteration would be immediately noticeable by its odour. The temple, meanwhile, said it had done its own penance. To assure devotees that its laddus were now rid of defects and fit for gods and humans, the priests held a four-hour-long purification ritual on Monday. Photographs released by the temple board showed priests sprinkling holy water in the kitchen, on sacks of ingredients and on huge trays of laddus. Bollywood stars Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai at the Tirupati temple after their wedding in 2007 [Getty Images] The controversy, however, refuses to die down and has dominated headlines in the state. Popular actor and the states Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan called the adulteration an attack on Hindu religion. Kalyan is also performing what he called 11 days of atonement rituals to rectify the "great injustice". Members of a Hindu nationalist group have demonstrated outside Reddys home, chanting slogans. They left after painting the gate and walls saffron - a colour that is worn by many Hindu priests and is also the colour of flags of BJP and other Hindu parties. Authorities in other states have also been rushing to test sweets offered at other Hindu temples, including the famous Krishna temple in Mathura in Uttar Pradesh and the Jagannath temple in Odisha state. The issue has also found resonance on social media. Laddu, along with hashtags such as #TirupatiLaddu, #TirupatiLadduControversy and #TirupatiLadduRow, has trended for days on X (formerly Twitter), with many expressing their outrage at what they called deliberate attempts to hurt Hindu faith. Some of this outrage, however, appeared to be manufactured after it was pointed out that many handles pledging support to Hindu nationalist groups had shared images of Reddy wearing a Muslim skullcap and derided him as anti-Hindu. One tweet, shared by many handles two days after Naidus allegation, was especially flagged for using identical words by people who appeared unrelated. It said: For the past 2-3 years, Amma [mother] used to fall sick if she tasted Tirupati laddus and used to tell us not to eat too much of it. We put it on her general paranoia. Now I feel she sensed something was terribly wrong. Families of 43 missing students in Mexico are still demanding justice Through driving rain, Luz Maria Telumbre travelled to Mexico City from the western state of Guerrero to mark 10 years since the darkest night of her life. Her son, Cristian Alfonso, should be nearing his 30th birthday. Instead, shes carrying an image of him frozen in time at just 19, when he and his classmates were abducted by Mexican police. Christian was one of 43 student teachers travelling from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college, which has a strong history of activism, to an annual protest in Mexico City. The students disappeared from the city of Iguala, and were last seen on security camera footage lying face-down on the back of police pick-up trucks as they were spirited out of the city. The full story of the insidious relationship between the state and the cartels in Guerrero - and its part in the students abduction - has never been fully established. In the intervening years, Luz Maria and the other victims parents have been calling for the same thing. Alive they took them, alive we want them back, they chant. In essence, its a call for the authorities to clarify exactly what happened to their children that night on 26 September 2014, to admit full culpability and to prosecute those involved. The protesters waved a banner commemorating the 43 missing student teachers [BBC] An initial investigation, under then-President Enrique Pena Nieto, concluded that corrupt municipal police from Iguala and surrounding towns, acting on orders from the local mayor, handed the students over to the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel. According to the investigation, the cartel killed the students and disposed of their remains, while federal police and military were deemed to be uninvolved. However, this version - labelled "the historic truth" - was met with widespread scepticism. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) challenged the findings, calling them "scientifically impossible". Further investigations have added new layers of complexity. Journalist Anabel Hernandez presented an alternative theory. She suggested that buses commandeered by the students to take them to Mexico City a regular practice which was tolerated by the bus companies were secretly transporting heroin. Under her theory, the Mexican army, acting on behalf of drug traffickers, intercepted the shipment, leading to the students' deaths to eliminate any witnesses. As a presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador made repeated promises to leave no stone unturned in the case of the 43, and as president, he established a "truth commission" to reopen the case promising to follow the evidence wherever it led. Around a dozen soldiers were subsequently arrested as well as the former Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam. However, almost all of those detained have since been subsequently released. Furthermore, the independent investigators abruptly withdrew from Mexico last year citing a raft of issues with state authorities including a lack of information, secrecy and hidden evidence. In February, the families of the missing students announced they would cease contact with the commission due to frustrations over the military's lack of transparency. Luz Maria firmly believes Lopez Obradors administration blocked the investigation as it began to close in on the military. Given how the investigation collapsed under Mr Lopez Obrador, he never gave us an answer, she told the BBC as the march began to get underway. Things began to get tricky when we told him the Mexican army was responsible for the disappearance of our children and he didnt want to investigate any further," she claims. Luz Maria is concerned that the military now plays an outsized role in Mr Lopez Obradors administration, responsible for everything from the construction of government infrastructure projects to national security. The army are criminals dressed up in military, is her brutal assessment. As the march makes its way through the rain down Mexico Citys Reforma Avenue, groups of young indigenous student teachers chant defiantly, the rage evident in their voices. Theyre incensed that, a decade on, they are still demanding to know what happened to their friends, and fearful that the impunity of this case means it could easily be repeated in the future. Earlier in the day at his morning press conference, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador insisted his outgoing government had done everything (it) could to find the students. He has publicly called their disappearance a state crime and again assured the families his administration was not protecting anyone. We wanted to know everything, he said. But things got complicated and tangled because of different interests. Margarito Guerrero no longer believes the government's assurances [BBC] As the protesters pause for a minute at a monument erected to the 43, Margarito Guerrero, the father of another kidnapped teenager, Jhosivani, says the presidents assurances no longer amount to much. In fact, he believes officialdom in Mexico has deliberately placed obstacles in the relatives path to prevent them from reaching the truth. We feel like theyve strung us along for years to try to tire us out. But were not tired, he says with a hint of a smile. And if they dont give us an answer, well keep going. For us, our children are still alive until we see some proof to the contrary. The drenched protesters their feet wet but their resolve unbroken reach their final destination, Mexico Citys main plaza, the Zocalo. The victims parents, those most affected by the terrible events of a decade ago, walk onto a stage to address the crowd. Behind them, the National Palace, Mexicos seat of power, is cordoned off by a ring of steel. As fiery left-wing speakers deliver speeches about the 43s place in a wider struggle between the indigenous poor and the Mexican state, the barricades represent more than just a fence. Theyre another kind of barrier between the Mexican government, led by a president who promised to get to the bottom of what happened that night, and the families. One, 2, 3, 4 the parents count out loud, until they reach 43, a number now synonymous in Mexico with one of the worst human rights violations in its modern history. Alive they took them, alive we want them back," they shout once more into the rain-soaked night. By P.J. Huffstutter CHICAGO (Reuters) - Rail backlogs are disrupting export trade between the United States and Mexico and snarling agricultural supply chains as the fall harvest is under way, agriculture groups said on Friday. A potential East and Gulf Coast port strike that could begin on Tuesday would exacerbate the problems, nearly 200 agriculture groups said in a letter sent to the White House on Friday. While Mexico is the top U.S. corn export market, it's also been a key outlet this year for agricultural exporters looking to compensate for sluggish buying from China, a top commodity buyer. Mexico's imports of U.S. agricultural products increased 27% in the first seven months of 2024 over the prior year, government data showed. But rail capacity cannot keep up with the demand, said National Grain and Feed Association President Mike Seyfert. Union Pacific Corp and Berkshire Hathaway-owned BNSF Railway have stopped issuing permits for grain shuttle trains to Mexico because of congestion and a growing backlog of loaded trains, according to Union Pacific's website and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Ferromex, the Mexican railroad that interchanges with BNSF and Union Pacific, also has embargoed permits for grain trains at border crossings at Eagle Pass and El Paso, Texas, USDA said. Union Pacific said it is working to facilitate smoother crossings and reduce congestion at the border. BNSF and Ferromex could not be reached for comment. The situation has left some grain sellers scrambling to find new buyers for their crops and struggling to get empty rail cars back from Mexico for shipments, Seyfert said. "When you're trying to make space for what is predicted to be a large corn crop and a large soy crop, the last thing you need is to try to find new business if you can't deliver to your customer," Seyfert said. (Reporting By P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) About 80 people took part in the challenge on Snaefell Mountain [BBC] More than 80 people have scaled the highest point of the Isle of Man as part of a memorial event to remember Manx organ donors. The walk up Snaefell was part of the Turn the Peaks Pink challenge bringing the island together with others touched by organ donation on five peaks in UK via an online link-up. Wearing pink bobble hats, people including relatives of donors and recipients carried pictures of loved ones on the trip to mark Organ Donation Awareness Week. Campaigner Diane Taylor, whose son Daniel Boyde's organs were donated following his death in a car crash in 2007, said it had been an "emotional" event. Diane Taylor organised the event, and said it had a "wonderful turnout" [BBC] Ms Taylor said she hoped those taking part "find comfort in speaking to people who understand, but also that it raises awareness on the importance of organ donation and having that conversation". About 7,000 people, including Manx patients, are currently on the UK organ donation waiting list. Originally created by a team of specialist nurses from NHS Blood and Transplant in North Wales, the memorial walk has been broadened out to other regions. This year's event also saw groups scale Scafell Pike in England, Ben Nevis in Scotland, Slieve Donard in Northern Ireland, and Pen y Fan and Snowdon in Wales. The mother and sister of Callum Moore, Sandra Moore (left) and Rachael Cashin, took part in his memory [BBC] Sandra Moore and Rachael Cashin, the mother and sister of 26-year-old Callum Moore who died in a motorcycle crash earlier this year, also took part in the event. Ms Cashin said the "one positive thing" about losing Callum was that he could "selflessly donate his organs and save the lives of three people". While there was often a focus on receiving an organ donation, there was not as much discussion about the "tough decision to donate your loved ones organs", she said. "The biggest thing you can do is sign up, be specific and tell your loved ones what your wishes are," she added. Daniel Boyde's organs were used to help four other young people [Si Bell] The walk was organised by the Organ Donation Committee at Noble's Hospital and Organ Donation Isle of Man. The Human Tissue and Organ Donation Act - known as Daniel's Law - to create an opt-out system for donation has not yet been brought into force despite receiving Royal Assent in 2021. Why not follow BBC Isle of Man on Facebook and X? You can also send story ideas to IsleofMan@bbc.co.uk More on this story Related internet links Family of Beverly Carter keeps her legacy alive through foundation 10 years after real estate agents killing Family of Beverly Carter keeps her legacy alive through foundation 10 years after real estate agents killing LITTLE ROCK, Ark. The kidnapping and murder of Arkansas realtor Beverly Carter is a case that made national headlines a decade ago, and now her family is working to keep her memory alive. Ten years ago this week, Carter went to show a house to a couple in Scott but never came home. Her story has forever changed the real estate world in hopes of making the industry safer. The loss of this dynamic figure shocked Arkansas and devastated Carters family. She had the biggest personality but also so sweet and so humble, son Carl Carter recalled. She was absolutely the cornerstone, the matriarch of our family. Timeline: Beverly Carter Murder Case Carl shared his memories of that fateful day, saying the family was initially not worried when Beverly could not be found. When I got the call from my dad and he said that your mom is not returning my phones calls or my texts, it didnt really cause any concern to me at all, he said. Carl explained that on Sept. 25, 2014, his mom was in the town of Scott doing what she had done hundreds of times showing a house to potential buyers. The family began to worry, though, when they arrived at the home to find it deserted. We arrive there, and this home is empty, and there is my moms car locked with her purse inside, he said. It was just as if though my mom disappeared. Son Remembers Beverly Carter Year After Disappearance The couple thought to be interested in purchasing the home quickly became the focus of a desperate search. Ill never forget the feeling of just, how big the world felt, and how endless the opportunities of where she could be, Carl remembered. Realtors, friends, family and strangers all scoured farmlands and fields for Beverly. She was found dead five days later on Sept. 30. Arron Lewis is serving two life sentences for capital murder and kidnapping for the killing, while his then-wife Crystal Lowery is serving 30 years for first-degree murder. Arron Lewis Appeal Denied by AR Supreme Court The story of Beverlys killing caught fire, spreading across the world. After grieving his loss, a purpose and a passion for change ignited within Carl. It was a couple years after actually we lost my mom that an agent confided in me that while she was showing property, she was attacked and raped, and that was the moment within where I was like, Weve got to do something, he explained. Carl created the Beverly Carter Foundation in January of 2017. The foundations goal is to teach personal safety to real estate agents and more. I often start with my moms situation, and things that could have made a different outcome, and one is do everything we can to verify the identity of the people that were working with, that were meeting with, he said. Slain realtors son pushes for safety five years later Beverlys legacy also included legislation created in Arkansas aimed at keeping realtors safe. Something that Im so grateful our state did is implement the requirement that every real estate agent within the state of Arkansas take one hour of mandated safety training every single year, and beyond the great thing that was put in place, now were seeing other states adopt that same legislation, Carl said. Watching the industry transform in her honor and memory brings a sense of pride in his mother to Carl, something he shares during every presentation he gives for the foundation. I see my first slide, which is a picture of my beautiful mom, I always say Hey mom, this is who were talking to today and this is who were trying to help, he said. Life after the Verdict for the Beverly Carter Family Thousands of people now know the name Beverly Carter, and her story and legacy has inspired 10 years of change and action. I feel like people can just read a little bit about her, see her picture, and see the warmth, the real person that was behind it and they relate to her, and I think it speaks so much to who she was that were still having the conversation 10 years later, Carl said. One thing Carl noted thats gets him through every day is how he knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that his mom knew she was fiercely loved by her entire family and how he will continue to be her biggest advocate hoping to keep a positive legacy of his mom. TV Show Web of Lies to Feature AR Murder Case of Realtor Beverly Carter To learn more about the work of the foundation or see how you can get involved, head to BeverlyCarterFoundation.org. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KARK. Family of North TX woman killed in crash by alleged drunk driver will sue trucking company The family of a woman who was killed in a Sept. 19 crash with an accused drunken driver spoke out for the first time this week and said they plan to file a lawsuit. The victim, 41-year old Amanda Wright, was driving home from a Slipknot concert in Dallas when an intoxicated man driving a semi-truck hit her vehicle on West Loop 820 in Fort Worth, police said. Wright was pronounced dead at the scene. According to an incident report, the driver of the semi, 24-year old Guadalupe Velazquez Cruz, said he had consumed alcohol prior to the accident and he had swayed, unsteady balance and bloodshot eyes. Velazquez Cruz was arrested on charges of intoxication manslaughter with a vehicle and intoxication assault with a vehicle causing serious bodily injury. You took a beautiful woman from our family and left her daughters motherless and (she was) a sister and an aunt to nieces and nephews that loved her dearly, Wrights sister Sarah said Thursday at a press conference alongside their attorney, WFAA-TV reported. According to an online obituary for Wright, she leaves behind two daughters, aged 19 and 8. Wright graduated from Brewer High School in 2001, attended Tarrant County College and worked in retail management, according to the obituary. The family intends to file a wrongful death lawsuit against EGA Trucking, the company responsible for the semi and driver, according to their attorney with Branch & Dhillon Law Firm said. More top stories from our newsroom: 15 years for murderer accused of killing witness is a joke, cop says Teachers, parents weigh in on superintendent transition Bridge in park is sinking after city runs out of concrete [Get our breaking news alerts.] I cant even fathom that so many people think they can drink and drive, but this was just a bad example of you cant, Wrights mother, Lou, said, according to WFAA. According to the familys lawyer, Velazquez Cruz is on an immigration hold and will not be released from jail during the investigation. The family of a 29-year-old woman who has been missing for two months has made a plea for her to return home. Fathayha Begum, 29, from Southam, Warwickshire, went missing from her home in July. She is described as having brown eyes, long brown hair and wearing glasses. Warwickshire Police said officers were "very concerned" for Ms Begum's welfare. According to the force, she has links to the West Midlands conurbation and Westminster in London, with officers saying they believe it is possible she may not be using her own name. Her family has issued a statement, describing her as a "kind and caring individual with a bright future". They said: "Fathayha, if you are reading this, we are all so worried about you. Please tell us that you are safe, send any one of us a message or come home to any one of us, no matter what time it is. We are here for you, always. "We love and care for you very much. Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram. Related links As far as intensity, its up to Mother Nature: Hurricane hunter Capt. Nate Wordal As far as intensity, its up to Mother Nature: Hurricane hunter Capt. Nate Wordal (NewsNation) As most people in the path of Hurricane Helene evacuate their homes, Capt. Nate Wordal flies through the storm. Wordal, a hurricane hunter pilot with the U.S. Air Force 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, flew through the side of Hurricane Helene on Wednesday, dropping weather instruments that return data to the National Hurricane Center. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation. CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WBOY) In observance of Law Enforcement Suicide Awareness Day, the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division held an event Thursday as it looks to end the stigma behind talking about suicide. CJIS employees visiting with miniature horses (WBOY image). During the event, FBI CJIS welcomed therapy dogs, miniature horses and ponies to meet with employees, alongside additional resource tables for those struggling with mental health. A presentation was also held for employees which included remarks from CJIS acting assistant director Timothy Ferguson as well as keynote speaker William Mac Babb III, whos the Chief of Police at Virginia Tech. Miniature horses came dressed to impress (WBOY image). A therapy dog visits with an outdoor pony (WBOY image). Clarksburg VA recognizes volunteers with award ceremony We have to reduce the stigma and remove the stigma of law enforcement officer suicide and not discussing it and not talking about it, we have to get it out into the open and the only way to do that is to raise the awareness, have open and honest conversations and talk about mental health and resiliency for all employees that work in the law enforcement profession, Ferguson said. Acting CJIS assistant director, Timothy Ferguson, during the presentation (WBOY image). Agencies have sent statistics to the division which state that law enforcement suicide rates encapsulate around 30 people per year, though Ferguson said he believes agencies are under-reporting due to the sensitivity of the subject. CJIS focuses on health, wellness, and resiliency by offering places around campus for employees to recenter and collect themselves. Three licensed clinicians are also available for CJIS staff as its motto when approaching law enforcement suicide is not one more. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBOY.com. (NewsNation) The FBI says the overall rate of violent crime in the U.S. dropped by 3% last year, compared to 2022. That includes a big drop in the very worst crimes. According to the agency, murders and non-negligent manslaughters dropped by 11.6%, rape dropped by 9.4% and aggravated assaults were down by 2.8%. One category that dropped only slightly was hate crimes, defined as offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity. That category saw just a .6% decrease. Diddy case: Rappers, stars and more are worried over Diddy Files The FBI statistics for 2023 are based on data collected from more than 16,000 law enforcement agencies across the United States, representing 94.3% of the U.S. population. The 2023 numbers continue the trend that began in 2022, when violent crimes dipped to near pre-pandemic levels. That rate fell from about 377 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2022 to about 364 per 100,000 people in 2023. Thats just slightly higher than the 2019 rate, according to Deputy Assistant Director Brian Griffith of the FBIs Criminal Justice Information Services Division. Are we looking at crime rates at a return to pre-pandemic levels? I think a reasonable person would look at that and say, Yes, thats what has happened, Griffith said in an interview with the Associated Press. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation. People with schizophrenia will have a new treatment option for the first time in more than three decades, after the Food and Drug Administration Thursday approved a new kind of drug. Studies showed Bristol Myers Squibb's drug, KarXT, improved symptoms of schizophrenia and led to fewer side effects than existing antipsychotic treatments. Researchers are optimistic patients might stick with this medication longer than existing drugs, which patients often quit due to side effects. KarXT is a twice-daily oral medication for adults that combines two drugs: Xanomeline, which targets muscarinic receptors in the brain, and trospium, which alleviates digestive and other symptoms that result from this type of medication. The promising drug combination was discovered and tested by Karuna Therapeutics, which Bristol Myers Squibb acquired in March. Bristol Myers Squibb will sell the drug combination under the brand name Cobenfy. The pharmaceutical company hasn't said how much it will charge for the medication. The nonprofit Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, which analyzes drug prices, said in January that the drug would be cost effective if priced between $16,000 and $20,000 per year. In April, Bristol Myers Squibb released the results of a study that found three-quarters of patients saw their symptoms improve by 30% or more after one year on KarXT. The KarXT approval comes after decades of no significant treatment advancements for schizophrenia patients. About 3.7 million, or 1.8%, of adults in the U.S. have a lifetime history of schizophrenia, according to research published in 2023. The estimate was two to three times higher than previous estimates. Doctors are hopeful KarXT will make a meaningful difference for patients who've struggled with existing antipsychotic medications, said Jelena Kunovac, a clinical assistant professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She said 75% of patients discontinue antipsychotics within 18 months, often due to stigma or side effects of existing drugs. Antipsychotics can cause weight gain, drowsiness, metabolic syndrome, which can increase risk of heart attack or stroke, or involuntary movements such as blinking or sticking out your tongue. "The field is ready to try something different," Kunovac said. "This medication may be a game changer for some subset of patients." Schizophrenia can cause people to hallucinate, struggle to control thoughts or become suspicious of others. Researchers have tried without success to develop new class of schizophrenia medications since the last wave of dopamine-blocking antipsychotics emerged in the 1990s. Earlier this week, a study in the journal "Psychiatric Services in Advance" found that 70% of adults with schizophrenia had some type of mental health treatment in the past year. Only 30% were currently taking an antipsychotic. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Schizophrenia drug KarXT wins FDA approval Credit - Steve Belkowitz (Bristol Myers Squibb) No new treatments for schizophrenia have been approved in nearly three decades, but that changed on Sept. 26, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Cobenfy for the psychiatric disorder. Developed by Karuna Therapeutics, which was subsequently acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb, the drug works in an entirely different way from existing medications for schizophrenia, which is building excitement and enthusiasm among doctors and patients alike. How scientists developed the new drug While schizophrenia treatments primarily target the dopamine neurotransmitter system in the brain, Cobenfy goes after a different one, the cholinergic system, through muscarinic receptors. Decades ago, scientists at Eli Lilly had studied the muscarinic system as a possible treatment for Alzheimers disease, since manipulating it seemed to reduce some of the symptoms of Alzheimers-related psychosis that some patients develop. The company's researchers also serendipitously learned that a compound they developed to activate the system also improved symptoms of schizophrenia. But cells in many parts of the bodythe brain, but also the bladder, gut, salivary glands, eyes, and heartcontain receptors for the muscarinic system, which meant it was challenging to selectively target just those in the brain and not elsewhere. Because the compound, called xanomeline, caused wide-ranging side effects, Lilly's researchers shelved further study on it. Read More: Why Gut Health Issues Are More Common in Women Andrew Miller, co-founder of Karuna, became intrigued by this research and tried to figure out how to activate the muscarinic system in the brain while tamping it down elsewhere in the body. He and his team tested 7,000 compounds and eventually combined xanomeline with a drug that had been approved by the FDA in the 1970s for treating overactive bladder, to suppress muscarinic activity elsewhere in the body. "It's a pretty out-of-the-box approach," says Miller. The overactive bladder drug "has nothing to do with psychiatry," he said. Combining it with a serendipitous discovery of xanomeline "didn't fit the traditional model of innovative drug discovery." But it worked. What studies have found In a study the company published last December in the journal Lancet, the researchers reported that the combinationnow called Cobenfy but then called KarXThelped to significantly reduce symptoms of schizophrenia such as hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, social withdrawal, and a loss of motivation compared to a placebo. Those data were part of the application that the company submitted to the FDA for approval. Bristol Myers Squibb acquired Karuna in 2023 largely based on these encouraging results. When we looked at the available neuroscience and neuropsychiatric assets out there, we didnt want the next dopamine agonist or antagonist in the marketplace, which all of the physicians have [already] seen, says Adam Lenkowsky, chief commercialization officer for Bristol Myers Squibb. We wanted a truly revolutionary asset, one with a different mechanism: a first-in-class, best-in-category asset we think could transform the space. Read More: Inside Ibogaine, One of the Most Promising and Perilous Psychedelics for Addiction Samit Hirawat, chief medical officer at Bristol Myers Squibb, says that not only does Cobenfy address schizophrenia in an entirely new way, but its approach could be used for other neurological conditions as well. "The breadth of applicability of this medicine is what attracted us. Dr. Rishi Kakar, chief scientific officer at Segal Trials who led several studies on Cobenfy, says that the uniqueness of the mechanism of action differentiated this medication from everything else we had so far, and truly caught my eye right off the bat. Kakara psychiatrist who treats patients as well as conducts researchsays that historically, only about 40% of people with schizophrenia respond to dopamine-based treatments, and the other 60% who may respond often stop taking their medications because of intolerable side effects, which can include uncontrolled muscle movements, dizziness, fainting, and weight gain. The trials included patients who were hospitalized for acute schizophrenia and randomly assigned to receive Cobenfyas a pill taken twice a dayor a placebo for five weeks. In order to reflect the real-world population of patients, some had been taking existing medications but stopped because of the side effects, or werent compliant. All patients went through a wash-out period of up to two weeks to ensure any measurements of their outcomes during the study were due solely to Cobenfy or placebo. Patients received escalating doses of the drug, and prescribing doctors were able to adjust dosages for their patients depending on their symptoms. The studies documented a significant reduction in overall symptoms of schizophrenia in the patients receiving Cobenfy compared to placebo. My viewpoint is that [this difference] can mean someone can potentially carry on a better life by having symptom control, says Kakar. What else to know about Cobenfy The FDA approved Cobenfy as a monotherapymeaning it is meant to be taken alone, without other medicationsbut more studies will be needed to see how the medication works in combination with existing treatments, and what the benefits and risks are of combining them. I think many clinicians are going to try this as a first-time pharmacological option, because they will find that the reduction in symptoms is fairly robust, says Kakar. From what I saw, it has true value for the unmet need we have. Lenkowsky says Bristol Myers Squibb is conducting a trial studying Cobenfy in combination with dopamine-based medications that will yield results in about a year. Read More: The Dopamine Detox Is Having a Moment In contrast to the existing dopamine-based treatments, the side effects of Cobenfy reported by the volunteers in the studies were mostly mild to moderate, involving nausea and gastrointestinal distress, and tended to lessen with time. The label also alerts patients that the drug is associated with urinary retention, increased heart rate and swelling in the face in rare cases; the medication is not recommended for people with a history of liver or kidney disorders. Bristol Myers Squibb is continuing to study the drug for its longer term effects, as well as to understand and potentially guide doctors on how to adjust doses for patients as their symptoms change over time. The success in schizophrenia patients may lead to other uses of the drug in other conditions as well. Neuropsychiatry is at the cusp of bringing an explosion of new medicines, and Cobenfy is the start of a pipeline of potential products, says Hirawat. The company is currently studying the drug in Alzheimers-related psychosis, and next year plans to start late-stage trials investigating whether it can improve bipolar mania, Alzheimers-associated agitation, and Alzheimers-associated cognitive impairment. In 2027, the company hopes to begin trials in people with autism. How much will Cobenfy cost? According to a Bristol Myers Squibb spokesperson, the wholesale cost for a month's supply will be $1,850. Depending on people's insurance coverage, that cost could be lower for individual patients. Bristol Myers Squibb estimates that 80% of people with schizophrenia in the U.S. have insurance coverage either through Medicare or Medicaid. Contact us at letters@time.com. It was around dawn on a chilly day last November when West Virginia state troopers forcibly extricated Jerome Wagner out from a 25ft-deep pit where he was locked to a drilling machine being used to finish construction of a beleaguered gas pipeline. The veteran climate activist was trying to draw attention to the Mountain Valley pipeline (MVP) a 300-mile (480km) fossil fuel project mired by environmental controversies and blocked by court orders and regulatory red tape until it was pushed through by the Biden administration in mid-2023. Biden resurrected the MVP to secure the vote of fossil fuel-friendly West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, which was needed to pass a debt ceiling bill. The decision came amid worsening climate disasters across the US, and was condemned by environmentalists for overriding due process and widespread local and scientific opposition to the pipeline. The move triggered a wave of peaceful protests and civil disobedience against the pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia. It wasnt the first time residents and climate activists had tried to thwart construction of the MVP, but this time the crackdown was unprecedented. Almost 50 non-violent activists were arrested in multiple counties across both states, with charges ranging from trespass and obstruction to conspiracy and abduction, which carry maximum prison sentences of up to 10 years. The actions ranged from rallies and brief walk-ons of MVP land to roadblocks and activists chaining themselves to machinery to disrupt the final stages of construction through some of the most environmentally sensitive forested Appalachian mountains and waterways. Legal intimidation is a tactic thats designed to scare folks and incapacitate the movement, one pipeline resistance organizer said. For his action at the MVP site, Wagner, a retired engineer and committed Catholic, was charged with four misdemeanors trespass, two counts of obstructing an officer and one charge under West Virginias controversial new Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, which significantly increased penalties for protests against oil and gas facilities. I dont regret a single thing, said Wagner, who has been arrested more than a dozen times during 15 years of climate activism. Fossil fuels need to be stopped, period. Earlier this year, Wagner admitted to obstruction in a plea deal and was sentenced to 12 months in jail, with eight months suspended. The MVP is also suing Wagner for punitive damages. In retrospect it was a risky thing to do. I could still be sitting in jail, and the civil suit is very onerous. But as the climate gets worse and states double down on protecting fossil fuel profits, people will get even more desperate, said Wagner, who remains on probation after serving 60 days jail time. The crackdown against peaceful protests and civil disobedience is on the rise in the US and globally as people become increasingly desperate and frustrated at the failure of governments and corporations to prioritize the climate crisis, biodiversity and clean water over profits. Civil disobedience is a form of political protest that involves breaking the law in a planned, symbolic way which activists and rights experts say is part of the bedrock of a democratic society and in the tradition of civil rights movements. In New York, police made more than 700 arrests this summer, during a series of peaceful protests in front of the headquarters one of the worlds largest fossil fuel financiers, Citibank. West Virginia is among 22 states to have approved laws that can punish people protesting against oil rigs, gas pipelines, dams and other so-called critical infrastructure with long prison terms and hefty fines. It is the most recent state to charge climate activists under a critical infrastructure law, in what critics say is part of a growing crackdown on peaceful protests being pushed by a coalition of rightwing lawmakers and their corporate allies. The fossil fuel industry is running out of cards to play, said Bill McKibben, founder of Third Act, a non-profit that organizes people over 60 years old to work on climate, democracy and racial justice. Solar and wind are cheaper and cleaner, so brute force and a lawsuit or criminal prosecution is really about all they have left. Our first amendment rights are sacred. These anti-protest bills are a direct assault on this right and we will not stand for it Residents email to West Virginia lawmakers In a state once dominated by coal barons, emails obtained by the Guardian show that oil and gas lobbyists coordinated behind the scenes with West Virginia officials, which included meetings, emails and penning a draft bill for the chief counsel to the state legislatures powerful energy committee just days before the critical infrastructure bill was introduced in early 2020. It was passed a few weeks later despite opposition from residents concerned about environmental harms and the laws impact on civil rights, and provided for a maximum five-year sentence and up to $15,000 in fines. In an email to lawmakers, one resident said: Our first amendment rights are sacred These anti-protest bills are a direct assault on this right and we will not stand for it. A public relations firm, whose lobbyist represented two oil and gas trade groups, took credit for organizing support for the bill. After the law was passed, local residents and campaigners continued to oppose the pipeline by petitioning the courts, regulators and lawmakers, and through direct action. And by mid-2023, pipeline construction had been halted by the courts for almost two years, and the company was dealing with hundreds of clean water citations, canceled permits and growing opposition. The MVP was about $4bn over budget, with construction across the steepest mountain slopes and hundreds of streams, rivers and waterways unfinished. In June 2023, Biden, the self-proclaimed climate president, caved to Manchins demands singling out the pipeline as being required in the national interest, and even added provisions shielding the MVP from further legal challenges. Manchin said he was proud to have secured approval via the debt ceiling legislation and that he was looking forward to the day this important piece of energy infrastructure is up and running. The International Energy Agency has made clear that no new fossil fuel infrastructure can be built if the world is to have any hope of avoiding the most catastrophic global heating. In the months after construction restarted, 48 people were arrested and at least 51 people and two alleged organizations have been sued in 13 separate lawsuits by MVP. The government has long been in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry in West Virginia, but we also have a long history of resistance to extractive industries, which helps explain the critical infrastructure bill, said one activist, who was involved in the MVP protests. But the idea that the Mountain Valley pipeline is critical is absurd These projects actually create a demand for fossil fuels and are here to make money not meet public need. Last year was the hottest year ever recorded, with devastating extreme heat, floods, drought and wildfires striking across the US and countries across the planet. The MVP will emit an estimated 89m metric tons of planet-warming gases annually, the equivalent of 19m cars. Wagner was among eight people, including six senior citizens, charged under the states critical infrastructure law. In the most recent case, Rachel Berkrot was charged with three misdemeanors including trespass on a critical infrastructure facility, after chaining herself to an excavator on Peters mountain in the Jefferson national forest in April 2024 as the MVP project was drilling under the Appalachian trail. This was among the last construction sites, and where tree-sits prevented the MVP from clearing trees for 95 days in 2018. Berkrot, an activist and educator, faces up to two years in jail. The case continues. The first charges under the new law were tied to an action on 7 September 2023 at the Greenbrier River crossing in West Virginia, when six climate activists including five grandmothers were arrested and charged with a critical infrastructure misdemeanor, in addition to trespass and obstruction. River crossings were targeted by activists as the MVP was being rushed to be constructed through waterways, having obtained the federal permits thanks to the debt ceiling bill override. Just weeks earlier, Manchin had celebrated the resurrection of the MVP at the Greenbrier River. A livable planet tomorrow depends on serious and dedicated action today to end fossil fuels Climate activist Jess Grim Four of the activists were sitting in rocking chairs with umbrellas that said No MVP, blocking an access road to the construction site each with one foot immersed in a 55-gallon drum filled with cement. A livable planet tomorrow depends on serious and dedicated action today to end fossil fuels, said Jess Grim, one of the so-called Rocking Chair Rebellion members at the time. Meanwhile, Rose Abramoff and Martha Zinn, who were locked to a massive drill, were also charged with unlawful injury to or destruction of property. The stakes are so high, Abramoff, a climate scientist, said at the time. We cannot build this pipeline and meet our climate goals. After months of uncertainty, the Greenbrier Six eventually pleaded guilty to simple trespass and each paid a $100 fine plus court costs; all other criminal charges were dropped in the deal. But the ordeal continues: all six are being sued by the MVP on multiple counts, which include requests for injunctions that would prevent them from obstructing in any way MVPs ability to conduct its business and from encouraging others to engage in civil disobedience or obstructing the MVP, according to court filings. The company is seeking at least $45,629 in alleged damages to MVP in salaries, wages, and other expenses incurred through delay of the project, in addition to an unspecified amount of punitive damages which under state law could be as much as half a million dollars. Over the past 10 to 15 years, the fossil fuel industry has sued hundreds of activists, NGOs, scientists and journalists in the US, in what the legal advocacy group EarthRights International calls attempts to silence or harass critics, and are known as strategic lawsuits against public participation (Slapps). By design, these tactics are not just targeting individuals in isolation, but are trying to dismantle broader movements, said Kirk Herbertson, senior policy adviser for EarthRights International, a non-profit that tracks legal action linked to fossil fuel companies. Theyre threatening activists with financial ruin with Slapps and criminal fines instilled in some of these anti-protest laws, [as well as] trying to encourage more stringent, harsher penalties for civil disobedience to take this tactic off the table because it has such a successful record of placing high levels of pressure on companies, Herbertson said. The MVP, a joint venture in which the gas giant EQT Corporation is now the majority shareholder and operator, is claiming millions of dollars in alleged damages resulting from peaceful and mostly brief acts of civil disobedience. Such lawsuits can chill free speech and debate, which are vital for a healthy democracy, according to the UN and other legal experts. EQT did not respond to multiple requests for comment. In Virginia, one of the lawsuits includes 22 named individuals and 25 Jane Does, and here the MVP is claiming $4.35m in damages without presenting details or evidence in the complaint of what specific damages were incurred from the work stoppages the company claims activists caused. As a result of defendants actions, MVP has sustained irreparable harm, the complaint states. The claim is absurd, meant to instill fear and intimidate people so they stop protesting. But fossil fuels are not in the best interests of the planet or the people, said one of the activists being sued. Efforts to pass new anti-protest laws have so far failed in Virginia, but MVP activists are facing numerous serious charges for peaceful blockades and other acts of civil disobedience. In one case in Giles county, 10 activists are charged with multiple misdemeanors and two felonies: conspiracy to commit unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and abduction of a machine operator prosecutors allege was scared to leave. The case is ongoing. The MVP may be operational in spite of our efforts to resist, but weve made the path for future pipelines that much more difficult A Mountain Valley pipeline activist The recent crackdown against MVP activists is in addition to more than 100 arrests and 10 civil lawsuits in previous years of organized civil disobedience across both states. The MVP is now operational. The so-called Slapps continue. The fact MVP is ratcheting up their scare tactics through escalating trumped-up criminal and civil charges shows that we are having an impact, said another MVP activist, a retiree hit with criminal and civil charges after participating in their first act of peaceful civil disobedience. The MVP may be operational in spite of our efforts to resist, but weve made the path for future pipelines that much more difficult [There is] an increasing number of individuals willing to put their bodies on the line to stop the madness, she added. Earlier this year, West Virginia lawmakers amended the states critical infrastructure law to broaden offences and punish some second-offence felonies with up to 10 years in prison. Yet the new critical infrastructure legislation could have been even more severe. Back in 2020, lawmakers and their fossil fuel allies tried to pass legislation that made any intent to willfully damage, destroy, vandalize, deface, tamper with equipment, or impede or inhibit operations a mandatory felony. This was changed thanks to intense lobbying by concerned West Virginia residents, and while the legislation is still very broad, a felony requires proof of at least $2,500 of damage. Related: Revealed: how the fossil fuel industry helps spread anti-protest laws across the US When we realized the bill was going to pass, we tried our best to minimize the harm and keep West Virginia residents with legitimate concerns about destructive energy projects from being swept up in this dangerously vague law that could put them in a cage for a very long time, said Chad Cordell, a resident and environmental campaigner. Fighting criminal and civil charges demands time and money, and it can prevent activists from participating in certain actions. From a seemingly endless stream of civil lawsuits to unfounded felony charges to a months-long misdemeanor jail sentence for a grandfather, MVP and the governments of Virginia and West Virginia are using their immense power and resources to deter and punish principled grassroots resistance to MVPs reckless and exploitative pipeline project, said Alex Marquardt, executive director of Climate Defense Project, a non-profit which represents social justice activists facing criminal and civil charges across the US. West Virginias Critical Infrastructure Protection Act is yet another example of the state prioritizing the interests of fossil fuel lobbyists over the people of Appalachia. EQT did not respond to a Guardian request to comment on the allegations. In a promotional video released in July, Toby Rice, EQTs president and CEO, said: MVP is going to create amazing opportunities for our communities, for our country, for our planet and for our allies, and thats why we like to refer to it as Americas most valuable pipeline. Getting here has not been an easy road; over seven years and over $7bn but thanks to the proud energy champions we have in our industry and in DC and across the country, weve been able to get MVP completed. While I hope it will get easier for us to get energy infrastructure built in the future I hope what people understand is that these energy champions were not fighting for a pipeline, we were fighting for America. We recently compiled a list of the 10 Best Stocks To Invest In According to Billionaires. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) stands against the other billionaire-approved stocks. Billionaires and top hedge fund managers typically dominate the stock market, focusing on leading companies with strong track records and exceptional performance. They usually dont waste time with underperformersthey target the market's elite. The Stock Market Rally Before diving into the top stock picks among billionaires, reviewing how the market has performed so far this year is essential. On September 18, the Federal Reserve cut its policy rate by 50 basis points, lowering it to 4.75%5.00% from 5.25%5.50%. This move fueled a market rally, pushing stocks to a new intraday record high, and marking the 39th all-time high of 2024the first since mid-July. Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari acknowledged that while the rate cut was unusual historically, shifting the policy focus from controlling high inflation to addressing a weakening labor market was necessary. Here are some comments: Right now, we still have a strong, healthy labor market. But I want to keep it a strong, healthy labor market, and a lot of the recent inflation data is coming in looking very positive that were on our way back to 2%. So I dont think youre going to find anybody at the Federal Reserve who declares mission accomplished, but we are paying attention to what risks are most likely to materialize in the near future. Market expectations point to an equal probability of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) cutting rates by either a quarter- or half-percentage point at its November meeting, with a higher chance of the larger reduction in December. Overall, markets are signaling the Feds intent to bring rates to a "neutral" level that neither stimulates nor restricts economic growth. What the Top Dogs of Wall Street are Saying About the Market For nearly two years, bulls have dominated Wall Street, driven by a resilient U.S. economy and growing enthusiasm around artificial intelligence (AI). This momentum has propelled the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite to multiple record highs in 2024. Despite the surge, not everyone seems hopeful about the market, with some of the most influential billionaire investors, including Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway, signaling caution. Buffett, known for his long-term optimism, has been a net seller of stocks for seven straight quarters. On the other hand, billionaire investor Ray Dalio recently raised concerns about the "enormous amount of debt" burdening the U.S. economy. He cautions that neither former President Donald Trump nor Vice President Kamala Harris is likely to focus on addressing debt sustainability in the upcoming presidential election, suggesting that the pressure from the $35.3 trillion national debt will persist, regardless of the election outcome. Our Methodology In this article, we analyzed Insider Monkey's exclusive database of billionaire stock holdings to select the 10 stocks with the highest number of billionaire investors. These billionaires are founders or managers of some of the worlds leading hedge funds and companies. 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 close-up of a modern payments terminal with a pile of credit cards on the side. Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Number of Billionaire Investors: 23 Visa Inc. (NYSE:V), a global leader in digital payments, facilitates transactions across more than 200 markets. Connecting 4 billion account holders with over 130 million merchants and 14,500 financial institutions, Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) plays a crucial role in powering the global economy. For the third fiscal quarter of 2024, Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) reported adjusted earnings per share of $2.42, up from $2.16 in the previous year, with payment volumes increasing by 7%. The company reaffirmed its full-year 2024 outlook, expecting low double-digit revenue growth and a low-teens EPS increase. In addition, the company's service revenue rose 8% to $4 billion, while data processing revenue and international transaction revenue climbed 9% to $4.5 billion and $3.2 billion, respectively. Additionally, other revenue surged 31% year-over-year. Compass Point recently initiated coverage on Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) with a Buy rating and a price target of $319, suggesting an 18.5% potential upside from its current price and an estimated total return of about 20%. The firms optimism is driven by Visas value-added services, with Compass Point projecting long-term net revenue growth of 15% as more customers adopt these offerings. By the end of Q2 2024, 23 billionaires held stakes in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V), with Chris Hohn being the largest shareholder, holding stakes valued at $4.4 billion. Wedgewood Partners stated the following regarding Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in its Q2 2024 investor letter: Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) detracted from performance despite healthy corporate results. The company grew earnings per share +12% as payment volume growth was up +8% and cross-border payment grew +16%, adjusted for currency. There are over 4.4 billion Visa debit and credit cards in circulation generating over $15 trillion in volume over the past 12 months. There is another estimated $10 trillion in cash and check volume, globally, which we think Visa can continue to move over to its electronic payment rails. In addition, the company has spent the past several years extending its payment capabilities into new flows of commerce, particularly for business-to-business transactions. This is another, extremely large (+$200 trillion) long-term growth opportunity for Visa that we believe investors are ignoring. Overall V ranks 7th on our list of the stocks to invest in according to billionaires. While we acknowledge the potential of V as an investment, we believe that there are under-the-radar AI stocks trading at highly discounted valuations that hold greater promise for anyone looking to diversify their portfolio. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than V, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: $30 Trillion Opportunity: 15 Best Humanoid Robot Stocks to Buy According to Morgan Stanley and Jim Cramer Says NVIDIA Has Become A Wasteland. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Republican Senator Mitt Romney, who has said he would not vote for Donald Trump, has expressed some reticence about endorsing Trumps opponent over a particularly grim worry. The Washington Post reported Friday that Romney has cited concern for his familys safety as one of the reasons he has not publicly supported Kamala Harris, according to one person familiar with the Utah politicians thinking. This isnt the first time that Romney has expressed this particular fear. After the January 6 riot, the former Republican presidential nominee started paying $5,000 a day for private security for his family, according to The Atlantic. Romney said he could understand why some of his colleagues were fearful about voting to impeach Trump, because it might place figurative bulls-eyes on their backs, ripe targets for the more violent members of Trumps base. In an interview with The Atlantic published earlier this week, Romney fretted over his ability to keep his entire family safe from Trumps ire, should he be reelected in November. (Trump has made it clear that his plans for a second term include seeking revenge on those whove wronged him.) How am I going to protect 25 grandkids, two great-grandkids? Romney told The Atlantic. Ive got five sons, five daughters-in-lawits like, were a big group. Republicans being influenced by the threats and intimidation campaigns of MAGA members is hardly a new phenomenon. Romney has also questioned the value of his endorsement in a post-Trump America, and whether it might hurt his credibility as a conservative voice, according to the Post. Earlier this year, Romney said he would not vote for Trump but refused to say whether he would support Joe Biden. Romney has remained quiet, unlike other Republicans who have found themselves targeted by MAGA Republicans, like former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, who endorsed Harris last month. (Her dad did too!) Earlier this month, more than 100 former GOP officials signed a public letter endorsing Harris, warning that Donald Trump is unfit for the presidency or any office of public trust. Family members and authorities are searching for a missing Indigenous woman who has not been seen for weeks. Gabrielle Lund, 25, was last seen on Sept. 5 at around noontime, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. She had traveled to L.A. from South Dakota to attend a rehabilitation program, authorities said. Her last known location was the Union Rescue Mission located at 545 South San Pedro Street in downtown L.A. A Feather Alert was issued by police on Thursday, Sept. 26 after her loved ones failed to contact her. Lund is described as a woman standing 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighing around 160 pounds. She has black hair, brown eyes and was last seen wearing a black tank top and black leggings. Gabrielle Lund, 25, was last seen in downtown Los Angeles on September 5, 2024. (Los Angeles Police Department) A Feather Alert is issued by law enforcement agencies investigating the suspicious or unexplainable disappearance of an Indigenous woman or Indigenous person, according to the California Highway Patrol. Anyone who has seen the missing woman or knows of her whereabouts is urged to call LAPD Detective Franco at 213-996-1800 or dial 911. The public can also call LAPD at 1-877-527-3247. Anonymous tips can be provided to L.A. Regional Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online at lacrimestoppers.org. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. The unpainted fuselage of a Boeing 737 Max aircraft is seen, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, at the company's facilities in Renton, Wash. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson) FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) A federal judge on Friday ordered a hearing next month over Boeing's agreement to plead guilty to conspiracy in connection with the 737 Max jetliner, two of which crashed, killing 346 people. Families of some of the passengers killed in the crashes object to the agreement. They want to put Boeing on trial, where it could face tougher punishment. U.S. District Court Judge Reed O'Connor set a hearing for Oct. 11 in Fort Worth, Texas. Boeing is accused of misleading regulators who approved minimal, computer-based training for Boeing 737 pilots before they could fly the Max. Boeing wanted to prevent regulators from requiring training in flight simulators, which would have raised the cost for airlines to operate the plane. The Justice Department argued in court filings that conspiracy to defraud the government is the most serious charge it can prove. Prosecutors said they lack evidence to show that Boeing's actions caused the crashes in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia. Relatives of victims and their lawyers have called the settlement a sweetheart deal that fails to consider the loss of so many lives. Some of the lawyers have argued that the Justice Department treated Boeing gently because the company is a big government contractor. The agreement calls for Boeing to pay a fine of at least $243.6 million, invest $455 million in compliance and safety programs, and be placed on probation for three years. HONOLULU (KHON2) Negotiations between locked-out nurses and Kapiolani Medical Center are set to resume on Friday with the assistance of a federal mediator, who was brought in on Thursday to facilitate discussions. Get Hawaiis latest morning news delivered to your inbox, sign up for News 2 You In a related development, the state Department of Health (DOH) is investigating two anonymous complaints regarding the hospital. The DOH stated that the investigation is part of its standard operating procedures. Negotiations continue between locked-out nurses and Kapiolani Medical Center Kapiolani Medical Center acknowledged the DOHs involvement, noting that visits to healthcare facilities are not uncommon. Bacon made from flowers? Its mind-blowing The hospital is cooperating fully and is committed to providing the information requested by the department. Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news In a statement, Kapiolani emphasized its dedication to delivering quality care to the community amid the ongoing negotiations. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KHON2. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) Federal prosecutors examined several witnesses in the Michele Fiore wire fraud trial Thursday, most of whom testified about money paid to or by accounts under the control of the local politician and suspended Pahrump Justice Court judge. Fiore stands trial after a federal grand jury indicted her in July on several counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Fiore engaged in a scheme to defraud charitable donors of more than $70,000 for her own personal benefit, a superseding indictment from August said. Michele Fiore enters not guilty plea to federal charges accusing her of wire fraud Thursday the jury heard from a wedding planner who testified to certain cash payments made to the Las Vegas wedding venue Emerald at Queensridge. The planner, Cicely Hoffman, said the venue took in a couple of cash payments for her daughters wedding but, in a conversation with the 8 News Now Investigators after her testimony, said she had no records or memory of who actually made the payment, but said, Especially in Vegas, people pay us in cash all the time. Michele Fiore leaves the Federal Courthouse on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (KLAS) Hoffman said she remembers meeting at least once with Fiore with regard to the wedding, and that the event cost $26,000. But neither she nor the prosecutors tied the payment to any specific bank accounts. It was usually obviously someone related to the wedding party, Hoffman told the jury of 14 people. Tommy White, business manager of the Local 872 Teamsters union also testified. Under questioning from federal prosecutors, White said he received an email from Fiore seeking donations for statues and memorials for two slain police officers. Court documents say from 2017 to 2022, Fiore allegedly founded and mismanaged funds that were intended to pay for memorial statues for a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officer who died in the line of duty. Michele Fiore addresses federal indictment accusing her of wire fraud for misusing charity donations White said he wrote payments from Local 872 and another labor organization, each for $5,000. White acknowledged, under questioning, that the email said he was looking for $80,000 for each statute and that all of the donations would go to that cause, but that the checks he wrote were each written after one of the statues was already unveiled. Tommy White, business manager of the Local 872 Teamsters union also testified. Under questioning from federal prosecutors, White said he received an email from Fiore seeking donations for statues and memorials for two slain police officers. (KLAS) Prosecutors asked whether Fiore ever asked White whether she could use that $10,000 worth of donations for personal or other expenses. No, White said. Fiores attorney, Michael Sanft, questioned White as well. He asked whether he would have authorized Fiore to use the donations for another charitable purpose. White said he would have asked Fiore for a letter explaining the change. White also told Sanft, under cross-examination, that he had never taken a reimbursement for a charitable donation, from Fiore or anyone else. It would be a bookkeeping nightmare, White said, to hearty laughter throughout Judge Jennifer Dorseys courtroom. During Whites testimony, prosecutors did not allege what Fiore may have done with those particular donations. White would not answer questions from the 8 News Now Investigators after the trial. FILE Michele Fiore, a Pahrump, Nev., judge who ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 2022, speaks to reporters outside U.S. District Court in Las Vegas on Friday, July 19, 2024, after pleading not guilty to federal fraud and conspiracy charges. (AP Photo/Ken Ritter, File) The jury also heard from the father of one of Fiores prior landlords, who charged Fiore $2,450 a month, according to a rental agreement prosecutors showed the jury. Prosecutors also showed two checks written from separate accounts drawn on Wells Fargo and Chase Banks Fiore wrote to pay her rent. One of those checks was a cashiers check that the witness acknowledged had no remitter, which identifies the sender of the check. None, the man said. Another allegation against Fiore is that she misused money donated from Republican Gov. Joe Lombardos campaign when he was running for Sheriff of Clark 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 KLAS. U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, left, spoke with higher education leaders and students March 25, 2024 at Graceland University in Lamoni. (Photo by Brooklyn Draisey/Iowa Capital Dispatch) U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst says shes seeing increased support for a bill she introduced last year to reverse the inclusion of family farms and businesses as assets in the new federal student aid application. She said the legislation is picking up steam in the wake of a Government Accountability Office report detailing decreases in completions of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) this year. The FAFSA was released to the public three months later than usual last year. After its launch, students, families and universities experienced technical issues and other problems that led many universities to push back their financial aid timelines by months. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX According to the Government Accountability Office report, FAFSA submissions from first-time applicants decreased by 9% this past cycle, as of late August, and the total number of applicants dropped by 3%. About 1.6 million students started but did not complete a FAFSA application this past cycle, according to the report. Data from the National College Attainment Network states that Iowa has seen an almost 10% decrease in FAFSA submissions from last year, as of mid-September. Lower-income students were impacted the most, according to the report. There was an 11% drop from dependent applicants in the $30,001-$48,000 income range and a 6% decrease from independent applicants with $30,000 or less in income. In a news release addressing the report, Ernst said the Family Farm and Small Business Exemption Act has received the endorsement of 24 education and agriculture groups. The bill would once again make family farms and businesses exempt from the assets definition in the FAFSA. Too many families were left out of accessing financial aid this year due to the FAFSA changes, Ernst said in the release. She added that the FAFSA must be fixed for next year. There can be no more delay for fixing the Biden-Harris FAFSA fiasco for next year, Ernst said in the release. My solution would support farm families trying to responsibly finance their childs education, instead of forcing them to sell off the farm. Ernst met with higher education representatives, students and their families in March at Graceland University in Lamoni to hear their struggles and concerns about the new FAFSA and its rollout. Jim Kersten, vice president of government affairs at Iowa Central Community College, said in the release that the college couldnt make financial aid offers in a timely manner as a result of the FAFSA delays, causing students to not have their results in time to make a decision on where to attend. For families with multiple children in college, Kersten said some contacted the college with concerns that their aid was drastically different than in the past, and that they no longer qualified for certain need-based aid. Students decided not to attend Iowa Central Community College this year due to the newly imposed family asset in the Student Aid Index used for financial aid, Kersten said in the release. If they have to take out loans for their education, many of our students will go right into the workplace or start working on their family farm instead of pursuing a degree. American Farm Bureau Federation Government Affairs Director Dustin Sherer said in the release that the organization appreciates Ernsts focus on trying to correct this problem, which has been exacerbated by continued declines in farm incomes. Federal Student Aid and Congress have failed to address key issues such as how assets related to small business ownership and family farms are counted on the FAFSA leaving many hard-working Iowans unsure if theyll have the resources needed to pursue education and training after high school, said Iowa College Access Network President Rob Miller in the release. And while much attention has been focused on the new December 2024 FAFSA release date, big concerns remain over FSAs ability to quickly and correctly process the forms and share accurate data with colleges for packaging. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Feds Allege Diddy Had 1,000 Bottles of Baby Oil. But Despite Lawyer's Quip, Costco Says He Didnt Buy Them There Marc Agnifilo further denied that the number of bottles found was as high as authorities have alleged Eric Charbonneau/Shutterstock; Tim Boyle/Getty Sean "Diddy" Combs, left, and Costco Speculation from Sean Diddy Combs attorney has prompted a response from Costco. Marc Agnifilo, who is representing the music mogul facing federal sex crime charges, told TMZ that it was possible that Combs could have purchased baby oil allegedly found by authorities in Combs homes at Costco, the wholesale giant. He has a big house, he buys in bulk, Agnifilo speculated to TMZ. I think they have Costcos in every place he has a home. Authorities said in an indictment they found 1,000 bottles of baby oil, but Agnifilo disputed this number. Combs is charged with sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution in a federal indictment unsealed on Sept. 17. Combs, who has pleaded not guilty, is accused of coercing or forcing women into participating in freak offs, which prosecutors claim are highly elaborate sex performances with male sex workers that would allegedly require intense physical exertion and often involve drugs. Related: Sean 'Diddy' Combs Wants to Testify at His Prospective Federal Sex Crime Trial, His Attorney Claims Months before Combs was arrested in Manhattan, federal authorities raided his homes in Los Angeles and Miami. In the indictment, prosecutors claim over 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant were found in his homes, and that the bottles were part of his freak off supplies. Related: Diddy Is in Jail on Suicide Watch: Inside His Life Behind Bars (Exclusive) In response to Agnifilos claim that the baby oil couldve been purchased in bulk at a Costco, the retailer told TMZ in a statement that they do not sell baby oil in any of their United States locations. 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. Costco did not immediately respond to a request for comment from PEOPLE. Combs was denied bail by two different judges and is currently being held in federal custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. NEW YORK (AP) New York City Mayor Eric Adams vowed to stay in office Thursday after federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment accusing him of letting Turkish officials and businesspeople buy his influence with illegal campaign contributions and lavish overseas trips. Adams, a Democrat, faces conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery charges in a five-count indictment outlining a decade-long trail of corruption that began when he served as an elected official in Brooklyn and continued through his mayoral administration. Among other things, prosecutors say Adams received free and steeply discounted flight upgrades valued at more than $100,000, free stays in opulent hotel suites and expensive meals, as well as campaign contributions from straw donors, some of which helped him qualify for more than $10 million in matching public campaign funds. I want to be clear, these upgrades and freebies were not part of some frequent flyer or benefits program available to the general public, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said at a news conference. This was a multiyear scheme to buy favor from a single New York City official on the rise. More Local News In exchange for the bribes, Adams took actions that appeared to benefit Turkeys leaders, including expediting the fire safety inspection at a consulate building and not releasing a statement on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, according to the indictment. Adams had a duty to disclose gifts he received, but year after year kept the public in the dark, the U.S. attorney said. Speaking outside Gracie Mansion, Adams denied wrongdoing and said he doesnt plan to resign. Flanked by prominent Black clergy members, Adams, who is the citys second Black mayor, lashed out at federal prosecutors and suggested he had been unfairly targeted. I ask New Yorkers to wait to hear our defense before making any judgments, he said. From here, my attorneys will take care of the case so I can take care of the city. Adams arraignment was scheduled for noon on Friday before Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker. The indictment brought a stunning crescendo to the drumbeat of federal investigations that has engulfed the mayor and his top aides in recent weeks, prompting resignations from his police commissioner, schools chancellor and top legal adviser. While Adams faced calls to resign from Republicans and several of his likely opponents in next Junes mayoral primary, top Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries stopped short of asking him to step down and instead said the legal process should play out. Gov. Kathy Hochul has the power to remove Adams from office, but she hasnt indicated whether she would take that extraordinary step. She told reporters she would offer thoughts about it later Thursday. If Adams were to resign, he would be immediately replaced by Jumaane Williams, a progressive Democrat who serves as the citys public advocate. Williams would then schedule a special election. In a statement Thursday, Williams said Adams time to show he can effectively govern and regain the citys trust is rapidly running out. Adams spent 22 years in New York Citys police department before going into politics, first as a state senator and then as Brooklyn borough president, a largely ceremonial position but one that gave him a springboard to run for mayor in 2021. FBI agents initially seized Adams electronic devices nearly a year ago as part of an investigation focused on campaign contributions during his mayoral run as well as Adams interactions with the Turkish government and the Turkish American business community. Since then, he has been asked repeatedly at news conferences about his frequent global trips over the years and who paid for them. Adams said there was nothing nefarious about his trips and that he never did anything improper in exchange for campaign money. But prosecutors allege that Adams sought and accepted illegal contributions funneled to his campaign through an unnamed official in the Turkish diplomatic establishment. The official arranged for Adams and his companions to receive free or discounted travel on Turkeys national airline to destinations including France, China, Sri Lanka, India, Hungary, and Turkey, the indictment contends. Additionally, Adams sought contributions from foreign officials who are banned by law from donating to U.S. political candidates then compounded his gains by gaming the citys matching funds program, which provides a generous match for small-dollar donations, prosecutors allege. In total, his campaign received more than $10 million in matching public funds, which are only supposed to be available to candidates who play by the rules, according to the indictment. In September 2021, a Turkish official told Adams it was time to repay him for the contributions and benefits by pressuring the fire department to facilitate the opening of the consulate without a fire inspection, in time for a visit by Turkeys president, according to prosecutors. That request would have been a few months before Adams took office, but after it was clear he would become mayor. Even after a fire department official warned that major defects at the consulate building had left it unsafe to occupy, Adams pushed safety officials to allow it to open. Days later, Adams relayed news of the approval to the Turkish official, who called Adams a true friend of Turkey, the indictment states. Adams responded: You are my brother. I am hear (sic) to help, according to the indictment. Several months later, the Turkish official messaged an Adams staffer with another request: that the mayor not make any statement about the Armenian Genocide ahead of an April remembrance day, according to the indictment. The staffer confirmed that Adams wouldnt mention it, which he didnt. The Turkish government denies that the 1915 killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians qualifies as a genocide. At times, Adams created and instructed others to create fake paper trails in order to falsely suggest he had paid for travel benefits that were actually free, prosecutors allege. He also deleted messages with others involved in his misconduct, at one point assuring a co-conspirator that he always deleted her text messages, according to the indictment. His lawyer, Alex Spiro, argued that the conduct described in the charges either didnt involve the mayor or wasnt illegal, noting that free flights are commonly afforded to politicians. He said Adams had responded to a courtesy request from a Turkish official seeking to expedite a fire inspection at a new consulate. New Yorkers do this all the time, Spiro added. The charges were made public hours after FBI agents entered the mayors official residence, Gracie Mansion, and seized his phone early Thursday. The U.S. attorney, Williams, said the corruption investigation would continue. Federal prosecutors are believed to be leading multiple, separate inquiries involving Adams and his senior aides, relatives of those aides, campaign fundraising and possible influence peddling of the police and fire departments. In the last two weeks alone, the police commissioner and schools chancellor have resigned. Neither has been charged with a crime or publicly accused of wrongdoing. In early September, federal investigators seized devices from the police commissioner, schools chancellor, two deputy mayors and other trusted Adams confidants. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Some of the most powerful and consistent winds in the world are located off the southwest Oregon coast, according to the Oregon Department of Energy. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has postponed plans for an auction to lease two spots on the Oregon Coast for floating wind farms. (Axel Schmidt/Getty Images) Amid mounting opposition to offshore wind development off the coast of Oregon, the federal government announced Friday it is delaying a planned auction for the development of two wind energy sites as Gov. Tina Kotek urged the federal agency to halt all leasing plans and stop the auction. The developments call into question the potential for future development of offshore wind energy off the Oregon coast. The states coastal communities, seafood industry and tribes fiercely opposed the federal agencys plans, which concerned the governor. In a letter on Friday to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Kotek said Oregon had no choice but to withdraw from the intergovernmental task force thats working on offshore energy to protect Oregons interests and engage more with the public. Her letter comes amid concerns from coastal communities and tribes about environmental impacts and threats to culturally and economically significant sites that are home to fish and other marine species. Kotek said the agencys accelerated process was worrisome, with the bureau announcing in late August that it would auction leases in October to developers to start planning facilities. That announcement led to the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians suing the federal bureau, over its environmental assessment which greenlighted the projects. The tribes want the bureau to consider the future impacts of installing wind energy sites offshore. I believe that Oregon has no choice but to withdraw from the BOEM Oregon Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force in order to ensure that Oregons interests are fully protected, and that we have adequate time to complete our state roadmap with engagement and participation of key constituencies and the public, Kotek wrote in her letter. Given this, I request that BOEM halt all current leasing activities off the coast of Oregon and terminate the current auction. The two sites would cover 61,200 acres off the coast of Coos Bay and nearly 134,000 acres off the coast of Brookings. The Coos Bay site is 30 miles from the coast and the Brookings area is 20 miles away and they could potentially generate more than 3.1 gigawatts of renewable energy, enough to power 1 million households. The states planned Offshore Wind Roadmap, part of House Bill 4080 which passed this year, is meant to lay the foundation for offshore wind energy development that complies with labor standards and with community input.The bureau had planned to auction the sites on Oct. 15 but said in its announcement that officials decided to postpone the auction after receiving a notice of interest from only one of five qualified companies. Even after any plans are developed they would be required to undergo environment assessments and other reviews before the installations could take place. Outlook is uncertain In its statement, the federal agency said it would continue work with state, local and tribal officials on the issue and coordinate potential leases and engagement with communities. The federal agency said the states roadmap for offshore wind energy is one way to do that. But the federal agency didnt give a timeline for what might happen next or when it might come out with one. Tribal Council Chair Brad Kneaper of the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians welcomed the cancellation of the auction. Canceling the lease sale makes sense, Kneaper said. The tribe, elected officials, commercial fishing interests and others have consistently urged that BOEM delay moving forward with wind energy development until a better understanding is made of the impacts to fish, wildlife, the marine environment, and cultural resources important to the tribe. He said he looks forward to collaborating on the best places to develop wind energy that minimize the impacts to the coast and tribes. In an initial environment assessment, federal officials found that the initial process of surveying and planning for proposed wind projects off the Oregon Coast would have minor to moderate impacts on marine habitats, marine mammals and commercial fisheries. The plan for wind energy comes at a time when both the state and federal government are looking for ways to switch away from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy to reduce harmful emissions. The current Climate Protection Program by Oregons Department of Environmental Quality which needs final approval set a target of reducing emissions from fossil fuels by 50% by 2035 and by 90% by 2050. But wind energy is only a small fraction of the states energy use. Since President Joe Biden took office in 2021, his administration has approved the first 10 commercial offshore wind projects, enough for about 15 gigawatts of clean energy enough to power more than 5 million households. The federal government has had five offshore wind lease auctions in that time, including off the coasts of New York, New Jersey, and California. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Feeding our Future: More than $50 million recovered in government restitution MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Government restitution efforts have reportedly recovered more than $50 million from the Feeding Our Future scandal, according to an official from the United States Department of Justice. What we know More than $50 million has been recovered from the Feeding Our Future scandal as government restitution efforts work to mitigate the damage from the $250 million scheme. Recent guilty pleas Department of Justice officials announced on Sept. 20 that three more people pleaded guilty to wire fraud for their role in the Feeding out Future scheme. They are Haji Osman Salad, 34, who owned and operated Haji's Kitchen LLC and enrolled in the nutrition program with the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future. He received a total of $11,483,827 in federal funds. Sharmarke Issa, 42, acted as the principal owner of Minnesota's Somali Community and Wacan Restaurant LLC and fraudulently received federal funds from the child nutrition program while under the Feeding Our Future sponsorship. Issa got a total of $3,586,231 in federal funds. Khadra Abdi, 42, was the principal owner of Shafi'i Tutoring & Homework Help Center, which also fraudulently registered as a meal site under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future. Abdi fraudulently claimed $3,479,191.92 in federal funding. The scandal had a huge political impact on Minnesota leadership, with some blaming the state's Department of Education and Gov. Tim Walz for not catching the fraud sooner. READ MORE: Political fallout from failed oversight of Feeding Our Future What comes next There are a total of 70 defendants accused of being involved in the scheme, and the trial is set to continue into 2025. Investors in auto companies always fear news of product recalls, since the subsequent hit to a manufacturer's reputation can ding the price of its stock. That's what happened on Friday with Japanese automaker Toyota Motor (NYSE: TM), as a market sell-off followed the announcement of its latest recall. By market close today, the company's shares had lost 3.5% of their value; investors would have been better off simply tracking the S&P 500 index, which slipped by only 0.1%. A 42,000-strong recall This morning, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published a press release on recent news that Toyota is recalling more than 42,000 2023 and 2024 Corolla Cross hybrids it sold in the ever-influential U.S. market. The concern is about a loss in power brake assist; in certain instances, this can lengthen the distance needed to come to a complete stop. The NHTSA said it detected a software error in the unit that prevents the vehicle from skidding. That error could trigger the brake assist flaw when negotiating a corner. Toyota has pledged to update and correct the software's programming through its network of dealerships. That modification will be made free of charge. No one enjoys flaws in auto manufacturing Toyota added that the owners of all affected vehicles will be formally notified of the recall by late November. While recalls are a fact of life in the auto industry, to the point where they are expected to a degree, they always raise concern about an automaker's production and quality control. Toyota will surely motor past this one, and hopefully for its investors it'll be tighter as it travels down the road. Should you invest $1,000 in Toyota Motor right now? Before you buy stock in Toyota Motor, 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 Toyota Motor 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 $760,130!* 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 September 23, 2024 Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Why Investors Slammed the Brakes on Toyota Stock Today was originally published by The Motley Fool HILLIARD, Ohio (WCMH) A 60-year-old woman was attacked moments after entering the womens restroom in a Hilliard retail store, according to police. On Sept. 20, the woman entered the At Home stores restroom, located at 3599 Park Mill Run Drive, where she was attacked by an unknown man. NBC4 obtained audio from a call to police, where a person reported the assailant was waiting inside the womens bathroom. The suspect was later identified as Mohamed Camara, 26, of Columbus, according to the Hilliard Division of Police. The woman fought back, getting the attention of her family who ran to her, called 911 and did not let Camara leave until officers arrived, police said. This victim did everything right, Hilliard police wrote in a social media post. She fought back hard, she loudly called for help, and shes doing a great job assisting with our investigation. Watch: How to fight back against an attacker Mel Thompson, owner of Hilliard Taekwondo Academy, said as a woman around the same age as the victim, shes angry. She said the incident has not left her mind. Thompson said its crucial that individuals are ready to defend themselves at all times. If somebody does approach you, that, Stop! Back off! Youre making me uncomfortable, you use that, Thompson said. If somebody does get a hold of you, they get their hands on you, you fight back. Thompson said the victim did everything she tells individuals to do in her self-defense classes. She yelled so people heard her, and she fought back, she said. She didnt freeze up. She didnt go quiet. She wasnt a submissive victim. Thompson said you should always keep your head on a swivel. Walk confidently, dont look at your phone, pay attention to whats happening around you so that you see if somebody is approaching you, Thompson said. When you make eye contact with people, theyre way less likely to be an attacker because, number one, you look like not a good victim, and you can identify them. Thompson said she feels passionately that everyone, women and children especially, should know how to defend themselves. She said its not about being strong, its about being quick. Shes not against self-defense tools like spray or a sharp object on your keychain, but she does advise that you know how to use them; otherwise, they can be used against you. Even something as simple as spray, Thompson said. People will have mace, but what they dont always realize if youre close to your attacker and you spray them, if theyre smart, theyll wipe it off their face and in your face. The Facebook post from police also urged residents to be aware of their surroundings, follow their gut instinct and not be afraid to yell for help. The department asked anyone who believes they may have information relevant to the case to contact Detective Brandon Long at blong@hilliardohio.gov. Thompson said money should not be a barrier to feeling safe. She frequently offers free self-defense classes at Hilliard Taekwondo Academy. Details about those get posted on its website and Facebook . Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NBC4 WCMH-TV. The fight over a 7-story, 800-bedroom high-rise apartment on South Limestone near the University of Kentucky will continue next month after the Urban County Planning Commission decided Thursday it wanted more information. The Urban County Planning Commission voted unanimously Thursday to continue discussions about a zone change for more than a dozen properties on South Limestone, Prall and Montmullin streets. Those discussions will resume at its Oct. 24 meeting. The vote to postpone came after a more than three-hour hearing. St. Louis-based developer Subtext has agreed to meet with neighbors to determine what could be done to make the proposed development more palatable. Those who spoke against the zone change said it would further deteriorate Pralltown, a historic Black neighborhood. 251 apartments, nearly 800 beds Subtext has filed an application to change the zones for properties from an assortment of retail and residential zones to a corridor node zone, a new zone that allows for more density such as more apartments along major corridors such as South Limestone. Subtext wants to tear down multiple buildings in the block, including multiple retail buildings that face South Limestone, to build the 7-story building that will have some retail space fronting South Limestone. The proposed development is called Verve Lexington. The plans call for 251 apartment units with 799 beds and a top floor that features a rooftop deck and a pool. The proposed apartment complex also call for an interior garage with 448 parking spaces. The tallest part of the building will face South Limestone and will gradually decrease in height on the Prall and Montmullin sides, due to elevation changes. The tallest part of the building will be 102 feet. Its a 2-acre site. Nick Nicholson, a lawyer for Subtext, said the citys corridor node zone encourages more density. The project will take underutilized commercial buildings and student housing and create the density the city wants along its major corridors, he argued during Thursdays commission meeting. Its ensuring that we can meet the high demand for student housing in this area, Nicholson said. Its also on a Lextran bus route. Nicholson said the 251 apartments would replace 60 apartments in the area. The student housing to be razed are relatively newer buildings that were remodeled or built in the last 40 years, Nicholson said. The oldest buildings are the South Limestone retail buildings. The building at 545-549 South Limestone Street was built in 1925, according to Fayette County Property Value Administrator records. This embedded content is not available in your region. The South Limestone properties have had multiple tenants over the decades. It now has several restaurants, smoke shops and Phillips Market, a longtime local market. Lexington planners recommended approval of the zone changes for the property. It is meeting the very real need for housing and its doing so on a corridor, said Daniel Crum, a senior planner. A transportation study showed the new development would not impact traffic due to the already high volume of traffic in the area. There was a study that showed the building would project significant shade on the Montmullin side of the building. That sun study is not required as part of an application for a zone change. Subtext voluntarily paid for the study. Pralltown pushes back The proposed apartment building is in Pralltown, one of Lexingtons oldest historically Black neighborhoods. Pralltown has struggled to maintain its identity as UK student housing has gobbled up the neighborhood, turning it into largely student housing, Pralltown residents argued. More than a dozen people spoke against the zone change. Betty Boyd, president of the Pralltown Neighborhood Association, has lived in Pralltown for 70 years. Urban renewal came in and tore down houses with the promise of building single-family homes that never happened, Boyd said. Would you want this in your neighborhood? But its okay for us? Boyd said its impossible to find parking on the Prall or Montmullin now. Teresa Forbes-Lopez has lived in Pralltown for 20 years. The university needs to take care of their own students, Forbes-Lopez said. The neighborhood is in jeopardy. Forbes-Lopez said she worries about not being able to get in and out of her neighborhood if the Verve is built. Austin Zinkle, a historian, said he doesnt live in Pralltown but hes worried about losing the neighborhood. This will deeply harm the people and community in Pralltown, he said. Others said they had other concerns about the plan, too. Walter Gaffield, president of the Fayette County Neighborhood Association, said hes worried about the number of pedestrians in the area. Its completely out of context with the surrounding area, Gaffield said. Subtext, a St. Louis-based developer, wants to tear down multiple buildings along South Limestone, Prall and Muntmullin streets to build a 7-story student housing complex near UKs campus. Its bee n f igh ting for its existence for decades Bruce Simpson, a lawyer for some Pralltown residents, said the citys comprehensive plan, which guides development, also stresses equity and not displacing historically Black neighborhoods. Pralltown has been fighting for its existence for decades, Simpson said. And UK officials have pushed private developers to build student housing in surrounding neighborhoods rather than on university property. UK has been a horrible neighbor to Pralltown, Simpson said. More density seems to always trump equity, he said. Its gentrification in plain sight, Simpson said. But data shows Pralltown has already been gentrified, city officials said. Crum, the senior planner, said the neighborhood is now 76% white and the median age is 26. The neighborhood has already been redeveloped. Its already happened, Crum said. We cant unwind that clock. Conflicted many commission members say Many planning commission members said it was difficult to weigh the need for more student housing and protecting minority neighborhoods. I understand the history of gentrification, said William Wilson, a planning commission member. There are other communities that we need to figure out a way to preserve. Planning Commission member Mike Owens said he was familiar with Pralltown. But its already changed a lot. Pralltown as we all know it has changed, Owens said. Owens made a motion to approve the zone change but no other commission member seconded the motion, so it died. Planning Commissioner Robin Michler said he had concerns about the height of the building and the amount of shade it would project onto the neighborhood. Michler said he would like to see the building set back more from the street. Nicholson said the developer was willing to look at its plan to see if it could do something to address the concerns about height and fitting the project into the neighborhood. Virginia's 9th Congressional District candidates Democrat Karen Baker (left) and Republican incumbent Morgan Griffith. (Baker photo courtesy Karen Baker for Congress; Griffith photo courtesy Morgan Griffith for Congress) For decades, Virginias 9th Congressional District earned the nickname The Fightin Ninth due to its fiercely contested elections. But for the last 13 years, Republican Morgan Griffith has held the seat with little opposition, solidifying his status as the incumbent. That could change this election cycle as Democrat Karen Baker hopes to unseat the lawmaker from Salem. A native midwesterner who moved to Floyd County from South Carolina in 2014, she has spent the last seven months traveling thousands of miles criss-crossing the deeply rural and mountainous district. Bakers campaign centers on a nonpartisan message focused on improving access to health care an issue critical to the regions residents, which is why she believes she can appeal to voters across the political spectrum and break Griffiths long-standing hold on the seat. While Baker takes pride in her decades-long record as a public servant first as a trial lawyer for the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and as an administrative law judge for the Social Security Administration she has never run for public office before, except for treasurer in 11th grade, which I won, she told The Mercury in a recent interview. Baker decided to challenge Griffith in Virginias most Republican district after being approached by some concerned Democrats who felt it was important to have a credible candidate on the ballot. And so I said, well, if not me, then who? The 9th District, Virginias second largest, is a mostly sprawling and rugged region in the southwestern part of the state covering a large swath of rural and mountainous terrain, including the Appalachian region, stretching from Lee County in the west all the way to Bedford County in the east. Known for its deep-rooted cultural ties to coal mining, agriculture, and manufacturing, the 9th has historically been a battleground for political power. But in recent years, it has leaned solidly Republican since Griffith flipped it in 2010, defeating Democratic U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher after 28 years. This district is a fascinating place, because it was the last stronghold for Southern Democrats and did not fall to the GOP until that year, said David Richards, a political science professor at the University of Lynchburg. People there respond to in-person retail politics, they want to see and speak to their candidates, Richards added. I think Baker can capitalize on this and she has the right idea by campaigning hard on the ground. But because Griffith has regularly won with over 60% of the vote, it will be a very steep climb for her. By campaigning on access to health care, Baker brings her own experience in the field to the table. After her law career, she went to nursing school at Greenville Technical College in South Carolina. She became a registered nurse in 2011 and spent several years at a small rural hospital. There were rural hospitals before that may have been struggling in terms of their budgets, but now those hospitals either are closed, or theyve become urgent cares, so we have maternity deserts where people have to drive hours over twisting mountains and secondary roads to get care, Baker said. Many residents in the district are unsatisfied by the services provided by Ballad Health, a chain of hospitals that has a monopoly on medical care in Southwest Virginia, Baker said. People are upset about the quality of care because Ballad underpays its staff. Its been a revolving door in terms of professionals coming fresh out of medical school, getting a couple of years under their belt and leaving for greener pastures. To address this problem, Baker proposes scaling up the Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), a Medicare and Medicaid program that provides health care services for adults 55 and older with chronic health conditions or disabilities. In addition, she wants to utilize the community health care centers in the district. The majority of people in the district are already on Medicaid, so we have a template for creating better conditions with fairly simple enabling legislation to spread these two programs throughout, Baker said. Other issues on Bakers campaign platform include the creation of a better jobs market that she hopes will retain more younger people in the district, and expanding access to public education. Since launching her campaign in March, Baker said she has talked to thousands of voters in the district. I go to concerts, flea markets, Im looking for the people that wouldnt automatically think to vote for me. In other words, leaning Republicans or Republicans. Those are the people that I need to get to know me and to like me in order for me to win, and so thats where I am. But despite the excitement among Democrats over Vice President Kamala Harris presidential bid, Baker said she isnt running on a national ticket. Thats not my campaign, because nobody expects Harris to win in the 9th, and I can win because I am for everybody in this district. I tell people Im a Democrat, but I dont run out yelling Im a Democrat. I run out saying, Im here for you, I will work for you. When talking to voters, Baker said she always asks them about Griffith, her opponent. People sometimes go, whos that? And generally, I would say 80 to 90% of the time, people say, he doesnt do anything for us. Griffith, however, insists that he hasnt become complacent in a district where he has previously run for reelection unopposed, underscoring that he takes Bakers challenge seriously. Am I doing more than when I dont have an opponent? Yes, he told The Mercury in a phone interview earlier this week. But I generally work the district pretty hard anytime I have an opponent. Weve had about 350 stops in the last term in the district, averaging about four events on the days that I am here. A Philadelphia native who grew up in Salem and returned home after graduating from Washington and Lee University School of Law in 1983, Griffith first ran for public office in 1993, when he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, where he served as the House Majority Leader for 10 years. In 2010, he ousted Boucher, the 13-term Democratic incumbent in the 9th Congressional District, by 51-46%. In the most recent congressional election in 2022, Griffith was reelected to his sixth term after defeating Democrat Taysha DeVaughan by a staggering 73-27%. As a legislator, Griffith said he was proud of his role in advocating for the Abandoned Mine Land Economic Revitalization Program (AMLER) to implement strategies that return former coal mining sites to productive uses. Since its creation in 2016, the program has brought more than $10 million to the district every year, Griffith said. During his time in Congress, Griffith has also sponsored or supported legislation to push back against what he called high taxes, unnecessary regulation, and an over-reliance on foreign industry that have strangled private businesses in our communities and prevented job growth. He has also introduced the EPA Regulatory Relief Act to reduce what he considered burdensome regulations on hospitals, manufacturers, and other businesses in the district. The measure failed in the Senate. Rebuking his opponents claims that he had done little to help expand health care in the 9th, Griffith said he has been a strong supporter of federally qualified health centers. We have more than any other in the state of Virginia, he said. Griffith also was part of a bipartisan effort to expand care options for people who experience strokes by introducing the Furthering Access to Stroke Telemedicine ACT (FAST) Act in 2017, which helps stroke victims gain faster access to high-quality care through remote evaluation and treatment. Im a big supporter of the telehealth concepts, of our federally qualified health centers, and of trying to make sure that we continue to pay our health care providers enough that they can make it, Griffith said in the interview. In June, Griffith touted his role in securing a $1.6 million federal grant benefitting the Piedmont Planning Districts Commissions Route 122 Regional Corridor Plan, which was funded under the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021 which he voted against. In the interview, Griffith explained this contradiction by stating that as a congressman, he had two jobs. One is to legislate, and the other is to act like an ombudsman. On my legislative side, I still think it was bad policy. But on my ombudsmans side, on the side that says Im supposed to help the district, once its passed into law, I would be failing to do my job if I didnt then advocate for those federal monies to come to the 9th District. If reelected on Nov. 5, Griffith vows to continue advocating for what he considers issues that are in the best interest of the people in his district, such as fighting for medicine, making sure that rural health is getting a fair shake, and leading the charge against regulations trying to eliminate coal, among other priorities. We want to get broadband finished up, and thats an important issue. Im hopeful that that will actually happen in the next couple of years. But we just have to keep moving forward and I want to make sure that our tax rates are low, Griffith said. On Jan. 6, 2021, Griffith was one of 147 House Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election, which Democrat Joe Biden won by more than 7 million votes. Almost four years later, Griffith said that he never took the position that fraud was an issue during that election. Some people did, but I believe fraud is a purview of the states and not the federal government, he said. Instead, he said that he had concerns with changes that bureaucrats in states like Arizona and Georgia had made to their election laws within 30 days of the election that had not been approved by the respective state legislatures. That is in violation of the federal law, therefore, those elections are subject to not being certified, Griffith said, adding that he doesnt foresee this happening again after this years election. I dont know that well have the same problems that we had in the 2020 election. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX World leaders attend United Nations "Summit of the Future", in New York By Kirsty Needham SYDNEY (Reuters) -Fijian President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere called for "respect for our region" and a stop to missile tests in the Pacific Ocean, after China launched an intercontinental ballistic missile. In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Thursday, Katonivere recalled the Pacific Ocean's history as a nuclear weapons testing ground, and noted Wednesday's rare launch by China of an intercontinental ballistic missile. "There was a unilateral test firing of a ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean. We urge respect for our region and call for cessation of such action," he said. The ICBM, carrying a dummy warhead, was launched by the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force at 8:44 a.m. Beijing time (0044 GMT) on Wednesday and "fell into expected sea areas," the Chinese defence ministry said on Wednesday. Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers said he had raised the missile test in a meeting with his counterpart in Beijing. In French Polynesia, media reported the missile landed near to the French Pacific territory's exclusive economic zone, with President Moetai Brotherson expressing surprise and concern. Brotherson sent a protest letter to the Chinese Embassy after learning of the missile launch in the media, Radio Tahiti reported. France's High Commissioner, Eric Spitz, said China had notified France about the test, and the missile fell in international waters, Radio Tahiti reported. Attending a function at the Chinese Embassy on Wednesday evening to mark the 75th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, Brotherson told reporters the missile had landed 700 km (435 miles) from French Polynesia's EEZ, and the incident showed the territory was "a grain of rice in the ocean" as major powers test each other, TNTV News reported. New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement the missile launch was concerning. (Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Stephen Coates) NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) The final three anti-abortion activists convicted of a 2021 Tennessee clinic blockade were sentenced this week, including the person considered to be the main organizer of the action. Chester Gallagher was sentenced on Thursday to 16 months in prison, by far the longest sentence among 11 people convicted of various offenses. In addition to organizing the March 5, 2021, blockade of a Carafem clinic in Mount Juliet, Tennesse, a town 17 miles (27.36 kilometers) east of Nashville, prosecutors said Gallgher exploited his specialized knowledge gleaned from his law enforcement experience to prolong the blockade as long as possible. Gallagher and a co-defendant stalled police with phony negotiations, prosecutors said. Their actions disrupted not only the Carafem clinic, but other medical offices that shared the same building. Heather Idoni, who is currently serving a 2-year sentence for a 2020 clinic blockade in Washington, D.C., was sentenced on Friday to 8 months in prison. However, U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger allowed the sentence to be served concurrently to the D.C. sentence. She said she was lenient, in part, because of Idoni's many good works. They include adopting orphans from Ukraine. But Idoni has a blind spot with regards to abortion, Trauger said. She allowed her own personal views to inflict emotional damage on other people with views with which she disagrees, Trauger said. Both Idoni and Gallagher were convicted of obstructing access to the clinic as well as a more serious federal conspiracy charge. In addition to incarceration, they were further sentenced to three years of supervised release. Four others who were also convicted of conspiracy charges were sentenced in July to terms ranging from 6 months in prison to three years of supervised release, and three people who were convicted of misdemeanors were each sentenced to three years of probation. Gallagher, Idoni and Eva Edl were not sentenced with their co-defendants in July because they were preparing for a Michigan trial involving similar charges. In that case all three were found guilty of obstructing access to the Northland Family Planning Clinic in Sterling Heights and felony conspiracy. Edl and Idoni were additionally found guilty of blockading the Womens Health Clinic in Saginaw. They have not been sentenced in the Michigan blockades. On Thursday, Edl received a sentence of 3 years of probation in the Tennessee clinic blockade. One Tennessee defendant, Caroline Davis, who pleaded guilty in October to misdemeanor charges and cooperated with prosecutors, was sentenced to three years of probation in April. The 2021 blockade came nearly a year before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The organizers used social media to promote and livestream actions they hoped would prevent the clinic from performing abortions, according to testimony. They also intended the video as a training tool for other activists, Trauger found. Final day of Coast Guard hearing into Titan disaster closing out in North Charleston NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) Friday is the final day of the public hearing portion of the Coast Guards investigation into why a submersible imploded on its way to view the Titanics shipwrecked remains. MORE ON THE TITAN SUBMERSIBLE The Marine Board of Investigation panel had previously heard from NASA and Boeing employees, who described their brief relationships with OceanGate, the owners of the imploded Titan submersible. Justin Jackson, a materials engineer, said OceanGate contacted NASA about the facility manufacturing a composite cylinder. Due to COVID, NASA did not manufacture anything but did act as an advisor remotely on OceanGates 1/3rd-scale models. According to Mark Negley, material and process engineer, Boeing entered into an agreement with OceanGate for a preliminary feasibility study that made recommendations for a concept vessel. OceanGate did not implement all of Boeings recommendations. When asked why the partnership ended, Negley said, I dont know exactly. I think maybe we were too expensive. John Winters, a master marine inspector from the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound, previewed his work on OceanGates first submersible, Antipodes. Winters made sure Antipodes was inspected and later certified as an Oceanographic Research Vessel. He also clarified that late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush did not contact the Coast Guard regarding any part of the Titans design, certification, or build. During his testimony, Lt. Cmdr Jonathan Duffett with the Coast Guard Office of Commercial Vessel Compliance explained the U.S. Code regarding submersibles and small passenger vessels. The final day will hear recounts of the response effort following the Titans loss of contact with its support vessel in June 2023. Coast Guard Search and Rescue Specialist Scott Talbot will close out the hearing as the last witness. Former OceanGate employee Matthew McCoy and Sector Commander Cpt. Jamie Frederick with Coast Guard Sector Boston are also on the schedule for Friday. LIVE UPDATES: 3:09 p.m. Talbot extends condolences to the friends and family of those lost in the Titan incident. 3:06 p.m. The SAR mission coordinator changed at least 3 times during the Titan response effort due to fatigue concern issues. 2:49 p.m. Talbot said he did not know what an Oceanographic Research Vessel was until this hearing and he would guess most of the personnel do not know what it is. 2:47 p.m. Talbot said the Coast Guard is currently rewriting the SAR system training and regulations. 2:46 p.m. In Talbots career, he has never seen someone voluntary report submersible operations. In his opinion, being aware of a submersible operation in the Coast Guard area would help if a SAR operations were necessary. 2:22 p.m. The Coast Guard Sector Boston search team did not initially contact the Navy although SAR guidelines say the Navy is the primary source for complex underwater SAR incidents. 2:19 p.m. Coast Guard sectors cannot suspend SAR operations when a person is missing without concurrence from the district commander. 2:15 p.m. 2:17 p.m. There are many factors that go into suspending search and rescue operations and it is basically a case by case basis. The district commander and SAR commander typically make the decision to suspend a SAR operation. 2:14 p.m. Coast Guard SAR does not do recovery operations like body recovery or debris recovery. 2:00 p.m. DAILY BRIEFING SLIDES OF THE FIRST DISTRICT SEARCH AND RESCUE OPS FOR TITAN INCIDENT CG-065-USCG-DAILY-SEARCH-AND-RESCUE-RECOVERY-SLIDESDownload 1:44 p.m. Talbot said there was so much information pertaining to the incident that it was almost overwhelming, but the board found recommendations in four main categories. He went on to say it was evident that the SAR system was overwhelmed by the incident. 1:40 p.m. 1:55 p.m. Talbot was asked to conduct a SAR case study on the Titan incident. Below is a summary of the case study and findings: CG-089-USCG-TITAN-SAR-CASE-STUDY-AFTER-ACTION-REPORT-PRESENTATIONDownload 1:33 p.m. A SAR specialist is responsible for managing the search and rescue operations for the specific district under the SAR director, according to Talbot. 1:31 p.m. Scott Talbot called to witness stand. 12:22 p.m. Recess until 1:30 p.m. 12:18 p.m. Interview with the Polar Prince crew master, which is similar to the captain, after the Titan debris was found. CG-064-POLAR-PRINCE-CREW-LIST-CAPTAIN-CV-AND-INTERVIEW-QUESTIONS-AND-RESPONSESDownload 12:11 p.m. The process of getting Pelagics ROV to the Titan incident location would normally take days but the search and rescue team members were able to move the over 70,000 ton equipment to the incident site in hours. 12:01 p.m. District 1 does not monitor dive activity at the Titanic wreck site or the Andrea Doria. 11:57 a.m. OceanGate had a plan in case something went wrong that had ROV numbers on it, although Unified Command was never notified of this plane. In Capt. Fredericks understanding, Pelagic was made aware of the dive and the incident the night of June 18. Deep Energy was contacted through ISMERLOW. 11:54 a.m. Unified Command was notified of underwater noises during the search for the Titan. It was one piece of data that was not definitive and could not say 100% that it was an implosion. The team was also receiving conflicting evidence of knocking noises. No one knew what the answer was and Unified Command was not keeping the search ongoing when they had secret information, Capt. Frederick said. 11:51 a.m. Hearing back in session. 11:31 a.m. 11:33 a.m. OceanGate representative Kyle Bingham was apart of Unified Command. The First Coast Guard District was not aware of the Titans dive when the incident occurred. When the ROV found the tail cone debris and more debris was found Thursday morning, Unified Command determined the incident to be a total loss. 11:26 a.m. There was never an OceanGate search plan presented to the Coast Guard. There were sonar noises coming from buoys in the distance. The data was packaged and turned over to the Navy for analyzing. The Navy reported they were 100% certain that it was not sonar noise from humans. 11:19 a.m. 11:21 a.m. The Coast Guards first district exercises with the Canadians on an annual basis. Several days the ceiling was low limited to 500 feet, search conditions were good in general terms, but the team was not severely hampered by weather, according to Capt. Frederick. 11:16 a.m. 11:18 a.m. When the 6000 meter ROV was able to get on scene, the debris was found quickly. There was also a backup plan. A French vessel with a 6000 meter ROV was also on the way and arrived Thursday. 11:14 a.m. Capt. Frederick said OceanGate reached out to Pelagic research services initially which notified the Coast Guard. The team had to move 70,000 pounds of search equipment to St. Johns and then trucked to the sea port and moved onto the Horizon Arctic. 10:49 a.m. 11:05 a.m. Capt. Frederick was notified on Sunday (JUNE 18, 2023) at 5:40 p.m. EST and it was a report of an overdue sub at the site of the Titanic. An overdue vessel means you have confirmed departure and confirmed non-departure which puts the situation in the distress phase. It was a multi-dimensional search due to the distance offshore, the sub was supposed to resurface in emergency and there were no readily accessible response resources on the surface, Capt. Frederick said. A C-130 was on deck in St. Johns and sent to conduct a surface search over the area, he said. The Navy did not have available resources to help. ISMERLOW put out a global broadcast for at sea vessels that have ROV capability. The vessel Deep Energy responded and headed to the incident location with there ROVs. It took them 34 hours to get to the location. By Monday morning, Canadian aircraft and US aircraft were flying. When one landed another would take off up until Wednesday. The US and Canada worked closely through the response. Deep Energy arrived Tuesday morning but there ROVs could only go 3000 meter. Deep Energy pushed one of their ROVs passed 3000 meters and it failed, he said. At the same time, the Coast Guard put together an elite search and rescue team that was called Unified Command. The Canadian Air Force, the New York National Guard and Coast Guard worked together for search response. The Coast Guards search and rescue ops did have contact with OceanGate and the Polar Prince did have contact through the search for the Titan and its passengers. Polar Prince was the search lead at the beginning. The search lead transfer occurred on Wednesday. The airplanes during fly searches were receiving sonar noises underwater on Monday. 10:47 a.m. Capt. Frederick was an active search suspension authority during the Titan incident and the responsibilities were for him to communicate with the next of kin during the Titan case and that person also makes the decision to suspend a search 10:42 a.m. Capt. Frederick offers condolences to lost Titan passengers. He then details his professional Coast Guard background in search and rescue operations. 10:41 a.m. Cpt. Jamie Frederick with Coast Guard Sector Boston called to the witness stand. 10:01 a.m. Hearing in recess. 9:53 a.m. McCoy started at OceanGate in April 2017 and left in September 2017. No one paid to go on the Antipodes and Cyclops 1 dives while McCoy was there. It was all staff he said. 9:51 a.m. During McCoys time at OceanGate, the team just performed test dives and training dives on Antipodes and Cyclops 1. 9:45 a.m. 9:47 a.m. McCoy said he does not think there was a professional engineer on staff at OceanGate. There was not a set safety process. The concerns were brought up to your supervisor and then the supervisor would have a conversation with Stockton. There was no safety officer at OceanGate. 9:42 a.m. McCoy said the conversation before he left was very tense and Stockton was defensive. Stockton knew McCoys Coast Guard background and did not care, he said. 9:41 a.m. Two contractors who worked for OceanGate during the time had a lot of knowledge on submersibles and asked questions but they werent getting answered, according to McCoy. 9:39 a.m. McCoy said Stockton was in and out and he seemed to be defensive when people asked pointed questions. Scott Griffith and Neal McCurdy would listen and be open, but the one person who would take concerns seriously was David Lochridge, according to McCoy. 9:38 a.m. McCoy said he did not know much about the Coast Guard Adm. Lockwood who was on the OceanGate board. 9:36 a.m. McCoy said Stockton was not even open to testing the Titan unmanned. He said the engineering staff was not really qualified as there was Tony Nissen and one other on staff with the rest of the employees being basically college interns. 9:34 a.m. Allegedly, Lochridge reached out to McCoy and told him he had reached out to OSHA after McCoy left. Eventually, McCoy said he just quit following what OceanGate was doing because he assumed the OSHA complaint would lead to safety issues at the company being dealt with. 9:33 a.m. At the time of the conversation of between McCoy and Rush, the Titan had not dived in the US and so he did not know whether to notify the Coast Guard. 9:31 a.m. McCoy said Scott Griffith would just go along with what Stockton Rush would say. 9:30 a.m. The conversation between Stockton and McCoy happened in 2017 around September. McCoy said he resigned the following day after that conversation. He did have an unofficial exit interview with Bonnie Carl. He said she just pulled him aside and just asked him why he was leaving because the company was having a lot of turnover. 9:27 a.m. McCoy was in the Coast Guard reserves during this conversation and felt he was holding himself to a higher standard. McCoy said he did not believe that the Titan would not be operated out of the US. 9:24 a.m. 9:26 a.m. McCoy did raise these concerns and asked how they were doing this without certifying and inspecting the sub. He was taken to a meeting with Stockton Rush where he brought up his operating concerns. Rush gave him a long list of reasons why and how the regulations were stifling ingenuity according to McCoy. Rush also told McCoy that they were taking the Titan to the Bahamas so it would not be diving out of the US. Rush allegedly told him he would buy a congressman and make the problems go away if the Coast Guard decided to get involved. After this, McCoy resigned, he said. Scott Griffith was also at the lunch. 9:23 a.m. McCoy said after a dive with Renata Rojas and learning that she had gotten paid to go on the Andrea Doria dive was strange to him. Then he started learning more about mission specialists and became more concerned, he said. 9:19 a.m. McCoy said he was concerned with the overall design of the Titan. He said initially the OceanGate Foundation was going to raise money and operate it as an Oceanographic Research Vessel. 9:15 a.m. 9:19 a.m. When McCoy started working with OceanGate the company was in a partnership with the University of Washington Applied Physics Lab. He said during his time OceanGate and the physics lab broke ties and McCoy said this concerned him. Scott Griffith was McCoys supervisor and he said Griffith seemed to be over former marine operations chief David Lochridge at the time as well. 9:08 a.m. McCoy dealt with a lot of passenger vessels during his time stationed in Kauai with the Coast Guard. 9:07 a.m. McCoy began working with OceanGate in April 2017. 9:05 a.m. McCoy is a former Coast Guard member. He was active duty from 2002 to 2015. 9:04 a.m. Matthew McCoy, former OceanGate operations technician, called to the witness stand. 9:00 a.m. Hearing begins. STAY CONNECTED: Receive news alerts from this hearing and watch it on the go with the NEWS 2 APP (download it here). You can also subscribe to daily emails for the latest news on the titan hearings. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCBD News 2. Finnish President Alexander Stubb believes that Ukraine should first become a member of the EU before joining NATO. Source: Stubb at the Helsinki Security Forum, as reported by European Pravda Details: Stubb was asked whether it was realistic to expect Ukraine to receive an invitation to join NATO by the end of the year. Quote: "Till the end of the year, I would think that its unrealistic," the Finnish president replied, adding that he considers that Ukraine being invited to join NATO is realistic in the long term. Stubb went on to share his opinion on the order in which Ukraine will join the Western alliances. "I think that the sort of sequence would be: EU membership first, and NATO membership second," he added. According to Stubb, Ukraine will first sign security agreements which so far it has done with more than 20 countries followed by bilateral security guarantees with countries such as the US, the UK and France. After that, Ukraine will be able to join the EU, and only then join NATO. He stressed that Finland's position is to support Ukraine's NATO membership. "But the timing has to be right. We all know that a country that is at war cannot become a member of NATO," he said. "Dont hang everything on getting an invitation now. It is going to happen. Its a step by step process. Russia wanted to avoid at all cost getting NATO to its borders. It got Finland, it got Sweden, it will get Ukraine and all of those countries that want to join the Alliance," he added. Stubb dismissed the idea that Russia could use the war to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO since, he said, the war will end sooner or later. Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba believes it is possible that Ukraine will be invited to join NATO before the Alliance's summit in the Netherlands in 2025. EU Ambassador to Ukraine Katarina Mathernova believes that the forecast that Ukraine could join the EU by 2030 is realistic. Support UP or become our patron! Firefighter accused of setting blazes in Northern California was a former inmate firefighter A Cal Fire truck drives down a hill after checking a hot spot near Lower Lake, Calif., in 2015. (Jeff Chiu / Associated Press) A Cal Fire engineer accused of setting several fires in Northern California had previously been in a firefighting training program while serving a six-year state prison sentence for vehicular manslaughter, according to state corrections officials. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said 38-year-old Robert Matthew Hernandez , who was recently charged with multiple counts of arson, had participated in the states Conservation Camp Program from April through December 2018. The fire camps, about 35 in the state, are minimum-security facilities run by the corrections department, Cal Fire and the Los Angeles County Fire Department. State officials say the program paves the way for job opportunities and benefits for formerly incarcerated people. Mary Xjimenez, a corrections department spokesperson, said Hernandez was transferred from San Bernardino County to state prison in August 2017. He was sentenced to six years for gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, she said. He received 756 days of pre-sentence credit for time served while awaiting sentencing and was eligible for credit-earning opportunities while incarcerated. Among those credit-earning opportunities was the fire camp program. Hernandez was released on parole supervision in December 2018. That following year, Xjimenez said, he enrolled in the Ventura Training Center, a certification program to help formerly incarcerated people apply for entry-level firefighting jobs with local, state and federal firefighting agencies. Xjimenez said Hernandez completed his parole in November 2020. Read more: California's inmate firefighter crews are dwindling just as the state starts to burn Hernandez's latest run in with the law occurred a week ago when the native of Healdsburg allegedly started five fires while off duty: The Alexander fire on Aug. 15, the Windsor River Road fire on Sept. 8, the Geysers fire on Sept. 12 and the Geyser and Kinley fires on Sept. 14, according to Cal Fire law enforcement officials. Hernandez was charged with five counts of arson on Tuesday. The Press Democrat, the first news outlet to report on Hernandez's ties to the fire camp program, said that Hernandez did not enter a plea and that his attorney, Orchid Vaghti, declined to comment. State corrections and fire officials said they were appalled to learn that Hernandez not only violated the publics trust but attempted to tarnish the work of firefighters. We strongly condemn the actions of any individual that endanger our communities and undermine the valuable contributions of fire camp participants, Xjimenez said, Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. First cases of bluetongue found in sheep in Wales Bluetongue affects ruminants including sheep, in which it causes serious illness and death [BBC] A new strain of the bluetongue virus has been found in sheep in Wales for the first time. Three cases of Bluetongue-3, or BTV-3, were identified in animals moved from the east of England to Gwynedd. Restriction zones to help stem the spread of the disease now cover the whole of the south-east England because of cases found there. In May the Welsh government urged farmers to look out for it and ensure livestock is sourced safely. Bluetongue is caused by a virus spread by midges. It affects cattle, goats, sheep and deer and members of the camel family. It does not affect people or food safety. Investigations are taking place on the affected farm to see if more controls are needed. Deputy chief vet, Gavin Watkins, said: "The cases identified in Gwynedd are from animals brought into Wales. "We will apply measures to stop the disease spreading from these three sheep and our aim remains to keep Wales free of bluetongue." Infected culicoides midges blown over from northern Europe can infect livestock with one bite [The Pirbright Institute] He urged people to report suspected cases to the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). The Welsh government said the impact on animals can vary. Some show no clinical signs or effects but for others it can cause productivity problems such as reduced milk yield or reproductive losses. In the most severe cases can be fatal for infected animals. There is evidence dogs and other carnivores can get bluetongue if they eat infected material, including aborted material or afterbirth. GREER, S.C. (WSPA) Mike Ferrell took a step back in his career, which he believes is paying off for the Greer Police Department. Ferrell grew up in the Charleston area and graduated from Stratford High School. Thats where he got into law enforcement by starting with the Charleston County Detention Center. Theres people in this world who want to cause problems and somebody has to do something about it, according to Ferrell. Ferrell moved to the Upstate and joined the Greer Police Department in 2010. He moved up to the role of patrol sergeant but believed the department was lacking something. I saw this glaring problem with policing, in general, Ferrell told 7NEWS. Were responding to all types of calls where theres mental health involved and theres people who are suicidal. (Some) of these people need some type of treatment, but theyre not compliant with treatment. Ferrell gave up the rank of sergeant to become the Crisis Intervention Officer for Greer Police. City Council approved funding the position in November and he took over the post. When I show up, I try to as much as possible on my end to treat them was as much dignity about what theyre going through. They are legitimate things. Officer Ferrell said his work often starts with a conversation. Sometimes it just takes that conversation for us to be able to deescalate somebody to the point where they can listen to reason. (Then) we can start working towards a 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 WSPA 7NEWS. On Wednesday morning, the very day that it was announced that Donald Trump was briefed by Biden administration officials of "real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him," Biden went on "The View" and his Secretary of Commerce went on "Morning Joe" to fan the flames of hate. The objective clearly was to demonize Donald Trump once again. President Joe Biden said Wednesday on ABC's "The View" that former President Donald Trump "really does not believe in democracy. I think he is the most unusual president. Look, when I ran, I said I was running, one of the first major speeches I made at Independence Hall about democracy. That democracy was at stake." He went on to say, "Trump is, there is not a lot social redeeming values there. Here's the thing, he really does not believe in democracy, and the guardrails that our system has set up for the abuse of power. Look at what he does and what he says and look what he did. January 6th was absolutely bizarre, bizarre. In the past Biden has said, "It's time to put Trump in a bulls-eye." And Biden has said time and time again that "Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. There is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country." And on that same morning, Biden Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that former President Donald Trump should be extinguished from politics. That's right, she used the word "extinguished." Raimondo said, "Tax policy, you have to work with Congress but if he decides he wants to do something crazy, like a 200% tariff, which will hurt Americans, raise prices and lose jobs, he could do it as president. Which is why honestly why I'm here in my personal capacity. The stakes are so high in this one. We cannot afford to put him back in the White House." And then she added, "He's the one that overturned Roe. For me, you know, when I was the governor of Rhode Island, one of the first governors in the country back in 2019 to codify Roe in state statute in Rhode Island. I worked with the legislature, it was because he was president, and I feared exactly what would happen. I said women of Rhode Island would be protected. That's real protection, stepping up and leading. And what he says is the opposite. It is just another lie. How did we get here? Let's extinguish him for good." Let's not forget what Kamala Harris has said. She falsely accused President Trump of calling Nazis "fine people," promising a "bloodbath," and being responsible for "the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War." No longer is there any attempt to parse her words. She has been repeating out and out lies about Trump, statements that have been proven to be totally false, with complete abandon. The vitriol against President Trump is off the charts. For more than 8 years Biden and his surrogates have been saying that Donald Trump is worse than Hitler and Mussolini. They constantly exaggerate the J6 Capitol riot and use it to frame Trump as a "threat to democracy." Joe Biden has labeled Trump and "MAGA Republicans" as "semi-fascists" and domestic terrorists. Tim Walz called Trump a "fascist" and "threat to Democracy" who will "put people's lives in danger." And last week Democratic Senator Chris Murphy described Trump as "a candidate explicitly running on the promise of political violence." Considering the constant drumbeat of Trump being worse than Hitler and a threat to all Americans, is it any wonder why there would be assassination attempts on him? Killing Hitler should make you the hero of the world, right? The damage done by the hate-filled rhetoric spewed by Democrats and their partners in the media will be felt for decades. (COMMENT, BELOW) A gas flame is seen in the desert near the Khurais oilfield, about 160 km (99 miles) from Riyadh. Ali Jarekji/Reuters Saudi Arabia is committed to boosting oil output in December, the FT reported. The kingdom is resigning itself to a period a lower prices, sources told the FT. Oil markets spiraled on the news, falling as much as 4% on Thursday. A report that Saudi Arabia would ditch its unofficial crude price target sent crude oil prices sharply lower on Thursday. According to sources that spoke with the Financial Times, the kingdom will no longer seek a $100 per barrel price and is instead ready to increase oil output. Speculation has mounted over what the world's largest oil exporter may do. Even as Saudi Arabia and other OPEC+ members have progressively cut oil output to prop up global pricing, waning demand pushed crude to its lowest level since 2021 earlier this month. Despite this, those familiar with the matter said that Riyadh is prepared to boost output as scheduled on December 1. In essence, the kingdom is giving in to lower prices, FT sources said. Markets spiraled on the news, dropping over 3%. Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell as low as $70.7 as of 11:00 am ET. An even steeper decline hit US West Texas Intermediate, hitting $67 a barrel. The kingdom's decision may seem counterintuitive, as the $100 per barrel threshold is considered essential to financing the Saudi budget. Yet, sources told FT that Riyadh is no longer comfortable ceding its market share to other producers by limiting production. OPEC's joint efforts to support higher prices have also been made difficult by the fact that some coalition members have partially disregarded the restrictions. One source told FT that, if countries such as Iraq and Kazakhstan do not commit to curbing supply, Riyadh may unwind its own cuts quicker than expected. Under the current plan, Saudi Arabia will boost its monthly production by 83,000 barrels per day each month from December. Prices have stayed low as China, a key consumer of global oil, has signaled a lackluster appetite for the commodity. According to Bloomberg, developments in Libya also added to Thursday's oil plunge. The country agreed to appoint a new central bank governor, ending a deadlock between rival administrations. The eastern-based faction has committed to reopening the country's oil fields in response, a move that could bring more crude output back online. Read the original article on Business Insider Fish evolution is so strange that it's given us species that can count, change color by "seeing" with its skin and even fish that can "sing." But sea robins in the family Triglidae are some of the most bizarre in the ocean, as illuminated by two new studies giving surprising insight into their biology. With a catfish-shaped body and face, sea robins come in a wide range of colors: Red-brown and orange to subtler hues of silver and gray. Yet sea robins are most notable for their distinctively large, fan-shaped dorsal fins and for their six leg-like appendages. You read that correctly: A sea robin is a fish that effectively has legs. And thanks to two recent studies in the journal Current Biology one about its sensory organs in its feet, the other about its genetic evolution we now understand that these "legs" (really extensions of the pectoral fins) do more than just walk. They are full-fledged multi sensory organs. Among other things, the scientists learn that sea robin legs are sensitive to mechanical and chemical stimuli. Even when burying capsules that contained only a single chemical, the sea robins could quickly find them. This was the case for a known species of sea robin that the scientists began studying, the Prionotus carolinus which dig to find buried prey with those super-sensitive legs. The scientists also discovered a new species of sea robin, the Prionotus evolans, which has legs with different abilities. Lepidotrigla papilio "When we looked at the digging versus non-digging animals, the legs were so obviously different and the sensory papillae on the digging legs were even clear by eye," Nicholas Bellono, a molecular and cellular biologist at Cape Cod's Marine Biological Laboratory and an author on both papers, told Salon. "Using this comparative model, we were then able to trace down the piezo-positive mechanosensory neurons and taste receptor-expressing epithelial cells in digging sea robins that were absent in the non-digging species." These are the various types of special cells that help the sea robin "taste" and otherwise detect the various chemicals in the sediment as it searches for food. The research team was assisted by scientists Amy Herbert and David Kingsley from Stanford University, who figured out "how these fish develop leg-like appendages from fins using ancestral limb genes and how the legs were then specialized in certain species to sense and uncover buried prey," Bellono said. We were not planning to study sea robins at all but happened to come across them on a trip to the Marine Biological Laboratory (in Woods Hole, Massachusetts) for squid," Bellono added. "Scott Bennett from the Marine Resource Center has worked with me since I studied electroreception in sharks as a postdoc and knows I appreciate weird creatures, so he showed us sea robins, or 'walking' fish with legs as he called them. He told us the stories about how other fish follow them around because they are so good at sensing and uncovering buried prey on the seafloor." The group was especially pleased to learn that sea robins were so effective at covering up filtered mussel extract, even down to single amino acids. Amino acids are smaller even than individual strands of DNA. Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes. "We were initially amazed at how different all sea robins are compared to other fish (presence of legs and ability to walk)," Kingsley said in a statement. "During the course of the collaborative studies with Nicks lab, we were surprised to find how much sea robins species also differed from each other in sensory structures and behavior." Naturally, the next question for biologists is to understand why these fish species diverge so sharply. The most logical explanation is that it has to do with adapting to their environment. That's where the second paper comes into play: By exploring the function of a gene known as tbx3a, Bellono and his colleagues figured out how a fish grows a new organ that functions both as a leg and a tongue. "There are a couple hypotheses regarding the advantages of these evolutionary innovations in the bottom dwelling sea robin," Herbert said in a statement. "One is that using the legs to uncover buried prey opens up a new ecological niche for certain sea robin species. Another is that walking rather than swimming in some environments may be more energy efficient for sea robins." Postdoctoral student Corey Allard, who was also instrumental to the research for this paper, plans on helping in those future endeavors. "Moving forward, Corey and Amy plan to dissect the mechanisms by which sea robins develop sensory legs for understanding where limbs come and how they specialize for various forms of sensation," Bellono said. "I expect these studies will continue to teach us about the evolution of novel traits." As Kinglsey added, "This research had identified some of the key players involved in developing legs and taste in sea robins. We still have to find what exactly has happened at the DNA level to redeploy ancient genes into new functions. Amy Herbert and Corey Allard are about to start their own labs at the University of Chicago and at Harvard. They will have a ton of cool problems to work in sea robins and other organisms that can now be studied using these new tools in genetics, genomicsand physiology." As Bellono concluded, "To me, this is a great story of our scientific philosophy of being curious, opportunistic and open-minded to new biology, even if unexpected! Five days of frantic US diplomacy on Lebanon has yielded little U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken speaks during a meeting with the Foreign Ministers of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa, Pool) NEW YORK (AP) President Joe Biden's administration headed into the annual U.N. General Assembly gathering of world leaders this week with high hopes that he could cement his legacy as an international statesman during escalating conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. Yet five days of frantic diplomacy focused mainly on preventing the Israel-Hezbollah crisis from exploding into a full-scale war has yielded little, if any, results and prospects for peace have further dimmed. Despite a proposal from the U.S., France and other allies for a temporary cease-fire along the border with Lebanon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a defiant speech Friday to the General Assembly, vowing to keep up operations against Hezbollah until tens of thousands of Israeli citizens displaced by rocket attacks can return home. As Netanyahu spoke, Israel launched a massive strike on Hezbollahs main headquarters in Beirut that targeted the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah. Netanyahu then cut short his already-truncated visit to New York and headed home without meeting U.S. officials. Israel has the right to defend itself against terrorism. The way it does so matters, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters Friday, declining to outright criticize Israel for its latest strike. The Pentagon and the White House National Security Council said the U.S. did not get advance warning. We believe the way forward is through diplomacy not conflict. The path to diplomacy may seem difficult, as we see in this moment, but it is there, Blinken said. Netanyahu's speech and his abbreviated trip which lacked any meetings with leaders from Israels largest and most important backer, the United States underscored the limits of American influence. Many believe U.S. sway in the region has been waning since Israel's war with Hamas, another Iranian-backed militant group, began nearly a year ago. Critics of the administrations handling of the growing Middle East conflict say Biden and his team now find themselves contending with an uncomfortable dynamic they created themselves: A split-screen in which top administration officials are pleading for a cease-fire as Israel continues to decisively go after top Hezbollah commanders that it blames for driving tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes near the border with Lebanon. On the same day the U.S. was begging Hezbollah for a cease-fire, Israel took out Hezbollahs command center, said Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a former National Security Council staffer on the Iran desk during the Trump administration. The contrast brings the current state of American weakness into sharp relief. This week began with Bidens top national security aides working to build support for a 21-day Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire that they hoped might also breathe new life into stalled efforts to secure a truce in Gaza. Blinken met with European and Gulf Arab foreign ministers, along with Netanyahu's top strategic adviser, Ron Dermer. Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein, the White Houses chief interlocutors with Israel and Lebanon since the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas launched the war in Gaza, held similar talks in New York to win support for the plan. After three days of intense talks punctuated by a brief spat between the United States and France over the timing the proposal was presented late Wednesday. The Americans were particularly perturbed by France calling an emergency U.N. Security Council session on Lebanon for Wednesday evening at which the French foreign minister previewed the as-yet unfinished proposal while at the same time Biden was hosting a reception for world leaders at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That effectively forced the U.S. to unveil it before many officials believed it was ready. Nearly four hours after that Security Council meeting began, the White House released the plan. U.S. officials then offered upbeat assessments of its prospects over the objections of some in the Biden administration who had urged caution, according to several people familiar with the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity to detail private discussions. After consulting with senior Israeli officials, Blinken and other diplomats had expected Israel to at least welcome, if not endorse, the plan. Instead, Netanyahu appeared to reject it when he arrived in New York on Thursday. He later clarified that Israel supports the goals of the cease-fire. Biden administration officials have been pressing for approval of the proposal since it was announced Wednesday night, but their hopes have waned since. No U.S. officials had contact with Netanyahu when he was in New York. In his U.N. speech Friday, the Israeli leader castigated much of the world for trying to push his country into accepting an untenable situation along its northern border. Well continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met, he told the General Assembly, just before reports emerged that Israeli had struck Hezbollahs headquarters. Ive come here today to say: Enough is enough. Having returned to Washington on Wednesday night, Biden ordered the Pentagon on Friday to assess and adjust as necessary U.S. force posture in the region to enhance deterrence, ensure force protection, and support the full range of U.S. objectives," the White House said. ___ Madhani reported from Rehoboth Beach, Del. Five people were injured on the evening of 27 September as Russian troops attacked Kherson Oblast and the city of Kherson. Source: Kherson Oblast Military Administration on Telegram Details: A Russian drone dropped explosives on a civilian car in Kherson's Dniprovskyi district this evening, injuring a 58-year-old man and an 82-year-old woman, the Kherson Oblast Military Administration said. Two other women were injured during a Russian attack on Kherson at around 17:20 and taken to hospital. They were at home at the time of the strike. In addition, Russian forces shelled the town of Veletenske with artillery at around 18:30. Quote: "A local citizen who was out on the street was injured in the shelling. The man suffered a blast injury and shrapnel wounds to the chest, abdomen, arms and legs. He is in a serious condition." Support UP or become our patron! Aftermath of an explosion at a fuel station in Makhachkala MOSCOW (Reuters) -An explosion at a petrol station in Russia's Caspian Sea region of Dagestan killed 10 people on Friday, including two children, the emergencies ministry said. A ministry statement on the Telegram messaging app said 11 people were injured in the blast outside the regional capital of Makhachkala. It said rescue teams had been recovering bodies from under rubble and brought a fire under control. A health ministry official told Russian news agencies that eight people were being treated in hospital, including one in serious condition. Dagenergo, the regional power operator, said the explosion damaged "energy objects" and that power supply was partially disrupted in nearby districts. A local branch of the Investigative Committee, which deals with serious crimes in Russia, said it had opened a criminal case and was establishing the circumstances of the incident. (Reporting by Reuters; editing by Mark Heinrich, Ron Popeski and Jonathan Oatis) The latest restaurant inspections by the South Carolina Department of Agriculture gave seven restaurants B grades and two others C grades. The department is responsible for regularly inspecting the health and safety of retail food establishments in the state. In general, the Department of Agriculture gives restaurants scoring between 88 and 100 points A grades, restaurants scoring 78-87 points B grades and restaurants scoring 77 points or fewer C grades, but this isnt always the case. Of the 156 restaurants inspected in Horry and Georgetown County from Sept. 13 to Sept. 20, the date with the most recently available inspection reports, two establishments received C grades: Billy the Kids Restaurant and the Circle K Subway at 3710 Highway 501. An additional seven restaurants, the AFC Sushi in Publix at 1576 Highway 17 North, Bonefish Grille at 103 South Kings Highway, El Buen Sabor Mexican and Centro, Hooks Calabash Seafood, Sugar Life Ice Cream and Candy, Pho Claire and Woodhaven Pancake House, all received B grades. However, only one restaurant actually scored below 89 points. The reason these grades differ from their numerical scores is because the Department of Agriculture sometimes docks restaurants grades if the establishment has consecutive violations, is under enforcement action or is under pending enforcement actions, including an imminent health hazard, permit suspension or permit revocation. Heres what inspectors found at the restaurant that did receive a numerical score in the B range. Hooks Calabash Seafood 1902 North Kings Highway, Myrtle Beach, SC, 29577 Score: 81 A routine inspection of Hooks Calabash Seafood on Sept. 20 found several violations, including flies at the shrimp and oyster area of the buffet, fly strips hanging throughout the kitchen and storage areas, and foods like fish, shrimp, chicken and imitation crab stored at unsafe temperatures. The report also notes that shellfish werent marked with the last dates of use and the dishwasher didnt have sufficiently hot water. A follow-up inspection is scheduled for Sept. 30. More information about South Carolina regulations for retail food establishments can be accessed online here. As of early Friday morning, 700 flights had been canceled and more than 1,200 flights had been delayed within, into, or out of the United States. Joe Raedle/Getty Images Waves from the Gulf of Mexico crash on shore as Hurricane Helene churns offshore on September 26, 2024 in St. Pete Beach, Florida Hours after making landfall as a powerful and devastating Category 4 storm in Florida, Hurricane Helene continued to batter the south and disrupt travel across the country. By Friday morning, Helene had been downgraded to a tropical storm with tornado watches and flash flood warnings issued across Georgia and the Carolinas, according to The Weather Channel. The storm was rapidly moving north through Georgia with hurricane-force winds and heavy rainfall, according to the National Hurricane Center. This is [a] dangerous and life-threatening situation, the National Hurricane Center wrote in an update. Persons should not leave their shelters and remain in place, staying away from windows and have multiple ways to receive warnings and updates. Hurricane Helene, which wreaked havoc at airports on Thursday, continued to disrupt travel on Friday. As of early Friday morning, 700 flights had been canceled and more than 1,200 flights had been delayed within, into, or out of the United States, according to flight tracker FlightAware. The largest share of cancellations were coming out of North Carolinas Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), which axed 140 outgoing flights. That was followed by Tampa International Airport (TPA), which had canceled nearly 100 flights so far Friday. Tampa initially suspended all commercial and cargo operations early Thursday and remained closed Friday morning. Damage assessments are underway and we will have an update on reopening plans later this morning, TPA wrote in a Facebook post. The disruptions joined 1,300 flight cancellations and more than 6,200 flight delays from Thursday, according to data from FlightAware. Travel alerts from major airlines remained in effect, including from Delta Air Lines, which extended its alert to Friday travel through its hub in Atlanta (also known as the busiest airport in the world); and United Airlines, which extended its alert through Sept. 28 to several area airports, including in Nashville, Charlotte, Raleigh/Durham, and more. Helene, which made landfall Thursday night about 10 miles from Perry, Florida, became the second major hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, according to The Weather Channel. Experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have forecast this could end up being one of the most active hurricane seasons on record. For more Travel & Leisure news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on Travel & Leisure. (This report has been updated with new information) Fifty-four people were rescued from the roof of the Unicoi County Hospital on Sept. 27 after flooding due to Tropical Storm Helene left them stranded. Virginia State Police finished the rescue mission around 4:45 p.m., using two helicopters to rescue between 40 and 45 people, Virginia State Police spokesperson Matt Demlein told the USA TODAY Network. Other agencies involved in the rescue effort rescued the remaining patients and staff. Unicoi County Sheriff Mike Hensley told Knox News he watched as helicopters from throughout the region descended on the roof after floodwaters rose so quickly authorities couldn't even get boats near the building. It was chaotic. We couldnt get to them in boats, we had high winds and water rushing around the hospital. I thank God the hospital held. I was waiting for it to collapse, Hensley said. National Guard and state and local police helicopters from nearby Virginia and Tennessee, including crews from Knoxville in three Blackhawk helicopters, saved the patients. Those pulled off the roof are all receiving treatment at other regional facilities. The Unicoi hospital will remain closed until further notice. Get weather alerts via text: Sign up to get updates about Hurricane Helene and other weather events now "The major problem is trying to access some of these rural areas," Hensley told Knox News. "We're cut off from the south end of the county now. We're cut off from deputies on the south part who can't come back home. But that's a good thing they're there." Erwin Police Department Lt. Patrick Bennet told Knox News couldn't hear anything except howling winds as he helped in the evacuation. The rising water took his breath away. Water was coming up so high, there was nothing we could do, he told Knox News. The morning started quietly before the force of the storm moved in, and conditions deteriorated within hours. "(It looked) like a normal day. And it looked that way when I got here this morning, he said. "It came up within just a matter of minutes. Once it started, it just kept rising and rising. Bennett said rescue teams evacuated the most critical patients first. In the hours after the rescue, Unicoi County residents gathered near the hospital to take in the jaw-dropping scene of rushing water and floating debris. What now resembles a river, Unicoi County Clerk Patty Treadway told Knox News, used to be a pasture where neighbors saw the occasional horse. "It's unbelievable," she said. "It's something I've never seen before, and I've lived here my whole life." Ambulances could not reach the hospital due to the rapid flooding, so the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency got involved with local agencies to deploy rescue boats. However, water surrounding the hospital and seeping inside prevented the boats from safely being able to leave the hospital, Ballad said. Helicopters were also not able to safely evacuate the hospital due to high winds. By 12:27 p.m., 54 people had to evacuate to the rooftop and seven were stranded in rescue boats. "The hospital has been engulfed by extremely dangerous and rapidly moving water. The situation at the hospital is very dangerous and TEMA and National Guard resources are engaged in what can only be described as a dangerous rescue operation," Ballad wrote. "We ask everyone to please pray for the people at Unicoi County Hospital, the first responders on-scene, the military leaders who are actively working to help, and our state leaders." EMS service shares Facetime video from Unicoi County Hospital rooftop MedicOne Medical Response, an emergency rescue service, posted a Facetime recording with a former employee who was stranded on the hospital roof. The videos showed patients and staff on the roof of the hospital with water surrounding the building. In another video, the first rescue helicopter arrived. Where is Unicoi County Hospital? Unicoi County Hospital is in Erwin, Tennessee, around 100 miles east of Knoxville and Pigeon Forge. The region saw intense flooding Friday as Tropical Storm Helene, downgraded from a hurricane, barreled through the Southeast, inflicting flooding and power outages across multiple states. The downtown of Newport, a Tennessee city around 60 miles west, was also evacuated after a "catastrophic failure" of the Walters Dam near Waterville, North Carolina, on Friday. This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: More than 50 rescued from Unicoi County Hospital after Tennessee flood ASHEVILLE, N.C. Cities in western North Carolina are bracing for catastrophic flooding and other significant weather impacts from Hurricane Helene's landfall. In Buncombe County, a local state of emergency was declared Thursday and applies to Asheville, Biltmore Forest, Weaverville, the Woodfin, Black Mountain and Montreat. County officials have advised residents who live near the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers to evacuate before Friday night, especially those in towns such as Fletcher and Biltmore Forest. Flooding on a road along the Swannanoa River in Biltmore Village. "This will be one of the most significant weather events to happen in the western portions of the area in the modern era," officials at the National Weather Service office in Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, said in a post on X on Thursday. "Record flooding is forecasted and has been compared to the floods of 1916 in the Asheville area." Landslides capable of washing out bridges and roads are possible during this flooding event, NWS said. "We plead with everyone that you take every single weather warning very seriously through the entirety of this event as impacts will be life-threatening and make sure to have multiple ways to receive the alerts," NWS said. Photos and videos from the area on Thursday afternoon show rivers rushing and flooded streets. Flooding was being reported in Biltmore Village, just to the south of Asheville, near the Swannanoa River. Swannanoa River flooding in Asheville, North Carolina More than 14,000 people were without power in North Carolina as of Thursday afternoon. In Burke and Henderson Counties, a voluntary evacuation was in place for areas near rivers and creeks that tend to flood. Original article source: Flooding swamps Asheville area as North Carolina mountains brace for Helene's life-threatening rainfall Hurricane Helene made landfall late Thursday along the sparsely populated Big Bend section of Floridas Gulf Coast as an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm. It could bring devastation to an area that has already been battered by two previous hurricanes, even as the states capital city may escape the worst. According to the National Hurricane Center, Helene made landfall at 11:10 p.m. Eastern Time just east of the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 10 miles west-southwest of Perry, Florida. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 140 miles per hour at landfall. Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a Thursday evening news conference at the state Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee shortly after landfall that there has already been one fatality in the state, a number he expected to rise by morning. "When Floridians wake up tomorrow morning, we're going to be waking up to a state where very likely there's been additional loss of life, and certainly there's going to be loss of property," DeSantis said late Thursday. "You're going to have people that are going to lose their homes because of this storm, and so please keep those folks in mind. Keep them in your prayers." The storm made landfall east of Tallahassee, a direct hit for rural Taylor County, which also was hit by Hurricane Debby in August and Hurricane Idalia just over a year ago. The storm, which was upgraded to an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm by the National Hurricane Center just hours before its anticipated landfall, is the latest natural disaster testing the coastal state. The economic costs of the storm could be less than major hurricanes in the past because of where it came onshore the comparatively sparsely populated Big Bend but the effects of the storm are being felt statewide. At one point, nearly the entirety of Florida was under either a hurricane, tropical storm or tornado watch or warning. Emergency management officials in Taylor, Franklin, Wakulla and other coastal counties declared mandatory evacuations for all residents ahead of Helene. The counties are defined by the state as fiscally constrained, due to economic factors and low property tax revenue. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell will travel to Florida on Friday to view the aftermath of Helene, she said at a White House press briefing in Washington earlier on Thursday. She said the storm will affect several states, but coastal flooding remains the most life-threatening, and that residents should listen closely to local officials. I need everybody to pay attention to their local officials, Criswell said. Theyre going to have the best information on the specifics for where youre at. FEMA distributes several billions in federal recovery dollars every year, and Criswell said the agency has enough on hand to aid in covering recovery costs from the storm. We have exactly what we need, and there are no limitations to support the response to this disaster, Criswell said. Helene was slow to develop overnight, but the storm quickly became well-organized by midday Thursday as it moved north over the Gulf of Mexico and progressed toward the state at a rapid pace. The storm is expected to bring catastrophic winds inland that can damage even well-built structures. The coastline should expect storm surge of up to 20 feet in some areas, which could bring devastation to residents around Apalachee Bay, according to a report by the National Weather Service in Tallahassee. Apalachee Bay is home to the picturesque fishing village of Apalachicola. There is a danger of catastrophic and unsurvivable storm surge for Apalachee Bay. Storm surge is arriving this morning and will continue to worsen throughout the day, the forecast said. This forecast is a nightmare surge scenario for Apalachee Bay. Please take any evacuation orders seriously! Helene shares the same deadly potential as Hurricane Michael, which blew up just before making landfall near Panama City Beach with winds of more than 160 mph in October 2018. The sudden intensification of the Category 3 Michael to a Category 5 surprised forecasters and emergency management officials, and the winds flattened entire blocks of homes in Mexico Beach. National Weather Service forecasters anticipate the fast-moving Helene to continue bringing powerful winds as it moves toward Georgia. DeSantis said the storm could produce hurricane-force winds 50 miles outside of its eye. Georgia, North Carolina and other states have already declared states of emergency in anticipation of the storm. Officials at the Florida Division of Emergency Management began preparing for the hurricane over the weekend when it was still a disorganized weather disturbance. National Weather Service forecasters identified the disturbance as a potential major hurricane with winds of more than 110 miles per hour before it became a named storm, which was the first time in history. The storm surge by Helene could reach 20 feet along the Big Bend, which would be higher than Hurricane Ian, which brought 18 feet of surge to Southwest Florida in September 2022. Helene also brought surge and wind farther down the Gulf Coast, including Tampa Bay, where the Howard Frankland and Sunshine Skyway bridges were closed. The state has brought in 18,000 linemen to help restore order to an expected massive rash of power outages throughout the path of the storm. DeSantis has also called in 3,500 Florida National Guard members, 200 Florida Highway Patrol troopers and dozens of search and rescue teams. The state has also amassed a reserve of more than 700,000 gallons of diesel, gasoline and propane, although DeSantis said there have been no reports of gas shortages as with some previous hurricanes. DeSantis said he anticipates a seamless collaboration of linemen from power companies, electric cooperatives and publicly owned utilities in efforts to quickly restore electricity to thousands of people. As of 9 p.m. on Thursday, at least 445,000 households were already without power, according to the Florida Public Service Commission. He hinted at the states response to Hurricane Hermine, which knocked out power for most of Tallahassee for days. The delays led then-Gov. Rick Scott to squabble with city officials over hiring additional linemen. You did not see that in the past, DeSantis said earlier Thursday. Did you see Tallahassee mobilizing the way it did in the past? No. Steven Shepard contributed to this report. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department said on Friday it charged a Florida man for allegedly threatening to kill one of his opponents in a 2022 Republican primary race for a U.S. House seat, which subsequently was won by Representative Anna Paulina Luna In an indictment unsealed in a Florida federal court, prosecutors said William Robert Braddock III, 41, of St. Petersburg, Florida, threatened to kill an unnamed victim on June 8, 2021. Newspaper reports in Florida at the time about a related civil trial described alleged threats by Braddock against Luna. Aides to Luna were unable to immediately comment as they dealt with recovery efforts related to Hurricane Helene, which has hit Florida with destructive force. According to the indictment, Braddock allegedly threatened to "call up my Russian-Ukrainian hit squad" and make his primary opponent "disappear." Braddock subsequently dropped out of the race and fled the United States. He later was found to be living in the Philippines, according to the indictment. He recently was deported and made an initial court appearance on Thursday in Los Angeles. Luna is expected to fairly easily win reelection, according to a Reuters analysis of the three main U.S. nonpartisan political ratings services. If convicted, Braddock faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, according to the Justice Department. The indictment comes at a time when the Justice Department is trying to clamp down on threats against election workers in the run-up to November's presidential and congressional elections. (Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Bill Berkrot) (The Hill) The Taylor County sheriffs office asked residents who did not evacuate to write contact information on their arms or legs for identification purposes, as Hurricane Helene is expected to hit the county Thursday night. If you or someone you know chose not to evacuate, PLEASE write your, Name, birthday and important information on your arm or leg in A PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified, the sheriffs office wrote in a post on Facebook. Hurricane Helene forecast to bring catastrophic, life-threatening flooding to Carolinas Officials requested that people provide information about whether their residence is inland or on the coast, their full address, and the names of individuals and animals so that search and rescue teams can prioritize certain locations. NBC reported that Sheriff Wayne Padgett said that Taylor County will be in the dead center of the hurricane and that, although mandatory evacuations were ordered for the area, he estimated that up to half of the population is staying. Damage is predicted to compare to the Asheville floods of 1916, which killed at least 80 people and caused millions of dollars in damage and exceed other extreme weather events in the region such as Tropical Storm Fred in 2021, the weather service said. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. Floridians Can Order Free COVID Tests Again: How To Get Yours FLORIDA Floridians can now order another round of free COVID-19 nasal swab tests that will be delivered directly to their homes. Each household can get four tests through COVIDtests.gov. Already have some at home? Check here to see if your tests' expiration dates have been extended. Shipping forms just opened on Thursday and are free to all residents. Access this link to order yours. Updated rapid tests are expected to be able to detect newer variants just as a new COVID variant, XEC, arrives in Florida. It is a member of the Omicron family. The availability of free at-home tests comes just after the Food and Drug Administration approved two updated COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging everyone 6 months or older to get a new shot this fall since last year's shots were geared toward a strain that is no longer around. As flu and RSV season approaches, health officials recommend residents stock up on tests and update all vaccinations. Floridians Can Order Free COVID Tests Again: How To Get Yours originally appeared on the Tampa Patch File cabinets. (Getty) One of the less noticed features of the Virginia Way is the long-running tendency of the commonwealths leaders to conduct their decision-making behind closed doors. While the Virginia Freedom of Information Act presumes all government business is by default public and requires officials to justify why exceptions should be made, too many Virginia leaders in practice take the opposite stance, acting as if records are by default private and the public must prove they should be handled otherwise. In this feature, we aim to highlight the frequency with which officials around Virginia are resisting public access to records on issues large and small and note instances when the release of information under FOIA gave the public insight into how government bodies are operating. Chesterfield County police dispatch relayed break-in attempt before fatal shooting Federal Court records obtained by WTVR revealed information dispatchers gave Chesterfield police officers before they fatally shot Charles Byers on July 8, 2023. According to the news station, police responded after a resident on Wycliff Court reported Byers breaking through a window to enter a home where he told the resident he thought he was at his familys house and asked for water. Another resident reported Byers tried to enter his home and appeared to be messed up. The dispatcher relayed the breaking and entering attempt through the window to the officers. The officer, who fatally shot Byers as he was walking away from them with a hatchet in his hand, had asked about any crimes committed so far and if he made entry into anything. Looks like he vandalized one residence. Other than that, Im not seeing anything, the dispatcher responded. Byers family is suing Chesterfield County over the death, arguing the crimes committed by him didnt warrant the use of deadly force. County attorneys are seeking a dismissal, saying Byers had squared up with the officer and the reported crimes would lead a reasonable responding officer to believe a potentially dangerous crime was in the process. The attorney for Byers family contended the officer was only aware of a misdemeanor, and that Byers never made a threatening motion with the hatchet toward the officers. A judge is considering whether the case has merit to continue. The Byers family is also suing HCAs Chippenham Hospital and the city of Richmond for jointly and improperly removing Byers from a mental health facility, despite a court order directing him to be there. Richmond finance department doesnt tell business owners about money theyre owed As part of continuing coverage of several issues with the city of Richmond, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported the finance department wasnt notifying business owners that had overpaid on their tax bills. Asia Spratley, a former program and operations manager in the finance department, told an employee in an August 2022 email, please do not include credit balanced, when the employee asked how to determine the number of taxpayer accounts no longer had a balance due, according to the email obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. As part of his report, journalist Samuel Parker detailed how Jason Roop, who owns the public and relations marketing firm Springstory, and Jeff Marks, who ran Promotional Considerations, received notices of unpaid taxes and the citys intent to sue, respectively. It took a visit to city hall for Roop and Marks to learn of their accidental overpayments, and credits owed to them. Spratley told the RTD credit balances were omitted from reports because they were intended to determine who had outstanding balances. Overpayments were the responsibility of the revenue side of the department, added Spratley, who resigned in August after a dispute with management. Margaret Ekam, a city spokeswoman, said Spratleys instructions followed the normal process to write payment letters. Ekam also said most tax compliance and audit employees are no longer working with the finance department, which is streamlining several processes. The city council passed an ordinance in March requiring notification of credits to taxpayers, but those records arent tracked, Ekam said. An inspector general said a city attorney told him to end an investigation into the finance departments handling of tax overpayments because it was outside of his responsibilities. Ekam denied that, saying an investigation had cleared the city of wrongdoing, but didnt state what agency carried out the investigation. Fairfax County teacher sues for lack of records A Fairfax County school teacher and former state Senate candidate filed a lawsuit against the district employing her alleging a failure to hand over all of the documents she requested through a Freedom of Information Act. Julie Perry, who teaches history at Centreville High School, filed the records request after she thought her job was under attack following a post on X involving alleged transgender autistic kids, the Daily Signal reported. In May, Perry posted about a trend she saw in her classrooms of autistic kids identifying as transgender, adding, The far-left uses the literal mentality of children with Autism to abuse them in this manner. This is why children with Autism need greater protection. After seeing the post, Vanessa Hall, who was not co-director of Fairfax Countys LGBT Pride club at the time but now is, sent an email to the high school principal voicing concern over the post, according to records received through a request from a Daily Wire reporter. However, these tweets below show that she is using students for her political gain, Hall said in her complaint, adding shes refrained from reporting Perrys other homophobic, transphobic and deeply hurtful posts. She has crossed a serious ethical line if she is willing to release personal information about her students to the public on social media in direct violation of school policy and parental rights, Hall said. Then, Perry received a memo telling her that her posts, should not impair your capacity to be respectful of students and parents and the ability to do her job. Any action that brings the school system into disrepute may be just cause for dismissal. Perry filed a FOIA request on May 29 for emails from Assistant Principal Penny Gros, who received a complaint about Perry and would seek guidance on how to handle it before the memo went out, mentioning her name. Gros received the complaint, the Daily Signal reported, from the principal at Perrys high school initially who received it from a donor to the campaign of then school board member and now Sen. Stella Pekarsky, the Democrat who beat Perry to represent Fairfax County. Perry only received one document in response to her FOIA, despite the Daily Wire receiving 14 documents for a similar request. Editors note: This story has been corrected to state Vanessa Hall was not co-director of Fairfax Countys LGBT Pride club when she emailed the high school principal. Have you experienced local or state officials denying or delaying your FOIA request? Tell us about it: info@virginiamercury.com SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX ABOVE: The latest forecast update from Severe Weather Center 9. To stay on top of changing weather conditions, be sure to download our free WSOC-TV weather app. The death toll from Hurricane Helene has reached at least 40 across four states, The Associated Press reported. Helene has left an enormous path of destruction across Florida and the entire southeastern U.S. The Category 4 hurricane made landfall Thursday in Florida, snapping trees like twigs, tearing apart homes and sending rescue crews on desperate and dangerous missions to save people from floodwaters. The damage extended hundreds of miles to the north, with flooding as far away as North Carolina. Click here for the latest local flood alerts. According to an Associated Press tally Friday, the deaths occurred in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. South Carolinas Department of Public Safety confirmed 19 total deaths, including five in Spartanburg, and four in Greenville. North Carolina officials previously reported two deaths -- one in Charlotte and another in Catawba County. Western North Carolina was hit especially hard. UPDATES 10 p.m. Latest forecast with Chief Meteorologist John Ahrens 8:10 p.m. LAKE LURE DAM UPDATE: 9/27/24, 8:00 PM: Engineers have evaluated the Lake Lure Dam and determined it is no longer at... Posted by Rutherford County, NC Emergency Management on Friday, September 27, 2024 7 p.m. - PHOTOS: Chopper 9 Skyzoom over Lake Lure, Chimney Rock Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over Lake Lure and the Chimney Rock area on the evening of Sept. 27, 2024 6:30 p.m. - New video: Cowans Ford Dam From Chopper 9: The flood gates at Cowans Ford Dam are open. Officials are warning Mountain Island Lake will quickly rise @wsoctv pic.twitter.com/4zP2BRv9qy Joe Bruno (@JoeBrunoWSOC9) September 27, 2024 5:35 p.m. - The flood gates at Cowans Ford Dam are open. Expect Mountain Island Lake to quickly rise. Use extreme caution. A shelter is open at Tuckaseegee Rec Center at 4820 Tuckaseegee Rd, Charlotte, NC. Call 911 only in emergencies. Click here for updates. 4:25 p.m. - Charlotte Mecklenburg Emergency Management has been informed by Duke Energy that flooding is imminent at Mountain Island Lake starting late this afternoon/evening due to several days of excessive rainfall. Residents on Lake Wylie will also see rising water levels and should maintain heightened awareness. Duke Energy will be moving large amounts of water through the Catawba River System including Lake Norman, Mountain Island Lake and Lake Wylie. This will affect portions of the Catawba River within Mecklenburg County. Flood waters will rise rapidly and conditions will change quickly. Lake level information is available on the Duke Energy website, by calling 800-829-5253, and via the Duke Energy Lake View mobile app. All residents near the shoreline along the lakes and rivers are encouraged to take caution. Those in need of special assistance should assess their risk and take necessary precautions. A general shelter is set up for displaced residents at Tuckaseegee Rec Center, located at 4820 Tuckaseegee Road. Visit cltgov.me/helene for evacuation tips. Residents in immediate danger should call 911. 4:20 p.m. - Charlotte Fire responded to 559 emergency calls. 280 were directly related to the storms effects, including flooding, downed power lines, and storm damage. 4 p.m. - Alexander County and the town of Taylorsville have issued a voluntary curfew from 7 p.m. Friday until 8 a.m. Saturday. It is highly recommended that citizens stay off the roads during this time due to downed power lines and other debris in the roadways. Alexander County Emergency Services and Taylorsville personnel have responded to more than 600 calls on Friday. The curfew will allow emergency crews to rest and replenish emergency supplies. 3:40 p.m. - Friday afternoon weather update: The worst is over, friends, but you will still want to keep that rain gear around, said Chief Meteorologist John Ahrens said Friday afternoon. There will be a few spotty showers this weekend with the best rain chance on Sunday. It certainly will not be as bad as what we just went through and wont last that long, Ahrens said. It will feel muggy out there so it is still going to be a while before you feel real fall weather. 3:30 p.m. - There are voluntary evacuations for the Nivens Cove neighborhood along Mountain Island Lake, Gaston County officials said. Emergency management in Gaston County said they are moving its emergency shelter from the Citizens Resource Center in Dallas to Belmont Middle School, 1020 South Point Road, in Belmont. 3 p.m. - People along the Catawba River are being told Friday afternoon to get ready to evacuate. Duke Energy needs to move a large amount of water through the Catawba River system as water levels continue to rise. The area stretches from the southern part of Lake Norman through Mountain Island Lake and down to Lake Wylie. Channel 9 has asked emergency management how many homes are in this evacuation zone. There is a shelter at the Tuckaseegee Recreation Center on Tuckaseegee Road. Emergency officials are asking neighbors to prepare to evacuate along the Catawba River System as they move rainwater accumulated from Helene. 11 a.m. - Officials say the failure of a dam in a western North Carolina town is imminent. Anyone below the Lake Lure Dam is asked to evacuate to higher ground as quickly as possible. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper confirmed two fatalities tied to the storm. 10:30 a.m. - Tropical Storm Helene is moving north and the Charlotte area has seen the last of the heavy downpours as of 10:30 a.m., but western counties will likely be dealing with rain for a few more hours. Rivers and creeks are overflowing, and Channel 9 crews have spotted flooding on roads like Interstate 40 and Highway 70 near Black Mountain. Happening now on Highway 70 in Black Mountain, truck drivers are stuck in a warehouse lot while floodwaters rise, threatening to carry them away. Two of the 7 trucks have tipped already.@wsoctv @TelemundoCLT #ncwx pic.twitter.com/PLJVKfz6YA Jorge Velez (@jorgeveleztv) September 27, 2024 9 a.m. - North Carolina counties in the west and northern parts of the state are seeing big impacts from flooding in cities. Channel 9 spotted streets underwater in Asheville and Boone, and flash flood warnings are in place for the rest of the day as the rain works through our waterways. At this point, hundreds of thousands of customers in North Carolina are without power, according to Duke Energy. Many traffic lights are also without power due to the impact of Tropical Storm Helene. Keep updated on active weather alerts at this link. FRIDAY MORNING STORIES FROM HELENE: 8 a.m. - A tornado watch was reissued for most of North Carolina and parts of South Carolina until 6 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. No tornados have been reported as of 8 a.m. Friday, but Severe Weather Center 9 is keeping an eye out for any spin-ups. 7 a.m. - Emergency crews have seen an uptick in the number of trees falling due to severe weather in the area. One person has already died from a tree falling on a home, and Channel 9 crews are looking into additional reports across the Charlotte area and South Carolina. Public Safety Alert: Severe Storm Damage: High winds from the recent storm have caused significant damage across our area. Charlotte Fire is actively responding to multiple incidents involving downed trees and power lines. For your safety, please keep the following in mind: pic.twitter.com/TCnOonO7am Charlotte Fire Dept (@CharlotteFD) September 27, 2024 More than 50,000 people in the Charlotte area were without power as of 7 a.m., according to Duke Energy. 6:15 a.m. - At least one person is now dead in Charlotte as tropical weather moves into the area. This marks four people that have died amid Tropical Storm Helene. MEDIC confirmed to Channel 9 that one person was killed when a tree fell onto a home on Brookway Drive in northwest Charlotte. Another victim was hurt and taken to the hospital. The deluge of rain has saturated the ground and high wind gusts are putting trees at risk of falling over. Stay prepared and avoid top-level rooms throughout the severe weather. 6 a.m. - A flash flood warning was extended to 11 a.m. for Mecklenburg, Cabarrus and Union counties, and many other local counties are still under flash flood warnings. Heavy rain and strong winds will continue through the early morning. More power lines are being affected by the weather, and the number of power outages is continuing to climb Friday morning. According to Duke Energy, nearly 30,000 customers were without power as of 6 a.m. By 8 am, most of the area will have more heavy rain and strong winds. Another few inches likely in the metro, several inches likely farther west. Things will then improve after 9 am. Stay in this morning if you can and keep an eye on those creeks, they will rise rapidly. pic.twitter.com/pTp4YwQKJ7 Keith Monday (@kmondayWSOC9) September 27, 2024 (See photos of the impacts) 5:30 a.m. - The wind from Tropical Storm Helene is starting to affect the Charlotte area. Gusts are reaching more than 40 miles per hour, and they could peak near 70 mph in areas near the mountains. Rain will continue through the morning, and flash flood warnings are in place in several counties until at least 9 a.m. Friday. The bigger wind from Helene is here NOW. Winds are gusting over 40 mph and could jump to over 50 mph through the morning. This will lead to more trees down and power outages. pic.twitter.com/Y56TDRlZCm Keith Monday (@kmondayWSOC9) September 27, 2024 According to Duke Energy, there were about 14,000 people without power early Friday morning. That number is expected to increase as the wind affects power lines. 4:55 a.m. - Helene has been officially downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm, according to the National Weather Service. Rain is continuing to accumulate in the Carolinas as the storm moves across Georgia. 3:30 a.m. - Helene has made landfall and continues to move through Georgia Friday morning. Heavier rain and stronger winds will arrive in the Carolinas around 5 to 6 a.m. A tornado watch is in effect until 8 a.m. Friday for the following counties: Anson, Cabarrus, Gaston, Mecklenburg, and Union counties. There are flash flood warnings in place early Friday morning in Chester, York, Avery, Burke, Caldwell and Iredell counties. Just before 4 a.m., a National Guard rescue truck ended up getting stuck in high water near Riverside Drive in northwest Charlotte. HEADS UP: Roads are quickly flooding in the Carolinas - even a National Guard truck got stuck in high water in west Charlotte Friday morning. If you can't see the street, don't drive through it. STAY UPDATED > https://t.co/Al2K1qcqYQ pic.twitter.com/VflllIT1DX WSOCTV (@wsoctv) September 27, 2024 There is a tropical storm warning for parts of our area. The storm has prompted flash flooding alerts throughout the day and will continue. Winds may gust over 50 miles per hour in the city, with higher gusts near 70 miles per hour in the mountains. That could bring trees down onto roadways and homes. Keep an eye on traffic conditions with Channel 9s live traffic map at this link. >>Click here for the latest alerts FRIDAY FORECAST: Temperatures are expected to only warm to the mid to upper 70s thanks to the rain. The worst weather comes from midnight through about 10 a.m. Friday. Rounds of very heavy rain and strong winds will lead to more flooding and trees down, especially west in the mountains. However, we are only expecting between 5 to 7 inches in the metro, but amounts in the high country could exceed 1 foot. Catastrophic flooding with landslides is possible where the heaviest rains fall. Right now, that risk looks highest in western North Carolina, just outside of our area. However, there could be similar issues in the northern mountains as well. Winds will also pick up with gusts over 40 mph in the metro and over 50 mph in the mountains. This could lead to trees down and power outages. Well also be on the lookout for any brief spin-ups with a low tornado risk. Helene will accelerate to the northwest by mid to late morning Friday, and our weather will improve quickly. River flooding will continue to be an issue going into the weekend. Helene is close to being a category 2 storm with winds of 90 mph. It is still forecast to become a major hurricane later this afternoon and could be a category 4 by landfall this evening. Our weather continues to go downhill late tonight through early Friday morning. Stay alert! pic.twitter.com/0F7ffME0Fr Keith Monday (@kmondayWSOC9) September 26, 2024 >> Channel 9s Weather 24/7 stream has the latest local weather all day, every day. Watch wherever you stream on our website, or through your mobile app or smart TV. WEATHER RESOURCES: FOLLOW OUR TEAM ON TWITTER: CHEROKEE, Iowa (KCAU) A former Cherokee High School band teacher accused of grooming a student has been sentenced to probation. According to court documents, Joseph Vannatta, 47, was given the sentence on Wednesday, Sept. 25. He pleaded guilty to first-degree harassment, an aggravated misdemeanor, on July 1, a step down from his original charge of sexual exploitation by a school employee, a class D felony. Jury finds Jason Jones guilty of murdering 4 people, arson Vannatta must pay a fine of $855 and will not be allowed to have any contact with the victim for five years. If he breaks the terms of his probation, Vannatta faces up to two years in prison. Back in March 2024, a student at Cherokee High School said they felt like they were being groomed by Vannatta. The band teacher allegedly tried to insert himself into the students sex life. According to court documents, Vannatta would hold counseling sessions in his office where he would ask the student questions about their sex life. Vannatta would also talk with the student over Snapchat and reportedly allowed the student and their partner to nap in his bedroom on at least one occasion. In February 2023, Vannatta convinced the high school principal to allow the student to attend a band trip by promising to give extra credit in order to make the student eligible. No extra credit was ever given, according to the document, and Vannatta was the only chaperone for the students who went on the trip. Ho-Chunk, Inc. celebrates 30th anniversary in Winnebago Due to Vannattas behavior, the student said that they felt they were being groomed into having a relationship with him. Vannatta was arrested in March 2024 and charged with sexual exploitation by a school employee, but bonded out of jail soon after. He was then let go by the Cherokee Community School District in April. Gage Teunissen 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 SiouxlandProud | Sioux City, IA | News, Weather, and Sports. A "depraved and selfish" former councillor who went on the run after secretly filming women in his home has been jailed for six years and two months. Robert Holden, of Row Lane in Sowerby Bridge, hid cameras in his bathrooms and bedrooms, recording 29 people - 27 of them women - while they showered, changed and even had sex, Bradford Crown Court heard. He was arrested in 2022 but failed to appear in court and police found he had fled to Cape Verde, where he stayed for 17 months before returning to face court. Holden, 51, former Conservative councillor for Ryburn on Calderdale Council, admitted 29 charges of voyeurism and seven of computer misuse over a period of 14 years, from 2006 until 2020. 'Worthless and ashamed' Impact statements from some of his victims were read to court, with one woman saying his actions left her feeling "violated, exposed and vulnerable. Others spoke of how they were "overwhelmed" by their emotions, with some left feeling anxious and paranoid that they were constantly being watched. One woman said Holden's behaviour left her feeling "stupid, empty, worthless and ashamed". The court heard the alarm was raised when one of the women suspected Holden had been tracking her on her mobile phone, and later found a camera hidden in the bathroom. She contacted West Yorkshire Police and officers searched the house, and another camera was found in the bathroom and also in a bedroom - both connected to a digital recording device which was set to record 24 hours a day. Holden, who also owned a computer repair business, was also charged with computer misuse offences after downloading images from people who trusted him with their devices. He was arrested in November 2020 and charged in March 2022 - but failed to arrive for his hearing at Bradford Magistrates' Court a month later - having fled to Cape Verde. Holden was at large for 17 months, until a lengthy extradition process involving the National Crime Agency led to him being brought back to the UK and appearing before the courts in September 2023, where he was remanded into custody. 'Cheap thrill' Sentencing Holden on Friday, Judge Sophie McKone said: "You are depraved and selfish, you hid behind a veil of respectability, having your own business and being a local government councillor." She added: "This was well-organised deception at its worst and you deceived people over many years. "You breached their trust in the most gross way. "They were entitled to think that these acts were private. You did this to get, in your own words, a cheap thrill." Holden was ordered to sign the sex offenders register for life. He was also handed a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for life, which includes not contacting any of the victims. Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here. Related internet links TOKYO Shigeru Ishiba is set to become Japans next prime minister after the governing Liberal Democratic Party elected him as its new leader on Friday, as the U.S. ally takes on a growing role in countering Chinas influence in the region. Ishiba, a straight-talking former defense minister, will take office on Tuesday when Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his cabinet ministers resign and Ishiba is elected his successor by members of the LDP-controlled parliament. Ishiba, 67, will face public anger over rising prices, as well as difficult demographic and labor issues in a country with a shrinking and fast-aging population of about 125 million and the worlds fourth-largest economy. He is also contending with a complicated security environment in the Asia-Pacific region, where the U.S. has been strengthening ties with Japan and other allies in an effort to counter Chinas growing power. Japan has another volatile neighbor in North Korea, which has been accelerating missile launches and may be on the verge of its seventh nuclear test. At a news conference on Friday, Ishiba said there were a mountain of issues related to national security. Even during this presidential election, we have had several problems such as an incursion by a Russian aircraft, or occupancy of Chinese naval vessels in our maritime contiguous zone. There was also the North Korean missile launch, he said. I have long been involved in security affairs, and I am determined to firmly protect the nation of Japan. Ishiba casting his ballot in the LDP leadership race in Tokyo on Friday. The LDP, which has ruled Japan almost uninterrupted since the end of World War II, is seeking to regain public trust with a fresh face ahead of a general election that must be held by October of next year. The leadership transition was set in motion last month when Kishida said he would step down after a series of corruption scandals that sent his partys approval ratings to record lows. A record nine lawmakers, including two women, ran for party leader after most of the LDPs powerful factions dissolved over the corruption scandals, making it easier to enter the field. After no candidate received a majority in the first round of voting, Ishiba won in a runoff against economic security minister Sanae Takaichi, 63, who would have been Japans first female prime minister. This was Ishibas fifth time running for party leader. He defeated Takaichi in a vote of 215 to 194. Part of the reason the outspoken Ishiba failed in the past is because he did not hesitate to tell other members of his party that their ideas are unsound, said Michael Cucek, an expert in Japanese politics at Temple University in Tokyo. But Ishiba has curbed his tongue in recent years, Cucek said, and enough of them voted this time for him to become party president. As prime minister, Ishiba can be expected to be a moderate leader who is going to be working closely with the United States but also very in tune with the problems of this nation, Cucek said. Ishiba is from the small, rural Japanese prefecture of Tottori, which has been losing population for a long time. Hes very aware, unlike other members of his party, that Japans problems are chronic, and its a story not of trying to reverse the downward trends, but to lessen their impact, Cucek said. In addition to being a realist, Ishiba is also an idealist who has never been tainted by scandal, Cucek said. And like Kishida, Ishiba favors a more robust Japanese defense posture, Cucek said. Ishiba is very interested in working with U.S. allies, Cucek said, including South Korea, with which Japan has historically had a tense relationship, as well as the Philippines and Australia. During the leadership campaign, Ishiba even called for Japan to lead the creation of an Asian version of the NATO military alliance, an idea that China finds extremely threatening and the U.S. has resisted. Ishiba is also a supporter of Taiwan, the self-governing democracy that Beijing claims as its territory. But Beijing is most likely breathing a sigh of relief that Ishiba will be Japans next leader, Cucek said, as he was the only one of the three leading candidates with no history of visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, a symbol of Japans wartime aggression that is a sensitive issue in China-Japan relations. That doesnt mean Ishiba will be weak in the face of Chinese provocations. Hes a defense wonk, and has always been one, he said. He has always advocated for a robust Japanese military, and thats what is going to be happening in East Asia. The Chinese Foreign Ministry declined to comment on Ishibas election Friday, saying it was an internal affair. The long-term healthy and stable development of Sino-Japanese relations is in the fundamental interests of the people of both countries, spokesperson Lin Jian said at a regular news briefing in Beijing. Lin did, however, express opposition to foreign political leaders visiting Taiwan, as Ishiba did last month. Taiwan President Lai Ching-tes Democratic Progressive Party said Friday that he looked forward to deepening ties with the LDP under Ishibas leadership. Arata Yamamoto reported from Tokyo, and Jennifer Jett reported from Phuket, Thailand. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com Former Dutch Defence Minister: Kursk operation will be studied in military academies worldwide Former Dutch Defence Minister Kajsa Ollongren believes that the world should stop fearing the "red lines" of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, as they "exist only in our heads," and should also learn from Ukraine's military experience. Source: European Pravda, citing Ollongren in an interview with LIGA.net on the sidelines of the Yalta European Strategy (YES) forum Ollongren believes that the exchange of experience between armed forces is crucial. She says the world should learn from Ukraine, particularly from the operation in Kursk Oblast. Quote: "It was brilliantly organised: the tactics, secrecy, and use of various systems. I think it will in the future be studied in all school textbooks and military academies worldwide," the former minister noted. She emphasised that cooperation with Ukraine is a two-way street in many aspects, including capabilities, tactics, and studying the enemy. "Through the war in Ukraine, we are learning about the Russians, their way of waging war, and their rhetoric, particularly concerning red lines," she said. Ollongren stressed that, in reality, the Kremlin's red lines should not frighten the world because they do not exist in reality. "Any red lines drawn by Putin only exist in our heads," she emphasised. The former Dutch Defence Minister also believes that Ukraine's military industry is creative and innovative when it comes to all types of unmanned systems. She shared that the Netherlands has similar experience, and she has worked to connect Dutch companies directly with Ukrainian companies, encouraging the creation of joint ventures. "I believe this is extremely important," she added. Background: The Netherlands has already supplied Ukraine with a radar system for the Patriot air defence system and will soon deliver three launchers. On 24 September, the Netherlands announced a new support package for Ukraine worth 209.5 million, which will be directed towards the restoration of critical infrastructure. Support UP or become our patron! From left, Mark Milk, Terry Van Zanten and Aaron "Coco" Andrews of Metal Craft Industries. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight) South Dakota Department of Corrections Secretary Kellie Wasko described Metal Craft Industries as a private business exploiting cheap inmate labor. At least some of the inmates who worked there for decades disagree. The private business spent more than two decades employing maximum security inmates, paying prevailing wages that allowed them to pay room and board to the state, child support to their families and restitution to crime victims. Waskos concerns about Metal Craft dont make sense to the former inmate employees who now work for the company on the outside. Long-term inmates helped Metal Craft maintain institutional knowledge and quality control, owner Terry Van Zanten said. But the inmates were offered something to wake up for and be proud of as they stared down a life behind bars. Those who were able to leave, meanwhile, did so on surer footing than most other parolees. Aaron Coco Andrews used the pay he earned in prison to put a down payment on a house after his 2016 release. He credits Metal Craft with turning his life around. He got a shot at the job in 2001, back when he was a shead who could barely go a month without a write-up, he said. A former associate warden cut a deal with Andrews: Go four months without a write-up, and you can get a job with Metal Craft and start saving money. Thats what he said, and he kept his word, Andrews said. Even though more than half of every paycheck went to the state, family support and the crime victims fund, he had around $10,000 in the bank when he left prison 15 years later. Andrews worked at Metal Crafts shop outside the prison walls for a while, then spent some time working for other companies to develop other skills. Eventually, he came back. Its family out here, Andrews said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Van Zanten also talks about employees in family terms. His son and daughter are partners in the business, and he said watching inmates mature and grow as people often felt like parenting. Hed hear about the stresses of incarceration or flare-ups between inmates and correctional officers, or inmates and other inmates. In January of 2024, the Department of Corrections ordered him to replace his long-term inmate employees with work-release inmates whod never worked the skilled jobs he needed them to perform. Before long, Van Zanten decided that his struggles with communication and the shifting rules for operation were too severe for him to continue on at the penitentiarys Jameson Annex in Sioux Falls. It wasnt the outcome hed hoped for when the new security protocols and policy shifts began to interrupt his operations last fall. He wasnt opposed to working with lower-security inmates. Van Zanten only ever used the inmates the DOC offered him, he said, and he was willing to make changes. He just needed guidance and transition time, and he needed to keep at least a few experienced employees around to train the newbies. The DOC wouldnt allow that. To save the business, he said, he had to say goodbye. There were a lot of tears shed that day, Van Zanten said. Were talking about 20 years, and I was never going to see these guys again. He has reconnected with a few of them, including Mark Milk. Mark Milk is a former inmate who worked for Metal Craft Industries at the Jameson Annex of the South Dakota State Penitentiary. He now works for the company on the outside. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight) Unlike Andrews, Milk was serving a life sentence when he started at Metal Craft. Gov. Kristi Noem commuted his manslaughter sentence, however, based on a recommendation from the South Dakota Board of Pardons and Paroles. The board was swayed by his work ethic and ascension to a trainers post at Metal Craft, Milk said, but it wasnt just that. The one thing that really impressed them was that when I had that job, the money I had that I was getting paid every two weeks, I took that and opened my own bank account and I put it in there for my nieces and nephews for college, Milk said. Milk and Andrews both said that Metal Crafts commitment to its employees and the wages explain why maximum security inmates like them both served decades for manslaughter were some of the most well-behaved in prison. People didnt mess around out there, Andrews said. They had too much respect for the place. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE RIDGELAND, Miss. (WJTV) Former Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Edwin Lloyd Pittman died on September 25 at his Ridgeland home. He was 89. During his 40 years of public service, Pittman was elected to positions in all three branches of state government. He joined the Mississippi Supreme Court in January 1989, and he became Chief Justice in January 2001. Pittman retired from the court on March 31, 2004. Mississippi sends assets to Florida for Helene response Pittman was Attorney General from 1984 to 1988. He began his public service as a state Senator from Hattiesburg, serving in the Mississippi Senate from 1964 to 1972. He also served as State Treasurer from 1976 to 1980 and as Secretary of State from 1980 to 1984. Pittman retired from the Mississippi National Guard as Brigadier General with 30 years of service. Former Governor Haley Barbour awarded former Pittman the Mississippi Medal of Service in 2011. Former Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Edwin Lloyd Pittman died on September 25 at his Ridgeland home. (Courtesy: Administrative Office of Courts) Pittman is survived by his wife, two daughters and four grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his first wife and his son. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily 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 WJTV. New York City Mayor Eric Adams pleads not guilty to taking bribes and illegal campaign contributions New York City Mayor Eric Adams has pleaded not guilty to federal bribery charges and other counts in a case that has roiled the nations biggest city after months of investigations, searches and subpoenas When a Massachusetts police officer is accused of not being credible or of behavior that results in discipline, their supervisors are required to report them to the Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission (POST), the state agency that certifies and tracks law enforcement misconduct. 25 Investigates found that no reports were submitted to POST about former Abington School Resource Officer Josh Heal after then Chief David Del Papa was told that Heal was found to be not credible in a 2021 internal affairs probe Stoughton Police conducted into the relationships Sandra Birchmore had with multiple police officers. 25 Investigates: The Birchmore murder investigation recording you were never supposed to hear 25 Investigates first reported on Heal last week after obtaining an audio recording of Del Papa in an official interview with a town attorney and an outside investigator asked to review Del Papas handling of Heal. Abingtons investigation found Del Papa to be professional and diligent and a redacted report states that Del Papa, was challenged throughout the entire SPD (Stoughton Police Department) investigation, receiving limited information from SPD, specific to Heal. In the recording, Del Papa states that then Stoughton Deputy Police Chief Brian Holmes told him he, found Josh (Heal) to be not credible because Josh denied having a sexual relationship with Birchmore during the first interview but had changed his answer in the second interview. In a strongly worded email, Heals Duxbury-based attorney Peter S. Farrell told 25 Investigates Heal, will take all appropriate legal action if you insinuate that he (Josh Heal) is not credible. Heal met Birchmore in his previous role as a Stoughton Animal Control Officer when she was a young adult. In December 2021, Holmes told Del Papa that he wanted to speak with Heal as a witness about text messages on Birchmores cell phone after she was found dead in her Canton Apartment in February 2021. State Police assigned to the Norfolk County District Attorneys Office initially ruled Birchmores death a suicide. In August, federal authorities charged former Stoughton police officer Matthew Farwell with murdering Birchmore and staging her death to look like she hung herself. Matthew Farwell first met Birchmore when she was a 13-year-old participant in Stoughtons Police Explorer Program, which teaches young people about jobs in law enforcement. At the end of Stoughtons 9-month probe, Del Papa said in the recording that Holmes told him Heal, was sexting all day while hes at work and had exchanged a cat for oral sex from Birchmore. Del Papa placed Heal on leave in September 2022 at the conclusion of Stoughtons internal affairs investigation. Stoughton Police found 3 of its officers had troubling relationships with Birchmore. Matthew Farwell, his twin brother William, and Robert Devine are named in Stoughtons internal affairs report. The Farwell brothers have been decertified by POST. A decertified officer cannot work for a law enforcement agency in any capacity and their name is added to the National Decertification Index, according to POSTs website. Robert Devine has not been decertified and is currently in an adjudicatory process or review of his certification. Heal no longer works as a police officer but remains certified by POST through July 2025. A POST spokesperson said Heals record with the agency was updated in November 2023, to include resigned in lieu of discipline and POST, cannot comment on whether a case has been opened or on any cases that may be pending. Attorney Peter S. Farrell wrote, Mr. Heal remains certified to serve as a police officer by the POST Commission and POST has taken no adverse action against him nor has any law enforcement agency sought to decertify his licensure with the POST Commission. You are hereby ordered to cease and desist from publishing or reporting any further self-serving, speculative and defamatory commentary and opinions regarding my client. Former Abington Police Chief David Del Papa could not immediately be reached for comment. This story was updated to reflect that Robert Devines POST status is Not Certified, according to POST. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Former Sanger Fire Captain to retrieve unusual relic after flying from Montana SANGER, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) A retired Fire Captain who left behind an unusual relic in the ceiling of the Sanger Fire Station was located after the Sanger Fire Department asked social media sleuths to find him. During a remodel of the City of Sanger Fire Department, construction crews found a pair of old boots hidden away with an almost 30-year-old message. Crews say they found the boots with the note hidden in the ceiling of the building. The note was written by Captain David Gees, who worked with the Sanger Fire Department from 1964 until his retirement in 1996. According to the fire crews, the boots were worn during Captain Gees last shift. On Thursday, fire crews asked anyone who knew of Captain Gees whereabouts to let him know they will be polished and ready for pick up. Thanks to social media, Gees says he received three text messages regarding the discovery and was able to respond within two and a half hours of the start of the search. Coincidentally, Gees says he was currently on his way to the Central Valley from his home in Montana. He adds that he will make sure to stop by for a visit. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CBS47 and KSEE24 | YourCentralValley.com. BOSTON (WPRI) A former Bristol County Deputy Sheriff paid a $40,000 civil penalty and $25,000 in economic advantage damages for violating conflict of interest laws when he sold a home to his wife during an auction he was overseeing. The Massachusetts Ethics Commission announced the results of its inquiry on Thursday. According to the commission, Floyd Teagues duties as deputy sheriff included auctioning property when the Bristol County Sheriffs Office was retained to do so. ALSO READ: Bristol County has made strides in hiring correctional officers Back in March of 2023, Teague was tasked with handling the seizure and auction of a modular home in a neighboring county. The commission said before the auction, Teague discussed the home with his wife and agreed to place a $20,000 bid on her behalf. At the auction, Teague reportedly told bidders they needed a $5,000 certified check to participate even though his wife did not provide such a check. In a press release, the commission said, Teague then announced he had a $20,000 bid and declared, going once, going twice, sold for $20,000, concluding the auction. Sometime after the auction, Teagues spouse gave him a $20,000 bank check, which he turned over to the Sheriffs Offices Civil Process Division. Teague and his wife then renovated the home together, spending around $44,000 on contractors and supplies. In October of the same year, Teagues wife sold the home for $309,000. According to the commission, state employees are prohibited from participating in matters where they or their immediate family members have financial interest. The commission said, [Teague] violated the conflict of interest laws prohibition against public employees using their official positions to secure valuable unwarranted privileges for themselves or others. Teagues violations were to his economic advantage. NEXT: Heroux seeks to limit inmate calls due to cost, security concerns Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily Roundup Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WPRI.com. Former U of I student gives 10 million for new science center Former U of I student gives 10 million for new science center URBANA, Ill. (WCIA) Agriculture is a big part of life in Central Illinois. The U of Is Institute of Sustainability Energy and Environment (ISEE) is looking to improve it. It just got a multimillion-dollar donation to create a hub for innovation as they try to establish a circular bioeconomy. U of I study hopes to shed light on strengthening bees Circular bioeconomy means there is virtually zero waste during the agricultural process: from growing, to harvesting to consuming. Right now, about half of the nitrogen that is used in the fields is lost to the environment. Researchers are trying to limit as much as possible in these steps, and then reuse what cannot be eliminated. Stewart Levenick, U of I alum, and his wife Nancy made a 10-million-dollar donation to establish the Levenick Center. This is actually a great opportunity, ACES Professor Madhu Khanna said. This is an emerging area of research. And this funding enables us to be really the first in the country to establish such a center and to lead in this effort of developing both the technology as well as thinking about how to scale up that technology. She says the center wont only focus on the technology, but also on getting farmers to buy into the sustainability. Progress is moving quickly. They are in the process of selecting a director and hope to have it up and running as soon as possible. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCIA.com. Sarah Anne Margaret Ransbottom, a former correctional officer at Waupun Correctional Institution, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of violating the law of a state institution on Thursday at the Dodge County Courthouse in Juneau. She is one of seven staff members facing criminal charges in connection with the February death of 62-year-old Donald Maier. JUNEAU A former Waupun Correctional Institution guard entered a no-contest plea to a criminal charge Thursday and was ordered to pay a fine making her the first of nine staff facing charges for deaths at the prison to be convicted and sentenced. As part of a plea deal, Sarah Ann Margaret Ransbottom, 36, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of violating the law of a state or county institution, rather than the felony charge she originally faced, misconduct in public office. Dodge County Circuit Court Judge Martin De Vries sentenced Ransbottom to a fine of $250, which was the joint recommendation agreed upon by the prosecution and defense. Ransbottom is one of seven staff who were charged in connection with the Feb. 22 death of 62-year-old Donald Maier. Maier died of malnutrition and probable dehydration in what the Dodge County medical examiner ruled a homicide. An investigation from the Dodge County Sheriff's Office found prison staff members intermittently shut off water to Maier's cell to prevent him from flooding it, but did not properly document when the water was turned on or off. They also failed to document missed meals and provide Maier with his medications. The seven staff members charged faced varying degrees of responsibility at the prison, ranging in ranks from the former warden, Randall Hepp, to correctional officers, like Ransbottom. Dodge County Assistant District Attorney Shawn Woller said Ransbottom's offense was "the least aggravating of all the defendants charged related to this inmate's death." According to a criminal complaint, security camera footage showed Ransbottom did not complete cell check rounds on the restricted housing unit where Maier was held between 4 and 4:30 a.m. on Feb. 20, or between 2 and 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 22, despite her initials marking them off on the log. Following another death at Waupun Correctional Institution in October 2023, the prison implemented a new system for keeping track of rounds, "to clearly determine who was responsible for the care of the inmates," Woller explained at the sentencing. As part of that system, staff were required to conduct cell checks at specific intervals during their shift, and mark off who did those cell checks. The investigation into Maier's death was impacted by the false documentation that Ransbottom completed rounds she did not complete, Woller said. "Correctional officers are an important part of our criminal justice system. If officers do not complete thorough and accurate reports, our prison systems cannot run safely and effectively," he said. Still, Woller said, he did not believe any incarceration time was necessary for Ransbottom due to her "minimal role." However, during the prosecution's sentencing argument, Woller read a letter from Maier's mother, which he said she requested to be read at each of the sentencings for those convicted of crimes relating to her son's death. In the letter, Maier's mother said she applauds law enforcement and prosecutors for prosecuting her son's death, but she believes the staff whose actions contributed to Maier's death should receive more than "a slap on the wrist and the embarrassment of being caught and arrested." "I feel that each and every person who ignored my son and therefore had a hand in his death should spend some time in jail so that they learn firsthand what it is like to be dependent on other guards for food and water and medical care and protection," her letter reads. "Nothing can bring my son back, but I'd like to think that we as a society would at least learn something from this tragedy, so this never happens to anyone else's son." Sarah Anne Margaret Ransbottom, left, a former correctional officer at Waupun Correctional Institution, talks with her attorney, Greg Petit, on Thursday at the Dodge County Courthouse in Juneau. Ransbottom pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of violating the law of a state institution. She is one of seven staff members facing criminal charges in connection with the February death of 62-year-old Donald Maier. Ransbottom's attorney, Greg Petit, said there was "some horrible work and terrible injustice that was done in the prison," but that Ransbottom was not a part of it. Ransbottom normally worked first shift in an entirely different part of the prison, but was called in to help with cell checks in the restrictive housing unit during a double shift she was required to take. "My client, among others, were working 16-hour shifts, with no choice, because the prison was woefully understaffed," Petit said. Waupun Correctional Institution's severe understaffing has been cited by staff as the reason behind the string of recent deaths at the prison. In a span of 14 months, six prisoners at the maximum security institution have died. Maier's death was the fourth in that time frame. According to the criminal complaint for Maier's death, the former warden told investigators "this is the inevitable outcome of a long-term staffing deficit." According to DOC data, Waupun Correctional Institution reached its peak security staffing vacancy rate in the second half of February during the time frame of Maier's death of 56.2% of correctional officer and sergeant positions unfilled. The complaint says Hepp also told investigators the restrictive housing unit was few staff members' regular position and not a popular place to work, so there's "an attitude of 'just get by' from staff in restrictive housing." Petit said Ransbottom is not denying that she either initialed off or allowed someone to initial off on rounds in restrictive housing unit that she did not do. But her wrongdoing does not amount to the felony she was initially charged with before the plea agreement, he said. "My clients not the one that turned off water and forgot to turn it back on and forgot to tell people the water was off, the one that didnt give food, the one that didnt give medications, the one that didnt alert staff. She had nothing to do with any of those things," Petit said. RELATED: 2 Waupun prison staff members plead not guilty to abuse in prisoner deaths RELATED: Prison workers told Wisconsin lawmakers a staff shortage could lead to a deadly outcome. Then it did The maximum sentence Ransbottom could have faced for violating the law of a state or county institution, a Class C misdemeanor, was a $500 fine and 30 days in jail. De Vries agreed with attorneys that no incarceration time was necessary in Ransbottom's case. "There is a death in this case, and what you did was wrong. And I want to make it clear, however, that ... from what Ive been told in court here today and looking at the complaint, what you did wrong here did not cause or contribute to anybodys death," De Vries said to Ransbottom. The judge said he sees the charge Ransbottom is convicted of as an offense that is separate from Maier's death. However, because the cell checks she falsely marked off to have conducted would have brought her by Maier's cell shortly before he died, she is in court for something that would likely have otherwise been handled internally, he said. Court proceedings continue for other Waupun staff members, some of whom face charges for Maier's death, and some who face charges for the Oct. 30 death of Cameron Williams, who died of a rare stroke after prisoners say his calls for help went ignored. The following are their upcoming court appearances: Hepp resigned from his role as warden days before charges were filed against him and the other staff members. DOC spokeswoman Beth Hardtke told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin that Hollfelder, Leopold, Chalker, Russell, Ransbottom, Hosfelt and Vick are no longer employed by DOC. Contact Kelli Arseneau at 920-213-3721 or karseneau@gannett.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @ArseneauKelli. This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Former Waupun correctional officer convicted of misdemeanor HENRY COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) A man reported missing in Henry County has been identified as a soldier stationed at Fort Campbell. The U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) confirmed to News 2 the missing man, John Michael Jackson, is Pfc. John Jackson. Director of Public Affairs Lt. Col. Marty Meiners told News 2 Fort Campbell is working closely with civil authorities in their efforts to ensure he is found as soon as possible. Pfc. John Michael Jackson (Source: Henry County Sheriffs Office) Pfc. John Michael Jackson (Source: Henry County Sheriffs Office) The Henry County Sheriffs Office (HCSO) said Jackson was last seen in the Paris Landing area Wednesday, Sept. 25. His vehicle was parked on the bridge there but he was nowhere to be found. Have breaking news come to you: Subscribe to News 2 email alerts HCSO is working with the Henry County Rescue Squad and Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency to continue searching on the water. Anyone with information on Jacksons whereabouts is asked to contact the Henry County Sheriffs Office at 731-642-1672. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) A Volunteer at Fort Concho Elementary School who helps out the teachers and students in any way she can receive $300 through the KLST Pay It Forward Campaign, sponsored by Carpet Tech. Grandma Harris is a Volunteer Grandma at Fort Concho Elementary School who is described as a great asset to the school. Grandma Harris was nominated by Mrs. Duncan, a Fort Concho Teacher. They have been working together for seven years now. Mrs. Duncan describes Harris as such a giver and points out that the students love her. She goes beyond her call of duty and always thinks about my children 24/7, said Mrs. Duncan when asked why she nominated Grandma Harris. If you know someone who deserves a little help from the KLST Pay it Forward Campaign, sponsored by Carpet Tech, keep a lookout for Senora Scott shell be holding the KLST Pay it Forward sign and let her know why that person should get that weeks award. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Four more Missouri healthcare workers are experiencing mild respiratory symptoms after coming in contact with a bird flu patient, health officials said Friday. A total of six healthcare workers have now developed symptoms after having contact with the patient, who is the first confirmed person to contract the disease with no known animal exposure. The patient has recovered, but the case is raising questions about potential human-to-human transmission of bird flu, which primarily affects animals. The only worker who was tested for the virus had negative results, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That worker, who was given a PCR test for the virus, had what was considered high-risk contact with the patient and later developed mild symptoms. Another worker who had high-risk contact and three others who had low-risk contact were not tested during the time they experienced symptoms, according to the CDC. "PCR testing would have been unreliable at the time of discovery of these individuals' prior symptoms," said the agency. PCR testing, which can give results quickly, was common during the Covid-19 pandemic. Along with the healthcare workers, one member of the patient's household developed symptoms, but also was not tested, according to the CDC. All of the healthcare workers with symptoms provided blood samples for antibody testing, as well as the household contact, the CDC said. The results of those tests remain unknown. Bird flu, also known as avian influenza, is rare in humans. There have been 14 human cases of the viral disease in the US so far this year. Missouri's handling of the only one with no known animal exposure has come under scrutiny. Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesotas Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, told the health publication STAT that he was concerned about how long Missouri was taking to figure out who else may have been infected by the original patient. Public health credibility is really on the line here, Mr Osterholm said. The 13 other cases in 2024 involved farm workers who had links to bird flu outbreaks on dairy or poultry farms. The CDC continues to caution that the risk to the general public remains low. But bird flu cases among cows have been on the rise in the US this year. Since a March outbreak was first reported, cattle in 14 states have been affected, the CDC said. Fox News Fox News, in a chyron Thursday night that echoed MAGA talking points, described Kamala Harris as hiding while Donald Trump was speaking to reporters at Trump Tower. Moments later, however, the vice president was seen at the White House standing alongside President Joe Biden for his signing of executive orders designed to thwart gun violence and boost preparedness for mass shootings. Fox carried Donald Trumps press conference into the 5 p.m. hour, when its opinion show, The Five, is broadcast. At the top of the hour, a chyron read, Now: Trump Holds Newser While Kamala Hides. Yet just eight minutes later, Harris was next to Biden in front of a packed East Room, where the president would go on to sign a pair of executive orders on the first anniversary of the establishment of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. One order sets up a task force to assess the threat posed by ghost guns, and the other deals with finding how active-shooter drills can be effective and also non-traumatizing. Happening Now: President Biden and Vice President Harris deliver remarks on addressing the scourge of gun violence in America. https://t.co/QLzdYfpk7Y The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 26, 2024 After hearing from a survivor of the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, Harris addressed those watching. We know how to stop these tragedies, and it is a false choice to suggest you are either in favor of the Second Amendment or you want to take everyones guns away, she said. I am in favor of the Second Amendment, and I believe we need to reinstate the assault weapons ban. In 2004, the Republican-controlled Congress chose not to renew the assault weapons ban, which Biden had worked to pass in 1994 as a senator. Meanwhile, Fox stuck with Trumps live comments until they wrapped up just after 5:30 p.m. But viewers of the right-wing network werent shown what Trump had to say to the press after leaving the lectern. When asked if he still supported Mark Robinson, Republicans Holocaust-denying North Carolina gubernatorial candidate who mocked survivors of that Parkland shooting and once declared himself a black Nazi, Trump claimed he was uninformed. I dont know the situation, he said, despite Robinsons troubles generating extensive coverage. The Harris campaign pounced on that answer. Its impossible to believe that, somehow, Donald Trump missed the news about his handpicked candidate for governor calling himself a Nazi, campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement to the Daily Beast. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. Show me a party in power urging even more nanny-statism on an already struggling population and Ill show you an embattled regime which, deep down, believes its the pesky common people, with their irresponsible amusements, who are making the rulers life impossible. True, in the case of Keir Starmers Labour, which, at a smidgen over two and a half months, has broken all Western records for the shortest political honeymoon ever, it almost looks like a normal process: how best can we speed up our loss of political capital? But Ive been seeing this happening in France for a long time under Emmanuel Macron as well: the micromanaging of everything that should be left to citizens private choices, for the sake of some sunlit, ever-blurring future progress, with a fine disregard for practical consequences on ordinary peoples lives. In the UK, Andrew Gwynne, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health, chose the Labour Party Conference at Liverpool earlier this week to suggest that tightening up on some of the hours of operation at pubs and bars (later slapped down by the Labour leader) should be considered as part of efforts to tackle alcohol abuse. The state of Britains poor health, he said, in fine Victorian mode, was morally reprehensible. That most of those pubs have been feeling the pinch since Covid, compounded by the rise in costs and, soon, in taxes, matters not. Nor does the fate of Britains high streets, with their boarded-up businesses, like knocked-out teeth, and the attendant consequences driving prosperity and morale down. There are concerns that people are drinking too much, Gwynne said, using a weaselly indefinite phrase nothing to do with me, its Concerns. As it happens, I am seeing entire Paris neighbourhoods affected by the same officiousness. The entire avenues barred to motorists because it will Help The Planet (rue de Rivoli is the most glaring example, with half the smaller shops closed, and the rest taken over by soulless clothing chains or LVMH-Dior megastores guarded by US Secret Service clones in Armani. And of course, theres the War On Alcohol this in a country that has reduced its consumption of wine by two thirds in less than a century. There are differences with Britain here, three decades after the ban on advertising any alcoholic drink, its the selling of wine and spirits by local groceries and convenience shops after sundown thats now being targeted for almost two years, by an ever-repeated exceptional decree from the Prefecture de Police. Supermarkets (but not bars, for some mysterious reason possibly not unconnected with their relationship with the Prefecture), are forbidden to sell beer, wine and spirits from 5:00pm to 9:00pm depending on area: the maps outlined in the decree would fool any would-be invader, as they are utterly incomprehensible, with one side of some streets dry and the others wet. In case you planned to nip down to the shop for a bottle of rose to go with the dinner youre about to whip up, tough luck on you. As a result, shops that had barely survived Covid and the touristic desert that were the over-policed streets of Paris during the Olympics are now closing. I should declare an interest here. The corner grocery in my own street, not very far from the Champs-Elysees (which sounds very glamorous but feels more like living just off Leicester Square), is being killed by the same indifferent officiousness. Opened 28 years ago by Abdallah Fadini, who has the Southern Moroccans eye for fruit and vegetables rivalling the toniest Food Halls at Galeries Lafayette, it kept active and thriving 7 days a week, becoming a kind of local club where the locals, from the streets concierges to the former Governor of the Banque de France, meet, chat, and occasionally help one another out. In a pretty unsafe neighbourhood (the 8th arrondissement ranks second for criminal activity in Paris), I know I can walk home at night and get help if needed. Or fantastic tomatoes. Abdallahs shop has been struggling with dwindling hope, and mounting debt. As an essential provider, he was allowed to open during Covid but most of his clients who came during the workday stayed at home. The recent restrictions on alcohol sales have shattered all his hopes of getting back into the black, especially as the Paris Administrative Police have shut him down twice for sales minutes after the close-off time. His story is sadly common in Paris, a city that has been losing an average of 10,000 residents annually for the last two decades. But as in the case of Britains pub owners and regulars, the human cost is still discounted by our all-knowing, all-wise betters. 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. Pierre Heilbronn, the French President's Commissioner for Economic Assistance and Reconstruction in Ukraine, has stated that France promises to assist Ukraine in surviving a challenging winter. Source: Heilbronn in a comment to Ukrinform, as reported by European Pravda Details: Pierre Heilbronn noted that he had just returned from New York, where strategic discussions on the energy of Ukraine were held. Quote: "At the same time, France is already active in this sector. A week and a half ago, I travelled to Kyiv with French companies to assess what they can do in terms of equipment, including gas turbines and energy storage solutions," Heilbronn said. According to him, this concerns energy aid and investments from a specially created fund, with France contributing 60 million euros by the end of the year. "We have equipment, such as generators and transformers, which were provided as aid. But there are also investment projects supported by the state. We have created a civil infrastructure fund with 200 million euros allocated for it. At least 60 million of it will go to the energy sector by the end of 2024. And these are funds for companies with at least 50% French capital," he explained. Among such significant corporations, Heilbronn mentioned Schneider Electric, which has been working with Ukrainian energy companies Ukrenergo and DTEK since the beginning of the full-scale war, particularly with equipment for powergrid repairs. "There are also other big players like Arabelle Solutions [a subsidiary of EDF, a French state-owned energy company]. It is leading projects for the winter, such as batteries for energy storage and gas turbines to increase the capacity of power plants," he explained. The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) countries recently reiterated their support for Ukraine in the face of Russian attacks on energy infrastructure. Josep Borrell, the head of European diplomacy, stated that Russia is attempting to damage Ukraine's energy infrastructure on the brink of winter, meaning that Western partners should increase the provision of air defence systems to Ukraine. Support UP or become our patron! Facing a rising public deficit, French Prime Minister Michel Barnier says higher levies on big firms and very wealthy individuals are on the table (JEFF PACHOUD) (JEFF PACHOUD/POOL/AFP) France's vast public debt pile grew in the second quarter, official figures showed Friday, as Prime Minister Michel Barnier's shaky minority government girds itself for a gruelling budget debate. New borrowings of 68.9 billion euros ($77 billion) between April and June increased the country's debt pile to almost 3.23 trillion euros, or 112 percent of annual output, data from statistics agency INSEE showed. The figures underline the scale of the challenge for Barnier, the former European Union commissioner and Brexit negotiator heading a centrist and conservative coalition heavily outnumbered in the National Assembly lower house. With the chamber roughly divided in three since July's parliamentary election, the NFP left alliance and far-right National Rally (RN) could oust the new government at any time if they joined forces in a confidence vote. There is scepticism among financial players of Paris' ability to get its debt and annual deficit under control. Ratings agency S&P downgraded France's creditworthiness earlier this year. And just this week the yield on France's debt -- the return investors can expect for holding 10-year government bonds -- outstripped the measure for Spain for the first time since 2006, pointing to falling confidence among investors. Barnier is expected to lay out the broad strokes of his policy Tuesday in a speech to lawmakers that will also be closely watched by markets. His new budget minister Laurent Saint-Martin said Wednesday that the draft 2025 budget law would be filed "in the week beginning October 9". "Our public finances are in a grave state, and I won't beat around the bush," Saint-Martin said, warning that this year's annual budget deficit would likely top six percent of GDP -- twice the European Union limit. He blamed lower-than-expected tax receipts and companies holding off on hiring and investment for much of the worsened picture, as well as saying local and regional administrations had spent more than planned. "We will have to make a significant collective effort" to get the public finances under control, Saint-Martin warned. Barnier and his team say they aim for more spending cuts than tax increases to right the ship, prompting accusations of "austerity" from the left. But the prime minister said Sunday that higher levies on big firms and very wealthy individuals could be part of the equation. mpa/tgb/lth Free spays, neuters for pets in Travis County for limited time AUSTIN (KXAN) Beginning Friday morning, Travis County and Austin Animal Center said they would offer free spays or neuters for dogs and cats. The opportunity will be available at the Travis County Expo Center at 7311 Decker Lane from 7:30 to 10 a.m. Friday and Saturday. Appointments are first come, first serve. Pet owners are encouraged to arrive early, organizers said. Austin City Council approves mandate for pet microchips In order to qualify, pet owners must be Travis County residents and show proof of residency, which can be verified with a drivers license, lease agreement or utility bill. Pets receiving services must be at least two pounds and two months old. Additional requirements include: Cats must be in a secure carrier, with only one cat per carrier Alert staff if your pet is nursing If your pet was vaccinated in the last year, bring proof of vaccine All cats in traps will be ear-tipped to indicate sterility status Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KXAN Austin. French actor-filmmaker Nicolas Bedos is facing a one-year suspended prison sentence on charges of alleged sexual assault and sexual harassment under the influence of alcohol, Variety has confirmed. During a criminal court hearing on Sept. 26, the Paris prosecutor requested a one-year suspended sentence for Bedos, as well as an obligation of care for a period of two years, the prosecutors office said in a statement sent to Variety. Bedos attorney Julia Minkowski had no comment. More from Variety Charges against Bedos stem from a complaint filed by a woman for an alleged sexual assault which is alleged to have occurred on June 1 in a Parisian nightclub. Bedos allegedly put his hand on the crotch of the woman who was wearing jeans. Two more women since came forward accusing Bedos of sexual misconduct but neither filed a police complaint. One woman said Bedos grabbed her by the waist and kissed her on the neck on May 12, 2023, and a second one is accusing him of sexual harassment, alleging that he touched her belly and asked her to kiss him. During the hearing, Bedos denied the accusations and said he (didnt) remember anything about the June 2023 incident because he was too inebriated. He argued that he had a problem with alcohol, but said he will never be a sexual aggressor. I do not impose myself. We can talk about heaviness, we can talk about flirting () but there is no sexual intention. I sincerely wish I remembered what happened. Our lives were turned upside down, my life was turned upside down. Im not disputing what she said, but its her interpretation of a gesture, Bedos said, referring to the 25 year-old woman who filed the June 2023 complaint. Bedos is best known for directing La Belle Epoque, which played at the Cannes Film Festival and won three Cesar Awards in 2020. Bedos latest film, Mascarade, a heist romance starring Pierre Niney, Marine Vacth, Isabelle Adjani and Francois Cluzet, played out-of-competition at Cannes in 2022. Bedos most recently wrote and directed the Amazon original series Alphonse, starring Oscar-winning actor Jean Dujardin (The Artist) as a chameleon-like male escort on a mission to please women and satisfy all their wishes. The accusations against Bedos came to light as Amazon was preparing to unveil the show, which represented one of its biggest investments in a French scripted original. In the end, the streamer released it quietly. The Paris judge is expected to issue a verdict on Oct. 22. Recent court hearings revolving around sexual assault accusations against film and TV figures include Dominique Boutonnat, the president of the National Film Board. Boutonnat received a three-year prison sentence, including two suspended, over sexual assault charges. Best of Variety Sign up for Variety's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. French minister says in favour of adding 'consent' to rape law Justice Minister Didier Migaud says he would back adding "consent" into the law on rape (Bertrand GUAY) (Bertrand GUAY/AFP/AFP) France's new Justice Minister Didier Migaud said Friday that he was in favour of adding the notion of "consent" to the country's law defining rape. The legal definition of rape in France includes the notions of "violence, coercion, threat or surprise", but makes no mention of "consent". Asked if he would back such a move on the France Inter radio station, Migaud replied: "yes". Women's rights advocates have called for the law to be tightened by including the concept, so that all sex without consent would be considered rape. They say only a tiny fraction of rapes or attempted rapes lead to a conviction. President Emmanuel Macron in March also signalled he would back changing the law to include "consent". The notion has since early September been at the heart of a mass rape trial that has shocked France. Dominique Pelicot, 71, has admitted to drugging his wife to rape her while unconscious and inviting dozens of strangers to join in for almost a decade. He and 50 co-defendants are being tried in the southern city of Avignon, in a trial to last until December. Many of the accused have claimed they were led to believe they were taking part in a couple's fantasy. During hearings, some defendants have reluctantly acknowledged that Gisele Pelicot had not given them her consent. Gisele Pelicot, now 71 and divorced, has received praise for demanding the trial be open to the public to raise awareness about the use of drugs to facilitate sexual abuse. Spain in 2023 approved new legislation, dubbed the "Only yes means yes" law, under which all non-consensual sex is rape. Sweden, Greece, Denmark and Finland have also passed similar laws. aco-edy-ah/tgb/js Article first published: Friday, Sep. 27, 2024, 5 a.m. ET Article last updated: Friday, Sep. 27, 2024, 11 a.m. ET On Friday at 11 am, the National Hurricane Center issued an advisory stating that Helene's journey: passing Georgia and moving to North Carolina. Helene has reached new lows of intensity and has downgraded from a Category 1 hurricane to a tropical storm. Tropical Storm Helene is 30 miles southwest of Bryson City North Carolina and 105 miles north-northeast of Atlanta Georgia, with maximum sustained wind of 45 mph. Its moving 32 mph to the north. "A slowdown in forward speed is expected soon, and the storm is forecast to stall over the Tennessee Valley tonight and through the weekend." forecasters noted. "Continued weakening is expected, and Helene is forecast to become extratropical later today." Helene traveled through Georgia and is advancing to North Carolina. With sustained winds of 70 miles per hour, Helene has downgraded from a Category 1 hurricane to a tropical storm. YESTERDAY (Thursday): Yesterday, there were several developments, particularly at night: first, Helene started out as a Category 2 hurricane, a Category 3 hurricane and a Category 4 hurricane but eventually became a Category 1 hurricane with sustained winds of 90 miles per hour. Helene first crossed the Gulf of Mexico, transited Florida and entered Georgia CHANGES WITH THIS ADVISORY: The Tropical Storm Warning for the Georgia coast has been discontinued. All Storm Surge Warnings have been discontinued. SUMMARY OF WATCHES AND WARNINGS IN EFFECT: A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for: - Savannah River northward to Little River Inlet A Tropical Storm Warning means that tropical storm conditions are expected somewhere within the warning area. HAZARDS AFFECTING LAND: STORM SURGE: Water levels will continue to receed along the Florida Gulf Coast and portions of the southeast U.S. coast throughout the day. WIND: Tropical storm conditions are occurring along much of the South Carolina coast, and these conditions will continue for the next several hours. Strong, damaging winds, especially in gusts, Will also continue as far inland as the higher terrain of the southern Appalachians. RAINFALL: Over portions of the Central and Southern Appalachians, Helene is expected to produce additional rainfall amounts of 3 to 6 inches leading to total rain accumulations of 6 to 12 inches, with isolated totals around 20 inches. This rainfall will result in catastrophic and potentially life-threatening flash and urban flooding, along with significant and record river flooding. Numerous significant landslides are expected in steep terrain across the Southern Appalachians. For a complete depiction of forecast rainfall associated with Tropical Storm Helene, please see the National Weather Service Storm Total Rainfall Graphic, available at hurricanes.gov/graphics_at4.shtml? Rainqpf and the Flash Flood Risk graphic at hurricanes.gov/graphics_at4.shtml? Ero. For a list of rainfall observations (and wind reports) associated this storm, see the companion storm summary at WBCSCCNS4 with the WMO header ACUS44 KWBC or at the following link: www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/discussions/nfdscc4.html TORNADOES: Tornadoes are possible today across eastern South Carolina, central and eastern North Carolina, and southern Virginia. SURF: Swells generated by Helene will affect the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas during the next day or so. These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions. Source: National Hurricane Center This article was generated by the Sun Herald Bot, artificial intelligence software that analyzes information from the National Hurricane Center and applies it to templates created by journalists in the newsroom. We are experimenting with this and other new ways of providing more useful content to our readers and subscribers. You can report errors or bugs to mcclatchybot@mcclatchy.com. Full hurricane coverage at sunherald.com/news/weather-news/ Friend says an ex-officer on trial in fatal beating of Tyre Nichols did his job 'by the book' Former Memphis police officer Tadarrius Bean arrives at the federal courthouse for the second day of jury selection for the trial in the Tyre Nichols case Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV) MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) A former Memphis police officer standing trial in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols is a kind-hearted, humble person who did his job by the book, a friend from the police academy testified Friday. Bryant McKinney, who graduated from the Memphis police academy with Tadarrius Bean in January 2021, took the stand in the federal trial of Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith. They have pleaded not guilty to charges of excessive force, failure to intervene, and obstructing justice through witness tampering in the the January 2023 beating of Nichols. Attorneys for the officers began presenting their case Thursday, after prosecutors presented weeks of testimony, including from two other former officers, Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr., who have pleaded guilty to depriving Nichols of his civil rights. McKinney said he was a patrolman at the same time Bean was also a patrolman with the Memphis Police Department. He said Bean put others before himself and did things by the book as an officer. I can attest to the humility and kind-heartedness, of Bean, said McKinney, who testified that he served on the force for six months before moving on to a corporate security job. Police video shows the officers used pepper spray and a Taser on Nichols, who was Black, during a traffic stop, but the 29-year-old ran away,. The five officers, who also are Black, then punched, kicked and hit him about a block from his home, as he called out for his mother. Video also shows the officers milling about and even laughing as Nichols struggled with his injuries. Nichols died in the hospital on Jan. 10, 2023, three days after the beating. Prosecutor Kathryn Gilbert asked McKinney if his opinion would change if he knew that Bean held a persons hands as another officer struck him in the face or that he laughed and didnt help as the person struggled with their injuries. McKinney said he could not pass judgement on a situation he was not fully aware of. Another defense witness, former Memphis officer Garrett OBrien, testified that he helped train Memphis officers on ground fighting and defensive tactics. He said certain strikes to the head, such as palm strikes, that are not meant to kill someone can be used as a defensive tactic. Jurors have repeatedly watched video of the traffic stop and the beating, but attorneys have not been allowed to ask witnesses to directly interpret what they see in the footage. Instead, attorneys have presented hypothetical situations to witnesses, including experts, that match whats seen in the video. One use-of-force expert, John Tisdale, testified that an officer in Beans situation would not face discipline from him if the officer had been affected by pepper spray, run a significant distance while wearing heavy gear, and slapped the hands of a person who did not want to be handcuffed. Beans lawyers have maintained that he only punched Nichols hands in efforts to handcuff Nichols while Nichols was on the ground. Prosecutors have said that Bean punched Nichols in the head. Tisdale retired as police chief of Gallatin, Tennessee, in 2011. He was investigated by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation for misusing a criminal database to conduct a background check as part of a civil case in which he was testifying as an expert witness. The five officers also have been charged with second-degree murder in state court, where they pleaded not guilty. Mills and Martin are expected to change their pleas. A trial date in state court has not been set. From the Boiling Frogs on The Dispatch The great consolation for Never Trumpers as we wander the political wilderness is knowing that weve been right all along about you-know-who. We can be smug about it at times, admittedly. Whenever some Republican hack scoffs on social media at warnings that Donald Trump will try to overturn this election if he loses, one of us reliably pops up to point out that the very same hack scoffed at the very same warnings before the last election. Its no wonder that conservatives who stuck with the tribe hate us. The most intolerable phrase in the English language is I told you so. Ive never been much for Never Trump triumphalism, though, because I wasnt right all along about the man and his movement. Each has degenerated much further, morally and civically, than I expected they would in 2016. I didnt foresee January 6. I didnt foresee Trump getting indicted (and indicted and indicted and indicted) and his primary polling going up. I didnt foresee the endless wackaloon road show that right-wing political culture would become. And I certainly didnt foresee the degree to which conspiracy theorizing would become the dominant mode through which grassroots Republicans engage with reality. I underestimated how bad things would get and Im not the only one, which I suppose is another consolation of a sort. The latest example of how bad things have gotten on the right is, improbably, Eric Adams. Adams is the Democratic mayor of New York City and, as of Wednesday, the defendant in a federal corruption case. Normally when a prominent left-wing politician is slapped with criminal charges, thats a moment for right-wing partisans to engage in a bit of smug, triumphalist told-you-so-ing of their own. Adams is ripe for it, too: Before hed even taken the oath as mayor, some who followed his career predicted hed land in legal trouble. They told us so. He was all teed up to be the new main character in Republicans eternal narrative of how thieving Demon-crats cant be trusted with power. The timing of his indictment so soon before an election should have made him especially attractive as a target, as rampant corruption in urban centers with large black populations is a core component of the MAGA rigged election mythos. Look around social media over the last 48 hours, though, and youll find one right-wing populist after another riding to the mayors defense. Why? The enemy of my enemy. The cultiest element of Trumps very culty political movement is that it has its own internal morality that supersedes traditional morality. Thats why so many creeps, crooks, and kooks are drawn to it. Like any cult leader worth his salt, Trump offers acceptance and community to those who find such things hard to come by in respectable society. MAGAs internal morality is based on two principles. First, Trumps needs trump all other interests, political, moral, or legal, without exception. Second, ones moral worth is measured by how antagonistic one is toward the enemy. No one who hates the right people can be truly bad, no matter how badly theyve behaved in conventional moral terms. Apply those two principles and you can safely predict how populists will react to practically any political development. Like, for instance, the indictment of Eric Adams. One could argue that Trumps great political need in the Adams case is to discredit Democratic leadership of Americas major cities, but thats not a very useful argument to make regarding New York. After all, the election wont be decided there. If Adams were the mayor of, say, Philadelphia, then hed be an irresistible poster boy for left-wing sleaze. Trump and his fans do see a useful lesson about liberal corruption to exploit in the charges against Adams. But its not the defendant who supposedly embodies that corruptionits the prosecution. Donald Trump is facing charges in two separate federal criminal cases, one related to his coup attempt and the other to his concealment of classified documents after leaving office. Both cases are languishing as Election Day approaches, but theyll pick up next year if he loses this race. And the fact that hes under indictment increases the likelihood of that, of course. Diehard Republicans might not mind having a criminal suspect (whos already been convicted of state felonies) as president, but plenty of normie voters do. In a test of credibility between Eric Adams and the same Justice Department thats prosecuting Trump, MAGA Republicans have a moral duty to convince the public that Adams is the more credible of the two. Still, the fact that both the prosecution and the defendant are Democrats makes a firm preference between the two tricky for populists. Cue the second principle: In an important way, Eric Adams has an enemy in common with Trump and his supporters. With the possible exception of Sen. John Fetterman, hes the most outspoken critic of mass immigration of any major official in his party. For years, Adams has complained about the burden being placed on New York City by migrants whove crossed the southern border and then made their way north, sometimes with help from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and sometimes under their own power. Thats a twofer as far as Republicans are concerned. Its sweet to see a prominent Democrat attacking the Biden administration, but its really sweet to see one doing so over Trumps pet issue in an election year. Hate is probably too strong a word to describe how Adams feels about the president and the migrants flowing into New York City, but its close enough for MAGA morality. Eric Adams hates the right people. And so, bobbing around in the toxic waste of Twitter this week, youll find everyone from conservative Washington Post columnists to right-wing media firebrands to populist influencers to MAGA satire sites speculating that Bidens Justice Department set its sights on Adams to punish him for his heresies about immigration. Trump himself soon picked up the claim, as inevitably happens whenever the grassroots right finds a new conspiracy theory to play with: Whats stupid about all of this is that, given the screwy politics of this election, I suspect Kamala Harris would have relished having a scandal-free Eric Adams as a campaign surrogate. Shes visiting the southern border today in her latest sweaty ploy to put some political distance between herself and Bidens record on immigration. Enlisting Adamsa rare Democrat with immigration credto vouch for her as a prospective tough-on-the-border president might have helped her build a touch of cred of her own. But Adams isnt scandal-free, so Harris stayed away from him and the DOJ moved forward. And why shouldnt it have? Had it decided not to charge Adams for the illicit political reason that it feared being accused of persecuting an anti-immigration Democrat, Republicans would have cried foul about that too and alleged that Bidens Justice Department didnt want a major Democratic scandal erupting so close to the election. Merrick Garland and his team were damned if they did and damned if they didnt. Meanwhile, underlying all of these machinations is the rights devout faith that federal law enforcement in the Trump era slavishly serves Democratic interests by harassing Republicans. The facts contradict thatask Bob Menendez or Henry Cueller or, yes, Eric Adamsbut where facts and belief disagree, the facts must yield. The MAGA effort this week to celebrate Adams as an independent-minded Democrat is transparently a scheme to salvage their theory that Trumps criminal trouble is and can only be the fruit of scandalous partisanship, nothing more. Its their own idiotic version of I told you so: By converting Adams into a de facto Republican, their claim that the DOJ lets politics dictate its charging decisions remains vindicated. Someday, perhaps, theyll explain how every MAGA Republican in Congress along with independent-minded Democrats like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema whove been chronic thorns in the White Houses side managed to escape the Justice Departments alleged ideological vendetta. But it wont be today. Friends and scapegoats. There are other interesting elements to the Adams saga and the rights reaction to it. One is that the mayor himself has begun insinuating that his stance on immigration had something to do with why he was prosecuted. Watch this video at around 1:10. I assume that flourish was less about ingratiating himself to Republicans than with Adams being desperate for a pretext to remain in office while his case plays out. If he cant convince New Yorkers that hes innocent on the merits, maybe he can get them on his side by reminding them that hes tried to reduce the burden migrants have placed on housing and social services. But one never knows. Adams wouldnt be the first Democrat to spare himself from criminal consequences by making himself politically useful somehow to Donald Trump. What separates Trumps cult from every other is that its leader once wielded the power to place his disciples beyond the reach of the law and might soon do so again. Every creep, crook, and kook who joins it does so knowing that, with the right connections and enough obsequiousness, he too might see his legal jeopardy disappear as if by magic. For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law. Thats how postliberalism works, by design, and never more so than when its under the influence of a narcissist as extreme as Trump. A man who divides the world morally between people who like him and people who dont will judge everyone by whether theyre part of the first group, including foreign leaders. Thats why the hero of Ukraine was obliged to pay his respects at Trump Tower on Friday morning. He didnt have important policy business that couldnt wait; he had to reassure Trump, urgently, that he still liked him. If youre Eric Adams, facing years in prison, its suddenly very important that Trump views you as someone who likes him. Accusing the hated Justice Department of persecuting border hawks is a step in that direction. Un-endorsing Kamala Harris for president would be another. And nothing would please Trump more than to see Adams, a Democratic elector in New York, switch his vote from Harris to Trump when the Electoral College votes in December. That vote wouldnt count, mind you. But even an ineffectual show of loyalty at a moment of high political tension might be enough to assure him a pardon next year. For Trumps friends, everything. The other intriguing angle to the Adams mess also has to do with the election. It becomes clearer every day that, if Trump loses, this winters iteration of Stop the Steal will fixate on illegal immigrants supposedly voting en masse for the Democrats. And Adams, in his own small way, is now enabling it. Trump has pushed that nonsense before, you might recall. His tender ego was bruised in 2016 when he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton so he claimed that her margin must have been due to millions of migrants casting invalid ballots in states like California to help her run up the score. But the theory never got much traction, partly because victorious Republicans didnt care about the popular vote and partly because it was never explained why Democrats would have launched a massive illegal-voting scheme in states they were destined to win anyway. The theory seemed poised to come roaring back in 2020, when Trump ended up losing most swing states narrowly. Yet, weirdly, it never did. It remains a strange quirk of the original Stop the Steal hysteria that no core villain was ever identified. Democrats rigged the election, we were told, but how they did it remained scrupulously obscure. There were ballot mules and corrupt election workers and shadowy forces tinkering remotely with voting machines, but things never got much more specific than that. No scapegoat-in-chief was named. Immigrants, the supposed shock troops of Clintons popular-vote victory, somehow escaped becoming the scapegoat four years ago. Probably thats because, between Trumps halting construction of the border wall and his use of Title 42, he and his fans were required to believe that he had solved the problem of illegal immigration as president. Four years and one protracted border crisis later on Bidens watch, that logic no longer obtains. So I predict that Stop the Steal 2.0, which is already in motion politically, will make voting by immigrants the scapegoat-in-chief. Everything points to it. Some of Trumps most devoted cronies in Congress are obsessing about it. So is the worlds richest edgelord, an immigrant himself, along with many lesser examples of the species. The political pump has been primed by tales of migrant savages consuming pets in Ohio; surely a cohort as wretched as that wont think twice about casting illegal ballots. Trump himself is so invested in the possibility that he warned this week of a Democratic plot to mail ballots overseas without verifying the recipients citizenship or even their identity. The great conspiracy to let foreigners vote in our elections is so vast that it will even include foreigners who havent immigrated! The illegals stole the election scam wont be designed to convince a judge but to cast a political cloud over Harris victory so that Republicans in Congress have a pretext not to certify it on January 6. Mike Johnson sounds up to the challenge, assuming hes still speaker by then. And Republican voters are more than prepared to rally behind anything Trump tells them about the election. Whether Eric Adams realizes it yet or not, his demagoguery about supposedly being indicted for his dissent on immigration plays into the disinformation campaign to come. Hes essentially volunteered as a character witness in the looming trial in the court of public opinion over whether a Harris victory should be trusted as legitimate. Adams answer, implicitly, is no: An administration so committed to importing foreigners that it would prosecute him on false pretenses for opposing the policy is surely also an administration that would connive to let foreigners vote to maintain its grasp on power. At a certain point of extreme corruption, the graft turns indiscriminate. No wonder Trump and MAGA Republicans feel defensive on his behalf. In no time at all, Adams has gone from being an ally on a discrete issue to something like a friendand in a second term, the law will apply only to their enemies. That pardon is in the bag. 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. Friendship Manor in Rock Island is celebrating its 45th anniversary. Residents and staff gathered for food, music and a ceremony honoring their longest serving workers. The campus is planning renovations to upgrade their facilities and living units. Friendship Manor says their success is important since its the only continuing care campus on the Illinois side of the Quad Cities. Residents that move to friendship manor can be assured that they have a home for life, said Heather Stancliff, a spokesperson at Friendship Manor. That when their care needs exceed what regulations for assisted living can provide, they dont have to go looking for an entire new place, we have it all right here on our campus. Friendship Manor plans to have renovations finished in two years. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF - OurQuadCities.com. WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) The Federal Trade Commission says a $48 million settlement should put an end to what it calls predatory tactics by the nations largest landlord of single-family homes. The FTC says Invitation Homes was charging hidden fees and withholding security deposits. Not even maintaining livable conditions at various points, FTC Chair Lina Khan said. FTC Chair Lina Khan says this was a deliberate strategy to really create revenue even though it was coming at the expense of honest renters. Invitation Homes says the agreement contains no admission of wrongdoing. The company says the settlement: puts this matter behind the Company and it will move forwardto better serve its customers. Its a win for families. But lets be clear. These abuses are symptoms of a much larger problem, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said. Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley says corporate investors are invading the housing market. A forecast by MetLife Investment Management found institutional investors could control 40% of single-family rental homes by 2030. Theyre driving up the price to buy a home, putting a stake through the heart of the dream of homeownership, Sen. Merkley said. Merkley is sponsoring a bill he says would stop that. It would ban hedge funds from buying single-family homes and make them sell the homes they do own. These are common sense guard rails, Merkley said. Merkleys bill has stalled since he introduced it last year, but he says hes encouraged by the FTCs actions. The FTC says the settlement money will refund renters hurt by the company. The funds are subject to approval by a federal judge. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. For the second time in under a month, a former executive for Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems has moved forward in his efforts to hold liable those who amplified unproven allegations that he, personally, rigged the 2020 presidential election against Donald Trump. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said 11 people were killed in the state during Hurricane Helene. One of those killed was a first responder, he said during a news conference Friday morning. Kemp said state emergency officials were still getting calls from people trapped in their homes by fallen trees. Most of those calls were coming from Valdosta where 115 homes were severely damaged, he said. At noon, about 1 million customers remained without power in Georgia and 52 roads, including two interstates, remained closed, Kemp said. Action News Jax will be following the latest developments LIVE as they happen below. Refresh this page for the latest. Download the Action News Jax news app and watch Action News Jax for live updates on this developing story, or click here to have updates sent straight to your inbox. Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.) holds double-digit leads over Republican nominee Kari Lake in the Arizona Senate race, according to a pair of recent polls. A Fox News survey released Thursday showed Gallego with a 13-point lead, 55 percent to 42 percent, among likely voters in the state, and a 14-point advantage, 56 percent to 42 percent, with the states registered voters. He also holds a wide lead with the states independents, 59 percent to 37 percent, and has a 23-point advantage among women in The Grand Canyon State, amassing 60 percent support. Both candidates were tied among white men at 49 percent each, according to the survey. The Fox poll, conducted Sept. 20-24 among 1,021 registered Arizona voters, has a margin of error of 3 percentage points. Meanwhile, a Marist Arizona Poll released Thursday found Gallego with a 10-point lead, 54 percent to 44 percent. As in the Fox News survey, Marist showed Gallego has a wide lead among independents over Lake who is backed by former President Trump with 64 percent support, compared to 32 percent for the GOP candidate. The Marist poll also found Gallego with a stronger favorability rating than Lake. About 47 percent of respondents said they had a favorable view of the Marine Corps veteran, while 35 percent had an unfavorable view. Approximately 17 percent said theyd never heard of him. Lake, who lost her 2022 gubernatorial bid in the state, had 39 percent favorability rating, and 51 percent had an unfavorable view of her, according to the poll. The Marist survey was conducted Sept. 19-24 among 1,524 Arizona registered voters. It has a margin of error of 3.6 percentage points. While the mainstream media continues to peddle Democrat-funded, biased polls, weve aggregated data from over 20 independent polls that show a true race within just 2 points, a Lake spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill. This is well within the margin of error, exposing their so-called polling as nothing more than a calculated attempt to suppress our voters. In late August, Gallego had a 15-point lead over Lake, according to a Fox News poll. An Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey released around the same time found that the House Democrat had 49 percent support compared to Lakes 42 percent, while 10 percent of Arizonas voters were undecided. Gallego currently has a 7-point lead over Lake, 49.3 to 42 percent, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ aggregate of polls. They are running for the seat being vacated by retiring Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Lets be clear: Ruben Gallego and his corrupt D.C. allies have spent millions in attack ads and his poll numbers havent shifted, the Lake campaign spokesperson said. Meanwhile, Kari Lake is surging, and no amount of coordinated media spin will stop her from becoming the next Senator of the great state of Arizona. Arizona deserves a fighter, and Kari Lake is here to stay. This story was updated at 2:53 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 The Hill. California Gov. Gavin Newsom this week signed a bill into law formally apologizing for the states role in the slave trade. Assembly Bill 3089, by Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, D-Los Angeles, affirms the states recognition of the harms caused by chattel slavery and calls for the installation of a memorial plaque at the Capitol. The State of California accepts responsibility for the role we played in promoting, facilitating, and permitting the institution of slavery, as well as its enduring legacy of persistent racial disparities. Building on decades of work, California is now taking another important step forward in recognizing the grave injustices of the past and making amends for the harms caused, Newsom said in a statement. Californias constitution banned slavery, but the state remained complicit in the slave trade, with more than 2,000 enslaved African people being brought to the state from 1850 to 1860. The formal apology for slavery was one of a number of California Legislative Black Caucus priority bills the governor signed this week. Newsom also signed into law bills to Require grocery stores and pharmacies to provide advance notice to communities before closing to prevent food deserts (Senate Bill 1089) Strengthen employment anti-discrimination protections by clarifying that race includes traits associated with race, such as hair texture or hair style (Assembly Bill 1815) Empower the attorney general to go after hospitals that are out of compliance with anti-bias training (Assembly Bill 2319) Require the Office of the Inspector General to review and publicly post the list of banned books in prisons (Assembly Bill 1986) Assemblywoman Lori Wilson, who chairs the Black Caucus, said in a statement that she was grateful to Newsom for signing the bills. This is a multi-year effort, and I look forward to continuing our partnership with the governor on this important work in the years to come as we push toward lasting justice and equity, she said. Jones-Sawyer, who served on the Californian Reparations Task Force that released a list of recommendations for state action, in a statement called the apology a monumental achievement that was produced after a two-year academic study of losses that Black people suffered in California due to systemic bigotry and racism. Healing can only begin with an apology. The State of California acknowledges its past actions and is taking this bold step to correct them, recognizing its role in hindering the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness for Black individuals through racially motivated punitive laws, he said. The signing came nearly a month after state lawmakers let a pair of bills die that would have created a new state agency to oversee reparations as well as a fund to support those policies. SACRAMENTO, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday signed an official apology for harms caused by slavery and hundreds of years of discrimination against Black Californians. Healing can only begin with an apology, said Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, who authored the apology bill, in a statement. The state of California acknowledges its past actions and is taking this bold step to correct them, recognizing its role in hindering the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness for Black individuals through racially motivated punitive laws. Newsom also approved a handful of other bills enacting policies developed by the states reparations task force which he helped create four years ago to address issues such as maternal health disparities. Other states including Colorado, New York, and Massachusetts have created reparations task forces or commissioned studies, and a number of states have issued apologies for slavery. California task force members devoted months of research and public hearings to studying how centuries of racism affected descendants of enslaved people in the state. They issued a report last year detailing their findings. The Legislative Black Caucus used the hundreds of recommendations from that report to draft legislation, though lawmakers did not advance a proposal for cash reparations. Caucus members expect to spend years writing those proposals into law. The governor also approved legislation that would make public the list of books the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has banned in prison and would further protect Californians from being discriminated against due to their hair style or texture. Black Caucus Chair Lori Wilson called the legislation Newsom approved a meaningful foundation to address the historic injustices faced by Black Californians. The governor signed the bills just weeks after he faced backlash from some reparations advocates for amendments they claim stalled two related pieces of legislation. The Black Caucus on the last night of the legislative session opted to block bills from state Sen. Steven Bradford that would have created a Freedmen Affairs Agency and a reparations fund, saying they needed additional work. Newsoms team had sought major amendments to the Freedmen Affairs Agency bill. A set of proposed changes reviewed by POLITICO would have sent $6 million to California State University to study the implementation of task force findings instead of establishing the agency. Bradford rejected those changes. Newsom yesterday vetoed a bill from Bradford that would have created a process for Californians who had their land unjustly seized through eminent domain to see it returned or seek compensation. In his veto message, he cited the lack of a state agency needed to implement the policy. Gaza war resonates but has global diplomacy shifted one year on? US President Joe Biden has put some pressure on Israel (TIMOTHY A. CLARY) (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/AFP) A year after the October 7 attack that sparked war in Gaza, diplomacy has failed to produce a ceasefire and the world watches on as the death toll mounts. Fears of war engulfing the wider region have soared as exchanges of fire have escalated between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Over the past year, South Africa has taken Israel to court and some European governments have drawn Israeli anger by recognising the State of Palestine, but analysts say only a radical change in US policy can stop the conflict. Here is a breakdown: How has the war resonated? Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack against Israel on October 7, resulting in the deaths of 1,205 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity. Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 97 are still being held inside Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead. Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. To the north, Israeli air strikes killed at least 558 people in Lebanon on Monday in the country's deadliest day of violence since the 1975-1990 civil war, the health ministry said. Around the world, the conflict has had a polarising effect, generating passionate support for both sides. "This war has considerably deepened fracture lines," said analyst Karim Bitar. "What is happening today in Lebanon only compounds this." For many people, especially in countries which experienced colonial rule, the West's perceived failure to defend the human rights of Palestinians had exposed its "hypocrisy", he said. In the Arab world, "there is this idea that all great principles fly out the window when it comes to Israel and that the West remains consumed by guilt" from World War II and the Holocaust. Palestinian historian and diplomat Elias Sanbar said that the West had given the Israelis a "carte-blanche of impunity" for decades, ever since the creation of Israel in 1948. But today "it will be much harder to show unconditional support to Israel", he said. Has international law prevailed? South Africa in December brought a case before the International Court of Justice, arguing the war in Gaza breached the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, an accusation Israel has strongly denied. Colombia, Libya, Spain, Mexico, Turkey and Chile have since joined the case. Analyst Rym Momtaz said the ICJ proceedings against Israel were "unprecedented". "International law is taking over the issue," she said. In May, the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court sought arrest warrants against top Hamas leaders -- but also Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister -- on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Since October 7, violence against Palestinians has also flared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where far-right parties in the governing coalition have championed a quickening expansion of Israeli settlements, regarded as illegal under international law. At least 680 Palestinians have been killed in the territory by Israeli troops or settlers, according to the Palestinian health ministry. UN member states have adopted a non-binding resolution to formally demand an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories within 12 months. But Israeli historian and diplomat Elie Barnavi said his country "doesn't care" about what the so-called global South thinks. Is European support for Israel waning? Some European governments have taken a stance. Slovenia, Spain, Ireland and Norway have recognised the State of Palestine, drawing retaliatory moves from Israel. The European Union has implemented sanctions against "extremist" settlers, and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has called for more against some far-right members of the Israeli government. The United Kingdom has suspended 30 of 350 arms exports licences for Israel. Barnavi noted a "real shift in the attitude of Europeans towards Israel", but said it was "insufficient". Zeenat Adam, of the Afro-Middle East Centre in South Africa, said the UK arms exports suspension was "minuscule". "The recent 'recognition' by European states of Palestine is mere lip-service," she added. In the end, said Sanbar, countries in Europe largely still supported Israel, even if "a sort of embarrassment" at times triggered statements of concern. "It's simply not enough," he said. What of the United States? All eyes are instead on Israel's main ally the United States, which has pushed for a ceasefire but kept up its military aid to Israel. "If the United States do not change their stance, there will be no change," said Momtaz. "There has been no real fraying of US military support to Israel. Yet it's that support that is crucial and makes all the difference," she said. The Israeli defence ministry said on Thursday it had secured a new $8.7 billion US aid package to support the country's ongoing military efforts, including upgrading air defence systems. Momtaz said it was not clear that the US presidential election in November would change anything, regardless of whether the winner was Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. "There has been no sign that a Trump or Harris administration would be ready to use US leverage, the only efficient means to help both parties stop this war," she said. Bitar said that among US voters, the Jewish community and young progressive Democrats were more openly distancing themselves from Israel, but that might only have a political impact in 10 to 15 years' time. No end in sight? The Gaza war has revived talk of a so-called "two-state solution" of Israeli and Palestinian states living in peace side by side, but that goal seems today more unattainable than ever. For too many years, the international community "promised a two-state solution without doing anything to end the occupation, to end settlements to make a Palestinian state viable," Bitar said. "Many believe the train has left the station, that it's perhaps already too late," Bitar said. Barnavi said there was "no other solution", though it would involve dismantling most settlements in the West Bank. "It would imply a lot of violence, including a period of civil war in Israel," he said. Sanbar said: "Never have the two sides been so distanced from each other. I don't know what could bring them closer." ah-cf/sjw/kir People toss buckets of water out of a home as the streets and homes are flooded near Peachtree Creek after hurricane Helene brought in heavy rains over night on September 27, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. Hurricane Helene made landfall late Thursday night as a category 4 hurricane in the panhandle of Florida. Megan Varner/Getty Images This story was updated at 8:45 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. Hurricane Helene has killed at least 15 people in Georgia, including a first responder, and others were still trapped inside of buildings midday Friday in the hardest-hit areas. At this time, this has been a deadly storm, Gov. Brian Kemp said during a briefing Friday. When we ask people to stay off the roads and be patient, its because we are trying to get to people. Its a very dangerous environment, and one of our finest has lost his life trying to save others. Kemp said there are multiple structures where people are trapped inside. In Valdosta, 115 buildings have been identified that were heavily damaged, some with people still inside as of midday Friday. Well have to literally cut our way into situations like this, he said. Kemp declined to provide details about the states fatalities, other than to say they were all in the storms path. Next of kin is still being notified, he said. The states death toll had reached 15 as of Friday evening, said the governors spokesman, Garrison Douglas. The first responder who died was a part-time assistant fire chief in Blackshear named Vernon Leon Davis who was killed when a tree fell on his truck, Jacksonville-based First Coast News reported. He had been clearing downed trees and power lines. The death toll from the storm was approaching 100 people throughout the region, according to the Associated Press. I had to get out and see what was going on in my community and yall, it has been devastating, U.S. Rep. Rick Allen, an Augusta Republican, said at a Friday press conference in Augusta, adding that a dear friend had been killed by a tree that fell on their home. Helene barreled through Georgia during the night and left about 1 million locations without power in the state. The storm made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane at a little after 11 p.m. in Taylor County, Florida, with 140 mile-per-hour winds. It remained a hurricane until 5 a.m. Friday about six hours after landfall, said Ken Graham, director of the National Weather Service. At six hours, it was still a hurricane, doing quite a bit of damage into Georgia as well, Graham said. The tropical storm force winds were sustained all the way to upstate South Carolina, which is really just amazing, the extent of the winds in the storm. At several times, the tropical storm force winds extended 350 miles or so away from the center, which is pretty staggering. Preliminary analysis shows as much as 11 inches of rain in parts of the affected area, including Georgia. The full scope of the storm was still being assessed in Fridays daylight, but Kemp said that initial reports suggest the damage will likely be worse than Hurricane Michael, which devastated the states agriculture industry in 2018. We know its one of the widest wind fields ever in the Atlantic, which made it a statewide event for us here in Georgia. Weve got a lot of work to do. Weve got a lot of damage to assess, Kemp said. Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper said Friday that east of I-75 were seeing significant damage to agriculture in all commodities. Kemp urged people to stay home if possible while crews work in the storms aftermath and warned Georgians not to become complacent as the skies clear. For people in the metro area, it is still very dangerous out there. The loss of life that weve seen, a lot of it has been by falling trees because of saturated ground, and even though the winds are starting to die down, theres still trees literally falling, he said. To illustrate the point, Kemp said a tree fell across the driveway at the governors mansion shortly after he left for the state operations center. In north Georgia, the risk of flooding also remains as the states waterways continue to rise for the next day or so. Georgia Recorder reporter Ross Williams contributed to this report. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Georgian PM refuses to stop using war in Ukraine in election campaign Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has made it clear that his party will not give up using the war in Ukraine for election purposes. Source: Ekho Kavkaza, as reported by European Pravda Details: As part of its election campaign, the Georgian Dream party has created a video and a series of street posters that contrast devastated Ukrainian cities with peaceful Georgian ones. In response to criticism from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Irakli Kobakhidze said he believes it is vital to compare the conflict in Ukraine to peace in Georgia. Journalists asked him how he would react if Ukraine used video from Sukhumi for electoral purposes [Sukhumi is the capital of the Georgian breakaway state of Abkhazia ed.]. Quote: "I recall Ukrainians actively using these images for a variety of purposes, including humorous ones, but that's another topic. Today, we are discussing the effects of the war in general and what we have avoided for our country in 2022," he said. Kobakhidze recalled the events of the August war of 2008 and accused the "Saakashvili regime" of starting the war. "Yes, Russia occupied our territories, but the Saakashvili regime started the war. And now, if the National Movement party comes to power, they will open a second front in Georgia in a week. Why did Russia not enter Georgia in 2022? Do you have an explanation? We saved it, yes! We saved Georgia, and if we had complied with the demands of senior officials in the Ukrainian leadership, Russian troops would have entered Georgia in 2022," Kobakhidze said. In a statement, Ukraines Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the ruling Georgian Dream partys use of images of the consequences of Russia's war against Ukraine in political advertising, describing it as unacceptable. As part of its election campaign, Georgian Dream has produced banners containing images of the destruction caused by Russia in Ukraine in contrast with "normal life" in Georgia. The campaign features a series of similar posters and a video in which intact Georgian cities, fountains and new buses are juxtaposed against footage of destruction in Ukraine. The captions on the banners urge voters to "choose peace" and "say no to war". Sometimes the photos of the destruction are complemented by images of candidates from pro-Western opposition parties. Support UP or become our patron! (Bloomberg) -- Germanys last conservative leader, Angela Merkel, built her legacy on policies normally associated with the left: saving the Euro by bailing out Greece and refusing to turn away hundreds of thousands of migrants. Most Read from Bloomberg Now, with Germany one year away from a national election, Friedrich Merz, her fellow Christian Democrat and longtime rival, is aiming to unseat Chancellor Olaf Scholz and undo Merkels open-door migration policy with a far more right-wing agenda. The two CDU politicians crossed paths during an event celebrating Merkels 70th birthday on Wednesday, where the former chancellor congratulated Merz on his nomination. Everyone knows that both of us had highs and lows in our political lives, Merkel said in the short speech in Berlin. I wish you all the best for the coming months. As if to underscore how much his leadership would differ from Merkels, Merz remarked at the same event, history doesnt repeat itself, drawing a cryptic smile from the former chancellor. Should Merz win, it would mark a definitive break with the Merkel era. During her 18 years as CDU leader, the physicist from East Germany reshaped the party and welcomed in more centrist voters. Merz, by contrast, is a member of the old West German elite, has close ties in the financial sector and belongs to the more conservative, business-friendly arm of the CDU. Out of frustration with Merkels policies and after she ousted him as caucus leader he gave up his seat in parliament in 2009 in order to join a prominent law firm. He later chaired the supervisory board of BlackRock Asset Management Deutschland AG before returning to the political stage in 2021. Merz, who declined to be interviewed for this story, has already staked out more conservative positions: Hes vowed to reverse the legalization of cannabis and reconsider the countrys exit from nuclear power, two of the center-left Scholzs governments pet projects. He wants to increase Germanys defense spending from 52 billion to around 80 billion, although he hasnt said where the money would come from, as hes ruled out raising taxes and plans to stick to the countrys strict debt limit. He also sees it as his mission to reverse the flow of migration to Germany, which increased substantially after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. At a moment in which Germany is facing a possible recession, Merzs main strength lies in what voters see as his economic competence. According to a recent Forsa poll, 47% of Germans trust Merz to get the German economy back on track. Only 16% say the same about Scholz, who adopted Merkels consensus-oriented approach and has tried to imitate her pragmatic, down-to-earth leadership style. Despite the CDU/CSUs 16 point lead in the polls, however, a Merz victory isnt a guarantee. To win, hell need to improve his standing with women, East Germans and younger voters, and overcome the criticism that he can come off as detached and arrogant. The six-and-a-half-foot tall politician often flies to events in his private jet, and his height and manner of speaking can create the impression that hes condescending to voters, as even his political allies admit. Moreover, the 68-year-old is notorious for having a short temper and making controversial remarks useful fodder for Scholzs campaign team. In one instance, Merz called Ukrainians who had fled to Germany in the wake of Russias invasion social welfare tourists and accused them of exploiting the benefits system. In another, he claimed Germans couldnt get dental appointments because the state was too busy paying for refugees to get their teeth fixed. And at the end of the 1990s he voted against a law that defined rape within marriage as a statutory offense. The SPD plans to depict the CDU leader as a relic from another age a politician with an outdated worldview and regressive ideas about women and family, according to a person familiar with the campaigns strategy. When the chancellor learned that Merz would be his rival in next years election, he took it in stride. Thats fine with me, Scholz said with a smirk. As Scholzs low approval ratings have also made him Merzs preferred adversary, next years election is shaping up to become a race between two unpopular candidates. Having lost two bids to lead the CDU before securing the position in 2021, Merz wasnt the obvious nominee for chancellor. But his path to the candidacy was cleared last week after Bavarian state premier Markus Soeder and Hendrik Wuest, the state premier of Merzs native North Rhine Westphalia, suddenly withdrew from the race. That surprised many as Wuest, a boyish 49-year-old long seen as Merzs strongest internal rival, polls well with women and younger voters and is seen as the new face of German conservatism. According to a new poll by broadcaster ZDF, almost 50% of respondents think that there are better conservative candidates than Merz. Merzs candidacy has given rise to concerns that the CDU might be repeating the mistake it made in 2020, when the unpopular former party head Armin Laschet lost against Scholz. Even within the CDU, some doubt whether Merz can appeal to the centrist voters hell need to win the election, including more liberal ones who voted for Merkel. The first warning signs that Merz might have trouble mobilizing voters appeared just a few days after his nomination, when the CDU came in fourth in a state election in Brandenburg behind the SPD and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which secured nearly 30%. The CDUs result just 12% was its third worst in any regional vote since World War II. Merzs team is already thinking about how they can soften their bosss profile and broaden his appeal. To win over female voters, the candidate and his wife were recently featured in the Bild tabloids Sunday edition. In the profile, Charlotte Merz presented her husband as a loving family man who bikes to the bakery to get bread for breakfast. Many hurdles remain between Merz and the chancellery, as even his supporters admit. But to improve his odds, the candidate could take some lessons from his longtime arch-rival: Angela Merkel. --With assistance from Michael Nienaber. (Updates to add chart reflecting a Merz advantage over Scholz, and adds language about ZDF poll.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Federal Chairwoman of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) Alice Weidel comments on the outcome of the state election in Brandenburg at a press conference at the AfD federal office. Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa The co-leaders of Germany's right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel, have agree that Weidel will run as the candidate for chancellor in next year's federal election campaign. However, this is so far only an agreement between the two co-leaders, Stephan Brandner, an AfD member of the Bundestag, told dpa. This must now be confirmed by the party's committees. The Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland news outlet had previously reported that the federal executive committee and the federal-state conference plan vote on the selection at the beginning of December. Weidel is not expected to be officially placed in the role until early next year. The next federal election in Germany will be held in September 2025. A federal judge vented her frustration at a pair of civil rights attorneys last month for continuing to protest her finding that sanctions are warranted in the wake of their client's refusal to turn over evidence to the defense. Federal Chairwoman of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) Alice Weidel comments on the outcome of the state election in Brandenburg at a press conference at the AfD federal office. Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa The co-leaders of Germany's right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel, have agreed that Weidel will run as the candidate for chancellor in next year's federal election campaign. However, this is so far only an agreement between the two co-leaders, Stephan Brandner, an AfD member of the Bundestag, told dpa on Friday. This must now be confirmed by the party's committees. The Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland news outlet had previously reported that the federal executive committee and the federal-state conference plan vote on the selection at the beginning of December. Weidel is not expected to be officially placed in the role until early next year. The next federal election in Germany will be held in September 2025. For decades, German politics has been dominated by two parties, the centre-right CDU, the party of former chancellor Angela Merksl, and the centre-left SPD, current Chancellor Olaf Scholz's party. But their grip on voters has faded in recent years. The AfD party was founded by eurosceptics a decade ago, but has become more radical and firmly far right in its politics, especially on immigration, in subsequent years. Mainstream German political parties have been refusing to work with the AfD. The party's leader in the state of Thuringia, Bjorn Hocke, is a far-right firebrand who is well-known in the country for controversial remarks and has twice been convicted in court for knowingly using a banned Nazi slogan in speeches. SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) A windowpane on the Transamerica Pyramid shattered on Thursday night, reportedly sending glass raining down onto the sidewalk and street below. A spokesperson for the iconic propertys owners, SHVO, told KRON4.com that the glass was damaged during a routine cleaning. Victim stabbed outside Oakland Coliseum after As last game According to SHVO officials, shards of glass fell from the 35th floor of the building at around 6:45 p.m. No one was injured in the incident, according to the property owner, and an on-site team responded quickly. The San Francisco Department of Building Inspection told KRON4.com it wasnt alerted to the event until Friday morning. The department dispatched a building inspector to the site to evaluate the situation. The inspector issued a Damaged Building Notice, which required the property owner to secure the opening where the glass fell or was broken, and to replace it as soon as possible. Photo: SFDBI Photo: SFDBI Photo: SFDBI Recently, the revitalization of the Transamerica Pyramid was completed following a billion-dollar renovation. KRON4.com reached out to the San Francisco Fire Department, which said it was unaware of the incident. We also reached out to the San Francisco Police Department. We have yet to receive a response. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. Relatives of an estimated 4,000 Palestinian workers arbitrarily detained in custody in Israel after the Oct. 7 attacks await their return at Gaza's Kerem Shalom border crossing on November 3, 2023. International labor unions filed a complaint Friday to recover unpaid wages and benefits they allege are owed to more than 200,000 Palestinians employed in Israel prior to the war. File Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Israel has withheld the pay and benefits of more than 200,000 Gaza and West Bank Palestinians who work in Israel since the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel in a "blatant" violation of international labor law, unions alleged Friday. The workers employed in Israel, formally and informally, have not received wages amounting to tens of millions of dollars for work prior to Oct. 7 and have received no pay since, plunging many families into destitution, nine global unions said in a joint complaint to recover the outstanding pay. The complaint accuses the Israeli government of "blatant" breaches of the International Labor Organization's protection of wages convention by holding back the September pay of 13,000 workers whose work permits were revoked on Oct. 10, the first working day after the attacks in which Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel. The brief argues that almost 200,000 other Palestinian workers blocked from re-entering Israel from the West Bank are owed back pay and wages for subsequent months under the terms of their employment contracts due to failure to give them formal notice they were being let go. "These workers have experienced widespread wage theft due to the suspension of work permits and the unilateral termination of their contracts," the complaint said, noting that Palestinian workers had been battling to recover outstanding wages or settle wage debts for almost a year. The average daily wage for Palestinian workers employed in Israel under regular work permits was $79 and $567-$702 per week for those working in the informal economy. "When I visited the West Bank earlier this year, I witnessed the economic destitution experienced by the families of Palestinian workers employed in Israel. As always, working people are enduring the worst of the continuing conflict," said International Trade Union Confederation General Secretary Luc Triangle. Public Services International union General Secretary Daniel Bertossa said the withholding of wages was the latest "unjustified indignity faced by Palestinian workers under occupation," calling it disproportionate. "This is a collective punishment of the Palestinian people," he said. Independent Israeli unions backed the complaint. "Two hundred thousand workers in the West Bank lost their jobs," Maan Workers Association executive director Assaf Adiv, told The Guardian. "They did not receive any compensation and have been suffering ever since from extreme poverty. "Thousands of workers who risk entering Israel without permits face repression, humiliation and even death. Workers are a major social layer in Palestinian society that is peaceful and doesn't associate with Hamas and thus should not be punished," said Adiv. Palestinian unemployment has risen to its highest-ever level since the outbreak of the war in Gaza with the loss to the economies of the West Bank and Gaza estimated to be as much as $19 million per day, according to an ILO report published in May on the situation of workers in the occupied Arab territories. GM is ready to let go of scores of factory temps due to a disagreement with local UAW Within the next few days, General Motors could let go of 275 part-time temporary employees at two of its plants if the local UAW leaders do not sign letters agreeing to keep those people as part-time temporary workers rather than making them full-time temporary workers or permanent employees. But the shop chairmen at both facilities have told the Detroit Free Press they refuse to sign the letters as their facilities have full-time temporary or full-time permanent openings at their facilities. They contend GM could promote the part-timers to those roles. The two plants are Fort Wayne Assembly in Indiana, where GM makes its full-size Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, and Bowling Green Assembly in Kentucky, where GM builds the Chevrolet Corvette. A GMC Sierra 1500 pickup on the assembly line at the General Motors Fort Wayne Assembly plant on Tuesday, May 14, 2019 in Roanoke, Indiana. GM announced Thursday, May 30, 2019 it is investing $24 million in the plant to expand production of full size Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra 1500 pickups in Roanoke, Indiana. "It's nothing but empty promises if I sign the letter," Rich LeTourneau, shop chairman of UAW Local 2209, which represents union members at Fort Wayne Assembly, told the Free Press. He said Fort Wayne Assembly has about 4,000 hourly workers across three shifts, building about 400 pickups per shift. Of those employees, 250 are part-time temporary employees. Since late August, he has been negotiating with GM to make those 250 people full-time temporary employees, if not permanent employees. LeTourneau believes GM wants to string them along in their part-time temporary status for as long as possible. "The only way they are hireable (per the UAW contract) is if they become full-time temps for nine consecutive months," LeTourneau said. "This company is never going to hire them, so if they're not going to hire them, I'm not going to prolong their agony." At Bowling Green, UAW Local 2164 Chairman Jason Watson is taking the same stance when it comes to the two dozen part-time temporary employees at that plant, which employs about 1,458 people, according to GM's website. "As a union we're not going to allow you to string these people along as part-time when you can make them full-time," Watson told the Free Press. GM's response For its part, GM says it is abiding by the national UAW contract language. GM spokeswoman Tara Kuhnen sent the following statement in an email to the Free Press: "The company and UAW have been unable to reach an agreement for extending part-time temporary team members at Fort Wayne Assembly. According to the provisions of our National UAW-GM contract, without an agreement, we will be required to release about 250 temporary employees by September 30, 2024." As for the situation at Bowling Green, Kuhnen said in an email, "The company and UAW have been unable to reach an agreement for extending part-time temporary team members at Bowling Green Assembly. According to the provisions of our National UAW-GM contract, without an agreement, we will be required to release about 25 temporary employees by September 27, 2024." Watson said the 2019 UAW National contract does require that every three months the plant and the UAW local chairman agree to retain all the temporary employees they have in the building. Open permanent jobs at Fort Wayne LeTourneau said of the 250 part-time temps, 95 have been working in that status for 18 months, the rest were hired this year to fill in for vacations. He started pushing back at GM last December to make the part-time temps full-time. He said that GM told him if he did not sign the letter agreeing to extend the employees' part-time status, "they would fire them on Dec. 22." UAW Local 2209 Shop Chairman Rich LeTourneau stands next to a 2020 Chevrolet Trail Boss Silverado pickup built on June 2, 2020. It was recently at GMs Fort Wayne Assembly plant. LeTourneau didn't want the people to lose their jobs at Christmas or to lose the $10,000 each had earned in profit sharing. "I wasn't going to give that money back to the company, so I signed it," LeTourneau said. "But I am no longer in the Christmas mood. (GM) can't run without them. If you can't hire all of them, hire the 95. They need them and we have open full-time jobs in that plant." LeTourneau said he sees "the manpower report" for the plant daily, and there are 45 open, permanant jobs at the plant right now. Kuhnen declined to comment on that statement or anything beyond the GM statement emailed to the Free Press. "They've been leaving jobs here for years and we haven't replaced one of them because GM keeps sticking temps on it," LeTourneau said. He said that in November, GM will offer another round of its early retirement buyout program that LeTourneau estimates about 100 of his members will take advantage of and leave, opening up even more jobs. That's why it makes sense to make the part-time temps full-time temps to fill those jobs. "If the company were smart they'd get ahead of the problem and not wait until we're down on manpower," LeTourneau said. LeTourneau said he is open to negotiating with the company right up to Monday, but he refuses to sign the letter to keep those 250 part-time temps, he wants them made either full-time temps with a commitment they will be kept for nine months or made permanent employees. Big Corvette launch needs manpower At Bowling Green Assembly, Watson said the national agreement allows GM to staff the facility how it deems is appropriate. "However, they are basically wanting to strong-arm the members and the local unions and wanting to hold these part-timers in part-time status," Watson said. He said the 25 part-time temporary employees at Bowling Green already got letters from the company saying that "at the end of their shift tomorrow (Friday) they are being released by the company." 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. Watson said he has been negotiating with GM on this issue since the end of August. He said GM maintains it does not need the part-timers and releasing them cuts cost. Watson said the company does need them and has full-time openings at the Corvette factory. "GM told the plant manager he can have up to 80 full-time temps going forward for the next quarter when we started talking about it," Watson said. "But he is not willing and wants to keep them part-time." Again, GM declined to comment beyond its statement. "We currently are still understaffed with the amount of seniority people we contend we're supposed to have in the building," Watson said. "The Corvette ZR1, an important launch for GM, is due to launch later this year and, when you first launch a product it takes plenty of manpower." (This story was updated to correct a typo.) More: GM announces temporary layoffs of hundreds at Kansas plant More: GM recalls 450,000 pickups and SUVs for faulty brake fluid indicator 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: GM readies to let go of hundreds of temps over 2 local UAW disputes U.S. Rep. Jared Golden. (via Congressman Jared Golden/Facebook) There is no question that U.S. Rep. Jared Golden is at risk of losing his seat to Republican Austin Theriault. Last week, the first public survey of the 2nd Congressional District race showed Theriault leading the Democratic congressman by 3 percentage points. The Republican challenger, a former Nascar driver who served one term in the Maine Legislature, is running with the backing of former President Donald Trump and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson. Golden on the other hand has built his reputation as a Democrat who can split tickets and win in Trump country by bucking the party establishment, but hes now defending himself from attacks that he aligns too heavily with President Joe Biden. So as he clings to his seat, he seems to be grasping at anything that can help maintain his image and unfortunately that seems to be some of the anti-immigrant rhetoric that Republicans are so deft at wielding. The conservative playbook has always centered on a strategy of winning votes by stirring up fear and resentment of minorities, particularly immigrants. In the final weeks before the election, Trump and his ilk are really going for it, spreading lies about specific communities and false claims that Democrats were looking to add noncitizens to voting registration lists. And these lies have consequences. Not only do they misinform voters as a whole (and distract from real issues and challenges), but they are putting targets on the backs of some of our most vulnerable neighbors as weve seen recently in Springfield, Ohio. Last week, Golden was one of just three Democrats to vote for the House GOPs government funding bill, which included a controversial provision, the so-called Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act or the SAVE Act, that required proof of citizenship to register to vote a redundant measure because voting as a noncitizen is already illegal. It wasnt a surprise as he backed a similar bill in July. In a statement issued after the package failed to advance, Golden said his vote reflects two important principles: First, that keeping the government funded and avoiding a shutdown is a basic obligation of any Congress. Second, that citizenship in the United States confers awesome responsibilities and exclusive rights in equal measure including the exclusive right to vote in American elections. He added, To me and the people of my district, these principles are noncontroversial. Sure, 2nd District voters likely support the current law, but it seems like a significant leap to say that they back a bill that pro-democracy associations say would make it harder for eligible Americans to vote and civil rights groups warn is intended to elicit irrational fear of the growing number of citizens of color. Even the Bipartisan Policy Center said there are easier, more cost-effective ways to improve voter registration that dont create new barriers for eligible voters. Goldens colleague, 1st District U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, explicitly tied the effort to the anti-immigrant rhetoric that has ratcheted up in recent weeks. Weve built up the stigma about immigrants, the asylum seekers, the people who are in our country right now, Pingree told C-SPAN. Theres very little evidence of fraud around voting or of noncitizens voting. Its already illegal. I just didnt think we had to add that to the bill. To be clear, Im not saying Golden said or did anything explicitly racist. But rather his dismissal of the citizenship bill as noncontroversial gives credence and cover to the more overt racism being spewed by Trump and some members of Congress. Theres a difference between wanting to secure the border or improve the countrys immigration system, issues Golden has said several times he supports, and leaning into the false rhetoric around fraud and abuse being peddled by Republicans to sow doubt about our elections and voting processes. In response to questions about his support for the SAVE Act, Golden stood by his vote, arguing the law would require only routine documents at the point of voter registration, and it includes reasonable alternative processes to prevent any undue barrier to registration. He also disputed the connection between the proposal and anti-immigrant messaging. Very few people would advocate for letting noncitizens vote in American elections. So I take issue with the suggestion that standing by the long-held principle that citizenship means something is somehow akin to the lies and attacks other people are making against immigrant communities, he said, adding, I have never participated in these attacks or made claims about any voter fraud. My vote for the SAVE Act is about citizenship, not immigration, Golden continued. We are a nation of immigrants. This country is full of immigrants who became American citizens, and their right to vote is just as sacrosanct as the right of native-born Americans. Immigration in Maine I can understand why Golden felt justified taking these votes. The Pan Atlantic poll also found that 19% of CD1 respondents and 20% of CD2 respondents said immigration is the most important issue facing Maine today. The reality is that Maine officials, businesses and experts largely agree that in-migration to Maine, both people coming from other states and from abroad, is a boon to the state and part of the solution to Maines current and projected workforce shortages. Golden knows this, because his district includes Androscoggin County, which is home to a thriving immigrant community. In 2019, more than 4,000 immigrants (3.9% of the population) lived in Androscoggin County, according to a recent report by the American Immigration Council in partnership with the University of Southern Maine. The study found that immigrants in Androscoggin County are contributing to the safety net, bolstering the workforce, helping maintain a local manufacturing economy, and are on average better educated than their U.S.-born counterparts. As with any influx of people, there are short-term growing pains around the need for more social services and overall housing scarcity. The governors newly established Office of New Americans aims to address some of these challenges and ease the transition for new Mainers. But the idea that immigrants are a problem for the state is the result of calculated messaging, meant to distract and divide voters. Favorability drop It remains to be seen if Goldens votes end up winning over some of the key undecided 2nd District voters. But Im not convinced. While Im reluctant to extract too much significance from polling, one of the more interesting findings of the recent Pan Atlantic survey is that Goldens net favorability has dropped 19 points since the last survey in February 2024. Last winter, 16% of respondents had a very favorable opinion of Golden and 37% said they had a somewhat favorable perception. In response to the most recent survey, conducted Sept. 5-15, 11% said they had a very favorable opinion of Golden and 32% said somewhat favorable. Whats more, 9% of 2nd District voters surveyed said they remain undecided and, according to the findings, those respondents were more likely to be younger and to be registered independents or Democrats. These are voters that should be solidly behind Golden. Whats ironic here is that while Golden is giving cover to anti-immigrant talking points, Theriault is running ads saying hell protect Social Security and bring more balance and less extremism to Washington. Im not a pollster nor running for re-election in a majority Republican District, but I believe that Golden could be bringing a more nuanced, compassionate approach to the immigration conversation, as he has done with other issues. Leadership should be more than pandering to the most base impulses of your constituents, and the voters of CD2 deserve better than that. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE STEINHATCHEE As Hurricane Helene pounded this tiny coastal community Thursday night, Charles and Dana Webb abandoned their wooden cottage, seeking shelter in a sturdier concrete house next door. They spent the next two hours huddled in a bathtub with their Great Dane puppy as the Category 4 storm raged outside. The decision likely saved their lives. Its gone. Theres a tree right on top of it, Dana Webb of the cottage she and her husband moved into just weeks ago but fled when they heard storm debris crashing into it. The house was split in half and destroyed by the hurricane, which also smashed restaurants, pushed boats onto land and drove one house into the middle of a road in the community along the Steinhatchee River on the states Big Bend. Helene came ashore around 11:10 p.m. near the mouth of the Aucilla River, which is north of Steinhatchee but also in the Big Bend area. That is a section of Floridas Gulf Coast that is sparsely-populated and home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways. Steinhatchee has fewer than 600 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The region was walloped by Hurricane Idalia last year and now faces renewed devastation from Helene, which drove a storm surge of 10 to 12 feet into the area. This few blocks here was Steinhatchee, said Russell Boucher, looking at 1st Avenue, the villages main road, and two demolished eateries, Roys Restaurant and Crabbie Dads Bar & Grille, on Friday morning. This was Steinhatchee. This is what everyone came here for, said Boucher, a resident and DJ whod worked at both restaurants. Linda Wicker, who has owned the waterfront Roys for 20 years, stood amid the wreckage of the restaurant with friends and family and said she would rebuild, just as she did after Idalia. The restaurant needed four months of work after that storm before it reopened earlier this year. Ive already started talking to architects and engineers about doing what we need to do to get this thing back on the ground, Wicker said. Roys, in business since 1969, advertised that it served good times and great food and offered the most awesome sunsets along the coast. Hurricane Helene turned the restaurant, which had outdoor dock seating, into a pile of building debris topped with a twisted tin roof. Scattered pots, pans and kitchen equipment as well as parts of a stove and other appliances were visible in the mess. Residents who survived Idalia said they were stunned by Helenes wrath, especially as forecasts showed the storm would make landfill further west near Tallahassee. Tina Dilibero was sitting on a truck in a driveway of a friends house Friday looking at where her home, the little blue one, once stood. The house is gone, she said. Shed spent the night with her friend, whose house flooded but survived. Her house survived Idalia but slid off its foundation and was wrecked by Helene, as was her car. The Webbs moved to Steinhatchee three weeks ago, moving into a rental cottage. This week, they knew the hurricane was a threat but thought Tallahassee would be its target. By the time, they realized their new community was in its direct path, it was too late to leave. Charles Webb did take the Taylor County Sheriffs advice and used a blue Sharpie to write his name and birthdate on his arm, in case the worst happened and anyone needed to identify him after the storm. Dana Webb said they spent the hours in the bathtub praying to survive the night. Would we do it again? Charles Webb said. No. But they plan to stay. Were going to figure out what were going to do next, he said. I dont plan on leaving Steinhatchee. This is where we decided to raise a family. director of strategy and operations for Google's global data centers, speaks to a crowd of some 100 attendees at the technology company's groundbreaking in Dorchester County Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette) RIDGEVILLE Google broke ground Thursday on a pair of data centers in Dorchester County, publicly announcing for the first time an investment of $2 billion that will employ 200 people. The Alphabet Inc. subsidiary also said it will spend $1.3 billion to expand its Berkeley County center. The tech giant took the opportunity to firmly plant its flag in South Carolina, even amid Statehouse discussions surrounding the massive energy needs of data centers and the new power plants utilities say are necessary to both serve a growing state and wean it off coal-fired power. This investment is a testament to Googles long-term commitment to this region, Audrey Van Belleghem, director of strategy and operations for Googles global data centers, told some 100 attendees gathered under a tent in anticipation of rain from Hurricane Helene. Alphabet, Googles owner, and other major technology companies such as Meta, the parent company of Facebook, have invested heavily in data centers needed for their artificial intelligence ambitions. We are at an early stage of what I view as a very transformative area and in technology, CEO Sundar Pichai said in an earnings call with analysts on July 23. When we go through a curve like this, the risk of under-investing is dramatically greater than the risk of over-investing for us here. The new centers under construction will bring Googles tally to three in South Carolina. It has built or has plans for three in Nebraska, two in Nevada and a dozen more largely across the South and Midwest. A deal on power What has caused some alarm is a deal struck between the California-based tech firm and power company Dominion Energy, which will supply power to the new data center near Ridgeville at a discounted rate less than half of what residential customers pay. Its not unusual for commercial and industrial users to pay less. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, residential customers pay an average of 14 cents for a kilowatt hour of energy in South Carolina, compared to 11 cents charged to commercial users and about 8 cents charged to industrial. The deal with Dominion took Google down to 6 cents. Even though theyre paying a rate 60% below, theyre consuming so much power that theyre paying a substantial amount of money to the utility, state Commerce Secretary Harry Lightsey said during a special committee hearing at the Statehouse last week in response to concerns raised by Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Isle of Palms. Having that money available, instead of just having to get that money from residential customers, is a significant benefit, Lightsey said. Dorchester County Council last year also approved tax breaks for the California-based company, reducing property taxes to a 4% rate typically reserved for owner-occupied homes in the state. The deal is good for up to 53 years. Google hasnt disclosed how much water the data center will use to cool its servers, calling that a trade secret. The secrecy prompted a lawsuit from a Charleston County resident. That case is pending. When it comes to energy, we will pay our fair share, said Lilyn Hester, head of southeast external affairs and government relations for Google, told reporters Wednesday. And when it comes to data centers, we can build anywhere in the world, she continued. But those projects come with billion-dollar price tags. So, when the state offers these incentives, like any other company, we will take the state up on those opportunities, Hester said. The right project At the Thursday event, Google also touted a $1.6 million donation its making to improve energy efficiency for low-income households in both South Carolina and North Carolina and a $600,000 donation to pay for conservation projects in the Palmetto State. The Sustainability Institute, a North Charleston nonprofit focused on energy efficient homes and buildings, also highlighted Googles work alongside South Carolina utility companies to bring on 128 megawatts of new solar energy and battery storage to help power the centers. This is the right project for Dorchester County, said County Council Chairman Todd Friddie. It brings an enormous amount of tax dollars to our school district and for the county, with very little impact to our roads and to our school district. Construction on the two new centers will take a year to 18 months, Hester said. The 200 new jobs will be a mix of maintenance and security roles, as well as computer technicians and engineers. Those workers join the more than 400 employed at the Berkeley County center. Officials did not provide a breakdown of jobs or their pay. Though the job count is less than many of the major manufacturers in the state, Lightsey told lawmakers last week thats what makes these centers a good fit for more rural counties that dont have the workforce necessary for companies like Boeing or Scout Motors. The groundbreaking was between rural Ridgeville and the fast-growing Charleston suburb of Summerville. Other benefits Legislators last week also heard from data center operator DC Blox, which will eventually have three centers in the state a nearly $2.5 billion investment, according to CEO Jeff Uphues. Uphues spoke to the benefits of DC Blox having a presence in cities such as Spartanburg and Myrtle Beach. He said his company covered the cost of electric substations and upgrades to power lines worth tens of millions of dollars that are benefiting other companies locating near the Berkeley County center it has under development. In Myrtle Beach, he said, other technology companies are now coming into an industrial park that sat empty for a decade. And while he did not mention BMW by name, he said his companys contract with a global automobile manufacturer kept the Spartanburg carmaker from moving its technology department out of state in 2019. If we chose to somehow say that we were not going to allow data centers to locate in our state, that would send a signal that we dont really understand what the future would be as those types of resources become increasingly important, Lightsey said. Besides, he added, federal restrictions mean power companies will need to shut down their coal-fired power plants in the state and that electricity will need to be replaced. The bottom line is, there is going to be a need for additional generation capacity, regardless of whether data centers locate in South Carolina or not, he said. A sign for the Oregon Senate chamber in the Oregon State Capitol. (Amanda Loman/Oregon Capital Chronicle) Polling over the summer shows a Republican challenger gaining ground in a key Oregon state Senate race that could determine whether Democrats regain the supermajority that would allow them to pass tax bills without Republican support. Senate Republicans this week shared a polling memo conducted on behalf of Raymond Love, an Army Reserves colonel challenging Democratic state Sen. Chris Gorsek in the 25th Senate District in east Multnomah County. Salem-based Nelson Research surveyed 320 likely voters in July and 393 likely voters in September and found support for Gorsek shrinking. While 15 Senate seats are up for election this November, only three are in competitive districts. Along with the 25th Senate District, Republican Sen. Dick Anderson of Lincoln City is defending his seat in the coastal 5th Senate District and Democrat Anthony Broadman and Republican Michael Summers are vying for the Bend-based 27th Senate District, now represented by Republican Tim Knopp. Both districts have more registered Democrats than Republicans. Democrats hold 17 seats in the Senate, one shy of the 18-vote threshold for creating new taxes or raising existing ones. Winning either of the Republican-held districts could make it easier to pass a substantial transportation funding package next year, while losing Gorseks seat would require winning in both Republican districts to reach a supermajority. The polling memo sent by the Senate GOPs campaign arm doesnt include a margin of error. But Nelson Research reported that its July poll found that more than 51% of respondents supported Democrats in general and 43% preferred Gorsek, and that went down to 46% and 39% by September. Support for Republicans rose from almost 34% in July to 39% in September, while Loves support went from 29% to 36%. The district has about 89,000 registered voters, and about 32% are Democrats compared with nearly 20% Republicans. The firm, owned by Republican lobbyist J.L. Wilson, attributed that dramatic swing in part to increased enthusiasm over Vice President Kamala Harris becoming the new Democratic nominee. National polling averages have shown Harris already slim lead over Republican Donald Trump narrowing since late August. On balance, surveys conducted in late July and August produced distorted results favoring Democratic candidates due to the unique circumstances of Kamala Harriss ascension to be the Democratic nominee for president and the temporary enthusiasm it generated among some survey respondents, the polling memo said. It, in fact, produced a response bias during this period in which newly energized voting blocs were all too eager to talk to pollsters. By September, this response bias has largely subsided and has produced a more accurate reflection of voter sentiment. Love, for his part, credited his campaign strategy of knocking on more than 4,000 doors in the district. Ive been out walking nearly every day of the week, and people are upset with Gorseks representation over the last four years, he said in a statement. The response at the doors has been overwhelming; voters are ready for a change. Oliver Muggli, executive director of the Senate Democratic Leadership Fund, said Nelson Research isnt a reputable polling firm and noted that it has a low rating on poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, which gave the firm a score of 1.4 out of three stars after analyzing one poll. East Multnomah County has emerged as a battleground in recent elections. Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek won the Senate district by just 50 votes in 2022, and a conservative candidate won the race for Multnomah County district attorney this spring. Along with Gorsek in the Senate, Republicans are targeting state Reps. Zach Hudson and Ricki Ruiz, Democrats who represent the 49th and 50th House Districts nested in the Senate district. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) Utah Gov. Spencer Cox met with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul today in a historic international trade meeting. In a press release from Coxs office, officials said the metting is part of a broader delegation involving 47 Utah businesses and organizations, underscored the deepening economic and cultural ties between Utah and Korea. The Korean economy, much like Utahs, has delivered sustained prosperity through innovation and growth, said Cox. Through shared values and mutual respect, President Yoon and I are committed to increased collaboration, which we hope will serve as a global example of how two regions can address challenging issues and create lasting positive change. Cox, who will be in Asia through Oct. 4 as part of the trade mission, will also visit Tokyo. The trip, according to the governors office, aims to strengthen ties in key industries such as manufacturing, aerospace and defense, life sciences, financial services, and fintech. The visit is also a follow-up to previous missions to South Korea in 2018 and Japan in 2019, according to Coxs office. Coxs trip is also slated to take him to the University of Utahs Asian campus in Incheon, South Korea, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. The visit also comes as Salt Lake City International Airport and Delta Airlines announced a new nonstop daily flight to Seoul-Incheon International Airport starting in 2025. The release said the governor and president also reflected on the 21,500 Utahns who fought in the Korean War in the 1950s. Utah is also home to 15,000 Korean Americans. Coxs office said President Yoon expressed deep respect for the people of Utah and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a formal apology for Californias role in slavery and legacy racism against Black people as part of a legislative package on Thursday. The State of California accepts responsibility for the role we played in promoting, facilitating, and permitting the institution of slavery, as well as its enduring legacy of persistent racial disparities. Building on decades of work, California is now taking another important step forward in recognizing the grave injustices of the past and making amends for the harms caused, Newsom said in a statement. California banned slavery in 1850 but the state had no laws that made it a crime to keep someone enslaved or require that they be freed, thus allowing slavery to continue. California lawmakers introduce first-in-nation slavery reparations package For example, the federal Fugitive Slave Act required government officials and ordinary white citizens in all states and territories to actively assist slaveholders in recapturing enslaved people who escaped from slave-holding jurisdictions. Assembly Bill 3089, introduced by Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), also calls for a plaque memorializing the apology to be installed at the state Capitol. Newsom also signed bills that would, among other things, strengthen protections against discrimination, address food and medical deserts, and increase access to literature in prisons. Despite the bill signing, Newsom also received heat for vetoing two other reparations bills. One would have begun the process of reviewing claims from people who believe they lost property through the racially motivated use of eminent domain. Black Californians could receive up to $1.2 million in reparations payments, task force says Another bill, pending federal approval, would have expanded Medi-Cal coverage to include benefits for medically supported food and nutrition. California joins Florida, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Alabama, New Jersey and Iowa in issuing formal apologies for their role in slavery, acknowledging historical injustices and the ongoing impacts of racial discrimination. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. ATLANTA, Ga. (WSAV) Governor Brian Kemp was joined by multiple state officials to deliver an update in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Kemp was joined by Georgia Emergency Management Agency and Homeland Security (GEMA/HS) Director James C. Stallings, Agriculture Secretary Tyler Harper, and Adjunct General Richard D. Wilson for the Georgia Department of Defense. The Governor praised the recovery efforts, only in their beginning stages as the sun starts to shine on the wreckage left over from the Category 4 hurricane. The storm moved in a different path than initially projected, with general wind gusts of 90 miles per hour (MPH). Alma, Ga., located in Bacon County, had gusts of over 100MPH. Kemp encouraged patience as the journey to rebuilding begins, with the top priority being medical centers such as hospitals and facilities that handle critical medical emergencies. One facility in particular is South Georgia Medical Center in Valdosta, which is currently without power. One way or another, were going to get power back on there, said Gov. Kemp. 1,000,000 Meters are without power according to Georgia Power. The company has 10,000 personnel ready to respond to the outages. Across the state, 17 shelters are open, holding an estimated 1,100 people. The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) reports that there have been 152 road closures throughout the state, including two Interstates: Interstate 16 in Laurens County and Interstate 20 outside of Augusta. Generators have been deployed to help power traffic lights. Bridges are in good shape and the Savannah Port is operational, though with limited output due to precautionary measures. Northeast Georgia will prepare for a water release out of Lake Raybun Reservoir in Raybun. At this time, 500 National Guard soldiers and airmen have been mobilized to assist in route clearance and debris removal. Yesterday, 250 were deployed, and today, another 250. These Guardsmen have been assigned to clearance teams. As for the agriculture impact, scores of timber, dairy, poultry and other agriculture facilities are without power. Ag. Secretary Harper is also working to get gas stations and general stores back online and open. Harpers message to farmers echoed his words after Debby just over a month ago: document, document, document. The more agriculture workers can show their damage, the easier the assessment and ultimate rebuilding. Talks are already underway about federal assistance. For those who want to volunteer in recovery efforts or debris removal, Kemp urges you to contact your local EMA for ways to help. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WSAV-TV. Brutal heat continues to plague the south-west US, with excessive heat alerts lingering long into September as parts of the region set grim new records for deaths connected to the sweltering temperatures. Autumn has offered little reprieve for cities that have already spent months mired in triple-digit temperatures. This week, Las Vegas, Nevada; Phoenix, Arizona; and Palm Springs, California, are all grappling with severe weather, with highs that have pushed over 100F (38C). More than 16 million people in the US were under heat alerts on Friday, according to the National Weather Service, mostly clustered in the southern tips of Nevada, Arizona and California. Late-season heat is dangerous because people are fatigued from fighting heat all summer, the NWS forecast office in Las Vegas cautioned in an alert, which warned of extreme weather expected to last through the weekend and into next week. This is especially true this year, it added, as 2024 continues to break all-time heat records. Fueled by the climate crisis, and often exacerbated by concrete cityscapes that cook when temperatures rise, heatwaves are getting longer, larger and more intense. Related: 93F and no electricity: why some US utilities can cut power despite heatwaves Las Vegas had its 102nd day of temperatures above 100F on Friday, a new record for the most days in a single year. Several states, including Arizona and California, have experienced their warmest summers on record this year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and forecasters are predicting that 2024 may rank as the hottest year a record just set in 2023. But its not over, NWS Las Vegas said on Twitter, noting the heat warnings lingering in the forecast through the weekend. The scorching and sustained heat has taken a devastating toll; heat already ranks as the most lethal weather-related disaster in the US, and deaths are increasing. Heat-associated fatalities are growing across the south-west, where shadeless streets can grow hot enough to cause second-degree burns in seconds. As dangerously hot weather stretches past summer and into spring and fall, the risks for those who dont have access to cooling have continued to rise. In Arizonas Maricopa county, home to Phoenix, 664 fatalities are believed to have been linked to the heat this year , according to public health officials, who are still working to confirm more than half of them. Southern Nevada, where Las Vegas is located, has seen more deaths this year than in any year prior, with officials confirming this week that there have been 342 fatalities linked to the heat. This surpassed last years record, which marked an 80% increase over 2022. But even these tragically high numbers are believed to paint only part of the picture. Heat deaths can be difficult to track, especially among high-risk populations including in unhoused communities. We will inevitably see this number climb, Melanie Rouse, Clark countys coroner, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Older people, children and people with underlying health conditions are among the most at risk, especially among those without access to air conditioning, but first responders have also reported that heat-related emergencies have been climbing for workers. Delivery drivers, warehouse operators, our construction trades basically anyone who has to work outside we have seen emergencies from them and people with regular medical emergencies, and during a normal day the heat causes them to succumb, Scott Vivier, the deputy fire chief in Henderson, a city south-east of Las Vegas, said in July. Viviers department is among the first in the region to use a new tool called the polar pod, which enables emergency responders to pack someone in ice and water while they transport them to the hospital. Vivier said its had an incredible impact on their ability to save lives, and that theyve even been trained to use the pods to revive overheated pets. Exposure to prolonged extreme heat can also have lingering effects that are harder to quantify. As residents across the south-west yearn for the coming of a cooler autumn, public health clinicians have cautioned the heat can pack a psychological punch as well, leading to symptoms like irritability, anxiety and difficulty concentrating. CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS) A Charlotte man accused of robbing a local Waffle House with an AR-15 has pleaded guilty to charges, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of North Carolina announced. Charlotte resident Jermond Lowery, 29, pled guilty on Thursday to brandishing a firearm during a restaurant robbery. Court records stated that in 2023 on Halloween Lowery entered a Charlotte Waffle House, took out an AR-15, and told employees to get back.He then ordered them to open the register before telling them, Ill kill you right now. He was arrested on November 1st and faces a maximum sentence of 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 Queen City News. The lawsuit comes almost seven months after a federal judge struck down a similar law in California. (Aristide Economopoulos for New Jersey Monitor) Since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 declared a constitutional right to carry, gun-rights advocates have targeted New Jerseys famously tough gun laws, challenging one after the other in court, from its assault weapon ban to a prohibition on guns in sensitive places to a law that allows the state to sue gun makers as a public nuisance. Thursday, they sued again, taking aim this time at a state law barring gun owners from buying more than one firearm a month. This case presents a simple question of law. The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear Arms plural which shall not be infringed, attorney Bradley P. Lehman wrote in a federal complaint. The Constitution contains no limitation on the frequency or number of arms that an individual may lawfully purchase or otherwise acquire period, let alone in a 30-day period. The lawsuit comes almost seven months after a federal judge struck down a similar law in California. States gun restrictions have been toppling around the country in the wake of the landmark 2022 ruling known as Bruen, in which the courts conservative majority decreed that gun restrictions cannot stand if they werent in place when the nations forefathers penned the Constitution or are otherwise part of historical tradition. And that is exactly Lehmans argument. The first such one-gun-a-month law known as an OGM ban anywhere in the U.S. passed in 1975, and New Jersey didnt enact its ban until 2009, Lehman wrote. Such bans are not part of the Nations historical tradition of firearms regulation, he added. He wants a judge to declare the ban unconstitutional and permanently block its enforcement. The lawsuit was filed by the Nevada-based Firearms Policy Coalition on behalf of Matthew Struck of Morristown and Daniel Francisco of Englishtown. Since Bruen, that coalition has filed lawsuits around the country aimed at eliminating immoral laws and creating a world of maximal liberty. The coalitions president, Brandon Combs, said his coalition will force New Jersey and every other state to abide by the Second Amendments protections. Its been said that as goes California, so goes the nation, Combs said. In this case, Californias ban was properly declared unconstitutional and enjoined from enforcement following years of litigation, and so it will go with all such bans throughout the United States. The suit names as defendants New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin and Col. Patrick Callahan, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police. A Platkin spokesman declined to comment, and the state police didnt immediately respond Friday to a request for comment. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX (GUNNISON, Colo.) A Gunnison Police officer was arrested on Wednesday night, Sept. 25, and charged with incest after an investigation into allegations of sexual assault on a woman. According to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI), an investigation was launched three weeks before the arrest, following allegations that 41-year-old Daniel Huff had sexually assaulted an adult woman. Daniel Huff. Courtesy: CBI. The CBI said the request to investigate was made by the 7th Judicial District Attorneys Office after the CBI received a tip of potential abuse involving Officer Huff. The Gunnison Police Department has placed Officer Daniel Huff on administrative leave per department policy. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. H.R. McMaster, who served as a national security advisor during the Trump administration and was a top general in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, predicted an extended conflict between Israel and Iranian proxies and said that the U.S. needs to offer stronger backing to Israel and stop pushing for what he described as premature and foolhardy cease-fire agreements. McMaster, speaking at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies on Thursday, said that the ongoing war between Israel and Iranian proxies will likely be a long one, given that its effectively a seven-front conflict, and that the war has placed Israel in a more precarious position than its been in maybe since 1948. Its time for us to be much stronger in support of Israel, McMaster continued, calling on the U.S. to stop placing pressure on Israel to agree to cease-fires with Hamas and Hezbollah or to limit its responses to attacks on its territory. He also said the U.S. should make Iran pay a direct price for its proxies attacks. He said bluntly that negotiations with Iran, with the Houthis and with Hezbollah are not going to work under the current circumstances. Its really delusional, McMaster said. Its a fools errand These organizations will not be deterred at all until we impose costs on them that go far beyond the costs that they factor in when they take these aggressive actions. McMaster blasted the Biden administration for what he described as lax policy toward Iran, but he said those issues also plagued the final phase of the Trump administration to an extent, including the Trump administrations decisions not to respond to an attack on Al Asad Airbase in Iraq, Irans shooting down of a U.S. drone or Irans attack on a Saudi oil field. The Trump administration kind of backed off a little bit there, when I think that sent a mixed signal to Iran, McMaster said. But what really sent the mixed signal is the Biden administrations approach to try to resurrect the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], and to do so by providing inducements to Iran, he said, referring to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. McMaster brushed off the notion that the new Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian or indeed anyone in the Iranian government would be a reformist, describing that as a deliberate Iranian narrative that aims to push U.S. and international leaders to take a permissive posture toward Iran to avoid empowering supposedly more hard-line forces in the Iranian government. Its all B.S. Its complete B.S., McMaster said. The revolutionaries won. Theyre in charge. Its the supreme leader and the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]. Pezeshkian is not a reformist How many times do you have to be duped? Its like Wile E. Coyote. Figure it out, man, the ACME rocket-propelled roller skates might not work. Regarding the war in Gaza, McMaster argued that the destruction of Hamas is a precondition for getting back on a path to any kind of enduring peace between Israel and the Palestinians, or any kind of two-state solution you can imagine. As such, McMaster continued, theres a fundamental inconsistency in calling for cease-fires and then saying youre for a two-state solution, specifically criticizing President Joe Bidens speech at the U.N. General Assembly. It doesnt make any sense to me. In order to ensure the lasting defeat of Hamas and that prospect for peace, McMaster said it will be necessary to have a viable peace enforcement force operating in Gaza. He said he does not think the IDF can credibly perform that role, which will require developing relationships with the Gazan population to develop intelligence sources. He proposed a multinational force made up primarily of the Egyptian military, with assistance from Emirati special operations forces, some forces from Jordan and potentially other countries such as Uganda. It doesnt matter as long as they are seen as pro-Palestinian population and they can earn the respect and legitimacy by the population to give space or an alternative political order to emerge, McMaster said. McMaster said the U.S. will need to use all of its persuasive power, its incentives and disincentives to convince actors to step up and fill the vacuum. And McMaster said that large-scale rebuilding support should not begin until Hamas is removed from power. He described the Trump administrations two-state proposal as in retrospect laudable but of course, wasnt going to work. The former national security advisor also said he believes that there has been deeper coordination between Iran and Russia than publicly known on helping them deal with the blowback, the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks. He said that Russia has actively misled Israel about its posture while siding with adversaries including Syrias Assad regime and Hamas something he said he warned Israeli leaders about during his time in office. Looking at the global threat landscape, McMaster said he agrees with the assessment of the nonpartisan Commission on the National Defense Strategy, which outlined in a recent report that the U.S. faces a serious risk of a multifront war in the coming years, given the increasing cooperation among key adversaries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He said the U.S. needs to make larger investments in military modernization and buildup to properly counter and address that threat. View comments The Habitat Co. moves to end its property management for CHA, leaving 3,400 units of public housing in flux The Habitat Co., a property management firm that oversees about 3,400 units of public housing for the Chicago Housing Authority, has moved to end its management agreements with the agency after almost 40 years of partnership. Correspondence obtained by the Tribune Friday reveals that on Sept. 6, the Habitat Co.s president, Matthew Fiascone, informed CHA that his firm was denying the authoritys request to extend the companys property management contracts for the next year. The parties have not yet agreed on a formal end date for Habitats services, although a transition period will occur as CHA scrambles to secure new property managers for the 16 buildings Habitat manages. In recent years, we have observed significant changes within CHA that, unfortunately, have caused the good working relationship, and the collegial and respectful interaction that we once enjoyed as CHAs private property manager, largely to disappear, Fiascone wrote in his letter to CHA. CHA and Habitat began their working relationship in 1987, according to a Habitat spokesperson. Habitat has worked in affordable housing development in Chicago for more than 50 years. Out of the occupants of the about 3,400 units of CHA housing that Habitat manages, approximately 2,500 are senior citizens and 1,300 are individuals with disabilities, according to a response letter from CHA Chief Executive Tracey Scott to Habitat on Sept. 27. In its initial notice to CHA, Habitat offered to stay on until Nov. 1 while winding down its management services. However, in her letter to Habitat, Scott wrote that this shortened transition period was in violation of the contracts, which allegedly require a 120-day notice for any decision to abandon the properties. Scott proposed an extension of the transition period until Jan. 6, citing a potentially disruptive impact on thousands of CHA residents and their families. Residents at Dearborn Homes, a 688-unit CHA development in the Douglas neighborhood, told the Tribune in August that housing conditions rapidly deteriorated after a new property manager took over from the Habitat Co. eight years earlier. The essence of CHA and Habitats relationship relates to our obligations to serve the needs of thousands of mostly senior Chicagoans who live in the CHA properties that Habitat manages, Scott wrote. Putting our residents interests above whatever grievances we may have against each other, and as a reflection of the deep and ongoing partnership between our organizations, CHA requests that we cooperate through the proposed date of January 6, 2025, to faithfully transition to new management. Neither party would comment Friday regarding when the end date would be, with a Habitat spokesperson claiming that it is still under negotiation. A spokesman for CHA wrote in an email to the Tribune on Friday that the agency is actively working to secure new property managers to take over once Habitats services end, adding that the CHA does not anticipate an adverse impact on residents. He also wrote that CHA is currently communicating with residents of Habitats buildings regarding the upcoming changes, and plans to host resident meetings when new property management teams are identified. In his Sept. 6 letter, Fiascone criticized CHA for significant non-performance of its obligations, citing the agencys alleged demands that Habitat agree to obtain its own liability insurance for the properties it manages. He states that it would be customary in the residential property management world for CHA to cover Habitat under its own insurance program, adding that Habitat had made very clear that it would never agree to any contract where this was not the case. Fiascone also alleges in the letter that CHA failed to properly communicate with Habitat while trying to extend the agreements for all 16 of the properties it manages, sending the request for an extension to an administrative assistant who was out on leave instead of Habitats senior leadership. The Aug. 31 expiration date then passed before the request made its way to the relevant individuals at Habitat, Fiascone wrote. However, even if CHA had successfully requested a renewal before the deadline, Fiascone wrote that it would have been ineffective due to existing problems that have also led Habitat to determine that it is not willing, or required, to continue to manage CHA properties. In CHAs response, Scott admitted that the agency had sent its extension request to the wrong person, stating that it was an oversight. She did not respond to Fiascones specific criticisms of CHAs allocation of insurance coverage responsibilities. The Habitat Co. declined to comment further on Friday regarding the specific reasons behind its termination of its property management relationship. For many years, our partnership with the CHA was mutually beneficial and an advantage to the residents, a company spokesperson wrote in an email to the Tribune. However, given the current challenges at the CHA, we no longer believe this partnership is in the best interest of Habitat or the residents. Theyve filed criminal charges. Theyre talking to the media. Theyve spoken out at the U.N. And theyre organizing politically. As anti-Haitian rhetoric and lies continue to spread, sparking violence and intimidation against immigrants from the overwhelmingly Black country, they and their allies are fighting back. Even as former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance continue to promote false claims that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating household pets, Haitian-American leaders and community members are resisting pressure for them to flee the U.S. or disappear from public life. Their staunch resistance underscores their ancestry as descendants of the first enslaved Black people in the Western Hemisphere to liberate themselves and their entire country from slavery, scholars said. This spirit of standing, of fighting, is ingrained in the very fiber of Haiti and its people. We are a proud people. Despite all of the difficulties, we have always been able to lift ourselves up. The first Black republic in the world, Haiti is proud of that, of its heroic fight for freedom and dignity, Edgard Leblanc Fils, president of Haitis transitional council, told the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday in remarks that spanned political unrest in the country and how Haitians are being treated during the current American political cycle. He took veiled aim at Trump and Vances comments saying, The passions that naturally arise during an election campaign should never serve as a pretext for xenophobia or racism in a country such as the United States, a country forged by immigrants from all countries, and which has become a model of democracy for the world. In Springfield, the verbal attacks and intimidation during this political season have been emotionally difficult and have forced some Haitian families to restrict their activities and some have even considered leaving. Over the past few weeks, Springfield has received 33 bomb threats, which strained city services. Haitian residents there and elsewhere have complained to local support groups and authorities about verbal and physical intimidation, and break-ins. Even so, Haitian community organizations are supporting their efforts to resist and make bold counter offenses. The California-based Haitian Bridge Alliance, a nonprofit group supporting that community, filed criminal charges against Trump and Vance in Clark County Municipal Court on Tuesday, alleging that their remarks have led to an unsafe environment for Haitians in Springfield. Despite receiving racist emails and comments and suffering a swatting attack a false report of an ongoing serious crime in order to elicit a response from law enforcement journalists at The Haitian Times have kept reporting on what is happening in their community, including compiling a list of ways to help. A nonprofit group in Springfield, the Haitian Community Help and Support Center, which has been inundated with requests for support from Haitians worried for their safety, has given voice to community members by speaking to media outlets on their behalf. Multiple Haitian groups, such as Ayisyen pou Harris Creole for Haitians for Harris are harnessing that spirit of fighting back and channeling that frustration and outrage into political action. They are rallying behind Harris presidential bid and encouraging others to do likewise. The moves come two weeks after another Haitian organization, the National Haitian American Elected Officials Network, demanded that the Trump-Vance campaign retract offensive statements and engage in meaningful dialogue to address the harm caused. In its affidavit, the Haitian Bridge Alliance wrote: Trump and Vance have knowingly spread a false and dangerous narrative by claiming that Springfield, Ohios Haitian community is criminally killing and eating neighbors dogs and cats, and killing and eating geese. They accused Springfields Haitians of bearing deadly disease. They repeated such lies during the presidential debate, at campaign rallies, during interviews on national television, and on social media. Though some legal scholars say the case may not gain traction, bringing awareness through filing is the point. Neighborhood kids gather to sell Kool-Aid and chips earlier this month in Springfield, Ohio. Some were kept home from school because of the bomb threats at their schools. (Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press) Roots in revolution According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are now more than 1.1 million people in the U.S. with Haitian ancestry. There are large enclaves of Haitians in Miami, New York and New Jersey, Boston, and most recently, in Springfield, Ohio, where city officials told The New York Times an estimated 12,000 to 20,000 have settled some decades ago and others over the past few years. Under the Biden administration, Haitians who arrived in the United States on or before June 3, 2024, can remain under Temporary Protected Status through Feb. 3, 2026, and can also renew their status. The status is a federal designation that allows those fleeing upheaval in their homelands such as civil unrest or natural disasters a chance to stay in America legally. Yet, Haitian migrants have long been treated with disdain by American politicians and scapegoated by those looking to peddle misinformation about the first independent Black country in the Western Hemisphere, experts in politics and Haitian history said. Haiti has been a beacon, a place people could look to and say Those are free people, and they freed themselves, said Niambi Carter, an associate professor in the School of Public Policy at University of Maryland and author of American While Black: African Americans, Immigration, and the Limits of Citizenship. Since Haitian independence, the West has held a huge grudge, Carter said. Haiti has gotten it particularly bad as the first free Black republic in the West. Upon gaining its independence, Haiti was forced to make reparations repayment to Frances slaveholders and their descendents an amount that is estimated to be at least $20 billion in todays dollars. The country has, for many generations, been the target of racist economic policies such as Americas 20-year occupation and financial control of the country during the early 1900s, said Carter, who is writing a book on U.S.-Haitian refugee policy spanning the administrations of Jimmy Carter to Joe Biden. This economic disenfranchisement, coupled with devastating weather events and waves of illness that have struck the island over the years, plus its own political turmoil, has left Haiti as the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti has gotten a raw deal in the sense of the diplomacy it has received, Carter said. It has been ignored, undermined, and destabilized. And, yet, she added, Haitians are enduring. Standing tall in the face of viral vitriol The recent attacks spawned by the Trump campaign have been steady. Shortly after filing criminal charges, the Haitian Bridge Alliance said they faced blowback. Since weve filed the affidavit, our organization has been barraged with harassment and hate-filled messages at the office, email, and individual phones, said Erik Crew, a staff attorney at Haitian Bridge Alliance. The group has vowed to stand by the Haitian community in Springfield and press its case in court. An Ohio community activist who has been assisting Haitian families in Springfield said that she, too, has faced threats. She asked that her name be withheld out of concern for her familys safety. She plans on continuing to fight for the Haitian community. Theyre not going to scare me off, she said. Im already in it. The Haitian Times founder, Garry Pierre-Pierre, recently told The New York Times that one of his editors was swatted and police were sent to her home after someone falsely claimed a murder was committed there. In its dedication to continue reporting the news, the organization shut down its websites comment section, which was overrun with racist comments, and canceled a planned forum in Springfield. Over the past year or so, Springfield, a sleepy, predominantly white, Rust Belt hamlet, saw its population swell after a push to draw new businesses and labor to town proved a magnet for newly arrived Haitians on Temporary Protected Status. City officials and longtime residents initially rejoiced at the newcomers arrival and the boon to the local industry. Many of them still do. However, last year, when a minivan driven by a Haitian migrant using a foreign license crashed into a school bus, killing an 11-year-old boy and injured 23 others, simmering racial tensions erupted. Some residents packed municipal meetings to complain about the Haitian migrants and used such phrases as criminals. The vitriol went viral in conservative online and social media spaces until, ultimately, it wended its way into Trump and Vances election year talking points. This is not new in the United States of America; its an old playbook used around election times that is anti-Black and that these so-called savages are trying to destroy your way of life, said Crew, whose family migrated to Ohio from the American South during the Jim Crow-era. His grandmother told them stories about watching as a girl as the Ku Klux Klan marched in Springfields streets. This goes back hundreds of years. Amid the current fallout, other Haitian groups said they, too, have witnessed an increasingly toxic brew of racist comments and threats. The Trump-Vance campaign did not respond to Capital Bs request for comment. When previously contacted by Capital B, the campaign did not directly address calls from Haitian groups for a retraction and a conversation and instead issued a statement indicating that the media should focus on the very real suffering and tragedies experienced by the people of Springfield, Ohio. During his rally on Monday in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, a small industrial town that has also seen an increase in Haitian migrants, Trump once again doubled down on vilifying the group by asking residents: Has your beautiful town changed? He said of Haitian migrants in Springfield: You have to get them the hell out. At the Haitian Community Help and Support Center, volunteers have worked long hours to try and meet the emotional and physical needs of the community. Many of those they help are afraid to speak publicly for fear of retribution. Some have contemplated leaving altogether, volunteers from support groups and attorneys said. When a Springfield man, according to a police report, allegedly recently barged into a Haitian familys garage and threatened the children playing there with a gun while yelling for them to shut the fuck up, they called the police. And though the family, according to the report, was scared to press charges for fear of retribution and the children are now no longer allowed to play outside, that act took courage, Crew said. Calling out the ugliness that has seeped into the public sphere is a fight that has even reached the halls of Congress. This week, when Republican U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, in a now-deleted social media post called Haitian migrants thugs and slapstick gangsters who needed to get their ass out of our country, Congressional Black Caucus chairman Rep. Steven Horsford, a Nevada Democrat, reportedly confronted him, called for a House Committee on Ethics investigation and a House censure. Horsford took to the House floor on Wednesday to raise his concerns. Higgins told CNN that he stood by his comments and cited freedom of speech. Horsford clapped right back and vowed to push for censure against divisive, racially charged, hateful rhetoric. It is not about the next election. It is about everyday people in America feeling targeted, he told CNN. Today, its the Haitians. Who will it be tomorrow? Will it be you? The post How Haitian Immigrants Are Fighting Back Against Trump and Vances Smears appeared first on Capital B News. Hamburg man gets probation for stealing over $300K from dead relatives estate BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) A Hamburg man was given five years of probation for stealing more than $300,000 from a deceased relatives estate for a period of nearly seven years, the Erie County District Attorneys Office said Friday. Craig Arno, 63, stole a total of $342,036 from the relatives estate between September 2016 and August 2023. Arno was the executor of the relatives will and put the money into his personal bank account rather than donating it to local charities. Arno also did not report the stolen money on his personal income tax returns. He pleaded guilty in July to one count of second-degree grand larceny and one count of first-degree offering a false instrument for filing. As a condition of the sentence, he is required to pay the full amount in restitution. He paid $8,000 worth of restitution on Friday. Latest Local 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 News 4 Buffalo. (NewsNation) New York City Mayor Eric Adams has rejected calls for his resignation now that he faces federal conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery charges, but the decision to stay in office isnt his alone. There are several ways Adams hypothetical resignation or removal could unfold most of which would require an acting mayor to temporarily serve in his place. Its a question facing New Yorkers and Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul after a federal grand jury indicted Adams earlier this week. He pleaded not guilty to the charges Thursday. The 57-page charging document accuses Adams of accepting bribes and offering favors in exchange for illegal foreign campaign contributions. NYC investigations: Whos resigned from Eric Adams administration? Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said the investigation is ongoing. The conduct alleged in the indictment, the foreign money, the corporate money, the bribery, the years of concealment, is a grave breach of the publics trust, Williams said. We continue to dig, and we will hold more people accountable. Several top city officials have announced their resignation from Adams administration in recent weeks. Its unclear if or how those resignations may be connected to the mayors criminal case. Recent resignation announcements include those from New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan, former New York City Police Department Commissioner Edward Caban, chief legal counsel Liza Zornberg and New York City Public Schools Chancellor David Banks. Could Adams be removed from office? Hochul has the power to remove Adams from office. According to New York Citys charter, Hochul could remove the mayor once he receives a copy of the charges and has an opportunity to present his defense. She may also suspend him for as many as 30 days while the criminal case is still unresolved. The governor issued a statement Thursday saying she would review her options and obligations. A potential removal would be unprecedented. I expect the mayor to take the next few days to review the situation and find an appropriate path forward to ensure the people of New York City are being well served by their leaders, Hochul said. NewsNation did not immediately receive a response Friday to an email seeking additional comments from the governors office. Adams said Thursday he has no plans to resign and asked New Yorkers to withhold their judgment. What if Hochul doesnt remove Adams? If Hochul doesnt remove Adams, city officials could also form whats called an inability committee and decide by a two-thirds vote whether Adams is unable to carry out his mayoral duties. The committee would be made up of New York Citys corporation counsel, comptroller, speaker of the council, deputy mayor and the borough president with the longest consecutive service under their belt. If Adams were to resign before the upcoming general election, New Yorkers would choose the mayors replacement at the polls in November. Mayor Eric Adams corruption investigation, indictment: Timeline Who would take over for Adams? If Hochul were to remove Adams from office, the job would temporarily fall to New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams until a special election could take place. The acting mayor would have three days to announce the dates of a nonpartisan special election that would take place within the first three months from the time Adams hypothetically left office. Williams is a Brooklyn native and self-described Democratic Socialist. He previously served on the New York City Council from 2009 until 2019, when he assumed his current role. He lost his gubernatorial bid to Hochul in the 2022 primary election. Williams cites better policing, safer streets, affordable housing and transparency and accountability in city government as the principles driving his career in public service. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation. Colorado might have lost its position as a pivotal state in presidential elections, but that doesn't mean Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump are ignoring its voters and the 10 electoral votes they will award in November. When Vice President Kamala Harris makes her first trip to the southern border as the Democratic nominee, it will mark a major step in her effort to cut into Donald Trumps strength with voters on immigration. The issue is one of her top vulnerabilities. And Harris is going on the attack. She will use the stop in Douglas, Arizona, to call for tougher border security, while once again emphasizing Trumps role in killing the bipartisan border deal earlier this year, according to a senior campaign official granted anonymity to speak about Fridays speech. The campaign will also launch a new ad in Arizona and battleground states, highlighting her plan to hire more border agents, enforce the law and step up technology and stop fentanyl smuggling and human trafficking. The American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games, Harris will say, according to her prepared remarks. Voters continue to give Trump higher marks on immigration despite the vice president spending the last several months leaning into her record as attorney general of California to tout her work prosecuting international gangs and criminal organizations who traffic drugs, guns and humans. Shes also vowed to bring back the border bill if she wins the White House. Donald Trump got word of the bill, realized it was going to fix a problem he wanted to run on, and told them to kill the bill, dont put it up for a vote, Harris said during her interview Wednesday night with MSNBC. He killed a bill that would have actually been a solution, because he wants to run on a problem, instead of fixing a problem. According to the senior campaign official, Harris wanted to travel to the border to reiterate this message, speaking in a community on the frontlines of the immigration challenge. She will meet with border patrol agents on Friday, her campaign said, and she plans to say that agents need more resources. The border bill she supported would have hired 1,500 more border agents and officers and was endorsed by the Border Patrol union. The vice president will also talk about fentanyl and press the Chinese government to crack down on companies that make the chemicals used to make the drug. The visit comes as Trump continues to pummel Harris on immigration, misleadingly labeling her a border czar to exaggerate her work on addressing the root causes of migration in the Joe Biden administration. On the day of Harris acceptance speech at the Democratic convention last month, Trump visited Cochise County, Arizona the same county Harris will visit to blame her for the border crisis. He slammed Harris again on Thursday for her plans to visit the border, knocking her during a press conference in New York City for playing right into the hand of her opponent. He also continued to rail against the border bill, which he called atrocious and an amnesty bill. She should save her airfare. She should go back to the White House and tell the president to close the border, Trump said. Instead, shes going there to try and convince people that she wasnt as bad as everybody knows she was. She was the worst in history, grossly incompetent, weak and ineffective. Harris has previously visited the border in her capacity as vice president. But early on in the Biden administration, she drew negative headlines after a rocky sit-down with NBCs Lester Holt, who asked why she hadnt visited the border. And I havent been to Europe, Harris said a clip Republicans have continued to recycle as they slam Harris on an issue into which theyve poured millions of dollars. Those comments came when the White House was struggling with immigration staff turnover and widespread confusion over its policy and messaging. Now, more than three years laters, Democrats have coalesced around a consistent, election-year message: Democrats want solutions, while Trump killed a bipartisan border deal for political gain. After the collapse of the border legislation, Democrats adopted an aggressive posture on the issue, pulling a page directly from Rep. Tom Suozzis playbook after he won his February special election in New York by running on strengthening border security. Harris advisers believe this message is finally breaking through to some voters, though theres more work to be done as evidenced by Harris decision to visit the border. Harris may also benefit from some facts on the ground, which she is expected to tout during her speech on Friday. Border crossings are now as low as they were during Trumps last month in office, averting media coverage of an overwhelmed southern border just weeks away from Election Day. After the border deal collapsed in February, Biden clamped down on asylum at the southern border in between ports of entry, which has led to a steep drop in illegal crossings providing Harris with a datapoint to hammer on the trail. While Democrats have been relieved by Harris messaging on border security, some allies and immigration advocates have been quietly pushing for the vice president to talk more about the need for relief for undocumented immigrants who have long lived in the United States, trying to navigate a broken immigration system. And they believe Trumps promises to implement mass deportations offers Harris an opportunity to relitigate his controversial family separation policy. The senior campaign official said Harris will speak on Friday about the need to secure the border while also creating an orderly and humane immigration system, arguing that the country must prioritize both security and protecting its legacy as a nation of immigrants. Lisa Kashinksy contributed to this report. Harris to call for tighter asylum, border control measures, campaign says By Trevor Hunnicutt DOUGLAS, Arizona (Reuters) -U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris will call on Friday for tighter asylum restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border, as she delivers a speech in Arizona, a campaign official said. Under the proposal, Harris will call for a change to an existing asylum ban at the border by President Joe Biden's administration that would leave it in place for longer, the official said. Harris will face off against Republican Donald Trump in the Nov. 5 presidential election and immigration is a top voter concern, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling. Trump has criticized Harris for record numbers of migrants caught illegally crossing the border in recent years. Harris blames Trump for encouraging Republican lawmakers to sink a bipartisan bill in the U.S. Senate that aimed to tighten border security. Biden issued a sweeping asylum ban in June that allows migrants caught crossing illegally to be quickly deported or turned back to Mexico when the daily average of border arrests tops 2,500 over a week. The ban took effect immediately and will remain in place until border arrests drop below an average of 1,500 per day for one week, followed by a two-week waiting period. Harris is expected to propose changing the policy to lower the 1,500 threshold that allows it to be lifted. The Biden policy was issued on an emergency basis and Biden officials have considered toughening it when it is finalized. Harris will detail the changes in a speech in the border town of Douglas, Arizona. (Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Writing by Eric Beech; Editing by David Ljunggren and David Gregorio) Vice President Harriss campaign said Friday it launched its largest weekend of action yet, mobilizing volunteers in battleground states about five weeks out from Election Day. In an announcement sent first to The Hill, the Harris campaign said it is aiming to reach more than 1 million voters this weekend through more than 25,000 volunteer shifts and 4,000 events across battleground states. Surrogates including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D), Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.) and producer Shonda Rhimes will be part of the weekend of action too. The campaign is expected to use the weekend to bash former President Trump over his campaigns field operation, calling it weak in the announcement. Harris battleground state director Dan Kanninen argued Democrats have a massive battleground advantage over the Trump operation. With just 39 days left, we are pushing our edge on the ground to underscore the stakes of this election to the voters who will decide this election, Kanninen said. The margins in this election will be razor-thin, and we are dedicated to leaving it all out on the field. The weekend will include a Working Women for Kamala coalition event in Georgia, a brunch in Pennsylvania and a Politics in the Playground event in Minnesota. As for the candidate, Harris will travel to Arizona on Friday for a visit to the border, California on Saturday to fundraise, and Nevada on Sunday for a rally. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Harris to criticize Trump in her 1st visit to border in more than 3 years Vice President Kamala Harris will visit the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday -- her first trip there in more than three years -- to call for tougher security measures and attack former President Donald Trump on an issue that has plagued her, a senior campaign official said. Harris plans to deliver remarks in Douglas, Arizona, a border town in the critical battleground state, where she will continue to criticize Trump for his role earlier this year in tanking a bipartisan bill that was the result of months of negotiations. "The American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games," Harris plans to say, according to the senior official, who was granted anonymity to discuss a speech the vice president has yet to deliver. PHOTO: Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she boards Air Force Two at LaGuardia Airport in New York, Sept. 22, 2024. (Piroschka Van De Wouw/Reuters) MORE: Harris, in first interview, addresses policy shifts, border and Trump's attacks She will take a strong line in her remarks Friday and make the case that "American sovereignty requires setting rules at the border and enforcing them," the senior official previewed. As part of her trip, Harris will also meet with border patrol agents, the senior official said, and tout the pay raises the Biden administration gave agents and argue they "need more resources to do their jobs to keep America safe." Harris' trip comes as immigration is a top issue for many voters ahead of the election. A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll found that 70% viewed immigration at the southern border as an "important" issue for them, and Trump led Harris by 10 points on who voters thought was best suited to handle it. In 2021, President Joe Biden tasked Harris with the likely doomed-from-the-start assignment of solving the root causes of migration amid surges of migrants arriving at the southern border. Republicans have used this to label Harris the "border czar" though her task did involve U.S. policy at the border itself. The last time Harris made a trip to the border was in June 2021. Her infrequent visits have also been another source attacks from her opponents. PHOTO: Former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivers remarks to the press at Trump Tower in New York, on Sept. 26, 2024. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images) MORE: Trump vows mass deportation of protected migrants in Springfield, dismisses threats to town The senior official said the campaign hopes Harris's trip to the border will help close the gap between Trump on the issue. Trump held what amounted to a preemptive attack at a news conference in New York on Thursday. "She should save her airfare," Trump said. "She should go back to the White House and tell the president to close the border. He can do it with the signing of a of a - just a signature on a piece of paper to the border control; instead, she's going there to try to convince people she wasn't as bad as everybody knows she was." Harris' campaign is is releasing a new ad on Friday tied to her trip to the border. The 30-second ad, titled "Never Backed Down," highlights Harris' work as a prosecutor. "She put cartel members and drug traffickers behind bars, and she will secure our border," a narrator says in the ad. The ad says Harris' plans for the border include hiring more law enforcement agents, boosting technology and to "stop fentanyl smuggling and human trafficking." In her remarks at the border, Harris will say tackling fentanyl will be "a top priority" for her as president and will propose installing new fentanyl detection machines at the border, a senior campaign official said. She will also continue to call on China to quash Chinese companies' manufacturing of fentanyl precursor chemicals, the official added. "We need a leader with a real plan to fix the border and that's Kamala Harris," the narrator says at the end of the ad. ABC News' Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report. Harris to criticize Trump in her 1st visit to border in more than 3 years originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Harris criticizes calls for concessions from Ukraine during joint press conference with Zelensky in Washington U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and President Volodymyr Zelensky gave a joint press conference in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 26, ahead of their in-private meeting. Zelensky has been in the U.S. since Sept. 22, where he has held a series of high-level meetings with foreign leaders, as well as a visit to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Pennsylvania and an address to the U.N. General Assembly. Zelensky thanked Harris for her commitment to Kyiv and said, "we are grateful to America for supporting Ukraine." In her remarks, Harris reiterated her support for Ukraine and warned that a Russian victory would lead to further aggression and cause other nations with imperialist ambitions to be "emboldened." Harris said that she had "told world leaders (at the U.N.), nothing about the end of this war can be decided without Ukraine." But she added that "there are some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality, and would require Ukraine to forego security relationships with other nations." "These proposals are the same as those of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, and let us be clear, these are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable." Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, meets with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 26, 2024 (Win McNamee/Getty Images) While she did not mention anyone by name, some in the Republican Party, reportedly including presidential nominee Donald Trump, have suggested that Ukraine could cede territory in exchange for peace. At a rally on Sept. 24, Trump vowed to get the U.S. "out" of the war in Ukraine if elected president. Trump's rhetoric against Zelensky and U.S. support for Ukraine has grown harsher in recent days. He has claimed that Zelensky wants Democrats to win the upcoming presidential election and referred to him as "the greatest salesman on earth." Republican Vice Presidential nominee J.D. Vance said in an interview with Shawn Ryan earlier in September that Trump's plan to end Russia's war could include the establishment of a special demilitarized zone between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine would retain its sovereignty, but at the same time, it would have to give guarantees to Russia that it would not join NATO or any other allied institutions, Vance added. Read also: Biden-Zelensky talks: Ukrainian soldiers want firepower to win but question if US wants Russia defeated Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Harris to drum up tough on the border message in Arizona Vice President Harris will call for tougher border security measures as part of her campaign stop in Douglas, Ariz., while again hitting former President Trump for his role in scuttling a bipartisan border deal. In her first major border speech as the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris plans to tout her credentials battling transnational crime as attorney general of California, according to a senior campaign official. She will lean into border security, looking to tap into a formula thats worked well for Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who is running for the states open Senate seat. [Hispanics in Arizona] like what Gallego says, and I think its going to work for her. How long, I dont know, right? But shes going to those states, like Arizona, where youre going to find the people there nationally, she may not, it may not work 100 percent for her but shes going to get good reviews from Hispanics in Arizona, said Moses Mercado, a Democratic strategist. Gallego is running far ahead of GOP Senate nominee Kari Lake in most polls, while Harris is at best neck and neck with Trump in Arizona. The focus on border security, rather than on improving the immigration system, is a calculated risk for Harris. While broad majorities of Hispanic voters have historically supported comprehensive immigration reform, voters in border states are generally more receptive to border security proposals. And Harris is expected to focus her border comments on transnational crime, in part because unauthorized border crossings are at their lowest point since President Biden took office. Its a powerful issue against Democrats, no doubt, but [Republicans are] not running on it right now in [border] states, and I think its because people arent seeing it. If youre living in McAllen, Texas or Brownsville, is it an issue? Yes. Is it a problem right now? They dont see it. They were seeing it before, but theyre not seeing it now, Mercado said. The relative lull in border crossings has fueled other culture war issues but has also provided a space for Democrats such as Harris and Gallego to bolster their border enforcement credentials without alienating immigration advocates. And Harris is expected to again hammer Trump with his role in derailing the Senate border deal that would have gutted asylum, and which both advocacy groups and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus vehemently opposed. The senior campaign official said in an email that Harris plans to say, The American people deserve a President who cares more about border security than playing political games. While Harriss support for that deal could be a liability on her left flank, it has proven an effective tool to portray Trump as opportunistic, even on his signature issue. Its either, Were going to get tough on the border, is one side of it, were going to try to do immigration right. But you know, whatever the nuances is, the alternative is were deporting everybody if we win, Mercado said. So where do the groups go? Its hard for them to tell their people, Yeah, were pissed at Gallego and the vice president, so lets go vote for the guy thats going to deport us all. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Vice President Kamala Harris is cozying up to the cryptocurrency industry in the final stretch of the presidential campaign, embracing an industry scorned by progressives and giving hope to moderates who want her administration to take a more business-friendly approach to the economy. Progressive policy makers largely celebrated the economic approach of President Joe Biden, whose administration embarked on an effort to reverse what liberals saw as 40 years of corporate dominance of policy-making in Washington. The approach also kept the Democratic Party, which seemed at the edge of an ideological fracture during the 2020 primaries, largely united. Harris embrace of crypto coming just two years after the collapse of FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange that embarrassed the industry and erased more than $1 trillion of investment, including many peoples life savings is her most noteworthy reversal from Bidens economic approach so far. Her crypto-friendly approach is partially a reflection of how the industry has used money to conquer Washington. It has won allies throughout Congress and managed to enlist a small army of digital asset holders to do its political bidding. Whether its a sign of a broader ideological shift on Harris part is unclear, and the Democratic nominee may have an interest in keeping it that way as she tries to keep every possible element of the coalition happy ahead of an ultra-close November election. Interviews with crypto supporters, opponents and Harris allies, however, point to a scenario where Harris may be seeking to correct what moderate Democrats view as a major mistake by the Biden administration an unwillingness in their eyes to even engage with the business community, including crypto without wholly abandoning many of the policies the partys progressive wing loves. I find it telling that Vice President Harris is proactively signaling openness to embracing emerging technologies like blockchain, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), one of the biggest boosters of crypto in the Democratic Party, told HuffPost, referring to the decentralized ledger that undergirds the crypto system. I actually think as a product of Silicon Valley, she has a natural openness to new technology, more so than the Biden administration. But a slightly more friendly approach to Silicon Valley (Harris mentioned AI, quantum computing and blockchain as sectors that will define the nation the next century in an economic speech in Pittsburgh on Wednesday) does not inherently mean an abandonment of many of the labor-friendly, climate change-fighting industrial policies the Biden administration pursued. Its easy to see why people think this is the Biden Administration plus Silicon Valley, said Michael Madowitz, the principal economist at Roosevelt Forward, the political arm of the progressive think tank, the Roosevelt Institute. But that doesnt mean she cant focus on balancing corporate power, on making sure American workers get a fair shake. Many of those progressive-friendly policies were included in an 82-page policy manifesto, A New Way Forward For The Middle Class, which Harris campaign released alongside her speech in Pittsburgh. They include hyping the Biden-Harris administrations antitrust agenda, including their fight against junk fees. The manifesto also promises to take on anti-competitive practices in the pharmaceutical, food and housing industries. In the same speech, however, she took care to deliver some calming words to the business community, saying she knows the limitations of government. She added: Ive always been and will always be a strong supporter of workers and unions, and I also believe we need to engage those who create most of the jobs in America. What may ultimately determine the ideological direction of Harris administration is who she hires. Crypto supporters are determined to oust Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler, for instance. And the presence of Harris campaign advisors with closer ties to big tech means the door may be open more for policy hands with private sector experience. One obvious instance: Tony West, Harris brother-in-law who is on leave from his job as the chief legal officer at Uber is almost certain to get a top role in her administration. And allies of Silicon Valley in D.C. are hopeful Harris closer geographical and generational ties to tech mean more open lines of communication than existed with Biden. Theres going to be a greater willingness to hire people who worked in the private sector. That doesnt mean theres no room for people on the left, said Caitlin Legacki, who worked as a top aide to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, one of the more moderate figures in the Biden administrations economic policy-making world. You dont have to sell the White House to corporations, but you should have someone to pick up their phone calls. Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at Carnegie Mellon University on Wednesday, delivering an economic address aimed at wooing the business class without backing away from the progressive priorities of the Biden administration. via Associated Press In 2020, while Biden mostly appointed mainstream, experienced hands to lead roles at agencies and cabinet departments, progressives took many critical behind-the-scenes roles. This led to frequent grumbling, from both Republicans and moderate Democrats, about Bidens administration looking like one assembled by Warren, whom he vanquished in the 2020 primary. Now, as some of those same progressives fight for their jobs, popularity looms as a potentially deciding factor. Khan, for instance, has kept an aggressive schedule appearing with influential progressives like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, old hands like Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, and swing-state senators like Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Jacky Rosen of Nevada. (Even still, Legacki predicted Harris would be more selective about fighting ideological battles when it came to antitrust.) These same popularity contests, however, may doom Gensler, who has emerged as a unique target of industry ire, and who seems to lack the same popular backing benefiting Khan. And while the Biden administrations anti-monopoly posture has been generally popular with the public Kahn and Harris both have linked it to lower housing and health care costs its antagonistic relationship with crypto is seen as unlikely to win over many voters. Politically, Harris approach seems to be working. The economy had been a huge advantage for former President Donald Trump in his matchup against President Joe Biden, but Harris has closed the gap. Forty-three percent of voters said they trusted Trump on the economy in an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey last week, compared to 41% for Harris, with 15% saying they trusted both or neither. How Crypto Came Back The FTX collapse in November of 2022 scared off most Democrats from engaging with crypto, which the Biden administration did not exactly consider a critical issue when they took office in 2020. Many top officials in both parties viewed the industry as a sideshow, good for little more than slurp juice jokes as some rushed to return the substantial donations they accepted from FTX Chairman Sam Bankman-Fried and his allies. That left an opportunity for crypto critics like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and SEC Chair Gary Gensler. As the Biden White House focused on other topics, the SEC continued bringing dozens of cases against crypto firms for failing to comply with the securities laws enacted in the 1930s to protect investors from financial scams laws requiring basic disclosures such as the identities of the people in charge. As the FTX collapse faded from public memory, crypto advocates resumed their quest for new rules, claiming the old securities laws shouldnt apply. In May, the House of Representatives obliged by passing a bill that would diminish the SECs oversight of the industry. Nevertheless, the legislation passed with bipartisan support 71 Democrats joined nearly every Republican in favor but it was ignored by the Democratic-controlled Senate. Senate Democrats have sought to advance their own proposals that would reduce the role of the SEC in overseeing digital assets, but those too, have stalled due to GOP opposition. Meanwhile, the influence of the crypto lobby only grew. Crypto super PACs have spent tens of millions of dollars against Democratic candidates across the country, including in several critical Senate races that could determine control of the chamber next year. And its not just Republicans who are courting crypto donations: Future Forward, the leading super PAC supporting Harris presidential campaign, began accepting cryptocurrency donations earlier this month. Whats alarming is the capacity of billionaires and the crypto folks to put $40 million in Ohio, maybe put $60 million in Pennsylvania, said Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.). You know, its just as a reminder how messed up our political system is that folks with that kind of cash have such outsized influence. Most people dont understand it, but its powerful, and its money, the senator added. Earlier this summer, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats joined a Crypto4Harris virtual town hall to show support for digital assets. The event featured billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who has emerged as one of Harris top corporate go-betweens. Harris has also dispatched her top policy aide, Brian Nelson, to woo crypto industry figures. Theres been a real tangible effort from them to listen to us, hear from us, and reassure us without making any hard commitments and talk about crypto in a constructive way, a source familiar with the Harris campaigns outreach to the crypto community told HuffPost. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has spent substantial time courting the crypto fan base, which skews younger, male and caucasian. He even rolled out his own cryptocurrency business earlier this month. (The former president has had his own evolution on crypto. As recently as 2021, Trump called Bitcoin a scam and said cryptocurrencies in general were potentially a disaster waiting to happen.) Whatever the reason, the tone shift has seemingly affected even some of cryptos top critics. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said this week crypto is inevitable, while Warren took a non-confrontational tone when asked about Harriss openness to digital assets. Im fine with people buying and selling crypto, Warren told HuffPost. Its very important that crypto follow the same rules as every other part of our financial system, and making sure its not exploited by drug traffickers, terrorists and countries like Iran. Following the same rules as the rest of the financial system, however, is exactly what crypto does not want to do.More than anything, crypto proponents also want the next president to fire Gensler. Cuban said on social media this week the Harris campaign told him they opposed the administrations current approach to crypto, and he suggested that Gensler would be going away. CYA Gensler, Cuban wrote. You leaving is worth a point in GDP growth. Meanwhile, Republicans are skeptical that Harris embrace of crypto is legitimate and claim that she has little familiarity with the industry. Shes very close to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Elizabeth Warren hates digital assets, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), a top GOP advocate of the sector, said of Harris. I am more concerned with what I see, than what I hear. WASHINGTON Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris heads Friday to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona looking to recharge her candidacy in a key battleground state where she is losing ground to former President Donald Trump. Harris' trip to Douglas, Arizona about 120 miles southeast of Tucson, Arizona and home to the state's second busiest port of entry comes as a new poll released Friday by USA TODAY/Suffolk University found Trump leading Harris by 6 percentage points, 48%-42%, among likely Arizona voters. The difference is within the poll's plus or minus 4.4% margin of error. Harris will deliver a speech at the border calling for tougher border restrictions, according to a senior Harris campaign official, who discussed the trip on the condition of anonymity. In her remarks, she is expected to slam Trump for encouraging Republican senators earlier this year to kill a bipartisan border bill backed by the Biden administration that included tough new restrictions for asylum seekers and additional resources for Border Patrol agents. Harris has accused Trump of lobbying for the bill's defeat because he realized it would "fix a problem he wanted to run on." But Trump has hammered Harris on the Biden administration's immigration policies and her role in addressing root causes of migration to the southern border. Immigration, a growing issue for voters, has been a weak area for Democrats and Harris. "The worst border crisis in the history of the world," Trump said Thursday in New York. "And the architect is Kamala Harris." More: Kamala Harris to visit southern border as immigration remains election liability Vice President Kamala Harris boards Air Force Two to depart Pittsburgh after giving an economic speech on Sept. 25, 2024. In 2020, President Joe Biden narrowly carried Arizona which has 11 electoral votes up for grabs by less than 11,000 voters over Trump. It was the first time Arizona voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since Bill Clinton carried the state in 1996. But the USA TODAY/Suffolk poll found Harris trails Trump 47%-43% in Maricopa County, a bellwether and largest county in the state that includes Phoenix. In 2020, Biden carried Maricopa County 50%-48%. Trump's current polling lead over Harris in Maricopa County is within the 5.4% margin of error. Latino support for Harris in Arizona lagging behind Its the latest sign that Harris is struggling to maintain momentum she gained in Arizona after taking the torch from Biden as the Democratic nominee this summer. On Monday, a new poll by the New York Times and Siena College showed Trump up by 5 points, 50%-45%, in Arizona. A Real Clear Politics average of recent polls has Trump ahead of Harris by 1.6 percentage points. Trump campaigned at the U.S.-Mexico border last month in Sierra Vista, Arizona. Harris previously visited the southern border during a 2021 trip to El Paso, Texas. Immigration historically a losing issue for Democrats in elections remains a liability for Harris even as she's gone on offense by emphasizing Trump's role in defeating the bipartisan border bill. The Harris campaign is also set to release a new television ad that will begin airing Friday in Arizona and other battleground states that says Harris will "secure our border" as president. A USA TODAY/Suffolk University national poll this month found likely voters, by a 50%-47% margin, believe Trump would do a better job handling immigration than Harris A Quinnipiac University poll this week found Trump with a wider 53%-45% edge on immigration. More: Harris, Trump to take part in dueling Univision town halls of Hispanic voters Although the Harris campaign has focused efforts to galvanize Latino voters in key battlegrounds like Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania, the vice presidents support among Latinos in Arizona is lagging behind the national level. Less than half 47% of Latino voters in Arizona said they support Harris, according to the USA TODAY/Suffolk poll. Trump has the support of 29% of Latinos in the state, the poll found. Arizona has around 1.3 million eligible Latino voters, accounting for about one-quarter of the state's electorate. Nationally, Harris holds a larger lead among Latino voters, 57%, compared to Trump at 39%, according to a report from Pew Research. Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrion and Rebecca Morin @RebeccaMorin_ This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Harris heads to southern border in Arizona where she's losing ground Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has doubled down on his anti-migrant rhetoric (ANGELA WEISS) (ANGELA WEISS/AFP/AFP) Kamala Harris pledged Friday she would tighten the border and fix America's broken immigration system on her first visit to the US-Mexico frontier as a presidential candidate. The US vice president is playing catch-up on immigration, with a majority of Americans saying they trust Republican rival Donald Trump more than her on one of the most important issues for voters ahead of November's election. In a speech in Douglas, Arizona before a friendly audience, Harris tried to straddle a tough-on-illegal-migration line with a promise to reach across the aisle to fix an immigration system she said was broken. "The United States is a sovereign nation, and I believe we have a duty to set rules at our border and to enforce them, and I take that responsibility very seriously," she said. "We are also a nation of immigrants... and so we must reform our immigration system to ensure that it works in an orderly way, that it is humane and that it makes our country stronger." Harris said as president she would revive a bipartisan border bill Trump "tanked" last year, which would add 1,500 border agents and pay for 100 machines to detect smuggled fentanyl, a synthetic opioid ravaging US communities. And she said anyone crossing the border illegally would be barred from seeking asylum in the country. But "hard-working migrants" who come to the US legally should be given a pathway to citizenship, she said. "I reject the false choice that suggests we must either choose between securing our border or creating a system of immigration that is safe, orderly and humane. We can and we must do both." She said Trump, who has repeatedly demonised immigrants as murderers, rapists and mentally ill people, is "fanning the flames of fear and division." "The American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games and their personal political future." Harris earlier visited the border wall in Douglas, where she met with Border Patrol officials and was photographed alongside the distinctive metal slats. It was her first visit to the frontier since Joe Biden ceded the Democratic Party nomination to her, and Republicans have hammered her for staying away. Arizona is one of the half-dozen battleground states expected to decide the agonizingly close November 5 election, and it is where polls show Harris may have to do the most work. - Illegal crossing - Hours before Harris spoke figures from the US Department of Homeland Security showed 425,000 non-citizens convicted of crimes are living in the United States, including more than 13,000 who have convictions for homicide. Trump leapt on the news, saying these people had been "let out of jail, and they're roaming our streets." Trump claimed -- wrongly -- that the numbers referred to people who had entered illegally under the Biden-Harris administration. In fact, the figures give no details on how long these people have resided in the United States, and experts say many could have been in country for decades. "These are people who, primarily, have already been charged and convicted and served their time," Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council told AFP. Reichlin-Melnick added that, under Trump, there were also millions of non-citizens living in the United States, including hundreds of thousands with criminal records. "The only reason that they cannot be deported is because of diplomatic issues with their home country and nothing to do with the US government's policy or practices," he said. - Weak spot - Recent polls have seen Harris eating into Trump's lead on migration with voters, yet it still remains a weak spot, with record illegal border crossings under her and Biden's watch. But Harris points to numbers that have plummeted since Biden signed an executive order in June temporarily closing the border to asylum seekers -- to around 58,000 in August from a peak of 250,000 last December. Republicans have focused on Harris's role early in the administration when Biden tasked her with looking into the causes of illegal migration from Central America. Trump's campaign slammed her "disgraceful" visit, branding it "a desperate attempt to fool Americans into forgetting the chaos and devastation she has unleashed over her four years as Border Czar." Trump has doubled down on his rhetoric targeting migrants, seeing it as appealing to his base of largely white, blue-collar voters. In remarks Thursday, Trump repeated his claim that migrants were "infecting our country," using language Biden's team has compared to that used by Nazi Germany. dk-hg/mlm Harris goes to the border to take Trump to task for blocking bill to fix migration issues: He prefers to run on a problem Vice President Kamala Harris went on the offensive against former President Donald Trump on immigration Friday during her visit to the southern border in Arizona as she tries to turn a political vulnerability on its head. Immigration has featured prominently in the 2024 presidential election, with polls showing voters placing more trust in Trump to handle the issue than Harris. Democrats, grappling with years of border crises, have tried to gain ground by pointing to the bipartisan border measure that congressional Republicans blocked earlier this year after Trump came out against it. Harris on Friday lambasted Trump for his role in stymying that bill. It was the strongest border security bill we have seen in decades. It was endorsed by the Border Patrol union. And it should be in effect today, producing results in real time, right now, for our country, she said at a rally in Douglas, a town on the US-Mexico border. But Donald Trump tanked it. He picked up the phone and called some friends in Congress and said, Stop the bill, she said. He prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem. And the American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games and their personal political future. She said she would ask Congress to pass the measure if she is elected, and would sign it into law. She also laid out a series of proposals that she said were not just about some rhetoric at a rally, but would help stem the flow of migrants into the United States. Advisers to the vice president remain concerned about the gap between the candidates on immigration. But they also cite recent polling showing Trumps lead on the issue eroding since Harris took over from President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket providing them an opportunity, they say, to amplify their message and close the gap further. Harris outlined plans during her Arizona stop Friday that would make it even harder to lift border restrictions that have largely barred migrants from seeking asylum in the US. Its the clearest example yet of the campaign doubling down on border security by embracing strict rules that have been condemned by some corners of the Democratic Party. Harris would go a step further than President Joe Bidens June executive action by making the threshold for lifting restrictions harder to reach. Solutions are at hand if we focus on fixing a problem and not running on a problem, Harris said. She said shed work with Congress to create a pathway to citizenship for hardworking immigrants who have been here for years, for years, and deserve to have a system that works, as well as Dreamers undocumented immigrants brought into the United States as children, who are allowed to live and work in the US under an Obama-era program but generally cannot become citizens under current law. They are American in every way. But still, they do not have an earned pathway to citizenship. And this problem has gone unsolved at this point now for decades, Harris said. The same goes for farmworkers who ensure that we have food on our tables and sustain our agricultural industry and they too have been in legal limbo for years because politicians have refused to come together and fix our broken immigration system. Earlier this year, Biden announced an executive action severely limiting the ability of migrants to seek asylum at the US southern border if they crossed unlawfully a departure from decadeslong protocol. Immigrant advocates have likened the executive action to Trump-era policies. The measure can be turned on and off and lifted when theres a daily average of fewer than 1,500 encounters between ports of entry, among other criteria. It remains in place. Homeland Security officials have credited the action for driving down border crossings to the lowest point since 2020. Trump alluded to his current polling edge Thursday as he slammed his rival ahead of her visit to the border. Why would she go to the border now, playing right into the hand of her opponent? the former president told reporters at Trump Tower in New York. She keeps talking about how she supposedly wants to fix the border. We would merely ask: Why didnt she do it four years ago? Part of the Harris campaigns strategy to counter Trump includes a new ad, titled Never Backed Down, that will run in Arizona and other battleground states highlighting Harris previous border-related work and outlining her plans, including hiring more border agents. She put cartel members and drug traffickers behind bars, and she will secure our border, the narrator says. A smuggler stands in the background as asylum-seeking migrants from India cross the border wall into the United States from Mexico in Ruby, Arizona, on June 26, 2024. - Adrees Latif/REUTERS/REUTERS An early strategy The Harris campaign signaled early on that it planned to counter Trumps attacks on the vice president and the administrations handling of border security. Only days after she launched her presidential bid, campaign officials released a video drawing a contrast between Harris and Trump on immigration policy notably leaning on border security. Kamala Harris supports increasing the number of Border Patrol agents. Donald Trump blocked a bill to increase the number of Border Patrol agents, the voiceover in the video stated. Harris previously visited the border as vice president and has cited her work as a border-state senator and state attorney general. Fridays visit comes at a time when border crossings are the lowest theyve been since 2020 and follows a recent New York Times/Siena College poll that showed Trump leading in the battleground state. A Fox News survey of the state that was released on Thursday found no clear leader, with Trump at 50% and Harris at 47% among likely voters. US officials have touted back-to-back months of low border crossings, citing recent executive action to curb asylum access at the southern border, even as Trump has levied attacks over the Biden administrations handling of border security. The dramatic recent drop in border crossings has provided a reprieve to the Biden administration after grappling with record crossings amid unprecedented migration across the Western hemisphere. Over that time, Republicans have falsely referred to Harris as the border czar, casting her as solely responsible for the management of the US-Mexico border. Its a title that Harris team has been trying to shake off since the moment Biden assigned her to tackle the root causes of migration in 2021. Harris has only occasionally talked about her assignment, which, sources said, has shown early success in Central America as a result of major private-sector investment. But thats been bundled with the administrations larger migration issues. Harris campaign officials think she has a case on immigration: using the failed bipartisan border measure to cast Trump as unserious at the border and citing her record as California attorney general tackling transnational criminal gangs. Campaign allies have also stressed the need to look beyond the border and speak to broader immigration reform, pulling from the vice presidents background in the Senate and in California working on immigrant issues. Its good shes going. Its helpful to get her message out there, one source close to the campaign told CNN. Obviously, shes at the border thats the primary focus. But also talking more broadly about the whole system. Last week, Harris slammed Trump over his immigration proposals, citing his contentious policies, including his proposal for mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, to paint a dark picture of her Republican rival. While we fight to move our nation forward to a brighter future, Donald Trump and his extremist allies will keep trying to pull us backward. We all remember what they did to tear families apart, and now they have pledged to carry out the largest deportation, a mass deportation in American history, she said at a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute leadership conference in Washington. Imagine what that would look like and what that would be. Hows that going to happen? Massive raids, massive detention camps. What are they talking about? she said. This story has been updated with additional information. CNNs Kit Maher contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Vice President Harris boasts a wide 14-point lead over former President Trump in the blue bastion of New York, new polling shows, roughly double the edge President Biden held there earlier this year. A new Emerson College Polling/The Hill/WPIX survey in the Empire State found 54 percent of voters behind Harris, and just 40 percent behind Trump. Another 3 percent support someone else, and 3 percent are undecided. Back in May, the pollster found Biden leading Trump by 7 points in New York, with 48 percent to 41 percent. The former presidents support hasnt changed much in the months since the May survey. The share of undecided voters, on the other hand, has fallen dramatically from 12 percent to just 3 percent, breaking for Harris. Another big shift has shown up among independents, who broke for Trump back in May, but have since shifted to favor Harris. The new poll comes as Trump has been homing in on New York. Though hes not likely to come close to flipping the deep-blue state, the former presidents campaign visits could help rally New York Republicans and protect a handful of House incumbents whose races could decide control of the lower chamber this fall. First-term GOP Reps. Mike Lawler, Anthony DEsposito, Marc Molinaro and Brandon Williams are all defending New York seats that Democrats have eyed as prime pickup opportunities in their fight to take back the House. Nationally, Harris boasts a 4-point edge over Trump, according to the latest polling aggregation from Decision Desk HQ/The Hill. DDHQs forecast has Harris all but assured to win the Empire State in Novembers presidential race. Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) is embroiled in controversy and facing federal corruption charges, according to an indictment unsealed this week. Hes rejected calls to resign even as some New York Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D), have pressed him to step aside, adding drama to the Empire State just weeks out from Election Day. Adams is notably up for reelection next year. The Emerson College Polling New York survey was conducted Sep. 23-25 among 1,000 likely voters and has a credibility interval, similar to a polls margin of error, of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. A poll of swing states by Bloomberg News/Morning Consult shows that Vice President Kamala Harris now leads by 7 points in Nevada, 5 points in Pennsylvania, 3 points in Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and 2 points in North Carolina. In Georgia, she and former President Donald Trump are tied. Despite Harris leads in key battleground states, her advantages are all within the polls statistical margin of error, highlighting the narrow margins this years race will be. Still, her 3-point advantage across all seven battleground states suggests momentum is on her side, as that lead is up from the 1-point advantage she had last month, Bloomberg reported. According to the poll, voters continue to say that the economy is their top priority. However, when likely voters were asked which candidate they trusted more to handle the cost of everyday goods, the results were practically a tie, with 47% preferring Trump to 46% for Harris. In earlier polls, Trump had enjoyed a decisive lead on the issue. Harris can also boast an 11-point lead among likely voters on the question of who they trust to help the middle class. The results suggest that Harris is benefitting from her recent focus on economic policy, along with ads from her allies and super PACs that have bombarded battleground states with information on her tax plans. US Vice President Kamala Harris has slammed suggestions that Kyiv should cede territory for the sake of peace with Moscow as "dangerous and unacceptable." The Democratic presidential nominee spoke alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as she unleashed the veiled criticism of Republican candidate Donald Trump's controversial push for Ukraine to quickly cut a deal to end the war. "There are some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality and would require Ukraine to forego security relationships with other nations," she said at a press conference in Washington. Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at Trump Tower in New York, September 26, 2024 - Seth Wenig/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved. "These proposals are the same of those of Putin. And let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable." Her comments were a reminder of the high stakes for the war effort in this year's election. Trump has criticised US assistance for Ukraine, praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and blamed Zelenskyy for the ongoing bloodshed. Trump said he will meet with Zelenskyy in New York on Friday after days of questions over whether the two leaders will sit down together. He rejected Harris' criticisms and insisted that he only wants to stop the "horror show that's gone on." Asked if Ukraine should give up territory, Trump said "we'll see what happens" and "we need peace." At the presser with Harris, Zelenskyy said a "lasting and just peace" was a top priority for Ukraine. "Not a freezing, but real, real peace for us. So we need to keep sanctions against Russia strong and we need to use that proceeds from immobilized Russian assets to protect Ukraine, our people, our cities, our frontline from Russian evil. And of course, we must work hard to bring all Russian war criminals to justice," he said. Zelenskyy was in Washington to present the White House and Congress with his plans for reaching an endgame in the war by improving Ukraine's chances on the battlefield and its eventual leverage at the negotiating table. He's pushing to lift restrictions on using long-range Western weapons to strike targets deeper inside Russian territory. A residential building is seen heavily damaged after a Russian airstrike in Kramatorsk, September 25, 2024 - Evgeniy Maloletka/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved No movement on that issue was evident during Zelenskyy's visit but President Joe Biden did announce billions of dollars more in missiles, drones, ammunition and other supplies. And addressing the UN General Assembly on Thursday, EU Council President Charles Michel urged China to reconsider its support for Russia and "use its influence to ensure that the United Nations Charter is respected." "The European Union supports and will continue supporting Ukraine as long as necessary, faithful to the promise of freedom and solidarity, committed to a just and durable global peace founded on the principles of the Charter of the United Nations," he said. Vice President Harriss campaign is launching digital ads in Las Vegas to engage with Filipino Americans ahead of Filipino American History Month. The campaign is placing digital ads in Las Vegas to engage with Filipino American voters as they gather to celebrate the richness of Filipino food and culture. Ads will also be placed on taxi tops, bus shelters, and billboards around the Pinoy Pride Festival on September 27. These ads underscore our campaigns efforts to reach Filipino American voters where they are and speak with them about whats at stake in this election, Harris Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Spokesperson Andrew Peng told The Hill. Asian Americans make up more than 10 percent of Nevadas population, and Filipino Americans are the largest demographic within that group. Close to 170,000 Filipino Americans are living in the state. In 2020, President Biden won the state by a little over 40,000 votes. During that election cycle, Asian Americans broke 65 percent Democratic. Its the largest and earliest investment ever in outreach, Filipinos for Harris founder Melissa Ramoso, who is also a council member in California, told The Hill. The pathway to 270 will be won or lost on the margins and Filipino Americans in Nevada have been the margin of victory. According to Ramoso, Filipino Democratic leaders have traditionally dedicated much of their time to driving out voters in the Silver State, which has been a swing state for over two decades. To do this for the Filipino American community, especially in Nevada, where a lot of our relatives and a lot of people we know go to retire and where many of our people have moved is really speaking to us, she said. The Harris-Walz campaign also expects Filipino Americans to have a decisive role in this election and has hired AAPI-specific staff in the state to help with outreach. As Filipino Americans gather to celebrate their history and heritage, Team Harris-Walz is proud to join in honoring the resilience and joy of this incredible community, Peng told The Hill. In July, the campaign conducted a media blitz in Nevada Asian American papers like the Las Vegas Chinese Daily News, Las Vegas Japan Times, and the Philippine Times of Southern Nevada. This is Harriss fourth Asian-American-specific ad blitz. Last week, the campaign launched an ad highlighting her mother, an immigrant from India. In another Asian-American-specific ad, the Harris campaign highlighted Rozita, a Filipina American living in Las Vegas, highlighting the active threat Donald Trump poses to the health of Asian American communities. According to Ramoso, healthcare and elder care are among the most important issues for Filipino Americans, as many are involved in the healthcare industry. The campaign also attacked Trump while rolling out this ad buy in Nevada, pointing to his decision to shut down their Asian American outreach center in the state. There has been no bigger advocate for the AAPI community than President Trump, Trump communications director Steven Cheung wrote to The Hill. Anyone who says otherwise is disgustingly using the AAPI community to play political games for their own benefit. The push to mobilize Filipino American voters in Nevada is part of a larger strategy to turn out Asian American voters, the quickest-growing demographic in the nation, with over 15 million eligible voters this cycle. Asian Americans are showing overwhelming support for Harris, with a recent poll showing that Harris holds more than a 30-point advantage over Trump in the demographic. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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' campaign visit to the Arizona border on Friday comes amid a significant decrease in the number of people crossing the southern border illegally compared to the record numbers of illegal border crossings earlier in the Biden administration. There are a number of factors behind the recent decrease in illegal border crossings, including a new policy put in place by the Biden administration in June that bars people from seeking asylum in the U.S. if they enter illegally outside official ports of entry, said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a research group in Washington, D.C. Asylum seekers are directed to enter through official ports of entry by making appointments using a free mobile phone app called CBP One. However, only a limited number of CBP One appointments are available at ports of entry daily. The Biden administration policy, activated during high flows of unauthorized border crossings, was intended to curb the massive numbers of asylum seekers many of them families, from a wide number of countries entering the U.S. illegally and turning themselves over to Border Patrol agents. Previously, asylum seekers who crossed illegally and turned themselves over to agents were processed at the border and then were frequently released into the U.S. to await the outcome of their asylum cases, a process that can take years because of huge immigration court backlogs. Now, asylum seekers who cross illegally risk being deported quickly and losing the ability to apply for asylum in the future, Putzel-Kavanaugh said. But even before the Biden administration policy was implemented in June, ramped up immigration enforcement in Mexico under pressure from the U.S. was already making it harder for migrants to travel through that country and reach the U.S. border, Putzel-Kavanaugh said. The implementation of new visa restrictions by some South American countries that make it more difficult for U.S.-bound migrants to reach the hemisphere by plane also has led to a decrease in asylum seekers arriving at the southern border, Putzel-Kavanaugh said. Through August of the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, about 1.4 million encounters have been recorded by the Border Patrol along the southwest border. That is a 19% decrease from the 1.8 million Border Patrol encounters through the same period in fiscal year 2023, and a 26% decrease from the nearly 2 million encounters through the same period in fiscal year 2022, according to an analysis of Border Patrol data. The U.S. border wall at Mariposa Canyon, west of Nogales, on Dec. 21, 2022, in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. The southwest border saw a 26% decrease in migrant encounters from fiscal year 2022 through fiscal year 2024. In August, the Border Patrol logged about 58,000 encounters border-wide, down from about 181,000 in both August of 2023 and 2022 and 196,000 in 2021. The decrease in the number of people crossing the border illegally between ports of entry has led to a corresponding decrease in the number of asylum seekers being released into the country. In August, the Border Patrol issued 9,936 notices to appear in immigration court to asylum seekers, a sharp decrease from the 122,648 notices issued in December 2023. Harris is set to visit Douglas, a border city in southeastern Arizona across from Agua Prieta, Mexico. Douglas is located in the Border Patrol's Tucson sector. The Tucson sector also has experienced a sharp drop in the number of people crossing illegally in recent months. But the sector, which covers most of the state's southern border, remains among the busiest for illegal border crossings along the southwest border, Border Patrol data shows. In July and August of this year, the Border Patrol's Tucson sector logged about 12,000 encounters each month, a huge decrease from a peak of 80,000 encounters in December 2023, the data shows. From October 2023 through August 2024, however, the Border Patrol's Tucson sector has logged about 453,000 encounters. That is the highest number of encounters among any of the Border Patrol's nine southwest border sectors and a 40% increase year-over-year, the data shows. Through August, the Tucson sector accounted for nearly one in three unauthorized migrants encountered by the Border Patrol along the entire southwest border, Border Patrol data shows. During the months of July and August, however, encounters in the San Diego and El Paso sectors have climbed above the number of encounters in the Tucson sector, Border Patrol data shows. Reach the reporter at daniel.gonzalez@arizonarepublic.com. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: VP Harris visits Arizona border. Are migrant crossings up or down? (NewsNation) Vice President Kamala Harris pledged to, as president, revive the bipartisan border bill and proudly sign it into law if she is elected president. Speaking in Douglas, Arizona after visiting the border, Harris, recited a long list of border and immigration-related promises, touted her record on those issues as Attorney General of California, and balanced tough talk on policing the border with calls for a better way to welcome immigrants legally. I reject the false choice that suggests we must choose either between securing our border and creating a system that is orderly, safe and humane, Harris said. We can and we must do both. Harris also blasted former President Donald Trump for killing the bipartisan bill which, she said, should be in effect today producing results in real time right now for our country. She also jabbed Trump for his immigration record as President. He did nothing to fix our broken immigration system. He did not solve the shortage of immigration judges. He did not solve the shortage or border agents. He did not create lawful pathways into our nation. He did nothing to address an outdated asylum system. He made the challenges at the border worse. Harris called Trumps immigration record an abdication of leadership. We cannot accept Donald Trumps failure to lead, she added. Harris campaign speech came after she and local Border Patrol leaders walked along a rust-colored stretch of wall built during Barack Obamas presidency. Temperatures in Douglas, Arizona, neared 100 degrees during a conversation that lasted about half an hour. Later, Harris received a closed-door briefing at the Douglas port of entry on efforts to combat drug trafficking and improve the legal flow of goods and people across the border. Border Patrol agents have a tough job and deserve support to do it, she said. Immigration and border security are top issues in Arizona, the only battleground state that borders Mexico and one that contended with a record influx of asylum seekers last year. Voters favor Trump on migration, and Harris has gone on offense to improve her standing on the issue and defuse a key line of political attack for her opponent. The frustration comes for three and a half years of seeing tragedy after tragedy, and when you have the White House and 51% of Congress that has intellectually turned his back on us, Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels told NewsNation. Thats frustrating to me. Immigration lawyer Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, however, says Harris is seeking compromise through her actions. She does care about border security, but shes open to a resolution that involves all sides of the government, which would finally bring some stability to the border, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (C) visits the US-Mexico border with US Border Patrol Tucson Sector Chief John Modlin (R) in Douglas, Arizona, on September 27, 2024. (Photo by Rebecca NOBLE / AFP) (Photo by REBECCA NOBLE/AFP via Getty Images) Trump seeks to bolster advantage among male voters Douglas is an overwhelmingly Democratic border town in GOP-dominated Cochise County, where the Republicans on the board of supervisors are facing criminal charges for refusing to certify the 2022 election results. Trump was in the area last month, using a remote stretch of border wall and a pile of steel beams to draw a contrast between himself and Harris on border security. Harris struggles to break through with young Latinos On Thursday, Trump gave a speech in New York giving his opinion on Harris visit that hadnt happened yet: Anything she says tomorrow, you know is a fraud because she was the worst in history at protecting our country. So, shell try and make herself look a little bit better. But its not possible. Election day is less than six weeks away, and Arizona is a key battleground state with the potential to swing the election for either Harris or Trump. 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 NewsNation. When Vice President Kamala Harris suddenly seized the Democratic nomination in July, Democrats hoped she could win the Sun Belt states that President Joe Biden appeared all but doomed in. Harris is still competitive there, but the last two months reveal they are not the states she is prioritizing. When Harris touches down in Arizona, she will be setting foot in the West for the first time in seven weeks. And a close read of her travel schedule and advertising across the battlegrounds suggests it isnt the Sun Belt but the Rust Belt that her campaign is primarily banking on. Looking at spending and stops, its hard not to conclude that winning Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan is plan A for Harris to win, said Mike Mikus, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic strategist. Based on everything Im seeing, Harris is stronger in the Rust Belt than the Sun Belt. Both are going to be very close either way. Its a reality that some Democrats even in the South and West are beginning to accept. Recent polling shows former President Donald Trumps strength in Arizona and other Sun Belt battlegrounds. Though Harris has brought those states within striking distance of victory polls and her campaign's spending show they are still in play she continues to perform better in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Harris prioritization of those states is showing in her campaign. The campaigns biggest targets for TV, radio and digital ad spending have been Pennsylvania and Michigan. Since Harris took over for Biden, her campaign has spent $136 million on TV and radio across those states and Wisconsin, compared to $113 million across the four Sun Belt states. And on Facebook and Instagram, she has spent about 40 percent more targeting Rust Belt voters than Sun Belt ones, according to data from the platforms parent company, Meta. And then theres her travel schedule. While there are several ways to measure time spent campaigning in swing states, every way shows that Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, have devoted the most time to the Blue Wall. Since Harris replaced Biden, she and Walz have done 25 visits in the Rust Belt, including 13 in the all-crucial state of Pennsylvania, compared to just 16 across the four Sun Belt states, including just one each from Harris herself in Arizona and Nevada, according to a POLITICO analysis. And Harris has made as many trips to the Southern battlegrounds as she has to one critical Rust Belt state Pennsylvania alone. I read it as the Harris campaign doing the blocking and tackling of politics. They are making sure that Democrats dont lose the Blue Wall in the Rust Belt, so of course theyre going to spend time there, especially in Pennsylvania, said Douglas Wilson, a Democratic strategist in North Carolina. At the same time, theyre also spending some time in the Sun Belt because as a strategy Democrats are looking at this and saying, If we win North Carolina, that literally takes a chess piece away from the Trump campaign that they need to win. A Democratic strategist in Arizona, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the state of the race, was more blunt: If you get Arizona, but you dont get Pennsylvania and you dont get the Midwest, it doesnt matter because you cant win the election. The Harris campaign continues to say publicly that it has multiple paths to 270 electoral votes. And campaign aides push back on the idea that the Rust Belt is their plan A, saying that is not true and arguing they have had to spend more in Rust Belt states to keep up with Republican super PACs. They also note that Harris second most traveled-to state behind Pennsylvania is Georgia, that her travel schedule this week and last reflects the dual importance of both the Rust Belt and the Sun Belt, and that she has comparable staffing levels in the Blue Wall and the Sun Belt. The fewer trips to Arizona and Nevada, they say, are about distance. Dan Kanninen, the Harris campaigns battleground states director, said the campaign is competing very hard in all the key battlegrounds. Our strategic goal is to maximize the number of pathways to 270. All said we're in a pretty unique and strong position: Past presidential campaigns have had to go all in on one path to victory or a handful of states, he said. But we have the resources, the candidate and the message to compete across the board." Sun Belt strategists say the investments the Harris campaign is making on the ground and on the airwaves are a show of its seriousness. If Harris loses Pennsylvania, shell need either Georgia or North Carolina and a second Sun Belt state to notch the electoral votes she needs. But they also note what happened in 2016 when Hillary Clinton failed to protect the Blue Wall, which Trump swept as a cautionary tale. My sense is they are trying to win here, but step one is locking down those three Blue Wall states, said a second Democratic operative in Arizona who was granted anonymity to speak frankly about the race. What you want to do is put yourself in a position where if you get a bad poll back in a state on Oct. 15, you have another pathway. There are reasons for Democrats to remain optimistic about their chances in the Sun Belt. Three of the states have Senate or gubernatorial races that will help drive turnout, including the Ruben Gallego-Kari Lake Senate showdown in Arizona and Mark Robinsons sputtering campaign against Democratic gubernatorial nominee Josh Stein in North Carolina. And Nevada, as a small state, has a solid Democratic turnout machine that could grind out a victory in a tight race. Daniele Monroe-Moreno, chair of Nevadas Democratic party, said that Harris is doing what it takes to win here, including investing early in an expansive ground game. The vice president is also making her second trip as a candidate to the state on Sunday. "Nevada will play a critical role in determining our next president and the vice presidents travel to our state this weekend is just further evidence, she said. Some Democrats said they see Harris fewer stops in the West more as a byproduct of logistical challenges and a compressed calendar of which large chunks have been eaten up by the Democratic National Convention and the debate than as a sole reflection of the campaigns priorities. In her absence, Walz and his wife Gwen, as well as Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, have been stumping in the states. But there is a likely political calculus beyond logistics to the states that Harris is targeting. While the race remains tight in all seven battleground states, polling averages show Harris with a slight edge in Rust Belt states whereas Trump is slightly favored in all of the Sun Belt states except for Nevada, a state that is notoriously hard to poll. While the vice president is performing far better in the South and West than Biden did, Trumps edge in those states is reflective of the Harris campaigns ongoing challenges to bring younger and more diverse non-college voters including Latinos and young men back into the Democratic Party fold. Meanwhile, Democrats have performed strongly in the Rust Belt in recent years and the Blue Wall is home to a larger proportion of registered Democrats. J.J. Balaban, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic strategist, added that presidential campaigns are premised on scarcity of resources. Nevada is a bit unique but given the track record of Democrats performing better and generally polling better in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania than in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, it makes sense that the Harris campaign would be spending more resources there. But, he said, they are spending a lot in the Sun Belt, so it doesnt seem like those states are being neglected by the Harris campaign. The Rust Belt strategy may look even more appealing to Democrats after this weeks news that a GOP push to change Nebraskas unique electoral vote system to a winner-take-all structure is dead, making it likely that Harris will win one electoral vote in Nebraska. Had it been successful, even if Harris won all the Rust Belt states, she still would have been one electoral vote shy of 270 and would have needed to win at least one of the four Sun Belt states, in addition to the Blue Wall. I think they were drawn to Pennsylvania, and the Rust Belt, the Midwest, because it was more evident to them in a place that is experiencing marginal change and the extremism of Trump that they could do better there, said Chuck Coughlin, a veteran operative in Arizona who left the Republican Party under Trump. I think they did not think about how to couple her opportunity economy narrative and I dont think theyve done this yet to what happened in the Sun Belt. Theyve failed to connect that narrative tissue, he said. Vice President Kamala Harris heads to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona on Friday, the first time she has been to the border since a visit to El Paso in 2021 and coming on the heels of her campaign being dogged by her past on the subject of illegal immigration. Harris has faced frequent attacks from her Republican opponent, former President Trump , and the Border Patrol Union who argue that she is weak on border security, an issue that many Republicans see as the vice president's political Achilles' heel. "After years of not just ignoring the problem, but helping create it, Vice President Kamala is finally headed down to the border," the National Border Patrol Council said in a statement. "This is nothing more than for her to check the box, but what it is in reality, is a slap in the face towards the men and women that put their lives on the line every day, and also a slap in the face to the American public. Where has she been?" Harris Heads To Southern Border Looking To Flip Script On Immigration Criticisms Harris campaign has pointed to her past as a prosecutor, taking on transnational criminal gangs, and says she is the candidate to secure the border as she backs a bipartisan funding bill. But Harris has a lengthy history on immigration at the national level. Read On The Fox News App Harris, as a California senator, was on the far-left of the Democratic Party on immigration, and in 2018 she pushed her colleagues in the Senate to reject a request by the Trump administration for more funding for immigration detention beds and Border Patrol agents. In a letter to senators on the Senate Appropriations Committee in 2018, Harris and other senators called for them to "reject President Trumps FY 19 funding request for a costly and ineffective border wall, new Border Patrol agents, and a large increase in U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel and detention beds." "We urge you to reduce funding for the administrations reckless immigration enforcement operations that are tearing families apart and harming our economy." Harris Leans In On Border Security And Trump Relishes The Fight She also grilled Ronald Vitiello, who was former President Trumps nominee to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), whether he was "aware of the perception" of parallels between ICE and the KKK. "Are you aware that there is a perception that ICE is administering its power in a way that is causing fear and intimidation, particularly among immigrants and specifically among immigrants coming from Mexico and Central America?" she asked again. In recently revealed footage, Harris is seen at a rally chanting "Up, up with education, down, down with deportation" at a rally which also featured now-disgraced actor Jussie Smollett. Harris launched a bid for the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 2019. Her campaign included a promise to expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) by executive order, which gives protection to illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as minors. She said that she would eliminate age requirements on applications and use parole authority to create a "parole in place" program to put those illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship. Also she promised to shield illegal immigrant parents of American citizens and green card holders from deportation by executive order. Overall, her plan was predicted to protect over six million illegal immigrants from deportation. Harris became vice president in 2021 and the administration immediately rolled back a number of Trump-era initiatives and attempted to place a moratorium on deportations. Migrant numbers skyrocketed, and Biden told reporters in March that Harris would be put in charge of tackling root causes, issues like climate change, poverty and violence that the administration believes was driving migrants north. It quickly led to Harris being dubbed by media outlets and Republicans as the "border czar." The White House rejected that title, but it has stuck with her ever since and made her a figurehead along with DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for the crisis. After the assignment by Biden, and with numbers skyrocketing through subsequent months to record highs, Harris immediately came under pressure to visit the border as the White House said her role was more diplomatic than related to the border directly. She instead went to Mexico and Guatemala and had a stern message for migrants that upset immigrant activists. "Do not come. Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our borders," she said. "If you come to our border, you will be turned back." The pressure kept rising for her to go to the U.S. border. "You havent been to the border," NBCs Lester Holt told her, after she claimed she had been to the border. "And I havent been to Europe," Harris quipped. Immigrants line up at a remote U.S. Border Patrol processing center after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border on December 7, 2023, in Lukeville, Arizona. Jesus Enrique Ramirez Cabrera, according to federal sources, came into the country illegally in December 2023 through Arizona, was apprehended and released into the U.S. Later that month, she went to the border in El Paso, Texas, where she received a briefing and toured a processing center while meeting with advocates and providers. Harris would largely be unseen through the rest of 2021 and 2022 on the root causes strategy , although a private sector initiative to draw investment to tackle those root causes would continue. In June 2022, she traveled to the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles and met with other leaders to discuss ways to handle the crisis. During that summit, she announced that $3.2 billion in commitments from private sector companies had been secured. She also came under fire for declaring the border was secure despite the ongoing crisis and mass releases into the interior. "The border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system, in particular over the last four years before we came in, and it needs to be fixed," Harris said on NBC. Harris made few appearances in 2023 relating to the border crisis, although her private investment strategy continued to bring in additional commitments from companies. But the crisis did not stay out of the news, and 2023 broke new records for enormous amounts of migrant encounters and a number of chaotic scenes at the border. Fiscal year 2023 broke the record for encounters with over 2.4 million, while December had nearly 250,000 encounters in a single month. While the White House continued to reject the "border czar" narrative, Harris put her support behind a bipartisan Senate agreement to provide more funding to the border and reduce migrant crossings when they reach a certain level. She also backed a number of executive orders by President Biden, who would implement a limit on asylum and efforts to provide a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants who are spouses of U.S. citizens. She has sought to portray herself as tougher on the border than former President Trump. Now, with a stop in Douglas, Arizona, she aims to show that she is better prepared than Trump to tackle the combustible issue of immigration and what Republicans have spotlighted as the crisis at the southern border. "We need a comprehensive plan," Harris said Wednesday in an interview with MSNBC. "That includes what we need to do to fortify not only our border but deal with the fact that we also need to create pathways for people to earn citizenship." Along with the border stop, the Harris campaign is launching a new ad that will play in Arizona and other battleground states that spotlights her past border efforts and plans. "She put cartel members and drug traffickers behind bars, and she will secure our border," the narrator in the commercial says. Fox News Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub. Original article source: Harris visits crucial border state as immigration record sparks scrutiny: A timeline In this screen grab from a television pool camera, Vice President Kamala Harris confers with a US Border Patrol officer along the US-Mexico border in Arizona (Reuters / Pool) Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday said the US government is duty-bound to set rules at our border and to enforce them as she called for reform of the American immigration system. The immigration system should work in an orderly way, that it is humane and makes our country stronger, she said during a speech at Cochise College in Douglas, Arizona, after visiting the US border wall. She also slammed her 2024 election opponent, former President Donald Trump, for commanding his Republican allies to vote against a bipartisan immigration and border reform package that experts said was stronger than any similar legislation considered by Congress in decades. The vice president said the dedicated agents of the US Border Patrol and customs officers need more resources to do their jobs, which is why she supported the bipartisan legislation that wouldve provided funds to hire 1,500 more Border Patrol officers and purchase 100 machines to detect fentanyl at the border. It would have allowed us to more quickly and effectively remove those who come here illegally, and it would have increased the number of immigration judges and asylum officers. It was the strongest border security bill we have seen in decades. It was endorsed by the Border Patrol union, and it should be in effect today, producing results in real time right now for our country, she said. But Donald Trump tanked it. He picked up the phone and called some friends in Congress and said, stop the bill, because, you see, he prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem, and the American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games and their personal political future. The vice president said the dedicated agents of the US Border Patrol and customs officers need more resources to do their jobs (AP) Harris pledged that she would sign that exact same bill into law if it is passed by Congress and sent to her desk as president. The vice president, who was making her first visit to the US-Mexico border as a candidate for the presidency, also promised to reach across the aisle and embrace common sense approaches and new technologies to get the job done if elected, citing her experience battling transnational criminal gangs and cartels as the attorney general of California. She vowed to change Americas asylum rules to bar anyone who crosses between ports of entry into the US from seeking asylum on a permanent basis. Those who cross our borders unlawfully will be apprehended and removed and barred from reentering for five years. We will pursue more severe criminal charges against repeat violators, and if someone does not make an asylum request at a legal point of entry and instead crosses our border unlawfully, they will be barred from receiving asylum, while we understand that many people are desperate to migrate to the United States. Our system must be orderly and secure, and that is my goal, she said. Earlier in the day, Harris arrived at a site along the US border wall in Douglas, where she was greeted by a pair of uniformed officers from the US Border Patrol. The two officers and the vice president chatted as they walked along a path next to a section of the wall, which was constructed during the Obama administration and is not part of the wall built during Trumps presidency. She also received a briefing from Customs and Border Protection officials on US efforts to prevent the introduction of fentanyl into the United States. Harris is later expected to announce support for further restricting how people can claim asylum if they enter the country unlawfully between ports of entry along the border with Mexico. Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris talks with John Modlin, the chief patrol agent for the Tucson Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol, right, and Blaine Bennett, the U.S. Border Patrol Douglas Station border patrol agent in charge, as she visits the U.S. border with Mexico in Douglas, Arizona, on Friday (AP) Harris told the crowd in Douglas that shed make combatting the trafficking of the synthetic narcotic a top priority if she is sworn in as president next year. The vice presidents visit to the border comes as she seeks to fight Trump on the key issue of his campaign. He rarely makes a public appearance without engaging in incendiary rhetoric on the subject, often crossing a line into outright racism. Trump and his Republican allies have sought to attack Harris for the Biden administrations record on migration and have attempted to brand her as a failed border czar because of her work handling diplomacy with countries that, until recently, accounted for a significant portion of the immigrants claiming asylum along the US-Mexico border. But Harris said she would put politics aside, to fix our immigration system and find solutions to problems which have persisted for far too long if elected, including by enacting legislation to give so-called Dreamers brought to the US illegally as children as well as hardworking immigrants whove been in the US for years a path to citizenship. Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris talks with John Modlin, the chief patrol agent for the Tucson Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol, right, as she visits the U.S. border with Mexico in Douglas, Ariz., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 (AP) The vice president contrasted her approach with that of Trump, who she said did nothing to fix our broken immigration system during his time in office. He did not solve the shortage of immigration judges. He did not solve the shortage of border agents. He did not create lawful pathways into our nation, he did nothing to address an outdated asylum system and did not work with other governments in our hemisphere to deal with what clearly is also a regional challenge, she said. As overdoses went up during his presidency, he fought to slash funding for the fight against fentanyl. And what did he do instead ... he separated families. He ripped toddlers out of their mothers arms, put children in cages and tried to end protections for Dreamers. He made the challenges at the border worse, and he is still fanning the flames of fear and division. That is not the work of a leader, she added. Immigration and border security are top issues in Arizona, the only battleground state that borders Mexico and one that contended with a record influx of asylum seekers last year. Trump has an edge with voters on migration, and Harris has gone on offense to improve her standing on the issue and defuse a key line of political attack for Trump. In nearly every campaign speech she gives, Harris recounts how a sweeping bipartisan package aiming to overhaul the federal immigration system collapsed in Congress earlier this year after Trump urged top Republicans to oppose it. The American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games, Harris plans to say, according to an excerpt of her remarks previewed by her campaign. After the immigration legislation stalled, the Biden administration announced rules that bar migrants from being granted asylum when U.S. officials deem that the southern border is overwhelmed. Since then, arrests for illegal border crossings have fallen. Harris will also use her trip to remind voters about her work as attorney general of California in confronting crime along the border. During an August rally in Glendale, outside Phoenix, she talked about helping to prosecute drug- and people-smuggling gangs that operated transnationally and at the border. With additional reporting by agencies By Trevor Hunnicutt DOUGLAS, Arizona (Reuters) -Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris visited the U.S.-Mexico border for the first time in her 2024 presidential campaign on Friday, calling for tighter asylum restrictions and vowing to make stopping fentanyl from entering the U.S. a "top priority." Harris outlined her plans to fix "our broken immigration system" in Douglas, Arizona, a border town of fewer than 17,000 people, while accusing her Republican rival Donald Trump of "fanning the flames of fear and division" over the impact of immigrants on American life. Some 7 million migrants have been arrested crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally during President Joe Biden's administration, according to government data, a record high number that has fueled criticism of Biden and Harris from Trump and his fellow Republicans. Immigration is a top issue for voters. Arizona is a closely contested election state, with a high population of Latino voters sought by both parties. The nation's porous southern border remains a source of fentanyl, a leading cause of drug overdoses in the United States. Harris called for more punitive measures for people crossing the border illegally, following an asylum ban for those entering illegally, a move Biden took this year that has sharply reduced illegal crossings. "I will take further action to keep the border closed between ports of entry. Those who cross our borders unlawfully will be apprehended and removed and barred from re-entering for five years," Harris said. "We will pursue more severe criminal charges against repeat violators, and if someone does not make an asylum request at a legal point of entry and instead crosses our border unlawfully, they will be barred from receiving asylum," she said. Harris emphasized her goal of a "humane" immigration program, saying she would with Congress to create a pathway to citizenship for "Dreamers" - hundreds of thousands of people brought into the U.S. illegally as children. They were a priority for Democrats for a decade but were left out of a failed immigration bill that Biden had backed. "I reject the false choice that suggests we must either choose between securing our border or creating a system of immigration that is safe, orderly and humane," Harris said. "We can and we must do both." In Douglas, Harris spoke to Customs and Border Protection officials and viewed part of a border barrier built between 2011 and 2012 during the administration of Democrat Barack Obama, the White House said. She also received a briefing on the CBPs drug enforcement operations and viewed inspection technology used to seize illegal drugs, including fentanyl, the campaign said, noting that border officials stopped more fentanyl at ports of entry in 2022 and 2023 than in the previous five fiscal years combined. Harris was introduced by Theresa Guerrero, whose 31-year-old son Jacob Guerrero died from fentanyl poisoning. She accused Trump of blocking the bipartisan border security bill aimed at stemming the flow of fentanyl. The bill was blocked by the Senate in February, after Trump pressed Republicans to reject any compromise. Biden and Harris accuse Trump of killing the measure to keep immigration alive as a campaign issue. Harris said she would revive the legislation, which would add 1,500 Border Patrol agents and other personnel, 4,300 asylum officers, 100 immigration judges and new drug detection technology. The vice president said she would target the "entire global fentanyl supply chain." She said China was starting to crack down on fentanyl precursor chemicals but needed to do more. Fentanyl overdoses have surged to become the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45. Over 107,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2023. Harris pledged to double funding for the prosecution of trans-national criminal organizations and cartels, and modernize U.S. screening and vetting infrastructure. IMMIGRATION TOP ISSUE Trump and his running mate JD Vance have increased their criticism of immigrants in recent weeks, repeating falsehoods about legal Haitian immigrants in Vance's home state of Ohio and suggesting that immigrants are committing crimes and stealing jobs from U.S. citizens. On Friday, Trump blamed Harris for the rising trend of irregular migration. "The architect of this destruction is Kamala Harris," Trump said at Trump Tower in Manhattan. "She keeps talking about how she supposedly wants to fix the border. We would merely ask, Why didn't she do it four years ago? It's a very simple question." He also accused Harris of turning small towns in the U.S. into "blighted refugee camps." A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month found that 43% of voters favored Trump on the issue of immigration and 33% favored Harris, while 24% either did not know, chose someone else or did not answer. Harris, a former prosecutor, was California's attorney general before being elected to the U.S. Senate and then vice president. Her California remit included targeting gangs that operate on both sides of the border and traffic in drugs, guns and people. Biden tasked Harris with dealing with the root causes of migration from Central America, a diplomatic issue on which her record is mixed. Emigration from Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia to the United States has created unease among voters concerned about what the trend means for the U.S. economy, crime rates and culture. The share of American residents born abroad rose by nearly a fifth to 47.8 million from 2010 to 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. (Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; additional reporting by Steve Holland and Kristina Cooke; Writing by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Heather Timmons, Miral Fahmy, Rosalba O'Brien, Leslie Adler and William Mallard) Two men were arrested Thursday for allegedly stealing an electric scooter during a Facebook Marketplace transaction, Colorado Springs police said. On Sunday, two sellers of the e-scooter met with a potential buyer in the 1000 block of North Academy Boulevard to complete a deal made on the social media platform After arriving, Christian Mills, the potential buyer, pulled out a handgun and robbed the two of the e-scooter, police said. While holding the two at gunpoint, a second man, James Lipsky, appeared to help take the e-scooter away. Mills and Lipsky were arrested four days later without incident, police said, and the e-scooter was recovered. HONOLULU (KHON2) Hawaiian Electric is stepping in to pay upfront incentives owed to customers with battery storage systems following the closure of Swell Energy Inc., the third-party provider that managed the Home Rewards Battery Program. Get Hawaiis latest morning news delivered to your inbox, sign up for News 2 You Swell Energy recently shut down and can no longer support its Home Battery Rewards Program for Hawaiian Electric customers. The company, which was contracted by Hawaiian Electric in 2021, was responsible for aggregating home battery systems to create a virtual power plant. Controversial fireworks bill advances to Honolulu City Council Around 1,200 customers across Oahu, Maui, and Hawaii Island were enrolled in the program, which offered both upfront payments and monthly bill credits. In a letter to participants, Hawaiian Electric confirmed it will cover any upfront incentives owed by Swell, but payments will only go to eligible customers based on their contracts. Bacon made from flowers? Its mind-blowing Due to Swells closure, Hawaiian Electric will pause monthly credits starting in October. The utility plans to work with customers to unenroll their systems from the program, giving them more control over their energy resources and costs. Future options may include continuing the existing program or transitioning to a new one. Hawaii town ranks 95 out of 100 for this. Do you agree? This situation is unprecedented, and we appreciate our customers patience as we work toward a resolution, said Yoh Kawanami, co-director of customer energy resources at Hawaiian Electric. Swell Energy was part of Hawaiian Electrics Power Partnership Program, which encourages customers to help operate the electric grid more efficiently while supporting Hawaiis clean energy goals. Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news This initiative relies on independent companies to enroll customers with solar systems, batteries, electric vehicles, and other energy resources. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KHON2. Headland man accused of cutting moms throat with wood carving knife to undergo second mental eval after first was inconclusive DOTHAN, Ala (WDHN) A Headland man accused of stabbing his elderly mother to death in her home has been remanded to state care for a second mental evaluation after the first came back inconclusive. Alex McKay is accused of stabbing his mother, Annie McKay, to death in her home in February 2023. The 70-year-old wife and mother had been stabbed multiple times in the neck, wrist, and hand with a wood carving knife and was found by her husband in their kitchen. In March 2024, Judge Christopher Richardson ordered McKay to undergo a mental evaluation to determine if he is competent to stand trial; however, District Attorney Russ Goodman says the first evaluation was ruled inconclusive after the state examiner claimed they felt McKay may have been malingering, and exaggerating his mental symptoms. On September 19, Judge Richardson remanded McKay to the custody of the Alabama Department of Mental Health for a second evaluation, which could take months to complete. Following this evaluation, the second examiner will submit a report, and the Judge will determine whether or not McKay is fit to stand trial. According to DA Goodman, if McKay is found incompetent, the court will discuss the treatment required for McKay to attain competency, the most appropriate place for possible treatments, and if the treatments will have any effect. At the time of McKays arrest, Headland Police Chief Mark Jones told WDHN he had a history of mental illness, and a search warrant of his home on the night of the murder revealed he had not been taking prescribed mental health medication, such as antipsychotics. Officials say McKay has a history of drug use and mental illness, and the family has had recurring problems with him in the past. During an Aniahs Law Hearing for McKay not long after his arrest, Dothan Police Investigator Terry Nelson described the murder as one of the most brutal he had ever seen. He said the victims spine was exposed. After that hearing, McKays initial $1 million bond was stripped away. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WDHN - wdhn.com. Gov. Maura Healey on Friday formally seized St. Elizabeths Medical Center in Brighton through eminent domain to keep the hospital open. The move will allow the state to take control of the property and transition operation of the hospital to a new medical services provider, Boston Medical Center, the governor said in a statement on Friday morning. While Apollo continues to put its greed ahead of the health and wellbeing of the people of Massachusetts, we are taking action to make sure St. Elizabeths remains open. By transferring operations to Boston Medical Center, we will protect access to care for tens of thousands of patients and save thousands of jobs, Healey said. Our administration is committed to ensuring smooth transitions at the five Steward hospitals that we were able to save, and supporting the communities impacted by Stewards closure of Nashoba Valley Medical Center and Carney Hospital, Healey said. Attorney Bill Reid of Reid Collins & Tsai LLP, who is representing Apollo Global Management in the matter, issued a statement on Friday after Healeys action. Apollo is the parent company of Cox Media Group, which owns Boston 25 News. Despite our repeated attempts to engage in reasonable negotiations, the Governor has initiated an unconstitutional use of eminent domain at the expense of Apollos third-party investors, Reid said. Taking the property for a fraction of the assessed value is theft and everyone in Massachusetts--every business owner and homeowner--should be concerned about this threat. As a fiduciary, Apollo is left with no choice but to continue pursuing litigation aimed at challenging the Governors unconstitutional use of eminent domain, Reid said. Healeys action comes two days after the U.S. Senate approved a resolution on Wednesday intended to hold Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre in criminal contempt for failing to testify before a Senate panel, The Associated Press reported. The senate approved the measure by unanimous consent. Members of a Senate committee looking into the bankruptcy of Steward Health Care adopted the resolution last week after de la Torre refused to attend a committee hearing last week despite being issued a subpoena. The resolution was sent to the full Senate for consideration. A passer-by walks past an entrance to St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) Also Friday morning, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. and chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security, spoke at the JFK Federal Building in Boston about the U.S. Senates unanimous vote to hold de la Torre in contempt of Congress. Dr. Ralph de la Torre said he was committed to offering world-class opportunities in the communities they serve, Markey said. Instead, we stand here today with the parade of horribles Steward left behind: a bankrupt hospital system, closed hospitals, laid off workers, dead patients, and a CEO who blatantly refused to appear before the United States Senate. Markey blasted de la Torre as hiding from lawmakers and avoiding questions. Lawmakers accuse him of using company money to fund a lavish personal lifestyle at the expense of hospitals, their staff, and patients. A spokesperson for de la Torre previously said he was exercising his 5th Amendment right not to testify, and that de la Torre was being used as a scapegoat in Stewards bankruptcy. Dr. de la Torre will not be intimidated by the Committees threat of prosecution merely for asserting his constitutional protections, a spokesperson wrote in a statement shared with Boston 25 News. The U.S. Constitution stands above the government to protect all Americans from precisely the kind of assault on our rights that we are witnessing here. As part of the legal process to take St. Elizabeths Hospital, Healey declared that if St. Elizabeths were to close, it would create a public health emergency due to the large volume of patients currently served by the hospital and the resulting disruption to the delivery of medical services in the region, the governor said in her statement. Healeys action come after Steward Health Care announced in August that it had entered into definitive agreements to sell certain Massachusetts-based hospitals. Lawrence General Hospital will become the new operator for both campuses of Holy Family in Haverhill and Methuen, Lifespan will assume operations of Morton and Saint Annes, and Boston Medical Center will take over Good Samaritan. These transfers of ownership are expected to go into effect on Oct. 1, state officials said. Boston Medical Center and Steward previously reached an agreement to transfer the operations of St. Elizabeths to Boston Medical Center, but asset management firm Apollo refused to accept Boston Medical Centers bid for the real estate, Healey said. Healeys action on Friday will allow the hospital to remain open and continue serving patients, officials said. St. Elizabeths is a crucial provider of hospital services to traditionally underserved populations, including MassHealth and Medicare patients. Its closure would put vulnerable patients at risk who would no longer have access to emergency services, maternity care, behavioral health services and inpatient care, Healey said. Further, inpatient capacity in the Boston area remains at record highs, and the more than 60 patients currently at St. Elizabeths would not have immediate access to health care. Earlier this week, Healey announced working groups focused on stabilizing and revitalizing health care in communities impacted by Steward Health Cares closure of Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer and Carney Hospital in Dorchester. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW The Fresno County Department of Public Health is reporting possible tuberculosis exposures at two college campuses. More than 100 students and faculty members have been alerted to the exposures, which happened at both Fresno City College and Fresno State in April and May. Those notified have been asked to complete a survey and are being offered testing to assess their risk for infection. The exposure comes from a single student who was attending classes at both campuses, according to the health department. That student was diagnosed with active tuberculosis Aug. 7 and is currently being treated and monitored. What is tuberculosis? Tuberculosis, also known as TB, is a bacterial infection that is best known for affecting the lungs, though it can also impact the brain, kidneys and spine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A latent version of the disease can live in a body for years without causing symptoms. The active version causes prolonged coughing fits (often with blood or phlegm from deep with the lungs), unexplained weight loss and loss of appetite, fever and night sweats. Active TB is spread by infected persons coughing, sneezing, or talking, the CDC says. An increased danger? This isnt the first TB exposure on a school campus in Fresno. In 2016, some 200 students were notified of a potential exposure at Fresno City College. That same year, a Bullard High School student was diagnosed with the disease. And California has seen a steep rise in tuberculosis cases since 2020. According to the states department of public health, active TB cases have increased every year since 2020 and the state now has one of the highest infection rates in the country (and the most cases). Last year, the number of TB cases in California rose by 271, or 15%, from the prior year. Also, increasing is the likelihood of dying from the disease (though it is still rare). In the decade prior to 2020, the chance of dying from it was 8%, according to CDC data. That number was up to 13% in 2020. That trend of increasing TB infections is also being seen in Fresno County, according to the health department. In 2022, 31 cases were reported in Fresno County; 39 cases were reported in 2023. An unusual number of severe TB infections (requiring hospitalizations and short-term medical care) have been reported among young people in recent months, the health department said. Health officials are investigating whether a person in Missouri who was hospitalized with bird flu in early September might have infected a handful of others. Testing is ongoing among five health care workers and a household member exposed to the infected person who all came down with mild respiratory symptoms. A cluster of infections would mark a significant expansion of the avian influenza virus, indicating that it could transmit from person to person. On Friday, Missouri and federal health officials stressed there is no current evidence of human-to-human transmission. The immediate risk to the general public is still low, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Michael Osterholm, who directs the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said he sees no cause for concern unless or until any of those tests comes back positive. "At this point we dont have any evidence that this one case in Missouri has transmitted the virus to anyone," said Osterholm, an epidemiologist. "Im not saying it couldnt have happened, but based on what we know so far, weve not had ongoing transmission. Theres no crisis." This time of year, Osterholm said, roughly 2% of Americans have respiratory symptoms, which could be H5N1 or COVID-19 or simply a cold. The blood and DNA test results will tell the story, not symptoms. "Just because somebody has symptoms of respiratory illness doesnt tell me anything about 'is it likely or not likely to be flu,'" he said. "At this point, we want to be careful not to become alarmist." So far this year, 14 people across the U.S. have been infected with H5N1 avian influenza. All but the Missouri person was infected after coming into close contact with poultry or dairy cows known to be infected. Officials don't know how that person became infected with H5N1. Their infection was first reported Sept. 6. A federal worker with the Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service wearing a protective suit and with boots sealed with tape gestures at a checkpoint to the entrance of a Weld County, Colorado, chicken farm. The "biosecure" sign is part of the farm's normal entry signage but federal officials were monitoring the farm on Tuesday, July 30, 2024. Earlier this month, federal health officials had first said the person hospitalized was likely an isolated case that didnt appear to pose additional risk. Soon after, Missouri officials identified that a person in the same household developed similar symptoms on the same day as the confirmed case, according to Lisa Cox, communications director for the state Department of Health and Senior Services. But neither person had typical flu-like symptoms or conjunctivitis, Cox said in an email, referring to symptoms seen in the prior bird flu cases across the U.S. this year. The timing of the onset suggested common exposure, such as from a wild bird, rather than person-to-person transmission, she added. Another person reported limited contact with the infected patient, but that person reported no symptoms either before or after the visit. On Friday, CDC said state officials identified 18 health care workers who had higher risk exposure. Three of those workers reported reported mild respiratory symptoms. One person tested negative for influenza A, which includes bird flu. The other two werent clinically tested because they passed the 10-day follow-up period when those test results could be connected with a previous exposure, Cox said. Their symptoms also werent severe enough for them to seek medical testing. Instead, those two health workers have provided blood samples for CDC to test for H5N1 antibodies, which show up at least three weeks after symptoms have passed. Blood samples have been collected from five health care workers, Cox said. The original person and their household contact have already had their samples sent to the CDC. The five workers samples are set to be sent to CDCs laboratory in Atlanta for testing. However, the remnants of Hurricane Helene passing through the American South are delaying shipment of the specimens, Cox said. This type of testing is an additional diagnostic test that H5 infection has occurred in the person, she said. However, among other limitations, it will not be able to determine either the source or timing of any infection that may have occurred. Seeing the results of the tests will be crucial, said Dr. Jesse Goodman, an infection diseases specialist at Georgetown University. "We dont know yet if any of these other people do have H5 influenza or did get it thats really important to investigate," he said. Goodman added public health workers should be more aggressive about testing people with mild or no symptoms, because it's not clear exactly how H5N1 manifests in people. "It needs to be pursued aggressively," he said. He also said there should be more widespread testing for H5N1, because he expects more people likely have it than have been discovered. The case in Missouri was caught purely by chance, because the person's flu was tested, which doesn't always happen. When it came back as an unusual type, it was sent for further testing, which also is atypical, Goodman said. "We cant view this with panic, but we need to view this as a warning shot and we need to lean forward with our surveillance and our preparedness," he said. "Most public health threats, people overblow them. This one I feel like has been a little underplayed." Karen Weintraub contributed to this report. (This story was updated to add new information.) This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bird flu hospitalizes one worker, sparking concerns across Missouri Heat-pump sales in Europe plummeted by 47 per cent in the first half of the year, as fewer households switched from gas boilers. Just 765,000 heat pumps were sold in 2024 across the 13 European countries that represent 80 per cent of the market, the European Heat Pump Association said. Over the same period in 2023, 1.44 million heat pumps were sold in countries including France, Italy, Germany and Sweden. It means fewer than 1.5 million heat pumps are likely to be sold in 2024, which is the lowest level since 2019. Sales were hit by dropping gas prices, which soared after Putins illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022, wavering government subsidies and the cost of living crisis. After the war began, the EU set a target of installing at least 10 million more heat pumps by 2027 as part of efforts to lessen its dependence on Russian gas but a subsequent boom in sales is now over. The UK Government is reported to be planning to introduce heat-pump targets in Britain next year in what has been branded a boiler tax on households. Homeowners in countries such as Germany rebelled against government drives to install more of the green technology, which is expensive to set up, during the cost of living crisis. Olaf Scholzs under-fire coalition has since watered down its proposals to make heat pumps compulsory from 2024 in the face of public anger. In Italy, heat pumps have become a lightning rod in the backlash against EU net zero plans, which includes opposition to an effective ban on petrol cars in 2035. The new Right-wing government in the Netherlands also plans to tear up rules forcing homeowners to buy heat pumps . The heat-pump industry, which policymakers see as vital in decarbonising the housing stock, has blamed fewer and inconsistent government subsidies for the slowdown. Heat pumps cool or warm buildings by using electricity to transfer heat to and from a place, rather than by generating it. If powered by renewables they can cut emissions from housing. Their widespread adoption has been slowed because they are initially expensive, although cheaper to run, and there are not enough qualified installers. The European Commission has promised an action plan to boost heat-pump sales, which was due at the end of 2023 but has been delayed. Paul Kenny, director of the European Heat Pump Association, also blamed supply-chain issues for the slump. The people who dont have a heat pump and want a heat pump crash into the barrier of a really poor supply chain, he told the EurActiv website. He added that the important thing was to get people to think heat pumps are a good thing and then actually make them a good thing by ensuring they were cheap to run and installed correctly. 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. Some of the paintings are on display but others are in storage (Jeroen Jumelet) (Jeroen Jumelet/ANP/AFP) The heirs of a prolific Dutch art collector are demanding that one of the country's top museums return 25 paintings, including eight works by Rembrandt, because they are not on permanent display. The heirs to the collection have served a legal summons on the Mauritshuis in The Hague to hand the paintings back, lawyer Gert-Jan van den Bergh told AFP on Friday. Collector Abraham Bredius, a former Mauritshuis director, bequeathed the 25 paintings to the museum when he died in 1946, on the strict condition they would always be displayed to the public. "The conditions were not met. Therefore the heirs are now demanding that the museum give the paintings back," said the lawyer. Four works by 17th-century master Rembrandt -- including "Saul and David", painted between 1651 and 1658, and "Two African Men" from 1661 -- are currently hanging at the museum. A fifth painting by landscape master Salomon van Ruysdael can also be viewed but the 20 other works from the collection are not on public view, the Mauritshuis confirmed. These included works by other Golden Age artists including Jan Steen, Jan van Goyen and Paulus Moreelse. Van den Bergh said the case filed before The Hague District Court was not on behalf of Bredius, who himself had no children. The lawsuit has been brought by the grandnephew and grandniece of Joseph Kronig, an art critic who was named Bredius's sole heir. Kronig was about 30 years younger than Bredius, who often referred to him as a "protege" and sometimes a "stepson", according to the New York Times. Several art historians have suggested Kronig and Bredius were lovers but Kronig's grandnephew Otto told the New York Times there was no evidence for this. The Mauritshuis said it could not comment on the case. "As long as the case is being researched -- and this may take a long time -- we are unable to make any announcements," spokesman Rene Timmermans told AFP in an email. Situated near the historic Dutch parliament buildings in The Hague, the Mauritshuis boasts a world-famous collection, including Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring". jhe/ric/gil TAMPA, Fla. - Flooding caused by record-breaking storm surge from Hurricane Helene has prompted hundreds of water rescues in coastal portions of the Tampa Bay area. Helene brought significant impacts to the region before making landfall late Thursday night as a Category 4 storm, bringing catastrophic storm surge and life-threatening winds to Florida's Big Bend area. Maximum sustained winds were 140 miles an hour when the eye of the storm made landfall around 11:15 p.m. just east of the mouth of the Aucilla River, which is about 10 miles west-southwest of Perry, Florida. The National Hurricane Center said the storm weakened to a tropical storm by 5 a.m. Friday and will continue to weaken over land. It will still bring significant impacts to Georgia, along with portions of the Carolinas. Flooding and widespread power outages are expected. Hurricane Helene tracker: Storm weakening as it moves across Southeast US Helene's impact on the Bay Area Hurricane Helene photos: Heres a look at how the storm impacted the Bay Area FOX 13 Meteorologists say storm surge is a major issue in the Tampa Bay area, leading to serious flooding and high water rescues in coastal areas. According to FOX 13 Chief Meteorologist Paul Dellegatto, storm surge in and around Tampa Bay reached the highest levels ever on record. "Some of the gauges have been around since the mid 1940s," Dellegatto said. "Incredibly, some of the records broken were set last year during Idalia on August 30, 2023." Evacuation orders remain in effect across parts of several counties due to storm surge and flooding. As water levels rose overnight, the Pasco County Sheriff's Office shut down portions of U.S. 19 as crews responded to more than 100 water rescue calls. At least 65 people were rescued, PCSO said. Citrus County first responders also shut down part of U.S. 19 and rescued more than 100 people, along with more than 50 pets, in the Crystal River area as water rose during the overnight hours on Friday. Hillsborough County officials reported more than 300 calls between 11 p.m. Thursday and 4 a.m. Friday, along with more than a dozen house fires and water rescues. First responders in Hillsborough County rescued four people and a dog from high water near Hillsborough Avenue. (Courtesy: Hillsborough County Fire Rescue) #teamHCSO is out in full force, rescuing individuals stranded by flooding. Our deputies are utilizing the #SherpATV, which allows us to access flooded areas that standard vehicles cannot reach. Your safety and well-being are pic.twitter.com/gJpOCdMlgK HCSO (@HCSOSheriff) September 27, 2024 The City of Tampa reported dozens of water rescues, downed power lines and roadblocks, along with at least 12 downed trees as of early Friday. Access to Davis Islands remains blocked. FOX 13 crews spotted a large fire burning on Davis Islands. This was the view from Bayshore Blvd. early Friday. In Pinellas County, power outages are widespread. Many roadways are inaccessible and several are covered with debris, including Clearwater Memorial Causeway. Officials have cut off access to Gulf beaches and barrier islands until further notice. Clearwater Memorial Causeway was left covered in debris after Hurricane Helene brought serious impacts to the Bay Area. (Courtesy: City of Clearwater) The westbound side of the Gandy Bridge and the southbound side of the Howard Frankland Bridge have reopened. The Sunshine Skyway Bridge and Courtney Campbell Causeway remain closed after high winds forced them to shut down. The Florida Department of Transportation says inspectors must check the bridges before they reopen. As for weather conditions, wind speeds will gradually lower throughout the day on Friday. See the graphics below to view forecast wind gusts. Hundreds of thousands are without power across the region as of early Friday. Operations have resumed at Tampa International Airport after being suspended early Thursday. STAY CONNECTED WITH FOX 13 TAMPA BAY: Helene kills at least four in South Carolina, including pair of Saluda County firefighters, McMaster says HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) Helene is to blame for four deaths across South Carolina including a pair of volunteer firefighters in Saluda County, Gov. Henry McMaster said Friday. The storm also brought historic damage to utility systems and knocked out power to nearly a quarter of the states population. Weve got a lot of work to do, McMaster said at an afternoon news conference. We probably have more power outages than weve had maybe ever. We dont know. McMaster said he expected the death toll to rise as storm-hit areas are cleared away. Grand Strand and Pee Dee counties will be eligible for federal disaster relief funding, FEMA said on Friday. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on X, formerly Twitter, that the federal delegation stands ready to assist. The scope of damage from the storm has been wide and deep. People are not only without power, but there is heavy flooding, homes have been destroyed and lives have been lost and upended, he said. South Carolinas entire congressional delegation will be working with Governor McMaster and his team to help with federal disaster relief efforts. PHOTOS: Helene leaves trail of damage along Grand Strand, Pee Dee National Weather Service meteorologist John Quagliariello said the agency issued 65 tornado watches for South Carolina as Helene moved through including 14 for areas in the Grand Strand and Pee Dee. While the Upstate absorbed much of Helenes wrath, Quagliariello said wind gusts of up to 40 mph could persist statewide through Saturday. Officials said total power outages reached 1.25 million and urged customers to be patient over the next several days. You will be frustrated as this goes. Lifes not going to get back to normal until probably next week from a power standpoint, just because of the sheer damage that we have, Dominion Energy South Carolina CEO Keller Kissam said. More than 200 dams statewide are also being assessed, officials said. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBTW. The de facto government of Abkhazia has appealed to Irakli Kobakhidze, the Georgian Prime Minister, urging him to sign a document on the non-use of force and officially recognize Abkhazia as an independent state. This appeal comes in response to a recent statement made by Kobakhidze during his speech at the 79th session of the UN General Assembly.In his address, Kobakhidze spoke directly to the people of Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali regions, stating:"I would like to use this opportunity and address our people on the other side of the occupation line, in the Abkhazia and Tskhinvali regions. All our steps are aimed at helping our people, and one day we, together with our children, can live together in a happy, united, and developed Georgia."The de facto Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Abkhazia criticized this statement, referring to it as "rhetoric" that has been repeated by the Georgian leadership "many times in the same mythical terms."The ministry went on to state:"We believe that if the government of Georgia continues with the same spirit, we will not achieve positive results in overcoming the past. We once again call on Georgia to sign a legally binding document on the non-use of force and to recognize the Republic of Abkhazia as a sovereign and independent state."Transparency International - Georgia has filed an administrative lawsuit with the Tbilisi City Court, seeking to annul the recent decision issued by the head of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Razhden Kuprashvili. The lawsuit challenges the Bureau's September 24 decision, which classified TI Georgia, its director Eka Gigauri, as well as the organization Choose Europe and its director Khatuna Lagazidze and co-founders, as entities with declared electoral goals.TI Georgia argues that the decision to label them as electoral entities was entirely unfounded and illegal. In their statement, the organization noted: "The monitoring organization Transparency International - Georgia and its executive director, Eka Gigauri, were completely baselessly and illegally considered entities with declared election goals, and relevant regulations were issued to them."Along with the lawsuit, TI Georgia also filed a petition with the court, requesting the suspension of the Anti-Corruption Bureau's decision until the dispute is resolved. The organization hopes to prevent the decision's enforcement while the case is ongoing. Warning: This article contains disturbing details about sex assault. A Colorado Springs man was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly sexually assaulting an infant and possessing thousands of pieces of child pornography, an arrest affidavit obtained by The Gazette detailed. Aaron Mocalkins, 30, faces over 20 charges including sexual exploitation of a child, sexual assault of a child, cruelty to animals and more after a police investigation found that Mocalkins was in possession of thousands of pieces of child pornography. According to an arrest affidavit, Aurora police became aware of Mocalkins after the messaging application Kik informed Aurora police that an account with an IP address residing in Aurora contained possible child pornography. The address connected to the Kik account was the residence of Mocalkins' boyfriend, according to the arrest affidavit. Aurora police in March 2023 executed a search warrant on Mocalkins' boyfriend's address and seized over 25 electronic devices. The affidavit states that six of the items recovered at the address contained child pornography, and all of the devices "appear to only be used by Aaron (Mocalkins)." Aurora police note within the affidavit that one external hard drive contained 5,151 images and videos depicting child pornography. The affidavit goes into detail regarding some of the contents of the horrific videos discovered on Mocalkins' devices, with "numerous images and videos that were involving infants or toddlers." Aurora police also discovered evidence that Mocalkins used an online chat website to convince minors to show him their genitals, with screenshots of an interaction with one victim who was only 11 years old, according to the affidavit. Police became concerned that Mocalkins himself was not just watching child pornography, but was sexually assaulting children himself. Of note was this message which police say was recovered from his phone: Featured Local Savings "Don't be afraid to rape. It's a mistake to avoid nonconsensual child sex. No matter what kind of sex you have with kids, you'll always be judged as a rapist. So don't hold back." The rest of the message encouraged the use of threats and torture "to stop kids talking." The affidavit does not make it clear if the message recovered on Mocalkins' phone was sent or received by him. After further investigation from Aurora police at least three videos were discovered where Mocalkins exposes himself and touches his genitals on an infant at his boyfriend's home, according to the arrest affidavit. Mocalkins' boyfriend was able to identify the infant in the video as the child of someone they knew. Police also recovered three videos of Mocalkins having sex with a dog, according to the arrest affidavit. Court records show that an affidavit was filed for Mocalkins' arrest on Sept. 11, and he was taken into custody in El Paso County on Tuesday, Sept. 24. A LinkedIn belonging to a man with the same name and similar age states that Mocalkins worked at the front desk of The Cliff House at Pikes Peak in Manitou Springs, and previously as a lobby attendant at The Broadmoor. Court records show that Mocalkins is currently in custody on a $100,000 bond. He is scheduled to appear in Colorado's 18th Judicial District Court in Arapahoe County on Oct. 17 for his preliminary hearing. Helene lashed the Lowcountry with strong wind, tornadoes as the storm moved north MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. (WCBD) Helene struck Floridas Big Bend as a powerful category 4 hurricane late Thursday night and moved north into Georgia during the early morning hours. The size and strength of the storm brought strong winds, heavy rain, and tornadoes to much of South Carolina throughout the night. Tornado warnings were issued throughout the evening in Charleston, Georgetown, and Colleton Counties as the hurricanes outer bands reached the coast. But the tornado threat ramped up overnight as the storm moved further inland and closer to South Carolina. Thousands of people woke up Friday morning without power. Debris from trees littered Lowcountry streets, and flooding from heavy rain and fallen trees caused several road closures. Tree falls on James Island apartment complex Charleston County EMS began modified service and suspended travel across the Ravenel Bridge out of safety for its crews. A vessel drifted into the Highway 41 bridge over the Wando River where a woman was pulled to safety; however, one other person refused to leave the boat despite requests from first responders. Conditions will improve across the Lowcountry throughout the morning as Helene moves further north. Impacts in South Carolinas upstate could be extensive. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCBD News 2. Hurricane Helene damage: See aftermath and 'devastation' after major hurricane slams Florida Hurricane Helene damage: See aftermath and 'devastation' after major hurricane slams Florida Editor's Note: For the latest news on Helene, see our live coverage for Saturday, Sept. 28. Helene made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane about 11:10 p.m. ET near Perry, Florida, with 140 mph winds, the National Hurricane Center reported. At least 22 fatalities have been blamed on the hurricane so far, authorities said. Officials feared more fatalities would be discovered on Friday. The storm, which now marks the first known Category 4 storm to hit Floridas Big Bend region since records began in 1851, weakened to a tropical storm Friday morning as it barreled through Georgia, causing life-threatening flooding in Atlanta and the Carolinas. By 11 a.m. ET Friday, Helene was located 30 miles southwest of Bryson City, North Carolina and about 105 miles north-northeast of Atlanta with sustained winds of 45 mph. A car drives along a street covered with debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Steinhatchee, Fla, on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, the day after the storm made landfall in the Big Bend region of the state. As of early Friday more than 4.4 million homes and businesses remained without power, according to the USA TODAY power outage map, and thousands of flights had been canceled or delayed across the country, according to FlightAware. Photos and social media footage showed boats overcome with water, downed utility poles, and more damage along Florida's Gulf coast. Helene live updates: Saturday news on Helene damage, deaths 'Devastation' in Tampa Bay, St. Petersburg In Tampa Bay, one resident described seeing vanished beaches, boats crashed into homes, and businesses on fire. "Complete devastation and loss here," Vikki Hudson, who lives in Largo, about three miles from the coast told USA TODAY Friday. "The beaches are gone. Everything is underwater. Boats piled on top of houses and yards." Hudson said she saw Gulf Boulevard, which runs the St. Petersburg coastline north to Clearwater, "completely underwater." Start your day smart: Sign up for USA TODAY's Daily Briefing newsletter. Outside Perry, Fla., longtime resident Donna Parker, 80, watches as her grandson cuts up a toppled palm tree with a chainsaw, clearing her short driveway, following the passage of Hurricane Helene, on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. Damage and debris is seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Steinhatchee, Fla, on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, the day after the storm made landfall in the Big Bend region of the state. Hudson, who lives about 20 minutes from her two businesses at Treasure Island Beach The Island Girl Tiki Bar and The Island Girl Beach Rentals said she has not been able to check on her business as bridges are closed due to widespread flooding. "We dont know anything yet, we can not get to any of the barrier islands," Hudson said. Where to find help after Helene. Where to call and find resources See damage left by Hurricane Helene in Tampa, Fort Myers, Naples, Perry A view shows damage from Hurricane Helene in Perry, Florida, U.S., September 27, 2024. REUTERS/Marco Bello A drone view shows a damaged roof amid damage from Hurricane Helene in Perry, Florida, U.S., September 27, 2024. REUTERS/Marco Bello A damaged pier is seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Steinhatchee, Fla, on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, the day after the storm made landfall in the Big Bend region of the state. Damage and debris is seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Steinhatchee, Fla, on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, the day after the storm made landfall in the Big Bend region of the state. The view of 39th Avenue South in St. Petersburg, Florida on Sept. 27, 2024 after Hurricane Helene hit. A split tree in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida on Sept. 27, 2024 after Hurricane Helene hit Tampa Bay. Tana Anderson, co-owner of the Crescent Beach Market on Siesta Key in Sarasota, pushes water toward a pump Friday morning, Sept. 27, 2024, as she, her husband and brother start cleaning up after the storm surge from Hurricane Helene. Estero Boulevard on Fort Myers Beach sees flooding for a second time as the outer bands of Hurricane Helene pass by on Fort Myers Beach, Fla. on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Estero Boulevard on Fort Myers Beach sees flooding for a second time as the outer bands of Hurricane Helene pass by on Fort Myers Beach, Fla. on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. A downed tree in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida on Sept. 27, 2024 after Hurricane Helene blew through Tampa Bay. Two people on a bike and cars travel down Vanderbilt Drive in Naples as Hurricane Helene passes off the coast on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Storm surge coupled with an incoming tide caused flooding along several roadways. Law enforcement officials gather on Estero Boulevard with a boat as Hurricane Helene passes by on Fort Myers Beach, Fla. on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Estero Island was flooded by by the hurricane. This home in Hudson, Florida, caught fire overnight while Hurricane Helene's storm surge swamped the area. High sea waters along a Coquina Key home in St. Petersburg, Florida on Sept. 27, 2024. Alexander Blaudow talks on the phone while walking down the area of 1800 Copeland St. and 2200 St. Johns Ave. during the aftermath of Hurricane Helene Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Riverside, Jacksonville, Fla. Flooding fills the parking lot at The Fish House Restaurant in Bonita Springs as Hurricane Helene passes off the coast on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. The flooding is due to storm surge and an incoming tide. Estero Boulevard is flooded as Hurricane Helene passes by on Fort Myers Beach, Fla. on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Estero Boulevard on Fort Myers Beach sees flooding for a second time as the outer bands of Hurricane Helene pass by on Fort Myers Beach, Fla. on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. A large oak fell on a home during Tropical Storm Helene in Anderson, S.C. Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. A fallen tree lies on the ground amid damage from Hurricane Helene in Perry, Florida, U.S., September 27, 2024. Mud lines where water dissapated is shown near a grate during the aftermath of Hurricane Helene Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Riverside, Jacksonville, Fla. Two men brave the winds and heavy surf to try and secure a boat along the seawall in Cocoa Lee Wenner Park Thursday, September 26, 2024. Rough wind and waves hit the beach at Fort Pierce Jetty Park as feeder bands from Hurricane Helene affect the Treasure Coast on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in Fort Pierce. A car is seen on a deserted street as it rains heavily before Hurricane Helene makes landfall in Tallahassee, Florida, on September 26, 2024. Donald Draughon and his wife Vicki wait for the arrival of Hurricane Helene at Lincoln High School, which was opened as a shelter in Tallahassee, Florida, U.S., September 26, 2024. Hurricane Helene 5 a.m. Sept. 27, 2024. This story has been updated with new photos and videos. 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: Helene damage in Florida: See hurricane's aftermath in Tampa, more Helene is not just huge and deadly. Its historic Jamir Lewis wades through floodwaters with his two daughters, Nylah and Aria, in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Crystal River, Fla. | Luis Santana Hurricane Helene hit Florida late on Thursday and left a path of destruction in its wake as it moved toward Georgia and weakened into a tropical storm. The Associated Press reports that four people are dead from storm-related causes, including a fallen sign and tree, while CNN reports that there were more than 100 water rescues overnight in Floridas Citrus County. Millions of people are without power in the southeastern United States as emergency crews continue to deal with the intense rain and winds. Beyond Florida, up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain had fallen in the North Carolina mountains, with up to 14 inches (36 centimeters) more possible before the deluge ends, setting the stage for flooding that forecasters warned could be worse than anything seen in the past century, The Associated Press reported. Heres what else you need to know about the historic storm. Helene is huge Helene is affecting weather patterns in the Midwest, as well as in Southern states. As heavy rain pummels states like Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee, areas of Illinois and Indiana will deal with related winds. Helene is one of the largest storms in the Gulf of Mexico in the last century, with a wind field that could span roughly the distance between Indianapolis and Washington, DC. Watches and warnings are in place for 60 million people in 12 states, CNN reports. The International Space Station captured a video of the storm from space, which gives viewers a sense of its scope and power. The International Space Station flew over Hurricane Helene at 2:25 p.m. EDT Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, as it approached the Gulf Coast of Florida packing winds in excess of 120 miles an hour. pic.twitter.com/J1iU0Iztpx International Space Station (@Space_Station) September 26, 2024 Atlanta is at risk As Helene moved into Georgia early Friday, people in Atlanta were warned to watch out for flash floods. A flash flood emergency has been issued for the city, including Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, which helps explain why flight delays are expected across the country this weekend. A flash flood emergency is the most severe flood alert the National Weather Service can use, and it indicates a life-threatening situation, CNN reports. The article noted that around 25 people have already been rescued from flooding in the Atlanta area. Helene is setting records In addition to being historically large, Helene is responsible for historic amounts of rainfall, according to The Washington Post. Many areas have received more than 10 inches; some are closing in on a foot and a half, the article said. While Florida and Georgia are struggling with all the rain, the western part of North and South Carolina will experience some of the most dangerous rain-related conditions. Asheville has now seen 11.26 inches of rain, 9.87 inches of which fell Wednesday and Thursday, beating the previous two-day record by nearly two inches (it was 7.94 inches in 1918). Asheville will also set a record for its wettest week since weather observations began in 1869, The Washington Post reports. Helene will move north After making landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida and moving northeast toward Atlanta, Helene is expected to turn northwestward and continue to weaken and slow down, according to the National Hurricane Center. The center predicts that Helene will head to the Tennessee Valley next. It will be a very wet and windy Friday. Remnants from Helene will travel over the state today. This storm system stalls in the Ohio Valley region and leaves our weather conditions unsettled through the weekend. Rain in Indiana is coming in two waves today. The first has already moved into the state with steady, light rainfall in central Indiana. Winds have picked up and gusts early Friday morning are nearing 30 mph. This first wave will ease late morning into the early afternoon. The second wave is more impactful and will bring the potential for heavy downpours late in the afternoon and evening. While the rain will be scattered this evening, the wind will remain the big story. A High Wind Warning and Wind Advisory have been issued for our area. Both go in effect at noon today and last through the evening. Wind gusts in excess of 60 mph are possible. We could see numerous power outages due to these strong wind gusts. Be mindful of the potential of fallen tree limbs, loose objects blowing around and difficult driving conditions. Winds will ease tonight but conditions will remain breezy Saturday. Rain chances continue through the weekend but will be more widely scattered with off and on showers. Overall, totals by Sunday could range from 1/2 to near 3 with lighter totals to the north and heavier to the south. We keep rain chances around for the first couple days next week but will get into quieter, dry conditions by midweek. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WTTV CBS4Indy. As Helene threatened, Florida Sen. Rick Scott returned to hurricane mode. Is it substance or show? FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. As Hurricane Helene formed and barreled toward the Big Bend, it provided an opportunity for Rick Scott, Floridas reelection-seeking U.S. senator. He demonstrated concern for the states residents, warned them to protect themselves and got public attention with less than six weeks until Election Day. Its a role and image Scott cultivated during his previous position, the eight years he spent as Floridas governor, a job that has a far more direct role in ensuring the safety of residents, marshaling of state resources, and directing recovery efforts. The role of a U.S. senator is far more limited. A lawmaker can help galvanize attention, pressure the federal bureaucracy, and work to get funding for disaster relief. But since Scott was elected the Senate in 2018, he has sought to retain governor-style visibility before and after storms, an approach that contrasts with his senior colleague, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. Slightly more than a year ago, for example, Gov. Ron DeSantis declined to put aside partisan differences and join President Joe Bidens visit to inspect areas affected by Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall in the Big Bend as a Category 3 storm. Scott, who is just as fierce a critic of the Democratic president as DeSantis, took a different tack. Scott was present, next to Biden, filling a government-style role as a prominent official from the state. (DeSantis was at the time a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, so appearing alongside Biden could have been politically damaging for him with his partys primary voters.) This week, with the Senate in session in Washington, Scotts visibility in Florida was more limited. He posted extensively on social media on the developing storm, and had teleconference briefings Monday and Tuesday with the director of the National Hurricane Center. On Wednesday, Scott left Washington and returned to Florida. Scott decamped from the Capitol before the Senate was done with its work for the week. As a result, he didnt cast a vote on the measure keeping the government operating until December and avoiding a shutdown. The spending bill didnt include billions in supplemental disaster funding sought by Democrats and Republicans. Florida Democratic Party spokesperson Alex Wood faulted Scott. Floridians wont get the resources needed to recover from Hurricane Helene because Rick Scott left Washington without lifting a finger to fight for disaster relief funding. Instead of photo ops, Rick Scott should do his job, Wood said in a statement. The Republican senator headed to the Panhandle and the Big Bend, stopping throughout the region to meet with local officials, urge residents to evacuate if instructed, and imploring people to plan ahead. Shortly after landing, he was on video on social media talking about the storm. After multiple stops Wednesday he was in Bronson on Thursday, visiting the Levy County Emergency Operations Center. GET PREPARED BEFORE ITS TOO LATE, Scott wrote in a statement. Families all along our Gulf Coast have to take this seriously. Continue to monitor the news and listen to local officials for any evacuation instructions, alerts or warnings. Florida is resilient because we prepare for storms. I cannot stress this enough: preparedness saves lives. We can always rebuild a home, but we cant rebuild a life. He later posted that he heeded his own advice, and moved inland to Ocala. At all the stops, he wore what had become his trademark attire during disasters and many other occasions: a Navy cap. Rubio stayed in Washington for Senate business, and wore a suit as he recorded a pre-storm video message to Floridians with the same advice Scott was offering. He won reelection last year and doesnt face voters again until 2028. The two senators also asked Biden to approve Floridas request for an emergency declaration before the Helenes landfall, something federal lawmakers routinely do to show their attention to their home states needs. Scott wasnt alone. Elected officials from both parties in areas threatened by Helene were out showing their concern for constituents helping distribute sandbags, getting briefings from emergency managers, and praying. Scotts challenger, former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Florida Democrat, isnt currently in office, and so does not have the same ability as Scott and other incumbent officials to marshal resources and command attention. She did post warnings and reposted official messages on social media, including a video reminder for pet owners to make sure theyre prepared. Scott spokesperson Chris Hartline said via email that the senator was fulfilling his obligations. Unlike those questioning what he was doing, Hartline said, Senator Scotts full focus is on saving lives right now and making sure every Floridian is prepared for Helene. If those asking questions or criticizing Scott want Floridians to be less prepared for a major hurricane, thats fine. Just say so. It explains why Debbie is playing politics and campaigning in New York City while a major hurricane barrels down on our state. Senator Scott wants Floridians to be more prepared. Thats the job of a U.S. Senator from Florida, something Debbie will never experience, he said Wednesday. The Florida Republican Party, in a statement, had a similar complaint. While Senator Rick Scott was focused on Hurricane Helene headed to our state and the safety of Floridians, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell spent Tuesday night fundraising and hobnobbing in New York City. Its clear where Debbies priorities lie and its not with us. Mucarsel-Powell, was in fact in New York early in the week for fundraising, spokesperson Riya Vashi said, but she was back in the state on Wednesday. She wasnt the only one tending to political fundraising on Tuesday as the storm was strengthening and moving toward the state. Politico Playbook reported that Scott on Tuesday attended a political fundraiser for U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. While immediate needs in a crisis the forecast, disaster preparations, recovery assistance and government assistance get outsized attention as a storm approaches and in the aftermath, Democrats see broader context to Scotts time in office. The consensus in the scientific community is that climate change is a factor making hurricane season worse, particularly by causing more storms. Evidence continues to mount that human-induced climate change is causing hurricanes to grow stronger and more destructive. Hurricanes are producing heavier rain, their storm surges are riding atop higher sea levels, and in many cases they are lingering longer over land, causing increased flooding and infrastructure destruction, according to SciLine, part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Democrats point to Scotts record as governor and senator to depict him as a climate change denier at the expense of Florida. They cite his vote against the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which provided money for projects that could help Florida become more resilient to climate change and extreme weather. And they consider him a climate change denier. In 2010, The Tampa Bay Times reported, Scott said he hadnt been convinced about global warming. In 2014, The Tampa Tribune reported he met with climate scientists but declined to say if he accepted scientific conclusions about human activity and climate change. After he visited Florida Keys communities affected by Hurricane Irma in 2017, Politico reported Scott declined to say if he believed human-caused climate change is real. Clearly our environment changes all the time, and whether thats cycles were going through or whether thats man-made, I wouldnt be able to tell you which one it is, Scott reportedly said at the time. While Scott was governor in 2015, the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, and subsequently other news organizations, reported that state agencies were ordered not to use the terms climate change, global warming or sea-level rise. Scott said at the time the terms werent banned. Its not true, he said. Democrats also said Scott has at times voted against funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and funding to strengthen the power grid and pay for flood mitigation projects. Scott has said the National Flood Insurance Program, relied on by many Floridians, is plagued with problems, and a tax break that would help some people cover the cost. Democrats have offered a different view: Rick Scott doesnt care about the millions of Floridians who depend on NFIP to protect their homes thats why he voted six times against funding this critical program, a party spokesperson said in a news release. The bottom line, Democratic Party spokesperson Wood said via email: Rick Scott has failed Florida communities left vulnerable to hurricanes and the worsening effects of climate change. From voting against disaster relief funding, to opposing investments in strengthening Floridas infrastructure, Scott has turned his back on Floridians whose livelihoods are threatened by extreme weather. Hartline, Scotts spokesperson, said this about the Democrats assertions: As far as climate change goes, Senator Scott has been clear that taking care of the planet and pursuing economic prosperity are objectives that can and must be pursued simultaneously. Protecting Floridas environmental treasures is one of the few areas where theres bipartisan agreement in our state. Thats why he made important investments to take care of the environment and address rising sea levels and other impacts as Governor. _____ (WGHP) Helene brought with it major severe weather as its bands crossed North Carolina. As of 5 p.m. Friday, Helene was about 50 miles south-southeast of Louisville, Kentucky, according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm, now a post-tropical cyclone, has maximum sustained winds of 35 mph with possible gusts higher than that and is moving north-northwest at 17 mph. NHC reports, Historic, catastrophic and life-threatening flash and urban flooding, including numerous major landslides, will continue across portions of the southern Appalachians through this evening, followed by gradual improvement tonight and into Saturday. Widespread serious river flooding is ongoing, some of which will be major to record breaking. Track the weather yourself using the FOX8 Interactive Radar Flooding & Damage Part of Mount Zion Road in Wilkes County washes away. (Submitted photo) Tree collapses on home at Oak Ridge Drive and Oak Ridge Place in Winston-Salem. (Josh Nagy/WGHP) Summit and 6th in Winston-Salem (Matt Jensen/WGHP) Summit and 6th in Winston-Salem (Matt Jensen/WGHP) A downed tree is seen on Bowman Road in Randleman. (Dwayne Scott/FOX8 WGHP) One person was killed Friday morning in Yadkin County when a tree fell on their car while they were driving, the North Carolina State Highway Patrol confirmed. A 2006 Nissan passenger car was traveling east on Old U.S. 421 at about 8:15 a.m. when a large oak tree fell from the westbound shoulder across the roadway, landing on top of the Nissan. Video from Wilkes County shows water rushing over normally dry land at Cub Creek Park. Wilkes County Emergency Services is now in operation, but earlier in the day the Wilkes County 911 Center lost its primary operations, forcing officials to roll over calls to Ashe County. Thursday night, the Wilkes Rescue Squad responded to a scene on Reddies Street, off of Dixie Hill Road, in the Millers Creek community. No one was injured. Wilkes Rescue Squad Chief David Wyatt says it was a great teamwork effort with a great outcome. Wilkes Rescue Squad responds to a scene on Reddies Street in the Millers Creek community. (Courtesy of Wilkes Rescue Squad Chief David Wyatt) Wilkes Rescue Squad responds to a scene on Reddies Street in the Millers Creek community. (Courtesy of Wilkes Rescue Squad Chief David Wyatt) Wilkes Rescue Squad responds to a scene on Reddies Street in the Millers Creek community. (Courtesy of Wilkes Rescue Squad Chief David Wyatt) Wilkes Rescue Squad responds to a scene on Reddies Street in the Millers Creek community. (Courtesy of Wilkes Rescue Squad Chief David Wyatt) In Surry County, video captured a glimpse of the massive flooding that has overtaken certain areas. County officials ask anyone in Surry County whose home was damaged by the storm to call the Surry County Permitting & Inspections Office at (336) 401-8300 and warn residents to ensure any contractors hired for repairs are legally licensed to do so. Greensboro police said, between the hours of 6 a.m. and 1 p.m., officers had responded to 16 reports of trees down and nine accidents. There were also four signals out, one call for traffic assistance and one call for flooding. Downed trees were reported on Randleman Road and Interstate 73, near I-840, in Greensboro. The Alamance County Sheriffs Office answered a call for help from Yancey County Sheriff Shane Hilliard on Friday. According to ACSO, Yancey County has been dealing with washed-out roads and flooded areas which are making it difficult to help residents. ACSO sent a team of four deputies with the Bearcat Armored Vehicle to help. (From left) Captain Craig Stephens, Lieutenant Brad Hall, Sheriff Terry Johnson, Sergeant Jacob Hinckle and Sergeant Joey Holmes stand with ACSO's Bearcat Armored Vehicle. (Courtesy of the Alamance County Sheriff's Office) North Carolina Forecast Storm seen from Eagle Falls Road in Rockingham County. (Courtesy of Jennifer Powell) Heavy rainfall struck western North Carolina with multiple storms bringing more than a foot of rain to the region. The Piedmont Triad saw its worst weather mid-morning Friday with gusts to over 40 mph and more locally heavy rainfall, according to FOX8 Chief Meteorologist Van Denton. Most had 1 to 2 inches from Helene overnight into today with a few pockets seeing more. Total rainfall over the past few days generally added up to 2 to 4 inches across the Triad with a few spots getting over 6 inches. The counties to our west got it worse with the foothills receiving nearly half a foot and the mountains receiving more than a foot. As Helene continues to move away into Tennessee and then Kentucky, the storm is weakening and weather will improve. Skies will be clearing for us through this evening and overnight will become mostly clear with a low near 62, Denton said. Forecasters say the main hazard is the heavy rain. Winds gusts could cause damage over portions of Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Kentucky, particularly over the higher terrain of the southern Appalachians. Amid heavy rain, winds gusts and potential isolated tornadoes, it may be dangerous to travel. Widespread power outages are also a concern with these rain bands. As can be seen in the image below, the highest risks of flooding from Helene are in western North Carolina with high changes of at least 70% in the region. Tornadoes also remain a possibility from Friday morning into the afternoon in the Carolinas. The tornado threat also exists in eastern Georgia and southern Virginia. By lunchtime, winds will begin to diminish and rain becomes lighter and more scattered. By this afternoon, well have some peeks of sunshine with highs close to 80. It will be partly cloudy overnight with lows in the lower-60s. Whats next? Saturday will be nice with sunny to partly cloudy skies. Highs near 80. There is a tiny 15% chance for a shower. Saturday night, partly cloudy and 65. Sunday will be pretty good, partly cloudy with a 35% chance for a shower or thunderstorm, highs near 80. Early next week, our weather will continue to improve. Monday will be partly sunny with a high around 79, there is a 20% chance for a shower. Tuesday will be mostly sunny with a high around 79. Wednesday will be mostly sunny and reach 77. Lows remain in the mid-60s. A turn to cooler nights starts on Thursday. Sunny both Thursday and Friday with highs in the low to mid-70s and lows in the lower 50s, some 40s in rural areas. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Initial reports said there were children in the water at Windermere [Furness Coastguard] A helicopter was called to a capsized boat in a lake, with initial reports that children were in the water. Furness and Arnside Coastguard raced to the scene at Windermere, Cumbria, on Thursday evening. However a search by the Coastguard's helicopter found just one person in the lake, who was sitting on top of the upturned boat. They were taken ashore and handed over to paramedics for assessment and treatment. The fire service, police, lakes wardens, a mountain rescue team, Ulverston Inshore rescue and the Great Northern Ambulance Team all joined the rescue operation. Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk. More on this topic Related internet links More than 50 people have been rescued after being stranded on the roof of a Tennessee hospital Friday some of them for hours due to rising floodwaters from Hurricane Helene, according to a city official. The dozens of people trapped atop Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, Tennessee, were all taken to safety as of Friday evening, Michael Baker, Erwins alderman, told CNN. Weve had a constant stream of helicopters picking them up and dropping them off into the city at safe places, Baker said earlier Friday. Theres a helicopter on top of the hospital, and we have another one, hovering nearby to start to carousel getting everybody off, but this is a team effort. Ballad Health, which manages Unicoi, was notified the hospital needed to be evacuated at around 9:30 a.m. local time Friday, the healthcare organization said in a post on X. But because of flooding and high winds from the deadly storm, ambulances and helicopters could not reach the building safely. Erwin, about 100 miles east of Knoxville, is located in the southern Appalachian Mountains, close to Tennessees border with North Carolina. A total of 54 people were moved to the roof, and seven others put in rescue boats, Ballad Health said in a statement earlier Friday. The hospital system said the count included 11 patients. Unicoi County Hospital was engulfed by extremely dangerous and rapidly moving water, the statement on X said. Because of how quickly the water was rising around and inside the hospital, rescue boats were also not able to evacuate people safely. Ballad Health called the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency and the National Guards efforts to get the people to safety a dangerous rescue operation. The water came up so fast, I literally looked at the owner and said, Weve got to get out of here, Baker said. Unicoi County Hospital is a nonprofit, 10-bed hospital, according to its website. At least 45 people have been killed across five states during the storm, which has produced flash flooding across the Southeast after making landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane. Now a tropical depression, the storm has left millions of customers without power, destroyed homes and prompted road closures. Scariest thing Ive ever been through, rescued woman says Angel Mitchell was among dozens trapped on the roof for four hours Friday while her 83-year-old mother, whom she was visiting, sat nearby in a rescue boat, she told CNN. Mitchell says they were quickly evacuated from a hospital room as water began entering the building. Mitchell said the power went out and hospital staff began directing patients and visitors to the roof for safety, grabbing any essential supplies that they could. Her mother, who was sick with pneumonia, was placed into a lifeboat. Meanwhile, Mitchell says she was directed outside where she waded in chest-deep waters around the side of the building to climb up a ladder to the roof, at times having to grab the building to avoid getting swept away. It was the scariest thing Ive ever been through, Mitchell told CNN tearfully. While Mitchell was on the roof, she saw her mother along with her oxygen tank in one of the rescue boats. Thats what tore me up the most looking down and seeing her, Mitchell said. She was able to communicate with her mother only by yelling loudly down to her. As they awaited rescue, floodwaters rushed by and Mitchell saw what she believed to be parts of dislodged houses and barns floating by them, she said. Video from the scene shows floodwater surrounding and nearly covering vehicles, including at least one ambulance. We all tried to stay calm, but it was extremely hard, Mitchell said. A group of the patients, nurses and doctors huddled together and prayed as they waited to be saved. Mitchell says by the time rescue teams arrived, the water was approximately 10 feet below the roofline. The helicopters transported those stranded to a hospital 20 miles north of the Unicoi County Hospital. As of Friday afternoon, approximately 1.1 million people are under at least 14 different flash flood emergencies, the highest level of flash flood warning issued by the National Weather Service, which is reserved for catastrophic flooding that presents a severe threat to human life. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Heres how you can help Hurricane Helene relief efforts Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida late Thursday night and continues to devastate the Southeast, killing at least 21 people and destroying homes and businesses of countless families. FOX Corporation made a donation to the Red Cross to help victims of Hurricane Helene and is encouraging our audience to do the same. Donations can be made on the Red Cross website or by scanning the QR code below. Scan this QR code with the camera on your phone, and then you will be taken to the Red Cross donation page. For those affected by Helene, the Red Cross has shelters available across impacted areas in the Southeast. They can be found by following your local Red Cross and local emergency officials on social media. Storm victims in the Big Bend region of Florida, where Helene made landfall, can call (800) 729-3413 for assistance. How To Watch Fox Weather The Red Cross asks people who plan to stay in a shelter to bring items, such as prescription medications, important documents, extra clothing and special items for children or family members with special needs. To assist the Red Cross with these efforts, donations can be made here. GULFPORT, FL - SEPTEMBER 26: A man crosses a storm surge flooded area on the coast of Gulfport, Fla. as Hurricane Helene passed through the Gulf of Mexico to the West on September 26, 2024. (Photo by Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post via Getty Images) People can call 1-800-RED-CROSS (1-800-733-2767) if they are unable to locate a friend or family member if someone: Has a serious, pre-existing health, mental health condition or Functional and Access Need. Is a member of the military-connected community (active duty, reserve, guard, retiree, veteran, or immediate family member). Or you shared the same residence within the disaster impact area, or have recently been in contact with someone (within the past year) but are unable to reach them because of the disaster. You can support the Red Cross by making a donation on their website here. Original article source: Heres how you can help Hurricane Helene relief efforts AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF) The Henry Brigham Community Center is open for those who are in need of shelter during the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. According to the Augusta, Georgia Fire/EMA Facebook page, the Henry Brigham Community which is located on Golden Camp Road can be used as shelter for those in need. ALSO ON WJBF: CSRA school/office closings, delays due to Helene and severe weather It also states that hotels are also being made available for displaced residents, and if you are in need of help, you can check VisitAugusta.com for more information on hotel availability and bookings. Augusta Fire/EMA also states on its page that The Red Cross is coming to assist with shelters and community needs. For non-emergency requests, such as reporting downed trees or power lines, please use 311 or the Augusta 311 App. In the event of a life-threatening emergency, 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 WJBF. Three School District 49 students face charges after bringing replica handguns to Horizon Middle School Thursday, according to the El Paso County Sheriff's Office. During the school day, the school's school resource officer (SRO) received multiple reports from students about a student allegedly in possession of a firearm on the campus, according to a news release from the Sheriff's Office. The SRO notified school administration and located the reported student in question. The student, an 11-year-old, was in possession of an airsoft gun shaped as a handgun, the Sheriff's Office said. Two 12-year-old students were also found to be in possession of an additional replica handgun. The school was not placed under a lockdown and class operations were uninterrupted. All three students face two misdemeanor charges: interference with staff, faculty or students of educational institutions and disorderly conduct. I want to impress upon parents and guardians the importance of awareness concerning their children. Who they communicate with, what items they bring to school, and their access to contraband or weapons," El Paso County Sheriff Joe Roybal said in the release. "While this incident was addressed quickly and without incident, it caused unnecessary fear and the deployment of resources." Officials at School District 49 have confirmed communication with parents about the incident. The incident comes following multiple false threats made online towards various schools in the Colorado Springs area and throughout the country. Last week, Ellicott School District 22 students were sent home after a missing gun was reported on school ground and put its schools into a lockdown. Featured Local Savings School safety is of the utmost importance to my office, and we will continue to monitor and investigate these incidents without hesitation. We are committed to keeping our schools safe and ensuring students have a secure place to learn and grow, Roybal said. New safety policy proposed for D-49 Wednesday night during a D-49 board of education work session, board members discussed a potential new policy to add metal detectors and handheld wands for security personnel to create a safer environment by deterring the presence of weapons at schools. D-49 Director of Safety and Security David Watson said that origin of the proposal came after the Parkland school shooting in Florida in 2018 that killed 17 people, and that they've received numerous calls from concerned community members. In 2020, the district approved the addition of armed security officers at select campuses. If approved, the detectors would be used on a temporary basis during times when the district has reasonable cause to believe that weapons or unauthorized contraband are in the possession of any staff member, student or visitor, when there has been a pattern of weapons found at school, or when violence, or the threat of violence has occurred at the school or any School District 49 building. This is literally going to be for moments that we may receive a late-night threat through Safe2Tell that we cannot deem it 'not credible with our law enforcement partners and we have limited time to get back to school in the morning, Watson said. And it would allow us to deploy them with a security team just for that morning or throughout the day so that we can add additional reassurance to our community that we are taking additional steps to keep their children safe while theyre in our schools getting an education. The new policy will be on the agenda at the boards next regular meeting Oct. 10 for a vote for approval. Fort Campbell has confirmed that the man reported missing in Henry County on Wednesday is a soldier of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). On Wednesday, the Henry County Sheriff's Office (HCSO) was notified of John Michael Jackson's vehicle parked on the side of the bridge at Paris Landing, but he was nowhere to be found. On Friday, Lt. Col. Marty Meiners told The Leaf-Chronicle that Jackson joined the U.S. Army as a Network Communication Systems Specialist (25H) in August 2023 and has served at Fort Campbell since May 2024. Henry County Sheriff's Office is searching for missing Fort Campbell soldier John Michael Jackson, who was went missing on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. "We are working closely with civil authorities in their efforts to ensure he is found as soon as possible," Meiners said. HCSO, the Henry County Rescue Squad and the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency searched about eight miles north of the bridge before heavy rain and nightfall caused them to pause the search Wednesday night. Lead detective Lt. David Andrews said that the agencies will meet tomorrow to make a plan to resume the search on Sunday, weather permitting. The Henry County Sheriffs Office is asking for anyone who may have seen Jackson around the Paris Landing area to call with that information at 731-642-1672. Kenya Anderson is a reporter for The Leaf-Chronicle. She can be contacted at kanderson@gannett.com or on X at kenyaanderson32. Sign up for the Leaf-Chronicle to support local journalism at www.theleafchronicle.com. This article originally appeared on Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle: Henry Co. Sheriff's Office searching for missing Fort Campbell soldier Here's how to get discounts and free coffee at Milwaukee cafes for National Coffee Day This weekend, National Coffee Day is brewing across cafes in Milwaukee with discounted prices and free drinks. Looking to get your caffeine fix? Here's a list of some cafes participating in National Coffee Day this year: When is National Coffee Day? National Coffee Day is Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. Colectivo Coffee is offering deals for National Coffee Day in Milwaukee, Madison, Chicago Spiced Apple Cider and Cajun Burrito at Colectivo Coffee. Visit a Colectivo Coffee cafe on Sunday and you can buy one draft cold brew coffee and get one for 50% off. Draft nitro cold brew and cream cold brews are excluded from the promotion. The chain is also offering 15% off all coffee bags, valid from Sept. 27 through Sept. 29. Find it: The promotions are available at all Colectivo Coffee locations, including 12 in the Milwaukee area: 2301 S. Kinnickinnic Ave., Milwaukee 170 S. 1st St., Milwaukee 1211 Washington St., Grafton 2999 N. Humboldt Blvd., Milwaukee 1701 N. Lincoln Memorial Drive, Milwaukee 11205 Cedarburg Road, Mequon 2211 N. Prospect Ave., Milwaukee 4500 N. Oakland Ave., Shorewood 223 E. St. Paul, Milwaukee 777 E. Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee 6745 W. Wells St., Wauwatosa 9125 W. North Ave., Wauwatosa Deals at Stone Creek cafes in Milwaukee, North Shore and Lake Country On National Coffee Day, you can receive a 12oz free drip coffee and 20% off Harvest and Cream City beans at Stone Creek. On National Coffee Day, you can receive a 12oz free drip coffee and 20% off Harvest and Cream City beans at Stone Creek, a company spokesperson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Find it: Stone Creek locations: 2744 Hillside Drive, Delafield 2650 N. Downer Ave., Milwaukee 422 N. 5th St., Milwaukee 6969 N. Port Washington Road, Glendale 7954 Harwood Ave., Wauwatosa 1043 E. Summit Ave., Oconomowoc 4106 N. Oakland Ave., Shorewood 8340 W. Bluemound Road, Wauwatosa National Coffee Day deals at Fairgrounds Coffee and Tea, Milwaukee Fairgrounds Coffee & Tea, a Chicago company coming to downtown Milwaukee's Yankee Hill neighborhood, also serves other beverages and food. On Sunday, you can receive a free 12 oz. Counter Culture coffee if you order on the app. On Saturday, Fairgrounds rewards members will receive double points on all items ordered. Why celebrate #nationalcoffeeday just one day when you can celebrate all weekend long at Fairgrounds This Friday,... Posted by Fairgrounds Coffee and Tea on Tuesday, September 24, 2024 Find it: 916 E. State St., Milwaukee National Coffee Day deals at Fiddleheads Coffee Roasters in Milwaukee and North Shore There will not be any National Coffee Day deals this weekend, but on Oct. 1, Fiddleheads is offering 50% off of any coffee drink if you purchase another item at full price, a spokesperson wrote in a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Find it: Fiddleheads Coffee locations: 192 S. Main St., Thiensville W62 N605 Washington Ave., Cedarburg 10530 N. Port Washington Road, Mequon 1505 Wisconsin Ave., Grafton N88 W16621 Appleton Ave., Menomonee Falls 790 N. Water St., Milwaukee 4334 N. Oakland Ave., Shorewood 8807 W. North Ave., Wauwatosa 790 N. Water St., Milwaukee National Coffee Day deals at Goddess and the Baker in Brookfield, Chicago The first Goddess and The Baker opened in Chicago in 2016. The Corners of Brookfield is its first out-of-state location. Drink deals at Goddess and the Baker will be on Oct. 1 and include the following: Small drip coffee: $1 Cold brew: $2 Small latte: $2.5 Pumpkin apple butter latte: $3 Pumpkin cream cold brew: $3 All coffee bags will also be half off. Find it: 340 High St., Brookfield Dunkin' National Coffee Day deals throughout the Milwaukee area On Sunday, Dunkin' Rewards members can enjoy a free medium hot or iced coffee with purchase through the Dunkin' app. The promotion excludes cold brew and nitro cold brew, and dairy alternatives, cold foams, flavors and espresso shots may be additional charge. Accounts are free to set up at dunkindonuts.com/en/dunkinrewards. Find it: Throughout Milwaukee; visit dunkindonuts.com/en/locations to find a location near you National Coffee Day deals at Starbucks cafes throughout the Milwaukee area Starbucks is partnering with music duo Sofi Tukker to host a Twitch live DJ streaming set at 10 a.m. PT. Before the event, Starbucks is also offering customers a special National Coffee Day deal on Amazon where customers who spend $50 on select coffee blends will get $10 off, while supplies last. To participate in the Twitch livestream, you can visit https://m.twitch.tv/sofitukkerofficial/home. RELATED: Time for a pumpkin spice latte? Check out these locally owned cafes for lattes, apple cider and more fall drinks This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: National Coffee Day 2024: Milwaukee deals at Colectivo, Stone Creek Here's when Milwaukee Public Schools students will be off school in 2024-25 Students wait to get their schedules before the first day of school for Milwaukee Public Schools students at South Division High School in Milwaukee on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024. All district students are under the same calendar for the 2024-25 school year. The school year has begun, and with any school year, oftentimes students and even teachers are curious about when they'll get a break: the much-coveted day off school. The most significant change to this year's calendar is that MPS students are all under the same calendar. All schools started the same day this school year, Sept. 3, a change from past practice of many MPS schools starting classes in mid-August. Here's what to know about when Milwaukee Public Schools' students are off school this year. Does MPS get a fall break? While there's no formal fall break, per se, MPS students and staff are off school Oct. 18 because of parent-teacher conferences and Oct. 21 for "October break." Students are also off Nov. 5 for a record day at the K-8 level and a professional development day at the high school. When is MPS off for Thanksgiving break? The district has off for Thanksgiving from Wednesday through Friday, Nov. 27-29. When is MPS off for winter break? The district has off for winter break from Monday, Dec. 23, through Wednesday, Jan. 1. Are Milwaukee Public Schools off on Martin Luther King Jr. Day? Yes. All schools are closed for the holiday, which is on Monday, Jan. 20. When is MPS off for spring break? All district schools are off for spring break Monday through Friday, March 24-28, but students will also be off school Friday, March 21, for parent-teacher conferences. When is the last day of classes for the 2024-25 school year? The last day of classes for all students is June 13. Here's a list of all the days MPS students will be out of school this year: Sept. 27: professional development day Oct. 18: parent-teacher conferences Oct. 21: October break Nov. 5: Record day (K-8)/professional development day (high school) Nov. 27-29: Thanksgiving break Dec. 23-Jan. 1: winter break Jan. 20: Martin Luther King Jr. Day Jan. 24: record day (HS)/professional development day (K8) Feb. 17: mid-semester break Feb. 18: professional development (HS)/record day (K8) March 21: parent-teacher conferences Mar. 2428: spring break April 18: April break May 26: Memorial Day June 6: record day (K8)/professional development day (HS) June 13: last day of school for all students Contact Alec Johnson at (262) 875-9469 or alec.johnson@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AlecJohnson12. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Here's when MPS students will be off school in 2024-25 HERSHEY, Pa. (WHTM) The man accused of slashing a guest in the Hersheypark parking lot is in custody at the Dauphin County Prison. According to court records, Huley Williams was arraigned on September 17 and sent to the Dauphin County Prison without bail in connection to the July incident at Hersheypark. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Nittany Insiders Williams is facing more than four dozen charges including robbery and aggravated assault after a guest alleged they found Williams rummaging in their car on July 27. When the guest confronted Williams, Derry Township Police say Williams slashed them in the face with a sharp object. Later that day, the victim was notified that their credit card was used at a Target in Bucks County. A second victim later notified police that their credit card and cash were stolen from the Hersheypark parking lot and used to make over $5,600 in fraudulent purchases. Police later said they identified a second suspect, Isabel Santos, 44, of Lycoming County, who allegedly worked with Williams to steal credit cards. Santos and other unidentified suspects were accused of using the stolen credit cards at Chocolate World, Hersheypark, and other businesses across the area. Police say Santos also has ties to New Jersey and is wanted on 46 charges related to theft, conspiracy, and access device fraud. Anyone with information on Santos whereabouts or who has information related to the incident is asked to contact the Derry Township Police Department at 717-534-2202. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Hassan Nasrallah, seen at a rare public appearance in Beirut on August 2, 2013, was the most high profile Hezbollah leader to be killed (ANWAR AMRO) (ANWAR AMRO/AFP/AFP) Israel has killed Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah and several of its top commanders in a series of targeted air strikes on the Iran-backed movement's stronghold in Beirut. Here is what we know about the slain commanders. - Nasrallah: Hezbollah chief - On Friday, an Israeli air strike on the Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut killed Hassan Nasrallah, the group's leader for 32 years. His death was confirmed a day later by Hezbollah. Despite leading a life in hiding to avoid assassination, the 64-year-old Nasrallah had wielded great power in Lebanon. He also enjoyed cult status among his Shiite Muslim supporters, although he was rarely seen in public for security reasons. "The point of security measures is that movement be kept secret, but that doesn't stop me from moving around and seeing what is happening," Nasrallah told Lebanon's pro-Hezbollah Al-Akhbar newspaper in a 2004 interview. Nasrallah was elected secretary-general of Hezbollah in 1992, aged just 32, after an Israeli helicopter gunship killed his predecessor, Abbas al-Musawi. Israel said on Saturday that Nasrallah was one of its "greatest enemies", and that his death made the world "a safer place". - Shukr: right-hand man - A strike on July 30 killed Fuad Shukr, one of the group's top military commander. Shukr, who was in his early 60s, played a key role in cross-border drone and rocket attacks on Israeli forces, according to a source close to Hezbollah. The two sides have traded near-daily fire across the frontier since Hezbollah ally Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel. Shukr helped found Hezbollah during Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war and became a key adviser to Nasrallah. Shukr was Hezbollah's most senior military commander, and the leader said he had been in daily contact with him since October. Israel blamed Shukr for a July rocket attack on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights that killed 12 children in a Druze Arab town. Hezbollah denied responsibility. In 2017, the US Treasury offered a $5 million reward for information on Shukr, saying he had "a central role" in the deadly 1983 bombing of the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut. - Aqil: US bounty - A strike on September 20 killed Ibrahim Aqil, head of Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force, along with 15 other commanders. According to Lebanese officials, the attack killed a total of 55 people, many of them civilians. A source close to Hezbollah described Aqil as the second-in-command in the group's forces after Shukr. The Radwan Force is Hezbollah's most formidable offensive unit and its fighters are trained in cross-border infiltration, a source close to the group told AFP. The United States said Aqil was a member of Hezbollah's Jihad Council, the movement's highest military body. The US Treasury said he was a "principal member" of the Islamic Jihad Organisation -- a Hezbollah-linked group behind the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people and an attack on the US Marine Corps barracks in the Lebanese capital the same year that killed 241 US soldiers. - Kobeissi: missiles expert - On September 25, a strike killed Ibrahim Mohammed Kobeissi, who commanded several military units including a guided missiles unit. "Kobeissi was an important source of knowledge in the field of missiles and had close ties with senior Hezbollah military leaders," the Israeli military said. Kobeissi joined Hezbollah in 1982 and rose through the ranks of the group's forces. One of the units he led was tasked with manning operations in part of the south of Lebanon, which borders Israel. - Srur: drone chief - A strike on September 26 killed Mohammed Srur, the head of Hezbollah's drone unit since 2020. Srur studied mathematics and was among a number of top advisers sent by Hezbollah to Yemen to train the country's Huthi rebels, who are also backed by Iran, a source close to Hezbollah said. He had also played a key role in Hezbollah's intervention since 2013 in Syria's civil war in support of President Bashar al-Assad's government. Other commanders killed in recent strikes include Muhammad Ali Ismail, Ali Karake, Wissam Tawil and Mohammed Naameh Nasser. lar-cf/ser/srm/kir An excavator removes a destroyed vehicle in Kiryat Bialik, following a reported strike by the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement. Ilia Yefimovich/dpa Hezbollah militants in Lebanon fired rockets at the Israeli city of Tiberias and other towns on the Sea of Galilee, causing one injury, the Israeli military reported on Friday. According to the army, most of the 10 missiles were intercepted. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia confirmed the attack, during which a man was struck by falling debris. Four drones approaching from Lebanon were also claimed to have been shot down near the border town of Rosh HaNikra on the Mediterranean Sea. The port city of Haifa had previously been attacked with missiles, drawing retaliatory Israeli airstrikes on the launch sites and dozens of other Hezbollah targets, officials said. Hezbollah asserted that they had attacked the Haifa region with Fadi-1 type rockets. They have been bombarding Israel almost daily since the beginning of the Gaza war nearly a year ago. The militia claims that it aims to support the Palestinian militant organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip in its fight against Israel and to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza war. Israel used to respond with similar force, but since the beginning of the week, the air force has been conducting massive airstrikes in Lebanon, resulting in hundreds of deaths. International efforts to establish a ceasefire have so far been unsuccessful. Houthis in Yemen attack Israel too Yemen's Iranian-aligned Houthi militia on Friday claimed two attacks including one by a ballistic missile aimed at Israel in support of their Palestinian and Lebanese allies. Houthi military spokesman Yehya Saree said the group had aimed at a military target in the area of Jaffa with a ballistic missile and a "vital target" in the Ashkelon area with a drone. "The two operations have successfully achieved their objectives," he added in a televised statement without giving details. Saree vowed further attacks by the group in the days ahead until what he called the "Israeli aggression" on the Gaza Strip and Lebanon stops. In Lebanon, thousands displaced Since the beginning of the heavy Israeli attacks in Lebanon, "significantly more" than 30,000 people have already fled to neighbouring Syria, according to UN reports. About 80% are said to be Syrian citizens, the rest predominantly Lebanese, said Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Syria. He spoke on Friday from the Lebanese-Syrian border over videolink with reporters in Geneva. That number had more than doubled from Thursday's official estimate of 13,500 people who had sought safety in Syria out of desperation. "Both Syrians and Lebanese are crossing from a country at war to one that has faced crisis and conflict for 13 years - we cannot imagine what an incredibly difficult choice that is - over 30 000 have made that choice," he said. In Lebanon, 110,000 people had already been displaced prior to the recent escalation, according to UN reports. Since last week, 118,000 more have joined them, said Imran Riza, the humanitarian UN coordinator in the Lebanese capital Beirut. Ceasefire plan Meanwhile on the diplomatic front, the US government and other countries behind a joint statement calling for a three-week ceasefire between Israel and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon coordinated with Israel, a senior US official said on Friday. The White House's National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby said the statement "wasn't just drawn up in a vacuum." It wasn't only the countries that signed on to the plan who knew of its contents "but Israel itself." But when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in New York on Thursday for his Friday speech at the United Nations General Assembly, he said Israel would continue to attack Hezbollah until the Israelis evacuated from the northern border could safely return home. Netanyahu said there was a lot of "fake news." The government's press office in Jerusalem said the United States had only informed Israel of their intention to present a proposal for a ceasefire together with others. White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said the "joint statement was a clear call" for a temporary ceasefire to open up space for diplomacy so residents on both sides of the border could return home. "I would add that the statement was indeed coordinated with the Israeli side," she said. People hang a giant Israeli flag from the roof of a damaged building in Kiryat Bialik, following a reported strike by the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement. Ilia Yefimovich/dpa By Timour Azhari and Samia Nakhoul BEIRUT (Reuters) - Killing or incapacitating Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah would deal a significant blow to the Iran-backed Lebanese group he has led for 32 years, analysts said on Friday after reports Israel targeted him with a strike. A source close to Hezbollah said Nasrallah was still alive after the attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, on Friday evening. A senior Iranian security official said Tehran was checking on Nasrallah's status. Replacing Nasrallah would be an even bigger challenge now than at any point for years, after a series of recent Israeli attacks that have killed top Hezbollah commanders and raised questions over its internal security. "The whole landscape would change big time," said Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy research director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. "He has been the glue that has held together an expanding organisation," Hage Ali said. Hezbollah, which was formed by Iran's Revolutionary Guards in the early 1980s to battle Israel, is also a major social, religious and political movement for Lebanese Shi'ite Muslims, with Nasrallah at its heart. "He became a legendary figure, kind of, for the Lebanese Shia," said Hage Ali. Nasrallah himself became Hezbollah leader when Israel killed his predecessor and he has been at constant risk of assassination ever since. "You kill one, they get a new one," said a European diplomat of the group's approach. However, amid a sudden series of Israeli successes in its war against Hezbollah and an onslaught of air strikes, his death would greatly aggravate an already fraught moment for the group. "Hezbollah will not collapse if Nasrallah is killed or incapacitated, but this will be a major blow to the groups morale. It would also underline Israels security and military superiority and access," said Lina Khatib, an associate fellow at the Chatham House policy institute in London. The potential impact of Nasrallah's death on Hezbollah's military capabilities is also unclear. Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire for a year across the Lebanese border in their worst conflict since 2006, triggered by the war in Gaza. "Israel will want to translate this pressure into a new status quo in which its north is secure, but this will not happen quickly even if Nasrallah is eliminated," Khatib said. Hezbollah claimed several rocket attacks on Israel in the hours after the Beirut strike in what analysts said was an effort to show it could still carry out such operations after Israel said it targeted Hezbollah's command center. "Israel has declared war. It is a full-scale war, and Israel is using this opportunity to eliminate the leadership structure and destroy Hezbollah's infrastructure," said Fawaz Gerges, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. "They are breaking Hezbollah's power. There's no need to kill every member of Hezbollah but if you destroy its combat structure and force them to surrender. It loses credibility," Gerges said. SUCCESSORS Any new leader would have to be acceptable both within the organisation in Lebanon but also to its backers in Iran, said Philip Smyth, an expert on Shi'ite militias. The man widely regarded as Nasrallah's heir, Hashem Safieddine, was also still alive after Friday's attack, the source close to Hezbollah said. Safieddine, who oversees Hezbollah's political affairs and sits on the group's Jihad Council, is a cousin of Nasrallah and like him is a cleric who wears the black turban denoting descent from Islam's Prophet Mohammed. The U.S. State Department designated him a terrorist in 2017 and in June he threatened a big escalation against Israel after the killing of another Hezbollah commander. "Let (the enemy) prepare himself to cry and wail," he said at the funeral. Nasrallah "started tailoring positions for him within a variety of different councils within Lebanese Hezbollah. Some of them were more opaque than others. They've had him come, go out and speak," said Smyth. Safieddine's family ties and physical resemblance to Nasrallah as well as his religious status as a descendent of Mohammed would all count in his favour, Smyth said. (Reporting by Timour Azhari, Samia Nakhoul, Tom Perry, Jonathan Landay and John Irish; Additional reporting by Angus McDowall; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) Hezbollah stores weapons among civilians in Lebanon, US says its not sharing intel with IDF The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has drastically escalated over the last month as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has begun targeting the terrorist network's hot spots and military storage units, all of which are strategically embedded within civilian villages. Images and videos provided to Fox News Digital of the recent strikes in southern Lebanon show precision missiles hitting what have been deemed civilian buildings. Hezbollah's use of civilian infrastructure has not only created a sophisticated network of meeting houses, weapons storage units and well-hidden missile launching positions across southern Lebanon and in the suburbs of Beirut, it has ensured a war with Hezbollah cannot be conducted without immense collateral damage. Israel Readies Reserve Troops On Border With Lebanon: 'Prepare Yourselves' Since Monday, more than 1,800 casualties have been reported and at least 560 people are believed to have been killed, including 50 children and more than 90 women, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. On Thursday, the U.S. again urged Israel to agree to a cease-fire in Lebanon, and deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh confirmed with reporters that the U.S. is not aiding Jerusalem militarily or with intelligence in its Lebanon-based campaign. Read On The Fox News App Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the international communitys calls for a cease-fire and instead instructed his troops to continue fighting "with full force." French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday warned Israel that it "cannot without consequence just expand its operations to Lebanon" as commanders on the Israeli-Lebanon border ordered its troops to "prepare" for a possible ground invasion. No invasion has been ordered at this time, though Israeli and U.S. security experts have told Fox News Digital that the network Hezbollah has established on the foundation of everyday life within Lebanon means war with the terrorist network will likely be even more costly in terms of human lives than what has been witnessed in Gaza. According to the Israel-based Alma Research and Education Center, a nonprofit organization that researches Israeli security challenges along the border with Lebanon, Hezbollah has long relied on the use of civilian infrastructure to serve its needs. Israel-hezbollah War: Netanyahu 'Did Not Even Respond' To Us Cease-fire Deal, Pledges To Fight 'Full Force' "The phenomenon of renting houses, rooms, warehouses within the Shiite civilian areas by Hezbollah is well known since the beginning of the 2000s," Tal Beeri, head of the research department at Alma, told Fox News Digital, adding that the terrorists also rent structures in non-Shia areas of Lebanon as well. "Evidence of this matter was found in looted documents and investigations of Hezbollah operatives during the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Since then, Hezbollah has only accelerated the phenomenon and estimates are that every third house in southern Lebanon has been used by Hezbollah for its needs," he added. Beeri shared research with Fox News Digital that showed findings from 2021 breaking down the sophisticated system in which Hezbollah has intertwined itself in the everyday running of local villages across the country. A man displays photographs as people sift through the rubble of a building in an area targeted overnight by Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon's town of Saksakiyeh, on Sept. 26, 2024. Israel flatly rejected on Sept. 26 a push led by key backer the United States for a 21-day cease-fire in Lebanon, as it vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah militants "until victory." Hezbollah officials dubbed a "Rabat" loosely translated to "the liaison" are installed in villages across Lebanon and serve as the representative of the terrorist group, facilitating the needs of the villagers in coordination with the hyper-localized operations of Hezbollah. The Rabat, which can oversee multiple villages, reportedly establishes relationships with the residents by facilitating requests for aid such as money, food and even with localized disputes. "In places where Hezbollah decides to expropriate or lease civilian land or properties from the residents for the purpose of its military activities, the Rabat conducts the expropriation or leasing procedure vis-a-vis the relevant resident," Beeri found. The report, based on documents seized following the 2006 war with Hezbollah, found that the Rabat also recommended to local Hezbollah units the best locations in each town that are "suitable to serve the human shield tactic" based on the storage requirements surrounding concealment, infrastructure type and weapons placement. The Rabat then coordinates the logistics between the terrorist organization and the local property owner. "The Rabat strengthens Hezbollahs grip on the Lebanese village residents day-to-day life, their property, and needs, allowing Hezbollah to turn them into human shields on a wider scale," the report found. Hezbollahs control over local communities and its ability to stockpile and transfer weapons throughout the country through a sophisticated tunnel system signifies that the UN Resolution 1701 passed in 2006 to prevent a third war between the terrorist network and Israel has failed. While it remains unclear if U.N. Security Council members are looking to revamp the resolution to counter the terrorist group's movements and stop Israeli operations in civilian areas, the international community has called on Netanyahu to cease his campaign many leaders from both adversary and allied nations, have fervently warned against invading Lebanon. Netanyahu is set to address the U.N. body on Friday during what has been described by the Israeli ambassador to the U.N. as the most "hostile" environment he has seen in his roughly 10 years of attending the top summit. Original article source: Hezbollah stores weapons among civilians in Lebanon, US says its not sharing intel with IDF HIDOE to reinstate four school bus routes in Central Oahu and East Hawaii Island HONOLULU (KHON2) The Hawaii State Department of Education (HIDOE) announced today that four previously suspended school bus routes will be reinstated starting Monday, September 30. Get Hawaiis latest morning news delivered to your inbox, sign up for News 2 You This move will restore service for over 70 student riders across three schools in Central Oahu and East Hawaii Island. The restored routes will be operated by Ground Transport Inc. Parents and guardians of affected students will receive direct notifications about the reinstated routes and any changes that may be needed. The following routes will resume service on September 30: Oahu Aiea-Moanalua-Radford Complex Area: 2 routes Moanalua Middle HR18B, HR23B Hawaiis Rescue: HI-Surf becomes falls top-rated new drama Hawaii Island Kau-Keaau-Pahoa Complex Area: 2 routes Pahoa Elementary, Pahoa High & Intermediate SR09A, SR09B With these four routes returning, a total of 100 routes will have been restored, although 38 routes remain suspended. Ground Transport is also working to restore a route servicing the Kahakuloa area on North Maui, which serves Waihee Elementary, Iao Intermediate, and Baldwin High. To address staffing shortages, Ground Transport is actively recruiting new drivers. Thanks to the governors emergency proclamation, drivers with a commercial drivers license (CDL) and a P endorsement can temporarily operate school buses, bypassing the need for the S endorsement typically required for school bus drivers. The company is also looking into partnerships with tour bus operators to increase capacity. Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news More updates will be shared as additional routes are restored. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KHON2. TechCrunch James McGinniss has been obsessed with decarbonization and the energy grid since he was a high schooler over a decade ago. Now, his startup David Energy has a lofty goal: getting the energy grid to run entirely on clean energy in the next 10 years. Brooklyn-based David Energy is a software-enabled retail energy provider. El Paso County Board of County Commissioners Chairwoman Cami Bremer will step down from the board early next year to lead the Pikes Peak United Way as its chief executive officer. She will serve in both jobs until early next year. Bremer said her plan was to resign from the county at the beginning of 2025 while communicating stability. I knew that it needed to have kind of a planned transition, she said. Thankfully, the board is going to allow that time where Im doing both jobs. The nonprofit's Board of Directors selected Bremer after a nationwide search to succeed Cindy Aubrey, who in May announced her retirement as the organization's president and CEO, a news release said. Pikes Peak United Way is one of the areas oldest and most influential social service organizations, financially partnering with 29 local nonprofits this year. Bremer is stepping away from her elected position at the same time that her husband, former El Paso County Republican chair Eli Bremer, is embroiled in a state GOP battle. On Wednesday, a claim by Eli Bremer that he was elected in a special meeting to replace current state Republican Party chair Dave Williams was invalidated in district court. The controversy may have implications for Cami Bremers replacement as commissioner. The El Paso County Republican Party Chairwoman Vickie Tonkins has publicly supported Williams in the conflict over chairmanship. The county Republican Party, as Cami Bremers official party, is also responsible for convening the vacancy committee to choose her commission replacement. Bremer said that politics were not factoring into her decision making. It doesn't matter what side youre on, it doesn't matter what partisan politics are. My job is to steward the county and ensure confidence in a smooth transition, and that needs time, she said. In Bremers time as a commissioner, other members have on several occasions been openly critical of nonprofits. In January, Bremer and board vice chair Commissioner Carrie Geitner led a press conference in which the board announced that El Paso County would be non-sanctuary and dissuaded migrants from coming. Geitner spoke directly to area nonprofits. I urge our nonprofit community and partners to refrain from welcoming this crisis by welcoming migrants," said Geitner. 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. Bremer said she disagreed with any effort to dictate to her new partner organizations how they should approach their work, especially those with faith-based missions. I am not here to tell any nonprofit how to live out their mission, she said. The Board of County Commissioners also denied the recommended amount of grant funding in April to United Way partner Peak Education after a debate over its position on race-based college admissions. Bremer, along with Commissioners Longinos Gonzalez and Holly Williams, opposed withholding the money. Pikes Peak United Way board Chairman Dan Nordberg said in the release that Bremer is the right choice to lead the organization. "She knows the community; she's led brilliantly as an elected official, and she knows how to get things done. Cami brings the right combination of nonprofit management and fundraising expertise to our already successful organization," he said. Some of the most contentious public meetings during Bremers tenure focused on COVID-19 restrictions implemented by the state and election security following President Donald Trumps 2020 loss. Bremer will leave the board in early 2025 along with Commissioners Stan VanderWerf and Longinos Gonzalez, who are term-limited. Geitner is running for reelection on a board that has not elected a Democrat in several decades. So, Geitner and Commissioner Holly Williams could provide continuity on the board. In her commissioner job, Bremer earns about $130,000 a year, a salary set in state law. Bremer was previously the provider and community relations manager at The Penrose Cancer Center, and once worked as the regional director for the American Heart Association. She also held previous roles as a city of Colorado Springs spokeswoman and as the director of governmental affairs for the Colorado Springs Chamber & Economic Development Corp. These hiking trails are closed because of the Southern California wildfires A hiker crosses the East Fork of the San Gabriel River on the Bridge to Nowhere trail, which is currently closed due to the Bridge fire. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) As firefighters complete the final steps to controlling three blazes around Southern California, it's becoming clearer how and where hiking trails will remain closed for the foreseeable future. Some trails have burned in the Bridge, Line and Airport fires and will take a long time to recover. Others are closed out of an abundance of caution. The Times has put together a comprehensive list to help you understand where you can recreate responsibly, and also, whether your favorite areas were burned in recent blazes. In the coming months, volunteer trail crews across L.A. County and beyond will head to these areas to help with recovery efforts. They are almost always in need of more volunteers. To put together a better picture of the damage, The Times consulted mapping tool CalTopo, cross-referencing its maps and the fire footprints and forest closure orders with lists of local hiking trails to determine which routes were in the burn area. That said, just because a trail is in the burn area doesnt mean it was destroyed. Well learn more about specific conditions of each trail in the coming weeks and months, as well as when trails might start to reopen. Read more: The 70 best hikes in L.A. The Bridge fire | The Line fire | The Airport fire The Bridge fire A hiker takes on the Mt. Baldy Trail in May 2017. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Almost 55,000 acres in the San Gabriel Mountains and nearby towns have been burned by the Bridge fire. That includes destroying homes and buildings in Wrightwood and the Mt. Baldy community. As of Friday, the Bridge fire was 97% contained. Firefighters have completed a control line around the majority of the fire's perimeter. But containment does not mean that the fire that has been extinguished. Wildfires can burn for weeks after full containment is reached and even after fire personnel leave if no risk remains to embers restarting a blaze. On Sept. 21 , Angeles National Forest issued its Bridge fire closure order, which applies to federally managed roads, trails and other amenities. It is set to remain in place until Dec. 31, 2025, although that date could change. Last week we cross referenced CalTopo, local trail lists and the Bridge fire map to tell you which trails appear to have been burned. Below you'll find our updated list of trails that were burned by the fire and also those closed by the forest order. East Fork and Camp Williams area The Bridge fire was named after Cattle Canyon bridge in the East Fork of Angeles National Forest, where it started. Although the fire got close, firefighters were able to save Camp Williams Cafe & General Store and Camp Williams Mobile Home Park from burning. However, the hiking trails below appear to have been affected, and unless otherwise noted, are closed: Read more: 3 forest hikes that steer clear of the Southern California wildfires Mt. Baldy area The road to reach the mountain community of Mt. Baldy has reopened, and businesses are returning to normal operating hours. Popular hiking trails, including Icehouse Canyon and Icehouse Saddle appear, via the fire map, to not have burned in the Bridge fire. Additionally, San Antonio Falls, Ontario Peak, Cucamonga Peak, Cedar Glen Camp, and the three T's Timber Mountain, Telegraph Peak and Thunder Mountain also did not burn. Although the fire moved near Stoddard Peak's trailhead, its trail was spared. Here is a list of some of the popular trails that appear to have burned, according to The Times' analysis: Additionally, these trails and sites do not appear to have been burned in the fire but are closed, per the closure order: Wrightwood and Vincent Gap area Although the fire got within about 500 feet of the Mt. Baden-Powell trail, it was not burned in the Bridge fire. Additionally, nearby mountains, including Mt. Burnham, Throop Peak and Mt. Hawkins, did not burn. The immediate area surrounding Jackson Lake was not burned, but multiple trails in that area did. The Grassy Hollow Visitor Center was destroyed. Mountain High ski resort survived and aims to reopen later this year for its winter season. Additionally, these trails and sites do not appear to have been burned in the fire but are closed, per the closure order: The Line fire A water-dropping helicopter flies into thick smoke to drop water on the Line fire. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) The Line fire, which is alleged to have been started Sept. 5 as an act of arson, has burned more than 39,000 acres in San Bernardino County. It damaged four structures and destroyed one. It has also injured four firefighters. As of Friday, it was 83% contained with "minimal fire activity" and favorable conditions for firefighting expected in the coming days. Several hiking trails are temporarily closed under the San Bernardino National Forest's Line fire closure order, which ropes off what The Times estimates to be about 70% of national forest land to the public and includes large swaths of the region that weren't burned by the fire. The order includes all of the Front Country and Mountaintop Ranger districts, and trails near Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear, among many others that did not burn. The closure extends beyond the fire's perimeter because "the fire is not completely contained," said Sonny St. John, a patrol captain with the federal Forest Services Law Enforcement and Investigations unit on the San Bernardino National Forest. "We want to limit using resources on other parts of the forest where incidents could also occur." Read more: 6 handy nature apps to enhance your hikes You can find a list of every trail and road closed here. In short, any trail in the San Bernardino National Forest that's outside of the San Jacinto Ranger District which sits south of the 10 Freeway and includes the Idyllwild area is closed. St. John said the order could be adjusted in scope and size, or terminated, as conditions allow. In the interim, it's best to call ahead before visiting the area to determine whether the hiking area you'd like to visit is open. Below you'll find a list of trails that, based on The Times analysis, were burned by the fire. Note: Just because a trail is listed doesn't mean it was destroyed. There aren't data available yet to discern how severely burned each trail was. This is a preliminary list, based on the Line fire burn map. Popular attractions, including the Trail of the Phoenix in the National Children's Forest, Little Green Valley Trail and climbing spot Dinosaur Rocks, did not burn. The Shady Cove Group Campground in the Children's Forest was also spared. And the fire got close but did not destroy the Bluff Lake Reserve, where firefighters have quickly extinguished spot fires threatening the 80-acre reserve. The Morton Peak Fire Lookout suffered some damage but was not destroyed, per a Southern California Mountains Foundation representative. Read more: Hosting a guest who wants to hike? Here are 17 L.A. trails for every type of visitor The Airport fire A pair of hikers crossed over the creek on their way into Holy Jim Canyon. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) The Airport fire, unintentionally started by workers using heavy machinery to move boulders, has burned almost 24,000 acres since it began Sept. 9 near Trabuco Canyon in Orange County. It destroyed 160 structures, including several homes in El Cariso Village, and damaged 34 others. An estimated 22 people, including firefighters, have been injured. As of Friday, the fire was 95% contained. Cleveland National Forest where much of the fire has burned issued a closure order that bars the public from entering the 138,971 acres of the Trabuco Ranger District, an area far larger than the fire's footprint. All trails in the district are closed to the public. A list of closed trails and roads is available here. The order is set to expire Sept. 17, 2025. Below you'll find a list of trails that, based on The Times analysis, were burned by the fire. Again, just because a trail is listed doesn't mean it was destroyed. This is a preliminary list, based on the Airport fire burn map. The Airport fire did not reach the Ortega Oaks 74 Candy Store and Goods, a popular stop for hikers headed to nearby trails, including Sitton Peak, which did not burn. Ortega Falls also appears to have been spared, sitting only about 240 feet south of the fire's eastern flank. The fire remained far from the popular Black Star Canyon waterfall. Additionally, the popular Bedford Peak trail was not burned. Did we miss a trail? Or do you have a question about your favorite spot? Please email Times outdoors reporter Jaclyn Cosgrove, who can update the list accordingly. Sign up for The Wild newsletter to get weekly insider tips on the best of our beaches, trails, parks, deserts, forests and mountains. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. ALBANY, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has begun to examine a long-dormant power that lets governors remove local officials such as New York City mayors, following Thursdays indictment of Eric Adams. Lawyers in Hochuls office on Thursday internally discussed the legal and constitutional framework for removing an elected official, according to two people familiar with the conversations who were granted anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the talks. The discussions were not an indication that Hochul is planning to remove Adams, but are being viewed internally as a way of keeping the governors options open. Of course the counsel's office would be prepared to present to the governor on any possible legal scenario related to this matter, Hochul spokesperson Avi Small said. But as the governor has made clear, she is reviewing the details made public this morning and it would be inappropriate to make any further comment at this time. Hochul, who has long maintained a close working relationship with Adams, said after an event in the Syracuse area Thursday morning that the charges appeared to be a very serious matter, but that she had not yet been briefed on them. She promised more information on her response soon. I will be deliberative, I will be thoughtful, but were going to come to the right resolution on what to do in this moment, she said. Governors need to give officials who they seek to remove a chance to defend themselves. Before taking the formal step of removal, they can suspend a mayor for a month while considering charges. But the power otherwise appears to be absolute. Franklin Roosevelt, the last governor to make significant use of it, declared he would be both the judge and jury in such cases. Roosevelts most famous use of the power involved former New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker, whose bank accounts had large infusions of money from city contractors. The evidence against Walker was in a report by a special prosecutor, Tammany historian Terry Golway said. The scenario that faces Hochul is worse than the scenario that faced FDR, because this was an indictment. Walker wound up resigning before he was removed, after a judge ruled in 1932 that Roosevelts power to oust officials was essentially unlimited. The judge concluded that a mayor has the right to have witnesses testify before a governor, but that the states chief executive otherwise only needs to answer to the people and his own conscience in instances like this. As Tuesday carried on, it became clear that Hochul would indeed face a difficult path evading some sort of a response. With the city reeling from crime, the migrant crisis, and high-level government corruption, Gov. Hochul has a responsibility to act, Conservative Party Chair Gerard Kassar said in a statement. She should immediately begin the process of removing Mr. Adams from office so that a new election can be held. The governors powers to remove officials are rarely used. At least three borough presidents were kicked out of office in the early 20th century, though the most recent removal was FDRs ouster of Manhattan Sheriff Thomas Tin Box Farley in 1932. Requests for the governor to utilize the power have come up practicallyeveryyear in recent history. They often end with the officials in question resigning before charges are filed. But several recent governors have made clear that the option still exists. Technically, the governor could remove a mayor, Andrew Cuomo occasionally reminded people when he feuded with Adams' predecessor Bill de Blasio. CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misstated Avi Smalls' title. Holocaust scholar to discuss his conclusion that Gaza campaign constitutes genocide Dr. Omer Bartov is the Samuel Pisar Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University. (Photo courtesy of the University of New Mexico) An Israeli scholar specializing in Holocaust and genocide studies said what his government has been doing in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, 2023 constitutes a genocide. Dr. Omer Bartov, the Samuel Pisar Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University, is set to speak at the University of New Mexico on Monday. He told Source New Mexico that did not come to his conclusion about Gaza lightly. For a long time, Bartov said, he was resistant to describing the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) actions in Gaza as genocidal. In 2023, he wrote in the New York Times there was no proof that genocide is currently taking place in Gaza, although it is very likely that war crimes, and even crimes against humanity, are happening. I thought genocide was still not taking place, but it might, and that this has to be stopped, he said. Of course, the violence hasnt stopped, he said. Bartovs position changed after May 8, 2024, when the IDF launched its operation in the city of Rafah, in southern Gaza. It was at that point that I thought that I could no longer resist calling it a genocide, Bartov said. Bartov said at that point, it appeared what the IDF had been engaged in was the systematic destruction of Gaza. This includes houses, schools, universities, hospitals, museums, and mosques, everything that makes it possible for a society to survive, Bartov said. As of Monday, the IDF killed 41,400 people in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, though some estimates put the number much higher What Israel has created is a situation for Palestinians in Gaza which has made it impossible for them to exist, he said. If you link all of those together, Im afraid that you cant call it anything else but a genocidal campaign, Bartov said. See Bartov speak Bartov will be speaking at 7 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 30 in Anthropology 163 at the University of New Mexico. The event is free and open to the public. His talk is in-person only and will not have a remote option, according to an event organizer. Bartovs talk is titled, Speaking of Genocide: The Holocaust, Israel-Palestine, and the War in Gaza since October 7. Bartov said he will discuss the historical roots of what people are seeing now, how they see and understand whats going on, and how people explain that to themselves, especially among Israelis. Holocaust survivor Margot Friedlaender attends the celebrations surrounding the laying of the Stumbling Stones by relatives of the Israeli ambassador. The Proskauer family (later Prosor) fled Berlin in October 1933 accompanied by the ambassador's aunt and father. To commemorate the escape, Stumbling Stones are being laid for the grandparents, the aunt and the ambassador's father. Annette Riedl/dpa Margot Friedlander, a 102-year-old Holocaust survivor, has received an honorary award for her commitment to humanity and tolerance, the broadcaster RTL announced on Friday. Friedlander still visits school classes to share her life story as a Jew during the Nazi era. She received the "Brigitte Award 2024" honorary prize in Berlin - the first time the award was presented. Brigitte is a well-known women's publication in Germany that is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. It is part of RTL's portfolio. Earlier this week, the film from public broadcaster ZDF "Ich bin! Margot Friedlander" (I am! Margot Friedlander), which combines re-enactments with historical material and interviews with Friedlander, received the German Television Award. NEW YORK (PIX11) Investigators raided the home of Mayor Eric Adams chief advisor, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, on Friday, law enforcement sources said. Investigators took electronic devices from Lewis-Martins home in Brooklyn, sources said. Lewis-Martin also had her phones seized by the Manhattan District Attorneys Office at John F. Kennedy International Airport Friday morning when she arrived back to New York City from Japan, according to sources. More Local News Ingrid Lewis Martin has been served with a subpoena from the Southern District of New York and her phones were given to the New York County District Attorneys Office. She will cooperate fully with any and all investigations and Ms. Lewis is not the target of any case of which we are aware, said Arthur Aidala, the attorney for Lewis-Martin. The Manhattan District Attorneys Office declined to comment on the nature of the investigation. The Southern District of New York also declined to comment. Lewis-Martin was not home at the time of the raid, but members of her family were, sources said. It came the same day Adams pleaded not guilty in court to federal charges. A federal indictment unsealed Thursday charged Adams with bribery, campaign finance and conspiracy offenses. He is accused of accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions from foreign sources stemming from his 2021 mayoral campaign. The investigation into Adams 2021 mayoral campaign fundraising became widely known in November 2023. Thats when FBI agents searched the home of Brianna Suggs, who was a fundraiser for Adams during his 2021 campaign, and Rana Abbasova, who worked in the mayors international affairs office. Four days later, FBI agents seized phones and an iPad from Adams as he was leaving a public event in Manhattan. Prosecutors accuse the mayor of accepting illegal campaign donations as early as his time as Brooklyn borough president. Adams allegedly sought and knowingly accepted money from foreign donors, including Turkish government officials, prosecutors contend. Adams allegedly accepted well over $100,000 in luxury travel benefits, including business class flights and opulent hotel rooms, according to U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. The donations came in via straw donors, or cover-up U.S. donors acting on behalf of a foreign government. Then, Adams allegedly stole public funds by using the illegal campaign donations to manipulate New York Citys matching funds program, according to the indictment. Adams compromised his integrity and gave foreign nationals undue influence over him by accepting personal benefits and illegal donations, according to Jocelyn Strauber, the commissioner of the New York City Department of Investigation. This undue influence allegedly led Adams to pressure the FDNY to facilitate the opening of a Turkish-owned skyscraper in Manhattan that hadnt passed a fire inspection, according to the indictment. A trail of bogus texts and small cover-up payments also allegedly showed Adams attempts to hide the fancy trips and illegal campaign donations he received, prosecutors said. By allegedly taking improper and illegal benefits from foreign nationals including to allow a Manhattan skyscraper to open without a fire inspection Adams put the interests of his benefactors, including a foreign official, above those of his constituents, said Williams, the U.S. attorney. Adams said he is innocent and has vowed to fight the charges. He also said he does not plan to resign. From here, my attorneys will take care of the case so I can take care of the city, Adams said Thursday. My day-to-day will not change. I will continue to do the job for 8.3 million New Yorkers that I was elected to do. Finn Hoogensen is a digital journalist who has covered local news for more than five years. He has been with PIX11 News since 2022. See more of his work here. 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 PIX11. SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) A special group of veterans are landing in Washington D.C. Friday as part of Honor Flight San Diego. Its the second flight this year that the nonprofit has organized. Its sure to be a powerful trip filled with a lot of emotion and gratitude and much of that was evident right from the start. Veterans began arriving to the San Diego International Airport just before 5 a.m. Many of them came on buses or were brought there by friends and family. A lasting tribute: Memorial marks 46 years since PSA Flight 182 crashed in North Park Plane lands on the 76 highway in Oceanside; narcotics found onboard It was a heroes welcome as a group of San Diego firefighters greeted them and escorted them inside Terminal 2. Honor Flight San Diego has been doing this for many years. It takes veterans from the WWII, Korea and Vietnam-era as well as veterans from any era who have terminal illnesses on a weekend trip to D.C. This time around there were 92 veterans getting the opportunity to visit the Memorials dedicated to their service and sacrifice. These war heroes will return Sunday to a big welcome home party at the airport. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Hope Breakfast Bar to open Monday near Target Field Bring Me the News Popular Twin Cities brunch restaurant Hope Breakfast Bar will arrive in Minneapolis next week. The new location will become the downtown St. Paul-born brunch spot's sixth full-service restaurant in the Twin Cities area, joining existing outposts in St. Paul, St. Louis Park, Eagan, Edina and Woodbury. Husband-and-wife duo chef Brian Ingram and Sarah Ingram introduced the concept in 2019. Their restaurant group, Purpose Restaurants, also operates the Gnome Craft Pub and Apostle Supper Club in St. Paul. Hope Breakfast Bar. Courtesy of Purpose Restaurants. In Minneapolis, Hope Breakfast Bar joins the North Loop Green development, which Texas-based real estate firm Hines completed in May. The mixed-use development consists of a 34-story, 449-unit residential tower overlooking Target Field; a 14-story, 365,000-square-foot office building; and a 471-stall parking garage. Courtesy of Kraus-Anderson. Expected to soon join the Hope Breakfast Bar inside North Loop Green will be another Purpose Restaurants concept, called Salt & Flour, which will focus on modern Italian fare. No opening date has been announced for Salt & Flour, but the restaurant's website advertises its "opening soon." Courtesy of Purpose Restaurants. 'I swam out of my home' - Floridians reel from Helene This embedded content is not available in your region. A wall of seawater from the deadly Hurricane Helene forced Briana Gagnier and her family to swim out of their home on Floridas Gulf Coast. Ms Gagnier, who lives in Holmes Beach north of Sarasota, had stayed behind with her family to protect their one-storey property. She placed sandbags at every door and moved belongings on to tall furniture to keep them dry. She even used towels in a vain effort to stem the storm surge. Then came a loud bang. Their garage door broke open violently - caving in to the deluge. Water quickly rose to their shoulders, forcing them to escape. "Everyone was screaming and panicking," she told the BBC. "Whatever your worst idea of what this storm is - that is what we're seeing." She and her family ran across the street to a neighbours house, where they ended up rescuing two elderly people whose home had burst into flames. She said the blaze appeared to be linked to a golf cart battery. Looking around, she said she saw couches, chairs, a bench and even a car float by. The water was above her mailbox for part of the evening, she added. "I just can't believe this is real. The eye of the storm didn't even hit us straight on," said Ms Gagnier. "This island is completely devastated. Everywhere I look, devastation." Briana Gagnier says the streets look like white water rapids [Briana Gagnier] She is one of many Floridians along the states Big Bend Coast who are reeling from the aftermath of Helene, which forecasters said was unusually large for a Gulf hurricane. The deadly category four storm made landfall in Florida on Thursday evening, before weakening to a tropical depression as it churned inland through Georgia and into North Carolina and Tennessee. There were 20 known fatalities from the storm as of Friday afternoon, including 11 in Georgia alone. At least five other people were killed in Florida and two more in North Carolina. Four million households were without electricity by Friday lunchtime across the south-eastern US. Michael Bobbit, who lives on Cedar Key, told the BBC his house, which sits atop a hill, "miraculously survived, but the island is totally devastated". In a video he posted on social media, he described the carnage: "Entire houses are missing or flattened in on themselves, the hardware store is gone, the downtown Jiffy [food market] completely destroyed, the post office completely destroyed. "Its hard to take in. However bad we imagined it would be, its so much worse in the daylight." Mr Bobbit said he believes it will take years for the small island of 720 people to recover. A man and his dog were rescued by a US Coast Guard helicopter after his 36ft sailboat took on water. The man, whom the Coast Guard did not name, was sailing 25 miles off the coast of Sanibel Island when he was caught by the hurricane. He called Channel 16 - the emergency channel for marine radios - to summon help. Thousands of water rescues were also carried out inland throughout flooded neighbourhoods, including in Atlanta, Georgia, where an apartment building was evacuated amid flooding. ML Ferguson, a resident of Anna Maria Island, Florida, told the BBC the roads around had morphed into rivers amid a storm surge of up to 10ft (3m). When she returned to her home late on Thursday, she found it, too, had been deluged. "Oh my gosh, it's literally up to the second step," she told the BBC in a phone interview, before quickly hanging up and rushing to stop more water from coming in. This embedded content is not available in your region. In Tallahassee, Florida, some residents like Cainnon Gregg had hunkered down to ride out the storm. Mr Gregg, who stayed at a friends shelter, said he wanted to remain close to the water to check on his oyster farm as soon as it was safe to do so. He had spent the last few days trying to protect it by sinking it into the ocean bed. His farm was once destroyed before, during Hurricane Michael - a category five that hit the Florida panhandle in 2018 - and he said he was determined to learn from that lesson. Hopefully, and nothing is for certain, the farm is sitting nice and safe on the bottom, he said ahead of the storm. But anything could happen. Four decades before he made history as New Yorks first indicted mayor, Eric Adams became an officer with what was then known as the Oh police. The New York City Transit Police got that nickname because of the response they often received when they sparked interest in a new acquaintance by saying they were a cop, then added they patrolled the decidedly unglamorous subway. Oh. Some transit cops back in the days when their radios often failed to work underground joked they should really be called the Oh s--t police. That was because they were liable to find themselves confronting a hulking psycho who had just spat in their face on a moving train when any hope for back-up was a half-hour away. One result of such confrontations was that transit officers, who city police dismissed as cave cops, got a lesson in who they really were at their very core. Some took it as a challenge and became determined crime fighters. Adams instead became what some termed a house mouse, contriving to spend much of his time in the departments underground headquarters. He was a clerk, a retired transit cop who made more than 1,000 arrests told the Daily Beast on Thursday. He was inside. He wasnt really out there. He was not a real cop, said another retired transit officer who was as real as they come. I think he got nine collars. And theyd all be misdemeanors. When cops collared a robber or a rapist, they would call it in and Adams would demonstrate his organizational skills while preparing a report at the operations desk. He proved to have a knack with computers when he was assigned to data processing. He also prepared for promotion exams by studying the patrol guide, the penal codes, and the rules of criminal procedure. Test scores alone determined a cops rise to sergeant and then lieutenant and then captain. At the same time, Adams achieved a certain distinction among cave cops as one of the senior members of two associations of Black police officers: The Guardians and 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. That helped make him a viable candidate for deputy commissioner for community affairs when onetime top transit cop Bill Bratton became the head of the NYPD in 1994. But the then-mayor, Rudy Giuliani, is said to have deemed Adams to be too close to community activists in Brooklyn. Is New York Ready to Turn Cuomosexual Again After Eric Adams Indictment? In 1995 the Transit Police merged with the NYPD, which began to achieve an historic reduction in crime due to the strategic genius of a former cave cop, Deputy Commissioner for Operations Jack Maple. Adams was assigned for a time as a captain in a high-crime Brooklyn precinct and then in low-crime Greenwich Village. His disciplinary record through all his years was clean, save for a single departmental complaint in 2006 for speaking to TV news without authorization. That same year, Adams retired and made a successful run for state senator in Brooklyn as a Black former cop with social justice cred. He was elected Brooklyn Borough President in 2014 and gave a measure of his self-importance when Rabbi Jacob Goldstein, a longtime community planning board chairman, refused to follow a command to fire a highly regarded manager without cause. Im the Borough President and you do what I tell you, Goldstein remembers Adams saying. Adams had ascended from the Oh Police to a certain level of outer borough prominence. But he faced a common problem for politicians: Even though he could consider himself a big shot, he did not have big-shot money. He was able to get a table at a hot restaurant, but there remained the question of the check. To his manifest delight, he encountered plenty of people who did have big-shot money and were happy to pay. He discovered that there was even the government of a whole country, Turkey, willing to upgrade him to business class when he flew on its national airline. He even managed to get upgrades if he just stopped in Turkey on the way to other destinations. Of course his Turkish pals were only doing it because they figured he was in a position to help them. And they proved willing to provide him with some of what he knew he needed to keep that position. You win the race by raising money. Have to raise money. Everything else is fluff, he texted a supporter, according to court papers. He needed much bigger sums when he decided to run for mayor in 2021. Along with Turkish friends he sought out money from anybody who might be willing to kick in. If they were ready to give more than the legal maximum, he allegedly put it in other peoples names. Prosecutors say he also did that with the cash from the Turks, who as foreigners were not allowed to contribute at all. That way, he allegedly collected enough illegal money to bankroll his campaign as a law-and-order candidate. He won on a promise to make the city safe. Adams could have hired the best of the best to run the city, but they might have noticed that the people who gave his campaign money occasionally wanted something in return. They might have wondered why he flew into Istanbul on the way to France, even though its not on the way. They also might have asked why he was so anxious to have the FDNY set aside its safety concerns regarding Turkeys new high-rise consulate building in Manhattan. Somebody might have noticed the building was certified for occupancy just before Turkeys president arrived to open it with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Adams instead collected a crew of cronies who said nothing because they did not want anybody asking questions about what they themselves were doing. Many of them were former cops Adams knew from Transit or Brooklyn. They included Phil Banks, who resigned as NYPD chief of department after federal prosecutors named him as an unindicted co-conspirator in a major corruption scandal in 2014. Adams made Banks deputy mayor for public safety, with authority over the police commissioner and the rest of the NYPD. Banks and the rest of Adams cronies became the subject of at least three federal investigations. A fourth investigation focused on Adams himself and the result was an indictment that was unsealed on Thursday. He will be arraigned on Friday morning on charges of bribery, fraud, and soliciting a political contribution from a foreign national. Court papers suggest that as good Adams was at studying the rules as a house mouse, he was not very very skilled at breaking them as the mayor. One section of the indictment describes his apparent effort to thwart the FBI after agents executed a search warrant for his electronic devices on Nov. 6, 2023. Although Adams was carrying several electronic devices, including two cell phones, he was not carrying his personal cell phone, which is the device he used to communicate about the conduct described in this indictment. When Adams produced his personal cell phone the next day in response to a subpoena, it was locked, such that the device required a password to open. Adams claimed that after he learned about the investigation into his conduct, he changed the password on November 5... and increased the complexity of his password from four digits to six. Adams had done this, he claimed, to prevent members of his staff from inadvertently or intentionally deleting the contents of his phone because, according to Adams, he wished to preserve the contents of his phone due to the investigation. But, Adams further claimed, he had forgotten the password he had just set, and thus was unable to provide the FBI with a password that would unlock the phone. Oh. 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. Housing crisis: New tool aims to help planners that are flying blind GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) As West Michigan works to climb its way out of a housing crisis, a new tool outlines housing zoning codes in three counties. The Michigan Zoning Atlas Pilot Program is an interactive map that shows housing-related zoning in 85 jurisdictions throughout Kent, Muskegon and Ottawa counties. The goal is to give policymakers and others a clear view of their local zoning codes while working to add to the housing market. Inside WOODTV.com: Housing crisis in West Michigan Many communities are realizing they lack the diverse forms of housing needed for todays populations, but in many cases policymakers are flying blind, the atlas website says. There is no consistent, high-quality data describing the boundaries and details of Michigans zoning codes. Project leaders demonstrated the tool during a Wednesday conference, according to Crains Grand Rapids Business, which first reported on the Michigan Zoning Atlas. Crains reports the atlas took a year to develop. Organizations that are working on the atlas include the Michigan Association of Planning, the University of Michigan and Housing Next, which is working on a corridor strategy that found space for 70,000 housing units in commercial corridors throughout Kent County. Kent County needs to add 35,000 housing units, Ottawa County needs to add 15,500 housing units and according to Housing Next. The city of Muskegon has a gap of almost 3,000 housing units, a study done by Bowen National Research on behalf of the city found. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Mandy Baxter thought she understood the contours of grief, after all those years futilely fighting the disease that was walling off her goofy, exuberant daughter inside a dying body, wracked by seizures and unable to speak or walk. But sorrow has no rules or borders, and denial can feel exactly like hope. There were a lot of last times, I just didnt expect to not bring her home from the hospital and shed be back sitting on this couch next to me, like always, Mandy said Tuesday, gazing through swollen eyelids around the living room of their Pueblo house, a space full of echoes but suddenly too silent and still. No cartoons blaring on the big screen TV, no alarms, beeps and wheezes from medical devices or flurry of family caregivers attending Amarias 24/7 schedule of needs. I didnt think I would miss the sound of alarms going off all the time, but I do, Mandy said. I drove with the seat belt off today, just to hear that beep-beep-beep ..." Amaria Granger died Sept. 20, three weeks after celebrating her 16th birthday. Most children diagnosed with the rare genetic disease Niemann-Pick type C dont live beyond their early teen years if they survive infancy. Also known as childhood Alzheimer's because of the way its destruction progresses, Niemann-Pick type C is among a category of rare lysosomal storage disorders that interfere with the bodys ability to process cholesterol. Fats intended to be burned as an energy source instead are misrouted to places, including the brain, where they build up and lead to disease, destruction and eventually organ failure. After Amarias diagnosis, Mandy chased every thread of hope she could find, enrolling her daughter in promising drug trials that took the family Mandy, Amaria and Amarias de facto stepfather, Mandys longtime partner, Philip Potter back and forth to Chicago, and then Denver, for experimental treatments that, for a time, seemed to stave off the progression of symptoms. Amarias older brother, Silas Swint, became a registered nurse and moved back home to help care for her. Silas' twin brother, Marcus, also returned to Pueblo to join the caregiving brigade after earning his undergraduate degree. Help the family A GoFundMe campaign has been established to help pay for Amaria Granger's final arrangements. Mandy Baxter and her family weren't able to save money without jeopardizing medical coverage for Amaria, and all income and compensation they received for serving as her primary caregivers ended with her death. Visit gofund.me/2539d25b The experimental drugs, when they worked, only ever offered a temporary stay of the clock, Mandy said. The day Amaria died, Mandy learned that the experimental drug her daughter had been on was approved by the FDA for the treatment of Niemann-Pick type C. It was one of two trial drugs approved by the agency within the space of a week, marking a sea change for families facing a shattering diagnosis, now with access to concrete pharmaceutical hope. We think that if Amaria had been diagnosed at a younger age, and she'd been able to start on those drugs earlier, things would have been different, Mandy said. It might have been too late to save her daughter, but Mandy still had time to make the most of the life they had left. 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. We spent the first few years spending all of our money and resources on chasing a cure that didnt exist, Mandy said early last year. I was ruining the time that I had. Mandy couldnt show Amaria the world, but she could get close, much closer to home. The Gazette chronicled the family during their two-day trip to Las Vegas in April 2023, during which they attended a Cirque du Soleil performance, and toured the Marvel Avengers exhibit and global destinations writ gloriously small the Eiffel Tower, the New York skyline along the strip. Mandy had wanted to take Amaria to the beach, one last time, just dip her toes in the water. She wanted so many more things, but there wasnt time. Amarias health took a drastic turn in the months after Las Vegas, and she ultimately lost the ability to eat solid food, one of her few remaining joys, Mandy said. For Amarias August birthday in 2022, Mandy had organized a community prom so disabled teens like Amaria wouldnt have to miss out on the experience. Steadied by the arms of her big brother and her stepdad, draped in a glittering princess dress, Amaria was able to dance at that prom, a party that became an annual event and highlight for both the family and community. Its a tradition Mandy said she intends to continue, even though she knew this years prom would very likely be Amarias last. The Monday before her final trip to Childrens Hospital in Colorado Springs, Amaria had seemed the closest to her old self shed been in months, even booping her occupational therapist on the nose, and reaching out to everyone who passed by her spot on the couch as though trying to scoop them into a hug. I dont know maybe she knew, and was trying to say goodbye, Mandy said. Goodbye is a word Mandy cant imagine ever being able to say. Amaria made every person she touched a better person. I hate to think that her life was just being an example to the rest of us but she really was, said Mandy. "She made me who I am. My world doesn't make sense without her." She knows shell have to figure out who Mandy is, without the daughter who was her love and her life, without the child who filled her every waking minute with purpose and fight, but her sons are grieving, too, and they need her. And theres still work to be done. Mandy needs to finish decorating the front porch for Halloween, because thats what Amaria would have wanted. In the coming days, shell have to force herself to think about a memorial, and returning to the funeral home a final time to collect her daughters ashes. But the funeral home is just up the street from their house close enough to drive with the seat belt off. The government's drive for new housing risks overwhelming local roads, schools and GP services in England's rural areas and small towns, a group of county councils has warned. The government has been consulting on plans to introduce mandatory housing targets that would push more development away from major city centres. A survey by the County Councils Network (CCN), which represents authorities that manage local infrastructure for half of England's population, found its members feared there were not sufficient services to meet supply. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: "We reject any claims that these targets are excessive." We are facing a serious housing crisis so all areas of the country must play their part in building the homes that Britain badly needs," the spokesperson said. The government would "work in partnership with councils to create the vital infrastructure that people need in their communities", they added. On average, local authorities represented by the CCN will see a 56% rise in the number of new homes required equivalent to more than 64,000 properties per year. Richard Clewer, CCN housing spokesperson, said councils "dont have enough infrastructure to cope now", let alone with upcoming projects. "Councils in rural and county areas are not anti-housing and the vast majority support the principle of nationally set targets. But these targets are excessive. "We also must remember much of this development in county areas will be in the places with limited or no public transport, compared to the benefits of building in or around cities where there is already good infrastructure." The CCN also warned that communities could face a developer "free for all" involving speculative housebuilding in unsuitable places, risking driving "a bulldozer through locally-led planning decisions". Compulsory targets Labour has put housing reforms at the heart of its mission to drive economic growth since taking office in July. During the general election campaign, the party pledged to get 1.5 million homes built in five years by "unblocking" the planning system. Latest figures show the number of housing projects given the go-ahead by councils in England fell to a record low in the final months of the last government. Since July, the government has been consulting on sweeping changes to England's National Planning Policy Framework (NPPR), the guidelines which govern the home planning system. The plans include setting mandatory local housing targets, which the government says will be distributed according to the size of existing communities and the need to address housing shortages in high-demand areas. The proposed changes would see a major shift in the areas new homes were built - resulting in a surge in new housing in smaller towns and the countryside. Some built-up areas like Westminster and Bolton in Greater Manchester are also earmarked for more homes, but the general trend will mean major cities such as London, Birmingham and Coventry being expected to construct thousands fewer homes than implied by current targets. 'Grey belt' The CCN represents England's 20 county councils and 17 unitary authorities in shire areas. This month the CCN has surveyed its members - made up of 29 Conservative, six Lib Dem and two Labour local authorities - about the proposals. None of the 21 councils which responded supported the governments new target for their area, with 94% saying the targets were excessive. Nine in 10 councils blamed a lack of infrastructure, and more than half said there was a lack of suitable land for the proposed new housing numbers. The CCN called for the current system of allowing councils to set their own local plans that guide development in their areas to continue. Local authorities are meant to create these plans through consultation with residents, businesses and local stakeholders. Labour has maintained the reforms will supply infrastructure - schools, GP surgeries, transport links and green spaces - alongside new housing. Announcing the plans, Deputy PM and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner said the government would ensure "people get the homes they need locally and see the infrastructure that improves nature and their local area". If the new guidance comes into place, councils will have to demonstrate they have a five-year supply of deliverable housing sites to meet the new targets. If there is not enough land to meet housing targets, councils will be encouraged to build on a new category of "grey belt" land, which Labour says will consist of poor-quality parts of the green belt - areas of land that are protected from most forms of development. Rescue workers gather at the site of a massive Israeli air attack on pro-Iranian Hezbollah headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Marwan Naaman/dpa Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi militia on Friday condemned the Israeli attack on the headquarters of the Hezbollah militia in a Beirut suburb, saying it "opens the door to an open war." "Targeting the southern suburb [of Beirut], which is crowded with civilians, is unprecedented brutality and is neither new nor surprising for the Zionist gang," the militia's political bureau said in a statement. "The serious development in the aggression on Lebanon opens the door to an open and comprehensive war, the result of which will be devastating to the interim entity [Israel]," it added, according to the Houthi-affiliated al-Masirah TV. Both the Houthi and Hezbollah militias are part of Iran's so-called "axis of resistance" which includes proxy groups in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere. Since the onset of the Gaza war nearly a year ago, the Houthis have targeted Israel and merchant vessels in the Red Sea, stating these actions are in solidarity with the Palestinian organization Hamas in Gaza. The Houthis have carried out various attacks, including drone and missile strikes on Tel Aviv. In response, Israel, along with the United States and Britain, has targeted locations within Yemen in recent months. As a result of these militia attacks, the traffic of container ships in the region has plummeted by approximately 90%. Rescue workers gather at the site of a massive Israeli air attack on pro-Iranian Hezbollah headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Marwan Naaman/dpa HOWLAND, Ohio (WKBN) Students at Howland High School had a special treat at lunch Friday to celebrate their school resource officer. This event was a surprise for Stephanie Slusher, as students made slushies to share with her and other students. This event is in honor of Octobers School Safety Month, highlighting the importance of safety in schools. Principal Joe Simko said Slusher is a mentor, friend and source of positivity for the 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 WKBN.com. One Class at a Time presented by Chick-fil-A of Birmingham. For 22 years, CBS 42 has been proud to present local teachers with $1,000 grants through its One Class at a Time program, honoring the educators who work tirelessly to make a positive impact on the children of Central Alabama. This week, CBS 42 Meteorologist Alex Puckett, the Chick-fil-A cow and Chick-fil-A of Birmingham representatives set out to Hueytown Middle School in Hueytown, Ala. to honor one such educator, Andrew Poe, the Band Director for grades sixth through eighth. Passionate about helping students find their unique voice through music, Poe plans to use his One Class grant to complete renovations in the band room that will improve sound quality. The plan is to get some sound barriers up on the walls, said Poe. We just want to try and make it a bit deader of a sound, just so we can save our ears. A teacher in Hueytown for 14 years, five of which were spent at Hueytown High School before starting at the middle school, Poe loves being part of building the foundation that will propel his young musicians as they enter high school band. This is the first time that many of them have even looked at an instrument, said Poe. To go from that to watching where they go beyond in high school, college and even higher is absolutely incredible. To nominate a local teacher for CBS 42s One Class at a Time grant, apply here. Sponsored content disclaimer: The information and advice displayed in this story are those of individual sponsors or guests and not the Nexstar Media Group, inc. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CBS 42. This embedded content is not available in your region. Israel has launched a series of huge air strikes in Lebanons capital Beirut, targeting what it says is Hezbollahs central headquarters. At least two people have been killed and 76 injured, according to Lebanese officials, after several buildings were hit in Dahieh, Hezbollahs stronghold in the south of the city. BBC reporters in Beirut said explosions were followed by chaotic scenes with nearby roads packed with people fleeing. The Israeli military said the headquarters it targeted was located "under residential buildings". Israeli and US media said the strike targeted Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah. It was too early to say if Nasrallah was hit, an Israeli official told Reuters. Ali Larijani, an adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told state TV that Israel was crossing Tehran's red lines. "Assassinations will not solve Israel's problem... With the assassination of resistance leaders, others will take their place," he told state TV, Reuters reported. Iran's embassy in Beirut meanwhile said the strike on Dahieh was a "dangerous game changer". The attack took place shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to defeat Hezbollah in a speech at the UN. Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said it showed Israel "does not care" about US-led efforts to bring about a ceasefire. Israel has sharply escalated its campaign against the Lebanese armed group, with which it has been trading cross-border fire for nearly a year. Air strikes on southern and eastern Lebanon this week have killed nearly 800 people, many of them civilians, Lebanese officials say. The US had no advance warning of Israel's attack on Dahieh, the Pentagon said. Hezbollah continued firing into Israel on Friday evening, with air raid alerts sounding in multiple areas in the north of the country. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said a "direct hit from a Hezbollah rocket was identified" on a house and car in the city of Safed. On Thursday allies including the US, UK and EU called for a temporary ceasefire in Lebanon. The 12-strong bloc proposed an immediate 21-day pause in fighting "to provide space for diplomacy towards the conclusion of a diplomatic settlement" and a ceasefire in Gaza, where Israel has been fighting the Palestinian armed group Hamas. However in his UN General Assembly speech Netanyahu said Israel would continue attacking Hezbollah to achieve its goal of returning about 70,000 displaced Israelis to their homes in northern Israel. "As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice. And Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safely. And that's exactly what we're doing," he told the UN. Netanyahu's office later said he had cut short his trip to the US and was returning to Israel. In his own speech to the UN on Thursday, Mikati warned that hospitals were no longer capable of treating people because of the sheer number of casualties from Israels attacks. "Israel is violating our sovereignty by sending their war planes and drones to our skies, by killing our civilians, including youth, women and children, destroying homes and forcing families to flee under harsh humanitarian conditions," he said. In Lebanon, around 90,000 people have been displaced since Monday, adding to the 110,000 who had fled their homes already, according to the UN. The strikes hit the densely populated Dahieh area, a Hezbollah stronghold [Reuters] Tensions have been growing across the Middle East since Hamas gunmen attacked Israel on 7 October last year, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others as hostages. Israel's military response has since killed more than 41,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry there. Hezbollah began firing into Israel on 8 October, saying it was acting in solidarity with the Palestinian group. The group, proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the UK and other countries, has launched more than 8,000 rockets at northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. It has also fired anti-tank missiles at armoured vehicles and attacked military targets with explosive drones. Israel had responded with thousands of its own air, drone and artillery strikes targeting Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon before ramping up its bombardment this week. BEIRUT (AP) The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollahs headquarters in Beirut on Friday in a series of massive explosions that targeted the leader of the militant group and leveled multiple high-rise apartment buildings. At least six people were killed and 91 were wounded, Lebanons health ministry said. It was the biggest blast to hit the Lebanese capital in the past year and appeared likely to push the escalating conflict closer to full-fledged war. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target of the strikes, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity, including one United States official. The Israeli army declined to comment on who it was targeting. It was not immediately clear if Nasrallah was at the site, and Hezbollah did not comment on the report. The death toll is likely to rise significantly as teams comb through the rubble of six buildings. Israel launched a series of strikes on other areas of the southern suburbs following the initial blast. After the strikes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly cut short a visit to the United States to return home. Hours earlier, he addressed the United Nations, vowing that Israels intensified campaign against Hezbollah over the past two weeks would continue further dimming hopes for an internationally backed cease-fire. News of the blasts came as Netanyahu was briefing reporters after his U.N. address. A military aide whispered into his ear, and Netanyahu quickly ended the briefing. Israeli army spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the strikes targeted the main Hezbollah headquarters, saying it was located underground beneath residential buildings. The series of blasts at around nightfall reduced six apartment towers to rubble in Haret Hreik, a densely populated, predominantly Shiite district of Beiruts Dahiyeh suburbs, according to Lebanons national news agency. A wall of billowing black and orange smoke rose into the sky as windows were rattled and houses shaken some 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Beirut. Footage showed rescue workers clambering over large slabs of concrete, surrounded by high piles of twisted metal and wreckage. Several craters were visible, one with a car toppled into it. A stream of residents carrying their belongings were seen fleeing along a main road out of the district. Israel provided no immediate comment about the type of bomb or how many it used, but the resulting explosion levelled an area greater than a city block. The Israeli army has in its arsenal 2,000-pound, American-made Bunker Buster guided bombs designed specifically for hitting subterranean targets. Richard Weir, crisis and weapons researcher with Human Rights Watch, said the blasts were consistent with that class of bomb. Israels air forces followed with a new set of strikes early Saturday, also in the southern suburbs, shortly after warning residents of three buildings to evacuate. It said they were being used by Hezbollah to hide weapons, including anti-ship missiles. Israels military announced additional attacks on Beqaa in eastern Lebanon and Tyre in the south. To a degree unseen in past conflicts, Israel spent the week pushing to eliminate Hezbollahs senior leadership. But an attempt to assassinate Nasrallah successful or not would be a major escalation. The Pentagon said the U.S. had no advance warning of the strikes. Nasrallah has been in hiding for years, very rarely appearing in public. He regularly gives speeches, but always by video from unknown locations. The site hit Friday evening had not been publicly known as Hezbollahs main headquarters, though it is located in the groups security quarters, a heavily guarded part of Haret Hreik where it has offices and runs several nearby hospitals. Four hours after the strike, Hezbollah had still not issued any statement referring to it. Instead, it announced that it had launched a salvo of rockets at the Israeli city of Safed, which it said was in defense of Lebanon and its people, and in response to the barbaric Israeli violation of cities, villages and civilians. The Israeli military said a house and a car in Safed were hit, and officials said a 68-year-old woman sustained mild shrapnel wounds. Israel dramatically intensified its airstrikes in Lebanon this week, saying it is determined to put an end to more than 11 months of Hezbollah fire into its territory. The escalated campaign has killed more than 720 people in Lebanon, including dozens of women and children, according to Health Ministry statistics. A predawn strike Friday in the mainly Sunni border town of Chebaa killed nine members of the same family, the state news agency said. The United Nations said the fighting has displaced 211,000 people, including 85,000 now staying in public schools and other shelters. Airstrikes have forced 20 primary health care centers to shut down and disrupted access to clean water for nearly 300,000 people. The scope of Israels operation remains unclear, but officials have said a ground invasion to push the militant group away from the border is a possibility. Israel moved thousands of troops toward the border in preparation. At the U.N., Netanyahu vowed to continue degrading Hezbollah until Israel achieves its goals. His comments dampened hopes for a U.S.-backed call for a 21-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah to allow time for a diplomatic solution. Hezbollah has not responded to the proposal. Iranian-backed Hezbollah, the strongest armed force in Lebanon, began firing rockets into Israel almost immediately after Hamas Oct. 7 attack, saying it was a show of support for the Palestinians. Since then, it and the Israeli military have traded fire almost daily, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes on both sides of the border. An Israeli security official said he expects the campaign against Hezbollah would not last for as long as the current war in Gaza, because the militarys goals are much narrower. In Gaza, Israel aims to dismantle Hamas military and political regime, but the goal in Lebanon is to push Hezbollah away from the border not a high bar like Gaza in terms of operational objectives, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to military briefing guidelines. In the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, civil defense workers pulled the bodies of two women 35-year-old Hiba Ataya and her mother Sabah Olyan from the rubble of a building brought down by a strike. Thats Sabah, these are her clothes, my love, one man cried out as her body emerged. Israel says its accelerated strikes have already inflicted heavy damage on Hezbollahs weapons capabilities and its fighters. A strike Tuesday in southern Lebanon killed a Hezbollah missile unit commander, Muhammad Ali Ismail, and his deputy, Israel's military said Saturday. There was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah. But Hezbollah boasted a large arsenal of rockets and missiles and its remaining capacities are unknown. Hezbollah officials and their supporters remain defiant. Not long before the explosions Friday evening, thousands gathered in another part of Beiruts suburbs for the funeral of three Hezbollah members killed in earlier strikes, including the head of the groups drone unit, Mohammed Surour. People in the giant crowd waved their fists in the air and chanted, We will never accept humiliation, as they marched marched behind the three coffins, wrapped in the groups yellow flag. Hussein Fadlallah, Hezbollahs top official in Beirut, said in a speech that no matter how many commanders Israel kills, the group has endless numbers of experienced fighters. He vowed that Hezbollah will keep fighting until Israel stops its offensive in Gaza. We will not abandon the support of Palestine, Jerusalem and oppressed Gaza, Fadlallah said. There is no place for neutrality in this battle. ___ AP writers Tia Goldenberg at the United Nations; Abby Sewell in Beirut; Aamer Madhani in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware; and Zeina Karam in London contributed to this report. A lively roundtable discussion on tenant rights and housing needs in Oklahoma City recently drew dozens of people to the citys historic Capitol Hill district. The public meeting, held Wednesday in the Capitol Hill Library and hosted by the Oklahoma City Human Rights Commission, explored the topic of housing as a human right amid various factors for the citys high eviction rate, which is the 20th-worst for cities across the country. According to Oklahoma City nonprofit Shelterwell, Oklahoma as a state ranks 6th in the nation for evictions. The discussion featured the perspectives of Gregory Beben, a longtime attorney for Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma; Jenna Pilcher, an attorney for the Housing Eviction Legal Assistance Program (HELP) at Oklahoma City University School of Law; and Lisa Chronister, the Assistant Director of the Oklahoma City Planning Department. The latest iteration of the commission is nearing the end of its second year, commission chair Valerie Couch said, but it meets every two months to address alleged harm to residents who have faced discrimination because of race, color, sex, gender, national origin, age, disability and other protected classes. Weve also been focused on identifying issues that the Human Rights Commission can actually take action on, either through advocacy or other partnerships, Couch said. These meetings weve been using to build relationships, partnerships, and understanding as deeply as we can what the landscape looks like for housing in Oklahoma City. The commission was approved by a 5-4 Oklahoma City Council vote in mid-2022, after nearly two years of research by a mayor-appointed task force on whether the city needed such a commission again. The last Human Rights Commission was previously disbanded in 1996 when city councilmembers disagreed with commissioners trying to protect the rights of LGBTQ+ residents. Related: Facing eviction and need legal help? Advocates working to make sure help is available Much of the discussion Wednesday was fueled by disagreements between panelists and other guests over what actually is the driving force of evictions. Some laid much of the blame on landlords and excessive charges, while others argued it was due to a shortage of affordable housing and an inadequate minimum wage. When a tenant is served with an eviction action, the tenant does not have to move out of the residence immediately. Landlords are not legally able to lock out a tenant without first going to court and getting a judges order. But Beben said the rate of evictions in Oklahoma County have returned to pre-pandemic levels, and that tenants throughout the state are evicted too quickly in comparison to other states. Once you show up to court, those tenants are two days away from being locked out by the sheriff, Beben said. If they lost their court hearing, theyre as little as 48 hours away from being locked out. Sometimes its a little longer, depending on how backed up the sheriffs office is, but thats what were dealing with, and theres growing concern and growing interest in that timeframe and how fast that process is. The economic crisis brought on by the pandemic illustrated to Beben and others that more work needed to be done to protect tenants, but several pandemic-era relief funds have ended. He, Pilcher and the commissions compliance officer Emma Winiski are taking part in an expanded right-to-counsel project to look at what strategies for legal services are working in peer cities that could then be applied in Oklahoma City. More: Legal aid help for renters facing eviction in Oklahoma City is working and being expanded Gregory Beben, Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma, Inc., speaks at the Human Rights Commission meeting is pictured at the Capitol Hill Library in Oklahoma City, Wednesday, Sept., 25, 2024. Pilcher expects to soon become director of OCU Laws HELP, which provides pro bono pre-eviction dispute representation for all counties in the state and eviction defense and litigation for Oklahoma County specifically. She said some helpful solutions would include keeping landlords from charging a tenant higher additional eviction filing fees, as well as increasing the visibility of dismissed cases on a tenants record so that they have better chances of securing future housing. I actually just had one case last week where (a woman) had seven evictions on her record, Pilcher said. Granted, the most recent one was she didnt pay the rent, but the six before that, the plaintiff filed and then the landlord never showed up but she got denied at three different new apartments. However, Robert Goldman, a local attorney who's represented many landlords, objected to suggestions that he believed characterized landlords as predatory, arguing that most would rather have their tenants remain at their rental properties and not have to go through a costly court battle themselves. Theres no landlords that I know of that are not interested in making a profit, Goldman said. Theyre not making a profit by evicting a bunch of tenants and paying court costs and hiring attorneys to do that. Right now in our city, the tenants are well-represented in court. Legal Aid has four or five attorneys at almost every docket that I attend. Instead, Goldman said roughly 90% of cases he sees are due to tenants failure to pay. Although he did admit eviction filings were high, he also argued that many landlords were willing to mediate a resolution with tenants before they are actually forced out of their homes. When asked by Couch why they believed evictions were so high, Goldman and a few other attendees said it was because residents are just not making enough money. I think there are industries in this city that are very happy with minimum wage being at $7.25, and theyre going to push back at any type of situation thats going to raise the minimum, he said. Related: Ballot measure to increase Oklahoma's minimum wage set for 2026 The Human Rights Commission meeting is pictured at the Capitol Hill Library in Oklahoma City, Wednesday, Sept., 25, 2024. Affordable housing issues complicated by zoning restrictions When the subject turned to the lack of affordable housing in the city, Chronister pointed to a 2021 study that recommended increasing long-term affordable rental units in the city and expanding funds for their development. But she said long-held zoning regulations on accessory dwellings, maximum occupancy, lot sizes, density limits and single-family residences have all made it difficult to build more affordable housing in the citys urban core. The city has been working to update zoning codes for years so as to better enact the citys comprehensive planokc, and Chronister said an affordable housing implementation plan would be presented to city councilmembers in the near future. In the meantime, the recent push to lift a decades-old ban on accessory dwelling units (also known as backyard cottages or granny flats) has been impeded by some residents concerns that it could instead boost home-sharing services like Airbnb and not actually improve the citys housing supply. But Chronister is hopeful the Planning Commission will recommend the updated city ordinance to council in late October. The benefits of accessory dwellings, we feel, are great, Chronister said. For this discussion, it expands housing capacity. If all of the single-family residences in the city added an accessory dwelling, it would be doubling the housing stock. It creates affordable housing in traditional neighborhoods, especially neighborhoods that people might be priced out. More: City planners want to know what OKC residents think about backyard 'granny flats' Better outreach for aid services needed Residents of color are especially affected by issues with housing and affordability. Pilcher said about 60% of HELP cases are minority clients, while 40% are white, and Black women with children were disproportionately represented in Oklahoma County eviction data earlier this year. Beben said many mothers fell behind on rent payments in August because of the need to buy school supplies. One attendee, Antone Bates-Bey, who has lived for nearly a decade at the Will Rogers Courts public housing complex, asked specifically how the city and the legal assistance attorneys planned to better inform residents from minority communities who could benefit from their services. Sometimes we dont have the resources or have knowledge of the resources thats available to us, to be able to help ourselves, Bates-Bey said. A lot of the times, we have meetings and stuff like this and most times people are at work because theyre focused on paying their bills. Pilcher said she hoped to begin a social media strategy for short educational videos about HELP, while Winiski said the local Housing and Community Development Team had recently met to discuss how to update a five-year plan on expanding outreach for its housing rehabilitation and loan assistance programs. Tobias Frederick, a retired police officer now working as a civil rights enforcement investigator for the Attorney Generals Office, said that the agency hosts symposiums on housing and employment issues and would be willing to assist with outreach. He also told commissioners and landlords that the biggest problems he sees as an enforcer are issues with public accommodation compliance. I understand paying rent and things like that thats a big issue, Frederick said. But from what I see statewide, we have a lot of property managers and landlords that avoid some of the things that they know that theyre supposed to be doing as it relates to public accommodations. More: OKC homeless shelters are at capacity but the solution isn't more beds, organizers say. It's housing. Tenant advocacy discussion held day after OKC rehousing initiative update Wednesday's meeting continued a commission discussion on housing that began at its last meeting in July. Two months prior, the city released its annual Point in Time Count, a "snapshot" survey of the city's unhoused population, which indicated the number of people experiencing homelessness had increased by 28% since the survey had been conducted in 2023. Despite the increase in homelessness for Oklahoma City, progress was still being made on the issue. City councilmembers received a presentation Monday of a Fiscal Year 2024 report from the Key to Home Partnership, a public-private alliance of city agencies, state departments, local businesses and nonprofit organizations dedicated to reducing chronic and unsheltered homelessness in Oklahoma City. Launched citywide in September 2023, Key to Home aims to rehouse 500 people by the end of 2025. Staff for the partnership go to people in their encampments, create relationships with landlords and work together to place them in secure housing. Outcomes on the rehousing initiative have been overwhelmingly positive, with only 3% of people rehoused so far re-experiencing homelessness. "By June, we had housed 214 people out of 15 encampments," said Jamie Caves, Key to Home's strategy implementation manager. "91% of the people that were offered housing have accepted housing, which is remarkable." This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Human Rights Commission discusses tenants rights, OKC eviction rate NILES, Ohio (WKBN) Multiple agencies hosted a human trafficking awareness and training event Friday at the Eastwood Event Centre. Experts spoke about human trafficking and what it looks like locally. A special agent from the Ohio Attorney Generals Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) talked about how law enforcement navigates the web and social media when dealing with human trafficking. Youngstown Municipal Court Judge Renee DiSalvo gave examples of human trafficking that happens here and how it is processed in court. Victims also talked about their experiences. When we were able to hear what has really happened and the impact it has had on their lives, I think it brings a tremendously different direction and gives us an opportunity to put a face to something we talk about sometimes almost too casually during training, said Susan Laird, an adjunct professor at Youngstown State University and human trafficking trainer. In 2023, Ohio scored an F on the Shared Hope International Report Card for Child and Youth Sex Trafficking. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com. Hundreds of Florida College Students Are Sheltering on Campus Ahead of Hurricane Helene's Landfall: 'I Miss My Bed' Helene was upgraded to a Category 4 hurricane, with hours to go before it makes landfall Joe Raedle/Getty Vehicles drive along a flooded street as Hurricane Helene churns offshore on September 26, 2024 in St. Pete Beach, Florida. Several Florida colleges and universities have closed schools and issued shelter-in-place orders on campus ahead of Hurricane Helene, according to NBC News, CNN, NBC 8 and the Tallahassee Democrat. On Thursday, Sept. 26, the storm strengthened to category 4, with "catastrophic storm surge and life-threatening winds" hitting 130 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. Helene is expected to make landfall in Florida's Big Bend region, between the Tampa Bay and Tallahassee areas. Several colleges issued shelter-in-place orders on campus, including Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida A&M University, Tallahassee State College and the University of South Florida. Other universities not in Tallahassee have also canceled classes with plans to reopen Monday, Sept. 30, including New College of Florida in Sarasota, South Florida State College in Highlands County, Pasco-Hernando State College in Spring Hill, Hillsborough Community College in Plant City and Keiser University in Sarasota, Tampa, Clearwater and New Port Richey. Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Florida State University FSU's emergency management team issued an alert announcing that, out of an abundance of caution, students living on campus would be relocated to the Augustus B. Turnbull Conference Center as the city waits for the storm to pass. No one will be able to remain in the residence halls, the alert stated. The conference center facility includes hurricane shutters and debris curtains on windows and well as emergency generators large enough to power air handler units in the facility. Students off campus have been instructed to follow the direction of local emergency management officials. The school stated that everyone should remain inside until the storm passes and the school says it's "all clear." Related: 4.4 Magnitude Los Angeles Earthquake Rattles ESPN Anchors See How They Reacted On Air FSU student Anastasia Russel, 18, one of the students sheltering-in-place on campus, told CNN that shes concerned her dorm will be destroyed. Yeah, its rough, she said. I just miss my bed. I brought plenty of snacks so hopefully itll hold me over and we can leave tomorrow morning, she said. We have to stay here until FSU gets the all clear. The school had provided them with sandwiches and juice and instructed students to bring only one suitcase to the conference center, Russell told CNN. Getty University of South Florida Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Sept. 25, Tallahassee Mayor John Dailey said that the city was preparing Florida State University, Florida A&M University and Tallahassee State College to abide by protocol. "We have a student population of about 70,000," Dailey said, per NBC News. "Yesterday, they shut down the college campuses. We have encouraged the students to go home to be safe. Those students that will be remaining, we have great shelters in place where they can also go to be safe. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. By Krisztina Than BUDAPEST (Reuters) - A top aide of Prime Minister Viktor Orban has triggered outrage by suggesting that Hungary would have fared better by not resisting the 1956 Soviet invasion, in comments that were also critical of Ukraine's efforts today to push back Russian forces. Orban, a nationalist who shot to fame in 1989 by demanding the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary, said his aide's "ambiguous" words had been an error, while the leader of Hungary's opposition condemned them as "traitorous". Orban's political director Balazs Orban, who is not related to the veteran premier, said in an interview with website Mandiner this week that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had acted irresponsibly by choosing to resist Russia's invasion in Feb. 2022, causing a war that has led to many deaths. "Considering 1956, we would have probably not done what President Zelenskiy did 2.5 years ago, as it is irresponsible, as we can see that he led his country into a defensive war, many lives were lost and territories lost," the aide said. "Let me say again, it is their right and sovereign decision... but had they asked us, we would have not recommended this, based on what happened in 1956," he added. Hungary's anti-Soviet uprising in 1956 was brutally crushed by the Red Army. The anniversary of the uprising, Oct. 23, is a major national day for Hungarians. Speaking on national radio on Friday, the prime minister said it was important to speak "very carefully and clearly" on matters of such sensitivity. "Now my political director made an ambiguous statement which is a mistake, as our community stands on the basis of the 1956 revolution, has grown from it," said Orban, who has made national sovereignty a cornerstone of his rule. Just as in the past, Hungary will "always defend itself", he added. 'SCANDALOUS' Orban has upset Hungary's NATO allies by retaining strong economic ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin even after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Hungary under Orban has also refused to send arms to Ukraine. Balazs Orban did not reply to Reuters' emailed questions. In a video posted on his Facebook page the aide said his words were "deliberately misinterpreted", adding that "the heroes of 1956 are national heroes and their memory is sacred". But his comments caused a huge uproar in the opposition and in the media, with Hungary's leading opposition figure Peter Magyar saying in a Facebook post that the aide "has no place in public life after his scandalous and traitorous comments." Magyar said the aide "had humiliated the memory of thousands of Hungarian freedom fighters". (Reporting by Krisztina Than, Anita Komuves and Gergely Szakacs; Editing by Gareth Jones) A year after a teenager opened fire into a late night Lower Downtown Denver (LoDo) bar crowd because her ID was rejected, the suspect pleaded guilty on Friday to a single count of first-degree attempted murder with extreme indifference. There were eight named victims in the case, five of whom were shot. Keanna Rosenburgh, now 18, spoke clearly when she gave her guilty plea at the podium dressed in a maroon jail outfit. She told the judge that she didnt go to school past the tenth grade. She was 17 when she committed the shooting. Three of Rosenburghs victims suffered gunshot wounds to the leg, another was shot in the ankle, and a fifth victim was shot in the right big toe. She originally faced more than 20 criminal counts, including eight charges of attempted murder. Security footage captured Rosenburgh firing a handgun indiscriminately into a crowd of people waiting in line at Dierks Bentleys Whiskey Row on Sept. 16, 2023. The ID Rosenburgh showed at the door belonged to a 25-year-old woman with a different name, according to the arrest affidavit. After the incident, she fled to Southern California and was on the run until Oct. 19, 2023, when the Denver Police department arrested her with the help of the Los Angeles FBI. The Lakewood teens case never left adult court, so she was charged as an adult, but she qualifies for Youth Offender Services because of the age she was when she committed the offense. Under the plea deal, she faces a sentence of five-to-seven years in the Youthful Offender System. A 21-year Department of Corrections sentence was suspended, which means if she successfully completes her time in the youthful offender system, she will not serve time in DOC. However, if her youthful offender sentence is revoked for any reason, she will face 21 years in prison. This all means that, if she serves the full sentence in YOS, she could be free by the time she is 24. The one charge she pleaded guilty to was amended to name all of the five victims in the case. Featured Local Savings One of the victims told The Denver Gazettes news partners 9NEWS she was not happy about the plea deal. I think theres way more compassion for her than there is for the victims, Desarie Gomez said. She should have gotten life. She definitely changed my life. She changed my friends and my families. And I dont think its fair that this is going to be something that Im going to be experiencing for the rest of my life, and she only has to deal with it for the next six years. Max. Gomez has had five surgeries on the shattered bones, arteries destroyed and nerves completely torn up, she said. I actually rarely leave my house, but it just kind of happened that I was out that night, and it shifted everything for me, Gomez said. I had to cut back on school. I actually dropped out, planning on going back hopefully, but there was a lot. It definitely took a huge toll on my body, huge toll on me mentally. Rosenburghs attorneys had filed motions to move her case to juvenile court, which would have meant less severe consequences if she was convicted as an adult. The Denver Police Department investigation found that Rosenburgh was denied entry to the bar because of issues with her ID. She began walking away but quickly returned to have another conversation with security staff, police said. As she walked away a second time, police said, she pulled out a gun and fired it in the direction of the club multiple times, injuring the five victims. Police said they believed the five victims were not targeted, and they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. As previously reported by The Denver Gazette, the shooting was one of many factors that led to an increase in police presence in LoDo and prompted a number of community meetings to curb violence in the neighborhood. This August, Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas said that the department has seen a significant reduction in violence in the area due to some of their mitigation efforts, such as like dispersing nightlife crowds through dedicated rideshare areas on weekend nights and banning late-night food trucks in the area. Victims, people who support Rosenburgh and experts will give impact statements at her sentencing, which is scheduled for Jan. 22, 2025. Denver Gazette partner 9News contributed to this report. Hungary will attend the Friends of Peace platform's foundation conference in New York, which is being organised by China and Brazil with the goal of launching negotiations to end the war in Ukraine as soon as possible. Source: Hungarian news agency MTI, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto Details: Szijjarto said that the Russian-Ukrainian war was one of the leading topics on the agenda of the UN General Assembly. Quote: "The vast majority of countries, including Hungary, favour peace. But very few European countries are part of this group," said Szijjarto, adding that the countries of the Global South "are tired of paying their price for the war thousands of kilometres away," and that Western countries, he argues, simply fuel the war and make decisions that aggravate the situation. Szijjarto stated that Hungary would join an initiative spearheaded by China and Brazil to support its plan to stop the war in Ukraine, which already had 15 countries involved, including Turkiye, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Zambia, and Kenya. "The meeting's organisers chose to invite three European states: the United States, Hungary, France, and Switzerland. The theme of this gathering is that the conclusion of war in Ukraine cannot be accomplished on the battlefield. Negotiations are the only way to end the war in Ukraine, and the sooner they begin, the more lives can be spared and the prospect of escalation and new destruction is reduced," Szijjarto stated. He said that Hungary supports the initiative and is eager to participate in its implementation. China and Brazil jointly released a "six-point consensus" to promote a "political solution to the Ukrainian crisis [war ed.]". The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that this plan "has received a positive response from more than 110 countries. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the Sino-Brazilian proposal to end the Russo-Ukrainian war as destructive, as it is a mere political statement that has not been discussed with Ukraine. Support UP or become our patron! Hurricane Helene. The St. Pete Pier, Tampa Bay, Florida, hours before Hurricane Helene made landfall, September 26, 2024. Hurricane Helene slammed into Floridas Big Bend region late Thursday, bringing catastrophic storm surges which have destoyed buildings. Tampa International Airport reopened on Friday morning as Hurricane Helene moved on to Georgia and North Carolina, and Florida started assessing storm damage. The Sunshine States fourth busiest airport said it was fully open and operational for commercial and cargo flights as of 9:30 a.m. The Tampa airport closed at 2 a.m. Thursday, a day before Hurricane Helene hit Floridas Big Bend and assaulted the rest of the Gulf Coast. The airports operations staff conducted damage assessments early Friday morning and determined [Tampa International Airport] did not sustain any significant damage from the storm, according to a statement. Tampa International Airport has fared well through this large and dangerous storm, CEO Joe Lopano said in a statement. We now can turn our attention to serving our community and travelers and assisting in efforts to help our fellow Floridians recover from Helene. Some retail shops and restaurants likely wont open until later in the day, the airport cautioned, so travelers should prepare for that: Bring your own food and toiletries. But TSA security checkpoints, parking facilities, the SkyConnect train, the rental car center and other services are now open. Tampas airport also recommended on Friday that travelers arrive at least two hours before their scheduled departure as high passenger volumes [are] expected. Helene hit Floridas Gulf Coast just after 11 p.m. Thursday night, making landfall in Taylor County. Reports show inundated streets and flooded homes along the Gulf Coast from Fort Myers Beach to Sarasota, St. Petersburg and Tampa. SEE: Hurricane Helene did that to Florida? Look at what happened in these photos and videos On Friday morning, Helene was downgraded to a tropical storm as it hit the countrys southeast. Heres how the aftermath of Hurricane Helene is affecting South Florida travel: Miami International Airport Miami International Airport continued to stay open although it continued to see some impact from the storm. On Thursday, 92 flights were canceled. On Friday morning, the airport had 21 cancellations, mostly to other cities in Florida and the Southeast, said Greg Chin, communications director for Miami-Dade Aviation Department. Todays total may be similar to yesterdays number as the storm impacts Atlanta and other airports in the Southeast, he said Friday. MIAs largest carrier, American Airlines, said it resumed flights on Friday morning to airports in Key West, Fort Myers, Sarasota and Tampa. And later in the day, the airline planned to return to normal operations at Tallahassee, Gainesville and Jacksonville, said Gianna Urgo, a spokesperson for American. But north of Florida, the airline reduced operations at the airport in Charlotte and suspended operations in Augusta. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport expects a total of 19 canceled flights and 9 delayed flights as of 9:40 a.m. Friday, said spokesperson Paris Tyburski. Flights were canceled for Atlanta and Charlotte and delayed for Denver and San Diego. STEINHATCHEE, FLORIDA - SEPTEMBER 27: People walk down a street with a dog in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on September 27, 2024 near Steinhatchee, Florida. Hurricane Helene made landfall nearby last night as a category four storm but has weakened as it moves inland. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images) Update: Gov. DeSantis, during an evening news conference in Cedar Key following a day spent surveying the swath Hurricane Helene cut into Florida, said the damage was worse than Idalias last year. In Taylor, Levy, and Dixie counties, the governor said, he saw snapped trees but that the devastating storm surge far outweighed wind damage. Idalia was bad; I think this has been more damage than Idalia, DeSantis said. We came from Perry and helicoptered over here, so we went along the coast, so we saw Keaton Beach, we saw Steinhatchee, and I can tell you, that is way worse than Idalia. Idalia had damage, no question. You look at Keaton Beach, I think almost every home was destroyed, or the vast majority, and some totally obliterated. As of 6:45 p.m. Friday, PowerOutage.us reported that 655,593 Florida customers were without power. South Carolina, at the same time, had 1.17 million customers without power and Georgia had 892,867. DeSantis and Kevin Guthrie, the states emergency management director, agreed they hadnt seen any homes built to Floridas stringent building codes that sustained damage. Florida building works, its one of the best in the world, Guthrie said. As of Friday afternoon, Georgia experienced 15 deaths, according to the Georgia Recorder. At least 13 people died in South Carolina, the South Carolina Daily Gazette reported. A 5 p.m. update from the National Hurricane Center said the storm was still producing catastrophic flooding over portions of the southern Appalachians and Tennessee Valley. The center asked people in damaged areas to use caution even after the system passes, as downed power lines and flooded areas remain deadly. +++ Update: Gov. Ron DeSantis declined Friday to criticize local officials for decisions they made as Category 4 Hurricane Helene made landfall in the Big Bend and brought record-breaking storm surge to Tampa Bay. St. Petersburg officials announced that at nearly 11 p.m. Thursday that they had to shut down a sewer treatment facility and warned residents of the northeastern part of the city not to flush toilets or use drains for 48 hours. Im not going to be out wagging my finger and second-guessing folks in the aftermath of the storm. You have people that get elected to make those decisions locally, the governor said during a press conference in St. Petersburg Beach, adding that he was aware of the sewage problem. Tampa Bay saw a storm surge of up to 7 feet as Helene barreled along the Gulf Coast on the way to the Big Bend. DeSantis, who grew up in neighboring Dunedin, said he expects the region to recover and that there are few places like it in the country. This part of the state is very low lying and very susceptible to these types of water intrusions, and so you have a storm that didnt come within 100 miles of the coast, and yet turned up this really, really significant storm surge, DeSantis said. As of the time of the news conference at around 1:30 p.m., more than 1 million Floridians remained without power, according to a press release from the governors office. But crews had restored electricity for more than 1 million. The governor and Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, urged people whose homes suffered water damage to take pictures of the high-water marks for insurance claims. Guthrie said FDEM was working to submit an expedited major disaster declaration request to the federal government. DeSantis planned to make stops late at Cedar Key and Perry, which bore the brunt of Helenes strength in the middle of the night. +++ Update: The pre-Hurricane Helene emergency declaration from President Joe Biden enabled the federal government to pre-stage resources, speeding the response, Erik Hooks, deputy administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Friday. Hooks said the agency has more than 1,500 federal personnel focused on the storm and an additional 700 in the region that can pivot to support. Ken Graham of the National Weather Service said the extent of Helenes winds was staggering, emphasizing that the storm remained a hurricane six hours after landfall. Luckily, the forecast was accurate, Graham said. We could really focus on those impacts. If you really think about it, this really gave us some time to not worry about the forecast, but really worry about those hazards, especially those inland hazards, which were seeing come true with the rainfall. According to Graham, landfall came only 40 miles away from the original forecast. He said it was one of the more aggressive hurricane center forecasts to go out as early as it did. The National Weather Service does not have a peak storm surge report yet, Graham said full reports of the storms effects around the region will be available in the coming days. Graham did say, though, that Tampa experienced more than 6 feet of surge, 100 miles east of the eye. Daniel Hibner, commanding general of the South Atlantic Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said infrastructure damage assessment is continuing. We were focused on Leon County and Tallahassee, Hibner said. It shifted a bit, not much, but enough to make a difference in really major impacted areas for infrastructure in Jefferson County, Taylor, and Madison. Of course, we did have record storm surge in Tampa Bay. That water came in very fast, its receding very fast, but were still at the point of getting our assessments done to determine what exactly what kind of infrastructure may have been damaged. Hibner said additional generators are due in Tallahassee Saturday. Jennifer Pipa, vice president for disaster programs with the American Red Cross, said the organization is housing at least 9,400 evacuees across 143 shelters from Florida to North Carolina. A representative of the Coast Guard said the military branch had assisted nine people as of early Friday morning, especially in shallow water rescue. +++ State and local officials are reporting more than half a dozen deaths in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which came ashore late Thursday night in the Big Bend region as a powerful Category 4 storm. Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a Friday morning news conference that at least two Floridians died as a result of the storm. But Pinellas County officials reported on Friday there were an additional five fatalities there overnight, two from drowning. The storm made landfall in Dekle Beach in Taylor County with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph, according to the governor. We saw storm surges in many parts of the west coast of Florida that exceeded what we saw in Hurricane Idalia, which took a similar track, it was similar strength, maybe a little bit weaker, but you were seeing significantly more storm surge in places like Tampa Bay, we also saw major storm surge, of course, in the Big Bend region, DeSantis said. DeSantis reported the first death Thursday evening after a road sign fell on a car traveling on Interstate 4 in Ybor City in Hillsborough County. The second, he said, was in Dixie County after a tree fell on a house. No additional information was immediately available on the Pinellas deaths. DeSantis did report, though, in all state responses to calls for rescue, We were able to find the person or people and pets and bring them to safety. According to Find Energy, 669,422 customers are without power in Florida as of Friday morning. Another site, Poweroutage.u.s., showed more than a million Florida electric customers without power. As of DeSantis news conference Friday morning, 22 counties have more than 30% of customers without power. Columbia, Hamilton, Suwannee, and Taylor all had 99% of customers without power. Baker, Dixie, Gilchrist, Jefferson, Lafayette, Levy, Union and Wakulla all had more than 80% of customers without power as of the governors news conference. Efforts to clear roads are ongoing, with the most up-to-date traffic information being provided on FL511, according to Department of Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue. Some airports closed in advance of the storm, all of which plan to be open at some point Friday. Those airports include Tallahassee International, Tampa International, St. Pete-Clearwater International, Lakeland Linder International, and Gainesville Regional. DeSantis thanked first responders who rescued Floridians overnight. This is not something thats easy. The conditions were still very problematic in many respects, up and down the state. Yet we had our folks respond, DeSantis said. The City of Tallahassee said it was working to clear roads and restore power. Initial damage assessments indicated that more than 50 roads were blocked by downed trees. Florida Power & Light, the states largest electric utility, said Thursday that it had restored power to more than 65% of customers affected by Helene. Though our system held up well and our team of thousands continues to work around-the-clock, some of our customers remain without power, FPL President and CEO Armando Pimentel said. To them, we have a simple message: We will not stop until your lights are back on. President Joe Biden has directed Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell to travel to Florida to survey the damage and meet with state and local officials, per White House pool coverage. The president has approved emergency declaration requests from the governors of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina and more 1,500 FEMA and federal personnel have been deployed to the region, including 11 urban search and rescue teams, medical teams and power restoration teams. Federal resources have supported approximately 400 rescues, the White House said. Florida Phoenix reporters Mitch Perry, Christine Sexton, and Jackie Llanos contributed. Resources Division of Emergency Management website, which includes county emergency management information, volunteer resources, and more. State Assistance Information Line: 1-800-342-3557 Hope Florida: 833-483-4673 FL511 for road conditions. People walk down a street with a dog in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on September 27, 2024 near Steinhatchee, Florida. Hurricane Helene made landfall nearby last night as a category four storm but has weakened as it moves inland. (Photo by Sean Rayford | Getty Images) The pre-Hurricane Helene emergency declaration from President Joe Biden enabled the federal government to pre-stage resources, speeding the response, Erik Hooks, deputy administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Friday. Hooks said the agency has more than 1,500 federal personnel focused on the storm and an additional 700 in the region that can pivot to support. Ken Graham of the National Weather Service said the extent of Helenes winds was staggering, emphasizing that the storm remained a hurricane six hours after landfall. Luckily, the forecast was accurate, Graham said. We could really focus on those impacts. If you really think about it, this really gave us some time to not worry about the forecast, but really worry about those hazards, especially those inland hazards, which were seeing come true with the rainfall. According to Graham, landfall came only 40 miles away from the original forecast. He said it was one of the more aggressive hurricane center forecasts to go out as early as it did. The National Weather Service does not have a peak storm surge report yet, Graham said full reports of the storms effects around the region will be available in the coming days. Graham did say, though, that Tampa experienced more than 6 feet of surge, 100 miles east of the eye. Daniel Hibner, commanding general of the South Atlantic Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said infrastructure damage assessment is continuing. We were focused on Leon County and Tallahassee, Hibner said. It shifted a bit, not much, but enough to make a difference in really major impacted areas for infrastructure in Jefferson County, Taylor, and Madison. Of course, we did have record storm surge in Tampa Bay. That water came in very fast, its receding very fast, but were still at the point of getting our assessments done to determine what exactly what kind of infrastructure may have been damaged. Hibner said additional generators are due in Tallahassee Saturday. Jennifer Pipa, vice president for disaster programs with the American Red Cross, said the organization is housing at least 9,400 evacuees across 143 shelters from Florida to North Carolina. A representative of the Coast Guard said the military branch had assisted nine people as of early Friday morning, especially in shallow water rescue. +++ State and local officials are reporting more than half a dozen deaths in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which came ashore late Thursday night in the Big Bend region as a powerful Category 4 storm. Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a Friday morning news conference that at least two Floridians died as a result of the storm. But Pinellas County officials reported on Friday there were an additional five fatalities there overnight, two from drowning. The storm made landfall in Dekle Beach in Taylor County with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph, according to the governor. We saw storm surges in many parts of the west coast of Florida that exceeded what we saw in Hurricane Idalia, which took a similar track, it was similar strength, maybe a little bit weaker, but you were seeing significantly more storm surge in places like Tampa Bay, we also saw major storm surge, of course, in the Big Bend region, DeSantis said. DeSantis reported the first death Thursday evening after a road sign fell on a car traveling on Interstate 4 in Ybor City in Hillsborough County. The second, he said, was in Dixie County after a tree fell on a house. No additional information was immediately available on the Pinellas deaths. DeSantis did report, though, in all state responses to calls for rescue, We were able to find the person or people and pets and bring them to safety. According to Find Energy, 669,422 customers are without power in Florida as of Friday morning. Another site, Poweroutage.u.s., showed more than a million Florida electric customers without power. As of DeSantis news conference Friday morning, 22 counties have more than 30% of customers without power. Columbia, Hamilton, Suwannee, and Taylor all had 99% of customers without power. Baker, Dixie, Gilchrist, Jefferson, Lafayette, Levy, Union and Wakulla all had more than 80% of customers without power as of the governors news conference. Efforts to clear roads are ongoing, with the most up-to-date traffic information being provided on FL511, according to Department of Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue. Some airports closed in advance of the storm, all of which plan to be open at some point Friday. Those airports include Tallahassee International, Tampa International, St. Pete-Clearwater International, Lakeland Linder International, and Gainesville Regional. DeSantis thanked first responders who rescued Floridians overnight. This is not something thats easy. The conditions were still very problematic in many respects, up and down the state. Yet we had our folks respond, DeSantis said. The City of Tallahassee said it was working to clear roads and restore power. Initial damage assessments indicated that more than 50 roads were blocked by downed trees. Florida Power & Light, the states largest electric utility, said Thursday that it had restored power to more than 65% of customers affected by Helene. Though our system held up well and our team of thousands continues to work around-the-clock, some of our customers remain without power, FPL President and CEO Armando Pimentel said. To them, we have a simple message: We will not stop until your lights are back on. President Joe Biden has directed Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell to travel to Florida to survey the damage and meet with state and local officials, per White House pool coverage. The president has approved emergency declaration requests from the governors of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina and more 1,500 FEMA and federal personnel have been deployed to the region, including 11 urban search and rescue teams, medical teams and power restoration teams. Federal resources have supported approximately 400 rescues, the White House said. This story was produced by the Florida Phoenix which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network, including the Daily Montanan, supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Helene left a dizzying path of destruction as it raged across the south-east United States on Friday, killing at least 40 people across four states, causing dangerous flooding and leaving millions without power. The storm which registered maximum sustained winds of 140mph crashed ashore late on Thursday in north-western Florida as a potent category 4 hurricane. It weakened to a tropical storm and then to a depression as it moved across Georgia as well as the Carolinas on Friday afternoon, when residents whose communities experienced Helenes peak effects more directly were only just beginning to fathom the recovery process ahead. The storm sparked lethal damage. At least 17 people died in South Carolina, including two firefighters who were killed when their vehicle was struck by a tree before sunrise, officials said. Another 15 people were killed in Georgia, said Garrison Douglas, a spokesperson for the states governor, Brian Kemp. Five people were killed in Floridas Pinellas county, which includes the Tampa Bay area, with two of those deaths occurring by drowning. A number of the deaths involved trees falling on residences. Among the dead were several children: a four-year-old girl who died in Claremont, North Carolina, in a car accident in heavy rain; and a seven-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl who died when a tree fell on their home in Washington county, Georgia. Tornadoes hit some areas, including one in Nash county, North Carolina, that critically injured four people. Authorities had predicted danger even as the storm weakened, as it continued to produce catastrophic flooding. Some areas received more than a foot of rain. Rescuers were racing on Friday to save people from the waters. One dramatic scene in Tennessee reportedly involved more than 50 patients and staff at the states Unicoi county hospital, who were stranded on the roof while surrounded by rising floodwaters. Emergency vehicles were washed away as they attempted rescues, while helicopters that had initially been held back by high winds were evacuating people on Friday afternoon. The patients and staff were eventually brought to safety. Officials in several states warned people who were stuck to await rescue crews, as floodwater could contain live wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris. Some areas had become only accessible by boat. At several points on Friday afternoon, officials urged residents to evacuate over concerns that local dams would not sustain the pressure. In western North Carolina, near the border with Tennessee, Rutherford county emergency officials warned residents near the Lake Lure Dam just before noon to immediately evacuate to higher ground, saying: Dam failure imminent. And on Friday afternoon, North Carolinas Cocke county mayor, Rob Mathis, warned people in the vicinity to evacuate immediately after the Walters Dam in the community of Waterville suffered a catastrophic failure. In a post on Facebook, officials later assured that there had not been a catastrophic failure at the dam, adding that the false alarm had come from the emergency management agency. Meanwhile, millions of people across the country were out of power. As of early Friday evening, about 1.1m households and businesses in Florida were without power, though later the number had fallen to about 708,000. South Carolina was reporting 1.2m power outages, Georgia had about 920,000, and North Carolina had approximately 870,000, according to poweroutage.us. Large swaths of Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and Ohio were also out, and the Virginia governor said 241,000 customers in his state were out of power. 5am EDT Friday Key Messages for Tropical Storm #Helene: Catastrophic, life-threatening, record-breaking flash & urban flooding. As Helene continues moving inland, damaging wind gusts will continue, particularly over high terrain southern Appalachians. https://t.co/XtkxtGDQLT pic.twitter.com/IayaD7DaAW National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) September 27, 2024 Helene made landfall at about 11.10pm in Floridas sparsely populated Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where the states Panhandle and peninsula meet. Social media site users watched in horror as video showed sheets of rain lashing Perry, Florida, near Helenes landfall. Winds tore siding from buildings in almost complete darkness. One local news station recorded a home as it flipped over. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) conducted a preliminary assessment of Helenes storm surge in Florida, and it indicated that water levels reached more than 15ft above normal where the storm came ashore. Drone video from the storm chaser Aaron Rigsby showed residences that had collapsed and been damaged amid storm surge in the Florida community of Steinhatchee. Floridas Tampa Bay took on about 10ft of storm surge and was among the states badly inundated communities. The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, urged residents to prepare themselves for the likelihood that Helenes death toll would rise as communities complete damage assessments in the storms aftermath. But he also said the states rescue crews had ultimately kept that number as low as possible by performing thousands of missions overnight. In Georgia, Brian Kemp, the governor, warned residents Helene had left a very dangerous environment in its wake. One of our finest has lost his life trying to save others, Kemp said, referring to a first responder who died while clearing downed trees and power lines. Vernon Leon Davis was a part-time assistant fire chief in Blackshear who was killed when a tree fell on his truck, Jacksonville-based First Coast News reported. Atlanta was drenched, leaving some neighborhoods so flooded that only car roofs could be seen poking out of the water. The city had been under a rare flash flood emergency warning. A Georgia electrical utility group warned of catastrophic damage to the states utility infrastructure, with more than 100 high-voltage transmission lines damaged. In Valdosta, Georgia, a city of 55,000 near the states border with Florida, Rhonda Bell and her husband spent a sleepless night in the downstairs bedroom of their century-old home. She told the Associated Press that an oak tree smashed through the roof of an upstairs bedroom and collapsed on to the living room below. I just felt the whole house shake, said Bell, whose neighbors had roof shingles torn away and fence panels knocked down. Thank God were both alive to tell about it. Beyond Florida and Georgia, up to 10in of rain fell in the North Carolina mountains. This is one of the worst storms in modern history for parts of North Carolina, the states governor, Roy Cooper, said. Our hearts are heavy. A mudslide in the Appalachian mountains washed out a section of an interstate at the North Carolina-Tennessee state line. Meanwhile, occupants of homes hit by another mudslide in North Carolina had to wait more than four hours to be rescued, said Ryan Cole, the emergency services assistant director in Buncombe county. His 911 center received more than 3,300 calls in eight hours Friday. Florida is no stranger to hurricanes, but authorities and residents had been warned Helene would be a disaster of epic proportions. One sheriffs office in the state, in Taylor county, asked residents who chose not to evacuate ahead of Helene to write their names, birthdays and other identifying information on their limbs in permanent marker. So that you can be identified and [your] family notified, the agency wrote in what was grim advice ahead of the storm. Im going to stay right here at the house, the state ferry boat operator Ken Wood, 58, told Reuters from coastal Dunedin in Florida, where he planned to ride out the storm with his 16-year-old cat Andy. Afterwards, he told the agency: Ill never do that again, I swear. It was a harrowing experience. It roared all night like a train. It was unnerving. The house shook next time, we leave. Helene on Wednesday had swamped parts of Mexicos Yucatan peninsula. It was the ninth major hurricane category 3 or higher to make landfall along the USs Gulf coast since 2017. Experts attribute such a high rate of powerful, destructive storms to the climate change crisis, which is spurred in part by the burning of fossil fuels. Its as if something has changed, the Texas meteorologist Matt Lanza said in a widely shared X post. As for this Atlantic hurricane season, which began 1 June and does not officially end until 30 November, Helene was the eighth named storm. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) predicted this Atlantic hurricane season would be above average because of record high ocean temperatures. Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting As the sun rose in Beaufort County on Friday, clear damage from Helenes wake quickly came into focus, with fallen trees, debris littering roadways, downed power lines and thousands without electricity. During a statewide Helene update at 2 p.m. Friday, Gov. Henry McMaster said there were possibly more power outages from Helene than any other storm in recent history. The National Weather Services John Quagliariello said at the update that Beaufort clocked the highest wind gusts of 75 mph. Quagliariello said the service issued 63 tornado warnings across South Carolina. Its unknown how many were actual tornadoes, he said, adding that over the next few days the services survey teams will assess and then confirm twisters. Crews were working diligently in Beaufort County into the afternoon, shoring up debris, fallen limbs, restoring power and making roadways safe to travel. While some damage cleanup, a portion of May River Road between Buckwalter Parkway and Old Miller Road will be closed for an extended period of time due to downed power lines and trees, according to an email from the Town of Blufftons spokesperson Debbie Szpanka. Szpanka said Dominion Energy is working through its list of repairs. The road is expected to be closed through the day and into the evening Early Friday morning, Stephen Combs, Bluffton Township Fire District public information officer, said the storm damage the service was responding to is extensive. Combs said later Friday that the service had responded to 130 calls in the past 24 hours, which far exceeds what we had even during Hurricane Matthew. Fire departments across Beaufort county have had a busy 12 hours responding to storm related calls. Between midnight and 9 a.m. Friday, Hilton Head Island Fire responded to 35 downed trees, two of which involved damage to buildings, according to spokesperson Joheida Fister. Around 6 a.m., Scott Harris of the Ladys Island-St. Helena Fire District said that there many trees and power lines down and debris on the roadways.The Beaufort/ Port Royal Fire department had responded to 12 storm related calls by 6 a.m., according to Deputy Chief Ross Vezin. Tree down off of Ribaut Road on Friday morning, Sept. 27, 2024, after Helene rattled Port Royal, South Carolina. On Hilton Head Island, a beach patrol truck drove along the sands of Coligny Beach at 9:30 a.m., flying a red flag to indicate a high risk of rip currents due to Helene. The beach was dotted with seaweed and other small debris as the wind whipped against walkers on the coastline. In anticipation of tropical storm-force winds, Hilton Head Islands beach patrol had secured all fold-able rental chairs to posts near the sand dunes. Despite the conditions on the island, mostly remaining strong winds, several groups of bicyclists and walkers were seen dodging piles of debris on the outskirts of Coligny Beach and many ventured into the area to assess local damage. In Burton, its fire district responded over 50 emergency calls related to Helene, according to a Friday news release from the district. Several of the emergency calls were for wires and trees down, and electrical fires involving exploding transformers. Burton firefighters also responded to a house fire before 1:30 a.m. Friday on Winsor Road in Shell Point, along with six emergency calls for trees falling on homes with trapped people who had to be rescued in three of the incidents. A woman was trapped in a vehicle after she struck a tree that had come down across the road of Trask Parkway and Seabrook Center Road. The district said no serious injuries were reported in any of the incidents. Preliminary damage reports Between Thursday and Friday mornings, the National Weather Services Charleston Office had received nine preliminary local storm damage reports due to Helene. The reports ranged from felled trees to possible tornadoes. Debris across Beauforts Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park on Friday morning, Sept. 27, 2024, after Helene blew through Beaufort County, South Carolina. Below is a following time-stamped list: 7:03 a.m. Thursday : Possible tornado. Pictures relayed of several trees down and minor roof damage on Martinangel Lane near Captain Monroe Lane on Daufuskie Island. 7:16 a.m. Thursday : Possible tornado. Report relayed of a tree snapped and minor debris on Game Land Road. 7:30 a.m. Thursday : Beaufort County Sheriffs Office reported property damage from a tornado on Driftwood Drive on Daufuskie Island. 7:35 a.m. Thursday : Beaufort County Sheriff`s Office reported a tree down from a tornado on Palmetto Bluff in Pritchardville. 3:23 p.m. Thursday : Beaufort Emergency Manager reported a tree down at the intersection of Paige Point Road and Paige Point Blf in Sheldon. 1:24 a.m. Friday : Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport measured a 75 mph wind gust. The sustained wind speed was 51 mph. 1:58 a.m. Friday : South Carolina Highway Patrol reported a tree down on US-21. 7:22 a.m. Friday : Bluffton Township Fire District reported numerous roads closed due to downed trees and power lines. 7:30 a.m. Friday : Bluffton Fire Department reports the following roads are closed due to fallen trees in the Bluffton area: Boundary Street, Buck Island, Old Miller Road, May River Road at Palmetto Buff, New Riverside/Prichardville Street, River Road/Rose Dhu and Masters Way. 7:47 a.m. Friday: May River Road in Bluffton at Rose Dhu is closed due to downed trees and power lines, a Beaufort County Sheriffs Office alert said. There is currently no time for re-opening. The road to Sands Beach in was coned-off Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, due to Helenes wake in Port Royal, South Carolina. If you have damage in your area please email information, photos and or video to newsroom@islandpacket.com ORLANDO, Fla. Hurricane Helene intensified into a major Category 4 hurricane with 140 mph winds with its eye wall beginning to come ashore Thursday night, bringing devastating winds and storm surge to Floridas Big Bend, according to the National Hurricane Center. Helene is producing catastrophic winds that will be spreading onshore in the Florida Big Bend region during the next few hours, the NHC posted in a 10 p.m. Eastern time update. This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation. Persons should not leave their shelters and remain in place through the passage of these life-threatening conditions. In a special 6:20 p.m. update, the NHC said an NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft found that the maximum sustained winds had increased to 130 mph, making it a Category 4 hurricane. That took less than four hours since the NHC found it had grown into a Category 3 major hurricane, picking up energy from the hot waters of the Gulf of Mexico. By 10 p.m., it had grown to 140 mph sustained winds and was located about 65 miles west-northwest of Cedar Key and 65 miles south of Tallahassee as it moved north-northeast at 24 mph. A catastrophic and deadly storm surge is likely along portions of the Florida Big Bend coast, where inundation could reach as high as 20 feet above ground level, along with destructive waves, said NHC senior hurricane specialist Jack Beven. There is also a danger of life-threatening storm surge along the remainder of the west coast of the Florida Peninsula. Residents in those areas should follow advice given by local officials and evacuate if told to do so. An NOAA National Ocean Service tide gauge located at Clearwater Beach recently reported a water level of 6.18 feet above mean higher high water. A National Ocean Service tide gauge at Cedar Key is reporting a water level 5.76 feet above mean higher high water. At 8 p.m., hurricane-force winds extended out 60 miles and tropical-storm-force winds out 310 miles from the center. A weather station at Venice Municipal Airport had reported a sustained wind of 46 mph and gust of 69 mph while another observation near Venice Beach reported a sustained wind of 51 mph and gust to 66 mph. Very concerned about multiple life-threatening hazards that are going to start playing out here in just the next couple of hours, said NHC Director Michael Brennan, who updated its dangers in a 5:30 p.m. report. He was especially concerned about the area between Apalachicola and Chassahowitzka, where 10 to 20 feet of storm surge could flood the area above ground level, especially near and to the right of where the center of Helene crosses the coast. 20 feet is enough to inundate a two story building. Theres going to be destructive wave action on top of that, especially near where the hurricane makes landfall, he said. So this is going to create unsurvivable conditions in these areas. He said it will be a very dangerous night. Were also expecting catastrophic hurricane force winds within the eye wall of Helene, where it makes landfall on the Florida Big Bend coast tonight, and hurricane-force winds are going to spread inland across portions of northern Florida and Georgia overnight tonight and early Friday, he said. So again, shelter in interior portions of well-built structures, well-built homes, away from windows away from the potential for falling trees to hit you. Power outages have grown throughout the day across the state, with more than 630,000 customers out by 9:30 p.m., according to poweroutage.us. At least one fatality may end up being blamed on the storm, according to Spectrum Bay News in Tampa, which reported a fatal wreck on Interstate 4 was being investigated after traffic cameras showed what looked like an overhead sign had fallen on a vehicle. From Fort Myers Beach up to Tampa Bay, surge from the hurricane kicked up through the afternoon into the evening flooded roads and shut down bridges. Several barrier islands are impassable now, with law enforcement saying they can no longer respond to distress calls of anyone who chose not to evacuate. Gov. Ron DeSantis gave a press conference before 6 p.m. from the State Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee with a status update. He says landfall is expected closer to Taylor County east of Tallahassee around 11 p.m. Were going to see some effect soon, but right now you actually still have time to be able to evacuate, he said about residents in North Florida in the storms path. However, he said that time has passed for those down the Gulf Coast such as the Tampa area. Damage will be significant in North Florida, he said. You have 125 mph maximum sustained right now, probably is going to be higher, whether it hits as a Category 3, Category 4, its going to be a significant storm, he said. And even as it moves inland throughout northern Florida, you are going to see trees that are going to be falling down. Thats just the reality of what were doing, of what were seeing here, and if you hear the tree limbs snapping around you, sometimes it almost sounds like fireworks are going off, treat that as a tornado, shelter in a part of the home that would be where you have protection from that. He said avoid standing water, dont drive through flooded streets and dont go outside when its dark out. Theres going to be hazards there. Its just not something you want to be navigating in the dark, he said. And if it gets suddenly quiet in the middle of the storm, thats likely the eye of the storm. Dont go outside then, either. After the storm, there could be downed power lines. And those using generators need to keep them safely away from their homes to avoid death from carbon monoxide poisoning. We cant control how strong this hurricane is going to get. We cant control the track of the hurricane, DeSantis said. But what you can control is what you can do to put yourself in the best chance to be able to ride this out in a way thats going to be safe. The National Weather Service also issued a tornado watch covering the majority of Floridas peninsula from north-central Florida down to the Keys until 8 p.m. and North Florida until 10 p.m. It expanded the watch for Central Florida and north into Georgia until 6 a.m. Wind gusts over 60 mph forced the Florida Highway Patrol to shut down the Sunshine Skyway Bridge across Tampa Bay in the afternoon, and later shut down the Howard Frankland Bridge, Courtney Campbell Causeway and Gandy Bridge that connect Tampa to St. Petersburg. Brennan warned of powerful winds north of landfall up into the Tallahassee area and even farther into Georgia. Everybody in that region needs to be prepared for hurricane-force winds, the potential for long-duration, widespread power outages, structural damage, tree damage, trees falling on homes, out on cars or people if youre outside, and the potential for catastrophic wind damage near where the core of Helene makes landfall on the Florida Big Bend coast, he said. Storm surge, wind, and rainfall impacts will extend well away from the center and outside the forecast cone, particularly on the east side, Beven said. In addition, the fast forward speed when Helene moves inland will result in a far inland penetration of strong winds over parts of the southeastern United States, including strong gusts over higher terrain of the southern Appalachians. A higher-than-normal gust factor is indicated in the official forecast while Helene is inland. DeSantis also spoke at a 9 a.m. press conference from the state EOC in Tallahassee. This is a very large storm, so youre going to see tropical weather thats going to extend hundreds of miles away from the center of the storm, he said. But even though landfall will be in North Florida, Gulf Coast cities including Sarasota and Tampa are not out of danger. Because its such a big storm, its churning a lot of water, and so youre going to see surge all up and down the west coast of Florida, he said. The water is going to rise, and that is going to create hazards as well. So just because youre outside the cone, and I think a lot of those parts on the west coast of Florida are probably outside the cone, that does not mean that youre not going to see significant impacts. The Florida Division of Emergency Management has been responding to 1,100 requests from counties with provision of requests such as generators and high-water vehicles. Also, the state will have 30,000 linemen staged to respond to expected power outages after the storm passes. On the forecast track, Helene will move across the eastern Gulf of Mexico today and cross the Florida Big Bend coast this evening or early Friday morning, Beven said. After landfall, Helene is expected to turn northwestward and slow down over the Tennessee Valley on Friday and Saturday. Helene is forecast to drop 6-12 inches of rain, with some areas getting up to 18 inches across the southeast United States. This rainfall will likely result in areas of considerable flash and urban flooding, with areas of significant river flooding, forecasters said. Landslides are possible in areas of steep terrain in the southern Appalachians. Inland tropical storm watches are in place deep into the U.S. up into Georgia including Atlanta as well as western South Carolina and western North Carolina. We dont normally issue tropical storm watches this far inland, especially here, over the Appalachians area, Rhome said. So thats unusual. You really need to be paying attention. Theres also a big flood threat. DeSantis urged residents to listen to local evacuation orders, and avoid the tragedy seen in 2022s Hurricane Ian that killed 149 people in Florida, most of whom were caught in major storm surge in southwest Florida. The field is so big with the winds and its going to churn up a lot of surge that youre likely to see something significant, particularly in the barrier islands and those low lying areas, he said. So we always say you can hide from the wind, especially with Florida structures that have been built in modern times, but you run from the water, because if that water really does come crashing in, its not a lot you can do about it at that point. Each county has designated shelters, including at least one that will let residents take their pets. You dont have to get in your car and drive 350 miles away. You can evacuate safely to higher ground, he said. Theres shelters, theres hotels, friends houses, family. All that is fine. People, including some in mobile or manufactured homes, can find out if they are under an evacuation order at floridadisaster.org. DeSantis earlier this week issued a pair of state of emergency orders covering 61 of Floridas 67 counties. President Biden approved federal disaster assistance that authorizes FEMA to coordinate all disaster relief efforts for 28 of those counties. DeSantis said he would revisit their request to see if the federal order can be expanded, which would help refund preparations some of the cities and counties in affected areas have to make. He said the state has SpaceX Starlink internet hardware available to deploy if needed to targeted areas along with tarps, generators and other post-landfall needs. The state deployed for the first time this year during Hurricane Debby, which also targeted the Big Bend, new flood protection devices primarily for use to protect utility substations. DeSantis intends to deploy those again, which help get the power back up that much quicker. There are 3,500 Florida National Guard soldiers ready to assist with post-storm assistance, which can be surged to 5,500 if necessary. The state has also mobilized more than 250 from the Florida State Guard as well as personnel from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, county sheriffs and city police forces. Kevin Guthrie, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said he has already had 750 resource requests in from various counties. Only the westernmost Panhandle counties have escaped any sort of watch or warning because of Helene. More rainfall for the Florida peninsula could follow over the weekend after the system has passed through, which is a flooding concern with ground that may have just been deeply saturated already, he said. The NHC was tracking two more systems in the Atlantic basin with a chance to become a tropical depression or storm. As of the NHCs 8 p.m. tropical outlook Thursday, the most likely was a broad low-pressure system associated with a tropical wave located several hundred miles west of the Cape Verde Islands has been producing more organized shower and thunderstorm activity. Recent satellite imagery suggests the system does not yet have a well-defined surface circulation, forecasters said. However, environmental conditions are expected to be conducive for further development. A tropical depression is expected to form tonight or on Friday while the disturbance moves generally westward to west-northwestward at 10 to 15 mph. Its forecast to slow down and turn north-northwestward late Friday and Saturday, and is no threat to land. The NHC gives it a 90% chance to develop in the next two days and 90% in the next seven. The next name on the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season list is Joyce. New on Thursday, the NHC began forecasting an area of low pressure to form over the western Caribbean by the middle of next week. Environmental conditions are expected to be conducive for slow development thereafter, while the system moves generally northwestward, forecasters said. The NHC gives it a 20% chance of development in the next seven days. Hurricane season runs from June 1-Nov. 30, with the height of hurricane development running from mid-August into October. _____ CARY, N.C. (WNCN) Hurricane Helenes heavy rain flooded roads and forced businesses to close in western North Carolina. Cary Fire Departments Swiftwater Rescue Team is one of several local emergency teams deployed to Western NC to help out. Captain Craig McDowell, who is part of the Cary Fire Departments eight member Swiftwater Team in Caldwell County, said their biggest concern is flash flooding. RELATED: NC activates 175 soldiers, 16 water rescue teams ahead of catastrophic flooding from Hurricane Helene Were prepared for just about anything, McDowell said. Weve been prepping gear, making sure our boats are ready to go, our equipments all ready. The team arrived in Lenoir at 10 a.m. Thursday. McDowell said they did not have any calls Thursday. The crew expects to be there for at least a few days, depending on how the storm progresses. In central North Carolina, wind will be the biggest concern Friday. Duke Energys Jeff Brooks said with all the rain seen recently, the ground is already saturated. Brooks said crews will be ready to respond to any overnight outages. With the more severe storms to the west, crews are staging in Charlotte and Upstate South Carolina. RELATED: Gov. Cooper declares State of Emergency ahead of Hurricane Helene If we do get some strong gusts through here, we could see some downed trees, Brooks said. That can cause power outages from downed lines. We do have the ability to quickly move resources from anywhere in the state within just a few hours to the hardest hit zones and thats what well be doing as the storm comes through. Emergency officials are reminding people to treat any downed power lines as live and do not go near 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 CBS17.com. At least 43 dead as Helene cuts destructive path through southeastern US By Rich McKay, Joseph Ax and Andrew Hay ATLANTA (Reuters) -Tropical Depression Helene brought life-threatening flooding on Friday to wide sections of the U.S. Southeast, where at least 43 people have been killed by a storm that swamped neighborhoods, triggered mudslides, threatened dams and left more than 3.5 million homes and businesses without power. Before moving north through Georgia and into Tennessee and the Carolinas, Helene hit Florida's Big Bend region as a powerful Category 4 hurricane on Thursday night, packing 140 mph (225 kph) winds. It left behind a chaotic landscape of overturned boats in harbors, felled trees, submerged cars and flooded streets. By early Friday afternoon, the storm had been downgraded to a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (55 kph), the National Hurricane Center said. But Helene's heavy rains were still producing catastrophic flooding in many areas, with police and firefighters carrying out thousands of water rescues throughout the affected states. More than 50 people were rescued from the roof of a hospital in Unicoi County, Tennessee, about 120 miles (200 km) northeast of Knoxville, state officials said, after floodwaters swamped the rural community. Rising waters from the Nolichucky River were preventing ambulances and emergency vehicles from evacuating patients and others there, the Unicoi County Emergency Management Agency said on social media. Emergency crews in boats and helicopters were conducting rescues. Elsewhere in Tennessee, Rob Mathis, the mayor of Cocke County, ordered the evacuation of downtown Newport because of a potential dam failure nearby. Mathis initially said the Walters dam had suffered a "catastrophic failure" but later said the dam "was breached" but there had been no major failure as yet. The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency wrote on social media that the Walters dam, which is located just across state lines in North Carolina, had not failed. The agency said that information came from Duke Energy, which operates the dam. Madison McDonald, a Duke Energy spokesperson, said, "we are aware of the situation and we're sorting out the facts." In western North Carolina, Rutherford County emergency officials warned residents near the Lake Lure Dam to immediately evacuate to higher ground, saying "Dam failure imminent." But by 8 p.m. (0000 GMT), the county emergency officials said that engineers had evaluated the dam "and determined it is no longer at imminent risk of failure." In nearby Buncombe County, landslides forced interstates 40 and 26 to close, the county said on X. The extent of the damage in Florida began emerging after daybreak on Friday. In coastal Steinhatchee, Florida, a storm surge - the wall of seawater pushed ashore by winds - of eight to 10 feet (2.4-3 meters) moved mobile homes, the National Weather Service said on X. In Treasure Island, a barrier island community in Pinellas County, boats were grounded in front yards. The city of Tampa posted on X that emergency personnel had completed 78 water rescues of residents and that many roads were impassable because of flooding. The Pasco County sheriff's office rescued more than 65 people overnight. Officials had pleaded with residents in Helene's path to heed evacuation orders, with National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan describing the storm surge as "unsurvivable." Some residents stayed put. Ken Wood, 58, a state ferry boat operator in Pinellas County, said he should have heeded evacuation orders rather than riding out the storm at home with his 16-year-old cat, Andy. "I'll never do that again, I swear," Wood said. "It was a harrowing experience. It roared all night like a train. It was unnerving. The house shook." Down the hill from his house, the storm flooded some homes with chest-deep salt water. One house caught fire and burned down, shooting 30-foot flames in the stormy sky, he said. "Old Andy seemed like he didn't care," Wood said. "He did fine. But next time we leave." Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said first responders were unable to answer several emergency calls from residents overnight due to the conditions. On Friday, county authorities found at least five people dead. Two others in Florida died, said Governor Ron DeSantis. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp's office reported 15 storm-related fatalities in that state, while North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said there had been two deaths there. At least 19 people died during the storm across South Carolina, the Charleston-based Post and Courier newspaper reported, citing local officials. Helene was unusually large for a Gulf hurricane, forecasters said, though a storm's size is not the same as its strength, which is based on maximum sustained wind speeds. A few hours before landfall, Helene's tropical-storm winds extended outward 310 miles (500 km), according to the National Hurricane Center. By comparison, Idalia, a major hurricane that struck Florida's Big Bend region last year, had tropical-storm winds extending 160 miles (260 km) about eight hours before it made landfall. (Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta, Brendan O'Brien in Chicago, Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico, Brad Brooks in Longmont, Colorado, Swati Verma and Rahul Paswan in Bangalore; Writing by Joseph Ax, Brad Brooks and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Richard Chang, Bill Berkrot and William Mallard) Hurricane Helene Makes Landfall as Category 4 Storm, Threatening 'Catastrophic' Weather in Florida and Beyond Major storm surges, wind, flooding and more are expected to batter the Southeast going into the weekend Joe Raedle/Getty Hurricane Helene approaching Florida Hurricane Helene has officially made landfall in Florida's Big Bend, along the Gulf of Mexico, as a Category 4 storm, federal weather officials said. The storm currently has sustained winds of 140 mph and is the strongest storm to hit Florida's Big Bend area in recorded history. It made landfall at about 11:10 p.m. ET, about 10 miles west-southwest of Perry, Fla., reports the National Hurricane Center. "Helene stands toe-to-toe with any of the threats that Florida has faced over the past 10 years or indeed really over hurricane history," Ryan Truchelut, a meteorologist and hurricane forecaster, previously told USA Today. Jamie Rhome, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center, told CNN Helene will likely be a "historic inland flooding event," adding, "Historically speaking, 50% of lives lost are in a setup like this. Were probably going to lose a lot of lives in this setup with this much flooding potential." Before Helene made landfall, the National Hurricane Center warned it could bring life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds and flooding rains to much of Florida and parts of the southeastern U.S. The federal government has predicted damaging winds and rains as well as the risk of flash and urban flooding and landslides will stretch as far as the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains in Georgia and the Carolinas through Friday, Sept. 27. 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. Photo: NASA/Getty Hurricane Helene from space Joe Raedle/Getty Weather in Florida as Hurricane Helene approaches The rainfall could hit 20 inches in some areas, weather officials said. Tornadoes are another risk. The coast of Florida will be particularly vulnerable to storm surge from the ocean, reaching as high as 20 feet above ground level. "After landfall [in the Big Bend], Helene is expected to turn northwestward and slow down over the Tennessee Valley on Friday and Saturday," an advisory from the National Hurricane Center states. As of Thursday, Sept. 26, Helene, after hitting land, is set to move north across Georgia and into eastern Tennessee by Friday afternoon, then reach western Kentucky by Saturday. Related: I Survived Getting Sucked Into Storm While Paragliding, Reaching Altitude of Over 30,000 Feet (Exclusive) President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency for Florida on Tuesday, Sept. 24, and ordered Federal assistance to supplement State, tribal, and local response efforts due to the emergency conditions resulting from Tropical Storm Helene beginning on September 23, 2024, and continuing. That same day, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced in a post on X that the state had almost 18,000 linemen staged along with available search and rescue and roadway clearing crews. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. The Colorado Springs Police Department wrapped up its year-long audit this month and several recommendations to improve the department were outlined in a press conference Thursday afternoon. Over 80% of Colorado Springs police officers in 2022 said they felt like they did not receive enough effective training on non-lethal weapons, defensive tactics, crisis intervention and de-escalation practices. This response from officers on the force garnered a recommendation that the department conduct an independent audit of use-of-force training "to ensure it conformed to best-practice standards." Over the course of a year, the Police Executive Research Forum analyzed documents, policies and lesson plans and conducted focus groups and interviews with those in leadership to come up with a set of recommendations. Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade described the report as a critical tool for guiding the department's long-term vision toward constant improvement. "It truly is a roadmap for the future of public safety in Colorado Springs," Mobolade said during Thursday's press conference. "It represents our shared commitment to transparency, accountability and progress." PERF's research found that even after a 2022 Transparency Matters study found that many officers felt the department "places too little emphasis on training defensive tactics and arrest control," more than three-fourths of the officers who responded to the 2024 survey still felt the same. PERF also said those two topics came up consistently throughout the officer survey as the greatest training needs. "We need to be training more on defensive tactics to give officers the tools and confidence to go hands-on," one officer said during the surveys one of several anonymous officer comments shown Thursday. PERF claimed that officers who do not feel adequately trained to go hands-on with a weaponless subject are more likely to rely on some form of less-than-lethal tool or weapon to gain compliance. Across the nation, the PERF audit states, "many more hours" are spent training recruits and in-service officers to hone their firearm skills than are spent teaching defensive tactics. "It's great that we learn the de-escalation techniques, but they will not always turn out great, and sometimes things change rapidly, and the officers need to be prepared for the worst," another officer said during the surveying process. Several recommendations from PERF were provided to aid in combatting the issue, including the building of a new training facility and Brazilian jiujitsu training. Featured Local Savings The department has recently been awarded a $1.325 million dollar grant by the National Institute of Justice to conduct a 3-year study of the departments implementation of police-focused Brazilian jiujitsu defensive tactics. The department and PERF were one of four grants NIJ awarded across the US. They are the first and only law enforcement agencies in the country to study how police-specific Brazilian jiujitsu training impacts use-of-force encounters and provide empirical evidence about its effectiveness in law enforcement. The training is intended to improve de-escalation and critical decision-making, addressing issues where officers felt they failed if force was necessary. "The grant itself is going to help us determine how the best way to roll it out," Chief Adrian Vasquez said. "At the end of the day, once we implement it, every sworn officer and everybody up to me will be out there on the mats learning these techniques." Another recommendation by PERF was to increase in-service training hours from 24 annually, to 40. This time will include training to refresh skills and continued education on mandated topics such as bias. According to PERF, the Aurora Police Department already requires 40 hours of annual in-service training, and it has been successful. With the department likely to nearly double its in-service training hours, PERF emphasized the importance of a new training facility that can replace the current, 30-year-old building. Colorado Springs voters rejected a city plan to set aside almost $5 million in tax revenue for a new police academy. Results released by the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder's Office showed 2023's Question 2A failed 52.22% to 47.48%. At the time, Mobolade said that the city would go ahead with creating a new training facility regardless. "As always, we will get creative piecing together the funding needed to ensure our community is safe. Public safety remains my top priority," he said in a release sent out after election night. The city has provided some updates on the project at ColoradoSprings.gov/PoliceTrainingFacility since the failed vote. But as of Thursday, there are still no definitive plans are on the website. "We appreciate the affirmation of this need, and we are continuing to make progress and take steps in that path forward to make this a reality," Mobolade said Thursday, regarding a new training facility. Death toll rises as Helene unleashes catastrophic flooding across Southeast, knocks out power to millions TALLAHASSEE, Fla. The remnants of Helene continued its onslaught across the Southeast Friday, with nearly 4 dozen dead across multiple states and hundreds rescued from floodwaters. The Category 4 hurricane made landfall along Floridas Big Bend region late Thursday with estimated sustained winds of 140 mph. Post-landfall, the hurricane quickly weakened, but its torrential rains and gusty winds continued hundreds of miles inland, with feet of rain being reported over the Appalachians. At least 45 deaths have been reported so far, including 19 in South Carolina, 15 in Georgia, eight in Florida, two in North Carolina and one in Virginia. Interstate 40 Partially Collapses After Catastrophic Rains In North Carolina In the southern Georgia town of Blackshear, a part-time assistant fire chief was killed when a tree fell onto his vehicle while responding to the storm. "When we ask people to stay off the roads and be patient, its because when we are trying to get to people, it is a very dangerous environment and one of our finest has lost his life trying to save others," Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said Friday. Other deaths illustrated the power of hurricanes to kill by a variety of means. Two people in Georgia were killed during a tornado and several drowned in Florida. In North Carolina, a 4-year-old child died in a weather-related car crash. Kemp warned there are still many who remain in peril. In Valdosta, officials have identified 115 structures heavily damaged by Helene that they know have multiple people trapped inside. "(We are) trying to get to multiple structures that we know have individuals inside that we are unable to communicate with," Kemp said. "Were going to have to literally cut our way into situations like this." First-ever Flash Flood Emergency Issued In Atlanta As Helene's Fury Prompts Water Rescues, Rising Death Toll There were 28 Flash Flood Emergencies the most dire flood alert issued by the NWS spread across Georgia, western North Carolina from Asheville to the Charlotte area, and portions of South Carolina and Virginia. That included the first-ever Flash Flood Emergency in Atlanta, where the city broke a 138-year-old record for two-day rainfall at 11.18 inches. The 26 Flash Flood Emergencies issued on Friday are the most in a single day across the country. Videos: Hurricane Helene Produces Record Storm Surge Along Florida's Gulf Coast In North Carolina, record rains have flooded the Broad River to levels that have overtopped the Lake Lure Dam, threatening its failure. Officials have issued emergency evacuation orders downstream concerned about deadly flash flooding. As much as as 20 inches of rain could fall in the area by the end of the weekend. The Asheville Fire Department said on X that a mandatory evacuation of the Swannanoa River Valley was underway because of the flooding. According to a post on X from Haywood County Emergency Services, residents in portions of Waynesville, North Carolina, were told to evacuate because of the potentially deadly situation that's unfolding. The North Carolina Department of Transportation warned drivers "all roads in Western North Carolina should be considered closed" and part of I-40 was washed out near the border with Tennessee. Download The Free Fox Weather App Countless emergency crews from Florida to Georgia are responding to those trapped in homes and cars as rivers and streams swell. The Pasco County Sheriffs Office in Florida reports first responders have so far responded to more than 200 water rescue calls and have rescued at least 65 people with additional water rescues ongoing. Florida Police Give Morbid Advice To Those Who Didn't Evacuate For Helen's Historic Storm Surge Atlanta Fire Rescue Department has responded to numerous weather-related calls overnight. Several boats were deployed to transport people and pets to safety, while some residents were forced to wade through deep water to reach rescue crews. FOX Weather cameras were rolling when several of those rescues were underway, and the video shows a woman with a baby strapped to her chest being led from the water. Watch: Fox Weather Meteorologist Rescues Woman From Rushing Floodwaters In Atlanta FOX Weather Meteorologist Bob Van Dillen found himself in the middle of a harrowing rescue as Helene slammed the Atlanta area. While covering the storm's aftermath, Van Dillen, a journalist from the area, heard a woman's desperate cries for help along Peach Tree Creek. She had driven into floodwaters and was trapped in her car before sunrise . Van Dillen waded into the chest-deep water, battling strong currents to reach the woman. He pulled her to safety , carrying her through the floodwaters to a nearby dry area. Helene's combination of 70-100 mph wind gusts with saturated grounds left more than 4 million without power across the Southeast as of Friday afternoon, with Florida, Georgia and South Carolina all reporting over a million customers with outages during the peak of the storm. In Florida, Helene produced a 99-mph gust in Perry, a 75-mph gust near Jacksonville and a 72-mph gust at Jacksonville International Airport. In neighboring Georgia, a gust reached 100 mph in Alma, while an 88-mph wind gust was reported in Valdosta and a 75-mph gust in Savannah. In Florida, Helene produced a 99-mph gust in Perry, a 75-mph gust near Jacksonville and a 72-mph gust at Jacksonville International Airport. In neighboring Georgia, a gust reached 100 mph in Alma, while an 88-mph wind gust was reported in Valdosta and a 75-mph gust in Savannah. The massive size of Helene combined with its Category 4 strength and forward speed, racing up the Gulf of Mexico at over 20 mph led to a massive storm surge along the Big Bend and Florida's northern Gulf Coast. According to NOAA, preliminary indications show storm surge reached at least 15 feet along the Big Bend region near Keaton Beach, Steinhatchee and Horseshoe Beach. A camera in Cedar Key, Florida, at a height of 6 feet, was swamped by storm surge early Friday morning. Surge levels eventually reached 10 feet. Clearwater Beach reported its highest surge since at least the Superstorm of 1993, with a level of nearly 7 feet. Storm surge even brought floodwaters into Tampa, where gauges near the water showed a surge of more than 6 feet. Tampa Mayor Jane Castor reported "extensive damage" across the city, including Davis Islands and other waterfront areas . Footage taken from a Tampa Police Department helicopter showed flooded residential roads. The hurricane is believed to have produced several tornadoes, with most occurring in the Carolinas. According to the Storm Prediction Center, it received initial reports of more than a dozen twisters in the bands associated with Helene. According to officials in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, outside of Raleigh, a significant tornado is believed to have injured 15 people on Friday. Photos showed businesses that were significantly damaged, with windows blown out of vehicles. The city's mayor declared a local state of emergency and pledged to rebuild following the disaster. Tornado damage in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Original article source: Death toll rises as Helene unleashes catastrophic flooding across Southeast, knocks out power to millions As Hurricane Helene barreled north, South Carolina has been left with nearly historic power outages that might take days to restore, according to the states utility providers. The high winds in the early hours of Friday after days of heavy rainfall brought down trees across the state, toppling power lines and blocking roads that repair crews need to access. With all of the trees being uprooted and falling, we probably have more power outages than weve had maybe ever, said South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster at a press conference Friday afternoon. Weve had a lot of them before and they always take a lot of time to repair and this one is going to be no exception, so we ask everyone to be patient. By one estimate, it will be the middle of next week before life is back to normal, said Keller Kissam, president of Dominion Energy South Carolina, a press conference with South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster at a press conference Friday. As of Friday afternoon, 1.25 million power outages according to the Office of Regulatory Staff, with Greenville, Spartanburg and Lexington Counties being the most affected. Thats more power outages than any other state currently reported, including Florida, where Helene made landfall as a category 4 hurricane. The extent of the power outage has already drawn comparisons to other historic storms that have swept South Carolina. 425,000 consumers of electric co-ops, about half of the total customers had lost power along with 633,000 customers from Duke Energy. 386,000 customers of Dominion Energy, one of the states largest utility providers, also lost power. Thats roughly the same number who lost power during Hurricane Hugo in 1989, said Kissam. These are significant numbers, bordering on historical, said Ryan Mosier, a spokesperson for Duke Energy. Customers need to be prepared for a multi-day outage. The most impacted part of the grid are the transmission lines, say utility officials. These are the large, high voltage power lines that move so-called bulk electricity across the state from power plants to substations, where it is then delivered to consumers. While utilities representatives have told The State that crews are already out working to assess and repair the damage, the full extent is still unknown and utilities have warned that some areas will see a longer wait, likely days, to see their service restored. Its going to vary across the state, its going to vary by co-op, said Avery Wilks, vice president of communication for the Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, an industry group that represents 18 electric co-ops across the state. Coop crews are having trouble even trying to assess damage, to even go out there and see whats broken, see whats down... We are still very early into the response. The storm, which was expected to move west into Tennessee, struck more of South Carolina than many anticipated. Heavy rainfall, as much as 10 to 15 inches, in the days leading up Helene making landfall combined with wind gusts of up to 70 miles-per-hour brought down trees across the Midlands and Upstate. And with much of the damage occurring Friday morning, utilities say that in some cases theyre still struggling to access the parts of the state that are most impacted. The storm definitely shifted from what the experts were projecting in a significant way, Wilks said. Information from utilities, state and weather agencies suggest that the western border of South Carolina, the Upstate and the Piedmont areas were among the worst hit by outages. Some of these areas, which are served by electric co-ops, are among the most rural and rugged in the state, said Robert Hochstetler, president of the Central Electric Power Cooperative. Some co-ops saw almost their entire systems drop off during Hurricane Helene, which Hochstetler said had done more damage to the electric grid than any storm in decades. As of 8:45 a.m. Friday, the Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative reported on X that approximately 63,000 of its members, roughly 85%, were without power. Teams from the Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative, which services parts of the Upstate South Carolina, prepare to repair damage from Hurricane Helene. Blue Ridge has said that as much as 85% of their customers lost power in the storm. The destruction that damaged South Carolinas electric grid is also making it difficult to repair. In many parts of the state, trees and other debris are still blocking the roads, while floodwaters have cut off some streets, making it hard for utility crews to even assess the damage. Crews from Santee Cooper had to cut their way into the Rainey Generating Station, a natural gas power plant in Anderson. Cell towers and infrastructure including transmission lines, pylons and substatations have also been damaged, said officials. Teams from the state Department of Transportation, along with local and municipal first responders, are working to clear roads. But the system of triage, meaning major roads and interstates are cleared first before moving to more rural areas, means that some areas will see more of a wait. A similar approach is also being taken to the power grid, say officials, with much of the early effort focusing on the major transmission lines. Utility companies reported that they already had at least eight helicopters are already in the air, some with long saws to cut debris from major transmission lines. Santee Cooper CEO Jimmy Stanton said that the companys power generating facilities are continuing to operate, and roughly half of the 116 major connection points damaged in the storm had been repaired. But utility officials cautioned that progress might be slow even once major repairs were completed as getting the grid fully operational in some cases would mean going neighborhood by neighborhood to reconnect power lines to individual houses. On Saturday, temperatures are expected to hit 86 degrees in some parts of the state, and many households wont have their TVs working as USC and Clemson take the field. Its going to be frustrating, acknowledged Kissam, But he urged South Carolinians to help their neighbors and have patience. We will not stop working until the very last South Carolinian has their power restored. Mutual aid brings support for utilities In the days leading up the storm, utilities said that they were leaning on mutual aid agreements to bring in crews to support South Carolina. Its a very robust mutual aid system, Wilks said, but he also warned people need to buckle in for the long haul. S.C. Dept. of Transportation workers remove a large tree that fell along Celanese Road Friday in Rock Hill. In the Upstate, the Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative posted that it was expecting 17 workers arriving late Friday afternoon from Maryland and Virginia to assist the more than 200 employees who had been working to assess and repair damage since Friday morning. Santee Cooper could not be reached for comment by midday Friday. On Thursday, Duke Energy posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) that it had over 18,000 line workers and support workers ready to assess damage and restore power as soon as its safe to do so. Mosier said he had seen trucks with tags from as far away as Michigan, Ohio and Ontario, Canada. Its all part of team South Carolina, said Kissam. CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. (WFLA) Crystal River was among the numerous communities in Florida that was hit extremely hard by Hurricane Helenes flooding. Photos taken by drone service Higher Perspectives on Facebook showed the level of the devastation from the air. PHOTOS: Aftermath of Hurricane Helene around Tampa Bay This was a bad one, the service wrote on social media. When 8 On Your Side crews were at the scene, homeowners were still stuck waiting for the floodwaters to recede before they could begin the clean-up process. Floodwater filled the streets and buildings as late as Friday morning. default default default default default default default default default default default default default default default default default default default default default It got up to 3 feet of water in my house, resident John Morrison told 8 On Your Side. I never thought Id have water in my house. Prior to the hurricane, forecasters predicted that Citrus County would see a dangerous storm surge of around 10 to 15 feet. County officials said it was likely 10 feet. Deputies said about 200 residents who did not evacuate had to be rescued. Do you know of something newsworthy happening in your community? Report It! Send in tips, photos videos and other information 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 WFLA. Hurricane Helene power outages leave millions in the dark history shows poorer areas often wait longest for electricity to be restored Hurricane Helene cut power to more than 4 million homes and businesses as it moved across the Southeast after hitting Floridas Big Bend region as a powerful Category 4 storm on Sept. 26, 2024. As Helenes rains moved into the mountains, causing devastating flooding, officials warned that fixing downed utility lines and restoring power would take days to weeks. Electricity is essential to just about everyone rich and poor, old and young. Yet, when severe storms strike, socioeconomically disadvantaged communities often wait longest to recover. That isnt just a perception. We analyzed data from over 15 million consumers in 588 U.S. counties who lost power when hurricanes made landfall between January 2017 and October 2020. The results show that poorer communities did indeed wait longer for the lights to go back on. A 10 percentile drop in socioeconomic status in the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions social vulnerability index was associated with a 6.1% longer outage on average. This corresponds to waiting an extra 170 minutes on average for power to be restored, and sometimes much longer. The top map shows the total duration of power outages over eight storms by county. The lower map is a comparison with socioeconomic status taken into account, showing that counties with lower average socioeconomic status have longer outages than expected. Ganz et al, 2023, PNAS Nexus Implications for policy and utilities One likely reason for this disparity is written into utilities standard storm recovery policies. Often, these polices prioritize critical infrastructure first when restoring power after an outage, then large commercial and industrial customers. They next seek to recover as many households as they can as quickly as possible. While this approach may seem procedurally fair, these recovery routines appear to have an unintended effect of often making vulnerable communities wait longer for electricity to be restored. One reason may be that these communities are farther from critical infrastructure, or they may be predominantly in older neighborhoods where power infrastructure requires more significant repairs. Commercial areas are often higher on the priority list for faster power recovery in an outage. This store was still closed for several days during Texas widespread outages in 2021. Montinique Monroe/Getty Images The upshot is that households that are already at greater risk from severe weather whether due to being in flood-prone areas or in vulnerable buildings and those who are least likely to have insurance or other resources to help them recover are also likely to face the longest storm-caused power outages. Long outages can mean refrigerated food goes bad, no running water and delays in repairing damage, including delays in running fans to dry out water damage and avoid mold. Our study spanned 108 service regions, including investor-owned utilities, cooperatives and public utilities. The differential impact on poorer communities did not line up with any particular storm, region or individual utility. We also found no correlation with race, ethnicity or housing type. Only average socioeconomic level stood out. How to make power recovery less biased There are ways to improve power recovery times for everyone, beyond the necessary work of improving the stability of power distribution. Policymakers and utilities can start by reexamining power restoration practices and power infrastructure maintenance, such as replacing aging utility poles and trimming trees, with disadvantaged communities in mind. Power providers already have granular data on power usage and grid performance in their service regions. They can begin experimenting with alternative recovery routines that consider the vulnerability of their customers in ways that do not substantially affect average recovery duration. People in some Fort Myers, Fla., neighborhoods still lacked water and electricity more than a week after Hurricane Ian in 2022. Montinique Monroe/Getty Images For socioeconomically vulnerable regions that are likely to experience long outages because of their locations and possibly the aging energy infrastructure, utilities and policymakers can proactively ensure that households are well prepared to evacuate or have access to backup sources of power. For example, the U.S. Department of Energy announced in October 2023 that it would invest in developing dozens of resilience hubs and microgrids to help supply local power to key buildings within communities when the wider grid goes down. Louisiana plans several of these hubs, using solar and large-scale batteries, in or near disadvantaged communities. Policymakers and utilities can also invest in broader energy infrastructure and renewable energy in these vulnerable communities. The U.S. Department of Energys Justice40 program directs that 40% of the benefit from certain federal energy, transportation and housing investments benefit disadvantaged communities. That may help residents who need public help the most. Severe weather events are becoming more common as global temperatures rise. That increases the need for better planning and approaches that dont leave low-income residents in the dark. Chenghao Duan, a Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech, also contributed to this article. This article, originally published on Feb. 7, 2024, has been updated with Hurricane Helenes rising power outage toll. The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Hurricane Helene killed at least 42 people and left millions without power across the Southeast before weakening on its way north Friday morning, officials said. Widespread damage was expected in Floridas Big Bend region, where Helene made landfall as a Category 4 shortly after 11 p.m. ET on Thursday. It was the strongest storm to ever strike the area, which connects Floridas panhandle and peninsula. On Friday morning, Floridians woke up to extensive damage from the devastating flooding, high-speed winds and heavy rain. Follow along for live coverage Water levels in some parts of the region reached more than 15 feet above ground level, the National Hurricane Center said, citing preliminary storm surge models. In Perry, Florida, where officials urged residents who refused to evacuate to write their information on their bodies for identification, Police Chief Jamie Cruse braced himself for the storms aftermath as first responders began rescue operations. Were starting to get the first glimpse of what we actually have laying on the ground and what were going to be dealing with, he told NBC News. The only regret I have at this moment is we werent aggressive enough in the notification to tell people to evacuate the areas that were prone to flooding. I just hope that when we finally discover what were dealing with that we dont have a big loss of life, he added. Officials in Clearwater, further south along Floridas Gulf Coast, also feared the worst after seeing overnight footage of first responders rescuing elderly locals in knee-deep flood water. We had some homes burn to the ground out on the island. There were some folks that we just couldnt get to because of high waters to rescue, Clearwater Mayor Bruce Rector told NBCs TODAY show. People toss buckets of water out of a flooded home Friday in Atlanta. The storm is blamed for at least 15 deaths in Georgia, including a first responder, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said at a news conference. One of our finest has lost his life trying to save others, he said. There have been at least seven deaths in Florida, including five reported overnight in Pinellas County, Florida, officials said. The sheriffs office said two of those deaths appear to have been due to drowning. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters that one person died in Dixie County after a tree fell on a home. Another fatality was reported after a road sign fell onto a car. Thomas Chaves, left, and Vinny Almeida walk through floodwaters from Hurricane Helene in an attempt to reach Chaves's mother's house Friday in St. Petersburg, Fla. In North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper said there were two storm-related deaths. A 4-year-old child was killed in a car crash during heavy rain in Catawba County just after 8 a.m. ET, the North Carolina State Highway Patrol said. Three other children who were in the cars were hospitalized: a 12-year-old with life-threatening injuries, a 2-year-old with life-threatening injuries, and a 4-year-old with non-life-threatening injuries. Another person died in Charlotte after a tree fell on the home. The storm claimed at least 13 more lives in South Carolina, according to officials. Hurricane-felled trees caused two of those deaths in Anderson County, officials relayed. There was at least one death in Virginia, an official said. Debris left by Hurricane Helene in Cedar Key, Fla., on Friday. Meanwhile, more than 4.3 million people experienced power outages in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility data. Florida Power & Light Company said it restored power to at least 460,000 customers, which is more than 65% of the total number affected, as of 6 a.m. A spokesperson said the company wont know how long it could take to restore power for the remaining 214,000 people still in the dark until crews can safely survey the damage. Duke Energy Florida said nearly 198,000 customers had their power restored, while more than 402,000 were still experiencing outages. Workers will need to wait until the flooding recedes in some of the hardest-hit areas, but a full restoration was expected in days, Duke Energy spokesperson Ana Gibbs said. It will not take weeks, she said. Ronda Bell looks at an oak tree that landed on her 100-year-old home in Valdosta, Ga., on Friday. Now a tropical depression, Helene is expected to bring damaging wind gusts and catastrophic flooding as it heads north across the Southeast, according to the National Hurricane Center. The agency said people who live in the southern Appalachians should brace for possible long-term power outages. A flash flood emergency is in effect for the Atlanta metropolitan area, officials said. Twelve million people are at risk for tropical tornadoes across the eastern Carolinas and southern Virginia, including the cities of Charleston, Wilmington, Charlotte, Raleigh and Norfolk. At 2 p.m. ET Friday, the storm was 125 miles southeast of Louisville, Kentucky, with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. President Joe Biden approved emergency declaration requests, allowing federal assistance to Georgia, Florida, Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina, and ordered more than 1,500 federal personnel to be deployed to the region. Federal Emergency Management Administrator Deanne Criswell is expected to travel to Florida to survey the damage and meet with state and local officials. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com Hurricane Helene tore through Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, leaving behind a trail of devastation after the Category 4 hurricane made landfall Thursday night in the rural Big Bend in Florida, the Associated Press reported. After the hurricane made landfall and generated a record-breaking storm surge, emergency crews rushed Friday to rescue those trapped in flooded homes. The storm has claimed the lives of at least 21 people so far across the four states. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told AP News that the damage from the hurricane seems worse than the combined damage of Hurricanes Idalia from last year and Debby from August: Its demoralizing, he said. Meanwhile, county officials have launched boats to save stranded people and sent out warnings that the flooded water could contain live wires, sewage, sharp objects, and other debris. Dramatic footage shows the astonishing force of Hurricane Helene's storm surge, with entire homes floating away in Steinhatchee, Florida. pic.twitter.com/v2iZ87A3dc AccuWeather (@accuweather) September 27, 2024 President Joe Biden has shared his prayers for survivors and confirmed that the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is scheduled to arrive in Florida. The agency sent out a total of 1,500 workers who have helped with 400 rescues Friday morning. When the storm first arrived in the Big Bend in Florida it sustained maximum winds of 140 mph, but soon its damages extended hundreds of miles to the north, flooding North Carolina and taking out power both in southern Georgia and parts of Florida. Over 4 million homes and businesses in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina were left without power Friday morning according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports. Videos of the storm, including a home on fire, have surfaced from South Pasadena, Florida amidst surging floods. Although the city claims crews are trying to respond to all emergencies the ferocity of the weather conditions is hindering their efforts, CBS News reported. Helenes landfall on Floridas Gulf Coast comes only a year after the same areas were hit by Hurricane Idalia, the New York Times reported. Xavier Riley woke up on his couch at about 4 a.m. Friday morning in a sweat. There was no air condition after the power went off during Hurricane Helene's roll through Georgia. Riley moved to his back bedroom inside a multi-unit Savannah mansion on 42nd street between Bee Road and Ash Street. Five minutes later Riley heard crackles and a crash, jolting him and his dog off the bed. Soon he was peering out of his bedroom window with a flashlight to see that a 90-foot live oak tree had fallen onto the house. A tree crew removes a large Live Oak from Abercorn Street at 49th Street after the remnants of Hurricane Helene impacted the Savannah area on on Friday, September 27, 2024. "I was terrified it was going to keep coming down," Riley said. "That was my initial, first fear with it being so massive, like the biggest tree around." Although Savannah was not in Helene's direct path, the storm brought peak 76 mph wind gusts and seven simultaneous tornado warnings in the area at one point Thursday evening. By Friday morning the sun was up, and winds speeds began to dissipate, bringing droves of Savannah residents to city streets surveying the damage. Limbs, leaves and debris were strewn across streets from downtown squareswhere a split tree limb on Lafayette Square obstructed portions of the roadwayacross neighborhoods from Savannah's east side to western portions of the county. Some roads throughout the Ardsley Park, Parkside and Thomas Square neighborhoods had so much debris, entire roadways were closed. Xavier Riley looks at the tree that fell on the house that he rents a unit in on East 42nd Street after the remnants of Hurricane Helene impacted the Savannah area on on Friday, September 27, 2024. As of 5 a.m. Friday, there were 55 trees down and 94 streets closed countywide, according to Chatham Emergency Management Agency statistics. Many residents said it was the worst storm damage seen since Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Anne Tyree and Ramond Hrabec, who live at the corner of 45th and Habersham streets, said they lost power overnight for the first time since moving to the house in 2011. That included maintaining power during Matthew when a 90-foot live oak fell onto powerlines at the intersection. Just a few houses down a tree had toppled over onto a pickup truck. A few streets away at 49th and Abercorn streets, resident Frank Simmons witnessed the carnage. Simmons sat on his screen porch at about 1:30 a.m. when the "first blast" of wind came through and toppled a sweetgum tree on 49th Street. Within seconds a live oak at the corner of Abercorn Street fell onto the road. "You can hear the big thumps, and you know the trees are coming down," Simmons said. Residents survey the debris and limbs blocking Washington Avenue near Savannah Arts Academy after the remnants of Hurricane Helene impacted the Savannah area on on Friday, September 27, 2024. City crews were on the scene around 8 a.m., neighbors said. Randy Canady, who lives at the corner where the live oak fell, said he was impressed with how quickly city crews and contractors were cleaning the streets. The crews cleared the live oak from Abercorn Street by about 10 a.m., according to Simmons. Canady and a host of about five others were working along 49th Street to clear the fallen sweetgum and debris while tree crews cleared major rights of way. One resident had a chainsaw cutting the sweetgum trunk into chunks while Canady and others carried the logs off the road. "We were just trying to clear the road so people could get in and out," Canady said. Residents move limbs from 49th Street, between Abercorn and Habersham Streets after the remnants of Hurricane Helene impacted the Savannah area on on Friday, September 27, 2024. There were also signs of community service on Broughton Street, where Maple Street Biscuit Company served free coffee after choosing not to open Friday. Maple Street Biscuit is right across from the building occupied by Ordinary Pub and Free People, where the roof collapsed on upstairs dwelling units during the storm. The partial building collapse threw glass shards into the streetsthree windows were busted upstairsand shut down Broughton Street between Barnard and Jefferson streets. By the time reporters reached the scene around 10 a.m., the city had already condemned the building, shown by multiple orange signs in the windows of Free People. Windows are broken out of the upper floor of a Broughton Street building that suffered a partial collapse as the remnants of Hurricane Helene impacted the Savannah area on on Friday, September 27, 2024. Bradley Phall, a manager at Maple Street Biscuit, said he arrived at the store at about 4:30 a.m. Friday morning. The company then made the decision not to open due to safety concerns. Still, they wanted to do something for the community, and Phall went through 14 batches of coffee by mid-morning, he said. "We decided to go ahead and bring out some of our coffee and let people enjoy it," Phall said. "It's a little cool and breezy this morning, so maybe we can warm them up a little bit." Evan Lasseter is the city and county government reporter for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at ELasseter@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Hurricane Helene's winds toss debris, trees across Savannah streets Starting Tuesday, the state of Idaho will take over the costs and responsibility of public defense for indigent defendants in the state. Prior to Oct. 1, the responsibility for the cost of public defense was on the counties, which varied county to county. (Getty Images) This story was first published by Idaho Reports on Sept. 27, 2024. Public defenders cant walk away from cases without a judges permission, even if their new state contracts mean they will get paid less. The Idaho State Bar issued an ethics opinion on Sept. 18 on attorneys withdrawing from pending criminal cases as the changeover date for a statewide public defense system nears. Starting Tuesday, the state of Idaho will take over the costs and responsibility of public defense for indigent defendants in the state. Prior to Oct. 1, the responsibility for the cost of public defense was on the counties, which varied county to county. Some counties used in-house public defense, while others contracted with outside attorneys. The change in the state came after sweeping legislation formed a state office after years-long litigation over inadequate public defense in Idaho. While about 77% of new State Public Defender employees would receive a salary increase, 7% of salaries would remain the same, about 15% of employees would see a decrease from their current county pay rate. Some attorneys have chosen not to sign on with the State Public Defenders Office or chosen not to be contracted attorneys with SPD. That could potentially leave hundreds of defendants without an attorney, triggering the Idaho State Bar to issue its opinion. In a story published by Idaho Reports last week, at least one public defender said he planned to withdraw from more than 100 pending cases. When the new State Public Defender Eric Fredericksen was asked about the issue, which is not isolated to one attorney, he said hed wait for the Idaho State Bars opinion. We have filed in my office probably 200 motions to withdraw, and judges have granted most of them, attorney Terry Ratliff told Idaho Reports on Friday. Theyre not granting ones where a judgment has been entered and (defendants) have 42 days to appeal if they choose. Ratliff, who previously contracted with Elmore County but isnt signing on to the SPD, said he supports the bars opinion and the judges choice, as he wants to protect his clients appellate rights. The bar issued the opinion after multiple requests to address the change to the state system. The bar opinion states that a lawyer must file a motion to withdraw if compensation becomes an issue. The judge may deny that lawyers motion. The opinion also includes details around how and when that lawyer may request to withdraw. The lawyer must assess whether there is a significant risk that their representation of clients will be materially limited due to their own personal financial interests, i.e., a reduction in pay rate to perform the same legal services. If the lawyer determines that there is a significant risk that their representation of one or more clients will be materially limited because of their own personal interests, then the lawyer has a concurrent conflict of interest (for withdrawing), according to the opinion. Additionally, if a judge believes withdrawing as a representative will jeopardize the defendants rights, the lawyer must stay on the case. In that case, the state would pay the attorney at its designated rate even if its less than what the attorney received from their county contract. Courts have broad discretion in whether to grant a motion to withdraw, according to the opinion. If a court denies the lawyers motion to withdraw from the case, even if the lawyers request to withdraw is due to a clear conflict of interest, the lawyer must continue to represent the client. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX MERCED, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) The woman who was found dead inside a fuel tank in Delhi has been named by the Merced County Sheriffs Office. Deputies say 32-year-old Mayra Minchaca Torres of Delhi was the woman found dead inside the fuel tank on Monday. A second woman, who was not identified, was found unconscious alongside Torres. The second victim continues to recover in the hospital. According to the Merced County Sheriffs Office, they responded to the 15,000 block of Oak Street in Delhi for a report of two people in a tank containing fuel on Monday afternoon. Investigators say a calf on the property had fallen into the tank and the two women went inside to try to get it out. However, the hazardous fumes inside and the lack of oxygen overcame the two women. They were able to rescue the calf, but the calf had to be euthanized due to its condition. An autopsy to establish the cause of death 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 CBS47 and KSEE24 | YourCentralValley.com. SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) The Illinois Attorney Generals Office is making is easier for people to distinguish misinformation this election season. Attorney General Kwame Raoul released a Voter Misinformation Guide on Thursday to help people spot and report misinformation generated by artificial intelligence. Its been increasingly used this election season to create fake but realistic content about the election and the candidates running to sow confusion and even dissuade people from voting. Early voting is open in Illinois. Heres where you can cast your ballot: The right to vote is one of the most fundamental rights we have as Americans, and voters deserve to have accurate information about the important choices they make on their ballots, Raoul said. As the general election draws nearer, Im reminding Illinoisans to be vigilant about election misinformation and election-related financial fraud. Dont let scammers steal your vote, your identity or your hard-earned dollars. Use reliable sources to educate yourself on your ballot choices and make your plan to vote. People can view the Voter Misinformation Guide 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 WCIA.com. By Julie Steenhuysen (Reuters) -Four additional healthcare workers in Missouri who came in contact with a hospitalized bird flu patient developed mild respiratory symptoms but the virus was not confirmed in any of them, U.S. health officials said on Friday. The report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention brings to six the number of healthcare workers who cared for the Missouri patient and developed respiratory symptoms. Unlike previous U.S. bird flu cases this year, the Missouri patient, who was hospitalized on Aug. 22, had no known contact with infected animals. Scientists are watching closely for signs that the virus has begun to spread more easily in people. Missouri is leading an investigation with CDC assisting remotely. Missouri health department spokeswoman Lisa Cox said in an emailed statement that the investigation is ongoing and there is currently no evidence of person-to-person transmission. According to Cox, one healthcare worker got a flu test and tested negative for the virus. Symptoms in the others were not discovered until it was too late to do testing, she said. A household contact of the patient also developed symptoms but was not tested. All have recovered from their illnesses. The state has collected blood samples of five healthcare workers and the household contact to look for antibodies that would suggest a prior infection. Cox said the CDC is evaluating samples from the unidentified hospitalized patient and the household contact. The state is preparing the other samples to be sent to the CDC as soon as possible, Cox said. "These cases underscore the need to take this outbreak more seriously than it has been taken," said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Results from the antibody testing need to be promptly obtained to assess the risk of human-to-human spread of the virus, Adalja said. "This dripping out of information from Missouri... is not acceptable and the state should ask for official CDC assistance now," he added. Cox said the state is sharing relevant updates as the investigations are completed. The Missouri case was the 14th person in the United States to be diagnosed with bird flu this year. The other 13 cases were among farm workers and linked to outbreaks on poultry or dairy farms. (Reporting by Mariam Sunny, Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru and Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Bill Berkrot) IL Residents Can Order Free COVID Tests Again. How To Get Yours ILLINOIS Americans can now order another round of free COVID-19 nasal swab tests that will be delivered to homes. Each household can get four tests through COVIDtests.gov. Already have some at home? Check here to see if your tests' expiration dates have been extended. Shipping forms just opened on Thursday and are free to all residents; access this link to order yours. Updated rapid tests are expected to be able to detect newer variants just as a new COVID variant, XEC, arrives in Illinois. It is a member of the Omicron family. The availability of free at-home tests comes just after the Food and Drug Administration approved two updated COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging everyone 6 months or older to get a new shot this fall, since last year's shots were geared toward a strain that is no longer around. As flu and RSV season approaches, health officials recommend residents stock up on tests and update all vaccinations. IL Residents Can Order Free COVID Tests Again. How To Get Yours originally appeared on the Across Illinois Patch Illinois Secretary of State awards nearly $22M for library services (WTVO) Some libraries in the Stateline are getting an upgrade thanks to $22 million in grant funding awarded by Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias. Six million dollars will be put toward literacy programs throughout the state and $28,000 will go to Northern Illinois Radio Information Services in DeKalb. Sauk Valley Community College is set to receive $68,000, while Highland Community College will be receiving $81,000. The YWCA in Rockford is also being awarded $85,000. The grants will be used to fund online catalogs, day-to-day operations and the promotion of reading and writing skills. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to MyStateline | WTVO News, Weather and Sports. An Illinois State Police agent from Edwardsville has been charged with battery involving children and an elderly woman. Thomas M. Hatley is accused of physically abusing two children under the age of 13 and a woman over the age of 60 in August and September, as well as October 2023. It is the Belleville News-Democrats policy not to name victims of abuse. Hatley was charged Friday with one felony count of aggravated domestic battery, three felony counts of aggravated battery and four misdemeanor counts of child endangerment. His spouse, Ha T. Hatley, 37, was also charged with child endangerment, a misdemeanor. They were both arrested Friday morning at the Madison County Courthouse, according to a news release from Madison County States Attorney Tom Haine. Court records do not list attorneys for the Hatleys. Allegations against Thomas Hatley include that he choked a child under the age of 13 with his legs and whipped more than one child repeatedly with a belt. In another incident, he is alleged to have forced a child under 13 to run on a treadmill until they fell, vomited and suffered injuries to their legs. Charging documents also allege Hatley struck a woman over the age of 60 repeatedly in the face and eyes. Thomas Hatley has been placed on administrative leave without pay from the Illinois State Police, according to Melaney Arnold, a spokesperson for the agency. The ISP Division of Internal Investigation is investigating charges against Special Agent Hatley, pursuant to our authority under Illinois law, Arnold stated in an email to the BND. ISP does not tolerate any criminal conduct within its ranks. As we do with any alleged crime, ISP will move swiftly towards justice and accountability. (WTVO) Illinois Tollway is partnering up with State Senator Dave Syverson and State Representative Joe Sosnowski to help drivers update their I-Passes. The state is moving away from using the plastic responders of the past and to new sticker tags. Motorists can go to Harvard Illinois village hall at 201 West Diggins Street on September 17th from 3 p.m. until 7 p.m. On September 26th, between the same times mentioned before, drivers are welcome to the Community Building Complex of Boone County in Belvidere at 111 West First Street. Participants must bring their drivers license and license plate number. Officials will be there to walk motorists through the process without disrupting their I-Pass account activity. Once the sticker is activated, it can be used on the Illinois Tollway and other EZ Pass roadways in other states within 24 hours. There will be no deposit for the sticker tag and the $10 transponder deposit will transfer to the new account when it is activated. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to MyStateline | WTVO News, Weather and Sports. Kamala Harris' campaign has bitten back after former President Donald Trump's refusal to answer whether or not he would rescind his endorsement of Mark Robinson, the GOPs gubernatorial candidate who has been embroiled in a scandal after a CNN report detailed a history of controversial comments on pornography forums from accounts linked to him. Speaking Thursday to reporters at a press conference in Trump Tower, the former president addressed a wide range of topics, including the migrant crisis, the war in Ukraine, and even touched on the indictment of New York City Mayor Eric Adams. He notably did not mention the North Carolina gubernatorial candidate, who earned the coveted Trump endorsement in March. As he left the podium, a reporter asked if he was planning to pull his endorsement of the lieutenant governor. Trump responded I dont know the situation before quickly walking away and taking another reporters question. Far-Right Trump Favorite Mark Robinson Wins North Carolina Governor Primary The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast. The CNN report unearthed a lengthy backlog of explicit comments from accounts linked to the lieutenant governor, including one where the poster identified themselves as a black NAZI! Robinson has vehemently denied the reporting, calling the comments salacious tabloid lies. In the days since the report was released, Robinson has seen both campaign staff and office staff resign. The Harris campaign, who are eager to tie the former president to the besieged lieutenant governor in an important swing state, quickly responded to the remark. Its impossible to believe that, somehow, Donald Trump missed the news about his handpicked candidate for governor calling himself a Nazi, Harris campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement sent to the Daily Beast. 2173124377 Mark Robinson and his wife, Yolanda Hill Robinson, attend a Trump event in Asheville, North Carolina in August. Tom Brenner/Getty Trump has been to North Carolina twice since the news broke and is still standing by Robinson, even as the people who know Robinson best are abandoning him, Moussa said. Although Robinson has appeared at Trump rallies in the past, he did not show up at the Republican nominees rallies on September 20 in Wilmington and on Wednesday in Mint Hill. Robinson has attended Trump events in the pastas recently as August 21, he attended a speech the former president gave in Asheboro, North Carolina, and even received a shout-out from the podium. Mark Robinson, he's out there. He's fighting. He's fighting. He's a great one, according to a transcript of the event published by Roll Call. 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. Incidents tied to political violence getting more attention in atmosphere of mistrust Details of a suspected vandalism incident in Washtenaw County, which recently were posted on social media and reported by a metro Detroit TV station, have stirred concerns of political violence and stoked outrage in a string of online comments. But authorities looking into the accusations caution people's suspicions may be just that. If so, it wouldn't be the first time in this presidential election that there have been rumors, with quarrels nationwide turning into unpleasant acts, including reports of stolen campaign signs, shouting matches and fisticuffs at family gatherings. In this election cycle four years after federal agents foiled a kidnapping plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and just weeks after two assassination attempts on the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump political kerfuffles seem to be getting more public attention. Donald Trump supporters attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, protesting the election of President Joe Biden. Michigan State Police told the Free Press on Wednesday that its investigation began late last month with claims from Dexter residents who said roofing nails were tossed onto their lawns because they are supporting Vice President Kamala Harris in the November election. WXYZ-TV (Channel 7) aired a news segment on it this week. Commenters on a Reddit thread said they now are scared. Some accused police of not aggressively investigating the incidents and of political bias. One person went so far as to try to connect whoever did it to attempted murder. "You get a nail that he left in your driveway in your tire, and you get on the highway and have a blowout, lose control and roll your vehicle over," the commenter wrote, using a screen name. "At the very least your attorney can easily find a dozen criminal offenses." Uncertainty about what will happen in a close election, from how the media will cover it to whether there will be another Jan. 6 situation in which a mob of Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol, is fueling anxiety for voters already on edge. What's more, serious threats to U.S. federal judges have more than doubled during the past three years, part of a growing wave of politically driven violence, according to U.S. Marshals Service data that Reuters reviewed and reported on earlier this year. And false social media claims repeated by Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, that a growing Haitian population in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating pets led people this summer to call in bomb threats to the city's government offices and schools. The police investigation On Wednesday, Michigan State Police verified with the Free Press that an incident report was taken in connection to claims that nails and screws were found in a resident's yard on Aug. 31, but, MSP Lt. Rene Gonzalez said the police have no witnesses or video of the incident. The resident, Gonzalez said, suspected the Aug. 31 incident was connected to a Harris yard sign and asked the incident be documented. Then, Gonzalez said, on Sept. 3, there was a second incident, prompting even more detective work that is ongoing. So far, Gonzalez said, there is no evidence to tie whatever happened to political violence, nor is there a suspect, which is why the case has not been referred to the Washtenaw County Prosecutors Office. Moreover, Gonzalez said, if there are charges, they are unlikely to be anything more than misdemeanors. "We've had crimes like this on a non-election year and we investigated it the same we would this," Gonzalez said. "But it seems like the public gets themselves charged up on certain things and then you find out it's nothing." He added: Theories connecting the nails to attempted murder and a police cover-up are outlandish. More: From Jackson to Trump, presidents have been targets of assassination attempts Still, on the Reddit thread, some of which has since been removed, some remarks suggest that if the nail incidents were a form of political intimidation it could affect political behavior, especially in a swing state like Michigan. And even perceived tension could chill political conversation. When the Free Press asked Wayne State University on Wednesday if any of its professors who studied politics to offer some insight on potential political violence and conspiracy theories, the institution declined, saying its scholars preferred to "stay out of it." In July, Time magazine reported on what it called "Americas political violence crisis," citing among other evidence a political focus group meeting in Pennsylvania as early as January. At the meeting, Democrats and Republicans talked about their concerns about the democratic process. The group included people from several states including Michigan and, the magazine said what they all seemed to agree on about the presidential election cycle was their prediction that "political violence was going to happen." De-escalating violence At the same time, news organizations are struggling with how to responsibly report on incidents and rumors of political violence, and are looking ahead, making plans on how to cover in an atmosphere of distrust and misinformation the election results. Last month, MSNBCs liberal commentator Rachael Maddow penned an essay in the New York Times that said what worried her most about election night was a close-vote scenario in which the results get tied up through legal challenges and certification refusals. There's historical precedent the so-called "Compromise of 1877" or "Corrupt Bargain," in which Congress selected who would become president in a deal historians suggested was made in an atmosphere of political violence. Wednesday, the New York Times published a report, "News Outlets Brace for Chaos on Election Night (and Perhaps Beyond)," which described how journalists are planning to make calls in a tight race and "ensure that viewers and readers believe them." The Times said that "Election Day is the news industrys biggest night, when voters rely on media outlets to declare state-by-state winners and to keep score in the Electoral College." But it added, the results could "take days to determine." "We live in an environment where misinformation travels really fast, and we understand that the public is confused," Julie Pace, the executive editor of the Associated Press, said in the Times' report. "Theres distrust in elections theres distrust in institutions in general." What will it take to restore trust and de-escalate political violence? The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University in Massachusetts convened a panel to consider that very question earlier this year after a 20-year-old man shot at Trump, grazing his ear at a political rally. The shooter also killed one bystander and wounded two others. The center said in a summary of its panel discussion that the assassination attempt "stoked Americans' fears of rising political violence across the country." The impact, the center added, has been felt "at every level of the political process, from President to Congress to poll workers." Among the suggested strategies to quell the violence: Call it out and band together to prevent it. Panel host and Harvard Professor Erica Chenoweth said most people reject political violence, but various polls suggest a growing anxiety about it with some "modest increases in the proportion of respondents who would tolerate or even condone political violence against members of the opposing party." She added, however, "its so important not to minimize whats going on, but also keep a healthy perspective," noting that, generally, in America, "people have been able to vote safely, especially relative to many other places in the world." Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Social media claims of political violence stoke public anxiety Shigeru Ishiba, the newly elected leader of Japan's ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) holds a press conference after the LDP leadership election, in Tokyo, By Tim Kelly TOKYO (Reuters) - Shigeru Ishiba, tapped to be Japan's next prime minister, may cause diplomatic headaches for the U.S. with proposals to revamp Tokyo's closest alliance by locking Washington into an "Asian NATO" and stationing Japanese troops on U.S. soil. Ishiba, elected leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Friday, outlined his plan in a paper to the Hudson Institute think tank last week. He argues that the changes would deter China from using military force in Asia. "The absence of a collective self-defence system like NATO in Asia means that wars are likely to break out because there is no obligation for mutual defense," he wrote. Ishiba, like many Japanese politicians, has voiced concern over a surge in Chinese military activity around Japanese islands. The NATO idea, however, has already been rejected by Washington, with Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, dismissing it as hasty. "He's very technical about military matters but in terms of national security diplomacy, he really hasn't shown much chops," said Joseph Kraft, a financial political analyst at Rorschach Advisory in Tokyo. Ishiba, however, doubled down on his idea on Friday, telling a press conference that "the relative decline of U.S. might" made an Asian treaty organisation necessary. Since its defeat in World War Two, Japan has been in the embrace of Washington, which provides protection with its nuclear arsenal and has an aircraft carrier, fighter jets and some 50,000 troops in Japan. Ishiba's potentially disruptive changes would come as the U.S. presses for closer ties, Tokyo seeks defence cooperation with South Korea and Australia, and forges security ties with European nations, including Britain and France, to counter China's growing influence. Ishiba's NATO would combine a collection of existing diplomatic and security pacts, including the Quad grouping - Japan, the U.S., Australia and India - the AUKUS agreement of Canberra, Washington and London, and Japan's deepening security cooperation with neighbour and rival Seoul. The new security alliance, Ishiba said, could even share control of Washington's nuclear weapons as a deterrent against Japan's nuclear-armed neighbours. Campaigning before Friday's vote, Ishiba said he wanted to rebalance Japan's alliance with the U.S, including greater oversight of U.S. military bases in Japan - a regular source of friction with locals. In his Hudson paper, Ishiba, who has a reputation as a troublemaker in the LDP, also said Japan's military alliance with the U.S. could be revised to allow Tokyo to station troops in Guam, a U.S. territory, for the first time since 1944. "I would venture to guess that that's not going to happen," said Rintaro Nishimura, associate at The Asia Group Japan. "It looks like he's trying to kind of fundamentally change the relationship, but not in a completely negative way." (Reporting by Tim Kelly, Sakura Murakami and Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by William Mallard) The indictment of Eric Adams, unsealed Thursday, is a colorful document, alleging over $100,000 in graft, the defrauding of a public funding program from which he reaped $10 million, and a whole lot of subsidized travel to Turkey. It accuses Adams of crimes that span the nearly 10-year period that he held the offices of Brooklyn borough president and New York City mayor.* The transgressions range from hilarious to horrible. There are also some truly pitiful attempts by Adams to cover his tracks. But the biggest takeaway from this indictmentthe result of one of five separate federal probes into his administration and campaignis the deep irony, in retrospect, of Adams extreme tough-on-crime stance, which put him in office during a period of intense anxiety and paranoia about the safety of New York City. A plainspoken champion of the outer boroughs, Adams pitched himself as a true moderate, one who had served the city as an officer of the law. He vowed to clean up the streets by cracking down on homeless New Yorkers (while cutting funding for shelters) and accused immigrants of sapping the resources of the city. In reality, he was sapping resources from the city. And his crimes, according to the indictment, were at times so exceedingly small-bore that it expands the imagination to consider how little it takes to buy off some elected officials. For example, Adams was so reliant on the cheap flights and free business-class upgrades provided to him that he ended up on some wildly circuitous itineraries. Because the Turkish Airline provided free travel benefits worth tens of thousands of dollars to Eric Adams, the indictment reads, he flew the Turkish Airline even when doing so was otherwise inconvenient. During a 2017 summer trip from New York City to France, Adams partner is surprised to find out that he has scheduled a layover in Istanbul, an overshoot of 1,700 miles from his intended destination. In what might be the most memorable Adams line in the entire document, he responds: Transferring here. You know first stop is always instanbul. That wasnt the last time Adams sought an outlandish route on Turkish Airlines. When his partner wanted to plan a trip to Easter Islandin ChileAdams repeatedly asked her whether the Turkish Airline could be used for their flights, requiring her to call the Turkish Airline to confirm that they did not have routes between New York and Chile. The route from New York to Istanbul to Santiago would have tacked on two unnecessary crossings of the prime meridian. Adams also accepted deeply discounted rates at the St. Regis Istanbuls Bentley suite, which, thanks to some grainy black-and-white photos in the indictment, looks to be one of the single most overpriced hotel rooms in the world. Adams allegedly paid $300 a night for the place, which seems about right, compared with the going rate of $3,500. The free and discounted world travel added up to over $100,000, none of which Adams disclosed. The alleged illegal fundraising activity that helped plant Adams in the mayors office is described in great detail. In 2018, as Adams begins to plan for his incipient mayoral campaign, a Turkish promoter reaches out to an Adams staffer with a straw-donor strategy. Well make the donation through an American citizen in the U.S A Turk Ill give cash to him in Turkey He will make a donation to you. An Adams staffer balks at the suggestion: I think he wouldnt get involved in such games, the staffer says but promises to ask anyway. Wrong! Adams loves it. Shortly thereafter, Adams directed that the Adams Staffer pursue the Promoters illegal scheme. The humor of that exchange is sort of lessened by the impact. Adams used that straw-donor scheme to defraud the city of New Yorks public matching funds program, from which he received $10 million, bilking the well-intentioned program for elections: In an effort to blunt the influence of big corporate donors and megadonors, the city matches small-dollar donations of $250 or less with public funds at up to eight times the level of the donation, $8 for every $1 donated, a well-intentioned move to maximize the influence of small-dollar donors and move toward publicly funded elections.* But Adams allegedly used these illegal straw donations from Turkey to then raid that public elections programfor $10 million, a gesture made even more insulting because his signature move as mayor has been harsh and seemingly arbitrary budget cuts to beloved public services like libraries, always on the grounds that the city cant afford them. That Public money for me but not for thee ethic has also been on display with those in the New York Police Department, Adams former co-workers, who have been able to run up an obscene tab for overtime pay on Adams watch while he preaches cuts elsewhere. In exchange for mediocre hotel rooms and interminable flights with inconvenient layovers, Adams sold out the city he was tasked with running. As requested, according to the indictment, he pressured the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) to facilitate the opening of a new Turkish consular buildinga 36-story skyscraperwithout a fire inspection, in time for a high-profile visit by Turkeys president in 2021. Despite the obvious risks, a FDNY fire inspector was told that he would lose his job if he failed to acquiesce, and, after Adams intervened, the skyscraper opened as requested by the Turkish Official, without passing a fire-safety inspection. In 2022, as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day was approaching, the Turkish official repeatedly asked the Adams Staffer for assurances that Adams would not make any statement about the Armenian Genocide. Adams obliged and said nothing. Still, the most absurd part is almost certainly the attempted cover-up. In 2021 a Turkish Airlines rep offered to charge Adams $50 for pricey, last-minute flights to Istanbul. No, dear, warns an Adams staffer, his every step is being watched right now. Instead, the Adams staff resolves to go ahead with the plan anywaybut to pay a not-at-all-suspicious $1,000 for the flights. Adams attempt to cover his own digital trail is even more ridiculous. In 2019, after arranging another flight, an Adams staffer urged Adams to cover his tracks. To be o[n the] safe side Please Delete all messages you send me. Adams responded: Always do. In late 2023, with the investigation closing in, FBI agents executed a search warrant for Adams electronic devices. Adams was carrying two cellphones but not his personal phone, which is what he used for the alleged illicit activity. When Adams finally produced his personal phone the next day, it was locked with a new six-digit passcode that the mayor refused to give over to the feds, claiming that he could not remember it. Adams admitted that he had found out about the investigation into his dealings the day before the search and had changed his password thenbut for the good of law enforcement, adding that he had done so to prevent members of his staff from inadvertently or intentionally deleting the contents of his phone. The indictment dryly notes that Adams said he wished to preserve the contents of his phone due to the investigation. There was just one small problem: Just 48 hours after changing the password to protect the sanctity of the investigation, Adams further claimed he had forgotten the password he had just set, and thus was unable to provide the FBI with a password that would unlock the phone. That wasnt Adams only laugh-out-loud attempt to thwart the investigation. One of his staffers instructed one of the Turkish businessmen involved in the straw-donor operation to direct his employees who had made straw donations to the 2021 campaign to lie to federal investigators as well. That same businessman met with Adams at City Hall, and they left their cellphones outside the room in which they met so that it would be safe to talk. Obviously, none of this worked. The indictment notes that one of the Turkish businessmen agreed to contribute $50,000 or more to the 2021 Campaign, believing that Adams might one day be the President of the United States. He had hoped to gain influence. That, at the time, wasnt a crazy thought. Despite swirling rumors of corruption, many Democratsand pundits, including Nate Silverpredicted that Adams was a top-five contender for the next Democratic presidential nominee. He was embraced by national Democrats as the face of their tough-on-crime, left-antagonistic, anti-activist approach; cheered as a possible president by high-profile Democratic strategists like Lis Smith; and even invited by Nancy Pelosi to speak at a 2022 Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee event as an expert on communication. That his tenure has curdled into absurdist tales of grubby graft and self-aggrandizing travel that a high-end credit-card rewards program could have furnished is a reflection of an incredible paradoxthe great expositor of tough-on-crime politics allegedly did so much petty crime that he might not make it to the end of his first term of office. Because now the only real question surrounding Eric Adams political future is how much longer hell serve as mayor. Lea Maceyko, speaking, alongside Tammy Krings and Arthur "Ed" Dunn. (Photo by Nick Evans, Ohio Capital Journal.) Republican and independent voters are criticizing Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno after he referred to women as a little crazy for making abortion policy the deciding factor for their vote. In a video obtained by WCMH, Moreno told a crowd in Warren County (theres) a lot of suburban women that are like, Listen, abortion is it. If I cant have an abortion in this country whenever I want, I will vote for anybody else. Its a little crazy by the way, he went on, but especially for women that are like past 50 Im thinking to myself, I dont think thats an issue for you. Im 63, Tammy Krings said, When I turned 50, I didnt stop caring about my daughters body and her choices and her rights. Krings described herself as an independent voter, and she spoke alongside two Republicans Thursday on the sidewalk outside the Columbus Club where Moreno was hosting a fundraiser. The event was organized by the campaign of Morenos opponent, Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown. I didnt stop caring about my future grandchildren and their rights, Krings added. Just because youre not of childbearing age, and just because youre not a woman doesnt mean this isnt important to you. Morenos comments in context In an emailed statement, Moreno campaign spokeswoman Reagan McCarthy said, Bernie was clearly making a tongue-in-cheek joke about how Sherrod Brown and members of the left-wing media like to pretend that the only issue that matters to women voters is abortion. Bernies view, she continued, is that women voters care just as much about the economy, rising prices, crime, and our open southern border as male voters do, and its disgusting that Democrats and their friends in the left-wing media constantly treat all women as if theyre automatically single-issue voters on abortion. Still, Browns campaign has latched on to Morenos comments. Just days after Ohio voters approved the reproductive rights amendment known as Issue 1 last November, state Democratic officials made it clear they would make politicians stance on the issue a central theme of this years campaign. Are you trying to lose the election? Asking for a friend. #Tonedeaf #DonLemonVibes Sadly, by the way, theres a lot of suburban women, a lot of suburban women that are like, Listen, abortion is it. If I cant have an abortion in this country whenever I want, I will vote for Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) September 24, 2024 Morenos team says he favors exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother, but when he ran in 2022, before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe, he described himself as 100% pro-life no exceptions. Hes also embraced the idea of a national 15-week floor for abortion, but has been less willing to assert that outside of being an aspiration after former President Donald Trump abandoned the idea in April. Now Moreno argues the matter should be settled primarily at the state level. Following a surprise Alabama Supreme Court ruling that threatened access to IVF treatment, Moreno dismissed concerns as a left-wing, media-created issue. And Wednesday, The Columbus Dispatch reported that Moreno claimed the Founding Fathers would murder you for supporting abortion rights. Moreno isnt the only Republican candidate struggling to thread the needle on an issue where the majority of voters dont appear to align with their position. But even within his party, Morenos comments sparked pushback. Former GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley asked, are you trying to lose the election? on social media Tuesday. Republicans and Independents weigh in SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Fifty-seven percent of Ohioans voted, Krings argued, in reference to Issue 1 last November, and Bernie Moreno wants to just toss that out the window. She insisted politicians need to understand the assignment. Its their job, she said, to uphold the will of the voters not second guess it. He thinks he knows better, she said. We the people his job is to execute on what the people vote for. Its really kind of simple. Krings is backing Brown because of his record of bringing people together, listening, and striving to represent all of the people in the state, she said. In addition to Krings, Ed Dunn and Lea Maceyko had harsh words for Moreno. Theyre both supporting Brown as well. Dunn is from Beavercreek and described himself as a lifelong Republican. Like Krings he argued that even a policy doesnt affect him personally, that doesnt preclude him from caring about it. We just want women, including my family, friends and others, now and in the future, to have the right to make their own health care decisions, he said. The government or politicians shouldnt be involved in those extremely personal matters. Thats not crazy, Dunn added, thats just common sense. Lea Maceyko is a Republican, too and comes from a little one-stoplight town called Cardington. She described herself as an Ohio woman over 50. I wont tell you exactly how far over 50 I am, she added, but Im over 50. Maceyko was a bit shocked that Moreno would not just disregard the results of Issue 1, but that hed make light of it. (Hes) making fun of people for caring about our rights and the rights of others, she said. And frankly, I just dont think thats very funny. I have grandchildren, nieces, friends and other women in my life that I love and care about, and I dont think its very crazy that I care about their rights. Maceyko added. Bernie said I was crazy, but really, I think hes a little crazy to be mocking people that he wants to represent. Follow OCJ Reporter Nick Evans on Twitter. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE India will not purchase liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia's Arctic LNG 2 project, which has been sanctioned by Western countries, Indian Oil Secretary Pankaj Jain said on Sept. 27, Reuters reported. Arctic LNG 2, owned by Russias Novatek, aims to produce nearly 20 million metric tons of LNG per year, primarily for Asian markets, potentially generating billions of dollars in revenue. The project was envisioned as Russia's largest LNG plant and a key part of its plan to become the world's leading LNG producer. Earlier this year, the U.K., along with the U.S. and the European Union, sanctioned Arctic LNG 2. "We will not buy (from) Arctic LNG 2. We are not buying any sanctioned commodity. Something which has broad-based sanctions, we are not touching it," Jain said. India has maintained close economic and diplomatic ties with Moscow since February 2022, with bilateral trade reaching a record high in 2023. India overtook China as the worlds largest importer of Russian oil in July as Chinese refiners bought less due to lower profit margins from fuel production, Reuters reported on Aug. 22, citing a comparison of import data. At the same time, India has been developing its relationship with Ukraine, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting Kyiv in August, the first time an Indian prime minister set foot in Ukraine since diplomatic relations were established over 30 years ago. Modi's visit to Ukraine came just weeks after his trip to Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The visit included a widely criticized hug between the two leaders on July 8, hours after Russia bombed the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv. Read also: Zelensky, Modi discuss strengthening cooperation in New York Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli teams had meetings to discuss the U.S. ceasefire proposals with Lebanon on Thursday and will continue discussions in the days ahead, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday, adding that he appreciated the U.S. efforts. "Our teams met (Thursday, Sept. 26) to discuss the U.S. initiative and how we can advance the shared goal of returning people safely to their homes. We will continue those discussions in the coming days," he said in a statement. The comments came after Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday there would be no ceasefire in the north, where Israeli jets have been carrying out the heaviest bombardment against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in decades. On Thursday, after Netanyahu left for New York where he is attending the United Nations General Assembly, his office issued a statement saying the prime minister had ordered Israeli troops to continue fighting with full force in Lebanon. Netanyahu's statement made no reference to the comments of Katz and other Israeli politicians, who have also rejected a ceasefire, saying only that there had been "a lot of misreporting around the U.S.-led ceasefire initiative". "Israel shares the aims of the U.S.-led initiative of enabling people along our northern border to return safely and securely to their homes," the statement said. "Israel appreciates the U.S. efforts in this regard because the U.S. role is indispensable in advancing stability and security in the region," it said. Israeli forces have been conducting daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon for almost a year since the Iranian-backed group launched a barrage of missiles at Israel immediately after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct 7. Tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border have fled their homes, leaving large areas largely deserted, and Israel has declared returning evacuees to their homes as one of its war aims. Israeli strikes over the past week have hit hundreds of targets in southern Lebanon and much deeper into the country, killing more than 600 people. At the same time, Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets and missiles at targets in Israel, including one fired at Tel Aviv. Israel's air defence systems have intercepted many of the missiles, ensuring the damage has been relatively limited. (Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Jacqueline Wong) DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) As a major Texas-based solar energy company eyes Indian Lake for its new 800-megawatt facility, some residents are expressing concerns about environmental impact. The Grange Solar Project would cover up to 5,000 acres of land leased directly from area landowners. However, concerned residents have acknowledged the vast natural resources, protected wildlife, and tourism that could be impacted. Criminal charges filed against Trump, Vance for false claims against Haitian community When you have 2 million visitors to your area annually and you put a power plant in the middle of that, and you put a power plant less than a few hundred yards from our lake, that changes everything. That changes the landscape for us, said Aubrey Snapp, Indian Lake advocate. The project still needs approval from the Ohio power sitting board. In the meantime, the company says it is working to create a relationship with the community, including a proposal to assist in tornado recovery. So should the project move to construction weve outlined approximately $10 million of donations that would occur, some at the point of construction and some over the course, said Vice President of Open Road Renewables, Douglas Sterling. He added that community engagement is important with such a lengthy project. The community feels like theyre not directly benefiting to projects they want to see happen. So this is our way of putting more money into the communities hands to do what they feel is best in the Indian Lake area, said Sterling. Residents cleared to return home after major gas leak But some people arent buying it. Theyre saying, oh, well give you $10 million. But heres a lot of things that arent guaranteed with the money. So I dont believe it anyway, said Snapp. If approved, leaders on the project say they are about three or four years out from construction. Advocates in Indian Lake are urging supporters of their fight to email their elected officials and press their concerns. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WDTN.com. Indiana's attorney general is seeking court approval to carry out the execution of death row inmate Benjamin Ritchie, who was convicted in 2002 for killing a law enforcement officer from Beech Grove. (Mugshot from public record) The Indiana Office of the Attorney General submitted a request Friday to set an execution date for Benjamin Ritchie, who was convicted in 2002 for killing a law enforcement officer from Beech Grove. Ritchie has exhausted his appeals. Most Hoosiers and I expect justice without delay, especially when someone murders a police officer, one of the many, many brave men and women we thank and respect daily, Attorney General Todd Rokita said in a statement. This convicted cop killer has been on death row far too long 22 years and its past time for him to pay his debt to society. In June, Rokitas office requested an execution date for Joseph Corcoran, who killed four people in 1997. Corcoran, who similarly has exhausted his appeals, is scheduled to die Dec. 18 and would be the first person executed by the state since 2009. Corcoran still has several legal options, including challenging the new execution protocol in Indiana, asking courts to block the execution due to his mental illness. State officials struggled to obtain the necessary drugs for the three-ingredient execution cocktail for years, before turning instead to the single drug pentobarbital. This individual has been on death row since October of 2002 and exhausted all his appeals since his murder of Beech Grove Officer, William Toney, 32, on September 29, 2000, Gov. Eric Holcombs office said in a Friday statement. Gov. Holcomb will be fulfilling his gubernatorial duty by following the law and carrying out justice according to the conviction and sentencing of this case by the court. State public defenders assigned to Ritchies case did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Its now up to Indianas high court justices to grant the states request and set an execution date. Ritchie can still seek clemency or a pardon in his case an unlikely option that hasnt been granted to a death row inmate in over a decade. There are currently eight men on death row in Indiana. Ritchie is among the four who have exhausted all their appeals and have no other recourse, according to the Indiana Public Defender Councils website. Ritchie case Ritchie and two others stole a van from a gas station on Sept. 29, 2000 and officers later found the stolen van, initiating a pursuit. The trio stopped the van and fled on foot, running in opposite directions. Beech Grove police officer William Toney chased Ritchie, who turned around and fired four shots and killed Toney. Ritchie, then 22, was convicted of the murder in 2002 and the jury unanimously recommended a death sentence. Toneys widow, Dee Dee Horen, shared news of the attorney generals request with WTHR earlier this year, including that Ritchie would be the second man in line for the death penalty. At least two other men on death row were convicted of killing law enforcement officers. According to courtroom reports from the IndyStar, Ritchie laughed when his verdict was read after the jury deliberated for more than three hours. Ritchies defense shared stories of his difficult home life but failed to sway the jury, who had to be sequestered for the trial. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Roughly 219,000 Hoosier students were considered chronically absent during the 2023-24 academic year, according to data from the Indiana Department of Education. (Getty Images) Why K-12 students dont show up to school and how to make kids and their parents more accountable was largely the focus of an hours-long policy meeting held Thursday at the Indiana Statehouse. Its a conversation thats increasingly come before Hoosier policymakers in light of state data showing that thousands of Hoosier students are missing multiple days, even weeks, of school each year. The latest attendance numbers released by the Indiana Department of Education last month reported that 17.8% of K-12 students roughly 219,00 kids were chronically absent during the most recent 2023-24 school year, meaning they missed at least 18 days. The Indiana Code specifically defines chronic absenteeism as being absent 18 or more days within a school year for any reason a higher standard than habitual truancy, which is ten or more days without an excuse. Its the second year in a row that the number of chronically absent students went down, dropping from 19.2% in 2023, and 21.1% in 2022. Even so, Indianas top education officials have conceded that too many Hoosier students are still missing a significant number of school days. Thursdays discussion could be the precursor for additional legislation in 2025. State legislators responded during the 2024 session with a new law that prompts Indiana school districts to take a tougher stance on student truancy, though its up to schools to decide how to craft and execute local policies. But multiple school and district officials who testified Thursday described the law as an unfunded mandate thats doing little to actually address absenteeism issues. Others said Indiana should instead focus on collecting data to better understand why students arent making it to class so root causes can be addressed. A deeper data dive Student absences have been on the rise since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Indiana and across the nation. Chronic absenteeism surged during the pandemic, nearly doubling to peak at 21.1% in 2022, according to IDOE. John Keller, IDOEs chief information officer, noted during Thursdays Interim Study Committee on Education that Indiana appears to be reversing from its high-absence period during the pandemic. He emphasized that all grades levels improved their chronic absenteeism rates in 2023-24 by one to two percent when compared to the year prior. According to the 2023-24 data, 23.7% of K-12 students who receive free or reduced lunch were chronically absent nearly 11% higher than their peers. English language learners were also slightly more likely to miss class; 18.5% of English learners were chronically absent during the last school year, compared to 17.7% of non-English language learners. The numbers are pretty startling, Keller said. But one of the questions that were asking as part of this analysis is how chronic is chronic absenteeism? Because its easy to talk about improvement of a rate in year over year terms, but its also easy to lose a student in that conversation. Of the more than 28,000 Hoosier 12th graders who were considered chronically absent by IDOE during the last school year, nearly half of those same students were also considered chronically absent as 11th graders. Almost 9,400 of those students were additionally chronically absent in the 10th grade, and close to 5,000 were listed as such as high school freshmen. When you start to see this, you realize that there are probably some students whose absence from schools really could be denominated in terms of years, rather than weeks or months or days, Keller said. Educators around the state have pointed to family challenges some students face at home, along with hard-to-break tendencies to keep kids home when even mildly unwell a habit borne out of the pandemic as key factors. Some lawmakers like Indianapolis Democrat Rep. Ed DeLaney also pondered whether parents are more culpable. I think people are getting used to saying, Well go two days early for vacation, or well come back two days later from vacation, and Friday, weve got to go see grandma,' DeLaney said. One of my concerns is not just the schools, but weve got to get the message to the parents that youve got to get your kid in the seat. Schools are getting creative to try to combat the growing problem, like increasing communication with parents and incentivizing absence-prone students to come to class. One of my concerns is not just the schools, but we've got to get the message to the parents that you've got to get your kid in the seat Rep. Ed DeLaney, D-Indianapolis That includes in New Castle, where local district officials used state grant dollars to employ an attendance liaison whos specifically tasked with communicating with families of absent students and providing resources to prevent or reverse chronic absenteeism. As a result, attendance among New Castles middle and high school students has increased by 20% since 2022, local administrators said. Collecting better attendance numbers Keller noted that chronically absent students are more associated with disruptive behaviors in schools, as well as lower performance on standardized tests, like IREAD. Its a really integrated challenge. And so if we ever you know, we want to make sure that were not just talking about, well, kids need to be in school. Well, these are the whys that they need to be in school, right? According to IDOE, roughly 7% of K-12 students or 70,000 kids had to sit out of the classroom for disciplinary reasons in 2022, an increase from 27,000 the year prior. In 2021, 850 Indiana students were expelled from schools. In 2022, that number jumped to 2,500. Russ Skiba, professor emeritus at Indiana University, said that responsive policies should focus less on consequences, though. He said current Indiana laws that punish parents for their students absences like the recently enacted Senate Enrolled Act 282 can instead lead them to pull their kids from school and rely on homeschooling. Southport High School Principal Amy Boone, also representing the Indiana Association of School Principals, said shes already seen that happen in her district. Need to get in touch? Have a news tip? CONTACT US SEA 282 calls for schools to intervene early when younger students have repeated absences without excuses. Parents of a student in grades K-6 who has missed five days of school within 10 weeks, without being excused, are to be notified by the school and required to create a plan to improve the students attendance. Boone said the policy is largely being implemented at the high school level, too. But the five-day time limit often means no parent shows up for a meeting at all. This lack of engagement is concerning and hinders our ability to provide the necessary supports to students, Boone continued, adding that it also takes away time from already stretched-then school staff. When asked by lawmakers, Boone agreed that the new law has become an unfunded mandate its more clerical than it is a direct impact on our kids. Skiba suggested a model chronic absenteeism policy recommended by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which calls for the creation of an early-warning system to help identify students who may be at risk for chronic absenteeism. Also cited is a tiered system to address absenteeism, and requirements for local school boards to adopt specific attendance policies and improvement plans. Currently, its generally up to local school districts to decide when students absences are excused, though state law requires schools to excuse absences for certain reasons, including illness, mental or physical incapacity, required court appearances, helping in elections, service as a page for the general assembly, participating in the state fair and up to 120 minutes per week of religious instruction. IDOE officials are already working on a new Attendance Insights dashboard that breaks down weekly habitually truant and chronic absenteeism rates at the local and school levels. The state has already made the tool available to Hoosier school officials and plans to launch a public version Oct. 11. John ONeal, representing the Indiana State Teachers Association, added that students behavioral problems are a connected issue that also needs to be addressed, emphasizing that Hoosier teachers are very concerned with some disciplinary problems in their schools. He pointed to a recent, first-of-its-kind IDOE report that logged 3,032 incidents during the 2023-24 school year in which school employees were physically injured on the job by a student. In 485 such incidents, an employee had to miss work because of the injury. Still, Carolyn Gentle-Genitty, dean of the Founders College at Butler University, called the current IDOE chronic absenteeism data not quite accurate. She said the data really only reflects students who are unexcused. What we see right now in Indiana and across the U.S., consistently, is that were collecting these (absence) data points, but we have the front desk staff person inputting the reasons for why not categorizing that data and not doing anything in terms of an intervention, she tole lawmakers. She recommended that school staff be trained to collect and report all excused and unexcused absences, along with the reasons for those, in a categorical structure, that we can then take action on. House Education Committee Chair Rep. Bob Behning, R-Indianapolis, seemed open to the idea, but was concerned about the time it would take to see results. I agree with what youre saying, he told Gentle-Genitty. But I dont know how thats going to help us today or help the kids out tomorrow, because its years before thats going to have an impact. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Indianapolis man gets nearly 200 years in triple killing that fueled serial killer rumors An Indianapolis man found guilty of carrying out a 2021 triple killing when he was 16 years old has been ordered to spend nearly two centuries in prison. Friday, a judge ordered Caden Smith to 189 years in the Indiana Department of Correction after he was previously found guilty of three counts of murder, two counts of felony murder, two counts of robbery and multiple gun and drug-related charges in the case that fueled rumors about a serial killer. Once again, the sale of unregulated firearms led to the tragic deaths of three innocent people," Prosecutor Ryan Mears said in a prepared statement. This significant sentence is a testament to our commitment to holding violent individuals accountable for their actions. We are grateful for todays announcement and thanks to the dedication of our deputy prosecutors and the investigators, justice was served for Abdullah, Joseph, Michael, and their families. The investigation began in October 2021 when an Indianapolis officer working off-duty security found the bodies of 18-year-old Joseph Thomas, 22-year-old Michael James and 17-year-old Abdulla Mubarak near a grassy path along the 4400 block of South Meridian Street. The trio died from gunshot wounds. After talking with witnesses and using phone records, police arrested Smith weeks later. They determined he brought the trio to the field to show them a Glock switch. More: Does freezing gun remove DNA: Teens online searches used to charge him with 3 murders Smiths case was bogged down with delays and setbacks after a judge ruled the warrant used to make his arrest may had been unconstitutional and ordered the teens release. He was jailed soon after on marijuana possession charges. In August, a Marion County jury ruled him guilty in the killings. Does freezing gun remove DNA: Teens online searches used to charge him with 3 murders Contact IndyStar reporter Sarah Nelson at sarah.nelson@indystar.com This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indy man sentenced in triple killing that fueled serial killer rumors Residents in one San Bernardino County neighborhood are being urged to remain vigilant after a pair of overly friendly strangers snatched a necklace from the neck of one victim. Two incidents involving the suspects were reported about a mile apart Thursday morning in Chino Hills. Deputies first responded to Calle San Marcos Park, in Chino Hills, around 9:30 a.m. regarding suspicious activity, the San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department stated in a news release. A male and female contacted the reporting party in public. They wanted to shake the reporting partys hand and appeared overly friendly. The reporting party believed the suspects intended to steal jewelry from his person, the Sherrifs Department stated. The man and woman were located and stopped by a deputy but during the traffic stop another service call was made from a victim who had a necklace stolen from his neck earlier in the morning in the 3200 block of Skyview Ridge. Investigators determined the same suspects, identified as Washington residents Dorian Stanescu, 31, and Laura Ghiocel, 34, were involved in both incidents. Stanescu and Ghiocel were arrested for grand theft from a person and were booked at the West Valley Detention Center, the Sheriffs Department stated. Deputies later urged Chino Hills community members to remain vigilant when strangers approach in public spaces. Recently, incidents have increased where individuals, often posing as friendly or helpful, distract victims to steal valuable items, particularly jewelry, the Sheriffs Department stated. Deputies said the thieves often try to divert the victims attention away from their belongings. Anyone with information regarding Thursdays incidents was asked to call the Chino Hills Police Department at 909-364-2000. Those who prefer to remain anonymous can contact the We-Tip Hotline at 800-782-7463. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. The Lee County Courthouse on Dec. 5, 2023. (Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette) BISHOPVILLE A Lee County jury found an inmate guilty of murder for killing a rival gang member during a 2018 prison riot that left seven dead and more than 20 injured. The jury deliberated for an hour Thursday before delivering its verdict. Stephen Green, whose trial started Monday, was the only inmate prosecuted for murder in the April 2018 riot that left seven men dead and more than 20 injured. He is the second of 47 indicted inmates to go to trial six years after the riot that became one of the nations bloodiest. Stephen Green (S.C. Department of Corrections) The jury also found Green guilty of assault and battery by a mob, possessing a weapon and criminal conspiracy. Green, 44, is already serving two life sentences for burglary convictions in 1999, concurrent with three, 30-year sentences for armed robbery, kidnapping and rape. Judge Ferrell Cothran Jr. handed down two more life sentences for murder and assault and battery by a mob Thursday. The state Department of Corrections and Attorney Generals Office have vowed to prosecute every inmate involved in the riot regardless of their current sentence. You never know what will happen with that first sentence, prosecuting attorney Barney Giese, a former solicitor, said after the verdict. This will keep him in forever. Most involved in the riot were charged with assault and battery by a mob. But Green, who prosecutors said led the mob in one dorm, returned to a dying inmate alone to deliver a killing blow, which added the charge of murder, said attorneys for Attorney General Alan Wilson. Of the 47 charged, 14 have pleaded guilty. Another two have died in custody, according to the Department of Corrections. One, Michael Smith, was convicted and sentenced to 40 years for criminal conspiracy, assault and battery in a mob, and possession of a weapon. No trial dates have been set for the remaining 28. What happened? Bloodshed broke out around 7 p.m. on April 15, 2018, when a group of inmates killed and robbed Michael Milledge, a well-liked 44-year-old prisoner. A group of prisoners that were part of a rival retaliated, killing the inmate who stabbed Milledge to death. Word spread to other dorms through inmates contraband cellphones, and gang violence erupted throughout the prison. That included in the unit where Green and Cornelius McClary were living. Inmates gathered into their separate gangs the Bloods, the Crips and the Gangster Disciples. Prosecutors said Green led the mob of Bloods, waving his hands as he told them what to do. Hes not involved with the mob? Giese said in closing arguments. He is the mob. The Bloods went after the Crips. Most of the units Crips locked themselves in a room, with rival Bloods trying to knock down the door. But 33-year-old McClary didnt make it to a cell in time. A group of Bloods stabbed McClary repeatedly at the top of a set of stairs. McClary tumbled down the stairs, and at the bottom, Green, stabbed him five more times, prosecutors said. McClary, shirt bloody from 100 stab wounds, stumbled away and collapsed. He laid on the floor for about 30 minutes before Green returned and stabbed him a final time. McClary jerked at the final impact, suggesting he was still alive, prosecutors said. Would Mr. McClary have died without that wound? Yeah, hes going to bleed out, Giese said. With 100 stab wounds, hes going to bleed out. But certainly, that last stab wound did not help him. Greens attorney contended that he was not the one to deliver any of those final six blows to McClary. Prosecutors relied on distant, grainy security footage to prove that Green was the one to stab McClary, defense attorney Matthew Hicks argued. Video evidence the grainy, fuzzy, long-distance, low-resolution, not-that-great video evidence shows plenty of people attacking Mr. McClary, Hicks said. The person in the footage sometimes walked into blind spots before returning in different outfits, making it difficult to say exactly who he was, Hicks argued. But the pants, jacket and distinctive shoes LeBron James shoes, with the Nike swoop remained the same every time the figure came back on screen, prosecutors said. Ladies and gentlemen, when we talk about ID, up to this point, can there be a question? Giese said. Changes in the prison system Overcrowding and understaffing at the prison allowed the riot to escalate out of hand, prosecutors said. Is it the Department of Corrections fault for some of this? Were they understaffed? Giese said. You heard the testimony: Yes, they were. But it doesnt give a mob of human beings the right to kill an unarmed man, and thats what they did. The prison has undergone major reforms in the years since the riot. That includes allowing inmates to move from maximum security to medium-security parts of a prison for good behavior and cracking down on contraband cellphones, Corrections Director Bryan Stirling has said. The Legislature also gave the department a historic $92 million in 2021 for upgrades, including fixing malfunctioning locks. Department officials are continuing to ask for money to fund improvement, such as updating an antiquated door-locking system, Stirling said previously. Money from the state Legislature for hiring employees has also helped reduce staffing shortages. (FOX40.COM) Plumas County law enforcement is searching for an inmate described as dangerous who escaped from the county jail Friday morning. According to the Plumas County Sheriffs Office, Caleb Duerr escaped from the jail around 8 a.m. The jail is in Quincy, about 160 miles northeast of Sacramento. Arrest made in San Joaquin County courthouse threat Duerr was last seen near an OReillys store in Quincy, the agency said. The agency shared a picture of Duerr, describing him as age 39, measuring 6 feet 1 inch, weighing around 165 pounds, and having brown hair and blue eyes. Duerr was wearing dark blue jail-issued clothes at the time of his escape, the sheriffs office said. The agency asks anyone who sees Duerr to call 911. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Inside one of the biggest security operations in America: Protecting thousands of world leaders Its one of the biggest security operations in America: Protecting thousands of world leaders and their entourages at the annual high level United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York. As diplomats gathered for speeches and sideline gossip this week, CNN and a select group of media gained access to two high level security rooms on UN grounds, maneuvering down a long series of non-descript corridors at the heart of the organizations modernist headquarters. What is most impressive is seeing a huge wall of monitors in both. It was clear there are cameras everywhere some well-hidden, scattered all over the UN grounds aimed at doors, the garage, UN hallways, and driveways. There are 1400 cameras in total, UN officials said. High shots from cameras looking at nearby corners outside the UN are always on. The UN security officials said its impossible to monitor all 1400 cameras at the same time but there are personnel checking out the scene. If a visitor or more nefarious character runs into problems using their credential to enter the complex, an alarm will sound in the security control rooms, with an automated voice warning that the individual has been Rejected! Rejected! Rejected! Remind me to fix my tie when I am walking through the UN grounds. Its a team effort between the UN, New York Police Department, Secret Service and diplomatic security. Theyve got a lot of people to watch over over 22,000 delegates were counted during this years UNGA attendees (pronounced like hunger). UNGA security camera. - CNN Because its an annual event, security keeps a file. UN security says they learn a little bit each year. Knock on wood; we have never had a security incident related to heads of state here. We have pulled out all the stops,, said US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield on the eve of this years global gathering. New York police and diplomatic security are tasked with rushing long and short motorcades from hotels across Manhattan to the UN and back. And yes, that means traffic backups. More than ever, this year world leaders have spread across the city, from ringing in the New York Stock Exchange to meeting their constituents who live in in the US. While the United Nations may be increasingly the target of criticism and forum for poisonous barbs traded between ambassadors, handling unwanted attention and security threats has always been part of the job for staffers here. Last year on New Years Day, a woman having a psychiatric episode drove her vehicle up to the UNs main entrance for cars and refused to leave. In 2002, a postal worker jumped the perimeter fence, tossed leaflets in the air, and fired shots at the soaring Secretariat building, hitting several floors. (The fence has been built higher now.) UN security officials say their priority is providing a secure environment. So far so good. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Investigator reveals China tried to smuggle drones to Libya disguised as COVID aid Investigator reveals China tried to smuggle drones to Libya disguised as COVID aid China attempted to send $1 billion worth of drones disguised as COVID-19 aid to a Libyan warlord through the assistance of corrupt U.N. officials, according to a Canadian government investigator. New court documents accuse Chinese state officials of conspiring to hide the $1 billion deal to offer 42 drones to Libyan General Khalifa Haftar through U.N. officials, who would mark the arms shipments as COVID-19 aid. Through FBI intercepts, Canadas Royal Mounted Police found alleged plots to sell Libyan oil to China and to buy drones from 2018 to 2021. "The Chinese government seems to have approved a strategy to aid Libya in the procurement and delivery of military equipment through designated and approved companies to obscure the direct involvement of government agencies," the investigator stated. Two Libyan nationals working in Canada at the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. agency, were charged with conspiracy for the scheme in April. A preliminary hearing is expected in the spring. Republicans Propose Bill That Would Double Tariffs On Chinese Imports Read On The Fox News App The accusations, first reported by Defense News, are part of documents submitted in court in Montreal to obtain warrants to access the phones of the men involved. "This scheme appears to be a deliberate attempt to circumvent U.N. sanctions that were in effect at the time," the report said. Haftar, who received the drones, is a Russia-backed strongman who controls eastern Libya. He unsuccessfully tried to seize control of western Libya in 2020. The aim of the drones' shipment was "using war to end war quickly without attracting the attention of the international community," said the investigator, adding "the fight against the Coronavirus" was used as cover. 95 Libyan Nationals Arrested At Suspected South African Military Training Camp One of the Libyan nationals involved in the scheme - Fathi Ben Ahmed Mhaouek - was arrested while the other, Mahmud Mohamed Elsuwaye Sayeh, is still at large. The Guard of Honor of the Chinese People's Liberation Army performs a flag raising ceremony at Bayi Square to celebrate the 97th anniversary on China's Army Day on Aug. 1, 2024 in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province of China. The court documents also accuse a U.S. citizen, who has not been charged, of involvement. "My client will plead not guilty - he denies all wrongdoing," said Mhaoueks lawyer in Canada, Andrew Barbacki. Investigators uncovered a May 2020 message from Sayeh to an official at the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs requesting a meeting in Egypt between the Chinese ambassador and a Libyan military official close to Haftar, Major General Aoun Al-Ferjani. In the messages, the drones are "clearly described with weaponry, attack and lethal strike capabilities." Investigators are unsure if the deal went through or if talks failed. Italian authorities in July said they seized Chinese military drones that were headed for Benghazi, Libya, in violation of a U.N. embargo. Original article source: Investigator reveals China tried to smuggle drones to Libya disguised as COVID aid The investigation into the murder of Iryna Farion, a linguist, professor at Lviv Polytechnic National University and public figure, does not allow disclosing information about the course of the pre-trial investigation. Source: National Police response to UP's request Quote: "According to Article 8 of the Law of Ukraine On Access to Public Information, information containing the secrets of the pre-trial investigation is considered confidential. Article 222 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine stipulates that pre-trial investigation information may be disclosed only with the written permission of the investigator or prosecutor and to the extent they deem possible. No written permission of the investigator or prosecutor has been provided to disclose the requested information at this time." Details: In its request, the UP asked whether the weapon used to shoot Farion had been found, whether possible customers of the murder had been identified, whether the suspect had accomplices, whether law enforcement had found out the motives for the crime and whether additional circumstances had emerged in the case and what they were. Read also: Iryna Farion murder: details of the assassination, lines of enquiry, and why the Lviv professor was so controversial Background: On the evening of 19 July 2024, an assassination attempt was made on former Ukrainian MP Iryna Farion on Masaryk Street in Lviv. Later that night, Farion died in hospital. On 25 July, a suspect in the murder of Iryna Farion was detained in Dnipro. The 18-year-old detainee is a resident of Dnipro. In preparation for the crime, he rented at least three apartments in Lviv. Currently, the investigation is inclined to believe that the shooter is only the executor. On 19 September, the Halytskyi District Court of Lviv extended the suspect's detention without bail for 60 days. Support UP or become our patron! By Valentina Za and Stefania Spezzati MILAN/LONDON (Reuters) -Upon taking the top job at Italian bank UniCredit in 2021, Andrea Orcel, a veteran M&A adviser, vowed not to repeat the mistake he saw many CEOs make: cave in to pressure to do deals. The chance to pursue a rare cross-border European banking marriage, a combination deemed near-impossible by friends and foes alike, was the moment to go all in. Orcel riled the German establishment this month by stealthily buying a chunk of Commerzbank and pressing for a tie-up with Germany's second-biggest publicly-traded bank. A merger would create a new big pan-European bank that regulators have long encouraged to better compete with Wall Street giants, but politicians have often resisted. "It's shrewd, it's bold, and he's determined. He doesn't take no for an answer," said Filippo Alloatti, head of financials credit at fund manager Federated Hermes, who is an investor in both UniCredit and Commerzbank. In preparation for a deal, Orcel has overseen a more than four-fold increase in UniCredit's share price. UniCredit is significantly more profitable than the German rival it has long coveted, despite being hobbled by the higher debt costs Italy attracts. "There remained a big strategic question: What is UniCredit's future going to be?" Alloatti said. "Now we have an answer." Orcel's plan has been slammed by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as an "unfriendly attack" along with the bank's board members and employees who fear losing their jobs. Clinching a cross-border European merger big enough to redraw the map would offer him a second shot to show big, complex banking deals can work. He was a key architect of the Royal Bank of Scotland's acquisition and breakup of Dutch ABN Amro, one of the most disastrous deals in banking history that ended in the collapse of both lenders in the global financial crisis. Orcel has yet to hire an external adviser as formal merger talks with Commerzbank are not underway, a person with knowledge of the bank's strategy said. The 21% of Commerzbank that UniCredit has gained exposure to with shares and derivatives for now is just a financial investment, Orcel told a banking conference this week. The 61-year old has said he will walk away from a potential deal if he cannot have it his way: "Do not underestimate how disciplined we are," he told the event. Yet his early moves signal a desire to forge ahead. A source close to the bank said the backlash that followed the unveiling of UniCredit's initial 9% stake in Commerzbank on Sept. 11 prompted a change in tactics. After Germany's government signalled it wouldn't sell any more of its Commerzbank shares, UniCredit built a bigger stake with derivatives. The European Central Bank, as the chief regulator, needs to sign off on investors owning more than 10% of a bank's stock. UniCredit declined to comment for this article. ROUTE TO THE TOP Orcel's current and former colleagues describe a restless and demanding style, in part behind a high turnover of top managers and division heads at UniCredit, a sharp contrast with the steady senior leadership of its bigger cross-town rival, Intesa Sanpaolo. While head of UBS' investment bank he grew impatient as he sought to become a CEO. He left in 2018 to take up an offer to become Santander's chief executive but the Spanish bank withdrew its proposal in a disagreement over pay. Orcel sought damages and was awarded millions after a public court battle. UniCredit insiders say Orcel is fiercely private about his decision-making and intelligence he gathers, a habit formed as an investment banker when he wouldn't even tell his employer what he had discussed with clients, according to one. When he first arrived at UniCredit, one director told Reuters of being surprised that he would not hand out hard copies of presentations at meetings but only project slides from his computer to protect confidentiality. Unlike some peers, he says, he does not court political ties. At an event in Rome last week, Orcel lined up to greet Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni but turned about when faced with a queue, a Reuters eyewitness said. He has repeatedly shown he won't shy away from upsetting or challenging those in power. He angered Rome when, in 2021, at the last minute he abandoned a deal to buy troubled state-owned Monte dei Paschi. More recently, UniCredit challenged the ECB over the regulator's request that the bank reduce its business in Russia. In his latest battle, Commerzbank's incoming CEO Bettina Orlopp has pledged to keep the bank independent and trade unions to fight any takeover. A German election in 2025 may stiffen opposition even if the government, which still owns 12% of Commerzbank, has no obvious means of blocking Orcel. One person who has known Orcel for years and has worked for him said he had "backed himself into a corner" in pursuing a deal with Commerzbank amid so much opposition but he has a keen sense of creating a legacy. "This transaction would really be the most important cross-border M&A that we've seen in Europe," said Luca Evangelisti, investment manager and head of credit research at Jupiter Asset Management. (Reporting by Valentina Za in Milan and Stefania Spezzati in London. Additional reporting by Giselda Vagnoni in Rome, Oliver Hirt in Zurich and Tom Sims in FrankfurtWriting and additional reporting by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes; Editing by Elisa Martinuzzi and Elaine Hardcastle) The Kroger Co. corporate headquarters is seen in downtown Cincinnati. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird joined 11 other Republican attorneys general who filed a brief in federal court this week in Cincinnati arguing that an attempt by the Federal Trade Commission to block the merger of grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons is unconstitutional. If successful, their argument would stunt the FTCs ability to fight anticompetitive practices in a plethora of other areas, from prescription drugs to concert tickets. It would also threaten the independent powers of myriad other executive-branch agencies that also practice administrative law. The argument initiated by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost tracks closely with a proposal made in Project 2025, a controversial roadmap for a potential second administration of Donald Trump. Trump has been trying to distance himself from it. Food giant Yosts office didnt respond to questions for this story including whether he regarded one of the attorney generals core functions to be facilitating grocery mega-mergers. But in a statement announcing the friend-of-the-court brief he led, the attorney general said, The FTCs judges are part of the executive branch, and that means theyre supposed to be subject to removal by the president. Their multilayered protections from removal undermine the presidents authority and violate the constitution. The FTC, an agency intended to police anticompetitive practices, in March released a report saying that big grocers such as Kroger and Walmart engaged in several schemes that artificially increased grocery prices during the pandemic, and that they seemed to be continuing. Even before that, Cincinnati-based Kroger and Boise-based Albertsons proposed a merger. If allowed, it would create a chain that owned 5,000 stores and approximately 4,000 retail pharmacies and employ nearly 700,000 across 48 states. Fearing that would sap even more competition and send grocery prices still higher, the FTC in February sued to stop the merger. Last month, Yost and three other attorneys general, including Bird, filed a friend-of-the-court brief seeking to end the FTCs intervention. They claimed that creating a mega-grocer would actually increase competition. The acquisition would likely increase, not restrain, competition in the market for grocery sales, benefiting consumers, it said. It promises to strengthen Krogers ability to compete effectively for consumer dollars in an already crowded field of retailers, and there is no factual or legal basis for the (FTC) to claim otherwise. As components of that crowded field of retailers, they listed chains such as Costco, Sams Club, Aldi, Whole Foods, as well as Family Dollar and Dollar General. Sweeping challenge On Monday, Yost, Bird and and 10 colleagues filed a brief challenging the very constitutionality of the mechanism the FTC used to try to stop the merger. They claim that the agencys use of administrative law judges is unconstitutional because it doesnt give the president the power to fire them. This case arises from an administrative proceeding that defies the separation of powers. Kroger, a prominent grocery-store chain, is being subjected to proceedings before an Administrative Law Judge of an executive branch agency, the Federal Trade Commission, Yost and the other attorneys general argue in their brief. Although the presiding ALJ is part of an executive branch agency that must stand in the chain of command from the People to the President, Congress has legislated to insulate that officer from that chain of command. In addition to Ohio and Iowa, the AGs of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia joined the amicus brief. What theyre seeking to do could upend decades of rulings in administrative law proceedings conducted by scores of agencies. They include the Environmental Protection Agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. The brief by Yost and his colleagues argues that earlier guidelines set out in a Supreme Court ruling after the 1914 Federal Trade Commission dont cover the FTCs action against the Kroger-Albertsons merger. In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt tried to remove Federal Trade Commissioner William Humphrey, who was appointed by Roosevelts predecessor, Herbert Hoover. Roosevelt thought that Humphrey was blocking some of his New Deal initiatives and as head of the executive branch, the president believed he had the power to remove him. Not so fast, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Humphreys Executor v United States. The court said the Constitution never gave the president unlimited power to remove executive-branch employees especially those in agencies like the FTC, which had quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative functions. For more than a decade, some in the conservative movement have been trying to roll back that decision. Its a movement that has also tried to greatly expand presidential power beyond its already vast boundaries. Controversial ideas A version of the argument made by Yost and the Republicans attorneys general appears in Project 2025, a 900-page policy document for a second Trump term created by right-wing thinkers. In addition to expanding presidential power by rolling back civil-service protections, its proposals include prohibiting the federal government from calling abortion health care, gutting attempts to counter global warming, and phasing out Title I funding for low-income schools. In an era of surging corporate power, Project 2025 questions the very need for the Federal Trade Commission to exist. Should the FTC Enforce Antitrustor Even Continue to Exist? it asks. Some conservatives think that antitrust enforcement should be invested solely in the Department of Justice (DOJ). The FTCs commissioners are not removable at will by the President, which many quite reasonably believe violates the Vesting Clause of Article II of the Constitution; it is for this reason that conservatives have long believed in either ending law enforcement activities of independent agencies or ending their independent status. The Supreme Court decision in Humphreys Executor seems ripe for revisiting and perhaps sooner rather than later. Conundrum Yost has been a foe of what he regards as anticompetitive practices on other fronts. Hes overseen several lawsuits against giant health conglomerates that own pharmacy middlemen whom he accuses of using their dominance to raise drug prices. The suits include one under Ohio antitrust law against Cigna-Express Scripts. Yet if the argument he made in the Kroger case is successful, it would gut what some observers say is among the most serious attempts so far to rein in the pharmacy drug middlemen. On Friday, the FTC filed a lawsuit accusing the big-three health conglomerates of working to raise the cost of insulin a drug many diabetics need to stay alive. As with its action to stop the Kroger-Albertsons merger, it was filed as an administrative law proceeding within the FTC. Thats a process that Yost and his colleagues seem intent on ending. This story was originally published by Ohio Capital Journal, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on Facebook and X. Six counties in eastern Iowa have signed a resolution to form the Ports of Eastern Iowa Authority. The authority will operate within the Mississippi River ports in the eastern Iowa and western Illinois region. This formal resolution will expand the Corn Belt Ports footprint and reinforce its crucial role in national commerce, transportation and defense. This recognition by the federal government demonstrates the strategic importance of the region, which is now one of the top 100 U.S. ports by freight tonnage. The Port Authority will serve six Iowa Counites: Clinton Dubuque Jackson Louisa Muscatine Scott The first meeting of the Ports of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois will be held on October 10 at the Western Illinois University Riverfront Campus, 3300 River Drive in Moline and is open to the public. The Mississippi River Ports of Eastern Iowa includes key military facilities like the Rock Island Arsenal and the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, both of which are served by Marine Highway 35. This region has been a cornerstone of U.S. defense infrastructure and continues to be the Midwests premier hub for defense logistics, manufacturing, engineering, and training. Enhanced capacity and federal recognition will further solidify its vital role in supporting national defense and economic security. (Ports of Eastern Iowa Authority) The formation of the Ports of Eastern Iowa Authority is a significant milestone for our region and reflects the vital role that the Mississippi River Ports of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois play in both our national defense and our economy, said Ryan Sempf, Executive Director of Government Affairs for the Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce. Our multi-modal ports are not only key to moving critical goods across the country but are also integral to supporting the U.S. militarys efforts to maintain readiness and strategic capabilities. We are excited about the Ports of Eastern Iowa Authority getting established, said Mike Thoms, Rock Island mayor and Chair of the Rock Island Regional Port District. It will help unify the current regional multi-modal port activities going on across the Upper Mississippi River from each other in Illinois and Iowa. The Rock Island Regional Port District was approved by the Illinois State Legislature last year, and we have already seen the benefits of officially being recognized as a multi-modal inland port. We expect the Ports of Eastern Iowa Authority will see similar benefits. This is a win for the bi-state region Muscatine has been thought of for decades as the Port City of the Corn Belt, said Dr. Brad Bark, Mayor of Muscatine and President and CEO of the Greater Muscatine Chamber of Commerce & Industry. But being officially recognized as a multi-modal inland port is the first step in realizing our regions full economic potential. The Ports of Eastern Iowa are much stronger united and working together to achieve common regional economic development objectives, said Jim Irwin, Clinton County Supervisor. Our counties look forward to collaboratively partnering with public and private entities to advance our mutual, multi-modal infrastructure needs that will enable us to reach national and global markets at reduced cost and risk. The Corn Belt Ports are committed to leveraging this new federal designation to secure additional funding, attract new industries, and further develop the regions multi-modal transportation and natural infrastructure to support commerce and defense for decades to come, said Chris Smith, Director of Operations for the Corn Belt Ports. Corn Belt Ports deliver almost 100 million tons of freight annually, which is expected to increase every year. Since 2019, Corn Belt Ports have helped attract over $2 billion of investment in multi-modal and natural infrastructure from multiple sources. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is pictured on the sidelines of the 79th General Debate of the UN General Assembly. Michael Kappeler/dpa Iran will not remain indifferent if there is a full-scale war in Lebanon, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said. Araghchi made this statement during a meeting of foreign ministers in New York, his ministry said on Friday. He also called for arms and trade sanctions to be imposed on Israel. Araghchi accused the international community of ineptitude and failure regarding a potential ceasefire. Iran's regime is considered the most crucial supporter of the Shiite Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. Observers see it as unlikely that Tehran would come to their aid in the event of a war. Iran's new government led by President Masoud Pezeshkian is grappling with a severe economic crisis and is striving for a rapprochement with the West. The Justice Department has charged several Iranian operatives in connection with the hack of former President Trumps 2024 campaign. Prosecutors on Friday unsealed charges against Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar Balaghi all members of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the nations armed forces. They each face 18 counts, including aggravated identity theft, material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, wire fraud, and conspiracy to obtain information from a protected computer. The men prepared for and engaged in a wide-ranging hacking campaign that targeted current and former U.S. government officials, members of the media, political campaigns and others, prosecutors said. The scheme began around January 2020 and continued through at least this month, according to the charging papers. Such activity is part of Irans continuing efforts to stoke discord, erode confidence in the U.S. electoral process, and unlawfully acquire information relating to current and former U.S. officials that could be used to advance the malign activities of the IRGC, the indictment reads. The plot is also part of ongoing efforts to avenge the death of military official Qassem Soleimani, who headed a branch of the IRGC, according to the indictment. Soleimani was assassinated in January 2020 on orders approved by then-President Trump under the condition that Soleimani had been plotting attacks against Americans abroad. Trumps campaign was hacked earlier this summer, but the issue was not made public until August, after reporters contacted the former presidents team who said they were approached by a man claiming to be named Robert who said he had internal campaign documents. The indictment says the men used fake online personas to trick several victims. The Washington Post previously reported that Trump campaign adviser Susie Wiles and longtime ally Roger Stone were among the hackers targets. The FBI previously indicated Iran made similar attempts to hack the Democratic campaign of President Biden, before he dropped out of the race. Vice President Harris was also targeted, but the effort was unsuccessful. The agency said Iran attempted to share stolen information from the Trump campaign with Bidens campaign and continues to send material to media outlets but there is no evidence the presidents campaign engaged with them. Harriss campaign previously condemned the effort and said similar emails were ignored. Prosecutors say hackers also targeted current or former officials at agencies including the Department of Defense, State Department and the CIA, in addition to current or former members of Congress, White House staffers and several journalists. In a statement, FBI Director Christopher Wray called the hacking effort brazen behavior by Iran to interfere in the presidential election. Iran previously denied involvement in the hacking campaign. Today the FBI would like to send a message to the Government of Iran: You and your hackers cant hide behind your keyboards, Wray said. If you try to meddle in our elections, were going to hold you accountable. If you try to attack our infrastructure or commit violence against our citizens, were going to disrupt you. And as long as you keep attempting to flout the rule of law, youre going to keep running into the FBI, he said. Updated at 1:21 p.m. EDT Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Attorney General Merrick Garland, flanked by Matt Graves, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, left, and Ronald Davis, director of the United States Marshals Service, holds a news conference as the Justice Department announced criminal charges against Iranian operatives suspected of hacking Donald Trump's presidential campaign and disseminating stolen information to media organizations, at the Justice Department in Washington, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) WASHINGTON (AP) Three Iranian operatives have been charged with hacking Donald Trumps presidential campaign as part of what the Justice Department says was a sweeping effort to undermine the former president and erode confidence in the U.S. electoral system. The action, coupled with sanctions and rewards for information leading to the accused hackers' capture, is the latest U.S. government effort to call out whats seen as Irans attempts to interfere in the election by damaging Trump and sowing general chaos. It comes as Iran has also been accused of threatening the lives of Trump and former officials and as US-Iran relations remain especially tense, with Israel fighting Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The three accused hackers were employed by Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which the U.S. government has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. Since 2020, their operation has sought to compromise email accounts of a broad swath of targets, which in addition to the Trump campaign also includes a former ambassador to Israel, a former CIA deputy director, officials at the State and Defense departments, a former U.S. homeland security adviser and journalists, according to the indictment. In May, prosecutors say, the defendants began trying to penetrate the Trump campaign, successfully breaking into the email accounts of campaign officials and other Trump allies. They then sought to weaponize the stolen campaign material by spreading it to media organizations and people associated with President Joe Biden's campaign in what's familiarly known as a hack-and-leak operation. The defendants own words make clear that they were attempting to undermine former President Trumps campaign in advance of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. We know that Iran is continuing with its brazen efforts to stoke discord, erode confidence in the U.S. electoral process and advance its malign activities, Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference Friday announcing the charges. U.S. intelligence officials have said Iran opposes Trumps reelection, seeing him as more likely to increase tension between Washington and Tehran. Trumps administration ended a nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions and ordered the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an act that prompted Irans leaders to vow revenge. Trumps campaign said earlier this week that it had been briefed by U.S. officials on real and specific Iranian assassination threats, though one official told The Associated Press that the briefing had been requested by the campaign and did not include any suggestion of a new threat against Trump. Irans mission to the United Nations last month denied the hacking allegations as unsubstantiated and devoid of any standing, saying that Iran had neither the motive nor intention to interfere with the election. It challenged the U.S. to provide evidence and said if the U.S. does so, we will respond accordingly. The U.S. government has sought this year across multiple agencies to aggressively call out election interference and foreign influence operations a stark turnabout from the governments response in 2016, when Obama administration officials were criticized for not being forthcoming about the Russian interference they were seeing on Trumps behalf as he ran against Democrat Hillary Clinton. The Treasury Department issued sanctions Friday related to the hacking and the State Department offered rewards of up to $10 million for information leading to the arrests of the defendants, who remain in Iran. FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a video statement that the FBI has been working to publicly condemn Iran's aggressive behavior, including a plot to murder a journalist in New York City and a ransomware attack targeting a children's hospital. Even with the recent focus on Iran, U.S. officials have said Russia remains the primary threat to the elections. The Justice Department earlier this month charged two employees of RT, the Russian-state media organization, with covertly funding a Tennessee-based content creation company with nearly $10 million to publish English-language videos on social media platforms favorable to Russia's interests and agenda, and also seized dozens of internet domains that officials said were used to spread propaganda. The Trump campaign disclosed on Aug. 10 that it had been breached and said Iranian actors had stolen and distributed sensitive internal documents. Multiple major news organizations that said they were leaked confidential information from inside the Trump campaign, including Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post, declined to publish it. U.S. intelligence officials subsequently publicly blamed Iran for that hack and for an attempted breach of the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris campaign. They have said the hack-and-dump operation was meant to sow discord, exploit divisions within American society and potentially influence the outcome of elections that Iran perceives to be particularly consequential in terms of the impact they could have on its national security interests." Among the tactics the accused hackers used, the indictment said, is impersonating U.S. officials and creating fake email personas to try to dupe their victims. Politico has reported that it began receiving emails on July 22 from an anonymous account. The source an AOL email account identified only as Robert passed along what appeared to be a research dossier that the campaign had apparently done on the Republican vice presidential nominee, Ohio Sen. JD Vance. The document was dated Feb. 23, almost five months before Trump selected Vance as his running mate. Last week, officials also revealed that the Iranians in late June and early July sent unsolicited emails containing excerpts of the hacked information to people associated with the Biden campaign. None of the recipients replied. The Harris campaign said the emails resembled spam or a phishing attempt and condemned the outreach by the Iranians as unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity. One of the emails was sent June 27, the date of the Biden-Trump debate, when a halting performance by the president laid the groundwork for his announcement weeks later that he would not seek reelection. An email offering the stolen information, according to the indictment, stated that the debate was likely to be Biden's last chance in the race. The author stated negative feelings for Trump and wrote, So I'm going to pass some materials along to you that would be useful to defeat him. The U.S. Justice Department has secured an indictment against three men for allegedly hacking the Trump campaign on behalf of the Iranian government in order to hurt former President Donald Trump's election prospects. Trump's name isn't included in the 37-page indictment that was released Friday, but details within the document make clear the charges relate to an attempt to steal information from his campaign and leak it to journalists and the presidential campaign of Joe Biden, before Biden chose to step aside in the election. For example, the indictment describes conspirators allegedly using their access to the personal accounts of people associated with a presidential campaign around May to steal non-public campaign documents and emails, and then trying to weaponize stolen campaign material by leaking it in late June, including to "what was then another identified U.S. presidential campaign." Biden announced his withdrawal from the presidential race in July. Former President Donald Trump addresses his supporters during a campaign rally on Wednesday, May 1, 2024, at the Waukesha County Expo Center in Waukesha, Wis. The FBI said earlier this month that Iranian hackers had sent people associated with Biden's campaign unsolicited information they had stolen from the Trump campaign. The bureau said there was no information to indicate the recipients replied to the overture. The men, Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, and Yasar Balaghi, face conspiracy charges related to getting information from a protected computer and supporting terrorism, as well as wire fraud and identity theft charges. They are employed by the Iranian government's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military branch, according to the indictment. The charged men whose last known residence was in Tehran, according to the indictment have not been apprehended by the U.S. government. In a press conference Friday afternoon, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said pursuing the defendants will be an ongoing priority for U.S. officials. "From the Justice Department's point of view, which is the enforcement point of view, we will follow these people for the rest of their lives," Garland said. Why is Iran targeting the Trump campaign? The indictment describes a range of hostile actions Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military branch has engaged in against the United States. They include trying to kill or kidnap U.S. nationals and allies in order to repress Iranian regime dissidents or to exact revenge for the Trump administration's killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad in January of 2020. That killing appears to have been at least part of the Iranian government's motivation. The charged crimes cover not just targeting the Trump campaign, but also hacking activity going back to January of 2020 to compromise email accounts of dozens of prominent current and former public officials as well as of a national security correspondent at a major newspaper. One unnamed victim, for instance, was a senior State Department official at the time of Soleimani's death "and therefore of interest to the (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps)," according to the indictment. The three alleged hackers are charged with a terrorism-related crime because the State Department designated their employer, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a foreign terrorist organization in 2019. Conspiring to provide material support to such organizations is a crime. The wire fraud charges stem from the men's alleged use of wire communications to fraudulently get information from eight separate victims between 2022 and 2024. The men also allegedly stole identities as part of the scheme. Has the Harris campaign faced any threats? U.S. intelligence officials have said that, while Iran has targeted the Trump presidential campaign, Russia has been targeting the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris. The Kremlin, for instance, has created or altered videos to alienate Harris supporters in the presidential race, such as a video falsely claiming Harris left a 13-year-old girl who was paralyzed in a hit-and-run. Contributing: Josh Meyer This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Alleged Trump campaign Iranian hackers charged with terrorism crime The Irish Data Protection Commission criticised Meta for failing to put in place appropriate security measures to protect users' password data and for taking too long to alert the regulator over the issue (Lionel BONAVENTURE) (Lionel BONAVENTURE/AFP/AFP) An Irish regulator helping to police European Union data privacy said Friday it had fined Facebook-owner Meta 91 million euros ($102 million) for password-security breaches. The Data Protection Commission criticised Meta for failing to put in place appropriate security measures to protect users' password data and for taking too long to alert the regulator over the issue. An inquiry was launched in April 2019 after Meta Ireland informed the regulator that it had "inadvertently stored certain passwords of social media users" in a readable format on its internal system, the DPC said in a statement. "It is widely accepted that user passwords should not be stored in plaintext, considering the risks of abuse that arise from persons accessing such data," said Graham Doyle, the regulator's head of communications. Doyle told AFP that the breach, which took place in January 2019, affected 36 million Facebook and Instagram users across the European Economic Area, which comprises the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. The regulator criticised Meta for not alerting the DPC of the problem until March 2019. In a statement to AFP, Meta acknowledged that some Facebook users' passwords were "temporarily stored in a readable format in our internal data systems". "We took immediate action to fix this error, and there is no evidence that these passwords were abused or accessed improperly. "We proactively flagged this issue to our lead regulator, the Irish Data Protection Commission, and have engaged constructively with them throughout this inquiry", a Meta spokesperson added. - Tech crackdown - Many global tech companies including Google, Apple and Meta, base their European operations in Dublin. As a result, Ireland's data protection agency is the lead regulator responsible for holding them to account. The fine issued Friday, dwarfed by Meta's multi-billion-dollar earnings, is the latest in a series issued to the US social media giant and its rivals, as global regulators seek to rein in big tech firms over also taxation, competition and disinformation. Ireland this month launched an investigation in Google's artificial intelligence development. It came as the European Commission scored two major legal victories in separate cases that left Apple and Google owing billions of euros. At the same time, an EU court scrapped a 1.49-billion euro fine imposed by Brussels against Google over abuse of dominance in online advertising. Tech giants are also seeking out each other over alleged breaches. Google on Wednesday said it had filed a complaint against Microsoft at the European Commission, accusing its rival of "anticompetitive" licensing practices to force customers to use its cloud service. ajb/bcp/lth The aftermath of Israeli airstrikes in the Haret Hreik neighbourhood of Beirut - IBRAHIM AMRO/GETTY Short of bombing Tehran, there was no bigger escalation available to Israel than attempting to kill Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah, but that is exactly what it did on Friday evening. It is a gamble extraordinaire; the repercussions could be huge, and felt for years to come. The first signs of a major Israeli escalation came as huge blasts and secondary explosions ripped through the southern suburbs of Beirut as the sun fell on the Lebanese capital on Friday evening. Benjamin Netanyahu approving an airstrike on Beirut on Friday - Israeli Prime Minister's Office Witnesses said they had never seen explosions like it, and certainly not since Israels last war there in 2006. On Saturday morning the IDF confirmed that Nasrallah, a hero to millions on the Shia Arab Street, was killed. The consequences are likely to be profound. Hezbollah is seen by Iran as its deterrent in the region: a powerful military force it relies on to keep Israel from striking it directly. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (L) is joined by military officers as they watch strikes on Beirut - Israeli Prime Minister's Office If Israel is willing not just to degrade it but to decapitate it, that strategy, that chess piece, will be gone and the fragile balance of power between Israel and Iran fundamentally changed. Israel is in effect signalling that it is ready to take on Iran directly and is challenging the worlds biggest and most powerful Shia Arab nation to hit back, if it dares. Benjamin Netanyahu used his speech at the UN to drum up support for his campaign - PAMELA SMITH/UN There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that is true of the entire Middle East, said Benjamin Netanyahu in his UN speech. And now I have a question to you: will your nation stand with Israel? Will you stand with democracy and peace? Or will you stand with Iran, a brutal dictatorship that subjugates its own people? Exports terrorism across the globe? Its not clear if Mr Netanyahu regards that as a rhetorical question. After all, all Israels allies, including the UK, were until hours ago pushing him to urgently de-escalate. Moreover, when Iran launched a massive drone and missile strike against Israel in April, it was a US-led coalition including the UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Jordan that swung into action to shoot most of the missiles down. Will they come together to do it again if Iran attacks Israel directly in response to the strike against the leader of its most powerful terrorist proxy? Thats the question Iran will be mulling now as it plots its revenge. And given that several of the countries involved walked out of the UN chamber as Mr Netanyahu stood up to speak, the answer is not at all clear. 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. Israel carried out part of its device attack targeting Hezbollah by concealing explosives inside the batteries of pagers brought into Lebanon, according to two high-ranking Lebanese security officials, who said the technology was so advanced that it was virtually undetectable. Lebanese security officials watched a series of controlled explosions of some of the weaponized pagers, as investigations into who manufactured the wireless communication devices and how they made their way into Hezbollahs pockets continued. The pagers used in the controlled explosions were switched off at the time of the attack on September 17, which meant they did not receive the message that caused the compromised devices to detonate. The officials had a front-row seat to see just how catastrophic the blasts would have been to those carrying the devices and others around them. Thousands of explosions struck Hezbollah members last week, targeting their pagers on Tuesday, and then walkie-talkies a day later. In all, the blasts killed at least 37 people, including some children, and injured nearly 3,000, according to Lebanese health authorities, many of them civilian bystanders. The attack blindsided the group, which had opted for analogue technologies after forgoing cell phones to avoid Israeli infiltration. A photo taken on September 18, 2024, in Beirut's southern suburbs shows the remains of exploded pagers on display at an undisclosed location. - AFP/Getty Images Israel has not commented directly on the attacks, but CNN has learned that the explosions were the result of a joint operation by Israels intelligence service, Mossad, and the Israeli military. Israels defense minister, Yoav Gallant, tacitly acknowledged his countrys role the day after the pager attack, praising excellent achievements, together with the Shin Bet, together with Mossad. Both Lebanon and Hezbollah have blamed Israel for the attacks. One of the Lebanese security sources told CNN the way in which the explosive material had been hidden inside the pagers batteries was so sophisticated that it could not be detected, but did not elaborate further as to what sort of checks the devices had gone through before entering the country. The second high-ranking security source said that he had examined one of the compromised pagers and witnessed its controlled explosion. He told CNN that the explosive material was laced inside the pagers lithium battery and virtually undetectable. He added that he had never seen anything like it. An improvised explosive device has five key components: A power source, an initiator, a detonator, an explosive charge and a case to put it all in. Sean Moorhouse, a former British Army officer and explosive ordinance disposal expert, said that only a detonator and explosive charge would have been needed to weaponize the pagers, which already have the other three components. It had to be done in such a way to make it invisible, Moorhouse said, adding that one way to do that could have been modifying the battery itself implanting an electronic detonator and small explosive charge inside of its metal casing, which would have made it impossible to detect with imaging, for example X-rays. People gather outside American University of Beirut Medical Center on September 17, 2024, as people wounded in the pager attack pour in for treatment. - Mohamed Azakir/Reuters Other experts who reviewed footage of the blasts also said that explosive devices appeared to have been hidden in the pagers, suggesting a sophisticated supply chain attack involving a state actor. That tallied with initial assessments by Lebanese authorities. Lebanons mission to the United Nations said in a letter sent to the UN Security Council last Friday that a preliminary investigation found that the communications devices were implanted with explosives before arriving in the country, tampered with in a professional way by foreign entities. Lebanese authorities determined that the devices were detonated by sending electronic messages to them, according to the letter, which was seen by CNN. Israel was responsible for carrying out the attacks, which detonated thousands of devices simultaneously, Lebanons UN mission said. Mysterious supply chain stretches from Taiwan to Hungary Multiple photos from the aftermath of last weeks attacks in Lebanon show remnants of the exploded pagers also known as beepers that were consistent with a model made by a Taiwanese firm, Gold Apollo, and fragments of walkie-talkies identified as the make of a Japanese firm, ICOM. Lebanese authorities have said that the devices used in the attacks were Gold Apollo Rugged Pager AR-924 pagers and ICOM IC-V82 walkie-talkies. Both Gold Apollo and ICOM have distanced themselves from the compromised devices. ICOM said that the IC-V82 model was discontinued a decade ago, and it could not determine whether the devices targeted in Lebanon were counterfeit or shipped from its company. Counterfeit versions are widely available for purchase on e-commerce websites, like Alibaba. Lebanons communications ministry said the IC-V82 radios used in the attacks were not supplied by a recognized agent, were not officially licensed and had not been vetted by the security services. International investigative efforts have largely zeroed in on the Gold Apollo AR-924 pagers tracing the models licensing and manufacturing from Taiwan to apparent shell companies to try to establish how the Israeli operation may have been carried out. The New York Times reported, citing three intelligence officers briefed on the operation, that Israel had set up at least three shell companies to disguise the identities of those making the pagers Israeli intelligence officers. The chairman and founder of Taiwan-based Gold Apollo, Hsu Ching-kuang, was questioned by Taiwanese prosecutors last Thursday before being released. Hsu Ching-kuang (L), head of Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, speaks to the media outside the company's office in New Taipei City on September 18, 2024. - Yan Zhao/AFP/Getty Images A day earlier, at the nondescript offices of Gold Apollo on the outskirts of the Taiwanese capital, Hsu, speaking to CNN and other media, vehemently denied having made the pagers bearing his companys brand name, claiming instead that they were manufactured by a Hungarian firm, BAC Consulting. Hsu told CNN he had entered into a licensing agreement with the Budapest-registered company, signing over sole responsibility for the production and sale of the AR-924 model. A person called Teresa was one of his contacts for the deal, he said. Teresa Wu, a former Gold Apollo employee, was also seen leaving the prosecutors office in New Taipei City last Thursday evening, according to reporting by Reuters and local media staked out outside. Prosecutors in Taiwan currently list Hsu and Wu as witnesses, two senior officials in Taiwan told CNN. A person with knowledge of Gold Apollo told CNN that Wu had left the company a couple of years ago, and that they understood she had started working for BAC Consulting. CNN has reached out to Wu for comment. Wu set up a company called Apollo Systems Ltd in April of this year, listed under a Taipei address that appears to be a co-working space, according to corporate records. It is not clear if Wu was operating for BAC Consulting in Taipei under her new company name, Apollo Systems Ltd. Apollo Systems Ltd lists its website address as www.apollosystemshk.com, according to a database maintained by Taiwans International Trade Administration. The Apollo Systems HK website which was shut down by its administrator after the attack said that the business had a manufacturing and sales hub in Taipei City and a logistics office in Hong Kong. When CNN visited the Hong Kong address, there was no sign of the company. In December 2022 and February 2023, a YouTube channel for Apollo Systems HK uploaded two videos of the Gold Apollo AR-924 pager touting its high-capacity lithium rechargeable battery and other features. On its YouTube channel and website, Apollo Systems HK said that it had acquired the sole distribution rights to Gold Apollo pager systems. It also listed the AR-924 model as a product available for purchase. The two senior Taiwanese officials who spoke with CNN said that there was no record of Gold Apollo manufacturing any AR-924 pagers in Taiwan. The officials also confirmed that Gold Apollo only manufactured pagers with AA batteries in Taiwan, not lithium batteries as found in the devices used in the attack and examined by Lebanese officials, according to CNNs sources. Customs records in Taiwan, cited by the officials, showed that Gold Apollo shipped more than 20,000 pagers from Taiwan to the United States in the first eight months of 2024. More than 5,000 pagers were shipped to Hong Kong, while more than 3,000 pagers were shipped to Australia. The Taiwanese officials said they had also checked the order history and the source of raw components for Gold Apollo pagers, adding that pager manufacturing was tightly controlled in Taiwan and that devices undergo regular inspections. The Taiwanese prosecutors office is reviewing documents it obtained from Gold Apollos office. In a statement last Thursday, the prosecutors office said that there had been no evidence found so far to suggest any involvements (sic) of Taiwanese nationals in the explosive terror attack. Investigations into the supply chain are also ongoing in Europe, where authorities are probing the Hungarian company, BAC Consulting, and another firm linked to Bulgaria and Norway, for any connections to the pager attack targeting Hezbollah. CNN has attempted to reach BAC Consulting at its registered address, which is located in a residential area of Budapest. Last Wednesday, a receptionist working at the building said that BAC Consulting rented a space at the address but that no representative had ever physically been there. CNN has also reached out to BAC Consultings chief executive, Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, but has yet to receive a response. NBC News reported that Barsony-Arcidiacono had confirmed to the news outlet in a phone call that her company worked with Gold Apollo, but said, I dont make the pagers. I am just the intermediate. Reporters gathered outside the registered address for BAC Consulting in Budapest, Hungary, on September 18, 2024. - Jakub Porzycki/Anadolu/Getty Images/File There is no record of Gold Apollo exporting any pagers to Hungary in 2023 or 2024, the two Taiwanese officials said, citing custom records in Taiwan. In 2022, the company exported about 200 pagers to Hungary, they added. Hungarian intelligence services have interviewed Barsony-Arcidiacono several times as part of their investigation into BAC Consulting but have not found any evidence that the pagers used in the attack were manufactured in the country, the governments press office said in a statement. The results have clearly established that the so-called beepers were never present on Hungarian soil, and no Hungarian company or expert was involved in their production or modification, it said. Bulgarian authorities said they were investigating Norta Global Ltd after Hungarian media reported last week that the Sofia-based company was involved in the sale of the pagers to Hezbollah. Bulgarias national security agency DANS said that no pagers used in the attack were imported, exported or manufactured in Bulgaria, and that Norta Global Ltd had not carried out terrorist financing, or traded with anyone subject to sanctions. Bulgarias caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev told reporters last Friday that the company under investigation was a cash flow, mailbox-type of firm, and that its director acted by proxy. According to a report by Dezso Andras, a journalist with Hungarian news outlet Telex, Norta Global transferred more than 1 million euros ($1.1 million) to BAC Consulting in several instalments between March 2023 and June 2024, money that was later sent by BAC in various payments to Gold Apollo, Apollo Systems Ltd and an unnamed Hong Kong firm. The report added that customs data from October 2022 showed that Apollo Systems Ltd. had sent one shipment to Hungary: A package containing just one pager. Norta Global Ltd was founded in April 2022 by Rinson Jose, a Norwegian national, according to Bulgarian business registration documents. CNN has tried to contact Jose on multiple platforms for comment, but he has not yet responded. Norways security police have started a preliminary probe into the companys reported links to the pagers, according to a police attorney at the Norwegian Police Security Service. Hezbollah digs into devices supply chain Hezbollahs leader Hassan Nasrallah, in an address last Thursday, said that the militant group had formed multiple internal investigative committees to get to the bottom of what happened, vowing a reckoning for those responsible. Regarding the explosions, we have reached an almost certain conclusion, but we still need some time to confirm it, Nasrallah said. This entire matter is under thorough investigation and review, from the company that sold the devices, to manufacturing, transportation, arrival in Lebanon, and distribution, all the way to the moment of the explosion. He added that while the apparent goal of the attack was to kill as many senior Hezbollah officials as possible, much of the leadership had been unaffected because they were carrying older pager models, suggesting that the form of communication has been used by the group for some time. The new ones were sent elsewhere, he said, apparently referring to the batch of pagers a Lebanese security source told CNN was purchased by Hezbollah in recent months. People watch a speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as they sit in a cafe in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, on September 19, 2024. - Hassan Ammar/AP These attacks represent a new development in warfare, where communication tools become weapons, simultaneously exploding across marketplaces, on street corners, and in homes as daily life unfolds, UN human rights chief Volker Turk told the Security Council last Friday. Authorities have reportedly dismantled unexploded devices in universities, banks, and hospitals. He added that simultaneously targeting thousands of people whether civilians or armed forces without the knowledge of who is in possession of the targeted devices and their surroundings at the time of the attack, violates international human rights law. Irans delegate to the UN said that Israel had intended to kill at least 5,000 civilians, but some devices were deactivated or not distributed. The delegate said that Israel had again crossed a red line, noting that Irans ambassador to Lebanon was among those injured. Senior UN officials warned that the devices attack marked a turning point, calling for de-escalation and a ceasefire in Gaza before a war consumes the whole of the Middle East. Others said that the technology apparently used marked dangerous new territory in the world of warfare. CNNs Pallabi Munsi, Katie Polglase, Tara John, Eyad Kourdi and Avery Schmitz contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com By Maya Gebeily, Tom Perry and Emily Rose BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -The Israeli military told residents in parts of Beirut's southern suburbs to evacuate late on Friday, after strikes that it said had targeted Hezbollah's central headquarters and with no word hours later from the group on the fate of their head Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. The order to evacuate, made by Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee via X, told residents to get at least 500 meters (550 yards) away from three specific buildings in the area. It was the first announcement of its kind for the densely populated neighbourhoods south of Beirut. A source close to Hezbollah told Reuters Nasrallah was alive. Iran's Tasnim news agency also reported he was safe. A senior Iranian security official told Reuters Tehran was checking his status. Hezbollah's media office said that there was no truth to any statements surrounding the Israeli strikes, but did not say anything about the fate of the group's leader. In New York, a senior Israeli official told reporters that senior Hezbollah commanders were the target of Israel's strike on the central headquarters on Friday but it was too early to say whether the attack took out Nasrallah. Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon told reporters at the United Nations that the attack targeted a "meeting of bad people" planning more attacks on Israel. "When I said this was a meeting of bad actors, Nasrallah is a bad actor. He's a terrorist. He has the blood on his hands for many Americans, thousands of Israelis, so I think he should be punished for that. I cannot confirm now whether he was at that meeting or not, but when I speak about bad actors, he's one of them," Danon said. Lebanon's health ministry said there were two dead and 76 wounded from the Israeli strikes, describing it as a preliminary toll. Iran-backed Hezbollah's al-Manar television reported four buildings were destroyed and there were many casualties in the multiple strikes, which marked a major escalation of Israel's conflict with the heavily armed Hezbollah. Al-Manar's live feed showed search and rescue teams scrambling over concrete and protruding metal, with a correspondent for the TV station saying the attack had left several large craters and damaged many surrounding buildings. The Israeli military said it had carried out a "precise strike" on Hezbollah's headquarters, which it said were "embedded under residential buildings in the heart of the Dahiyeh in Beirut". Israel has struck the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, known as Dahiyeh, four times over the last week, killing at least three senior Hezbollah military commanders. Friday's attack was far more powerful, with multiple blasts shaking windows across the city, recalling Israeli airstrikes during a war with Hezbollah in 2006. In a televised statement, Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said the central command centre was embedded deep within civilian areas. The strikes hit Beirut shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue Israel's attacks on Iranian-backed fighters in Lebanon in a U.N. speech, as hopes faded for a ceasefire to head off all-out regional war. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the attack showed Israel did not care about global calls for a Lebanon ceasefire. Iran's embassy in Lebanon said on X that the strike represented a dangerous game-changing escalation that would "bring its perpetrator an appropriate punishment." SHARP ESCALATION IN CONFLICT RAISES CONCERN AT UN The escalation raised concern at the United Nations, where the annual General Assembly has been meeting this week. Among those voicing concern was France, which earlier in the week proposed a 21-day ceasefire to reduce tensions. "The large-scale strikes which took place today in the south suburb of Beirut, brought devastation and claimed many casualties. This must be brought to an end immediately," French Ambassador Nicolas de Riviere told a Security Council meeting. At a New York press conference, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: We believe the way forward is through diplomacy, not conflict. The path to diplomacy may seem difficult to see at this moment, but it is there, and in our judgment, it is necessary, and we will continue to work intentionally with all parties to urge them to choose that course." It was by far the most powerful Israeli attack on Beirut during nearly a year of conflict with Hezbollah. Security sources in Lebanon said the attack targeted an area where top Hezbollah officials are usually based. This week, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 700 people in Lebanon, an escalation that has raised fears of an even more destructive conflict. In its first statement since the Israeli strike, Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at the city of Safed in Israel. Israeli emergency services said they were treating a woman with minor injuries from the rocket in Safed. Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly, Netanyahu said: "As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their homes safely." Several delegations walked out as Netanyahu approached the lectern while supporters in the gallery cheered. Netanyahu's office said he would cut short his trip to New York and return to Israel on Friday. The United States did not have advance warning of the Beirut strike and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Israeli counterpart as the operation was ongoing, a Pentagon spokesperson said. Israel says its campaign aims to secure the safe return of thousands of people forced to evacuate in northern Israel because of Hezbollah rocket attacks in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas, which is fighting Israel in Gaza. This week's escalation has displaced around 100,000 people in Lebanon, increasing the total number of people uprooted in the country by the conflict to well over 200,000. Israel says Hezbollah rocket attacks during the past year have forced the evacuation of 70,000 Israelis from northern Israel. (Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut; Jana Choukeir and Nadine Awadalla in Dubai, Phil Stewart in Washington, Emily Rose in Jerusalem; Writing by Tom Perry and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Howard Goller) By Marco Aquino LIMA (Reuters) -Peru's government declared a 60-day state of emergency in districts around Lima on Thursday to fight a rise in crime, the nation's prime minister Gustavo Adrianzen said, as striking bus drivers strangled traffic in a bid for more security. Adrianzen announced the state of emergency in 12 districts of metropolitan Lima and the neighboring Callao province during a press conference. The measure will put Peru's armed forces out on the streets and help police clamp down on a wave of extortions that has plagued the capital. "Extortion, although more visible as a result of the recent problem with the transporters, nowadays we have different small businessmen and entrepreneurs who are also victims of this crime," he said. Public transport was scarce on Thursday as thousands of commuters were left stranded at bus stops and unable to go to work, local TV images showed. The government suspended classes in Metropolitan Lima and urged firms to allow remote work or let employees show up late to their shifts. "We're striking because of the insecurity, and the lack of empathy from the government in regard to this wave of extortions," said Hector Vargas, who heads a transportation union representing 63 companies. A bus driver was killed on Sunday for refusing to fall victim to a shakedown, police said. A passenger also was wounded in the attack. Four drivers have been killed since the end of August. At the press conference, Defense Minister Walter Astudillo said the government will send a bill to Congress to classify hired assassination, kidnapping, extortion and illegal possession of firearms as "urban terrorism," to toughen penalties for these crimes. He added that the capacity of a prison located at 4,600 meters (15,092 feet) above sea level for those sentenced for urban terrorism will be increased and that the government will evaluate if it is possible to extend the state of emergency to other areas of the country. (Reporting by Marco Aquino and Carlos Valdez for Reuters TV; Editing by Sarah Morland and Bill Berkrot) People fleeing from Lebanon arrive on the Syrian side of the border with Lebanon in Jdeidat Yabus in southwestern Syria on September 25, 2024 (LOUAI BESHARA) (LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/AFP) Israel conducted two rounds of air strikes on Hezbollah's main bastion in the south of Lebanon's capital Beirut, sending huge clouds of smoke soaring above the densely populated area. Friday's strikes were heard across the Mediterranean city and sparked panic in the residential area that has been the Iran-backed movement's main stronghold for decades. They were by far the fiercest strikes to hit Beirut since Israel shifted its focus from the war in Gaza to Lebanon this week, pounding Hezbollah strongholds around the country and killing hundreds of people. Israeli television networks reported that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was the target of the strike, though a source close to the group said he was "fine". Nasrallah enjoys cult status among his Shiite Muslim supporters and is the only man in Lebanon with the power to wage war or make peace, but he leads a life in hiding to avoid assassination. The Israeli army claimed early Saturday that its air strikes killed "Muhammad Ali Ismail, the commander of Hezbollah's missile unit in southern Lebanon, and his deputy," as well as "other senior officials". The strikes felt "like an earthquake", according to Ahmad Ahmad, who fled his house in the southern suburbs. A teacher in her 40s, Abir Hammoud, said: "I felt like the building was going to collapse on top of me." The strikes were followed by a second bombing hours later, which Israel's military said targeted Hezbollah weapons stored in buildings in the area, a claim the group denied. Hezbollah started fighting Israeli troops along the Lebanon border a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas staged its unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed in an address to world leaders on Friday that there would be no let-up in the battle against Hezbollah until Israel's northern border was secured. - Warning to civilians - A source close to Hezbollah said the initial wave of strikes had levelled six buildings, and according to a preliminary toll, six people were killed and 91 wounded. Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the strike had targeted "the central headquarters" of Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of the city. After the Beirut strikes, Hezbollah said it had fired more rockets into Israel "in defence of Lebanon and its people". There were no immediate reports of casualties. The Israeli military warned civilians in parts of Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold to evacuate the area before conducting its second bombing. It also said it would not allow Iran to transfer weapons to its ally Hezbollah through Beirut airport -- adding that its jets were ready to intervene should any such transfers be detected. Israel's army said the second wave of strikes had targeted Hezbollah targets in the Tyre area of southern Lebanon. - 'Deadliest in a generation' - The UN has repeatedly condemned this week's sharp escalation of violence in Lebanon. "We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation, and many express their fear that this is just the beginning," the UN humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, Imran Riza, said. In Israel, too, many were weary of the violence. "It is incredibly exhausting to be in this situation. We don't really know what's going to happen, there's talk of a ground offensive or a major operation," said Lital Shmuelovich, a physiotherapy student. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken appealed again for a ceasefire, after a US-led bid for a truce failed earlier this week. "The path to diplomacy may seem difficult to see at this moment, but it is there, and in our judgement, it is necessary," Blinken said. In New York, Netanyahu also addressed the war in Gaza, saying that Israel's military would continue to fight Hamas until it achieved "total victory". Diplomats have said efforts to end the war in Gaza were key to halting the fighting in Lebanon and bringing the region back from the brink of all-out war. But despite months of mediation efforts, a Gaza ceasefire remains elusive. Hamas's October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity. Of the 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead. Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,534 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable. - 'Change the rules' - The Lebanon violence has raised fears of wider turmoil in the Middle East, with Iran-backed militants across the region vowing to keep up their fight with Israel. Netanyahu took aim at Iran in his UN General Assembly address, saying: "I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran. If you strike us, we will strike you." He added: "There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that's true of the entire Middle East." Analysts have said Iran would try to resist being dragged into the conflict. But following the Beirut strikes, Iran's embassy in Lebanon said: "This reprehensible crime... represents a dangerous escalation that changes the rules of the game." Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, later condemned the strikes, branding them a "flagrant war crime". burs-ser/jj/lb/cwl Beirut has been rocked by huge explosions, with Israel confirming that it carried out airstrikes against Hezbollahs main military headquarters in the Lebanese capital. Information is still emerging, but Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is said to have been the target, while this afternoons raids were the biggest to hit Beirut since the start of the current conflict in the Middle East, almost a year ago. In Beirut this afternoon, a series of explosions were heard across the city, leaving multiple huge plumes of dark smoke. Smoke was even visible from the city of Batroun, roughly an hours drive north of the Lebanese capital. A rescuer fights the blaze amid the smoldering rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Beiruts southern suburbs on September 27, 2024. Photo by Ibrahim AMRO / AFP IBRAHIM AMRO Videos posted to social media showed the site of the airstrike, with several buildings entirely collapsed and fires burning below the rubble. According to the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV, four buildings were destroyed by the airstrikes, while a report from AFP mentions the destruction of six buildings. While emergency responders are already on the scene, there are so far no official reports of the number of casualties. #BREAKING: Massive Israeli strikes targeting Beiruts southern suburbs now pic.twitter.com/HPn8Cqi3Py ELINT News (@ELINTNews) September 27, 2024 Incredible footage from Lebanon during IDF airstrikes. Explosions underground as well. pic.twitter.com/CUP128uifv Clash Report (@clashreport) September 27, 2024 BREAKING: Huge explosions heard in Beirut Al Jadeed pic.twitter.com/wsx5eq1h3Z Faytuks News (@Faytuks) September 27, 2024 Picture from Beirut following reports of Israeli airstrikes. This is definitely the largest munition dropped on Beirut so far. Target unclear. pic.twitter.com/cxZzXCRftk Faytuks News (@Faytuks) September 27, 2024 Footage from Beirut amid a massive Israeli airstrike. Rumours swirling. IDF statement shortly. pic.twitter.com/M86IORB3lq Faytuks News (@Faytuks) September 27, 2024 #BREAKING Huge Israeli airstrike reported in Beirut now. pic.twitter.com/0myEqm7m46 Clash Report (@clashreport) September 27, 2024 Already, there are multiple reports including apparently from Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) radio and Israeli media channels that the attack in Beiruts southern suburbs targeted Hezbollah leader Nasrallah, although at this point there is no news as to his whereabouts. Fox News has learned the target of the strike on Beirut was Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) September 27, 2024 Breaking: Israeli officials confirm that the target of the strike in Lebanon was the head of Hezbollah, Nasralla. Neria Kraus (@NeriaKraus) September 27, 2024 Israeli army radio: "Regarding the attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut: We confirmed that (Hassan) Nasrallah was in the targeted headquarters, then the army dropped bombs that penetrated the bunkers." https://t.co/K12nKZs1Go Hannah McCarthy (@Hannahmc_carthy) September 27, 2024 There are reports that Hezbollah is claiming that Nasrallah is safe, while other accounts suggest that Iran the primary backer of Hezbollah is assessing whether or not he was harmed. Fox News has learned the target of the strike on Beirut was Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) September 27, 2024 Previously, an Israeli spokesperson for the IDF, Daniel Hagari, said that the Israeli military conducted a precise strike on the Hezbollah headquarters, which was built under residential buildings in Beirut in order to use them as human shields. Moments ago, the Israel Defense Forces carried out a precise strike on the Central Headquarters of the Hezbollah terror organizationtaking the necessary action to protect our people so that Israeli families can live in their homes, safely and securely. Listen to IDF pic.twitter.com/I4hbN7KkO8 Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) September 27, 2024 According to the IDF, the headquarters of Hezbollah served as its central command center and was located within a civilian area in Beiruts Dahiyeh district. Hagari described the headquarters as the epicenter of Hezbollahs terror. The airstrikes appear to have been approved by Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu, while he was on a visit to New York, based on a photo released by his office, showing him and other Israeli officials in a hotel, together with secure communications equipment. The Israeli leader will return home tonight, his office has said. Previously, he was expected back in Israel on Saturday. Netenyahu approving the airstrike targeting Hezbollah leader Nasrallah from New York today. pic.twitter.com/qGjOdlzUCo Clash Report (@clashreport) September 27, 2024 Today, Netanyahu addressed the United Nations General Assembly, telling world leaders that Israels campaign against Hezbollah would continue. Israeli official says Israel notified the U.S. minutes before the strike in Beirut https://t.co/VXzio5MWTD Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) September 27, 2024 Another photo, released by Israels defense minister, Yoav Gallant, claims to show him observing the strike from the Israeli Air Forces underground command center. Pictured alongside Gallant are the chief of the general staff of the IDF, Herzi Halevi, and the head of the Israeli Air Force, Tomer Bar. , , . , , , . pic.twitter.com/NtRzSA2mzL Yoav Gallant (@yoavgallant) September 27, 2024 Early accounts suggest the use of penetrating bunker buster bombs or missiles in at least some of the airstrikes, which would make sense given the buried nature of the target as well as the large plumes of dark smoke. Bunker busters were clearly used. pic.twitter.com/Y4CfmxFy5M Aurora Intel (@AuroraIntel) September 27, 2024 . pic.twitter.com/FALuTHLFD6 Nadav Eyal (@Nadav_Eyal) September 27, 2024 Update: 5:15 PM Eastern There are increasing indications that Nasrallah was killed in the strike, according to the Times of Israel. Israels Channel 12 news reports the assessment in Israel is that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was killed in tonights IDF strike on the terror groups underground HQ in Beirut, the publication reported. Its on-screen headline reads, The assessment in Israel: Nasrallah is eliminated. A second major Israeli TV station, Channel 13, is slightly more wary, stating, Cautious optimism in Israel: The strike on Nasrallah succeeded. Reuters is reporting that communications with senior Hezbollah leaders have been lost. #BREAKING Communication lost with Hezbollah's senior leadership, Reuters reports. Clash Report (@clashreport) September 27, 2024 Meanwhile, citizens of the Dahiyeh neighborhood are beginning to leave after being warned by the IDF that another strike there was imminent. UPDATE Nasrallah fate still unknown Israeli military asks Dahiyeh residents in south Beirut to evacuate Israel will bomb area soon, says long range missiles depots there Commercial headed to Lebanon also put on alert https://t.co/46ywGmLGvd Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) September 27, 2024 Following Israels warnings to some Lebanese residents to evacuate, many were seen fleeing on foot from the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/JQEeDIpKZ5 Clash Report (@clashreport) September 27, 2024 Update: 5:30 PM Eastern Though there is no official confirmation of Nasrallahs death, some residents of northwestern Syria are celebrating. Many Syrians condemn Hezbollahs actions during the long civil war there. Residents of Azaz in northwestern Syria are celebrating the killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah despite no official confirmation that he is dead. pic.twitter.com/JoWJyIR1Kw Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) September 27, 2024 Update: 5:40 PM Eastern The IDF warning gave specific locations for residents to avoid. In the last hour, we have contacted the residents of the three buildings in the Dahiehthese residents are above and near Hezbollahs strategic assets and must evacuate immediately for their safety and security, the IDF said on Telegram. Update 5:46 PM Eastern After the warning, the IDF began striking those buildings, Israels Channel 12 said on Twitter. ": N12 (@N12News) September 27, 2024 Update: 5:52 PM Eastern The IDF said it was targeting weapons caches in Dahieh. The IDF is currently conducting targeted strikes on weapons belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization that were stored beneath civilian buildings in the area of Dahieh in Beirut. Details to follow, the IDF said on Telegram. New video emerged of the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut. Footage of the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut pic.twitter.com/Af1Bq09P2D Faytuks News (@Faytuks) September 27, 2024 Update: 5:58 PM Eastern U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a statement on the Israeli strike. I know that youre seeing reports about a significant strike today in Beirut. I spoke by phone earlier today to my counterpart in Israel Minister Gallant. The United States was not involved in Israels operation. We had no advance warning. My call with Minister Gallant took place while Israels operation was already underway. As you know this operation took place just a few hours ago and theyre still making assessments, so I dont have any further information or specifics for you at this time. Youve heard me say a number of times, an all-out war should be avoided. Diplomacy continues to be the best way forward and its the fastest way to let displaced Israeli and Lebanese citizens return to their homes on both sides of the border. Ill be talking with Minister Gallant again soon and I look to get an update from him when we have that conversation. Thank you. Update: 6:29 PM Eastern President Biden has been briefed several times today by his national security team on the latest developments in the Middle East, according to the latest dispatch from the White House press pool. He has directed the Pentagon to assess and adjust as necessary U.S. force posture in the region to enhance deterrence, ensure force protection, and support the full range of U.S. objectives. He has also directed his team to ensure that U.S. embassies in the region take all protective measures as appropriate. The President will continue to receive regular updates. Update: 6:59 PM Eastern Irans Foreign Ministry spokesman said Israel and the U.S. must be held accountable for the attack on Nasrallahs compound. Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani strongly condemned the brutal and terrorist air attack of the Zionist regime on several residential buildings in the suburbs of Beirut on Friday afternoon, the official Iranian IRNA news agency reported. This barbaric attack, which was carried out with the bombs donated by the American regime to the rebellious Zionist regime, besides being a flagrant violation of the laws and regulations of international law, as well as the sovereignty and territorial integrity and national security of Lebanon, is an obvious and unconcealable war crime, said Kanaani. And therefore, without a doubt, the American regime is also an accomplice along with the Zionist regime and must be held accountable. Post Unavailable Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com This is a developing story. We will update it as more news comes in about this strike. The Israeli military says it struck the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut. The series of explosions Friday evening is the most powerful yet seen in the Lebanese capital the past year. Israeli army spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said it targeted the main Hezbollah headquarters, located beneath residential buildings. Attacks on Hezbollah targets by fighter jets continued into the early hours Saturday after the army said it told residents to evacuate three buildings it was targeting. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly cut short a visit to the United States and was returning home instead of waiting until the end of Sabbath on Saturday evening, his office said. Hours earlier, Netanyahu addressed the United Nations, vowing that Israels campaign against Hezbollah would continue further dimming hopes for an internationally backed cease-fire. More than 720 people have been killed in Lebanon this week, according to Lebanons health ministry. Israel has dramatically escalated strikes, saying it is targeting Hezbollahs military capacities and senior Hezbollah commanders. Top Israeli officials have threatened to repeat the destruction of Gaza in Lebanon if the Hezbollah fire continues, raising fears that Israels actions in Gaza since Oct. 7 would be repeated in Lebanon. The International Organization for Migration estimated Thursday that more than 200,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas after it stormed into Israel, sparking the Israel-Hamas war. ___ Heres the latest: 20 health care centers shut down amid escalating violence in Lebanon, UN says BEIRUT The United Nations said the escalating violence between Israel and Hezbollah has forced at least 20 primary health care centers to shut down in hard-hit areas of Lebanon. The U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said in the latest escalation that began earlier in the week, Israeli airstrikes impacted 25 water facilities, affecting access to clean water for nearly 300,000 in high-risk areas. The escalation since Sept. 23 has also more than doubled the number of those displaced by the conflict from southern Lebanon. There are now over 211,000 people displaced, some 85,000 of them now living in public schools and other shelters spread around the countrys north and east. A new phase of escalation began Friday, when Israel targeted Hezbollahs leader in the southern suburb of Beirut, in one of the largest blasts to hit the Lebanese capital in years. The fate of the groups leader is still unknown. After the initial strike early Friday evening, Israeli warplanes continued to pound buildings and targets in the southern suburb for over six hours. Smoke and balls of fire covered the Beirut skyline for hours. Israel targets areas around Beirut early Saturday BEIRUT Israels military carried out new strikes early Saturday targeting areas around Beirut. In a short statement, the Israeli military described the sites it hit as belonging to Hezbollah. Explosions rocked Beiruts southern suburbs, with flames lighting up the pre-dawn darkness. Authorities there did not immediately acknowledge if there were any casualties. Israel says it killed a Hezbollah missile unit commander and his deputy JERUSALEM Israels military said it killed a Hezbollah missile unit commander and his deputy during a strike in southern Lebanon earlier in the week. Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that its air forces killed Muhammad Ali Ismail, who it said was responsible for directing numerous terror attacks against Israel, including the firing of rockets towards Israeli territory. The Tuesday strike also killed the commanders deputy, Hussein Ahmad Ismail, it said. There was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah. Moody's lowers Israel's credit rating due to economic risks from conflict NEW YORK Moodys lowered its credit rating on Israel on Friday, warning that the countrys deepening conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon pose increased risks for its economy. The downgrade to Baa1 could make it more expensive for Israel to borrow on international markets because lenders could demand higher interest rates on loans to compensate for the greater risk. The key driver for the downgrade is our view that geopolitical risk has intensified significantly further, to very high levels, with material negative consequences for Israels creditworthiness in both the near and longer term, Moodys wrote. Moodys last dropped its rating on Israels debt in February, from A1 to A2. Israels new rating remains investment grade at three notches above whats considered junk status on Moodys scale. Series of airstrikes hit several locations in Beirut's southern suburbs BEIRUT A series of airstrikes have hit several locations in the southern suburbs of Beirut, causing several smaller explosions and rings of smoke intersecting over the skies of the Lebanese capital. Fire raged from at least one location, and smoke and flames were seen from above Beirut early Saturday. Residents reported jets flying overhead. Following a massive air raid that levelled several buildings in the southern suburb of Beirut, which Israel said targeted the leader of Lebanons Hezbollah group, there were nearly a dozen other strikes in the same neighborhood, some just an hour after an Israeli warning for residents to evacuate. Hundreds of Lebanese fled the area. Israel fighter jets strike dozens of Hezbollah launchers aimed toward Israeli civilians, as air raid sirens go off in northern Israel JERUSALEM Israel's army said in a statement that its fighter jets struck dozens of Hezbollah launchers that were aimed toward Israeli civilians over the past hour. The army said it continues to strike Hezbollah targets and buildings in which weapons were stored in several areas in southern Lebanon. Israel reports more air raid sirens in northern Israel, including in Safed. Israeli officials said a 68-year-old woman suffered mild shrapnel wounds from the rocket strike earlier in Safed. Canada global affairs blocks seats on few remaining commercial flights leaving Lebanon, urging Canadians to leave immediately OTTAWA, Ontario Global Affairs Canada began booking blocks of seats on the few remaining commercial flights leaving Lebanon on Friday as it issued another urgent plea for any Canadians in the country to leave immediately. Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly says Canada has secured seats for Canadians on the limited commercial flights available. Passengers will pay for the flights themselves, but Joly says loans are available for those who need financial assistance. Joly and Defense Minister Bill Blair have been asking Canadians in Lebanon to leave for months as fighting between Israel and Hezbollah escalates. Joly says its believed about 45,000 Canadians were in Lebanon, even though only about half that number have registered officially with the embassy in Beirut. Lebanon's Health Ministry raises death toll from airstrike targeting Hezbollah in Beirut BEIRUT Lebanons Health Ministry said six were killed and 91 wounded in several Israeli strikes that struck Friday. The toll is likely to rise significantly as teams are still combing through the rubble of six buildings. Israels military says it is conducting airstrikes in Beirut area where it had warned residents to evacuate BEIRUT Israels air force struck southern suburbs of Beirut early Saturday hours after another airstrike destroyed several buildings killing and wounding dozens of people. The new airstrikes came shortly after an Israeli military spokesperson warned the residents of several building to evacuate them saying they were being used by the militant Hezbollah group. Israels military confirmed that the air forces are striking areas south of Beirut. Israel's army warns residents in southern Beirut neighborhoods to evacuate from buildings it plans to strike The Israeli army warned residents in southern Beirut neighborhoods late Friday to evacuate from three buildings it says Hezbollah uses to hide weapons, including anti-ship missiles. Israeli army spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said residents should evacuate as soon as possible because Israel is about to strike them and that the buildings could collapse from secondary explosions. In the last hour, we have contacted the residents of the three buildings in the Dahiyehthese residents are above and near Hezbollahs strategic assets and must evacuate immediately for their safety and security," he said. Hagari said Israel will not allow the civilian airport to be used for military purposes and that pilots are patrolling the skies over the airport for weapons smuggling. President Biden says US has no knowledge of or participation in Israeli military strikes in Beirut WASHINGTON President Joe Biden said Friday that the United States had no knowledge of or participation in Israeli military strikes in Beirut. Were gathering more information. Ill have more to say when we have more information, Biden said after he arrived in his home state of Delaware for the weekend. Asked about his support for Israels right to self-defense and whether he supported the strikes in Beirut, Biden said he needed more information. I dont know enough to answer that question, he said. Hezbollah launches rockets at Israeli city of Safed BEIRUT Hezbollah said in a statement some four hours after the strike in Beirut that it had launched a salvo of rockets at the Israeli city of Safed, which it said was in defense of Lebanon and its people, and in response to the barbaric Israeli violation of cities, villages and civilians. They also released a statement saying they hit Karmiel and Saar. The Israeli military says a house and car in Safed were hit, but gave no further details. Rescuers were headed to the scene. Late Friday, air raid sirens sounded in several locations across northern Israel. There were no immediate reports of casualties. The Israeli military said it was striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. UK advises British nationals in Lebanon to leave BEIRUT The UK, which has been advising its nationals to leave Lebanon for more than a month, took a more urgent tone in a statement issued Friday after a major Israeli airstrike in Beiruts southern suburbs. British nationals in Lebanon should leave now, the statement said. You should take the next available flight. It added, Were working to increase capacity and secure seats for British nationals to leave. A day earlier, British Defense Secretary John Healey said his country had sent 700 troops to Cyprus to assist in a potential emergency evacuation of civilians in Lebanon should a full war break out. Analyst says strike is likely to spark a major escalation BEIRUT Elijah J. Magnier, a Brussels-based veteran and a senior political risk analyst who frequently speaks with Hezbollah members said that the groups silence on the fate of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, since the strike in Beirut is likely an indication either that they want him to be in a safe place and they are moving him or he is dead and they want to wait until they find his body, as is the groups normal practice. In either case, he said the strike is likely to spark a major escalation. For the first time in this war Israel is giving legitimacy to Hezbollah to start bombing residential areas in Tel Aviv, he said. Whether Nasrallah was assassinated or not, we are starting a new phase of this war thats going to be a very long war. At least 2 people were killed and dozens were wounded in Beirut, Lebanons health ministry says BEIRUT Lebanons Health Ministry says at least two people were killed and at least 76 others were wounded in the strikes in a first casualty count, as first-responders are still searching for others under the rubble. At least 60 of the injured suffered from light wounds while 15 were admitted to the hospital, according to the ministrys statement . Mazen Alameh, manager of the Sahel Hospital near the scene of the strike, said they have so far received 13 wounded, of whom 10 were in critical condition. One of the critically injured people was a child, he said. Lebanon's Prime Minister slams Israel for the Beirut strikes BEIRUT Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati slammed Israel for the strikes in Beirut amid global efforts for a ceasefire, saying that this proves "that the Israeli enemy does not care about all international efforts and calls for a cease-fire. US administration gathering information on the strike DOVER AIR FORCE BASE White House National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said the administration was still gathering information on Fridays strike. He added that U.S. officials were not given pre-notification from Israelis about the strike. President Joe Biden was in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Friday to deliver the eulogy at the funeral of a childhood friend. His national security team briefed him on the Beirut strike after he delivered the eulogy, according to the White House. Pentagon says US got no advance warning of the strike by Israel in Beirut WASHINGTON The Pentagon said Friday that the U.S. got no advance warning of the strike. Spokesperson Sabrina Singh said Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was on the phone with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin as it was occurring. She declined to say whether Gallant informed Austin about the strike or who it targeted during the call. Asked if the U.S. considers the strike an escalation in the conflict, Singh said the U.S. is still assessing it. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cuts US visit short to return home NEW YORK Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office says the Israeli leader is cutting short a visit to the U.S. and returning home. The office made the announcement shortly after a massive Israeli airstrike on Hezbollahs headquarters in Beirut. Netanyahu, in New York to address the United Nations, had been scheduled to stay in the U.S. until Saturday night, after the end of the Jewish sabbath. Israeli politicians do not normally travel on the sabbath except for matters of great import. 6 buildings are leveled to the ground by strikes as hospitals receive casualties BEIRUT Lebanons state-run National News Agency said six buildings were leveled to the ground by the strikes. Hospitals in the area were receiving casualties, but the scale was not immediately clear. Officials at Sahel hospital near the scene of the strike said they had received 10 wounded, three of them critically, including a Syrian child. The strikes which came around nightfall were by far the most intense in Beirut in the past year since Israel and Hezbollah began exchanging fire. Local TV stations showed emergency workers running through the rubble of destroyed buildings, struggling to put out a fire. The missiles appeared to have caused massive craters. Many people who live in the vicinity were seen gathering belongings and fleeing along the road leading to Beiruts airport. First responders and Lebanese Red Cross struggling to reach the area because of the rubble and destruction. An Associated Press photographer at the scene said the demolished structures appeared to be multistory apartment buildings. Israels 3 main TV channels say the massive strikes in Beirut targeted Hezbollahs leader Hassan Nasrallah JERUSALEM Israels three main TV channels all flashed headlines that Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target of the strike. But the unsourced reports could not immediately be confirmed. The Israeli army had no comment on the reports that Nasrallah was the target. But given the size and timing of the blast, there were strong indications that a high-value target was inside the building at the time. Lebanese Red Cross scenes arrive to scene of the strikes, as more explosions heard in the area BEIRUT Lebanons state-run National News Agency said 10 teams from the Lebanese Red Cross arrived to the scene of the strike. There was no immediate count of casualties from the organization. One hour after the first strike, more explosions were heard in the area. Civil defense teams worked to put out fires that broke out at the scene of the explosion. Israeli military carries out precise strike on Hezbollah headquarters Israels military said it carried out a precise strike on Hezbollahs central headquarters in Beirut on Friday. Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari announced the strike in a televised address. Hagari said the headquarters served as an epicenter of Hezbollahs terror and was intentionally built under residential buildings" as part of the group's strategy of using Lebanese people as human shields. Hezbollahs Al-Manar TV said the airstrikes on the Haret Hreik district destroyed four buildings, turning them into a pile of rubble. The station said more than 15 missiles struck the area at the same moment. The attack sent huge clouds of orange and black smoke billowing into the skies. Strong explosi ons in populated Beirut suburb BEIRUT Israeli airstrikes hit Beiruts heavily-populated southern suburb as the blasts were heard throughout the Lebanese capital. It was not immediately clear what the target was but thick black smoke was seen billowing from the area. The massive explosion was so powerful it rattled windows and shook houses some 30 kilometers north of Beirut. Ambulances were seen headed to the scene of the explosions, sirens wailing. The strike came an hour after thousands of people attended the funeral of a top Hezbollah commander who was killed the day before. Rescuers pull out bodies under collapsed building in Lebanon In the city of Tyre, Lebanese civil defense workers toiled to pull out two bodies from under the rubble of a collapsed building after it was hit by an Israeli airstrike Friday. They pulled the dead bodies of 35-year-old Hiba Ataya and her mother, 65-year-old Sabah Olayan. There she is, this is Sabah, one man is heard saying as workers removed slabs of concrete and stones to reveal a body. Ali Safieddine, a civil defense rescuer, told The Associated Press that his organization was receiving nonstop calls to go rescue people but theyre unable to reach all the areas due to airstrikes and bombed out roads. He also said the team had to evacuate their center after receiving a call from Israel instructing them to vacate the location. But we are continuing our work, we will continue our mission from wherever we are even if were in the street, he said. Humanitarian crisis worsens amid escalation between Israel and Hezbollah The Norwegian Refugee Council aid group is warning that the ongoing escalation between Israel and Hezbollah is reaching deeper into Lebanon and pushing the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon to alarming levels. Some Lebanese villages have almost been entirely deserted amid large-scale destruction. Families do not know which way to turn as Israel bombards scores of towns for the first time, Maureen Philippon, the group's country director in Lebanon. In a statement, she said tens of thousands of people are now seeking shelter in ill-equipped primarily schools where two or three families are packed together in the same classroom and there are no showers or bathing areas. People now being turned away from shelters as there is simply no space for them inside, she said, while some displaced families are forced to seek refuge in bus shelters, in their cars, and outside hospitals, unsure where to go next, Philippon said. Israel's goals in Lebanon are much narrower compared to Gaza, official says TEL AVIV, Israel An Israeli security official said he expects a possible war against Hezbollah would not last for as long as the current war in Gaza because the Israeli militarys goals are much narrower. The official said Israel has vowed to dismantle Hamas military and political regime in Gaza, but the goal in Lebanon is just to push Hezbollah away from the border with Israel. That is not a high bar like Gaza in terms of operational objectives, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military briefing guidelines. The official said that no decision has been made on whether Israel will carry out a ground operation in southern Lebanon. But he stressed that the military is training for this possibility every day and is ready to implement it. He added that Israel still sees Resolution 1701, the United Nations-brokered resolution that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, as the best solution for lasting stability. But that the resolution must be enforced by an international force that is able to keep Hezbollah from setting up infrastructure close to the border with Israel. He said Israels punishing aerial bombardments this week, which killed more than 600 people in Lebanon, represent Israels decision to start enforcing the resolution on their own. ___ Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman contributed to this report. Israeli strike hits a tent within Gaza hospital complex, killing 1 and injuring 4 DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip An Israeli airstrike hit a tent sheltering displaced people within a hospital complex in central Gaza early Friday, killing one Palestinian man and injuring four others. The strike on Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah left some tents and tarps torn apart with items such as bottles, mattresses, and a baby chair scattered on the dusty ground. An Israeli military spokesperson told The Associated Press it conducted a precise strike on Islamic Jihad terrorists who were operating inside command and control centers embedded within the Humanitarian Area in Deir al Balah." The spokesperson said that steps were take to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians. The military did not comment on whether militants had been killed in the strike. A video filmed by The Associated Press shows several children surrounding metal parts of the guided missile labeled manufacturer United States Army in the vicinity of the hospital where hundreds of displaced people are sheltering. Lebanon says 25 killed by Israeli strikes on Friday BEIRUT Lebanons Health Minister Firass Abiad told reporters that 25 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since midnight in different parts of the country. The latest numbers on Friday put the total death toll over the past five days to about 700, including scores of women and children, as Israel dramatically escalated strikes targeting the military capacity of Hezbollah. Houthi rebels claim missile attack targeting Israel DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Yemens Houthi rebels have claimed a missile attack that targeted Israel early Friday morning. Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, a Houthi military spokesperson, claimed the attack in a pre-recorded statement released by the Houthis. He claimed the rebels launched both a missile and drone. The missile targeted Tel Aviv while the drone targeted another city, though Israel did not acknowledge the drone. No injuries were reported. Israels military said earlier Friday it used an Arrow interceptor missile to down the Houthi missile, which saw some shrapnel fall. Its the second attack by the Houthis to target Tel Aviv in recent weeks. Fridays launch comes amid Israels intensified airstrike campaign targeting Lebanons Hezbollah militia. Both Hezbollah and the Houthis are backed by Iran. UN: More than 30,000 people crossed from Lebanon into Syria in 3 days GENEVA The U.N. refugee agency says well over 30,000 people have crossed from Lebanon into neighboring Syria over the last 72 hours in the wake of fighting between the militant group Hezbollah and Israeli forces in Lebanon. Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, the representative for refugee agency UNHCR in Syria, said roughly half of the people who have fled were children and adolescents. He said about 80% were Syrians returning to their home country and the rest were Lebanese. Now these, of course, are people who are fleeing bombs and who are crossing into a country that has been suffering from its own crisis and violence for 13 years now, he told reporters in Geneva by video from the Lebanon-Syria border. Syria is facing economic collapse, he said. I think that this just illustrates the kind of extremely difficult choices both Syrians and Lebanese are having to make, he said. Israeli strike kills a family of 9 in a Lebanese border town, authorities say BEIRUT An Israeli airstrike on a border village has killed nine members of the same family, Lebanons state-run National News Agency said Friday. NNA said nine people were killed in the early Friday airstrike on the village of Chebaa that destroyed their three-story building. Chebaa is in an area where the borders of Syria, Israel and Lebanon meet, and was struck several times in recent months. On Friday, Israeli warplanes struck towns and villages in southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley, according to NNA. Israeli military reports more strikes from Lebanon JERUSALEM Incoming fire from Lebanon into Israel continued Friday, with one man suffering wounds from shrapnel. The Israeli military said four drones came across the border Friday, all of which were intercepted. Earlier Friday, the Israeli military said another 10 projectiles came into Israel from Lebanon, with some intercepted and others falling into open fields. It said it later targeted launchers in Lebanon behind the missile attacks. Hezbollah claimed it had targeted the Israeli city of Tiberias with missiles. The Israeli military said its warplanes had struck launchers in Haddatha, Lebanon, that it said fired the rockets at Tiberius in northern Israel. It said it was currently continuing to strike Hezbollah terror targets in southern Lebanon. Israeli strike in Syria kills 5 soldiers DAMASCUS An overnight Israeli airstrike on a military site in the area of Kfar Yabous in Syria near the border with Lebanon killed five Syrian army soldiers and injured another, Syrian state news agency SANA reported Friday, citing an unidentified military official. Israel's military did not immediately acknowledge the strike. Israel regularly targets military sites in Syria and facilities linked to Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah but rarely acknowledges them. Those strikes have become more frequent as Hezbollah has exchanged fire with Israeli forces for the past 11 months against the backdrop of Israels war against Hamas a Hezbollah ally in Gaza. Tens of thousands of Lebanese and Syrians have fled across the border from Lebanon into Syria since the beginning of the week under intense Israeli bombardment that Israel says is targeting Hezbollah militants and weapons. The week's strikes have killed an estimated 700 people, including at least 150 women and children. Trade unions file claim at United Nations for Palestinian workers GENEVA A group of international trade unions on Friday filed a complaint against Israel at the United Nations labor organization in a bid to win compensation for 200,000 Palestinians who have gone unpaid or seen their benefits withheld after the Oct. 7 attacks. The nine unions say the workers from both Gaza and the West Bank had been employed in Israel before the deadly attacks by armed militants, but were barred from entering to go to their jobs afterward. As a result, the workers and their families have faced millions of dollars worth of lost income, financial insecurity and no access to remedies through the courts, they said. These workers have experienced widespread wage theft due to the suspension of work permits and the unilateral termination of their contracts, said a joint statement from the unions, whose members are active in industries as diverse as construction, education, journalism, agriculture, hospitality and transportation. The filing at the International Labor Organization in Geneva, of which Israel is a member country, is based on language in its constitution that seeks to ensure that countries uphold international commitments they have already made. Such economic woes that many Palestinians have faced come on top of the bloodshed, displacement and other troubles faced by Gaza and the West Bank as Israel continues its campaign against armed Palestinian militants. The Philippines is preparing to evacuate thousands of its citizens from Lebanon MANILA, Philippines The Philippine government is bracing to evacuate thousands of Filipino workers in Lebanon in case the deadly conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group further escalates, Philippine officials said Friday. More than 11,000 Filipinos live and work in Lebanon, often as house cleaners. Philippine officials have not yet ordered a mandatory evacuation of its citizens because it was not yet clear whether a full-scale war would erupt, including an Israeli ground attack. Many Filipinos were adamant not to leave their jobs in Lebanon and return to uncertainties at home, but they have been told to be ready to evacuate any time, Foreign Undersecretary Eduardo De Vega told a news briefing in Manila. They say its better for them to die in war than to die of hunger, De Vega said. But he added without elaborating that the Philippine government prepared a contingency plan for a massive evacuation if widespread ground fighting erupts across Lebanon. Philippine Ambassador to Lebanon Raymond Balatbat told reporters in Manila via video on Friday that many Filipinos there will only decide to leave when the situation is so bad, when the war is at their doorsteps. People inspect a destroyed three storey building, after it collapsed following an Israeli air raid in the southern Lebanese border village of Shebaa. Stringer/dpa Twenty-five people were killed in Israeli attacks in Lebanon on Friday, according to the Lebanese authorities. At a news conference in the Lebanese capital Beirut, Health Minister Firass Abiad said there were many more injured, without giving an exact number. Abiad emphasized that all sides were interested in a diplomatic solution, but "only one party wants to continue its indiscriminate attacks on civilians." The state news agency NNA had previously reported that a family of nine was killed in an attack on the town of Shebaa near the border with Israel. Women and children were also among the victims, it said. According to the authorities, over 700 people have died since Israel's renewed heavy attacks on Lebanon. Hezbollah, Houthis attack Israel Meanwhile, Hezbollah militants in Lebanon fired rockets at the Israeli city of Tiberias and other towns on the Sea of Galilee, causing one injury, the Israeli military reported on Friday. According to the army, most of the 10 missiles were intercepted. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia confirmed the attack, during which a man was struck by falling debris. Four drones approaching from Lebanon were also claimed to have been shot down near the border town of Rosh HaNikra on the Mediterranean Sea. The port city of Haifa had previously been attacked with missiles, drawing retaliatory Israeli airstrikes on the launch sites and dozens of other Hezbollah targets, officials said. Hezbollah asserted that they had attacked the Haifa region with Fadi-1 type rockets. They have been bombarding Israel almost daily since the beginning of the Gaza war nearly a year ago. The militia claims that it aims to support the Palestinian militant organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip in its fight against Israel and to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza war. Israel used to respond with similar force, but since the beginning of the week, the air force has been conducting massive airstrikes in Lebanon, resulting in hundreds of deaths. International efforts to establish a ceasefire have so far been unsuccessful. Houthis in Yemen attack Israel too Yemen's Iranian-aligned Houthi militia on Friday claimed two attacks including one by a ballistic missile aimed at Israel in support of their Palestinian and Lebanese allies. Houthi military spokesman Yehya Saree said the group had aimed at a military target in the area of Jaffa with a ballistic missile and a "vital target" in the Ashkelon area with a drone. "The two operations have successfully achieved their objectives," he added in a televised statement without giving details. Saree vowed further attacks by the group in the days ahead until what he called the "Israeli aggression" on the Gaza Strip and Lebanon stops. In Lebanon, thousands displaced Since the beginning of the heavy Israeli attacks in Lebanon, "significantly more" than 30,000 people have already fled to neighbouring Syria, according to UN reports. About 80% are said to be Syrian citizens, the rest predominantly Lebanese, said Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Syria. He spoke on Friday from the Lebanese-Syrian border over videolink with reporters in Geneva. That number had more than doubled from Thursday's official estimate of 13,500 people who had sought safety in Syria out of desperation. "Both Syrians and Lebanese are crossing from a country at war to one that has faced crisis and conflict for 13 years - we cannot imagine what an incredibly difficult choice that is - over 30 000 have made that choice," he said. In Lebanon, 110,000 people had already been displaced prior to the recent escalation, according to UN reports. Since last week, 118,000 more have joined them, said Imran Riza, the humanitarian UN coordinator in the Lebanese capital Beirut. Ceasefire plan Meanwhile on the diplomatic front, the US government and other countries behind a joint statement calling for a three-week ceasefire between Israel and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon coordinated with Israel, a senior US official said on Friday. The White House's National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby said the statement "wasn't just drawn up in a vacuum." It wasn't only the countries that signed on to the plan who knew of its contents "but Israel itself." But when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in New York on Thursday for his Friday speech at the United Nations General Assembly, he said Israel would continue to attack Hezbollah until the Israelis evacuated from the northern border could safely return home. Netanyahu said there was a lot of "fake news." The government's press office in Jerusalem said the United States had only informed Israel of their intention to present a proposal for a ceasefire together with others. White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said the "joint statement was a clear call" for a temporary ceasefire to open up space for diplomacy so residents on both sides of the border could return home. "I would add that the statement was indeed coordinated with the Israeli side," she said. Lebanese Red cross workers inspect a destroyed three storey building, after it collapsed following an Israeli air raid in the southern Lebanese border village of Shebaa. Stringer/dpa Lebanese Red cross workers inspect a destroyed three storey building, after it collapsed following an Israeli air raid in the southern Lebanese border village of Shebaa. Stringer/dpa US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel had a right to self-defense but added that diplomacy was a better solution (Heather Khalifa) (Heather Khalifa/POOL/AFP) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken appealed again Friday for a ceasefire in Lebanon, saying the diplomatic path remained open, even as Israel ignored calls to stop its strikes targeting Hezbollah. "The choices that both parties make in the coming days will determine which path this region is on, with profound consequences for its people, now and possibly for years to come," Blinken told a news conference as he wrapped up a week of talks at the United Nations. "The path to diplomacy may seem difficult to see at this moment, but it is there, and in our judgment, it is necessary," Blinken said, vowing that the United States would "continue to work intensely with all parties" to push a ceasefire. "The most important thing to do through diplomacy is to try first to stop firing in both directions," he said. If a ceasefire takes hold, all sides can work to "reach a broader diplomatic agreement," Blinken said. He also, however, issued a warning about US interests. To "anyone using this to target American personnel, American interests in the region -- the United States will take every measure to defend our people," Blinken said. Hezbollah, backed by Iran's clerical regime, was blamed for the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut. The United States and France on Wednesday jointly appealed for an initial 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon after Israel began strikes on Hezbollah targets. Israel, which relies on US weapons, brushed aside the call and vowed to crush Hezbollah, on Friday striking the densely populated south Beirut and warning residents to evacuate. The assault came nearly a year after Israel was traumatized by the massive October 7 attack by Hamas, with Israeli officials alleging that Hezbollah was plotting a similar action. Blinken said Israel had a right to self-defense but added that diplomacy was a better solution. "The question is not, does Israel have a right to deal with existential threats to its security and enemies across its borders with the avowed intent to destroy Israel? Of course it does. "But the question is what is the best way to achieve its objectives," Blinken said. sct/gw/bjt An excavator removes a destroyed vehicle in Kiryat Bialik, following a reported strike by the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement. Ilia Yefimovich/dpa Israel was attacked with 10 rockets from Lebanon on Friday morning, the army said. In the sky over Haifa, the country's main port city, smoke from explosions was visible. The army stated that some of the missiles had been intercepted and others had landed in undeveloped areas. No information was provided regarding possible casualties. The Shiite militia Hezbollah in Lebanon asserted that they had attacked the Haifa region with Fadi-1 type rockets. They have been bombarding Israel almost daily since the beginning of the Gaza war nearly a year ago. The militia, which is allied with Iran, claims that they aim to support the Palestinian militant organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip in its fight against Israel and to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza war. Israel used to respond with similar force, but since the beginning of the week, the air force has been conducting massive airstrikes in Lebanon, resulting in hundreds of deaths. International efforts to establish a ceasefire have so far been unsuccessful. Israel says it secured $8.7 billion military aid package from US Israel announced Thursday that it had reached agreement with the U.S. for an $8.7 billion aid package to support ongoing military efforts. The funding for the package was appropriated by Congress in the national security supplemental that the president signed into law in April. The total supplemental included $26.38 billion to support Israel and reimburse U.S. operations in response to recent attacks. The package announced Thursday includes $3.5 billion for wartime procurement and $5.2 billion designated for air defense systems, including the Iron Dome, its short-range missile interceptor; and Davids Sling, which can take out ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, long-range missiles and other aerial threats. These efforts aim to maintain Israels qualitative edge in the region and support ongoing military operations, Israels Ministry of Defense said in a statement. The talks were conducted on the U.S. side by acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Amanda Dory and Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante. The Pentagon said in a statement that Dory reinforced the Biden administrations enduring support for Israels security and discussed the importance of pursuing diplomatic solutions essential for lasting security. The leaders exchanged views on Israels ongoing operations against Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, the need to release all hostages in Gaza immediately, and the imperative to minimize harm to civilians in conflict zones. The announcement comes as Israel has fought on two major fronts for nearly a year against Hezbollah on its northern border with Lebanon and against Hamas in the Gaza Strip following Hamass Oct. 7 terrorist attack against Israel and its holding of an estimated 100 hostages kidnapped from Israel. President Biden and Vice President Harris have pushed back on calls from some Democrats and progressives to condition aid for Israel to influence their military action because of the humanitarian toll and civilian casualties among Palestinians and Lebanese. The administration has focused on pushing for temporary cease-fires on both fronts to calm tensions. Israel or Hamas has rebuffed these proposals since November. This story was updated at 5:43 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 The Hill. Israel said it carried out a strike on Hezbollahs central headquarters in Beirut on Friday, with media reports indicating a large explosion and plumes of orange and black smoke billowing above the skyline. The strike came shortly after Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations General Assembly and said Israel has the right to remove the threat from Hezbollah on its northern border and return our citizens to their homes safely. Israel has been tolerating this intolerable situation for nearly a year. Well, Ive come here today to say enough is enough, he said. Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Israel carried out a precise strike on the Central Headquarters of the Hezbollah terror organization that served as the epicenter of Hezbollahs terror. Hagari accused Hezbollah of having intentionally built its headquarters under residential buildings in the heart of the Dahieh, in Beirut, as part of Hezbollahs strategy of using Lebanese people as human shields. He did not mention whether Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was a target of the strike, or present at the site. The strike came as Israel has rebuffed U.S. and international efforts to secure a 21-day cease-fire; its unclear if Hezbollah was open to accepting the truce. Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said the U.S. was not involved in this operation and had no advanced warning, even as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin held a phone call this morning with Israels Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Minister Gallant spoke with Secretary Austin as the operation was already underway. This operation happened within the last few hours. We are still assessing the event and dont have any additional information or further specifics to provide at this time, she said. Hezbollah began attacking Israel across the Israeli-Lebanese border in the aftermath of Hamass Oct. 7 attack on Israel, but fighting has escalated dramatically in recent weeks. Updated: 1:31 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 The Hill. Israel on Friday sought to deal a decisive blow to Hezbollah by targeting the Iranian-backed groups long-time leader Hassan Nasrallah, underscoring its willingness to escalate warfare in the region to achieve its aims. It is unclear whether Nasrallah was killed in the Friday strike on Hezbollahs central headquarters in Beirut, which toppled several buildings and left plumes of orange and black smoke billowing above the skyline. Nasrallah has led the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hezbollah since assuming leadership in 1992 after Israel assassinated his predecessor. He is a long-time foe of Israel, which has fought two major wars in Lebanon, in 1982 and 2006. Over the past 18 years, Nasrallah has positioned Hezbollah closer to Lebanons border with Israel, probing Israels defenses and periodically exchanging fire. A religious cleric, Nasrallah has expanded Hezbollahs popularity among Lebanese people, institutionalizing its political influence in government and local communities and disciplining its army into a well-resourced and potent fighting force. Charismatic, highly intelligent, and deeply religious, his face appears on billboards, key chains, and screensavers; excerpts of his speeches are even used as cell phone ringtones, the Council on Foreign Relations wrote in a profile in 2010. A 2006 profile in The Washington Post described Nasrallah as portraying himself as a man of God, gun and government, a cross between Ayatollah Khomeini and Che Guevera. The U.S. considers Hezbollah to be a terrorist group. The Treasury Department, which has sanctions against Nasrallah, lists his date of birth as between 1953 and 1960 in Al Basuriyah, Lebanon. Nasrallah studied in Islamic seminaries in Iraq and Iran and trained in military camps in Iran. He joined Hezbollah around its founding during the 1982 Israel-Lebanon war and committed to armed resistance against what would be an 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon. We used to discuss issues among ourselves, if we are to expel the Israeli occupation from our country, how do we do this, Nasrallah told The Washington Post in 2006 about his formative years in the 1980s and 1990s. We noticed what happened in Palestine, in the West Bank, in the Gaza Strip, in the Golan, in the Sinai. We reached a conclusion that we cannot rely on the Arab League states, nor on the United Nations. The only way that we have is to take up arms and fight the occupation forces. The 2006 Lebanon war was one of the most defining confrontations between Israel and Nasrallah, triggered by Hezbollahs kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers across the Israeli-Lebanon border. The Israeli response was so widespread and devastating, Nasrallah later admitted he was taken aback by the intensity. We did not think, even one percent, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude, Nasrallah told Lebanons New TV channel, according to a Guardian report from the time. You ask me, if I had known on July 11 that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not. An unnamed Israeli official told The New York Times in August 2006 that even though a cease-fire agreement had been reached, Israel had a mark on Nasrallah and intended to kill him. But over the next nearly two decades under Nasrallahs leadership, the Shia-militant group has amassed an arsenal of approximately 150,000 rockets; expended significant resources in building tunnels into Israel (which Israel later destroyed); and gained extensive fighting experience in Syria over the course of its civil war. Hezbollah receives major financial, technical and diplomatic backing from Iran which Israel considers its greatest existential threat in the Middle East. Even as Israel reeled from Hamass attack across the border of the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, military units quickly mustered along Israels northern border with Lebanon, preparing for Hezbollah to invade the country and occupy its communities there and unleash a rain of rockets. But Nasrallah made the choice to hold back, greenlighting exchanges of rocketfire with Israel that terrorized communities on both sides of the border but generally contained the fighting to back-and-forth retaliation. The two sides have traded fire for more than a year, with fallout from an increasing number of attacks outpacing efforts at diplomacy. In late August, Israel said it carried out a preemptive strike to disrupt a major missile and drone attack from Hezbollah. In mid-September, Hezbollah accused Israel of being behind a major attack on its rank-and-file, exploding thousands of pagers, walkie-talkies and electronic devises. On top of this, Israel carried out more air strikes targeting senior leaders of the group with the Israeli military saying it killed Ibrahim Aqil, the head of Hezbollahs military operations, and top commanders of Hezbollahs elite Radwan Force. Amid the escalating fighting, the U.S., Canada, and leaders from Europe and the Middle East, this week issued a joint statement calling for a 21-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah. Israel rejected the cease-fire and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, said that Israel must defeat Hezbollah in Lebanon. Enough is enough, 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. (Bloomberg) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to hold talks on a US-proposed cease-fire in Lebanon aimed at averting a major war, appearing to soften his stance after earlier pushing back on the plan amid domestic opposition. Most Read from Bloomberg Israel will take part in deliberations on the proposal for a three-week truce with Hezbollah in coming days, Netanyahus office said early Friday. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer have already held talks on the matter, according to the White House. Israel appreciates the US efforts in this regard because the US role is indispensable in advancing stability and security in the region, the statement from Netanyahus office said. The US-led diplomatic push is seen as a last-ditch attempt to prevent this weeks escalation of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah from spiraling into a full-scale conflict. Israel has said its preparing to stage a potential ground invasion of neighboring Lebanon, which would risk dragging in key ally Washington as well as Hezbollahs sponsor Iran. Israel has bombarded Lebanon with intensive air strikes since Monday, killing more than 700 people, including at least 50 children, according to Lebanese officials. Tens of thousands have fled the bombardment in the countrys south. Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at Israel in response including its first-ever attempt to target Tel Aviv in the worst violence between the two sides since a 2006 war. The group claimed four attacks on Israel Friday, saying it would ramp up attacks on civilian areas. Netanyahu who is in New York to address the annual United Nations General Assembly on Friday had earlier vowed the military would maintain its bombardment of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon until all Israels objectives have been achieved. Chief among those is the return of Israels northern residents to their homes, the Israeli premier said, and thats likely to be achieved only if Hezbollah is persuaded to stop firing missiles permanently and moves its fighters back from the border. The attempts led by US President Joe Biden and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron to secure a halt to the fighting come after months of fruitless efforts to clinch a cease-fire agreement in Gaza, where Israel has been at war with Palestinian group Hamas for almost a year. The US has overseen talks mediated by Egypt and Qatar, though a plan presented as a breakthrough by Biden in May failed to yield a deal. US officials expressed some frustration with Israels fluctuating stance on the proposed Hezbollah truce. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday that the Biden administration had coordinated the initiative with Israel. We wouldnt have made that statement, we wouldnt have worked on that if we didnt have reason to believe that the conversations that we were having with the Israelis in particular were supportive of the goal there, he told reporters. Netanyahu initially made verbal commitments to support the Lebanon cease-fire proposal but backtracked after mounting political pressure inside Israel, Haaretz newspaper reported, citing unidentified diplomats familiar with the matter. One of his far-right allies, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, threatened to quit the ruling coalition if a permanent truce is reached. Such a move has the potential to bring down the government, which depends on the support of various factions for its majority. Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging rocket fire since the start of the war in Gaza, and the militant group has long said it would keep up the attacks as long as Israel maintains its offensive against Hamas. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are backed by Iran and are designated terrorist organizations by the US, although Hezbollah is considered much more powerful. The US, European states and Arab powers including Saudi Arabia and Qatar unveiled the proposed truce on Wednesday, saying it would allow time for negotiations on a broader agreement between Israel and Hezbollah. The United Arab Emirates urged the US not to shy away from exercising its influence over Israel to push for a halt in hostilities. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking in London, told reporters Thursday that another full-scale war could be devastating for both Israel and Lebanon. He said a diplomatic solution, not a military solution, is the only way to ensure that displaced civilians on both sides of the border can finally go back home. --With assistance from Kateryna Kadabashy. (Updates the death toll in Lebanon in fifth paragraph and adds more detail in last paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. At the invitation of the Mexican government, President Xi Jinpings special envoy and Vice Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress Tie Ning will attend Mexicos presidential inauguration ceremony in Mexico City on October 1. CCTV: We noted that Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently attended an event themed Global Development Initiative Supports the Global SouthChina in Action at the UN Headquarters. What does China hope to achieve through this event and what actions will be taken to support the development of Global South countries? Lin Jian: On September 25 local time, Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended the event themed Global Development Initiative Supports the Global SouthChina in Action at the UN Headquarters in New York. President of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly Philemon Yang, Deputy Secretary-General of the UN and ministerial officials from over 20 countries attended the event. Foreign Minister Wang Yi pointed out in his address that the Global Development Initiative (GDI) has evolved from Chinas proposal to an international consensus, and from a cooperation concept to joint action, contributing Chinas solutions and providing Chinas strength for the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Over the past three years since the GDI was put forward, more than 100 countries and over 20 international organizations have actively supported and participated in the initiative. In total, 82 countries have joined the Group of Friends of the GDI, and more than 70 countries and international organizations have become part of the Global Development Promotion Center Network. GDI mechanisms are becoming more well-rounded. We have set up over 30 cooperation platforms in the eight priority areas and the Global Development Promotion Center, and are working actively for the establishment of a Global South research center, to help boost the development of the Global South. As of today, the 32 practical measures announced at the High-level Dialogue on Global Development have been basically delivered on, over 1,100 projects have been rolled out under the framework of the GDI, and over 600 projects have been implemented under the Global Development Project Pool. China has also hosted over 2,000 sessions of capacity-building programs, and trained over 60,000 personnel in various fields for developing countries. The increasingly deeper and more substantive cooperation on the GDI has benefited the Global South. Realizing prosperity and development is the common dream of Global South countries. Without modernization of the Global South, there will be no global modernization. Supporting Global South countries in achieving development and prosperity is the priority of the GDI. China is committed to deepening cooperation with Global South countries, advance the modernization of the Global South and the wider world through Chinese modernization, and share the benefit of Chinese modernization with every country and every person. NHK: Shigeru Ishiba was elected as president of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan in todays party election, and will become the countrys new prime minister. Ishibas campaign proposals included the creation of an Asian NATO. Whats Chinas comment on his election and whats Chinas expectation for Japan-China relations going forward? Lin Jian: We noted the election results. This is Japans internal affairs, and we have no comment on that. The sustained, sound and steady development of China-Japan relations is in the fundamental interests of the two peoples and is the only right choice. China hopes that Japan will learn from history, follow a path of peaceful development, abide by the principles and common understandings established in the four political documents between the two sides, have an objective and right perception of China, take active and rational China policy, take concrete efforts to comprehensively advance the strategic relationship of mutual benefit, and work with China to promote the sustained, sound and steady development of China-Japan relations. Kyodo News: In August this year, Shigeru Ishiba visited Taiwan and met with leader of Taiwan. How do you view the relationship between Japan and Taiwan after Ishibas election? Lin Jian: Taiwan is a province of China and there is no leader of Taiwan. China has made clear its position concerning your question. China is always firmly opposed to Japanese political figures visiting Chinas Taiwan region. This position is crystal clear. TASS: Its reported by Politico in its European edition that Ukraine has taken some measures at UNGA in New York to dissuade other countries from embracing the six common understandings issued by China and Brazil for the settlement of the Ukraine crisis. Ukrainian diplomats circulated a document among participants to express concerns on the China-backed plan for ceasefire because its on terms favorable to Russia. Whats Chinas comment? Lin Jian: Im not familiar with what you mentioned. China and Brazil jointly issued the six common understandings in order to raise the balanced, objective and rational voice, create conditions for a ceasefire, build momentum for dialogue and negotiation, and build up efforts for peace. The common understandings have received positive response from over 110 countries, which demonstrates the prevailing expectation of the international community. China stands ready to maintain communication with relevant parties and jointly create conditions for the political settlement of the crisis. China News Service: Ive learned that the 2024 International Humanitarian Demining Training Course hosted by China concluded in Nanjing. Could you share more details with us? Lin Jian: The 2024 International Humanitarian Demining Training Course hosted by the Chinese government held its closing ceremony in Nanjing today. Representatives from the UN, ASEAN, Cambodia, Laos and the International Committee of the Red Cross attended the ceremony. During the training course, China provided Cambodia and Laos with a batch of supplies for mine detection and clearance. Relevant parties spoke highly of what the training course offered, and commended China for its contribution to international mine action. Engaging in international demining cooperation and assistance is an important part of Chinas effort to implement the Global Security Initiative and build a community with a shared future for mankind. For a long time, China has helped relevant countries in their capacity-building in mine action through supplies assistance, personnel training, on-the-ground guidance, aid to victims, mine risk education, among others. In recent years, China has successfully hosted nearly 30 international humanitarian demining training courses, and trained a good number of excellent deminers for other countries. China stands ready to continue mine action cooperation with countries interested in doing so and take concrete actions to boost international cooperation on mine action. News 1 Korea: This year marks the China-DPRK Friendship Year and the 75th anniversary of China-DPRK diplomatic ties. In April this year, the two countries held the opening ceremony of the China-DPRK Friendship Year. Can you share with us the arrangement for the closing ceremony of the China-DPRK Friendship Year? Lin Jian: China and the DPRK are close neighbors connected by mountains and rivers. The two sides enjoy a solid foundation for bilateral ties and have closely intertwined interests. China attaches great importance to its relationship with the DPRK and stands ready to continue working with the DPRK to follow the important common understandings between the leaders of the two countries and to maintain, consolidate and develop our traditional friendship and cooperation. On relevant activities of the China-DPRK Friendship Year closing ceremony, we will release timely information when its available. AFP: Its reported that Myanmars military government invited armed groups that oppose its rule to stop the fighting and hold dialogue. Whats Chinas response? Did the military government have discussion and negotiation with China before sending the invitation? Lin Jian: China stays firmly committed to the Myanmar-owned and Myanmar-led peace and reconciliation. We hope relevant parties in Myanmar will stop the fighting and hold peace talks, properly settle differences through dialogue within the framework of the Constitution, and resume the democratic transition process. AFP: I want to ask a question that has been raised yesterday. Indian media have reported that a team of Indian mountain climbers has summited a previously unclimbed and unnamed peak in the region of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as part of southern Xizang. The Indian climbers have named the peak after the 6th Dalai Lama. Whats Chinas comment? Lin Jian: I answered this question yesterday. The area of Zangnan is Chinese territory, and its illegal, and null and void for India to set up the so-called Arunachal Pradesh in Chinese territory. Chinas position on this issue is consistent and clear. TASS: In his meeting with Chief Advisor to the President of Brazil on the margins of the UNGA in New York, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that China, Brazil and other Global South countries will create a Friends of Peace platform on the Ukraine crisis. Could the Foreign Ministry share more details with us? Lin Jian: The Ukraine crisis is still dragging on and the risks of escalation and spillover are on the rise. The international community is widely concerned over it. Not long ago, China and Brazil jointly issued the six common understandings on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis, which received positive response and support from the international community. Recently, there has been a louder call for peace talks in the world, and more and more Global South countries are standing together to actively create atmosphere and accumulate conditions for peace. China, Brazil and other like-minded Global South countries are going to set up a Friends of Peace platform on the Ukraine crisis as part of their efforts to pursue peace. It is not an exclusive grouping that seeks competition and confrontation, but an open platform for inclusive dialogue. The platform is for peace and should be welcomed by the international community. It will send out an objective and rational voice, and play a constructive role in the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. (Reuters) -A Moscow court has begun considering a criminal case against a 72-year-old American accused of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine, Russia's state news agency RIA reported on Friday. The man, identified as Stephen James Hubbard, was placed in pre-trial detention for six months, according to RIA. The Izvestia newspaper, citing a prosecutor in court, said Hubbard was paid $1,000 after he signed a contract with a Ukrainian territorial defence unit in the city of Izyum in February 2022. He was captured by Russian forces that April, the newspaper said. A spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Moscow said it was aware of the detention of an American citizen, but declined further comment. The Ukrainian foreign ministry did not reply to messages seeking comment. Reuters was not immediately able to contact a lawyer for Hubbard. Charges of mercenary activity carry between seven and 15 years in prison in Russia. Hubbard's next hearing is scheduled for Oct. 3, a notice on the court website showed. RIA said Hubbard, a native of Michigan, had moved to Ukraine in 2014 and lived for a time there with a woman. In a public Facebook group, a woman identifying herself as Hubbard's sister said her brother had been "kidnapped up in the Ukraine" nearly three years ago. The woman was not immediately available for comment. Hubbard joins a list of at least nine Americans currently behind bars in Russia. A Moscow court on Thursday rejected an appeal by another detained American, Joseph Tater, against his pre-trial detention for allegedly assaulting a Russian police officer. (Reporting and writing by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Peter Graff) The Israeli military said it attacked the headquarters of the Hezbollah militia in a Beirut suburb on Friday. Lebanese authorities reported at least two people were killed and 76 injured. Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari called the strike a targeted attack and said the headquarters was located under a residential building. The attack hit the densely populated Beirut suburb of Haret Hreik, near the international airport. Witnesses described extensive damage in the area, with blocked roads preventing ambulances from reaching those in need. Thick clouds of smoke could be seen over Beirut as huge explosions rocked the city, a dpa reporter said. Lebanese media reported about 10 separate strikes. Israeli media reported that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was the target of the attack, but that has not been confirmed by the government or military. His whereabouts were unknown. Cross-border fighting continues Elsewhere, 25 people were killed in Israeli attacks in Lebanon on Friday, according to the Lebanese authorities. At a news conference in the Lebanese capital Beirut, Health Minister Firass Abiad said there were many more injured, without giving an exact number. Abiad emphasized that all sides were interested in a diplomatic solution, but "only one party wants to continue its indiscriminate attacks on civilians." The state news agency NNA had previously reported that a family of nine was killed in an attack on the town of Shebaa near the border with Israel. Women and children were also among the victims, it said. According to the authorities, over 750 people have died since Israel's renewed heavy attacks on Lebanon. Hezbollah, Houthis attack Israel Hezbollah militants in Lebanon fired rockets at the Israeli city of Tiberias and other towns on the Sea of Galilee, causing one injury, the Israeli military reported. According to the army, most of the 10 missiles were intercepted. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia confirmed the attack, during which a man was struck by falling debris. Four drones approaching from Lebanon were also claimed to have been shot down near the border town of Rosh HaNikra on the Mediterranean Sea. The port city of Haifa had previously been attacked with missiles, drawing retaliatory Israeli airstrikes on the launch sites and dozens of other Hezbollah targets, officials said. Hezbollah asserted that they had attacked the Haifa region with Fadi-1 type rockets. They have been bombarding Israel almost daily since the beginning of the Gaza war nearly a year ago. The militia claims that it aims to support the Palestinian militant organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip in its fight against Israel and to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza war. Israel used to respond with similar force, but since the beginning of the week, the air force has been conducting massive airstrikes in Lebanon, resulting in hundreds of deaths. International efforts to establish a ceasefire have so far been unsuccessful. Thousands displaced in Lebanon Since the beginning of the heavy Israeli attacks in Lebanon, "significantly more" than 30,000 people have already fled to neighbouring Syria, according to UN reports. About 80% are said to be Syrian citizens, the rest predominantly Lebanese, said Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Syria. He spoke on Friday from the Lebanese-Syrian border over videolink with reporters in Geneva. That number had more than doubled from Thursday's official estimate of 13,500 people who had sought safety in Syria out of desperation. "Both Syrians and Lebanese are crossing from a country at war to one that has faced crisis and conflict for 13 years - we cannot imagine what an incredibly difficult choice that is - over 30 000 have made that choice," he said. In Lebanon, 110,000 people had already been displaced prior to the recent escalation, according to UN reports. Since last week, 118,000 more have joined them, said Imran Riza, the humanitarian UN coordinator in the Lebanese capital Beirut. Netanyahu vows to press on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a forceful address to the United Nations on Friday in which he vowed to keep fighting the Lebanese militia Hezbollah "until all our objectives are met," rebuffing calls for a ceasefire. He also blasted the UN as a "house of darkness" that reflexively takes an anti-Israel stance and a "swamp of anti-Semitic bile." Shortly after the attack on the Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut, Netanyahu announced that he would short his US visit to head back to Israel. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock continued to campaign for de-escalation in the Middle East. "We must avoid Lebanon becoming the next Gaza, Baerbock said on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. This cannot be in Israel's interest either, especially not in terms of security, she added. Smoke rises over Beirut southern suburb after an Israeli air strike. Marwan Naaman/dpa President Joe Biden told confidantes and allies this week that he did not believe that Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu wanted a halt to hostilities with Hezbollah, expressing increasing frustration as a proposed cease-fire plan fell apart, according to two people familiar with the conversations. One person who spoke with Biden said the president felt Netanyahu had humiliated both Secretary Antony Blinken and Biden himself with his back-and-forth about a cease-fire proposal with Hezbollah. Netanyahu at first told U.S. officials he supported a pause in fighting with the Lebanon-based militant group, then roundly rejected the cease-fire proposal once it was made public. The revelation comes amid intensifying Israeli attacks on Hezbollah, culminating Friday with a strike on the militant groups headquarters in Beirut. The target of that attack was Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, according to a U.S. official, two Israeli officials and two other people informed of the strike. All were granted anonymity to speak about sensitive internal government conversations. While it is not clear if Nasrallah was killed or injured in the attack, the strike alone which came just after Netanyhu delivered a fiery address to the United Nations dramatically escalates the conflict in Lebanon and could undermine the Biden administrations effort to clinch a cease-fire and head-off a full-scale war. In Washington on Friday, senior West Wing officials scrambled to assess the ramifications of the massive Israeli strike, according to the two administration officials. Both were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations. Aides watched for responses from Hezbollah and, potentially, Iran that could indicate whether the Middle East was barreling toward the outcome that the U.S. had tried to prevent for a year: an all-out regional war. Escalating fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in recent days has killed nearly 700 people and forced 90,000 to flee their homes in Lebanon. Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said this week that the Israeli military was preparing for a possible ground operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon, telling soldiers that their military boots will enter enemy territory. Biden has long complained in private about Netanyahu for putting his political aims ahead of the will of his people in continuing to brush off U.S.-led peace negotiations to defuse the widening crisis. Many in the West Wing have long been skeptical that Netanyahu wanted a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza. And now the administration sees an extension of that same approach with Hezbollah. To Biden aides, Israels turnabout on the cease-fire proposal with Hezbollah was just the latest example of the prime minister saying one thing to them in private and then reneging on his word once he received pushback from the far-right elements of his cabinet who controlled his political fate. The White House declined requests for comment. If it turns out that Fridays attack has killed Nasrallah, it would mark one of the most significant Israeli blows against Hezbollah in decades; Nasrallah has led the Iran-backed militant group since 1992, after Israel assassinated its previous leader. The latest strike could also further heighten tensions between Biden and Netanyahu, the two administration officials said. Time and again, the Biden administration has been surprised by Israels brazenness in their attacks amid sensitive cease-fire talks, including the recent detonations of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah operatives that also reportedly killed and wounded civilians. U.S.-led negotiations on a cease-fire deal in Lebanon have been stuck in recent days on convincing Hezbollah to withdraw 8 to 10 kilometers from Israels northern border with Lebanon. Negotiators viewed this as a crucial first step to cementing a proposed 21-day cease-fire, according to two people briefed on the negotiations. That cease-fire deal has been meant to lay the groundwork for a longer-term peace deal, but the major Israeli airstrike on Friday could entirely upend those efforts. And it does not appear that there was any coordination with the U.S. over the decision to launch the strike. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as the operation was already underway, said Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokesperson. The United States was not involved in this operation, and we had no advanced warning. Those arent good signs for the effort to tamp down violence in the region. Whether or not Israel was successful in killing Nasrallah today, this will no doubt be a marked escalation in the conflict that will put us beyond the threshold of an all-out war, said Firas Maksad, an expert on Lebanon at the the Middle East Institute. It is especially ominous as Israeli ground forces prepare for an apparent invasion of south Lebanon. Either way, this airstrike marks the latest in a series of devastating Israeli blows against Hezbollah, which has seen many of its commanders and top operatives killed or wounded in recent weeks amid a stepped-up military offensive. White House aides largely believe Israel will continue the offensive though it is unclear if it will order a ground assault. But one official said it was possible Israel may draw down its campaign if it believes it has sufficiently weakened Hezbollah. Israel confirmed its strike on Hezbollahs military headquarters following a defiant speech by Netanyahu at the U.N. General Assembly on Friday. As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safely, he said, adding that Israels military would continue its attacks on Hezbollah until we meet our objectives. Soon after, the prime ministers office said Netanyahu was returning to Israel Friday evening cutting short his visit to the United States. The Israeli Defense Forces targeted Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a "precise strike" Friday on the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut, Lebanon. IDF spokesperson Rear admiral Daniel Hagari said the headquarters were intentionally built in the heart of the Dahieh in Beirut under residential buildings "as part of Hezbollah's strategy of using Lebanese people as human shields." At least two people were killed and dozens were wounded, Lebanons health ministry said. Video and images show plumes of smoke rising over Beirut following the Israeli strikes. Witnesses say they heard multiple strikes. Israel-hezbollah War: Netanyahu 'Did Not Even Respond' To Us Cease-fire Deal, Pledges To Fight 'Full Force' Fox News has learned the target of the attack was Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. A Hezbollah media relations official says Nasrallah is "fine and well" and was not at the location targeted in the IDF airstrikes. Read On The Fox News App Hezbollah's al-Manar television reported that four buildings were destroyed and there were many casualties in the multiple strikes, which marked an escalation of Israel's conflict with the heavily armed, Iran-backed Hezbollah. Security sources in Lebanon said the attack targeted an area where top Hezbollah officials are usually based. It was the heaviest attack in Beirut in almost a year of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. How A Us-backed Un Resolution Failed To Stop Hezbollah Terror Takeover: 'Bipartisan Failure' "On Oct. 8, Hezbollah started attacking Israel after almost a year of Hezbollah firing rockets, missiles and suicide drones at Israeli civilians," Hagari said. "After almost a year of Israel warning the world and telling them that Hezbollah must be stopped, Israel is doing what every sovereign state in the world would do if they had a terror organization that seeks their destruction on their border, taking the necessary action to protect our people so that Israeli families can leave their homes safely and securely." Fox News has learned the target of the attack was Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, pictured in a televised speech in January. Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh says the U.S. was not involved in this operation and had no advance warning. "Minister [Yoav] Gallant spoke with Secretary Austin as the operation was already underway," Singh said. "This operation has happened within the last few hours. We are still assessing the event." The Pentagon also declined to speculate on whether the Hezbollah leader was still alive. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approving the strikes on Friday from a hotel in New York. A White House official says that President Biden has been briefed on the operation. The strikes hit Beirut shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue Israel's attacks on Iranian-backed fighters in Lebanon in a closely watched United Nations speech, as hopes faded for a cease-fire that could head off an all-out regional war. Netanyahu will cut short his stay in the U.S. and will depart for Israel Friday, Fox News sources say. This is understood to be a rare move by an Israeli prime minister, as Shabbat is a day of rest for Jews. WATCH: SMOKE FROM STRIKE RISES OVER BEIRUT The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has drastically escalated over the last month as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has begun targeting the terrorist network's hot spots and military storage units, all of which are strategically embedded within civilian villages. Reuters contributed to this report. Original article source: Israel targets Hezbollah leader Nasrallah in strike on Beirut headquarters Rubble and destruction caused by an Israeli air strike is pictured in a neighbourhood in the village of Saksakieh, south of Lebanese-Israeli border. Tens of thousands of people fled southern Lebanon as Israel continues to pound Hezbollah targets with an aerial offensive. Str-/dpa Fighting between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia continued on Thursday, with hundreds killed and tens of thousands of people displaced in Lebanon since Israel began its massive bombardment four days ago. Following months of cross-border skirmishes between Israeli forces and the Iran-backed militia, which says it acts out of solidarity with Hamas in Gaza, Israel began an intense aerial campaign to strike Hezbollah targets on Monday - with the region now on the brink of all-out war. International efforts are under way to negotiate a ceasefire, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied any plan had been agreed to and vowed to keep hitting Hezbollah with "full force." At least 92 people died and more than 150 people were injured in Lebanon on Thursday from Israeli attacks, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said. More than 600 people have been killed this week, according to the Lebanese authorities. Among them are more than 100 Syrian refugees, according to human rights activists. A total of 70,100 displaced people are currently registered in 533 emergency centres, Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said attacks would continue despite calls for a ceasefire and that he had "approved the next set of operations." "We continue to eliminate Hezbollah terrorists, dismantle offensive infrastructure, and destroy rockets and missiles," he posted on X. Israel: Hezbollah's drone chief killed The Israeli military said an airstrike near Beirut killed a senior Hezbollah commander who was responsible for the group's drone fleet. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said air unit commander Muhammad Hussain Sarur was killed in the targeted attack. Hezbollah confirmed the commander's death late on Thursday. A witness said the third floor of an 11-story building was hit in the Jamous neighbourhood to the south of Beirut, an area considered a Hezbollah stronghold. Lebanon's Health Ministry said at least two people were killed and 15 wounded in the bombing. The strike took place close to where a high-ranking Hezbollah military commander, Ibrahim Akil, was killed last week. Southern Lebanon and northern Israel under fire The Israeli army was also continuing its airstrikes in the south and east of Lebanon with the military saying the air force had hit around 220 Hezbollah militia targets, including weapons depots and rocket launching pads. Hezbollah said it launched 80 rockets at the Israeli city of Safed and another 50 at the town of Ahihud, as well as military sites in northern Israel. Since Thursday morning, the Israeli army said that some 170 rockets had been launched from Lebanon, with some of the impacts reportedly causing fires to break out around Safed. Israeli attacks Syria targets for first time this week Israel has also attacked infrastructure used by Hezbollah along the Lebanese-Syrian border, specifically routes used by Hezbollah to bring weapons to Lebanon via Syria, according to the army. Four border crossings have been hit since Israel intensified its attacks in Lebanon on Monday, Lebanese security sources said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has been documenting violence in Syria since 2011, said Israeli fighter jets attacked a border crossing in the area around the Syrian town of al-Qusayr, near the border with Lebanon. The war monitor said several people were injured. It is the first Israeli attack on Syrian territory since Monday, the observatory said. According to the war monitor, Hezbollah tried to use the border crossings to bring more fighters from Yemen and Iraq into the country. They were supposed to come in the country to support the Shiite militia in the event of a feared ground offensive by the Israeli military, it said. As a result of the Israeli attacks in Lebanon, around 13,500 people have fled to Syria since Monday, most of them Syrian citizens, according to the Lebanese Interior Ministry. An estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees live in Lebanon. Netanyahu denies report of imminent ceasefire While a group of countries led by the US and France is working to secure a deal for a 21-day ceasefire between the two sides, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a report he has given the green light for the plan. "The report about a ceasefire is incorrect," a statement from Netanyahu's office said. "This is an American-French proposal that the prime minister has not even responded to." A report by broadcaster N12 that Netanyahu had instructed the army to reduce attacks in the northern neighbouring country was also "the opposite of the truth," his office said. "The prime minister has directed the IDF to continue fighting with full force, according to the plan that was presented to him." A joint demand for a ceasefire lasting 21 days was earlier issued by a handful of countries, including the US, Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. The demand had been coordinated with Israel, according to the US government. White House spokesman John Kirby said the statement "wasn't just drawn up in a vacuum." It was done after careful consultation, Kirby said, "not only with the countries that signed on to it, but Israel itself." The pause is intended to create space for a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as the nearly year-long Gaza war. A fire erupts in a forest following a rocket hit from Lebanon on Safed. Ilia Yefimovich/dpa A view of a damaged building following a rocket from Lebanon hit a house in Safed. Ilia Yefimovich/dpa How Israel went after Hezbollahs chain of command and why it matters Hassan Nasrallah had not been seen in public for years as he feared assassination by Israel As huge air strikes levelled at least six buildings in the southern suburbs of Beirut, it became clear that Israel was targeting Hezbollahs headquarters. Not long after the smoke and dust had cleared, the IDF confirmed that they had assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, the groups leader. The attack came after a week of some of the most extensive bombings of the 21st century, globally, in what Israel has dubbed Operation Northern Arrows - a campaign against Irans most formidable regional proxy. But the lead-up to Fridays attack was paved by a series of preliminary strikes to decapitate Hezbollahs military leadership, cripple its subaltern class, destroy its ability to communicate meaningfully and spread panic through its ranks. The synchronised sabotage of the groups pagers last week caught the worlds attention, but by then Israeli forces had already embarked on an assassination operation to eliminate as many of Hezbollahs high command as possible. The first significant blow was struck in the summer when Fuad Shukr, the movements overall military leader, died in an air strike on southern Beirut, a stronghold of the terrorist group. Arguably a more devastating strike came in September in another attack on the Lebanese capital that killed some 16 commanders of the Radwan Brigade, Hezbollahs elite special forces unit, including Ibrahim Aqil, the overall leader of the unit. But the most consequential strike, without question, hit on Friday afternoon. As well as the leader of an Iranian proxy group, Hassan Nasrallah had become a key adviser to Irans Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He helped shape Irans proxy network, along with former leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in 2020. Over its four-decade history, Hezbollah has weathered a series of top-level assassinations. Abbas al-Musawi, Nasrallahs predecessor and the movements co-founder, who was killed along with his family when Israeli helicopters fired missiles at his motorcade in southern Lebanon in 1992, is one example. But never have the killings come in such quick succession, notes Lina Khatib, an associate at the think tank Chatham House. I dont think Hezbollah will be able to recover from this historic loss. Its not going to be something seen in the near future, but the long-term implications of the damage that has been done to Hezbollah will, I think, be irreversible, said Ms Khatib.. One senior Israeli intelligence source, who has been in the service for 30 years, said the recent wave of assassinations escalations had opened the door to targeting Hezbollahs leader. In the past, Israel has avoided assassinating Nasrallah, because its almost like assassinating the head of a state, and Israel usually shies away from doing things like that. But now its a different ball game, the source said before Fridays attack on the headquarters in Beirut. How Israel did it Hezbollahs senior military leaders are so secretive that they are known within the movement as untraceable ghosts yet Israel seems to know exactly when and where they are meeting and how to strike them at will. It is clear that the movement is heavily infiltrated, believes Hilal Khashan, a Hezbollah expert at the American University of Beirut. It is not just a question of infiltration by Israel it is a question of infestation, he says. Once a small, tight-knit organisation, Hezbollah has rapidly expanded over the past decade after it sent fighters to participate in the Syrian civil war in support of Bashar al-Assad, the countrys president and a Hezbollah ally. The larger an organisation, the more exposed it is to espionage, notes Mr Khashan. A deep financial crisis in Lebanon, among the worst in world history for 150 years, has also opened the door to financial inducement within the movement, he adds. Poverty in Lebanon became a breeding ground for spies to act on behalf of Israel, Mr Khashan said. This is how Israel went after Hezbollahs chain of command. Southern commanders At 10.15am on Jan 8 this year, an Israeli drone hit a small car as it travelled through the Lebanese village of Majdal Selm in the south of the country, about 16 miles from the border with Israel. The assassination of Wissam al-Tawil was the highest profile since the conflict began following the Oct 7 attacks, and at the time raised fears of a major escalation. It came only two weeks after Israel had already taken out a top Hamas leader with an airstrike in Beirut, and marked a turning point for Israel beginning to shift focus north - where Hezbollah rockets had been raining down on Israel for months - after heavy fighting on the ground in Gaza. Footage from the scene showed a vehicle charred grey, pockmarked with tiny holes likely from shrapnel, the result of a precision attack with limited collateral damage. Months passed until Israel would choose its next target: Talib Sami Abdullah. The exact circumstances of his death were unclear but he appeared to also have been targeted by a drone strike in the rural south. The killing was significant in decapitating the central unit of the south, facing Israel, where countless rockets had forced so many to flee their homes. Shifting north The next to fall was the head of the adjacent southwestern unit. This time, a drone struck a vehicle in Tyre, Lebanons fourth largest city, a gateway between north and south that juts out into the Mediterranean. Footage from the scene shows a vehicle burning between two modern apartment blocks in a built-up area, a sign Israelis were tracking movement from rural strongholds to the relative safety of urban areas, where the risks for Israel to attack were greater. But little could have prepared Hezbollah for what came next: an air strike in the middle of the sprawling capital of Beirut. At the end of the month, an apartment block was severed likely by a missile likely fired by a F-15, F-16 or F-35 jet killing Shukr, a founding member of Hezbollahs armed wing ostensibly in retaliation for a rocket attack that killed 12 children in Israeli-occupied Golan a week earlier. Experts disagreed on whether the huge blast site and collapsed building was the result of weapons hidden in the building or secondary explosions triggered by utilities. Beirut In September, Israel stepped up its targeting of Hezbollah with a wave of suspected sabotage attacks that led to pagers and walkie-talkies exploding. Analysts believed Mossad was trying to soften Hezbollah for further attacks. A large IDF air strike followed days later on a residential street in Beirut. Footage showed rubble and wreckage where two more top commanders had been killed. Experts said the shop fronts blown out in the blast were significant. Israeli intelligence believes that Hezbollah uses phone and electronics shops underneath civilian homes for weapons storage and safe houses. Another air strike followed a few days later but failed to kill its target, Ali Karaki, with an attack on what looked to be a basement of a separate residential block. Karaki had survived a previous assassination attempt too, exposing flaws in Israels precision targeting. All the strikes in Beirut were in the Shia southern suburbs, which are under Hezbollah control, known as Dahieh or Dahiyeh. Sabotage Some of the assassinations may have been helped by the suspected Mossad explosives planted in pagers and walkie-talkies of Hezbollah fighters earlier this month. While the explosives maimed and killed many, they also crippled communications, limiting the groups bandwidth to talk to each other, and narrowing the options, giving Israel a greater chance to intercept vital messages. They are on the move all the time so if we know that one week ago, Israel managed to breach the communications system of Hezbollah then maybe they still have the ability to track them, Ronen Solomon, an Israeli intelligence analyst, said. For Hezbollah to change all their communications is a huge logistical operation so they will still be depending on the communications theyre left with. The Israeli military said on Saturday that it had killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah. A devastating round of airstrikes on Friday evening targeted what Israel said was Hezbollahs secret underground headquarters. The Israeli military said Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, was killed in the attack. Hezbollah has yet to comment publicly on whether its leader has survived unscathed, with sources initially offering contradictory information itself an indication of the turmoil within the group. The strikes have also killed Ali Karaki, commander of Hezbollahs southern front, IDF said. Hezbollah crippled The decapitation strikes are, of course, only a single, if important, element in Israels strategy of countering Hezbollah and fulfilling its war objective of allowing 60,000 residents to return to their homes in the north of the country. The assassinations would probably not be enough in themselves to deter Hezbollah from firing rockets into northern Israel, which it has been doing in support of Hamas following the start of Israels operation in Gaza last October. There are still a large number of commanders playing important roles who have not been killed, while the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which forms a part of Hezbollahs command chain, will help replenish the supply of military leaders, notes Ms Khatib. Top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr (L) was killed by Israel in July. - HEZBOLLAH MILITARY MEDIA OFFICE/AFP via Getty Images But taken together with the other elements of the Israeli assault, the future of the movement is looking more uncertain than ever before. Although Hezbollah right now is far from crumbling, I think it is facing the greatest challenge in its history, she said. For a start, Hezbollah will not just be paranoid about spies in its ranks, it will also have lost faith in any form of technology to communicate. Co-ordinating a missile response to Israeli air strikes or even organising basic logistics is made much more complicated if the only way of communicating is through verbal messaging. Writing off Hezbollah would certainly be premature. It still has a large arsenal of long-range guided missiles that, if fired in sufficient quantity, could overwhelm Israels Iron Dome anti-missile system which has so far managed to intercept much of the low-grade rocket fire aimed in its direction. Striking back Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets into Israel in the past week, most have been aimed away from population centres, with only a single missile being aimed at Tel Aviv, which was easily intercepted. The big question is whether Hezbollah will not fire its rockets or whether, because its capability has been so eroded, it cannot. Iran, Hezbollahs paymasters, may be preventing the group from firing its more sophisticated missiles, which it views as an insurance in the event of Israeli strikes on its nuclear facilities. Meanwhile, those close to Hezbollah say it has chosen not to escalate because its leaders believe that is what Israel wants them to do. It [Israel] is looking to provoke Iran and Hezbollah into an escalation that would allow it to appeal for American intervention. Hezbollah does not wish to walk into that trap, says Kassem Kassir, a Lebanese commentator close to Hezbollah. Yet arguments that Hezbollah is no longer able to escalate even if it wished to are increasingly being advanced by experts. The top-level assassinations aside, the pager and walkie-talkie attacks killed, maimed or otherwise incapacitated so many seasoned senior and mid-level operatives that Hezbollah has seen its military capability to conduct a war greatly reduced, according to some analysts. One Hezbollah source admitted some 1,500 fighters had lost eyesight or limbs. Those considered worthy of carrying a pager have mostly been eliminated, meaning that those people running many of Hezbollahs operations right now are young and inexperienced, said Mr Khashan, of the American University of Beirut. The Nasrallah question The past week has unquestionably humiliated Hezbollah, but it is also possible that the movement has been irreparably damaged and that even if it rebuilds it will be a shadow of its former self. I dont think Hezbollah will be able to recover from this historic loss. Its not going to be something seen in the near future, but the long-term implications of the damage that has been done to Hezbollah will, I think, be irreversible, said Ms Khatib. Nasrallah was arguably a symbolic target - undoubtedly the voice and face of Hezbollah, but also a figurehead. Major political and military decisions were taken by executives who answered ultimately to Iran rather than to Nasrallah. The killing of Nasrallahs predecessor by Israeli helicopter gunships in 1992 also shows that killing a leader does not necessarily mean crippling the movement he led. There are exceptions, however. The killing of Osama bin Laden led to the decline of the original al-Qaeda organisations, even though some of its franchises remain potent in regional settings. The same could be true for Hezbollah, reckons Hilal Khashan. Nasrallah is a symbol for Lebanese Shiites and if Israel wants to put an end to the phenomenon of Hezbollah then they need to eliminate the symbol of the party, the Hezbollah expert told the Telegraph, before Nasrallah was killed. 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. When pagers exploded across Lebanon last week, the year-long war with Hezbollah was not at the top of the Israeli political agenda. Instead, the political class was convulsed with speculation that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and replace him with a military neophyte, Gideon Saar, to shore up his domestic power. National security heavyweights were scathing. Itll take him months on end to train for the job, said Gadi Eisenkot, a highly respected former Israeli military chief and member of the opposition. The pager and subsequent walkie-talkie explosions which together killed dozens, maimed thousands, and rattled Lebanese nerves put paid to that scheme, for now. The suddenly heightened tensions with Hezbollah gave Gallant a lifeline. Reports in the Israeli press suggest that the stay on Gallants dismissal is only temporary, and that Netanyahu still intends to fire him. Policy and domestic politics are impossible to separate in any democracy, but especially in Netanyahus Israel and especially now. Political imperatives The Israeli government says it needed to ramp up the war with Hezbollah to return 60,000 displaced civilians to their homes in northern Israel. Since the day after the October 7 attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah has been firing on Israel in solidarity with the militant group and Palestinians in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands have also been forced from their homes by Israeli bombardment in Lebanon. Returning the northern residents home is a political imperative in Israel. And since the cabinet formally added the goal to its war aims, its a policy one too. But the heightened war with Hezbollah also stands in the way of Netanyahus desire to fire Gallant. Remarkably, Netanyahu held a security consultation on Wednesday but did not invite his defense minister, an Israeli official told CNN. Instead, he brought in Itamar Ben-Gvir, his national security minister who carries a conviction for inciting terrorism. Despite repeated pleas, Ben Gvir has hitherto been excluded from war decision-making. Just this week, after giving the green light to a US-backed mediation effort with Lebanon, the prime minister faced withering criticism from his right-wing allies, who say only a military conflict will remove Hezbollah from the border. Ben Gvirs party held an urgent consultation implicitly threatening to upend the coalition. The criticism forced Netanyahu to release a statement rejecting the idea of an imminent ceasefire. When he later put out another statement saying that he was engaging in the process with the United States, he only released it in English, not Hebrew. The escalation of the conflict with Hezbollah has forced Netanyahu, left, to press pause on his plans to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, right, with whom he has long-standing differences. - Abir Sultan/Reuters In attacking Hezbollah, the Israeli government is trying to decouple Lebanon from Gaza. Hezbollah says that its attacking Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza; Israel wants to get Hezbollah to stop firing even without a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal. And yet there is a widespread assumption among the national security class in Israel that Netanyahu is prolonging the war in Gaza because he knows that as soon as it is over, he will face enormous pressure to call an election. The families of the 101 people still held hostage in Gaza regularly accuse the prime minister of playing for time and putting his political survival above the national interest. I think its mostly political, Eyal Hulata, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former national security adviser to the Israeli prime minister, told CNN of the failure to agree a ceasefire in Gaza. The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) and the minister of defense have been clear that they feel that the situation in Gaza could allow for the hostage deal, and that they support the hostage deal. If Netanyahu wanted to end it, he could. So I guess thats not his intention at this point. Long-running tensions The prime minister and Gallant have long had strained relations, despite a period of unity following Hamas October 7 attack. The two have often disagreed over the war in Gaza. In August, Gallant told a closed-door Knesset committee that Netanyahus goal of absolute victory in Gaza was nonsense, according to Israeli media. Netanyahu took the extraordinary step of releasing a press statement accusing Gallant of adopting an anti-Israel narrative. Gallant was also highly critical of Netanyahus emphasis on Israeli control of a strip of territory along the Gaza-Egypt border, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, calling it a moral disgrace. In cabinet, he voted against continued occupation there, seeing it as a hinderance to a ceasefire and hostage deal. If we want the hostages alive, we dont have time, he said. With both the Philadelphi Corridor and Hezbollah, Netanyahus critics have questioned why, if they were so critical, he waited months to raise the stakes over those issues. Netanyahu has said in response that it was a progression of military advancement. Israel is aiming to 'decouple' Lebanon from Gaza, while Hezbollah has vowed to continue striking across the border as long as the Israeli war on Hamas continues. - Baz Ratner/AP Tension between Netanyahu and Gallant is very long, and its also personal, Gilad Malach, a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute, told CNN. But above all, Netanyahu wants to keep his coalition. Indeed, when the prime minister previously attempted to dismiss Gallant, in March last year, it was over the defense ministers opposition to Netanyahus proposed judicial overhaul an issue that had the potential to bring down the government. The idea that Gallant might be fired over the judicial reforms led immediately to mass protests that came to be known in Israel as the Night of Gallant. Ultimately, Netanyahu did not follow through. One of the factors weighing on Netanyahu in his hesitance to fire him now has been fear of a second such night. The exemption question Behind the headlines of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, Netanyahus ability to govern has long been threatened by a seemingly back-burner issue: the Israeli militarys recruitment of ultra-Orthodox Israelis, known in Hebrew as Haredim. The danger to the coalition connected to the draft law for the Haredim is very high, Malach said. So (Netanyahu) would do the things that will help him keep the coalition. And if Gallant is in his way to keep the coalition, he will do whatever he can to remove him from the office. The issue of ultra-Orthodox military service has long plagued Israel. Ultra-Orthodox Jews had since Israels founding been exempt from mandatory service, because they viewed Torah study as the highest calling. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court said that the exemption violated equal protection principles and mandated the IDF to start drafting. Ever since, the ultra-Orthodox parties on whom Netanyahu relies to govern have been trying to draft legislation to enshrine a new exemption in law. Up until now, they have been notably unwilling to follow through on threats to leave the coalition rarely have they had so much power. But their unhappiness with the IDFs current mandate to recruit ultra-Orthodox men remains a sword of Damocles. Gallant is a thorn in Netanyahus side, pushing him not to give in to the ultra-Orthodox desire for an exemption. He, like many military leaders, thinks that all Jewish Israelis should share the burden of military service and has said he wont support any law that doesnt have broad political support. Saar, whom Netanyahu wanted to replace Gallant, was said to have much better relations with the ultra-Orthodox parties. The issue of military exemption poses a threat to the coalition with ultra-Orthodox parties led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, pictured here, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. - Ammar Awad/Reuters Eisenkot, the former IDF chief of the General Staff, said the ultra-Orthodox issue was central to Netanyahus desire to get rid of the defense minister. Firing Gallant and Im not a fan of Gallant is meant to serve political needs, to pass the conscription law, consequently damaging the IDF, he said. This is more of Netanyahus cynical policy. With Netanyahus backing, the ultra-Orthodox parties hope to pass a military exemption when the Knesset returns following the Jewish High Holidays in October. Even if the law passes, the Supreme Court is almost certain to knock it down, Malach said. But the point is that you are getting time. And this is the most important thing for Netanyahu, he said. The short term is the whole term for him. Because until the Supreme Court will decide, he will get one year, two years thats enough. That short-term strategy may well come to apply to Hezbollah as well. Amid all the talk of whether Israel will invade Lebanon in the coming days, there is no discussion of what a long-term settlement with Israels neighbor might look like. Michael Shemesh, a correspondent for Israeli broadcaster Kan traveling with Netanyahu to New York this week, said that reporters asked an aide to the prime minister about the potential that Gallant might be fired. We dont do politics during wartime, the aide replied. There were reporters who couldnt help but laugh, Shemesh said. Dana Karni contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Netanyahu, at UN, vows that Israel will keep 'degrading Hezbollah' until its objectives are met UNITED NATIONS (AP) Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu signaled to the world from the United Nations on Friday that the multiple conflicts in the Middle East were far from resolved, and he vowed to continue battling the Lebanese Hezbollah and defeat Hamas in the Gaza Strip until total victory." Shortly after the prime minister spoke, blasts rocked the Lebanese capital Beirut and the Israeli military said it had struck Hezbollah's headquarters. The attack appeared to target Hezbollahs leader and prompted Netanyahu to cut short his trip to New York by a day and make unusual travel on the Jewish Sabbath to get home. Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safely. And thats exactly what were doing, Netanyahu said, eliciting applause from supporters in the gallery of the General Assembly. Well continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met, he said. When Netanyahu entered the hall and was introduced, boos and raised voices echoed, and many delegates walked out through various exits. Netanyahu spoke as international mediation efforts were underway to try to rein in the escalating conflict in Lebanon, where Israel has been striking Hezbollah targets intensively for the past week, sending the death toll in Lebanon soaring into the hundreds and raising fears that the conflict could spiral into all-out war. Late Wednesday, the United States, France and other allies jointly called for an immediate 21-day cease-fire to allow for negotiations. Israel said Thursday that discussions were ongoing and Hezbollah hasnt officially responded to the cease-fire proposal, but has said it won't stop firing until the Gaza war ends. Hezbollah began striking Israel a day after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack in an act of solidarity with the Palestinians. The sides have exchanged relatively low-level fire since then on almost a daily basis, volleys that intensified sharply after a wave of exploding communication devices targeted Hezbollah operatives - an attack widely blamed on Israel. The fighting has displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the border. Netanyahu defends Israels responses Netanyahu has faced increasing pressure from within his own government and from Israelis displaced by the fighting to deal Hezbollah a heavy blow. Recent strikes have targeted the group's senior leadership. Just imagine if terrorists turned El Paso and San Diego into ghost towns ... How long would the American government tolerate that? he said, shaking his fist in emphasis. Yet Israel has been tolerating this intolerable situation for almost a year. Well, Ive come here today to say: Enough is enough. Netanyahu pointed a finger at Iran for being a destabilizing force in the region, noting its support for both Hamas and Hezbollah. He warned Tehran that if you strike us, we will strike you. As he spoke, the seats in the Iran delegation sat empty. Outside, protesters against Netanyahu and Israels policies demonstrated behind police barricades. Armed with visual aids as he has been in the past, the prime minister defended his nations response to Hamas' attack on Israel that triggered the war that has devastated the Gaza Strip. He said Israel had destroyed much of Hamas' rocket arsenal, killed or captured half of its fighting force and dismantled many of its underground tunnels. He said Israel was focused on mopping up Hamas remaining fighting capabilities. But the war in Gaza will soon stretch into its second year with still no end in sight. Multiple attempts at bringing about a cease-fire have stalled over Hamas' demand that Israel withdraw all troops and end the war, and over Israel's insistence on maintaining a presence in some areas. All the while, civilians have borne a staggering toll in the continuing violence; roughly 100 hostages remain captive in Gaza. Israels campaign in Gaza has killed more than 41,500 Palestinians and wounded more than 96,000 others, according to the latest figures released Thursday by the Health Ministry. The ministry, part of Gazas Hamas government, doesnt differentiate between civilians and combatants, but more than half the dead have been women and children, including about 1,300 children under the age of 2. Israel has maintained its military operations are justified and are necessary to defend itself. This war can come to an end now. All that has to happen is for Hamas to surrender, lay down its arms and release all the hostages, Netanyahu said. But if they dont if they dont we will fight until we achieve total victory. Total victory. There is no substitute for it. His speech impacted the rest of the General Assembly In an address steeped in talk of conflict, Netanyahu also made a lengthy appeal for Israeli relations with Saudi Arabia, echoing the content of his speech last year, when efforts toward that goal were underway. But the U.S.-backed normalization talks were derailed by Hamas' attacks, which refocused a spotlight on Israel's conflict with the Palestinians, casting doubt on Netanyahu's argument that ties with Saudi Arabia are not contingent on Palestinian statehood. As Netanyahu took the stage Friday morning, there was enough ruckus in the audience that the presiding diplomat had to shout, Order, please. The two speakers who preceded Netanyahu on Friday each made a point of calling out Israel for its actions. Mr. Netanyahu, stop this war now, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said as he closed his remarks, pounding the podium. And Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, speaking just before the Israeli leader, declared of Gaza: This is not just a conflict. This is systematic slaughter of innocent people of Palestine." He thumped the rostrum to audible applause. It wasn't just Friday, either. On Thursday, the leader of the Palestinian Authority and a top Lebanese official both made their cases to fellow leaders cases that included harsh words for Israel as well. Mahmoud Abbas' first words to the General Assembly were a sentence repeated three times in reference to Gaza: We will not leave. We will not leave. We will not leave. He accused Israel of destroying Gaza and making it unlivable. And Abdallah Bouhabib, Lebanon's foreign minister, decried Israel's systematic destruction of Lebanese border villages. The crisis in Lebanon threatens the entire Middle East, Bouhabib said. We wish today to reiterate our call for a cease-fire on all fronts. At the General Assembly late Friday evening, Iran exercised its right of reply at the end of the day's regular speeches and denounced Israel as the exclusive source of insecurity and instability in the region and beyond. What you heard here today from the notorious Israeli prime minister was nothing but an unsuccessful attempt to distract attention from his genocide and brutal war crimes, said an Iranian diplomat whose name was not immediately available. He addressed the General Assembly in English. ___ See more of APs coverage of the U.N. General Assembly at https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (R) welcomes Sergio Mattarella (L), President of Italy, during his visit to the Federal Chancellery. Fabian Sommer/dpa Italian President Sergio Mattarella on Friday warned against the growing lure of populism in Europe during his three-day state visit to Germany. Asked about the successes of right-wing parties in EU member states, Mattarella said that some were making the deceptive promise of returning to a 'golden age' of 50 or 60 years ago. "The world is changing dramatically," he said. Large migration flows are unsettling many people, added Mattarella, who called for constructive solutions to be found. In the morning, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his wife Elke Budenbender received the Italian president and his daughter Laura Mattarella with military honours at Bellevue Palace, the president's official residence in Berlin. Steinmeier and his Italian counterpart are close friends. Mattarella is regarded as one of the founding fathers of the Italian Democratic Party (Partito Democratico). In the political spectrum, he is far removed from Italy's ultra-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d'Italia) party. At a press conference, Steinmeier said that the topic of democracy had been emphasized in their joint talks. He also warned of the dangers to democracy. "With growing concern ... we are seeing polarization tendencies in all our societies," said Steinmeier, referring to the results of recent elections. It was important to regain the trust of the population, he stressed. Mattarella and his daughter landed in Berlin on Thursday. On Friday evening, Mattarella was to meet with Chancellor Olaf Scholz for discussions about discuss bilateral and European issues, according to the Chancellery in Berlin. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (R) welcomes Sergio Mattarella (L), President of Italy, during his visit to the Federal Chancellery. Fabian Sommer/dpa German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (R) welcomes Sergio Mattarella (L), President of Italy, during his visit to the Federal Chancellery. Fabian Sommer/dpa Kai Wegner (R), Governing Mayor of Berlin, welcomes Sergio Mattarella (L), President of Italy, and his daughter Laura Mattarella on Pariser Platz in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa Italian President Sergio Mattarella on Friday warned against the growing lure of populism in Europe during his three-day state visit to Germany. Asked about the successes of right-wing parties in EU member states, Mattarella said that some were making the deceptive promise of returning to a 'golden age' of 50 or 60 years ago. "The world is changing dramatically," he said. Large migration flows are unsettling many people, added Mattarella, who called for constructive solutions to be found. In the morning, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his wife Elke Budenbender received the Italian president and his daughter Laura Mattarella with military honours at Bellevue Palace, the president's official residence in Berlin. Steinmeier and his Italian counterpart are close friends. Mattarella is regarded as one of the founding fathers of the Italian Democratic Party (Partito Democratico). In the political spectrum, he is far removed from Italy's ultra-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d'Italia) party. At a press conference, Steinmeier said that the topic of democracy had been emphasized in their joint talks. He also warned of the dangers to democracy. "With growing concern ... we are seeing polarization tendencies in all our societies," said Steinmeier, referring to the results of recent elections. It was important to regain the trust of the population, he stressed. Mattarella and his daughter landed in Berlin on Thursday. On Friday evening, Mattarella was to meet with Chancellor Olaf Scholz for discussions about discuss bilateral and European issues, according to the Chancellery in Berlin. On Saturday, the state guests are due to fly to Bonn and Cologne with Steinmeier and his wife. According to the Steinmeier's office, topics to be discussed there will include climate change. Finally, the two presidents will travel together on Sunday to Italy, where they plan to attend a commemorative event in Bologna to mark the 80th anniversary of the Marzabotto massacre. The massacre is considered one of the most serious war crimes committed by German soldiers in Italy during the Second World War. Kai Wegner (R), Governing Mayor of Berlin, welcomes Sergio Mattarella (L), President of Italy, and his daughter Laura Mattarella (hidden) on Pariser Platz in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa Sergio Mattarella, President of Italy, arrives at the Federal Chancellery for a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Fabian Sommer/dpa J.D. Vance has a long history of telling the truth about Donald Trump, which is proving awfully inconvenient now that Vances chief public role as Trumps vice presidential running mate is to lie about him and sanewash his most unhinged claims at every conceivable opportunity. The latest example of Vances unfortunate truth-telling? In direct message exchanges from February 2020, Vance flatly declared that he saw Trumps presidency as largely a failure by one of Vances own most important metrics. Trump has just so thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism, Vance said in the exchanges obtained by The Washington Post, while adding a parenthetical about how Trumps policies toward China were a partial exception to that rule. The immediate significance of thisexpect Tim Walz to mention it in passing at next weeks vice presidential debateshould be self-evident. One of Vances key arguments for Trump is that his first presidency was a right-populist success story on behalf of American workers. Yet as that presidency wound down, Vance apparently admitted privately to something very different. But lets not overlook the explanation for this apostasy that Vances spokesman offered to the Post, because it too shines a harsh light on Vances evolution from Trump critic to MAGA devotee. The spokesman insisted that in his messages, Vance was merely criticizing the failure of others during the Trump years, i.e., establishment Republicans who thwarted much of Trumps populist economic agenda. But this tidy excuse is undermined by another Vance message. As the Post notes, Vances claim that Trump had failed to deliver on economic populism came in the context of a discussion about wealthy people running for president in 2020 and whether Trump donors would back one of them instead: Vance said he doubted that Trumps richest donors would abandon him in 2020 because he had continued to serve their interests as president, despite his populist rhetoric. Not sure any of these people feel like they need to switch sides, he wrote. Recall that Trumps single biggest initiative as president was arguably his multitrillion-dollar tax cut for the wealthy and corporations, which made the rich richer without delivering promised trickle-down economic growth or other benefits to workers. Trump enthusiastically championed these tax cuts. That cannot be blamed on establishment Republicans. Vance himself said thencorrectlythat Trump had faithfully served the GOP donor classs interests. The after-the-fact spin from Vances spokesperson is absurd. Then theres another big first-term initiative, Trumps 2017 drive to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Here again Trump was as enthusiastic a proponent of repeal as any Paul Ryan disciple in Congress. And we know that Vance himself viewed this as a sellout of populism. How can we be certain of that? Because at the time, Vance said so. In an interview with the Cleveland Plain Dealer in June 2017, Vance decried the version of Obamacare repeal-and-replace that Republicans were moving through Congress at the time. He faulted its deep cuts to the ACAs Medicaid spending, and explicitly cast this as a betrayal of Trump voters. Trump had been elected because he was a Republican who wasnt saying, Im going to take away your Social Security and your Medicaid, Vance said, allowing Trump to differentiate himself from other Republicans who wouldnt take care of working-class people. That bill would indeed have hurt untold numbers of poor and working-class Trump voters. Yet Trump aggressively pushed for it to passwhile congressional Republicans were a major driver of it, Trump absolutely was, as well. Indeed, you can watch video of Trump celebrating the Houses passage of the plan as thenSpeaker Ryan and other Republicans applauded gleefully (before repeal died in the Senate). That plainly was a betrayal by Vances own lights. Theres no way to pretend now that Trump was stymied by them into committing this sellout. If anything has changed since then, its that along these lines, Trump has only gotten more shameless. Its true that Trump does differ from Ryan-style Republicans in some ways, such as with his promise of more tariffs, which the GOP donor class likely will oppose. But Trump has vowed that in a second term he would make his 2017 tax cuts on the wealthy and corporations permanent, and he has even promised to cut corporate taxes further, which could be a huge giveaway to the biggest, richest corporations in America. Even worse, during this cycle, Trump has literally promised roomfuls of top GOP donors that he will keep their taxes low while soliciting bucketloads of campaign contributions. Let it not be lost that another Vance spokesman, under questioning from New York Times reporters, admitted that Vance supports this corporate taxcutting aspect of Trumps agenda. During his convention speech, Vance tried to package another Trump term as the second coming of Trumpist populism, describing Trump as a leader whos not in the pocket of big business and wont sell out to multinational corporations. Perhaps some reporter might ask the Great Populist Intellectual Vance how this squares with the corrupt gilded-back-room promises to chortling plutocrats that Trump has been making of late. Trump has also renewed his vow to repeal the ACA and replace it with something indeterminate. Here Vance has helped clarify Trumps intentions, suggesting recently that a Trump-Vance presidency would allow insurance companies to segment people into different risk pools, which would probably push many people with preexisting conditions off insurance or cause their premiums to soar. In some respects, this idea is similar to the plan pushed by Trump and the GOP in 2017, as Brian Beutler and Jonathan Cohn helpfully detail. Thats the scheme Vance once described as anathema to right-populism. Its all but certain that as part of this promised repeal push, Trump and a GOP Congress would again target Medicaid for savage cuts. Now, however, Vance is actively helping Trump spin all this as unthreatening, as maximizing choice for regular Americans. Thats the language Ryan-esque Republicans used to sell the previous iteration, only with a more populist gloss: Vance says all this while also pushing the fiction that Trump doesnt want to kick people off the ACA at all. When Vance declared in 2020 that Trump thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism, Vance almost certainly meant it as direct criticism of Trump. Its remarkable that one of Vances primary roles is now to employ his populist cred to bury that historyand to seduce working-class voters into accepting an agenda that promises an even bigger betrayal of that populism than Trump could even attempt the first time around. By Michelle Nichols and Don Durfee NEW YORK (Reuters) -Senior Hezbollah commanders were the target of Israel's strike on the group's central headquarters in Beirut's suburbs on Friday but it was too early to say whether the attack took out its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, a senior Israeli official said on Friday. "I think it's too early to say, but, you know, it's a question of time. Sometimes they hide the fact when we succeed," the official told reporters when asked if the Israeli strike on Friday had killed Nasrallah. The Israeli military said it had targeted Iran-backed Hezbollah's central headquarters in Beirut in an attack that shook the Lebanese capital. Asked how long it might take to determine the fate of Nasrallah, the senior Israeli official said: "Certainly if he's alive, you'll know it very immediately. If he's dead, it may take some time." The official, who was briefing reporters in New York on condition of anonymity, said: "We cannot survive if we don't stop this and reverse it," he said, referring to the threat to Israel from Iran-backed militia in the region. "It's impossible to reverse it without a general war. That was the assumption, a general war with Hezbollah, which, of course, entails the possibility of a broader war with Iran." "The other way to do it was to take him out. That's the only thing. If you take him out, you not only neutralize, possibly neutralize that front, because nothing else will, but you also break a lynchpin. You break a central axis of the axis." Nasrallah became secretary general of Hezbollah in 1992 at just 35, the public face of a once shadowy group founded by Iran's Revolutionary Guards in 1982 to fight Israeli occupation forces. Israel killed his predecessor, Sayyed Abbas al-Musawi, in a helicopter attack. The official defended Israel's action when asked why killing Nasrallah would change the threat from Hezbollah when earlier assassinations of militant leaders had not hobbled their organizations. "I think it's different," the official said. "In many ways he keeps this thing focused, alive and kicking." "Some people are irreplaceable. It happens, some people do not have a substitute. That's one of the cases, there's no question," the official said. "About 10 days ago or two weeks ago, the cabinet made a decision that we cannot have - after a year - Israelis who are basically refugees in their own land," the official said. "So we added a formal war aim to bring our people back, to degrade Hezbollah's power, to be able to push them back from the border, to destroy the infrastructure along the border, to change the balance of forces." "The most important thing that we did was to try to take out about half of the missile and rocket capabilities that he built up over the last 30 years with Iran, and to take it out in a few hours. And we did," the official said. "I can't tell you what will evolve, but I can tell you that this could be a pivot. We don't seek a broader war. In fact, we seek not to have a broader war and Iran has to consider what it does now," the official said. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols and Don Durfee; Editing by Howard Goller) South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley is echoing a Republican effort to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a Maryland case centered on a decade-old ban on certain firearms. An all-Republican coalition, led by Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador and supported by Jackley, 25 other attorneys general, and the leaders of the Arizona and Wisconsin legislatures, petitioned the Supreme Court through an amicus brief submitted on Monday to review Snope v. Brown, a Maryland-based challenge to the state's Firearm Safety Act of 2013. The 2013 Maryland statute prohibits the possession, sale, transfer, purchase and receipt of a variety of "assault weapons." This includes certain AR-15s, one of the most popular rifles enjoyed by American gun owners and a weapon employed in a number of mass shootings in the U.S.; other firearms, like the Barrett .50 caliber rifle and the AK-47, are also included in the ban. The law also placed a 10-round limit on gun magazines. The law was upheld by a majority of federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals judges on Aug. 6. Gun rights groups petitioned for a Supreme Court review on Aug. 21. This ruling is an infringement on our Second Amendment rights, Jackley said in a Thursday press release. Law-abiding citizens have a guaranteed, individual right to firearms, including for sport and self-defense, under the United States Constitution. Maryland plaintiffs, including gun rights groups, previously requested the Supreme Court address the challenge prior to the lower court's ruling in May, but the judicial tribunal declined at the time, according to The Associated Press. The petitioning attorneys general cited their respective state's inability to sell the listed weapons in Maryland; the prohibition against out-of-state citizens using the weapons in Maryland; and Second Amendment protections as the reasons for their interest in the matter. "The Court should reject this latest attempt to give a critical constitutional right second-class status," the attorneys generals wrote in the court filling. "Without correction, the Fourth Circuits decision will muddle the clear Second Amendment standards that this Court has adopted. And its decision will encourage other governments to erode Americans essential right to keep and bear arms." The majority opinion from the Virginia-based appeals court concluded that "military-style" firearms like the AR-15 do not have Second Amendment protections because "they are designed for sustained combat operations that are ill-suited and disproportionate to the need for self-defense." The justices also pointed to nation's historical efforts in regulating certain "exceptionally dangerous weapons," like Bowie knives and metal knuckles. The coalition argued in its brief that the "military-style" firearms are still considered "arms" and thus protected under the Second Amendment. The attorneys general also contended the appeals court's decision lacked context in determining whether certain weapons are "exceptionally dangerous" and also "unusual." "There is no American historical tradition that lets governments ban whatever firearms they deem 'dangerous,'" the attorneys general wrote. Multiple gun rights groups, including the National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Law Center, filed similar petitions on Monday. The states listed in the amicus brief include: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, as well as the Arizona and Wisconsin Legislatures. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and her Wisconsin counterpart, Josh Kaul, both Democrats, are not listed as supporters in the brief. This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Jackley joins all-Republican effort to seek Supreme Court review of Maryland gun ban JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) Jackson police are upgrading their video surveillance gear. The Jackson City Council approved 16 new license plate readers for the Jackson Police Department (JPD). Mississippi utility crews to be educated on AMBER Alert program Jackson Police Chief Joseph Wade said the readers will help crack down on auto thefts across the city. Wade said the new technology will provide an extra set of eyes for JPD. Weve only had two to this whole entire time at the Jackson Police Department, and were looking at purchasing around 15 to 16 of these. Theyre going to be a very strategic locations across the City of Jackson that weve had a high propensity of auto thefts and carjackings, so we can help our citizens. We know that weve got to use technology as a force multiplier, he said. The cameras are expected to roll out in the coming months. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily 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 WJTV. Raleigh voters will pick a new mayor and City Council members this November. All eight council seats, including the mayors, are up for grabs, with all the incumbents except for current Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin seeking another two-year term. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5. Early voting runs from Thursday, Oct. 17, through Saturday, Nov. 2. To help inform voters across the state, this candidate questionnaire is available to be republished by local publications in North Carolina without any cost. Please consider subscribing to The News & Observer to help make this coverage possible. Name: James Bledsoe District/seat: Raleigh City Council, at-large Political party: Unaffiliated Age as of Nov. 5, 2024: 38 Campaign website: electjamesbledsoe.com Current occupation: Explosive Ordinance Clearance Agent, US Army Education: BS Criminal Justice. Currently in school for Cyber Security. Offices Sought/Held: Ran for City Council at-large and district C Please list any notable government or civic involvement. I have championed for better support systems and benefits for first responders and veterans, such as mental health days and additional retirement benefits for police and fire department members. I have supported pro-business initiatives, including deregulating and providing more support for small businesses. Im also a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and the American Legion, I have participated in community service projects and advocated for veterans rights. My broad political support includes endorsements from the Veterans Party NC, Libertarian Party NC, Reform Party NC, Forward Party NC, Constitution Party NC, Wake GOP, Raleigh Republican Club, and endorsements from Andrew Yang and the Independent Veterans of America. Since 2015, I have been active in local politics, state politics, & engaging Veterans to get more involved. Which City Council district do you live in? C What is the top issue facing Raleigh now and how would you address it? Public Safety. Raleigh is seeing human trafficking increases of fivefold (5x) under this current council just in the last two years, accompanied by high numbers of murders and record triple-digit rapes year over year. My goal is to reduce high-expenditure, low-performing line items in the budget and redirect those funds to first responders to remove Raleigh as the worst-paid municipality for first responders in the state. For example, reducing the city managers pay of $358,000 back down to her 2021 salary, so she makes less than Gov. Cooper. I also plan to change the pay scale of first responders to a time-in-grade and time-in-service scale to remove pay issues like pay compression and leapfrogging. Raleigh is 100 officers short according to our 2001 population metric that this council is still using. Unfortunately for this city and council, its 2024, and we need at least 400 more officers to account for our ever-increasing population and growing crime. When you call 911, theres a good chance that youre going to be told to wait because officers just are not available. Members of this council have been on for five years; they know about these problems but refuse to solve them, or even mention them, until election season. Raleigh must address this issue now. What is your strategy for increasing affordable housing in Raleigh? My strategy for increasing affordable housing in Raleigh focuses on reducing regulatory barriers and streamlining permitting and zoning processes. By eliminating unnecessary regulations and speeding up the approval process for new housing developments, we can encourage more private-sector investment and increase the housing supply. This includes revising zoning laws to allow for higher-density housing and mixed-use developments, and implementing a more efficient permitting process. Additionally, I propose restructuring the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) to remove height restrictions and allow for diverse housing options such as duplexes, triplexes, cottage courts, slim/micro homes, modular (connex) homes and tiny apartments. Reducing minimum lot sizes and parking requirements can also encourage developers to create more affordable housing options. Furthermore, I aim to preserve Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing (NOAH) by implementing a Right of First Refusal policy, which would give the city or designated nonprofit organizations the opportunity to purchase NOAH properties when they go up for sale. This helps prevent displacement of current residents and maintains existing affordable housing. By focusing on these strategies, I aim to create a more affordable and inclusive housing market in Raleigh, ensuring that all residents have access to safe and affordable housing. Should the city be more aggressive about requiring affording units from developers or partner with nonprofits? Lets call affordable housing what it is, taxpayer-subsidized housing. My plan does not support increasing subsidized housing at taxpayers expense. Instead, I believe we should focus on streamlining housing construction processes to make it easier and more cost-effective for developers to build new homes at less cost and time instead of having to spend months or years in front of council asking please Please let us build more homes. That stalls building construction and drives up the cost of homes. By reducing bureaucratic hurdles and simplifying the permitting process, we can encourage more private-sector investment in housing, which will naturally increase the supply and help lower prices. Additionally, I advocate for soft infill and building laterally to address our housing needs without contributing to urban sprawl. Soft infill involves utilizing underused land within existing urban areas to create new housing opportunities, which helps maintain the character of our neighborhoods while increasing density. Building laterally, rather than expanding outward, ensures that we make the most efficient use of our available land and infrastructure. This approach not only preserves green spaces but also promotes sustainable growth and development in Raleigh. Do you think Raleigh can support concert venues both downtown and in Dix Park? Red Hat needs to stay in place, and the street next to it does NOT need to be blocked. Would you describe Raleighs growth as too fast, too slow or just right? I would describe Raleighs growth as fast. Ive seen firsthand how rapid expansion can bring both opportunities and challenges. While its exciting to see new businesses and developments springing up, this fast-paced growth has also put a strain on our infrastructure, public services, and housing market. To manage this growth effectively, we need to focus on sustainable development that benefits all residents. This means streamlining housing construction processes to make it easier and more cost-effective for developers to build new homes. By promoting soft infill and building laterally, we can prevent urban sprawl and make better use of our existing spaces. Additionally, its crucial to invest in our public safety to make sure residents can have access to fast emergency services. Do you think Raleigh is losing too many historic properties? If so, how should this be addressed? We have lost quite a few historic structures and places. Preservation of what we have left is necessary to maintain this segment of Raleigh culture. The News Shigeru Ishiba will become Japans next prime minister after he was elected as the new leader of the countrys ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Friday. He replaces Fumio Kishida, who unexpectedly announced in August that he would not run again, sparking a leadership race within Japans ruling party. Ishiba, a former defense minister who has called for the creation of an Asian NATO, faces a full in-tray: The governing LDP has been rocked by a series of scandals, relations with China are tense, and inflation is at a 30-year high. Ishiba faces big tests at home and abroad, said The Economist. Ishiba has come close to the top job before, including in 2012 when he lost to nationalist Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest-serving leader who was later assassinated (STR) (STR/JIJI PRESS/AFP) Japan's next prime minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday outlined his ideas to reshape the nation's miliary alliance with Washington, after winning the conservative ruling party's leadership race. The seasoned 67-year-old former defence minister beat arch-nationalist Sanae Takaichi -- who would have been the country's first-ever woman leader -- in the final round. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has governed almost uninterrupted for decades and holds a majority, meaning Ishiba will be elected premier by parliament on Tuesday. In a press conference on Friday, Ishiba vowed to restore confidence in the party after a funding scandal and gave a cautious run-down of his key reform pledges. "Japan wants to fulfil our proactive responsibility and start discussions about how to build peace in this region," he said when asked about his proposals for an Asian NATO. It could be a expansion of several existing blocs such as the so-called Quad that groups Japan, the United States, India and Australia, he said. Establishing a military training facility for its troops in the US, as Germany has done, could be an "extremely effective" way to strengthen the bilateral alliance and would allow Japanese forces to "train at their maximum capability". He said he wanted to call a snap election to shore up his mandate "as soon as possible" but declined to say when. - Security challenges - Ishiba had come close to the top job before, including in 2012 when he lost to nationalist Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest-serving leader who was later assassinated. The military model-maker with an affinity for 1970s pop idols says his experience tackling tough issues, such as agriculture reforms, makes him qualified to lead. Recent days and weeks have seen separate incursions into Japanese airspace by Chinese and Russian military planes, as well as North Korean missile tests. "I have worked on national security matters for a long time and I will be committed to protecting Japan's territory," he said. Following the result, China's foreign ministry spokesman said the country wants to improve ties with Japan. "The long-term, sound and steady development of China-Japan relations serves the fundamental interests of the two peoples," he said. South Korea's foreign ministry said the country hopes to "maintain the positive momentum in Japan-South Korea relations". - Yen surges - At home, Ishiba will be tasked with breathing life into the economy, as the central bank moves away from decades of monetary easing that has slashed the value of the yen. Ishiba supports the Bank of Japan's exit from its unorthodox ultra-loose policies, and the Japanese currency surged after Friday's result. He has also pledged to revitalise rural regions and proposes creating a government agency for disaster prevention. In the first round of voting, a record nine candidates were in the running after the LDP's long-powerful factions disbanded this year over the funding scandal. Takaichi, the economic security minister, is a vocal nationalist popular with the LDP's conservative wing. The 63-year-old was close to assassinated ex-premier Abe, whose supporters are still powerful. - 'Courage in his convictions' - LDP leaders are in office for three years and can serve up to three straight terms. Unpopular Prime Minister Fumio Kishida did not run for re-election. "I have a good impression of Ishiba, because he seems to have courage in his convictions," Junko Tominaga, a woman in her 50s, told AFP on the streets of Tokyo. "I just don't want Japan to tilt further to the right under Ishiba in terms of defence." Minoru Kitani, 46, said his "hopes for Ishiba aren't so high". "But I agree with, and support, his belief that Japan needs to be protected better, made stronger and guarded against the threat of other countries," he said. While "a woman prime minister would've been good," a win for Abe's mentee Takaichi would not "have done much to herald a fresh start for Japan". During his term, Kishida has taken steps to double Japan's defence spending, opening the door for military exports as the LDP seeks to revise the pacifist post-war constitution. He welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to a G7 summit in Hiroshima and has strengthened Japan's often testy ties with its neighbour South Korea. But his rule was also tarnished by scandals, voter anger over rising prices and sliding poll ratings. bur-kaf/rsc Raleigh voters will pick a new mayor and City Council members this November. All eight council seats, including the mayors, are up for grabs, with all the incumbents except for current Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin seeking another two-year term. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5. Early voting runs from Thursday, Oct. 17, through Saturday, Nov. 2. To help inform voters across the state, this candidate questionnaire is available to be republished by local publications in North Carolina without any cost. Please consider subscribing to The News & Observer to help make this coverage possible. Name: Jared Ollison District/seat: Raleigh City Council, District C Political party: Democrat Age as of Nov. 5, 2024: 49 Campaign website: JaredOllisonForRaleigh.com Current occupation: Capitol Police officer Education: Masters Degree in Public Policy and Public Administration Offices sought/held: None Please list any notable government or civic involvement. I have served as a law enforcement professional for 30 years, including serving in the US Air Force military police and the Wake County Sheriffs Office. I also served as the director of Detention Services for the Wake County Sheriffs Office. Under my leadership I developed partnerships with community leaders and elected officials to improve services for staff and for jail residents. As a public official it is critical to build consensus and partnerships with all citizens for the betterment of the community. I was honored to be selected to serve on the Wake County Emergency COVID19 task force under the leadership of Wake County Chief Resident Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway. Other involvements include: Wake County Mental Health Committee Worked to improve the availability of county mental health resources .Martin Street Baptist Church lifelong member Raleigh-Wake NAACP Member Shaw University local and national Alumni associations member. Which Raleigh City Council district do you live in? C What is the top issue facing Raleigh now and how would you address it? There are a number of issues impacting the citizens of Raleigh. However, if I had to select the most pressing issue it would be the lack of affordable housing choices citywide. As a member of the City Council, I would work closely with our community partners, including community agencies and developers to develop housing at a sustainable price. What is your strategy for increasing affordable housing in Raleigh? As stated previously, and as a lifelong resident of Raleigh and District C it is unfortunate to find countless instances of citizens who are forced to move to another county so that they can find quality and affordable housing. As city leaders that should not be acceptable if we want to improve the lives of our citizens. We should explore ways of diversifying affordable housing options throughout the city and not in one district. We should continue to work closely with state and federal agencies to secure grants that could jumpstart developments at an affordable price point for our citizens. As a member of the City Council, I would continue to support transit-oriented developments, also known as TODs, which provides quality affordable housing options near multi-modal transit projects such as the RUSBus project currently being constructed in downtown Raleigh. Should the city be more aggressive about requiring affordable units from developers or partner with nonprofits? Yes, it is the responsibility of the city leadership to be proactive in making sure that all of Raleighs citizens have affordable housing opportunities. In order to accomplish this goal city leaders must become more aggressive and bring developers to the table. Do you think Raleigh can support concert venues both downtown and in Dix Park? Yes Would you describe Raleighs growth as too fast, too slow or just right? It is understandable that Raleigh continues to be one of the best places to live, work, and play. So naturally, there will be an expectation of increased interest in moving here. However, in order to grow responsibly city leaders must be deliberate to achieve balanced growth which provides opportunities for all. Yes, Raleigh is growing an appropriate pace. However, city leaders need to improve their preparation to be sure that the infrastructure supports the growth. Do you think Raleigh is losing too many historic properties? If so, how should this be addressed? Yes, Raleigh is losing too many historical properties. City leaders should form a task force to identify vulnerable historic properties and work with local preservation agencies to be sure that the history is not lost. We must remember that our history is what made Raleigh great. Marty Pollio is retiring from Jefferson County Public Schools after seven years leading Kentucky's largest district, with a total of 30 years in the system. Pollio, who is one of the longest tenured superintendents of any large urban district in the country, announced his upcoming retirement Friday in an email sent to all district staff. His last day will be July 1, 2025, when his current contract ends. "I began crafting this letter about a month ago," Pollio said in the email. "It has taken me this long to complete it as I get emotional every time I return to the letter. I picked this day to send it out to the JCPS family, not anticipating canceling school today. However, it is probably appropriate with all the challenges we have tackled together over the last 7+ years." Thoughts on Pollios retirement? Submit your letter to the editor here. In a statement following the announcement, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg thanked Pollio "for his tireless service and efforts to improve educational outcomes for all students. We will continue working closely together for the remainder of his tenure on partnerships to improve public education in Louisville." Jefferson County Board of Education members will be in charge of deciding who will become the district's next superintendent, once Pollio's term ends. The first step, JCPS spokeswoman Carolyn Callahan said, will likely be for board members to decide whether or not to hire a search firm to find candidates. If a firm is hired, they will work alongside a superintendent screening committee to vet candidates before making recommendations to the board for consideration. Pollio became acting superintendent of JCPS in 2017 before taking the role on permanently in 2018. His initial contract was set to end in 2022, but the school board reappointed him for another term in 2021, three months after giving Pollio a largely positive evaluation. His latest evaluation, however, was his most critical since taking the position. While board members gave Pollio high marks for academic progress, they dinged him for human resource issues following transportation system failures that forced the district to cancel several days of classes and students to lose millions of minutes of instruction time through the 2023-2024 school year. The failures stemmed from a transportation overhaul that coincided with other massive projects, including a new student assignment plan, a new bell schedule, the opening of three new schools and the implementation of a new reading curriculum across all elementary and middle schools. Superintendent Marty Pollio talks to first graders on the first day of classes on Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024 at Gutermuth Elementary School in Louisville, Ky. Despite the failures, board members praised Pollio for the district's success in helping students bounce back from pandemic-related learning loss at a faster rate than other districts, as noted in a study by Stanford and Harvard University researchers. Between 2019 and 2022, JCPS students' achievement levels decreased by three-quarters of a grade equivalent in math and half a grade level in reading. But since 2022, students' reading level has increased by a third of a grade level, while their math level has risen by nearly a quarter improvements that are considered impressive even within a typical year. Another major focus of Pollio's tenure leading JCPS was to create a new strategic plan, coined "Future State." During his 2023 State of the District address, Pollio praised the amount of progress that's been made on that plan, especially as the district faced unprecedented challenges. "Public education is under attack like it never has been before," he said, adding teachers "are now asked to do more than they ever have before." That progress has included expanding school choice for families, particularly those in west Louisville; launching numerous large capital improvement projects; providing a Chromebook equipped with WiFi to each student; and increasing financial support for schools serving high-needs populations. JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio meets members of the Academy @ Shawnee football team during the unveiling of the new field and grandstands In addition to those achievements, Pollio's retirement announcement noted district leadership, under his guidance, has: Successfully navigated through numerous audits Created JCPS' police department Passed a historical tax increase to grow the district's funding Developed the district's summer learning program And provided a 14% salary increase for all district staff over the past four years "Together, we have traversed through two of the largest crises in the history of public education," Pollio wrote in his announcement. "As a result of the pandemic and severe staffing shortages, our jobs have become much more difficult. Through all the major challenges, I am so proud of the accomplishments we have made together for the students of this community. As a superintendent, it would have been easier to keep the status quo. Change is very hard. But I am extremely proud that we made the decision to make the most substantial changes in the history of JCPS despite many challenges. I truly believe that these changes will result in decades of improved outcomes for our students." Read Marty Pollios retirement letter to staff JCPS Family, In the summer of 2017, I began this incredible journey with you as I was named the acting superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools. I started in JCPS as a social studies teacher in 1997 at Shawnee High School. At no time throughout my journey in four different high schools and a multitude of positions did I think I would become the superintendent. Even in the spring of 2017, I was surprised that I was interviewing for the position. Over seven years later, it has been the honor of my lifetime to represent this wonderful district and all the incredible students, staff, and families as the superintendent. In all candor, and as Im sure you are aware, the journey has not been an easy one. Together, we have traversed through two of the largest crises in the history of public education. As a result of the pandemic and severe staffing shortages, our jobs have become much more difficult. Through all the major challenges, I am so proud of the accomplishments we have made together for the students of this community. As a superintendent, it would have been easier to keep the status quo. Change is very hard. But I am extremely proud that we made the decision to make the most substantial changes in the history of JCPS despite many challenges. I truly believe that these changes will result in decades of improved outcomes for our students. Just a few of the major accomplishments we have made together include: a new student assignment plan, a new facility plan that includes the building of 24 new school buildings over the next decade, an enhanced safety and security plan that includes the creation of the JCPS Police Department with 55 police officers, the passing of the first tax increase above 4% in the history of JCPS which brought in much needed funding, proliferation of nationally recognized models with the Academies of Louisville and Explore Pathways, additional levels of support for students and schools (MHPs, ICs, SAs, School Nurses, etc.), a focus on racial equity to improve student outcomes for our historically underserved population, development of the Backpack League summer learning program, an aligned literacy and numeracy plan across all JCPS schools, a technology overhaul in our schools for staff and students, new athletic facilities for all high schools, 14% increase in pay for all employees over the past four years, including stipends for those in enhance support schools, and successfully navigating through numerous audits and pushing back on attacks from Frankfort since 2017. I truly believe that these changes have led and will lead to improved outcomes for the children of this community. But, in every leaders journey, there comes a time to turn the page and move on to the next chapter in your life. And that time is quickly approaching for me. My tenure as superintendent of JCPS has lasted longer than 96% of the superintendents in the Council of the Great City Schools, which encompasses the 80 largest school districts in the United States. The average tenure for large district superintendents is now less than 18 months. I am proud that I have served the last eight years in this position given the immense challenges that public school districts face. If it werent for the amazing students of this district, I would not have had the strength and motivation to persevere. I have truly given them my all. I also could not have done this without the support of all the incredible educators and employees in this district and the positive words and encouragement from so many of you. Although not perfect, we have an incredible school district where all of you give so much to meet the needs of ALL children in this community. We need to stand together with pride in that fact. I wrote all employees a letter on July 2, 2017 expressing my honor to start as superintendent of JCPS. And now I want the JCPS family to be the first to know that this will be my final year as superintendent. I will be retiring effective July 1, 2025. In the summer of 2022, I gave the board of education a three-year commitment. This is the final year of that three-year agreement. I had planned since that time for the 2024-25 school year to be my final one. However, this will not be the end of my time in education. I hope to continue positively influencing public education moving forward in Kentucky and even at the national level. I am announcing at this time to give our board of education and community the time needed to select a candidate that will continue the forward progress and momentum we have made over these past eight years. Although I am announcing my retirement for the end of this school year, I want you all to know that I will not let up in my passion for this district over the next nine months. As I have always preached, I will be sprinting through the finish line! Once again, it has been the honor of my professional career to serve as your superintendent. I have given every ounce of myself to this role as I know so many of you do daily. Although there have been challenges over my tenure, no one can ever question my passion, fight, and love for Jefferson County Public Schools. Thank you again for the opportunity to serve you over the last eight years. Sincerely, Martin Pollio, Ed.D. Superintendent Jefferson County Public Schools Contact reporter Krista Johnson at kjohnson3@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio announces retirement Newly released messages appear to undercut vice-presidential nominee JD Vances claims that he had a change of heart about former President Donald Trump once he witnessed his achievements in office. In 2021, while campaigning for the US Senate seat he now holds, Vance asked people not to judge me based on what I said previously about the man he called, variously, a cynical a**hole, a moral disaster, a total fraud, an idiot, and Americas Hitler. I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy, Vance said at the time, adding that he in fact voted for Trump in 2020. I think he was a good president, I think he made a lot of good decisions for people, and I think he took a lot of flak. From left, Michael Bloomberg, Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, attend the 9/11 Memorial ceremony on the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura) (AP) However, The Washington Post obtained direct messages Vance reportedly exchanged privately on Twitter, in which he slammed Trump a man he later deemed the best president of my lifetime, for his myriad shortfalls as commander-in-chief. Trump has just so thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism (excepting a disjointed China policy), Vance reportedly wrote in February 2020. That June, Vance predicted Joe Biden would beat Trump in the upcoming election, according to another Twitter DM seen by the Post. I think Trump will probably lose, Vance wrote. He would soon go on to claim, falsely, that the election had been stolen from Trump by miscreant Democrats. In the same June 2020 exchange, Vance revealed that Emperor Trump had offered him a position in his administration, but that he turned it down. JD Vance claimed eggs cost $4 but he was caught out by the price tag behind him (AP) In a statement responding to the Post story, Vance spokesman William Martin said the VP candidate was not in fact denigrating Trump in his past remarks, but rather, establishment Republicans who thwarted much of Trumps populist economic agenda to increase tariffs and boost domestic manufacturing in Congress. Fortunately, Sen. Vance believes that Republicans in Congress are much more aligned with President Trumps agenda today than they were back then, so he is confident that they wont run into those same issues within the party, Martin said, criticizing the Post for withholding the identity of its source and calling the outlets reporting unethical journalism. In July, Vances former law school roommate told The Independent that he believed the Ohio Republican was a hypocrite who had sold his soul in supporting Trump. I believe that he has adopted the MAGA mindset wholesale, attorney Josh McLaurin said. I think that he personally wants to see a lot more destruction of institutions and norms than your average elected Republican does. And I think that hes allowing his deep-seated anger and who cares where that anger is from to motivate him to make this complete ideological conversion. Corrie Shull, the chairman of the JCPS Board of Education, left, speaks as Superintendent Marty Pollio listens during a Kentucky House Education Committee meeting at the Capitol in Frankfort, March 5, 2024. (Kentucky Lantern photo by McKenna Horsley) Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Marty Pollio plans to retire from his post effective next summer. Pollio, who has led Kentuckys largest public school district since 2017, sent a letter to JCPS employees announcing his plans to retire Friday. In recent years, Pollios tenure at the school district has been beset by increasing oversight from Republican lawmakers in Frankfort and criticism over transportation issues. Pollio said the journey has not been an easy one, pointing to the coronavirus pandemic and severe staffing shortages, but added that he was extremely proud that we made the decision to make the most substantial changes in the history of JCPS despite many challenges. His retirement is effect July 1, 2025. I am proud that I have served the last eight years in this position given the immense challenges that public school districts face, Pollio wrote. If it werent for the amazing students of this district, I would not have had the strength and motivation to persevere. I have truly given them my all. I also could not have done this without the support of all the incredible educators and employees in this district and the positive words and encouragement from so many of you. Although not perfect, we have an incredible school district where all of you give so much to meet the needs of ALL children in this community. We need to stand together with pride in that fact. Some of the major accomplishments Pollio highlighted in his letter included focusing on racial equity to improve student outcomes for our historically underserved population, establishing a facilities plan that includes construction of 24 schools building over the next decade and successfully navigating through numerous audits and pushing back on attacks from Frankfort since 2017. Earlier this year, Republicans in Frankfort passed a resolution creating a task force to review the governance of JCPS. At the time, Pollio called it another attack on JCPS and warned against consolidating the school district. Pollio began his career in JCPS as a social studies teacher at Shawnee High School in 1997. His other roles have included principal of Jeffersontown High School and Doss High School. Pollio said he was making his announcement early to give ample time to select his successor. He added that he hopes to continue positively influencing public education moving forward in Kentucky and even at the national level. Once again, it has been the honor of my professional career to serve as your superintendent, Pollio wrote. I have given every ounce of myself to this role as I know so many of you do daily. Although there have been challenges over my tenure, no one can ever question my passion, fight, and love for Jefferson County Public Schools. JEFFERSON COUNTY, Ky. (FOX 56) The superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) sent a letter on Friday to staff announcing his time as a school leader is coming to a close. In the letter, Superintendent Martin Pollio said that change is difficult and that he is proud of the accomplishments the district made for students of the Jefferson County community. Read more of the latest Lexington & central Kentucky news In every leaders journey, there comes a time to turn the page and move on to the next chapter in your life, Pollio said in his retirement letter. Pollio became acting superintendent in 2017 and has overseen increases in teacher pay, the creation of the JCPS Police Department with 55 officers, a focus on racial equity to improve student outcomes for our historically underserved population, and more, per his registration letter. I am proud that I have served the last eight years in this position given the immense challenges that public school districts face. If it werent for the amazing students of this district, I would not have had the strength and motivation to persevere. I have truly given them my all. I also could not have done this without the support of all the incredible educators and employees in this district and the positive words and encouragement from so many of you. Although not perfect, we have an incredible school district where all of you give so much to meet the needs of ALL children in this community. We need to stand together with pride in that fact. Martin Pollio, JCPS Superintendent In the summer of 2022, Pollio said he agreed with district leadership to serve as superintendent for three more years, with his retirement date being July 1, 2025. LATEST KENTUCKY NEWS: He had begun his time as a Jefferson County educator in 1997 as a social studies teacher at Shawnee High School and said that he plans to continue working as an educator after this chapter closes. I hope to continue positively influencing public education moving forward in Kentucky and even at the national level, Pollio said. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 56 News. By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States was not told in advance about Israel's strike on Hezbollah's headquarters in Beirut that killed the leader of the Iran-backed militant group, U.S. President Joe Biden and other officials said, raising further questions about the administration's ability to influence its close ally. Biden said on Friday the U.S. had no advance knowledge of or participation in the Israeli airstrike, which Hezbollah said on Saturday killed its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also said he did not have any advance warning but spoke to his Israeli counterpart as the operation was already underway. Austin on Friday declined to offer any assessment of the strike, amid speculation about the fate of the Lebanese militant group's head Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Austin said he would be speaking with Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant again "soon" for an update. "We had no advance warning. My call with Minister Gallant took place while the operation was actually already underway," Austin told reporters as he landed at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington after a trip to London. The killing of Nasrallah could have far-reaching implications for the Middle East as Israel shifts its attention from its nearly year-old war with Iran-aligned Hamas in Gaza to operations against Hezbollah amid fears that strikes in Lebanon could trigger a wider war that draws in Iran. A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was unclear how the situation will evolve. "We're obviously working our way through it this morning. And, you know, it's not clear exactly where things go from right now," said the official. The Biden administration has struggled over the past year to balance Israels right to self-defense against the need to contain civilian casualties and prevent a spiral into a broader Middle East conflict. Analysts said Friday's strike would further complicate that effort. "The killing of Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollahs leader, by an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon will not fundamentally alter the course of this conflict," said Rosemary Kelanic, director of the Middle East Program at Defense Priorities, a think tank. Nasrallahs death doesnt change anything for the United States either, except that it further complicates American efforts to negotiate a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah to prevent more bloodshed." The timing of the strike, coming while Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu was visiting New York to speak at the U.N. General Assembly, could create additional friction for the U.S.-Israel relationship. A former senior U.S. national security official told Reuters the United States would take particular umbrage at reports that Netanyahu ordered the strike from U.S. soil. The White House had no immediate comment. Jordan's foreign minister said Netanyahu was driving the region to a full-fledged war. Austin has been publicly warning that a full-blown war between Hezbollah and Israel would be devastating for both sides and on Friday renewed calls for diplomacy. "An all out war should be avoided," Austin said. "Diplomacy continues to be the best way forward, and it's the fastest way to let displaced Israeli and Lebanese citizens return to their homes on both sides of the border." Asked on Friday what Austin may have communicated to Gallant given the Israeli strike's potential impact on U.S. efforts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh declined to offer specifics, but she said the defense secretary is always frank in his conversations with his Israeli counterpart. "Look at just the engagements that the secretary and Minister Gallant have had over the last two weeks, speaking regularly. I think if there was any type of fracture in trust, you wouldn't see those type of levels of calls and engagements occurring frequently," Singh said when asked if the lack of advance notification by Israel indicated a lack of trust. (Additional reporting by David Ljunggren, Gabriella Borter, Andrea Shalal, Trevor Hunnicutt and Steve Holland; Editing by Alistair Bell, Don Durfee and Daniel Wallis) Joe Scarborough: Trump would take us back into the cycle of Russian appeasement This is an adapted excerpt from the Sept. 27 episode of "Morning Joe." If theres one lesson to be learned from the United States relationship with Russia over the last almost two decades, its that appeasement does not work. When Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia in 2008, a Republican president did nothing. When Putin invaded Crimea and Ukraine in 2014, a Democratic president did nothing. In 2018 in Helsinki, after Donald Trump was asked if he believed U.S. intelligence agencies or Putin when it came to the allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the then-president took Moscows side and effectively pledged his fealty to Putin. In the face of Russian aggression, one president after another has shown weakness. And what has that led to? Another invasion. But now, under the leadership of the Biden-Harris administration, the U.S. is finally pushing back. During a news conference on Thursday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Vice President Harris slammed Trumps suggestion Ukraine cede territory to Russia to end the war. There are some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality and would require Ukraine to forego security relationships with other nations, Harris said during a news conference in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. These proposals are the same of those of Putin. And let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace, she added. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable. If Trump is elected in November, well go right back to the status quo of Russian appeasement. If Trump surrenders Ukraine to Putin, we know whats next: Poland, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. And for those who naively think the U.S. can stay out of it: If theyre invading NATO countries, its going to be our men and women on the ground fighting and dying. This article was originally published on MSNBC.com Raleigh voters will pick a new mayor and City Council members this November. All eight council seats, including the mayors, are up for grabs, with all the incumbents except for current Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin seeking another two-year term. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5. Early voting runs from Thursday, Oct. 17, through Saturday, Nov. 2. To help inform voters across the state, this candidate questionnaire is available to be republished by local publications in North Carolina without any cost. Please consider subscribing to The News & Observer to help make this coverage possible. Name: John Cerqueira District/seat: Raleigh City Council, District E Political party: Democrat Age as of Nov. 5, 2024: 45 Campaign website: john4raleigh.com Current occupation: Organizational change consultant Education: NC State, B.S. Management and French Minor. UNC-Chapel Hill, MBA with coursework in Urban Planning Offices Sought/Held: None Please list any notable government or civic involvement. In 2001 I was awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, North Carolinas highest civilian honor, by Governor Mike Easley for heroism during the September 11 Terrorist attacks in which I helped a woman who was a wheelchair user escape from the 68th floor of Tower One escaping our building 5 minutes before its collapse. Since then I have been honored to speak at First Responders organizations at both the Durham and Raleigh First Responders Appreciation Breakfasts as well as running training sessions on self-regulation to ward off risks of PTSD at ISAAC, the Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a cross functional first responders organization put in place to coordinate anti-terrorism efforts. More recently I helped co-found Skate Raleigh, a public-private partnership that brought a skate park to the site of Smokey Hollow Park off of Capital Boulevard. Working with the city of Raleigh Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources Department, our nonprofit organization raised private funds to turn a blighted piece of property along downtown Raleighs northern gateway into a place where citizens of all ages and backgrounds connect over their love of action sports. Finally, over the years, I have volunteered with Communities in Schools leveraging my French minor tutoring French-speaking students from Haiti and Africa on all subjects in their native language. Which Raleigh City Council district do you live in? E What is the top issue facing Raleigh now and how would you address it? Our population growth. Wake County is growing by 50 people/day which means a focus on the following are needed: Housing and Infrastructure: We must ensure that our housing supply meets this demand and our infrastructure (sewer, roads, public transportation) accommodates the housing supply and additional population. Public safety: We currently have 100 vacancies on our police force with a fully staffed goal that some suggest is already low on a per capita basis.. Without a fully staffed police force we risk the public safety of our growing population. Parks and greenways: As we grow it is important to maintain and invest in green space where all of our citizens can connect and thrive. What is your strategy for increasing affordable housing in Raleigh? If our goal is affordability we must address both income-restricted housing and market-rate housing supply. Income restricted housing focuses on citizens making less than our area median income (AMI). However, for many citizens earning our area median income or slightly above, our housing market is still out of reach. To improve affordability for those making at or above AMI, the only path is to increase our housing supply. To do this in a thoughtful way that does not create any further unnecessary sprawl we must increase density in existing dense areas, for example, specifically in downtown. Income-restricted units typically require some subsidies which defray the cost of land cost, construction and financing. For income-restricted housing I would like to see more partnerships with developers who are experienced in and comfortable building affordable housing, using preferred and/or tax increment financing (TIF), targeting city-owned land to control our land cost. Beyond that, often hidden costs associated with delays with permitting and approvals unnecessarily increase the cost of projects ultimately passed on to the renter/buyer that I would like to see eliminated with more efficient processing. Should the city be more aggressive about requiring affording units from developers or partner with nonprofits? Our current state law prohibits requiring developers to limit the pricing of units. However, the opportunity absolutely exists to offer incentives to developers in which, for example, permitting a certain increase in units over what is allowed comes with a percentage dedicated to income-restricted lower cost units. I would also partner with nonprofits like Habitat for Humanity, that provide down payment support, mortgage relief, and rental assistance through private funding. Do you think Raleigh can support concert venues both downtown and in Dix Park? Yes. This question specifically relates to Red Hat Amphitheater and the amphitheater in Dix Parks master plan. While music at Dix Park is in the master plan for the future, Red Hat is currently funded and ready to break ground within months whereas plans for a Dix Park music venue are in earlier stages of development, not yet funded, and likely a decade or more out from completion. Furthermore, Red Hat is in closer proximity and ease of pedestrian access to downtown businesses who are heavily reliant on its presence, which also enhances the concert-going experience for pre- and post-show activities. Even with a future Dix Park music venue, Red Hat is likely to attract a different set of acts appealing to a slightly different audience in a different setting with different levels of capacity than the types of performances that may be present at Dix. All in all, I see the two options complementing rather than competing with one another. Specific to the vote on this issue, I am relieved that after the City Council session on September 17, Red Hat Amphitheater will be able to stay downtown. I am, however, disappointed that my districts council member was not at the table to represent District E in this critical vote for our city. Would you describe Raleighs growth as too fast, too slow or just right? In more objective terms, our population growth is certainly outpacing the supply of housing, driving our affordability challenges. Beyond that, our investments in public transportation and associated infrastructure that mitigate traffic congestion are struggling to keep pace. By these measures, I would say that our population growth is too fast for our current housing supply and related infrastructure needs, while our growth in supply of available housing and infrastructure support is too slow relative to population growth and has opportunities to be better accommodated and managed. Do you think Raleigh is losing too many historic properties? If so, how should this be addressed? The Masonic Temple at the corner of Glenwood and Wade Avenue is a good example of a historic property that was lost. Ultimately, like many historic properties, it was in disrepair and had been neglected. Numerous developers sought to re-develop in a way that protected the property, but were not successful. The Temple went from being listed as historic to being removed to eventually clear the way for development. It is now being turned into multiple high-end homes that ultimately are better than the last state of the building but far less impactful than having preserved the building and providing a more dense use. My whole candidacy is based on an appreciation of the nuances of these developments. I want to bring developers and the community together to meet the challenges of our city in a thoughtful and sustainable way. Rather then the characterization of good vs evil, I generally believe that Raleigh can be greater and solve problems like the potential loss of historic properties by engaging current owners and incentivizing maintenance through tax breaks or other programs, while ensuring that those that want to develop their property to realize expected economic value can do so in a way that preserves its character and ensure it fits into the greater landscape of the area. Lastly, we have to realize that it is not just historic properties but historic businesses that people often bemoan and feel a true sense of loss. This can be seen in developments along Hillsborough that lost beloved music venues, sandwich shops and other small businesses like Capital Club 16 and Garland that could not sustain themselves as downtown struggled coming out of COVID-19. It is important that as a city we develop systems that preserve the buildings and businesses that provide the character and sense of place that is desired by all and economically sustainable for the community. John Deere has recalled a compact utility tractor due to brake failures and crash hazards. Which models are included in the John Deere tractor recall? This recall includes 1023E, 1025R and 2025R Compact Utility Tractors. Consumers can find the model number and John Deere printed on the hood. The recalled tractors are green and yellow, and were sold with both opened and closed operator stations. About 148,000 of the tractors were sold in the United States from November 2017 until July 2024. The serial numbers of tractors included in this recall can be found under "Parts and Service" at deere.com. John Deere tractor recall issued over brake failures in Compact Utility Tractors The John Deere 2025R tractor is one of three models of compact utility tractors being recalled for brake issues. John Deere's recall comes after the Moline, Illinois-based company received four reports of the brake linkage failing. One person was hospitalized and two people suffered impact injuries, John Deere said in a news release. Minor property damage has also been reported. More: Donald Trump threatens 200% tariff if John Deere moves production to Mexico When did John Deere issue a tractor recall? John Deere's tractor recall was put into effect on Sept. 26, 2024. More: As Deere backs off DEI, it's facing potential clash between federal and union mandates What should I do if I have a John Deere 1023E, 1025R or 2025R Compact Utility Tractor? Deere says users should immediately stop using the recalled tractors and contact an authorized John Deere dealer to schedule an appointment to bring the tractor into the dealer for a free repair. If the owner is not able to transport the tractor to a dealers location, then the dealer will make arrangements to repair the unit at the owner's residence. Deere said they are also contacting all known purchasers directly. Victoria Reyna-Rodriguez is a general assignment reporter for the Register. Reach her at vreynarodriguez@registermedia.com or follow her on Twitter @VictoriaReynaR. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: John Deere tractor recall includes 3 Compact Utility Tractors models Johnston Middle School student in custody after report of weapon on campus JOHNSTON, Iowa The Johnston Middle School went into lockdown Thursday afternoon after someone reported seeing a weapon in a bathroom. According to an email from the Johnston Community School District, the middle school went on lockdown at 2:48 p.m. after a weapon was reportedly to be in an upstairs restroom; no weapon was found. The lockdown was in place until 3:08 p.m., which is about 18 minutes after regular dismissal time, when the all-clear was given. Webster County man shot during domestic altercation, sheriffs office says The Johnston Police Department now has a student in custody. The district said school administrators and the police department are working together to investigate the incident. We are taking this situation very seriously and continue to work with the Johnston Police Department on this matter. The safety of our students and staff is our top priority. We applaud our students and staff for continuing to speak up and share information. Lynn Meadows, director of communications and board secretary for JCSD All activities have been cancelled for tonight. Latest Metro 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 who13.com. JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. (WJHL) A water plant is shut down in Jonesborough after catastrophic flooding, according to Kevin Brobeck, Jonesborough Water Distribution Director. Brobeck said all businesses running off the plant will not have water until the Nolichucky Rivers levels go down. Ballad: 50+ people awaiting rescue on roof of Unicoi County Hospital All residents in Jonesborough are encouraged to conserve water. State Representative Rebecca Alexander announced her Breakfast with Becky event scheduled for Saturday at the Kitchen at Grace Meadows has been canceled due to the water plants closure. The rapidly rising Nolichucky River has led to extreme flooding in Unicoi, Washington and Greene Counties. Embreeville residents were ordered to evacuate, and dozens of people were stranded on the roof of the Unicoi County Hospital as a result of the river rising. 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 WJHL | Tri-Cities News & Weather. SCRANTON, Pa. (WHTM) A Pennsylvania city is suddenly at the center of an international incident after a visit from Ukraines president Sunday. What should have been little more than a photo-op has blown up has Governor Josh Shapiro among those taking fire from angry Republicans. Comer wants oversight committee to investigate Zelenskyys Scranton visit A Ukrainian delegation visited Scrantons Army Ammunition Plant, including a tour where 155-millimeter howitzer rounds are made. They are considered crucial in Ukraines fight against Russia. Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked workers and signed a shell. U.S. Senator Bob Casey, Congressman Matt Cartwright, and Shapiro, all Democrats, welcomed the group, which was an unwelcome sight to Republican Speaker of the U.S. House Mike Johnson. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now WHTM Morning Weather The Speaker called the all-Democrat event Pro-Kamala Harris and politically motivated in a crucial battleground state. Were in the middle of a hotly contested national election, Johnson said, and we dont need foreign countries intervening in and letting their opinions be heard at a time like this. In July, Zelenskyy made a similar trip to Utah and met with its Republican governor. No uproar. Governor Josh Shapiro, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit Scranton Army Ammunition Plant Governor Josh Shapiro, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit Scranton Army Ammunition Plant Governor Josh Shapiro, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit Scranton Army Ammunition Plant Governor Josh Shapiro, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit Scranton Army Ammunition Plant Governor Josh Shapiro, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit Scranton Army Ammunition Plant Governor Josh Shapiro, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit Scranton Army Ammunition Plant Governor Josh Shapiro, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit Scranton Army Ammunition Plant Governor Josh Shapiro, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit Scranton Army Ammunition Plant Governor Josh Shapiro, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit Scranton Army Ammunition Plant Commonwealth Media Services Governor Shapiro, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit Scranton Army Ammunition Plant Commonwealth Media Services Governor Shapiro, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit Scranton Army Ammunition Plant Commonwealth Media Services Governor Shapiro, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit Scranton Army Ammunition Plant Commonwealth Media Services Governor Shapiro, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit Scranton Army Ammunition Plant Shapiro said Pennsylvanians stand with Ukraine as they fight for their freedom against naked aggression. Like Zelenskyy, Shapiro too signed a shell, which set off Republican State Senator Doug Mastriano, who lost to Shapiro in the race for Governor in 2022. In an unprecedented and disturbing manner, Shapiro was pictured with a sinister grin signing an artillery round that will be used to kill people with whom the United States is not at war yet another elite politician eagerly displaying a willingness to send other peoples children to fight and die in another losing war. Senator Doug Mastriano (R-33) The Shapiro team isnt responding, referring all questions to the U.S. Army and the White House, which arranged the Ukrainian visit. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27. The Rio Arriba County Courthouse in Tierra Amarilla, N.M. (Photo by Austin Fisher / Source NM) The judge overseeing the attempted murder case against a man who shot someone at a protest of a statue in northern New Mexico is summoning 80 people to serve as potential jurors, because some of them may know too much about the case to objectively rule on it. First Judicial District Court Judge Jason Lidyard said Thursday he doesnt know how jury selection will go in the trial of Ryan Martinez, who was recorded on video shooting a climate activist during a prayer ceremony and protest of a monument to genocidal Spanish conquistador Juan de Onate in Rio Arriba County last fall. I dont know how many people are going to know things about this case that are going to disqualify them from being able to serve, Lidyard said. Lidyard and the opposing legal teams previously agreed to begin jury selection on Oct. 7 in his courtroom in Tierra Amarilla, a small, remote village in the countys northern reaches. So far, two sessions or panels of jury selection have been scheduled in the case. Were not going to be able to pick the jury from the very first session. Im sure of that, Lidyard said, but they might be able to choose jurors from the second. Out of an abundance of caution, he said, hes spoken to the courts Jury Services department about constructing a third panel of people to come in on the morning of Oct. 8 if absolutely necessary. That would be needed only if he and the attorneys are concerned about their ability to choose a jury by the end of the previous day, Lidyard said. I want to have this arranged so that we can immediately continue on with the selection, he said. Lidyard said they should be able to seat a jury within the planned time frame, even if the trial cant begin until Oct. 9. The trials first leg is scheduled for Oct. 8 through Oct. 11, when state prosecutors are expected to make their case and call their witnesses to testify. The second leg is scheduled for Oct. 16 through Oct. 18, when defense lawyers for Martinez will make their case and call their own witnesses. Chief Deputy District Attorney Anthony Long said hes relatively confident theyll be able to pick a jury in the first two sessions, because Martinez is not charged with a capital offense, which means each side is limited in how many jurors they can try to disqualify without giving a reason. Since Martinez is charged with attempted murder, if convicted he would be guilty of a second-degree felony, which gets a basic sentence of nine years under state law. In those kinds of cases, the defense is allowed five peremptory challenges and the state gets three, according to court rule. Still, there is no limit on how many potential jurors either side can disqualify, so long as they have a good reason and articulate that to the judge, who rules on each disqualification. A busy time in northern Rio Arriba Another logistical challenge, Long said, is there are no hotel rooms nothing is available, in the area. There are a host of things happening in northern Rio Arriba County right now, your honor, that make finding lodging impossible, or even changing that lodging, he said. He said a wedding is happening nearby, the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad is reaching the end of its season, and the trees are turning their fall colors, which typically attracts an influx of tourists. Lidyards comments about jury selection came at the end of a two-and-a-half hour hearing on Thursday afternoon, where attorneys argued over half a dozen disputes about whether to include certain evidence and witnesses in the trial. Lidyard told them he will announce his rulings on those disputes in a virtual hearing at 4 p.m. on Monday. Judge blocks NY AG Letitia James from trying to silence pregnancy centers that promote abortion pill reversal Judge blocks NY AG Letitia James from trying to silence pregnancy centers that promote abortion pill reversal A federal judge this week issued New York Attorney General Letitia James a preliminary injunction that bars her from taking action against pregnancy clinics that promote abortion pill reversal on the grounds it would restrict protected free speech. The ruling came amid a lawsuit by the Thomas More Society on behalf of two pro-life ministries, Summit Life Outreach Center and the Evergreen Association. The lawsuit argues that James has targeted pregnancy centers with threats of prosecution for sharing information about abortion pill reversal, which she has said is unproven. "These small nonprofits, which exist to compassionately serve women and offer them alternatives to abortion, deserve to have their speech elevatednot chilled," Peter Breen, Thomas More Society's executive vice president and head of litigation, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "This court order makes clear Ms. James cannot censor pro-life speech purely because she dislikes it." Harris Calls For Eliminating Filibuster To Pass Roe Abortion Bill Into Federal Law New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference National Town Hall. James has sued several pro-life pregnancy centers over their promotion of abortion pill reversal. Fox News Digital has reached out to James' office. In his order, Judge John Sinatra Jr., a Trump appointee, wrote that James is barred from preventing the clinics from promoting abortion pill reversal on their websites and social media platforms. Read On The Fox News App Medicinal abortion involves taking mifepristone and following it with treatment of misoprostol days later, but pregnancy clinics have advised that those who change their minds and want to continue the pregnancy can do so by abandoning the second drug and instead taking doses of progesterone. In May, James filed lawsuits against 11 pregnancy centers that promoted the abortion pill reversal procedure, accusing them of engaging in fraud, deceptive business practices and false advertising. She claimed the groups were "spreading dangerous misinformation by advertising without any medical and scientific proof." Dems Look To Force Votes On Emergency Abortion As Abortion Pill Deaths Make Headlines Mifepristone and Misoprostol pills are pictured Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2018, in Skokie, Illinois. Despite not being named in James' lawsuit, Summit Life Outreach Center and the Evergreen Association said her targeting of other pregnancy centers had put them at risk. Barbara Bidak, the executive director of Summit Life Outreach Center, said her staff works "tirelessly to provide life-affirming options for women in need." "Were incredibly pleased a federal judge has now made clear that Attorney General Letitia James legal attacks on our states pro-life ministries unconstitutionally chills our First Amendment right to share the lifesaving message of Abortion Pill Reversalwhich gives pregnant moms in the middle of a chemical abortion a second chance to choose life." Breen said the pro-life ministries have a constitutional right to share information about abortion pill reversal, and that "their message is saving thousands of lives." The Thomas More Society is representing the 11 clinics in a separate case. Last month, a federal judge in that case ruled the clinics were protected by the First Amendment. New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press conference. "Based on a careful application of the preliminary injunction factors, especially as they relate to Plaintiffs First Amendment Free Speech claim, motion for a preliminary injunction is granted," the judge wrote. Fox News Digital's Peter Aitken contributed to this report. Original article source: Judge blocks NY AG Letitia James from trying to silence pregnancy centers that promote abortion pill reversal SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) The first woman of Indian descent has been sworn in to serve as a judge in Hampden Superior Court, marking an important milestone for the Commonwealth. Family, friends, and colleagues gathered to support Judge Deepika Shukla in her induction into the Massachusetts Superior Court. Shukla addressed the courtroom from the bench, thanking everyone in attendance and sharing more about her Indian-American identity, from growing up in a multi-generational household with her immigrant mother and grandparents. Colleague and friend Kevin ORegan took to the stand to share how proud of Shukla he is, and what he knows shell accomplish. Pittsfield police capture murder suspect from Maine I think shes going to treat everyone that comes before her with respect, ad compassion, and dignity, said ORegan. And I think that the lawyers will find her an excellent judge to be in front of. Governor Healey named Shukla as one of her picks to join the Massachusetts Superior Court back in July, and Friday marked her official swearing-in. Tara Jacobs of the Governors Council, representing Western Massachusetts, told 22News this appointment is another in what has been a string of diverse nominees coming from Governor Healey. We really appreciate the work shes done to bring us diversity in all the ways, but also, human beings who are just really amazingly kind, and smart, and empathetic, and compassionate, remarked Jacobs. Judge Shukla comes to Hampden District Court from the United States Federal Court in Springfield, where she served as Assistant United States Attorney. She also serves as an adjunct professor at Western New England School of Law, earning a Juris Doctor (JD) from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Local News Headlines WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.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 WWLP. RAPID CITY, S.D. (KELO) A judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a group of Black Hawk residents impacted by the Hideaway Hills mine sinkhole in 2020. The lawsuit alleged that the states mining activities and the way the mine was ultimately closed created conditions ripe for sinkholes to develop. The homeowners also fault the state for failing to disclose the problematic conditions. The judge ruled that the state has sovereign immunity, a sort of legal protection against lawsuits, stating that the state was only doing what was best for the community. Safety yes, I understand that, but four years of fighting for any type of compensation for what obviously is in my opinion, the states fault for running a mining operation over there and not taking care of the ground properly, Hideaway Hills Resident David Peck said. Rapid City Rush prepare for their 17th season You know, the property was taken from us unduly by our neighbor, which is the mineral rights below us. And not being able to get any value back from that basically means we have to start over with whatever the debt of the house was, Hideaway Hills Resident Brian Ireland said. Those directly involved want the state to do the right thing. I think what needs to be done is the state needs to step up, settle the case, and quit fighting us. Theres a large trust fund from when the state sold the cement plant, set up just for this situation, Peck said. From my standpoint obviously I cant use the property, it was taken from me. I cant do anything with it, I cant resell it, I cant do a foreclosure because the bank cannot take the property because of the state its in, so were stuck, Ireland said. Residents in the neighborhood are just wanting a fighting chance after they lost everything they had. The residents and lawyers involved in the lawsuit have already started working on their appeal of this ruling. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KELOLAND.com. NEW YORK New York City Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty on Friday to corruption and bribery charges brought against him earlier this week, as calls for him to resign from office grow. The arraignment hearing lasted no more than around 45 minutes at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Seated toward the middle of the courtroom as U.S. Magistrate Judge Katherine Parker asked for his plea, Adams said, "I am not guilty, your honor." Eric Adams walks to his motorcade after pleading not guilty to federal bribery charges. I am not guilty, your honor, Adams said from the courtroom. pic.twitter.com/SngO7LEJhR Kaelan Deese (@KaelanDC) Members of the U.S. Marshals Service walked Adams out of the courthouse just before 1 p.m. on Thursday, and he stood briefly among a crowd of press while he awaited his motorcade. The New York City mayor was indicted by federal prosecutors on five counts earlier this week, including one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, and to receive campaign contributions by foreign nationals; one count of wire fraud; two counts of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national; and one count of bribery, which the magistrate judge summarized ahead of Adams's guilty plea on Friday. Parker informed federal prosecutors that Adams must be handed over certain disclosures and exculpatory evidence as pre-trial proceedings commence, a process under what's known as the Brady doctrine. "If the government fails to comply with this order," there could be consequences including sanctions or dismissal of the charges, Parker warned. Featured Local Savings Adams has retained Alex Spiro, a high-profile attorney known for working with celebrities including rappers Jay-Z, 21 Savage, and other notable figures such as Tesla founder Elon Musk, to represent him in the case. Spiro said Adams will move to dismiss the case at the next court appearance on Oct. 2, where U.S. District Court Judge Dale Ho will begin presiding over the case. Toward the end of the proceeding, Spiro agreed with the government's condition of Adams's release, which includes the mayor vowing not to speak with witnesses named in the indictment, although with limited exceptions. Several close associates of Adams have also been caught up in federal investigations, including Deputy Mayor Phil Banks, former NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell, and top legal and political advisers. The judge agreed to the government's request with notice that there will be exceptions for Adams to continue communicating with members of his inner circle so long as their conversations do not surround the facts of the case. Some critics of the mayor have called on Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) to remove Adams from office. Hochul has said she is reviewing her options regarding Adams. While it's possible for the governor to remove Adams, legal experts say the process can be complex. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER Adams, a Democrat, is the first sitting New York City mayor to be criminally indicted and has faced calls to resign from office from both Republicans and members of his party. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who represents parts of Manhattan, called on the mayor to resign in a statement Friday. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has stopped short of calling Adams to resign, but said the charges are "serious" and the legal process should play out "speedily and fairly." Montpelier, VT. A Vermont judge dismissed a lawsuit on Friday challenging Gov. Phil Scotts appointment of Zoie Saunders as the states interim Education Secretary earlier this year. Scott appointed Saunders in April after the Vermont Senate rejected her nomination in a 19-9 vote. Senators Tanya Vyhovsky and Dick McCormack sued Scott, claiming the governors appointment violated the states constitution. It accused Scott of violating a state statute that says, all secretaries of State agencies and all commissioners of State departments shall take office only with the advice and consent of the Senate except in the case of an appointment to fill a vacancy when the General Assembly is not in session. Lawmakers sue Gov. Scott for appointing interim education secretary despite Senates rejection Superior Court Judge Robert Mello said the appointment was not intended to be permanent, but is timed so that the matter of an appointment of a permanent secretary can be presented to the Senate again in the next legislative session. And, he said, Scott is not the first governor to make an interim appointment under state statutes. The back-and-forth between the legislative and executive branches has tolerated such appointments numerous times without provoking lawsuits or legislation attempting to regulate the matter, the decision said. You can read the rest of the decision here: Entry-Regarding-Motion-GrantedDownload Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC22 & FOX44. Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Joe Sciscento is being challenged by Clark County Chief Deputy Public Defender Kristal Bradford. Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Joe Sciscento says a campaign mailer stating he is Endorsed by the Republican Party was a mistake made by his campaign management team or the printer contracted by his campaign. Sciscento, who has been on the bench for 15 years, faces a challenge from Clark County Chief Deputy Public Defender Kristal Bradford. I know that mailer went out and it was an oversight, Sciscento said during an interview Wednesday, adding he has not seen a complaint filed by Veterans in Politics with the Nevada Judicial Discipline Commission. It got by. I dont know how. But we pulled everything back, we made the changes, and that piece has been brought back with the change. Nevada Supreme Court rule 4.1, which addresses political campaign activities, prohibits a judge or judicial candidate from seeking, accepting, or using endorsements or publicly stated support from a political organization. A similar endorsement appears on campaign materials for Madilyn Leavitt Cole, a Clark County prosecutor who is seeking to oust Justice of the Peace Cynthia Dustin-Cruz. Veterans in Politics filed two complaints against Cole one with the Judicial Discipline Commission and another with the State Bar of Nevada. We use the same printer, and the same campaign people, Sciscento said of himself and Cole. Cecia Alvarado of Latino Outreach Solutions, who manages Sciscentos and Coles campaigns, said she was unaware of the complaints against her clients. She did not respond to requests for comment after the Current provided copies of the complaints. You dont want a judge whos saying Well, Im backed by the Republican Party or Im backed by the Democrat Party, says Bradford, Sciscentos opponent. He broke a judicial canon. He violated the law. Judges are supposed to follow the law. That is the bare minimum. And if you cant follow the law in a judicial race, which is only a few months, how can we expect you to follow the law for six years? The aura of partisanship can sour the court experience, says Bradford. Sometimes we have community members arrested for protesting. You dont want them to feel like, Man, if I get in front of this judge, who I know is backed by the Republican Party, Im going to be treated unfairly based on that, alone, or I should wear a MAGA hat so I can get preferential treatment in front of this judge. Thats why our races are nonpartisan, because we dont want to create the appearance of undue influence, she says. Bradford is unmoved by her opponents suggestion that the endorsement inclusion was an oversight. She says Sciscento or his campaign staff would have been provided a final copy to approve before printing. Red print on a blue background is not an oversight, she said. It was a risk for him, but he faces no consequences. No one has pulled endorsements, in fact, hes received more since the mailer came out. Consequences for similar alleged transgressions did befall two candidates in 2022 when the Culinary Union rescinded its endorsement of then-Justice of the Peace Suzan Baucum for appearing in a group photo with supporters of then-gubernatorial candidate Joe Lombardo, who went on to become governor. Hispanics in Politics rescinded its endorsement of Baucum, and justice of the peace candidate Danielle Pieper Chio. Both candidates lost their races, however, Lombardo later appointed Chio to District Court. Baucum is seeking another seat in Justice Court this year. Preserving the integrity of the judicial system is vital, and all candidates must be held to this standard, read the complaints against Sciscento and Cole. By featuring the endorsement of the Republican Party in his campaign materials, it suggests political party support, something voters want to keep out of judicial elections. Sciscento, who was appointed to Justice Court Dept. 2 in 2009, and elected three times since, won 42.6% of the vote in the primary election and Bradford won 31.3%. Sciscento has been in Las Vegas since 1991. He worked with veteran attorney Dominic Gentile, former Judge Gene Porter, and former Judge Nancy Saitta. While on the bench. Ive been among the highest rated judges in Justice Court, he says. In 2019, the most recent Judging the Judges attorney survey published by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Sciscento had an 86% retention rate. Bradford attended UCLA and Western State College of Law. Shes been the chief deputy public defender since 2018. She says she decided to run against Sciscento because the two differ in many ways. I offer a different perspective, she said in an interview earlier this month. Me and Joseph are completely different different walks of life, different genders, different nationalities, different races. Bradford says she gained civil law and prosecutorial experience in California, before moving to Las Vegas and becoming a public defender. I had my own firm and did civil litigation, but my very first internship was at the District Attorneys office in Los Angeles, she said. So I dont come from a purely defense background. When I go into court, I am representing the people that feel very unseen and unheard. That relates to most people victim or defendant. She notes Justice Court is often a litigants first experience with the judicial system. They want it to be fair. They want it to be unbiased, she says. And because I have experienced courtrooms where I felt I was not treated fairly, I feel I can overcome that and make sure people who enter into my courtroom feel I treated them fairly, and most importantly, I followed the law. Sciscento raised $133,000 in campaign contributions as of July 15 and had $73,000 remaining. Bradford raised $13,669 and spent all but about $600. Black women are statistically underfunded in campaigns, whether thats a legislator or a judicial candidate, Bradford said. Its not fun to fundraise, but I am very proud of what I have accomplished, Im very humble and thankful for the people who have donated to me. Campaign contributions should not be the key to victory, she says in a campaign or in court. You dont want to think youre going to lose because youre up against an attorney who donated $5,000 every election to this judge, she said, adding shed prefer a series of public townhalls or debates among candidates, or a cap on fundraising. Last month the Justice Court announced it plans to end the practice of consolidating cases involving alleged criminal violations that occur on the Las Vegas Strip in whats become known as Resort Corridor Court. The justices of the peace voted to distribute the cases among eight judges. Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill, District Attorney Steve Wolfson, and the Nevada Resort Association voiced their displeasure in a letter to the court. Who better to decide on an individuals needs and his/her fate than a judge who is familiar with the defendants history? they wrote. Sciscento declined to say whether he voted to discontinue the court, but noted theres some good consistency because youve got one or two judges that can manage those cases, and added he expects the justices to reconsider, given the dissent from the Resort Association, Wolfson, and McMahill. I believe that it should be spread out evenly among all the justices, says Bradford, who says the volume of cases can clog the assigned departments, and because consolidation invites resorts to support the judges who oversee Resort Corridor Court. There are certain casinos that only donate to the campaigns of those holding the corridor court, she says. If the cases are spread among everyone, the resorts cant forum shop. Bradford is endorsed by the Progressive Leadership of Nevada Action Fund, the African Chamber of Commerce and Tourism PAC, and several unions. Sciscento has the backing of Nevada NOW PAC, numerous law enforcement agencies and unions, including SEIU, which represents public employees, and Culinary Local 226. Mississippi Coast teen facing murder charge gets bond reduced by $850,000. Here is why A judge reduced the bond for a 14-year-old Gulfport teen charged with second-degree murder in the September shooting death of a Harrison County High School student. Justice Court Judge Theressia A. Lyons heard evidence in the case against Javione D. Martin on Wednesday before reducing his bond on a second-degree murder charge from $1 million to $150,000. Martin is accused in the Sept. 1 shooting death of Charlie Fairley, 16. At the hearing, the judge found evidence to bind the case to a grand jury for indictment, but had reservations about the high bond initially set in the case based on evidence presented in Harrison County Justice Court. Harrison County prosecuting attorney Herman Cox asked the judge to keep the $1 million bond in place. Was money stolen? According to testimony, the shooting happened after Fairley, along with three of his friends, went to a home where Martin was visiting a friend on Robindale Road. Martin, an investigator said, and Fairley got into an argument outside over allegations that Martin had stolen some money from Fairleys uncle. When Gulfport police later responded to the scene, they found Fairley in the middle of Robindale Road with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. He died a short time later at an Alabama hospital. After his arrest, Martin told investigators he had gotten the murder weapon a .9 mm silver and black handgun from a friend the day before the shooting. According to Martins attorney, Lauren Hillary, Martin claimed he had been jumped several times in the neighborhood before he got the gun. Victim had no weapon The shooting happened, the investigator said, after Fairley went to multiple homes, where he and Martin argued over the alleged stolen money. Martin, the investigator said, claimed he pulled out his handgun during the initial confrontation to try to get Fairley to get away from him, but Martin ended up hitting Fairley in the face with the gun. Fairley was not armed. After the first confrontation, Martin left and went to another home on Robindale Road, where Fairley followed along with his friends. This time, Fairley and Martin ended up arguing again until it turned into a physical fight, and Martin fired his gun, ultimately killing Fairley. After his arrest, Martin told police he didnt realize he had his finger on the trigger of the gun when it fired. Martins attorney pointed out that Fairley had been the aggressor each time he confronted Martin. MS Coast leaders demand solutions after teenagers shooting. Could parents turn in guns? After the shooting happened, Martin said he ran off at first, dropping the gun he had along the way, but then turned around and ran back to the scene to see if he could render any aid to Fairley. A horrible tragedy Martins attorney, Lauren Hillary, pointed out during questioning that Martin had tried repeatedly to get away from Fairley before the shooting happened. In addition, Hillary said Martin was fairly new to the neighborhood, having moved there with his siblings to live with their grandmother. Hillary said that since they had moved in, Martin had been jumped several times by those involved in the case. This is a horrible tragedy, Hillary said. This is a super-sad situation that I wish had not happened, and Javione wishes had not happened. But, she said, This is a situation where Javione is minding his own business when the victim rolls up with his three friends, and they are there to jump him, or they are there to hurt him. Hillary argued that her client tried repeatedly to get away from Fairley and his friends before the shooting. The attorney asked the judge to consider reducing the charge of second-degree murder based on the evidence available, which the judge declined. In addition, Hillary asked for a bond that would give Javiones family a chance to bail him out of jail before grand jury action. Hillary pointed out Martins grandmother had to move them due to threats since the shooting and that the family didnt have enough money for a $1 million bond. Cox argued the bond should remain as it is, saying a signal needs to be sent to juveniles that carrying guns is not the answer. They kept following him The judge agreed to reduce the bond to $150,000 because Martin cooperated with investigators, attempted to render aid to the victim, showed remorse for the shooting, and had no prior criminal history. I will say this: it appears in this case, Mr. Martin was at every turn trying to get away from this fight or trying to avoid it, and they kept following him, Lyons said. I appreciate the fact that he is just 14 years old, she said. I appreciate the fact that they are being raised by their grandmother. At the same time, the judge said prosecuting attorney Herman Cox was right when he suggested that a high bond is needed to send a message to other juveniles to think twice before carrying a gun and committing a crime. Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday gave former President Trump until Tuesday to file any objection to her unsealing a dossier of evidence from special counsel Jack Smith in the federal Jan. 6 election interference case. In an electronic order, Chutkan gave Trumps defense team the Oct. 1 deadline to counter Smiths claim that the public should get to see the 180-page document dump in which prosecutors make the case that Trumps alleged misdeeds were not covered by the Supreme Courts decision to grant him significant immunity. The Washington D.C. district court judge gave no hint as to when she might rule on the dispute or when the Smith filing might be made public if she sides with the government. Chutkan gave Trump a longer lead time till Oct. 10 to object to unsealing a lengthy appendix of documents Smiths team attached to the filing. With a criminal trial postponed indefinitely, a public filing would likely be the final chance before Election Day for voters to assess so-far secret evidence of Trumps effort to overturn his loss in the 2020 election. Smith says the public has a right to see as many facts as possible about Trumps scheme, including efforts to bully then-Vice President Mike Pence into going along with the so-called Stop the Steal plot to keep them in power. Trump says its all part of a Democratic-inspired witch hunt designed to smear his good name and prevent him from winning another term in the White House. The conservative Supreme Court handed Trump a major victory in July when it ruled that he enjoys immunity for crimes committed in the course of his official actions as president. Smith later obtained a streamlined new indictment that stresses the alleged crimes were private acts committed by Trump in his capacity as a candidate for reelection. Trump is already a convicted felon and is awaiting sentencing after Election Day in the Manhattan case in which a jury convicted him of paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election that he won. EMW Women's Surgical Center in Louisville is now closed but before the abortion ban was one of two abortion providers in Kentucky. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Deborah Yetter) FRANKFORT Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd said Friday he will make public nearly all of the records in a lawsuit stemming from former Attorney General Daniel Camerons attempt in June of 2023 to investigate two University of Louisville physicians who had performed abortions at EMW Womens Surgical Center. During a hearing on whether to unseal the case record, Shepherd said he will release an order early next week that will direct that documents in the case be released with the exception of one record filed with his office last year by Cameron. He also said names of the doctors would also remain confidential. At issue is a sealed lawsuit brought by the doctors and an official of EMW to quash a subpoena issued by Cameron for payroll and personnel records of the doctors. Cameron sought the records in 2023, a year after almost all abortions had been outlawed in Kentucky and the states abortion clinics had closed. A year ago Shepherd ruled in favor of the doctors, quashing the subpoena and ordering that most of the case file be unsealed. But Cameron blocked that order by immediately filing an appeal along with an emergency motion to keep the entire case a secret. On Aug. 9 a three-judge panel of the Kentucky Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed Shepherds quashing of the subpoena. Its order said the subpoena amounted to a fishing expedition and that Camerons premise that tax dollars may have been illegally spent on abortions was not supported the facts of the case. The appeals court ruling did not identify the physicians or U of L or EMW as their employers. Kentucky Lantern, based on information from knowledgeable sources and details in the appeals ruling, reported the case clearly involved the two U of L physicians and EMW, which was confirmed last week in a document filed by the parties in the case. The case is now over. Current Attorney General Russell Coleman decided not to appeal the appeals courts ruling. But the appeals court referred back to Shepherd the matter of whether the file should remain sealed. Shepherd scheduled Fridays hearing to give the parties to the case as well as the public and press a chance to be heard on the matter. Kentucky Lantern and Louisville Public Media intervened in the case to argue for opening the file. Near the end of the hearing Shepherd said he would issue an order early next week that largely conforms with the position jointly taken by all parties to the original case (the doctors and the Attorney General) that the file be unsealed except for the names of the doctors and a document filed by the Attorney General last year for Shepherds in camera review that dealt with the subject of its investigation. Tom Miller, a Lexington attorney who represented Kentucky Lantern and Louisville Public Media, argued Friday that this one document may be vital and should also be disclosed. All were asking is that the attorney general be required to disclose what it was that they thought they were investigating, Miller said. But Shepherd said that other documents that will be released will satisfy that concern. I think that when you see the rest of the file that all of the questions that youre identifying are going to be fully answered, Shepherd said. Just Stop Oil supporters targeted two Van Gogh paintings after their fellow activists were jailed Just Stop Oil has thrown soup over two of Vincent Van Goghs Sunflowers paintings in a sign of defiance after two of their members were jailed for a similar protest. On Friday, three protesters entered the Van Gogh Poets and Lovers exhibition at the National Gallery in London and threw soup over Sunflowers 1889 and Sunflowers 1888. It comes after Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were jailed on Friday for two years and 20 months respectively for throwing soup over the same 1888 painting in October 2022. Just Stop Oil claims similar actions of solidarity took place in Berlin, where protesters gathered outside the British embassy holding Solidarity with the Soup Throwers signs. The National Gallery said the three activists had been arrested and the paintings remain unharmed after the incident at 2.30pm. A statement said: The paintings were removed from display and examined by a conservator and are unharmed. We are aiming to reopen the exhibition as soon as possible. In a video on social media, one protester said: Future generations will regard these prisoners of conscience to be on the right side of history. Holland and Plummer, both 22, were found guilty of criminal damage at Southwark Crown Court in July. During their trial, it was heard the activists, who denied damaging the painting, caused as much as 10,000 worth of damage to the frame, which prosecutors said was a piece of art in itself. The protesters, wearing Just Stop Oil T-shirts, threw two tins of Heinz tomato soup over the 1888 work in October 2022, before kneeling down in front of the painting and gluing their hands to the wall beneath it. Visitors were escorted out by security staff, who then shut the doors to the room containing the painting. Raj Chada, defending Holland, said the women did check that the painting was protected by a glass cover before throwing the soup. Plummer, representing herself, told the hearing: My choice today is to accept whatever sentence I receive with a smile. It is not just myself being sentenced today, or my co-defendants, but the foundations of democracy itself. Painted in Arles in the south of France in August 1888, Van Goghs painting shows 15 sunflowers standing in a yellow pot against a yellow background. The priceless work was the second from the National Gallery to be selected as a target for protest action by Just Stop Oil in 2022, with two supporters gluing themselves to John Constables The Hay Wain in July of that year. In a video from the attack, Plummer was heard saying: What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people? The cost of living crisis is part of the cost of oil crisis. Protesters in support of Anna Holland and Phoebe Plummer staged a demonstration outside Southwark Crown Court - ISABEL INFANTES/REUTERS Sentencing the eco-activists, Judge Christopher Hehir said the painting could have been seriously damaged or even destroyed. Soup might have seeped through the glass, he continued. You couldnt have cared less if the painting was damaged or not. You had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers. Judge Hehir interrupted Plummer when she referred to herself as a political prisoner. He said: This is not helping your case, youre reading from a Just Stop Oil script, and Ive heard it all before. You understand we dont have political prisoners in this country, there are people suffering in dungeons all over the world. What youre doing is making an offensive comparison. He said the pair had crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic. Addressing Plummer directly, he added: The suggestion that you and others like you who are convicted by juries of your peers are somehow a political prisoner is ludicrous, self-indulgent and offensive. Perhaps some day you will come to realise that but I fear that day is a long way off. Plummer also received a three-month jail term for her part in a slow march that caused long tailbacks in west London in November 2023. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. An investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) found that a police department in the majority-Black city of Lexington, Miss., discriminated against Black people and sexually harassed women, as well as engaged in a number of other violations related to free speech, excessive force usage and funding, according to a report released Thursday. Todays findings show that the Lexington Police Department abandoned its sacred position of trust in the community by routinely violating the constitutional rights of those it was sworn to protect, said Attorney General Merrick Garland in a press release. The Justice Departments investigation uncovered that Lexington police officers have engaged in a pattern or practice of discriminating against the citys Black residents, used excessive force, and retaliated against those who criticize them, Garland added. The DOJ opened the investigation in November 2023. The DOJ report notes that the city and the Lexington Police Department (LPD) have cooperated fully with the investigation. The City and LPD have committed to working cooperatively with the department to address the violations identified in the departments findings, the report said. In the report, the DOJ said LPD officers sexually harassed women. It said these reports not only came from the women who said they experienced it, but also from people including four current and former LPD officers who claimed they witnessed it. The DOJ called the accounts of assault credible and consistent. The DOJ report states that all the women who were interviewed were Black. Just as LPD officers flout constitutional limits with their conduct, they cross professional boundaries in other ways as well particularly when interacting with women, the full report said. Four current and former LPD officers also reported that they had directly witnessed officers sexually harassing women while in uniform. The accounts of the sexual harassment were credible and consistent, the DOJ report said. The DOJ announced in the press release that the LPD and the city of Lexington engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that deprives people of their rights under the U.S. Constitution and federal law. Among the types of conduct listed, the DOJ said it found that the police department conducts stops, searches and arrests without probable cause. It also found that the LPD retaliates against people who criticize the police force, violating individuals free speech and expression rights, the release noted. The DOJ also found that the police departments funding operates under an unconstitutional conflict of interest, noting its funding depends on the money it raises through enforcement. According to the DOJs report, the LPD has made nearly one arrest for every four people in Lexington, which is more than 10 times the per capita arrest rate for the state. Those arrests were primarily for low-level offenses or traffic violations, the release noted. Additionally, when making these low-level arrests, the report noted the police used tactics normally reserved for serious offenses. For example, LPD officers broke down a Black mans door to arrest him for swearing at a public official, the report said. In another case, while attempting to arrest a man for having a tinted windshield, officers followed the mans car to his house, forced their way into his home, and tased him for 15 seconds. The report also said the LPD lacks any meaningful accountability system, which allows the LPDs actions to go unchecked. The DOJ found that the LPDs strategy has put the town of about 1,200 people in debt, owing $1.7 million to the police department. An employee who answered the phone at the Lexington Police Department, which is in Holmes County, told The Associated Press that Chief Charles Henderson was not immediately available to comment on the report. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. A Justice Department investigation concluded that a small Mississippi town piled more than $1.7 million in fines on its residents and then jailed them in an unconstitutional debtor's prison when they couldn't pay up. The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division released a report Thursday detailing a litany of alleged constitutional violations by the 10-member police department of Lexington, Mississippi, a majority-black town of about 1,200 people. Justice Department investigators found that Lexington police violated residents' rights at every stage: engaging in illegal traffic stops and searches, unconstitutionally jailing residents for unpaid fines and "investigative holds," and retaliating against anyone who criticized them. That's in addition to racial discrimination and numerous reports of sexual harassment by officers. The report concludes that a complete lack of leadership and oversight has "created a system where officers can relentlessly violate the law." "Lexington has turned the jail into the kinds of debtors' prisons Charles Dickens described in his novels written in the 1800s," U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi Todd Gee said in a press conference announcing the report's findings. "Only this is happening in Mississippi in 2024." The Justice Department opened an investigation into Lexington in November of 2023, a year after the former Lexington police chief resigned because he was secretly recorded using racist slurs and bragging about killing 13 people. The Justice Department report notes that, on the same day the department opened the investigation, "LPD officers chased a man accused only of disturbing a business and tased him nine times." In 2022, the Lexington Police Department adopted an expansive arrest policy for low-level and noncriminal conduct. It paired this with aggressive debt collection practices that jailed residents for unpaid fines, whether or not they could afford to pay. "Over the past two years, LPD has made nearly one arrest for every four people in town, primarily for low-level offenses and traffic violations," the report says. "That is more than 10 times the per capita arrest rate for Mississippi as a whole. Many of these arrests were for non-criminal conduct, like owing outstanding fines and using profanity." Justice Department investigators found that Lexington adopted the arrest policy, its revenue from fines increased from $30,000 per year to over $240,000, roughly a quarter of the police department's budget. The Lexington municipal court is funded through the police budget, including the judge's salary. Over the same period, the amount of fines owed by Lexington residents ballooned to more than $1.7 million. Lexington police have arrested 20 people since 2022 under a 1963 city ordinance that prohibits cursing at or ridiculing police officers, despite the fact that profanity is firmly protected by the First Amendment. These arrests are often paired with excessive force. "When making low-level arrests, LPD uses tactics normally reserved for serious offenses," the report says. "For example, LPD officers broke down a Black man's door to arrest him for swearing at a public official," the Justice Department report says. "In another case, while attempting to arrest a man for having a tinted windshield, officers followed the man's car to his house, forced their way into his home, and tased him for 15 seconds." The Justice Department also found LPD officers inflated or created bogus charges to collect additional fines and illegally held people in jail without probable cause for "investigative holds." Once in jail, the department refused to release people until they paid off old fines, in addition to a $50 "processing fee," regardless of whether they could afford to. Holmes County, which includes Lexington, is one of the poorest counties in Mississippi. Those who complained, criticized, or even tried to document the Lexington police faced illegal retaliation. The report notes a highly publicized incident last year when LPD officers arrested a civil rights attorney for filming a traffic stop. "I wrote more tickets for that lawyer the other night; that's because she had diarrhea of the mouth, y'all," the arresting officer said the next day, according to the Justice Department report. "Didn't know when to shut up." In another instance, Lexington officers jailed a woman for alleged unpaid fines after she posted a comment on Facebook criticizing a traffic stop. "Body-worn camera footage shows that, after handcuffing the woman an LPD supervisor said, 'Let's see if she gon' put that one on Facebook.'" "The officers fist bumped," the report says. "The woman, who was pregnant at the time, was jailed for five days without access to court." The Lexington investigation is the latest by the Justice Department detailing widespread civil rights violations by police departments. In June, the Justice Department released the findings of a similar "pattern or practice" probe in the Phoenix Police Department. Investigators documented incidents where Phoenix police fabricated incident reports, needlessly used physical force and dangerous restraints, illegally detained homeless people and destroyed their property, delayed medical aid to wounded suspects, and assaulted people for criticizing or filming them. Last year the Justice Department also released reports on pervasive civil rights violations by police in Minneapolis and Louisville. Those are major police departments, though. The Lexington report is notable because it is the sort of small speed-trap town that usually escapes scrutiny. In 2022, the tiny town of Brookside, Alabama, became a national news story when the Birmingham News reported that its mayor and police chief were using wildly excessive fines and forfeitures to bankroll its government. The Lexington Police Department declined to comment on the report. The post Justice Department Says a Small Mississippi Town Ran a Dickensian Debtor's Prison appeared first on Reason.com. Justices suspend NKY attorney who sought to 'harass and intimidate others' The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that prominent Northern Kentucky attorney Ben Dusing is barred from practicing law for three years. The suspension stems from his conduct during custody disputes over his children with two separate women. A prominent and controversial Northern Kentucky attorney is barred from practicing law for three years, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Thursday. Ben Dusings suspension stems from his conduct during custody disputes over his children with two separate women, in which Dusing threatened to blow up two attorneys In a ruling filed Thursday, justices agreed with the Kentucky Bar Associations Board of Governors October 2023 recommendation that Dusing be suspended for three years without credit for time served. Hes been temporarily suspended from practicing law since early 2022. Chief Justice Laurance VanMeter and Justices Debra Lambert, Kelly Thompson and Michelle Keller ruled in favor of the suspension. Justices Angela McCormick Bisig and Robert Conley agreed that Dusing violated ethical rules but advocated instead for permanent disbarment. In 2021, Dusing posted a threatening Facebook message in 2021 aimed at two attorneys involved in his case in Kenton County Family Court and used the word "f---," or some variation of it, almost 50 times in a roughly nine-minute video. The justices noted that the video was incredibly disturbing and threatening. Dusing has since apologized for posting the video, saying that he was advocating for court reform and was frustrated by alleged corruption in the family court process a notion the justices disputed, court records state. In their ruling, the justices outline various forms of misconduct by Dusing, including his history of engaging in frivolous litigation in family court proceedings. Dusing failed to use the laws procedures for legitimate purposes and instead intentionally sought to harass and intimidate others, the ruling states. Dusing filed several motions seeking recusal of the judge who presided over both cases, filed almost two dozen appellate actions between his two cases and sought to have an opposing attorney disqualified just days before a trials scheduled start. He also threatened the judge and opposing attorneys with disciplinary complaints and approached authorities over what he contends was criminally corrupt conduct in the proceedings, the document says. Court filings state Dusing even asked his attorney to pay a psychologist $5,000 to change a custodial evaluation. Dusing has yet to respond to an email from The Enquirer seeking comment. Attempts to reach him by phone on Friday were unsuccessful. Dusings sanction by the Kentucky Supreme Court isnt the only time his actions in family court landed him in hot water. He was ordered last year to seven days in jail years after being found in contempt of court for violating orders restricting communication with his ex-fiancee. Dusing is a former federal prosecutor who has represented high-profile clients, including Jeff Pastor, a former Cincinnati City Council member convicted of a federal corruption charge and Doug Evans, the Evans Landscaping owner convicted in a scheme to win contracts intended for minority-owned businesses. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Kentucky Supreme Court issues 3-year suspension for NKY attorney MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WREG) A jury found Justin Johnson, also known as Straight Drop, guilty Thursday on all three counts in the murder of Memphis rapper Young Dolph: first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and convicted felon in possession of a handgun. The judge sentenced him to life in prison on the murder count, and there will be a sentencing hearing Nov. 1 on the other counts. The jury deliberated for about four hours and returned the verdict just after 4 p.m. Johnsons attorney said afterward that his client was devastated by the verdict, and said he would pursue any and all avenues for appeal. On November 17, 2021, 36-year-old Adolph Thorton Jr., better known as Young Dolph, was gunned down at Makedas Cookies on Airways Boulevard near Ketchum in Memphis. After Thursdays verdict, Dolphs fiancee Mia Jaye released a statement on social media: Todays verdict brings relief and restores my confidence in the justice system, she wrote, thanking law enforcement, prosecutors and the public. The past three years, marked by the loss of Adolph and the events leading up to the trial, have been incredibly frustrating. My faith has been tested, but Adolphs tragic execution has only strengthened my resolve to fight for justice not only for him but for all Black men. The case is not yet over, however. Cornelius Smith, who testified that he and Johnson together shot Young Dolph, will have his case reset to November, prosecutor Paul Hagerman said. Its unclear how the case will affect third defendant Hernandez Govan. We will continue to make sure that all of those who are responsible for Young Dolphs death get the punishment they deserve, Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said outside court. Prosecutors argued that, based on witness testimonies, a $100,000 hit on Young Dolph was put out by Anthony Mims, also known as Big Jook. Big Jook is the second high-up at CMG Records, which is a rival of Young Dolph. He is also the big brother of another Memphis rapper Yo Gotti. They claimed Johnson followed Young Dolphs car to the cookie shop parking lot, got out, shot, and killed him. A digital forensic expert took to the stand by testifying cell phone towers show where Johnson made contact around key locations before and after the shooting. An MPD investigator testified that Johnsons call history shows him calling Big Jook minutes after the fatal shooting. Young Dolph trial: Day 1 Young Dolph trial: Day 2 Young Dolph trial: Day 3 On Wednesday, Johnsons attorney asked for him to be acquitted, but the judge denied that request and said it was up to the jury. Johnson briefly took the stand and said he had chosen not to testify on his behalf. Young Dolph grew up in the Castalia Heights neighborhood, blocks from where he died. He was the owner of record label Paper Route Empire. In 2016, he released his debut album, King of Memphis. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. Hurricane Helene was downgraded to a tropical storm on Friday morning after making landfall on Florida as a Category 4 hurricane on Thursday night in the Big Bend region of Florida. The storm left a wake of destruction along Floridas Gulf Coast late Thursday night. Multiple cities reported severe flooding due to the storm, and videos posted on social media showed houses floating away due to storm surge flooding. Surges were reported to rise as high as nine feet in some areas. Nearly one million people were reported to have lost power in Florida because of Helene. By Friday morning, the storm had weakened to a Category 1 hurricane and entered Georgia. Videos posted to social media as the storm hit Georgia showed strong wind gusts estimated to be around 60 miles per hour, heavy rain, and transformers blowing out in and around Savannah. After weakening to a tropical storm, Helenes effects were reportedly felt in North and South Carolina shortly after 4 a.m. At 409 AM, emergency management reported numerous road closures, ongoing water rescues, and flooded homes across Haywood County, WLOS, an ABC affiliate in Asheville, North Carolina, posted on its X account. Featured Local Savings The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported high tide levels and tornado warnings in Charleston, South Carolina, after 5 a.m. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER The NOAA also issued tornado warnings for areas in eastern Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Tropical Storm Helenes impact could extend as far inland to the southern Appalachian region, according to the Weather Channel. Rainfall from the storm could cause catastrophic flooding in this area. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) Two West Michigan K-9s are going head to head to see who can raise money for a bullet-resistant vest faster. K-9 Red from the Michigan State Police Grand Rapids Post is taking on K-9 Kratos from the Hart Post to raise funds for the vest, MSP said in a social media post. The fundraising efforts are through 3030, which helps raise funds for K-9 units, first responders or other emergency community needs. It takes on 30 campaigns for 30 days. Ive got her: Video shows MSP K-9, trooper find missing teen after 4-mile trek Both fundraisers are working to buy a bullet-resistant vest for the K-9s. The K-9 that fundraises faster will get a treat from Biggby Coffee, MSP said. One of these canines has NEVER had a pup cup, MSP said in a tweet. As of Friday around noon, the two fundraisers were neck and neck, with one taking a slight lead. The fundraiser for Red with the Grand Rapids post had raised $830, while the fundraiser for Kratos with the Hart post had raised $1,000. The goal for each fundraiser is $3,500. Any surplus funds will go toward other K-9 needs. 3030 recently helped the Grand Rapids Police Department fundraise to buy vests for eight K-9s. Along with bullets, the vests can also protect the dogs from things like stabbings, shrapnel and other hazards. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Kamala Harris headed to the southern border on Friday as she seeks to burnish a tougher image on border security and immigration. The Democratic presidential nominee will hold an event in Douglas, Ariz. to tout her policies to limit the number of illegal crossings and close the gap with former President Trump among voters on perceptions of handling the border. She will call for more resources for border patrol officers and stepped-up enforcement to stop trafficking of drugs like fentanyl, a Harris campaign official told reporters in a preview of the event. American sovereignty requires setting rules at the border and enforcing them, the official said. (Harris will) reject the false choice between securing the border and creating an immigration system that is safe, orderly and humane arguing we must do both to protect our countrys security and enduring legacy as a nation of immigrants. Harris plans to slam Trump as she has done for months over his decision to torpedo a border security compromise with conservative Republicans because the GOP candidate suspected the deal could hurt his campaign. The American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games, Harris plans to say, according to her campaign. Trump counters by branding Harris as a failed so-called border czar because she was tasked by Biden to improve conditions in the so-called northern triangle of Central America. The former president says Harris and Biden bear responsibility for millions of migrants and asylum-seekers who have crossed into the U.S. on their watch. Harris trumpets the executive action taken by President Biden after the collapse of that deal with Congress for significantly reducing the number of migrants crossing the border between Mexico and the U.S. Monthly border crossings are now at low levels similar to those in the last months of the Trump administration in 2020, a tentative policy success that has blunted a key political edge for Trump and his Republican allies. Harris wants to convince voters that its a false choice to pick either tough border security or a humane immigration policy. She hopes to forge a deal that could create a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. along with new rules to allow others to come legally instead of simply crossing the border. The Harris campaign also unveiled a new ad on Friday that will run in Arizona and other battleground states. In the 30-second spot, entitled Never Back Down, the narrator outlines parts of the border deal. She will secure our border. Heres her plan hire thousands of more border agents, enforce the law and step up technology and stop fentanyl smuggling and human trafficking, a narrator says in the ad. We need a leader with a real plan to fix the border and thats Kamala Harris. Vice President Kamala Harris will visit a city at the heart of the nations immigration issues on Friday to pitch her vision for border security and combat attacks from former President Donald Trump. Harris has just six weeks left to convince voters shed do a better job with immigration than her Republican opponent, an issue Arizonans name as a top factor as they consider who to vote for on Nov. 5. And right now, polls show that more voters say they trust Trump to handle the issue more effectively than Harris. The purpose for her trip is to attempt to define, or redefine, the immigration narrative, said Morgan Bailey, an attorney who previously served as deputy chief of staff at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security. She's walking this really fine political tightrope of border security versus humanitarian challenges. Arizona is home to the nations busiest border corridor and has the most fortified stretch of border in the country. Trump and Harris are locked in a contentious race in the state, where the latest polls show a close contest with Trump gaining ground. Both campaigns see Arizona, with its 11 electoral votes, as a must-win battleground state. Harris became the Democratic nominee just last month, and in that time Trump has worked to define her immigration position on his terms. Trump took a recent trip to the Arizona-Mexico border to paint Harris as a radical leftist and tie her to violent accounts of migrant crime. Now, Harris will use the same Arizona county as the backdrop to define her immigration policy views herself. Trump will continue to try to paint a picture of her as being soft on allowing individuals to come to the United States without a legal basis, Bailey said. So it's a benefit for her to go and to speak on these issues and to make it clear what her policies and priorities are. Trump bashed Harris for her border trip in a post on X, saying she has destroyed the very fabric of our Nation because border crossings increased during the Biden administration. During her visit to Douglas, a border city of 15,500 in Cochise County, Harris plans to hit back at Trump for his role in sinking a bipartisan border bill that stalled in Congress earlier this year. Trump urged Republicans to block the bill to deny President Joe Biden an election-year victory. This bipartisan bill that she references a lot, it was derailed by her opponent. I think it points to the fact that Donald Trump and his allies, they like to run on problems, they don't like to run on solutions, said Cesar Fierros, communications director for advocacy group Living United for Change in Arizona. That's something that she's going to point out, and I think that's going to further turn voters off, once they become more educated on what actually Trump is trying to do when it comes to immigration. Previewing her border trip, Harris promised in a TV interview to resurrect the legislation. She noted that it would have put 1,500 new border agents on the southern border, added funding to block the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. and "put more resources into our ability to prosecute transnational criminal organizations." We do have a broken immigration system. And it needs to be fixed, Harris said on MSNBC. My pledge is that, when elected president, if the American people will have me, I will bring that bill back and I will sign it into law. And we need a comprehensive plan that includes what we need to do to fortify not only our border, but deal with the fact that we also need to create pathways for people to earn citizenship. Harris is facing the challenge of satisfying the Democratic base with her immigration policies, while also appealing to the moderate voters and Republicans that her campaign is trying to win over in Arizona. Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels, a Republican who praised Trump during the former presidents border trip, said he has mixed emotions about Harris visit coming so late in her term as vice president. Are we coming for political reasons, or are we coming to actually engage a border that needs help? said Dannels. The Biden administration has shifted rightward on immigration over the last three years. Most recently, Biden signed an executive order placing new restrictions on asylum at the southern border in June. As her campaign takes shape, Harris has faced questions on her immigration views, including her past promise to give a pathway to citizenship to undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, known as Dreamers. Still, Harris immigration policies are a major contrast to Trump, who has pledged to conduct mass deportations if he returns to the White House and made false claims about migrants eating housepets in Ohio. Harris focus on bringing back the bipartisan immigration bill was welcome news for some border experts in Arizona. We have to wait and see if they do bring that bill back, if there are any changes. But there were a lot of provisions in there that we did like, said Luis Ramirez Thomas, president of Ramirez Advisors Inter-National, a government affairs and economic development firm that describes itself as specializing in "cross-border business solutions." "Additional funding for customs personnel, there was some funding for infrastructure," he said. "Was it the ideal bill to meet everybody's needs? No, but it was certainly a step in the right direction." During her time in the state, Harris will go to the Raul H. Castro Port of Entry for official briefings on operations and progress on disrupting the flow of fentanyl through the southern border. Fierros, the LUCHA spokesman, said he hopes Harris takes a broader view of immigration during her remarks. What we want is to be not just so strictly focused on what's happening on the border or in regards to border security, Fierros said. But also the fact that this country has a long history of positive contributions that immigrants have made to this country, and also the fact that there's a big need for comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kamala Harris heads to Arizona to counter border criticism For the third straight presidential election cycle, Arizona is setting a record for campaign stops by the major-party candidates. Vice President Kamala Harris' Friday visit to Douglas will be the 17th such trip to Arizona for a member of the White House ticket since the start of 2023 and reflects the states battleground status. An Arizona Republic review of presidential visits shows the state had 33 total visits over six election cycles from 1992 through 2012. From 2016 to now, it has already had 45. The Republic only counted visits in the year of or year before a presidential election. Former President Donald Trump won the state in 2016 by fewer than 4 percentage points, a historically low margin for a Republican. Four years later, President Joe Biden won the state by about 0.3 percentage points. His margin of less than 11,000 votes was the closest of any state Biden won. These results, along with a string of statewide wins for Democrats in the Trump era, explain Arizonas relatively newfound political relevance. Its no small thing for both parties to spend the time and cost of traveling across the country for what are typically brief events. In this case, Harris travels to a border town with fewer than 16,000 residents to discuss border security, an issue of national significance and one usually seen as a strength for Trump. But it also demonstrates the Democrats efforts to keep the state in their column. Harris has already made seven trips to Arizona in the past two years, most of them while Biden topped the ticket for Democrats. Throw in her one solo appearance in Arizona in the 2020 campaign, and she has made eight visits here. Former President Barack Obama, whose 2008 campaign put him against Arizonas U.S. Sen. John McCain, had four campaign stops. Biden made five between his time as Obamas vice president and his two subsequent presidential campaigns. McCain visited his home state throughout 2008 but held only two formal campaign appearances in a state he always expected to carry with little effort. No one has made more appearances in Arizona than Trump, who has had 17 campaign appearances. That doesnt count a 2021 Phoenix appearance before the current election cycle got underway. A visit to the border shouldnt come as a surprise. The Republic found that of 78 presidential campaign visits since 1991, only 29 were focused in Phoenix. Tucson, the states second-largest population center, hosted eight. The rest, 43 in all, were held elsewhere around a state that has provided helpful backdrops for the campaigns in different ways over the years. In September 1991, President George H.W. Bush made his first visit to the state since entering the White House with a trip to the Grand Canyon to praise a deal to help alleviate haze over the national park. The appearance also was a chance to boost his case that he cared about environmental concerns. In January 2012, Obama visited Intels chip-making facilities in Chandler in a trip most remembered for then-Gov. Jan Brewer wagging her finger in the presidents face on a tarmac. In August 2020, Trump visited Yuma to highlight his border policies during the Democratic National Convention. Arizona was long an electoral afterthought, with Republicans safely carrying the state all but once from 1952 through 2012. The only exception was 1996, when President Bill Clinton narrowly defeated U.S. Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., with help from conservative Reform Party candidate Ross Perot siphoning votes from the GOP. Dole made four stops in Arizona that cycle, including a predawn visit to a Phoenix diner the day before the election as part of a cross-county blitz. Clinton made three stops in the state. One of them was a September 1995 speech in Sun City that included a visit with former Republican senator and 1964 presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, who was in a hospital. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kamala Harris' latest Arizona visit is a campaign record. Here's why DOUGLAS Standing where Republicans have long dared her to go, Vice President Kamala Harris visited Arizonas border with Mexico on Friday and said it is former President Donald Trump who isnt serious about border security. In a major policy speech in Douglas outlining twin priorities on the issue of border security and immigration reform, Harris took Trump to task for the unsolved problems along the border and vowed to provide meaningful leadership on an issue familiar to her. I reject the false choice that suggests we must either choose between securing our border or creating a system of immigration that is safe, orderly and humane. We can and we must do both, Harris said during her 26-minute speech at Cochise College. Trump ripped toddlers out of their mothers arms, put children in cages, and tried to end protections for dreamers. He made the challenges at the border worse, and he is still and he is still fanning the flames of fear and division. But Harris' speech in Douglas showed she is willing to take a much tougher stance on border security and illegal immigration along the southern border that is more in line with Republicans and Trumps stance. Harris said as president she would take further action to continue a policy implemented by the Biden administration in June to keep the border closed between ports of entry. Under the Biden administration policy, asylum seekers who cross the border illegally instead of through legal border crossings face quick deportation and are barred from seeking asylum. Previously under the Biden administration, a large majority of asylum seekers who crossed the border illegally between ports of entry were processed and then released into the U.S. while their asylum cases were pending in immigration courts, a process that can take years and allows asylum seekers to put down roots, making it less likely they will ever leave, even if they lose their asylum cases. Under the previous Biden administration policy, millions of asylum seekers were allowed into the United States. The Biden administrations new border policy has received criticism from immigrant rights and advocacy groups who say the policy restricts asylum to people who qualify under law. Harris said as president she would also crack down on illegal border crossers who she promised to deport quickly and bar from reentering for five years. Repeat crossers would face criminal penalties. Those policies would mark a return to stricter border policies first put into place under previous Democrat and Republican administrations but for the most part were paused under the Biden administration. Harris' policy speech capped an afternoon that began with a briefing on operations and progress on disrupting the flow of fentanyl from U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the entry port in Douglas. She later turned Trumps signature political issue as an argument against him. She blamed Trump for the defeat of a bipartisan bill negotiated earlier this year in part by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., that she supports and would have boosted resources to help manage the border. He did so, Harris said, to ensure President Joe Biden didnt get a legislative victory in an election year and showed Americans how much he really cares about the issue. It was the strongest border-security bill we have seen in decades. It was endorsed by the Border Patrol union, and it should be in effect today, producing results in real time, right now for our country, she said. But Donald Trump tanked it. He picked up the phone and called some friends in Congress and said stop the bill. Because you see, he prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem. Harris cited her tenure as Californias attorney general, saying she walked through smugglers tunnels who trafficked guns, drugs and people and prosecuted such criminals. Republicans assailed Harris ahead of her visit, saying a spike in illegal border crossings came on her watch and after Biden named her his border czar. Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., whose congressional district includes most of Cochise County, knocked Harris' trip as a photo opportunity. Vice President Harris visit to the border smells like nothing more than a photo opportunity to try and score political points. For three and a half years, the vice president has been in a position to address this crisis but instead she has ignored it, he said in a statement. If she was truly serious about addressing the crisis at the border, she would have done something as the sitting vice president to help border communities that have been calling for help. After the Harris event, the Trump campaign denounced her visit as "a photo op and disgusting speech designed as political cover for the invasion she has brought on the American people over the past four years." Gina Swoboda, Arizona Republican Party chair, said the states residents have lived with the destructive policies of Kamala Harris open-border agenda for nearly four years now." "An eleventh hour visit to the scene of the crime by Border Czar Kamala is just another desperate attempt to score political points and cover up the absolute havoc she created," Swoboda said. "Make no mistake, if elected, Kamala Harris would only worsen the crisis that continues to destroy our communities and fuel a drug epidemic, which has stolen thousands of American lives and cost Arizona taxpayers over $58 billion." Seeking a reset on a thorny issue But the optics of Harris at the Arizona-Mexico border didnt seem a one-sided admission of failure that Trump and his allies may have wanted. There were no sizable protests. Illegal entries have waned compared with the record numbers of illegal border crossings earlier in the Biden administration. She urged the border-security bill to do more now than Trump would allow. During her tour of the border wall, Harris received briefings about efforts to combat traffickers and transnational criminal organizations from Customs and Border Protection officials from the Tucson Sector and Douglas Border Patrol Station. She visited a portion of the wall that was constructed from 2011 to 2012, a White House official said. Harris first stop was the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Douglas, where tall metal slats are wrapped in barbed wire. Harris said that Border Patrol agents have a tough job as she walked into the Raul H. Castro Port of Entry. Theyve got a tough job. And they need, rightly, support to do their job. And they work long hours, theyre very dedicated. And so Im here to talk to them about what we can do to support them and thank them for the hard work they do, Harris told reporters. A visit seeking more than Arizona votes Harris relatively brief visit to Arizona was her seventh since last year, and may have been her most important. The border has long seemed a political millstone for Democrats, a place where the party splinters on policy and the results are out of step with broad public opinion. The nonpartisan Pew Research Center released new survey data Friday that found 96% of Trump supporters and 80% of Harris supporters want increased border security. Nearly 90% of Trump supporters favor the kind of mass deportations for illegal immigrants that Trump is promising in a second term, as do 27% of Harris supporters. Trump has visited the border in Arizona and elsewhere taking what amounted to victory laps for his signature border wall and helped push the issue to the national fore. Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, have each visited the southern border in Sierra Vista, a city in rural Cochise County. Trump attacked Harris on Friday for going to the border, even as Republicans long criticized her for not doing so. Border Czar Kamala Harris has decided, for political reasons, that its time for her to go to our broken Southern Border. What a disgrace that she waited so long, Trump said in a post on X. When Kamala is seen at the Border on Friday, she will pass Hundreds of Miles of Wall that was built by TRUMP, and it is Wall that WORKS! When she speaks, be advised that this woman has allowed more than 21 million people into our Country, totally unvetted, and from places unknown. They are now creating criminal havoc all throughout the Country. Playing up past prosecutions To counter Trumps edge on the issue, the Harris campaign has touted her past role as attorney general of California. The vice president has sought to remind voters that she prosecuted criminals who trafficked guns, drugs and human beings during her time as Californias top prosecutor. On Friday, she sought to directly rebut his advantage on the issue with a message that acknowledged conditions arent acceptable and Trump himself is a barrier to better security. The port in Douglas offered another political point for Harris as well: It is being revamped using $400 million in funding from the infrastructure law negotiated by Sinema and signed by Biden. The funding will revitalize the existing port and build a second one over the next several years, as part of what officials call the Two-Port Solution. Harris visit may help shore up her standing in Arizona, where public polls show another razor-thin race. But her visit addressed an issue of interest far beyond a single swing state or the nations border states. Her support for the border-security bill isnt a new line of attack for Harris. She promised to resurrect the bill during a TV interview on Wednesday, saying that it would have put 1,500 new border agents on the southern border, added funding to block the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. and put more resources into our ability to prosecute transnational criminal organizations. We do have a broken immigration system. And it needs to be fixed, Harris said during an interview on MSNBC. My pledge is that, when elected president, if the American people will have me, I will bring that bill back and I will sign it into law. And we need a comprehensive plan that includes what we need to do to fortify not only our border, but deal with the fact that we also need to create pathways for people to earn citizenship. Illegal entries fall after Biden order Border crossings hit record highs under President Joe Biden, a fact that Trump has played up during his campaign. However, travel was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns during the Trump administration, complicating comparisons. Now, encounters at the border are trending down after Biden signed an executive order in June aimed at curtailing the number of asylum seekers entering the U.S. Federal officials saw a 40% decrease in migrant encounters in the month after Biden signed the executive order. In the Tucson sector, which has the highest number of encounters along the entire southern border, migrant encounters dropped by nearly half from June to July. The last time Harris was in Arizona, she held a packed rally at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The vice president also paid a visit to the Cocina Adamex restaurant in downtown Phoenix. Trump followed suit at the same venue in Glendale and drew a crowd that matched or exceeded hers in a sign of his continued popularity with Republicans. After Harris visit Friday, Arizona will have seen at least one presidential candidate or major surrogate per week during September. Vance campaigned in Phoenix at the beginning of the month, followed by vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz swing through Tempe and Mesa the following week. Trump held a rally in Tucson in mid-September, and Harris husband, Doug Emhoff, campaigned for his wife in the same city on the same day. Walzs wife, Gwen Walz, made a solo trip to Arizona last week, going from Phoenix to Flagstaff to court voters. Why Douglas? Here's why Kamala Harris is visiting this Arizona border city Arizona Republic reporter Sarah Lapidus contributed to this article. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kamala Harris in Arizona: She's in state to tout border message Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Douglas, Ariz., on Friday where she is expected to push for a border security bill that would provide funding for border agents and speak out against the flow of illegal fentanyl into the United States. Photo by Al Drago/UPI Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Vice President Kamala Harris will visit the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday where she is expected to target the flow of illegal fentanyl into the country and call for more resources for border agents, campaign officials said. Harris will travel to Douglas, Ariz., the site of the state's second longest port of entry along the border with Mexico where a campaign aide told USA Today she will stress that she is "pushing the toughest bipartisan border security plan in a generation." She is expected to express continued support for the bill that aimed to fund the Southwest border and expand the power of the president to use emergency authority to shut down the border to stem unauthorized border crossings once they hit a certain level. The measure had Republican support in the House as part of a broader National Security Supplemental until House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., called it "dead on arrival" after former President Donald Trump spoke out against it. "[Harris will] reject the false choice between securing the border and creating an immigration system that is safe, orderly and humane, arguing we must do both to protect our country's security and enduring legacy as a nation of immigrants," a campaign spokesperson told The Hill. Harris is also set to meet with border patrol agents during the trip. She has faced criticism from Trump, the Republican nominee, who has said she has been ineffective since President Joe Biden tasked her with leading efforts to stem immigration at the southern border in 2021. "After almost four years, Border Czar Kamala Harris has decided, for political reasons, that it's time for her to go to our broken southern border," Trump said on X. "What a disgrace that she waited so long, allowing millions of people to enter our country from prisons, mental institutions and criminal cells all over the world." Harris visited El Paso in June 2021, four months after being placed in charge of the border efforts, where she called for solutions to tackle the "root causes" of immigration. Kamala Harris heads to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona on Friday seeking to repair one of her most serious perceived vulnerabilities, and take on Donald Trumps fearmongering over illegal immigration. The American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games, the vice president planned to say, according to a senior Harris campaign official. Harris will turn the tables, and blame the ex-president for the immigration crisis at the southern border by spotlighting his leading role last spring in killing a bipartisan deal to curb illegal border crossings. A preview of her speech in Douglas, Arizona, across from neighboring Agua Prieta in Mexico, focuses not on the surreal, far-right pet-eating conspiracies espoused by Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, but on Trumps record. He demanded that congressional Republicans whom he largely controls reject a border enforcement bill negotiated by senators on both sides of the aisle. Trump has long viewed bipartisan governance as weak, and a political win for vulnerable Democratic congressional candidates in this high-stakes election cycle could have stung the GOP. On Friday, Harris plans to announce that, if elected, shell reintroduce the bill, which would multiply border agents and strengthen asylum laws. Shell tout her experience as a former prosecutor taking on drug and human smuggling cartels and announce that stopping the flow of lethal fentanyl across the border will be a top priority, the senior campaign aide said. Harris will propose adding new fentanyl detection machines at U.S. entry points. An ad touting her proposals is running in Arizona and other border states. The Democratic candidates trip to the border is designed to counter claims by Trump and his MAGA allies that Harris and the Biden administration opened the floodgates to illegal aliens. Both Trump and Vance have spread outlandish claims that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, have been stealing and eating residents pet dogs and cats, leading a group to seek criminal charges against them. The Trump campaign on Friday ridiculed Harris, whom Trump routinely calls the Biden administration's border czar, for taking a trip to the border to rewrite the past 44 months of chaos, crime, and bloodshed caused by her open border policy. Campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said voters are smart enough to realize Kamala Harris has been in charge of the border for four years and she has failed." As anti-immigration sentiment among voters has soared, according to Gallup polling, Trump and Vance have hammered the issue constantly on the campaign trail. At a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, last weekend, Trump declared, I am your border president, your border president. Kamala would be your invasion president. Recent polls show that even as Harris matches or surpasses Trump in national head-to-head polls, the GOP candidate still owns the immigration narrative. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll finds a significant number of voters trust Trump over Harris to handle the issue of the border. But Harris campaign advisers think the Democrats visit to the border Friday will help narrow the gap on her longstanding political vulnerability. 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. Kamala Harris will speak at this school. What to know about Cochise College Kamala Harris is visiting southern Arizona and the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday. Harris will be in Douglas on Friday, where she will tour a port of entry being revitalized by $400 million that was signed into law by President Joe Biden. The visit will be Harris first to the southern border since becoming the Democratic nominee and comes just six weeks before Election Day. Immigration is a vulnerable issue for Harris. Harris is expected to hit back at the former president and address border security concerns when shes in the state on Friday. Here's what to know about Douglas and Cochise College, where Harris is expected to make an appearance. Where is Kamala Harris speaking in Arizona? In addition to visiting the U.S.-Mexico border, Harris is expected to give a policy speech at the Cochise College's Douglas Campus, according to the Harris campaign. Election coverage: Is Arizona a swing state in the 2024 presidential election? Here's what to know What is Cochise College? Cochise College is a two-year public community college with campuses in several southern Arizona communities, including Douglas, Benson and Sierra Vista. Cochise College started in 1964 as one of Arizona's first community colleges. Now, nearly 11,000 students attend the school each year. Where is Cochise College's Douglas Campus? Cochise College's Douglas Campus, which opened in 1964, is situated between Douglas and Bisbee to better serve the southern Arizona communities, according to the community college. The school is located at 4190 West Highway 80, Douglas. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Where is Cochise College? Why Kamala Harris spoke at Arizona school The Scene Gavin Newsoms against it. Some Democrats in tight races are for it. And nobodys sure what Kamala Harris thinks about it. On Nov. 5, Californians will get a chance to pass Proposition 36, a measure that would roll back some of the criminal justice reforms passed by voters 10 years ago popular at first, then widely and conveniently blamed for a post-COVID spike in crime. Last week, a respected statewide pollster found Harris easily winning her home state, but clocked a 45-point lead for the ballot measure. I wondered which state I was living in, Newsom said at a press conference when asked about the PPIC poll results. Its about mass incarceration The impact its going to have on the Black and brown community is next level. Yet the vice president has not taken a position on the measure, or said how shell vote on it. The Harris campaign declined to comment when asked by Semafor. Thats not new for Harris: As attorney general, she never took a position on Proposition 47, the package of reforms that downgraded most thefts of under $950 to misdemeanors, and passed by 19 points. There were some procedural reasons behind her silence at the time, though. She followed the well-trodden and eminently defensible path of declining to take a position because of her offices legally mandated role in objectively calling balls and strikes while summarizing the initiative into a title and summary to appear on ballots, said Dan Newman, a strategist for Harris when she served as AG. Staying neutral in 2014, he argued, might have even been riskier politically than endorsing a measure with plenty of crossover appeal. Ten years later, Proposition 47 is a soft target for retailers, law enforcement, and politicians who blame progressive reforms for violent crime and retail theft. Donald Trump has falsely claimed that Harris supported the measure that was her that did that and folded it into a campaign thats swamping swing states with ads about violent criminals. Some on the right think they can push her to take sides on the newer ballot initiative. Its interesting, given how shes been so willing to buck the progressive orthodoxy on every single issue over the last few weeks, said Steve Hilton, a conservative commentator and strategist whos campaigned for Proposition 36, and is considering a run for governor in 2026. Youd think its a no brainer. Know More Democrats tried to head off Proposition 36 for more than a year, and Newsoms argued that voters top concerns about retail theft are being handled right now, without undoing a historic reform. We didnt just wake up to this issue, Newsom said last month as he signed a law that would make repeated retail theft a felony, not a misdemeanor. But the party isnt united on what to do; Orange County Sen. Dave Min, trying to hold a swing seat vacated by Rep. Katie Porter, endorsed Proposition 36 days before that bill-signing. Democrats failed to persuade voters even Democratic voters that tinkering around the edges of the problem with some pieces of legislation was a compelling answer to the videos they see on the news every few days of gangs of ruffians swarming retail outlets to commit smash-and-grab robberies, said longtime Democratic strategist Garry South. And Republicans are united in favor of the measure, a change from 2014, when many conservatives endorsed lower sentencing requirements and smaller jail populations. Its the first step forward in making crime illegal again, said James Shook, the campaign manager for Rep. Kevin Kiley, who ran unsuccessfully in the 2021 recall election against Newsom and has campaigned extensively for Proposition 36. Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, elected in 2022, faces a recall vote in five weeks, powered by anger at a crime spike that preceded her tenure. In Los Angeles County, DA George Gascon is trailing a former Republican in his bid for a second term. PPICs poll showed Proposition 36 with overwhelming support in the Democratic county; Harris, who endorsed Gascon in 2020, has stayed neutral in the race this year. Democrats trying to beat the new proposition say that Harris staying on the sidelines isnt a concern for them or a surprise, given the record. She had her own initiatives as San Francisco district attorney and as California attorney general. She helped craft the language for Proposition 47, and implemented it, but it was never her personal project. Obviously, the vice president has bigger fish to fry, and a lot of things on her plate in Pennsylvania and Michigan and Georgia, said Anthony York, a spokesman for the No on Proposition 36 coalition. Our campaign was not predicated on support from the vice president, but a lot of us involved in this campaign have her back. And theres an overlap. Were using some of the same messaging were not going back, either. But as it comes to her actual support, were not spending a lot of time worrying about it. Supporters of the proposition expect her to stay away, too. Weve seen from the polling that the public is fed up with retail theft and wants change, said Matt Ross, a spokesman for Californians Against Retail and Residential Theft. Thats why this is doing so well, regardless of what politicians are saying, on one side or the other. Davids view Its the same recurring question about Harris 2024: How many of her old views, statements, and agenda shes willing to stick with. The Trump campaign portrays the 2020 vintage Harris as the real one, a San Francisco liberal who wants to redirect money from the police to social services and stop deporting illegal immigrants. Campaign tactics work best if theyve been road-tested before the election, and were in year four of Republicans accusing criminal justice reformers of abetting retail theft and migrant crime. Harris was a reformer but she moved left, with Democratic activists, in the Trump years rather than in her prosecutor days. In this campaign, Harris has shifted her emphasis, talking about her own gun ownership while supporting an assault weapons ban, talking about prosecuting foreign criminals while, in the right settings, reminding voters that she wants a pathway to citizenship for most migrants. So, Harris has not said whether shell support a ballot measure that rebuts one of Trumps most common attacks. Thats not a huge surprise; Axioss Alex Thompson has built a beat out of Harriss non-answers to questions about her old positions. (Ive wondered whether there are just so many shipwrecked Resistance-era ideas and chants that they blur together in a cloud of oops for voters at this point.) The inevitable-looking gutting of Proposition 47 is, nonetheless, a big thing for Harris not to comment on. At the time, it represented a left/right convergence around the idea that too many people were filling prisons for minor offenses. Newt Gingrich, who endorsed Proposition 47, once asked voters to imagine you have the power to decide the fate of someone addicted to heroin who is convicted of petty shoplifting. He told Semafor that he still supported the principle, but understood the backlash. I believe adamantly, for non-violent crimes in particular, that you want to have a much better system of reintegrating people into society, Gingrich said. My sense is that she has a dilemma. In the black community, which she has to carry by a big margin, theres not a great deal of affection for locking so many people up. Notable In the Los Angeles Times, Mackenzie Mays digs into an example of the reform policies Harris does want to talk about: Treating child sex workers not as criminals, but as victims. In many other ways, Harris had been a cautious politician during her time in California. In the New York Times, Robert Draper looks at what Harris prioritized when she was a prosecutor: Her rise from strong-willed law enforcement official to standard-bearer in liberal Democratic politics is unusual and, some might conjecture, mutually incompatible. Trump has his own home-state ballot issue. He waffled on an abortion rights amendment that would undo the states six-week ban before ultimately coming out against it last month. Kamala Harris takes aim at Trump on first visit to US border in three years Kamala Harris talks to Border Patrol agents in Arizona on only her second visit to the border as vice-president Kamala Harris has visited the southern US border for the first time in three years in an attempt to confront her electoral vulnerabilities on immigration. The US vice-president viewed a port of entry between Mexico and the battleground state of Arizona on Friday afternoon before holding a rally in the border town of Douglas. The Democratic presidential candidate used her visit to attack Donald Trump on an issue that has been central to his campaign, and a major weakness of her own, accusing her Republican rival of fanning the flames of fear and division with his language on immigration. Ms Harris also called for more punitive measures for people crossing the border illegally. I will take further action to keep the border closed between ports of entry. Those who cross our borders unlawfully will be apprehended and removed and barred from re-entering for five years, she said. It marked her first visit to the southern border since June 2021, and only her second as vice-president, despite being tasked by Joe Biden with stemming the flow of migrants from Latin America into the US early in his term. Ms Harris said she would take further action to keep the border closed in her speech in Douglas, Arizona - Reuters/Go Nakamura Ms Harris has struggled with the brief and, while it does not include oversight of the physical border, the Trump campaign has used it to brand her a failed border tsar. On Friday, Trump blamed Ms Harris for the rising trend of irregular migration. The architect of this destruction is Kamala Harris, he said, at Trump Tower in Manhattan. She keeps talking about how she supposedly wants to fix the border. We would merely ask, Why didnt she do it four years ago? Its a very simple question. Ms Harriss first border visit in 2021 followed intense political pressure amid an unfolding crisis, with border facilities overrun and asylum seekers being held in squalid conditions. Kamala Harris at the border between Mexico and California during her time as the states attorney-general - Alamy When Ms Harris was asked why she had not yet visited the border in an interview at the time, she replied: I havent been to Europe [either]. It was seen as a PR disaster and her trip to El Paso, Texas, followed shortly afterwards. Conditions on the southern border have since improved, with shelters seeing a sharp decline in numbers and official data over the summer recording the number of apprehensions is at the lowest level since Mr Biden entered office. However, immigration remains an electoral millstone for Ms Harris White House run, with polls consistently showing voters trust her far less than Trump on border security and tackling illegal immigration. In Douglas, Ms Harris spoke to Customs and Border Protection officials and viewed part of a border barrier constructed between 2011 and 2012, during the Obama administration. She also drew on her past work tackling international gangs of drug and people traffickers in California and said she would target the entire global fentanyl supply chain. As a former attorney general from a border state, she took on international gangs and criminal organisations who traffic drugs, guns, and human beings, and she has long believed we need an immigration system that is secure, fair, orderly and humane, a stark contrast from the divisive and dangerous politics of Donald Trump, a Harris campaign aide said. Ms Harris has previously highlighted her support for the tough bipartisan border security legislation that would have granted Mr Biden sweeping powers to shut down the border on days when crossings exceeded a certain threshold, toughen criteria for asylum claims and fund more border agents and deportation flights. The legislation was blocked from advancing through Congress by Republican senators following a lobbying campaign by Trump who said he did not want to give Mr Biden a win on the border in an election year. Ms Harris frequently highlights her opponents intervention to paint him as a political opportunist. He killed a bill that would have actually been a solution, because he wants to run on a problem, instead of fixing a problem, she told MSNBC in an interview this week. While Trump has promised to carry out mass deportations and other measures to remove both illegal and legal migrants from the country, Ms Harris has attempted a more delicate juggling act. She has supported tough action to secure the border against illegal immigration, while also backing a pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children. Ms Harris has gained some ground among Hispanic voters, a significant voting bloc in Arizona, but Trump still holds a narrow lead in the state. It will be critical to winning the White House on Nov 5. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Police were called during a Thornton Township, Illinois, budget meeting when an argument broke out between township supervisor Tiffany Henyard and a township trustee. The meeting was set to address the fact that the township was operating without a fiscal budget, but trustee Carmen Carlisle shifted the focus to Henyards history of lavish spending on the taxpayers dollar. Carlisle applauded former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot for her investigation into Henyards spending habits as the mayor of Dolton, Illinois, a suburb of the Windy City. Lightfoots audit revealed that under Henyards leadership, the villages credit cards paid for nine domestic trips, $43,000 spent on Amazon in one day, $8,000 of purchases at Wayfair, and $2,000 spent at Best Buy. These are somebody using the credit card and charging these amounts using your tax dollars, Lightfoot said. Lightfoot found Doltons general fund balance at a $3.65 million deficit. When Heynard took office in April 2022, the town had a surplus of $5.6 million. "I would welcome her to come and do the same thing here at Thornton Township," Carlisle said. Featured Local Savings Henyard accused Carlisle of attacking her. "This is what I mean about my board," Henyard said, per CBS News Chicago. "It's a lot of hate, jealousy, and envy amongst them towards their supervisor. Carlisle and Henyard then began to argue, accusing each other of being liars. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER At one point during public comment, someone compared Henyard to an animal, prompting the police to be called. This is not the first time authorities have been called into a meeting involving Henyard. In April, law enforcement shut down a Dolton town hall meeting over safety concerns that a brawl would break out involving Henyard and residents. None of this had to happen: Firefighter who got $1.3M after abuse says KCFD failed her The Kansas City Council approved a $1.3 million settlement Tuesday afternoon for a 61-year-old Kansas City firefighter and paramedic who filed multiple suits against the department after years of being harassed by colleagues because of her age, gender and her identity as a lesbian. Its the largest settlement in city history for a discrimination case involving the fire department. Rebecca Reynolds filed multiple lawsuits against the city in the past year or so. As part of the settlement, she agreed to dismiss two other pending suits and to resign from the fire department. Reynolds will also abstain from filing a third lawsuit addressing the most recent set of harassment claims, according to a Thursday news release from her attorney Bert Braud of the Popham Law Firm. But despite the settlement from the city, Braud said in the statement that no disciplinary action was taken against any colleagues in the KCFD or in other city departments that were involved in investigating Reynolds complaints. Ms. Reynolds is especially troubled by the lack of accountability, he wrote. No one was held responsible and nothing has changed. Rebecca Reynolds joined the Kansas City fire department in 2003 at the age of 40. She says that in the years since, she was abused and mistreated primarily by male colleagues, one of whom allegedly peed on her personal belongings while she was out of her office. The department has long been accused of bias and favoritism in its hiring and promotion practices, as well as fostering a hostile work environment for those not part of the white, male demographic group that has shaped the departments culture for many decades, according to a report the city commissioned after The Star published a series of articles in 2020 about racism and sexism within the KCFD. According to court documents, Reynolds alleges that while she worked at multiple fire stations throughout Kansas City, male colleagues repeatedly questioned her decisions, made disparaging comments about her age and sexuality and used foul language to yell at her in front of patients and residents. When she complained about the abuse from her colleagues, instead of taking disciplinary action, Braud said department colleagues retaliated against Reynolds. At various points, Braud wrote, Reynolds was allegedly told to shut the (expletive) up, that she was not normal due to being a lesbian and that she was only a lesbian because she could not find the right man. Theres no way she would have been yelled at and treated the way she was if she were a man, Braud said. In the most notable incident, Kansas City firefighter Pleaze Robinson III was arrested for allegedly urinating on Reynolds belongings on September 10, 2023. She found $3,000 worth of personal belongings covered in urine, including a CD player, a boogie board and medic training books. Robinson was charged the next day with first degree harassment and first degree property damage after the urine was found to be a match with his DNA. The Missouri Commission on Human Rights recently granted permission for Reynolds to sue the city over the urination incident, according to Braud. Robinson was previously charged with third-degree assault in 2019 after allegedly body-slamming a woman to the pavement during a road rage incident, then punching her more than 30 times. At that point, he pled guilty and was put on probation but kept his job with KCFD. He is one of two colleagues who Reynolds most frequently ran up against, according to Braud. As he awaits trial, Robinson is currently still on the fire departments payroll, Braud wrote. Reynolds second lawsuit and third pending lawsuit were filed in 2023 and 2024, respectively .They included claims by Reynolds that coworkers posted inappropriate cartoons on a refrigerator in a communal area, and that she suffered a knee injury after a male coworker allegedly tripped her on purpose. After the injury, a colleague allegedly told Reynolds that she was an ongoing concern to the station, in part because she was a woman or, as the colleague allegedly put it, that she sat down to pee, Braud said. Reynolds was initially reluctant to resign as part of the settlement, Braud said. I have a valuable skill set that benefits my community and I leave proud of the job I did, Reynold said in the Thursday statement. None of this had to happen. Ms. Reynolds was let down by the KCFD chain of command, the citys internal EEO office, and the HR department. Our community deserves better, Braud said. It is our hope that the department will start doing the right thing. Between 2000 and 2020, legal settlements with fire department employees cost taxpayers $2.5 million, a Star investigation found in 2020. In the past two years, total fire department employee settlements have totaled $2.8 million, including Reynolds payout. Previous reporting by The Stars Mike Hendricks, Noelle Alviz-Gransee and Glenn Rice was used in this article. A Kansas City, Kansas, man was sentenced to just under 14 years in prison in the fatal stabbing of his father and a knife attack on a woman in July 2023. John McGriff, 33, was charged last year with second-degree murder and aggravated battery after allegedly stabbing his father, 72-year-old Samuel McGriff, in the senior care apartment the two shared. John McGriff was also initially charged with mistreatment of an elder and aggravated assault of a law enforcement officer before an Aug. 23 plea deal. A Wyandotte County judge sentenced McGriff to 166 months in prison Wednesday, according to court documents, with just over a decade of the sentence stemming from the murder charge. Kansas City, Kansas, police responded to 911 calls reporting a stabbing at 34th Street and Metropolitan Avenue around 11:47 a.m. on July 18, 2023. Upon arrival, officers discovered a woman, later identified as Stephanie Perez, with multiple stab wounds, then found John McGriff nearby. John McGriff had allegedly stabbed his father to death in their apartment in the 3700 block of Strong Avenue minutes before turning his knife on a random passer-by on the street. Perez had been walking home from volunteering at the food pantry at Immanuel Lutheran Church just before the attack. Two KCK police officers shot John McGriff multiple times after he charged at them with the knife, according to KCK police and court documents. After John McGriff and Perez were taken to the hospital in critical condition, an employee of the senior care home where the McGriffs lived told police she had found Samuel McGriff bleeding on the floor during a wellness check. Samuel McGriff was pronounced dead at the scene. Perez, now 47, suffered severe wounds to the face, neck and hands, according to a fundraiser set up by relatives after the attack. The first round of charges against John McGriff were brought by Wyandotte County prosecutors while he was in critical condition in a Kansas City-area hospital. McGriff will not be eligible for parole, according to court records. Previous reporting by Bill Lukitsch and Matti Gellman was used in this article. Kansas City police searching for owners of stolen property KANSAS CITY, Mo. Kansas City Property Crimes detectives are looking for the owners of personal things like guitars, tools and a crossbow. They would like to return the property to the owners, believing that if they reunite it with the rightful owners, more suspects could face charges. Overland Park police investigate arson, shooting Here are the items they posted Friday: Property needing to be returned to owners Property needing to be returned to owners KCPD said so far, one suspect is facing burglary charges. Detectives recovered other property, including a motorcycle and six guns. If this property pictured belongs to you, call the Metro Property Crimes Section at 816-413-3406. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. This is one of those days when something happens and you dont know exactly what it means, but you know it means something. I woke up this morning to find that Nancy Kassebaum, one of the few living legends left in Kansas Republican politics, had endorsed the Democratic presidential ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Joining her in the endorsement statement, which was provided to Fox News Digital, were Sandy Praeger, the Kansas insurance commissioner from 2003 to 2015, and former federal appeals Judge Deanell Reece Tacha, a Kansas native appointed to the 10th Circuit Court by Ronald Reagan in 1985, who served until her retirement as chief judge in 2011. In their joint statement to Fox, they said Americans are presented with a stark choice. No candidate is perfect, and we do not pretend that we subscribe to all the policy positions taken either by the national parties or any individual candidates, they wrote. However, we fervently believe that we must do our part to try to build a brighter future, which is why we will be voting for Kamala Harris and [Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz] in this election. We believe they most closely align with the aspirations of Kansans and reflect our rich history of working together to the stars through difficulty. Donald Trumps campaign responded with their usual belittling disdain of anyone who disagrees with them: Nobody knows who these people are, and nobody cares. Here in Kansas, most of us know at least two of the three. And our history says we do care what they think. Deserving of respect Kassebaum was the first woman ever to serve Kansas in the U.S. Senate, and voters here elected her to three terms. Shes the daughter of the late Alf Landon, former Kansas governor and the Republican candidate for president against Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. Praeger was so widely popular as insurance commissioner that the Democrats didnt even field a candidate against her the last time she ran, and she won with 99.6% of the vote. Tacha wasnt a household name appellate court judges seldom are but her long and distinguished career as a jurist and law-school dean merits respect. Kassebaum made a highly publicized endorsement of Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly in her 2018 campaign against Kris Kobach, and four years later when Kelly ran against Derek Schmidt. Praeger also endorsed Kelly in 2022. The pair were considered part of the moderate wing of the Republican Party, that was essentially purged from the Statehouse in a campaign masterminded by Sam Brownback when he was governor. The Trump campaigns reaction to the endorsements says something about them: They believe they can be as dismissive as they want of Kansas and Kansans because were going to vote for them anyway, no matter what they do or say. And it says something about us: We have been so reliably Republican in every presidential election since Lyndon Johnson that weve voted ourselves into irrelevance. The political publication The Hill rates Trumps chance of winning Kansas at greater than 99%. Our state is considered such a nonentity in national politics that nobody even bothers to ask us what we think anymore. We havent been the subject of a single poll since President Joe Biden stepped aside and turned the Democratic presidential campaign over to his vice president, Harris. In fact, the only poll gauging Kansas sentiment in the presidential race all year appears to have been commissioned by former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which showed him beating Biden by 12 points and running only two points behind Trump. That poll, conducted by Zogby Analytics, showed Trump up five points in Kansas in a head-to-head matchup with Biden: 48.9% to 43.9%. We can pretty much ignore those numbers. They seemed pretty squirrely when they came out in April and a lot has happened since. Harris-Walz energy Maybe Trump shouldnt be quite as smug about us falling into the MAGA line as he obviously is. We are, after all, the state that was the first to vote in favor of abortion rights after Trump appointees on the Supreme Court cast the decisive votes to overturn Roe v. Wade. Trump himself noted that in his Sept. 10 debate with Harris: Kansas, the vote was somewhat liberal much more liberal than people would have thought. Also, there is significant and in my experience as a Kansas political writer unprecedented energy for the Democratic presidential campaign this year: A hastily created Facebook group Kansas Women for Kamala Harris has just shy of 30,000 members. Astonishingly, its a private group, so not just anyone can join. A Harris-Walz rally at the Wave venue in Wichita on Aug. 29 drew a sizable crowd, so county Democrats have planned another one for Thursday. A debate watch party for Democrats also drew a packed house at The Artichoke East sandwich bar. Kansas women are posting themselves on social media with pearls and blue Chucks (Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers). Theyre staples of Harris campaign wardrobe and a sort of under-the-radar show of support for her among those who cant wear campaign gear in the workplace. Does this energy translate into a win for Harris in Kansas? I wouldnt go that far. But that doesnt mean it wont make a difference. Across this state, especially in northeast Kansas and the Wichita area, there are close races for Kansas House, Senate and county commission seats, where down-ballot Democratic candidates might benefit from a movement of motivated women who turn out on election day on a mission to support Kamala Harris. For now, Ill just say dont sleep on Kansas. This election could turn out to be a lot more interesting than the rest of the country and the Trump campaign is giving us credit for. HONOLULU (KHON2) The Kauai Police Department (KPD) is teaming up with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to host a Drug Take Back Day on Saturday, October 26, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at KPD headquarters, located at 3990 Kaana Street in Lihue. Get Hawaiis latest morning news delivered to your inbox, sign up for News 2 You This event offers community members a safe and easy way to dispose of unused, unwanted, or expired medications through an anonymous drive-thru drop-off service on the east side of the building. The event will accept a variety of medications, including tablets, capsules, liquids, and patches, whether they are prescription or over-the-counter. Needles and syringesboth new and usedwill not be accepted. Best of all, this service is free and completely anonymousno questions will be asked. This initiative is part of a national campaign by the DEA designed to provide a secure method for disposing of medications while raising awareness about the risks of drug misuse and the importance of proper storage and disposal. State provides $235,000 to support homeless youth services Improperly discarded medications can harm the environment and potentially contaminate water supplies, endangering aquatic life. Additionally, unused medications in homes can lead to misuse or abuse; the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reports that most people who misuse prescription drugs get them from friends or family. Now in its 15th year, the DEAs Drug Take Back Initiative has collected over 53,000 pounds of prescription medications across Hawaii. In the last event held in April, more than 3,200 pounds were turned in at collection sites statewide. For those who cant make it to Drug Take Back Day, KPD headquarters has a permanently installed medication dropbox available for anonymous disposal of unused or expired medications at any time. Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news For more information about the National Drug Take Back Initiative, visit the DEAs website or contact KPD Criminal Investigations Division Captain Darren Rose at 808-241-1696. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KHON2. TOPEKA (KSNT) Kansas wildlife officials will be meeting early next month for discussions of hunting regulations impacting antelope, elk, deer and more. The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (KDWP) announced in a press release on Friday, Sept. 27 that it will be holding a commission meeting at noon on Thursday, Oct. 3 at the Wyandotte County Historical Museum in Bonner Springs. People can attend the meeting in person or online. Alligator snapping turtles are back in Kansas, what to know Commissioners will discuss and vote on multiple items during the meeting related to hunting regulations and seasons along with other items. These include the following: Vote on temporary regulations. K.A.R. 115-25-8 elk 25-series regulations. K.A.R. 115-25-9a military deer seasons Review session. Coyote night vision and predator control. General discussions. Election of the commission chair. K.A.R. 115-25-7 antelope regulations. K.A.R. 115-25-8 elk regulations. Workshop item discussions. Big game 4-series and 25-series regulations. Carcass movement regulation. K.A.R. 115-25-5 Fall Turkey Regulations and K.A.R. 115-25-6 spring turkey regulations. Five-year review of the threatened, endangered, and species in need of conservation lists. Kansas River invasive carp summary and proposed snagging opportunity. Invasive species regulations. Sportfish vs. non-sportfish regulations. Hunting changes impact multiple lakes in Kansas A copy of the full agenda for the Oct. 3 meeting can be found below or online by clicking here. You can attend the meeting virtually through Zoom, phone or live streaming options. The next commission meeting is set for Thursday, Nov. 21 at the Great Plains Nature Center in Wichita. October+3,+2024+Commission+Agenda+REVISED by Matthew Self on Scribd This embedded content is not available in your region. For more Kansas Outdoors, 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. Chief Master Sgt. Michael Venning has been relieved of his position as command chief of the 81st Training Wing at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi. Col. Billy Pope, the commander of the 81st Training Wing, said a command-directed investigation into Venning resulted in his removal, effective Sept. 23. Col. Pope had temporarily reassigned Venning on July 30 while the investigation took place, a release from base officials said. A command chief is the highest-ranking enlisted personnel in their unit, which in this case was the 81st Training Wing According to Vennings biography, he is a native of Australia who joined the Air Force in 2000. He earned his U.S. citizenship in 2005. By 2014, he was named one of the 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year. His service included six years in a combat communications unit as a power production specialist. In 2006, he retrained into contracting. Venning also served as commander of the NCO Academy and Airman Leadership School, and deployed four times to support Operations Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, and New Dawn. He also served as command chief for the 100th Air Refueling Wings at Royal Air Force Mildenhall in the United Kingdom before taking on the role at Keesler. As wing command chief, he is a senior enlisted advisor to a base or wing commander. As command chief, he oversees the bases professional development, readiness issues, and health, morale, and welfare of the wings 12,000 military and civilian Airmen and acts as functional manager for chief master sergeants and first sergeants, the biography said. Fox Nation host Kellyanne Conway sat down with her eldest daughter, 19-year-old content creator and political activist Claudia Conway, about the importance of finding "common ground" despite having passionate political differences on the latest installment of "Here's the Deal with Kellyanne." "Claudia, people will ask you or ask me consistently like, Oh, how can you disagree politically and love each other, as if politics is more important than love, or, you know, 'What do we have in common?' Et cetera," Conway began. "You and I know what our relationship is, but I like to think that you were raised along with your siblings as independent thinkers, and that you come to your own politics." Conway asked her daughter whether she thought it's "possible" for people to have political conversations about the things they agree on despite the few major issues they don't. Click Here To Join Fox Nation Fox Nation host Kellyanne Conway welcomed her daughter, 19-year-old political activist Claudia Conway on the latest installment of "Here's the Deal with Kellyanne." "I think that we have a very binary view of politics, just as a whole of our society," Claudia responded. "That's why I'm a registered Independent, because I'm told, 'if you don't fit X Y and Z, you can't be a Republican. If you don't fit X Y and Z, you can't be a Democrat.' And I don't believe in that. I don't think things are black and white, and these choices should not be binary." Kellyanne Conway: Kamala Harris Is Trying To Outrun Her Past While Trump Channels His Read On The Fox News App "You and I can sit here and find things that we agree on. We can sit here and have common ground, even though we have completely different views on many different things," she continued. "You and I talked about the debate, and you said, you know, Trump shouldn't have said this and that, we can agree on that. We can agree on certain things, or Kamala Harris had a missed opportunity. We can agree on those things It's not black and white." Claudia then told her mother, "I can look at you and love you even though you have a different political opinion than I do, and we can be humans at the end of the day. The divisiveness and the lack of unity in our political atmosphere right now is what is going to drive us further apart. And we always talk about the fall of our democracy, the fall of our nation. That is the fall of our nation and our democracy, by furthering the gap between Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals, we are creating that divide ourselves. "So I applaud you and commend you for having me on your show and having you know people of all different backgrounds on your show, because I think these conversations are the most important conversations," Claudia added. Click Here For Media And Culture News During their conversation, the political activist suggested that Vice President Kamala Harris' policy shifts between 2019 and 2024 are a double-edged sword for her going into November, particularly with young voters. "I think she's running in a much more moderate position now, and that's playing her strengths, but it's also, you know, not helping her in some ways," Claudia said. "We have the college students who are sitting in encampments for Palestine. They're not voting for Kamala Harris, and they're not voting for Trump, and guess what, they're not gonna go to the polls because of it, because now they are so apprehensive. They're like You know what? These people are not working for me. They don't have my best interest at heart. They don't care about people's lives.' And that's the problem." "I encourage my generation and young people in general to look beyond that and if you don't want to vote for president, vote down ballot. See who's running in your city, in your county, in your district, and make your choices based off that," she added. Original article source: Kellyanne Conway, daughter Claudia find common ground despite politics: We're 'humans at the end of the day' The general counsel for Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear ordered the sheriff accused of gunning down a judge in his chambers to resign by the end of the week or face removal proceedings. In a letter Wednesday, S. Travis Mayo told Letcher County Sheriff Shawn Mickey Stines that if he does not tender his resignation to the Letcher County judge/executive by the end of Friday he will move forward with removing him under a state law that allows governors to fire peace officers for neglect. Stines, who pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder in connection with the Sept. 19 shooting of District Judge Kevin Mullins, has 20 days to prepare a defense, according to the statute. Mullins, 54, was shot multiple times and pronounced dead at the scene. Stines, 43, surrendered at the courthouse without incident. The Letcher County Sheriffs Office could not be reached for comment Thursday. A lawyer representing Stines in a 2022 federal civil case accusing him of failing to adequately train and supervise a deputy accused of abuse did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Letcher County Judge/Executive Terry Adams did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A Kentucky State Police spokesman has said the shooting at the Letcher County Courthouse occurred after an argument in the building. Authorities have not disclosed a possible motive. The Letcher County Courthouse in Whitesburg, Ky. Three days before the shooting, Stines was deposed for nearly four hours in connection with the federal lawsuit, which alleges the deputy abused a woman, according to the victims lawyer. A filing in the case from Stines lawyer argued that Stines was protected from being sued over the allegations because of his position as an elected official and law enforcement officer. Asked whether state police are investigating a potential link between the suit and the shooting, a spokesman for the agency, Matt Gayheart, said, Nothing is being ruled out as a possible motive at this point. Jonathan Shaw, the lawyer representing Stines in the lawsuit, said he did not know anything about the shooting other than what has been reported in the news. I hope that in time we will have a clearer understanding of the circumstances that led to Judge Mullins death, Shaw said in an email. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com Kentucky official accused of sexist, derogatory comments about women removed from office The Kentucky Supreme Court has removed a local official accused of yelling at employees, calling a female staffer a derogatory term and spreading sexual rumors about a political opponent. The high court issued an order Thursday removing Dwight Hopkins, the circuit court clerk in Lincoln County. The court said there was clear evidence that Hopkins had created a hostile environment in the office and failed to treat employees with respect, as required by a code of conduct for clerks. Hopkins actions interfered with the proper functioning of the office, the court said. One female employee suffered stress-induced panic attacks and another began taking medication and cried extensively because of what she called the terrible office environment, according to the court order. Hopkins was elected circuit clerk in November 2022 to fill the unexpired term of a longtime clerk who retired, Teresa Reed. Circuit clerks in Kentucky manage court records, schedule juries and collect fines and fees for the court system. The Supreme Court order said in its order that the first few months of Hopkins tenure were normal. That changed dramatically beginning on Feb. 24, 2023, when Hopkins learned several employees were planning to go to a movie with Angelia Doolin. Doolin ran unsuccessfully against Hopkins in the November 2022 special election. Hopkins got upset about the movie outing and told Norma Atwood, the chief deputy clerk, that he considered Doolin his arch enemy, according to the court order. Over the next few weeks, Hopkins said he would fire two staffers if they went to the movie with Doolin and made a number of statements that were sexist and derogatory toward female employees, the Supreme Court concluded. Those included saying women couldnt be trusted, women cannot tell the truth, women have to respect men, but men have to respect God, and telling one female employee she was a good looking woman for her age, according to the order. Hopkins called one female employee a smart aleck and another derogatory term; used obscene language in referring to Doolin and repeated rumors of a sexual nature about her; denigrated his wife over her weight gain; and yelled and slammed his fists on the desk in one meeting, according to the Supreme Court order. He also told one employee the sight of her made him sick, then proceeded to stick his finger in his mouth and make gagging noises, the court said. His actions had no legitimate work purpose and served only to intimidate, humiliate, and demean his employees, and those employees reasonably perceived his actions as being based on sex or political affiliation, the high court said of Hopkins. The court order said Hopkins admitted yelling, cursing, making demeaning comments about women and did not deny spreading baseless sexual rumors about his opponent, according to the court order. Hopkins said he regretted many of the things he said, but contended he acted in good faith and accused others of lying to further a conspiracy he believes was occurring, the Supreme Court said. But the high court called Hopkins belief in a conspiracy unsubstantiated and said his behavior fell far below the elevated standards of integrity required of elected officials. Doolin defeated Hopkins in the primary election in May. New York City Mayor Eric Adams is set to appear in Manhattan federal court on Friday, facing charges of accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions from Turkish nationals. The Democrat, resisting calls from within his party to resign, is expected to plead not guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker. His initial appearance in court is slated to happen at noon local time. Federal prosecutors allege that Adams, 64, received luxury travel perks, including expensive hotel stays and meals, in exchange for pressuring city officials to approve the opening of Turkeys new 36-story consulate in 2021 despite safety concerns. The indictment, unsealed Thursday, claims that the illegal contributions date back to 2014, when Adams was Brooklyn borough president, and helped finance his 2021 mayoral campaign. The indictment also claims Adams received tens of thousands of dollars in free travel from a Turkish airline and underpaid for luxury accommodations in Istanbul. He allegedly funneled campaign contributions from Turkish sources through U.S. citizens to qualify for additional public financing, violating U.S. campaign laws. Adams has denied any wrongdoing, stating at a press conference on Thursday, I will continue to do my job as mayor. If convicted of the five criminal charges, Adams could face decades in prison. After the mayor's arraignment was scheduled for Friday, attorneys for Adams made an eleventh-hour request on Thursday to postpone the mayor's first appearance in court till Monday, though the request was denied. Featured Local Savings The judge randomly assigned to oversee the broader trial is U.S. District Judge Dale Ho, an appointee of President Joe Biden and a former American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who had a contentious nomination process last year in which he was narrowly confirmed in the Senate by a 50-49 vote. Ho's role in the trial could be a legacy-defining moment for the judge as he weighs the case against the first New York City mayor to face criminal charges while in office. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER Political pressure is on Adams as federal investigations also target senior city officials and members of the mayor's inner circle. Several New York Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), have called for his resignation, while others, such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), have refrained from doing so. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) has stated she is reviewing her options regarding Adamss future as mayor. FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) Kentuckys attorney general has sued Express Scripts, claiming the big pharmacy benefit manager was at the center of an opioid dispensing chain that fueled a deadly addiction crisis still haunting his state. The lawsuit Attorney General Russell Coleman filed this week in state court claims St. Louis-based Express Scripts and its affiliated organizations colluded with opioid manufacturers in deceptive marketing schemes to increase sales of the addictive drugs. Read more of the latest Kentucky news The result was an epidemic of overdose and death caused by an oversupply of opioids flooding communities from powerful corporations who sought to profit at the expense of the public, the suit says. The amount of prescription opioids sold annually in the U.S. quadrupled between 1999 and 2010, it says. Kentucky has been at the epicenter of the crisis with some of the nations highest overdose death rates. The role of Express Scripts in causing the opioid epidemic has been largely concealed from public view, the suit says. But it has now become clear that, for no less than the last two decades, Express Scripts has had a key role in facilitating the oversupply of opioids through intentional conduct that disregarded needed safeguards in order to increase the prescribing, dispensing and sales of prescription opioids. Express Scripts did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, run prescription drug coverage for health insurers and employers that provide coverage. They help decide which drugs make a plans formulary, or list of covered medications. They also can determine where patients go to fill their prescriptions. For years, pharmacy benefit managers have been the target of ire for politicians, patients and others. But PBMs have said they play an important role in controlling drug costs and pass along most of the discounts they negotiate to their clients. LATEST KENTUCKY NEWS: In June, Arkansas sued two pharmacy benefit managers, accusing them of fueling the opioid crisis in that state. The suit was filed in state court against Express Scripts and Optum and their subsidiaries. The Kentucky suit against Express Scripts and its related entities says the state should receive $2,000 for each willful violation of the Kentucky Consumer Protection Act, along with any other penalties the court deems appropriate. The suit was filed in Jessamine County Circuit Court in Nicholasville. Coleman, a Republican, is the latest in a series of Kentucky attorneys general from both parties including former attorney general and current Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear to go to court to hold opioid manufacturers and distributors accountable for what they viewed as the companies roles in causing the addiction crisis. Colemans predecessor, Republican Daniel Cameron, secured more than $800 million for Kentucky as part of settlements with companies for their roles in the addiction crisis. Half of Kentuckys settlement will flow directly to cities and counties. A commission is overseeing the distribution of the states half. The latest lawsuit claims that Express Scripts failed to report suspicious volumes of opioids flowing into Kentucky. The company also dispensed opioids through mail order pharmacies without effective controls, violating Kentucky and federal law, the suit says. Express Scripts and the other pharmacy benefit managers amassed an unprecedented level of power, using it to push opioid pills and conceal unlawful activity, Coleman said Thursday in a statement. They must be held to account for profiting off Kentucky families pain. Drug overdose deaths in Kentucky fell nearly 10% in 2023, marking a second straight annual decline, but state leaders say fatalities remain tragically high and the fight against the drug epidemic is far from over. Nearly 2,000 Kentuckians died last year from drug overdoses. Coleman recently announced plans for a statewide drug prevention program aimed at young people. Beshear says Kentucky is at the forefront nationally in the per-capita number of residential drug and alcohol treatment beds. In Washington, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has steered huge sums of federal funding to his home state to combat its addiction woes Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 56 News. Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta talks about Project 2025 during the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 20, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) During the latest fundraising period, Democrat Malcolm Kenyatta vastly outraised his Republican opponent in the Auditor General election, incumbent Tim DeFoor. Thats according to their latest campaign finance reports covering money raised and spent between May 14 and September 16. Kenyattas campaign reported raising $491,200 while DeFoors claimed $67,800. The difference is especially notable when, generally speaking, incumbents usually outraise their competitors. Kenyatta also outspent DeFoor, paying $184,000 for various campaign expenses compared to $65,000 by DeFoor in the same period. That leaves Kenyatta with nearly $416,000 in his campaign coffers, and DeFoor with just under $19,000 only weeks before the election. Alex Simmons, DeFoors campaign manager, cited a few reasons for the candidates disappointing haul. With PA being such a battleground, money needs to be going to other races, said Alex Simmons, DeFoors campaign manager. Because of that you have how can I put this the Auditor General race has typically been at the bottom of the totem pole. Simmons added that the legislature has become particularly competitive and absorbed a lot of Republican party resources and the attention of GOP donors this year. That is, in no small part, because of redistricting that occurred after DeFoor was first elected in 2020. Kenyatta had a different idea. If you look at an incumbent Auditor General whos not even able to reach out to people across Pennsylvania and raise $100,000, I think it speaks to the fact that people dont have a lot of faith in him, Kenyatta said. The largest share of Kenyattas campaign money over $251,000 comes from various political action committees. Some of his largest contributions come from various labor-affiliated PACs. That includes $50,000 across two donations from the D.C.-based American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, $25,000 from the Greater PA Carpenters PAC and $20,000 from a Philadelphia electric worker union. Kenyatta is proud of this. I have a 100% pro-labor voting record, he said. I am never shy about being unequivocal in my support of standing up for unions, for organized labor and for workers. Kenyatta also received thousands from fellow Democrats in the state legislature. Its not uncommon for candidates in the same party to give to one another, especially when the donor is in a less competitive race. DeFoor also received the largest share of his money $40,000 from political action committees. PACs donating to DeFoor were more likely to represent a specific business or business interest, or conservative ideological group. Kenyatta also received a larger share of his funding nearly $91,000, or a bit under 20% from donations of $250 or less. $26,000 of that comes from donations of $50 or less. DeFoor, on the other hand, received nearly $5,400 or 8% of his fundraising from donations of $250 or less. Simmons, DeFoors campaign manager, said part of the auditor generals lagging fundraising comes down to the candidates style. Tim has never been a political person, Simmons said. Hes never been someone who has been a great campaigner. Thats not who he is. Hes not a politician. Though Simmons said hes confident that DeFoors earnestness and low profile style will pay off on election day. He added that, in 2020, DeFoor was an underdog and had been outraised by his Democratic opponent, but still managed to win. In that race, DeFoors Democratic opponent, Nina Ahmad, managed to raise nearly $1 million more than him. But DeFoor was buoyed by a roughly equivalent lead in in-kind contributions or help and advertising paid by someone other than his campaign. If DeFoor is not a politician, according to his campaign manager, he stands in stark contrast to Kenyatta in that way. His star has been rising in both the Pennsylvania and national Democratic party. After becoming the first openly-LGBTQ person of color to serve in the state Legislature in 2018, Kenyatta was chosen to deliver a keynote address at the 2020 virtual Democratic National Convention. In 2023 he was again tapped by Biden to serve as chair of a presidential advisory commission on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence and Economic Opportunity for Black People. He received another speaking spot at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, and came prepared with a prop. Kenyatta is also running unopposed to keep his state House seat this year. DeFoor, on the other hand, had only won a local election before running to be Auditor General in 2020. When DeFoor won that election, he became the first Black auditor general in Pennsylvanias history, and the first Republican to hold the office in the 21st century. But his biography made him something of a natural fit. DeFoor had previously served as a special agent investigating Medicaid fraud in the Pennsylvania attorney generals office. And while serving as Dauphin County Controller, he created a new county audit division. Since becoming auditor general, DeFoor has ruffled feathers. Most recently, his audit of the Department of Human Services oversight of Pharmacy Benefit Managers received criticism from DHS, as well as numerous Democrats, including Kenyatta. Rep. Jessica Benham (D-Allegheny), who sponsored a bill creating new regulations for pharmacy benefit managers, and who has campaigned with Kenyatta, called the audit, which was critical of DHS, deeply unserious and misleading. Kenyatta called the audit politically timed and said in an interview with the Capital-Star, what this audit proved to me is that he doesnt know what hes talking about. DeFoor has defended his work. I think a lot of that is because of the election, Simmons said about the Democratic criticism. Obviously our competitor has tried to paint it as a political audit. DeFoor also refused to speak to the accuracy of the 2020 election with a notable exception. Shortly after taking office in 2021, DeFoor was questioned in the state House by none other than Kenyatta about the results of the 2020 election, which were being falsely refuted by former President Donald Trump and some other conservatives. I believe my election was fair, DeFoor said at the time. As far as anybody elses election, thats a conversation you would have to have with them, Young Dolph performs at the Parking Lot Concert in Atlanta on Aug. 23, 2020. He was fatally shot at a cookie shop in his hometown of Memphis, Tenn. (Paul R. Giunta / Invision / Associated Press) One of the men involved in the murder of rapper Young Dolph was sentenced to life in prison Thursday after a four-day trial in Memphis, Tenn. After four hours of deliberation, Justin Johnson was found guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and possession of a handgun by a felon. The judge sentenced him to a life term, according to the Shelby County district attorney. Johnson will be sentenced for the two latter charges in November. Young Dolph, whose real name was Adolph Thornton Jr., was shot in November 2021 while inside Makeda's Homemade Butter Cookies, a popular cookie shop on Airways Boulevard in Memphis. Johnson's co-conspirator, Cornelius Smith who admitted to being one of the gunmen in the killing testified that he and Johnson were hired to kill Thornton. In return they were to receive $40,000 each, the district attorney said. According to court documents, the man who took out the hit was Anthony Mims, or Big Jook, the brother of Mario Mims, a Memphis rapper known as Yo Gotti who founded the record label Collective Music Group. Anthony Mims was killed by gunfire outside Perignons Restaurant and Event Center in January, according to Fox 13. Thornton and Mario Mims had traded diss tracks for a decade after Thornton said he turned down a record deal with the label. Thornton wrote the single "100 Shots" after a targeted attack in 2017 sent about 100 rounds into a bulletproof car he was riding in, USA Today reported Blac Youngsta, a Gotti associate, surrendered to authorities in 2019 for his alleged involvement in the shooting, although charges were eventually dropped. Defendant Justin Johnson, left, appears in court as the murder trial of rapper Young Dolph begins in Memphis, Tenn., on Sept. 23, 2024. (Mark Weber / Daily Memphian / Associated Press) Defense attorneys argued Johnson's DNA was never found in the white Mercedes that was caught on video speeding away from the murder scene, nor were the guns used in the killing recovered. But video shown at the trial by prosecutors showed Johnson at his apartment the night of the murder wearing the same clothes as seen on a suspect at the murder scene. They also had phone records showing he'd been in contact with Big Jook as well as Hernandez Govan, who allegedly orchestrated the killing, prior to and after the shooting. Govan is also a defendant in the case. "Today's verdict brings relief and restores my confidence in the justice system," Mia Jaye, Thornton's partner, said in a statement on Instagram after the verdict was announced. "My faith has been tested, but Adolph's tragic execution has only strengthened my resolve to fight for justice not only for him but for all Black men. This is just the beginning of our journey toward achieving full justice for Adolph, and we will patiently support the unfolding of that process." 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. King Charles will speak at Holyrood on Saturday as part of a programme of events [PA Media] The King and Queen will mark the 25th anniversary of the Scottish Parliament with a visit to Holyrood on Saturday for a special event. King Charles, who has been undergoing cancer treatment since February, will address the chamber and then meet "local heroes" who have made major contributions to their community. A number of musical and cultural performances are also slated for the day, featuring the likes of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the charity Sistema Scotland. The King attended the Scottish Parliament's opening in 1999 - when he was Prince Charles - and has visited several times since then. The King was among the Royal family members who attended the inauguration of the Scottish parliment in 1999 [PA Media] Alison Johnstone, the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, said that Saturday would be a "day of reflection and celebration." She said: Twenty five years of the Scottish Parliament marks a significant milestone in the countrys political journey. This anniversary offers the perfect opportunity for us not only to reflect on the last 25 years, but to look to the future and consider how parliament can continue to best meet the needs of those it serves. A cornerstone of this commemorative event will be about recognising the extraordinary contribution people from right across Scotland have made, and continue to make, to their own communities." First Minister John Swinney and other party leaders will also speak at the event. The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Sistema Scotland, Gaelic song chorus Coisir Alba and mandolin player Calum McIlroy - who won the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician prize this year - will all perform on the day. As well as being present for the Parliament opening in July 1999, the King also attended the 20th anniversary celebrations in 2019 and both the King and Queen attended the opening ceremony in 2021. Their most recent visit was in 2022, where they attended the motion of condolence for the late Queen Elizabeth. Kings Island to close Friday night as strong winds, heavy rain expected to hit region Kings Island is closed Friday evening as remnants of Hurricane Helene make their way into the Greater Cincinnati region. The Mason amusement park said its decision to close is "out of an abundance of caution for the safety of our guests and associates," citing the National Weather Service's hazardous weather forecast of high winds and rain Friday evening. Anyone with an admission ticket for Friday may use it any other day the park is open through Nov. 3, Kings Island said. Hurricane Helene: Will Disney World, Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head be affected? IMPORTANT PARK UPDATE:Kings Island - Closed on Friday NightDue to the National Weather Services hazardous weather... Posted by Kings Island on Friday, September 27, 2024 The NWS office in Wilmington has issued a high wind warning for southwest Ohio, southeast Indiana and Northern Kentucky from noon to 10 p.m. Friday. East winds of 25 to 35 mph, gusting up to 60 mph, and 1 to 2 inches of rain are expected. Damaging winds will blow down trees and power lines, according to the NWS. Widespread power outages are expected and travel will be difficult. Enquirer staff writers Haadiza Ogwude and Cheryl Vari contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Kings Island closing Friday night due to hazardous weather forecast What to know about Hurricane Helene and the flooding the storm left across the Southeast US FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) Massive Hurricane Helene crashed into Florida's sparsely populated Big Bend region, bringing storm surge and high winds across the state's Gulf Coast communities before ripping into southern Georgia. The storm has been blamed for at least 40 deaths, according to an Associated Press tally. Where is the storm now? Hurricane Helene weakened to a tropical depression over the Carolinas with maximum sustained winds of 30 mph (48 kph) by early afternoon Friday, the National Hurricane Center said. The storm will continue to weaken as it continues to move north. At 2 p.m., Helene was centered about 125 miles (205 kilometers) southeast of Louisville, Kentucky. Helene wobbled as it approached Florida's coast late Thursday before making landfall near the mouth of the Aucilla River with maximum sustained winds estimated at 140 mph (225 kph). That location was only about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of where Hurricane Idalia came ashore last year at nearly the same ferocity and caused widespread damage. Evacuations were underway Friday in areas of Western North Carolina. The Haywood County Sheriffs Office west of Asheville said it was helping with evacuations in in Cruso, Clyde, Canton and lower-lying parts of Waynesville. What about airports? Airports in Florida that closed due to Hurricane Helene were reopened Friday. That included airports in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Lakeland and Tallahassee. At Tampa International Airport there had been 130 flight cancellations in the past 24 hours, as of Friday afternoon, according to FlightAware. Airports in Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina, remained open Friday but were reporting large numbers of cancellations and heavy delays. By 2 p.m., nearly 400 flights to or from Charlotte, a major hub for American Airlines, had been canceled. Nearly 580 more, to or from Charlotte, were delayed, according to FlightAware. At the larger Atlanta airport, 175 flights were canceled and more than 500 were delayed, according to FlightAware. What about roads and bridges? On Friday morning, inspectors were out examining bridges and causeways along Florida's Gulf Coast to get them back open to traffic quickly, Perdue said. In addition, 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) of roadway across Florida have been cleared of debris, Perdue said during a news conference in Tallahassee. Some of the causeways were underwater, so we have to inspect them and make sure they are safe to pass, Perdue said. We had a lot of storm surge up and down the west coast. We had a lot of roads underwater. How many people are without power? As of 2:30 p.m. Friday, some 4.2 million people across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee were without power, according to poweroutage.us. Most of the outages were in North Carolina and South Carolina each with more than 1 million outages. Florida had more than 840,000 customers and Georgia nearly 950,000 customers without power. Almost 45% of homes and businesses in South Carolina were without power Friday. Whole counties were without electricity as winds gusted to near hurricane force. Trees or other debris blocked every major road leading into Greenwood, a city of about 22,000 people about 65 miles (105 kilometers) west of Columbia, Greenwood County officials said on social media. Crews of linemen were stationed across the region, ready to begin the process of restoring power as soon as the winds from Helene died down. What about storm surge? Flooding along Florida's coast began well before Hurricane Helene made landfall, with rapidly rising waters reported from as far south as Fort Myers on the state's Gulf Coast. Early Friday, sheriff's officials in Hillsborough County, where Tampa is located, were using a large ATV to rescue people who were stranded by rising waters. In Cedar Key, an old Florida-style island off the Gulf Coast, many homes, motels and businesses were flooded. Not even the city's fire rescue building was spared. "It actually blew out the storm panels on the front doors. Blew out one of the breakaway walls on the back and two entry doors, the agency posted online. It appears that we had about 6 feet or better of water inside. What is storm surge? Storm surge is the level at which sea water rises above its normal level. Much like the way a storms sustained winds do not include the potential for even stronger gusts, storm surge doesnt include the wave height above the mean water level. Surge is also the amount above what the normal tide is at a time, so a 15-foot storm surge at high tide can be far more devastating than the same surge at low tide. How are hurricanes measured? The most common way to measure a hurricanes strength is the Saffir-Simpson Scale that assigns a category from 1 to 5 based on a storms sustained wind speed at its center, with 5 being the strongest. What to know from the UN: Netanyahu says no cease-fire, but other countries keep asking People protest against Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu during the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, in New York, on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki) UNITED NATIONS (AP) After a day filled with hopes of a cease-fire between Lebanon and Israel, the U.N. General Assembly meeting Friday was a harsh reality check. Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU shut down the idea in a morning speech that he said he didn't initially intend to make. He said he had not planned to come to the meeting this year, because his country is at war, but after I heard the lies and slanders leveled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight. The week has been full of speakers calling for a cease-fire in both Lebanon and Gaza, continuing into Friday. But Netanyahu wasn't swayed. He said his nation will continue degrading Hezbollah until achieving its goals along the Lebanon border, and would no longer tolerate daily rocket fire from the area. Shortly after Netanyahu wrapped up his speech, the Israeli military said it carried out a strike on Hezbollahs headquarters in Beirut, which caused huge blasts in the city. Heres your daily guide to whats going on at the United Nations this week: From the podium MORE ANTI-WAR: Calls for Israel to stop its war in Gaza and back off from a growing conflict in Lebanon continued. The two speakers who preceded Netanyahu each made a point of calling out Israel for its actions. Mr. Netanyahu, stop this war now, Slovenian Prime Minister ROBERT GOLOB said as he closed his remarks, pounding the podium. And Pakistani Prime Minister SHEHBAZ SHARIF, speaking just before the Israeli leader, declared of Gaza: This is not just a conflict. This is systematic slaughter of innocent people of Palestine. He thumped the rostrum to audible applause. PROMISE FOR DEMOCRACY: Tanzania Prime Minister KASSIM MAJALIWA pledged that his country will uphold democracy and human rights ahead of next years presidential election. An opposition party official was killed in early September and two main opposition leaders were arrested among a dozen other opposition politicians while planning a youth rally and during protests against recent killing and arrest of opposition officials and members. President SAMIA SULUHU has condemned the killing of the opposition official Ali Kibao and promised justice. Shes serving out the term of the late President JOHN MAGUFULI, whose autocratic rule saw the ban on political rallies and detention of opposition leaders. POETRY IN POLICY: As Pakistan tries to climb out of an economic crisis, Sharif turned Friday to poetry to convey his countrys resolve. Addressing world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, he read aloud part of Keep Going, a 1921 piece by American poet Edgar A. Guest. It begins When things go wrong, as they sometimes will when, for example, the funds are low and the debts are high. (Sharif substituted credits for funds.) Pakistans debts are indeed substantial. The International Monetary Fund this week approved a $7 billion loan for the nation, which plunged into one of the worst economic crises in its history after flooding in 2022. Sharif's government raised electricity prices, saying the hike was necessary to meet conditions of the new loan. The increase spurred protests and a merchants strike. Sharif told the assembly that his government has taken some very difficult but necessary decisions that have rescued our economy from collapse. Then he brought up the poem, saying it had bucked him up. He went through a stanza that ends: When care is pressing you down a bit, / Rest if you must, but dont you quit. This, Sharif told the assembly, is how we have learned to face our challenges and negotiate the most daunting challenges that we have faced. CUBA COMMENTS: For decades Cubas primary foreign-policy priority has been ending the U.S. trade embargo on the island. The country dedicates much of its General Assembly diplomacy to getting leaders to decry the embargo. According to Cubas U.N. mission, by 3:41 p.m. on Friday 25 countries had addressed the embargo at this years UNGA and 11 leaders had critiqued the U.S. inclusion of Cuba on the list of countries that sponsor terrorism, another sanction limiting international trade. Many of the countries that spoke have benefitted from another of Cubas trademark programs, sending its well-trained and highly educated doctors to developing countries across the world. Right after mentioning Ukraine and Gaza, Prime Minister ALLAH MAYE HALINA of Chad told the world that we cant ignore the embargo on Cuba, which hurts its people and hinders its development. On the sidelines Norwegian Foreign Minister ESPEN BARTH EIDE, who was in the General Assembly hall listening to Netanyahu, called his address a rather dark speech that was very defiant." Norway recognized the State of Palestine in May. Eide said there are many countries that would like to support Israel and normalize relations, including Saudi Arabia and others in region, but they are not able to do that as long as the Palestinian question remains unanswered. FUNDRAISERS, ADVOCATES: As the meeting of world leaders unfolds at the United Nations, a crush of events take place on the sidelines of the official high-level meetings, where nonprofits, advocates and fundraisers mingle and lobby world leaders, billionaires and funders and plan their next steps with each other. A few examples: On Sunday, throngs of people streamed through a climate science fair showcasing work on nature, food and the energy transition, held across Manhattan on an elevated park that runs along old rail lines. On Monday, the BILL & MELINDA GATES Foundation held a ceremony featuring Grammy-winning musician JON BATISTE performing in a gold sequin suit, and honoring Brazilian PRESIDENT LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA for his work lifting millions out of poverty and significantly reducing malnutrition among children. Climate moment Papua New Guinea's prime minister, JAMES MARAPE, told the General Assembly that accessing money to fight climate change has been a challenge. It is for this reason I speak in solidarity with all forest nations, especially those in the Congo Basin and Amazon Basin, for adequate compensation if we are to preserve our forests which, in fact, are the lungs of Earth, Marape said. Voices you might have missed It is regrettable that the Republic of China, Taiwan, continues to be excluded from the United Nations system. FELETI PENITALA TEO, prime minister of Tuvalu ___ Ugandan Prime Minister NABBANJA ROBINAH asked the assembly why the U.N. has failed to forge stronger international cooperation in response to collective global challenges. Urgent action is required to address global inequalities with regard to poverty, hunger and disease which continue to affect disproportionally the poorest and most vulnerable, she said. Some thing you might not know If you're following along and confused by all the strange words, take a look at our brief vocabulary of U.N. terms. One notable number The largest number of police and troops sent by a country to U.N. peacekeeping missions this year, from Nepal: 6,119 Quotable Even the strongest swimmer drowns if left alone in a raging sea. Bahamas Prime Minister PHILIP DAVIS ___ We believe the monsoon revolution that the world witnessed in Bangladesh in the span of few weeks may inspire many across communities and countries to stand for freedom and justice. I would call upon the international community to engage with new Bangladesh anew that aims to realize freedom and democracy, beyond letters, for everyone. MUHAMMAD YUNUS, chief adviser in Bangladesh and Nobel Prize laureate Up next The assembly is scheduled to hear from China, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, among others, on Saturday. ___ AP writers Seth Borenstein, Michael Weissenstein, Thalia Beaty and Tia Goldenberg contributed. See more of APs coverage of the U.N. General Assembly at https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations TOPEKA (KSNT) Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach is joining 20 other state attorneys general to demand the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) retract a statement that calls puberty blockers reversible. The letter penned by Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador requests detailed information from the AAP on youth gender dysphoria and the claims regarding the safety and reversibility of puberty blockers. Telling parents and children that puberty blockers are reversible at the very least conveys assurance that no permanent harm or change will occur, but that claim cannot be made in the face of the unstudied and novel use of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria, the letter reads. Other states joining the letter include Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and the Arizona Legislature. What is legal window tint in Kansas? Parents should be able to trust that guidance from the AAP and its member pediatricians is rooted in safety and reality and not in woke gender ideology, Kobach said. A child changing his or her gender identity has long-term major medical and psychological ramifications. 27 News reached out to the AAP on Thursday, but has not yet heard back. For more local news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News. A line of onlookers, some of whom had been waiting since 8 a.m., gathered at the Ada County Courthouse to attend Bryan Kohbergers first hearing in Boise on Thursday. The case was moved earlier this month following a decision by Judge John Judge of Idahos 2nd Judicial District that stipulated the high-profile trial be moved out of Latah County because of, among other things, a lack of resources. He also stepped down from the case, leaving the Idaho Supreme Court to select the new venue and a new judge. Fourth District Judge Steven Hippler was assigned the case and held a status conference hearing to determine whether a new trial calendar would be needed. Id like to say Im happy to be here, but why start with an untruth? Hippler said, setting the tone as he addressed the courtroom. He said the stakes were high as they can be and reminded the attorneys that their goal should not be victory but honoring their oaths to the judicial system. Kohberger, a former Washington State University graduate student, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students at an off-campus home in November 2022. He also is charged with one count of felony burglary. The victims were Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle, both 20, and Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, both 21. Kohberger, 29, attended Thursdays hearing in handcuffs and a dark suit. Hippler said he has not decided yet on a motion from the defense to allow Kohberger to continue wearing street clothes in court as the proceedings move forward. Kohberger did not speak throughout the hearing. Bryan Kohberger, who is charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students in November 2022, listens to arguments during a hearing in October 2023. Both the judge and defense addressed issues they had with the previous trial dates set by Judge in Latah County. Those dates, which had the trial running from June 2 to Aug. 29, would wipe out the entire summer and be burdensome on jurors, particularly those who are parents, according to Hippler. The judge said it could pose child-care difficulties and interfere with other family obligations when school is out. Hippler proposed to either start the trial a month earlier, at the beginning of May, or wait until the start of September. The prosecution, led by Latah County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson, said it would prefer May, but the defense pushed for a September start. The defense has faced challenges that included the death of an expert witness, leading the team representing Kohberger to find a new expert in a certain aspect of the case, and a large amount of information sent by prosecutors, according to defense attorney Anne Taylor. Since August, we have received about 398 gigabytes of new information, and I can tell the court that nobody on our team has read every bit of that yet, Taylor said. So theres a vast amount of discovery to continue to go through. She declined to provide information about the defense expert in open court, saying that would reveal too much information about strategy to the prosecution and public, something Hippler said he understood. He offered to hold an ex parte hearing which meant only the defense team and Hippler would be present so that hed have more information before deciding on trial dates. That hearing took place after the status conference, which ended without new trial dates being set. Nate Poppino, Idaho Supreme Court communications manager, told the Idaho Stateman that Hippler likely would issue a written order once he had made a ruling. LAKE COUNTY, Ill. - A registered sex offender in Lake County is behind bars after authorities found child pornography on his cellphone, according to the Lake County Sheriff's Office. Thomas Rix, 57, was arrested after detectives received a tip that he had uploaded possible child pornography on social media. Authorities tried to locate Rix at his home in the 100 block of Sheridan Road, in Winthrop Harbor, on Sept. 24. However, they later found that Rix changed his registered address about a week prior to a home in the 1600 block of 2nd Avenue, also in Winthrop Harbor. Detectives made contact with Rix, who agreed to meet at the Winthrop Harbor Police Department. During a conversation with law enforcement, Rix told officers that he had been living in Twin Lakes, Wis. for several days and was not living in Winthrop Harbor anymore. The Illinois Attorney General's Cybercrime Unit, who were on scene, analyzed Rix's phone and found multiple images that he took of a girl under eight years old, according to officials. Some of the images were of the girl in her underwear and at least one of them was a pornographic image, the sheriff's office said. Further investigation revealed that Rix knew the girl from when he lived at his previous apartment and that's when he took the photographs. Investigators are working to acquire search warrants to analyze other electronics in Rix's possession. After reviewing the case, the charge of child pornography was approved by the Lake County State's Attorney's Office. Rix's next court date is set for Oct. 23 at 1:30 p.m. The Republican Party has been sending love letters to labor unions for a few years. The big question now is whether enough union members write back to put the GOP in the White House next January. Former President Donald Trump has always had blue-collar appeal, an attribute largely responsible for his 2016 upset victory over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But this election cycle, Trump and his party have been overtly trying to win working-class voters and union members, who are traditionally a core Democratic constituency. "Do me a favor. Just get your union guys, your leaders, to endorse me," Trump said at a campaign stop in Michigan in September 2023, promising that his policies would save auto industry jobs. "I'll take care of the rest." Trump didn't get that, but he did benefit from something that hadn't happened in 28 years the International Brotherhood of Teamsters chose not to endorse the Democratic presidential nominee. The union will sit out this election for the first time since 1996. Not only that, but the Teamsters released internal polling that found nearly 60% of its members back Trump, with Vice President Kamala Harris's support in the low 30s. Our members are the union, and their voices and opinions must be at the forefront of everything the Teamsters do, Teamsters President Sean O'Brien said. It's a sign that the GOP's overtures to union voters are beginning to pay dividends, though it remains to be seen whether it will be enough to sway the outcome of this election. In addition to Trump's 2023 call for autoworkers to back him, his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), visited a United Auto Workers picket line last year. Vance was just a senator at the time, and it's no coincidence he later got the nod as Trump's vice presidential nominee. The Vance pick was announced during the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, and that night in the Wisconsin city, O'Brien addressed the delegates, becoming the first Teamsters president ever to address the RNC. Today, the Teamsters are here to say that we are not beholden to anyone or any party, OBrien said. We will create an agenda and work with a bipartisan coalition ready to accomplish something real for the American worker. Democrats have downplayed the Teamsters shifting into neutral as an outlier, pointing out that every other major union has backed Harris and that several Teamsters locals endorsed her as well. As the vice president told the Teamsters on Monday, when she is elected president, she will look out for the Teamsters rank and file no matter what," Harris spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said. Even now, Republicans are only beginning to make inroads in union support, and there's no guarantee that the Teamsters or any other union will continue flirtations with the GOP following this year's election. Democrats have been much more willing to support labor strikes and dole out dollars directly to unions, with a major example being President Joe Biden securing $36 billion to bail out the Teamsters pension fund in 2022. Even this year, Trump got on the union's bad side when he praised Elon Musk for firing workers who threatened to strike. Youre the greatest cutter. I mean, I look at what you do, Trump told Musk. You walk in. You want to quit? I wont mention the name of the company, but they go on strike, and you say thats OK. Youre all gone. Featured Local Savings O'Brien described the remarks as "economic terrorism." Any further inroads the GOP makes with labor unions could run into resistance from the party's pro-business and free-trade wings, which have been dominant forces since the 1980s. But some on the Right now argue that free trade has rewarded the unfair practices of hostile nations like China and that domestic unions often embrace progressive political priorities that go far beyond supporting workers, such as backing climate change resolutions, advocating social justice, or calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. "It's an issue that people in unions are very frustrated with, where the national leadership is entirely unmoored from workplace concerns and entirely focused on these sort of very conventional left-wing talking points," said Duncan Braid, coalition director at American Compass. "They're not interested in their unions being engaged in national politics." Many Republicans agree that it's important to distinguish between supporting union members and labor leaders. "Republicans should stop trying to placate union bosses who care more about Democrat politics than their rank-and-file members," said David McIntosh, president of Club for Growth Action. "Instead, Republicans should focus on winning these voters' support at the ballot box by enacting pro-growth policies that create real jobs in America." That's the same sentiment Job Creators Network CEO Alfredo Ortiz expressed. "Republicans are smart to woo the union vote," he said. "Union jobs are often most threatened by Democrats' big government and green agendas. The important distinction is that Republicans must be pro-worker, not pro-union or pro-management per se." Still, there are disagreements within the Republican Party about just how much to back unions and how much support the GOP will ever receive from labor entities so closely tied to Democrats. Sometimes, that tension plays out within a single candidate, such as Trump's inviting O'Brien to speak at the RNC and then praising Musk for strikebreaking. Arguably, the fiercest pro-labor Republican right now is Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who has joined picket lines with the Teamsters and the United Auto Workers and says everyone in his party should join him. For his efforts, Hawley got a small campaign donation from the Teamsters, and O'Brien has mentioned Hawley by name as a politician who supports his union. Hawley sees a big opening for his party with unions, arguing that "standing up for workers is a profoundly conservative cause. He calls for increased tariffs, an end to electric vehicle mandates, and supporting antitrust enforcement against major corporations, arguing that blue-collar support is the only way the GOP will become a true majority party in future elections. If conservatives care about healthy towns and schools and churches, as they always say they do, they should support the kind of work and wages that nourish those institutions and make them possible," he wrote in 2022. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER Hawley got another union endorsement on Sept. 18, this time from the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers. It is just one crack in the Democratic Party's union armor, but Republican strategist Alex Conant sees a chance for his party to win at the state and national level if the trend continues. "Trump's union supporters are key to his victory," he said. "It's why Pennsylvania is so competitive. The more he chips away at this part of the Democratic base, the greater his chances of victory." Officials warn that the failure of Lake Lure Dam is imminent due to floods from Hurricane Helene. As of 1:30 pm ET on Friday, September 27, evacuation orders have been made to residents in Rutherford County, North Carolina, particularly for those who live downstream of the dam. The warnings come from the NC Emergency Management for Rutherford County, per the National Weather Service (NWS). Why Lake Lure Dam in North Carolina is breaking, officials say The Lake Lure Dam is failing due to heavy rainfall from Hurricane Helene, since downgraded to a tropical storm, causing torrential rains and catastrophic flows along the Broad River that are feeding into the lake. Water is already overtopping the dam, and while it is still holding, structural supports have been compromised, according to local news center WSPA. The NWS urgently warns all residents in the affected area to seek higher ground immediately. Locations along the Broad River, or French Broad River, that could experience catastrophic flash flooding due to the dam breaking include Lake Lure, Cleghorn community, Union community, Green Hill community, near Harris, and near Cliffside. The Broad River had already risen by 10 feet by late Thursday, according to Buncombe County Emergency Services Director Taylor Jones via the Asheville Citizen Times. In response, the flash flood warning for the area has been extended to 2:00 AM ET on Saturday. Evacuations sirens have sounded downstream of the dam with emergency personnel going door to door to ensure the safety of any residents. Evacuees are being temporarily relocated to the local Ingles supermarket in Lake Lure. In May 2019, the Lake Lure Town Council said that the dam was in fair condition based on its age and that it was an engineering marvel according to engineers. Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida late Thursday, and the center of the storm is expected to remain over Kentucky and Tennessee through to Sunday. The post Lake Lure Dam Imminent Failure Due to Hurricane Helene Explained appeared first on Mandatory. CHICAGO Founder of the Gangster Disciples, Larry Hoover, was in court Thursday, testifying via video feed from a supermax prison in Colorado hoping to qualify for an early release program that would set him free from multiple life sentences. Wearing a tan, long-sleeved shirt, glasses and a gray beard, Hoover appeared over monitors at the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago. Im a completely different person than the man who went to prison in 1997, Hoover said. Im very reflective here at ADX. Youre locked up at least 21 hours a day. I have no desire to run the GDs or be involved in any criminal activity. Im past that part of my life. Hoover and his defense team were hoping to convince the Illinois Court to grant him early release through a special program recently passed by the United States Congress known as the First Step Act, which opens the door to early release for certain rehabilitated prisoners. Man convicted of killing Bradley police sergeant in 2021 But the US Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Illinois staunchly opposed the early release of Hoover Thursday, arguing that he still asserts leadership when it comes to the Gangster Disciples, or the GDs for short. In the courtroom, federal prosecutor Julia Schwartz argued that Hoovers allegedly done more damage to the City of Chicago than any defendant thats come through Dirksen. In Thursdays government filing, The United States of America v. Larry Hoover, federal officials said, Hoover has well earned his life sentence, and he is not the type of defendant. Congress intended to benefit in enacting the first step act. Indeed, if he were sentenced today, Hoover would receive the same. Mandatory life sentence. But after Thursdays hearing, Hoovers loved ones and supporters argued that he is a changed man, and can do much good if released. It was good to hear his voice. It sounds like to me, he was a bit nervous, but its his life that hes dealing with, said Larry Hoover Jr., Hoovers son. He is not associated with the gang and has not been for many, many decades, said Jennifer Bonjean, one of Hoovers attorneys. But he probably has some insights into how we can make life better for young people so they dont turn to gangs. The two parties will be back in federal court next month, where federal judge John Robert Blakely wants to hear more arguments from both sides on precisely how many individuals lost their lives as a direct result of Hoovers actions, before issuing a decision. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGN-TV. Las Americas sues AG Paxton in response to his efforts to probe into confidential client information Las Americas sues AG Paxton in response to his efforts to probe into confidential client information UPDATE: A judge denied Las Americas request for a temporary restraining order to block Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton from requesting client records. EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) The battle between groups assisting migrants and the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton continues. FILE Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at a news conference in Dallas on June 22, 2017. Paxton says hes investigating a key Boeing supplier that is already under scrutiny by federal regulators over the quality of its work on Boeing planes, Friday, March 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File) This time, Paxtons office is trying to probe another El Paso-based non-profit organization assisting migrants, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, which provides legal services to immigrants and migrants. Ever since the attack on Annunciation House, I think organizations have been preparing for what this might look like. And so, for us, it was something that we thought could potentially happen, but it was certainly shocking to have it actually happen, said Las Americas Executive Director Marisa Limon Garza. FILE Migrant parents socialize outside the Annunciation House, June 26, 2018, in El Paso, Texas. On Monday, March 11, 2024, a Texas judge ruled in favor of Annunciation House, a large migrant shelter on the U.S.-Mexico border that Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking to shut down over claims that the facility encourages migrants to enter the country illegally. (AP Photo/Matt York, File) Earlier this year, Paxton tried to shut down El Pasos Annunciation House, a migrant shelter network, through a lawsuit that alleged the organization was facilitating illegal border crossings and concealing illegally present aliens from law enforcement. The lawsuit was dismissed by an El Paso judge and Paxton has since then appealed the decision to the Texas Supreme Court. AG Paxton to appeal ruling dismissing Annunciation House suit Las Americas filed a lawsuit on Wednesday, Sept. 25, seeking a temporary restraining order to stop the baseless investigation led by Paxtons office. According to the lawsuit, Paxton served Las Americas a civil investigative demand (CID) earlier this month, seeking confidential client information from their client files. As a legal service provider, we have obligations ethically, and legally to our clients. And so, any kind of attack like this tries to undergird those efforts and destabilize them. Thats an incredibly dangerous move and something that we felt like we needed to stand up against. And thats why we filed our own lawsuit, Garza said. KTSM reached out to Paxtons office requesting for comment, which they did not immediately respond to Thursday afternoon. The lawsuit argues this is just the latest attempt by Paxton to target and harass immigrant service organizations by making reference to four other instances where his office tried shutting down organizations like these in Texas, unsuccessfully. Senior attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project Aron Thorn, who along with law firm Winston & Strawn is representing Las Americas, noted however that Las Americas is the first of these organizations that specifically renders legal services. The significance of hitting a bunch of lawyers with these bogus attempts is it really does a disservice to your clients. It prevents you from being able to speak openly and with confidence with your clients about very difficult subjects. There is a reason that there is attorney-client privilege, said Thorn. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in El Paso and is pending a request for an immediate hearing. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) Police arrested a teenager at his high school after he allegedly shot and killed a marijuana dealer, the 8 News Now Investigators have learned. Lequan Harrison faces charges of open murder and discharging a gun, documents said. Harrisons age was not provided in court documents, but his birth year indicates he was 15 or 16 at the time of the murder. On Oct. 23, 2023, Angel Solis, 19, was shot and killed in a car parked in a lot on Boulder Highway near Hacienda Avenue, police said. Officers said Solis was in the parking lot for a scheduled drug transaction. Inside the car, police said they found a handgun and two bags of marijuana. According to a witness, Solis called the marijuana buyer through Instagram, documents said. The person on the other end of the call then instructed Solis to drive to a specific part of the parking lot. Two young men then met Solis, and the witness and Solis sold one man a bag of marijuana. Several minutes later, the two men came back and fired several gunshots into the car. As part of their investigation, police obtained surveillance video and data from several Instagram accounts. In one account, Harrison reportedly sent messages about doing a robbery, documents said. In January, police searched Harrisons apartment not far from the shooting scene. Inside the apartment, officers found a gun box and a cleaning kit. Police then searched a phone they said belonged to Harrison, finding searches for boulder highway [sic] shooting the day after the homicide, documents said. Police arrested Harrison during the search. He initially denied any involvement, but later changed his story, saying he was there with another person and ran when he heard the gunshots. Detectives said Harrison relayed information to them that was never made public. Messages were located in Harrisons phone asking if everyone was good and talking about getting rid of a gun the morning after the shooting, police said. A judge granted the warrant for Harrisons arrest on Aug. 27, records said. In September, officers learned Harrison was attending night school at a southeast valley high school, they said. The program is similar to typical high school but is in the afternoon and evening. On Sept. 19, the FBI and LVMPD arrested Harrison at the school. Las Vegas Justice Court Judge Diana Sullivan denied setting bail. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for Oct. 7. The case is one of several marijuana-dealing-related homicides involving teenagers across the valley. In Nevada, minors accused of murder are automatically transferred to the adult justice system if they are 16 years old. Las Vegas Metro police no longer release booking photos, citing a circuit court ruling. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. After almost 45 years of service, including multiple combat deployments, the F-16 was formally retired today by the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF). At the same time, the service announced that the F-35A had attained full operational capability, with the stealth fighter now responsible for the full spectrum of missions previously handled by the Viper, including nuclear strike. After 45 years of service, including multiple combat deployments, the F-16 was formally retired today by the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF). Ahead of todays flight and retirement ceremony, TWZ spoke to Lt. Col. Patrick Naish Vreeburg, the commander of 312 Squadron, the final RNLAF F-16 operator, who reflected on the types service and what comes next. As for the Dutch F-16s, these will almost certainly see more combat again before too long, with two dozen refurbished jets to be transferred to Ukraine. Lt. Col. Patrick Naish Vreeburg, the commander of 312 Squadron, the final RNLAF F-16 operator. Frank Crebas The RNLAF F-16AM specially marked for the Farewell Falcon taxies back to the flight line at Volkel after a final display over the airbase followed by a water cannon salute. RNLAF/YouTube screencap Just ahead of the F-16 stand-down, the RNLAF announced that the F-35A had attained full operational capability, with the stealth fighter now responsible for the full spectrum of missions previously handled by the Viper, including the nuclear strike role. Exciting news The Royal Netherlands Air Force has declared Full Operational Capability (FOC) with their F-35 fleet. This milestone strengthens Dutch national security and enhances long-term interoperability with NATO allies for years to come. https://t.co/8Si90a9wUE F-35 Lightning II (@thef35) September 26, 2024 The RNLAF bid Farewell Falcon to the F-16 today, with a ceremony at the final operational base, Volkel, in the south of the Netherlands. From here, right of the last Dutch F-16s (and one Belgian) took off for a farewell flight, taking them over key locations associated with the Vipers long career in the country. It was planned to fly over the Netherlands Ministry of Defense in the Hague and the Air Force Headquarters in Breda, as well as other bases where the F-16 was previously based, although poor. Een gedenkwaardig moment: de laatste afscheidsvlucht van de iconische F-16. Na 45 jaar trouwe dienst en vele missies krijgt het toestel een nieuw leven in Oekraine en Roemenie. Aan iedereen die de F-16 heeft gevlogen of onderhouden: bedankt!! pic.twitter.com/cyyjBxXAQp Ruben Brekelmans (@DefensieMin) September 27, 2024 Brig. Gen. Marcel Bo van Egmond, the head of RNLAF Air Combat Command (in the cockpit), and Lt. Gen. Andre Jabba Steur, the boss of the RNLAF, toast the end of the Dutch F-16 with a Hertog Jan beer, after Bo landed in the specially marked jet. RNLAF/YouTube screencap First off, its worth recalling the key facts and milestones associated with the F-16 in Dutch service. The Netherlands was one of the first four European Participating Air Forces (EPAF) to sign up for the F-16 as part of the so-called Sale of the Century, primarily to replace its aging F-104 Starfighter fleet. Fly away with Jaws. During the Cold War the Royal Netherlands Airforce had 213 F16s. Today the reliable F16 is replaced with the F-35 and makes its last flight. The location of this film is Leeuwarden Airbase (1981). #FarewellF16 pic.twitter.com/4tJTknKoea Klaas Meijer (@klaasm67) September 27, 2024 Ultimately, the Dutch bought 213 examples of the F-16A/B versions, some of which were assembled locally, by Fokker. The first order was for 102 F-16s, comprising 80 single-seat F-16As and 22 two-seat F-16Bs. The first Dutch-built F-16 took to the air on May 3, 1979, and an initial delivery to the RNLAF followed in June of the same year. An F-16AM operated by the U.S.-based RNLAF training unit, from Luke Air Force Base, Arizona. Frank Crebas In December 1983, the Dutch government approved plans to buy another 111 F-16s (97 F-16As and 14 F-16Bs), the last of which was rolled out of the Fokker production facility in February 1992. By then, however, the Cold War was over and the security landscape in Europe looked very different. In 1993 it was decided that only 138 of the jets would pass through the Mid-Life Update (MLU) program, rather than the 170 originally planned. The MLU was completed in 2003, the same year in which it was announced that the fleet would be reduced again, by 25 percent. The steady downsizing of the Dutch Viper fleet provided opportunities for other operators. Beginning in 2005, Jordan acquired six F-16BMs, while Chile acquired a first batch of 18 jets (11 F-16AMs and seven F-16BMs) in the same year, followed by another batch of 18 single-seaters in 2008. An F-16AM from 312 Squadron over the North Sea. Frank Crebas The Dutch first took the F-16 to war over the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, under Operations Joint Falcon and Allied Force. During the latter campaign, on April 4, 1999, a Dutch F-16 shot down a Serbian MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter with an AIM-120 AMRAAM missile, for the first RNLAF aerial kill since World War II. Dutch F-16s also struck Serbian ground targets in the same operation, including using AGM-65G Maverick air-to-ground missiles. Subsequently, RNLAF F-16s flew missions over Afghanistan under Operation Enduring Freedom, with the jets initially based in Kyrgyzstan. Dutch F-16s also took part in the NATO air campaign over Libya, followed by counter-IS missions in the Middle East. Regular deployments were also made to the Baltics as part of NATOs Baltic Air Policing rotational mission, to defend the airspace of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. While the F-16 was originally acquired by the RNLAF with the expectation that it would fly short-range air defense and battlefield interdiction with dumb munitions during a war with the Warsaw Pact, the post-Cold War world put very different demands on the jet and its operators. An RNLAF F-16 driver prepares for a night mission. Frank Crebas Nevertheless, the F-16 excelled at out-of-area operations and extended deployments far from the Netherlands. On more than one occasion, for example during the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq/Syria, a political decision was made and, only a couple of days later, Dutch F-16s would be flying in theater. With such an illustrious career behind it, its no surprise that Lt. Col. Vreeburg has some mixed feelings about the F-16s retirement. Of course, its a big moment, he told TWZ. After 45 years of operating the F-16 in the Royal Netherlands Air Force and a lot of deployments over the last 20-plus years, and very important tasks before that during the Cold War. But we need now to focus on our people and our assets, to transition to the F-35 to provide a credible deterrence. Vreeburg admitted that his job as commander of 312 Squadron has meant that hes been almost too busy to reflect on the retirement of the F-16, a jet that has played a huge part in his service career, its cockpit providing his office for the last 23 years. An RNLAF F-16AM configured for air defense ejects an infrared flare. Frank Crebas Ive been on 10 deployments with the F-16, Vreeburg explained. We had a lot of adventures together, and it flies like heaven. It really flies like a razor blade. Almost as soon as you even think about turning, it already goes. I dont know how its going to be on the F-35. Im lucky that Im transitioning to the F-35 so I will keep flying. The first F-35s arrived at Leeuwarden on October 31, 2019, and the RNLAF now has 40 of the 52 units already ordered, with more planned. That changeover is something that Vreeburg likened to trading in your first car for a new model. You had a lot of adventures with it, and now its served its purpose it cannot bring you any more to where you need to go, and so you need something else, but you keep fond memories of it. Of those 10 combat deployments, Vreeburg recalled them as being all memorable in their own way. The first one, and then the first one as a flight lead. And then the first deployment that flew out of Afghanistan instead of from Kyrgyzstan into Afghanistan. Then you had Libya. Then you had Iraq. I think one of the most memorable of my deployments to Kandahar was when we had the Battle of Chora, when we, together with the Netherlands Army, went onto the offensive to take that valley back. At one point we had the whole battle group from the Netherlands Army, with all six aircraft, even including the spares, all above that valley at the same time, combating the Taliban. So that was one of the most memorable deployments I had. With Smokewinders on the wingtips, an F-16AM flies over some typical Dutch countryside. Frank Crebas While combat deployments finished with the end of the Operation Inherent Resolve rotations, until the beginning of this year, RNLAF F-16s were still undertaking some quick reaction alert (QRA) air defense duties, of Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) airspace, Vreeburg explained. We still did one month of standby duty, 24/7, with a small group of pilots and maintainers. We had a small group of aircraft to perform that mission. We also still had the DCA [dual-capable aircraft], our nuclear mission. At the end of February, we transitioned the QRA task to the F-35 and at the end of May we transitioned the DCA task also to the F-35. An RNLAF F-16AM flies alongside the first Dutch F-35A. Frank Crebas Vreeburg continued: After that, we focused still on investing in our people. We still had some flight lead upgrades going on and we did some mission commander upgrades. We also did a deployment just before the summer break to Norway, where we flew support for the weapon instructor course, as red air. We used that deployment to train our people in deploying and operating from an unfamiliar airfield. We finished up the last flight lead upgrade a couple of weeks ago, and meanwhile, besides that, we were mainly, especially since the summer break, flying support for the F-35 as red air, but also as blue air, because they also need entities to protect in their training. We could also use that in our flight lead upgrades or for our own training because all of our guys are transitioning to the F-35, so we have to keep them smart or make them even smarter. Although its another aircraft, 90 percent of the skills you learn are also usable. An RNLAF F-16AM accompanies an RNLAF F-35A. Frank Crebas A contractor-operated A-4K from Draken International, an RNLAF F-16AM, and an RNLAF F-35A. Frank Crebas So far, Vreeburg hasnt flown an F-35, but he already knows what he thinks he might miss once he transitions to the fifth-generation fighter. In the F-16, under the canopy, you sit almost on top of the aircraft, you have almost restricted vision all around you. And it also flies a bit smoother, although that depends, right? If you have tanks, jamming pods, and weapons on your wings, then it flies totally differently than only with a centerline tank and a couple of missiles. In the F-35, almost everything is internal, most of the time, so its almost apples and oranges. But Im hearing its not such smooth flying. The aerodynamics are different; the F-35 has a different wing shape, and you have the boundary layer that rumbles through the aircraft, which you dont have on the F-16. An F-16BM assigned to the U.S.-based RNLAF training unit rips through a valley at low level. Frank Crebas Frank Crebas Despite these differences, the basics of flying the jet will remain broadly similar, but the big change will come with mission employment, Vreeburg said. The tactics are different because the capabilities of the F-35 are different. With the F-16, you cannot employ the tactics that the F-35 can. We cannot fly as close to a ground-based threat as the F-35 can. Of course, we have to turn around when confronted by certain aircraft, because they will certainly see us and shoot at us. We might have to outmaneuver their missiles. While evading modern air defense systems was becoming an increasing challenge for Dutch F-16 pilots, keeping the dwindling number of jets mission-ready proved to be less of a problem. There were enough spare parts, Vreeburg said. But I think the biggest contributing factor was that a couple of years ago, we unified our separate maintenance squadrons. So that whole process from a broken jet or a jet needing maintenance to put it back on the flight line was now just one process, instead of broken up into separate ones. And of course, we also have a ton of experience in this squadron. We hand out a gold medal for 36 years of service as a non-commissioned officer. I think have handed out 50 or 60 in the last couple of years. There are lot of people with 30-plus years of F-16 experience. Specially marked RNLAF F-16AMs top up from a KDC-10 tanker, an aircraft now operated by Omega Air in the United States. Frank Crebas An F-16AM in full afterburner. This jet was among those later transferred to Jordan. Frank Crebas Consistent upgrades, starting with the MLU program, have ensured that the F-16 remains relevant and able to meet the changing demands of air warfare and take on new missions as required. When Vreeburg started flying the Viper in the RNLAFs U.S.-based training program, he was using the older Block 15OCU version, but by the time he was back in the Netherlands, he was getting acquainted with the MLU jet, in its initial M1 tape software iteration, followed soon after by the M2 tape. The RNLAF F-16s were successively upgraded to M6.5 tape, adding new capabilities all the time. I think one of the biggest changes was the incorporation of Link 16, Vreeburg explained. Its made it possible to fly other tactics. After that, each successive generation of targeting pod, which, of course, for our mainly close airport missions in Afghanistan, and later on in Iraq and Syria, was essential to provide support for troops on the ground. Later on, the incorporation of GPS-aided monitions like the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) and Small Diameter Bomb (SDB), then combined laser- and GPS-guided weapons, and the Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS), of course. Yesterday the Dutch JTAC community said their goodbyes to the RNLAF F-16 with one last CAS training mission. The oldest and youngest JTAC controlled 2 312 Vipers over Volkel. Targets destroyed. Mission succes. Commanders intent met! Sons of Bonzo! pic.twitter.com/LJsTfyYFAk Cdt 312 Squadron (@312Cdt) September 13, 2024 A pair of 312 Squadron F-16s, carrying mixed loads of air-to-air missiles, electronic warfare pods, targeting pods, and external fuel tanks. Frank Crebas Three Dutch F-16s perform a break for the camera. Frank Crebas Right now, Vreeburgs 312 Squadron has already converted its first pilots onto the F-35, and they are now flying with 313 Squadron, which has already converted to the F-35 at Volkel. The next pilots transitioning will also fly with 313 Squadron because if you look out of our window, they just started building our Special Access Program Facility [SAPF, used for classified intelligence and secure communications operations related to the F-35]. This whole building needs to be redone. The contractors will come in, strip everything down, redo it, finish it, and then we expect to be able to move back in here in 2027. By that time there should be enough trained pilots and maintainers to start operating with the first one or two flights. Meanwhile, the first F-35s for 312 Squadron are very nearly ready. Vreeburg confirmed that there are a couple of F-35s for the unit now being completed by Lockheed Martin. There were supposed to be done, but they are still waiting to be finished, and that will probably take a little while, but they are already 90 percent done. Progressive modernization of the Dutch F-16 fleet means that the surviving aircraft are still more than capable in many combat scenarios, and they have been snapped up by Ukraine, which long sought to acquire jets of this type. RNLAF F-16AMs carrying live AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles escort a U.S. Air Force B-52H over Europe. Frank Crebas The Netherlands government has promised 24 F-16s to the Ukrainian government, Vreeburg explained. Our role in this is that we are the last squadron flying the F-16, so the F-16 expertise is in this squadron. We have a separate entity in our squadron, which is going to take care of the required maintenance and the handover to Ukraine. Although 312 Squadron is focused on the transition to the F-35, not everybody can start training at the same time. Maintainers also need to do training for the F-35 and as long as they are waiting to start that, they can help prepare the aircraft for Ukraine. And most of our aircraft are going to industry to get an overhaul, before being transferred to Ukraine. We still need to do some maintenance over here, before flying them to the industry. The only F-16 pilots that we still have are in this squadron or attached to it, so we have a small group of people who will keep flying the F-16 just to get them from Volkel to somewhere else. Lt. Col. Naish Vreeburg in the cockpit of an F-16AM. Frank Crebas Just 1 more week of RNLAF F-16 operations. Last week another week of fini flights and goodbyes. Even said goodbye to a couple of jets. Preparations for the final goodbye next week Friday are in full swing. Have a nice weekend. Sons of Bonzo! pic.twitter.com/dYcqDAZpND Cdt 312 Squadron (@312Cdt) September 20, 2024 While his squadron and the wider RNLAF are very much now focused on the continued introduction of the F-35, Lt. Col. Naish Vreeburg is still convinced that the F-16 has a lot more to offer once it arrives with the Ukrainian Air Force. The time has come to let the F-16 go, but I am convinced it can still be very valuable, Vreeburg concluded. Let it go to new owners and a new purpose. Today will be a goodbye, but not the end. We need to clean up and finish up to make sure that the next user has good jets and effective jets to work with. We wish them a whole lot of luck doing that to give them hell! Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com Thank you to Frank Crebas for his invaluable assistance in the preparation of this article. The Latest: Harris heads to US-Mexico border and Trump meets with Zelenskyy Vice President Kamala Harris was making her first visit to the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump met in New York with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Harris was scheduled to appear in Douglas, Arizona, as Trump and his fellow Republicans pound her relentlessly over the Biden administrations record on migration. Zelenskyy's visit with Trump came as public tensions have been rising between the two over Ukraines defense against Russias invasion. Follow the APs Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024. Heres the latest: North Carolina appeals court reverses voter ID ruling RALEIGH, N.C. A North Carolina appeals court on Friday blocked students and employees at the states flagship public university from providing a digital identification produced by the school when voting to comply with a new photo ID mandate. The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the intermediate-level Court of Appeals reverses at least temporarily last months decision by the State Board of Elections that the mobile ID generated by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill met security and photo requirements in the law and could be used. The Republican National Committee and state Republican Party sued to overturn the decision by the Democratic-majority board earlier this month, saying the law only allows physical ID cards to be approved. The Democratic National Committee and a UNC student group who joined the case said the board rightly determined that the digital ID met the requirements set in state law. The DNC attorneys wrote that preventing its use could confuse or even disenfranchise up to 40,000 people who work or attend the school so close to the election. Fridays ruling could be appealed to the state Supreme Court. North Carolina is a presidential battleground state where statewide races are often close affairs, so any changes to voting rules are closely scrutinized by the major parties. The mobile UNC One Card marked the first such ID posted from someones smartphone that the board has OKd. Trump goes after head of UAW union Former President Donald Trump is slamming the head of the United Auto Workers in the heart of the nations car manufacturing industry. At a town hall in the Detroit suburb of Warren, Michigan where the initial questions were all from autoworkers, Trump said UAW head Shawn Fain sold you out. Fain endorsed Trumps Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, and spoke at the Democratic National Convention on her behalf. Trump claimed Fain acquiesced to the Biden administration incentivizing electric vehicle manufacture and contended thatll lead to a loss of auto jobs. Trump has town hall in Michigan Former President Donald Trump is starting a town hall in Warren, Michigan. The event in a Detroit suburb is Trumps second on Friday in the battleground state. Earlier, Trump spoke at a manufacturing facility outside the city of Grand Rapids. The appearance was preceded with a video of Trump urging his supporters to vote in person or by mail, an endorsement of that method of voting that is a contrast to the conspiracy theories hes sown about why he lost the 2020 election. Harris tours the border Harris chatted with local Border Patrol leaders about securing the area as they strode along a rust-colored stretch of wall built during Barack Obamas presidency. Temperatures neared 100 degrees. She spent roughly half an hour touring the area. Harris arrives in Arizona Harris has arrived in an Arizona border town, where shell make her first visit to the international boundary since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee as she confronts one of her biggest vulnerabilities ahead of the November election. Harris met in Douglas with Mayor Donald Huish, Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels and County Supervisor Ann English, along with Sen. Mark Kelly and Attorney General Kris Mayes. America Ferrera enlists college students in evangelizing the Harris-Walz ticket Actress America Ferrera, known for her roles in Ugly Betty and Barbie, urged college students to press their peers to vote for the Harris-Walz ticket during an appearance at Arizona State University. Ferrera, sporting a Pro-Roe T-shirt underneath a suit jacket, spoke Friday to about 100 students, some involved in campus Democratic clubs, ahead of Harris visit to the states border with Mexico. The Harris campaign has leaned on celebrities like Ferrera and social media influencers to court younger voters. Your job for the next 39 days is to talk to every single person you know your roommates, your friends, your enemies, your aunts, your uncles, your cousin and explain to them what matters to you because you have more power to get the people in your family, in your life to the polls than Ugly Betty does, Ferrera said. Trump boasts about plans to cut regulation More than 25 minutes into his speech in Kent County, Michigan, Trump turned to the intended focus of the event: the economy. He boasted about plans to cut regulations and offer other benefits to companies that make their products in the U.S. He said he would issue sweeping tariffs on cars and other products built outside the country. The former president claimed the auto industry is being taken from Americans like candy from a baby and will disappear if he doesnt win. Theres no evidence the auto industry is disappearing. Auto parts jobs have risen under Biden and auto sales were up 2.4% in the first half of this year. Foreign automakers already have multiple U.S. factories, mainly in southern states. Trump also touted his endorsement from Tesla CEO Elon Musk and suggested the billionaire entrepreneur could have a role in his administration. "Were going to get Elon Musk to be our cost cutter, he said. I dont think I can get him full time because hes a little bit busy, sending rockets up and all the things he does. Trump says Harris has blood on her hands when it comes to immigration Trump at a campaign stop in Michigan is issuing a scathing screed against Harris on immigration, saying blood is on her hands as he points to purported data about criminals entering the U.S. illegally. What Kamala Harris has done is unforgivable, he told more than a thousand supporters from the loading dock of a Michigan manufacturing plant. Its a crime what she did. Theres no greater act of disloyalty than to extinguish the sovereignty of your own nation. Trump also repeated his unfounded claims that Democrats are trying to sign noncitizens up to vote, which is a felony. He claimed the only way he will lose the election is if his opponents cheat. Trumps comments come as Harris is scheduled to visit Douglas, Arizona, in her first visit to the U.S.-Mexico border since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. Justice Department sues 2 Wisconsin towns for not having voting machines for people with disabilities MADISON, Wis. The U.S. Department of Justice has sued two small Wisconsin towns for not having voting machines accessible to people with disabilities. The department reached an agreement with Lawrence to resolve its complaint, but the one against Thornapple is pending. The lawsuits were filed Sept. 20. The complaints allege that neither town had accessible voting systems, as required under federal law, for the April 2 presidential primary. The Justice Department also alleges that Thornapple did not have accessible voting system in the Aug. 13 primary. Both towns' boards voted in 2023 to stop using the accessible voting machines they previously used, according to the complaint. The agreement with Lawrence calls for the town to make an accessible voting machine available at every polling place it operates in future federal elections. The town must also train staff on how to operate the equipment. Trump is headed to Michigan to discuss the economy WALKER, Michigan Donald Trump is expected to headline a campaign event at a manufacturing plant in Kent County, a Democratic leaning county in western Michigan surrounded by more conservative rural areas. Awaiting Trump, hundreds, decked in the campaigns red Make America Great hats, T-shirts and other items promoting Trump. The event is billed as being aimed at the economy, where Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris have focused in the past week. It will be held in the loading dock of Falk Production in Walker, Michigan, outside of Grand Rapids, a plant that produces prefabricated walls and partitions. Trumps and Harris campaign have been focusing heavily on Michigan, where Trump won in 2016 but Biden won back in 2020. Trump is scheduled to campaign in Warren, Michigan, near Detroit later Friday. Iranian operatives charged with hacking Trump campaign The Justice Department has announced criminal charges against Iranian operatives suspected of hacking Donald Trumps presidential campaign and disseminating stolen information to media organizations. The indictment comes at a time of heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran as Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel escalate attacks against each other, raising concerns about the prospect of an all-out war, and as U.S. officials say they continue to track physical threats by Iran against a number of officials including Trump. The Trump campaign disclosed on Aug. 10 that it had been hacked and said Iranian actors had stolen and distributed sensitive internal documents. Senate Democrats make a late push in red-leaning states Democrats looking to stay in the Senate majority are going on the offense in two U.S. Senate races in the Republican-leaning states of Texas and Florida. Sen. Gary Peters, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, says the group is making a multi-million dollar investment in television advertising in the two states and that hes very confident theres going to be more coming. Republicans are portraying the investments as a sign that Democrats are worried that incumbent Sen. Jon Tester is in trouble in his bid to win reelection in Montana. Jews and Catholics warn against Trumps latest loyalty test for voters Former President Donald Trump recently reissued his loyalty test to religious Americans, declaring that he can best protect their freedoms while preemptively blaming some if he loses the presidential election in November. He said Jews and Catholics can vote for him and ace the test, but those who dont in his words need their head examined. If hes defeated, Trump added, Jewish people would bear blame for that result. Among the Jewish leaders appalled at Trumps remarks was Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism. Jacobs said: It puts a target on American Jews. ... Stop. The News Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics called for a harder line on Russia and a softer line on AI in an interview with Semafor. Rinkevics who has been president for a year in particular cited a recent report about Europes flagging global competitiveness to make a case for lighter regulation of tech companies. This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity. The Q&A Ben Smith: You were just in Silicon Valley, and met Sam Altman. Those companies build and they create jobs in the United States and they are regulated in Europe. What do you make of that? Edgars Rinkevics: The purpose of that discussion was actually to look into cooperation because we are currently establishing a National Center for Artificial Intelligence. We started that primarily out of security concerns [over] interference in electoral processes. But then we understood that if we want to be successful, we actually have to build AI in Latvia, and we need to cooperate with those companies. Most of them were [citing] GDPR, this privacy regulation of the EU. It is absolutely clear that Europe is lagging behind the United States. Ben: Do you think they should loosen these regulations? Rinkevics: I think we have to seriously revisit them, and we have to listen to the industry. There are concerns that we have in Europe about privacy you know, each and every country gets obsessed with something. I do believe that in order to be successful in artificial intelligence, we need to strike the right balance between industry and its needs, and also the concerns of our citizens. Ben: A Russian armed drone, I believe, crashed in your country. Do you think that NATOs response has been adequate to that kind of incident? Rinkevics: No. That is the third country that has this kind of incident. We had those incidents in Romania and Poland. The difference is that the Baltic States do not have their own interceptors. We have a NATO mission, that mission is basically a patrolling mission. We need to have a serious discussion and uniform response by the whole alliance, regardless if it is Romania or Poland with their capabilities or its Latvia or Lithuania with the capabilities provided by NATO allies. But look, the investigation is still ongoing. Its going to be prepared and finalized by the beginning of October. Ben: Russia remains very aggressive with its intelligence activities there was the story of [veteran Latvian-Russian politician] Tatjana Zdanokas leaked emails with her handler, theres alleged sabotage all over Europe, they continue to try to interfere with the election here. Do you think they are deterrable? Rikevics: I dont think I can answer about deterrable, but I definitely believe that we can push back. We need to understand that Russia, at least in the foreseeable future, is not going to attack any NATO countries in a classic military way. But hybrid warfare has been ongoing since, I dont know, 2018. Since the [Sergei] Skripal incident in the United Kingdom we have had incidents all over NATO and European Union countries. We detained some people in March who threw Molotov cocktails at our Occupation Museum. We have more and more cases where we see that Telegram is being used to hire people for subversive activity. And thats apart from migration being used as a hybrid weapon by Russia against Finland, by Belarus against Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Ben: How do you persuade your NATO allies to allow Ukraine to use their weapons to strike inside Russia? Rinkevics: Its about individual NATO member states. Its about Washington when it comes to certain weapon systems and its about Berlin when it comes to another weapon system. NATO as such does not make collective decisions on those issues. I would say that primarily one should understand the two key issues. Number one, Ukraine is entering a very, very difficult winter. The Russians have been using drones and missiles against energy infrastructure, against civilians, and [Ukraine] need to have proper means to respond to target Russian military and theyve always underscored Russian military infrastructure. Number two, we already had this period where everyone was hoping about the counter offensive last year. But lets face it, you cant expect the Ukrainians to fight with their hands tied, and you cant expect any political process if the Russians do not see that they cant move forward, be it in the east, be it in the south, or be it in Ukraine itself. Ben: Do you think the Ukrainian offensive into Russia was a good idea? Rinkevics: I am not a military expert, but I think that it provided some morale boost in Ukraine. And I think it gives some political clout for whatever process we are going to see, because thats what we are discussing but no exact dates or framework has been established about the second peace summit. Ben: Can you imagine a situation in which Latvia and Russia resume normal relations? Rinkevics: At this point and in the observable future, it will be increasingly difficult. But even if there is any kind of ceasefire or political settlement or some kind of political process, we still will have a reason to suspect that Russia is going to use the time to recover when it comes to the economy, when it comes to its military might, and Russia will try to resume military operations. We already have a history of that. We have the 2015 so-called Minsk Agreements. Seven years later, Mr Putin decided to invade Ukraine. I would agree with those who are saying that any kind of long lasting solution includes Ukraines membership in NATO and also in the European Union. By the way, I think that membership in NATO is easier to achieve than in the European Union. People on this side of the Atlantic sometimes do not understand all the complexity of the single market. Ben: Latvia is seen as a frontrunner to win a seat on the Security Council. What would it mean specifically in terms of this conflict? Rinkevics: We have a broader agenda for the UN Security Council. It includes climate change. It also includes something that we believe we can give to small island states who are actually under the threat of extinction, because of our own history and experience with state continuity. Ben: In your speech to the General Assembly, you spoke about supporting permanent African representation on the Security Council. It sounds like thats part of the alliance youre building for that seat? Rinkevics: It seems a long way from Latvia but there are some similarities This week, we had meetings with the president of Central African Republic, the prime minister of Chad, and the president of Guinea Bissau. We do talk about regional conflicts because those are interlinked. The Wagner Group is very active in Africa. You cant ignore one part of the world and then all of a sudden they wake up and see that bad things are happening. Actually to some extent, Ukraine is currently fighting an anti-colonial war, or that we were under a Soviet occupation that was close to what many African countries went through before they gained independence. OSWEGO COUNTY, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) Oswego County Deputy Cailee Campbell will be remembered as an officer with a can-do attitude, someone who loved her job, and always wanted to help her colleagues. Simply an accident: Oswego County deputy killed in crash responding to call Deputy Campbells death is one that many in law enforcement, and the Oswego community, will not forget. We work very closely with all of them, Oswego Health President and CEO Mike Backus explained regarding all the police agencies in Oswego County. When we learned it was a deputy in the line that was coming in, we knew it was going to be an emotional moment. They spend a lot of time with us. We work very closely. Theyre there to support us. Members of Oswego Health saw the tragedy unfold Wednesday morning, Sept. 25. Now, they hope to help the officers who are back to work after losing a colleague and friend, while also supporting their staff who will always have another patient coming in. These are things we need to talk through and make sure the people have the support they need to talk these things through, Backus said. Theres a patient that comes in thats going to be in front of our team, and we have that obligation and responsibility to be there for those folks. More than just an obligation, an understanding of this loss. Employees here at Oswego Health, many of their loved ones work at Oswego PD and the sheriffs office. So, these are colleagues, friends, and family. We know that. We want to be supportive across the board, Backus added. Theyre offering their support, while the community tries to heal. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WSYR. SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS)The Shreveport Police Department says its vision for the city and Caddo Parish is clear: combat and reduce violent crimes through strategic partnerships. Together, were focused on one shared mission, to reduce violent crimes in Shreveport with a particular focus on gun violence, youth crimes, and domestic violence, said Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith. According to Brandon Brown, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, the national public safety partnership provides an innovative framework to enhance federal support of state, local, and tribal law enforcement and prosecution authorities with the goal of enhancing public safety. Through the partnership, agencies can leverage their unique resources and strategies. In order for us to prosecute cases, we have to have sufficient evidence in order to present that case to prosecute so its very important that we communicate with the sheriffs office, Shreveport police and other law enforcement agencies as to exactly what we need and help them with their strategies to focus on that, said James E. Stewart Sr., the Caddo Parish District Attorney. At the press conference, Brown said that crime, including shootings and violent crime, is decreasing. Law enforcement agencies hope to continue the momentum with crime reduction initiatives. Sometimes we have folks that cant get jobs because of background issues, and so we just had a misdemeanor warrant clearance operation to try to clear some of these records, so that folks can go and apply for a job to not be looking over their shoulder so that they can take care of their families, said Sheriff Henry Whitehorn with the Caddo Parish Sheriffs Office. Chief Smith credits Public Safety Partnership for violent crime drop Sheriff Whitehorn adds that the department will work to improve visibility with recruitment efforts. Often times that presence is a preventative measure. If someone sees a cop somewhere, chances are theyre going to say this is not a good time for getting involved in some activity that could get them in trouble, said Sheriff Whitehorn. During the press conference, youth crime became a focus for all partners. Weve been working very hard with the juvenile system, the partners like the volunteers of youth justice, and other groups, the harbor, the Caddo parish school board, to try to identify the causes of youth crime and try to put our foot on it, said Stewart. Many agencies make up the partnership, including the Shreveport City Marshals Office, Caddo Parish Sheriffs Office, the District Attorneys Office, and community stakeholders. Terry McNaight, president of Caddo-Shreveport crime stoppers adds that the public is another key partner. ON NOW: Part II: Firearms Impact & Responsibility When our police staffing isnt where it needs to be, they have to be more laser-focused. We cant have a cop on every corner, obviously. But your information can tell us, heres where you need to be looking, said McNaight. McNaight says Crime Stoppers receives 300 tips a month and provides tens of thousands of dollars in rewards for anonymous tips. Crime is very personal. Crime is you know someone had a crime committed against them or they know of a crime thats being committed. And its those repeat offenders that are doing this crime. Who are these repeat offenders? Tell us. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTALnews.com. COITSVILLE, Ohio (WKBN) Law enforcement personnel from several different agencies are served a search warrant Friday morning at a 91 Coitsville-Hubbard Road property. The property includes a former church. Police from Campbell and Coitsville, as well as the Mahoning County Sheriffs Office, were present. Chief Deputy William Cappabianca said the warrant was served after a year-long joint investigation with the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Force and Law Enforcement Task Force. Cappabianca said five people have been detained and charges are forthcoming. The five people were living inside the church. He also said people have been calling Coitsville police about activity at the property, but he wouldnt say what the activity was. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now WKBN Breaking News Check back here for updates on this 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 WKBN.com. Former President Donald Trump reaffirmed his support for in vitro fertilization services after Vice President Kamala Harris rolled out an ad that said he might ban the fertility treatment. The Trump campaign embraced universal access to IVF healthcare and didnt deny suggestions the policy could include services for LGBT couples, according to an NBC report published Thursday. President Trump has long been consistent in supporting the rights of states to make decisions on abortion and has been very clear that he will NOT sign a federal ban when he is back in the White House. President Trump also supports universal access to contraception and IVF, Trump's campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. Meanwhile, Harris campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said Trumps own platform listed publicly on his website could effectively ban IVF in comments to the outlet. The campaign did not reply to the Washington Examiners follow-up for clarification on what policies Munoz referred to. As Harris stumps on the campaign trail across the country, she has repeatedly alleged Trump and other Republicans will attempt to ban IVF if he wins a second term. Her campaign released a one-minute ad this week depicting a military family worried about being unable to access IVF services under a Trump presidency. Comrade Kamala Harris just put up an Ad saying that I.V.F. was banned in certain areas because of me, Trump said on Truth Social after the ad began airing on Monday. That is another LIE, just like her working at McDonald's was a LIE! I have been totally supportive of I.V.F., right from the beginning, and so has the Republican Party!" he declared. Featured Local Savings Trump has pledged to bolster access to fertility treatments, even drawing fire from his right flank for recently promising that the government or health insurance companies would fully fund IVF healthcare if he wins the election. We want more babies, to put it very nicely. And for the same reason, we will also allow new parents to deduct major newborn expenses from their taxes, he said. IVF policy fueled another debate in the Senate earlier this month as Democrats torched Republican colleagues in the upper chamber for blocking an IVF bill they said was only about protecting millions of womens only chance of starting families. On behalf of every woman who has faced the heart-shattering struggle of infertility, all I can say to my Republican colleagues this afternoon is: Shame. On. You, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) said after the GOP stalled her Right to IVF Act. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER However, many members of the Senate GOP said they were against the bill because they believed it went far beyond supporting womens access to IVF healthcare. Among their worries were that by removing legal and ethical regulations that oversee the IVF industry, Duckworths framework could open the door to embryo cloning, gene editing, and designer babies. Editors note: This story has been updated with a comment from HIIs Newport News Shipbuilding. Lawmakers demanded answers from the U.S. Navy on Friday over news reports that faulty welds may have been knowingly made to American submarines and aircraft carriers under construction at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia. The revelations were first reported by U.S. Naval Institute News. Few details about the matter were made public Friday, including the potential risks to sailors serving aboard the impacted ships, or whether those ships would become unavailable for operations due to the bad welds. In a statement late Friday, HII, the company that owns the shipyard, said it had discovered through internal reporting that some welders knowingly circumvented certain welding procedures. Based on our initial investigation, there is no indication of malicious intent, the company said. Upon discovery, we took action to communicate with our customers and regulators, investigate, determine root causes, bound the issue, and put in place immediate corrective actions as we work through longer-term solutions. The companys statement did not include further information on the corrective actions or longer-term solutions taken. Earlier Friday, in a joint statement, the Republican and Democrat heads of the House Armed Services Committee called reports of the faulty welds deeply concerning. The Department of Defense needs to immediately provide our committee with answers and a plan for how they will protect U.S. Navy vessels against tampering, the statement by committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and ranking member Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., states. Absolute transparency with Congress is essential. The ranking member of the committees Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee said in a statement that members were already in close contact with Navy leadership to ascertain the scope and severity of the weld quality issue. Anytime there is a weld defect on Navy ships and submarines, the safety of the crews that serve aboard are put at risk, and the availability of these platforms are impeded, subcommittee ranking member Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., said. It is imperative that Navy leadership disclose its investigation in a timely manner in the coming weeks. The Navy said Friday that it was aware of the issue and a thorough evaluation is underway to determine the scope. The safety of our Sailors and our ships is of paramount importance, the sea service said. We are working closely with industry partners to address this situation and will provide additional information when available. The Newport News yard is one of two in the United States focused on the nuclear fleet. The yard constructs parts of several submarine classes, as well as Ford-class aircraft carriers. HII did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Military Times, but USNI News reported that the company had reported the matter to the U.S. Department of Justice. NEW YORK (PIX11) Supporters of congestion pricing are claiming a victory outside court in New York City on Friday. State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron denied a motion by lawyers for the state and Gov. Kathy Hochul. They were asking for the lawsuits to be dismissed. More Local News A group of riders and advocates filed suit after the governor paused the plan in June. Congestion pricing would have charged most vehicles $15 for travel south of 60th Street in Manhattan. The money would fund transit improvements. The state could appeal the judges motion. The next step could be a ruling from the judge on the governors authority to pause the plan. I hope the governor will see the ruling a see its time to set aside the pause, said plaintiff attorney Andrew Chelli. The judge has asked for more briefs on the merits of the case by mid-October. The state could appeal the dismissal ruling. The judge in this case is the same as former President Trumps civil fraud trial. Cases brought by opponents are still pending in federal court in Newark and Manhattan to stop congestion pricing. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. How the lawyer known for taking down powerful men is fighting for Fayeds alleged victims She is the scourge of alleged male celebrity wrongdoers, from Bill Cosby and Donald Trump to R Kelly, Roman Polanski and Dodi Fayed. Now American lawyer and feminist idol Gloria Allred, 83, is turning her attention to Dodis father, Mohamed Fayed, as she charges into her latest high-profile battle: representing multiple women who have accused the former Harrods owner of abuse. Allred is one of several lawyers working to bring justice for at least 37 accusers following a BBC investigation into Fayed. In a press conference on Friday, at which 20 survivors were present, their legal team laid out details of Fayeds alleged predatory behaviour such as subjecting his female employees to intrusive medical examinations, bugging their phone lines, sexual misconduct, and rape. Speaking at the press conference, Allred gave a fiery speech in which she claimed that underneath Harrods glitz and glamour was a toxic, unsafe and abusive environment. She said that it was long overdue for Harrods to step up, adding: Now we want deeds, not just words. Harrods has put out a statement in response to the BBCs investigation, acknowledging that as a business we failed our employees who were [Fayeds] victims and for this we sincerely apologise. And on Thursday, current managing director Michael Ward admitted the business had failed our colleagues and that Fayed had presided over a toxic culture of secrecy, intimidation, fear of repercussion and sexual misconduct. And he added that, while he had worked with Fayed for four years, he was not aware of his criminality and abuse and would have acted upon them had he been so. The stores new owners have set up a compensation scheme for former workers who have reported that they were attacked by Fayed. Allred, with one of Fayeds accusers at a press conference, says his victims were forced to trade their bodies if they wanted to keep their job - Yui Mok/PA Wire However, it looks likely that this separate legal process will go ahead as well and that it could become an even more significant case. Dean Armstrong KC revealed that around 100 women have contacted them since the BBC investigation was made public, in addition to the 37 they were already representing. This is all familiar territory for Allred, who has made a specialty of challenging cases that involve famous figures, multiple victims, and a dangerous power imbalance. In the process, she has become almost as well-known as the celebrities she has taken to task and she is equally revered and feared in a polarised America. Speaking this week on Anton Savages radio show, Allred clarified that she was serving as a consultant to the legal team because Ive had so many high-profile cases in the United States, including R Kelly and Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby. She continued: Im very proud of all of the survivors who have come forward. Mohamed tried to silence them. They will not be silenced anymore. Allred outlined the horrifying culture of fear that Fayed allegedly fostered, telling his victims I know where your family lives as he threatened them not to speak out. Allred said that one accuser was surveilled so that Fayed could find out if she had a boyfriend. His conduct knew no boundaries, she stated. The new owners of Harrods have set up a compensation scheme for former workers who have reported that they were attacked by Fayed - Jeff Overs/BBC News & Current Affairs Allred also claimed that other people, such as Fayeds security team, knew what was happening because they could see young women leaving his Park Lane home dishevelled and crying. She compared the sheer scale of the alleged abuse to similar cases she has worked on, such as representing 20 victims of Jeffrey Epstein. It has also been alleged that two female doctors, Ann Coxon and Wendy Snell, carried out invasive internal examinations of multiple Harrods employees to test them for sexually transmitted infections. The results were then shared with Fayed, without the employees consent. Snell passed away in 2022, but Coxon is still practising. When contacted for a statement in response to the allegations, Coxons office responded with No comment. A GMC spokesperson said: The alleged sexual abuse conducted by Mohamed Al Fayed against multiple women is horrifying. The allegations relating to medical staff working for Mr Al Fayed are deeply concerning. If we identify any potential fitness to practise concerns about individual doctors, we will thoroughly examine all relevant information and take action as appropriate. Although these cases often feature male perpetrators taking advantage of vulnerable women or girls, its a grim reality that there are also female enablers. Ghislaine Maxwell has been imprisoned for enticement of minors and child sex trafficking, related to her long association with Epstein, while, infamously, Rose West collaborated with her husband Fred in the torture and murder of multiple women. Speaking about the abusive workplace created by Fayed, Allred stated that his victims were forced to trade their bodies if they wanted to keep their job. She summed up: Their dream was to work at Harrods, a glitzy, glamorous place. Instead of the dream they got the nightmare. However, she believes that courage is contagious: once one accuser comes forward, many more are emboldened to follow. Allred noted that one underage girl alleges that she did tell the police about Fayed assaulting her, but the case wasnt prosecuted because they said she got the date wrong by one day. Allred compared that to her litigation of a civil trial against Cosby, when she represented a woman who alleged he sexually molested her at the Playboy Mansion when she was 16. She also misremembered the date but, said Allred, the jury still came back in their favour. Allred, second from left, represented dozens of alleged victims of Bill Cosby - Richard Taber/AP Allred is dubious about the current Harrods owners strategy of belatedly apologising and telling accusers to speak to them about a settlement. I dont think they should do that I think [Harrods] should contact independent lawyers. I always say its never too late to do the right thing. Allred concluded: There should be meaningful accountability, because that would be justice. Allreds expertise and dedication to a wider mission clearly make her a crucial member of this legal team, but she also has specific experience of the Fayed family. In August 1997, those notorious pictures of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed canoodling on a yacht were published worldwide. It was a shocking end to his engagement to American model Kelly Fisher, who alleged that he dumped her by phone shortly before news of his romance with Diana broke. Fisher then sued Fayed for breach of contract and loss of earnings (she claims he had offered her $500,000 to scale back her American modelling career so she could move to Paris to be with him) and she was represented by Allred. At a press conference, Allred said that Fayed needs to take responsibility for the woman that he left at the altar and treated with such total disrespect. He threw her love away in a callous way with no regard for her whatsoever. Allred added that Fayed was a frog in princes clothing. Allred is a savvy operator, not a saint - Seth Wenig/AP However, Fisher dropped the suit following the deaths of Diana and Fayed just weeks later. Allred stated that Fisher had made the decision out of respect for the tragedy and the tremendous loss the Fayed family has suffered, but emphasised that Fisher did still have a legal right to pursue her lawsuit she had just chosen not to exercise it. Now, almost three decades later, Allred is holding the Fayed family accountable once again for their treatment of women. This octogenarian defenders zeal for justice is as strong as ever. Perhaps thats not surprising given that she herself was a victim of violent sexual assault. In 1966, while on holiday in Acapulco, she was raped at gunpoint and became pregnant. Since abortion was then illegal she had a back-alley termination, and almost died when she starting to bleed and developed a 106-degree fever. She has since used a variety of colourful strategies to bring such issues to public attention and fight for equality such as invading the Friars Club of Beverley Hills all-male steam room and confronting its naked occupants with a tape measure while singing Peggy Lees Is That All There Is?. In 2020 Allred hired a school bus and had it plastered it with posters and driven to Buckingham Palace. The stunt aimed to pressure Prince Andrew to speak to the FBI about his dealings with Epstein. Allreds school bus stunt aimed to pressure Prince Andrew into speaking to the FBI about his involvement with Epstein - Stefan Rousseau/PA Allred has never been afraid to take on hugely powerful figures and wade into controversial cases, whether representing Nicole Brown Simpsons family in 1995 during the OJ Simpson trial, or writing to Californias Child Protective Services in 2002 when Michael Jackson dangled his son over a balcony in Berlin. More recently Allred represented dozens of alleged victims of Bill Cosby, and three women who accused then-presidential candidate Donald Trump of sexual misconduct. She also represented three women at Harvey Weinsteins Los Angeles rape trial in 2022 although some of her own conduct came under scrutiny too, when a New York Times investigation uncovered the fact that her firm had negotiated some of the non-disclosure agreements signed by Weinsteins victims. Arguably, that had been a sensible tactic at the time to at least secure the women a financial settlement, but it demonstrated that Allred is a savvy operator, not a saint. However, that controversy hasnt slowed her down far from it. Fayed is far from the only prominent figure currently in her sights: she is also representing Thalia Graves, who claims that in 2001 Sean Diddy Combs and his bodyguard Joseph Sherman drugged, bound and raped her, filmed her assault, and then shared the tape with others. Combs is already in federal custody awaiting trial. He faces separate charges of sex trafficking and racketeering. Both Combs and Sherman deny all charges. In a news conference, Allred said that Graves has been dealing with the trauma and stress of her assault for many years and is reliving it now as she files suit against Combs. Allred also hinted that she would be representing other alleged victims. If she is, thats very bad news for Combs indeed. Allred is still a mighty force to be reckoned with, and few escape her relentless pursuit of justice. 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. Attorneys said theyre representing more than 50 people who plan to take legal action against Sean Diddy Combs for alleged sexual abuse and they expect to work with more. Tony Buzbee, who previously represented more than 120 clients in a lawsuit against rapper Travis Scott following the deadly Astroworld crowd crush, announced that he and AVA Law Group are taking legal action against Combs on behalf of those who came forward saying that Combs had abused them. Each individual story is gut wrenching and heartbreaking, Buzbee said in an announcement on social media. The violations against this group of individuals are mindboggling and can only be described as debauchery and depravity, exacted by powerful people against minors and the weak. Andrew Van Arsdale, managing partner of AVA Law Group, told HuffPost on Friday that the attorneys expect to represent well over 100 people by early next week. Sean Combs arrives at the Pre-Grammy Gala And Salute To Industry Icons at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2020, in Beverly Hills, California. Mark Von Holden/Invision/AP Van Arsdale said people who had previously feared the music moguls power are now coming forward because they feel a sense of protection now that federal authorities have arrested him. The lawyer said Combs accusers are looking for accountability and some form of justice. Im just glad that the federal government has finally acted and brought him to task and to call on what has happened here, and we look forward to representing as many people as are willing to come forward and seek that accountability, Van Arsdale said. Federal prosecutors in New York have alleged that Combs organized parties he called freak-offs where he drugged and coerced victims into performing sex acts. Combs has pleaded not guilty to trafficking and racketeering charges, and hes also denied allegations in multiple civil lawsuits filed against him. His attorney, Marc Agnifilo, told TMZ that his client plans to take the stand in his own defense in his criminal case. I dont know that I can keep him off the stand. He is very eager to tell his story, Agnifilo said. Speaking about the dozens of alleged victims that he and Buzbee are representing, Van Arsdale told HuffPost that each case is unique and will be handled individually as opposed to grouping them into a class action lawsuit. Van Arsdale alleged that Combs abuse spanned decades and said that his accusers fall into separate groups. He alleged that some people were promised career benefits and drawn to Combs lavish parties, where they were sexually assaulted, while others were trafficked across state lines to be serially abused by a number of people within Combs circle. Some were minors at the time, he said. The lawyers expect to file cases in different states, but Van Arsdale said that many of Combs parties took place in Beverly Hills, California. Some of the accusers are men who described abuse similar to the women who have already publicly spoken out, he said. Its about a half and a half in terms of the people that have come forward to date, Arsdale said. Need help? Visit RAINNs National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Centers website. Related... SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) A Le Mars man was sentenced to federal prison for distributing methamphetamine and possession of firearms. According to a press release from the U.S. Attorneys Office, Timothy Mullally, 49, was sentenced on Sept. 25 to 66 months of imprisonment after he pleaded guilty on May 16 in federal court to one count of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and one count of prohibited persons in possession of firearms. At the plea and sentencing, the release said evidence showed that between Jan. 2022 through Sept. 2022, Mullally and others distributed more than two kilos of methamphetamine. On two occasions in Aug. and Sept. of 2022, he distributed more than 800 grams of pure methamphetamine to an individual cooperating with authorities. During the investigation of this matter, law enforcement and the U.S. Postal Inspection Services prohibited a three-pound package of methamphetamine coming from California to Mullallys residence in Sept. 2022. Sioux City PD looking for suspect in downtown robbery From the investigation and search warrants at Mullallys properties and vehicles, law enforcement seized $5,830 and two firearms. Mullally admitted to being a regular user of methamphetamine and was prohibited from possessing firearms. Mullally was sentenced to 66 months imprisonment, a $1,000 fine, and a three-year term of supervised release following imprisonment. Mullally remains in the custody of the United States Marshal until he can be transported to a federal 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 SiouxlandProud | Sioux City, IA | News, Weather, and Sports. At least 2 North Carolina deaths blamed on Helene as mountains endure catastrophic floods BOONE, N.C. After Hurricane Helene made landfall in the Big Bend of Florida, it caused flooding conditions throughout the Southeast. In the town of Boone, North Carolina, floodwaters inundated parking lots and streets and destroyed some roads. The photos below show roads that have crumbled, as the ground beneath them had washed away. Farther north in Ashe County, roads disappeared under floodwater deep enough to reach the cab of a Jeep. Flooding in Ashe County. Western North Carolina Faces Historic Flood Threat In Buncombe County, where Asheville is located, more flooded roads could be seen. Flooding in Buncombe County. Meanwhile, some roads were covered in debris from flooding. I-40, looking down at U.S. 74 in North Carolina. How To Watch Fox Weather As of Friday afternoon, at least two people have died because of the storm. One person was killed when a tree fell on a home in Charlotte, while a 4-year-old died in a crash in Claremont. Original article source: At least 2 North Carolina deaths blamed on Helene as mountains endure catastrophic floods At least 20 dead after Hurricane Helene slams into south-east US A home and car can be seen left damaged in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene outside of Live Oak. Ben Hendren/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa At least 20 people died after Hurricane Helene slammed into the south-eastern United States as a dangerous Category 4 storm, before later weakening to a tropical depression by Friday afternoon. The deaths were reported in US media across the states of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. The governor of Georgia said at least 11 people had died in his state. Around 3 million people were without power across those states and beyond, with houses destroyed and entire communities flooded. There were fears that many people could still be trapped under collapsed and damaged buildings. Many roads across the region were not passable. The National Weather Service said Helene made landfall on the west coast of Florida as a Category 4 hurricane - the second highest category - but then began losing steam. The service had warned of "historic and catastrophic flooding," and in some places on Friday the water was about 5 metres high. There were also threats of mudslides due to the extreme rain. Many victims were killed or injured by falling trees, while others died in their cars. In Florida, a woman drowned in her home, CNN reported. In North Carolina, authorities warned that a dam could break and urged nearby residents to move to safety. After pummelling the south-east, it began moving over the Appalachian mountains and affecting states like Tennessee and Virginia. Helene had already caused flooding and power outages in Cuba as it barrelled toward the US. A shed destroyed during hurricane helene sits on the outskirts of Mayo. Ben Hendren/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa A damaged utility pole and power line hangs in the air left in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene outside of Live Oak. Ben Hendren/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa At least 3,661 killed this year in Haiti violence: UN More than 3,600 people have been killed this year in "senseless" gang violence ravaging Haiti, the United Nations said on Friday. One of the world's poorest countries has been plunged into anarchy, with gangs taking over the capital, Port-au-Prince, and the security and health systems collapsing. About 600,000 people were displaced in the first six months of 2024 and 1,280 were injured in gang violence, including 295 women and 63 children, the UN rights office (OHCHR) said in a report. At least 893 individuals, including 25 children, were kidnapped and held for ransom by criminal groups, who are vying for power in a vacuum left by political crisis and weak state authority. "Latest figures documented by the UN Human Rights Office indicate that at least 3,661 people have been killed since January this year, maintaining the high levels of violence seen in 2023," the office said. "No more lives should be lost to this senseless criminality," said Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The OHCHR urged Haitian authorities and the international community to do more to protect people on the Caribbean island. "We are raising the alarm," rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva, warning that "illicit flows of arms are continuing to go into Haiti". The report described horrific violence. While some victims were struck by random gunfire, others were executed in broad daylight for allegedly informing authorities of opposing gang activities. - Fear and subjugation - "Some of those victims had their bodies mutilated with machetes and then burned. "Gangs filmed the scenes and shared them widely on social media to instil fear and control the population," the report said. The report said gangs used sexual violence "to punish, spread fear and subjugate populations". It said at least 860 people were killed and 393 injured during police operations and patrols across Port-au-Prince, including at least 36 children, in what could constitute unnecessary and disproportionate force. The gangs have also recruited large numbers of children, it added. An estimated 1.6 million people in Haiti face emergency-level food insecurity. In October 2023, the UN Security Council approved sending a multinational stabilisation force, led by Kenya, to assist Haitian police. Kenyan President William Ruto told the UN General Assembly on Thursday his country would complete the deployment of the 2,500-strong Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) by January. - 'Wreaking havoc' - Approximately 430 MSS personnel have been deployed so far. Besides Kenya, the force includes around 20 soldiers from Jamaica and Belize. Ruto said Kenya and other African and Caribbean countries were ready to deploy but were being hindered by insufficient equipment, logistics and funding. Turk said the stabilisation force needed more help. "I welcome recent positive steps, such as the establishment of a Transitional Presidential Council, the new transitional government and the deployment of the first contingents of the MSS," he said. "It is clear, however, that the mission needs adequate and sufficient equipment and personnel to counter the criminal gangs effectively and sustainably, and stop them spreading further and wreaking havoc on people's lives." Turk urged Haitian authorities to reform the police and other state institutions crippled by endemic corruption, including the judiciary. He said the international community should comprehensively implement the arms embargo, travel ban and asset freeze imposed by the UN Security Council, to stem gang violence. Shamdasani said that "firearms and ammunitions have continued to enter Haiti through poorly monitored air spaces, unpatrolled coastlines and porous borders, and of course the gangs exploit those gaps". "Weapons and ammunition have continued to flow into the country, primarily from the United States, but also from the Dominican Republic and Jamaica," she said. rjm-bur/nl/apo/tw Danny Danon, Israel's permanent representative to the United Nations, told ABC News on Thursday that his nation is ready to intensify military action against Iran-aligned Hezbollah in Lebanon amid troubled cease-fire talks. Israeli strikes have already killed more than 700 people across Lebanon since Monday, with airstrikes particularly concentrated in Hezbollah's southern and eastern heartlands. "We mean business," Danon said when asked about Israel's intentions. "We will do whatever is necessary to allow the residents of the north to come back to their homes." "We prefer a diplomatic solution, but we also have the capabilities to push Hezbollah from our borders. So, we hope there will be some kind of a diplomatic solution. If not, we will use our strength and might to make it happen." PHOTO: Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, speaks to the media at U.N. headquarters in New York City on Sept. 25, 2024. (David Dee Delgado/Reuters) MORE: Israel kills Hezbollah commander in Beirut strike, Netanyahu vows to continue 'with full force' Danon spoke with ABC News on Thursday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu landed in New York City to attend the U.N. General Assembly and before Israel carried out a major air strike on Hezbollah's headquarters in Beirut on Friday. Earlier on Thursday, Netanyahu appeared to dismiss a joint U.S.-French proposal for a 21-day cease-fire, which President Joe Biden said Wednesday had won "significant" international backing. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz then explicitly declared on social media that there would be "no cease-fire." Asked whether the contrasting U.S.-Israeli rhetoric represented fresh bilateral tensions, Danon replied: "No -- we will continue the ongoing dialogue with our colleagues in the U.S. We appreciate the cooperation and we have a good mechanism for discussing those issues." "We appreciate the efforts of the U.S., France and other countries who are trying to find a diplomatic solution," he added. PHOTO: Israeli Army tanks are transported, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in northern Israel, Sept. 26, 2024. (Jim Urquhart/Reuters) MORE: Israel-Gaza-Lebanon live updates: Hezbollah confirms top commander killed "We prefer a diplomatic solution for the problem with Hezbollah, but we know that sometimes when you deal with a terrorist organization -- and we have the experience with Hamas in the last year -- it's very hard to achieve an agreement." Signals at the Israel-Lebanon border indicate that Israel is preparing for a possible ground invasion. Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi said Thursday that the military "has been waiting for years for this opportunity to attack Hezbollah." Israel wants Hezbollah to withdraw beyond the Litani River -- some 18 miles north of Israel's border -- as stipulated by a 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution that sought to end the last major war between the two sides. "If in the future we will engage with another diplomatic resolution, we will have to make sure that it can be enforced," Danon said. "We need to understand what will be the sanction with enforcing it." "In 2006, the resolution passed the Security Council and look what happened -- today, you don't see even a single Lebanese soldier on the border with Israel. You see full control of Hezbollah." PHOTO: The Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept rockets that were launched from Lebanon, as seen from Haifa, northern Israel, on Sept. 27, 2024. (Maya Alleruzzo/AP) "I think they know that we are serious, they know that we are determined," Danon continued of Hezbollah. The militant group's decision to attack Israel in support of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Danon added, "is a mistake, and the people who will pay the price will be the people of Lebanon." Lebanese officials urged a cease-fire following Israel's intensification of cross-border bombing over the past week. Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib told the UNGA the conflict could "transform into a black hole that will engulf international and regional peace and security." Asked if Beirut could play a role in preventing a wider war, Danon replied: "Lebanon is a sovereign state and we expect the government to take the appropriate actions in order to control what's happening there." "If they allow Hezbollah to take over, they will bear the consequences." Lebanon will 'bear consequences' of Hezbollah 'mistake,' Israeli ambassador says originally appeared on abcnews.go.com (Bloomberg) -- The US and its allies shared a brief moment of optimism on Wednesday as they unveiled a three-week cease-fire proposal to halt the violence between Israel and Hezbollah. Most Read from Bloomberg It didnt last long. Hours after introducing the proposal amid positive signals from Israels ambassador to the United Nations the US came crashing up against opposition from a leader who has repeatedly dashed US hopes to ease the turmoil in the Middle East: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. There will be no cease-fire, Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote on X. Soon after, Netanyahu landed in New York and said Israel would keep up its fight against Hezbollah. While in flight, his office released a photo that purported to show him ordering a strike on a Hezbollah commander. The symbolism of that image could not have been any more potent. Yet despite the rejections, White House spokesman John Kirby insisted that there were still active discussions with the Israelis about the cease-fire. Its not clear to us that from a practical perspective, that there isnt cause for us to continue to have these conversations with the Israelis, Kirby said. Earlier: Netanyahu Goes From War to Diplomatic Hostility With UN Trip The contradictory messaging the US insisting Israel is considering its proposal, and Israel insisting its not further perpetuated a trend thats come to define the conflict and raised fresh questions about the US strategy to try to end it. Israels rejection bore strong echoes of a dialog that revolved around the bid for a cease-fire to halt the fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip nearly a year after the militant groups Oct. 7 attack. Repeatedly, the US has said Israel was onboard with its plan and an accord was close, only for Netanyahu and his government to say they dont see a cease-fire coming anytime soon. Experts, analysts and government officials argue that for whatever the flaws of the strategy, the Biden administration has no choice but to continue. They suggested that the three-week cease-fire plan for Lebanon, with its dozen signatories along with the EU, may have been meant as a signal to Israel. I see this as critical US leadership maximally leveraging diplomatic alliances to sharpen Israeli understanding and appreciation of the costs of proceeding unilaterally, said Mara Rudman, who worked on Middle East issues during the Clinton and Obama administrations. It will be heard and perhaps needs to sink in. Before unveiling the cease-fire, the US, France and others marshaled a broad coalition to try and push the process forward. But now both US and French officials appear to be effectively ignoring Netanyahus rejection in the hope that he will come around. Speaking in Ottawa on Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron said Netanyahu would be making a mistake by rejecting the Lebanon plan because it would make him responsible for an escalation far beyond that which no one would be able to control. That doesnt account for the pressure Netanyahu is coming under at home. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been displaced from areas near the Lebanese border and are clamoring to return. But even Israel appeared to acknowledge it had overstepped. Later Thursday, Netanyahus office expressed appreciation for the Biden administrations efforts and indispensable role. The statement acknowledged that the US was seeking to promote a cease-fire, but stopped short of endorsing this arrangement. Two diplomats familiar with the Biden administration approach said the impression other nations get is that the US has been repeatedly embarrassed by Israel. The diplomats, who asked not to be identified discussing private assessments, said the US sacrificed its own standing when an ally such as Israel so blatantly flouts its wishes. The impatience with Bidens approach may be growing. On Thursday, Senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, said he would vote to oppose offensive weapons to Israel. He called them an accelerant to ongoing hostilities. The Biden administration has had to walk a fine line between likely Democratic voters with sympathies on either side of the conflict, particularly given the razor-thin margins in swing states expected to decide the presidential election. The US seems to believe that merely expressing the expectation that a deal is imminent or within reach that this will put pressure on Netanyahu, said Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. Its like theyre trying to manifest a cease-fire into being without actually applying real pressure or using any of the vast leverage at their disposal. --With assistance from Dan Williams, Michelle Jamrisko, Brian Platt, Samy Adghirni and Courtney McBride. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. United States Attorney Damian Williams toppled political giants well before he unsealed a media bombshell of a criminal indictment against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. In 2023, Williams led his Southern District of New York office in a case against now-resigned Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, accusing him of corruption in his dealings with Egypt's government, later securing a conviction. In addition to Menendez and Adams, Williams has prosecuted many more politicians. Earlier in his career, Williams successfully helped convict high-profile members of the Republican and Democratic parties in successive years. In 2018, he helped prosecute former longtime New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver on several corruption charges. Silver was viewed as one of the most powerful politicians in the state and, after his conviction, was described as "an iron-fisted dictator who turned that legislative body into his own personal, profit-making enterprise." The next year, Williams went after former Republican Rep. Chris Collins, who represented a district in Western New York, for insider trading. He successfully got Collins convicted of pushing company information to his son to prevent trading losses. Williams's record indicates his unabashed desire to seek justice against politicians who had done wrong regardless of political affiliation. When President Joe Biden appointed him as U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York in 2021, Williams said his goal was to be fiercely independent of politics. While Williams has been indirectly involved in politics in several cases against prominent lawmakers, a statement and his indictment of Menendez draw a clearer picture of what Williams meant. "My office is firmly committed to rooting out corruption, without fear or favor, and without any regard to partisan politics," Williams said. "We will continue to do so. Williams's story continued Thursday when he announced his prosecution of Adams. The first New York City mayor to be indicted while in office, Adams is the most high-profile politician the U.S. attorney has pursued in his career. Featured Local Savings Public office is a privilege, Williams said at a press conference announcing Adams's indictment. We allege that Mayor Adams abused that privilege and broke the law, laws that are designed to ensure that officials like him serve the people not the highest bidder, not a foreign bidder, and certainly not a foreign power. Adams has vehemently denied the charges and claimed that he's become a "target." "It is now my belief that the federal government intends to charge me with crimes," Adams said in a video statement. "If so, these charges would be entirely false, based on lies. But they would not be surprising. I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you that, I would be a target, and a target I became." This statement has led some political observers to compare Adams's case to former President Donald Trump's hush-money trial in New York. Trump has frequently accused the Biden administration of weaponizing the Department of Justice against him, claims the president and the DOJ, which Biden said operates independently from him, have denied. Adams and Trump are two high-profile, confident politicians from New York. The New York Times called Adams a "showman," a moniker often used to describe Trump. However, unlike Trump's accusations, often directed at New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg in a case one critic described as a "historic mistake," Adams's attack on the justice system could be less persuasive if he targets Williams specifically. After all, Adams isn't the only high-profile politician, Democratic and Republican, Williams has prosecuted. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER "By allegedly taking improper and illegal benefits from foreign nationals, including to allow a Manhattan skyscraper to open without a fire inspection, Adams put the interests of his benefactors, including a foreign official, above those of his constituents," Williams said in the indictment of Adams. "This Office and our partners at the FBI and DOI will continue to pursue corruption anywhere in this city, especially when that corruption takes the form of illegal foreign influence on our democratic system, he concluded. People inspect a destroyed three storey building, after it collapsed following an Israeli air raid in the southern Lebanese border village of Shebaa. Stringer/dpa Twenty-five people were killed in Israeli attacks in Lebanon on Friday, according to the Lebanese authorities. At a news conference in the Lebanese capital Beirut, Health Minister Firass Abiad said there were many more injured, without giving an exact number. Abiad emphasized that all sides were interested in a diplomatic solution, but "only one party wants to continue its indiscriminate attacks on civilians." The state news agency NNA had previously reported that a family of nine was killed in an attack on the town of Shebaa near the border with Israel. Women and children were also among the victims, it said. According to the authorities, over 700 people have died since Israel's renewed heavy attacks on Lebanon. People inspect a destroyed three storey building, after it collapsed following an Israeli air raid in the southern Lebanese border village of Shebaa. Stringer/dpa Lebanese Red cross workers inspect a destroyed three storey building, after it collapsed following an Israeli air raid in the southern Lebanese border village of Shebaa. Stringer/dpa Lebanon's Nasrallah - who Israel says it has killed - led Hezbollah to become regional force (Removes byline) BEIRUT (Reuters) -Lebanon's Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who Israel said on Saturday it has killed, led Hezbollah through decades of conflict with Israel, overseeing its transformation into a military force with regional sway and becoming one of the most prominent Arab figures in generations - with Iranian backing. The Iran-backed Hezbollah has yet to issue any statement on the status of Nasrallah, who led the group for 32 years. The Israeli military said it had killed Nasrallah in an airstrike on the group's central headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut a day earlier. The Israeli military "eliminated ... Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Hezbollah terrorist organization," Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote in a statement on X. Among supporters, Nasrallah was lauded for standing up to Israel and defying the United States. To enemies, he was head of a terrorist organisation and a proxy for Iran's Shi'ite Islamist theocracy in its tussle for influence in the Middle East. His regional influence was on display over nearly a year of conflict ignited by the Gaza war, as Hezbollah entered the fray by firing on Israel from southern Lebanon in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas, and Yemeni and Iraqi groups followed suit, operating under the umbrella of "The Axis of Resistance". "We are facing a great battle," Nasrallah said in an Aug. 1 speech at the funeral of Hezbollah's top military commander, Fuad Shukr, who was killed in an Israeli strike on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut. Yet when thousands of Hezbollah members were injured and dozens killed, when their communications devices exploded in an apparent Israeli attack last week, that battle began to turn against his group. Responding to the attacks on Hezbollah's communications network in a Sept. 19 speech, Nasrallah vowed to punish Israel. "This is a reckoning that will come, its nature, its size, how and where? This is certainly what we will keep to ourselves and in the narrowest circle even within ourselves," he said. He had not given a broadcast address since then. Israel has meanwhile dramatically escalated its attacks, killing several senior Hezbollah commanders in targeted strikes and unleashing a massive bombardment in Hezbollah-controlled areas of Lebanon, which has killed hundreds of people. Recognised even by his enemies as a skilled orator, Nasrallah's speeches were followed by friend and foe alike. Wearing the black turban of a sayyed, or a descendent of the Prophet Mohammad, Nasrallah used his addresses to rally Hezbollah's base but also to deliver carefully calibrated threats, often wagging his finger as he does so. He became secretary general of Hezbollah in 1992 aged just 35, the public face of a once shadowy group founded by Iran's Revolutionary Guards in 1982 to fight Israeli occupation forces. Israel killed his predecessor, Sayyed Abbas al-Musawi, in a helicopter attack. Nasrallah led Hezbollah when its guerrillas finally drove Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in 2000, ending an 18-year occupation. 'DIVINE VICTORY' Conflict with Israel largely defined his leadership. He declared "Divine Victory" in 2006 after Hezbollah waged 34 days of war with Israel, winning the respect of many ordinary Arabs who had grown up watching Israel defeat their armies. But he became an increasingly divisive figure in Lebanon and the wider Arab world as Hezbollah's area of operations widened to Syria and beyond, reflecting an intensifying conflict between Shi'ite Iran and U.S.-allied Sunni Arab monarchies in the Gulf. While Nasrallah painted Hezbollah's engagement in Syria - where it fought in support of President Bashar al-Assad during the civil war - as a campaign against jihadists, critics accused the group of becoming part of a regional sectarian conflict. At home, Nasrallah's critics said Hezbollah's regional adventurism imposed an unbearable price on Lebanon, leading once friendly Gulf Arabs to shun the country - a factor that contributed to its 2019 financial collapse. In the years following the 2006 war, Nasrallah walked a tightrope over a new conflict with Israel, hoarding Iranian rockets in a carefully measured contest of threat and counter threat. The Gaza war, ignited by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, prompted Hezbollah's worst conflict with Israel since 2006, costing the group hundreds of its fighters including top commanders. After years of entanglements elsewhere, the conflict put renewed focus on Hezbollah's historic struggle with Israel. "We are here paying the price for our front of support for Gaza, and for the Palestinian people, and our adoption of the Palestinian cause," Nasrallah said in the Aug. 1 speech. Nasrallah grew up in Beirut's impoverished Karantina district. His family hail from Bazouriyeh, a village in the Lebanon's predominantly Shi'ite south which today forms Hezbollah's political heartland. He was part of a generation of young Lebanese Shi'ites whose political outlook was shaped by Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. Before leading the group, he used to spend nights with frontline guerrillas fighting Israel's occupying army. His teenage son, Hadi, died in battle in 1997, a loss that gave him legitimacy among his core Shi'ite constituency in Lebanon. POWERFUL ENEMIES He had a track record of threatening powerful enemies. As regional tensions escalated after the eruption of the Gaza war, Nasrallah issued a thinly veiled warning to U.S. warships in the Mediterranean, telling them: "We have prepared for the fleets with which you threaten us." In 2020, Nasrallah vowed that U.S. soldiers would leave the region in coffins after Iranian general Qassem Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq. He expressed fierce opposition to Saudi Arabia over its armed intervention in Yemen, where, with U.S. and other allied support, Riyadh sought to roll back the Iran-aligned Houthis. As regional tensions rose in 2019 following an attack on Saudi oil facilities, he said Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates should halt the Yemen war to protect themselves. "Dont bet on a war against Iran because they will destroy you," he said in a message directed at Riyadh. On Nasrallah's watch, Hezbollah has also clashed with adversaries at home in Lebanon. In 2008, he accused the Lebanese government - backed at the time by the West and Saudi Arabia - of declaring war by moving to ban his group's internal communication network. Nasrallah vowed to "cut off the hand" that tried to dismantle it. It prompted four days of civil war pitting Hezbollah against Sunni and Druze fighters, and the Shi'ite group to take over half the capital Beirut. He strongly denied any Hezbollah involvement in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, after a U.N.-backed tribunal indicted four members of the group. Nasrallah rejected the tribunal - which in 2020 eventually convicted three of them in absentia over the assassination - as a tool in the hands of Hezbollah's enemies. (Editing by William Maclean, Andrew Heavens, Angus McDowall, Sharon Singleton, Rosalba O'Brien and Frances Kerry) LEESBURG, Va. (DC News Now) Leesburg police have arrested a man in connection to a bank robbery Friday. The Leesburg Police Department said officers headed to the Truist Bank, located at 1007 Edwards Ferry Road NW, for a report of a bank robbery in progress at around 11:45 a.m. Prince William County Police Department officer arrested, charged with abduction, sexual battery, more Officers began searching the area and spotted a man, who matched the description of the bank robber, near the Leesburg Premium Outlet Mall, located at 241 Fort Evans Road NE. That prompted the man to run and after a brief chase, he was arrested. The man was identified as Joshua Boyce, 25, and charged with robbery and wearing of a mask in connection with a robbery. Boyce was taken to the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center. Anyone who was near the Truist Bank before or at the time of the robbery or who may have witnessed any suspicious activity is asked to call (703) 771-4500 or text 274637. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Donald Trump had a decent day in court on Thursday, as his lawyer pressed a panel of New York state appellate judges to upend the massive, nine-figure fraud ruling against the former president and his business empire. If the judges pointed questions to the state are any indication, then theres a chance that New York Attorney General Letitia James stunning trial victory earlier this year could be curbed. Part of the issue boils down to how broadly James used a state law to go after Trump and his civil co-defendants for fraud in financial dealings, given that it wasnt a case where victims were conned and then complained to the government about it. Put differently, the question is how broadly that law, Executive Law 63(12), can reach. The hearing got off to a rough start for the states lawyer, Judith Vale (starting at about 34:00 in the video posted by the court). Before she could say much at all, one of the judges jumped in to ask whether there had ever been a case where the attorney general sued under the state executive law to upset a private business transaction that was between equally sophisticated partners, where the supposed victim had the ability and legal obligation to discover the allegedly misrepresented matters by conducting its own due diligence; where the supposed wrongdoer advised the supposed victim, through written disclaimers, to conduct its own due diligence and to draw its own conclusions; where the alleged misrepresentation almost entirely concerned inherently subjective valuations of properties and businesses; and where the victim never complained about any fraud. Well, when you put it that way. It didnt get a whole lot better for the state from there. A second judge questioned the harm when there was little to no effect on the public marketplace. A third judge said the case sounded like a potential commercial dispute between private actors, suggesting its not something the attorney general needed to get involved with. And a fourth judge on the five-judge panel said they were concerned with mission creep that is, whether the state law had been used to do something it wasnt meant to do. Vale maintained that there was a public impact, that public interest is at stake, and that in passing the executive law, the state legislature was concerned with harms to the honest businesspeople who dont do the misconduct. It wasnt all bad for the state. Presiding Judge Dianne Renwick pointed out during Vales grilling that the state executive law was passed to protect honesty and integrity in the marketplace, a line of thinking that supports the states broad use of the law. And Trump lawyer John Sauer (who argued the immunity case at the Supreme Court for the Republican presidential nominee) was quizzed by the panel as well. Ultimately, one can never be sure from oral argument what the precise ruling will be. But the outing could have gone better for James and worse for Trump. At the very least, the panel didnt sound like it is in lockstep with Judge Arthur Engoron, who presided over the case at trial and roundly ruled against the Trump camp. In a scathing February ruling, Engoron wrote that the civil defendants lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological. They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money. The documents prove this over and over again. This is a venial sin, not a mortal sin. Defendants did not commit murder or arson. They did not rob a bank at gunpoint. Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff. Yet, defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways. Instead, they adopt a See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil posture that the evidence belies. Thursdays argument took place in Manhattan at the Appellate Division, which is the states intermediate-level appeals court. Its highest court is the Court of Appeals (the trial-level court is somewhat confusingly called the Supreme Court), to which either side could appeal after the Appellate Division rules (its unclear when that will happen). The U.S. Supreme Court could theoretically get involved after the state courts are exhausted, if the appealing party can raise a federal issue as opposed to a state one, the latter being an issue over which the justices wouldnt have jurisdiction. In any event, it seems unlikely that the matter will be fully settled for some time. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for updates and expert analysis on the top legal stories. The newsletter will return to its regular weekly schedule when the Supreme Courts next term kicks off in October. This article was originally published on MSNBC.com A protester is arrested at UC Irvine as police break up an encampment of pro-Palestinian demonstrators May 15. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) To the editor: In 1990, UC Berkeley held a graduation for members of the class of 1970, whose ceremony was canceled due to the anti-Vietnam War protests. ("UC police seek approval for more pepper balls, sponge rounds, launchers, drones," Sept. 19) At the time, I was proud to see an article in The Times quoting history professor Leon Litwack, who said at the ceremony: "The class of '70 occupies a unique place in our legacy. It's a familiar phrase from your era: If you don't like the news go out and make some of your own. You did ... and because of you the University of California has become synonymous around the world with the exercise of free speech." After reading that the UC Board of Regents voted to increase the stockpiles of weapons after student protests, those words now ring hollow. As one of those students who missed out on my graduation in 1970, I am outraged and urge UC alumni to let the regents know that we support the students' "exercise of free speech," free from retaliation and violence. Kathy Masaoka, Los Angeles .. To the editor: As a UC Berkeley faculty brat growing up in the 1960s, I witnessed the Free Speech Movement, anti-war protests and the political theater of People's Park, where militants and hippies faced off against then-Gov. Ronald Reagans National Guard. At 12 years old, I inhaled my first tear gas as it swept across the playground of my middle school. Those were exciting, troubled and transformative times. Reflecting on his UC presidency during that tumultuous decade, Clark Kerr famously stated: "The university is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas." Today's UC regents should take heed of these words. Stockpiling weapons across our campuses violates the core principles of a liberal education, not to mention America's distinguished tradition of civil disobedience. Nonviolent student protests address real problems and represent one of the hallmarks of an open society. As my not-very-radical father used to say, "Attacking students as the problem eliminates the possibility of a solution." That's what I tell my students too. Andrew Apter, Santa Monica The writer is a professor of history at UCLA. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. LGBTQ+ students at Iowa high school get boxcutter thrown at them during homecoming parade The mother of a Linn-Mar High School student says her daughter is among a group of students in the school's LGBTQ+ group Spectrum who were attacked during the school's homecoming parade. Someone allegedly hurled a boxcutter at the teens as they passed by on their float Wednesday, according to Jennifer Pitkin, whose daughter Ava is a sophomore. She said some attendees, including young children, also yelled anti-gay slurs at her daughter and her peers in Spectrum. Pitkin recalled receiving a text from Ava while waiting for Spectrum's float. By that point, Pitkin said she had noticed a lag between the parade floats and thought it was "weird." "I get a text from Ava saying that they had a knife thrown at them," Pitkin told the Des Moines Register. "And that was it. That was all that we heard until we saw her, which was about 10 minutes later." Linn-Mar High School students and Spectrum members Ava Pitkin (left) and Ashlynn Novak pose for a photo at the homecoming parade. They were robbed of an experience that was meant to be celebratory, she said. The students went all out, decorating their truck, doing each other's makeup and dressing up, Pitkin said. These students, Pitkin added, are a "good," "carefree" bunch. Linn-Mar Community School District officials said in a statement they were "saddened" to learn about the incident at the parade and are working with local police on its investigation. "This behavior is unacceptable and does not reflect the values of our district," officials said in a Facebook post, noting they already reached out to students in Spectrum to offer support. "... We are dedicated to ensuring that all students feel safe, respected, and valued, and will not condone actions that threaten them." The district is interviewing students and staff for "internal purposes," with Marion police leading a formal investigation, officials told the Register. Officer Tom Daubs, spokesperson for the Marion Police Department, said they learned about the incident through a FBI tip line message and the investigation is ongoing. Marion city officials joined the school district and Iowa Safe Schools, an advocacy organization for LGBTQ+ youth, in condemning the attacks that occurred. "Acts of discrimination will not be tolerated and, together, we must work to create a place where people of all cultures and identities can thrive," city officials said in a statement. They also encouraged anyone with more information to contact the Police Department. Iowa Safe Schools said it was "utterly disturbed" by the incident that erupted at the parade. No student should ever be made to feel unwelcome let alone in fear for their safety," the organization said in a statement. It pointed to several new laws that restrict LGBTQ youth rights as part of a "hostile environment" in Iowa that "enabled these vile acts" More: Iowa LGBTQ families ask if they still belong after new laws restrict their rights "Our organization would like to thank Linn-Mar Community Schools for its swift condemnation of this incident as well as local law enforcement as they investigate these events," the statement said. "The Iowa Safe Schools team is working to connect with the students affected by this appalling incident to ensure that they are safe and supported. We will continue to monitor this situation closely. Pitkin also took matters into her own hands and launched a GoFundMe page, seeking to raise money for a scholarship fund for students in Spectrum. As of Friday morning, the fundraiser had reached $3,200. (This story was updated to add new information.) F. Amanda Tugade covers social justice issues for the Des Moines Register. Email her at ftugade@dmreg.com or follow her on Twitter@writefelissa. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: LGBTQ+ students at Linn-Mar school targeted during homecoming parade To help inform voters about the Nov. 5, 2024, election, this candidate questionnaire is available to be republished by local publications in North Carolina without any cost. Please consider subscribing to The News & Observer to help make this coverage possible. Name: Matthew Laszacs District/seat: House District 41 County or counties represented: Wake Political party: Libertarian Age as of Nov. 5, 2024: 45 Campaign website: matt4nc.us Current occupation: Business executive Professional experience: 20 years Education: Bachelor of Science, business administration (cum laude) Please list any notable government or civic involvement. Two-time candidate for state government. What would be your top priority if elected? We need to increase the supply of health care services so that rural families and families in medically underserved areas can get access to primary and preventative care as well as routine medications. Our current regulatory system prevents the growth of new and innovative health care services and protects incumbents from competition. I propose granting nurse practitioners and pharmacists full practice authority and I aim to dismantle the monopolistic Certificate of Need regime in Raleigh. By percentage, what raises should state employees, school staff and teachers receive in the next state budget? We need to remove politics and central planning from the process for determining teacher salaries. Central planners lack the necessary information to determine the value of every single teacher and therefore struggle to create accurate and competitive salaries, and politicians and the associated political process hinder the timely execution of salary adjustments. Teachers need expanded choice of employers and the ability to negotiate directly with those competing employers for better pay. What legislation would you support to improve Triangle transportation, housing or infrastructure? Please be specific. We need to repeal exclusionary zoning laws and land use ordinances so that developers can build the types and quantities of housing needed by our citizens. These ordinances unnecessarily restrict housing supply and density, both of which are necessary for efficient and affordable transportation and infrastructure. The North Carolina General Assembly should write clear rules that limit the growth of zoning laws and speed up the permitting process. If a developer meets the requirements, they get a permit. Do you think the legislature should fund about $500 million for private school vouchers through the Opportunity Scholarship program? Why or why not? I would introduce legislation to expand educational savings accounts to all North Carolina families, regardless of income. I want to completely empower parents to select the best educational options for their individual children. This goes beyond just picking and paying for a school, but also for covering ancillary educational items such as tutoring, study materials, field learning, counseling, or any mix of educational tools that would best support the needs of each individual student. Is there an issue on which you disagree with your party? What is your position on that issue? The Libertarian Party is a big tent with lots of room for individuals with differing views and opinions. I am a classical liberal with a strong belief in advancing Libertarian ideas iteratively as the public will accept them. I am about changing minds and pushing the population towards liberty in an incremental fashion over the long run. I am not trying to jump to the destination immediately, rather I am focused on the small steps of the journey to get us there together. Under the Dome Get the latest news about North Carolina politics from The News & Observer's award-winning team. Get the free digest sent to your inbox by signing up here. Liberty and Justice for all: Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium welcomes pair of rescued bald eagles Liberty and Justice for all: Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium welcomes pair of rescued bald eagles The Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium has welcomed a pair of rescued bald eagles -- Justice and Liberty. The male, Justice, and the female, Liberty, were injured in the wild and rescued and rehabilitated by a center in Alaska. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined the eagles could not be released back into the wild due to their injuries. Although their ages are unknown, the zoo said both eagles are adults. The pair will make their new home in the zoos Kids Kingdom area. Liberty and Justice will not be part of a breeding program since eagle population numbers are strong in the wild, said Daryl Hoffman, Vice President of Living Collections. As a federally protected species any molted feathers will be returned to the government who will then send them to various Native American tribes for their ceremonies. It is illegal to possess eagle items such as feathers or eggs. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW ATLANTA Helene unleashed its destructive force on the Southeast, leaving a trail of devastation in its wake. After making a devastating landfall in Florida late Thursday night, the storm continued its relentless onslaught, bringing torrential rain and widespread flooding to the region. Atlanta, located roughly 300 miles north of the storm's landfall, was not spared from Helene's wrath. Well before dawn in the city, conditions rapidly deteriorated, with millions facing the risk of life-threatening flooding. The city was placed under its first-ever Flash Flood Emergency on Friday morning as Atlanta endures its wettest three-day period since Dec. 7-9, 1919, when 11.75 inches fell. Since Wednesday, Atlanta has picked up more than 9 inches of rain, according to the FOX Forecast Center. Atlanta Fire Rescue Department has responded to numerous weather-related calls overnight. As of 7 a.m. ET, approximately 25 people have been rescued in the metro area. In northwest Atlanta, a family of two adults and an infant found themselves trapped on top of their car due to unexpected currents. A daring boat rescue brought them to safety, capturing the dramatic scene live on FOX Weather. Among the rescues across the city, crews evacuated multiple residents from the Peachtree Park Apartments in Buckhead, a neighborhood north of downtown. Floodwaters inundated the apartments, forcing residents to flee their homes. Several boats were deployed to transport people and pets to safety, while some residents were forced to wade through deep water to reach rescue crews. As the rain continued, the situation was expected to worsen, necessitating further evacuations, FOX 5 in Atlanta reports. Several inches of rain had already fallen across Georgia, prompting numerous Flash Flood Warnings to be issued. Cities like Atlanta were under these warnings, and officials urged residents to stay off the roads. The death toll from Helene in the state continues to rise. In Colquitt County, Georgia, one person was tragically killed when their vehicle collided with a fallen tree. Widespread damage has been reported in the area, and emergency management officials are working to assess the extent of the destruction, FOX 5 reports. Additionally, at least two more deaths have been confirmed in Wheeler County, Georgia. A mobile home was damaged during one of the many Tornado Warnings associated with the storm, resulting in the loss of lives. Roads throughout the region were severely impacted by the flooding, with photos and videos showing water rushing over roadways as torrential rain and strong winds continued. One photo captured the flooding in Sandy Springs, Georgia, after water in Nancy Creek began to rise. According to FOX 5, firefighters were responding to reports that a woman was trapped inside her home by rising floodwaters, and residents living near Nancy Creek were being evacuated due to the rising water levels. In Chamblee, Georgia, a massive sinkhole opened up, adding to the growing list of storm-related hazards. As rescue efforts continue, the full extent of the damage in the Peach State and the number of fatalities is expected to become clearer in the coming days. Original article source: Atlanta sees first-ever Flash Flood Emergency as Helene's fury forces multiple water rescues Lifespan to officially change name to Brown Health in October PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) The next time you visit Rhode Island Hospital, you may see a new name on the building. Rhode Islands largest hospital group, Lifespan, confirmed Wednesday that the organization will officially change its name to Brown University Health on Oct. 15, two weeks into its new fiscal year. Plans for the new name and logo were first announced earlier this year. This is an ambitious, multiyear initiative aimed at a complete name transformation, with updated signage and branding elements on the horizon, Lifespan spokesperson Jessica Wharton told 12 News. The first phrase of the rebranding will include a new Brown Health website, updated employee email addresses, and the unveiling of a Brown University Health banner at Rhode Island Hospital, she said. In addition to Rhode Island Hospital, Lifespan also owns Miriam, Newport and Bradley hospitals. The not-for-profit corporation is the states largest employer, with about 17,000 employees currently. The new name is one of many changes being made at Lifespan under CEO John Fernandez, who took over the top job in 2022. Last Friday, Fernandez laid off 20% of Lifespans executives, a move he said would reduce overhead and save roughly $6 million over the next year. The system has been struggling for years to consistently post a healthy profit margin. Separately, Lifespan is finalizing its purchase of two hospitals in Southeastern Massachusetts owned by bankrupt Steward Health Care, St. Annes in Fall River and Morton in Taunton. That transaction is expected to close next month. Brown President Christina Paxson announced back in June that the university would lend its name to the Lifespan system as part of an expanded partnership between the two institutions, though Brown wont be taking over the hospital group. Brown has also committed to invest $150 million in Lifespan over the next seven years. Becoming Brown University Health raises our national profile and greatly enhances our ability to attract and retain world-class physicians and expand our research and clinical training programs, allowing us to keep high-end specialty care and good-paying jobs in Rhode Island, Wharton said. We are confident that these changes will strengthen our organization, benefitting our employees, patients, and the broader community, she added. Ted Nesi (tnesi@wpri.com) is a Target 12 investigative reporter and 12 News politics/business editor. He co-hosts Newsmakers and writes Nesis Notes on Saturdays. Connect with him on Twitter, Threads and Facebook. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WPRI.com. Northrop Grummans B-21 Raider program is making significant strides in both flight testing and production, marking a new era in strategic bomber development. The Combined Test Force (CTF), comprising Northrop Grumman and Air Force personnel, is conducting a comprehensive flight test campaign at Edwards Air Force Base to evaluate the aircrafts capabilities. Early feedback from test pilots has been overwhelmingly positive. Chris Hoss Moss, a B-21 Raider test pilot, noted that the aircrafts handling qualities are exceeding expectations based on simulations. The flight test program rapidly expands the B-21s operational envelope, executing multiple test events within a week. According to Northrop Grumman, this efficiency is attributed to its digital ecosystem, which allows for quick analysis of test data and swift implementation of updates. In parallel with flight testing, Northrop Grumman has completed static testing to verify the B-21s structural design and has begun fatigue testing to simulate a lifetime of flight conditions. The company is also scaling production, utilizing advanced manufacturing techniques and digital tooling across the factory. Innovative approaches, such as augmented reality tools and advanced robotics, are being employed to enhance efficiency and accuracy in the production process. This strategy of building the first test aircraft, like the production model, aims to ensure a smooth transition to full-scale production and facilitate future technology insertions to keep the B-21 ahead of emerging threats. Saab Delivers Fifth GlobalEye Aircraft to UAE The UAE has received the fifth and final GlobalEye Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft built by SAAB. to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). GlobalEyes delivery spanned over four years, showcasing Saabs efficiency in fulfilling the development and manufacturing program within less than ten years. Boeing Completes First Flight of UK E-7 Wedgetail for Royal Air Force Boeing has successfully conducted the first flight of the UKs E-7 Wedgetail aircraft, marking a significant milestone in developing the Royal Air Forces (RAF) future Airborne Early Warning & Control fleet. The functional check flight, performed by a Boeing flight-test crew, took place at Birmingham Airport, initiating the programs test and evaluation phase. The E-7 Wedgetail, based on a modified 737 NG airframe, is equipped with advanced capabilities, including a Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) radar sensor. This combat-proven system provides 360-degree coverage, enabling long-range detection and tracking of multiple airborne and maritime threats simultaneously. Three 737 NG aircraft are undergoing modification in the UK, with over 100 personnel working on the project at STS Aviation Services in Birmingham. The E-7 fleet will be based at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland, where infrastructure preparations are nearing completion. The RAF participates in a trilateral agreement with the Royal Australian Air Force and U.S. Air Force for cooperative Wedgetail operations. L3Harris Advances Hypersonic Propulsion Technology L3Harris Technologies has announced significant progress in developing operational hypersonic propulsion systems, building on over 14 years of advancements since the historic X-51A WaveRider flight. The company has demonstrated the propulsion technology and production capacity needed to field operational hypersonic systems for warfighters. The Successful demonstration of scramjet technology through the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) program and continued advancement of 3D-printing technology for hypersonic applications via programs like GAMMA-H, are among the achievements, along with a significant reduction in production time (75%), manufacturing costs (75%), and number of parts (95%) for scramjet engines compared to first-generation designs and the Development of dual-mode air-breathing scramjets that can operate as both subsonic combustion ramjets and scramjets. L3Harris is aligning its efforts with the Department of Defenses National Hypersonics Initiative 2.0, which aims to accelerate hypersonic technology development affordably and responsibly. US Navy Begins LRASM integration with F-35C AGM-158C LRASM flight testing begins on F-35C. As part of ongoing integration efforts, the Pax River F-35 Integrated Test Force team flew two days of test flights to evaluate flutter, loads, and flying qualities with two AGM-158 loaded on external stations. Leonardos AW249 Completes First Operational Exercise Leonardos new AW249 attack helicopter, dubbed FENICE, has successfully participated in its first operational exercise, marking a significant milestone in its development. The new helicopter was integrated into the Stella Alpina 2024 operations tactical bubble, demonstrating its advanced capabilities in a multi-domain operational environment during the exercise. Nigeria Considers Acquiring Four Prachand Light Combat Helicopters from India Nigeria is poised to become the first export customer of Indias indigenously developed Prachand Light Combat Helicopters (LCH). The Nigerian Air Force has shown interest in procuring four advanced attack helicopters, marking a significant milestone in Indias defense export efforts. The Prachand LCH, developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), is a multi-role attack helicopter designed for high-altitude operations. This potential sale to Nigeria represents a significant step forward in Indias ambition to expand its defense exports. Return to: Defense-Update Weekly News Summary 26.9.2024 By Farman Aydin, AzerNEWS The endless interest of the West, and especially the United States, in the South Caucasus is no longer a secret to anyone. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the USA, which tried to penetrate the region, created new means of leverage for it. For many years, USAID has played the role of an obvious broker of Western capitalism. Its inexhaustible financial resources have always included the poor countries in which it is interested. Considering that in the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia are post-Soviet regions and have always been of interest to the West, USAID's active activities in these countries can be linked to this. However, unfortunately, USAID's activities are not always based on the principles of humanism. Of course, the organisation that implements the soft power policy of the United States has always exerted political influence against small states under the guise of humanism and tried to interfere in their internal affairs. USAID and its impacts on national consciousness The collapse of the Soviet Union created a serious political vacuum in a number of countries. Some countries, which took the concept of democracy as a delicacy, did not feel the poisonous substances in it. In this way, the United States, which has introduced itself to the world as a harbinger of democracy, was able to easily spread to countries with problems related to national and ethnic minorities, political parties, media, education, social and many more. Since the mentioned problems directly affect the national consciousness, the financial institutions of the USA, such as USAID, have always acted liberally in this field. For some reason, the US, which spares millions of dollars, instead of helping people suffering from hunger and poverty in Africa and the Far East, spends more money on solving problems related to political parties, ethnic minorities, and a number of issues that are not relevant to institutions core mission. Of course, if we take a somewhat realistic approach, we can say that there are always big interests behind such assistance - that is, it would be kind of naive to think that the United States does this assistance for free. USAID implements programmes in everything from agriculture, health and education to governance, democracy and human rights. The institution is mainly financed from the state budget, has representative offices in more than 80 countries and programmes in more than 100 different fields. USAID's report released in 2021 shows that during 2019-2020, Georgia received 252 million dollars, and Ukraine received 808 million dollars, and programs implemented in various fields were financed. Today, the destruction in Ukraine due to involvement in the war, and the fragile nature of stability in Georgia is in sight. History is a living witness - Middle East and South Caucasus axiom Today, USAID's policy in the Middle East is continued in the South Caucasus through Armenia based on a similar scenario. As a blind beggar of the West, the Yerevan administration, which is ready to endanger the region, has put its mouth on the financial faucet of the United States and surrendered all its destiny to the responsibility of the West. However, there is enough information about other activities of the White Helmets in Syria under the name of humanitarian aid. For example, British journalist Vanessa Beeley, who investigated the causes of the civil war in Syria, said that the "White Helmets" organisation operating in Syria was supposedly engaged in humanitarian activities. During the investigation, it was revealed that this organisation received financial support of 150 million dollars from various funds of the United States until 2000, and from the funds of the Soros, Clintons, and Rockefeller brothers in 2013-2016. The members of the organisation trained the rebels in Syria and were taught the technologies of sabotage. Currently, the collected materials related to the criminal activities of this organisation have been submitted to the Hague court. These processes are currently being carried out in Armenia. US non-governmental organisations continue to increase their financial assistance to Armenia. The point of interest is that after Azerbaijan liberated Garabagh from the occupation, the amount of aid surged, which gives rise to the expansion of certain thoughts, specifically financial aid, to the activities of those who live with a sense of revenge in Armenia. According to the document signed between the Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia Mher Grigoryan and the head of the USAID mission in this country, John G. Allelo, the amount of aid has increased from 120 million dollars to 250 million dollars. According to the signed document, the allocated funds will be directed to improving the social condition of the population, increasing the defence capacity, and ensuring energy security. The joint military exercises of the US and Armenian servicemen in July, the arrival of two US Boeing C-17 military transport planes loaded with ammunition to Yerevan's Zvartnoch airport in August, and other facts indicate that the region has entered a dangerous period. The US is trying to control states in this region through destabilisation. USAID head Samatha Power's statement about allocating 100 million dollars to the people who voluntarily left Garabagh and their opinion that they need help clearly reveals the hypocrisy of US policy. Why did the Azerbaijanis who left their homes and came to Baku as a result of the military aggression of Armenia in the early 1990s escape the attention of USAID? For some reason, the Khojaly genocide, the killing of children, women, and the elderly in Karabakh did not interest USAID. On the other hand, in the early 1990s, the United States declared that it recognised the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, and on the other hand, it adopted a law prohibiting "direct aid" to Azerbaijan. The more armed Armenia tries to destabilise and acts as a "representative" of the interests of foreign countries, the more it will suffer poverty and degradation. Today, considering its destructive activities in various countries, national governments have kicked USAID out of the country. Over the past 5 years, USAID has been withdrawn from Belarus, Russia, Turkmenistan, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Bolivia, Congo, and other countries. Azerbaijan does not need help. Although Armenia is an independent state, it remains a puppet state for organisations like USAID. Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and longtime local talk-radio host. Reach Jimmy online at Jimmysengenberger.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @SengCenter. Lithuania intends to purchase Leopard 2 German battle tanks for a new division of its army, Defence Minister Laurynas Kasciunas told Lithuanian television on Friday. He did not say how many tanks or which version of the Krauss-Maffei built tanks his country would purchase - or what they would cost. The contract could be signed in November, after the National Security Council has made a final decision on the purchase, Kasciunas said. Lithuania is a member of both NATO and the European Union. Lithuania borders the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and Russia's ally Belarus. The Baltic state sees Russia's war in Ukraine as a direct threat to its national security. The government in Vilnius has therefore increased military spending and is massively upgrading its army. A new armed forces division is to be established, which will also include a tank battalion. Also an an armoured brigade of the Germany army, or Bundeswehr, is to be permanently stationed in Lithuania. Helene 11 am update: Helene weakens to Tropical Storm as it moves over Georgia TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) Helene has weakened to a Tropical Storm as it moves over Georgia after making landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida as a major Category 4 storm, according to the National Hurricane Center. As of the 11 a.m. update, Helene continues to produce damaging winds and life-threatening flooding as it moves over the Southeast and Southern Appalachians. A flash flood emergency is currently in effect for the Atlanta area. Helene weakened to a Tropical Storm around 5 a.m. The storm has 45 mph sustained winds and is located 105 miles north-northeast of Atlanta, and is moving at 32 mph. Helene is expected to continue to weaken and become a post-tropical low Friday afternoon or night. The storm is expected to bring unsurvivable storm surge of up to 20 feet to the Big Bend area, according to the National Weather Service in Tallahassee, which called it a nightmare surge scenario. Watches and warnings A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for: Savannah River northward to Little River Inlet Watch Tracking the Tropics on Tuesdays at 12:30 p.m. ET/11:30 a.m. CT. Be prepared with the 2024 Hurricane Guide and stay ahead of tropical development with the Tracking the Tropics newsletter. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Trump to highlight economy during Friday events in Michigan WALKER, Mich. (NewsNation) Former President Donald Trump was expected to hold a campaign rally in Walker, Michigan on Friday to pitch his economic agenda to voters in the battleground state. With polls showing Vice President Kamala Harris with a razor-thin lead in the state, Trump is holding two events on Friday. NYC Mayor Eric Adams pleads not guilty to bribery, other charges Trumps first stop on Friday is at 2 p.m. at FALK, a manufacturing company. From there hell head to Warren for a scheduled town hall at Macomb Community College in Warren at 6 p.m. Trump has criticized Harris for quietly backing away from strict electric vehicle mandates she supported when she was running for president back in 2019. The Harris campaign, however, suggests Trumps policies were disastrous for the economy and Michigans auto industry, claiming Trump lost nearly 200,000 manufacturing jobs. NewsNation affiliate DecisionDesk HQ shows Harris with a 48.8% lead to Trumps 47.7% in Michgan. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation. CALCUTTA, Ohio (WKBN) Members of the Calcutta Volunteer Fire Department departed for Florida Thursday to aid in relief efforts as Hurricane Helene batters homes along the coast. Just after 5 p.m. Thursday, a team of firefighters and search and rescue crew members from the Calcutta Volunteer Fire Department departed for Franklin County, Florida. Lt. Randy Schneider said he spoke with a corporal in Florida who requested the assets of Calcuttas water rescue division. Both of the departments boats will be going down to help anyone who may be stranded by the rising water levels. Were volunteers and we believe in community, we believe in helping people, Schneider said. They started the search and rescue program about two years ago and this marks their fifth aid trip and third involving hurricane relief. We just truly believe helping your neighbor is one of the core assets of our department here, and even extending that out to other people in need, and when something this catastrophic hits, you know, you need not just one neighbor, two neighbors, but you need all your neighbors to help out, Schneider said. The department has helped with relief efforts for Hurricane Ian, the Kentucky floods, and the Mayfield tornado in Kentucky, and aided Louisiana during Hurricane Ida. This isnt our first rodeo. We know what were doing and we know what were there to help, and what were there to see is very eye-opening because you dont see those kinds of things every day, Schneider said. Were hoping just to lend a helping hand and a calm voice in a time that they need it. Not only are they offering aid, but the team is also gaining valuable training. The best training is the hands-on training you get going on these trips, and I encourage any other local departments to join us if they can in the future, because this is the best training you get, Schneider said. He anticipates theyll be down there for several days, depending on the need once they arrive. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com. ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) The University of New Mexicos Street Medicine team within the UNM School of Medicine has partnered with local organizations to provide free care and resources to unhoused individuals and their pets in Albuquerque. The UNM Street Medicine team, New Mexico Veterans for Pets, also known as Vets for Pets, Albuquerque Community Services (ACS), and other local partners held a pop-up clinic for people experiencing homelessness outside the International District Library on Tuesday. People who attended the clinic were able to get checked out and receive medical care from the UNM team, learn about resources available to them from ACS, and get supplies and information to take care of their dogs from Vets for Pets. We provide just basic screening, health screening for the animals. We provide food, we provide water, and other small supplies, leashes, collars, dog food, bowls, things like that, said Dr. Finnie Coleman, a faculty member at UNM and the leader of the non-profit organization Vets for Pets. On the days when there isnt a pop-up clinic, Coleman said staff from Vets for Pets respond to calls from ACS about pets who are injured. Well go out sometimes into the unhoused community where a dogs been injured, and well provide medical screening for the dog and try to make sure that we get it taken care of by a vet if necessary, he explained. Story continues below The Vets for Pets team is comprised of about 10 people, some of whom are volunteers. Their main goals are to help military veterans find work in the pet care industry and help local shelters by caring for animals at risk of being euthanized. Coleman, a veteran, said his organization takes inspiration from the UNM Street Medicine team led by Lindsay Fox, MSPAS, PA-C. I think its important to care for the whole family, and that includes the pets. If we can encourage people to take care of their pets, they might take better care of their own health, and that will create places and spaces for them to get better treatment, said Fox, who works in UNMs Department of Internal Medicine within the School of Medicine. By providing treatment and resources to people in their own environment, Fox said it will hopefully create trust between the unhoused community and providers. We see them in their spaces instead of asking them to come into our spaces all the time, which can quite frankly be sometimes scary and intimidating. But here at our pop-ups, theres lawn chairs, theres music, theres food. It just creates an environment where people want to get care and meet the team, said Fox. Coleman said Vets for Pets would like to be able to provide more food, supplies, and vaccines to pets in need. For those interested in donating or seeking services, click here. To learn more about the UNM Street Medicine team, click here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRQE NEWS 13 - Breaking News, Albuquerque News, New Mexico News, Weather, and Videos. SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) From first responders to those in the armed forces, several local heroes are set to be honored at an award ceremony aboard the USS Midway Museum on Friday. The American Red Cross of San Diego and Imperial Counties are hosting the 22nd Annual Real Heroes Awards, which recognizes individuals and organizations that embody the mission and spirit of the Red Cross by saving lives and creating safer, stronger and more resilient communities. $300M super yacht spotted in San Diego Bay: Who does it belong to? Heres a break down of those in the local community who will be receiving awards: Disaster Services Hero Robert Gladysz: Officer Gladysz, a member of the San Diego Police Department and a former U.S. Marine, displayed remarkable heroism during the historic floods in San Diego on Jan. 22, 2024. First Responder Hero Steven Hannibal: On Feb. 29, 2024, Officer Steven Hannibal of the El Cajon Police Department displayed extraordinary bravery during an active shooter incident at Smile Dentistry. Service to the Armed Forces Hero Joseph Glaser-Reich: In addition to saving members of the public in the course of his duties as a Rescue Swimmer, AST1 Joseph Glaser-Reich dedicates countless hours to saving his brothers and sisters in-arms in the Coast Guard. Gift of Life Hero Jean Samaniego: Jean Samaniego is a committed platelet donor, donating every two weeks at the Red Cross Kearny Mesa Blood Donation Center. Youth Hero Katie Tadloc: The 18-year-old was driving a group of friends and family when she observed a crashed vehicle. She pulled over to help, instructed her mom to call 911 and had her brother grab her backpack, which contained a first aid kit. to assist. Good Samaritan Heroes Mike and Janet Nelson: On Christmas Eve 2023, Detective Mike Nelson and his wife Janet were driving home when they came upon a car crash involving a vehicle upside-down submerged in water. Despite the cold weather and a bystanders discouragement, Mike entered the water and despite significant obstacles, he successfully pulled the victim to safety. Animal Welfare Hero Laura Oliver: Shes the founder of Lionels Legacy Senior Dog Rescue. Her organization focuses on rescuing senior dogs from shelters, providing them with medical care, and finding them loving homes, while also addressing the needs of dogs with chronic and terminal medical issues. Corporate Hero: U.S. Bank: For nearly 10 years, U.S. Bank has been a dedicated supporter of the Red Cross San Diego and Imperial Counties. U.S. Bank and the U.S. Bank Foundation fund Red Cross home fire preparedness, response and recovery work and encourage employee volunteerism across local communities. Congratulations, local heroes. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. BOSTON (WWLP) -Massachusetts wiretap laws have not been updated since 1968. One local senator says he plans to file legislation to change this in the new session. Wiretapping is the process of using a device to listen in on another persons phone calls. In Massachusetts, police are allowed to wiretap individuals in very specific cases that involve organized crime, and they are required to renew their permission to wiretap in court every 15 days. Western Massachusetts Senator John Velis says this time limit makes it extremely difficult for local law enforcement to properly investigate crimes while still keeping up with wiretap renewals. If it werent so serious, it would be laughable that this has not been updated from 1968, Velis told 22News. From a privacy standpoint, from a civil liberties standpoint, from a technological standpoint, first and foremost, and the nature of crime has changed so profoundly. The senator says wiretap laws are a good example of an area in which state lawmakers need to improve. A nimble, efficient, agile legislature I would argue keeps up with what is going on in the world. And in this area we have woefully failed, said Velis. Previous efforts to pass updated wiretap laws, including an initiative led by former governor Charlie Baker, have failed in the legislature. Still, Velis says he does not anticipate much pushback for sorely-needed updates. Governor Healey voiced her support for an update as Attorney General, but has yet to weigh in as the states highest official. Local News Headlines WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.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 WWLP. YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) The City of Youngstown and JAC Management Group have teamed up to hire a coordinator for the Wean Park Complex that is focused on community and inclusion. The Wean Park Complex encompasses the Covelli Centre, Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre, Wean Parks great lawn and Huntington Bank Community Alley. The coordinator will be responsible for connecting with residents on a grassroots level, working directly with community groups, churches, neighborhood associations and downtown businesses to build relationships and create quality of life events and seasonal programming. The position will fall under the direction of the Community Engagement & Inclusion Committee (CEIC) to ensure that events are reflective of the community and represent diversity, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, socioeconomic status, education, marital status, language, age, gender, sexual orientation, mental or physical abilities of the neighborhoods of the City of Youngstown. The job is a subcontracted position under JAC Management Group. The new hire will report to the Group daily and then quarterly to CEIC. To apply for this position, send your resume and cover letter to Careers@jacmg.com by 10 a.m. Monday, Oct. 18. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com. WILL COUNTY, Ill. - As Hurricane Helene barrels toward Florida, a local volunteer is preparing to be deployed with the American Red Cross to help in recovery efforts after it makes landfall. Al Lopez, of Frankfort, will drive Red Cross Emergency Response vehicles to Florida on Friday morning, aiming to arrive on Saturday. "We'll start loading up with food and going through the countryside, looking for people who need food," Lopez said. Lopez has worked with the Red Cross since December of last year, but said this is the first time he's been sent to assist with hurricane recovery. RELATED STORIES: Hurricane Helene is expected to reach the Florida coast soon and may strengthen to a Category 4 storm, bringing a life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds, torrential rain and flooding, according to reports. Helene is the eighth named storm of the hurricane season in 2024. Late Wednesday, several flights arrived at O'Hare International Airport with passengers evacuating Florida ahead of Helenes landfall. Chicago is slated to see more clouds on Friday as the remnants of Hurricane Helene move northward. Scattered showers are also expected over the weekend. Lopez said he is ready to help those in need in Florida, drawing on his 28 years of experience as a law enforcement officer. "Unfortunately, I'm used to it. I spent 28 years as a law enforcement officer dealing with people's problems. I'm used to it, I've dealt with it. You just have to get to their level and ask them what they need and provide whatever service they want," Lopez said. This week it was revealed that childrens eyesight is now much worse than before lockdown. Children are now three times more likely to suffer from myopia (short- or near-sightedness) as they were in the 1990s. This is shocking but not surprising in order to remain healthy, the lens of a childs developing eye must frequently alternate its focus between objects that are both near and far. If extended periods of time are spent indoors or worse, staring at a tiny screen, the risks of myopia increase substantially. Yet this is exactly what we forced our children to do when schools were closed for months on end. Myopia is not something that will resolve in time. Affected children will require expensive optical care for life, and a few will face serious complications. But sadly, this is just one small part of a tragic lockdown legacy. Post-pandemic, we have seen rises in special educational needs and a deterioration in child mental health. One of the most scandalous covid hangovers is the 160 per cent increase in severe school absence. Many generations have faced worse tragedies than lockdown. I would prefer my children to have to wear glasses than to lose their lives in war. Nevertheless, we must seek to learn the lessons of our recent past if we want to prevent similar mistakes in the future. So why did Britain shut its schools for longer than any other country in Europe, bar Italy? Why did ministers mostly against their better instincts capitulate to teachers unions and the media, rather than acting in the best interests of children? It seems we have lost our traditional understanding of the nature of childhood, now viewing children as mini adults rather than as distinct and uniquely vulnerable. As such we failed to understand that lockdowns would have had a far more serious effect on children than on adults. Most adults bounced back quickly from enforced isolation, yet children who were robbed of social interaction at crucial points in their development may never recover. We see childhood is also misunderstood in other areas: the drive to teach gender theory to primary school pupils who can barely write their name; the nonchalance with which children are given access to the online Wild West; and the trend for exposing children to climate catastrophism without a care for the anxiety induced. The traditional view that children must be shielded from adult concerns is gradually being eroded. Some believe that what we need is a push for more childrens rights, but this is mistaken. Adding more baubles to the Christmas tree of statutory individual rights will not protect children; rather it will just force them to compete with every other interest group. There is an alternative philosophical approach to childhood which, unlike the framework of competing individual rights, has stood the test of time. This is the belief that children have an innate or sacred worth and that they require fierce societal protection that demands adults sacrifice for children rather than the other way around. These principles were truly counter-cultural at the dawn of Western civilisation, but we must return to them again if we want our children to thrive. Our collective myopia is not a biological one but an inability to see the importance and uniqueness of childhood. 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. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) Governor Lombardo issued a public letter Thursday asking for Clark County School Districts budget shortfalls to be included in an ongoing audit. On Thursday, Governor Joe Lombardo wrote to Nicole Cannizzaro, Nevada Senate Majority Leader, requesting an amendment to the Legislative Commissions audit of the Clark County School District (CCSD.) According to a release from the governors office, the aim was to investigate the districts budget shortfalls. We are concerned with reports that CCSDs current budget issues will potentially result in the release or elimination of teachers and other staff positions, Lombardo said in the letter. Given last sessions unprecedented increase in funding for education, such a scenario would be unacceptable. The letter went on to specify that Lombardo was asking for the audit to consider processes the district takes in allocating funding, how it caused the current issues, and how the district can avoid similar problems. Additionally, the audit should consider what the states legislature and executive branch could do to prevent these problems moving forward. The letter comes on the heels of a contentious Board of Trustees meeting Thursday that saw a dispute over transparency regarding the districts budget between Evelyn Garcia Morales, the school boards president, and Isaac Barron, a non-voting school board member. The legislature has had a special eye on CCSD, and it always hasnt benefited our kids and our school system, Garcia Morales said. For his part, Barron said state scrutiny couldve been avoided if the district was transparent. People should not be right now wondering if theyre going to have a job, Barron said. We see very, very poor communication on behalf [] of our board president. That meeting led to the search for a replacement for former Clark County School District Superintendent Jesus Jara being put on hold. Lombardo asked Cannizzaro to confirm that the districts budget issues would be confirmed in the audit at her earliest convenience. CCSD released a letter on Friday addressing factors that they say played into the budget issues: lawsuit payouts, cybersecurity expenses, enrollment changes, and salary increases. According to the district, those issues were unaccounted for, leading to some schools receiving less funding and higher payroll costs. In a press release, the Clark County Education Association stated that if CCSD doesnt respond to the states request, Governor Lombardo should look at taking further legal action under his authority, including putting CCSD into receivership. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. WACO, Texas (FOX 44) Baylor Scott & White Health has announced an agreement has been reached with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas. BSWH said in a statement that as related documents are finalized, BCBS members will continue to receive in-network care. This comes afer both companies spent months negotiating. An agreement to extend provider and facility contracts to October 1 was announced in June. This three-month extension meant BSWH providers, hospitals and other facilities would remain in network for BCBS members while both parties continued to work to finalize a longer-term agreement. PREVIOUS STORY: BSW Health extends contract with BlueCross BlueShield BSWH originally announced in May that the company would be terminating their physician and hospital agreements with BCBS on July 1 unless agreements were modified. Patients were able to check for options based on their existing plans by logging in to Blue Access for Members. They could also visit the website and call the customer service number on their member ID cards. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KWKT - FOX 44. COLLEGE STATION / MUMFORD, Texas (FOX 44) An arrest has been made in connection to an investigation into meth sales leading back to 2016. The College Station Police Departments Special Investigations Unit obtained eight felony warrants for the offense of Possession of a Controlled Substance with the Intent to Deliver Penalty Group 1 Between Four and 200 grams of Methamphetamine for 48-year-old Robert Densey Wilson, of Bryan, on Thursday. The department says this is the result of a long-term investigation into methamphetamine sales occurring in the Brazos Valley, with the beginning of this investigation ranging back to 2016. After obtaining the arrest warrants, the Special Investigations Unit also obtained an evidentiary search warrant for an address in the 12000 block of Old Mumford Circle in Mumford. The search warrant was executed at the property, and numerous people were detained. Wilson was taken into custody during the execution of the search warrant. The following items were recovered during the search cocaine, phencyclidine, methamphetamine, marijuana, drug paraphernalia, U.S. currency, two shotguns, two AR-15 rifles and four handguns. One of the handguns was found to have been stolen out of College Station in 2014. (Courtesy: College Station Police Department) More sex assault indictments for former Central Texas priest The department says Wilson was arrested and charged with eight counts of Possession of a Controlled Substance with the Intent to Deliver Penalty Group 1 between 4-200 grams, Unlawful Possession of a Firearm by a Felon, and a hold for a Parole Violation. Wilson is currently incarcerated in the Robertson County Jail. The College Station Special Investigations Unit was assisted by College Station Police Departments Community Enhancement Unit, SWAT Team, Hostage Negotiations Team, K9 Unit, the Brazos County Sheriffs Offices SWAT Team, the Texas Department of Public Safetys Criminal Investigations Division-Bryan, the Texas Department of Public Safetys Highway Patrol, the Robertson County Sheriffs Office Canine K9 Unit and the Robertson County Constables Office Precinct. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KWKT - FOX 44. Democrats have long said that they remain competitive in Florida and Texas, two erstwhile swing states that have jolted right in recent election cycles. Now, they're putting their money where their mouth is. The Democratic National Committee on Friday announced a six-figure investment of over $400,000 for get out the vote efforts in Florida to boost Vice President Kamala Harris and former House member and Senate nominee Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the party first told ABC News. And Senate Democrats' campaign arm announced Thursday a "multi-million dollar" advertising investment in Florida and Texas, where GOP Sen. Ted Cruz is facing Democratic Rep. Colin Allred. The DNC also is rolling out a new $2.5 million investment in state parties to provide funding to all 57 states and territories for the first time ever in one election cycle. "[F]lorida is in play," DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison said in a statement. "With Vice President Harris at the helm and record-breaking investments in the Florida coordinated campaign, we have the momentum to finish strong and deliver wins for Democrats up and down the ballot." "Senate Democrats are expanding the map and going on offense," Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Sen. Gary Peters said in a separate statement. "All cycle long the DSCC has been preparing to take advantage of Sens. Cruz and Scott's damaged standings in their states -- and now our efforts in Texas and Florida are accelerating." MORE: New York City Mayor Eric Adams charged with fraud, accepting $10 million in improper campaign contributions Democrats in Washington had long insisted to the media that Florida and Texas were still competitive for president and Senate, though Democrats have been burned in each state before. Florida, once a swing state that former President Barack Obama won twice, has sharply moved toward Republicans, handing former President Donald Trump back-to-back wins and reelecting GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis by over 19 points in 2022. Texas has been a white whale for Democrats who have been bullish that the state's diversifying electorate make it primed for gains but have failed to pull off any major wins there and have actually lost ground in the Rio Grande region. PHOTO: Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event, Sept. 20, 2024, in Madison, Wis. (Morry Gash/AP) The world of campaign finance is large but finite, and Democrats are also spending money to protect Senate incumbents in red and purple states like Michigan, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and more. On top of that, both Florida and Texas are massive, packed with expensive media markets. However, Democrats appear increasingly in need of offense as they try to protect their 51-49 Senate majority. West Virginia Independent Sen. Joe Manchin is retiring, handing Republicans a nearly guaranteed flip, and polls are painting a dour picture for Montana Sen. Jon Tester's reelection chances, so any chance to win a GOP-held seat could be key to a future Democratic majority. "Now [Florida and Texas] are not cheap states. They're big states, but the investment is something that we're very excited about," Michigan's Peters said Thursday at the National Press Club. "We have an opportunity with fundraising and money coming in that we feel comfortable now these are good investments. We're making multimillion dollar investments in Florida and Texas, and with that, we have a real shot at winning those states." The news is music to Florida Democrats' ears, who had been clamoring for resources since the beginning of the election cycle, warning that ignoring the state would set Democrats even further back on their path back to relevance. Both Florida and Texas had been included in previous tranches of support, but they were far from a focus of Democrats' money machine. PHOTO: Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, former Representative and US Democratic Senate candidate for Florida, speaks during the kickoff of the Harris-Walz campaign reproductive rights bus tour in Boynton Beach, Fla., Sept. 3, 2024. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images) "Debbie is a very strong and likable candidate that connects well with voters. She's relatable. It's hard to relate to Scott," one Florida Democratic strategist said, of Scott, who is one of Congress' wealthiest members. "So, yes, I think another $400K matters, and hopefully more is coming. Every penny matters." Polling has indicated the races are somewhat close. The polling averages from 538 show Scott ahead by under 5 points and Cruz leading by under 4 points, though neither has ever trailed. MORE: Searching for a villain in Maryland Senate race, Angela Alsobrooks looks beyond Larry Hogan Still, Cruz is battle tested and fended off tough challenges in the past, and Scott throughout his career has refused to be outspent, often dipping into his personal fortune to help bolster his successful campaigns for governor and Senate. When Scott first ran for the Senate in 2018, he dumped $64 million from his own coffers into his campaign, helping swamp Democrats in the spending war. "In case anyone has any doubt, if national Democrats decide to spend in Florida, Rick Scott will spend more. [Democratic Senate Leader] Chuck Schumer has been through this before. If he wants to sacrifice Bob Casey and Sherrod Brown on a doomed Florida strategy, hes welcome to try," said one source close to Scott, referencing Democratic senators in tough reelection fights in Pennsylvania and Ohio, respectively. PHOTO: Senator Rick Scott, a Republican from Florida, speaks during a campaign event with former US President Donald Trump, not pictured, at Trump National Doral Golf Club in Miami, July 9, 2024. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images) And it's still unclear just what the impact of the investment will have. The pushes from the DNC and DSCC come with about 40 days to go to the election, and ballots are already being sent to military voters and voters overseas who are registered in Florida. "Some people say that it's better late than never, but in this case, it's really hard to justify given the fact that voters are, in essence, already voting in the state of Florida," said one Florida Democratic pollster. "It would have to be a dynamic where the polling shows the race literally on the knife's edge for a million-dollar investment at this eleventh hour to make a difference. And I don't think the polling shows that." 'Florida is in play': Democrats put money into states where they were struggling originally appeared on abcnews.go.com LONGVIEW, Texas (KETK) The Longview City Council approved a one-time payment of $681 to all city employees at their Thursday meeting. East Texas indoor golf business closes doors citing economic pressures They are planning to give the checks out next Monday. Longview Mayor Kristen Ishihara thanked the council for recognizing the people who keep the city running. Everyone here values the city employees, Ishihara said. We were disappointed to not be able to do a raise this year, and certainly it is our intention to continue looking at that annually and hope that will be something we are able to fit into the budget next year. The item was unanimously approved in a vote by the council. We wish it was a raise, but this is what we are able to do this year, and were grateful to be able to do it, Ishihara said. I appreciate yall supporting that and supporting our city employees, we have the best anywhere. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KETK.com | FOX51.com. A look into Stanislaus Countys rich LGBTQ history: quiet beginnings to an era of acceptance As MoPride, or the Central Valley Pride Center, celebrates its 10th anniversary as a nonprofit this Saturday at Graceada Park, its an opportune moment to reflect on the vibrant history of the LGBTQ community in Stanislaus County. When the county was established in 1854, same-sex couples already were living together quietly. However, local historians David Seymour and Keith Highiet emphasize that it wasnt until the 1960s that significant public expressions of LGBTQ life began to emerge, marking a turning point in the communitys visibility and activism. They helped document the countys rich LGBTQ history in the McHenry Museum and Historical Societys June 2023 monthly. The 1960s: A quiet beginning Modesto-born poet James Broughton was an early-known openly bisexual resident of Stanislaus County, and a prominent figure in the San Francisco Renaissance. Broughtons family ties to local politics were significant, with his aunt, Esto Broughton, becoming one of the first women elected to the California Assembly in 1918. At the same time, Merlin Mel Nomann and John Crabb, a couple who lived together for 55 years, played a key role in fostering the local LGBTQ community. They helped establish Birds of a Feather, a group for gay men and women that began in the late 1960s and expanded under R.J. Moriconi, a professor at CSU Stanislaus. Keith Highiet, board president of the Stanislaus PRIDE Center, greets Carol Clayton, Mel Nomann and John Crabb as they sign the guest book at the center in 2007. The group, which gathered annually at the Oasis Restaurant in Modesto and later on a ferry boat in Stockton, raised funds for scholarships and fostered community involvement, providing a safe space for LGBTQ professionals. In 1967, Hunter Creasman, known by his drag persona Christina, founded the Owl Empire of Stanislaus County Inc. in Modesto. This nonprofit group became the second chartered chapter of the International Imperial Court System, following the first, which was established in San Francisco in 1965. The OESCI offered a vital space for the local LGBTQ community particularly drag performers to express themselves freely and openly in a safer, supportive environment. The group held annual coronation ceremonies, celebrating the crowning of local emperors and empresses and helped foster community through fundraising and events. The event gained popularity, with early ceremonies held at the Holiday Inn in Modesto, where out-of-town attendees would stay for the weekend. The hotels indoor atrium and pool contributed to Modesto becoming an early drag tourist destination. The 1970s: Foundations of community In 1970, Modesto saw the opening of its first gay bar, The Mustang Club, thanks to Florence Shirley Owens, a previously married mother who came out as a lesbian later in life. Located at 413 N. Seventh St. in Modesto, the bar previously had been a segregated establishment for Black patrons. To protect her customers from potential law enforcement action, Owens installed a switch behind the bar that would flash a light if an unfamiliar person entered, signaling same-gender couples to switch to dancing with opposite-gender partners. Unwritten, informal laws were enforced by local law enforcement as code during the 1970s. The Brave Bull, on Modestos South Ninth Street, opened in 1973 and became a gay bar the following year under the ownership of Casey Lubbers. The bar also welcomed notable figures, including drag performer Divine and San Francisco gay rights activist Harvey Milk. It remains in business today. The Stanislaus Gay Alliance was founded in Modesto in 1979 by Jo McCarthy and her then-partner, Connie McIlroy. The SGA met regularly, organized social gatherings and hosted a weekly Alcoholics Anonymous group called Gay Alcoholics Together. McIlroy, who now lives in Manteca, said it was a nice way for people to get to socialize without having to go to the bars. It also helped when the AIDS crisis hit because a sense of community was established locally. McCarthy launched the Stanislaus Gay Alliance Newsletter, a monthly periodical, which covered topical items and announced gay-friendly activities in the area. The 1980s: Resilience in crisis The 1980s brought devastating challenges to the LGBTQ community in Stanislaus County as the AIDS crisis took hold. Local groups including the SGA had to shift focus to prevention and support of the ill. By 1985, just as the SGA celebrated its fifth anniversary with a presence in the San Francisco Pride Parade, the crisis overwhelmed the local gay community, leading to the groups dissolution. McCarthy and other volunteers worked to support AIDS patients, launching Hand-to-Hand in 1985, which eventually evolved into the Stanislaus County AIDS Project. SCAP provided vital services, including education, volunteer care and a telephone hot line, as Modesto became one of the American cities with the highest rate of AIDS cases by 1991, according to the CDC. The crisis also sparked greater public awareness. Modesto Junior College hosted its first panel on gay and lesbian issues in 1987, with local therapist Patricia Sherman stepping up to represent the community. Although born from tragedy, the mobilization efforts during the AIDS epidemic helped strengthen local LGBTQ advocacy and health services. Local religious institutions also began to embrace inclusivity during this time. Modestos College Avenue Congregational Church hired the first openly lesbian minister in the United Church of Christ movement, Diane Darling, and became a welcoming space for LGBTQ congregants. The 1990s: Growing visibility In the early 1990s, CSU Stanislaus established the Gay and Lesbian Student Alliance, with Cary Friedman serving as its spokesman. He led the group in a march for gay rights on campus in 1993. In 1994, a Parents & Friends of Lesbians and Gays chapter was formed in Modesto, led by retired Beyer High School teacher Norman Rostad and Linda Warden, who had navigated her daughters coming out. PFLAG Modesto offered support groups, a helpline and participated in the annual Fourth of July parade, even putting up LGBT-positive billboards. In the mid-1990s, teacher Tom Martin started a local branch of the Gay Lesbian Straight Teachers Network , which later became GLSEN. This organization helped Modesto City Schools send staff to an LGBT educational conference and raised awareness on these issues through training and resources. GLSEN also played a key role in getting the school board to extend protections for LGBT students against bullying. Around the same time, gay-friendly clubs began to form in high schools. In 1996, Debbie Favalora Soro was asked to advise the first Gay-Straight Alliance at Johansen High School. In September 1996, The Bee published a prominent article with photos of Tracie Warden and Robin Gagoss wedding. While this marriage occurred before legal recognition for same-gender couples, it helped shift public perceptions locally. Friends and family of Robin Gagos and Tracie Warden Denga gather in the gardens of Robins parents home for the commitment ceremony in 1996. The 2000s: Shifting paradigms At the turn of the millennium, new education about LGBTQ issues began in Modesto. After speaking at high schools Day of Respect events, David Barbaree and Phil Langlois were invited to give formal Homosexuality 101 presentations at CSU Stanislaus and Delta College, mainly to sociology students and future counselors. This era also saw a more open LGBTQ identity. The Modesto Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival debuted in 2004, and a social group called The Birdcage began hosting monthly outings. I love it when I see young people walking down the street holding hands. Its commonplace in like the city or something like that, but I love it when I drive by a local high school and see it. It makes me feel good, McIllroy said. By the mid-2000s, acceptance of gay culture increased, transforming the local gay bar scene. Cyriakus Gus Wagner revitalized the Tiki Cocktail Lounge in 2005, marketing it as a gay bar and attracting a supportive clientele. The Tiki remains a staple of the community. In 2005, the Stanislaus Pride Center was established as a resource center for the LGBTQ community, offering support groups and counseling services. It held the first Stanislaus Pride Night in June 2006 and opened a permanent location six months later. In June 2007, they organized the countys first public pride festival. The Modesto Bee covered the National Day of Silence protest in Modesto schools in 2007. In 2007, Debbie Soro organized the first National Day of Silence in Modesto, where students wore blue tape over their mouths to raise awareness about LGBTQ bullying. On June 17, 2008, Stanislaus County issued marriage licenses to 11 same-sex couples, including Beth Holden and Cynthia Soto, who later faced harassment. The Bee covered their civil ceremony and their religious ceremony that immediately followed at the nearby College Avenue Congregational Church. The 2010s: New era of acceptance In the late 2000s and 2010s, the LGBTQ community in Modesto saw an increase in gay bars. Jalitos, a bar and dance club on Crows Landing Road, was the first to cater to a predominantly Spanish-speaking gay crowd. Climax Bar & Nightclub, opened by Rachel Baxter on Seventh Street, thrived until its closure in 2018. The LGBTQ Collaborative launched a Rainbow Resource Center in Modesto and the Somos Familia Valle Center in Merced. The Rainbow Clinic was created to connect patients with trans-friendly doctors. Politically, Gary Soiseth became Turlocks first openly LGBTQ mayor when he came out in office in June 2018. In 2021, Cherilyn Bairos of Oakdale made history as the first openly LGBTQ person to win a mayoral race in the county. She continues to serve as mayor today. In summer 2019, the anti-gay National Straight Pride Coalition tried to hold an event at Graceada Park, prompting dozens to rally against it at a Modesto City Council meeting. The council denied the permit, leading the group to organize annual protests outside a Planned Parenthood office. Before passing away last May, Moriconi, who had done much to further local LGBTQ life locally, said I think that the gay culture has changed for the positive in that we can be recognized, appreciated and valued. The MoPride in the Park festival will be held Saturday from noon to 7 p.m. at Graceada Park near downtown Modesto. It will include live performances, activities and food options that cater to all tastes, according to an event site. MoPride in the Park is also an opportunity to connect with a multitude of organizations, support groups, and community resources that are eager to share their knowledge and experiences. Learn more at centralvalleypridecenter.org . Melynda Rodriguez performs on the keyboard with her parrot Kauai during the MoPride festival at Graceada Park in Modesto, Calif., Saturday, Oct. 1, 2022. From left, Danille Wallace, Donnie Huffman, kneeling, and Riley Griffin all from Modesto, play the ball drop game at the 2014 MoPRIDE, Pride in the Park event, Saturday. Myranda Ables, 12, gets a hug from Free Mom Hugs organizer Jennifer McQueen, middle, during the MoPride festival at Graceada Park in Modesto, Calif., Saturday, Oct. 1, 2022. Hurricane Helene is shaping up to be a historic Florida storm after making landfall near Tallahassee as a Category 4. But for Floridas insurance market, losses are expected to be modest and nowhere near 2022s Hurricane Ian or 2018s Hurricane Michael. For the states homeowners insurance companies, the storm is expected to be a manageable event, said Mark Friedlander, spokesperson for the industry-backed Insurance Information Institute. This looks like it will not be a large loss event for Florida insurers, he said. Theres one simple reason why: Helene hit one of the least-populated parts of the state. GALLERY: Hurricane Helene did that to Florida? Look at what happened in these photos and videos On Wednesday, the global reinsurance broker Gallagher Re estimated private insurers losses at between $3 billion to $6 billion. That includes companies covering policies in Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and southern Appalachia, which could see tropical storm force winds as the storm dissipates into the interior, the company noted. Those figures would put Helene well below what Florida insurers alone saw in past storms, according to state regulators. Hurricane Ians strike on Southwest Florida has caused insurers $21 billion in losses so far. Michael, a Category 5 when it hit a more populous part of the Panhandle, caused $9 billion in losses. Hurricane Irma in 2017 was a Category 3 when it made landfall near Marco Island, generating nearly 1 million claims and about $20 billion in losses. The figures include all private insurers, including those that cover automobiles and commercial properties. Industry observers say Hurricane Helene could be closer to Hurricanes Idalia ($309 million in losses so far) and Debby ($128 million), the two other hurricanes that struck the states Big Bend in the last 13 months. Locke Burt, the CEO of Ormond Beach-based Security First Insurance Co., said he thought Florida insurer losses from Helene would be between $2 billion and $4 billion. This is not going to be a major test of the industry, Burt said. Its hitting in a place in Florida where very few people live. Thats not to say that Helene wasnt destructive. READ MORE: Helenes toll grows: Nearly 1.2 million without power in Florida, 4 dead Gov. Ron DeSantis warned ahead of the storms landing that the towering pine and oak trees in the states capital city could do serious damage to roofs and generate enormous amounts of flying debris. But on Friday morning, the city appeared to have been spared the worst of the damage. Helene is also churning up massive storm surge in the Panhandle and is flooding streets in Tampa Bay. But flooding is covered by the National Flood Insurance Program or private flood insurers, not homeowners insurance companies. Story continues Losses to the National Flood Insurance Program and the U.S. Department of Agricultures crop insurance program could together approach nearly $1 billion in losses, Gallagher Re estimated. Homeowners are encouraged to contact their insurance company immediately if their home has been damaged. Burt said he has a team of adjusters and crews standing by to remove fallen trees from homes and cover roofs with tarps. Information from the News Service of Florida contributed to this report. A new law goes into effect in Louisiana on Oct. 1 that reclassifies mifepristone and misoprostol as "controlled dangerous substances"a move that doctors worry will restrict patients' access to the medications during postpartum hemorrhaging and miscarriages. Credit - Getty Images A new law will go into effect in Louisiana on Oct. 1 that will classify two drugsmifepristone and misoprostol, which are commonly used for abortions, postpartum hemorrhaging, and miscarriage managementas controlled dangerous substances. The change is worrying doctors who say the repercussions could be life-threatening for some. The law, which passed in the state House and Senate in the spring and was shortly after signed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, makes Louisiana the first state in the country to reclassify the medications. While abortion is banned in nearly all circumstances in Louisiana, the drugs have many other medical uses, and doctors have argued that reclassifying the medications could restrict or block patients access to health care, sometimes in emergencies. Read More: Louisiana Could Soon Classify Abortion Pills as Controlled Substances. Heres What to Know The bill, known as SB 276, was initially only about criminalizing the administration of these drugs to a pregnant person without their knowledge or consent, but the move to reclassify the two drugs was added as an amendment to the bill late in the legislative process. Under the new law, the drugs will be categorized in the same vein as Valium and Xanax. An anti-abortion group, Louisiana Right to Life, worked on the bill and amendment. Before it passed, more than 200 Louisiana doctors signed a letter to lawmakers objecting to the amendment. Research has found both medications to be safe, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesnt consider the drugs to have a significant risk of abuse or dependence. Sarah Zagorski, communications director for Louisiana Right to Life, says that while she understands the concern, the state has offered plenty of guidance and clarification that make it clear that the drugs can be used in medically necessary situations. She cites the Louisiana Department of Health, which released guidance for health care professionals in September, saying that the drugs can be used to treat postpartum hemorrhage and incomplete miscarriages and should be securely stored in a locked/secured cabinet, compartment, or other system. But obtaining access to locked medications in emergency situations is concerning for physicians. Dr. Jennifer Avegno, director of the New Orleans Health Department and an emergency medicine physician who co-wrote the objection letter to lawmakers in the spring, says there are still a lot of unanswered questions and concerns. TIME interviewed Avegno about how health care professionals are preparing for the new lawand the fears they have about it. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. What are your main concerns about the law? The one thats been coming up the most in the last couple of weeks is on the inpatient side. Postpartum hemorrhage is a leading cause of maternal morbidity and mortality worldwide, as well as in America. I will say that Louisiana has made great strides in reducing postpartum hemorrhage because theyve worked very, very hard on instituting evidence-based practices across the state, and one of those is whats known as a safety bundlesort of a national standard for how you should care for postpartum hemorrhage. In that safety bundle, it says that medications to treat postpartum hemorrhage should be immediately available. Thats whats happening now. Misoprostol is a first-line medical treatment for hemorrhage. It is very easy to administer. It also works pretty quickly, and it has fewer contraindications than the other medications. It also doesnt have as many side effects. As it stands now, most hospitals have the ability to have that misoprostol right at the bedside in an open cart so that the patient can get it as soon as possible. What happens on Oct. 1 in Louisiana is that, because it is a controlled substance, it is now governed by all of the restrictions on controlled substances, which in Louisiana means it has to be stored away from other medications in what they describe as a securely locked, substantially constructed cabinet. Its a very specific type of place that the medication is lockedyou have to have authorization and a special procedure for getting in; you have to have a distinct order for that patient. You cant just go pull it or have it on a cart and pop it in. And those cabinets are not mobile, so you might be on the labor and delivery floor, and theres 15 rooms on that floor, and that cabinet is somewhere down the hall, which means youre now going to have to send a nurse from the bedside of a patient who is deteriorating to go do all the things that need to be done for a controlled substance and come back. People are like, Well, whats a couple of minutes? As someone who treats emergencies all the time, minutes matter. And if youve ever watched a woman bleed out after childbirth, it is not something that you have the luxury of time to deal with. Its the standard of care in America to have these medications immediately available. A lot of doctors are very, very concerned about this. Theyve been doing drills to see how much longer it is going to take. And it definitely does add several minutes onand thats when everything goes right. Weve asked for clarification if theres any other way that this medication could be immediately available. We havent received it yet. On the outpatient side, theres a lot of concern about prescriptions not being filled. We have communicated to our providers in our learning session [about the law] that you have to put a diagnosis code on the prescription, whereas for other medications you might not. A lot of the official diagnosis codes for miscarriage include the word abortion in itits a missed abortion. Those are medical terms. Those mean miscarriage, for all intents and purposes. But we have heard from pharmacists that are concerned about some of their colleagues saying, I dont want to fill anything that says abortion on it. I dont want to go to jail because some thinks Im aiding and abetting an elective termination. Read More: The Rise of Pregnancy Criminalization Post-Dobbs Theres a lot of things that go into filling a controlled-substance prescription thats different from a regular prescription, and theres real concern that folks arent going to be able to get their prescriptions. If you cant manage your miscarriage medically, then theres more discomfort and potential for complications. You may have to have a surgical procedure that maybe you wouldnt have needed or didnt really want. Then weve heard from providers who are concerned because one of the uses of misoprostol is to facilitate proceduresthings like IUD insertion or doing a scope into the uterus for bleedingand theyre not going to be able to keep it in their clinic now because they just cant manage all the controlled substances requirements. So thats taking a safe, effective, valid medication to facilitate a procedure out of their toolkit. You mentioned that some hospitals have been running drillshow else are you and other doctors preparing for this law to go into effect? As a health department, were trying to provide as much education as we can. We are directly asking the state Department of Health for clarification on some things that came up. In New Orleans, our City Council directed the health department to study the impact of this law. Were setting up a [confidential] reporting form for [health care professionals] because we really do want to continue to educate our policymakers that the concerns are legitimate and theyre done in the spirit of wanting to protect health. Were afraid, though, that a lot of this is going to go unreported. Any time that you restrict access, people become fearful, and they just sort of suffer in silence. That doesnt do anything to improve health care in Louisiana. Louisiana has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. Are you worried that this law going into effect could affect that? Thats what were all worried about. We are working so hard to reduce the rate of maternal morbidity and mortality. We can identify all kinds of ways that the state could invest its resources to do that. [The] Louisiana Pregnancy[-Associated] Mortality Review committee releases a beautiful report with those recommendations; this was not one of those recommendations. Theres also the real concern of providers not wanting to practice here. Were seeing that play out in Idaho, which has restrictive laws, and more than half of their high risk OBs have left the state, according to a report [released in February]. So when a third of our parishes are maternal-care deserts, we cant afford to lose any more providers. But what were being told by medical students and residents is that they don't really see the benefit to staying and practicing in a state where they are under threat of criminalization for simply providing the highest quality standard of care. The last time we spoke, the bill was expected to be signed into law. Now its going into effect on Oct. 1. How are you feeling? Theres still a great deal of concern. Theres still a lot of confusion. The New Orleans Health Department did a learning session with an expert panel of pharmacists and physicians to try to go through the law as best we could and discuss any sort of shared knowledge that we would hope that pharmacists and providers would need to know. I think that was well-received, but there were a lot of questions that we couldnt answer. What were also hearing is that in other parts of the state, providers are either just learning about this or not aware of it at all. Quite frankly, doctors are very busythey work very long hours, they dont necessarily keep up with the legislature, and theres been very little communication about the act formally to physicians. I think those of us who are in the know are concerned about folks who maybe dont even really see this coming, and all of a sudden things are going to change on Oct. 1. Everybody is trying really hard to put whatever processes they can in place to mitigate the expected impacts. But no one is feeling really great about it. Contact us at letters@time.com. The autocratic ruler of the former Soviet republic of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has accused NATO of planning an attack on his country and has threatened the use of nuclear weapons. "An attack on Belarus means World War III," the Belarusian president said, according to the state news agency BelTA, during an appearance before students in Minsk. Both Belarus and its close ally Russia would use nuclear weapons in such a case, he said. Lukashenko thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for the recent change to the Russian nuclear doctrine. During his speech at the State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics, Lukashenko claimed that NATO harbours concrete attack plans against Belarus. "Americans and Poles have already positioned themselves along the border, particularly at the Polish one. We know that the Polish leadership is already rubbing their hands," he said. Belarus was prepared for the event and would respond immediately, he said. As NATO could counter the use of nuclear weapons with its own nuclear strikes, Russia would deploy its entire arsenal. Lukashenko stated that the West is not ready for such an escalation. Belarus is not a nuclear power itself; however, since the end of 2023, tactical nuclear weapons from Russia have been stationed on its territory. Lukashenko spoke in April of several dozen nuclear warheads. Belarus has also received Russian Iskander missiles, which can be equipped with nuclear warheads. Su-25 combat jets have also been converted into carrier weapons. While Moscow claims command over the nuclear weapons stationed in Belarus, Lukashenko has already incorporated the use of nuclear weapons into his country's military doctrine. On Wednesday, Putin stated that Russia had adjusted its military doctrine due to the international security situation. Russia's list of military threats against which nuclear weapons can be used for deterrence has been expanded, Putin said during a meeting of the National Security Council in Moscow. The change is seen as a response to the debate over granting far-reaching weapons to Ukraine in its defence against Russia's war. The new doctrine increases the risk, especially for Western nuclear powers like the United States and France, of becoming targets of a Russian counterstrike, should they support non-nuclear countries like Ukraine in an aggression against Russia. The Hillsborough County School Board is the governing body of Americas seventh-largest school system. The seven-member board faces a host of pressing issues in the coming years, from improving academics at struggling schools to retaining teachers and building new campuses in the fast-growing suburbs. Board members are elected to four-year terms and paid $50,492 annually. Board elections are nonpartisan and open to all registered voters. District 7 (countywide): Lynn Gray Incumbent Lynn Gray placed first in the four-way primary Aug. 20, and she remains the clear choice for her experience, hard work and fundamental commitment to fair play. Gray, 72, is a former public and private school teacher who was first elected to the board in 2016. Her decades of teaching experience and civic involvement give Gray a solid understanding of what enables students to succeed in the classroom. Gray supports the countywide referendum on the Nov. 5 ballot that would increase property taxes to raise teacher pay, calling teachers the central key of student success. She supported the school closures in 2023 as a painful but necessary cost-saving measure, and she has pushed to redirect those savings into stronger counseling, mental health and other support services for students. Gray has strong relationships with area government and business leaders, and she recognizes the key role the school system plays in developing the regions work force. She works collegially with her colleagues and is accessible to the public. Karen Bendorf, a 48-year-old middle school teacher, placed second in the primary. She opposes the tax for teacher pay, saying the district should instead find money for raises within its existing budget. Bendorf, though, hasnt explained how Hillsborough can wring these savings from the current budget. Bendorf told the Times Editorial Board she was motivated to run in 2022 after being asked to address a child by a pronoun she found uncomfortable. This should be a red flag for voters concerned about continued cultural warfare in the schools. Grays able hand and broad perspective suit her perfectly for this countywide seat. She understands the diversity of Hillsboroughs student population, and has strongly supported special needs, bilingual education and other programs that meet the specific needs of families. Gray wants the district to regularly evaluate campus populations, with an eye toward consolidating campuses where necessary to squeeze more efficiencies. She also is a regular presence across Hillsboroughs 200-campus school system, committed to learning firsthand whats working and whats not in the classroom. In the Nov. 5 general election for Hillsborough County School Board District 7, the Tampa Bay Times recommends Lynn Gray. The recommendation process Before making a recommendation, the Times Editorial Board asks candidates to fill out questionnaires and sit for an interview. The process can also include running criminal and civil background checks, interviewing candidates colleagues and employers, reviewing voting records and financial disclosures and examining their past and current positions on relevant issues. A hearse and debris sit behind the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose, on Oct. 5, 2023. PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. (WMBB) The M.B. Miller Pier closed at 7 a.m. Thursday morning and will remain closed until Friday at 7 am. But that didnt stop some people from going out on the beach. The ocean waves were high and had strong currents. Double red flags are flying on the beach, signaling that the water has a very high hazard and is closed to the public. Majority of residents in Apalachicola evacuated before Hurricane Helene landfall The pier is closed but people are still using the nearby beach access to take a look at the shoreline. Although some residents were out by the pier, people should exercise caution and follow warnings. The winds in that area are strong and the rain may remain strong, those warnings are there for a reason. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to mypanhandle.com. Much of MacDill Air Force Base in Florida was without power Friday morning and low-lying areas were flooded after Hurricane Helene blew through the state overnight. But Tyndall Air Force Base which six years ago was devastated by a previous hurricane appears to have suffered no major damage. MacDill said in a social media posts that its hurricane recovery team is still assessing damage to the base and trying to restore power, and the base remains closed. The storm surge that hit MacDill located near Tampa and the home of U.S. Central Commands headquarters was significant, and near the areas record for water levels, the base said. Roads are also strewn with debris. The base posted a photo of a flooded sports complex online Friday morning, and later said in a follow-up comment that waters had receded and the situation had improved. Helene slammed into northwestern Florida late Thursday night as a Category 4 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 140 miles per hour. It has since weakened and become a tropical storm over Georgia as it moved up through the southeast. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said at least 11 people in the state had died, and dozens more were trapped in homes, and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said two people there had died as a result of the storm so far. Moody Air Force Base in Georgia also reported downed trees, power lines, and debris after the storm passed. The base said in a social media post Friday morning that first responders and recovery crews are assessing the damage and clearing streets, and that people should remain sheltered in place for now. Tyndall, located in Floridas panhandle, on Friday resumed normal operations following Helene, and reported no major damage so far. Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, moved aircraft such as F-15s, F-16s and C-130s into King Hangar to avoid damage from Hurricane Helene. (Matt Veasley/U.S. Air Force) In a post on social media, Tyndall said damage assessments are still under way, but that the base has dodged the worst of the storm. As Helene bore down on Florida in recent days, Tyndall evacuated the 325th Fighter Wings F-35A fighter jets. A limited evacuation of personnel in nearby counties that were likeliest to be hit by the hurricane was also ordered. Commenters on Tyndalls Facebook page expressed relief that this hurricane was not a repeat of 2018s Hurricane Michael, which devastated Tyndall and damaged about 17 F-22 Raptors. That storm forced 11,000 airmen and their families to evacuate from Tyndall to bases in Virginia, Alaska and Hawaii, and Tyndalls recovery was a hard process spanning years. Eglin Air Force Base, which is located further west of Tyndall, also moved to a mission-essential posture Thursday and closed its schools Friday. Eglin began storing its aircraft in large hangars on base earlier this week. Photographs posted online showed F-15s, F-16s, and C-130s sheltering from the storm in the bases massive King Hangar. New York City Mayor Eric Adams surrendered to federal authorities one day after a 57-page federal indictment was unsealed, accusing the Democrat of bribery, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national. Adams has denied any wrongdoing and is expected to plead not guilty. But his legal troubles are not Adams only problem. Theres also a political dimension to his mess, as prominent members of his party call on the mayor to resign. The Washington Post reported: A growing number of New York Democrats are calling on Mayor Eric Adams (D) to resign, broadly stating that his federal criminal indictment will hinder his ability to run the city. ... New York Democrats in positions of leadership have declined to call on Adams to step down, instead acknowledging that the charges against him are serious but arguing for the presumption of innocence. However, several other elected officials, including members of Congress, have called on the mayor to resign. As Adams Democratic support quickly evaporated, the public saw a case study in partisan asymmetry unfold in real time. Indeed, no prominent voices in Democratic politics except for Adams himself responded to the New York City mayors indictment with conspiracy theories. They didnt talk about election interference. Democrats didnt say that federal prosecutors should be defunded. The party didnt entertain the idea that evidence mightve been planted. No one in the party accused the Justice Department of having been weaponized. Democrats also didnt issue weird fundraising letters or whine about George Soros. Instead, Democrats responded to Adams indictment the way you'd expect members of a normal, mature, and responsible political party to respond: Many called for the mayor to resign, while others acknowledged the seriousness of the allegations. In fact, in an odd twist, the Adams' indictment did generate weird conspiracy theories, just not from his own party. Donald Trump, for example, argued in public and in apparent seriousness that federal prosecutors charged the mayor, not because of evidence of corruption, but because of Adams position on immigration policy. Some Fox News hosts and assorted far-right personalities including conspiratorial billionaire Elon Musk pushed a similar line. (The defendant himself also expressed support for the same idea.) In other words, some leading voices on the right want Americans to believe that a Democratic administration indicted a prominent Democratic mayor with 40 days left in the election cycle as part of a plot to punish Adams for taking a conservative line on immigration policy months ago. Putting aside the fact that theres literally no evidence to substantiate such a weird idea, the principal problem with these bonkers assertions is that the indictment is now publicly available, and its filled with highly credible allegations of serious crimes. If the indictment were flimsy, and the charges were based on very little, the conspiracy theorists complaints might be marginally more believable. But Id encourage those on the right peddling such nonsense to get a copy of the indictment and actually read the darned thing. As a Washington Post analysis summarized, The document outlines schemes that appear brazen. It suggests at least some knowledge on the part of Adams and an aide that what was being undertaken was not exactly on the up-and-up. And some episodes detailed came years before Adamss comments alienated some Democrats. These details probably wont matter to Trump and his allies, but they should matter to those who take reality seriously. This article was originally published on MSNBC.com Todays installment of campaign-related news items from across the country. * While several recent polls in Georgia have shown Donald Trump with a modest lead, the latest Fox News poll found Vice President Kamala Harris leading the Republican nominee in the state, 51% to 48%. (Click the link for information on the surveys methodology and margin of error.) * The news was better for the former president in Arizona, where the latest Fox News poll found Trump ahead, 51% to 48%, while a USA Today/Suffolk University poll showed the GOP nominee with an even larger advantage, 48% to 42%. (Click the links for information on the surveys methodologies and margins of error.) * Why were so many Republicans pushing for Nebraska to manipulate how the party allocates electoral votes? Because, according to an NBC News report, internal GOP polling shows Harris with a sizable lead in Nebraskas Omaha-area congressional district. * Speaking of the Cornhusker State, the National Republican Senatorial Committee is making a new investment in support of incumbent Republican Sen. Deb Fischers re-election campaign in Nebraska, fueling speculation about independent challenger Dan Osborn and the surprising strength of his candidacy. * At his latest press conference, Trump was asked whether he intends to withdraw his support for North Carolinas Mark Robinson. The former president responded by claiming he doesnt know the situation surrounding the right-wing gubernatorial candidate. * That said, Virginias Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, withdrew his support for North Carolinas scandal-plagued lieutenant governor this week. * And a group called Evangelicals for Harris launched a seven-figure ad buy, aiming specifically at Christian voters in key battleground states, arguing that Trumps words and behavior contradict Christian teachings. This article was originally published on MSNBC.com As 2023 got underway, Rep. Matt Gaetz received some good news from the Justice Department: Federal investigators had been scrutinizing the Florida Republican as part of a sex trafficking investigation, but prosecutors announced they would not bring criminal charges against the congressman. Gaetz, however, still had to contend with an investigation from the House Ethics Committee. The panel first launched a probe into the GOP lawmaker more than three years ago, though it was just three months ago when members of the committee issued a rare statement explaining that their original investigation into Gaetz was expanding. NBC News reported in June that the bipartisan panel said in a lengthy statement that it was examining whether Gaetz may have engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct. Theres fresh reason to believe the process is still intensifying. CNBC reported: Rep. Matt Gaetz said Thursday that he has learned the House Ethics Committee will subpoena him as it investigates whether the Florida Republican engaged in sexual misconduct with a minor or illicit drug use. Gaetz, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, made the statement in an angry letter to the Ethics Committee that declared he will no longer voluntarily participate in the panels probe. The congressman, who has long denied any wrongdoing, also said in his written statement that he believes an Ethics Committee subpoena has been issued, but not served. Gaetz did not offer an indication as to whether he would comply with the subpoena or not. He went on to write that the committee asked him earlier this month whether he has engaged in sexual activity with any individual under 18. The answer, according to Gaetz, was unequivocally NO. The Florida Republican again, according to his own version of events also said that he was asked about illegal drug use. On this, Gaetzs answer was more nuanced. I have not used drugs which are illegal, absent some law allowing use in a jurisdiction of the United States, he wrote, adding, I have not used illicit drugs, which I consider to be drugs unlawful for medical or over-the-counter use everywhere in the United States. Just as notably, Gaetz concluded that the House Ethics Committees lines of inquiry had become nosy, and he would no longer cooperate with the ongoing investigation. Its difficult to speculate as to what, if anything, the panel will ultimately conclude, or when it might announce its findings. That said, for Gaetzs critics on Capitol Hill of which there are many the Ethics Committees examination is of great interest. It was a year ago this week when Fox News raised a few eyebrows with a report that said House GOP members were preparing a motion to expel Gaetz. The report didnt include any on-the-record comments, and it wasnt independently verified by other news organizations, but it raised the prospect of a provocative move against a member with a limited number of friends, even on his side of the aisle. Two months later, USA Today published a related report, adding that Gaetz continues to draw the ire of his Republican colleagues ... and some of his detractors have privately floated expelling him from Congress. In other words, as the Ethics Committees work continues, the stakes are high. Watch this space. This post updates our related earlier coverage. This article was originally published on MSNBC.com On the 4th of July, 2016, The Atlantic published a rather brutal condemnation of Donald Trump. The then-Republican candidate, the opinion piece argued, is cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day theyll realize it. The piece added, What Trump offers is an easy escape from the pain. To every complex problem, he promises a simple solution ... He never offers details for how these plans will work, because he cant. Trumps promises are the needle in Americas collective vein. The author of the piece was a young man by the name of JD Vance who, eight years later, would become Trumps hapless running mate. The Atlantic article was part of a larger case the Ohioan made at the time against the GOPs then-candidate. Vance described himself as a Never Trump guy and said he didnt vote for him in 2016. The same year, Vance wrote, Mr. Trump is unfit for our nations highest office. By one account, Vance also sent a private message to his law school roommate in which he questioned whether Trump might be Americas Hitler. In the years that followed, Vance according to his version of events underwent a political metamorphosis of sorts, making the transition from Trump critic to Trump sycophant. By way of an explanation, the Ohio Republican, while running for the U.S. Senate in 2021, said he changed his mind about the former president because Trump "actually honored his promises while in the White House. At least, thats what Vance said publicly. In private, according to a new Washington Post report, Trumps running mate apparently had a different perspective as recently as 2020. In the direct messages sent during Trumps final year in office to an acquaintance over the social media platform then known as Twitter Vance harshly criticized his future running mates record of governance and said Trump had not fulfilled his economic agenda. According to the Posts account, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, Vance wrote in February 2020, Trump has just so thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism (excepting a disjointed China policy). In a separate message sent four months later, the future senator added, I think Trump will probably lose. That, of course, was before Trump really did lose in a race about which Vance has gladly peddled partisan conspiracy theories. Around the same time, Vance also claimed via direct message that hed turned down an undisclosed job offer from Trump, which, if true, would be entirely new information. In case this werent quite enough, the Post also obtained a separate 2020 message in which Vance wrote that a government-run Medicare-for-all health care system is maybe a net positive, maybe not (details matter). In case this isnt obvious, this isnt even close to Republican orthodoxy on health care policy. Vances team didnt exactly deny any of this, and the vice presidential nominees spokesperson confirmed to the newspaper that the senator remembers writing the messages. The spokesperson nevertheless complained that the Post did not disclose the name of the person Vance communicated with and said the comment about Trump failing to deliver on economic populism was the fault of establishment Republicans in Congress. Stepping back, a variety of political observers have wondered aloud whether Vance overhauled his perspective on Trump for the sake of political convenience his political ambitions depended on a public change of heart or because of a sincere conversion to MAGAism. If the Posts reporting is accurate, it sheds new light on the probable answer. This article was originally published on MSNBC.com On New Years Day 2019, Donald Trump kicked off the year with a tweet attacking retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal. General McChrystal got fired like a dog by Obama, the then-president wrote, adding, Known for big, dumb mouth. McChrystal, of course, was a highly decorated four-star general and combat veteran who devoted nearly all of his adult life to serving and protecting the United States. Trump nevertheless questioned McChrystals service he used scare quotes around general, as if he hadnt earned his rank and publicly mocked him. That was in public. In private, according to Trumps former Defense secretary, Mark Esper, Trump also set out to have McChrystal court-martialed. It was, of course, impossible to court martial civilians in private life, so the then-president talked to military leaders about the Pentagon recalling the retired general to active duty so that Trump could formally punish him. It was against this backdrop that the retired general, who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan, endorsed Joe Bidens 2020 presidential campaign. Four years later, McChrystal is backing Kamala Harris, endorsing the Democratic vice president in a New York Times op-ed. Ive thought deeply about my choice and considered what Ive seen and heard and what I owe my three granddaughters. Ive concluded that it isnt political slogans or cultural tribalism; it is the best president my vote might help select. So I have cast my vote for character, and that vote is for Vice President Kamala Harris. Interestingly enough, over the course of roughly 700 words, McChrystal did not mention Trump at all in his Times piece. Just as notable is the number of other retired military leaders whove gone in a similar direction. Last month, for example, retired four-star Gen. Larry Ellis, a highly decorated veteran who served under 10 presidential administrations, announced his support for the Democratic nominee. Ellis, who served his country for nearly a half-century, had never before endorsed a candidate for elected office, but in the 2024 presidential election, he made an exception, writing that this is not a decision I take lightly, but one I believe necessary. The retired general was the first senior military leader to publicly back the vice president, but he wasnt the last. NBC News reported a couple of weeks ago on the launch of National Security Leaders for America and the groups support for Harris. The group said in a statement, signed by several retired generals and admirals, that Harris is the best and only presidential candidate in this race who is fit to serve as our commander-in-chief. She has demonstrated her ability to take on the most difficult national security challenges in the Situation Room and on the international stage, from rallying our allies against Russias brutal invasion of Ukraine to standing shoulder to shoulder with our allies in the Indo-Pacific against Chinas provocative actions, to advancing U.S. leadership on space and artificial intelligence. She is a steadfast supporter of service members, veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors, the group wrote. Members of the group, who include a former George W. Bush advisor, went on to describe Trump as a danger to our national security and our democracy. This week, the list grew longer. The Times reported earlier this week that more than 700 current and former national security leaders threw their support behind Harris, "arguing that only she had the temperament and values needed to serve as commander in chief." The signatories of the letter, which was organized by the group National Security Leaders for America, included former Defense secretaries and retired generals, including Rear Adm. Michael E. Smith and Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who led the CIA under George W. Bush. As Election Day approaches, there's every reason to believe the vice president's support from retired military leaders will continue to grow. Around this time four years ago, a surprising number of retired military leaders, many of whom had been apolitical for decades, stepped up to denounce Trump, endorse Biden, or both. For the most part, however, they waited until October to express their election-related opinions. Will many of those same retired generals and admirals step up again as Election Day nears? Watch this space. This post updates our related earlier coverage. This article was originally published on MSNBC.com At least 59 Ohio residents have complained to the state's attorney general over posts made by an Ohio sheriff suggesting that people should keep track of homeowners who have signs supporting Democrat Kamala Harris for president. Bruce Zuchowski, the sheriff for Portage County just southeast of Cleveland, posted the suggestion to his social media account on Sept. 13, when he talked about Harris campaign and border policies. "When people ask me...What's gonna happen if the Flip - Flopping, Laughing Hyena Wins?? I say...write down all the addresses of the people who had her signs in their yards," Zuchowski wrote in the Facebook post. "Sooo...when the Illegal human 'Locust' (which she supports!) Need places to live...We'll already have the addresses of their New families...who supported their arrival!" Zuchowskis remarks drew backlash from members of his community. Now, people have lodged complaints to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican. We need to act like responsible adults The Akron Beacon Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, obtained the written complaints sent to Yost's office through a public records request. Some people said they were angry, accusing Zuchowski of voter intimidation and racism. Others, including people who live in Portage County, said the sheriffs post made them afraid. I feel like this is what my family went through in Germany during WWII, one person wrote. We need to act like responsible adults People should be able to put out any political sign they want. USA TODAY reached out to Zuchowski for a response to the comments. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost answers questions about police accountability on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020 in Akron, Ohio. 'A little misinterpreted' sheriff says In a follow-up post days after his controversial one, Zuchowski said that his words might have been taken the wrong way. "As the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of Portage County, I have sworn to protect ALL citizens of my County," Zuchowski wrote in the social media post. "Recently, I placed a post on my personal Facebook page that may have been a little misinterpreted??" Zuchowski then wrote how he "as the elected sheriff" has a "First Amendment right, as do all citizens." "If the citizens of Portage County want to elect an individual who has supported open borders (which I've personally visited Twice!) and neglected to enforce the laws of our Countrythen that is their prerogative," the Facebook post continued. "With elections, there are consequences. That being saidI believe that those who vote for individuals with liberal policies have to accept responsibility for their actions! I am a Law ManNot a Politician!" Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski is shown in a 2021 photo. Ohio Secretary of State says Sheriff Zuchowski did not violate laws Many who filed complaints with the state wanted Zuchowski removed from office or at least investigated for possible violations of law. The complaints were referred to Secretary of State Frank LaRose because they dealt with election-related issues. LaRose said that the sheriffs post did not violate election laws. Contributing: Jonathan Limehouse Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at fernando.cervantes@gannett.com and follow him on X @fern_cerv_. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ohio sheriff's Kamala Harris post draws complaints: 'I feel unsafe' Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was barred from running in the presidential election by institutions loyal to strongman Nicolas Maduro (JUAN BARRETO) (JUAN BARRETO/AFP/AFP) Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's hold on power is "unsustainable" given the widespread rejection of his claim to reelection, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told AFP on Friday. "The regime is absolutely delegitimized... an international pariah," 56-year-old Machado, who has been mostly in hiding since the July 28 vote, said in an interview via Zoom. "Maduro is trying to convey to his remaining supporters that the situation will stabilize, that the world will turn the page and we Venezuelans will be silent. And that will not happen." Venezuela's CNE electoral authority, loyal to the regime, declared a victory for Maduro within hours of polls closing, with 52 percent of votes cast. But most of the international community has refused to accept his win without a detailed vote breakdown, which has not been forthcoming. The opposition published its own tally of polling station-level results, which it says proves its candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won two-thirds of the votes cast. The United States says there was "overwhelming evidence" Gonzalez Urrutia had won. For Maduro to remain in power was "financially, diplomatically and, most importantly, socially unviable," said Machado. "It is an unsustainable situation." Gonzalez Urrutia was a last-minute placeholder candidate for the Democratic Unity Platform (PUD) opposition coalition led by Machado, who herself was disqualified from running by institutions loyal to Maduro. - 'Crushing defeat' - Appearing on camera in her signature white shirt in front of a neutral background, Machado reiterated Friday that Maduro had suffered a "crushing defeat" and "no one has any doubt that Edmundo Gonzalez won." Gonzalez Urrutia, a 75-year-old retired diplomat, left Venezuela this month for asylum in Spain after spending weeks in hiding. Machado, for her part, has come out in public only a handful of times to lead anti-Maduro protests. "It's a huge change and a great personal challenge," she told AFP. "Many months in contact with thousands of people all the time, listening, hugging, kissing, and suddenly not having direct contact." Dozens of opposition leaders have been arrested since the contested poll, along with more than 2,400 other Venezuelans accused of "terrorism" for allegedly taking part in protests. Twenty-seven people were killed in the post-election clashes. In a country where "90 percent of people want change," the only recourse left to Maduro is "violence and spreading terror," said Machado. She nevertheless called for demonstrations on Saturday to mark two months since the vote but urged several small rallies rather than one centralized protest that could be harshly repressed. - 'Where I feel most useful' - Machado said she was grateful for the international support the opposition cause has received. Even Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, traditionally leftist allies of Venezuela, have not recognized Maduro's victory though they have not rejected it outright. The United States, along with countries of Europe and the G7 bloc, "are directly talking about a transition to democracy," said the opposition leader. "When will Maduro have real incentives to sit down and negotiate a transition? The day that the cost of remaining in power is greater than the cost of leaving power. "So you have to lower the cost of leaving power, increase the cost of holding on to power, and that's exactly what we're doing." Machado would not be drawn on the guarantees that could be offered to the regime, which enjoys support from a well-established system of political patronage that includes the justice system and military brass, which has sworn "absolute loyalty" to Maduro. "It is a process that is underway and no one can say how long it will last," said Machado. In a US election year with the issue of migration firmly on the ballot, she added there was still time to "prevent the largest and most painful wave of migration in this hemisphere." More than seven million Venezuelans -- nearly a quarter of the country's population -- have left as GDP dropped 80 percent in 10 years after Maduro came to power in 2013. Machado rejected the idea of following Gonzalez Urrutia into exile. "I am where I feel most useful for the struggle in Venezuela," she told AFP. "I'm here accompanying the Venezuelans in a continuing struggle, which is much bigger than any one of us." jt-pgf/mlr/cb/acb After being confronted by his Republican colleagues, Rep. Clay Higgins deleted his shockingly racist tweet attacking Haitians. But once Congress officially left town for six weeks, he essentially turned around and said, I'll do it again if I want to. View comments The Corvallis Fall Festival is fast approaching, and if youre intrigued by this years avian-themed poster art, be sure to stop by Booth 15 at Central Park this Saturday, Sept. 28, to meet the artist. That would be Bekah Zeimetz, a Eugene-based acrylic painter. She's been painting full-time in 2024, which Zeimetz said gave her the opportunity to submit a poster design to represent the citys 51st Fall Festival, a juried event that attracts artists from across the Pacific Northwest each year. A Place to Sleep, episode 3: Corvallis Do unhoused people know where to go in Corvallis? Well, the city has outlined where they shouldn't be: near creeks, rivers, wetlands, sidewalks or within 20 feet of trees. I feel like it hasnt fully sunk in all the way, Zeimetz said of her piece's selection during an interview outside a Eugene coffee shop earlier this week. Zeimetz, who grew up in Iowa and has a background in nutrition, teaching yoga and managing a few coffee shops herself started painting in high school and had been drawing animals long before then. After moving to Oregon, she decided to focus more on her painting, doing a few pet portraits here and there, before returning to her original passion: untamed animals. During the pandemic, Zeimetz invested in a Nikon and spent more of her time outdoors to capture wildlife on camera, specifically on Eugene bike paths looking to take reference photos of birds. That included the elusive crow-sized green heron. Its shimmering feathers make it one of her favorites. The green variant of the species also has been a muse in her near photo-realistic paintings, along with other specimens, ranging from a variety of colorful songbirds like the common yellowthroat to more formidable predators like the spotted owl. As seen on her website, the level of detail in her paintings create a rich texture on the canvas, giving one the sense they could almost feel the feathers on her subjects. Beyond birds and other critters, such as possums and foxes, flora have key supporting roles in her pieces too. Flower petals, leaves and fungi intricately frame her wildlife portraits. The Oregon grape and sprouting mushrooms appear on this years poster for the festival. Zeimetz creates those paintings at her home studio in Eugene, finding satisfaction in the planning process and gathering photo references from her own birding excursions. She starts with a simple mechanical pencil sketch maybe even a quick, rough painting, just to ensure her colors work before using a chalk pastel pencil to transfer her completed drawing to the canvas. She starts with the eyes, she said, and then works from background to foreground, and from dark to light. Shell be bringing 10 original completed pieces to her booth at the festival this weekend. Zeimetz has been participating in the festival since 2022. It's a niche venue for the artist, who said it brings her into contact with not only fellow painters but fellow bird enthusiasts, as well as Oregon State University students who care about conservation. Its probably one of my favorite shows to do, she said. The festival is this weekend at Central Park, with art booths open from 10 a.m. through 6 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. through 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free. Related stories: British actress Dame Maggie Smith, known for her prolific career in roles like Professor McGonagall in the "Harry Potter" series and Violet Crawley in "Downton Abbey," has died, her family confirmed to CBS News. She was 89. Smith passed away peacefully in the hospital early Friday morning, her sons Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens said in a statement via publicist Clair Dobbs. "An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother," the statement said. Maggie Smith at the BFI London Film Festival on Oct. 13, 2015 in London, England. / Credit: John Phillips/Getty Images for BFI Margaret Natalie Smith, who was frequently rated the preeminent British actress of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, was born in Ilford, Essex on Dec. 28, 1934. When she was 4 years old, her family moved to Oxford, where Smith began studying acting at the Oxford Playhouse at the age of 16. According to the Associated Press, she summed up her life briefly: "One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, one's still acting." She took Maggie as her stage name because another Margaret Smith was active in the theater. In 1952, at 17 years old, Smith launched her illustrious career as Viola in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night." She made her Broadway debut in 1956 playing several roles in the review "New Faces of 1956." While Smith made her first film appearance in 1956, she didn't receive her first screen credit until 1959's "Nowhere to Go," which earned her first of 18 British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) nominations. Laurence Olivier spotted her talent, invited her to be part of his original National Theatre company and cast her as his co-star in a 1965 film adaptation of "Othello." "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress and the BAFTA award as well in 1969. She added a supporting actress Oscar for "California Suite" in 1978. Throughout her distinguished career, she was nominated for four more Academy Awards, won four more BAFTAs, five Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Golden Globes and a Tony Award for her work. She was just a Grammy away from EGOT status. Maggie Smith holds her Oscar for best supporting actress in the film "And I think that's never gonna happen!" she told CBS "Sunday Morning" in 2015. She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that "when you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything." Smith gained a new audience when she accepted the role of Professor Minerva McGonagall in the "Harry Potter" movie series. She once quipped that "Harry Potter is my pension." "A lot of very small people kind of used to say hello to me, and that was nice. It was a whole different lot of people," she said on "The Graham Norton Show" in 2015. "One kid once said to me, he said, 'were you really a cat?' And I heard myself say 'just pull yourself together! How could I have been?'" She continued acting well into her 80s, in films such as the 2022 big-screen spinoff "Downton Abbey: A New Era" and the 2023 release "The Miracle Club." When former "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft asked Smith in 2013 at the height of "Downton Abbey" fame if she'd ever retire, the actress had this to say: "I think that the date for that has gone by. I fear that I won't work in the theater again. I'm sad about that. But I won't retire. I think I'll keep going with Violet and whatever other old biddy comes along," she said. Smith was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire, the equivalent of a knight, in 1990. She married fellow actor Robert Stephens in 1967. They had two sons, Christopher and Toby, and divorced in 1975. That same year she married the writer Beverley Cross, who died in 1998. Why Hurricane Helene could be catastrophic Hurricane Helene makes landfall over Florida's Big Bend area as a Category 4 storm Israel targets alleged Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut A major polling organization is reportedly giving Donald Trumps campaign previews of its results before the public sees them. On Thursday, American Muckrakers posted about emails it received detailing how the conservative-leaning Rasmussen Reports, which claims to be nonpartisan, shared polling results with Trump advisers and campaign officials like Dan Scavino, Susie Wiles, and John McLaughlin. The advisers, Rasmussen, and the nonprofit organizations that pay it for polling are violating tax and election laws, according to American Muckrakers. One of the emails details close collaboration between the Trump campaign, Rasmussen, and the Heartland Institute, which calls itself a national free-market public policy think tank. However, its also a 501(c)3 nonprofit and is not allowed to engage in political activity benefiting a political candidate. Twitter screenshot American Muckrakers @AmericanMuck: Here is collusion between @Rasmussen_Poll , @HeartlandInst & @realDonaldTrump campaign. Heartland Institute is a 501(c)3 non-profit and strictly forbidden from political activity that benefits a candidate. Read all the emails of collusion here: http://AmericanMuckrakers.com/muckrakersleaks Rasmussen has long been criticized for its polling, which focuses on likely voters, and for skewing toward older Americans and providing favorable results to conservatives. During the Trump administration, its website became overtly supportive of the right wing, with many of its polls sponsored by conservative personalities and causes. On social media, Rasmussen appeared to legitimize many conspiracy theories on the right, such as election fraud and vaccine denialism. Earlier this year, the polling aggregator 538 dropped Rasmussen Reports from its averages and forecasts, saying that the firm couldnt meet 538s standards for objectivity and methodology. This drew a major backlash from right-wing media, especially after Rasmussen published a letter from 538 asking the polling firm questions about its procedures and biases. The revelations from American Muckrakers go beyond simple political bias and into outright collaboration between Republicans and Rasmussen, explaining the organizations overt partisan change. It would seem to invite possible legal trouble for Rasmussen too, although theres no shortage of conservative judges and lawyers ready to shield it from consequences. A majority of voters feel negatively about Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for the next Republican presidency that Vice President Harris has used to attack former President Trump, an NBC News poll released this week showed. The poll, conducted Sept. 13-17, found that about 57 percent of voters said they feel negatively toward the 900-page document outlining a conservative agenda, compared to 4 percent who felt positively. Sixteen percent said they felt neutral, while 23 percent were unsure or didnt know the name. Of the 57 percent, 51 percent felt very negative about the blueprint. Meanwhile, just 1 percent felt very positive, the survey showed. NBC also reported that 52 percent of independents felt negatively about Project 2025 compared to 85 percent of Democrats. About 33 percent of Republicans said they viewed it negatively, compared to 7 percent who said they had a positive view. Earlier this month, the Harris-Walz campaign rolled out a new ad targeting Black voters, arguing that they would be hurt if Project 2025 went forward under a second Trump administration. Project 2025 would strip away our voting rights protections, and it eliminates the Department of Education. It would also require states to monitor womens pregnancies. It bans abortion and would rip away health coverage for millions, the ad says. Trump has tried to distance himself from the conservative blueprint, calling some of its proposals or plans ridiculous and even claiming in multiple social media posts that he does not know those behind the effort. But Democrats have repeatedly noted the links between its authors and members of Trumps administration. During their presidential debate Harris called Project 2025 dangerous. Youre going to hear from the same old tired playbook, a bunch of lies, grievances and name-calling, Harris said during the debate. What youre going to hear is a dangerous and detailed playbook called Project 2025. Trump pushed back, even as he said the policy document had some good and some bad ideas. As you know, and as she knows, I have nothing to do with Project 2025. Thats out there, I havent read it. I dont want to read it, purposely. Im not going to read it, Trump said. The NBC News poll interviewed 1,000 registered voters, including 870 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 The Hill. CHICAGO An investigation is underway after a 58-year-old man was found dead on a sidewalk on the citys Northwest Side. The discovery was made around 5:35 a.m. Friday in the 4300 block of North Milwaukee Avenue in the Portage Park neighborhood. Police said the man was found unresponsive on the sidewalk and pronounced dead on the scene. Missing 2-year-old found safe after search at Lombard hotel, police say Detectives are conducting a death investigation pending autopsy results. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Man accused in California courthouse bombing intended to kill deputies and a judge, complaint says A man accused of setting off an improvised explosive device in a California courthouse, injuring at least five people and causing significant and noticeable damage, intended to kill deputies and a judge, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday. Nathaniel James McGuire, 20, has been federally charged with malicious damage to a building by means of an explosive, the complaint says. Authorities said Wednesdays incident in Santa Maria appears to be isolated and the suspect has no known ties to terrorism. McGuire was being held without bail. CNN is attempting to locate attorney information for him. Nathaniel McGuire - Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office via AP McGuire was arrested in July on suspicion of a firearms violation, during which deputies seized a loaded and concealed revolver that was in his pocket and was not registered, Santa Barbara County Undersheriff Craig Bonner said. McGuire was set to be arraigned for that case Wednesday, Bonner said. McGuire on Wednesday threw a bag into the courthouse lobby that exploded, the complaint says. According to the on-scene bomb technician, the suspected improvised explosive device was a can containing a black powder with nails glued to the outside, the complaint says. The device was wrapped in duct tape. A deputy sheriff who witnessed the incident detained McGuire as he attempted to get into a car outside the courthouse, according to the complaint. McGuire yelled that the government had taken his guns and that everyone needed to fight, rise up, and rebel, according to the complaint. Authorities searched the car and found a shotgun, a lever action rifle, ammunition, a suspected explosive device, and 10 Molotov cocktails, the complaint says. When interviewed by law enforcement, McGuire said he intended to kill the deputes working at the security desk upon his arrival and then retrieve a firearm from his car and kill a judge, the complaint says. The FBI later searched McGuires residence and found materials used to make explosives, it says. CNNs Cheri Mossburg and Cindy Von Quednow contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com A New York man accused of killing his father, stepmother and stepbrother in Vermont earlier this month appeared in court in Lake George on Thursday and waived an extradition hearing, according to the district attorney. Brian Crossman Jr., 23, of Granville, New York, faces t hree counts of aggravated murder in the fatal shootings of Brian Crossman Sr., 46, Erica Pawlusiak Crossman, 41, and Colin Taft, 13, in their Pawlet, Vermont, home on Sept. 15, state police said. He will be moved to Vermont to face charges. Pawlet homicide victims identified as town selectman, wife and her son The investigation found significant evidence linking Crossman Jr. to the killings, including digital information, statements, injuries and various interviews, Vermont State Police said. His public defender representing him in New York did not return a phone message seeking comment. A search of his cell phone found multiple internet searches related to serial killers and unresolved murders, police said. Relatives told police that he had a troubled relationship with his father because of Crossman Jr.s mental health and learning disability. He was spending the weekend with his father and stepmother while his mother was out of town, according to a police affidavit. The couple had married in July and Erica Crossman told her husbands friend that didnt feel safe with Crossman Jr. at the home and she was afraid to be there alone with him, according to a police affidavit. Crossman Jr. called police shortly before 4 a.m. on Sept. 15 to report that he had found the three family members shot, and that the residence was covered in blood, police said. He then agreed to meet with Vermont State Police Corporal Joseph Duca who said when they met, Crossman Jr.s clothes were covered in blood, according to the affidavit. Affidavit: New details on suspect in Pawlet triple homicide Crossman Jr. said he his clothes had blood on them because he tried to drag his deceased father outside of the house and load him into a utility vehicle to take him to his grandmothers house across the road, police said. Police said they found multiple guns and ammunition around the house as they were investigating the killings, including a semi-automatic handgun on an area rug in the mudroom, a 12-gauge shotgun on a table in the dining area, another shotgun on a couch, and an open firearm cabinet and firearm safe. Crossman Jr. was admitted to a mental health unit of the Glens Falls Hospital on Sept. 15, according to police. New York State Police arrested him on Sept. 19, and he made an initial court appearance in Warren County Court on a charge of being a fugitive from justice on Friday. He is being held without bail. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC22 & FOX44. Man arrested after Oregon State Police find nearly half a million fentanyl pills in SUV PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) A man was arrested Tuesday afternoon after authorities found almost half a million fentanyl-laced pills in his car, Oregon State Police announced. Around 1 p.m. Tuesday, an Oregon State Trooper stopped a Volkswagen SUV for a traffic violation on Interstate 5 in Douglas County. OSP said the trooper suspected criminal activity and searched the car. During the search, the trooper found 100 pounds of fentanyl-laced pills, or approximately 450,000 doses, inside the car. Family of innocent bystander killed during Gresham police chase files $17M lawsuit The suspect, identified as 32-year-old Gustavo Alonso Franco Valenzuela of Los Angeles, said the pills were destined for Portland. Because of the large quantity of pills, Valenzuela was arrested and faces a federal charge of delivery of a controlled substance, OSP said. The investigation 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 KOIN.com. The man accused of shooting at a car on US 35, hitting and killing a young mother has been charged. [DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Noah Corbitt, 23, was charged Thursday afternoon with three counts of murder, five counts of felonious assault, and one count of discharge of a firearm near a prohibited premises, according to Dayton Municipal Court records. Photo Contributed by Montgomery County Jail TRENDING STORIES: As News Center 7 previously reported, Corbitt was arrested by Dayton Police on Wednesday in connection to a deadly shooting on US 35 on Saturday morning. Jermea Lyle, 26, died as a result of the shooting. Lyle, her 4-year-old daughter, and the childs father were in the car when they picked up a person from Dayton International Airport to give them a ride on Saturday morning. Corbitt allegedly followed the car from the airport to the off-ramp from Interstate 75 to US 35, where police say he fired at least two shots. One bullet went through the vehicle and hit Lyle, who was in the backseat with her daughter. She was rushed to Miami Valley Hospital where she later died. Police said on Thursday that the shooting appeared to be the result of an ongoing dispute our front-seat passenger in that motor vehicle had with a co-worker. Corbitt remains booked in the Montgomery County Jail on a $1,000,000 bond. His next court date is scheduled for Oct. 1. [SIGN UP: WHIO-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] Man assaulted during Democratic rally in Continental Square. Police say not political (This story was updated to accurately reflect the most current information.) A man was assaulted during a rally Thursday on Continental Square in York to show support for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris as well as others, according to a statement from the Democratic Party of York County. York City Police confirmed that an assault occurred, but "we do not believe it is politically motivated," Capt. Daniel Lentz said Thursday evening. The department cited the defendant's previous pattern of behavior. Robert Trotta, 59, of York was taken into custody and charged with simple assault, Lentz said. The victim was identified by a rally attendee as Alan Vandersloot, a longtime West York councilman. The victim suffered a cut on the head and elbow, police said. He was taken to a hospital for treatment, the Democratic Party of York County said in its statement. "This is yet another act of senseless, unprovoked political violence which has been seen across this county, state, and nationally. There is absolutely no place for this violence in our democracy or in our society," the statement says. "We are a nation born to have civil discourse that at the end of the day should end in a handshake not in violence. While easy to point fingers and blame, the reality is this must end now! When we cant even have one of the basic rights to assemble and of free speech without being physically attacked, it is not just one individual being harmed but the entirety of our democracy," it says. Dan Almoney, who attended the rally as a Democratic candidate seeking the 92nd state House seat, said he saw Vandersloot lying on the ground with the assailant overtop of him. Almoney said he did not hear shouting or a disturbance prior to the assault. "It kind of took us by surprise," he said. "It must have happened pretty quickly." The perpetrator tried to get away, but Almoney followed him down George Street. Officers responded and apprehended the suspect. Almoney described the man who was assaulted as a retired gentleman. Almoney said he hopes the victim did not suffer any lasting or permanent damage. "Our prayers are with the injured supporter and their family for a swift recovery," the Democratic Party of York County said in the statement. This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Man assaulted during Democratic rally in York, Pa., 1 arrested: police For a previous report on this story view the video player above. COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) A man convicted of in a south Columbus double murder that occurred three and a half years ago will serve at least nearly 50 years in prison. A Franklin County Court of Common Pleas judge sentenced 29-year-old Datwain Crudup to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 46 years. Crudup was convicted by a jury in the murders of Kevin Williams and Nickolas Cowans, as well as the attempted murder another man. Two shot after dispute over line-cutting at north Columbus pizzeria On Aug. 20, Crudup was found guilty on four counts of murder, and one count each of attempted murder, felonious assault and having a weapon under disability. All seven counts include a 54-month firearm specification, according to the Franklin County Prosecutors Office. Crudup was named a suspect in the fatal shooting on April 3, 2021, when he shot into a crowd gathered outside an apartment complex on Eaton Avenue in South Franklinton. Williams, 24, and Cowans, 19, were pronounced dead at area hospitals. Datwain Crudup At the time of the shooting, Crudup was out of jail on parole from a 2013 conviction for aggravated robbery and weapons charges. He had fled to California after the shooting but was arrested in Nov. 2, 2021 on domestic violence and assault charges. Seven weeks later, while serving jail time on those charges, he was arrested for murder. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. In a Linn County courtroom, Tiffany Lazons daughter wiped tears from her eyes as jurors heard how her mom missed her birthday in 2020. It was typical that her mom spoiled her on her birthday, prosecutor Ani Yardumian said. And that year nothing. No phone call, no card, nothing. Something was wrong. Her daughter reported Tiffany Lazon missing in January 2020. Shortly afterward, Albany police accused her husband, Craig Lazon, of murdering her. Her body has never been found, and Tiffany Lazon has not been seen in nearly five years. Craig Lazons defense attorneys say Tiffany Lazon suffered from untreated mental illness and meth addiction, and although they concede that she may be dead, they say their client had no motive to kill her and there is no proof he did so. The state told you everything that you needed to know about this case in their opening statement when they told you they would be unable to prove how, when, where or why Tiffany Lazon died, attorney Shelley Aschenbrenner told jurors in closing statements. On Thursday, Sept. 26, the jurors were handed the case. A verdict was not reached before publishing. Charged with second-degree murder, Craig Lazon has been on trial at the Linn County Courthouse for the past three weeks. Investigators reportedly discovered Tiffany Lazons DNA on a battery-powered circular saw Craig Lazon borrowed from friends, which he returned to them disassembled and missing its blade, saying he needed to clean the tool. Police also allegedly found blood in a U-Haul truck Craig Lazon used to move items from his wifes home. The two lived separately, though Lazon disputes that they were estranged. The rental truck, which was among transactions Craig Lazon allegedly made with his missing wifes bank card, reportedly appeared to have been well-cleaned before it was returned, according to testimony at trial. Related stories: Man and Dog Rescued by Coast Guard as Sailboat Sinks Off Coast of Florida During Hurricane Helene The man and dog were reportedly in good medical condition after the incident off Florida's coast, which occurred as Hurricane Helene approached the state USCGSoutheast/X A man and his dog were rescued Thursday, Sept. 26, after their boat became disabled as Hurricane Helene approached Florida A man and his dog were rescued from their sailboat off the coast of Florida as Hurricane Helene approached the state. The 36-foot sailboat became disabled and started taking on water approximately 25 miles off Sanibel Island on Thursday, Sept. 26, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Crew members with Air Station Clearwater came to the duos rescue, as seen in footage shared by the agencys Southeast division. In the brief clip, a rescuer can be seen getting lowered into the water before swimming over to the disabled sailboat, where the man and dog were waiting. #Breaking @USCG Air Station #Clearwater saved a man & his dog, Thurs., during Hurricane #Helene after his 36-ft sailboat became disabled & started taking on water approximately 25 miles off Sanibel Island. Call the #USCG for help on VHF Ch. 16 or dial 911 for storm distress. #SAR pic.twitter.com/DtdyouxfMN USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) September 27, 2024 Wearing life preservers, the duo entered the water as well and swam a short distance in choppy water before rescuers in a helicopter could hoist them to safety. 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 end of the clip showed the man holding and petting his dog as he high-fived one of the rescuers onboard the helicopter. #Final The man & his dog were reportedly in good medical condition. They were brought to Southwest Florida International airport to meet with EMS. The vessel is adrift and disabled. Recorded by a camera worn by AST2 Hudson, edited by Lt. Cmdr. Kellerman, AirSta Clearwater pic.twitter.com/3ehoIVqlLj USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) September 27, 2024 The man and dog were reportedly in good medical condition after the incident and were brought to Southwest Florida International airport to meet with EMS, according to the Coast Guard. Meanwhile, the sailboat is still adrift and disabled. USCGSoutheast/X A man and his dog were rescued Thursday, Sept. 26, after their boat became disabled as Hurricane Helene approached Florida At least 10 people died, including seven people in Georgia, after Hurricane Helene made landfall as a Category 4 storm in the Big Bend area of Florida on Thursday, Sept. 26. Two of the victims died in Florida. Governor Ron DeSantis said one person died after a sign fell on top of a car traveling on Interstate 4 in Tampa, and another died in Dixie County after a tree fell onto their home, according to CBS affiliate WINK-TV. Related: Hundreds of Florida College Students Are Sheltering on Campus Ahead of Hurricane Helene's Landfall: 'I Miss My Bed' As of Friday, Sept. 27, millions of people are without power across southeastern portions of the United States, according to PowerOutage.us. At one point, more than one million people were without power in Florida alone, but that number has since dropped. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) A man was found dead behind a grocery store in the Mission Valley East area Thursday morning, according to the San Diego Police Department. After the departments communication center received a call regarding an unconscious male around 7:26 a.m., officers responded to the east side of the Food 4 Less grocery store at 7730 Hazard Center Drive. Local leaders share resources for victims of hate Despite life-saving efforts by the officers and accompanying medics, the man did not survive, according to SDPD. The man was described as a 25-year-old man, but his name is being withheld pending family notifications. The death was initially believed to be caused by an overdose based on items found at the scene. After further investigation, officers had enough information to believe the man had been assaulted and called homicide detectives to the scene, the release said. Next steps include working with the San Diego County Medical Examiners Office to determine the mans injuries and the exact cause of his death, SDPD said. Detectives are still examining evidence from the scene and looking for surveillance footage. Anyone with additional information is encouraged to contact SDPDs Homicide Unit at 619-531-2293 or 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. (KRON) Deon Vonzell Brimmer has been convicted of second-degree burglary and vandalism after breaking into and vandalizing a synagogue, according to San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. Early morning of Aug. 7, 2023, Brimmer, 43, broke into Congregation Sherith Israel through a back window. Triggering the alarm, he damaged the alarm equipment, according to the DAs office. Per the synagogues security footage, Brimmer began casing the building when an employee caught him. According to the DA, the footage showed Brimmer began impersonating a security guard by wearing a congregants suit coat and a Sherith Israel identification tag he found in a closet. He subsequently confronted an employee demanding payment for security services. Brimmer left the establishment after the employee did not give him money, according to the district attorney. Glass reportedly falls from Transamerica Pyramid Less than a week later, Brimmer was arrested approximately one mile away. Places of worship are sacred, and the law affords them protections from violations such as the burglary in this case, said Assistant District Attorney Abigail Adams. I am grateful to the jury for carefully considering the evidence and holding Defendant accountable for this violation of Sherith Israel, its employees and its congregants. Brimmer is not in currently in custody and his sentencing is set for Oct. 29. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) A man arrested earlier in the month in Youngstown and wanted on a warrant at the time out of Girard was indicted by a Mahoning County Grand Jury on Thursday. Daraeius Joy was indicted on charges of improperly handling firearms in a motor vehicle and aggravated possession of drugs, fourth and fifth degree felonies, respectively. He is also facing misdemeanor traffic charges. Joy was arrested Sept. 3 in Youngstown after police pulled over his vehicle for repeatedly swerving left of center. When speaking with officers, reports state Joy admitted he did not have a license due to a hold out of Girard Municipal Court for a separate incident that took place in Liberty Township. During the stop, Joy was found to be in possession of a pistol, despite the ongoing court case. Police also discovered a bottle of oxycodone pills with no prescription during the stop, reports state. Girard Municipal Court records show Joy appeared in court after his recent arrest, where he was sentenced to pay a fine for the charges under their jurisdiction. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com. Man injured when firework explodes in his hand in Polk County POLK COUNTY, Iowa A man was injured early Friday morning in rural Polk County after officials say a firework exploded in his hand. It happened shortly before 3:00 a.m. at a property in the 9000 block of SE 56th Avenue near Runnells, according to Captain Ryan Evans of the Polk County Sheriffs Office. The Runnells Fire Department and deputies with the PCSO responded. The injury was not life-threatening and Capt. Evans said the man was possibly missing part of a finger from the incident. No other details were released. Latest Metro 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 who13.com. Putnam County Sheriffs Office has identified a man found dead inside of a home following a shootout with SWAT Thursday night. He is Emmanel Lee Vestal, a sheriffs office news release states. >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< Deputies were called to the home on East Main Street in Pomona Park at around 5:30 p.m. for a report of a burglary. Neighbors reported seeing a man with no shirt and dark hair breaking into the residence, the news release states. The owner of the home told deputies that there was a firearm in the home. Neighbors reported hearing gunshots in the residence. Police said the burglar, later identified as Vestal, was given orders over a loudspeaker, but did not respond, the news release states. Vestal barricaded himself inside the home and SWAT was called in around 7 p.m. Officers shot gas into the home in an attempt to get the suspect to surrender. He didnt. SWAT members attempted to enter the residence at 9:28 p.m. and Vestal began shooting, the news release states. Deputies returned fire and Vestal was found dead inside the home. Vestal has had several incidents recently with law enforcement including a Baker Act stemming from a Sept. 16 911 call in which the caller stated Vestal was saying he had killed law enforcement officers and was planning to kill another officer, the news release states. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] Read: Highway sign falls on car, kills person in Tampa as Hurricane Helene moves toward land Deputies said the man fired shots at them. Deputies returned fire. When they went inside, they said they found the man dead. The Sheriffs Office said it would release more information on Friday. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the shooting. Read: All flights from JIA canceled [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. Man killed by police in Belle Plaine was suspect in 'random' killing of artist in St. Paul The suspect in the "random" killing of an artist in Lowertown St. Paul on Wednesday evening was fatally shot by police in Belle Plaine Thursday morning, authorities have confirmed. Holding a press release alongside Mayor Melvin Carter on Thursday afternoon, St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry confirmed that his officers shot the suspect at an address on the 100 block of Meridian Street in Belle Plaine at 6:30 a.m. Per an updated police statement, the male suspect allegedly came out of the home armed with a handgun, with two officers opening fire. The man was airlifted to Hennepin County Medical Center for treatment, where he later died. KARE 11 Officers had monitored the home overnight, having received information that the vehicle listed for the address is the same as the one that was seen leaving the scene of the shooting outside the Lowertown Lofts Artists Cooperative building on East Kellogg Boulevard. The artist, a woman, was working on a project outside the live/work complex when she was shot at around 5:18 p.m. Speaking Thursday, Henry said that the incident has shaken the community, and describes it as "one of the most atypical homicides that Ive seen." "The evidence we have is that this is not something that was derived by a conflict or a fight or anything like that or previous associations with one another, and it seems to be very much random," Henry said. He continued to say that details that will come out over the ensuing days show that the murder of the artist "has all kinds of hallmarks and flags ... that we as a state and as a country need to start taking more seriously." "We have rules and regulations both in the state and federal level that talk about ... who can have guns, that talk about the mental we need to have to possess firearms, or levels of intoxication. It's important that we recognize these flags, and that we make sure that people are in crisis ... that we take those things seriously." The investigation is being led by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, at the request of St. Paul PD. The officers involved have been placed on administrative leave. More details about the incident are expected to be released in the coming days. Betty White "played a crucial role" in Oakvale Farm and Fauna World's "endangered species breeding program" before her death Getty Chinese silk chicken stock image A beloved chicken named Betty White is dead after being tossed into an alligator enclosure by an Australian park guest. On Tuesday, Sept. 24, Peter Smith, who is in his late 50s, pleaded guilty in Raymond Terrace local court to one count of aggravated animal cruelty, the Australian Associated Press and Australia's ABC News reported. The incident happened in January 2024 at the Oakvale Farm and Fauna World at Salt Ash in New South Wales. Related: Man Charged in Alleged Kidnapping of Rare Lemur from San Francisco Zoo, Facing $50K in Fines and Prison Time Citing court documents, the Australian Associated Press (AAP) reported that Smith reached over a concrete rock wall within a sanctuary at the farm to grab Betty White, a white Chinese silkie bantam chicken, and then hid the animal inside his shirt. The outlet added that Smith then made his way to the alligator enclosure before tossing Betty White into a pond where the reptiles were held. Getty Alligator in the wild with mouth open stock image Two of the alligators immediately made their way towards the chook with one of them snapping the chook into its mouth, killing it immediately," court documents state, per the AAP. It was shocked guests who reportedly saw the incident and alerted staff members. After the parks owner, Leanne Sansom, found Smith on security footage and shared it with park employees, they were able to track him down and get an apology, the outlet said. Days after the incident, Smith went to the Singleton Police Station to give a formal statement. In it, he claimed he tossed Betty White with the intention of feeding the alligator due [to] its living conditions," the publication reported. Related: Ill. Woman Sentenced to Jail for Photographing and Approaching Grizzly Bear at Yellowstone National Park He said he was really disappointed in his behavior. According to the AAP, Smith's defense lawyer, Bryan Wrench, downplayed the severity of his clients actions, claiming Smith just wanted to feed an alligator who was hungry. Wrench added that approximately 750 million chickens are killed each year. However, on Tuesday, Magistrate Kirralee Perry told Wrench, These are serious allegations. Smith faces a maximum penalty for aggravated animal cruelty in New South Wales, which is two years imprisonment and a fine of $24,084. He will return to court for sentencing on Nov. 20. 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. This is the first time in our 43 years that we have had a member of the public [allegedly] engage in such cruelty in what is an animal sanctuary, Oakvale Farm owner Kent Sansom said in a statement, per the AAP. Betty White was hand-raised at the park and had played a crucial role in our endangered species breeding programme for the bush stone curlew and other species by providing surrogacy to the chicks, he continued. Her quiet nature means she would not hesitate to approach a customer for some animal pellets, making her an easy target for [an alleged] ruthless perpetrator. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. WARREN, Ohio (WKBN) A man who ran from police a day after a warrant was issued for his arrest and gathered more charges as a result appeared in court for both cases this week. Christian White pleaded guilty Thursday to the charge of obstructing official business. A charge of resisting arrest was dismissed. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail with credit for 10 days served. He will also serve two years of probation. The charges stem from a Sept. 17 incident where reports state White ran from police and later ate unknown pills before they could be seized by police during his arrest. As for the felony burglary warrant White was wanted on, he pleaded guilty to a lesser misdemeanor charge of aggravated trespass. Court records show he will be on probation for that charge. Further records show White was indicted earlier in the year on unrelated felony charges of failure to comply with the order or signal of a peace officer and possession of a fentanyl-related compound. He is set for a jury trial Oct. 7 on those 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 WKBN.com. KANSAS CITY, Mo. A Kansas City, Kansas man is sentenced in Wyandotte County for the stabbing death of his father and attacking another woman in July of 2023. John Eugene McGriff was sentenced Wednesday to nearly 14 years. He was sentenced to 10 years and three months for the second-degree murder charge and three years and seven months for the aggravated battery charge. Sentences are set to run consecutively. John Eugene McGriff According to court documents, KCK police officers responded to a stabbing on July 18, 2023, in the area of S. 36th Street and Metropolitan Avenue in the citys Argentine neighborhood. When officers arrived on scene they located a woman suffering from multiple stab wounds. She was taken to KU hospital for emergency treatment of life-threatening injuries. The victims mom stated that her daughter was volunteering at the food kitchen at the church around the corner as she does every Tuesday. She looked out the window and saw her daughter walking home on the sidewalk. She then saw a man walking towards the victim, covered in blood and carrying a large knife and screaming, according to court documents. The suspect did not say anything, he just screamed, court documents say. The victims mom called out to her to cross the street when the suspect was about 10 feet away. CSI investigating after unconscious man found near KCK railroad tracks Two officers located John McGriff in the area of S. 37th Street and Strong Avenue. Court documents say when the officers got out of their marked KCKPD vehicles, John McGriff was holding a six-inch double sided blade knife and started advancing on an officer. John McGriff was given repeated commands to stop and to drop the knife. Court documents say John McGriff was yelling and making stabbing motions with the knife and then ran towards one of the officers. The officer fired his weapon at the suspect in fear of his safety. John McGriff was struck by the officers weapon and fell to the ground. The knife was kicked away from him. He then stood up and tried to run until he fell to the ground again, according to court documents. He was taken to the hospital for emergency treatment. While on scene, officers were flagged down by the property manager of an apartment building, saying she had just found a man who appeared deceased. Court documents say officers responded to the apartment, where the door was open and Samuel McGriff, the father of John McGriff, was found lying face down on the ground with what appeared to be stab wounds to the head, torso and arms. Download the FOX4 News app on iPhone and Android The next day, detectives received a cellphone video of John McGriff wearing a scary clown mask walking around the area of the homicide during a rainstorm holding a knife. During a search of the scene the day before, Halloween style masks were photographed but not recovered. Court documents say at the time of the search, the information of John McGriff wearing the mask was not known. An additional search warrant was obtained and the mask was recovered. The video shows John McGriff walking on different streets during the rainstorm dressed in all black, wearing the clown mask. Court documents say there was no blood in John McGriffs room which would suggest he dropped the mask off before killing his father. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) A quiet neighborhood in Norfolk experienced a nightmare on Sept. 3 of last year when a man with a rifle went on a terrifying rampage. It was a night that turned Alden Heights into a scene of chaos and fear, as 28-year-old Daniel Joseph Ferguson Jr. roamed the streets with a fully-loaded AR-style rifle. By the time the night was over, he had pointed that weapon at multiple neighbors and fired a shot into a car. Ferguson was sentenced to more than eight years in prison Friday, pleading guilty to a series of acts, including hate crime assault and attempted malicious wounding. Justice was served, said Norfolk Commonwealths Attorney Ramin Fatehi. We had a dangerous individual who shot at somebody, tried to wound back. That in itself is enough for us to seek a felony and ask for prison, but this was a hate crime. It all began around 8 p.m. that September evening when Ferguson fired a round into the rear window of a mans vehicle, narrowly missing him as he drove to get ice cream for his kids. The bullet shattered glass, sending shards into the mans skin. Moments earlier, while on Boxwood Circle, Ferguson had rummaged through another neighbors truck that was parked in a driveway. The owner of the vehicle eventually noticed and attempted to confront Ferguson, but backed away once Ferguson began pointing his rifle towards him, police said. Shortly afterwards, in the most frightening encounter, Ferguson trespassed into the backyard of a Brazilian family who was holding an evening Bible study outside at the time. Ferguson then approached the family, pointed his rifle at them, threatened to kill them and said, get off my land. After the family ran back inside, Ferguson went around to the front of the home and tapped on the window with his rifle before leaving, police said. This is also a mental health story, Fatehi said. This man had an undiagnosed bipolar disorder, then he was self-medicating. Norfolk Police arrived to the scene after multiple neighbors called 911. While Ferguson was being taken into custody, he was heard saying racial epithets and asking the officers to let him go so he could hunt and kill those minority groups. This man said to the police, Lets go kill Blacks and Jews, Fatehi said. That is going to run up the sentence that we are going to see. On Aug. 7, Ferguson pleaded guilty to two counts of misdemeanor brandishing, misdemeanor hate crime assault, felony attempted malicious wounding and felony shooting into an occupied vehicle. As part of Fergusons plea, the Commonwealth agreed to not pursue a charge of using a firearm in attempting to commit malicious wounding. Daniel Ferguson Jr. FBI statistics show that hate crimes are going up in the United States, and reports of them are consistently up, so while we see the broader trends, todays case was about one victim and one defendant, Fatehi said. Fergusons defense attorney, Cole Roberts, said he is fairly confident Ferguson will become a upstanding member of society upon eventual release. Roberts referred back to Fergusons mental health decline and substance abuse that ultimately led to the crimes. With all due respect, I think the sentence was hard for Mr. Ferguson, Roberts said. The fact is that Mr. Ferguson shot one round, and on multiple occasions, he had the opportunity to shoot more than what he did. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. (COLORADO SPRINGS) A man is under arrest after the Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD) said he engaged surveillance detectives in an aggressive conversation while driving a stolen car. According to CSPD, on Wednesday, Sept. 25, the Motor Vehicle Theft Unit located a white 2023 Nissan Rogue that was reported stolen earlier on Wednesday. The car was found in the 2800 block of Half Turn Road, near the intersection of North Academy Boulevard and Austin Bluffs Parkway. CSPD said the suspect, identified as 35-year-old Ernesto Aragon Quintana, pulled up to one of the surveillance detectives and engaged the detective in an aggressive conversation. As the conversation was happening, CSPD said the Tactical Enforcement Unit arrived and blocked Quintanas car in. CSPD said Quintana tried to get out of the block but failed. Quintana then ran from the car but was later caught by tactical officers. Courtesy: Colorado Springs Police Department CSPD said Quintana was found in possession of a loaded handgun and felony-level narcotics. He has been booked into the Criminal Justice Center on multiple felony 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 FOX21 News Colorado. Rawson was sentenced to three months' imprisonment at Lincoln Crown Court [Geograph/Joanne Davies] A man spat at, threatened, and tried to kick paramedics and ambulance workers who were trying to help him. James Rawson was put in the back of an ambulance following a single-vehicle crash on Grimsby Road in Louth last July. Lincoln Crown Court heard the 56-year-old was initially found unconscious in the road and became aggressive after receiving medical treatment. Rawson, of King Street, Rotherham, pleaded guilty to four charges of assaulting an emergency worker and a separate bail offence, and was sentenced to three months in prison. 'I'll have you' Prosecutor David Eager said Rawson spat at a trainee paramedic and kicked out at a female paramedic and an ambulance technician while being taken to hospital on 10 July 2023. Mr Eager said he also clenched his fist at a male paramedic and made threats such as "I'll have you" and "I've killed six people, you'll be the seventh". In a victim impact statement, a senior paramedic described it as one of the worst incidents in his 11-year career. The trainee paramedic said it was the most aggressive incident during her first year of training, while the ambulance technician said they did "not come to work to be assaulted". 'Ashamed' The court heard Rawson had been due to be sentenced on 12 September but failed to surrender to his bail after arriving at court drunk. He was eventually remanded into custody on 18 September. The court heard Rawson had a long history of previous convictions, including assaulting an emergency worker in 2021. Tom Heath, mitigating, said: "Clearly these are horrible offences on public servants who were only doing their jobs and trying to help him. "He is rightly ashamed of his behaviour." Passing sentence, Judge Catarina Sjolin Knight said it was clear there had been a psychological impact on the paramedics. Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here. Related internet links A homeowner in south London has complained after Transport for London (TfL) erected a toilet for bus drivers outside his house. Brett Kemp, who is trying to sell the property, said the temporary lavatory was putting off potential buyers. TfL said it was an "interim measure" and it was working with Croydon Council to find an alternative location for a permanent facility. But Mr Kemp said it should never have been placed so close to his home. Mr Kemp is unimpressed by the bus driver lavatory outside his home [BBC] The toilet was originally in a more temporary-looking structure, Mr Kemp said, with the door opening on the side facing his house, which is at the end of a route in Purley. The current shed has been placed so the entrance is now on the far side. Mr Kemp acknowledged the importance of facilities for bus drivers but suggested the toilet could be placed further away from the residential area and school opposite. A turning circle a little further down the road would be more suitable, Mr Kemp suggested, but rules about green-belt land could make it difficult. Mr Kemp can see the lavatory from his first-floor window [BBC] A spokesperson for TfL said: Its really important that bus drivers are able to access toilet facilities while working and these play a vital role in enabling everyone to travel safely. "We are always mindful of local residents when we install these facilities and choose locations near the end of a bus route that are most appropriate, taking into account the need for access to pavements to be maintained. "This is a temporary facility installed as an interim measure while a permanent location can be identified and TfL is currently working with Croydon Council to investigate the possibility of moving the temporary facility or building a permanent facility at a different nearby location. Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk As many forests fail to recover from wildfires, replanting efforts face huge odds -- and obstacles Marin Chambers, left, takes notes while Maddie Wilson provides observations Tuesday, June 11, 2024, in Bellvue, Colo, at a reforestation test plot at the 2020 Cameron Peak Fire burn area. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson) BELLVUE, Colo. (AP) Camille Stevens-Rumann crouched in the dirt and leaned over evergreen seedlings, measuring how much each had grown in seven months. "That's two to three inches of growth on the spruce, said Stevens-Rumann, interim director at the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute. Her research team is monitoring several species planted two years ago on a slope burned during the devastating 2020 Cameron Peak fire, which charred 326 square miles (844 square kilometers) in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. They want to determine which species are likely to survive at various elevations, because climate change makes it difficult or impossible for many forests to regrow even decades after wildfires. As the gap between burned areas and replanting widens year after year, scientists see big challenges beyond where to put seedlings. The U.S. currently lacks the ability to collect enough seeds from living trees and the nursery capacity to grow seedlings for replanting on a scale anywhere close to stemming accelerating losses, researchers say. It also doesnt have enough trained workers to plant and monitor trees. The Forest Service said the biggest roadblock to replanting on public land is completing environmental and cultural assessments and preparing severely burned areas so they're safe to plant. That can take years while more forests are lost to fire. If we have the seedlings but we dont have the sites prepped ... we cant put the seedlings out there, said Stephanie Miller, assistant director of a reforestation program. Scientists, private industry and environmental agencies are acutely aware of the challenges as they consider how to restore forested landscapes in an increasingly arid region. We need to start being creative if we want trees on our landscapes, Stevens-Rumann said. Were in a place of such drastic climate change that we are not talking about whether or not some of these places will be a different kind of forest, but whether or not they will be forests at all. Reforestation gap Four years after the Cameron Peak fire the largest in recorded Colorado history a smattering of wild raspberry bushes and seedlings has taken root. But the mountainside mostly is dotted with charred trees. In burn scars across the West and Southwest, areas of forests may never grow back on their own. Larger and more intense fires destroy trees that normally provide seeds for regeneration or leave burn scars so large trees can't naturally bridge the gap. The climate also has changed so markedly that many forests cant regrow in the same places. Even when seedlings take hold, drought and new fires often kill them. Nineteen of the 20 largest wildfires ever recorded in the contiguous U.S. have occurred in Western states since 2000, according to Sean Parks, a Forest Service research ecologist. That's when the region slipped into an ongoing megadrought. The U.S. once was able to reliably replant burned forests. But now the gap between areas in the West that need replanting after fire and the ability to do so has grown to at least 3.8 million acres (1.5 million hectares) and that could triple by 2050, said Solomon Z. Dobrowski, a University of Montana forest management expert and a study lead author. Forests are burning more often and especially intense and hot, which can destroy seeds that normally survive fire, harden the ground like concrete and leave barren slopes susceptible to washing away in rainstorms, polluting waterways. In 22 years since the Hayman fire on Colorados front range burned 182 square miles (471 square kilometers) of forest, there has been almost no tree regeneration in the most severely burned areas, researchers and the Forest Service said. In California's Sierra Nevada, where up to 20% of the world's mature giant sequoias and their seeds have been killed by fire in recent years, there are massive openings without seedlings. A U.S. Geological Survey study concluded some groves will never recover without replanting. But researchers say the odds of forests growing back will worsen regardless of fire intensity because of more heat and drought. That means burned forest could convert to shrubland and grassland, leading to loss of snowpack that provides drinking water and helps irrigate crops. Over 70% of our water in the western U.S. comes from our forested ecosystems and our mountains, Stevens-Rumann said. And for that water to come the way we want it ... at the right time throughout the year, we need to have forests, not just grasslands. Targeted tree planting When forest ecologist Matthew Hurteau joined the University of New Mexico nine years ago, he took in the aftermath of the 2011 Las Conchas fire that decimated a huge swath of Ponderosa pine forest. Though the area had been replanted several times, most seedlings died, Hurteau said. While the average survival in the Southwest is about 25%, he said only about 13% of trees planted most recently in the Los Conchas burn scar have survived. So he planted seedlings of different species at various elevations and on slopes facing different directions, then monitored the soil moisture, temperature and humidity. A resulting computer model can predict the probability a seedling will survive in a particular spot with about 63% accuracy. It will be used to inform planting this fall. Let's not do the old plant-and-pray method, said Hurteau. Let's plant where we know that their chance of survival is quite high, and in places where the chance ... is quite low, lets just forego planting there. Researchers say seedling survival is worst at lower elevations, where its hotter, drier and more open so replanting the same trees in the same areas is likely to fail. They're experimenting with planting near surviving trees that might provide shade for seedlings and aid water uptake and with planting in clusters that leave gaps in the landscape. Some are even asking whether different species should replace trees wiped out by fire. Environmental groups working on private land burned by the Cameron Peak fire are replanting Ponderosa pines 500 feet (152 meters) higher because of climate change and near fallen trees that can provide shade, said Megan Maiolo-Heath, spokeswoman for the Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed. So far, 84% of trees planted last year remain alive, though long-term survival is uncertain. Any work in the environmental world at this point can feel daunting and overwhelming, Maiolo-Heath said. So I think just taking small bites ... and trying not to get too overwhelmed is the way to go about it. Forest Service rules generally require planting the same species at the same elevations as before a fire, but it's increasingly clear the agency will need to be flexible moving forward, said Jason Sieg, acting supervisor of the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests & Pawnee National Grassland. Relying on research data, Sieg said, We'll be able to plan a strategy around how we set this landscape up for the greatest chance of success ... long term. For now, that might mean replanting at different elevations or collecting seeds from another location. Eventually, researchers say it could require the controversial option of planting trees not found in an area originally. Additional research and caution are necessary, researchers and the Forest Service said. But more people are warming up to the idea. I've seen people go from saying, Absolutely, we cannot move trees around to, Well, lets maybe lets try it at least, and do a few experiments to see if this will work, said Stevens-Rumann, the Colorado scientist. Restoration challenges Four years ago, researchers and New Mexico's state forester wrote a reforestation plan for the state, where 4,500 square miles (11,655 square kilometers) of forest were charred between 2011 and 2021, leaving up to 2.6 million acres (1.5 million hectares) in need of replanting. That was before the 2022 Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak Fire the most destructive in state history burned another 534 square miles (1,383 square kilometers). They soon discovered a big problem. We realized that we were never going to have enough seedlings to meet the objectives, said Hurteau, the University of New Mexico researcher. The number of Forest Service nurseries once financed by deposits on timber sales dropped from 14 to six in the 1990s as timber harvests declined and habitat protections were enacted, according to a Forest Service report on the nurseries' history. Most Western seedling production is private and occurs in Oregon, California and Washington, Dobrowski said. In places like New Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, we dont really have a base of facilities to support widespread reforestation, the researcher said. Were (asking) Whats going to fill the gap? In New Mexico, several universities and the state's forestry division started the New Mexico Reforestation Center with a goal of building a nursery that can produce 5 million seedlings per year for government, tribal and private lands. The first seedlings will be planted this year. But experts say much more nursery capacity, seed collection and trained workers are needed to make even modest progress in closing the reforestation gap. And they say public and private sector cooperation will be essential. Theres all these bottlenecks," Hurteau said. "Weve just underinvested in reforestation for decades in the U.S. Theres a lot of investment in human capital thats going to have to happen." Seed collection, for example, requires the right weather and is expensive and labor-intensive. It takes a few years for a typical Western conifer to develop cones. Then contractors must harvest them, typically by climbing trees. Growing, planting and monitoring seedlings amid more frequent droughts adds to the uncertainty, time and money. The Forest Service said its biggest challenge is simply that the number of intense wildfires is outpacing the ability to prepare sites for replanting. But the agency is also modernizing nurseries and seeking ways to either expand internal capacity or work with private industry, states and groups like the New Mexico Reforestation Center. This is an all-hands-on effort, said Miller, from the reforestation program. Researchers say the challenges complicate a Biden administration goal to plant a billion trees over 10 years in national forests, where it identified a nearly 4 million-acre (1.6 million-hectare) backlog. But money provided for reforestation in the 2021 infrastructure bill enabled the agency to clear 15% of the backlog, Miller said. If we can get more site preparation done, that would be excellent so that we can move forward a little bit faster. Experts say there clearly will be areas where trees never return but it's critical that the U.S. does as much possible in a thoughtful way. Trees live for hundreds of years so we need to be thinking about whats right as we plant trees today," Hurteau said. Are we putting the right species and densities on the landscape given what the next 100, 200 and 300 years will look like? ___ AP data reporter Mary Katherine Wildeman contributed to this story from Hartford, Connecticut. Webber reported from Fenton, Michigan, and Fassett from San Francisco. ___ The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. For some Modesto children, the free meal available at their school could be their only nutritious meal of the day. In 2021, around 84% of Modesto City Elementary students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, while in its high school district, 64% qualified. In addition, around 17% of students live in food-insecure households in Stanislaus County three points higher than the state average of 14%. Under the U.S. Department of Agricultures Community Eligibility Provision, all students in Modesto City Schools can receive free breakfast and lunch during the school year without needing meal applications or household income verification, according to the district. Michelle Lee, policy advocate at Nourish California, said around one in six students in California are food insecure, so schools providing free lunches help address those gaps. Food insecurity is defined as unknown or limited access to safe and nutritious food. Despite the fact that most of our state and nations food is produced in the Central Valley, many children and their parents, who are often the farmworkers and agricultural workers that grow and harvest our food, are food-insecure and go hungry, Lee said. She said school meals have been shown to improve academic performance and prevent kids from getting sick frequently. A child is eligible for free school meals if the annual income of their family is $40,560 or less with a household of four, the household receives benefits like EBT or cash assistance, if the child is in foster care, is identified as homeless or the child of migrant workers or if the child participates in a Head Start program. A child is eligible for reduced-price meals if annual income is $57,720 or less with a household of four. In the 2023-24 school year, the highest number of students meeting the criteria for free breakfast and lunch attended Orville Wright Elementary (97% of students), Robinson Road Elementary (94%) of students and Tuolumne Elementary (94%). For high schools, the highest number of students meeting the criteria attended Elliott Alternative (79% of students), Modesto High School (75%) and Johansen (74%). Lee said there are things schools can do to help improve access to school meals. She hopes schools across the state will implement a universal free meal program regardless of family income level. Lee also hopes districts will consider increasing the time students have to eat, having a snack program for students who cant make it to breakfast, and summer meal programs so students can have access to meals when sessions are out for summer break. The CDC recommends that kids have at least 20 minutes to get their food and then sit down and eat, but sometimes it takes kids an amount of time like 20 minutes to just wait in line to get their food, she said. Modesto City Schools has offered a summer break meal program for several years. The free lunches have been delivered to about 1,300 students from the end of May to the end of July. Operating since 1995, MCS summer lunch program is funded through the USDAs Summer Food Service Program. The department created the program to ensure children 18 and younger can access meals during school vacations lasting 15 or more consecutive days. Marjorie Taylor Greene melts down over House Speaker: I dont think Republicans deserve to be re-elected Marjorie Taylor Greene has launched a furious tirade at House Speaker Mike Johnson after he pushed through legislation to avoid a government shutdown, accusing him of being a Speaker for the Democrats. Johnson defied Donald Trump on Wednesday by letting the House of Representatives vote to approve a spending bill to keep the government funded until December, even though it included no provisions to tighten elections. Trump had previously called on House Republicans not to agree to a continuing resolution without the Save Act, which claimed it would prevent illegal immigrants from voting. This is even though US law already prohibits such a practice in federal elections. In response, Taylor Greene said Republicans did not deserve to control the House. Mike Johnson is not our Speaker, she said. He is the Speaker for the Democrats, she told Steve Bannons War Room podcast. I share the anger and frustration, and I dont think Republicans deserve to be re-elected to hold the majority," the Georgia representative added. The Georgia representative said Johnson was a Speaker for the Democrats (Getty Images) The House voted 341-82 to pass the continuing resolution, which will fund the government at levels set in the fiscal year 2024 budget, through December 20. In her rant, Taylor Greene said one of Johnsons failures was greenlighting government funding for the Department of Justice. And [Johnson] has delivered that through his actions of fully funding the Biden-Harris administration, fully funding the weaponized DOJ, fully funding the FBI that had agents and was involved in January 6th and raided Mar-a-Lago and has raided a lot of January 6th defendant homes, she said. Taylor Greene, who often peddles conspiracy theories and is a fervent Trump supporter, added: We have to elect president Trump in order to control the federal government, in order to take back all of these huge agencies and departments and set the course right. Trump wrote on Truth Social last week: If Republicans dont get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form. Mike Johnson defied Trump for letting the House vote (AP) The former president has not yet responded to the news. Some conservatives and members of the House Freedom Caucus expressed frustration at the fact that House Republican leadership gave up. And I realize hes got a tough job, but the countrys in tough shape, financially, militarily in every way, Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina told The Independent. So I will wish he had fought harder, but it is what it is. However, Tom Cole, chair for House Appropriations, told The Independent that including the Save Act was not feasible and a government shutdown would be worse. My personal opinion is, we were not likely to be able to get that and the government shutdown was not going to be helpful to president Trump, let alone to our efforts to hold on to the House, he said. Mark Robinson Says He's 'Backed Away' From Trump So He Doesn't Drag Him Down In N.C. WASHINGTON GOP gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson says he has backed away from former President Donald Trump so the North Carolina Republicans porn site scandal doesnt drag Trump down politically in the state ahead of the November election. In a Wednesday interview with conservative radio host and former Trump administration official Sebastian Gorka, Robinson, whose campaign has been falling apart after a CNN report unearthed disturbing comments he apparently made on a porn site forum, said hes facing a lot of fire and doesnt want to be a liability for Trump. So we have backed away from the president to give him his space to run his race, while we have space to run our race, said Robinson, who is currently the states lieutenant governor. We have chosen to pull ourselves back from President Trump. Heres a video clip of Robinson on Gorkas show, which was first flagged by Media Matters for America, a progressive media monitoring group. North Carolina is a key swing state for winning the presidency. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Trump remain incredibly close there, per polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight. And theres certainly fear among North Carolina Republicans that Robinson could hurt all of their chances. Here is Mark Robinson speaking ahead of Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Greensboro, N.C. in March. via Associated Press State and national GOP officials have been scrambling to distance themselves from Robinson after last weeks bombshell report, which laid out evidence of him identifying as a Black Nazi, supporting slavery, describing being sexually aroused by spying on girls in public showers, and calling himself a perv who likes porn with transgender people in it a sharp contrast to his public transphobic rhetoric calling for trans women to be arrested for using womens bathrooms. Since the story came out, Robinsons campaign and government staff have resigned en masse, the Republican Governors Association has pulled ad funding for his campaign and local GOP officials have been deleting photos and canceling events that link them to him. Robinson has called the report false lies and vowed to sue CNN, but to date, he hasnt been able to refute the evidence presented in the story. Hes also suggested that maybe those comments really were his. Hilariously, Trump, who has been a strong ally of Robinsons for years, and vice versa, has been pretending not to know anything about the North Carolina Republicans very public porn site scandal. Asked about it Thursday by a reporter, Trump said only, I dont know the situation. Robinson suggested otherwise in his Wednesday interview: Weve spoken to him, had great conversations with him, he told Gorka. But we have chosen to [distance ourselves] because we want to make sure that he wins this state. Trump may try to ignore Robinson now, but the reality is the two have a long and public record of sharing stages and heaping praise on each other. In fact, the North Carolina Republicans entire political career has been modeled after Trumps. Robinson and Trump have shared a stage at least half a dozen times over the past few years. Here they are in April 2022 at a rally in Selma, North Carolina. Allison Joyce via Getty Images Trump previously hailed Robinson, who has a long record of making sexist, racist, Islamophobic and otherwise disgusting comments, as Martin Luther King on steroids. Hes featured Robinson in a campaign ad. Hes described Robinson as a star, outstanding and someone who is going to go down as one of the great leaders in our country. At a September 2022 campaign event, Trump called Robinson one of the hottest politicians in the United States of America and a friend of mine. Trump also gave the North Carolina Republican his speaking slot at the 2024 RNC convention, where Robinson called Trump the Braveheart of our time. Mark Zuckerberg faces deposition in AI copyright lawsuit from Sarah Silverman and other authors Mark Zuckerberg talks about the Orion AR glasses during the Meta Connect conference Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, in Menlo Park, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vasquez) SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be deposed as part of a lawsuit brought by authors including comedian Sarah Silverman accusing the company of copyright infringement to train its artificial intelligence technology. U.S. District Judge Thomas Hixson rejected Metas bid to bar the deposition of Zuckerberg in a decision Tuesday, saying there is sufficient evidence to show he is the principal decision maker for the company's AI platforms. Meta had argued that Zuckerberg doesnt have unique knowledge of the companys AI operations and that the same information could be obtained from depositions with other employees. The authors have submitted evidence of his specific involvement in the companys AI initiatives, as well as his direct supervision of Metas AI products, Hixson wrote in a Tuesday ruling. The class action lawsuit was filed last year in California federal court. The authors accuse Meta of illegally downloading digital copies of their books and using them without consent or compensation to train its AI platforms. Also this week, prominent attorney David Boies joined the case on behalf of Silverman and the group of other plaintiffs that includes writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Boies is best known for representing Al Gore in the 2000 disputed election against George W. Bush. The case against Meta is one of a set of similar lawsuits in San Francisco and New York against other AI chatbot developers including Anthropic, Microsoft and ChatGPT maker OpenAI. Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in Florida after 11 p.m. Thursday, is expected to bring rain and strong winds to the Baltimore area Friday afternoon. [Get the latest weathercast from FOX45 News] The storm will impact Maryland as it heads to the Tennessee Valley on Friday afternoon, said Kyle Pallozzi, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Showers and thunderstorms are expected over the weekend and into the week. The center of the storm will be pretty far away, but there will be an impact, especially to the south and west of us, Pallozzi said Thursday night, with winds up to 25 mph. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns that the storms wind field extends as far as 275 miles from its center, and that large swaths of the southeast from Tallahassee, Florida, to Atlanta to Western North Carolina were at risk of major flooding. At least 21 people across four states were killed by the storm by Friday afternoon after the system made landfall in Florida on Thursday night as a Category 4 hurricane. The damage extended hundreds of miles to the north, including flooding in North Carolina. The storm was expected to weaken as it approaches Tennessee and Kentucky, where there is still a risk of mudslides and flash flooding. A coastal flood advisory for Anne Arundel County shoreline, which has been in effect all week, has been extended until Saturday morning. Pallozzi said the hurricane did not cause the flooding around the Chesapeake Bay but will reinforce the winds causing it. Rain is expected to start Friday afternoon in Baltimore at around 4 p.m., with less than a tenth of an inch of precipitation possible in the afternoon and wind gusts as high as 22 mph. Between a quarter and half of an inch more of rain is expected overnight, along with wind gusts of about 20 mph. Saturdays forecast calls for a high around 82 with scattered showers and thunderstorms expected throughout the day. Sunday is expected to have a high around 75 with a 50% chance of rain. Temperatures on Sunday night, when the Ravens host the Buffalo Bills at M&T Bank Stadium, are predicted to be in the low 60s with a 50% chance of rain. Rain is still in the forecast for Monday and Tuesday next week with highs in the low to mid-70s. Wednesday and Thursday will be sunny with highs around 72, the weather service said. Mass. woman accused of leading high-end sex ring that catered to prominent clients to plead guilty A woman accused of leading a commercial sex ring in Massachusetts and Virginia that authorities said catered to wealthy and well-connected clientele is expected to plead guilty in federal court on Friday. Han Hana Lee, 41, of Cambridge intends to enter a guilty plea as to the charges lodged against her, according to a court filing on Aug. 29. Her plea hearing is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Friday in the John Joseph Moakley Federal Courthouse in South Boston. One of Han Lees alleged top assistants, Junmyung Lee, 31, of Dedham, is also expected to plead guilty in the case during a hearing set for Oct. 30, according to court documents. He filed a motion for a change of plea earlier this month. A third person, James Lee, 69, of California, continues to plead not guilty in the brothel case. A pretrial conference for James Lee is set for Oct. 29. Meanwhile, lawyers of several alleged clients of the interstate brothel network have argued that their clients names should not be released during show cause hearings surrounding the case. Authorities in November arrested Han Lee, Junmyung Lee, and James Lee, who are all accused of running a sophisticated commercial sex network in Watertown, Cambridge, and in Virginia, where buyers paid up to $600 per hour for a wide array of advertised sex acts. All three were indicted by a federal grand jury on one count of conspiracy to persuade, induce, entice, and coerce one or more individuals to travel in interstate or foreign commerce to engage in prostitution; and one count of money laundering conspiracy. They were arrested in November. News of plea discussions in the high-profile brothel case broke in June. The parties have engaged in plea discussions, U.S. Magistrate Judge David Hennessy wrote in a report filed June 10 in U.S. District Court in Boston. All three defendants were arraigned in person on Feb. 6. Since then, Hennessy earlier wrote, federal prosecutors produced discovery on March 5 and May 30, 2024 that is described as voluminous and intends to produce further discovery, such as forensic searches of some electronic devices not already completed, as such discovery becomes available. A trial of all three defendants would require up to 10 days, wrote Hennessy. Attorneys for the alleged sex ring clients, only identified as John Doe #1-17 to date in court documents, have pushed to keep the court hearings private. Elected officials, doctors, lawyers, professors, accountants, and military officers were reportedly among a group of high-end clients who paid for the illegal sex services at various locations in the Bay State and in Virginia. A Cambridge police detective on Dec. 18, 2023 filed applications for criminal complaint against 28 people for sexual conduct with another person for a fee. No names on the client list will be released until probable cause has been found, officials have said. It was unclear Thursday when, or if, public court hearings would be held. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW LOWER MANHATTAN, Manhattan (PIX11) Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty to federal charges Friday afternoon in a Lower Manhattan courthouse. Adams, who was not handcuffed and remained seated for the proceedings, told the judge he read the entire indictment. Im not guilty, your honor, he said. He was released without bail. The judge set certain conditions to his bail, including people who he can and cannot contact related to the indictment. Adams faces bribery, conspiracy, wire fraud and two counts of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national. He was fingerprinted, booked, and background checked following the unsealing of five federal charges. The former Brooklyn borough president is accused of accepting $100,000 worth of lavish gifts from foreign donors, including free business-class airline tickets, upgraded hotel suites, and millions in foreign campaign contributions. If convicted on all charges, Adams could face as many as 45 years in prison but the embattled mayors high profile lawyer assures Adams is innocent. More Local News Following the arraignment, Adams attorney, Alex Spiro, spoke outside the courthouse, announcing that they would file a motion to dismiss the case next week. The entire body of evidence is one staffer, one staffer that says there was a conversation, Spiro said. What you have not learned is that that staffer has lied. Adams did not speak before his vehicle drove away from the courthouse. He is due back in court on Wednesday. Dominique Jack is a digital content producer from Brooklyn with more than five years of experience covering news. She joined PIX11 in 2024. More of her work can be found 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. ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) St. Petersburg Mayor Kenneth T. Welch gives updates on the damages assessed due to Hurricane Helene. The City of St. Petersburg has begun its recovery process by deploying teams to inspect damages and see repair damages. Surveying damage from Hurricane Helene in Tampa Bay A total of 70 residents have been rescued, and 750 residents are currently at a shelter in St. Petersburg, according to Welch. St. Petersburg turned off the power at the Northeast Sewer Treatment Plant to protect the sewer plant. To resume as normal for the power plant will take 48 hours, according to Welch. Residents are asked not to drain water because it may flush, but it could cause sewage problems. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) on Thursday warned that if Democrats follow through on Vice President Harriss pledge to eliminate the filibuster to codify abortion protections, it would turn America into California by unleashing a flood of liberal reforms. He said Democrats would expand the Supreme Court once they eliminated the 60-vote threshold for passing legislation through the Senate, noting liberals strong antipathy for the court, which now has a 6-3 conservative majority. So it would fundamentally, in my view, turn America to California, he told Politicos Playbook in an interview. And I think that is a major structural change to the country, he warned. McConnell accused Democratic reformers such as Harris, the partys presidential nominee, and progressive senators who want to reform the filibuster of wanting to destroy the fundamental nature of the chamber to achieve their policy ends. What they want to do is break the institution in order to achieve what they want to achieve, McConnell told Politico. McConnell, speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday, noted Harris previously said she would favor eliminating the filibuster to pass the sweeping Green New Deal to transition the United States to a clean-energy economy. And he pointed out that Democrats tried to create an exception to the filibuster to pass voting rights reform in January 2022. Her willingness to shatter the institution of the Senate is not unique. Nearly every single one of our Democratic colleagues was willing to do it two years ago, and they would have succeeded had two members of their own caucus not stood in the breach, he said on the floor. The vice presidents latest comments are not novel, but they are shocking, no less so than the votes our colleagues cast her on Jan. 19, 2022, he said. Theres nothing normal or rational about blowing up the dam holding back simple majority rule. And the fact that a major political party has welcomed this shortsighted radicalism into the mainstream will be their eternal shame, he added. McConnell in his interview with Politico knocked down the idea that Democrats could carve out exceptions to the filibuster to pass voting rights and abortion rights legislation but maintain the 60-vote threshold for other policy areas. Theres no way you can have a minor carve-out, he said. Because then youll come up with the next idea thats more important than the rule then, practically, its over, he said. Democrats now control a 51-to-49-seat Senate majority, but political handicappers say Republicans are more likely to control the upper chamber in 2025 because they are favored to win the seats now held by retiring Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Sen. Jon Tester (D) in Republican-leaning Montana. Some Democrats have also raised concerns about carving out a major exception to the filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade, the 1973 law that established a right to abortion. We should approach it very carefully because what goes around comes around. Thats one of the few permanent rules of the United States Senate, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who was elected to the Senate in 1997, told The Hill this week. The veteran lawmaker said he supports passing legislation to establish a national right to abortion but urged trying to persuade Republican colleagues to vote for such a measure before changing the filibuster rule. I think it would be good to have a national abortion [law] to protect the reproductive freedom of women, and I think we should try to get it, but I dont think the first procedure would be to change the rules of the Senate, Reed told The Hill. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump says he will negotiate a Ukraine-Russia deal 'that's good for both sides' Meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump says he will negotiate a Ukraine-Russia deal 'that's good for both sides' Meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy for the first time in five years, former President Donald Trump Friday complained about his 2019 impeachment and said if re-elected, he would work to end the Russia-Ukraine war with a deal thats good for both sides." "Were going to work very much with both parties to try and get this settled and get it worked out," Trump said, standing next to Zelenskyy while speaking to a small group of reporters ahead of their closed-door meeting. "It has to end. At some point, it has to end. Hes gone through hell. His country has gone through hell." Trump said the two leaders "have a very good relationship, and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin." Zelenskyy added that he hoped they would continue to have a good relationship. "It takes two to tango, and we will," Trump responded. After their meeting, Trump told Fox News that he had not changed his position on the war. "We both want to see this end, we both want to see a fair deal made," he said. Trump said that the war is a "complicated puzzle" and when asked what a fair deal would entail, he said it's "too early to say that." In his comments before the meeting began, the former president ranted about his 2019 impeachment as a consequence of the now-infamous phone call he had with Zelenskyy in July of that year. During the July phone call, Trump asked Zelenskyy about opening an investigation into President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Various officials, including the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, Bill Taylor, said that Trump held up aid to Ukraine over his demands to have its government investigate the Bidens. "It was a hoax, just a Democrat hoax, which we won," Trump said of the impeachment effort, with Zelenskyy standing by his side Friday. Trump has long denied wrongdoing and was acquitted in his Senate trial. He claimed that Zelenskyy said that Trump did nothing wrong during their phone call, saying that the Ukrainian president "said it loud and clear and the impeachment hoax died right there." He praised Zelenskyy for being "like a piece of steel." Speaking briefly, Zelenskyy said he believes he and Trump have a common view that Ukraine has to prevail against Russia and acknowledged the importance of the U.S. election. "We understand that after November ... we hope that the strength of the United States will be very strong," he said. Hours later, one of Trump's top surrogates, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., speaking at a Trump rally in Walker, Michigan, argued against further aiding Ukraine. Kennedy suggested that NATO provoked Russia's invasion of Ukraine and argued that the U.S. should no longer be helping Zelenskyy and his people. "Dont you think we could use that money over here, in this country?" Kennedy said, drawing heavy applause. Kennedy praised Trump's handling of his meeting with Zelenskyy and said, "I know what Donald Trump was thinking while he was having that meeting. He was thinking, I want to turn this guy over and hold him by his legs and shake all the money out of his pockets and hope it adds up to $208 billion ... Thats what the Democrats gave him, and we need to bring that money home." It was the first time Trump and Zelenskyy had met in person since Trump's impeachment. They last met in person when Trump was president, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in Sept. 2019. The two last spoke by phone in July when the Ukrainian leader congratulated the former president on his GOP nomination for the presidency and condemned the assassination attempt on Trump earlier that month. Their meeting comes amid concerns about the future of Ukraine and its defense against Russian aggression and how the outcome of the U.S. election will greatly impact the war's fate, and amid disagreements in Congress about whether to continue providing aid to Ukraine. Trump has conveyed that his approach toward the conflict would differ greatly from that of his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump previously suggested that he may not support continuing to arm and provide assistance to Ukraine, backing off years of U.S. policy. Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has also made clear he opposes offering ongoing funding. Friday's meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump almost didn't happen after backlash over comments the Ukrainian president made to The New Yorker that Vance is "too radical." In that same interview, Zelenskyy also expressed doubt that Trump knows how to address Ukraine's conflict with Russia. "My feeling is that Trump doesnt really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how," said Zelenskyy, adding later, "The idea that the world should end this war at Ukraines expense is unacceptable. Trump has expressed confidence that he could end the war, but he has never provided specifics on how he would go about it and has equivocated in his support of Ukraine, which has received substantial funding from the U.S. since Russia's Feb. 2022 invasion. Asked Thursday at a press conference whether he would encourage Ukraine to give up land in exchange for a peace agreement, Trump deflected and said the war would have never happened if he had been elected president in 2020. Those who are discussing how Ukraine should compromise or negotiate territory with Putin to end the war, should put themselves in our place, Ukraines Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin, said on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports." They need first to ask Ukrainian victims and survivors of this war what they think about such compromises, he said. At a campaign event in Georgia on Tuesday, Trump said, "Every time Zelenskyy comes to the United States, he walks away with $100 billion. I think hes the greatest salesman on Earth. But were stuck in that war unless Im president. Ill get it done. Ill get it negotiated." Earlier this year, the former president seemed open to an idea floated by some GOP senators: a loan to Ukraine in exchange for Ukrainian rare earth minerals. And if the 2024 election yields another divided Congress, it could still be difficult to pass additional aid as many Republicans have been critical of previous packages. On Thursday, Zelenskyy met at the White House with President Joe Biden in the Oval Office during which Biden announced a new aid package to Ukraine. Zelenskyy also met at the White House with Harris who expressed her unwavering support to helping Ukraine win the war. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com LONGMEADOW, Mass. (WWLP) The Chabad Womens Circle of Greater Springfield creates a safe space for women to connect and now they are coming together to bake a new year tradition, bringing hope into this new season. The Paramount Theater has been sold to an unidentified buyer Its a difficult time for the Jewish people as we are about to mark one year anniversary of the terrible assault in Israel on October 7th, shared Esther Kosofsky, Co-Director of Chabad Womens Circle. Each year Rosh Hashanah gathers family and friends. With the help of the Chabad Womens Circle of Greater Springfield, women are getting ready for the new year celebration. An opportunity for women to get together, have fun with each other, learn a little bit something about the holiday they might have not known, and make a challah for the holiday together. shared Esther Kosofsky, Co-Director of Chabad Womens Circle. Women support women, making challah bread as they reflect on all that has happened this year, not only in their community but worldwide. We never ever had a policeman at the door of a synagogue, at the door of a school, at the door of a Jewish delicatessen on the way home from school, said Fran Grosnick. Some are thankful for the opportunity to have a space to come together as the Israel-Hamas war nears its one-year mark on October 7th, with many keeping loved ones in prayer this Rosh Hashanah. Many have connections in Israel, my sisters there, Im from Israel, I have grandchildren there and everybody has a connection, shared Fran Grosnick. As the U.S. and other allies encourage Israel to reach a cease-fire as the war intensifies, the women at the Mega Challah Bake are thankful for their support system during this painful time in their lives. Local News Headlines WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.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 WWLP. Raleigh voters will pick a new mayor and City Council members this November. All eight council seats, including the mayors, are up for grabs, with all the incumbents except for current Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin seeking another two-year term. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5. Early voting runs from Thursday, Oct. 17, through Saturday, Nov. 2. To help inform voters across the state, this candidate questionnaire is available to be republished by local publications in North Carolina without any cost. Please consider subscribing to The News & Observer to help make this coverage possible. Name: Megan Patton District/seat: Raleigh City Council, District B Political party: Not stated in nonpartisan race Age as of Nov. 5, 2024: 36 Campaign website: pattonforraleigh.com Current occupation: Customer service associate Education: BA of Education, UNC-Chapel Hill Offices Held/Sought: Incumbent District B City Council member Please list any notable government or civic involvement. During my first term, I was able to: restore Citizens Advisory Councils (CACs), fund development of the Alternate Crisis Response Unit and improve pay for city workers and workers whose pay is regulated by the city, pass a clean transportation ordinance, secure funding for a master plan for a park in the district, add Wi-Fi in all fire stations and Initiate a Fire Master Plan to ensure adequate coverage and response times as our city grows. Which city council district do you live in? B What is the top issue facing Raleigh now and how would you address it? The top issues facing Raleigh remain affordable housing and climate action. Plain and simple: every decision we make on the City Council must ensure that Raleigh remains a place where everyone can thrive no matter their income now and for generations to come. Climate change isnt just a future threat, its happening right now. The choices we make today will directly shape the world our children inherit. Raleighs Community Climate Action Plan sets an ambitious goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, but we need to move faster. In my first term, I was proud to support meaningful climate initiatives. On the Growth and Natural Resources Committee, we adopted principles from the Green Growth Toolbox, which bans invasive species and increases the use of native trees. We also launched a citizen tree-planning task force, and I backed legislation requiring EV-ready parking, limiting new drive-thrus, and expanding pedestrian infrastructure. If re-elected, I will continue to champion innovative projects like poo-powered buses that convert wastewater into natural gas for public transit (no, they dont smell!). Ill also explore policies to combat urban heat islands and fight to speed up the Northern Bus Rapid Transit line. Climate action cant wait, and neither can we. What is your strategy for increasing affordable housing in Raleigh? Housing is a human right and its a foundation of healthy communities. Raleigh is projected to grow to 600,000 people over the next decade, requiring housing expansion to meet the needs of new and existing residents across the income spectrum. I think about this work in three words: supply, subsidy and stabilization. Throughout the past term, Ive worked hard to have affordable units come through rezoning conditions and incentives in the city code. Weve also funded millions of dollars worth of designated affordable projects from senior rental housing to ownership opportunities to housing for youth aging out of foster care. Well see roughly 1,000 new affordable units for the New Bern corridor in the next five years, and Im eager to get our new Direct Voucher program into the hands of our most vulnerable neighbors. Our next frontier is eviction prevention. We know that the most humane and cheapest way to end homelessness is to prevent it in the first place. I remain committed to fighting for land acquisitions to build affordable housing, continued investment in homebuyer assistance, and evolutions of voucher programs that help folks successfully find and remain in rental units. We deserve a Raleigh where nobody is burdened by the cost of their housing, and I will continue to fight for the tools to help us get there. Should the city be more aggressive about requiring affordable units from developers or partner with nonprofits? We should absolutely do both! We need to be aggressive in requesting affordable units during rezonings, incentivizing them in by-right development and partnering with nonprofits to meet our housing goals. If we want more affordable units and we want them all across the city, private developers have a part to play in that. At the same time, nonprofits like Habitat for Humanity have a proven track record of building meaningful local relationships and reaching the most vulnerable folks in our community. If were serious about making Raleigh affordable for everyone, we need to use every tool in the toolbox. Do you think Raleigh can support concert venues both downtown and in Dix Park? The Red Had Amphitheater and Dix Park remain two of Raleighs greatest assets when it comes to generating income across our city for small businesses and the hospitality industry alike and bring local, national, and global acts that make our city a more fun place to live! Regarding the proposed amphitheater at Dix Park, its important to clarify that, while its mentioned in the master plan, its not yet programmed, funded, or scheduled. From its proposal, this venue would serve a different purpose than the Red Hat Amphitheater, catering to events like theater in the park, summer movies, etc. Red Hat, on the other hand, would continue to primarily be for touring concerts and similar events. Given our citys growth and the participation weve seen in concerts at Red Hat, events in Dix Park, and city-wide festivals like Hopscotch, I think its safe to say that Raleigh could support two different venues especially with two different purposes. Would you describe Raleighs growth as too fast, too slow or just right? I hear and understand the concerns of folks who feel that Raleigh is growing too fast. Rapid growth like were seeing across our city can lead to challenges like rising housing costs, increased traffic, and strain on our infrastructure if not managed properly. Since being elected to City Council, Ive focused on sustainable development. I continue to prioritize smart investment in infrastructure, affordable housing and public transportation to keep Raleigh livable (and accessible) for everyone as our city continues to expand. On the other hand, Raleighs growth has also brought good jobs, exciting events, and widespread camaraderie. Our city regularly makes Top 10 Best Places to Live in the US lists and Im proud to live in a place that so many people admire. Raleigh is great, and we should celebrate that! At the end of the day, Im committed to ensuring that growth benefits all residents while preserving our sense of community and vibrant, historic neighborhoods as we move forward. Do you think Raleigh is losing too many historic properties? If so, how should this be addressed? Preserving Raleighs beloved landmarks has become too difficult. Iconic places like Char-Grill and Seaboard Station are pillars of our citys identity. Yet, without official historic designation, these landmarks remain vulnerable to redevelopment pressures. We need to simplify the historic designation process and provide support to property owners seeking that status. By doing this, we can genuinely preserve the cultural treasures that make Raleigh special. We also have to recognize, though, that neighborhoods evolve. I support NCODs and the public process used to create them; while also acknowledging that the priorities of residents shift over time. One generation may care deeply about the pitch of roofs, while the next is more focused on setbacks or other aspects of a neighborhoods character. I would love to see a process that re-engages residents on their NCODs on a regular schedule (say every 10 years) to ensure the attributes of the NCOD continue to reflect the desires of the neighborhood. With proper medication management, accused Indian Creek serial killer Frederick Scott could be eligible for an early evaluation of his mental and behavioral fitness to stand trial, a Missouri Department of Mental Health attorney said Thursday. Scott, 29, has been accused in the killings of Steven Gibbons, 57; John Palmer, 54; David Lenox, 67; Timothy S. Rice, 57; Mike Darby, 61; and Karen Harmeyer, 64. The killings took place between 2016 and Scotts arrest in August 2017. Harmeyer was killed in Grandview, while the rest of the fatal shootings took place along the Indian Creek Trail. All of the victims were shot without warning, some outside of their own homes. Jackson County Judge Charles McKenzie remanded Scott to a state behavioral health program on July 31 after an outburst by Scott during a hearing. Trial proceedings have been on hold since then as the court awaits the results of Scotts behavioral health evaluation. The results of the evaluation will factor heavily into a future status hearing determining whether Scott is eligible to stand trial for the six alleged murders. A status ruling had been the intended result of the July hearing before Scotts outburst. Thursdays status hearing centered mostly on questions from both sides as to whether Department of Mental Health evaluators were following court recommendations around Scotts treatment. Attorneys for both Scott and the state have previously said that Jackson County Detention Center employees have not paid adequate attention to Scotts treatment plan. Both sides and their corresponding forensic experts have also advocated for Scott to be transferred to Fulton State Hospital, Missouris primary public mental health facility. Scott is currently on a waiting list for transfer to Fulton, Vincenzo Vinnie Iuppa, Assistant General Counsel for the Missouri Department of Mental Health, said Thursday. However, Iuppa said, it is unlikely that Scott will be moved up the list unless he faces serious medication management issues or stops cooperating with visiting health evaluators. By contrast, Iuppa said that Scott could now be evaluated early if he continues taking his current medications with no issues. A Jackson County prosecutor previously said that Scott would not be eligible for evaluation until January, effectively freezing court proceedings until 2025. It is certainly something that is at the forefront for his mobile team, where if they believe that he is at the point where he is competent they will refer him for an early evaluation, Iuppa said. At Thursdays meeting, a public defender representing Scott questioned whether the delay in moving him to Fulton went against prior recommendations filed to the court by UMKC psychiatrist Dr. James Reynolds, previously the medical director at the Northwest Missouri Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center. The public defender also noted that Scotts medications are generally supposed to be taken with food, but are instead administered at night, several hours after his last meal. The joint request of the parties report strongly recommends that Mr. Scott be detained in a secure forensic hospital facility during this period, the public defender said, as Scott watched via video conference from the Jackson County Detention Center. He is still in jail. In response, Iuppa said Reynolds notes were outdated in comparison to Scotts most recent behavioral health intake, which adheres to the same standards of care as at Fulton. As of now, he is relatively stable, Iuppa said, Hes not showing any behavioral issues. Hes adherent to medications. Hes prescribed the medications the Fulton State Hospital would be prescribing him. Scotts first meeting with state behavioral health staff was previously derailed by video conference issues. An evaluator met with Scott in person on September 18 with no issues, Iuppa said, though future meetings will be moved later in the afternoon to accommodate Scotts difficulties with waking up early. Future check-in meetings will be scheduled every three weeks until Scott is determined to be stable enough for his formal evaluation, Iuppa said. Two Jackson County judges previously issued contradictory rulings on whether or not Scott was mentally fit to stand trial. After the rulings were issued in July and October 2021, intended trial dates for Scott were canceled in 2022 and again in 2023. While legal proceedings are on hold, Scotts case has been sealed from public view. Scott and his attorneys, along with attorneys for the state of Missouri and the Department of Mental Health will next appear in Jackson County court on November 4 at 4:30 p.m. Behavioral health evaluators are expected to visit Scott twice more before then, Iuppa said. Previous reporting by The Stars Robert A. Cronkleton was used in this article. The lead European Union privacy regulator for Meta hit the tech giant with a fine worth more than $100 million Thursday for failing to properly store some users passwords. The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) said Meta was fined 91 million euros, equal to nearly $106 million, following a years-long investigation. Meta informed the commission in 2019 it inadvertently stored certain passwords of its platforms users in plaintext, or without protection or encryption, according to the DPC. The passwords were not available to external parties, the DPC said. It is widely accepted that user passwords should not be stored in plaintext, considering the risks of abuse that arise from persons accessing such data, DPC Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said in a statement. The Irish watchdog handed down the fine as Metas lead privacy regulator in the European Union since the tech companys headquarters is based in Dublin. Meta, in a statement to The Hill, said a security review found a subset of Facebook users passwords were temporarily logged in a readable format. The tech giant said it immediately acted to fix the error in 2019 and no evidence suggests the passwords were abused or accessed improperly. A Meta spokesperson added the company engaged constructively with the DCP throughout the probe. This is just the latest fine to hit Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. In 2022, the Dublin-based watchdog fined the company the equivalent of about 405 million euros or $402 million at the time for violating data protection laws, specifically related to childrens privacy on Instagram. Last year, the EU slapped Meta with a $1.3 billion privacy fine and ordered the platform to stop transferring users information across the Atlantic. Earlier last year, Metas chat app, WhatsApp, was ordered to pay 5.5 million euros ($5.9 million) for forcing users to permit their personal data to be used to provide service improvements and security. Updated at 3:57 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 The Hill. Regulators found Meta Platforms Ireland Limited failed to properly encrypt and store passwords of the tech giants users, levying a $101.7 million fine. File Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Ireland's Data Protection Commission on Friday fined Meta more than $100 million for privacy law violations related to failing to properly encrypt and store passwords of the tech giant's users. The DPC found Meta Platforms Ireland Limited violated four parts of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR in levying the $101.7 million fine. Regulators found Meta "did not use appropriate technical or organizational measures to ensure appropriate security of users' passwords against unauthorized processing," among other violations. Meta was also cited for three other violations related to improperly storing users' passwords. An investigation into the allegations first started in 2019 after Meta self-reported a possible issue. EU legislation requires companies to report potential privacy breaches as soon as they become aware of them. An investigation into the allegations first started in 2019 after Meta self-reported a possible issue, with. EU legislation requiring companies to report potential privacy breaches as soon as they become aware of them. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI "It is widely accepted that user passwords should not be stored in plaintext, considering the risks of abuse that arise from persons accessing such data," DPC Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said in the statement. "It must be borne in mind that the passwords, the subject of consideration in this case, are particularly sensitive, as they would enable access to users' social media accounts." The GDPR was first adopted in 2016, coming into law in 2018 and is considered some of the strongest privacy legislation in the world. The commission's power stems from the legislation and its responsibilities extend to upholding the individuals' rights to have their personal data protected. Officials said Meta was first informed of the decision Thursday. The commission will publish a comprehensive version of its decision in the future. This is not the first time Irish regulators have fined the social media giant. In May of 2023, the DPC fined Meta $1.3 billion for privacy violations and ordered the U.S. tech giant to stop transferring user data across the Atlantic. In January of that year, the commission levied a pair of fines against Meta totaling about $414 million for violating GDPR rules. FILE - In this May 16, 2012, file photo, the Facebook logo is displayed on a mobile device in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) LONDON (AP) Meta was punished Friday with a fine worth more than $100 million from the social media giant's European Union privacy regulator over a security lapse involving passwords for Facebook users. The Irish Data Protection Commission said it slapped the U.S. tech company with the 91 million euro ($101.6 million) penalty following an investigation. The watchdog started investigating in 2019 after it was notified by Meta that some passwords had been inadvertently stored internally in plain text, which means they weren't encrypted and it was possible for employees to search for them. Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said it's widely accepted that user passwords should not be stored in plain text, "considering the risks of abuse. Meta said a security review found that a subset of Facebook users' passwords were temporarily logged in a readable format. We took immediate action to fix this error, and there is no evidence that these passwords were abused or accessed improperly, the company said in a statement. "We proactively flagged this issue to our lead regulator, the Irish Data Protection Commission, and have engaged constructively with them throughout this inquiry. It's the latest in a series of hefty fines for Meta and its social media platforms from the Dublin-based watchdog, which is the company's lead regulator under the 27-nation EU's stringent data privacy rulebook. They include a 405 million euro fine for Instagram over mishandling teen data, a 5.5 million euro penalty involving WhatsApp and a 1.2 billion euro fine for Meta over transatlantic data transfers. FOX Weather meteorologist Bob Van Dillen said it was hard not to act as they waited for the fire department to arrive. FOX Weather FOX Weather meteorologist Bob Van Dillen was covering Hurricane Helenes early morning arrival in Atlanta Friday when a woman drove her car into the floodwaters behind him. Cameras were rolling as the woman began screaming for help live on FOX & Friends. The crew called 911 immediately, but the veteran meteorologist appeared to become increasingly concerned for her as her car filled with water. Unwilling to wait any longer, Van Dillen cut from the live shot to take matters into his own hands. When the feed returned after a short break, audiences watched as he pulled the woman out of her car and carried her to safety. Van Dillen joined FOX & Friends afterwards to discuss the rescue. She was panicking, he recalled. She really wasn't making too much sense and she was still strapped into her seat. She still had the seat buckle on. Van Dillen said he wasnt able to open the driver door due to the water pressure, so he advised her to roll her window down. Doing that brought more water into the car but allowed him to open the door. It's up to my chest and there's a little bit of a current, but she was a short lady too, he said. So she was probably about five feet. There's no way she was going to be able to touch [the ground]. I just put her on my back and brought her up, Van Dillen, who stands above six feet, continued. But you can see how high the water is, you guys. I mean, that's a street sign right here. It goes down pretty quickly. I didn't realize how deep it was. You kind of tiptoe in there and I've got my boots, but wow. When the hosts asked about his decision to rescue her himself, Van Dillen said it was hard not to. 911 is justthey have so many calls, he explained. They're going to take a long time to get here and the fire department finally did get here, but it was about 15 minutes later. So she was panicking. The water was coming up. It was getting cold for her obviously. So it wasit wasit was a situation developing... Van Dillen was humble as they praised his bravery, insisting that anyone in his shoes would have done the same thing. "Her husband picked her up, and she's all good," he said, pivoting. "But the story now turns not on me, but it turns to how much flooding we've seen. I mean amazing amounts coming in." Helene made landfall as a dangerous Category 4 storm at about 11:10 p.m. ET Thursday near Perry, Florida. It was a Category 1 hurricane as it moved into Georgia hours later, bringing with it catastrophic flooding. At least 13 deaths across the Southeast have been reported as a result of the storm at the time of publication and nearly 4 million people are without power. For more Southern Living news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on Southern Living. Metro sues KIA and Hyundai over lack of reasonable anti-theft technology NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) A lawsuit filed by the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County claimed that more than 1,700 Hyundai and KIA vehicle thefts were reported in 2023 alone. The lawsuit alleges that Hyundais and KIAs accounted for nearly 33 percent of all car thefts that year. The surge was blamed on alleged defects in particular models. Lawyers claimed that the companies intentionally ignored industry-standard practices in the name of profit. Read the full lawsuit here After Tik-Tok videos with instructions on how to steal some KIA and Hyundai models went viral last year, some Middle Tennesseans paid the price. The suit is one of a growing list of those suing KIA and Hyundai over what they call anti-theft defects in certain model year vehicles. Two car manufacturers made a business decision not to equip the vehicles they sell with reasonable anti-theft technology, leaving counties and cities across the nation to deal with massive public safety consequences, the suit reads, in part. The filing also states that, as a result, the city and county has been forced to divert funds and risk officer and public safety to combat the thefts. Hyundai and KIA dealers across the country now offer anti-theft software and ignition cylinder protector installations for owners. Vehicle burglaries cause havoc in Bellevue In response to the lawsuit, Hyundai Motor America sent News 2 a statement that reads: Our customers remain our top priority and we continue to take comprehensive actions to assist customers and communities affected by the persistent thefts of certain Model Year 2011-2022 vehicles that, while fully compliant with federal anti-theft requirements, were not equipped with push-button ignitions and engine immobilizers. Chief among these measures is the development and validation of a no-cost software upgrade for the owners of these vehicles to prevent the theft mode popularized on social media. For eligible vehicles that cannot accommodate the software upgrade, we now install ignition cylinder protectors at no cost to our customers. All Hyundai vehicles produced since November 2021 are equipped with an engine immobilizer as standard equipment. Hyundai has provided no-cost anti-theft solutions to more than 1.4 million affected vehicles and created a dedicated website (www.hyundaiantitheft.com) to support customers with information and resources. Hyundai continues to work with over 1,200 police departments, providing thousands of no-cost steering wheel locks for distribution and connecting law enforcement agencies with local dealers in their area who perform the software upgrade. Our dealers across the country are maximizing the number of anti-theft software and ignition cylinder protector installations that can be performed daily, contributing to steadily increasing completion rates. Hyundai has also collaborated with AAA insurers on a program to offer insurance options for affected owners and lessees. As part of this collaboration, AAA insurers will issue new and renewal policies for eligible affected Hyundai customers. The program will be available in all states except those where AAA does not offer insurance. (e.g., Alaska, Massachusetts, Washington). Have breaking news come to you: Subscribe to News 2 email alerts Kia USA sent the following statement: Kia continues to take comprehensive action to enhance the security of our vehicles in an effort to prevent criminals from using methods of theft popularized on social media to break the law and steal or attempt to steal certain vehicle models. Were continuing to strongly encourage eligible customers to receive the software upgrade that we developed and rolled out more than 20 months ago that is designed to restrict the operation of the vehicles ignition system should a potential criminal attempt to steal a locked vehicle without the key. To date, more than 1.2 million Kia vehicles nationwide have received the upgrade, and we continue to spread awareness about its availability by establishing a dedicated website with detailed information, hosting off-site events in multiple cities to make it easier for eligible customers to receive the upgrade, and partnering with Carfax to inform owners that their vehicle is eligible for the upgrade. We also continue to provide steering wheel locks to owners of impacted vehicles that are not eligible for the software upgrade at no cost to them. These free steering wheel locks further enhance a vehicles security and can serve as a theft-deterrent for potential car thieves. Kia customers can obtain free, Kia-provided locks through their local law enforcement or they can request a steering wheel lock from Kia directly through the dedicated website. To date, we have distributed more than 226,000 locks, and we will continue to provide them as they are needed. We also have developed and introduced a new hardware modification that is designed for the vehicles that are not eligible for the software upgrade that works to combat theft by reinforcing the ignition cylinder body and preventing its removal through the method of theft promoted in videos that have spread across social media encouraging criminal activity. As we have said from the outset, lawsuits filed by municipalities against Kia are without merit and should be dismissed. Like all Kia vehicles, the specific models at issue in this case are subject to and comply fully with the requirements outlined in applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, including FMVSS 114 that governs theft protection measures. Additionally, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has publicly stated that it has not determined that this issue constitutes either a safety defect or non-compliance requiring a recall under the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. Kia will continue to work with law enforcement agencies and officials in Tennessee and across the country to combat car theft and the role social media has played in encouraging it, and we remain fully committed to supporting our customers. Read todays top stories on wkrn.com News 2 also reached out to lawyers for the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County for comment on the lawsuit, but as of publication, have not heard back yet. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. New Mexico court system in need of interpreters NEW MEXICO (KRQE) The New Mexico court system is in need of interpreters. They are looking for people who are bilingual in any two languagesnot just Spanish. In the last year, the court provided interpreters for 50 different languages in the state, with the top five most requested interpreter services being Spanish, Navajo, ASL, Arabic, and Vietnamese. Story continues below The court system is also offering scholarships to their Justice System Interpreter Program, which will train interpreters and get them through official qualifications. To learn more or apply, contact Freda Valdez at aocfev@nmcourts.gov. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) A Springfield family will soon have a brand new home thanks to volunteers with Habitat for Humanity. On Friday, employees from MGM Springfield were sawing, hammering, and more to help construct the three-bedroom home in the North End. MGM Springfields president and CEO, Louis Theros, told 22News theyre happy to be doing a little bit of everything to help. Final weekend of The Big Es record-breaking run Were adding some siding here, were cutting some support beams across for the attic to put some mechanical, said Theros. Theyre doing just cleaning, theyre caulking windows from the inside to make sure theyre sealed to meet all Massachusetts building codes. Since 1987 Habitat for Humanity has built or repaired nearly 130 homes in the Springfield area. Local News Headlines WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.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 WWLP. Haitis armed gangs are once more on the attack, this time turning their focus to piracy and taking the violence to the countrys high seas and main seaport. On Thursday, a crane operator in Port-au-Prince was shot twice, reportedly by a sniper, with a round through his chest, barely missing vital organs, a source familiar with the incident confirmed to the Miami Herald. The worker, a foreign national who lives in Haiti, was sitting in the vehicle at the time. He was taken to a local hospital where he underwent surgery and is expected to recover. The latest shooting is part of a string of attacks on cargo ships calling on the port. The incident occurred just as the crane was preparing to start unloading containers from a chartered cargo ship operated by Miami-based Antillean Marine Shipping Corporation, three sources said. The ship, docked at the governments National Port Authority, was the first one to berth since Sept. 10, when gangs kidnapped two crew workers from the MV Progreso, a container ship chartered by Crowley Maritime. The abduction occurred in the early morning while the ship, which had arrived from Miami, was anchored in the Gulf of Gonave just off Port-au-Prince. The crew members, Filipino nationals, are still being held for ransom. A representative for Crowley, which doesnt own the ship or crew, declined to comment, while a spokesman for the Haiti National Police did not return a call for comment. READ MORE: Top Democrats ask Biden for resources against arms trafficking from Florida to Haiti Soon after Thursdays shooting, operator Caribbean Port Services announced that it was cutting off land access to the main seaport between Friday and Sunday so that the Haitian police and army could restore security in the area and resume delivery operations under better conditions. The company, which announced the decision in a note to its customers, said the decision was made due to various incidents in the port area that have paralyzed ship activities. This is the second time that someone at the port, which is guarded by Haitian army soldiers, has gotten shot, agents say. In another incident earlier this month, a security guard was also hit with a bullet. Its a real mess, said a Haiti-based shipping agent who asked for anonymity to speak about candidly about the crisis, which is triggering worries from Port-au-Prince to Miami to Washington. Shipping lines putting new Haiti bookings on hold Following the attacks, maritime lines, including those in South Florida, have canceled or paused shipping into the capital. Some have opted for rerouting cargo, offloading containers in Kingston, Jamaica, until they can be shipped to Haiti or transporting them to the Dominican Republic. This flow of cargo into the Dominican Republic, said the agent, has been visibly increasing and arriving in Haiti unchecked across the land border shared by both countries because of the lack of customs at some border checkpoints due to gangs control of key roads. Haitis port operators warned the government of the possibility of gang attacks in a meeting on Aug. 28. Still, many are struggling to understand the objective of the shootings, which so far are only targeting the government port, not private ones. The Port-au-Prince government port accounts for 80% of the commercial cargo flowing into Haiti, which is heavily dependent on imports. Its customs receipts have been increasing since Haiti began cracking down on tax dodgers two years ago and fired a controversial customs director, Romel Bell. Gangs have blocked access in and out of the facilities from the main road, while charging hefty fees for trucks to pass with cargo. But now, after carriers have continued to do business with the country, the latest security breach could lead shipping lines to take their business elsewhere. Whats at stake is that the ships leave the Port-au-Prince port, said the shipping line agent, or they just leave Haiti, period. The agent noted that given the distance involved in Thursdays incident, it would appear that the crane operator was hit by a snipers bullet. Until this guy is apprehended, I dont see yet how we have vessels in operation, he said. Haitis powerful gangs control more than 85% of Port-au-Prince and parts of the Artibonite region. Even in regions where they do not have a large presence, they control the roads in and out of the capital and are expanding territory each day. In recent days, security forces had achieved a small victory: Merchants and traffic returned to once deserted streets in the capital. However, hours after the port shooting on Thursday, the headquarters of Haitis small army, located across the from the Champ de Mars, the sprawling public square facing the presidential palace, came under gang attack. Millions of dollars in cargo Prior to Thursdays attack at the port, gangs had fired out into the Port-au-Prince bay as ships were approaching. Rather than risk the lives of crew members, operators turned around and left without unloading. According to a report shared with the Miami Herald, following the Sept. 10 kidnapping at sea, at least five vessels were forced to depart Port-au-Prince without unloading cargo, resulting in an estimated loss of $3.4 million in missed customs duties. They were transporting $49 million in cargo, according to data from CargoFax. The report does not include the latest incident, which occurred around 11 a.m. Thursday just as the head of the countrys nine-member Transitional Presidential Council, Edgard Leblanc Fils, was preparing to take the podium at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Antillean Marine Shipping Corporation, which is based at the Miami River, did not return a call from the Herald seeking comment. Another shipping company said it has taken a wait-and-see mode before making any decisions. Haitis main seaports and two airports were closed for nearly three months earlier this year when a coalition of powerful gangs launched coordinated attacks across the capital, releasing thousands of prisoners from the countrys two largest prisons and forcing the resignation of the prime minister. Gangs also attacked police stations and raided the government port where thousands of containers filled with medicines, groceries and humanitarian aid were stuck. Everybody is on pause; nobody wants to take bookings for Haiti now, said Jean-Bernard Dupoux, who represents several shipping lines in Haiti. Nobody wants their containers to sit down with a full load not knowing when they are going to be delivered in Haiti. The impact is that some manufacturers, such as a local businessman who produces hot peppers, has been unable to get his raw materials now for two weeks. Another, a toy manufacturer, is looking at being late for the fourth time this year with shipping out his product to his U.S.-based client. This is a drop in the bucket of whats going on in the economy, said Dupoux. Soon supermarkets and a lot of places are going to run out of products; whats happening has a huge impact on the economy. In response to the attacks, Prime Minister Garry Conille deployed members of the police, Haitian army and the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission. The forces have been destroying buildings where gangs can hide. We have mobilized to provide a response in the bay of Port-au-Prince and on the periphery, Jocelin Villier, the director of the National Port Authority, said on Thursday, about two hours before the shooting incident. The Port-au-Prince port, the largest in the country, cant be permitted to shut down for even a second, he said during an interview on Magik 9 radio station. Following the initial attacks, he said, all of the shipping lines have been asking for a clear guarantee by the government that security in the bay has been increased. If there are no measures taken for us to increase the security in the bay of Port-au-Prince it can result in the marine lines deciding not to send any boats to Haiti, he said. The underfunded and ill-equipped Kenya-led mission, which has been a large part of the focus during this weeks U.N. General Assembly meeting, doesnt have any maritime capabilities. Foreign troops are supposed to be assisting with securing the port, but for now there are only 23 Jamaican soldiers and police and two members of Belizes military in Haiti. Brian Nichols, the assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, told the Herald on Thursday that the sporadic attacks around the seaport and the extortion gangs carry out on containers going in and out of the ports were raised by Haitian officials this week as issues of deep concern. The Bahamas, one of the Caribbean nations that has pledged to send troops to Haiti, has offered to help with maritime operations, Nichols added, but said it remains unclear when that will happen. LANSING Mich. (WLNS) As lawmakers work to finalize the states budget, which is due soon, Michigan organizations are trying to get more funding for their causes. The result was not what the Michigan Education Justice Coalition wanted to see. The executive director of the group, Molly Sweeney, said they handed out petitions Wednesday morning, ahead of the lawmakers meeting, in the hopes the conference committee would approve $300 million towards mental health in the 2025 state budgetwhich did not happen. Our schools need to help our students, and they need more staff and resources to do it, Sweeney said. (WLNS) Although the MEJCs goal wasnt met, the conference committee did vote to increase funding for mental health and safety to around $150 millionbut sources tell 6 News that, in the last budget, $300 million was allotted to mental health and safety. Lawmakers explained that in previous years there has been federal money to help fund education, but those funds have dried up. State Rep. Nancy DeBoer said despite that, it is still not an area to cut corners. This means that the schools will only install half the door locks or half the security cameras that they might otherwise. It means only half of the students who need mental health support might receive them. This isnt good enough, DeBoer said. All of this happened in a meeting with members of both the Senate and House. MEJC member Rachelle Crow-Hercher commented on the states efforts to at least increase the budget from around $25 million to around $150 million. Our state is doing the best that they can with the education fund dollars that we have at this point in time, Crow-Hercher said. The MEJC said this is just one area in education that is underfunded. Overall, theyre looking to fill what they say is a $4.5 billion gap in funding for schools. We have more work to do and I think they know it, Sweeney said. Even though they didnt exactly get what they wanted they vow to keep fighting. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) Michigan rescuers including two from Grand Rapids are responding to North Carolina as Tropical Storm Helene moves across the Southeast, bringing heavy rain and strong winds. Facing flash floods and landslides, North Carolina asked for out-of-state help, according to a release from the Michigan State Police. In response, the MSP Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division deployed Michigan Task Force 1s Type I Swiftwater Team on Thursday. Rescuers race to free people trapped by Hurricane Helene after storm kills at least 35 in 4 states The 19-member team, which includes responders from 10 Michigan fire departments, was expected to arrive late Friday afternoon, according to state police. Two of its members are from Grand Rapids, a spokesperson for MSP told News 8. The team can conduct water rescues, respond to trapped residents and drivers and help rescue animals. We anticipate dangerous conditions but stand ready to assist when other states are in need of help, said Capt. Kevin Sweeney, deputy state director of Emergency Management and commander of the MSP/EMHSD, in a statement. We are proud of Michigan Task Force 1 and the reputation it has built as a live-saving resource. The state of North Carolina made a direct request for this specific team. We wish them a safe and successful mission. The rescue team plans to be in North Carolina through Oct. 4. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. WALKER, Mich. Former President Donald Trump returned to west Michigan on Friday, telling a crowd of supporters he plans to slash corporate tax rates for companies making products in the U.S. while raising tariffs on products namely cars manufactured in foreign countries. During his more than hour-long remarks to a crowd of supporters at a manufacturing plant just outside Grand Rapids, Trump said he would reduce the federal corporate tax rate to 15%, down from 21% currently, for any manufacturer so long as they build their products within the U.S. He also said he would institute a 100%-200% tariff on cars made in Mexico. Currently, many automakers build cars in Mexico due to lower labor costs. Production costs are also lower due to incentives instituted in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement negotiated during Trumps presidency. More: Watch replay: Former President Donald Trump to speak in Walker If you dont make your product here, you will have to pay a tax or tariff when you send your product into the United States ... and (we'll) use that money to benefit the American citizen, Trump said. Former President Trump speaks at his rally in Walker on Friday, Sept. 27 at the FALK Production. The rally, held at metal-panel manufacturer FALK Productions in the Grand Rapids-suburb of Walker, was Trumps first scheduled stop in Michigan on Friday. Following the event, he was scheduled to hold a town hall at Macomb Community College in Warren. Michigan is one of a handful of states considered key to determining the outcome of the presidential election between Trump and the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris. Opinion polls currently show a narrow margin in the battleground state, with the RealClearPolling average currently showing Harris holding a lead of 1.8 percentage points in Michigan. Speaking in front of a backdrop that read jobs, jobs, jobs, Trump pitched supporters on returning Michigan, and the U.S., to manufacturing prominence. We will be the most competitive in the world, he said, adding Michigans manufacturing sector will be "hotter than it ever was in its heyday. During Trumps first term in the White House, manufacturing jobs grew slightly before falling at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to figures made available by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The figures show manufacturing jobs rebounding in 2021 and 2022, the first two years of President Joe Bidens tenure, before plateauing. Trump argued Harris policies would harm the manufacturing industry in Michigan. The Biden administration has called on automakers to produce more electric vehicles to combat rising greenhouse gas emissions, something Trump derided as a mandate. The electric car has a great place, but (its) not for everybody, Trump said. He argued it didn't make sense for the U.S. to compete with China in producing electric vehicles, saying China is richer in minerals needed to make batteries to power the cars. Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has suspended his campaign to support Trump, also spoke at the rally. Democrats, earlier in the day, pushed back on Trumps claims that he would be a better president for manufacturers. During a virtual press call, U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, pointed to announcements of new manufacturing projects in Michigan. The Biden administration has announced billions in federal funding to manufacturers, including hundreds of millions to electric vehicle battery manufacturers in Michigan last week. We know that Trump is full of broken promises, and if Trump is in the White House again, our workers, our manufacturers, will pay the price, Stabenow said. Trump also continued to criticize Harris record at the U.S. southern border with Mexico, blaming her for rising migrant crossings there this year. Trump, throughout his campaign, has made the border and immigration a focus of his remarks, repeatedly painting migrants as violent criminals. He said Harris should resign in disgrace for the state of the southern border. In a departure from his stance during his 2020 reelection campaign, Trump encouraged his supporters to cast their votes through absentee ballots, which are now available in Michigan. However, he continued to say there wasnt a legitimate way for him to lose the election to Harris, telling supporters They cheat, thats the only way were going to lose. If you have your ballot, return it as soon as possible, Trump said as he concluded his remarks. Contact Arpan Lobo: alobo@freepress.com 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: Trump calls for slashing corporate taxes during Michigan stop When Category 4 Helene moved over the North Florida coast Thursday night with gusts up to 160 mph, it became the third hurricane to make landfall in the rural and sparsely populated Taylor County in just 13 months. Its the damndest thing, said Joy Towles Ezell, born and raised in Taylor County and now a resident of Athena, in Taylor County. These hurricanes come up the side of coast the same way and come in at the exact same spot." Obliterating parts of small coastal communities such as Dekle Beach, Keaton Beach and Steinhatchee, Helene plunged the region into darkness and further misery. The centers of each hurricane Helene, Idalia in August 2023 and Debby in August 2024 crossed the coast within about 23 miles, according to the National Hurricane Center coordinates. But the calm eye, or center of the storm, isnt what causes the incredible damage reports that surfaced on Friday. Steinhatchee: Helene leaves behind 'overwhelming' destruction in one small Florida town The worst of everything a hurricane carries its highest winds, most intense low pressure and highest storm surge are to the right, in the eyewall, the part of the hurricane wrapped around the calm center. Hurricane Helene about to make landfall off the Florida coast near 11 p.m. on Sept. 26, 2024 as one of the strongest hurricanes ever to make landfall in Florida. Many in the region are storm weary. They've suffered more hurricanes in recent years than all the rest of Florida's long coastline put together. Catastrophic winds, surf and rain have pummeled Taylor County and a swath of the coast to the south, stretching past Dixie County and into Levy County. Taylor, with a population fewer than 22,000 and a median household income of $46,000, has been hardest hit. Ezell evacuated for both Idalia and Helene, fleeing northward with friends to the home of another friend in Tallahassee, Floridas capital, about 75 miles northwest of the worst of Helene's damage. Tallahassee had geared up for a restoration effort that would have included 2,000 personnel, including mutual-aid crews from nine states and contract workers. She kept getting damage reports from her friends all morning on Friday. My house is still standing, which is incredible, she said. Its an old place. Shed been told her roof is damaged, and both the hay barn and horse barn were damaged. Her neighbor fared worse, she said. A new shop, built two years ago, in part with concrete blocks, is gone. Steinhatchee is pretty much devastated, she said, counting off the destruction she'd heard. Roys restaurant is gone. In Keaton Beach, where Idalia made landfall, Ezell had heard just about all the houses are gone. She'd also heard Dekle Beach, the community closest to the center of the storm "is destroyed." Helene was the first Category 4 hurricane on record to strike this region of the coast where Florida curves around the northeastern corner of the Gulf of Mexico. Its the worst weve seen, Ezell said. The damage appears to be even worse than the storm of the century in 1993, a storm many long-time Floridians use as a measure for the destructive force of other storms. An overwhelming storm surge Helenes storm surge forecast at 15 to 20 feet arrived fast and furious. The tide gauge at the Steinhatchee River rose an incredible 11.4 feet in the span of about an hour and 15 minutes, but then stopped reporting, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Storm surge is a wall of water that pounds into buildings with 1,700 pounds of weight for every cubic yard of water. The northern Gulf Coast, is especially susceptible. A steep but not quite as high storm surge pounded the coast during Idalia. Further to the south, the storm surge in historic Cedar Key rose more than 8 feet at a NOAA gauge, higher than the record set during Hurricane Idalia last year. Signs of the calamity appeared as early as Thursday night. The National Weather Service in Tallahassee posted photos taken by a storm chaser that showed a number of mobile homes knocked off their foundations and pushed together in Steinhatchee. People began emerging before sunrise Friday to check for damages and report to friends who left. Its an ugly wind, a lot of rain, said Mark Southerland, a 63-year-old lifelong resident of Perry in Taylor County. I just went outside and I have no damage yet. I might get lucky. Some counties saw a near miss, but power outages widespread Helene knocked out power to an estimated million-plus accounts in Florida, according to a USA TODAY power outage tracker. Nearly everyone in Hamilton, Madison, Suwannee and Taylor counties were without electricity. In Tallahassee, where Ezell and her friends sought refuge, the Leon County Administrator Vince Long said in the early morning hours that theyd heard a couple of reports of trees on structures but no widespread damage to buildings. Emergency calls were lower than expected, but additional damage reports were expected as the day progressed. It sort of had us in the crosshairs for quite a while as it moved into the Gulf and closer to us," Long said. And minor degrees of variation in that track can have a major effect on what the impact is here to us. Nearby Wakulla County, to the south of Tallahassee and west of Taylor also had been warned of a possible landfall. It barely escaped landfall, and the forecast storm surge never really materialized based on the track the storm actually took, said Capt. Jeffrey Yarbrough. Our hearts go out to Taylor County, whos having to deal with it again. Why does Taylor County keep getting hit? Like many, Ezell is perplexed. I cant figure out whats drawing them here, she said. Its mighty strange to me. I would say its rather incredible, said Jasmine Montgomery, meteorologist with NWS Tallahassee. Theres no rhyme or reason to it. These storms, more or less, developed in the Caribbean, moved up through the Gulf of Mexico and kept going until they hit land. Its just the Gulf Coast is prime real estate for a hurricane. Much of this really is the luck of the draw, said Michael Mann, a climate scientist and director of the Center for Science, Sustainability & the Media at the University of Pennsylvania. Why does one tiny section of a massive coastline keep getting hit so often? And why are major hurricanes striking an area that has never been hit by such powerful tropical systems since records began in the 1850s? Huge planetary patterns help steer hurricanes, including powerful jets of air that circle the globe and help govern where fronts and troughs shift in the atmosphere overhead. Its probably not too much of a stretch to say that the jet stream is currently stacking in a pattern favoring those trajectories, Mann said. For this hurricane season, an emerging La Nina in the Pacific may also have something to do with it, he said. "Both climate change and El Nino can impact the waviness of the jet stream, impacting large-scale circulation patterns and the way that storms track," Mann said. The power of these storms is another question, as USA TODAY reported while millions awaited Helene's horrific arrival. The destructive nature of a hurricane is driven in part by the energy it receives from warm water. Temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico have been record warm this year. "The fact that the storms are so intense when they make landfall because they have rapidly intensified in the Gulf of Mexico almost certainly has a climate-change contribution to it," said Jim Kossin, an atmospheric scientist and science advisor at the nonprofit First Street Foundation. "The remarkably warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico are a big contributor and climate change has contributed to those." Road to recovery uncertain Long-time residents wonder how or if Taylor County will recover. Before the storm Janalea England, who owns the Steinhatchee Fish Company on the southern side of the county, said she had talked to other business owners who said if Helenes blow was bad enough they doubted whether they could recover and reopen. The community was just getting recovered from Idalia, she said. Ezell said Taylor County "is going to be devastated." "Its going to be a terrible blow," she said. "How many times can somebody come back. How many times can you redo?" (This story was updated to correct a misspelling/typo.) Dinah Voyles Pulver covers climate change and the environment for USA TODAY. She's been writing about hurricanes, tornadoes and violent weather for more than 30 years. Reach her at dpulver@gannett.com or @dinahvp. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Taylor County, Florida, hit by Helene: 3rd hurricane in 13 months By Elida Moreno METETI, Panama (Reuters) - Migrant crossings through the treacherous Darien Gap that connects Panama to Colombia are down by over a third in the year's first nine months, a Panamanian border official said on Thursday, crediting heightened security by the new government. Between January and Sept. 25, 259,712 migrants arrived in Panama through the Darien, a 35% decrease compared with the same period in 2023, Alexis de Gracia, head of the National Border Service's eastern brigade, said, citing official data. Panamanian authorities attribute the drop to stricter security measures implemented by the government of President Jose Raul Mulino since he took office on July 1. The new government's efforts include the closing of some routes through the jungle passage and increasing deportations with U.S. support. The data also come nearly four months after U.S. President Joe Biden instituted a broad asylum ban on migrants caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Panama has become a transit route for hundreds of thousands of migrants, most of them seeking to reach the United States. Last year, a record 520,000 migrants - most of them Venezuelans - crossed the Darien in search of better opportunities in the north. In July, Mulino's first month in office, 20,519 migrants crossed the Darien, down 34% from June and less than half of the number of migrants who crossed in the same month last year. In August there were 19% fewer crossings compared with the previous month and five times fewer compared with the same month in 2023, according to official data. Some analysts are skeptical the government's measures will succeed in the medium term without addressing the root causes of migration, while some also fear the measures could make travel even more dangerous for migrants. Further, "there is the possibility that they use other routes," De Gracia said, and the government's measures could have pushed migrants to use routes from Colombia through the Caribbean in lieu of the Darien Gap. (Reporting by Elida Moreno in Meteti; Aditional reporting by Diero Ore in Mexico City; Editing by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez and Jonathan Oatis) GREELEY, Colo. (KDVR) Some migrant workers at the JBS Meat Packing Plant in Greeley are speaking out about what they say are horrible working conditions. The union representing them, UFCW Local 7, has asked for a federal investigation. Vail Resorts plans to lay off 14% of corporate workers within 2 years The JBS Meatpacking Plant in Greeley was where the two individuals from Haiti had hoped to begin to build a better future. FOX31 spoke with them at their union headquarters in Greeley. They said that from the moment they arrived, promises of a decent place to stay temporarily fell by the wayside. They asked not to be identified and spoke through an interpreter. When I got here, it was late in the day and they put us in a room with seven or eight people. There was only one bed, one of the workers said. The immigrants said they first heard about what was supposed to be the promise of good jobs and a good living on a TikTok post. But once they started working, they discovered the working conditions were unbearable. The union says there are hundreds of migrants from both Haiti and West Africa being treated unfairly at the plant. And whenever I have my hands swelling or any kind of medical conditions on my hands and I am not able to work, my supervisor or management are giving me a lot of pressure to work, the migrant said. They said there was a lot of pressure to work quickly on the meat-cutting line when there were not enough people to meet those needs. Aurora police arrest documented Tren de Aragua member Who is supposed to be (make) a better living condition, us or the cows we are killing? the worker said. JBS told FOX31 it has banned the non-employee who allegedly made false promises to the new employees from the plants facilities and new human resource leaders are in place. The spokesperson also said allegations of poor living conditions are unacceptable and upsetting and that workers are not required to live in any specific location. On Thursday, a spokesperson for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration said its investigating workplace safety and health issues at the facility. The National Labor Relations Board said it is investigating six unfair labor practices against the company. FOX31 Newsletters: Sign up to get breaking news sent to your inbox JBS provided the following statement to FOX31, which is shared here in its entirety: Mackenson Remy was never a JBS employee, and we banned him from our facility when we learned about these alarming allegations. We also notified local authorities and will cooperate with any resulting investigation. If it is determined that people were harmed by Mr. Remys actions, we will provide support to those individuals. JBS takes the safety and welfare of all our team members seriously. Since being made aware of this situation, we have put new HR leaders in place at the facility and added new recruitment training programs to ensure our teams follow JBS strict hiring compliance policies. We are also working with the UFCW International to educate prospective and current team members about our hiring policies enterprise wide. JBS does not charge team members or applicants for any pre-employment services, including transportation, application, pre-hire medical requirements, or housing, nor do we require them to live in any specific location. Any allegations of poor living conditions are unacceptable and upsetting. We want all of our employees to have access to safe housing and the opportunity to create a better life for themselves and their families. JBS Meat Packing Plant Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Military supplies to Ukraine for the coming year are at risk due to financial challenges faced by some allies and the reluctance of others to increase funding for aid. Source: Bloomberg, citing sources Details: As Ukraine approaches its third winter since the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, it is finding it difficult to convince its Western allies to follow through on their commitments. At the same time, the Kremlin's military machine is outpacing Kyiv's ability to obtain the necessary ammunition, missiles and other equipment to defend itself against attacks. A source noted that this highlights how Russia's economy is geared towards military needs, while Ukraine's allies are not. A significant portion of the military support for Ukraine in 2025 hinges on an agreement by the Group of Seven countries to provide US$50 billion in loans, funded by proceeds from frozen assets belonging to the Russian Central Bank. However, the countries are still negotiating the details of this agreement, with the US seeking assurances that Hungary will not obstruct the European Unions measures. If an agreement is not reached, the final sum could be reduced. Even if the deal is finalised, US$50 billion will not be sufficient to cover Ukraine's needs for another year of war. The allies will need to seek additional financial resources. The situation is further complicated by a lack of funding. Ukraine's government projects a budget deficit of 19% of GDP for 2025, amounting to around US$35 billion that needs to be covered. Last month, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal stated that more than half of this sum would be provided by the IMF and the EU but that approximately US$15 billion would still need to be secured, potentially through loans from the G7. Additionally, there is the matter of military funding. The US$50 billion from the G7 is roughly equivalent to the military aid provided by the US and major European allies from January 2023 to June this year. During that period, the United States contributed approximately 31.5 billion, while Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy collectively provided around 15.7 billion. However, these figures might not reflect the full extent of military assistance, as some countries do not disclose all information, and certain commitments have yet to be fulfilled. Ukraines Armed Forces rely heavily on allies to supply artillery ammunition, missiles, and air defence equipment. Support UP or become our patron! How your military stores will be affected by a looming port strike Military base commissaries and exchanges have been ordering more stock for weeks in anticipation of a looming port strike that could shut down ports on the East Coast and Gulf Coast, affecting the supply of goods. The Defense Commissary Agency has taken steps since August to lessen the impact of possible disruptions, said John E. Hall, director and CEO of the agency. That includes increased grocery orders for commissaries in Europe and Puerto Rico, which would be affected by a port work stoppage. Officials are also working with the industry sealift carriers to make sure all booked containers clear the port of Norfolk, Virginia, before the end of September, he said. If a strike does happen, Hall said, DeCA is preparing to be able to use military airlifts of priority products into Europe and Puerto Rico. That includes fresh beef, items such as baby formula, baby food, bread, hot and cold cereal, cheese, eggs, frozen juice, milk, frozen vegetables and certain canned foods. If we have additional capacity, we will also include highly sensitive chilled products, he said. Those decisions about airlifts will be based on customer need, product shelf life, projected port deliveries, and availability of products from local and U.S. suppliers. DeCA can assure our customers that we diligently monitor inventory levels and maintain regular communications with our industry suppliers to support the grocery needs of our patrons, Hall added. The general consensus is that if the strike is goes on for more than a week, it would cause major disruptions. It could take five to six weeks to recover after even one week of a strike. And other shipments in the military community could be affected, too, such as shipments to and from overseas of service members household goods and vehicles, which go on commercial carriers. U.S. Transportation Command did not respond by Military Times deadline to questions about the potential effects on service members and families, and any actions being taken to plan to mitigate any problems. The International Longshoremens Associations six-year contract is set to expire on Monday, and the union says it will strike at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. A strike would shut down as many as 36 ports that handle nearly half of the cargo going in and out of the U.S. on ships, the AP noted. If a strike does happen, it would be the first national work stoppage by the ILA since 1977, according to the AP. Even a brief strike would cause disruptions to the economy, and create a shipping backlog. Meanwhile, on the other side, the U.S. Maritime Alliance, representing East Coast and Gulf Coast ports, posted a statement online Thursday that theyve filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, asking that federal agency to require the Longshoremens union to resume bargaining. Its not clear how many aspects of the military community this would affect. ILA President Harold Daggett posted on the unions Facebook page that their 85,000 members will continue to handle all military cargo, even if there is a strike. The union will also continue to work passenger cruise vessels, Daggett said. Military stores scrambling to get baby formula -- what new parents need to know Military exchanges Exchange officials say they dont expect stores to be affected by a short-time strike, but that will change if there is a prolonged strike, just as it will affect retail stores across the country. The Army and Air Force Exchange Service and Navy Exchange Service Command have been increasing their stock over the last several weeks, and a short-term strike isnt expected to affect customers.. AAFES logistics and merchandising teams are working to ensure exchange stores are prepared for possible broader challenges in the event of a longer shutdown of ports, said AAFES spokesman Chris Ward In addition to increasing stock to bolster levels in overseas distribution centers, NEXCOM officials have put airfreight carriers on standby in case they need to ship merchandise by air, spokesperson Kristine Sturkie said. In the event of a prolonged strike, NEXCOM would pivot to shipping ocean containers from the West Coast and air freighting merchandise, as needed, to fill gaps in the pipeline, she said. Depending on the length of time of the potential strike, NEXCOM can move shipments from the West Coast to Europe, Bahrain and Djibouti, ensuring we have the merchandise our military members and families need on our shelves. Marine Corps exchange customers should see minimal impact as their exchanges dont move products in or out of East Coast or Gulf Coast ports. Since all their overseas bases are in the Pacific, their direct operations are West Coast-focused, spokesperson Bryan Driver said. But he noted that their vendors might be affected by the strikes, with as-yet-undetermined future impact to our supply chain. The looming strike comes at a time when the military exchanges have been getting shipments of holiday items in preparation for the heavy Christmas shopping season. Officials dont expect those shipments to be affected. Many of the Navy exchange holiday items have already shipped to the overseas stores, said NEXCOMs Sturkie. Household goods shipments The moving industry is also unclear about which military cargo would be moved and whether it would include service members household goods in the event of strikes. We havent heard directly from the [International Longshoremens Association] on military cargo, or [household goods] specifically, said Daniel Bradley, vice president of government and military relations for the International Association of Movers. We hope to have more clarity with respect to what cargo may continue to be moved if a strike occurs. He said its not clear if dockworkers would know which shipments to move, since outside of military-centered ports and obvious military cargo, most [household goods] shipments are containerized and not as obvious. Milwaukee man who lost friend in shooting charged with reckless homicide in liquor store shooting A 21-year-old Milwaukee man is facing a homicide charge for shooting and killing a man at a liquor store on Monday. DeAndre Williams was charged on Friday for killing Romell Campbell at 2232 W. Capitol Drive. The criminal complaint suggests Williams lashed out erratically, and made comments regarding a recently killed close friend, before shooting Campbell. Williams is charged with first-degree reckless homicide with use of a dangerous weapon. Campbell was previously identified by the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office. He died after being shot and taken to Froedtert Hospital for medical attention, according to the examiner's report. The criminal complaint details police interviewed the girlfriend of 17-year-old Javontae Davis, who was shot in the city's 100th reported homicide of the year, in their investigation into the liquor store killing. Davis' girlfriend told officers Williams was "like a cousin" to Davis and identified him in a photo from the store. Davis was shot at about 3:30 p.m. on Monday on the 1400 block of West Locust Street, police said in a news release. The Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office is still reviewing that shooting, the office said in an email. Police reviewed video footage from the store and interviewed two witnesses, which were detailed in the complaint. The footage allegedly shows Williams lamented the death of a close friend, saying comments "to no one in particular" about how hurt he was over the friend's death and making threats. He then draws a mask over his nose, buys a bottle of liquor and begins to exit the store. He looks toward Campbell, asking him what he's looking at, and strikes the victim with his firearm, before shooting him, according to the complaint. Police are currently seeking Williams on an arrest warrant, which was issued on Friday by a Milwaukee County judge. Journal Sentinel efforts to reach the family members of Campbell and Davis were unsuccessful. When reached by phone earlier this week, Teutonia Wine and Liquor told the Journal Sentinel the worker who witnessed the incident would not be speaking to media. At least 100 reported homicides have occurred in Milwaukee so far this year, according to crime data from Milwaukee police. That's 22% down from last year and 40% down from 2022. David Clarey can be reached at dclarey@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee man charged with reckless homicide in liquor store shooting Uniquely is a Sacramento Bee series that covers the moments, landmarks and personalities that define what makes living in the Sacramento area so special. As motorists hurtle west on Interstate 80, the landscape blurs. The Sacramento Valleys farmlands lose their features; the oleander blooms on the median become a haze of whites and pinks. Then, snapping passersby out of their freeway-induced doldrums, a strange pair emerges by Dixon. Painted arms flung wide, eyes ringed by giant goggles, they are grinning crazily. The I-80 hay bale Minions are a zany and unexpected delight for Northern California travelers. More than 100,000 vehicles carry people past these cheerfully hulking figures each day, Caltrans data shows. And although the state agency does not measure how many smiles the two banana-evoking members of the tribu elicit, anecdotal evidence suggests the number is high. The Sacramento Bee spoke to the man who built these family-friendly villains: Juan Ramirez, 40, a father of three and farmworker from Sinaloa, Mexico. Ramirez has worked for the Cooley Family Farm for 18 years, he said. A trained mechanic, he spends seven or eight months annually in Dixon, often fixing machinery on the sprawling property. But when spooky season rolls around and the Cooleys open their pumpkin patch and corn maze, Ramirez becomes a virtuoso. Juan Ramirez, a Dixon farmworker with Cooley Farms and its Cool Patch Pumpkins, stands by one of the Minions that he created for the pumpkin patch and maze. Ramirez said his bosses came up with the idea to move the Minions along their property on Interstate 80 to remind people to return. He is the mastermind behind an enormous fanged spider made mostly of a 1,000-gallon liquid storage tank, PVC pipe and paint that menaced visitors at Cool Patch Pumpkins. He is the person who suggested building an Instagram-ready backdrop for people who wandered through the enormous corn maze. As a farm, we dont hire people for artistic ability, said Seth Cooley. But its a great benefit to us. And so, as they were preparing to open up the pumpkin patch three or four years ago, Ramirez recalls, the Cooleys pulled up a photo of another Minions hay bale project and asked him whether he could make them, too. Ramirez responded, Why not? He has a 17-year-old and a pair of 8-year-old twins hes well aware of the despicable canon. He thought to himself: I will paint the cylinders of hay in yellow, blue and black, I will make their hair and hands out of plywood, their arms out of pipe and their goggles out of old motorcycle tires. Their eyes will be the caps from a piece of corn equipment, painted blue. He took two or three days and did it. Hes done it each year since, and now Kevin and Stuart part of the original trio (with Bob) that rose to fame after the 2010 debut of Despicable Me and their eponymous hit film in 2015 live by the freeway. Ramirez said his work shows people things that are in the trash can become something more. In this case, as Minions. Two Minions created by Juan Ramirez beckon visitors to the Cool Patch Pumpkins in Dixon. The hay bale creations have become a popular landmark as motorists head along Interstate 80 from Sacramento to the Bay Area. A new life for two old bales of hay The Minions were initially intended to amuse the Cooleys customers: Most of the farming operation is commercial, so the family likes to put on a show for their autumn interactions with the public. They get a kick out of watching city kids realize that pumpkins dont just magically appear in a pile outside Trader Joes; they grow from the ground on vines. People plant them there. The Minions were part of what Seth Cooley called an opportunity for families to celebrate the harvest season. The hay bales were so big that moving them would be a pain easier to rip them apart where they stood. Still, Seths father, Matt Cooley, thought they were just too good to destroy when the pumpkin patch closed. Each year, hes had the new crop of Minions moved to the side of I-80, at the edge of their property, for all the world that is Bay Area-bound on I-80 to see. The Minions created by Juan Ramirez, of Dixon can be seen waving at motorist aloha Interstate 80 on Sept. 4. The Minions are made out of found objects from the farm. After facing the elements for a year, the yellow pill-shaped creatures are sagging. The painted pocket on Stuarts blue overalls has ripped open, exposing unpainted hay. Kevins dry insides are spilling out on one side. New sprouts have created a layer of fuzz on top of both their heads. If anything, the wear only serves to underscore their charm: Someone made these with their hands. Ramirez seemed tickled when two Bee journalists traveled to Dixon to discuss the Minions. But when asked whether the Minions and his other whimsical projects were a creative outlet, he said, In some ways, yes, because I do this outside of work. My work is mostly mechanical. There are a lot of creative things Id like to do, but there isnt enough time. How does it feel to know that his creations have brought a glimmer of joy into the hearts of hundreds of thousands of people? It feels good, he said with a small shrug and a big smile. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on Friday a settlement with a Minnesota-based Aquarium company to stop the sale of unregistered pesticide products. Underwater Creations Inc. of St. Louis Park, was formed in 2006 and sells custom aquariums to create "truly stunning pieces of living art in people's homes and business." It also advertise both freshwater and saltwater aquarium maintenance services for residential and commercial buildings. EPA cited Underwater Creations for allegedly distributing or selling five unregistered pesticides on its website: Vibrant Reef, Vibrant Saltwater, Vibrant Freshwater, Expel, and Purge. PICRYL These products are intended to destroy aquarium pests, but under federal rules products that claim to kill pests are considered pesticides and must be registered with the EPA to ensure they perform as intended and are appropriately labeled. The settlement requires the company to stop production and pay a $226,652 penalty. Bring Me The News reached out to Underwater Creations for comment, but have not heard back at this time. Related: Effort to help Ramsey family whose home was destroyed in lightning strike With early voting underway, local elections officials and the Minnesota Secretary of States office are working to address issues with a small number of ballot misprints after reports of errors in two counties. This week, Wabasha County officials said voters in Zumbro Falls received ballots listing the wrong Minnesota House of Representatives race. Despite the southeastern Minnesota town lying in District 20B, ballots showed the race for House District 20A. The county is working with the Secretary of State to nullify, or spoil, any of the ballots that had the error, and officials are already in the process of petitioning the Minnesota Supreme Court to let the county move forward with reprints. The court could act as soon as Friday, according to Wabasha County Administrator Michael Plante. As of Thursday, the county had received just four ballots and none have been counted due to the error, Plante said. The county will have plenty of time to reissue ballots for absentee and early voters, and Election Day is on Nov. 5 a little more than five weeks away. Errors very uncommon While there are a few reports of ballot errors each year statewide, Plante said theyre very uncommon and the county has safeguards in place to screen for errors. Ive been in Wabasha County for approximately 14 years not the entire time as a county administrator this is the first time I can recall a balloting issue thats occurred, he said. He later added: Just being blunt and honest this was human error and it was missed. It should have been caught at the county level. Rep. Pam Altendorf, R-Redwing, who is running in 20A against Democrat Heather Arndt, and Rep. Steve Jacob, R-Altura, who is running against Democrat Michael Hutchinson in 20B, pressed officials Tuesday to take swift action. These errors are unacceptable and need to be quickly resolved by the Secretary of State and the County to ensure voters in Zumbro Falls arent disenfranchised, the Republicans said in a joint statement. More than 5,000 ballot variations Minnesota has more than 5,000 ballot variations, sometimes with dozens of contests. Each of Minnesotas 87 counties is required to prepare their own ballots, and the Secretary of States office provides the lists of certified candidates. Counties are responsible for printing and proofing ballots. Occasionally, there are mistakes made when preparing ballots that are not detected during proofing, the Secretary of States office said. Every time an error is discovered, corrective actions are taken through the courts. Notice will be provided to impacted voters if the court determines it to be necessary. Zumbro Falls is not the only area that has seen inaccurate ballots. The first misprint came to light last Friday, the first day of early voting in Faribault County, where incumbent Rep. Peggy Bennett, a Republican from Albert Lea, was incorrectly listed as a Democrat. In every election, despite the best efforts of our hard-working county election officials, mistakes happen, the Secretary of States office said. Bennetts District, 23A, covers several counties, and only 17 ballots in Faribault County were affected, according to the Secretary of State. Faribault County said it filed a petition with the Minnesota Supreme Court to correct the issue. Our top priority is safeguarding the integrity of the electoral process, and we are taking swift corrective action, county officials said in a statement. Related Articles Minnesotans Can Order Free COVID Tests Again. How To Get Yours. MINNESOTA Americans can now order another round of free COVID-19 nasal swab tests that will be delivered to homes. Each household can get four tests through COVIDtests.gov. Already have some at home? Check here to see if your tests' expiration dates have been extended. Shipping forms just opened on Thursday and are free to all residents; access this link to order yours. Updated rapid tests are expected to be able to detect newer variants just as a new COVID variant, XEC, arrives in Minnesota. It is a member of the Omicron family. The availability of free at-home tests comes just after the Food and Drug Administration approved two updates COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging everyone 6 months or older to get a new shot this fall since last year's shots were geared toward a strain that is no longer around. As flu and RSV season approaches, health officials recommend residents stock up on tests and update all vaccinations. Minnesotans Can Order Free COVID Tests Again. How To Get Yours. originally appeared on the Minneapolis Patch Elon Musk is criticised for fueling political tension ahead of the election. (Frederic J. BROWN) (Frederic J. BROWN/AFP/AFP) With incendiary, misleading posts to his 200 million followers, Elon Musk has courted criticism for cranking up the political temperature ahead of an already polarized US election through his influential platform that is plagued with misinformation. Researchers fear there may be little to stop Musk -- who has endorsed Donald Trump -- from using X, formerly Twitter, and his personal account to sway voters in favor of the Republican nominee, call into question the legitimacy of the electoral process, and provoke violence against political rivals and poll workers. "Musk has a huge following on X and he treats the platform like his own misinformation megaphone," Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), told AFP. Musk has amplified debunked falsehoods from politicians, including Trump, that Democrats are "importing" migrants into the United States to vote in the November election and that immigrants from Haiti in Ohio were killing and eating pets. Soon after a second assassination attempt on Trump, Musk posted a comment -- alongside a thinking emoji -- that "no one is even trying to assassinate" President Joe Biden and the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris. Musk deleted the post, which the White House called "irresponsible" while adding that violence should never be "encouraged or joked about." Musk also faced criticism for sharing a deepfake video in which a voiceover mimicking Harris calls Biden senile and declares that she does not "know the first thing about running the country." The video was originally posted by an X account linked to the conservative podcaster Chris Kohls and labeled a "parody," but Musk's repost made no such disclosure. - 'Much impact' False or misleading election claims on X by Musk have amassed nearly 1.2 billion views, CCDH reported last month. Its researchers identified 50 posts by Musk since January containing election claims that were debunked by independent fact-checkers. X did not respond to a request for comment. Musk, analysts say, appears to have supplanted the role Trump once played on the platform. "What gave Trump's tweets so much impact in 2016 -- and throughout his presidency -- was not just that they were seen by people on Twitter, but how much media coverage they got," Joshua Tucker, co-director of the NYU Center for Social Media and Politics, told AFP. "What is happening with Musk these days on Twitter/X feels similar: his posts are not just seen on the site, but they also seem to be getting a lot of pickup in the media." The platform is very different today compared to the previous 2020 election, when it was largely seen as a clearinghouse of reliable information. Since he purchased it in 2022 for $44 billion, Musk has aggressively sought to model the site as a censorship-free haven and a superior source to mainstream media -- winning plaudits from US conservatives strongly averse to social media content moderation. He has gutted trust and safety teams, scaled back content moderation efforts, and restored known conspiracy theorists to the platform, making it what researchers call a cesspool of disinformation. In August, five US states sent an open letter to Musk, imploring him to fix X's AI chatbot - known as Grok -- after it shared misinformation about the election. - 'Losing battle' - Outside the US, Musk is not always offered the same freedom to let users post whatever they want. In Brazil, a high-profile judge ordered the suspension of X after Musk refused to remove dozens of right-wing accounts accused of spreading fake news, and then failed to name a new legal representative in the country as ordered. Musk appeared to capitulate last week, with the company's lawyers saying that X had complied with the orders. EU regulators meanwhile are currently carrying out a wide-ranging probe into X to see how effectively it combats disinformation. If found at fault, X faces major fines or orders that it take urgent action to comply with EU rules. Australia is planning similar regulation and in Britain, new rules are about to come into effect that could give authorities more say over how platforms control their content. "Musk's reputation is slowly losing in the court of public opinion, with people increasingly calling out his authoritarian tactics," Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at the nonprofit watchdog Free Press, told AFP. "He can continue down this sad path, but it's a losing battle." ac/arp/md Misinformation spreads after 750k names removed from NC voter rolls. Here are the facts. After the North Carolina State Board of Elections announced Thursday that it had removed nearly 750,000 registrations from the voter rolls, misinformation spread on social media regarding the scope and circumstances of this decision. Theyre trying to steal this election, one X user wrote. Im sure its one big, giant, coincidence that NC is doing this a month before Election Day, another wrote. Others fretted that the removal was a ploy by the Republican Party to influence the outcome of the election in a battleground state. The truth, however, is that this was a routine process carried out over the course of nearly two years by a state agency with bipartisan oversight. Eligible voters do not need to worry that they were removed from the system, Pat Gannon, a spokesperson for the board, said. However, election officials always encourage voters to check their registration through the state boards voter search tool. The state has nearly 7.7 million registered voters. Some of the misconceptions regarding the removals are addressed here. Did the state remove 750,000 voters all at once? No. In actuality, the removal of these registrations was a part of routine list maintenance conducted over the course of 20 months. Its also important to note that the board removed nearly 750,000 registrations, not necessarily 750,000 individual voters. In fact, the most common reason why registrations were removed was because a voter moved within the state, creating a duplicate registration at their new address. The boards removal likely only affected the now-defunct registration at the voters old address. Was this a ploy by the Republican Party? No. The removal of these voter registrations was a part of routine list maintenance conducted by staff of the State Board of Elections, a board made up of appointees from both parties. Democrats have a majority on the board. The North Carolina Republican Party did sue the board last month, attempting to remove 225,000 voter registrations that it claims were improperly approved. However, that lawsuit has not even gotten a hearing yet, and the removals announced Thursday had begun long before the lawsuit was filed. Furthermore, federal law prevents the board from systematically removing registrants within 90 days of an election. That deadline passed on Aug. 7. What were the reasons voter registrations were removed? As mentioned above, the largest pool of registrations (nearly 300,000) were removed because a voter moved within the state. Other registrations were removed because the voter was inactive for two federal elections, died, moved out of the state, was convicted of a felony, or requested that they be removed from the rolls. The State Board of Elections created a breakdown of the different reasons for removal. Data provided by the North Carolina State Board of Elections on Sept. 26, 2024, shows the reasons voter registrations were removed from the rolls as part of routine list maintenance. If I didnt vote in the last two federal elections, is my registration canceled now? Not necessarily. The second most common reason a voters registration was removed from the rolls was because they underwent two federal elections while in inactive status. However, to achieve inactive status, a voter must have already skipped two consecutive federal elections. It is not until they fail to vote in two more federal elections that they are removed from the voter rolls. That means missing all elections for eight years, Gerry Cohen, a member of the Wake County Board of Elections, said on X. The voter would also have had to not respond to any mailings from the elections board attempting to confirm their registration. How do I check if Im still registered to vote? Anyone can check the status of their voter registration using the online voter search tool on the State Board of Elections website. Is it too late to register to vote? No. The deadline to register to vote in the 2024 elections is Oct. 11. Voters who miss this deadline can also participate in same-day registration during early voting, which runs from Oct. 17 to Nov. 2. Under the Dome Get the latest news about North Carolina politics from The News & Observer's award-winning team. Get the free digest sent to your inbox by signing up here. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is a prolific spreader and amplifier of misinformation on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, a new report alleges. An analysis from NewsGuard shows that Musk has advanced at least 17 false narratives from the groups misinformation database, from sharing a video promoting the narrative that Haitians eat pets to accusing Democrats of "importing voters." The billionaire also frequently amplifies some of the platforms worst offenders in terms of spreading false claims: of the five accounts he interacts with most frequently, four are "misinformation superspreaders" who have grown their followings as a result. One account, @EndWokeness, which spread racist lies about Haitian immigrants, experienced a 30% follower count bump in the six months in which Musk repeatedly boosted it. Another, @libsoftiktok, whose anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric inspired bomb threats at a children's hospital and who falsely claimed that schools had provided litter boxes to children who identify as cats, saw a 14.8% growth in their following. On Tuesday, Musk engaged with a report from @EndWokeness criticizing George Soros company's acquisition of a radio station group, writing Crazy in a quote-tweet thats been viewed 29 million times. Two other accounts that experienced massive boosts from Musk either amplified or outright invented conspiracy theories suggesting that Vice President Kamala Harris campaign adopted a Nazi slogan; that Ukraine sold weapons to Hamas; and that Venezuelan immigrants had overtaken an apartment complex. The amplifications come amid concerns that Musk, who has taken an increasingly extreme tone, has an enormously wide-reaching platform. Musk, who has raised concerns with recent posts that appeared to encourage violence against Harris and President Joe Biden, boasts nearly 200 million followers on X, a 19% increase since January of this year. In comparison, NewsGuards analysis found that some of the largest mainstream accounts on the platform, including legacy media outlets, saw stagnant growth or follower declines. The analysis follows past findings from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which in August published a report identifying 50 instances of Musk posting false election claims in 2024, accruing nearly 1.2 billion views. Musk lost a July 2023 lawsuit against the center in which he accused it of conspiring to drive advertisers off his X platform. Musk, who initially purchased Twitter with the purported intention of increasing transparency and freedom of speech on the platform, oversaw a rise in hateful content and lies on the platform while making moderation tweaks to crack down on some speech, banning words like cisgender from X. Musk has also reportedly used the X platform to stop the spread of information he finds disagreeable, censoring recent reporting on Trump campaign documents hacked by the Iranian government, suspending pro-Harris organizations on the platform and flagging unflattering reports about the Trump campaign as spam in recent weeks. JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) A Pearl River man was sentenced to nine years in federal prison for possession of child pornography. According to court documents, William Henry, 52, possessed 400 pornographic images of children that were under the age of 12. Henry was indicted by a federal grand jury in September 2020, and pled guilty in October 2023. Vicksburg man convicted of sexual battery In addition to his term of imprisonment, Henry was ordered to pay $6,000 in restitution to victims and a $9,000 assessment pursuant to the Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act of 2018. The Choctaw Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the case. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily 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 WJTV. HATTIESBURG, Miss. (WHLT) Mississippi Red Cross workers and church groups are joining forces to help victims of Hurricane Helene. The Mississippi Chapter of the American Red Cross will deploy crews to assist in providing shelter during the storm. Mississippi sends assets to Florida for Helene response In Florida and Georgia, they currently have evacuation shelters opening to prepare. Theyre also providing hot meals at those locations for the clients that are currently there. Theyre preparing our vehicles, preparing all of the supplies that will be needed in case we have to go out and distribute emergency supplies out to the field, said Zoe Anderson, Community Disaster Program manager at the American Red Cross in Hattiesburg. Shelter volunteers are trained to keep people safe and as comfortable as possible during a disaster. After the storm, the Red Cross will begin on-the-ground recovery efforts. We have recovery caseworkers that would be working with the impacted clients. We also have our external relations teams that go out and work with nonprofit, with other nonprofit organizations, with the local government to provide those services, said Anderson. Local churches, including Trinity Baptist Church in Laurel, are gathering donations to take to hurricane victims. Entergy Mississippi crews head to Florida ahead of Helene Weve responded, I believe, for the last 10 years to any type of disasters, whether it be flood, tornado, hurricane. And its just our responsibility as servants to make sure that people have the items that they need to recover, said Kurt Wagner with Trinity Baptist Church. The church plans to take the donations to St. Petersburg, Florida. You need water. You need canned food, nonperishable food items. If you had children, small children, youd need diapers, baby formula, baby food. Just something to get you by until you could get back on your feet again, said Wagner. Dixie and Southern Pine Electric also plan to deploy crews to Florida on Friday. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily 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 WJTV. Update: Bridgette has been found safe and the Amber Alert has been canceled. An Amber Alert has been issued in Kansas City as police search for an abducted 12-year-old believed to be traveling in a black Toyota SUV. Bridgette Annaleise Crane, 12, was allegedly abducted from Warsaw, Missouri, by her mother Anna Savard around 4:45 p.m. Thursday. Savard does not have custody of Crane. Crane was last seen at 28885 Cedar Hills Loop in Warsaw. Police are searching for a black Toyota 2015 Rav4 with the Missouri license plate TC2Z7B, believed to be driven by Savard. The direction of travel is unknown. Crane is a white preteen girl with brown hair. She is about 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs about 160 pounds, and she was last seen wearing a plaid shirt and a blue hooded sweatshirt. Savard is a white woman with dark blonde hair and a neck tattoo. Residents are encouraged to call 911 with any sightings or information. This is a developing story. Check back for updates. How would Missouris next governor handle the death penalty after Williams execution? 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 day after the execution of Marcellus Khaliifah Williams, the Republican nominee for Missouri governor wouldnt say whether he supported or opposed the execution, leaving in doubt how he would approach the death penalty if elected. Republican Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoes campaign dodged questions from The Star about whether he supported Gov. Mike Parsons decision to deny clemency for Williams. The campaign vowed to uphold the rule of law when asked about potential changes to the death penalty. Meanwhile, Democratic House Minority Leader Crystal Quades campaign was sharply critical of Williams execution, calling it a disgrace. Her campaign said the states current use of capital punishment was flawed and that she would support legislation to abolish the death penalty. The decision to move forward with Tuesdays execution of Williams, who maintained his innocence in a 1998 killing, has renewed focus on the states use of the death penalty. Parson has rejected every clemency application in a death penalty case that has come across his desk since becoming governor in 2018, totaling 12 applications. Parson terms out of office in January and voters will elect his successor on Nov. 5, raising questions about how Missouris next governor would handle death penalty cases. Whoever wins would wield significant influence over how the state would carry out capital punishments. Kehoe and Quade secured their partys nominations in the August primaries, setting up a showdown for governor in the November general election. Republicans hold every statewide office in the state and Quade faces an uphill battle. A spokesperson for Republican Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe did not directly answer questions from The Star on Wednesday about whether he supported Parsons decision and whether he would support any changes to the states use of capital punishment. Lt. Gov. Kehoe recognizes that weighing the facts and judgments involving capital punishment cases is one of the most difficult and consequential responsibilities of the role of governor, spokesperson Gabby Picard said in an emailed statement. Picard added that, as governor, Kehoe would always uphold the rule of law and respect the integrity of the judicial system. Parson appointed Kehoe as lieutenant governor in 2018 after Kehoe previously served in the state Senate. Kehoe won election to a full term in 2020. A spokesperson for Quade, first elected to the Missouri House in 2016, criticized the decision to move forward with Williams execution, specifically pointing to Parsons move to dissolve a board tasked with looking into Williams innocence claim. There were serious concerns that Marcellus Williams may have been innocent, as the prosecutor argued, and Governor Parsons refusal to pause the execution and his dismantling of the review committee examining Mr. Williams innocence is a disgrace on Missouri, Quade spokesperson Andrew Storey said in an emailed statement. Storey added that the current system of capital punishment was flawed, pointing to more and more examples of innocent lives that are taken by our government. Unlike the current administration, which has let political pressure influence clemency decisions, when elected governor, Minority Leader Quade will always make decisions by reviewing the individual details of each case, Storey said. In a follow-up email, Storey said that Quade would support legislation to abolish the use of the death penalty in favor of life without chance of parole. Democrat Crystal Quade and Republican Mike Kehoe. Michelle Smith, co-director of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty, implored citizens to know who they are voting for because these people make decisions that affect life and death, as weve seen with Marcellus Khaliifah Williams case. Smith went on to say that she hopes Kehoe, who is Catholic, would adhere to Catholic beliefs that oppose the death penalty and added that voters should consider his non-statement on the death penalty when they go to the polls. Lora McDonald, executive director of the social justice organization MORE2, said it was difficult to conceive that anyone claiming to be Christian would support an execution when there is even a remote possibility that the person is innocent or just period. The criminal justice system, she continued, has too many flaws and pointed to exonerations from death row. Four people with death sentences have been exonerated in Missouri, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. She also said she interprets Kehoes support of the rule of law to mean that he is OK with putting someone to death. Executions ramp up in Missouri Williams execution on Tuesday was the third this year in Missouri. One more is planned for Dec. 3. Williams was convicted in 2001 of killing Felicia Gayle, a former St. Louis reporter. His execution faced widespread opposition, including from the St. Louis County Prosecutors Office, and no forensic evidence linked him to the crime. He was convicted primarily on the word of two witnesses who testified that he had confessed to them. One of them later led authorities to Williams vehicle, where some of Gayles belongings were found. Parson defended his decision to deny clemency, saying no jury nor court including at the trial, appellate, and Supreme Court levels, have ever found merit in Mr. Williams innocence claims. Missouri is one of 27 states that have the death penalty, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, or DPI, a national nonprofit that analyzes capital punishment. Governors in six of those states Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee have placed a hold on executions. In several others, the death penalty is still on the books but it has not been used in decades, including Kansas, which saw its last execution in the 1960s. Eight states have executed people this year. Gwen Grant, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, said that the next governor of Missouri must take a strong stance against the death penalty, calling it a system that is fundamentally flawed and disproportionately harms African-Americans. Williams execution, she said, highlighted the deep injustices inherent in this process. Far too many innocent people have been executed, eroding public confidence in our justice system, she said. I urge the next governor to prioritize truth and fairness over finality and to work toward abolishing the death penalty in Missouri. Missouri has ramped up its use of the death penalty in recent years. The state recorded one execution in 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2021. Two executions were conducted in 2022 and four people were executed last year, according to the DPI. Nine men remain on death row in the state, the Missouri Department of Corrections said. Missouri uses lethal injections in its executions, which are carried out at a prison about an hour south of St. Louis. When asked whether Quade would grant any of those men clemency or place a hold on executions altogether Storey said she would approach each case individually, taking the necessary time and energy to fully vet each case. Kehoes spokesperson, Picard, did not respond to two follow-up emails asking to clarify his stance on capital punishments and whether he would grant clemency to the nine people on death row. (Getty Images). A rural Missouri fire district near Kansas City committed so many violations of the Missouri Sunshine Law that listing them separately wasnt the best way to present them, attorney Jim Layton told Western District Court of Appeals during oral arguments. Under questioning from Presiding Judge Thomas Chapman, Layton said he counted 46 violations committed in 11 meetings of the Western Cass Fire Protection board. The appeal brief gives a narrative of events, seeking to show a multiplicity of violations at any particular meeting, rather than individually enumerated violations for each meeting. We have to look at it and weigh the evidence in each one of these instances, and it just seems like it kind of was a shotgun approach on these, Chapman said. The nature of the appeal led to the format he chose, Layton said. Cass County Circuit Judge R. Michael Wagner entered a judgment against his client, Citizens for Transparency and Accountability, when he concluded his portion of the case during a June 2023 trial. Wagner didnt give any reasons for his decision in his judgment. The appeal is of that single act, so a narrative is the correct format, Layton said. I will confess that I struggled with how to draft points relied on in this case as much as I ever have on an appeal because of the nature of how this was decided below, Layton said. Wednesdays hearing at the appeals court is just the latest round in battles, in and out of court, involving the fire district, based in Cleveland, that serves about 2,600 homes. The battling factions of the board have made numerous headlines, and the appeal drew the attention of three important voices for open government. Attorney General Andrew Baileys office, the Missouri Press Association and the Freedom Center of Missouri all wrote briefs urging the court to overturn the trial court. The issues involved are some of the most fundamental aspects of what constitutes proper notice of a meeting, how much can be added to an agenda after it is posted, and what information must be presented about an item to be considered. If you can obscure the matters that are actually going to be discussed and decided at a public meeting, then you can kind of slip under the publics radar and address matters that otherwise members of the public would very much like to have input, said Dave Roland, litigation director of the Freedom Center of Missouri. An example from the Western Cass case is the Aug. 3, 2022, meeting, where the notice included an item called special considerations, with no more detail. What board members Kerri VanMeveren and Darvin Schildknecht didnt know, and found out only when the agenda item was reached that evening, was that special considerations meant booting them off the board. I asked at the start of the meeting, before we adopted the agenda, can you please explain what special considerations mean? VanMeveren said in an interview with The Independent. Board president John Webb would not answer the question. And I kept saying, I think the public has a right to know, and he just would not answer it. Defending the judgment on Wednesday, attorney Aaron Racine told the court that any violations that may have occurred were inadvertent, due to inexperience of new members. Judge Alok Ahuja was skeptical of that as he looked at the Aug. 3, 2022, meeting agenda. What does special considerations mean? he asked. Special considerations of weather? Special considerations of finances? Special considerations of personnel? Even the phrasing of particular agenda items can be traced to inexperience, Racine said. I think those are the mitigating or exigent circumstances, and that you had an inexperienced board trying to comply with the law, he said. Origins of the dispute VanMeveren won election to the district Board of Directors in 2020, running for the position after a brush fire spread onto her property in 2018 and she felt the tactics employed showed poor training. It was just kind of a clown show, VanMeveren said. When she became district treasurer, she said, she found that tax rates for a bond issue had been improperly calculated, bringing in excessive revenue. A state auditors report in 2021, prepared in response to a residents petition, found problems with bidding procedures, budget information and Sunshine Law compliance. VanMeveren recruited new board members, including John Webb, a conservative Republican who unsuccessfully challenged then-U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler several times in the 4th Congressional District GOP primary. But she and Webb were soon battling over issues that included payroll expenses for contractors and a contract for lawn care at the firehouse, the Kansas City Star reported. In the late summer and early fall of 2022, three departments in Belton, Dolan-West Dolan and West Peculiar canceled their mutual aid agreements. VanMeveren resigned as treasurer in May 2022 but remained on the board. A lawsuit was filed by the board to oust her and Schildknecht. It was dismissed when a recall effort began that succeeded in removing VanMeveren and Schildknecht in August 2023. VanMeveren and Schildknecht formed Citizens for Transparency and Accountability and filed a countersuit, the case now in the hands of the Western District Court of Appeals. They testified in the spring in favor of a bill that gives the State Auditor new power to investigate wrongdoing in local government. Instead of a time-consuming petition process, the auditor can now open a full audit if investigation of a complaint shows problems that require more attention. And the cost of the audit would be borne by the auditors office instead of taxpayers in the political subdivision being examined. The new power is an important tool to help taxpayers, Schildknecht testified in a Missouri House hearing. Over the years some people who come on the board who do want to try and do the right things, but I have also seen others who realize there is no outside agencies monitoring fire districts and take advantage of this, knowing there is nobody watching that they follow the laws, he said. The meaning of tentative Widespread issues the case will address brought amicus, or friend of the court, briefs from the attorney generals office, the press association and the Freedom Center of Missouri. Several issues raised in this appeal are brought to this offices attention with increasing frequency in complaints filed by citizens against local public governmental bodies, in question-and-answer sessions during training programs, and phone call inquiries from the public and public governmental bodies, Assistant Attorney General Jason Lewis wrote. Unfortunately, many of these issues have not yet been conclusively addressed by Missouris appellate courts. Those questions include what an agenda must have when a meeting notice is posted and what can be added later. All public governmental bodies shall give notice of the time, date, and place of each meeting, and its tentative agenda, in a manner reasonably calculated to advise the public of the matters to be considered, the law states. The fire district board used the word tentative in the broadest sense. At one meeting in November 2022, Laytons appeal brief states, the board approved a contract for a medical director; creating and sending a newsletter throughout the district; adopting a program that would allow firefighters to reside at the fire station; changing the bid solicitation for one of the fire stations; an insurance rider for proof of loss; barring one director from taking photographs at the fire station; having and paying for a party; and purchasing a generator battery. None of those items were on the agenda. No violation occurred when items were added, Racine told the judges. Tentative means what tentative means, and absent some statutory or court guidance as to what tentative means, we have to look to its plain meaning, which is subject to change going forward, Racine said. All three of the amicus briefs argued that tentative means subject to change for unforeseen reasons, such as a storm that prevents the meeting from being held or the absence of someone essential that prevents an item from being considered. It cannot mean that new items can be added at will because the public, and their watchdogs, deserve full notice of the items to be considered, attorney Jean Maneke wrote for the press association. Reporters recognize that they cannot be everywhere at once and the agenda gives them the information they need to make the best use of their time, Maneke wrote. Like the public, the reporters rely on the agenda to inform them regarding which activities/issues will be addressed at each public meeting. Other meeting notice issues the appeal addresses are the amount of information that must be provided. Fire district notices often gave the least possible information, appellants argue, such as a resolution number and no other details under the heading Banking on the July 20, 2022, meeting. During the same meeting, while on the agenda item with the heading reports, the board adopted changes to the duties of some personnel without any indication that was the intent. Its crucial that public governmental bodies not be able to shoehorn in agenda items at the last minute, and thats why they need to provide an acceptable level of specificity when it comes to what theyre going to be considering and voting on, Roland said. The attorney generals brief also argues that notices must provide details that show the intent of the action. That means that a public governmental body cannot hide an elephant in a mouse hole by using vague or excessively broad terms to hide what the body intends to do, Lewis wrote. The tentative agenda must be specific enough for the public to be able to make an informed decision about whether to attend the meeting. The court could create a test that would help agencies in the preparation of meeting notices and agendas, Lewis wrote. The Attorney Generals Office is eager for resolution of these issues at the appellate level, Lewis wrote, which will provide both this office and the public with significant guidance in resolving citizens Sunshine Law complaints, providing education to local public governmental bodies, and seeking enforcement when appropriate. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE As the October 9 Missouri voter registration deadline approaches, political parties are rallying to encourage citizens to participate in our democracy. But what is democracy if not a means for every voice to be heard? What about the millions of Americans with disabilities who face significant barriers to voting? If we dont address these challenges, we fail to uphold the promise of equal participation and leave too many voices unheard. In the November 2022 mid-term election, 15.8 million Americans with disabilities reported voting, making up 6.7% of the electorate nationwide. In Missouri alone, 326,109 individuals with disabilities cast their ballots, representing 7% of the state electorate. While seven percentage points may not seem significant, elections are swayed by smaller margins. This influential group of voters has the power to make a difference, but only if we ensure that our voting systems are fully accessible and inclusive. Approximately 14% of voters with disabilities in Missouri reported facing challenges when accessing the polls due to transportation, accessibility, communication issues with poll workers, and difficulty using voting equipment. These numbers are not just statistics. They represent real people whose voices are being marginalized. Mail-in voting, which could serve as a more accessible alternative, also raises issues. Many people with disabilities would prefer to vote by mail, but express mistrust and concern about the ability of the post office to deliver their ballot on time. This lack of trust is compounded by Missouris failure to provide an online ballot tracking system. While Missouri has made some strides in voting accessibility, we are still far from achieving a truly inclusive system. This is a call to listen to the insights of disability-led groups and organizations at the forefront of advancing equitable voting practices. At Easterseals, we believe that several targeted policy changes could significantly improve accessibility in Missouri: Rethink ID and signature requirements. Missouris 2022 law requiring government-issued photo IDs and matching signatures poses significant hurdles for many people with disabilities, including those without a drivers license or with conditions that affect signature consistency. Adopting more inclusive practices, like Californias signature stamps or Colorados online ballot support system (txt2cure) would make voting far more accessible for Missourians with disabilities. Improve training for poll workers on disability rights. Too often, people with disabilities arrive at polling places only to find that accessibility equipment is not properly set up or that poll workers are unaware of their rights. Comprehensive training could help make the voting experience smoother and more dignified for everyone. Introduce online ballot tracking for mail-in voting. Offering an online tracking option would alleviate concerns for those who prefer not to vote in person due to accessibility issues. Many voters with disabilities have expressed a lack of trust in the postal systems ability to deliver their ballots on time. Online tracking would provide peace of mind and ensure every vote is counted. Include people with disabilities in policy discussions. Its crucial to involve those directly affected in the conversations that shape their lives. Regular disability policy forums and roundtables would allow for their lived experiences to inform the very policies meant to serve them. If policymakers truly believe in the importance of every Americans voice being heard, these steps must be taken. Im calling on all Missourians to advocate for voting reforms that open the door wider to citizens with disabilities. Voting is not just a rightit is a responsibility that binds us all. For more information, visit 25percentvotes.com. Wendy Sullivan is the CEO of Easterseals Midwest, an organization dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities and their families live better. One of Britains last microchip factories nationalised in 20m rescue deal Defence Secretary John Healey said semiconductors were crucial to the future of Britains defence industry after a tour of the site - Cpl Tim Hammond/Ministry of Defence A British chip factory involved in sensitive military projects has been nationalised by the Ministry of Defence following warnings that it was at risk of closure. The Government confirmed on Friday that it had purchased the site in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, from US company Coherent. The deal is understood to be worth around 20m and will secure around 100 local jobs at the company, which is being renamed Octric Semiconductors UK. A statement described the factory as the countrys only secure site capable of producing gallium arsenide semiconductors, making it critical to the defence supply chain and major military programmes and exports. The deal comes after The Telegraph revealed the endangered factory was a supplier to defence giant Leonardo and had supplied vital components for British military platforms, including radar power amplifiers for Typhoon jets. Former owner Coherent had warned the 310,000 sq ft site was at risk of being shuttered or sold after Apple dropped the business as a supplier, removing a key chunk of revenues. The endangered factory has supplied radar power amplifiers for RAF Typhoon jets - Jane Barlow/PA John Healey, the Defence Secretary, visited the site on Friday morning to greet employees. During a tour, he told them: Semiconductors are at the forefront of the technology we rely upon today, and will be crucial in securing our militarys capabilities for tomorrow. This acquisition is a clear signal that our Government will back British defence production. Well protect and grow our UK defence supply chain, supporting North East jobs, safeguarding crucial tech for our armed forces and boosting our national security. The takeover comes as Labour ministers are preparing to unveil a new industrial strategy aimed at boosting economic growth, with more intervention by the state in key industries. It also marks a rare intervention by the MoD to secure a critical supplier. Another example of that was the decision in 2021 to nationalise Sheffield Forgemasters, which makes critical steel components for Britains nuclear-powered submarine fleet, following long-running financial struggles that had triggered approaches from Chinese rivals. Sheffield Forgemasters, which makes critical steel components for Britains nuclear-powered submarine fleet, was nationalised in 2021 - Oli Scarff/Getty Images However, the chip factory deal also underscores the growing importance of semiconductors in military supply chains. Semiconductors are critical to everything from smartphones to modern fridges and cars. In the military, they underpin precision missiles, fighter jets and communications equipment. They are also seen as critical to future technologies, including artificial intelligence, quantum computing and hypersonic missiles. The Telegraph first revealed in May that the sites future was in doubt and undergoing a strategic review that could lead to the plant being sold. In company accounts, Coherent said it had issued a last-time-buy notice to other customers warning them products would soon be discontinued, although Apple was not named in the accounts. Before that, the group had warned that the decision by Apple to stop using the company as a supplier places the ongoing viability of the business in doubt. But on Friday the Ministry of Defence said: This strategic investment will ensure the facility is capable of producing gallium arsenide semiconductors as well as more powerful semiconductors in the future, which will include the latest technology. This Government recognises the strategic importance of semiconductors as a critical technology for the future of the UK and a significant enabler of the governments growth and clean energy missions. Work has already started to implement best practice governance that will ensure appropriate financial oversight to secure the companys future success. Losing a contract from Apple can often be disastrous for suppliers. The British semiconductor company Imagination Technologies lost half of its value and was eventually sold after Apple said it no longer planned to use the companys graphics chip designs in 2017. Other companies including Volex and Wolfson Microelectronics have suffered share price declines after losing contracts. 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 Maryland State House. Photo by Bryan P. Sears. Marylands revenue outlook for the coming year will remain statistically flat, according to a new forecast released Thursday by the Board of Revenue Estimates. The forecast, which included a modest upward revision for the current budget year, is the first look at fiscal 2026 revenues. State Budget Secretary Helene Grady, one of three members on the board, said the modest positive adjustment to revenue forecasts obviously is helpful as we navigate fiscal 25 and we work to build a responsible budget for fiscal 26, but it doesnt materially alter in any way the challenges that we face with the general fund budget for fiscal 26. Those challenges include a nearly $1 billion structural budget gap in fiscal 2026 that was forecast by budget analysts in January. Thursdays forecast predicts an $88 million increase in revenues for the current budget year. Sales taxes are now expected to be down $116 million than originally expected in fiscal 2025, and estate and inheritance taxes are projected to be $62 million lower. But those will be offset by nearly $174 million in additional corporate income taxes and a $95.5 million increase in projected interest earnings on investments. Comptroller Brooke Lierman (D), who chairs the board, said the new estimates show the economic outlook has not changed compared to the expectations outlined in March. Revenue growth in the state is still expected to be slow but positive. Those modest increases continue into 2026, according to the first estimates released by the panel for the coming fiscal year. The panel forecasts revenues of $25.3 billion for the coming fiscal year an increase of 0.9% over the current budget year. Robert Rehrmann, director of the Bureau of Revenue Estimates, said the updated estimates also do not include expectations of a recession. So, I remain cautiously optimistic about Marylands economic performance and the resilience of our economy overall, Lierman said. The board will issue revised projections in December for the current and coming year. Soon after, the legislative Joint Spending Affordability Committee will make recommendations on budget growth to Gov. Wes Moore (D). Those recommendations, while not binding, are traditionally followed. Moderate growth is growth, and Marylands economy is moving in the right direction, Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore) said in a statement. Ferguson added that the new projections reaffirm the Senates focus on the need to continue growing our economy to the benefit of all Marylanders while remaining competitive regionally and nationally. Looming in the background are concerns about federal spending, the coming election and expected post-election battles over both the federal debt ceiling and the federal budget. With less than a week left in the current federal fiscal year, Congress on Wednesday passed a continuing resolution that funds government operations through Dec. 20, and President Joe Biden signed it Thursday, heading off the threat of a government shutdown. But that just defers the problem, said Maryland Treasurer Dereck Davis (D), the third member of the board. To be perfectly honest, Im not really that surprised that we averted a shutdown. See, as long as it affects other people, theres always that threat of a shutdown, Davis said of the continuing resolution. But because a shutdown would adversely affect the members of Congress, they couldnt have that. So, they found a way to get this done in time for the November election. I promise you it wont be that smooth come December. There are also growing concerns about where the state is getting its revenues. Rehrmann warned that the states revenue portfolio is becoming less diversified and more reliant on volatile sources. Were getting more of our revenue specifically from our income taxes, and we know our income taxes are more volatile, said Rehrmann. So, all things being equal, this can introduce some volatility and make our lives a little bit more difficult in terms of forecasting our general fund. Moore and his team will also face other pressures. The state continues to struggle with addressing employee vacancy rates. Moore promised as he entered office in 2023 to cut 10,000 vacancies his own estimate in half in his first year. Not only did Moore fall short of that goal, but the pace of hiring struggled to keep up with the number of employees who retired or left state government for other jobs. Moore added 700 positions to the current budget, then suggested in July that the state would have to defer filling those new positions and others while it grapples with fiscal realities remarks that came as the state said it was cutting $150 million from departments and programs this year. That money was needed for growing expenses from Medicaid enrollment and child care subsidies. Lawmakers warned those increases could account for nearly $1 billion in budget shortfalls over two years. That is on top of a roughly $1 billion structural budget gap already projected for fiscal 2026. Even so, the leader of one of the states largest public employee unions, is calling for Moore to ramp up hiring. Our state remains in a staffing crisis where over 10% of frontline positions in our state agencies are vacant, said a statement from Patrick Moran, president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 3. This doesnt even account for the thousands of additional positions that need to be budgeted for in order for the State to be able to meet its responsibilities to provide Marylanders with the quality state services they deserve. Moran called for more hiring and increased taxes to close the budget gap. But Moore and Ferguson said in August that any tax increases would have to meet a high bar, and that the states focus should remain on growing the economy rather than tax increases. That stance could put Moore and Ferguson at odds with progressive members of the House of Delegates and the Senate who favor tax increases on corporations and high-income earners. There needs to be a re-prioritization of staffing so that Marylanders receive the proper services they need and deserve, Moran said in his statement. Resources need to be committed to this effort, and tax credits to the ultra-wealthy and large corporations as well as wasteful outsourcing need to be curtailed. Today marks the 4th anniversary of the start of the 44-day Patriotic War, which led to the restoration of our country's territorial integrity, Azernews reports, citing the post shared by Azerbaijan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on its official "X" account. "Thanks to the determination and will of the glorious Azerbaijani Army, led by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Victorious Commander-in-Chief, the Patriotic War put an end to nearly 30 years of military occupation of our lands and the violations of our citizens' fundamental rights, as well as the norms and principles of international law. This war represents the triumph of historical justice. On September 27Remembrance Daywe honor with deep respect and gratitude the cherished memory of our martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of our country, giving us this historic victory," the post reads. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) All of the Molalla River School District schools closed on Friday amid reports of a student making threats on social media, authorities said. The announcement of the closures was made on Thursday night by the Molalla River School District via an emergency information release. The Thursday night release did not explain the nature of the reports prompting the closure, only saying it was out of an abundance of caution in response to reports received by the District and police tonight. On Friday just before 11 a.m., the Molalla River Police Department confirmed in their own release that the closures were in response to a social media post that was discovered that presented a specific threat to the Molalla River Middle School. Police said a student has since been taken into custody following an investigation. Officials ID capsized boater, now presumed dead On Friday evening, just before 8 p.m., the Molalla River School District shared a letter from Molalla River Schools Superintendent Tony Mann that was emailed to parents. The parents also received text messages and calls notifying them of the new information from the superintendents letter, which was also made available online. The superintendents letter went into more detail about the events leading up to the school closures. Mann explained on Wednesday morning, a Molalla River Middle School student brought attention to school staff about a social media post containing the text Your next Molalla river middle school September 26/27 accompanied by lime green emoji guns. The school immediately notified the Molalla Police Department, who later investigated the incident and took one student from the middle school into custody that same day. The principal notified parents about what happened on Wednesday. On Thursday, other students reported on the same social media post, which was still up online. The police department was able to get the post taken down. By Thursday evening, the middle school principal was made aware of new social media posts with different content than the post from Wednesday. The posts urged students to not attend school Friday due to possible school violence. The school district and the police department continued receiving reports about social media-based threats of school violence, the letter said. School and District officials notified police of every threat, and by 9 pm determined that there were multiple new reports that would not be fully investigated by Friday morning, Mann said. The District began communicating Fridays closure with staff, parents, and the media at 9:15pm. On Friday, Mann said police have investigated all the reports and are not pursuing any additional suspects. All of the Molalla River School District schools will reopen on Monday. The entire letter from Superintendent Tony Mann is below: Good Evening Molalla River Families, Thank you for trusting us with your children. Now that investigations are completed, I have an update. As a parent and educator, I know that the threat of school violence is ever present. I am confident that closing school today with an abundance of caution was the right decision. Summary of events: Wednesday, 9/25: There was an incident at Molalla River Middle School (MRMS) on Wednesday morning, where a student came forward with a social media post that contained text Your next Molalla river middle school September 26/27 and image with lime green emoji guns. Police were notified immediately. Molalla Police Department investigated and took one MRMS student into custody. Principal Dalton sent a notice to the middle school parents before school was out on Wednesday summarizing what had occurred. Thursday, 9/26: A student at Molalla High School (MHS) made a report to staff at MHS. Police investigated and determined the high school students report was the same threat with the emojis from MRMS the day before. The social media post from Wednesday was still visible on social media and Molalla Police were able to get the post removed before 8:30 am. The District sent a notice about Wednesdays incident at MRMS as reports were spreading to other schools. The emphasis was on: See Something/Say Something. Thursday evening New social media posts with different content than the post from Wednesday were received by the middle school principal. These posts each contained text urging middle school students not to go to school on Friday due to possible school violence. A separate report came into SafeOregon. School and District administrators contacted police and learned the Molalla Police Department was also receiving reports of possible school violence via social media posts. School and District officials notified police of every threat, and by 9 pm determined that there were multiple new reports that would not be fully investigated by Friday morning. The District began communicating Fridays closure with staff, parents, and the media at 9:15pm. Friday Police have investigated all the reports and are not pursuing any additional suspects. The District will reopen schools on Monday. See Something, Say Something has been successful. Multiple reports came in from students, staff and parents and we will continue to encourage reporting. Each report will be investigated and we will use policy, discipline and the law to maintain safe schools. Even if those reports turn out to be unfounded, and students have simply made a poor choice causing alarm, we need to emphasize: See Something Say Something. I sincerely appreciate the Molalla Police Department for their partnership and immediate and thorough response to our school communities. I appreciate you trusting us with your children and I am proud of how our staff handled these reports. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. The government and Labour Ministry buildings in Chisinau were vandalised on the night of 26-27 September. Two people who received instructions from Moscow have been detained. Source: Moldovan news outlet Newsmaker; European Pravda Details: Several people vandalised the building of Moldova's Labour Ministry on Friday night, throwing bottles of paint on the doors and walls. Half an hour later, the same actions took place near the government building. A video released by Moldovan police shows two men throwing bottles of yellow and blue paint, the colours of the Ukrainian flag, at government buildings. Police detained two suspects, aged 21 and 20. During questioning at the police station, the detainees revealed that they were part of a group of 20 young men recruited to vandalise the premises of Moldovan state institutions to instigate destabilisation. They said they were paid 5,000 for vandalising near the government building alone. One of the suspects claims that he was also responsible for recruiting young people to be instructed in Moscow about the actions planned in Moldova. He said they were paid 500 a month for this. The police reported that all 20 people travelled to Moscow by plane with a stopover in Istanbul, where they were met by a Russian citizen and put up in a hotel. The next day, at a training ground near Moscow, they were taught how to organise protests in Chisinau and destabilise the situation at these protests. They were also given money and phones for communication. After a layover in Antalya, they returned to Moldova, purchased paint, gloves, trainers, and bags, and then shared videos of their vandalism on Telegram as proof of their actions. The police have identified 13 of the 20 individuals who went to Moscow for training, including a 26-year-old man responsible for recruiting youths to make the trip to Russia. Law enforcement officers conducted searches at the homes of four individuals, seizing several cans of paint, gloves, bank cards, identity documents confirming their trips to Russia, and other items that may serve as evidence in a criminal investigation. Support UP or become our patron! Your Money: How to protect yourself against investment scams When you invest, youll find that knowledge is power. The more you know about your investment choices, and who is offering them, the better prepared youll be to make good decisions. And this diligence can also help protect you against investment scams. Jim Lyons, from Edward Jones, joins the JET 24 Action News studio to discuss how to protect yourself. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJET/WFXP/YourErie.com. How many migrants have crossed the US border illegally? Cracking down on illegal immigration has been Donald Trumps signature issue - but now Democrats are trying to address an election weakness by also talking tough about securing the US border with Mexico. The Republican presidential nominee has repeatedly criticised the government's record on the border, saying "Kamala Harris has allowed 21 million illegals to pour in from all over the world. Crossings did reach record levels under President Biden, but numbers have dropped significantly in recent months. Now Harris says she will make it even harder for migrants to seek asylum in the US. Six out of 10 Americans rate immigration as very important in determining how they will vote, according to the Pew Research Center. Other polling suggests voters trust Trump to handle the issue more effectively than Harris. So how have both administrations dealt with the influx of migrants and what do we know about the people crossing this border illegally? How many migrants have crossed the US southern border? US border officials record "encounters" with migrants - these include people who attempted to cross illegally and people who tried to enter legally but were deemed inadmissible. These encounters have risen to record highs under the Biden administration but not to the level Trump - who has not provided a source for his claim - maintains. Since January 2021, when Joe Biden came to office, there have been more than 10 million encounters - about 8 million came over the southwest land border with Mexico. Under the Trump administration, there were 2.4 million encounters on this border. Encounters fell at the start of 2020 as arrivals slowed because of the pandemic. The number of encounters is not a count of individuals who stay in the US as some migrants will be returned and the same person can be recorded trying to enter multiple times. These figures don't include people who may have crossed the border undetected. The US Department of Homeland Security has estimated there were 11 million illegal migrants living in the US as of January 2022. It says about a fifth of them arrived in 2010 or later but the majority arrived before this time, some as early as the 1980s. How have government policies affected border crossings? Both the Trump and Biden administrations used a Covid-19 public health measure to quickly return migrants at the border. Between its start in March 2020 and its end in May 2023, migrants were expelled nearly three million times under this policy. Despite this, encounters continued to increase, according to the Migration Policy Institute. The factors driving this included a post-lockdown surge in crossings and political and economic instability in countries such as Venezuela. Republicans say Bidens weak policies on immigration also encouraged migrants to travel to the US - and some Democrats in border states criticised the administration for not acting quickly enough to address the crisis. An attempt to pass a cross-party bill to tighten border security failed in May 2024, with Harris saying that Trump "tanked it". Biden issued an executive order the following month to quickly deport migrants at the border. This means migrants can be sent back without having their asylum claims processed, if the average number of weekly encounters exceeded a certain threshold. A month after the order was introduced, encounters at the southern border fell by a fifth. Efforts by the Mexican government have also brought crossings down, including setting up new checkpoints and increasing patrols. In May, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said that the number of migrants at the US southern border had halved from a peak of 12,000 a day to 6,000 a day. Where are the migrants coming from? The vast majority of people who cross the US southern border are citizens of nearby countries in the Americas. Recent figures show that in the current financial year (October 2023 - September 2024), the most common nationality encountered at the southern border were Mexicans (617,770). This was followed by nearly a quarter of a million Venezuelans and almost 200,000 Guatemalans. There have also been 36,920 encounters of Chinese citizens this financial year to date. That's 10,000 higher than for the whole of the previous financial year. [BBC] How many border migrants have criminal records? Trump has repeatedly said about illegal migrants that "many of them that are coming in are from prisons and jails and mental institutions, insane asylums". There are no publicly available figures on how many migrants have spent time in prison or in mental institutions but there is data on how many have previous criminal convictions. Of the 1.5 million apprehensions of people crossing the border illegally so far this financial year - and where Border Patrol was able to check against law enforcement databases - about 15,608 were of people with previous criminal convictions. The most common conviction was for illegal entry into another country (9,545), followed by driving under the influence (2,577), and drug possession and trafficking offences (1,414). On 27 September, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released figures showing it had recorded 662,566 "noncitizens with criminal histories" - which includes those currently detained by the agency and those not detained. It says 435,719 of them are convicted criminals and 226,847 have pending criminal charges. The figures go up to July 2024 but ICE does not say when the cases date back to or when these people arrived in the US. Trump has also linked border crossings with fuelling violent crime in the US. At campaign events he has spoken about alleged killings of American women by undocumented migrants. But crime and migration trends have travelled in opposite directions in recent years. Department of Justice figures show a long-term decline in violent crime, with rates of victimisation in 2023 broadly similar to five years ago. Recent FBI data also indicates a downward trend in violence. [Getty Images] Is Venezuela emptying its prisons into the US? Trump also claims that Venezuela has been sending its prisoners into the US. In July he said: Next year well meet in Venezuela because it will be safe. Their crime has gone down 72% because theyve sent all of their drug dealers, their criminals and most of their prisoners into our country. BBC Verify spoke to the independent Venezuelan Observatory of Violence. It said it had seen no evidence that the Venezuelan government has been systematically sending its prisoners to the US or to any other country. The Observatory's figures show crime has fallen in Venezuela in the past few years, but not to the extent Trump has claimed and for other reasons. "Crime is reduced in Venezuela by a reduction in crime opportunities: bank robberies disappear because there is no money to steal; kidnappings are reduced because there is no cash to pay ransoms; robberies on public transport cease because travellers have no money in their pockets and old, worthless cell phones," a spokesperson from the Observatory said. Donald Trump has accused Venezuela of sending criminals into the US. [Getty Images] [BBC] What do you want BBC Verify to investigate? Four more health-care workers who tended to a person hospitalized with H5N1 bird flu have revealed that they had respiratory symptoms after their exposures, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One health-care worker who had symptoms had what investigators consider high-risk contact with the patient, meaning they provided care before the hospital advised taking precautions such as wearing a mask when tending to the patient. Three additional workers reportedly had low-risk contact with the patient after the hospital required precautions. None of these workers was tested at the time they experienced symptoms, the CDC reported Friday. Before Fridays disclosure, two other health-care workers had been identified as having symptoms after caring for this patient, bringing the total number of workers with symptoms to six. To give an idea of the scope of the investigation, 18 health-care workers have been identified as having high-risk exposure to the patient, and 94 others had contact that was considered low-risk, the CDC said. The six health-care workers who fell ill did not have severe symptoms, and they have since resolved. One worker tested negative for influenza at the time of their illness. The other five will have their blood tested to see whether they have antibodies against the virus, which would show whether they had a past H5N1 infection, the CDC added. It has been three weeks since the CDC and Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services announced that a person who had no contact with animals had tested positive for H5N1, the 14th human infection in the United States since April. The other 13 cases were in farm workers who had direct contact with infected dairy cows and chickens. The cause of the Missouri patients infection in still under investigation, which is being led by the state, with assistance from the CDC. None of the people in the US with a confirmed H5N1 infection is known to have infected other people. The investigation is ongoing and there remains no evidence to suggest person-to-person transmission at this time, Lisa Cox, a spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, wrote in an email to CNN. Person-to-person transmission would raise alarm because it would suggest that the virus was changing in ways that could allow it to more easily infect humans. The investigation of the bird flu patients household contacts has been completed, Cox said. One person who lives in the same house as the patient developed symptoms the same day. However, the timing doesnt suggest that one person infected the other but that both had a common exposure. Neither had typical flu-like symptoms or conjunctivitis, Cox wrote. Only one other person had limited contact with the patient at home, but when questioned, that person said they have not been ill, she said. In other updates, the CDC said that it has developed a test for wastewater that can discriminate samples with H5 viruses from other types of influenza A. This will be particularly helpful as the US moves into flu season and influenza A becomes more common in wastewater. The CDC is reminding people: Not to touch sick or dying animals, including wild and farmed birds and cows. To avoid bedding and litter of animals suspected of having H5N1 influenza. Not to drink raw milk . Heating milk kills the virus, so pasteurized products are safe. to wear personal protective equipment such as masks and gloves when working with sick animals. The agency says the immediate risk to the public from H5N1 bird flu continues to be low. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com WACO, Texas (FOX 44) A former priest who worked in McLennan County has been indicted on sexual assault charges once again. Anthony Odiong was previously arrested in Florida. According to the Waco Police Departments Special Crimes Unit, the 56-year-old Odiong received a four-count indictment from a McLennan County Grand Jury around 8:30 a.m. Thursday for first-degree felony sexual assaults. These charges stem from an already-identified survivor whose case was discovered amongst evidentiary returns from search warrants during the investigation process. The department says the evidence of a sexual relationship was/is present from 2007-2012 in emails, text messages and is corroborated by repeated predatory behaviors by Odiong which have appeared amongst nearly every survivor identified to date so far ten of them. The survivor with which these charges represent today also accompany criminal acts that occurred in surrounding counties that the McLennan County District Attorneys Office will weigh the possibilities of seeking indictments in those respective counties as this case investigation continues. PREVIOUS STORY: Priest charged with sex assault brought to Waco to face charges These indictments represent the continued dedication the department has towards affording justice for the survivors of Odiongs criminal actions through his abuse of clerical position within the Catholic Church. Survivors continue to be identified as the evidence returns are sifted through by police, and this case is anticipated to continue revealing facts based upon evidence yet to be publicly released. Odiong is currently in the McLennan County Jail with a total bond of $2,500,000. The Waco Police Department is asking for any survivor(s) within the United States yet to be contacted by police come forward to Det. Bradley DeLange by contacting him directly at 254-750-7609. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KWKT - FOX 44. SHARON, Pa. (WKBN) A suspect in a local stabbing who had been on Pennsylvanias Most Wanted Absconders list is now in custody. Robert Pegues, III, was being held in the Mercer County Jail. Pegues is charged with attempted homicide, robbery, aggravated assault and conspiracy in connection to a stabbing during the robbery of a store on Division Street in Sharon. The victims face was cut during the crime, police said. Police arrested two other suspects Shannon Clarke and Larry Moore Jr. at a home on Charles Street in Hermitage. They were charged with robbery and aggravated assault. Police had been looking for Pegues after the incident. He was arraigned Thursday, and a preliminary hearing was set for 10 a.m. Oct. 16, according to court records. Clarke and Moore are set to be arraigned in Common Pleas Court on Oct. 15. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com. Editors note: This story has been corrected to accurately reflect the stage that Alissas case is currently in. DENVER (KDVR) A Colorado court administrator told FOX31 on Thursday that a motion has been granted for alternative defense counsel to be appointed for the purposes of an appeal in the King Soopers shooting case, although the motion is not reflected in the online records. Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa was convicted Monday by a Boulder jury on 10 murder charges and 38 attempted murder charges. His defense did not deny that he was the gunman who killed 10 people at the King Soopers on Table Mesa Drive in Boulder on March 22, 2021. In court, family of King Soopers shooting victims shared stories of loved ones and loss Instead, his lawyers argued for years that Alissa was not sane at the time of the shooting, leading to the 25-year-old pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. Following the shooting, state mental health employees diagnosed him with schizophrenia, and told the court he was sane during the shooting. However, prosecutors argued during the trial that Alissa planned the shooting months in advance, pointing out during the trial that he had used steel-piercing bullets and an optic sight to help him kill during the attack. Because of this, jurors deliberated on whether Alissa should be convicted or found not guilty by reason of insanity, ultimately convicting him of the 10 counts of first-degree murder, 38 counts of first-degree attempted murder, one count of assault in the first degree and six counts of possessing a large capacity magazine. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) A motorcyclist was hospitalized Thursday night to be treated for what were described as serious injuries following a crash in Rochester. Officers were called to the area of Lake Avenue and Maplewood Park just before 6 p.m. Police said it was later discovered that the motorcyclist was speeding down Lake Avenue when it collided with an SUV attempting to make a left turn. The occupants of the SUV werent injured. The motorcyclist, identified as a 37-year-old Greece man, was taken to the hospital where police said he was left fighting for his life. No charges have been announced in this 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 RochesterFirst. (COLORADO SPRINGS) The Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD) has released the identity of a motorcyclist who was killed in a crash in early September on East Platte Avenue near Knob Hill. According to CSPD, officers responded just before 8 a.m. on Sept. 3 to the intersection of Platte and Don Juan Street on a report of a crash involving a pickup truck and a motorcycle. The motorcyclist was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Fatal crash at E. Platte and Don Juan St. CSPDs initial information is that the motorcycle was traveling west on E. Platte Ave. and the pickup truck was traveling east and trying to turn onto Don Juan when the crash occurred. Courtesy: FOX21 Courtesy: FOX21 Courtesy: FOX21 Courtesy: FOX21 Westbound Platte Avenue was closed for several hours while the Major Crash Team investigated. CSPD said at this time, no charges have been filed, though the investigation is ongoing. According to CSPD, on Sept. 4, the El Paso County Coroners Office identified the motorcyclist as 35-year-old Michael Pinegar. CSPD said this was the 38th traffic fatality in Colorado Springs this year. At this time in 2023, there had been 30 fatalities. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Motorcyclist killed when he hits car while speeding Motorcyclist killed when he hits car while speeding EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) A 39-year-old man from Santa Teresa, New Mexico, was killed on Sunday night, Sept. 22 when he was speeding along Gateway East and struck another vehicle, El Paso Police said. Police said Alex Cole Bustamante, 39, was killed in a crash at about 6:30 p.m. along the 4400 block of Gateway East near Lincoln Park. 1 person dead in crash involving motorcycle in South-Central Police say Bustamante was traveling at a high rate of speed. The driver in front of him merged right into the next lane to avoid being hit by the motorcycle, police said. The motorcycle, however, struck the rear left corner of the vehicle, causing the motorcyclist to be thrown from the bike, police said. Bustamante was transported to a local hospital where he died, police said. Speed on the part of Bustamante is believed to be a contributing factor in the crash, police said. This is the 46th traffic fatality in El Paso, compared to 55 at the same time last year. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News. Hooven Avenue in Hooven, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Residents of the census-designated place in Whitewater Township are apprehensive about coming home after a railcar spilled the chemical styrene just two days before. If you've ever spent time in Hooven, you might call it a front-porch community. Hooven Avenue, the main drag in the residential area near Cleves, is lined with homes ranging from mobile homes to old farmhouses. Its a quiet street with few cars passing through. People wave at their neighbors, and everyone knows everyone. But on Thursday, porch swings were empty and screen doors covered. People were holed up inside if they were even home at all. What happened over the last 36 hours? The story of the styrene leak in Whitewater Township, Ohio Its been two days since a train car started leaking the chemical styrene near the Whitewater Township community of just under 500 people. Residents within a half-mile of the railyard were startled when around 1 p.m. their phones went off and cops came to their doors to notify them of an evacuation order. Many left with just the clothes on their backs, calling friends and family and booking motels to stay for an unknown period of time. They couldnt come home because the odorous chemical was permeating the air, with many reporting immediate symptoms like nose and eye burning, trouble breathing and more. Hooven Avenue residents like Mary Halloran were grateful to come home when the evacuation order was lifted Wednesday evening, but it was daunting to come back to a place that a day before was not deemed safe. Theres no place like home, but you dont want to come home because youre scared," Halloran said. Heading home after a frightening experience It was around 1 p.m. Tuesday when Hamilton County Emergency Management Agency first told Hooven residents to evacuate. Officials gave residents the all-clear on air quality around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, about 30 hours after the stationary railcar, situated across U.S. 50 from the Whitewater Township Kroger, stopped leaking styrene. Crews from a dozen agencies poured water onto the increasingly hot tank for nearly 12 hours to stop the leak. Whitewater Township Fire Chief Scott Schorsch was the first on scene. Soon after, firefighters clad with gas masks and full personal protective equipment arrived on scene to mitigate the leak, which developed a full vapor plume spewing from the top of the tank car. Chief of Whitewater Township Fire & EMS Scott Schorsch at the Whitewater Township Community Center on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Schorsch said the township is doing its best to provide resources and information to residents who fear for the worst as they return home. Specialists were on hand at the firehouse for residents who were worried about reentering their homes due to the chemical leak, and the fire department has been providing resources on its social media pages to help assuage people's concerns. "I know some residents are still scared and anxious, and others have gone home," Schorsch said. "We're just hoping people find the information and utilize it." A 'tremendous smell': Dispatch logs detail chaotic scene at Cleves railcar styrene leak The staff at Fishtail Tavern, a local haunt for the Hooven community, did not waste time when they first noticed the styrene smell. According to tavern owner Angie Oliver, the staff immediately started moving people out of the restaurant and shutting down its HVAC when the odor first permeated the kitchen. Before they resumed operations on Thursday, cleaning crews scrubbed the place top to bottom to ensure confidence in the customers, even though officials did not say such measures were necessary. Fishtail Tavern regular Joe Brockman was at the restaurant when the news of the leak broke. Cellphones started blaring EMA alerts throughout the dining room not long after fire engines and cop cars started whizzing by. Upon stepping outside, Brockman immediately noticed the smell and the gas burned his eyes and nose a sensation he remembers when he worked near toxic chemicals at his former job with GE. "It was a real sweet smell. You could almost taste it," Brockman said. The inside of Fishtail Tavern in Hooven on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. It was the first day back in operation after the restaurant was closed for two days due to a chemical leak on a nearby train. It was also Albert Huffman's first day back at the restaurant. The 92-year-old, who has lived in Hooven for more than 50 years, was sitting on his front porch when the styrene leak started. He immediately noticed the smell and got dizzy. His cellphone was already sounding the EMA warning by the time he got inside. A neighbor drove him to the nearby Quality Inn, where many people they knew from the neighborhood were also staying. "I feel good right now," Huffman said. He's still going to the doctor this week to make sure he'll be OK. He has heart issues and wears a pacemaker, so he's concerned that his symptoms have come and gone since the incident. If he doesn't get better, he wants the railroad company to pay for his medical expenses. Uncertainty, unanswered questions moving forward For Russell McKernan, who lives in Hooven in his mother's former home, the disappointment from a hazmat incident like this is not new. He recalls when petroleum products from a Chevron refinery in Hooven contaminated groundwater throughout the community. The EPA in 2006 ordered the company to handle the cleanup, which remains underway to this day. Tuesday's styrene leak brought back memories of the Chevron case, but this time was different: They were evacuated from their homes. He and his wife left for a hotel Tuesday night with just the clothes on their backs. "Until someone is pulled out of their house for no reason, you don't know how you're being affected," McKernan said. "We were crushed." The styrene's strong odor resembling acetone no longer lingers in the air and the symptoms are gone, but for Halloran's sister, Deborah Miller, it's the uncertainty of the situation that's frightening. From left Mary Halloran, Michelle Silva and Deborah Miller at their residence in Hooven on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. The women live in an eight-person household, all family members, and are apprehensive about returning home following the styrene spill. Is it safe to be at home? Why was the railcar sitting on the tracks by the Great Miami River for so long? Who's going to help residents who may be permanently harmed by the styrene fumes released that day? Why did the EMA alert go out to some residents' phones, and not others? "We had a lot of questions that didn't get answered," Miller said. "That's the main thing." The sisters Halloran and Miller live in an eight-person household, which includes Halloran's daughter, Michelle Silva. Silva said no one's phone in the house got the alert that day, and they had to find out about the leak on the news. Confusion surrounded how her daughter and niece would get back home from school that day, so she ended up sending her mother to pick them up before the went to a campground for the night. It was an unprecedented situation for her family, who moved to Hooven from Norwood in 2019. "Being told we had to evacuate and not come home at all that was the hardest part," Silva said. "It was scary. It was like a movie." This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Residents in area of Cleves styrene leak remain uneasy returning home Winds from Tropical Storm Helene ripped the roof off this home in Williston, S.C., at 5 a.m. Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, and caused the sunroom and screened-in porch to collapse. (Provided by Emily Wiles) COLUMBIA Tropical Storm Helene caused at least 19 deaths in South Carolina as its winds covered the state early Friday and left more than 1.2 million homes and businesses without power statewide. The Anderson County Coroners office confirmed two people were killed in that Upstate county when trees fell on their homes, according to spokeswoman Alyssa Whitfield. And Aiken County Coroner Darryl Ables said his office is investigating four deaths related to the storm. At a briefing Friday afternoon, Gov. Henry McMaster confirmed two firefighters died in Saluda County and two people died in Newberry County in traffic-related incidents caused by the storm. Multiple news outlets report the death toll in Spartanburg County rose to five, and four died in Greenville County. Winds from Tropical Storm Helene downed trees across South Carolina. Pictured is a home in Williston, S.C., on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (Provided by Kevin Carroll) Meanwhile, utilities statewide reported outages, according to online maps from Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Santee Cooper and the states electric cooperatives. Executives from the power companies said some outages could last through the weekend and into next week. Dominion Energy South Carolina President Keller Kissam said the number of outages in his companys territory is nearly the same as what that area experienced after Hurricane Hugo in 1989. The Upstate took the brunt of the storm. High winds uprooted trees from the ground already saturated after days of rain, McMaster said. John Quagliariello, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, reported rainfall totals as high as 15 inches in Oconee, Greenville and Pickens in the days ahead of the storm. At the height of the storm, wind gusts in the state ranged from 50 to 70 miles per hour, including 72-mile-per-hour gusts recorded in Aiken and Anderson and an 82-mile-per-hour gust just over the border in Augusta. The National Weather Service issued numerous tornado warnings but Quagliariello said its still unknown how many tornados may have actually occurred. Duke Energy alone was reporting 545,000 outages in the Upstate as of noon Friday. Jimmy Stanton, head of state-owned utility Santee Cooper, said crews at the companys power station in Anderson County had to cut through trees to get into work Friday morning. But most of the power companys issues were with its major transmission lines that supply electricity to South Carolinas electric cooperatives. Central Electric Power Cooperative CEO Rob Hochstetler, speaking on behalf of the states 19 cooperatives, said the storm snapped several hundred poles and yanked down lines. Cooperative employees who have been in the business upwards of 40 years in the Upstate and along South Carolinas western border reported Helene was the most destructive storm theyve ever seen. Trees even fell on the trucks of two crews while they were out trying to restore power, Hochstetler said. No workers were injured. All asked for patience as crews work to get the lights back on. Gov. Hery McMaster leads a briefing at the South Carolina Emergency Operations Center in West Columbia on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, following Tropical Storm Helene. (Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette) Tomorrow, its going to be 86 degrees and clear, and youre going to say, Why cant I watch the football game? Why cant I go out and get my life get back to normal?' Kissam said. Lifes not going to be back to normal until probably the middle of next week from a power standpoint, just because of the sheer damage that we have. Utility executives stressed the importance of staying away from downed power lines and state Fire Marshall Jonathan Jones reminded residents to use caution should they choose to run a generator. He said generators should not be run inside homes or attached garages and should be kept away from doors, windows and other openings to prevent the potential for carbon monoxide poisoning. For those displaced by the storm, the state has six shelters open across Laurens, Orangeburg, Oconee, Pickens, Saluda and Spartanburg counties. So far, only about 30 people have sought shelter, according to S.C. Department of Social Services Director Mike Leach. Over the weekend, Quagliariello said the National Weather Service is forecasting major river flooding on the Saluda River near Greenville, the Broad Rivers near the North Carolina border and the Wateree River near the dam. S.C. Department of Environmental Services Interim Director Myra Reece said her agency is in contact with officials in North Carolina monitoring the Lake Lure dam that, if it were to breach, could impact South Carolina. Helene made landfall in Florida late Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 140 mph. As the storm pushed inland, it weakened but was still a Category 1 storm as it moved up through Georgia, tracking slightly more to the East than anticipated, and brought tropical-storm-force winds and heavy rainfall across South Carolina. Helene is expected to turn to the northwest and dissipate over the Tennessee River Valley this weekend. Tropical Storm Helene is having a devastating impact on South Carolina, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a statement. The scope of damage from the storm has been wide and deep. People are not only without power, but there is heavy flooding, homes have been destroyed and lives have been lost and upended. Graham said the congressional delegation will work with the governor to secure federal disaster relief. Helenes destructive path comes less than two months after Tropical Storm Debby soaked parts of the state as it meandered up South Carolinas coast and into North Carolina, spinning off tornadoes, causing flooding and damaging hundreds of homes. But no deaths or injuries were reported in South Carolina from that slow-moving storm. Editors note: This article has been updated to reflect additional confirmed deaths. 3 hackers with ties to Iran indicted in plot against Trump campaign: DOJ Three men connected to Iran have been indicted in relation to a hacking plot against former President Donald Trump's campaign, the Department of Justice announced Friday. Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar Balaghi are the three suspects named in the case, according to a federal indictment unsealed Friday afternoon. The indictment shows the trio are facing a long list of charges, including: Conspiracy to Obtain Information from a Protected Computer; Defraud and Obtain a Thing of Value; Commit Fraud Involving Authentication Features; Commit Aggravated Identity Theft; Commit Access Device Fraud; and Commit Wire Fraud While Falsely Registering Domains. Does Iran's Hacking Of The Trump Campaign Prove They Want Kamala Harris To Win The Election? Experts Weigh In Three hackers with ties to Iran were indicted by the DOJ. The three hackers, who are accused of working for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, were allegedly "engaged in a wide-ranging hacking campaign that used spearphishing and social engineering techniques to target and compromise the accounts of current and former U.S. government officials, members of the media, nongovernmental organizations, and individuals associated with U.S. political campaigns." Last week, the U.S. revealed the Iranian hackers had obtained information on the Trump campaign and tried to distribute it to people linked to the Biden campaign and media organizations since June. Read On The Fox News App Iran Tried To Influence Election By Sending Stolen Material From Trump Campaign To Biden's Camp, Fbi Says READ THE FEDERAL INDICTMENT App Users, Click Here: The federal government acknowledges that the Trump campaign has been a specific and repeated target of Iran since he ordered the killing of Qasem Soleimani, the former commander of the IRGC Qods Force. Trump was briefed Tuesday about "real and specific threats" from Iran to assassinate the Republican presidential candidate, according to his campaign. Irans aim to assassinate Trump is part of the Islamic Republics efforts to "destabilize and sow chaos in the United States," Trump Campaign Communications Director Steven Cheung said in a press release. "Intelligence officials have identified that these continued and coordinated attacks have heightened in the past few months, and law enforcement officials across all agencies are working to ensure President Trump is protected and the election is free from interference," Cheung said. This is a developing story and will be updated. Fox News Digital's Bradford Betz and Morgan Phillips contributed to this report. Original article source: 3 hackers with ties to Iran indicted in plot against Trump campaign: DOJ Multiple terminals at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach remain closed Friday a day after a big-rig tractor trailer carrying lithium-ion batteries overturned on the freeway connecting both San Pedro Bay Ports. Four of the L.A. ports terminalsAPM Terminals, Fenix Marine, Everport and Yusen Terminalscanceled their second shift Thursday and remained closed Friday as local fire, hazmat and police agencies continue to work on scene. TraPac and the West Basin Container Terminal will stay open, as will the World Cruise Center, the port said. More from Sourcing Journal As for the neighboring L.B. port, container terminals at Pier T and Pier A will remain closed for the day shift (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.) Friday due to proximity to the fire. They will reassess resumption of operations later. The incident occurred just off Interstate 710, near Ocean Boulevard and Navy Way on Terminal Island, the land area where both ports reside. It was unclear what caused the truck to roll on its side. All four other container terminalsLong Beach Container Terminal, ITS, Pacific Container Terminal and SSA at Pier Cremain open. The Port of Long Beach said it is not expected that the incident will greatly impact the flow of cargo at the gateway. But containers that are already stuck there could be a nuisance for companies that had an appointment to pick them up via truck after 1 p.m. on Thursday, or throughout Friday, according to Ian Weiland, chief operating officer at trucking and logistics company Junction Collaborative Transports. This will be roughly 1.5-to-2 days of [appointments] needing to be rescheduled across ALL truckers ALL at the same time, Weiland said in a post on LinkedIn. Expect MAJOR delays on these particular containers. And for those companies bringing an empty container back to a closed terminal, it will sit in a trucker storage yard on a chassis and will continue to rack up added charges due to the closure, he warned. Since it wont be possible to return all empties at same time because of the container congestion, dispute any/all charges with SSL as these are market problems, he added. The incident occurred just off Interstate 710, near Ocean Boulevard and Navy Way on Terminal Island, the land area where both ports reside. It was unclear what caused the truck to roll on its side. The Los Angeles Fire Department first reported on the incident at 11:58 a.m. local time Thursday. There were no reported injuries or evacuations, and there were no off-site hazards. Traffic is being re-routed away from the area and all motorists are advised to use alternate routes. According to the LAFD, which is overseeing the incident, firefighters monitored the battery fire through the night and will continue to all day Friday. The department said at 10 p.m. that the fire was expected to last at least another 24 to 48 hours. The batteries have been damaged, and are on fire and off-gassing, with reports of one battery exploding, the LAFD said. The fire crews were taking precautions to block hazardous materials from potentially spreading from the batteries, one of which exploded, said the department. A seven-mile stretch on California State Route 47, extending from the Vincent Thomas Bridge to Long Beach, will remain closed through that period. The terminal closures come at a pivotal moment for the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which process the most and second-most 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in the U.S., just days ahead of a now-probable East and Gulf Coast port strike on Oct. 1. In August, the ports saw an increase in container imports of 18 percent and 40 percent, respectively, as many shippers brought product in earlier than usual or shifted cargo away from the East Coast. Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, and Port of Long Beach CEO Mario Cordero have both indicated that their hubs are prepared for any potential uptick in imports that is expected to come from the diverted cargo. On Sept. 18, Seroka said the L.A. port ran at about 80 percent capacity of 1.2 million TEUs. And the L.B. port is handling just as much cargo as we did in 2021 and 2022 but without any of the pandemic-era backlogs, delays or congestion that arose due to issues outside the Port, said Cordero in a statement on the East Coast port contract negotiations Friday. We continue to be in close contact with our ocean carriers, terminal operators, railroads, equipment providers, and labor and industry partners to monitor the situation and to do our part to keep the national supply chain operational, Cordero said, who noted the port was prepared to its business recovery task force for the duration of any increased congestion or impediments to the movement of cargo due to any work stoppage. As of Thursday, 11 container vessels were waiting at berth at the Port of Los Angeles. Nine ships are berthed at the Port of Long Beach on Friday. There were 26 total ships in the area between their point of origin and 40 nautical miles from the L.A. hub, while there were 29 vessels between those points that were headed for L.B. Approximately 436,973 TEUs are aboard the 55 ships headed for the San Pedro Bay. A museum in Australia can bar men from the 'Ladies Lounge' exhibition, a regional top court says Kirsha Kaechele, curator of a ladies' lounge at Tasmania's Museum of Old and New Art, back center, and supporters dance outside the Supreme Court of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (Ethan James/AAP Image via AP) WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) A museum in Australia was within its rights to bar men from a controversial art exhibit for women meant to underscore their exclusion from segments of the male-dominated society, a top regional court said on Friday. The development is the latest in the long-running saga of the Ladies Lounge exhibition that has provoked an uproar in the art world. Its curator, Kirsha Kaechele, admitted in June she had created all the art, including the paintings she had billed for years as works by Spanish master Pablo Picasso without anyone noticing they were fake. On Friday, Tasmanias Supreme Court threw out on appeal an order for Tasmanias Museum of Old and New Art, where the exhibit opened in 2020, to stop refusing male patrons entry to the show. It said the lower tribunal should have found that the Ladies Lounge was exempt from Australia's gender discrimination law. The appeals court asked Tasmanias Civil and Administrative Tribunal to reconsider its ruling from April in the case brought by a disgruntled male visitor. It wasn't immediately clear when the case would be revisited. Associate Justice Shane Marshall wrote in his ruling Friday that the lower body was wrong when it decided the exhibition did not qualify for an exemption to gender discrimination laws. The exhibition was intended to promote equal opportunity for women who suffer ongoing gender disadvantage by excluding men, he said. When the museum first lost the suit, Kaechele relocated the paintings to a womens restroom at the gallery rather than allow male visitors to see the art. The fracas, however, continued, with the Guardian newspaper eventually questioning the authenticity of the art work after the museum published a picture of a supposed Picasso hanging above a toilet. Fridays ruling was a victory for Kaechele, who said in July that the purpose of the Ladies Lounge open to all who identified as women was to make men feel as excluded as possible." Catherine Scott, a lawyer representing the museum, said the ruling Friday recognized that the Ladies Lounge challenged inequality by providing a flipped universe where women experience advantage. During the hearings, Scott had presented a 2024 report card by the Australian government on gender equality, which shows that women working full-time earn 12% less than men. Kaechele claimed the court's decision reflected what she holds as "a simple truth: women are better than men. Jason Lau, the New South Wales resident who brought the case against the museum, did not appear in court neither during the initial lawsuit nor during the appeal and has never spoken publicly about it. Lau's lawyer, Greg Barns, said he was unable to comment on the case and did not respond to a request to speak to his client. When the appeal hearing opened last week, Kaechele repeated her performance from earlier, showing up at the Supreme Court in Tasmania's city of Hobart surrounded by dozens of women supporters in navy-colored suits and wearing bright red lipstick. The women danced out of the court in single file, some holding placards denouncing men. Yes, the men, understandably, are a little grumpy about this, Kaechele wrote on Instagram after Friday's ruling. They may even appeal. (They do not appeal to me.) When Kaechele announced in July that she had created the artwork at the exhibit, including the supposed Picasso paintings, she provoked a debate among art critics. Detractors said that to knowingly display forgeries undermined a gallery's credibility and that Kaechele was making a joke at her women patrons' expense by passing off worthless trinkets as art. But many gallery visitors appeared to be in on the act. In March, a panelist on the Australian current events show The Project on Network 10 described being forced to wait outside while his female companions visited the exhibition. I begged to find out what happened, but no one said anything, Sam Taunton told the program. My girlfriend said it was the greatest experience of her life. The exiled National Unity Government said the junta's offer was not worth considering [Reuters] Rebel groups have rejected a peace offer from Myanmars embattled junta, which is reeling from battlefield losses and defections in a civil war that has dragged on for more than three years. This is dictatorship's first such outreach since it seized power in 2021. It also comes after a ceasefire brokered by China in the northern Shan state fell apart. The junta called on ethnic armed groups and "terrorist insurgent groups" to "communicate with us to solve political problems politically", also urging them to join elections planned for next year. The exiled National Unity Government (NUG) said the offer was not worth considering, adding the junta had no authority to hold an election. The junta extended an olive branch Thursday as it struggled to fight on multiple fronts and stem a widespread rebellion. Some reports say the junta now has control of less than half of Myanmar's territories. In June, an alliance of three ethnic armies renewed an offensive against the military, seizing territory along a key highway to China's Yunnan province, which borders Myanmar. The fighting near the border in Shan state has blocked China's ambitious plan to connect its landlocked south-west to the Indian Ocean via Myanmar. Beijing's top diplomat, Wang Yi, is thought to have delivered a warning to the country's ruler Min Aung Hlaing during a visit to Myanmar last month. Armed groups should follow "the path of party politics and elections in order to bring about lasting peace and development", the junta said in its statement on Thursday. "The country's human resources, basic infrastructure and many people's lives have been lost, and the country's stability and development have been blocked [because of the conflict]" it said. But the rebel groups are sceptical of the offer. The Karen National Union (KNU), which has been fighting for decades with the military for more autonomy along the border with Thailand, told AFP news agency that talks were only possible if the military agreed to "common political objectives". "Number one: no military participation in future politics. Two [the military] has to agree to a federal democratic constitution," KNU spokesman Padoh Saw Taw Nee told AFP. "Number three: they have to be accountable for everything they have committed... including war crimes and crimes against humanity," he said. "No impunity." If the junta does not accede to these demands, the KNU will "keep putting pressure on [the junta] politically and militarily," he added. Maung Saungkha, the leader of the Bamar People's Liberation Army, told Reuters news agency that his group is "not interested in this offer". "They are hanging goats heads but selling dog meat," Soe Thu Ya Zaw, commander of the Mandalay Peoples Defense Forces, wrote on Facebook. After the military ousted Myanmar's democratically-elected government in 2021, peaceful protests were met with killings and arrests. This led ethnic armed groups to join forces with anti-coup militias across the country to fight back, plunging the country into a civil war. At least 50,000 people have been killed since the coup and more than two million people displaced, according to the United Nations. The UN warned last week that Myanmar was "sinking into an abyss of human suffering". Eyewitnesses had previously told the BBC about how the military has tourtued people in its custody, including by pouring burning petrol on them and forcing some to drink their urine. FILE - Saw Win Myint, a commander of a military unit under the Karen National Union, the leading political body for the Karen ethnic minority that is part of the resistance against military rule in Myanmar, inspects the damaged armory in the captured army base of Infantry Battalion 275 in Myawaddy township in Kayin state, Myanmar, on April 12, 2024.. (AP Photo/Metro, File) BANGKOK (AP) The main group coordinating opposition to military rule in Myanmar rejected on Friday a surprise offer from the ruling generals to hold talks on a political solution to the countrys nationwide armed conflict. Nay Phone Latt, a spokesperson for the oppositions shadow National Unity Government, told The Associated Press that a joint statement issued earlier this year by opposition groups has already paved the way for a negotiated political solution if the army agrees to its conditions. Padoh Saw Kalae Say, a spokesperson of the Karen National Union, which represents the Karen ethnic minority, said it also will not accept the militarys offer. The KNU has been fighting on and off for greater autonomy since Myanmar, then called Burma, won independence from Britain in 1948. What we see is that their inviting offers are the ideas from more than 70 years ago. We wont accept and discuss it, and looking back at the statements we have repeatedly expressed, I would like to say that there is no need to think about this, Padoh Saw Kalae Say told the AP. The militarys brief Offer to resolve political issues in political means, dated Thursday and published Friday in the Global New Light of Myanmar and other state-run newspapers, was its most direct offer of peace talks since it seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. It said its opponents are invited to contact the State to resolve the political issues through party politics or electoral processes in order to be able to join hands with the people to emphasize durable peace and development by discarding the armed terrorist way. The offer came five days before the military government launches a national census to compile voter lists for a general election expected next year. An election is seen as a way for the military to legitimize its rule, though it would be difficult to organize while the country is at war, and critics see no way for the polls to be free and fair. The ruling military originally announced that elections would be held in August 2023, but has repeatedly pushed back the date. The military's offer, which defended its 2021 takeover and blamed the countrys subsequent turmoil on its opponents, came after the army over the past year has suffered unprecedented battlefield defeats from powerful ethnic militias, especially in the northeast along the border with China and in the western state of Rakhine. The army is currently on the defensive against ethnic militias in much of the country that are seeking autonomy, as well as hundreds of armed guerrilla groups collectively called Peoples Defense Forces, formed to fight to restore democracy after the army takeover. The oppositions political road map earlier this year offering talks was signed by the National Unity Government and three major ethnic armed organizations the Chin National Front, the Karenni National Progressive Party and the Karen National Union, all of which are engaged in active combat against the military government. That statements objectives include terminating the militarys involvement in politics, placing all armed forces under the command of an elected civilian government, promulgating a new constitution embodying federalism and democratic values, establishing a new federal democratic union and instituting a system of transitional justice. It calls for a dialogue with the militarys leadership, but only after it shows its unconditional acceptance of the plan for the termination of military rule and a peaceful transition of power. It is not clear whether the military's new offer was meant to include all opposition groups, several of which it has officially classified as terrorists and therefore illegal. While addressing thousands of military personnel at a military parade on Armed Forces Day in March 2022, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the ruling military council, said he would not negotiate with terrorist groups and their supporters for killing innocent people and threatening peace and security. He said the military known as the Tatmadaw will annihilate them to (the) end. Mike Lindell, the controversial founder of MyPillow and vocal ally to Donald Trump, is claiming ignorance over the neo-Nazi symbolism in his pillow prices. Lindells pillow company, which he founded in 2009, is currently offering customers the Standard Classic MyPillow for $14.88 reduced from $49.98. But the discount has got critics pointing out a popular neo-Nazi symbol lurking behind the price. The numbers 14 and 88 are two popular white supremacist numeric symbols, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The first is a nod to the 14 words slogan, We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children, coined by David Lane a member of the white supremacist terrorist group known as The Order. Meanwhile, 88 is a common code meaning Heil Hitler, because H is the eighth letter in the alphabet. Lindell addressed the criticism on conservative online talk show FlashPoint this week, claiming he had no knowledge of the symbolism associated with the price of his items. Mike Lindell speaks at a Minnesota rally featuring Trump and JD Vance on July 27 2024. He has claimed ignorance over the hidden meaning behind his pillow prices (Getty Images) Instead, he said he arrived at the number via a discounting tactic used by Walmart. When they have a sale on a sale, right? That 88, he said, according to Forward. I get a call from all the media around the country and the world, all the way to The Daily Mail, saying, what are you, a Nazi? The conspiracy theorist also told the New York Post: I have no idea what this is all about. The pillows were still available for the contentious price as of Friday morning. An advertisement posted to X from MyPillows official account promotes the discount as a limited time offer MyPillows official X account told potential buyers the discounted price is a limited time offer (@MyPillowUSA/X) The Independent has contacted Lindell for comment. Lindell founded his pillow company in 2009, and over the years has become an avid Trump fan. He is widely known for peddling the baseless conspiracy theory that hundreds of thousands of votes went missing in Georgia during the 2020 election. This latest controversy comes weeks after DHL filed a lawsuit against MyPillow, accusing Lindell of owing the courier company nearly $800,000 in unpaid bills. MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WBOY) Hundreds of setups were set up across north central West Virginia on Thursday, giving people a chance to learn about drug overdoses, as well as receive free naloxone (Narcan) training and fentanyl test strips. The setups were a part of Save a Life Day, a national event that looks to educate the public on the dangers of drug overdoses and distribute resources to combat them. Groups in several states east of the Mississippi River participated in the occasion on Thursday, including every county in West Virginia. Weve got a lot of college students and college students, they like to experiment, they like to do recreational drugs and one of the big things were seeing is a fentanyl increase and fentanyl is extremely dangerous in small qualities and it can easily take a life. So what we like to do is we like educate parents that its really good to have Narcan on hand, Monongalia County Health Department QRT Brittany Irick said. Why does fentanyl have such a hold on north central West Virginia? Fentanyl test strips have received mixed reactions from the public in the past, but Irick emphasized that these strips are life-saving. If students are going to experiment we would like for them to know that Fentanyl is in their drugs so they can have that Narcan on hand. The fentanyl may not deter them, we hope that it would but if it doesnt then having that Narcan on hand can ensure that were going to hopefully save their life, said Irick. Irick said if someone is going to administer Narcan, they should call 911. She wants people to remember that West Virginias Good Samaritan Law will apply to them if they are involved in an overdose situation but call for help. The Good Samaritan Law provides certain criminal immunities for people who seek help for a person who has overdosed. If you could not make it to the event, officials said that you can call your local countys health department. For Monongalia County residents, if you need additional Narcan or Narcan training, you can call 304-598-5100. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBOY.com. Naomi Campbell Banned from Leading Charities in England for 5 Years After Investigation Found Financial Misconduct The supermodel has denied any wrongdoing, adding that she is extremely concerned about the allegations Victor VIRGILE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Naomi Campbell on Sept. 20, 2024 Naomi Campbell has been banned from leading any charitable organization in England and Wales for five years after an investigation accused the model of misusing funds within her charity. On Thursday, Sept. 26, Britains Charity Commission released findings claiming that the English supermodel, 54, poorly governed and had inadequate financial management when it came to her Fashion for Relief organization, which was established in January 2015 to raise funds for various environmental and humanitarian causes. Campbell and others are accused of using their positions with the organization to pay for expensive flights, lavish hotel stays and cigarettes. These costs included spa treatments, room service, and the purchase of cigarettes and hotel products, according to the report. Stephane Cardinale/Corbis/Getty Naomi Campbell in 2017 Related: Naomi Campbell Seemingly Shades Anna Wintour in Acceptance Speech After Vogue EIC Calls Out Her Tardiness Campbell, who is named as a trustee in the watchdog groups published report, is accused of failing to comply with the charitys constitution which includes no formal meeting minutes [being] recorded. A review of the financial records identified that the trustees expended 14,800 for a flight on 11 May 2018 from London to Nice, the report said. The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now! The trustees confirmed that a then trustee and one major donor (unnamed) were boarded on the flight which had been booked for the purposes of transferring art and jewellery (in excess of 1.5m) to the charitys fundraising event in Cannes, the report continued. Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Naomi Campbell on Sept. 26, 2024 According to a press release, The inquiry found that between April 2016 and July 2022, only 8.5% of the charitys overall expenditure was on charitable grants. Fashion for Relief dissolved earlier this year in March 2024. 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. On Thursday, Campbell spoke to the Associated Press after being named a knight in Frances Order of Arts and Letters at the countrys culture ministry for her contribution to French culture, where she denied any wrongdoing, but added that she was extremely concerned about the accusations in the report. I was not in control of my charity, I put the control in the hands of a legal employer, the businesswoman told the outlet. We are investigating to find out what and how, and everything I do and every penny I ever raised goes to charity. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Naomi Campbell Barred From Being U.K. Charity Trustee After Discovery of Unauthorized Payments Former supermodel Naomi Campbell has been banned from U.K. charity work for five years after funds were found to have been spent on luxury hotels and spa treatments. British icon Campbell was a trustee for Fashion for Relief, but a Charity Commission inquiry found that the company was not passing on the entirety of the money it raised. Unauthorized payments were spent on cigarettes and security for Campbell, among other things. More from The Hollywood Reporter The charity was founded in 2005 by Campbell and raised money to combat poverty and support economically deprived young people through charity fashion shows. Campbell told the AP on Thursday: Ive just found out today about the findings, and I am extremely concerned, explaining she was not the person in control of Fashion for Relief or its spending. She has been banned from charity involvement for five years alongside two other trustees, Bianka Hellmich and Veronica Chou, who have been barred for nine and four years, respectively. Campbells team did not immediately respond to a request for comment by The Hollywood Reporter. The inquiry found that unauthorized payments totaling 290,000 pounds ($388,000) for consultancy services had been made to Hellmich, in breach of the charitys constitution. Commission-appointed interim managers have secured repayments to the charity. These have been used to make payments to two other charities, Save the Children Fund and Mayors Fund for London, as well as cover the cost of Fashion for Reliefs liabilities. The inquiry looked at Fashion for Reliefs expenses between April 2016 and July 2022, finding that only 8.5 percent of funds raised were spent on charity grants. Best of The Hollywood Reporter Sign up for THR's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Crack Crisis According to a new report by NASA's inspector general, the space agency is growing significantly concerned over leaks in a tunnel connecting the International Space Station's Russian segment to a docking port. Worse yet, officials are still not entirely sure what is causing them. "On-going cracks and air leaks in the Service Module Transfer Tunnel are a top safety risk," the report reads. "And NASA and Roscosmos are collaborating to investigate and mitigate the cracks and leaks, determine the root cause, and monitor the Station for new leaks." In April, NASA "identified an increase in the leak to its highest level to date," releasing 3.7 pounds of atmosphere a day, a massive increase compared to just under 1 pound in February, as Ars Technica reports. "Although the root cause of the leak remains unknown, both agencies have narrowed their focus to internal and external welds," the report reads. Fixing the issue could be a challenging problem due to "supply chain issues" plaguing NASA's contractors, a headache that could make sustaining ISS operations even more difficult before the agency officially retires it in 2030. Closing the Hatch In June, NASA upgraded the cracking issue to its highest level of concern in its "risk matrix," as Ars Technica reported at the time. If the leaks continue, NASA and Roscosmos may be forced to permanently close the hatch to the affected tunnel, which would cut astronauts off from using one of the station's four docking ports. "According to NASA, Roscosmos is confident they will be able to monitor and close the hatch to the Service Module prior to the leak rate reaching an untenable level," the inspector general report reads. "However, NASA and Roscosmos have not reached an agreement on the point at which the leak rate is untenable." It's an awkward realization given the space station's already limited shelf life. In 2030, NASA is planning to get help from SpaceX to deorbit the station and crash it into the Pacific Ocean. As Ars points out, NASA and Russia have yet to agree on continuing operations past 2028. Another option would be to make changes to the station to extend its life past 2030, something that would "require significant funding," according to the inspector general, and the "acceptance of increased risk stemming from its components and aging structures." More on leaks: Russia Confirms Small But Growing Leak in Space Station While millions of Americans drink coffee every day, Sunday is an extra special day for celebrating a cup of joe. Every Sept. 29 is deemed National Coffee Day in United States. The beloved brew is also celebrated globally on Oct. 1 for International Coffee Day. To mark National Coffee Day and help coffee lovers celebrate, coffee shops, fast-food establishments, convenience stores and other places known for coffee are perking up with freebies, discounts or deals. It's no secret that coffee is a popular drink. According to the National Coffee Association, American adults consume more than 400 million cups of coffee per day. Americans who consume coffee drink on average 2.5 cups of coffee per day, according to the National Coffee Association's 2024 trends report. More: Faygo launches Jolly Green Apple pop flavor: Here's how it tastes Other key findings by the National Coffee Association: While 61% of Americans choose traditional coffee, 56% turn to specialty coffees like lattes, espressos and cappuccinos. 24% of past-day coffee cups were served cold, up 60% from winter 2023. It's no surprise that 84% of Americans have their coffee in the morning with breakfast. A huge 76% of Americans say coffee wakes them up and gets them going. Its a good idea to get these deals now because coffee prices are rising fast, according to Nick Becharas, CEO of Highland Park-Becharas Brothers Coffee Co. "It's a perfect storm with so many factors," Becharas said. "You have a drought in Brazil; there's no rain. We are coming off a drought in Vietnam, and there is historically low inventory in U.S. warehouses." Becharas added that there is the "Oct. 1 potential strike with the international longshoreman union." When it comes to coffee, Detroit isnt a hot spot for the brew, according to personal finance website WalletHub's 2024 list of the 100 Best Coffee Cities. In fact, Detroit ranks close to last at No. 96 on the list. Coming in at No. 100 is Laredo, Texas. Detroit also spends the least amount on coffee, ranking at 100 on the list. Topping the list is Fremont, California, with the highest average annual spend on coffee nearly four times higher than in Detroit. Heres a sampling of not-to-miss National Coffee Day deals in metro Detroit and beyond. Many of these coffee deals are available only at participating locations and require downloading an app or joining a loyalty or reward program. Biggby Coffee Biggby Coffee offers has free coffee deal for National Coffee Day on Sept.29. Receive a free 16-ounce hot or iced brewed coffee using your registered Biggby card. When you use your card you will also be entered for a chance to win a share of $50,000 in digital gift card prizes being offered by East Lansing-based Biggby Coffee. Biggbys sweepstakes runs one day, beginning at midnight and ending at 11:59 a.m. on Sunday. Caribou Coffee Caribou Coffee honors National Coffee Day on Sunday plus an added week of savings. On Sunday, Caribou Coffee offers a free medium cold press or hot coffee with purchase of another beverage or a 16-ounce bag of coffee beans. Starting Monday, Caribou kicks off Caribou Perks Appreciation Week for loyalty members. Each day through Oct. 4 has a different discount. For example, on Monday members receive a large drink for the price of a medium. Thursday is 20% off food. Some exclusions apply. For info visit cariboucoffee.com/perks. Dunkin Nationwide chain Dunkin offers a free hot or iced coffee with any purchase for its Dunkin' Rewards members. Limit one per member. Krispy Kreme All guests receive a medium hot or iced coffee with any purchase. In addition to the free coffee, Krispy Kreme is adding a sweet offer of $2 for a dozen of its original glazed doughnuts with the purchase of any dozen. The offer is available in stores, drive-thru and for pickup or delivery at krispykreme.com or through its mobile app using promo codes COFFEE and BOGO2 while supplies last. Paris Baguette Paris Baguette as a free coffee offering for National Coffee Day on Sept.29. PB Rewards members get a free medium hot or iced brewed coffee with purchase Friday-Sunday brewed with Lavazza coffee. Pilot Flying J Pilot Flying J has as a free coffee offering for National Coffee Day on Sept.29. Free, any size hot, iced or cold-brewed coffee will be available all day on National Coffee Day. Redeem the free coffee through the myRewards Plus app at participating Pilot and Flying J travel centers. Pilot's new coffee fall flavors include Bourbon Pecan hot coffee, Cinnamon Roll cold brew and Cinnamon Pumpkin Spice cappuccino. Sheetz Any size cold brew, including its new Pumpkin Pie brew, is 99 cents through the Sheetz app. Sheetz is a gas station chain known as a convenience store with made-to-order food and beverages. The first Michigan Sheetz opened in Romulus in August. More: Clawson's Noori Pocha named to New York Times' list of best restaurants Starbucks From 10 a.m.-noon on Sunday, Starbucks is partnering with music duo Sofi Tukker to host a special Twitch livestream DJ set, At Home with Sofi Tukker, to inspire and connect loved ones over coffee and music. Starbucks also offers $10 off eligible Starbucks coffee at-home products on Amazon with every $50 purchase while supplies last through Sunday. Tim Hortons Tim Hortons has a free coffee offering for National Coffee Day on Sept.29. Tims Reward members receive a free medium hot or iced coffee Friday-Sunday with any purchase. The offer is valid at participating locations and can be redeemed once. Contact Detroit Free Press food and restaurant writer Susan Selasky and send food and restaurant news and tips to: sselasky@freepress.com. Follow @SusanMariecooks on Twitter. Subscribe to the Free Press. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: National Coffee Day 2024: Discounts at Biggby, Caribou, others National nonprofit wants to know what's on Gen Z's mind, get them registered to vote in Wisconsin This week, as dozens of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students raced to classes or to grab a bite of food from the Student Union, organizers from DoSomething pulled them aside to ask a critical question: Are you registered to vote? Accompanied by a DJ Shawna-curated soundtrack, DoSomething staff members Rohan Gupta and Elena Callahan dolled out vote pins, candy and other giveaways for students who strolled past their table. The voter registration event is part of a series of events that the national nonprofit organization will host in Wisconsin. The two days of programming were paired with a "Wisco Soundoff Storybooth," where young voters were encouraged to share about the policy issues that matter most to them leading up to the 2024 Presidential Election. "We are really giving young people an opportunity, a platform, to have their stories heard," Gupta said. Founded in 1993, DoSomething.org was created to guide young people to volunteering, organizing activism and fundraising opportunities. Rohan Gupta, DoSomething program manager, speaks to a student about registering to vote. Some students apprehensively approached the storybooth mic stand on Tuesday and Wednesday, stating that they were still unsure who they were voting for in November or weren't informed enough to offer insight. Others enthusiastically made their way to the voting table to detail their policy priorities on issues like student loan debt, access to abortion and criminal justice. Following each storybooth event, DoSomething funnels quotes and perspectives shared by students into their National Youth Agenda, a collection of Gen Z political perspectives that will be shared with lawmakers. "We know young people aren't as passionate about candidates as they are about issues," said DeNora Getachew, chief executive of DoSomething. About 8% of all registered voters in Wisconsin are Gen Z, U.S. Census Bureau data shows. But of all the 18-year-olds in Milwaukee, less than 5% were registered to vote ahead of the midterm elections, according to September 2022 data published by the Civics Center. What are the top political issues for young people in Milwaukee? Some of the issues currently highlighted on DoSomething's National Youth Agenda page are eliminating violence in schools and neighborhoods, accessible education, sustainability, mental health resources and belonging. The Journal Sentinel spoke to several storybooth participants who shared similar concerns. Abel Castro is prioritizing issues like alleviating drug addiction and other concerns in his community this November. For Abel Castro, issues like the criminalization of drug usage are top of mind for him heading into November. He told the Journal Sentinel that he wishes that the general public and policymakers made a more diligent effort to look out for community members struggling with addiction. "People don't look out for drug addicts and other things and they don't have resources to prevent people from doing crime," he said. In the presidential race, Evian Vongphakdy, 20, is planning to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, over former president Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, in November. Vongphakdy said he is most passionate about the protection of women's rights and issues impacting communities of color. Additionally, as a student, he hopes that Harris can address economic issues impacting middle and lower-class voters. "I'd love to see prices of groceries, housing, we've got school loans and other loans, that we've got to push down," he said. Adriyanna Armstrong said that she hopes to hear stronger stances from Harris on issues facing the Black community before casting her ballot this fall. Adriyanna Armstrong, 20, also plans to vote for Harris, even though there are areas in which she would like to hear clearer policy plans from the vice president. Armstrong said she cares deeply about issues impacting the Black community like reproductive health care and discrimination. "Especially what happened ... with Marcellus Williams, like how would you prevent that from happening on a larger scale," Armstrong said. Williams, a 55-year-old Black man, was executed by the state of Missouri for the 1998 murder of Lisha Gayle despite evidence suggesting his innocence and pleas from the prosecutor and Gayle's family to spare his life. Wisconsin was the first state to abolish the death penalty in 1853. DoSomething organizers said they hope that by allowing young people to speak about the issues they care about most, they will be encouraged to participate in civic action and political dialogue in their communities. DoSomething will have another voter registration event called "Show Up for Wisconsin" from 3 to 6 p.m. Saturday at the YWCA Southeast Wisconsin in downtown Milwaukee. It will feature celebrity guests including "The Chi" actor Luke James and Ashley Everett, former dance captain for Beyonce. "This is one step in that multi-step effort to get young people that they will pledge to vote and then actually get them to turn out to vote," Getachew said. "We've been successful in doing that over the last several election cycles, and our goal in doing it on the ground is for them to hear from their peers about what's at stake." Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly added a space in the name of the nonprofit. The group's name is DoSomething. Tamia Fowlkes is a Public Investigator reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact her at tfowlkes@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: DoSomething nonprofit registers Gen Z voters at UWM for fall election Yahoo Finance After China announced broad measures to rescue its economy, Chinese stocks surged, our Chart of the Week shows. It's not the first time the country has attempted to get out of the recent doldrums, but the market's reaction says this time might be different. NAUGATUCK, Conn. (WTNH) A Naugatuck woman pleaded guilty Friday to a fraud offense stemming from an $865,106 embezzlement scheme, according to the office of the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut. In New Haven federal court, 45-year-old Jennifer Cormier waived her right to be indicted and pleaded guilty to bank fraud. The charge has a maximum term of 30 years in prison. Bank warns of voice-based AI scams that could utilize your social media posts According to the United States Attorneys office, the embezzlement happened while Cormier did bookkeeping and other office-related tasks as an employee of a family-owned business in Naugatuck. For several years spanning 2017 to 2023, Cormier is accused of creating roughly 1,000 checks made payable to her, then forging the signature of the companys owner and cashing them to her personal bank account. After the checks were issued, officials said she deleted the transaction in the companys accounting system. Cormier was released on a $50,000 bond pending sentencing on Dec. 18. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. NAVASOTA, Texas (FOX 44) Two juveniles have been arrested by the Navasota Police Department for social media threats resulting in an arrest at Navasota High School. That day, The Navasota Independent School District became aware of the threat on Tuesday, which was made towards another student. An investigation involving the Police Departments School Resource Officers was underway. A juvenile was arrested and charged with terroristic threat. Despite the threat that was made, the district said a threat against the school wasnt made. No weapons were found during the investigation. Police say there was also an increased number of officers at the high school and during its extracurricular activities throughout the weekend. Police issued an update to this case at approximately 5:15 p.m. on Thursday, September 26. The source of social media posts suggesting a potential threat to the district was identified. Two juveniles have been charged with False Alarm or Report, a state jail felony. Increased police presence will continue at school campuses and events. If you have any information on this case, you can contact the Navasota Police Department at 936-825-6410. This case remains under investigation. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KWKT - FOX 44. In this episode of Aloha Authentic, host Kamaka Pili revisits Bishop Museum to rediscover the ancient art of Hawaiian voyaging. The episode begins with a visit to the Bishop Museums Planetarium, where Kamaka meets with Romee Gaoiran, the Planetarium Manager. Romee explains what a planetarium is and introduces Kamaka to the variety of exhibits and shows that bring the night sky to life. This modern tool has played a key role in reviving the navigational techniques used by ancient Hawaiian voyagers. Kamaka then steps inside the planetarium for a conversation with navigator Kaiulani Murphy. She shares the significance of the night sky in Polynesian wayfinding and points out some of the most important constellations used for navigation, such as the Southern Cross, or its Hawaiian name, Hanaiakamalama (to be cared for by the moon), and the North Star, also known as Kumau or Hokupaa. Viewers gain a deeper understanding of how the stars served as a compass, guiding canoes across vast stretches of ocean with incredible precision. The journey concludes at Kanehunamoku Voyaging Academy in Kaneohe, where Kamaka meets Bonnie Kahapea-Tanner. Bonnie explains how the knowledge gained from the planetarium is applied practically on the canoe, out in the open ocean. She also teaches Kamaka about the Hawaiian Star Compass, created by Nainoa Thompson, who was the first Native Hawaiian navigator in 6 centuries to navigate a voyaging canoe to Tahiti without the use of modern instruments. Through these conversations, the episode highlights the blend of modern technology and ancient wisdom that keeps the Hawaiian voyaging tradition alive today. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KHON2. Sen. Thom Tillis knew reporters were waiting for him Wednesday morning outside a committee meeting in the Dirksen building on the U.S. Capitol complex. For a week, members of the North Carolina delegation had been followed through the hallways, fielding media questions about a scandal involving N.C. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson. On Sept. 19, CNNs KFile published an investigation that tied Robinson to racist and raunchy posts on an online porn forum. Robinson denies the allegations, but the report led to resignations from both his campaign and official staffs. On Wednesday, Tillis, a Republican, turned his back to the reporters for a minute to finish a conversation with someone in the hall, and when he turned back he jumped at the sight of how many reporters had come up behind him to get the interview. Then he laughed at his own reaction and walked toward the group to discuss an ultimatum he gave Robinson. Im here to get a majority in the Senate, get President Trump reelected and to maintain majorities in our state legislature and anything thats an obstacle to that is a problem for me, Tillis told the reporters. He needs to remove this obstacle, one way or another. How Tillis says Robinson should deal with the allegations Interest in North Carolina had become commonplace this election cycle. Both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump invested time, resources and money into capturing the battleground states 16 electoral votes. But the scandal with Robinson put a new focus on the state, and could potentially harm both Trump and down-ballot candidates who had supported Robinsons run for governor. Tillis is not one of those people who offered support to Robinson. Tillis and Robinson have a history of sparring in the media. And Tillis endorsed Robinsons opponent, saying Robinsons lack of legislative and business experience wouldnt work well in a state like North Carolina. Tillis told the reporters hes tried to be fair about the situation, saying hes applied the principles he learned in his favorite college course: Logic and Critical Thinking. He said he believes thats what all people should use when looking at the allegations against Robinson. Tillis said its on Robinson to provide the answers people are looking for. If the allegations put forth by KFile and CNN are false, get a really good attorney, come up with a modicum of evidence that disproves some of it, sue them and settle in court, Tillis said. If youre not able to do that within a reasonable period of time, then it puts weight to the likely reality that some, maybe not all, but some of these allegations are true, and if they are, theyre devastating and disqualifying. Tillis gave Robinson an ultimatum through reporters this week disprove it by Friday. What happens on Friday is unclear, but Tillis said thats the day I will make a decision myself. He added that hes had allegations levied at him that werent true. A media outlet came to his team with information about him that was wrong, he said. He got an attorney and was willing to fight the outlet in court, if thats what they chose to do. The story never happened. He didnt specify the outlet or the topic. Thats how you deal with it expeditiously, Tillis said. You dont wait. I mean, my goodness, you get people lined up to defend your good name. This is about a human. This has life changing consequences for somebody. Youd think it would be a priority. On Tuesday afternoon, Robinson hired Binnell Law Group, which once represented Trump, to investigate the allegations against him. You know, I grew up in the technology space, said Tillis, who previously worked as an executive at IBM. If weve got something here now its being said it was a product of AI and technical experts then hire a top-tier firm like the one I used to be a partner at, go in there, do the forensic technical research and build a case, it shouldnt be that difficult to disprove the basis for some of these reports, if theyre untrue. Tillis said the longer Robinson lets this linger, the more at risk he is putting other Republican candidates. So Mark Robinson owes it to the people of North Carolina, to everybody down ballot and to President Trump to either prosecute a case against CNN and KFile or admit that some or all of it is correct and step aside, Tillis said. This is bigger than any one elected office and we have to look at it that way. What do NCs other lawmakers say? Sen. Ted Budd, a Republican, was walking to the chamber Thursday afternoon when he was stopped to talk about Robinson. Unlike Tillis, Budd had previously offered his endorsement of Robinson for governor. Budd tried his best to get out of answering questions, but was polite and stayed. Hes given his defense, Budd said. Its up to him to make clear to North Carolina voters, and by the way, North Carolina voters are very smart about how they pick and choose their candidates. Is Budd still picking Robinson? I always support Republicans, Budd said. Across the Capitol, members of the House were gathering to vote for a continuing resolution to keep the government funded until Dec. 20, and to add resources to the Secret Service to better protect the president and the presidential candidates after two assassination attempts on Trumps life. There are various doors and hallways to choose from to enter the chamber, so McClatchy could not catch every member of the delegation. Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican from Lincoln County, was standing with two people outside the cloakroom. He made eye contact with McClatchy and started walking away. As McClatchy took a step toward him a woman said, run and he sped up and turned down a hall toward Statuary Hall to avoid questions. Rep. David Rouzer, a Republican from Wilmington, stopped for a moment outside the elevators to the chamber to address the situation. Hes got to make his case to the voters, Rouzer said. Thats the bottom line. Rouzer said everyone was surprised by the allegations against Robinson. He added that hes not followed the story closely because hes been so busy and focused on Congress this week. Thats the honest truth, Rouzer said. When asked if theres a point at which Rouzer would not support Robinson, he said, Hes got a lot of explaining to do to voters, but you know, ultimately, theyre going to be the judge. Around the corner, Rep. Kathy Manning, a Democrat from Greensboro, was walking through the Speakers Lobby, off the House chamber. I think its been obvious for quite some time that he was not qualified for the job hes seeking, nor is he qualified for the job hes in, Manning said. And the statements that weve seen him make on video previous to the most recent revelation should have been enough to, first of all, cause voters not to vote for him, but second of all cause the Republican Party to support another nominee. Both state Treasurer Dale Folwell and businessman Bill Graham challenged Robinson in the Republican primary, but Robinson won handily. Hes now facing off against Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat. Manning questioned how this got past the Republican Partys vetting of Robinson. Or if they vetted him, they thought they were going to pull the wool over our eyes, or they thought that being an antisemitic, homophobic, misogynist, unqualified candidate was acceptable for the Republican Party, the Republican voters. Thats before the most recent revelation, Manning said. She said shes also questioning why nothing prior to the latest development caused them to reconsider their support. Manning said she wanted to understand how bad the posts were. She heard CNN say there were things written on the forum, allegedly by Robinson, that even cable news wasnt willing to air. So she looked them up. I literally wanted to throw out my phone when I saw, Manning said. It was the most disgusting thing Ive ever read, and Im a lot older than you. Ive seen things. Ive never seen anything that totally disgusting and I cant understand why people would vote for him under these circumstances. Asked if she believes Robinson wrote the comments, she responded: Has there been a defamation lawsuit filed? Has there been a slander lawsuit filed? Is his staff sticking with him? Did Donald Trump invite him to his rally in North Carolina last week? All those issues speak pretty loudly to me. Under the Dome Get the latest news about North Carolina politics from The News & Observer's award-winning team. Get the free digest sent to your inbox by signing up here. Correction appended Sept. 30 Educators and advocates from across the country many of whom say they have already seen the effects of anti-immigrant political rhetoric on their students convened Wednesday night to strategize on how to counter it in their schools. Adam Strom, director of Re-Imagining Migration, told the webinars 93 attendees to take an active role in combating prejudice by facing the issue head-on. He encouraged participants to address bullying against immigrant students specifically in school policy and to teach about stereotypes without unintentionally reinforcing them. Xenophobia harms all kids, he said, particularly immigrant youth. Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter The meeting came two weeks after former President Donald Trump claimed during a presidential debate that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were killing and eating their neighbors pets. Debunked by multiple official sources, Trump and his Republican running mate, JD Vance, have persisted in repeating the lie, which resulted in bomb threats that shuttered six Springfield schools and two local colleges. Related Trumped-up School Panic: Campaign Lie Forces Ohio School Closures Less than 30 miles away in Dayton, Joni Watson, a retired public school teacher, works for an adult literacy nonprofit that helps participants earn their GED. Watsons group also helps Dayton-area newcomers learn to read and write English through free one-on-one tutoring. Getty This topic is near and dear to my heart as I am really in the thick of it on a daily basis, she told The 74. I am just sick about what Vance and Trump are doing and saying. In a pre-webinar survey of 74 respondents, 31% said they knew of immigrant children who had reported being bullied or teased at school. Twenty-three percent said they heard students make anti-immigrant comments on campus this school year while another 23% heard staff make such statements since the beginning of the year. Eleven percent said they heard or witnessed staffers make anti-immigrant comments to families and caregivers. Related Q&A: NYC Shelter Dir. on Complete Destabilization, Chaos Facing Migrant Kids Strom advised educators to reach out to young immigrants and their families to check in on how they are feeling during this turbulent time and to tell all students that bullying of newcomers is unacceptable. He said, too, that educators should respond immediately when such incidents occur. During the session, Strom unveiled Re-Imagining Migrations new Rumor Review App. The AI-powered tool, which fed off thousands of pages of information from the organizations website, including reports and lesson plans, was developed to help users identify misinformation. It encourages them to check the validity of such claims by consulting credible fact-checking sites such as Snopes and to learn and spread correct information to their school communities. Since putting Springfield in the crosshairs, Trump has moved to inciting false fears over immigrant communities in Aurora, Colorado and Charleroi, Pennsylvania. Liz Carrasco, Facebook Psychotherapist Liz Carrasco said she wanted to attend the webinar because shes seen the impact of hate speech on her students. Many worry that their families could be torn apart, or that they will face discrimination in their pursuit of education and work, she said. For these students, political rhetoric is not just words it has very real and immediate consequences for their safety and their future. A U.S. citizen who was born in Mexico, Carrasco works with UNLV PRACTICE Nevada Rural Communities Mental Health Outreach Program, which supports young people ages 12-25, and teaches at the universitys School of Social Work. Carrasco, who was not speaking on behalf of UNLV, said she works with immigrants who have gone through horrific ordeals, including some who were victims of human trafficking. Related Hundreds of High Schools Wrongfully Refused Entry to Older, Immigrant Student Strom asked participants to be honest about whether and how they teach about migration and instructed them to develop better, more robust lessons that capture immigrant students experiences. Adam Strom, director Re-Imagining Migration (Re-Imagining Migration) He said this can be done at all grade levels. Think about how you might use childrens books to normalize the stories of newcomers, he said during the hour-long event. Anindita Das, community engagement strategist at Iowa State University, said she was compelled to attend the event because reducing prejudice helps build a more inclusive and harmonious society. Being an immigrant myself, I know immigrants bring diverse cultures, perspectives and experiences, enriching the social fabric of the host country, she said. Immigrants contribute significantly to the economy through their labor, entrepreneurship and innovation. Addressing prejudice ensures they can fully participate and contribute. Correction: An earlier version of this story had an outdated description of Liz Carrascos job with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) Several neighbors shared their concern with 8 News Now Thursday after police said a person shot and killed a man trying to break into their home in the southwest Las Vegas valley. I was shocked, Jennifer Sauberan said. Because its a very quiet neighborhood. Sauberan, who told 8 News Now she has lived in her neighborhood near Torrey Pines Drive and Flamingo Drive for decades, was startled by a crime scene on her street. I was just thinking oh my God what if I hadnt come back the night before? Sauberan said. It could have been my house. Several neighbors shared their concern with 8 News Now Thursday after police said a person shot and killed a man trying to break into their home in the southwest valley. (KLAS) During a news conference, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Homicide Lieutenant Jason Johansson said the homeowner called 911 around 7:40 a.m. stating that a strange man was breaking windows, trying to get inside their house. The man was not listening to what they were telling him, Lt. Johansson explained. He was acting extremely irrational as they continued to tell him to leave the property. Lt. Johansson said thats when the man moved toward the front door and the homeowner pulled the trigger. Officers found that man in the driveway with a gunshot wound. He later died at the hospital. Several neighbors shared their concern with 8 News Now Thursday after police said a person shot and killed a man trying to break into their home in the southwest valley. (KLAS) We want to see in a situation like this, Lt. Johansson explained of the investigation. Where did he come from? How did he get here? As detectives work to piece together why this happened, Sauberan told 8 News now she will continue to do what she can to stay safe. I have cameras around my house now, she explained. I put them up more recently, but then I put in flood lights and stuff because it makes me a little bit nervous sometimes. Sauberan said she hopes things in the area go back to what shes used to seeing. It was so unexpected, she concluded of the shooting. We never have anything ever happen in this neighborhood, ever. Lt. Johansson said during Thursdays news conference that there are self-defense elements in this case. He said he does not believe the homeowner will face charges, but the investigation is ongoing and the Clark County District Attorney will make that determination. Anyone with any information is encouraged to contact the LVMPD Homicide Section by phone at 702-828-3521 or by email at homicide@lvmpd.com. To remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at 702-385-5555 or on their website. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations General Assembly Friday as his country continues to escalate fighting across the Middle East. The Israeli government announced an attack against Hezbollahs central headquarters in Lebanon and shared a photo of Netanyahu approving the strike from New York. The Pentagon said the U.S. was not involved and received no advanced warning. We must defend ourselves against these savage murderers, Netanyahu said during his speech of Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah and Hamas. Well win this battle because we dont have a choice. Fridays strike in Lebanon followed recent airstrikes and exploding pager and walkie-talkie attacks targeting Hezbollah. Netanyahu said Israel also remains committed to its war against Palestinian terror group Hamas in Gaza. We will fight until we achieve victory, he said. Total victory. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas spoke to the UN Thursday and called on the U.S. to end arms shipments to Israel. The U.S. and Israel reached an agreement for a nearly $9 billion aid package to support its ongoing military efforts. Were trying to prevent a wider war, said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Thats what weve been working toward for some time. The Biden administration has been trying to broker ceasefire deals this week for both Gaza and Lebanon, but Netanyahu quickly rejected a U.S. and European proposal for a ceasefire with Hezbollah. For both sides, it cannot continue, Jean-Pierre said. The White House said President Joe Biden is still working toward a diplomatic 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 DC News Now | Washington, DC. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu underscored the conflicts in the Middle East as a choice between "a blessing or a curse," as he warned Irans "tyrants" about Israels ability to defend and avenge itself. "If you strike us, we will strike you," Netanyahu said. "There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and thats true of the entire Middle East: Far from being lambs led to the slaughter, Israels soldiers have fought back with incredible courage and with heroic sacrifice." Netanyahu took the podium in front of a partially empty General Assembly, with some delegates walking out, but those who gathered to hear him offered raucous applause ahead of his speech. Seemingly absent from the speech was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was hosting a global health security event on the sidelines of UNGA. He revealed that he almost did not attend the U.N. High-Level Week, but he felt a need to "set the record straight," which included laying out the choice the world faces. Netanyahu brought several families with loved ones held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza to New York and once again called for their freedom, noting that, "I'll say this one more time, we remain focused on our sacred mission, bringing our hostages home. And we will not stop until that mission is complete." The Only Thing Netanyahu Can Do Is Exude Strength In The Face Of His Enemies: Elizabeth Pipko Read On The Fox News App "Israel seeks peace," Netanyahu said. "Israel yearns for peace. Israel has made peace and will make peace again yet, we face savage enemies who seek our annihilation, and we must defend ourselves against those savage murderers." Netanyahu framed the issue as a choice between "a blessing or a curse," with Irans "unremitting aggression" as the "curse" against the "blessing" of reconciliation between Arab nations and Israel. Czech Foreign Minister Highlights Lack Of European Leadership, Failure To Project Geopolitical Power "A normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel seemed closer than ever. But then came the curse of Oct. 7," Netanyahu said. "Thousands of Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists from Gaza burst into Israel in pickup trucks, on motorcycles. And they committed unimaginable atrocities." The prime minister hammered again on Irans aggression, warning that if left unchecked, it will "endanger every single country in the Middle East and many, many countries in the rest of the world." Hezbollah Stores Weapons Among Civilians In Lebanon, Us Says Its Not Sharing Intel With Idf "Iran seeks to impose its radicalism well beyond the Middle East," Netanyahu warned. "That's why it funds terror networks on five continents. That's why it builds ballistic missiles for nuclear warheads to threaten the entire world." "For too long, the world is appeasing Iran. It turns a blind eye to its internal repression. It turns a blind eye to its external aggression," he added. "Well, that appeasement must end, and that appeasement must end now." Netanyahu called on the U.N. Security Council to "snap back" sanctions against Iran and do everything in the organizations power to "ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons." However, he lamented that the organization has an apparent bias against Israel and in favor of the Palestinians, citing the "automatic majority" of countries that will vote in favor of any policy that hurts Israel. "For the Palestinians, this U.N. House of darkness is home court," Netanyahu said. "They know that in this swamp of antisemitic bile, there's an automatic majority willing to demonize the Jewish state on anything in this anti-Israel, flat Earth society. Any false charge, any outlandish allegation can muster a majority." "It's always been about Israel, about Israel's very existence, and I say to you, until Israel, until the Jewish state is treated like other nations, until this antisemitic swamp is drained, the U.N. will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous force," he added. Fox News' David Hammelburg contributed to this story. Original article source: Netanyahu calls Mideast conflicts choice between 'blessing or a curse,' warns about Israel's 'long arm' Netanyahu is dragging region into war and must be stopped, Jordan says By John Irish UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Jordan's foreign minister said on Friday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to be stopped because he was driving the region to a full-fledged war. "It is time to face the truth, and the truth is, unless Netanyahu is stopped, unless this government is stopped, war will encompass all of us," Ayman Safadi told reporters ahead of a U.N. Security Council meeting on Gaza. Earlier on Friday, Israeli airstrikes shook Beirut, with the Israeli military saying it had targeted Hezbollah's central headquarters in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said ahead of the Security Council meeting that the airstrikes had increased the risk of the situation spiralling out of control. "We believe very, very, very strongly that a ceasefire is necessary, that the guns are not going to solve anything, that we need to move towards a peace in our region, and that peace is firmly rooted in addressing the Palestinian issue," bin Farhan said. In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, Netanyahu spoke at length on his wish to make progress on normalising ties with Saudi Arabia, and said Israel was fighting on seven fronts. "It was interesting to see that Prime Minister Netanyahu, in his words, in quite a lengthy statement about the issue, not once mentioned Palestine, not once mentioned the Palestinians," bin Farhan said. "This is exactly the problem. Without addressing the issue of Palestine, it will not be able, it will not be possible, to reach the dual potential of regional peace and stability," he said, adding that there would be no normalisation without a resolution of the Palestinian issue. Safadi echoed those comments. "I can tell you here very unequivocally, all of us are willing to right now, guarantee the security of Israel in the context of Israel ending the occupation and allowing for the emergence of a Palestinian state, independent state," he said. "(But) he (Netanyahu) is creating danger because he simply does not want the two state solution," Safadi said. (Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien) Netanyahu: Hamas staying in Gaza is like Nazis rebuilding after WWII Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaks at the 79th General Debate of the UN General Assembly. Michael Kappeler/dpa Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will reject any role for Iran-backed Hamas once the fighting ends in the Gaza Strip. "Imagine allowing the defeated Nazis in 1945 to rebuild Germany. It's inconceivable. It's ridiculous," he told the United Nations on Friday. "It didn't happen then. It's not going to happen now." He said Israel was ready to work with international partners to support a local civilian administration to run Gaza following the end of the nearly year-old war to eliminate Hamas militants. Netanyahu ended his address to the General Assembly by calling the United Nations a "house of darkness" that reflexively takes an anti-Israel stance. Palestinians know "that in this swamp of anti-Semitic bile, there's an automatic majority willing to demonize the Jewish state on anything." He continued: "In this anti-Israel, flat-Earth society, any false charge, any outlandish allegation can muster a majority." Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaks at the 79th General Debate of the UN General Assembly. Michael Kappeler/dpa In a defiant address to the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that his country was committed to defeating both Hezbollah and Hamas -- giving a pointed warning to the groups' chief backer, Iran. "I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran," Netanyahu said. "If you strike us, we will strike you, there is no place. There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach." Appearing to back up Netanyahu's words with action, the Israeli military carried out what an Israeli Defense Force said was "a precise strike on the central headquarters of the Hezbollah terror organization" in Beirut shortly after he finished his address on Friday. Multiple sources told ABC News the target of the attack was Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah. It was not immediately clear whether the strike was successful, but the scale of the bombing immediately sparked concern among U.S. officials who have been applying consistent diplomatic pressure to Iran in an effort to keep the country from stepping up its role in the conflict. MORE: Israel targets Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in strike on Beirut: Senior US official The increased fighting in Lebanon has some officials fearing an all-out war in the region. The Biden administration has been working to persuade Israel to agree to a 21-day ceasefire proposal crafted by the U.S. and France. After initially rejecting the plan outright, the Israeli government seemed to soften its stance on Thursday -- signaling a willingness to negotiate. But Netanyahu did not reference the plan in his roughly 30-minute speech on Friday and made no mention of pursuing diplomatic peace with Hezbollah. The prime minister said Israel would "continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are made" and that Israel "must defeat" them. PHOTO: Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, Sept. 27, 2024. (Mike Segar/Reuters) "As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their homes safely, and that's exactly what we're doing," he said. Netanyahu asserted the U.S. would not tolerate a similar situation on its own border for "even for a single day." MORE: US, Israel at standoff over Lebanon cease-fire proposal. What happened? Several United Nations delegates walked out of the room as Netanyahu began his address at the U.N. in New York. "I didn't intend to come here this year. My country is at war, fighting for its life," the prime minister said. "But after I heard the lies and slanders leveled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight." PHOTO: Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu enters the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 27, 2024. (Pamela Smith/AP) Netanyahu continued to press for "total victory" in Gaza as he called for Hamas to surrender and release all remaining Israeli hostages. He also said Israel rejected any scenario in which Hamas remained in control of Gaza after the war. The prime minister also claimed criticism of Israel's human rights record was unwarranted, saying Israel had helped ship more than adequate supplies of food to Gaza and continued to "spare no effort" to protect civilian lives. "We don't want to see a single person -- a single innocent person die. That's always a tragedy. And that's why we do so much to minimize civilian casualties," he said. However, U.S. officials say Israel's record in Gaza is checkered. A report released by the State Department in May found that the Israeli government did not cooperate with efforts to move aid into the enclave in the early months of the war against Hamas. The same report also stated that while Israel has "the knowledge, experience, and tools" to implement "best practices for mitigating civilian harm," the high number of civilian casualties "raises substantial questions about whether the IDF is using them effectively in all cases." U.S. officials have expressed similar concerns about collateral damage from Israeli military action in Lebanon. More than 118,000 people in Lebanon have been displaced in just the last week, according to the UN. The Lebanon Ministry of Health also said hundreds of people have been killed in that time, although it's unclear how many were combatants. The prime minister's office said Netanyahu would return to Israel earlier than previously planned. It also released a photo it said shows him approving the strike over the phone while sitting at a desk in New York. Netanyahu says Israel must defeat Hezbollah in UN speech amid calls for cease-fire originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Netanyahu says he is at UN to defend Israel from 'lies and slanders' Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaks at the 79th General Debate of the UN General Assembly. Michael Kappeler/dpa Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he came to the UN General Assembly to defend Israel from the "lies and slanders" that he heard from other world leaders this week. "I didn't intend to come here this year," said Netanyahu at the start of his address. "My country is at war, fighting for its life. But after I heard the lies and slanders levelled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight," he said. Netanyahu spoke as Israel engages in a fifth day of heavy air attacks on Lebanon, which have killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands more, while Hezbollah militants continue to fire at northern Israel. The Israeli leader said "the truth" was that "Israel seeks peace." But he said Israel "will not rest" until the threat posed by the Lebanese militia Hezbollah is eliminated. "As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice. And Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safely. And that's exactly what we're doing." Netanyahu spoke at the annual high-level General Debate week at the assembly in New York. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaks at the 79th General Debate of the UN General Assembly. Michael Kappeler/dpa Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaks at the 79th General Debate of the UN General Assembly. Michael Kappeler/dpa Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C), speaks at the 79th General Debate of the UN General Assembly. Michael Kappeler/dpa Israel has no choice but to continue fighting Hezbollah, Netanyahu says at UN NEW YORK Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Friday that Israel has no choice but to keep fighting Lebanon-based Hezbollah, while neglecting to mention a U.S.-backed 21-day cease-fire proposal in the spiraling battle. His comments or lack thereof to the U.N. General Assembly are likely to undermine the U.S. and French-led effort to pause the fighting, and further frustrate Western officials already annoyed by Netanyahus vacillation. "As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice," the Israeli leader said. "Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their homes safely, and thats exactly what were doing." Netanyahu has over the past 48 hours sent mixed messages on the ceasefire proposal, which the U.S. is presenting as a temporary step to lay the groundwork for a more long-lasting truce. The Israeli leader initially dismissed the idea, saying he did not even respond to it and implying he wouldnt agree to stop the fighting. Spokespersons for the Biden administration countered by saying Israels government had privately backed the proposal one reason, they said, why the U.S. and France unveiled it. Then, hours before his U.N. speech Friday, the prime ministers office issued a statement that slightly walked back his earlier denial, saying Israel shares the aims of the U.S.-led initiative. Shortly after his address, explosions rocked Beirut. The Israel Defense Forces said it struck Hezbollah's headquarters, embedded under residential buildings. Netanyahus helter-skelter approach stems in part from his precarious political position. Hes in power because of a handful of far-right coalition partners who demand tough approaches to Israels adversaries. If he crosses those partners, his government could fall and he could lose power, leaving him more vulnerable to corruption charges. At the same time, much of the Israeli public also wants a thorough routing of Hezbollah. Netanyahu has pulled similar moves before during his countrys ongoing war with Hamas militants in the Gaza strip. He will tell U.S. officials one thing privately while publicly denying or refraining from taking such a stand. For example, when President Joe Biden unveiled a multi-stage peace proposal to end the fighting in Gaza earlier this year, he said it was an Israeli plan; then Netanyahu refused to own it. A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Israeli prime minister faced a tough audience at the United Nations, where many countries have criticized Israels actions in Gaza over the severe humanitarian fallout. Throughout this week, an array of world leaders gathered for the U.N. General Assemblys annual meeting have used their speeches to slam Israel, with some also blaming Hamas. There have been broad calls for stopping the escalating fight in Lebanon. Dozens of diplomats walked out of the room as Netanyahu began his speech, leaving the General Assembly floor relatively empty. But he brought supporters families of hostages who cheered and applauded throughout his address. Their vocal support even prompted UNGA President Philemon Yang to bang his gavel. Order, please! Ladies and gentlemen, order! Netanyahu was defiant against the criticism leveled against Israel at the General Assembly this week, comparing scenes from Oct. 7 to the Holocaust. "We see this moral confusion when Israel is falsely accused of genocide," he said. "We will fight until we achieve victory, total victory. There is no substitute for it." Netanyahu also aimed his criticisms towards the U.N., describing the institution as an antisemitic "contemptuous farce." Hamas militants attacked Israels south on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and prompting a massive Israeli retaliation that has left tens of thousands dead in Gaza. On Oct. 8, Hezbollah fired rockets into Israels north. That led tens of thousands of Israelis to leave their homes in that region. But the Israeli-Hezbollah faceoff had largely been limited until recent weeks, when Israel decided it could no longer tolerate an effective loss of territorial sovereignty in its north. As Israel has raised its pressure on Hezbollah through airstrikes that have killed hundreds, not to mention booby-trapped pager and walkie-talkie attacks that wounded thousands the U.S. and its allies have tried to keep the conflict from spiraling further. Americas top worry over the past year has been that the conflicts in Gaza and along Israels north could drag in Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas, becoming a full-on regional war. Such a war could also lead to a more direct U.S. military role if Israel needs help. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck a defiant tone Friday at the United Nations, telling diplomats and world leaders that his country will continue fighting for its right to exist even as he pushed for a wider peace in the Middle East. Netanyahu, speaking at the U.N. General Assembly in New York as fears of a wider war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon are mounting, decried the curse of Iran as he vowed to continue fighting back against Iranian aggression across the Middle East. If you strike us, we will strike you, Netanyahu said. There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and thats true of the entire Middle East. We are winning. Netanyahu called for the world to stand up against the Iranian government and support regime change in Tehran, saying Iran represented a dire threat to the world. Ahead of his speech, dozens of diplomats at the U.N. were seen walking out of the chamber in an apparent protest, according to videos shared on social media. Several world leaders have sharply criticized Israel this week for its war against the Iranian-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, where more than 41,000 people have died in nearly a year of fighting. Netanyahu said Friday that his forces have destroyed 23 out of 24 Hamas battalions but were focused on mopping up the remaining fighters, who stormed into Israel on Oct. 7 and killed more than 1,200 people while taking some 250 hostages, around 100 of whom are still in Gaza. He also said Israel will reject any proposal that allows Hamas to maintain its presence in Gaza, but he did not offer any new remarks on bringing the hostages home and reaching a cease-fire and hostage release deal, with talks stalled since breaking down in August. All that has to happen is for Hamas to surrender, lay down its arms, and release all the hostages, Netanyahu said. But if they dont, we will fight until we achieve victory. But looming over Netanyahus speech Friday is a potential war with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group that has been firing at Israel over the border for more than 11 months. Israel has taken increasingly aggressive action against the militant group in the past week, including a Monday strike that killed more than 500 people. The U.S. and France led a proposal for a 21-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah that would also include talks for a more permanent peace, but Netanyahu later rejected it. The White House claimed that Israel was aware of the proposal before it was released. Netanyahu said Friday that Hezbollah has fired more than 8,000 rockets toward Israel, displacing some 60,000 residents in the north at the border with Lebanon. He said Israel has no choice and every right to take on the threat from Hezbollah. Israel must also defeat Hezbollah in Lebanon, he said. Hezbollah is the quintessential terror organization in the world today. Netanyahu also pushed for a greater peace between Israel and Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, which is reportedly in talks with the U.S. and the Israeli government for a potential landmark normalization deal. But Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said this month he would only agree to a deal if Palestine becomes a state alongside Israel. Netanyahu said in his U.N. speech that Israel wants to achieve a historic peace agreement with Saudi Arabia and advance normalization with Arab nations. What lessons such a peace with Saudi Arabia would bring, he said. It would be a boon to the security and economy of our two countries it would help transform the Middle East into a global juggernaut. Netanyahu added that a peace agreement with Riyadh would be a true pivot of history and usher in a historic reconciliation between the Arab world and Israel, between Islam and Judaism. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The News Israeli airstrikes, apparently targeting Hezbollahs headquarters and its leader Hassan Nasrallah, demolished several residential buildings near Beirut on Friday. The attacks, which Lebanon said killed two people and injured dozens, came shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus speech to the United Nations General Assembly during which he vowed to press on with his military campaigns in Lebanon and Gaza, defying growing international pressure for ceasefires. It wasnt clear if Nasrallah was in the targeted buildings; videos showed panicked civilians rushing to safety after large explosions rocked the capital. Israel is fighting for its life, Netanyahu told the UN, an organization that he famously hates, and which he decried as an antisemitic swamp during the address. We face savage enemies who seek our annihilation, he said, issuing stark warnings to Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah that Israel would continue fighting them for as long as they remain a threat. I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran: If you strike us, we will strike you, Netanyahu declared. He emphasized that the war in Gaza would only end with the elimination of Hamas. A day after rejecting a US-backed call for a ceasefire with Hezbollah, Netanyahu did not mention the plan, but vowed to defeat the group, dimming allies hopes of preventing an all-out war. Many UN delegates left the chamber in protest as Netanyahu began to speak, and the UN chair had to repeatedly call for order. SIGNALS Conflict compounds economic and social hardship in Lebanon Sources: DW, Reuters, CNN, BBC Global News Podcast Since 2019, Lebanon has faced a devastating economic crisis that caused a 98% devaluation in its local currency, plunging over three quarters of the population into poverty after successive governments allowed debt to pile up for decades. Up to half a million people people could have been displaced because of Israeli offensives, Lebanons health minister told CNN, with Israeli strikes in the past week forcing tens of thousands to leave many of them refugees from Syria who had already fled their home to escape the civil war in the neighboring country. This society will break, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council told the BBC Global News Podcast. Beirut is so overwhelmed, so are the other cities. This madness has to stop. Ground invasion of Lebanon may be imminent, but Israels strategy is unclear Source: Al Jazeera The recent addition of two regimens to the Israeli armys Northern Command, which is responsible for fighting Hezbollah, may suggest that a ground invasion of Lebanon is approaching although the apparent lack of a clear strategy by Israel makes it hard to tell, Al Jazeera noted. Several analysts told the outlet that they didnt foresee troops being sent in imminently. Were still on the brink, but I dont think a decision has been made to launch an invasion, Israeli political analyst Ori Goldberg said. Netanyahu and the military want Hezbollah to take an action that would force Israels hand, he added, but Hezbollah is not doing that, Iran is not doing that. Hostilities between UN and Israel hit boiling point Source: The Guardian Disagreements between Israel and the UN which Netanyahu on Friday called a contemptuous farce and a swamp of antisemitic bile are nothing new, The Guardians diplomatic editor wrote. But tensions have increased since the beginning of the war in Gaza, turning the conflict into a visceral one. And the Israeli PM also has to face a perhaps bigger issue: US anger after he rejected plans for a three-week ceasefire in Lebanon. The US clearly feels he reneged on a deal, and not for the first time since 7 October, The Guardian wrote, adding that it will not be the first time the west has thought Netanyahu is making a strategic mistake, but then proved unable or unwilling to force him to rethink. Netanyahu vows to use full force against Hezbollah and dims hopes for a cease-fire Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday vowed to carry out full force strikes against Hezbollah until it ceases firing rockets across the border, dimming hopes for a cease-fire proposal put forth by U.S. and European officials. Israel carried out a new strike in the Lebanese capital, which it said killed a senior Hezbollah commander, and the militant group launched dozens of rockets into Israel. Tens of thousands of Israeli and Lebanese people living near their countries border have been displaced by the fighting. Netanyahu spoke as he landed in New York to attend the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting, where U.S. and European officials were putting heavy pressure on both sides of the conflict to accept a proposed 21-day halt in the fighting to give time for diplomacy and avert all-out war. Nearly 700 people have been killed in Lebanon this week as Israel dramatically escalated strikes, saying it is targeting Hezbollahs military capacities. Israeli leaders say they are determined to stop the groups cross-border attacks, which began after Hamas Oct. 7 attack that ignited the war in Gaza. Israels policy is clear, Netanyahu said. We are continuing to strike Hezbollah with full force. And we will not stop until we reach all our goals, chief among them the return of the residents of the north securely to their homes. Just before his comments, the Israeli military said it killed a Hezbollah drone commander, Mohammed Hussein Surour, in an airstrike in the suburbs of Beirut. Hezbollah did not immediately comment on the claim. The Health Ministry said two people were killed and 15 wounded in the strike. The strike gutted an apartment in a residential building in Dahiyeh, the mainly Shiite suburb where Hezbollah has a strong presence, according to Associated Press photos of the scene. Over the past week, Israel has carried out several strikes in Beirut targeting senior Hezbollah commanders. One strike in eastern Lebanon on Thursday killed 20 people, most of them Syrian migrants, according to Lebanese health officials. Israel hit 75 sites early Thursday across southern and eastern Lebanon and launched a new wave of strikes in the evening, the military said. Throughout the day, Hezbollah fired some 175 projectiles into Israel, the Israeli military said. Most were intercepted or fell in open areas, sparking some wildfires, though one rocket hit a street in a town near the northern city of Safed. Israel has talked of a possible ground invasion into Lebanon to drive Hezbollah -- an Iranian-backed Shiite group that is the strongest armed force in Lebanon -- away from the border. It has moved thousands of troops to the north in preparation. Some 100,000 Lebanese have fled their homes in the past week, streaming into Beirut and points further north. In Israel, military vehicles transported tanks and armored vehicles toward the countrys northern border with Lebanon a day after commanders issued a call-up of reservists. Several tanks arrived in Kiryat Shmona, a hard-hit town just several miles from the border. The escalation has raised fears of a repeat or worse of the 2006 war between the two sides that wreaked destruction across southern Lebanon and other parts of the country and saw heavy Hezbollah rocket fire on Israeli cities. Another full-scale war could be devastating for both Israel and Lebanon, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said after talks with his British and Australian counterparts in London. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was at the U.N. meeting with Israeli officials over the truce proposal. Speaking in an interview with MSNBC, he said major powers, the Europeans and Arab nations were united, everyone speaking with one clear voice about the need to get that cease-fire in the north. I cant speak for him, Blinken said of Netanyahu. Hezbollah has not yet responded to the proposal. Lebanons caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati welcomed it, but his government has no sway over the group. Netanyahus office downplayed the initiative, saying in a statement that it was only a proposal. One of Netanyahus far-right governing partners threatened on Thursday to suspend cooperation with his government if it signs onto a temporary cease-fire with Hezbollah and to quit completely if a permanent deal is reached. It was the latest sign of displeasure from Netanyahus allies toward international cease-fire efforts. If a temporary cease-fire becomes permanent, we will resign from the government, said National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the Jewish Power party. If Ben-Gvir leaves the coalition, Netanyahu would lose his parliamentary majority and could see his government come toppling down, though opposition leaders have said they would offer support for a cease-fire deal. Hezbollah has insisted it would halt its strikes only if there is a cease-fire in Gaza, where Israel has battled Hamas for nearly a year. That appears out of reach despite months of negotiations led by the United States, Egypt and Qatar. One day after Hamas Oct 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza, Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel, bringing Israeli counterfire and a cycle of reprisals that has gone on near daily since. Hezbollah says its barrages are a show of support for Palestinians and that it is targeting Israeli military facilities, though rockets have also hit civilian areas. Before this week, the cross-border exchanges had killed about 600 people in Lebanon, mostly militants but including more than 100 civilians, and about four dozen people in Israel, roughly half of them soldiers and the rest civilians. The fighting also forced tens of thousands to flee homes on both sides of the border. Israel says its escalated strikes across Lebanon the past week are targeting Hezbollah rocket launchers and other military infrastructure. Since Monday, strikes have killed more than 690 people in Lebanon, around a quarter of them women and children, according to local health authorities. The campaign opened with what is widely believed to be an Israeli attack on Sept. 18 and 19 detonating thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah, killing at least 39 people and maiming thousands more, including civilians. Hezbollah in turn has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel. Several people in Israel have been wounded. On Wednesday, the group fired on Tel Aviv for the first time with a longer-range missile that was intercepted. Early Thursday, an Israeli airstrike hit a building housing Syrian workers and their families near the ancient city of Baalbek in Lebanons eastern Bekaa Valley. The Lebanese Health Ministry said 19 Syrians and a Lebanese were killed, one of the deadliest single strikes in Israels intensified air campaign. Hussein Salloum, a local official in Younine, said most of the dead were women and children. The state news agency had initially reported that 23 people were dead. Lebanon, with a population of around 6 million, hosts nearly 780,000 registered Syrian refugees and hundreds of thousands who are unregistered the worlds highest refugee population per capita. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: Acrisure Stadium among 4 NFL venues designated as a Mission Ready Venue. Heres what that means Rachael DelTondos ex-fiance charged with allegedly beating girlfriend Hoda Kotb to step down as co-anchor of NBC News TODAY show VIDEO: 11 Investigates EXCLUSIVE: Police recruiting wars DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaks at the 79th General Debate of the UN General Assembly. Michael Kappeler/dpa Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a forceful address to the United Nations on Friday in which he vowed to keep fighting the Lebanese militia Hezbollah "until all our objectives are met," rebuffing calls for a ceasefire. He also blasted the UN as a "house of darkness" that reflexively takes an anti-Israel stance and a "swamp of anti-Semitic bile." Netanyahu said he had planned to skip the annual high-level General Debate week this year, which features world leaders addressing the UN General Assembly, given his country is "at war" and "fighting for its life." "But after I heard the lies and slanders levelled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight," he said, singling out Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' speech on Thursday. "Heres the truth," Netanyahu said. "Israel seeks peace. Israel yearns for peace. Israel has made peace and will make peace again." He saved his harshest words for Iran. "I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran. If you strike us, we will strike you," he said. "There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach - and that's true of the entire Middle East." In April, Iran fired 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles at Israel. The United States, Britain, France and Jordan stepped in to help Israel and nearly all were intercepted. It was the first direct attack by the Iranian military against Israel. Iran's so-called "axis of resistance" - proxy militias in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere - have also stepped up their attacks on the Jewish state since the October 7 massacres by Iran-backed Hamas, in which militants killed about 1,200 people and took some 250 hostage. Israel responded with an overwhelming air and ground campaign that has killed more than 41,500 people, according to Hamas-controlled health authorities in the Palestinian territory. The numbers do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. On Monday, the Israeli military began pounding Hezbollah, another Iran-aligned group, which has been firing rockets at northern Israel on a near-daily basis for almost a year. The Israeli military said it has hit Hezbollah targets in southern and eastern Lebanon, as well areas near Beirut. More than 750 people had been killed by Friday, Lebanese authorities said. The move has put the region on the brink of an all-out war. Multiple countries, including allies of Israel, are urging Netanyahu to agree to a truce to de-escalating the crisis. Netanyahu did not the specifically mention the three-week temporary ceasefire proposal being pushed for the US and France in his speech. "Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safely. And thats exactly what were doing ... we'll continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met," he said. Turning to Hamas in Gaza, he said that the Israeli army has killed or captured more than half of the group's members. He said that the Israeli army had destroyed more than 90% of Hamas' rocket arsenal and important sections of the tunnel network used by militants. He urged Hamas to release the remaining hostages they are still holding in Gaza. "I have a message for the Hamas captors. Let them go. Let them go, all of them. Those alive today must be returned alive, and the remains of those whom you brutally killed must be returned to their families." Relatives of the Israeli hostages were in the audience at the UN listening to the prime minister's speech. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C), speaks at the 79th General Debate of the UN General Assembly. Michael Kappeler/dpa Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C), speaks at the 79th General Debate of the UN General Assembly. Michael Kappeler/dpa In his speech at the UN General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed his country's commitment to defend itself in the face of its many enemies and delivered a tough warning to Iran. "I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran. If you strike us, we will strike you," he said in New York on Friday. "There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach - and that's true of the entire Middle East. "I have another message for this assembly and for the world outside this hall. We are winning." In April, Iran fired 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles at Israel. The United States, the United Kingdom, France and Jordan stepped in to help Israel and nearly all the drones were intercepted. It was the first direct attack by the Iranian military against Israel. Iran's so-called "axis of resistance" - proxy militias in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere - have also stepped up their attacks on the Jewish state since the October 7 attacks by Iran-backed Hamas, in which militants killed about 1,200 people and took some 250 hostage. Israel responded with an overwhelming air and ground campaign that has killed more than 41,500 people, according to Hamas-controlled health authorities in the Palestinian territory. The numbers do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaks at the 79th General Debate of the UN General Assembly. Michael Kappeler/dpa Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C), speaks at the 79th General Debate of the UN General Assembly. Michael Kappeler/dpa Never too late to make your dreams come true 68-year-old Edinboro woman heads back to college A local woman is achieving her educational dream after returning to her hometown in Erie County. Many people choose to retire at around the age of 65, but for one Edinboro woman, thats not the case. Bambi Neal just turned 68 years old, but she hasnt let that stop her from doing what she always wanted. After moving back to Edinboro from Florida, Neal set her eyes on getting her general education development diploma. Two local women care centers get financial boost from Knights of Columbus I graduated the first week of August, and within two weeks, I had enrolled at Edinboro, you know PennWest Edinboro, and they were happy to have me, said Neal. Neal started college at PennWest Edinboro this fall semester with an interdisciplinary studies major while also balancing a part-time job. She said her professors and fellow students have been very supportive so far making her feel right at home. The first week, I felt a little out of place. I mean Im the oldest one in the class, in the whole freshman class thats going thereBut they are wonderful. I mean, Im so happy Im doing this. Its just changed my whole life, Neal explained. Women in leadership topic of discussion at Athena Erie annual luncheon Decades after most people get their college degree, Neal has been walking around Edinboros campus and said she has a message for the older generation. Over here at Edinboro, there are so many advantages for seniors, especially low-income seniors, to go back to school, and its never too late to make your dreams come true. Never. Im living proof, Im doing it, she went on to say. So far, Neal told us she has already convinced another woman the same age her in her living facility to go to college. Its like do something. If its not going to Edinboro, take a painting class. Do something, dont just sit around, Neal added. Over 170 employers hear from prospective students at Penn State Behrend career fair As for grades, Neal said she even got an A on her first college essay. And even though the homework, costs, and busy schedule, she said its all worth it. After college, Neal said she wants to work as a counselor for children who come from unfortunate backgrounds. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJET/WFXP/YourErie.com. Malibu resident Tina Siegel and L.A. County Sheriff's Capt. Jenn Seetoo comfort each other in February after the 59th "ghost tire" was added to a roadside memorial honoring every person killed along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu since 2010. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday approved a measure that will allow five speed cameras to be installed along a particularly dangerous stretch of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. This 21-mile stretch of PCH has long been known as a hot spot for crashes, including scores of fatalities, but it was the deaths of four Pepperdine University students almost a year ago that propelled renewed action to improve safety on the road. Senate Bill 1297, which Newsom signed into law Friday, builds on ongoing state and local efforts aimed at saving lives along this section of PCH. Sponsored by Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), the law includes Malibu in a speed camera pilot program that will allow it to install up to five automated cameras to detect and fine speeding drivers. The state requires cities in the pilot program to establish clear signage about the program and a public education campaign before enforcement begins. "The signing of SB 1297 today is a huge win for the safety of Malibu residents and its visitors," Allen said in a statement. "We know speed cameras can help curb reckless speeding an issue this beautiful stretch of highway has been plagued with for years so I am grateful the governor recognizes the important role this equipment will play in saving lives." The bill has been awaiting the governor's signature since late August, when lawmakers passed the measure. In a statement, the city of Malibu said it was thankful to the state and local partners who had a hand in "achieving this landmark legislation. "SB 1297 is a key component to turn the tide on the growing number of tragedies to students, beachgoers, and visitors along, what Governor Newsom described earlier this year as, 'one of the most iconic drives in California, if not the world,'" the statement said. "But far too many have lost their lives along this corridor. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Capt. Jennifer Seetoo was in the Malibu/Lost Hills station when she received the news of the governor's approval and said her phone has been blowing up with joyous messages from the community since. "This is not the end-all be-all; you still need that enforcement side, the education and the engineering," she said. "But this is such a step in the right direction." Seetoo had pushed for Malibu to be added to the state's speed camera pilot program, which was limited to Los Angeles, San Jose, Oakland, Glendale, Long Beach and San Francisco when the measure was approved by the governor last year. She said she was previously told Malibu would have to wait until the pilot program ended in five years. Getting SB 1297 approved was a "complete community approach," she said. "When elected officials, public safety and the community come together in a united voice, that is when true change is made," Seetoo said. Malibu Mayor Doug Stewart told the Times that the bill requires a lot of "pre-work" to install the cameras in the proper places along the roadway. Since the city had been anticipating Newsom's approval, he said, "we're in the process of putting out the requests for proposals." "This is very important to the residents of Malibu and the people of California that use PCH, so we want to get this up and running as soon as we can," Stewart said. The mayor said he's hopeful this latest safety measure will begin to change the behavior of drivers on the roadway mainly by slowing the pace. "Know what the speed limit is and don't exceed it, because speeding has a direct relationship to people being injured or fatal accidents on PCH," he said. On the evening of Oct. 17, 2023, sisters in Pepperdine's Alpha Phi sorority Niamh Rolston, Peyton Stewart, Asha Weir and Deslyn Williams were killed while walking on a sidewalk along PCH. A car determined to be traveling in excess of 100 mph slammed into parked cars and the women. Between 2011 and 2023, 170 fatalities or serious injuries to drivers, passengers, cyclists and pedestrians have occurred on the highway in Malibu, according to a Times analysis. Malibu officials have said that 60 people have died on the stretch since 2010. Over 60 lives lost on one stretch of our iconic Pacific Coast Highway is unacceptable its a call to action," Newsom said in a statement. "Thats why were adding speed cameras to help put an end to reckless driving in Malibu. These new cameras will build on the state's ongoing safety makeover that includes infrastructure upgrades, increased traffic enforcement, and a new public education campaign. One of the 60 lives lost on the roadway was 13-year-old Emily Shane, who was killed by a speeding driver in 2010 when she was walking on the sidewalk along PCH. Her father, Michel Shane, made a documentary about the incident and has been pushing the California Department of Transportation for safety measures ever since. On Friday, Shane and his wife Ellen told the Times that the passage of AB 1297 should be "looked at as a kicking-off point." "Government has now decided that it's time to look at what we've all lived with for so long and [now] fix it," Michel said. This October marks the one-year anniversary of the death of the four Pepperdine students, whose families recently filed a lawsuit against state and local agencies they say are responsible for the deadly roadway. "It's not about [the families] getting something, it's about them creating change and [the students'] deaths not being meaningless," Michel said. These latest changes, Ellen added, make the deaths of all 60 people, including their daughter's, a part of the effort to create positive change. "We don't want other people to have to deal with the pain and grief and loss that's so unnecessary and that we and so many others have had to deal with," she said. Michel Shane and others are continuing to advocate for more safety measures on Pacific Coast Highway, such as an overall reduction of the roadway's speed limit. He said PCH isn't going to change overnight, but he sees the commitment for improved safety from the city, the community and members of the PCH Task Force that include Allen, Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin (D-Thousand Oaks) and L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath. 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. Surveys indicate 82%-97% of book challenges go unreported and receive no media coverage, according to the American Library Association. When David Shelley, the CEO of Hachette, one of the big five publishing companies, was a teenager, he was living in Margaret Thatchers Britain and under a law called Section 28. The measure, which was in effect from 1988 to 2003, prohibited schools from promoting the teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality. In the 80s, Shelley said, his main sources of information came from teachers and libraries, and he described himself as being depressed because he didnt see anyone like him. Then one day at the library, he stumbled across Aidan Chambers 1982 novel Dance on My Grave, about two teenage boys in love. That was a lightbulb moment for me, because finding that book in the library that somehow had escaped Thatchers law it was actually a real lifeline, Shelley said. David Shelley is the CEO of Hachette, one of the big five publishing companies. Shelley was named CEO of both Hachettes U.S. and U.K. divisions last year, and the new job came with a move from London to New York City. Living in the U.S., he said, has brought back the complicated memories of his youth. It felt like I was back in Thatchers Britain in the 1980s. Not in all states, but in some states, he said. Shelley said he fears the yearslong spike in book censorship efforts in the U.S. will lead young people to face similar feelings of loneliness and isolation he experienced as a teen. In observance of Banned Books Week, which started Sunday and runs through Saturday, two new reports were released. The first, from PEN America, documented a sharp increase in books removed from school shelves in 2023-24, tripling from the previous school year. More than 8,000 books were pulled in Florida and Iowa, two states with laws that restrict LGBTQ-themed books in schools and libraries. The second report, from the American Library Association, found complaints have dropped this year but still exceed numbers prior to 2020. The PEN and ALA reports dont necessarily contradict each other, as the two organizations define book bans differently. I can understand some of the impetus where people are thinking theyre safeguarding kids or theyre protecting kids. But at the same time its very dangerous, because one persons idea of what safeguarding means is actually depriving kids of valuable sets of information, Shelley said, pointing out a sizable portion of banned and restricted books are written by people of color and LGBTQ authors. So actually in the supposed safeguarding of kids, what youre actually doing is depriving them of representation. All Boys Arent Blue, a memoir manifesto by LGBTQ activist George M. Johnson, is one of the most banned books in the U.S. What the reports do not quantify is the collateral damage of book bans, or so-called soft censorship, when a title is excluded, removed or limited before it is explicitly banned, out of fear of backlash. This could look like the removal of books due to complaints from parents or a librarian declining to carry a title out of concern about an impending ban or challenge. According to the ALA, surveys indicate 82%-97% of book challenges go unreported and receive no media coverage. I do think when we talk about soft-banning, where it applies heavily is schools and libraries. Where they wont even order the books for their library, said George M. Johnson, whose first book, All Boys Arent Blue, is one of the most banned books in the U.S. So I think that is where the danger lies, because we can track the books that are being banned, but we cant track books that are not being ordered. Dr. Seema Yasmin, an author and physician, said her debut book The ABCs of Queer History, a childrens book published in April by the Hachette imprint Workman Publishing Co. was soft-banned earlier this year. She said a big-box retailer, which she declined to name, canceled a large order of the book before it was even published, saying it was pulling back on Pride celebrations. Dr. Seema Yasmin's debut book, "The ABCs of Queer History," was published in April by the Hachette imprint Workman Publishing Co. What I expected was more of, A parent in Dallas County has said they dont want the book taught in their school. I did not expect a huge corporation to order and then rescind a 10,000-copy order, which is a whole print run. I didnt see that happening. Yasmin joined the American Civil Liberties Union last week in Georgia for its Know Your Rights Bus Tour. She brought The ABCs of Queer History and her new book, Unbecoming, a young-adult novel published by Simon & Schuster about two Muslim teens in Texas fighting for abortion access. Yasmin said she began writing the book in 2019 after thinking about how abortion bans affect teenagers. While teachers and librarians have praised her latest book, Yasmin said, some have told her they are not going to teach it or keep it in the classroom because they fear its going to get banned. So what were seeing is this censorship happening before the book is banned because of the draconian ecosystem that were living in, she said. Dr. Seema Yasmin signing copies of her new book, Unbecoming, a young-adult novel published by Simon & Schuster. Teachers and librarians may face a variety of punishments if they are found providing a book that is challenged or banned, or, in some cases, if they share a book that is likely to be challenged. Depending on the state, it can be unclear how to comply. In Florida last year, two school districts told teachers to conceal or remove every book while texts went under review for compatibility with a new state law. And in Utah, a recently introduced bill proposes teachers be charged with a misdemeanor if they keep materials available to students that have been classified as objectively sensitive. In August of last year, an elementary school teacher in Georgia was dismissed for reading My Shadow is Purple to students, a bestselling childrens book about acceptance and the gender binary. The teacher, Katie Rinderle, was found to be in violation of a 2022 state law prohibiting the teaching of divisive concepts. Attorneys representing Rinderle said the definition of controversial issues is so vague that teachers cant be sure what is actually banned, according to The Associated Press. And in June, NBC News published an investigation into an officer in Texas who spent two years vigorously pursuing felony charges against local librarians for allowing children to access literature he deemed obscene (such as The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison). The countys district attorney ultimately turned down the officers request to indict the librarians, citing a lack of conclusive evidence. This week, Johnson, who uses they/them pronouns, released their latest book, Flamboyants, a collection of essays about Black and queer icons from the Harlem Renaissance. Its release during Banned Books Week was a coincidence, though Johnson acknowledges the book will likely be banned at some point. Johnson is a plaintiff in PEN America et al. v. Escambia County School District, a federal lawsuit alleging school administrators in the Florida county are in violation of the First and 14th Amendments because the districts book bans violate a right to free speech and equal protection under the law. Johnson said they joined the lawsuit to show how serious Im taking this and how serious I am about the protection of young people and their ability to learn about their identity. Johnson said it was also their experience having their work banned that inspired them to take action. I was like, OK, if they want to go this far, I have to take it a step further myself. Next year, Johnson will release a book co-written with author Leah Johnson (no relation), whose books center queer girls of color. One of her young adult novels, You Should See Me in a Crown, was placed under review by the Oklahoma attorney general in 2022 to determine if the book violated the states obscenity law. Leah Johnson is the author of the young-adult novel "You Should See Me in a Crown" and the founder of Loudmouth Books in Indianapolis. Leah Johnson founded a banned bookstore called Loudmouth Books in Indianapolis last year. She said she was inspired to launch her bookstore after a library in Indiana moved more than 1,300 YA books into its adult section under a controversial new review policy that reshelved famous teen books like The Fault in Our Stars by John Green and Judy Blumes Forever. While the library suspended its review policy after significant backlash, it was enough to convince her to take action. I know how important the role of the independent bookstore is not just in publishing, but also in local communities. It felt like a natural continuation of the work I was already doing, Johnson said of starting her bookshop. I think its worth remembering that theyre not trying to remove books from shelves. They want a removal of queer people from public life. Loudmouth Books is particularly interested in highlighting both banned books and the work of marginalized authors, with an aim to challenge the idea that diverse stories are inherently dangerous. (But if they are, sign us up to read dangerously! the bookstores website says.) In the meantime, Leah Johnsons book with George M. Johnson comes out next year, the first in the duos seven-figure, two-book deal featuring Black, queer characters. Its just fun to write gay s--- with your homie, she said. Thats what I want to do. Thats what Im thinking about. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com Niagara Falls man gets 20 years for fatally stabbing woman in motel room BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) A Niagara Falls man was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison after pleading guilty to murdering a woman last year, the Niagara County District Attorneys Office announced Thursday. 37-year-old Brian Wallace pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in June for the death of 38-year-old Lauren Hayes. Shortly before 2 a.m. on the morning of Feb. 21, 2023, police said they responded to a motel in Niagara Falls where a woman had reportedly been stabbed. The body of the deceased woman was found in one of the rooms. Wallace and Hayes were known to each other. Ms. Hayes life came to a terrible and tragic end at the hands of this defendant in that hotel room, said Niagara County DA Brian Seaman. This crime is certainly deserving of the sentence handed down by the court. Latest Local News Kayleigh Hunter-Gasperini joined the News 4 team in 2024 as a Digital Video Producer. She is a graduate of Chatham University. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to News 4 Buffalo. NICHOLASVILLE, Ky. (FOX 56) A hemp testing lab in Jessamine County has received the first medical marijuana business license in Kentucky. The Kentucky Medical Cannabis Program received 4,998 applications for medical cannabis business licenses, according to the governors office. KCA Labs is just the first to receive its license. RELATED: Gov. Beshear called the Nicholasville lab a one-stop lab for quality testing cannabis and hemp and said that KCA Labs will act as a safety compliance facility to test medical cannabis products before theyre in the hands of cardholders. Our mission is to ensure Kentuckians with serious medical conditions have safe access to high quality, tested medical cannabis products, said Gov. Beshear. Today, we took two more big steps toward that goal. We are so excited about the opportunity to be part of Kentuckys medical cannabis program, and were thrilled to accept the first license, Jonathan Thompson, CEO of KCA Labs said. I want to thank the Governor and the Office of Medical Cannabis for setting up this licensing process, which has been seamless. KCAs vast knowledge and experience with testing hemp products will translate neatly into Kentuckys new medical cannabis program. We look forward to helping ensure the program provides the highest-quality products to Kentuckys cardholders. LATEST KENTUCKY NEWS: Further, the license lottery for medical cannabis cultivators and processors will begin on Oct. 28 with organizers currently working through applications. Applicants for cultivator Tiers I, II, III and applicants for processors will be informed the week prior whether they are approved to the license lottery, the governors office said. The lotteries will be held by the Kentucky Lottery Corp. in Louisville and will be live-streamed so Kentuckians can tune in and follow along. There will be 10 licenses available for processors, a total of 16 cultivator licenses, and 48 licenses for dispensaries spread out across 11 regions. Read more of the latest Kentucky news According to the program, patients can apply for their medical cannabis cards in January. For information on how to apply and the qualifying conditions, 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 FOX 56 News. Two senior Nigerian prison officials have been suspended over bribery allegations regarding controversial transgender celebrity Bobrisky. It follows claims by social media influencer Martins Otse, widely known as VeryDarkMan, that some anti-corruption officials were bribed to drop money laundering charges against Bobrisky. She has dismissed the bribery claim. Bobrisky, whose real name is Idris Okuneye, was released from prison last month after serving a six-month sentence for abusing naira, the local currency. But a court dismissed money laundering charges. Nigeria was last year ranked 145 out of 180 countries in the Transparency International's perceptions of corruption index, with bribery named more prevalent in government offices. The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) have ordered investigations into a viral video, which Bobrisky has called "false", allegedly linking her to the bribery allegation. In the leaked video, someone who is purported to be Bobrisky is heard alleging that she paid $9,000 (7,000) to EFCC officials to have the money laundering charges dropped. It was also alleged that she paid some millions of naira to secure a private apartment near the prison where she allegedly served her jail term. Bobrisky, who has nearly five million followers on Instagram, denied the allegations in an Instagram post. "I didnt pay any EFCC money, which is a very big lie. I served my term in full, and I came out. Discard any false information. In a statement on Thursday, the Civil Defence, Correctional, Fire, and Immigration Services Board, said it suspended two prison officers linked to the bribery allegations, which have sparked widespread condemnation in the country. Two other senior prison officials were also suspended over separate accusations. The suspension of these officers is to allow for further investigation on the various allegations while assuring that the outcome would be made public when concluded, the statement added. You may also be interested in: [Getty Images/BBC] Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica BBC Africa podcasts BELFORD, NJ An engaged couple with Belford and Matawan ties lost their deposit after the North Jersey venue where they planned to be married next month unexpectedly filed for bankruptcy, according to this GoFundMe started for the soon-to-be newlyweds. The venue is the Art Factory in Paterson, which is making headlines across the state after they aprubtly closed their doors and filed for bankruptcy this month. The Art Factory is a rambling former factory located very close to the Great Falls of Paterson. A man named David Garsia was given a loan to turn the factory into an event space, and it has become popular across the state for weddings and other celebrations. According to their website, the factory has also been used for filming by Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Disney, Alice in Chains, Bon Jovi, 50 Cent, Calvin Klein, Victoria's Secret and Cadillac. On Sept. 22, the Art Factory put up this post on their Instagram page, blaming their lender for foreclosing on the building. The lender who gave Garsia the money to open the Art Factory is the 100 Mile Fund, owned by Billy Procida. "This is one of the saddest things I've witnessed in my 43-year career, I feel so bad for all of The Art Factory clients. It's a great venue and it was poorly managed," Procida told ABC News this week. "We are simply the lender, we have nothing to do with the decision by the Garsias to file bankruptcy." A bankruptcy judge ordered Garcia to pay roughly $10 million to the 100 Mile Fund, NJ101.5 reports. The Monmouth County couple are these two women with Matawan and Belford ties. They reportedly put down a $14,000 deposit to have their wedding at the Art Factory next month, reported the Daily Voice. Multiple news outlets report this has been the case for hundreds of engaged-to-be-wed couples across New Jersey, with couples putting down deposits ranging from $12,000 and $14,000 to have their wedding at the Art Factory only to be told the location is permanently closed and they will have to file a claim in small claims court to get their money back. A bridesmaid for the Monmouth County couple started this GoFundMe account to help the women recoup some of their losses. "Lindsey and Erin have been working tirelessly to create the best day of their lives on October 18, 2024. Their wedding," read the GoFundMe. "I'm Melodie, Erin's maid of honor and best friend. Lindsey is my sister in law. They were booked and ready to go at the Art Factory in Paterson. If you are unaware of what has happened they shut down and officially closed their doors today. They have poured their hearts and soul into this. All of their money has been spent on this venue and they unfortunately will not see a penny of this back. I am asking for any kind of donation to help them find a new venue for their special day. They are completely heartbroken over all of this ... What the Art Factory has done is completely unethical and morally wrong." Six days ago, the Art Factory posted an email they received from Procida. They maintain that even during the COVID pandemic, when they were shut down by the state and had to postpone 167 weddings, Procida still charged them "insane interest." "Covid had nothing to do with it," Procida wrote Garcia in an email. "Your (sic) a scumbag piece of s- lowlife. Pay me." Read: Dream Weddings Wrecked: Popular NJ Venue Files For Bankruptcy, Blames Lender Brides left without a wedding venue after popular event space in Paterson files for bankruptcy NJ Couples Lose Thousands As Art Factory Wedding Venue Goes Bankrupt originally appeared on the Middletown Patch No animal neglect in death of dog at Pleasanton apartment balcony, police say No animal neglect in death of dog at Pleasanton apartment balcony, police say (KRON) The Pleasanton Police Department (PPD) announced on Tuesday that a dog tragically died from heat stroke after being left alone on an apartment balcony near Gibraltar Drive and Hacienda Drive. Video footage posted on the Nextdoor app showed the dog trapped on the balcony outside during a heat wave. According to PPD, surveillance footage shows the dog exited the apartment between 8:30 a.m. and 9:45 a.m. The pet was unable to reenter the unit, unbeknownst to the owner, police said. Upon further investigation, police said Thursday that they determined there were no findings of animal neglect, despite allegations coming from community members. According to PPD, a local veterinarian determined the cause of the dogs death was heat stroke with no other signs of injury or neglect. The department added that fatal heat stroke can happen within an hour of direct sunlight. However, one neighbor claimed on Nextdoor that the case was dog abuse on the part of the owner. The neighbor claims dog abuse has been reported numerous times, and the leasing office failed to save this poor pup. Multiple comments on PPDs original Facebook post about the incident called for the dog owner to be charged. Those who watched the now-deleted Nextdoor video of the dog stuck on the balcony have called the footage traumatic. The dogs death appears to be an isolated incident that is rare in the Pleasanton community. Police request that the public show respect for the owner of the deceased dog. As staff gifts fans dirt from Oakland Coliseum to bring home The Pleasanton Police Department has no prior history of calls for service regarding animal welfare at this address, the department said. We kindly request that the public show respect for all parties involved, particularly the dog owner during this time of grief. The dogs death prompted a lot of public and community concern over pet safety. PPD said it will increase patrols in the neighborhood. We would also like to remind the public that, when calling 9-1-1, to provide as much detail as possible so calls can be prioritized for the appropriate response, Pleasanton police wrote in a Facebook post. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Labours Britain: I no longer see any future in this country The arrival of a Labour Government has catalysed a talent drain. The wealthy and skilful are fleeing Britain, particularly as fears grow over a range of tax rises in Rachel Reevess first Budget. The Telegraph has spoken to a number of its readers who form part of this vital and undervalued group. They said that they have emigrated because of tax punishment, a deteriorating quality of life, and business discouragement. Its partly the tax but also where Britain is heading Steve Oldfield, 60, originally intended to work until he was 67, but has instead retired early to the Philippines. An IT consultant from Cheshire, Mr Oldfield eventually found it difficult to motivate himself when he was only keeping 40p of every pound he earned, which he largely attributes to IR35. Mr Oldfield had been contracting at Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt for a number of years. In the last few years, he worked remotely from the UK. IR35 is a piece of UK legislation which was originally introduced by Gordon Brown when he was chancellor, as part of the 1999 Budget to counter the misuse of personal service companies (PSCs) for tax avoidance purposes. Mr Oldfield condemned the so-called double taxation of IR35 which he said saw him pay tax of up to 60 per cent compounded by no employee rights, no sick pay, no benefits and no pension. It was incredibly demotivating, he said. I lost a contract on the back of the tax. I lost interest, I found it really hard to motivate myself. How can you work to keep 40p of every pound you earn? Its ridiculous. Mr Oldfield and his wife bought a beach house in the Philippines, her home country, just before Covid. They had originally intended to use it occasionally until we retired. Steve Oldfield outside his beach house in the Philippines - Diana Oldfield That plan changed when the couple decided to move permanently last May. Its partly the tax but its also where Britain is heading, said Mr Oldfield. If Im paying high taxes and Ive got fantastic public services and a great way of life then possibly you could put up with it, but on the back of everything else no, we decided it was time to go. Labours coming to power only served to solidify the move. We discussed giving it a trial run but, with Labour coming in, it was obviously only going to get worse in terms of tax and all their so-called progressive policies. That was the icing on the cake, Mr Oldfield said. In the Philippines, Mr Oldfield says, it is a little bit like going back in time in that theres very little political correctness and people are able to take risks. He added: If you work hard, people can be successful Crime is very low. Theres a great work ethic thats been lost in Britain due to our over-generous welfare state. Its a much more simple and straightforward way of life. Mr Oldfield hasnt lost all faith. When asked if he could be enticed back to Britain, he said: Yes, I think I could. I love my country, I love the Britain I grew up in and I wouldnt have been able to have left that version of it. It was never something we seriously considered until the last few years. Asked what could tempt him back, he said: Id like to see a Tory party with Tory values, and more traditional centre-Right policies in government, prepared to dismantle the creeping socialism that the UKs endured since, well, Margaret Thatcher. It was never reversed by the Tory government and were paying the price now. Despite putting hundreds of miles between him and Britain, Mr Oldfield hasnt fully escaped the effects of Labours election victory. He still owns a number of buy-to-lets back home and says his big fear is what they are planning to do next. He added: Theres an ongoing war on landlords, initiated perversely by the Tories, but its going to get even worse under Labour. What will they do now with the letting environment, landlord taxation, and rights of tenants? Ive had most of my tenants for years. I charge them at least 15pc below the market rate but ultimately Im going to have to start passing on some of the costs. I rely on it now, when previously I didnt. This has become crucial to me. Who knows whats going to happen? Its the people in the public sector who wont be affected Michael Hanbury, 52, sees no future for himself in Britain and has moved to Thailand. A skilled chef, Mr Hanbury was previously the executive chef of a five-star hotel in central London and even opened a restaurant of his own. However, he stumbled upon funding difficulties, even contacting his constituency MP at the time who happened to be Sir Keir Starmer asking for help. He felt dismissed by the response and bemoaned the lack of help in the hospitality sector, particularly after the damage of the Covid lockdowns. Eventually, Mr Hanbury was forced to close his restaurant. When Boris [Johnson] started the work-from-home mantra, the momentum we had after the opening was killed on the spot, he said. 6,000 didnt even cover a weeks rent. Our electricity bill went up to 5,500 a month because youre a new business you get screwed. With the situation compounded by personal upheaval and feeling failed by the family court, he lost his patience: I really dont want to pay one penny in tax to this country because of what Ive lost, he declared. Mr Hanburys family are involved in the pharmaceutical industry going back generations, he says. Michael Hanbury in Thailand - Michael Hanbury Theres inheritance there, he added, saying he views inheritance tax as obscene. Youre being taxed for dying. You must work all your life to gain all this wealth, which was taxed in the first place, for them to take another slice. And its not just inheritance tax. Having been a higher-rate taxpayer and contributing much, he is also a critic of government waste and the politicisation of the Civil Service. Where is the money going? he questioned. Mr Hanbury no longer sees any future in this country. Along with significantly lower tax rates in Thailand, he says setting up a business is easier there, and he has the prospect of opening a restaurant. What I need to do to get a work permit is to go over there and set up a business. This is a great way of encouraging investment, he said. Mr Hanburys move is also driven by the decline he says he has seen in London, for which he holds Sadiq Khan responsible. I lived in Kentish Town and just before Christmas there was a murder, a stabbing, down the road, he said. When you see it around you, you dont want to be living here. Ive lived in central London for 30-odd years. Ive seen a decline. His sentiment towards the London mayor extends to Labour in general: The only thing were going to see in a Labour government is growth in both debt and regulation, that will stop businesses and entrepreneurs and growth in public sector wages. Only the wealth creators, the people who will actually drive growth will be affected. Theyll hit businesses across the board, whether its small entrepreneurs, SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) or large corporations. Beckham Law is what made us move Reader Cameron Nicholls*, 40, moved to Malaga with his family in January of this year. Despite living in the UK for most of his life, Mr Nicholls was educated in Spain between the ages of eight and 16, so he has always had a big love for the country. A self-professed nerd, Mr Nicholls works in IT integrating systems for large companies. Five years ago, when he decided to stop working for other companies and work for himself, he started earning significantly more money. But, living in Croydon, Mr Nicholls became disillusioned with the quality of life: It feels like youre non-stop being taxed. The quality of life that comes along with the amount of tax that you pay doesnt match up. Especially since weve got a newborn now. I didnt want to stay in Croydon with a little one I want the best for him. As well as comparing his new big detached house with a swimming pool and sea views in Malaga to his little flat in Croydon, he praises the outdoor lifestyle of Spain, which is great when youre raising a child. When you live in Croydon and see the state of it, and you see how much youre paying in taxes and compare it to Spain and its blue sky and peacefulness, its worlds apart. Cameron Nichollss Malaga garden, pool and sea views - Cameron Nicholls Mr Nicholls says the ultimate reason for his move, however, was the Beckham Law. The Beckham Law in Spain is a special tax regime that enables foreign workers to be taxed at a flat tax rate of 24 per cent for six years. The law earned its nickname when David Beckham became one of the first foreigners to take advantage of it after it was passed in 2005. You can save 50,000 to 100,000 a year just on taxes, says Mr Nicholls. Thats what a lot of people earn in the UK and thats what Im saving on tax being here. Essentially Ive got a massive pay rise to come and live in an amazing climate thats very safe, family-oriented and a lot cheaper. With a new Government and with the prospect of yet more tax rises, Mr Nicholls is particularly glad to have made the move now. I feel like everything you do in the UK is taxed. And it seems like his move could produce a snowball effect: Ive got friends who are in a similar boat to me in what they do and theyre looking at the process at the moment. *Names have been changed 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. Delegates representing Lebanon, Iran, the Palestinians and others exited the room as Netanyahu took the rostrum (Bryan R. SMITH) (Bryan R. SMITH/AFP/AFP) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed at the UN Friday to press his country's offensive against Lebanon's Hezbollah, dashing hopes for a 21-day truce proposed by France and the United States this week. Netanyahu's highly anticipated turn at the United Nations, during which he repeatedly denounced the global organization as anti-Israel, was met with jeers by some delegates who walked out, but cheers and applause from his backers. "As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their homes safe," Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly. "We will continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met." His remarks appeared to undermine a truce proposal unveiled by the United States and France after President Joe Biden and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, met on the sidelines of the UN gathering. The White House has said that the ceasefire call had been "coordinated" with Israel, but Netanyahu's office on Thursday said that the prime minister had not responded to the proposal. Netanyahu also issued a blunt warning to Iran in his UN address, saying: "I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran. If you strike us, we will strike you. "There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that's true of the entire Middle East," he added. Delegates representing Lebanon, Iran, the Palestinians and others exited the room as Netanyahu took the rostrum for his speech. "We have no interest in listening to the war criminal Netanyahu and to his lies," Majed Bamya, the Palestinian deputy ambassador to the UN, wrote on X alongside an image of his delegation's empty seats. Netanyahu was "promising to repeat the atrocities committed in Gaza in Lebanon, (he) has nothing to do at the podium of the General Assembly," Bamya added in a subsequent post. Netanyahu said at the start of his speech that "after I heard the lies and slanders leveled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight." Ahead of his appearance, protesters gathered outside Netanyahu's hotel in New York to demand an end to the violence in Gaza and Lebanon. - 'Deadliest period' - Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in a deadly exchange of cross-border fire since the Iran-backed group's Palestinian ally, Hamas, attacked Israel on October 7. Netanyahu vowed Friday that "Hamas has got to go" and would have no role in the reconstruction of Gaza as he vowed to fight until "total victory." Since Monday, Israel has shifted its focus from Gaza to its northern front with Lebanon, where heavy bombing has killed 700 people and sparked an exodus of around 118,000 people. The UN said Friday that a "catastrophic" intensification of Israeli attacks targeting Hezbollah militants had left Lebanon facing its "deadliest period... in a generation." The Israeli strikes have brought the overall death toll in Lebanon to more than 1,500 people killed in nearly a year of clashes, according to Lebanese authorities. That toll surpasses the 1,200 mostly civilians killed during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, which also killed around 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers. gw-sct-ho/bbk No, Texas didn't make it illegal to display pride flags in schools | Fact check The claim: Texas declared bringing a pride flag to classrooms is a crime A Sept. 15 Threads post (direct link, archive link) includes side-by-side images of students wearing Texas State T-shirts and a woman holding a pride flag. Its Official: Texas Declares Bringing a Pride Flag to the Classroom a Crime, reads the post, which includes a link to a separate website. The Thread was reposted more than 200 times in less than two weeks. Other versions of the claim spread widely on Facebook and X, formerly Twitter. More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page Our rating: False The claim originated on a satirical website. There is no evidence of any such declaration or law in the state. Texas legislature not in regular session until 2025 The link in the post directs users to an article that first appeared Sept. 8 on Esspots.com, a satirical website that labels its content as such. The Texas Legislative Reference Library is not aware of any legislation supporting the claims in the Facebook post or the linked article, spokesperson Karen McBurney told USA TODAY. The legislature is not in session and won't be in regular session again until January 2025, McBurney said. There are several telling elements of the article that confirm it is not legitimate news as well. For example, it claims the supposed legislation is titled The Classroom Sanctity Act, but nothing under that name is listed in online databases from the Texas State Capitol or the Texas Legislature. There is likewise no credible news reporting about such an act. The article also says Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law at a Sept. 7 ceremony, but no such event is referenced on the governors website, nor are there any reports of it from legitimate news outlets. Abbott last signed legislation in December 2023, according to the governor's website. The claim is an example of what could be called "stolen satire," where stories written as satire and presented that way originally are reposted in a way that makes them appear to be legitimate news. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled, as was the case here. Fact check: Video of mother tearing Pride Flag from classroom wall is staged There have, however, been numerous actions taken related to pride flags and sexuality in schools in Texas and elsewhere. A Texas State Senate bill that sought to restrict content related to sexual orientation and gender identity in public and charter schools was introduced in 2023, as reported by The Texas Tribune. It was left pending in committee. Later that year, a school district in San Antonio said it did not allow its educators to express "personal or political viewpoints" in the classroom after a teacher posted a photo on X that showed a pride flag on display, the San Antonio Express-News reported. A Tennessee State Senate bill introduced in January would have banned public schools from displaying political or ideological flags, including the pride flag, the Tennessean reported. A bipartisan cohort of state senators blocked the bill from advancing in April. USA TODAY has debunked an array of claims related to pride flags, including false assertions that Elon Musk called for them to be banned from classrooms and that the United Nations replaced all its flags with pride flags. USA TODAY reached out to users who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response. Check Your Fact and Full Fact also debunked the claim. Our fact-check sources: This story was updated because an earlier version included an inaccuracy. Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here. USA TODAY is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, which requires a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisanship, fairness and transparency. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Claim of Texas pride flag ban is satire | Fact check NORFOLK A man who terrorized a Norfolk neighborhood with an AR-style rifle and threatened to gun down a Brazilian family gathered for a backyard Bible study was sentenced Friday to 8 years in prison. The term Judge Everett A. Martin Jr. issued to Daniel Ferguson was well over the range recommended. State sentencing guidelines, which suggest a punishment based on a defendants background and the circumstances of the crime, recommended he serve no more than three years and nine months. Ferguson, 28, pleaded guilty in August to attempted malicious wounding, shooting into a vehicle, brandishing a firearm and a hate crime for the Sept. 3, 2023, incident in a neighborhood near Ocean View. Emergency dispatchers received numerous 911 calls that night about a man wandering the streets with a rifle, according to court documents. Two people threatened by Ferguson testified during Fridays sentencing hearing. Marcos Da Silva told the judge he was holding a Bible study with his wife and four children in their backyard when a man hed never seen came into the yard and pointed a rifle at them. The man asked who he should shoot first, then ordered them to get off his land, Da Silva said. James Lomogda testified he was driving to get ice cream for his children when he saw a man with a large rifle. We exchanged a stare. It was a bit awkward because he had a rifle in his hands, Lomogda said. I started to drive off and within a second or two my truck was shot. The bullet went through a tool box on his truck and the rear window, he said. Numerous police officers arrived and took Ferguson into custody. While they were driving him to jail, he talked of wanting to hunt and kill Blacks and Jews, according to court records. He spat on one officer and was combative and verbally abusive, the document said. Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Drew Fairbanks argued the nature of the threats, and the hate speech that Ferguson spewed that night, called for a sentence well above the guidelines. It was essentially a random act of violence, Fairbanks said. It wasnt motivated by anything but hate itself. Thats serious, your honor. Defense attorney Cole Roberts said Ferguson suffers from bipolar depression. He was a heavy substance abuser, using psychedelic mushrooms, steroids and alcohol before his arrest, Roberts said. Ferguson was in the Air Force for a short time, but had to leave due to injuries. Hes not a racist, Roberts said. Hes not a white supremacist. Ferguson told the judge he was sorry. He said he had little to no control over his actions at the time, due to all the substances he was taking. I hate that I dont have more than sorry to offer the families, he said. I pray to God that one day theyll forgive me because I am not that man. Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com NORFOLK, Neb (KCAU) The Norfolk Police Department broke up a large underage party on Wednesday. According to a press release, police responded to a loud music disturbance in the 1800 block of West Madison Avenue at 11:05 p.m. When police arrived, they found a large party with alcohol where most of the attendees were under the age of 21. Norfolk Fire Division honors two citizens with Lifesaver Awards for heroic actions Officials reported that 54 minors in possession of alcohol citations were issued and the residents were issued citations for disturbing the peace. Hundreds of containers of alcohol were also collected as evidence. The arriving officers called for additional assistance, and the Madison County Deputies as well as Nebraska State Troopers responded to the scene. Norfolk Police noted that these types of investigations are very time-consuming and resource-consuming, but they may help prevent DWIs, traffic accidents, and other dangers that come with underage drinking. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to SiouxlandProud | Sioux City, IA | News, Weather, and Sports. Residents downstream of two North Carolina dams were evacuated after reports of a catastrophic failure due to flooding from Hurricane Helene. Officials in Cocke County, Tennessee said on Friday afternoon that the Waterville Dam, just over the state line in North Carolina, had failed and ordered everyone in downtown Newport to get out. State officials and the National Weather Service (NWS) later said this was a false alarm, citing the energy company that operates the dam, but the evacuation orders remained in force. Elsewhere, officials in Rutherford County, North Carolina told residents downstream of the Lake Lure Dam to flee to higher ground due to floodwater overflowing the top of the 124-ft-high barrier and pouring uncontrolled around the edges. Water is cresting the dam and flowing around the side walls. Structural supports have been compromised, but the dam wall is currently holding, said the county emergency management department. The Lake Lure Dam in calmer times, near Asheville in North Carolina. Residents were told to evacuate after the dam was compromised by heavy rain from Tropical Storm Helene on Friday (Town of Lake Lure) Evacuations have occurred from the dam to Island Creek Road. Evacuation sirens are sounding downstream of the dam. At least 130 people were dead across multiple states on Monday evening after Hurricane Helene crashed into Florida as a 140mph, Category 4 storm late Thursday, pounding the west coast with unsurvivable conditions. While Helene was downgraded as it moved inland and the winds dropped, it continued to dump vast amounts of water across Georgia, the Carolinas and then up into Tennessee and Kentucky as it moved north heading into the weekend. The result was chaos and confusion across a wide area, with both Rutherford County in North Carolina and Cocke County in Tennessee initially claiming that the dams had burst or were about to burst. EMERGENCY UPDATE: THE WATERVILLE DAM HAS SUFFERED A CATASTROPHIC FAILURE. EVACUATION ALL OF DOWNTOWN NEWPORT IMMEDIATELY, Cocke County Mayor Rob Mathis wrote on Facebook. But the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) said: "We have been informed the dam has not failed, per Duke Energy. Evacuations are still occurring in the area." UPDATE: We have been informed the dam has not failed, per Duke Energy. Evacuations are still occurring in the area. Please follow local official guidance if you live in the region. https://t.co/8cDKIUcf2J Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) (@TennesseeEMA) September 27, 2024 Duke Energy announced that it had opened all floodgates at the Waterville Dam and that the structure was performing as expected. However, a spokesperson declined to say whether or not the dam was damaged. A spokesperson for the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality likewise confirmed to The Independent that the Lake Lure Dam appeared to be of sound structure at around 3pm. Due to the rainfall, the dam is said to be overtopping across its entire length of the dam. The structure was intact as of the last reports we have, said spokesperson Josh Kastrinsky. Theres been some erosion noted on the left abutment of the structure, and some water is flowing around that abutment. A later update said the flow over the top of the dam had reduced from 2ft deep to 1ft or less, but that water was still flowing uncontrolled around both right and left abutments. By Monday afternoon, all roads in downtown Newport had reopened, according to Mathis. He also said he had been in contact with the White House and was assured by Joe Biden that federal resources would be available to assist in the citys recovery efforts, WBIR reports. Cocke County Sheriff C.J. Ball confirmed on Monday that two people had died due to storm-related incidents. On Facebook, wedding and portrait photographer Helen Pace, who lives on the other side of Lake Lure from the dam, posted pictures of her badly damaged house and a road carved apart by floodwaters. Flooding and a badly-damaged road near Bat Cave around Lake Lure, North Carolina on Friday following impacts from storm Helene (Helen Pace) We are physically OK, she said. The water has started to recede and I think we dodged the predicted winds... We are not able to get out now, we have no power, no water, and cell service seems to be restricted. Sending my love to you all. The Rutherford County evacuation orders named a total of 45 streets in two separate Facebook posts. Officials said that storm shelters had been opened at Lake Lure Town Hall and Rutherfordtown Presbyterian Church. It wasnt immediately clear on Friday how many people are affected by the evacuations, but Newport has an estimated population of about 7,000 and Lake Lure has about 1,600. The Lure Dam was built in 1927 on the Broad River, about one hours drive east of Asheville and two hours west of Charlotte. Lake Lure itself is best known nationally as a filming site for the 1987 film Dirty Dancing, which used it to stand in for upstate New Yorks Catskill Mountains. Kastrinsky said that the Lake Lure Dam is classified as high hazard due to the large number of people and roads downstream of it, but was last assessed to be in fair condition, the second highest of four available ratings. The Waterville Dam is at the confluence of the Pigeon River and Big Creek, and is also known as the Walters Dam. Both dams are located in North Carolinas Great Smoky Mountains. Editors Note: This story was updated at 18:46 Eastern Time on Friday 27 September, 2024. to reflect new statements from emergency officials about the Waterville Dam. North Macedonia hits out at Brussels, says EU accession like 'Waiting for Godot' North Macedonia's conservative prime minister has reacted angrily to reports that his country's troubled EU accession bid hit a new hurdle because of a dispute with neighbouring bloc member Bulgaria. Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said that the EU was trying to "dictate" what North Macedonia should do and suggested that he would accept no further delay in membership talks with the 27-nation bloc. Mickoski's comments followed reports that EU ambassadors meeting in Brussels on Wednesday decided to push ahead with Albania's EU accession process, independently of North Macedonia's. Up to now, the two bids had been moving together. European Commission spokeswoman Ana Pisonero declined to confirm that Albania and North Macedonias negotiating paths had been separated but did suggest that the two countries are on different tracks or time frames. "Our position is very clear, the Commission looks forward to the start of negotiations...as soon as possible with Albania, and with North Macedonia as soon as possible once North Macedonia has met the relevant criteria," Pisonero said. The EU started membership talks with the two Balkan countries in 2022 as the war in Ukraine forced a rethink of the bloc's enlargement process. They became EU candidates two decades ago, although their accession talks never commenced. But the Macedonian bid was then delayed by a dispute with Bulgaria over Balkan history, language and culture. To break the impasse, the previous centre-left government in Skopje accepted a Bulgarian demand to insert a reference to a Bulgarian ethnic minority in North Macedonia's constitution. However, it lacked the parliamentary majority to effect the change, and Mickoski's new conservative government says it will only amend the constitution if Bulgaria first approves North Macedonia's EU membership. Mickoski said that it was unfair to link his country's EU prospects with Bulgaria's demand. "For me, this is a dictate," he said. "If this is the condition for (North) Macedonia to continue negotiations, then I said that in Brussels no thanks!" Those comments were echoed by North Macedonia President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova who used her speech at the UN General Assembly to say the country's path to EU membership was like "waiting for Godot". Gordana Siljanovska Davkova, President of North Macedonia, addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, September 26, 2024 - Frank Franklin II/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved. "To us, membership in the European Union after 20 years of negotiations and 16 positive European Commission reports resembles Mr Godot, because we have been waiting for him since 2005, always encouraged by international representatives with the refrain. Just this one condition or just this one concession more," she said. The country's EU path was blocked for years by neighbouring Greece over another dispute over history and heritage. It was settled in 2018 after North Macedonia changed its name, from "the Republic of Macedonia". The main opposition Social Democrats' leader Venko Filipche blamed Mickoski's government for the new setback. "This is a huge disaster for the future of the citizens," Filipche said. "This is a missed opportunity that will affect many families and a whole new generation." A local advocate for queer and homeless youth has resigned as executive director of Northwest Youth Services, which provides support for unhoused 13- to 24-year-olds in Whatcom and Skagit counties. Jason McGill told The Bellingham Herald that the Northwest Youth Services board last week accepted his resignation effective Nov. 4. Meanwhile, McGill is on paid leave pending an investigation, he told The Herald in a text message. He wasnt able to comment further, directing questions to the Northwest Youth Services board. Im still very proud of my approach to leadership in this community. My two passions in life are Black liberation and abolishing youth and young homelessness. I was able to bring awareness to both because of the deep intersections of both. Our liberation is tied together, McGill said. In a post Thursday on Facebook, the Northwest Youth Services board said McGill was on paid leave pending an independent investigation into allegations that run contrary to our core values of community, justice and liberation, humanity and accountability. It didnt say who was conducting the investigation. Northwest Youth Services board president Michelle Harmeier wasnt immediately available for comment. Harmeier is also head of the Bellingham Queer Collective, which shares space with Northwest Youth Services at its Q Center in downtown Bellingham. McGill submitted his resignation in a Sept. 17 post on the organizations Facebook page, saying that he wished to pursue work closer to his family. Both his father and stepfather recently died, and he wanted to be closer to his mother, he told The Herald. Im proud of whats been accomplished as a community and of the positive impact we have made, he said in his letter of resignation. A strong advocate for queer youth in his four years with the organization, McGill helped move a teen shelter called the PAD from a space above a storefront in downtown Bellingham to a house in the Samish neighborhood in 2021, despite local opposition, according to previous Bellingham Herald reporting. McGill also campaigned against a sales tax to build a new jail that Whatcom County voters approved in 2023. Most recently, he advocated for 22 North, apartments run by the Opportunity Council that provide supportive housing for people with health issues who were recently homeless. The Northwest Youth Services board of directors issued the following statement Sept. 26: To our community, Together, we have set an intention to end youth and young adult homelessness and dismantle their perpetuating systems. Powered by your time, efforts, capital, energy, collaboration, and love, these intentions are becoming reality. For almost 50 years, you have helped make Northwest Youth Services a doorway to safety and the pathway to progress for thousands of young livesthank you. At present, our organization finds itself in a moment of transition; recently, the Board of Directors accepted the resignation of Jason McGill, who joined NWYS in 2021. We have taken steps to begin an independent inquiry into allegations that run contrary to our core values of Community, Justice & Liberation, Humanity, and Accountability. To protect the privacy of all parties involved and the integrity of the investigation, the Board has placed Jason on paid administrative leave; an interim CEO will be appointed in the coming days. We are committed to holding space to confront, discuss, and navigate through the results of this investigation upon its conclusion. Our brilliant, dedicated staff have the full support, thought-partnership, and stewardship of the Board. Today, the youth we serve continue to access and benefit from our healing and affirmative programs, services, and safe spaces. Our organization will always center our communitys youth and their well-being; fifty years from now, we are certain that our community will look back with pride at not only the work we accomplished, but how we accomplished it. Thank you for your continued support. Not your grandfather's library: $30 million facility west of Boynton Beach opens soon BOYNTON BEACH Palm Beach County's newest and perhaps most contemporary and complete library is expected to open in January at Canyon Town Center. Library Director Doug Crane said the finishing touches are being placed on the new 33,000-square-foot, $30 million facility that is expected to create a sense of community for the western Boynton Beach area. Once the builder completes minor repairs, Crane said the building will be turned over to library officials. It will then take about three months for his staff to equip and furnish the library. Crane made his comments Monday, Sept. 23, before a packed town hall meeting at Valencia Reserve that attracted more than 500 people. When it opens, The Canyon Branch will be the county's 19th library. It is near the amphitheater of the Canyon Town Center off Boynton Beach Boulevard and Lyons Road. Rendering of the Canyon Town Center library branch expected to open in January. It is the first library to be built in a shopping center. "You can pick up your books and then go shopping at Publix," Crane quipped. Valencia Reserve, an active retirement community of more than 1,000 residents, is expected to make great use of the library. It is within easy walking distance, across the street from the shopping plaza on the west side of Lyons. Long hallway inside the county's new library at Canyon Town Center that is expected to open in January County pouring money into libraries: Plans for new main library would triple current size The area west of Florida's Turnpike between Hypoluxo Road and Atlantic Avenue has been the scene of large-scale development, especially along Lyons Road, where more than 10,000 homes have been built. For many residents, the closest library branch is 5 to 8 miles away. The Canyon Branch will "open minds to a world of unlimited possibilities," according to library officials. The Coalition of Boynton West Residential Associations first called for a library branch in the area more than 10 years ago. Library to feature outdoor plaza, digital room, recording studio The finishing touches are being put on the new library west of Boynton Beach that is expected to be completed in January. The library will feature a drive-up return window, an outdoor plaza where cellphones can be charged and a digital room where podcasts can be created. It will be the first library with a dedicated outdoor plaza. The library will be open seven days a week. While it looks like a two-story building, Crane noted that it is just one-story with high ceilings to capture as much sunlight as possible. Valencia Reserve residents attend a town meeting Tuesday, Sept. 23, to learn about the offerings at the new library that is expected to open in January at Canyon Town Center, west of Boynton Beach. Here's what else the library will feature: Flexible floor spaces. Automated checkout and return stations. A digital media lab. Large meeting room spaces that can accommodate up to 350 people and can be divided into smaller spaces. Smaller conference and study rooms. Two themed areas designed for children and teens. A large parking area. A green plaza space. A recording studio similar to the one at the main library in West Palm Beach "This is what you wanted," County Mayor Maria Sachs said. "Not another car wash or a pizza joint. You have waited a long time for this. It is happening." Valencia Reserve residents will lose their multipurpose room for about a year because of a $9 million renovation project. Crane said the community can use the meeting room at the new library, which can accommodate as many as 300 people. It can also be divided so that more than one group can use it as a time. Sign up for our Post on Boynton Beach weekly newsletter, delivered every Thursday! Mike Diamond is a journalist at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. He covers Palm Beach County government. You can reach him at mdiamond@pbpost.com. Help support local journalism. Subscribe today. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: New state-of-the-art library west of Boynton Beach opens in January Not too late to sign up for Susan G. Komens More than Pink walk HONOLULU (KHON2) October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the most common cancer diagnosis for women in Hawaii. Get Hawaiis latest morning news delivered to your inbox, sign up for News 2 You To raise awareness, Susan G. Komen is hosting its annual More than Pink walk. Federal mediator joins negation talks between locked-out nurses and Kapiolani Medical Center Thousands will gather at Kapiolani Park on October 13, 2024, to help raise money for the cause. Registration is free, and people are invited to walk as individuals or in groups. Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news To register, click here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KHON2. The number of registered industrial parks in Ukraine has more than doubled during Russia's full-scale invasion. Source: Artur Melezhyk, Head of the Department of Industrial Parks and Investment Support of the Ministry of Economy, Ukrinform reports Details: "Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the number of industrial parks has actually more than doubled, and now there are 92 of them," Melezhyk said. He said that before the start of the war, there were 53 industrial parks in the official register. However, in addition to the registration of new ones, there were also cases of removal of industrial parks from the register, in particular, four this year and eight last year. It is noted that the increase in the number of industrial parks was influenced by the relocation of enterprises caused by the war. Melezhyk also noted that businesses do not just relocate existing or open new businesses in a new location, but create industrial parks for relocation to attract other businesses to their territories. In this format, business operations are more efficient and rational. Background: Kalush Production was included in the Register of Industrial Parks. Three more industrial parks in Zhytomyr, Zakarpattia and Vinnytsia oblasts received state funding under the Made in Ukraine policy. Support UP or become our patron! Nurses picket in front of Allina's United Hospital and Children's Minnesota in St. Paul on Sept. 12, 2022, the first day of a three-day strike at 15 hospitals across the Twin Cities and Duluth area. Photo by Max Nesterak/Minnesota Reformer. Take a seat in the Break Room, our weekly round-up of labor news in Minnesota and beyond. This week: Allinas close corporate ties; Minnesotas first Workplace Rights Week; leaders of both national teachers unions to visit Minnesota; attorney general seeks court oversight of Rainbow dissolution; and 45,000 port workers prepare to strike. Nurses union criticizes Allinas financial ties The increasing influence of financiers and corporate consultants on one of Minnesotas largest nonprofit health care systems is compromising patient care and burning out workers, according to a new report from the Minnesota Nurses Association. The union, which represents some 22,000 nurses, released the report on Thursday during a summit of the most influential CEOs, visionaries and policymakers in health care at the Four Seasons in Minneapolis. One set of voices are conspicuously absent from the gilded boardrooms behind me patients and bedside caregivers, said MNA President Chris Rubesch at a news conference. The summit was hosted by multinational investment bank Piper Sandler, which has significant business in the health care industry advising on mergers and acquisitions and underwriting bonds for health systems. For example, the bank earned $5.2 million in fees from underwriting more than $1 billion in bonds for Allina Health since 2007, according to the unions report. Piper Sandler President Deb Schoneman is also chair of Allina Healths Board of Directors. More than half of Allinas 22 board members work in finance, insurance or real estate, while just four have experience caring for patients, according to the unions report. Thats a significant change from 25 years ago, when most of Allinas board had direct care experience. The unions report points to several recent Allina initiatives that it says are driven by profit-seeking and are hurting workers and patients, including outsourcing thousands of jobs to for-profit entities, partnering with an investment firm to provide hospital-at-home services and cutting staffing levels. The patient falls, the medication errors, the nurses trembling with low blood sugar and fatigue because they get no break in a 12-and-a-half hour shift. Myself and my nurse colleagues know that this is a race to the bottom when it comes to patient care, said Allina Health nurse Rachael Ballard during a news conference. An Allina spokeswoman shared a statement in response to the report, saying the health system is facing significant financial challenges like other organizations across the country. Maintaining our health care delivery system well into the future will require change and innovation. What will not change is our commitment to providing safe, high-quality care, the statement said. Allina, which operates more than 12 hospitals and 80 clinics, faced widespread criticism last year after a New York Times investigation revealed the system maintained a policy of denying non-emergency care to patients with more than $4,500 in debt. Allina later stopped the practice. Allina has also faced a wave of unionization efforts in recent years from unhappy workers. Even doctors, traditionally above the fray of labor strife, have unionized at Allina hospitals and clinics, saying they feel exploited and pressured to cut corners because of profit-driven quotas set by executives in faraway offices. Rubesch, the nurses union president, said the report shows nurses need legislation giving them a greater say in staffing levels. The nurses union came close to winning more power in state law in 2023, but the bill fell apart after Mayo Clinic threatened to move billions in future investments out of state if it became law. The Minnesota Hospital Association announced earlier this year that nurse staffing is rebounding post-pandemic, with vacancies falling, but noted just 2 in 5 nurses are choosing to work more than 32 hours a week. The hospital group also reported the average pay for registered nurses saw its biggest jump in a decade, rising 6.7% to nearly $95,000 in 2023. Those raises were driven in large part by a massive strike by some 15,000 nurses. Minnesotas first-ever workplace rights week Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and Department of Labor and Industry Commissioner Nicole Blissenbach visited workers at a commercial laundry service in St. Paul on Wednesday to highlight the states new worker protections. The visit to Health Systems Cooperative Laundries was part of Minnesotas first-ever Workplace Rights Week, during which DLI staff plan to visit more than 1,000 worksites to educate workers and employers about their rights and responsibilities. Democrats in control of state government passed a laundry list of worker-friendly laws in 2023, including paid sick leave; a paid family leave program; a ban on noncompete agreements; and, a nation-leading nursing home workforce standards board. Teachers union and Democrats push for more school funding National Education Association President Becky Pringle, leader of the largest labor union in the country, will visit public schools in St. Paul and Minneapolis on Monday along with Democratic lawmakers to promote increasing federal funding for public schools. The visits are part of walk-ins in which supporters gather outside schools before walking in together organized across the country by the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools. Monday marks the expiration of federal pandemic aid for schools, which has boosted their school funding by $200 billion over the past three years. Democrats have introduced two bills the Keep Our PACT Act and the IDEA Full Funding Act to increase federal aid over the next decade to fund special education and supplementary education services for low-performing and low-income students. Pringle will visit Lucey Craft Laney Elementary School in north Minneapolis with U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar before heading to Hazel Park Preparatory Academy in St. Paul for a news conference with U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum and school district leaders. Pringle and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the countrys other major teachers union, will also be in St. Paul on Tuesday for a watch party of the vice presidential debate with the state teachers union to support Gov. Tim Walz, a former union teacher. Attorney General asks for court oversight of Rainbow Health closure Former workers at Rainbow Health, which provided health and social services to LGBTQ people in Minneapolis, applauded Attorney General Keith Ellison for seeking court oversight over the nonprofits dissolution. In July, Rainbow Healths leaders announced its immediate closure because of insurmountable financial challenges and laid off around 60 workers unionized with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa. Workers decried the abrupt closure and its impact on patients, many of whom were low-income and receiving ongoing services for HIV. Ellisons office filed a petition on Wednesday asking the Hennepin County District Court to supervise the dissolution of Rainbow Health, which means the court may direct the distribution of assets. It not only minimizes the risk of separate disputes about who gets what, it can give the employees the best shot to potentially get paid, Ellison said in a statement. Union workers, whose contract entitled them to 30-days notice of layoffs, have asked for a month of pay plus two weeks severance and compensation for unused paid time off. That would cost nearly $500,000, according to Ellisons petition, which also notes Rainbow Healths attorney said the organization may not have sufficient funds to cover its debts and obligations. 45,000 port workers prepare to strike Some 45,000 union dockworkers at ports along the East and Gulf Coasts plan to strike on Tuesday, a first for the International Longshoremens Association since 1977, the Associated Press reported. The strike threatens to disrupt trade at as many as three dozen ports from Maine to Texas that handle nearly half the shipping cargo in and out of the country. Retailers have reportedly stocked up on goods in anticipation of a strike, but a prolonged work stoppage could lead to shortages of everything from chocolate to industrial parts. Military cargo and oil tankers would not be affected, CNN reported. The union and the ports have been at an impasse for months over wages and rules on automation, although neither side would discuss pay levels. The New York Times reported longshoreman earn $39 per hour and are seeking $5-per-hour raises in each year of the six-year contract. On Thursday, the U.S. Maritime Association, which represents the ports and shipping lines, filed an unfair labor practices charge against the union, accusing it of refusing to bargain. A union spokesman called it a publicity stunt. NYC chancellor-in-waiting stays steadfast in her support of Mayor Eric Adams after bombshell indictment The soon-to-be New York City schools chancellor has remained steadfast in her support of Mayor Eric Adams after he was slapped with a five-count indictment on Thursday. Melissa Aviles-Ramos is expected to take the helm of the largest school system in the country from David Banks at the end of the calendar year. Banks, a stalwart in the education department, abruptly resigned this week amid a widening federal probe into the Adams administration but emphasized that the move had been in the works for months. Melissa Aviles-Ramos, the soon-to-be New York City schools Chancellor, has remained steadfast in her support of Mayor Eric Adams after he was slapped with a 5-count indictment on Thursday. William Farrington The schools Chancellor, who himself was ensnared by the stunning round of Sept. 4 federal raids earlier this month, has not broken his silence since the release of the 57-page bombshell indictment against Adams. His successor, however, told Chalkbeat that she has not lost support in Adams and that she shares his and Banks vision for Big Apple schools. Thats why I agreed to be chancellor, she told the publication. My North Star is their North Star, but I have to make sure that I keep the train moving. While Adams dominated the news cycle on Thursday, Aviles-Ramos said she would be sticking to the task in front of her. Which is making sure that our kids and our families have everything they need, she added. NYC Mayor Eric Adams leaves Gracie Mansion on Sept. 26, 2024. Robert Miller Aviles-Ramos says she has not lost support in Adams and that she shares his and Banks vision for Big Apple schools. James Keivom In her first interview since accepting the role she also gave clarity on who would be leading the decision making for New York City schools over the next three months. That will be [Banks] and me together. Weve worked really closely together in the last couple of years. And one thing about the chancellor is that he makes decisions with his cabinet, she said. So this isnt new to them. Its certainly not new to me, and Im actually looking forward to the next three months. Banks, a stalwart in the education department, abruptly resigned this week amid a widening federal probe into the Adams administration but emphasized that the move had been in the works for months. James Keivom Adams is alleged to have secretly solicited and accepted freebies and illegal campaign donations from wealthy foreigners, including Turkish officials, as far back as 2014. Mere hours after the indictment was unsealed, Adams reassured staff in a letter that Ive done nothing wrong. Hizzoner also reminded staff that New York is in a much better place today than we were 2.5 years ago when former Mayor Bill de Blasio who today defended the Mayors right to justice was at the helm. Adams is alleged to have secretly solicited and accepted freebies and illegal campaign donations from wealthy foreigners, including Turkish officials, as far back as 2014. REUTERS Its unclear how long Aviles-Ramos will take charge of NYCPS if Adams was to resign triggering Public Advocate Jumaane Williams to take over. But till then, the new chancellor said shes confident in the current administration. NEW YORK The New York City Department of Investigation raided the Queens County Sheriffs Office on Thursday amid a probe into whether deputies improperly seized cash from unlicensed pot shops, sources said. A source familiar with the matter told the New York Daily News that DOI agents searched the Sheriffs Office headquarters on Starr Avenue near Borden Avenue in Long Island City as part of an ongoing investigation into the agency. Sheriff Anthony Miranda told members of the City Council at a Sept. 17 hearing that his office does not handle cash retrieved during raids of illegal pot shops, maintaining it is the NYPDs responsibility to voucher all seized funds. Since (Operation) Padlock to Protect, the vouchering process has been designated with the NYPD, Miranda said when asked by City Council Finance Committee Chairman Justin Brannan (D-Brooklyn) about how much revenue the sheriffs office is expected to generate from illicit marijuana shop raids this year. They are the ones who voucher the property depending on the circumstances of the location, Miranda said at the hearing. They will either voucher it as safekeeping or voucher it as investigatory evidence depending on the different circumstances. But union officials refuted Mirandas claims, saying deputy sheriffs are routinely asked to voucher cash and cannabis products. One source told the Daily News they informed DOI that they witnessed cash being removed from shops by deputies. It has not been alleged the sheriffs office was skimming funds from the seized cash. Tensions between Miranda and the union have been running high, with the union calling on Miranda to resign for creating a hostile work environment thats led to an exodus of rank-and-file members. It was not immediately clear what has happened to cash seized during the Padlock to Protect operations run by a city task force that includes both the sheriffs office and the NYPD. Miranda told Brannan during last weeks hearing he would follow up with the NYPD and supply additional information to the City Council. Complaints over the issue have been filed with the DOI, which has begun an inquiry and interviewed witnesses, sources said. The sources also noted the cash seizures were among various issues being looked at by DOI, but specifics of other lines of inquiry werent immediately clear. DOI spokeswoman Diane Struzzi declined to comment. _____ The city Department of Investigation raided the City Sheriffs office in Queens on Thursday amid a probe that is looking at various issues, including whether deputies improperly seized cash from unlicensed pot shops, sources said. A source familiar with the matter told the Daily News that DOI agents searched the sheriffs headquarters on Starr Ave. near Borden Ave. in Long Island City as part of an ongoing investigation into the agency. DOI investigators seized body cam footage from the sheriffs office along with more than $100,000 in cash during the raid, sources said. Its unclear if any devices or records were taken. DOI spokeswoman Diane Struzzi declined to comment. Sheriff Anthony Miranda told members of the City Council at a Sept. 17 hearing that his office does not handle cash retrieved during raids of illegal pot shops, maintaining it is the NYPDs responsibility to voucher all seized funds. Since [Operation] Padlock to Protect, the vouchering process has been designated with the NYPD, Miranda said when asked by City Council Finance Committee Chairman Justin Brannan (D-Brooklyn) about how much revenue the sheriffs office is expected to generate from illicit marijuana shop raids this year. They are the ones who voucher the property depending on the circumstances of the location. They will either voucher it as safekeeping or voucher it as investigatory evidence depending on the different circumstances. But union officials refuted Mirandas claims, saying deputy sheriffs are routinely asked to voucher cash and cannabis products. Witnesses have informed DOI theyve witnessed cash being removed from shops by sheriffs deputies, and the corruption watchdog agency is known to be investigating the matter, The News first reported earlier this month. Tensions between Miranda and the union have been running high, with the union calling on Miranda to resign for creating a hostile work environment thats led to an exodus of rank-and-file members. It was not immediately clear what has happened to cash seized during the Padlock to Protect weed shop crackdown operations run by a city task force that includes both the sheriffs office and the NYPD. Miranda told Brannan during last weeks hearing he would follow up with the NYPD and supply additional information to the City Council. Complaints over the cash seizure issue have been filed with the DOI, which has interviewed witnesses, sources said. The sources also noted the cash seizures were among various issues being looked at by DOI; specifics of other lines of inquiry werent immediately clear, though Politico reported last week Miranda is being scrutinized directly in the probe. Word of Thursdays raid in Queens came just hours after federal prosecutors unsealed criminal charges against Mayor Adams alleging he accepted $10 million in illegal campaign donations along with flight upgrades and travel perks from Turkish nationals in exchange for carrying out favors for the Turkish government. The indictment alleges Adams engaged in a yearslong scheme to solicit and accept illegal straw donations to his campaign in exchange for luxury travel perks. The charges include conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, receiving campaign contributions by foreign nationals and solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national. The federal corruption indictment came on the heels of resignations of several high-profile Adams administration officials, including NYC Schools Chancellor David Banks on Tuesday and NYC Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan on Monday. Miranda, a former NYPD officer and longtime Adams friend, was appointed city sheriff by the mayor shortly after he took office in early 2022. (Bloomberg) -- New York City Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he accepted lavish travel perks and illegal campaign contributions from foreign nationals. Most Read from Bloomberg Adams, 64, entered the plea Friday in federal court in Manhattan a day after an indictment was unsealed that detailed a pattern of alleged conduct that sparked calls for his resignation from his political rivals. The first-term Democrat has vowed to continue to serve as mayor of the nations largest city. I am not guilty, your honor, Adams told Judge Katharine H. Parker at the hearing. Prosecutors allege that dating back to when Adams served as Brooklyn borough president, he accepted improper benefits including luxury travel from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him. Hes also accused of secretly accepting illegal contributions to his 2021 campaign. Adams, a former police officer, arrived at the courthouse early Friday morning to surrender to authorities and have his fingerprints taken. Adams, flanked by his lawyer Alex Spiro, sat stoically as Parker read the charges for several minutes. Spiro said he will file a motion to dismiss the charges next week. He said he will also ask for a speedy trial. Adams was released on his own recognizance, but was instructed not to contact witnesses or people named in the indictment. He wont have to surrender his passport. Prosecutors said they will make reasonable accommodations that will allow Adams to talk to family or staff members that could be witnesses. But that could complicate his ability to manage the city as the case drags on. Adams potentially faces decades in prison if convicted of the charges. Wire fraud carries a maximum penalty of 20 years behind bars, accepting a bribe comes with a maximum of a decade, and the other charges top out at five years, according to prosecutors. The government is also seeking to have him forfeit any proceeds that can be traced to the commission of the alleged crimes. The prosecutors outlined improper relationships that Adams allegedly had with a Turkish diplomat, including accepting free upgrades and tickets to business class for himself and companions on round-trip flights from New York to China, France, Hungary, India, Sri Lanka and Turkey and discounted hotel stays. Upgrade Case This case isnt even a real case, this case is an airline upgrade case, Spiro told reporters after the hearing. Spiro said the governments evidence comes down to a single Adams staffer that is cooperating with the investigation. That staffer has lied, and the government is in the possession of that lie, Spiro said. Adams didnt speak to the media after the hearing, but flashed a thumbs up before Spiro addressed reporters. The indictment is detailed. Prosecutors claim that during an August 2017 trip, Adams and a relative accepted a heavily discounted stay at the St. Regis Hotel in Istanbul, which was owned by a Turkish businesswoman who sought to ingratiate herself with Adams. He stayed at the Bentley Suite for two nights that should have cost $7,000, but instead the mayor paid $600. The case is US v. Adams, 24-cr-566, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). --With assistance from Nacha Cattan and Laura Nahmias. (Adds lawyer comments starting in eighth paragraph) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. NEW YORK Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty Friday as he was arraigned on an indictment in Manhattan federal court charging him with bribery and wire fraud for allegedly soliciting campaign contributions from overseas donors following a wide-ranging federal probe into corruption at City Hall. Adams, wearing a crisp blue suit, entered his plea as he stood before federal magistrate judge Katharine Parker. I am not guilty, your honor, Adams said. Earlier in the day, Adams shot a thumbs up at a gathering crowd as he arrived at federal court with his attorney just before 9 a.m., but made no comment. Adams has said he is innocent of all charges. The mayor has also rebuffed calls for his resignation and had several private meetings scheduled for Friday. The charges stem from an ongoing investigation by the Manhattan U.S. attorneys office that has scrutinized allegations Turkeys government funneled illegal donations into Adams 2021 campaign coffers. The indictment comes after revelations earlier this month that authorities are also looking into communications between Adams and the governments of five other foreign countries. Adams is the first New York City mayor in the modern era to face criminal charges while in office. His administration has been reeling from additional federal corruption investigations and a series of high-profile resignations in recent weeks by top advisers to the mayor. He is facing the possibility of up to 45 years in prison if convicted of bribery, campaign finance, wire fraud, and conspiracy offenses, federal officials said. In the five-count indictment, federal investigators described a scheme that spanned nearly a decade, starting when Adams became Brooklyn borough president in 2014. The charges he faces are conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, and receiving campaign contributions by foreign nationals; wire fraud; two counts of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national, and bribery. Adams allegedly accepted improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him, the 57-page indictment charges. Federal prosecutors say Adams solicited and accepted tens of thousands of dollars in illegal straw donations from Turkish nationals and, once he became mayor, his foreign-national benefactors sought to cash in on their corrupt relationships with him by securing favors from him. Since becoming mayor, Adams has kept this favor-swapping relationship going and has continued soliciting illegal straw donations from Turkish nationals for his reelection campaign, according to the indictment. Its illegal to accept campaign donations from non-U.S. citizens. To get around this, Turkish officials allegedly sent the donations through third parties, known as straw donors, who were citizens. Adams allegedly accepted the donations, knowing their origins, and maximized his gains through New York Citys matching funds program netting his 2021 campaign public money that the feds say he shouldve never received due to the illegal nature of the Turkish contributions. Adams repaid the favors by, among other actions, pressuring the FDNY into fast-tracking the opening of a new 36-floor Turkish Consulate in Manhattan despite serious fire safety concerns, the indictment charges. Since the indictment was unsealed Thursday, several elected officials and community leaders have demanded that Adams resign from office, but the mayor says he will continue to lead as he fights the charges. Gov. Hochul, who has the power to remove Adams from office, called the indictment the latest in a disturbing pattern of events but did not call for him to step down. My focus is on protecting the people of New York and ensuring stability in the city, she said in a statement late Thursday. While I review my options and obligations as the governor of New York, I expect the mayor to take the next few days to review the situation and find an appropriate path forward to ensure the people of New York City are being well-served by their leaders. NEW YORK Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty Friday as he was arraigned on an indictment in Manhattan federal court charging him with bribery and wire fraud for allegedly soliciting campaign contributions from overseas donors following a wide-ranging federal probe into corruption at City Hall. Adams, wearing a crisp blue suit, entered his plea as he stood before federal magistrate judge Katharine Parker. I am not guilty, your honor, Adams said. Assistant U.S. Attorney Celia Cohen told the court that prosecutors and Adams defense agreed on a bond package under which Adams would be released provided he agrees not to contact any witnesses or individuals named in the indictment. Mayor Adams will be released today on the following conditions: he shall have no contact with any individual witnesses or others listed in the list to be provided by the government, concerning the facts and circumstances outlined in the indictment, Parker said. This does not preclude Mayor Adams from having routine communications concerning business and private family matters. The charges stem from an ongoing investigation by the Manhattan U.S. attorneys office that has scrutinized allegations Turkeys government funneled illegal donations into Adams 2021 campaign coffers. The indictment comes after revelations earlier this month that authorities are also looking into communications between Adams and the governments of five other foreign countries. In the five-count indictment, federal investigators described a scheme that spanned nearly a decade, starting when Adams became Brooklyn borough president in 2014. The charges he faces are conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, and receiving campaign contributions by foreign nationals; wire fraud; two counts of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national, and bribery. Spiro said the defense will be filing a motion to dismiss the indictment next Wednesday. In comments after the brief proceeding, Spiro said the feds have evidence Adams was unaware of any efforts to funnel illegal donations to his campaign. He claimed a City Hall staffer, identified later by sources as Rana Abbasova, Adams Turkish community liaison for years, who is at the heart of the governments case has been misleading investigators. That staffer has lied, and the government is in possession of that lie, Spiro said as Adams stood stone-faced by his side. When that staffer was first interviewed, that staffer said that Mayor Adams knew nothing about this, he was not involved in this, and that he is innocent. They have that information. They have not turned that over to us. They have not turned that over to you. The indictment says that when Abbasova, identified in court papers as a City Hall staffer, agreed to be interviewed by FBI agents, she excused herself to a bathroom and, while there, deleted the encrypted messaging applications she had used to communicate with Adamsand others, the indictment read. After the FBI raided Abbasovas New Jersey home, she agreed to cooperate with investigators, the Daily News previously reported. Abbasovas attorney declined to comment on Spiros claims Friday. Spiro said the entire indictment against Adams isnt even a real case. This is the airline upgrade corruption case, he said. Hes innocent. Adams gave a thumbs-up to reporters as he left Manhattan federal court. The mayor has said he is innocent of all charges and has rebuffed calls for his resignation. Adams is the first New York City mayor in the modern era to face criminal charges while in office. His administration has been reeling from additional federal corruption investigations and a series of high-profile resignations in recent weeks by top advisers to the mayor. He is facing the possibility of up to 45 years in prison if convicted of bribery, campaign finance, wire fraud and conspiracy offenses, federal officials said. Adams allegedly accepted improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him, the 57-page indictment charges. Federal prosecutors say Adams solicited and accepted tens of thousands of dollars in illegal straw donations from Turkish nationals and, once he became mayor, his foreign-national benefactors sought to cash in on their corrupt relationships with him by securing favors from him. Since becoming mayor, Adams has kept this favor-swapping relationship going and has continued soliciting illegal straw donations from Turkish nationals for his reelection campaign, according to the indictment. Its illegal to accept campaign donations from non-U.S. citizens. To get around this, Turkish officials allegedly sent the donations through third parties, known as straw donors, who were citizens. Adams allegedly accepted the donations, knowing their origins, and maximized his gains through New York Citys matching funds program netting his 2021 campaign public money that the feds say he shouldve never received due to the illegal nature of the Turkish contributions. Adams raised a total of $10 million in matching funds during the 2021 campaign. Adams repaid the favors by, among other actions, pressuring the FDNY into fast-tracking the opening of a new 36-floor Turkish Consulate in Manhattan despite serious fire safety concerns, the indictment charges. In comments outside Gracie Mansion Thursday, Spiro challenged several of the prosecutions key points and produced text message to bolster his position. You can almost picture them trying to cobble this together and try to tell a story so that they could say, Corruption, corruption, corruption, Spiro told reporters as he stood with Adams at his side. They do that to tarnish him in your eyes. Spiro said there was nothing untoward about the seat upgrades as they were commonplace when seats are available. He disputed the notion that the mayor had sought foreign donations, saying he had given his staff explicit instructions not to do so. Spiro also said, echoing comments Adams has previously made, that there was noting untoward about the mayors outreach to the FDNY regarding the consulate. Since the indictment was unsealed Thursday, several elected officials and community leaders have demanded that Adams resign from office, but the mayor says he will continue to lead as he fights the charges. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove Adams from office, called the indictment the latest in a disturbing pattern of events but did not call for him to step down. My focus is on protecting the people of New York and ensuring stability in the city, she said in a statement late Thursday. While I review my options and obligations as the governor of New York, I expect the mayor to take the next few days to review the situation and find an appropriate path forward to ensure the people of New York City are being well-served by their leaders. _______ (Daily News reporters Emma Siewell and Chris Sommerfeldt contributed to this story.) A federal appeals court in St. Louis heard arguments Thursday over a halted Iowa law that would allow the arrest and forced removal of immigrants in Iowa if they had previously been denied entry into the country. The three-judge panel from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals now has to rule on the appeal of a lower courts injunction that stopped Senate File 2340 from going into effect. The U.S. Department of Justice and civil rights organizations sued to stop the law, arguing it is unconstitutional because it tramples on federal sovereignty over immigration, ensnares those with legal status and creates chaos in orderly immigration enforcement. The laws proponents, including Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, both Republicans, have argued that the law simply mirrors federal law, which they claim is not being enforced by federal authorities. A federal District Court judge in June temporarily blocked enforcement of the law, which was set to take effect July 1. Judge Stephen Locher of the Southern District of Iowa ruled the Iowa law was preempted by federal law, which reserves enforcement of immigration laws to the U.S. government. Locher, who said the Iowa law was likely to disrupt the federal governments immigration policy and relationship with foreign nations, issued a preliminary injunction, pausing the state law while legal proceedings play out. Bird appealed the District Courts decision, arguing the precedent that the District Court relied on to block Iowas law Arizona v. United States does not apply. She said Iowas law allows state officials to enforce existing federal laws, while Arizona created a new law. A similar law in Texas has been blocked by an appeals court. Why is the law needed and what would it do? Reynolds and other Republicans who supported the bill assert the law is needed to address rising numbers of illegal border crossings in recent years under Democratic President Joe Biden. Reynolds, a Republican who signed the bill into law, has said the federal government has insufficiently enforced federal immigration laws, causing states to take border enforcement into their own hands. Border crossings reached historic levels under the Biden-Harris administration. Illegal crossings have since fallen after Biden issued an executive order restricting asylum applications in certain circumstances after Republicans thwarted a bipartisan border deal in the U.S. Senate pushed by Biden and endorsed by the National Border Patrol Council, which represents front-line agents. Border agents tallied 56,408 illegal crossings in July, a 32 percent decline from June and the fifth straight month that the figure has fallen, according to federal enforcement data released last month. Iowas law would allow Iowa law enforcement officials to arrest and charge a noncitizen with a crime if they are in the state after being previously deported or barred from entering the United States. The law makes it an aggravated misdemeanor, which carries up to a two-year sentence. In some cases, including people with certain prior convictions, the state crime would become a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. A judge would then be able to order the person to leave the country or face prison time. Attorney: Iowa has a right to respond to immigration crisis Iowa Solicitor General Eric Wessan said Iowa is responding to an unprecedented immigration crisis, by creating the state crime of illegal re-entry. He told the panel plaintiffs in the case have failed to demonstrate that they would be harmed by enforcement of the law. And unless every application of the law is unconstitutional, Wessan said states should be allowed to demonstrate it can be applied consistent with federal laws and the Constitution before an injunction. He gave the example of a person previously deported who re-enters the United States, kills someone and is charged with both murder and the crime of illegal re-entry. It seems odd, first, to say that the foreign policy interests of the United States would be affected by the illegal re-entry lesser charge, but not by the murder charge, Wessan said. And it also seems odd to say that if assuming that there is no lawful reason for that person to be in the United States, that charging that person and convicting him of illegal re-entry would itself be a violation or a conflict with federal law. And it seems odd to suggest that if such a person, after serving a sentence for murder, was issued an order to return and presented at a port of entry, that this recently released murderer would be turned away and the federal authorities would be unwilling at that point to cooperate. Wessan also argued Iowa law does not touch on removal or entry, but rather illegal re-entry and refusal to comply with an order to return, which are separate from removal orders. An attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice countered entry and removal are the core of what has long been held for almost 150 years to be the exclusive federal power to control immigration. And that an order directing a non-citizen to return to the country from which they entered the United States, as opposed to their home country, would conflict with federal removal orders. Arizona made clear, you have to speak with one voice under removal, said attorney Leif Eric Overvold. Civil rights groups: Law will ensnare those with legal status The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Iowa and the American Immigration Council filed lawsuit on behalf of Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice and the thousands of immigrants that the organization assists, including two anonymous immigrants. They argue the law puts even those immigrants who are authorized to be in the United States at risk of being deported and gives local rather than federal law enforcement the near-impossible job of figuring out the complex documentation status of those with whom they interact. We're not just talking about arrest. We're talking about prosecution. We're talking about separation from family, Emma Curtis Winger, an attorney representing the Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice, told the three-judge panel. Iowans who have long community ties to this country, including Iowans who are members of mixed-status families (that include both U.S. citizens and non-citizens), face the threat of prosecution and removal. Winger gave the example of an Iowa high school student, Anna (a pseudonym used in the lawsuit to protect her identity). She was born in Honduras, where her father was murdered and her sister kidnapped, and brought to the United States as a child by her mother fleeing persecution. They were deported in 2020. Shortly after, still fearing for her life, Anna returned unlawfully as a child. She applied for and received asylum, and is living in Iowa lawfully with an Iowa family and attending high school. But under SF 2340, Winger said Anna should be arrested, prosecuted and ordered to return to Mexico, not her native country. Winger said allowing states like Iowa, Texas and Oklahoma to create their own laws regulating entry and removal is obviously unworkable. Wed have a 50 state patchwork of different rules and different procedures that would create pure chaos, she said. Wessan, the Iowa Solicitor General, asserted the plaintiffs cannot be prosecuted under the statute, as two of the plaintiffs are lawfully in the country and a third did not sufficiently declare their status. Winger, speaking to reporters after the hearing, rejected the argument, stating nothing within the Iowa law protects her clients from arrest, prosecution, imprisonment and requests to leave the country, other than a federal court order. No matter how you enforce this law, its going to violate the constitution, she said. ... Immigration is a purely federal responsibility. The court typically issues decisions within three to six months, but could take longer. There is no deadline for the court to respond to the states request to lift the injunction. Should the appellate court uphold the injunction, the case could then be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. While the Supreme Court does not have to take up appeals, Iowa Attorney General Bird told reporters in June she thinks Iowas law, or a similar law in another state, is likely to make it to the nations highest court. NEW YORK (PIX11) Mayor Eric Adams allegedly stole public funds from New York City by using illegal donations he obtained for his 2021 mayoral campaign to manipulate the citys matching funds program, according to a federal indictment. New York Citys matching funds program matches small-dollar campaign contributions from individual residents with up to eight times their amount in public funds, federal prosecutors said. More Local News The matching funds program is intended to incentivize candidates to finance their campaigns by engaging with average New Yorkers, instead of seeking large contributions from a limited number of influential donors, and to empower more candidates to run for office, even without access to wealth, the indictment states. The indictment accused Adams of accepting illegal campaign contributions through straw donors and using these donations for New York Citys matching funds program. Adams 2021 mayoral campaign received more than $10 million in public funds from the citys matching funds program due to the alleged scheme, prosecutors said. 7 luxury travel benefits Eric Adams allegedly accepted: court documents The allegations are part of an indictment unsealed Thursday that charged Adams with bribery, campaign finance and conspiracy offenses. The indictment unsealed today alleges that Mayor Adams abused his power and position for nearly a decade, obtaining personal benefits and illegal campaign contributions from foreign nationals, and others, giving them undue influence over him. As charged, this illegal conduct compromised his integrity as an elected official and New Yorkers expect better, said Jocelyn Strauber, the commissioner of the New York City Department of Investigation. Adams also allegedly pressured the FDNY to facilitate the opening of a foreign governments skyscraper in Manhattan that hadnt passed a fire inspection, according to the indictment. Adams is also accused of trying to cover up the improper benefits that he allegedly received, prosecutors said. By allegedly taking improper and illegal benefits from foreign nationals including to allow a Manhattan skyscraper to open without a fire inspection Adams put the interests of his benefactors, including a foreign official, above those of his constituents, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. Adams vowed to fight against the indictment and said he does not plan to resign. From here, my attorneys will take care of the case so I can take care of the city, Adams said Thursday. My day-to-day will not change. I will continue to do the job for 8.3 million New Yorkers that I was elected to do. Finn Hoogensen is a digital journalist who has covered local news for more than five years. He has been with PIX11 News since 2022. See more of his work here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. (NewsNation) New York City Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty Friday on charges alleging he accepted bribes and illegal foreign campaign contributions. Fridays arraignment was Adams first court appearance on wire fraud, bribery, two counts of receiving campaign contributions from a foreign national, and conspiracy charges. If convicted of wire fraud, them most serious charge against him, Adams could face up to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors and Adams lawyer, Alex Spiro, came to an agreement that would allow the mayor to be released on his own signature, Assistant U.S. Attorney Celia V. Cohen said. Under this agreement, Adams is not allowed to contact any witnesses or individuals in the indictment. There are accommodations for him to speak with members of his family and staff but not about anything pertaining to the allegations. Adams said Thursday he has no plans to resign. Next week, Spiro said, he plans on filing a motion to dismiss charges against his client. There are no emails, text messages or any corroboration whatsoever that the mayor knew about anything having to do with these campaign donations, Spiro said. However, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said at a Thursday news conference that Adams long-running corruption goes back nearly a decade. The conduct alleged in the indictment, the foreign money, the corporate money, the bribery, the years of concealment, is a grave breach of the publics trust, Williams said. We continue to dig, and we will hold more people accountable. Mayor Eric Adams corruption investigation, indictment: Timeline What is Eric Adams accused of? The accusations against Adams are outlined in a 57-page grand jury indictment that a judge unsealed Thursday. The indictment comes on the heels of a widespread ongoing investigation into the mayors administration and the resignation of several top city officials. Adams who oversees public operations in the nations largest city is accused of accepting bribes from foreign nationals and taking illegal campaign contributions in exchange for favors. Authorities said this included helping Turkish officials secure fire-safety approvals for a 36-story Turkish consulate building even though it didnt pass inspection. The allegations of long-running corruption date back nearly a decade, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said at a Thursday news conference announcing the indictment. They include alleged straw donor contributions and abuse of a city program that promised to provide up to $8 in matching funds for each $1 of up to $250 in donations from New York City residents. That amounts to nearly $13,000 in matching funds during the 2021 election cycle, according to charging documents. Harris to visit southern border for first time in 3 years Whats next for Eric Adams, New Yorkers? Adams addressed the charges at a news conference Thursday when he told New Yorkers to wait to hear our defense before making any judgments. Several top city officials have announced their resignation from the Adams administration in recent weeks. Its unclear if or how those resignations may be connected to the mayors criminal case. The conduct alleged in the indictment, the foreign money, the corporate money, the bribery, the years of concealment, is a grave breach of the publics trust, Williams said Thursday. We continue to dig, and we will hold more people accountable. 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 NewsNation. NEW YORK Mayor Adams was charged with bribery, wire fraud and secretly soliciting campaign contributions from overseas donors in a sweeping indictment unsealed Thursday stemming from a wide-ranging federal probe into corruption at City Hall. The stunning indictment alleges the mayor accepted more than $100,000 in lavish trips, cruises and hotel stays all paid by Turkish government officials and businessmen who thought Adams rising political career would lead the former NYPD cop to the White House. I want to be clear. These upgrades and freebies were not part of some frequent flier or loyalty program available to the general public, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said at a Thursday press conference unveiling the charges. The grandiose gifts were part of a multiyear scheme to buy favor with a single New York City politician on the rise, Williams said. These are bright red lines, and we allege that the mayor crossed them again and again for years. Adams repaid the favors by pressuring the FDNY into fast-tracking the opening of a new 36-floor Turkish Consulate in Manhattan despite serious fire safety concerns, the indictment charges. Adams is facing the possibility of up to 45 years in prison if convicted of bribery, campaign finance, wire fraud and conspiracy offenses, federal officials said. The charges stem from an ongoing investigation by the Manhattan U.S. attorneys office that has scrutinized allegations Turkeys government funneled illegal donations into Adams 2021 campaign coffers. It comes after revelations earlier this month that authorities were also looking into communications between Adams and the governments of five other foreign countries. Adams is the first New York City mayor in the modern era to face criminal charges while in office. His administration has been reeling from additional investigations and a series of high-profile resignations in recent weeks. Scheme allegedly spanned a decade In the five-count indictment, federal investigators described a scheme that spanned nearly a decade, starting when Adams became Brooklyn borough president in 2014. The charges he faces are conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, and to receive campaign contributions by foreign nationals; wire fraud; two counts of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national, and bribery. Adams allegedly accepted improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him, the 57-page indictment charges. Federal prosecutors say Adams proceeded to solicit and accept illegal straw donations from Turkish nationals and once he became mayor, his foreign-national benefactors sought to cash in on their corrupt relationships with him by securing favors from him. Since becoming mayor, Adams has kept this favor-swapping relationship going and has continued soliciting illegal straw donations from Turkish nationals for his reelection campaign, according to the indictment. Its illegal to accept campaign donations from non-U.S. citizens. To get around this, Turkish officials allegedly sent the donations through a third party, known as a straw donor, who was a citizen. Adams allegedly accepted the donations, knowing their origins, and maximized his gains through New York Citys matching funds program netting his 2021 campaign over $10 million in public funds. The foreign money, the corporate money, the bribery, the years of concealment, is a grave breach of the publics trust, Williams said, adding that Adams solicited benefits even though he knew they were illegal. No one else was named in the federal indictment. Still, Williams, whose office is investigating several people close to the mayor, said the corruption probe was ongoing, noting, We continue to dig. On Thursday afternoon, Manhattan Federal Judge Dale Ho, who has been assigned to the case, ordered Adams to appear before Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker on Friday at noon and, again, before him on Oct. 4. Adams lawyer, Alex Spiro, requested later Thursday the initial appearance be pushed to next week. Challenging the evidence Spiro said the mayor is eager to appear in court, as he challenged several of the prosecutions key points. You can almost picture them trying to cobble this together and try to tell a story so that they could say, Corruption, corruption, corruption, Spiro told reporters outside Gracie Mansion Thursday afternoon with Adams at his side. They do that to tarnish him in your eyes. Spiro said there was nothing untoward about the seat upgrades. Those were upgrades on open seats, Spiro said, adding that such upgrades are commonplace and often done for VIPs and that prosecutors were twisting that narrative to tarnish (the mayor) in your eyes. Airlines regularly provide such upgrades when seats are available and any perks Adams received were not gifts or bribes, Spiro said. Spiro also disputed the notion that the mayor had sought foreign donations. There are emails with Mayor Adams telling them, telling this staffer, telling all of them, do not take foreign money, period, the attorney said. Spiro shared a screenshot of a purported text exchange between Adams and Abbasova in which he writes, Rana please be aware we cant take money from people who are not U.S. citizens. Spiro also challenged the notion the Turkish Consulate inspection was some sort of payback. The mayor has previously said there was nothing improper about his reaching out to then-FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro in an effort to expedite an inspection at the site. Spiro reiterated that, sharing screenshots of purported text messages between Adams and Nigro in which the mayor-to-be asks the fire commish to adjudicate an apparent difference of opinion between a Department of Buildings inspector and a fire-alarm contractor on the project. Flanked by more than a dozen faith leaders outside Gracie Mansion earlier Thursday, Adams proclaimed his innocence and shot down calls to step down. Its an unfortunate day, and its a painful day. But aside of all of that, its a day that will finally reveal why for 10 months I will have gone through this. And I look forward to defending myself, he said. I look forward to having my legal team handle this as I handle the city of New York. Williams said politics had nothing to do with the federal investigation. We are not focused on the right or the left we are only focused on right and wrong, he said. We allege that Mayor Adams abused (his) privilege and broke the law. Laws that are designed to ensure that officials like him serve the people not the highest bidder, not a foreign bidder, and certainly not a foreign power. Pressure on FDNY After accepting the travel perks and free flights, Adams was told by the Turkish national that it was his turn to repay him by pressuring then-FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro to fast-track the opening of the new 36-floor Turkish Consulate, prosecutors allege. The FDNY official responsible for the FDNYs assessment of the skyscrapers fire safety was told that he would lose his job if he failed to acquiesce, reads the indictment. Some of the people at FDNY thought the building had so many issues and defects that the building was not safe to occupy, Williams said at the press conference. So the Turkish official sent word to Adams that it was, quote, his turn, unquote, to support Turkey. Adams delivered and pressured the Fire Department to let the building open, Williams added. The FDNY professionals were convinced that they would lose their jobs if they didnt back down. And so they did. They got out of the way and let the building open. When reached Thursday, Nigro said he told the FBI everything that I know. They have all that information, Nigro said, adding that Adams request to expedite the inspection was unusual. It was the first time I had ever heard from him about something like that, he said. Whatever he did, he did. It doesnt involve the Fire Department. Besides the consulate issue, the feds charge that the mayor, in return for illegal donations, personally helped an unnamed businessman last year with resolving Department of Buildings issues. The feds also allege Adams has as mayor taken steps to avoid criticizing Turkeys government, including by not issuing a statement marking the anniversary in October 2022 of the Armenian Genocide, a bloody tragedy long blamed on Turkey. Earlier Thursday morning, federal investigators converged on Gracie Mansion and executed a search warrant, seizing at least one phone, Adams attorney Spiro said. Federal agents appeared this morning at Gracie Mansion in an effort to create a spectacle (again) and take Mayor Adams phone (again), Spiro said. He has not been arrested and looks forward to his day in court. They send a dozen agents to pick up a phone when we would have happily turned it in. Several elected officials and advocates have called on Adams to resign in light of the indictment, claiming he cant oversee city government while defending himself in a criminal federal case. Cover-up alleged Adams first traveled to Turkey in 2015, where he met many of the unnamed foreign nationals who are key to the indictment, identified as a Turkish official, a Turkish promoter, and a Turkish businessman who owns a Turkish university. The trio would spend years pulling together illegal straw donations to Adams campaign and bribe him with gifts, the indictment claims. The Turkish nationals who funneled the money into his campaign coffers and sent him on expensive trips did so believing they werent just buying influence with a mayor but a future president, the indictment reads. The promoter also celebrated Adams prospects with additional people, telling others including Adams himself that Adams would soon be president of the United States, the indictment reads. Similarly, the Turkish official wrote to (an Adams staffer) that given Adams increasing prominence the foreign minister of Turkey is personally paying attention to him. Adams never disclosed the upgraded flights and hotel stays and sometimes created fake paper trails to try to cover up the travel benefits he solicited and received, Williams said. The indictment alleges Adams falsely suggested, that he had paid, planned to pay, for travel benefits that were actually free. He also deleted messages with others involved in his misconduct, including, in one instance, assuring a co-conspirator in writing that he always deleted her messages, the indictment reads. Through it all, Adams would preach about how important fundraising was to winning a mayoral campaign. You win the race by raising money. Have to raise money, he said in 2018 texts to a person the indictment identifies as a close supporter. Everything else is fluff, Adams added, according to the indictment. The supporter he was texting is Bling Bishop Pastor Lamor Whitehead, who was convicted in March of federal wire fraud and attempted extortion charges for swindling a parishioner out of her life savings and other crimes. The same texts are quoted in Whiteheads federal indictment. The prosecutors handling Adams case were all on the team that secured Whiteheads conviction. Last year, the feds seized multiple phones and electronic devices from the mayor as part of their corruption probe. Even with the feds breathing down their necks, Adams and at least two underlings tried to hide information on their phones, according to federal prosecutors. Longtime aide Rana Abbasova is identified as Adams staffer in the indictment and fundraiser Brianna Suggs is identified as Adams fundraiser. Their homes were raided on the same day last November. After learning that FBI agents had arrived at her residence, but before answering their repeated knocks at her door, (Suggs) called Adams five times, even though the agents had not yet given (her) any indication of the purpose for their visit, the indictment reads. When (she) then spoke with the FBI agents, she agreed to discuss many subjects, but refused to say who had paid for her 2021 travel to Turkey. When Abbasova agreed to be interviewed by FBI agents, she excused herself to a bathroom and, while there, deleted the encrypted messaging applications she had used to communicate with Adams, the Promoter, the Turkish Official, the Airline Manager, and others, the indictment read. After the FBI raided Abbasovas New Jersey home, she agreed to cooperate with investigators, the Daily News previously reported. When FBI agents seized Adams phone in November, the mayor told them he had changed his password and now didnt remember it and so couldnt help them unlock the phone, the indictment reads. _____ (With Graham Rayman, Anusha Baaya, Cayla Bamberger, Evan Simko-Bednarski and Josephine Stratman.) _____ NEW YORK Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty Friday as he was arraigned on an indictment in Manhattan federal court charging him with bribery and wire fraud for allegedly soliciting campaign contributions from overseas donors following a wide-ranging federal probe into corruption at City Hall. Adams, wearing a crisp blue suit, entered his plea as he stood before federal magistrate judge Katharine Parker. I am not guilty, your honor, Adams said. Assistant U.S. Attorney Celia Cohen told the court that prosecutors and Adams defense agreed on a bond package under which Adams would be released provided he agrees not to contact any witnesses or individuals named in the indictment. Mayor Adams will be released today on the following conditions: he shall have no contact with any individual witnesses or others listed in the list to be provided by the government, concerning the facts and circumstances outlined in the indictment, Parker said. This does not preclude Mayor Adams from having routine communications concerning business and private family matters. The charges stem from an ongoing investigation by the Manhattan U.S. attorneys office that has scrutinized allegations Turkeys government funneled illegal donations into Adams 2021 campaign coffers. The indictment comes after revelations earlier this month that authorities are also looking into communications between Adams and the governments of five other foreign countries. In the five-count indictment, federal investigators described a scheme that spanned nearly a decade, starting when Adams became Brooklyn borough president in 2014. The charges he faces are conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, and receiving campaign contributions by foreign nationals; wire fraud; two counts of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national, and bribery. Spiro said the defense will be filing a motion to dismiss the indictment next Wednesday. In comments after the brief proceeding, Spiro said the feds have evidence Adams was unaware of any efforts to funnel illegal donations to his campaign. He claimed a City Hall staffer, identified later by sources as Rana Abbasova, Adams Turkish community liaison for years, who is at the heart of the governments case has been misleading investigators. That staffer has lied, and the government is in possession of that lie, Spiro said as Mayor Adams stood stone-faced by his side. When that staffer was first interviewed, that staffer said that Mayor Adams knew nothing about this, he was not involved in this, and that he is innocent. They have that information. They have not turned that over to us. They have not turned that over to you. The indictment says that when Abbasova, identified in court papers as a City Hall staffer, agreed to be interviewed by FBI agents, she excused herself to a bathroom and, while there, deleted the encrypted messaging applications she had used to communicate with Adamsand others, the indictment read. After the FBI raided Abbasovas New Jersey home, she agreed to cooperate with investigators, the Daily News previously reported. Abbasovas attorney declined to comment on Spiros claims Friday. Spiro said the entire indictment against Adams isnt even a real case. This is the airline upgrade corruption case, he said. Hes innocent. Mayor Adams gave a thumbs up to reporters as he left Manhattan federal court. The mayor has said he is innocent of all charges and has rebuffed calls for his resignation. Adams is the first New York City mayor in the modern era to face criminal charges while in office. His administration has been reeling from additional federal corruption investigations and a series of high-profile resignations in recent weeks by top advisers to the mayor. He is facing the possibility of up to 45 years in prison if convicted of bribery, campaign finance, wire fraud, and conspiracy offenses, federal officials said. Adams allegedly accepted improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him, the 57-page indictment charges. Federal prosecutors say Adams solicited and accepted tens of thousands of dollars in illegal straw donations from Turkish nationals and, once he became mayor, his foreign-national benefactors sought to cash in on their corrupt relationships with him by securing favors from him. Since becoming mayor, Adams has kept this favor-swapping relationship going and has continued soliciting illegal straw donations from Turkish nationals for his reelection campaign, according to the indictment. Its illegal to accept campaign donations from non-U.S. citizens. To get around this, Turkish officials allegedly sent the donations through third parties, known as straw donors, who were citizens. Adams allegedly accepted the donations, knowing their origins, and maximized his gains through New York Citys matching funds program netting his 2021 campaign public money that the feds say he shouldve never received due to the illegal nature of the Turkish contributions. Adams raised a total of $10 million in matching funds during the 2021 campaign. Adams repaid the favors by, among other actions, pressuring the FDNY into fast-tracking the opening of a new 36-floor Turkish Consulate in Manhattan despite serious fire safety concerns, the indictment charges. Mayor Eric Adams, right, is pictured outside Manhattan Federal Court with his lawyer, Alex Spiro, after pleading not guilty on multiple corruption charges Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams for New York Daily News) In comments outside Gracie Mansion Thursday, Spiro, challenged several of the prosecutions key points and produced text message to bolster his position. You can almost picture them trying to cobble this together and try to tell a story so that they could say, Corruption, corruption, corruption, Spiro told reporters as he stood with Adams at his side. They do that to tarnish him in your eyes. Spiro said there was nothing untoward about the seat upgrades as they were commonplace when seats are available. He disputed the notion that the mayor had sought foreign donations, saying he had given his staff explicit instructions not to do so. Spiro also said, echoing comments Adams has previously made, that there was noting untoward about the mayors outreach to the FDNY regarding the consulate. Since the indictment was unsealed Thursday, several elected officials and community leaders have demanded that Adams resign from office, but the mayor says he will continue to lead as he fights the charges. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove Adams from office, called the indictment the latest in a disturbing pattern of events but did not call for him to step down. My focus is on protecting the people of New York and ensuring stability in the city, she said in a statement late Thursday. While I review my options and obligations as the governor of New York, I expect the mayor to take the next few days to review the situation and find an appropriate path forward to ensure the people of New York City are being well-served by their leaders. Adams arrives for his arraignment in federal court on Friday [Getty Images] New York City Mayor Eric Adams has pleaded not guilty to five counts of criminal offences, including bribery, wire fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. Wearing a dark blue suit, Adams arrived in federal court in New York for a brief hearing to enter his plea. "I am not guilty, your honour," he told Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker with a straight-faced expression, according to reporters in court. The 64-year-old was indicted earlier this week on allegations that he accepted illegal campaign funds and thousands of dollars in luxury travel benefits from Turkish businessmen and an official in exchange for his influence as mayor. Adams has denied any wrongdoing and said the public should withhold judgement until he makes his defence. "I follow the rules, I follow the federal law, I do not do anything that's going to participate in illegal campaign activity," he said at a news conference. Adams gave a thumbs-up to reporters as he entered court on Friday morning. He was released on bail. Judge Parker ruled that Adams cannot talk to witnesses about the facts concerning the case, though he can discuss business or private family matters with them, according to US media. His lawyer, Alex Spiro, told reporters outside court that he would be filing a motion to dismiss the case next week. "The entire body of evidence is one staffer," he told reporters. "What you have not heard, is that that staffer has lied, and the government is in possession of that lie." If convicted, Adams could face up to 45 years in prison. He has rejected growing calls from members of his own party to resign. The former police officer was elected to lead the most populous US city nearly three years ago with a promise to be harsh on crime. Prosecutors say Adams's misconduct began in 2014, during his time as Brooklyn Borough president, and carried on during his election campaign for mayor and while in office. In the 57-page indictment, Adams was accused of pressuring New York City Fire Department officials to approve a Turkish consulate building without a safety inspection in exchange for benefits such as discounted flights, luxury hotels and meals. Prosecutors say he also misused $10m (7.4m) in public funds. He is accused of using straw donors - a scheme that a person or entity uses to evade campaign finance limits - to take in illegal foreign donations and matching them with city funds that were supposed to be for small-dollar contributions from residents. The mayor is due back in court on 2 October. Adams has insisted he will stay in office while the case plays out, despite calls from Democrats at the state and federal level to resign. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has the power to remove Adams. She has said she needs time to review the indictment to see whats embedded with this. Adams can also be ousted from the mayor's office by a so-called "inability committee", which would likely include at least a few city officials who oppose him. Adamss arraignment comes as the federal government carries out a number of probes into his administration, which has seen a wave of resignations in recent weeks. The police commissioner, the health commissioner and the mayor's chief counsel have all left office as well as the schools chancellor, David Banks, who had his phone seized. The crew of the Titan's support ship felt a "shudder" around the time they lost contact with the submersible during its doomed dive to the Titanic shipwreck, the Coast Guard said Friday. U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation Chair Jason Neubauer revealed during the last day of a two-week hearing on the implosion that the master of the Polar Prince told them that in hindsight, he believes he felt the ship "shudder" around the time when communications with the sub were lost during the June 2023 expedition. The statement was provided to the board in October 2023, when the unidentified master was asked if he or crew members heard anything indicating the OceanGate submersible imploded, Neubauer said. "The answer from the master was, 'With the benefit of hindsight, I now believe I felt the Polar Prince shudder at around the time communications were reportedly lost, but at the time, we thought nothing of it. It was slight,'" Neubauer said. Capt. Jamie Frederick with U.S. Coast Guard Sector Boston, who testified Friday on the Titan search and rescue mission, said if that information had been reported immediately to the Coast Guard, that could have had a "drastic impact on the search efforts." My initial reaction is, if that was information they have, to me personally, it would be unconscionable that they would not share that with the unified command," Frederick said. Neubauer added that from the crew's perspective, the shudder was "not immediately connected to the event" so wasn't reported to the Coast Guard. PHOTO: The Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation released remotely operated vehicle footage from the Titan submersible incident salvage operation conducted on June 26, 2023, during a hearing Sept. 23, 2024, in North Charleston, S.C. (Pelagic Research Services/USCG) Frederick detailed during his testimony the complex, international search and rescue response, which culminated with a remotely operated vehicle able to go to a depth of 6,000 meters finding the Titan debris on June 22 on the ocean floor. "They discovered the tail cone first. And then as we continued to find additional debris, it became apparent that it had been a total loss," he said. The implosion killed all five passengers, including Stockton Rush, the co-founder and CEO of the sub's maker, OceanGate. French explorer Paul Henri Nargeolet, British businessman Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman, were also killed. Frederick said the responders understood the Titan had survival systems on board and that they "never even got to the point to have the discussion of suspension." "I wouldn't even want to speculate on when that would happen," he added. Frederick also addressed knocking noises detected by sonar buoys in the vicinity of the search location the day after the Titan imploded. He said the data was given to the U.S. Navy, which determined two days later it was not anyone knocking on the hull of the Titan. "They were 100% certain that it was not human in nature," he said. MORE: 'All good here': Last messages revealed from Titan submersible before implosion: Coast Guard He also addressed an "anomaly" consistent with an implosion that was detected by the U.S. Navy in the general vicinity of where the Titan was at the time communications were lost. He said he was informed of the data a day after the Titan was lost and the information was classified at the time. "It was one piece of data. It wasn't definitive," he said. "The Navy couldn't tell us that it was 100% definitive, that it was an implosion." Rush said he would 'buy a congressman' to make Titan problems go away: Ex-employee A former OceanGate employee testified during the hearing on Friday that he resigned from the submersible company after Rush told him he would "buy a congressman" to make problems with its Titan vessel go away. Matthew McCoy was an active duty member of the U.S. Coast Guard prior to joining OceanGate as an operations technician in April 2017 as the company was building the first Titan prototype, which was never used on Titanic dives. He said he quit six months later, in September 2017, a day after his conversation with Rush. MORE: 'All good here': Last messages revealed from Titan submersible before implosion: Coast Guard McCoy said he told Rush he was concerned about operating the experimental Titan vessel without a certificate of inspection and that it would not be inspected by the U.S. Coast Guard. He said Rush responded that the Titan would be operating in the Bahamas and launch out of Canada and would not fall under U.S. jurisdiction. "I think I had expressed to him that still taking U.S. passengers on there for hire at any point in time, if they touched the U.S. land, you know, U.S. port, that would also be of consideration," McCoy said. PHOTO: Matthew McCoy, a former OceanGate employee, listens to questions from the investigative board during the final day of the Coast Guard investigatory hearing, Sept. 27, 2024, in North Charleston, S.C. (Mic Smith/AP) He said the conversation became "tense" and ended with Rush saying that "if the Coast Guard became a problem, he would buy himself a congressman and make it go away." "That will stand in my mind for the rest of time," McCoy said. "I've never had anybody say that to me directly, and I was aghast. And basically, after that, I resigned. I couldn't work there anymore." Asked by the Marine Board of Investigation if he felt like Rush was trying to intimidate him or if it was "more like bluster," McCoy said he felt like Rush was trying to "either intimidate me or impress me." McCoy, a member of the Coast Guard Reserve, said he wasn't clear on the regulations for the sub but was concerned about potentially violating U.S. law. He said he considered whether to notify the Coast Guard but OceanGate hadn't done any dives in the U.S. with Titan. He said he subsequently learned of a complaint OceanGate whistleblower David Lochridge filed in 2018 with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration following his termination. McCoy said he thought there would be a "deeper investigation" into OceanGate at that point. Lochridge's whistleblower retaliation case was closed in late 2018 after he and OceanGate entered a settlement agreement in their respective lawsuits, OSHA said. Lochridge's safety allegations regarding the Titan were referred to the Coast Guard, OSHA said. PHOTO: This undated image courtesy of OceanGate Expeditions, shows their Titan submersible beginning a descent. (Handout/OceanGate Expeditions/AFP via Getty Images) McCoy said there was an "alarm bell" before he quit that made him concerned about OceanGate's operations and the production of the Titan's carbon-fiber hull. When he started, he said, it was "made very clear" OceanGate was working with the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory and Boeing, "so they had a lot of what sounded like legitimacy behind them, as far as the engineering." But he said he soon learned the company had broken ties with the laboratory and Boeing wasn't going to be doing the layup for the carbon fiber. He said he felt OceanGate's engineering department "didn't seem overly qualified" and there were mostly "college interns" during the summer he was there. MORE: NASA disagreed with how OceanGate wanted to invoke the agency: Titan hearing witness He said after he left OceanGate he didn't keep tabs on the company for long. "I just kind of quit following the company, not thinking that they would ever actually dive the Titan," he said. Coast Guard investigation continues into 'unprecedented' incident OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations after the deadly implosion. The main purpose of the hearing was to uncover the facts related to the implosion and to make recommendations, the Coast Guard said. At the conclusion of the two-week hearing Friday afternoon, Neubauer said the Coast Guard will conduct an analysis of the evidence collected and issue any recommendations to the commandant of the Coast Guard "to help ensure that nobody has to endure a future similar occurrence." Neubauer said that process can take several months but his priority is to "get this investigation done expeditiously, because I feel there are global issues at stake." Any determination on potential criminal acts will also be sent to the commandant of the Coast Guard, who would decide whether to make a referral to the Department of Justice, Neubauer said. The National Transportation Safety Board will issue a separate report on its findings, including their official determination of the probable cause of the incident, at a later date, Marcel Muise, an investigator with the agency's Office of Marine Safety, said at the conclusion of the hearing. Neubauer offered his condolences to the families of those killed and thanked the more than two dozen witnesses who testified in the proceedings. "It takes courage to testify in the public spotlight, especially in the aftermath of a traumatic event," he said. "The subject matter covered during the sessions was often highly technical and emotionally charged, and I'm grateful to each witness who stopped and assisted in our efforts to fully understand this unprecedented incident." Shudder felt by crew on support ship around time when Titan sub lost contact originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Misoprostol, used to treat post-delivery hemorrhages, will become a Schedule IV controlled dangerous substance in Louisiana effective Oct. 1 under a new law. The designation means the medicine will have to be securely stored, raising concerns among doctors who say they rely on immediate access to the medication in life-threatening situations. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) NEW ORLEANS Louisiana hospitals have scrambled to update their guidelines for misoprostol, a common pregnancy care medication that a new state law will reclassify as a controlled dangerous substance starting Oct. 1. Misoprostol is used for a variety of medical reasons, including postpartum hemorrhages. LCMC Health and Ochsner Health System, which own and operate hospitals throughout Louisiana, will keep the drug in a centralized, passcode-protected storage locker on their maternity units. The Illuminator has reviewed guidance each system provided to physicians this week. Dr. Stacey Holman, lead physician for LCMC Healths maternal quality committee, said the system has had several meetings with physician and pharmacy leadership to discuss how their protocols will change. Theyve also performed timed drills to understand what delays to expect . Access in a cart in the labor room remains the faster option versus a nurse leaving the bedside to obtain medication from the automatic dispensing system, Holman said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Through simulated emergencies with a post-delivery patient bleeding out, LCMC Health noted a two-minute delay between having the misoprostol in a cart in the room versus down the hall in a passcode-protected dispensing system. Earlier this month, the Louisiana Department of Health released guidelines for the controversial new law, suggesting hospitals modify their equipment to add a locked container for misoprostol on their obstetric hemorrhage carts. According to physicians interviewed that suggestion has not proven realistic so far. In our conversations with our pharmacy, we looked at the possibility of a locked section on the hemorrhage cart and determined that it was not a feasible option, Holman said. Doctors have sought additional guidance from the state health department about how to create secure storage on hemorrhage carts, but they have yet to receive any response. Physicians and pharmacists are prioritizing the safe care of patients with the knowledge the protocols they have put into place to reduce mothers dying during or after childbirth have to be changed to accommodate the new law, Act 246. Holman said LCMC is aware every second counts when it comes to postpartum hemorrhaging, so it will implement two initiatives to minimize delays in administering misoprostol. One will be to have the misoprostol on override in the event of an emergency, which Holman said consists of a verbal order given to a nurse to pull the medication immediately from the dispensing system outside of the patients room. The second initiative will be to encourage obstetricians to order the misoprostol for all patients ahead of delivery. In the event that a patient is high-risk, the physician can choose to bring misoprostol into the room prior to delivery. The Illuminator obtained a copy of Frequently Asked Questions, or FAQs, about Act 246 that Ochsner Health System made available to its physicians. Like LCMC, Ocshner hospitals will store misoprostol in a large, passcode-protected dispensing system, often known as a Pyxis, centrally located within labor and delivery units. This means misoprostol will no longer be stored in the patient rooms in carts, kits or plastic bleed boxes. At a recent New Orleans city health department webinar, a nurse asked whether she would still be able to carry misoprostol around in her pocket. Experts advised her against it. According to Ochsners FAQs, The nurse retrieving the medication from the Pyxis will be required to maintain chain of custody of the medication until it is either administered, wasted or returned to the Pyxis, just as with any other controlled substances such as narcotics. Like LCMC, Ochsner will place misoprostol on an override list in case of emergencies. The Ochsner guidelines also confirm that any pharmacy or provider dispensing misoprostol needs to report information on the patient, prescriber, prescription, controlled substance and dispenser to the states prescription monitoring program. This means a detailed record will be kept of anyone in Louisiana who prescribes or receives misoprostol. Ochsner Health continues to provide care for patients in accordance with the law, using misoprostol when it is clinically indicated, following the protocols in place for all controlled substances,Ochsner Health president Dr. Robert Hart said in a statement provided Friday. Ochsner has updated its processes to be compliant with the new law and are ensuring that misoprostol will be readily and immediately available in Labor & Delivery units across the system, including in emergency situations, Hart added. Rural hospitals, which do not have the same access to resources as Ochsner and LCMC Health, could feel the most impacts from the new legislation. One obstetrician in rural northwestern Louisiana told the Illuminator her hospital has yet to release guidance on the new law, which goes into effect in four days. Additionally, she said that this week a nurse practitioner refused to write a misoprostol prescription for a patient with a confirmed miscarriage. The OB ended up writing the prescription herself, even though she hadnt seen the patient, she said. The consequences of politicizing medicine because of its association with abortion is precisely why so many doctors have spoken up against this law, which experts say could create a chilling effect or fear around medication that is safe. Dr. Jennifer Avegno leads the New Orleans health department and is an emergency room physician. Shes leading a New Orleans City Council investigation into the impact of the new law that reclassifies misoprostol and mifepristone as controlled substances. Unfortunately, this will result in delays in administration of the drug in an emergency situation, Avegno said. But hospitals must comply with the law and are encouraged to run drills and/or develop processes that mitigate these delays as much as possible. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE The Knights of Columbus in Canton will host a pancake breakfast on Sunday, October 6 at the St. Marys Parish Center in Canton. The meal will run from 8:30 a.m. until noon and the cost is a suggested donation. The menu consists of pancakes, sausage, eggs, toast, fruit, coffee, tea and juice. The breakfast is to benefit St. Marys Church of Canton. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WWTI - InformNNY.com. Odessa man sentenced to life for rape of 12-year-old girl ECTOR COUNTY, Texas (KMID/KPEJ)- On Thursday, and Ector County jury found Richard Lee Davis guilty on one count of Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child. Davis, a registered sex offender, was sentenced to life in prison, said District Attorney Dusty Gallivan. Davis was indicted in 2021 after a young girl said that Davis raped her in 2019, when she was just 12 years old. Davis was previously convicted in another aggravated sexual assault of a child case in 2007 and was required to register as a sex offender at that time. Thank you to all who worked to ensure justice for the victim and the community, Gallivan said of the verdict. 358th District Court Judge Shrode presided over the case while Steven Lively and Bill Prasher argued on behalf of the prosecution. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Yourbasin. It was minutes after midnight on Oct. 23, 2021, when Flora Casale rushed to her landline phone inside her Washington Township home and dialed 911, desperately trying to describe to the woman on the other end the horrific, gruesome scene she had just witnessed. She then found herself fleeing out the front door, cordless phone in hand, and into the darkness as she screamed for help from her neighbors, but nobody came. An officer arrived not long after, but Casale was able to string together only five words, which she kept repeating to the officer: "Get him off of her." Casale, now 78, shed tears as she described for a jury of 14 in a Bergen County courtroom last week the moments she discovered the lifeless body of her 51-year-old daughter, Mary Huber, on the floor of her condominium, and watched as the man accused of her killing, Patrick Camilli, her daughter's boyfriend, used what she described as a stick prosecutors say it was a knife to stab his own neck. Camilli, now 59, whose self-inflicted wound missed all vital structures in his neck, sat before state Superior Court Judge James Sattely on Sept. 17 as Casale was the first to take the stand for the prosecution. As of Thursday afternoon, with a few days off in between, Camilli would be five days into his trial on charges of first-degree murder and two counts related to his possession of a kitchen knife he allegedly used to end Huber's life. Bergen County Assistant Prosecutors Yomara Castro and Craig Becker have tag-teamed during the trial, with witnesses who have included law enforcement officers, first responders and Huber's brother-in-law, Flaviano Sanzari. Sanzari and Huber's sister, Kathy, had visited the couple at the condominium just hours before Huber's death, when the group shared dinner and many consumed alcoholic beverages. The couple left the home shortly before the killing is believed to have taken place, prosecutors said. Prosecutors were expected to wrap up their case this week or Monday. Camilli's defense attorney, Landry Belizaire, said he planned to present a witness or witnesses, but did not anticipate that it would take more than a day. Police at the scene where a woman was stabbed to death inside a Lexington Court home in Washington Township on October 24, 2021. Mary Huber's death: Was it deliberate or due to mental illness? Becker, one of the assistant prosecutors, kicked off opening statements by describing the 29 times Camilli allegedly stabbed Huber, leaving a gouge on her forehead, slashes on her scalp and a large gash in her neck before turning the knife on himself in an attempted murder-suicide. "This wasn't an accident or a mistake," Becker said. "Domestic violence is never complex. It's tragic and far too prevalent, but simple and motived by one thing: control." Camilli and Huber had been together for about 18 years, but there was friction between the couple due to Camilli's inability to hold steady work or contribute to the household, Becker said. It all came to a head on Oct. 23, 2021, Becker said, when the duo began talking and Camilli, prosecutors said, got angry, felt emasculated and "wanted to shut her up." Camilli told the first officer who arrived on scene, "I killed her. Please save her," and later told an EMT in the ambulance about what had transpired, "We were talking, she started berating me. Next thing I knew, I was hitting her and I couldn't stop," prosecutors said, based on reports in evidence. But Camilli's defense attorney countered the prosecutors' statements, telling jurors that their presentation was "designed to shock" them, and urged them to appeal to their good sense and "look at the evidence under the bright light of a rational mind." Belizaire described a scene in which his client had no intention to harm Huber, but instead went through a "psychological ailment" he described as depersonalization, which is a term used by psychologists to describe a mental health condition in which someone feels detached from their body and thoughts. The ailment will help support a diminished capacity defense, which Belizaire said he anticipates introducing when he places a doctor on the stand. If the jury finds that Camilli had an altered state that left him incapable of purposefully stabbing and killing his girlfriend under the defense, the jury will likely have the option to consider a lesser charge, such as manslaughter. It differs from an insanity defense, in which a jury could acquit a defendant. Camilli was "beside himself" once he understood what he had done, Belizaire said, asking the jury to question what the motive would be of a man who considered Huber the "love of my life." There had been no evidence of premeditation and no history of violence between the duo, he said. A stabbing occurred at 41 Lexington Court in Washington Township (Bergen County). Sunday, October 24, 2021 'It was like she was sleeping,' Mary Huber's mother said Casale, Huber's mother, remembered her daughter as a workaholic Huber was a New York University graduate who worked in market research who had befriended Camilli when she visited Atlantic City with her husband, Kenny Huber. Mary Huber was technically still married to her husband at the time of her death, prosecutors said. Huber would visit Camilli when she and girlfriends would go to Atlantic City, where Camilli was a dealer in a casino. Casale described her daughter's relationship with Camilli as one in which Huber was always helping him stay afloat financially, but she declined to say they were "lovers." They lived together in Atlantic County for several years before moving in with Casale in her Lexington Court condo. Their relationship status was unclear; Casale alluded to her daughter not being in love with Camilli and instead being a friend who helped him financially, despite their sleeping in the same room in her home. Casale said that although her daughter and her husband, Kenny, did not live together "as man and wife," it was believed they were still in love. She described Camilli as a paramour, a term often used to describe an illicit lover or someone who engages in sexual relations with a married person. Belizaire said Camilli had fallen in love with Huber "at first sight" and had a loving relationship with her for 18 years. Casale had left her home around 5 p.m. on Oct. 23, 2021, to babysit her great-grandsons in Mahwah, and returned home around 11:30 p.m. to find Camilli, who had no top on and was in cargo shorts, on top of her daughter. She noticed that a rocking chair was broken and that her daughter appeared to be sleeping, a term she later clarified to mean "sleeping in death." She had met eyes with Camilli, who did not say anything but appeared to be "turning a stick around" in his neck, she said. She repeated several times "get off her" and ran downstairs to call 911, she said. Casale said she never returned to live in the condominium, and later sold it. Email: lcomstock@njherald.com; Twitter: @LoriComstockNJH or on Facebook. This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Washington NJ murder trial underway as man is accused of killing woman Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon speaks Friday, Aug. 9, 2024 before a public accuracy test of voting equipment ahead of the primary election at the elections office at Dakota County Administration Center in Hastings, Minnesota. Photo by Nicole Neri for the Minnesota Reformer. The Office of Secretary of State Steve Simon was sent a suspicious package, Simon said in a release Friday, underscoring the dangerous atmosphere for election administration officials in the runup to the 2024 election. The FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the State Patrol are investigating, and the office was evacuated. The package was addressed to the office with a return address of United States Traitor Elimination Army. Suspicious envelopes have been either received by election officials or intercepted by law enforcement in Utah, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming, where the FBI is currently investigating suspicious activity, according to CNN. In Nebraska recently, the secretary of state found an envelope at its elections division headquarters that contained a white powder, which police determined to be nonhazardous; that same day, a building in Topeka, Kansas was evacuated after authorities found suspicious packages sent to both the secretary of state and the attorney general. In Colorado, police intercepted a similar letter that contained a harmless white powder addressed to the secretary of state. Simon said election officials would not be deterred from doing their work: Threatening election officials is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated. Our democracy depends on public servants who must be able to perform their duties free from fear, intimidation or harassment. This action is not deterring our work or determination to deliver another election that is free, fair, accurate and secure. We will work with our law enforcement partners to ensure the person or persons responsible for this action are held accountable. The unnerving nationwide threats illustrate how administering elections has become a more dangerous job since President Donald Trump came on the political scene about a decade ago and began repeatedly questioning election results, despite the vanishingly small number of fraudulent ballots in the United States. An annual survey of the Brennan Center for Justice found that 38% of local election officials experienced threats, harassment, or abuse for doing their jobs. That in turn has led to an exodus from the field, the Brennan Center found: More than one-third of local election officials know at least one person who resigned at least in part due to safety concerns, up from 22% in 2023, they reported. States Newsroom contributed reporting. SHAWNEE, Okla. (KFOR) Crews with Oklahoma Gas and Electric left for Georgia on Thursday to help with power restoration in the wake of Hurricane Helene. According to OG&E, trucks carrying almost 100 line crews and support personnel left Shawnee and are expected to arrive in Georgia on Friday to help those affected by the storm. RELATED STORY: OG&E restores power for thousands in Louisiana following landfall of Hurricane Francine OG&E leaves for Georgia. OG&E leaves for Georgia. Image courtesy OG&E. As Hurricane Helene makes landfall, our crews are preparing to help restore any power that is lost as quickly and safely possibly, said Chad Guthrie, OG&E Director of Distribution Construction. Thanks to our mutual assistance partnerships with electric companies across the nation, we are able to support our neighbors when storms, hurricanes and other disasters cause widespread damage and outages. It energizes our crews to be able to help out others impacted by natural disasters. Helene slams the South with wind, rain and flooding. Millions are without power Georgias biggest electric company, Georgia Power, asked for assistance as the storm is expected to impact much of the state. Additional crews can only be deployed for up to 14 days, but OG&E has more crews to rotate if needed. OG&E leaves for Georgia. Image courtesy OG&E. OG&E leaves for Georgia. Image courtesy OG&E. RELATED STORY: OG&E travels to south Texas to aid in power restoration following Hurricane Beryl Our crews are ready to provide support and expertise to those impacted by Hurricane Helene, said Andrea Dennis, OG&E Vice President of Transmission & Distribution Operations. We understand the profound impact severe weather has on communities, and we are ready to help restore a critical resource: power. Im grateful to our crews and restoration personnel who step up when communities need it most. In 2024, OG&E also responded to Louisiana in mid-September to help with damage caused by Hurricane Francine and south Texas in July to assist after Hurricane Beryl. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Ohio Air Force veteran, brother freed from Dubai jail with help from JD Vance: 'They weren't letting this go' An Ohio Air Force veteran and his brother were finally released from a United Arab Emirates (UAE) jail with the help of GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance after spending months behind bars. Joseph Lopez and his brother, Joshua, were freed from the Dubai jail on Tuesday, ending the four-month-long legal nightmare. Joseph joined "Fox & Friends First" to discuss his reaction to his long-awaited release. After Being Stranded For Months Due To An Altercation, Houston Woman Leaves Dubai "Land of the free, home of the brave. It definitely feels great," Lopez told Carley Shimkus on Thursday. "I'm a little bit still disassociated, to be honest with you life doesn't totally feel real yet. I feel like I'm going to wake up from a dream at any point in time, and I guess that's kind of where I'm at right now. It's going to take a little bit for me to process everything, honestly." The Lopez brothers were arrested in June during their trip to the UAE. The pair were leaving a nightclub on June 2 when an Uber driver offered to take them to an "afterparty" at a hotel in the area, according to Detained in Dubai. Joseph Lopez, an Ohio Air Force veteran and father, was detained in Dubai with his brother, Joshua, for drinking on a yacht. But shortly after the party ended, the brothers were approached by someone who invited them to a yacht party. After insisting they didn't want to spend any more money, the man told them they would be his American guests. Read On The Fox News App They agreed to attend, but shortly after arriving at the boat, he said they were slapped with a more than $2,700 bill. After they pushed back against the steep bill, Joseph said he was handed a drink and doesn't remember the rest of the night. He woke up in the back of a police car with his brother the next morning. They were ultimately arrested and charged with assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, damaging a patrol vehicle and alcohol consumption, according to the New York Post. Lopez insisted they were drugged and robbed. "I think it happened to me because I was obviously I'm an American," Lopez said. "When you're in a place like Dubai, they see Americans and people see money, and basically they tried to extort me, and it didn't go the way they wanted, and I got drugged Obviously, there's a lot that I don't remember, but basically, I was given charges that I have no memory of whatsoever." Oklahoma Man Praises God, Us Lawmaker In Return Home After Ammo Arrest In Turks And Caicos "I took a breathalyzer. My breathalyzer showed 0.00 by the time it was taken," he continued. "Now I have these charges I have no memory of, and these charges some of them could potentially be 15 plus years so it's like this is my entire life that I'm talking about here over something I have no memory of. And the people who drugged me, they were never searched for. They were never held accountable." Lopez said the conditions in the Dubai jail were brutal, explaining that the beds were "infested with cockroaches" and they weren't given necessities like toothbrushes and soap. "Literally, they drained me of every penny I had, put me into debt, and then eventually they sentenced us to three months in prison," Lopez said. "We went there and got in processed, and the place that we were in there's a lot of people sleeping on the floor. The bed that I was given I'm an American, so you have, like, passport power, so they put me in a bunk bed and the bunk beds are infested with cockroaches." "On top of that, there's no hygiene there," he continued. "They don't give you a toothbrush. They give you a shirt. Pants. No, there's no soap, no body wash. You have to eat with your hands." Vance worked with the State Department to secure the pair's release, according to his spokesperson, Parker Magid. Republican vice presidential nominee, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) speaks to a crowd during a rally at the Berks County Fairgrounds on September 21, 2024 in Leesport, Pennsylvania. "Sen. Vances office has been in constant communication with the State Department, the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in the United States and the constituents family," he told Fox News Digital. "Sen. Vance is monitoring the as-yet-unresolved legal proceedings carefully." "JD Vance's office, the support of the world and my communities on social media and my family, they weren't letting this go," Lopez said. "The UAE knew for a fact that what they were getting out of me, it just wasn't worth the trouble." Fox News' Audrey Conklin and Mollie Markowitz contributed to this report. Original article source: Ohio Air Force veteran, brother freed from Dubai jail with help from JD Vance: 'They weren't letting this go' The Kroger Co. corporate headquarters is seen in downtown Cincinnati. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and 11 other Republican attorneys general on Monday filed a brief in federal court in Cincinnati arguing that an attempt by the Federal Trade Commission to block the merger of grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons is unconstitutional. If successful, their argument would stunt the FTCs ability to fight anticompetitive practices in a plethora of other areas, from prescription drugs to concert tickets. It would also threaten the independent powers of myriad other executive-branch agencies that also practice administrative law. The argument made by Yost and his colleagues tracks closely with a proposal made in Project 2025, a controversial roadmap for a potential second administration of Donald Trump. Trump has been trying to distance himself from it. Food giant Yosts office didnt respond to questions for this story including whether he regarded one of the attorney generals core functions to be facilitating grocery mega-mergers. But in a statement announcing the friend-of-the-court brief he led, the attorney general said, The FTCs judges are part of the executive branch, and that means theyre supposed to be subject to removal by the president. Their multilayered protections from removal undermine the presidents authority and violate the constitution. The FTC, an agency intended to police anticompetitive practices, in March released a report saying that big grocers such as Kroger and Walmart engaged in several schemes that artificially increased grocery prices during the pandemic, and that they seemed to be continuing. Even before that, Cincinnati-based Kroger and Boise-based Albertsons proposed a merger. If allowed, it would create a chain that owned 5,000 stores and approximately 4,000 retail pharmacies and employ nearly 700,000 across 48 states. Fearing that would sap even more competition and send grocery prices still higher, the FTC in February sued to stop the merger. Last month, Yost and three other attorneys general filed a friend-of-the-court brief seeking to end the FTCs intervention. They claimed that creating a mega-grocer would actually increase competition. The acquisition would likely increase, not restrain, competition in the market for grocery sales, benefiting consumers, it said. It promises to strengthen Krogers ability to compete effectively for consumer dollars in an already crowded field of retailers, and there is no factual or legal basis for the (FTC) to claim otherwise. As components of that crowded field of retailers, they listed chains such as Costco, Sams Club, Aldi, Whole Foods, as well as Family Dollar and Dollar General. Sweeping challenge On Monday, Yost and 11 colleagues filed a brief challenging the very constitutionality of the mechanism the FTC used to try to stop the merger. They claim that the agencys use of administrative law judges is unconstitutional because it doesnt give the president the power to fire them. This case arises from an administrative proceeding that defies the separation of powers. Kroger, a prominent grocery-store chain, is being subjected to proceedings before an Administrative Law Judge of an executive branch agency, the Federal Trade Commission, Yost and the other attorneys general argue in their brief. Although the presiding ALJ is part of an executive branch agency that must stand in the chain of command from the People to the President, Congress has legislated to insulate that officer from that chain of command. In addition to Ohio, the AGs of Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia joined the amicus brief. What theyre seeking to do could upend decades of rulings in administrative law proceedings conducted by scores of agencies. They include the Environmental Protection Agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. The brief by Yost and his colleagues argues that earlier guidelines set out in a Supreme Court ruling after the 1914 Federal Trade Commission dont cover the FTCs action against the Kroger-Albertsons merger. In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt tried to remove Federal Trade Commissioner William Humphrey, who was appointed by Roosevelts predecessor, Herbert Hoover. Roosevelt thought that Humphrey was blocking some of his New Deal initiatives and as head of the executive branch, the president believed he had the power to remove him. Not so fast, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Humphreys Executor v United States. The court said the Constitution never gave the president unlimited power to remove executive-branch employees especially those in agencies like the FTC, which had quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative functions. For more than a decade, some in the conservative movement have been trying to roll back that decision. Its a movement that has also tried to greatly expand presidential power beyond its already vast boundaries. Controversial ideas A version of the argument made by Yost and the Republicans attorneys general appears in Project 2025, a 900-page policy document for a second Trump term created by right-wing thinkers. In addition to expanding presidential power by rolling back civil-service protections, its proposals include prohibiting the federal government from calling abortion health care, gutting attempts to counter global warming, and phasing out Title I funding for low-income schools. In an era of surging corporate power, Project 2025 questions the very need for the Federal Trade Commission to exist. Should the FTC Enforce Antitrustor Even Continue to Exist? it asks. Some conservatives think that antitrust enforcement should be invested solely in the Department of Justice (DOJ). The FTCs commissioners are not removable at will by the President, which many quite reasonably believe violates the Vesting Clause of Article II of the Constitution; it is for this reason that conservatives have long believed in either ending law enforcement activities of independent agencies or ending their independent status. The Supreme Court decision in Humphreys Executor seems ripe for revisiting and perhaps sooner rather than later. Conundrum Yost has been a foe of what he regards as anticompetitive practices on other fronts. Hes overseen several lawsuits against giant health conglomerates that own pharmacy middlemen whom he accuses of using their dominance to raise drug prices. The suits include one under Ohio antitrust law against Cigna-Express Scripts. Yet if the argument he made in the Kroger case is successful, it would gut what some observers say is among the most serious attempts so far to rein in the pharmacy drug middlemen. On Friday, the FTC filed a lawsuit accusing the big-three health conglomerates of working to raise the cost of insulin a drug many diabetics need to stay alive. As with its action to stop the Kroger-Albertsons merger, it was filed as an administrative law proceeding within the FTC. Thats a process that Yost and his colleagues seem intent on ending. Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on Facebook and X. A ballot counter machine. (Photo by Graham Stokes for the Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original story.) Ohio House Democrats announced plans on Thursday to introduce a resolution that would give legislative support to Novembers Issue 1, the proposed constitutional amendment to reform the states redistricting process by replacing politician mapmakers with citizens. The resolution likely wont get any vote, as the general assembly is not scheduled to meet until after the election. Furthermore, it would be unlikely to overcome Ohio Republican Statehouse supermajorities. House Minority Leader Allison Russo and state Rep. Terrence Upchurch, D-Cleveland, are co-sponsors for a resolution expressing the support of a YES vote on the Issue 1 citizen-led ballot initiative to end partisan gerrymandering in Ohio. This resolution is necessary because there is a constant stream of lies and misinformation surrounding the true nature of Issue 1, especially following the approved ballot language that was intentionally confusing and misleading, Russo said in a statement. Upchurch is a member of the Ohio Ballot Board who considered (and eventually passed 3-2) summary language that would appear on ballots as voters choose whether or not to support Issue 1. He was one of the two people on the board who voted against a summary written by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, language that led amendment creators to sue the board to prevent the language from appearing on ballots. The Ohio Supreme Court considered eight different changes requested by Citizens Not Politicians, who argued the summary language was misleading and deceptive. The states highest court rejected all but two of the changes, largely letting the language stand. Upchurch said the legislative resolution was needed to cut through the lies and help voters learn the truth, and he called Ohio one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation. The current process of redistricting goes through the Ohio Redistricting Commission, which is made up of elected officials including the governor, the secretary of state, the state auditor and four legislative leaders, two from each party. Six different Statehouse district maps and two congressional maps went through the current redistricting process. Five of the Statehouse maps were ruled unconstitutionally gerrymandered by the Ohio Supreme Court, and both congressional maps were rejected by the court as unconstitutional. A federal court ordered Ohio voters to use the last of these gerrymandered Statehouse maps in 2022 as time had run out for the commission to come up with a constitutionally approved map, and it is those districts lawmakers are currently occupying. Another set of Statehouse maps were adopted with bipartisan support last fall. That included Russo, who said she voted in favor in order to take the redistricting process out of the hands of the commission once and for all. Democratic members of the commission said at the time they supported those maps after Republicans suggested they would unilaterally impose maps even less favorable to Democrats otherwise. The Democratic resolution in favor of Issue 1 states that the redistricting process has historically been controlled by politicians and lobbyists, leading to districts that serve political interests rather than the people of Ohio. Whereas, empowering citizens to be a part of the redistricting process will strengthen Ohios democracy, enhance the integrity of our elections and restore trust in our political system, the resolution states. The General Assembly is not scheduled to return from their summer break until later in November, after the election. This isnt the first time a resolution has been brought forth in the General Assembly to take a position on a ballot initiative. Last year, prior to the November election, Republicans in the Ohio Senate passed resolutions opposing that years Issue 1, which changed the state constitution to include reproductive rights, and Issue 2, a statute on recreational marijuana. Senate Democrats denounced the resolutions and their opposition of the measures, but the resolutions opened the door for legislators to speak on the issues as they can defend their votes on the resolution or urge the public either support or oppose the measures, a statement released by Senate Dems at the time stated. Under normal circumstances, members of the General Assembly would be prohibited from using their office or state resources to endorse a position on a citizen-led ballot issue, the statement in October 2023 read. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) The Ohio Supreme Court has been asked to decide how the states parentage laws apply to same-sex couples who raised children but separated before same-sex marriage became legal. The Ohio couple in the case, Priya Shahani and Carmen Edmonds, were together from 2003 to 2015 and had three children together through artificial insemination. Though Shahani was the biological mother, the two gave each child the last name of Edmonds-Shahani and completed legal documents recognizing the other as an equal co-parent. Shahani and Edmonds never legally married, as their relationship deteriorated in 2015 before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage bans, like prohibitions that were on the books in Ohio, are unconstitutional. In the break up, the couple entered into a formal agreement that divided their property and set a parenting schedule for their children. Democrats push for changes to Republican-run ballot board after biased Issue 1 wording However, Shahani later removed Edmonds from the childrens last name and filed legal motions to terminate their agreement. Edmonds then filed a petition in 2017 to establish her parental rights, but the Hamilton County Juvenile Court held that a same-sex partner does not fall within the definition of a parent under Ohio law. This is because Edmonds was neither biologically related to the children and was not married to their birthmother. A trial court ruled against terminating the agreement and ordered that Edmonds could have companionship time with the children but did not grant a her parentage request. Both Shahani and Edmonds appealed to the First District Appellate Court, which decided that the trial court needed to hold a hearing to determine if the couple would have been married if Ohio had already allowed same-sex marriage. Appealing to the Ohio Supreme Court, Shahani said a state court does not have the authority to disregard Ohios statute banning common-law marriage and order a person into an unlicensed and manufactured marriage. Now, the case has caught the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, which filed a brief to the states supreme court on behalf of the National Association of Social Workers, arguing that Edmonds would be a legally recognized parent of the three children had Ohio law provided a path for same-sex marriage at the time of their birth. Ohio lawmaker aims to eliminate all lead pipes in the state over 15-year period Edmonds has been nurturing the three children that she helped bring into this world throughout their lives, said Amy Gilbert, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Ohio. The overwhelming body of social science research confirms that there is potentially devastating harm inflicted on a child if separated from a parental figure, and that this harm does not depend on whether there is a biological link between the two. Gilbert said the court should be guided by best interests of the child, regardless of whether the parents are the same or opposite sex. To rule otherwise leaves the children of same-sex couples in Ohio, who were unable to marry before Obergefell, in danger of unequal treatment and exposes them to detrimental social consequences, said Gilbert. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Who are Oklahomas deleted voters? State provides data breaking it down by party. Hundreds of thousands of Oklahomans whose voter registration was deleted in recent years roughly reflect the overall layout of party affiliation in the state, though Democrats and independents were overrepresented among voters deleted for inactivity. Of the voters removed in the past 24 months, 46.6% were Republicans, 31.2% were Democrats, 21.4% were independents and 0.79% were Libertarians, according to an analysis by Oklahoma Voice of records available from the Oklahoma Election Data Warehouse. This generally tracks with party affiliation trends of Oklahoma voters who are still registered. Over the past two years, Oklahoma removed 241,113 people from voter rolls, according to the state Election Data Warehouse, which keeps detailed records of deleted voters for 24 months after removal. The state recently announced more than 453,000 voter registrations have been removed through routine auditing since Jan. 1, 2021, a span of time that extends beyond legally required recordkeeping. More than 2.38 million people are registered to vote in Oklahoma. Most voters who have been removed can register again. Those who wish to cast a ballot in the Nov. 5 General Election must register by Oct. 11. More: Students register to vote at the Voter Registration Day event at OSU-OKC People line up to vote during voting in an earlier election at The Shoppes at Northpark in Oklahoma City. Why were these Oklahoma voter registrations removed? The most common reason registrations were deleted is because the voter moved to a different county or state, according to Election Data Warehouse records. The second-most common deletions were for inactive voters, a group that differs more noticeably from party affiliation lines. Others were removed because they have died, been convicted of a felony or were deemed in court to be mentally incapacitated, among other less-common reasons. State records show 83,701 voter registrations were deleted for inactivity. Most of these Oklahomans havent voted since 2016 or before, data shows. Just under half of deleted inactive voters were from the same four counties: Oklahoma, Tulsa, Cleveland and Canadian, the only four counties in the state with 100,000 or more registered voters. About 55% of inactivity deletions came from less populous counties, according to a review of Election Data Warehouse statistics. Democrats and independents made up a larger share of deleted inactive voters than their proportion of Oklahoma voters overall. While Democrats represent about 27.5% of registered voters in the state, they made up 34% of registrations deleted for inactivity. More: Oklahoma Voter Guide: What to know about key races The numbers are even more disproportionate for independents, who represent 30% of the deleted inactive voters but make up only 19.5% of total registered voters in Oklahoma. Meanwhile, about 52% of Oklahomans are registered Republicans, and about 35% of voters deleted for inactivity were registered with the GOP. Oklahoma voter apathy, structure of primaries may give insight into which registrations were inactive Its no surprise that Democrats and independents show greater inactivity than Republicans in Oklahoma, said Pat McFerron, a conservative campaign consultant and polling expert. The vast majority of consequential partisan elections in Oklahoma are decided in Republican primaries, well before Democrats and independents get the chance to weigh in, McFerron said. Very few general election races in the state are competitive enough to be decided by 10% or less of the vote. A voting sign is pictured during voting in August at The Shoppes at Northpark. When pollsters like McFerron call inactive voters, many say theyre unlikely to vote because theyre not interested in government and politics, he said, and the other common response is they just dont think their vote matters. Only the Democratic Party in Oklahoma has opened its primary elections to independent voters. The states Republican and Libertarian parties have not. Implementing open or unified primaries could help engage more people, McFerron said. These concepts would allow registered voters to participate in primary elections regardless of their party affiliation, and it could make every candidate accountable to every voter. A campaign to bring open or unified elections to Oklahoma is underway. McFerron said he is working with the initiative. Oklahoma is now 50th in the nation in voter turnout for November elections, and if we dont do something to change it, were going to continue to have less and less civic engagement, McFerron said. Democratic campaign consultant Adam Graham agreed that open primaries could be a significant help, as would automatic voter registration or other measures to make it easier to register to vote. Campaign messaging also must improve, he said. Candidates of both parties are pushing to the extreme ends of the political spectrum and are too focused on culture-war issues, Graham said. That leaves moderate voters feeling left out and less inclined to show up to the polls. I think weve got to start giving voters a message from candidates that they are interested in hearing about, Graham said. Property taxes, groceries, schools, teachers being paid. Weve got to get back to the nuts and bolts of state government. Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on Facebook and Twitter. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Deleted Oklahoma voters roughly reflect state's party affiliation data Shelley Zumwalt, director of tourism and recreation, on April 2 talks about solar eclipse preparations. (Photo by Janelle Stecklein/Oklahoma Voice) OKLAHOMA CITY Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation Executive Director Shelley Zumwalt on Thursday announced her retirement months after she was called on to resign in the wake of a scathing audit. Zumwalt has led the Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation since October 2022. She said she is retiring to pursue a career in the private sector but will remain in her job until Oct. 11 to help with the transition. A spokesperson for the tourism agency said she did not know if a severance agreement was involved and could not find out until next week at the earliest. Zumwalt declined to comment further. Her office referred to a press release which outlined her accomplishments and did not mention the audits findings. I will always look back on my time in service with deep appreciation and admiration for the dedicated employees I have had the privilege to work alongside over my time with the state of Oklahoma, she said in the press release. Gov. Kevin Stitt tapped Zumwalt to lead the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission and then the Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation. In April, State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd released a scathing audit questioning how the state used the pandemic relief funds. Zumwalts husband worked for a company that had a contract with the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission. At the time, Attorney General Gentner Drummond said it was wholly inappropriate and potentially unlawful for Zumwalt to use her position to approve millions of dollars in contracts for a software company where her husband was vice president. He called on Zumwalt to resign immediately and cooperate fully with his agencys investigation seeking to determine whether any laws were broken. Zumwalt denied wrongdoing and refused to resign. Ms. Zumwalts resignation was the proper thing to do, even if it took six months after my initial call for her to step down from her position, Drummond said Friday. Self-dealing is an unacceptable breach of the public trust and must be a disqualification from public office. Zumwalt said months ago that she had disclosed the connection and was told it wasnt a problem because her husband didnt work on the contract, which was awarded before she went to work for the OESC in May 2020. Subsequent contracting and payments were transacted by OESC, although the Office of Management and Enterprise Services, where Zumwalt worked at the time, awarded the original no-bid contract. By April 2022, Zumwalt had approved additional contracts and change orders to the company totaling $8.5 million, according to the audit. Zumwalt was required to complete annual forms attesting that no related party transactions existed. She checked no on the forms, according to the audit. A spokesperson for the tourism department did not respond to a request Friday for Zumwalts current salary and age. At one point, she was earning $265,000 at the agency, according to a report released by the Office of Management and Enterprise Services. Stitt said Friday that he was grateful for Zumwalts service. She was a fighter for Oklahoma Tourism and worked hard to promote our state, he said. I wish her the best in her future endeavors. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) Portlands ombudsman has criticized city officials for inconsistently determining who should cover the cost of tree removal. In a release published on Thursday, the ombudsmans office revealed the city ordered homeowners to pay to chop down a tree located 30 feet outside of their property line and in an unimproved section of the public right-of-way. Oregon workers exceeding BOLIs salary threshold will have wage claims dismissed Simultaneously, the office reported that officials paid to remove an ancient elm tree primarily located on a real estate investment companys private property. The city watchdog first received the complaint from the Southwest Portland homeowners in April. The complainants said it cost around $5,000 to remove the tree that was within the citys jurisdiction. They also alleged they couldnt directly access it from their property, and they wouldnt be able to insure against any future damage. In an ensuing review, the ombudsman opined that the citys provisions on property owners responsibilities for nearby trees were poorly written and confusing. The office claimed that Portland Parks and Recreations Urban Forestry division had a history of addressing these matters inconsistently. Despite this, Deputy Ombudsman Andy Stevens noted the division rejected his recommendation to pay for tree removal in the Southwest Portland neighborhood in July 2024. However, the office said Urban Forestry readily took full financial responsibility to rid the city of its oldest Heritage Tree near the Portland Art Museum the following month. Experts estimated removing this particular tree could cost about $15,000. Person missing after boat capsizes in Columbia River The American Elm Heritage Tree had long been regarded as a private tree due to its location on private property and was maintained by the property owner, Schnitzer Properties, the Ombudsman wrote. Urban Forestry determined that a mere six inches of the trees more than 48-inch base had grown into the right-of-way and assumed full financial responsibility for its removal. Auditors additionally ruled that ordering the homeowners to pay for tree removal contradicts a previous decision from city leaders. At a Portland City Council in 2017, commissioners decided against a city code amendment that would hold people accountable for maintaining trees within unimproved or partially improved rights-of-way near their land. How can the commissioners justify saddling homeowners with maintenance of large parcels of public land adjacent to their properties? one resident wrote in testimony ahead of the meeting. In response to Stevens findings, Portland Parks & Recreation said it recognizes city regulations on tree maintenance are dense and complex. Read the full statement below. Oregon saw over 5K recent affordable housing eviction filings, PSU finds We know the City code about responsibility for street tree maintenance is dense and complex and can be confusing. We appreciate the opportunity to review our process so we can ensure both equitable application of the policy and public safety. After careful review of precedent, the history of frontage maintenance for the property, and comparison of code language for Heritage Trees versus street trees, we determined the tree removal at the SW Portland location is most appropriately the responsibility of the adjacent property owner. We understand the right-of-way configuration is large, but the setback is not unusual for many places throughout the city. In this case, the property owner has a documented history of maintaining the frontage in question. Also, the tree in question does not threaten to injure public health or safety. Heritage Trees are recognized for their unique significance and have special rules requiring the City to take care of them when they extend onto City property, like the American Elm Heritage Tree example used in the City Auditors report. However, the tree at the SW Portland location is not a Heritage Treeits a street tree, and the responsibility for its care falls to the adjacent property owner, according to City code. Podcast investigates serial killers ties to the PNW We know the code places a burden on property owners, and our Urban Forestry team has long supported a change that would give the City a greater role in street tree maintenance. We are excited and hopeful the recent allocation of Portland Clean Energy Fund dollars will expedite progress toward that goal. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) Union workers at the Omni Hotel in Providence overwhelmingly ratified a new contract on Tuesday, 12 News has learned. The new contract reportedly includes wage increases and improved benefits with more affordable health care for UNITE HERE Local 26 workers. On Aug. 7, Omni Providence employees voted to authorize a strike after working without a contract since the previous agreement expired at the end of January. RELATED: Omni Hotel workers vote to authorize strike for better pay, working conditions Omni Providence workers hold an informational picket outside the hotel on Aug. 18, 2024 (Photo: WPRI-TV) With the pay raise, I will no longer have to work two to three jobs at a time, seven days a week. I can spend more time with my children, and we can go on vacation every year, said Shakria Abad Payano, a room inspector at the hotel. My coworkers and I put a lot of work into this fight, said George Cook, who works at the Omni Providence Hotel as a banquet houseperson. Im happy that were able to get the best contract weve ever had, with wage increases that will help us pay our rent and take care of our families. The union said negotiations with Omni properties in Boston are still ongoing, and contracts at the Omni Boston Seaport Hotel and the Omni Parker House are still unresolved. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Breaking 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 WPRI.com. Did you ever imagine that you would have to reassure a frightened child, Honey, Hannibal Lecter is not a real person. He is not a great actor who said on TV, I love Donald Trump, as the former president claimed at an Oct. 7, 2023, rally in Waterloo, Iowa. Or that you would have to comfort your child, telling him/her, No, sweetheart, immigrants are not eating peoples pets in Ohio. The city manager said there was nothing to that ugly rumor. Our new neighbors are not going to eat Fluffy. Or that you would have to explain to your middle schooler, Even if the former president of the United States tells you that the noise of windmills causes cancer or drives whales crazy, dont believe it. It isnt true. Did you ever think those words would come out of your mouth? Heres another sentence to add to the list of things you never thought you would say until Donald Trump came along: Democrats do not support after-birth abortion. Wait, I hear you saying, Im not an OB-GYN, but I dont think you can have an abortion after the baby is born. Hold that thought. Trump claimed in a videotaped statement that aired from Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 4 that Democrats support abortion beyond the ninth month, a procedure that he called, indelicately, execution after birth. And thats exactly what it is, he said. The baby is born; the baby is executed after birth. Then, with the righteous indignation of a biblical prophet, Trump proclaimed that executing babies is unacceptable. And almost everyone agrees with that, he added. Actually, Donald, everyone agrees with that. Except maybe the late, great Hannibal Lecter. They just dont call it execution after birth. They call it infanticide, and it isnt legal anywhere in the United States. That was not the first time Trump raised the issue of too-late-term abortions. In his debate with Joe Biden, he said, Some states, Democrat-run, take (the life of the baby) after birth, and made the grotesque allegation that former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam was willing to, as we say, rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month and kill the baby. He made a similar charge in 2019. Three weeks ago, when he was explaining why he was going to vote against an initiative in Florida that would overturn the states six-week ban on abortion, Trump said it again. You know some of the states like Minnesota are so radical where you can actually execute the baby after birth and all of that stuff is unacceptable. Then in the presidential debate with Kamala Harris, he said it yet again. This time he was corrected by the ABC cohost, Lindsey Davis: There is no state in the United States in which it is legal to kill a baby after its born. Just ask Kermit Gosnell. Formerly Dr. Kermit Gosnell. In 2013, he was found guilty of the first-degree murder of a baby born alive in his Philadelphia abortion clinic. He received a life sentence without possibility of parole in the State Correctional Institution in Huntingdon, Pa., plus 30-60 years on two charges of conspiring to kill two other babies. Gosnell accepted the sentence in exchange for having the death penalty taken off the table. That is what happens in the United States if you execute the baby after birth, which, I should add, Democrats are not in favor of, as Fox host Shannon Bream explained patiently to Trump campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski: Democrats say they absolutely disavow the idea of infanticide or of a baby that does survive an abortion, somehow their life being taken at that point. I think everybody agrees infanticide is illegal and wrong, Bream said. Lois Shepard, professor of biomedical ethics at the University of Virginia, framed the matter of after-birth abortion simply and bluntly: Abortion providers do not do this, doctors do not do this, no politicians that I know of support this its a made up-issue. TOPEKA (KSNT) One person is now in jail after a Thursday evening fire in Downtown Topeka caused thousands of dollars in damage. Just before 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 26, crews with the Topeka Fire Department (TFD) were dispatched to a structure fire in the 700 block of Southwest Polk Street, according to a news release from TFD. Crews first to the scene found heavy fire and smoke coming from the back of a multi-unit residential building. This embedded content is not available in your region. Amber Peery seeks new trial in deadly Girl Scout crash Crews were able to put out the fire, while containing all of the damage to the area the fire started. After investigating, Topeka police, along with TFD, arrested one individual for one count of aggravated arson. That person was booked into the Shawnee County Department of Corrections. The cause of the fire was determined to be incendiary, according to the news release. The total amount lost was $25,000. 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. Severe weather moved into Virginia on Friday, after Tropical Storm Helene made landfall in the commonwealth, leaving one person dead and five localities under a voluntary evacuation order in the Southwest part of the state. (Map courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) One person is reported dead in Virginia and five localities in the southwest region of the state are under a voluntary evacuation order as a result of Tropical Depression Helene, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin said in a Facebook live update around 4 p.m. Friday afternoon. The one fatality in Craig County stemmed from a tree falling and a building collapse, Youngkin said, adding that We lift up the family of this victim in our prayers. Augusta, Wythe, Pulaski, and Giles Counties are under the voluntary evacuation order, along with the city of Salem. Residents there arent required to leave their homes, but the order strongly suggests that it would be safest to do so. While these are voluntary evacuation orders for particular communities, please adhere to them for your safety. Your life is too important, the governor said. Helene formed south of Florida and made landfall as a hurricane in that state late Thursday with maximum sustained winds of 140 miles per hour, according to the Associated Press. Yet, the impacts could be felt in Virginia. The National Weather Service Blacksburg Office forecasted Friday morning that rainfall rates of 2 to 3 inches per hour were likely. According to the NWS, 12.2 inches of rain had accumulated in the Grayson Highlands area in Southside Virginia near the North Carolina border as of 4 p.m. Friday. Youngkin said that while rain may have subsided in certain parts of Virginia, a tornado was reported just north of Danville. A vast section of the state is still under a tornado watch, and that extends all the way to Virginia Beach Youngkin said. Over 50 swift water crews had already been deployed with helicopter air support, although the high winds have limited their ability to access some of the more challenged spots, Youngkin said. Helicopters were able to help efforts in Washington County, particularly the city of Damascus, where we have seen substantial flooding, Younkgin said. Flooding has also occurred along the New River, particularly at Radford University, he added. I urge everyone to please stay informed, use good judgments and get to high ground, Youngkin said. About 241,000 people have lost power throughout Southwest Virginia, Youngkin added. The state has been in contact with the electric cooperatives that primarily serve rural regions in Southwest Virginia, and Appalachian Power Company. Thats going to take some time, Youngkin said, on restoring power. A Virginia State Police helicopter unit was sent to help with the 50 people stranded on the roof of Unicoi County Hospital in Tennessee, Youngkin said. At least 40 people in four states had died from the storm by Friday evening, according to the Associated Press. A National Weather Service monitor at Blacksburg Airport forecasts a partly sunny Saturday, with a chance of showers into the evening. More rain showers and possibly a thunderstorm are forecasted to occur into Monday night. This storm is not over, and therefore, again, I urge everyone to please stay off the roads, unless you have to be on them, Youngkin said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX One dead following family violence incident in Pflugerville PFLUGERVILLE, Texas (KXAN) The Pflugerville Police Department said one person died Thursday following reports of a disturbance. PPD said officers responded to the 17900 block of Altesino Cove and found one person injured. Life-saving measures were performed, but the person died. According to police, a suspect was taken into custody at the scene, and a weapon was also recovered by law enforcement. Pflugerville Police said the incident was an isolated case of family violence, and the investigation was still in its early stages. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. One hospitalized with serious injuries after UTV crash near Sioux Center, sheriff says SIOUX CENTER, Iowa (KCAU) One person was hospitalized for serious injuries after a UTV crash near Sioux Center. The Sioux County Sheriffs Office said it investigating a crash at a bean field near the intersection of 420th Street and Harrison Avenue Wednesday at 9:03 p.m. The crash happened about one mile south of Sioux Center. Sac County holding town hall meetings on new jail bond A 16-year-old was driving a 2020 Polaris Ranger XP1000 UTV west in a field, the release said. Due to dust and the low light conditions, he entered a ravine, lost control of the UTV, and rolled. The driver reported minor injuries. A passenger was taken to Sioux Center Health for treatment of serious injuries. Officials dont give the age of the passenger. The UTV sustained about $2,000 in damage. Sioux Center Police Department, Sioux Center Fire Department, and Sioux Center Ambulance assisted the sheriffs office. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to SiouxlandProud | Sioux City, IA | News, Weather, and Sports. People hang a giant Israeli flag from the roof of a damaged building in Kiryat Bialik, following a reported strike by the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement. Ilia Yefimovich/dpa Hezbollah militants in Lebanon fired rockets at the Israeli city of Tiberias and other towns on the Sea of Galilee, causing one injury, the Israeli military reported on Friday. According to the army, most of the 10 missiles were intercepted. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia confirmed the attack, during which a man was struck by falling debris. Four drones approaching from Lebanon were also claimed to have been shot down near the border town of Rosh HaNikra on the Mediterranean Sea. The port city of Haifa had previously been attacked with missiles, drawing retaliatory Israeli airstrikes on the launch sites and dozens of other Hezbollah targets, officials said. Hezbollah has fired at Israel almost daily since the start of the Gaza war almost a year ago, ostensibly in support of the Palestinian militant organization Hamas as it fights Israeli forces in the coastal strip, and to help achieve a ceasefire. For months, Israel fired back on a similar scale. However, the country has massively stepped up its airstrikes in Lebanon this week, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people. One in three teens have no access to period products, shocking poverty study finds One in three teens have no access to period products, shocking poverty study finds Teens are increasingly struggling to afford and gain access to period products such as pads and tampons. According to a study from the Childrens National Hospital in Washington DC, the concept of period poverty, or the lack of access to period products and general education regarding the menstrual cycle, affects young women of all races, ethnicities, and health insurance backgrounds equally. Youth who are living in neighborhoods with high opportunity had similar rates of experiencing menstrual inequity as those living in areas or neighborhoods that were underresourced, the studys co-author Meleah Boyle, a staff scientist at Childrens National said in an interview with NBC News. This is impacting everyone. The study is scheduled to be presented on Saturday, September 28, at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics in Orlando, Florida. The findings are based on 1,816 people between the ages of 13 and 21, who came into the emergency room at Childrens National from mid-January 2024 through the end of June and were asked if they used rags or tissues at any point during their period in the last year or did not have the money to buy pads and tampons. A total of 32.9 per cent of people between the ages of 13 and 21 reported using tissues and rags for their period or not being able to afford sanitary products (Getty Images) Using products that have either already been used or other unhygienic products such as rags can create a greater risk of bacterial infections in both the vagina and urinary tract. If the people surveyed said yes, they were considered to be in the category of experiencing period poverty. Out of the original 1,816 people, 597 of them were experiencing period poverty which is 32.9 per cent. The 597 people did not include people who were surprised with their period possibly starting late or early and needed to use something immediately. In an interview with NBC News, Dr Shelby Davies, an attending physician in the adolescent medicine division at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia who was not involved in the study, explained that the numbers in their study do not align with previous research shes seen. At first I heard one in five, then I heard one in four, and now were hearing one in three, she told the outlet. However, she thought there might be an explanation for the higher number that doesnt require more young women to be without access to period products. What it could indicate is that we as a society are talking about it more, Davies said. I think the early numbers might have been skewed just based on what people felt comfortable talking about. We were likely underrepresenting the issue. Davies suggested various questions that pediatricians can ask their patients to gauge whether or not they are experiencing period poverty themselves instead of the usual, When was your last period? What are you using to manage your periods? Are you able to access tampons or pads? What barriers do you have? and Do you feel in control of your periods? were alternative questions. The studys goal is to keep pediatricians aware of the issue and push for more widely available period products. Womens health in general has been deprioritized, said Dr Monika Goyal, a pediatric emergency medicine specialist and co-director of the Center for Translational Research at Childrens National. Just like toilet paper is readily available in all restrooms, wed love to see improved access to free menstrual products everywhere. Voting booths at a vote center in Dona Ana County, New Mexico. (Danielle Prokop/Source NM) Ive been a Republican since 1972 when I was South Dakota Teen Age Republican secretary. As an adult, I was elected four times to the South Dakota House of Representatives. I was the assistant majority Leader of the Republican Caucus. And, I support Amendment H open primaries in South Dakota. Amendment H is simple instead of separate primary elections based on politics, there would be one single primary for all voters. All candidates on one ballot. All voters allowed to vote. The two candidates with the most votes would advance to the general election, where all voters will decide who gets elected. Five key arguments in favor of Amendment H: Everyone should get to vote The most fundamental principle of democracy is one person, one vote. Every citizen is treated equally. Yet, in South Dakota, all citizens are not treated equally in the primary election. Independents are allowed to vote in the Democratic primary, but not the Republican primary. Republicans and Democrats dont vote if all candidates are from the other party. Tens of thousands of citizens are denied the right to vote in these elections. Amendment H guarantees that all voters get to vote. Its true democracy in action. People, not political parties, should control our elections Political parties do not appear in the U.S. Constitution. They are not part of our government or our democracy. Political parties are special interest groups just like a labor union, a political action committee, or a professional association. Forcing voters to join a political party in order to vote in an election is more like Russia or China than a democracy. We are a right to work state we dont have to join a union to work. We should be a right to vote state we shouldnt have to join a political party to vote. Amendment H allows everyone to vote for any candidate in the primary election regardless of political affiliation. Political party status will not control if you can vote or for whom you can vote. Tax dollars should not be used for partisan politics When a political party endorses one person in an election or chooses delegates for its convention, that is political business. Just like a labor union, the chamber of commerce, or private corporations electing their leadership. Tax dollars should not be used to do political work. In South Dakota, the tax-funded primary election is being used by political parties to conduct private business. Amendment H guarantees that all voters will be able to participate equally in our taxpayer-funded primary. No special status for some voters because of their political registration. Political parties can still endorse candidates, campaign, and select convention delegates. But, theyll have to do it with their own money not with tax dollars. All voters should have a choice In communist countries, voters often have only one candidate from which to choose. This no choice election happens in South Dakota, too. It is not uncommon for all candidates running for office to be of the same political party. When that happens, those candidates only appear on the primary ballot where only some citizens can vote. Frequently, the winner of the political primary is then automatically elected. Many of our elected officials are being chosen by some, not all, voters. Amendment H provides for the top two candidates to be on the November ballot, even if they are from the same political party. Your favorite candidate might get eliminated in the primary. But, you will still have a choice in November as to who will represent you. Elected officials should be elected by a majority of voters South Dakota law allows more than two candidates on the November ballot Republicans, Democrats, third-party candidates, and independents. If three or more candidates are running for office, the person with the most votes not a majority of voters gets elected. An elected official can be opposed by a majority of voters and still get elected. Amendment H provides that only the top two candidates face off in the November election. So, a majority of voters will have to agree on who gets elected. All elected officials will have to receive more than half the final votes. Majority rule a cornerstone of democracy. Conclusion Amendment H will change our election process in South Dakota for the better. Political parties will be influential, but not in control. All voters will have equal opportunities to be heard in the electoral process. Competition among candidates will be greater, and that will lead to elected officials representing all the voters equally. Only in a Democracy does the process voting and participating matter more than the outcome who wins. For a democracy to work, everyone must be able to participate. Amendment H guarantees that. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Im Brian Gordon, tech reporter for The News & Observer, and this is Open Source, a weekly newsletter on business, labor and technology in North Carolina. Will a mammoth fulfillment center in Garner, North Carolina, be the second Amazon facility in the country to unionize? Were one step closer to finding out as the independent organizing group Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment, or C.A.U.S.E., has begun collecting union authorization cards from workers at the warehouse named RDU1. At least 30% of employees must sign these cards before the National Labor Relations Board will schedule an election, though logically, unions generally want more than half of employees to sign before moving forward. Cards are valid for one year, so the clock at RDU1 has started. Itll be a big operation. RDU1 is massive, with employee estimates between 3,500 and 6,000. And staff turnover is high, complicating outreach efforts. Throw in the track record of other Amazon unionization efforts, and its definitively an uphill battle. Amazon has also fought against the Garner campaign, holding anti-union informational meetings and posting a message on its facility video board that tells workers, You have no obligation to speak to any group or representative of a group, including a union representative. An adjacent image shows a finger declining a call on a phone screen. In a recording of an Amazon informational union meeting at RDU1, posted on X and shared with The News & Observer, a man in a yellow safety vest tells a small room of employees that an authorization card is a legally enforceable document that will be provided to the government. A message at Amazons RDU1 warehouse in Garner, North Carolina informs employees they dont have to speak with union representatives. Union authorization cards ask for personal information from you which can then be used by a union in lots of different ways to contact you, he says. The group may even share your information with other outside groups. The screen behind the speaker lists additional consequences of signing cards. Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards said employee attendance at these meetings is optional (though employers can legally mandate attendance as well). In a separate email, she shared the companys overall stance toward its workers unionizing, writing, The fact is, Amazon already offers what many unions are requesting: competitive pay, health benefits on day one, and opportunities for career growth. Anti-union sessions tend to have their intended effect, according to Jeff Hirsch, a professor of labor law at UNC-Chapel Hill. Usually theres a payoff for employers, he said. As a result, Hirsch notes unions typically want well above 50% of workers to sign authorization cards before requesting an election. Signing cards doesnt obligate employees to support the union, and some enthusiasm may erode as Amazon (or any employer) pushes against it. Open Source Newsletter Logo Informational meetings arent the only step Amazon has taken (or been accused of taking) to reduce union support. Union advocates have branded the company a major union buster, as the nations second-largest private employer faced 240 open or settled unfair labor practice charges at the end of 2023, according to the National Labor Relations Board, including accusations of illegal behavior around union elections. In February, Amazon argued the NLRB is unconstitutional. On Wednesday, C.A.U.S.E held a press conference across the street from the immense 2 million-square-foot Garner warehouse. As organizers passed out leaflets to passing drivers, union leaders expounded on their demands for $30-an-hour minimum starting wages and a full hour of paid break during 10-plus-hour shifts. How can we work 10 hours a day and still not make enough money to get by? said Mary Hill, one of the two RDU1 employees who formed C.A.U.S.E. in January 2022. At this point next year, we should have a clearer sense of the RDU1 union campaigns viability. The union has collected authorization cards since Labor Day. But Amazon has been warding off unions for longer. Clearing my cache Bless you! In a few years, the cold and flu medication Mucinex will be manufactured about an hours drive east of Raleigh. Thats if all goes according to the plans announced this week for a new 290-worker pharmaceutical facility in the city of Wilson. The German tech conglomerate Siemens cut the ribbon this week on a $36 million addition to its facility in Wendell . The campus serves as the headquarters for Siemens U.S. electrification and automation operations and currently employs just shy of 800 workers. American Underground, downtown Durhams first coworking space, has partnered with Fidelity to launch a new accelerator program. Fifteen tech-centered startups were selected for the fellowship, which will include 10 weeks of workshops and mentorship sessions culminating in an opportunity to present their companies to investors. The inaugural fellowship class includes: BabyBumps An application intended to autonomously connect parents and surrogates. Unplex This payment system enables Venmo-like transactions over WhatsApp (Venmo currently only functions in the United States.) Gridspot With its digital platform, the startup aims to increase access to electric vehicle chargers. American Underground in downtown Durham. National Tech Happenings At the White House a few weeks back, the ChatGPT creator OpenAI lobbied the Biden administration for the U.S. to build enormous new data centers. Bloomberg reported the centers OpenAI seeks would be 5-gigawatts, which is sufficient to power close to 3 million homes. The company reasoned such massive facilities are needed to advance artificial intelligence models and keep pace with China. Significantly smaller data centers are already proliferating across the country, with North Carolina no exception. According to Data Center Map, there are 63 centers in the state. While this isnt an official count, the same database showed North Carolina only having 29 data centers in October 2014. Theres much to discuss about data centers, especially in the age of AI. I hope to dive into it soon. Did Google just pay $2.7 billion to bring back a top AI visionary? In a sense, yes. The search giant spent this hefty sum to license the chatbot service Character AI, and in doing so, Google is able to rehire Character AIs CEO Noam Shazeer, a Duke University graduate who some consider an AI genius. Meta introduced its new Orion smart glasses, which can impose augmented reality onto what users naturally see. The worlds first 3D-printed hotel is being erected in the small artsy hub of Marfa, Texas. Thanks for reading! Enjoy Triangle tech news? Subscribe to Open Source, The News & Observer's weekly newsletter, and look for it in your inbox every Friday morning. Sign up here. Operation Penguin wraps up with a celebration at the Peoria Civic Center PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) After a long day visiting several Peoria-area military sites, local veterans were given a homecoming at the Civic Center. Operation Penguin gave veterans a chance to still experience what the Greater Peoria Honor Flight is like, without getting on a plane. Bagpipes played, and veterans shook hands with people as they shuffled through the crowd. For Calum MacRitchie, a Vietnam War vet, it gave him a sense of closure. He reflected on the negative attitudes that many Americans felt toward the military in the 1970s. It gives us a welcome home that we never got. To me, thats what makes it so important. Every Vietnam veteran deserves a welcome home that they never got, he said. Eric Thurman served in the Navy from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, fighting in conflicts like the Gulf War in 1991. He said the day was a good time, getting to connect with fellow veterans and hearing numerous stories, along with visiting several memorials. Thurman appreciates when people thank him for his service, but events like these actually show that appreciation. This signifies that these people really do care about their service and what theyve done and what theyve been through, he said. Before ending up at the Civic Center, veterans visited a myriad of sites, including the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall now displayed in East Peoria. Army Veteran Dianna Adams is wheelchair-bound, and said she enjoyed being able to still get a glimpse of what the Greater Peoria Honor Flight is like. For people who cant walk well, cant stand up for long periods of time, anybody with ambulatory problems or dont want to go on a plane or cant go on a plane, its nice, she said. Korean War veteran Marshall Lipkin also appreciated the event, saying it made him have a newfound appreciation for his fellow veterans. Thats what I learned and what I took from this particular trip. How many people fought and died so that we have the freedoms that we enjoy, 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 CIProud.com. Donald Trump told Fox Newss Sean Hannity last year that he wouldnt be a dictator except on Day One. On that first day back in office, he said, I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill. It was clear what he meant and he even added, After that, Im not a dictator but liberals across the country at least feigned outrage over such authoritarian comments. They conveniently ignore the whirling dervish nature of Joe Bidens early White House days. Biden, of course, unilaterally canceled the Keystone Pipeline; dictated masks be worn on federal property (and on planes and trains); moved to rejoin the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Accords; froze student debt collections; set stricter emissions limits for vehicles; suspended oil drilling leasing on federal lands; terminated Trumps 1776 Commission; revoked Trumps efforts to exclude illegal immigrants from the U.S. Census; reinforced the protections for illegal migrants brought to the U.S. as children; abolished the ban on travel to the U.S. from (at that point) 11 countries with serious terrorism problems (the so-called Muslim ban); paused deportations of people in the U.S. illegally; stopped building the border wall; banned workplace discrimination against gay, lesbian and transgender employees; restored collective bargaining power and workplace protections for federal workers; undid Trumps regulatory approval process; and approved a whole slew of measures addressing the COVID pandemic. This day of unilateral power was of course celebrated by the media, which cheered Bidens efforts to undo pretty much everything his predecessor had done, including closing our southern border. So if Trump is reelected, what should be his top priorities for his first 100 days? Here are 10 of them: Trump wants to enact many outside-the-box ideas that could make our country work again. Lets hope he gets the chance. Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim and Company. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Turkish ambassador to Azerbaijan commemorates September 27 - Remembrance Day, Azernews reports, citing the post shared by ambassador Cahit Baghci on his official "X" account. "We pay deep respect to the cherished memory of all the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of brotherly Azerbaijan!" the post reads. The indictment and arraignment of New York Mayor Eric Adams cloud the unusual pre-appointment of Melissa Aviles-Ramos as city schools chancellor. Should she take office, as planned, on Jan. 1, Aviles-Ramos will succeed David Banks, for whom she served as chief of staff before becoming deputy chancellor for family engagement and community engagement. While urban school districts like Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston have moved away from various forms of mayor-dominant governance, New York is a notable exception. Not only does the mayor appoint the schools chancellor and a majority of central school board members, he (mayors, so far, have all been male) controls the Department of Education budget and negotiates all union contracts. Through the chancellor, the mayor also appoints all 38 local district superintendents and approximately 1,700 principals. Through the years, Democratic and Republican mayors, affirmed by bipartisan support in Albany, have supported this hegemonic model. But none have championed City Hall control like Adams. Former Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio appointed trusted lieutenants with broad discretion to lead the schools, leaving policy and operations largely in their hands. There was obviously robust communication between City Hall and DOE headquarters in the old Tweed Courthouse, but under chancellors like Joel Klein and Carmen Farina, policy ideas flowed as much from Tweed as to it. Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Adams changed that. In appointing Banks a longtime political partner to the chancellorship, Adams promoted a strong Science of Reading curriculum and a signature dyslexia screening program. Banks, whose only experience was in high school teaching and administration, was a strong figurehead for this movement but not its instigator. A ballyhooed Pathways career-preparation initiative was lifted from the Bloomberg playbook and, until her recent departure, was run by an ex-Bloomberg Philanthropies executive. New programs in special education and recent organizational restructuring appear to have arisen from within the DOE. But now, amid a federal corruption investigation into Adamss campaign contributions, Banks has announced he will step down at the end of the year. Related Federal Agents Seize Phones of NYC Schools Chancellor David Banks & His Brothers With the appointment of Aviles-Ramos, which Adams announced just hours before he was indicted on Sept. 25, the mayors dominance in educational policy is even more pronounced. Instead of the usual promises of change, Aviles-Ramos initial comments were not only effusive in gratitude to Adams and Banks, but committed to stability and continuing the work that began under [Bankss] tenure. While this reassurance is important under the circumstances of an administration under broad legal attack, it is also unusual. Generally, new school superintendents arrive with the glow of change and new possibilities, promising a new agenda rather than continuity. Its in their leadership blood and an astute political move to not be associated with shortcomings of a predecessor, even within the context of pre-existing appointive authority of a school board or mayor. But the promise of continuity is a double-edged sword for parents and students attending New Yorks public schools. Confidence is a major issue. Investigations are swirling around the administration, including reported suggestions of contract malfeasance against Banks whose home was raided and electronic devices seized by federal officials. Banks has denied any wrongdoing. Having served as Bankss chief of staff, Aviles-Ramos is justifiably seen as part of a tainted leadership. What did she know and when did she know it? is a fair question. At a moment when parents are reluctant to force the issue of student attendance (chronic absenteeism rates hover above 35%), feeling that the schools are mired in corruption is hardly an incentive to send your kids to school. Parents will be seeking a leader, not a puppet, and it remains to be seen if Aviles-Ramos can deliver on that desire. Related Amid Federal Investigations, NYC Schools Chancellor Banks Says He Will Retire On the other hand, its refreshing to have an incoming chancellor with a deep knowledge of the school system. Aviles-Ramos, a Spanish-speaking Latina, has been a New York City public school student, teacher, principal, acting superintendent and senior executive, mostly in the Bronx. She ran the systems response to the recent influx of migrant students. New York is the nations largest school district, with almost 1 million students, and more than twice the size of Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest. By promoting a native New Yorker from within, instead of following the common strategy of bringing in a distinguished outsider, and providing her with a three-month on-ramp, Adams gives the new chancellor credibility on the promise of stability. Parents and teachers may rejoice in knowing that the reading and math curricula established under Banks will continue. While they may not all love the substance of these reforms, nothing drives those who inhabit actual classrooms crazier than sudden policy shifts driven by those at the top. Even more than is usually the case, the new chancellors success will depend a lot on matters outside her control. But her ascent is a test of a different national paradigm for an urban superintendent: promoting centralization over decentralization, continuity over change, insider over outsider. And, in this hour of crisis, Eric Adams has sought to bring a novel spirit to American urban education: calm. Perhaps Melissa Aviles-Ramos is the woman to do that job. The Hill recently published an essay by Chancellor Andrew Martin of Washington University in St. Louis, where I am a faculty member. I agree with Martins thesis while interpreting it entirely differently. After last academic years season of protest against the genocide in Gaza, this year must be different. We disagree on how it must be different, because the chancellor feels that student protests should be even more tightly restrained than last years violently subdued protests. Oddly, this sentiment rebuts Martins own reputation as a free speech absolutist, with which he arrived at Wash U. Were not bound by the First Amendment, unlike a public university, he told our school newspaper, but I think that the right policy is for us to behave as if we are. The context was his decision as a dean at University of Michigan to host the infamous white nationalist Richard Spencer. Martin doubled down when he required all Wash U freshmen to read a book by former ACLU head Nadine Strossen that argues that legal cases like a New York courts 1961 decision to allow a Nazi rally are essential for democracy. But those precedents didnt stop him from taking an action he omits from his essay. In April, he ordered the arrest of over 100 people on the campus for a student-led nonviolent protest in solidarity with Palestine, including Wash U students, alumni, faculty from multiple universities and Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. A strange paradox: in his freshman year, my former student Caleb Hughes was required by Martin to read a book insisting that free society tolerates Nazi protests. A year after Caleb graduated, Martin had him arrested for pro-Palestinian protest. Because that protest showed no evidence of violence or vandalism, the mass arrest was widely criticized by newspapers, civil rights organizations and politicians across the St. Louis area, and by Wash U faculty and alumni. The arrests caused the hospitalization of a professor from a nearby university; the banning from campus of the president of the St. Louis Board of Alderman; and the suspension and banning of multiple Wash U faculty and students, many of whom were scheduled to graduate. The historically passive Wash U faculty rallied the Faculty Senate to intervene in the administrations disciplinary response, but the Board of Trustees summarily rebuffed the bid. Martin called in his essay for universities to model active listening in difficult times. He didnt specify who talks and who listens. That lack of specificity represents a national trend. Over the summer, university administrations revised expressive speech policies at over 100 campuses with restrictions so broad they could foreclose most forms of protest. Theyve demanded protests be registered in advance, limited hours when protests may occur, banned megaphones and restricted flyers and signage. Administrators like Martin typically rationalize these contradictions of their professed values through strategically vague abstraction. Having long decried undergrads for anti-speech illiberalism, they now discover abundant boundaries on expressive speech. Free expression is foundational to education, Martin writes, but has limitsBehavior or speech that threatens, intimidates, harasses, discriminates or unreasonably disrupts teaching and learning cannot be tolerated. Fair enough. But how do we define threaten, disrupt and reasonable? Laws invoking such terms offer definitional criteria nowhere to be found in Wash Us and other schools conduct codes. And who decides if these criteria were met? At campuses across the country, administrators and trustees will deliberate behind closed doors and pronounce from on high what speech does or doesnt violate invisible criteria of offense. Consider the two justifications that Martin offers for suppressing free speech. First, he singles out encampments as uniquely disruptive forms of protest. But from Revolutionary Boston to MLKs lunch counter sit-ins to the Berkeley Free Speech Movement (where campus activism was born), the occupation of public space has been a cornerstone of American social movements. This is presumably why Martin himself previously allowed a protest encampment advocating for a living wage for campus employees at Wash U, even meeting with the campers. Why was that encampment acceptable when the pro-Palestinian one wasnt? Second, the chancellor insists that protests cannot instill fear. But how do we decide if something inherent to the protest instills fear? Wash U administrators have provided no examples of threatening behavior from protesters, instead citing 911 calls from bystanders terrified by loud chanting. By this standard, surely someone has expressed fear at any protest ever worth the name. Whats more, this argument that the sole criteria of a speech acts threat is whether a listener feels threatened is the exact doctrine that Strossen and similar campus free speech advocates identify as the greatest threat to free expression. Martin appeared to agree when telling Michigan students terrified of a white nationalist guest speaker that they were in no danger. Why isnt a Richard Spencer speech a threat when a pro-Palestine chant is? These contradictory standards display what activists call the Palestine exception. Self-declared defenders of free speech suppressed protests against the slaughter in Gaza because of ideological content, and in this respect Wash U joins its peer institutions. But the Palestinian cause wont be the only example of such hypocrisy. Many university administrations decided last year that calling the police is effective PR management. If that goes uncorrected, expect more causes to join Gaza on the roster of implicitly forbidden subjects. The emergent doctrine of American universities is free speech for me but not for thee. Let this year be different indeed. Michael OBryan is a senior lecturer in the English Department at Washington University in St. Louis. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Democracy, California Gov. Gavin Newsom warns, is on the brink. The culprit? A wave of disinformation powered by generative AI, poised to pollute our information ecosystems like never before. With the 2024 election looming, Newsom and California Democrats argue that artificial intelligence-generated content threatens to warp public perception. In response, the Golden State has swiftly enacted two bold new laws designed to stem the tide of deceptive content spreading across the internet. These laws not only likely violate the First Amendment, which protects even false political speech, but they are also rooted in exaggerated fears of AI disinformation. An obviously deepfaked video of Vice President Kamala Harris, widely shared by Elon Musk, prompted Newsoms push to regulate online discourse, but, of course, these laws will also ban the many parody AI videos of Donald Trump. To be sure, disinformation, deepfakes and propaganda can spread and have real-life effects. But as researchers have pointed out mostly to deaf ears the extent and impact of disinformation are, thus far, typically much smaller than the alarmist scenarios assume. And a recent study by MIT researchers found that humans can frequently discern deepfakes with both audio and visual cues. Thats why widely shared deepfakes of Harris or Trump failed to convince anyone they were real. Also, a closer look at 2024 elections around the world demonstrates how fears of AI deepfakes have largely been overblown. Before this summers European parliamentary elections, headline after headline sounded the alarm that AI could supercharge disinformation and put the future of democracy at stake. A perfect storm of Russian propaganda and artificial intelligence threatened to drown the integrity of an election with 373 million eligible voters in 27 countries in disinformation and deepfakes. That message was echoed by think tanks, researchers and European Union leaders ahead of the June election. Vera Jourova, the European Commission vice president for values and transparency, said AI deepfakes of politicians could create an atomic bomb ... to change the course of voter preferences. In response, the European Commission sent alerts to social media platforms and set up crisis units expecting to deal with efforts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the elections outcome for weeks after the vote. So what happened? Despite active disinformation networks on social media platforms, the E.U.-funded and often alarmist European Digital Media Observatory identified no major disinformation-related incident or any deluge of deepfakes. In the U.K. elections, British fact-checking group FullFact told Politico, There hasnt been a [deepfake] which has just dominated a day of the actual election campaign. What about the rest of the world? Elections have taken place in many countries, some with less resilient democratic institutions and more vulnerable election procedures than European democracies. A Washington Post article highlighted Indias 2024 elections as a preview of how AI is transforming democracy. Despite being awash in deepfakes, researchers found, AI had little impact, instead proving a net positive by connecting voters. In Pakistan and Indonesia, observers reported minimal disinformation, with viral fake news fact-checked on social media. A coalition of civil society groups and government agencies in Taiwan ensured transparency and crowdsourced fact-checking, mitigating Chinas interference attempts. It should be a positive story that democracies around the world, to this point, have a higher degree of resilience than many feared. More importantly, these election results demonstrate that a critical mass of voters can think for themselves and dont slavishly fall for lies, propaganda and nonsense, even when slickly produced with cutting-edge technology. As the 2024 U.S. election approaches, we should be vigilant but resist the urge to sacrifice free speech in the name of fighting disinformation. Our democracy is more resilient than fearmongers suggest. Californias two new laws, on the other hand, are panic-driven and counterproductive, and they open the door to state-sanctioned censorship of lawful speech. A.B. 2839 prohibits the use of AI deepfakes about political candidates, while A.B. 2655 requires large platforms to block deceptive content about politicians, respond to every public complaint within 36 hours and remove substantially similar content. Both laws will chill political speech, infringe on Californians ability to criticize politicians, undermine platforms rights to moderate content and even prevent people from highlighting deceptive content as fake. While A.B. 2839 exempts political satire and parody, it requires those responsible to include disclosures that the materially deceptive content isnt real, which will surely undermine the impact of these messages if commentators must declare that they are just joking. We would also be wise to remember that the very politicians who generate headlines about AI disinformation and insist that they should be trusted to define this nebulous concept are frequently the sources of political misinformation. Instead of succumbing to elite panic, we should face the challenge of disinformation while heeding the words of former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who said, Our constitutional tradition stands against the idea that we need Oceanias Ministry of Truth. In defending free speech, we must avoid granting the government unprecedented powers to decide what truth is, recognizing that the greatest threat to democracy often comes from those who claim to protect it. (Disclosure: The Future of Free Speech is a nonpartisan think tank in joint partnership with Vanderbilt University and Denmark-based Justitia. It has received limited financial support from Google for specific projects not related to the subject of this piece. In all cases, The Future of Free Speech retains full independence and final authority for its work.) This article was originally published on MSNBC.com The Trump campaign, and its allies through Project 2025, have proposed more than 200 proposals to choke off immigration in a second Trump term. In contrast, Vice President Harriss campaign has offered few substantive ideas, although the Democratic platform lays out more details. Immigration and the border crisis remain a top concern for Americans. If Harris is elected, her top priority must be reducing border chaos, which is eroding public support for immigration, endangering migrants and clogging up our bloated legal immigration bureaucracy. A Trump presidency would bring unprecedented border crackdowns, nationwide mass deportations and the sabotage of the legal immigration system. Harris must reject such extremism, but she also must stand against progressives on her side of the aisle who refuse to compromise on asylum. The consensus from the American people is clear: Make illegal immigration harder and legal immigration easier. Harriss task is to pass a historic border security bill, resolve the crisis, and revive a bipartisan consensus through pragmatic migration control and streamlined skilled immigration that works in service of the American people. In her keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention, Harris referenced the Lankford-Murphy border compromise bill, stating, As president, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that he [Donald Trump] killed, and I will sign it into law. She must fulfill this promise, and immigration advocates should demand a bill that changes the law, limits asylum eligibility, boosts resources and fixes the issue. Opposing such a bill only weakens their cause. We need strong and secure borders, an orderly process, the rejection of invalid asylum claims and the deportation of criminals. This legislation is key to restoring public confidence in immigration as a benefit to the American way of life. Only Congress can act decisively on the border, and its continued failure to do so risks jeopardizing immigration as a central pillar of our nation. By addressing border security, Harris, congressional Democrats and moderate Republicans can neutralize a politically charged issue and prioritize the public good over partisan politics. If the border crisis persists, long-term public support for immigration is at risk. Most Americans oppose open borders and chaotic, unregulated asylum. While they support immigration, they reject large-scale illegal crossings. Failure to secure the border empowers immigration restrictionists, plays into the hands of extremists and harms the pro-immigration movements image. The truth is, very few Americans back the open-borders approach advocated by asylum hard-liners. The border is the top immigration issue, but policy extends beyond asylum. Trumps advisors have drafted new executive orders and policy memos to dismantle legal immigration in a second term. That thinking reflects extremist views, not sound public policy. Harris can pursue reforms to streamline legal immigration, serving U.S. interests and fostering a bipartisan consensus. She can restore public trust and deliver benefits for both immigrants and Americans. After she negotiates a border bill, we recommend four key administrative proposals. First, Harris should administratively recapture all legally available green cards. Accumulated administrative errors have left hundreds of thousands of unused green card slots that Congress has authorized available for recapture. Recapturing unused green cards and preventing green cards from going unused in the future would help allot the visas Congress intended while generating many billions of dollars of economic activity and billions in net revenue streams. Second, a Harris administration should offer H-2B, H-2A, and J-1 visa referrals at Safe Mobility Offices. The U.S. should offer work visas at these offices for eligible applicants. We must begin soliciting and translating the labor skills of all applicants for opportunities for potential employers to review, and we need to significantly expand the use of CBP One to capture more information about those attempting to make appointments at the border and the offices. Providing expanded labor pathways is crucial to address domestic labor shortages and meet the needs of economic migrants in the region. Third, Harris can grow the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program to at least 250,000. The administration will resettle 100,000 refugees this year, a 30-year high. There is ample processing capacity for the U.S. to welcome significantly more refugees. The Harris administration should also scale the Welcome Corps, Welcome Corps on Campus and Welcome Corps at Work programs to better leverage the private sector. Finally, Harris can expand the J-1 au pair program. The U.S. is currently grappling with a care crisis for our seniors. To alleviate this, a potential Harris administration can expand the J-1 au pair program to encompass senior care. Such a regulatory adjustment could help reduce the burden on caregivers and reduce the cost of care. A few other administrative proposals also deserve attention, such as updating the Schedule A list, finalizing the H-1B rule, expanding the J-1 skills list, scaling the domestic visa revalidation pilot program, offering work authorization to O-3 visa holders, and making health care degrees in nursing and medicine eligible for the STEM OPT extension. These are the type of wonky, technical fixes that dont make headlines but move our immigration system forward in a modern and nimble way. Immigrants strengthen America, but our immigration system must align with national interests by enhancing what benefits the U.S. and reducing what doesnt. By leveraging immigration policy to advance domestic and foreign policy goals, Harris can help rebuild the consensus our country urgently needs on this issue. A Harris presidency must limit border chaos, streamline skilled immigration, and move to revive a bipartisan consensus on the issue. Championing a pragmatic approach to the border and security coupled with an innovative and fresh approach to broader reforms offers the best opportunity for changes we have seen in decades. Kristie De Pena is senior vice president for policy at the Niskanen Center and Matthew La Corte is deputy director of immigration policy at the Niskanen Center. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Opinion - Israel is losing, but can win if it adjusts its goals International politics is the art of the possible. In that light, Israels problem is that it cannot reach the war aims it has set out. It can only win if it narrows its aims, matching ends with means. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government has plainly spelled out what Israel wants to achieve. It wants to recover hostages held by Hamas; secure its borders with Gaza and destroy the Hamas organization. A fourth aim has been added: It wants to create a situation where Israelis forced by Hezbollah bombing to evacuate their homes in northern Israel can return home. Israel is not achieving its war aims against Hamas. So far, it has only obtained a handful of the hostages. Some have been killed. The fate of many is still unknown. Second, Hamas has not been destroyed. The destruction of a terrorist organization is difficult to measure. Some point to leadership decapitation, but the attrition of terrorist leaders seldom brings about these organizations collapse. Factors such as popular support, ideology and organizational structure play bigger roles in deciding these groups fates. When Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, widely assumed by Israel, for example, Yahya Sinwar, the alleged mastermind behind Oct. 7, succeeded Haniyeh. It is not clear what price Hamas paid with Haniyehs death. Another measure used to determine if a terrorist group has been destroyed is if its territorial sphere has been reduced or removed. Israel has failed to deprive Hamas of the territory it governed. Hamas has been battered in Gaza, but it is still a political force to be reckoned with. Unaffiliated Palestinian clans have refused to join in a postwar reconstruction effort for fear of retaliation by Hamas. Third, Israel has not been able to secure its own borders. Although Israel has regained control over some border crossings, the underground infrastructure that allowed Hamas to engage in smuggling weapons and carrying out attacks is still in place. Some argue that peace is not possible if Hamas stays in power. However, overthrowing Hamas will not make Israel safer. Israel has potent incentives to overthrow Hamas, starting with the groups inability to make credible commitments to peace. It may also seem cheaper for Israel to overthrow Hamas than to deter it in the future. These factors overlook the dismal failures of foreign-imposed regime changes. Any post-Hamas governing entity will face a legitimacy problem. A state has a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence within a particular territorial domain. New regimes must satisfy both domestic and international audiences. A post-Hamas regimes proximity to a foreign patron (in this case, Israel), would make it look like a Trojan Horse to its domestic audience, robbing it of the legitimacy needed to govern. Second, foreign-imposed regime changes seldom bring about the changes they were intended to make. Regime change often fails to improve relations between interveners and targets. As with the Taliban in Afghanistan, regime change in Gaza will not eliminate Hamass membership. Hamass members can go into hiding, opportunistically capitalizing on grievances from Palestinian anger over the new governments inefficiency or misbehavior by Israeli settlers. Or they could stir up trouble whenever it suits them or their foreign patrons. In Lebanon, Netanyahu wants to avoid another decade-plus quagmire (a la Menachem Begin) as much as he wants to steer clear of being seen as capitulating or backing down to Hezbollah, like Ehud Barak or Ehud Olmert. Israels military aims toward Hezbollah are narrower than its aims toward Hamas but they may prove to be just as costly. Israel is diverting resources from Gaza to fight Hezbollah. The 98th Division, which had been fighting in Khan Younis, has been redirected to the Lebanese border. Netanyahus government believes it can reach a deal with Hezbollah by increasing the costs of conflict through air strikes and taking out senior commanders. While the Biden administration is extremely concerned about an all-out war, it also believes military pressure could force Hezbollah to back down. Lebanon has now seen its worst day of conflict since the 2006 war, with an estimated 492 killed. Some believe Israeli decision-makers chose to strike pagers and walkie-talkies for fear Hezbollah would discover the hidden explosives. These attacks occurred near-simultaneously with an air assault on Hezbollah targets. These strikes killed Ibrahim Aqil and 15 other leaders of the Radwan Force. On Sunday, Hezbollah fired 100 rockets, 85 of which targeted Haifa. Netanyahu pledged that Hezbollah would get the message, saying, Over the past few days we hit Hezbollah with a string of strikes that it didnt imagine. Netanyahu promised to do whatever it takes to win, while deputy Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem ominously stated that the conflict had entered a new phase. Three variables stand in the way of a deal. First, Hezbollah continues to insist on an end to the fighting in Gaza. While the Biden administration continues to push for a cease-fire-for-hostages deal, a senior administration official conceded, No deal is imminent. Im not sure it ever gets done. Second, Hezbollah would suffer reputational consequences if it gave in to Israels demands. Some argue that strong states face difficulties compelling weaker opponents to change their behaviors. A relatively weaker actor could thus easily cultivate a reputation for debility, inviting further aggression in the future. Third, Netanyahu could face a similar political fate as Olmert if he does not follow through on his threats against Hezbollah. During the 34 Days War, Olmert issued a series of explicit, public threats demanding the Shiite militia return Israeli soldiers captured in an ambush and disarm, or face severe military punishment until it capitulated. Olmert ultimately backed down on his threat. His approval numbers collapsed as a result. Failure to carry out public threats damaged the nations reputation for resolve and revealed a leaders inability to manage foreign and military policy. Israel is not winning the war against Hamas, and it could be headed toward another disaster in Lebanon unless it adjusts its aims. Albert B. Wolf is a postdoctoral global fellow at Habib University in Karachi. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Opinion: As a lawmaker, I traveled across Tennessee to pray with others. Here's what I saw President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 publicly called on the American people to recognize the power and sovereignty of God Almighty and seek his forgiveness. Even as the Civil War ravaged our nation, the 16th president knew we had strayed from the Lord Jesus Christ, and he understood the consequences of our sinful nature. It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness, Lincoln wrote in a proclamation calling for a day of national prayer, humiliation and fasting. More than 160 years later, our prayer remains the same. The need in our nation for Gods mercy and saving power persists. I wanted to pray with people from all of Tennessee's 95 counties Tennessee is a blessed land with beautiful scenery, rich natural resources and a citizenry that is hard-working, passionate and faithful. However, we live in a fallen world where sin, and the social problems that result, abound. Monica Baugh leads a prayer during a vigil for Elois McCormick on Jackson Street in Nashville , Tenn., Thursday, March 17, 2022. Violent crime plagues our nation, fentanyl has flowed through a wide-open southern border, far too many children are in foster care, and human trafficking threatens the safety and security of our most vulnerable Americans. These are some of the leading indicators that God has either removed His hand of blessing from Tennessee or is applying His hand of judgment. Christians understand that we are sinners in need of Gods grace. We have all played a role in the decline of our society through disobedience but He holds those that profess to be His followers accountable. However, the Lord also provides incredible forgiveness to those who seek Him and repent of their wickedness. If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land, the word of God says in 2 Chronicles 7:14. Recognizing this, I sponsored a resolution (HJR 803) commemorating July as a month of prayer and fasting. As part of this effort, I visited each of Tennessees 95 counties to cry out to the Lord Jesus with fellow believers. Senate sponsor Mark Pody, R-Lebanon, and I wanted to offer an opportunity for Tennesseans to gather together to read the resolution and pray for their communities, our state and our nation. More: Tennessee native and astronaut Barry Wilmore gives space update, talks 'the unexpected' Each county has its own community spirit As I stood on Legislative Plaza for the June 28 kick-off event, I had no idea what God had store for this journey throughout our state. From Bradley and Johnson to Lake and Shelby and every county in between, I met fantastic people of all Christian denominations with a heart for the Lord and a sincere desire for Him to mend the great problems afflicting our state and country. I visited between three and five counties per day, witnessing incredible shows of gratitude and reverence for the Almighty. I joined with my fellow citizens, as well as many other members of the Tennessee General Assembly, in falling to my knees asking for repentance and for the Holy Spirit to fill our halls of government, businesses, classrooms, churches and homes. In Robertson County, citizens linked arms around the courthouse, forming a circle of prayer and offering worship to the Lord. At least four continents were represented in Shelby County, and crowds of people in other towns wore custom shirts celebrating the movement of repentance. Christians humbled themselves and honored God, all for His glory and for His hand of continued blessing in our great state. The sight of Tennesseans singing hymns, lifting their hands to the Lord and recognizing Jesus Christ as King in a public setting is something I will never forget. Throughout the month, I discovered that each county has its own unique community spirit with dedicated followers of Jesus who are ready and willing to serve. This experience reaffirmed my belief that through fervent prayer, worship and repentance, God will once again bring revival to our country. I encourage all Tennesseans to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior and to join me in continuing the important task of seeking Gods hand of mercy on our state. State Rep. Monty Fritts State Rep. Monty Fritts, R-Kingston, represents House District 32, which includes part of Loudon and Roane counties. He serves on the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, Criminal Justice Committee, Education Administration Committee, Agriculture and Natural Resources Subcommittee, and the Criminal Justice Subcommittee. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Opinion: As a Tennessee lawmaker, I prayed with people in 95 counties In his first-ever bid for political office, former actor Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California in 1966, defeating two-term incumbent Gov. Pat Brown in a landslide. There was good reason for Democrats to fear that a radical right-winger had taken control of what even then was the nations most populous state. The onetime New Deal Democrat had become a very conservative Republican who often echoed the conspiratorial complaints of the John Birch Society. He regularly warned that social welfare legislation such as Medicare and Medicaid (socialized medicine to Reagan) and civil rights laws were going to lead to the total extinction of freedom in America. In his famous 1964 time for choosing speech delivered on behalf of Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, Reagan complained that Democratic leaders were taking the party of Jefferson, Jackson and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin and Stalin. Yet, once in Sacramento, Reagan upended radical expectations as he would later do as president by showing that he had a hidden streak of pragmatism. He governed much more moderately than he campaigned, and than most of todays deep-blue Californians might believe. His pragmatism, not ideology, set him on the path to a historic presidency. Read more: How California, land of Nixon and Reagan, turned blue and changed American politics Start with Reagans very first budget, in 1967. It included the largest spending plan and the largest tax hike in the history of California or any other state up to that point. Before he ran for governor, he campaigned against the Rumford Fair Housing Act, California legislation backed by Brown that prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. But when conservative legislators tried to repeal the act during Reagans term, he revealed a change of heart, after talking with Black leaders who explained to him how important it was. Another issue on which Reagan changed his mind was tax withholding. He had initially opposed automatic deductions from paychecks on the grounds that taxes should hurt. But once his aides explained to him how much revenue the state was missing by not withholding tax payments, he came to support the deductions. The governor had previously said that his feet were set in concrete on the issue. When questioned about his change of heart, he replied, with a smile, The sound you hear is the concrete cracking around my feet. Read more: Opinion: The ideas in Project 2025? Reagan tried them, and the nation suffered When Reagan became governor, abortion in California was legal only if needed to save the mothers life. Democratic State Sen. Anthony Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) introduced a bill that would also allow abortions in the case of rape or incest or if the pregnancy threatened a womans physical or mental well-being. Reagan agonized about this legislation but ultimately signed it, thereby giving California one of the most liberal abortion laws in the country, six years ahead of Roe vs. Wade. Reagan later expressed regret about signing the abortion bill, as he did about appointing Donald R. Wright as chief justice of the state Supreme Court after Wright voted to overturn the death penalty as unconstitutional. But that he made such moves in the first place shows Reagans relatively non-ideological approach to governance. In rejecting a fiscally conservative plan to reduce state grants to the disabled, for example, Reagan told his Sacramento Cabinet, The politics in this doesnt count whats right and wrong is the main thing. I always say it is right to do what we can for those who are really in need. The one area where Reagan was most ideological and least successful was in his approach to campus unrest. College campuses in California were in turmoil in the 1960s, with protests over the Vietnam War, racial discrimination and other causes. Reagan took a hard-line position that culminated in his dispatch of thousands of National Guard troops to UC Berkeley in 1969 to restore order after the Peoples Park demonstrations, in which one bystander was killed by police and many others injured. During a 1969 strike at San Francisco State University by minority students demanding the creation of a Black studies department, Reagan said, I say that this confrontation must be won, and I dont care what force it takes. Later, in 1970, when asked what it would take to restore order on campus, he snapped, If it takes a bloodbath, lets get it over with. No more appeasement. Read more: Former President Reagan Dies at 93 Reagans militaristic approach thrilled middle-class voters who were appalled by hippies on campus but only ratcheted up tensions and gave student radicals the clashes they sought with the establishment. The Los Angeles Times, which had endorsed Reagan, inveighed against the overreaction by police and National Guardsmen in Berkeley with their indiscriminate use of tear gas and buckshot, arguing that they played into the hands of the revolutionaries by a use of repressive force beyond any order of magnitude required. Democratic Assemblyman John Burton of San Francisco complained that Reagan had turned Berkeley into his own Vietnam and castigated him for trying to use armed force to solve the great social problems of our time. But Reagans hard-line approach to campus unrest was a deviation in his mostly moderate two terms in Sacramento. He worked with Democrats to pass welfare reform legislation that tightened up eligibility requirements while increasing benefits for 80% of recipientsa model of bipartisan compromise. Despite his comment that a tree is a tree, how many more do you need to look at? often remembered, wrongly, as if youve seen one redwood, youve seen them all Reagan added 145,000 acres to the states parks. And, despite his attacks on colleges as hotbeds of lawlessness and licentiousness, he increased funding for the states universities by 136%. State spending, in fact, grew at nearly the same rate under Reagan as it had under Pat Brown. Read more: Review: A worshipful biopic of the 40th president, 'Reagan' is historical hooey and a slog too Some conservatives were disenchanted by Reagan; one Republican state senator griped in 1975, When you come down to it, we have a hell of a lot more government in California than before Reagan came in. But Reagans approval rating was high, and he had bipartisan support. I think he was a pretty good governor, Jerry Brown, Reagans successor as governor (and son of the governor he defeated in 1966), told me. I think in some ways he was a better governor than president. Willie L. Brown, a powerful San Francisco Democrat and future Assembly speaker, who had first been elected to the State Assembly in 1964, agreed in an interview that he ended up being a pretty good governor. Reagans election as president of the United States, nearly six years after leaving office in Sacramento, created fresh fears about a radical right warmonger taking power. Democrats would have breathed easier if they had examined his record as governor of California more closely. Reagans time in Sacramento taught him how to govern from the center and set him on the path toward becoming one of Americas most successful presidents . If only todays Republican leaders were as pragmatic as Reagan; America would be far less divided and far better off. Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Washington Post columnist. This article is adapted from Reagan: His Life and Legend . 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. On Tuesday night, the state of Missouri executed Marcellus Williams. It was a legally sanctioned murder. As the Washington Post put it, he was convicted of a 1998 murder that he said he did not commit. The evidence suggested that Williams should not have met his end this way. Even the St. Louis County Prosecutors Office, which originally secured the death sentence, did not want that sentence carried out. Williamss fate was tangled up in a mess of mistakes and legalisms that obscured what should have been obvious. He died because the people who could and should have prevented his death, each for their own reasons, chose to look the other way. That Williams was executed is an American tragedy, but he is not alone. The American death penalty system has shown itself to be riddled with errors. Miscarriages of justice of the kind that occurred in the Williams case are legion, though the precise number is not known. This is because we dont have a good handle on how many innocent people have been convicted of capital crimes. Law Professor Samuel Gross and his colleagues note that There is no systematic method to determine the accuracy of a criminal conviction; if there were, these errors would not occur in the first place. However, we do know that Since 1973, at least 200 people who had been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the U.S. have been exonerated. That means for every eight executions carried out in the past 50 years, one person has been freed from death row. Beyond that, a 2014, National Academy of Sciences report estimated that at least 4.1 percent of defendants sentenced to death in the United States are innocent that the number of innocent people is likely more than double the number of those actually exonerated and freed from death row. Those who are exonerated are the lucky ones. Others, like Williams, have not been so lucky. The Death Penalty Information Center lists 20 cases in which someone was put to death despite strong evidence of innocence. In addition, the center notes that there are many cases in which someone who was executed was subsequently declared innocent, and sometimes even granted a posthumous pardon. For example, In Maryland in 2001, Governor Paris Glendening issued a pardon to John Snowden, a Black man who had been hanged in 1919 for the rape and murder of the wife of a prominent White businessman. Two key trial witnesses had recanted their testimony and before the hanging, eleven of the twelve jurors had pled for mercy. Or in 2009, when South Carolina pardoned two African-American men, Thomas and Meeks Griffin, who had been electrocuted in 1915 for murdering a white Confederate War veteran. One wonders how soon Williams will join this shocking list of people whose executions we now recognize and acknowledge as shameful mistakes. And we should be troubled by the bloodthirsty quality to Missouris insistence on going forward with an execution so shadowed by legal errors. Though there is no constitutional barrier to executing the innocent, this country would be better served if it adopted a policy wherein executions do not go forward if there exists any doubt about the guilt of the person condemned to death. But we are a long way from that. In the meantime, lets look at who turned their back on Williams in his last days, and who failed to embrace that standard. Lets start with the United States Supreme Court. On Tuesday, the court refused to stop his execution. Given the pro-death-penalty record of the courts current majority, that did not come as a surprise. But the majority didnt even give Williams the courtesy of an explanation for their decision. They let Missouri do the grisly deed in spite of the fact that, as a report on Scotusblog put it, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson indicated that they would have put his execution on hold, and the fact that the victims family did not want Williams executed. In addition, the governor of Missouri, Mike Parson (R), refused to stop the execution. However, unlike the United States Supreme Court, Parson seemed eager to explain why he was content to let it proceed. Capital punishment cases are some of the hardest issues we have to address in the Governors Office, Parson said in denying clemency. Given what Williams was facing, this statement seems a little self-absorbed. After all, his difficulty was nothing in comparison with the suffering that Williams encountered as he contemplated being put to death for a crime he has always maintained he did not commit. Parson went on to say, using a cliche all too familiar among those who want to deny responsibility when they allow someone to be put to death, I follow the law and trust the integrity of our judicial system. The governor then offered a recitation of the facts of Williamss case that ignored both the errors that were made in that case and the fact that the prosecutors office was now owning up to those errors. Mr. Williams, the governor said, has exhausted due process and every judicial avenue, including over 15 hearings attempting to argue his innocence and overturn his conviction. No jury nor court, including at the trial, appellate, and Supreme Court levels, have ever found merit in Mr. Williams innocence claims. Then, following the playbook popularized at the national level by former President Trump and his MAGA followers with whom Parson has frequently found common cause the governor attacked the media. I also want to add how deeply disturbed weve been about how this case has been covered.I would just implore the media to do their due diligence and not rely on the sole claims of individuals who have a personal or monetary stake in this case. Finally, the Missouri Supreme Court bears its share of responsibility for not righting the miscarriage of justice done in the Williams case. In refusing to stop his execution, the court downplayed the significance of the prosecutors confession of error in this case. While prosecutorial misconduct has led to many convictions of innocent people in capital cases, prosecutors rarely, if ever, admit mistakes. That is because, as a 2002 CNN report suggests, of how politics affects the death penalty. Up until now, anyway, undoing a death sentence was akin to political suicide for an elected district attorney or state attorney general, or for any state official with ambitions for re-election or higher office. At the end day, the Missouri Supreme Court seemed more interested in reminding Wesley Bell, the St. Louis County prosecutor since 2019, that it not he had the final word as to the legality of what would happen to Williams. The court wrote that it is not bound by the [States] confession of error and that Bell cannot concede constitutional error. What happened to Williams fits a sad pattern in this countrys use of capital punishment. But increasingly Americans are paying attention to the fate of people like Williams and turning away from the death penalty because of the unfairness and injustice associated with it. Someday, hopefully, we may look back at the tragedy of the Williams case and conclude that his death helped to spur the end of the death penalty in this country. Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College. His views do not necessarily reflect those of Amherst College. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The NYPD is running a protection racket. I know this sounds like some sort of internet conspiracy theory, but its true. Every year, each police officer in New York including retired officers is allowed to buy a certain number of special cards issued by the police union. The officers pay a nominal sum for these cards and then distribute them as they wish. Sometimes they give them to family and friends. Sometimes they exchange them for perks like meal discounts from local businesses. Sometimes they just sell them. These police benevolent association courtesy cards are commonly referred to as Get Out of Jail Free cards. The idea is that when someone who has such a card is pulled over for a traffic violation or approached by the police in New York about some other minor offense, simply showing the card to the officer will get the offender off with nothing worse than a mild warning. This may have been a common, though unheralded, practice decades ago. Certainly, there are any number of rumors and myths from across the country about how things like displaying a certain bumper sticker on your car will keep you from getting pulled over. But in New York, its a living tradition. Worse, its a tradition that is ruthlessly enforced. Officers who insist on issuing tickets or citations to courtesy card holders will hear about it from their superiors and union officials. If they persist in enforcing the law without fear or favor, they can have their careers ruined or find themselves doing patrols on the night shift. How do we know? Because thats exactly what happened to one officer who refused to go along to get along. Assigned to the traffic unit, Officer Mathew Bianchi originally followed his supervisors instruction to honor the cards and let anyone go who presented one during an enforcement stop. Eventually, however, Bianchi eventually began simply enforcing the law and thats where his troubles began. Bianchi was repeatedly scolded by fellow officers and told by his union that the courtesy card system was customary and that it wouldnt protect him unless he honored it. In addition to complaining to his supervisors, he filed formal complaints with his union and with internal affairs. The only action the NYPD took in response was to pull him off the day-shift traffic unit and re-assign him to a night-shift patrol unit. Eventually, Bianchi filed a lawsuit in federal court, which the NYPD agreed to settle for $175,000, blandly claiming that resolving this case was best for all parties. Im sure it was. It was certainly better for the NYPD, as an actual trial would have been embarrassing beyond belief. This practice seems to have been tolerated for no better reason than because it had always been that way. But traditional or not, the courtesy card system is rank corruption. That it is institutionalized corruption makes it worse, not better. Imagine if it came out that district attorneys or judges in New York had a similar system where they refused to prosecute or punish their friends and families. Every single participant in a scheme like that would end up in prison. No one would think its OK for a police officer to solicit bribes in exchange for looking the other way and not enforcing the law. Its even worse when an officer can make a corrupt bargain on behalf of the entire New York Police Department. But that is exactly how the NYPD courtesy card system works. To top it all off, its not even an informal arrangement. The NYPD has internal enforcers that ensure their fellow officers fall into line. One supervisor even asked Bianchi if it was better to be right or better to be on patrol? So weve got both corruption and extortion. The only question is why the Department of Justice has not raided NYPD headquarters at One Police Plaza and arrested every member of the New York Police Department. Well, OK, thats not really realistic. And, to be fair, most officers are relatively passive participants, honoring the system because thats what theyve been trained to do. But just because its impractical to leave New York without a police force doesnt mean something cant be done. The Department of Justice should launch an immediate investigation, with an eye toward obtaining a consent decree forcing the NYPD to eliminate the practice. Justice should let rank-and-file officers know that if they fully cooperate with the investigation, they will not be prosecuted. At the same time, the department should make it clear that it will be prosecuting officers who helped enforce the system, especially if they were responsible for retaliating against officers who tried to do the right thing. But the Department of Justice has to do something. Now that this practice is a matter of public record, Attorney General Merrick Garland is complicit if he does nothing. Nothing is more corrosive to the rule of law than watching the federal government wink at organized corruption. This case should offend everyone, regardless of politics. Ensuring fair, equitable and just policing is a complicated issue with many moving parts. Stopping cops from handing out get-out-of-jail-free cards is not. Chris Truax is a charter member of the Society for the Rule of Law and an appellate attorney. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Opinion: Rutherford County schools are banning books. It's a slap in the face to freedom. The day after the Rutherford County Board of Education voted to remove six books from school libraries, I was on an airplane with a retired library director and proprietors of a longtime local bookstore on the way from Nashville to Denver. We exchanged pleasantries, and I took it as sign because the board of educations actions took place just a few days before the celebration of Banned Books Week, Sept. 22-28. In the last few years, Tennessee law has made it easier for and some politicians have encouraged parents to purge books from school collections that opponents consider objectionable. The problem is that peoples views of what is objectionable can be different, and, regrettably, these requests to ban books have become exercises in erasing tomes that address racism, sexual assault, LGBTQ people and issues, and any other topic that makes some Tennesseans uncomfortable. Worse, some proponents of these laws have employed fearmongering rhetoric falsely accusing librarians of peddling pornography. Nashville-based New York Times columnist Margaret Renkl made a powerful point at the end of her Sept. 23 essay: If you dont approve of a book available at your local library, dont check it out. Parents can object to a book and not seek to censor it for everyone Like Renkl, I too have an I Read Banned Books labeled library card from the Nashville Public Library and an I Read Banned Books poster from NPL that is in the backdrop of my video calls and episodes of the Tennessee Voices video show I host on Tennessean.com. The 2024 Banned Books Week theme is "Freed Between the Lines," an observance of the freedom we find in the pages of books and the need to defend that freedom from censorship, according to the American Library Associations official statement on the event. That poster is below another one saying I Believe in the First Amendment. The First Amendment, of course, prohibits the federal government from making laws infringing upon the freedom of speech, religion, press, to petition government and of assembly. The posters are not meant to be provocative, but rather to convey a values statement about promoting active citizenship in a democratic republic that encourages competing ideas in society. The Tennessee Constitution, Article I, Section 19, says in part: "The free communication of thoughts and opinions, is one of the invaluable rights of man and every citizen may freely speak, write, and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty." The problem is that laws that allow the banishment of books serve the interest of only one viewpoint at the expense of any parent who would like to have the option of letting a child read a particular book. Parents could still ask a school librarian to prohibit their children from checking out certain books, but that would be a family decision, not a top-down, government mandate for all parents. The Nashville Public Library has unveiled a new "I Read Banned Books" library card celebrating the "right to read" in light of efforts to ban certain books in Tennessee. Why the nonprofit behind Little Libraries is tackling banned books, including in Nashville Among the banned books in Rutherford County is Beloved by Nobel Prize winning novelist Toni Morrison. The others are: Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" by Gregory Maguire Middle Tennessee activist takes on national role in freedom to read A point of pride for Tennessee is that one of its own residents is the youth honorary chair of the 2024 Banned Books Week. Julia Garnett, a Hendersonville High School graduate and Smith College student, has been an advocate for free speech and information for years. When the Sumner County School Board considered a proposal to ban A Place Inside of Me by Zetta Elliot in 2022, she fought back and organized the effort to keep the book on the library shelves and then started a free speech club. At a time when leaders in the Republican-dominated Tennessee General Assembly decry a hostile environment toward free speech on college campuses, here is a homegrown example of someone who gets it. Julia Garnett, the founder of her schools new Student Advocates for Speech club poses at the Hendersonville City Hall in Hendersonville, Tenn., Tuesday, March 5, 2024. Garnett told The Tennessean: You don't win every battle, and there are books that are removed, and there are times where it is frustrating to be a student activist, but the important thing is that you continue speaking out and recognize that you aren't alone. Why would Florida book bans target Nashville author Ann Patchett? Censorship runs amok Tennesseans should celebrate citizens like Garnett who are fighting against censorship and for the freedom to read. The famed childrens author Theodor Seuss Geisel aka Dr. Seuss once said: The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places youll go. Take the time to thank your local librarian and then ask him or her for a book recommendation. Books open minds, doors and the opportunity to connect with other community members who are just as passionate about reading. David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee and 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: Opinion: Middle Tennessee school board book purges erode freedom The Department of Defense announced in July that it was permanently removing the temporary pier that it had constructed three months earlier to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. The pier was part of a modular structure that would also incorporate a floating platform to receive supplies transported by four Army logistics ships deployed from Cyprus. President Biden had announced the plan in his State of the Union address, promising that this temporary pier would enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza. The plan was for the pier to operate for three months, during which the administration estimated that the effort would result in enough aid to feed 1.5 million people. But the pier and its associated system functioned for only 20 days. The Pentagon had to interrupt operations three times before deciding to terminate the effort. The operation ultimately supported only 450,000 people and delivered 8,100 metric tons of aid. The Defense Department claimed that, despite its premature termination of the effort, it had nevertheless made a major contribution toward feeding and otherwise aiding the Palestinians of Gaza. In fact, nearly three times as much aid some 22,400 metric tons had entered Gaza through the Erez and Kerem Shalom overland crossings during the same three-month period when the pier was operating. According to Israeli sources, it was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who proposed the project to Biden. His idea was not new; then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman had first proposed a sea-based aid plan for Gaza in 2010. The Agency for International Development, whose Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance was already providing aid via the land routes to Gaza, pushed back against the pier plan when the administration first began considering it. Agency officials pointed out that the land crossings were more efficient, which they ultimately proved to be. Moreover, the agency argued that there were both logistical and technical challenges for the pier, which had never before operated in a conflict environment. Aid officials also worried about the impact of inclement weather in the eastern Mediterranean. The floating platform is meant to function in low sea states, when waves are short or moderately high. Summer winds in the Mediterranean tend to be strong, creating higher wave heights. Nevertheless, once Biden had made his announcement, the Pentagon and the Agency for International Development pressed ahead with the plan. On June 5, a week after the operation had been halted for the first time due to high winds that caused the floating pier to split apart, Defense Department Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh announced a reduction from the originally estimated cost of $320 million for the three-month effort to about $220 million. She asserted that this figure included part of the cost of the repairs. It is not clear, however, just how much of the $22 to $28 million cost to repair the pier was incorporated in her estimate. In any event, it surely did not include the cost of dismantling the pier prematurely. It is not clear whether the Defense Department initially proposed the pier, but it did fund the effort and supplied 1,000 troops and four ships to transport the aid to the floating dock. It constructed the floating pier that would be attached to a temporary causeway. Nevertheless, once the project proved to be what can only be called a misguided failure, the department did not take responsibility for urging that Washington undertake the project in the first place. Perhaps the idea originated with the White House itself rather than the Pentagon. In any event, it was Biden who simply stated, Ive been disappointed that some of the things that Ive put forward have not succeeded as well, like the port we attached from Cyprus I was hopeful that would be more successful. He did not, of course, mention the complete waste of a quarter-billion dollars, as well as of the efforts of the 1,000 American troops who conducted the operation. In retrospect, it is clear that someone at the administrations most senior levels should have personally transmitted to Biden the compelling reservations about the project from the Agency for International Development. No one seems to have done so. There is an understandable reluctance among senior military officials in particular, but also among top civilians, to confront the commander-in-chief once he appears to be determined to follow a course of action. But as former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster convincingly demonstrated in his 1997 study of senior political leaderships failure to advise President Lyndon B. Johnson of the negative consequences of his Vietnam War policy, failure to question a proposed presidential policy is, as the title of his volume indicates, nothing less than a dereliction of duty. All too often, senior officials treat the president as an all-knowing emperor, and fear for their jobs should they have the temerity to challenge him. The lesson of the Gaza pier is that their responsibility is to their country, and indeed to their consciences. By withholding the best advice they can give, they do their commander-in-chief no favors. Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was undersecretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy undersecretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Except for an occasional resounding soundbite, vice presidential debates havent had much impact on presidential elections. Will the faceoff between Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) prove to be any different? The veep debate may not be a decisive, but it could be dramatic. The confrontation could be the last time voters see a confrontation between representatives of the national tickets. Win or lose in 2024, the GOP will need a new champion in 2028. Vance is trying to set himself up as Trumps successor. Moreover, successful presidents make good choices, and the debate will showcase the first consequential choices that Trump and Harris have made as aspiring presidents. The first rule of a vice presidential pick is to do no harm. Like many other choices Trump has made, he struck out swinging on this one. Only Trump could have picked someone as unpopular as Vance. Disgraced Republican North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson must have turned him down. Im sure former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would have jumped at the chance to drag Trump down, as she did John McCain in 2008. A recent national survey for the Associated Press highlights Vances deficiencies as Trumps running mate. There are twice as many voters who dislike as like him. His negatives are even higher than they were in July. Walzs popularity offers a clear and compelling contrast to Vances negatives. Four out of every ten voters nationally have favorable views of the governor, whereas only three in ten hold unfavorable views. Walz comes across as a grandfatherly figure with a folksy charm which plays well in the northern tier swing states, but Vance profiles as the devil in disguise. The battle for voters in the electoral combat zone will be a fight to the finish. Both Walz and Vance were nominated to appeal to voters in the battleground states near Minnesota and Ohio in the Frostbelt. If a recent Marist survey in Michigan is any indication, Trump drew the short stick. A plurality of voters there like the Democratic No. 2, while the a plurality dislike Vance. Trumps choice of Vance compares unfavorably with the former presidents selection of Mike Pence. Vance represents subtraction by addition. There was a clear rationale for the Pence pick, and it paid off in 2016. Trump had a reputation of being a playboy and needed the support of evangelical Christians. Pence, who wouldnt even allow himself to be alone with women other than his wife, was just the right guy. Pences blessing guaranteed the overwhelming support of the religious right. But Pence, to his credit, demonstrated that he had a higher calling than loyalty to Trump. Pence signed off on congressional certification of Joe Bidens Electoral College victory after Trump lost, and it cost him his good standing as a member of Trump-world. Trump wasnt about to make the same mistake twice, so he picked a running mate who would back him, come Hell or high water. Rather than adding anything to the troubled GOP ticket as Pence did in 2016 or as Walz does for the Democrats in 2024, Vance has doubled down on his running mates darkest instincts. The GOP ticket is a match made in hell. Veep candidates should take their cues from the candidate at the top of the ticket. But Vance is the tail that wags Trumps dog. Vance first raised the tall tale of Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating peoples pets. Trump jumped the shark and embarrassed himself and his running mate by parroting the false charge during his frightful debate performance against Harris. Vance had one job, to rally the GOP base, but he has done as much or more to rally the Democratic base of female voters. His old remarks about childless cat ladies could gin up Democratic turnout in what could be a very close contest. Rather than taking his lead from Trump, Vance works at cross purposes with him. The guy at the top of the GOP ticket is trying to frame himself as a protector of women, whereas Vance gratuitously insulted them. Usually, in vice presidential debates, the players act more like surrogates than candidates. Vance will viciously attack Harris with a sledgehammer while Walz, with more finesse, will challenge Trump. We might learn as much or even more about the presidential hopefuls than their seconds. We will also discover a lot about the decisions that Harris and Trump might make as presidents from their running-mate selections. Brad Bannon is a Democratic pollster, CEO of Bannon Communications Research which polls for Democrats, labor unions and progressive issue groups. He hosts the popular progressive podcast on power, politics and policy, Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) Hungary always has and always will defend itself against foreign attacks, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday after one of his closest aides provoked controversy by suggesting that Hungary wouldn't have fought against a Russian invasion as Ukraine has done. Speaking to state radio, Orban sought to downplay the remarks by his political director, Balazs Orban, which stirred outrage among many in Hungary and led to calls for his resignation. Speaking on a podcast on Wednesday, Balazs Orban, who is not related to the prime minister, said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had made an irresponsible decision by opting to militarily defend his country after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Hungary, he said, has learned that precious Hungarian lives must be treated with caution rather than offering them up for defense. Prime Minister Orban called the comment an ambiguous statement, which in this context is a mistake." He emphasized that Hungary has always defended itself, it will defend itself today and will continue to defend itself in the future by all possible means. Since Russias invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Hungary, a NATO member, has taken an adversarial position toward its neighbor, and sought to block, delay or water down European Union efforts to provide financial and military support to Kyiv and to pass sanctions on Moscow over its war. Such efforts have led to accusations from many European leaders that Hungary is acting to divide the EU and advance Russian interests. Balazs Orbans statements angered many in Hungary who saw them as a suggestion that Hungarian fighters in an anti-Soviet uprising in 1956 had made a mistake by resisting Soviet occupation. The uprising was eventually crushed by the Red Army, killing as many as 3,000 civilians and destroying much of the capital Budapest. Every country has the right to decide its own destiny for itself, Balazs Orban said. But based on 56, we wouldnt have done what President Zelenskyy did two and a half years ago, because that was irresponsible. Hungarys Cold War-era uprising looms large in the countrys consciousness as a symbol of its heroic struggle for independence and self determination. Some Hungarians view their governments close ties to Russia today as a betrayal of the 1956 revolutions efforts to force Soviet soldiers out of the country. In response to the criticism, Balazs Orban said in a post on social media Thursday that Hungary's government sees no point to the war in Ukraine, and that hundreds of thousands of people have died ... for nothing. But on Friday, Prime Minister Orban sought to diffuse the tensions by saying Hungary owes a debt of gratitude to the heroes and freedom fighters who took up arms against Soviet oppression in 1956. If a person talks about such delicate issues, then it must be formulated very precisely, leaving no doubt about our position, he said. On Thursday, Hungary's most prominent opposition figure, Peter Magyar, called for Balazs Orbans resignation by Oct. 23, the 68th anniversary of the revolution. Such a man cannot hold public office alongside the Hungarian Prime Minister, Magyar wrote. Orban Says Aide Went Too Far With Hungarian Surrender Remark (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Viktor Orban distanced himself from a top adviser who asserted that Hungary would have surrendered to invading Russian troops if it were in Ukraines position two years ago. Most Read from Bloomberg Balazs Orban, the premiers political director said late Wednesday that Ukraines defense against the invasion was irresponsible and signaled that Hungary, a NATO member, would not have put up a fight, as he cited parallels with the countrys failed 1956 anti-Soviet uprising. He apologized on Friday, after the comments triggered an uproar in Hungary, where the casualties of the revolution are seen as national heroes. The leader of the main opposition party, Peter Magyar, called on the adviser to resign. The prime minister said the comments as they related to Hungary were misleading and suggested Hungary would defend itself just as it did in 1956. At the same time, he didnt indicate whether he agreed with his aide that Ukraine should have surrendered to Russia on day one of the invasion in 2022. My political director happened to say something in a misleading way, which is a mistake, Orban told state radio on Friday. Our political community grew out of 1956 revolution; we would not be here were it not for the heroes of 1956. The remarks by his adviser appeared to take Budapests increasingly Kremlin-friendly stance, which is markedly at odds with NATO and EU allies, even further. Hungary opposes Western sanctions against Russia and has sought to block EU arms shipments and financing for Ukraine. France and Germany sent a demarche to Hungary to protest recent surprising statements undermining the principle of solidarity among Allies. The controversy comes at a time when the Hungarian leader is still reeling from a series of scandals that have dented his partys popularity and helped Magyars rise. A poll this month showed the opposition Tisza party neck-and-neck with Orbans Fidesz. The premier gave no indication of whether hed dismiss his aide. Tensions over the comments may further fuel Magyars momentum ahead of the anniversary of the uprising on Oct. 23, a date that usually accompanies street protests in the country. --With assistance from Mark Sweetman. (Adds advisers apology in third paragraph, French-German diplomatic protest in seventh.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Oregon drivers are among the worst in the nation, Forbes says PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) Oregonians are some of the worst drivers in the United States, according to a new study. The study, released Aug. 21 by Forbes Advisor, analyzed data from every state to determine which has the worst driving behaviors. Overall, Hawaii was ranked number one for the worst drivers ranking high for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, speeding 10-19 miles per hour over the limit, and texting while driving. Neighborhood in Portland is one of the coolest in the world, according to Time Out Meanwhile, Oregon ranked second for the worst driving behaviors. Oregon drivers ranked worst for running red lights, refusing to yield to other drivers, and speeding in school zones, the study said. This comes as another Forbes Advisor study ranked Portland among the top 10 worst U.S. cities to drive in. Given that ranking, it shouldnt be a surprise that Oregon ranks second for motorists causing car accidents, tied with Massachusetts, New Jersey and Alabama. In the survey, 2% of Oregon drivers fessed up to causing an accident in the past month, Forbes Advisor said. Forbes: These are the best companies to work for in Oregon The outlet added, Another black mark for Oregon motorists: 45% of drivers say theyve speeded (less than 10 mph over the speed limit) in the past month. New Mexico, Wyoming, and Alaska round out the top five states with the worst drivers. According to Forbes Advisor, speeding less than 10 miles per hour over the speed limit is the worst driving habit in the U.S., followed by eating while driving, speeding up to yellow lights, speeding 10-19 miles per hour over the limit, and texting while driving. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. OREGON, Ill. (WTVO) A $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justices School Violence Prevention Program was awarded to Oregons school district in reaction to recent safety threats on Thursday. Having software such as this in place could realistically save lives, said Oregon Elementary School principal Ryan Huels. Huels said safety for the students is of utmost importance. Its at the forefront of our minds. Just this past week, there was a threat to our campus, so everybody was on high alert, said Huels. The principal said school administrators are always looking for ways to innovate safety. A couple ideas we have in mind would be internal locking systems that could automatically lock doors in the event of an intruder, said Huels. Extra security cameras throughout campus and lighting on the exterior of our parking lots. District Director of Technology Shawn Gadow suggested using the money to establish an internal locking system. He said the features could be a game-changer in the event of an emergency. You push the button, you send it out, and it will send out a note. Some of them will send out a notification to all staff members, said Gadow. It could take control of your intercoms. It could take control of all of the flat panel, interactive whiteboards in the classrooms. The system would also notify police and allow a much faster response time. Unfortunately, its a symptom of the world we live in, said Huel. But were committed to meeting that challenge head-on and offer as safe as [an] experiences as we humanly can. Gadow said the district is reviewing several different security systems and will begin the process of implementing the system in the coming 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 MyStateline | WTVO News, Weather and Sports. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden introduced a bill on Thursday that would bring fundamental changes to the nations high court. The senator said the Judicial Modernization and Transparency Act aims to restore balance among the three branches of government, increase transparency, and restore public trust in the Supreme Court as it faces a legitimacy crisis. The Supreme Court is in crisis and bold solutions are necessary to restore the public trust, Wyden said. More transparency, more accountability and more checks on a power hungry Supreme Court are just what the American people are asking for. 5 arrested after multi-state muscle car theft ring dismantled in Clark County Among the major changes, the bill would expand the court from nine to 15 justices over the course of three presidential terms and would allow the president to appoint one nominee in the first and third years of each presidential term. In addition to expanding the court, the bill would return the practice of assigning a justice to oversee each circuit, expand the number of circuits by splitting the Ninth Circuit and would creating a new Southwestern Circuit. Under the bill, the Supreme Court would need a supermajority to overturn acts of Congress and would create a process for Supreme Court nominees that are not reported out of committee within 180 days to be automatically placed on the Senate calendar. Ombudsman blasts Portland officials over contrasting tree removal enforcement There are also several provisions in the bill that aim to restore trust and transparency in the high court including making opinions available to the public and allowing justices to vote to recuse another justice from a case. Additionally, the IRS would be required to audit each justices income tax return and publicly release them. The bill comes as some lawmakers, including Sen. Wyden, have raised ethics concerns over transparency in the court after Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose luxury trips with GOP megadonor Harlan Crowe. In early August, Wyden sent a letter to Crowes attorney requesting travel and financial records. As reported by The Associated Press, Crowes spokesperson Michael Zona said he has always followed tax laws, adding, Its concerning that Senator Wyden is abusing his committees powers as part of a politically motivated campaign against the Supreme Court. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. U.S. Senator John Kennedy, R-Louisiana. (U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee livestream screen capture) NEW ORLEANS Muslim and Arab constituents of U.S. Sen. John Kennedy are criticizing his comments toward Arab American civil rights leader Maya Berry at a Senate hearing on hate crime and hate speech last week. Some of Kennedys New Orleans constituents also said they think the Republican senator does not see them as full American citizens despite being part of his constituency. The Sept. 17 Senate Judiciary hearing was meant to address rising hate crimes against Jewish, Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Americans. But instead of discussing incidents of hate at home, Kennedy asked Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute, You support Hamas, do you not? He continued his line of questioning by asking Berry if she supported Hezbollah and Iran. Moments later, he told Berry she should hide her head in a bag. Kennedys questioning of Berry was condemned by civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Council on American-Islamic Relations. Residents of greater New Orleans also denounced the comments. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Hakm Murad, a Palestinian American and a leader of pro-ceasefire protests in New Orleans, said he found Kennedys behavior devastating. You have to almost laugh at it, Murad said. That during a congressional hearing about hate speech and hate crimes that hes actively using hate speech. Verite News reached out to Kennedys office for comment on the hearing and his constituents concerns, but the office did not respond by publication time. Murad called Kennedys words ugly, especially because Kennedy didnt acknowledge the presence of a Palestinian hate crime victim at the hearing. Murad was referring to Hanan Shaheen, who was allegedly stabbed dozens of times in an attack at her familys Illinois home last year in an attack that also allegedly killed her 6-year-old son, Wadee Alfayoumi. Police said the attack by the familys landlord was a targeted hate crime. Shes lost her child, her everything, and shes a victim of a hate crime in our country, Murad said. And he did not give her even a moment of attention. Didnt even give her condolences. Murad and other Muslims interviewed by Verite News found the conflation of different Middle Eastern entities Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran troublesome. And they may not be the only ones. The Association of Religion Data Archives estimates that there are more than 24,000 Muslims in Louisiana and more than 6,000 in Orleans Parish. Immigration lawyer and Muslim American Fatima Khan, who lives in Mid-City, said Kennedy was implying that all Muslims are somehow associated with groups labeled as terrorist organizations by the American government. The way that our community experiences Islamophobia is that we have our Muslimness or our concern for our communities labeled as extremism, Khan said. Metairie resident Jenny Yanez, who works as the Louisiana community development coordinator at Islamic Circle of North America Relief USA, said that the rhetoric she hears about Muslims from politicians today is worse than what she heard in the post-9/11 era. She said Kennedys racist and disrespectful words legitimize Islamophobic attitudes. Hes creating a new generation of people who have disdain and hatred and [are] learning to dehumanize Arabs, Yanez said. Yanez also said she thinks Kennedy sees Arabs and Muslims as terrorists with foreign interests instead of as Americans. Shes worried about the policy implications Islamophobic bias can have. We understand now that he does not think of Arabs or Muslims as full Americans, so why would he include policies that include us? Yanez said. Muslims and Arab residents who spoke with Verite News said they feel excluded from policy decisions that are important to them on a local level as well. Last month, the New Orleans City Council passed a peace resolution to address Hamass attacks in Israel on Oct. 7 and Israels subsequent war on Gaza. Many Jewish community leaders and organizations supported the resolution, but the final version doesnt have any signatures from local Muslim or Arab organizations. At the council meeting adopting the resolution, community members advocating for a ceasefire in Gaza urged council members to rescind their signatures, saying that the resolution did not represent their voices. An alternate resolution called The Peoples Ceasefire Resolution was signed by 50 organizations, including Jewish Voice for Peace New Orleans and the Islamic Shura Council of Greater New Orleans. Yanez said Muslim leaders felt disregarded by the City Council when it adopted the peace resolution. Verite News reached out to council members on the comments of their constituents, but none responded by publication time. Murad, who advocated for the council to adopt the alternate resolution, said he feels ignored by both the council and Kennedy. He said he has been calling Kennedys office every day for almost a year, asking the senator to call for a ceasefire and an arms embargo to end what Murad and some human rights experts have described as a genocide. More than 40,000 Palestinians have now been killed in Gaza, and the U.S. continues to send billions of dollars of military support to Israel. He hasnt heard us for a year now and he still continues to ignore us, Murad said. And as a representative, thats the worst thing you could do. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE This article first appeared on Verite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. Who are the other suspects left in Young Dolph case? Who are the other suspects left in Young Dolph case? MEMPHIS, Tenn. Moments after a jury found Justin Johnson, aka Straight Drop, guilty Thursday in the murder of Memphis rapper Young Dolph, this cryptic post was shared to Johnsons Instagram: they can throw away the keys before I ever eat the cheese . With at least four others charged in this case, it is far from over. Cornelius Smith and Hernandez Govan now both face charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy, and attempted first-degree murder. Smiths case is reset to Nov. 15. Prosecutor Paul Hagerman said about Smith on Thursday, Like I told the court there will a point when he goes to prison. Justin Johnson found guilty in Young Dolph murder Jermarcus Johnson Justin Johnsons half-brother, pleaded guilty to three counts of accessory after the fact.. and has a court hearing on Oct. 9. And you many may remember Shundale Barnett, who was in the car Johnson was driving when he was captured in Indiana. He has now been on the run since 2022 with charges that include First Degree Murder. We will continue to make sure that all of those who are responsible for Young Dolphs death get the punishment they deserve, Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said Thursday. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. OVERLAND PARK, Kan. Overland Park police are investigating after they say a homeowner shot at a suspected arsonist before daybreak on Friday. OPPD says this happened around 3:50 a.m. near W. 158th Terrace and Woodson where the homeowner became suspicious after seeing someone in a white compact car park in front of their house on Outlook Street. Police say whoever was in the car was wearing a mask and walked toward the backyard of a neighboring house, and the homeowner who reported the incident heard glass break and saw flames coming from that house. Twin sisters charged in Belton armed carjacking Gunshots were also heard shortly after the fire. We heard three popping sounds early this morning around 3:45/3:50. We came out to investigate, a woman who lives in the area said. She did not want to be identified. Its really unsettling knowing this person is potentially still out there hiding. We want security to increase on our own home and around the neighborhood. Another neighbor told FOX4 the gunshots were stunning. My wife woke me up in the middle of the night, between 3:50-4:00 a.m., she said she heard some loud noise, some sort of explosion, or even a gunshot. I remember her saying that specifically. At first, I was like theres no way theres a gunshot, not in this neighborhood, another resident, Tom Flanagan, who also lives in the neighborhood shared. From my understanding, somebody tried to light the house on fire. The homeowner confronted them. The person ran off and one of my neighbors tried to confront them as well. Neighbor Dave Tschirhart said he saw the suspect and tried to stop him. I woke up to go work out in the morning and I noticed a car where it shouldnt be. I thought maybe he was trying to steal one of my vehicles and I waited for a minute and I saw him messing around, and he went by the pond and something didnt look right, so I went and put a sweatshirt on and grabbed my pistol and waited patiently, and heard some breaking of glass, Tschirhart recalled. Kansas City man accused of having devices that turned firearms into weapons of war And I still waited patiently, and then when I saw him light that fireball up, I lost it. I tried to get him to get on the ground and he wouldnt do it. Tschirhart said he aimed for the suspects tires, in hopes of disabling the their vehicle, until police could arrive. He sped past me. I had to make sure I wasnt hit and there wasnt anybody in the car shooting at me, he said. Tschirhart said he then called police and told them what happened, and immediately went to the home that the suspected arsonist lit on fire. I just hope the family is okay, Tschirhart added. Nobody deserves to have their house set on fire. Police say the Overland Park Fire Department responded and put out the small fire. Police are looking for the arson suspect and ask anyone who has information that will help them solve this case to call the department at (913) 344-8742 or the TIPS Hotline at (816) 474-TIPS. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports. A well-known Boise restaurateur pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of felony lewd conduct with a minor under 16, according to court records. Jose F. Sanchez Vazquez, who was arrested at his Boise restaurant La Garnacha Que Apapacha in April, sexually assaulted a teenager who worked for him, according to previous Statesman reporting. He also fathered a child with the victim. The conduct here is extremely alarming because he used his position as an employer to take advantage of someone he admitted to doubting whether or not she was an adult, Shawn Kelley, with the Ada County Prosecutors Office, said during a hearing in April. Sanchez Vazquez was charged in both Ada and Canyon counties with multiple counts of felony lewd conduct with a minor under 16. He pleaded guilty in the Canyon County case as part of a plea agreement; the Ada County case will be dismissed as part of that deal, according to the Ada County Prosecutors Office. Judge Randall Grove vacated a jury trial that was set to begin Sept. 30. Sanchez Vazquez is now scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 26. The restaurant was started as a food truck run by Sanchez Vazquez and his wife before they opened a brick-and-mortar location; it still operates at the Boise Spectrum. SPRINGFIELD, Mo. Michael Pesina is trying to carve out a different career path, similar to his mothers. My moms a practitioner and Ive seen her have a lot of success. She started as an LPN and bridge step from there to R.N. and to her current position, Pesina said. He previously worked manual labor jobs and with just one visit to Ozarks Tech, fell into the Win from Within program. I actually got tired of doing manual labor and I wasnt having insurance and stuff like that, Pesina said. I went to go ask for the classes at Ozarks Tech just to look into them and by the time I left, I was signed up and registered for all my pre-requisites and for this program. So what is the Win from Within program? This is a tremendous program for people in the community to get a full ride into health care. A lot of people get full ride scholarships to go to different institutions. Mercys now given an opportunity to come to Ozarks Tech and to pick a health care field in a nursing, respiratory, surgery tech, and a lot of others and get that opportunity to be paid for and to work at Mercy so that they can earn money while theyre getting their degree, said Dr. Aaron Light with Ozarks Tech. If you qualify for the program, which would apply to those majoring in the health care industry at Ozarks Tech, you can work for Mercy Springfield and receive financial assistance while you do it, but you must stay employed with Mercy Springfield after graduation. A lot of those other programs, its a tuition reduction, not necessarily a cover, all tuition and fees. This one is at the $10,000 per year for any of our programs. It actually covers all the tuition, all the fees for any of our programs. So it truly covers the cost, not just reducing the expense, Light said. Mercy Springfield says they include other colleges in the program, but Ozarks Tech is just the latest to partner with the local health giant. Our Win from Within program is really intended to help release some financial burden from our coworkers and get skilled health workers into the health care environment, Jessica Atchison, the program director at Mercy Springfield said. It does encourage a majority of their clinical hours to be within a mercy facility that gives us the ability to ingrain them in our culture, see what its like, and ensure that we find the right place for them post-graduation, otherwise it is them doing school like they normally would. So far Ozarks Tech has 15 students in the program. Were really hoping that this program grows and there will be significantly more programs for people in the program in the future, Light said. The biggest barriers that people always come with in college is I dont want to loan or I need to be able to work and earn some money. This particular program addresses both of them because theyll actually be able to work at Mercy as an employee and then have their tuition paid for. This not only allows Mercy to have more workers in the industry but the guaranteed employment is a reassurance for both the hospital and the workers post-graduation in an industry that has seen shortages over the years. Employment post-graduation is dependent on how many years that they participate in the program. It is up to three years of employment post-graduation, Atchison said. That gives us the ability to invest in our future pipeline, in our future workforce, where we know that there are people [who are] going to be a steady supply of nurses, respiratory therapists, surgical techs coming into the workforce because were investing in them upfront. Like Pesina, who knows the financial advantages hell have in the program. This program will pay for itself, and when youre finished with this program, youre going to make the money that you need to make to pay anything that you did borrow back off and within a fairly decent amount of time, Pesina said. As far as the economy goes, if you dont or take a chance like [this], it could be a long time before youre even able to catch up. The day-to-day routine also depends on how far along in the program each student is. It is based on their program where their clinical experience will be, and our facility is based on where theyre at in their program. If theyre in the beginning of their program, its going to be more activities of daily living, how to take vital signs, how to engage with a patient, whereas they move through their program, it is going to be more in-depth and complex tasks, as a nurse would have or as a respiratory therapist would have, Atchison said. They come on-site, they get an assignment, just as our core coworkers would, they work alongside our staff to then exercise and experience the things that they have learned didactic in a classroom, to then put it into experience on a patient. Ive seen surgeries. Ive seen a lot of medication administration. Ive seen some different aspects of [different] medical fields, Pesina said. Im a hands on learner and for me thats the best, because you can read a book, you can tell me stuff all day long, but until I actually get there and do it myself, it doesnt matter. Since Ive been in a setting like this, it to me is so much easier. Its so much easier to get up there and want to, and its intimidating, but once you get past that and you start to practice those skills, it becomes very it puts you at ease. Atchison says going online is the best way to learn more. [Those interested] will apply through our Mercy careers at MercyCareers.net. They can search Win from Within as like as they would a job, and it pops up the program if they are not already employed with Mercy, our academic relations team will work with them to find them employment during school as well as help them find that post-graduation employment as well, Atchison said. Ozarks Tech says they have open enrollment for those who qualify through October 31. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOLR - OzarksFirst.com. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) Pacific University is cracking down on social media threats and hate speech directed at Black students on campus this week, administrators confirmed to KOIN 6 News on Thursday. The university said posts made to the anonymous social media app Yik Yak have been shared with law enforcement as the school and police work to identify those involved in the threats. West Linn men indicted for sex acts with a pig Hate speech and violence are not consistent with Pacifics values and will not be tolerated, the school said in a statement to KOIN 6 News. Threats directed at any member of the campus community are taken seriously. Meanwhile, the university is reaching out to those affected by the hate speech and providing resources through their Office of Student Support, Counseling Center, and Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility. Person missing after boat capsizes in Columbia River Pacific University is committed to developing a diverse and equitable community of students, faculty and staff as we live up to our mission to inspire students to think, care, create, and pursue justice in the world, university officials said. Stay with KOIN 6 News as this story develops. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WMBB) Panama City residents and businesses that receive any structural flooding from Hurricane Helene can contact the Citys Disaster Recovery Project Manager. Residents will need to take pictures of any damages and send them to Jennifer Aldridge with the address of their home or business. The documentation is needed for any future dealings with FEMA. School closures for Panhandle counties City officials said any resident in Special Flood Hazard Zone A, AE, or VE who receives damage and needs to have permits for repairs also should contact Jennifer Aldridge. Call her at (850)-872-3025 or by email at jaldridge@panamacity.gov. To report flooding of roadways, call the Panama City Police Department non-emergency line at 850-872-3112. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to mypanhandle.com. Paraguay formally signed the global peace summit joint communique on Sept. 27, becoming the 95th country to add their signature onto the final communique, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced. Switzerland hosted Ukraine's global peace summit on June 15-16, with representatives of around 100 countries and organizations in attendance. Seventy-eight states and four organizations signed the final joint communique of the peace summit on June 16. Since then, multiple countries signed on the ever-expanding list of delegations. "One more South American country has endorsed our Peace Formula, the UN Charter, and our vision for a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace for Ukraine," Zelensky wrote on X, adding that he was "looking forward to further deepening political dialogue" with more South American countries. The communique called to return the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant under full control of Ukraine, ensure uninterrupted manufacturing and supply of food products in Ukraine, secure full access to sea ports in the Black and Azov Seas, release all prisoners of war and return all deported Ukrainian children, among other things. Russia was not invited to join the inaugural global peace summit in June. Kyiv is planning to arrange the second global peace summit before the end of 2024, which Ukraine hopes will be held in either the Middle East or India. Despite hopes that Russia will participate in a second peace summit, Moscow has repeatedly signalled it will not take part in any future iterations of the Swiss-hosted peace summit. Read also: Ukraine war latest: Zelensky meets with Trump in New York, shows him his victory plan Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. GATLINBURG, Tenn. (WATE) Many areas of Great Smoky Mountains National Park are closed and park officials are strongly urging visitors to reschedule their trips with several inches of rain predicted from Helene predicted to fall on the region. Some areas of the park have already received 4-5 inches of rainfall since Wednesday. Another 4-5 inches is predicted on the Tennessee side and 6-9 inches on the North Carolina side of the park through Friday, according to a park release. Winds could reach 80 mph in higher elevations. Severe weather causes closures in East Tennessee Newfound Gap Road from Gatlinburg to Cherokee, North Carolina closed at 2 p.m. Thursday. Sugarlands, Oconaluftee and Cades Cove visitor centers closed Thursday at 3 p.m. through at least Saturday morning, weather and road conditions permitting. No access is permitted past any closed gates. While sections of the park may remain open, the park strongly urges visitors to check weather forecasts and reschedule their visits. Watch for dead or dying trees that could be a fall hazard, said spokesperson Camille Bennett when asked for advice for hikers when the storm hits. We recommend, as quickly as possible, getting to your vehicle and if thats not an option, find some other sort of shelter. 6-year-old hit by school bus in Blount County The park began closing gravel roads such as Balsam Mountain Road or Rich Mountain Road late Wednesday. Visit www.nps.gov/grsm for the latest information on closures. Closed areas or roads in Great Smoky Mountains National Park Balsam Mountain campground (North Carolina) Balsam Mountain Road (North Carolina) Big Creek Cades Cove Loop Road Cataloochee campground (North Carolina) Greenbrier Road Heintooga Ridge Road (North Carolina) Newfound Gap Road Sparks Lane Road Upper Tremont Road Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WATE 6 On Your Side. Judge Craig Carter, a Wright County judge serving in Cole County for Missouri's gender-affirming care trial, listens to a nurse practitioner testify Thursday afternoon (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent). After three days of battling over scientific papers and expert testimony, the trial of a lawsuit challenging Missouris restrictions on gender-affirming treatments on Thursday turned to the impact the law has on patients and providers. Nicole Carr, a nurse practitioner at Southampton Community Healthcare in St. Louis, said anxiety, fear and depression first increased in transgender patients when Attorney General Andrew Bailey published an emergency rule that established barriers to care in April 2023. No one thinks about how these laws affect the actual people they are supposed to protect and they are supposed to serve, she said. Patients were crying in the clinic in fear, she testified. Im trying to give them hope that they dont have to fear being in Missouri, that they dont have to fear coming to me as a provider, that they can move past this, Carr said. Its sad because Im referring a lot of people to therapy that, before these rules, were fine. She worries about youth in foster care, which she worked with frequently in a previous position. Transgender teenagers in foster care often must wait until they turn 18 to go to the doctor alone for assessment to obtain hormone-replacement therapy. But if they are on Medicaid, as most are soon after foster care, Missouri wont pay for the treatment. (The law) has impacted the quality of care I can give my patients when I know the solution to their problem is out there and I cant do anything about it, she said. Carr and Southampton healthcare are among 11 plaintiffs hoping to block enforcement of a 2023 law banning gender-affirming medical treatments for minors. Other plaintiffs include parents of transgender children, transgender adolescents, other medical care providers and organizations supporting gender-affirming care. Their attorneys began putting witnesses on the stand Monday in the Cole County Circuit Court trial scheduled to continue through next week. The lawsuit asks Judge Craig Carter, assigned to the case from Wright County, to declare the law unconstitutional, alleging violations of equal protection, due process and other rights guaranteed by the Missouri Constitution. Although the law does not ban counseling or the continuation of treatments begun before it passed, several providers ceased all gender-affirming treatments for minors soon after it took effect on Aug. 28, 2023. First University of Missouri Health, then Washington University in St. Louis, ended their programs, citing the threat of future litigation allowed in the law. Neither provider is a party to the lawsuit. Over the first three days of the trial, assistant attorney generals defending the law have repeatedly sought to discredit plaintiffs expert witnesses. The painstaking cross examinations have slowed the pace of the trial to two experts per day and led to a late recess on Wednesday. Carter, however, has declined to limit the cross-examination, despite arguments from plaintiffs attorneys that it means the trial will exceed the time allotted to complete it. During cross-examination, members of the defense team have read scientific articles, news articles and editorials on gender-affirming care. Almost invariably, that leads to objections that the exhibits are new. Carter has allowed reading as a way to challenge the credibility of witnesses by showing deficiencies in their testimony, such as bias or poor memory. They seem to be reading a lot of newspaper articles and a lot of opinion pieces, Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, an attorney for plaintiffs, told reporters. If they wanted to introduce the opinion of some random person in the United Kingdom, they could have called them. During one question to Dr. Armand Matheny Antommaria from Solicitor General Joshua Divine, plaintiffs attorney Nora Huppert objected, arguing that it was as if Divine was testifying himself. It came as Antommaria, a pediatric hospitalist and bioethicist at Cincinnati Childrens Hospital, answered questions slowly, often with a yes sir or no sir, correcting Divines questions. If you go to the key findings, the statement youve pulled out is not part of the key findings, he said, after a question in which Divine asked about a singular sentence of a scientific article. The context is important, Antommaria told him, saying the overall report was the opposite of Divines characterization. Divine also asked if Antommarias religious beliefs or divinity degree should disqualify him as an expert. Given the nature of that particular degree, that does not disqualify myself, he said. Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, an adolescent medicine physician at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and medical director of the hospitals center for transgender youth health and development, testified about her research linking distress about breast development to depression and anxiety. She also discussed benefits of gender-affirming care she has seen in her clinical experience. Hal Frampton, senior counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom, brought one of the 11 three-ring binders prepared for the Olson-Kennedy testimony to the podium. He flipped through the approximately three-inch binder, presenting studies and articles to question Olson-Kennedys research and concluding with videos from talks she gave years ago. In one talk, she said people get worked up about certain surgical procedures that are part of gender affirming care. Frampton asked if she doesnt like people that get worked up. Olson-Kennedy said she was emphasizing the difference between gender-affirming surgeries. The seriousness of getting a sterilizing surgery is more severe than someone who needs a chest surgery, she said. He also asked about an interview she gave in which she spoke about being involved in social justice efforts. People being able to get access to medically necessary care is an advocacy issue, she responded. The defense is scheduled to begin arguments Monday, with a scheduled final day of Oct. 4. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE A police officer has been found guilty of assault after grabbing a boy by the throat while he was on duty during an incident at a care home. Great Manchester Police Constable Benjamin Heppenstall, 33, attacked the 16-year-old boy in January 2021 after he refused to do what he said, Bolton Crown Court heard. Body-worn footage showed him pulling the boy's T-shirt off before forcefully grabbing his neck for a second time. Heppenstall, who faces suspension from his job which is based in Wigan, will be sentenced on 27 November. The officer had responded to an incident at a care home for young people in Wigan where threats had been allegedly made to two women who worked there, police said. 'Defenceless boy' The court heard how after initially arresting two suspects, Heppenstall told the teenager, who was sitting on a sofa, to get out of the room and go to bed. The boy refused, and Heppenstall pulled him up by his arm, before then putting his hand forcefully around the boys neck and being verbally abusive. Bolton Crown Court heard one of the workers at the care home tried to intervene and pull Heppenstall away. Greater Manchester Police said Heppenstall's duties were restricted in January 2021. Det Ch Insp Iqbal Ahmed said: This was a shocking use of unnecessary and excessive force by Benjamin Heppenstall on a defenceless teenage boy who absolutely should not have been treated this way. Our officers have a really challenging role and are faced with instances that the general public will never experience. "However, officers are trained to act professionally and proportionately, and it is clear here that PC Heppenstall acted beyond what was necessary when faced with a verbal refusal by the boy to do what he had told him to do." Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk Related internet links EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) A 19-year-old El Paso man is dead after speeding on a motorcycle and crashing Wednesday night, Sept. 18, in East El Paso, according to El Paso Police. EPPD: 1 person transported after motorcycle crash in East EP Police say they responded just before 9 p.m. that Wednesday to the 9200 block of Gateway East about a vehicle collision involving a motorcycle. The preliminary investigation revealed that Hugo Alexis Montiel-Sanchez, 19, was traveling eastbound on Gateway East on a motorcycle. Police say Montiel-Sanchez accelerated and began to travel at a high rate of speed for reasons unknown. The motorcycle then went to the left of the roadway and began to travel through the landscape. Montiel-Sanchez became dislodged from the motorcycle and suffered serious injuries, police said. He was transported to a local hospital but died as a result of his injuries, police added. Police say speed is believed to be a contributing factor in this crash. This is the 45th traffic fatality in El Paso, compared to 55 at the same time in 2023. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News. CHICOPEE, Mass. (WWLP) Its the end of September and the leaves are changing color. It is still early but we continue to see more and more color showing up. While there is still plenty of green, you can see more orange, red, and yellow on some of the trees. While it may still be a few weeks until we see really good color here in the lower Pioneer Valley were seeing some better foliage right now to our north. September has been a very dry month Bre Haut of Agawam told 22News, I just mentioned the other day that I felt like the leaves were already turning, somebody had sent a picture, and they had driven up north. So definitely we always take rides to go see the foliage. According to The Foliage Report, were seeing some good color right now in New York and northern New England, especially in northeastern Vermont. Here in western Massachusetts, we should see peak color around Columbus Day which is on October, 14th. Local News Headlines WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.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 WWLP. CHULA VISTA, Calif. (FOX 5/KUSI) A pedestrian was fatally struck by a vehicle in the South Bay Thursday night, the Chula Vista Police Department confirmed. The incident occurred around 10:15 p.m. in the 1000 block of Telegraph Canyon Road at Paseo Ranchero. Police said responding officers discovered that a vehicle had hit a person who had been standing in the roadway. $300M super yacht spotted in San Diego Bay: Who does it belong to? Witnesses, police and fire department personnel gave first aid to the pedestrian, who was later pronounced dead by paramedics. The victim is believed to be between the age of 20-25. Their identity is not yet known. The driver, a 69-year-old Chula Vista resident, remained on scene and cooperated with the investigation, police said. Alcohol is not considered a factor in this crash. The Traffic Bureau was called to the scene to investigate the fatal collision and determine the cause. Anyone who witnessed the collision or has additional information is asked to contact investigators at 619-782-3847. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. How pen and paper comes to the rescue in an IT crisis When the CrowdStrike software bug bricked 8.5 million computers around the world on 19 July, some of the first people to notice the effects were air travellers. Anthony Bosman, an academic at Andrews University in Michigan was trying to board his flight from Michigan to Florida when he realised he couldnt download a mobile boarding pass to his smartphone. So he went to check in at the airport, in person, and watched in amazement as an airline employee looked up his name on a paper list and then wrote out his boarding pass by hand. It felt like a blast from the past, he recalls. The ticket agent, I remember how she commented that her hand was tired from having to write so many of them. His flight took off as planned. Multiple other passengers, including many in India, reported having the same experience that day. The CrowdStrike bug also hit banks, telecoms firms, health services and online retailers. This week a senior executive at the firm appeared before a US congressional committee and said he was "deeply sorry" for the chaos caused. For a brief moment in July, some organisations had to forget about their computer-based processes and do things the old-fashioned way. If you look through articles about past cyber-attacks and IT failures on the BBC News website, youll find countless examples of organisations that have had to go back to pen and paper in the face of disruption. British GPs, staff at foreign exchange firm Travelex, medics at Rouen hospital in France and employees of Lincolnshire County Council have all experienced this. It sounds an almost pitiful predicament. And yet, while it certainly isnt desirable, some cyber-experts are now advising companies to plan for switching to paper-based processes in the event of IT failure. Rather than an ad hoc workaround, pen and paper systems could be something staff practise using from time to time so that they can switch away from their computers seamlessly if required. When Norsk Hydro was hacked in 2019 thousands of staff were locked out of the company systems [Norsk Hydro] One company that knows the value of paper is Norsk Hydro, a Norwegian aluminium and renewable energy firm. In 2019, hackers targeted Hydro with ransomware that locked staff out of more than 20,000 computers. Bosses at Hydro decided they would not pay a ransom fee to restore access, meaning that 35,000 staff working across 40 countries had to find other ways of doing their jobs, temporarily. They dug old binders out of basements with instructions on how to produce particular aluminium products, for instance, recalls Halvor Molland, a spokesman for Hydro. At some locations, by sheer chance, staff had printed out order requests just before the cyber-attack hit. Their creativity was tremendous, says Mr Molland. While computers with customer information and company data were locked out, factory equipment was mercifully unaffected by the ransomware. At some facilities, staff bought computers and printers from local retailers so they could print off information for factory workers. And vintage office kit came in handy. We actually had to dust off some old telefaxes, remembers Mr Molland. Although production fell by up to 50% at certain plants, these workarounds kept the business going. You need to do what you need to do, as Mr Molland puts it. Reflecting, he suggests that companies might want to keep printed copies of key information such as internal telephone numbers or checklists so that some work can continue even in the event of a massive cyber-attack. For some tasks Norsk Hydro had to work off paper instructions after the hack [Norsk Hydro] People have realised the importance of having these manual methods because of the severity of some of the recent cyber-attacks and IT outages, says Chris Butler, resilience director at disaster recovery and business continuity firm Databarracks. He mentions one customer his company works with an industrial distribution firm that has put together "disaster recovery packs and sent them to all of its branches. The packs include paper forms and a fax machine a contingency in case their digital ordering system becomes unavailable. If that goes down, their only alternative, they realised, was to have these forms. Mr Butler suggests that companies have a training day where employees practise using flipcharts and whiteboards instead of computers, to see if they can still do their jobs effectively that way. Some organisations recommend using paper for security reasons. Parts of the US court system require certain documents to be filed on either paper, for example, or a secure device such as an encrypted USB drive. Obviously there are limits to paper-based processes. Mr Butler notes that if bankers, for example, lose access to their trading terminals during an IT incident, they cant easily switch to paper-based alternatives. The biggest problem with pen and paper systems is that they dont scale well, says Gareth Mott, from the Royal United Services Institute. Its slower than using a computer for many tasks ,and its hard or perhaps impossible to coordinate thousands of employees using such methods across multiple office locations. But practising workarounds really can help, adds Dr Mott. He and colleagues have researched how war-gaming and IT failure roleplay exercises can impact employees responses to real-life cyber-attacks. We found that the companies that had done that, sometimes a few weeks before they had a live incident, really benefitted, he says. Its not just pen and paper that could come in handy. Dr Mott is aware of one firm that bought crates worth of Chromebooks for staff in the wake of a cyber-incident, so that they could work without needing access to the company network. Some companies might have dormant WhatsApp or Signal messaging groups that they can ask employees to use for internal communications, if access to the company email servers goes down, for instance. Both Dr Mott and Mr Butler stress the importance of off-site or otherwise segregated data backups so that, in the event of a ransomware attack, all that vital information is not necessarily lost. More Technology of Business Cathy Miron is chief executive of eSilo, a data backup firm based in Florida. There are hundreds of such companies around the world, including Databarracks, that provide secure data backup services. Ms Mirons company offers off-site, cloud-based data storage on a separate network to that of their customers; and on-site, custom-built servers as well. We have had a 100% ransomware recovery rate thus far, she says. For all the sophistication of contemporary computer systems, its the simple, improvised workarounds that can save companies when a crisis hits. Mrs Miron mentions one customer who, at the time of writing, was using a Verizon mi-fi, or mobile broadband wireless router, system to access backup data because their main computer network had been completely shut down following a cyber-incident. You should expect it, at some point in time, to be a victim of a cyber-attack, emphasises Mr Molland. What do you do in the meantime? How do you keep the wheels turning? Penn. Gov. Josh Shapiro to campaign in NC for Democrat Josh Stein in governors race Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who was on Vice President Kamala Harris short list as a potential running mate this summer, is coming to North Carolina to campaign for Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein. Stein is the Democratic nominee in the governors race against Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson. Shapiro will join Stein for a meet-and-greet campaign event on Sunday in Greensboro. Attorney General Josh Stein takes the stage during a campaign rally featuring second gentleman Doug Emhoff and Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz as part of the Fighting for Reproductive Freedom bus tour stop at Market Hall in Raleigh on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. Shapiro and Stein will appear together at noon on Sunday to rally supporters and talk to voters on campus at UNC Greensboro in the Cone Ballroom, 507 Stirling St. It is open to the public. Shapiros the second Democratic governor whose name was on the veepstakes list before Harris chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to campaign with Stein in recent weeks. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear joined Stein at a campaign event in Chatham County this past week, saying that Stein would lead the state forward. Andy Beshear, the governor Kentucky, campaigns for Attorney General Josh Stein, the Democratic candidate for governor in Pittsboro on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. Beshear told supporters at an event in Pittsboro that Steins leadership should be where we need to be to get beyond this anger politics that were seeing, to get to that better day where we recognize that we might disagree with our neighbor, but we want them to do well. And of course N.C. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has long been a supporter of Steins campaign. No Robinson campaign events on horizon Greensboro is the hometown of Steins opponent, Robinson, whose campaign continues to receive fallout after the CNN report, and subsequent reporting, tying Robinson to a series of hateful, sexually explicit and racist posts on a pornography website. Robinson denies the allegations. Most of his campaign staff quit on Sunday, The News & Observer previously reported, and half of his staff in the lieutenant governors office, who are state employees and had been with Robinson since he took office, also quit. Robinson promoted Deputy Chief of Staff Krishana Polite to chief of staff on Thursday, replacing longtime former Chief of Staff Brian LiVecchi, who resigned. Robinson does not have any upcoming campaign visits scheduled as of Thursday afternoon. (WHTM) Two Pennsylvania brothers have pled guilty to charges stemming from the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. According to the U.S. Attorneys Office in the District of Columbia, Matthew Valentin, 31, of Stroudsburg, pled guilty to two felony counts of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers. Andrew Valentin, 26, pled guilty to one felony count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and a second felony count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton will sentence the brothers on Jan. 17, 2025. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now ICYMI: Top 5 Stories of the Week The Justice Department says the Valentin brothers were identified by video walking from the Washington Monument along Constitution Ave. toward the Capitol. They made their way to the West Plaza of the Capitol, climbed a media tower in the area, and then joined a crowd that pushed through a metal barricade into a line of Capitol Police officers. Matthew Valentin, according to the Justice Department, sprayed a chemical irritant toward officers and later grabbed a police baton, attempting to tear it out of the officers hands. Andrew Valentin threw a folding chair at the line of officers, striking one officers shield, according to court records. The brothers were arrested by the FBI on February 11 and 12, 2024, in Pennsylvania. In the 44 months since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,504 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including more than 560 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, a felony. The investigation remains ongoing. Anyone with tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WBOY) A Pennsylvania woman has been convicted of possession with intent to distribute heroin and fentanyl following surveillance by investigators. A press release from the Department of Justice said that investigators began surveillance on a Clarksburg residence after receiving complaints of drug activity. During this time, officers saw Jalisa Lashae Hawkins, 35, of Duquesne, Pennsylvania drive to the residence, interact with someone, and leave the release said. Monongalia County GOP calls for Sen. Maroney to resign after multiple arrests Officers followed and pulled Hawkins vehicle over following several traffic violations, where they seized fentanyl stamps and heroin. Hawkins could face up to 20 years in federal prison, which a federal district court judge will determine. She was previously arrested twice in 2016 on drug charges and was sentenced to 77 months in federal prison in 2019. The Greater Harrison Drug Task Force, a HIDTA-funded initiative and the Mountaineer Highway Interdiction Team South investigated. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBOY.com. Pennsylvanians Can Order Free COVID Tests Again. How To Get Yours. PENNSYLVANIA Americans can now order another round of free COVID-19 nasal swab tests that will be delivered to homes. Each household can get four tests through COVIDtests.gov. Already have some at home? Check here to see if your tests' expiration dates have been extended. Shipping forms just opened on Thursday and are free to all residents; access this link to order yours. Updated rapid tests are expected to be able to detect newer variants just as a new COVID variant, XEC, spreads across the nation. It is a member of the Omicron family. The availability of free at-home tests comes just after the Food and Drug Administration approved two updates COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging everyone 6 months or older to get a new shot this fall since last year's shots were geared toward a strain that is no longer around. As flu and RSV season approaches, health officials recommend residents stock up on tests and update all vaccinations. Pennsylvanians Can Order Free COVID Tests Again. How To Get Yours. originally appeared on the Across Pennsylvania Patch TechCrunch A federal judge has ordered Google to open up its app store to rivals and give Android users more choice when it comes to downloading apps. Judge James Donato issued his final ruling in the Epic and Google saga on Monday, detailing how Google has to change how it operates Google Play. According to the filing, Google is not allowed to pay developers to launch their apps exclusively on Google Play starting November 1 for the next three years. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) The Portland organization behind the attention-grabbing political ads that targeted local leadership is dissolving. According to an announcement on People for Portlands website, the group is ending its day-to-day work after years of pushing for more policing and action for homelessness and drug use in the area. Oregon Sen. Wyden introduces sweeping Supreme Court reform bill Political consultants Dan Lavey and Kevin Looper launched the organization in September 2021. Back when we started this, the problems of Portland homelessness, drugs on the street, trash werent as big as the problems that Dan and I saw in politics, which was an incredible veil of denial on elected officials: People who thought we just needed to wait, we could build $400,000 apartment units and give homeless people the keys and itll be OK, and we can defund the police, and things will be fine, and drug use is not a big problem, Looper told KOIN 6 Political Director Ken Boddie. He added that People for Portland aimed to show elected leaders they were vastly out of step with 80% of the people in this city who wanted to have a safer environment Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Eye on Northwest Politics While some of the organizations stances were considered polarizing Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt previously said the leaders want to keep us divided, keep us angry it appears a number of residents shared their concerns. A survey conducted the same month the group launched showed that 76% of Portlanders believed the citys issues were real, and not exaggerated by the media. About 60% of respondents who were once against police said they would support hiring more officers. Additionally, about 71% said they would support more law enforcement despite concerns with social justice and racism within the Portland Police Bureau. Vancouver man shot, killed by SWAT after late-night armed standoff Later in 2023, a new poll from the organization found that 70% of voters would support a daytime camping ban. A camping ordinance went into effect this summer. People for Portland also partially accredits itself for the overturning of Measure 110, the drug decriminalization law that took effect for about three years before Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek reversed it. The Schmidt Show billboard currently strung up in Downtown by the group People for Portland. (KOIN 6) The billboard portrays chattering teeth toys with the caption, All Talk, No Action, along with photos of Chair Jessica Vega Pederson and District Attorney Mike Schmidt. It goes on to say, Billions Spent, Problems Worse. (KOIN) The political group People for Portland has erected a new anti-Schmidt billboard in Downtown Portland. (KOIN 6) But the organizations most visible moves were, arguably, installing three anti-Schmidt billboards in the downtown area the latest of which read, CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS SCHMIDT? Oregon health leaders set to review OHSUs plans to merge with Legacy The billboard installed in January blamed the district attorney for crime and drug deaths in the city. In May, he abandoned his re-election campaign and conceded to Nathan Vasquez. By raising your voice and getting involved, you helped to change the debate and direction of Portland, People for Portland said in its announcement. Thank you. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) A judge on Thursday ordered Peoria County prosecutors to reinstate a plea agreement with a Peoria woman who testified at two murder trials. Peoria County Circuit Judge Paul Gilfillan made his decision after a 30-minute hearing where Tyranique Whites attorney argued his client did what she was supposed to do and should get the benefits of the agreement which saw prosecutors dropping a murder charge against her. Under the terms of the deal, White, who was charged along with the two others for the Oct. 6, 2021, shooting death of 17-year-old Jerry Snipes, Jr., would plead instead to aggravated discharge of a firearm. Testimony underway in trial of man accused in 2021 shooting of Manual High student The difference is big. Murder, if one is not deemed the shooter, has a 20-year minimum and one must serve 100% of a sentence. Aggravated discharge is four to 15 years behind bars and probation is an option. Her sentencing hearing is set for late November. Prosecutors wanted to void the deal, reached last year, because they said White had unclean hands, and admitted during her testimony that she lied to get a deal that would drop her sentence. Peoria man sentenced to 80 years in prison for 2021 killing of high school student It was an interesting hearing where contract law, normally the privy of the courtrooms down the hall, dominated the discussion. The judge himself noted that if it had been a civil case, the contract between the two sides would have had plenty of whereass and but fors.' In the end, the judge found White held up her end of the deal, testified at the trials of Jeremy Moore, Jr., 21, and Gary Irby, 22, both of whom were found guilty sentenced to decades behind bars. Snipes was shot 10 times by two different weapons. He was shot once with a shotgun and nine more times with a handgun, indicating two people shot him. He died minutes after the incident, according to autopsy records. Guilty verdict returned after 3 hours in case of 2021 shooting of Manual High student Both Irby and Moore wore GPS monitoring bracelets, which police used to find them at the time Snipes was killed. At their trials, a witness said Irby had a handgun, and Moore had a shotgun, later tied to the murder. White testified she drove Snipes to the area on Linn Street after picking him up shortly after midnight. She was told to bring him there by Irby. White said she brought Snipes there and was on the phone standing by a nearby house when she heard her name. Snipes, she said, had called for her and when she came back to her vehicle, she saw Snipes and another person she couldnt identify who tussling and then a shot went off. She saw Snipes lying on the ground and panicked, she testified at trial. She drove off and later ditched the car, which was her mothers in Glen Oak 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 CIProud.com. An American flag sits in the floodwaters from Hurricane Helene in the Shore Acres neighborhood on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. | Mike Carlson Communities in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina are in mourning as a major storm continues to wreak havoc on the southeastern United States. Helene, which hit Florida on Friday as a Category 4 hurricane but has since weakened into a tropical storm, is responsible for at least 20 deaths so far, as well as millions of dollars of damage. Officials across the region warned that the storm could cause more fatalities as it moves through, per The Washington Post. Amid the storm, flooding and blowing debris are not the only factors putting people at risk. Power outages also raise health concerns, especially for older Americans who rely on electronic medical devices. More than 4 million customers were without power as of Friday morning, The Washington Post reported. After making landfall in Florida, Helene moved on Friday morning toward Atlanta, where residents are dealing with intense rain and flooding. Rain and flooding have also become major issues in the western Carolinas, where potentially deadly mudslides are expected, as the Deseret News previously reported. Heres a look at some of the damage the historic storm has caused so far. Faith Cotto comforts her mother Nancy as they look at the remains of their home, which burned during the flooding from Hurricane Helene in the Shore Acres neighborhood, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. | Mike Carlson A boat rests on a street after being relocated during flooding caused by Hurricane Helene, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Hudson, Fla. | Mike Carlson Residents are rescued from floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Crystal River, Fla. | Luis Santana Clarissa Lucky gives a tour of her home that flooded from Hurricane Helene near DeSoto Park, Fla., on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Tampa. | Jefferee Woo This GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken at 5:46 p.m. EDT and provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows Hurricane Helene in the Gulf of Mexico moving toward Florida, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. | NOAA via Associated Press The business Chez What is seen after Hurricane Helene moved through the area, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. | Mike Stewart Workers clear debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Cedar Key, Fla., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. | Gerald Herbert Union Cathederal church is seen after Hurricane Helene moved through the area on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. | Mike Stewart Bradley Tennant looks through his house flooded with water from Hurricane Helene in the Shore Acres neighborhood, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. | Mike Carlson A Citrus County Firefigher carries 11-year-old Michael Cribbins while conducting rescues from floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Crystal River, Fla. | Luis Santana Jamir Lewis wades through floodwaters with his two daughters, Nylah and Aria, in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Crystal River, Fla. | Luis Santana Union Cathederal church is seen after Hurricane Helene moved through the area on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. | Mike Stewart Thomas Chaves, left, and Vinny Almeida walk through floodwaters from Hurricane Helene in an attempt to reach Chaves' mother's house in the Shore Acres neighborhood, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. | Mike Carlson Rhonda Bell looks on after an oak tree landed on her 100-year-old home after Hurricane Helene moved through, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. | Mike Stewart Halle Brooks kayaks down a street flooded by Hurricane Helene in the Shore Acres neighborhood on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. | Mike Carlson A woman walks with her dog through floodwaters from Hurricane Helene in the Shore Acres neighborhood on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. | Mike Carlson This photo provided by U.S. Coast Guard District Seven (USCGSoutheast) shows a man and his dog being rescued after his sailboat became disabled during Hurricane Helene approximately 25 miles off Sanibel Island, Fla., on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. | U.S. Coast Guard District Seven via Associated Press Filled with empathy & dedication to charity, teaching, & comprehensive patient care distinguishes Dr Saud in the field of ENT surgery situated in the heart of Bengaluru handles approximately 50 patients daily providing specialized & integrated ENT, head & neck care. The clinic specializes in areas such as allergy and immunotherapy, as well as snoring and sleep apnea, which are often overlooked in many ENT circles. By incorporating short stay day care surgeries using the latest equipment, the clinic ensures quick recovery and minimal post-operative complications, enhancing patient outcomes.Dr Ahmeds expertise has brought visibility and credibility to the clinic. The clinics patient centered approach in an ethical and evidence based manner has increased patient footfall and referrals from other health care professionals, makinga trusted name in the field.Dr Saud Ahmed prioritizes patient education and counseling by dedicating ample time to each consultation, ensuring patients thoroughly understand their conditions andUnlike many who see numerous patients in a short time, Dr Ahmed schedules appointments to provide ample amount of time to patients. This approach allows for a comprehensive discussion of the patients concerns and questions, ensuring they feel heard and informed.During consultations, Dr Ahmed first provides a detailed briefing about the condition, surgical procedures, associated risks, and complications. He then encourages patients to ask as many questions as needed, ensuring they fully grasp the information. Involving a relative in the discussion adds another layer of understanding and support. Additionally, Dr Ahmed employs a full-time patient coordinator to address any queries when he is unavailable, ensuring continuous support.To further enhance patient communication, Dr Ahmed uses a business Whatsapp profile, allowing patients to reach out with questions and receive timely responses. This comprehensive communication strategy builds patient confidence and ensures they feel supported throughout their treatment journey.Dr Ahmed leverages advanced technology to enhance precision and outcomes in ENT surgeries. He utilizes radiofrequency and coblation technologies to reduce postoperative pain and bleeding. High-end operating theaters with state-of-the-art laminar flow systems minimize infection risks. Image-guided surgery, high-speed drills, shaver systems, lasers, and ultrasonic aspirators further improve surgical precision, especially in complex skull base surgeries.Dr Ahmed is optimistic about the future ofHe recently attended a workshop showcasing 3D-printed models for surgical training, made possible by feeding thousands of scans into AI systems. He believes AI, particularly in simulation and potentially robotic surgery, holds significant promise for future advancements, though it requires further integration into current practices.My advice to young aspirants entering the surgical field is to be patient and focus on building your skills. While its natural to be motivated by financial rewards, remember that expertise and recognition take time. Early in your career, prioritize learning from seniors, traveling, and mastering different techniques. Avoid settling down too quickly; instead, focus on ethical practice and providing the right treatment. With dedication and patience, financial rewards and professional recognition will follow, concludes Dr Saud Ahmed. Helene barreled into the Florida coast under the cover of darkness, and sunrise on Friday revealed the first look at the trail of destruction left behind by the Category 4 storm. Intense winds and a powerful storm surge caused houses to crumble, flung boats onto land and toppled trees in all directions. Millions were left without power as they began to assess the damage caused by Helene, and some areas could be in the dark for over a week due to the catastrophic damage. At least nine people have died across the Southeast due to the storm. "In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene, hundreds of search and rescue missions were conducted by state personnel, and the state assisted on nearly a thousand others," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a statement on Friday morning. "Cut and toss operations have been underway by 61 FDOT crews since 3 a.m. Over 2,000 miles of roadway have been cleared, and these operations continue." As the damage in Florida comes into focus, Helene continues to rage farther north, causing devastating flooding in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. NORTH ADAMS, Mass. (WWLP) Authorities are searching for a man who allegedly tried to install a card skimming device on an ATM at a local business Thursday afternoon. Card skimming devices discovered at these Massachusetts Cumberland Farms According to North Adams Police, officers received a report around 2 p.m. on Thursday about a suspicious individual at an ATM machine. An employee intercepted the suspect as he attempted to install the illegal device used to capture personal banking information. The suspect is described as a Middle Eastern man, approximately 55 tall, with a thin mustache and a heavy accent. He was reportedly wearing light blue jeans, a puffy vest, a blue and white polo shirt with a red patch on the bicep, light sneakers, a brimmed Tommy Hilfiger bucket hat, and a watch on his right wrist. Courtesy of North Adams Police Department Courtesy of North Adams Police Department Courtesy of North Adams Police Department Courtesy of North Adams Police Department Despite an extensive search by local law enforcement, the suspect was not located and is believed to have fled the area in a vehicle before police arrived. The North Adams Police Department is now reviewing surveillance footage and has released images of the suspect in hopes of identifying him. Anyone with information is asked to contact the North Adams Police at 413-664-4944, ext. 1. Authorities are also reminding the public to be extra vigilant when using ATM machines or checkout devices, as there has been an increase in skimming devices found across Berkshire County. Customers are urged to inspect ATMs and point-of-sale terminals for any signs of tampering and to report any suspicious activity to local law enforcement. Card skimmers are illegal devices that capture card information, allowing criminals to commit identity theft and financial fraud. No further information about the suspect has been released at this time. Local News Headlines WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.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 WWLP. COPPERAS COVE, Texas (FOX 44) The Pink Warrior Angels (PWA) are bringing their annual fundraiser to Copperas Coves City Park on Saturday. The tenth annual Pink Warrior Dash will take place from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. at 1206 W Avenue B. Same day registration will start at 7 a.m. Pink Warrior Angels is a nonprofit organization which not only gives 100 percent to patients fighting cancer, but also invests in their well-being by providing them with educational materials. Donate food to Shepherds Heart at the Baylor game For more information on how to register, you can go here. For more information about the Pink Warrior Angels, you can go 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 KWKT - FOX 44. The Pioneer Womans pumpkin bakeware is back and affordable as ever BestReviews is reader-supported and may earn an affiliate commission. Details. And affordable as ever When looking for cast-iron bakeware, quality products often come with a high price tag. And if you want something seasonal that only gets used a few times a year, the price tag might make you think twice. Not anymore, though. The Pioneer Womans line of pumpkin bakeware is back for 2024, and at a price youll love. We already trust the Pioneer Womans cookware: Her basic nonstick metal baking sheets and simple bakeware are some of BestReviews editors favorites, and her products are cute, of good quality and always affordable. So, if youre looking for a seasonal addition to your kitchen this fall, her adorable pumpkin pie plate and mini cocotte set will be hard to resist. Shop this article: The Pioneer Woman 10-Inch Ceramic Pumpkin Pie Plate with Lid, The Pioneer Woman 14.2-Ounce Ceramic Orange Pumpkin Mini Cocottes Set Pioneer Womans enameled cast-iron cookware is adorable and affordable Ceramic Pumpkin Pie Plate with Lid The Pioneer Woman 10-inch Ceramic Pumpkin Pie Plate with Lid Complement your Dutch oven with a matching pie plate. Its designed to look like a pumpkin, perfect for Thanksgiving pies, and complete with a lid with a handle designed like a pumpkin stem. SHOP NOW Ceramic Orange Pumpkin Mini Cocottes Set The Pioneer Woman 14.2-ounce Ceramic Orange Pumpkin Mini Cocottes Set For side dishes or individual portions of desserts, you need these mini pumpkin cocottes. Each has a 14.2-ounce capacity, making it the perfect size for a single serving. Theyre made of durable ceramic stoneware thats dishwasher-safe for easy cleanup. SHOP NOW Pumpkin cookware from Le Creuset Of course, Le Creuset is the way to go if you want to invest in heirloom-quality cookware that will last for generations. This French heritage brand backs up its pieces with a lifetime guarantee so that you can set your fall table in style and with peace of mind. Black Pumpkin Cocotte on table Le Creuset Pumpkin Cocotte Le Creusets Pumpkin Cocotte is the perfect centerpiece for your fall table. Made for braising, baking and more, its easy-to-clean enamel resists staining and chipping for long-lasting quality. SHOP NOW Pumpkin Casserole Dish Le Creuset Pumpkin Casserole The Pumpkin Casserole is the perfect sidekick for pies and side dishes. Its shallow depth and wide lip make it easy to carry, and its colorful glaze is nonreactive, nonporous and scratch- and stain-resistant. SHOP NOW Pumpkin Mini Cocottes Le Creuset Pumpkin Mini Cocotte Le Creusets Pumpkin Mini Cocottes are just the right size for individual servings of cobblers, gratins, pot pies and other holiday dishes and treats. You can also use them to prep and store ingredients to give your kitchen a festive touch. SHOP NOW Prices listed reflect time and date of publication and are subject to change. Check out our Daily Deals for the best products at the best prices and sign up here to receive the BestReviews weekly newsletter full of shopping inspo and sales. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to MyStateline | WTVO News, Weather and Sports. The International Whaling Commission was founded in 1946 to halt and reverse declining whale numbers (Ernesto BENAVIDES) (Ernesto BENAVIDES/AFP/AFP) A four-decade-old moratorium on commercial whaling will remain in force after a proposal to overturn it was withdrawn Thursday at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Peru's capital Lima. Another proposal to declare whaling a source of global food security was also abandoned in a plenary session after failing to gain consensus among delegates from 60 countries. "We are relieved that the dark and dangerous resolution to resume commercial whaling has been withdrawn," said Grettel Delgadillo, Latin America representative for Humane Society International (HSI). The first proposal was submitted by Antigua and Barbuda, which is not a whaling nation but has said it would pursue the matter at the next IWC meeting in Australia in 2026. Delgadillo said pro-whaling stances by countries that do not consume whale meat "demonstrates how Japan continues to influence the IWC despite not being a member anymore." The food security proposal, in turn, was submitted by a host of African countries which also have no whaling tradition but are allies of Japan, according to NGOs. Japan is one of three countries to continue whale hunting, along with Norway and Iceland. It continued the practice for "scientific" purposes after the moratorium was introduced in 1986, killing hundreds of whales in the Antarctic and North Pacific. After years of tensions took a toll on its international reputation, Japan quit the IWC in 2019 and resumed commercial whaling inside its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone (EEZ). An estimated 1,200 whales are killed by hunters every year. Climate change is another threat to the creatures, with whale numbers in the North Pacific decreasing 20 percent between 2012 and 2021 due to a shortage in their main food source, plankton, according to an Australian study. In the 20th century, nearly three million cetaceans were harpooned by humans, according to figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and several species became threatened. ljc/cm/vel/mlr/bjt/aha Update, 9:22 p.m.: UTAH COUNTY, Utah (ABC4) The Utah County Sheriffs Office has found the bodies of the two males onboard Fridays flight that crashed into Utah Lake. The victims have been identified as Michael Hyrum Cox, 43, of St. George, and Mark Andrew Johnson, 46, of Washington. Michael Hyrum Cox (Courtesy of Utah County Sheriffs Office) Michael Hyrum Cox (Courtesy of Utah County Sheriffs Office) Michael Hyrum Cox (Courtesy of Utah County Sheriffs Office) Mark Andrew Johnson (Courtesy of Utah County Sheriffs Office) Mark Andrew Johnson (Courtesy of Utah County Sheriffs Office) No further information is available at this time. Update, 5:47 p.m.: UTAH COUNTY, Utah (ABC4) The Utah County Sheriffs Office has confirmed that two males were on the plane during the crash. No bodies have been recovered at this time. Based on information from witnesses, and from all information gathered, the sheriffs office said they believe the two males to be deceased. Their identities have not been released. Victims identified in tragic Price crash that left 5 dead The plane reportedly crashed half a mile north of the Provo airport, into the Utah Lake. Authorities are currently working to recover the aircraft and find the two males. No further information is available at this time. Original Story: UTAH COUNTY, Utah (ABC4) A small plane crash-landed in Utah Lake Friday morning, according to the Utah County Sheriffs Office. Authorities were called to the scene around 10:10 a.m. on reports of a plane crash. Officials say the plane was cleared to land at the Provo airport, but unfortunately it crashed right before the runway. At least one person was on the plane. Search and rescue crews including divers responded to the area this morning and are still on scene. The wreckage from the plane has been located but the pilot has not yet been found, according to the most recent update. While there were reports of it being a single-engine plane, authorities cannot confirm that information at this time as the aircraft is submerged. There were several witness accounts of the crash from boaters on the lake. The cause of the crash is under investigation. Crews are expected to be on the scene for several hours as they look for any passengers, work to secure the wreckage, and check for a possible fuel leak. This is a developing story. ABC4 will update this post as new information becomes available. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. How U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) expects to fill the capability and capacity gaps that will be created by the planned retirement of U-28A Draco and Beechcraft King Air-based surveillance aircraft is coming under increasing scrutiny. SOCOM and U.S. Air Force officials have repeatedly stressed that while ditching the U-28As and King Airs will free up resources to help field its new OA-1K Sky Warden light attack aircraft, the latter is not a replacement for the former. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), a Congressional watchdog, confirmed to The War Zone earlier this week that it is currently conducting a classified review of SOCOMs decision to divest the U-28As and King Air-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft, the latter of which are often referred to collectively as MC-12s. This is separate from GAOs already extensive and still ongoing assessments of the Armed Overwatch program that led to the OA-1K, a single turboprop-engined light attack aircraft based on the Air Tractor AT-802 crop duster. The OA-1K Sky Warden. L3Harris SOCOM told us that their decisions about Armed Overwatch occurred separate from their decisions to divest of existing aircraft, a GAO spokesperson told The War Zone. We are separately conducting a classified assessment of SOCOMs process for how it decided to divest of ISR aircraft. SOCOM plans to divest two ISR platforms. Subsequently, some personnel and resources from the platforms will be used to support Armed Overwatch, GAO said in an unclassified summary of its assessments to date of the Armed Overwatch program that was released earlier this month. However, GAO found that SOCOM has not taken steps to plan for, or add, critical ISR capabilities provided by soon-to-be divested aircraft. Also, SOCOM has not addressed risks associated with the loss of these capabilities if the new aircraft does not provide them. A U-28A Draco. USAF MC-12W Liberty aircraft like the one seen here are among the ISR-configured Beechcraft King Air variants currently in service across the U.S. special operations community. USAF The exact sizes of the current U-28A and King Air ISR fleets are not entirely clear. In a report published in December 2023, GAO said that close to 40 U-28As and around 15 ISR-configured King Airs remained in service. The Draco is a militarized version of the Pilatus PC-12M single-engine turboprop, while the members of the Beechcraft King Air family are twin-engine turboprop types. U-28As and MC-12s carry different, but similar mixes of sensors, including electro-optical and infrared video cameras and signals intelligence (SIGINT) suites. A graph showing the OA-1K (Armed Overwatch), MC-12, and U-28 fleet sizes as of Fiscal Year 2023 and how they are expected to change by the end of the decade. GAO There is also uncertainty now around the expected size of the OA-1K fleet. In its Fiscal Year 2025 budget proposal released earlier this year, SOCOM revealed plans to shrink the total Sky Warden purchases down to 62 from 75. Our requirement still remains 75 [OA-1Ks] based on what weve determined, Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Conley, head of Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), told The War Zone and others at a media roundtable on the sidelines of the Air & Space Forces Associations main annual conference last week. I think it still provides a cost-effective close air support platform, which is one of the missions that it was designed for. Its still going to provide an ISR capability. The OA-1K can carry camera turrets and other sensors in pods under its wings, but these will only provide limited capabilities compared to the integrated ISR suites found on the U-28A and King Air variants. As already noted, SOCOM and the Air Force have now made clear that they do not see the Sky Warden as a replacement capability-wise for any existing crewed fixed-wing surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft. At the annual SOF Week conference in May, SOCOM officials said that they working on new aerial ISR requirements that could lead to more direct successor to the U-28A and King Airs. A graphic showing a maximum strike load configuration for the Sky Warden that includes a sensor pod with a pair of camera turrets. Air Tractor Inc. A core underlying issue in all of this is the broader shift in focus across the U.S. military to preparing for future high-end fights, especially a potential one against China in the Pacific, after decades of counter-terrorism and other lower-intensity missions. The U.S. special operations community, which had been at the forefront of operations during the Global War on Terror era, is at a particular watershed moment now. This has had a direct impact on planning around the OA-1K and SOCOMs crewed fixed-wing ISR fleets, as well as other special operations unique aircraft like the AC-130J Ghostrider gunship. From when OA-1K was conceptualized and decided on until now, the worlds changed a little bit, Lt. Gen. Conley said last week. But as we move forward, I think theres opportunity to look at, again, some novel mission sets. how quick can we get the wings on and off it so we could use it in some sort of crisis response, if we needed to? Where does the role of SIGINT [signals intelligence], or ELINT [electronic intelligence] or some sort of ISR collect [factor in] there. I think theres opportunity for that. Again, not anything weve committed to yet. When it comes to discussions about crewed fixed-wing ISR capabilities, especially in a world full of ever-more capable and steadily proliferating air defense threats, this broader debate extends beyond just the U.S. special operations community. The U.S. Army has also been divesting significant numbers of turboprop surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, fleets that had ballooned in size in the past 15 years to support operations in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. That service is now looking at a new mix of aerial ISR capabilities that includes modified business jets and high-altitude balloons. King Air-based types like the MC-12S Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System (EMARSS) seen here are among the turboprop ISR aircraft the US Army has also been divesting in recent years. US Army AFSOCs Conley also stressed at the AFA conference this year that while the primary focus of Americas armed forces now is being ready to execute major combat operations against a near-peer opponent, this doesnt mean that lower-end missions will evaporate. A central argument behind the Armed Overwatch program has always been the value of having cheaper alternatives to tactical combat jets, bombers, and other aircraft for conducting light attack and ISR missions in permissive environments. A concept of operations like this also frees up other aircraft for higher-priority missions, or just allows them to not have to fly as much, helping to reduce maintenance and logistics costs. Aircraft like the Sky Warden have the additional benefit of being able to operate with minimal footprints at far-flung locations closer to their mission areas without the need for already heavily in-demand tanker support. That proximity also helps when it comes to time on station, which has its own cost implications. The price to operate fast jets and other aircraft for bases further afield to conduct short-endurance sorties can quickly add up. I tell my team every day [that] the Pacific is incredibly important to us for all the reasons you know, Secretary [of the Air Force Frank Kendall has put emphasis on] China, China, China we get it, the head of AFSOC explained. But weve also got a rest of world mission that Im responsible for, as well. We still have a global mission. I dont think were done in CENTCOM, he continued, referring to U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations across the Middle East, which is currently in the throes of a number of major crises in which the U.S. military is embroiled to differing degrees. And I think theres probably some disconnects in how we analyze what the future fight will look like. Lt. Gen. Conley also noted that his command is still digesting the latest of GAOs assessments on OA-1K and that there is some reconciliation we still need to do with regard to the Congressional watchdogs work to date. AFSOC, as well as SOCOM, will now also have to do the same with regard to whatever comes out of GAOs separate review of the plans to shed the U-28As and King Airs, which may have new impacts on U.S. special operations aviation plans going forward. Contact the author: joe@twz.com Please help: Tampa Bay residents take to social media to get help for loved ones Please help: Tampa Bay residents take to social media to get help for loved ones TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) Tampa Bay residents and their loved ones took to social media to ask for help after Hurricane Helene brought severe flooding Thursday. While Helene made landfall in the Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane, it still brought significant storm surge and rainfall to the Tampa Bay area, cutting off communities. WATCH: 4 people, dog rescued from Hillsborough County flooding Trapped by floodwaters, residents attempted to get the message out on social media that they or their loved ones were in danger. One woman posted in the Madeira Beach, Florida, Facebook group that her relatives were trapped at their home on 4th Street East in Madeira Beach. My sister, her husband, and two dogs are on the roof, she wrote. Another wrote about her parents stuck on North Bayshore Drive. Meanwhile, a Tequesta, Florida resident asked for help to get her friend out of danger. My friend is disabled, she said. He is in the house with his girlfriend. Last I spoke with him water was up to the windows in his 1 story house. I think his phone was losing the battery charge. His name is David Heaston. Over in Hudson, one woman posted on a Pasco County group saying her parents, ages 84 and 87, did not evacuate and were stuck with 8 inches of water inside their house at the time. Tarpon Springs police rescue civilians from Hurricane Helenes floodwaters (Credit: Tarpon Springs Police Department) Tarpon Springs police rescue civilians from Hurricane Helenes floodwaters (Credit: Tarpon Springs Police Department) Numerous people with loved ones in New Port Richey posted in The Hub Facebook asking for someone to rescue them. One woman said her son was even stuck on the roof of a residence on Dewey Drive in New Port Richey. According to the Pasco County Sheriffs Office, around 40 people were removed from floodwaters along the US-19 corridor alone. However, rescues are happening around the clock across Tampa Bay. If you are in an emergency situation, call 911. Do you know of something newsworthy happening in your community? Report It! Send in tips, photos videos and other information 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 WFLA. Authorities determined the deaths of a couple inside a Northwest Austin apartment complex were the result of a murder-suicide, police said. A 911 caller asked police to check on the welfare of her niece and her nieces husband at 5705 Diehl Trail, near W. Parmer Lane and McNeil Drive, on Tuesday afternoon and said she had not heard from either person in the previous 24 hours, police said Thursday in a news release. About an hour later, the caller made a second 911 call and said she was outside the apartment and that no one was answering the door, despite the couple's car being in the parking lot. Police responded to the scene and found Youree Kang, 34, and Hannah Kang, 25, dead inside the apartment, the release said. They believe Youree Kang killed Hannah Kang, and then committed suicide. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Austin Police Department at 512-974-TIPS. Tips can be submitted anonymously through the Capital Area Crime Stoppers program by visiting austincrimestoppers.org or by calling 512-472-8477. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Police: Couple found dead in NW Austin apartment was murder-suicide A post-mortem examination found the 19-year-old had been stabbed in the chest [Andy Trigg/BBC] Detectives investigating the fatal stabbing of a 19-year-old man have been given more time to question three suspects. Norfolk Police were called to the ground floor flat on Lefroy Road in the Mile Cross area of Norwich at 22:40 BST on Saturday following concerns a man had been attacked. Five arrests have been made in connection with the incident, the force said. Following an application to Norwich Magistrates Court, officers have been granted more time to question a man and woman in their 50s and a man in his 20s. A post-mortem examination found the 19-year-old man from London died from a stab wound to the chest and officers believe his body was in the flat for about eight days before police were alerted. Norfolk Police said five arrests had been made in total [Andy Trigg/BBC] On Wednesday the police arrested a man and woman in their 50s on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. Overnight Wednesday and into Thursday morning police made a further three arrests, including a man in his 20s, who was arrested on suspicion of murder and supplying controlled drugs, and a man in his late teens and a man in his 50s on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. All five suspects continue to be questioned by police. Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X. More on this story Related internet links The Huron Police Department in California pulled the little dog out of the sewage drain the animal had fallen into Huron Police Department/Facebook A puppy during and after their rescue from a sewage drain in California A rescue puppy is feeling fresh and clean again after spending time in a sewage drain. On Sept. 26, the Huron Police Department in Huron, California, posted on Facebook about a recent dog rescue that got a little stinky. According to the agency, a puppy fell into a sewage drain in Huron and couldn't get out of the smelly situation alone. The police department was called to assist the canine and shared the result of its rescue on social media. Related: Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton Introduce Kitten They Nursed Back to Health After Finding Him 'Hardly Alive' Huron Police Department/Facebook The Huron Police Department saves a puppy stuck in a sewage drain "Thanks to the quick thinking and teamwork of Commander Fuentes, Sergeant Paul Lopez, and Officer Gonzalez, a puppy that had fallen into a sewage drain was rescued and is expected to make a full recovery!" the Huron Police Department wrote in the Facebook post, which also included photos of the rescue. 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. Huron Police Department/Facebook Puppy rescued from sewage drain In one picture, a police officer emerges from the drain with the puppy in hand. According to KSEE, the officer in the photo wrapped his legs in plastic before entering the drain. The little dog hardly resembles a canine because it is covered in a thick gray-black sludge. Another photo of an officer holding up the pup offers a closer look at the filth on the dog. Luckily, as the final photo shows, all the muck from the sewage drain washed off. The last picture is of the rescue puppy clean and taking a well-earned nap. Related: Abandoned Dog in Recovery After Being 'Drenched' in Motor Oil and Left 'Barely Hanging On' Huron Police Department/Facebook A puppy rescued from a sewage drain in California after receiving a bath The Huron Police Department was happy to help the dog and expressed its joy at the successful rescue online. "We're proud to have such dedicated officers on our team, always ready to serve even our four-legged community members. Great job, team!" the Huron Police Department added on Facebook. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Police identify child whose remains were found in the backyard of a Rose Hill home Police have identified the remains of the child found buried in the backyard of a home in a cul-de-sac in Rose Hill on Sept. 11. DNA has confirmed the remains are those of Kennedy Jean Schroer, who was adopted by Crystina and Joe Schroer in November 2019. Its believed she died in late 2020, Rose Hill chief Taylor Parlier said in a news release Friday morning. Kennedy was born on July 14, 2014. She was a beautiful child, with an infectious smile, Parlier said in the news release. Her remains were found in the backyard of a home in the 1400 block of North Meeker Court. The Schroers have owned the home since at least 2019, according to the earliest available online Butler County tax information. No one is in custody. We understand that many in the public might be confused how an arrest in this case has not been made, that is completely understandable, Parlier said. What we would like to convey is that we have one chance to gather as much information as possible, to find out what happened to this child and to tell her story. Why was Kennedy unaccounted for for so long? Parlier confirmed Christa Helm is Kennedys biological mother and that the girl was named Natalie Garcia at birth. Helm told KSN earlier this week that the child who died was one of three daughters she gave up for adoption. Parlier also said that Helms children were in the custody of the Schroers, but all the children in the home had been placed in protective custody. Earlier this week, he would not say how many children that was. Helm questioned in an interview with KSN how one of her children could be unaccounted for for so long. How does nobody know this child is missing? Helm, who did not respond to The Eagle earlier this week, told KSN. Why was (Kansas Department for Children and Families) not checking up on her? In response to questions earlier this week, including how a child was not accounted for for years, in an email, DCF spokesperson Erin LaRow said: DCF is treating this cases disclosure as ... a situation involving the death of a child not in the custody of the secretary. Therefore, your questions are better directed to local law enforcement, which leads the investigation and is responsible for filing any charges, if warranted, in the case. When asked how Kennedy went unaccounted for for so long, Parlier said: Accounting for the child is the primary focus of the investigation at this time and therefore I cannot speak more to that question. Childs remains found during mental health call Police first learned a child was buried in the backyard of the home after responding to a Sept. 10 mental health call where an adult at the residence threatened to harm themselves. Two other adults and two children were inside as well. Police eventually took the person, who was barricaded, into custody. That person was then taken to the hospital and has since been released, Parlier said. The body was found buried 3 feet deep in the backyard the next day. Police ruled it a homicide. A childs remains were found buried in a Rose Hill backyard. How police discovered them HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT) Madisonville Police say one man was arrested on Thursday night after he allegedly stabbed another man in the 600 block of Scott Street. Officers were dispatched to the address at approximately 9:45 p.m. in reference to a male attempting to stab another male. At the scene, police say individuals at the scene identified Steven Campbell, 42, as the suspect. Police say they also located an injured man who said he needed an ambulance. The injured man told authorities he went to the home about a verbal altercation Campbell had with another individual. He said the two of them went outside, with Campbell brandishing a knife. He said he tried to get away, but he fell, and Campbell began stabbing his arm. Authorities say Campbell was intoxicated at the time of his arrest. He has been charged with assault and alcohol intoxication in a public place. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Eyewitness News (WEHT/WTVW). Stolen ambulance taken on joy ride through town, stops at YSU WARREN TWP., Ohio (WKBN) Warren Township Police are investigating after a township ambulance was taken from one of its fire stations. The ambulance was later found at Homestead Park in Youngstown. Earlier, it had been spotted trying to get into the Wick Avenue Parking Deck at Youngstown State University, but it was too large to fit through. A university spokesperson said the ambulance caused minor damage to a sign near the parking deck in the process. Police Chief Benjamin Harrell said the ambulance was taken from Station 49 on North River Road. He says it was last seen by personnel at the station around 4 p.m. Thursday and was captured on a nearby business surveillance video driving away from the station after 5 a.m. Friday. We are still trying to figure out how this happened. I mean, our buildings are very well secured, said Warren Township Trustee Ed Anthony. Outside the station where the ambulance was taken. The discovery was made several hours later when a passerby noticed a garage door at the station was open and reported it. Township Trustee Ed Anthony says Fire Chief Joe Natali went to check on the station and found an ambulance was missing. We got her back, shes safe, said Capt. Julie Knowlton, with the Warren Township Fire Department. The ambulance is a little banged up. The light bar is broken and a back step bumper was found about 23 miles south in Youngstown. Ambulance at YSU parking deck (Courtesy: Ryan Fritch via Report It) Its bee unnerving and scary knowing our ambulance is out here with our name on it doing God knows what through God knows where, Knowlton said. It appears as if the ambulance was just taken on a lengthy joy ride. Kowltown said from what they could tell, all the electronics and the medications that were on board the ambulance were still there. Thats what it appears like until they do an investigation and figure out who did this and question them, Knowlton said. Jacob Thompson and Chelsea Simeon 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 WKBN.com. Police Said Teacher Raped Student, Then Made Him Drive Because She Was Too Drunk. Now She's Going to Prison Jessica Lawson was arrested in November 2023 after allegedly telling the teen to drive her car because she was too drunk Madison County Jail Jessica Lawson An Idaho high school teacher was sentenced to at least two years in prison and could serve up to 20 after pleading guilty to sexual battery of a child. Jessica Lawson, 36, pleaded guilty to two counts of that charge as part of a plea agreement, according to online court records. As part of the agreement, a judge dismissed charges of dispensing alcohol to a minor and delivering a controlled substance, records indicate. Lawson was arrested in St. Anthony, Idaho, in November 2023 after she was sitting in the passengers seat of a car being driven by a teenage boy that was pulled over by police, police said, according to reports from the Idaho State Journal, East Idaho News and Local News 8. Police alleged that Lawson had instructed the boy to drive because she was too inebriated, the outlets reported. Related: Teacher Accused of Raping Teen Boy Was Arrested in Traffic Stop He Was Driving Because She Was Drunk: Police The car was pulled over because of a broken taillight, the State Journal reported, citing court records. Police reportedly alleged that the boy admitted to having marijuana. East Idaho News reported that the boys parents told police that Lawson had picked up their son the night before and that he admitted to having been given alcohol and marijuana before the two had sex. 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. Police then interviewed the boy, the outlet reported, and he said the two had sex. Lawson is a former teacher at South Fremont High School. She will serve a minimum of two years in prison. East Idaho News reports that she was also given a 20-year no contact order with the victim. If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages. If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Police search for armed and dangerous suspect in Lancaster murder case Lancaster police said Thursday that Lamonta Dishanior Roberts, 31, who is armed and dangerous, is wanted in the killing Jelani Jackson. PAST COVERAGE: 18-year-old recent high school student shot, killed in Lancaster On Sept. 4, deputies found Jackson, who was shot, on Clinton Avenue. He died at a hospital. Roberts is facing several charges, including murder, possession of a weapon during a violent crime, and possession of a weapon by a convicted felon. He also violated his federal probation, police said. If you see him, call 911, police said. There has already been an arrest in the murder case. Kenyan Blair, 18, was charged on Sept. 11 with possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. He was already in jail on other charges. ST. LOUIS Police are asking for help to find two men involved in a shooting. The incident happened on September 23 around 9 p.m. at a Phillips 66 gas station on Salisbury Street. No one was hurt, but a womans car was hit by bullets. One suspect is described as a man in his early 20s. He wore a black hoodie, black pants with white stripes, an orange and yellow safety vest, and white and yellow Nike Jordan shoes. The other suspect is also in his early 20s and wore a black hoodie with the hood up, a black mask, light-colored jeans, and black shoes. The men were in a white or light grey Nissan sedan. The car has a black roof, black wheels, and a spoiler. It looks like theres damage to the front right side of the car. If you know anything about this, please call CrimeStoppers at 866-371-TIPS (8477) or the police at 314-444-2500. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. ROTHEFORD COUNTY, N.C. (WSPA) Police are searching for a man who allegedly attempted to abduct a woman from her car in Black Mountain last week. According to the Rutherford County Sheriffs Office, the attempted abduction happened just before midnight September 17, at the intersection of Broadway Street and Sutton Avenue. Deputies said a Hispanic male had entered the womans car and grabbed her from behind while she was driving. The woman then pulled into a Shell gas station on 202 NC Highway 9. The male suspect immediately fled the scene on foot towards Sutton Avenue. Officials reported that the suspect is younger and stands between 56 and 59 tall, weighing around 150 pounds. He also had long, dark hair and was wearing a trucker style hat with a tiger logo on the front. Anyone with information about the attempted abduction is asked 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 WSPA 7NEWS. HONOLULU (KHON2) The Honolulu Police Department opened an attempted murder investigation after an incident Thursday afternoon in Kalihi. Get Hawaiis latest morning news delivered to your inbox, sign up for News 2 You Two adult males said a man intentionally drove his car into them near Democrat and Mokauea Streets at 5:30 p.m. One of the men suffered minor injuries. The driver, reportedly a 42-year-old man, drove off. HPD continues its investigation into the incident. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KHON2. WARREN, Ohio (WKBN) An 81-year-old woman who had been reported missing after leaving her home Wednesday night has been found. According to Trumbull County Dispatch, the woman is safe and is back home. There were concerns because the woman had been without her needed medication when she left the home. Chelsea Simeon and Kristen Hephner 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 WKBN.com. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) Police have shot and injured a suspect in the Woodlawn Neighborhood Thursday evening, authorities said. According to Portland police, the incident happened at 6:21 p.m. in the 7000 block of Northeast 17th Avenue. Officials ID capsized boater, now presumed dead No officers were hurt. The suspect was transported by ambulance to a hospital. He is in police custody at the hospital. The investigation is ongoing and several blocks around Northeast 17th Avenue and Northeast Bryant Street closed during the investigation, officials said. The Portland Police Bureau said in a release that officers were attempting to arrest the suspect, whose identity has not been released, when the shooting happened. The suspect, a man, is accused of violent felonies involving a firearm, officials said. PPB said there was an exchange of gunfire when members of the Major Crimes Unit Detectives and Members of the Special Emergency Reaction Team approached the suspect to arrest him. Though police didnt make it clear as to whether the suspect fired his gun or not during the incident, they did say officers recovered a semiautomatic handgun used by the suspect that was seized as evidence. Police released a photo of the gun, seen on a vehicle seat and surrounded by broken glass. Three PPB officers assigned to SERT discharged firearms and injured the suspect, PPB said. The suspect was given trauma first aid by an on-scene SERT paramedic until EMS arrived to provide advanced care and the suspect was transported to the hospital by ambulance. He remains at the hospital under police guard. A suspect gun recovered from a crime a scene amid an officer-involved shooting. September 26, 2024 (courtesy Portland Police Bureau). In an incident in the Woodlawn Neighborhood resulted in police shooting and injuring a suspect on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024 (KOIN). PPB homicide detectives also responded to the scene. The three officers who fired their weapons will be placed on paid administrative leave, per standard protocol, officials said. Chief Bob Day released a statement about the shooting, saying in part that PPB is committed to conducting a thorough investigation into the use of deadly force. As always I want to affirm the sanctity of life, and I recognize that any time police officers use deadly force in the course of their work, it understandably causes concern in our community, Day said. Proactively investigating violent crime is essential to reduce crime and the fear of crime and Im committed that the Police Bureau will conduct a thorough investigation. This is a developing story. KOIN 6 News will update this article if more information becomes available. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. Police say shooting into house tied to drug activity SALEM, Ohio (WKBN) The Salem Police Department is investigating a shooting incident that took place early Thursday morning. Officers responded to the 500 block of N. Ellsworth Avenue just before 2 a.m. Thursday for reports of a shooting. Reports state no one was injured, but several rounds were fired into a home. Authorities tell First News the home that was shot at was previously linked to drug activity and was recently an involved location at a Columbiana County Drug Task Force investigation. They believe it was a targeted attack. The incident remains under investigation by detectives. Anyone with more information is asked to call the Salem Police Department at 330-227-7811. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com. SPRINGFIELD, Mo. The fallout continues from former president Donald Trumps unfounded claims that immigrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. Now people in Springfield, Missouri are being impacted by the claims Trump made during his Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. On Wednesday, the Jamaican Patty Company, which has been serving the Ozarks since 2018, received a disgruntled call even though they have nothing to do with the claims. DeSean Howard is one of the owners and answered the phone, expecting a customer to place an order on the other end. She took it upon herself to call the store, which clearly is called Jamaican Patty Co. That was pretty strange, but, you know, it just was disappointing at the same time. The phone call came one day after a Haitian nonprofit community group, the Haitian Bridge Alliance, in Ohio filed criminal charges against former president Trump and his running mate JD Vance. So, we received a call yesterday around 1:30, 2 p.m., the call was from a caller that sounded very upset, Howard said. She wanted to know why we came together and filed a lawsuit against Trump/Vance ticket. 10 haunted houses and corn mazes you must see Howard, one of the owners of the JPC, said the call ended before he had the chance to set the woman straight. She just went off on me, and I said, hey, hold up. Were Jamaicans, were not Haitians. And then she paused for a second, Howard said. I was going to tell her that, you know, we dont support that kind of stuff, but she hung up. Wednesdays caller is not the only one who believed the claims about immigrants eating pets and connected them to Springfield, Missouri. I was shocked to find out Missouri is the place eating dogs. What is going on there? That is one voicemail from at least twelve phone calls the city of Springfield has received on its office phones since the debate. Howard says Jamaican Patty Company is hoping to turn this negative into a positive and speak out against misinformation. The most important thing for me is to highlight the issues so that we can have a conversation about it because its something that a lot of people do not support, Howard 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 KOLR - OzarksFirst.com. Photo illustration by Eric Thomas for Kansas Reflector According to new poll findings from strategic communications firm Climate Power, climate change is a major priority among Black voters in battleground states, with climate and energy issues serving as a major motivator to vote. The poll, conducted by the Washington, D.C.-based research firm HIT Strategies, surveyed 1,000 Black registered voters across Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. HIT_Climate-Power_Battleground_Black_voters_9.20.2024 According to the findings, 58% of Black voters in battleground states view climate change as a major priority, with 29% saying it was somewhat of a priority in their voted decisions for the 2024 presidential election. 14% responded it was a low priority, or not a priority for their decision. While the poll found Vice President Kamala Harris has a solid lead over former President Donald Trump among Black voters in battleground states, climate and energy also proved to be a winning issue for the Democratic nominee, with more than 80% of voters saying they trusted Harris over Trump on issues of clean energy and climate change. Black battleground voters, particularly baby boomers, reported both high levels of motivation to vote, as well as high levels of empowerment that their vote could create change. However, messaging on clean energy and climate change increased motivation for 33% of Black voters. Additionally, support for Harris grew across all age groups after exposure to climate change and clean energy messaging, with a particular impact among young voters. Polling found that Black swing voters tend to be nonpartisan, Gen Z and men, groups with whom Harris still sees strong support. Among these swing voters 31% listed climate change as their top or major priority in the election, while 39% said it was somewhat of a priority. Polling also found that Black voters strongly preferred candidates who supported efforts on climate and clean energy than candidates who supported relying on oil and gas, with 79% of voters surveyed saying theyd be more likely to support a candidate who would reduce our reliance on foreign oil, lower electricity bills, and would create good-paying, union jobs across the country while protecting the country from the impacts of climate change and pollution. In contrast, 21% of Black voters said they would support a candidate who says that America has the oil and gas resources to be energy independent if we just use them and will fight to get rid of environmental regulations and red tape that are driving up prices, destroying jobs in the fossil fuel industry, and hurting Americans pocketbooks. When polled on Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundations list of far-right policy priorities crafted for a future Republican presidential administration, a majority of Black swing voters expressed concern. Sixty-six percent of swing voters said they were somewhat or very concerned by the following statement: Donald Trumps extremist Project 2025 will harm our communities and put our children in grave danger. It would eliminate the National Weather Service as we know it, which alerts us about storms, fires, and other extreme weather events. Trumps allies would dismantle environmental protections, allowing corporate polluters to dump toxic waste into our rivers and skies. Project 2025 would lead to 1.7 million lost jobs in our communities. We must vote against Trump and prevent his extremist agenda from harming our families. While Trump has repeatedly denied any connection to Project 2025, a review from CNN found that 140 members of the Trump administration, including six former cabinet secretaries, were listed as authors, editors and contributors on the efforts 900-plus page Mandate for Leadership. According to a report from the Washington Post, the former president also flew with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts to a conference in 2022 where Trump delivered a speech pointing to the foundations not-yet-released policy proposals, saying Theyre going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do. From the Dispatch Politics on The Dispatch Happy Friday! Election Day is 39 days away. Nows your chance to grab one of your very own Trump watches, and you could pay as much as $100,000. The watches, which the former president promoted Thursday, are not directly sold by Trump or his business conglomerate and are not affiliated with his campaign, per the sellers website. But they do use Trumps brand under a paid license agreement. Up to Speed A grand jury indicted multiple Iranians on charges related to an operation from that country that allegedly hacked into internal communications of former President Donald Trumps campaign over the summer, Politico reported Thursday. Federal authorities said earlier this month that Iranian malicious cyber actors sent unsolicited emails to news outlets and to President Joe Bidens campaign (when he was still in the race) containing stolen information from the Trump campaign. Hackers from the country allegedly tried unsuccessfully to hack into the Biden campaign as well. Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Trump Tower in New York this morning, two days after the former president accused the foreign leader of casting little, nasty aspersions toward him. Also on Wednesday, Trumps running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, criticized Zelensky for telling the American taxpayers what they ought to do. Trumps opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, met with Zelensky on Thursday. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is now spending money in ruby-red Nebraska, where incumbent GOP Sen. Deb Fischer is fending off an unexpectedly competitive challenge from independent Dan Osborn, an industrial mechanic and local union official who served in the Navy. The NRSC will help Trump-endorsed Deb Fischer fight back against the left-wing smear campaign national Democrats are waging against her, NRSC spokesman Mike Berg said in a statement shared with Dispatch Politics . A SurveyUSA poll released this week showed Osborn narrowly leading Fischer. But Republican insiders in Washington monitoring this race say Fischer has the lead. The NRSCs support for the senators campaign is, they tell us, akin to political insurance, given the significant resources being invested in Nebraska on Osborns behalf, including by prominent Democratic donor Reid Hoffman. Several New York Democratic House candidates on Thursday called on New York City Mayor Eric Adams to resign in the wake of his indictment on corruption charges. John Avlon, Mondaire Jones, Josh Riley, and Laura Gillen hope to unseat vulnerable Republicans in November, and all four made such statements. Gillen in particular used the news to hit her opponent, Rep. Anthony DEsposito, who reportedly kept his lover on his congressional payroll. Jones, Riley, and Gillen are all running in toss-up districts per the Cook Political Report, while Avlons is likely Republican. A trio of Kansas Republicans has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, Fox News reports: former U.S. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, former state Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, and Deanell Reece Tacha, a retired federal judge. This election presents a stark choice that is not easy for any of us, the three said in a joint statement. But, it requires Republicans speaking out and putting country over party when those values are at stake. Gallup Poll Finds Fewer GOP Voters Trust Election Results People vote on the first day of Virginia's in-person early voting at Long Bridge Park Aquatics and Fitness Center on September 20, 2024, in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) The 2024 presidential election remains a toss-up by any reasonable metric. Polls show a tight race in all seven battleground states, and there are numerous plausible combinations of Electoral College victories for both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Partisans may not like the idea of their side losing the White House, but the truth is either Harris or Trump could win. Thats what makes a new report about public confidence in election results from Gallup notableand alarming. The storied public opinion polling firm has asked the same question every four years (except once, in 2012) since 2004: How confident are you that, across the country, the votes for president will be accurately cast and counted in this years election? That 2004 election year was a high-water mark for public confidence, with 72 percent of American adults saying they were either very or somewhat confident and just 21 percent saying they were not too confident and 6 percent saying they were not confident at all. Twenty years later, Gallup has found, the picture has changed. While the majority of Americans still say they have confidence in the elections integrity, the number of those who say they are either not too confident or not at all confident has risen considerably. Just 57 percent say they will be very or somewhat confident in the accuracy of the election results, with 24 percent saying they are not too confident and a whopping 19 percent saying they are not confident at all. The finding suggests any of the possible outcomes could be viewed with suspicion by a significant number of Americans, but the partisan breakdown of this shift tells the bigger story: Republicans, after years of rhetoric from Trump, other elected officials, and conservative movement leaders, are the least likely to have confidence in the accuracy of elections. The suggestions by some political leaders that the election could be illegitimate have only intensified this year. In May, for instance, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas pushed back on a question during an appearance on CNN about whether he would accept the results of the 2024 election unconditionally, finally relenting by saying, If the Democrats win, I will accept the result, but Im not going to ignore fraud regardless of what happens. Two months later, Mike Howell of the Heritage Foundation said during an event that As things stand right now, theres zero chance of a free and fair election. And just this week, House Speaker Mike Johnson attached plenty of conditions when he was asked if he would commit to observing regular order in the certification of the Electoral College vote if Harris defeated Trump. Well, of course, the Republican leader said, if we have a free, fair and safe election, were going to follow the Constitution. It wasnt always this way. In Gallups 2004 survey, it was Democrats relative lack of confidence bringing down those numbers, with just 59 percent saying they were very or somewhat confident, while 69 percent of independents and 87 percent of Republicans said the same thing. But over the past two decades, Republican confidence has plummeted, dropping to 57 percent in 2008, 44 percent in 2020, and now just 28 percent in 2024. Meanwhile, Democrats have reversed themselves from being the least confident to the most confident, with that figure up to 84 percent in 2024. (Independents have been relatively steady in their views, down from 2004 but nevertheless in the middle at 58 percent saying they are very or somewhat confident.) There are some signs of more universal confidence, writes Gallups Lydia Saad: Americans are far more positive about the integrity of the vote at their own polling place, as 76% say they are very or somewhat confident the votes will be accurately cast and counted there. While there is also a partisan difference on this question, it is much narrower, with 90% of Democrats, 71% of independents and 70% of Republicans confident. But that simply underscores how little trust there is among Republicans in this upcoming national election. Gallup found that roughly three quarters of Republicans say they think illegal or fraudulent voting and votes cast by ineligible voters will be a major problem in the upcoming election. The same number of Democrats, meanwhile, say they think it will be a major problem that candidates who lost will refuse to concede, a reasonable concern given Trumps refusal to do so in 2020. Still, in anticipation of a possible loss, the Republican partys institutions are gearing up to sow doubt about the results, focusing on the post-election legal fight at the expense of its get-out-the-vote efforts to actually win. And if Gallups numbers are to be believed, GOP leaders will find a sizable number of their own voters are ready to follow them down that path. Eyes on the Trail President Joe Biden heads to Scranton, Pennsylvania, for an afternoon event, the details of which havent yet been announced. From Scranton, Biden heads to his seaside retreat in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Vice President Kamala Harris travels to Douglas, Arizona, for a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border. She will receive a briefing on operations and progress on disrupting the flow of fentanyl through the southern border and deliver remarks afterward. From Arizona, Harris travels to San Francisco, where on Saturday she is scheduled to participate in an unspecified political event, after which she heads to Los Angeles. On Sunday, the vice president is set to participate in a second unspecified political event in Los Angeles, and then travels to Las Vegas, where she will host a campaign rally. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, heads to Michigan Stadium, aka The Big House, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Saturday to attend the University of Michigans game against the University of Minnesota and speak with students about the power of their vote and the importance of registering to vote ahead of the November election, according to the campaign. Former President Donald Trump will deliver remarks on the economy Friday afternoon in Walker, Michigan. In the evening, Trump heads to Warren, Michigan, to host what his campaign is billing as a town hall meeting. On Saturday morning, Trump will deliver remarks in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, where he will also meet with community leaders and residents to discuss the impacts of illegal immigration. And on Sunday afternoon, Trump will host a rally in Erie, a key battleground in all-important Pennsylvania. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio will headline a town hall meeting in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, Saturday afternoon hosted by prominent Texas televangelist Lance Wallnau, a Trump supporter who has described the former president as Gods chaos candidate. In the evening, the Republican vice presidential nominee will head to Newtown, Pennsylvania, where he will headline a Trump campaign rally and discuss energy issues. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard headline a Trump campaign Reclaim America Tour event Saturday evening in Dearborn, Michigan. Kennedy, an ex-Democrat, waged an independent bid for president this year until he dropped out and endorsed Trump. Gabbard is a former Democrat who sought her old partys presidential nomination in 2020. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina is scheduled Friday afternoon to headline a Trump campaign event at an undisclosed location that is focused on black empowerment and financial literacy. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Saturday will head to suburban Philadelphia to headline a Harris campaign event focused on reproductive rights. On Sunday, Shapiro will be in North Carolina campaigning for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Josh Stein. Notable and Quotable They never think about what might happen when the shoe is on the other foot. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Vice President Kamala Harris call to eliminate the filibuster in order to codify Roe v. Wade, September 26, 2024 Read more at The Dispatch The Dispatch is a new digital media company providing engaged citizens with fact-based reporting and commentary, informed by conservative principles. Sign up for free. As response rates drop, pollsters are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to determine what voters are thinking ahead of Election Day, not only asking the questions but sometimes to help answer them. (Courtesy of Stephen Maturen/Getty Images) Days after President Joe Biden announced he would not be seeking re-election, and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, polling organization Siena College Research Institute sought to learn how persuadable voters were feeling about Harris. In their survey, a 37-year-old Republican explained that they generally favored Trump for his ability to get [things] done one way or another. Who do you think cares about people like you? How do they compare in terms of caring about people like you? the pollster asked. Thats where I think Harris wins, I lost a lot of faith in Trump when he didnt even contact the family of the supporter who died at his rally, the 37-year-old said. Pollsters pressed this participant and others across the political spectrum to further explain their stances, and examine the nuance behind choosing a candidate. The researchers saw in real time how voters may sway depending on the issue, and asked follow-up questions about their belief systems. But the persuadable voters werent talking to a human pollster. They were conversing with an AI chatbot called Engage. The speed in which election cycles move, coupled with a steep drop of people participating in regular phone or door-to-door polls, have caused pollsters to turn to artificial intelligence for insights, both asking the questions and sometimes even answering them Why do we poll? The history of polling voters in presidential races goes back 200 years, to the 1824 race which ultimately landed John Quincy Adams in the White House. White men began polling each other at events leading up to the election, and newspapers began reporting the results, though they didnt frame the results as predictive of the outcome of the election. In modern times, polling for public opinion has become a business. Research centers, academic institutions and news conglomerates themselves have been conducting polls during election season for decades. Though their accuracy has limitations, the practice is one of the only ways to gauge how Americans may be thinking before they vote. Polling plays a different role for different groups, said Rachel Cobb, an assistant professor of political science and legal studies at Suffolk University. For campaign workers, polling groups of voters helps provide insight into the issues people care about the most right now, and informs how candidates talk about those issues. Its why questions at a presidential debate usually arent a surprise to candidates moderators tend to ask questions about the highest-polling topics that week. For news outlets, polls help give context to current events and give anchors numbers to illustrate a story. Constant polling also helps keep a 24-hour news cycle going. And for regular Americans, poll results help them gauge where the race is, and either activate or calm their nerves, depending on if their candidate is polling favorably. But Cobb said she, like many of her political science colleagues, has observed a drop in responses to more traditional style of polling. Its much harder and more expensive for pollsters to do their job, because people arent answering their phones or their front doors. The time invested in getting the appropriate kind of balance of people that you need in order to determine accuracy has gotten greater and so and theyve had to come up with more creative ways to get them, Cobb said. At the same time, our technological capacity has increased. How AI is assisting in polling? The speed of information has increased exponentially with social media and 24-hour news cycles, and polls have had to keep up, too. Though they bring value in showing insights for a certain group of people, their validity is fleeting because of that speed, Cobb said. Results are truly only representative of that moment in time, because one breaking news story could quickly change public opinion. That means pollsters have to work quickly, or train artificial intelligence to keep up. Leib Litman, co-CEO and chief research officer of CloudResearch, which created the chatbot tool Engage, said AI has allowed them to collect answers so much faster than before. Were able to interview thousands of people within a matter of a couple hours, and then all of that data that we get, all those conversations, were also able to analyze it, and derive the insights very, very quickly, he said. Engage was developed about a year ago and can be used in any industry where you need to conduct market research via interviews. But its become especially useful in this election cycle as campaigns attempt to learn how Americans are feeling at any given moment. The goal isnt to replace human responses with AI, rather to use AI to reach more people, Litman said. But some polling companies are skipping interviewing and instead relying on something called sentiment analysis AI to analyze publically available data and opinions. Think tank Heartland Forward recently worked with AI-powered polling group Aaru to determine the public perception of artificial intelligence. The prediction AI company uses geographical and demographic data of an area and scrapes publicly available information, like tweets or voting records, to simulate respondents of a poll. The algorithm uses all this information to make assertions about how a certain demographic group may vote or how they may answer questions about political issues. This type of poll was a first for Heartland Forward, and its executive vice president Angie Cooper said they paired the AI-conducted poll with in-person gatherings where they conducted more traditional polls. When we commissioned the poll, we didnt know what the results were going to yield, she said. What we heard in person closely mirrored the poll results. Sentiment Analysis The Aaru poll is an example of sentiment analysis AI, which uses machine learning and large language models to analyze the meaning and tone behind text. It includes training an algorithm to not just understand literally whats in a body of text, but also to seek out hidden messaging or context, like humans do in conversation. The general public started interacting with this type of AI in about 2010, said Zohaib Ahmed, founder of Resemble AI, which specializes in voice generation AI. Sentiment analysis AI is the foundation behind search engines that can read a request and make recommendations, or to get your Alexa device to fulfill a command. Between 2010 and 2020, though, the amount of information collected on the internet has increased exponentially. Theres so much more data for AI models to process and learn from, and technologists have taught it to process contextual, between-the-lines information. The concept behind sentiment analysis is already well understood by pollsters, says Bruce Schneier, a security technologist and lecturer at Harvard Universitys Kennedy School. In June, Schneier and other researchers published a look into how AI was playing a role in political polling. Most people think polling is just asking people questions and recording their answers, Schneier said, but theres a lot of math between the questions people answer and the poll results. All of the work in polling is turning the answers that humans give into usable data, Schneier said. You have to account for a few things: people lie to pollsters, certain groups may have been left out of a poll, and response rates are overall low. Youre also applying polling statistics to the answers to come up with consumable data. All of this is work that humans have had to do themselves before technology and computing helped speed up the process. In the Harvard research, Schneier and the other authors say they believe AI will get better at anticipating human responses, and knowing when it needs human intervention for more accurate context. Currently, they said, humans are our primary respondents to polls, and computers fill in the gaps. In the future, though, well likely see AI filling out surveys and humans filling in the gaps. I think AI should be another tool in the pollsters mathematical toolbox, which has been getting more complex for the past several decades, Schneier said. Pros and cons of AI-assisted polling AI polling methods bring pollsters more access and opportunity to gauge public reaction. Those who have begun using it in their methodology said that theyve struggled to get responses from humans organically, or they dont have the time and resources to conduct in-person or telephone polling. Being interviewed by an anonymous chatbot may also provide more transparent answers for controversial political topics. Litman said personal, private issues such as health care or abortion access are where their chatbot really shines. Women, in particular, have reported that they feel more comfortable sharing their true feelings about these topics when talking to a chatbot, he said. But, like all methodology around polling, its possible to build flaws into AI-assisted polling. The Harvard researchers ran their own experiment asking ChatGPT 3.5 questions about the political climate, and found shortcomings when it asked about U.S. intervention in the Ukraine war. Because the AI model only had access to data up through 2021, the answers missed all of the current context about Russias invasion beginning in 2022. Sentiment analysis AI may also struggle with text thats ambiguous, and it cant be counted on for reviewing developing information, Ahmed said. For example, the X timeline following one of the two assassination attempts of Trump probably included favorable or supportive messages from politicians across the aisle. An AI algorithm might read the situation and conclude that all of those people are very pro-Trump. But it doesnt necessarily mean theyre navigating towards Donald Trump, Ahmed said. It just means, you know, theres sympathy towards an event thats happened, right? But that event is completely missed by the AI. It has no context of that event occurring, per se. Just like phone-call polling, AI-assisted polling can also potentially leave whole groups of people out of surveys, Cobb said. Those who arent comfortable using a chatbot, or arent very active online will be excluded from public opinion polls if pollsters move most of their methods online. Its very nuanced, Ahmed said of AI polling. I think it can give you a pretty decent, high-level look at whats happening, and I guarantee that its being used by election teams to understand their position in the race, but we have to remember we exist in bubbles, and it can be misleading. Both the political and technology experts agreed that as with most other facets of our lives, AI has found its way into polling and we likely wont look back. Technologists should aim to further train AI models to understand human sentiment, they say, and pollsters should continue to pair it with human responses for a fuller scope of public opinion. Science of polling is huge and complicated, Schneier said. And adding AI to the mix is another tiny step down a pathway weve been walking for a long time using, you know, fancy math combined with human data. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Pope Francis delivers a speech during a papal visit to the Royal Castle in Laeken, Brussels. Dirk Waem/Belga/dpa In a speech in Brussels on Friday, Pope Francis denounced the sexual abuse of minors by priests as a "disgrace" that the Catholic Church must seek forgiveness for. "The church must be ashamed," the pope said in a surprise departure from his speech at the Castle of Laeken. The pontiff, visibly moved, added that the church must "do everything - everything possible - so that this does not happen again." Pope Francis was meeting Belgian King Philippe as well as Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo at the start of his three-day visit to Belgium. The Belgian prime minister had sharp words for the pope, telling the head of the Catholic Church that words are not enough and that "concrete steps must also be taken." "The victims must be heard. They should be at the centre. They have a right to the truth," De Croo said in his speech to welcome the pope. The Belgian king spoke similarly, noting that while the pope is taking action "it has taken far too long to begin looking for ways to repair the irreparable." Pope Francis is scheduled to meet privately with a group of 15 victims of clerical sexual abuse. Jean-Marc Turine, a Belgian writer, director, and member of the group, told dpa the victims want the pope to admit that the Catholic Church was responsible for the abuse. "The Church has to take this on board, really take it on board," Turine said. He said that the Church must stop protecting rapist priests, alleging this "has very often been the case." "The pope has never spoken with victims" in Belgium, Turine added, calling on the church to provide proper financial compensation. The sexual abuse "destroyed the lives" of many people, he said. The timing and location of the meeting between the group of victims and the pope has not been disclosed. The pope is addressing a number of issues on the trip, including migration, climate change and the Ukraine war. It is Francis' 46th international trip as pope. He was in Luxembourg on Thursday. The pontiff later plans to mark the 600th anniversary of the Catholic University of Leuven on Friday, founded in 1425. On Saturday, he is due to visit the partner Catholic University in Louvain-La-Neuve. The pope also plans to meet bishops and members of the Catholic community at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Koekelberg in Brussels. The pontiff plans to say Mass at the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels on Sunday. Pope Francis is pressing on with the trip despite cancelling all appointments on Monday due an illness. The Vatican said the 87-year-old was suffering from a "mild flu." Pope Francis delivers a speech during a papal visit to the Royal Castle in Laeken, Brussels. Dirk Waem/Belga/dpa In a speech in Brussels on Friday, Pope Francis denounced the sexual abuse of minors by priests as a "disgrace" that the Catholic Church must seek forgiveness for. "The church must be ashamed," the pope said in a surprise departure from his speech at the Castle of Laeken. The pontiff, visibly moved, added that the church must "do everything - everything possible - so that this does not happen again." Pope Francis was meeting Belgian King Philippe as well as Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo at the start of his three-day visit to Belgium. The Belgian prime minister had a sharp welcome for the pope, telling the head of the Catholic Church that words are not enough and that "concrete steps must also be taken." "The victims must be heard. They should be at the centre. They have a right to the truth," De Croo said in his speech to welcome the pope. The Belgian king spoke similarly, noting that while the pope is taking action "it has taken far too long to begin looking for ways to repair the irreparable." Pope Francis is scheduled to meet privately with a group of 15 victims of clerical sexual abuse later on Friday. Jean-Marc Turine, a Belgian writer, director, and member of the group, told dpa the victims want the pope to admit that the Catholic Church was responsible for the abuse. "The Church has to take this on board, really take it on board," Turine said. He said that the Church must stop protecting rapist priests, alleging this "has very often been the case." "The pope has never spoken with victims" in Belgium, Turine added, calling on the church to provide proper financial compensation. The sexual abuse "destroyed the lives" of many people, he said. The timing and location of the meeting between the group of victims and the pope has not been disclosed. The pope is addressing a number of issues on the trip, including migration, climate change and the Ukraine war. It is Francis' 46th international trip as pope. He was in Luxembourg on Thursday. In Leuven, the pope attended a ceremony marking the 600th anniversary of the Catholic University of Leuven's foundation in 1425. The pontiff blessed the clergy and university professors present. The pope also thanked the university for welcoming refugees and met with a small group of refugee students. On Saturday, he is due to visit the partner Catholic University in Louvain-La-Neuve. The pope also plans to meet bishops and members of the Catholic community at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Koekelberg in Brussels. The pontiff plans to say Mass at the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels on Sunday. Pope Francis is pressing on with the trip despite cancelling all appointments on Monday due an illness. The Vatican said the 87-year-old was suffering from a "mild flu." Pope Francis has been welcomed to Belgium with powerful speeches from both the prime minister and the king condemning the Catholic Churchs handling of sexual abuse. It was some of the most direct criticism levelled at the Church by a countrys leaders on the issue during a papal visit, with both King Philippe and Alexander de Croo alluding to the pontiffs own responsibility in bringing about justice. The Pope acknowledged their comments, saying the Church must be ashamed but said it was a matter that was being dealt with firmly and decisively. Late on Friday, behind closed doors, the Pope met 15 survivors of abuse by members of the Catholic Church. At the Palace of Laeken the Pope looked on solemnly as first the king of the Belgians and then the prime minister were unusually forthright in their comments about the body that he leads. It has taken far too long for the cries to be heard and acknowledged. It has taken far too long to begin looking for ways to repair the irreparable, King Philippe said of victims of Church abuse. De Croo then talked of the damage that had been done by the hundreds of sexual abuse cases associated with the Catholic Church in Belgium. We cannot ignore the painful wounds that exist within the Catholic faith community and wider society, he said, before addressing Pope Francis personally. You are committed to justice, but there is still a long way to go, said the prime minister. Today, words alone do not suffice. We also need concrete steps." The Pope is visiting Belgium mainly to celebrate the 600th anniversary of two Catholic universities, but to some extent the trip has been overshadowed by long-running child abuse scandals, which have had a profound impact on the country. Pope Francis was given a warm welcome in the university city of Leuven [ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP ] Last year, a high-profile Belgian television series Godvergeten (Godforsaken) focused on abuse perpetrated by Catholic priests in Flanders. It led to many hundreds of people contacting an abuse helpline and is believed to have contributed to a dramatic decline in church attendance. Survivors are calling for reparations and for the Vatican to devise a universal system for compensation, and the Belgian parliament has opened investigations into historical Church abuse cover-ups. One of the 15 survivors meeting the Pope, Aline Colpaert, told Flemish TV earlier she was looking for a concrete plan of action: I hope hes sincere, that he really listens and that my message touches him. Pope Francis applauded the speeches of both the king and prime minister, and in his own speech said clerical sexual abuse was our shame - the shame that today we must confront and beg forgiveness and resolve the problem, the shame of abuse, of the abuse of minors". He compared the scourge of abuse to the slaughter of children by King Herod. Although Pope Francis talked of the Church now taking decisive action to tackle the issue, critics contend that he could have done much more since his papacy began in 2013. Certainly the Pope has now become adept at profusely apologising for clerical abuse and has often met survivors both at the Vatican and on foreign visits. In fact, some trips like one to Canada in 2022, have been entirely built around survivors. In that case it was to say sorry to indigenous people, who as children faced family-separation and abuse at Catholic-run schools. But it has not always been the case. In 2018, he faced a wave of criticism for his vocal defence of a Chilean bishop, Juan Barros, who had been accused of covering up abuse perpetrated by a mentor of his. Pope Francis apologised for his grave mistakes in handling the situation in what was something of a watershed moment in the way he handled the issue of abuse. Since then, the Pope has made it compulsory for members of the clergy to report suspected abuse to their superiors, saying that whistleblowers must be free from intimidation though the realities of applying this globally have proved inconsistent to say the least. There have also been new rules whereby clergy who have committed abuse can defrocked. But critics have said the Pope erred too much on the side of showing mercy to such priests. They point to some cases where influential members of clergy, including some who have even admitted misconduct, have either not been suspended from public ministry or not been publicly sanctioned. At the meeting at the Vatican Embassy in Brussels, each of 15 survivors was given three minutes to address Pope Francis. The ability to have such an opportunity cannot be underestimated, but survivor groups have long wanted such meetings to lead to far better systems being in place not just to punish those who abuse, but stop the abuse happening in the first place. WINNEBAGO COUNTY, Ill. (WTVO) Joseph Ciancio-Fuchs, 31, was found guilty of three counts of predatory criminal sexual assault on September 26. Ciancio-Fuchs was convicted on his charges after a bench trial. In April 2023, Rockford Police Detectives investigated allegations of sexual assault involving two children, one being five years old during some of the assaults, between 2020 and 2022. Predatory Criminal Sexual Assault is punishable by a sentence of 6-60 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections followed by 3 years to Natural Life of Mandatory Supervised Release. Convictions for two or more counts of Predatory Criminal Sexual Assault with two separate victims are punishable by a sentence of mandatory natural life. He is expected back in court on October 11 at the Winnebago County Criminal Justice Center. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to MyStateline | WTVO News, Weather and Sports. Authorities in Portugal have started assessing the damage in the municipalities most affected by fires in the central and northern regions of the country as plans get underway for reconstruction. The government has decided to allocate 500 million in EU funds for Portugal's reconstruction, which was a major announcement by Prime Minister Luis Montenegro on Monday. "The dialogue with the President of the European Commission has led to the Commission's decision to allow Portugal to access 500 million from the cohesion funds allocated for the country over the next few years," PM Montenegro told reporters. "The funding is intended to cover the damage incurred, with a contribution and reimbursement rate that may exceptionally reach 100 per cent.," he added. With severe damage to homes, crops, and industrial facilities, the Portuguese government has said it wants the reconstruction effort to be swift and unbureaucratic. Local officials in the central region say an evaluation of the damage caused by the fires should be completed by the end of next week. Related Meanwhile, the Portuguese prime minister has said that an investigation is underway to identify those responsible for deliberately setting fires in certain areas. Montenegro said the investigation will seek to determine the motivation of the suspected perpetrators and their sponsors. The PM also said a comprehensive review will be conducted of all ongoing investigations into the offense of setting forest fires. "The correlation between these incidents will be thoroughly analyzed to investigate the motivations of those arrested for this crime, ensuring that no specific interests are driving fires that are not caused by natural events or negligence," said PM Montenegro. The fires that hit the north and centre of the country last week left nine people dead and more than 160 injured. According to the Public Security Police, around 9,000 calls related to the forest fires were received daily from September 15 to 19. These fires burned around 135,000 hectares of forest between September 15 and 20, bringing the total area affected this year to nearly 147,000 hectares, marking it the third worst record in the last decade. (Bloomberg) -- Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said hell respond next week to the Socialist Partys proposals about the 2025 budget as his minority government tries to get parliamentary backing from the biggest opposition group. Most Read from Bloomberg The proposal handed to me by the Socialist Party is radical and inflexible, Montenegro said at a conference in Mafra, Portugal, on Friday. Next week well give the Socialist Party a counterproposal that will be an attempt to bring the positions closer. He said the government wont give up its economic policy. The budget, due to be presented by Oct. 10, is a key test for the prime ministers minority administration, which took office in April after the center-right AD coalitions narrow election win over the Socialists. Premier Montenegro needs to find backing from other parties to get approval for budgets, and may have to compromise on key policies such as tax cuts to pass legislation. Socialist leader Pedro Nuno Santos earlier on Friday reaffirmed his party opposes the governments plan to lower corporate tax, as well as an income tax cut for young people that he described as unfair for some. Instead, the Socialists are proposing more investment in housing, higher pensions and increasing corporate tax incentives. Theres room to work and talk with the government about these proposals, Santos told reporters in Lisbon after meeting the prime minister. If these proposals are accepted, the Socialist Party is available to let the budget pass. The Socialists have just two fewer seats in parliament than the AD. Prime Minister Montenegro has said governing next year using the 2024 budget is not a solution. Both the prime minister and the Socialist leader have also said they dont want early elections. Portugal has held two snap elections in three years, in January 2022 and March of this year. Minority governments in Portugal have tended to be short-lived. In 50 years of democracy, only two have survived a full four-year term. The government, which held talks about the budget with officials from different parties earlier in September, has said it aims to post budget surpluses of about 0.2% to 0.3% of gross domestic product in the next four years, and forecasts economic growth of about 2% in 2024 and 2025. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. (Bloomberg) -- Portugal said it wants TAP SA to keep its hub in Lisbon and routes that are strategic for the country, as the government plans a privatization of the state-owned airline. Most Read from Bloomberg We will never give up the hub in Lisbon, Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said at a conference in Mafra, Portugal on Friday. If we dont have guarantees that safeguard those routes, we will take the reins of managing the operation. Thats not whats in the governments program. The government in July reaffirmed its plans to privatize TAP, adding that the terms of the sale remain to be defined. Air France-KLM, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and IAG SA, the parent company of British Airways and Iberia, have publicly stated their interest in TAP. The Lisbon-based airlines biggest attraction lies in its links to Brazil, of which its the largest European provider. It also maintains a strong presence in Africa and operates a number of flights to North America. Besides carrying tourists who have been visiting Portugal in greater numbers, TAPs flights link a global diaspora of the countrys citizens and also connect the mainland to the Madeira and Azores archipelagos in the middle of the Atlantic. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Post-election violence is possible, political scientist says and it could be worse than Jan. 6 Thousands of Donald Trump supporters storm the United States Capitol building following a "Stop the Steal" rally on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Should Americans be bracing for bloodshed if Donald Trump loses the 2024 presidential election? As a political scientist who studies American politics, I can easily imagine a repeat of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection or worse following this Novembers presidential election. Flashback to 2020 Four years ago, in an attempt to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election, then-President Donald Trump and his surrogates furiously challenged its results. Lodging 63 lawsuits, Trump and his surrogates tried to discredit or override vote counting, election processes and certification standards in nine states. None of these attempts was successful. Many were dismissed as baseless often by Trump-appointed judges before they even saw trial. Simply put, there is no evidence of widespread fraud. Even a voter data expert hired by Trump concluded that the 2020 election was not stolen. The U.S. legal system agreed, demonstrating that courts remain an important bulwark protecting American democracy. Yet the legal system cannot prevent political violence wrought by election denialism, as the country soon learned. On Jan. 6, 2021, over 2,000 people stormed the United States Capitol to forcibly prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election. Four people died and 138 police officers were injured during the riot, which inflicted nearly US$3 million of damage. Four officers who responded to the riot would later kill themselves. The mob was spurred, at least in part, by Trumps rousing speech at a rally in Washington, D.C., earlier that day. There, he reiterated his claims that the 2020 election had been stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats and warned the crowd of approximately 53,000 that if you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a country anymore. Many legal scholars considered this to be incitement. He clearly knew there were people in that crowd who were ready to and intended to be violent, legal scholar Garrett Epps told the BBC. He not only did nothing to discourage it, he strongly hinted it should happen. Trump: A sore loser and winner Trump has a long history of denying the results of any contest whose outcome he does not like. Before entering the political arena, Trump called the 2012 Emmys dishonest because his show, The Apprentice, did not win. In 2012, he dismissed then-President Barack Obamas reelection as a total sham and questioned the accuracy of vote tallies and voting machines. Unleashing a barrage of tweets, Trump urged citizens to fight like hell against a disgusting injustice. As a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump called the Republican primaries fraudulent after his competitor Sen. Ted Cruz won in Iowa, tweeting that the Texan stole it. Ultimately, Trump won the Republican primaries and the national presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Nonetheless, he falsely claimed that he only lost the popular vote Trump fell 2 million short of Clintons 65.8 million votes due to massive voting among illegal immigrants. Attacking the 2024 election Trump has doubled down on his election denial this election cycle. By May 2024, The New York Times had documented 550 such statements, up from roughly 100 in the entire 2020 campaign. Continuing to insist that the 2020 election was rigged, Trump predicts a repeat in 2024. This narrative of pervasive victimization has been bolstered by a flurry of lawsuits and criminal investigations brought against the former president. Since 2020, state and federal prosecutors have charged Trump with 94 crimes, including business fraud, mishandling classified documents and interfering with the federal election. In New York, he was convicted of 34 counts of corporate fraud and found liable for sexual abuse in a civil case filed by author E. Jean Carroll. Trump has cast these legal challenges as a deliberate attempt by President Joe Biden to interfere with the 2024 election over 350 times. My legal issues, every one of them, civil and the criminal ones, are all set up by Joe Biden, Trump told a New York City crowd in January 2024. Theyre doing it for election interference. His surrogates amplify this message. For instance, Mike Howell, director of the right-leaning Heritage Foundations Oversight Project, proclaimed on June 6, 2024, at a public Washington event that there is a 0% chance of a free and fair election. From denialism to violence: Warning signs Lying about election results is no mere tantrum. It is a cornerstone of Trumps strategy to paint himself as the victim of an elitist deep state an image that appeals to his base, particularly among white working-class voters, some of whom feel that they are victims themselves of globalization and shadowy elites. This strategy is working. A September 2023 survey by the independent pollster PRRI showed that 32% of Americans believe that the 2020 election was stolen. Even though the question has been comprehensively litigated and dismissed in the courts, many American citizens simply do not believe, under any circumstances, that Trump can lose in a fair election. That fact, combined with other statistics from the same poll, explains why I believe another Jan. 6 is possible. About 23% of Americans and 33% of Republicans believe that true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country a 5% increase among Republicans and 8% among the general public since 2021. Meanwhile, 75% of Americans believe that American democracy is at risk in the 2024 election. That, too, may be something worth fighting for especially when 39% of Trump supporters and 42% of Biden supporters report having no friends who support the opposing candidate. When people do not trust or socialize with people unlike them, violence between groups is more likely. I fear little can be done to prevent such violence. In 2022, Congress, acting in rare bipartisan fashion, approved the Electoral Count Reform and Transition Improvement Act of 2022, which closed many doors that President Trump attempted to use to thwart the 2020 election. Yet, as history shows, rule of law is not a certain brace against violence. Given the perceived stakes of the election for most Americans, along with Trumps ever-sharpening incendiary rhetoric, it is hard to imagine that Jan. 6, 2021, was an isolated chapter in American history. Indeed, it may have been just a prelude. Alexander Cohen, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Clarkson University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE 'Our post office was a lifeline, we want it back' Catherine Burton uses a mobility scooter and is currently relying on family members to take her to the nearest post office, which is more than four miles away [BBC] The closure of a temporary post office branch three months ago has left people feeling frustrated and lost at the lack of a substitute. With no bank and just two cash machines in Immingham, residents and businesses say they want their post office back. Catherine Burton, 93, who uses a mobility scooter which limits her use of public transport, cannot pay bills or post parcels and said the service "is needed". The Post Office said it is "working hard to restore the service". A temporary post office had been operating out of the Civic Centre, in Pelham Road, since April after the roof collapsed at the former premises in Kennedy Way. However, the temporary branch closed in June. Ms Burton has been relying on family members to take her to the nearest post office, which is more than four miles away. She said: Like everybody, we want a post office in Immingham. How do all the businesses do their mail? Caroline Tuckley says the lack of a post office is "causing chaos at times" [BBC] Caroline Tuckley, who works at Titus Newsome, which specialises in moving abnormal loads across the UK, needs plenty of loose change for their drivers to use on bridge tolls. "It is causing chaos at times," she said. "We can't get the cash we need. We still have customers who pay us by cheque, well where do we pay that in? Because we haven't got the banks either. "We have to go into the next town to pay them in, which could be two or three weeks before we can get that opportunity." Ms Tuckley said the issue had become the talk of the town, with discussions on social media pages about how disabled and elderly people manage. "They have to rely on favours and neighbours trying to be helpful, she added. Ann Turner says with no banks and now no post office, the people of Immingham have been left frustrated [BBC] Another resident, Ann Turner, also had concerns for the wider community having to travel further afield to use a post office elsewhere. She said: I'm 55 so I can drive a car but you're talking about pensioners as well. "They've got to catch the bus, which means as the colder weather is coming its going to get worse for them to catch the bus, wait for it and then come back. "Having a local post office was a lifeline. We had six banks at one point now we've got none. And now we've got no post office. "Its hard and frustrating for us and I think everyone feels the same - we want our post office back." Brigg and Immingham MP Martin Vickers said he had received a number of calls about the issue and his office, along with Immingham Town Council, had spoken to the Post Office to try and get a local branch back up and running. Expressions of interest Meanwhile, the Post Office, which is owned by the government, said it was currently exploring options. A spokesperson said: "There are three retailers who all want to open a permanent post office in Immingham. "We are considering their applications to see which is the best option. We know how important a post office is to a community and we are working hard to restore service as soon as possible after the temporary branch regrettably closed. "We apologise for any inconvenience caused by the unplanned closure." Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here. More on this story Related internet links PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA - AUGUST 6: Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz appear on stage together during a campaign event at the Liacouras Center at Temple University on August 6, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Harris ended weeks of speculation about who her running mate would be, selecting the 60 year old midwestern governor over other candidates. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) As some Latter-day Saints in different states campaign to get Vice President Kamala Harris in the White House, many question how to make the moral case to their family and friends for Democratic policies. In battleground Arizona, groups of Democrats and Republicans have joined forces to support Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. However, spreading that message can be controversial among more conservative communities with strong stances on issues such as reproductive rights. And, thats what the group Latter-day Saints for Harris-Walz strategized on during an organizing call Thursday night. Megan Jones, senior political adviser for the Harris campaign who attended the church-owned Brigham Young University, spoke about what she described as a health care crisis after the overturn of Roe v. Wade. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The vice president just met with a woman whose daughter died because she couldnt get access to medical care, because in many states, there are punishments for physicians to provide care, even if the womans life or health is at stake, she said. That is not the Mormon way either. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rejects elective abortion for personal or social convenience. However, exceptional circumstances may justify it, according to a statement from the church, including cases of incest or rape, or when the life or health of the mother is in serious jeopardy. About 300 people joined the call organized by Latter-day Saints for Harris-Walz, its second since Harris launched her campaign. The number was far less than the 1,400 people who tuned into the first call, in which different leaders, including Utah legislators and a Republican Arizona mayor, spoke in support of the vice president. The group isnt directly affiliated with the church, and in the past meeting, organizers advised against using ward or stake membership lists when reaching out to people because that violates the churchs neutrality policy. In Jones view, people dont have to abandon their faith to agree that the government should not hold control over womens bodies. Women in the Mormon faith, we have a lot of babies, and we know what goes wrong. Ive had several miscarriages myself. These are not easy things, Jones said. And to tell me what I can and cant do with my pregnancy, that might be different than what my doctor is telling me, that is the consequence of a post-Roe world. Jones has been helping Harris with her Nevada operations since 2019. Now, 40 days before Nov. 5, things have been intensifying at Jones office and on the trail. But, she doesnt expect things to be over then. This race is not going to be over on Election Day. It is going to be litigated. He is going to do the same thing, she said of former President Donald Trump, who continues to deny the 2020 election results after President Joe Bidens victory. Jones made a call to protect clerks and ensure that the rule of law is upheld during the electoral process. That is something that is not partisan, again, that is something you can talk to your neighbor about, your ward member about, who may not want to vote for Kamala Harris, but they care about integrity, Jones said. Let us know what you think... For Evan McMullin, who ran as an independent in the 2016 presidential election and in the 2022 race for the U.S. Senate in Utah, this election cycle will answer a fundamental question. Whether America will continue to be a democracy, or whether we will fully head down a path towards authoritarianism will be answered in this election, he said in the virtual call, criticizing actions such as the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Only with a coalition of Democrats, Republicans, independents and members of other parties, he said, will democracy prevail. Overcoming other challenges in the country will depend on keeping that democratic system alive, he added. And, theres a special responsibility toward children who dont have a vote, but may witness substantial changes in their lives after this election, he said. I believe that Latter-day Saints, that our community, our faith community, and I hope Christians more broadly, will play a decisive role, McMullin said. Our populations are strong in a number of key states and I believe that we have a special responsibility to stand up for our Constitution, to stand up for our democracy and the values to the norms that underpin them. And that message is what some members of the group hope their Latter-day Saint friends and neighbors take with them while making a choice for president this year, as the church has strongly encouraged defending the Constitution, its principles and processes. Former Mesa Vice Mayor Claudia Walters, part of the recently-announced LDS for Harris-Walz, Arizona Group, said that while organizing people of their faith many have asked to participate anonymously, which is a possibility in her group. There are other people who are active members of our faith, who believe in the sanctity of life, who believe that it isnt, as many people have said, the governments business to decide whether my sister dies, I die, Walters said. This is not their role, but I encourage people not to dive into the abortion thing. Talk about Jan. 6, talk about the rule of law, talk about the peaceful transfer of power, and as one of my grandkids said, talk about the fact that that guy sure lies a lot. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) The election is 40 days away, but for those mailing in their ballots, the voting has already begun. U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told a House committee Thursday the USPS is prepared for the task, but some lawmakers arent so sure. Are American citizens going to be able to trust mail-in ballots? Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) asked. Absolutely. I dont know why you wouldnt, DeJoy said. Members of the House Committee pressed DeJoy about mail failures they say have caused concern for constituents. In Wisconsin, two-day delivery dropped 20 points, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said. Rep. Pocan says a pilot program the Postal Service put in place to help modernize the network delayed deliveries in his area. What do you do specifically about Wisconsin to fix our unique problem? Pocan asked in a back-and-forth with DeJoy. The first rockets that went to the moon blew up. Thats what pilots are for, DeJoy said. Thanks for blowing up Wisconsin, Pocan said. DeJoy assured lawmakers USPS can handle the surge. He says mail-in ballots made up just 0.1% of total mail in 2020. Plus, DeJoy says every general election, USPS uses extraordinary measures to expedite ballots through the system. We rifle through 300 million pieces of mail as they move through the system, and look for ballots and pull them out, DeJoy said. Pennsylvania Congressman Matt Cartwright grilled DeJoy on USPSs long-term modernization plan, saying it would slow down rural service. Do you really think rural Americans should have to pay the price? Cartwright asked. I disagree with the premise and think its an unfair accusation, DeJoy said. DeJoy pushed back against lawmakers concerns, saying USPSs long-term plans to consolidate mail processing centers wont affect this years election mail. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. As the deadly Hurricane Helene caused massive flooding across the southeast United States in late September 2024, online posts claimed the storm appeared out of thin air, right before making its landfall in Florida . Meteorologists told AFP this is false; they had tracked the storm's path for days and the radar images shared on social media are not evidence of weather manipulation. "Weird how 'Hurricane Helene' literally pops up out of nowhere according to The Weather Channel's own radar," says a September 25, 2024 post by Stew Peters, a conservative commentator who has previously spread numerous conspiracy theories on a wide range of topics. It includes a screen recording of The Weather Channel app's radar imagery of Helene from September 25. A screenshot of a post taken on X taken on September 27, 2024 The same claim also circulated on Facebook echoing previous conspiracy theories by climate skeptics about weather manipulation and natural disasters debunked by AFP. As of September 27, the massive hurricane had knocked out power for millions of people across southeast United States and caused multiple deaths after it slammed into the Florida coast. But the coastal communities had warning of the storm, with US meteorologists tracking Helene using satellites for days before its landfall in Florida on September 26. The Weather Company -- which owns the Weather Channel and its app -- said that the network's "meteorologists were tracking Helene's path for days to keep people informed and safe." This can be easily observed in the coverage available on The Weather Channel's website, including here (archived here). The spokesperson said that the visual effect of the storm suddenly appearing in the online video is the result of different datasets being used in the app's display. "While the storm seems to 'pop up' during that radar imagery video loop shown in The Weather Channel app, this illusion can occur when looking at data that uses both actual, observed radar data (which has already occurred) and forecast data (which is a future prediction). Because it's moving from observed data at the beginning of the video loop to forecast data as the loop advances into the future, some jumps or seams can occur," the spokesperson told AFP on September 27. Limits of radar Marshall Shepherd, Director of University of Georgia's Atmospheric Sciences Program (archived here), said the posts showed "sheer ignorance." He told AFP on September 27: "Radar has limited range. A simple solution is to look at the satellite imagery." Satellite images first showed Helene approaching US coasts in the Gulf of Mexico as a tropical storm, as early as September 24 -- then the storm intensified and developed into a hurricane around September 25 (archived here). Satellite image showing the position of Storm Helene on Sept 25 at 0830 GMT and forecast path and alerts, as of Sept 25 at 1200 GMT Lise KIENNEMANN Paz PIZARRO AFP Satellite image showing the position of Hurricane Helene on Sept 26 at 0915 GMT and forecast path and alerts, as of Sept 26 at 0900 GMT Lise KIENNEMANN Ioana PLESEA Sabrina BLANCHARD AFP "No, Helene most definitely did not pop out of nowhere. I first wrote about it in a blog post back on September 17, and then again on September 23 and every day since," Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate in atmospheric science at the University of Miami, told AFP on September 27 (archived here, here and here). "Land-based radars do have a finite range," McNoldy said and country-specific radars may only show part of a storm's course. "If you just looked at the one from the US, it would seem like the storm just appears out of the nowhere, but that's obviously not the case -- it was simply too far away and then gradually tracked into closer range." Potential climate ties While the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season (archived here) has been thus far less busy than predicted, the National Hurricane Center reported Helene's "historic and catastrophic flooding" and warned of flash floods in Georgia's largest city Atlanta, as well as in South Carolina and North Carolina (archived here). Scientists can link certain extreme weather events directly to human-caused warming, but it remains too early to draw clear conclusions about the current month. Helene did see a faster-than-expected intensification, which some scientists attributed to unusually warm waters. "After forming, Helene traveled over exceptionally warm ocean waters in the Gulf of Mexico," said Andra Garner, an assistant professor at Rowan University in New Jersey (archived here). For hurricanes to form and strengthen, they need warmer waters, and she told AFP on September 27 that Helene traveled over water as warm as 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 Celsius). "From a climate perspective, when we warm the planet, a lot of that extra warmth is going into our oceansand that warmth serves as an ideal fuel source for a storm like Helene." Find more of AFP's reporting on climate misinformation here. Power outages: Check your status as hurricane remnants move in to Kentucky, Ohio The remnants of Hurricane Helene are moving into the region Friday and Greater Cincinnati residents should brace for power outages, with damaging winds and heavy rain likely. According to the National Weather Service in Wilmington, tree damage and power outages are possible. The agency has issued a High Wind Warning for all the counties in Northern Kentucky, Southwest Ohio and Southeast Indiana from noon through 10 p.m. Friday. As of 12:21 p.m., Duke Energy's online outage map showed more than 3,300 customers without power in the region. Many of those were located near Mount Healthy, New Richmond and Miami Township in Ohio, as well as Florence, Kentucky. It takes an electric army and fortunately, as a big utility, thats what weve got, Jeff Brooks, a Duke Energy spokesperson, told Enquirer media partner Fox19. Well put everybody into play to make sure we can restore power as quickly and safely as possible. Here's how Ohio and Northern Kentucky residents can check power outages through several in-state providers. Duke Energy power outage map See current Duke Energy power outages in Ohio and Kentucky with this map. Report an outage or check the status of an outage here, or call 800-543-5599. AES Ohio power outage map Report an outage and check AES Ohio's power outage map here. FirstEnergy power outage map Customers of FirstEnergy Corp., which owns Ohio Edison, The Illuminating Company and Toledo Edison, can see current power outages on its Ohio map. Learn how to report outages here. Public Power outage map Check power outages for multiple energy providers with the American Public Power Association's map. Owen Electric Cooperative power outage map Owen Electric Cooperative, which serves some Northern Kentucky counties, maps power outages here. The Enquirer will update this report. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati power outages: Check status as hurricane remnants move in The News Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal led the Congressional Progressive Caucus through a frustrating year. House Republicans killed any hope they had of passing legislation; donors who wanted to beat progressive candidates spent more money than ever to do it. In May, Jayapals sister Susheela lost a primary for Portland, Ore.s House seat after AIPAC allies funded ads against her, blaming her for the post-COVID crime surge. And Kamala Harris presidential campaign has abandoned multiple progressive ideas from her 2020 primary bid. Nevertheless, Jayapal has thrown herself into electing Harris and a new House Democratic majority. Shes raised more than $400,000 for Harris through her email list, given nearly $200,000 to front-line (swing seat) candidates, and used her own campaign infrastructure (her Seattle district is safely blue) to phone bank for competitive races. And shes been campaigning across the country, in person. She talked with Americana this week about the strategy, and about Harris shift to the center, and this is an edited version of the conversation. Q&A Americana: Whats your overall strategy for 2024? Pramila Jayapal: Obviously, we want to win back the gavels. A second piece is that we have a number of frontline red-to-blue members who are progressives, and its in our interest to make sure that they are getting the support that they need. And a third piece is that the CPC made it an explicit strategy, during Build Back Better, to build consensus for populist issues like universal childcare, raising the minimum wage, and expanding Social Security and Medicare. People were with us, across the conference, and we want to reward that behavior people like [Pennsylvania Rep.] Susan Wild, who have been really valuable in very difficult districts. With supporting Harris and the DCCC this has been about people really valuing the progressive base on every front, including the tremendous resources that progressive donors and members can contribute. Weve been able to just do amazing things. Weve made 120,000 calls just this cycle for our endorsed candidates, and in swing states. Were doing twice-weekly phone banks with the Harris-Walz campaign. That is also a very intentional way of making sure that Im using my campaign and my platform not only to reelect me, but to make sure that we are helping to flip the house, to keep the White House, and to keep the Senate. Americana: Whats the difference between a progressive agenda in 2025 and what you came in with in 2021? Since then, obviously, theres been an effort to shrink the numbers of progressives in Congress. Pramila Jayapal: We have a day one agenda that we have been pushing. We did a lot of work in the lead up to the 2020 campaign, then the Biden/Harris administration to make sure that it was our agenda that got implemented. And I think you saw the results of that when we had the trifecta. Weve got the same thing this time around, and so many of the pieces of Build Back Better that we were able to get through the House and fell short in the Senate. Big structural reforms are a big piece of what we want to do, and theyre popular. Expanding Social Security and Medicare adding dental and vision to Medicare coverage is extremely popular in frontline districts. Americana: Where does Medicare for All fit into this mix? One of the Republican attacks on the vice president is that she wanted to ban private insurance by passing it. And she didnt return to Medicare for All after 2020. Pramila Jayapal: Obviously the dynamics around this are still relevant, because we havent built the full number of votes that we would need to pass Medicare for All in Congress. Thats just true. However, I think we are seeing the real cracks in the system as these private insurance companies try to privatize Medicare. We put lowering the eligibility age into Build Back Better thats something I put in as a co-chair of the Biden Sanders Unity Task Force in 2020. And weve used our Medicare for All PAC to do educational stuff for our candidates who are interested in supporting it. Were actually in the middle of a poll right now. We have a two-tier strategy there: Fight the privatization and expand Medicare. And theres a lot of support across the Democratic caucus for doing those things. Americana: Whats your reaction, overall, to how the vice president has shifted? This is a less progressive agenda than we heard from her in 2019 on multiple fronts. Pramila Jayapal: I think she has done a remarkable job. Despite some areas where I might want something different, shes been making this about middle class families, about lifting everybody up, about energizing people to see themselves both in her and Tim Walz. For a very truncated campaign, I am not of the opinion that a bunch of detailed policies are necessary. Her focus on housing, right off the bat, I thought was incredibly important. Unveiling a manufacturing strategy, the focus on corporate price gouging, the focus on progressive taxation; all of those things are very much in line with where we are. Americana: What has been the impact of the Gaza issue on mobilizing progressives? Are you finding much dissatisfaction with how the vice presidents talking about it? How often are you finding voters who say: I cant possibly vote to endorse a genocide? Pramila Jayapal: I think there was a big opening when she came in, because she is not Joe Biden, and she comes at this issue with a very different sort of perspective and, I think, a deep empathy for the suffering of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people. I think she has been much better at articulating that. But its tough. Im definitely hearing that from some people. Thats part of the reason Im barnstorming the country not to say to people that theyre wrong in any way, but to say that we have to think about how we change US policy towards the Middle East and towards Israel, in particular with our military assistance. How do we make sure that we are adhering to humanitarian law and to our own domestic Leahy laws? That is never going to happen under Donald Trump. I was just talking to a young African American woman who was saying to me, you know, the thing that people need to understand is we are waking up with social media pictures and videos and feeling the trauma, so deeply, of what is happening to children in Gaza. It feels like we would not be comporting with our values if we were to continue that direction. And thats the argument we have to make. Americana: The vice presidents also changed the way she talks about immigration and crime. What do you say to one of these voters who thinks: Oh, Democrats have the same immigration position as Trump now? They just want border security, even without a path to citizenship. Pramila Jayapal: I worked on this for a decade before coming to Congress, and Im the ranking member on the immigration subcommittee, so Im following this very closely. What youre seeing is the effect of years of Donald Trump and extreme Republicans bashing immigrants. So I understand why the vice president is trying to take this on. I think my complaint about Democrats is that we often run away from the issue instead of talking about it. I dont think shes doing that. At the [Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute] gala, she talked about the need for a path to citizenship. Ultimately, I think its smart to talk about the fact that Republicans tanked the border bill that was written by the second most conservative Republican in Congress even if thats not the bill I wanted. I still think its smart to point out the hypocrisy of Republicans who have kept this issue out there. Its more important for them to leave it out there as an unsolved issue so that they can bash immigrants over and over again and dehumanize them. If we suspended the filibuster or got rid of the filibuster so we could pass humane immigration reform that, to me, is a number one priority. Americana: I have the same kind of question about crime. Ending the death penaltys not in the Democratic platform anymore. Harris is not taking a position on the California initiative that would roll back some criminal justice reforms; every other ad I see is about crime, with some Willie Horton story. Are you concerned with how the conversation there has shifted? Pramila Jayapal: Im worried about Republicans coming into office and completely destroying our country. I do think that there is, sometimes, a sense that progressives arent able to govern. She has a good background to take on the crime question because of her prosecutor days. But I also think she is being careful. Shes not taking on things that are going to backfire on her in the next 40 days. Whats hurt us so much, on crime, and on immigration, is all of the misinformation. Trump has had a bully pulpit to spread that, and people like Elon Musk helped. That has been so destructive to people actually understanding what the facts are. Numbers at the border are at the lowest level ever; crime has gone down in major cities across the country. Every time I speak up and tell the truth about Seattle, its very difficult to get that message across. I want to say one thing: The biggest base of swing voters is actually young people, folks of color, immigrants across the country, who feel like theyre not really part of the Democratic Party, or their voices dont matter. We dont invest a lot of time or energy as a party in making sure that those folks turn out and they are the margin of difference. Its not that we dont need independent swing voters, we do, but we dont spend enough time thinking about how to make sure that our base does not they wont swing to Trump, but they will swing right onto to the couch. Notable For more on some of the Democratic coalitions internal divides over Israel, you can read my story last week on how the Muslim, Democratic mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan ended up endorsing Trump for president. LAKE COUNTY, Ill. Pre-trial release has been denied for a registered sex offender accused of child pornography possession, authorities in Lake County, Illinois, said. According to the Lake County Sheriffs Office, 57-year-old Thomas Rix is facing a child pornography charge after authorities said they allegedly uncovered a pornographic image of a girl who Rix had previously lived near. The investigation into Rix began after detectives received a tip that he had allegedly uploaded possible child pornography to a social media page. Read more: Latest Chicago news and headlines Following the incident, on Sept. 24, sheriffs detectives went to the home where Rix was registered to be living as a sexual offender in Winthrop Harbor, but he was not living at the home. Detectives later learned that Rix had registered a new living address about a week prior in another area of Winthrop Harbor. Detectives were eventually able to contact Rix, who then agreed to meet with detectives at the Winthrop Harbor Police Department. According to deputies, during a conversation with law enforcement, Rix allegedly told detectives that he had been living in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, for several days, and was not living in the home where he had registered to live. According to the Lake County Sheriffs Office, 57-year-old Thomas Rix is facing a child pornography charge after authorities said they allegedly uncovered a pornographic image of a girl who Rix had previously lived near. While speaking with detectives, members of the Illinois Attorney Generals Cybercrime Unit analyzed Rixs phone and allegedly found several images that Rix appeared to have taken of an 8-year-old girl, including one pornographic image of the child. Detectives later determined that Rix had known the child from a previous apartment in Winthrop Harbor where he once lived, and had allegedly taken the photos at the time. LATEST CASES: Missing people in Chicagoland Investigators say they are now working to obtain additional search warrants to conduct further analysis on Rixs other electronic devices. Fortunately, it appears sheriffs detectives were able to stop this man before he committed a further horrific act on the young girl whose photos he had. The members of our office will tirelessly investigate and arrest those who prey on our children. We will always be relentless in our pursuit of justice, especially when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable among usour children. After the Lake County States Attorneys Office approved the charge against Rix, a petition was granted by a Lake County Judge to detain him pre-trial. Rix is set to make his next court appearance on Wednesday, Oct. 23. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. St. Paul's Cathedral in London has been the site of many historic moments, including the wedding of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana Spencer in July 1981. The cathedral's safety has been a concern many times throughout its history, especially after it was damaged in bomb raids during World War II. St. Paul's Cathedral remarkably stood among the destruction. There were several bomb raids in and around the cathedral during WWII. St. Paul's Cathedral has been the venue for many royal events, like the wedding of the late Princess Diana and Prince Charles, but it has also withstood several fires and bombings since its early days. Church In Syria Widely Considered Oldest In The World; Dura-europos Is A Historical Landmark During "The Blitz," a German bombing campaign on British cities, London was bombed 57 nights in a row, according to the St. Paul's Cathedral website. During this time, there were over a million buildings partially damaged or destroyed. Many bombings happened around or in the cathedral, including on Dec. 29, 1940. Read On The Fox News App On that night, the Daily Mail's chief photographer, Herbert Mason, was on the roof of the newspaper's building, looking around at the destruction below and smoke filling the air. Through the smoke, he saw St. Paul's Cathedral still standing tall among all the surrounding destruction as a shining light in the city. St Paul's Cathedral withstood several bombings during World War II. Church Of England Appears To Stop Using The Word Church To Sound More Relevant: Study "Suddenly, the shining cross, dome and towers stood out like a symbol in the inferno. The scene was unbelievable. In that moment or two, I released my shutter," Mason said of the moment, according to the cathedral's website. The photo, "St. Paul Survives," is still famous today. On that night, 28 small explosive devices fell on and around the cathedral, hitting the dome and destroying the Chapter House located nearby, according to the St. Paul's Cathedral website. Two months before, a 500-pound bomb went off in the Apse and Quaire, according to the source, and the cathedral suffered another direct hit in April 1941. St. Paul's Cathedral includes a beautiful dome. 8 Top-tier Experiences To Add To Your London Bucket List In September 1940, another bomb landed in the south-west tower but didn't explode and was carefully removed for safe detonation. There are several places throughout the cathedral where bomb damage remains to this day, according to the website for St. Paul's Cathedral. Many years later, the cathedral was the setting for Prince Charles and Princess Diana's wedding. St. Paul's Cathedral was a unique choice for the wedding ceremony because most in the royal family chose Westminster Abbey as their place to be wed. Having their ceremony at St. Paul's Cathedral allowed for more public viewing of Princess Diana and Prince Charles on their wedding day. Prince Charles and Princess Diana's July 1981 wedding was the first for an heir to the throne to be held at St. Paul's Cathedral in 480 years, according to the cathedral's website. St. Paul's Cathedral was chosen as the wedding venue for its large size and the long route to the cathedral, Clarance House and Buckingham Palace, allowing more opportunities for public viewing. There were 3,500 in attendance at the royal wedding, according to the cathedral's website, with another 350 million watching from home. Today, St. Paul's Cathedral continues to be a holy place for worship and the setting of many royal events. It's a staple of the city, with its famous unmistakable dome among London's buildings. It's also one of London's popular tourist attractions, with millions visiting each year. Original article source: Prince Charles, Princess Diana's wedding venue, St. Pauls Cathedral in London, survived bombs during WWII PRINCE GEORGES COUNTY, Md. (DC News Now) The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning early Thursday morning in parts of Prince Georges County. Though short-lived, due to being canceled after improving weather, the county is still being cautious after a wet week in the DMV. The Department of Public Works and Transportation said theyll monitor weather reports and act accordingly as Hurricane Helene continues to strengthen. Residents in the county are also preparing themselves. Coastal flood advisory issued for parts of DMV At the end of the day, we dont have any control over things We just try to be as prepared as we can, said resident Roy Betts. Betts said hes confident that the rain wont be too much of an issue, but also hopes people are safe during the weather event. If we are having episodes of flooding, I hope that people remain safe. I think thats pretty much the primary focus. Their property can be replaced, but human life? Not so much, he said. For updates on the weather in Prince Georges County, you can download PGC311 on your 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 DC News Now | Washington, DC. Prince Harry Is Keeping Princess Diana's Landmine Legacy Alive: 'He Wants to Finish the Job' (Exclusive) The Duke of Sussex has dedicated much of his public life to continuing Princess Dianas humanitarian legacy, particularly her groundbreaking work in Angolas minefields Jenna Jones Prince Harry at the Halo Trust event on Sept. 23, 2024 in New York City. During his whirlwind visit to New York City, one of Prince Harrys key stops was an event supporting The Halo Trust, a humanitarian organization dedicated to creating a mine-free world a cause close to his heart and championed by his late mother, Princess Diana. The Halo Trust, which operates in over 30 countries and territories, is renowned for its work clearing landmines and war debris. The organization gained international recognition when Princess Diana famously walked through an active minefield in Huambo, Angola, in 1997, drawing global attention to the need for an international landmine ban. Harry powerfully honored his late mothers legacy in 2019 when he retraced her iconic steps through the same minefield Angola. Speaking at The Halo Trusts event on Sept. 23 in N.Y.C., Harry said: "As you know, The HALO Trust work in Angola meant a great deal to my mother. Carrying on her legacy is a responsibility that I take incredibly seriously." Related: Prince Harry Enjoys 'Sweet' FaceTime with Meghan Markle, Archie and Lilibet Before Taking the Stage in N.Y.C. PA Wire/PA Images (2) Prince Harry in Angola in 2019; Princess Diana in Angola in 1997 Valdemar Fernandes, HALO Angola's Program Operations Manager, has been with the organization since 1997 and was present during Princess Dianas memorable walk through the Angolan minefield. It was very important," Fernandes told PEOPLE at the Halo Trust event in N.Y.C. "Before her visit, there was very little awareness for the mine problem around the world. And when she visited Angola in 1997, she managed to bring international attention to the issue. Jenna Jones Prince Harry at the Halo Trust event in New York City on Sept. 23, 2024 Reflecting on her demeanor during that historic walk, he notes, She was not scared. She appeared happy to be doing it. She knew what it meant. As for Prince Harry carrying forward his mothers legacy, Fernandes remarks, He is doing very well. Courtesy of The HALO Trust Valdemar Fernandes, HALO Angola Program Operations Manager Having hosted Harry when he retraced Diana's steps in Angola in 2019, Fernandes recalls, I could see from his face it was very emotional it took control of him. It was a great moment." During his speech in N.Y.C., Harry called for global dedication to landmine clearance, celebrating Angolas progress and urging other nations to follow suit. He emphasized the crucial role of collaboration and the impact on local communities. "A world without mines must be a moral imperative for all of us," he declared. ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Prince Harry speaks at the HALO Trust event celebrating Angola's leadership in landmine clearance on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on September 23, 2024. Can't get enough of PEOPLE's Royals coverage? Sign up for our free Royals newsletter to get the latest updates on Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and more! Reflecting on Harrys moving words, Fernandes tells PEOPLE, I felt very touched when he gave his speech. He's taking this seriously, he wants to finish the job, and I think we'll get there." For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. NEW YORK (AP) Prince Harrys latest philanthropic move will gather world business leaders and philanthropists to work towards fostering prosperity in Southern African communities, specifically focused on young people. In early October, Harrys charity organization Sentebale, which he co-founded with Prince Seeiso of Lesotho in 2006, will bring together leaders from Googles charitable arm and several other companies and organizations for a series of meetings and discussions in Lesotho and Johannesburg. The gathering will be Harrys first time visiting Southern Africa since 2019. Hes long been devoted to philanthropy work in the region in honor of his late mother, Princess Diana. The Duke of Sussex and the leaders will partner with local organizations and companies that are already actively brainstorming solutions to the roadblocks in place for young people in the region to succeed. Harry said in a news release that the organization has developed a profound understanding of local youth their passions, their concerns, and their extraordinary creativity through their extensive work in the area and their longstanding relationships with local communities. These young adults are eager and capable of driving meaningful change, yet significant barriers still stand in their way, his statement continued, noting Sentebale is nearing its 20th anniversary. While the organization was initially established to help children and young people in Lesotho and Botswana affected by HIV/AIDS, it now works to establish solutions to broader problems impacting youth in the region, like health issues, wealth inequity, and climate. The organizations name means forget-me-not in the Sesotho language, and the princes established the charity in memory of their late mothers. The session, which will reunite the group after they previously convened in Miami for a session in April, will also feature a panel discussion in addition to the private work sessions, and they will complete a site visit to the mountain kingdom of Lesotho. Over 50% of these young people are at risk of remaining economically vulnerable without urgent investment in digital skills, education, and job creation, said Sentebale Board Chair, Sophie Chandauka in a release. The Dukes return to Southern Africa, alongside our new American friends, marks a milestone as we collaborate with world-class organizations and local leadership to engage this critical youth cohort. The announcement of the new initiative comes after the Duke of Sussex appeared at several humanitarian and philanthropic events that ran alongside the United Nations General Assembly Week. A private Robinson R44 helicopter has crashed in Russias Arkhangelsk Oblast, resulting in the deaths of two men, one of whom is believed to be Sergei Smetanin, a member of Arkhangelsk city council from the United Russia political party. Source: Latvia-based Russian media outlet Meduza; Russia Telegram channels Details: Reports emerged yesterday (26 September) that a helicopter travelling from the village of Byche to the village of Karandashevskaya had gone missing and contact with it had been lost. On the morning of 27 September, Kremlin-aligned Russian news outlet TASS reported that the wreckage of the helicopter had been found, and the bodies of two people had been discovered at the crash site. A criminal case has been opened regarding the incident, with reports stating that the flight had not been authorised. Quote: "Telegram channels close to law enforcement wrote on 26 September that Sergei Smetanin, a member of Arkhangelsk City Duma from the United Russia political party, and local businessman Alexei Semenov, the owner of the helicopter, were on board. Smetanin and Semenov, as reported, were flying to go on a fishing trip," Meduza summarised. Why this matters: After sanctions were imposed on Russia due to its bloody war against Ukraine, there has been an increase in aircraft accidents in Russia. This surge is attributed to a shortage of essential parts that Russia previously used to import from Western countries. Background: On 17 September, a Robinson R66 helicopter with three people on board crashed in Russia. Later, Russian media reported that rescuers had found the bodies of the pilot and two passengers. On 15 August, a Tu-22M3 strategic bomber crashed in Russia's Irkutsk Oblast. On 27 July, a Russian Aerospace Forces Su-34 aircraft crashed in Volgograd Oblast during a scheduled training flight. On 25 July, a Mi-28 helicopter crashed in Russia's Kaluga Oblast, killing the crew. On 22 July, a helicopter carrying FSB officers was found crashed in Yakutia, with the bodies of the pilot and three passengers discovered at the crash site. Support UP or become our patron! A university professor has been sacked after making pornography with his wife. Dr Joe Gow, 63, claims the loss of his job at the University of Wisconsin-La Cross is a violation of his freedom of speech. The professor was forced to leave his post as university chancellor in December, after the institution discovered he had filmed vegan-themed pornographic videos with his wife, Carmen Wilson, and posted them online. The former chancellor was placed on leave but continued collecting his salary as a tenured communications professor, despite posting the sex clips under the username Sexy Happy Couple. A disciplinary panel has now unanimously voted to fire Dr Gow, arguing that his actions have damaged the universitys reputation. However, the professor has claimed that the decision breaches his constitutional right to free speech. Mr Gows attorney Mark Leitner said: We need the First Amendment precisely when the danger of stifling controversial, unpopular speech is at its highest. And thats what we have here in this situation. Dr Gow and his wife have appeared in multiple publicly available pornographic videos, where they host adult film stars as guests and have sex afterwards. The couples OnlyFans web page describes videos where top adult video stars cook, converse and shoot sex scenes with a plant-powered couple. They have also published two books under the pseudonyms Geri and Jay Hart, titled Married with Benefits: Our Real-Life Adult Industry Adventures and Monogamy with Benefits: How Porn Enriches Our Relationship. Dr Joe Gow and his wife Carmen Wilson The universitys lawyers warned that Dr Gows continued employment could have a negative effect on the institutions reputation, claiming he had used his teaching position as marketing opportunity to sell adult content. Dr Gow just doesnt get it, or is unable to acknowledge that his conduct has been harmful to the UWL campus community and a distraction from its core mission, said Wade Harrison, senior legal counsel for the university. Dr Gow has largely gotten what he wants through this process, a large media presence that continues and a great marketing opportunity for his cooking and adult content, he added. Enough is enough. Dr. Joe needs to go. In documents submitted prior to Fridays hearing, lawyers argued that retaining Dr Gow on the faculty risked jeopardising the universitys finances. At least one donor has stated publicly that he would kill a planned scholarship gift if Gow were not terminated, the lawyers wrote, referring to a statement from Republican Senator Rob Hutton who put pressure on the university to fire him. Senator Hutton has made clear that he, a member of the legislature that provides some of the Universitys funding, is opposed to Gows returning to teach. Dr Gow argued that his right to share his and his wifes pornographic content with his wife is protected by the First Amendment. Gow has previously maintained that he and his wife produced the pornographic content in their own time, and that neither the books nor the videos ever mentioned the university or his role as part of the faculty. Dr Gow, who maintained he never mentioned the university in his videos - AP/University of Wisconsin-La-Crosse Speaking on Friday, he said he was initially drawn to Wisconsin-La Cross for its commitment to academic freedom, adding that hes eager to return to the classroom. I genuinely love teaching, and Im not ready to just retire and sit at home, he told Wisconsin Public Radio. He added that hes not currently creating explicit content, but wouldnt want to give up the right to in future. We certainly wouldnt want to give up the right to be able to do that if we choose to, he said. We live in 2024. We have access to all kinds of material. Its up to us to choose what we, as adults, what we want to access. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expressions Faculty Defense Fund (FIRE), who have supported Dr Gows legal defence, said the decision to sack the professor over making adult videos is a major blow to academic freedom and faculty free speech rights. FIRE has said time and time again: public universities cannot sacrifice the First Amendment to protect their reputations, the foundations legal defence counsel Zach Greenberg said. Were disappointed UW caved to donors and politicians by throwing a tenured professor under the bus. You may not like Joe Gow or his videos, but the principles that protect him also protect countless dissidents, freethinkers, artists, and others who speak truth to power. 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. OCEANSIDE, Calif. (FOX 5/KUSI) Voters have a lot to consider this upcoming election when it comes to Proposition 36, a statewide ballot measure that seeks a tougher approach on crime. The measure proposes changes to punishments related to drug possession and theft offenses and would impact homelessness as well. Suspect extradited from El Salvador for the 1991 killing of San Diego woman On Thursday, community members attended a public forum led by San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan at the MiraCosta College Oceanside Campus. It was held in partnership with the chambers of commerce from Encinitas, Carlsbad, San Marcos, Fallbrook, Vista and Oceanside. I wanted to hear more about what was going to be shared and learn more so I can make an educated decision when Im voting, according to Oceanside resident Ashley Gerdo. Oceanside police officers seize three firearms, drugs and over $5K in cash Stephan said Prop. 36 reforms unintended consequences of Proposition 47. It will still treat people who make mistakes with compassion, but it brings accountability to habitual offenders, Stephan stated. If passed, Prop. 36 would turn a theft misdemeanor into a felony if the person has two or more previous convictions. Under Prop. 36, convicted drug dealers could get longer jail or prison sentences. People convicted of illegal drug possession could complete drug-treatment instead of going to prison. Some people, like Vista resident Vanessa Rojas, said she still has doubts about the measure as someone who benefitted from Prop. 47 which was, in part, meant to reduce nonviolent offense incarcerations. Part of my story was trauma, so I came in contact with crime through my trauma, according to Rojas. She believes a greater focus on rehabilitation is needed, as does Oceanside resident Kellie Davis who said shes a no on Prop. 36. Thats where Im at in my life right now is how do we have more compassion for rehabilitation, instead of incarceration, added Davis. A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California shows 71% of voters plan to vote yes on Prop. 36. It will be the last proposition on the Nov. 5 ballot and there is no competing measure on this topic. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. A Pulaski County prosecutor ruled that the use of deadly force during a January police pursuit that ended in the shooting death of a felon was justified. Three Benton Police Department officers and an Arkansas State Police trooper had their actions reviewed after the death of 35-year-old Aaron Watson of Hot Springs on Jan. 1. Officials said Watson died after shooting at officers following a high-speed pursuit from Benton to Little Rock. Arkansas State Police identifies man killed after chase, shootout with troopers Officials said deputies with the Saline County Sheriffs Office initiated the pursuit of Watson on Interstate 30 near Mile Marker 128. Arkansas State Police troopers ended the pursuit using a Tactical Vehicle Intervention maneuver, formerly referred to as a PIT maneuver, on I-30 near the University Avenue exit in Little Rock. Arkansas State Police: Man dead after pursuit ends in PIT maneuver, officer-involved shooting off I-30 in Little Rock Officials added that Watson fired at officers after the car was stopped, who returned fire, striking him. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Watson was wanted by U.S. Marshals Service. ASP troopers and Benton police officers were not injured in the exchange. Attorney who sued Arkansas State Police over PIT maneuver discusses TVI done in error ASP officials reported Thursday that 6th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney Will Jones had determined the actions of the Benton officers and ASP trooper to be justified. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said his office would refile charges against Nathan Chasing Horse, hours after the Nevada Supreme Court dismissed the case, calling the courts ruling a minor setback. Chasing Horse was charged with 18 counts in Clark County District Court in connection with alleged sexual abuse against two women, one of them when she was underage. Prosecutors plan to bring the case back to the grand jury within a matter of weeks, Wolfson told the 8 News Now Investigators on Thursday. The 48-year-old Dances with Wolves actor is accused of victimizing indigenous underage girls and women for nearly two decades. We are disappointed with the decision, but we respect the decision of the court, Wolfson said. This shouldnt cause too much of an interruption in our efforts to seek justice. Nathan Chasing Horse sits in court in Las Vegas, on Monday, April 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Ty ONeil, File) Wolfson also said his office had been in touch with the victims in the Las Vegas case who expressed they would continue to cooperate as the case moves forward. In its order, the Nevada Supreme Court listed three main reasons for the dismissal: Two issues with how prosecutors handled the case and one issue with how a district court judge handled it. Prosecutors presented the grand jury with information about grooming. The term is used to describe when a predator may care for a victim with the intent to manipulate them. The high court pointed out how according to Nevada state law, grooming is not a crime. We conclude that it is error [sic] for the state to give the grand jury an instruction that is unsupported by the evidence and does not address a necessary element of an offense, the order stated. Prosecutors also failed to submit exculpatory evidence to the grand jury, which included inconsistent statements made by an alleged victim, the order said. In its conclusion, the Nevada Supreme Court stated the district court manifestly abused its discretion in denying the pretrial habeas petition. As a result, the indictment was dismissed. However, prosecutors are permitted to go back to the grand jury to seek another indictment and must make sure they dont make the same errors. Justices Douglas Herndon, Elissa Cadish, Lidia Stiglich, Kristina Pickering, Patricia Lee and Linda Bell all signed the Sept. 26 order. Justice Ron Parraguirre dissented. She really struggles with, you know, should I have come forward and will this ever find justice? Melissa Leone, the mother of Ren Leone, one of the alleged victims in the Las Vegas case, told the 8 News Now Investigators. I know she felt a little defeated this morning, but I also know that shes been speaking with, you know, the people that in charge of things going on right now and I feel like after watching her receive those phone calls, that there was a bit of more confidence and just, okay, everythings still okay. Were still going forward. The other alleged victim in the case, Sierra Begaye called the decision shocking. Its been a long and challenging process but we remain hopeful and will advocate for a refile, Begaye told the 8 News Now Investigators. Any news that comes out about Nathan Chasing Horse can be triggering to many of the survivors. My heart goes out to them all. Begaye urged anyone who may have been harmed by Chasing Horse, to reach out to the authorities. Im grateful for the support from my family and community who are holding us extra close tonight, Begaye said. Begayes mother, Lynette Adams sent the 8 News Now Investigators the following statement: Today, we stand at a pivotal moment following the Supreme Courts decision to overturn the dismissal of a case involving our two young daughters who have bravely endured so much. While this ruling may come as a surprise, it presents a critical opportunity to reset the course of justice and ensure that their voices, and their pain, are given the careful consideration they deserve. This is not just about correcting a legal oversightthis is about honoring the dignity, strength, and courage of these two young women. They, like so many others who seek justice, deserve a process that is thorough, compassionate, and just. We believe this ruling allows for exactly thata renewed chance to make things right, to review the facts with precision, and to ensure that every step moving forward is done with the utmost integrity. To our daughters, we offer our deepest support. Your perseverance and faith in the face of adversity inspire us all. This is your moment, and we trust that the next steps will finally lead to the justice and closure you deserve. We understand the gravity of what has been endured, and we remain hopeful that this new refiling will bring the resolution that has been so long in coming. We are encouraged by the belief that, moving forward, this case will be handled with the care and accuracy required to truly honor their experiences. Together, we will continue to advocate for fairness, compassion, and truth until a rightful conclusion is reached. As of Thursday, Chasing Horse remained in custody at the Clark County Detention Center in downtown Las Vegas. He declined a request for an interview. Clark County Public Defender Kristy Holston, who represents Chasing Horse, also declined to comment. In Chasing Horses first appeal, which the court denied, three Nevada Supreme Court justices listened to oral arguments Holston and Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney William Rowles presented. Two of the justices denied his appeal, while a third dissented. His second appeal was also denied. The dismissal is the result of a third appeal. Chasing Horse, a self-proclaimed Medicine Man led a group known as The Circle, according to Las Vegas Metro police. Several alleged victims, including Ren Leone, told the 8 News Now Investigators that he used spiritual practices and beliefs to manipulate them. In January 2023, Metro police investigated Chasing Horse and executed a search warrant at his North Las Vegas home, where he lived with several women who were referred to as his wives. He was taken into custody. Former actor Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse, right, also known as Nathan Chasing Horse, appears in North Las Vegas Justice Court Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023, in North Las Vegas, Nev. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye /Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP) In February 2023, a Clark County grand jury indicted Chasing Horse on a total of 19 counts. This included 10 counts of sexual assault against a minor under the age of 16, six counts of sexual assault, along with open and gross lewdness, first-degree kidnapping of a minor, and trafficking in a controlled substance. Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny later dropped one drug charge. The 8 News Now Investigators have learned similar allegations against Chasing Horse were previously made but did not result in an arrest. The Las Vegas case is the first of several to move forward against Chasing Horse. He faces federal charges and warrants in Montana and Canada. He has also previously been banned from several reservations. To reach investigative reporter Vanessa Murphy with any tips or information, email vmurphy@8newsnow.com. To contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline, call 1-800-656-4673. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 of the worlds major dairy milk sheds are wrestling with ramifications from disease outbreaks. In North America, more specifically the United States, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has impacted dairy operations across 14 states. Meanwhile in Europe, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany are among the major milksheds grappling with bluetongue. While neither disease is fatal to dairy cattle, they are causing lower milk production in some major dairy regions. Bluetongue is a viral disease spread by biting insects. In Europe, biting midges are the vector transmitting bluetongue from animal to animal. The disease poses no risk to humans; however, ruminant livestock are negatively impacted by it. Infected dairy cows can suffer from health and fertility issues that may even cause the loss of a pregnancy. Infected cows experience lower milk production by roughly 2 pounds per cow per day for nine to 10 weeks, according to USDA sources. In severe cases, milk production can be impacted at much higher levels. Like HPAIs deadly impact on poultry, the same holds true for sheep when infected by bluetongue. After being at bay for 14 years, bluetongue reappeared in the Netherlands in September 2023. That year, over 51,000 sheep died from bluetongue. A vaccination program ensued in April 2024 with an estimated 90% to 95% of the sheep being vaccinated by June. Outside of vaccination, the only way to slow or potentially prevent the disease is by lowering the presence of biting midges. Like mosquitoes, midges need standing water in which eggs are laid and hatch. There are 29 known bluetongue (BTV) variants. In August 2006, the BTV-8 strain spread across Europe, and it took two full years before a vaccine brought the disease under control. This time around, a new BTV-3 variant is wreaking havoc in the European countryside. This strain of the virus has caused significantly higher mortality rates in sheep than its 2006 cousin. Three major impact zones While the disease has been reported in eight European countries, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany have been impacted far more than Luxembourg, France, Denmark, Great Britain, and Norway. Germany leads the 27 countries in the European Union for milk production and accounts for about 22% of all milk flow. The Netherlands ranks fifth, and Belgium is ninth. Ireland, another major milk producer, has seen dairy farmers calling for a halt on all imported cattle to protect their herds against the risk of bluetongue disease. At the moment, Ireland has no reported cases of bluetongue. The map below shows how bluetongue is spreading through Germany, with the blue dots representing beef and dairy cattle operations that have been impacted and the red dots indicating infected sheep and goat farms as of September 9, 2024. The number of operations impacted is nearly double what it was one month earlier. In Germany, milk production was down well over 1% in August, and its expected that September output will be down even more. Given that this disease is spread by warm weather-loving insects, the bluetongue outbreak should subside with colder weather in the late fall and winter. However, it could reappear next summer. Additional disease impact zones can be seen here for the Netherlands and here for Belgium. Impact on near-term milk markets The positive movement in milk prices both in Europe and the U.S. has been driven largely due to tighter milk and product supplies rather than stronger dairy demand. Milk supplies have gotten tight among the big three dairy product exporters: New Zealand, the European Union, and the U.S. Until bluetongue gets held at bay, expect lower milk output from some of Europes leading dairy countries. To comment, email your remarks to intel@hoards.com. (c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2024 September 26, 2024 Prosecutors for the Travis County district attorney's office have rested their case after three days of testimony in the trial of Austin police officer Christopher Taylor in a 2019 fatal shooting. The defense will begin presenting its case Monday. In the first week, the jury heard from other responding officers about what transpired July 31, 2019, when 46-year-old Mauris DeSilva was shot and killed at a downtown condominium building after he moved toward officers with a knife. Video footage from officers' body-worn cameras of the incident also was played at the trial. The trial could finish by the end of next week. The state had previously said it might last into the week of Oct. 11. This is the second trial Taylor has faced in the past year after the Travis County district attorney's office brought murder charges against him in the police shooting of Michael Ramos in 2020. The jury in that trial could not reach a decision, and it was declared a mistrial. Taylor is now on trial for deadly conduct after he shot DeSilva, a Sri Lankan researcher and scientist, at the Spring Condominiums in downtown Austin. Austin police officer Christopher Taylor, center, defense attorney Ken Ervin, left, and defense attorney Doug O'Connell, right, exit the courtroom Wednesday on the first day of Taylor's trial on a charge of deadly conduct in the 2019 shooting death of Mauris DeSilva. Prosecutors rested their case Friday, and the defense will present witnesses Monday. More: Travis DA won't pursue murder charge against Austin cop Christopher Taylor for 2019 shooting Officers were called to the condos after receiving reports that DeSilva had been running outside and threatening himself with a knife to his neck. DeSilva had a history of mental health episodes. At the time of the shooting, four police officers had taken an elevator to the fifth floor to make contact with DeSilva, whom they saw on security footage walking around with the knife to his neck. The fifth floor is a communal area for the condos with a gym. A large portion of the testimony in the first week came from two of the four responding officers in the elevator, Joseph Cast and Phillip Zuniga. Cast had a Taser drawn while Zuniga did not have any weapon out, as his job was going to be to handcuff DeSilva, if possible. A photo of Mauris DeSilva is seen at the front of the courtroom last week during Taylor's trial. On Thursday, prosecutors played for the first time video of body-worn camera footage from the shooting. The footage showed the entire incident happened almost instantly. As the elevator doors begin to open, DeSilva is seen looking into a mirror with a knife held at his chest pointed near his neck. Multiple officers then start shouting various commands of "Drop it!" and "Let me see your hands!" More: Attorneys lay out arguments for, against APD officer Christopher Taylor in fatal shooting While the doors finish opening, DeSilva, who was 3 to 5 feet from the officers, also began to turn around, put the knife at his waist and then took a step toward police. Officers Taylor and Karl Krycia then shot their firearms while Cast discharged his Taser. The whole incident lasted a few seconds. Krycia faces a murder and deadly conduct charge in the killing of DeSilva. What are both sides arguing? Since the district attorney's office announced this month it would not seek a murder charge against Taylor, prosecutors now must prove that he is guilty of deadly conduct, a third-degree felony that carries a maximum of 10 years in prison. Prosecutor Rob Drummond gives opening statements Wednesday in the trial of police officer Christopher Taylor. Texas law states that deadly conduct is when a person "recklessly engages" in behavior that puts someone in danger or risk of serious injury, such as shooting a firearm in a building, place of habitation or vehicle. Throughout the first week of testimony, prosecutors have questioned officers on their decision to not wait for a mental health officer, to not take the stairs and other planning and tactical decisions made at the time. The first neighbor who called 911 about DeSilva requested a mental health officer due to DeSilva's history. More: Mistrial declared in murder trial of Austin officer Christopher Taylor in death of Michael Ramos Officers testified they took the elevator because it was the fastest way to reach DeSilva and that they didn't wait for a mental health officer because DeSilva was in a public space with a knife. Defense attorney Ken Ervin on Wednesday mimics putting a knife to his throat in imitation of Mauris DeSilva and the circumstances leading to his death. During cross-examination by Taylor's defense attorneys, Doug O'Connell and Ken Ervin, they got officers to testify that the officers reacted appropriately to the situation since there was a person with a knife acting "erratically" in a public space who needed to be confronted quickly. The officers testified that DeSilva's close proximity to the officers and moving toward them with a knife pointed at the officers justified the shooting. The state's final witness was Jelicka Long, a property manager at the condominiums, who became emotional while recalling the events. She said she had known DeSilva for 10 years. During the incident, she was working to get residents and other people to a safe location. She was on her way to the fifth floor when she heard the gunshots. Long said she had hoped the officers were going to take DeSilva to Austin State Hospital for mental health care. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: State rests case in trial against APD officer Christopher Taylor Prosecutors for the Travis County district attorney's office on Friday rested their case after three days of testimony in the trial of Austin police officer Christopher Taylor in a 2019 fatal shooting. The defense will begin presenting its case on Monday. In the first week, the jury heard from other responding officers about what transpired on July 31, 2019, when 46-year-old Mauris DeSilva was shot and killed at a downtown condo after he moved toward officers with a knife. Video footage from officers' body-worn cameras of the incident also were played. The trial could finish by the end of next week. The state had previously said it could last into the week of Oct. 11. This is the second trial Taylor has faced in the past year after the Travis County district attorney's office brought murder charges against him for the killing of Mike Ramos in 2020. The jury in that trial could not reach a decision and it was declared a mistrial. Taylor is now on trial for deadly conduct after he shot DeSilva, a Sri Lankan researcher and scientist, at the Spring Condominiums in downtown Austin. Austin police officer Christopher Taylor, center, defense attorney Ken Ervin, left, and defense attorney Doug O'Connell, right, exit the courtroom Wednesday on the first day of Taylor's trial on a charge of deadly conduct in the shooting death of Mauris DeSilva in 2019. Prosecutors rested their case Friday and the defense will present witnesses Monday. More: Travis DA won't pursue murder charge against Austin cop Christopher Taylor for 2019 shooting Officers were called to the downtown condos after receiving reports that DeSilva had been running outside and threatening himself with a knife to his neck. DeSilva had a history of mental health episodes. At the time of the shooting, four police officers had taken an elevator to the fifth floor to make contact with DeSilva, who they saw on security footage walking around with the knife to his neck. The fifth floor is a communal area for the condos with a gym. A large portion of the testimony in the first week came from two of the four responding officers in the elevator, Joseph Cast and Phillip Zuniga. Cast was the officer who had a Taser drawn while Zuniga did not have any weapon out, as his job was going to be to handcuff DeSilva, if possible. A photo of Mauris DeSilva is seen at the front of the courtroom during Austin police officer Christopher Taylor's deadly conduct trial. On Thursday, prosecutors played for the first time video of body-worn camera footage from the shooting. The footage showed the entire incident happened almost instantly. As the elevator doors begin to open, DeSilva is seen looking into a mirror with a knife held at his chest pointed near his neck. Multiple officers then start shouting various commands of "Drop it!" and "Let me see your hands!" More: Attorneys lay out arguments for, against APD officer Christopher Taylor in fatal shooting While the doors finish opening, DeSilva, who was 3 to 5.5 feet from the officers, also began to turn around, put the knife at his waist and then took a step toward police. Officers Taylor and Karl Krycia then shot their firearms while Cast discharged his Taser. The whole incident lasted a few seconds. Krycia faces a murder and deadly conduct charge in the killing of DeSilva. What are both sides arguing? Since the district attorney's office announced this month it would not seek a murder charge against Taylor, prosecutors now have to prove that he is guilty of deadly conduct, a third-degree felony that carries a maximum of 10 years in prison. State prosecutor Rob Drummond gives opening statements during Austin police officer Christopher Taylor's deadly conduct trial at the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center on Wednesday. Texas law states that deadly conduct is when a person "recklessly engages" in behavior that puts someone in danger or risk of serious injury, such as shooting a firearm in a building, place of habitation or vehicle. Throughout the first week of testimony, prosecutors have questioned officers on their decision to not wait for a mental health officer, to not take the stairs and other planning and tactical decisions made at the time. The first neighbor who called 911 about DeSilva requested a mental health officer due to DeSilva's history. More: Mistrial declared in murder trial of Austin officer Christopher Taylor in death of Michael Ramos Officers testified they took the elevator because it was the fastest way to reach DeSilva and that they didn't wait for a mental health officer because they DeSilva was in a public space with a knife. Defense attorney Ken Ervin mimics putting a knife to his throat in imitation of Mauris DeSilva and the circumstances leading to his death during opening statements on Wednesday. During cross-examination by Taylor's defense attorneys, Doug O'Connell and Ken Ervin, they got officers to testify that the officers reacted appropriately to the situation since there was a person with a knife acting "erratically" in a public space that needed to be confronted quickly. The officers testified that DeSilva's close proximity to the officers and moving toward them with a knife pointed at the officers justified the shooting. The state's final witness was Jelicka Long, a property manager at the condominiums, who became emotional while recalling the events. She said she had known DeSilva for 10 years. During the incident, she was working to get residents and other people to a safe location. She was on her way to the fifth floor when she heard the gunshots. Long said that she had hoped the officers were going to take DeSilva to the Austin State Hospital. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: State rest case in trial against APD officer Christopher Taylor PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) The suspect in this weeks homicide on Westminster Street in Providence will remain behind bars for now. Michael Shaw, 41, was arraigned Thursday on a charge of first-degree murder in the the death of 57-year-old Michael Ames. According to police, Ames was found dead Wednesday morning in the basement of a multi-family home after someone called for a well-being check. NEXT: Police ID victim, suspect of Providence homicide Shaw was later arrested a few blocks away on Wendell Street. Video submitted by a 12 News viewer shows the moment police caught up with him on top of a storage container. Story continues below video. Shaw briefly appeared in court on Thursday and was ordered held without bail. The judge said Shaw violated the terms of his probation related to a separate case. Hes due back in court next month for a status conference. NEXT: 8 arrested after RI State Police bust elaborate marijuana grow operation Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily Roundup Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WPRI.com. SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (WDTN) The Ohio Department of Public Safety reported to the city of Springfield on Tuesday the number of traffic violations issued during its traffic blitz. Ohio Director of Public Safety Andy Wilson spoke at a commission meeting Tuesday in response to Springfields calls for help due to over-extended resources. OSP has stepped in to fill gaps in the street. Were letting data drive where our troopers are patrolling, said Wilson. Miami Valley residents without power OSP has been cracking down on traffic violations for the last two weeks. At the meeting, Wilson began listing the 337 traffic violations reported. There were 136 tickets issued and 101 warnings given. Of these, 12 were for OVIs and three for felony offenses. Wilson didnt stop there though; he addressed a major issue adult drivers in Ohio face, something he and the governor want to address. There is work in progress to get drivers training out more robustly in the community, said Gov. Mike DeWine. If youre above the age of 18, you dont have to go through any drivers training at all, said Wilson. Remnants of Helene in Dayton: What to know Wilson said drivers 18 to 24 are the most dangerous demographic. Authorities want to address the issue head-on, working on a driver mentor program for adult learners. We know one of the things that makes a driver safer more than anything else is time behind the wheel with an actual instructor or someone whos giving them instructions, said Wilson. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WDTN.com. Editors Note: The video above first aired on August 14, 2024. PERMIAN BASIN (KMID/KPEJ) The Public Utility Commission unanimously approved a transmission plan on Friday, aimed at meeting the future electricity needs of the Permian Basin region. According to a release from the Commission, the plan outlines transmission infrastructure investments necessary to support the ongoing expansion and electrification of the Texas oil and gas industry in West Texas, as well as the growing electricity needs of the regions communities. I want to thank Governor Abbott, the Texas Legislature, PUCT and ERCOT staff, and all stakeholders who participated in this landmark process that will result in a monumental and historic transmission infrastructure buildout in the state, PUCT Commissioner Lori Cobos said. The Permian Basin is the heartbeat of our state and nations energy dominance and economy. This plan is a roadmap that will ensure electric reliability in the region for decades to come and facilitate critical transmission infrastructure investment that will ensure the continued success of Texas oil and gas industry and support the regions local communities and our entire state. House Bill 5066, passed by the Texas Legislature and signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott in 2023, required the PUCT to direct ERCOT to develop an electric reliability plan for the Permian Basin. The legislation required the plan address extending transmission service into areas where mineral resources have been found, address increasing available capacity to meet forecasted load, and provide available infrastructure to reduce interconnection times in areas without access to transmission service. Powering the Permian how can Demand Response programs help the Texas power grid? ERCOT expects electricity demand in the area to grow to around 26 GW by 2038, equivalent to nearly one third of the current summer demand of the entire ERCOT system. The approved plan includes two categories of transmission infrastructure: new and upgraded local transmission projects to strengthen the areas transmission service, as well as new import paths that will bring additional power to the region to serve the areas growing electricity needs. The Commissions decision also outlines procedural next steps for implementing the plan, including direction to the transmission companies that will be preparing to build the projects and commission oversight of the plans completion. You can learn more about the approved plan, as well as any related information regarding this plan on the PUCT website. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Yourbasin. Some Pulaski Co. residents asked to evacuate PULASKI COUNTY, Va. (WFXR) People who live along the New River in Pulaski County are being asked to voluntarily evacuate to higher ground through Saturday, because of moderate river flooding in the area. Pinpoint Weather: Helene brings flooding, wind, and tornado threat Pulaski County Emergency Management lists the following areas as flood-prone: Julia Simpkins Road from Clark Road to the New River trail in Allisonia. Clarks Ferry Road from Shulls Lane to Ledge Rock Road in Draper. Both Shulls Lane & Ledge Rock Road in Draper. Parrott River Road in Parrott and Hazel Hollow Road in Fairlawn. Officials are worried these roads could become impassable, with some buildings potentially impacted by rising water. Residents are being asked to secure their property and move to safer areas. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. SOMERSET, Ky. (FOX 56) This year the U.S. Department of Education recognized 356 schools as National blue-ribbon schools. National education leaders said National Blue Ribbon Schools symbolize a trademark of excellence and a symbol of exemplary teaching and learning. Seven schools were awarded the blue ribbon throughout the Commonwealth on Monday. Police searching for missing teen last seen in Laurel County National Blue Ribbon Schools across the U.S. (U.S. Government) Northern Elementary School in Pulaski County, was one school given this honor on Monday. Northern Elementary Principal Daniel Hill said, It is very significant for us. We know we have a great school and our county knows that we have a great school. But now the state and even the nation know that. And Im so proud of our students and our staff. They have been the difference maker. We focus on their growth and we just want to be better than we were yesterday. Schools are recognized in one of two categories: exemplary high performance, which is measured by state assessments, or achievement gap-closing performances. Our teachers want to improve their practices every day, and we want our students to grow. So what we have done and what we have implemented, were now seeing that its working, said Hill. Daniel Hill told FOX 56 that this recognition was exciting for the school and the district as a whole. Hill, along with the staff at Northern Elementary are already working on keeping this honorary status, as they continue striving for success. LATEST KENTUCKY NEWS: We have a mind of continuous improvement in education, so we know weve achieved this goal, but we want to move to the next step. And really for us, that is about looking at each individual student. We have to look at the needs of every student and then meet each individual need. And that can be tough, but we are made for that. I always tell our teachers were made for this moment. Theyre made for this moment. Our students are made for this. So again, its just about continuous improvement being better than we were yesterday, said Hill. For more information on Northern Elementary, visit the school website. To find out more about the National Blue Ribbon program and its recipients in Kentuck and nationwide, 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 FOX 56 News. Declining the award: Last month, the museum prohibited employees from wearing clothing or accessories that expressed political messages, slogans or symbols during their work hours, saying that such expressions can unintentionally alienate segments of our diverse visitorship. The keffiyeh has been widely used by protesters supporting Palestinian self-determination and opposing Israels actions in Gaza, where more than 41,000 people have been killed. In protest of the museum's policy, Lahiri, who is also the director of the creative writing program at Barnard College, withdrew her acceptance of the Noguchi Award. The 36-year-old man who pleaded guilty to killing a puppy found with its mouth taped shut was sentenced this week in Maricopa County Superior Court. Lester Richmond, of Scottsdale, was sentenced Tuesday to one year in county jail and three years of supervised probation. Richmond was arrested along with an accomplice, 32-year-old Heather Auditor, in July 2023 after his Husky was found dead in an alley. Police uncovered evidence linking him to the crime, including surveillance footage of the two discussing getting rid of the dog. Following his arrest, Richmond was placed on supervised release, and he pleaded guilty in July of this year. While on release, Richmond failed to appear in court in August and was extradited back to Phoenix after officers located him in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Richmond's plea was for one count of intentionally or knowingly subjecting an animal to cruel mistreatment, a class six felony. According to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, Richmond received the harshest penalty possible under the law for a first-time offender. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Lester Richmond sentenced for animal cruelty in death of Husky The Miami City Commission on Thursday agreed to pay $12.5 million to settle a lawsuit accusing the city of carrying out a vendetta against a group of Little Havana businesses, marking a partial resolution in a years-long legal entanglement between local nightclub owners and Commissioner Joe Carollo. The lawsuit was filed three years ago in federal court by The Mad Room LLC, the company that owns the Ball & Chain nightclub, as well as Taquerias El Mexicano. It accused the city of harassing the businesses by carrying out code enforcement raids and weaponizing various departments in the city to concoct a set of violations targeted at businesses specifically owned by Ball & Chains Bill Fuller, who supported Carollos opponent in the citys 2017 election. No other businesses on Calle Ocho were targeted by the alleged scheme, according to the complaint. The Citys vendetta against Plaintiffs runs from top to bottom its elected officials, lawyers, professional staff, and every single department within its administrative function, the complaint alleged. It went on to say that the city deliberately created a multi-pronged policy intended to unfold in stages and build relentlessly towards its eventual goal of destroying Plaintiffs business and arrogating their property rights. In a separate but related lawsuit, Carollo last year was found personally liable for violating the free speech rights of Fuller and Little Havana businessman Martin Pinilla, who also supported Carollos opponent in 2017. Last June, a jury awarded Fuller and Pinilla $63.5 million after finding that Carollo tried to destroy the mens reputations and pushed city cops and code enforcement officers to target their properties. Carollo has appealed the judgment. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs have struggled to collect on it, with Carollo reporting a negative $64 million net worth and a judge ruling this summer that his Coconut Grove home can be protected from seizure to satisfy the judgment. Aerial view of Miami Commissioner Joe Carollos house in Coconut Grove on Saturday, Feb. 17, 2024. The City Commission voted 4-1 to approve the $12.5 million settlement in the Mad Room case, with Carollo being the only no vote. Carollo said that, in his opinion, none of our employees in the city did anything wrong. On the contrary, he continued, the history of these individuals was the history of violations, violations, violations, violations, not respecting our residents. Commissioner Miguel Angel Gabela said he would vote for the settlement because we want to put this chapter behind us and not burden taxpayers with what could be years of further litigation. By agreeing to the settlement, the city does not admit to any liability. In a statement issued Thursday, the city said that if the plaintiffs had prevailed in a trial, they would have been entitled to attorneys fees, which could have far exceeded the settlement amount. While the City firmly believes it has done nothing wrong, the statement continued, settling at this stage is a sound financial decision. Commissioner Damian Pardo suggested that, going forward, the city could consider spelling out disciplinary actions for elected officials implicated in similar lawsuits, such as a formal censure or removal from office. Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo speaks during a rally at the FPL Solar Amphitheater Auditorium in downtown Miami on Aug. 17, 2024. The plaintiffs had initially claimed $27.9 million in damages from the alleged harassment campaign. In response to the City Commissions approval of the settlement, their attorneys Maria Fehretdinov and Jason S. Koslowe wrote in a statement that good governance and fair play are vital to our City. We are hopeful the settlement advances those values. Plaintiffs look forward to putting this matter behind them and growing their businesses, they added. According to the citys statement, the citys insurer QBE Specialty Insurance Company will pay $4 million of the settlement, with the city bearing responsibility for about $8.2 million. Pardos office previously told the Herald that the remaining $300,000 involves liens against the businesses that came about as a result of code violations that would be erased under the settlement. In May, QBE sued the city, saying it should not be held responsible for over $10 million in legal fees for Carollos defense in various lawsuits dating back to 2018, citing allegations that Carollo engaged in deliberate, willful conduct that was intended to deprive plaintiffs of their property and harm plaintiffs reputations to punish and retaliate. That lawsuit remains pending. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wants Turkiye to promote peace with Azerbaijan, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said while answering reporters' questions at the Turkish House in New York, Azernews reports via the Daily Sabah. Turkish media quoted Erdogan as saying that the Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan wants Turkiye to contribute to peace so that they can live peacefully as two neighbours. This is what we are striving for, he said, adding that Ankara hopes to solve the problems between Azerbaijan and Armenia as both sides are in favour of peace. He noted, "Peace between the two countries will open doors for new opportunities and acquisitions, and the normalisation process between Turkiye and Armenia will also move forward accordingly. Russian President Vladimir Putin is fond of nuclear saber-rattling: On the eve of Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin leader presided over the rehearsal of a nuclear strike, and his not-so-veiled nuclear threats have since kept US officials on edge. This week, Putin once again rattled the arms-control world by revealing proposed changes to his countrys nuclear doctrine. In a meeting Wednesday of his Security Council, the president said Russia would revise the doctrine to potentially lower the bar for the use of nuclear weapons, adding that Moscow would regard an attack by a non-nuclear state that involved or was supported by a nuclear state as a joint attack against the Russian Federation. Nuclear retaliation, Putin continued, could be considered once we receive reliable information about a massive launch of air and space attack weapons and their crossing our state border. I mean strategic and tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles], hypersonic and other aircraft. In simple terms, Putin was delivering a warning to Washington and other backers of Ukraine. The revision to the doctrine comes as Ukraine (a non-nuclear weapons state since it gave up claims to nuclear weapons after the collapse of the USSR) presses the United States for long-range weapons that would allow it to strike deeper inside Russia. The doctrinal revamp is clearly meant to make Western policymakers think twice as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky presents his victory plan to the Biden administration. By brandishing the big stick of Russias nuclear arsenal, Putin is implying that the potential costs of providing Ukraine that weaponry may be too high for the West. So does Putins statement move the Doomsday Clock any closer to midnight? Wednesdays announcement sparked robust discussion online, with arms-control experts trying parse Putins language about the thresholds for nuclear retaliation. Pavel Podvig, an expert on Russian nuclear forces, wrote in a thread on X that there was deliberate ambiguity in the announcement, particularly around what doctrine defines as aggression against Russia. In the current version of Russias nuclear doctrine, there is no distinction between an aggression by nuclear- and non-nuclear-weapon state, he wrote. All you need is an aggression that threatens the existence of the state. Podvig noted a previous Russian assurance that Moscow would not employ nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states, with one exception: when that state acts in association or alliance with a nuclear-weapon state. Russias new red lines may be difficult to perceive, then, but that may be beside the point. The language is designed for the very specific situation we are currently in, Podvig wrote. We know what these nuclear-weapon and non-nuclear-weapon states are. Mariana Budjeryn, researcher at Harvard Kennedy Schools Belfer Center, suggested the red lines may exist primarily in Putins mind. There are two noteworthy points of departure from the previous 2020 Russian military doctrine, she wrote on X. 2020 doctrine allowed the use of NW [nuclear weapons] in response to conventional aggression that jeopardizes the very existence of the state. This is now relaxed to extreme threats to state sovereignty. What does that mean? Who defines what constitutes these threats? Likely, Mr. Putin. Conventional aggression is further specified to include a massive air-space attack. Who defines what constitutes massive or massive enough? Likely, Mr. Putin. Moscow has been making not-so-veiled nuclear threats throughout its war in Ukraine. - Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images The bottom line for changes to military doctrine, Budjeryn added, are less than meets the eye but do provide more interpretative room to Russian leadership to define circumstances of nuclear use. Putins very public move also underscores the performative nature of nuclear deterrence. The spectacle here is the key: the act of communicating our doctrine is changing now has the worlds attention, with the implicit message: you should be worried, wrote Kristin Ven Bruusgaard, the director of the Norwegian Intelligence School, whose academic research focuses on Russian nuclear strategy, on X. The content of Putins speech is less spectacular; a number of issues receive more detailed treatment than before, but the granularity of nuclear thresholds remain as blurred as before as is intended. Its also unclear what the actual revised doctrine might look like, Ven Bruusgaard added. Key question is what now? Will we see a document, will it contain more than what Putin has stated? Is this a trial balloon or is this the shebang? If so; curious that changes were so little if one were to go through the motions of updating the doctrine. Ultimately, its worth remembering as well that Ukraine has already struck deep inside Russian territory, including drone strikes on the Russian capital and a recent attack that hit a Russian ammunition depot. And the results of Zelenskys visit to the US may soon tell us whether anyone in Washington is listening to Putins nuclear talk. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com A child at a rally against the abduction of children by Russia. Photo: Getty Images Qatar has announced an agreement between Ukraine and Russia on the exchange of 13 children. Source: French newspaper Le Monde Details: "Nine minors and one adult will be reunited with their families in Ukraine," a Qatari official told AFP, specifying that "four minors" will be reunited with their families in Russia. The nine children coming back to Ukraine are aged between 12 and 17. The children going to Russia are between 2 and 7 years old. All of them will be received at the Qatari Embassy in Moscow before being reunited with their families. Qatar has been mediating this issue since July 2023, helping repatriate Ukrainian children taken to Russia and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. Background: In the spring of 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russian Commissioner for Children's Rights, for their direct involvement in the "deportation" of Ukrainian children to Russia since February 2022. Ukraine estimates that 20,000 Ukrainian minors have been deported or forcibly transferred to Russia, though the actual number may be much higher, as this figure only accounts for officially identified children. So far, around 400 of them have been repatriated. Support UP or become our patron! The King's stepson said that the monarch is receiving the "best treatment" Dave Benett/Getty, Samir Hussein/WireImage (Left) Tom Parker Bowles at the launch of his new book, "Cooking and The Crown," at The Audley Public House in London on Sept. 5, 2024; (Right) King Charles at the Braemar Gathering in Braemar, Scotland on Sept. 7, 2024 Queen Camilla's son Tom Parker Bowles has given new insight into how King Charles is doing amid his cancer treatment. Tom, 49, gave a brief update about his stepfather's health in his new interview with British Vogue about his upcoming cookbook, Cooking and the Crown: Royal Recipes from Queen Victoria to King Charles III. The food writer said that the King, 75, said is receiving "the best treatment," but acknowledged that it was impossible not to worry about a loved one navigating cancer. "Cancer, it really is a bastard," Tom told British Vogue in an interview published Sept. 24. "The Kings having the best treatment. Hes a great man and a tough man, and youve just got to get on with it. Of course, anyone who has someone they love with cancer is going to worry." Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty King Charles and Tom Parker Bowles at Royal Ascot on June 20, 2024. Related: Tom Parker Bowles Shares How Queen Camilla Is Doing Amid King Charles' Cancer Treatment: Shes Tough, My Mother The profile maintained that Tom is "super close" with his mother the Queen who "adores" her grandchildren, including his kids Lola, 16, and son Freddy, 14, whom he shares with his ex-wife Sara Buys. Tom's latest comments on the King follow another similar sentiment he recently shared while promoting Cooking and the Crown, where he referenced his mother's strength. According to Daily Express, Tom said that King Charles' "treatment is going well" and that Queen Camilla is forging forward, too. "Shes tough, my mother," Tom said in the Sept. 24 report. Queen Camilla welcomed her son and daughter Laura Lopes during her first marriage to Andrew Parker Bowles, and they both stepped out to support a launch event for Tom's cookbook in London on Sept. 5. Cooking and the Crown: Royal Recipes from Queen Victoria to King Charles III will be published in the U.K. on Sept. 26 and released in the U.S. on Oct. 22, and some of Charles and Camilla's go-to recipes are reportedly in its contents. Dave Benett/Getty (From left) Annabel Elliot, Andrew Parker Bowles and Queen Camilla at the launch of Tom Parker Bowles' new book, "Cooking and the Crown," at The Audley Public House in London on Sept. 5, 2024. Related: Inside Queen Camilla and King Charles Diets, According to Her Cookbook Author Son Tom Parker Bowles The upcoming cookbook will explore "200 years of British royal food, studded with anecdotes, delectable tidbits and nuggets of history, featuring 100 accessible recipes" from Tom, an award-winning food writer and restaurant critic for The Mail on Sunday, according to its Amazon page. The summary lists a recipe for "Queen Camilla's porridge," "The King's wet martini," "Buckingham Palace mutton pies" and more. While the King didn't appear with his wife at the party for Cooking and the Crown, he has many official outings since his return to public-facing duties following the announcement about his cancer diagnosis. In February, Buckingham Palace shared that the sovereign was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer following his treatment for a benign enlarged prostate in January. A spokesman clarified he does not have prostate cancer. Aaron Chown/PA Images via Getty King Charles and Queen Camilla drive near Balmoral Castle in Scotland on Sept. 8, 2024. The King postponed public-facing work on doctor's advice for three months, and resumed forward-facing engagements with a visit to a cancer center (not affiliated with his medical care) on April 30. At the time, Buckingham Palace described the King's treatment as ongoing and said future engagements would be amended as necessary "to minimize any risks to His Majestys continued recovery." Looking ahead, the King and Queen, 77, are gearing up for a major trip to Australia and Samoa in October. The visit will be the couple's first tour to Commonwealth countries since the King's accession and planned as he continues cancer treatment. Chris Jackson/Getty King Charles and Queen Camilla at the Braemar Gathering in Braemar, Scotland on Sept. 8, 2024. Can't get enough of PEOPLE's Royals coverage? Sign up for our free Royals newsletter to get the latest updates on Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and more! The royal couple won't stop in New Zealand (another Commonwealth country), as is typical for long-distance trips to that part of the world, around the King's health. In the July tour announcement, a spokesperson said that a New Zealand leg was nixed as "the Kings doctors have advised that such an extended program should be avoided at this time, to prioritize His Majestys continued recovery." For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. UPDATE 8:33 AM All tornado warnings have expired. __ UPDATE 8:23 AM A tornado warning for Georgetown County is in effect until 8:45 a.m. A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located at 8:14 a.m. near DeBordieu Colony, moving north at 55 mph. __ UPDATE 8:09 AM A tornado warning for Georgetown County has been extended through 8:30 a.m. A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located at 7:37 near Santee Coastal Reserve, moving north at 60 mph. Warnings in Berkeley and Charleston counties have been canceled. __ UPDATE 7:27 AM Portions of Berkeley and Charleston counties are under a tornado warning until 8 a.m. A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located 9 miles northwest of McClellanville at 7:25 a.m., moving north at 35 mph. Locations impacted include Newland and Shulerville. Western Georgetown and southeastern Williamsburg County are also under a tornado warning until 8 a.m. VIPIR radar indicated a possible tornado near Lambert, which is about 14 miles north of McClellanville. __ UPDATE 7:02 AM A tornado warning was issued for northeastern Georgetown County and eastern Williamsburg County until 7:30 a.m. A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located near Plantersville, or 8 miles northwest of Pawleys Island at 6:58 a.m. It is moving north at 60 mph. __ UPDATE 6:37 AM A tornado warning is in effect for Georgetown County until 7 a.m. A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located near Winyah Bay Entrance at 6:34 a.m., moving north at 60 mph. __ UPDATE 6:18 AM A tornado warning is in effect for Berkeley and Charleston counties until 6:45 a.m. A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located near Isle of Palms at 6:16 a.m. It is moving north at 60 mph. Locations impacted include Mount Pleasant, Isle Of Palms, Sullivans Island, Awendaw, Mount Pleasant Regional Airport, Boone Hall Plantation, Cainhoy, Wando, Mount Pleasant Towne Centre and Sullivans Island. __ UPDATE 6:13 AM A flash flood warning is in effect for Berkeley and Charleston counties until 11:45 a.m. heavy rain enters the area. Pockets of heavy rain coupled with ongoing high tide will produce an increased risk of flash flooding around the Charleston metropolitan area, according to the National Weather Service. Impacts are expected to be greatest in downtown Charleston, but Folly Beach, James Island, West Ashley, North Charleston, and Mount Pleasant could also see significant flooding. Forecasts said up to 2 inches per hour is possible through the mid to late morning. __ UPDATE 5:59 AM A tornado warning is in effect for southwestern Georgetown County and southeastern Williamsburg County until 6:30 a.m. A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located over Hampton Plantation State Park at 5:54 a.m., moving north at 60 mph. Locations impacted include Sampit, Andrews, and Warsaw. __ UPDATE 5:51 AM Tornado warnings are in effect for portions of Berkeley and Charleston counties. A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located over McClellanville at 5:47 a.m., moving north at 60 mph. The warning is in effect until 6:15 a.m. Another storm capable of producing a tornado was located 6 miles north of Sangaree at 5:50 a.m., moving north at 60 mph. The warning is in effect until 6:30 a.m. __ UPDATE 5:37 AM The tornado warning for Charleston County has been canceled. __ UPDATE 5:32 AM The tornado warning has expired in Berkeley and Dorchester counties. __ UPDATE 5:20 AM A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located near Seabrook Island at 5:18 a.m., moving north at 55 mph. A tornado warning is in effect until 5:45 a.m. Locations impacted include Johns Island, West Ashley, Hollywood, Ravenel, Seabrook Island, Kiawah Island, Meggett, Wadmalaw Island, Angel Oak Park and Rantowles. __ UPDATE 5:09 AM A tornado warning has been issued for portions of Berkeley and Dorchester counties until 6 a.m. A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located at 5:08 a.m. near Ridgeville, moving north at 70 mph. Locations impacted include Summerville, Dorchester, Ridgeville, Harleyville, Jedburg, Pringletown, Francis Beidler Forest, Spring Hill, Sandridge and Ebenezer. __ UPDATE 5:00 AM Helene has weakened to a tropical storm as it moves inland over Georgia, according to the National Hurricane Center. Maximum sustained winds are 70 mph with higher gusts. Continued weakening is expected. The storm is moving north at around 30 mph. It is expected to turn toward the north Friday morning with the center moving over central and northeastern Georgia. It is then expected to turn northwestward and slow down over the Tennessee Valley on Friday afternoon and Saturday. A tropical storm warning remains in effect across the Lowcountry. __ UPDATE 4:56 AM A tornado warning has been issued for Charleston County near Capers Inlet until 5:30 a.m. A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located at 4:53 a.m., moving north at 70 mph. Impacted locations include Mount Pleasant, Isle Of Palms, Awendaw, Capers Inlet, Garris Landing, Mount Pleasant Regional Airport, Price Inlet, and Whitehall. The tornado warning for Dorchester County was also extended until 5:30 a.m. Colleton County Fire-Rescue has reported numerous downed trees on roadways. __ UPDATE 4:39 AM A tornado warning has been issued for lower Charleston County near Rockville until 5 a.m. A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located at 4:36 a.m., moving north at 75 mph. Locations impacted include Edisto Beach, Johns Island, Hollywood, Ravenel, Seabrook Island, Meggett, Rockville, Bears Bluff, Yonges Island and Adams Run. __ UPDATE 4:32 AM Parts of Berkeley, Charleston, and Dorchester counties are under a tornado warning until 5:15 a.m. A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located near Summerville at 4:30 a.m., moving north at 60 mph. Locations impacted include North Charleston, Summerville, Ladson, Ridgeville, Jedburg, Knightsville, Sangaree, Lincolnville, New Hope and Lotts Crossroads. __ UPDATE 4:30 AM The tornado warning for Charleston County has expired. __ UPDATE 4:12 AM The tornado warning for Colleton County has been canceled. __ UPDATE 4:03 AM A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located over Seabrook Island at 4 a.m., moving north at 65 mph. A warning is in effect until 4:30 a.m. Locations impacted include Johns Island, Hollywood, Ravenel, Seabrook Island, Kiawah Island, Meggett, Rockville, Yonges Island, Bears Bluff, and Wadmalaw Island. __ UPDATE 3:45 AM A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located 7 miles southeast of Kiawah Island at 3:42 a.m., moving north at 70 mph. A tornado warning is in effect for portions of Charleston County until 4:30 a.m. Locations impacted include North Charleston, Johns Island, West Ashley, James Island, Hollywood, Folly Beach, Ravenel, Kiawah Island, Meggett, and Maybank Bridge. The warning area includes I-526 between mile markers 11 and 15 and near mile marker 17. Portions of Colleton County are also under a tornado warning until 4:15 a.m. Locations impacted include Walterboro, Round O, Ritter, Canadys, Green Pond, Ashepoo, Thayer, Lowcountry Regional Airport, Drawdy, Colleton Medical Center, and I-95 in South Carolina between mile markers 55 and 69. A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located near Ashepoo, moving north at 65 mph at 3:48 a.m. __ UPDATE 3:27 AM A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located at 3:19 a.m. near Fripp Island, moving north at 70 mph. A tornado warning is in effect for portions of Colleton County until 4 a.m. Locations impacted include Bennetts Point, Ashepoo, Green Pond, Fripp Island, White Hall, Wiggins, Chisolm Point, Coosaw Island, Sams Point, and Eddings Point. __ UPDATE 2:55 AM A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located over Edisto Beach at 2:53 a.m., moving north at 65 mph. A tornado warning is in effect for portions of Charleston and Colleton counties until 3:30 a.m. Locations impacted include Edisto Beach, Meggett, Adams Run, Edisto Island, Jacksonboro, Fenwick, Parkers Ferry, and Edisto Beach State Park. __ CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD)- Hurricane Helene will continue to bring pockets of heavy rain, gusty winds, and a tornado threat to the Lowcountry through Friday morning as it tracks across the southeastern U.S. Helene made landfall as a powerful Category 4 storm in Floridas Big Bend region around 11:10 p.m. on Thursday, according to the National Hurricane Center. It had maximum stained winds of 140 mph and was moving north-northeast at 24 mph. \ Forecasters said the storm is expected to turn toward the north overnight, taking the center over Georgia. It is then expected to turn northwestward and slow down as it moves over the Tennessee Valley into Saturday. A tropical storm warning is in effect across the Lowcountry. Bands of showers and thunderstorms will continue to roll in off of the Atlantic Ocean over the next several hours and another 1-2 of rain is possible. Multiple school districts switch to eLearning Friday Wind speeds could range from 25-35 mph with gusts to 60 mph throughout the Charleston area into Friday morning. [The storm] is going to move into Georgia and once it does its going to pull more rain bands our way, Storm Team 2 Chief Meteorologist Rob Fowler said. It looks like its going to be a very busy overnight for us as we still see some strong thunderstorms and any of these could produce a tornado or what could be a tornado. A tornado watch has been extended for much of South Carolina through 8 a.m. Friday. Flooding has already prompted multiple road closures in downtown Charleston. City leaders implemented the mayors flood mitigation plan in anticipation of flooding from heavy rainfall and high tide. The next high tide will be at 4:36 a.m., according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. DOWNLOAD THE STORM TEAM 2 WEATHER APP APPLE USERS CLICK HERE | ANDROID USERS 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 WCBD News 2. RALEIGH COUNTY, WV (WVNS) Raleigh County Emergency Services 911 gave a storm response update after weather caused by Tropical Storm Helene swept through the area on Friday, September 27, 2024. According to a press release from Raleigh County Emergency Services 911, crews are working on dealing with various emergency situations throughout Raleigh County. PHOTOS: Tropical Storm Helene leaves damage across southern West Virginia Raleigh County Emergency Services 911 stated that there are many reported road closures caused by the weather that include: Springdale and Rhodes in Beckley East Prince Street in Beckley Nebraska Avenue and Craig Street in Beckley Hot Coal Road Around 219,000 Appalachian Power customers without power across Appalachia Members of Raleigh County Emergency Management are working with members of local Law Enforcement, County Fire Departments, Beckley Street Department, and the Division of Highways to help and warn residents about blocked roads and fallen trees. According to Raleigh County Emergency Services 911, there are shelters on standby if necessary, however no shelters are open at this time in Raleigh County. Members of various fire departments and the Division of Highways were in various parts of Raleigh County removing trees and debris from roadways for the past four hours. Bluefield Virginia Police Department advises against travel except in emergency situations Raleigh County Emergency Services 911 stated that people should be very careful if they need to travel after dark. The Raleigh County 911 Center not only processed over 100 calls for service on Friday, September 27, 2024, they also continue to answer emergency calls. More than 70 tree down calls were reported, with more coming in due to winds, there are around 114 power outage cases leaving approximately 9,757 residents without power in Raleigh County. McDowell County residents advised to stay home during severe weather Emergency situations can be reported to the Raleigh County 911 Center, and the Raleigh County 911 Center advised residents to contact their power company for power outage updates. Stick with 59News and StormTracker 59 for the most up to date weather 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 WVNS. Randall County Sheriff's deputies on Wednesday found child sexual abuse material and seized more than 100 devices during a search of a residence prompted by a tip from the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, authorities said. "The Randall County Sheriff's Office executed an evidentiary search warrant for the residence of Jonathan Paul Conwell," a news release states. "This warrant was obtained following a Cyber Tip provided to the Randall County Sheriffs Office by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. During the search, there were over 100 data storage devices seized as evidence. Explicit videos and photos involving children were found while deputies were on scene." Conwell was arrested and booked into the Randall County Jail on a charge of possession of child pornography. The release noted that according to Texas Penal Code, "it is a first-degree felony if a person possesses 50 or more visual depictions, or videotape or film that visually depicts sexual conduct of a child under 18 years of age." This is an active and ongoing investigation, officials said. This is a developing story; more information will be added as it is released. This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Randall County deputies find child pornography during search 'Rape me, not my daughter' - women tell BBC of sexual violence in Sudan's civil war Sudan is at breaking point. After 17 months of a brutal civil war which has devastated the country, the army has launched a major offensive in the capital Khartoum, targeting areas in the hands of its bitter rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The RSF seized most of Khartoum at the start of the conflict, while the army controls the twin city of Omdurman, just across the River Nile. The military attacked across two bridges which up until now have been closed and contested. Reports say it has secured a bridgehead on the eastern side for the first time since the conflict began. But there are still places where people can, and do, cross between the two sides. At one such point, I met a group of women who had walked for four hours to a market in army-controlled territory at the edge of Omdurman, where food is cheaper. The women had come from an area in Sudan called Dar es Salaam, which is held by the RSF. Their husbands were no longer leaving the house, they told me, because RSF fighters beat them, took any money they earned, or detained them and demanded payment for their release. We endure this hardship because we want to feed our children. Were hungry, we need food, said one. Warning: Some of the details in the story may be upsetting. And the women, I asked, were they safer than the men? What about rape? The chorus of voices died down. Then one erupted. "Where is the world? Why dont you help us?" she said, her words coming out in torrents as tears ran down her cheeks. There are so many women here whove been violated, but they dont talk about it. What difference would it make anyway? Some girls, the RSF make them lie in the streets at night, she went on. If they come back late from this market, the RSF keeps them for five or six days. As she spoke her mother sat with her head in her hand, sobbing. Other women around her also started crying. You in your world, if your child went out, would you leave her? she demanded. Wouldnt you go look for her? But tell us, what can we do? Nothing is in our hands, no one cares for us. Where is the world? Why dont you help us! The crossing point was a window into a world of desperation and despair. "I said to the RSF: 'If you want to rape anyone it has to be me.' They hit me and ordered me to take off my clothes. Before I took them off, I told my girls to leave ", Source: Miriam, Source description: Rape survivor, Image: Travellers described being subjected to lawlessness, looting and brutality in a conflict that the UN says has forced more than 10.5 million people to flee their homes. But it is sexual violence that has become a defining characteristic of the protracted conflict, which started as a power struggle between the army and the RSF but has since drawn in local armed groups and fighters from neighbouring countries. The UNs High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has said rape is being used as a weapon of war. A recent UN fact-finding mission documented several cases of rape and rape threats from members of the army, but found that large-scale sexual violence was committed by the RSF and its allied militias, and amounted to violations of international law. One woman the BBC spoke to blamed the RSF for raping her. We met her in the market at the crossing, aptly named Souk al-Har - the Heat Market. Since the war began the market has expanded across the barren land on a desert road out of Omdurman, attracting the poorest of the poor with its low prices. The conflict in Sudan has caused a massive humanitarian disaster [BBC / Ed Habershon] Miriam, not her real name, had fled her home in Sudan's Dar es Salaam to take refuge with her brother. She now works in a tea stall. But early in the war, she said, two armed men entered her house and tried to rape her daughters one 17 years old and the other 10. I told the girls to stay behind me and I said to the RSF: 'If you want to rape anyone it has to be me,' she said. They hit me and ordered me to take off my clothes. Before I took them off, I told my girls to leave. They took the other children and jumped over the fence. Then one of the men laid on me. The RSF has told international investigators that it has taken all the necessary measures to prevent sexual violence and other forms of violence that constitute human rights violations. But the accounts of sexual assault are numerous and consistent, and the damage has a lasting impact. Air strikes and street battles have caused heavy destruction in Sudan [Getty Images] Sitting on a low stool in the shade of a row of trees, Fatima, not her real name, told me she had come to Omdurman to deliver twins, and planned to stay. One of her neighbours, she said, a 15-year-old girl, had also become pregnant, after she and her 17-year-old sister were raped by four RSF soldiers. People were awakened by screams and came out to see what was going on, she said, but the armed men told them they would be shot if they did not go back into their houses. The next morning, they found the two girls with signs of abuse on their bodies, and their elder brother locked in one of the rooms. During the war, since the RSF arrived, immediately we started hearing of rapes, until we saw it right in front of us in our neighbours, Fatima said. Initially we had doubts [about the reports] but we know that its the RSF who raped the girls. The other women are gathering to begin the trek back home to areas controlled by the RSF - they are too poor, they say, to start a new life like Miriam has done by leaving Dar es Salaam. For as long as this war goes on, they have no choice but to return to its horrors. More BBC stories on Sudan's civil war: [Getty Images/BBC] Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica BBC Africa podcasts District Attorney Steve Mulroy remembered the Memphis artist as a "prominent and beloved member of the community" Paras Griffin/Getty Rapper Young Dolph One of the men accused of killing Young Dolph will spend life in prison for the 2021 fatal shooting of the rapper. On Thursday, Sept. 26, Justin Johnson was found guilty of first degree murder, conspiracy to commit first degree murder, and convicted felon in possession of a firearm in relation to the November 2021 shooting death of the Memphis artist, the Shelby County District Attorneys Office said. The judge sentenced Johnson to life in prison, the district attorney's office added. Young Dolph, born Adolph Robert Thornton Jr., was shot and killed outside a local business called Makeda's Butter Cookies on Airways Blvd. He was 36. Law&crime trails/Youtube Justin Johnson Johnson was found guilty on all three counts after nearly four hours of deliberation, the district attorneys office said. During the four-day trial, co-defendant Cornelius Smith confessed to participating in the shooting with Johnson with the expectation of receiving $40,000 each for shooting the Preach rapper. According to Smiths testimony, Hernandez Govan, who was also charged in the case, was behind the hit. Related: Young Dolph's Alleged Killer Captured After Manhunt, Second Man Indicted for Rapper's Murder However, Smith claimed he was following instructions given to him by Anthony Mims, also known as Big Jook. Mims, who is the brother of Memphis rapper Yo Gotti, and Johnson were allegedly supposed to give Govan $10,000 each for organizing the fatal shooting of Young Dolph. (Mims was shot and killed in Memphis in January. The Memphis Police Department has not announced any arrest in his death, per the Commercial Appeal.) Every murders a tragedy, and we take them all seriously, District Attorney Steve Mulroy said. "This one generated extra public interest because Young Dolph was a prominent and beloved member of the community. We will continue to fight hard to make sure that all of those responsible for his death are brought to justice. Once the verdict was read, Dolph's sister, Carlissa Thornton, read a statement to the media, Local Memphis reported. "On Nov. 17, 2021, our lives changed forever," Thornton said. "A son, a father, a brother, a friend, a businessman, a music artist, a philanthropist, and life partner are among just some of the titles that my brother Adolph Robert Thornton Jr. held. Titles that have now left a missing piece in the lives of so many. I want to thank the jury for their service and decision in this case to bring us one step closer to justice for our family, friends, supporters, and the community that has supported us during this time." Thornton also thanked those who had shared an outpouring of love and support throughout this process. Paras Griffin/Getty Rapper Young Dolph, August 2020 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. We ask that instead of focusing on those who committed this crime, you focus on that man that Adolph Robert Thornton was... We ask you to remember the man that enjoyed being a father and spending time with his family. We ask that you remember the man who enjoyed giving opportunities to those who were often overlooked and counted out, she said. We will continue to heal and keep Adolph's legacy alive, his sibling concluded. During closing arguments, defense attorney Luke Evans said, [Johnson] didnt kill Adolph Thornton Jr. He didnt conspire to kill Adolph Thornton Jr. And he wasnt the man holding the pistol in the Makeda video. Jermarcus Johnson, Johnson's half-brother who was another suspect in Dolph's death, pleaded guilty to three counts of accessory after the fact, reports Local Memphis. He faces six to 12 years in jail. Govan pleaded not guilty to planning Dolph's killing, reports the Associated Press. Govan was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder charges, per the Commercial Appeal. Smith also faces murder and conspiracy to commit murder, per the Associated Press. Govan's next court date was set for Oct. 9, and Smith is scheduled to be in court on Nov. 15, per Local Memphis. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. The Reason Why Bananas Might Be Really Hard to Find in Grocery Stores Soon (and Prices May Go Up) This article may contain affiliate links that Yahoo and/or the publisher may receive a commission from if you buy a product or service through those links. Your shopping routine may hit a snag in the next few weeks. According to a new report from Reuters, port workers responsible for importing and exporting various agricultural, pharmaceutical, auto, and other goods intend to go on strike after their six-year contract expires at midnight on September 30, 2024. Heres what we know: Nearly 45,000 union workers plan to walk off the job across seaports on the East and Gulf Coasts of the U.S. Thats because employees of the International Longshoremens Association (ILA) union are demanding pay increases. If their requests arent met, vital trade processes will be stopped. The ports in consideration process about half of all U.S. imports (!). This pause in handling would disrupt the availability of a range of goods, including coffee, bananas, life-saving medications, apparel, and more. The ILA hasnt hosted a strike of this magnitude since 1977. With the potential strike looming, bananas and coffee will immediately experience shortages and higher prices. The U.S. imports three-quarters of its bananas from countries like Guatemala and Ecuador; with this blockage, itd be impossible for the fruit to enter the country. Plus, the nation brings in the worlds second-highest amount of coffee beans thanks to its big suppliers from Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, and Guatemala. With this halt, youll likely experience some less-than-desirable changeups to your morning latte. Maersk, an integrated logistics company that offers supply chain solutions for managing shipments and cargo, told Reuters that even a one-week shutdown of these ports would lead to six weeks of recovery for the economy. In the event that negotiations between the parties are unsuccessful, shoppers might need to explore alternative options for obtaining popular grocery staples in the weeks ahead. If an agreement is not reached, shoppers can expect notable price changes for products like bananas and coffee on store shelves. Further Reading The One Cookware Brand That Gordon Ramsay Cant Stop Talking About Do Water Filters Really Work And Which Ones Are the Best? Ball Just Dropped the Most Beautiful Mason Jars for Its 140th Anniversary ("So Iconic!") Sign up for The Kitchn's Daily newsletter to receive our best recipes, posts, and shopping tips in your inbox. Registered sex offender allegedly touched self in view of children COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) A registered sex offender is under arrest after he allegedly touched himself sexually while children walked past his home. Joshua Brock, 32, of Columbus, was arrested on Sept. 18 and charged with public indecency and pandering obscenity involving a minor. Watch: Registered sex offender arrested According to Columbus police, Brock allegedly admitted during an interview with officers that he touched himself sexually while standing at an all-glass storm door of a home while children walked past on their way home from a bus stop. During a search of Brocks cell phone, investigators allegedly found child sexual abuse material, at which time, Brock allegedly admitted to having similar material on hard drives at his home, saying he was a collector. Brock is scheduled to be in Franklin County court on Friday. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NBC4 WCMH-TV. "I felt discriminated against, I felt weak, I felt small, I felt alone," said Michael Zamarron LOS ANGELES Zamarron is one of seven current and former employees suing a rehab facility owned by Executive Recovery Group Inc. in Encino and Tarzana. The plaintiffs describe a hostile and racially charged work environment. They paint a shocking picture, accusing management of engaging in Nazi salutes, sporting swastika tattoos, displaying white power gang signs, and using racist language. Zamarron recalls, "They kicked out the Latino managers and replaced them with a group of Caucasians, many of whom had swastika tattoos and openly displayed Nazi symbols." Attorney Camron Dowlatshahi, who represents the employees, expresses his disbelief: "Its appalling that, in 2024, we are still dealing with Nazi sympathizers." According to Dowlatshahi, the facility, once led by Hispanic managers, was quickly overrun by individuals promoting white nationalist ideologies. He alleges that these new hires were associated with a white prison gang and were brought in by managers sympathetic to their cause. The plaintiffs claim that this resulted in rampant discrimination against non-white employees. Zamarron adds, "I saw the swastikas, the gang signs, the symbolsit was clear in the staff they brought in." The lawsuit highlights numerous incidents where non-white employees, including Latinos and African Americans, were allegedly targeted. During one staff meeting, the lawsuit claims, a white supervisor publicly humiliated an employee by saying that "because he was gay, he shouldnt bathe residents," specifically referring to him as "this Puerto Rican homosexual." "It was obvious this supervisor was uncomfortable with the fact that I was Latino and gay," says Zamarron. The Encino rehab facility, owned by Executive Recovery Group Inc., was contacted for comment, but no response was provided. Valencia has begun turning its cemeteries into solar farms, prompting anger from relatives of the dead who say they were not consulted over the plan to meet net zero targets. Officials in the Spanish city hope to build Europes largest urban solar farm with close to 7,000 panels being built on graveyards, under a project named Requiem in Power (RIP). Three small cemeteries have so far started generating renewable power with larger sites next in the 3.2million (2.6 million) project, which is part of the citys plans to become carbon neutral by as early as 2030. Unveiling hundreds of solar panels gleaming atop tombs in the 200-year-old Campanar cemetery earlier this month, Carlos Mundina, a local official, admitted that relatives of the deceased had not been consulted on the plan. This is a public-owned facility and the [graves] are leased for 30 or 50-year periods so we dont need to consult anyone, Mr Mundina, Valencias climate and energy transition chief, said. A drawing for the cemetery solar panel project. A Valencia official said the cemetery was a public-owned facility so we dont need to consult anyone Cemeteries are places of absolute quiet, something solar energy does not disturb, he added. A city hall spokesman said: We are looking for all public space possible to help meet our targets. Most of the electricity will be by public services and slightly over 10 per cent kept aside as free energy for vulnerable families. But not everyone is keen on the plan to squeeze renewable energy out of holy sites, which has surprised Valencians owing to the absence of any consultation. They should ask the people first I had no idea. I wonder about the aesthetic aspect, Maria Luisa Mora, a 76-year-old whose parents are buried in Valencias General Cemetery, said. Its a bit weird. Ive got nothing against it but they should ask the people first, said Esther, 29, a Valencia resident. Its always the same; the government just does what it wants without consulting, she added. Mr Mundina insisted that RIP will benefit citizens, noting that Valencias social services had already identified 800 households receiving assistance to pay bills who will now get energy free thanks to the extra solar power pumped into the grid. These users will also be taught about energy efficiency and how to make the best use of solar power by adapting their consumption to the hours of the day in which it is generated, he added. Solar panels installed at a cemetery in Valencia An organisation funded by city hall, Valencia Clima i Energia (VCiE), has been tasked with educating citizens about climate change, helping create the citys first energy communities of locals tasked with installing solar panels. Empar Puchades is the president of a 62-strong energy community in the working-class Valencia suburb of Castellar, which has been allowed to place its solar farm on the roof of a local community centre. All very well for better off People who live in houses and who can afford to spend 8,000 or 9,000 on their own solar installation thats all very well. But what about folk without that kind of economic clout? Ms Puchades said. For a minimum initial investment of 600, community members have seen their electricity bills cut in half, especially if they can adapt to using appliances during the daytime as their energy is free when the panels are producing it. VCiEs Corentin Girard says better information for users and access to renewables schemes creates a double-win situation for people and the environment. It is about reducing energy consumption, but doing it in a way that is fair. 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. Remnants of deadly Hurricane Helene headed to Michigan after ripping through Florida (This story was updated to add new information.) As the remnants of deadly Hurricane Helene head toward Michigan, overnight showers starting at about 6 p.m. Friday and breezy winds, strong enough to blow loose objects around your yard but not quite enough for a wind advisory, are expected. "Helene is transitioning to more of a low pressure system," National Weather Service meteorologist Megan Varcie in White Lake Township told the Free Press. "But we are going to get some bands of rain moving into the area this weekend." Showers off and on all weekend also are forecast, she said. The temperatures should be in the 70s. However, Varcie said, unlike some previous hurricane encounters, the rainfall totals in Michigan from this one are predicted to be only about a quarter inch, and not likely to pose much of a flooding threat, if at all. A tree crew works to remove a large Live Oak that was blocking Abercorn Street on Friday, September 27, 2024 after the remnants of Hurricane Helene impacted the Savannah area overnight. Still, there just might be enough rain to keep this September from setting a record as the driest. In Florida, Helene left a path of destruction, what one county sheriff there described as "a war zone." The hurricane, which at one point was classified as a Category 4 storm, made landfall late Thursday near Perry, Florida, with 140 mph winds, and brought, in some areas of Florida, record storm surges. It pummeled the state and cut a path across Georgia and the Carolinas. As a result, a growing number of people have been left homeless and in the dark, with several deaths. As of 4:45 p.m. Friday, the number of customers without power was at 4.5 million, and the death toll at 33, with stretches of what USA Today called "overturned boats, flattened homes and a vista of floodwater several-feet-deep." Steinhatchee, a coastal town of about 500 in Florida, just miles from where Helene made landfall, took on 9.63 feet of storm surge, a record. Hundreds of miles from where Helene came ashore, Pinellas County, Florida, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said: "I would just describe it, having spent the last few hours out there, as a war zone." He added: "Its going to take a while before that area gets back to any sense of functionality." Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Storms expected in Michigan, the last gasps of deadly Hurricane Helene Remnants of Hurricane Helene could impact commute, cause tree damage The Miami Valley is feeling the effects of Hurricane Helene Friday morning. [DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] As reported on News Center 7 Daybreak, Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida Thursday night as a Category 4 Hurricane. >> Live Doppler 7 Radar | Interactive TRENDING STORIES: Rain is falling Friday morning, and you will need your rain gear. News Center 7 reached out to local power companies and said they would monitor the weather. We also spoke with a lawn care expert who said to be aware of branches and tree damage. Strong winds can take out even healthy trees, said Ryan Dunham, Dunham Lawncare. [SIGN UP: WHIO-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] After making landfall Thursday night along the Florida coast, Hurricane Helene claimed several lives while causing life-threatening flooding and forcing evacuations as it swept across the South. The National Weather Service in Chicago warned Friday that the remnants of Helene will cause intermittent rain, hazardous lakeshore conditions, and strong winds across the region, impacting residents and travelers alike. Dangerous lakeshore conditions expected The greatest danger is expected along the shores of Lake Michigan, where hazardous conditions are likely to persist throughout the weekend. The National Weather Service has issued a beach hazards statement, now in effect through Sunday morning, warning of high wave action and dangerous currents along Lake Michigan. Waves between 7 and 10 feet are expected. Swimming conditions will be life-threatening, the National Weather Service cautioned. Gary and Chicagoland residents, particularly those who frequent lakeshore trails, are urged to stay away from the water. Anyone who must walk or run along the shoreline should wear a life jacket in case [they] are swept in, the National Weather Service said. Drowning remains a significant risk in the region. In 2024, at least 44 people have drowned in Lake Michigan, according to the Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project. Four of those drownings occurred in Northwest Indiana, while 13 were reported in Chicago. Strong NE winds today will cause large waves to build, leading to dangerous lakeshore conditions that will linger through the weekend. Avoid lakeshore trails, piers, and docks. Stay away to avoid getting swept away into potentially life-threatening conditions. pic.twitter.com/jVNBfeSDBG NWS Chicago (@NWSChicago) September 27, 2024 Forecast and warnings for Gary residents According to the National Weather Service, showers are likely to begin late Friday night into early Saturday morning, mainly after 1 a.m., with cloudy skies and a low around 64 degrees. Winds will be strong, with speeds of 20 to 30 mph and gusts up to 45 mph. The chance of rain is 60%. On Saturday, rain is expected primarily before 10 a.m., with mostly cloudy skies and a high near 70. The winds will continue, though slightly less intense, blowing at 15 to 20 mph from the northeast. The chance of rain remains 60%, with additional rainfall between a tenth and a quarter of an inch. Rain chances decrease to 30% Saturday night, mainly before 1 a.m., with mostly cloudy skies and a low around 64. Winds will slow to 10 to 15 mph, with gusts reaching 20 mph. A similar pattern is forecast for Sunday, with a 30% chance of rain mainly before 1 p.m., and a high near 72. Travel disruptions Travelers in the region will also feel the storms effects. Flight delays and cancellations have hit OHare International Airport and Midway Airport. As of 10 a.m., OHare reported 81 incoming flights delayed and 21 canceled in the past 24 hours. Outbound flights saw 48 delays and 10 cancellations. Midway reported 27 delays and 5 cancellations. Volunteers from Indiana mobilize to help affected areas While the Midwest braces for the remnants of the storm, volunteers from the Indiana Red Cross are mobilizing to assist those directly impacted by Hurricane Helene in the South. Hundreds of disaster workers are on the ground in Florida and Georgia, including nine volunteers from Indiana, according to an American Red Cross spokesperson. They have been deployed to support relief efforts such as sheltering and feeding displaced residents.Volunteers will be traveling in an emergency response vehicle and will distribute ready-to-eat meals, water, and snacks to those in need, the spokesperson said. Check back later for updates. The post Remnants of Hurricane Helene Expected to Bring Life-Threatening Conditions to Lake Michigan appeared first on Capital B Gary. Gently holding a blackcap warbler in his palm, ornithologist Christos Barboutis blew on its feathers to reveal the size of its belly: a good indicator of how far the bird can migrate. Acutely vulnerable to climate change, migratory birds offer valuable clues to scientists about how our warming planet is affecting wildlife: from their shifting migration patterns to their body weight. "Observing them warns us if something is changing or going wrong," said Barboutis, a researcher at the Hellenic Ornithological Society. Birds "are among the first to be affected by climate change such as drought, which poses a big problem for their distant travel," he told AFP at an observation station on the small Aegean island of Antikythera. At the crack of dawn, the researcher and his colleagues lay out nets to capture and ring the birds. The tiny island in the eastern Mediterranean lies on a popular corridor for birds migrating from northern Europe to Africa in the autumn, and in the opposite direction in springtime. Barboutis came to the sparsely populated rock between the Peloponnese and the western tip of Crete some 15 years ago. His team have seen and observed a variety of birds: from turtle doves and warblers to colourful bee-eaters and buzzards. The rare Eleonora's falcon with its distinctive, elegant wings often nests on the cliffs of the island. Greece becomes host to around 80 percent of the bird's population during their breeding season. - 'State of nature' - At sunrise, volunteers Nefeli Marinou, a 21-year-old biology student, and Jennifer Evans, a 25-year-old environmentalist from Canada, scour the deployed nets for trapped birds and carefully place them in small bags. A metal ring placed on a bird's finger bears a unique identification number. In a book, Marinou notes the species, age, sex, date and time. "From this number we deduce how long it took the bird to get here, whether the population is declining or stable," Evans said. Around 40 birds were ringed in a day's work. The bird capturing programme began 20 years ago, Barboutis said, although he cautioned it was a scientifically short period to make long-term conclusions about the impacts of climate change. From the top of a rock, student volunteer Nikolas Promponas, using a telescope and binoculars, watched for falcons and white-headed vultures, a species whose numbers are declining in Europe. Many species of birds including birds of prey need coastlines and ridges to gain height before taking off, he said, a resource that is abundant on Antikythera. Unlike the nearby tourist islands of Kythera and Crete, rugged Antikythera has just two restaurant-cafes and can only handle around forty tourists in summer. Like other islands in the southern Mediterranean, Antikythera serves as a vital stopover point where migratory birds can replenish ahead of their long journey. It is part of the EU Natura network of nature protection areas due to its biodiversity. Declining insect populations have made it harder for some species to find food, while human activity, intense droughts and wildfires worsened by climate change have contributed to the loss of their habitat. Forest fires, the use of pesticides, and urban expansion are also factors that affect their population. This year, Greece experienced its warmest winter and warmest summer since detailed records began in 1960. Less greenery means less food. "If there are fewer birds feeding on insects, it probably means that insects are also in decline," Evans said. "Whatever the case, birds are a very good indicator of the state of nature." hec/jph/cad/gv Wallace Hawkins, 66, outside his Perry home on Sept. 27, 2024, one day after Hurricane Helene passed through. (Photo by Liam Fineout) The residents of a usually forgotten part of Florida have found themselves in a familiar pattern: Trying to rebuild their lives after yet another devastating storm. Hurricane Helene, responsible for multiple deaths in the state and plunging more than 1 million people into darkness, made landfall late Thursday evening in Taylor County with winds as high as 140 miles per hour. It was the third time in 13 months that the area, part of Floridas Big Bend, has been the victim of a natural disaster. Taylor is one of the states smaller rural counties and was once dubbed Tree County of the South due to swaths of pine trees many of which Helene tossed down. Taylor County is in the armpit of Florida. I mean its literally in the crook. So, it kind of funnels to this area, bad weather does, 46-year-old Robert Bass told the Florida Phoenix while he and his wife, Vicki, 38, cleared debris from their corner lot yard. Weve both lived here most, or all of our lives. Weve been through storms and we know storms of the past. Weve been through the hottest temperatures and weve been through snow here in Taylor County. Its part of living here. Category 4 Helene made landfall just east of the mouth of the Aucilla River, hitting as a powerful Category 4 storm. It was the third hurricane the Basses have rode out in the last three years in their Perry home. The first was when Idalia came ashore on Aug. 30, 2023, as a Category 3 hurricane. It was followed by Hurricane Debby, which hit in August as a Category 1. While other parts of the state struck by storms have had time to rebuild, thats not been the case for Taylor and some of its neighboring counties. Its a real gut punch to those communities, said Gov. Ron DeSantis on Fox News right ahead of a planned visit to Perry and Cedar Key. The Basses said that during Idalia, a neighbors tree fell on their pool pump house and into the pool. Following the storm, they pared tree limbs or removed trees from their property. A branch from the one tree the couple didnt remove following that storm fell on the power line beside their house during Hurricane Helene. Robert Bass said that, had the storm come in from a different direction, the tree limb would have fallen on his roof and not the lawn. Coming home Unlike the Basses, Perry resident Marilyn Bishop did not stay in town for the storm. She and her son evacuated the mobile home they share early Thursday and drove roughly 100 miles to Gainesville to get out of Helenes path. When she returned to Perry early Friday, Bishops mobile home was intact but without power. She drove to Wal-Mart to pick up chicken wings to make on the grill and an extension cord that she said would help her run electricity from a generator to her home. I could have stayed here but Im trying to be safer, she said. Helene swelled up into a monster storm in just a matter of days, and weather officials made the decision to start warning Florida residents even before the storm had an official designation. Initially, Helene seemed likely to directly hit the state capital, which had never endured a storm of that intensity in modern history. Helene featured a wide wind field and churned up the Gulf of Mexico, leading to a surge of water that inundated parts of Pinellas County and was blamed for five deaths, according to local officials. In the dark After skirting Tampa Bay, it turned its wrath on the Big Bend, where towns like Steinhatchee also suffered from storm surge. It left several North Florida counties, including Taylor, almost completely in the dark, according to power outage reports issued by the Florida Public Service Commission. Sixty-six year old Perry resident Wallace Hawkins was sitting in his carport Friday morning enjoying the breezy weather that Helene left behind, reflecting on the storms that have rocked his town. Its just another repeat, he said. There were limbs falling everywhere last night but it wasnt as bad this time as it was last time. I mean, both [hurricanes] were scary, he said referring to Idalia and Helene. Ive lived here my whole life and Ive never seen anything like I saw last year. U.S. Senate candidate and 3rd District Rep. John Curtis speaks during a Deseret News Editorial Board meeting at the Deseret News office in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, April 24, 2024. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News There are occasions when two Capitol Hill lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle come together for the common good. Although this can be rare, it happened this week when Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Republican Utah Rep. John Curtis offered each other support on their bills. At the heart of this collaboration are two bills aimed at streamlining the permitting process for geothermal Energy. Curtis, in a press release sent to the Deseret News, said the Geothermal Energy Opportunity, GEO, Act, which his office proposed, would help unlock this resource to meet our energy needs. Geothermal energy is an affordable, reliable, and clean energy source, he said. Despite significant investments from companies to secure project permits, the Department of the Interior often delays authorizations such as notices to proceed and drilling permits due to litigation threats. He said he was thrilled to have unanimous support from my colleagues for this common-sense legislation. What did AOC say about Rep. John Curtis bill? Ocasio-Cortez in her remarks on the House floor said the GEO Act requires permit applications to be reviewed within two months. But this efficiency will not sacrifice a proper review process, as mandated under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. She thanked Republicans for their willingness to work across the aisle to ensure both communities and the environment continue to enjoy their protections. Geothermal has the smallest footprint of any energy generation technology and uses significantly fewer resources than other sources, especially conventional fossil fuels, the New York Congresswoman said. But, as Axios reported, Ben Gruber, the chief for energy, minerals and realty management programs at the Bureau of Land Management, opposed Curtis bill at a hearing Wednesday, saying it would create difficulties for the agency to comply with environmental regulations. The Biden White House isnt entirely skeptical of geothermal energy Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm has said she couldnt be more excited about capturing the reliable and scalable heat beneath our feet and creating speedier permitting processes. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.,speaks during the Democratic National Convention Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, in Chicago. | Brynn Anderson Ocasio-Cortez also introduced a related bill that expands the Geothermal Steam Act of 1970 and requires geothermal leaseholders to reimburse the Department of Interior for any fees incurred while the application is filed and the site is inspected and monitored. Including Curtis and Ocasio-Cortezs proposals, the House passed four bills related to geothermal energy Tuesday night. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., the committee chairman, said the House GOP is keeping its foot on the gas as it passes a flurry of energy bills. Thoughtful legislation managing our resources well will restore American energy dominance, keep our natural treasures healthy for generations and reduce frustrating red tape that so often plagues our federal government, he said. Volodymyr Zelenskyy hasnt lost Republicans but hes on notice. Even some Republican supporters of Ukraine on Capitol Hill said that the Ukrainian President had made a strategic error when he visited a weapons plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania, over the weekend and separately waded into the presidential race by calling JD Vance too radical in a recently published interview. The visit to the plant drew rebukes from Speaker Mike Johnson, who condemned it as a partisan campaign event in solidarity with Democrats, while Zelenskyys comment on Vance further complicates his swing through the U.S. as he seeks to shore up support in the war against Russia. Republicans are a key constituency for Zelenskyy to satisfy as the escalated conflict with Russia drags on into its second year with no end in sight. But the Pennsylvania visit and provoking of Vance may be a stumble for the Ukrainian president, who is already dealing with former President Donald Trump criticizing him for not making concessions to Russia. And with the election less than two months away, Trumps allies on the Hill and beyond are sensitive to any perceived slights against the former president, including the Ukrainian leader appearing at an event in a key battleground state with Democrats. I just think it's a mistake for any foreign leader to get involved in our domestic politics, and Ukraine needs all the friends it can get so I think it was an unforced error, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in a brief interview. I think he needs not to make that mistake again. We have geopolitical reasons to continue to support Ukraine, so I don't think thats going to change over one incident. But despite Republicans frustrations, most are not willing to abandon their support for the key ally over the episodes. Pressed on whether Republicans might reevaluate their support for Ukraine based on Zelenskyys recent moves, Cornyn shook his head: Not on my part, and I think people who support Ukraine support Ukraine, not because of the personalities involved, but because of what it means to further Russian expansion in Europe. House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a supporter of Ukraine aid, said Zelenskyy's visit to Pennsylvania "was not helpful," though he said it wasn't discussed "very much" in lawmakers' meeting with him Thursday. "It's never smart in any situation where you're dealing with another country to get involved in this internal politics," Cole said. "My advice to anybody would be to stay out of American politics. Don't become an issue, particularly in a partisan election this close and in the final weeks leading up to it where, even if you're absolutely innocent, anything you do can be taken out of context." Zelenskyys trip to the weapons plant, where Sen. Bob Casey and Gov. Josh Shapiro also appeared, has sparked House Republican investigations from some of Trumps allies on the Hill, including Rep. Andy Biggs, and demands from Johnson that Zelenskyy fire his ambassador to the U.S. But those GOP lawmakers supportive of Ukraines fight against Russia a hefty bloc of elected Republicans staunchly opposed more aid to the country previously left Thursday meetings with the leader vowing to stay the course. During a press conference in New York on Thursday, Trump said he plans to meet with Zelenskyy at Trump Tower Friday morning but also took the opportunity to dig at the Ukraine president over his comment that Trump doesnt know how to win the war. I disagree with him. Well, he doesnt know me, but, I will say this, I believe I will be able to make a deal between President Putin and President Zelenskyy quite quickly, he said. Trump lashed out at Zelenskyy on Wednesday for not making concessions to Russia, giving his strongest indication to date he would stop backing Kyiv if he wins the U.S. presidential election. Speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump told the crowd that any deal would be better than the situation Ukraine is currently in. We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal, Zelenskyy, Trump said. Trump has said many times that Russia wouldnt have invaded Ukraine in 2022 if he was president and has claimed that hell negotiate an end to the war if he returns to the Oval Office, though during his debate with Harris he wouldnt say if he wanted Ukraine to win. On Thursday, ahead of his press conference in New York City, Trump posted a letter to social media purportedly from Zelenskyy requesting a meeting with him in the city on Friday. Still, some of Ukraines Republican backers were ready to turn the page and put the emphasis on the current presidents narrowing window to help Kyiv. You hit him, hes going to hit you back, Graham said of Trump. And we dont need any more of that. What we need is a change in strategy. The war hinges on what Biden does this week, not what Trump may do. Several Republicans, of course, have long been skeptical of and many have outright opposed continued U.S. defense aid to Ukraine. Vance, has been among the most outspoken in suggesting the war in Ukraine is of little consequence to America. At the White House, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre suggested on Thursday that the GOP outcry was hypocritical, a transparent attempt to justify an opposition to backing Ukraine that is already deeply rooted. Zelenskyy's visit to Pennsylvania, Jean-Pierre told reporters, was "something the Ukrainians asked for." She pointed to the Ukrainian president's July visit to Utah where he appeared with Republican Gov. Spencer Cox. "They did this a couple of months ago in Utah with a Republican governor," Jean-Pierre said. "We didn't hear any investigation request when he went to a Republican state." Lawmakers in both parties said that Zelenskyy ought to be afforded some latitude as he fights for the future of his country. Senate Foreign Relations Chair Ben Cardin (D-Md.) suggested there ought not to be so much pearl-clutching from some Republicans. Lets not get overly politically sensitive here, Cardin said in an interview. Lets give this guy a little bit of a break; hes speaking out for Ukraine. Hes made very clear hes not engaged in the politics of this country, so dont draw him into them. Its too serious of an issue. Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said Zelenskyy should stay above the political fray, but underscored the substance of the Ukrainian presidents bipartisan Senate meeting. Zelenskyy previewed the contours of his victory plan for the war, Hoeven said, which focused on a request for more military extensive capabilities using money that Congress provided in April, rather than seeking more U.S. funding for the war effort. In addition to his push for the Biden administration to ease restrictions on striking into Russian territory with U.S. weapons, Hoeven said Zelenskyy told them Ukraine needs more F-16 fighters and long-range missiles. "Obviously, he has to stay out of anything related to our politics or the election here. That's true in any situation like this, where you're dealing with a foreign leader, Hoeven said. The real key, though, today is that he met with senators on both sides of the aisle. And what we talked about, at least what I really want to talk to him about, is how do you get to an end to the war that works for Ukraine and what does it take." Eli Stokols and Lisa Kashinsky contributed to this report. Hurricane Helene kills at least 44 and cuts a swath of destruction across the Southeast CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla. (AP) Hurricane Helene left an enormous path of destruction across Florida and the southeastern U.S. on Friday, killing at least 44 people, snapping towering oaks like twigs and tearing apart homes as rescue crews launched desperate missions to save people from floodwaters. Volunteers with the Red Cross of Mass. heading to Florida to help with relief efforts for Helene Among those killed were three firefighters, a woman and her 1-month-old twins, and an 89-year-old woman whose house was struck by a falling tree. According to an Associated Press tally, the deaths occurred in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. The Category 4 hurricane knocked out power to some hospitals in southern Georgia, and Gov. Brian Kemp said authorities had to use chainsaws to clear debris and open up roads. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph) when it made landfall late Thursday in a sparsely populated region in Floridas rural Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where the states panhandle and peninsula meet. Moodys Analytics said it expects $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage. The wreckage extended hundreds of miles northward to northeast Tennessee, where a " dangerous rescue situation " by helicopter unfolded after 54 people were moved to the roof of the Unicoi County Hospital as water rapidly flooded the facility. Everyone was rescued and no one was left at the hospital as of late Friday afternoon, Ballad Health said. In North Carolina, a lake featured in the movie Dirty Dancing overtopped a dam and surrounding neighborhoods were evacuated, although there were no immediate concerns it would fail. People also were evacuated from Newport, Tennessee, a city of about 7,000 people, amid concerns about a dam near there, although officials later said the structure had not failed. Tornadoes hit some areas, including one in Nash County, North Carolina, that critically injured four people. A tree rests on an adandoned car on Interstate 20 in the aftermath of Hurrican Helene Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, Grovetown, Ga. (AP Photo/John Bazemore) Atlanta received a record 11.12 inches (28.24 centimeters) of rain in 48 hours, the most the city has seen in a two-day period since record keeping began in 1878, Georgias Office of the State Climatologist said on the social platform X. The previous mark of 9.59 inches (24.36 cm) was set in 1886. Some neighborhoods were so badly flooded that only car roofs could be seen poking above the water. Climate change has exacerbated conditions that allow such storms to thrive, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and turning into powerful cyclones sometimes in a matter of hours. When Laurie Lilliott pulled onto her street in Dekle Beach, Florida, after Helene plowed through, she couldnt see the roofline of her home beyond the palm trees. It had collapsed, torn apart by the pounding storm surge, one corner still precariously propped up by a piling. It took me a long time to breathe, Lilliott said. As she surveyed the damage, her name and phone number were still inked on her arm in permanent marker, an admonition by Taylor County officials to help identify recovered bodies in the storms aftermath. The community has taken direct hits from three hurricanes since August 2023. All five who died in one Florida county were in neighborhoods where residents were told to evacuate, said Bob Gualtieri, the sheriff in Pinellas County in the St. Petersburg area. Some who stayed ended up having to hide in their attics to escape the rising water. We tried to launch boats, we tried to use high-water vehicles, and we just met with too many obstacles, Gualtieri said, adding that the death toll could rise as crews go door-to-door in flooded areas. More deaths were reported in Georgia and the Carolinas, including two South Carolina firefighters who died when a tree struck their truck. Capt. BJ Johnston, a law enforcement officer from the Florida Fish Wildlife and Conservation Commission surveys destruction from a high water buggy in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Cedar Key, Fla., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) Video on social media showed sheets of rain and siding coming off buildings in Perry, Florida, near where the storm hit land. A news station showed a home that was overturned, and many communities established curfews. Also in Perry, the hurricane peeled off the new roof of a church that was replaced after Hurricane Idalia last year. When the water hit knee-level in Kera ONeils home in Hudson, Florida, she knew it was time to escape. Theres a moment where you are thinking, If this water rises above the level of the stove, we are not going to have not much room to breathe, she said, recalling how she and her sister waded through chest-deep water with one cat in a plastic carrier and another in a cardboard box. In Cedar Key, Florida, Kegan Ward described the terror of hearing tree limbs crashing down: I didnt know what I was going to wake up to. President Joe Biden said he was praying for survivors, and the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency headed to the area. The agency deployed more than 1,500 workers, and they helped with 400 rescues by late morning. In Tampa, some areas could be reached only by boat. Officials warned that floodwaters can be dangerous, containing live wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris. If you are trapped and need help please call for rescuers DO NOT TRY TO TREAD FLOODWATERS YOURSELF, the sheriffs office in Citrus County, Florida, warned via Facebook. This photo provided by Venice Police Department rescue crews assist residents after conducting door-to-door wellness checks, in coastal areas that were flooded by Hurricane Helene on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in Venice, Fla . (Venice Police Department via AP) Nearly 4 million homes and businesses were without power in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, according to poweroutage.us. In Georgia, an electrical utility group warned of catastrophic damage to utility infrastructure, with more than 100 high voltage transmission lines damaged. And officials in South Carolina, where more than 40% of customers were without power, said crews had to cut their way through debris just to determine what was still standing in some places. The hurricane came ashore near the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) northwest of where Idalia hit last year at nearly the same ferocity. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the damage from Helene appears to be greater than the combined effects of Idalia and Hurricane Debby in August. Its tough, and we understand that. We also understand that this is a resilient state, DeSantis said at a news conference in storm-damaged St. Pete Beach. Soon after it crossed over land, Helene weakened to a tropical storm and later a post-tropical cyclone. Forecasters said it continued to produce catastrophic flooding, and some areas received more than a foot of rain. A mudslide in the Appalachian Mountains washed out part of an interstate highway at the North Carolina-Tennessee state line. Another slide hit homes in North Carolina and occupants had to wait more than four hours to be rescued, said Ryan Cole, the emergency services assistant director in Buncombe County. His 911 center received more than 3,300 calls in eight hours Friday. This is something that were going to be dealing with for many days and weeks to come, Cole said. Forecasters warned of flooding in North Carolina that could be worse than anything seen in the past century. Evacuations were underway and around 300 roads were closed statewide. The Connecticut Army National Guard sent a helicopter to help. School districts and universities canceled classes. Florida airports that closed due to the storm reopened Friday. Inspectors were examining bridges and causeways along the Gulf Coast, the states transportation secretary said. Helene also swamped parts of Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula, flooding streets and toppling trees as it brushed past the resort city of Cancun this week. It also knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses in western Cuba. Helene was the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures. Workers remove debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Cedar Key, Fla., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) 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 Denise Hughes, a nearby resident, said people had no idea that the felling would take place [BBC] Residents living near a green space in Stoke-on-Trent have gathered in protest, after they said trees there were cut down without warning. Police were called to Canberra Crescent in Meir Park on Friday afternoon, where crowds congregated to object as a number of mature trees were chopped down. Protesters said the open land was sold off by the council, and they did not know who currently owned it. Staffordshire Police said a group was trying to stop the felling of trees by a gardening business - work that had been arranged by the landowner. The force added the gardening business agreed to carry out further removals at a later date. The BBC has contacted Stoke-on-Trent City Council for comment. Denise Hughes, who has lived nearby since the 1980s, told BBC Radio Stoke: "I'm angry, I'm upset." "It's absolutely dreadful, because weve got such a nice wildlife section," she said, "you see foxes at night, there's bats flying around, theres birds and everything. "It's just a lovely place to go, and you just dont expect to get up one morning and they're chopping everything down. Im just absolutely appalled." Police were called as people gathered to object to the work [BBC] Alison Dhatt has lived opposite the green for more than 30 years. She said she believed the trees were being cut to make way for houses. "We are in shock," she said. "We're here, really, for a peaceful protest to say were not happy, we havent been advised, and what is going on? "We want the council to give us an answer about how theyve been allowed to cut all the trees down without us being able to object to it." Follow BBC Stoke & Staffordshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram. More on this story Related internet links The Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing oversees restaurant inspections in Iowa. (Photo via Getty Images; DIAL logo courtesy of Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing) State and county food inspectors have cited Iowa restaurants and grocery stores for hundreds of food-safety violations in the past month, forcing some of them to temporarily shut down. The inspectors reported finding rodent droppings, moldy lettuce, food stored in containers that once housed chemicals, foul-smelling spoiled food, and meats that appeared to have never been inspected by state or federal regulators. The findings are reported by the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals, which handles food-establishment inspections at the state level. Listed below are some of the more serious findings that stem from inspections at Iowa restaurants, stores, schools, hospitals and other businesses over the past four weeks. The state inspections department reminds the public that their reports are a snapshot in time, and violations are often corrected on the spot before the inspector leaves the establishment. For a more complete list of all inspections, along with additional details on each of the inspections listed below, visit the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals website. Taqueria La Bendicion Food Truck, 900 Superior St., Webster City During an Aug. 29 visit to this food truck, which was parked at a car wash next to a Dollar General store, a state inspector determined the food-safety violations were sufficient to shut down the operation. Person in charge voluntarily closed mobile unit and agreed not to reopen until reinspection can occur, the inspector reported. The food truck was cited for the fact that there was no certified food protection manager on staff and the person in charge was not conducting operations effectively. The inspector reported seeing flies on chicken that was left sitting out at room temperature next to a grill. The inspector also reported finding cooked rice that was measured at 51 degrees and large containers of chicken that were measured at 78 to 82 degrees all of which had to be discarded. No system in place for dating foods, the inspector reported. Raw chicken stored in handwashing sink No thermometer available to measure temperatures of cooked chicken and beef Potatoes stored directly on the mobile (units) floor. Capos Tacos, 704 N. 4th Ave., Winterset During an Aug. 28 visit to this food truck, a state inspector determined the food-safety violations were sufficient to shut down the operation. Owner stated he will voluntarily close mobile food unit, the inspector reported. Owner has agreed to contact inspector before reopening mobile unit. During the visit, the inspector found raw, cut chicken and cooked refried beans that were described as spoiled, and with a foul odor. An employee was observed handling cooked carne asada with their bare hands, and there were three pans of rice in cold-holding that were measured at 46 to 50 degrees rather than 41 degrees or colder. Also, diced potatoes and shredded cheese were cold-holding at 50 to 54 degrees. The inspector also found cooked chicken in cold-holding at 67 degrees. All of the food had to be discarded. In addition, there were refried beans, cooked carnitas, carne asada, cooked chicken, cooked rice, shredded cheese, shredded lettuce, and diced tomatoes that had no date markings to ensure freshness and safety. The inspector also reported that the handwashing sink was not operational and the truck did not have adequate refrigeration to keep cold foods cold. El Dorado Mexican Restaurant, 1327 Sunset Drive, Norwalk During a Sept. 26 visit, a state inspector noted that there was no currently certified food protection manager on staff as required. In addition, raw chicken was stored above whole-muscle beef inside a walk-in cooler, risking cross-contamination, and there were beans, carnitas and ground beef that had to be discarded as they had been cooked the previous day and hadnt yet cooled to 41 degrees or colder. Also, several prepared foods, pans of sliced meats, cut produce, prepared salsas, and queso were stored without any date markings to ensure freshness and safety. The inspector also reported that the ice machine had what appeared to be mold-like debris in the ice chute, and the bartender was not using a sanitizing step after washing and rinsing bar glasses. Spices of Nepal Restaurant, 4804 SW 9th St., Des Moines During a Sept. 26 visit, a state inspector cited the establishment for failing to ensure the staff washed their hands properly after watching employees trying to clean their hands without soap while rinsing them in a three-well sink intended for sanitizing dishware. In addition, the cook was using his or her bare hands to prepare bread for immediate service to customers, the ice machine had a buildup mold on the interior ice chute, and cooked noodles had to be discarded as they had been prepared the previous day and had yet to cool to 41 degrees or colder. The inspector also reported that there was no dating structure in place for food items, suggesting the items were not date marked to ensure their freshness and safety. Also, spices and other items had been left unlabeled; there were hanging sticky-traps for catching flies suspended above the ice machine; the countertop, pans, coolers and cutting boards had a heavy debris dirt buildup, and there was debris and a buildup of grease on the floor and in the corners of the cook line. The inspector also reported that there were no reports of the restaurants past inspections posted. In August, the restaurant had been the subject of a complaint pertaining to adulterated food and improper food storage. The inspector had determined the complaint was verified. Veterans of Foreign Wars VFW Post 9128, 2814 State St., Bettendorf During a Sept. 26 visit, a Scott County inspector observed the establishment hadnt had a certified food protection manager on staff for six months. The inspector also found meat in a crock pot that had been left out from the previous day, with the meat measured at 78 degrees. The meat was discarded. In addition, several temperature-controlled food items were not being held at 41 degrees or colder to ensure their safety. The items were either relocated to a different cooler or discarded, and a refrigeration company was contacted to repair one of the refrigerators. The inspector also found taco meat prepared two days prior to the inspection that had no date markings to ensure freshness and safety. In addition, the interior of the ice machine had a buildup of grime, and the handwashing sink had a buildup of food debris. The establishment had last been inspected in November 2022. La Favorita, 1700 E. Grand Ave., Des Moines During a Sept. 25 visit, a state inspector concluded the person in charge was not fulfilling their duties as evidenced by the extent and significance of the violations observed. An uncovered container of raw ground pork was stored directly above an uncovered container of cooked chorizo, and packages of raw, whole-muscle pork, along with a tray of what appeared to be liquid from raw meat, had been stored above an uncovered container of cooked carnitas inside a cooler, risking cross contamination. The inspector reported there were multiple soups, sauces and raw meats throughout the walk-in cooler, walk-in freezer and the kitchen food preparation table that were stored in uncovered containers, risking environmental contamination. The inspector also found chicharrones that were holding at 71 to 74 degrees, prepared lard that was measured at 78 degrees and a pan of cooked rice that was holding at 102 degrees. The rice and lard were discarded, while the other items were heated to at least 165 degrees. The inspector also noted that the meat slicer and meat counters cutting board were visibly soiled with an accumulation of dried food debris, as was the can opener and plastic bowl used for scooping raw beans. In addition, the walk-in cooler was not equipped with a functional ambient air thermometer, and the restaurant had no thin-tipped thermometer to check food temperatures. In the retail-sales area, there were salsas, pasta de harina, nuts, and various desserts that had been packaged for sale with no information as to ingredients, net quantities, allergens or the name of the food manufacturer. Also, pre-packaged bags of single-service cups and plates for retail sale were stored under a ceiling vent that was heavily soiled with an accumulation of dust, resulting in multiple packages being visibly soiled. The establishment also had no designated mop sink for the disposal of mop water, and portions of the floor were visibly soiled with an accumulation of debris. The inspector also reported that the establishments licenses for retail food service and sales had been expired for more than 60 days. La Michoacana Meat Market, 1215-1221 Franklin St., Waterloo During a Sept. 25 visit, a Black Hawk County inspector cited this establishment for 12 risk-factor violations, an unusually high number. The inspector reported that the food protection managers certification was expired and that the person in charge was not ensuring that foods were properly cooled or date marked, or that dishes were properly sanitized. Also, employees were washing their hands in a food-preparation sink; water was seen leaking from the condenser unit inside a refrigerator onto meat; cooked chicken was holding at 70 degrees, and beans left out with no temperature control were measured at 104 degrees. The inspector also reported there was no system in place for date marking any of the food to ensure freshness and safety; dishes were being washed in a tub of soapy bleach water solution, rather than cleaned and sanitized; and meat juices were being dumped into a sink designated for handwashing. In addition, chemical containers of some kind were being used to store food product, there was an excess amount of flies in the kitchen area, and there was a buildup of debris on the floor. Multiple flying insects were observed throughout the kitchen ... Decaying produce was stored in a box underneath the retail display of fresh produce, where small flying insects were accumulating. State inspector's report on El Palomino, a Des Moines restaurant El Palomino, 3116 E. 14th St., Des Moines During a Sept. 23 visit, a state inspector cited this restaurant for 22 risk-factor violations, an exceptionally high number. The inspector concluded the person in charge did not demonstrate knowledge of the risks inherent to their food service operation and was not a certified food protection manager. The inspector reported that workers were unable to wash their hands with soap prior to processing raw meats and packaging ready-to-eat foods. Multiple heads of lettuce and other items in the retail-sale produce cooler were visibly adulterated with what appeared to be mold and had to be discarded. Bags of peppers used for guacamole were attached to sink faucets, with workers washing dirty dishes in those sinks. Also, a large container of cooked beans that had been prepared several days before the inspection was measured at 44 degrees rather than 41 degrees or colder inside a walk-in cooler, and the beans had to be discarded. The inspector also found cooked fish holding at 113 degrees and trays of mini burritos that were measured at 121 degrees. Both had to be reheated to 165 degrees. The inspector also reported that various deli meats in the retail-sales cooler, as well as various sauces and cooked meats inside a walk-in cooler, were not marked with their preparation dates to ensure freshness and safety. The restaurant was also found to be dehydrating sausages and slices of meat to make jerky, but was doing so without the required approval for specialized processing methods. The inspector also reported the business was not sanitizing food containers once they had been washed and rinsed, and that workers access to the kitchens handwashing sink was blocked by large containers of lard. In addition, salsas and various sauces were being stored in containers that previously held dish detergent, and multiple packages of whole-muscle beef were being thawed at room temperature on a shelf below the food-preparation table. Multiple flying insects were observed throughout the kitchen, the inspector reported, adding that hanging sticky traps were suspended above the food preparation tables. These traps were filled with dead flying insects at the time of the inspection. Multiple boxes of adulterated raw pork and containers of produce received from the previous week were stored in the firms mechanical room, the inspector reported. Decaying produce was stored in a box underneath the retail display of fresh produce, where small flying insects were accumulating. Shelves throughout the walk-in cooler were visibly soiled with accumulated debris, and the interior floor of the walk-in freezer was heavily soiled with an accumulation of food debris. The visit was in response to an illness complaint. The investigation of that complaint is ongoing, the inspector reported. In October 2023, when El Palomino last underwent a routine inspection, the business was cited for 17 risk-factor violations. Oryza Asian Cuisine, 5 Sturgis Corner Drive, Iowa City During a Sept. 18 visit, a Johnson County inspector found that no one on duty was designated as being in charge, and the person in charge of the business was not a certified food protection manager and was deemed unable to ensure that employees were properly trained in food safety. In addition, the inspector found that several containers of prepared foods and sauces lacked any date markings to ensue freshness and safety, and reported that vegetable strainers were marred by a buildup of debris on their surfaces. The visit was in response to an illness complaint that was deemed unverified. QC Grand Stand Pizza, 320 W. Kimberly Road, Davenport During a Sept. 12 visit, a Scott County inspector cited the restaurant for having no certified food protection manager on staff. The inspector also found that several food items in the cooler were not date marked to ensure freshness and safety, and other items were expired, including yogurt dip that had expired Aug. 24 and baby spinach that expired Aug. 31. In addition, the inspector reported a plastic plate inside an ice chest had a black substance on it, the nozzles on the soda pop dispensers were marred by excess syrup, all of the kitchen equipment was marred by grease and grime, and the floors and walls throughout the facility had excess dirt and grime on them. Bickford Cottage Senior Living and Assisted Living, 4040 E. 55th St., Davenport During a Sept. 11 visit to this care facility, a Scott County inspector reported finding ham that was dated July 12, two months prior to the inspection; a tuna noodle dish that was dated Aug. 12; and pork and beans that were dated July 21. All of the items had to be discarded. In addition, sauce that should have been refrigerated was left out at room temperature, and food products were left open and uncovered inside a storage room, creating a risk of environmental contamination. Also, an opened package of hot dogs wasnt marked with the date of opening to ensure safety, and the ice machine, knives on the knife rack, the ventilation hood, the cabinets, and a cooler were each marred by debris, dust and gunk. On Sept. 25, the inspector returned for a previously announced visit to check on any corrective action that was taken. The inspector reported there was still food stored open and uncovered in the storage room and stated that outdated and spoiled food of some kind was found. In addition, the cooler, floors, ceiling, cabinets and knives were still contaminated with dust, debris and gunk. Hy-Vee Foods, 2900 Devils Glen Road, Bettendorf During a Sept. 11 visit, a Scott County inspector cited the store for the retail sale of several types of sausage and pork loin that bore no mark of inspection from either the U.S. Department of Agriculture or State of Iowa. In addition, several food products, including VandeRueben on Raisin and VandeRueben on Rye, were being sold in the store although they contained meat that had no USDA or State of Iowa mark of inspection. Inside a meat department cooler, a small section of raw beef was stored above baked potatoes, risking cross contamination, and two of the round bins used to store eating utensils in the Market Grille restaurant area had a buildup of crumbs and food debris in the bottom. Bountiful Bakery and Cafe, 303 Main St., Fairfield During a Sept. 10 visit, a state inspector found that the employees on site and the person in charge could not answer basic questions regarding food establishment operations related to food safety and sanitation. In addition, the person in charge was not a certified food protection manager. The inspector found quiche that was left out on a food-preparation table at 71 degrees and which had to be discarded. In addition, the food-prep tables and the inside of the reach-in coolers were marred by an accumulation of food residue. The machine used to form bagels was marred by pest droppings next to the conveyor belt and evidence of vermin was observed in the bakerys rear production area. Containers of sugar and coconut sugar, as well as some of the baked goods, had been stored uncovered, and cases of single-serving food items were stored directly on the floor. The inspector also reported that the outside of the oven, as well as the refrigerators, cabinet interiors and ventilation-hood grates, had an accumulation of grease, dust and food debris. The visit was prompted by a non-illness complaint, the nature of which was left undescribed in the inspectors report. The complaint was deemed to be verified. The establishment was last inspected by the state in October 2020. Riverside Liquor, 826 E. River Drive, Davenport During a Sept. 10 visit, a Scott County inspector noted that all of the shelves in the walk-in cooler had a mold-like substance on them and that water was pooling on the shelves underneath a set of fans. Throughout the facility, water was leaking in several places behind the walk-in cooler (and) in front of the reach-in cooler, the inspector reported. Debris and dirt is on the floors throughout the facility. Rudys Tacos, 2214 E. 11th St., Davenport During a Sept. 10 visit, a Scott County inspector found four large pans of refried beans that measured 54 to 56 degrees, which was far outside the acceptable temperature ranges for hot and cold food. The beans were discarded. The inspector also reported finding large pans of pulled chicken and ground beef that measured 46 degrees too warm for cold holding and too cool for hot holding. The meat was then parceled out into small pans and placed in the freezer to for rapid cooling to 41 degrees. The inspector also noted that there were several food items that had no date markings to ensure freshness and safety, and there was expired salsa on hand that was dated Aug. 29 and Sept. 2 and which had to be discarded. In addition, two containers of tortilla chips were stored on the floor in the kitchen. Flies were seen adulterating exposed and unprotected foods -- specifically raw fish on the counter Onions and potatoes are stored directly on a soiled and greasy floor in the back room. Inspector's report on Doc's Tap in Clarksville Docs Tap, 221 N. Main St., Clarksville During a Sept. 6 visit, a state inspector concluded that based on her observations, the severe unsanitary conditions at Docs Tap posed an immediate and serious health risk. The owner of the establishment agreed to voluntarily close the business discontinue the preparation and sale of food items until he could correct the imminent hazards and have those corrections verified by an inspector. During the visit, the inspector reported that rather than washing their hands, the employees were dipping their hands in a bleach-and-soap solution on a bucket and were also handling food items with their bare hands. An infestation of flying insects flies was observed throughout the facility, including the kitchens food preparation areas, the inspector reported. Flies were seen adulterating exposed and unprotected foods specifically raw fish on the counter Onions and potatoes are stored directly on a soiled and greasy floor in the back room. The inspector also found thawed fish that was left to sit out at room temperature and which had to be discarded, and found several prepared salads that had no date markings to ensure freshness and safety. The kitchens back door, which led directly outdoors, was left wide open, which may have contributed to the many flies the inspector reported seeing in the kitchen. Kitchen equipment is soiled with food and grease, the inspector reported. Floors and walls in the kitchen, walk-in cooler and food-storage areas are heavily soiled with soil and grease. The day after the on-site visit that resulted in the business being closed, management at Docs Tap texted the inspector photos of the cleaned-up kitchen and the business was allowed to reopen. Bubble Cow, 111 S. Commercial, Eagle Grove During a Sept. 5 visit, a state inspector determined the establishment had changed the scope of its business by adding a bakery. The back room, which had been vacant, is now the kitchen with several pieces of equipment added, the inspector reported, adding that the walls and ceilings remained unfinished, creating a risk of food contamination. Due to the nature of the walls and ceilings in this back room, food preparation has been suspended today. The inspector also noted that the person in charge was not a certified food protection manager and did not adequately demonstrate knowledge of food safety principles. Employees, the inspector said, were not washing their hands properly and were handling ready-to-eat baked goods with their bare hands. Food-contact surfaces were not being sanitized, the handwashing sink had no soap available, a used paint brush containing paint residue was laying on some blueberries in the food-prep sink and bakery goods for retail sale were not properly labeled. The inspector also noted the back door was left open during the inspection and a hanging fly trap was covered with dead flies. On Sept. 19, the Bubble Cow bakery was allowed to reopen after sending the state photos of finished walls and ceilings in the new bakery. Facility has been cleared to reopen the bakery based on these photos, the inspector reported. Stanley McChrystal, a retired Army general once dubbed the finest warrior in the U.S. military, has endorsed Kamala Harris for president. McChrystal, who oversaw the Afghanistan war during the Obama administration, wrote in a New York Times op-ed on Thursday that the decision was starkly simple. Ms. Harris has the strength, the temperament and, importantly, the values to serve as commander in chief, the retired general wrote. When she sits down with world leaders like President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, representing the United States on the global stage, I have no doubt that she is working in our national interest, not her own. In the piece, McChrystal admits that he is not comfortable with many Democratic and Republican policy positions, preferring the center of the political spectrum, but argued that Harris was a person of superior character. The op-ed doesnt name Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump explicitly, but appears to allude to his alleged past remarks denigrating fallen military service members as losers and suckers. Retired military general Stanley McChrystal endorsed Biden in 2020 and has thrown his support behind Harris for the White House in 2024 (Getty Images) Character will dictate whether we stand by our NATO allies and against Vladimir Putins continued aggression, McChrystal argued. Character will dictate whether we have a commander in chief who honors and respects the men and women who serve in uniform. The Independent has contacted the Trump campaign for comment. McChrystal has had his issues with top Democrats and Republicans over the years. In 2019, after McChrystal told ABC News that Trump is immoral and doesnt tell the truth, the then-president savaged the military leader on social media. General McChrystal got fired like a dog by Obama, Trump wrote on Twitter. Last assignment a total bust. Known for big, dumb mouth. Hillary lover! In 2010, McChrystal resigned following a damaging, widely-read Rolling Stone profile where he mocked then vice president Joe Biden, who had clashed with the general over whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. McChrystal ended up endorsing Biden in 2020. McChrystals endorsement follows a letter earlier this month from 100 former officials in Republican administrations, including numerous top military and defense leaders, also backing Harris. The letter slammed Trump as unfit to serve again as President, or indeed in any office of public trust, following incidents like the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The Harris campaign has won support from other unlikely places, picking up the backing of Jack McCain, son of late Republican senator John McCain, and the endorsement of former GOP congresswoman Liz Cheney and her father, former Bush administration vice president Dick Cheney. Whether such endorsements will matter remains to be seen, given the Republican partys embrace of a harder-right stance under Trump, who is running on a platform of taking on establishment Washington figures like those who have endorsed Harris. According to the latest polls, Harris leads Trump by about 3 percent. A jury was seated Monday in the second trial of Franklin County Sheriff John Grismore, who was charged with simple assault for kicking a shackled detainee twice in the groin in 2022 when he was a captain with the department. Grismores first trial in July was declared a mistrial after a jury told the judge it could not reach a unanimous decision. After the mistrial, Grismore said he was disappointed that the jury did not acquit him. He told the Associated Press by email on Friday that he did not have a comment on his second trial. Grismore was fired from the department in August 2022 after body-came footage showed him kicking Jeremy Burrows of Winooski in the groin. An investigation by the Vermont State Police determined that Grismore repeatedly kicked Burrows, 42, who was handcuffed and in leg shackles, in the midsection. Judge declares mistrial in Franklin County Sheriffs assault trial Grismore was the only candidate on the ballot for sheriff after winning both the Republican and Democratic nominations in the Aug. 9, 2022, primary. He was elected despite a write-in campaign backed by the countys Republican and Democratic parties. In December, the Vermont Criminal Justice Council voted 15-1 to revoke Grismores law enforcement certifications for violating the states use of force policy. State officials including Gov. Scott and the Vermont Sheriffs Association called on Grismore to step down, but he refused, maintaining his actions were not excessive and within the bounds of his training. At trial in July, Grismore argued he was using his foot to push down the shackled inmate, to prevent him from falling down. A legislative committee in the Vermont House investigated whether or not to impeach Grismore. The committee agreed the sheriff should step down, but did not recommend a formal impeachment process. Jury selection starts at 8:30 am Monday at the Grand Isle County Courthouse in North Hero. The Associated Press contributed to this story. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC22 & FOX44. Aerial view of the port in Duress, Albania, the departure point for 102 containers allegedly carrying toxic waste bound for Thailand (Adnan BECI) (Adnan BECI/AFP/AFP) Amid the scorching heat at the Albanian port of Durres, 102 containers set sail for Thailand in early July, sparking a high-seas drama that highlighted the perils of the global waste trade. According to official papers reviewed by AFP, the containers were filled with waste material that was set to be processed and destroyed far from Europe's shores. But weeks later, the containers are still adrift in the Mediterranean, following a months-long back-and-forth over what exactly was being shipped and whether it was legal. Enormous amounts of waste are regularly sent to developing countries -- part of a global industry that sees Western nations outsourcing its treatment to Asia and Africa. The practise has long been denounced by environmental organisations. Despite the criticism, the waste management trade continues to be a multibillion-dollar enterprise. The handling of illicit material alone generates between nine billion and 11 billion euros each year, according to the Financial Action Task Force, a leading watchdog tracking illegal trade. The World Bank estimates that approximately two billion tonnes of waste are produced annually across the globe -- expected to reach 3.4 billion tonnes by 2050. Within those mountains of waste, regulators have deemed a certain portion hazardous. These include substances that can be harmful to human health or the environment due to their chemical reactivity or toxicity levels. To better regulate the industry, the Basel Convention -- signed in 1989 by 53 countries -- prohibits members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) from sending waste to non-member states. But Albania, which is not a member of the Paris-based economic forum, is free to ship waste abroad. - Industrial odyssey - The material stowed away in the 102 containers originated from the Turkish-owned Kurum International steel plant in central Albania's Elbasan, according to Albanian media reports. The waste was first purchased by the Albanian company Sokolaj, which then sold the material to its subsidiary in Croatia, GS Minerals, with the cargo set to be offloaded in Thailand for processing. According to documents seen by AFP, Sokolaj labelled the waste as "iron oxide" -- a substance that is not prohibited for shipment or considered hazardous. An analysis of the substance on the containers was conducted by a Croatian laboratory based in Zagreb, according to Sokolaj. When contacted by AFP, the laboratory refused to comment, saying the "information can only be given to clients". Sokolaj itself has not responded to questions on what is in the containers. The company and its Croatian subsidiary both refused AFP's requests for comment. The containers then departed for the Italian port of Trieste, where they were loaded onto two cargo ships operated by global shipping giant Maersk -- the Campton and the Candor. As the ships cruised along the African coastline, an organisation specialising in tracking toxic waste, the Basel Action Network (BAN), contacted Maersk. A whistleblower had called the network's hotline to report that the containers were carrying not just iron oxide, but also toxic waste. BAN asked Maersk to stop the ships when they were near the South African coast, according to its president, Jim Puckett. The ships did not respond and turned off their transponders as they set sail for Singapore, according to BAN. BAN then tipped off the Thai authorities, who refused to allow the containers entry. "The government refused to import more than 800 tonnes of electric arc furnace dust (EAFD) from Albania," said the Thai Department of Industrial Works in a statement. EAFD is a hazardous byproduct produced during the making of steel. Penchome Saetang, an environmental activist working with the Thai government, said the tip led to the country's refusal. "After receiving information from NGOs, the government suspected it could be EAFD," Saetang told AFP. Following the notice from the Thai government, Maersk told AFP it handed off the containers to the shipping company MSC in Singapore to return the containers to Albania. "Maersk Campton and Maersk Candor were carrying those suspected containers on behalf of another shipping line. None of these containers have been declared to contain hazardous waste," Maersk told AFP. "Had they been declared to contain hazardous waste, Maersk would have declined to carry them." MSC declined to comment when contacted by AFP. - Back to Europe - In late August, the 102 containers onboard two ships set sail back to Europe. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has defended the shipments and lashed out at critics -- yet refused to allow the containers to return to the country's ports. "Nothing proves that this waste is toxic," he told a recent parliamentary session. "Even if they were hazardous products, their transport is neither prohibited in Albania nor worldwide," added Rama, saying the accusations were based on "malicious suspicions". BAN fired back in an open letter to the Albanian government, saying containers carrying hazardous materials cannot be shipped without the written consent of the exporter, transit countries and authorities at the final destination. "None of these countries have given their consent and, therefore, if it turns out that the containers contain hazardous waste, the shipments constitute 'illegal trafficking' under Article 9 of the Basel Convention," BAN said. In Albania, prosecutors have opened an investigation into the incident in cooperation with the European Anti-Fraud Office and international partners, according to an official statement. As of Thursday morning, the 102 containers are still at sea, with the cargo on one ship off the coast of Italy and another near Egypt. "There is a chance we could be wrong," Puckett from BAN said about the material in question. "But I doubt it." bme-tak-cbo-ljv/ds/jhb The U.S. is offering a reward of up to $20 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of an Iranian man accused of plotting to assassinate former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton. The Department of Justice alleges Shahram Poursafi, a member of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), tried to hire people to assassinate Bolton, a former top official in the Trump White House, between October 2021 and April 2022 in Washington and Maryland in exchange for $300,000. The U.S. charged Poursafi on Aug. 5, 2022, accusing him of being involved in a murder-for-hire plot and providing material support for a transnational murder plot. The Treasury Department designated him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in June of last year. He remains at large. Poursafi told the potential assassin who actually became a confidential source for U.S. investigators that once he completed the Bolton murder he would have a second assassination job for him, the State Department press office said in a release Thursday. The announcement of the reward comes days after the Trump campaign said the ex-president was briefed by intelligence officials about Irans alleged assassination threats against him. A Pakistan national with ties to the Iranian government was charged with one count in early August for plotting to conduct a political assassination in the U.S. Iranian Vice President Mohammad Javad Zarif rejected accusations that Iran has tried to assassinate government critics overseas, telling NBC News in an interview this week, We do not assassinate people, but the fact of the matter is they assassinated a revered Iranian general. Qassem Soleimani, a top general in the IRGC, was killed in a January 2020 drone strike authorized by then-President Trump. Bolton, a frequent critic of Iran, served as Trumps national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The only surprise about the EU voting to downgrade the protection of wolves and allowing them to be hunted again is that it took them so long. The increasing emotional and financial strain felt by farmers came under the spotlight when Ursula von der Leyens childrens pony Dolly was killed by wolves last year, one of an estimated 65,000 farm animals killed every year by Europes 20,000 wolves according to EU estimates. Both figures are on the increase. In some ways it is a pity that bringing back the wolf from extinction over much of continental Europe has proved to be unacceptably damaging. There is something magical about hearing them howl across wooded Italian valleys, where they are numerous. More importantly, our ecosystem would benefit from more apex predators. The environmentalist lobby, which has a Bambi phobia, argues that they are needed to control the UKs deer population. There is some truth in that in some areas. But wolves would do a greater service by sorting out our chronic predator imbalance. They have an important role in dispersing and killing foxes, badgers and other meso-predators. This is especially necessary in the UK since the hunting ban and the protection of badgers prevented huntsmen and gamekeepers being the much needed apex predators. Our small mammals like hedgehogs and ground-nesting birds are declining fast as a result. In other countries they are more pragmatic; for example Germany has an open season for badger hunting. The clue is in the name dachshund badger hound. It may soon be possible to use satellite technology to keep wolves wearing electric smart collars away from livestock, and this could perhaps allow very limited reintroductions in remote areas. But the vast majority of the UK is too densely populated and intensively farmed to allow for their re-introduction. In this parish alone there are several thousand cattle out grazing in fields, many of them calves. The appearance of a wolf pack doesnt bear thinking about. In Europe they train fierce guard dogs to protect livestock but their herd and flock sizes are tiny in comparison to ours. Other reintroductions red kites, pine martens, beavers have been accompanied by protections and an unwillingness to grant licences to cull animals when they become so numerous that they threaten other species or farmland. You can hardly blame our farmers for holding out against wolves. The EU decision, which has yet to become law, is a sign of increasing pragmatism about wildlife management in Europe. Donald Tusks declaration of war on beavers, blamed for damaging flood defences in some parts of Poland affected by the recent storms, is another. Although in other, more upstream areas they may have helped to stem the flow. Unfortunately politicians in Westminster, Holyrood and Cardiff are heading in a less pragmatic direction and are more likely to heed the siren voices of extreme re-wilders than those responsible for managing the land. The Secretary of State for DEFRA, Steve Reed was happy to accept a pair of designer Le Chameau wellies from Lord Alli but seems less receptive to advice from farmers, for example over the cessation of the badger cull. We had better hope that Lord Alli doesnt wish to see wolves roaming the British countryside again in return for his generosity. 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 number of red-billed choughs reintroduced to Kent now tops 19 as part of a rewilding programme [Kent Wildlife Trust / Tim Horton] Conservation charities have successfully completed the second round of rewilding of a long-lost bird breed in Dover. The red-billed chough disappeared from the Kent countryside more than 200 years ago due to habitat loss and persecution. In 2023, the first cohort of eight birds were returned to the area by conservation charities Wildwood Trust, Kent Wildlife Trust and Cornwall's Paradise Park. Now a further 11 birds have been raised in captivity and released near Dover. Kent Wildlife Trust has worked with English Heritage, the National Trust and White Cliffs Countryside Partnership over 40 years to restore a suitable grassland for the birds. The charity's conservation director Paul Hadaway said: "Chalk grassland is an incredibly rare habitat and is considered the UK's equivalent of the rainforest." The birds are members of the corvid family which includes rooks, ravens, crows and magpies. This year's set of choughs consisted of six females who were creche-reared at Wildwood Trust, just outside Canterbury. A further six males were reared at Paradise Park's zoo-based breeding programme in Cornwall. 'Flying free' The charities said they were pleased when a chough chick was found in a nest at Dover Castle in May, a sign the released birds were breeding in the wild. But the chick went missing days later due to strong winds. Wildwood Trust's conservation director Laura Gardner said: While we were disappointed by the disappearance of the chick we were heartened by the fact that its very existence showed that creating an established breeding population of chough in the wild in Kent for the first time in generations was very much within our reach. Little more than two years ago there was no chance of seeing a chough in the South Eastern sky line now there are 19 flying free over Dover." The bird disappeared from Kent 200 years ago due to habitat loss [Kent Wildlife Trust / Tim Horton] The project aims to release up to 50 choughs in the Dover countryside by 2028. Earlier this year, 108 choughs fledged successfully in Cornwall, according to charity Cornwall Birds. The Kent Wildlife Trust and Wildwood Trust have already worked together to reintroduce bison, Iron Age pigs, Exmoor ponies and longhorn cattle to the area. Follow BBC Kent on Facebook on X and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk. More on this story Related internet links By Andrew Chung WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court rejected on Friday a bid by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to restore his name to the ballot in New York state even though he suspended his campaign as an independent for president in August and endorsed Donald Trump. The justices denied a request by Kennedy's campaign and other allies ordering New York election officials to reinstate his name on the ballot after state courts disqualified him for claiming an invalid address as his residence in paperwork. When Kennedy suspended his campaign, he pledged to withdraw in the most closely contested states but remain on the ballot elsewhere. Kennedy has since urged his supporters everywhere to back Trump and has withdrawn from the ballot in a number of Republican-leaning states. His fight to stay on the ballot in Democratic-leaning New York emerged after a state judge ruled in favor of a challenge by individual voters who claimed Kennedy deceptively provided a false New York residence on his petition to get on the ballot, when he actually lives in California, in violation of state law. The judge agreed, calling it a "sham" address that he used "for the purpose of maintaining his voter registration and furthering his own political aspirations in this state." Kennedy's campaign challenged the residency disclosure requirement in federal court and sought an order to keep him on the ballot. Both a federal judge and the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that request earlier in September. The campaign urged the Supreme Court to intervene because lower courts "did not find that anyone was misled by the address," yet the decision to remove him deprives his supporters of the right to vote for the candidate of their choice. In an email, an attorney for a political action committee supporting Kennedy and a voter who signed Kennedy's nomination petition, who joined the campaign's federal lawsuit, said Kennedy has only suspended his campaign. He "hasn't terminated it," said Rick Jaffe in the email, adding that "our clients have a right to have him appear on the ballot and vote for him, regardless of the current suspended status of his campaign." New York Attorney General Letitia James asked the Supreme Court to reject Kennedy's request in a filing, noting that tens of thousands of ballots have already been mailed to overseas and military voters. (Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is fighting to get his name off the presidential ballot in key battleground states an effort to draw any remaining support he had to former President Donald Trump. When Kennedy suspended his campaign and backed Trump on Aug. 23, his once-strong position as the biggest spoiler in decades had withered greatly during his 10-month campaign as an independent presidential candidate. Kennedy has now successfully removed his name from four battleground states Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada where moving even a fraction of Kennedys former supporters to Trump could be decisive. Wisconsins Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Kennedy would remain on the ballot there in November. But the effort to withdraw from state ballots is an unprecedented move for any independent or minor party candidate and it's unclear exactly how successful he will be in the remaining swing states by the start of early and absentee voting. This has never happened before, said Richard Winger, a ballot access expert who also runs the Ballot Access News website. He's taken his name off some states that are not swing states. It's very mysterious. I don't know why. Kennedys withdrawal has gotten litigious in three states, of which only one case has been concluded in North Carolina. The Tar Heel state had already begun printing ballots when Kennedy dropped out of the race. The former candidate sued and ultimately won his case to remove his name after an appeal, but the result forced the swing state to bear the cost of reprinting ballots and delayed their distribution to absentee and overseas military voters. This decision imposes a tremendous hardship on our county boards, at an extremely busy time, said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections, in a statement. But our election officials are professionals, and I have no doubt we will rise to the challenge. The consequences of the legal spat is a cause for concern from some third-party groups, which were vocally opposed to Kennedy's candidacy on the grounds he could throw the election to Trump. At Trump and MAGAs direction, RFK Jr. is manufacturing scenarios that throw the ballot counting process of multiple states into disarray, said Britt Jacovich, a spokesperson for MoveOn, in a statement. If successful, Trump will use this as a pretense to say that this election was rigged and once again attempt to defy the will of the people. Lets call this what it is: a direct attack on democracy." Kennedy did not respond to questions about his ongoing ballot access cases when asked on Capitol Hill earlier this week. The disruptions caused by removing his name could lead to further trust concerns about the U.S. election system, which is already under increased scrutiny. Kennedys latest legal appeals are threatening to upend election timelines in Wisconsin and Michigan as well. This election will be decided on the margins, and any effort to damage our electoral process is an attack on our entire democracy, Jacovich said in another statement. Kennedy has become a vocal surrogate for the Trump campaign. He plans to campaign with former Rep. Tulsi-Gabbard, the ex-Democrat who has also now thrown her backing to Trump, this weekend in Michigan. No matter what state you live in, you should be voting for Donald Trump, Kennedy said in a video clip shared online in early September. Thats the only way that we can get me and everything I stand for into Washington, DC. Vice President Kamala Harris has a narrow lead over Trump in these two blue wall states, according to recent statewide polls. Joe Biden won them collectively in 2020 with fewer than 200,000 votes, and Trump with about 35,000 in 2016. And Kennedy still has pull as a candidate, garnering about 2 percent support in a recent national poll from NBC News. Both Trump and Harris must also navigate the small shares of support held by Libertarian Party nominee Chase Oliver, whos on the ballot in every swing state; Green Party nominee Jill Stein and independent Cornel West, who are both on the ballot in a handful of swing states. The close margins between Trump and Harris are also consistent with the swing states where Kennedy has successfully removed his name from the ballot. In Georgia, he removed his name after two letters from his lawyers and in Arizona by quickly withdrawing his petition. In Pennsylvania, Kennedy opted not to fight a challenge to his petition and in Nevada, a settlement in a lawsuit filed by local Democrats muted the issue. There was a single case where Kennedy was fighting to keep his name on the ballot in New York, but the Supreme Court rejected his final appeal on Friday. Kennedy continues to embarrass himself with desperate and contradictory legal arguments in state after state, even trying to delay millions of ballots being printed and cast, all to fulfill his corrupt bargain with Trump, said Pete Kavanaugh, head of Clear Choice PAC, which initially filed the challenge to Kennedys New York paperwork. Kennedy remains on the ballot in about 30 states. The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a request from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to appear on New Yorks presidential ballot even though he suspended his campaign last month and backed former President Donald Trump. The high court turned away Kennedys longshot appeal without comment and there were no noted dissents. In an emergency appeal filed this month, the former independent presidential candidate argued voters who signed petitions supporting his placement on New Yorks ballot had a constitutional rightto vote for him, whether he is campaigning for their vote or not. State election officials dumped Kennedys name because he included an invalid address on his nominating petition. State election officials countered that voters would be severely harmed by holding up the mailing of overseas ballots to accommodate Kennedys request. Kennedys position, they said, would not only severely disrupt the states election processes and trigger substantial voter confusion, but also cause New York to miss federal deadlines for mailing overseas and military ballots. Requiring candidates to disclose their home address, as Kennedy failed to do, officials said, was a minimal burden because a reasonably diligent candidate could be expected to provide truthful and accurate information on their candidacy filings. In August, Kennedy suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed Trump, pledging to remove his name from the ballot in a handful of battleground states yet encouraging supporters in non-competitive states traditionally won by Republicans or Democrats to vote for him. But in the weeks since he dropped out of the race, Kennedy has made more direct appeals to his supporters to back Trump regardless of where they live, while also withdrawing his name from the ballot in some deeply Republican states. On Friday, Kennedy urged attendees at a rally in Walker, Michigan, to back Trump in the battleground state. My name is going to appear on Michigans ballot. I dont want you to vote for me. I want you to vote for Donald J. Trump, Kennedy said. Thats the only way Im going to get to Washington, DC, and do all the things to help end the war, end the chronic disease epidemic, to end the censorship, to end the surveillance, and all the other things that I entered this race to do. Lower courts, including the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, had rejected Kennedys efforts to challenge New Yorks decision. Its the second presidential ballot access appeal to reach the Supreme Court in recent weeks, underscoring the spoiler role third party and independent candidates can play in tight elections. On Friday, the Supreme Court denied an emergency request from the Green Party to ensure presidential candidate Jill Stein could appear on the ballot in the battleground state of Nevada. CNNs Aaron Pelilsh. Ali Main and Steve Contorno contributed to this report. This story has been updated with additional developments. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Angelica Infante-Green is seen speaking to reporters on Aug. 16, 2024, at the Rhode Island Department of Educations downtown Providence offices. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current) Rhode Island Commissioner of Education Angelica Infante-Green isnt going anywhere. The states Council on Elementary and Secondary Education on Wednesday night unanimously approved a three-year contract extension through 2027 for Infante-Green, who has led the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) and oversees the entirety of elementary and secondary public education in the state since April 2019. Infante-Greens fresh employment agreement will be negotiated and finalized by the K-12 councils chair and overseen by the full Board of Education, said Victor Morente, a RIDE spokesperson, in an email Friday. (The K-12 council and the Board of Education are the governing bodies of RIDE.) The new contracts details werent available Friday, Morente said, but added that he will share more information when possible. Commissioner Infante-Green is committed and eager to continue her work to create more opportunities and pathways for high-quality learning for all students and ensure Rhode Islands state education system continues to move forward, Morente wrote. Throughout her tenure, the Commissioner has led several initiatives and efforts to better support school districts and improve student outcomes statewide. Mobilizing to address COVID challenges The Infante-Green era was rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, the administration of former Gov. Gina Raimondo and Infante-Greens department managed to get kids back in school sooner than in other parts of the country, thanks in part to a task force quickly mobilized to hasten the return to in-person learning. The relatively speedy recovery of traditional classrooms in Rhode Island made national reporters curious. The kids who were attending school in-person had better academic outcomes than those who were remote, said Susan Dominus, a New York Times reporter who covered Rhode Islands reopening for The New York Times magazine, in a 2021 interview. Those positive outcomes, Dominus thought, were achieved even if they were driven by administrators who are different from the communities they serve: Many of the important players, including the state education commissioner, Angelica Infante-Green, were not themselves people whose life experiences reflected those of the families in their schools. Other accomplishments of Infante-Green include joining the Board of Directors for the Council of Chief State School Officers in June 2023, and in October 2023 becoming the first woman of color named to the National Assessment Governing Board. The commissioner continues to lead a campaign to reduce post-pandemic absenteeism, an effort that has drawn national attention from outlets like Chalkbeat, a popular education news site. And in 2022, Infante-Green led the creation of new graduation requirements to help prepare students for college or careers. The state has seen particular success with technical education in recent years, with 92% of technical education students graduating in 2023, the highest graduation rate in the state. According to the state salary portal, Infante-Greens total compensation in fiscal year 2024 was $296,174. Saga of test scores Infante-Greens initiation into teaching was as a bilingual teacher in the South Bronx. Eventually, she moved up to the New York State Education Departments Office of Instructional Support, where she worked as deputy commissioner. Supporting multilingual learners has remained a concern for Infante-Green, who herself learned English in school. When she was appointed commissioner in 2019, the Providence Journal reported Infante-Greens initial remarks on the struggling school system that was now her responsibility: Less than 6 percent of this population met the standard on the math and English sections of the Rhode Island Common Assessment System (RICAS), Infante-Green said then of English language learners. The data isnt new. But its pretty startling on paper. This is the work I live for. This is the work Ive done. RICAS data from the 2022-2023 school year shows English learners have improved a smidgen on math, with 7.2% of English learners statewide meeting or exceeding standards. But RICAS scores for English Language Arts have remained largely impervious to change, and in 2022-2023 only 5.5% of students met or went above expectations RICAS scores for students who recently exited or completed English learner status, however, were much higher the same year in both English and math, with bilingual students only a few percentage below their non-learner peers. Tension in Providence About six months after Infante-Green became commissioner, the state seized control of the Providence Public Schools Department (PPSD), the states largest school district. That made Providence the lone companion of the Central Falls School District, which has been under state control for decades. On Aug. 29, the K-12 council approved Infante-Greens recommendation to lengthen the state takeover by up to three years. The long-struggling Providence school system and the historical lack of proven solutions has led to intense emotions being flung in the commissioners direction like when state Rep. Enrique Sanchez, a Providence Democrat, suggested in March that the commissioner be impeached over the closure and merger of Providences 360 High School. At times fierce criticism of Infante-Greens leadership has been especially apparent at Providence school board meetings. The mayor-appointed board will switch to a mix of elected and appointed officials in 2025 something of a moot point, since the boards powers have been mostly negated under the terms of the state takeover. Resolutions board members pass have largely been symbolic, like one in August that called for an end to the state takeover of PPSD. The commissioner has not been accessible to me as a board member, Providence School Board member Michael Nina said at an Aug. 21 meeting where the board unanimously voted to approve a return to local control for Providence schools. RIDE representatives attended the meeting, but the commissioner did not. Several of Ninas colleagues echoed his sentiments, but board member George Matouk pushed back: I dont think that the constant vilification of the commissioner is helpful at this point. Im not saying that the commissioner shouldnt be here tonight, or shouldnt have come at other times[But] some of the things that I heard said about the commissioner were, like, you would think it was the Salem witch trials or something. It was really over the top. Mr. Matouk, I respect you, but I have to say, I think you might have just gaslit half the board, said board member Anjel Newmann. I believe its our obligation as a school board to always vote in favor of what community wants, and community wants a say, community wants a voice, Newmann said. This is not about vilification. This is about keeping it real. If the commissioner showed up to meetings every month and was accountable to us in the community, I might be voting differently. There is going to be much more progress The RIDE commissionership has long been a heavy crown to wear. Former commissioner Deborah Gist lasted six years on the job, from 2010 to 2015, but in that time she magnetized national attention both negative and positive for her prioritizing of student outcomes and teacher accountability an ethos that put her at odds with teachers unions. Gist spearheaded the manufacture of the educational funding formula, which determines state aid to local school districts. But the piece de resistance in Gists tenure was arguably overseeing the firing of every teacher at Central Falls High School in 2010, due to the districts lamentable test scores. President Barack Obama liked the move; unions did not. Gist moved on to her native Oklahoma to serve as superintendent of Tulsa Public Schools (where, ironically, she voiced support for unions) before landing at her current positions as a senior advisor at the University of Tulsa and a superintendent-in-residence at educational nonprofit Transcend. But when Gists contract was extended in 2013, the council voted 7-3 a narrower margin of confidence compared to Infante-Greens unanimous approval Wednesday night. Gists contract was also extended for only two years. Thats not to say union tensions have disappeared: Providence Teachers Union President Maribeth Calabro declined to comment Friday on Infante-Greens extension. These last few years, we have been in a very difficult situation, Infante-Green told reporters at an Aug. 16 press conference about Providence schools. But even with that happening, there has been progress. So if everybodys rowing in the same direction, I anticipate there is going to be much more progress. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE (WPRI) Rhode Islanders vacationing along Floridas Gulf Coast arent in the storms direct path but are already feeling the impacts of Hurricane Helene. There are some tornado warnings. Theres a gust picking up right now, Dan Landry said while talking to 12 News. LIVE: Helene an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane Landry is from East Providence but is spending a week with his wife in Gulfport near St. Petersburg. The couple was staying in a mobile home but were told to evacuate. They chose to move to a clubhouse nearby. Mobile homes not the best to be in, in a hurricane, Landry explained. People come down here, they have shutters to close off the windows and doors generator here as well so we dont lose power. TRACKING HELENE: Live updates and latest information Wendy Moreash of Hopkinton is in Tarpon Springs, on vacation with her family. This, for me, is my first hurricane down here, she said. Moreash is also in an evacuation but decided to stay put. She isnt worried about flooding since the place they are staying in is at a higher elevation, but there are still concerns over the wind and rain. MORE: RI Red Cross sends volunteers to Florida ahead of Hurricane Helene My friends husband and her son are linemen. Theyve been on storm detail all day, she said. One just got sent home because the conditions are too bad, so theyll go out later on. Landry and Moreash are both hoping theyll be able to return home to Rhode Island sometime next week, weather permitting. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Pinpoint Weather 12 Alerts Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WPRI.com. RI arts orgs are pitching voters on Question 5 for a $10M bond. Here's what to know. PROVIDENCE One by one, the groups in line for millions of potential taxpayer dollars are making their pitches to voters, with Trinity Repertory Company among the latest groups campaigning for a "yes" vote on Election Day. The "Yes on 5'' coalition a.k.a. the Rhode Island Coalition for Arts & Preservation launched its campaign earlier this week for voter approval of the $10-million bond that state lawmakers placed on the Nov. 5 ballot to provide matching grants to Trinity, Newport Contemporary Ballet and the Tomaquag Museum specifically, and potentially to others. With the interest included, the bond means the state would borrow an estimated $16 million. State leaders and members of the Rhode Island arts and cultural community launch the "Yes on 5" campaign in support of a proposed $10 million cultural economy bond. What to know about RI's Question 5 Question 5 seeks voter approval to borrow money to continue a "Cultural Arts and the Economy Grant Program" administered by the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, which improves arts and cultural facilities and will "increase their ability to contribute to the cultural, educational, and economic life of our state,'' according to the description in the Voter's Handbook published by the secretary of state's office. That would include public and nonprofit artistic centers, performance centers, museums and cultural art centers. Only three are specifically mentioned in the bond proposal, with Trinity, Newport Contemporary Ballet and the Tomaquag Museum each slated to get $2 million in "matching" grants if voters approve the bond. Another $4 million would go to the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts for distribution. The pitch: When RIers invest in art, residents win The campaign pitch: "When Rhode Island invests in its vibrant, economically critical, statewide arts and cultural communities, Rhode Islanders all across the state win." Since its creation in 2014, the Cultural Arts & Economy Grants Program has supported more than 60 arts and cultural organizations across the state through 1:1 matching grants, Todd Trebour, executive director of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, said earlier this week. This a proven, impactful program that has created hundreds of jobs and helped strengthen Rhode Islands already-strong arts and cultural economy. We are proud of its success thus far, and we look forward to continuing to play our part in delivering results for Rhode Islanders with the passage of Question 5," he said. There are several other bigger bond proposals on the ballot, including a bid for $120 million to add to Rhode Island's "housing opportunity" efforts. State leaders and members of the Rhode Island arts and cultural community launch the "Yes on 5" campaign in support of a proposed $10 million cultural economy bond. How would the money be spent? The rundown, according to the Voters' Handbook: Tomaquag Museum: $2,000,000 for a 1:1 matching grant to support the building of the Tomaquag Museum in Kingston on the University of Rhode Island campus, to be used for Indigenous cultural education and preservation, including spaces for programming and administration. Newport Contemporary Ballet: $2,000,000 for a 1:1 matching grant to support the building of Newport's Center for Arts, Dance & Education, to be used for performance facilities, educational instruction, production and administration. Trinity Repertory Company: $2,000,000 for a 1:1 matching grant to expand and upgrade the Lederer Theater Center, used for performance facilities, educational instruction, production and administration. The other $4 million would be available for 1:1 matching grants to 501(c)(3) nonprofit cultural organizations which lease or own their performance space, and for RISCA expenses in administering the program. "In awarding such grants RISCA shall consider financial need, the availability or actual expenditure of matching funds for the projects, available gifts or grants for projects, the amount of square footage to be improved, the geographical location, and characteristics of audiences benefited,'' according to the handbook. Duffy & Shanley is donating its services to the "Yes on 5" campaign effort, which has spent roughly $3,500 so far for yard signs, stickers and palm cards used at an event this week. "The campaign is not currently investing in paid advertising,'' according to spokesman Chris Raia. This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI ballot question 5: Here's what to know about the arts bond PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) While Rhode Island wont be directly affected by now-Category 4 Hurricane Helene, its ripple effects were felt locally Thursday as all flights departing from Tampa and Sarasota were canceled at T.F. Green Airport. Some Rhode Islanders told 12 News they drove from the Gulf Coast to Orlando to find a different way home. LIVE TRACKER: Whats the path of Hurricane Helene? Many travelers were relieved to have arrived safely, fearing they might have been stranded in Florida as the storm approached. However, others said they were not worried. Mary Smith, of Middletown, was visiting her daughter in Orlando, which isnt expected to experience severe weather. MORE: Rhode Islanders in Florida feeling impacts of Hurricane Helene My daughter has taken some precautions to make sure she stocked up on bottled water just in case, but theyre only anticipating possibly some road flooding because of the heavy rain, but nothing really significant, Smith explained. Meanwhile, the Big Bend region of Florida is bracing for catastrophic storm surges and winds over 100 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. TRACKING HELENE: Live updates and latest information In response, the Red Cross of Rhode Island has sent four local volunteers down south to assist with evacuation shelters and feeding stations. Richard Branigan, the regional CEO for the Red Cross of Rhode Island and Connecticut, said the volunteers are well-prepared. What were hearing is they are in the hunkering-down phase where theyre in a pre-landfall location handling the evacuation responsibility for people who are in the path of the storm and they are in the path of the storm as well, Brannigan said. Flight Tracker: Check local arrivals and departures Tom Butz, whos currently vacationing in New England, said his area of Florida is especially vulnerable to flooding due to the lack of a protective barrier reef. Ive lived in Florida my whole life, and Ive been through multiple hurricanes, he said. Im a homeowner and a business owner. The insurance for whether its, an automobile, your home, or your business is tough and the storms dont help anything at all. Visit the Red Crosss website to make a donation. Pinpoint Weather 12 Links Detailed 7-Day Forecast | Weather Now | Radar | Hour-by-Hour | Ocean, Bay & Beach | Solar Report | Pinpoint Traffic | Flight Tracker | Active Weather Alerts | Closings & Delays | Power Outages | Get the Weather App Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Pinpoint Weather 12 Alerts Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WPRI.com. The richest rodeo in South Dakota is now even richer SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) The richest rodeo in South Dakota history is back in Sioux Falls for a second go. The barrel racing contestants were turning laps this morning at the Premier Center in advance of the Cinch Playoffs. The Cinch Playoffs is one of the top 4 biggest rodeos of the entire season for pro rodeo, Cinch Jeans director of marketing Jessica Wahlert said. Its one of the regular season rodeos but you have to qualify to get here and its through the top 60 paying rodeos of the entire season, Wahlert said. Honestly, coming into this rodeo last year nobody knew what to expect and they sold this sucker out every single night so getting to come back here is awesome, calf roper Haven Meged said. The Governors Cup is the final rodeo of the regular season, and Haven Meged is looking to end the year atop the tie-down roping leaderboard. Freeing the innocent: 1 non-profits mission My goal is to hopefully have a good weekend and get up there, Haven Meged said. Its going to shake a lot of stuff up, its going to make or break a lot of things for a lot of contestants and its going to be great watching, breakaway roper Shelby Meged said. Shelby Meged earned her first world title in breakaway roping last year, including a win at the Governors Cup. It was unbelievable, and getting to meet Kristy and just the awards ceremony after, they paid attention to every single detail at this rodeo and it was unreal, it was an awesome rodeo and great production and the fans were in tune, it was incredible, Shelby Meged said The event was such a success last year that the richest rodeo in South Dakota history is now even richer. The contestants loved it and so this year we tried to add more to it and part of that was the payout. We were $1.1 million last year, were $1.3 million this year, Wahlert said. The chase for the cash and Cup starts Thursday night. The CINCH Playoffs kicks off Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the Premier Center and continues Friday and Saturday nights. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KELOLAND.com. Sen. Rick Scott (R) faces a major test in the home stretch of his race for reelection, as Floridas constitutional amendment on abortion puts the issue front and center in what appears to be an increasingly close race against former Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who has been slamming him over his unabashedly anti-abortion position. As other Republicans scramble, stumble and largely avoid publicly saying how they will vote on ballot measures to protect abortion access, Scott has been clear that he will vote against Floridas, making himself an outlier among GOP Senate candidates. Scott has repeatedly said the amendment is too extreme, claiming it would allow abortion up until the moment of birth. In states like Montana, Nevada and Arizona all of which will have abortion amendments on the ballot Republican candidates have largely avoided publicly stating how theyll vote, underlining that the party views abortion as an electoral liability. Christian Ulvert, a Florida-based Democratic strategist, said he was surprised at Scotts open opposition, given how popular the states Amendment 4 is polling. Its 100 percent overconfidence, Ulvert said. I think the miscalculation on their campaigns part is look at whats happened in other parts of the country, even in more conservative areas like Kansas and Kentucky, even Ohio, on this issue. So, they are discounting how much support there is, even among moderate Republicans. However, Brett Doster, a Florida GOP campaign strategist, said Scott should get a boost for sticking to his principles. This is an issue where, well, you just dont get a lot of points for gamesmanship, Doster said. If you dont have a sense of conviction about these issues and a sense of confidence about your own leadership, then it is easy to get tied into knots on these things. What you have to do is just go out and advocate for your position. More than two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Republicans still have a difficult time navigating the issue of abortion. But the GOP is confident about taking control of the Senate, and candidates are hoping the Democratic advantage on abortion isnt enough to cost them close races. Scott is favored to win reelection, but a poll earlier this month showed Mucarsel-Powell behind by just 1 point, making the race a statistical dead heat. The Hill and Decision Desk HQ give Scott a 67 percent chance of winning the race. Scott has a history of winning tight races, and Florida voters have recently been passing progressive ballot measures while electing conservative Republicans. In recent years, Floridians passed amendments allowing restoration of voting rights for felons, an increased minimum wage, and legalized medicinal marijuana. Floridians in November will vote on Amendment 4, which would prohibit the state from restricting abortion access up to fetal viability, which is around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Polls show the amendment could have enough support to get the 60 percent support needed to pass. But that threshold means Republican support is essential. Florida currently bans abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected, which is around six weeks of gestation, before most people know they are pregnant. There are limited exceptions to the ban, and anyone who performs an illegal abortion could be charged with a felony. Like many other Republicans, Scott has waffled somewhat on his abortion stance. He backed the six-week ban when it was first passed by the state Legislature last year, saying if he were still governor, he would sign the bill. But then in April, just weeks before the six-week ban took effect, Scott said hed support replacing it with one that bans abortion at 15 weeks, with exceptions for cases of rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother. Scott campaign spokesman Will Hampson said Scott has been transparent about where he stands on the issues. Senator Scott has been clear that he is going to vote no on Amendment 4 but has encouraged all Florida voters to make their voices heard in November, Hampson said in a statement to The Hill. Senator Scott believes the consensus in Florida is around 15 weeks with exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother. If the abortion amendment is defeated, Floridas six-week ban will remain in place. Florida Republicans have seen major victories since 2020 that have helped push the state further to the right. Even in 2022, when Democrats across the country successfully campaigned on tying their Republican opponents to the end of Roe v. Wade, Florida Republicans saw sweeping double-digit victories. But with abortion access directly on the ballot this year, the calculus could change. Mucarsel-Powell has been attacking Scott on abortion since she won the Democratic primary in August. We have this opportunity to vote for Amendment 4 but its not going to mean anything if Rick Scott gets his way, gets reelected and then pushes for a national abortion ban, Mucarsel-Powell said in an MSNBC interview this week. In her first general election ad, Mucarsel-Powell described Scotts abortion position as taking away the freedoms she and her family sought when they immigrated from Ecuador. Lauren Chou, communications director for Mucarsel-Powells campaign, said having an abortion amendment on the ballot gives the campaign an opportunity to show voters the real-life stakes of Scotts position. People here in Florida really hate the government telling them what they can and cant do, and this abortion ban that Rick Scott said that he would sign if he was governor, is the government trying to tell Floridians what to do, Chou said. Republican strategists, on the other hand, say Scott has name recognition and a clear record as a senator and governor, unlike Senate candidates in other states. Hes got a little bit more protection, because hes the name they know. Hes been the governor twice. Hes got a lot more cachet with the voters in Florida than a lot of the other folks, said Ford OConnell, a Florida-based GOP strategist. But thats exactly what makes Scott vulnerable this cycle, Chou said. Hes running on his record, and it hasnt really changed, particularly on abortion. No other Republican thats running statewide in Florida this cycle has as clear of a tie to that ban as Rick Scott does, and thats something that our campaign certainly has made a focus out of, and were making sure that Floridians everywhere know that this abortion ban is because of people like Rick Scott. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Rick Scott says the climate is clearly changing and Weve gotta figure out what to do Republican U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, and U.S. Rep. Laurel Lee in St. Pete Beach on May 27, 2024. (Photo by Mitch Perry/Florida Phoenix) Florida U.S. Sen. Rick Scott acknowledged Friday in the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Helene that the climate is clearly changing, adding: Weve gotta figure out how do we react to that. Scott travelled through parts of the state speaking to law enforcement and first responders a day after the Category 4 hurricane caused record storm surge up the west coast and Big Bend region of Florida, with at least seven deaths in the state attributed to the storm. The Naples Republican was interviewed on CNN, where anchor Dana Bash observed that the intensity of Helene, described by the Washington Post as one of the biggest storm systems to hit the U.S., appeared part of a trend in which storms are simply bigger than they once were, perhaps because of climate change. Who knows? Scott replied. Who knows what the reason is, but something is changing. Massive storms. Massive storm surge. So weve got to figure this out. Bash followed up by asking, When you say, somethings going on, isnt it pretty obvious that the climate is changing, and that is changing the size of these storms and making them as big as you just described? Absolutely, somethings changed, and the climates clearly changing, and what weve gotta do is, like, when I was governor, I spent a whole bunch of money on resiliency [and] sea level rise issues and beach renourishment issues, and I tried to make our state more resilient, he said. We know things are changing. Weve gotta figure out how do we react to that, he added. Scott served as Florida governor from 2010 and 2018 and was criticized by environmentalists for his inattention to climate issues. Im not a scientist, he said in 2014. At one point, a group of 10 Florida scientists sent Scott a letter referring to the impact of human-induced global warming as they expressed interest in helping him understand what was happening with the climate so he could make the necessary decisions to protect the state. He ended up meeting with five of those scientists. At another point in his tenure, former state employees reported that Scotts administration had directed them to avoid using the phrase climate change, although Scott denied the allegation. Scotts comment about who knows? what is contributing to massive storms like Helene stunned some climate change advocates. We know Well, we know, said Susan Glickman, who has worked on climate issues in Florida for decades and now serve as vice president for policy and partnerships with the CLEO Institute. We know that Rick Scott has invested tens of millions of dollars in gas and utility companies that spew climate pollution. And we know they benefited from his votes. We know that in part due to actions by Rick Scott Florida is dangerously over-reliant on methane gas for power around 75%, Glickman added in a text message sent to the Phoenix. And we know that climate pollution from Scotts gas investments is warming the planet. We know warming melts glaciers, raising sea levels. Rick Scott may not know, but we do, that sea rise contributes to the historic storm surge were seeing. And we know that, because of warming, we are experiencing unparalleled rapid intensification from hot ocean temperatures. And we also know that Rick Scott has some responsibility for the fact that power bills are through the roof. He approved power plants and pipelines that we never needed. Ron DeSantis, who succeeded Scott in 2019 as governor of Florida, has also invested millions of dollars in resiliency efforts. He signed legislation earlier this year that erased the words climate change from state statutes and restructured the states fossil fuel-based energy policy to play down climate change as a priority when making energy policy decisions. Scott is running for re-election to his Senate seat this fall against Democratic challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. The rift between Georgia, once the closest partner of the United States in the Caucasus region, is deepening amid concerns about anti-democratic tendencies under the government of Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze. Speaking in the capital Tbilisi on Friday, Kobakhidze said that bilateral relations should now be reconsidered. Things could not go on as they had in the past, the 46-year-old told the InterpressNews media outlet, and any improvement would depend on the Americans. However, Kobakhidze, who came to office in February, did not give details on how Tbilisi might downgrade its ties with Washington. According to media reports, the current cause of tensions is the decision of US President Joe Biden's administration to uninvite Kobakhidze from a reception at the UN General Assembly in New York. The US embassy in Tbilisi said the invitation had been withdrawn due to growing concerns about the Georgian government's anti-democratic behaviour and its negative rhetoric towards the US and the West. Georgia was a close ally of the US during President George W Bush's years in office from 2001-2009. Bush also promoted the country's rapprochement with NATO. The Georgian head of state at the time was Mikhail Saakashvili, who has been imprisoned by the current leadership. However, relations have deteriorated ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections on October 26. The ruling Georgian Dream party, founded by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, is similarly criticized in the West for its anti-European stance. In the face of mass protests, it has pushed through laws similar to those in Russia where civil society is subject to stricter controls and the rights of homosexuals and other sexual minorities are curbed. The leadership in Tbilisi rejects the criticism of its policies and denounces this as external interference in its national affairs. Like the US, the European Union also views the development with concern, having made Georgia a candidate country at the end of 2023. However, Brussels has put the accession process on hold due to a controversial law on the control of civil society. Lt. Governor Mark Robinson challenges Attorney General Josh Stein to a debate in the final weeks of the gubernatorial campaign. (Photo: Screengrab from Robinson's X/Twitter account) A new Meredith College Poll released Friday contains more bad news for North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinsons already struggling gubernatorial campaign. The poll found CNNs recent report that he made inflammatory and offensive comments on a porn website prior to the start of his political career caused an immediate drop in Robinsons support. The CNN story broke Sept. 19 right in the midst of the Sept. 17-20 time period in which Meredith was contacting voters. Robinson has said the CNN report is untrue. The Meredith pollsters reported an electoral gap between the Democratic candidate, Attorney General Josh Stein, and Robinson at about eight points, 50-42 percent, during the first two days of data collection. After the story broke, however, the gap grew to 13 percent, with Stein holding 50-37 percent lead. All told, the survey found Stein with a double-digit lead over Robinson, 50-40 percent, with the CNN story deterring supporters from Robinson without adding measurably to Stein. There was a sample size of 802 North Carolina likely voters and a confidence interval of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. The CNN story clearly had an impact on voter perceptions, but Robinsons campaign was already struggling against the Stein campaign, Meredith Poll director David McLennan said in a statement. Robinson continues to enjoy support among conservative, rural, and older voters, but not from other populations. McLennan said he suspected the actual margin between the candidates in November would be smaller than the current polling average. This is not because the polls are wrong, but that some Republican or Republican-leaning voters simply wont be able to vote for a Democrat, he said. The poll also further confirmed North Carolinas status as a battleground state in the presidential election, with Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump tied at 48 percent each. Two percent of respondents said they were undecided, and another two percent said they would support third-party candidates. This margin could be significant. In 2020, Trump won North Carolina by about 75,000 votes out of about 5.5 million votes cast, or 1.3 percent. McLennan predicts the remainder of the campaign will be over unaffiliated voters in the suburbs. Harris currently has a small lead among suburban voters, but a small shift could drastically change the tight elections outcome. A victory in the electoral college hinges on North Carolina and the other six swing states. Both parties are targeting the state, with the candidates at the top of the ticket and their surrogates making a steady parade of visits. The Trump campaign will continue to pour resources into the state, McLennan said. If Harris is able to squeak by and win North Carolina, her chances of winning the presidency are greatly enhanced. Former Republican President Donald Trump finally has spoken publicly and very briefly about his endorsement of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the embattled Republican nominee for governor. Trump was asked by conservative cable channel NewsNation in the lobby of his Trump Tower property Thursday whether he plans to rescind his endorsement of Robinson, someone he called Martin Luther King on steroids in March. Trump leaned in to listen to the question, said I dont know the situation, and then walked away from the gathered media. Trump has held two campaign rallies in North Carolina since CNN aired a story on Sept. 19 that said, among other things, Robinson called himself a Black Nazi, that he enjoyed watching transgender pornography, and said he supported a return of slavery all in comments made on porn website Nude Africa between 2008 and 2012. Robinson has not appeared at any recent rallies hosted by Trump or his running mate JD Vance. But during an interview Wednesday on Salem Radio Network with Trump apologist Sebastian Gorka, Robinson said he is giving Trump space and doesnt want to draw fire to any other candidates" in North Carolina. Weve spoken to him, had great conversations with him, but we have chosen to do that because we want to make sure that he wins this state. Before the CNN report, Robinson had appeared numerous times at Trump rallies in North Carolina and out of state, as well as the 2024 Republican National Convention where he was made a short speech. Among Trumps previous praises of Robinson included calling him the Braveheart of our time, you have to cherish him. Its like a fine wine, and Ive been with him a lot. Ive gotten to know him and hes outstanding. However, during the recent Trump rallies in Wilmington and Mint Hill, Trump mentioned several Republican candidates, but not Robinson. Democratic response The Democratic National Committee and the Harris-Walz national campaign jumped on Trumps response. Harris-Walz 2024 spokesperson Ammar Moussa said its impossible to believe that, somehow, Donald Trump missed the news about his handpicked candidate for governor calling himself a Nazi." DNC Rapid Response director Alex Floyd said Trump and vice president nominee JD Vance continue to further isolate themselves as hateful extremists who are so wildly out of touch they are willing to stand behind Mark Robinson even after his own staff have deserted him. At least eight members of Robinsons governor campaign departed last weekend, while at least four members of his lieutenant governor staff have left this week. Trump and Vance are making it clear to the American people that they have no interest in distancing themselves from Robinson and his toxic brand of MAGA extremism, Floyd said. Voters will remember their silence on Robinsons disgraceful behavior at the ballot box this November. The Harris-Walz campaign has released several campaign ads in North Carolina questioning Trumps continuing support of Robinson. Trump has been to North Carolina twice since the news broke and is still standing by Robinson, even as the people who know Robinson best are abandoning him, Moussa said. Its simple Trump is committed to Robinson because he sees a loyal MAGA soldier intent on working alongside Trump to fan the flames of division and implement their toxic, extreme agenda. North Carolina and America will turn the page on the Trump-Robinson ticket this November. Although Robinson has denied making the comments, four Southeast Republican governors Georgias Brian Kemp, South Carolinas Henry McMaster, Tennessees Bill Lee and Virginias Glenn Youngkin have withdrawn their endorsements of Robinson. Lees decision is particularly noteworthy given he is chairman of the Republican Governors Association. The association said Monday it would not place new campaign ads on Robinsons behalf in North Carolina after the current slate ended Tuesday. More new governor polls There has been discussion among political analysts of a potential reverse coattail scenario in which Republican and unaffiliated voters dissatisfied with Robinson dont vote for Trump either, or not at all for president. On Thursday, in the first governors race poll since the airing of the CNN report, the Marist College Poll conducted Sept. 19-24 had Democrat Attorney General Josh Stein with a 54% to 42% lead over Robinson among 1,507 registered voters. The same Marist Poll has Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump by a 49%-48% margin. The Bloomberg/Morning Conduit Poll released Thursday of 889 registered voters has Harris ahead 50% to 47%. Of the 13 N.C. governors race polls conducted in September and listed by 538.com, Steins lead ranges from 5 to 14 percentage points, the highest in polls conducted by SurveyUSA/Raleigh TV station WRAL and by Elon University. Also this week, The N.C. chapter of AARP released its poll, conducted by Impact Research from Sept. 11-17, of 1,324 likely voters, with the majority over the age of 50. The poll had Stein with a 52% to 42% lead, while Trump was ahead 50% to 47%. In terms of ticket splitting, 11% of Trump voters supported Stein. Brandon Lenoir, a professor of political communication and campaigns at High Point University, said there are two potential impacts of the CNN bombshell report on other GOP candidates in North Carolina. The first is the possible dampening effect it could have on voter turnout, Lenoir speculated. The people who support Mark Robinson may be less motivated to turn out to vote on Election Day. For races that are close, a small downturn in turnout could influence the outcome. The second effect is the fact fellow partisans of Mark Robinson will be asked to react to the allegations against the top of their state ticket. This will take away from down ballot candidates ability to talk about their platform issues Instead, they will be asked about their thoughts on the controversy. John Dinan, a political science professor at Wake Forest University and a national expert on state legislatures, said the question at this point is not whether Robinson has a path to victory in his own race, because that is now off the table. The only question is whether his campaign continues and continues to attract news coverage. Any day that he is still in the race and is the subject of news stories is a gift to Democrats running for office in North Carolina and a headache for Republicans on the ballot. ALHAMBRA, Calif. (KTLA) Former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer is scheduled to be arraigned on a manslaughter charge Thursday morning, court records show. Klinghoffer, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee who has also worked with Pearl Jam and Janes Addiction, has been accused of distracted driving in the death of Israel Sanchez in Alhambra, California, in March. Sanchez was said to be walking in a crosswalk when he was hit by a GMC Yukon believed to be driven by Klinghoffer. In addition to a civil suit filed by the family, Klinghoffer is facing a misdemeanor charge of vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence, according to court records. Video of the incident shows that Defendant Klinghoffer made no efforts to brake or slow down until after he fatally struck Mr. Sanchez, indicating that Klinghoffer was likely to be driving while distracted, the Sanchez familys attorneys said in a news release. Video taken seconds before the incident shows an object between the steering wheel and the driver that is believed to be a phone. A request for comment by Klinghoffers attorney was not immediately returned. Andrew Brettler, an attorney for Klinghoffer, previously told TMZ that the incident was a tragic accident. Missouri executes Marcellus Williams despite calls from the victims family to spare his life After Josh struck this pedestrian in the intersection, he immediately pulled over, stopped the car, called 911 and waited until police and the ambulance arrived, Brettler said. Obviously, hes cooperating with the police throughout the traffic investigation. This was purely a tragic accident. Klinghoffer, 44, became the youngest member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when he was inducted alongside the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the age of 32 in 2012. (That record is now held by Ilan Rubin of Nine Inch Nails.) Since his departure from Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2019, Klinghoffer has also been a touring member of Pearl Jam, and is listed as a contributing musician on their most recent album. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. (FOX40.COM) A sailboat that has sat abandoned on the shoreline of Lake Tahoe since August was removed on Thursday, according to the Placer County Sheriffs Office. After breaking free from its buoy, the sailboat washed up in Kings Beach near North Tahoe Beach, creating a hazard and nuisance for the Placer County community. Botulism outbreak kills 75,000 birds at Northern California wildlife refuge With the owner not having the money to care for or remove the vessel, the legal process to remove the sailboat began. This process involved the owner surrendering the vessel for removal and destruction, navigating through the Countys bid process, and then scheduling the tow, haul out, and destruction, the sheriffs office wrote in a news release. The Sacramento County Sheriffs Office assisted with the transport and destruction of the vessel. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. (Bloomberg) -- Romanias junior ruling Liberal party proposed Cosmin Marinescu, an economic adviser to President Klaus Iohannis, to be deputy central bank governor ahead of a parliament vote on the institutions nine-member board next week. Most Read from Bloomberg The Liberals, who rule as junior coalition partner with the Social Democrats, also agreed to put forward former Finance Minister Alexandru Nazare and lawmaker Roberta Anastase as non-executive members, deputy party leader Rares Bogdan said Friday. The Black Sea nations parliament is set to meet next week to vote on extending the mandate of central bank Governor Mugur Isarescu and the line-up of his executive team for the next five years. --With assistance from Irina Vilcu. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Romania's Ministry of National Defence has sent a "strong message of condemnation" following another Russian drone attack on Ukrainian facilities and civilian infrastructure near the Romanian border. Source: European Pravda with reference to Digi24 Details: The Romanian Ministry of Defence considers these attacks "unjustified and seriously contrary to international law". "As a result of the detection of groups of drones approaching the airspace of Ukraine, near the airspace of Romania, the National Military Command Centre (core) informed the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations about taking measures to alert the population of Tulcea County; RO-Alert messages were sent at 02:01," the Ministry of Defence said in a statement. Two Romanian F-16 fighter jets from the Borca base and two Spanish F-18s from the Mihail Kogalniceanu base were taken into the air "to monitor the situation", the ministry said. All four warplanes landed at the airbase at around 04:00. During this period of time, the Romanian radar surveillance system indicated the possibility that one of the drones involved in the attack on the Ukrainian targets had crossed national airspace in the border area with Ukraine for a very short period of time, less than three minutes, at around 03:00. The data available at the moment reported that there were no reports of a strike zone on Romanian territory. The Ministry of National Defence forces have been searching the area since this morning with the help of air assets and ground teams. Background: Three people were killed and 14 others injured as a result of a morning Russian strike on the city of Izmail in Odesa Oblast. On the night of 26-27 September, Russian forces launched 32 Shahed loitering munitions, an Iskander ballistic missile and two Kh-22 cruise missiles on Ukraine. Ukrainian air defence units have shot down 24 of the Shaheds. One drone entered Romanian airspace, and three more Russian UAVs disappeared from the radar as a result of electronic warfare countermeasures by the Ukrainian defence forces. Support UP or become our patron! NOLAN COUNTY, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) A Roscoe Collegiate ISD employee is accused of having an improper relationship with a student. District officials notified the public Thursday that an investigation into the alleged relationship is underway. Superintendent Guillermo Mancha Jr. released the following statement regarding the investigation: Today, the district received an allegation that a school district employee had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a student. Upon receiving the allegation, the district placed the employee on administrative leave while an investigation is being conducted. At the same time, the district notified local law enforcement and Child Protective Services, as the district is required to do under state law. If you have questions regarding the investigation into the matter, please contact local law enforcement. No further information is available at this time. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTAB - BigCountryHomepage.com. Ed. Note: We have updated this story with a statement from the Rose Hulman Institute of Technology. VIGO COUNTY, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) A local Rose Hulman staff member and pastor is in the Vigo County Jail after being arrested for allegedly possessing child pornography. Curtiss Larry Davis II, 47, Terre Haute, remains in the Vigo County Jail, facing two counts of child exploitation-aggravating factor, Level 4 felony. According to a probable cause affidavit, Terre Haute police became aware of child sex abuse being watched from a Terre Haute address. The cyber tip came from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). After serving a search warrant of Davis email and social media, it was discovered that he had two images of young girls being sexually abused, 17 AI-generated images of children being sexually abused, and actual images of humans having sex with dogs and wolves. On September 24, 2024, search warrants were served at Davis Terre Haute home and his office at Rose Hulman Institute of Technology, where, according to court documents, he is employed. Rose Hulman officials responded Friday morning in a statement. We are aware of these serious charges and can confirm that the staff member in question is no longer employed at Rose-Hulman. Our priority remains the safety and wellbeing of our community, officials wrote. Because this is a legal matter, we are unable to provide any further comment at this time. Davis is also listed in court documents as the owner and religious leader at a company called Key of David LLC. Also, Grace Fellowship Church in Paris, Ill. posted a message on August 24, 2024 welcoming Davis as their new worship pastor. Davis agreed to speak with detectives from the Terre Haute Police Department on September 24, 2024. After being read his rights, Davis admitted to sending child pornography through a website to someone. He also believed that the children in the imagery found in his possession were under the age of 12. Davis is being held on a bond of $25,000 with no 10 percent allowed. This is a developing story, WTWO has reached out to Grace Fellowship Church 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 MyWabashValley.com. Minnesota Governor and Democratic vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz; Senator from Ohio and Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance Credit - Melina MaraThe Washington Post/Getty Images; Matthew HatcherAFP/Getty Images J.D. Vance and Tim Walz are set to face off for the first time in a vice presidential debate on Oct. 1, in what will likely be the last major debate of the 2024 election cycle. The match-up between the Republican Ohio Senator and Democratic Minnesota Governor will feature similar rules to those for the presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, with one notable exception: each candidates microphone will be turned on throughout the 90-minute event instead of muted when its the others turn to speak. The other rules, such as no studio audience, remain the same. The debate will start at 9 p.m. ET and is being hosted by CBS News, which released the rules on Friday. It will be moderated by CBS Evening News anchor Norah ODonnell and Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan. With early voting underway and polls indicating a tight race, the debate could allow the vice presidential candidates to make a last-minute pitch to voters ahead of the Nov. 5 election. Walz and Vance have traded barbs throughout the campaign. Walz went viral this year for calling Trump and Vance weird during a television interview, a remark that later became a rallying cry for Democrats. Vance has taken aim at Walz's military history, criticizing the timing of Walzs 2005 retirement from the Minnesota National Guard before his unit deployed to Iraq. Here are the rules for the vice presidential debate. Hot microphones Unlike the presidential debates this election cycle, the candidates microphones will be kept on throughout the entire debate even when the other candidate is speaking, according to CBS News, which added that it reserves the right to turn off candidate microphones. The issue of muted microphones became a contentious topic leading up to the recent Harris-Trump debate. The rule was originally proposed by President Joe Biden before the first presidential debate in June to curtail interruptions, but Harris sought to change the rule after Biden dropped out of the race and she secured the partys nomination. Harris was unsuccessful, and mics remained muted for her debate against Trump. No live audience In line with the recent presidential debate, the Vance-Walz event will take place without a live audience in an attempt to minimize disruptions. The move marks a departure from previous vice presidential debates, which have typically featured audience members who are instructed to remain quiet while the candidates are speaking. Standing at lecterns Both Walz and Vance will stand at identical lecterns for the entire 90-minute debate, marking the first time since 2008 that vice presidential candidates have not been seated to debate. CBS News said that Walz will stand on the left side of the stage, while Vance will be on the right side. Each candidate will be provided with a pen, notepad, and a bottle of water on stage. No props or pre-written notes will be allowed. No opening statements Like the presidential debate, there will be no opening statements. Instead, each candidate will deliver a two-minute closing statement at the conclusion of the debate. A coin toss administered by CBS News on Thursday determined the order of closing statements. Vance won the coin toss and decided to speak last during closing statements. Read More: The Reinvention of J.D. Vance The debate will begin with the moderators introducing the candidates, starting with the incumbent partywhich means Walz will be introduced first. The moderators will then ask questions, with candidates each allotted two minutes to respond. This will be followed by one-minute rebuttals and responses to the rebuttals. CBS News said that the moderators may at their discretion give the candidates an additional minute to continue a discussion. Lights will appear in front of the candidates to alert them to their remaining speaking time. Walz and Vance will not be permitted to ask questions of each other, and the network said that no topics or questions will be shared in advance with campaigns or candidates. Commercial breaks Similar to the last two debates this cycle, the CBS event will feature two commercial breaks during the 90-minute broadcast. However, campaign staff will be prohibited from interacting with their respective candidates during these intermissions, denying them the opportunity for strategic consultations or to touch up the candidates appearance. Write to Nik Popli at nik.popli@time.com. Russell Findlay and rival candidate Meghan Gallacher and Murdo Fraser shook hands after the result was announced [PA Media] Russell Findlay has been elected as the new leader of the Scottish Conservative party. The former journalist defeated his Scottish Parliament colleagues Murdo Fraser and Meghan Gallacher. Findlay has been an MSP for the West of Scotland since 2021 and was the party's justice spokesman. He has promised to make the Conservatives "reconnect" with what he calls their "traditional values of enterprise, self-reliance, fiscal responsibility and the rule of law". The poll closed at noon on Thursday. A total of 4,155 people voted out of a total of 6,941 eligible members, a turnout of 60%. Findlay received 2,565 votes, Fraser 1,187 and Gallacher 403. The new leader said the party must come together as "one united team" after what he called a bruising period. "Let us start the hard work right now to win back public trust," he said. "I want to deliver the message to people across Scotland who do not feel that anyone represents them, who are scunnered by the divisiveness and fringe obsessions of the Scottish Parliament, who feel let down and failed by politicians of every single party, including ours, who think politicians are all the same. "I feel that way - I get it, but I'm not the same." Russell Findlay was previously the party's justice spokesperson [Getty Images] Findlay said the party would change under his leadership. "We will work hard to earn your trust by doing things differently," he said. "We will be a voice for decent mainstream Scotland and the values of hard work, self-reliance, and value for taxpayers." He said voters wanted to see "common sense for a change" and that he was determined to deliver it. The party's new leader now faces a busy few days. A ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of devolution is being held at the Scottish Parliament on Saturday, with Findlay due to make a speech before the King and Queen. He will then need to head to the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, where he will undertake a number of engagements. Appointments of his frontbench team are expected to take place next week. 'Rearranging the deckchairs' SNP MSP Kevin Stewart said "the face of Tory politics in Scotland" may now have changed, but accused Russell Findlay of having no "desire to stand up for Scotlands interests". He said: "The Tories head into their party conference totally divided and distracted by infighting. "They have finally managed to swap out one of two lame duck leaders - but defeated Rishi Sunak is still pulling the strings until November, as what feels like the longest leadership contest in history rumbles on." Scottish Labour's deputy leader, Dame Jackie Baillie, said this year's election had shown that voters wanted change. "Rearranging the deckchairs will do nothing to stop the Tories' downward slide after 14 years of letting Scotland down. "The Tories still owe Scots an apology for gambling with families' savings, crashing the economy and sending bills soaring while putting party before country." A 'fractious' campaign The leadership election was triggered when Douglas Ross announced he was standing down as leader following his decision to contest the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East seat at Westminster, replacing former MP David Duguid, who was recovering from a spinal stroke. The decision angered MSPs and party members after Ross had previously said he would stand down from Westminster to focus on Holyrood. He was forced to announce in the midst of the general election campaign that he would quit as leader after polling day. Speaking on the BBC's Good Morning Scotland radio programme on Friday, election expert Prof Sir John Curtice said the campaign had been "fractious", after a period when the party had seen its support falling away. "We're talking about a party that has got just over 12.5% of the vote in the general election, its worst performance ever," he said. LATEST: Crimean bridge defenses being bolstered by underwater drone traps, according to reports. Russia is building a new but unidentified structure near the Crimean Bridge, Navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk said on national television on Sept. 26. The purpose of the construction is not yet currently known for certain, Pletenchuk said, adding that it is unlikely to be completed "this season." "It could be a defense structure, it could be another crossing, but it's a bit early to draw conclusions," he added. Construction on the 19-kilometer-long bridge began after the illegal occupation of Crimea in 2014 and was completed in 2018. The bridge connects the Russian mainland with the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula and became a critical supply route for Russian forces after the launch of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Pletenchuk said that no matter what the structure is, deteriorating weather conditions as winter approaches will make it difficult to complete. "They are constantly trying to place something new in the Kerch Strait, to build various hydrotechnical or barrier structures. But periodically they end up on the shore after another storm," he said. The bridge was heavily damaged by Ukrainian strikes in October 2022 and July 2023. Following these attacks, Russian proxies further fortified the bridge with underwater barriers. Russian proxy authorities in occupied Crimea regularly shut down traffic on the bridge amid reports of explosions and drone strikes. According to Ukraine's Navy, destroying the Crimean Bridge now would not have the same effect now because Russia barely uses it for military purposes anymore. Vasyl Maliuk, head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), did not rule out that Russia may try to use the structure for weapons supplies again after it is fully restored. The Crimean Bridge is currently the subject of a dispute between Ukraine and Russia at the Permanent Court of Arbitration Speaking there on Sept. 23, Ambassador-at-Large at the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Anton Korynevych, said Russia "wants to take the Sea of Azov and Kerch Strait for itself." "So it has built a great gate at their entrance, to keep international shipping out while allowing small Russian river vessels in," he said, adding: "The bridge is unlawful, and it must come down." Read also: Crimean Bridge must come down, Ukraine says at Permanent Court of Arbitration Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. A total of 4 people were killed and 11 others injured as a result of Russian attacks on Donetsk Oblast on 26 September. Source: Vadym Filashkin, Head of Donetsk Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram Quote from Filashkin: "On 26 September, the Russians killed four residents of Donetsk Oblast: two in Toretsk and one each in Chasiv Yar and Siversk. Another 11 people in the oblast were injured during the day." Photo: Vadym Filashkin on telegram Details: Filashkin stressed that the Russians fired on Pokrovsk, Kramatorsk and Bakhmut districts. One person was killed and two houses were damaged in Siversk. Two people were killed and two more wounded in Toretsk, and a house was damaged. In Chasiv Yar, one person was killed and three sustained injuries. In addition, 11 houses, a multi-storey building and a non-residential building were damaged there. Photo: Vadym Filashkin on telegram The Russian attacks wounded a man and damaged 10 houses in Kurakhivka. A man was wounded and seven houses were damaged in Myrnohrad. Two more people were injured and an administrative building was damaged in Pokrovsk. The Russians also bombarded Kurakhove, Trudove, Dachne, Dalne and Sontsivka. Photo: Vadym Filashkin on telegram Russian attacks destroyed three houses in Nove and damaged two in Kryva Luka and one in Ozerne. The Russians destroyed eight houses and damaged 75 more in Raihorodok. They hit 10 facilities in Tarasivka. Moreover, five houses and two infrastructure facilities were struck in Kostiantynivka, and a house and a power transmission line were hit in Viroliubivka. Photo: Vadym Filashkin on telegram Quote from Filashkin: "The Russians fired 27 times at populated areas in Donetsk Oblast over the last 24 hours. A total of 1,548 people, including 51 children, have been evacuated." Background: It was reported earlier that a 48-year-old man had been killed in a Russian attack on a residential area of Chasiv Yar on 26 September. Support UP or become our patron! DigiCert, a leading global provider of digital trust, today announced the results of the inaugural DigiCert Quantum Readiness Awards. Cloudflare (NYSE: NET), the leading connectivity cloud company, won the prestigious honour, while Migros, one of the largest retail companies in Switzerland, and DXC Technology, a leading global technology service provider, were selected as finalists by the judges. The awards ceremony took place during DigiCerts World Quantum Readiness Day, a virtual event dedicated to raising awareness about the threats quantum computing poses and the steps companies should take now to prepare. Cloudflare's journey towards post-quantum cryptography excellence started with experimentations in 2017, to deploying advanced algorithms to its services in 2022, to today providing broad post-quantum encryption support for free by default across its products and services to help customers secure their websites, APIs, cloud tools, and remote employees against future threats. Cloudflare has set a benchmark in the industry. Their proactive community-first approach, which includes open-sourcing implementations and extensive collaborations with industry partners, has significantly contributed to global standardization efforts. Cloudflares strategy of forming a dedicated task force to facilitate the company-wide transition to secure both internal and external connections against quantum threats showcases a commitment to innovation and security. Cloudflare's leadership in this field was further underscored by its commitment made at the 2023 Summit for Democracy to make post-quantum cryptography available for free, solidifying its role as a pioneer in promoting a safer Internet for the future. "Cloudflare recognized early on that it was necessary to get our systems ready for the undefined time at which quantum computers would become a threat to cryptography," said John Graham-Cumming, Chief Technology Officer at Cloudflare. "We made a commitment to post-quantum readiness in 2017 through the work of our Research team. We began working and doing experiments, and the result is this Quantum Readiness Award and the fact that all of our customers have post-quantum cryptography available today." This year's honorees were selected by an expert panel of judges, including: Blair Canavan, Director, Alliances PQC Portfolio, Thales Tim Hollebeek, Industry Technology Strategist, DigiCert Dr. Ali El Kaafarani, CEO, PQShield Bill Newhouse, Cybersecurity Engineer & Project Lead, National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, NIST Alan Shimel, CEO, TechStrong Group Hugh Thompson, Chairman, RSAC Quantum computing presents both an unprecedented opportunity and a significant threat to the current encryption standards that enable security, trust and online privacy. It is encouraging to see many of the applicant companies leaning into this very important transformation to quantum agility in order to protect data and infrastructure, said Dr Hugh Thompson, RSAC Chairman and Quantum Readiness Award judge. On behalf of the judging panel, we are excited to see Migros, DXC Technology, and, of course, the winner, Cloudflare, recognized for their efforts in acting with haste on this critical move to quantum-resistant cryptography. Most enterprises (61%) report being unprepared for the threat posed by quantum computing. The DigiCert Quantum Readiness Awards recognizes organizations that are at the forefront of safeguarding digital security in the quantum era. These leaders are setting an example for what it means to be quantum-ready, demonstrating exceptional innovation in addressing quantum challenges. DigiCert Quantum Readiness Awards underscore the importance of collaborative efforts in developing robust defences against the looming quantum threats. As quantum computing technology continues to advance, DigiCert remains committed to supporting organizations worldwide in their journey toward quantum preparedness. For more information about the Quantum Readiness Awards and World Quantum Readiness Day, please visit DigiCert's website. About DigiCert DigiCert is a leading global provider of digital trust, enabling individuals and businesses to engage online with the confidence that their footprint in the digital world is secure. DigiCert ONE, the platform for digital trust, provides organizations with centralized visibility and control over a broad range of public and private trust needs, securing websites, enterprise access and communication, software, identity, content and devices. DigiCert pairs its award-winning software with its industry leadership in standards, support and operations, and is the digital trust provider of choice for leading companies around the world. For more information, visit www.digicert.com or follow on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/digicert-inc-/. We have explosions all the time here in Kent: Residents appear indifferent to their potentially explosive new neighbour - Christopher Pledger So the bomb ship is over that way, is it? asks 81-year-old Margate resident Pat Smith, squinting out towards the Dover Strait. All we can see, from the plastic-paned windows of our promenade shelter, is the rain slicing sideways into choppy grey waves. But somewhere out there in the squall bobs the Ruby, a Maltese-flagged cargo ship carrying twenty thousand tonnes of potentially explosive ammonium nitrate fertiliser that set off from Russia in July. This is seven times the quantity of the same substance, I tell Pat, that wreaked havoc in Beirut in the summer of 2020, when a major explosion in the citys port caused at least 218 deaths, 7,000 injuries, and $15 billion in property damage, as well as leaving an estimated 300,000 people homeless. She just nods. Thing is, love, we have explosions all the time here in Kent. She reminds me that they keep finding bombs from the war in the sea here anyway. Only two months ago a huge plume of brine was sent skywards when bomb disposal experts detonated an old mine which fishermen found just up the coast at Herne Bay. I encounter the young, hipster version of Pats indifference at the Turner Contemporary Gallery just up the prom. The military are always testing missiles here, a staff member explains, looking out casually towards the horizon through walls of the glass cube building. They send those bombs into the sea here from Essex. Our desks shake. The walls shake. Its a reliable kind of thunder. A bit annoying but you get used to it. This Ruby ship just sounds like more of the same, right? Throughout the few hours I spend in Margate, I struggle to find anybody concerned about the floating could-be bomb anchored on the towns horizon. Will it take out the seagulls if it blows? questions one local. But most people just raise their palms and crack on with their days. The cargo ship is floating three kilometres outside British waters north of Margate, east of the Thames Estuary - James Bell / Alamy Live News A few are more worried, however. In the Barnacle pub, Richard Martin, 62, tells me that the community Facebook group has been keeping an eye on their potentially explosive visitor. He sinks his half pint and scrolls through the 143 comments on a post about the ship. Some are jokes dont light up tonight! and send it up the Thames to the Houses of Parliament! but others see locals debating its presence offshore. Former Royal Navy serviceman John Patterson warns his neighbours that this is the same ship that was ordered out of Tromso Norway last week. Norway had the right idea. To top it up its got damage to its rudder and hull as it ran aground as it left Russia with cargo and is trying to seek a port to have repairs done. Its trying to head back to Malta where it comes from. The rumours of damage are true. The ship does appear to have been damaged in a storm after leaving Russia. Norways Maritime Authority told the BBC the vessel was inspected by DNV Group, a leading organisation in maritime risk assessment and certification, to ensure it met safety and environmental standards. Though the group found damage to the vessels hull, propeller and rudder, the Ruby was still deemed seaworthy. But the DNV Group, and the Maltese flag registry, insisted that a precautionary tug escort the vessel for the remainder of its journey. The ship was bound for Klaipeda, in Lithuania, according to ship tracking firm MarineTraffic. But the BBC reported it was denied entry to Klaipeda because of its cargo. Its current destination is listed as Marsaxlokk, in Malta. At Margates RNLI shop the staff admit that theyre concerned. If that cargo explodes, then what happens here? Does the explosion cause some sort of tsunami that wipes us all out? Or is it just another big bang well forget about? If the ship detonates, no doubt youll get a big wave, says Andrea Sella, a Professor of Chemistry at UCL. Beirut is the key example of that with one medium sized boat being dumped onto the dock. But its the pressure wave above the water that does the real damage miles away, at the very least blowing out windows and in some cases bringing whole buildings down. That said, if they dont burn the ship, the risk of such a disaster is pretty low. The national maritime emergency service has said it will monitor the ships progress as it heads through UK waters, with vessels not permitted to seek permission from authorities to do so, provided their purpose is legitimate. Sella concedes that there are plenty of concerns about ammonium nitrate (a major component of the explosive ANFO) because of its rather disastrous history. But he doesnt believe Margate residents should evacuate in a panic. Ammonium nitrate is produced in the tens of millions of tonnes each year, and is shipped round the world because it is so widely used as a component of fertiliser. And then theres its use as an industrial explosive, normally mixed with diesel. So there are large quantities being moved around all the time. This stuff will be pure. The explosion in Beirut, Sella argues, was down to poor storage it was left for years in a warehouse. And then the warehouse was also used to store fireworks. I cannot think of a more lethal combination since all of the ammonium nitrate incidents have been initiated by a fire of some kind at high temperature, ammonium nitrate decomposes to gaseous products and how rapidly that happens determines the kind of bang that youll get. The explosions in Tianjin [in northern China in 2015] were similarly initiated by poor storage alongside highly flammable materials, including cylinders of acetylene. In Waco [Texas, in 2013] too, a fire in a fertiliser storage facility led to an explosion that caused severe damage to nearby housing and a school. Professor Sella believes that the Rubys consignment is probably at fairly low risk of explosion. What about the risk of spillage? Not a major problem, he says. Unlike an oil spill, the material is not toxic. Think of it like fertiliser obviously 20,000 tonnes of fertiliser spilled in one place could be bad local news, and you might get serious local disruption from algal blooms, I suspect. It dissolves in water and washes away, so in a sense youd end up with a similar problem to the issue of nitrogen fertiliser waste that washes off agricultural land but just much more localised.It leads to unwanted algal growth and certain bacteria will convert it to nitrous oxide which is a greenhouse gas. But these are not acute short-term problems. The issue of dumping too much nitrogen fertiliser onto land, is unquestionably a contributor to the large greenhouse footprint of agriculture. Ruby, a Maltese-flagged cargo ship, set off from Russia in July Sella isnt an expert on how ammonium nitrate is transported. But he explains that the product is produced as prills, little pellets that pour rather easily. These might Im speculating be poured into large polyester-type bags that can be lifted by a crane, several hundred kilos at a time and then stacked either in containers or on pallets. If these lie around and the materials are warmed and cooled and subjected to moisture they can compact quite significantly into a big rock [which was one of the problems in Oppau and also in Beirut]. It seems likely that the ammonium nitrate being shipped will be relatively new so probably not caked. But it would be interesting to know what the nature of the repairs might be as clearly welding might significantly raise the potential fire risk, says Sella. Some have suggested that the ship should be returned to port, but towing a ship back round the top of Norway sounds challenging, and the weather and sailing conditions arent going to improve. With these caveats in place, Sella has reassuring news for the seemingly blase inhabitants of Margate. He thinks that barring a blaze on board, the cargo isnt going to do very much. So Pat can eat her chips in peace. Although she is right to wonder where the ship and its cargo will end up. Sella suspects the Rubys owners would probably be wise to think seriously about off-loading the material without bringing it into port. Who will pay for it becomes a rather interesting question, as is the question of the extent to which Malta will take its responsibility as the nominal home country. Meanwhile back in Margate, a seagull finishes Pats chips. Hope you stay on land and dont get caught up in any big bangs out there, she nods, affectionately, at the bird. Oh, well all be fine! 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 Tom Balmforth and Yuliia Dysa KYIV (Reuters) - Russian forces stationed in the southern border region of Rostov fired the missile that killed Reuters safety adviser Ryan Evans and wounded two of the agency's journalists when it struck a hotel in eastern Ukraine last month, four Ukrainian security sources said. Ukraine's intelligence services, in previously unreported details of the Aug. 24 attack shared with Reuters, said the missile was launched from a site close to Taganrog, a Russian city on the coast of the Sea of Azov near the Ukrainian border. The intelligence services said there were two Russian units operating close to the launch site at that time: the 1st Guards rocket brigade of the 49th Army and the 107th Guards rocket brigade of the 35th Army. The Ukrainian military's general staff, in separate written responses to Reuters' questions, said that there was also a third unit near Taganrog that could have conducted the strike: the 47th rocket brigade of the 8th Army. The general staff's statement said a Russian Iskander 9M723 ballistic missile was fired from the area at around 22:28 (1928 GMT) and struck the Sapphire Hotel in Kramatorsk, where the Reuters team was staying, seven minutes later. The general staff said the Iskander-M is accurate to within 30 metres of its intended target. However, it said it had no information that Russia had deliberately designated the Sapphire as a priority target nor any intercepts that could shed light on why the hotel was struck. In a written response to Reuters' questions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that they were for the armed forces to answer. "For our part, we can repeat once again our armed forces strike only at objects directly or indirectly connected with the military infrastructure," Peskov added. Russia's defence ministry did not reply to Reuters' written questions. Neither the Ukrainian intelligence services nor the general staff statement explained how they traced the launch site to Taganrog. Nor did they specify which of the brigades was responsible for the attack. Reuters sent a written request for comment to commanders of the 107th rocket brigade, via an officer serving in the unit, but received no response. The news agency also called a number officially listed for the 1st rocket brigade and was connected to a duty officer, but he ended the call when the reporter introduced herself. The duty officer who answered the telephone at the 47th brigade headquarters, when asked by Reuters if the unit was involved in the attack on the Sapphire Hotel, said: "That's impossible". The officer, who did not give his name, referred further questions to his commander. The brigade's commander, Vitaly Bobyr, initially engaged in an exchange of messages with a Reuters reporter on the Telegram messaging platform but, when told about the nature of the inquiry, said it was a wrong number. DETAILED ANALYSIS Images of the hotel taken by Reuters correspondents after the attack showed that Evans' room on the first floor of the northwestern corner of the building bore the brunt of the strike, causing it to collapse into the basement. Six other rooms were badly damaged by the blast, the images showed. Evans, a 38-year-old former British soldier who had worked as a safety adviser for Reuters since 2022, was killed instantly. Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey, a videographer for the news agency who was in a room across the corridor, was seriously wounded. Kyiv-based text correspondent Dan Peleschuk was also injured and was led to safety by rescuers through the dark, debris-strewn kitchen and banquet hall. The remaining three members of the Reuters team escaped with minor cuts and scratches. Thomas Peter, a Kyiv-based senior photographer, exited through the smashed, first-floor window and climbed down a drainpipe to the ground. "The whole room was full of rubble and glass and dust," said Peter. "The wall with the door had completely caved in." A leading forensics laboratory in Ukraine, the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise (KSRIFE), which studied images of the missile wreckage taken by the Reuters team in the wake of the attack, concluded it was most likely a Russian Iskander-M. Two Western military experts, shown the images, also said it was likely an Iskander. Ukraine does not possess these weapons. Anastasiia Medvedeva, spokeswoman for the Donetsk region prosecutor's office which is involved in investigating Russian attacks in the province, said their main line of inquiry was whether Russian forces had targeted the hotel. Medvedeva did not specify why the hotel may have been the target. Prosecutors were also looking at the possibility that Russia had deliberately attacked the group of journalists, she said. On Aug. 28, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova referred to the attack on the Sapphire in a regular news briefing in Moscow and said, without providing evidence, that Evans was a former employee of Britain's foreign intelligence service MI6. "We know perfectly well that there are no former intelligence officers," she said. "...Western intelligence services are effectively guiding the media outlets they control to spearhead anti-Russia information campaigns." A Reuters spokesperson said the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman's comments were "factually incorrect". "Ryan was not a former MI6 employee. Reuters remains true to its Trust Principles of independence, integrity and freedom from bias, working relentlessly to bring news from the source across all corners of the globe. "We continue to seek more information about the attack and are supporting our colleagues and their families at this terrible time," the spokesperson said. NO MILITARY IN HOTEL The missile slammed into the hotel at 22:35, three minutes after the Ukrainian air force published an alert on the Telegram messaging app to followers in the eastern part of Ukraine that warned of a ballistic missile threat. Yuriy Ihnat, a colonel in the air force, which tracks incoming Russian missiles and drones, told Reuters that on the night of the attack, Ukrainian radars detected a single missile in the airspace of Donetsk region, where Kramatorsk is located. He said the projectile appeared to be a short-range Iskander-M missile launched from Rostov region. Kramatorsk, which lies some 20 km from the frontline, is comfortably within striking distance for Iskander systems based in Taganrog, some 190 km (120 miles) to the southeast. The missiles have a maximum range of 500 km. A U.S. official, who declined to be identified, said that Russia was responsible for firing the missile, but he did not elaborate on how the information was obtained, nor provide further details. According to the Ukrainian general staff, the Ukrainian military had not used the Sapphire Hotel or the buildings around it to house soldiers in the past. The Reuters team saw no sign of other people staying in the 12-room hotel in the run-up to the strike apart from a watchman. Since Russia's February 2022 invasion, the hotel operated only for journalists and at the discretion of its management, according to its owner Yuriy Aliyev. Reservations were made by telephone with the administrator, he added. Several other people, including a Ukrainian soldier, were injured by the strike, according to an initial report by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the country's main internal security agency, reviewed by Reuters. They included the watchman, a civilian at home nearby and the soldier, who the SBU said was not in the hotel at the time of the strike. The three told Reuters they did not want to be identified. The soldier said he was walking in the street near the hotel when the missile hit. Polish journalist Monika Andruszewska was also lightly injured while in a car near the hotel at the time of the attack, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which Reuters confirmed. She wrote on social media that she sustained cuts to her hand. (Additional reporting by Polina Nikolskaya and Anton Zverev in London, Maria Tsvetkova in New York and Jonathan Landay in Washington; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Daniel Flynn) Editor's note: This story is being updated. A Russian missile struck a district police department in the city of Kryvyi Rih in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Governor Serhii Lysak reported on Sept. 27. One woman was killed and at least six men were injured, according to Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the city's military administration. Three more people may be trapped under the rubble, he added. The bodies of a woman and a man were pulled from the rubble around 4:30 p.m. local time, Lysak reported. Search and rescue operations at the site are ongoing. An explosion was reported in Kryvyi Rih shortly after an air raid alert sounded. Kryvyi Rih, with a population of around 660,000, is the second-largest city in Dnipropetrovsk Oblas. It has suffered multiple deadly attacks by Russian forces since the outbreak of the full-scale war. At least 53 people were injured in the Russian missile attack on Kryvyi Rih on July 8. The strike also killed 10 people, local authorities said. Read also: Russian attacks against Ukraine kill 8, injure 49 over past day Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. A Russian teen got 15 years in prison for donating crypto to a pro-Ukraine paramilitary unit: report A Russian teen got 15 years in prison for donating crypto to a pro-Ukraine paramilitary unit: report A Russian teen was given 15 years for donating to the Freedom of Russia Legion, local media reported. Danila Yakovlev in Siberia had donated $54 to the organization, a source told Mediazona. He was found guilty of treason and financing terrorism, court records show. A Russian 19-year-old was sentenced to 15 years in prison for donating to a pro-Ukrainian paramilitary unit, independent outlet Mediazona reported. Danila Yakovlev, from Biysk, a city in the Altai Krai border region, was also fined 100,000 rubles, or about $1,082, and is set to serve 13 years of his sentence in a maximum-security penal colony, per the outlet. An unnamed source familiar with Yakovlev's case told the outlet that Yakovlev had donated a "very small amount" of about 5,000 rubles, or $54. Russian security services said they arrested a 19-year-old in January on the accusation of sending money to an anti-Kremlin organization. The FSB did not publicize his name at the time, but a video of the arrest circulating online showed Yakovlev saying his name as agents detained him. Russian daily Kommersant reported at the time that the teen had tried sending the funds via cryptocurrency. It also reported that the beneficiary organization was the Freedom of Russia Legion, a paramilitary group that has repeatedly attacked and sabotaged military assets within Russian borders for Ukraine's cause. The Russian Supreme Court has designated the group as a terrorist organization. After Yakovlev's arrest in January, footage emerged online of federal agents entering an apartment to detain a young man, who identifies himself in the video as the 19-year-old. Court records don't provide details on Yakovlev's punishment but show that he was sentenced on September 20 in Russia's 2nd Eastern Military District Court after several hearings in the last two months. Yakovlev was found guilty of treason and financing terrorism, the records show. Mediazona reported that Yakovlev originally faced charges for multiple attempts to finance terrorism, but that several were dropped because many of his transactions had failed. Yakovlev isn't the first Russian citizen to be sentenced to over 10 years in prison for donating to pro-Ukraine groups. In August, 33-year-old amateur ballerina Ksenia Khavana was reported by Russian media to have been sentenced to 12 years in prison for donating $51 to a charity supporting Ukraine. Their cases come after Russian leader Vladimir Putin signed a law in April 2023, increasing the maximum sentence for treason from 20 years to life in prison. Read the original article on Business Insider While most of the heavy fighting in Ukraine is concentrated in the Donetsk region, Russia continues to push toward the city of Kupiansk in Kharkiv Oblast. Located about 60 miles east of Kharkiv City, it is a regional administrative headquarters and sits astride a key railway. Russian forces are now less than five miles to the northeast and less than 10 miles to the southeast. The Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff reported 20 battles in the area on Friday and claimed its forces repelled Russian advance attempts on the nearby towns of Sinkivka, Glushkivka, Lozova, Stelmakhivka and Kolisnikivka. The Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) said units of its Zapad Group of Forces took more advantageous lines and positions as well as inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of the 3rd Tank Brigade and the 14th, 44th, 53rd, 63rd, 66th Mechanized Brigades. Elimination of the temporary deployment point of the 14th Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Kupiansk As a result of the shelling, the following were neutralized: brigade headquarters; temporary deployment point with personnel; 5 vehicles for pic.twitter.com/mYddimDM9o Uncensored News (@uncensorednews9) September 27, 2024 Russian forces are attempting to encircle the Kharkiv Oblast city of Kupiansk. (DeepState) A Ukrainian drone unit said it repelled a large mechanized attack in the Pischany district, about 12 miles southeast of Kupiansk. That town is in the middle of a Russian pincer movement approaching Kupiansk from the north and south. About 50 units of Russian armored vehicles with amphibious assault were moving in the direction of Kolesnikivka and Kruglyakivka, Yurii Fedorenko, commander of the ACHILLES assault battalion of the 92nd Assault Brigade, claimed on Telegram. A video released by the unit shows about two dozen Russian armored vehicles and trucks being destroyed by first-person view (FPV) drones. 92nd Brigade repels yesterdays big Russian attack on the Kup'yans'k front. Russians used 50 AFVs for this attack. From which 5 BMPs; 3 tanks; 1 BTR; 1 MT-LB were destroyed. 10 tanks; 10 BMPs; 1 ARV; 3 MT-LB were damaged. https://t.co/MJh1U35Gfn pic.twitter.com/lFrVZG45yE Special Kherson Cat (@bayraktar_1love) September 27, 2024 Ukrainian drones also attacked ground troops. Drones of the 14th Brigade at work. Kupiansk direction. pic.twitter.com/QCXBCffx3K (@TheDeadDistrict) September 26, 2024 The Russian push toward Kupiansk has gone on since May. In August we reported that city officials evacuated more than 11,000 people. On Friday, Kharkiv Regional State Administrator Oleg Synegubov stated on Telegram that schools, apartment buildings, and homes were destroyed or damaged by Russian glide bombs, artillery, and drones. A home in the Kupiansk region burns after a Russian attack. (Oleg Synegubov Telegram) The Russian offensive in Kharkiv has created a cascading series of problems for Ukraine. It rushed troops from the Donbas to defend it, leaving that region more exposed. Back in September 2022, Ukraine liberated Kupiansk as part of its stunning and successful offensive in that region. It was a high point for the nation a half-year after Russia launched its all-out invasion. While its fall does not appear imminent, the fact that Kupiansk is again under siege is another troubling sigh of Ukraines hard-fought gains being eroded. The Latest Elsewhere on the battlefield, Russian forces continue to push forward in eastern Ukraine, where towns like Pokrovsk, Toretsk and Vuhledar remain in peril. According to the Institute for the Study of Wars (ISW) latest assessment, Russian forces recently advanced east and southeast of Pokrovsk amid continued offensive operations near Pokrovsk on September 26. Ukrainian forces maintain positions in Vuhledar and Kostyantynivka amid continued Russian offensive operations southwest of Donetsk City on September 26. The Ukrainian brigade defending in Vuhledar reported that Ukrainian forces are maintaining positions in the settlement in response to recent Western reporting to the contrary. In Kharkiv Oblast, Russian forces recently reportedly made marginal advances north of Kharkiv City, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in the northern part of that region on September 26. There were no gains made in Luhansk Oblast either. In Russias Kursk region, Ukrainian forces continued ground assaults in Glushkovsky Raion, Kursk Oblast on September 26 but did not make any confirmed advances. NEW | Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 26, 2024: Germany, France, and the United States announced several immediate and more long-term aid packages for Ukraine on September 25 and 26. 1/3 Full report: https://t.co/Dz3zs74Zct pic.twitter.com/dJTYh9deKv Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) September 26, 2024 With Vuhledar on the verge of being captured, Russia struck it with an incendiary attack. The video below shows what could possibly be streams of thermite cascading down like a burning blizzard. Thermite is a combination of oxidized iron and aluminum that burns at about 4,440 degrees Fahrenheit. It has recently been in the news thanks to Ukraine using it on Russian troops via so-called Dragon Drones. The Economist painted a stark picture of Ukraines fate in this conflict. In theory, Ukraine remains determined to reclaim all its lost territory, restoring the borders it inherited when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the publication explained. That would entail the reconquest not only of the Russian-occupied bits of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhia provinces, but also of Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014. But that is far out of reach militarily. In practice, the war has become one of attrition, with both sides hoping they can outlast the other, or at least fend the other off for long enough to avoid being forced into a disadvantageous peace agreement. Our cover story this week, on the state of the war. "Those older than 60, who do not risk being drafted, are much more gung-ho about the war than the young: 54% of them believe that Ukraine is winning, compared to 31% of those between 18 and 25." https://t.co/vfEFQsJ5D9 pic.twitter.com/25WI0Z6bmT Shashank Joshi (@shashj) September 27, 2024 Russian forces again attacked the Danube River city of Izmail and other areas in the region. The Russians launched attack drones in the south of our region, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram. The work of the air defense forces was long and intense. Unfortunately, three people died as a result of the attack: and 11 people were injured, including one child. Private and apartment buildings, outbuildings, buildings, cars were damaged, he added.As a result of the attack, several fires broke out, which were promptly extinguished by our firefighters. Law enforcement officials record the consequences of the terrorist act of the Russians. People are provided with all necessary assistance. Overnight Russia attacked port city of Izmail on the River Danube #NATO country #Romania is on the other side of the river. #Ukraine reports a Russian kamikaze drone entered Romania during the attack. Three Ukrainians were killed & 12 injured homes & commercial buildings hit. pic.twitter.com/bundxozeH3 Glasnost Gone (@GlasnostGone) September 27, 2024 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky brought his victory plan pitch to former president and current GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York on Friday. During a pre-meeting press conference, Trump once again said he could end the war in Ukraine and that he has good relations with both Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Standing next to Zelensky, Trump said hes ready to work out a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, CNN noted, emphasizing his good relationship with Putin. So, were going to sit down (to) just discuss it, and if we have a win, I think long before I, before January 20, before I would take the presidency its January 20 but long before that, I think that we can work out something thats good for both sides. Its time, Trump added. By the way, the president (Zelensky) knows that too. He wants to get something done. He doesnt want to do this. I think we have common view that the war in Ukraine has to be stopped, and Putin cant win, and Ukraine has to prevail, and I want to discuss with you the details about that, Zelensky said. The meeting took place even after Trump, openly skeptical about providing additional aid to Ukraine, mocked Zelensky. While Zelensky has yet to release the plan, it is said to include requests for ongoing Ukrainian security guarantees as well for additional long-range weapons and the permission to use them deep in Russia. After the meeting, Zelensky expressed gratitude toward Trump, calling their meeting very productive. He added that the two men thoroughly reviewed the situation in Ukraine and the consequences of the war for Ukrainians. I had a very productive meeting with @realDonaldTrump. I presented him our Victory Plan, and we thoroughly reviewed the situation in Ukraine and the consequences of the war for our people. Many details were discussed. I am grateful for this meeting. A just peace is needed. We pic.twitter.com/33t0kghTle Volodymyr Zelenskyy / (@ZelenskyyUa) September 27, 2024 On Thursday, Zelensky shared his victory plan with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. I shared the details of the Victory Plan with Vice President @KamalaHarris. It is very important for us to be fully understandable and work in full coordination with the United States. We must end this war and achieve a just peace. We must protect our people Ukrainian pic.twitter.com/ihS1JrAzKk Volodymyr Zelenskyy / (@ZelenskyyUa) September 26, 2024 After the meeting, Harris bashed Republican calls for Ukraine to end the war even if it means giving up large amounts of its territory. VP Harris points out that "there are some in my country who [want] to force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territorythese proposals are the same as those of Putin. Let us be be clear. They are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender" pic.twitter.com/N6oFYvH1Hm Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 26, 2024 Putin once again broached his nations use of nuclear weapons. During a meeting of the Russian Federation Security Council standing conference on nuclear deterrence, Putin announced a draft proposal for changes to his countrys nuclear doctrine. It includes the possibility of using nuclear weapons in the event of a massive launch of non-nuclear weapons against Russia. He did not mention Ukraine but inferred that actions taken by Kyiv and its allies could push Moscow over the nuclear threshold. The updated version of the document is supposed to regard an aggression against Russia from any non-nuclear state but involving or supported by any nuclear state as their joint attack against the Russian Federation, Putin said. The proposal also states clearly the conditions for Russias transition to the use of nuclear weapons. Under the plan, Russia will consider using nuclear weapons once we receive reliable information about a massive launch of air and space attack weapons and their crossing our state border. I mean strategic and tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, UAVs, hypersonic and other aircraft. Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against Russia and Belarus as a member of the Union State. All these issues have been agreed upon with the Belarusian side and the President of Belarus. Including the case when the enemy, using conventional weapons, creates a critical threat to our sovereignty. In conclusion, Putin said, I will note that all the updates have been deeply calibrated and are measured against contemporary military threats and risks to the Russian Federation. Putin suggests changes to Russia's nuclear doctrine. "An aggression by a non-nuclear state with the participation of a nuclear state is proposed to be considered as their joint attack on Russia," Putin said during a Security Council meeting.https://t.co/qjarQjQoEy The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) September 25, 2024 One analyst suggested that Putins announcement falls between cheap talk and state-sponsored rhetoric. Russian nuclear use is not imminent posited Fabian Hoffmann, a Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oslo. Concern is warranted only when Russia signals actual preparations. A quick comment on the recent announcement from Moscow regarding the proposed doctrine change. I categorize Russian nuclear threats into four levels of credibility: 1. Cheap Talk: This includes statements from figures like Medvedev or eccentric talk show guests fantasizing pic.twitter.com/hc0mmfgGUw Fabian Hoffmann (@FRHoffmann1) September 25, 2024 Russia has established a weapons program in China to develop and produce long-range attack drones for use in the war against Ukraine, Reuters reported. The news outlet cited two sources from a European intelligence agency and documents it reviewed. IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned arms company Almaz-Antey, has developed and flight-tested a new drone model called Garpiya-3 (G3) in China with the help of local specialists, according to one of the documents, a report that Kupol sent to the Russian defense ministry earlier this year outlining its work, according to Reuters. "Russia has established a weapons programme in China to develop and produce long-range attack drones for use in the war against Ukraine, according to two sources from a European intelligence agency and documents reviewed by Reuters. IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Russian https://t.co/OrD5tAAoKe pic.twitter.com/FhRTYFCPDl Rob Lee (@RALee85) September 25, 2024 During his speech at the U.N., Zelensky said that Russia continues to target his nations power infrastructure. As of today, Russia has destroyed all our thermal power plants and a large part of our hydroelectric capacity, he decried. This is how Putin is preparing for winter, hoping to torment millions of Ukrainians. Zelenskyy: "As of today, Russia has destroyed all our thermal power plants and a large part of our hydroelectric capacity. This is how Putin is preparing for winter, hoping to torment millions of Ukrainians." pic.twitter.com/WIrOPEc5ZF UNITED24 Media (@United24media) September 25, 2024 A Russian attack drone came dangerously close to Ukraines Rivne Nuclear Power Plant (RNPP), the countrys national nuclear power company said. On the night of September 25, another flight of an attack drone was recorded at a critically low altitude near the industrial site of the Rivne NPP, Energoatom said on Telegram. Once again, Russian troops pose a threat to the nuclear safety of Ukrainian nuclear power plants. Energoatom informs the relevant institutions about each such fact, because no one has the right to violate the principles of nuclear and radiation safety. Energy terror is one of the enemys war tactics, Energoatom continued. However, it should be stopped as soon as possible. There have been concerns about dangers to Ukraines nuclear power plants since the onset of the full-scale invasion. Russian troops occupied the defunct Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant at the beginning of the war, with a fire breaking out at the latter after shelling. According to Energoatom, on the night of September 25, a Russian drone flew at a critically low altitude near the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant, continuing the threat to Ukraine's nuclear safety. Energoatom has reported these incidents to relevant authorities, emphasizing the pic.twitter.com/GHNnmFu00e NOELREPORTS (@NOELreports) September 26, 2024 As the drone wars continue, Russia has tried to confuse Ukrainian counter-drone drone operators by painting them with Ukrainian symbols and German crosses, but the ruse is apparently not fooling anyone. After more than 30 months of supporting Ukraines fight against Russia, Western allies have almost nothing left in their stockpiles, U.K.s armed forces minister said. Before crucial talks on the war at the United Nations headquarters in New York, Luke Pollard said the focus needed to be on ramping up weapons production between the West and Ukraine as part of a longer-term strategy that would keep a reliable supply of equipment heading to the country, the Times of London reported. I think most western nations have gifted most of the deployable resources they have so we are seeing a greater trading relationship being formed, said Pollard. The same article noted that the U.K.s defense secretary suggested Ukraine was running out of troops to train. The biggest constraint in training Ukrainians was Ukraine providing the personnel in order to be trained, John Healey said. "John Healey, the defence secretary, suggested that Ukraine was also running out of troops to send to the west for training. He told a fringe event at the Labour conference earlier this week that the 'biggest constraint' in training Ukrainians was 'Ukraine providing the personnel pic.twitter.com/l3IwBjHmED Rob Lee (@RALee85) September 26, 2024 In March, we told you about a new drone supposedly in use by Russian forces is claimed to act as a mothership, delivering first-person view (FPV) drones well beyond their notoriously limited range. New video has emerged showing Ukraine has the same capability, Ukrainian FPV drone being released from a "mother drone" carrier during flight. pic.twitter.com/p8jVTU1F4I Status-6 (Military & Conflict News) (@Archer83Able) September 26, 2024 Ukraine says its Avengers AI platform can automatically detect 12,000 units of enemy vehicles/equipment weekly. This result is achieved through automatic video analysis from drones and fixed cameras, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry (MoD) claimed. Avengers, developed by the MoDs Defense Innovation Center, enables operators to make decisions faster and more efficiently, reducing the risk of fatigue-related errors. This integration is already in successful operation within the VEZHA streaming module of the DELTA combat system. Thanks to artificial intelligence, defenders detect 12,000 units of Russian equipment every week, Ministry of Defense Avengers platform is unique in the world in terms of the volume of video data with enemy equipment. pic.twitter.com/8Q6C1bpOoe MAKS 24 (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) September 23, 2024 The Ukrainian Defense Ministry released video of its troops training on Rheinmetall Skynex systems. They comprise 35mm anti-aircraft turrets firing AHEAD ammunition based on an HX 66 truck chassis and integrated with an X-TAR3D acquisition radar and Skymaster battle management system. Germany has already provided Ukraine with two of them. Service members from Air Command "West" practiced shooting the Skynex anti-aircraft artillery system. We are grateful to our allies for helping to boost Ukraine's air defense capabilities. More air defense for Ukraine = more innocent lives saved. pic.twitter.com/vrKtVlTyYV Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) September 25, 2024 Ukraine is in talks with partners about obtaining Saab JAS-39 Gripen fighters and Eurofighter Typhoon jets, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov the Rada TV channel on Sep. 21. Umerov noted that Ukraine is currently discussing the necessary number of air brigades and fighter jets, according to a translation by The New Voice of Ukraine. Umerov also emphasized that while last years focus was on pilot training and building the required infrastructure, this year the priority is to secure air superiority. We already have commitments from partners for the F-16s. Consultations are ongoing regarding the Gripen and Eurofighter, Umerov said. As we previously reported, Sweden is keeping the door open for a possible transfer of Gripens, allocating $220 million in a recent aid package to Ukraine to purchase new material kits for its operational JAS-39C/D Gripen fighters. Thats so those jets wont have to be cannibalized for parts to be used in the newer Gripen-JAS-39E variants, making them potentially available to Ukraine. Last year, we examined the feasibility of the U.K. donating some of its older Typhoons to Ukraine. Gripen & Eurofighter for Ukraine? Ukraine is negotiating with its allies to receive Gripen and Eurofighter fighter jets, Ukrainan Defence Minister Umerov says. "Now we already have from our partners that they give us commitments for the F-16, they also give for the Mirage-2000. pic.twitter.com/6PMvk1ksEZ Clash Report (@clashreport) September 22, 2024 Images emerged on social media of a downed U.S.-supplied Switchblad 600 loitering munition, a tube-launched suicide drone that can take out armored vehicles. You can read more about these capabilities in this previous War Zone feature. The images show the internals of the weapon, including its armor busting shaped charge. The Army recently signed a nearly $1 billion contract with AeroVironment to procure an unspecified number of both the 600 and 300 series drones. You can read more about that here. American-supplied Ukrainian Switchblade 600 kamikaze UAV wreckage found by Russian forces. Cruises at speeds up to 115 mph with a range of 24 miles and 40 minutes of loitering endurance. Carries an anti-armor warhead similar to Javelin missile for engaging armored vehicles. pic.twitter.com/ElDaBECytt Clash Report (@clashreport) September 27, 2024 Ukrainian sappers displayed nerves of steel as they worked to disable a Russian FAB-500 glide bomb that fell into a building. In the following video, you can see one sapper pour water over the fuse as he carefully extracted it from the bomb. Ukrainian sappers defusing a Russian FAB-500 terrorist glide-bomb. They also need special equipment for carrying their giant balls around with them. pic.twitter.com/FokkDRwrWg Kvist.P (@kvistp) September 26, 2024 The Ukrainian Defense Ministry highlighted one of its Su-27 Flankers with an F-15C-like livery. Su-27 of the Ukrainian Air Force pic.twitter.com/R9Ygmb9FEG Ukrainian Air Force (@KpsZSU) September 24, 2024 In an effort to protect the twice-attack-damaged Kerch Bridge, Russia is beginning to set up Pantsir-S1 air defense systems on metal towers on Tuzla Island. Putins prized $4 billion span, linking Russia with the Crimean peninsula it occupies, is an important logistics supply route for Russian forces. As such, it remains a prime Ukrainian target. Asked during an exclusive interview last year about Ukraines intentions for the bridge, the head of its intelligence directorate (GUR) told us it is a matter of when, not if, Ukraine brings it down. Its not a question of will we strike or wont we strike, said Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov. Were doing that regularly so we will finish it. Its just an issue of time. Putin, he added, wont be able to stop it. Hell get upset once again, Budnov told us. What can he do? On the island of Tulsa, next to the Crimean bridge, the Russians began to install Pantsir-S1 air defense systems on metal towers pic.twitter.com/nf5usoXXdv MilitaryNewsUA (@front_ukrainian) September 24, 2024 Upset that his troops were using the units donated automobile to go AWOL and get drunk, a Russian commander ordered it destroyed by running a tank over it. Russian commander ordered a car donated to his unit to be ran over by an APC, because they were using it to go AWOL (Absent Without Leave) & get drunk. pic.twitter.com/qqGvIcVus9 Clash Report (@clashreport) September 24, 2024 Not all trenches are created equally. This one, built for the 120th Independent Brigade of the Territorial Defense Force, has a full underground dining room. An underground dining room of the 120th TDF brigade of ZSU. Somewhere in the north direction. pic.twitter.com/qf8FTWL9Kl (@TheDeadDistrict) September 24, 2024 Not to be outdone, this Russian unit showed off their brigade commanders very nice underground digs complete with an office, bedroom and toilet. The Russians show the dugout of their brigade commander! pic.twitter.com/uFF5YkcIdW MAKS 24 (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) September 23, 2024 A Russian soldier spent his last minutes in an outhouse which was blown up by a Ukrainian FPV drone. This Russian soldier was lucky enough to have an FPV drone fail to detonate. However, his luck ran out when the second one struck him. Life is a strange thing. Not everything always works out the first time. This time, too. The FPV drone did not detonate, flying straight to the RuZZian invader, but the second one backed it up. pic.twitter.com/jnpPEdQQXM Cloooud | (@GloOouD) September 22, 2024 Ukraines donated Bradley Fighting Vehicles have proven to be lifesavers for its troops who have survived numerous attacks. However, an abandoned Bradley offered no such protection to the Russian soldier who tried to hide under it. An FPV drone found and killed him. Bradley immobilized It was supposed to serve as a shelter for the Russians. STRIKE DRONES COMPANY. Pokrovsk pic.twitter.com/D6s9kcWY3S TOGA (@TOGAjano21) September 23, 2024 Not every encounter with a drone is deadly. The Russian soldier in the following video surrendered to Ukrainian forces via a drone. A story about an abandoned Russian fighter who surrendered to a Ukrainian drone. Video was shared by 54th Mechanized Brigade. Its long but worth every minute. pic.twitter.com/fu8cA5BhIr Ukraine Combat Footage Archive (@Bodbe6) September 22, 2024 Archival video shows two members of GUR flying over Snake Island in a gyrocopter to drop a flag on the island. After capturing the island on the first day of the war, Russia abandoned it four months later. Archive footage. Two soldiers of GUR MO on a gyroplane fly over Zmyiinyi and drop Ukrainian flag on the island! The special forces were dressed in shorts and Hawaiian shirts to disguise themselves as tourists in case of capture. pic.twitter.com/9sVPh4BcCy MAKS 24 (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) September 22, 2024 After responding to an anonymous offer of money via the Telegram messaging app, two Russian teenagers reportedly set an Mi-8 helicopter on fire in the Siberian city of Omsk. A pair of Russian teens reportedly torched a Russian Mi-8 transport helicopter in Omsk, Siberia, after receiving an anonymous offer of money via Telegram. The helicopter was severely damaged, likely a complete write-off. pic.twitter.com/eqPv5WoXUK OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) September 23, 2024 And finally, there are about 1,500 Russian troops in its small enclave of Transnistria in Moldova. One local resident decided to torment a few of those troops by using his phone to video them and singing Chervona Kalyan, a Ukrainian resistance anthem. In the temporarily occupied territories of Moldova, a brave man humiliates the Russian occupiers. pic.twitter.com/eS00w2v59U WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) September 26, 2024 Thats it for now. Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com The Russian army launched numerous attacks on the Kramatorsk and Pokrovsk districts in Donetsk Oblast, injuring seven civilians. Source: Donetsk Oblast Prosecutors Office Details: The Russians struck the Vysoko-Ivanivka district of Sloviansk hromada [a hromada is an administrative unit designating a village, several villages, or a town, and their adjacent territories ed.]. Early reports say the Russians deployed a modified UMPB D-30 multi-purpose glide bomb. A married couple sustained mine-blast injuries, a fracture and a concussion. Moreover, the Russians attacked the town of Myrnohrad, presumably from artillery, as a result of which a 51-year-old local man received penetrating wounds to the body. Russian forces also struck the town of Kostiantynivka several times. Four residents, women aged 37 and 61 and two men aged 36 and 67, were injured. They were in close proximity to commercial facilities at the time of the attack. Houses and a residential building, trade facilities, a cafe and a shop were damaged. Support UP or become our patron! Russians attack Izmail in Odesa Oblast, killing three people and injuring 14 photos Three people have been killed and 14 others injured as a result of a morning Russian strike on the city of Izmail in Odesa Oblast. Source: Oleh Kiper, Head of Odesa Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram Quote: "The enemy resorted to large-scale terror against Izmail in the early morning. The Russians launched attack drones on our oblasts southern part. The combat efforts by the air defence forces were long and intense. Sadly, three people were killed as a result of the attack: two women aged about 90 and 69 and a 73-year-old man. Eleven people were injured, including a child." Photo: State Emergency Service of Ukraine Updated: Later the SES reported that at least 12 people had been injured. The Prosecutor Generals Office reports about 14 people injured, including three children. Photo: State Emergency Service of Ukraine "At the moment we have information about three people killed and 14 injured, including three children: two boys aged three and 13 and a 14-year-old girl. Information about other people injured is being confirmed," the Prosecutor Generals Office reported. Aftermath of the Russian attack Photo: Oleh Kiper on Telegram Details: Houses and apartment buildings as well as outbuildings and vehicles were damaged as a result of the attack. Photo: State Emergency Service of Ukraine In addition, Kiper said several fires had broken out but had been quickly extinguished. Law enforcement officers have initiated a pre-trial investigation under Article 438.2 (violation of the laws and customs of war) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Background: Earlier, Ukraines Air Force reported a drone attack on Odesa Oblast on the night of 26-27 September. Explosions were heard in Izmail. Explosions also rang out in Odesa after midnight. Support UP or become our patron! The Russian forces are trying to conduct assault operations in more than 10 settlements on the Pokrovsk front, Donetsk Oblast. Source: National Guard spokesperson Colonel Ruslan Muzychuk on the air of the national joint 24/7 newscast Details: The officer noted that over the day of 26 September, a total of 187 combat engagements took place on the line of contact, which is high combat activity. Over 70 of them took place directly on the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove fronts. Quote: "Pokrovsk remains a difficult front. The enemy is trying to attack Ukrainian positions in the vicinity of more than 10 settlements, and, as our fighters note, the enemy is primarily using infantry groups (small, two to three soldiers each, sometimes five to ten), which are constantly trying to assault areas near settlements and carry out frontal attacks. They occasionally use armoured vehicles, but their main strength... is the use of artillery and aviation... in areas where the enemy concentrates its main efforts during its assaults." Details: Muzychuk noted that over the past day, the National Guard repelled 25 attempts to assault in the eastern fronts. The Russians also used armoured vehicles, including tanks. In total, 10 tanks and six pieces of other armoured vehicles were destroyed. The positions taken by the Ukrainian Armed Forces were secured, the spokesperson added. Support UP or become our patron! Russians launch missile attack on National Police headquarters in Kryvyi Rih: five people reported injured Russian troops launched a missile attack on Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, on the morning of 27 September, hitting the National Police headquarters. There are reports that five people have been injured as a result and that there may be more people trapped under the rubble. Source: National Police on Telegram, Serhii Lysak, Head of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram; Svoi Kryvyi Rih Telegram channel Quote: "At about 09:15, the enemy launched a missile attack on the district police department; it is currently known that people have been injured as a result." Details: Reports indicate that there may be people under the rubble. The attack destroyed an administrative building and damaged houses located nearby. Police and rescue workers are currently working at the scene, and law enforcement officers are documenting and collecting evidence of another Russian war crime. Updated: Later, the head of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration said that a 45-year-old man had already been hospitalised. He is in a moderate condition. An administrative building was also destroyed, and houses were damaged. Lysak reported that four men had been injured in Kryvyi Rih, two of whom had been hospitalised in a moderate condition. As of now, four people are missing. The search and rescue operation is ongoing. Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Prosecutors Office reported that the number of people who were injured as of now had increased to five. The search and rescue operation is ongoing. Support UP or become our patron! Russian forces conducted a missile strike on the city of Dnipro on the night of 26-27 September, causing damage to the premises of an industrial facility and starting a fire. Source: Serhii Lysak, Head of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram Quote: "Russian troops mounted a missile strike on Dnipro after midnight. There is severe damage at an industrial facility. A fire broke out and was extinguished by firefighters. Nobody was injured." Details: The Russians also bombarded the city of Nikopol and Marhanets hromada. In particular, they used a kamikaze drone and heavy artillery. [A hromada is an administrative unit designating a village, several villages, or a town, and their adjacent territories ed.] The Russian attack damaged infrastructure but there were no casualties. Background: Earlier, Ukraine's Air Force reported a Russian drone attack on Odesa Oblast on the night of 26-27 September. Explosions rocked the cities of Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and Odesa. Explosions also rang out in the city of Izmail in Odesa Oblast. Later in the morning, it was reported that three civilians were known to have been killed and 11 more injured in the morning Russian attack on Izmail. Support UP or become our patron! GUEST OPINION: As hybrid cloud infrastructure becomes the backbone of the modern enterprise, the threat landscape is evolving faster than ever. Increasingly sophisticated attackers, hidden vulnerabilities, and complex regulatory mandates are making it harder for IT and security teams to ensure robust protection across this intricate environment. The 2024 Gigamon Hybrid Cloud Security Survey reveals that key concerns among Security and IT leaders include unexpected blind spots, increasing attack complexity, and the rapidly shifting regulatory landscape. In fact, only 1 in 5 Australian organisations were able to effectively remediate a live threat. These existential challenges require ever-more sophisticated solutions, including the ability to look right into encrypted data. What is deep observability? Securing hybrid cloud environments is no easy task. With multiple cloud providers and a variety of security and observability tools in play, IT teams struggle to maintain seamless security while ensuring performance and compliance. End users demand uninterrupted access and superior performance, but with limited visibility into encrypted data and lateral traffic (East-West movement), meeting these expectations can be daunting. To combat these challenges, deep observability has emerged as a critical tool for IT teams. Deep observability network-derived intelligence and analytics delivered to cloud, security, and observability tools helps organisations eliminate blind spots, reduce tool costs, and improve security and management of hybrid cloud infrastructure. It unlocks the power of the cloud by providing comprehensive visibility into every layer of the network infrastructure, helping organisations pre-emptively detect security threats and performance anomalies. Key survey insights Security and IT leaders in Australia highlighted visibility challenges when assessing the current state of cybersecurity. Specifically: 76% have experienced a data breach, and 30 percent were unable to identify the root cause 70% agree that lateral (East-West) visibility is a greater priority for cloud security than North-South visibility today 89% believe that gaining visibility into encrypted traffic is critical for cloud security Why deep observability matters Deep observability is becoming a must for IT organisations aiming to stay ahead of threats and improve business agility. By harnessing network-derived intelligence, organisations can proactively mitigate risks, reduce the complexity of cloud management, and deliver a superior user experience. An advanced deep observability solution serves as a key enabler in this regard. It should integrate seamlessly with existing cloud and security tools, ensuring that hidden vulnerabilities in North-South and East-West traffic, encrypted data, and containers are uncovered. The result? Enhanced security, reduced costs, and a solid foundation for Zero Trust architecture. The benefits of deep observability are manifold. Among the most important, are: Enhanced business agility: Streamline cloud migrations and re-platforming projects by leveraging flexible solutions that supports any cloud environment. Strengthened cloud security: Eliminate security blind spots and gain full visibility into network traffic, enabling the implementation of Zero Trust principles. Reduced hybrid cloud costs: Optimise security and monitoring by reducing irrelevant traffic, cutting bandwidth and tool costs by up to 50%. In todays rapidly evolving threat landscape, deep observability offers the clarity and insights needed to secure the hybrid cloud infrastructure of tomorrow. The future of cloud security lies in proactive risk mitigation, improved visibility, and a collaborative approach between CloudOps and SecOps teams. FILE - M23 rebels stand with their weapons in Kibumba, in the eastern of Democratic Republic of Congo, Dec. 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa, File) KINSHASA, Congo (AP) Rwanda's army and a militia it backs shelled camps for displaced people in eastern Congo, Human Rights Watch said. It also accused Congo of abuses against civilians. A report by the group released Thursday said that since the beginning of the year, Rwanda's army and the M23 rebel armed group, which it supports, have indiscriminately shelled camps in eastern Congo where tens of thousands of people are sheltering. Congo's army, meanwhile, has put displaced people at increased risk by deploying artillery near the camps, the report said. Both sides have killed camp residents, committed rapes and obstructed aid, it said. Eastern Congo has struggled with armed violence as more than 120 armed groups fight for power, land and valuable mineral resources while others try to defend their communities. Some armed groups have been accused of mass killings, rapes and other human rights violations. The violence has displaced some 6 million people in the east. The March 23 Movement, or M23, is a rebel military group mainly made up of ethnic Tutsis that broke away from the Congolese army just over a decade ago. They staged a large offensive in 2012 and took over the provincial capital of Goma near the border with Rwanda, the same city they are threatening again. Congo alleges that Rwandan forces have been involved in aggression and war crimes in the east and U.S. and U.N. experts accuse it of giving military backing to M23. Rwanda denies the claim, but in February admitted that it has troops and missile systems in eastern Congo to safeguard its security, pointing to a buildup of Congolese forces near the border. In July, U.N. experts estimated that between 3,000 and 4,000 Rwanda government forces are deployed in eastern Congo alongside the M23 armed group, which has been making major advances. On Thursday, a regional court in East Africa opened proceedings in a case filed by Congo against Rwanda, accusing it of violating Congos sovereignty and territorial integrity by sending troops to help rebels in the countrys east. Earlier this week, Congos President Felix Tshisekedi called for sanctions on neighboring Rwanda for its alleged support of the M23 in his speech at the U.N. General Assembly. ___ McMakin reported from Dakar, Senegal SAC COUNTY, Iowa (KCAU) An informational town hall meeting was held in Sac County Thursday night in regards to a bond to build a new jail. The meeting took place at 7 p.m. at 107 North Main Street in Early, Iowa. There are six more meetings on the bond: Sept. 30 Odebolt Library Oct. 1 Lake View City Hall Oct. 8 Lytton fire station Oct. 9 Wall Lake community building, Oct. 10 Schaller fire station Oct. 14 Auburn community building All six will be held at 7 p.m. The Sac County Sheriffs Office is asking voters to say yes on Nov. 5 to a $10.95 million bond to construct a new jail, along with building a new addition to the current law enforcement center which will connect to the jail. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to SiouxlandProud | Sioux City, IA | News, Weather, and Sports. Its an announcement long awaited by local Republicans. Presidential candidate, Donald Trump is coming to Erie Sunday. But safety is top of mind for law enforcement officials, especially in light of two assassination attempts on the former president. From the Secret Service to local police, itll be all hands on deck when it comes to security for Trumps rally at the Bayfront Convention Center. How will Erie Co. vote this November? New post-debate poll gives insight Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will be coming to Erie Sunday. And law enforcement officials at the federal, state, and local level are collaborating on how to keep the former president and all in attendance safe. Its a large and complex situation that brings together hundreds of law enforcement officials, said Rick Lorah, deputy chief of the City of Erie Police Department. Eight officials were already outside the bayfront convention center three days before the rally, walking the property and nailing down logistics of their joint plan. The Coast Guard is charged with protecting bayside access. It does bring a different tactical question into play when it comes to water but having the Coast Guard here and water elements here well have it handled, Lorah said. Polls of Erie voters after Trump-Harris debate gives glimpse into national opinions Preparing for a visit like this is nothing new for erie police. This is the tenth time the city has hosted a president, vice president, or presidential candidate since 2016. But since the attempt on trumps life in Butler, PA., Congress passed a bill boosting security for presidential candidates. Theyre receiving the exact same protection a sitting president would receive. Which is obviously more and a larger footprint for that security, Lorah explained. In the past, Trump rallies in Erie have drawn crowds of 5 to 10 thousand people. The Bayfront Convention center only holds 2,000 which could create challenges of its own. If you really must be there and you want to be there, I would get there early because at some point it will be shut down and everybody will be turned away, Lorah went on to say. Millcreek, Meadville Fire Depts. awarded millions to hire more firefighters Doors open at 10 a.m. and the rally will begin at 2 p.m. Tickets can be reserved online here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJET/WFXP/YourErie.com. HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT) The Salvation Army of Kentucky will team up with The Salvation Army of Tennessee to potentially help respond to the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Officials say as Tropical Storm Helene moves across Georgia and threatens Tennessee and Kentucky with heavy rain and strong winds over the coming days, The Salvation Armys Emergency Disaster Services (EDS) teams in both states are preparing to respond. Helene lashes the South with wind and sheets of rain. Millions are without power The Salvation Army says with significant power outages possible across the region, its primary response will focus on feeding services using its mobile kitchen units. These units, positioned in key locations across Kentucky and Tennessee, are capable of serving 500 to 1,500 meals per day to disaster survivors. Weve been preparing all week to respond if Helene causes severe damage in our area, said Bo Sells, Divisional Director of Emergency Disaster Services for The Salvation Army of Kentucky and Tennessee. Our teams are equipped to serve not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually, providing holistic care to those affected by disasters like this tropical storm. Officials say The Salvation Army is closely coordinating with state emergency management agencies and other disaster relief organizations in Kentucky and Tennessee to assess needs and determine where their services are most urgently required. In addition to preparing for a local response, The Salvation Army is surging resources to Florida and Georgia, where Helene has already caused widespread damage. Should the need arise, units from Kentucky and Tennessee may be deployed to support relief efforts in those states. What to know about Hurricane Helene and the flooding the storm left across the Southeast US The Salvation Army is committed to responding as soon as it is safe to do so, Sells added, and we will remain in communities as long as we are needed. Officials say the best way to support The Salvation Armys disaster relief efforts is through financial contributions, which allow the organization to provide immediate and flexible assistance. Donations can be made online, by phone at 1-800-SAL-ARMY (1-800-725-2169) or by mailing a check to The Salvation Army at PO Box 436437, Louisville, KY 40253 with the Memo of Hurricane Helene 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 Eyewitness News (WEHT/WTVW). "They are an example to all families going through their own journeys of health," the Duchess of York tells PEOPLE Rupert Ramsay; Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty (2) (Left) Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, at the launch of the Youth Impact Council at New York Climate Week 2024; (Middle) Kate Middleton at the Shaping Us National Symposium in London on Nov. 15, 2023; (Right) King Charles at Trooping the Colour on June 15, 2024 Sarah Ferguson has candidly shared her own health issues and is now praising King Charles and Kate Middleton for speaking out about theirs. In an interview with PEOPLE during the launch of the new Youth Impact Council at New York Climate Week, the Duchess of York, popularly known as Fergie, voiced her admiration for how the King and Princess Kate have publicly addressed their cancer journeys. In February, Buckingham Palace announced that King Charles, 75, had been diagnosed with cancer and had begun treatment. Princess Kate, 42, revealed in March that she was undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, and on Sept. 9, she announced in an emotional video that she had completed her chemotherapy treatment. "I think they are an example to all families going through their own journeys of health," the Duchess of York tells PEOPLE. "I think both the King and the Princess of Wales have spoken openly about their journey, and I love that the Princess says, 'Im always there for you.' I love that video. It was a beautiful video with beautiful words." Will Warr Kate Middleton in a video issued on Sept. 9, 2024. Related: Sarah Ferguson Calls for Amplifying Gen Z Voices in New Role: 'They Have the Solutions' (Exclusive) "The King, you know, became the patron of the Cancer Research UK, which is such a big organization, and he actually went out to meet the patients," Fergie adds, referring to the King's visit to the Macmillan Cancer Centre at the University College Hospital London on April 30. The visit marked the King's return to public-facing duties after a brief postponement following the news from the palace about his health and also served as the occasion to announce his patronage of Cancer Research UK. "That was very brave too, very courageous, and [he] spoke openly, which was very important to help people and give hope," the Duchess, 64, tells PEOPLE. SUZANNE PLUNKETT/POOL/AFP via Getty Images King Charles during his visit to University College Hospital Macmillan Cancer Centre in London on April 30, 2024. Related: Sarah Ferguson Says Royal Family Is 'All Supporting Each Other' amid King Charles and Kate's Cancer News The Duchess of York faced two cancer diagnoses between 2023 and 2024. In June 2023, a spokesperson for Fergie announced that she was diagnosed with breast cancer and successfully underwent a single mastectomy. Throughout her recovery, she kept her fans and supporters informed on social media, using her platform to advocate for the importance of early cancer detection through screenings. In January, she shared that she was diagnosed with malignant melanoma, a form of skin cancer, following post-operative analysis of a mole removed during reconstructive surgery following her mastectomy. A source told PEOPLE in March that the Duchess of York was "very relieved" to learn that her skin cancer had not spread. The author and advocate told friends that she had further surgery around the edges of the site of the mole and lymph nodes. Speaking with PEOPLE in New York City on Sept. 25, Fergie shared how she is feeling today. Rupert Ramsay "I think that you never really get rid of the worry about health. For every sort of melanoma, you never really know where it is. You look at everything and youre certainly more aware," the Duchess says. "Its been an extraordinary journey to have gone through a mastectomy, and then you have to keep having checks, and then you think youre going to get it again. Its a lot of very fragile mind work." She continues, "I think that also gives me empathy to understand the fragility of the mind. A lot of young people have fragile, vulnerable times, with cyberbullying and chronic cruelty from other people. I think thats something I address, I am adamant about cruelty through social media. My health is really good now, but you have to be a bit more cognitive and not push yourself too much, which I do." Rupert Ramsay Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, at the launch of the Youth Impact Council at New York Climate Week 2024. During New York Climate Week, the Duchess of York announced the launch of the Youth Impact Council and her involvement as Founding Ambassador. The new nonprofit was founded to amplify the voices of youth activists making an impact in climate action, social justice and innovation, and bridge the intergenerational gap by linking them directly with established leaders to cut through the tape and accelerate change. "There are young people at work who arent being listened to enough by people who can make change for them. And so I think we need to amplify their voices and execute their wishes," the Duchess tells PEOPLE about her new role with YIC. "They have the solutions if only grown-ups would ask them, ask Gen Z, for the solutions they have in these youth leadership positions."' Rupert Ramsay Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York (seated) and founding partners at the launch of the Youth Impact Council at New York Climate Week 2024. Can't get enough of PEOPLE's Royals coverage? Sign up for our free Royals newsletter to get the latest updates on Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and more! A passionate advocate for young people throughout three decades of philanthropic work, Fergie says that the YIC means so much. "We collectively thought this was an extraordinary idea. I really want to say that its almost my legacy, and I love that. Its a very big moment to start Youth Impact Council and its in my heart and its authentic to what I believe," she tells PEOPLE. "I really love being with young people because they feed me, they feed my soul. They are fun, and it keeps you young!" For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) SiouxperCon is a weekend dedicated to board games and video games, comic books, movies cosplay and science fiction at the Sioux Falls Convention Center. The doors open at 8 a.m. There will be workshops, panels, seminars, photo ops and exhibits throughout the day. Admission is $20. SiouxperCon runs through Sunday. The Sioux Falls Walk to End Alzheimers is a fundraiser for Alzheimers research as well as providing care and support for South Dakota families. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. at Levitt at the Falls. The opening ceremony, emceed by KELOLANDs Tom Hanson, begins at 10 a.m. Thats followed by the walk. Bark in the Park is a fundraiser for the Sioux Falls Area Humane Society. Activities at Pasley Park in Sioux Falls include a 3 & 5K Fun Run at 10 a.m. plus pet contests including doggie musical chairs, prettiest pooch, handsome hound and best trick. The richest rodeo in South Dakota is now even richer Feria de Salud is a free, family-friendly health fair that focuses on the needs of the local Latino community. The event includes a variety of services and opportunities to learn about health issues, including heart disease, cancer and diabetes. There will also be flu shots, vision screenings for children plus glucose testing and blood pressure readings. Its taking place at the Avera Prairie Center in Sioux Falls from 2-5 p.m. The Tri-State Band Festival features 19 bands performing and competing in Luverne, MN. The parade competition begins at 9:30 a.m. along Main Street in Luverne, MN. Thats followed by the field competition in the afternoon at Cardinal Field at Luverne High School. The Big Sioux Review features performances by 16 marching bands from South Dakota and Minnesota performing at Brandon Valley High School. Gates open at 5:30 p.m. Admission is $15 for adults and $10 for students and seniors. West Nidaros Lutheran Church north of Crooks, SD is hosting a Harvest Festival Supper. Serving time is 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. The cost is $20, $5 for youth, free for ages 5 and under. Carry-out is available A bake sale & farmers market starts at 4 p.m. The Fall Festival at Country Apple Orchard in Harrisburg, SD includes picking your own apples, a petting zoo, apple cannon range, a zip line and corn maze. Todays hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is $14.95. Free for kids under three feet tall. The Fall Festival runs every weekend through October. The Heartland County Corn Maze, east of Harrisburg on Highway 11, is open for its 25th season. The 11-acre maze is open from noon to 9 p.m. Sundays hours are noon to 5 p.m. Admission is $9, $6 for children and free for ages 4 and under. The Premiere Playhouse presents Freaky Friday at the Orpheum Theater Center in downtown Sioux Falls. The performance is at 7 p.m. Tickets are $35. Its Movie Night at the Urban Adventure Center. A free showing of the film, Treasure Planet, rated PG starts at 6 p.m. A concession stand will be available. Movies playing at the historic State Theater in downtown Sioux Falls include The Circus, rated G, Metropolis (NR) and Pans Labyrinth, rated R. The Wells Fargo CineDome & Sweetman Planetarium features Wings Over Water, Magic Globe, Unseen Universe and Cities of the Future. New movie releases playing at a theater near you include The Wild Robot, rated PG and Megalopolis, rated R. The richest rodeo in South Dakota history takes place Saturday night at the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center in Sioux Falls. The Cinch Playoffs features rodeo performers vying for a share of $1.3-million dollars and the Governors Cup. The action starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets start at $13.75 on up. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KELOLAND.com. The Scoop Saudi Arabia is readying an expansion of its cloud-seeding program, a controversial effort to boost rainfall over its parched territory, the countrys deputy environment minister said in an interview. Riyadh has assembled a team of domestic and international researchers and learned vast amounts from its early efforts at cloud-seeding, Osama Ibrahim Faqeeha said, speaking in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and Climate Week. The country now aims to roll it out elsewhere within its borders and to lead broader regional research into the practice. We are a hyper arid country, Faqeeha said. We have to try everything possible. Know More Saudi Arabia began its earliest efforts at cloud seeding in the early 2000s, but that was not successful, Faqeeha acknowledged. Recent developments in artificial intelligence, meteorology, and remote sensing had helped the kingdom revamp the program, however. Researchers now better understand the relatively narrow window in which cloud-seeding must occur, the varying types of clouds that are best suited to the practice, and the ultimate payoff that results from the effort. You cannot rely on chance that it will succeed, Faqeeha said. Its not about shooting in the dark. The practice involves introducing substances into clouds in order to induce them to lower their temperature below zero Celsius, thereby forming ice droplets, and ultimately driving the production of rain in clouds that typically would otherwise have none. Faced with rising global temperatures as a result of climate change, a growing number of places, including the United States, are experimenting with cloud seeding. The process is, however, hugely controversial, with critics arguing that the consequences of such programs on the planets ecosystem and climate are insufficiently understood. For Saudi Arabia, the effort aims to increase the countrys low stocks of water and combat desertification. Riyadh in December will host the COP16 summit on combating desertification, and part of Faqeehas agenda in New York was geared towards preparation for the talks and raising awareness of the growing threat of land degradation globally. By Clauda Tanios DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has formed a global alliance to push for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the country's foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said on Thursday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York. The alliance includes a number of Arab and Muslim countries and European partners, the Saudi state news agency reported, without specifying which countries had committed to join. European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on X the first meetings would be in Riyadh and Brussels. After the eruption of the Gaza war last October between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas that rules Gaza, Saudi Arabia put on ice U.S.-backed plans for the kingdom to normalise ties with Israel, two sources familiar with Riyadh's thinking said earlier this year. "Implementing the two-state solution is the best solution to break the cycle of conflict and suffering, and enforce a new reality in which the entire region, including Israel, enjoys security and coexistence", bin Farhan was quoted as saying. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said last week the kingdom would not recognise Israel without a Palestinian state and strongly condemned the "crimes of the Israeli occupation" against the Palestinian people. Israel and Hamas have been waging war since gunmen from the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing some 250 hostages, by Israeli tallies. Israel responded with a military offensive in Gaza in which more than 41,500 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza health authorities. Israel says it will press on with its intensified campaign against Lebanon's Hezbollah, after nearly a year of cross-border fire in parallel with the Gaza war. (Reporting by Clauda Tanios; Editing by Ros Russell) When the remnants of Hurricane Helene left South Carolina, the storm had caused nearly 1.3 million power outages, downed trees blocking roads and multiple fatalities. But before the storm hit in SC, it didnt receive the usual amount of hype that other hurricanes receive. Leading up to the arrival of Helenes effects, Gov. Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency and issued an executive order to allow municipalities and state agencies work together more easily. But his office did not hold press briefings ahead of the storm as it has done for previous hurricanes, telling people what to expect and how to prepare. Theres a lot of information out. Everyone was on alert, and it was very much covered in the media, McMaster told reporters during a briefing Friday at the S.C. Emergency Management Division. We were satisfied that the information was out. McMaster and emergency officials point out they propositioned crews around the state before the storm. Weather officials and utilities executives expected that as the storm worked its way north, it would stay further west in Georgia before turning to the west towards Tennessee and Kentucky. However it stayed further east. It was supposed to go through Atlanta and came closer to Augusta, said Keller Kissam, the president of Dominion Energy South Carolina. It threw all of its energy to the east, and thats why we have the number of outages that we have, mainly from shear force winds taking down trees and causing structural damage. The number of outages has approached the number seen after Hurricane Hugo in 1989, although the state has a higher population now. McMaster called hurricanes unpredictable, adding previous storms that looked like they would hit South Carolina changed direction before making landfall heading to the Atlantic Ocean or hitting North Carolina. This one was headed slightly away, and then turned right into us when it got inland, McMaster said. Much of the change in path took place overnight as well. Because of the storms path, parts of the state that normally dont take the brunt of storms have the bulk of Helenes damage. Duke Energy South Carolina President Mike Callahan said the storm caused historic damage for its system in the Upstate. The Pee Dee, we often get storms of this magnitude, Callahan said. In the Upstate, our customers there do not typically face this kind of damage. Scholz's associate calls for increased aid to Ukraine to improve its negotiating position Michael Roth, Chairman of the Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee and a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Photo: Wikipedia Michael Roth, Chairman of the Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee and a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, is calling for an increase in European assistance to Ukraine in the form of weapons. Source: Germany TV news channel n-tv, as reported by European Pravda Source: He said that an increase in defence support is needed to ensure a better negotiating position for Ukraine. Quote: "The major European countries in particular must do much more militarily to ensure that Ukraine remains a free and democratic country," Roth said. "Now is the time to finally mobilise all forces to put Ukraine in the best possible starting position for potential negotiations," he added. The chairman of the Bundestag's Foreign Affairs Committee argued: "If you want to end the war as quickly as possible, you have to give Ukraine what it needs." Defence and diplomacy are two sides of the same coin, he stressed. "Russia will only be prepared to negotiate if Putin is convinced that victory over Ukraine is impossible," Roth said. Background: Earlier, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also stated the need to create a strong position for Ukraine to negotiate peace. US Vice President Kamala Harris has criticised her US election rival Donald Trump's proposals on Ukraine. Support UP or become our patron! GUEST OPINION: In our increasingly interconnected world, the demand for seamless communication across borders has never been greater. Carrier networks play a pivotal role in enabling this global connectivity, acting as the backbone for both voice and data services. Whether for businesses operating internationally or individuals communicating with loved ones abroad, carrier networks ensure the smooth transmission of information across regions. In this article, well explore the fundamentals of carrier networks, their importance in global connectivity, and the key benefits they offer, including how regions like the UAE have emerged as critical hubs for these networks. What Are Carrier Networks? Carrier networks refer to the infrastructure and systems operated by telecommunications companies (carriers) that provide essential services such as voice, data, and internet connectivity. These networks are responsible for transmitting information between different geographical locations through fibre optic cables, satellite links, and other communication technologies. Carriers maintain and manage these networks, ensuring the reliability, security, and efficiency of communication. Types of Carrier Networks There are various types of carrier networks, each serving a specific function in global communication: Fixed Networks: These provide landline services, broadband internet, and fixed wireless connections. They rely on physical infrastructure like copper or fibre optic cables. Mobile Networks: These support wireless communication, enabling mobile phone services and mobile data through 3G, 4G, and 5G networks. Satellite Networks: Used in remote or underserved areas, these networks provide connectivity via satellite links, particularly useful for regions without access to terrestrial infrastructure. IPX (Internet Protocol Exchange): A vital part of carrier networks, IPX ensures secure and high-quality communication between different mobile and fixed operators across the globe. The Role of Carrier Networks in Global Connectivity Carrier networks are the bedrock of modern telecommunications, providing the infrastructure required for voice calls, messaging, video conferencing, and internet access. In a globalized world, where businesses and individuals need constant communication regardless of location, carrier networks bridge the gap, making it possible to stay connected across continents. Enhancing International Trade and Business For businesses operating on a global scale, carrier networks provide the critical infrastructure to facilitate international trade and commerce. These networks allow companies to establish reliable communication channels with clients, partners, and employees across the world. In industries like finance, where real-time data transmission is crucial, carrier networks ensure that businesses can operate efficiently, regardless of geographic boundaries. Supporting Remote Work The rise of remote work, especially post-pandemic, has further highlighted the importance of reliable carrier networks. Employees working from different corners of the globe rely on carrier networks to access high-speed internet, engage in video conferencing, and collaborate with their teams. These networks are instrumental in maintaining productivity in a distributed work environment. Key Benefits of Carrier Networks Reliability and Redundancy One of the primary advantages of carrier networks is their high level of reliability. Carriers invest heavily in building and maintaining robust infrastructure with redundancy measures in place to ensure continuous service, even in the event of equipment failure or network disruptions. This reliability is particularly important for critical industries like healthcare, finance, and government operations, where uninterrupted communication is crucial. Scalability Carrier networks offer immense scalability, making it possible for businesses to expand their communication needs as they grow. Whether a small enterprise or a large multinational corporation, carrier networks can accommodate increasing bandwidth and service demands without compromising on quality. This flexibility allows businesses to adapt to changing market conditions and customer needs. Cost Efficiency For organizations looking to manage costs, carrier networks offer significant savings, particularly through Voice over IP (VoIP) and other cost-efficient communication technologies. By leveraging a global carrier network, businesses can reduce the costs associated with long-distance communication and data transmission. Security In an age where cybersecurity threats are on the rise, carrier networks provide robust security features to protect sensitive data. These networks are designed with encryption protocols, secure access controls, and advanced monitoring systems to safeguard communication channels from potential breaches. For industries dealing with confidential information, such as banking and healthcare, the security offered by carrier networks is paramount. The Growing Role of Carrier UAE The UAE, due to its strategic location between Europe, Asia, and Africa, has emerged as a key hub for carrier networks. Known as one of the worlds most connected countries, the carrier UAE sector plays a vital role in facilitating international communication and connectivity. With advanced infrastructure, including extensive fibre optic networks and cutting-edge data centres, UAE-based carriers serve as a bridge between East and West, enabling smooth data transmission and voice services for businesses and consumers alike. UAE carriers are also heavily involved in expanding the region's 5G capabilities, offering lightning-fast speeds and low latency for mobile communication and IoT (Internet of Things) services. This technological advancement further strengthens the UAEs position as a global telecommunications hub, making it an attractive location for businesses looking to establish a strong presence in the Middle East and beyond. Future of Carrier Networks in Global Connectivity As technology continues to evolve, so too will carrier networks. The expansion of 5G networks, the increasing adoption of IoT, and the development of next-generation satellite technologies are set to further enhance global connectivity. In the coming years, carrier networks will play an even greater role in facilitating real-time communication, supporting cloud computing, and driving innovations like autonomous vehicles and smart cities. Conclusion Carrier networks are the unsung heroes of global communication, providing the essential infrastructure that keeps the world connected. From enhancing international business operations to supporting remote work and ensuring secure communication, these networks are foundational to the modern digital economy. As regions like the UAE continue to invest in advanced carrier infrastructure, the future of global connectivity looks brighter than ever. The role of carrier UAE is especially significant, cementing its place as a critical player in the worlds telecommunications landscape. A school bus driver is being investigated by police over allegations he was viewing pornography while picking up pupils in the Scottish Borders. Officers were waiting for the Denholm bus when it arrived at Jedburgh Grammar Campus last Friday. Allegations were initially made against a driver on an online group chat, before a complaint was passed on to Police Scotland by a parent. A police spokeswoman said: "We received a report of inappropriate behaviour which happened in the Denholm area." Although a driver has been removed from the service, investigating officers have yet to establish if there was any criminality. A parent told the BBC: "We thought the children were just joking at first but more and more people were talking online about what was being viewed by the driver." Operators, Howard Snaith Travel, have declined to comment. Scottish Borders Council say they are unable to discuss a live police investigation, but confirmed that they are not reviewing the bus contract. Recent school incidents, particularly this months school shooting in Georgia, are raising new concerns about cell phone bans. After the Apalachee High shooting, as well as the rash of bomb threats in Springfield, Ohio, advocates say lawmakers and school officials need to think of parents fears when considering cell phone restrictions in classrooms, which have been on the rise in states across the country. Unfortunately, in this country, we love our guns more than we love our children, and we have not yet been able to solve the issue of classrooms filled with dozens of children being murdered on a regular basis, said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union. So until we figure that out, parents and families are not going to be comfortable with giving up a direct line of communication with their children in classrooms, Rodrigues added. California is the latest state to enact a law restricting the use of cell phones in public school classrooms, following multiple others, as well as numerous individual school districts. The policies have ranged from complete confiscation of cell phones all day to prohibitions specifically during classroom time. I dont think any teacher in the country would disagree about the level of distraction that phones bring to classroom instruction, said Stephanie Humphrey, author of Dont Let Your Digital Footprint Kick You in the Butt! So the distraction is a huge thing, but also the impact on students mental health. [] There is the cyberbullying aspect of it, that these students are using these devices, you know, in ways that are unintended, and are causing harm to other students. So there are just a laundry list of reasons why cell phones in the class are just not a good idea, she added. While advocates emphasize the social and academic benefits that have been found in removing phones from students hands, a lack of trust remains between parents and school systems as shootings and other threats against K-12 classrooms make headlines. The Georgia shooting, which took the lives of two students and two teachers while injuring nine others, demonstrated the issue vividly. School shooting rn .. im scared, one Apalachee High student texted his mother, according to ABC News. pls im not joking. In another text exchange viewed by the outlet, a mother of two girls at the school tried to coordinate with her daughters, at one point telling them to Stay down stay hidden. Mommy im scared, one of the girls said, to which the response, sent over six separate messages, was, Keep texting me / I need you to keep texting me / Girls / Are you ok / Keep texting me only me / I love you. Later this month, in Springfield, students were taken out of school for a couple days due to bomb threats after false allegations of Haitian migrants eating pets in the area. And recently in Texas and Washington, D.C., students and parents have faced hoax school shooting threats that were investigated by police. Issac Soto, a parent in California, says he found a solution for his own child by giving them a Smart Watch that only allows the student to call him, his mother or grandparents, But at some school districts, even this isnt allowed. Banning smartphones, completely understand, but I mean some form of communication, even telling people that if you can have a phone, the only thing you can have is a dumb phone. Have an old phone, like we used to have, flip phones that cant do anything [] but, you know, just having something that they communicate, Soto said. And emergency situations arent the only concern: Many students with disabilities use technology to help with their learning Denise Marshall, CEO of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, said some schools and states dont currently have a carveout in these policies for students with disabilities and that those that do, such as California and Virginia, havent nailed the solution yet. The pressure seems to be on the parents to make sure that the IEP [Individual Education Plan] has the accommodation documented. So, all of a sudden, these bans are being put in place, and who is going to review the students program to make sure that its documented appropriately and that the student isnt going to get suspended for, you know, using a device. So thats certainly one concern, Marshall said. Virginia has what they call the bell-to-bell ban, and in that it does have it does mention students with disabilities, but it also actively discourages teams from choosing assistive technology, she added. So it says teens are encouraged to explore other options. You know, this takes us backwards. Weve already had many years of students being denied access to assistive technology that could help them learn. Some argue that phones during these emergency situations can be a distraction to students though, focusing more on contacting loved ones than listening to important instructions. We have kids ourselves, as parents, we understand the desire to stay connected with our children during emergency, however, its crucial to recognizing the phone actually compromises their safety, said Mileva Repasky, co-founder of the Phone-Free Schools Movement. When a child is distracted by their phone, they might miss critical safety instructions from a teacher or an emergency responder, and its important that they maintain situational awareness during that crisis, and completely staying focused on the guidance that theyre given really helps improve the chance of the safety of that child, she added. But others say during school shootings such as Uvalde, cell phone use was shown to be a benefit to the situation. I have yet to hear an expert point to a single instance where a cell phone has actually exacerbated one of these situations or caused it, Rodrigues said. However, I can point you to the most obvious of examples, including Parkland and Uvalde, where parents being able to connect with kids save lives, where kids being able to connect with first responders save lives. Those against the bans on cell phones in schools say there are other ways to make phones less of a distraction than taking it away completely as a line of communication. There are things called cell phone management software systems that like Aura, which we all use in our homes, and are using to regulate like how our kids are using cell phones and whether or not theyre allowed to connect to wifi. We can even restrict like specifically what apps are allowed to use at what time, Rodrigues said. We are having a knee jerk reaction to a set of data that has come out that, frankly, is alarming when you look at but were conflating two issues, cell phones and social media are two different things, she said. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Heavy rain has caused more disruption and damage across Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire, with roads and schools closed and homes flooded. Bedford Borough Council released a list of road closures on X early on Friday, while members of REACT Disaster Response have been out in Bedford supporting residents and businesses. Hertfordshire County Council said 45 homes in Hitchin were flooded after the River Purwell burst its banks early on Friday morning. "You feel so helpless and vulnerable seeing water coming into your property, and some residents on this street cant get insurance for their homes any more," said resident Jay Cooper. Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue Service said crews were "working tirelessly" to help with the flooding in Hitchin, and that residents had been evacuated to St Faith's Church. Ms Cooper said heavy rain on Sunday flooded her garden room, before more water came into the house on Friday. "We stayed awake all Thursday night, calling the fire and rescue service, the Environment Agency and also Anglian Water about the foul water thats rising." Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue arrived at the scene in Woolgrove Road in the early hours of Friday and have since pumped 1.5 million litres of water away. Ms Cooper said while heavy rain was responsible, more could have been done by highways company Ringway and the Environment Agency to mitigate it. "I'm so angry at Ringway for coming out from the council to look at the drains this week, but doing nothing to clear them in preparation for more rain," she said. "Theres been nothing from the Environment Agency to add some banking to the river to stop it from bursting its banks again, knowing full well we have a weather warning. "It's incredibly frustrating to think that our house could have been saved again, but now its underwater. Its devastating." A spokesperson for Hertfordshire County Council said it had been "the worst rainfall in living memory". "We have seen localised flooding across the county. Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue Service along with officers from Hertfordshire County Council and our contractors have been working tirelessly to tackle this," they added. "Our contractors have a scheduled programme of drain and gully clearance, but the simple fact is that when a river overflows it banks there is too much water for the drains to deal with." A spokesperson for the Environment Agency said: "All of our flood control structure are operating as intended with no communities being flooded in place of others. "We wouldnt create banking in front of properties during a flood response unless it was a pre-defined deployment in advance of that flooding. This is to ensure that this can be done safely." Other towns and villages with rivers are on high alert, with many still trying to recover from flooding on Monday. Moya Best, 76, from Shefford, Bedfordshire, said "you can't live with it" after her home was flooded by the River Flit, which backs on to her garden. "I don't think it will ever get back to normal. I keep looking at it and thinking, 'This was my and my husband's home, and it doesn't even resemble a home'." Several flood warnings remain in place around Bedford, Milton Keynes and Shefford as well as parts of Hertfordshire. Meanwhile, Woburn in Bedfordshire has been listed as the wettest place in the UK, after recording 232.4mm (9.1in) of rainfall this month. Scientists said extreme weather events were becoming more frequent and intense as a result of climate change. Homes in Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire are lined with sandbags [Louise Potter] Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X. More on this story Related internet links Scripps is eliminating more than 200 jobs and will be winding down its national news programming, CEO Adam Symson told employees via email on Friday morning. The cuts will go into effect after November 15, according to Symson, who blamed the cuts on the companys ability to generate ad sales for its news programming. Over the last two years, Scripps News live anchored coverage and documentary programming have grown its linear television audience, but the prospects for the necessary revenue growth havent materialized, despite our sales teams best efforts, Symson said in his email. Scripps News current financial position is what has led me to the decision to scale back our approach to 24-hour news and over-the-air coverage. Symson said the news ad market has taken a hit nationwide, as the polarized nature of this country has made it just too risky for advertisers. I vehemently disagree, but its hurting Scripps News, along with every other national linear and digital news outlet, he said. Here's the email Adam Symson president and CEO of Scripps sent out this morning to staff https://t.co/T0GTvd994R pic.twitter.com/8w9eXFbTOH Max Tani (@maxwelltani) September 27, 2024 A team of about 50 Scripps employees will be kept to report for its local news shows and produce its streaming and digital content. This team will be based in Washington, D.C. The Washington Post was the first outlet to report the news. The post Scripps Winding Down TV News Business, Cuts 200 Jobs appeared first on TheWrap. TREASURE ISLAND, Fla. (WFLA) Officials on Treasure Island got their first look at the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Friday morning. Access to Pinellas County barrier islands is blocked until further notice and there is no word on when residents will be able to return. Access to Pinellas barrier islands blocked until further notice Videos and photos posted to the Treasure County government social media accounts show crews clearing the roads of sand and debris left over from Helenes storm surge. Search and rescue teams made their way onto the island early Friday morning. Crews from Broward County and Oklahoma are working with their teams, officials said. Treasure Island Mayor Tyler Payne issued the following statement: Good morning Treasure Island. As the sun comes up, we are going to be seeing unbelievable damage and devastation to our community. Please continue to stay safe if possible. City crews will be on the island as soon as possible to start assessment and cleanup. Search and rescue teams are already making their way on to the island. If you need emergency assistance, please call 911. My heart is broken for our community, but we will make it through this together. Treasure Island Mayor Tyler Payne Law enforcement will reopen the bridges leading to Treasure Island and the other Pinellas County barrier islands when it is deemed safe. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Search and rescue dog Maddy, key in Codi Bigsby case, passes away at age 11 PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) The Virginia-based non-profit Greater Atlantic Rescue Dogs (GARD) announced the passing of Maddy, a Search and Rescue (SAR) K9 who assisted in the search for Codi Bigsby. According to a Facebook post from GARD K9 Search and Rescue, on Sept. 16, Maddy was assisting in a search for a missing person with the Louisa County Sheriffs Office, when she came in contact with a toxic substance. As a result, Maddy died four days later, on Sept. 20, surrounded by her family. Courtesy: Andrew Piske Courtesy: Andrew Piske Courtesy: Andrew Piske Courtesy: Andrew Piske Courtesy: Andrew Piske Courtesy: Andrew Piske Courtesy: Andrew Piske Courtesy: Andrew Piske Courtesy: Andrew Piske Courtesy: Andrew Piske Maddy, who was 11 at the time of her passing, responded to over 100 search and rescue missions across Virginia during her 11 years training with GARD. During one of the missions, Maddy was able to find a person in critical condition, eventually leading to their lives being saved. Maddys handler, Andrew Piske, told 10 On Your Side Maddy also helped with several cases in the Hampton Roads area, including missing mother and daughter Keir and Chloe Johnson in Hampton, missing 3-year-old Codi Bigsby and 2-year-old Noah Tomlin. Piske also said both he and Maddy were the only SAR K9 handler that testified in the Cory Bigsby case. Justice has been served for Codi: Cory Bigsby sentenced to 45 years in prison for sons death Due to Maddy and Piske being volunteers, Piske is financially responsible for Maddys loss. As a result, a GoFundMe has been set up to assist Piske. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) Race is Americas four-letter word that everyone knows but would rather ignore until it is time for demographic grouping, but who or what determines what is considered Black. Frequently, people in the media and newsmakers feel compelled to question a persons Blackness. Whether it is former President Donald Trump questioning when VP Kamala Harris turned Black or the overloaded Is {Black person} Black enough, Most Black professionals will tell you that at some point in their academic or professional journey, they were told by a non-Black colleague or classmate, Youre Black, but not Black, Black whatever that means. Thurgood Marshalls right hand woman once fought segregated housing practices in Shreveport Entertainers, elite athletes, business leaders, and rising politicians who are also Black frequently have their connections to other Black people questioned. The questions are typically posed by journalists, pundits, and culture commentators with little or no connection to the Black community themselves. So the question is, who gets to decide who is Black? The answer to that question lies in the creation of a racial caste system that made darker skin an automatic ticket to second-class citizenship in the nation and abroad, Wiley University history professor Dana Fergins explained. A caste system, in laymens terms, is putting people in a particular box or system to say based on your race or the color of your skin that youre inferior, explained Fergins. Fergins said that since the inception of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, European colonists, under the authority of the Catholic Church, maintained a racial caste system to support the enslavement and oppression of Africans and other Indigenous people. More Louisiana News In Louisiana, the Tignon law required Creole women of color, free or enslaved, to cover their heads with a scarf or wrap. This made it easier to determine who was in society at a glance since lighter skin or untextured hair could cause them to be mistaken for white. Many Black people who found the skin color burden overwhelming chose to get in where their physical features could help them fit in and chose to pass for white. First of all, white-passing is a very dangerous game, depending on what year and where youre at. White passing entails that you are of such light color descent and you blend well; your hair texture is not what they deem African American. While the act of passing for white meant living a life where you were free to move as you please and create the life you wanted, it also meant living in fear that somehow the lie you were living would be exposed. However, passing for white was a non-starter for countless others with fair skin, light eyes, and smoother textured hair. In our great state of Louisiana, you can go down to Grand Cane, and you cant decipher whos Black and whos white, but thats just what our culture is. But many were able to escape and go to New York, go to California, and get those jobs that others could not have gotten based on what they looked like, Fegins said. A Louisiana law passed in 1970 set a legal definition for what the state considered Black and was the only one of its kind in the nation. It declared that anyone with one thirty-second of Negro blood was Black. Before that, Louisiana said a trace of Negro ancestry to consider someone Black. That is until a woman in South Louisiana challenged the law to change her birth certificate to reflect how she identified instead of how the state identified her. When 48-year-old Susie Guillory Phipps requested her birth certificate through the Bureau of Vital Statistics, she was gobsmacked to learn that she was Black according to the State of Louisiana, and her birth certificate. Phipps lived as a white woman her entire life and was twice married to white men. She had no idea that her fourth great-grandmother was an enslaved woman named Margarita but thanks to the states meticulous birth record keeping and race requirement on birth certificates, Phipps was forced to confront her ancestry. More than 60 terms, including mulato, octaroon, and quadroon, have evolved throughout the states history to describe mixed-race people and to sort out the classes of free and enslaved people of color. Phipps wanted nothing to do with any of them and went about the business of suing the State of Louisiana to be declared white. Gregory Jaynes, a contributing writer from New Orleans, published a September 1982 article about Phipps plight in the New York Times. In it, Jaynes recalled interviews with Phipps in which she produced photos of blue-eyed family members and said, When I found out about the slave, it was last March. We went to court on March 2, and when Jack told me about this Margarita person, I was so sick. I was so sick, Phipps said. She was sick because even though it was the early 1980s, being Black was not easy, particularly in parts of the South that were still holding on to segregation. In the case of Phipps, who was born during segregation, an ugly time in our nations history, when to be Black meant to be less than, to have a more challenging walk with fewer available resources, and to be denied dignity. Deny her dignity is exactly what Louisiana did as they paraded in family members and experts in an attempt to refute her claim of whiteness. Attorneys for the state called Phippss aunt and uncle, who identified as Black, to testify to Phippss relation to them. The states attorney called the bayou where Phipps was born a free-person-of-color community. However, a Black sociologist and professor in New Orleans said he applauded Phipps and hoped her case would expose the foolishness of race and the caste system in Louisiana and the nation. Phipps spent a significant amount of money to have the state acknowledge that her white skin was a no-brainer to have her declared a white woman on paper. Louisianas one-thirty second of Negro blood was upheld by a magistrate judge. Louisiana repealed the law in 1983, not long after Phippss request to have her whiteness on paper as it is in person was denied in court. It is easy to judge people like Susie Phipps for seemingly abandoning her family lineage for a better life as a white person. However, we should reserve judgment for them and place it squarely on a designed system that often goes out of its way to maintain a built-in second-class citizenry. Susie Phipps and others who chose to blend with the white mainstream were attempting to transcend their race long before it was used to describe Black people who have seemingly bypassed racism as they ascended to the highest levels of their areas of expertise. So the question remains: What determines whether someone is deemed Black in America? Does it matter, and to whom is it most important? Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTALnews.com. TOPSHOT - US Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff speaks on the second day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, on August 20, 2024. Vice President Kamala Harris will formally accept the party's nomination for president at the DNC which runs from August 19-22 in Chicago. (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP) (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images) MILWAUKEE - With the White House on the line, the countrys Second Gentleman will again campaign in Wisconsin. FOX6 has exclusively learned that Doug Emhoff will visit Milwaukee on Tuesday. The campaign tells FOX6 hell speak about the economy. He was last in Wisconsin in July. If Vice President Kamala Harris wins the White House, Emhoff would be the countrys first "first gentleman." To stop that from happening, Republicans are also targeting Wisconsin. On Saturday, former President Donald Trump will campaign in Prairie du Chien. SIGN UP TODAY: Get daily headlines, breaking news emails from FOX6 News The election is now less than 40 days away. LANCASTER, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) A second suspect is wanted in the investigation from an 18-year-old killed in Lancaster earlier this month. Lancaster Police say 31-year-old Lamonta Dishanior Roberts is wanted in connection to the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Jelani Jackson. Roberts is being charged with murder, possession of a weapon during a violent crime, and possession of weapon by convicted felon. PREVIOUS: 19-year-old charged with murder in connection to Lancaster fatal shooting On Sept. 4, officers say they responded around 7:50 p.m. to Clinton Avenue near Ruth Street in reference to a gunshot wound. The victim, later identified as Jackson, was reportedly found with a gunshot wound, and was transported to MUSC-Lancaster Medical Center, where he later died. On Sept. 11, Kenyan Blair, 18, was already in custody of the Lancaster County Detention Center when he was charged with Jacksons murder. Roberts is also wanted for violating his federal probation. Police list him as 5 feet, 8 inches tall, weighing 200 pounds. Hes also known as Goochie and Six Hunnit. Hes considered armed and dangerous. If anyone sees Roberts, call 911. Preventing and addressing violent crime is the top priority of the Lancaster Police Department, said Lancaster PD Chief Don Roper. Our dedicated officers and law enforcement partners devoted extensive hours to resolving the tragic shooting that resulted in the loss of a young mans life. I am proud of the outstanding efforts of all investigators involved in this case. I want to thank our partners at the Lancaster County Sheriffs Office and the Solicitors Office for their hard work and efforts on this 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 Queen City News. Serbian President suggests war in Ukraine will end according to Korean scenario Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic predicts that the war in Ukraine will end similarly to the Korean scenario. Source: nsuzivo.rs, as reported by European Pravda Details: The Serbian president stated that while there will eventually be peace in Ukraine, "there is intense fighting for every village". Quote: "The Korean scenario will be achieved, and it will not have a solution for 10, 20 or 30 years, and this will be a fundamental solution to the conflict in Ukraine," Aleksandar Vucic said. He stated that the Ukrainian war has lost popularity among the American people, and that America would eventually consider its own interests. "Extensive research was undertaken in the United States, and the subject of Ukraine ranks tenth. America will fight hard with Russia in Ukraine, but it will also protect its interests," Vucic added. He also stated that "it is foolish to underestimate the Russian army," as well as the Russian economy, "which did not feel the consequences [of sanctions and the war]". Serbia refuses to accept EU sanctions on Moscow while, according to unofficial reports, selling arms to Ukraine through intermediaries. According to estimates, Serbian weapons transfers to Ukraine via third parties have totalled over 800 million since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. Support UP or become our patron! The mining industry is at a crossroads as latest industry insights reveals that electric mines can operate at costs between 56% and 88% lower than their diesel-powered counterparts. However, just 60% indicate that their next mining operation will transition to electric. Nearly all (84%) of industry professionals believe that Australias mining sector will not meet the governments goal of achieving 82% renewable energy penetration by 2030. The primary barrier to adopting electric equipment, cited by 76% of miners, is the high capital cost, which is rated 1.5 times more significant than the next major concern: confidence in operational effectiveness. In light of these findings, the industry is urging the government to implement tax incentives to accelerate the decarbonisation of mine sites. "With diesel particulates posing severe health risks such as lung cancer, and with current Australian standards being over 6x higher than level considered safe by Safe Work Australia for underground miners, electrification is not just an economic opportunity; it's a health imperative," stated Graeme Stanway, chair of the Electric Mine Consortium, "investing in cleaner technologies can eliminate these hazards and support our commitment to sustainability." These findings are based on the first and most extensive collaborative financial modelling exercise on mine decarbonisation undertaken in the Australian mining industry, allowing executives to identify to granular detail the risks, opportunities and pathways to electrify. Mark Norwell, Managing Director & CEO of Perenti, whose business recently teamed up with their client IGO and business partner ABB, to complete one of the first studies of converting an underground mines fleet from diesel vehicles to BEVs, said all stakeholders had a role to play in the shift to mine electrification. The study we recently conducted demonstrates that we are getting closer to an all-electric mine and that collaboration is the key to make it happen. We are optimistic that in time an electric underground mine will be the most economic and socially responsible mining method. The electrification of underground mines will deliver significant benefits to health, environment and cost. The CEO of Sandfire, Brendan Harris, noted our purpose is to mine copper sustainably to energise the future, so we welcomed the opportunity to collaborate with industry peers to build a deeper understanding of electrification. Renewable energy already accounts for 73% of our electricity needs and we have a decarbonisation plan to reduce emissions by 35% by 2035 and achieve Net Zero emissions by 2050. Ivan Vella, Managing Director and CEO of IGO Limited, noted Our collective journey toward decarbonisation will only be achieved through collaboration and cooperation across our industry. More than just helping demonstrate the value case for mine electrification, the EMC has facilitated the sharing of findings and been an effective advocate for our industry as we pursue our respective decarbonisation roadmaps. Context: Mining and Environmental Sustainability - The global mining industry contributes 8% of total emissions. - Over 80% of listed miners have committed to net-zero targets. - Currently, less than 10% of the Australian mining sector utilizes renewable energy. - While 15% of Sandviks global haul truck production is battery electric, no BEVs have been sold in Australia to date for on-going load and haul production - It is estimated that 90% of the mining workforce will experience hearing impairment by age 50. Specific Areas of Cost Reduction Transitioning to electric mines presents substantial benefits, including: 1. A 100% reduction in Scope 1 & 2 emissions for fully electric mines powered by renewables. 2. Up to 30% reduction in overall operating costs. 3. Up to 50% reduction in energy costs. 4. A 20% decrease in maintenance costs. 5. A 30% reduction in ventilation costs. Read the full mining industry report here. Serhii Sukhomlyn named head of Ukraine's Agency for Restoration and Development of Infrastructure Former Zhytomyr Mayor Serhii Sukhomlyn has been appointed head of the Agency for the Restoration and Development of Infrastructure, he announced on Facebook on Sept. 27. Sukhomlyn became mayor of Zhytomyr in November 2015 and resigned at his own request in early September 2024. Before Sukhomlyn, Mustafa Nayyem headed the agency specializing in Ukraine's reconstruction. Nayyem resigned on June 10 after being prevented from attending the Ukraine Recovery Conference scheduled for June 11-12 in Berlin. In a lengthy Facebook post, he outlined a series of complaints about "systemic obstacles" that limited his ability to do his job, ultimately leading to his decision to resign. Nayyem's resignation and reshuffles strained relations between Kyiv and Western allies, raising concerns about Ukraine's ability to address the ongoing attacks on its energy infrastructure by Russia, the Financial Times reported on June 10, citing unnamed Ukrainian and Western officials. Nayyem is also credited as one of the first activists to call for demonstrations in Kyiv in November 2013, marking the beginning of the protest movement that culminated in the EuroMaidan Revolution. Read also: Ex-infrastructure agency head denies accusations of misusing Western funds Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. LONG ISLAND, NY Check out the week's top police and DA news covered by Patches across Long Island. A man died after his car became engulfed in flames following a crash in Hicksville on Saturday night, and another man has been charged with manslaughter in connection with the collision, Nassau police said. Read more. A Suffolk County man was sentenced to 17 years in prison for selling fentanyl pills that killed a Suffolk County man, according to Breon Peace, the United States Attorney Eastern District of New York. Read more. A Queens man was sentenced on Thursday to 65 years to life in prison after raping three women in Hempstead between 2015 and 2020, prosecutors announced. Read more. A Long Island man was arrested after crashing his car and fleeing the scene in a police vehicle while handcuffed, New York State Police said. Read more. A Long Island man pleaded guilty on Thursday to charges in connection to a fatal stabbing that left the victims dismembered and scattered in multiple outdoor locations, according to a report by Newsday. Read more. A Long Island woman pleaded guilty on Tuesday to charges in connection to a fatal stabbing that left the victims dismembered and scattered in multiple outdoor locations, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney. Read more. A Mastic woman pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless endangerment in connection with her dog Kojo mauling a two-year-old boy and attacking the toddlers uncle when he was trying to protect the child, Suffolk District Attorney Ray Tierney said Wednesday. Read more. A Smithtown man pleaded guilty to wire fraud after he fraudulently received approximately $1.1 million in small business disaster relief loans during the coronavirus pandemic, the United States Department of Justice announced Thursday. Read more. A North Babylon man was indicted on Wednesday on charges including attempted robbery after reportedly trying to rob a woman hired to clean his home, said Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney. Read more. A Roosevelt man was arrested in connection with a robbery and violating the county's mask ban transparency act at Walmart in East Meadow, police said. Read more. Seven Brentwood store employees have been arrested and charged with multiple felony counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance for allegedly selling illegal and controlled substances and prescription medications, Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney announced. Read more. A Roosevelt man was arrested in connection with a Thursday afternoon stabbing in Inwood, police said. Read more. A Bay Shore man pleaded guilty to dumping hazardous waste and old tires at the former Pilgrim State Psychiatric Center, Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney said. Read more. A woman who led officers on a high-speed chase on the Long Island Expressway in a stolen car that she used to rob a bank faces upgraded charges as part of an indictment unveiled in a Riverside courtroom on Tuesday, Suffolk District Attorney Ray Tierney's office said. Read more. A former Nassau County probation officer was indicted in connection with concealing sexual relations with a probationer he was supervising, Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said Tuesday. Read more. A man has been arrested in connection with the burglaries of 11 businesses throughout Centereach, Farmingville, and Ronkonkoma since earlier this month, Suffolk police said. Read more. A man was arrested for assaulting a passenger on a Nassau Inter-County Express (NICE) bus on Wednesday afternoon, police said. Read more. A man identified himself as a police officer and placed a woman, who was involved in an argument with his girlfriend, in handcuffs on Sunday night in Roosevelt, Nassau police said. Read more. A Southold woman was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated after she was found with two girls, 6 and 8, in a disabled vehicle in Riverhead Saturday night, police said. Read more. A man was beaten and robbed of his wallet early Monday morning, Nassau police said. Read more. A Riverhead man was arrested after burglarizing a downtown eatery last week, police said. Read more. A Flanders deli was robbed Monday afternoon and police are seeking the public's assistance in identifying whoever was responsible, officials said. Read more. A man was arrested Friday after Nassau police said he was selling drugs in Farmingdale. Read more. A West Hempstead man was charged with public lewdness on Saturday after Nassau police say he touched himself inappropriately in front of an 11-year-old girl at Halls Pond Park. Read more. A woman was charged after refusing to stop with an improper license plate on the Southern State Parkway this week, state police said. Read more. A drunken driver was arrested after Nassau police said he crashed into a nail salon in New Hyde Park early Friday. Read more. Police are searching for a man responsible for a church burglary on Tuesday night in Franklin Square. Read more. The Suffolk County Police Department is asking for the public's help in identifying two men wanted in connection with grand larceny after stealing clothing from a store at Tanger Outlets in Deer Park. Read more. Two people were arrested for an assault after a fight in East Patchogue on Thursday afternoon, Suffolk police said. Read more. A Mastic Beach man was arrested after he was stopped on County Road 39 in Southampton and tried to impersonate a police officer, authorities said. Read more. Suffolk police are seeking the publics help in identifying the suspect they say swiped merchandise from a Medford store earlier this month. Read more. Suffolk County Crime Stoppers is seeking the public's help finding the two women who, police said, used a stolen credit card in Huntington Station. Read more. Serial Rapist Sentenced; Body Parts Case Guilty Plea: LI Crime Roundup originally appeared on the Huntington Patch A detained Ghanaian activist who was the key organiser of the recent anti-illegal mining protest has been denied bail along with 11 others, despite being seriously ill. Oliver Barker Vormawor appeared in court on Thursday and pleaded not guilty to multiple charges, including unlawful assembly and assault on a public officer. Mr Vormawor will be held in police custody for two weeks and then appear in court. He has been treated at the police hospital for an undisclosed illness. The Cambridge-educated activist organised the three-day protest to take action against illegal mining, known locally as "galamsey", which has been blamed for polluting 60% of Ghana's waters. Some analysts have said that if the practice is not curbed, then the country could be importing water by 2030. Last weekend, the group, calling itself Democracy Hub, clashed with the police in the capita, Accra, leading to several arrests. Over 50 protesters have now been denied bail and are in police custody and prison. Protesters are worried about what the mining is doing to the water resources [Reuters] The police accused the protesters of blocking roads, dismantling police barriers and obstructing traffic in the city. There were reports that a pregnant woman named Vera Lamptey was among those arrested and is in police detention. But the police have denied this. Many in Ghana have condemned the police, including opposition leader and presidential candidate, John Mahama, who has called out their heavy-handedness, describing it as an abuse of citizen's rights to protest. Ghana is the leading producer of gold in Africa but has struggled to deal with illegal mining in recent years. President Nana Akufo-Addo has ordered the deployment of the police and the military to crack down on illegal miners. A similar approach was used in 2017 but did not solve the problem. The country will be electing a new president on 7 December with Akufo-Addo standing down after two terms in power. More Ghana stories from the BBC: [Getty Images/BBC] Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica BBC Africa podcasts The Seven Hills School will close its Doherty Campus in East Walnut Hills in three years, the school announced Wednesday. Seven Hills is a private K-12 school and preschool with two campuses, the Doherty Campus for preschool and elementary children only and another campus, Hillsdale, for kids of all ages. The Doherty Campus spans five acres and is home to a lower school for children in preschool through fifth grade. That campus currently serves 163 students. In total, the school serves more than 1,000 children on both campuses. The Seven Hills School's Doherty Campus, located in East Walnut Hills, will close by the 2027-28 school year. But the board of trustees decided Tuesday to close the Doherty campus by the 2027-28 school year, consolidating all Seven Hills students to the Hillsdale Campus on Red Bank Road in Madisonville. That transition, which includes merging two lower schools into one, will take place over the next three years. "Unifying the two Lower Schools will combine the best aspects of Dohertys and Lotspeichs culture, traditions, and programs and provide both schools with more teachers, balanced classroom size for all students and teachers, and more activities and resources," a Wednesday letter from Matthew Bolton, head of school, to the Seven Hills community reads. "Our plan is to build a forward-looking state-of-the-art Lower School on the Hillsdale Campus that will set the standard in early education for our region and for the next 50 years of Seven Hills history." Who made the decision to consolidate? Conversations about consolidation have spanned several years, Bolton wrote, and mainly centered around deferred maintenance at the lower schools and shifting enrollment. But those conversations have been limited to the school's 24 board members, which include current parents and alumni from both campuses, and a task force of 20 people who studied the school's two-campus model. The task force was made up of former board chairs, current and former board members and alumni. Auriel Buchanan, director of communications and marketing at Seven Hills, confirmed to The Enquirer that the school never hosted open information sessions or sought feedback from the greater community of Seven Hills parents during that time. The board made the decision to move forward with consolidation on Tuesday. Buchanan said the vote was unanimous. "An incredible amount of thought and due diligence went into this process, and this transformational plan sets the school up for success for decades to come," Lair Kennedy, chair of the board of trustees, wrote in a statement to The Enquirer. What does this mean for current students and families? The consolidation will not result in any faculty or staff reductions, Bolton wrote. And students currently in third, fourth and fifth grades won't be impacted by the change as they will have already transitioned to the middle school by the time the new lower school opens. The Taft Early Childhood Center on the Hillsdale Campus will be expanded, officials said, and all early childhood students and teachers will move to that center during the 2026-27 school year. The new lower school on the Hillsdale Campus will open the following year, and house all Seven Hills kids in grades 1-5. More information about the transition can be found on the district's website. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Seven Hills to close Doherty campus, consolidate schools Officers arrested six people participating in a peaceful sit-in demonstration on housing and homelessness Thursday inside the lobby of a California legislative office building in downtown Sacramento. The demonstration was held inside the lobby of the Capitol Swing Space building on O Street. Offices for state lawmakers and the governor are located in the building. Members of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment and Camp Resolution in Sacramento participated in Thursdays demonstration. The protesters demanded that Newsom fund affordable housing at scale, fulfill his promise of building one million affordable homes by 2030 and stop the homeless encampment sweeps that merely move people from corner to another while causing trauma and harm, according to a news release from the two groups. Jesus Figueroa Cacho, a member of ACCE and among those arrested Thursday, said the governor must take action by taxing Californias big businesses and billionaires to fund affordable housing now. Jesus Figueroa Cacho rallies in the Capitol Swing Space lobby after marching from the state Capitol on Thursday. The protesters tried to deliver a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom asking for him to stop homeless encampment sweeps and deliver on his promise of creating 1 million new affordable homes by 2030. She was one of six people arrested in the lobby that night. As a long-time nursing care worker who has been unhoused, sleeping on couches or in my car for the last year, Im horrified that we spend a mere 1% of our state budget on affordable housing, Figueroa Cacho said in the news release. Affordable housing solves homelessness, not sweeps. The Governors Office on Friday declined to respond to the protesters demands or comment. In a September news release, the Governors Office said Newsom, in partnership with the state Legislature, has invested more than $40 billion to boost affordable housing and more than $27 billion to address homelessness since he took office five years ago. Officer John Ortega, a spokesman for the CHPs Protection Section, said Thursdays demonstration began on the west side of the Capitol building in downtown Sacramento. The protesters then marched to the nearby Swing Space building and continued the demonstration inside the building. About 6:30 p.m. Thursday, after the building closed for normal business hours, CHP officers ordered the protesters to disperse or they would be detained or arrested, Ortega said. Six people failed to comply with the dispersal order and were arrested on suspicion of unlawful assembly, remaining present at an unlawful assembly after being lawfully warned to disperse, failing to disperse at a public disturbance and being present in or upon state property when closed to public, according to the CHP. Ortega said the people arrested did not physically resist, and they were later booked at the Sacramento County Jail. California Highway Patrol officers fasten a zip tie on Elsa Stevens, 71, in the Capitol Swing Space on Thursday while other officers usher protesters from the lobby. Six people, some homeless, were eventually arrested during a sit-in demonstration calling for an end to homeless sweeps and calling on the governor, whose office is in the building, to help build more affordable housing. Satearah Murphy, a co-founder of Camp Resolution and among those arrested in the protest, spoke out against sweeping homeless encampments and hoped the governor heard their stories. Camp Resolution was an encampment of about 50 homeless people living in city-issued trailers on city property in a once vacant North Sacramento lot. Residents of the camp, comprised largely of disabled seniors, were moved out of the location last month. Sacramento city officials called Camp Resolution a failed experiment, mostly because of what they considered counterproductive interventions by homeless advocates. Tena Pflueger, 66, who is homeless and blind in one eye from cancer, describes her situation to Adrian Mata, director of constituent affairs in the governors office, during a protest at the Capitol Swing Space on Thursday. (Gov. Gavin Newsom) lives in a mansion we live in the mud, she said, explaining that she lives under a bridge with rats and continues to be swept every day. Since our tight-knit community was bulldozed a month ago, none of us have been given permanent housing, and some of us live across the street from where the camp was, Murphy said in the news release. Sweeps dont solve homelessness, they cause harm and trauma. We need real affordable housing. Pinky Toney, a member of ACCE who also was arrested Thursday, said the the only solution to this crisis is more affordable housing, and its time for Newsom to fulfill his promise of 1 million affordable homes. Without affordable housing available, Toneys family was homeless for a year. Even homeless shelters wouldnt take them, Toney said, because her daughters allergies were considered a liability. I know what its like to be homeless. After complaining about black mold in our apartment that was making my daughter severely sick, our landlord evicted us, Toney said in the news release. For an entire year, me, my husband and our two young children moved between hotels, sleeping in tents, abandoned buildings and friends couches. Satearah Murphy, a founding member of the Camp Resolution homeless encampment that was recently dismantled by the city of Sacramento, said she is still homeless during a rally at the state Capitol on Thursday. She was one of six arrested when the protest peacefully occupied the Capitol Swing Space later in the day in a bid to meet with Gov. Gavin Newsom. Jesus Figueroa Cacho, right, was among a group of protesters, all seated, who were arrested in the lobby of the Capitol Swing Space after a rally and march demanding affordable housing and an end to encampment sweeps on Thursday. Cacho, a nursing care worker for decades, is on disability because of her vision. She lives in her car after an eviction over fees she believes were fraudulent. UPDATE: Suspect in shooting in custody, woman taken by CareFlight to hospital UPDATE @ 12:55 a.m.: A shooting suspect has been located and is in custody, the Greenville Police Department announced in a social media post. [DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] As reported Thursday on News Center 7 at 11, Greenville Police officers responded to the 700 block of Martin Street in Greenville around 8:30 p.m. on initial reports of a shooting. TRENDING STORIES: Greenville Police asked neighbors on social media Thursday night to shelter in place while they searched for the suspect last seen wearing khaki shorts and no shirt. The shelter-in-place has been lifted. CareFlight transported a female victim to Miami Valley Hospital. Her condition is unknown. No other details about the arrest have been released. We will update this story. [SIGN UP: WHIO-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] Kelly Earnshaw is banned altogther from entering specific shops in the borough of Swale A convicted shoplifter must now use a see-through bag when she enters a store, a court has ruled. Shelley Earnshaw, 31, was subjected to the unusual criminal behaviour order after she was caught stealing hundreds of pounds worth of goods from supermarkets in Kent. Kent Police said Earnshaw stole 264 worth of items, including meat, laundry and toiletries, from a Morrisons store in the village of Milton Regis between July 31 and August 16. On two separate occasions, she shoplifted multiple items from a Co-op store in the town of Sheerness, placing them in her bag and leaving without paying. Earnshaw, of College Road, Sittingbourne, was arrested and charged with seven thefts and pleaded guilty at Medway Magistrates Court. On Monday, she was jailed for 100 days and handed a criminal behaviour order which bans her from entering several specified shops in the borough of Swale. The order also requires her not to act in a way that causes distress to shop staff or the public, and forbids her from entering a store with a bag unless it is clear, or a small clutch handbag. Police Sergeant Dan Bartlett of Kent Police said: We are determined to deter prolific thieves from targeting local stores as this can have a very real financial impact on these businesses and cause particular distress to shop workers. Beat officers will investigate these incidents and, where an offender is identified, ensure they are detained. Where we can show a pattern of persistent offending we will also ask a court to impose a criminal behaviour order. This restricts an offenders conduct on their release from prison and allows us to swiftly bring them back before the court if they breach the relevant conditions. Earlier this week, the Co-op revealed a 40 million hit from shoplifting in the first half of the year as it said criminals were becoming more brazen in its stores. The retailer said that costs incurred from theft were up 19 per cent in the first six months of the financial year, jumping to 39.5 million from 33 million during the same period in 2023. Matt Hood, the managing director of Co-op Food, said this reflected an ongoing epidemic of crime in the retail sector, which has gained traction in recent years. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. KEMPNER, Texas (FOX 44) Gunfire was exchanged during a home invasion in Kempner. The Lampasas County Sheriffs Office received a 9-1-1 call at approximately 3:31 a.m. Thursday regarding a burglary at a rural residence in the 3100 block of FM-28028 in Kempner. The homeowner of the residence, a 67-year-old man, stated he was awakened when he heard the sound of glass breaking outside of his bedroom. He went to the bedroom across the hallway and discovered a rock was thrown through the bedroom window. The man left his residence to investigate and check all sides of his residence. After entering his residence again, he heard the same sound of glass breaking coming from the same bedroom. The homeowner armed himself with a pistol and took defensive cover and stance, believing an intruder entered his residence through the broken window. The homeowner saw what appeared to be a burglar leaving the bedroom. The homeowner pointed his weapon at the suspected burglar, and believed the burglar also had a firearm pointed at him. When the homeowner attempted to fire his weapon, it did not discharge. The burglar suspect fired his weapon more than once at the homeowner and narrowly missed striking him. The homeowner took cover and the burglar left the residence through the suspected window he entered from at first. Lampasas County deputies responded immediately, arriving at approximately 3:46 a.m. The Sheriffs deputies searched the residence and the surrounding areas. Lampasas County Criminal Investigators and the Texas Rangers were notified and responded. The crime scene was processed and evidence was collected. This investigation 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 KWKT - FOX 44. SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) The Shreveport Police Department has requested that Louisiana State Police investigate an incident that happened Wednesday evening. According to a press release from LSP, earlier this afternoon, at approximately 5:15 p.m., LSP was requested to investigate an incident for SPD. Police say the incident happened Wednesday evening at 7:20 p.m. as a traffic stop. Police say victim beaten with metal table during argument, suspect arrested Police say officers attempted to stop a vehicle on Broadway Avenue at Hollywood Avenue. The final stop location was at Hollywood Avenue at McAlpine Street. As a result of the traffic stop, officers met a male subject and attempted to arrest him. During the attempted arrest, a physical altercation ensued which resulted in the man having what police say are serious injuries. At this time the man remains in the hospital. Police say that no officers were injured. LSP says this investigation is active and ongoing. Through coordination with the Caddo Parish District Attorneys Office and LSP Investigators, more information will be provided once it becomes available. Anyone with information and or pictures and video are asked to share that information with LSP Investigators by calling 318-741-2735. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTALnews.com. Floridas new condominium laws might present an opportunity for developers looking to buy up older, poorly maintained buildings to replace them with modern luxury towers. The new laws, inadvertently, could also put South Floridas last vestiges of affordable housing at risk and state lawmakers and local officials must be aware and prepare for that scenario. The reforms passed after the 2021 Surfside building collapse are meant to ensure that condo associations stay on top of maintenance by not allowing them to waive financial reserves and requiring inspections and reserve studies to find out how much they need to set aside for repairs. That was necessary to prevent another tragedy, but the requirements clash with the reality that South Floridas condo inventory skews older and fixing some of those buildings may be too expensive for residents. Miami-Dade needs 90,000 housing units that a household of four earning up to $82,560 could afford to rent, according to a 2023 study by the nonprofit Miami Homes for All. Older condos a components of whats officially labeled naturally occurring affordable housing have helped prevent South Floridas housing crisis from being even worse, providing homes for retirees and working-and-middle-class families left with few options thanks to skyrocketing rents and home values the focus of the Herald Editorial Boards series Shrinking Middle. Many of those residents are renters with little to no safety net. If they are displaced, South Florida could lose workforce it needs for its economic well-being. Its still unknown how many buildings are in such dire need of repair that owners might have to sell their units or entire buildings instead of being saddled with upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars in special assessments thanks to the new laws. A 2020 policy brief by Florida International Universitys Metropolitan Center offers a potential hint: there are 258,124 residential structures not all of them condos or buildings in Miami-Dade County constructed before building codes were toughened in response to Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The policy brief was written as a warning to the potential destruction that another direct hit by a major storm could inflict along Miami-Dades urban corridor. What was not foreseen back then is that a building could collapse in the middle of the night as the Champlain Towers South did, killing 98 people. Certainly, allowing people to remain in buildings that are not structurally sound as cheap as they may be is not the answer, but neither is allowing them to be displaced with no place to land. Most vulnerable structures identified in the FIU study are located in the same areas that developers are eyeing for gentrification thanks to their prime location east or just west of Interstate 95 areas like Allapattah and Little Haiti, Metropolitan Center Associate Director Ned Murray told the Herald Editorial Board. What Im concerned about are condo predators, Murray said. They are lining up, waiting to buy older buildings to tear them down. State Rep. Vicki Lopez, the Miami Republican who wrote Floridas new condo laws, said that land trusts have been buying multiple units in the same buildings to create a majority of votes in an association to eventually sell those buildings. She advised that associations can enact bylaws prohibiting the same entity from owning multiple units. What I resent is that theyre building luxury not even high end, (but) luxury and Im shocked at the level of the number of people who are available to purchase luxury (condos), Lopez said. Its clear that to prevent older, more affordable buildings from disappearing, government will have to step in. Miami-Dade County already has programs that award no-interest loans for some owners facing special assessments and to rehabilitate naturally occurring affordable housing. Lopez said shes interested in implementing similar programs statewide. Lawmakers reacted quickly and forcefully after the Surfside collapse highlighted the safety crisis facing condominiums. They should not wait until a new affordability crisis develops to mitigate it. Click here to send the letter. Sidney voters will see 2 levies on their ballot this election SIDNEY, Ohio (WDTN) Sidney residents will see two levies on the ballot when casting their votes this election season. Our partners at Sidney Daily News report both are income tax levies proposing a 0.25 percent increase in taxes onto the 1.5 percent city taxes in place now. Springfield announces encryption of police, fire, EMS channels The first levy is for the citys police and fire department. Money cannot be used for building and instead would go towards salaries, benefits, training and equipment. The second focuses on street improvements and would include construction, reconstruction, resurfacing, and maintenance. If both levies pass, the total city tax will go up to 2 percent. If only one passes, the total will rise to 1.75 percent and if none passes the city tax will stay the same. Shelby County voters can view a sample ballot 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 WDTN.com. Michael T. Ellis told police he had been hoarding dogs in his home on Milwaukee's north side home over time, and that he simply was unable to keep up with their care after a divorce, newly released court papers say. Animal control officials aren't buying his story. They believe he was breeding them for money. The Milwaukee man now faces five felony counts of mistreatment of animals after dozens of dead dogs were discovered in a home that once belonged to him. A signature bond for $5,000 was issued for Ellis, 45, during his initial court appearance on Wednesday. He is expected return to court for a preliminary hearing Oct. 6. More: The 18-year-old babysitter charged with killing a family's pet Chihuahua pleads insanity The dead dogs in the kitchen were just the beginning Milwaukee police were sent to a home on the 5200 block of North Teutonia Avenue on Aug. 6 by an employee who works in the city's real estate program. The city had foreclosed and taken ownership of the property on June 14, and the employee went there to perform a standard walkthrough of the home. Ellis was its previous owner. The criminal complaint, released Wednesday by the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office, paints a macabre and disturbing picture of what the employee and a colleague found once they got inside. They were overcome with a foul odor. Then they saw dead dogs, several of them, in the kitchen, the complaint said. A lit candle, believed to have been an attempt to mask the odor, also was spotted in the room. The two employees left the home and called the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission. An animal control officer recovered three living dogs from the home. A necropsy was conducted on the bodies of two other dogs. One was too far decomposed for a cause of death to be determined. The other showed "significant evidence of emaciation and severe muscle atrophy," leading a doctor to find it died of starvation. It was a 'Silence of the Lambs' horror scene inside the house More: Wisconsin man gets prison time for video of tortured monkey Detectives went back to the home Aug. 16 with a team from MADACC. On the first floor, they found 25 dead dogs, mostly in garbage bags. Another 28 dead dogs were in the basement. "It was honestly the worst thing I've ever seen in my life," MADACC Executive Director Karen Sparapani said. "It was like something out of 'Silence of the Lambs.' It was horrifying because every skull or skeleton that was in there, you knew was alive at some point." Cellphone records for Ellis showed he was at the home the night before the city employees visited on Aug. 6, the complaint said. Sparapani said officials also found a stack of unopened dog food in the house, along with several inescapable dog cages. Each cage had skeletons inside them. Sparapani said the evidence inside the home were hallmarks of an underground dog-breeding operation that has exploded in popularity in recent years because of a demand for XL bullies and other breeds of muscular pit bulls. "This was just cruel," she said. Ellis turned himself in to police on Sept. 19. During an interview with detectives, Ellis admitted he had been hoarding dogs after a recent divorce, according to the criminal complaint. He said he was struggling to keep up with their care, but that he was "embarrassed" to seek help from groups such as MADACC, the document said. More: Milwaukee man charged with mistreatment after 113 animals, including alligators, cats, dogs, seized from home with unsanitary conditions What is the law in Wisconsin for breeding dogs? The number of animals that are allowed in a household varies from city to city. In the city of Milwaukee, for example, no more than four adult dogs, cats and/or rabbits are allowed in any one dwelling unit. Anything after that, a pet owner would need to apply for an animal fanciers license. Rules are different for breeders. Wisconsin law regulating dog breeding, sales, and adoption-for-fee requires inspection and licensing of many dog breeders, dealers and sellers, as well as shelters and rescues that foster and adopt out dogs. It also calls for licenses for individuals and organizations selling 25 or more dogs a year from more than three litters that they have bred. The three dogs that survived the ordeal eventually were placed in foster care and are currently being cared for two were adopted, the third went to a rescue home, Sparapani said. City officials have said they intend to raze the property, but it's not clear when the demolition would occur. Prosecutors expect to request that Ellis be prohibited from owning, possessing or training any animals as a condition of bail, the complaint said. How to report illegal animal breeding activity You can file a complaint with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection if you have concerns that a business or person is in violation of state law relating to the licensing and inspection of dog sellers and dog facility operators. How to report animal abuse All reports of suspected animal cruelty or neglect should be directed to the local police department. If you live in the city of Milwaukee and you feel an animal is not being housed or cared for properly, you can also contact the Department of Neighborhood Services at 414-286-2268. The Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission does not investigate mistreatment cases, however, it provides assistance to local law enforcement and will pick up and care for animals that are seized for violations of local and state statutes. If you observe or suspect animal abuse or neglect is occurring, take the following steps: Contact your local non-emergency police department as soon as possible. If you witness an animal in a life-threatening situation, call 9-1-1. Share detailed, factual information with the dispatcher when you call the police department. Police are best able to perform their duties when provided with detailed descriptions of the suspected abuse. The more details you provide, the greater the chance that the law will be upheld, and the animal helped. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Dozens of dead dogs found in 'Silence of the Lambs' house in Milwaukee Sioux City PD looking for suspect in downtown robbery SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) UPDATE: Officials have released more information on a credit union robbery that occurred Thursday. According to a release, the Sioux City Police Department was notified at 3:37 p.m. of a robbery at Sioux Valley Community Credit Union in downtown Sioux City. When officers arrived at the scene, employees said a man had just robbed them. Former Cherokee teacher sentenced for harassment of student The police department says that the suspect is a Black man about five feet four inches to five feet six inches tall and weighing about 140-160 pounds. Police did not provide a photo. The suspect allegedly walked in with his face covered and demanded money from one of the tellers. He then exited the bank and left the area with an undisclosed amount of money, the release states. Officials are still investigating the robbery. Anyone with more information is asked to call the police department at 712-279-6440 or its anonymous tip line at 712-258-8477. PREVIOUS: The Sioux City Police Department is investigating a robbery of a downtown credit union. Sgt. Thomas Gill with the police department told KCAU 9 that the robbery took place Thursday around 3:30 p.m. at Sioux Valley Community Credit Union in the 1100 block of 6th Street. Officials couldnt provide more details at the time, and the police are continuing to investigate the incident. This is a developing story. KCAU 9 will update as we learn more. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to SiouxlandProud | Sioux City, IA | News, Weather, and Sports. SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) A kindergarten teacher at Volgas Sioux Valley Elementary School (SVES) has been named the 2025 Teacher of the Year, according to a Department of Education (DOE) press release on Thursday. At a banquet held Thursday evening in Fort Pierre, Secretary of Education, Joseph Graves, announced Amy Verhelst as the recipient of the award. Verhelst has been teaching at SVES since 2018 and gives instruction in phonics and phonemic awareness which helps her young students develop into readers before they finish kindergarten. Brandon Valley penny drive benefits HS senior Kindergarten is that beginning stage where I get to give them their first exposure to school, that first experience, and its like a whole new world for them, said Verhelst as stated in the DOE press release. Verhelst is a graduate of SDSU and has been teaching since 2014. She also taught in the Brandon Valley School District and Brownsburg, Indiana School District before arriving at the elementary school in Volga . Representing South Dakota, Verhelst will be a candidate for the 2025 National Teacher of the Year award, at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. next spring. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KELOLAND.com. Siouxland Community Foundation to host Big Give Campaign to help local nonprofits SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) The Siouxland Community Foundation will be hosting the sixth annual Siouxland Big Give campaign for local nonprofits. The Siouxland Big Give is an online 24-hour day of giving to spotlight nonprofit organizations and connect them with the community. This year, the Big Give will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 1. Katie Roberts, Executive Director of the Siouxland Community Foundation said the Siouxland Big Give is more than just a single day of generosity, its an opportunity to discover the incredible work being done by our local nonprofit organizations. According to a press release, over 95 charitable organizations are participating and the goal is to raise more than $150,000. Many nonprofits have also secured matching gifts to help them achieve their highest donation. Sioux City Warming Shelter to stay open Roberts adds Many of our charities have secured matching gifts, allowing every donation to stretch further. Its a great way to maximize your support and make a difference. With so many diverse organizations involved, theres a cause for everyone to support. This event not only supports organizations across a wide range of causes but also provides a platform for them to raise awareness and funds. For more information visit our website at www.SiouxlandBigGive.org, call 712-293-3303, or email office@siouxlandcommunityfoundation.org. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to SiouxlandProud | Sioux City, IA | News, Weather, and Sports. EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) A Clarke Middle School math teacher has recently been arrested twice on several sexual abuse charges involving children, according to El Paso County Jail Records and court documents obtained by KTSM. According to El Paso County Jail Records, Llojan Almaraz, 28, was arrested by Socorro Independent School District (ISD) Police on Friday, Sept. 13, and charged with improper relationship between an educator and student, child grooming, indecency with a child, and sexual performance of a child. He posted bond the following day on Saturday, Sept. 14. Almaraz was then arrested again the following week on Friday, Sept. 20, by Socorro ISD Police, and charged with two counts of online solicitation of a minor. He posted the bond that same day. According to court documents, on Aug. 28, a Walter Clarke Middle School officer received a report of an improper relationship between educator and student. The officer met with the middle schools principal who informed the officer that Almaraz had been improperly communicating with a female student from the campus. Almaraz, who had been a math teacher at Walter Clarke Middle School since Oct. 2021, was the victims teacher during the 2023-2024 school year, according to court documents. According to court documents, an affiant interviewed the victims mother who said that her daughter was communicating with Almaraz via telephone calls and text conversations. The victims mother said that the language in text conversations between Almaraz and her daughter was inappropriate and that Almaraz sent her daughter live images of himself exposing his penis. According to court documents, the victims mother provided the affiant with a screen-recorded text thread conversation between the victim and Almaraz. In some of those texts, Almaraz texted the victim that he wanted to have sex with her. He also said he wanted to date her and get her pregnant. The affiant also observed that Almaraz gifted the victim funds through money transfer applications for Starbucks and other purchases, according to court documents. According to court documents, the victims mother also said that Almaraz gave her daughter gifts such as a lanyard, a Funko Pop action figure, Pandora bracelet charms and a gold necklace. The affiant searched the victims phone and located the text thread conversation with Almaraz where they got Almarazs telephone number saved under a heart emoji. The phone number was verified through the Socorro ISD employee demographics, according to court documents. A forensic interview was conducted with the victim. The victim said that she started talking with Almaraz through the SportsYou application, which is used to communicate school-based sports information between coaches, parents, and student-athletes, approximately in October 2023 when she was 12 years old, according to court documents. The victim said she and Almaraz eventually exchanged telephone numbers and would communicate by telephone calls and text conversations. According to court documents, the victim said she and Almaraz met on two separate occasions during June. She said Almaraz would meet her at the apartment property where she resides with her mother. The victim said the first time she and Almaraz met, they spent about half an hour in the back seat of his truck. She explained there was kissing and touching involved, but they did not have sex in any of the two separate occasions, according to court documents. However, the victim said that on the second occasion, she felt awkward because Almaraz grabbed her and started kissing her all over her face. She said that she kissed Almaraz back, but not on the lips, according to court documents. According to court documents, a juvenile witness was interviewed regarding the allegations made against Almaraz. The witness said Almaraz would buy the victim gifts and food throughout the school year. The witness also said Almaraz would communicate with the victim by text and Instagram, using the witness as a mediator. On Sept. 5, the affiant spoke to a second juvenile witness who attended Clarke Middle School from the school years 2021 to 2023. This witness said Almaraz was her math teacher during her seventh-grade year. According to court documents, the second witness said Almaraz began communicating with her through the SportsYou application. She also said Almaraz communicated with her through her eighth-grade year via a fake TikTok account. The second witness said Almaraz gave her gifts and felt that she was being groomed by him. She said she then stopped communicating with Almaraz, according to court documents. According to court documents, the second witness also said it was during Almarazs first year of teaching and that he referred to her as his number one. According to Clarke Middle Schools website, Almaraz is listed as a math teacher. We reached out to SISD regarding Almarazs employment at the school to which they provided the following statement. This request is regarding an ongoing investigation. The individual is currently on administrative leave while the investigation proceeds. We are unable to release any information at this time, SISD said. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News. SLC gets new direct flight to Asia, announced during Coxs visit to South Korea Utah Gov. Spencer Cox meets with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Sept 27, 2024 (Courtesy of the Governor's Office) What did Utahns get after Gov. Spencer Cox s visit to South Korea this week? Most immediately, an announcement of a direct flight from Salt Lake City to the Incheon International Airport in Seoul. But, state officials are hoping that after Coxs Friday visit, the cultural and economic ties between Utah and Korea grow deeper. Delta Airlines will offer daily nonstop flights from Salt Lake City to Seoul starting June 12, 2025, the only direct flight linking Utahs capital to Asia, according to a Delta news release on Friday. Its an opportunity Cox and President Yoon Suk Yeol of the Republic of Korea expect to enhance trade and tourism between the Beehive State and South Korea. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX As we open this new gateway to Asia, I am excited to expand Utahs global reach and foster new cultural and business partnerships. Deltas commitment to our state underscores Utahs growing role on the world stage, Cox said in the Delta release. The plane selected by Delta for this route accommodates 306 seats, 32 of which will be suites with lie-flat seating and four-course meals. Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, also applauded the new flight, saying in a social media post that with more than 35,000 Korean Americans living in Utah, actions like these enrich the fabric of the community. The new nonstop flight from Salt Lake City to Seoul reinforces our status as not just the crossroads of the West, but of the world, Adams wrote. This direct route enhances travel convenience and further establishes Utah as a key hub for international business and tourism, driving economic growth and benefiting local enterprises. The governor has been on a trade mission since Tuesday along with a delegation of 47 Utah businesses and organizations. The trip will last until Oct. 4. In addition to Seoul, hell visit Tokyo with the intent of strengthening ties in manufacturing, aerospace and defense, life sciences, financial services and fintech, according to a news release issued by the governors office. Let us know what you think... The Korean economy, much like Utahs, has delivered sustained prosperity through innovation and growth, Cox said. Through shared values and mutual respect, President Yoon and I are committed to increased collaboration, which we hope will serve as a global example of how two regions can address challenging issues and create lasting positive change. Cox is also scheduled to visit the University of Utahs Asia Campus on Saturday, ahead of its 10th anniversary this year. The trade mission to South Korea was organized by the Governors Office of Economic Opportunity and World Trade Center Utah, aiming to support and expand the 200 Utah-based companies that already do business with South Korea. Last year, the governors trade missions to other countries including France, the United Kingdom and Mexico generated $193.25 million in new trade opportunities for the state, according to the governors office. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) A student at South Louisiana Community College has been arrested after carrying a gun on campus, authorities said. Adrian Harmon, 26, was booked into the Lafayette Parish Jail and charged with one count of possession of a firearm in a firearm free zone. Just after noon Friday, Lafayette Police responded to the schools campus at 320 Devalcourt St. to a report of a student with a concealed handgun on his person. With the help of campus security and Lafayette Sheriffs Deputies School Resource Officers, the suspect, Harmon, was located in an upstairs classroom and detained without incident, according to LPD. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now KLFY Daily Digest Police said there is no evidence that Harmon intended to cause harm with his weapon. Investigators said that due to his vehicle previously being burglarized he did not want to leave an unattended firearm inside his vehicle, so he brought it inside with him. No students or staff were harmed during the incident, authorities said. 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. COLUMBIA, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) McBee Police Officer Jarrell Wright followed a white Toyota truck a half of a mile, from the only stoplight in McBee, until it finally stopped on the McBee High School campus. Wright clocked the driver, Alston Modlin, running around twice the speed limit in the 25 mph zone near the lone, main intersection in town. Investigators said Modlin had just walked out of a water heater manufacturing plant in McBee after finishing his shift on Sept. 20. Modlin was a welder and worked the second shift at the McBee A.O. Smith plant. Bullet holes in McBee Police Officer Jarrell Wrights patrol car show where Alston Modlin was aiming after investigators said the man tried to murder a McBee cop who attempted to stop him for speeding on Sept. 20, 2024. Nearly every shot appeared to be aimed at the officers head and the drivers seat. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr) Wright encountered the 27-year-old man a few minutes past 11 p.m. that night. Modlin had plenty of places to pull over, but he wouldnt stop for a half-mile as the pair headed southbound on Highway 151 through town. Modlin turned right onto South 11th Street and drove several yards off the side of the street onto the McBee High School campus. Both automobiles stopped near the FFA classroom on the south end of the high school. Once stopped, the officer reached down for his radio and when he looked up, investigators said Modlin was aiming a high-powered rifle and launched the first of more than 60 rounds that ripped through the glass and sheet metal of the brand-new Dodge Charger patrol car. The car had only 500 miles on it the chief said. All Wright could do was slump down in his seat. McBee Police Chief Tim Knight said Wright pulled his armored vest over his head and waited for it to end, fully expecting to die. But Wright pretended to be dead as he lay still, slumped over in the car. A source shared a photograph of the shooting scene with Queen City News Chief Investigator Jody Barr last week. The picture shows yellow evidence markers circling the patrol car. A law enforcement source told Barr the shooter was circling the McBee officer, with nearly every shot aimed at the drivers seat. The crime scene photograph and the holes in the patrol car corroborated that information. Law enforcement told Barr after Modlin emptied the rifle clip, he pulled out a handgun and fired several more rounds into the drivers window. Police believe the dark tint on the patrol car windows kept the shooter from seeing the officer inside, who had slumped down inside the car pretending to be dead. The S.C. Law Enforcement Division estimates the shooting happened at 11:13 p.m. Law enforcement sources said first responders and dispatchers initially didnt know Wright was in trouble since the stop was not called into dispatch. The public also wasnt aware of the shooting or that the attempted cop killer was on the loose until nearly nine hours after the shooting. A Blue Alert was never published by SLED until nearly ten hours after the shooting as state and local law enforcement were in the middle of a shootout with Modlin 25 minutes south of McBee. Why SLED delayed this critical public notice is at the center of our Blew Alert report, a Queen City News investigation. THE 9.5 HOUR DELAY When news of the McBee shooting made its way into our newsroom, Officer Jarrell Wright was already sitting in a hospital room receiving medical treatment for four gunshot wounds. None of the wounds were life-threatening, according to investigators. The photographs from inside the patrol car show how much of a miracle it was that Wright survived. One bullet hit his steering wheel, the drivers side headrest was ripped to shreds, and his laptop and electrical equipment bolted to the console were destroyed nearly every corner of the drivers cockpit had a bullet hole in it. This photograph looking at the back of the drivers compartment from the back door of the McBee Police patrol car shows the number of shots fired at where Officer Jarrell Wrights head would have been during a Sept. 20, 2024, shooting in downtown McBee. Wright was slumped down inside the car and suffered four gunshot wounds that caused non-life-threatening injuries, according to law enforcement. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr) Our first communication with SLEDs press office happened at 6:10 a.m. Public Information Director Renee Wunderlich provided the following information: The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) is investigating an incident in Chesterfield County where a McBee police officer was shot. The officer is at the hospital receiving treatment. The SLED investigation was requested early Friday morning (9/20/2024) by the McBee Police Department. This is an active and ongoing investigation. Anyone with information about this incident should contact SLED by calling (866)472-8477 and/or emailing tips@sled.sc.gov Renee Wunderlich, SLED Public Information Director Wunderlichs statement did not reveal the fact law enforcement knew who fired the shots, what he was driving, and that SLED was frantically searching for Modlin. In fact, at 2:57 a.m. three and a half hours after the shooting agents had already identified a potential suspect and had Modlins license plate information. But Modlin was still on the loose. By the time of Wunderlichs 6:10 a.m. email to QCN, SLED agents had positively identified the suspect, met with a Chesterfield County magistrate, and obtained an attempted murder warrant for Alston Modlin. Fourteen minutes after Wunderlichs first emailed statement to QCN, agents had an attempted murder warrant in hand and were trying to find the fugitive. The initial SLED statement did not include any information about the wanted man. Law enforcement also never told the public a wanted man who hours before tried to shoot a McBee police officer to death, was on the run. That notice didnt come until 9:02 a.m. in the form of a Blue Alert, a statewide emergency alert system designed to immediately notify the public and law enforcement of a significant risk to the public and other law enforcement officers. The alert is the public notification system lawmakers wanted SLED to use in this exact scenario when the Blue Alert bill became law in 2012. This is the entire section of the Blue Alert Program, created within Title 23 of the South Carolina Code of Laws, which created the S.C. Law Enforcement Division. The legislation became state law in February 2012. (Source: S.C. Code of Laws) The purpose of the program is to broadcast critical information to the public as quickly as possible in an effort to assist in the apprehension of an offender(s) who allegedly killed, seriously injured, or abducted a law enforcement officer and poses a significant risk to the public and other law enforcement officers. The Chief of SLED shall act as the programs statewide coordinator, the SLED website states. We first pointed out SLEDs failure to issue the alert in our reporting on the day of the shooting. On Sept. 23, we asked SLEDs press office what caused the delay and wanted an explanation. SLED issued a response three days later, emailing a detailed timeline of events from the time of the shooting until the Blue Alert was canceled at 10:10 a.m. on Sept. 20. Could a Blue Alert have been considered earlier? Yes, SLEDs Executive Affairs Director Ryan Alphin told QCNs Jody Barr in an email on Sept. 26. Should a Blue Alert have been considered earlier? Yes, Alphin wrote. The emergency alert system became state law in 2012 and the McBee shooting was the first time SLED has ever issued a Blue Alert in the 14 years the law existed. SLED acknowledged our questions over the delay in issuing the alert exposed problems with SLEDs alert issuance requirements. SLED criteria that were drafted in 2012 proved to be overly burdensome and was vague regarding NCIC entry. The criteria have been updated and will be posted to our website by the end of this week, Alphin wrote to Barr. The Blue Alert state statute details four criteria needed to allow SLED to issue a Blue Alert: (1) a local, state, or federal law enforcement officer is killed, seriously injured, or abducted; and (2) the law enforcement agency of jurisdiction: (a) determines that a suspect poses a serious risk or threat to the public and other law enforcement personnel; (b) possesses sufficient information that could assist in locating the suspect, including information regarding the suspects vehicle; and (c) recommends the issuance of a blue alert to SLED. Lawmakers ordered SLED to create the process for issuing the alert, which SLED did in 2012 and posted those guidelines to its website. SLEDs site shows seven separate criteria the agency wanted before it would issue a Blue Alert: The requirements SLED demanded of South Carolina law enforcement agencies before issuing a Blue Alert is overly burdensome, SLEDs Government Affairs Director Ryan Alphin told Queen City News. The agency said it has clarified and updated the requirements and would post the updates to the agencys website by Sept. 27, 2024. (Source: South Carolina Law Enforcement Division) The timeline SLED provided QCN shows agents identified the person and automobile investigators believed was involved within four hours of the shooting. Heres the full timeline SLED provided to QCN: 12:05 a.m. Chesterfield County Sheriffs Office calls SLED Operations Desk (OD) to request SLED Fusion Center assistance from an analyst 12:41 a.m. McBee Police call Captain Glenn Wood who then requests SLED Crime Scene Unit and Regional Agents assistance 2:57 a.m. SLED Regional Agents identify a subject and a vehicle 3:34 a.m. SLED Regional Agents receive Fusion Center analyst packet of information regarding subject ID and vehicle license plate 3:37 a.m. SLED Regional Agents request assistance from SLED Fugitive/SSI Agents 3:56 a.m. Captain Glenn Wood consults with the Solicitors Office regarding an arrest warrant 4:24 a.m. SLED Regional Agents call a magistrate court judge and an agent goes to meet the magistrate at the magistrates office to obtain an arrest warrant for the subject 4:34 a.m. SLED issues NLETS (National Law Enforcement Telecommunication System) Armed & Dangerous Advisory to law enforcement state-wide 5:15 a.m. The McBee police officer who was shot positively IDs the subject and vehicle to SLED 5:45 a.m. SLED obtains arrest warrant for attempted murder for the subject from the magistrate 6:24 a.m. SLED OD receives the arrest warrant for the subject 7:05 a.m. SC BLUE ALERT is first considered 8:05 a.m. South Carolina Information and Intelligence Center (SCIIC) Bulletin issued, which is a South Carolina Law Enforcement Advisory message 8:37 a.m. SC BLUE ALERT issued 9:44 a.m. SC BLUE ALERT updated; vehicle found, subject on foot 10:10 a.m. SC BLUE ALERT canceled As the timeline shows, SLEDs first notification to other law enforcement of a wanted man happened at 4:34 a.m., notated by the entry of an Armed and Dangerous Advisory into a national communication system that only notifies law enforcement agencies. By 5:15 a.m., Officer Wright was able to positively identify Alston Modlin and his white Toyota truck. In the early morning hours, it was important to notify law enforcement, who in this case we thought most likely to encounter the subject, that the subject is extremely dangerous and has shot a police officer. This was a targeted attack against a law enforcement officer, Alphin added. It took McBee Police 90 minutes following the shooting to contact SLED Captain Glenn Wood, the head of the statewide law enforcement agencys Pee Dee Region Office in Florence. Wood then scrambled SLEDs crime scene agents and an army of other agents to get to the scene and to begin work to file charges and to find Alston Modlin. After getting the attempted murder warrant in hand and hours after agents knew Modlin was who they were looking for including the truck he was driving it took SLED until 7:05 a.m. to think about notifying the public about the wanted man by launching a Blue Alert. The alert would have informed the public and news outlets across the state of the wanted man. Alston Modlin worked as a welder at the A.O. Smith water heater plant in McBee, S.C. The night of the shooting, law enforcement pulled video from the plant showing Modlin leaving work just past 11 p.m. Minutes later hed fire more than 60 shots at a McBee police officer during a traffic stop in town. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr) The state statute shows SLED had the option to have Modlins name, license plate number, and truck description posted on the S.C. Department of Transportations electronic billboards across the state. The SLED timeline does not show agents asked the SCDOT to publish any information. The SLED timeline indicates that at 8:37 a.m., nine and a half hours after the shooting, SLED issued the first public notice of the wanted man. The Blue Alert included Modlins drivers license photograph and a picture of his truck, which appears to have been taken by a roadside government license plate surveillance camera. This Sept. 20, 2024, Blue Alert was the first time the S.C. Law Enforcement Division has ever used the public notification program. The alert came hours after the shooting and during the time law enforcement officers were involved in a shootout with the wanted man. (Source: S.C. Law Enforcement Division) However, news outlets didnt receive the Blue Alert for another 25 minutes. At 9:02 a.m., Wunderlichs email containing the alert and images were sent to an email list titled, Media_Distribution_List, which included blind copies of undisclosed media outlets and was received at 9:02 a.m. At almost the same time SLED notified the public via email of manhunt for the attempted cop killer, a man who SLED described in the alert notification as someone who may be armed and dangerous. DO NOT APPROACH!, law enforcement in Lee County, S.C. were headed toward a shootout with Modlin in the middle of Una Road, a two-lane country road and ended up in a shootout with the fugitive, 25 minutes south of McBee. Social media posts from around the time of the shootout on Una Road show law enforcers were responding to the area just past 9 a.m. A source sent a message and placed a call to QCNs Jody Barr at 9:13 a.m., saying law enforcement was involved in a standoff and possible shootout in the Una Road area near Lydia, a small community between Hartsville and Bishopville, S.C. News outlets didnt receive the Blue Alert from SLEDs public information head until 9:02 a.m., which was 25 minutes after the statewide law enforcement agency said it issued the alert to inform the public of an armed and dangerous man and warning the public not to approach him. The guy that was driving the vehicle, Im going to say he tried to ambush him. Got out of the vehicle and started firing at the officers that were behind him, Lee County Sheriff Danny Simon told QCN from the scene on Sept. 20. Simon said his chief deputy, who was the departments lone K9 officer, passed Modlin near Lee State Park. When the chief deputy turned around to pursue Modlin, the sheriff said the wanted man had pulled his truck sideways in the road and had a rifle pointed at the deputy when he rounded a curve on Una Road. Multiple shots hit the deputys patrol SUV and the deputy was able to take cover. The rifle rounds somehow set the deputys car on fire, killing his K-9 dog, Mikka. The Sept. 20, 2024, manhunt and shootout between state and local law enforcement and an attempted cop killer, Alston Modlin in Lee County took K9 dog Mikkas life. The shooting set the sheriffs K9 patrol car on fire with Mikka inside. (Source: Lee County Sheriff Danny Simon) The sad thing about it is, we got a K-9 in the car. The vehicle, the patrol vehicle was actually hit and engulfed in flames, and I lost a K-9 officer as a result of it, Simon said. The dog was just under four years old, according to the sheriff. In all, three law enforcement officers were injured by bullets that day. The McBee officer was released from the hospital Friday afternoon and the two other officers in Lee County were treated for what the sheriff described as shrapnel from the rounds fired at them by Modlin. The Lee County deputy wasnt alone on the scene. Simon told QCN that a state wildlife officer was also with the K-9 deputy and one or both fired shots toward Modlin who eventually ran from the shootout scene into a nearby cornfield. Investigators later found Modlins body lying on the ground with what they believed was a single, self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Modlins body was taken to a pathologist for an autopsy. Lee County Coroner Larry Logan confirmed the manner of death was suicide and the cause was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Alston Modlins body was found in a cornfield in Lee County, just yards away from where investigators said he initiated a shootout with a Lee County sheriffs deputy and a state wildlife officer on Sept. 20, 2024. Investigators used a pop-up tent to cover the body waiting for crime scene investigators from Horry County to process the scene. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr) Because at least one shot was fired by a SLED agent, SLED Chief Mark Keel asked the Horry County Police Department to handle the investigation into the shooting in Lee County. SLED is handling the McBee investigation because SLED was not involved in the shooting. The HCPD is leading the Lee County investigation and is sending ballistic, biological, and other evidence needed to be processed by a crime lab to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Because of SLEDs involvement in the case, the evidence and its processing are handled by outside agencies. Both McBee and Lee County investigations are open and ongoing as of the date of this report. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. Pismo Heights homeowners flocked to the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday to present their appeal of the planned construction of a unique two-home property in the hills visible from their homes and the Pismo Preserve. The group which calls themselves Save the Canyon are dead-set on stopping their prospective neighbors, Remi Arnaud and Rita Turkowski, from developing the parcel of land they own in the Pismo Beach canyon. One by one, residents of the Longview Avenue neighborhood and their two lawyers spoke before the Board of Supervisors to present their case, arguing that the project was visually and environmentally disruptive but much to their dismay, the board did not agree with their pleas. The five supervisors unanimously voted to uphold the SLO County Planning Commissions prior approval of construction and grading variances for the work, giving the couple the green light to finally break ground on a project that has been in the works for years. Designed by architect Bill Isaman, the project features one 2,881-square-foot home at the base of a 1,200-foot driveway that will run along the back of the homes on Longview and another house eventually planned to perch atop the mountain ridge, offering scenic views of the ocean and Pismo Preserve. With the appropriate permits in place, Arnaud and Turkowski, who were not present at the hearing, ccan now start construction on their dream home. We are certainly pleased the Board of Supervisors upheld the approval of the planning commission and we can now move our project forward, Isaman told The Tribune in an email. But their future neighbors are not so pleased. At what point does the applicants property rights supersede the hundreds of Pismo residents? Longview resident Elizabeth Burkhead told The Tribune on Tuesday. What about our property rights? This is for two excuse me, but entitled people. Arnaud and Turkowski responded to The Tribunes inquiry that they had no comment. Pismo Beach resident Elizabeth Burkhead speaks to the Board of Supervisors on Sept. 24, 2024, on behalf of Save the Canyon, a group appealing plans for a new home near the Pismo Preserve. The board rejected the appeal. Pismo Beach neighbors battle with property owner over plans for ocean-view home What concerns did the neighbors bring to the table? Tucked in the canyon between Pismo Preserve and the neighborhood of Pismo Heights, the site for Arnaud and Turkowskis future home is visible from their neighbors properties on Longview Avenue. The site has been entitled for two residential building envelopes since 1999. Save the Canyon appeared in front of the board on Tuesday to appeal the projects grading and permits on the grounds that site is not actually exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act the environmental protection law that is considered for almost all new developments as was previously found by a mitigated negative declaration. Their appeal claims rested on the aesthetic, drainage and traffic impacts of the project, as well as the presence of two special status plant species the black-flowered figwort and the paniculate tarweed and oak trees on the property. A tribal lands lawyer also claimed that it is not clear that the archaeological report included a sacred lands review. Remi Arnaud and Rita Turkowski want to build a home at the end of the middle dirt road below the communications tower on this parcel off Longview Avenue in Pismo Heights, overlooking the hills and sea. The plan is opposed by their neighbors, who have environmental and aesthetic concerns with the project. Staff later said the sacred lands review was in fact included in the mitigated negative declaration. They also presented that Arnaud and Turkowski previously commissioned another archaeological survey of the project site in response to the appellants concerns, which resulted in no findings. Among the neighbors chief concerns was the impacts from construction of the 1,200-foot driveway on land over the maximum grade allowed by Cal Fire of 20%. According to the appeal by Save the Canyons lawyer Babak Naficy, projects on slopes greater than 10% grade must get a major grading permit and environmental determination under CEQA. Most of the parcel is on slopes over 30%, but the couple previously secured a special conditional use permit that enables grading on steeper slopes and the negative CEQA declaration. A grading map of the Longview project site parcel. According to neighbors appeal, projects on slopes greater than 10% grade must get a major grading permit and environmental determination under CEQA. Most of the parcel is on slopes over 30%. Also, because it sits on a piece of land with a greater than 30-degree grade, the project requires the construction of a platform called a hammerhead that will support the foundation of one of the homes and allow Cal Fire emergency vehicles to fully turn around. Save the Canyon has expressed concern about the visual impacts of the structure, claiming it would add an eye-sore to the otherwise spotless canyon that will be visible to all Pismo Preserve hikers and Longview residents. This site is over 17 acres, Longview resident Rogger Emmons said during public comment at Tuesdays meeting. Surely there is a less destructive location. Monte Soto, a civil engineer who presented his expert analysis of the site plans to the board, said there isnt. It is really the most logical place for the hammerhead considering the topography, Soto said. He also said that grading would not impact neighboring properties and estimated construction of the driveway to be about six months, give or take. Burkhead, one of the neighbors, claimed the project increases the likelihood of setting off a fire that would reach the homes bordering the properties in minutes. Were like 50 feet away uphill, and the prevailing winds blow right up those canyon walls, Burkhead said. It would be a wildfire disaster for the Pismo Beach residents. But Ortiz-Legg said she actually saw the driveway and hammerhead turn-around as a benefit to the neighborhood that would increase their fire accessibility to emergency services. Isaman also emphasized that the large, concrete hammerhead that neighbors are imagining is far from the final product. He presented images of his former projects to give the board and idea for what the structure will look like once a house is built there in future steps of the project. Side-by-side renderings of the hammerhead turnaround to be built on the Longview Project site. On the left is the architects rendering and on the right is Save the Canyons rendering that they produced by looking at project plans on a County computer. Another concern was over the impact on the citys roads, schools and emergency services. Normally this would not be a concern, but because the project site sits on the San Luis Obispo County side of the border between Pismo Beach and the county, the homeowners would be using the citys infrastructure but paying taxes to the county. In response, Supervisor Oritz-Legg said that shes been in communication with Pismo Beach and that they have no concerns with the project. County staff added that Pismo Beach has been aware of the project since January. Isamans firm had previously told The Tribune that the city has been in the loop since 2022, finding no issues. Still, Naficy, Save the Canyons lawyer, said that road and traffic damages would be especially bad during construction. The hauling of the dirt through the narrow streets of this neighborhood is going to generate a lot of noise, dust and vibration, Naficy told the board during the hearing. These impacts are significant impacts to humans who live there. He estimated that it would take between 169 to 270 truck trips just to remove the dirt from the driveway out through the streets of Pismo. Soto put his estimation closer to 63 trucks, subject to change depending on the size of trucks used. Save the Canyon lawyer Babak Naficy speaks to the Board of Supervisors on Sept. 24, 2024, during the groups appeal of a home proposed near the Pismo Preserve. Board of Supervisors dismissed the appeal, giving the green light to project Ultimately, the board unanimously voted against the appellants claims and upheld the ongoing mitigated negative declaration that ensures all environmental concerns can be contemporarily analyzed. The hammerhead turnaround and future residence were found valid as they exist within pre-approved building envelopes, and visual impacts from public viewpoints and were deemed less than significant. With the boards ruling, the work is set to start with the minor additional requirement of a traffic mitigation plan for construction that takes school hours into account a ruling that frustrated the Save the Canyon team. The site of the Longview project near the Pismo Preserve has been entitled for two residential building envelopes since 1999. Because of the site limitations here the steep slope and the narrow roads everythings going to take longer, Naficy told The Tribune. Every single part of this is just going to be a nightmare. Naficy and the neighbors said that they found many inconsistencies with the project and applicants presentation, for example, that the maps of the building envelopes as drawn when entitled 25 years ago appear much smaller than the maps drawn today. Naficy said when he questioned the county about this, no one could give him a straight answer. Even after the outcome of Tuesdays hearing, however, Arnaud and Turkowskis future neighbors arent giving up or going down without a fight. When asked whether Save the Canyon plans to take legal action against the couple, Naficy said that a decision has not been made yet, but a suit would be against the county and the property owner would be named as real party. Its not over, Burkhead said. The COP29 event, which will take place in November, is not only of great significance for Azerbaijan but for the entire Caucasus region. Discussing a topic as crucial as the climate crisis in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, carries its own special meaning. The gathering of world leaders to seek solutions to this issue, which is more critical than war, peace, and economics, naturally conflicts with the interests of many organisations. Azerbaijans hosting of COP29 stems from its unique progress and achievements in the Caucasus region. Given that 95% of its economy advances through oil and gas revenues, Azerbaijans boldness and determination in taking on the difficult commitment of transitioning to green energy displeases those who oppose Baku. Despite four years passing since the 44-day Second Garabagh War, in which Azerbaijan's military achieved victory with great heroism, individuals and groups who still promote the fake republic of artsakh, ignoring international law, history, and humanity, include Nubar Afeyan, co-founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative. He expressed regret that COP29 is being held in Baku while "artsakhs" former "leaders" are imprisoned in the city, calling Azerbaijan's hosting of the conference a "terrible irony." It is curious that many politicians and pro-Armenian organisations, following Afeyan's example, are particularly trying to tarnish and discredit COP29. They cannot hide the deep sense of envy they harbour. Those demanding the release of the separatists imprisoned in Azerbaijan should first explain why those separatists tried to establish their own state on Azerbaijani territory. Those who remain silent about the looting of Azerbaijani lands by Armenians for 30 years, the desecration of monuments and religious sites, the displacement of 1 million Azerbaijanis from their homes, and the massacres like Khojaly and Meshali, still shamelessly attempt to protect the so-called "Republic of Artsakh." Despite the torture and humiliation inflicted on Azerbaijanis by Armenians, today, Azerbaijan is still willing to sign a peace agreement with Armenia under the simplest conditions. However, as of last night, the Armenian army, by shelling Azerbaijans borders, once again demonstrated its approach to peace and humanity. Those who ignore all these facts and hastily claim that Azerbaijan is incapable of hosting COP29 should first consider the damage Armenia is causing to the environment. Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant Since 1976, Armenia's Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) has been operating with outdated technologies. The uncertainty in Yerevans economy, politics, and governance makes the operation of the NPP even more dangerous, and despite being deemed unfit for use, it continues to function, further exacerbating regional tensions. Given that the world is still grappling with the consequences of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and the 2011 Fukushima NPP accident in Japan, the continued existence of the Metsamor threat paints a frightening picture. While Azerbaijan is currently striving for a green energy transition, the ill-informed opinions of several pro-Armenian businessmen, and even accusations against the state are laughable. As for the separatists whose release is being demanded, the Azerbaijani government cannot treat individuals who occupied its lands and tried to establish a fake state, only to play the victim when cornered, in a more humane manner. Given that the fate of around 4,000 Azerbaijanis has remained unknown since the First Garabagh War, the separatists, who have been repeatedly visited by International Red Cross Committee (ICRC) representatives and live in safe conditions in Bakus prisons, are in far better conditions. After all, the children, women, and elderly who were captured 30 years ago, and never desired war, committed none of the crimes that these separatists did. Yet again, particularly on September 27th, the Remembrance Day marking the start of the Patriotic War, there are provocations aimed at Azerbaijan on the border, in the media, and in politics. However, these attempts at provocation, as always, end in failure. The reality is that Azerbaijan has liberated its lands from occupation and is currently carrying out various infrastructure projects in Garabagh. The reality is that COP29 will take place in Azerbaijan after being held in Abu Dhabi. The only thing that pro-Armenian organisations and individuals can do about this is to make absurd statements to the media and try to garner attention by using Azerbaijans name again. Smartmatic and Newsmax have reached a settlement in the voting technology companys election defamation lawsuit against the right-wing news outlet shortly before the case was set to go to trial. The lawsuit focused on Newsmax's false claims that Smartmatic's machines rigged the 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden. A trial had been scheduled to get underway on Monday, with a jury expected to consider whether Newsmax defamed Smartmatic by airing claims with actual malice or reckless disregard for truth, whether it damaged the company and whether damages were owed. Samira Saba, a spokesperson for Smartmatic, said Thursday that the company was pleased to have secured the completion of the case against Newsmax. "Lying to the American people has consequences," Saba said in a statement. "Smartmatic will not stop until the perpetrators are held accountable." Newsmax said in a statement that the litigation was resolved through a confidential settlement. Details of the settlement were not immediately available. Smartmatic sued Newsmax Media in 2021, alleging it claimed Smartmatics devices rigged the 2020 election. Newsmax contended that it was reporting on newsworthy events and stood by the veracity of some of the claims in question. Former President Donald Trump and his allies have continued to promote false claims that the 2020 election results were manipulated to favor Biden. After Trump's loss nearly four years ago, his attorneys drew attention to Smartmatic as a key target to bolster their claims. Smartmatic in April settled a similar defamation lawsuit against One America News for a sum that was not disclosed publicly. The company is still engaged in a legal battle against Fox News that may go to trial next year. Fox News' parent company, Fox Corp., agreed last year to pay $787.5 million to another election technology company, Dominion Voting Systems, to settle defamation claims the day that case was scheduled to go to trial. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com Councils have pulled their support for the NCS plan - STURI SNP ministers have been urged to ditch Nicola Sturgeons flawed plan to transfer responsibility for social care to a new National Care Service (NCS) after council chiefs withdrew their support. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla) said it could no longer back the legislation that would introduce the NCS. In a statement, it said the bill does not reflect commitments by SNP ministers to work in partnership with councils to deliver the new service. The Scottish Tories and Liberal Democrats said SNP ministers should now ditch the proposal, which has faced intense criticism from councils and unions since it was announced by Ms Sturgeon in 2021. The NCS would transfer responsibility for adult and childrens social care, including care homes, to a series of new boards overseen by ministers. They would be given the power to commission local services from councils, which would no longer directly provide social care, third sector providers and private care homes. The care service proposal was announced by Ms Sturgeon in 2021 - KEN JACK/GETTY But a financial memorandum published alongside the legislation warned that up to 1.3 billion is expected to be spent on administration for the NCS and its care boards in their first five years. Holyroods finance committee has previously warned the plan may not be affordable or sustainable, with the governments costings omitting potentially huge bills for VAT, the transfer of staff from councils or the creation of new health and social care records. Tess White, the Scottish Tories deputy health spokeswoman, said councils pulling their support must mean that SNP ministers accept it is the end of the road for it. She said: Countless organisations, including unions and the Scottish Conservatives have opposed these reckless proposals, yet the SNP have typically ploughed ahead regardless. If councils now pull the plug, there is no way the SNP can proceed with their costly National Care Service. Final nail in the coffin Alex Cole-Hamilton, the Scottish Lib Dem leader, said: This must be the final nail in the coffin for this ill-fated power grab. It would wrench away control from local communities and completely fail to tackle the core problems in social care. Dame Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labours health spokesman, said her party had voted against the legislation at its first stage at Holyrood as it would not sign a blank cheque for SNP incompetence that could expose the public purse to eye-watering costs. She added: It now seems that many of the key stakeholders believe that the legislation is so flawed it should not proceed. Power grab SNP ministers attempted to rewrite the bill to address concerns it was a power grab and they reached a deal with Cosla last year on shared accountability. However, a meeting of council leaders this week voted 18-14 to withdraw support. Councillor Paul Kelly, Coslas health social care spokesman, said: Local Government has been committed to working in partnership with the Scottish Government to develop proposals to deliver a National Care Service, but unfortunately the revised legislation does not effectively represent that partnership. Local Government is committed to continuing our engagement with key areas of reform which can deliver improved outcomes for people, unpaid carers and our workforce. We cannot, however, offer our support for the legislation brought forward at this stage. The Scottish Government was approached 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. Sources say deputy chief assigned as interim leader of Tacoma police. Heres what we know Tacoma Police Chief Avery Moore (right) and Deputy Chief Paul Junger address the citys new crime prevention plan during the Hosmer Business Association meeting at the Tacoma Nursing & Rehabilitation Center on Hosmer Street in Tacoma, Washington on Wednesday, June 22, 2022. Sources tell The News Tribune that Tacoma Deputy Chief Paul Junger has been assigned as the police departments interim leader while Chief Avery Moore is on paid administrative leave. City spokesperson Maria Lee confirmed to The News Tribune on Thursday that Moore was placed on leave effective Wednesday. Lee did not say why the decision was made. Junger has been deputy chief at the Police Department since May 2022, following Moore from Dallas. He has worked in law enforcement for over 15 years, according to his LinkedIn page. The Tacoma Police Departments website lists Jungers duties as: Under the direction of the Chief of Police, the Deputy Chief assists in the overall direction of the departments internal operations; directs assigned activities of the Tacoma Police Department; assures the effective protection of lives, property and constitutional rights through the enforcement of laws and ordinances; formulates, develops, implements and evaluates departmental policies, goals and objectives. Before coming to Tacoma, Junger was with the Dallas Police Department where he served as the lieutenant from January 2010 to 2015. He was the Major of Police before his departure. Junger was recognized for his actions and received a Medal of Honor following an ambush in Dallas, Texas, where five police officers were killed during a protest on July 7, 2016, according to a CBS News report. In April, Junger was named in a lawsuit filed by Moores former chief of staff Curtis Hairston that alleged Hairston was subjected to racial bias and discrimination during his 18 months with the Police Department. Hairston claims Moore did not properly intervene when Hairston brought up issues. The suit alleged that Junger had harassed Hairston and made comments with racial connotations towards him. Moore told the two to work out their differences, The News Tribune reported. The lawsuit is ongoing in Pierce County Superior Court and the city has denied all allegations of wrongdoing, the story said. The London mayor says he is looking forward to opening a new tolled road tunnel in south-east London, even though its opponents say it is unjust and unfair and will increase pollution. Tolls on the new Silvertown Tunnel are due come into force next year, alongside new tolls on the existing nearby Blackwall Tunnel. It could cost cars and small vans 4 per trip in peak hours or 1.50 off peak. There would be a reduction for some drivers, for example those on low incomes. Bexley councillor Richard Diment says the tolls will create a "two-tier London", adding: "In central and western London, where there are far more crossings, no tolls are charged. It will make south-east London even more isolated than it is already." He is particularly against the decision to toll Blackwall tunnel, "which has had no toll on it since it opened in the 1890s". "Over here in the east, where we have relatively few river crossings, people are going to have to pay. "It creates a two-tier London." The tolls are set to be introduced when the Silvertown Tunnel opens. Peak hours will be 06:00-10:00 northbound and 16:00-19:00 southbound. Transport for London (TfL) says a recent eight-week consultation until 3 September gave Londoners the chance to have their say on the proposed toll charge levels and any discounts or exemptions. Councillor Richard Diment says the tolls create a "two-tier London" [BBC] The boring of the Silvertown Tunnel has been completed right next to the existing Blackwall Tunnel. Work is continuing to join the tunnels to the road network. The Silvertown Tunnel is 1.4km (just under one mile) long and stretches from Silvertown in Newham to the Greenwich Peninsula. TfL says the scheme will address queues at the Blackwall Tunnel and reduce pollution. But it has faced fierce opposition from those who think it will do the total opposite and increase pollution and congestion. Proposed Silvertown and Blackwall tolls [Transport for London] Dominic Leggett is from the campaign group Stop Silvertown Tunnel. He says there is no guarantee that the building of a new tunnel and having tolls can be used to set levels of traffic in the way that TfL claims. Opening Silvertown Tunnel creates a lot of new pollution, a lot of new carbon emissions. The toll just brings it down approximately to a level where we are now," he says. "Thats if they get the toll right." He adds: "The problem is theres no legal imperative to put the toll in place so any future mayor can remove the toll if they want to, at that point the traffic will shoot up again. "So we have actually seen, previously, Boris Johnson took away the western extension of the congestion charge when he became mayor and we saw traffic and pollution increase in west London. "We would see the same thing here if we got a mayor who wants to remove the charge. Dominic Leggett, of Stop Silvertown Tunnel, says opening the tunnel creates more journeys [BBC] Another concern is if the Blackwall Tunnel should have to close, the tailbacks would block the A102 road that leads to the Silvertown Tunnel. The mayor is between a rock and a hard place. If he reduces the toll now, we see more pollution and more traffic," Mr Leggett says. Buses and cyclists Mayor of London Sadiq Khan reviewed the scheme when he came into office and says it will be a vital link across the Thames to east London. Mr Khan, who is chair of TfL, gave the tunnel the go-ahead, funded with a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) against future earnings. The cost was 2.2bn. He also increased the number of bus services that will use it. And there will also be a bus to carry cyclists and their bikes across. A map of the route of the new Silvertown Tunnel [Transport for London] The mayor says the tolls will help with current congestion at the crossing: "The current Blackwall Tunnel is, on an average basis, closed 700 times a year. "A five-minute closure leads to a three-mile tailback, leads to problems for small businesses, those trading, those using the tunnel. "The most unreliable bus in London is a single decker that uses the Blackwall Tunnel. By having a charge on both tunnels we can have improved public transport, improved river crossings, less congestion, better air quality. Liam Davis has organised a petition against the tolls [BBC] Liam Davis created a petition objecting to the tolls, which has so far been signed by 31,000 people. He says: It has slipped under most peoples radars. "They havent been aware that this is opening and its such a contentious issue. I think people will re-examine their transport options and affordability. "I think that some people may take advantage of working from home." He added: "But the people who have to come to work five days a week, for example nurses and teachers, I dont think they have very much choice. "I think they will bear a heavy burden for this. I also think there may be displacement to free options like Rotherhithe Tunnel or even Tower Bridge. I can see traffic moving into different places in east London. He thinks every crossing in London should have a small toll instead of drivers in east London being unfairly targeted. The mayor says the tolls pay for the tunnel: "The charge for using the Silvertown tunnel helps pay for the Silvertown tunnel. Not just the design, not just the building, but finance and the maintenance of the tunnel as well." "Its not taxpayers paying for this or Tube users, its future users of the Silvertown tunnel. But to avoid there being displacement, we are going to make sure the Blackwall Tunnel and the Silvertown Tunnel are improved but also are fit for purpose. An artist's impression of the Silvertown Tunnel [Transport for London ] Mr Khan also says the tolls are justified and control the impact of extra traffic: What we are not going to be seeing is huge numbers of additional people using the Silvertown and the Blackwall [tunnels] because theres a charge there." However, Bexley councillor Richard Diment argues the scheme is unfair: "I can just imagine the uproar there would be if a new crossing was put into west London somewhere and suddenly Putney Bridge or Chiswick Bridge had a toll placed on it. "Im sure the local population and residents would not put up with that and I dont see why we should put up with it in east London either. Christina Calderato, TfL's director of strategy, said: "We recently carried out an eight-week consultation on our user charging scheme, so Londoners could have their say on the proposed charge levels and wide range of discounts and exemptions. She said the proposed supporting measures aimed to ensure the scheme is "green and fair for Londoners and businesses". "These measures will ensure that the new tunnel delivers on its objectives of reducing congestion and providing resilience at the Blackwall Tunnel, while ensuring we support local residents on low income, small businesses, sole traders and local charities She said the transport body was assessing the public consultation responses ahead of presenting its recommendations to the TfL Board "for their consideration and approval before the end of the year". Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk About the incentives : The government has earmarked 100 billion won ($76 million) to compensate farmers, butchers and restaurant owners who agree to close their businesses. Farmers will receive up to 600,000 won ($456) for each dog they surrender, and authorities will attempt to find adoptive homes or shelter placements for the nation's near half-a-million dogs bred for their meat. The plan also includes low-interest loans for those transitioning to other agricultural businesses. Transitioning a dying industry: South Korea has over 1,500 dog breeding farms, more than 200 slaughterhouses and around 2,300 restaurants still serving dog meat. The ban, passed in January, aims to end the controversial centuries-old tradition of consuming dog meat. Reflecting growing support for animal welfare and a declining appetite for the practice, the ban has gained momentum under President Yoon Suk Yeol, a known animal lover. The plan, however, has also drawn criticism from both animal rights activists and industry representatives who raised concerns about the adequacy of the government's financial support for those impacted by the ban. Farmers have earlier called for 2 million won ($1,505) as compensation per surrendered dog. South Korean lawmakers have passed legislation banning the possession and watching of sexually explicit deepfake images and video, according to the Reuters news agency. The new law was passed Thursday by South Korea's National Assembly. It now lacks only a signature of approval by President Yoon Suk Yeol before it can be enacted. Under the terms of the new bill, anyone who purchases, saves or watches such material could face up to three years in jail or be fined up to the equivalent of $22,600. It is already illegal in South Korea to create sexually explicit deepfake material with the intention of distributing the content, with offenders facing a sentence of up to five years in prison or a fine of about $38,000 under the Sexual Violence Prevention and Victims Protection Act Activists wearing eye masks, hold posters reading 'Repeated deepfake sex crimes, the state is an accomplice too' during a protest against deepfake porn in Seoul on August 30, 2024. / Credit: ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP via Getty Images If the new legislation is signed into law, the maximum sentence for the crime of creating deepfake pornography would be increased to seven years, regardless of whether the creator intended to distribute the images, according to Reuters. There's been public outrage in South Korea in recent years over the exchange of sexually explicit AI-manipulated images and deepfakes, and last month authorities launched an investigation into such content allegedly being shared via chat rooms on the Telegram messaging app. An investigation by South Korean journalist Ko Narin for the country's Hankyoreh newspaper, published in August, found that the faces of several female graduates of Seoul National University had appeared on sexually explicit deepfake materials produced and distributed by men with whom they'd studied. "I was shocked at how systematic and organized the process was," Ko told CBS News partner network BBC News earlier this month. "The most horrific thing I discovered was a group for underage pupils at one school [to share content] that had more than 2,000 members." The distribution of such imagery among young people in South Korea appears to be widespread problem. A total of 387 people have been arrested this year alone for crimes related to deepfake sexual content, with 80% of them teenagers, South Korea's national Yonhap news agency reported this week, citing police data. New Calif. laws cracking down on AI election deepfakes face legal challenges The investigation into Telegram was announced not long after the tech company's CEO Pavel Durov was charged by French authorities with multiple crimes, including the allegation that his platform was used for the propagation of child sexual abuse material. As CBS News reported, deepfake explicit images of pop icon Taylor Swift spread quickly on Elon Musk's social media platform X early this year, drawing millions of views and prompting X (formerly Twitter) to temporarily block searches for the entertainer in January. In May, two U.S. senators co-authored bipartisan draft legislation aimed at cracking down on non-consensual intimate deepfake images online. The legislation proposes penalties including fines and up to two years in prison, with civil penalties that could range up to $150,000. Why Hurricane Helene could be catastrophic New York City Mayor Eric Adams arraigned Dame Maggie Smith | 60 Minutes Archive A Ventura County man was convicted of molesting young girls on multiple occasions. Steven Wayne Bower, 54, of Ojai, was found guilty of molesting two girls who were 5 and 9 years old at the time, according to the Ventura County District Attorneys Office. The molestations began in 2003 and involved three incidents, authorities said. Bower was a family friend of the young victims parents. Two incidents occurred when Bower was on a camping trip with the girls and the third molestation happened while he was babysitting one of the girls, the DAs office said. He was convicted Wednesday of three felony counts of lewd acts upon a child. The jury also found true several special allegations including Bower having substantial sexual conduct and the case involving multiple victims. Steven Wayne Bower, 54, is seen in a booking photo from the Ventura County District Attorneys Office. Todays verdict is a testament to the strength and resilience of the victims and their families, who have waited nearly a decade for justice, said Melissa Suttner, a deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case. Despite the unimaginable pain and delay, they never gave up hope. We are grateful the jury held the defendant accountable, and we hope this decision brings some measure of closure and healing to those affected. Bower is being held without bail in Ventura County Jail. A sentencing hearing is scheduled on Nov. 12. If convicted on all charges, he faces up to 45 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. BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) On Thursday, multiple officials of Southern University and community leaders joined together for a groundbreaking ceremony of a $1.7 million outdoor classroom and amphitheater at the Baton Rouge campus. This is only a start of some of the remarkable transformations that will take place on this campus that most importantly will have a significant impact on the experience that students have here, said Dennis. J. Shields, president of the Southern University System. University officials said funding is coming from the U.S. Department of Educations Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, money that was placed to the side and will now be able to be used. John Pierre, Southern University chancellor, said the facility will be very unique to the campus. Baton Rouge General launches new mobile healthcare unit for North Baton Rouge It represents the shape of the bell that our enslaved ancestors rang every morning to start the day when this was a plantation. And now this is a place and a beacon of hope, said Pierre. Pierre is excited for the project. He said students will not be the only ones to benefit from the new facility. The community can have outdoor activities, that they will be able to enjoy the peacefulness of the river and the view of the Bluff. And this will add to the communiversity feel of Southern University, he said. In regards to the timing of completion, Pierre said they hope to finish the project within a year. 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 BRProud.com. Will Southwest offer flights from Jackson to Nashville? JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) Officials with the Jackson Municipal Airport Authority (JMAA) announced the addition of a new nonstop flight between the Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport (JAN) and Nashville, Tennessee (BNA). Since Southwests highly anticipated return to Jackson in 2021, Mississippians have enjoyed more nonstop flight options, including direct flights from Jackson to Baltimore, Houston, Atlanta, and Orlando. JMAA is thrilled about this new Nashville service and Southwests strong presence in the market, officials said. The flights will begin on April 8, 2025. The JAN-BNA flight schedules are ready for sale on www.southwest.com. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily 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 WJTV. SpaceX launches capsule that will bring two stranded astronauts back from space station SpaceX launched two new crew members to the International Space Station on Saturday, in a capsule that will eventually bring home two NASA astronauts who flew to orbit on Boeings problem-plagued Starliner spacecraft. SpaceXs Crew Dragon lifted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday afternoon from Floridas Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The flight, known as Crew-9, carries NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. The duo will join five other astronauts and cosmonauts already onboard the orbiting lab, rounding out the Expedition 72 crew. SpaceX Crew-9 cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov and NASA astronaut Nick Hague during a welcome ceremony at Kennedy Space Center on Sept. 21 in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Hague and Gorbunov are expected to remain at the space station until February. On their return flight back to Earth, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will ride with them. Wilmore and Williams launched to the orbiting outpost on Boeings Starliner capsule in early June the spacecrafts first crewed test flight. They were initially expected to stay on the ISS for around eight days, but Starliner suffered helium leaks and problems with some of its thrusters. After numerous delays, NASA opted to keep the two astronauts at the space station. The Boeing capsule, meanwhile, returned to Earth on Sept. 7 without any humans on board. Originally, the Crew-9 flight was supposed to carry four crew members to the space station, but in order to leave seats open for Wilmore and Williams, two NASA astronauts will have to wait for a future launch. Suni Williams, left, and Butch Wilmore at Space Launch Complex 41 in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on June 5. Before Saturday's liftoff, NASA had been forced to delay the Crew-9 launch several times, including most recently because of Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in Floridas Big Bend region late Thursday as a Category 4 storm. Helene has since weakened but has lashed much of the Southeast with strong winds and heavy rain, causing widespread flooding. Earlier this week, NASA said weather officials had predicted a 55% chance of favorable weather conditions for Saturdays launch. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com For the last half of the 20th century, no voice captured the essence of the American spirit better than Paul Harvey. Its been 15 years since his passing, and its easy to forget that he reached 24 million Americans each week on the radio and in newspapers. But what drew people to Harvey wasnt just his humor or wit it was his love of celebrating everyday heroes. In November 1978, Harvey stood before the Future Farmers of America convention in Kansas City, Missouri, and delivered a speech that has echoed through the generations: So God Made a Farmer. In that speech, Harvey did more than recount the creation story. He reminded us all that when God looked down on the world Hed made, He saw the need for a caretaker someone to tend to the land, someone with patience and strength. And so, God made a farmer. Harvey wasnt just sharing a perspective on faith; he was capturing the heart of what it means to be a farmer. These men and women are the backbone of our nation. Thats especially true in Southern Illinois. They are the ones who rise before dawn, work through the heat and the cold, and face the challenges of unpredictable weather and fluctuating markets all to feed and fuel America. Ive had the privilege of meeting many of these everyday heroes during my August agricultural tour across Southern Illinois. This tour wasnt just about making stops; it was about hearing directly from the people who keep our rural economy strong. From the row crop farmers in Evansville talking trade, to the livestock producers in Cisne focused on Farm Bill reforms, each conversation reaffirmed what I already knew: Southern Illinois is full of hardworking, dedicated individuals who embody the values that make America great. Agriculture is not just an industry; its a way of life. Its one of our districts largest employers, and its easy for some to forget just how crucial this industry is to our daily lives. Thats why events like this tour are so importantthey highlight the vital role farming plays in our communities. But supporting our farmers means more than just recognizing their work; it means ensuring they have the tools they need to succeed. Thats why the Farm Bill is so essential. Over the past year and a half, Ive been hitting the ground hard, both here at home and in Washington, to make sure Southern Illinois voices were loud and clear in the crafting of this legislation. Ive traveled to each of the 34 counties in our district, spoken one-on-one with farmers, attended events, held roundtables, and even hosted the Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee right here in Southern Illinois to hear straight from farmers themselves. Throughout these meetings, Ive heard time and again about the importance of the Farm Bills safety nets, how it must ensure access to trade, and secure credit for beginning farmers. These arent just policy points; they are lifelines for our farmers, helping them navigate the challenges they face every day. And I fought hard to secure these priorities in the Farm Bill, and more. Im proud to be Southern Illinois voice on the House Agriculture Committee, fighting for a Farm Bill that works for our farmers, growers, and producers. You have to wonder if Paul Harvey, when he delivered his speech at that FFA convention back in 1978, knew just how impactful his words would be. In fact, his ode to the American farmer resonated so deeply, it was incorporated in a Super Bowl commercial 35 years later. A lot has changed over the years, but one thing hasnt: we need our farmers and they need us. They need us to empower them to provide the food, fuel, and fiber that keep America moving. Im going to do all I can to make sure that happens. And now you know the rest of the story. CADDO PARISH, La. (KTAL/KMSS) The Caddo Parish School Board has called a special meeting to outline the selection process for to fill a board member vacancy. On September 17, Darrin Dixon, who represents District 7, announced he would step down effective Monday, September 30. New Caddo superintendent says he is ready to listen to, learn from community The board will meet on Tuesday, October 1, at 3 p.m. to declare the seat vacant and outline the process for filling the vacancy. To view the full agenda for the meeting, visit Board Docs. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTALnews.com. SPIRIT LAKE, Iowa (KCAU) A Spirit Lake man who was originally charged with attempted murder has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. On Sept. 10, Caleb Crosby, 19, pleaded guilty to willful injury and first-degree theft, both class C felonies. His plea was accepted on Sept. 13. One hospitalized with serious injuries after UTV crash near Sioux Center Caleb Crosby (Courtesy: Dickinson County Sheriffs Office) The willful injury charge was originally an attempted murder charge, a class B felony. Meanwhile, the charge of first-degree theft remains unchanged. The Dickinson County Sheriffs Office said that on May 5, 2024, they received a 911 call at 5:18 p.m. reporting a shooting in Montgomery, Iowa. When officials arrived, they found and treated one victim. Crosby was located a few hours later and arrested. He was also accused of stealing a vehicle. Originally, Crosby had pleaded not guilty to the two initial charges of attempted murder and first-degree theft. Crosby is set to be sentenced on Oct. 28 at 11 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 SiouxlandProud | Sioux City, IA | News, Weather, and Sports. SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY, Va. (DC News Now) One deputy in Spotsylvania County is being recognized as a hero after she rescued two people from a burning vehicle. It all happened when Deputy Mele with the Spotsylvania County Sheriffs Office, was on the way home from her shift when she noticed something burning in the woods. Deputy Mele (Photo Courtesy: Spotsylvania County Sheriffs Office) According to the Sheriffs Office, Mele discovered that a vehicle had crashed, overturned, and was on fire and immediately jumped into action. The Sheriffs Office said she rescued a disoriented passenger and brought them safety. She then returned to remove another passenger, who was unresponsive. Harris leads Trump in Virginia, DC News Now poll finds; Kaine ahead of Cao Officials said she did this while live power lines were just a few feet away. Deputy Mele was one of six deputies who received the 2024 Valor Award from the Virginia Sheriffs Association. Deputy Mele, thank you for your outstanding service and going above and beyond the call of duty! said the Sheriffs Office on social media. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Springfield, Ohio, city officials declined to take a call with former President Donald Trump's running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance earlier this month, as the Trump campaign continued to spread unsubstantiated claims that Haitian immigrants were terrorizing the community by eating pets, according to emails obtained by ABC News. The emails, obtained through a public records request, shed light on the contentious relationship between the city and the Ohio senator as officials have had to repeatedly debunk unfounded claims promoted in viral social media posts and by the Trump campaign about Haitian migrants in the city. Springfield city leaders have said the baseless claims have led to dozens of bomb threats and other threats of violence targeting the Haitian community that have forced Springfield law enforcement officials to evacuate schools, hospitals and other city facilities. In one email obtained by ABC News dated Sep. 17, Springfield Mayor Rob Rue told Vance's acting state director James Coyne that he and other city leaders were declining to join a call after the senator's office invited "third parties" to join who Vance's team said had "first-hand experiences" with how the influx of Haitian migrants in Springfield was affecting their lives. MORE: Vance kept up false claims about Haitian migrants after aide was told they were baseless "It is disheartening to see our vibrant community drawn into the national immigration debate, leading to disruptions in daily life and increased security concerns. Over the past week, schools and public offices have been closed due to threats," Rue wrote. A Springfield city spokesperson said officials initially believed they were scheduling a private call between Vance, Rue and Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck. PHOTO: Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance speaks at a campaign event on Sept. 25, 2024, in Traverse City, Mich. (Paul Sancya/AP) "We later learned that they wanted to bring some constituents (without providing their names or how they selected them) into what was initially portrayed as a private call. We decided that it was in our best interest to decline," Springfield's Strategic Engagement Manager Karen Graves told ABC News in a statement. "While we appreciated them reaching out to us, we felt the scope of the initial invitation changed and this went from an opportunity to have an honest discussion to us potentially being drawn into more politicalization." Graves said another call has not taken place. MORE: Trump pushes false claim that Haitian migrants are stealing and eating pets Coyne later replied to Rue's email that the senator had been "inundated with constituent complaints" since the Ohio senator spoke before the Senate Banking Committee raising some of the housing concerns the city had expressed to him in recent months. "Our intention in inviting some of these constituents to join the call was to help facilitate a dialogue between residents we have heard from with first-hand experiences and city officials to help him contextualize their perspective with yours," Coyne responded. MORE: Fact-checking JD Vance's claims about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio Vance first spread unsubstantiated rumors of Haitian migrants on Sept. 9, despite one of his staffers being informed that same day by Heck -- who is carbon copied on the emails obtained by ABC News -- that such comments were "baseless," a city spokesperson said. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report about the Sep. 9 call, and ABC News later confirmed the details. Still, the Trump campaign has doubled down on the unfounded claims about Haitian. Trump repeated the rumors on the national stage during the presidential debate hosted by ABC News. "In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in, they're eating the cats, they're eating, they're eating the pets of the people that live there," Trump said during the debate. PHOTO: A pedestrian walks near a mural of Civil Rights activist Hattie Moseley Sept, 16, 2024 in Springfield, Ohio. (Luke Sharrett/Getty Images) Vance himself has repeated the baseless claims, including in a post on X saying, "reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country."' Despite the Trump campaign's efforts to substantiate the unfounded claims, city and state officials have repeatedly rebuked them. In one case, a resident who initially blamed their Haitian neighbors for the disappearance of her cat admitted she was mistaken and reportedly apologized. PHOTO: Mayor Rob Rue speaks to residents during a town hall about the 2024 presidential election's focus on the town's influx of Haitian immigrants, on Sept. 24, 2024, in Springfield, Ohio. (Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images via AFP via Getty Images) MORE: Ohio's GOP governor dispels Republican claims that Haitian migrants are eating pets Vance has also repeatedly portrayed the Haitian migrants not only in Springfield but the thousands across the nation as being brought into the U.S. illegally by Vice President Kamala Harris. However, most of the Haitian migrants in Springfield are there legally. Many of the migrants have been granted Temporary Protected Status, and once that is granted they are insulated from deportation and are allowed to temporarily work in the U.S. "What we know is that the Haitians who are in Springfield are legal. They came to Springfield to work," Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said on ABC's "This Week." Rue has publicly urged those amplifying rumors about the city to stop, adding, "we need help, not hate." But the email obtained by ABC News shows his most forceful rebuttal of Vance's comments. "On a personal note, it is disappointing that, as an Ohio native and elected official, you would speak about our community without first reaching out to me or my team to better understand the situation," Rue told Coyne. "We are always open to working with you to ensure that any claims made about our community are accurate and based on a full understanding of the facts." Spokespeople for Vance and the city of Springfield dispute which party initiated the call request. "Senator Vance's office was confused by the last-minute cancellation of a meeting requested by Springfield officials. However, the door is always open for future discussion," a spokesperson for Vance told ABC News in a statement. "Any dialogue about our community should be grounded in facts and a comprehensive understanding of the situation," Rue told Coyne in one of the emails. "Unfortunately, recent communications have not consistently reflected this approach. The safety of our residents is a responsibility we take seriously, and it should not be politicized." Springfield city officials declined to take call with Vance amid baseless claims about Haitian migrants originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Springfield PD asking for help locating suspect in weekend shooting SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (WDTN) Springfield Police Division is asking for the publics help identifying a suspect in a shooting that occurred Saturday evening. Officers responded to a report of a male shot at 126 W. High Street on Sunday, Sept. 22. When they arrived at the scene, a large group was helping the injured individual. Springfield gets mobile health clinic promised by governor Immediate aid was rendered to the victim until Springfield Fire and Rescue arrived at the scene to transport him to Springfield Regional Medical Center. The victim was described in a serious condition. Detectives believe there were numerous witnesses to the incident and are asking the public to share any information, photos or video evidence taken that night. Photos and videos can be submitted via email to spdtip@springfieldohio.gov. Anyone with information can reach out to Springfield PD at 937-324-7685, or Det. Miller directly at 324-7709. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WDTN.com. SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) A Springfield woman pleaded guilty to a nationwide controlled substance conspiracy after more than 16 pounds of meth and more than 700 grams of fentanyl pills were seized. Man sentenced to prison in Operation Raising Arizona investigation, mailing drugs to Massachusetts According to the Department of Justice, in 2022 an investigation called Operation Raising Arizona was being conducted involving the shipment of drugs through the mail from Arizona to Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Law enforcement seized seven packages containing over 900 grams of methamphetamine, thousands of counterfeit pills containing fentanyl, as well as suspected Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a very strong psychedelic. Springfield resident, 31-year-old Denise Guyette was arrested after police searched inside her home in February 2023 and found the following: Approximately 6.5 kilograms of pure methamphetamine Over 2,700 counterfeit fentanyl pills weighing over 300 grams A digital scale Multiple Rhode Island and Massachusetts drivers licenses, Social Security cards, and credit cards in the names of other individuals In February 2023, Guyette was indicted on the alleged conspiracy to distribute controlled substances along with Gerardo Garza of Yuma, Arizona, and Nathan Boddie of Pawtucket, R.I. A superseding indicted alleging that 400 grams or more of fentanyl and 500 grams or more of a mixture and substance containing methamphetamine were attributable to Guyette. On Thursday, Guyette pleaded guilty to the charges and faces at least 10 years and up to life in prison, at least five years and up to a lifetime of supervised release, and a fine of up to $10 million. Boddie was sentenced last year to 84 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Local News Headlines WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.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 WWLP. ST. LOUIS Just before his shift started as a nurse at a St. Petersburg, Florida, hospital Thursday night, Alton native Robert Whitener told FOX 2, Theres no more preparing; its here. While working, Whitener had concerns about his own home but had no intention of abandoning patients. I was a firefighter for years, and now Im a nurse, he said. The American Red Cross has been responding to disasters for more than 140 years. Beth Elders is the executive director of the American Red Cross of Greater St. Louis. The American Red Cross can only do what we do by the generosity of our community and by volunteers, she said. The Red Cross sent supplies and disaster responders ahead of the hurricane. As of Thursday, the agency was ready to open dozens of shelters as water began to cover parking lots. The majority of our volunteers that are there are running shelters, Elders said. The agencys warehouse in Hazelwood contains even more supplies if needed, including cleaning supply kits for after the storm has passed through. Elders has experience providing disaster relief. Shes witnessed how meaningful food, water, and even a hug can be for those who have endured a disaster. Kris Kristofferson, country music superstar and actor, dies at 88 They recognize that theyre not alone, Elders added. She encourages anyone who can offer support to find more information at www.redcross.org or 1-800-RED CROSS. To sign up to become a volunteer, visit www.redcross.org/volunteer. Another agency ready to help is Missouri Task Force 1. The unit was one of only 28 urban search and rescue task forces in the country. The team left yesterday around noon, Assistant Chief Gale Blomenkamp with Boone County Fire Protection District and task force public information officer said. He said members make a 14-day commitment when deploying. This hurricane deployment includes members with swift water rescue backgrounds. Without the local employer support and the family support, it wouldnt be possible to even go out for one day, Blomenkamp added. As of Thursday, Missouri Task Force 1 was staged at a hotel in Gainesville, Georgia, preparing equipment for rapid deployment if necessary. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. HONOLULU (KHON2) Bands of clouds from a weak disturbance moving are moving into the windward and mauka areas of the islands tonight. These clouds will bring brief showers mainly overnight and early in the morning. A weak high-pressure system north of Hawaii will keep moderate trade winds blowing into next week. The forecast will see only slight changes, with trade winds gradually weakening from Sunday onward as a cold front approaches. Daily shower patterns will also change only a little, with some increased shower activity expected from Friday night to early Saturday, followed by drier weather for the rest of the weekend. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KHON2. Victims of stalking are not being protected enough by police forces in England and Wales, a major review has found. Officers lacked understanding of the scale and types of stalking, and failures were leaving some victims at serious risk, it concluded. It comes after campaigners pushed for an investigation into how stalking is policed, saying that victims were let down "at every step of their journey to justice". The National Police Chiefs' Council said it welcomed the recommendations and remained committed to improving the policing response for victims. But the family of one woman who was killed by an ex-partner she had reported for stalking said confidence in the police had been lost. In 2022, a coalition of charities led by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust submitted a super complaint, where systemic failures in policing can be raised. The investigation which followed, carried out by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), His Majestys Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services and the College of Policing, found clear evidence to support the charities concerns. It found the law on stalking was confusing and that "significant changes" were needed into how police respond. Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips MP said the report set out important recommendations for how the justice system could better tackle such an "insidious crime". She said the Home Office was looking to work with the police to achieve this, adding that the government would respond to the report fully "in due course". In Kingston, south-west London, sisters Lamia and Inass El-Faddi do not need to be told how the police have failed to protect stalking victims. Their cousin, Wafah Chkaifi, was killed by her ex-partner Leon McCaskie in 2022. The 43-year-old mother-of-two, who also went by the name Yasmin, had reported McCaskie to the Metropolitan Police for stalking. But he broke a stalking protection order and even after a warrant was issued for his arrest he wasnt detained by the police. He then stabbed her to death in the street. McCaskie was himself killed moments later after a passer-by drove into him in an attempt to stop the attack. Ms Chkaifi's cousins say they are not surprised by the findings: To the police, shes just another statistic, but to us shes not a statistic - she was a sister, a mother, a friend. Inass said police forces needed to realise just how dangerous stalking can be. The stereotype around stalking is its just a small thing when its not and they need to take it seriously to stop stalking leading to murder," she said. Lamia said: The police are supposed to make the victims feel safer. "Unfortunately that confidence has been lost by so many women and Wafah is not the first and shes not going to be the last, so clearly theres an issue. Ms Chkaifi's family want the IOPC to find that police failings to protect her amounted to misconduct. Their lawyer, Sophie Naftalin, said stalking was a high-risk indicator of domestic homicide which is why it needed to be tackled in a much more comprehensive way. We welcome the fact all these failings are being acknowledged in the report but we now need fundamental change and commitment from all the police forces that the findings will be implemented," she said. "But theres also slight fatigue. We dont need to keep identifying the same issues we just need to see action. The report sets out immediate steps chief constables should take to improve stalking investigations and calls for a change in the law on stalking and simplifying stalking protection orders. Rachel Watson from the IOPC said stalking has a devastating impact on victims. Todays report highlights some excellent work we want to see become standard right across England and Wales. "Sadly, we also saw too many cases where police failed to recognise stalking or take the necessary steps to protect victims and policing must act now to improve this. His Majestys Chief Inspector of Constabulary Andy Cooke said: Change is needed, and todays report must be a springboard for action. Chief Constable Sir Andy Marsh, the CEO of the College of Policing, accepted the polices response needed to improve. Stalking has a significant physical, psychological, and emotional impact on victimsofficers now have access to updated advice and training for when they are responding to stalking or harassment cases," he said. "One, of a number, of next steps will be to strengthen national guidance for police across England and Wales to improve the quality of investigations. Deputy Chief Constable Paul Mills, National Police Chiefs Council lead for stalking, said policing needed to respond to the threat of stalking as part of a "wider system approach". "As the report highlights, police forces that have integrated multi-agency models to respond to reports of stalking have seen the best success at disrupting perpetrator behaviour and safeguarding victims," he said. He said police forces needed to ensure officers and staff had the right skills and resources to identify and investigate reports, adding that the NPCC would work through the recommendations in the report to "improve and standardise the service victims receive. FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) The Central Valley Veterans Stand Down event was created more than 30 years ago as a way to help veterans who were struggling to get their lives back on track. The two-day event collaborates with numerous government agencies, non-profit organizations, veterans organizations, and more to assist all veterans and their families, unhoused or not, with various resources. Free services for Valley veterans at this Fresno event The term stand down is a military term for when you retreat back to the rear to regroup, you know, reorganize the staff, said John Scheler, the director of Central Valley Veterans Stand Down. It was started in 1989 for the Vietnam Veterans because when we came out with Vietnam, veterans had nowhere to go. It is held from Sept. 25 through Sept. 26 at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 8900 in Fresno. Here we give them three hots and a cot, said Scheler. We feed them, we give them all the clothing they can carry and it gives them time to go through all the services. Amvets organization helps Veterans through Welcome Home Program Veterans can come in and take advantage of the multiple resources on site. Our court is this afternoon, he said. It starts at about 1:30 this afternoon. We have DMV. We have all the services throughout the valley, not just necessarily Fresno, but throughout the valley here. Navy Veteran John Weisenberger was at the Stand Down event as a volunteer with the Clovis Elks Club. What this is to me is magic, said Weisenberger. With all of the stuff that goes on, you know, we dont have a clue how much support there is for veterans and being here in the Fresno area. For more information on services available to Veterans in the area visit centralvalleyveterans.org. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CBS47 and KSEE24 | YourCentralValley.com. (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Elon Musks views on Britain are out of sync with other major investors, after the worlds richest man continued his war of words with the new Labour government by saying no one should go to the UK. Most Read from Bloomberg Musk has repeatedly criticized the UK over its response to riots that broke out in British cities over the summer, especially the decision to arrest people for their posts on X the social media platform owned by Musk that authorities said incited violence. His latest broadside came in response to a post on X saying he was not invited to a UK investment summit next month. What he said is in stark contrast to the very strong view around the breakfast table this morning by investors, nearly all of whom are coming to the investment summit, Starmer told reporters after a round-table meeting with US business executives in New York on Thursday. Musk has framed his criticism of the UK as a defense of free speech, and his latest post also referenced an early release program for non-violent offenders designed to ease pressure on overcrowded jails. The billionaire accused the government of freeing up prison space for X users by releasing pedophiles. The tone was consistent with Musks recent interventions over the UK riots, which were sparked by the spread of false information that a Muslim asylum-seeker was responsible for an attack in which three young girls were murdered. The Tesla Inc. CEO described arrests relating to the riots as messed up, and responded yes to a post that suggested Starmer was putting people in prison who commit thought crimes on @X. He also replied true to a post by the right-wing Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage calling the prime minister the biggest threat to free speech weve seen in our history. Starmer, who was on a two-day visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, referred questions on the guest list for the UKs investment summit to his office. But his team pointed out that an invitation had gone to SpaceX, another company led by Musk. On Tesla, obviously, I encourage investment from anywhere, and so I dont want to be misunderstood on this, Starmer said. Good investment into the UK is what Im very, very keen to promote. At his round table in New York, Starmer met investors including Blackstone Inc. President Jon Gray, JPMorgan Asset Management Chief Executive Officer Mary Callahan Erdoes and Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser. They described this mornings meeting with the UK as the best of the meetings theyve had this week at UNGA, said Starmer, who took office in July. Thats their words, not mine, that theres really a strong window of opportunity now with the UK, given the changes weve brought about. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner are under extreme pressure from Labours Left wing. At the partys conference this week Mick Lynch, boss of the RMT transport union, set out his demands for nothing less than a complete Left-wing revolution of Britain and its economy. We seek the complete organisation of the UK economy by trade unions, he said at a packed fringe event in a dark pub room in Liverpool. Thats the prize weve got to keep our eyes on that union influence is universal across the United Kingdom, completely universal. From giant pay rises to a complete overhaul of work in Britain, Sir Keirs promises raised campaigners hopes high, particularly after he won the biggest majority since Tony Blair in 1997. The problem for Lynch is that the audience that came to hear union bosses is not the only one which matters. Elsewhere at the conference, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, was speaking to a crowd of business bosses who had flown in from across the world. They have a very different idea of sensible economic policies, and still have some influence on the Government, not least because Reevess plans rely on companies investing and hiring. We will be the most pro-growth and pro-business government you have ever seen, Reeves promised. Lynch might have sounded forthright but the wheels have fallen off some of Labours more Left-wing pledges already. Workers rights Rayners plans to hand workers full employment rights from day one in a job, for example, are an area where some unions and bosses are passionately divided. Conversations with Whitehall insiders and bosses make it sound almost certain that full-employment rights will only kick in following a probation period, but some union officials are keen on day one meaning day one. Unions will be more angry with us than business, because they want to push further, predicts one government insider. Workers are poised to get the right to ask for a four-day week, a core Left-wing demand of recent years. But the anticipated measure does not mean doing any less work. Rather than the Corbynite dream of getting 100pc of the pay for 80pc of the time, the revived version envisages workers doing four long days, so overall they put in just as much time per week. A right to switch off, leaving workers free from calls and the expectation they will keep an eye on emails outside their normal hours, appears to be subject to delay. The Tories initially seen as a spent force after their electoral hammering are hoping to capitalise on the fears surrounding Labours looming workers rights overhaul at their party conference next week. Sources said that Rishi Sunak held a roundtable with business lobby groups this month to shake out their concerns about Labours plans and use the list of worries as ammunition. One person aware of the private meeting said the lobbyists admitted to being nervous about the lack of detail in Labours workers rights plans, flagged that companies could be put off hiring if the rules were too rigid and voiced a wider concern about Labours rhetoric on the economy. Sunak was told that the Government talking down the economy could deter investment as it was hitting confidence. You can do that stuff in opposition. When you talk it down in government it has a market impact, the source said. Neil Davy, the chief executive of Family Businesses UK, who attended the meeting, warns: The Government risks making well-intended decisions that could have serious unintended consequences. Surveys of businesses and households show a distinct slump in confidence in recent weeks, widely attributed to Labours gloom. Reeves wants tax revenues to rise to repair the finances and fund her spending plans, hence listening to businesses. It is not only plans for workers which are coming apart at the seams. Non-doms Labour also promised to scrap the non-doms system, that ultimate symbol of the global ultra-rich that has attained totemic status in Left-wing circles. Yet as a money-making scheme, nominally to fund the NHS, the tax raid has much to be desired. When the Office for Budget Responsibility assessed the Tories shake up of the non-dom rules in the spring, officials warned estimates of a 2.6bn annual haul from the 10,500 or so individuals was highly uncertain. That is because it is the nature of non-doms that they move around. Such a behavioural response of non-doms was already estimated to reduce the haul from tax changes by around 40pc. With Reeves threatening to scrap the status altogether, the rich have an even bigger reason to rethink their living and tax arrangements. An exodus has begun. Christian Angermayer, a German cryptocurrency billionaire who has lived in the UK for more than a decade, has quit Britain for Switzerland in anticipation of the crackdown. Every non-dom I know has left or is about to leave, Angermayer told Bloomberg. That threatens to lose the Treasury money instead of raising more, undermining the basis of extra funding for the health service. Officials are rethinking the plans, seeking ways to give the wealthy tax incentives to remain, in the hope of keeping some of them in the country. Adam Smith, a former adviser to Jeremy Hunt, says the Tory changes were calibrated to make sure more is paid by the rich while limiting the harm to the economy something he says does not apply to Labours plans. I am sure they will dress up their motivations in a cloak of fairness. But theres nothing fair about others having to pay more tax so that the Government can implement a virtue-signalling, ideological attack on rich people, he writes in The Telegraph. The same would be true if they abolished carried interest when the Opposition costing published before the election shows doing so could cost the Treasury up to 900m a year. Carried interest refers to a form of pay for fund managers in private equity, which can be taxed as capital gains, which is charged at a lower rate than income tax. Labour calls this a loophole and promised to scrap it in its manifesto, claiming the move would raise more than 500m per year. But the estimates referred to by Smith, which were carried out by the Treasury using special advisers assumptions, caution that only around 3,000 people earn money this way, and if lots of them leave the country the Exchequer will lose, not gain, tax revenues. Capital gains A similar threat comes from the widely anticipated raid on capital gains tax. Analysis published by HM Revenue and Customs estimates a 10-percentage point increase in the higher rate of the levy would lose the Exchequer 2bn of revenue in 2027/28, as investors change their behaviour to avoid the higher payments. Top investors have been making just this warning. Rob Lucas, the chief executive of CVC Capital, which owns stakes in Six Nations rugby and the RAC, has said higher taxes could encourage executives to base themselves in cities abroad instead of London. Reeves might not want to be seen doing financiers bidding, but she does want their money and is listening closely: Governments investment summit next month seeks to attract more international cash into Britain. Sending high-profile investors fleeing after her Budget a fortnight later would defeat her purpose. Private schools Then there is the raid on private schools. A political symbol more than a serious financial move, the upcoming application of VAT to fees has provoked a fierce backlash, and from more than just the striving parents who Labour sought to hurt. The British Army is investigating the impact on military families who depend on boarding schools to care for their children while parents are on the move. Parents who use private schools for kids with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) also fear being hammered by the 20pc levy. Councils who fund privately provided SEND places expect to receive a VAT rebate on the fees they pay. Meanwhile nurseries are supposed to be exempt from the tax, but small private schools which offer mixed-age classes of children aged between three and five are set to find themselves swept up with VAT. There are few signs of the Government changing course here. Asked about the tax hitting toddlers, a spokesman said: The vast majority of nursery classes will not be subject to VAT, as children have usually entered the first year of primary school by the time they are five years old. The most high-profile piece of class warfare is staying in place. But the backlash from its victims shows the strident leftism of Labours campaign, and its most ardent backers, is harder to enact than the party anticipated. 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. Tesla, run by Elon Musk, would be welcome to invest in the UK, the prime minister has said. Sir Keir Starmer said he didnt want to be misunderstood after the BBC reported that the tech tycoon had not been invited to the UKs International Investment Summit due to his social media posts during last months riots. Obviously, I encourage investment from anywhere, he told the BBC. He added: "Good investment into the UK is what I'm very, very keen to promote." Sir Keir made his comments while speaking to journalists on his recent visit to New York, where he addressed the United Nations and met with Donald Trump and US business leaders. "Every time I'm abroad, every time on an international trip, we do these investment breakfasts, because I'm absolutely determined to get the investment that we needed into the economy. "And I do think we've got a real opportunity with a new chapter now," he said. The summit next month is the key moment that the prime minister hopes will drive tens of billions of pounds in inward funding for business from the worlds biggest investors. Mr Musk was invited to last year's event but did not attend. However, he took a starring role in November's artificial intelligence (AI) Summit, including a fireside chat with then-prime minister Rishi Sunak. Jeremy Hunt, the former Conservative chancellor and now the shadow chancellor, told the BBC it was a "big loss" not to have Mr Musk at the summit. "He told me last year he was planning a new car plant in Europe and had not decided where but the UK was a candidate," Mr Hunt claimed. Mr Musk lashed out on social media after reports that he had not been invited to the UK government's International Investment Summit. "I dont think anyone should go to the UK when theyre releasing convicted pedophiles in order to imprison people for social media posts," Mr Musk claimed on X. Following disorder and rioting across the UK in August, some people were jailed for encouraging unrest on social media. During the August riots, Mr Musk posted on X, formerly Twitter, predicting civil war in the UK and repeatedly attacking the prime minister. He also shared, and later deleted, a conspiracy theory about the UK building "detainment camps" on the Falkland Islands for rioters. At the time, ministers said his comments were "totally unjustifiable" and "pretty deplorable". Sir Keir Starmer urged both sides to "step back from the brink" in his first speech to the UN General Assembly [Reuters] Sir Keir Starmer has stepped up his call for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon following an escalation in fighting between Israel and the armed group Hezbollah. "Stop the violence. Step back from the brink," the prime minister said in his maiden speech to the UN General Assembly, despite Israeli ministers rejection of an international proposal for a temporary pause in fighting. Sir Keir told world leaders a ceasefire would provide space for a diplomatic settlement to avoid a regional conflict in the Middle East. Fears of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah are at a high, following the deadliest escalation of cross-border attacks in decades. This embedded content is not available in your region. More than 600 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon since Monday, including at least 92 people on Thursday, according to local authorities. Hezbollah has responded by firing hundreds of rockets into northern Israel. Israeli politicians have broadly rejected the idea of a ceasefire after a 12-strong bloc - including the UK, US and other allies proposed a three-week pause in fighting. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the country's military to continue fighting with "full force" as he landed in New York on Thursday. Addressing the UN General Assembly there, Sir Keir said an immediate ceasefire was needed "to provide space for a diplomatic settlement". He warned that the conflict could spill over into a war "no-one can control and with consequences that none of us can foresee". Elsewhere in his speech, Sir Keir vowed to return the UK to responsible global leadership by recommitting to the UN, to internationalism, to the rule of law. He also promised to restore Britains commitment to international development, and set out plans to change the international financial system to deliver a fairer deal for developing countries". Around 70,000 Israelis have been displaced from the north of the country since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah began, sparked by the war in Gaza. In Lebanon, around 90,000 people have been displaced since Monday, in addition to the 110,000 who had fled their homes already, according to the UN. The UK has urged British nationals in Lebanon to leave immediately because of the escalation, however some have told the BBC of their difficulty in fleeing the country. Cross-border fighting continued on Thursday, with the Israeli army saying it had struck Hezbollah targets in parts of Lebanon's south and east, and on the Lebanese-Syrian border. Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it had fired 50 rockets towards the Kiryat Ata settlement, and 80 missiles towards the city of Safed, both in northern Israel. Israels military chief told troops on Wednesday that strikes targeting Hezbollah could pave the way for them to enter enemy territory. The remarks by Lt Gen Herzi Halevi were the plainest indication yet from a senior figure that a ground invasion into Lebanon may be imminent. WARE, Mass. (WWLP) The State Ethics Commission has determined that the Ware Police chief violated the conflict of interest law following a series of posts he made on the departments official Facebook page. Gov. Healey strongly opposes challenge to new gun reform law Police Chief Shawn Crevier stands by the four individual posts he made calling out the states gun reform laws saying that they do nothing to protect public safety. On Wednesday, the State Ethics Commission found reasonable cause that Ware Police Chief Shawn Crevier used his official position and public resources to advocate against gun law reform legislation. Chief Shawn Crevier, of the Ware Police Department, told 22News, I didnt really think much of it. My intent was to inform the public on this and there was no ill will on this whatsoever. In a statement shared with 22News the Commission says in part, In short, you used the WPD Facebook page to rally political opposition to the bill based on your personal view that it would improperly limit your and other gun owners Second Amendment rights. Chief Crevier added, Unfortunately, this bill that has been adopted does nothing but penalize the law-abiding citizens that legally seek to own guns in the state of Massachusetts. The statements made violated the conflict of interest law because they included the chiefs personal opinions on matters outside of the WPDs purview, such as the legality and constitutionality of the proposed gun law reforms. Massachusetts Gun Reform (H.4885) A new wide-spanning gun reform bill is the most expansive firearm legislation in a decade and looks to crack down on ghost guns, expand the law that allows courts to take guns away from those considered a threat, and add schools, government buildings, and polling places to the list of areas where firearms are prohibited. The issue of ghost guns is particularly prevalent in western Massachusetts. Ghost guns, which are homemade firearms that are assembled from individual parts that are unserialized, are currently untraceable by law enforcement. Gun owners and advocates have also filed initial signatures with Secretary Bill Galvins office to challenge the law on the 2026 ballot, and are on track to have the law put on hold until after a public vote is taken. However, Crevier believes that it does not hold offenders accountable, I believe it truly misses the mark that would protect the public. Massachusetts House and Senate reach deal on firearm law State Ethics Commission determination The Commission decided to resolve the matter with a Public Education Letter because the conflict of interest laws application to political activity by public employees is quote complex and easily misunderstood. The letters purpose is to provide public employees in similar circumstances with a clearer understanding of how to comply with the law. Local News Headlines WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.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 WWLP. DELAFIELD - A Sept. 12 late-night fire that displaced all the building's tenants and injured one in a Delafield apartment subdivision has now become the focus of a criminal investigation. Delafield Police Chief Landon Nyren, in an updated news release this week, said his office is working with the state fire marshal through the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation and the Waukesha County District Attorney's Office in a review that is expected to take months to complete. However, the exact nature of the investigation such as whether it involves arson, gross negligence or even a serious a code violation was not specified. "Right now it is just a criminal investigation," Nyren said Friday in response to a Journal Sentinel reporter's questions, declining to elaborate further. In the news release, he added that there are no suspects being sought as part of the investigation The 11 p.m. fire consumed a lower unit and spread to the attic of the eight-unit apartment building at 4735 Vista Park Court, within a city of Delafield subdivision consisting of a cluster of similar small apartment buildings. It trapped one female tenant on the second floor who was blocked by heavy smoke in the hallway, prompting a rescue through a bedroom window, according to earlier reports by Lake Country Fire and Rescue. Emergency personnel were dispatched after a 911 caller reported what smelled like an electrical fire, with smoke seen coming out of the structure. Nyren said that some of the displaced residents, who received assistance from the American Red Cross and Salvation Army on the night of the fire, were able to return to the apartment building on one side, while the others have been placed in alternative units. Contact reporter Jim Riccioli at james.riccioli@jrn.com. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Officials open criminal investigation tied to Delafield apartment fire HONOLULU (KHON2) The state has announced a $235,000 grant to RYSE, a nonprofit organization dedicated to youth services and empowerment, which offers emergency shelter for homeless youth. Get Hawaiis latest morning news delivered to your inbox, sign up for News 2 You Carla Houser, executive director of RYSE, emphasized the challenges young people face in Hawaii, stating, When you live in one of the states with the highest cost of living and havent completed your education or employment goals, its nearly impossible to thrive without adult support. Hawaiian Electric to compensate customers after swell energy closure First Lady Jaime Green highlighted the importance of the funding, saying, This makes a huge difference for our youth who have nowhere to turn. They need more than just a place to stay; they require comprehensive services. Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news In addition to emergency shelter, RYSE provides medical and behavioral support, as well as education and employment resources for young people in 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 KHON2. OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) An Oklahoma State School Board member and multiple state lawmakers voiced concerns Thursday after State Superintendent Ryan Walters announced he would like the state to give his agency an additional $3 million in taxpayer dollars to purchase New King James version Bibles to put in public school classrooms. News 4s cameras were rolling in the Oklahoma State School Boards meeting room Thursday when Walters began the boards monthly meeting by announcing he would be requesting the state legislature allot the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) an additional $3 million in next years budget to help OSDE purchase Bibles to put in Oklahoma public school classrooms. No school districts have announced following Bible mandate, OSDE responds Walters said the $3 million he was requesting would add to an existing $3 million he claimed OSDE has already allotted for Bibles, for a total of $6 million. Weve talked about the efforts of left-wing groups and the teachers unions to drive the bible out of school, Walters said in his opening remarks Thursday. This would give us the ability to utilize $6 million in less than two years to ensure that the Bible hasnt been driven out of Oklahoma classrooms, and would be a significant step for the State of Oklahoma to ensure that were not allowing the left to censor American history. Walters said the Bibles would strictly be given to teachers to use as a tool when teaching about the Bible in its context as a historical document. He said any Bibles placed in classrooms would not be allowed to include additional text with commentary, notations or interpretations on what is written in the bible. However, Walters added it would be acceptable to him for copies of the Bible in classrooms to include historical documents such as the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution or Magna Carta. Trump is selling God Bless USA Bibles He told state school board members he specifically wants the state to purchase copies of the New King James version of the Bible, because he believed it would best represent the beliefs of Americas founding fathers when they signed documents like the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights in the 1700s. The New King James version of the Bible was first published in 1982. Additionally, Walters claimed the New King James version is the most commonly-cited version of the Bible in history textbooks. I believe that the New King James is the version that we should go with, because when we looked at citations, quotations overwhelmingly we had a studyand I can provide it for the boardthat the vast majority of textbooks of American history that use quotations from American history is citing the King James version, Walters told board members. But not every state school board member was comfortable with moving forward just with the purchase just yet. Report: Norman Public Schools will not follow Walters attempted Bible mandate I personally am not of the exact same religion as everybody else who may be considering this type of thing, Oklahoma State School Board Member Sarah Lepak said. And so its personally important to me to make sure we have this right. Lepak asked OSDEs legal counsel that was present at the meeting, if the board approving such a purchase could be unconstitutional, and possibly lead to legal action being taken against the board. I do think there is some concern, and I think I have some concern about are we opening the door to something like that actually happening, or some kind of constitutional challenge, Lepak said. I dont want to be on the back end of a decision saying well this is constitutional and its fine. I want to know on the front endI am very uncomfortable with any type of idea about proselytizing or establishing some kind of state religion. Doing things that may end up favoring one religion over another. OSDEs legal counsel, attorney Michael Beason, told Lepakin his opinionpast U.S. supreme court decisions have set a precedent that it would be constitutional for a state to purchase copies of the Bible for schools to use to teach about the book in its context as a historical document. In support of his argument, Beason also cited an Oklahoma state statute which allows government bodies to display documents including the Ten Commandments, Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence and other historical documents on public grounds. Beason told Lepak he would write a formal memo detailing his legal argument and provide it to the board by next months meeting. What is being asked of us is to bend the law Bixby superintendent says Bible mandate would open districts to lawsuits, if followed Whether or not Beasons argument may hold legal merit, State Sen. Mary Boren (D-Norman) said the U.S. Constitution is not the only constitution the state school board needs to consider when making its decision. Oklahomas constitution specifically says that the state Board of Education cannot do what they are trying to do, Boren said. The Oklahoma provision in our Constitution establishes a higher bar of separation of church and state. She specifically points to Article-II, Section-5 of Oklahomas constitution, which says: No public money or property shall ever be appropriated, applied, donated, or used, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, or system of religion, or for the use, benefit, or support of any priest, preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or dignitary, or sectarian institution as such. Additionally, Boren argues by favoring the New King James version, the state is not only leaving out not only people who dont follow Christianity, but also leaving out most Christians who do follow the new King James version. I think its also important to say that the New King James version, a lot of conservative people do not see that the best version, Boren said. There are people that think that the old King James version is the real version. So theres a lot of disagreement. Also, the Life Church pastor, Craig Groschel, he endorsed the NIVthe New International Version. Some say the English standard version is actually the more accurate version. That includes the Dead Sea Scrolls. So picking one version above all else is actually very controversial even within Christianity. And to not include the Catholic Bible seems very odd to me since most of the Western civilization, you know, the artworks and things that they that the State Board of Education is referring to in their guidelines and their standards, they say, and claim that their goal is to promote the influence of the Bible on history and culture and literature and art. Well, that Bible influenced the Michelangelos Works of art. That was the Latin Catholic Bible. It was not the King James version Bible. So theres a lot of inconsistency. Calls for Walters to be held accountable grow after insulting comments, possible Open Meeting Act violation Beyond the state constitution, Boren believes Walters recommended purchase would violate the U.S. Constitution too. Today that what the State Board of Education did is it established a religion by elevating one particular version of the Bible above all else, Boren said. Ultimately, Boren believes this is all part of a larger goal. It shows me that theyre trying to make the United States Supreme Court overturn a provision within [Oklahomas] Constitution, Boren said. So theyre trying to find a different test case that will end up in the United States Supreme Court. Oklahoma House Democratic Leader Rep. Cyndi Munson (D-Oklahoma City) released the following statement Thursday, also raising concerns over Walters request: The State Superintendent continues to ignore the Oklahoma Constitution. He wants to use millions in public taxpayer dollars to fund religion in public schoolssomething the majority of Oklahomans are adamantly againstwhile Oklahoma public schools remain some of the most underfunded public schools in the nation. Oklahoma ranks 45th in the United States for per-student expenditures and Oklahoma public school teachers are paid more than $10,000 less than the national average salary for public school teachers. There are major gaps in funding public education in Oklahoma, and yet the State Superintendent continues to abandon the needs of our public school districts to push for policies that do not benefit teachers, students, or families. He has and continues to fail us and our public schools. State Rep. Cyndi Munson (D-Oklahoma City) Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. INDIANAPOLIS Indiana is seeking to execute a man found guilty in the killing of a Beech Grove police officer in 2000. In a motion filed Friday, Attorney General Todd Rokita asked the Indiana Supreme Court to set an execution date for Benjamin Ritchie, who was convicted of fatally shooting Officer William Toney on Sept. 29, 2000. He was sentenced to death in 2002. Most Hoosiers and I expect justice without delay, especially when someone murders a police officer, one of the many, many brave men and women we thank and respect daily," Rokita said in a news release. This convicted cop killer has been on death row far too long 22 years and it's past time for him to pay his debt to society. Court records state Ritchie stole a van from a gas station in Beech Grove and was chased by Toney and another policeman after they spotted the vehicle. The chase ended when Ritchie wrecked the van. He cut through several yards as Toney followed. Ritchie turned and fired four gunshots, striking Toney in the chest missing his bulletproof vest by an inch. He died at the scene. IndyStar has reached out to Ritchie's attorney for comment. The request marks the second time the state has moved to execute an inmate after Gov. Eric Holcomb and Rokita announced in June they are seeking to resume the practice after acquiring the drug pentobarbital to carry out death sentences. Joseph Corcoran, of Allen County, is the first person on death row to be executed in Indiana in 15 years. His execution date is scheduled for Dec. 18 at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. Corcoran was found guilty and sentenced in the killing four people, including his brother, his sisters fiance and two of their friends. Contact IndyStar reporter Sarah Nelson at sarah.nelson@indystar.com This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: State seeks execution date for man guilty of killing police officer BOSTON (WWLP) The state has taken control of St. Elizabeths Medical Center after deciding the facilitys closing would create a public health emergency. According to Governor Maura Healeys office, the governor made the decision to seize the facility through eminent domain. The state will take control of operations until Boston Medical Center, the new medical services provider, takes over. Senate approves criminal contempt resolution against Steward Health Care CEO Healey said it is necessary that St. Elizabeths remain open as it provides critical care including emergency services, maternity care, behavioral health services and inpatient care. While Apollo continues to put its greed ahead of the health and wellbeing of the people of Massachusetts, we are taking action to make sure St. Elizabeths remains open. By transferring operations to Boston Medical Center, we will protect access to care for tens of thousands of patients and save thousands of jobs, said Governor Maura Healey. Our administration is committed to ensuring smooth transitions at the five Steward hospitals that we were able to save, and supporting the communities impacted by Stewards closure of Nashoba Valley Medical Center and Carney Hospital. So far, five of the seven Steward hospitals will have new operators beginning October 1: Lawrence General Hospital for both campuses of Holy Family in Haverhill and Methuen, Lifespan will assume operations of Morton and Saint Annes, and BMC will take over Good Samaritan. The state has created two working groups focused on stabilizing and revitalizing health care in communities impacted by Steward Health Cares closure of Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer and Carney Hospital in Dorchester. Local News Headlines WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.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 WWLP. Virtua Health's practice of universal drug-testing of pregnant patients is discriminatory and violates patients' privacy, the state Attorney General's Office says in a new lawsuit. (Photo by Getty Images) State officials sued Virtua Health and its hospitals in Voorhees, Mount Holly, and Camden Thursday, accusing the health care system of discriminating against pregnant patients by subjecting them to mandatory drug testing without informed consent. Virtua has secretly drug-tested all pregnant patients admitted to its labor and delivery or high-risk obstetrics units since 2018, and did not subject any other patients admitted to its hospitals to mandatory drug screening, according to a complaint filed in state Superior Court in Camden. That violates the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination and patients privacy rights, the complaint notes. It also flies in the face of accepted standards of medical care, which discourage universal drug testing of pregnant patients partly because of a likelihood of false positive results, according to the suit. Attorney General Matt Platkin and Sundeep Iyer, director of the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights in Platkins office, are listed as the cases plaintiffs. In a statement, Platkin said the action illustrates his offices commitment to ensuring the rights of pregnant individuals are not eroded. Whether it means preserving the right to reproductive freedom or ensuring that a pregnant person doesnt undergo tests or procedures without their knowledge and consent, we will defend our residents rights, he said. The lawsuit comes a year and a half after the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey filed civil rights complaints against Virtua and Hackensack University Medical Center on behalf of two women who were unwittingly drug-tested after they went there to give birth. Both had eaten poppy seed bagels before going to the hospital, so the tests resulted in false positives that prompted hospital staff to alert child welfare authorities, who then monitored each family for months even though there was no evidence of drug use or other wrongdoing, the women said. Thursdays lawsuit was prompted by those complaints and features one of the complainants, Kaitlin K., who thought she was getting a routine screen for proteins when Virtua staff in Voorhees tested her urine when she gave birth there in October 2022. The Hackensack complaint remains pending. American Civil Liberties of New Jersey staff attorney Molly Linhorst represented the women and filed their civil rights complaints last year. She said Platkins lawsuit sends a clear message that health care providers should not be drug-testing pregnant people without informed consent. We have heard from dozens of people from across the state with similar stories. Many of whom including our client, Kaitlin K., whose experience helped form the backbone of this new case were subjected to unnecessary and invasive investigations by the Department of Child Protection and Permanency, Linhorst said. Investigators from the states Division of Civil Rights discovered that while 46 hospitals made referrals to child welfare workers arising out of perinatal drug tests, Virtua Healths three hospitals accounted for nearly 25% of them in 2021, 2022, and 2023, despite only accounting for 9.4% of deliveries in New Jersey, the complaint says. A Department of Child Protection and Permanency investigation can result in parents not being permitted to take their newborns home with them from the hospital, unannounced home visits and interviews with other children in the household, and parents fearing that their babies may be taken away from them, the complaint says. No parent should have to fear that they will lose custody of their children over a single, unreliable, and nonconsensual test, Linhorst said. A Virtua spokesman did not comment on the hospitals drug-testing policies, saying only that the health system meets the highest standards of regulatory compliance. We hold the safety and well-being of each patient paramount, especially our newborns, Virtua spokesman Daniel Moise said. Platkin and Iyer want a judge to order Virtua to halt its mandatory universal drug testing for pregnant patients, as well as civil penalties against the hospital system and compensatory damages for named and unnamed victims. Virtuas practices single out pregnant patients for mandatory drug testing without informed consent, Iyer said in a statement. As a result, patients are unnecessarily traumatized and fear they will lose their children mere hours after giving birth. Virtuas practices violate our civil rights laws, and we look forward to proving our case in court. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Stockard on the Stump: Registry puts onus on Constitutional Republicans groups to register as PAC The Tennessee Registry of Election Finance the Registry of Election Finance has ordered two Constitutional Republican groups to register as political action committees. (Photo: John Partipilo) The Tennessee Registry of Election Finance the Registry of Election Finance has ordered two Constitutional Republican groups to register as political action committees. (Photo: John Partipilo) The Tennessee Registry of Election Finance ordered two related Constitutional Republicans groups to register as political action committees this week, but not before one registry member suggested the matter be turned over to the states law enforcement agency. Id say dump it in the lap of the (Tennessee Bureau of Investigation) and say you guys go after them and figure out whether theyve done A, B, C and D , Registry member Tom Lawless said toward the end of a lengthy hearing Tuesday. Lawless didnt believe much of what the Tennessee Constitutional Republicans or its operating group Sumner County Constitutional Republicans said, as they contended they were nothing but a coffee klatch intent on spreading conservatism. Paige Burcham Dennis, while thanking the group for getting involved in the political process, also called for having a separate entity look into the matter to clear the air so no one gets in trouble. Other members didnt take quite as hard a line, including Hank Fincher who said he saw nothing remotely criminal. Ultimately, the board took Lawless other option and voted unanimously to allow 45 days for the Tennessee Constitutional Republicans, a limited liability company run by Kurt Riley, and its operating arm, Sumner County Constitutional Republicans, to register as political action committees with the Registry of Election Finance and start filing reports. If the groups refuse, they can appeal to an administrative law judge or Chancery Court. While Lawless leaned toward skepticism, other board members said the Sumner County group was just getting together for breakfast, talking politics and exercising First Amendment rights, at least until they realized one was raising money and the other was acting like a political group. Represented by attorney Kirk Clements, the groups chairman, Riley, also the registered agent for Tennessee Constitutional Republicans, and several other members took an oath to testify before the Registry board after being subpoenaed. Failed state Senate candidate Chris Spencer did not show up for the hearing (he was said to be on a long-scheduled vacation), which irked some board members. The Registry board had taken matters into its own hands after it felt the Attorney Generals Office did a pathetic job of investigating the groups. The case stems from a sworn complaint filed by Goodlettsville businessman Wes Duenkel, who argued that the two groups raise and spend money while supporting at least two candidates for public office, which requires them to file as political action committees. Duenkel didnt have records proving the Sumner County entity spent more than $1,000, the minimum amount to start reporting, in part because it has no bank account. Yet Registry members noted Tennessee Constitutional Republicans brought in about $18,000 last year and spent about $12,000, according to information the group provided. The Sumner County group then hired private investigators to vet candidates (which is a little spooky unless you consider the situation with North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson), rented space at community events, held breakfasts, bought stickers, sold T-shirts and endorsed and disavowed candidates on their website. Chris Spencer with wife, Lisa, on Aug. 1, 2024. Spencer was subpoenaed to appear before the Registry of Campaign Finance but failed to show. (Photo: John Partipilo) Their websites had donation links, both of which went to the LLC, when Duenkel filed the complaint, but those were removed almost immediately. The Sumner County group also added Duenkel to its Wall of the Unaccountable, which seems a little odd considering they skirted the rules, even as theyve had an outsized impact on Sumner County politics, inserting Judeo-Christian values into an official county document, fighting with the election commission over a storage building and trying to uproot historical property. Their attorney, Clements, claimed repeatedly that all expenses were personal and that no fundraising or expenditures were linked to specific candidates. He also argued a Supreme Court case requires specific support for candidates in order to meet the requirement to file as a PAC. The question, though, is whether one group is simply a conduit for another, and Duenkels attorney, Keith Dennen, at one point referred to the LLC as a sham company. It received what were termed as investments and loans. Compared to other matters that have come before the Registry over the years, this one involves a piddling amount of money, as far as is known. Then again, the Comptrollers Office spends an inordinate amount of time investigating thefts amounting to a few thousand dollars from school booster clubs. Either way, its money, and as was pointed out, everyone has rules to follow. Besides, a group that claims it is following biblical principles as it does on the website shouldnt worry about state investigations. If theres nothing to hide, register and report, which is what they did until fall of 2021 when they adopted a new name and maybe a more aggressive outlook. Anticipation builds A state probe into a collusion complaint against Bristol pharmacist Bobby Harshbarger, who defeated incumbent Sen. Jon Lundberg in the August GOP primary, is complete. But the Registry of Election Finance wont take it up until November, after the general election when Harshbarger faces independent candidate Dalia Price. Sen. Ken Yager, chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus, filed the sworn complaint, claiming illegal coordination between East Tennessee Conservatives PAC and U.S. Rep. Diana Harshbarger, (they share the same treasurer, Thomas Datwyler), and her sons campaign. The report by the state Attorney Generals Office is said to be voluminous. Bobby Harshbarger (Photo: BobbyForTN.com) East Tennessee Conservatives PAC received $95,000 from the American Policy Coalition in Alexandria, Virginia in dark money to pour into the campaign. Harshbarger put $380,000 in loans into his campaign. He netted only $24,000 in donations, including $1,729 from former Tennessee State University President Glenda Glover (an oddity). Lundberg brought in more than $425,000 in the two reporting periods before the primary, heavy on PAC money and support from Senate friends as well as former Gov. Bill Haslam, to go with $185,400 he had in the bank. Chairman of the Senate Education Committee, Lundberg also received an endorsement from Gov. Bill Lee after carrying a private-school voucher bill this year. Harshbarger doesnt appear to be touting vouchers. But alas for voucher backers, the outcome of the investigation wont affect the election results. More than anything it will lead to a shuffling of Senate leadership. Interestingly enough, Datwyler is the treasurer for Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, who is under investigation by the FBI for potential campaign finance indiscretions. Hes made more changes to his Federal Election Commission reports than a meteorologist. National Democratic organization targets races The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee is entering the fray in purplish Tennessee districts to bolster the hopes of three candidates as the minority party tries to gain a small foothold in the Legislature. The committee is supporting Rep. Ronnie Glynn of Clarksville in his race against Republican Jamie Dean Peltz; Allie Phillips against Republican Rep. Jeff Burkhart in Clarksvilles House District 75 race; and Jesse Huseth against Republican Rep. John Gillespie of Memphis in House District 97. Wins in those districts would give Democrats 26 seats in the 99-member House, still not enough to gain authority but at least a brick in the wall. Jesse Huseth, the Democratic candidate for House District 97, is getting a boost from the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. (Photo: Karen Pulfer Focht) Faith no more Gov. Bill Lee dropped his endorsement of North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson in that states gubernatorial race amid reports that he called himself a black Nazi and encouraged reinstatement of slavery on a porn site, according to multiple reports. Politico reporter Natalie Allison (former Tennessee Capitol Hill reporter) also found that Robinsons reported access of the Nude Africa porn site took place close to his home and that his email address was registered with other dating websites. Lee was scheduled to speak this week at a North Carolina fundraiser for Robinson but dropped it from his travel plans after it was canceled. Thats pretty smart since it would be hard to attend something that doesnt exist. Canceled: A fundraiser for embattled North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson featuring Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee was canceled after reports of Robinson's past activity on porn sites emerged. The governor held no press conferences in the Nashville area this week but told reporters elsewhere he would not be backing Robinson, which he previously did as chairman of the Republican Governors Association. When he first came out in favor of Robinson (oops, I didnt mean to say came out), Lee said, From investing in safe neighborhoods to driving economic prosperity, Mark Robinson will put the people of North Carolina first. Sounds more like hes been prioritizing depravity, even though he denies everything, which is what you have to do when support is dropping right and left and your campaign and life are collapsing. That brings us back to the tired saying, Denial is not a river in Egypt. And they keep falling Private-school voucher voucher-er Corey DeAngelis, who warned people against the dangers of drag shows for kids, is being dumped by the American Federation for Children amid reports he was involved in bizarre gay porn sites. Nothing like a little hypocrisy to brighten up our lives. DeAngelis was a frequent tweeter or X-er in support of Gov. Lees plan to use public funds to send kids to private schools. He was retweeted by groups such as Americans for Prosperity in the run-up to the legislations failure this year when Republicans finally realized they were going to get killed at home if they passed this move that could wind up costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars with no guarantee it will make students smarter. AFP declined to comment on the matter. Not that we care what these folks do in their spare time. But when youre selling Kool-Aid, drink the stuff. I rode a tank, held a generals rank / When the Blitzkieg raged and the bodies stank. * * Sympathy for the Devil, The Rolling Stones SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Stopping support for Ukraine's self-defence will lead to more war crimes German Foreign Minister The end of allied support for Ukraine's self-defence will lead to an increase in the number of war crimes, not a decrease. Source: German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during a speech at the UN General Assembly in New York, as reported by European Pravda Details: Baerbock believes that as long as Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin does not want to sit down at the negotiating table, the allies' cessation of support for Ukraines self-defence will mean "leaving Ukraines childrens hospitals defenceless". Quote: "It would mean more war crimes, not less. Possibly, in other countries too," - she said. The German foreign minister recalled that after inviting Russia to the international Peace Summit, "Putin sent his response by bombing a children's hospital". She also noted that Russia has repeatedly "been toying with the inviolability of the borders of the Baltic States and Poland". Quote: "This is why today I am also asking your support in calling out on Putin to cease his attacks and to come to the negotiation table. Not only for our European security, but I think also in your own interests. If a permanent member of the [UN] Security Council is allowed to conquer and destroy its smaller neighbour, the very essence of this [UN] Charter is under attack," she added. Background: German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said yesterday that Germany is ready to become the main pillar of deterring Russian aggression in Europe and plans to deploy a full-fledged brigade in Lithuania by 2027. The Bundestag Budget Committee has also recently approved an aid package totalling 70 million for Ukraine's heating and electricity sector. On 19 September, Germany handed over a new military aid package to Ukraine, which included, among other things, 22 Leopard 1 A5 tanks and more than 60,000 rounds of 155 mm ammunition. Support UP or become our patron! 'My story is their story': Pike teacher Graciela Miranda wins Indiana Teacher of the year Family means everything to Pike High School teacher Graciela Miranda. So when it was announced that Miranda was the winner of the 2025 Indiana Teacher of the Year award, both of her families rushed to hug her. Not just her three daughters and husband, but her school family, as well. A group of seniors hurried to congratulate her after the award was officially announced Friday in a gymnasium full of students. Miranda said it was surreal to be receiving this award. I wanted to get this for my students, so they could see what is available to them and I wanted them to know that theyre recognized and theyre seen and theyre valued, Miranda said after the surprise. My story is their story and their story is my story. Miranda is an English Language Learner teacher at Pike High School and has been teaching for 23 years, 14 of which have been in Pike Township. Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner said one of the things that made Miranda stand out among the other teachers nominated was her dedication to serving students both in and out of the classroom. She is not only all-in during the school day, but there are so many things that our teachers do after school hours that people never see, and Mrs. Miranda is a prime example of that, Jenner told IndyStar. Miranda works closely with her local Boys and Girls Club and works over the summer as a tutor for the Indy Summer Learning Labs, but goes the extra mile for her students by helping them with things like filling out college applications and even throwing graduation parties. Her students feel the love and support, as well. Pike High School senior Yarethzi Dominguez said she didnt have just one favorite memory of Miranda because every day is great when they get to see her. After every period we would just go say 'hi' to her and hang out with her and we just feel so comfortable around her, Dominguez said. More School news: Where to watch school board candidate forums for IPS, HSE, Carmel and Noblesville races The Indiana Teacher of the Year program celebrates the teaching profession by recognizing existing teachers who excel in their field while encouraging others to join the profession. School districts are encouraged to nominate their local teacher of the year and finalists are selected by a committee made up of former teacher of the year recipients, state department staff, educational organization leaders, business and community leaders and representatives from higher education. The last time an Indianapolis teacher won Indianas top teacher award was in 2019 when Lawrence Township teacher Tamara Markey won and the last time a Pike Township teacher was in 2008 when Daniel Kuznik, a teacher at the Pike Freshman Center won. Miranda is now one of the few Latino educators in Indiana that has ever won the Teacher of the Year award and is part of a cohort of specialized teachers that is needed as Indianas English language learner population is one of the fastest-growing student groups in the state. More Education news: 16 Indiana schools named National Blue Ribbon winners. See the list Miranda is a fierce advocate for her ELL and Latino students and has worked to connect community resources to students, like bringing in an immigration lawyer to help answer questions. She believes the best way to further help ELL students is by building deep relationships with them. If we can meet their needs, and I'm talking about their needs that they need day-to-day. How do you open up a bank account? How do you fill out this paper? If we can meet their needs, we're building that trust and we're building that relationship, Miranda said. Mirandas daughter, Izabella Rios, said after Fridays announcement she isnt surprised that her mother won. Ive always thought my mom was the best teacher in the whole world, so I'm just glad other people are also coming around to thinking the same thing, Rios said. Keep up with school news: Sign up for Study Hall, IndyStar's free weekly education newsletter. Miranda hopes that this award sends a message to students who were like her from an immigrant family, Latino and struggled in school when they were younger that they too can reach their dreams. I just want them to know that I just love them, Miranda said. I think they're amazing, they're smart, they're funny and I just want them to see that they have a future too. An amazing future. Contact IndyStar reporter Caroline Beck at 317-618-5807 or CBeck@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter (X): @CarolineB_Indy. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Pike High School teacher wins Indiana 2025 Teacher of the Year (Reuters) -U.S. East Coast and Gulf ports resumed operations after unionized dockworkers reached a tentative labor agreement with an employer group for a new contract, ending a three-day strike. The agreement, which was announced on Thursday, includes a wage hike of around 62% over six years and covers about 45,000 members. Here's a brief rundown of the events leading up to the deal: May 13, 2024 The International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) say they will begin bargaining after May 17 with the goal of forging a new deal before the six-year contract expires on Sept. 30. June 10, 2024 The ILA halts negotiations amid disputes related to automation, after discovering that operator APM's terminals and container shipping company Maersk Line were using an Auto Gate system that processes trucks without labor. June 11, 2024 The USMX says some issues will require further conversation between the local parties, adding that it looks forward to re-engage with the bargaining committee. July 12, 2024 Harold Daggett, ILA's president and chief negotiator, says the threat of an Oct. 1 strike is growing after the violation of its contract by some USMX members, which caused it to cancel negotiations earlier. Aug. 23, 2024 The USMX says it has been unable to secure a meeting with the ILA to resume negotiations. Sept. 5, 2024 Nearly 300 ILA delegates end their two-day wage scale meetings with unanimous support for President Daggett's call for an Oct. 1 strike if an agreement is not reached. Sept. 23, 2024 The ILA says it has held multiple conversations with the USMX in recent weeks and adds that a stalemate remains over wages, with the employer group continuing to offer "an unacceptable wage increase package". Sept. 24, 2024 The White House says it will not try to broker a deal between the two parties. Sept. 25, 2024 Agriculture groups urge the White House to act to avert the potential strike. Sept. 26, 2024 The USMX files an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board to bring ILA back to the bargaining table. Sept. 29, 2024 President Joe Biden says he did not intend to intervene to prevent a port strike. Sept. 30, 2024 The USMX raises its offer, says it would increase wages by nearly 50%, triple employer contributions to employee retirement plans and strengthen healthcare options. It also requests an extension of the current master contract to continue bargaining. Oct. 1, 2024 The ILA starts strike at ports up and down the U.S. East Coast. Oct. 3. 2024 The ILA and USMX reach tentative agreement for a new contract with 62% wage hike over six years. (Reporting by Anshuman Tripathy, Abhinav Parmar and Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker, Shailesh Kuber, Sonali Paul and Arun Koyyur) The Paso Robles Police Department arrested a student on Thursday after they allegedly made threats against Lewis Flamson Junior High School, police said. On Tuesday at about 9:30 p.m., police received reports of a possible threat of violence directed at the middle school posted on Snapchat, according to a news release. On Thursday, police identified a 12-year-old Lewis Flamson student as the suspect who posted the threat. Police arrested the student on suspicion of making criminal threats. It was determined by this investigation there is no credible threat to the Lewis Flamson Junior High campus, the release said. Those with information about the incident can call 805-237-6464 or make an anonymous report by calling Crime Stoppers 24-hour hotline at 805-529-STOP or by texting SLOTIPS to CRIMES (274637). The Paso Robles Joint Unified School District and the Paso Robles Police Department encourage parents to take this opportunity to speak with their children about the responsible use of social media as well as the severity and the consequences of their words and the nature of what they post, the school district said in a news release. This isnt the first time police investigated threats to a San Luis Obispo County school this month. Nipomo High School and Central Coast New Tech High School sheltered in place on Sept. 19 while law enforcement investigated a potential threat to the schools. After the investigation, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriffs Office said no credible threat had been found on either campus. The Paso Robles Joint Unified School District takes all threats seriously, and any individual found making threatening posts, whether credible or not, will be reported to law enforcement and will be held to strict enforcement of the California Education Code, including consequences up to expulsion in addition to any applicable criminal penalties, the school district said in its news release. From the left, Rep. Pat Heinert, R-Bismarck, Shane Goettle, Joy-Nicole Smith, school liaison program manager for Minot Air Force Base, and Sen. Michelle Axtman, R-Bismarck, participate in a meeting of the North Dakota Educational Opportunities Task Force on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor) No draft legislation emerged from a school choice task force but the lawmaker leading the group is working on a plan that would provide additional funding for all North Dakota K-12 students. The Educational Opportunities Task Force, focused on school choice education models, met over the summer and held its final meeting at the Capitol on Thursday. It was born out of the interim Education Committees assignment to study school choice models, though some members of the committee initially questioned the transparency of the process. In an interview with the North Dakota Monitor after the last meeting, Sen. Michelle Axtman, R-Bismarck, chair of the Education Committee and member of the task force, outlined a different framework for a tiered student assistance program for North Dakota that would augment public education funding to give students more options and resources. She added North Dakota would be the first state in the nation to implement a tiered school choice program. Tier one, she said, would provide support for all public school students for their additional educational needs. Tier two would assist parents with tuition or supplemental educational options for private school students, and tier three wound fund support for homeschooled students, Axtman said. If we do move toward this framework that we think would work for North Dakota, its got to be very separate from our school funding formula, Axtman said. It cannot take away from that and we are all very clear on that. She also said special education, transportation and building funds must be kept separate from a potential tiered system. I dont have anything drafted, but I am very passionate about trying to find a way to affect student outcomes in North Dakota and allow families to supplement a students education, she said. Rep. David Richter, R-Williston, vice chair of the interim Education Committee and a member of the task force, said the toughest question to answer for a school choice model is providing a funding mechanism for the program. He also said arriving at a specific dollar amount, per student, per year, would lead to a large annual state investment and, if the Legislature isnt prepared to adequately fund the program, it may not have the impact that parents and students desire. Now you are getting up into some big numbers, Richter said. Are we going to be able to come up with that big number annually? Individual lawmakers can bring forward bills involving education during the 2025 legislative session without recommendation of the committee or task force. During its final meeting, the task force heard a presentation by Scott Jensen, a former Wisconsin legislator who is now a strategist with the American Federation for Children. Jensen outlined trends in school choice programs, with 31 states having some sort of program and some states with multiple programs. He said the trend is for states to develop an education spending account. The state puts money that it would normally spend on a students public school education into an account that the parents can access. The money could only be spent on an approved list of education-related items. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The Education Committee heard the results of the task forces listening sessions on Tuesday. Members of the Hunt Institute who facilitated the work of the task force presented some of the responses from nearly 100 educators, stakeholders and North Dakota residents who participated in one of four listening sessions on the possible impacts, benefits and potential concerns facing the state by switching to a school choice educational model. Jaalil Hart, deputy director for K-12 education at the Hunt Institute, said some of the key takeaways from the session were that parents wanted empowerment and customization in the education of their children. He also said parents want to choose schools that align with their students specific needs and learning styles. Especially for families in the rural areas where choices are often limited, Hart said during the presentation. Hart said cost, transportation and distance were some of the barriers listed by parents to educational choices for their kids. These obstacles highlight the need for policies and support that make school choice a reality for families, if that is what you all so choose, he said. Rep. Eric Murphy, R-Grand Forks, asked Hart if the group believed the sample size for the listening sessions may be too small to get an accurate reflection of the mood on school choice. Hart said they arent able to determine if the sample was representative of the whole state, but the sessions featured participants from different areas of the state in different school districts and were affiliated with different types of schools. While it may not be a very large sample of folks, it was a very diverse group of people who participated, Hart said. Written comments for the Hunt Institutes final report on a North Dakota school choice model may be made online until Oct. 5. Public meeting notices were published for the task forces final meeting and the listening sessions. The North Dakota Monitor requested an attorney generals opinion to determine if task force meetings held earlier this year met the requirements of the open meetings law. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) The DiverseIT team with Adelante Development Center was at Edward Gonzales Elementary School on Thursday giving out free laptops to low-income students. They also trained the students on how to safely use those laptops. There is a huge digital divide here in New Mexico where a lot of people lack access to computers. Thats what we do at Diverse IT, so to increase the number of people that have access to devices as well as training and technology. So its very important work, you know, people who have been excluded from technology get that access, said Jill Beets, Adelante Development Center. Volunteers plant seedlings within the Hermits Peak Calf Canyon burn scar They said they gave out 40 backpacks filled with a laptop, mouse, headphones, and instructional books. To learn more, visit www.goadelante.org/diverseit/computer-request-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 KRQE NEWS 13 - Breaking News, Albuquerque News, New Mexico News, Weather, and Videos. Tarrant County Public Health Director W. Brian Byrd is recommending that the countys school districts remove smartphones from classrooms. When he was growing up in Fort Worth, doctors focused on protecting children from outbreaks of chickenpox and the flu, but now in these digitized times, the focus more often turns to a childs mental and emotional health, Byrd said in a Thursday letter to Tarrant County parents, teachers and residents. The more time children spend on social media, the more their mental health suffers, he wrote, pointing to an article by social psychologist and author Jon Haidt and a study looking at the correlation between social media and the risk of depression in adolescents. While originally designed to facilitate connection, social media has often had the opposite effect, the letter reads. Not only that, weve all seen and heard about children experiencing disruption in their sleep and a drop in their grades. Thats why I am joining with other leaders in recommending that every school district in Tarrant County remove smartphones from classrooms. The research here is encouraging. Limiting smartphone use at school significantly improves students mental well-being. The Star-Telegram has reached out to the county for Byrds comment. Several Tarrant County school districts have already banned using cell phones during class, including Keller, Grapevine-Colleyville and Northwest. In the Thursday letter, Byrd acknowledges and applauds districts that are already restricting phone use in classrooms. He also recognizes the Texas Legislature for passing a 2023 bill related to minors online activity. Part of the bill requires that a joint legislative committee studies the effects of media on minors. But more must be done, Byrd urges. He recommends that parents keep their children off social media until theyre at least 16. Byrd also says families should make sure their children know that they are safe place to go if they find themselves in trouble because of online activity. Finally, as adults, we have a responsibility to model healthy social media habits that our children can look up to, he said, urging parents to participate in No Social Media November. By setting an example, we can guide them toward more responsible use of these platforms. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said in a June opinion article published in The New York Times that schools should ensure that classroom learning and social time are phone-free experiences. In the same op-ed, he called for a surgeons general warning label on social media sites stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents. Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath has said lawmakers should prohibit cell phone use in Texas public schools. If it were in my power, I would have already banned them in all schools in the state, Morath told senators during a Sept. 18 education committee hearing, according to The Texas Tribune. So I would encourage you to consider that as a matter of public policy going forward for our students and our teachers. The Star-Telegram has reached out to the Fort Worth and Arlington school districts two of the districts in Tarrant County with the most students for comment on the letter. A representative with the Arlington school district was not available to comment on Friday, and a representative with the Fort Worth district said a response was in the works. The Fort Worth school districts code of conduct prohibits using, displaying or having in operational mode cell phones at school or school-sponsored or school-related activities, including using a cellular telephone to film other students and/or District employees. Generally, the Arlington school district prohibits the use of cell phones during the school day, according to its code of conduct. Students can have their phones, but they must be out of sight and off. That said, students can use cell phones and other personally-owned mobile technology devices such as laptops, tablets, for educational purposes, with teacher permission, the code of conduct states. The use of students personal technology devises for personal purposes will be determined by campus leadership. Staff Writer Silas Allen contributed to this report. This is a developing story. Check back for updates. LOGAN COUNTY, Ohio (WCMH) Indian Lake High School held its Homecoming Parade and Pep Rally on Thursday with a theme that shows the communitys resilience following a deadly tornado in March. As part of the theme Thursday, students dressed up as superheroes. Cambria Tuttle, student council president, wore a cape. In the middle of the back was IL Strong for Indian Lake Strong. Were always taught to be resilient and persevere and after the tornado in March, it just like devastated our community, so we all had to persevere through that and work together, she said. The tornado that hit the area in March was tough, but students and the community have shown they are tougher. The theme of this years homecoming is Laker Strong. Tuttle said it was decided on by students. Watch: Indian Lake students show strength with homecoming theme The parade route goes right through where it devastated and you can still see some of that devastation today, so it just shows how were still strong and were coming back together and working together to get back to where we were, Tuttle said. Many district families have been affected by the tornado. Immediately after the storm, the high school became a center of resources. Indian Lake Schools Superintendent Rob Underwood said the homecoming celebrations are a symbol of the area coming back bigger and stronger. When our student council came up with Laker Strong, I think its very fitting for our community and our student body who really does find a way to adapt and adjust and we definitely pull together through these types of things, he said. Homecoming is always a big deal. Tuttle said this years is a bit more special. Its like even more exciting just because we have worked our way back and were all still together as a community, so were all just like showing our spirit and what it does mean to be a community, she said. Caylie Short, a junior at Indian Lake High School, is another example of Laker Strong. The tornado threw her from her home and she broke both her ankles. She is back on her feet. She said she was going to be at both the parade and this weekends dance. Its kind of like a special moment because I really thought I wasnt going to be out of my wheelchair for like homecoming and stuff and I was like sad and stuff but then like I even got our of my wheelchair before my birthday and I was excited, she said. Im happy this year. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NBC4 WCMH-TV. The administration at Wake Forest University has canceled a lecture by a Palestinian scholar scheduled for Oct. 7, the one-year anniversary of a Hamas terrorist attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, sparking a war that has resulted in the deaths of 41,000 Palestinians. The scholar, Rabab Abdulhadi, is a founding director and senior scholar of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies Program at San Francisco State University. She was scheduled to give a speech entitled: One Year since al-Aqsa Flood: Reflections on a Year of Genocide and Resistance. Operation al-Aqsa Flood is the name that Hamas gave the surprise cross-border attack on Israel. Wake Forest President Susan Wente and Chancellor Michele Gillespie said in a letter sent to the schools community on Thursday that the lecture has been canceled. We have (also) made the conscious decision not to host events on this day that are inherently contentious and stand to stoke division in our campus community. Thus, we have informed the academic units sponsoring Dr. Rabab Abdulhadis campus lecture on October 7 that it cannot take place, the message read. The message mentioned two university-sponsored events Interfaith Prayers for Peace and Community Reflections that will take place on Oct. 7. Those events, the message read, will emphasize our ability to come together to support one another, holding space for our many different perspectives and experiences. The lectures cancellation and the administrations message prompted a sharp rebuke from Barry Trachtenberg, the Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History at Wake Forest. In a post on his Instagram page, Trachtenberg blasted the decision, calling it an absolute disgrace. Trachtenberg said the lecture was organized by several faculty members and academic units on campus. It was meant to provide expert insight on critical global issues, just as similar discussions have been held in response to other world events, such as Russias invasion of Ukraine. The campus newspaper, the Old Gold & Black, reported on Thursday that Wake Forest students from two Jewish organizations garnered more than 7,000 signatures in an online petition urging the university to cancel the lecture. Wake Forest had a period of small but intense protests over the war. University administrators cleared a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus and recently released a new policy that restricts where, when and how anyone working or learning at the university can protest. The News Sudans army launched a major offensive to recapture the countrys capital from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, escalating hostilities in a bitter civil war despite US-led efforts to broker a ceasefire. Sudan one of Africas poorest countries even before the conflict has been mired in a civil war between two rival factions of its military government since April 2023, sparking the worlds worst humanitarian crisis. As many as 150,000 people have been killed, while more than 10 million have been displaced, with many moving to similarly destitute South Sudan and Chad. A group of humanitarian aid organizations warned this month that failing to achieve a ceasefire could lead to a starvation crisis of historic proportions, Al Jazeera reported. SIGNALS Sudans army makes small gains so far Sources: Al Jazeera, Sudan War Monitor The Sudanese army made small advances into Khartoum on Thursday, Al Jazeera reported. The Rapid Support Forces have controlled most of the capital since fighting broke out in April 2023, with the army holding onto small enclaves in Khartoum. Some analysts suspect that fighting will increase across the country in the coming months. The dry season is returning in Sudan, which usually lasts from October to December, allowing both parties in the conflict to conduct larger assaults. As the earth dries, the fighting is set to pick up, the Sudan War Monitor wrote. Local aid organizations have stepped up as larger ones leave Source: New Humanitarian Several large aid organizations have left Sudan, leaving local groups to lead the humanitarian response in many of the worst affected areas. Shallin Chikoto of Community Organized Relief Effort, a nonprofit working with Sudanese groups, told Semafor that traditional humanitarian systems are falling short, mainly because of access issues. Working with grassroots organizations has really helped us reach the most vulnerable Chikoto said, helping to deliver aid in otherwise hard to reach areas. Tom Perriello, the US Special Envoy for Sudan, called for more support for the neighborhood-based aid groups, known as emergency response rooms, telling Semafor that they were a rare bright spot in a horrific situation. US-led peace initiatives fail to reach a breakthrough Sources: BBC, United States Institute of Peace US-led efforts to push for a ceasefire in Sudan have continued on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this week, the BBC reported. At the last round of peace talks in August, neither side sat down at the negotiating table, although mediators were able to secure the reopening of key humanitarian routes. Earlier peace talks in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain did not lead to breakthroughs either. Three experts at the United States Institute of Peace wrote that in the wake of failed peace efforts, more focus should be placed on securing access for life-saving aid rather than focusing primarily on a ceasefire that may not be achievable. On her drive to work, Mayolita Gaines pulls up on her phone a playlist of music thats dominated by one artist. Songs by rapper Rod Wave pour out of her cars speakers, including Come See Me, the one thats most meaningful to the mom of seven. Gaines daughter, Harmony Rose Washington, died by suicide in Waukegan, Illinois, seven months ago, just days after her 10th birthday. The girl was a huge fan of Wave, so much so that she forced her siblings to memorize his lyrics prior to attending his Chicago concert last November. Before the concert started, Harmony wasnt in the best mood, but when he performed Come See Me, Gaines said her daughter jumped out of her seat and started singing along. Its the song Gaines said she returns to when she wants to remember happy moments. The way I recorded her was like a scene from a movie, where she was so excited, Gaines, 36, recalled. When he started singing the song, she just screamed. You can hear the love and happiness coming out of her screams when he walked out on stage. After losing her daughter, Gaines said shes felt sadness, grief and, at times, guilt. Gaines isnt alone in her experience. Suicide among young people is a challenging and prevalent problem, with Black and LGBTQ+ kids, who are at disproportionate risk nationally and in Chicago, according to Dr. Aron Janssen, a vice chair at the psychiatry and behavioral health department at Lurie Childrens Hospital. In Illinois, Janssen said suicide is the second-leading cause of death among kids aged 10 to 14, and the third-leading cause of death for young people aged 10 to 24. In the past decade, Janssen said the number of suicide attempts and deaths by suicide have increased among young kids. What was once a very rare event historically, is becoming more common, he added. We dont really have a great understanding of why that is, Janssen said. I think partially its that a lot of the interventions and processes that we have in place to screen for suicide have historically been built for older adolescents and adults, and that we need more funding, more research and more infrastructure to support the mental health needs of kids at an earlier age. Well never know Harmony died at night on Feb. 20, which Gaines said started like any other day. She got home from work in the afternoon, telling Harmony she was planning her birthday party for the upcoming weekend. Later in the evening, Gaines said she scolded Harmony for making disrespectful comments to her uncle, and she thought her daughter went upstairs to her bedroom. Gaines said she was on the phone with Harmonys dad around 9:20 p.m., when she told her other kids to get ready for school the next day. They found Harmony hanging from a tree outside the home. Theyre screaming. The way that they scream it was one of those like somebody was getting killed when they called out my name, she said. My oldest came inside, and theyre just screaming Mommy, mommy, mommy. You can hear the pain. You can hear the hurt. You can just hear everything in mommy. Much of the rest that happened is a blur to Gaines, but she said she remembers someone bringing Harmonys limp body into the house. Harmonys family, including her sister and aunt, attempted to perform CPR, Gaines said. Gaines also called 911. I followed behind the ambulance, but I knew she was gone, Gaines said. Steve Newton, the chief deputy coroner at Lake County, said Harmony was found in the front of her residence in the 5000 block of Country Place around 9:40 p.m. The girl was transported to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead about an hour later. Her death was declared a suicide, caused from asphyxia due to hanging, he said. Leading up to her daughters death, Gaines said there werent any warning signs, leaving her to guess about possible motives. Maybe she wanted attention, maybe she was inspired by something she saw on social media or maybe it was her way of coping with her fathers incarceration, Gaines wonders. She found out later that her daughter faced some bullying in school, or maybe it was that she reached a breaking point during the fight they had the night she died. It could be so many things Ive thought about, but well never know, Gaines said. As parents, we dont know that were doing anything wrong. We think that everything is OK. I learn now that I try to not yell as much, because I know it may be a trigger to them. Often kids dont send any clear signals that theyre thinking of suicide, said Janssen, the doctor at Lurie Childrens Hospital. Only about 10% of young people who die from suicide disclose their plans within a month of their death, and only about 20% are perceived to be depressed at the time of their death, he said. People may know theyre struggling, but dont necessarily know the depths to which they are struggling, he said. If you see something, say something Janssen said he recommends parents frequently ask their children how theyre doing, and seek support services if necessary. Some risk factors include stressful life events, a previous history of suicide attempts or mental health treatment, a family history of suicide, abuse or neglect and access to lethal means, he said. He recommended locking up firearms and medication at home, and following the adage, If you see something, say something. For a lot of kids, what we see is that suicide is an impulsive act. Its not something that many of these kids are thinking about and planning out in a structured way, he said. Its something was overwhelming in the moment, and you have access to means that are lethal. Recent research has also shown racial disparities within suicide rates. Black youths have the fastest growing suicide rate compared with their peers of other racial and ethnic groups, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This trend is mirrored in Chicago, Janelle Goodwill, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, found in a study published in the American Journal of Public Health. The study, which examined suicide deaths in the city from 2015-21, found that suicide rates among Black men and women, Asian women and Latino men increased in that time. Black and Latino residents also died at an earlier age than those in white and Asian communities, the study found. Harmony was Black and Hispanic. We are living in I think completely different worlds. Everything in this city access to health care to mental health treatment to education, even to equitable food, safe housing all of those things are racialized experiences, Goodwill said. Just the environmental stressors that someone is facing, depending on their race and where they live, is going to have serious impacts on their mental health. Goodwill said she supports boosting access to affordable mental health care through reopening city-run mental health centers. Mayor Brandon Johnson has promised to reopen three sites, more than a decade after former Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed six clinics. Its not just conversations about stigma, Goodwill added. There are structural forces at play that are preventing people from receiving the treatment and support that they need. Janssen also said navigating the mental health system in Illinois can be a challenge there arent enough providers, insurance is confusing and internet resources can be misleading. In Illinois, he said schools are actually the primary provider of mental health care. Because almost every child is there on a regular basis, its a prime opportunity to screen, teach and identify risk, he said. Elyssas Mission, a nonprofit based in Northbrook and founded by the mother of a Northfield teenager who died by suicide in 2004, reaches kids at schools. The group provides evidenced-based training to middle- and high-school students and staff members, which involves education on suicide prevention and a screening for adolescent depression. Usually, about 15% of students screened for suicide risk through the program are referred for a follow-up, Segal said, with 8% ultimately referred for a mental health service. The nonprofit has worked with about 300 schools in 20 counties, and also runs a peer-to-peer suicide prevention program at 20 schools called Hope Squad. We want to get students identified early, get them linked to treatment and services before theyre at a point of crisis, Segal said. Coping with her daughters death Gaines remembers her daughter as friendly and bubbly, saying she had lots of friends at school, many of whom she didnt know until they attended her funeral. Harmony was in fourth grade at Prairie Trails Elementary, where her favorite subject was math. She loved swimming and the beach, basically anything involving water, Gaines said, adding that Harmony would never turn down rice, beans and flour tortillas. Harmony spoke whatever was on her mind, Gaines laughed. If she tell you you did not look nice in an outfit, please take her suggestion and go change, because shes telling you the truth. She didnt care who you were she wouldnt hurt your feelings in a bad way shell just tell you No, that doesnt look right, or You need to find something else. Seven months after her death, Gaines describes how shes feeling like coloring in a coloring book. Sometimes the shades her sadness are darker, and sometimes its lighter, she said. Gaines deals with depression and anxiety, as do some of her other children, she said. Coping has been especially difficult for Harmonys father, who isnt able to grieve with the rest of the family because hes incarcerated, Gaines added. Gaines spends some of her time looking at her daughters old school clothes and taking care of the puppy Harmony named Brownie. The family originally wasnt supposed to keep the dog, but the mother couldnt bear to part with something that had a connection to her daughter. Gaines also shares her story to help relate to her patients at her job as a mental health technician. On holidays, Gaines visits and decorates Harmonys gravesite. For the Fourth of July, she bought red, white and blue spin wheels and flowers. Ive had maybe three occasions where I just laid there and cried, or a couple of times where I just sat there quiet, not even saying anything, she said. PEORIA, Ill. (WYZZ) September is National Suicide Prevention Month, and the Illinois chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is hosting two events to spread awareness of the issue. The first event is on Saturday, Sept. 28, at the Fon Du Lac Park. On-site registration starts at 9 a.m. for the walk. The second event is on Saturday, Oct. 4, at the Tipton Park North Shelter, with on-site registration starting at 10 a.m. The organization was established in 1987 and is a voluntary health organization that gives those affected by suicide a nationwide community empowered by research, education, and advocacy to take action against this leading cause of death. The funds raised for the organization help with research to help those affected by suicide or thinking of suicide. Angela Cummings, a spokesperson with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, said this event is a great way for people to connect and show support. Its a time when people can come out and show their support for the cause, build awareness, find comfort, and healing with others who have had a loss; or others who have struggled and want to honor their own journey in mental health and recovery. If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, reach out to the National Suicide and Crisis 988 Lifeline. Help is available 24 hours a day. Love Good Day Central Illinois? We love you, too. And you can have all the hijinks delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign up and subscribe to our Daily Newsletter. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CIProud.com. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will not appear as a candidate for president on New Yorks ballot after the Supreme Court declined to restore his name. Kennedy was excluded from the states ballot after lower courts determined the independent candidate falsely claimed residency there because his Katonah, N.Y., address was not his fixed and permanent residency. His attorneys argued in court filings that taking him off the ballot would deprive his New York supporters of their right to cast their votes for him, noting that the lower courts did not find that anyone was misled. The address on Kennedys petition was and is entirely immaterial both to voters and to New York, his attorneys wrote in their request, also noting that the independent candidate had rented a room in the home of a childhood friend and stayed there overnight on one occasion. New York Attorney General Letitia Jamess office, which is involved in the case, opposed the extraordinary, and extraordinarily belated emergency injunction that would have put Kennedy back on the states presidential ticket despite its certification deadline being passed and absentee ballots already being mailed out. Relief would, at minimum, require the State to direct county boards to invalidate tens of thousands of ballots that are currently in the hands of voters, and then craft, proof, print, test, translate (as required), and transmit replacement ballots, New York Solicitor General Barbara Underwood wrote to the justices, suggesting voters would be confused if they received multiple ballots. Kennedy suspended his campaign last month and backed former President Trumps White House bid. Since then, hes sought to remove his name in key swing states while remaining on the ballot elsewhere a move thats sparked a series of legal challenges. The independent candidates effort to remain on New Yorks ballot is his first to reach the nations highest court, but he isnt the first candidate to appeal to the justices. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court denied an emergency request by the Green Party to restore its presidential candidate, Jill Stein, to Nevadas ballot. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The Supreme Court has turned down a bid by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be placed on the presidential ballot in New York. The high court released its decision in a one-line order Friday afternoon. As is often the case with rulings on the Supreme Courts emergency docket, there was no explanation of the courts rationale and no justice recorded any dissent. Kennedys campaign pressed forward with a court battle to appear on the New York ballot despite his announcement last month that he was suspending his long-shot presidential bid and endorsing former President Donald Trump. Kennedys campaign gathered more than 100,000 signatures to win him a place on the ballot in the Empire State, but Democrats brought a court challenge arguing that Kennedy did not actually live at the address in Katonah, New York, that he submitted to elections officials. Kennedy said he began renting a room in the home of a childhood friend in Katonah last year, but the friend's wife testified that he had only stayed there overnight once. I am, at the very fiber of my being, a New Yorker, Kennedy declared in a court filing last month. New York courts ordered Kennedy removed from the ballot, and his efforts to overturn those rulings struck out with a federal district judge and at the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals before coming up short Friday at the nations highest court. Reached by phone shortly after the ruling, Kennedy said: I don't think I have a comment on it. Were looking at our options. Kennedys effort to remain on the ballot in New York struck many observers as bizarre because, in the wake of his endorsement of Trump, Kennedy sought to pull his name off ballots in battleground states where his presence might impact the showdown between Trump and the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris. In recent weeks, Kennedy's name has been removed from ballots in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina. An attorney for Kennedys moribund campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Supreme Courts action, but in court filings Kennedys legal team lamented New Yorks notoriously onerous ballot requirements for third-party candidates and said Kennedys absence from this years presidential ballot violated the rights of voters who signed his petitions. Those voters have a constitutional right to have Kennedy placed on the ballot and to vote for him, whether he is campaigning for their vote or not, the Kennedy campaigns lawyers wrote in the emergency application they filed with the court last week. Kennedy, a nephew of President John F. Kennedy Jr. and a son of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, entered the presidential race last year as a candidate for the Democratic nomination, but announced last October that he was parting with the Democrats and would mount an independent campaign for the White House. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wont be on the New York ballot this November, despite his best efforts. The former independent presidential candidate made a last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court to remain on the ballot in New York, but was denied Friday. No dissent was noted in the courts ruling. The application for writ of injunction presented to Justice Sotomayor and by her referred to the Court is denied, read the courts one-sentence order. Kennedy officially suspended his campaign and endorsed Donald Trump in late August. But since then, hes tried to stay on the ballot in states where it would help the Trump campaign and remove himself where it would hurt the former president, with mixed results. In North Carolina, he got himself removed from the ballot two weeks ago with the help of the states Republicans, delaying the states distribution of ballots and cutting into early voting. Election officials in the state will have to destroy nearly three million ballots and resign 2,348 ballot styles. In Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Ohio, Kennedy also was successful in getting his name off voting ballots. In Wisconsin, hes stuck on the ballot and is petitioning the state Supreme Court to put a sticker over his name, which has never been done and would be a logistical nightmare in the words of the circuit court that handled the request. He was also unable to remove himself from the ballot in Michigan and is begging voters there to vote for Trump instead. The Supreme Courts decision must sting Kennedy because it means hes unlikely to receive help in these other cases. Kennedys addition to the New York ballot was initially challenged on the grounds that he used an invalid address. During his presidential campaign, Kennedy claimed an address in Katonah, a suburb of New York City, on his petition to be on the states ballot, while he and his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, apparently reside in Malibu, California. Kennedy is renting a room at the Katonah address for $500 a month, but the owner of that property said that those payments began after a New York Post story questioned the candidates claim that he lives in New York. Kennedy has joined Trumps transition team and hopes to be Trumps secretary of health and human services, a disturbing job for the noted anti-vaxxer. But his quixotic failed presidential campaign may also ending up hurting Trumps chances of returning to the White House, taking away votes in key battleground states. Supreme Court rejects RFK Jr's appeal to be put back on the New York election ballot The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a bid by independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to restore his name to New York's election ballot. The appeal was denied by the country's highest court without comment and without any noted dissents. Kennedy has been trying to get his name off ballots in key battleground states since he suspended his campaign in August and endorsed former President Trump. The candidate has simultaneously tried to stay on the ballot in states like New York, where his presence is unlikely to make a difference in the battle between Trump and Vice President Harris. New York Mag Puts Reporter Olivia Nuzzi On Leave For Alleged Personal Relationship With Rfk Jr. Former Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gives remarks in Arizona. When he suspended his campaign, Kennedy said he planned to keep his name on the ballot in safe Democratic and Republican states, but didnt want to be a spoiler in battleground states like Wisconsin. On Friday, however, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that Kennedy's name will remain on that state's presidential ballot. Read On The Fox News App Rfk, Jr.: We're Trying To Get Off The Ballot In All The States I Might Be A Spoiler "In about 10 battleground states where my presence would be a spoiler, I'm going to remove my name, and I've already started that process and urge voters not to vote for me," Kennedy said. "Our polling consistently showed by staying on the ballot in the battleground states, I would likely hand the election over to the Democrats, with whom I disagree on the most existential issues." Republican presidential nominee former President Trump shakes hands with former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during a rally in Arizona last month. Since suspending his campaign, Kennedy backed former Trumps White House bid. And since Kennedy's endorsement, Trump added him and former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard to his transition team. Original article source: Supreme Court rejects RFK Jr's appeal to be put back on the New York election ballot SAN MARCOS, Calif. (FOX 5/KUSI) A 23-year-old man accused of a hit-and-run collision that left a teenage e-bike rider critically injured made his first court appearance Thursday. Investigators say Alan Reyes was driving a truck when he allegedly struck 16-year-old Jonathan Ramos, who is now hospitalized with severe injuries, including a damaged lung. Ramos mother, Maria Martinez, attended the arraignment, and said her son is still unable to breathe on his own. RELATED: Teen injured in hit-and-run while riding e-bike Hes a very happy kid, a joy to have around, Martinez said. Hes just a great, respectful boy. Ramos was riding his e-bike home on Sept. 17 when he was hit by a truck near the intersection of Knoll and West Mission in San Marcos. Investigators said the driver left the scene without stopping. Maybe if he stopped, the paramedics would have arrived earlier, Martinez said. Two days later, after receiving a tip, sheriffs investigators found a 2021 white GMC Sierra with significant front-end damage at a mobile home park about a mile from the crash scene. Reyes was identified as the driver and obtained a lawyer before turning himself in. During Thursdays arraignment, Reyes pleaded not guilty. The judge ordered the media not to show his face. Prosecutors say witnesses described Reyes driving at 80 mph at the time of the incident. In 2022, Reyes was convicted of wet reckless driving, meaning he had alcohol in his system but below the legal limit of 0.08%. Martinez expressed mixed feelings about Reyes. I feel really sad for that man, she said. He didnt just destroy his life, but he also did it to my family, to my son. Reyes faces several charges, including hit-and-run, and his bail has been set at $100,000. His family attended the court hearing but declined to 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 FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News. ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) The suspect in a shooting which killed a Rochester teenager was arrested in Georgia and arraigned Friday. According to the Rochester Police Department, Jymere Feliciano, 19, fled to Georgia after the fatal July 26 shooting on Nassau Street. Jayden Scott, 17, was shot multiple times and died two days later. Feliciano was arrested on September 17 and returned to Rochester, where he was arraigned Friday morning on second degree murder and criminal possession of a weapons charges. Investigators ask anyone with information or video to call 911, the RPD Major Crimes Section at (585) 428-7157, Crime Stoppers at (585) 423-9300, or email MajorCrimes@cityofrochester.gov. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to RochesterFirst. KANSAS CITY, Mo. A Kansas City, Missouri man is facing multiple charges in connection to a shooting earlier this month that left one man dead and a woman injured. Jackson County prosecutors on Friday charged Otis Wayne Brown with second-degree murder, first-degree assault, second-degree property damage, interference with legal process, two counts of unlawful use of a weapon and four counts of armed criminal action. According to court documents, just before 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 3, Kansas City police officers were patrolling the area of E. 55th Street and Prospect Avenue where they contacted two people who were advised to leave the property due to loitering. The two people left east on 55th Street, crossing U.S. 71 Highway. Shortly after, KCPD officers heard multiple gunshots coming from the area of 55th Street and Benton Avenue. Overland Park police investigate arson, shooting Officers responded to the area and found a man and woman lying in the intersection suffering from apparent gun shot wounds. Both victims were taken to Research Medical Center where the female victim was reported to have non-life threatening injuries. The male victim, identified as 39-year-old Shroy Lapsely, was pronounced dead just before 1 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 4. According to court documents, the female victim told detectives the person that shot her and Lapsely was Brown and she had known him for several years. The victim stated she was walking with Lapsely when Brown approached them on foot and fired three gunshots in their direction. Brown was located and taken into custody on Wednesday, Sept. 25, in Kansas City, after attempting to run from police, reach into his waist band and run behind a residence, according to court documents. A firearm was later located in the pathway where Brown had run. The firearm located was a 9mm Hi-Point, which was the same caliber casings located at the homicide scene, according to court documents. It was found to be altered, having a defaced serial number, appearing to have been scratched off and unable to read and also appeared to be painted, altering the weapons appearance. Brown was served a court ordered search warrant for a DNA buccal swab. Court documents say Brown refused to comply in giving the sample, becoming defiant by closing his mouth, clenching his hands and arms, requiring him to be handcuffed. Court documents say Brown continued to refuse to comply with the court order search warrant, which required multiple detectives to obtain the sample. See the latest headlines in Kansas City and across Kansas, Missouri Brown flipped chairs and a table in the interview room, causing damage to the walls, along with spitting, court documents say. He also threatened to assault a homicide sergeant with a chair and attack detectives. He is scheduled to appear in court for a bond review hearing on Thursday, Oct. 3 at 10 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 FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports. The latest Elon University Poll released this week is among a growing number of polls with Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris holding a slight lead over former Republican President Donald Trump in North Carolina. The poll of 800 registered voters taken Sept. 4-13 has Harris ahead 46% to 45%. The polls margin of error is 3.7%. The Elon poll was completed a week before Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinsons campaign became embroiled by a shocking Sept. 19 report from CNN that linked him to pornography websites and alleged that he referred to himself as a Black Nazi, that he liked transgender pornography and that he said slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. Some political analysts focused on North Carolina election say a flailing Robinson campaign could affect Trumps prospects of winning North Carolina. In the big picture, what happens over the next six weeks in North Carolina could determine who leads the United States for the next four years, said Jason Husser, director of the Elon Poll and a university political science professor. In the small picture in which, accounting for rounding, Harris and Trump are less than 1 point apart and few undecided likely voters remain. The race down the home stretch for North Carolinas 16 electoral college votes is now one over inches, not yards. Of four other presidential polls released over the past week and listed by 538.com, Harris is up 52%-48% among 3,129 likely voters in the YouGov/CBS poll and ahead 50%-49% in The Hill/Emerson College poll of 1,000 likely voters. Meanwhile, Trump is ahead 48%-47% in The Telegraph poll of 868 likely voters, and ahead 47%-45% in the New York Times/Siena College Poll of 682 registered voters. Governors polling The Elon poll shows the gap in the governors race widening in favor of Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein over Robinson at a 49% to 35% margin. The poll found Stein leading among both men and women, as well as with independent voters. He was supported by 78% of Black voters compared with 9% for Robinson. About 55% of voters had a favorable impression of Stein, compared with only 32% for Robinson. North Carolina started this cycle with what seemed the most competitive and most impactful governors race in the nation, Husser said. The race is no longer particularly competitive given Josh Steins historically unusual lead over Mark Robinson. However, potential remains for the race to be the most impactful if voters respond to negativity around Robinson by associating their opinions about him with other Republicans, both up and down the ballot. Husser said that the lack of a popular top-of-ticket (Republican) statewide candidate definitely risks harming Republican campaigns down ballot from governor, such as Council of State races and countywide elections. However, Husser cautioned that far fewer historical examples exist about reverse coattail effects, meaning a meaningful impact on the presidential race is far from certain. Of the 11 N.C. governors race polls conducted in September and listed by 538.com, Steins lead ranges from 5 to 14 percentage points the other 14-point lead being SurveyUSA/Raleigh TV station WRAL. Several media outlets, including by WRAL and Politico, reported Monday that the primary reason why at least eight key members of the Robinson campaign departed last weekend was because Robinson refused to accept the offer of information-technology assistance to review CNNs findings from the pornographic website forum. Robinson has said he is considering libel action against CNN after several prominent Republicans including U.S. Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina encouraged Robinson to do so or accept responsibility for his comments and actions that could include withdrawing. However, the Robinson campaign may have limited funding to pursue legal action given recent campaign contribution reports. The Republican Governors Association confirmed Monday it would not provide new funds for Robinson campaign ads beginning Wednesday. Given how settled views are of Trump, Im not sure how many minds can be changed, no matter how offensive Robinsons behavior, said John Quinterno, principal with South by North Strategies Ltd., a Chapel Hill research company specializing in economic and social policy. But if Robinson is seen internally as a liability, I could see the Trump campaign seeking to distance themselves from Robinson or even seeking to ease him out of the race. Suspect extradited from El Salvador for the 1991 killing of San Diego woman Suspect extradited from El Salvador for the 1991 killing of San Diego woman SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) A man was extradited from El Salvador this week and arraigned in connection with a 1991 cold case, according to the office of San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan. Alfredo Hernandez, 66, appeared in San Diego Superior Court Thursday for his arraignment regarding the 1991 death of 39-year-old Terri Bistodeau, the attorneys office said. Man found dead behind Food 4 Less in Mission Valley East On Aug. 4, 1991, San Diego police officers responded to a home in the 5300 block of Geneva Avenue in San Diegos Emerald Hills neighborhood. Authorities said Bistodeau was found strangled to death on the floor of her bedroom, but the case was left unsolved over the years despite the efforts of law enforcement. Investigators revisited the case in the late 2000s. In 2019, DNA testing and further investigation led law enforcement to suspect Hernandezs involvement. The attorneys office said Hernandez was charged in 2021 and a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was found in El Salvador and, upon the approval of an extradition request from the countrys government, he was returned to the United States. If found guilty of the murder charge, Hernandez faces up to 25 years-to-life in state prison, according to the attorneys 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 FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) A man is in custody after fleeing from police and hiding in the employee area of a Subway when officers reported to a call that he had stolen a car in Newport. Authorities said the man, 22, was named as a suspect for a stolen Toyota Yaris on Sept. 17. The next day, officers saw the car driving northbound on Highway 101 near NW 15th Street before losing sight of it and finding it again in a Safeway parking lot. West Linn men indicted for sex acts with a pig An officer reported seeing the man get out of the car and go into the grocery store, where he appeared to leave through the emergency exit in the back. Searching for the man led police to Sam Case Elementary School and prompted the school to go into a Code Yellow while officers determined whether the area was safe. The man wasnt found and the warning was lifted. Four days later, on Sept. 22, police were tipped off that the man may have been seen leaving the area of NE 10th Court. When officers responded, they say he tried to run away while a perimeter was set up in the area of NE 12th and Benton Street. Person missing after boat capsizes in Columbia River Police said the man was captured after he was located hiding inside the employee area of the Subway restaurant, which he had accessed by entering through an employee entrance door. The man was arrested and charged with unlawful possession of meth, unlawful possession of a controlled substance, unlawful use of a vehicle, unlawful entry into a motor vehicle, and first-degree theft. The man also had a previous warrant for his 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 KOIN.com. FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) A 29-year-old man from Canada was arrested with 44 pounds of suspected cocaine after a traffic stop on Interstate 5 in Fresno County, according to the California Highway Patrol. CHP says the discovery of drugs with an estimated street value of approximately $1.6 million was discovered after a CHP Central Division sergeant made an enforcement stop on a Chrysler Pacifica on Interstate 5 and Shields Avenue. The sergeant noted several indicators that the driver may be involved in criminal activity and developed probable cause to search the Chrysler, CHP says. During a search, the sergeant said he found the suspected cocaine, sealed within two totes, located in the rear cargo area of the Chrysler. California Highway Patrol California Highway Patrol California Highway Patrol This seizure underscores the dedication of our officers to keeping dangerous drugs out of our communities. The California Highway Patrol remains committed in our mission to protect the public and ensure the safety and security of all Californians said CHP Central Division Chief Damon Gilmore. According to the California Highway Patrol, Ga Hyung Choi, 29, of British Columbia, Canada, was arrested and transported to the Fresno County Jail where he was booked on the charges of suspicion of being in possession of cocaine for sale and transportation of cocaine across non-contiguous 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 CBS47 and KSEE24 | YourCentralValley.com. NORTH HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) North Haven police are searching for multiple suspects accused of striking a police cruiser while fleeing from outside Chick-fil-A, where they were seen wearing ski masks in a car with no license plates Thursday afternoon. Police said they were dispatched to the area of Chick-fil-A on Universal Drive, where the three males were seen inside a black Volkswagen Atlas with no license plates. East Haven police investigating string of burglaries The first officer on scene reported seeing the vehicle run a red light. The vehicle fled from the officer when he tried to pull them over. The suspect vehicle reportedly struck the officers cruiser twice during the pursuit, and drove over traffic islands and into oncoming traffic on Montowese Avenue. Police said they stopped the pursuit after it continued onto Interstate 91 northbound, where the vehicle continued to drive recklessly during rush hour traffic by weaving in and out of lanes. Suspect accused of assaulting mom, 2 kids faces judge The vehicle was later determined to be stolen from Guilford and involved in several area armed robberies, according to police. Police believe they interrupted an impending armed robbery on Universal Drive. Anyone who may have witnessed the incident or has information on the suspects is asked to contact Officer Brennan at x261 or North Haven Detectives at x240. Information can be shared anonymously. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WTNH.com. Sweden first pioneered parental leave. Now it's the first country to give grandparents paid leave Sweden was the first country to introduce paid parental leave also to fathers in 1974. According to the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, today, fathers take around 30 per cent of the paid parental leave. Now, 50 years later, grandparents in Sweden can be paid to take care of their grandchildren. The Swedish government's parental leave reform implemented on 1 July allows for the transfer of paid parental leave days to relatives or friends. Related A better work-life balance and promotion of gender equality Swedens social insurance agency, Forsakringskassan, says the new scheme should provide families with more flexibility. New parental leave rules allow parents to transfer up to 45 days of their paid leave to someone who isnt the childs legal guardian as long as the person is insured for parental allowance, which most people in Sweden are. For single parents, up to 90 days can be transferred per child from the total 480 days of paid leave. "The aim of the new law is to give more flexibility and greater opportunities to parents and to make it easier to combine family with work life. Furthermore, the new reform gives greater opportunities to, for example, single guardians and also makes parental leave available to a greater diversity of family types, which is likely to promote gender equality," Stefan Forsberg, the Director of Operations of Parental Insurance at Forsakringskassan, told Euronews Next. Related The new rule allows even retirees to take parental leave, for example, in which case the compensation is based on the persons pension. The recipient of the parental allowance may not look for work or study during the time they receive the parental allowance. Maria Karlsson, who lives in Stockholm with her three-year-old son, Liam, says she was glad to hear about the new law. Karlsson is a working, single parent, who often gets help from her parents. "My mother has been helping and supporting me since he [Liam] was born. She's been very helpful. And even now she helps me two days a week and picks him up from preschool which allows me to work a little more at work as I am working part-time (80%) just to make the economy go round," Maria told Euronews Next. Maria Karlsson with her son, Liam, and her mother, Zhor. - Euronews "It's nice now with this [new scheme] that I can transfer parental leave so that she still gets some kind of compensation," she added. Marias mother, Zhor Karlsson, used to work for the Swedish Social Insurance Agency and has retired now. She thinks the new scheme is "something good for everyone". "For example, I help twice a week. It's almost like routine. But if I'm going to take care of him for a whole week if he gets sick, it is good that you get this parental allowance," Zhor said. Once the days are transferred, the recipients who take care of the child can apply for parental allowance. Maria transferred about ten days to Zhor via the social insurance agencys website to try out the new scheme in August. "The next time that they come into use is, well, if it would be that mom wants to be home with Liam someday or if he gets ill and she unburdens me by staying at home with Liam one day and I do it the rest," Maria said. Related Critics voice concern about outsourcing childcare When the proposal was introduced in September 2023, several labour organisations in the country criticised that this policy could foster a "nanny system," effectively outsourcing childcare to relatives or professional caregivers. During an interpellation in October 2023 at the Swedish government, Anna Tenje, Minister for Older People and Social Security, said: "The risk that a transfer option would enable parental allowance to be systematically used as a means of payment for services rendered, for example to an employed childminder, is assessed as small". "We are also, as always, prepared to take very strong measures against welfare fraud and criminal acts against the welfare system. So this is something that we have on top of the agenda," Tenje told Euronews Next. Tenje further underlined the purpose of the new law is to enable parents to combine work life with active family life and to choose how to make the best for the children. Some 1,456 people in Sweden had transferred days to someone who was not the other guardian by the end of August, the Swedish Social Insurance Agency wrote to Euronews Next. SWEPCO to welcome new VP of Regulatory Affairs & Finance SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) The electric power supplier to Shreveport and vast portions of the ArkLaTex, Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO), is welcoming in a new Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Finance as a more than three-decade veteran of the company gets set to retire. SWEPCO announced on Thursday that Melissa Gage will be taking over the position held by Tom Brice, who will retire in December following a successful 32-year career at SWEPCO. Gage begins her new role October 26. SWEPCO taps well known public servant for Arkansas leadership role Melissa has been an integral part of every regulatory filing and proceeding at SWEPCO for many years. Her knowledge, legal experience, proactive approach and focus on building relationships will be important in our work to serve our customers, said Brett Mattison, SWEPCO President and COO. Brice is staying on until years end to ensure a seamless transition, according to SWEPCO. I appreciate Tom so much for his dedicated service to SWEPCO and our customers, Mattison added. He and his team have been instrumental in diversification of SWEPCOs generation fleet and his heart for service is evident in every interaction. SWEPCOs service area encompasses Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. Gage will be primarily based at AEPs offices in Austin, TX. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTALnews.com. The family of 62-year-old John Corcoran continued to grieve Thursday evening at their home remembering their loved one hit and killed by a car in Cambridge Monday. The Newton native was riding his bike on Memorial Drive Monday evening when police say a driver lost control of their vehicle, and hit Corcoran. He was later pronounced dead at Mass General Hospital. The family tearfully remembered the tragic day. Monday was a regular day, said Barbara Bower, wife of John Corcoran. That evening, she noticed her husband wasnt home after his daily bike ride to Cambridge. She continued, He never bikes at night. Thats when I called the police. Police broke the tragic news to Bowers Monday. She decided to head to Harvard University early Tuesday morning to break the news to her two kids a junior and senior at the school. Jack Corcoran, Johns son, remembered his mother waking him up in his dorm and saying, Jack, dad was struck by a car, and he died last night. The family then broke the news to John Corcorans daughter, Christine. Grieving, crying, screaming, sobbing, she remembered. He was terrified of getting hit by a car. The family remembered their father as an avid biker and loving father. Jack finished, Just having him not here at the house, I cant describe it. The family is now calling for safer conditions for bikers in Cambridge and beyond. Bikers are expected to gather Friday near the BU Boathouse calling for the same. This is the third biker death in the city since June. No charges have been filed in connection to Corcorans death. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW ANNSVILLE, NY (WUTR/WFXV/WPNY) Over a week after his standoff with Oneida County Sheriffs, an Taberg man has been arrested on weapons charges on Friday, September 27. Deputies were called to Taberg Florence Road in the town of Annsville at approximately 1:15 pm on Thursday, September 19. When they arrived, they encountered 33-year-old Brian Platt of Taberg. As sheriffs encountered Platt, he allegedly began making threatening statements, ran into his house and refused to come out. Sheriffs say three other people were in the building with Platt. Deputies managed to make sure that all three people got out of the house safely. Residents near the scene were placed on lockdown as New York State Police and crisis negotiators talked to Platt. Eventually, crisis negotiators were able to talk Platt into leaving the house, and he was taken into custody without further incident. Sheriffs searched the house afterward and located seven long guns laid out on a bed inside the residence. Oneida County Sheriffs seized them and an extreme risk protection order was issued. A subsequent search required by the order found no other weapons in the residence. Arrest warrants were filed in the Town of Annsville Court. On Friday, September 27, Oneida County Sheriffs arrested Platt with the help of the New York State Forest Rangers. Platt was transported to the Wyman Law Enforcement Building in Oriskany. He was subsequently taken to the Oneida County Jail in Oriskany to await arraignment in CAP Court. Platt is being charged with: Third-degree Criminal Possession of a Weapon, a Class D Violent Felony, Fourth-degree Criminal Possession of a Weapon, a Class A Misdemeanor, Second-degree Menacing, a Class A Misdemeanor, and Fourth-degree Criminal Mischief, a Class A Misdemeanor. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WUTR/WFXV - CNYhomepage.com. TALLADEGA, Ala. (WIAT) On Monday, Talledega College will host the Barbers Against Bullets Symposium to unite community members against gun violence. Organized by the Agency for Substance Abuse Prevention (ASAP), the event will be held at the colleges student center ballroom from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Free food will be provided to attendees. The symposium will tackle conversations on the intersection of gun violence and substance misuse. Barber and community advocate Vic Blends will be featured as a guest speaker. Rep. Juandalynn Givan introduces bill prohibiting bump stock possession in Birmingham This event is part of a campaign launched by ASAP to invite prominent community members, such as athletes and barbers, to influence those most impacted by gun violence. ASAP is a nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing the critical issues of substance misuse and its intersections with gun violence in communities across Alabama. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 stories unfolded across Tampa Bay in the aftermath of Hurricane Helenes damage Friday. Some transportation and health services revived quickly, like the Tampa International Airport, which declared no significant damage in Helenes wake. The St. Pete-Clearwater airport reopened as expected Friday morning, too. Tampa General Hospitals AquaFence a long watertight barrier securing the Davis Islands facility against storm surge held, allowing emergency services to proceed. Other services and thoroughfares residents depend on, however, struggled to reopen or went offline unexpectedly. St. Petersburgs Northeast Water Reclamation Facility, which serves 25% of the citys residents, was inundated with 7 feet of storm surge. Residents in northeast St. Petersburg, many of whom were not told to evacuate, cant flush the toilet, shower or put anything down the drain for at least 48 hours. Hundreds of thousands were without power in Tampa Bay as of Friday afternoon. Bridges across the bay to Tampa were blocked off for nearly 24 hours on Thursday and Friday. The Courtney Campbell Causeway and Pinellas Countys barrier islands are still shuttered to traffic. And then there are the many businesses in places like Gulfport and Davis Islands that face incalculable damage and uncertain reopening times after Helene. Storm surge ravaged the outdoor bars and decks at Gulfport eateries like Neptunes Grill and Little Tommies Tiki. A spray of driftwood, dead palm fronds, foam and trash stuck in the chain-link fence at Peter O. Knight Airport, which was still closed Friday morning. Here was the status of some Tampa Bays roadways, businesses, schools, hospitals and beaches as of late Friday afternoon. Bridges The Howard Frankland and Sunshine Skyway bridges had fully reopened by Friday afternoon, after closing to drivers 24 hours before. The Gandy Bridges westbound lanes and an inside eastbound lane are open. One eastbound lane is still blocked off due to storm debris. The Courtney Campbell Causeway was still closed as of 4 p.m. Friday. Airports Tampa and St. Pete-Clearwater international airports opened to travelers Friday morning, but a sea of delays and cancellations followed. At Tampa International, a third of flights were canceled as of 4 p.m. Friday. Less than half were on-time. Early-afternoon flights at St. Pete-Clearwater were delayed by hours. Schools School districts closed campuses Thursday and Friday in preparation for Helene. Most are ready to bring students back Monday. Pasco County school district officials said all but one campus West Pasco Education Academy will reopen on Monday. Six had power outages that are expected to be handled over the weekend, said Superintendent Kurt Browning. Hernando County schools had no major problems because of the storm and will open all sites on Monday, spokesperson Karen Jordan said. Two Hillsborough County schools had some water damage and minor flooding, which is being worked on, district spokesperson Tanya Arja said. All will likely reopen Monday. Pinellas County crews were checking out schools during the afternoon. Superintendent Kevin Hendrick said early in the day that at least 30 were without power, and that two Madeira Beach Fundamental K-8 and Gulf Beaches Elementary were anticipated to have damages because of their proximity to the coast. Some schools were still being used as shelters. The district had not completed its review to determine its next steps as of 3 p.m. Friday. Officials said they would provide an update on school status over the weekend. They already have scheduled one makeup day for Oct. 14. Utilities Around 210,000 utility customers were without power in Tampa Bay by 4 p.m. Friday, including around 170,000 Duke Energy customers in Pinellas County and around 40,000 Tampa Electric customers. There are portions of our system we cant access because of the flooding, said Cherie Jacobs, a spokesperson for Tampa Electric. So, we cant get a full assessment of our system at this hour. Flooding is the biggest issue, but crews also reported a lot of wires and trees down, Jacobs said. Beaches Clearwater Beach is closed to traffic as law enforcement and emergency crews remove sand that has piled as high as 6 feet on some streets, according to the Clearwater Police Department. The Pinellas County Sheriffs Office reported Friday that all barrier islands from the Dunedin Causeway through Tierra Verde are closed until further notice. Places like Madeira, St. Pete and Pass-a-Grille beaches were covered in sand and debris, too. Photos shared by the sheriffs office show cars halfway submerged in layers of sand. Hospitals Tampa Bay area hospitals reported no major impacts from Hurricane Helene early Friday. While the bridges to Davis Islands were closed due to flooding, Tampa Generals emergency centers operated as usual. Farther north, there were some closures. Tampa General emergency rooms in Citrus County remained closed Friday morning while personnel assessed if they were safe to reopen. Johns Hopkins All Childrens Hospital in St. Petersburg said outpatient facilities will be closed Friday as storm impacts are assessed. BayCare, which operates 16 hospitals in West Central Florida, reported Friday morning that theyd had no significant impacts or evacuations. Times staff writers Teghan Simonton, Colleen Wright, Jeff Solocheck, Lane DeGregory, Zack Sampson and Dan Sullivan contributed to this report. Tampa Bay Times hurricane coverage 2024 5 things to know about the 2024 hurricane season, according to forecasters. Forecasters predict extremely active 2024 hurricane season. Heres why. Could Tampa Bay flood insurance rise after a hurricane? A warning from Hurricane Ian Want to know what areas are flooding in Tampa Bay? Heres where to look. Checklists for building all kinds of storm kits. Tampa Bays utility providers reviewed the damage Friday morning after Hurricane Helene pounded the region with high winds and the highest storm surge on record. There are portions of our system we cant access because of the flooding, said Cherie Jacobs, a spokesperson for Tampa Electric. So, we cant get a full assessment of our system at this hour. More than 941,000 Floridians were still without power by Friday afternoon, including about 305,000 in Tampa Bay. Flooding is the biggest issue, but crews also reported a lot of wires and trees down, Jacobs said. The storm swept by Tampa Bay on Thursday evening with winds between 40 and 50 mph. Around midnight, a tidal gauge in eastern Tampa Bay measured the highest storm surge on record, nearly 8 feet higher than normal water levels. The flooding is unprecedented, Jacobs said. Weve never seen damage like this. Tampa Electric crews worked overnight to stop outages as they were logged, she said, stopping only when high winds compromised safety. Work had resumed by the early hours of the morning. At one point, the company had around 100,000 outages. There are currently almost 48,000 many concentrated in Tampa and southern Hillsborough County. We are all hands on deck, around the clock, 16-hour shifts, Jacobs said. We are going to bring those outage numbers down as quickly as we can. In Pinellas County, Duke Energy had around 201,000 customers without power as of 1 p.m. Ana Gibbs, a spokesperson for Duke Energy, said those outages were mostly due to the record surge levels. Outages in the Big Bend, meanwhile, were largely attributed to high winds. Our biggest challenge is the flooding, Gibbs said. Were not going to be able to restore power until the water has receded. Crews had been at work throughout the storm across the state, Gibb said, and are continuing to repair damage to poles and wires. But she noted the overall level of damage caused by Helene is not easily comparable to past storms. Every single storm is different, Gibbs said. Sometimes its not just about how many customers are out, but the type of damage to our system. Hurricane Michael, for instance, brought Category 5 winds to Floridas Panhandle. It impacted fewer customers than other storms, Gibbs said, but required rebuilding of the system in the region. Its much more complex than understanding how many customers are out, but understanding what kind of damage is done not just to our system, but of course, the surrounding community. Tampa Bay Times hurricane coverage 2024 5 things to know about the 2024 hurricane season, according to forecasters. Forecasters predict extremely active 2024 hurricane season. Heres why. Could Tampa Bay flood insurance rise after a hurricane? A warning from Hurricane Ian Want to know what areas are flooding in Tampa Bay? Heres where to look. Checklists for building all kinds of storm kits. DAVIS ISLANDS On Davis Islands, furniture lay strewn outside door fronts Friday as residents and business owners pushed water out of their dwellings and decided what they could keep and what they had to part with. Passengers in cars gasped as they drove past lawns with downed trees, and residents exchanged somber smiles. Davis Island Coffee Bar had posted a sign: Free Coffee, Stay Safe. The night before, after Hurricane Helene blew through the Tampa Bay area, many rescue calls had been made from the island. Two homes had caught on fire. Tampas mayor, Jane Castor, said she was stunned by how much of the island remained underwater early Friday when she flew over. The man-made island was developed in the 1920s from mud dredged from the bottom of Tampa Bay and initially designed to be a resort community. In the years since, its been home to the likes of Tom Brady, Steven Stamkos and Derek Jeter. Its currently home to more than 5,000 residents. As Sam Cochrane, 26, walked on to the island that was initially only allowing emergency vehicles, SUVs and trucks, he worried about those with deeper roots to the enclave. Hes only lived there about four months, but had met people whose tenure spanned 50 years. He asked neighbors who had been around much longer if they planned to evacuate as Helene approached earlier in the week, and most seemed confident that things would be fine. No one expected this much storm surge, he said. Around 2 p.m. Thursday, Cochrane evacuated near a stadium. Some of his friends stayed. When they shared photos, he began to worry. Some sat on their beds as water around them rose. He didnt know what to expect as home drew near. As he approached the structure, his neighbor Camryn Ritter, 31, handed him trash bags. Its pretty shitty, she said. Cochrane took out his phone to record as he unlocked his door. Wow, he said. Jesus Christ. He looked down at the two towels he had placed against the door to sop up water that might get in. They were soaked. He took off his shoes, stepped inside and found his feet submerged. Its not like the warning wasnt really there, he said. I think everyones like, well be fine, you know, because it hasnt happened before. So I think a lot of people are probably like, Ive lived here 40, 50 years, its never happened, so you know, this time will be fine too. His neighbor, Ritter, had evacuated on Wednesday. She spent last night watching videos and photos roll in online. Part of me just wished I wouldnt have even seen anything on social media about how bad it was, she said. It doesnt make the anxiety any easier, when you learn about it the day before and you have to actually come and exist in it. Faith Pilafas, 24, works at the Davis Islands restaurant and bar 220 East and has lived in a second-story apartment for four years with her boyfriend who works at Davis Islands Coffee Bar. They knew they would be safe, but stayed in case others in first-floor apartments needed help, Pilafas said. The storm was overwhelming. The water rose to two feet, then four, then chest level. Her boyfriend got his kayak out and started to help find people who needed to get off the island. I dont think anybody was expecting it, she said. Weve kind of gotten accustomed to lots of talk about big storms, and never actually like feeling the effects of it. So for all the people who didnt leave the island, I feel like they were all just expecting it to be a normal storm, anticlimactic. And wow, were we surprised. Pilafas said the community of Davis Islands is one that frequently bands together. I mean, just every single business is, like, totally destroyed, she said. But we dont know anybody who is seriously injured, and so were just really grateful that didnt happen. Frank Hernandez, operations manager of Servpro Brandon, a water damage restoration company, spoke with property owners. This place was a pool, he said. People havent seen this in more than 30 years. Everybody who lived on the first floors, all their stuff is destroyed. People are distraught. Its devastating. Some businesses saw battered storefronts and inches of water and muck pulled into their restaurants. Davis Islands Pharmacy continued to play music with a shattered door Friday as employees tossed out unusable goods. Debra Ogston, one of the owners of Oggi, a beloved Italian spot that has been on the island since 2016, came back to a restaurant of overturned coolers and marks on cabinets indicating that water had at one point been waist-level. They had prepared and bolstered the restaurant with PVC sandbags, but the last hour of storm surge overpowered. At six-and-a-half feet, we were holding, she said. We could evacuate from Zone A, but we cant move our business. We did everything we could to just kind of hunker down. Ogston said the morning brought employees, former employees and even a girlfriend and a neighbor of an employee ready to help. Everyone sort of pulls together, she said. Im sure if we get this cleaned up to the point where were not a public health crisis, well be trying to see what we can do to help others. Ogston said before the storm, she had helped a new business on the block prepare with sandbags, and others in the neighborhood had done the same. Were resilient, she said. Were going to go for progress, not perfection. ... The damage here is annoying, and a little heartbreaking. But its stuff. Stuff can be replaced. Tampa Bay Times hurricane coverage 2024 5 things to know about the 2024 hurricane season, according to forecasters. Forecasters predict extremely active 2024 hurricane season. Heres why. Could Tampa Bay flood insurance rise after a hurricane? A warning from Hurricane Ian Want to know what areas are flooding in Tampa Bay? Heres where to look. Checklists for building all kinds of storm kits. Target thief with two carts of stolen goods kicked officer during arrest: San Mateo police SAN MATEO, Calif. (KRON) The San Mateo Police Department (SMPD) said a woman accused of stealing almost $3,000 of merchandise from Target fought with officers during her arrest. Man impersonating a security guard after breaking into synagogue convicted SMPD said a loss prevention agent at the Target, located at Bridgepinte Shopping Center, tipped off police at 11:16 p.m. Thursday when he spotted the suspect stealing items from the store. Officials said officers arrived on scene and found the suspect with two shopping carts filled with items. Police said the suspect, later identified as Kristen Martin-Boileau, became aggressive when officers tried to detain her. SMPD alleged she became violent and kicked an officer in the leg when officers attempted to have her sit in the back of the patrol car. Investigators said $2,903 of stolen merchandise was returned to Target. Martin-Boileau was arrested and booked into San Mateo County Jail, said 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 KRON4. Tarrant County will pay $750,000 to the family of mentally ill woman who died in jail Read the latest in our coverage of the Tarrant County jail. Tarrant County has agreed to pay $750,000 to the family of a mentally ill woman who died in the jail in 2021, the familys lawyer announced Friday. Georgia Baldwin died on Sept. 14, 2021, after jailers found her unresponsive in her cell at Lon Evans Corrections Center in downtown Fort Worth. She was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital, where she was later pronounced dead. She had been in jail for five months. The Tarrant County Medical Examiners Office ruled she died of severe hypernatremia, which is a high level of sodium in the blood usually attributed to dehydration. The medical examiner, however, said that the cause of the condition was undetermined. The Sheriffs Office declined to comment, stating that the department is still investigating Baldwins case. A statement from the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorneys Office said the parties have agreed to settle this matter, but the settlement papers have not been finalized yet. Baldwin suffered from severe mental illness, according to lawyers for the family. She had been arrested after leaving threatening voicemails for Christopher Cook, who at the time was an Arlington police lieutenant. Cook, now the police chief in White Settlement, referred the Star-Telegram to the Arlington Police Department. Arlington police spokesperson Tim Ciesco declined to comment on the litigation. Malone argued that Baldwins mental health issues were apparent from the beginning, and should have been taken into account in the response by law enforcement. It was clear from her voicemail messages that she had significant mental health issues, the lawyers press release states. Regardless, she was arrested and incarcerated in the Tarrant County jail for a lengthy period of time. The voicemails she left Cook concerned the unsolved case of Amber Hagerman, an Arlington girl whose 1996 abduction and murder spurred the creation of the Amber Alert System, according to KERA News. Baldwin continued to show signs of mental illness and an incapacity to comprehend her situation, her family said. A judge ordered in July 2021 that she be transferred to a state mental health facility to undergo a process called competency restoration, by which she would be returned to a mental state in which she could understand the charges against her. But the transfer was never made. Wait lists for competency restoration are generally very long and can take months or longer for an inmate to be moved to mental health facilities. Malone called it unfortunate that the case took this long to come to a close. The $750,000 was inadequate, he said, but added that he hopes it will inspire change in the Tarrant County jail and others in Texas. Baldwins son, Jonathan Mattix, who was a plaintiff in the case, said in a statement conveyed through his lawyers that the case was an incredibly difficult journey for my family. While the judgment provides some closure, our greatest hope is that my mothers death inspires changes in the system, so no other family has to endure this kind of loss, he said. Tarrant DAs 15-year deal for murderer accused of killing witness is a joke, cop says Mayra Guerra was in the passenger seat of a Mitsubishi Montero when she became an eyewitness to a murder. She cooperated with the police. In the hours after Guerra watched the man she was dating shoot a stranger on a northside Fort Worth corner, she described the killing to officers. As he stood along a street, Fernando Mendoza gestured to Jesus Rios, who was speeding as he drove, to slow down. Rios got out and fired a round into Mendozas face. Guerra cooperated with prosecutors and was sworn as a witness for the state. She was not rewarded for her honorable effort. Rather, the 37-year-old mother of five was slain because of what she saw, authorities said. Rios, indicted on murder in the February 2020 Mendoza homicide, was on bond in Tarrant County when on Sept. 8, 2023, he cut off a GPS monitor and fled to Mexico. Under circumstances that are not clear, Guerra joined Rios in Mexico, possibly against her will, Guerras sister said. In late September 2023, Rios strangled Guerra in the Mexican town where she was born, then headed to the border, law enforcement authorities concluded. There, he was taken into custody on an arrest warrant on the Tarrant County bond violation in connection with Mendozas killing. After Guerra was killed, a Fort Worth Police Department detective began an investigation of her death that in part would offer an alternative to her live testimony from the witness stand at a potential trial. In many situations, a witness cannot use in testimony the words of another person that the testifying witness asserts he or she heard. However, a forfeiture by wrongdoing hearsay exception in rules of evidence makes a dead witness observations and statements admissible at trial. Using location information connected to Rios cellphone, Fort Worth police proved by a preponderance of the evidence that Rios caused Guerras death for the purpose of preventing her from testifying. The results of a DNA test that police expect will indicate Guerras blood was on Rios clothing are pending. The state and defense engaged in plea negotiations. In March 2023, the district attorneys office offered 50 years in prison, according to district clerk records. Last week in Criminal District Court No. 3, Rios pleaded guilty to the murder of Mendoza. Under the terms of a plea bargain, a judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison. Rios, who is 48, was credited for 1,317 days served. He will be eligible for parole when he has served half of the term. Upon a guilty verdict on murder at trial, a jury or judge would in this case have considered a prison term of 15 to 99 years or life. The lead Homicide Unit detective in the Mendoza case described in an interview with a Star-Telegram reporter his disapproval of the plea bargain. All youre doing is telling the citizens of Fort Worth: kill an eyewitness and youll get away with something, Detective Thomas OBrien said. Guerra had taken the correct course, according to police and her family. She had done the right thing. Fifteen years is a joke for the murder itself, Detective OBrien said. There are few extraneous bad acts, as a defendants wrongdoing beyond the offense charged in an indictment is known, worse than killing an eyewitness. Had the case gone to trial, prosecutors could, in the punishment phase, have potentially introduced evidence that Rios killed Guerra. That the homicide occurred outside the United States would not have restricted it from inclusion in the states punishment case. The killing could have been calculated in the punishment determination if a jury or judge found beyond a reasonable doubt that Rios intentionally or knowingly caused Guerras death. Authorities in Mexico filed an arrest warrant for murder in which Rios is the defendant. In interviews with a reporter, relatives of Mendoza and Guerra offered criticisms of the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorneys Offices agreement to the plea bargain. A spokesperson for District Attorney Phil Sorrells responded to a question about the agreement with a statement that noted that Guerras death occurred outside the United States. In every case, we evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of our evidence and make a decision on going to trial or offering a plea. Then we inform the family of the victim. We did so in this case. The family was present for the plea, the district attorneys office wrote. This office is not involved in the case regarding Mayra Guerra, as that offense occurred in Mexico, the the district attorneys office wrote. Assistant District Attorney Idris Akinpelu prosecuted the case. Steve Gebhardt, a defense attorney who was appointed to represent Rios, did not respond to an emailed request for his assessment of the disposition of the Mendoza case or of Rios alleged involvement in Guerras death. Magistrate Judge Rainey Webb was presiding when Rios pleaded guilty. In an interview, Myriam Rojo said that her sister, who worked as a housekeeper, was sweet. Addiction led Guerra to begin a relationship with Rios, Rojo said. She was always, you know, with her kids, Rojo said. Always with her kids. In a December 2023 letter to the court, Rojo wrote, our life has turned gray since September 26, 2023. I plead that you would please take into consideration the death of my sister and all of the pain caused to a family on Jesus Javier Rios[] punishment. Guerras eldest daughter said she was distressed by the 15-year prison term. I honestly thought it was going to be more time. Im really disappointed in the DAs office, Abby Guerra said. Relatives of Mendoza also derided the plea bargain and said they felt as though they could not raise their objections to it during a meeting with prosecutor Akinpelu. Fernando Mendoza (left) is pictured with his parents. Mendoza was killed in a shooting in Fort Worth in 2020. Jesus Rios was sentenced to 15 years after pleading guilty to his murder. The agreement did not make sense, the victims sister, Christy Mendoza, said in an interview. What was the rush? To close a case and be done? she asked. After Guerras death, Rios was arrested at a U.S.-Mexico port of entry in El Paso, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Rios entered the U.S. using a fictitious name when he presented authorities with a Texas identification card at the Paso Del Norte port of entry. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers believed Rios was making a false claim of U.S. citizenship and escorted him to a secondary exam area for further processing. They determined Rios was being sought on a Tarrant County bond violation. More top stories from our newsroom: Fort Worth school board accepts superintendent's resignation Fort Worth ISD teachers speak out as superintendents fate is decided Driver shot by off-duty officer shares his account of events [Get our breaking news alerts.] Mendoza, who was 34, was walking with a woman in the 2400 block of Roosevelt Avenue when Rios drove up to the pair and yelled, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. Neither knew Rios. An argument between Mendoza and Rios ensued, leading to Rios parking his vehicle and leaving the SUV with a gun, according to the affidavit. Rios pointed the gun at Mendozas face and said, just because when he pulled the trigger, the woman with Mendoza told police. Mendoza was taken to a hospital and died four days later. Police found at Guerras house the SUV Rios was driving at the time of the shooting, a .45-caliber handgun, ejected cartridge casings and ammunition. When Guerras body was found in a Mexican field, shoelaces were tied to her neck. Getty Images. This is one in a series of States Newsroom reports on the major policy issues in the presidential race. WASHINGTON With the clock ticking on former President Donald Trumps signature 2017 tax law, and high housing, food and child care costs darkening Americans mood, tax cuts have become the star of the 2024 presidential contest between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump wants to overall extend his tax provisions beyond the 2025 expiration date and then some, promising to lower the corporate tax rate even further and lift the cap on the state and local taxes deduction. He argues the loss in federal revenue will be made up by imposing steep tariffs on imported goods. Tariff is a beautiful word, he told a crowd in Savannah, Georgia, Tuesday night, one of the most beautiful words Ive ever heard. We will take in hundreds of billions of dollars into our treasury and use that money to benefit the American citizens, he said. Harris is running on an opportunity economy platform that keeps the Biden administrations promises to not raise taxes on those making less than $400,000 and enact a billionaire tax. The vice president has also vowed to give tax deductions and credits to budding entrepreneurs and first-time homebuyers, and permanently expand the Child Tax Credit. Under my plan, more than 100 million Americans will get a middle-class tax break that includes $6,000 for new parents during the first year of their childs life, Harris said Wednesday at a campaign speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Whoever wins the Oval Office will need a cooperative Congress to enact these policies with the exception of tariffs, over which the president enjoys wide latitude. What would it cost? SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The barrage of proposals has kept economists busy with near-constant and evolving analyses of how much the tax cut promises would add to the nations ballooning federal deficit and change the economy. Both candidates plans come with a price tag in the trillions of dollars, though Trumps is the more expensive of the two. Models released in late August by the Penn Wharton Budget Model project Trumps plan would add up to $5.8 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, while Harris plan would increase the deficit by up to $2 trillion over the same time period. I think that both candidates are missing the mark when it comes to fiscal responsibility and economic responsibility, the Tax Foundations Erica York told States Newsroom in an interview Monday. Neither of them have really outlined a plan that would get us on a sustainable path in terms of debt and deficits, nor that would boost growth and opportunity in the economy. Both are likely to have a negative impact on the economy, said York, senior economist and research director for the foundation, which generally favors lower taxes. Promise: No taxes on tips, overtime Trump, followed by Harris, has proposed to nix taxes on tipped workers though Harris has suggested limiting the benefit to workers in the service and hospitality industries who earn less than $75,000. She has also said the tax break would not apply to payroll taxes, meaning the contribution workers pay toward Social Security and Medicare. Trump has not detailed any limits on his proposal for tipped workers. Economists across the board warn Trumps plan could incentivize more tipped work. They also question whether Trump and Harris proposals would actually benefit low-income workers. After all, tax benefits for lower income workers who have children phase in as the person earns income. Reporting less income means those taxpayers could ultimately see less help from the Child Tax Credit or the Earned Income Tax Credit. If you work and you report income, you get these provisions. But if you dont, you dont get these provisions. Well, you add exemptions into the tax code that reduces the amount of earned income that you report to the IRS, you could potentially reduce the value of these credits for very low-income households, Kyle Pomerleau, senior fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, told States Newsroom in an interview Monday. For instance, a tipped worker who has one child and earns $24,000 annually, half of which comes from tips, could see a $300 decrease in refundable tax credits under this policy, Pomerleau and senior AEI fellows Alex Brill and Stan Veuger wrote in August. The same principle for lower income taxpayers applies to Trumps recent promise to eliminate taxes on overtime. There could be a negative effect there, depending on how this is structured, Pomerleau said Monday. The nonpartisan watchdog Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates an elimination of taxes on all overtime would cost the country $1.7 trillion in lost revenue over 10 years. With no guardrails preventing workers switching from salaried to hourly, the price tag could reach up to $6 trillion in the most extreme case, CRFB estimates. Promise: No taxes on Social Security Economists monitoring the nations Social Security coffers continue to sound alarm bells on the programs solvency with little reaction on the campaign trail. The fund that provides money to senior citizens and people with disabilities is on track to be depleted by 2035, and recipients would face an immediate 17% cut in benefits, as the Tax Foundations Alex Durante wrote Tuesday. Trump has mentioned Social Security during campaign rallies and on his social media platform, but in the context of eliminating taxes on the benefit payments. While low-income recipients do not pay taxes on their benefits, others do and are projected to contribute $94 billion this year back into the fund. Nixing those taxes could speed up Social Securitys insolvency by one year, according to an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Promise: New corporate tax rates and tariffs Trumps 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which cleared Congress strictly along party lines, permanently lowered the top corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%. Harris has vowed, if elected, she will bump the rate up to 28%. Analyses from the CFRB, the Tax Foundation, Penn Wharton and the Yale Budget Lab estimate the increase would raise roughly $1 trillion to $1.2 trillion in federal revenue over the next decade. The former president wants to cut the rate even further to 15%, a level not seen in the U.S. since the 1930s. Economists estimate the cut would reduce revenue anywhere from $460 billion to $673 billion over 10 years. Here is the deal that I will be offering to every major company and manufacturer on Earth: I will give you the lowest taxes, the lowest energy costs, the lowest regulatory burden and free access to the best and biggest market on the planet, but only if you make your product here in America, Trump said in Georgia Tuesday. Trump has big plans for products imported into the U.S. Hes planning to impose up to 20% tariffs on most imports, reaching as high as 60% on Chinese goods and 100% on countries that turn away from the U.S. dollar. That could cost the typical American household about $2,600 a year as costs on consumer goods would shift to the customer, particularly affecting those with lower incomes, according to economists Kimberly Clausing and Mary Lovely at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Speaking at a farming roundtable in Pennsylvania Monday, Trump publicly warned John Deere that if the company moves manufacturing to Mexico, hell impose a 200% tariff on tractors coming back over the border. Experts warn another downside is that the policy invites foreign retaliation. So if we are, say, exporting Kentucky bourbon to China, China may say, well, to retaliate for the 60% tax on imports, were going to place taxes on this export, and thats going to have a direct impact on the incomes of Americans and make us poorer, Pomerleau said. Promise: A billionaire tax A familiar refrain from Harris and the Biden administration is that billionaires and wealthy corporations should pay their fair share. The U.S. individual tax rate already progresses with an earners income, meaning that the higher your income, the higher your tax rate. Both Harris and Trump want to keep individual tax rates that were lowered across the board in the 2017 law, but Harris is seeking to increase taxes on long-term capital gains, and levy a minimum tax on unrealized capital gains for very high earners. For those earning upwards of $1 million a year, Harris proposed raising taxes to 28%, up from 20%, on profits made from the sale of an asset, like stocks, bonds, or real estate, that have been held by the owner for more than a year. The vice president also proposes quadrupling the stock buyback tax to 4%, up from 1%. For ultra-wealthy households that have more than $100 million in assets, Harris follows Biden in proposing a 25% tax rate sometimes referred to as the billionaire tax. Those high-wealth individuals would need to calculate their regular income tax liability and compare it to their total net worth, meaning income plus unrealized capital gains, multiplied by 25%. Whichever is greater you pay, Pomerleau explains. So if you are in a situation where you have a low effective tax rate relative to this broader definition of income, the minimum tax will kick in and youll start paying increments. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates the plan could raise $750 billion in revenue over ten years. Promise: No SALT cap Ahead of a mid-September campaign rally on Long Island, New York, Trump pledged to abandon the cap in his 2017 law on the state and local tax deduction simply known in tax parlance as SALT. As the law stands now, taxpayers can only deduct up to $10,000 of their state and local tax bill from their federal tax liability. A full SALT deduction is more valuable for higher income taxpayers, and prior to the 2017 cap, 91% of taxpayers who claimed it lived in California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Texas and Pennsylvania, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation. Eliminating the cap would cut taxes by an average of more than $140,000 for the highest earning 0.1% of households, according to modeling by the Tax Policy Center, a collaboration between the left-leaning Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. The Committee for a Responsible Budget estimates the move could cost $1.2 trillion over a ten-year budget window. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) A longtime employee of Taylorvilles YMCA has been sentenced to probation and restitution after she was convicted of stealing a large sum from the organization. Federal prosecutors said Lori Zeitler, 65, used per position at the YMCA to steal at least $292,000 from the organization and was responsible for $600,000 in losses. Zeitler worked at the YMCA for 32 years in various roles, including as a bookkeeper. Zeitlers theft was discovered when the YMCA switched to internet-based accounting software. She was charged with five counts of wire fraud, and she pleaded guilty in March. As a YMCA employee of 32 years, Lori Zeitler developed a long-time pattern of embezzlement, using her position of trust to steal from her employer, and ultimately shortchanging the community the YMCA serves, said FBI Springfield Special Agent in Charge Christopher Johnson. We at the FBI and our law enforcement partners will always pursue justice in an effort to preserve the publics trust in its valued institutions. Taylorville Crime Stoppers seeking boat theft suspect At Zeitlers sentencing on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Sue Myerscough noted that her crimes broke the trust between the YMCA and the community. She described Zeitlers actions as almost unbelievable. Myerscough sentenced Zeitler to three years of probation and $600,000 in restitution. The impact of the defendants deception is wide-reaching, as the money she stole deprived the Christian County YMCA of funds that should have gone towards needed facility improvements and to support programs for members, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Sierra Senor-Moore. The restitution order is a just result that will help the YMCA to continue their mission in serving the community. The investigation into Zeitlers actions was performed by the FBI Springfield Field Office, the Illinois State Police and the Taylorville Police Department. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WCIA.com. Much ado has been made about the competing economic visions presented by Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. As Novembers election approaches, Harris campaign is attempting to bring younger voters into the fold by repackaging Donald Trumps tariff-centric economic plan as a threat to a beloved pastime: drinking. On Thursday, the Harris campaign launched Trumps Tequila Tax, a social media campaign aimed at tying Trumps proposed 10-to-20-percent universal tariff plan depending on the day you ask him on all imported goods. One TikTok produced by the campaign features a young man warning that the Trump tequila tax is insane, and that a 20 percent tax on all imported goods means he wants to tax your tequila, and your Coronas, your Modelos, your Hennessy all of it. The man then notes that Harris wants to support small businesses like mom-and-pop liquor stores and locally owned bars, by enacting a $50,000 tax deduction for small businesses. If you want to stop the Trump tequila tax vote for Harris-Walz, he concludes. Economists warn that broad-based tariffs on imported goods would do the opposite of lowering prices for consumers. Economists warn that a 10 percent tariff would amount to the average American spending an additional $1,700 a year in increased costs. The Harris campaign holds that the 20 percent proposal floated by Trump is essentially a Trump sales tax, that would raise prices on middle-class families by almost $4,000 a year. Non-domestic liquor and alcohol products would absolutely be affected by such a tax. Tequila is produced exclusively in Mexico, while cognac and champagne come from France but the tax would theoretically affect any imported beer, wine, and spirit that is currently available to American shoppers. Companies will be very clear with any administration and any government that if you increase tariffs on our products, we are going to pass it on to your citizens, Laurence Whyatt head of European beverages research at Barclays Investment Bank told Just Drinks, an industry publication. If Trump goes ahead with these tariffs, then of course, that does cause some complications because a lot of what is consumed in the U.S. is not made in the U.S. The United States is the worlds largest importer of beer and tequila, and over the last three decades Mexican brands have gobbled up market shares once dominated by domestic groups Anheuser-Busch InBev. Grabbing a drink with friends is already more expensive than it used to be, and as young Americans struggle in an economy that doesnt offer them the same prosperity it did to their parents and grandparents, the Harris campaign wants to ensure that they know Trump could be making their weekend bar tab a lot more expensive. More from Rolling Stone Best of Rolling Stone Sign up for RollingStone's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Teen Girl Was Stranded in Flooded Car by Hurricane Helene Until Deputies 'Sprung into Action' for Rescue: See Video "We are glad we were able to get her to safety and out of harms way," the Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office wrote on social media #teamHCSO sprung into action when one teenager was left stranded after attempting to drive through flooded waters on Racetrack Road near Lafayette Boulevard. We are glad we were able to get her to safety and out of harms way. pic.twitter.com/ICvVhRWQ6D HCSO (@HCSOSheriff) September 27, 2024 A stranded teenager in Florida was rescued late on Thursday, Sept. 26, by sheriff's deputies who came upon her car trapped in the floodwaters of Hurricane Helene. The Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office praised the work of its deputies in a post on X, sharing bodycam footage of the rescue where officials are seen assisting the girl before her family was set to arrive. #teamHCSO sprung into action when one teenager was left stranded after attempting to drive through flooded waters on ... We are glad we were able to get her to safety and out of harms way, the sheriff's office's post reads. Representatives from the Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office did not immediately respond to PEOPLEs request for further comment. Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Helene officially made landfall as a Category 4 storm in Florida's Big Bend on Thursday along the Gulf of Mexico, federal weather officials said. The storm initially had sustained winds of 140 mph and was the strongest storm to hit Florida's Big Bend area in recorded history. It made landfall about 10 miles west-southwest of the city of Perry, according to the National Hurricane Center. HCSO Sheriff/X Teen Girl Rescued by Deputies from Flooded Car After Hurricane Helene "Helene stands toe-to-toe with any of the threats that Florida has faced over the past 10 years or indeed really over hurricane history," Ryan Truchelut, a meteorologist and hurricane forecaster, previously told USA Today. Jamie Rhome, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center, told CNN that Helene would likely be a "historic inland flooding event," adding, "Historically speaking, 50% of lives lost are in a setup like this. Were probably going to lose a lot of lives in this setup with this much flooding potential." Related: Hurricane Helene Makes Landfall as Category 4 Storm, Threatening 'Catastrophic' Weather in Florida and Beyond Before Helene made landfall, the National Hurricane Center warned it could bring life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds and flooding rains to much of Florida and parts of the southeastern U.S. At least 10 people are dead, including at least seven people in Georgia alone, and millions of people are without power as of early on Friday, Sept. 27. The storm, which has now weakened over land, is set to pass north into Tennessee and then Kentucky by Saturday. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. DENVER (KDVR) A teenager accused in a shooting that wounded five people outside a bar in Lower Downtown Denver pleaded guilty to attempted murder on Friday. According to the district attorneys office, Keanna Rosenburgh pleaded guilty to one count of attempted murder. The count names eight different victims, five of whom were shot. The shooting happened on Sept. 16, 2023, outside a bar at 19th and Market Street. According to Denver police, Rosenburgh, a juvenile whose exact age was not released, tried to get into a bar but was denied entry by the clubs security. The security guard thought Rosenburgh wasnt using her own ID. Rosenburgh allegedly got out of line, went back to speak to security and then fired shots toward the club as she walked away. Aurora police arrest documented Tren de Aragua member Andrew Reader was working security at a bar across from the crime scene the night of the shooting. He has since left the industry to not work in LoDo anymore. Wearing a bulletproof vest all the time down there, not really something I needed to put my kids through. Just not really a safe thing, place for me to be in, said Reader. I try not to think about it too much. I mean it does effect me, I still have dreams about it but Im glad I got myself out of that situation. In total, five people were injured, but all survived. Reader recalled hearing about 5-6 shots fired, and secured bar patrons inside until the police said it was safe to come out. But even though the five people who were shot all survived, Reader believes the suspect should face more time behind bars. It was almost a pretty regular thing to hear gunshots or even somebody getting stabbed or fights in bars, said Reader. It could have easily been somebodys life, if not mine, other people around Being shot in the leg or the toe still has a huge impact, surgeries, hospital stays, not only that just financially too. Police said Rosenburgh may have been shooting toward security and the five victims were not the intended targets. Following the shooting, police released surveillance video in an effort to find Rosenburgh. Her face was widely circulated, and she was ultimately taken into custody in Barstow, California two months later in October 2023. The city is in the Mojave Desert of southern California, nearly halfway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The district attorneys office said Rosenburgh will be sentenced on Jan. 22. The DA said she faces up to seven years in the Colorado Youthful Offender System and a 21-year suspended sentence in the Colorado Department of Corrections. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. MOVIE REVIEW This year has brought us two fascinating, if flawed, films from older male directors who have staked their large personal fortunes in order to fund these unwieldy passion projects. First there was Kevin Costner's (ongoing) throwback Western "Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1," and now it's Francis Ford Coppola's long-marinating cinematic experiment "Megalopolis," funded by $120 million from his popular wine empire. While Costner grapples with the past and Coppola the future, both films attempt to say something about the present and reveal ways in which the filmmakers are mired in old ways of thinking. Even if "Horizon" and "Megalopolis" gesture toward sweeping, boundary-pushing ideas about storytelling, the approach to character, especially, feels old-fashioned and limited in a way that proves these auteurs haven't quite kept up with the cultural moment, insulated in their own worlds of ideas. With "Megalopolis," where to even begin? It's the story of a daring, misunderstood genius, Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), who seeks to create a utopia called Megalopolis with his proprietary shape-shifting matter, Megalon. Set in a New York City avatar called "New Rome" (and to employ a now-hackneyed joke structure), "Megalopolis" has everything: time travel, pop divas, otherwise unemployable actors, circus weddings, an array of Coppola family members, a weird sense you're watching a "Batman" movie, Aubrey Plaza stealing the show as a character named Wow Platinum, a mind-boggling amount of fedoras and, of course, an interactive theatrical element. This interactive element is a concept that Coppola has been toying with for years, and unfortunately, it won't be at every screening of "Megalopolis." But the much-touted gimmick involves a live actor in the theater coming out to ask Cesar a question at a news conference, which the character answers (this section will be edited into the film where the live element is not available). It's a bit overhyped, but Coppola certainly gets points for even attempting it. These Brechtian elements are threaded throughout the sprawling, discombobulated "Megalopolis," with the intent to draw attention to the political message that Coppola hopes to impart. He uses the allegory of ancient Rome to draw parallels to our contemporary moment. Shia LaBeouf plays Clodio Pulcher, the gender-bending, hard-partying fail-son of banking magnate Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight). Attempting to wrest power from his cousin Cesar, Clodio cosplays as a populist, fomenting unrest and rising to political prominence. While the experience of watching "Megalopolis" is confounding, it's never boring. Though the film feels at times never-ending, the third act spirals wildly out of control, reaching a breathtakingly baffling crescendo. There are spots of brilliance in "Megalopolis," from Plaza's outrageous performance to some stunningly gorgeous, if often narratively incoherent montages. Coppola still has the touch when it comes to crafting bravura cinematic moments, even though he never fully lets us be swept away by fantasy and sumptuous escapism in "Megalopolis," returning always to thuddingly portentous and yet vague messaging time and again. Yet there is something so distinctly human about this flawed endeavor. You simply have to hand it to the man to deliver something this boldly idiosyncratic and, ultimately, deeply earnest. So raise a glass of Coppola red wine in a toast to his sheer madness or to make the experience more tolerable. Either one will do. 'Megalopolis' (out of 4) MPA rating: R (for sexual content, nudity, drug use, language and some violence) Running time: 2 hours, 18 minutes How to watch: In theaters Teenage girl dies after collapsing halfway through flight from Iraq to China An Iraqi Airways flight from Baghdad to Guangzhou in China made an emergency landing at Kolkata airport in India due to a medical emergency involving a 16-year-old girl who suddenly fell ill. Despite getting immediate medical attention after the plane landed, the Iraqi girl was declared dead on arrival at a local hospital. The flight, carrying 100 passengers and 15 crew members, landed at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose airport at around 10.18pm on Wednesday. The teenager had reportedly taken ill on the aircraft about half an hour earlier. According to an Airports Authority of India spokesperson, a medical team was rushed to see the passenger. The girl had no pulse or heartbeat when the plane landed in Kolkata, the agency said in a statement. The attending doctor referred her to the nearest hospital for further evaluation. At about 1.18am, the passenger along with two of her immediate family members were offloaded and due formalities completed. It was unclear who the family members were. The girls body would be handed over to her family with assistance from the Iraqi embassy in Delhi. The Independent has reached out to the Iraqi embassy for comment. File. An Iraqi Airways plane (Getty) Dr Pooja Adhikary, who was with the medical team that attended the teenager, reported a case of unnatural death at the Baguiati police station, according to The Indian Express. The Baguiati police launched an investigation based on the doctors report, NDTV reported, and collected the girls body from the Charnock Hospital for a postmortem examination. The flight took off for China with the remaining passengers at 1.49am on Thursday. The Independent has contacted Iraqi Airways for comment. Teenager narrowly escapes Fond du Lac house fire deemed to be act of arson, suspect in custody (WFRV) On Monday, a teenager narrowly escaped from a second-story window of a Fond du Lac house that was fully in flames, two days later a suspect was taken into custody for arson. According to a release from the Fond du Lac Police Department and Fond du Lac Fire Rescue, authorities were called to reports of a fully engulfed house fire in the 200 block of Packer Street shortly after 11 p.m. on September 23. This embedded content is not available in your region. Inattentive driving labeled as cause of 2-vehicle Sheboygan crash, significant injuries While crews arrived at the scene, a 16-year-old girl had managed to climb out of a second-story window, falling to the ground to escape. Authorities called the girls escape a courageous effort. The fire was put out before spreading to nearby homes but not before it caused extensive damage to the Packer Street home. Firefighters were able to provide critical medical care to the teenager. During the investigation, with help from the Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigations (DCI), it was reportedly determined that an improvised incendiary device was used to target the residence, prompting an arson investigation. 2 kittens die, 1 fighting for its life in Oshkosh after being left in a plastic bag for dead An FDLPD Detective was able to identify a person of interest and on Wednesday, September 25, a 60-year-old man was taken into custody in Menasha. Authorities say the 60-year-old suspect is facing multiple charges and is being held at the Fond du Lac County Jail. The 16-year-old victim was transported to Childrens Hospital in Milwaukee for injuries sustained from the fire and fall. She remains at Childrens Hospital in stable condition. No additional information was provided. Local 5 will update this story when more details are 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 WFRV Local 5 - Green Bay, Appleton. WASHINGTON COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) The effects of Hurricane Helene have struck all parts of Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. Flooding has occurred throughout the region, leading to evacuations and the activation of shelters. Below, community members can find updates on open shelters, curfews and/or active evacuations in the region. The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) posted an updated road closure map at 9:15 p.m. that can be viewed here. The Greene County Tennessee Sheriffs Department announced that TDOT approved the reopening of the 321 River Bridge. There are reportedly plans to reopen the Asheville Highway River Bridge shortly. Greene County Mayor Kevin Morrison and Sheriff Wesley Holt informed the community of a countywide curfew from 9 p.m. Friday to 9 a.m. Saturday due to downed trees and 3 bridges in the community being impassable due to rising waters. Ballad Health: Everyone rescued from Unicoi County Hospital The Highway 107 bridge is being monitored and may be closing at some point for safety reasons, according to EMA officials. Bridges already closed include Birds, Chuckey Pike and Buckingham bridges. Greene County EMA Director Heather Sipe said a shelter has been opened at Asbury United Methodist Church at 201 South Main Street. Sipe said people should park and enter at the back of the church. All residents are encouraged to bring personal items and medications to the shelter. The church is working to get drinking water. Potable water distribution is available for residents only at the south side of the Ernest Bridge, Chuckey Pike Bridge and the Chuckey Utility Districts Office. There is a 20-gallon limit, and you must bring your own containers. Roan Mountain Roan Mountain was evacuated Friday morning, and several other parts of Carter County were devastated by flooding, like Hampton High School. The American Red Cross has opened a shelter for those seeking refuge at Cloudland High School, 476 Cloudland Drive, in Roan Mountain. Elizabethton/Carter County The Elizabethton Carter/Carter County Emergency Management Agency announced that Elizabethton High School, Hampton Elementary, Cloudland High, Unaka High and Happy Valley High are all available for shelters and any county fire station. A shower trailer will be available at the TLC Community Center beginning Saturday afternoon. There will also be food, clothing and hygiene products at the Stoney Creek Volunteer Fire Department on Hope Street near Hunter Elementary School. The Broad Street / US 321 Bridge and the East Elk Avenue bridge are closed until further notice. The City of Elizabethton provided three alternate routes below: BROAD STREET AND ELK AVENUE BRIDGE CLOSURES ALTERNATE ROUTES From Johnson City to Hampton and Roan Mountain: From Johnson City, turn right onto Mary Patton Highway from West Elk Avenue. Broad Street Extension: Broad Street Extension will either turn right toward Piney Flats or left toward Roan Mountain. Broad Street to Highway 19-E and Stoney Creek: Turn left onto Old Bristol Highway. For small vehicles going toward Stoney Creek turn left onto Lovers Lane. For all other traffic including large trucks, follow Old Bristol Highway to the Dollar Store and turn right to Highway 19-E. Washington County, Tenn. The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) issued a report at 1:16 p.m. Friday that confirmed Washington County officials had also ordered evacuations in Embreeville. The Washington County/Johnson City EMA issued an advisory at 3:20 p.m. asking all residents to only respond to instructions from official agencies. Rescue efforts can be impeded by Good Samaritans who, with the best of intentions, are responding to social media posts for help, the EMA stated. Moreover, these well-meaning neighbors may be placing themselves in harms way. Please direct any emergency needs to 911, to ensure they are handled safely by professionals. South Central Elementary School at 2955 TN-107, Chuckey, TN, has opened a shelter. David Crockett High School is open for shelter, food, warm showers, or as a charging station. The school will open at 7 a.m. on Sunday, please bring your own chargers. A new flood relief station is open on Sunday at 1790 Nolichucky Jack Way in Telford. WATCH: Drifting boat ripped below bridge as Roan Mountain floods Hawkins County In Hawkins County, residents have been advised to shelter in place, according to TEMA. Lynn Campbell, Hawkins County 911 Executive Director, said, In response to the devastating weather events caused by Hurricane Helene, which impacted Carter County throughout the day, Hawkins County 911 has deployed two telecommunicators as part of the Telecommunicator Emergency Response Taskforce (TERT). At the request of the Tennessee TERT state coordinator, our team was dispatched to Carter County 911 at approximately 5:00 PM today. Volunteer High School will be open on Sunday as a charging station. The charging station will be open in the library until 7 p.m. Unicoi Co./Erwin Interstate 26 in Unicoi County has been closed entirely due to flooding. Ballad Health confirmed Friday afternoon that more than 50 people were rescued on the roof of the Unicoi County Hospital by helicopter. There is a shelter at Unicoi County High School. Faith Baptist Church, 2307 Temple Hill Rd: refuge shelter with deputies on site offering help. Unicoi County is under curfew from 8 p.m. until 7 a.m. until further notice. Unicoi Co. Hospital; WJHL Smyth County/Marion The Smyth County Health Department and Red Cross opened two emergency shelters, Marion Senior High and Brookside Baptist Church in Sugar Grove. Johnson Co./Mountain City Johnson Countys shelter is open at First Christian Church of Mountain City, 401 W. Main Street, after the mayor declared a state of emergency. An emergency shelter has been established at First Christian Church of Mountain City, 401 W Main Street. Washington County, VA The Washington County, Virginias Emergency Declaration has issued a curfew for the Town of Damascus beginning at 10 p.m. on Friday. A release from the county said the curfew will be reevaluated on Saturday. Washington County Sheriff Blake Andis said, A curfew following todays devastating flood in Damascus is an appropriate step. The county has a shelter at Highlands Fellowship Church, 134 Commerce Court, Bristol, Virginia, off exit 7. Wise County The Wise County Office of Emergency Management said that Carnes Gym in Big Stone Gap and Coeburn Middle School are open as emergency shelters beginning at 5 p.m. on Saturday. Any residents who require oxygen therapy are encouraged to bring their concentrators to charge. For transportation assistance, contact the Wise County Dispatch at 276-328-3756. Second Harvest of Northeast Tennessee is handing out food and water to eight county shelters and emergency management crews. U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn issued the following statement to Tennesseans: All Tennesseans impacted by flash flooding and severe weather should follow local guidance and evacuation protocols carefully. We are working with local officials to ensure public safety, and I encourage every Tennessean to avoid dangerous areas and heed the direction of emergency personnel if traveling. We stand ready to assist and help secure any federal assistance that may be necessary. U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) Russell County Lebanon Lifesaving Crew station: Shower facilities from 3 p.m.-8 p.m. Sunday, Sept 29. Bottled water will be available, as well as access to charge electronics, BYO charger. No handicap-accessible facilities. If anyone has unused oxygen cylinders they would like to donate to Russell County Emergency Management, please reach out. Town of Lebanon Here are a few steps patients can take prior to calling 911 if it is not an active emergency (patients who are running out of oxygen immediately, experiencing difficulty breathing, or experiencing a life or limb-threatening health emergency should call 911 immediately) 1- Reach out to relatives with electricity to see if they can temporarily accommodate the patient so home oxygen units can be utilized until electricity is restored. 2- Contact your home oxygen supply company and make them aware of the situation and to determine if oxygen is available through your company. 3- Please be aware that EMS agencies will respond to 911 calls but we can not guarantee the availability of portable oxygen cylinders. Patients can be transported to the hospital for oxygen administration in case of emergency. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJHL | Tri-Cities News & Weather. Aftermath of an explosion at a fuel station in Makhachkala MOSCOW (Reuters) - The death toll from an explosion at a petrol station in Dagestan in Russia's Caspian Sea region has risen to 13, including two children, the emergencies ministry said on Saturday. The blast, which occurred on Friday outside the regional capital of Makhachkala, also injured 23 people, it said. Healthcare minister aide Alexei Kuznetsov said that four people remained in hospitals, including one in serious condition, Russian state news agency RIA reported. Dagenergo, the regional power operator, said on Friday that power supply was partially disrupted in nearby districts.. A local branch of the Investigative Committee, which deals with serious crimes in Russia, said it had opened a criminal case. Preliminary results showed no traces of explosives at the scene, the committee wrote on Telegram. Dagestan Governor Sergei Melikov told a briefing that some violations had previously been discovered during inspections of the petrol station but that these had been resolved before the blast, state agencies reported. More than 130 petrol stations in Dagestan closed over the past year for various violations had resumed operations as a result of local court decisions, Melikov said. The search operation after the blast is ongoing, he said. Local authorities declared Sept. 28 a day of mourning in the region. (Reporting by Reuters; editing by Mark Heinrich and Jason Neely) Two Kansas City area tenant unions voted to authorize rent strikes beginning in October after attempts to negotiate with building owners amid poor living conditions have failed to produce results, KC Tenants announced Friday morning. Union members of Independence Towers and Quality Hill Towers said theyre prepared to withhold their rent payments starting Oct. 1, if their landlords do not come to the bargaining table, KC Tenants said in a news release. Among other demands, the unions are pushing for national rent caps, new ownership and collectively bargained leases. The strikes would be the first of their kind in KC Tenants history, the organization said in an email. The organization said it would also be the first-ever strike to target the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA), the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac regulator. Altogether, the unions are prepared to withhold over $60,000 from their landlords in October, the organization said. An apartment labeled unsafe to occupy since June 17, 2024 on the second floor of Independence Towers on Sept. 3, 2024. Poor living conditions The impending rent strike comes as residents say they are fed up with poor living conditions and improper management that has led to hazards in their homes. Tenants at Quality Hill Towers previously told The Star that theyve endured burst pipes, unresolved sewage backup and pest infestations at the Kansas City apartment located at 817 Jefferson Street. Their complaints were met by ignored maintenance requests, eviction threats, retaliation and rent hikes, the tenants claim. Flooding in a main hallway at Quality Hill Towers in downtown Kansas City led to water being turned off in the building. After almost two years of organizing, around 60 residents and activists stood outside Quality Hill Towers earlier this month to announce the formation of its tenant union. The union now has 148 members, accounting for about 63% of the buildings tenants. At Independence Towers, residents say they have dealt with pest infestations and chronic plumbing problems causing water damage and mold. Residents said they have also gone without heating and air conditioning for extended periods of time. Walls and ceilings are marred by gaping holes, exposing rusted pipes and other hazards. The problems, including faulty window latches that are in part to blame for a toddler falling to his death, have been well documented. Earlier this month, U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, the U.S. Congressional representative for Missouris fifth district, toured the building, expressing his dismay over the dire living conditions. Some of it is worse than your words, I dont know how Im going to describe it to people, Cleaver said. Independence city officials have said theyre well aware of the living conditions residents have endured at the high-rise complex on Jennings Road. Emanuel Cleaver II tours tenant Matt Fullertons apartment on the second floor of Independence Towers on Sept. 3, 2024. Still, Independence Towers passed its latest city inspection in 2023, even as activists have been demanding action for the safety of residents and questions have been raised about the citys inspection process through its Rental Ready program, meant to safeguard tenants. Lawyers previously told The Star the city could be doing more to hold building owners accountable, while city leaders claimed their hands are tied because no tenants have filed formal complaints with the city. Tenant advocates and attorneys say the process to file complaints in inaccessible to many tenants, and puts them at risk of eviction. No tenant will ever complain with homelessness as the price, said Giana Chiala, attorney with the Heartland Center for Jobs and Freedom. The Independence Towers union launched publicly on May 2 after residents had gone without hot water for two weeks. Currently, the union has 40 members, equaling 65% of its occupied units. KC unions part of national effort Tenant unions at Independence Towers and Quality Hill Towers are both part of an organized national effort targeting properties with federally-backed loans. Both buildings sent representatives to a meeting on May 28 with the FHFA Director and top executives from Fannie Mae, sharing their stories. The unions claim both properties have failed to make urgent and necessary repairs and have misused funds meant for upkeep of the buildings. Both buildings received Fannie Mae-backed loans. In a news release, KC Tenants said, The director made no satisfactory commitments in that meeting. A damaged wall in a shower in Derek Harris apartment in Quality Hill Towers in Kansas City on September 5, 2024. In preparation to approve the rent strike, the unions held a strike drive organizing hundreds of tenants onto commitment cards. Thursday night, both unions held their weekly meetings. Union members cast silent ballots and elected bargaining teams reached a consensus to authorize the strike. The building landlords have until close of business Monday to come to the negotiation table and meet the unions demands, KC Tenants said in a news release. If they do not, the tenants are prepared to strike Tuesday. If the strike launches Oct. 1, both unions will hold rallies at their respective buildings that morning. The Stars Noelle Alviz-Gransee contributed. Iranians raise their national flag as well as Palestinian and Lebanon's Hezbollah standards during an anti-Israel protest in Tehran (-) (-/AFP/AFP) Tens of thousands protested in Iranian cities and in the rebel-held Yemeni capital on Friday to condemn Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, AFP journalists and state media reported. The demonstrates in Tehran and other Iranian cities were responding to call by authorities on Wednesday to demonstrate in support of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon "and to condemn the barbaric crimes of the Zionist regime in Palestine," the official IRNA news agency said. Hezbollah is part of the "axis of resistance," Iran-aligned armed groups across the Middle East which have targeted Israel, and also US forces, in support of Palestinian militant group Hamas. The alliance also includes Yemen's Huthi rebels who organised a demonstration by tens of thousands in the capital Sanaa on Friday a day after firing a missile at Israel. In Tehran after Friday prayers, a protest took place around Enghelab Square in the city centre, an AFP journalist said. Demonstrators carried portraits of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah as well as Palestinian and Hezbollah flags. "Israel is destroyed. Lebanon is victorious," they chanted, deploring "a bloodbath in Lebanon." Protesters also burned Israeli and US flags. State television aired footage of other demonstrations in Semnan, Qom, Kashan, Kermanshah, Shiraz and Bandar Abbas. In Sanaa, which has been held by the Iran-backed Huthis for a decade, tens of thousands of chanting protesters gathered, many waving rifles and placards. "We say to our brothers in Lebanon that you will be victorious, God willing, said Huthi supporter Mortada al-Mutawkil. This war is not the first nor the last with the Israeli enemy, but God willing it will be more painful for Israel than the 2006 war. Another protester, Mohammed Mushki, said: "No matter how long the war lasts and no matter how big it is, we are on their side, all the Yemeni people, on the side of the Lebanese and Palestinian people until victory, God willing." In Bahrain, which is an Israeli ally and keeps a tight rein on demonstrations, two protests denounced the war in Gaza and bombing campaign on Lebanon. Several hundred people marched in a village north of Manama, voicing solidarity with Gaza and Lebanon, and in the capital scores of people raised Palestinian and Lebanese flags and called for an end to ties with Israel. The people demand an end to normalisation, the protesters chanted. Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, triggering a war with Israel and near-daily cross-border fire from Hezbollah in Lebanon against Israel, which has hit back. Those exchanges have intensified dramatically over the past week. Israeli raids on Lebanon since Monday have killed hundreds in the deadliest violence since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. As the violence escalates, analysts say Iran is walking a tightrope by trying to support Hezbollah without getting dragged into a full-blown conflict and playing into its enemy's hands. ap/it/kir Tesla has defended visiting the homes of German employees who call in sick as Elon Musk pledges to investigate high rates of absenteeism. Andre Thierig, the manager of Teslas gigafactory on the outskirts of Berlin, said turning up at the homes of staff was not unusual. We wanted to appeal to the work ethic of the workforce, he told DPA, the German press agency. It came after German media reported that Tesla bosses had checked in on 30 employees as part of an attempt to fight a spate of absences. The carmaker has provided bonuses to staff who turn up for work regularly and executives have suggested that staff who frequently call in sick are dishonourable and are exploiting the system. Staff calling in sick at the Berlin gigafactory reached 17pc in August, compared to an average rate of sick leave in Germanys car manufacturing industry of just over 5pc. Sick leave is also higher on Fridays, executives have said. That is not an indicator of bad working conditions because the working conditions are the same on all working days and across all shifts, Mr Thierig said. It suggests that the German social system is being exploited to some extent. In response to a tweet about the high rates of absence, Mr Musk wrote: This sounds crazy. Looking into it. This sounds crazy. Looking into it. Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 26, 2024 Calling in sick has been a long-running problem at Teslas Germany factory, which is the companys only site in Europe and employs around 12,000 staff. Last year, Mr Thierig told staff: We will not tolerate some people bending their backs for others who just dont feel like coming to work. There is no room in his factory for people who dont get out of bed in the morning. Mr Thierig and HR director Erik Demmler told staff last Thursday that they had been visiting the house of absent employees, according to the German newspaper Handelsblatt. Mr Demmler said they had had doors slammed on them and in some cases told that employees would be calling the police. In July the company handed out bonuses of 1,000 (830) to employees who reached gold status by turning up to work more than 95pc of the time. IG Metall, the German carmaking union, claimed the high rate of absences was due to staff being overworked and put in unsafe conditions. Mr Musk is a vocal critic of unions and Tesla has repeatedly clashed with IG Metall in Germany. Most staff voted against appointing union representatives to the plants works council earlier this year. 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. AUSTIN (KXAN) Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the city of Austin over the citys budgetary allocation to support out-of-state abortion services, Paxtons office announced in a Friday release. Austin City Council Member Vanessa Fuentes said earlier this month the city of Austin was moving forward with the Reproductive Health Grant, a $400,000 allocation included in the citys fiscal year 2024-25 budget to support Austinites seeking abortion care outside of Texas. Those dollars are available to cover expenses such as travel, lodging, childcare stipends and food. PAST COVERAGE: City of Austin moving forward with abortion travel fund In Paxtons lawsuit, the attorney general said his office is seeking a temporary restraining order to put a pause on the use of the funding while the litigation proceeds forward. The suit also requested the court provide temporary and permanent injunctions mandating Austin cannot spend taxpayer money on logistical support for abortion care. No city in Texas has the authority to spend taxpayer money in this manner. In this case, the City of Austin is illegally seeking to use public funding to support travel expenses for out-of-state abortions, Paxton said in the release. The Texas Constitution prohibits governmental entities from doing so. A city spokesperson confirmed officials are aware of the lawsuit, adding Austins legal team is prepared to handle the lawsuit proceedings in court. The City is aware of the lawsuit filed by the State of Texas in response to last months budget allocation for logistical support services, the emailed statement read. We have successfully litigated this issue in the past and, similar to another lawsuit that raises this issue, will respond to the recent allegations through the appropriate court channels. Paxton isnt the first to sue the city over this issue. In late August, former Austin City Council Member Don Zimmerman filed a lawsuit against the city over the same funding, arguing it was against state law for the city to spend taxpayer dollars on abortion-assistance activities, even if the funds are being used outside the state where abortion services are legal. RELATED: City of Austin sued over allocating funds for out-of-state abortion access The latest suit from Paxton drew plenty of pushback from some city officials Friday. In a social media post, Fuentes criticized Paxton for suppressing communities for promoting healthcare. Reproductive care is essential healthcare, and these actions only further undermine local efforts to uphold bodily freedom, Fuentes wrote. Its disappointing, but not surprising. Austin City Council Member Paige Ellis shared similar sentiments online, posting on social media Friday: Reproductive rights are human rights the women of Austin deserve to make their own healthcare decisions! Her team also noted Ellis is currently in Tempe, Arizona at a Democrats summit discussing with fellow municipal officials how to protect reproductive rights at the local level. Austin Mayor Kirk Watson shared his backing of the citys funding allocations, slamming Paxtons suit as exploiting the great power of his office to attack and undermine reproductive rights. Im proud the Austin City Council is supporting Austin women as they make their own decisions about their body, their family, their health, their happiness, and their quality of life, Watsons statement read in part. I stood up and fought for reproductive rights throughout my time in office, including in the Texas Senate, and I will not back down in City Hall. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Texas reviewed the Marvin Nichols Reservoir and thinks its good to go. What do you think? Enthusiasts and skeptics will have another chance to share their thoughts on the potential construction of a 66,000-acre lake 150 miles east of the Metroplex on Monday. North Texas water planners first conceived of the Marvin Nichols Reservoir in the late 1960s. Tensions surrounding its future intensified in the 2000s, as Dallas-Fort Worths surging population laid bare the long-term inadequacies of its water supply. State officials extol the project as a sensible and formidable solution to future supply shortages. The Texas Legislature in 2007 deemed it a site of unique value for the construction of a reservoir, given the ample surface water provided by the Sulfur River basin and the comparatively low estimated costs of shipping the water to consumers. Completing the $4.5 billion undertaking would require flooding more than 100 square miles of forest and wetland near Cuthand, an entrenched and tight-knit ranching community of roughly 300. Residents and state nature conservationists view Marvin Nichols as a needlessly destructive boondoggle, designed not to meet the regions basic needs but to feed the gluttony of water-hungry lawns in sprawling suburban subdivisions. Any potential benefits, they reason, wouldnt be worth the costs: drowning a diverse and vibrant ecosystem and disrupting the livelihoods of locals. The opposition compelled lawmakers to require the Texas Water Development Board to conduct a feasibility review of the project before pushing it forward. The agency published its preliminary findings this month and painted an unequivocal picture: North Texas needed Marvin Nichols, and there were no insurmountable barriers financial, logistical, or ecological that made its completion infeasible. The boards North Texas planning body Region C will convene at 1 p.m. Monday at the North Central Texas Council of Governments, 616 Six Flags Drive, in Arlington to discuss the reservoir, the study, and what opposition remains. Members of the public will be given time to vent their concerns or or share their content. AUSTIN (KXAN) Some Texans will be on hand to help as Hurricane Helene is set to make landfall in Florida. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) requested help from Texas A&M Task Force 1. After approval from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, crews are headed to Florida. Being in place before the storm starts allows us to be close and yet safe to where we are staged, so that we are ready to get to impacted residents as quickly as possible, Christy Bormann with Texas A&M Task Force 1 said. When disaster strikes the group goes into action and is prepared for many situations. We always plan for a bigger impact than predicted so that we are ready for everything, Bormann said. Bormann and her K-9 named Connor will help with search and rescue efforts. Helenes winds batter Florida as Category 3 storm races toward the coast Our job is to find and rescue people who have been trapped after any disaster, Bormann said. Once Connor locates someone in a collapsed structure he barks to notify Bormann that hes found someone. Theyve been training together for three years, but this is Connors first time out of Texas. This is Connors first federal deployment, Bormann said. He has been certified by FEMA to assist with locating people who are trapped after a disaster. The entire Texas team in Florida is made up of 80 personnel, including six canines, 17 vehicles, and six rescue boats. No matter what the issue is we have the personnel to be able to figure out how to best respond to that to make sure that impacted residents are safe, Bormann 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. Caitlin Sams and Jeff Brooks never got the chance to see "Dear Evan Hansen" when the musical starring Ben Platt burst onto Broadway nearly eight years ago. Nor did they catch the less-successful movie adaption also starring Platt, this time looking less convincing as the high schooler in the title role released in 2021, either. In fact, the first "Dear Evan Hansen" production the two actors ever really experienced was the one they auditioned for. "I had been lucky enough to be busy enough during the entire run of 'Dear Evan Hansen' on Broadway that I didn't get the opportunity to see it in the theater," Brooks said. "I still have not seen it other than our production, so I've only had the experience of listening to the original Broadway recording." Brooks and Sams play the parents of Connor Murphy, the high schooler whose suicide shatters their idyllic existence and changes classmate Evan Hansen's life, in a national tour of the show, which kicked off earlier this month in Houston. So, how do you define a role you're playing and seeing for the time? "We had the benefit of working with some really talented creatives who have been with the show from the very beginning, and they had a very clear vision for what they wanted this show to look like, and they know how this show speaks to people and how they want it presented, so that makes our job very easy," said Brooks, who hails from central New York. Lincoln audiences will get to see that vision for themselves when "Dear Evan Hansen" makes its Capital City debut with a five-show run this weekend at the Lied Center for Performing Arts. While the actors are still getting "the lay of the land" as the tour continues, Sams said she was already familiar with the coming-of-age story by listening to the music when "Dear Evan Hansen" first made its splash on Broadway and won a Tony Award for best musical. That story, in the basic sense, concerns Evan Hansen (played by Michael Fabisch), a high school senior and outsider, who, prompted by a therapist, begins writing letters to himself. One of those letters lands in Connor's hands shortly before his suicide, and his parents Larry and Cynthia, who had struggled to connect with their depressed son, mistakenly believe that Connor and Hansen were close friends, which Hansen the outsider seizes on, in part, to fit in. What follows is a study of sorts -- both from the perspective of parents and young people -- on our interconnected, social media-inundated lives, mental health, and the desire to belong. Underpinning it all is a musical score that is surprisingly catchy for a show that delves into such heavy themes. "I do think this show is a great opportunity, especially for parents coming to see it with their middle or high school-aged kids," Sams said. "I think it's a great prompt to have conversations about how they each feel about social media and their friendships and relationships both on and offline." Those conversations are just as relevant nearly a decade later. The pandemic, for one, raised awareness about mental health issues among young people, many of whom experienced their formative years through a screen. "When this show first came out, adults who were watching it were watching it from a perspective of a really big question mark of like, how could this really affect them in this way?" Brooks said. "Younger generations were the ones trying to tell them, 'This is something that's happening to us right now.' And I think now both of those age groups understand the effect that social media has on not just people in their 40s now, but people 20 and under. It can affect them very, very deeply." In preparing for their roles as the Murphys who "on paper look like the perfect family," said Brooks the two thought back to their own parents. Even though neither have children of their own, playing parents on the stage has taught them something. "It makes me have a lot of empathy for the parents out there, just trying to do the best for their kids," Sams said. "I find myself almost in my dad's shoes," Brooks added. "Playing this character, I wonder how he would have handled this. It's interesting to think about." IF YOU GO What: "Dear Evan Hansen" Where: Lied Center for Performing Arts, 12th and Q streets. When: Friday, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, 2 p.m., 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, 1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tickets: Available at liedcenter.org, by phone at 402-472-4747 and at the Lied ticket office. Top Journal Star photos for September 2024 The State Fair of Texas was able to open Friday morning in Dallas with its gun ban in place after the Texas Supreme Court on Thursday night denied Attorney General Ken Paxton's request for a temporary injunction against the firearms restrictions. This article has been updated to add new information. The Texas Supreme Court dealt a final blow Thursday night to Attorney General Ken Paxton's hail-Mary attempt to quash the State Fair of Texas' newly implemented no-gun policy in an order issued 13 hours before the festivities began Friday morning. In an unsigned decision, the all-Republican high court denied Paxton's request for a temporary injunction against the firearms ban, meaning fairgoers except peace officers must leave their weapons behind before they enter Dallas' Fair Park. Justice Jimmy Blacklock ridiculed the state's legal arguments in a scathing, five-page concurring opinion signed by Chief Justice Nathan Hecht and Justice Evan Young, spearing the attorney general for "tak(ing) no position" on whether the state fair has the authority to ban firearms and for failing to substantiate its assertion that the city of Dallas, not the fair, directed the policy change. "This Court cannot possibly order the State Fair to allow handguns to be carried at this years Fair when the party seeking that relief does not even argue that Texas law obligates the Fair to do so," Blacklock wrote. He added, using italics for emphasis, that "the States filings do not even attempt to answer" the question at the heart of the case. Texas Supreme Court justices took no position on whether Texas law allows a nonprofit like the state fair to ban firearms while leasing city land, saying only that the state had not sufficiently argued its case against the fair. The order comes two days after the state's new 15th Court of Appeals reached the same decision, affirming a Sept. 19 ruling from Dallas state District Judge Emily Tobolowsky, a Democrat. Paxton, a three-term Republican, accused the city of Dallas of exceeding its legal authority in letting the fair prohibit guns from government-owned property in a lawsuit filed Aug. 29, which came after 61 Republican state lawmakers and 10 GOP legislative candidates signed a letter demanding the fair's board of directors reverse the gun prohibition. Attorneys for Dallas and the state fair have argued that, because the fair is a private nonprofit organization leasing Dallas' Fair Park, it has the right to decide whether or not to admit fairgoers who bring firearms. In support of their argument, the defendants referenced an 8-year-old legal opinion in which Paxton had come to the same conclusion, stating nonprofits have the right to ban firearms on public land that they are leasing from a city. Paxton withdrew that opinion days after filing the state fair lawsuit a move that Blacklock addressed in his concurring opinion. The State Fair of Texas pointed out that Attorney General Ken Paxton, middle, had issued an opinion eight years ago stating that nonprofits do have the right to ban firearms on public land that they are leasing from a city. "If the AG Opinion was wrong, then surely the party seeking a result at odds with its own publicly stated opinion must at least explain why its opinion was wrong," Blacklock wrote. More: 15th Court of Appeals shoots down Paxton's request to block state fair's no-gun policy The fair's governing board tightened its gun policy in early August after previously allowing Texans with permits to carry concealed firearms. The change came after three fairgoers were injured last year in a shooting that stemmed from a private dispute. State Sen. Bob Hall, a Dallas-area Republican, said in August that he and his family would boycott the state fair unless it rescinded the policy. "My family AND I will not be attending the Texas State Fair this YEAR unless the recently announced policy of not allowing law abiding citizens to protect themselves is rescinded," Hall wrote in a newsletter to constituents. "Unfortunately, the City of Dallas has chosen to prioritize the desires of criminals to rob, rape, murder and harm citizens, at will, over the God given rights of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves." The State Fair of Texas applauded the high court's ruling in comments to the American-Statesman on Thursday night, writing that the nonprofit was looking forward to "providing a safe environment for our millions of fairgoers, as well as our staff, vendors, and volunteers." A spokesperson for the State Fair of Texas said the cost of the gun ban litigation has already threatened to reduce the amount of money the nonprofit will be able to donate to charity this year. However, spokesperson Karissa Condoianis said in an email interview Wednesday, the "substantial" cost of the litigation has already threatened to reduce the amount of money the fair will be able to donate to charity efforts, which include "college scholarships, Texas youth livestock programs, community programs and grant funding in the South Dallas/Fair Park area and Fair Park improvements." Condoianis also said numerous fairgoers had thanked the event organizers for banning firearms. "We have received a lot of positive feedback from many folks who regularly attend the State Fair," Condoianis, the fair's senior vice president for public relations, wrote in response to emailed questions from the Statesman. "The overall message is that they feel safe with Dallas Police and other law enforcement officers providing the security presence." The Supreme Court justices took no position on whether Texas law allows a nonprofit, like the state fair, to ban firearms while leasing city land, saying only that the state had not sufficiently argued its case. "It should go without sayingthough perhaps it cannot be said often enoughthat a judges role in this case is not to decide whether the State Fair made a wise decision," Blacklock wrote in his opinion. "Our job, instead, is to decide whether Texas law allowed the State Fair to make the decision for itself. The State declines to take a position on that essential question but nevertheless asks this Court for an injunction overriding the State Fairs decision. It should also go without saying that our answer, for now, must be no." In a news release Friday morning, Paxton vowed to continue fighting the firearms ban through the lawsuit, which will move forward in state District Court. He also promised to push for legislative changes "to protect law-abiding citizens Second Amendment rights on public property." "This case is not over," Paxton said in the news release. "I will continue to fight this on the merits to uphold Texans ability to defend themselves." Attorney Jeff Tillotson, whose firm Tillotson, Johnson & Patton is representing Dallas in the lawsuit, told the Statesman, "We believe the Supreme Court reached the right result." The city of Dallas declined to comment. More: Texas county challenges First Amendment ruling on library book bans in 5th Circuit hearing This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas State Fair can ban guns Supreme Court rules, reproaching Paxton (AUSTIN) The Supreme Court of Texas on Thursday night denied Attorney General Ken Paxtons emergency filing seeking to overturn the State Fair of Texas policy banning all firearms from its fairgrounds. The fair is set to start Friday. It should go without sayingthough perhaps it cannot be said often enoughthat a judges role in this case is not to decide whether the State Fair made a wise decision. Our job, instead, is to decide whether Texas law allowed the State Fair to make the decision for itself. The State declines to take a position on that essential question but nevertheless asks this Court for an injunction overriding the State Fairs decision, the court said in its ruling. It should also go without saying that our answer, for now, must be no. The ruling comes two days after a Dallas County District Court struck down a request from Paxton on the fairs gun policy. The District Court Judge agreed with State Fair officials that they could enforce a gun ban as a private nonprofit. Paxton, who said hours later on social media that he would ask the states Supreme Court to overturn the ban, has maintained that the fairs gun ban violates state law, which bars most government bodies from prohibiting weapons. State Fair officials say it has the right as a private nonprofit, and the city of Dallas says it has no role in the fairs gun policy. Heres what you need to know. The background: Fair officials and law enforcement announced the policy change last month, roughly a year after a gunman opened fire at the fair, injuring three people. Officials also announced it will have security cameras at entrances and will not provide storage for larger bags. A week after the policy change, several state lawmakers signed a petition pressuring State Fair officials to rescind it, saying the new policy makes the fair less safe. Shortly after, Paxton sent fair officials and Dallas interim city manager a letter giving them 15 days to rescind the policy or else face legal action from his office. Dallas owns Fair Park, where the 24-day event takes place annually, but State Fair of Texas, a nonprofit organization, operates the park and various city buildings and walkways within the property, per a 25-year agreement between the two entities. A week before the Dallas District Court hearing, Paxton withdrew an eight-year-old legal opinion that allowed private nonprofits to ban guns on land they lease from a city. After last weeks ruling by the Dallas County District Court, Paxton announced he would turn to the 15th Court of Appeals, a new state court lawmakers created last year to handle cases involving the state or businesses. Critics fear the court is an effort by Republicans to circumvent Democrat-dominated courts, while proponents say the court will increase efficiency. Why Texas sued: Since Fair Park is owned by Dallas, the nonprofits policy change violates state law, which allows licensed gun owners to carry in places owned or leased by governmental entities, unless otherwise prohibited by state law, according to Paxtons lawsuit. Texas law establishes that schools and courtrooms are considered gun-free zones and allows others, such as amusement parks or educational institutions, to institute their own bans on firearms. Neither the City of Dallas nor the State Fair of Texas can infringe on Texans right to self-defense, Paxton wrote in his statement announcing the lawsuit. In his letter to the interim city manager, Paxton acknowledged that some buildings on the Fair Park premises, like the Cotton Bowl and other buildings used for scholastic events, are areas where guns are prohibited by state law. However, the entirety, or vast majority of the 277-acre Fair Park of Dallas is not a place where weapons are prohibited, Paxton wrote. What State Fair officials say: The city of Dallas disagreed with Paxtons allegations, explaining that city officials werent involved in the State Fairs decision to enforce a gun ban. The State Fair of Texas is a private event operated and controlled by a private, nonprofit entity and not the City, a Dallas spokesperson said in a statement. Fair officials believe they could enforce a gun ban as a private nonprofit and are standing by their decision. The State Fair of Texas will continue to prioritize providing a safe and secure environment for our millions of fairgoers, as well as our staff, vendors, and volunteers, Karissa Condoianis, a state fair spokesperson, has said. As a private, not-for-profit organization leasing Fair Park for our annual State Fair, we believe we have the right to make this decision and maintain that it is the correct decision to protect the safety of our patrons. Broader impact: This is the first high-profile case for the newly established 15th Court of Appeals, the judges of which were appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott. Tuesdays ruling might cool some Democrats concerns that the court was created to secure more Republican-friendly decisions. Additionally, Paxtons effort to block the State Fair gun ban adds to a long list of cases that his office pursues scrutinizing policy decisions from local governmental entities with more liberal-leaning leadership voter registration, among the latest. This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at www.texastribune.org. The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans and engages with them about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Sustainability savants are seeking systemic shifts. Textile Exchange and Tapestry joined forces in New York City during Climate Week to get candid about the need for growth in environmental impact initiatives. More from Sourcing Journal Held at Tapestrys global headquarters in Manhattan on Wednesday afternoon, the Systemic Shifts for a More Resilient Fashion Future event kicked off with a clear definition of how the sustainability trade group defines climate action. Greenhouse gas emissions as well as soil health, biodiversity and animal welfare as well as circularity, human rights and water are all relevant to maintaining a holistic view on what has to happen in together, in harmony, to achieve these very ambitious goals that we have, as articulated by Claire Bergkamp, Textile Exchanges CEO. Were running out of time; that ambition starts to feel heavier and harder every year, she said in her opening remarks. But were not an organization that shies away from a hard problem. Joe Murphy, executive lead of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Network; Beth Jensen, director of Climate+ impact at Textile Exchange; thought leader Rachel Arthur and Sandrine Dixson-Decleve, president of the Club of Rome convened for a conversations on the often-untalked-about issues in inherent in pursuing ambitious goals. Material substitution will not be enough for us to achieve our greenhouse gas emissions targets related to raw materials and fibers, Jensen said, referencing the nonprofits Material Pathways report from last March. If we expect to achieve our climate targets . . . Innovation alone will not save us. For the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, convincing industry players to come on board is a work in progress. When we first launched the idea of [the] circular economy, it was led by an economic narrative first and foremost. The earlier reports we put out, you could do a control-find on sustainability as a word and you wouldnt find that word in any of the reportsit was really important for us to be leading with a new form of growth [and] new ideas, Murphy said. I think that was picked up strongly by business leaders across sectors because it was a vision, and it was something they could see themselves and the future viability of their businesses in that vision. Yet talk is cheap. Obviously, doing it is really, really complicated, Murphy said. Its a fundamental transformation of everything you know in terms of how the business model works today. The tenor of those talks has transformed, too. Theres risk associated with innovation, he continued. I think theres maybe a bit of a lack of imagination in thinking beyond resale and repair as we know them today, what could be the new, creative business models that exist? This mindset of playing to win rather than playing not to lose, you can really tell the different brands that are coming in to play to win in this space. On the topic of the imagination gap, Arthur discussed the sustainable fashion communication playbook the United Nations Environment Program released at the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen last summer. The real heart of the report is talking about the fact that this industry is, in many ways, if Im really crude about it, made up of nothing much more than the marketing that supports it and pushes it, Arthur said. How could we possible change it if we dont address that side as well? There isnt a world in which any of these things that were asking the industry to do can be done by one single job, role or stakeholder. It has to be [a] systems change approach. Dixson-Decleve went a step further, touching on building narratives and being clever when calling companies out. Whats happening right now in terms of shareholder value and exponential profits is immoral; $2.8 billion oil and gas profits per day on the back of energy, poverty, is immoral, she said. The Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership senior associate noted she herself previously spent a decade working within the oil and gas industry, and now is the time to call them out. You need scientists, engineerspeople who have been insideto call them out, and then you need to kind of get to their emotional strengths. Weve done some of the ethics, working with CEOs across the oil and gas companies, and they do a very good job of blocking it out, Dixson-Decleve continued. But I think we need to be very clear, both in terms of the statistics and datawhich is there and theyre not listening toand then second, find a way to call them out on that immorality piece and get to their heart and soul, if they still have one. Ultimately, a coalition of the willing governments who wont enable that immorality, where shareholder value is no longer just the only value, is necessary, she concluded. On the topic of gas and oil, moderator Sarah Kent of Business of Fashion acknowledged that supermajor gas company BP abandoned its strategy on the Beyond Petroleum rebrand attempt because it lost loads of money by pushing solar. It couldnt make a profit, she said. Perhaps fashion isnt so far off from a similar fate. So, how do you get the C-suite to bet on losing dogs? The fiduciary duty of CEOs today is to grow, Jensen said. Thats a huge barrier for any of the companies that are represented in this room. Dixson-Decleve agreed, suggesting a revolution from the social tension perspective is nigh. The economy does not function for people. The economy functions for shareholders, she said. We have to debunk the conception that our CFO is not a person. Getting this message across to executivesanswerable to shareholdersand trying to give them a path forward is hard. Couple that with cancel culture and the claustrophobic spaces still open for innovation and experimentation, and the limitations (very clearly) exist. And this is not lost on the industry; Textile Exchange has, time and time again, per Arthur, explored what levers will pull an executives ear. The fashion industry loves to think that its an industry of leaders and its not. Its an industry of sheep, Arthur said. The whole system is really a story that weve been telling ourselves, year over year. On that note, Dixson-Decleve shared an anecdote from a dinner she had with a certain European official who recently came under fire for scorched-earth antics around blocking out forest products from the global south in Europe. I said to her, Listen, you cant just block out the commodities and then not say, Im going to place a value on your forest. Not only am I going to place a value on your forestwhich you could put in your accounting and your budgetbut Im going to start to talk about the fiscal space to actually protect your fucking forest, Dixson-Decleve said. That is the reality. That is the level we need to be at. The king of Thailand signed a new law recognizing marriage equality, the government announced in its official Royal Gazette on Tuesday, LeMonde with Agence France-Presse reported. With the royal ascent of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, Thailand became Southeast Asias first country and only the third country in Asia to recognize marriage equality. The new law will take effect on January 22, 2025. To all the love, Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra posted to X Twitter. Congratulations on everyones love. (@) The new law amends the countrys civil code and ensures same-sex married couples receive full legal, medical, and financial rights, as well as full inheritance and adoption rights. The new law also amends the civil code to use gender-neutral rather than binary language. The law was passed by the countrys senate on June 18 by a vote of 130 to 4 and was the signature legislation of former Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, a vocal supporter of the LGBTQ+ community in Thailand. Another important step for Thai society, the marriage equality law has been passed, Thavisin posted to X Twitter, adding Gender diversity will finally be fully accepted. (@) Thavisin was removed from office in August by the countrys Constitutional Court for appointing a cabinet minister who had been previously arrested for alleged bribery. Despite its strongly conservative religious and cultural heritage, Thailand has been a welcoming tourist destination for the LGBTQ+ community. Local LGBTQ+ advocates hailed the new law legalizing marriage equality. The law is a monumental step towards equal rights in Thailand, LGBTQ+ rights advocate Waaddao Chumaporn told AFP. Chumaporn said she is organizing a mass wedding in the countrys capital Bangkok to celebrate the historic event. She said she hopes to attract over a thousand same-sex couples to tie the knot on January 22 of next year. Thailand joins Nepal and Taiwan as the only countries in Asia recognizing marriage equality when the new law takes effect next year. Taiwan legalized marriage equality in 2019 and Nepal followed in 2023. The latest entry in an ongoing series about where the 2024 presidential candidates stand on issues of major importance to voters. Previously: Where Trump and Harris stand on abortion. In recent years, no issue in U.S. politics has been more contentious than the situation at Americas southern border and the temperature has only gone up since Vice President Kamala Harris replaced President Biden as the Democratic nominee. Thats because former President Donald Trump has seized on Harriss involvement in the Biden administrations border response to falsely claim that she is actually Americas border czar and therefore to blame for the situation as a whole. After Biden and Harris took office in 2021 and reversed some of Trumps hard-line restrictions, illegal crossings surged to a record high of more than 2 million per year, on average. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement Democrats and other defenders of the administrations record say that the causes, including foreign violence, economic hardship and cartels that profit from crossings, are complicated and predate Bidens presidency. Republicans and other critics argue that the White House has effectively encouraged migrants to try their luck by using immigration parole at a historic scale and ordering a pause on most Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests and deportations. Harris in particular has come under fire from the right for taking a long time to visit the border as vice president and for saying she had visited before she actually did. Yet since launching her presidential bid, Harris has gone on offense, accusing Trump of undermining a recent bipartisan effort to increase border security so he could keep running on the issue. On Friday, Harris traveled to the southern border for the first time since June 2021 amid steep declines in the number of crossings and asylum seekers and continued to hammer Trump while she was there. "The American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games," she said. "And so even though Donald Trump tried to sabotage the border security bill, it is my pledge that as president, I will bring it back up and proudly sign into law." So how could the differences between Harris and Trump reshape U.S. border policy? ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement The election in November will be the first in U.S. history to feature a former president competing against the current vice president. As a result, this years candidates already have extensive White House records to compare and contrast. Heres what Harris and Trump have done so far about the border and what they plan to do next. Where theyre coming from Where Trump is coming from: More than anything else, Trump built his political following on a hard-line approach to immigration. Starting in 2011, Trump boosted his profile on the right by positioning himself as the leading proponent of the false conspiracy theory that then-President Barack Obama whose father was from Kenya wasnt born in Hawaii as stated on his birth certificate. In 2016, Trump finally admitted that so-called birthers (those who believe Obama isnt a native-born citizen) were wrong and that Obama was born in the United States. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement The previous year, Trump infamously launched his first presidential campaign by claiming that most Mexican immigrants are people [who] have lots of problems. Theyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists. (In fact, immigrants commit significantly less crime than native-born Americans.) Trump spent much of 2016 vowing to build a physical wall along the border between the U.S. and Mexico possibly fortified with spikes, electricity and an alligator moat and make Mexico pay for it. According to the New York Times, the idea [of a border wall] was initially suggested by a Trump campaign aide as a memory aid to prompt the candidate to remember to talk about immigration in his speeches. But it soon became a rallying cry at his events. You know, if it gets a little boring, if I see people starting to sort of, maybe thinking about leaving, Trump told the Times editorial board, I just say, We will build the wall! And they go nuts. Mexican immigrants werent the only ones in Trumps crosshairs. In late 2015, after domestic terrorists Syed Rizwan Farook (a U.S. citizen born in Chicago) and his wife, Tashfeen Malik (a native of Pakistan whod lived in the U.S. for years), killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., Trump called for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement Around the same time, Trump said he would create a deportation force that would expel millions of unauthorized immigrants. We have at least 11 million people in this country that came in illegally, he claimed during one primary debate. They will go out. Where Harris is coming from: Both of Harriss parents her Jamaican father and Indian mother were immigrants; she has often expressed sympathy with immigrant communities because of her background. But Harris also entered politics as a prosecutor, and she has long shown a willingness to crack down on immigrants who break the law. Her time as attorney general first in San Francisco from 2004 to 2010, then statewide in California from 2011 to 2016 exemplifies this dual approach. On the one hand, immigrant rights were front and center for Harris. She favored specialized visas for undocumented victims of violent crimes; denounced proposed federal legislation that would have made it illegal to help an undocumented immigrant; and secured tens of millions of dollars to hire lawyers for unaccompanied children who began arriving at the border in 2014. And when an unlicensed construction contractor cheated temporary workers out of their wages, Harris charged him with four felony counts for grand theft. She went on to encourage other undocumented day laborers to report similar abuses. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement "The law applies equally to all," Harris said. "If any one of us is a victim of crime, let's be clear, the person who commits the crime will be punished, regardless of the status of the victim." At the same time, Harris did not shy away from applying the same standard of accountability to immigrants themselves. Despite the fact that San Francisco had passed a sanctuary ordinance that limited cooperation with federal authorities, she pushed for juvenile immigrants whod been arrested for crimes such as dealing drugs to be turned over to immigration agents for deportation. We are a sanctuary city, a city of refuge, and we always will be, Harris said in a statement. Yet, she added, the original sanctuary law was never intended to shield anyone from being held accountable for a crime. Likewise, Harris made it a priority as California AG to tackle cross-border crime, going after transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers that came into our country illegally, as she put it at a recent rally in Atlanta. I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won. What theyve done in office What Trump did in office: During his four years in office, Trump issued more than 400 executive actions on immigration. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement The changes started almost immediately. On Jan. 27, 2017, Trump signed an order seeking to block travelers from seven majority Muslim countries for 90 days while suspending refugee resettlement and prohibiting Syrian refugees indefinitely. Challenged in court, the administration revised its travel bans as time went on, removing or adding certain countries. Trump quickly zeroed in on his signature border wall as well. But Congress refused to meet his funding demands, sparking a lengthy government shutdown. Ultimately, Trump managed to build just 458 miles of barrier along the 1,954-mile U.S.-Mexico border nearly all of it in areas where older barriers already stood. Mexico did not pay for any of Trumps border wall. Frustrated with the continued crush of illegal border crossings, Trump green-lit a plan in 2018 to forcibly separate migrant children from their parents or caregivers at the border and then criminally prosecute the adults. Trump eventually ended his family separation policy but only after images of crying, traumatized kids detained in crowded facilities sparked a national outcry. Despite Trumps vow to expel millions of immigrants, deportations by ICE officers who were given broad latitude to go after anyone without legal status averaged just 80,000 per year during his presidency (significantly lower than the annual rate under Obama). ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement Why? Trump supporters and critics largely agree that the former presidents strict policies including narrowing who is eligible for asylum; making it more difficult to qualify for permanent residency or citizenship; rolling back the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program; and forcing Central American asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are processed deterred some migrants from even trying to cross the border. But while Trumps supporters described this as deterrence through strength, Trumps critics called it deterrence through cruelty. In March 2020, Trump implemented the emergency health authority known as Title 42, which allowed border officials to rapidly turn away asylum seekers on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19 without giving them a chance to appeal for U.S. protection. What Harris has done in office: Harris became a senator at the start of Trumps presidency. Her approach to immigration at the federal level was at first defined in opposition to his. While on Capitol Hill, Harris condemned Trumps Muslim ban and interrogated Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen about the presidents family separation policy. After visiting a detention facility near San Diego in June 2018, Harris became the first senator to demand Nielsens resignation. This is outrageous, Harris said. This is clearly a crime against humanity that is being committed by the United States government and we have to stop it. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement Harris announced her 2020 presidential candidacy in January 2019. During the primary campaign, she promised to close private immigration detention centers and limit deportations. She also proposed using executive orders to overcome the legal barriers that prevent as many as 2.1 million Dreamers undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from obtaining green cards and ultimately earning citizenship. As vice president, Harriss job was to help the administration follow through on its promise to reverse Trumps immigration policies on day one. In early 2021, Biden halted construction of the border wall; ended his predecessors travel bans; created a task force to reunify migrant families separated under Trump; reinstated DACA; ended Title 42 expulsions for unaccompanied minors; and ordered a pause on most ICE arrests and deportations, issuing new guidelines directing officers to prioritize national security threats, serious criminals and recent border crossers. At the same time, Biden warned that without more funding and stronger guardrails, such as additional asylum judges, the U.S. could end up with 2 million people on our border and a crisis on our hands that complicates what were trying to do. Do not come, Harris said on a trip to Guatemala in June 2021. You will be turned back. Yet the message didnt get through, and a variety of factors foreign turmoil, a waning pandemic triggered new surges at the border, overwhelming an under-resourced asylum system and flooding big cities with more new arrivals than they could handle. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement Around this time, Biden announced that he was giving Harris essentially the same assignment he got during his vice presidency: coordinating diplomatic relationships to address the root causes of migration into the U.S., specifically from Central Americas so-called Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Politically, it was a no-win assignment; Harris tried to clarify that she was not in charge of border security or stopping the surge of migrants. But muddled messaging from administration officials along with Harriss own missteps At some point, you know, we are going to the border, she told NBC in a much-derided 2021 interview gave Republicans an opening to blame her for the entire situation (even as Harris steered $9.2 billion in jobs investment to the Northern Triangle and migration from the region fell by 35 percent). Initially, the Biden administration kept Title 42 in place (until May 2023), expelling five times more border crossers than Trump did (in large part because more migrants were trying to cross the border illegally). Yet the administrations broader approach expanding opportunities for migrants to arrive legally while applying tougher penalties to those who break the law, as the Washington Post recently put it didnt stem the tide, and congressional Republicans repeatedly refused the presidents requests for more border funding. As a result, national surveys have long shown that voters are unhappy about the border situation and prefer Republicans to handle it. What they want to do next What Trump wants to do next: More of the same with the emphasis on more. Among the ramped-up policies Trump is reportedly planning, according to the New York Times: round[ing] up undocumented people already in the United States on a vast scale and detain[ing] them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled reviving his Muslim travel ban and his COVID-era Title 42 restrictions on the basis that migrants carry other infectious diseases like tuberculosis and scour[ing] the country for unauthorized immigrants and deport[ing] people by the millions per year by redirecting military funds and deploying federal agents, local police officers and National Guard soldiers to help ICE. In an April interview with Time magazine, Trump confirmed that he is plotting a massive deportation of people using local law enforcement and the National Guard and if they werent able to, he added, then Id use [other parts of] the military. He also refused to rule out detention camps, saying its possible that well do it to an extent. We will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history, Trump promised in February, adding elsewhere that immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country and coming to the U.S. from mental institutions. His inspiration, he has said, is the Eisenhower model a reference to President Dwight D. Eisenhowers 1954 campaign, known by the ethnic slur Operation Wetback, to round up and expel Mexican immigrants in what amounted to a nationwide show me your papers rule. Mass Deportations Now! read signs handed out by the Trump campaign at Julys Republican National Convention. People focus on, Well, how do you deport 18 million people? Lets start with one million, Trumps running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, explained in an August interview with ABC News. And then we can go from there. Trump has also said he would suspend refugee resettlement, revive his Remain in Mexico policy and end DACA. He has even left the door open to resuming zero tolerance family separations. What Harris wants to do next: Most Democrats spent 2023 avoiding border politics while privately fretting about how the issue might affect the 2024 election. But Biden finally bowed to GOP pressure last fall, agreeing to bipartisan border talks; the hope was that a deal might take the issue off the table for his reelection campaign, according to the New York Times. In January, Senate negotiators actually struck a $20 billion bipartisan deal a deal that gave the GOP much of what it had asked for, including provisions that would restrict claims for parole, raise the bar for asylum, speed the expulsion of migrants and automatically shutter the border if attempted illegal crossings reach a certain average daily threshold. But Trump balked and following his lead, Republicans on Capitol Hill effectively doomed the legislation. Like Biden, Harris has vowed to sign the bipartisan border security bill if Congress sends it to her desk. In a new ad released Friday and set to air in Arizona and other battleground states, her campaign said that would mean "hir[ing] thousands more border agents... step[ping] up technology... and stop[ping] fentanyl smuggling and human trafficking." In Arizona Friday, Harris pledged deport border crossers more quickly, bar them from reentering for five years and impose criminal penalties on repeat offenders. "The United States is a sovereign nation, and I believe we have a duty to set rules at our border and to enforce them, she said. I take that responsibility very seriously. Harris also said in her August convention speech that America can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system by creat[ing] an earned pathway to citizenship. Yet both of these initiatives comprehensive immigration reform and increased border security require congressional cooperation, something Harris is unlikely to get without big Democratic majorities or a fundamental shift in Americas partisan dynamics. If elected, Harris is more likely to implement border policy by extending two executive orders that Biden issued in June: one that unilaterally allows border officials to block migrants from claiming asylum and rapidly turn them away once crossings exceed a certain threshold, and another that shields about 500,000 undocumented spouses with at least 10 years of U.S. residency from deportation while providing them with work authorization and a pathway to citizenship. The first order was the single most restrictive border policy instituted by any modern Democrat, according to the New York Times. The second was "one of the most expansive presidential actions to protect immigrants in more than a decade." In September, Axios asked Harriss campaign whether, as president, she would bypass Congress and revive her 2019 plan to provide a unilateral pathway to citizenship for Dreamers. Her campaign declined to answer or make her available for an interview. Police are searching for two suspects involved in a brazen liquor store burglary early Thursday morning that left the shops storefront completely destroyed. The incident occurred at SDV Liquor Market, located at 8301 Foothill Boulevard in Sunland, at around 3:30 a.m., according to the news stringer service OnScene.TV. Security cameras at the store captured the incident as two men in a dark-colored pickup truck reversed through the shops steel security gate, shattering the glass front door and even knocking the door out of its frame. Thieves destroy the front of a liquor in Sunland, get away with high-end liquor on Sept. 26, 2024. (OnScene.TV) Thieves destroy the front of a liquor in Sunland, get away with high-end liquor on Sept. 26, 2024. (OnScene.TV) Thieves destroy the front of a liquor in Sunland, get away with high-end liquor on Sept. 26, 2024. (OnScene.TV) Thieves destroy the front of a liquor in Sunland, get away with high-end liquor on Sept. 26, 2024. (OnScene.TV) Thieves destroy the front of a liquor in Sunland, get away with high-end liquor on Sept. 26, 2024. (OnScene.TV) Thieves destroy the front of a liquor in Sunland, get away with high-end liquor on Sept. 26, 2024. (OnScene.TV) Moments after the truck pulled forward out of the shop, one masked intruder charges through the destroyed entrance, quickly followed by the driver of the truck. Both men began stealing high-end liquor kept on shelves behind the stores counter and loading it into the back of the truck. Even as the shops alarm was blaring, the thieves made several trips in and out of the store before finally fleeing the area before police arrived. Southern California neighborhood irate over repeated pit bull attacks Officers with the Los Angeles Police Department responded and took a report from the stores owner, who told OnScene.TV that the liquor is not insured, and he will be at a loss for not just the merchandise, but for damages to the shop as well. Anyone with information about this incident is urged to contact detectives at LAPDs Foothill Division at 818-756-8861. Those wishing to remain anonymous can call the L.A. Regional Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-222-8477 or leave tips online at www.lacrimestopper.org. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. I think Trump will probably lose, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, wrote in June 2020, just months before he would then falsely claim that the loss he predicted was the product of voter fraud, The Washington Post reported Friday. Citing previously unrevealed direct messages that Vance sent before his Senate run, the Post noted that Donald Trump's latest running mate had remained privately critical of the former president even after publicly backing him. Despite predicting his loss, Vance has since doubled down on baseless claims of theft, saying he would have refused to certify the 2020 election had he been vice president. Trump has just so thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism (excepting a disjointed China policy), Vance wrote in one such message, sent in February 2020. Vance has always explained his flip-flopping on the GOP presidential nominee by claiming Trump's record as president changed his mind, transforming him from a "Never Trump" conservative to someone willing to campaign alongside a man he'd previously warned could be "America's Hitler." The private messages that Vance sent via X, obtained by the Post, reveal that even as he was praising Trump on television, he was telling others that he was a failure. In a statement, a spokesperson for Vance claimed his damning criticism of Trump was consistent with his support for the former president. Per the spokesperson, "establishment Republicans" were to blame for having "thwarted much of Trump's populist economic agenda to increase tariffs and boost domestic manufacturing in Congress." TEL AVIV, IsraelAfter nearly a year of cross-border fighting in the north, Israel has ushered in what its defense minister calls a new phase in the war against Hezbollah with a series of aggressive operations. The goal: to push the Iranian-backed terrorist organization, through diplomacy or force, to abandon its strategy of slowly weakening Israel through a war of attrition. This week began with the militarys largest wave of airstrikes against Hezbollah infrastructure to date, with Israeli warplanes hitting an estimated 1,600 military targets across Lebanon on Monday. The campaign destroyed tens of thousands of Hezbollahs estimated 150,000 to 200,000 projectiles in a single day, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that night. The aerial attacks on Hezbollahs missile and rocket stockpiles and launchers have persisted in the days since, as have Israels efforts to systematically dismantle the groups top leadership through precision strikes on Beirut. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Tuesday that it had successfully targeted Ibrahim Qubaisi, head of Hezbollahs missile and rocket force, in a Beirut airstrike. On Thursday, another precision strike on the Lebanese capital killed Hezbollahs top drone chief. The high-level hits followed an aerial attack last week that killed some 20 commanders of Hezbollahs elite Radwan force and the detonation of explosives in thousands of pagersan alleged Israeli operation that a Hezbollah official said took 1,500 fighters off the board. The degradation of Hezbollahs capabilities in the last couple of weeks has no precedent historically. Even their ability to shoot rockets seems to have been quite limited, Gerald Steinberg, a professor at Israels Bar-Ilan University, told The Dispatch. And of the top 20 people who have been the main officials in Hezbollah responsible for building a force and for implementing attack plans, about half of them are gone. Thats a very major loss for Hezbollah. They can fill those positions, but itll take time. With Hezbollah reeling from the repeated attacks, analysts are now questioning whether Israel is laying the ground to broaden the war furtherperhaps by pushing into southern Lebanon to create a buffer zone that allows its displaced northern residents to return homeor whether its attempting to corner the group into an agreement that ends hostilities. Israel is, after 11 months, finally responding to 8,000 rockets and missiles and drones. The question is: Can Israel achieve de-escalation through deterrence?, said Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Now were putting to the test whether a forceful response can help bring about an end to thisin other words, show Hezbollah that there is a priceor whether Hezbollah is willing to go all the way. So far, the militant groups response has been inconclusive. While Hezbollah has demonstrated its willingness to escalate, the terrorist group also refrained from unleashing its full firepower on Israeli cities, as many officials expected it to early on. It remains unclear whether its holding back because of a lack of capabilityboth in personnel and materielor due to concern about bringing the sides to an all-out war. The group shot a lone ballistic missile at Tel Aviv early Wednesday morning, but Israels air defenses intercepted it. Eyal Zisser Hezbollah suffered heavy losses, no doubt about it. But its still capable of continuing the war, Eyal Zisser, vice rector of Tel Aviv University and an expert on Lebanon, told The Dispatch. I doubt very much that Hezbollah will be ready to cease fire as long as the war in Gaza continues. Such a move, he added, would be tantamount to a white flag after the group began firing on Israel in solidarity with Hamas following its October 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, in the south. Calling off its attacks while the war in Gaza continues would undermine Irans unity of arenas strategy, in which its various proxies in the region come to one anothers aid. Yet Iran has refrained from becoming directly involved, despite a reported request by Hezbollah for Tehran to intervene by attacking Israel on its behalf. [The Israelis] are dragging us to a point where we do not wish to go, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Monday, accusing Jerusalem of setting traps to draw his country into a broader war. Meanwhile, the U.S. remains determined to broker truce agreements between Israel and Hezbollah. In a joint statement with French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday, President Joe Biden called on a settlement that allows civilians on both sides of the border to return home safely. The exchange of fire since October 7th, and in particular over the past two weeks, threatens a much broader conflict, and harm to civilians, the leaders wrote. The statement doesnt mention Hezbollah by name, nor does it articulate a plan for the groups withdrawal from the Israeli border. In theory, the proposed 21-day pause in fighting would allow the two parties to reach a more lasting arrangement. In practice, Israeli officials worry it would allow Hezbollah to recover and regroup with little progress toward a deal that addresses the ongoing displacement of Israels northern communities. For Israels part, the objective is clear: Hezbollah must demilitarize in areas of Lebanon south of the Litani River. The proposed buffer zone is in keeping with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War by mandating Hezbollahs withdrawal but was never enforced by the Lebanese government or the international community, despite the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers to the area. While Israel somewhat tolerated a Hezbollah presence along its northern border for years, Hamas ground attack changed the calculation: Many evacuees will be unwilling to return if terrorists remain in close range of their communities. If Israel and Hezbollah see it as in their interest to have a temporary ceasefire to recover from the exchange of attacks in the last couple of months, then there will be a ceasefire. Im skeptical about that, Steinberg said. Israel has a very strong incentive to push into southern Lebanon and make it possible for at least 60,000 Israeli civilians who were forced to flee on October 8, when Hezbollah began its attacks on the north, to return home. 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. Nearly 75,000 retirees have applied for pension credit as part of a mass scramble to hold on to their winter fuel payments, official figures show. Chancellor Rachel Reeves hoped to save 1.4bn a year by stripping 10 million pensioners of the benefit, worth up to 300 per year. Only those who receive pension credit and certain other benefits are now eligible for allowance. But analysis shows the number of retirees applying for pension credit worth 3,990 per year more than doubled after Labours announcement. Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) published on Friday reveal some 74,400 retirees applied for the credit in the eight weeks since the announcement, compared to 29,500 in the eight weeks prior. Pension credit is only paid to retirees with a weekly income of less than 218.15. For couples, this threshold is 332.95. If all applications are successful, it could cost the Government as much as 540m, according to analysts Policy in Practice. The Government had ring-fenced funds as part of an expected rise in pension credit applications following the winter fuel raid. But Policy in Practice estimates the take-up will surpass ministers predictions by mid-November. Labour has faced mounting backlash against its decision to means-test the winter fuel allowance. Bank of England chief economist, Andy Haldane, on Thursday branded the decision bad politics and probably bad economics as well. Mr Haldane, now chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts think tank, told LBC Radio it was entirely reasonable to target wealthy pensioners, but added that the decision didnt fit with the narrative of the broadest shoulders bearing the burden. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was dealt a humiliating blow on Wednesday as Labour Party conference delegates, spurred on by trade unions, voted to oppose the cuts to winter fuel. It emerged this week that 214,000 more winter fuel payments were made last year than the year before. The rise was driven by recipients aged 75 and over, sparking fears Britains oldest pensioners will be hit hardest by the removal of the payment. The changes announced on July 29 triggered an immediate surge in pension credit applications. The department said 3,500 applications were made for pension credit on the week of July 22, more than doubling to 7,900 in the week of July 29. Weekly calls peaked at 13,400 in the week of September 9. The Treasury assumes that pension credit take-up will cost 3,900 per person. But Policy in Practice said the true cost could be as much as 7,223. This is because applying for pension credit can unlock a raft of other benefits such as housing benefit and free TV licences. Policy in Practice estimates around 23bn worth of benefits go unclaimed every year, of which 6.1bn is set aside for pensioners. Company director, Deven Ghelani, said: Its good news that more of the poorest pensioners are accessing the support they need. We have seen unprecedented demand, with one in five local authorities running Pension Credit take-up campaigns in the lead-up to Christmas. The DWP 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. Campaigner Katie Teakle organised the petition against North East Lincolnshire Council's use of the chemical glyphosate [BBC] A woman who started a petition about the use of chemical weedkillers has been supported by more than 26,000 signatures. Katie Teackle, from Cleethorpes, set it up after becoming concerned about North East Lincolnshire Council's (NELC) use of glyphosate to kill weeds on roadside verges. The chemical is a powerful herbicide that kills most plants, but there is concern about its wider impact on bird and insect populations. The BBC has contacted NELC for comment. A council worker sprays chemicals on to weeds at the base of a tree [BBC] According to The Local Democracy Reporting Service, the petition begins: Where are all the bees, insects and birds? Chattering sparrows, soaring swallows? How many butterflies have you seen this year? When was the last time you saw a wasp? It lays blame for declining biodiversity at least in part at the door of the widespread use of toxic weedkillers. Ms Teakle is hoping that the council will urgently review its use of glyphosate. "You have to lead by example and local authorities are in a great position of power," she said. "There is a very real issue here and the council is best-placed to lead by example." James Elliot, also known as The Canoe River Cleaner, is concerned about the impact of glyphosate on the wider environment [BBC] As well as a phase-out of use of glyphosate in favour of non-chemical alternatives, the petition also calls for the council to work with Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN), which supports local authorities to become pesticide free. The campaign is being supported by Grimsby-based environmental campaigner James Elliot, who is also known as The Canoe River Cleaner. Mr Elliot is concerned about the impact chemicals may have on the insect life and wildlife in his local waterway The River Freshney. "The numbers speak for themselves, I think it's resonated with people," he said. Mr Elliot added that he is confident his local authority will act to reduce or phase-out the use of the weedkiller. He said: "Obviously, we need the council to be on board because they are using glyphosate at the moment, but I think they will be." Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here. More on this story Related internet links Three members of Irans military have been charged with hacking email accounts connected to Donald Trumps 2024 presidential campaign, the Justice Department said Friday. The Treasury Department also announced a fresh round of sanctions against Iranians it said interfered in the 2020 and 2024 elections. The indictment, approved by a grand jury in Washington on Thursday and made public on Friday, accuses three people Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, and Yasar Balaghi of carrying out a sophisticated operation to obtain confidential presidential campaign materials and share them with journalists and individuals associated with another presidential campaign. The defendants are charged with 18 criminal counts, including wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The indictment does not name either the Trump or Joe Biden campaigns, but Attorney General Merrick Garland said the alleged attempts targeted Trump, and references in the indictment clearly indicate that the hackers are accused of directing at least some of the fruits of that effort to people linked to Biden. A spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign, which effectively took over Bidens bid when he bowed out of the race in July, denounced the Iranian effort but stressed it did not appear to involve the campaign itself. Were not aware of any material being sent directly to the campaign; a few individuals were targeted on their personal emails with what looked like a spam or phishing attempt, spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein said. We condemn in the strongest terms any effort by foreign actors to interfere in U.S. elections including this unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity. Asked whether the Democratic campaign relied on any of the information from its GOP rival, a Harris campaign official said: The materials were not used. During a press conference Friday at Justice Department headquarters, Garland reiterated an earlier intelligence community statement saying there was no indication the Biden allies who were sent the Trump campaign information responded to the message. However, he demurred when asked by POLITICO whether the Biden campaign associates used the material. I can only answer, what's in the indictment, what the intelligence community has said, in light of the evidence we have, we see no indication that anyone replied, Garland said. He did say that the FBI had good cooperation from both the Trump campaign and the Biden, now Harris, campaign. The Trump campaign confirmed last month that it had been hacked after POLITICO and other news organizations received internal campaign documents from an anonymous email address, including what appeared to be research into potential political liabilities of Sen. JD Vance, Trumps running mate. The indictment describes a successful effort by the three Iranian operatives to access the email accounts of figures associated with Trumps 2024 campaign. That effort built on several years of attempts to compromise other figures in U.S. government, politics and media. And the hackers allegedly used email accounts they compromised to target future victims with spear phishing emails. The Iranian operatives, according to prosecutors, obtained debate prep material, in addition to opposition research packets on Trumps potential vice presidential picks. The indictment includes the text of an email that the Iranians allegedly sent to allies of Biden offering access to Trumps prep for the June 2024 debate. Im going to pass some materials along to you that would be useful to defeat him, the Iranians wrote, regarding Trump and using a false persona, according to the indictment. The email included materials that the Iranians described as Trumps final prep for the debate. They were aware of the stakes for Biden, saying a loss at the debate would force Democrats to replace him on the ticket. The defendants own words make clear that they were attempting to undermine former President Trump's campaign in advance of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Garland said. The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by Iran or by any foreign power to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy. The first defendant, Jalili, described himself as Master of Information Technology. He and his co-defendants allegedly hacked into email accounts belonging to a former State Department official who helped negotiate the Abraham Accords, which normalized some Arab countries relations with Israel. They also compromised the email accounts of a U.S.-based author; a journalist based at a Washington, D.C., think tank; a former presidential homeland security adviser; two former CIA officials; a former U.S. ambassador to Israel; and the co-founder of an Iranian human rights group. None are named in the indictment. Then, from May 2024 up through this month, the indictment alleges, the hackers targeted people linked to a presidential campaign, successfully compromising the email accounts of an informal consultant to the candidate, two officials on the campaign, and an attorney representing the candidate known to be Trump. The indictment signals that the hackers aimed to use information they gleaned from the computer intrusions to support their ongoing efforts to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani," an Iranian general killed in a U.S. drone strike in January 2020. They also aimed to undermine the Trump campaign by leaking material stolen from the campaign, according to the indictment. And they used social engineering tactics to gain victims trust, pretending to be people they knew. In April 2020, for instance, they set up an email account purporting to belong to the spouse of a Supreme Court justice. They also had long-term, persistent access to some of the hacked accounts. After POLITICO reported last month on some aspects of the hack, Trumps presidential campaign blamed Tehran. And a Microsoft report on Aug. 8 disclosed that Iranian hackers had sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign. U.S. security agencies released an unusual statement earlier this month saying Iranians sent material stolen from the former presidents campaign to people linked to Bidens reelection team. The statement said there is no sign the recipients responded. Harris presidential campaign has said its officials did not make use of the information its allies were allegedly sent by the Iranian hackers. Its unclear whether the Biden associates were aware of the effort before the FBI notified them of it. Googles cybersecurity arm has said Iranians tried to hack into Bidens campaign as well, but there are no indications those attempts succeeded. There appears to be little prospect that the defendants, who appear to live in Iran, will be taken into U.S. custody anytime soon, if ever. Asked Friday if theres frustration that the defendants are currently beyond the reach of U.S. authorities, Garland said: From the Justice Department's point of view, which is the law enforcement point of view, we will follow these people for the rest of their lives. Justice Department officials have defended so called name-and-shame cases as worthwhile because they make it more difficult for the alleged perpetrators to travel freely, put foreign governments on public notice that the U.S. objects to their actions, and encourage Americans prepared to cast their votes to be vigilant about potential disinformation and polarizing political content that U.S. officials say is intended to destabilize the American political system. The Treasury Department also announced Friday that it was sanctioning one of the alleged Iranian hackers. The department said Jalili was responsible for malicious cyber operations targeting a former U.S. government official in 2022. In addition, Treasury sanctioned six employees and executives of an Iranian cybersecurity company that it said had attempted to interfere in the 2020 presidential election. The company, Emennet Pasargad, was previously sanctioned over accusations that it orchestrated an online operation to influence American voters in 2020. Treasury said that the company also sought to obtain U.S. voter information from state election websites and disseminated disinformation pertaining to the election and election security. The U.S. government continues to closely monitor efforts by malicious actors to influence or interfere in the integrity of our elections, Bradley Smith, the acting undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in a statement. Treasury, as part of a whole-of-government effort leveraging all available tools and authorities, remains strongly committed to holding accountable those who see to undermine our institutions. A trio of Kansas Republicans including a onetime chair of the Senate Labor Committee have thrown their support behind Vice President Kamala Harris in her 2024 election battle against Donald Trump, calling the Democratic nominee the best choice to lead the country for the next four years. Former Senator Nancy Kassebaum, who represented the Sunflower State in the upper chamber from 1978 to 1997, has joined ex-Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger and Deanell Reece Tacha, a retired federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan, in offering a formal endorsement of Harris. In a statement first published by Fox News, the GOP trio said the 2024 election presents a stark choice that is not easy for any of us because the Republican Party exemplified by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, longtime Kansas senator Bob Dole, and generations of Kansas leaders no longer exists within the Trump-era version of the GOP. But, it requires Republicans speaking out and putting country over party when those values are at stake, they said, adding, No candidate is perfect, and we do not pretend that we subscribe to all the policy positions taken either by the national parties or any individual candidates. Former Kansas Senator Nancy Kassebaum said in a statement that the 2024 election presents a stark choice that is not easy for any of us (U.S. Senate Historical Office) However, we fervently believe that we must do our part to try to build a brighter future, which is why we will be voting for Kamala Harris and [Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz] in this election. We believe they most closely align with the aspirations of Kansans and reflect our rich history of working together to the stars through difficulty. Kassebaum, Praeger and Tacha join a large group of prominent Republicans whove publicly expressed support for Harris, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, his daughter and former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney, former Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger as well as multiple Trump administration officials and appointees who served under the former president. Austin Weatherford, the national Republican outreach director for the Harris-Walz campaign, told Fox that Harris is bringing together voters from across the political spectrum by running a campaign about freedom, democracy and opportunity. Former Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger has also voiced support for Harris (Wikicommons) Our Republicans for Harris program is taking that unifying, inspiring message to anti-Trump Republicans, moderates and independents. While were seeing a surge in support, we arent taking anyone for granted, he added. Kassebaum was the first woman to be elected to the Senate from Kansas and Praeger served as the states top insurance official from 2003 to 2015. But in response, a Trump campaign spokesperson claimed that nobody knows who these people are, and nobody cares. Mr McLean was shot in Weavers Fields, a popular park in Bethnal Green [Google] Three men have been charged with murder after the fatal shooting of a 31-year-old man in an east London park. Joshua McLean was shot dead in Weavers Fields, Bethnal Green, at about 20:30 BST on 6 August The men, who are in their 30s, were arrested on Wednesday and are due to appear before Thames Magistrates Court to face formal charges. Five other people arrested on suspicion of murder - males aged between 17 and 56 have since been released on bail. Mr McLean's family has been informed. The Metropolitan Police is asking anyone with information about the shooting to contact the force. Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk Related internet links Tim Walz is planning to hold a fundraiser in JD Vances backyard just days after the pair debate for the first time. The Democratic vice presidential nominee will head to Vances current hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio, on October 5 after Democrats in the area raised at least $1m to get him there, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Officials from the campaign reportedly told Vice Mayor Jan-Michele Kearney if they wanted Kamala Harris to visit, they would have needed to raise $1.5m. For us, we wanted either Vice President Harris to come or Governor Walz to come. They said, OK...I think thats huge, she told the newspaper. Hes the vice presidential candidate, hell be second in command. We really like him a lot. Details of the event are currently under wraps but Kearney said Walzs appearance is likely to be a private one, not a public rally. Its going to be exciting and its going to be wonderful, she added, saying there would be additional events for the public added in the near future. Tim Walz will attend a fundraiser in JD Vances Ohio hometown (REUTERS) We will definitely have a rally for the public as well, she said. Were just excited. Its a great time and everybody should be involved. I think the fact hes coming to Cincinnati means how important we are to the election. Ohio, which has 17 electoral votes, is no longer considered a swing state after turning red for Donald Trump in 2016 and staying red in 2020. Trump is comfortably ahead in the polls in the Buckeye state this time round as well. A poll by The New York Times has the Republican 10 points ahead of Harris in Ohio, with voters backing him 54 percent to 44 percent for the vice president. Walz will be in JD Vances (pictured) backyard when he attends a fundraiser (AP) Vance, who was raised in Middletown but now lives in Cincinnati, was sworn into office as senator for Ohio at the beginning of 2023. Vance and Walz will go head to head next Tuesday in their first and only planned vice presidential debate. This week Vance revealed he doesnt need to prepare that much for the debate against the Minnesota governor. We have well-developed views on public policy, so we dont have to prepare that much, Vance said during a press call on Wednesday, according to The New York Post. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is playing Vance during Walzs mock debates while Republican Minnesota Representative Tom Emmer is playing the part of Walz during Vances preparations. Emmer was picked so that he could emulate Walzs folksy demeanor, according to ABC News. The debate is set to take place at 9pm ET and will be hosted by CBS News. Time change 2024 will fall back soon! When clocks move an hour for daylight saving time Fall is finally here, and daylight saving time's end will shortly follow. If you're looking forward to clocks falling back to get an extra hour of sleep, here's when daylight saving time ends and everything else you need to know about it. When does fall 2024 start?: Schools are back in session. The cicadas are singing. So when does fall begin? Here's what you need to know: When does the time change in 2024 for daylight savings time in the U.S.? States participating in daylight saving time turn their clocks back when it officially ends on the first Sunday of November every year. Daylight saving time begins on the second Sunday of March, when we turn our clocks forward an hour. Does Indiana observe 2024 daylight saving time? Yes; Indiana observes daylight saving time. Hawaii and parts of Arizona do not participate in daylight saving time. The territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands also do not participate. When do the clocks fall back for 2024 time change? Our clocks will fall back at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. At 2 a.m. on Sunday, the clocks will "fall back" an hour and millions of Americans will gain an extra hour of sleep. This event annually marks the end of Daylight Saving Time (DST). Why does time change at 2 a.m. for daylight saving time? Author Michael Downing cited his book, "Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time," in an interview with Time Magazine, explaining Amtrak and the railroads were the main reason clocks change at 2 a.m. for DST. When DST was being established, There were no trains leaving the station at 2 a.m. on Sundays in New York City when Daylight Saving Time was being born. According to Downing, "Sunday morning at 2 a.m. was when they would interrupt the least amount of train travel around the country. Will we gain or lose an hour when DST ends? When daylight saving time ends, we will set our clocks back an hour, which means we will be gaining an hour of sleep. We lose an hour when daylight saving time begins in the spring when we move our clocks forward. To help remember which is which, some say "When it comes to daylight saving time, we spring forward and then we fall back." Which U.S. states don't change clocks for daylight saving time? As of July 25, 2022, the U.S. Department of Transportation noted that only Hawaii and parts of Arizona do not participate in daylight saving time. The Navajo Nation is the lone exception in Arizona. The territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands also do not participate. According to the website, states may exempt themselves from observing daylight saving time by state law in accordance with the Uniform Time Act, as amended. Why is daylight savings a thing? The goal of daylight saving time is ensure is more daylight hours in a day for a number of reasons, but primarily to save energy. There have also been arguments that having more daylight hours benefits public safety and health. Daylight saving time was first introduced in the U.S. in 1918 during World War I and it was known as "war time." It was then abandoned after the war as there was no financial need to continue it at the time. Daylight saving time as we know it today began in the U.S. with the Uniform Time Act of 1966, only it started on the last Sunday of April and ended on the last Sunday of October. In 2005 it was shifted to begin on the second Sunday of March and first Sunday of November, like it is today. A Department of Energy study found the extra four weeks of daylight saving time saved around 0.5% in total electricity daily in the U.S., equaling energy savings of 1.3 billion kilowatt-hours annually. DST 2024: Daylight saving time is here. But why does it exist in the first place? What is the Sunshine Protection Act? The Sunshine Protection Act of 2021, which was created to make daylight saving time the new, permanent standard time, was unanimously passed by the U.S. Senate in 2022 but it was not passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. There is currently no news on when it will be readdressed and then signed into law. When does daylight saving time end permanently? Despite the Sunshine Protection Act being unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate in 2022, there is no permanent end in sight. When does 2025 daylight savings time spring forward start, DST fall back end? Daylight saving time begins on Sunday, March 9, and ends on Nov. 2 in 2025. Chris Sims is a digital content producer at Midwest Connect Gannett. Follow him on Twitter: @ChrisFSims. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Fall back time change 2024: What is daylight savings? When does DST end? New York City Mayor Eric Adams is scheduled to appear in court Friday afternoon for the first time since he was indicted on five federal charges related to bribery, conspiracy, wire fraud and soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals. Adams, who has served as the citys 110th mayor since January 2022, is accused of receiving luxury travel and other benefits from a Turkish official and in exchange, pressuring New York Citys Fire Department to open a Turkish consular building without a fire inspection, according to the 57-page federal indictment unsealed on Thursday. The allegations noted in the indictment stretch back to a decade ago, when Adams served as Brooklyn Borough president. Adams allegedly committed 23 overt acts outlined in the indictment from 2016 to October 2023. The acts allegedly include coordinating straw donations and submitting false disclosure statements to the New York City Campaign Finance Board. I look forward to defending myself and defending the people of this city as Ive done throughout my entire professional career, Adams said at a Thursday news conference. Heres a timeline of the allegations against Adams, according to the indictment: October 2016 - October 2017 After Adams first traveled to Turkey in 2015 and established corrupt relationships, a senior Turkish diplomatic official introduced him to a Turkish airlines general manager in the New York City area, according to the indictment. On three separate trips once in 2016 and twice the following year federal authorities allege Adams solicited and accepted free and heavily discounted travel from the airline as part of the Turkish Officials efforts to gain influence over Adams. October 2016: Adams accepted a free business class upgrade for himself and his partner that raised their ticket values to around $15,000 two days before traveling to India on a Turkish airline, the indictment alleges. His partner, who is not named in the indictment, had initially bought economy tickets for the trip valued at around $2,286 for herself and Adams prior to the upgrade, according to the indictment. July and August 2017: Adams accepted free business class tickets from the same airline worth more than $35,000 for himself, a close relative and a staff member to travel to Nice, France; Istanbul, Turkey; Columbo, Sri Lanka; and Beijing, China, the indictment alleges. New York City Mayor Eric Adams talks to the press outside Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the mayor of New York City, on September 26 after he was indicted on federal criminal charges. - Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images Adams also accepted a heavily discounted stay during the trip at the five-star St. Regis Istanbul hotel, owned by a wealthy Turkish businesswoman who gave Adams multiple free or steeply discounted luxury hotel stays and organized contributions to his 2021 mayoral campaign, the indictment alleges. Adams two-night stay in the hotels Bentley Suite cost him less than $600 instead of the actual approximate cost of $7,000, according to the indictment. October 2017: Adams and a staff member, who accompanied him on the July and August 2017 trip and who served as his liaison to New York Citys Asian-American communities, traveled to Nepal through Istanbul and Beijing, the document alleges. Adams allegedly accepted free business class tickets worth more than $16,000 for himself and the staff member for flights from New York to Istanbul, from Istanbul to Beijing and for the return flights. Federal authorities say Adams attempted to hide the luxury travel benefits he received. According to the indictment, Adams attempted to create a fake paper trail suggesting he had paid for his 2017 flights on the Turkish Airline, when in fact he had not. January 2018 - December 2020 January 2018: Several months before a January 2018 trip to Budapest, Hungary, through Istanbul, Adams partner bought her and Adams two economy tickets on a Turkish airline for approximately $560 each, the indictment alleges. In December 2017, Adams directed a staff member to ask the airline manager to upgrade the tickets to business class, according to the indictment. The upgrade was allegedly provided for free, and the tickets were valued at more than $14,000. The indictment accuses Adams of not disclosing the travel discount to New York Citys Conflict of Interest Board in 2018. November 2018: While Adams was Brooklyn Boroughs president, he and his staff member met at Brooklyn Borough Hall with a wealthy Turkish national named in the indictment as Businessman-1 who owned a for-profit Turkish University, according to federal authorities. The businessman offered to contribute funds to Adams 2021 mayoral campaign, according to the indictment. Although (Adams) knew that Businessman-1 was a Turkish national who could not lawfully contribute to (US) elections, (he) directed (his staff member) to obtain the illegal contributions offered by Businessman-1, the document states. January 2019: Adams and his partner traveled to Turkey, Jordan, and Oman, and a Turkish airlines airline manager gave Adams partner a free upgrade from economy to business class valued at approximately $7,000, says the indictment. While he was in Istanbul, authorities allege Adams met with a wealthy Turkish businessman, referred to in the indictment as Businessman-3, who agreed to contribute $50,000 or more to the 2021 Campaign in an effort to gain influence with Adams, whom he believed might one day become a US president. December 2020: Adams solicited and received straw donations from a businessman who ran a New York City-area construction company, according to the indictment. The businessman, who had influence in a different ethnic community in the city, contributed $10,000 to Adams 2021 campaign by giving $2,000 personally and reimbursing four employees a total of $8,000 for their contributions, the indictment alleges. May 2021 - November 2021 May 2021: Adams allegedly attended a fundraiser organized by a Turkish official with Adams staff and accepted straw donations from a prominent member of New York Citys Turkish community who operated another construction company, referred to in the indictment as Businessman-5. That month, authorities say Adams submitted a false disclosure statement to the Campaign Finance Board that concealed straw donations from Businessman-5. June 2021: Authorities say Adams solicited steeply discounted business class tickets, stays at a luxury hotel and luxury resort, and transportation that included a domestic flight, car and driver. Hes accused of by authorities of soliciting a free hotel stay and free use of a VIP room in the business class lounge of a Turkish airline for the Adams Fundraiser. August 2021: Adams allegedly directed a staff member to obtain contributions of foreign funds from a Turkish university. Eric Adams is sworn in as the 110th mayor of the city of New York on January 1, 2022, in New York City. - Arturo Holmes/Getty Images/File September 2021: The indictment alleges Adams pressured the New York City Fire Department to issue a letter acquiescing in the occupation of a new Turkish consular building. Authorities say the 36-story skyscraper was opened without a fire inspection. At the time, the building would have failed an FDNY inspection, the indictment states. In exchange for free travel and other travel-related bribes in 2021 and 2022 arranged by the Turkish Official, (Adams) did as instructed, it continues. That same month, authorities allege Adams solicited and accepted steeply discounted business class flight tickets for himself and a companion on roundtrip flights from New York to Pakistan. CNN has reached out to Turkish House and the FDNY. October 2021: Authorities say Adams submitted a false disclosure statement to the Campaign Finance Board that concealed straw donations from a Turkish university. November 2021: Adams allegedly solicited and accepted a free car and driver and a meal at a luxury restaurant in Istanbul. January 2022 - October 2023 January 2022: Adams allegedly attended a meeting with a Turkish entrepreneur named in the indictment as the Promoter and agreed to accept contributions of foreign money toward his 2025 campaign. The Promoter arranged straw contributions to both of Adams campaigns, the indictment alleges. July 2022: Adams senior advisor and another staffer met a Turkish official at the Turkish House and identified the senior official as the point of contact for the Turkish Officials pending problems regarding the Turkish House such as FDNY approvals, according to the indictment. July 2022: The Turkish official arranged to provide business class upgrades on a Turkish airline for Adams close associates, the document alleges. September 2023: Adams attended a fundraiser where he allegedly thanked foreign donors for contributions of foreign money to his 2025 campaign made through straw donors. October 2023: Adams allegedly attended a fundraiser where he directed a staff member to coordinate straw donations from a person referred to in the indictment as Businessman-6, a member of New York Citys Turkish-American community. CNNs Evan Perez, Mark Morales, Kara Scannell, Brynn Gingras, Gloria Pazmino, Eric Levenson, Artemis Moshtaghian, Nicki Brown and Jeff Winter contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Today, September 27, marks California Indian Day, a time dedicated to honoring the rich cultural heritage, resilience, and contributions of the Native peoples of California. Since its inception in 1968, this day has evolved into a vital opportunity for reflection and recognition of Californias Native communities, their resilience, and their ongoing struggles for justice and cultural preservation. 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. As the state reflects on the deep-rooted histories and ongoing struggles faced by these communities, News from Native California, a quarterly magazine uplifting the vibrant cultures, arts, languages, and histories of Californias Native peoples, is spotlighting its editor-in-chief, Terria Smith. Terria Smith, a member of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, has been at the forefront of Indigenous storytelling, amplifying Native voices through the magazine while also overseeing Heydays Berkeley Roundhouse Program. The Roundhouse Program empowers Indigenous writers by providing mentorship, resources, and a platform to share their stories. Native News Online spoke with Smith where she discusses the significance of California Indian Day, and the diverse events held statewide. She discussed the magazines approach to featuring tribal voices and her role with the Berkeley Roundhouse Program in publishing Native-themed books and future goals for the magazine. Can you share a little bit about yourself and how you got started with your work? Im a tribal member of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians and the editor of News from Native California magazine, as well as the director of California Native Publishing at Heyday Books. Ive been in this role for over nine years, and I feel honored to be able to share California Native stories and culture. Can you tell me about California Indian Day and what it means to you? California Indian Day is a wonderful celebration of our cultures. Pre-pandemic, there were big events at the state capitol and California State University, San Bernardino. Today, there are so many events across the state, from prayer runs to the Morongo Pow Wow. This day is special because it helps with our visibility in our home state. It's a day to celebrate and show how distinct and diverse California Native cultures are. For us at News from Native California, we also offer deep discounts on subscriptions, and we engage with the community through these events to celebrate cultural pride together. How does News from Native California promote the stories and issues that matter to California Native communities? One of the unique aspects of News from Native California is that it's primarily an inside-out type of reporting. About 90% of our content comes from tribal people themselves. Were a submission-based publication, and we also have an internship program, offering paid, year-long positions to recent college graduates interested in working with California Tribal communities. Most of the stories we publish are from tribal people who come to us wanting to share something from their community. We also have a regular column called "In Our Languages," where we invite people to submit stories or essays in their tribal language, and we usually dont translate it in the magazine to give the language visibility. We have the English translation available online. We also work closely with environmental and cultural preservation groups, like Save California Salmon, to help amplify their work. Our goal is to provide an authentic platform for tribal people to tell their own stories. Can you tell me about your work with the Berkeley Roundhouse Program and how it connects with your role at the magazine? The Berkeley Roundhouse is the California Native publishing program at Heyday Books. It oversees the magazine, publishes two to four California Native-themed books a year, and helps organize events. We also collaborate with cultural organizations, such as the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center. One of our most recent books is The Forgetters by Greg Sarris, chairman of Graton Rancheria. Weve also published a beautiful California Native foodways book by Karuk author Sarah Calvosa Olson. Coming up next year, were publishing a childrens book titled I Love Salmon and Lampreys by Yurok author Brooke Thompson. Were also excited to be involved in outreach, attending conferences, and connecting communities with cultural practitioners or speakers. Its a really rewarding part of the job. Are there any upcoming projects or programs from the Roundhouse that you're particularly excited about? Theres so much going on. Well be participating in the National Indian Education Associations convention and the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums conference in Palm Springs this fall. Im also thrilled that the California Indian Conference is coming back after several years. Its a great convening of scholars and cultural practitioners. Weve been working closely with them to promote the event, which will be at Fresno State University in October. In addition, well be at the Native Arts Expo in Mendocino, organized by artist Eric Wilder. Theres also Heydays 50th anniversary celebration coming up. Theres a lot to look forward to. What are your goals for News from Native California and the Berkeley Roundhouse in the next year? For the magazine, we want to continue growing our audience and increasing contributions from tribal people. Its always special to release a new issue and see the community's reactions, especially when someone they know is on the cover. On the book side, we want to keep fostering new tribal authors and helping them navigate the publishing process, which can be overwhelming for first-time authors. We take pride in helping authors along their journey, whether theyre working on academic work or childrens books. As we approach California Indian Day, what message would you like to share with Native and non-Native audiences? For non-Native audiences, I encourage you to learn about the tribal people in the areas where you live. It will give you a better understanding of the place you call home. For tribal people, I hope everyone can enjoy California Indian Day. Sometimes we face difficult realities, but I hope we can take a break from being tough all the time and just celebrate and be happy, even if just for a day or a weekend. 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 Today, September 27, marks California Native American Day, a time dedicated to honoring the rich cultural heritage, resilience, and contributions of the Native peoples of California. Since its inception in 1968, this day has evolved into a vital opportunity for reflection and recognition of Californias Native communities, their resilience, and their ongoing struggles for justice and cultural preservation. 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. As the state reflects on the deep-rooted histories and ongoing struggles faced by these communities, News from Native California, a quarterly magazine uplifting the vibrant cultures, arts, languages, and histories of Californias Native peoples, is spotlighting its editor-in-chief, Terria Smith. Terria Smith, a member of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, has been at the forefront of Indigenous storytelling, amplifying Native voices through the magazine while also overseeing Heydays Berkeley Roundhouse Program. The Roundhouse Program empowers Indigenous writers by providing mentorship, resources, and a platform to share their stories. Native News Online spoke with Smith where she discusses the significance of California Indian Day, and the diverse events held statewide. She discussed the magazines approach to featuring tribal voices and her role with the Berkeley Roundhouse Program in publishing Native-themed books and future goals for the magazine. Can you share a little bit about yourself and how you got started with your work? Im a tribal member of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians and the editor of News from Native California magazine, as well as the director of California Native Publishing at Heyday Books. Ive been in this role for over nine years, and I feel honored to be able to share California Native stories and culture. Can you tell me about California Indian Day and what it means to you? California Indian Day is a wonderful celebration of our cultures. Pre-pandemic, there were big events at the state capitol and California State University, San Bernardino. Today, there are so many events across the state, from prayer runs to the Morongo Pow Wow. This day is special because it helps with our visibility in our home state. It's a day to celebrate and show how distinct and diverse California Native cultures are. For us at News from Native California, we also offer deep discounts on subscriptions, and we engage with the community through these events to celebrate cultural pride together. How does News from Native California promote the stories and issues that matter to California Native communities? One of the unique aspects of News from Native California is that it's primarily an inside-out type of reporting. About 90% of our content comes from tribal people themselves. Were a submission-based publication, and we also have an internship program, offering paid, year-long positions to recent college graduates interested in working with California Tribal communities. Most of the stories we publish are from tribal people who come to us wanting to share something from their community. We also have a regular column called "In Our Languages," where we invite people to submit stories or essays in their tribal language, and we usually dont translate it in the magazine to give the language visibility. We have the English translation available online. We also work closely with environmental and cultural preservation groups, like Save California Salmon, to help amplify their work. Our goal is to provide an authentic platform for tribal people to tell their own stories. Can you tell me about your work with the Berkeley Roundhouse Program and how it connects with your role at the magazine? The Berkeley Roundhouse is the California Native publishing program at Heyday Books. It oversees the magazine, publishes two to four California Native-themed books a year, and helps organize events. We also collaborate with cultural organizations, such as the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center. One of our most recent books is The Forgetters by Greg Sarris, chairman of Graton Rancheria. Weve also published a beautiful California Native foodways book by Karuk author Sarah Calvosa Olson. Coming up next year, were publishing a childrens book titled I Love Salmon and Lampreys by Yurok author Brooke Thompson. Were also excited to be involved in outreach, attending conferences, and connecting communities with cultural practitioners or speakers. Its a really rewarding part of the job. Are there any upcoming projects or programs from the Roundhouse that you're particularly excited about? Theres so much going on. Well be participating in the National Indian Education Associations convention and the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums conference in Palm Springs this fall. Im also thrilled that the California Indian Conference is coming back after several years. Its a great convening of scholars and cultural practitioners. Weve been working closely with them to promote the event, which will be at Fresno State University in October. In addition, well be at the Native Arts Expo in Mendocino, organized by artist Eric Wilder. Theres also Heydays 50th anniversary celebration coming up. Theres a lot to look forward to. What are your goals for News from Native California and the Berkeley Roundhouse in the next year? For the magazine, we want to continue growing our audience and increasing contributions from tribal people. Its always special to release a new issue and see the community's reactions, especially when someone they know is on the cover. On the book side, we want to keep fostering new tribal authors and helping them navigate the publishing process, which can be overwhelming for first-time authors. We take pride in helping authors along their journey, whether theyre working on academic work or childrens books. As we approach California Native American Day, what message would you like to share with Native and non-Native audiences? For non-Native audiences, I encourage you to learn about the tribal people in the areas where you live. It will give you a better understanding of the place you call home. For tribal people, I hope everyone can enjoy California Native American Day. Sometimes we face difficult realities, but I hope we can take a break from being tough all the time and just celebrate and be happy, even if just for a day or a weekend. 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 voters will pick a new mayor and City Council members this November. All eight council seats, including the mayors, are up for grabs, with all the incumbents except for current Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin seeking another two-year term. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5. Early voting runs from Thursday, Oct. 17, through Saturday, Nov. 2. To help inform voters across the state, this candidate questionnaire is available to be republished by local publications in North Carolina without any cost. Please consider subscribing to The News & Observer to help make this coverage possible. Name: Tomara DeCosta District/seat: Raleigh City Council, District C Political party: Republican Age as of Nov. 5, 2024: 46 Campaign website: tomaraforraleigh.com Current occupation: Clinical research manager Education: College Offices Sought/Held: None Please list any notable government or civic involvement. None Which City Council district do you live in? C What is the top issue facing Raleigh now and how would you address it? As a candidate for City Council, I believe that addressing crime is the top priority for Raleigh. The recent increase in homicides is deeply concerning, and it is essential that we take decisive action to ensure the safety of our community. I propose a thorough review of the budget to identify and eliminate wasteful spending. The funds saved from this effort can be reallocated to increase the pay for our police officers. By doing so, we can improve officer retention and ensure that our police force remains well-equipped and motivated to effectively protect our residents. What is your strategy for increasing affordable housing in Raleigh? Affordable housing is defined as housing that costs no more than 30% of a households income. For example, an individual earning $30 per hour can afford approximately $1,560 in monthly rent. It is clear that subsidizing housing for everyone earning below this threshold is not a sustainable solution. My strategy focuses on creating a more robust economic environment by attracting higher-paying jobs to our city. Additionally, we should prioritize increasing the salaries of low-paying city and state workers. By doing so, we can help more residents afford their housing costs without the need for extensive subsidies, thereby fostering a more self-sufficient and prosperous community. Should the city be more aggressive about requiring affordable units from developers or partner with nonprofits? I believe it is essential to strike a balance in our housing strategy to ensure the long-term health and prosperity of our city. While affordable housing is crucial, we must also consider the broader implications of our housing policies. Fair market rent is established annually by HUD and is influenced by many factors, reflecting the economic realities of our community. A healthy city offers a diverse range of housing options to meet the needs and preferences of all residents. Overemphasizing the creation of lower-quality units to accommodate lower-income brackets can lead to unintended consequences, such as reduced property values and an imbalance in our housing market. Instead, I advocate for a more balanced approach that includes a mix of housing options to cater to different income levels and lifestyles. This strategy ensures that we maintain a vibrant and economically diverse community. We should focus on sustainable development without compromising the quality and appeal of our city. By fostering a diverse housing market, we can attract a wide range of residents and businesses, ultimately benefiting the entire community. This approach ensures that we meet the needs of lower-income residents while also supporting the overall economic vitality and quality of life in our city. Do you think Raleigh can support concert venues both downtown and in Dix Park? I believe that our city is already well-served by existing music concert halls, and another such venue may not significantly add to our cultural landscape. Instead, an amusement park would offer a unique and diverse recreational opportunity that appeals to individuals and families of all ages. An amusement park in Dix Park would not only provide a fun and exciting destination for residents, but it would also attract tourists, thereby boosting local businesses and generating additional revenue for our city. Moreover, such a development would create job opportunities, ranging from construction to park operations, contributing to our local economy. Would you describe Raleighs growth as too fast, too slow or just right? I believe Raleighs growth is occurring at a healthy rate, thanks to our attractive city that meets the needs of many individuals. However, without the right leaders in place, we risk losing our ability to support steady economic development, enhance infrastructure, and provide essential services, as our resources could become overwhelmed. Do you think Raleigh is losing too many historic properties? If so, how should this be addressed? Balancing development with preservation will require thoughtful planning and committed leadership. As the capital of our state, it is essential that we preserve the heritage of our city while allowing for growth and progress. By implementing strong preservation policies and fostering partnerships with preservation organizations, we can protect our historic properties without hindering the citys development. This approach will ensure that Raleigh remains a vibrant and historically rich community for future generations. Absenteeism is a problem in schools in Oregon and across the country. (Dan Forer/GettyImages) Absenteeism is a problem in schools in Oregon and across the country. (Dan Forer/GettyImages) With student absenteeism at record highs, more Washington districts are using a tool developed by researchers at Washington State University to help get kids back on track. Its called WARNS or the Washington Assessment of the Risks and Needs of Students. About half of Washingtons districts are using the tool this school year: a projected 146 of the states 295 districts, up from 90 in 2019. The 40-question, web-based assessment for middle and high school students is meant to help figure out why individual students are missing classes and what they need to stay in school. The idea is to try to get students interested in themselves, said Brian French, regents professor at the Washington State University College of Education. French has been working on WARNS for about a decade, since the original version of the assessment was moved from the purview of the court system to Washington State University. Its not meant to be a diagnostic tool, French said. Its not meant to be a labeling tool. Its really a tool that says: Lets start a conversation with you. WARNS asks kids detailed questions about their relationships with their peers, mental health issues, family environment, school engagement and more. Once a student finishes the assessment, both the student and the school receive a set of scores indicating their risk level for different outcomes. James Wise, assistant principal at Sunnyside High School in Yakima County, has been using the system for the past seven years and said WARNS helps districts get past basic questions like: How was your day? What the WARNS does is it has carefully crafted questions around lots of different areas of a kids life, and so were able to tease out the details without having a one-hour conversation with the kid that feels more like an interrogation, Wise said. Overwhelming research shows a connection between chronic absenteeism and worse student outcomes, but nearly a quarter of school districts surveyed nationwide by the Rand Corporation and the Center on Reinventing Public Education said their strategies to combat the issue havent been particularly effective. French said he cant directly link WARNS to a drop in absenteeism because there are so many other factors that can affect the issue. But one 2014 study of an eastern Washington school district, led by Paul Strand, a psychology professor at WSU who works with French on WARNS, found that when paired with truancy reduction intervention, WARNS helped increase graduation rates. The WARNS is an excellent tool, Wise said. But theres nothing more important than having a relationship with the student and using the relationship to meet their needs. Washington has one of the highest absenteeism rates in the country, according to a recent analysis from the Associated Press and Stanford University educational economist Thomas Dee. Thats despite a state law called the Becca Bill requiring all children between 8 and 18 to attend school regularly. There isnt one reason why so many kids arent in school, said Strand, but he pointed to mental health, lack of affordable child care which forces older kids to stay home and take care of their younger siblings and access to transportation as some reasons theyve seen in their work. Children are also more likely to have higher risk scores on the WARNS if theyre facing other barriers, Strand said, like students with disabilities. Some districts have found the assessment so useful, theyve started using it for broader reasons, not just absenteeism. At Sunnyside, Wise said they use WARNS whenever a school social worker identifies a kid who needs additional support. The question really is about How can we help this kid engage in school, not just attend? Wise said. And so if the kids get into fights, you want to figure out why. If the kids skipping, you want to figure out why. If you can figure out the why, you can help them overcome the situation theyre in. It didnt make sense to only ask why when it came to attendance. It makes sense to ask why all over the place, Wise said. The WARNS team is using feedback from districts like Wises to improve the tool. Districts are asking them to consider highlighting student strengths, for example, to help motivate students and recognize what theyre good at. Theyre also considering creating an assessment tool for the elementary level, which they say will have to involve parents. Schools outside Washington have started using WARNS too, including in Minnesota, Virginia and Wisconsin. The WARNS team received a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education in 2021 to help ramp up their operations. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to have those helpful conversations with students, French said. Im hoping our team in WARNS is making some kind of small progress on the situation in the state. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Washington State Standard, like Oregon Capital Chronicle, is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com. Follow Washington State Standard on Facebook and X. Welcome Guest! You are here: Home 'Its Bisan from Gaza and Im Still Alive' wins Emmy 2024 "Its Bisan From Gaza and Im Still Alive" of Palestinian Journalist Bisan Owda and Al Jazeeras AJ+ has won an Emmy in the Outstanding Hard News Feature Story category. Friday September 27, 2024 9:43 PM , ummid.com News Network "Its Bisan From Gaza and Im Still Alive" of Palestinian Journalist Bisan Owda and Al Jazeeras AJ+ has won an Emmy in the Outstanding Hard News Feature Story category. Bisan Owda, a Palestinian Journalist, Filmmaker and Activist has been at the forefront of reporting from Gaza since Israel launched its assault on the territory last October, bringing the stories of Palestinians to a global audience amidst 11 months of war and devastation. The Emmy Award organisers were under a huge pressure to revoke the Gaza documentary's nomination . The organisers however did not budge. "150 Hollywood jerkoffs & has beens called her a terrorist & tried to strong arm @TheEmmys to rescind her nomination, but Bisan Owda is victorious. "Congrats to the entire team @ajplus and the magnanimous Bisan", Journalist, Samira Mohyeddin, wrote on X. Bisan Owda's award winning Its Bisan from Gaza and Im Still Alive series brings light on the daily struggles of Gazans who have been victims of Israeli aggression amidst its genocidal war started on October 7 2023. The #NewsEmmys Award for Outstanding Hard News Feature Story: Short Form goes to Its Bisan from Gaza and Im Still Alive | Aj+ Reports (@ajplus). pic.twitter.com/lKTDR9sfys News & Documentary Emmys (@newsemmys) September 26, 2024 26-year-old Bisan Owda is born and grown up in Beit Hanun - a Palestinian city in northeast Gaza Strip. Owda has earlier worked with the United Nations on gender equality as a member of UN Women's Youth Gender Innovation Agora Forum. An EU Goodwill Ambassador, Owda has also worked with the European Union on climate change. Earlier, Palestinian journalists covering Israels brutal war in Gaza, including Nasser Abu Baker, were named as Laureates of the 2024 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize . On September 22, Palestinian Journalist Shrouq Al Aila , who has been covering Israels ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, has been selected for the 2024 International Press Freedom Award In another landmark moment for Palestine, 04 Palestinian Journalists , who reported from war-hit Gaza, were nominated for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. The international awards conferred on Palestinian journalists is not going down well with the Zionist killers. In June this year, International Womens Media Foundation (IWMF) had conferred the 2024 Courage in Journalism Award on Maha Hussaini. The award was however rescinded after protest by neoconservatives and supporters of Israeli massacre of Palestinians. Follow ummid.com WhatsApp Channel for all the latest updates. Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic. Two top members of Gov. JB Pritzkers communications team are leaving their jobs in his administration, the governor announced Friday. Jordan Abudayyeh and Jason Rubin, both deputy chiefs of staff, were among the longest-serving members of Pritzkers administration, holding posts in the office dating back to the governors first campaign in 2018. Replacing Abudayyeh and Rubin are Matt Hill, who takes the role of deputy chief of staff for communications, and Emily Bolton, who will be director of agency communications. Hill was a senior director of communications and top spokesperson for last months Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He previously worked in communications in President Joe Bidens administration, the U.S. Department of Commerce and on the Biden campaign. A graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Hill said he anticipates starting in his new role after the November election. Bolton previously handled communications for the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. Before DCEO, she worked for Chicago Public Schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday afternoon. Abudayyeh and Rubin have been essential advisors since day one of this administration, Pritzker said in a news release. They have each been working with the governor for more than six years. Abudayyeh, who was well known by Illinois press as a main point of contact for the administration, said in a brief interview Friday afternoon that it just felt like it was time for a new chapter. She declined to say what her plans are going forward but said shes hopeful her next role will be similar to the one she held in Pritzkers office: communicating complex messages, being able to be a strategic adviser to people in power. Abudayyeh said she also hopes to continue to work closely with Rubin. Rubin also declined to share what his next steps will be, and said it felt like the right moment to leave the administration. Pritzker draws from his personal fortune to boost pay to top aides, increasing salaries by as much as $150,000 for his chief of staff, on top of the regular state salaries. Abudeyyeh and Rubin were each receiving $75,000 a year through the company set up to handle the extra pay, on top of six figures from the state. A spokesperson for the governor declined to share new compensation numbers until after the new leaders start in their positions. Abudayyeh, a former TV journalist in Springfield, Naperville and Milwaukee, said she found working in government to be more fulfilling than I ever thought it could be. NEW YORK Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Mayor Eric Adams chief adviser and longtime political confidante, had her Brooklyn home searched by state authorities Friday and was stopped by both state and federal investigators at JFK Airport as she returned from an overseas trip, the Daily News has learned. State investigators from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Braggs office seized cellphones from Lewis-Martin at JFK on Friday morning as she arrived on a flight from Japan, where sources say she has been vacationing. In a separate action, federal investigators from the Manhattan U.S. attorneys office served Lewis-Martin with a subpoena when she arrived at JFK. The subpoena is asking her to furnish testimony and documents, sources said. It wasnt immediately clear what investigations prompted the law enforcement actions. Ms. Lewis is not the target of any case of which we are aware, Arthur Aidala, her attorney, said. Aidala also noted Lewis-Martin had not gotten home by the time Braggs investigators showed up. She was not there but family members were there and searched her house, he said. Spokespeople for the Manhattan U.S. attorneys office and the Manhattan district attorneys office declined to comment. The raid on Lewis-Martins home comes on the heels of Adams being indicted by federal prosecutors on corruption charges alleging he solicited bribes and accepted illegal campaign contributions from Turkeys government in exchange for favors. He pleaded not guilty in Manhattan Federal Court on Friday. It also comes as multiple high-ranking Adams administration officials had their homes searched and devices seized in recent weeks, including former NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban, who resigned in the wake of getting his phones taken. --------- A top aide of Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban has criticized Ukraine's resistance to Russia's full-scale invasion, calling it "irresponsible" and suggesting his country would have advised against fighting back if it had been asked. Balazs Orban no relation to the prime minister made the comments when discussing Hungary's anti-Soviet uprising in 1956 which was brutally put down by the Red Army. "Considering 1956, we would have probably not done what President Zelensky did 2.5 years ago, as it is irresponsible, as we can see that he led his country into a defensive war, many lives were lost and territories lost," he said in an interview published Sept. 26. "Let me say again, it is (Ukraine's) right and sovereign decision... but had they asked us, we would have not recommended this, based on what happened in 1956." In a post on Facebook, Hungary's leading opposition figure Peter Magyar said the aide "has no place in public life after his scandalous and traitorous comments." Speaking on national radio on Sept. 27, in comments reported by Reuters, Orban claimed his aide's words were an error and emphasized that people should speak "very carefully and clearly" on such matters. "Now my political director made an ambiguous statement which is a mistake, as our community stands on the basis of the 1956 revolution has grown from it," he said. Hungary is widely regarded as a key ally of Russia in the EU. Orban has repeatedly blocked aid to Ukraine, pushed for negotiations, and frequently spouted Kremlin talking points. Hungary has also condemned the war but has refused to supply Ukraine with weapons. Since taking the presidency of the European Commission in July, Orban has amped up attempts to stand as a negotiator between Moscow and Kyiv. In July, he embarked on a peace tour and met with Russian dictator Putin, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Orban's visits sparked criticism from the EU and President Volodymyr Zelensky. The latter said that NATO and the EU can resolve the war without Orban. In early July, Hungary quietly changed the rules for its National Card program to allow Russian and Belarusian "guest workers" to enter the country in a streamlined visa-acquisition process that does away with enhanced security checks or other restrictions. In response to the policy change, European parliamentarians published a letter urging parliament to reconsider Hungary's Schengen membership. Earlier on Aug. 22, Ukrainian refugees from southwestern Zakarpattia Oblast began being evicted from shelters in Hungary after the government passed a decree to restrict housing assistance for Ukrainians fleeing their country. Read also: Russia building unknown structure near Crimean Bridge, Ukraines Navy says Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. SOUTHAMPTON COUNTY, Va. (WAVY) A tornado was spotted on radar Friday afternoon in Southampton County as the region faced tornado and flash flood warnings due to the remnants of Helene. The likely tornado was confirmed via tornado debris on radar, per WAVYs weather team. It touched down near Corinth and may have lifted after touching down, but the system was moving north toward Route 460 and Wakefield. The area was under a tornado warning through 5 p.m. A large portion of the area was under a flash flood warning. There was a tornado warning in effect across the state line around Gatesville, with a tornado warning in that area until around 5:30 p.m. WAVYs team says radar showed some rotation there. If youre under a tornado warning, head to the interior of your home and stay away from windows. Cover your head with something like a helmet if possible. A tornado also touched down Friday in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, as Helene moved through the southeast, leaving 15 people hurt. Helene overalls caused widespread damage and flooding throughout the southeast and greater eastern U.S., and has left more than 40 people dead. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WAVY.com. A day of tornado warnings across the Triangle, with 2 twisters reported on the ground in NC Tornado warnings sent Triangle residents scurrying for cover for just over an hour Friday as a strong band of storms spawned from Hurricane Helene now a tropical depression passed through the area. The National Weather Center confirmed two tornadoes in eastern and southeastern NC, and flash flooding and winds affected much of the Triangle. The National Weather Service issued its first tornado warnings for northern Chatham County and central Orange County at 10:38 a.m. Friday, spawning a frenzy of weather updates. UNC-Chapel Hill activated its emergency siren on campus to let students and staff know to take shelter. The warning expired about 20 minutes later, but was activated within 10 minutes. Another warning was issued at 11:06 a.m. for Orange and Durham counties, as an air siren was heard blaring across central Durham from the N.C. School of Math and Science. Tornado warnings also were issued for Lee, Harnett and Wake counties, followed by another warning for Chatham County at 11:14 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. The storm moved through quickly, but weather service officials warned the risk of flooding could continue until at least 6 p.m. Friday. Flash flood warnings were issued for Orange, Durham, Wake, Harnett and Cumberland counties. At least two people had been killed in the state so far, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said at a news briefing on the storm Friday morning. One person was killed in Charlotte when a tree fell on a house, and the other died after a traffic crash in Catawba County. Another 15 people were injured, four seriously, when a tornado touched down in Rocky Mount, hitting two restaurants and other buildings, according to Rocky Mount Fire Chief Darvin Moore. Tornado Warning including Durham NC, Chapel Hill NC and Carrboro NC until 11:30 AM EDT pic.twitter.com/QkIwFKIGEN NWS Raleigh (@NWSRaleigh) September 27, 2024 Fallen trees, flooding The hurricane was downgraded from a Category 4 storm as it passed over Georgia overnight and turned west, passing through the North Carolina mountains. On Friday, it was downgraded to a tropical storm, and then a tropical depression. The outer bands of the rain hitting the Triangle reached Alamance and Orange counties in the western part of the area around 9 a.m. Friday morning. Weather and utility officials warned that falling trees also posed a major hazard after days of rain before the storm had already soaked the ground in many places. Orange County officials reported two homes had trees on them from the storm, and the basement of a home in Carrboro was flooded. At least four roads in Chapel Hill Umstead Drive, Raleigh Road, Cleland Drive and South Merritt Mill Road were closed because of flooding or downed trees, a spokesman said. All roads in Chapel Hill were reported open as of just after 5 p.m. on Friday. The National Weather Service Forecast Office in Raleigh previously told The News & Observer that the storm could bring 1 to 3 inches of rain and sustained winds of 15 to 25 mph to the Triangle. Schools in Wake, Durham and Orange counties were closed in anticipation of the weather, and Duke Energy expected thousands to lose power in the storms wake. Tornadoes touch down in eastern and southeastern NC While the western part of North Carolina was still dealing with major flooding and dangerous road conditions after the storm, Helene only brought heavy rainfall and strong winds to most of the state. But at least two potential tornadoes were reported Friday afternoon in Rocky Mount, an hour east of Raleigh, and in Garland, which is about 80 miles south of Raleigh in Sampson County. The National Weather Service was sending teams to both towns to assess the damage. The National Weather Service Forecast Office in Raleigh issued tornado warnings for most of the Triangle as the band of storms passed through the area at midday, including in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Holly Springs and Fuquay-Varina. Tornadoes arent uncommon with tropical storms or hurricanes, said Jonathan Blaes, meteorologist-in-charge for the National Weather Service in Raleigh. This is one of the threats that comes with them. The threat of tornadoes passed by late afternoon as the sun emerged from the clouds. Wind and flood advisories will remain in effect, Blaes said, noting that flooding could continue to cause issues for several days as rivers crest. Its been so wet of late that much of the rain that fell is just washing and draining into creeks and streams, Blaes said. So that is a worry. A federal emergency declaration will provide Federal Emergency Management Agency money to help pay for evacuations, emergency shelters and other emergency protective measures in the western part of the state, The News & Observer has reported. Make sure youre signed up for emergency alerts in your Triangle county. Heres how How to get internet access even when a storm knocks out power (+ wifi) at home A police officer checks vehicles on the A64 near Trier at the start of border controls at all German state borders. With Germany ramping up border controls and more EU countries contemplating stricter migration rules, the Schengen zone of free movement - and its absence of border checks - seems to be crumbling. But this has not put off those seeking full Schengen membership. Harald Tittel/dpa A long-standing debate in Germany on how to handle migrants has intensified following deadly knife attacks in Solingen and Mannheim this year, prompting Europe's largest economy to expand border controls despite protest from its neighbours. The Solingen suspect, a Syrian citizen, had evaded an order to be deported from Germany to Bulgaria, where he first entered the European Union. And an Afghan citizen is in custody following the Mannheim attack in May, which left a police officer dead. On September 16, Germany expanded controls to the frontiers of all nine of its neighbours in the hope of curbing the flow of irregular migrants, addressing threats from Islamist terrorist groups and clamping down on cross-border criminal organizations. The move, however, has sparked protests from other EU member states. Germany lies at the heart of Europe and of the visa-free Schengen zone, which is designed to allow the free movement of people and goods, a core tenet of the EU. Poland, Austria and Greece have been among countries to complain about the border checks, which are set to last an initial six months. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk condemned the move as "unacceptable" and his Greek counterpart, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, said that an "unilateral abolition of Schengen" was not the answer. German spot checks on the borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland were already in place and have now been expanded to France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark. With national elections looming in Germany next year, the knife attacks have put major political pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government to toughen its stance on migrants and asylum seekers. The issue has dominated recent state elections that have significantly boosted anti-immigrant parties. But this is not exclusive to Germany. The success of far-right parties in elections in key European countries is prompting even centrist and left-wing governments to tighten policies on migration, sparking concern among activists. Experts: Border checks won't curb migration UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told the German newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung there were "alternatives to restrictive measures," citing faster and fairer asylum systems as an example. "A fixation on border controls will not deter the truly desperate," Grandi added. Migration researcher Gerald Knaus does not expect the extension of border controls to all German land borders to lead to a noticeable decrease in the number of asylum seekers. "Anyone who expects border controls to lead to a reduction in irregular migration is creating an expectation that is unrealizable," he said on German broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. Border controls were also not a means of preventing Islamist terrorism, as many of the perpetrators became radicalized in Germany, he added. What is Schengen? The border-free Schengen area allows free movement for more than 425 million EU citizens and non-EU citizens who legally live, work, travel or study in the bloc. Named after a village in Luxembourg, the Schengen zone started as an intergovernmental project with five countries in 1985: Luxembourg, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. In waves, the Schengen zone grew and now incorporates most EU countries except Cyprus and Ireland as well as non-EU states Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Lichtenstein. Today, it is considered the biggest zone of free movement in the world. According to EU figures, 3.5 million people cross internal borders every day. Even though Germany's decision has sparked controversy, it is not the only Schengen member with border checks. Austria, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Slovenia and Sweden also have temporary measures in place. Bulgaria and Romania: Half in, half out? While established members grapple with their attachment to Schengen, Bulgaria and Romania are still trying to complete their membership of the free movement area, in the face of Austrian opposition. As of March 31, Bulgaria and Romania have partially joined the Schengen area. Controls for internal sea and air travel have been lifted, while controls at land borders remain. EU officials expect a decision on full Schengen membership by the end of the year. In December last year, Austria was the only EU country that did not support a complete abolition of border checks at the Bulgarian and Romanian Schengen borders, citing migration concerns. Austria's veto and its new migration portfolio Austria's EU commissioner-designate is Finance Minister Magnus Brunner who is in line to receive the European Commission's migration portfolio. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's decision to nominate Brunner stirred controversy in Brussels, given Austria's ongoing Schengen blockade as well as his lack of direct experience. Romanian EU lawmaker Siegfried Muresan pointed out, however, that Austria will no longer be able to use the migration issue as a pretext to block Bulgaria and Romania from joining Schengen. "The solution to this problem will depend on their own commissioner," Muresan said in the European Parliament last week. The new EU commissioner-designates are yet to pass their "grilling" by the EU legislature before the new commission can be finally confirmed. Historically, not all candidates pass their hearing, in which case their countries need to nominate a new person. The content of this article is based on reporting by AFP, AGERPRES, APA, BTA, CTK, dpa, EFE, and STA as part of the European Newsroom (enr) project. Town of Henrietta amends zoning code to help revitalize SouthTown Plaza, others HENRIETTA, N.Y. (WROC) To revitalize some of its plazas and vacant properties, the town board of Henrietta has passed zoning code changes. Those changes would allow some industrial tenants and residential units in plazas and developments in certain overlay districts. Town supervisor Stephen Schultz says these changes came after the developer of SouthTown Plaza came to the town, hoping to put in a major tenant. One of the uses of that major tenant is not allowed in that district, Schultz said. Shortly after, Schultz and the board passed a handful of changes. SouthTown on West Henrietta Road, like a handful of Henrietta plazas, Schultz said, is struggling with vacancy and tenant turnover. Fewer businesses means less tax revenue for the town. With this new zoning change, developers can add certain light industrial tenants think self-storage and affordable housing units to these plazas. With more development options, developers can solve vacancy problems. Marketplace Mall is using a similar model. The new senior apartments have just finished construction across the URMC orthopedic center. Schultz believes other developments can have similar success. Mixed-use developments reduce suburban sprawl, and by unlocking incentive zoning rules for these plazas, businesses will be more inclined to move into these already built spaces. By adding residential as well, Schultz says it can help combat another issue towns face with development: residents saying that theres a need for affordable housing, just not in my backyard. Theyre on the bus loop, restaurants, drug stores Its a good location for affordable (units), Schultz 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 RochesterFirst. Track the money for Prop 5: Contributions for and against housing and infrastructure bonds Proposition 5 would lower the vote threshold needed to pass local bond measures for affordable housing, transportation, parks and other infrastructure. Supporters contend that changing the required majority from two-thirds to 55% will make it easier for voters to approve government financing for needed housing and other public projects. Groups opposing the measure argue it will lead to increased government spending and result in higher taxes. Real estate interests are opposing the measure along with rent control measure, Proposition 33. Overall fundraising Cumulative contributions Read more: Track the money for Prop 33: Contributions for and against California's ballot measure on rent control Biggest supporters The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California have each contributed $2.5 million in support. Read more: Your guide to Proposition 5: Making it easier to pass local housing, road bonds Biggest opposition The California Business Roundtable has contributed more than $1.5 million in opposition. Times housing affordability reporter Liam Dillon contributed to this report. 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. AVA, NY (WUTR/WFXV/WPNY) An early morning accident involving a tractor-trailer in the town of Ava on Thursday has sent one person to the hospital. Oneida County Sheriffs responded to the area of State Route 294 in the town of Ava at approximately 6 am on Thursday, September 26. Upon further investigation, it was determined that the driver of the semi-truck 58-year-old Jeffrey Zehr of Castorland was attempting to back into a logging lot with a trailer attached. As Zehr attempted to back into the lot, a car being driven by 39-year-old Corinda Seelman of Constableville was traveling eastbound on State Route 294. Sheriffs say Seelman failed to observe the trailer due to a lack of reflective material on it, as well as the weather conditions impairing Seelmans visibility. As a result of both of those conditions, Seelman crashed into the side of the trailer, resulting in injuries. As a result of the accident, State Route 294 was closed off for several hours from State Route 26 to Gleasman Road while sheriffs conducted their investigation. That roadway has since been reopened. Seelman was transported to the Wynn Hospital in Utica for her injuries. Sheriffs deemed her injuries to be non-life-threatening. Zehr was cited for Commercial Vehicle Violations, returnable to the Town of Ava Court at a later date. Oneida County Sheriffs were assisted on the scene by: The New York State Police and their Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Unit, The town of Boonville Fire Department and Ambulance Services, The town of West Leyden Fire Department and Ambulance Services, and Cushmans Auto and Towing of Holland Patent. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WUTR/WFXV - CNYhomepage.com. 1 dead after road sign falls on car along I-4 near Ybor City during Helene TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) One person died Thursday night after a road sign fell on their car while driving on I-4 near Ybor City during Hurricane Helene, according to Gov. Ron DeSantis. Traffic cameras in the area showed the sign on top of a car. Please help: Tampa Bay residents take to social media to get help for loved ones Its very dangerous conditions out there, DeSantis said during a Thursday night news conference. No other information about the crash was immediately available. Hurricane Helene made landfall Thursday night as a major Category 4 hurricane in the Big Bend region. The storm left behind flooding and damage across the Tampa Bay area. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA. Traffic back to normal in Guntersville after building damaged GUNTERSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) The Guntersville Police Department (GPD) says Highway 431 is back open after a building was damaged. According to GPD, US Hwy 431/Florida Short Route/Gunter Ave was temporarily closed for southbound traffic heading towards Guntersville across the Tennessee River Veterans Memorial Bridge. GPD said all lanes were back open as of 3:08 p.m. Police said that southbound traffic will be diverted onto Lurleen B Wallace Dr, then onto Sunset Dr, and finally onto AL Hwy 69/Henry St. Guntersville Police said that the detour will remain in place until further notice due to a damaged building on Gunter Ave near the Marshall County Courthouse. Download the WHNT News 19 App to stay updated on the go. Sign up for WHNT News 19 newsletters to have news sent to your inbox. According to the department, debris from the damaged building has obstructed the roadway which is the cause for the detour. Multiple agencies including the Alabama Department of Transportation are working to solve the issue. Officials are telling drivers to expect delays in the area at this time. The detour will only affect southbound traffic on US Hwy 431 traveling into Guntersville. Northbound traffic from Albertville will not be impacted. According to the Marshall County Sheriffs Office, the Marshall County Courthouse will experience a two-hour delay for opening due to the fallen debris. Please use caution in the area. Stay connected with News 19 as we will continue to update the story 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 WHNT.com. The trans "baby-faced" killer convicted of stabbing to death a New York City antiques dealer was sentenced Thursday to 22 years-to-life in prison, months after receiving jail time for a separate, gruesome killing in Oklahoma in which the victim was decapitated. Alex Ray Scott, 28, who began transitioning into a woman in jail, was previously found guilty of the January 2020 killing of Kenneth Savinski, 64, in his Upper East Side apartment with a decorative plate and kitchen knife. "Alex Ray Scott will serve a significant prison term for the brutal and senseless murder of Kenneth Savinski a beloved, friendly person and respected churchgoer," said Manhattan District Attorney Bragg. "Mr. Savinskis loss not only devastated his friends and family but shocked his tightknit community. Although we cannot bring Mr. Savinski back, I hope the resolution of this case offers his loved ones a sense of justice in their ongoing grief." New Idaho Judge In Bryan Kohberger Trial No Stranger To Brutal Murder Cases Alex Ray Scott was sentenced Thursday for the 2020 killing of a New York City antiques dealer. Scott, who was also sentenced in Oklahoma to 45 years in prison for a separate dismemberment killing of a man with a chainsaw, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and multiple counts of criminal possession in Savinskis death. Scott and Savinski met on a dating app and were sharing a night out together on Jan. 27, 2020 when they went to Savinski's apartment, the New York Post reported. Read On The Fox News App Savinski was found with wounds on the head and neck, including a broken hyoid bone, a slit throat and large, deep lacerations across his face and forehead. He was found covered in blood and pronounced dead at the scene, prosecutors said. After the killing, Scott stole credit cards from Savinski and said he didn't remember the attack, according to an indictment, the Post reported. Fbi Raids Home Of Nyc Mayor Eric Adams' Chief Fundraiser Brianna Suggs, Source Says Alex Scott is pictured in police custody leaving the NYPD's 19th Precinct stationhouse on Friday, Jan. 31, 2020, in Manhattan. Scott later walked into a New York police precinct and admitted to killing someone in an unrelated case. He was found with credit cards belonging to Robin Skocdopole, prompting investigators to check Skocdopoles home in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma when he was unable to be reached. Authorities found his home empty of all its possessions and pools of blood inside. Skocdopole's remains were eventually found in May 2020 on the edge of a creek in Broken Arrow, federal prosecutors said. He was last seen in August 2019. Scott was renting a room from Skocdopole and told everyone that the landlord had abruptly moved to Dallas for work, in an effort to explain the disappearance. A medical examiner's report said two different saws were used during Skocdopoles dismemberment. Upon his arrest, Scott agreed to take the FBI to the location of Skocdopoles head, but no additional remains were found, the Justice Department said. Original article source: Trans killer sentenced for murder of NYC antiques dealer, decapitated Oklahoma man in separate slaying A visualization shows what the Grain Belt Express transmission line would look line running across a farmer's land. Invenergy has asked federal officials to narrow a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor along Grain Belt's route. (Invenergy) Developers of the Grain Belt Express transmission line have asked the federal government to narrow a 780-mile route energy officials proposed as a transmission corridor of national interest. The Department of Energy is working to designate National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors in parts of the country where officials have found consumers are harmed by a lack of electric transmission and where additional lines would boost reliability and cut costs. One of those corridors runs through Kansas, Missouri and Illinois before ending at the Indiana border, encompassing the route of the Grain Belt Express high-voltage transmission line being built by Invenergy, a Chicago-based clean energy developer. The corridor proposed by the Department of Energy is five miles wide, but Invenergy has called on federal officials to reduce it to 0.5 miles, arguing in a blog post on the Grain Belt Express website that the narrower route will balance the needs of states to access additional power while also addressing the concerns and uncertainty stakeholders along the path of the project are expressing. Over the years, as Invenergy has worked to develop the Grain Belt Express, it has battled rural neighbors and lawmakers over its ability granted by state energy regulators to use eminent domain, a legal tool that can be used in infrastructure projects to acquire property or easements from unwilling landowners and compensate them. According to the Department of Energy, designating national interest corridors will allow federal energy officials to grant the right of eminent domain to projects, even when state regulators have denied a permit. The idea of federal officials granting eminent domain has riled some conservative lawmakers and farm groups, who have been frequent critics of the practice. In a statement Thursday, the Kansas Farm Bureau took credit for persuading Invenergy to request that the Department of Energy narrow the proposed corridor. We oppose the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission being given backstop authority to override decisions made by our state regulators, said Kansas Farm Bureau president Joe Newland, and we oppose the use of eminent domain within these corridors. Newland encouraged Kansas Farm Bureau members and landlowners to share their concerns and opinions as the Department of Energy takes feedback from communities before finalizing the corridor designations. U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, introduced legislation earlier this month that would prohibit the use of federal funds in projects using eminent domain to build transmission lines and bar the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from overruling state regulators siting decisions. Invenergy has long maintained that it makes efforts to reach voluntary agreements for easements on landowners property before acquiring them through eminent domain. Owners who refuse to participate and whose land is condemned through eminent domain are still compensated. Also Thursday, the Kansas Corporation Commission, the state agency that regulates utilities, approved two feeder lines that will deliver energy from wind and solar farms in southwest Kansas to the larger Grain Belt Express transmission line. This development milestone provides yet more certainty, said Invenergys director of transmission development, Kevin Chandler, of the economic development and energy reliability benefits that Grain Belt Express will soon deliver for Kansas. Evie Green was able to return home after spending over a year in hospital [Family handout] A girl who lived in hospital for more than a year as she awaited a heart transplant is now "running around... just like a normal five-year-old," her parents say. Evie Green, of Middlesbrough, who was admitted to Newcastle's Freeman Hospital on Valentine's Day last year, was diagnosed with myocarditis aged four months. The condition, triggered by viral infections, can lead to heart failure and saw the youngster attached to a Berlin Heart device as she awaited a donor organ. Placed on the urgent transplant list, she underwent the operation in July this year. 'Joy for our family' Her parents, Chloe and David, said being connected to the device meant the youngster had been "unable to move around without us following her". She battled sepsis, infections and several blood clots, while strong blood thinners also led to worries that "any knock could cause her to bleed out", Mrs Green added. "Moreover, Evie was unable to see her brother, Theo, when he was ill and could only visit on weekends and holidays. "It has been a delight to see our daughter running around without a machine attached to her just like a normal five-year-old. "Watching her going to the beach, visiting her late grandad's tree and having a bath have been a joy for our little family. "Before the transplant, she did not eat well, but ever since her transplant, seeing our daughter have a hearty, full meal has been the greatest pleasure." Evie was attached to a Berlin Heart machine for many months [Family handout] The family are sharing their story to highlight Organ Donation Week. Unless individuals "opt out" on the NHS Organ Donor Register, the law assumes they are consenting to organ donation, although ultimately families still have the final say. Mr Green said: "I urge people to sign up to the register to make their decision known. "Sharing these stories is all we can do as it will get people talking about the children waiting for an organ transplant. Think of the futures that can be saved from the amazing gift of organ donation." Specialist nurse Rachel Eason said: "For lots of children waiting for a life-saving transplant, their only hope is the parents of another child agreeing to organ donation at a time of immense sadness and personal grief. "Losing a child is incredibly tragic and difficult. Families of young organ donors tell us that knowing their child's donation has saved lives can bring some comfort." Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk. More on this story Related internet links LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) The Livingston County Sheriffs Office has confirmed a 12-year-old boy, now identified as Declan Carter, was killed after a tree fell on top of him at the Howell Nature Center on Thursday. The department says deputies were dispatched to the Howell Nature Center after a tree fell on a 12-year-old boy at around 3:32 p.m. The boy was visiting the Nature Center with a group from Our Lady of Victory Catholic Parish located in Northville, MI. Declan Carter, 12, lost his life after a tree fell on top of him during a field trip./ Northville Mayor Brian Turnbull While one of the instructors was speaking to the group, a tree broke and landed on the boy. After responders removed him from underneath the tree, he was transported via helicopter to a nearby hospital with what police say are life-threatening injuries. Northville Mayor Brian P. Turnbull released a statement that said he knew Declan and his siblings and said he hopes the community will come together in support of the family during this hard time. Northvillians, It is with a heavy heart that I write to you this morning with sad news regarding one of our young Northvillians who had his whole life in front of him. Tragically, on a field trip from Our Lady of Victory School yesterday to the Howell Nature Center, a tree came down on sixth grader Declan Carter, and he was airlifted to Motts Children Hospital at the University of Michigan. Everyone did all they could for Declan, but his energetic life was suddenly halted. I had the pleasure of knowing Declan, having visited with him and his sister, Georgia, in front of their home many times, especially on hot summer afternoons for a lemonade. He had great potential academically, athletically (as one of the top runners in the area) and socially as a part of the fabric and DNA of Northville. From all of us at City Hall, our thoughts and prayers go out to the family, including his father John Carter (an esteemed City Council leader), Mother Liz Carter and his sisters Georgia and Ainsley. It is up to us to keep Declans spirit and memory alive in our hearts and from this day forward, to always have the Carter family in our prayers. All of our Northville staff who are appointed and elected are like a family. A loss for one is felt by all, along with the rest of our close-knit community. I have petitioned the Governors office to allow us to place our flag at City Hall at half-staff in memory of our beloved Northvillian Declan Carter, and I ask all in the Ville to do the same. Northvillians, I urge you to come together in support of the Carter family, and I encourage you to hug all those close to you today life is precious. With a weeping and saddened heart representing all of Northville, we all feel the loss of young Northvillian Declan Carter. Brian P. Turnbull Mayor Northville Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Some trees down along state routes in Greene County, EMA director reports GREENE COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) Trees were down along some state routes in Greene County early Friday morning, according to the countys emergency management agency (EMA) director. EMA Director Heather Sipe told News Channel 11 that as of 6:20 a.m., crews with the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) were working to remove trees that had fallen over state routes. LIVE UPDATES: Helene makes landfall as an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane As of 6:20 a.m., Sipe said 435 people were without power in Greene County. News Channel 11 is tracking outages across the region; a full list of outages can be found by clicking here. Greene County EMA expects the Nolichucky River to continue to rise. According to Sipe, the river levels were at 9.44 feet in Embreeville as of 6:20 a.m., which is just under action stage. The agency expects the Nolichucky River to crest at 15.5 feet by Saturday morning. Emergency officials from across the area have urged caution to anyone driving on Friday as multiple roads have already flooded. Hurricane Helene is expected to impact the Tri-Cities region primarily between 8 a.m. and noon. Helene was downgraded to a tropical storm early Friday as it passed over Georgia after making landfall in Big Bend, Florida around 11:20 p.m. on Thursday. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJHL | Tri-Cities News & Weather. New trial to begin for Harrisonville woman accused of shooting dog last year A new trial will begin in November for a Harrisonville woman charged with animal cruelty after allegedly fatally shooting a dog last year. Amory R. Hilliard, 32, allegedly shot and killed the dog in Belton, Missouri, June 13, 2023, according to court records. She was also charged with a weapons violation. The alleged shooting took place at 9:56 p.m. outside a home on Chestnut St. in Belton, according to court records. It is unknown what motivated the shooting, or whether the dog belonged to Hilliard. However, the shooting did not take place at her home, court records show. Hilliard previously pled not guilty to the animal-cruelty and weapons charges, court records show. However, after failing to appear in court multiple times since June 2023, Hilliard was arrested on June 11, 2024 in connection with the incident, according to Belton police records. She was re-charged with animal abuse, as well as with illegally carrying a concealed weapon, and spent three days in jail starting on September 17, according to court records. Hilliard had been previously charged with felony drug trafficking in June 2023, according to court records. She also appeared in court in April on drug possession charges, according to Belton police records. Hilliard will appear in Cass County court on November 21 at 9 a.m. for the first hearing associated with her new trial. The Animal Cruelty Task Force of Missouri receives more than 20,000 reports of animal abuse or cruelty per year. In 2023, seven of these reports escalated to animal-cruelty cases with the Jackson County Prosecutors office, according to KC Pet Project. They journeyed by bus from the Navajo Nation to push for passage of the RECA. (Photo/Shiala King) WASHINGTON, D.C. On Tuesday, a delegation of community members from Navajo Nation, Laguna Pueblo and Acoma Pueblo, as well as Hopi and Zuni, arrived by bus. They made this long trip to pressure U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson into bringing the extension of the S.3853 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) to the floor. First passed in 1990, RECA provided compensation and healthcare benefits to victims of radiation exposure due to uranium mining and nuclear testing. Their demonstration began on a rainy morning, marching to steady drums and a chant of Pass RECA now! Together with Navajo Nation President Buu Van Nygren and Speaker Crystalyne Curley, they carried striking uranium-yellow signs and tribal flags through the gray streets of the nations capital. Their march ended at the Russell Senate Building for a press conference with their representatives. In attendance were U.S. Senators Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Josh Hawley (R-MO), and U.S. Reps. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM), Gabe Vasquez (D-NM), and Melanie Stansbury (D-NM). 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. Photos by Shiala King. The meeting began with commentary from Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, who emphasized the immense effort that has gone into extending RECA, and revealed that Biden has already promised to sign. I believe in the power of prayer, he said. I want you to pray for Speaker Johnson, to give him the strength and the wisdom to allow this legislation to the house floor to be voted on to get this to the President of the United States. The extension and expansion of RECA passed a Senate vote of 69-30 in March, and unfortunately expired in June. Johnson has not prioritized this time sensitive issue. Uranium victims are left behind by bureaucracy, continuing to struggle with their medical needs. Following the Cold War, Navajo miners were 28.6 times more likely to develop cancer, and uranium in the environment has been linked to a staggering rise in rare disorders. Folks, were here because this is about justice, Sen. Martin Heinrich followed, and shared personal experience of his father as an atomic veteran, who also suffered the effects of radiation. At the end of the day, it is gonna be your stories that are gonna motivate our colleagues and the speaker of the house of representatives to put this legislation on the floor, where it will pass. Around the room, individuals held pictures of their lost family members. Veterans who returned from war, only to be lost to radiation; women who worked in the mines to feed their families. Historically, Navajo uranium miners worked under dangerous conditions, with little knowledge of the risk. It was about 3am when the sun rose in New Mexico, said Gabe Vasquz. It wasnt the sunrises that we were used to seeing. It was the Trinity test, and so for too many decades, New Mexicans have suffered generational impacts while being gaslighted they say well its not possible that three generations down you can still have those impacts. Advocates from the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium described the fallout that precipitated like snow and covered the land. The impact of the bomb would be felt for generations. When asked about Speaker Johnsons cost concerns, Sen. Hawley replied, The cost has already been paid, its been paid by the people in this room. You wanna talk about the cost of chemotherapy, the cost of cancer, the cost of lost loved ones, the cost of burials, the cost of funerals, it has been paid by the people in this room The United States government owes a debt to the people in this room. A study in 2022 concluded that 11% of uranium mines are on tribal land, however, the majority of the ore mined came from this 11%. The largest mines were located in Navajo Nation and Laguna Pueblo of New Mexico, which produced 52 million of the 75.9 million tons of uranium ore that was extracted for defense-related purposes. The far reaching public health hazard of this production amount is immense. Considering the historical undercounting of tribal citizens, the toll may certainly be higher. On Wednesday morning the coalition huddled in the atrium of the Cannon House Building, where they intended to deliver their message, their stories, directly to Speaker Johnsons office. They crowded the hallway, only five at a time let in to speak. Some said prayers to the closed door and the plaque, as their fellows delivered stacks of medical bills showing the cost of exposure to radiation. Sunset heralded a vigil of luminarios in front of the Capitol. Paper lights illuminated pictures of lost loved ones. Each bag carried a name, one of many lost to radiation exposure and fallout elders said prayers and sang mourning songs. Members of the group then read a list of those lost, a haunting ten minute long chorus as they spoke over each other, each reading different names. Pedestrians and bystanders were drawn to the display, moved by the memorial. We represent a silent majority, the unspoken who havent been born, and the dead who can no longer speak Basically what we are here for is to tell them that what theyre doing to us isnt right," said Navajo elder and flag carrier Kee Carl, who lost his uncle, a veteran and an influential code talker, to radiation exposure. The Navajo Nation performed great service for the United States, and Native Americans have the highest per capita rate of enlistment. Service overseas has been met with sacrifice on home soil. With the election on the horizon, time is running short to get this act to Bidens desk. 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 Alaska pollock, shown here from a harvest, make up the nation's top-volume single-species commercial seafood catch. Alaska pollock, harvested mostly in the Bering Sea but also in the Gulf of Alaska, are processed into fish sticks, fish burgers, imitation crab meat and other common fish products. (Photo provided by NOAA) Alaska pollock, shown here from a harvest, make up the nation's top-volume single-species commercial seafood catch. Alaska pollock, harvested mostly in the Bering Sea but also in the Gulf of Alaska, are processed into fish sticks, fish burgers, imitation crab meat and other common fish products. (Photo provided by NOAA) U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason heard oral arguments Thursday in a lawsuit filed by two of Alaskas largest tribal groups against federal managers of the states groundfish trawl fisheries. Two Kodiak trawlers caught 2,000 king salmon. Now, a whole fishery is closed. The Association of Village Council Presidents and the Tanana Chiefs Conference claim the federal government has failed to adjust trawling rules in the Bering Sea and off the Aleutian Islands to compensate for the ongoing salmon crisis on Alaskas Interior rivers. Victory by the plaintiffs could lead to new restrictions on the worlds largest trawl fishery. If plaintiffs lose, the status quo is likely to continue. On Thursday, Gleason asked plaintiffs whether theyre seeking a halt to trawl fishing in the Bering Sea. No, the plaintiffs said. Instead, theyre seeking an acknowledgment from the federal government that ocean conditions have changed since 2007, the last time the National Marine Fisheries Service conducted a full environmental impact statement for the fishery. That document has been incrementally updated since then, but plaintiffs argue that the updates havent taken into account changing ocean conditions, including the arrival and departure of the blob a marine heat wave that struck the North Pacific last decade. They contend that the National Environmental Policy Act requires a new reassessment. A full reassessment could result in new rules for the trawl fishery, and industry groups have intervened in the lawsuit on the side of the federal government, which says that a reassessment isnt needed because the process of setting annual harvest limits includes a regular look at the health of the fishery. NMFS has concluded, based on voluminous data informed by the most up-to-date science, that the new circumstances described by Plaintiffs are not significant in the context of the impact of the harvest specifications decisions on the environment, attorneys for the agency wrote in a court filing. At the end of Thursdays hearing, Gleason took the case under advisement and said she will issue a written order at a future date. If she rules in the plaintiffs favor, an additional hearing may be scheduled to determine what steps the National Marine Fisheries Service needs to take to fix the problem. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE LAS VEGAS (KLAS) A state trooper stopped and released the Las Vegas man suspected of working as a hit man and killing four people hours after what detectives believe was his last murder, according to documents and videos the 8 News Now Investigators obtained. Prosecutors filed three new open murder charges against Michael Coleman, 40, last week, the 8 News Now Investigators first reported. Officers arrested Coleman in May 2023 for what detectives said was his fourth and final murder in the series. Carl Chester, Jr., 41, who himself was murdered in May, ordered Coleman to commit the murders in retaliation for not receiving his cut of PPP fraud money, police said. The Paycheck Protection Program was intended to help companies pay and retain employees during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. From May 2021 until February 2023, Coleman allegedly killed three men and one woman. He was also accused of injuring a bystander in one of the shootings. An Arizona state trooper stopped Michael Coleman on U.S. 93 between Kingman and Phoenix, documents said. (KLAS) On Feb. 27, 2023 the day of the final murder Coleman is accused of killing Kidada Stewart, 48, outside of a home near Fort Apache Road and Mountains Edge Way in the southwest valley. Video from a neighbor recorded a car matching the descriptions from the previous murders parked next to Stewarts home before her death. When Stewart came home, a person in the car rushed out and fired several shots toward her, killing her, the video showed. Later that day, an Arizona state trooper stopped Coleman driving a similar-looking car on U.S. 93 between Kingman and Phoenix, documents said. The reason why youre being stopped today is because: one, you have a headlight thats out, and two, the lights are supposed to be illuminating your license plate, they are also out, the trooper told Coleman in bodycam video the 8 News Now Investigators obtained. At that point in their investigation, Las Vegas detectives had not identified Coleman as a suspect, nor would the trooper have known that Coleman would eventually be wanted. The stop and the video from it would play a crucial role in police work to later link Coleman to the other crimes, documents said. Other surveillance video later tracked the car involved in Stewarts murder to Coleman, even though the license plate was missing during the homicide. During the Arizona traffic stop, the trooper asked Coleman if he had any firearms in the car. Days later, Metro police would stop the car again. Coleman was not driving but officers seized and searched it, finding a gun hidden in the engine compartment. The gun later matched cartridge casings from a previous murder in the series, police said. Police arrested Coleman for Stewarts murder on May 4, 2023. He initially refused to leave his home and surrender, prompting a barricade. A gun police said they found hidden in an engine compartment in a car linked to Michael Coleman. (KLAS) Chester and Coleman served time in federal custody on gang-related charges connected to the Rolling 60s Crips in West Las Vegas, documents said. Coleman shot a man in 2003 in North Las Vegas after the man disrespected him. In 2006, a federal judge sentenced Coleman to 12 years in prison. Coleman wrote a letter before sentencing, asking for a second chance and saying he wanted to apologize to the various communities of Las Vegas and the state of Nevada, the 8 News Now Investigators first reported. After his release from prison in the 2010s, Coleman violated the terms of his release and was ordered back to prison for six months. He was last released in 2017, records said. As a convicted felon, he is prohibited from owning a firearm. Coleman remained in custody at the Clark County Detention Center as of Thursday where a judge ordered him held without bail. A jury trial in the Stewart case was scheduled to begin in October. 8 News Now Investigator David Charns can be reached at dcharns@8newsnow.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 KLAS. At 2:45 a.m. Friday, Port Royals Mark Sutton heard a bang as winds from Tropical Storm Helene roared through the town of 16,000 residents. Sutton jumped and looked out the window in time to see a 60-foot-tall pine tree crash down on his 12-by-24-foot utility shed. It got clobbered, Sutton said of the structure, which is a total loss. But Sutton might get something sweet out of his sour run-in with a tropical storm whose herculean winds turned the Beaufort River and Battery Creek angry and toppled trees by the dozens. The big pine that crashed onto this property, it turns out, was filled with thousands of honey bees. And now, Mike Sutton, Marks twin brother, plans to contact a beekeeper to see if the bees and their honey can be saved. If they can get the queen, they can lure the rest to the box and relocate them and get the honey, Mark Sutton said. As of 1:30 p.m. Friday, thousands of bees continued to stick close to the toppled nest. I think I can see the honey comb in there, Sutton said. They are swarming all around it. I can see them out the window. It was too dark to see the swarm early Friday morning when the winds blew the tree down. I didnt know they were there until the next morning, Sutton said. Sutton has lived in the area all his life and through countless hurricanes and tropical storms. But Helene, a storm that was downgraded Friday to a tropical storm, rattled him. It was actually pretty scary, Sutton said. Sutton estimates the wind was gusting more than 65 mph at the time. The high winds also snapped a cherry tree in his backyard. It snapped off up high, like severe wind would do, he said. He suspects the pine tree that came down had a weak spot because of a cavity inside where the honey bees were living and therefore twisted like a noodle. Downed trees were reported across Port Royal and Beaufort because of high winds from the storm. The storm also damaged the waterfronts of both communities. A section of the boardwalk and Port Royal washed away. And several boats moored at the Beaufort marina ended up on the shore of the Beaufort River. Sutton, a senior construction manager and architect for Beaufort County, is moving into a new house at the 1703 Edinburgh Ave. He had brought the utility shed, where he planned to store his tools, with him as part of the move. It wasnt even in its final location before the tree squished it like a bug. I waited too long, he said. Although utility building was destroyed, a leather couch and chair inside it went undamaged. And the tree missed his house by about 20 feet. Storm John dumps nearly one meter of rain on southern Mexican state By Troy Merida ACAPULCO (Reuters) -Storm John started dissipating over Mexico's Pacific coast on Friday and was downgraded to tropical depression, but its remnants poured a deluge of almost 100 cm (39 inches) of rain on the southern state of Guerrero. Four days of steady rain dousing the home state of major beach resort Acapulco have almost tripled the downpour from last year's devastating Hurricane Otis, Mexican authorities said. Images on social networks showed homes, businesses, roads and vehicles were damaged as rising waters flooded areas in Guerrero and the neighboring state of Michoacan. The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned that "catastrophic flash flooding and mudslides will continue over portions of southern and south-western Mexico." The head of Mexico's national meteorological service, Alejandra Mendez, said John had soaked Guerrero with more than 95 cm (37 inches) of rain since Monday, while Otis, a Category 5 hurricane, had brought 35 cm (14 inches) of rain. Otis, which last year killed more than 50 and caused damages of about $15 billion, rapidly grew stronger as it neared Acapulco, while John moved much slower, oscillating between tropical storm and hurricane to saturate a wide swathe of coast. Acapulco resident Vianey Reyes spoke to Reuters as relatives and neighbors bailed water from their homes and garages. "We thought there would be some rain, but now we have already seen four or five days of intense downpours," she said. In the neighboring state of Michoacan, authorities said John caused rivers to overflow, bringing flooding and damage in several areas. On Friday afternoon, John was hovering 90 miles (145 km) west of the major cargo port of Lazaro Cardenas, north of Guerrero, while churning northwest at just 5 mph (8 kph), according to the Miami-based forecaster. The slow-moving storm struck Guerrero at hurricane strength twice in one week, after reforming off the coast in a phenomenon meteorologists have called a "zombie" storm. (Reporting by Troy Merida en Acapulco, Diego Ore and David Alire Garcia in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez in Mexico City; Editing by Aurora Ellis and Clarence Fernandez) Hurricane Helene weakened into a post-tropical cyclone on Friday after making landfall overnight in northwestern Florida as a Category 4 storm. The storm has been blamed for at least 44 deaths, including 19 people in South Carolina, as it plowed its way north through several southeastern states. Authorities continue to rescue people trapped by floodwaters and millions were without power across much of the southeastern U.S. Helene came ashore amid warnings from the National Hurricane Center that the enormous system could create a nightmare storm surge. Tropical Storm John made its second landfall along Mexicos Pacific coast Friday, while in its wake authorities in the resort city of Acapulco called for help from anyone with a boat to deal with the flooding. It has since dissipated over Mexico. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Isaac strengthened Friday into a hurricane in the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean and could cause dangerous waves in parts of Bermuda, forecasters said. Tropical Storm Joyce formed on Friday morning in the Atlantic Ocean and wasn't threatening land, forecasters said. The storm was expected to strengthen gradually through Sunday before weakening early next week. Follow APs coverage of tropical weather at https://apnews.com/hub/hurricanes. Here's the latest: Vice President Harris urges residents affected by Helene to heed local officials DOUGLAS, Ariz. Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday urged residents impacted by Hurricane Helene to pay heed to local authorities as the storm continues to wreak havoc on a significant swath of the southeast. The storm continues to be dangerous and deadly, and lives have been lost and the risk of flooding still remains high, Harris said at the start of a campaign speech in Douglas, Arizona. So, I continue to urge everyone to please continue to follow guidance from your local officials until we get past this moment. 1 dead in Virginia from a falling tree, governor says RICHMOND, Va. In southwestern Virginia, one person died after a tree fell and a building collapsed in Craig County, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said. The death toll from Hurricane Helene has reached at least 44 across five states: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. Dam near North Carolina-Tennessee border not experiencing catastrophic failure, officials say NASHVILLE, Tenn. Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said Friday that a catastrophic failure was not taking place at Walters Dam, also known as the Waterville Dam, which sits in North Carolina close to the Tennessee border. A local mayor had urged residents to evacuate due to the dam potentially breaking, but TEMA said in a statement that the dam has not failed after talking to Duke Energy, which owns the nearly 100-year-old dam. Mother and her two infant twins are among those dead in Georgia ATLANTA Among people who have died in Georgia are a 27-year-old mother and her two 1-month-old twins, who were killed when trees fell on their house in Thomson, just west of Augusta, said McDuffie County Coroner Paul Johnson. The coroner said an 89-year-old woman was killed when trees fell on her house elsewhere in the same county. EVs could catch fire if inundated with saltwater from Hurricane Helene, officials warn Electric vehicles can catch fire if they are inundated by saltwater, so owners who live in the path of a major storm like Hurricane Helene should take precautions. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been researching this problem since it was first seen after Hurricane Sandy struck the Northeast in 2012. But no one seems to have detailed statistics on just how often this happens. Two years ago, Hurricane Ian compromised the batteries of as may as 5,000 electric vehicles, and 36 of them caught fire. Several more electric vehicles caught fire in Florida last year after Hurricane Idalia. It happens often enough that Florida officials were worried about the possibility before Hurricane Helene arrived because they were expecting a potentially devastating storm surge up to 20 feet deep in the northwestern part of Florida. These fires do seem to be linked specifically to saltwater because salt can conduct electricity. Similar problems havent been reported after freshwater flooding in California that was driven by heavy rains early this year. Read more about electric vehicles catching fire from flooding Weather reporter interrupts live broadcast to help a woman stranded in her car ATLANTA A weather TV reporter in Atlanta interrupted his live report about Hurricane Helene on Friday to rescue a woman from a vehicle stranded by rising floodwaters. Standing in the rain with the submerged vehicle behind him, Fox reporter Bob Van Dillen described how the woman drove into a flooded area. In the footage, he said he called 911 and she can be heard screaming as he tries to assure her that help was on the way. Then, he told the camera, Its a situation. Well get back to you in a little bit. Im going to see if I can help this lady out a little bit more you guys. Read more about the reporters water rescue Death toll in South Carolina rises to 19 COLUMBIA, S.C. The death toll from Hurricane Helene in South Carolina is 19 people, with many of the deaths happening from falling trees as the storm moved through early Friday, authorities said. In Saluda County, two firefighters were killed when a tree fell on their truck while they were answering a call, the Highway Patrol said. Five people were killed in Spartanburg County, according to Coroner Rusty Clevenger who planned to release details about the deaths later. In Greenville County, four people were killed by falling trees, Senior Deputy Coroner Shelton England said. Four people were also killed in Aiken County by trees falling on homes, including a 78-year-old husband and his 74-year-old wife, Coroner Darryl Ables said. Two people died in Anderson County when trees fell on their houses, the Coroners Office said. And in Newberry County, a married couple died when their car slid on a wet highway and ran into a tree, Coroner Laura Kneece said. Helene is the deadliest tropical storm in South Carolina since Hurricane Hugo killed 35 people when it came ashore just north of Charleston in 1989. The deadliest recent hurricanes to hit the US Recent major hurricanes that made landfall in the U.S. have left hundreds dead and caused billions of dollars in damages. Since 2020, not including Helene, there have been seven major destructive hurricanes: Laura, Delta, Zeta, Ida, Ian, Idalia and Beryl. Hurricane Beryl was the first of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Exceptionally warm ocean temperatures caused it to strengthen into a Category 5 storm rapidly in early July. When hurricane Beryl hit Texas, it had dropped to a Category 1 storm. Beryl has been blamed for at least 36 deaths. The storm caused an estimated $28 billion to $32 billion in damages, according to AccuWeathers preliminary estimates. Read more about recent destructive hurricanes Rainfall from Helene breaks Atlanta's 48-hour record ATLANTA Atlanta received 11.12 inches (28.24 centimeters) of rain in 48 hours, breaking the citys all-time record since record keeping began in 1878, Georgias Office of the State Climatologist said on X. The previous record of 9.59 inches (24.36 cm) in 48 hours was set in 1886. Hurricane Helene leaves deeps scars where it made landfall PERRY, Fla. The windswept beauty of what residents claim is one of Floridas longest stretches of undeveloped coastline was left deeply scarred after Hurricane Helene crashed ashore in rural Taylor County along the states Big Bend. Its a part of the state where salt marshes and pine flatwoods stretch unspoiled into the horizon, a region that has largely avoided the crush of condo developments, strip malls and souvenir shops that has carved up so much of Floridas coastlines. Its a place where Susan Sauls Hartway and her four-year-old Chihuahua mix Lucy could afford to live within walking distance of the beach on her salary as a housekeeper. At least until her home was carried away by Helene. I knew it would be bad, but I had no idea it was going to be this bad, she said. This is unbelievable. Friday afternoon, Hartway and Lucy wandered around their street near Ezell Beach, searching for where the storm may have deposited her home. Its gone. I dont know where its at. I cant find it, she said. Born and raised in Taylor County, Hartway said there is nowhere in the world she would rather be, even after Helene. But shes watched as wealthier residents from out of state have bought up second homes here. She wonders how many of them will sell out and what will happen to the locals who have nowhere else to go. Theres so many people down here, they dont have any place to go now. This was all they had, Hartway said. Some people, theyll just make do down here. Rough it. Insurers could pay $5B to cover losses from Helene ATLANTA Insurance data provider A.M. Best on Friday estimated that insurers will pay $5 billion or more to cover losses from Hurricane Helene. Thats not the total amount of loss, some of which is uninsured and some of which may be repaid with federal aid. Instead, it's the amount that insurance companies are on the hook for. A.M. Best said insurers paid $2.5 billion to $4 billion in losses for Hurricane Idalia last year, and it expects losses from Helene to be more severe given its broader wind field and a path that hit more urban areas inland. Curfew issued in western North Carolina community hit hard by Helene ASHEVILLE, N.C. Officials in a western North Carolina town have issued a curfew due to safety risks from flooded streets and downed power lines from what remains of Hurricane Helene. Its very dangerous out there, Asheville Police Chief Mike Lamb said. If you dont have to be out, dont go out. Lamb said the curfew would occur over a 12-hour period starting at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. No fatalities have been reported, although officials said any death count wont be released until family notifications have been made. Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder said hundreds of residents were forced to seek safety at shelters. The countys 911 center received more than 3,300 calls over an eight-hour period Friday, and more than 130 swift-water rescues have been conducted, said county Emergency Services Assistant Director Ryan Cole. He said it took crews more than four hours to reach several homes that were hit by a mudslide. This is something that were going to be dealing with for many days and weeks to come, Cole said. So please be patient. Former Tropical Storm John dissipates over Mexico MEXICO Former Tropical Storm John has dissipated over Mexico, but its remnants will continue to produce rain over the Mexican states of Guerrero and Michoacan. The storm made landfall twice in Mexico, first as a hurricane Monday and a second time as a tropical storm Friday. Helene downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone MIAMI The U.S. National Hurricane Center has downgraded Helene from a tropical depression to a post-tropical cyclone. Helene, a Category 4 hurricane when it made landfall in Florida late Thursday night, was 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Louisville, Kentucky, at about 5 p.m. EDT. It was moving northwest at 17 mph (28 kph), according to the hurricane center. The storm was expected to continue producing heavy rain in the area and cause severe flash-flooding as a result. Isolated tornadoes Friday evening were possible in Virginia and North Carolina, the hurricane center said. Thousands ordered to evacuate after catastrophic failure of a dam in eastern Tennessee NASHVILLE, Tenn. In eastern Tennessee, a catastrophic failure of Waterville Dam spurred Cocke County Mayor Rob Mathis to hand down evacuation orders for all of downtown Newport, according to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. Newport is a city of about 7,000 people roughly 60 miles (97 kilometers) southwest of where dozens of people were being rescued from the roof of a hospital. Over 1 million customers are still without power in South Carolina COLUMBIA, S.C. More than 1 million customers remained without power in South Carolina several hours after the remnants of Hurricane Helene left the state and the sun started to come out. Utility officials warned power could be out for many for a long time. Crews were still assessing the damage and in some cases needed to cut their way through debris just to determine what was left standing. You will be frustrated. Tomorrow its going to be 86 degrees and clear. Youre going to say Why cant I watch the football game? Why cant my life be back to normal? Lifes not going to be back to normal until probably the middle of next week, Dominion Energy South Carolina President Keller Kissam said Friday. The 1.2 million South Carolina customers without power represent more than 40% of homes and businesses in the state. Gov. Henry McMaster said the storm moved east of where it was forecast and gave the state a bigger blow than expected. We urge everybody to be patient and keep your neighbors in your prayers, McMaster said. 4 people critically injured after a tornado touches down in North Carolina ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. Four people were critically injured and numerous others sustained minor injuries after a tornado touched down in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, officials said. Three buildings received significant damage, including two restaurants and an auto service center, while a fourth building, a cafeteria, received minor roof damage, Nash County Communications Director Jonathan Edwards said Friday. The damage appeared to be concentrated on Wesleyan Boulevard and Tiffany Boulevard. An 18-wheel tractor-trailer truck also flipped over in that area, but the driver was not hurt, Edwards said. Death toll in Georgia rises to 15 ATLANTA At least 15 people have died in Georgia from causes related to Hurricane Helene, according to Garrison Douglas, a spokesperson for Gov. Brian Kemp. The word that just keeps coming to my mind is just devastated PERRY, Fla. Taylor County, Florida has had a rough couple of years. Since August of 2023, the rural community along Floridas Big Bend has taken direct hits from three hurricanes and seen the closure of its local paper mill, which for decades had been one of the economic lifelines for a county where one in six residents lives below the poverty line. The word that just keeps coming to my mind is just devastated, said Aaron Portwood, publisher of Perry Newspapers, which is based in the county seat of Perry. You get hit with one thing. And you think, This is bad. And you recover from that. And then another one hits, and youre like, ok that stings. But after about four or five, it starts to feel pretty overwhelming. Portwoods house in Dekle Beach on the countys long undeveloped coastline was gutted by Hurricane Helene, though the structure still stands. Beyond his own home, Portwood said hes worried about the future of this county that is steadily having its tax base wiped off the map. 2 firefighters killed in South Carolina were struck by a tree COLUMBIA, S.C. Two firefighters killed during Hurricane Helene in South Carolina were struck by a tree, authorities said. The tree hit their firetruck around 6:30 a.m. Friday about 4 miles (6 kilometers) west of Batesburg-Leesville, South Carolina Highway Patrol Cpl. David Jones said. The Saluda County Coroners Office has not released the names of the firefighters. At least 17 people have been killed in South Carolina as Hurricane Helene tore through the western part of the state. A mudslide and floodwaters wash out interstate at the North Carolina-Tennessee state line A mudslide and record floodwaters from the remnants of Hurricane Helene washed out a section of an interstate highway at the North Carolina-Tennessee state line, transportation officials said. Photos and video posted on social media showed at least one lane of I-40 had collapsed above the swollen Pigeon River. The Tennessee Department of Transportation said the interstate was closed in both directions. The National Weather Service said a flash flood warning continued for the Pigeon River, which crested Friday morning about 3 feet (1 meter) above its previous record level set by the remnants of Hurricane Ivan in September 2004. Georgia Power to make an emergency water release from a dam near Lake Rabun ATLANTA Georgia Power Co. is making an emergency release of water from a northeast Georgia dam following heavy rains from Hurricane Helene. Georgia Emergency Management Director Chris Stallings said no residents who live near Lake Rabun in the states mountainous northeast corner were in danger of being flooded. But he said the water release would likely flood roads and bridges that some residents use to access their homes. If they dont leave now, theyre going to be stuck there for at least a day or multiple hours, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp told reporters at a morning news briefing. The dam is the third in a series owned by Georgia Power along the Tallulah River, which cuts a deep gorge through part of the area. Weve got to get water out so it doesnt cause dam failure, Stallings said. He was unable to say how long the water release would last, saying that would be up to technical experts. Georgia Power didnt immediately respond to phone calls, emails and texts seeking information. Dozens rescued by helicopter from a flooded Tennessee hospital inundated by Helene NASHVILLE Dozens of people were being rescued by helicopter from a flooded Tennessee hospital inundated by Helene. Some 54 people were moved to the roof of the Unicoi County Hospital while water rapidly flooded the facility, according to Ballad Health. The company said on social media that county officials had ordered an evacuation of the hospital Friday morning due to rising water in the Nolichucky River, including 11 patients. Boats ordered up by the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency were unable to safely evacuate the hospital, which was taking on flood water, the company said. As of midday, Ballad reported that an additional seven people remained in rescue boats as the hospital was engulfed by extremely dangerous and rapidly moving water. Tornado damages businesses in North Carolina ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. A tornado was confirmed Friday in northern Rocky Mount, North Carolina, along U.S. Route 301, city communications specialist Robin Cox said. There was damage to businesses in the area, but the city did not yet confirm if there were any injuries. Cox said there were emergency workers on the scene as of 2:30 p.m. DeSantis: We are going to bounce back ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday that even communities hardest hit by Hurricane Helene would get back on their feet, though it wont happen overnight. The governor said its extremely difficult when someone loses a home with photos and family keepsakes that dont have a dollar value. But he vowed, We are going to bounce back. Its tough and we understand that. We also understand that this is a resilient state, DeSantis said at a news conference in storm-damaged St. Pete Beach, not far from where he grew up in Dunedin, Florida. Were going to get people back on their feet, DeSantis said. Its not easy to go through this. Its not going to be easy in the immediate future, but theres going to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Tropical Storm John hits Mexicos Pacific coast a 2nd time MEXICO CITY Tropical Storm John made its second landfall along Mexicos Pacific coast Friday, while in its wake authorities in the resort city of Acapulco called for help from anyone with a boat to deal with the flooding. John came ashore near Tizupan in Michoacan state with sustained winds of 45 mph (75 kmh) after making its initial landfall farther east on the coast on Monday as a Category 3 hurricane. It blew tin roofs off houses, triggered mudslides and toppled scores of trees. After weakening inland, it reemerged over the ocean, reforming as a tropical storm Wednesday and eventually regaining hurricane strength. At least eight people have died as a result of the storm. At least 17 people have died in South Carolina COLUMBIA, S.C. At least 17 people have died after Hurricane Helene moved across South Carolina overnight Friday. The dead included two firefighters responding to calls in Saluda County, Gov. Henry McMaster said at a Friday news conference. Two additional deaths were reported in Newberry County, according to McMaster, who didnt provide details. Coroners reported 13 other deaths four in Greenville County, four in Aiken County, three in Spartanburg County and two in Anderson County. Were asking keep all of those families and friends in your prayers, McMaster said. The death toll from Hurricane Helene has reached at least 30 across four states The death toll from Hurricane Helene has reached at least 30 across four states. According to an Associated Press tally Friday, the deaths occurred in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Dangerous rescue situation unfolding at a northeast Tennessee hospital NASHVILLE A dangerous rescue situation was unfolding in northeast Tennessee on Friday as 54 people were moved to the roof of the Unicoi County Hospital while water rapidly flooded the facility, according to Ballad Health. The company said on social media that county officials ordered an evacuation of the hospital Friday morning due to rising water in the Nolichucky River, including 11 patients. Boats ordered up by the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency were unable to safely evacuate the hospital, which was taking on flood water, the company said. As of midday, Ballad reported that 54 people were relocated to the roof and seven remained in rescue boats as the hospital was engulfed by extremely dangerous and rapidly moving water. The situation at the hospital is very dangerous and TEMA and National Guard resources are engaged in what can only be described as a dangerous rescue operation, Ballad wrote, asking for prayers. Some bridge lanes connecting Florida barrier island communities reopen ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. Some bridge lanes connecting barrier island communities on Floridas Gulf Coast started reopening on Friday. The northbound lanes of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge connecting the St. Petersburg area to the Bradenton area were opened Friday afternoon, though southbound lanes remained closed for cleaning up debris and assessing damage, according to the Florida Department of Transportation. Southbound lanes of the Howard Frankland Bridge connecting the Tampa area with the St. Petersburg area also were opened to traffic, while northbound lanes were still being inspected and cleared of debris. The Courtney Campbell Causeway connecting Hillsborough and Pinellas counties remained closed because of debris. The bridge took on heavy debris, washout, and roadway damage, the agency said in a statement. Bridge inspectors and maintenance clean-up crews are still on-site doing their best to clear the roadway and open it back up to motorists. Helene downgraded to a tropical depression MIAMI Tropical Storm Helene was downgraded to a tropical depression by forecasters on Friday afternoon. The storm was located about 125 miles (201 km) southeast of Louisville, Kentucky, and was moving toward the north-northwest at about 28 mph (44 kph). The center said the storm was forecast to stall over the Tennessee Valley Friday night and through the weekend. Maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 35 mph (55 km/h) with higher gusts. Forecasters said Helene was expected to become extratropical later in the day. North Carolina dam overtopped is not expected to fail, officials say RALEIGH, N.C. People living on about 30 streets in a western North Carolina county were ordered Friday to evacuate as water from Tropical Storm Helene overtopped the entire length of a dam in a town best known for the 1980s movie Dirty Dancing. There is no indication, however, that the Lake Lure Dam is about to fail, state Department of Environmental Quality spokesperson Kat Russell said Friday. Russell didnt know how many people lived on the 29 streets within what she called the dam inundation area within Rutherford County, where Lake Lure and the town of the same name are located about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Asheville. The lake flows into the Broad River and was created nearly 100 years ago. The dam is listed as 480 feet (146 meters) long and about 120 feet (36.6 meters) high. Russell said there is some erosion on one side of the dam caused by the overtopping. Town officials are monitoring it, she said. Downstream communities have been made aware of the overtopping but have been told they would have several hours to alert residents to their own evacuations if needed, Russell said. The North Carolina and South Carolina state agencies also have received emergency action plans if conditions worsen. Waters in the iconic lake used to film scenes for the movie Dirty Dancing, transforming Lake Lure into upstate New Yorks Catskill Mountains. Helene severely damaged Georgias utility infrastructure, electrical group says ATLANTA An electrical utility group is warning of catastrophic damage to Georgias utility infrastructure by Hurricane Helene. The Georgia Electric Membership Corp., which represents the states electric cooperatives, says that the hurricane damaged more than 100 high-voltage transmission lines and that more than 60 substations were out of service Friday morning. Without transmission lines and substations, the cooperatives cant feed electricity to homes and businesses. The group warned Friday that there will be extensive delays in total restoration and told customers, especially those who rely on electric power for medical needs, to make temporary arrangements. Of the more than 1 million Georgia electricity customers without power on Friday afternoon, more than 400,000 were customers of cooperatives. Restoration for customers of those utilities in rural areas can take much longer because customers are far apart. Rain from Helene has helped reduce autumn forest fire risks in West Virginia, governor says CHARLESTON, W.Va. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice was thankful Friday that several days of rain, including Fridays arrival of the remnants from Hurricane Helene, helped reduce the risk of autumn forest fires during an exceptional drought in much of the state. Im tickled to death that we finally have gotten this amount of rainfall, Justice said during his weekly news briefing. This will surely, surely assist us in many, many ways in regard to this terrible potential that we had for forest fires. Hurricane Ian remembrance event canceled in Fort Meyers Beach West Palm Beach, Fla. The town of Fort Myers Beach has canceled its Hurricane Ian Remembrance and Resiliency Ceremony due to cleanup efforts from Hurricane Helene. In a post on the social platform X, the town said it had to cancel the ceremony and did not say if it would be rescheduled. The town planned the ceremony for Saturday morning to mark when Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida. A residential street near the Chattahoochee River is completely flooded ATLANTA A residential street near the Chattahoochee River in Atlanta and the parking lot of a shopping center across the street is completely flooded. Flooding in the area is expected to get worse. John Swalm, 17, lives part-time with his dad whose house is on the flooded street. His dad is not in the state and his house is on stilts, but Swalm anticipates devastating damage to the houses yard and wooden patio. He also believes his dads cars are submerged and his kayaks have floated away. Rainfall in parts of the Carolinas and Tennessee reached at least half a foot Preliminary data shows rainfall in parts of northwest South Carolina, southwest North Carolina and southeast Tennessee reached at least half a foot between Tuesday and Friday, according to the National Weather Service office for Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina. Some parts of the region saw more than a foot of rain. Widespread airport delays and cancellations persist ATLANTA Even as Helenes wind and rain move northward, air travel snarls remain at many airports in the southeast. The airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, a major hub for American Airlines, saw nearly 400 inbound and outbound flights canceled through 1 p.m. Thursday, with another 500 inbound and outbound flights delayed, according to flight tracking software FlightAware. Thats nearly half of all flights to the airport. The larger Atlanta Airport saw nearly 200 inbound and outbound flights canceled, while more than 400 were delayed. Thats nearly a quarter of all the flights at that airport. Problems also lingered at airports in Florida including in Tampa, Tallahassee and Jacksonville, while smaller airports in Asheville, North Carolina and Augusta, Georgia saw a majority of flights canceled. Water rescues underway in Morristown, Tennessee NASHVILLE - The National Weather Service in Morristown, Tennessee, said late Friday morning that several water rescues and evacuations were happening near the mountains in the northeastern part of the state, with thousands of trees down in the area. Local officials had ordered people in locations such as Embreeville and Roan Mountain to evacuate. 5 people have died in Pinellas County after disregarding evacuation warnings CLEARWATER, Fla. Five people have died in Pinellas County in Florida after Helene blew threw the area overnight, county officials said Friday. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said the deaths all occurred in neighborhoods where residents were told by authorities to evacuate, but many chose to stay and then found themselves trapped by 8 feet of storm surge an unprecedented event in the county. Gualtieri said survivors told them they didnt believe the warnings after other residents told them the surge wouldnt be that bad. He said people wound up hiding in their attics to get away from the water. We made our case, we told people what they needed to do and they chose otherwise, Gualtieri said. He added that his deputies tried overnight to reach those who had been trapped, but it just wasnt safe. I was out there personally. We tried to launch boats, we tried to use high-water vehicles and we just met with too many obstacles, Gualtieri said. He said the death toll could rise as emergency crews go door-to-door in the flooded areas to see if anyone remains. Multiple people are trapped in 115 heavily damaged buildings in Valdosta ATLANTA Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp gave staggering numbers to describe the early damage from Helene Friday morning: 1 million meters without power, 1,300 traffic signals out of commission, 1,100 people in shelters across the state, 152 road closures and 2 interstate closures. In one south central city, Valdosta, 115 buildings were heavily damaged with multiple people trapped inside. One shelter temporarily housing Georgians lost its roof. A tree fell on one hospitals generator, cutting the facilitys power. App State cancels football game against Liberty in North Carolina due to Helene BOONE, N.C. Appalachian States home football game against Liberty in Boone, North Carolina, scheduled for Saturday has been canceled due to severe weather in the area from Tropical Storm Helene, the school announced Friday. Heavy rains in the North Carolina mountains brought flooding to Boone and the town was placed under a state of emergency Thursday. The nonconference game was scheduled for a 3:30 p.m. EDT kickoff and will not be rescheduled, the school said. App State also canceled a home field hockey game against Bellarmine that was slated for Friday. Tropical Storm John is causing severe flooding along Mexicos Pacific coast MEXICO CITY Tropical Storm John has caused a total of eight deaths in southern Mexico, and five days of heavy rains have generated severe flooding and mudslides in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco. John, in its second incarnation, was lingering off the Pacific coast just short of a second landfall early Friday. It hit further east on the coast Monday as a Category 3 hurricane. The flooding is so bad in Acapulco which still hasnt recovered from Hurricane Otis last October that the head of the municipal civil defense agency said authorities were starting to use boats inside the city to rescue people from low-lying neighborhoods. Residents posted videos and photos of cars floating away in floodwaters, and people rescued from raging waters using lifelines. We are getting boats to start carrying out more effective evacuations, Efren Valdez, civil protection coordinator for Acapulco, told the Milenio Television station. The situation is very complicated. Several Ballad Health facilities closed across multiple states NASHVILLE In northeast Tennessee, Unicoi County Hospital was closed Friday due to the weather and its 11 patients were being moved to other hospitals, according to parent company Ballad Health. The company urged people who need care to go to the nearest hospital or call 911. Meanwhile, every Ballad Health facility postponed all elective surgeries, including those in southwest Virginia, northwest North Carolina and southeast Kentucky. Some of its clinics and urgent care offices were also closed. Atlanta firefighters rescue a half-dozen people in Hanover West ATLANTA Atlanta Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Ronald Slatton said rescue efforts Friday morning helped about half a dozen people who didnt feel safe in their homes in Hanover West, a neighborhood in north Atlanta. A creek behind some of the residences had risen to about four or five feet, he said. Were just here standing by if they need us, he said of his expectations for the rest of the day. Shattered storefronts and mangled awnings dot downtown Valdosta VALDOSTA, Ga. In downtown Valdosta, Georgia, Hurricane Helene ripped the sheet metal roof from a large brick building that houses a furniture and antiques store and blew out the back wall. Bricks, plywood and twisted metal covered the grass outside, exposing old lamps, cabinets and other knickknacks in the stores inventory. Many shops and businesses along the tree limb-covered sidewalks of the downtown area appeared unscathed. But a few had shattered storefront windows and mangled awnings. Electricity was out across the city and traffic moved slowly on many roads, with stoplights blacked out and trees blocking several streets. My neighbors across the street got the full brunt of all of it ATLANTA Stacy Quiros noticed early indications of flooding at her home in Hanover West, a neighborhood in north Atlanta, when she woke up Friday morning. She and her husband went to their basement to move important items to higher ground before it took on four inches of water. Across the street, on lower ground, she pointed out underwater mailboxes and cars with just their roofs peeking out to an Associated Press journalist. She watched as her neighbors with flooded first floors climbed into rescue boats that took them to safety. My neighbors across the street got the full brunt of all of it, she said. Connecticut National Guard unit deploys to North Carolina HARTFORD The Connecticut Army National Guards 1-169th Aviation Regiment is providing one CH-47 Chinook helicopter and a five-soldier flight crew for approximately one week to assist North Carolina as Helene moves through the area. The unit mobilized and deployed to North Carolina on Friday morning. At least 11 people have died in Georgia ATLANTA A spokesperson for Gov. Brian Kemp says 11 people have died so far in Georgia from causes related to Hurricane Helene. Spokesperson Garrison Douglas could not immediately provide a breakdown of where and how all the deaths occurred. Florida officials warn residents to take safety precautions as they clean up TALLAHASSEE, Fla. Just because Hurricane Helene has passed Florida doesnt mean that dangers are over, the states top emergency management official said Friday. Hazards abound from flooded roadways, downed power lines and debris blocking roads, said Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. Guthrie urged Floridians to take safety precautions as they clean up. Hold off cleaning up debris where power lines are down, wear goggles when operating a chainsaw and put on a hard hat if available when cleaning up in a damaged building, Guthrie said. Just make sure you are being safe if youre out there, Guthrie said. These are all preventable deaths and injuries. We can 100% prevent that. The priority now is saving lives RALEIGH, N.C. North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper said in a briefing Friday morning that there had been two storm-related deaths in the state and he expected more to come. Close to 300 roads were closed and over 100 swift-water rescues had occurred so far, Cooper said. He added that the storm, particularly in western North Carolina, is causing life-threatening flash flooding, numerous landslides and power outages from downed trees. The priority now is saving lives, Cooper said, telling people to stay off the roads unless they were seeking higher ground. With the rain that they already had been experiencing before Helenes arrival, this is one of the worst storms in modern history for parts of western North Carolina, Cooper said. Portions of Interstates 40 and 26 were closed due to flooding, officials said. Emergency workers in Florida are focused on search and rescue efforts TALLAHASSEE, Fla. Around 1,500 emergency workers are focusing their efforts during the first 24 hours after Hurricane Helenes landfall on search and rescue efforts, Floridas top emergency management official said Friday. In the two days following, their efforts will concentrate on securing and stabilizing affected communities, said Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. As those sorts of rescue missions happen today, and continue, please do not go out and visit the impacted areas, Guthrie said Friday morning at a news conference in Tallahassee. I beg of you, do not get in their way. Rows of homes gone, a gaping hole in the post office and a supermarket wall missing CEDAR KEY, Fla. After spending the night riding out the storm and checking in on his neighbors, Michael Presley Bobbitt, 48, woke to find his town of Cedar Key littered with debris with rows of houses gone, a gaping hole clear through his post office and the wall to his local mom-and-pop supermarket missing. Were feeling pretty gut-punched here in Cedar Key, he said. When we were fighting this in the night, however bad we thought it would be, its much worse in the light of day. Despite orders to evacuate, Bobbitt, who has lived in Cedar Key for five years, said he stayed behind to help out those who could not leave with his rescue boat and document the storm. All of those people that left are desperate to hear about their homes, he said. Im delivering the most devastating news that they have ever got in their lives. Tropical Storm Joyce forms in the Atlantic MIAMI Tropical Storm Joyce formed Friday in the Atlantic Ocean and isnt threatening land, forecasters said. The storm is located about 1,325 miles (2,130 kilometers) east of the northern Leeward Islands and has maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph). It was moving northwest at about 13 mph (20 kph). There were no coastal watches or warnings in effect, the Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The storm was expected to strengthen gradually through Sunday before weakening early next week. More than 50 swift-water rescues conducted in western North Carolina county ASHEVILLE, N.C. In North Carolina, more than 50 swift-water rescues were conducted from floodwaters in Buncombe County. This is the most significant natural disaster that any one of us has ever seen in western North Carolina, said Ryan Cole, the countys assistant emergency services director. Cole said during a briefing that road washouts and closures prevented authorities from responding to some emergency calls. In Asheville, crews were trying to get to a mudslide involving four homes and an undetermined number of people were unaccounted for, he said. Historic building collapses in downtown Savannah ATLANTA A historic building partially collapsed in downtown Savannah as Helene moved through the city. The Savannah Fire Department says the third story of the three-story brick building collapsed into the second floor after 2 a.m. Friday morning. The top two floors hold apartments, while the bottom floor is home to the Ordinary Pub on Broughton Street, one of the main commercial streets in the citys historic downtown. No injuries were reported, but fire officials declared the building unsafe to enter. A falling tree kills a 2nd person in South Carolina ANDERSON, S.C. Authorities are reporting a second death in South Carolina from Helene. A second person was killed Friday morning by a tree falling on a home in Anderson County, the Coroners Office said in a statement. I was so sad, its my first apartment ATLANTA Jalen Cruz woke up around 1 a.m. thankfully at the right time, he said. Water was just starting to trickle into the kitchen of his Atlanta apartment. What started as a little puddle swelled to ankle-high flooding at his ankles within 30 minutes, so he gathered some of his valuables to bring to his neighbors upstairs. At its peak, the water rose to his calves, the 25-year-old painter said, meaning he has furniture thats damaged, unfinished art submerged underwater and paint bubbling formed on his walls. It couldve been a lot worse, he said. Still, I was so sad, its my first apartment. Physical stuff can be replaced but just to see the state of my first home, submerged in water, he said, looking back as brown water rushed downstream. This is my baby. Iconic lake from Dirty Dancing overtops the North Carolina dam holding it back RUTHERFORDTON, N.C. Waters in the iconic lake used to film scenes from the movie Dirty Dancing are overtopping the dam holding them back in North Carolina. Emergency officials in Rutherford County have started evacuating people downstream from Lake Lure and are sounding emergency sirens. Water has been periodically released from the dam this week, but there has been too much rain to keep up, officials said. Authorities did not indicate if the dam itself was in danger. Lake Lure was transformed into upstate New Yorks Catskill Mountains for several of the scenes in the 1987 film, including the dance scene where actor Patrick Swayze lifts Jennifer Grey out of the water. Florida airports will reopen as state inspectors work to clear roadways TALLAHASSEE, Fla. Airports in Florida that closed due to Hurricane Helene will be reopened on Friday, and inspectors were out examining bridges and causeways along the Gulf Coast to get them back open to traffic quickly, the states transportation secretary said. Airports in Tampa, St. Pete, Lakeland and Tallahassee planned to reopen for flights, and 2,000 miles of roadway have been cleared of debris so far, Jared Perdue, secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation, said Friday morning at a Tallahassee news conference. Some of the causeways were underwater, so we have to inspect them and make sure they are safe to pass, Perdue said. We had a lot of storm surge up and down the west coast. We had a lot of roads underwater. A late-night evacuation in Atlanta with a newborn ATLANTA A neighbor knocking woke Marcus Benson on Thursday night after the rain outside and exhaustion from a newborn baby had lulled him to sleep. The water level was inching closer to the front door of their apartment, about eight steps up from ground level and high enough that he decided it was time to evacuate. Benson said it took focus to get himself, his wife and his three-month-old baby through a flooded parking lot to get to the other side of their Atlanta apartment complex. You have your son in your arms above water trying to keep him up and you just push and try to get to safety, Benson said. Benson doesnt know the status of his familys home but is glad they are safe. Now they just have to let Mother Nature take its course, the Atlanta native said, adding that his hometowns really changed as far as weathers concerned. Georgia Power expects outages to rise ATLANTA Kim Greene, the CEO of Georgia Power Co. told reporters Friday she feared outages would continue to rise for the 2.6 million customers of Georgias only private electrical utility. All of that rain is leading to very saturated ground, and trees, unfortunately, will continue to fall, Greene told reporters during a news conference in Atlanta. So we do expect the number of outages to continue to rise. I assure you that we want to get your power back on just as safely and as quickly as possible. A Florida congregation must rebuild again after Helene PERRY, Fla. The congregation at Potters House Ministries church in Perry, Florida, was just weeks away from moving back into their newly renovated sanctuary after rebuilding in the wake of last years Hurricane Idalia. Then Hurricane Helene peeled back the brand-new roof, scattering sheets of aluminum across the church grounds. Its really heartbreaking, said parishioner Stephen Tucker, moved to tears as he surveyed the damage the morning after Helene made landfall. I know its in Gods will for this to happen. And its by the grace of God that were still here. Tucker said its been one blow after another for the community hes lived in all of his 51 years a one, two, three punch from Idalia last August, then Debby a year later and now Helene, all making landfall within about 30 miles (48 kilometers) of each other in one county in this rural stretch of Floridas Big Bend. Its like it never stops, he said. Why Taylor County? Multiple hospitals without power in south Georgia ATLANTA Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said multiple hospitals in south Georgia are without power after Helene knocked out both their primary power and their generators. Kemp said trees had fallen densely in the eastern part of the state. We know we still have people trapped in homes that were trying to cut our way into right now, Kemp told Fox News. We have a lot of resources that we have on the ground already, Kemp added. Were calling up additional National Guard, and were going to throw everything we got at it. Kemp said wind damage is less severe in metro Atlanta. The storm really stayed straight or either moved to the east a little bit, which spared some of our state from being on the dirty side of the storm. So if theres any blessing in disguise, thats probably it. Were blessed it's still standing' VALDOSTA, Ga. The hurricanes winds stripped away the siding from the steeple in front of Union Cathedral in Valdosta, Georgia, exposing its metal frame and littering the parking lot with shredded foam and plaster. The storm also smashed plate glass windows by the front doors. Inside the entryway, the floor was strewn with thick glass shards, religious booklets and offering envelopes. Pastor Wade McCrae, who preaches to 250 congregants in person most Sundays with hundreds more watching online, said the sanctuary was undamaged. Deacons were running errands to bring plywood and tools to cover the broken window. McCrae hoped to be able to hold services this Sunday. Were blessed its still standing, he said. 20 people in Atlanta rescued overnight by firefighters ATLANTA Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens tells reporters that firefighters rescued about 20 people overnight from cars or apartments imperiled by swiftly rising floodwaters. Residents in Floridas Big Bend region wake up to widespread power outages PERRY, Fla. Residents of Floridas Big Bend region woke up to widespread power outages Friday morning after Hurricane Helene made landfall overnight near the mouth of the Aucilla River. Helene slammed ashore in the largely rural stretch of Florida as a Category 4 hurricane, becoming the third hurricane to batter that swath of the state in a little over a year. As the sun rose over U.S. Highway 27 outside of Perry, cars dodged and weaved among downed pine trees that blocked portions of the road, some ensnarled in power lines. Emergency workers were already on hand clearing debris before 8 am. The air smelled of pine needles and fresh wood from the staggering trees shattered by the storm, some snapped in half like toothpicks. Heres the latest on Hurricane Helene Authorities rescued people trapped by floodwaters and more than 3 million customers were in the dark across much of the southeastern U.S. as Hurricane Helene weakened to a tropical storm over Georgia early Friday after making landfall overnight in northwestern Florida as a Category 4 storm. Helene came ashore amid warnings from the National Hurricane Center that the enormous system could create a nightmare storm surge. There were at least four storm-related deaths. Video on social media sites showed sheets of rain coming down in Perry, Florida, near where Helene made landfall, and siding being torn off buildings. One local news station showed a home that had flipped over. The community and much of surrounding Taylor County were without power. Catch up on what happened overnight with Hurricane Helene Britain's Maggie Smith, the double Oscar-winner who shone on stage and screen for more than seven decades, has died in hospital in London, her sons announced Friday, prompting a flood of tributes. "It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith," Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens said in a statement. "She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning." Over the course of her career, Smith won a Tony, two Oscars, three Golden Globes and five Baftas. And she achieved late-career international fame for her depiction of the acerbic Dowager Countess of Grantham Violet Crawley in the hit television series "Downton Abbey". Britain's King Charles III called her "a national treasure" who was admired around the world. Paying tribute to her "warmth and wit that shone through both on and off the stage", he posted a photograph of him sharing a joke with the actor. Prime Minister Keir Starmer also called her a "true national treasure" while the Bafta TV and film academy saluted "a legend of British stage and screen". Born in 1934 in Oxford in central England, the daughter of an Oxford professor of pathology, Smith made her stage debut in 1952 with the Oxford University Dramatic Society. She won a best actress Oscar for the 1969 drama "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" based on Muriel Spark's novel, and best supporting actress for her role in the 1978 Neil Simon comedy "California Suite". "An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end," her sons, both actors, said. "She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother." - 'One-of-a-kind' - Famed for her scene-stealing charisma, Smith's long and successful career got started with a string of successes in London's West End and on Broadway in the 1950s. She famously appeared opposite Laurence Olivier in an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Othello" in 1959. This led to her joining Olivier's celebrated 1960s National Theatre company where she earned critical acclaim alongside her husband, the actor Robert Stephens. Smith's marriage to heavy-drinking Stephens, with whom she had her two sons, collapsed in 1973 and they divorced two years later. She remarried shortly after to the screenwriter Beverley Cross, who died in 1998. Despite her serious acting reputation, Smith also appeared in lighter Hollywood hits such as 1992's "Sister Act" and the 1993 sequel "Sister Act 2". Whoopi Goldberg, who starred in both films, wrote on Instagram: "Maggie Smith was a great woman and a brilliant actress. "I still can't believe I was lucky enough to work with the 'one-of-a-kind'," she added. UK actor Kristin Scott Thomas, who appeared alongside Smith in "My Old Lady" said her co-star "saw through the nonsense and razzmatazz" of acting. "She had a sense of humour and wit that could reduce me to a blithering puddle of giggles. And she did not have patience with fools," she wrote on Instagram. - 'Thank you, Maggie' - In recent decades, some of her best-known films included "Gosford Park" (2001), "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" (2012) and "The Lady in the Van" (2015). From 2001, her role as Minerva McGonagall in the "Harry Potter" films introduced her to a younger generation. "Somehow I thought she'd live forever," Harry Potter author JK Rowling posted on X, formerly Twitter. "RIP Dame Maggie Smith." Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe also paid tribute. "I will always consider myself amazingly lucky to have been able to work with her, and to spend time around her on set," he said in a statement. "The word legend is overused but if it applies to anyone in our industry then it applies to her. Thank you Maggie." - 'Great genius' - It was "Downton Abbey", which ran from 2010, that made her an international star again, unable to go out without being recognised. "It's ridiculous," she told the British Film Institute in 2017. "I led a perfectly normal life until Downton Abbey. "I would go to theatres, I would go to galleries and things like that on my own. And now I can't," she said. Julian Fellowes, creator and writer of Downton Abbey, said Smith had a "marvellous instinctive grasp, she could make you cry your eyes out one minute and laugh like a drain the next without turning into someone different. "I realised I was working with a great genius," he added. Actor Hugh Bonneville, who played the son of the dowager duchess in the period drama, said: "Anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent. Smith was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1990 by Queen Elizabeth II. bur-jj/st Before finally meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, Donald Trump stood right next to the war-weary leader and boasted of his very good relationship with Ukraines worst enemy: Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Before their private meeting at Trump Tower in New York, Trump told reporters during a joint news conference that hes also friendly with the man standing next to him. We have a very good relationship, Trump said of Zelensky, and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin. Zelensky interrupted, saying, I hope we have more good relations. Trump briefly laughed and said, Oh I see, yeah. But you know it takes two to tango. The tension between the two was clear for all to see. Trump has threatened to withhold U.S. aid to Ukraine if hes re-elected. On Friday, with Zelensky by his side, he promised that if elected, hell work on a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. And I think if we win, were going to get it resolved very quickly, he said. Zelensky said he decided to meet with both candidates running for U.S. president, acknowledging, we dont know who will be the president after Election Day. The Ukrainian leader met with Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday. Donald Trump and Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky meet at Trump Tower in New York. Shannon Stapleton Trump also thanked Zelensky for being like a piece of steel during the former presidents first impeachment for withholding aid to Ukraine in order to pressure Zelensky to investigate then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden. He couldve grandstanded and played cute, but he didnt do that, Trump said. He said, President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong. He said it loud and clear, and the impeachment hoax died right there. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. Donald Trump on Thursday slammed the Justice Department as dirty players for charging Eric Adams with bribery and fraud, as the criminally convicted former president and the embattled New York City mayor suddenly find themselves on similar legal paths. During a press conference at Trump Tower in New York City, the Republican former president suggested Adams, a Democrat, was bound to be indicted after criticizing the Biden administrations handling of the migrant surge that overwhelmed the nations largest city. I watched about a year ago when he talked about how the illegal migrants are hurting our city, and the federal government should pay us, and we shouldn't have to take them. And I said: You know what? He'll be indicted within a year. And I was exactly right, Trump said. Because thats what we have we have people that use the Justice Department and the FBI at levels that have never been seen before. Adams alluded to similar shadowy forces at work in the DOJ. I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you that I would be a target, and a target I became, Adams said in a video released by his legal team Wednesday night after news of the indictment broke. And while stopping short of drawing an explicit link to the public disagreements between City Hall and the White House over the influx of migrants, Adams suggested the spat was related to his charges. I put people of New York before party and politics, he said. The White House has denied any coordination with the Justice Department on the case. President Joe Biden largely cut ties with Adams nearly two years ago, amid the mayors haranguing of his administrations response to the migrant influx. But Trump, who was convicted in New York earlier this year on 34 counts of falsifying business records and faces three other criminal probes, two of them federal, drew parallels between the cases against him and Adams criminal indictment. And he suggested, without evidence, that the Justice Department was again acting in bad faith even as the indictment of yet another prominent Democrat threatens to weaken the Republicans argument that his opponents are weaponizing the legal system against him. I noticed the indictments very old. It goes back a long time. Well, I had the same thing, they went way before the statute of limitations, Trump said. That's what they do. These are dirty players. These are bad people. They cheat, Trump continued. These are bad people, and we need an honest Justice Department, we need an honest FBI, and we need it fast. Federal prosecutors have charged Adams with a yearslong conspiracy to receive illegal foreign campaign contributions, wire fraud and bribery, according to a 57-page indictment unsealed on Thursday that detailed lavish trips and other perks the first-term mayor allegedly received from Turkish officials looking to curry influence with the mayor. Adams, the first sitting New York City mayor to be indicted, has yet to enter a plea. But he has remained defiant and denied any wrongdoing. Adams was charged on the same day Trumps lawyers returned to the courtroom in New York to ask an appeals court to toss a more than $400 million civil fraud judgment against the former president and his business empire. The former president said Thursday that while he does not know Adams well, the mayor has been fairly generous to me in his statements for a while. And now, as the politically divergent but similarly bombastic politicians face similar legal entanglements, Trump said: I wish him well. Joe Anuta contributed to this report. Trump claims war in Ukraine will escalate into WWIII if Harris wins US elections Following a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stated that if he loses the election, the war in Ukraine will escalate into the third World War. Source: Trump on Truth Social, as reported by European Pravda Details: Trump said he had a "great meeting" with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and that if he was elected president, the war between Russia and Ukraine would "end quickly". Quote: "If not, that war will never end, and will phase into WORLD WAR III. Comrade Harris will NEVER BE ABLE TO END THE WAR, and hasnt. Nothing will change except THE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION WILL ONLY GET WORSE!" Donald Trump wrote (original spelling preserved). Trump stated that he supports a "fair" peace for Ukraine, but did not say which solution to end the war between Russia and Ukraine would be regarded as such. Right before the meeting, Donald Trump praised the way Volodymyr Zelenskyy acted during the attempt to impeach Trump in 2019 and said they had a "great relationship". He immediately noted the same about his relationship with Russian ruler Vladimir Putin and reiterated his confidence that he could quickly stop the war if elected president. Support UP or become our patron! (Bloomberg) -- Former President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met Friday to discuss plans to resolve the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine in New York. Most Read from Bloomberg After the meeting, Trump said he had learned a lot but that their talk had not changed his stance that negotiations could bring an end to the war. We both want to see this end and we both want to see a fair deal made, Trump told Fox News at Trump Tower in New York. The president wants it to end and he wants it to end as quickly as possible. He wants a fair transaction to take place, he added, referring to Zelenskiy. The meeting capped a tense week between the Ukrainian leader and Trump, which saw the pair trading barbs in the press and the Republican presidential candidate question US aid for Kyivs fight to repel Russian President Vladimir Putins invasion. Before the meeting, the former president had offered praise for Zelenskiy while insisting he wanted to help resolve the conflict. Were going to work very much with both parties to try and get this settled and get it worked out, Trump said. It has to end at some point, it has to end. Hes gone through hell. The barbs and insults of the prior week hung heavy over the proceedings, though, with Zelenskiy offering a wry smile when asked by a reporter why he was sitting down with the former president. But Trump largely praised the same Ukrainian leader he had spent recent days ridiculing on the campaign trail, repeatedly thanking him for his handling of the controversy over a phone call Trump made in 2019. Trump was impeached over the incident, in which he repeatedly pressured Zelenskiy to investigate political rival Joe Biden and Bidens son, Hunter. He could have grandstanded and played cute, Trump said, lauding Zelenskiy. He was like a piece of steel. He said President Trump did nothing wrong. Zelenskiy detailed his peace plan which he also presented Thursday at the White House to Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trumps opponent in this years election. This war shouldnt have been started, Zelenskiy said after their meeting. Putin killed so many people and of course we need to do everything we can to pressure him to stop this war and he is in our territory. Trump insisted his relationship with Putin could bring a swift end to the war. We have a very good relationship and I also, as you know, have a very good relationship with President Putin and I think if we win I think were going to get it resolved very quickly, he said. Trading Barbs Trump had stepped up his criticism of Zelenskiy in recent days, deriding the wartime leader as the greatest salesman in history for convincing the US to provide billions in military assistance to help Kyiv. We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal: Zelenskiy. There was no deal that he could have made that wouldnt have been better than the situation you have right now, Trump said at a campaign event on Wednesday, berating the Ukrainian leader and accusing him of making little nasty aspersions toward your favorite president, me. Earlier: Harris Assails Trump for Pushing Ukraine to Negotiate With Putin Zelenskiy also rankled the Trump campaign after a visit to swing-state Pennsylvania, where he stopped at a munitions plant to thank workers and make his case for sustained military aid from the US and allies, and met with Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro. But on Friday, Trump used the meeting as an excuse to criticize Harris, whom he blamed for conditions in Ukraine. Harris also used her meeting with Zelenskiy to excoriate Trump while not mentioning him by name saying that pressure to force Ukraine to the negotiating table would compel Kyiv to give up sovereign territory and forgo security ties with other nations conditions she said Putin seeks. They are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, Harris told reporters as she stood aside Zelenskiy on Thursday. Sign up for the Washington Edition newsletter to find out how the worlds of money and politics intersect in the US capital. (Updates with additional details on meeting throughout) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Chinas growing influence in Michigan has brewed into a "huge issue of concern" for voters in the key battleground state, according to a Trump-backed House candidate sounding the alarm on "failed Democratic" policies in the Great Lakes State. "This is a huge issue of concern both from national security and economic security standpoint," Republican House candidate to represent Michigan's Tom Barrett told Fox News Digital in a Zoom interview this week. "Here in Michigan, the Democrats are giving nearly $200 million of state tax money to a Chinese-backed, Communist Party affiliated company that's going to come to Michigan to build a battery plant. They've already purchased a bunch of rural farmland to go out and build a Chinese Communist Party-backed battery plant in Michigan, not far from a military installation where I trained for countless hours during my career in the Army." Barrett is an Army veteran who previously served in Michigans state House and state Senate before launching his race to represent the 7th District in the U.S. House. Barrett earned Trumps "complete and total endorsement" for the House seat earlier this year, and spoke to Fox News Digital about the top issues hes highlighting from the campaign trail, including spiraling inflation, border policies, fentanyl overdose deaths, as well as Chinas growing influence in the state. "While families are struggling in Michigan to make ends meet and just buy groceries, pay for their home heating costs, our state government, backed by my opponent, is sending nearly $200 million of their state tax money to a Chinese communist company just so they can come here and spy on us. This is rotten to the core," Barrett said. Michigan Republicans Continue To Spar With Dems Over Deal With Chinese Ev Company In Key House Race Republican Michigan state Sen. Tom Barrett, his party's nominee for Congress in Michigan's 7th Congressional District, speaks to supporters on the campaign trail. In 2022, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced Gotion, a China-based manufacturer, would construct a $2.4 billion electric vehicle battery plant in a rural area of the state near Big Rapids. The announcement was met with outrage from residents, including local leaders working to reverse a water supply agreement that would have crippled the plants construction. Gotion sued the township, Green Charter, and notched a legal victory last month when a federal judge upheld a preliminary injunction allowing construction to continue. Read On The Fox News App Barrett's competitor this cycle, Curtis Hertel, worked as Whitmer's director of legislative affairs from 2015 to 2023, before serving in the state Senate. "My opponent signed a nondisclosure agreement to negotiate sending this money to this Chinese company while he was a member of the state Senate and then later went to work as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's chief lobbyist. He's listed in the Foreign Agents Registries Act filings with having secret conversations with this Chinese company about maneuvering through the legislature to get their funding approved," Barrett said of his competitor and Democrats in the state. Hertell's campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for contact. A spokesperson for Whitmer's Fight Like Hell PAC told Fox News Digital that Barrett's comments were "misleading." "This is yet another desperate and misleading attempt by Tom Barrett to distract from his record of voting against 5,000 good paying Mid-Michigan jobs because hed rather them be overseas," the spokesperson said. Barrett pointed to remarks from former Obama administration CIA director Leon Panetta, who warned earlier this year that China would likely use the battery plant for espionage purposes. "I don't think there's any question that they're going to take advantage of that situation," Panetta warned in January when asked about the plant during a House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party hearing. "And I think we have to be very vigilant about what the hell is going on. That's just the way they operate. They'll establish a manufacturing unit, they'll establish whatever they can, and then they will use that for their own intelligence purposes. They will use that for their own economic purposes." Barrett said the deal is not only a national security threat, but also risks American jobs. Michigan Republican Tom Barrett Leaps Back Into Crucial House Race After Slotkin Exit "It is all in the pursuit of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's electric vehicle mandate that will systematically replace and eliminate existing manufacturing jobs in Michigan that make up the very fabric of our economy here. So we have a Chinese company threatening with national security concerns to replace American jobs in traditional manufacturing with electric vehicle mandates that are borne by the Biden administration. So this has so many problems. It's an absolutely horrible deal," he said. "Michiganders are stepping up. They're aware of this. It is terribly unpopular here. And we need to take this fight to the ballot box to make sure that we don't let this go forward." Trump joined farmers during a panel earlier this week in another battleground state, Pennsylvania, where they discussed Chinas recent purchases of American farmland and again enforcing a trade deal against China that benefits American farmers. "My first call, I'm going to call up President Xi. I'm going to say, 'You have to honor the deal you made. We made a deal. You'd buy $50 billion worth of American farm product.' And I guarantee you he will buy it. 100% he will buy it," Trump said Monday during a campaign event in Smithton, Pennsylvania. Senate Gop Unleashes Campaign Blasting Dem Candidate For Hush Agreement Involving Ccp-tied Company Trump struck a trade deal with China in 2020 that included Beijing's commitment to halt intellectual property theft, refrain from currency manipulation, cooperate in financial services and purchase an additional $200 billion of U.S. products over two years, including up to $50 billion of U.S. agriculture. "Second thing I'm going to do is, I'm going to say you have to give the death penalty to your fentanyl dealers who are sending fentanyl. You know, in China, they give the death penalty . They don't have a drug problem because they give the death penalty," Trump said. Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, looks on during a campaign stop to address Pennsylvanians who are concerned about the threat of Communist China to U.S. agriculture at the Smith Family Farm September 23, 2024 in Smithton, Pennsylvania. Fentanyl and overdose deaths are again one of the top concerns for Americans this election cycle, with Trump tying the fatal drug to the influx of illegal immigrants who have poured over the southern border under the Biden-Harris administration. Barrett said his area and district are among the communities across the nation that have been rocked by the influx of the synthetic opioid from across the border. Trump And Vance To Hold First Rally In Michigan "Every single community in America, in every town, not just in the district where I'm running, but every town in America has been touched and affected and devastated by the outcomes of illegal immigration and lax border policies that have flooded every community with fentanyl. And now the leading cause of death of Americans my age is fentanyl overdose. It's a crippling and devastating tragedy. And we have to fix the problem," he said. "We have to secure our border with more structures. We have to reinstate the remain in Mexico policy. We can't allow the exploitation of asylum claims to overwhelm our social welfare system, to overwhelm our border security. We need to put Border Patrol agents on the border instead of processing asylum claims all day as they're doing right now. And we need to get back to two policies that deter illegal border crossing," he continued. Barrett is an Army veteran who signed his contract over the Christmas break of his senior year in high school. He spent 22 years in the Army, serving in the Iraq War, Guantanamo Bay, Kuwait, and at the DMZ separating North and South Korea. Barrett pointed to his military career amid his calls to secure the border. Early Voting Begins In Illinois, North Dakota, Florida And Michigan "I spent a year of my life deployed during Operation Enduring Freedom to Guantanomo Bay, Cuba, where there were terrorists that we were securing in that facility. And they told us straight to our face, that they wanted to come to America and kill Americans. I believe them. We need to keep them out of our country. We've had hundreds on the terror watch list that we already know have crossed into this country just during this administration. We need to remove them and we need to make sure that we don't allow any further terrorists into our country," he said. Barrett is in the lead in his race against Hertell, but underscored hes not taking anything for granted while "I think President Trump is very well poised to win Michigan. We know this is going to be a very close race and absolutely nothing we can take for granted. The seventh Congressional District in Michigan, where I'm running, is also highly competitive. And we also have a very competitive United States Senate race in Michigan," he said. "This really is going to shape the direction of our country. And we can go down the same failed path we've been on already with the high cost of living and groceries that are unaffordable for families, and mortgage rates that don't allow a young couple to begin their own family. Or we can turn the corner. Secure our border. Get our costs of living under control, get crime under control, put our foreign adversaries back in check where they belong, and really forge a new path for America." Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub. Original article source: Trump-endorsed House candidate sounds alarm on China's growing influence in battleground state WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) Theres less than 39 days until Election Day and former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are making waves on the campaign trail. The vice president makes her first appearance at the southern border as the Democratic nominee for president where shell deliver remarks on immigration from Arizona. Trump is in Michigan Friday, but started his morning off in New York with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump has been critical of U.S. support for Ukraine in its two- and half-year war with Russia and insists that he can broker a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin. We have a good relationship, also have a very good relationship as you know with President Putin, said Trump. Zelenskyy met with Harris Thursday. The vice president assured Zelenskyy the U.S. would continue to support Ukraine and criticized Trumps plans to deal with Putin. They are proposals for surrender which is dangerous and unacceptable, said Harris. The vice president is visiting the Arizona border to talk about immigration and shes visiting the Mexican border for the first time as a presidential candidate. At a rally in Michigan, Trump accused Harris of making the border less secure Polls show voters trust former President Trump more when it comes to the issue of immigration. The Harris campaign says the vice president will use the visit to call for tougher border security and blame Trump for killing a bipartisan immigration bill in 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 DC News Now | Washington, DC. Former President Donald Trump on Thursday hosted U.K. leader Keir Starmer at Trump Tower in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, as the British prime minister tries to shore up his relationship with the GOP presidential nominee ahead of Novembers closely watched race. Starmer, who became prime minister following his center-left Labour Partys landslide win in the July general election, said the meeting was meant to establish a relationship between the two men, who had not previously met face-to-face. Im a great believer in personal relations on the international stage, Starmer said ahead of the meeting. I think it really matters that you know who your counterpart is in any given country, and know them, you know, personally, get to know them face to face. The meeting lasted two hours, according to Politico. The U.K. leader said he also intended to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris as part of his 48-hour trip to the U.S. but the two werent able to get together due to the usual diary challenges. Starmer has never met Harris in person. Trump and Harris are locked in a tight contest ahead of November, according to an average of polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight, which currently shows the Democratic presidential nominee holding a narrow lead. Starmer, who visited Trump Tower following the conclusion of his speech at the United Nations, was accompanied by Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who previously opposed a 2018 Trump visit to the U.K., describing the then-president as a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath and a profound threat to the international order that has been the foundation of Western progress. Lammy has since defended his comments and said he would work with Trump if he were elected to the White House again. Prior to their meeting, Trump described Starmer as very nice and commended him on his performance in the U.K. general election. He ran a great race, he did very well, Trump added. Its very early but hes popular. A majority of Britons favor a Harris win in November, according to a poll released earlier this month. Asked by reporters if a Trump victory would pose a challenge for the U.K. given the former presidents stance on the Russia-Ukraine war, a major foreign policy priority for the U.K., Starmer noted the two countries relationship has been forged in really difficult circumstances. That always sits above whoever holds the particular office, either in the U.S. or the U.K., Starmer added. Trump, who has previously opposed additional U.S. funding for Kyiv, on Thursday did not directly answer whether Ukraine should be prepared to cede part of its territory to Moscow to end the war. We need peace, he said, ahead of his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy scheduled for Friday. Related... GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump attempted to do crowd control at a Friday rally in Walker, Michigan. Well, he wasnt trying to control the crowd as much as he was trying to control any messaging about people leaving the event early. Rally size is something that is important to Trump so important that he became agitated during a Sept. 10 presidential debate when Democratic rival Kamala Harris bluntly said that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. In Walker, Trump attempted to explain why rallygoers seemed to be leaving his event. The people that you see leaving? Because nobody ever leaves, the former president said. And when they do, I finish up quick. Trump: The people that you see leaving right now... It looks like theyre leaving but theyre not leaving pic.twitter.com/QzbItC1Ydx Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 27, 2024 Trump then suggested that his staffers were to blame for the apparent departures, and claimed that people were actually lining up in the back for photos since he couldnt pose for pictures earlier. These stupid people that are with me sometimes, they say, Come on back, Trump said. Thirty people, they get up and they go back. And theyre all lined up in the back waiting for me to take a picture because I couldnt do it before. But Trumps explanation for people leaving his rally wasnt helped by the Harris campaign sharing purported video of (checks notes) people leaving his rally. Not surprisingly, social media users soon mocked the former president for his questionable claim. Narrator: Once again, Donald Trump was lying. It looked like they were leaving because they were, in fact, leaving. Rebekah, Crone for Kamala (@RebekahWriter) September 27, 2024 It's just the concept of leaving... Brent Jacobs (@BAJPortland) September 27, 2024 "They're all just going to the bathroom at the same time" Bill DeMayo (@BDeMayo) September 27, 2024 And they get lost on the way back. Too bad! They miss the exciting ending where he reveals whether hed rather be electrocuted or eaten by a shark. Again. barbara l reinstein (@netbarb987) September 27, 2024 Trump Dont believe your own eyes or ears, just believe me. Phillip-USA (@phillip_USA_) September 27, 2024 Related... Trumps Jan. 6 Coup Attempt Could Be Back In The Headlines Just In Time For The Election WASHINGTON Donald Trumps coup attempt that ended with the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol may be on the cusp of making new headlines, just weeks ahead of the November election. Or not. That decision is now in the hands of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will determine when and how much to make public of a detailed accounting of special counsel Jack Smiths evidence backing up the four felony charges against Trump. That could include material never before seen, such as grand jury testimony from then-Vice President Mike Pence and Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows. Whether and how much any of those details will matter to voters in the campaigns final weeks, though, is an open question. Very, very unlikely, said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. Jan. 6 is already baked into this election cake. Fellow Republican David Kochel, a consultant and veteran of numerous campaigns, said he also doubts that any new information or details about testimony will change many minds. If you care about Jan. 6, youre already for Harris, he said about Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. I guess anything helps. And when Trump is covered wall to wall, its usually unhelpful to him. Jan. 6 is already baked into this election cake.Republican pollster Neil Newhouse That appears to be the view of Trumps defense lawyers, who have been openly arguing that it would be unfair to allow the public to see evidence of his actions undermining the last presidential election in the days before the coming one. President Trump is the leading candidate in the presidential election, which is just weeks away. The [special counsels] office cannot be permitted to issue a massive and misleading public statement, Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and John Lauro wrote in a Monday filing. The filing fails to mention that Trump will have the ability to order his attorney general to dismiss all federal cases against him, should he win the Nov. 5 election and return to office in January. In an hours worth of rambling remarks to reporters on Thursday afternoon, Trump did not address the Jan. 6 prosecution. In the past, Trump has repeatedly attacked Smith, calling him deranged, as he continues to push the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him the same lie that led his mob to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. More than 140 police officers were wounded that day. One died hours later, and four others died by suicide in the coming months. Amanda Carpenter, a former Republican aide in the Senate who is now with the nonprofit United to Protect Democracy, said that if the details of that day come front and center again, it could turn undecided voters against Trump. What happened on January 6 will only be a factor if voters have the searing memories of the Capitol being breached and officers being assaulted in mind when they are making their decisions about who will lead the country in 2025, she said. Smiths filing was in response to the U.S. Supreme Courts July ruling that Trump could not be prosecuted for official acts he took as president. The ruling specifically mentioned Trumps attempts to coerce Department of Justice officials into falsely claiming there had been widespread election fraud. The six conservative justices ruled that presidents can order their own employees to do anything they want, even if it means breaking the law. They also found that Trumps attempts to pressure Pence into declaring Trump the winner of the election at the congressional certification ceremony could be considered an unofficial or private act, done to benefit Trump as a political candidate, but that Smith had the burden of proving that. If courts made such a determination, it would allow Smith to go forward with his charges and use Pences testimony against Trump. Trumps lawyers have until Oct. 17 to file a response to Smiths Thursday filing, and then Smith has until Oct. 29 to respond to that. Chutkan would likely wait for all of those filings before ruling on whether Smith is correct that the special counsels superseding indictment he filed Aug. 27, by deleting all references to the coercion of DOJ officials, now only addresses unofficial or political acts, not official ones. It is unclear when, if at all, the detailed information regarding evidence Smith has on Trump would become public. But even if all those details remain secret through Election Day, the mere fact that the case is back in the news could help Harris, said Rick Wilson, a former GOP consultant and now a vocal Trump critic. It will re-center Jan. 6 in the dialogue, make Trump promise to pardon the attackers and so on, he said. Net negative for Trump. In a rambling campaign speech that touched on just about everything, Donald Trump on Friday praised foreign leaders as street smart for sending alleged criminals to America, saying he would take it even further if he were in their shoes. These leaders, so street smart, Trump said, speaking at a rally in Walker, Michigan. And I would have been worse than them because actually Venezuela still has some people in their jails. I would have had everybody out into the United States. They probably ran out of buses and planes. And he warned his MAGA followers at the rally: The rest of them are coming. During remarks that were billed to be about bringing back Michigans car industry, he reverted to his habit of favoring fearmongering about immigration over discussing the economy. They grab young girls and they slice them up in front of their parents, he said. Data suggests that undocumented immigrants commit far fewer crimes than native-born citizens. But thats not stopping Trump. Theyre conquering your communities, he said later on. You go out to Aurora, in Colorado, where theyre taking over with AK-47s, real estate. Theyre in the real estate development business, just like me. Except I never got to use guns to do it. The former president called opponent Kamala Harris stupid and incompetent, knocking her on her immigration record. Harris, whom Trump calls the Biden administrations border czar, was heading to Arizona for her first stop at the border as the Democratic nominee on Friday. She was set to announce plans to toughen Joe Bidens border policy, which suspends asylum claims when border crossing numbers get too high. Trump had two scheduled campaign stops in Michigan on Friday and his team planned to launch a statewide bus tour over the weekend. The Great Lakes State is one of three segments of the Blue Wall that will be key to winning the presidency. The latest polls show Harris with a slight lead over Trump in Michigan. A recent Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll, for instance, found the vice president three points ahead, within the margin of error. Though he did spend a portion of his speech focusing on the economic issues that voters say matter most, more striking in Trumps Friday speech were his out-there claims, which werent limited solely to immigration. He praised Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who opened for him, for having good ideas on health care, promising the former opponent would be a big part of making America healthy again. If Harris is elected, Trump warned, she would take your cars, take your money, take your guns. He referred to the storm that hit his home state and killed more than three dozen people as just a little hurricane. 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. Trump Is So Mad About His Bad Press That Hes Unleashed a New Threat On Friday afternoon, Donald Trump called for the prosecution of Google for displaying negative stories about him. The remarks are characteristic of the Republican nominee, who often vows retribution and elevates baseless claims of bias, but chilling nonetheless. It has been determined, the Republican nominee posted on Truth Social, that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris. This is an ILLEGAL ACTIVITY, he said, adding that, if the Justice Department does not criminally prosecute Google for election interference, he will request their prosecution, at the maximum levels if elected president. The source of Trumps claim appears to be the right-wing Media Research Center, which published a report on Wednesday covered this week by Fox News and The New York Post. MRCs report analyzed the Sept. 6 Google search results for the terms donald trump presidential race 2024 and kamala harris presidential race 2024. The group alleges that the results favored outlets with a history of leftist bias, and that, while Trumps campaign website appeared sixth in his search results, Harriss campaign website appeared third in hers. Dismissing MRCs report, a Google spokesperson told Fox, Both campaign websites consistently appear at the top of Search for relevant and common search queries. This report looked at a single rare search term on a single day several weeks ago, and even for that search, both candidates websites ranked in the top results on Google. Trumps Truth Social post recalls his previous claims that Google search results are biased against him, which Google has denied. It is also yet another example of Trump promising to prosecute his perceived political foes if he retakes the White House. Earlier this month, for example, Trump posted to Truth Social that, if he wins, those people that CHEATEDsuch as Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officialswill be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences. As Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy stood together to address members of the press, the former president couldnt help but brag about his cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is currently leading a deadly war in Zelenskiys home country of Ukraine. We have a very good relationship and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin, Trump boasted. And I think, uh, if we win, I think were going to get it resolved very quickly. I hope we have more good relations with us, Zelenskiy interrupted, gesturing between himself and Trump. Were gonna haveoh, ha ha, I see, Trump said. But you know, it takes two to tango. Trump has previously touted his skills as a dealmaker when promising to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, which has killed more than 11,000 people. When asked more specifically during the presidential debate just how he would end the conflict, Trump said, Ill speak to one, Ill speak to the other, Ill get em together. In reality, Trumps plan would involve Ukraine ceding part of its territory to Russia, a deal that is more or less what the Kremlin is looking for. And Trump is far from a neutral arbiter. The former president has gone from publicly gushing about Putin to flat-out saying that Zelenskiy should just give in to Russias violent invasion. When asked during the debate who exactly he wanted to prevail in the conflict, he wouldnt deign to say. Ahead of the meeting Friday, Trump had begun regularly criticizing Zelenskiy during campaign rallies, calling him the greatest salesman in history for his ability to acquire defense funding from the U.S. While speaking about the war in Ukraine on Tuesday, the former president said he doubted anyone could beat Russia. Thats what they do is they fight wars. As somebody told me the other day, they beat Hitler, they beat Napoleon. Thats what they do, they fight, Trump said. Hitler and Napoleon, of course, both invaded RussiaRussia, in this instance, is the aggressor. Trump also claimed that Zelenskiy had supported the former president during his impeachment hoax by calling him to say that President Trump did nothing wrong. Trump also inexplicably claimed that the Ukrainian president had called Trump to congratulate me on his victory. In a separate interview, Trump said that Zelenskiy was seeking a fair transaction to end the war in Ukraine. The president wants it to stop. And Im sure President Putin wants it to stop. And thats a good combination. Trump meets with Zelensky, says his views on ending the war 'as soon as possible' have not changed Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect comments made by President Volodymyr Zelensky during his evening address. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said everything possible must be done to force Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. Zelensky made the remarks on Sept. 27 after meeting with Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump in New York City. "This war should not have started. I think that the problem is that Putin killed so many people, and of course, we need to do everything to pressure him to stop this war," Zelensky said in a joint interview with Trump for Fox News. Zelensky met with Trump for the first time in five years during his trip to the U.S., where he held a series of high-level meetings with foreign leaders, visited the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, and addressed the U.N. General Assembly. Ukraine's president also introduced Trump to his "victory plan," which he had presented a day earlier to U.S. President Joe Biden and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. Read also: What we know about the victory plan Zelensky presented to Biden Following his meeting with Trump, Zelensky emphasized that Ukraine seeks only a just peace and relies on continued U.S. support in the ongoing full-scale war launched by Russia. Trump said he has "learned a lot" as the war continues but noted that his views on ending it "as soon as possible" have not changed. "The president (Zelensky) wants it to end as quickly as possible. He wants a fair transaction to take place," Trump said. "If I win (in the presidential election), we're going to have a very fair and, I think, rather rapid deal. It (the war) should stop, and the president (Zelensky) wants it to stop, and I'm sure President Putin wants it to stop. And that's a good combination," Trump added. When asked how he sees the war ending, Trump evaded the question, saying it was "too early" to discuss and that both he and Zelensky had their "own ideas" on the matter. Zelensky and Trump did not disclose whether another meeting between them would take place soon. However, the Ukrainian president invited the Republican nominee to visit Ukraine, and Trump accepted the invitation. Recently, Trump's rhetoric toward Zelensky and U.S. support for Ukraine has become more critical. He has claimed that Zelensky wants Democrats to win the upcoming presidential election, referring to him as "the greatest salesman on earth." Republican leaders on Sept. 25 also accused Zelensky of interfering in the election by visiting an ammunition factory in U.S. President Joe Biden's hometown of Scranton, Pennyslvania, a hotly contested battleground state. House Speaker Mike Johnson demanded that Zelensky fire Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Makarovka, for her role in arranging the tour. The Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee also announced he was opening an investigation into the Biden-Harris administration's alleged misuse of government funds. Zelensky criticized Trump's plans for an end to the war in an interview with the New Yorker earlier this week. He called Trump's running mate, Republican Senator J.D. Vance, "too radical" and said the war should not end at Ukraine's expense. Striking a different tone in his evening address on Sept. 27, Zelensky said he was "grateful" for the meeting with Trump, and the opportunity to tout his "victory plan" to both presidential candidates. "Strong positions for Ukraine will lead to peace sooner. All the key issues for Ukraine are on our partners' table, and everything is being considered. Long-range capabilities, the defense package, sanctions against Russia, steps on Russian assets," Zelensky said. "It is important for Ukraine that America has a direct understanding of Ukraine. And it absolutely does." Read also: Open letter: President Biden, this is how you can uphold your legacy by supporting Ukraine Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Donald Trump will not let go of his belief that Kamala Harris never worked at McDonalds as a college studentdespite her repeated insistence she has. Speaking at a press conference in New York on Thursday, the former president once again took the opportunity to call out Harris without citing any evidence to prove his theory. Kamala never had a job at McDonalds. Her resume talks about McDonalds, McDonalds, McDonalds. Trumps criticism came less than 24 hours after the vice president was again asked about the job on Wednesday night, by MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle. Part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonalds is because there are people who work at McDonalds in our country who are trying to raise a family and pay rent on that, Harris said. And I think part of the difference between me and my opponent includes our perspective on the needs of the American people, and what our responsibility then is to meet those needs. On Thursday, Trump escalated the feud. When I worked at the French fry counter, it was so tough, so hard, he said, mocking Harris. He later added: She didnt work there. She never worked at McDonalds, it was a lie. In a statement to the Daily Beast earlier this month, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung demanded: Why wont they just provide real documentation and proof? The onus is on them. What does she have to hide? A Harris campaign official told the Beast at the time that she worked at a McDonalds franchise in Alameda, California, in the summer of 1983. Wheres the Beef? Trump Demands Harris Prove She had McJob That hasnt stopped Trump from continuing to talk down the reports. At an Indiana, Pennsylvania, campaign rally on Monday, Trump taunted Harris once again, speculating that she was lying and claiming he would like to work the french fry job for about a half an hour at an unnamed franchise this week because I wanna see how it is. Trump has not been publicly seen working at one of its franchises thus far. She said she worked and she grew up in terrible conditions, she worked at McDonalds, She never worked there! And these fake news reporters will never report it, they dont want to report it because theyre fake, he added. Theyre fake. At another rally in Arizona this month, he exclaimed, Shes a liar. She doesnt work at McDonalds. She said she worked at McDonalds, right? Right? She worked at McDonalds. And she was working so hard. Theres only one problem. She didnt work at McDonalds. Shes a liar. Two middle-class kids. One, a daughter of Oakland, California, who was raised by a working mother and had a summer job at McDonalds. The other, a son of the Nebraska plains, who spent summers on the farm. Only in America is it possible that the two of us would be pic.twitter.com/le6xrf55E0 Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) August 31, 2024 The beef began after the Harris campaign published a video in August that said: She grew up in the middle class home, she was the daughter of a working mom and she worked at McDonalds while she got her degree. Kamala Harris knows what its like to be middle class. Then, at a Moms for Liberty convention in Washington, the former president told supporters: She also said, I worked at McDonalds. Turned out she didnt work at McDonalds. After an exhaustive study that took about 20 minutes, they found out she never worked there. Theres a lot of fake stuff going on, Trump alleged. Kamala said she worked at McDonalds She never did. Lie! Trump later raged on Truth Social. Harris repeated those claims at a rally at a Harris-Walz campaign rally in Las Vegas. She originally shared the news in 2019 when she joined striking McDonalds workers on a picket line. At the Democratic National Convention this year the subject was also a hot topic, even scoring a mention from former President Bill Clinton. McDonalds, meanwhile, has remain tight-lipped on the issue. 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 has heaped praise on North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson in his bid for the governors mansion. But when asked Thursday if hed be dropping his support of Robinson in light of the candidates porn site scandal, Trump suddenly had nothing to say. I dont know the situation, Trump said when a reporter asked about pulling his endorsement. He then walked away. Revelations about Robinsons online conduct have dominated headlines since CNN released a bombshell report on the candidate last week. Its unlikely that Trump, who reportedly watched around eight hours of TV news a day when he was president, truly knows nothing about the outrage surrounding the man he once called one of the great stars of the Republican party. Robinson, according to CNN, revealed on an adult website that he enjoys transgender porn, despite expressing many anti-trans viewpoints on the campaign trail and characterizing transgender people as perverts sneaking into bathrooms. The report also found the candidate admitted in comments that hed secretly watched naked women in gym showers when he was a teenager. In another comment, Robinson allegedly said he didnt care about a celebritys abortion, adding: I just wanna see the sex tape! In public, Robinson has regularly called abortion murder, said hed sign a six-week ban and, in recordings leaked by an opposition group earlier this month, revealed hed actually like to see a zero-week ban. On the porn site, Robinson also referred to himself as a black NAZI! and expressed support for reinstating slavery, CNN found. Vice President Kamala Harris campaign said it was absurd to believe Trump wasnt up to speed on the Robinson scandal. Trump has been to North Carolina twice since the news broke and is still standing by Robinson, even as the people who know Robinson best are abandoning him, spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement. Robinson has both denounced reporting on his posts as lies and has also admitted the posts possibly happened. A wave of senior staffers on his campaign have resigned in the wake of the scandal. Before CNNs report, Trump regularly lauded Robinson as an outstanding person, a friend, the Braveheart of our time and Martin Luther King on steroids. You have to cherish him. Its like a fine wine, Trump said of Robinson in December. The GOP presidential nominee was an early backer of Robinsons campaign, held a fundraiser for him at Mar-a-Lago and gave him a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention. Shortly after the scandal broke, Trumps campaign said any reports he was planning to drop his endorsement of Robinson were false and that hes focused on winning the White House and saving the country. Related... RACINE Devone Kessler has been charged in connection to bomb threats made to the Racine County Courthouse, City Hall and the Sturtevant Department of Motor Vehicles on Sept. 23. Kessler, who is 29, faces felony charges of making terrorist threats and bomb scares, according to online court records. Racine County Sheriffs Office Public Information Officer Lt. Michael Luell said the Racine County Communication Center received a 911 call from an automated voice on Sept. 23 threatening the courthouse, City Hall and the DMV. Each building was searched, and no threats were found. The courthouse and jail were evacuated. The Racine Police Department also said it received calls from two Milwaukee news outlets indicating they had received similar messages. RCSO reportedly traced the number used to call 911 to High River in Alberta, Canada. Investigators learned the number was associated with a company that sells phone numbers to third parties that are hard to trace. The phone number reportedly was purchased within the City of Racine, and investigators reportedly traced the transaction to Kesslers residence. On Sept. 26, law enforcement searched Kesslers home in the 2800 block of Douglas Avenue and arrested him at his workplace. The investigation required collaboration with international, federal and state law enforcement agencies including the York Regional Police, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the U.S. Department of Justice and the state DOJs Division of Criminal Justice, according to RCSOs release. While there has been a rash of false threats to government buildings recently, the Sheriffs Office took every precaution necessary to ensure public safety when dispatch received a bomb threat, Sheriff Christopher Schmaling said in the release. According to the release, Kessler allegedly made a full confession during an interview at the Law Enforcement Center at 717 Wisconsin Ave. Editors note: This story has been updated to reflect Kesslers formal charges. On Wednesday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of saying nasty things about him and criticized him for not reaching a deal with Russias Vladimir Putin to end the invasion of Zelenskyys country. But Friday, both men were, if not all smiles, at least only somewhat visibly awkward as they tried to paper over a central difference in their stances: Trump has declined to say which side he favors in Russias war on Ukraine, and Zelenskyy has insisted on a just end to the war that would preserve his countrys pre-conflict boundaries. The Friday morning meeting in New York City between Trump and Zelenskyy capped off a roller-coaster week for the Ukrainian president, whose bid to keep fighting hinges heavily on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, given the U.S. supply of weapons is allowing the much-smaller Ukraine to remain in the fight. We need [a] just peace, we need [a] just peace. Its so important to have [a] just peace for the people, especially for the families who lost their children. Its [a] big tragedy, Zelenskyy told Fox News after the pair met. Trump said his stance hasnt changed, but he appeared to be softening it slightly. We both want to see this end, and we both want to see a fair deal made. Its got to be fair, Trump said as he stood next to Zelenskyy. And I think thatll happen at the right time. Trumps tone was a marked change from just Wednesday, when he and several high-profile GOP members of Congress attacked Zelenskyy publicly. Its something we have to have a quick discussion about because the president of Ukraine is in our country and hes making little nasty aspersions toward your favorite president, me, Trump said at a campaign appearance in North Carolina, referring to Zelenskyys description of Trump running mate JD Vances position as too radical in an interview with The New Yorker. Vance infamously once declared he did not care what happened to Ukraine and has been one of the Senates most prominent critics of aiding Ukraine. The Ohio Republican has defended Trump, saying the former president would resolve the war before he took office if he won in November, a stance Ukraine supporters have seen as a veiled threat to cut off aid to force Ukraine to accept Russian sovereignty over territory it invaded. Any deal the worst deal wouldve been better than what we have now, Trump said Wednesday. Ukraine is gone. He went on to paint Ukraine as a post-apocalyptic wasteland even as outside of its contested eastern and southern regions, life has gone on much as before the war. Ukraines economic ministry said economic growth was up 3.5% in August compared with the same month a year ago. Earlier in the week, the presence of three Democratic politicians while Zelenskyy toured a Pennsylvania factory that makes munitions for Ukraines war effort sent Capitol Hill Republicans into a conniption. I have heard that 400 people work here, but I wanted very much to come here and to thank you, Zelenskyy said. Four hundred people have saved millions of Ukrainians. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump meet in New York City on Friday. Uliana Boichuk/Novyny LIVE/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images Zelenskyys visit to the historic Scranton, Pennsylvania, facility included Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro. With control of the House and Senate up for grabs in Novembers election and Shapiro once a leading contender as Vice President Kamala Harris running mate, Republicans said they smelled politics in the swing state event. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) sent a public letter to Zelenskyy demanding that he fire his nations ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova. Johnson accused Markarova of setting up a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) also asked the Defense Department to provide details of why Zelenskyy was taken to the event aboard an Air Force plane. Polling shows that support for helping Ukraine fend off Russias brutal invasion remains steady in the U.S. and that support for Zelenskyy in particular is high. A Sept. 21-24 Economist/YouGov poll found 53% of respondents want to continue or increase military aid to Ukraine, compared with 28% who want to decrease it. The issue is polarizing, though, as 44% of Republicans wanted to cut aid. And by a margin of 51% to 25%, those polled approved of allowing Ukraine to hit strategic targets deep inside Russia, a move U.S. officials have been hesitant to allow for fear it will anger the Kremlin. Zelenskyys favorability rating continued to be well above any major domestic politicians, at +17 percentage points. Bidens was at -16 in the poll, Vice President Kamala Harris was even and Trump was at -14. Zelenskyy got a much warmer reception during the week from Democrats, including appearances with President Joe Biden and Harris on Thursday and the announcement of about $8 billion in military aid. The administration pledged additional air defense supplies, including U.S.-made glide bombs that will allow for longer-range strikes, and to support the training of 18 more F-16 fighter pilots. Harris signaled she was firmly in Zelenskyys corner. Putin started this war, and he could end it tomorrow if he simply withdrew his troops from Ukraines sovereign territory, she said. Zelenskyy said Friday that he met with both presidential candidates to show Ukraine could work with either after the election. But the gnawing concern among Ukrainians and their advocates, that Trump will in the end favor Putin in any attempt to broker peace should he be elected, appeared to still hang in the air as Trump and Zelenskyy met with reporters before their meeting. Trump again touted his very good relationship with Putin, leading Zelenskyy, a former comedic actor before he became president, to point between the two of them and interject, I hope we have more good relations. Oh, I see, Trump said, with a small laugh. Related... Trump posts letter on how Zelenskyy asked him for meeting photo US presidential candidate Donald Trump has posted a letter in which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked for a meeting with him. Source: Trump on TruthSocial Details: Trump did not accompany the post with any comment. Quote from Zelenskyys letter to Trump: "All of us in Ukraine want to end this war with a just peace. And we know that without America this is impossible to achieve. That's why we have to strive to understand each other and remain in close contact." "Days ago, we requested a meeting with you, and I really want to hear your thoughts directly, and firsthand." "You know I always speak with great respect about everything connected to you, and that's how it should be. I can be in New York on Friday, which would be a good time to meet." "Let me know if you are in the city at that time - I would really like for our meeting to take place, as part of our efforts to help us end this war in a just way." More details: Zelenskyy stressed the importance of personal contact throughout his letter. The message was conveyed to Trump through Denys Sienik, Deputy Chief of Mission at the Ukrainian Embassy in the United States. Background: As reported, Donald Trump said he would hold a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday, which would be their first meeting since 2019. In 2019, the US published a transcript of Zelenskyys first conversation with the then US president Trump without Zelenskyy's consent in an attempt to protect Trump from impeachment. Support UP or become our patron! Before his meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump has stated that they shared a "great relationship" and commended Zelenskyy for his actions during the impeachment attempt against Trump in 2019. Source: European Pravda Details: In a brief exchange with the press prior to the meeting, Trump was asked about his expectations. He responded by stating that "Ukraine is going through hell" and described the situation as "terrible". He then praised Zelenskyy for his conduct during the attempted impeachment of Trump, which was related to allegations of Trump pressuring Ukraine for military aid shortly after Zelenskyy assumed his presidency. "He said President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong. He said it very loud and clear. And the impeachment hawks died right there. He could have said, 'I don't know'. But he was... like a piece of steel, he said: 'President Trump did nothing wrong'," Trump said. He further remarked that he and Zelenskyy share a "very good relationship" and immediately echoed the same sentiment regarding his relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, noting that he sees an opportunity to swiftly negotiate an end to the war. Background: The meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump at Trump Tower in New York follows a day of heightened tensions, during which Trump supporters accused the Ukrainian president of "interfering in the election" by criticising Trump's peace plan to support Biden. Additionally, House Speaker Mike Johnson declined to meet with Zelenskyy. Initially, the meeting was believed to be unlikely to take place, but at the last minute, Trump agreed to it. Support UP or become our patron! Former President Trump said he predicted New York City Mayor Eric Adams would be indicted within a year, while calling on the need for an honest Justice Department. Trump spoke to reporters inside Trump Tower in New York City on Thursday afternoon, and afterward fielded several questions on topics such as the war in Ukraine, Iran and the indictment of Adams, who was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on federal criminal charges on Wednesday following a campaign corruption investigation. A reporter asked if Trump thought Adams would get a fair trial, and Trump responded that he did not know. Trump said that he did not know Adams very well, even acknowledging that the current mayor has been generous toward Trump in his statements. The "worst mayor ever," Trump claimed, was former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who served the term prior to Adams. New York City Mayor Eric Adams Indicted Former President Trump delivers remarks to the press at Trump Tower in New York City on Thursday. "I will say this. I watched about a year ago when [Adams] talked about how the illegal migrants are hurting our city, and the federal government should pay us and we shouldnt have to take them," Trump said. "I said, You know what? Hell be indicted within a year. And I was exactly right because thats what we have." Read On The Fox News App "We have people that use the Justice Department and the FBI at levels that have never been seen before," Trump added, wishing Adams luck. Trump admitted he did not know anything about what Adams did to get indicted, but a group in the room told Trump he was right about his prediction. Fbi Raids Home Of Nyc Mayor Eric Adams' Chief Fundraiser Brianna Suggs, Source Says New York City Mayor Eric Adams speaks during a news conference outside Gracie Mansion in New York City on Thursday. On Wednesday, the mayor was indicted on one count of conspiracy to receive campaign contributions from foreign nationals and commit wire fraud and bribery, one count of wire fraud, two counts of soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals and one count of soliciting and accepting a bribe. Trump continued to speak about the immigration problem that Adams spoke ill of, and called on federal officials to pay New York City to handle it. "He said this is really unfair to make us carry this burden. We shouldnt be doing this This is New York City," Trump said. Adams Office Lashes Out At Fbi Employee Who Might Have Improperly Leaked Details Of Corruption Probe Former President Trump wished New York City Mayor Eric Adams luck in his fight against the Justice Department. The parks are loaded up, Trump, a former city resident, said, adding that he recently passed the Roosevelt Hotel and it was unrecognizable. "[Adams] came out very strongly against it. He was right, by the way, because its ruining our country," he said. "He was honest, and I said he will be indicted within a year. And thats what happened." Trump said the indictments go back a long time, comparing it to when he was indicted in New York City. The prosecution made sure the charges happened before the statute of limitations in both cases, Trump noted. "Thats what they do. These are dirty players. These are bad people," Trump said. "They cheat and they do anything necessary. These are bad people. And we need an honest Justice Department. We need an honest FBI, and we need it fast." Law enforcement agents leave New York City Mayor Eric Adams' residence, Gracie Mansion in New York City on Thursday. The FBI has reportedly been looking into whether Adams 2021 mayoral campaign conspired with the Turkish government and other entities to raise funds. Some New York officials have also been probed over potential investigations into contacts with China. The alleged fraud sucked in more public funding for the mayor's campaign under a program that supplements small-dollar donations with matching grants of up to $2,000 supported by taxpayers, according to the indictment. According to court documents, a donation of just $250 from an individual could send a candidate up to $2,000 in "matching funds" from taxpayers. It happened so frequently that Adams allegedly received $10 million from the program. On top of campaign donations, Adams allegedly received other perks like free flights on Turkish Airlines to destinations in Europe and Asia, free hotel stays and free high-end meals. In one instance, he allegedly asked about flying to Chile's Easter Island on a Turkish jet but he couldn't because it did not offer a route connecting New York and the South American country. Fox News Digitals Michael Ruiz contributed to this report. Original article source: Trump predicted NYC Mayor Adams would be indicted last year; blames 'dirty players' in DOJ Donald Trump boasted of a very good relationship with both Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin on Friday as he hosted the Ukrainian leader for a meeting at his New York City skyscraper. The former president also repeated a bizarre boast that he could, if re-elected in November, negotiate an end to the nearly three-year Russian war against Ukraine. Trump, who was impeached in 2019 for using American defense assistance to pressure Zelensky to launch sham investigations into President Joe Biden and his son, was being briefed on Kyivs latest plan for victory against Putin. We have a very good relationship, he told reporters as he stood with Zelensky. And I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin. And if we win, I think were going to get it resolved very quickly, he said. Zelensky quickly interjected: I hope we have more good relations between us. Zelensky said he and Trump share a common view that the war ... has to be stopped, and Putin cant win and Ukrainians have to prevail. And I want to discuss with you the details of our plan, he added. Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump meets with Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky at Trump Tower, Friday 27 September in New York (AP) For his part, Trump said he and Zelensky have had a great relationship, citing Zelenskys decision to deny that Trump had exerted any pressure on him during the July 2019 phone call in which hed linked sending Javelin anti-tank missiles to Zelenskys announcement of investigations into the Bidens. So we're going to sit down just discuss it, and if we have a win, I think long before January 20, before I would take the presidency ... I think that we can work out something that's good for both sides. It's time, he said. Trump had previously cancelled plans to meet with the Ukrainian leader after Zelensky sparked GOP outrage by visiting the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in the battleground state of Pennsylvania over the weekend. He reversed course late Thursday after Zelenskys meeting with Harris, during which the Democratic presidential nominee told Zelensky that her support for Kyivs defense is unwavering. In what appeared to be a veiled swipe at Trump and his Republican allies, Harris admitted to Zelensky that there are some in the US who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality, and would require Ukraine to forgo security relationships with other nations. These proposals are the same as those of Putin, and let us be clear: They are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable, she said. Zelensky has been in the United States for the UN General Assembly, where on Wednesday he warned world leaders that Russian President Vladimir Putin is attempting to break the Ukrainian spirit by targeting his countrys energy infrastructure. He also cautioned against accepting purported peace deals that would be negotiated without Ukraine having a say. Any parallel or alternative attempts to seek peace are, in fact, efforts to achieve an out instead of an end to the war, he said, adding later that he was skeptical of the true interest behind a recent push by China and Brazil to foster an end to the conflict. When some propose alternatives, half-hearted settlement plans, so-called sets of principles, it not only ignores the interests and suffering of Ukrainians ... it not only ignores reality, but also gives Putin the political space to continue the war, he said. Earlier in the week, Zelensky also toured a Pennsylvania plant where munitions destined for his armed forces are being made. That visit drew anger from Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, who called for Zelensky to fire the Ukrainian ambassador to the US in response. Johnsons outrage was supposedly due to no Republicans being invited along to the tour of the plant, though White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed it as a political stunt by the GOP at a press conference on Thursday afternoon. Trump says he is for "fair" peace in Ukraine US presidential candidate Donald Trump stated that he supports a "fair" peace for Ukraine, but did not say which solution to end the war between Russia and Ukraine would be regarded as such. Source: Trump in communication with the media after meeting with Zelenskyy in New York, writes CNN, as reported by European Pravda Details: When asked what he saw as a "fair" end to the war, Trump responded that it was "too early to say that". "I have my own ideas and Im sure the president [Zelenskyy ed.] definitely has his own ideas. But, [it] has to be fair," Trump said. Standing next to him, Zelenskyy added that the war should never have started in the first place. "Putin killed so many people and, of course, we need to do everything to pressure him to stop this war. He is in our territory. Thats the most important," the president of Ukraine emphasised. Background: Right before the meeting, Donald Trump praised the way Volodymyr Zelenskyy acted during the attempt to impeach Trump in 2019 and said they had a "great relationship". He immediately noted the same about his relationship with Russian ruler Vladimir Putin and reiterated his confidence that he could quickly stop the war if elected president. The meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump at Trump Tower in New York follows a day of heightened tensions, during which Trump supporters accused the Ukrainian president of "interfering in the election" by criticising Trump's peace plan to support Biden. Additionally, House Speaker Mike Johnson declined to meet with Zelenskyy. Initially, the meeting was believed to be unlikely to take place, but at the last minute, Trump agreed to it. Support UP or become our patron! (Bloomberg) -- Former President Donald Trump said he will meet with Volodymyr Zelenskiy Friday morning, after stepping up his criticism of the Ukrainian president in recent days. Most Read from Bloomberg President Zelenskiy has asked to meet with me, and I will be meeting with him tomorrow morning at around 9:45 in Trump Tower, Trump said at a press conference Thursday in New York. Its a shame whats happening in Ukraine. So many deaths, so much destruction. Trump has criticized President Joe Bidens administration over its military assistance for Kyiv to repel Russian President Vladimir Putins invasion. He said that, if elected, he will force Zelenskiy to the negotiating table with Putin. Trump added that one of the things that are very bothersome to me is the fact that Europe is paying only a small fraction of the money that the United States of America is paying. Vice President Kamala Harris criticized Trump earlier Thursday, saying pressuring Zelenskiy to negotiate with Putin would force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory or forgo security ties with allies. Let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, Harris said in remarks that didnt mention Trump by name. Biden announced $8 billion in new assistance for Kyiv on Thursday and sought to assure his counterpart of continued allied support. The Ukrainian president is in Washington to detail a victory plan a blueprint Zelenskiy says is aimed at winning the war. Hes also met with other world leaders as part of the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week. Zelenskiy rankled the Trump campaign after a visit to swing state Pennsylvania, where he toured a defense manufacturing facility in his bid for more security assistance. Trump assailed Zelenskiy on Wednesday saying, hes making little nasty aspersions toward your favorite president, me. --With assistance from Nancy Cook. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Trump says he will meet with Zelensky at Trump Tower in New York on Sept. 27 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said on Sept. 26 that he would meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky at Trump Tower in New York City on Sept. 27. The previous day, the AP reported, citing sources from Trump's campaign, that there was no meeting planned between the two. Zelensky has been in the U.S. since Sept. 22, where he has held a series of high-level meetings with foreign leaders, as well as a visit to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Pennsylvania and an address to the U.N. General Assembly. Trump's rhetoric against Zelensky and U.S. support for Ukraine has grown harsher in recent days. He has claimed that Zelensky wants Democrats to win the upcoming presidential election and referred to him as "the greatest salesman on earth." Earlier on Sept. 26, Trump shared a screenshot of a message purportedly from Zelensky on Truth Social. The message, which cannot be independently verified, reportedly carried a personal request from Zelensky to meet with Trump. "Days ago, we requested a meeting with you, and I really want to hear your thoughts directly, and firsthand. You know I always speak with great respect about everything connected to you, and that's how it should be," the message read. "I believe it's important for us to have a personal contact and to understand each other 100%." Trump announced the meeting shortly after he shared the post. During his comments to the press, Trump declined to answer if he thought that Ukraine should cede territory in exchange for peace. Senator J.D. Vance, his running mate, said earlier in September that Trump's plan to end Russia's war could include the establishment of a special demilitarized zone between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine would retain its sovereignty, but at the same time, it would have to give guarantees to Russia that it would not join NATO or any other allied institutions, Vance added. Trump has regularly repeated that if elected, he would end the full-scale war within 24 hours. However, when asked by reporters during his announcement of the meeting with Zelensky how he envisioned the end of the war, he said, "I don't want to tell you what that looks like." Read also: Trump slams Zelensky for refusing to make a deal with Moscow Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. In his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, former President Donald Trump touted a "very good relationship" with Russia's President Vladimir Putin as he vowed to negotiate a "fair deal" for both sides. "I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin," Trump said ahead of his Friday meeting with Zelenskyy at Trump Tower. "And I think if we win, I think we're going to get it resolved very quickly." Zelenskyy quickly retorted, "I really think we will have more good relations." MORE: Trump lashes out at Zelenskyy after Ukraine's leader questioned his claim he could end war Trump reacted: "You know, it takes two to tango, you know, and we will. We're gonna have a good meeting today." PHOTO: Former President Donald Trump meets with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Trump Tower in New York, Sept. 27, 2024. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP) On the campaign trail, Trump has often boasted that he would be able to stop the war in Ukraine, though he has yet to provide specifics as to how, often showing a willingness to work with both sides. "The president wants it to stop, and I'm sure President Putin wants it to stop, and that's a good combination. So we want to have a fair deal for everybody," Trump said in a joint interview with Fox News on Friday. However, when asked what a "fair" deal would look like, Trump said, "It's too early to say that." Ahead of Friday's meeting, Trump and Zelenskyy publicly criticized each other as Trump has scrutinized U.S. funding of the war in Ukraine and, at times, has hinted at resistance to providing more assistance to the country. MORE: Harris, standing with Zelenskyy, indirectly jabs at Trump and Vance on Ukraine views "Every time Zelenskyy comes to the United States, he walks away with $100 billion. I think he's the greatest salesman on Earth," Trump said at a campaign event on Tuesday in Savannah, Georgia. "My feeling is that Trump doesn't really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how," Zelenskyy said in an interview with The New Yorker. "With this war, oftentimes, the deeper you look at it, the less you understand. I've seen many leaders who were convinced they knew how to end it tomorrow, and as they waded deeper into it, they realized it's not that simple." PHOTO: Former President Donald Trump meets with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Trump Tower in New York, Sept. 27, 2024. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP) This week, Trump quipped that Zelenskyy was "making little nasty aspersions" towards him. Despite the public criticisms, the fact that the meeting occurred highlights the significance of Ukraine having good relationships with both political parties as their country's fate has begun to get more wrapped up in U.S. politics. Throughout their brief public interactions, Zelenskyy attempted to refute some of the languages Trump was using about the war in Ukraine. During a pull-aside interview with Fox News, Zelenskyy emphasized Russia's invasion of Ukrainian soil. MORE: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy discusses 'Victory Plan' he will present to Biden: GMA exclusive "We need to do, to do everything to pressure him to stop this war, and he's on our territory, that the most important to understand he's on our territory," Zelenskyy said. It comes as, in recent days, Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, have left the door open to Ukraine potentially ceding land to Russia in negotiations to end the war. PHOTO:Vice President Kamala Harris, accompanied by Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, waves to the media from the balcony of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex in Washington, DC, Sept. 26, 2024. (Jose Luis Magana/AP) Asked by ABC News' Rachel Scott on Thursday if Ukraine should turn over some of its land to Russia in order to end the war as his running mate had suggested, Trump said: "We'll see what happens." During a call with reporters, Vance was asked if he believes Ukraine should cede land in exchange for the war to end, offering a similar openness. "Everything is gonna be on the table," said Vance. "I think nothing is going to be definitively on the table. That's why you have a negotiation, especially with a guy who's as skilled as Donald Trump, is because you actually try to have a conversation between both parties and other interested parties about how to bring this war to close," he added. Vice President Kamala Harris met with Zelenskyy on Thursday where she alluded to these comments from the Republican ticket. "However, in candor, I share with you Mr. President, there are some in my country who would, instead, force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality and would require Ukraine to forego security relationships with other nations," Harris said. Trump says he wants 'fair deal' between Ukraine and Russia originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, Donald Trump, and lt. gubernatorial candidate Hal Weatherman pose for a photo over the Memorial Day weekend. (Photo: @HalWeathermanNC account on X.com) Embattled Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson has not been invited to appear with Donald Trump during the former presidents last two appearances in North Carolina. And while Trump has avoided being seen with Robinson, he claimed on Thursday to be unaware of the controversy that has been brewing since September 19th when CNN aired an explosive report connecting Robinson to a series of explicit racial and sexual online posts. The comments, made before he ran for public office, appeared on a pornography forum under a username that CNN said it was able to identify as Robinson by matching a litany of biographical details and a shared email address between the two. In the comments, he voiced support for the return of slavery. In other posts, Robinson allegedly referred to himself as a perv and a black NAZI. Robinson has repeatedly denied the CNN report and has retained legal counsel even as Republican politicians have backed away from the gubernatorial nominee and canceled fundraisers. On Thursday, News Nation reporter Libbey Dean asked Trump whether or not he would retract his own endorsement of Robinson. Trumps response: I dont know the situation. Me: Are you going to pull your endorsement of Mark Robinson? Trump: I dont know the situation. pic.twitter.com/Y3orTxf9Ku Libbey Dean (@LibbeyDean_) September 26, 2024 Democrats were quick to say Trumps response amounted to a blatant dodge. Its impossible to believe that, somehow, Donald Trump missed the news about his handpicked candidate for governor calling himself a Nazi. Trump has been to North Carolina twice since the news broke and is still standing by Robinson, even as the people who know Robinson best are abandoning him, said Harris-Walz spokesperson Ammar Moussa in a statement. Moussa said Trump simply views Robinson as a loyal MAGA soldier who would willingly fan the flames of division. Robinson has been off the campaign trail since Monday dealing with the loss of multiple campaign staffers and the resignation of senior employees in the lieutenant governors office, who are not a part of his campaign. On Thursday, Robinson was able to claim an endorsement from the Oil & Gas Workers Association and roll out a new campaign commercial featuring his wife, Yolanda Hill Robinson. Yolanda Robinson In the two-minute video filmed at a kitchen table, Yolanda Hill says her husband is known sometimes to raise his voice and raise a ruckus, but it is all because of the passion he has to protect North Carolina. Hill, who has faced questions about record-keeping discrepancies at a nonprofit she operated, blamed Robinsons Democratic opponent, Josh Stein, for lying and attacking her husband. Former Republican governor Pat McCrory said Robinsons history of inflammatory comments presents the party with a ticking time bomb that could sway the presidential race. Polls show Robinson trailing Stein by double digits. This weekend, Lt. Gov. Robinson is slated to appear at the NC Faith & Freedom Coalition Salt & Light Conference in Marion, NC. That event will also feature Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice, former HUD Secretary Ben Carson, South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace, and two other North Carolina Republican nominees for statewide office Congressman and state Attorney General candidate Dan Bishop, and Superintendent of Public Instruction candidate Michele Morrow. It might have been a difficult encounter, but afterwards, neither Donald Trump not Keir Starmer gave any hint that that was the case. The two-hour private meeting between the GOP candidate and former president and Britains new prime minister in New York could have well have been awkward. Starmer could have been put on the defensive as Trump raised the small matter of foreign secretary David Lammys previous description of him, in a breathless, student-y, not to mention a historic sort of way, as a Neo-Nazi sociopath. Lammy, shortly after Starmer had carried out his threat to appoint him as foreign secretary, went on to justify his words but undertook to work with whoever was elected as president in November, which was very magnanimous of him. Starmer might also have been put on the defensive by the recent comments of Labours other professional Trump critic, London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, who has basked in the adoration of supporters for sticking it to The (Orange) Man repeatedly since Trump was first elected president in 2016. This week, perhaps out of concern that the American election might pass without his playing a central role in the drama, warned US voters that the world is watching and they had better not elect someone of whom Khan did not approve. No doubt Trump was aware, even as he broke bread with Starmer, of the view the Labour Party holds of him. Given his reputation for less-than-diplomatic language, it is extraordinary that ahead of their dinner, Trump had only good things to say about Starmer: I actually think hes very nice. He ran a great race, he did very well, its very early. Then, perhaps exposing a glaring weakness in the team who brief him on UK current events, Trump added: Hes very popular. For Starmers part, it is reassuring that he managed to avoid the playground performative soundbites that his party colleagues find too difficult to resist. The prime minister declined to side with either Trump or his Democrat opponent, Vice-President Kamala Harris. Instead he pledged to work with whoever emerges as the victor in November and will seek to strengthen the special relationship between the UK and the US. This is exactly what UK prime ministers are supposed to do. The notion that a prime ministers own political preferences are somehow important enough to express publicly is a quaint and immature one that risks compromising the national interest. On this occasion at least, the prime ministers mantra country before party has been fully honoured. But this will carry no weight with Labours usual suspects, who have dined out on their loathing of Trump ever since he upset just about everyone by winning the presidency in 2016. This weeks meeting at Trump Tower, of all places comes just days after Starmers love-in with Italian prime minister Georgia Meloni and his subsequent positive comments about Italys scheme for processing asylum seekers in Albania. But performative outrage became a core part of Labour politicians prospectus during those long years of opposition. Consider Lammys embarrassing tirade this week to the United Nations, when he turned what should have been a united international condemnation of Russias invasion of Ukraine into a tirade about the transatlantic slave trade and, more importantly, about Lammy himself. This was taking virtue-signalling to an international level, leaving professionalism at the door but presumably playing better in Lammys Tottenham constituency. And remember when former House of Commons Speaker, John Bercow, sought to win the approval of the Labour Party and sections of the public constituencies that Speakers should have no interest in courting by declaring that he would not allow a visiting President Trump to use Westminster Hall as the venue for a speech. We should be grateful that Starmer has resisted the temptation to indulge in similar grandstanding. This is a leader who clearly has little fear of the inevitable criticism he will face from the Left of his own party, and the sensible part will recognise the truth of his judgment that the decision on who to elect lies solely with the American public. Back home, he might take a few moments to consider the implications of a Trump victory for Britain, and how the 47th president might view a government whose foreign secretary is incapable of behaving in as professional a manner as his boss. Or even as professionally as 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. Drip Drip Donald Trump has a bold and nonsensical plan to solve California's water shortage crisis: by shipping it down from the Rocky Mountains via what he describes as a "very large faucet." As Portland, Oregon's KOIN reports, experts are raising eyebrows at the claim the ex-president made during a campaign stop in the Los Angeles area earlier in the month. "You have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north, with the snow caps and Canada, and all pouring down," Trump said between fundraisers in LA's ritzy Rancho Palos Verdes community. "And they have, essentially, a very large faucet, and you turn the faucet, and it takes one day to turn, and its massive." "You turn that, and all of that water goes aimlessly into the Pacific," the GOP nominee continued. "And if you turned it back, all of that water would come right down here and right into Los Angeles." Speaking to the Portland news outlet,Larry O'Neill, Oregon's state climatologist, pointed out that the mechanics of Trump's "very large faucet" simply don't make sense. "There is indeed no such diversion system," O'Neill said, "and none has been seriously proposed that I am aware of." Treaty Terms While it's unclear who the "they" in Trump's bizarre yarn refers to or what exact mechanism the presidential contender is referring to, Canadian media suggested earlier in September that it's likely he was referencing diverting water via the Rocky Mountains' Columbia River, which runs through British Columbia and into Washington and Oregon. In an interview with the country's Global News outlet, Werner Antweiler of the University of British Columbia said that Trump's idea isn't actually new. "The idea seems to be in the heads of people that Canada has all this wonderful water," Antweiler, who teaches business at the BC university, told the publication. Antweiler noted that there are a number of reasons such a scheme wouldn't work. It would be way too expensive to implement, the professor said, and this sort of resource diversion would also likely violate the Columbia River Treaty between the neighboring countries that "regulates how much water is flowing across the border and what its going to be used for." "Im sure Mr. Trump has never studied hydrology or the economics of water management and the actual, the needs of California," the professor continued, "because what California needs is mostly local water." Between this imaginary faucet and his intense fear of windmills, it seems pretty clear that Trump has not, in fact, studied how this stuff works but that doesn't make it any less funny when actual experts point it out. More on Trump proposals: Trump Says He Can Save America, But He Can't Even Think of an Idea to Save His Dying Startup Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Friday threatened the Google search engine with criminal prosecution over his belief its search results are biased against him. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Friday threatened to criminally prosecute the Internet search engine Google for allegedly favoring Democratic opponent Kamala Harris in its search results. Without providing evidence, Trump claimed in a post on his Truth Social site that Google is trying to interfere with the 2024 presidential election by purposely displaying only "bad stories" about him. "It has been determined that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris," he wrote in the post. The former president then threatened to bring criminal charges against the tech giant, writing, "This is an illegal activity, and hopefully the Justice Department will criminally prosecute them for this blatant interference of elections. If not, and subject to the laws of our country, I will request their prosecution, at the maximum levels, when I win the election, and become president of the United States." Trump's allegations seem to be in reaction to a study issued this week by the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog group led by activist L. Brent Bozell, CNBC reported. The study claims Google "very clearly pads its search results about political candidates with leftist legacy news articles, many of which are hostile to Republicans and either neutral or favorable toward Democrats." "Google is trying to stack the deck in favor of Kamala Harris," Bozell told Fox News Digital Wednesday. Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., did not immediately respond to Trump's allegations. The GOP candidate's complaints about Google represent the latest in long line of allegations from Trump and other Republican politicians and conservative activists who perceive a bias against them from social media platforms. He similarly alleged Google's search results were biased against him in 2019 after an Google employee claimed he was fired for being conservative and that company executives used their power "to control the flow of information to the public and make sure that Trump loses in 2020." Google, as well as some independent technology experts, have dismissed claims that its search results are being manipulated for political purposes, not only because that would undermine the company's successful business model but also because its algorithms are designed to highly rank results from news sources judged to be factually "authoritative and accurate." Despite the denials, accusations from conservatives about alleged anti-Trump bias in the search engine have resurfaced as he appears deadlocked with Harris with the election looming. Elon Musk, owner of the X media platform and a supporter of Trump, accused Google of such bias in a series of X posts in July, zeroing in on its autocomplete feature, which provides suggestions based on what users type into its search bar. He claimed Google had a "search ban" on Trump because he didn't appear in some users' autocomplete predictions for "president donald." "Autocomplete is currently not working as intended for some searches about the names of several past presidents and the current vice president," a Google spokesperson told NBC News. "We're looking into these anomalies and working on improvements, which we hope to roll out soon. Our autocomplete systems are dynamic, so predictions will change based on common and trending queries." Former President Trump leads Vice President Harris by 6 points in the battleground of Arizona, according to a poll released Friday. The USA Today/Suffolk University survey found Trump leads the vice president 48 percent to 42 percent in the Grand Canyon State. Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian Party nominee Chase Oliver got 1 percent each. About 5 percent were undecided. Trumps strength is driven by the two top issues in Arizona the economy and immigration, said David Paleologos, the director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center. Trump is winning each issue by overwhelming margins. About 47 percent of Latino voters in Arizona said they back the vice president, while 35 percent said they side with Trump. Arizona has around 1.3 million Latino-eligible voters, according to Pew Research Center. The top two issues among the survey respondents were the economy, at 27 percent, and immigration, at 21 percent, and both topics are seen as key issues in the election. About 52 percent of the polls respondents said they were worse off than they were four years ago. In another recent poll, the vice president had a 3-point edge in Arizona, according to Bloomberg News/Morning Consult. But Harris trailed Trump in Arizona by 3 points in a recently released poll from Fox News. Trump has a 48.5 percent to 47.7 percent in Arizona, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQs aggregate of polls. The former president has a 4-point lead in Maricopa County, a bellwether county, getting 47 percent to Harriss 43 percent, while about 8 percent of voters were undecided, according to the USA Today/Suffolk University survey. The statewide poll was conducted Sept. 21-24 among 500 likely voters. It has a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points. The survey focused on Maricopa County was done over the same period among an additional 300 likely voters, with a margin of error of 5.65 percentage points. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. In his first face-to-face meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in more than four years, Donald Trump said hed work with Ukraine and Russia to find a solution thats good for both sides to end the war and emphasized he has strong relationships with both the Ukrainian president and Russian President Vladimir Putin. We have a very good relationship. I also have a very good relationship with President Putin and you know, I think if we win were going to get it resolved very quickly, Trump said. The exchange Friday in New York ahead of a private meeting between the two leaders elicited pushback from Zelenskyy, who interjected: I hope we have more good relations with us. The joint appearance at Trump Tower comes as the former president has criticized Zelenskyy on the campaign trail, saying this week the Ukrainian leader was making little nasty aspersions toward your favorite president, me, and denigrating him as the "greatest salesman on Earth. Zelenskyy, who was in New York to address the United Nations General Assembly and meet with U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill as well as President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House had spent several days shoring up support for Ukraines long war with Russia, which escalated the conflict two years ago by invading the country. Trump, who often says Russia never would have invaded Ukraine if he was president at the time, emphasized Friday that, if elected, hed work with both sides to get this settled but indicated any negotiation would also benefit Russia. During his debate with Harris two weeks ago, Trump also declined to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war. We can work out something thats good for both sides, its time. And by the way, the president wants to get something done, he doesn't want to do this, Trump said Friday, while Zelenskyy stood just inches away. And when Zelenskyy cut in to say that Trump has a better relationship with Ukraine than Russia, Trump replied: Ah, I see. But, it takes two to tango. I think the fact that were even together today is a good sign, and hopefully well have a good victory because if the other side wins, I dont think were going to have victories with anything, to be honest with you, Trump said. The 2024 presidential election could have a significant impact on the war in Ukraine. While Democrats have continued to vow support for Ukraine in its effort to defeat Russia, Trump and some of his Republican colleagues have been deeply skeptical of aid to Kyiv. The former president said that he would work to strike a deal between the warring countries. Zelenskyy said to the press during the joint appearance he wanted to share all the plans, all the steps and said we have to stop Putin. We will try on the battlefield with our heroic soldiers. And we understand after November we have to decide and we hope with the strength of the United States we will be very strong, and we count on it. Thats why I have decided to meet with both candidates. After the meeting, which lasted about an hour, a representative of the Ukrainian delegation told POLITICO that everything "went really well. "Trump was really attentive. We discussed our plan in detail, and talked about some key things," a Ukrainian official said, providing no additional details. Republicans have criticized Zelenskyy this week after he made critical comments about Trumps running mate Sen. JD Vance during a recently published interview and toured the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, which is making ammunition for the Ukrainian army, with several Democrats, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, whom Harris considered as a potential running mate. The Scranton visit prompted House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) to open a probe into the trip and Speaker Mike Johnson to call for Zelenskyy to fire his ambassador to the U.S. for arranging the trip. Johnson, who did not meet with Zelenskyy this week, claimed in a letter no Republicans were invited on the visit to the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania. The Ukrainian leader told the New Yorker that Vance is too radical with his opposition to U.S. aid to Kyiv and said Trump doesnt really know how to end the war. My feeling is that Trump doesnt really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how, Zelenskyy told the New Yorker. With this war, oftentimes, the deeper you look at it the less you understand. Ive seen many leaders who were convinced they knew how to end it tomorrow, and as they waded deeper into it, they realized its not that simple. Trump and Zelenskyy have had a complicated relationship since Trump was in the White House and withheld military aid to Ukraine to try to pressure the Ukrainian leader to investigate Biden and his son Hunters business dealings. Trump said there was no quid pro quo, but the conversation launched a formal impeachment inquiry by the House on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Trump was acquitted by the Senate. On Friday, Trump praised Zelenskyy for not being cute and for saying President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong about the phone call that caused the first impeachment. Trump was joined at the meeting with Ric Grenell, an adviser to the former president and the former acting director of National Intelligence, and his top campaign advisers, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles. It was the first time Trump and Zelenskyy had met in person since a White House visit in 2019, although the two have spoken on the phone since then. It is typical for foreign leaders to seek meetings with presidential candidates from both parties ahead of an election. Trump met with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer for a two-hour dinner in New York on Thursday night and also planned to meet with the president of the United Arab Emirates, Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. On Sunday, Trump met with the prime minister of Qatar at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Following their meeting Friday, Trump said he learned a lot and claimed that if he wins, Ukraine and Russia will reach a very fair and I think, actually, a rather rapid deal, but said it was too early to share his plans to end the war. Veronika Melkozerova contributed to this report. Donald Trump vowed on Thursday to punish Google for in his mind favoring Vice President Kamala Harris in results generated by its search engine. It has been determined that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris, the former president wrote on Truth Social. This is an ILLEGAL ACTIVITY, and hopefully the Justice Department will criminally prosecute them for this blatant Interference of Elections. If not, and subject to the Laws of our Country, I will request their prosecution, at the maximum levels, when I win the Election, and become President of the United States! he added. https://twitter.com/BadLegalTakes/status/1839735740030431526 The claim likely stems from an article published this week by The Media Research Center (MRC) a right-wing nonprofit that claims to defend and preserve Americas founding principles and Judeo-Christian values that was circulated by prominent conservative outlets, including Fox News. The article, titled Google Up to Same Tricks? Search Giant Pushes Wildly Biased News Above Trump Website, claimed that Google has a long history of interfering in American elections in favor of the most liberal politicians, and was doing so again in the 2024 election. MRC asserted that Google searches for donald trump presidential race 2024 and kamala harris presidential race 2024 provided proof of the tech giants bias towards Harris because Trumps campaign website appeared sixth in search results, compared to third for Harris. The outlet further asserted that the inclusion of left-wing sources like Politico, The New York Times, CNN, and The Washington Post in Googles Top Stories box in the search for both candidates was proof of bias, because some of the articles were critical of Trump. Google [is] telling the reader that the most reliable sources of campaign news are CNN, NBC, The Times, The Post, Politico and The Economist liberal sources all, MRC NewsBusters Executive Editor Tim Graham declared in the article. The so-called research provided nothing in the way of verifiable conclusions about Googles algorithm and internal processes. Websites are not pegged to a specific location ranking in Googles search results, and their placement can vary significantly day-to-day. But the point is not to conduct verifiable, replicable research in an unbiased setting, but rather to fuel the former presidents victim complex and provide fodder for his long-standing attacks against any outlet that is not outright deferential to his political project. In recent weeks, Trump has become quite comfortable threatening to jail his political opponents, the subjects of his conspiracies, or just anyone he doesnt like. In August the former president threatened to imprison Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg over baseless claims that the Facebook founder meddled in the 2020 election by donating $350 million investment in the Center for Tech and Civic Life a Chicago-based nonprofit helping provide election administration resources to thousands of precincts during the Covid-19 pandemic. This month alone, Trump vowed to prosecute anyone accused of attempting to cheat him out of a victory in November, said that anyone who criticizes Supreme Court Justices (presumably only the conservative ones) should be put in jail, and demanded former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi be prosecuted over the Jan. 6 insurrection he fomented. Google will need to wait its turn. More from Rolling Stone Best of Rolling Stone Sign up for RollingStone's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Trump meets Zelensky and says it's time to end Russia's war Donald Trump met Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky at his New York base in Trump Tower on Friday and said it was time Russia's war in Ukraine was settled. The Republican presidential nominee has repeatedly criticised the Ukrainian leader on the US campaign trail, and a meeting between the pair had seemed unlikely until hours before. As the two men stood side by side, Zelensky said he thought they had a "common view that the war has to be stopped and Putin can't win", adding that he would discuss with Trump details of his "victory plan". Despite years of differences, Trump insisted he had a very good relationship with Zelensky. "I also have a very good relationship as you know with President Putin and I think if we win [the election] were going to get it resolved very quickly," he said. Afterwards, Trump and Zelensky spoke to Fox News and the former president said he learned a lot from the meeting. We both want to see this end, and we both want to see a fair deal made, he said. It should stop and the president (Zelensky) wants it to stop, and Im sure President Putin wants it to stop and thats a good combination. Zelensky said: Putin killed so many people and of course we need to do everything to pressure him to stop this war. Hes on our territory. Zelensky invited Trump to visit Ukraine, and Trump replied: I will. The Ukrainian president later posted on his Telegram channel that the pair had a very meaningful meeting. We have a common view that the war in Ukraine must be stopped. Putin cannot win. Ukrainians must win, he wrote. Trump, meanwhile, said on his Truth Social account that if he is not elected president, "that war will never end, and will phase into WORLD WAR III". The pair have long had a tumultuous relationship. Trump was impeached in 2019 over accusations that he pressured Zelensky to dig up damaging information on the Biden family. A rough transcript of the call revealed Trump had urged Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, as well as Biden's son Hunter. Standing beside Zelensky on Friday, he praised the Ukrainian leader's handling of the issue. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Trump has frequently repeated Moscow's talking points about the war. During September's presidential debate, he sidestepped a question on whether he wanted Ukraine to emerge victorious in the conflict. Ahead of Friday's meeting, Trump repeated his long-standing claim that he would be able to "work out something" to settle the war if he won the presidential election, long before Joe Biden leaves office in January. He has refused to elaborate when asked whether he believes Ukraine should cede territory to Russia as a means of ending the war. Although Zelensky has been visiting the US since Sunday, their meeting was only confirmed on Thursday night, when Trump posted a screenshot of a text message from President Zelensky saying it was "important for us to have a personal contact and to understand each other 100%". President Zelensky met Donald Trump at the end of a six-day visit to the US [Reuters] There have been tensions all week between Zelensky and the Republican party ahead of November's US presidential election. Some Republicans were angered by Zelensky's visit to an arms factory in Biden's hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, with top Democrats, including state Governor Josh Shapiro, earlier this week. Zelensky's trip to the key swing state was labelled by leading Republicans as a partisan campaign event. In a public letter, House Speaker Mike Johnson said the visit was "designed to help Democrats" and claimed it amounted to "election interference". Ros Atkins on... Why the US election is crucial to Ukraine Trump has grown increasingly critical of continued US funding for Ukraine, and in recent days has sharpened his attacks against Zelensky, calling him the "greatest salesman on Earth" for continuing to obtain military aid. In contrast, Zelensky recently told the New Yorker magazine that he believes Trump "doesn't really know how to stop the war" and called Trump's running mate JD Vance "too radical" and "dangerous" for suggesting that Ukraine should give up territory to end the war, saying it would spark conflict around the world. When asked about Zelensky's comments on Thursday, Trump replied: "I do believe I disagree with him. He doesn't know me." On Thursday, Zelensky met US President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris at the White House to discuss his "victory plan", which he hopes will pressure Russia into agreeing a diplomatic end to the war. Hours before, Biden had announced a further $7.9bn (5.9bn) package of military assistance to Ukraine. As Zelensky visited the US, drone attacks continued in Ukraine. On Thursday night, three people were killed and 14 others wounded in a Russian drone attack on Izmail, a port city on the River Danube. Russia has targeted Izmails grain export facilities in the past. Prosecutors say two boys aged three and 13, and a girl aged 14, were among those wounded in the latest attack. Romanias defence ministry said it was possible that one of the Russian drones involved in the attack had crossed the border into Romania, a Nato member state, for a very short period. [BBC] North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met Friday with former President Trump, who lauded his relationship with Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggesting he could broker an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine very quickly. Were going to work very much with both parties to try and get this settled, Trump told reporters alongside Zelensky. We have a very good relationship, and I also have a very good relationship as you know with President Putin. And I think if we win, I think were going to get it resolved very quickly, Trump added. I hope we have more good relations, Zelensky cut in. Oh, I see, Trump responded. But it takes two to tango, you know. And were going to have a good meeting today. And I think the fact that were even together today is a very good sign. The two, who met at Trump Tower in New York City, shook hands and spoke briefly to the press before sitting down for talks. I think that we can work out something thats good for both sides. Its time, Trump said. By the way, the president [Zelensky] knows that too. He wants to get something done. He doesnt want to do this. Trump, who has often voiced his deep skepticism of U.S. aid to Ukraine, said it was an honor to meet with Zelensky. At a rally Wednesday, Trump joined other Republicans criticizing Zelensky over perceptions that he favors Democrats in Novembers election. Trump also has mocked Zelensky for only coming to the U.S. government for financial help. Every time Zelensky comes to the United States he walks away with $100 billion, I think hes the greatest salesman on Earth, Trump said Tuesday at a campaign event in Savannah, Ga. The U.S. has provided Ukraine about $60 billion in military assistance since Russia first attacked the country in February 2022. At the rally, Trump also praised Putin and Russias military record, telling attendees: They beat Hitler, they beat Napoleon. Thats what they do, they fight. And its not pleasant. Zelensky too has voiced frosty views of his one-time counterpart, telling the New Yorker that Trump doesnt really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows. In the piece, published Sunday, Zelensky also called Trumps pick for vice president, Sen. JD Vance, (R-Ohio,) too radical, because he is pushing for Ukraine to make a sacrifice by giving up its territories. Asked Friday why he decided to meet with Trump, Zelensky said the two had a common view on ending the conflict and, regardless of who wins the election, he hoped U.S. support would continue. I think we have [a] common view that the war in Ukraine has to be stopped and Putin cant win. The Ukrainians have to prevail, and I want to discuss with you the details, Zelensky said. Zelensky is in the U.S. this week for the United Nations General Assembly. He also met with President Biden and Vice President Harris Thursday at the White House, with the administration the same day announcing about $8 billion in military assistance for Kyiv. Trump a day prior said Zelensky had asked to meet with him, again claiming he could broker a deal between Kyiv and Moscow quite quickly. The presidential candidate so far has declined to provide details of what such a deal would include, and his critics worry he is prepared to pressure Ukraine to cede land to Russia. Speaking on Fox News after the meeting ended, Trump said he learned a lot from the conversation and reiterated that he thinks a fair deal is possible, though he declined to say what he thought a fair deal was. I learned a lot, but I think I havent changed from the standpoint that we both want to see this end and we both want to see a fair deal made. And its got to be fair, and I think thatll happen at the right time. I think its going to happen, Trump said. Zelensky then spoke up, pressing that it was Russia that invaded Ukrainian territory. This war shouldnt [have] started, and I think that the problem [is] that Putin killed so many people and, of course, we need to do everything to pressure him to stop this war. He is in our territory. Thats the most important. He is in our territory and how to stop the war to pressure him as we can. We have to do it, Zelensky said. Trump and Zelenskys past has been rocky, with the former U.S. president infamously pressuring the Ukrainian leader to open an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter Biden in exchange for releasing about $400 million in military aid. The call, which took place in July 2019 while Trump was in the White House, led to his first impeachment. Speaking to reporters Friday, Trump brought up the call, insisting he had done nothing wrong and that his impeachment was a hoax The meeting comes as Harris was en route to the southern border. A day prior, after meeting with Zelensky, she slammed so-called Ukraine peace plans from some in the United States as proposals for surrender. There are some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality, and would require Ukraine to forgo security relationships with other nations, Harris said at a media appearance alongside Zelensky. These proposals are the same as those of Putin and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable, she added. Updated: 1:24 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 The Hill. Sen. Joseph McCarthy rose to prominence in the 1950s as he leveled wild allegations about communist infiltration in the U.S. government. Communism was an international threat at the timeand some sympathizers had indeed gained positions of powerbut his recklessness turned into a witch hunt that destroyed lives and ultimately undermined the cause he was touting. His popularity collapsed precipitously after an exchange during one hearing, where he accused U.S. Army attorney Joseph Welch of having a colleague with communist ties. In one of the most famousand effectiveretorts in political history, Welch said: "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessnessHave you no sense of decency?" The last sentence has become a common retort whenever one's political opponents become unhinged. It's one that sprung to mind as former President Donald Trump and his vice presidential pick, Sen. J.D. Vance (ROhio), have continued to repeat baseless claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. As Trump said during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris: "They're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats." Have you no decency, sir? Are there no limits to your cruelty or recklessness? Are you unconcerned about the impact of such allegations on the individuals and families who live thereor the resulting bomb threats and disruptions after you spewed such falsehoods? And why has Vance doubled down on this nonsense even after these stories have been debunked? The whole cat-eating nonsense was first promulgated by actual neo-Nazis, per a Wall Street Journal report. The newspaper did what the Trump campaign was unwilling to dosome basic fact-checking on its veracity before spreading it to a national audience. Vance at one point argued that whatever the specifics, he was focusing needed attention on the problems of immigration in the heartland. There's nothing wrong with sparking policy discussions about immigration, its impact on rust-belt communities, and the strains it places on social services and whatnot. But accusing actual human beings (ones here legally, no less) of falsehoods as a way to illustrate some perceived problemand endangering them in the processis an outrage. It's unconscionable for a man who touts his Christian devotion. Thou shalt not bear false witness, you know. We can lay some of the blame on Miss Sassy. That's the Springfield cat that went missing in August. My long-haired orange tabby Marigold disappeared for a spell a few weeks ago, but I didn't file a police report accusing my immigrant neighbors of taking her, as the Springfield cat owner did. But that's apparently what happened. When pressed on the source, Vance pointed to that police report. The Journal did some basic legwork. The sassy kitty showed up a few days later in her owner's basementand the owner publicly apologized to her Haitian neighbors. Fair enough. An apology from Trump/Vance also seems in order, but MAGA never admits mistakes or backtracks. Now Trump plans a trip to Springfield to stir the pot some more, even as local officials beg him not to come. Some conservative journalists even went on the hunt to confirm pet-eating stories and one published a piece alleging that immigrants from another continent might have been eating pets in a different Ohio city. It shouldn't need to be said, but weak after-the-fact "collaboration" in no way substantiates or justifies cruel allegations against Haitians in Springfield. The Dispatch's Kevin D. Williamson nails it: "The case against the Haitians isn't that they are welfare malingers or cat-eatersor even that they are illegal immigrants who came here thanks to Joe Biden's lax border enforcement, which most of them aren't. The real issue is that by working overtime and investing in the community, they have made life more challenging for a reliable Trump-voting constituency: marginally employed white people on the dole." If you don't think he's onto something, then you're missing the often-abominable attacks on Haitian immigrants published on X and other sources. I got my start in journalism in a small Ohio city (Lima). I understand the difficulties facing struggling rust-belt towns that are losing population and are now besieged by social problems. But an influx of hard-working people can be a boon. Springfield companies are thrilled with the Haitian workforce. Newcomers present challenges, but dying cities endure worse challenges (falling revenues, collapsing home values, crime). As a final note, like Vance my wife took that Hillbilly Highway out of Appalachia. I guarantee these migrants had some unusual habits before assimilating into middle-class culture. Our nation literally was built by "illiterate exotics from distant lands," Williamson added. I'd say it's a core reason for our country's greatness. To politicians and their supporters who disparage people who've done nothing more than come to America for opportunity, I'll repeat Welch's words: Have you no sense of decency? This column was first published in The Orange County Register. The post Trump's and Vance's Attacks on Haitian Immigrants Reveal a Complete Lack of Decency appeared first on Reason.com. Comedian Roseanne Barr is all in on the right-wing conspiracy hype train. During a leg of exFox News host Tucker Carlsons tour in Fort Worth, Texas, on Tuesday, the Trump-supporting actress echoed QAnon theories, insisting that Hollywood denizens are gay as hell, and likened liberals to vampires that love the taste of human flesh. You know they eat babies. That is not bullshit, its true, Barr said. All the while, Carlson nodded along and giggled, seemingly in agreement. In fact, Carlson prodded her to continue, echoing a similarly baseless and asinine theory that Haitian migrants in Ohio were eating peoples pets. Its not just the dogs and the cats, Barr said, not joking. They are full-on vampires, and everybody still thinks Im crazy. But Im not crazy. Theyre full-on vampires. They love the taste of human flesh, and they drink human blood. They do. Of course, according to Barr, Trump will be the antidote to all this madness. By the time we go in to vote for Trump, that he will open up everybodys eyes and they will stop pretending to be asleep, she continued. You know what they say. You cant wake people up that are pretending to be asleep. But I pray to God, please wake up. Even those who are pretending to be asleep with the irrefutable truth of what the worst people on this planet are really up to. They are really up to that. Theyre doing it. There are so many victims. There are so many victims! During the same interview, Barr went on a tangent against liberals for accepting the 2020 presidential election results, clamoring that it was Democratsnot registered Republicans supporting the former presidentwho attempted to thwart the results with their insurrection. They overthrew the constitutional republic of the United States of America, Barr said. And then they covered it up with their January 6 bullshit. With their insurrection! President Trump God bless that man, I love him, and everybody knows it, she continued. I love him more now than I ever loved him, and I loved him pretty damn good. He drove me out in a Bentley when I did my second HBO special at Trump Palace in Atlantic City, if youve seen it. As Tucker Carlsons tour rolls on, headliner Roseanne Barr tells a cheering audience that the elites are eating babies and are vampires who drink blood and love the taste of human flesh but Trump is going to stop it. pic.twitter.com/ohLDmCm1It Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) September 27, 2024 Tulsa Public Schools Superintendent Ebony Johnson speaks to the Oklahoma State Board of Education on April 25 in Oklahoma City. Johnson and Tulsa district leaders no longer will be required to present every month to the board, as they have done for the past year. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice) OKLAHOMA CITY Tulsa Public Schools officials walked out of the Oklahoma State Department of Education to rounds of applause on Thursday, as a yearlong effort to prevent a district takeover appeared to have reached a conclusion. Superintendent Ebony Johnson waved goodbye to agency employees and members of the public who filled the departments hallways for an Oklahoma State Board of Education meeting. Johnson and other TPS leaders had become regular fixtures in the building, returning every month for the past year to present to the board about their districts progress. Their presentation Thursday will be their last monthly report at a state board meeting, marking the end of a turbulent chapter that began more than a year ago. It feels like an affirmation that weve been doing the right thing for our young people and our families, our teachers and our staff, Johnson said while walking to her car before the hour-and-a-half drive back to Tulsa. Her remarks to the board made it clear the job of improving Tulsa schools isnt finished yet, as she outlined plans to combat chronic absenteeism, secure financial procedures, accelerate student learning and improve struggling schools. But, the tone of the meeting was a night-and-day difference from the existential crisis Tulsa faced 12 months ago. At that time, the state Department of Education threatened a takeover of Tulsa, the states largest school district, in light of poor academic performance and a financial scandal. Former Tulsa Superintendent Deborah Gist resigned in hopes of preventing such a drastic outcome. Johnson, the districts chief academic officer, stepped into the superintendent role in the interim before she was later hired permanently. The state Board of Education at the time approved Tulsas accreditation status, which defines its ability to operate as an independent district, on the condition that the districts reading scores improve by at least 5%, that its failing schools show improvement in state evaluations, that all teaching staff be trained in the science of reading and that it improve its internal financial controls. The board also required a presentation every month from district leaders for an update on their progress. The school district has indicated it could meet all of the state boards demands. Tulsa completed science of reading training for all teachers and administrators. It hired an internal auditor to its staff to review financial procedures. New state report cards with grades for each public school havent come out yet, but the district announced 16 of its schools already have shown necessary progress to shed a federal low-performing label. This summer, Tulsa announced it achieved an overall 5% improvement in reading scores on spring state tests. Relieving district administrators of the monthly trek to Oklahoma City would seem a final check mark on the list. However, questions hover around the true extent of reading improvement, not only in Tulsa but statewide. State officials quietly lowered the bar for students to reach a proficient score on reading and math tests this year, creating the illusion of dramatic academic growth statewide. Internal agency documents, which Oklahoma Voice obtained, indicate actual progress across the state has been stagnant. Regardless, state Superintendent Ryan Walters said he is confident Tulsa is in a better place with Johnson at the helm. He recommended that Thursdays meeting be her final monthly presentation. State and Tulsa officials have been in touch weekly, he said, and the district provides everything that we ask of them. That communication will continue, Walters said, but he suggested their attendance at board meetings is no longer necessary. The board agreed with a unanimous vote. I have got tremendous confidence in the leadership team there, the direction there, Walters told the board members on Thursday. I think we can move into a stage thats much more informal. The board then approved accreditation for Tulsa and all other districts in the state. This year, Tulsa will maintain its status of accredited with deficiencies, which is defined as failing to meet one or more school requirements in a way that doesnt seriously detract from the quality of its educational program. Another 420 schools and districts have the same designation, and 1,981 others have no deficiencies, state officials said. Nine school districts were accredited with warning, indicating they have deficiencies that seriously detract from their educational quality. Four districts Billings, Optima, Straight and Western Heights have been placed on probation, the lowest possible designation short of being shut down. Education Department documents show all four districts had financial reporting issues, among other concerns. State officials noted that Western Heights Public Schools is correcting IRS filing challenges and has significantly improved since it first landed on probation in 2021. Tulsas accreditation status is consistent with its label last year this time without any stipulations or storm clouds. Johnson said she imagined no other outcome than to reach this more-stable point. Absolutely it was not going to be anything other than this. Its the way I lead, she said. My priority is to make sure that our students get all the resources that they need, our teachers are supported (and) our support staff, and then my team continues to lead in the most awesome way. And so, absolutely, we were going to get here. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Tunisia's parliament votes on a bill stripping the court of election oversight, in Tunis Tunisia's parliament votes on a bill stripping the court of election oversight, in Tunis By Tarek Amara TUNIS (Reuters) -Tunisia's parliament approved a law stripping the Administrative Court of its authority to adjudicate electoral disputes on Friday, nine days before the presidential election and fuelling opposition fears of a rigged result aimed at keeping President Kais Saied in power. The Administrative Court is widely seen as the North African country's last independent judicial body, after Saied dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council and dismissed dozens of judges in 2022. Out of a total 161 lawmakers, 116 voted for the major amendment to the electoral law. The current parliament assembly was elected in 2022 on an 11% voter turnout after Saied dissolved the previous parliament in what the opposition has described as a coup. As a large police contingent erected iron barriers to block access to parliament, dozens of protesters held placards saying "Assassination of Democracy" and "Rigged election". Some protesters chanted, "Dictator Saied ... your turn has come!" Civil rights activists and opposition parties including the Free Constitutional Party, whose leader is in jail, called for protests on Saturday. "We are witnessing the capture of the state days before the vote," political activist Chaima Issa said. "We are at the peak of absurdity and one-man rule." PRESIDENTIAL RIVALS DISQUALIFIED The Administrative Court this month ordered the electoral commission to reinstate disqualified presidential candidates, saying the legitimacy of the Oct. 6 election was in question. But the commission defied the court and has allowed only two candidates to run against Saied. Lawmakers said they had proposed the bill because they believed the Administrative Court was no longer neutral and could annul the election and plunge Tunisia into chaos and a constitutional vacuum. Critics argue that Saied is using the electoral commission and the judiciary to secure victory by stifling competition and intimidating rivals. Saied says he is fighting traitors, mercenaries and corruption. Saied was democratically elected in 2019, but then tightened his grip on power and began ruling by decree in 2021. Presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel was sentenced last week to 20 months in prison on charges of falsifying popular endorsements, and to a further six months on Wednesday on charges of falsifying documents. Abir Moussi, leader of the Free Constitutional Party, has been imprisoned since last year on charges of harming public security. Another prominent politician, Lotfi Mraihi, was jailed this year on charges of vote-buying in 2019. Both had said they would run in October, but were prevented from submitting their applications from jail. Another court jailed four other potential candidates in August and gave them lifetime bans from running for office. (Reporting by Tarek Amara; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Leslie Adler) SOMERSET, Pa. (WTAJ) The PA Turnpike Commission hosted a public meeting Wednesday night at the Somerset Church of the Brethren to update the community on where the Allegheny Mountain Realignment Project stands. Right now the project is still in the preliminary planning stage and will be until 2028. Then it will enter the final planning stage that will last until 2032. Hundreds of concerned community members filled the church social hall in opposition to a project that many say could destroy the mountain. Kevin Scheurich, the assistant chief engineer of the Turnpike Commission, said that the project is essential to upgrading the tunnel which would be 100 years old by the time construction starts. I think with every project right youre going to have people that support the project and people that oppose it, Scheurich said. Were spending a lot of money just rehabbing it, keeping it safe so that people can drive through it today. At some point, we need to do something in addition to the fact that it doesnt have the capacity that we need. Our traffic looks a lot different than it did in 1940. State Representative for the 69th District, Carl Metzgar was also at the meeting, after issuing a statement against the project. He said no one wants the project to happen except for the Turnpike Commission. The proposal that they have out here is for a cut that is 1000 feet wide into the mountain, Metzgar said. That huge cut through an uninterrupted mountain face, the tallest mountain chain in Pennsylvania, is just unconscionable from our standpoint. Evan Endres with the Nature Conservancy PA was also at the meeting and raised concerns about how the cut through the mountain could impact wildlife in the region. More from Jordan Mansberger This corridor is going to become a superhighway of species seeking refuge to higher elevations and movement north, Endres said. Its a turnpike for nature essentially. Maybe without the tolls. In his statement, Metzgar also suggested that the project could negatively impact water supplies in Allegheny and Stoneycreek Townships, as well as Berlin Borough. They could turn a town into a ghost town very quickly, Metzgar said. Were talking about hundreds, maybe thousands of peoples water that could be impacted by this project. Scheurich said that they are still too early in the planning process to know exactly how the project would impact the water supply, but said that they will be looking at all of the potential environmental impacts and how to mitigate them throughout the process. Drinking water is a concern, Scheurich said. The aquifer is a concern. We do probably need to hire a hydro-geologist and get them on board. Stay up to date with the latest news in the palm of your hand. Click here to download the WTAJ app for Apple and Android devices. The PA Turnpike Commission said that they will continue to collect public input throughout the entire planning process and host similar meetings 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 WTAJ - www.wtaj.com. BARRONETT, Wis. (WFRV) After a multi-county search through northern Wisconsin on Wednesday, two children who had allegedly been abducted were safely found and a suspect was taken into custody. According to the Barron County Sheriffs Office, deputies were notified by the Ashland Police Department about a six-year-old and a three-year-old who were reportedly abducted from the Ashland area. Deputies learned of the possible abduction around 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 25. 18-year-old turns himself in as fourth suspect in Green Bay homicide case While deputies began their search with help from the Department of Criminal Investigation, the Wisconsin DNR, and staff from the Scout Reservation, information was provided that the children may be in the Barronett area. With additional help from the Washburn County Sheriffs Office, authorities were able to find the suspects vehicle. The suspect was identified as Gage Ackley Dechant, a 30-year-old from Drummond. Shortly after, the two children were found, as well as Dechant. Authorities say Dechant was then taken into custody. The children were taken to a local hospital to check their welfare and to be reunited with their family. Leader of drug trafficking organization in Wisconsin sentenced to federal prison It was noted that Dechant was taken to the Barron County Jail on a probation warrant. No additional details were provided. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFRV Local 5 - Green Bay, Appleton. Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, two Black women who died after trying home abortions, arent the only ones who have suffered due to Georgias abortion restriction law, according to Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, an Atlanta-based reproductive justice group. There are so many other people that have come up to me directly, as Ive been in different events or doing different things, saying, This also happened to me. I almost lost my life, Simpson told Capital B Atlanta on Wednesday. Despite increased restrictions against abortion in Georgia, demand for abortion continues in the state, with Black and Hispanic women seeking abortion care more than others. While the outcomes arent always fatal, the suffering these women have endured has motivated Black reproductive rights activists in Atlanta to work on campaigns to draw attention to Georgias restricted access in the November election. Black Georgians overwhelmingly opposed the states abortion restrictions, which have been in place for two years and limit abortions to the first six weeks of pregnancy with few exceptions. A University of Georgia poll released in October 2022 revealed that more than 86% of Black residents strongly disapproved of the six-week restriction. Simpson and other maternal health advocates with the Trust Black Women campaign will host a vigil and rally outside the Gold Dome in Atlanta at 2 p.m. on Saturday to demand accountability for Miller and Thurmans preventable deaths. The activists have attributed Miller and Thurmans deaths to Georgias controversial law limiting the procedure from being performed after about six weeks of pregnancy unless the life of the mother is threatened. (Georgia law also allows abortions in cases of rape or incest to take place before 20 weeks if the expecting mother has filed a police report or if a doctor determines the fetus suffers from congenital or chromosomal anomaly that makes it unlikely to survive after birth.) The stated goal of the rally is to emphasize the impact of Georgias controversial six-week limit on most abortions and issue a call to action to change the law at state and national levels. State Rep. Park Cannon, D-Atlanta, introduced legislation that would expand abortion rights in Georgia in 2022 and 2023, yet Georgia Republicans defeated both those measures during the last two legislative sessions. Simpson expects abortion rights to play a crucial role in the battleground states upcoming presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. How Georgia leaders have responded to Miller and Thurmans deaths A pair of bombshell ProPublica stories published last week revealed harrowing and graphic details about Miller and Thurmans respective abortion-related demises roughly two years ago. Miller was a 41-year-old mother of three whose chronic health issues threatened her unexpected pregnancy in 2022. A medical examiners autopsy failed to determine the exact cause of Millers death after taking abortion pills, but medical records noted she ingested a lethal combination of painkillers after refusing to see a doctor due to Georgias abortion law, according to ProPublica, which cited accounts given by Millers family along with medical records stating she had no history of drug use. Thurman was a 28-year-old aspiring nurse who died of septic shock in August 2022 after doctors in North Carolina apparently declined to perform a common dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure to remove fetal tissue from her uterus following her taking abortion pills in Georgia. The Tar Heel State has had a 12-week abortion ban on the books since July 1, 2023. Maternal health providers have theorized such bans would cause doctors to think twice before performing some procedures, fearing they could be prosecuted or lose their licenses. Republicans, including GOP Gov. Brian Kemp, have argued that exceptions included in Georgias abortion law, also known as the LIFE Act, allow women like Miller and Thurman to receive life-saving medical care. Last week, Kemps office suggested abortion rights advocates and reporters are partly to blame for Miller and Thurmans deaths. They would likely both be alive today if partisan activists and so-called journalists had not spread such egregious misinformation and propaganda that fostered a culture of fear and confusion, spokesperson Garrison Douglas told WSAV on Sept. 20. Community leaders gather for a picture in front of the Georgia State Capitol in July 2022 following a demonstration through downtown Atlanta in opposition to Georgias abortion law. (Megan Varner/Getty Images) Abortion rights supporters agree that confusion over the law has motivated doctors to deny treatment to patients like South Atlanta resident Yasmein Ziyad, a Black woman from Morrow, Georgia, who told Congress earlier this month that her physician refused to help treat her spontaneous miscarriage due to fear of prosecution. Ziyad said she experienced severe cramping, bleeding, and pain strong enough to stop me from doing anything, as a result of her condition. She said she and her fiance have now given up on hopes of ever being pregnant again. I didnt have to go through this, Ziyad told members of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Human Rights on Sept. 16. These laws created so much fear and confusion that I couldnt get the care I needed; that would have spared me so much pain and suffering. Abortions are still happening Maternal health treatment may have suffered in Georgia as a result of the states abortion law, but demand for abortions havent decreased at the states four Planned Parenthood clinics, according to Jaylen Black, spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Southeast. Black said more women are seeking abortions earlier in their pregnancy as a result of the law. If anything, were trying to figure out ways to open up more appointments to see more patients, like being open on the weekend, later in the evening, because we want to see more patients and the demand is there, Black told Capital B Atlanta on Thursday. A 2019 Kaiser Family Foundation study revealed 65% of Georgias abortions are performed on Black women, even though Black men and women combined only make up about 33% of the states population. Black, who previously campaigned for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, said poverty and disparity in health care coverage are largely to blame for the enormous disparity. Eighty-two counties in Georgia dont even have an OB-GYN, said Black, citing data concerning Georgias maternal health care deserts. This is going to impact lower-income people differently. Its going to impact Black and Hispanic women and birthing people differently. Abortion rights take center stage ahead of Election Day Activists expect more tragic stories like Thurmans and Millers to surface and motivate abortion rights supporters to vote against Trump in the roughly six weeks left ahead of Election Day. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a Sept. 20 campaign event in Atlanta. Harris has promised to sign legislation restoring abortion rights protections previously granted by Roe. v. Wade. (Brynn Anderson/Associated Press) Harris has promised to sign legislation restoring the abortion rights protections previously included in the U.S. Supreme Courts landmark 1973 Roe. v. Wade decision, even if Congress has to end its filibuster rule to do so. We should eliminate the filibuster for Roe, and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do, Harris told Wisconsin Public Radio on Tuesday. During his presidential term, Trump nominated three of the six U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, thereafter fulfilling a campaign promise he made to evangelical conservatives. Last year, Trump boasted on social media about his role in eliminating federal abortion rights. Since then, hes sought to distance himself from the issue, saying its now up to individual state governments to decide. Abortion has become a political albatross around the necks of Trump and anti-abortion Republicans across the country. Many GOP candidates have lost races they were expected to win, with political analysts attributing those defeats to public backlash to the overturning of Roe. Former President Donald Trump, shown after the first presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, had boasted about his role in eliminating federal abortion rights. At the debate, Trump said he would not sign a federal abortion ban. (Photo by Li Rui/Xinhua via Getty Images) Trump, in response, declined to endorse a national abortion ban in April, angering anti-abortion members of his conservative base. In August, his vice presidential nominee, U.S. Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, said Trump would veto federal legislation banning abortion. Trump declined to say the same when asked about Vances comments during his Sept. 10 debate against Harris. Im not signing a ban, and theres no reason to sign a ban, Trump said during the debate. It doesnt matter, because this issue has now been taken over by the states. Still, Simpson says Trump is partly to blame for Miller and Thurmans deaths for stacking a Supreme Court with anti-abortion values. He is [to blame], Simpson said of Trump. But so are our [governor] and state legislators who vote and create policies against [bodily] autonomy. Mounted up and ready to go Harris and her Democratic Party supporters in Georgia have seized on the issue of abortion since ProPublicas aforementioned stories made national news. The vice president addressed the subject during a campaign rally in Atlanta on Sept. 20, after reportedly meeting with members of Thurmans family. I talked with her mother and her sisters about her, and they described such an extraordinary life of a person, Harris said of Thurman. I promised [Thurmans mother], as she has asked, that we will make sure Amber is not just remembered as a statistic so that people will know she was a mother and a daughter and a sister, and that she was loved and that she should be alive today. The overturn of Roe galvanized abortion rights supporters across the country in 2022, when many traveled to the polls to support ballot measures that enshrined abortion rights into state law in lieu of a federal legislation that would do the same nationally. Voters in California, Michigan, and Vermont all cast ballots in support of constitutional amendments that would protect abortion rights. Even voters in conservative states like Kansas and Kentucky rejected amendments declaring theres nothing in those states constitutions that establishes a right to an abortion. Montana voters rejected a related referendum that would have protected infants born alive from being aborted. (Murder is already illegal in the Treasure State and across the country.) Black and Simpson declined to confirm whether abortion rights advocates are working with lawmakers on a bill to repeal Georgias abortion restrictions during next years legislative session. I dont know that for sure right now, but I do know that we need our people to get mounted up and ready to go [in November], Simpson said. The post How Two Black Womens Preventable Deaths Put Abortion on the Ballot in Georgia appeared first on Capital B News - Atlanta. CHILTON COUNTY, Ala. (WIAT) Two people were killed in a single-vehicle crash that occurred in Chilton County Thursday morning, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency reports. Ronnie G. Smith, 66, and Teasha S. Biggs, 44, both of Dickson, Tenn., were both killed when the 2005 Toyota Tundra they were passengers in left the roadway and overturned. Neither Smith nor Biggs were using seatbelts at the time of the crash. Both were pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the vehicle, Earnest H. Biggs, was transported to St. Vincents Chilton Hospital in Clanton for his injuries. A 12-year-old juvenile who was a passenger in the vehicle was also transported to an area hospital for treatment for his injuries. The crash occurred on Interstate 65 near the 198 mile marker, about one mile south of Verbena, in Chilton County. Troopers with ALEAs Highway Patrol Division are investigating the crash. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 people shot over line-cutting at Ohio pizza restaurant Two people were shot during an argument over cutting in line at an Ohio Pizza restaurant. [DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Columbus police told NBC 4 that one person is in stable condition and another is in serious condition after a shooting at the Del Baggio Pizzeria in Columbus. TRENDING STORIES: Police arrived on scene around 3:15 a.m. Friday and found one victim with a gunshot wound to the back, NBC 4 reported. There were no available details about the other victims injury. No other injuries were reported. The dispute started after the victims cut in line at the pizza shop, NBC 4 reported, leading to an argument and shooting. It is unclear if any arrests have been made. [SIGN UP: WHIO-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] CRANSTON, R.I. (WPRI) A student from Scituate and one from Cranston were both arrested within the last seven days due to unrelated threatening statements they posted online. Scituate police said they arrested a middle school student last week after an online argument between two boys led to one making a serious threat on Thursday night. One student has been charged with cyberstalking as a minor. Lana Messina, whose 6-year-old daughter goes to school in Scituate, said she was concerned about her daughters safety as soon as she got the notification on Friday. I was even worried about sending [my daughter to school] on the following Monday, because its the day without the threats that are even more scary, she said. It should have been sent out right when it was happening. I think if its a 0.00001% chance, thats too much. Just this past Wednesday, Cranston police shared they had also arrested a student who made an unrelated threat against Cranston High School East on the social media app Snapchat. Major Todd Patalano said the threat was deemed non-credible, but the student was charged with disorderly conduct. In this case, it took us just about four hours, Patalano said. We were notified by the FBI, immediately assigned people to the investigation, started to track down IP addresses and see where this originated from. We were able to identify it from a Cranston residence. Patalano said police take these threats seriously each time, but they do require additional help, especially because these threats are often made after school. Theyll work through the night to make sure that the next morning before school starts, we know who did it, why they did it, and where they did it from, he said. Messina said its tough to have difficult conversations about school safety with her young daughter a sentiment shared by many parents across the country. Shes six years old, Messina told 12 News. How do I explain that to her? Kate Wilkinson (kwilkinson@wpri.com) is a Target 12 investigative reporter for 12 News. Connect with her on Twitter and Facebook. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily Roundup Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WPRI.com. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland was in Little Rock on Thursday as part of the Department of Justices plan to target violent crime across the country. Garland visited the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas, meeting with U.S. Attorney Jonathan Ross and law enforcement officers at the local, state and federal levels. US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland discusses progress of fighting violent crime in Arkansas Speaking to the media ahead of the meeting, Garland touched on a report from the FBI on nationwide statistics that came out this week. Garland said the DOJ has been seeing results of their work across the country over the last three years. Earlier this month, the Justice Departments Violent Crime Steering Committee received data from across 88 cities that indicates violent crime has continued to decline considerably in 2024, the AG told those gathered in Little Rock. That included a further 16.9% drop in murders. Garland added that the FBIs report shows an 11.6% drop in homicides last year and one of the lowest violent crime rates in 50 years. FBI says violent crime dropped last year While 2023 numbers have not yet been made available, the 2023 report shows crime in Arkansas fell in 2022, following the national trend. Violent crime in the state, however, had yet to fall to the pre-pandemic levels seen elsewhere in the nation. This office and Justice Department is working in partnership with the agencies reflected around this table to arrest violent felons, to seize and trace guns used in crimes, disrupt violent drug traffickers and prosecute the individuals and the gangs who are most responsible for driving violent crime, Garland said. This week the DOJ also awarded more than $4 million to Arkansas under the National Criminal History Improvement Program, which provides funding to states and localities to improve the quality, timeliness, and immediate accessibility of criminal history records and related information. FBI finds violent crime declined in 2023. Heres what to know about the report These grants are part of the more than $26 million that the department is awarding to organizations and government agencies in Arkansas this month to support law enforcement activities and community initiatives. These funds will, among other things, help law enforcement agencies in Arkansas hire more officers, help to prevent and combat violent crime and drug trafficking, and improve services for survivors of domestic and dating violence, sexual assault, stalking and other crimes, Garland 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 KARK. A person behind bars. The Alabama Department of Corrections said Thursday that the Department of Justice had scaled back a 2015 consent agreement to address sexual abuse and harassment of women incarcerated at Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka. (Getty Images) The U.S. Department of Justice will scale back its oversight into the operations of Julia Tutwiler Womens Correctional Facility stemming from a consent decree. The Alabama Department of Corrections announced in a news release sent Thursday that the state, along with the DOJ, moved to terminate 38 of the 44 provisions listed within the 2015 agreement, reached after the department issued a scathing report that said women in the prison in Wetumpka were subject to the high risk and threat of sexual abuse by staff. A spokesperson for the DOJ declined comment Thursday. The news release did not state which provisions that the parties agreed to eliminate. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The release went on to state that the DOC continues to evaluate how it manages the site and remedy the problems that the DOJ identified, but that the department added there was no need for the DOJ to interfere or oversee the daily activities of the facility. I am thankful for the men and women who are dedicated to our mission at Tutwiler, ADOC Commissioner John Hamm stated in the news release. This joint motion to terminate most of the requirements on this consent decree is a credit to our entire team and their dedication to our department and our state. We look forward to ending all court oversight of Tutwiler in the near future. The state entered the consent agreement to prevent a lawsuit from DOJ over allegations of sexual assault and abuse of women in the prison. DOJ, which investigated the prison in 2013, cited reports of sexual abuse at Tutwiler that went back years. The lawsuit, filed just before the consent agreement, alleged abuse and mistreatment of people incarcerated at Tutwiler by staff working at the site. Women prisoners at Tutwiler suffer serious harm from sexual abuse and sexual harassment by staff, including rape, fondling, voyeurism, and sexually explicit verbal abuse, DOJ wrote in the complaint. The lawsuit also stated that the NIC (National Institute of Corrections), an agency within the DOJ Federal Bureau of Prisons, issued a letter to the DOC listing the assortment of issues that contributed to the sexual mistreatment and harm of individuals incarcerated at the facility. It also referred to a report published by the Equal Justice Initiative in 2012, which alleged that staff at Tutwiler were sexually assaulting inmates there. The most visible and striking evidence of Tutwiler staff members illegal sexual contact with incarcerated women is the resulting pregnancies, the report states. In 2010, a woman in custody gave birth to a baby after being raped by a correctional officer at Tutwiler Prison. DOJ said in a 2014 letter to then-Gov. Robert Bentley that a woman at the prison gave birth to a child in 2011 after being assaulted by an officer the previous year. But it said an inadequate investigative process meant there could be others. The report went on to state that complaints pertaining to the sexual assaults were met with scorn. Women who report sexual abuse at Tutwiler are routinely placed in segregation by the warden, the report states. While in segregation, these women are treated no differently from women held there for punitive reasons: they are deprived of telephone, mail, and visit privileges and have no access to recreation, programs, or work assignments. The incidents then became grounds for the lawsuit filed by the DOJ, which alleged that constitutional violations caused grief and harm to those incarcerated at the facility. ADOC and Tutwiler have demonstrated a clear deliberate indifference to the harm and substantial risk of harm to women prisoners, DOJ wrote in its 2014 letter to Bentley. They have failed to take reasonable steps to protect people in their custody from the known and readily apparent threat of sexual abuse and sexual harassment. Officials have been on notice for over eighteen years of the risks to women prisoners and, for over eighteen years, have chosen to ignore them. Under the consent decree, DOC was required to train the corrections officers who have contact people in their custody that is has a zero-tolerance policy for sexual abuse and sexual harassment. The state was also required to keep a person on site to ensure that the facility complies with the Prison Rape Elimination Act, and that the DOC would be subject to oversight by the DOC when creating policies and procedures for the facility and providing updates to the agency on its operations. About 587 people were incarcerated in close security at Tutwiler at the end of July, with another 250 held in medium security at Tutwiler Annex. The prison, built in 1942, is the oldest state correctional facility currently in operation. DOJ sued Alabama in 2020 over rampant violence and overcrowding in the mens prisons in the state. That suit is ongoing. The legal charges were related to a previous investigation about the January 2023 incident. DOJ says the Dream was traveling to New Orleans when it is alleged the ship's captain ordered the crew to discharge oil-contaminated waste from a residual tank on deck into the ocean. Photo courtesy U.S. Coast Guard/UPI Sept. 27 (UPI) -- A Turkish shipping company and its United Arab Emirates-based partner were sentenced and fined $2 million by the United States after a ship's captain ordered his crew to dump polluted waste overboard into the ocean and allegedly tried to cover it up, the U.S. Justice Department said Friday. On Thursday, Prive Shipping Denizcilik Ticaret, headquarted in Turkey, and its Dubai-based subsidiary company Prive Overseas Marine LLC were fined $2M and sentenced to a four-year probation by a New Orleans court as the operators of the shipping tanker "P/S Dream," according to new information by DOJ. That ship's captain, Abdurrahman Korkmaz, was given an eight month prison sentence on Sept. 10 for obstruction of a U.S. Coast Guard investigation and violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships. As a condition of probation, the two aligned international shipping corporations must adhere to an environmental compliance plan and face safety and inspection requirements over the next four years. In May, the two companies pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and violating the APPS. The legal charges were related to a previous investigation about the January 2023 incident. DOJ says the Dream was traveling to New Orleans when Korkmaz ordered the crew to discharge oil-contaminated waste from a residual tank on deck into the Atlantic Ocean. The seamen rigged a portable pump to empty the contents overboard over a three day timespan. The captain then told his crew to clean the tank with soap, Justice officials said. The defendants then falsified the vessel's oil record book by omitting the discharge. According to the federal government, senior corporate managers were aware that Korkmaz, a Turkish national, had arranged the scheme and multiple crew members came forward to alert authorities as to what took place. In the evidence was a recording of a ship officer discussing the polluted discharge. Given to the U.S. Coast Guard during inspection, the falsified logs were intended to "conceal the fact that the crew had dumped oil-contaminated waste overboard in violation of MARPOL Annex I," which is an international treaty regulating oil pollution from ships, the Justice Department added. But from the big toxic mess came a little good, perhaps. From the $2M criminal penalty will come at least $500,000 in "organizational community service payments," according to the government, to help pay for various ongoing maritime preservation and environmental projects in eastern Louisiana's fragile coastline managed by the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, established by Congress. Three Iranian nationals have been indicted for hacking into the campaign of former President Donald Trump, stealing emails and documents, and then sharing them with the news media, according to U.S. officials and a federal indictment filed in Washington on Friday. The three Iranians, identified as members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, allegedly hired "malicious cyber actors" to hack into the campaign of an unidentified presidential candidate in May and stole documents from it. U.S. officials have privately said that Trump's campaign was the victim of the attack. The indictment said that the personal email accounts of a former deputy director of the CIA, a former Defense Department official and an individual who appears to be longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone were also hacked. Former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally Tuesday in Savannah, Ga. "The American people, not a foreign power, decide the outcome of our countrys elections," Attorney General Merrick Garland said. "Not Iran and its malicious cyber activities, as laid bare in todays indictment." The hackers created fake email accounts where they impersonated current and former U.S. officials, and other publicly known organizations and individuals. They then conducted spear-phishing attacks that duped individuals associated with the Trump campaign into opening emails that contained malware. In June, the hackers emailed the stolen material from Trumps campaign to people associated with the campaign of then-candidate President Joe Biden. The FBI and other U.S. officials have said there was currently no information indicating that the recipients had responded to the emails. The three Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members who oversaw the operation were identified in the indictment as Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar Balaghi. They were charged with material support for terrorism, computer fraud, wire fraud and identity theft. The State Department is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrests of, from left, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, Yasar Balaghi and Masoud Jalili. Iran has denied the accusations. Its ambassador to the United Nations called them entirely baseless, lacking any credibility and legitimacy and in no way acceptable, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported earlier this month. The hack against the Trump campaign is the latest example of an increasingly brazen approach by Iran that includes alleged murder plots against dissidents and defectors on American soil and an assassination threat against Trump, U.S. officials and analysts say. Garland said that Russia and China are attempting to sway the U.S. election as well. U.S. officials have said that, broadly speaking, Russia is trying to aid Trumps effort to win re-election, Iran is trying to damage Trump, and China is trying to influence state and local races in ways that benefit Beijing. Attorney General Merrick Garland at the Justice Department on Friday. Earlier this week, Matthew Olsen, the head of the departments National Security Division, said in an exclusive interview with NBC News that the level of foreign interference in the current election is unprecedented. Olsen said that Iran, Russia and China are all trying to influence the election. "Let me just be as clear as I possibly can be: This is not a hoax. Its actually happening," Olsen said. "Russians, Iranians, the Chinese, they are seeking to interfere in our elections in ways that fundamentally undermine our democracy." Olsen said the three countries all ruled by authoritarian leaders are seeking the same broad goals: exacerbating divisions between Americans and undermining U.S. voters' trust in the election results and American democracy itself. "Foreign governments are seeking to undermine our country, undermine our democracy, undermine our national security," Olsen said. "Theyre seeking to promote their own authoritarian goals by sowing discord within our country and undermining our confidence in our elections." A senior U.S. official told NBC News on Friday that no evidence has been found that Iran, Russia and China are directly coordinating their election influence efforts. On a media call Friday, an FBI official declined to definitively state that the hackers had been fully cleared from the Trump campaign or unable to regain access. When it comes to advanced persistent threat actors, you can never be fully confident that you have eradicated them from an environment, the official said. So we remain fully engaged with the victims in this case, which include presidential campaigns as well as individuals associated with those campaigns. First publication of documents On Thursday, an American journalist who runs an independent newsletter published a document that appears to have been stolen from Trumps presidential campaign. It was the first public posting of a file believed to be part of the Iranian effort to manipulate the U.S. election. The PDF document is a 271-page opposition research file on Trumps running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio. For more than two months, hackers who stole the documents tried to persuade members of the American media to write about or publish the files they stole. No outlets did. On Thursday, reporter Ken Klippenstein, who self-publishes on Substack after he left The Intercept this year, published one of the files. If the document had been hacked by some anonymous like hacker group, the news media would be all over it, Klippenstein wrote. Im just not a believer of the news media as an arm of the government, doing its work combating foreign influence. Nor should it be a gatekeeper of what the public should know. Reporters who have received the documents describe the same pattern: An AOL account emails them files, signed by a person using the name Robert, who is reluctant to speak about their identity or reasons for wanting the documents to receive coverage. NBC News was not part of the Robert personas direct outreach, but it has viewed its correspondence with a reporter at another publication. One of the emails from the Robert persona previously viewed by NBC News included three large PDF files, each corresponding to Trumps three reported finalists for vice president. The Vance file appears to be the one Klippenstein hosts on his site. John Hultquist, a lead analyst at Googles Threat Intelligence Group, said the IRGC controls multiple contractors who have carried out many of the most audacious cyber incidents we have seen in the Middle East, Europe and the U.S., including activity during this and previous presidential election cycles. IRGC actors regularly leverage destructive attacks, faked content. They regularly assume the guise of hacktivists or criminals and have increasingly targeted random individuals through email and even text messages. Most of this activity is designed to undermine trust in security, and is used to attack confidence in elections in particular. Russia's effort to aid Trump Earlier this month, Justice Department prosecutors indicted two RT employees, Konstantin Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, and accused them of using a Tennessee-based company as part of covert projects to influence American politics by posting videos to TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube. The RT employees sent millions of dollars to prominent right-wing commentators through a media company that appears to match the description of Tenet Media, a leading platform for pro-Trump voices, according to an NBC News review of charging documents, business records and social media profiles. Tenet posted nearly 2,000 videos that got more than 16 million views on YouTube since November 2023, according to the indictment. It is not clear, though, what impact the foreign influence operations are having on American voters. Tenet was competing for attention in an oversaturated online space and among an electorate that, after years of consuming hyperpolarized content online, tends to seek and be served information that reinforces pre-existing beliefs. Justice Department officials said the threat of foreign interference remains serious and vowed to continue investigating foreign government actions related to the 2024 election. Olsen urged Americans to be skeptical of unvetted information. This right to vote our free and fair elections the decisions we make in the upcoming elections those are the choices that we as Americans make and we make alone, he said. And we should be extremely vigilant about protecting that right. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com Gov. Janet Mills (left), U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy and director of Maines Office of Behavioral Health Sarah Squirrell discuss the dangers of loneliness and isolation at University of Southern Maine on Sept. 27, 2024. (Photo by Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star) U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy recalled asking his daughter what she thinks he should do after his time in the position concludes. One could view asking a six-year-old for career advice as desperate, Murthy joked, but his daughters response underscored a need hes been working to address country-wide. She said, I think you should spend more time playing with me. And that was really good advice, Murthy said. Murthy sees investing in social connection as key to building a more secure, promising and healthy future, a vision he shared at the University of Southern Maine in Portland on Friday in conversation with Gov. Janet Mills, Director of the Maine Office of Behavioral Health Sarah Squirrell and former Commissioner of the Maine Health and Human Services Jeanne Lambrew. When he started as U.S. Surgeon General, Murthy said he had a long list of issues hed hoped to address and social isolation was not one of them. However, as he toured the country speaking with people in rural and urban areas, in the Midwest and the coast, he found it to be the issue that resonated most. You think, Wow, smoking, obesity, these are classic public health issues, Murthy said. But, it turns out loneliness and isolation are just as important. And research supports these qualitative findings. A lack of social connection can increase the risk for premature death as much as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. Poor or insufficient social connection is also associated with an increased risk for anxiety and depression, as well as disease, including a 29% increased risk of heart disease and a 32% increased risk of stroke. This realization led Murthy to issue a Surgeon Generals Advisory last year on the public health dangers posed by growing rates of loneliness and isolation. During Fridays conversation, Murthy and Maine leaders highlighted Maine policy that aims to address this public health issue and what can be gleaned from tactics being used in other states. While social connection is often considered an individual challenge, public policy is critical in creating the infrastructure needed for such support, Murthy explained. Schools and workplaces can help people build skills to understand their emotions and relationships, skills Murthy said cannot be assumed anymore in the age of technology. Physical infrastructure can also be social infrastructure, Murthy added, as roads and sidewalks provide pathways to bring people together. A universal need Mainers have a reputation that may appear at odds with social connection, Mills explained on Friday. Were a hardy bunch here in Maine, the governor said. We pride ourselves on our fierce independence. That public veneer does not mean, however, that Mainers dont value and need social connection, Mills said. And that quality is also not at odds with the notion of social connection, Murthy explained. Loneliness is a subjective state, Murthy said. It occurs when there is perceived isolation or unmet needs between a persons preferred and actual experience. On the other hand, isolation is an objective term because it describes the number of people someone has in their lives, Murthy said. But solitude, Murthy said, is actually a welcome state of aloneness, a welcome state of isolation. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Maines makeup does present some inherent challenges to addressing social isolation, however. Geographically, the largely rural state can present physical proximity challenges for gatherings. Maine is also the oldest state in the nation, and research has found the highest rates of social isolation among older adults. In these instances, policy can lay the foundation for filling in support gaps. Addressing social isolation with public policy When the Surgeon Generals Advisory came out last year, Melissa Hackett, coordinator of the Maine Child Welfare Action Network, said it affirmed what shed been hearing from parents in Maine. The parents weve talked to have said, I feel judged. I feel isolated. Im afraid to ask for help, Hackett said, explaining that the Be There for ME campaign was the groups response to that, an effort coordinated with the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. This campaign is one of a handful that the speakers discussed as methods to build resiliency through social connection. They also highlighted the program StrengthenME, which offers free stress management and resiliency resources to people impacted by the mass shooting in Lewiston last year. Murthy also described the state governments support of residents following the consecutive storms this winter through infrastructure recovery funding as a means of investing in sustained social connection. Also, Squirrell pointed to newly added supports for schools, such as increasing school-based health centers as well as a program called Sources of Strength, which is a student-led initiative aimed at improving mental health and preventing suicide, bullying and substance abuse. Schools are an important inflection point on the issue of social isolation in Murthys view because they are where kids often learn the social skills that guide the rest of their lives. They are also a place where technology use can be addressed, as research has found technology can displace in-person engagement, reduce the quality of interactions and even diminish self-esteem. Murthy pointed to success schools have had with technology-focused policies. For example, he visited a high school in Lincoln, Nebraska, that enacted a policy restricting the use of phones and heard from students who said theyd forged new friendships with long-time classmates they hadnt thought to introduce themselves to previously. Creating an environment in school where kids both have the skills and training to be able to build healthy interaction, this is just as important as reading, writing and math and science in terms of giving them a foundation for a healthy, successful life, Murthy said. When asked after the event whether she would consider legislation on the issue of phones in schools, the governor said she wouldnt mandate it statewide, though described it as a great practice that should be considered by school boards. Technology at the end of the day is a tool, Murthy said. Its how we use it, design it that determines whether it helps or hurts us. Murthy sought to address technology use by children, specifically when it comes to social media, in another Surgeon General Advisory from 2023, which cited research findings that adolescents who spend more than three hours per day on social media face double the risk of poor mental health. Surveys have found teenagers, on average, spend more time than that on such platforms. In that advisory, Murthy called for urgent action by policymakers, technology companies, and families to maximize the benefits and minimize the harms of social media platforms to create healthier online environments for children. The power of individual action While the speakers talked about formal support to aid social connection, they also highlighted the power of individual action. Sometimes we talk about, Oh this will take an act of Congress to solve. Not this one, Murthy said. This is one where even as individuals we can start to make a difference in the people around us. Hackett with the Maine Child Welfare Action Network said parents also say informal support makes a difference. Weve also heard from parents about the importance of just having somebody who cares and supports them when theyre having a hard time, Hackett explained. During an interview following the event, Murthy often thinks about a time when one of his friends stopped by to simply check in and hold one of his daughters when he was adjusting to life with a newborn. When he first assumed the role of Surgeon General, Murthy said he made the critical mistake of not keeping in touch with his family and friends. A friend came to me one day and said, Vivek, your problem is not that you dont have friends. Your problem is that youre not experiencing friendships, Murthy recalled, which prompted him to make social connection a priority in his own life. The same way that we think about physical fitness as being important, we go to the gym or we eat healthy because we want to be able to remain physically fit, Murthy said, we also have to think about mental fitness and social fitness and being able to be fit in all of those dimensions of our health. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) Sirius Analysis, a defense contractor based in the United Kingdom, is launching its across the pond operations in Virginia Beach. Theyre moving into Virginia Beachs International Incubator space at 4525 Main St., Suite 710 in Town Center, Gov. Glenn Youngkins office announced Friday. Sirius is a defense consulting company that provides analysis to enable its customers to make informed investment decisions and deliver effective projects, Youngkins office says. That includes things like operational research and analysis, systems engineering and project management. The initiative is expected to create 105 new high-skilled jobs, with Sirius investing an initial $305,000. Theyve also set goals for future expansion in Virginia Beach, the city says. Following our growth within the UK, were excited to be opening our first U.S. office in Virginia Beach, said Chair of Sirius Analysis Carl Dalton. Establishing a U.S. office is a huge milestone for Sirius Analysis. It will enable us to better service our existing clients in the area across our core capabilities in operational analysis, cost engineering, P3M, business case development and systems engineering, as well as building new partnerships with local businesses. Gov. Youngkin says this showcases the Commonwealths magnetic appeal in global defense innovation. This expansion bridges UK-US defense collaboration, bringing cutting-edge analysis capabilities to our shores and creating valuable job opportunities for Virginians, Youngkin said. Virginia Beach Deputy City Manager Amanda Jarratt said Sirius move to use the International Incubator showcases some of unique resources Virginia Beach has. The city worked with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance to beat out Massachusetts for the project. Sirius Analysis brings a wealth of expertise and will enhance the defense ecosystem in Hampton Roads and further strengthen our strategic position in the defense and maritime sectors, said President and CEO of the Hampton Roads Alliance Douglas Smith. Michael Feggans and Aaron Rouse, who represent that portion of Virginia Beach in the statehouse, also said theyre thrilled with the news. This initiative will not only create 105 new jobs but it further strengthens Hampton Roads reputation as one of the nations leading supporters of the defense industry, Feggans 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 WAVY.com. UKs first new coal mine in 30 years blocked after pressure from green campaigners The former Woodhouse Colliery site, where West Cumbria Mining had aimed to develop what it said would be the lowest-emission coal mine in the world - Christopher Furlong/Getty Images Plans for Britains first new coal mine in 30 years have been blocked by authorities, weeks after the Labour Government withdrew support for it over environmental concerns. Three licence applications were rejected for the mine in Cumbria, which has been a target for net zero protesters, on Friday in a further blow to the project after its planning permission was overturned earlier this month. The Coal Authority, an independent body sponsored by Ed Milibands Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, did not say why the applications were rejected for the Woodhouse Colliery, near Whitehaven. It says it accepts or refuses licences based on conditions such as the financial sustainability of the operations and the damage they might cause. However, the project has been met with fierce opposition from climate campaigners, with both Friends of the Earth and South Lakes Action on Climate Change suing the Government to stop the project. The decision was subsequently overturned in the High Court, with a judge saying the decision to grant permission by the previous government in 2022 was legally flawed. The Labour Government had ceased to defend the decision to grant planning permission. Mr Miliband had been a heavy critic of the proposed mine. While in opposition, he said he would seek to prevent the climate-destroying coal mine, and said that people in Cumbria should have green jobs. The mine owner, West Cumbria Mining, had promised to produce high-grade metallurgical coal to power Britains steel industry and expected to produce 3.5m tonnes a year. It had pledged to be the lowest-emission coal mine in the world and employ more than 500 people. West Cumbria Mining did not immediately comment on the decision. The refusal can be appealed. A spokesman for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: The decision not to grant West Cumbria Minings licence is a matter for the Coal Authority and relates to a historical application submitted last year. We want to bring an end to the countrys dependence on fossil fuel markets, including coal and weve already taken immediate steps to unleash investment in clean homegrown power, supporting skilled jobs across the country. 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. UK Foreign Office expects permission for Western weapons strikes on Russia to be approved by early winter A decision to lift restrictions on Ukraine's use of long-range Western weapons against military targets in Russia may be made by early winter. Source: UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy in an interview with Voice of America, as reported by European Pravda. Details: Lammy stressed that he expected there to be a "very strong position" in the coming weeks to provide Ukraine with everything it needs. Quote: "We meet here in the U.N. General Assembly. I know that President Zelenskyy is meeting with President Biden a little bit later in the week also in Washington. We will head on to the G20 [summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November 18-19, 2024] as well. So, over the coming days and weeks, I expect us to be in a very strong position to ensure that Ukraine is in the best position it can be as we head into that tough winter in 2025," he said. In addition, the UK Foreign Secretary noted that the country's intelligence data shows that the situation for Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin will be more difficult next year. Quote: "His economy is in trouble. He's going to find it very problematic with the amount of losses and casualties that he's taking," the minister stressed. Meanwhile, he noted Ukraine's successes, including in the Black Sea and Russias Kursk Oblast. "And actually, when you look at what Ukraine is doing their ability to take back half the ground that's been lost, their ability to repel him from the Black Sea, their ability to advance in Kursk and hopefully keep the ground this is a time for Western countries to show their nerve and to be absolutely committed as we head out of the autumn into the winter period," Lammy added. Background: The Times has written that the United States and the United Kingdom are likely to grant Ukraine permission to use Storm Shadow missiles to strike Russian territory, but this decision may remain a secret to preserve the element of surprise for the Russian side. Recently, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has confirmed that he does not support easing restrictions on Ukraine's use of German weapons to strike Russian territory. Support UP or become our patron! Climate protesters to be sentenced for throwing soup at Van Gogh's "Sunflowers", in London Climate protesters to be sentenced for throwing soup at Van Gogh's "Sunflowers", in London By Sam Tobin LONDON (Reuters) -Three Just Stop Oil activists threw soup at two of Vincent van Gogh's "Sunflowers" paintings in London's National Gallery on Friday, just hours after two other members of the protest group were jailed for doing the same thing in 2022. The activists threw tomato soup at the "Sunflowers" owned by the London Gallery the painting targeted two years ago and another from the series that is on loan from Philadelphia Museum of Art for a temporary exhibition. The National Gallery said three people had been arrested and the paintings were unharmed. The stunt came just a few hours after Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were sentenced for throwing tins of tomato soup on the London-based artwork in October 2022, before gluing themselves to the wall below the painting. The soup caused up to 10,000 pounds ($13,385) worth of damage to the frame in 2022, prosecutors said, though the painting which was behind a protective screen was unharmed and went back on display later the same day. Plummer and Holland pleaded not guilty but were convicted after a trial at London's Southwark Crown Court, where Plummer was sentenced to two years in prison for the criminal damage charge. Holland was sentenced to 20 months in prison. Judge Christopher Hehir told Plummer and Holland: "You two simply had no right to do what you did to 'Sunflowers', and your arrogance in thinking otherwise deserves the strongest condemnation." Plummer said she took part in the protests knowing she could be arrested and jailed, saying she was being made a political prisoner, which the judge said was ludicrous and self-indulgent. "It is offensive to the many people in other parts of the world who are suffering persecution, imprisonment and sometimes death for their beliefs," Hehir said. Plummer was also sentenced to an additional three months in prison on Friday, having been separately convicted of the relatively new offence of interfering with the use of key national infrastructure. Friday's sentencing comes amid a wider crackdown on protest movements in Britain and across Europe. Activists from Just Stop Oil have staged a number of eye-catching protests in recent years and five members of the group were jailed in July for at least four years for a conspiracy to block London's M25 motorway, in the longest sentences ever imposed for a non-violent protest in Britain. (Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by Sarah Young, Andrew Cawthorne and Hugh Lawson) Naomi Campbell denies any responsibility for the mishandling of donations (Anne-Christine POUJOULAT) (Anne-Christine POUJOULAT/AFP/AFP) Former supermodel Naomi Campbell has been barred from running a charity after an inquiry found funds raised by an organisation she founded had been spent on spa treatment and room service charges. The inquiry into Fashion for Relief, released on Thursday, identified "multiple instances of misconduct", including use of charity money to pay for a five-star hotel stay for Campbell, 54, in the south of France. The finding means Campbell and two other trustees have now been disqualified from running a charity for five years. Speaking in Paris on Thursday after receiving an honour from the French government, the British celebrity denied any responsibility for the mishandling of donations. "I was not in control of my charity. I put the control in the hands of a lawyer," she told reporters after she was made a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. The model added that she was "investigating to find out what and how -- as everything I do and every penny I ever raised goes towards charities". Campbell's three-night stay at the hotel in Cannes cost 7,800 ($10,400). The UK Charity Commission, which conducted the inquiry, said it saw no evidence the trustees had made sure that such costs were "reasonable". The regulator also looked at additional expenses totalling 6,600 for Campbell's hotel stay, including spa treatments, room service and the purchase of cigarettes. The commission said the trustees had argued hotel costs were usually met by a donor but failed to provide any supporting evidence. Fashion for Relief was dissolved and removed from the register of charities earlier this year. Set up in 2005, it described itself as "dedicated to improving the lives of those living in adversity by uniting the fashion industry as a force for good". har/phz/gil Naomi Campbell denies any responsibility for the mishandling of donations (Anne-Christine POUJOULAT) (Anne-Christine POUJOULAT/AFP/AFP) Former supermodel Naomi Campbell has been barred from running a charity after an inquiry found funds raised by an organisation she founded was spent on spa treatment and room service charges. The inquiry into Fashion for Relief, released on Thursday, identified "multiple instances of misconduct", including use of charity money to pay for a five-star hotel stay for Campbell in the south of France. The finding by the UK Charity Commission means Campbell, 54, has now been disqualified from running a charity for five years. Two other trustees also received bans. The watchdog probe found that between April 2016 and July 2022, only 8.5 percent of Fashion for Relief's overall expenditure went on grants to charities. Campbell, who in 1987 became the first black model to feature on the cover of UK Vogue in 20 years, achieved worldwide fame in the 1990s and remains a highly influential figure in the industry. In June, an exhibition dedicated to her opened at London's Victoria and Albert Museum. Speaking in Paris on Thursday after receiving an honour from the French government, the British celebrity denied any responsibility for the mishandling of donations. "I was not in control of my charity. I put the control in the hands of a lawyer," she told reporters after she was made a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. The model added that she was "investigating to find out what and how -- as everything I do and every penny I ever raised goes towards charities". - Star-studded events - Campbell's charity held a string of glitzy, star-studded events to raise funds for good causes in London and Cannes. These were said to include projects ranging from supporting child refugees, to helping victims of the Ebola crisis and the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami. One event in the French Riviera resort in 2017 was attended by over 1,000 guests including stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Antonio Banderas, Faye Dunaway, Jane Fonda and Uma Thurman. A three-night hotel stay for a similar event in 2018 cost 7,800 ($10,400). The Charity Commission said it saw no evidence the trustees had made sure that such costs were "reasonable". The regulator also looked at additional expenses totalling 6,600 for Campbell's hotel stay, including spa treatments, room service and the purchase of cigarettes. It said the trustees had argued hotel costs were usually met by a donor but failed to provide any supporting evidence. "The commission concluded that there had been serious misconduct and/or mismanagement in the administration of the charity by the trustees since it was established," the report said. Fashion for Relief was dissolved and removed from the register of charities earlier this year. Set up in 2005, it described itself as "dedicated to improving the lives of those living in adversity by uniting the fashion industry as a force for good". har/phz/gil (Bloomberg) -- Ukraines military supplies for next year are at risk because some allies are struggling to secure funding and others balk at increasing financing to help Kyiv, according to people familiar with the matter. Most Read from Bloomberg Ukraine is struggling to convince Western allies to make good on their promises as it confronts its third full winter since Russias 2022 invasion, the people said, asking not to be named discussing private conversations. Moscows war machine, in contrast, is outpacing Kyivs ability to acquire badly needed ammunition, missiles and other hardware to fend off attacks. The dynamic shows that Russias economy is on a war footing, while Ukraines allies are not, according to one of the people, who like the others spoke on condition of anonymity. Much of Ukraines military support for 2025 is linked to a Group of Seven deal to provide $50 billion in loans from profits generated by frozen Russian central bank assets. Allies are still haggling over the final details of that deal and the US is seeking assurances that Hungary wont block European Union measures. The final figure could fall short if an arrangement isnt found. But even if an agreement is reached, $50 billion is still not enough to support Ukraines needs through another year of war and allies will need to look beyond that funding framework, according to the people. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is in the US this week presenting a victory plan to President Joe Biden. The package hinges on security guarantees such as an invitation to join NATO, which the Ukrainian leader believes are needed to pile pressure on Russias Vladimir Putin to halt the war. But the aid push was overshadowed by friction with Republican nominee Donald Trump, who lashed out at Zelenskiy but later agreed to meet him. Trump has suggested Ukraine should make a deal with Moscow, whose forces are making grinding gains in the eastern Donetsk region and have decimated Ukraines energy system. Those challenges are compounded by a shortfall in funding. The Ukrainian government forecasts a budget gap at 19% of gross domestic product in 2025, leaving some $35 billion needed to fill the hole, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said last month. More than half of that will come from International Monetary Fund and EU aid, leaving about $15 billion required to shore up the balance a gap that may require some of the G-7 loans to fill, officials have said. Beyond that is military funding. The $50 billion that the G-7 is lining up would be roughly equivalent to the military assistance that the US and key European allies provided between January 2023 and June this year. The US supplied about 31.5 billion in that time frame while Germany, the UK, France and Italy contributed some 15.7 billion between them, according to data compiled by the Kiel Institute. Those figures may not include all military support shipped to Ukraine, with some nations not disclosing all help provided. In other cases, pledges have yet to be fulfilled. Among other capabilities, Ukraines military relies on allied assistance for artillery ammunition, missiles and more air-defense capabilities. The looming cash crunch among allies comes at a dangerous moment for Ukraine and could force Kyiv into negotiations from a position of weakness, the people said. Next year will be especially crucial, because Russias economy may begin to face mounting pressure in 2026, a dynamic that would potentially erode Putins belief that time is on his side, according to the assessment of one European government. Still, that presupposes that the outcome of Novembers US election in which Trump is locked in a tight race with Vice President Kamala Harris doesnt alter the dynamics of the conflict before then. Moscow, whose production is abetted by shipments from Iran and North Korea, continues to funnel budget funding into the war effort. Russia plans to spend 13.2 trillion rubles ($142 billion) on defense in 2025, putting it at 6.2% of gross domestic product. Spending on defense and security is expected to consume around 40% of Russias total budget disbursement in 2025. Ukraines European allies are facing their own constraints on the fiscal front. Chancellor Olaf Scholzs government is hamstrung by constitutional debt restrictions and has whittled direct funding for Kyiv. France has a new government after a tumultuous election season and is under pressure from the EU to narrow its deficit. In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Melonis fractious coalition may be tied down on spending pledges. Tangible negotiations in Brussels on a new EU budget along with any talk of joint borrowing to ramp up defense spending with hundreds of billions of euros will likely have to wait until after the German election, the people said. Assistance from the UK, a stalwart ally thats often been first to provide advanced weapons, has also appeared to tail off lately, according to an official familiar with the matter. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has told his voters they face tough times ahead as he seeks to curb spending, although he also told the United Nations Wednesday that Britains support for Ukraine is ironclad. To be sure, pledges from NATO allies continue to register. Biden announced nearly $8 billion in new military assistance for Ukraine on Thursday and plans to convene a leader-level meeting of key allies to coordinate additional support when he visits Germany next month. The announcement, coinciding with Zelenskiys White House visit, said Biden was directing the Pentagon to allocate the full remainder of Ukraine assistance before the end of his term. The Defense Department is also unveiling an initial package that included additional air defense systems, drones, and munitions. --With assistance from Zoe Schneeweiss, Craig Stirling, Alex Wickham, Volodymyr Verbianyi, Reinie Booysen and Ben Sills. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Ukraine-Russia latest: Five things you need to know today Election next year as Zelenskys popularity falls Volodymyr Zelensky is considering holding a delayed presidential election next year, the Economist has reported. He was due to hold an election this year but delayed it, saying that it would be absurd and complicated to hold a nationwide election while Ukraine was at war with Russia and under partial occupation. The Economist said that Mr Zelensky may have changed his mind because he wants to consolidate his power as his ratings fall. In a poll for the American National Democratic Institute, only 45 per cent of Ukrainians said that they trusted Mr Zelensky, down from around 80 per cent in May 2023. Trump-Zelensky meeting amid sniping remarks Donald Trump met Volodymyr Zelesnky on Friday in New York despite a public row earlier this week. Mr Trump posted a message (seen below) from Mr Zelensky asking for the meeting on one of his social media channels. Zelenskys message to Trump Mr Zelensky is in the US to attend the UN General Assembly meeting and to present his Victory plan for the war in Ukraine to Joe Biden. He said last week that Mr Trump didnt understand the complexities of the war in Ukraine, irritating the Republican Presidential Nominee who called him nasty and cancelled a meeting. From the frontline: Three killed by Russian strikes Russian drones killed three people in the Ukrainian port town of Izmail overnight. Izmail lies on the Danube River delta near the border with Romania and has become an important hub for Ukrainian grain esports since the start of the war. A firefighter works at a site of a Russian drone strike, amid Russias attack on Ukraine - Reuters A Russian missile also struck a police station in the city of Kryvyi Rih, central Ukraine. At least one person was killed. On the frontlines, Russian military bloggers said that Russian forces had now captured houses on the outskirts of Vuhledar, once considered an impregnable Ukrainian fortress. Drone violates Romanias air space Romanias Defence Ministry said that Russian drones violated its air space before striking the Ukrainian border town of Izmail early on Friday morning. It said that its radar systems had picked up the drone flying across Romania for less than three minutes. In response, the Romanian military scrambled four fighter jets. Romania is a Nato member and has previously reported that fragments of destroyed Russian drones have fallen on its territory. Russian women can now work in mines, Kremlin decides The Kremlin is preparing to drop a ban on women working in open-pit mines and quarries to make up for a manpower shortage linked to its war in Ukraine. It said that advances in technology meant that women could now do a series of tough jobs that only men had been able to do a few decades ago. Russian businesses and industries have complained of a severe shortage of men because of the Kremlins aggressive military recruitment drive. The Kremlin is offering men inflated salaries and other perks to sign up to fight in Ukraine. 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. Ukraine war latest: Zelensky meets with Trump in New York, shows him his 'victory plan' Key developments on Sept. 27: Trump meets with Zelensky, says his views on ending the war 'as soon as possible' have not changed Crimean bridge defenses being bolstered by underwater drone traps, according to reports US intelligence warns of risks in permitting Ukraine's long-range strikes, NYT reports Ombudsman denies reports on Qatar-brokered Ukraine-Russia deal on 'children exchange' 'Attack on Belarus is World War III,' Lukashenko claims amid calls for changes to Russian nuclear doctrine Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said everything possible must be done to force Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. Zelensky made the remarks on Sept. 27 after meeting with Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump in New York City. "This war should not have started. I think that the problem is that Putin killed so many people, and of course, we need to do everything to pressure him to stop this war," Zelensky said in a joint interview with Trump for Fox News. Zelensky met with Trump for the first time in five years during his trip to the U.S., where he held a series of high-level meetings with foreign leaders, visited the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, and addressed the U.N. General Assembly. Ukraine's president also introduced Trump to his "victory plan," which he had presented a day earlier to U.S. President Joe Biden and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. Read also: What we know about the victory plan Zelensky presented to Biden Following his meeting with Trump, Zelensky emphasized that Ukraine seeks only a just peace and relies on continued U.S. support in the ongoing full-scale war launched by Russia. Trump said he has "learned a lot" as the war continues but noted that his views on ending it "as soon as possible" have not changed. "The president (Zelensky) wants it to end as quickly as possible. He wants a fair transaction to take place," Trump said. "If I win (in the presidential election), we're going to have a very fair and, I think, rather rapid deal. It (the war) should stop, and the president (Zelensky) wants it to stop, and I'm sure President Putin wants it to stop. And that's a good combination," Trump added. When asked how he sees the war ending, Trump evaded the question, saying it was "too early" to discuss and that both he and Zelensky had their "own ideas" on the matter. Zelensky and Trump did not disclose whether another meeting between them would take place soon. However, the Ukrainian president invited the Republican nominee to visit Ukraine, and Trump accepted the invitation. Recently, Trump's rhetoric toward Zelensky and U.S. support for Ukraine has become more critical. He has claimed that Zelensky wants Democrats to win the upcoming presidential election, referring to him as "the greatest salesman on earth." Join our community Support independent journalism in Ukraine. Join us in this fight. Support Us Republican leaders on Sept. 25 also accused Zelensky of interfering in the election by visiting an ammunition factory in U.S. President Joe Biden's hometown of Scranton, Pennyslvania, a hotly contested battleground state. House Speaker Mike Johnson demanded that Zelensky fire Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Makarovka, for her role in arranging the tour. The Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee also announced he was opening an investigation into the Biden-Harris administration's alleged misuse of government funds. Zelensky criticized Trump's plans for an end to the war in an interview with the New Yorker earlier this week. He called Trump's running mate, Republican Senator J.D. Vance, "too radical" and said the war should not end at Ukraine's expense. Read also: Open letter: President Biden, this is how you can uphold your legacy by supporting Ukraine Crimean bridge defenses being bolstered by underwater drone traps, according to reports Russia is attempting to bolster defenses around the Crimean Bridge using underwater drone traps, it was reported on Sept. 27. According to the Crimean Wind Telegram channel, the metal structures have been put in place using barges and a floating crane for the last month. An unverified photo accompanying the post showed a barge pulling what resembles a large section of metal fencing. The Kyiv Independent could not verify the report, but it comes a day after Navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk said Russian forces were building a new but unidentified structure near the Crimean Bridge. "It could be a defense structure, it could be another crossing, but it's a bit early to draw conclusions," he added. Construction on the 19-kilometer-long bridge began after the illegal occupation of Crimea in 2014 and was completed in 2018. After becoming a critical supply route for Russian forces after the launch of Moscow's full-scale invasion, it has been attacked by Kyiv's forces on several occasions, and was heavily damaged by Ukrainian strikes in October 2022 and July 2023. Ukraine is reported to have been testing an underwater sea drone dubbed Marichka, but scant details have been made public. The Crimean Bridge is currently the subject of a dispute between Ukraine and Russia at the Permanent Court of Arbitration Speaking there on Sept. 23, Ambassador-at-Large at the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Anton Korynevych, said Russia "wants to take the Sea of Azov and Kerch Strait for itself." "So it has built a great gate at their entrance, to keep international shipping out while allowing small Russian river vessels in," he said. "The bridge is unlawful, and it must come down." Read also: After a decade-long battle, Kyiv showcases Crimean treasures that Russia wanted to steal US intelligence warns of risks in permitting Ukraine's long-range strikes, NYT reports U.S. intelligence agencies have cautioned that Russia may respond with increased force, potentially including lethal attacks on the U.S. and its allies, if Ukraine is allowed to use long-range missiles supplied by the U.S., U.K., and France for strikes deep into Russian territory, the New York Times reported. The news outlet cited a previously unreported assessment that also downplays the strategic impact these long-range missiles might have on the war, mentioning Ukraine's limited supply and the uncertainty over how many more Western nations may provide those missiles. The analysis underscores the significant risks and uncertain benefits of the decision, which now lies with President Joe Biden, following his meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Sept. 26. The difficulty in President Biden's decision-making on Ukraine's request for long-range missiles is partly rooted in concerns highlighted by U.S. intelligence, American officials told the New York Times. Zelensky has been pushing both publicly and privately to gain permission to target Russian territory with the advanced missiles. Vladimir Putin has regularly used threats to deter the U.S. and its allies from sending more sophisticated weaponry to Ukraine. Critics argue that Bidens administration has been overly cautious, claiming their slow, incremental approach to arming Ukraine has hurt their performance on the battlefield. On the other hand, supporters of the current strategy point to its effectiveness in avoiding major Russian retaliation, though they admit this balance may now be at risk. The intelligence assessment outlines a range of potential Russian reactions if the U.S. and European nations authorize Ukraine to carry out long-range strikes with their supplied missiles. These responses could include increased acts of sabotage and arson targeting infrastructure across Europe, and even potentially lethal attacks on military installations belonging to the U.S. and its allies. According to U.S. officials, most of the sabotage in Europe so far has been orchestrated by Russias military intelligence agency (GRU). If Putin opts to escalate this covert campaign in response to missile strikes deep inside Russian territory, officials believe the Kremlin would likely continue to operate in the shadows, avoiding direct and open attacks on U.S. and European military facilities to prevent triggering a broader conflict. Read also: Biden-Zelensky talks: Ukrainian soldiers want firepower to win but question if US wants Russia defeated Ombudsman denies reports on Qatar-brokered Ukraine-Russia deal on 'children exchange' Kyiv did not conduct a Qatar-brokered "exchange" of children with Moscow, Ukraine's Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on Sept. 27. Lubinets refuted an AFP report citing an unnamed Qatari official who claimed nine children and one adult had allegedly returned to Ukraine, while four children "will be reunited with their families in Russia." under the agreement. According to the ombudsman, no deals were made between the two countries and the reports are "promoting Russian narratives." Qatar has acted as a mediator between Kyiv and Moscow to bring back Ukrainian children illegally held by Russia. International humanitarian law does not provide for such a process as the exchange of children, Lubinets said. "Ukraine has not kidnapped and does not hold Russian children on its territory, nor does it prevent their return to Russia if they are on our territory," he added. Over 19,500 children have been confirmed as abducted by Russia since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and less than 400 of them have been returned home, according to the Children of War database. Read also: As Ukrainian children return to school, Russia launches missiles at educational facilities 'Attack on Belarus is World War III,' Lukashenko claims amid calls for changes to Russian nuclear doctrine An attack on Belarus would lead to World War III, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko claimed on Sept. 27, following Russian President Vladimir Putin's call to update Russia's nuclear doctrine, according to the Belarusian state-owned news agency Belta. Putin proposed a series of changes to Russia's nuclear doctrine on Sept. 25 during a Security Council meeting on nuclear deterrence. He announced that Russia could respond to conventional missile strikes with nuclear weapons and indicated that Moscow would treat any attack backed by a nuclear-armed country as a coordinated assault. He also stated that Russia retains the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of an attack, including if an enemy using conventional weapons poses a critical threat to Russia and Belarus. "An attack on Belarus is World War III," Lukashenko said. "Putin recently confirmed this by amending the nuclear doctrine, that in an attack on Russia and Belarus, we use nuclear weapons," Lukashenko added, thanking his Russian counterpart for the recent move. The Belarusian dictator claimed that NATO countries had allegedly deployed troops on the border with Belarus, specifically in Poland. "The red line is the state border. If you step on it, there will be an immediate response. We are preparing for that," Lukashenko said. Russia's decision to modify its nuclear doctrine is a direct response to discussions in the U.S. and U.K. about whether to allow Ukraine to launch conventional Western missiles into Russian territory. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Sept. 26 that updates had been made to a document titled "The Foundations of State Policy in the Sphere of Nuclear Deterrence." While Belarus doesn't have nuclear weapons of its own, Russia has allegedly moved some of its nuclear arsenal to Belarus. Read also: Is Russias new nuclear doctrine saber-rattling or a real threat? Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. A Russian assault near the village of Pishchane in Kharkiv Oblast was repelled, and dozens of vehicles damaged and destroyed, the Achilles drone strike battalion of Ukraine's 92nd Separate Special Forces Brigade claimed on Sept. 27. Commander Yurii Fedosenko said Moscow's forces had attempted to advance toward Kolesnykivka and Kruhliakivka the previous day, using around 50 armored vehicles and troops. Footage shared by Fedosenko show repeated Ukrainian FPV drone strikes on Russian vehicles which reportedly destroyed 14, and damaged 26 pieces of Russian military equipment, including infantry fighting vehicles and tanks. The Kyiv Independent could not verify these claims. Pishchane is located some 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the town of Kupiansk in eastern Kharkiv Oblast. Twenty engagements took place in the Kupiansk sector over the past day, Ukraine's General Staff said. 0:00 / 1 Another Russian attack was repelled in the Kurakhove sector in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine's 79th Tavrian Air Assault Brigade said on Sept. 22. This week, Ukrainian forces also recaptured an aggregate plant in the town of Vovchansk in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) reported. The intensity of fighting in the area has decreased somewhat compared to other sectors in Ukraine's east near Pokrovsk, Vuhledar and Toretsk. Read also: Ukraines 72nd Brigade releases video from Vuhledar, denies claims about withdrawal Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. The Russians have tried to conduct a large-scale assault on the Kupiansk front near the settlement of Pishchane with 50 pieces of equipment. The Armed Forces of Ukraine repelled the attack, destroying and damaging 40 pieces of equipment. Source: Yurii Fedorenko, Commander of the Achilles Battalion of the 92nd Separate Mechanised Brigade, on Telegram; the DeepState analytical project on Telegram Quote from Fedorenko: "On 26 September 2024, the enemy attempted a mechanised assault on the Kupiansk front near Pishchane. Approximately 50 pieces of Russian armoured vehicles, carrying troops, were moving towards Kolesnykivka and Kruhliakivka. The Achilles Battalion of the 92nd Separate Mechanised Brigade destroyed and damaged 40 pieces of military equipment." Details: Fedorenko said that 14 pieces of equipment were destroyed, including five infantry fighting vehicles, three tanks, one armoured personnel carrier, one multipurpose tracked armoured vehicle, two Ural trucks, one van, and one ATV. Additionally, fighters damaged 26 pieces of equipment: 10 tanks, 10 infantry fighting vehicles, two recovery vehicles, three multipurpose tracked armoured vehicles, and one Ural truck. The DeepState reported that at least 9 pieces of Russian military equipment were moving towards Kruhliakivka and about 40 towards Kolesnykivka, with some carrying troops on board. "The majority of the enemy equipment was destroyed; the rest retreated," analysts reported. Support UP or become our patron! Ukraines Embassy in Vienna has received a notification about an alleged bomb threat, forcing it to suspend normal operation on September 27. Source: the official website of the diplomatic mission, as reported by European Pravda Details: A bomb threat was reported at the Ukrainian Embassy in Austria on September 27. "To ensure the safety of visitors, it was decided to temporarily suspend the consular service, to check the premises and assess the potential threats together with the Austrian police. The safety of our citizens is always an absolute priority," the embassy explained. Specialists have already completed the inspection of the buildings and found no explosive devices, but the police recommended that people refrain from visiting the building during the day. In this regard, the consular department of the embassy will resume work after the weekend - on Monday, 30 September. Background: Czechia is investigating whether Russia is behind the wave of bomb threats in the schools in early September. In Lithuania, at the beginning of the academic year, a wave of Russian-language letters threatening to blow up educational institutions was also registered. Support UP or become our patron! Ukraine's Special Operations Forces revealed their role in fight for left bank of Dnipro River in Krynky in Kherson Oblast video The Special Operations Forces (SOF) of Ukraine have released exclusive footage where they are preparing a bridgehead for the naval entry to the left bank of the Dnipro River near the village of Krynky in Kherson Oblast in 2023. Source: press service of the SOF Quote: "Everyone is familiar with the story of a heroic assault and holding a bridgehead in Krynky by the Defence Forces of Ukraine. It is time to hear the story of the role of the SOF in the battle for the left bank." Details: The SOF released a 43-minute film Path to Krynky the story of combat work of the SOF unit that cleared the path to the left bank of the Dnipro River for the naval infantry through islands and reed beds. The details of a large-scale long-lasting operation, revealed by the operators of the unit, are filled with emotion and memories. The troops crossed the river to get to the left bank, conducted reconnaissance and mine clearance of the territory, targeted the Russians and captured prisoners of war. As shown in the film, the SOF managed to find out information about the front line of Russian defences, as well as the system of Russian observation posts and communication systems, from one of the Russian PoWs. The SOF even approached the Russian rear, destroyed means of communication, cut logistic supply routes and destroyed 10 Russian ships. Since the specificity of their work does not allow the special forces to capture or hold enemy territories, the soldiers applied a hit and run tactic. Reportedly, the SOF conducted their combat work in that area for several months in 2023. 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 have gone 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 KIA soldiers 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". Dmytro Lykhovii, the spokesman for the Tavriia Operational Group of Forces, 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. Support UP or become our patron! Ukrainian forces shoot down 24 Russian attack drones out of 32, one Shahed UAV enters Romania Russian forces launched 32 Shahed loitering munitions, an Iskander ballistic missile and two Kh-22 cruise missiles on Ukraine on the night of 26-27 September. Ukrainian air defence units have shot down 24 of the Shaheds. Source: Ukraine's Air Force Details: The Russians attacked Ukraine with an Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missile from occupied Crimea and two Kh-22 cruise missiles fired by Tu-22M3 bombers from the Black Sea. The Russians also launched 32 Shahed-type loitering munitions on Ukraine, with the launch area being the Russian city of Primorsko-Akhtarsk. Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile units, mobile firing groups and electronic warfare units from Ukraine's defence forces were involved in repelling the Russian attack. Ukrainian forces shot down 24 loitering munitions during the anti-aircraft operation. One UAV entered Romanian airspace, and three more Russian drones disappeared from radar, likely due to electronic warfare countermeasures by Ukrainian forces. Air defence units were responding in Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv and Odesa oblasts. Support UP or become our patron! The National Guard of Ukraine (NGU) has shared footage of the destruction of Russian reconnaissance drones over the line of contact. Source: NGU press service Details: It is noted that the air reconnaissance personnel of the 11th Mykhailo Hrushevsky Brigade of the National Guard skilfully destroy the Russian "eyes" in the air. The video posted today shows the downing of five Zala-421 drones, two Orlan-10s, a Supercam S350 and a Lancet belonging to Russian troops over the line of contact. Background: In early September, Captain Dmytro Lykhovii, a spokesperson for the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, noted that Russian UAVs were increasingly being shot down by Ukrainian FPV drones. He said that cases of Russian attack drones being shot down by FPV drones were also recorded. Soldiers of the unmanned forces unit of the 93rd Separate Mechanised Brigade Kholodny Yar on the Bakhmut front hit 49 targets in 17 days using FPV drones. Support UP or become our patron! UN says more than 30,000 have fled Lebanon for Syria A Syrian refugee family drives on motorcycle along Sidon-Beirut, as they flee from Rmeileh in south Lebanon to Beirut. Thousands of families fled southern Lebanon for areas in the capital Beirut and Mount Lebanon, following the expanding Israeli attacks. Marwan Naamani/dpa Since the beginning of the heavy Israeli attacks in Lebanon, "significantly more" than 30,000 people have already fled to neighbouring Syria, according to UN reports. About 80% are said to be Syrian citizens, the rest predominantly Lebanese, said Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Syria. He spoke on Friday from the Lebanese-Syrian border over videolink with reporters in Geneva. That number had more than doubled from Thursday's official estimate of 13,500 people who had sought safety in Syria out of desperation. "Both Syrians and Lebanese are crossing from a country at war to one that has faced crisis and conflict for 13 years - we cannot imagine what an incredibly difficult choice that is - over 30 000 have made that choice," he said. In Lebanon, 110,000 people had already been displaced prior to the recent escalation, according to UN reports. Since last week, 118,000 more have joined them, said Imran Riza, the humanitarian UN coordinator in the Lebanese capital Beirut. Lebanese Shiite women sit inside a van decorated with a poster of a pro-Iranian Hezbollah fighter, on their way to Beirut after fleeing southern Lebanon. Thousands of families fled southern Lebanon for areas in the capital Beirut and Mount Lebanon, following the expanding Israeli attacks. Marwan Naamani/dpa Scores of cars drive along Sidon-Beirut highway towards Beirut, near the area of Khalde, as thousands are fleeing southern Lebanon. Thousands of families fled southern Lebanon for areas in the capital Beirut and Mount Lebanon, following the expanding Israeli attacks. Marwan Naamani/dpa By Sarah Morland (Reuters) - Haiti has seen nearly 13 people killed on average each day this year, according to data from a United Nations report on Friday, which urged tighter controls on arms trafficking among other measures as a gang war drives a worsening humanitarian crisis. At least 3,451 people have been killed since January, according to a report from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights published days before a U.N. mandate for a security force to support Haitian police is set to expire. "No more lives should be lost to this senseless criminality," commissioner Volker Turk said in a statement. Haiti initially requested the mission in 2022 and it was approved a year ago, but just a fraction of the troops promised by a handful of nations has deployed and funding remains scant. Haiti has asked the U.N. to consider turning it into a formal peacekeeping mission to secure stable funds and capacity. Turk said it was clear the mission needs "adequate and sufficient equipment and personnel to counter the criminal gangs effectively and sustainably, and stop them spreading further and wreaking havoc on people's lives." The mission's first deployment in June prompted gangs to recruit large numbers of children into their ranks, the report said. In addition, close to 100 children have been killed so far this year - some in gang attacks and other in police operations, the report said. Violence has spread beyond the capital, fueled by arms trafficking, primarily from the United States but also from the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, which has persisted despite an international arms embargo. The report said poorly monitored airspaces, coastlines and porous borders were allowing gangs to obtain high-caliber weapons, drones, boats and "a seemingly endless supply of bullets." The number of people internally displaced by the violence has almost doubled in the last six months to over 700,000, while some 1.6 million people are estimated to be facing emergency food insecurity, the worst level before famine. (Reporting by Sarah Morland) As Western North Carolina braces for the impacts of Hurricane Helene, the N.C. Faith and Freedom Coalition is preparing to host its annual Salt & Light Conference at the Nebo Crossing Church in Marion this weekend. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is one of the most prominent figures speaking at this years conference, and as of Thursday, hes still scheduled to address the gathering on Saturday afternoon, according to the coalitions grassroots director, Jim Quick. The conference will be live-streamed on YouTube. It would be one of Robinsons first major public appearances with other Republicans since the scandal broke last week over what CNN says are his old posts on an online porn forum. Organizers said they are monitoring the forecast for Helene, adding that the projected flooding wont impact the church where the conference is being held, or major roads leading up to the church. They urged attendees to travel safely and check drivenc.gov to make their driving plans, and said updates will be posted on their website and Facebook page as warranted. Im Avi Bajpai. Welcome to the Under the Dome newsletter. Heres more from the politics team and Stephanie Loder, correspondent. An endorsement for Robinson The embattled GOP gubernatorial nominee announced an endorsement on Thursday from the Oil & Gas Workers Association. The trade association, founded in 2015, has 47,000 members nationwide, according to its website. It has endorsed former President Donald Trump, along with other high-profile Republicans like Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake, and U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert. In a statement, Robinson said he was proud to receive the groups endorsement, and said that if he is elected governor, he will fight to bring down energy costs and create more jobs for middle-class families with a more common-sense approach: like responsible development of fossil fuels like coal and natural gas and clean sources of energy like nuclear power. Matt Coday, the associations founder and president, said that under Robinson, we can rest assured that our workers and our industry will be in good hands. Avi Bajpai Heres what else the Under the Dome politics team has been working on: Danielle Battaglia reports Sen. Thom Tillis remarks that Robinson needs to either prove his innocence or step aside. Tillis didnt hold back when he talked about Robinson, saying he owes it to the people of North Carolina to either prosecute a case against CNN over the explosive report attributing racist, pornographic posts to him, or step aside. Attorney General Josh Stein is getting campaign support from Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro , Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan reports. The two Democrats have a campaign event scheduled for noon Sunday at UNC Greensboro. Greensboro is also Robinsons hometown. Wake County school district officials, at a press conference on Thursday, urged state legislators to allow a veto of a bill by Gov. Roy Cooper to stand. The bill, House Bill 10, would provide more than half a billion dollars in additional funding for private school vouchers, reports Lexi Solomon. Its the same bill that would require sheriffs to cooperate with detention requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Heres what our colleagues at other media outlets are reporting: Robinson named Deputy Chief of Staff Krishana Polite to become his next chief of staff in the Lieutenant Governors Office on Thursday, the day after current Chief of Staff and General Counsel Brian LiVecchi resigned, according to a report by the Associated Press. Vice President Kamala Harris campaign is trying to use the Robinson scandal to win North Carolina, referencing him in conversations with Harris volunteers and with voters on the phone and at their doorways, the AP reported Thursday. VOTER GUIDE In the latest candidate questionnaires from our 2024 NC Voter Guide, see what candidates for NC Court of Appeals have to say about the issues, and learn more about their biographies. Six candidates for three seats on the court answered our questions: Seat 12: Seat 14: Seat 15: Check your inbox on Sunday for our weekly edition on the governors race. You can sign up to receive the Under the Dome newsletter at newsobserver.com/newsletters . Want your friends to get our email, too? Forward them this newsletter so they can sign up. We want to know what you would like to see in the Under the Dome newsletter . Do you like highlights from the legislature? Political analysis? Do you have a question youd like The News & Observer team to answer? Tell us here. You can also email us at dome@newsobserver.com Dont forget to follow our tweets and listen to our Under the Dome podcast for more developments. CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS) An unidentified man is dead after being struck by a car, according to the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department. Just before 7 a.m. on Wednesday, September 25, officers were called to N. Davidson Street and Parkwood Avenue, where they found a man, unresponsive in the middle of the intersection The pedestrian was taken to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries. Helene Timeline: When to expect the greatest impacts for your area in the Carolinas Investigators say the man was crossing N. Davidson Street when he was hit by a Honda Accord which had a green light. The driver of the Honda tried to give medical aid to the man and stayed with him at the site of the crash, CMPD says. The driver was not impaired. That afternoon, the man died from his injuries. Currently, police do not know who he is. Anyone with information on the crash or the identity of the man is asked to call Detective Mercedes at 704-432-2169, Ext. 5. Information can also be left anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 704-334-1600 or charlottecrimestoppers.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 Queen City News. Union hits out at plan to import water from Norway The idea which would provide Hampshire with 45m litres (11.9m gallons) of water a day from Norway [BBC] The GMB Union has called Southern Water's plan to import bottled water from Norway "farcical". The idea, which could provide Hampshire with 45 million litres (11.9 million gallons) of water a day, comes from Southern Water's Resources Management Plan. Gary Carter, GMB national officer, said: "Can Southern Water be serious?" The water firm said that importing water would be "a last resort contingency measure" in the event of an extreme drought. Flooding caused by heavy downpours and thunderstorms, has affected parts of central and southern England. Mr Carter said: "People up and down the UK are battling pouring rain and floods, Southern are spending bill payers' money on ridiculous plans to ship bottled water in from Norway. "The UK uses just a tiny amount of the rain that falls from our skies. "Private water companies have utterly failed to invest in the infrastructure needed to capture and use more and reduce the need for farcical plans like this." 'A range of other reserve options' In response to the union's comments Tim McMahon, Southern Waters managing director for water, said: "Importing water would be a last resort contingency measure that would only be used for a short period in the event of an extreme drought emergency in the early 2030s - something considerably worse than the drought of 1976. "We have a range of other reserve options to call on first, such as temporary desalination plants and water-saving agreements with businesses, to keep Hampshires taps running, so the likelihood of needing to import water is very remote." Several weather records were broken in the summer of 1976. August of that year concluded what was then the driest 16-month period since records began, in 1772. As the world warms, the UK is likely to have hotter, drier summers and warmer, wetter winters, according to the Met Office. Extreme weather events such as heatwaves and heavy downpours could become more frequent and more intense. You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram. More on this story Related Links The University of Pittsburgh School of Health Sciences will receive a contract renewal worth $100 million to continue its advanced trauma care innovations for the U.S. Department of Defense. The 10-year contract surrounds the Linking Investigations and Trauma and Emergency Services (LITES) Network, which not only Pitts research but also about four dozen other trauma centers in the U.S. and Canada. LITES Network began in 2016 and its studies since then have helped to determine the best ways to treat trauma including pain management as well as a trial to use platelets that will help with blood clotting instead of the traditional methods. Its also working on clinical trials for airway management, whole blood transfusion, treatment for severe blood loss and prehospital pain. Trauma remains a leading cause of death in people younger than 45 years old. It is also a leading cause of preventable death, which means that these people do not have to die, said Dr. Jason Sperry, professor of surgery and critical care medicine at Pitts School of Medicine and UPMCs trauma and general surgery section chief. The research and clinical innovation were doing through the LITES Network is saving lives. Click here to read more from the Pittsburgh Business Times. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW A Loveland man accused of sexually assaulting a client while performing acupuncture treatment out of his home without a license has been sentenced to sex offender intensive probation. Rodney Pereira, now 69, pleaded guilty in July to unauthorized practice of medicine by impersonating a medical provider, a Class 6 felony; sexual contact as an acupuncturist, a Class 1 misdemeanor; unauthorized practice of massage therapy and unauthorized practice of acupuncture, both Class 2 misdemeanors. Pereira was sentenced to five years of sex offender intensive supervised probation on Thursday by Judge Sara Cure. He was also given a 364-day suspended jail sentence, which will only be imposed if he does not comply with the terms of probation. Pereira was arrested in August 2023 after a woman reported to the Larimer County Sheriff's Office earlier that year that she began receiving acupuncture treatment at a man's Loveland home in mid-2022. During a treatment session in late 2022, the woman told investigators the man sexually assaulted her while providing massage therapy treatment, the sheriff's office said in a news release at the time of Pereira's arrest. Investigators previously said Pereira represented himself as a retired medical doctor and offered acupuncture and holistic medicine services, but he had never obtained certification as a doctor and his acupuncture license expired in 2021, according to the news release. Deputy District Attorney Leah Lechuga said Thursday that the victim in this case was seeking treatment from Pereira for anxiety that stemmed from previous sexual violence she experienced, and investigators are "concerned he preyed upon her." Lechuga said "there seems to be diminished accountability," from Pereira, but Pereira's attorney Mark Savoy said his client is "fully remorseful for his actions, and he is ready to take responsibility." Savoy pointed out the woman's delay in reporting these allegations, not to blame her, he said, but as a way to "cast doubt on some" of what might have occurred in this case. He said that "whether (the woman) consented" to what occurred or not, Pereira acknowledges that "his behavior violated the trust that should exist," and was illegal. Pereira said he regretted his actions and apologized to the victim, acknowledging the harm he understands he caused. "I know that what I did was morally and ethically improper," Pereira said. "I'm committed to making sure this mistake is a turning point for me." Resources for sexual assault victims Sexual Assault Victim Advocate Center (SAVA) provides crisis intervention, advocacy and counseling for survivors and anyone affected by sexual violence in Northern Colorado, as well as prevention programs through community outreach and education. savacenter.org Fort Collins location: 970-472-4204 Loveland location: 970-775-2962 ChildSafe supports child and adult victims of childhood abuse, particularly sexual abuse, and their family members. SummitStone Health Partners provides counseling for psychological, emotional and behavioral problems, substance use disorders, domestic violence and sexual assault victims. Resources provided by the Larimer County Sheriff's Office This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Unlicensed Colorado acupuncturist accused of sex assault sentenced Dayton Police were called to Dayton International Airport on Tuesday evening in regards to a disorderly passenger on an American Airlines flight, causing the flight to be diverted. [DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Once at the gate, police were pointed to a 32-year-old woman who had refused to deboard the plane after she was asked to. Police asked her what had happened. She advised the plane was delayed and she was asleep in her seat. She woke up and believed she had arrived at her destination, but was still in Dayton, a Dayton Police incident report stated. She stated she asked the flight attendant for a drink but was denied. The woman also said she missed her connecting flight and had to cancel her flight to her final destination. Later, police learned that a passenger sitting next to the woman on the plane asked to be moved away from her due to her behavior, claiming she was intoxicated and that she refused to hang up the phone and put it on airplane mode while they were taxiing for takeoff, the report stated. TRENDING STORIES: When the woman was asked to put her phone on airplane mode, she allegedly became irate. The flights captain told police he was advised that the woman was not following flight instructions, forcing the plane to return to the gate to get the woman off the flight. When she was asked to deboard the flight, she refused, the report said. Since she refused to deboard, all passengers were forced to get off the plane. Police were finally able to get the woman off the plane and worked with her to rebook her flights for the next day. While speaking with the woman, an officer noted a strong odor of alcohol on her breath and that her attitude would fluctuate up and down. There were no other contributing factors that led me to believe she was intoxicated at the moment, an officer wrote in the report. News Center 7 checked and have not seen any charges filed in connection to the incident. [SIGN UP: WHIO-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] It happened 23 years ago. An elderly widow was attacked in her own home and left for dead by her perpetrators. 73-year-old Ila Mae Clark died in Marshalltown on Aug. 29, 2001. Her killers have never been caught. In the first installment of our Unsolved Iowa series, WHO 13s Katie Kaplan has a new update on the old case. Time can be a fickle thing. Sometimes it is fleeting and at others it seemingly moves in slow motion. For communities haunted by an unresolved crime, it is often a little bit of both. I dont know why anybody would do this, a neighbor told WHO 13 in 2001. It has been more than two decades since that night. Her house is gone. The longtime lead investigator has passed away. But the Marshalltown Police Department said they are not giving up on it. In fact, they are ready to take another look. Something awful happened that day, remembered police Lt. Sadie Weekley in 2024. It was a quiet Summers evening when the call came in just after 5:15. A cheerful display of Christmas decorations left up year-round outside the home was a stark contrast to the horrors of what police found inside. Some neighbors had gone over the house, an officer at the scene told a WHO 13 news crew stationed outside the crime scene tape. They found the occupant there, whos a 72 (SIC) year old lady, injured and non-responsive. (Clark was actually 73.) It was the bloodied and beaten body of Clark, a mother, grandmother and woman fondly known as Sis around the neighborhood. Police immediately deemed her death as a homicide. It was a shocking attack that left the community jarred. She just, she was nice. She talked to you if you went up to her house and stuff. I mean, shes a polite woman, said a young neighbor at the time. Mike Donahey is a veteran reporter who covered the case for the Marshalltown Times-Republican. He remembers the details vividly. It was just such a brutal murder, he said. Here was a woman, 73 years old, just a week shy of her 74th birthday, looking forward to having fun on her birthday. An autopsy reportedly found Clark died of blunt force trauma. The killer, police have told newspaper reporters over the years, used a weapon of opportunity. Robbery is the unproven prevailing theory. Clarks husband had died eight years before and she lived alone in a small, one-story home managing a seven-unit apartment complex that sat just yards away. She often collected the rent in cash. Responding officers found signs of a forced entry and evidence of a struggle inside, with $500 missing from the till, said police. Because of a heavily traversed roadway just yards from the house, investigators believe the attack was premeditated and likely carried out under the cover of darkness the night before her body was found. Clarks home, and the apartment complex she managed, have since been demolished to make room for commercial businesses. A hotel and fast food restaurant now stand where the murder scene once was. Donahey said he knows the crime bothers Marshalltonians, and made a big impact on one particular young officer who was called to the scene the night Clarks body was found. Marshalltown Police Captain Brian Batterson doggedly pursued the case for decades. I could tell by the tone of his voice when I interviewed him about this, that he was still bothered by the fact that due to incidents, his department was not able to connect the dots and find the perpetrator or perpetrators, recalled Donahey. As the years passed and Batterson rose through the police department ranks, he had been able to narrow in on a theory surrounding three people, including a getaway driver. One of the persons of interest allegedly left town for Louisiana immediately after the killing. (Batterson) got a search warrant for the car. But unfortunately, Louisiana authorities did not act on it promptly, Donahey said. In the meantime, the driver of the car, one of the people of interest, rolled (the car) in a traffic incident, and the authorities threw everything that fell out of the car back into it. So evidence was compromised. Police said that at least one of the persons of interest has since passed away. Another has refused to speak with them. Meanwhile, time has proved it waits for no one. Captain Batterson passed away in April of 2023 at 56 years old. He now rests just on the other side of the same cemetery as Clark who was buried on what would have been her 74th birthday next to her beloved husband, Donald. Over the years, Clarks case has been surmised on IowaColdCase.org, the only entity that details the collective of missing persons and unsolved cases in Iowa, and Batterson gave sporadic updates to local media. But in the aftermath of his death not much has been done- until now. Perhaps in a nod to the beloved Captain, and definitely in an effort to get justice for Clarks family, a new set of police investigators are re-examining it. There was evidence left at the scene, said Captain Kiel Stevenson of the Marshalltown Police Department. Im not going to comment, I guess, on exactly what was there or what piece of evidence we have. Stevenson said police believe there is still a chance that evidence could be used to solve the case. He, along with Lt. Sadie Weekly, said they are also exploring how new technology might be used for testing the evidence and that they will plan to track down some of the alleged witnesses. However, a fresh look also means starting back at the beginning- 23 years ago. It is a tough task in itself accounting for the changes in police techniques. Nothing was done on a on a computer-based system at all, said Weekley. Back then, they would have been using actual 35-millimeter cameras. For the first time ever, the Marshalltown PD provided photos from the case file. Stevenson and Weekley will be using the same red binder Batterson put together over the years, hoping that time and advancements in technology will work in their favor this round. It is a tedious process, one that will take more time to tip the scales of justice. If you have any information on the murder of Ila Mae Clark, you can make an anonymous tip to Marshall County Crime Stoppers at 641-753-1234, or speak directly with detectives from the Marshalltown PD at 641-754-5725. If you have a cold case you would like WHO-13 to look into, email repoter Katie Kaplan at katie.kaplan@whotv.com. Heres another story you may be interested in: Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. US to 'adjust' force posture in Middle East after Israeli strikes in Beirut By Trevor Hunnicutt and Kanishka Singh (Reuters) - President Joe Biden has directed the Pentagon to "assess and adjust as necessary U.S. force posture" in the Middle East, the White House said on Friday after Israeli strikes in Beirut that Israel said targeted Lebanese Hezbollah militants. WHY IT'S IMPORTANT Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed hundreds in recent days and have raised fears of an all-out regional war. Washington has maintained strong military support for its ally while calling unsuccessfully for a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon. KEY QUOTES "He (Biden) has directed the Pentagon to assess and adjust as necessary U.S. force posture in the region to enhance deterrence, ensure force protection, and support the full range of U.S. objectives," the White House said. "He has also directed his team to ensure that U.S. embassies in the region take all protective measures as appropriate." The White House said Biden was briefed "several times" on Friday about the Middle East. An official added that Vice President Kamala Harris was also briefed. CONTEXT Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is defending itself after the deadly Oct. 7 attacks by Palestinian Hamas militants and from security threats posted by Iran-backed groups like Yemen's Houthis and Lebanon's Hezbollah. Israel's military assault on Gaza following Oct. 7 has displaced nearly everyone there and caused a hunger crisis. This week's escalation has displaced around 100,000 people in Lebanon. (Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Kanishka Singh in Washington, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien) (Bloomberg) -- The US Justice Department announced charges against three people for allegedly carrying out an Iranian-backed operation to hack the campaign of former President Donald Trump. Most Read from Bloomberg The indictment unsealed on Friday claims the individuals gained access to emails, debate preparation material and documents regarding potential vice presidential candidates from people working on Trumps 2024 campaign for president. The indictment didnt mention the former president by name, but a person familiar with the matter said it referred to Trump. We are working relentlessly to uncover and counter Irans efforts to stoke discord, to undermine confidence in our democratic institutions and to influence our elections, Attorney General Merrick Garland said during a press conference Friday. The US government is intensely tracking Irans lethal plotting against current and former US government officials, including former President Trump. Garland said the defendants are Iranian nationals living in Iran. The US Treasury Department also announced sanctions Friday against seven Iranians for attempts to influence or interfere in the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, according to a statement. Iranian state-sponsored actors used malicious cyber activities including hack-and-leak operations and spear-phishing, the department said. Microsoft Report The US allegations follow an inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that became public after a report from Microsoft Corp. described efforts by the Iranian government to access email accounts of presidential campaign staff members. US authorities said last week the hackers emailed stolen information from Trumps campaign to President Joe Bidens campaign during the summer, as well as to journalists. Investigators said they didnt have any evidence that anyone from Bidens campaign replied to the emails. Irans permanent mission to the United Nations has previously called the allegations fundamentally unsound and that the US hadnt shared any evidence of the hack. The office didnt immediately respond to a request for comment on the charges on Friday. US officials and cybersecurity experts believe Irans government is seeking to undermine Trumps candidacy after he antagonized Tehran during his first term in office. While president, Trump scrapped an international nuclear deal with Iran, imposed severe sanctions on the Islamic Republic and ordered the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the head of Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran has tried to disrupt past US elections. In 2020, its operatives impersonated members of the right-wing Proud Boys group as part of a voter intimidation effort, according to the FBI, resulting in charges against two men. That same year, Iranian hackers breached a website that a municipal government in the US used to publish election results, though the they were caught before carrying out any nefarious activity, US officials said. The case is United States v. Masoud Jalili et. al., 24-cr-00439, US District Court, District of Columbia. (Updates with US sanctions, Garland comments.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. FILE PHOTO: Signage is seen outside of FDA headquarters in White Oak, Maryland (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved GE HealthCare's diagnostic drug for use in detection of coronary artery disease, the company said on Friday. Flyrcado, which is a radioactive diagnostic drug for positron emission tomography (PET) myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI), will be available in some U.S. markets in early 2025 before being expanded. PET-MPI is a non-invasive imaging test which uses a type of nuclear medicine called radioactive tracers to asses how well blood flows to the muscle of the heart. The 3D images of the tracer's distribution can then be produced. The company said Flyrcado, which can be manufactured in an offsite pharmacy and delivered as a ready-to-use unit dose, has the potential to expand access to PET-MPI, including improving diagnostic accuracy in difficult-to-image patients such as those with a high body mass index and women. Doctors have underscored Flyrcado's distinct clinical benefits such as higher-quality imaging, greater defect resolution and improved workflow, brokerage Stifel said in a note ahead of the approval. Use of Flyrcado helped accurately classify 74% to 89% of participant scans in a study. GE HealthCare said Flyrcado delivers higher diagnostic efficacy in patients with known or suspected CAD, compared to SPECT MPI which is the predominant procedure currently being used. CAD is the narrowing or blockage of the coronary arteries, which supply oxygen-rich blood to the heart. It impacts over 18 million adults in the U.S., and is the leading cause of death in the country, according to the FDA. Flyrcado decays ten times slower than currently approved cardiac PET radiotracers, GE HealthCare said, which can help combine exercise stress testing with imaging. The company also has similar products for detection of breast cancer and Alzheimer's disease. Stifel analysts estimate approval of Flyrcado could add about 0.3% to 0.6% of sales growth for the company in the medium to long term. (Reporting by Bhanvi Satija and Puyaan Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri) U.S. intelligence agencies have cautioned that Russia may respond with increased force, potentially including lethal attacks on the U.S. and its allies, if Ukraine is allowed to use long-range missiles supplied by the U.S., U.K., and France for strikes deep into Russian territory, the New York Times reported. The news outlet cited a previously unreported assessment that also downplays the strategic impact these long-range missiles might have on the war, mentioning Ukraine's limited supply and the uncertainty over how many more Western nations may provide those missiles. The analysis underscores the significant risks and uncertain benefits of the decision, which now lies with President Joe Biden, following his meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Sept. 26. The difficulty in President Biden's decision-making on Ukraine's request for long-range missiles is partly rooted in concerns highlighted by U.S. intelligence, American officials told the New York Times. Zelensky has been pushing both publicly and privately to gain permission to target Russian territory with the advanced missiles. Vladimir Putin has regularly used threats to deter the U.S. and its allies from sending more sophisticated weaponry to Ukraine. Critics argue that Bidens administration has been overly cautious, claiming their slow, incremental approach to arming Ukraine has hurt their performance on the battlefield. On the other hand, supporters of the current strategy point to its effectiveness in avoiding major Russian retaliation, though they admit this balance may now be at risk. The intelligence assessment outlines a range of potential Russian reactions if the U.S. and European nations authorize Ukraine to carry out long-range strikes with their supplied missiles. These responses could include increased acts of sabotage and arson targeting infrastructure across Europe, and even potentially lethal attacks on military installations belonging to the U.S. and its allies. According to U.S. officials, most of the sabotage in Europe so far has been orchestrated by Russias military intelligence agency (GRU). If Putin opts to escalate this covert campaign in response to missile strikes deep inside Russian territory, officials believe the Kremlin would likely continue to operate in the shadows, avoiding direct and open attacks on U.S. and European military facilities to prevent triggering a broader conflict. Read also: What we know about the victory plan Zelensky is presenting to Biden today Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. US intelligence warns of risks to Ukraine due to its possible strikes on Russian territory - NYT US intelligence believes that if Ukraine is granted permission to use long-range missiles to strike Russian territory, Russia could respond with more aggressive actions. This could include "lethal attacks" against the United States and its allies. Source: European Pravda citing The New York Times Details: The previously unpublished intelligence assessment also understates the impact that long-range missiles would have on the conflict, as the Ukrainians currently have a limited number of weapons and it is unclear how many others, if any, Western allies could provide. The assessment highlights what intelligence analysts consider to be the potential risks and uncertain benefits of making this decision to allow long-range strikes deep into Russia. The data received may partially explain why Biden has found it so difficult to make this decision and demonstrate the internal pressure on him to deny Zelenskyy's request. The US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss this intelligence and internal discussions, said it remained unclear what Biden would decide to do. Zelenskyy has lobbied publicly and privately for permission to use the missiles. Russian leader Vladimir Putin has frequently used threats to discourage the US and its coalition partners from providing more advanced weapons systems to the Ukrainians. Critics of Biden and his advisers say they are far too easily intimidated by Putin's hostile rhetoric, and that the administration's gradual approach to arming the Ukrainians has put them at a disadvantage on the battlefield. Supporters of their approach say it has been largely successful in preventing a violent Russian response. UK leaders have been more willing to take risks. They were in favour of allowing the Ukrainians to use the long-range missiles they had provided to strike deep inside Russia, but they waited to see where Biden stood on the issue before authorising strikes, as a potential Russian response could have implications for the overall security of the coalition. The intelligence report describes a range of possible Russian responses to the decision to allow long-range strikes with US- and European-made missiles, from increased arson and sabotage at facilities in Europe to potentially deadly attacks on US and European military bases. US officials say that the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian Federation is responsible for most of the sabotage in Europe that has taken place so far. If Putin decides to expand this covert action in response to the use of US and European missiles deep inside Russia, US officials believe the Russians will continue to do so secretly, as opposed to launching overt attacks on US and European facilities and bases to reduce the risk of a wider conflict. Background: Support UP or become our patron! A 21-day cease-fire proposal aimed at pausing the conflict in Lebanon has become the latest flashpoint in the strained relationship between the Biden administration and Israel after the country's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, roundly rejected the terms of the proposal on Thursday. As the prime minister flew to New York ahead of his Friday address to the annual high-level gathering of the United Nations, his office issued a statement saying he "did not even respond" to the proposal put forth by the U.S. and France, and that he had instructed the Israeli military to continue fighting against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah "with full force." Netanyahu's rejection came just hours after White House officials lauded a joint statement issued by the U.S., the European Union and six other countries endorsing the plan for a 21-day truce, a step heralded as an "important breakthrough." PHOTO: President Joe Biden speaks during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Sept. 24, 2024, in New York. | Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference in Jerusalem on Sept. 2, 2024. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images | Ohad Zwigenberg,Pool via AFP via Getty Images) MORE: Israel kills Hezbollah commander in Beirut strike, Netanyahu vows to continue 'with full force' Washington said Israel had been consulted before the joint statement was released, but struggled to explain the apparent disconnect. "We wouldn't have worked on that statement the way we did. We wouldn't have issued it when and how we did if it wasn't supported by the conversations that we were having with top Israeli officials yesterday," National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday. But behind the scenes, several U.S. officials familiar with the negotiations told ABC News they have consistently seen getting Israel to sign off on a truce as an uphill battle. Israel views a pause as beneficial to Hezbollah because it could allow it to regroup and strike back at Israel following attacks on the militant group's communication system last week widely attributed to Israel, according to the officials. They say that the Israeli government also views a truce of any length as running counter to its main aim of allowing people displaced from areas near its northern border to return to their homes as soon as possible. PHOTO: Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted Beirut's southern suburbs, Sept. 26, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images) MORE: Israel-Gaza-Lebanon live updates: Hezbollah confirms top commander killed Israel's permanent representative to the U.N., Danny Danon, told reporters on Wednesday that Israel would prefer to end its conflict with Hezbollah via diplomacy, but that "if it fails to return our residents to the homes, then we will use all means at our disposal." "We are very honest about it," Danon said, adding that he believed the mediators "know exactly what we want." The latest disconnect between the U.S. and Israel appears poised to add additional strain to what was already expected to be a contentious address to the U.N. by Netanyahu on Friday. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the body's Security Council on Wednesday that "hell is breaking loose in Lebanon." The U.N. Refugee Agency added on Thursday that in just 72 hours, more than 90,000 people had been displaced in Lebanon. Shortly after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Hezbollah -- a U.S.-designated terrorist organization -- began firing rockets across the Lebanese border with Israel. The low-level conflict continued for nearly a year, repeatedly threatening to escalate before Israel stepped up its military campaign earlier this month. US, Israel at standoff over Lebanon cease-fire proposal. What happened? originally appeared on abcnews.go.com US-led task force to fight ISIS in Iraq to end by 2026, officials say After 10 years, the military coalition of countries working to defeat ISIS in Iraq is coming to an end. The American and Iraqi governments announced Friday a phasing down of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, a U.S.-led military operation to counter the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Previewed for months after U.S. President Joe Biden met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani in April, the decision will close the task force by 2026. The U.S., which has 2,500 troops in Iraq, will then negotiate directly with the government in Baghdad on its military presence inside the country. Since the war started in Gaza last October, American military personnel around the Middle East have been increasingly under threat. Militia groups sponsored by Iran have targeted U.S. ships and bases, including a strike that killed three troops just across the Syrian border in Jordan this January. The attacks, along with Americas support for Israel, have continued to shift Americas military footprint in the region. There are now 40,000 U.S. personnel in Central Command, 6,000 higher than normal. In a call previewing the announcement with reporters, a senior U.S. administration and defense official wouldnt comment on how many troops would remain in Iraq or where they would operate other than to say there would not be a full withdrawal. What will the surge of US forces to the Middle East cost the military? Its time to do that transition. But that doesnt mean every detail has been worked out, the defense official said. The task force itself will end in two phases. The first will arrive next September, when the coalitions military mission inside Iraq will close. Because ISIS remains a threat nearby, the officials said, Iraq will allow the coalition to keep using its territory for missions across the border into Syria at least until September 2026. Launched in 2014, when the Islamic State seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, the task force includes more than 30 countries and eventually secured 42,000 square miles once controlled by ISIS, the defense official said. The terrorist group lost its ability to hold territory in Iraq in 2017, and in Syria two years later. Ending the international mission now, the official continued, reflects two changes: a weakened ISIS and an empowered Iraqi military. The coalition has given local security forces more than $4 billion in military equipment and trained around 225,000 personnel. America has also supported the Iraqi military directly. This week, the U.S. State Department approved a $65 million foreign military sale to Iraq for ship repair and maintenance. During these past years, weve seen very significant improvement in the Iraqi Security Forces capability, the defense official said. In late August, U.S. and Iraqi forces conducted an operation in western Iraq that killed 14 ISIS operatives, including four leaders, as announced by CENTCOM. Seven American personnel were injured in the raid. The U.S. military will end its current mission in Iraq against the militant organization ISIS by the end of 2026 and transition to a new phase that likely will involve a significant withdrawal of American forces in the country, according to senior U.S. officials. But Washington will maintain a military footprint in the country to continue the fight against global terrorism, they added, declining to offer specifics about expected troop levels or how the transition would work. There are presently about 2,500 American troops in Iraq. The move will occur in two phases, with the U.S. counterterrorism mission in Iraq, Operation Inherent Resolve, wrapping up in September 2025 but continuing in a transitionary form until at least September 2026, when it is expected to formally end. A senior Biden administration official said the details will be worked out over time but to expect some change in the U.S. footprint. As we go through this transition into a bilateral relationship, there could very well be changes in the numbers, changes in the activities that we do [to] align ourselves better with the bilateral interests that we have, the official said. A lot of that is going to be an ongoing discussion. The U.S. sent forces into Iraq in 2014 at the invitation of the Iraqi government, which was struggling at the time to counter the growing threat of ISIS that had captured vast swaths of Iraq and northeast Syria. The U.S. has always been subject to Baghdads invitation and a withdrawal if the government demanded it. Iraqi officials announced publicly earlier this month that the U.S. would withdraw its troops in two phases, starting now and continuing into 2025, with the last phase ending in 2026. A small force is expected to remain in Iraqs Kurdistan region. But the senior administration official did not characterize the changing relationship as a withdrawal, stressing there will be a continued security partnership. Id like to emphasize that this is an evolution of the military mission in Iraq, the official said. We are moving towards the type of productive, long-term security relationship the United States has with partners around the world. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, who has ties to Iran, has called for the U.S. to transition its counter-ISIS mission, recently increasing those calls after American forces have fought against Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq during the ongoing war in Gaza. Al-Sudani has been criticized for being too close to the Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella group of Iraqi security forces, many of which are backed by Iran. But the Iraqi leader has faulted both sides for trading fire on his territory, which he considers a violation of his nations territory, and has also called for a more enduring partnership with the U.S. focused on economic and other cooperation. Al-Sudani visited the U.S. in a high-profile trip in April and met with President Biden, where they discussed the transition to a new phase. His trip came after the start of talks about a transition in January. The U.S. has expressed confidence that Iraq can defend its territory against ISIS and other extremist groups that threaten the country, and officials said they will continue to support Iraqi security forces in the new phase. A senior defense official said the mission was always to support and not replace the Iraqi security forces. Today, the coalitions local security partners are better able to ensure that ISIS can never again cause havoc in the region, the official said, explaining the U.S. has trained and equipped more than 225,000 Iraqis and given them $4 billion in military aid. Through the advise and assist mission, the coalition, during these past years, weve seen very significant improvement in the Iraqi Security Forces capability, the official added. ISIS has lost most of its territory since it swept Iraq and Syria in 2014, but it has rebounded in the past few years since the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. This year alone, ISIS-K, the branch in Afghanistan, has been responsible for deadly attacks in Russia and Iran that killed more than a hundred people combined. If the U.S. withdraws all of its forces, that could leave a power vacuum vulnerable to being filled by Iran, which already has vast influence over Iraq. It could also push the U.S. to withdraw its about 900 troops remaining in Syria, given they would be isolated from any support in Iraq. But if there is a remaining force in the Kurdistan region, the U.S. may be able to support its forces in Syria. The senior defense official said the U.S. was transitioning its structure in Iraq because the mission environment has changed. We talked about the vast territorial sweep of ISIS and the large population that lived under its brutal rule. ISIS no longer controls that kind of territory, the official said. It no longer has a population under its command. It has fighters, it has cells. It has a presence, and that needs continued effort to ensure its enduring defeat. But that mission, that evolution of the threat, the official said, means its time to evolve this mission. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. US Navy warships fought off a 'complex' missile and drone attack in the Red Sea US Navy ships operating in the Red Sea shot down a number of Houthi missiles and drones on Friday. A Pentagon spokesperson described the incident as a "complex attack." The Houthis claimed to score hits on the American warships, but US officials pushed back on this. US Navy warships shot down a barrage of Houthi missiles and drones in the Red Sea on Friday in what a Pentagon spokesperson described as a "complex attack." Sabrina Singh, the deputy Pentagon spokesperson, said no US warships were damaged or struck by the Houthi munitions, and there were no injuries to American personnel. "We did see a complex attack launched from the Houthis that ranged from cruise missiles and [drones]," Singh told reporters at a briefing. "My understanding is that those were either engaged and shot down or failed." The Houthis said earlier that they targeted three Navy warships with nearly two dozen ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones. The Iran-backed rebels claimed to score direct hits on the vessels, although US officials pushed back on this and there's no credible evidence to support it. When asked at the briefing whether the US assessed that the warships were the intended targets of the attack, Singh said it was unclear. "Sometimes it's hard to tell whether they're being shot in the vicinity of a US ship or targeting another vessel. We always take measures for our self-defense, so I can't really tell you the intended target," Singh said. Destroyer Michael Murphy is one of five US warships patrolling the Red Sea, where US ships were attacked by drones and missiles fired by Houthi rebels. US Navy photo "We did what we had to do to protect our forces, and at the end of the day, no ship was hit, no damage, and no injuries to our personnel," she added. A US official told Business Insider on Friday that the Navy currently has five warships in the Red Sea: the destroyers USS Frank E. Petersen, USS Michael Murphy, USS Spruance, USS Stockdale, and the littoral combat ship USS Indianapolis. Only the Petersen and Michael Murphy were in the Red Sea a little over a week ago, a US official told BI at the time, suggesting that the other three warships moved into the region within the last few days. The increased Red Sea presence comes amid heightened fears of an all-out conflict between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, another militant group backed by Iran. Some reporters identified the Spruance, Stockdale, and Indianapolis as the warships that appeared to come under attack on Friday. The incident marked the latest provocation from the Houthis, who have spent months attacking merchant shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with deadly missiles and drones. The Houthis have previously made up having struck US warships. US warships have routinely been tasked with intercepting these threats and frequently carry out strikes against the rebels in Yemen. However, until Friday, the past two weeks had been relatively quiet. US forces said they destroyed one missile system in Yemen and two drones over the Red Sea during this time period. Read the original article on Business Insider US not withdrawing from Iraq but agreement could lead to troop reductions The U.S. and Iraq on Friday announced an agreement to end the anti-ISIS coalition military presence in Iraq that over the next two years, a move that could lead to a reduction of the 2,500 American troops still in Iraq and maintain the 900 troops in northeast Syria. U.S. officials stressed that the agreement did not mean the U.S. was conducting a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq but a transition to a new U.S.-Iraq military relationship separate from the decade-long coalition. In a joint statement, both United States and Iraq laid out a timeline where the coalition military presence in Iraq would end no later than the end of September 2025 as Iraq transitions to bilateral security relationships that "supports Iraqi forces and maintains pressure on ISIS." PHOTO: U.S. Army Soldiers of Bravo Battery, 3rd Battalion, 112th Field Artillery Regiment, 44th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, New Jersey Army National Guard, conduct a live-fire exercise utilizing the M119 howitzer, in Iraq, May 28, 2024. (Staff Sgt. Bruce Daddis/US Army) MORE: 7 US personnel injured in Iraq raid that killed 15 ISIS members: Officials Under the agreement, Iraq will allow the U.S. military presence in Iraq in order to provide support for the 900 U.S. troops stationed in northeast Syria to prevent a resurgence of ISIS. The removal of American military troops in Iraq has been a main concern for the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani that faced constant pressure from Iranian-backed groups opposed to their presence. Over the past year, Iranian-backed militia groups have carried out more than 170 rocket and drone attacks on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Syria. PHOTO: Spanish, American, Canadian, and Dutch CH-47 crews stand for a group photo on April 26, 2024, Al Asad Airbase, Iraq. (Sgt. Vincent Levelev/US Army) MORE: 7 US personnel injured in rocket attack on Iraqi base, officials say Earlier this year, President Joe Biden and al-Sudani set up a process for negotiations between the two countries to lay out a future military relationship that could lead to a reduction in the U.S. military troop presence in Iraq. "Iraq thanks the Coalition for the backing and support provided to the Iraqi security forces to confront this common threat and secure ISIS's territorial defeat in Iraq," said the statement. "At the forefront of these countries has been the United States of America, which stood with Iraq in difficult circumstances." The agreement does not contain specifics on how many of the 2,500 U.S. troops will be withdrawn, the pace of the withdrawal of what bases will remain in use over the next two years. "The U.S. is not withdrawing from Iraq," Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon's deputy press secretary told reporters Friday at a separate briefing. "Our footprint is going to be changing within the country." Ahead of the announcement, U.S. officials emphasized that the agreement was not withdrawal of U.S. military troops but a transition away from the coalition military presence that was established in 2014 as ISIS swept across Syria into Iraq coming as close as 40 miles from Baghdad. "I just want to foot stomp the fact that this is not a withdrawal, this is a transition," said a senior administration official said. PHOTO: U.S. Army Soldiers during an aerial gunnery training exercise with AH-64 Apache helicopters in Northern Iraq, July 2, 2024. (Staff Sgt. Bruce Daddis/US Army) "It's a transition from a coalition military mission to an expanded us Iraqi bilateral security relationship," the official added. "Those members of the coalition that are going that want to remain or continue to talk a security relationship that is entirely up to them." The officials stressed that discussions about the role and size of the future U.S. military presence in Iraq will be the topic of future U.S.-Iraq discussions. How the transition plays out will be determined by ongoing conversations with the Iraqi government over matters such as "what is the situation with ISIS, what is the environment we're working in, and what it what are the capabilities," the senior administration official said. The anti-ISIS coalition of 87 countries will continue exist to prevent a resurgence of ISIS but will no longer have a military presence in Iraq. Some of the countries with troops in Iraq had been pressing for an agreement to end that mission. US not withdrawing from Iraq but agreement could lead to troop reductions originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Boeing has come under increasing pressure following a number of safety incidents involving its aircraft (JUSTIN TALLIS) (JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/AFP) The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Thursday issued "urgent safety recommendations" regarding the rudder systems on certain Boeing 737 aircraft, highlighting a risk of jamming. It came after a February 6 incident involving a Boeing 737 MAX 8 operated by United Airlines, whose rudder pedals were "stuck" in the neutral position while on the tarmac after landing at Newark airport in New Jersey. None of the 155 passengers and six crew members were hurt, the NTSB said, with the captain using the nose landing gear controls to steer the plane. Boeing has come under increasing pressure following a number of safety incidents involving its aircraft. It did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment. The cause of the February incident was found to be the rollout guidance actuator, one of the rudder control components, with tests revealing it was susceptible to moisture which could "freeze and limit rudder system movement," the NTSB said. The faulty actuator was manufactured by US company Collins Aerospace, it added. "Collins notified Boeing that more than 353 actuators that Collins had delivered to Boeing since February 2017 were affected by this condition," the NTSB said. The part is installed in the tail of some Boeing 737 NG and 737 MAX airplanes. The Federal Aviation Authority said it would convene a corrective action review board on Friday based on the NTSB's recommendations to determine next steps. Boeing has been under close regulator scrutiny since an in-flight incident involving an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 aircraft in early January. That event saw a door plug blow out mid-flight, leaving a hole in the side of the aircraft. Boeing's quality control and production processes had already been called into question after the crashes of two 737 MAX aircraft in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people. In March, the US aviation giant reshuffled its leadership, with new boss Kelly Ortberg taking over on August 8. Ortberg had headed Rockwell Collins, the company which later became Collins Aerospace, from 2013 to 2018. elm/cyb/aha/bjt Achaemenid-era clay tablets returned from the United States and on display at Iran's National Museum in Tehran on October 2, 2019 (ATTA KENARE) (ATTA KENARE/AFP/AFP) The United States has returned to Iran more than 1,000 clay tablets dating from the Achaemenid-era, official media said, reporting the sixth such handover of its kind. Iran's official IRNA news agency said Thursday evening that the tablets, 1,100 in all, were returned with President Masoud Pezeshkian who had attended the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Found at the ruins of Persepolis, the capital of the Persian Achaemenid Empire which ruled from the 6th to 4th centuries BC in southern Iran, the repatriated tablets reflect how the ancient society was organised and its economy managed. The tablets constitute records of "the rituals and the way of life of our ancestors", said Ali Darabi, vice-minister of cultural heritage, cited by IRNA. The tablets were returned to Iran by the University of Chicago's Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia & North Africa, formerly known as the Oriental Institute. A large portion of the tablets were returned in three batches between 1948 and 2004 before the rest were blocked by legal action until 2018. More than 3,500 tablets were repatriated in September, 2023. "The American side undertook to return the rest," Darabi said, cited by Iran's ISNA news agency. ap/vl/it/dv US says ceasefire proposal was coordinated with Israel US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby speaks during a press briefing at the White House. Oliver Contreras/White House/dpa The US government and other countries behind a joint statement calling for a three-week ceasefire between Israel and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon coordinated with Israel, a senior US official said on Friday. The White House's National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby said the statement "wasn't just drawn up in a vacuum." It wasn't only the countries that signed on to the plan who knew of its contents "but Israel itself." But when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in New York on Thursday for his Friday speech at the United Nations General Assembly, he said Israel would continue to attack Hezbollah until the Israelis evacuated from the northern border could safely return home. Netanyahu said there was a lot of "fake news." The government's press office in Jerusalem said the United States had only informed Israel of their intention to present a proposal for a ceasefire together with others. White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said the "joint statement was a clear call" for a temporary ceasefire to open up space for diplomacy so residents on both sides of the border could return home. "I would add that the statement was indeed coordinated with the Israeli side," she said. New USA TODAY/Suffolk polling gives Trump the edge in battleground Arizona. What it means With less than six weeks until the general election, an exclusive new USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll has former President Donald Trump in the lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in the key battleground state of Arizona. Its the latest in a string of polls to suggest that though either candidate could win here in November, the former president has the edge in the Grand Canyon State. Trump leads Harris by 6 percentage points, 48% to 42%, the statewide poll of 500 likely voters found. Pollsters disagree on how plausible those numbers are. But if borne out in November, it would mark a much stronger performance for Trump in Arizona compared to 2020. President Joe Biden won Arizona that year with the narrowest margin of any state. Fewer than 11,000 votes separated Biden and Trump four years ago, underscoring how close the contest could be again this election cycle. The result is within the poll's 4.4-percentage-point margin of error, meaning the race is still tight because the result can move in either direction by those points for the two candidates. The poll was conducted between Sept. 21 and Sept. 24. Arizona is one of the few states that is seen as up for grabs by both political parties. It has 11 of the 270 electoral votes needed for either candidate to win. David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, said he was surprised by the result but believes its supported by the rest of his data. "I think our poll, although it will jolt people, makes sense, Paleologos said. He argued there are three main factors that could explain why Trumps support in Arizona might have ticked up since 2020. First, Republicans' advantage when it comes to voter registration has grown in recent years. Second, both of voters top two issues immigration and the economy appear to be working in Trumps favor. Thats a change from 2020, Paleologos said, when voters top two issues were the COVID-19 pandemic, which favored President Joe Biden, and the economy, which favored Trump. "The number one and two issues are Trump issues. And so that's filtering itself through the numbers in this poll, he said. The USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll suggests that immigration is a bigger concern in Arizona, a border state, compared to other swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. That might explain why Harris is visiting the border this week. Harris is set to visit Douglas, a border city in Cochise County, on Friday. It will be her first trip to the Arizona-Mexico border as the Democratic presidential nominee. The third factor is a shift among Hispanic voters. Harris will win that demographic, Paleologos believes, but not by the margins that previous Democratic presidential candidates have. He thinks thats creating a deficit for Harris in Arizona compared to Bidens performance in 2020. "Hispanics' support is there for her, but it's not enough, Paleologos said. Another recent poll from the New York Times and Siena College found that Trump is leading Harris by five percentage points in Arizona, though some analysts argued the poll should be treated as an outlier. Reached for comment, Jacques Petit, Harris-Walz communications director for Arizona, pointed to the "infrastructure" the campaign had built in Arizona to rally "Democrats, Republicans, and Independents" in support of the vice president. Vice President Harris is the underdog in this election, and we know it will come down to razor-thin margins. Thats why the Harris-Walz campaign is running on a popular agenda of supporting everyday Arizonans and protecting reproductive freedom that will resonate with Arizonans at the ballot box," Petit wrote in a statement. Paul Bentz, a conservative pollster based in Arizona, diagnosed the state of the race as wildly unpredictable. The only thing that really was predictable is, prior to Biden jumping out, Trump seemed to be leading in the state, he said. We've seen, since then, quite a bit of volatility. Harris gained early momentum in Arizona when she first replaced Biden on the Democrats presidential ticket, Bentz said. But a cluster of polling suggests that Trump has started to swing back. That may be linked to the negative spending against Harris, Bentz speculated: Republicans have blanketed the airwaves with ads and political mail criticizing Harris since she became the nominee. "I've seen several mailers, some hitting even the same day, attacking her. There's a pretty hefty media buy going on right now against her," he said. It seems like some of that is working. Bentz suspects Trump is ahead in Arizona but said its hard to believe that the former presidents lead is as large as five or six points. He pointed out that recent statewide races in Arizona have been decided by narrower margins, and that candidates associated with Trump have tended to lose in recent statewide contests. Our population has grown. Our overall electorate has gotten younger. We saw a sizable rejection of MAGA candidates in the 2022 midterm. Those things do not portend that Arizona suddenly is solidly red for Trump, Bentz said. USA TODAY'S Rebecca Morin contributed reporting. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona presidential poll gives Trump the edge in battleground state (NewsNation) The head of the U.S. Postal Service insists the agency is prepared for the 2024 election and said it will undertake heroic efforts to deliver mail-in ballots on time even as election officials raise concerns. Let me be clear, the postal service is ready to deliver the nations mail-in ballots, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told reporters during a virtual news conference last week. DeJoy said USPS will implement extraordinary measures to ensure the mail-in voting process runs smoothly. He said there will be extra deliveries and collections in the lead-up to the election, special pickups and expanded hours for processing facilities, among other efforts. Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris: How policies compare USPS will also take measures to rescue ballots at risk of missing state deadlines because they were mailed late, DeJoy said. However, he urged those voting by mail to return their ballot at least one week before Election Day. We encourage the voting public to mail early if they choose to vote by mail, he said. The postmaster generals assurances come after a group of state and local election officials issued a letter to DeJoy earlier this month warning that the postal service had not fixed ongoing problems that could disenfranchise voters. How to register to vote We have not seen improvement or concerted efforts to remediate our concerns, the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) and the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) wrote in the Sept. 11 letter. When asked about the letter during last weeks press conference, DeJoy said its difficult to address generalties about perceived issues but vowed to fix specific problems as they arise. He pointed out that during the 2020 election, the postal service delivered 99.89% of ballots to election officials within seven days. We will be even better prepared for 2024 and will perform admirably again as we always have, he said. Election officials raise concerns Election officials have been raising concerns for weeks about the postal services ability to handle the flood of mail-in ballots. Specifically, officials highlighted three main problems in their recent letter: Inconsistent training for USPS staff Exceptionally long delivery times An increase in election-related mail being marked as undeliverable The letter said local election officials in nearly every state are receiving timely postmarked ballots well after Election Day. Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab, the past NASS president, recently said about 1,000 mail ballots from the states Aug. 6 primary election couldnt be counted because they arrived too late or were not postmarked. Election officials are also worried that mail is being marked as undeliverable at higher than usual rates, even when a voter hasnt moved. Why the USPS is urging homeowners to fix their mailboxes We implore you to take immediate and tangible corrective action to address the ongoing performance issues with USPS election mail service, the letter read. Failure to do so will risk limiting voter participation and trust in the election process. DeJoy told reporters he talked with the election officials and agreed to stay in closer contact to address problems as they come up. He noted that election laws, and ballot deadlines, vary from state to state. To operate successfully and even legally, we must have consistent policies nationwide, DeJoy said. But there are 8,000 election jurisdictions and 50 states who are far from uniform in their election laws and practices. In a recent audit, the USPS Inspector Generals office found high on-time processing scores of more than 97% during the primary season from Dec. 31, 2023, to Apr. 30, 2024. However, the report also found that Postal Service workers did not always comply with rules and procedures for handling election mail. DeJoy assured reporters that postal workers are up to the task. All 640,000 people are looking at ballots, if they see a stray one, they dive on it and get it into the system, he said. Four years ago, the 2020 election saw a surge in mail-in ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic. Election officials reported sending just over 69 million ballots in the mail, a substantial increase from four years earlier, the Associated Press reported. According to the Census Bureau, 69% of voters cast their ballots nontraditionally in 2020, meaning either by mail or before Election Day. Thats more than double the share that voted nontraditionally in 2012 and triple the level in 2004. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation. KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) A University of Tennessee student is facing charges including attempted murder after an incident at a residence hall on the University of Tennessees campus Friday morning. University of Tennessee Police released that Michael Francis, 19, was charged with one count of attempted murder and one count of criminal trespass. UTPD said the charges stem from an altercation with another student in a residence hall. Closures in East Tennessee due to severe weather Court records explain that the officers responded to the fourth floor of Laurel Hall around 3:20 a.m. on Friday, where they found a student lying on his back in the hallway being assisted by paramedics. The student reportedly told officers that a man confronted him in the hallway and he was hit in the back of the head as he was attempting to pass. The victim was then thrown to the ground, where he dislocated his shoulder, and the suspect, later identified as Francis, pulled a pink kitchen knife from his pants pocket and attempted to stab him, court records state. The documents continue to explain that the victim kicked the knife away from Francis. A woman attempted to intervene but was cut on the finger, and then Francis fled, court records state. According to court records, another woman reported she had interacted with Francis a few hours before the incident, and he was reportedly acting erratic and upset that the victim was in her room. The record alleges that when asked to leave, Francis stated he would wait on the couch for the victim to leave so he could kill [the victim] and go out in this world with a positive k/d ratio. Thousands without power as storms move through East Tennessee UT Police shared that the victim was taken to a local hospital and is being treated for non-life-threatening injuries according to UTPD. UTPD added that Francis was booked into the Knox County Regional Jail. EDITORS NOTE: This story has been updated. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WATE 6 On Your Side. People watch from a packed gallery as the Senate discusses a proposed constitutional amendment related to citizen initiatives during a special legislative session at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch) The Utah Supreme Courts ruling this week keeping Amendment D void wasnt necessarily surprising given it had already made it clear in an earlier ruling the Utah Legislatures powers do, in fact, have limits. However, the ruling does have significant implications for a host of reasons. The ruling affirming a district court judges decision to void Amendment D is unprecedented. Never before has a question been disqualified from already-printed ballots (Amendment D will remain on paper, but votes wont be counted and the constitutional change wont take effect). While the ruling shuts the door on Amendment D this year, its possible the Utah Legislature could try again to ask voters to enshrine its authority to repeal and replace any ballot initiative, even if it reforms the government. Its a debate that may surface during the Legislatures 2025 general session starting in January, to possibly put another iteration of the proposed amendment on the next general election ballot in 2026. But the Utah Supreme Court made clear that constitutional amendments must not only adhere to publication requirements, but be characterized in ballot language thats not misleading. It remains to be seen what lawmakers will do, if anything. Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, and Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, werent available for an interview on Thursday, according to their staff. However, the two top Republican legislative leaders issued a joint statement Wednesday night after the Supreme Court issued its ruling. They called it unprecedented and troubling. The Legislature offered the Court a way to preserve the voting rights of all Utahns, but instead, the Court took the chance to vote on Amendment D out of the voters hands, Schultz and Adams said. Its a sad day for Utah and voters, whether for or against the constitutional amendments. Anti-gerrymandering groups and Democrats, who have long struggled to contend with Utahs Republican supermajority, celebrated the ruling as one that demonstrated appropriate checks and balances between Utahs branches of government. House Minority Leader Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, said Amendment D was the result of a rushed and misleading process that wasted time and betrayed the trust of Utahns. She referred to the GOP-controlled Legislature hurriedly calling itself into an emergency special session last month to place Amendment D on the ballot in the first place. The courts decision didnt take away voters rights it protected them from a ballot summary that failed to clearly explain the amendment, Romero said, in response to Adams and Schultz statement. Last months special session came in direct reaction to the Utah Supreme Courts unanimous July 11 opinion remanding a lawsuit over Utahs redistricting process back to district court. All five of Utahs justices ruling that the district court erred when it dismissed the League of Women Voters claim that the Utah Legislature violated the Utah Constitution in 2021 when it repealed and replaced Better Boundaries voter-approved initiative. That measure, Proposition 4, would have enacted an independent redistricting commission to redraw congressional and legislative boundaries after every decennial Census. That ruling dismayed Utahs Republican legislative leaders, who have long believed the Utah Constitution gave lawmakers the ultimate authority to repeal and replace any ballot initiative. Acting under that belief, the Utah Legislature replaced Proposition 4 in 2020 with a watered-down version of the new redistricting process. That allowed Utah Lawmakers to ignore independently-drawn maps and adopt their own versions, which is ultimately what Republican lawmakers did in 2021 when it came time to set Utahs new political districts for the next 10 years. However, the Utah Supreme Courts July 11 ruling in the redistricting lawsuit made clear the Legislatures power to amend certain initiatives has limits, and the Utah Constitution protects government reform initiatives from being overridden by lawmakers without a compelling government interest. The Utah Supreme Court upheld a fundamental principle that never should have been in doubt the government must honestly present the questions voters are asked to decide, Mark Gaber, an attorney with the Campaign Legal Center, which represented the League of Women Voters and other plaintiffs in the case challenging Amendment D. The Utah Legislature failed at every step in this process, and voters will now see their constitutional rights affirmed. Emma Petty Addams, co-executive director for Mormon Women for Ethical Government, another plaintiff in the case, called Wednesdays ruling a tremendous victory that affirms the right of the people to ethical and transparent government. Were grateful for the clear message this decision sends: constitutional checks and balances exist for a reason and everyone must follow the constitution, Addams said. Katharine Biele, president of the League of Women Voters of Utah, said she hopes the ruling will open the door to a new day for Utahns. I hope the Legislature understands they represent us, she said. We look forward to working with them in the future on the issues that affect all Utahns. But will the Supreme Court ruling actually push the Utah Legislature to work better with anti-gerrymandering groups in the future? And given now two Utah Supreme Court rulings have strengthened plaintiffs arguments in ongoing litigation challenging the constitutionality of the Legislatures repeal and replacement of Better Boundaries 2018 ballot initiative which would have required lawmakers to use an independent redistricting commission to draw Utahs next set of political boundaries what comes next in that case? Whats next for Utahs redistricting process Ryan Bell, a board member of Better Boundaries, said its difficult to predict with certainty what will happen with the League of Women Voters of Utahs ongoing case against the Utah Legislatures repeal and replacement of the 2018 independent redistricting commission. However, he said the Utah Supreme Courts July 11 ruling and the invalidation of Amendment D which would have effectively rendered the courts interpretation of the Utah Constitution moot strengthens their chances in court. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Bell said he knows theres so many different ways that a lawsuit can end up going. Plaintiffs now must prove their facts. That could mean the case will go to trial, or he said its possible all parties see the writing on the wall and decide to reach a resolution where everyone agrees. If the courts deem the Legislatures repeal and replacement unconstitutional, Bell said hes confident Proposition 4 will be restored as law, and Utah could ultimately get a new, independently-drawn set of redistricting maps. The question, though, is when. Is it in a month or two years? Its hard to say, Bell said. But the ultimate result, yes. I really do think Prop. 4 now is going to hold. That means Utah could end up with, at some point, independently-drawn maps that will just make it hard to gerrymander people out of their districts, Bell said. And that means theres going to be a fundamental change in the Legislature. It is possible, though, that the Utah Legislature may take another swing at this and try to put another version of Amendment D on the ballot in 2026. Whether lawmakers do that or not, Bell said, depends on if theyre still as fired up about the issue as they are now. Bell predicted there wont be a wave of initiatives that Amendment Ds proponents warned of, so he said it will be harder for them to make their case before voters. However, he said its possible the Legislature could do something no one has even thought of yet. Theres always things they can do, and theyve proven to be both motivated and quite strategic, he said. I have found myself to lack the imagination to predict whatever else they might do. But ideally, Bell said, lawmakers will take a step back and decide to genuinely work with Better Boundaries rather than continue to fight. The wishful thinking is that everybody says, the Supreme Court has made it clear so we should just stop fighting now and just resolve it, Bell said. Romero said she also hopes the ruling on Amendment D serves as a wake up call to her Republican counterparts in the Legislature that theres a reason why we have three branches of government, and maybe this is a sign that we need to slow down. The judiciary has spoken, she said. They were on the side of the law. Romero also said shes hopeful for an independent redistricting process at some point in the future, but she said in the meantime Utah voters need to hold their elected officials accountable. This is a prime example of what will continue to happen unless the voters say we want change. I heard a lot of people say, I dont like Amendment D. Well, lets see if they take that to the polls, she said. Democrats only need to pick up nine more seats in the House to break the supermajority. Romero said another problem that doomed Amendment D was a lack of a robust process. The emergency special session rammed it through with very little public input. That alongside another bill passed earlier this year, SB37, that took the responsibility of writing constitutional amendment ballot language away from the nonpartisan legislative general counsel and assigned it to the House speaker and Senate president caused legal problems for Amendment D, she said. Were in this situation because the majority jumped the gun and they didnt think about these consequences, Romero said. In reaction to what happened with Amendment D, Romero said she and Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, plan to sponsor a bill to return the duty of writing constitutional amendment language back to nonpartisan legislative general counsel. Ruling raises questions for other constitutional amendments on 2024 ballot The ruling voiding Amendment D also raises other questions. It casts uncertainty over the validity of all three of the other constitutional amendments on the Nov. 5 ballot for voters to consider given none of these proposed constitutional amendments texts were printed in newspapers as explicitly required by the Utah Constitution. That was one of the two reasons why the courts invalidated Amendment D: The constitution says the Legislature shall cause the text of constitutional amendments to be published in at least one newspaper in every county of the state, where a newspaper is published, for two months immediately preceding the next general election. The other reason? The district court agreed with and the Utah Supreme Courts ruling upheld Amendment Ds opponents claims that its ballot language was misleading and counterfactual. Critics of at least one other proposed amendment, Amendment A, are challenging the ballot question in court for similar reasons, and it remains to be seen whether the courts agree this one was written with such clarity as to enable the voters to express their will, as the Utah Supreme Court put it in its ruling Wednesday night. But it may very well only take one constitutional violation to disqualify a constitutional amendment, and if Amendment D wasnt published in newspapers as required, neither was Amendment A. Same goes for Amendment B and C. However, Amendment A which would nix the states nearly 100-year-old constitutional earmark reserving the use of income tax revenue for education and allow income tax dollars to fund other state needs is the only other one being challenged in court currently. Third District Court Judge Laura Scott is scheduled to hear arguments for and against a preliminary injunction to possibly void it on Oct. 15. She said her decision will likely hinge on what the Utah Supreme Court decided in the Amendment D case, which spells trouble for Amendment A. Its unclear, however, whether Amendment B (which would increase the limit on the annual distributions from the State School Fund to public schools from 4% to 5%) and Amendment C (which would enshrine in the constitution that all county sheriffs continue to be elected by Utah voters, as they currently are), will be challenged. Neither are controversial and certainly not ruffling feathers like amendments A or D. But House Minority Leader Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, told Utah News Dispatch on Thursday she believes all of the proposed constitutional amendments appearing on the Nov. 5 ballot should be voided if they did not meet constitutional publishing requirements. Thats a really good question and I think thats something we all have to look into, Romero said when asked about whether any of this years proposed constitutional amendments were published properly under the Utah Constitution. If were not following the rules, then we need to be held the same standard. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE BORDNERSVILLE, Pa. (WHTM) If youve been on Interstate 81 at all Thursday, you may have seen them dozens of utility trucks headed southbound. The vast majority of them are headed to the southeast in preparation for Hurricane Helenes landfall in Floridas panhandle. LIVE: Helene now an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane abc27 News spotted a convoy of well over a dozen Canadian utility trucks headed south through Lebanon County. The trucks were coming from New Brunswick and were marked for Gagnon Line Construction and Holland Power Services. Kaylee Lindenmuth / abc27 News A convoy of utility trucks from two New Brunswick utility companies travel southbound on Interstate 81 in Lebanon County Thursday afternoon. Both companies specialize in emergency power restoration, according to their websites. According to the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council, nearly 50,000 utility workers and equipment are being pre-positioned across the southeast where they will work around the clock to restore power safely and as quickly as possible. Helene is currently a Category 4 hurricane, as of a 6:20 p.m. update from the National Hurricane Center. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27. Utility crews work to restore power across Georgia in the wake of Hurricane Helene damage Electric utilities in Georgia began extensive assessments of transmission lines and other infrastructure damaged by Hurricane Helene on Sept. 27. File photo Tbis post was updated Friday, Sept. 27, at 7:45 p.m. with updated power outage information. Thousands of utility workers from more than a dozen states are assisting Georgias crews throughout the weekend with restoring electricity to more than 1 million homes and businesses left without power by Hurricane Helene Friday. Helenes overnight wrath across Georgia led to the deaths of at least 15 people in the state, caused extensive damage to farmland, and brought widespread power outages that cut electricity to a Valdosta hospital and more than 1.1 million customers of Georgia Power and Georgia Electric Membership Corporation. Among the people killed Friday was a Pierce County firefighter, who was killed in the storm while he was clearing downed trees and power lines. Vernon Leon Davis, a part-time assistant fire chief in Blackshear died when a tree fell on his truck, Jacksonville-based First Coast News reported. Helene is the deadliest storm to hit Georgia since Hurricane Michael in October 2018. Both severe storms brought damaging winds, flash flooding, and substantial damage to Georgias farmland. As of early Friday evening, approximately 393,000 customers of Georgias local electric membership co-ops were still without power. The number of customer outages was more than 435,000 just a few hours earlier in the day, with most of the hardest-hit areas located in the south and southeast of the state. According to Georgia Powers outage map, 626,000 customers were still experiencing outages as of 6 p.m. Friday, a decrease of 220,000 since the storm first struck the state. By the time the severe weather subsided late Friday morning, Georgia Power crews and the use of a remote smart grid technology successfully restored power to 120,000 homes and businesses. Georgia Power and Georgia Electric Membership Corporation regularly update online customer power outage maps in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. A map of outages affecting local EMCs can be found at www.georgiaemc.com/outages To report power outages and gain more detailed outage and restoration updates, customers should contact their local EMC provider. For outage information from Georgia Power, visit www.georgiapower.com/about/grid-reliability/outage-information.html Georgia EMC reported Friday that outages surged overnight and early Friday morning as the storm crossed north through the state, causing some of the worst damage on the eastern side of Georgia. In addition to damage to the EMCs distribution lines, Hurricane Helene severely damaged high-voltage transmission lines. These transmission lines are a critical piece of the electric grid, as they feed the substations that provide power to EMC distribution lines, according to a statement from the Georgia EMC. The public is asked to stay away from downed power lines and keep a safe distance from crews as they restore power. Downed lines are extremely dangerous and could be fatal depending upon ground conditions, the Georgia EMC statement said. This is especially true in wet situations and even more so with standing water as a result of this storm. In addition, we ask the public to keep a safe distance from crews as they work to restore power. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) Along with ongoing construction work in the Valley, a new ramp closure in Mahoning County will impact drivers on Interstate 680 next week, among other road work. MAHONING COUNTY On Thursday, Oct. 3, the ramps at the Midlothian Blvd. and the I-680 interchange will have various short-term closures for lighting improvements. The $1.3 million lighting project began in Fall 2023 and will wrap up this year. Ramps will not be closed at the same time. All detours will be posted. The project will also include ongoing lane restrictions until the work is done. Work is ongoing on the resurfacing of Route 165 in Beaver and Springfield Townships. There are various lane restrictions between SR 165 and S. Range Road through late October 2024. Reconstruction of State Route 170 is ongoing in New Middletown and Springfield Township. Southbound, SR 170 is closed between Struthers Road and Woodlawn Road through mid-October. The detour is SR 617 to SR 165 to SR 626 to SR 7 to US 224 to SR 170. TRUMBULL COUNTY The $20 million Diverging Diamond Interchange project is ongoing in Howland Township. The following restrictions and closures are in place through November 2024: State Route 46 between Market St. and US 422 has various lane restrictions. State Route 82 between Elm Rd. and Howland Wilson Rd. has various lane restrictions. The ramp from E. Market St. to SR 82 is closed through November 2024. The detour is E. Market St. to SR 46 to SR 82. The ramp from SR 82 eastbound to SR 46 northbound is closed through late spring 2025. The detour is SR 82 east to SR 193 to SR 82 west to SR 46. The ramp from SR 46 south to SR 82 east is closed through late spring 2025. The detour is SR 82 west to Elm Rd. to SR 82 east. Estimated completion, fall 2026. Resurfacing on state routes 46 and 88 in Green and Mecca townships will have lane restrictions through June 2025 between SR 87 and SR 88 and SR88 to Mosquito Lake. State routes 46 and 169 in Niles are being resurfaced. Various lane restrictions are happening between Robbins Ave. and Niles Vienna Rd. for State Route 46 and between State Route 46 and US 422 for State Route 169. That work should be done by the end of next month. COLUMBIANA COUNTY On September 30 and October 1, State Route 46 will close west of East Palestine during daytime hours for a culvert replacement project. The detour is as follows: Beginning at the intersection of SR 46 and SR 7 in Columbiana County, go North on SR 7 to SR 14, go East on SR 14 to SR 165, go East on SR 165 to SR 170, then go South on SR 170 back to SR 46, and reverse. All work is weather permitting. A culvert replacement in Negley will close State Route 154 beginning Sept.23. The closures will be in the daytime only. The detour is SR 170 north to SR 14 east, SR 14 east to SR 51 south, SR 51 south to SR 168 south, SR 168 south back to SR 154, and reverse. A three-mile-long resurfacing project on U.S. Route 30 from the West Point Interchange to just west of Route 7 will close one lane of traffic throughout the project, which is expected to be done by Oct. 31. Major repairs are closing State Route 39 in Salineville. Almost 5 miles of State Route 39, from Salineville to Steubenville Pike Road in Highlandtown, is being rehabilitated. The work is divided into three sections, requiring a 60-day closure per section. State Route 39 is closed to traffic from State Route 164 to Clarks Mills/Steubenville Pike Road for 60 days. Following the completion of this section, State Route 39 will close from State Route 164 to East End Road in Salineville for 60 days. The final phase of this project from Clarks Mills Road/Steubenville Pike Road to Highlandtown will be completed in 2025 and will require a 60-day road closure. A project to resurface a two-mile section of State Route 7 from the southern end of East Liverpool to Campground Road in Wellsville. One lane of north and southbound traffic will be maintained throughout the project, which will be completed on October 31, 2024. These are projects that are handled by the Ohio Department of Transportation and do not include projects at the municipality or county level. Stay up to date on current traffic conditions with OHGO. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com. FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) A newly opened Fresno thrift store is the foundation of a non-profit designed to help the people who help the public. Resuscitated Marketplace and Thrift Boutique supports the Paramedic Resilience Society, which supports current and former paramedics and EMTs who face unforeseen financial challenges. The idea was to be able to provide for those first responders in the private sector, the paramedics and EMTs, said founder Kimberly DAmico. Since opening in August, DAmicos thrift store at the Bullard and Marks Shopping Center (3087 W. Bullard Avenue) has worked with more than a dozen vendors to raise funds for first responders in the private sector. As a former EMT of 34 years, DAmico says she understands the struggle of being a first responder, especially in the private sector. When I first started, I was 19, DAmico said. About that time I found myself in a situation where I didnt have a place to live. According to DAmico, the majority of her shifts were 24 hours with a two-hour commute. At the end of most of her days, she had just enough money for gas. I started seeing that the providers in the private sector of the EMS system, which is the majority of the ambulance transport in Central California, had a lack of public support. According to DAmico, first responders in the private sector are tied to private companies (such as American Ambulance of Visalia, the Sequoia Safety Council, or Life Star Ambulance in Tulare). Were not responding to other emergencies generally outside of a medical emergency, DAmico said. With the private sector, you dont get the same benefits that police and fire get. So our resources are limited. Throughout her long career, DAmico struggled with PTSD. When she left the industry, she found she no longer had anything to distract her from her symptoms. I think our coping mechanisms as first responders is if we keep going, just keep pushing, we dont have to visit the traumas that we live with, DAmico said. It took me into a very dark point in my life. DAmico says on some days she struggled to get out of bed and drive her kids to and from school until she found the Bridge Back Project and underwent pressure point therapy. When I had my first treatment, I remember I got up in the morning and I looked outside and I said, Its a beautiful day outside, DAmico said. I hadnt uttered those words in I dont know how long. With a newfound lease on life, DAmico set out to raise awareness and funds for first responders in the private sector through her nonprofit, the Paramedic Resilience Society. She partnered with Laura McAtee to open the Resuscitated Marketplace and partnered with dozens of like-minded local vendors. Theyre all great people and offer great treasures, DAmico said. The goal of the thrift store is to support the Paramedic Resilience Society, and the money raised will go to supporting current and former paramedics. If I can help pay a utility bill or something to help them out in my little way, said Kimberly DAmico. To thank them for their years of service and also the services that they provide to the communitywe want to show you that youre valued and that we appreciate everything that you sacrificed to do this job. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CBS47 and KSEE24 | YourCentralValley.com. Three climate activists were detained after throwing soup on two Vincent van Gogh paintings in London (-) (-/Just Stop Oil/AFP) Three Just Stop Oil (JSO) supporters on Friday threw liquid over two Vincent van Gogh paintings at London's National Gallery, just hours after two group activists were jailed for a similar act. The gallery said "a soup-like substance" had been thrown over two works -- "Sunflowers" (1888) and "Sunflowers" (1889) -- and that three people had been arrested. JSO posted footage on its X account, adding that three supporters had thrown soup over two of Van Gogh paintings in the gallery's "Poets and Lovers" exhibition. The group said the act was a "sign of defiance" after two activists were jailed earlier Friday for throwing soup at the "Sunflowers" (1888) painting in October 2022. It named the supporters involved in the latest protest as Phil Green, 24, Ludi Simpson, a 71-year-old retired professor, and Mary Patricia Somerville, a 77-year-old grandmother. "We will be held accountable for our actions today, and we will face the full force of the law," said Simpson. "When will the fossil fuel executives and the politicians they've bought be held accountable for the criminal damage that they are imposing on every living thing?" she added. The gallery said the incident occurred at 2:30 pm (1330 GMT) and that the paintings were found to be unharmed after being removed from display and examined by a conservator. "We are aiming to reopen the exhibition as soon as possible," it added. jwp/phz/tw Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' targeted again with soup in UK after activists jailed Protesters Phoebe Plummer (L) and Anna Holland (R) carried out a similar stunt in October 2022 and were jailed on Friday (Handout) (Handout/Just Stop Oil/AFP) Three climate activists on Friday threw soup over two Vincent van Gogh paintings at the National Gallery in London, just hours after two others were jailed for committing the same act two years ago. The gallery said "a soup-like substance" had been thrown over "Sunflowers" (1888) and "Sunflowers" (1889) and that three people had been arrested. The Just Stop Oil group (JSO) said it had staged the "sign of defiance" after two of its activists were jailed earlier Friday for throwing soup at the "Sunflowers" (1888) painting in October 2022. The attacks are the latest in a series of protests by the group, which seeks an end to the extraction and burning of oil, coal and gas, that have prompted an increasingly hard line by the authorities. Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were convicted in July of criminal damage after pouring tomato soup over the screen protecting the still life masterpiece. Plummer was on Friday jailed for two years and Holland for 20 months. Both had pleaded not guilty. Greenpeace UK's co-executive director, Will McCallum, called the sentence "a draconian and disproportionate punishment for a protest that caused minor damage to a picture frame". Sentencing the pair, Judge Christopher Hehir said the painting could have been "seriously damaged or even destroyed". "Soup might have seeped through the glass. You couldn't have cared less if the painting was damaged or not," he added. "You had no right to do what you did to 'Sunflowers'." Supporters of the pair gathered outside Southwark Crown Court in south London, holding banners calling them "political prisoners". But Hehir dismissed the argument. "You think your beliefs entitle you to do anything," he told Plummer. "The suggestion that you and others like you in a democracy are political prisoners is ludicrous, offensive and idiotic." - 'Grim milestone' - The National Gallery said the jailed protesters caused around 10,000 ($13,420) in damage to the frame but the painting itself was protected by a screen and was unharmed. Holland and Plummer also glued themselves to the gallery wall during their protest. Plummer has already spent 58 days on remand in prison for another protest at London's Heathrow Airport in July. Greenpeace UK's McCallum called the sentencing "another grim milestone in the ongoing crackdown on peaceful protest". "Protest is by its nature inconvenient and occasionally messy. These defendants do not deserve to spend years behind bars for standing up for a liveable planet." Holland said before she was sentenced that they would not be deterred by prison sentences. JSO named the supporters in Friday's incident as Phil Green, 24, Ludi Simpson, 71, and Mary Patricia Somerville, 77, confirming they had thrown soup on the art works. "We will be held accountable for our actions today, and we will face the full force of the law," said Simpson. "When will the fossil fuel executives and the politicians they've bought be held accountable for the criminal damage that they are imposing on every living thing?" she asked. - Paintings 'unharmed' - The gallery said the incident occurred at 2:30 pm (1330 GMT) and that the paintings were found to be unharmed after being examined by a conservator. "We are aiming to reopen the exhibition as soon as possible," it added. Just Stop Oil has staged a number of high-profile stunts in recent years. In July 2022, protesters glued themselves to the frame of John Constable's pastoral masterpiece "The Hay Wain", also in the National Gallery. Five activists, including the climate group's founder, were given between four and five years in jail in June for conspiring to plan protests that blocked the M25 motorway surrounding London. JSO activists were also arrested as they intended to protest at King Charles III's coronation in May last year. The group called the detentions "massive authoritarian overreach". jwp/phz/tw Vance to attend town hall with evangelist who accused Harris of witchcraft Vance to attend town hall with evangelist who accused Harris of witchcraft JD Vance is being criticized for a planned town hall this weekend with Lance Wallnau, a pro-Trump evangelical leader who has backed election conspiracies and accused Kamala Harris of using witchcraft. This is Vances endorsement of one of the worst, most conspiratorial, Christian supremacist spectacles in the country, Matthew D. Taylor, a scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, & Jewish Studies, wrote on X on Thursday. He warned the Monroeville, Pennsylvania, event would take on extra significance because its close to where Trump was nearly assassinated, a near-miss Trumps more religious supporters take as divine intervention. The Harris campaign, meanwhile, blasted Vance in a statement for appearing alongside a conspiracy theorist like Wallnau. Speaking to an online talk show earlier this month, Wallnau said Kamala Harriss debate performance was tied to witchcraft. JD Vance will appear Saturday with MAGA pastor who frames Trump as holy warrior (Getty Images) She can look presidential, Wallnau said. Thats the seduction of what I would say is witchcraft. Thats the manipulation of imagery that creates an impression contrary to the truth, but it seduces you into seeing it. So that spirit, that occult spirit, I believe is operating on her and through her. The Independent has contacted Vance and Wallnau for comment. As The Independent has reported, Wallnau is among a group of evangelical Christian leaders backing Trump as part of their goal of establishing what they call the New Apostolic Reformation, an American theocracy. As part of this campaign, Wallnau has popularized an idea known as the Seven Mountains mandate, which calls on Christians to secure positions of influence over politics, education, family, the arts, the media, business, and religion. Vances town hall is a stop on a nationwide campaign of pro-Trump religious gatherings called the Courage Tour. During a Wisconsin Courage Tour event, Wallnau doubled down on Trumps claims that the 2020 election was stolen. January 6 was not an insurrection it was an election fraud intervention! he reportedly told the crowd. The Texas-based religious leader has been an outspoken ally to Trump, using his widely watched media platforms to spread false claims about the 2020 presidential race and claim God had a plan to change the outcome of the election. He also appeared at Washington events in the run-up to January 6 and was at the infamous rally on January 6 itself from which the Capitol insurrection began. Wallnau also wrote a 2016 book about Trump, Gods Chaos Candidate: Donald J Trump and the American Unraveling, which helped solidify evangelical support for the Republican. That relationship has continued to flourish. Exit polls in 2020 showed Trump had 75 percent support from white evangelicals. Still, Harris has a projected five-point lead in Pennsylvania, according to the latest polls. The Texas-based Wallnau has a history of outlandish remarks, including claiming climate activists were controlled by demons. Statement: In Springfield, Ohio, murders are up by 81%. As he repeated unsubstantiated claims about Haitian immigrants, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, linked the recent immigration uptick in Springfield an Ohio city with about 58,000 people as of the 2020 census to rising murders. "The local services are completely overwhelmed," Vance said Sept. 15 on CNNs "State of the Union," adding that people in Springfield have struggled to afford housing. "Homelessness has gone up. Murders are up by 81% because of what Kamala Harris has allowed to happen to this small community." Vance, former President Donald Trumps vice presidential running mate, was one of the first conservative politicians to elevate the falsehoods that Haitian migrants have eaten pets. Local and state leaders have rebutted such claims and said the rumors distract from genuine housing, schooling and health care constraints the city has faced as its immigrant population increased. One thing they havent talked about is rising murder. In fact, the citys immigration FAQ webpage said Haitian migrants are more likely to be the victims of crimes than perpetrators, citing Clark County jail data. A Trump-Vance campaign spokesperson pointed us to data showing that from 2021 to 2023, murders in Springfield rose from five to nine. Thats how Vance gets an 80% increase. Case closed? No. Looking further back, the number of homicides in Springfield fluctuated without a clear trend from 2013 to 2022. In 2018, for example, when there were fewer migrants and Trump was president, there were 13 homicides. A criminal justice expert cautioned against relying on annual changes in Springfield to draw conclusions about crime. "With less than one homicide per month, statistical tests on annual changes are not possible. Homicides are too much of a rare event to determine whether small changes are statistically meaningful," said John Roman, director of the Center on Public Safety and Justice at the nonpartisan research group NORC at the University of Chicago. Heidi Earlywine talks with a Springfield, Ohio, police officer in front of the Premier English Evangelical Haitian Springfield church. Earlywine, who teaches English as a second language, has been acting as a liaison for the Haitian community. The Haitian church has received threats since the area attracted national scrutiny from conservative figures, including former President Donald Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance. What are Springfields homicide numbers? Springfield has attracted Haitian migrants because of its relatively low cost of living and the job opportunities that city leadership and its chamber of commerce created, according to news reports. Haitian migrants began moving to Springfield around 2017, and the number increased around 2020 and 2021, The Guardian, The New York Times and NPR reported. The city of Springfields website estimates there are about 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants in Clark County, Ohio, where Springfield is located. Of that total, about 10,000 to 12,000 are Haitian, according to Chris Cook, health commissioner for the Clark County Combined Health District. Vance has not demonstrated how Haitians are connected to murders, which have fluctuated over the last decade. Clark County Prosecutor Daniel Driscoll, a Republican, told CNN that hed seen no murders where Haitians were perpetrators or victims in his 21 years in office. Vances murder statistic comes from the Ohio Incident Based Reporting System, a state-run program for Ohio law enforcement agencies to voluntarily submit crime data. Springfield police started reporting its figures in 2021. We wanted a longer view, so we looked up homicide data reported by the Springfield Police Department to the FBI over a 10-year period, starting in 2013. The latest data available are for 2022. (The FBI defines "homicide" as "the killing of one human being by another," which differs slightly from the first datasets definition of "murder" for a killing that was "willful.") The number of homicides reached a decade-high of 13 homicides in 2018. In 2019, it dropped to a low of two. In 2020, there were eight homicides. In February 2021, then-Springfield Police Chief Lee Graf told the Springfield News-Sun that homicides in Springfield are often premeditated or crimes of passion with personal motives and rarely involve a random victim. The Springfield Police Department did not reply to PolitiFacts query for information about murder data. Local news outlets in Springfield reported data thats different from what the Ohio reporting system shows, and counts vary among outlets. For example, the Springfield News-Sun reported that there were nine homicides in 2021; WHIO-TV said there were 12 homicides in 2021. The Springfield News-Sun reported at least nine homicides in 2023, as of Nov. 29. Based on that figure, Springfield had no change from 2021 to 2023. Many homes along a tree-lined street in Springfield, Ohio, have flags displayed on Sept. 15. PolitiFact's ruling Vance said, "Murders are up by 81%" in Springfield. Data reported to the Ohio Incident Based Reporting System showed that from 2021 to 2023, murders in Springfield rose from five to nine an 80% increase. Longer-term data, from 2013 to 2022, reported by the Springfield police to the FBI, shows that the number of homicides has fluctuated in Springfield without a clear trend. Data reported by a local news outlet also doesnt show a change in homicides from 2021 to 2023. Vance offered a cherry-picked statistic as he and Trump criticized the effects of immigration into Springfield. But the city said Haitian migrants are likelier to be the victims of crimes than the perpetrators. The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False. Our sources This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: PolitiFact: Vance's misleading claim on Springfield, Ohio, murder rate VANCEBORO, N.C. (WNCT) Law enforcement officers with the Craven County Sheriffs Office Special Investigations Bureau arrested a Vanceboro man on drug trafficking charges. The SIB division of the sheriffs office partnered with the New Bern Police Department and North Carolina Alcohol Law Enforcement to investigate the sale and distribution of narcotics in Vanceboro. The investigation started on Thursday, September 26. A search warrant was obtained for the residence of 42-year-old Robert Brinson Moore Jr. The search resulted in 25 grams of methamphetamine, 8 grams of fentanyl, four guns and $1,083 being found. Moore was arrested and charged with trafficking fentanyl, possession with the intent to manufacture/sell/deliver methamphetamine, felony maintaining a vehicle/dwelling for controlled substances and possession of drug paraphernalia. Moore was taken to the Craven County Detention Center and given a $600,000 secured 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 WNCT. Turning Point USA is pushing to transform itself from a right-wing campus activism organization into an incubator for Republican candidates, with a slate of Turning Point-affiliated candidates seeking public office in the 2024 elections. In Michigans 27th state House District, Rylee Linting, the youth vice chair of the state GOP, is running in the hopes of flipping a seat in the states narrowly divided legislature. If successful, her run could help break the Democratic trifecta in the state, where Democrats currently enjoy a 56-54 seat majority in the House. Theres a decent chance of her winning too in 2022, Democratic state Rep. Jamie Churches won the seat by just a single percentage point. From a birds eye view, Lintings candidacy cleaves to many patterns typical of the modern GOP. She decries the woke student culture at Michigans universities, criticizes globalist institutions like the World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum, attacks mass vaccination mandates, engages in anti-trans rhetoric and has described Project 2025 as something I think most Republicans would support. There is something notable about Lintings candidacy, however. She is just 22 years old and has a background as a professional activist at Turning Point Action, the 501(c)(4) often called a dark money group associated with activist Charlie Kirks Turning Point USA. And, shes not alone: Rylee is one of a crop of Turning Point-affiliated candidates seeking elected office this year. In Michigan, Linting is one of two candidates with ties to the conservative organization who ran this year. The other is one-time state House candidate Miguel Pilar, who withdrew his candidacy before the deadline for Michigans 83rd House District and now works with the Linting campaign and for Turning Point. Jack Eubanks also ran for state House in 2022 before losing and becoming a staffer at Turning Point. The other focus of the groups efforts have been in Arizona, where they invested heavily in trying to get failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and failed Senate candidate Blake Masters elected to the Senate in 2022. A senior director of Turning Point Action, Austin Smith, had successfully won election to Arizonas state House, but resigned from the organization and ended his re-election campaign after he was accused of forging signatures on his nominating petition. The chief financial officer of Turning Point USA, Justin Olson, is also running for election in Arizonas 10th state House District this year. By far the most successful of Turning Points candidates is Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., who served as Turning Point USAs director of Spanish engagement beginning in 2018. She ran for Congress unsuccessfully in 2020 before winning her 2022 race with former President Donald Trumps endorsement. At a glance, the Turning Point candidates stand out from your average Republican. Smith, for example, touts that he was the youngest Republican elected to the Arizona State Legislature, and Linting leans on her youth to contrast herself from a typical nominee. She often tells a story of leaving Grand Valley State University because of its vaccination policy and campus culture and, based on her Facebook profile, it appears she has since enrolled at the conservative Liberty University. Behind the aesthetics of youth, however, Turning Point candidates are among the most conservative Republicans. Smith was one of the Arizona Republicans who voted to keep the states 1864 abortion ban in place earlier this year. Luna co-sponsored legislation introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green R-Ga., to impeach a slate of Biden Cabinet officials. Democratic Michigan state Sen. Darrin Camilleri, who represents a district that overlaps with the suburban Detroit district where Linting is running, said in an interview that the strong focus on cultural conservatism demonstrates that Linting is a really strange decision in a race to represent a downriver community. We have crumbling infrastructure. We need to continue to support our police officers and our firefighters. We need to continue to invest in jobs on the Detroit waterfront, Camilleri said. The other thing thats really fascinating about her campaign is that shes running as a staunch anti-abortion candidate when regular voters downriver are pro-choice. Camilleri said that strategically it makes sense for Turning Point to focus on Michigan, because of the states low barrier to running for office, and because they have seen that Michigan is the laboratory for what can happen in the rest of the nation. He pointed to the storming of the Michigan capitol in 2020 and the armed protests that followed as a precursor to the storming of the United States Capitol on January 6 as an example. They are finding candidates that have zero qualifications but are willing to parrot right-wing talking points and are using them to infiltrate state capitols, Camilleri said. Weve got to do all that we can to stop them because if they find success here in Michigan theyre going to take it all over the nation. Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course. Protest movements have often been a proving ground for future elected officials, according to Jonathan Hanson, a political scientist at the University of Michigan. He pointed to the late Rep. John Lewis D-Ga., as an example. Lewis led student movements and was a civil rights organizer in the 1960s before running for office in 1977 and eventually getting elected to Congress in 1986. More recent examples of activist movements producing future politicians include the Tea Party movement in the 2010s and the March for Our Lives movement, where Rep. Max Frost D-Fla., worked as an organizer before running for Congress. Hanson also pointed to the 27th District in Michigan as an opportunity for Turning Point to claim credit for flipping a vulnerable seat and potentially control of the state House. According to Camilleri, the race is also a chance for Republicans to show that they can cater to young voters too, despite the fact that voters under 30 overwhelmingly support Democrats. Turning Point is only a part of this operation for conservatives. Groups like Run GenZ are dedicated to promoting young conservatives in bids for public office. In Camilleris opinion, this is the beginning of a push that mirrors other right-wing movements to capture public institutions. Weve seen this with the Federalist Society where they are trying to push their right-wing judges from the local level to the Supreme Court. This is their attempt to do that with the candidate pipeline, Camilleri said. They were successful with the Supreme Court, we need to make sure theyre not successful with candidates in the political system. Lintings campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this story. The Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency is set to receive a $750,000 federal grant, the most a single group is offered under a federal grant program, for services as part of a larger effort in recent years to raise mental health awareness and prevent veteran suicides. The announcement this week came during Suicide Awareness and Prevention Month and as Congress considered other measures to curb veteran suicides, including a bill to provide vets firearm lockboxes, and calls to fix a veterans affairs suicide hotline. Veteran issues are likely to come up as presidential candidates seek votes and wrap themselves in the flag, and both running mates Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio tout their service credentials ahead of Tuesday's primetime television debate. Brian Love, the director of the state veterans agency, called the federal grant vital funding, which, he said, in addition to raising mental health awareness and preventing veteran suicides, will also go to mitigate veteran homelessness. The agency, Love added, is "tremendously excited to accept this funding" from the Staff Sgt. Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program for the third year in a row. Fox, an Army sniper instructor, died by suicide in 2020 at age 25. More: Social media claims of political violence in Michigan stoke public anxiety The grant program is part of efforts unfolding for more than a decade to understand how to help address veteran suicide, a growing problem that the White House called a "public health and national security crisis," adding that "far too many of our nation's veterans and service members have died at their own hands." In 2013, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs released a study looking at suicides from 1999 to 2010 and found 22 veterans were dying a day. On average, thats one every 65 minutes. After that, some organizations began using the number 22 to emphasize the problems magnitude. Army veteran Lance Hoey and his son Connor Hoey, 15, both of Allen Park, walk with their rucksacks toward Ferndale during the 22 Ruck March in Royal Oak, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. The event hopes to bring awareness to veteran suicide. On average, 22 veterans commit suicide per day in the United States. Three years later, perhaps as a result of prevention efforts, another study found the average suicide number had decreased to 20 a day; but in 2022, another study suggested many suicides were overlooked and undercounted, and offered a new estimate of 44 veterans a day, more than double the 2022 number. In 2021, the White House outlined what it called a new strategy to reduce military and veteran suicide. The problem, it said, was complex problem, with no single cause and no single solution, but was one that was preventable. The White House report pointed out that since 2010, more than 65,000 veterans had died by suicide, a number exceeding the total number of deaths from combat during the Vietnam War and the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Moreover, a Brown University study found that increasing rates of suicide for both veterans and active-duty personnel have been outpacing those of the general population, which was "an alarming shift, as suicide rates among service members have historically been lower than suicide rates among the general population." And in a separate statement this week, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said that the Army's focus on suicide prevention was not just for September but "something we practice every day and year-round." The Army has the highest suicide rate of the service branches. Research shows veterans have a high incidence of suicide because there are links between service and mental illness, substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder and access to firearms. Nearly six out of every 10 gun deaths in America are suicides, according to gun control group, Everytown for Gun Safety. To help prevent gun suicides, a bipartisan bill was introduced Wednesday in the House of Representatives to provide vets gun lockboxes, Military.com reported. The bill, the news outlet said, has been endorsed of by a firearms industry group in addition to gun control groups. And Stars and Stripes, an American military news outlet, reported this week that Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, asked VA Secretary Denis McDonough to prioritize fixing the technical problems with a crucial veterans' suicide hotline that have caused at least a dozen service outages. The hotline has had problems going back as far as 2017, according to USA Today. As for this week's Michigan's announcement, veterans of any branch or service and families of enrolled program participants are eligible to participate in the state program. To get help, veterans can call the agencys Michigan Veterans Resource Service Center at 800-MICH-VET or 800-642-4838. Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan gets grant for veteran suicide prevention, a growing concern Veterans 'let down' by sale of military cottages Residents of the McKay VC Memorial Cottages say they feel "let down" by the sale [BBC/Simon Thake] Residents of cottages built for disabled military veterans have said they fear their community is at risk after the armed forces charity that manages the homes confirmed their sale. Fourteen bungalows known as the McKay VC Memorial Cottages, on Pine Close in Hoyland, were controlled by SSAFA (the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association). SSAFA has completed their sale to London-based Mountview Estates, but resident Susan Speight said the charity had "let them all down". SSAFA said it had agreed a "cast-iron" guarantee that the residents could remain in their homes for the rest of their lives. The bungalows on Pine Close in Hoyland have been sold to London-based Mountview Estates [BBC/Simon Thake] Ms Speight, 64, served in the Womens Royal Naval Service and is the most recent resident on the street, having moved in four years ago. She said: "Weve all been through tough times. "We all have injuries and scars from our time serving. "Many of us have suffered from PTSD. This was our sanctuary." Chris Lloyd, who has lived there since 2006, said SSAFA had broken a covenant and failed to protect its tenants interests. The 68-year-old said: A private landlord doesnt understand veterans. "Theyre a buy-and-sell firm. "Well always worry if theyll change their mind and turf us out." Susan Speight, 64, described her bungalow as her "sanctuary" [BBC/Simon Thake] The site was first opened in 1988 in honour of Wortley-born Ian John McKay, who in April 1982 was Platoon Sergeant of 4 Platoon, B Company, 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment and was deployed with his unit in the Falklands War. He was killed during the Battle of Mount Longdon and posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest accolade for gallantry in the face of the enemy. Mr Lloyd said SSAFA had dishonoured his memory. He said: Well fight this. "At the end of the day they were built for veterans. This is an injustice." The site was first opened in 1988 in honour of Wortley-born Ian John McKay, who served in the Falklands [BBC/Simon Thake] A spokesperson for SSAFA, the oldest charity of its kind in the country which provides lifelong support to ex-service personnel, said: For SSAFA to help as many people as possible, its trustees agreed that selling the few residential properties owned by the charity, including the Pine Close bungalows, with cast-iron protection given to those who have made the properties their homes, would free up more financial resources to help more people through the charitys core work. "This absolute, binding legal stipulation that the existing residents are guaranteed their lease for as long as they wish to remain in the bungalows and that there is protection against unreasonable rent increases has been agreed with the purchaser. "Supporting the men and women of UK armed forces and their families past, present and future, including those who live in Pine Close, is and remains SSAFAs priority." A spokesperson for Barnsley Council said: The council is aware of the situation between the residents and SSAFA, our legal team is keeping the situation under review and have assured that all necessary actions were taken in accordance with the relevant laws and regulations. The BBC has contacted Mountview Estates for a comment. Listen to highlights from South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here. More on this story Vice presidential candidate Walz headed to Cincinnati to raise money for Harris Vice presidential candidate Tim Walz will make a stop in Cincinnati to raise money for the Kamala Harris campaign. [DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] News Center 7s coverage of the four candidates for president and vice president will continue through Election Day. TRENDING STORIES: Cincinnati Vice Mayor Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney told our news partner WCPO that Walz will be in the city on Oct. 5 for a fundraiser that is not a rally. The vice mayor said anyone who wants to donate to the Harris-Walz campaign is encouraged to attend. As of late Thursday, no time or location has been set for the Minnesota governors visit. We will update this developing report as we learn more. [SIGN UP: WHIO-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a novel antipsychotic schizophrenia drug late Thursday, marking the first new treatment in decades for the mental health condition that affects 1.8 percent of the U.S. adult population. It is a major victory for market-driven medication development. Chris Boerner, board chair and chief executive officer at Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS)the biopharmaceutical company that created the drugcalled the FDA decision a "landmark approval" and "one that has the potential to change the treatment paradigm." Up until now, antipsychotic drugs, which address symptoms like hallucinations and delusions, worked by blocking access to dopamine receptors, according to The New York Times. This mechanism, however, contributed to common side effects like weight gain, social withdrawal, cognitive impairment, and lack of motivation. Cobenfy, the newly approved drug, indirectly influences dopamine levels. Unlike the standard approach of targeting dopamine receptors used by other schizophrenia drugs, Cobenfy targets the cholinergic receptors. The hope is that the new medication can provide similar effects on hallucinations and delusions as the current drugs on the market, while reducing side effects. Gordon Lavigne, CEO of the nonprofit advocacy organization Schizophrenia and Psychosis Action Alliance, told Reason that the personal-social effects of Cobenfy "would be difficult to measure," but that "you can reasonably assume that someone is going to have more of an ability to engage in daily life, be social, and be part of the fabric of [their] family." The cost of the Cobenfy is set to be in line with most other antipsychotic medications on the market. Adam Lenkowsky, chief commercialization officer for BMS, told the Times that its wholesale cost would be $1,850 a month. This marks yet another free market win in the healthcare space over government-funded research. Since 2002, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has allocated more than $20 billion to the research of the neuroscience and genetics of diseases like schizophrenia. Yet little benefit has actually come to patientseven by the admission of the person who oversaw the explosion in funding. "I should have been able to help us bend the curves for death and disability," said Thomas Insel, who led the NIMH for 13 years. "But I didn't." He's not alone. "As a schizophrenia researcher, I'm embarrassed to say we've spent literally billions of American taxpayer dollars on genetics, looking to understand what causes schizophrenia to help us develop new drugs for schizophrenia, and we have not been successful," Mark Weiser, the chief of the psychiatry division at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv, told the Times. The post In a Victory for the Free Market, FDA Approves New Schizophrenia Drug appeared first on Reason.com. Cuba and Vietnam are among five countries worldwide that are still governed by a single Communist Party (ADALBERTO ROQUE) (ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/AFP) Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel held talks with his Vietnamese counterpart To Lam in Havana on Thursday, with the two countries signing several bilateral agreements during the visit. "The world has seen many changes, but the friendship and solidarity between Vietnam and Cuba will never change," said To Lam, 67, quoted by the Cuban presidency on X. The two presidents visited the commercial port of Mariel, a free trade zone about 37 miles (60 kilometers) from the capital, where several Vietnamese companies operate, the official press reported. Cuba and Vietnam are among five countries worldwide that are still governed by a single Communist Party. They differ, however, in that Hanoi has liberalized its economy while Havana has not. Several bilateral agreements were signed during the visit, notably in the fields of health and agriculture. A rice production program using hybrid seeds imported from the Asian country was also announced. Bilateral trade between the two countries is worth around $340 million. Vietnam exports rice, coal, chemicals, textiles and electronics to Cuba, and imports pharmaceutical products, according to the Cuban Center for International Politics Research. Vietnam wants "Cuba to continue its sustainable development and become self-sufficient in all areas, we must help it overcome difficulties," said Lam, addressing a delegation of Vietnamese businessmen, according to state television. Lam was inaugurated at the beginning of August as the head Vietnam's Communist Party, following the death of his predecessor Nguyen Phu Trong. lp-jb/aha/bjt Vikings Sailed to The Ends of Earth to Search For Ivory, DNA Suggests An ivory tusk next to some smaller pieces of ivory The Vikings seem to have gone to the ends of the Earth in their search for precious ivory quite literally. The Norse were trading walrus tusks in medieval Europe that have now been traced to the very top of Greenland well beyond the reach traditionally associated with this seafaring civilization. A genetic analysis of 31 ivory artifacts, kept at museums across Europe, provides preliminary evidence that the Greenland Norse were searching for walrus tusks in the high Arctic at roughly the same time as the Thule Inuit of North America, and possibly their predecessors, the Tuniit (or Dorset). Close to half of all the ivory artifacts analyzed were traced back to a population of walruses living between what is now northwest Greenland and Arctic Canada. The main Norse settlements in Greenland were in the southwest. "We had no idea they were harvesting ivory from such a vast catchment area," said archaeologist Peter Jordan from Lund University in Sweden in a media release. "Our emerging results generated more questions than answers, and we struggled to understand precisely how these Norse ivory harvesting operations could have been organized by the small and remote Greenland communities." Early circumpolar globalization: schematic reconstruction of the Arctic Ivory Road. (Puerta et al., Science Advances, 2024) Archaeologist Greer Jarrett from Lund University explains that before making such a voyage, the Greenland Norse would have had to wait for sea ice to retreat, and they would have had a tight window of just 10 weeks in which to do their exploring before the seas froze again. It would have taken about a month to sail to the top of Greenland, but once there, the crew would have had non-stop daylight under which to hunt or trade. "Our study does not prove a direct contact between the Norse and Indigenous North Americans, but it shows that they overlapped in space and time in the North Water region in search for the same natural resource: walrus," ecologist Morten Tange Olsen from the University of Copenhagen told ScienceAlert. "It is, thus, highly likely that they also met, interacted, and perhaps traded walrus products." Walrus ivory from Greenland carved to look like a walrus. (Age Hojem/NTNU University Museum) A larger and more diverse sampling of walrus ivory artifacts will be needed to support that hypothesis, as well as further archaeological research in the high Arctic. If true, this would be a crucial moment in the history of our species: the first circumnavigation of the planet coming full circle from our origins out of Africa, into Asia, and across the Bering Strait. "The extent of their ventures into the High Arctic suggests that the Norse were not just farmers and settlers but also strategic traders deeply involved in long-distance resource extraction," molecular ecologist Emily Ruiz-Puerta from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark told ScienceAlert. "Moreover, this activity may have brought them into contact with Arctic Indigenous cultures, such as the Thule people, potentially leading to exchanges that have never been considered before." There's a chance the Thule Inuit or Tuniit may have even hunted the walruses to which these ivory artifacts once belonged. Unlike Greenland Norse, who sailed in plank-built vessels, and who probably harvested walruses with iron-tipped lances once they'd hauled themselves out of the water, the Thule Inuit used sophisticated harpoons to expertly hunt swimming walruses from open boats, waterproofed with animal skins. It is unlikely, the researchers say, that the Tuniit or Thule Inuit were harvesting ivory and then voyaging south to trade with the Norse. The Vikings didn't have much of value to offer the Indigenous peoples of the north to warrant such a big trip. The Norse, by contrast, had every reason to push northward. In medieval Europe, ivory was a prized possession for the creation of high-status objects, especially for religious reasons. In Iceland, the disappearance of walruses coincided with Viking colonization, and there are hints of a similar decline occurring when the Norse made it to Greenland in 950 CE. Perhaps resource exploitation is why the Norse ultimately abandoned Greenland in the 1400s, but not before they'd also collected walruses from the very north of the island. Chessmen from Medieval times made from walrus ivory and the teeth of whales. (Andrew Dunn/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 2.0) If a surging demand for ivory in Europe is what ultimately drove the Norse and the Thule Inuit into each other's orbits, then researchers argue these are some of the earliest steps towards globalization of supply chains. "It has echoes of global capitalism sucking up remote resources with devastating consequences," the authors of the study explain. But the Indigenous perspective should not be overlooked, they argue. "Thus far, it is all a very 'Eurocentric' story about Norse expansion and colonization " explains Jarrett. "The reality is more nuanced and interesting. It all needs a big rethink and a lot of new research." The study was published in Science Advances. Related News TechCrunch The U.S. Department of Justice says bankrupt EV startup Fisker's plan to make owners pay for labor costs related to multiple recalls is illegal, according to a new filing. The DOJ, writing on behalf of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), said in a filing submitted to Fisker's bankruptcy docket Monday that the "scheme" violates the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act in multiple ways. The agency told the court that it therefore objects to Fisker's proposed settlement plan, which lays out steps to liquidate the remainder of the company. Susanna Gibson talks to voters and campaign workers at Nuckols Farm Elementary School in Henrico County, Va., November 7, 2023. (Parker Michels-Boyce for the Virginia Mercury) A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers in Virginia and other states want to strengthen privacy laws regarding the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. Forty-nine states including Virginia already have some law on the books to protect peoples sexual or intimate images from being shared without their consent. South Carolina is the lone state that doesnt. But model policy from former Democrat House of Delegates candidate Susanna Gibson provides a blueprint for lawmakers nationwide for stronger protections, which the Palmetto State could adopt too. The issue took center stage in Gibsons campaign last year, when news media was alerted to sex videos she and her husband had streamed online. Though the married couple had consented to the content that they streamed together being published on a particular pornography website, they did not consent to the content being recorded or widely disseminated beyond their audience of followers on that website. Screenshots of Gibsons nude body then circulated on social media along with derogatory language by online users. The Republican Party of Virginia later sent out campaign mailers with cropped, explicit photos of Gibson. At one point a false emergency call had been placed to send law enforcement to her home an act colloquially referred to as swatting. Gibson also said that people loitered outside of her home and she received death threats. Amid the fallout, Gibson also said prospective young women political candidates in other states had reached out to her. Learning her story had them concerned that ex-partners could someday share nude images of them and made them afraid to run for office. I quickly realized that my path had shifted from candidacy to advocacy, Gibson said in a press call Wednesday to announce model policy from her organization, MyOwn Image. Earlier this year Gibson worked with Del. Irene Shin, D-Fairfax to expand the statute of limitations for prosecutions of unlawful dissemination of images in Virginia. The new model policy, which Gibson and MyOwn board members say six states are planning to implement, would create various tiers of misdemeanor and felony penalties for unlawful dissemination and remove language that requires proof of intent. Democratic Florida lawmaker Katherine Waldron said the measure is important because without the consent of the person whose image is being shared, the intent to cause them harm, or lack thereof, doesnt erase the harm that happens. She and several other lawmakers that joined the press call relayed how victims mental health, personal relationships, employment or ability to find employment can be negatively impaired. We know that women still have a long way to go with representation in our halls of power. So when these images are shared or used as a threat, it really can impact elections. It can impact someones desire to step up and run for office. New Jersey assemblywoman Jessica Ramirez While several speakers acknowledged that anyone can become a victim of their image being shared without their consent, they noted how it often happens to women, minors or victims of sex trafficking. New Jersey assemblywoman Jessica Ramirez also noted how the crime could deter women from office, echoing Gibsons concern, or be used as an intimidation tactic. We know that women still have a long way to go with representation in our halls of power, she said. So when these images are shared or used as a threat, it really can impact elections. It can impact someones desire to step up and run for office. We have to take action now to ensure that anyone can engage in public service without fear of intimidation. Virginia delegates Carrie Coyner, R-Chesterfield and Karrie Delaney, D-Fairfax, plan to build on Virginias law using the model policy, they said. Coyner, who was inspired to carry the legislation as the mother of teen daughters, expressed concerns about artificial intelligence as well. The rapid rise of (artificial intelligence) image generation software has heightened the threat posed by non-consensual disclosure of intimate images, Coyner said. I know fellow parents are familiar with the harms and risks of social media and cyberbullying, but the increased risk posed by digitally forged intimate images make these issues much more severe. Meanwhile, South Carolina is the only state without existing protections against non-consensual distribution of intimate images. Rep. Chris Wooten, R-Lexington, speaks during a House session in Columbia on Tuesday, March 29, 2022. (Travis Bell/STATEHOUSE CAROLINA/Special to the SC Daily Gazette) Former Miss South Carolina Jill Dudley joined the call along with the states deputy attorney general and Republican state Rep. Chris Wooten of Lexington. All will press for the creation of a law based on the model policy. Dudley, who advocates for protections and support for survivors of rape and sexual assault, stressed that distributing someones intimate image, whether real or artificial, fits within the scope of rape culture. Rape culture thrives when we blame or shame victims, when we dismiss their trauma, or when we fail to address sexual violence in all of its forms, she said. Like SC Daily Gazette, Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and X. How Visit Lindsborg is getting creative in bringing Little Sweden to the world LINDSBORG A city in the middle of Kansas, with a population of less than 4,000 people will soon be known to people across parts of the United States, and even into Canada. This comes after the Lindsborg Convention and Visitors Bureau is taking a risk and spending money to reach new audiences with advertising. Visit Lindsborg announced Wednesday that it is the recipient of a $4,000 grant from Kansas Tourism that will be used to place podcast ads with iHeartRadio. "It's a matching grant, so the CVB is spending $6,000," said Holly Lofton, director of the Lindsborg CVB. "We have it available, and we decided this would be a good way to use it." A Dala horse sits in front of an American and Swedish flag at Hemslojd in downtown Lindsborg. Known as Little Sweden, Lindsborg brings in travelers from around the country and around the world to the city. Why did Lindsborg choose podcast advertising? Lofton said she is always looking at new ways to market to every demographic to bring them to Lindsborg, with younger people being a focus right now. This reason is why branching out into podcast advertising was appealing. "Podcast listeners are typically people in their 20s, 30s, 40s ... just a younger generation of travelers," she said. The opportunity to get into the podcast advertising market came about from a bit of chance, luck and a question about one of the most iconic features in the Lindsborg community. "A man from California (called) our office to ask about Coronado Heights, because he was planning a trip for his family across the U.S.," she said. After talking with the man more about the city, he mentioned that he was a sales person for iHeartRadio. This connection allowed Lofton to find out about an ad deal that iHeart was running at the time, three months of podcast ads in five different states, including Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado and Missouri. "We have looked at that five-state area that we know to be our five largest traveled states," she said. Lofton said there are still a few details to work out with iHeart, including which types of podcasts they want to target and the content of the ads, but right now the idea is to have ads that are less than a minute long, which statistics show is the right length. "Most people don't fast forward through them, because they are short and because they are listening and not watching," she said. Opportunity for a Canadian ad campaign as well This isn't the only big ad campaign the Visit Lindsborg is working on right now. Lofton said about a month ago a representative from a Canadian travel magazine who wondered if Lindsborg wanted to put an ad in its October edition. As the time, the pricing for the ad was too much, but as they were getting closer to print, they needed to fill one more space and Lofton said the price came down enough to take the risk for the CVB. "I still didn't know about it, but then they threw in two digital billboard (ads) in Toronto," she said. She said the magazine is mainly distributed in the province of Ontario, which is perfect considering that Lindsborg is know as Little Sweden. "Ontario just so happens to border a lot of the states in the United States that have a large Scandinavian-immigration heritage," Lofton said. "That makes me think (that immigration) didn't stop at the border but went into Canada as well." She said Lindsborg has already seen some travelers from those northern states and Canada, particularly as they find their way south to get away from winter weather. "October is a great time for us because it goes right before wintertime," she said. The billboards will run for a week and Lofton said they will be in prominent spots in the Toronto area, the Gardiner Expressway which the City of Toronto says has around 140,000 weekday average vehicles daily and another in the Toronto Pearson Airport. Lofton said this campaign and the podcast campaign are new and exciting adventures for Visit Lindsborg, with this being the farthest reach it has actively pursued for travelers. "We always are trying to think outside the box," she said. "We take very seriously our partnership with Kansas Tourism and the Kansas Department of Commerce. We are always looking at how we bring people from outside (Kansas) in." She also thinks this is a kind of new venture for any city or town of this size. "I don't know who else is doing podcast ads," she said. "I had this bizarre conversation that was unlikely, and I just thought, 'I wonder if we could do that?'" Now that wonder has become a reality, and people from around the world will know the name of Little Sweden, Lindsborg, Kansas. This article originally appeared on Salina Journal: Visit Lindsborg is getting creative in spreading word of Little Sweden ST. LOUIS Visitation and funeral services have been announced for a St. Louis police officer who was killed in the line of duty this past weekend. Officer David Lee had responded to a one-vehicle crash on eastbound I-70 near Grand Boulevard around 8:30 a.m. Sunday. He was behind his police vehicle and retrieving traffic cones when another driver lost control of their car, spun out, and struck the officer. Lee, an 18-year veteran of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, was rushed to the hospital after the crash in critical condition. He passed away that afternoon in the presence of family and friends. Lee was 44. Kris Kristofferson, country music superstar and actor, dies at 88 Visitation for Lee will take place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 5 at Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church on Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, with the funeral service to follow. Officer Lee is survived by his wife and two children, as well as his mother and sister. Meanwhile, the man who struck Lee, 24-year-old Ramon A. Chavez-Rodriguez, remains jailed without bond. The St. Louis Circuit Attorneys Office charged him with DWIdeath of law enforcement or emergency personnel, exceeding posted speed limit, and operating a vehicle on a highway without a valid license. Chavez-Rodriguez had been on probation for a second-degree domestic assault charge in St. Charles County in 2020. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 2. MANSFIELD, Mo. Hundreds of people visit Mansfield every year to visit The Historic Home and Museum celebrating the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder, famous author of the Little House series, following her life as a pioneer. The Museum and Historic Home on Rocky Ridge Farm are a big draw for fans of the books and the Little House on the Prairie TV series, including one woman who came to visit from Indiana. Ive been a lifelong fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder, said Linda Krevda who toured the house and museum. Krevda said the historic Wilder home and museum has been on her list of places to visit since she was a child. Life kind of got in the way. And raising my own kids and doing all of that, Krevda said. And now were retired and have the opportunity to do some traveling. And this was on my list and we decided to just come over and do it. Museum director Nicholas Inman said many visitors have fond memories of reading the Little House books inspired by Wilders life or watching the TV series based on her books. What happened this week in SGF 100 years ago It takes people back to their childhood when either they were reading the books themselves or they were read to in their elementary classroom, or maybe they sat around the television set with mom and dad or family time or with grandparents, Inman said. Mrs. Wilder has a way of pulling at our heartstrings and taking us back to a simpler times in our life. People who come to visit Rocky Ridge Farm can tour the museum filled with artifacts from Wilders life and the two homes on the property where she lived and wrote her books in the 1930s and 40s. To walk into her home and to realize it depicts a great deal of what it looked like, of course, when she was living there, Inman said. Its fascinating to people and they really enjoy that. The farmhouse was built by Ingalls Wilder and her husband Almanzo and they added to it over the years. The rock house was a Christmas gift from her daughter Rose Wilder. We actually did go up and tour the white farmhouse, Krevda said. And I think what stood out to me the most there was the scene, her writing desk where she, you know, probably wrote, sat and wrote all these books out by hand, these manuscripts on lined paper. The Museum and Historic Home tours are available from early March to mid-November. Tickets are $18.00 for adults, $8.00 for children ages 6 to 17, and children 5 and under are free. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOLR - OzarksFirst.com. 'With your vote:' Donald Trump stumps in Michigan while turnout machine looks for voters WASHINGTON - As Republican White House nominee Donald Trump stumped Friday to Michigan, thousands of the former president's supporters are working behind the scenes on a project that will likely decide the election: getting their people out to vote. "By the way, we win Michigan, we win the whole thing ... like we did in 2016," Trump said during a jobs speech to close out the workweek in Walker, Mich. "But you gotta vote!" In Trump's case, his turnout operation is different from the one he rode to Electoral College victory in 2016. It's also the source of angst among some Republicans - for two big reasons. One, the Trump campaign is relying in large part on outside groups to walk neighborhoods, knock on doors, and persuade people to vote. Two, the Trump campaign is targeting people who often don't cast ballots at all, "low propensity voters" as opposed to "swing voters" who could make the difference in a closely contested state. "We will make more voter contacts in the 2024 election than we did in the 2020 election, by the time Election Day rolls around" on Nov. 5, Trump political director James Blair recently said on "The Sean Spicer Show," hosted by the former Trump White House press secretary. "We will have successfully canvassed more voters than we did four years ago," Blair said. Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he makes a campaign stop at manufacturer FALK Production in Walker, Michigan, U.S. September 27, 2024. Trump lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden, including a popular vote margin of 81.3 million to 74.2 million. Many Democrats credited their turnout operations, including a heavy emphasis on early voting and mail-in balloting - items that are also a Trump campaign priority in his current battle with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. During his jobs speech in Michigan, which was largely a response to Harris' visit Friday to the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump attacked his opponent over migration, economic policies, and support for electric cars. The ex-president also suggested that his support of tariffs is the reason that people in foreign countries want to assassinate him. Trump, who had an evening event in the Detroit suburb of Warren, ended his Walker speech by urging supporters to participate in early voting if necessary: "Thank you very much ... God bless you ... Go out and vote!" Democrats said they are not worried about Trump's turnout operation, questioning the expertise and commitment of outside groups and the wisdom of focusing on low-propensity voters. "The campaign side-idea of asking people to narrowly reach people in their universe theoretically makes sense, but I don't think they're actually implementing it at scale they would need to win," Democratic operative Eddie Vale said. As for using private groups to promote turnout, Vale said "outsourcing it to the outside groups never works." He noted that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tried it during his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and "it was literally an epic disaster." The get-out-the-vote effort is in full swing outside a campaign rally with Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump at the Cambria County War Memorial on August 30, 2024 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Some Republicans have grumbled about the Trump operation, but have not gone public. Reuters, which polled Republican operatives nationwide, reported that the focus on people who usually don't vote is "a high-risk, labor-intensive strategy that could bring in a wave of new voters but could also fall short if their targets ultimately stay home." Trump officials said their turnout operation is state of the art, and will make the difference in the seven key battleground states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. It's easier - and cheaper - for campaigns to work with outside groups because of a Federal Election Commission ruling that allows coordination of canvassing projects and the sharing of voter lists and data. The Trump team is working with political committees of groups that include Turning Point Action, led by millennial influencer Charlie Kirk; the Faith & Freedom Coalition, headed by long-time Christian conservative Ralph Reed; and America PAC, backed by billionaire Trump endorser Elon Musk. Michigan is one of those closely contested states that could be decided by which party has the best turnout machine. The Wolverine State helped Trump win the 2016 election, but the Michigan Republican Party has been in turmoil in more recent years, Four years ago, Trump lost to Biden in Michigan by fewer than 160,000 votes. Asked by Spicer about the use of outside groups in turnout, Blair said: "I feel more confident in some groups than others, shall we say ... But there are ways we can check on what they're doing." Political analysts said there's nothing particularly radical about what the Trump campaign is doing - and, in any case, it's impossible to assess how effective a turnout machine is until the votes are counted in November. "The results in the battleground states will depend on whether one campaign hired and deployed the more competent field operation," said James Gimpel, a University of Maryland professor of government who studies voter turnout. Given the stakes, he said, it's not surprising that people would complain about these kinds of operations. "There is a lot of hand-wringing about the competence of field operations in every close election," Gimpel said. "Mobilization could definitely make the difference in battleground states. So of course candidates, parties and interested observers should be concerned." He added: "In this very close contest, both parties should be very concerned about their field operations." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Two reasons why Trump's vote turnout operation is worrying Republicans DENVER (KDVR) A judge ruled Wednesday that a vote to remove and replace Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams was invalid. Republicans have been calling for Williams to step down or be removed from his position after sending an email from the Colorado GOP stating that God hates flags, and then posting to X that Americans should Burn all the #pride flags this June. How to register to vote or update voter registration in Colorado The issue was taken to court and during a meeting on Aug. 24, members of the Colorado Republican State Central Committee voted to remove Williams as chairman, and Eli Bremer was reportedly elected chairman. Williams said the meeting was improper and did not recognize the results. On Wednesday, a judge ruled that the votes were invalid, according to court documents obtained by FOX31. Article V.C required a supermajority vote of the entire CRC voting membership before Williams, Scheppelman, and Ferguson could be removed. It should be clear, in this context, that a minority of members did not have the authority to eliminate the requirement of a supermajority vote and thus give themselves the power to do what the Bylaws forbade them from doing. The vote to remove Williams, Scheppelman, and Ferguson was not in accordance with the CRCs Bylaws, and it is accordingly void and of no effect, the ruling reads. Download the FOX31 App: Breaking news alerts & Pinpoint Weather The fringe minority that tried to take control did not have the authority to bypass this rule, and their actions are now declared void and of no effect, the Colorado GOP said in a post on X. Bremmer sued Williams because Williams wasnt handing over party control. Williams said in a press release that the trial, scheduled for October, is for other ancillary and secondary questions that will have no impact on yesterdays dismissal. Bremer told FOX31 that he is disappointed with the ruling and is working with attorneys to find a path forward. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver. VSP say roads may be dangerous after Hurricane Helene rainfall PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) Virginia State Police has joined in the calls for caution as Hurricane Helene heads to make landfall in Florida. Although Virginia isnt expected to be in direct course of the storm, state police are wanting motorists to be prepared for additional rainfall. Forecasts are currently calling for regions of the Commonwealth to get multiple inches of rain, a release states. Virginia State Police will have all available troopers and supervisors working in advance of and for the duration of the storm as it makes its way across the Commonwealth. Virginia State Police are also pre-positioning swift water rescue teams, drones, and aviation resources to those areas most likely impacted by the storm. If having to travel during Hurricane Helene, drivers are reminded to do the following: Use headlights. Virginia law requires headlights on when your windshield wipers are activated. Dont drive through standing water. As little as six inches of water can cause you to lose control of your vehicle. Slow your speed. Slowing your speed gives you more time to safely react and avoid a crash. Dont tailgate. Give yourself more space between vehicles traveling ahead of you in order to avoid rear end collisions. Buckle Up. Wearing your seat belt protects you from being thrown around the inside of your vehicle and suffering serious injury in a crash. Put down your phone. Do not text and drive or shoot video of the bad conditions while driving, as these actions put you, your passengers and other vehicles at extreme risk of a crash and/or injury. Check Your Vehicle. Fill up the tank in advance. Check windshield wipers, windshield wiper fluid, tire tread, battery life, etc. 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. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) Traffic delays are expected along West Burnside Street Thursday evening after a water main break was discovered near Barbara Walker Crossing, officials said. The emergency repairs will begin at 7 p.m. on West Burnside between Northwest Barnes Road and the Barbara Walker Crossing pedestrian bridge, the Portland Water Bureau said. Person missing after boat capsizes in Columbia River The pedestrian bridge itself and area bus stops along the route will remain open. However, one westbound lane of West Burnside Street will be closed as the repairs take place. Crews are making emergency repairs due to a water main break on West Burnside Street. September 26, 2024 (courtesy Portland Water Bureau). [C]rews will shift the lanes of traffic to ensure travel remains open in both directions, PWB said in a release. The Water Bureau aims to have all lanes of traffic open before the morning commute, but we wont know the extent of the repair until we have excavated and assessed the break. If its determined the repairs necessitate lane closures through Friday morning, PWB said they will send out a public update by 5 a.m. Officials urge drivers to use caution as traffic may suddenly slow or stop during repairs. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. (HT Ganzo/Getty Images) Prosecutors are warning the Washington state Supreme Court that reducing public defender caseloads could lead to filing of fewer criminal charges and people seeking retribution on their own. This is a social contract. People give up vigilante justice in exchange for the government to administer justice, Okanogan County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Teddy Chow told justices. Vigilantism will not only be limited to revenge or retribution to a particular offender but may also endanger those who work in public and criminal justice, he said. Chow wasnt the only one making a dire prediction to justices in a hearing Wednesday on a request to amend the Supreme Courts standards for indigent defense by trimming the number of cases public defense attorneys handle each year by up to two-thirds. The state has a shortage of public defenders. Prosecutors say reducing defenders workloads will lead to filing of fewer cases to ensure no ones rights to counsel are violated. And if the public defender ranks grow, cities and counties will need to amp up hiring of staff and prosecutors to keep pace and that will be exorbitantly expensive. Without sufficient attorneys or without sufficient resources, it would lead to a de facto decriminalization and an increase in vigilantism, said Russell Brown, executive director of the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys. He added that way too many people have had their cases dismissed or not filed because of a lack of public defenders. Supporters of reducing caseloads say the change is needed to stabilize the system. They contend that large caseloads and low pay are driving people out of public defense and deterring new lawyers from entering this line of legal work. And they, too, pointed to the problem in some counties where those accused of crimes, but unable to afford a lawyer, can wait long periods of time before they receive counsel they are constitutionally guaranteed. Public defense is in a downward spiral. We can fix this, said Jason Schwarz, director of the Snohomish County Office of Public Defense and chair of the Washington State Bar Associations Council on Public Defense. This will be expensive. Justice is not cheap. Need to get in touch? Have a news tip? CONTACT US Larry Jefferson, director of the states Office of Public Defense, urged the justices to make the change and heaped praise on public defenders for their efforts amid rising caseloads, growing trial backlogs and increasing departures through retirements and resignations of those seeking higher-paying, less stressful jobs. Theyre giving up their lives for this state right now, he said. Crisis of attrition Caseloads of public defenders have been a topic of conversations the past two years. Under standards adopted by the state Supreme Court in 2012, a full-time public defense attorney or assigned counsel should have no more than 150 felony cases a year. Last year, the American Bar Association, the National Center for State Courts and the RAND Justice Policy Program released the National Public Defense Workload Study that concluded public defenders should handle far fewer. Washingtons high court asked the Washington State Bar Association to weigh in on whether the cap needs adjusting. The association responded in March with the recommendation now under public review for new maximums of 47 felony or 120 misdemeanor cases in a year, depending on the severity. The reduction would be phased in over three years. Under the proposal, crimes are assigned a number of credits based on seriousness and complexity of providing a legal defense. A motor vehicle theft is assigned one credit and a murder seven, for example. That means a lawyer could theoretically be assigned 47 vehicle theft or seven homicide cases in a year before hitting their limit. In addition, the bar association wants the court to increase minimum support staff requirements and revise attorney qualifications to enable lawyers to handle a variety of cases faster. Attorneys are resigning from the public defense profession in droves because they cannot continue the work given the volume of cases, bar association members wrote in the summary of the requested amendments to the Courts Standards for Indigent Defense Services. Justices will hold a second public hearing about the standards on Nov. 13 in the Temple of Justice and comments can also be submitted to the court until Oct. 31. They can accept, reject or modify any or all of the proposals. There is no deadline to act. Any decision will be handled similar to a court case where they confer behind closed doors then issue a decision and explanation. Critical issue It will be expensive to reduce caseloads. On that point everyone agreed. But cost is not a concern for the court, justices noted. Jefferson, with the Office of Public Defense, told justices hes requesting $137 million in the next two-year state budget of which $40 million would be specifically to help defray costs of public defense at the local level. The current budget provides $5.8 million to counties and roughly $1 million to cities. He also acknowledged the challenge of complying with the change will vary by county. Reducing caseloads by roughly 60% will require hiring many attorneys. Local government leaders are concerned they wont be able to find them and, if they do, will lack money to pay them. And if the Supreme Court sets new minimum staffing levels for paralegal and other support staff, it will compound the challenge. Candice Bock, government relations director for the Association of Washington Cities, and Derek Young, interim executive director for the Washington State Association of Counties, said during a briefing for state lawmakers on the issue earlier in the week that collective costs could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Even if the state managed to come up with money, a reduced caseload standard will not result in three times as many individuals being interested in pursuing a career in public defense in such a short amount of time. If these standards are enacted and if these standards are required, well need help from the Legislature, Young said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX WACO, Texas (FOX 44) A vibrant mural honoring Hispanic heritage has recently caught the attention of residents driving along North Valley Mills Drive, adding a splash of color and culture to the citys landscape. Local artist Tony Bryant is behind this captivating artwork, which adorns the exterior of Mexicano Grill #9. Bryant expressed his joy in creating a piece that resonates with the community, It makes me feel good because Im doing it for people that appreciate me. The restaurants owner, Orlando Laon, welcomed Bryants vision to celebrate Hispanic culture. Feels very nice. I love the work that this guy is doing. We do this for us, We trying to bring some Mexico to Waco, Orlando said. Diners have been praising the murals beauty, with one Waco resident, Linda, stating, Its the most beautiful thing Ive seen. It has topped all the paintings that I have seen of her, referring to the portrait of Frida Kahlo. Bryant, whose work is inspired by the iconic Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and Mexican culture, aims to evoke a sense of comfort and joy through his art. As he adds the finishing touches, he hopes viewers can envision themselves as part of the murals story. If you ever want to be able to express the beauty inside of yourself, hang around people that appreciate you, and appreciate those people. Theyll give you all the energy, all the inspiration, the love, the joy, Everything you need, he advised. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Bryants artistic journey began in childhood when he painted for his aunt. He attended art school during a time when few African Americans were represented, honing his skills and finding his unique voice. After relocating to Waco, his first mural in town was for Poppa Rollos Pizza, and before Waco, he completed numerous projects across Texas. Creating murals can be a time-consuming process; Bryant notes that an 8-foot by 12-foot piece can take him between seven to ten days to complete. His meticulous attention to detail stems from his education in art, where he mastered the intricacies of color, texture, and depth. I get most of my inspiration just by watching the reaction to my work, Bryant said, adding that the joy he brings to others fuels his passion. His murals can even be found in smaller towns like Marlin, Texas, as well as prestigious projects honoring figures like Muhammad Ali and Thurgood Marshall. As Waco continues to embrace its artistic community, Bryant remains dedicated to enhancing the citys beauty one mural at a 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 KWKT - FOX 44. Wales 'should get a lot more' of UK's rail cash Wales' rail investment is run from the Department for Transport in London [Getty Images] The Welsh economy is losing out because of a lack of rail investment, a transport expert has said. Prof Mark Barry said Wales should be getting a lot more money, but because spending was controlled from Whitehall, England was more of a priority. The first minister said she was doing everything she could to get more cash for the country's railways. The Welsh Conservatives said Wales should be getting its fair share of HS2 funding. The Labour UK government said investment was key to its priorities, but rail investment was run from the Department for Transport in London rather than the Welsh government. Prof Barry, from Cardiff University, said that meant Wales was down the queue for cash. He said: "We get about 1 to 2% of the funding available but should get a lot more. "In an ideal world youd be looking at 5 or 6% of the total UK investment in rail enhancement, but if you don't invest in essential economic infrastructure - specifically in energy, transport and housing - then you can't really expect your economy to turn a corner." He said the amount of cash Wales was asking for was tiny compared with what had already been committed to English railways. "The TransPennine Express Group Upgrade is a 10bn capital programme over 15 years," he said. "In Wales we've worked up over the last five years 2-3bn in very good business cases for rail investment, and the challenge is how is that going to get funded?" Earlier this year Welsh ministers confirmed they would not go to court to seek billions of pounds extra to spend following high speed rail investment in England [PA Media] In recent years the biggest argument has been about extra funding for Wales from the HS2 project. In opposition, Labour said the HS2 rail link should be an England only scheme and Wales should get money as a result. First Minister Eluned Morgan said she had spoken to the UK chancellor about a dividend for Wales. Opposition parties want to see Wales press for the cash, an estimated 4-5bn, which they have said would pay for much improvement. The leader of the Welsh Conservatives in the Senedd, Andrew RT Davies MS, said: "We need to make sure that happens so that we can spend it on infrastructure and improvement in our transport operations here in Wales, and that needs to happen, and we were told that it was a turning of the page if Labour came into government on 4 July. "Well if that page is turned, let's have that money, and let Eluned Morgan live up to what she's professing to do, which is to stand up for Wales." 'Investment in Welsh rail' But the UK government's Welsh secretary Jo Stevens seemed to close the door on that idea when she was asked about it in Parliament earlier this month. Plaid Cymru's parliamentary leader, Liz Saville-Roberts, told the Commons: "The truth is that the railways are broken and Labour's plan fails to address the chronic underfunding that is the cause, particularly in Wales. "In 2022, the secretary of state - then the shadow secretary of state - said that it was 'utterly illogical' to designate HS2 as an England and Wales project, and called on the Conservatives to 'cough up' the billions owed to Wales. "Will she cough up now?" In response, Ms Stevens said: "We cannot go back in time and change the way a project was commissioned, managed and classified by the previous Conservative government. "They need to accept responsibility for the chaos, delay and waste on their watch. "What we can do though is work closely with our Senedd and local authority colleagues to develop and invest in transport projects that improve services for passengers right across Wales." In a statement, Ms Stevens' department the Wales Office reaffirmed what she had said in the Commons and added: "Following years of neglect, this new UK government recognises the importance of investing in rail infrastructure in Wales. "The Welsh secretary has already met with the transport secretary to discuss investment in Welsh rail." It added that Ms Stevens was working closely with the Welsh government to identify a range of improvements. "Alongside this the transport secretary is currently carrying out a review of the previous government's transport commitments which will ensure our transport infrastructure portfolio drives economic growth and delivers value for money for taxpayers." In just over a month, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves will deliver a Budget which is expected to set the course for what the government plans to do on investment. The rules are set for Tim Walz and J.D. Vances vice presidential debate on Tuesday, and they promise to give everyone watching a spirited, if not chaotic, contest. For one, both of the candidates microphones will remain on while one of them is talking, although CBS News, which is hosting and moderating the debate, says it reserves the right to hit the mute button. This is a departure from ABC Newss decision to mute microphones during both previous presidential debates. The V.P. debate will take place at 9 p.m. at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York, and, just like Harris and Trumps debate in Philadelphia, there will be no audience in the studio. Candidates will have two minutes to answer the questions posed to them, with the opposing candidate also allowed two minutes to respond. Following that, each candidate gets one minute for a rebuttal. At their discretion, the moderators can give candidates more time to continue a topic. The candidates will have lights on their podiums to indicate how much time they have to speak, and theyll each have a countdown clock. At the end of the debate, which will last for 90 minutes, Vance and Walz will each get two minutes for a closing statement. Vance won a coin toss held Thursday, and chose to go second and have the final word. Vance has had a rough time since being named as Trumps running mate in July, with a number of damaging interviews and statements resurfacing in the weeks since. Walz, on the other hand, helped launch the Democrats best attack line in years by calling Republicans and their policies weird. Vance has unsuccessfully attempted to attack Walzs military record, and, along with Trump, egged on a racist lie against Haitian immigrants in Ohio. It will be interesting to see how the Ohio senator will handle any questions about Haitian immigrants, which will almost certainly be brought up, or if he will try to make personal attacks against the Minnesota governor. Vance does not appear to have any issues of cognitive decline, unlike Donald Trump, so his debate performance might be the clearest articulation of the policies proposed by the Republican ticket. But, judging by Vances statements during the campaign, those policies might not sound any better in his words. Two days after Tacoma Police Chief Avery Moore was placed on paid administrative leave, the city still has not made a public statement about the reasoning for the decision, and its City Council members appear to be in the dark or unwilling to divulge more information. Phone calls to Moores personal phone number went straight to voicemail Friday, and a city spokesperson said that City Manager Elizabeth Pauli, to whom the police chief reports, was not available to speak. Pauli was apparently at a professional conference, but the spokesperson provided no further details. While we understand the level of public interest in this matter, the City doesnt discuss personnel issues and wont be making any additional statements at this time, spokesperson Maria Lee said in an email. As stated previously, Deputy Chief Paul Junger is now serving as Acting Chief. Mayor Victoria Woodards did not respond to a request for comment from The News Tribune. City Council Member Jamika Scott said she was informed of the decision Thursday in a phone call with Tacomas deputy city manager. Allen McKenzie, the chair of the Community Police Advisory Committee, said he learned about it through an internal email. Both said the news took them by surprise. That was not the phone call I was expecting at all, Scott said. This is a very public-facing department, so its concerning because we have so little information, she added. I understand if its a personnel thing, and there might be things that they cant talk about publicly but the hush hush-ness of it leaves so much room for people to speculate. Tacoma Police Chief Avery Moore (right) and Deputy Chief Paul Junger address the citys new crime prevention plan during the Hosmer Business Association meeting at the Tacoma Nursing & Rehabilitation Center on Hosmer Street in Tacoma, Washington on Wednesday, June 22, 2022. Council member John Hines, Tacomas deputy mayor, said that the city took the matter very seriously and he trusted Pauli was approaching it with the attention it deserved. Hines did not expect to be briefed on any particulars until the citys process for handling personnel matters, which includes an investigation, had run its course. I know that the police chief is a high-profile position so the public expects us to respond differently, Hines said in a brief interview. This is the normal way we approach personnel matters in the city, whether youre the police chief or any one of our employees. Hines, who said he viewed Moore as professional and honest, also noted that the city was diligent about not releasing details prematurely in these situations in order to prevent potential misinformation. Bishop Dr. Lawrence White, spokesperson for the Tacoma/Pierce County Coalition, told The News Tribune late Friday evening that he spoke with Pauli earlier in the day about the situation involving Moore. The coalition last month formally requested the Department of Justice open an investigation into the police department for widespread excessive force and discriminatory policing. White said Friday that the issue was a system inherited by Moore and others that has long been divisive and destructive for the Black community. Friday, Pauli told White that a personnel investigation of Moore could be very brief or take up to two weeks, White said. The broad time frame for an investigation and the lack of any specifics about Moores placement on administrative leave frustrated White, who said that it effectively left open the door for assumptions about what might have happened and raised questions of transparency in the city. This just erodes away at trust, White said. Other city leaders said little of substance. Council member Kristina Walker told The News Tribune via email Friday: I am not privy to any additional information. The city manager is managing the internal process. Council member Olgy Diaz provided a longer statement: I remain uninformed about the circumstances surrounding the police chiefs administrative leave, Diaz said in an email forwarded by Lee, the spokesperson. I understand and share the communitys frustration and desire for transparency. The lack of information breeds distrust, not just in law enforcement, but in the city government as a whole. While I appreciate the need for confidentiality in personnel matters, I believe we must strike a balance between protecting individual privacy and upholding the publics right to know. The importance of a position should not preclude open communication, especially when it concerns the leadership of our police force. I will continue to push for more transparency regarding the timeline of the chiefs absence. I urge my colleagues in city leadership to recognize that open communication is essential to rebuilding trust. In the meantime, I ask the community for patience. Jumping to conclusions without all the facts serves no one. Council member Sandesh Sadalge said in an email that he did not have a comment. Other council members contacted by The News Tribune through phone calls and email did not respond. A Police Department spokesperson also did not have information to provide Friday on the reasoning behind Moore being placed on administrative leave. Detective William Muse reiterated that Junger is the acting chief, and the department is going to operate business as usual. Moore has led the department since January 2022, replacing Don Ramsdell. Moore came to Tacoma from the Dallas Police Department, where he worked as assistant chief for the Investigations Bureau. The Community Police Advisory Committee is made up of Tacoma residents and is tasked with advising the city on police policy and reviewing complaints against officers. McKenzie said he would like to know more, but as the chair of an advisory committee, he doesnt feel entitled to more information than anyone else. This isnt something that the city has asked our advice on, nor would I expect them to, McKenzie said. I assume theres some kind of investigation going on. I have no idea what that would entail. And I assume that he would be on leave until that investigation is complete, but thats just pure speculation. McKenzie said hes had great experiences with Moore, and he felt the Police Department has been heading in the right direction under his leadership. Referring to Moores violent crime reduction plan, McKenzie said it isnt just that the chief has delivered good numbers, he also feels that calls for service are being responded to more quickly, and hes noticed that a bunch of homicides have recently been solved. Scott said she hadnt had many in-depth conversations with Moore, and her interactions with him dont tell her much about the validity of him being placed on leave. I feel people can have various opinions on the outcomes of our policing and all that, Scott said. Without getting into the weeds on that type of stuff, Ive never experienced anything but him being professional. He shows up to our study sessions and our council meetings like the other department directors. Scott said she would tell Tacomans that she shares their concern and this isnt something to take lightly but that the city has processes in place for a reason. She said she was sure an HR process was happening, and she was hopeful that she would learn more soon. Scott added that while Moore leads the Police Department, hes one person, and there is a leadership structure to maintain consistent police services. Both Scott and McKenzie said so far they have not tried to learn more information about the decision. Scott said after she was informed Thursday, her feeling was that she didnt want to bombard city leaders because she was sure there was a lot going on, but she made it clear she was concerned and would be interested in knowing more. I really dont know what to think. We havent really been given any specifics, Scott said. Staff writer Shea Johnson contributed to this report. Want to see the SC roads closed because of Helene? Check out this interactive map Hurricane Helene toppled this tree on Greene Street near the University of South Carolina campus early on Friday Sept. 27, 2024. It blocked the street and smashed cars parked there. Driving on South Carolina roads has gotten more treacherous because of Tropical Storm Helene. The South Carolina Department of Transportation on Friday morning recommended residents avoid travel if possible. The department had received many reports of downed trees and debris in roadways caused by strong winds from Helene. SCDOT crews will begin clearing roadways as it becomes safe to do so, the department said in a press release. For those who must travel, SCDOT asks that you use caution and report any downed trees or debris to the department directly at 855-467-2378. Check closed SC roads online To check which roads are closed or impacted by Helene, click here. The link will take you to an interactive map of the state. Click on the red and orange spots on the map to get more information about the state-maintained road closures. The storm Helene made landfall in Florida as a Category 3 hurricane late Thursday night. The storm then traveled inland into Georgia and South Carolina. Helene was listed as a tropical storm as of 6 a.m. on Friday. As of 9 a.m. on Friday, more than 1.3 million people were reportedly without power in the state. The National Weather Service in Columbia reported winds at 67 mph at 6:12 a.m. at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport and 82 mph in Augusta. Warner calls on Biden administration to do more to fight election misinformation Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) is pushing the federal government to boost assistance to state and local governments to help them identify and prevent the spread of misinformation and disinformation ahead of the 2024 election. In a letter to Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Jen Easterly, Warner emphasized the vital role state and local election offices play in the broader election process. Unfortunately, throughout this election cycle we have witnessed an unprecedented rise in targeted election disinformation campaigns, Warner wrote in the letter, dated Friday. The Virginia Democrat pointed to the wave of robocalls targeted at New Hampshire primary voters earlier this year, during which a deepfake of President Bidens voice was used in a call that encouraged voters to stay home and save their votes. A Democratic political consultant was later indicted after he admitted to creating the deepfake to warn about the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI). Warner separately discussed the Intelligence Communitys 2024 Threat Assessment, which covered the strategic and international attempts by foreign actors including Russia, China and Iran. I strongly urge CISA to increase its provision to assist state and local governments in identifying, responding to, and mitigating the spread of misinformation and disinformation that could impact the administration of elections and voting processes, Warner wrote. He urged CISA to increase its collaborative efforts to track election interference efforts and called the agency to facilitate communication between election offices and social media platforms. In an election cycle where threats persistently grow but some platforms are dedicating fewer resources towards election integrity and content moderation efforts, this presents an opportune moment to ramp up such collaborations, Warner wrote. He emphasized his concerns about AI, arguing it has supercharged the threats and adjusted the risk calculus. He recommended CISA should adjust with this risk to make sure election offices and the public are provided with the necessary protections against such threats. The widespread presence, expanded scope and increased sophistication of AI technologies, including generative AI, has only strengthened deceptive and manipulative information campaigns, Warner wrote. While AI capabilities continue to grow at a rapid pace, state and local governments IT, public outreach, and cybersecurity teams continue to operate with limited staff and resources, making it extremely difficult for smaller teams to respond to sophisticated AI-backed campaigns targeting elections. A spokesperson for CISA confirmed the agency received Warners letter but declined to comment further. Warner has sounded the alarm on domestic and foreign election interference on various occasions, including just last week when he chaired an Intelligence Committee hearing featuring testimony from three major tech leaders on foreign adversaries attempts to meddle with the 2024 election. The concern follows an increase in action from both social media platforms and the government regarding foreign actors. The Justice Department handed down an indictment this month accusing two RT employees of leading a covert influence campaign by partnering with conservative company Tenet Media to hire various right-wing influencers. The agency also seized more than 30 web domains used by Russia for covert campaigns. Days later, Meta the parent company of Facebook and Instagram announced it banned Russian state media from its social media platforms in the wake of the outlets foreign interference activity. Warner and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) sent a letter last week to the leaders of Meta, X Discord, Twitch and Alphabet Inc., to express persisting concerns over how election-related disinformation can go viral and reach millions of viewers. NBC News first reported the letter. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. WARREN, Ohio (WKBN) Warren police are currently investigating an incident involving a house and car being shot at on Wednesday night. Police were dispatched to the 800 block of Mason Street NW shortly after 8 p.m. for a report of shots being heard. According to police reports, a neighbor in his driveway saw two males shooting around 20 shots toward a house, then took off running toward Hillsdale Drive. A woman was sitting in her car in front of the residence during the shooting, and the cars windshield was struck, along with the drivers side door, reports said. The woman was not injured. Police found 14 bullet holes on the front of the residence. At this time, there are no suspects. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) The suspect in a Washington shooting was arrested in Clackamas County on Tuesday, authorities said. According to the Pierce County Sheriffs Office, deputies responded to a shooting in Graham, just south of Tacoma, where two people were shot. Deputies arriving at the scene said they found a man on the ground who had been shot and they were told that another victim had been driven to a nearby fire station. Vancouver man shot, killed by SWAT after late-night armed standoff The man at the scene was taken to a nearby hospital with serious injuries. However, police said he was expected to survive. The other victim was later declared dead at the scene. Officials said they learned that a dispute had started over a motorcycle, which led to the two men being shot and the suspect fleeing the scene. Probable cause was quickly developed and authorities said they issued a warrant for his arrest. 5 arrested after multi-state muscle car theft ring dismantled in Clark County The day after the shooting, Oregon State Police said they were contacted by Pierce County about the incident and told the suspect was believed to be in Oregon. The suspect was quickly found in Clackamas County and taken into custody while waiting for extradition back to Washington. The man faces charges including two counts of second-degree murder, first-degree assault and unlawful possession of a firearm. No further information, including the identity of the suspect, has been released 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 KOIN.com. DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) Hurricane Helene continues to cause issues for residents, but also visitors to the areas hit by the storm. One of those experiencing setbacks is Jane Thomas of Washington Twp. Shes currently stuck on a cruise ship until further notice. 2 NEWS spoke to Thomas via phone call, where we learned that as of now its a wait-and-see situation when she and her husband will be able to return to land. Kettering family shares experience in Florida amidst Hurricane Helene Thomas says that on Wednesday, the captain of the ship announced over the speaker that Jackson Port where they were originally supposed to return to has closed. Right now, all passengers are stuck on the ship waiting for any updates but are at the mercy of Helene. Thomas says that the crew has been giving updates to everyone aboard through the loudspeakers. But for now, she is waiting in her cabin hoping to return home soon. The atmosphere is, you know, I think, like a regular day at sea. Everybodys, you know, getting some sun where they can and eat and drink and casinos open. The guest services line is a little longer than normal, I think, trying to help everybody with their travel plans. But I think the atmosphere around here is, is pretty upbeat still, said Thomas. Thomas was able to tell me that she was able to reschedule her flight. Her workplace told her to be safe, and that they would see her when she returned. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WDTN.com. Democratic incumbent Brad Pfaff and Republican challenger Stacey Klein have agreed to a televised debate before the November election. The two candidates seeking the 32nd State Senate District seat are set to debate each other Oct. 16 through an event hosted by UW-La Crosse, the La Crosse Area Chamber of Commerce and the League of Women Voters of the La Crosse Area. While the event will not be open to the public, the televised debate will be taped and made available for broadcast and streaming. It will also remain unedited unless technical difficulties or disruptions from the audience occur. UW-L political science professor Anthony Chergosky said that unlike in years prior, attempts to schedule debates for the state Assembly races were unsuccessful. Steve Doyle, D-Onalaska; Jill Billings, D-La Crosse; and Democrat Tara Johnson all agreed to participate in a debate. Their opponents, Republicans Ryan Huebsch; Cedric Schnitzler; and Loren Oldenburg, R-Viroqua, all declined, citing scheduling conflicts. Chergosky also said he was unaware of any current efforts to schedule a debate between U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Prairie du Chien, and Rebecca Cooke. To his knowledge, neither candidate has called for a debate. The 3rd Congressional District candidates have individual forums scheduled with the La Crosse Chamber of Commerce in October, with Van Ordens set for Oct. 21, and Cookes on Oct. 23. BROOKLYN, New York (KMID/KPEJ) Police in New York released video in the search for a woman they said stole an electric wheelchair from a sidewalk in Brooklyn, and used the device to make a slow getaway. Local media reported the wheelchair belonged to 70-year-old Rosalyn Johnson, who left it while entering a shop on her way to church. WATCH: Texas charcuterie board breaks world record For it to be a woman, youre supposed to help other women. Some women go astray, and its up to the ones not caught up in this worldly life to bring them back, Johnson told local media. NYPD later visited Johnson, delivering a nearly identical electric wheelchair purchased with $1,500 in funds donated to the police foundation. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Yourbasin. WATCH: Florida crews respond to house fire during flooding from Hurricane Helene First responders in Florida came across an active house fire while navigating Hurricane Helene floodwaters by boat. Crews from the South Pasadena Fire Department and the Pinellas County Sheriffs Office found the scene while responding to water rescues. The area was completely flooded when they found a home that was fully involved in a fire. Watch: Helene weakens to tropical storm after slamming Floridas Big Bend Firefighters said large objects, including dumpsters, were floating through the water and causing additional hazards. Crews said they have been responding to as many emergency calls as possible. See: U.S. Coast Guard save a man and his dog in Clearwater Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. SOUTH PASADENA, Fla. (WFLA) While conducting water rescues, the South Pasadena Fire Department and Pinellas County Sheriffs Office found a house on fire Thursday night. Large objects including dumpsters were moving through floodwaters just before midnight, making it difficult for first responders. As the video shows, it was too late to save the flooded home. Crews will continue to respond to emergencies when possible, the City of Pasadena said. Meanwhile, emergency workers in Florida, Georgia and elsewhere rescued hundreds of people from boats, their homes and their cars as Hurricane Helenes winds, rain and storm surge created havoc Friday on the Gulf of Mexico, in coastal neighborhoods and further inland. The efforts of Floridas 1,500 search-and-rescue personnel will be concentrated on securing and stabilizing affected communities through the weekend, said Kevin Guthrie, the states emergency operations director. The Category 4 storm made landfall on the Northwest Florida coast late Thursday, but it created flooding from storm surge all along the states Gulf Coast. As those sorts of rescue missions happen today, and continue, please do not go out and visit the impacted areas, Guthrie said Friday morning at a news conference in the Florida capital of Tallahassee. I beg of you, do not get in their way. The reported rescues ranged from life-threatening situations to people trapped in their homes by waist-high water and unable to flee on their own. Five people died in Pinellas County and dozens were rescued after the storm surge hit an unprecedented 8 feet (2.4 meters), forcing some to seek shelter in their attics. Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said the deaths all occurred in neighborhoods where authorities told residents to evacuate, but many residents ignored the warnings. Gualtieri said his deputies tried overnight to reach those who had been trapped, but in some neighborhoods it just wasnt safe. Pinellas County includes St. Petersburg. I was out there personally. We tried to launch boats, we tried to use high-water vehicles and we just met with too many obstacles, Gualtieri said. He said the death toll could rise as emergency crews go door-to-door in the flooded areas to see if anyone remains. In neighboring Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, the sheriffs office rescued more than 300 people overnight from storm surge. Spokesperson Amanda Granit said those included a 97-year-old woman with dementia and her 63-year-old daughter, who got surprised by the surge and needed help fleeing their flooded home; and a 19-year-old woman whose car got stuck as she drove in the rising water and couldnt get out. Granit said deputies were conducting rescues in such large numbers they had to request county transit buses to get the people to safety. Deputies couldnt move them fast in enough in their patrol vehicles, Granit said. In the Tampa Bay-area city of South Pasadena, rescue video shows a house burning early Friday amid flooded streets. Other counties along the Gulf reported more than 100 rescues. The Coast Guard said it rescued three boaters and their pets from the storm in separate incidents. In a Thursday helicopter rescue captured on Coast Guard video, a man and his Irish setter were stranded 25 miles offshore in the Gulf on their 36-foot sailboat in heavy seas. The video shows the man putting his dog into a yellow rescue vest and pushing it into the raging sea before jumping in himself. A Coast Guard swimmer helped them into a rescue basket and they were hoisted into the copter. In North Carolina, more than 100 swift-water rescues had occurred as Helenes rains caused massive flooding Friday, particularly in the states western section. Gov. Roy Cooper said the flash floods are threatening lives and are creating numerous landslides. The priority now is saving lives, Cooper said, begging people to stay off the roads unless they were seeking higher ground. With the rain that they already had been experiencing before Helenes arrival, this is one of the worst storms in modern history for parts of western North Carolina, Cooper said. In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp said crews are working to rescue people trapped in more than 115 homes. Helenes rains flooded homes in Hanover West, a neighborhood in north Atlanta. Emergency personnel rescued several people from their homes, said Richard Simms, a resident in a nearby neighborhood. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. ATLANTA FOX Weather Meteorologist Bob Van Dillen found himself in the middle of a harrowing rescue mission during Tropical Storm Helene. Conditions deteriorated rapidly in the pre-dawn hours around Atlanta, with millions facing the threat of life-threatening flooding. On Friday morning, the city was placed under its first-ever Flash Flood Emergency, as Atlanta endured its wettest three-day period in 104 years. While covering the storm's aftermath, Van Dillen, a journalist from the area, heard a woman's desperate cries for help along Peach Tree Creek. She had driven into floodwaters and was trapped in her car before sunrise. "I just put the microphone down and called 911," he said. "I know that those guys are swamped, so we waited about five minutes. She was getting panicked a little bit more because the water was coming up a little bit higher." Helene Continues Deadly Onslaught Across Southeast, Prompting First-ever Flash Flood Emergency In Atlanta FOX Weather Meteorologist Bob Van Dillen bravely rescued a woman who had driven into floodwaters in Atlanta early Friday morning. Without hesitation, Van Dillen, a towering 6-foot, 1-inch man, waded into the chest-deep water, battling strong currents to reach the woman. He pulled her to safety, carrying her through the floodwaters to a nearby dry area. "The water is like 80 degrees. It's not cold, but I'm freezing right now," Van Dillen said. "She was sitting in there by herself, strapped into her car. So I know she was cold." Despite the dangers surrounding them in the water, Van Dillen remained calm and focused on rescuing the woman. As he carried her to safety, he spoke to his FOX Weather colleagues live on camera after documenting the rescue effort. While his selfless act of bravery did not go unnoticed, he remained humble, insisting that anyone in his position would have done the same thing. "Her husband picked her up, and she's all good," Van Dillen said. "But the story now turns not on me, but it turns to how much flooding we've seen. I mean amazing amounts coming in." Peachtree Creek is at its third-highest recorded level, Van Dillen notes. Earlier in the morning, high-water rescues of dozens of people being pulled out of an apartment complex happened about a mile upstream from the scene of his rescue efforts. The same water is now flowing through Peach Tree Creek and approaching the Northside Drive bridge. Atlanta Sees First-ever Flash Flood Emergency As Helene's Fury Forces Multiple Water Rescues The death toll from Helene in the state continues to rise. In Colquitt County, Georgia, one person was tragically killed when their vehicle collided with a fallen tree. Widespread damage has been reported in the area, and emergency management officials are working to assess the extent of the destruction, FOX 5 reports. Additionally, at least two more deaths have been confirmed in Wheeler County, Georgia. A mobile home was damaged during one of the many Tornado Warnings associated with the storm, resulting in the loss of lives. The heavy rain over Atlanta has mostly moved on as the rain band that was pivoting over the city lifts north. Original article source: Watch: FOX Weather meteorologist rescues woman from rising floodwaters in Atlanta TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) Heavy storm surge flooding hit downtown Tampa as Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida. Significant flooding affected roads in and out of Davis Islands, including the area surrounding Tampa General Hospital. Heavy rainfall floods roadways to Davis Islands Video taken by a TGH employee showed the waters near the hospital. However, the hospital itself said it was protected by the high waters thanks to its AquaFence. Designed to protect vulnerable area of our campus, the AquaFence is a water-impermeable barrier created to withstand storm surge up to 15 feet above sea level, the hospital wrote on social media. Since 2019, the technology has worked successfully through multiple rain events to prevent storm water from impacting hospital operations. According to the AquaFence website, the fences are positioned in areas around the hospital due to the different elevation levels across the facility. AquaFence barriers can be deployed around buildings or even city blocks to help keep water away from critical facilities. They can also be used to divert rivers away from urban centers. Tampa police warned residents that the surge would peak before 3 a.m. Friday. Between now and sunrise this is NOT the time to white water raft on Bayshore Blvd or take an amateur adventure through downtown, the department wrote on X. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Vice President Harris will make a campaign stop Friday in southern Arizona, giving remarks from a town along the U.S.-Mexico border. During the visit to Douglas, Ariz., the Democratic presidential nominee will meet with Border Patrol agents. In her remarks, Harris will call for more resources for the Border Patrol and say curbing the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. will be a top priority if shes elected in November, according to her campaign. She is also expected to reiterate her support for the border deal that was negotiated by a bipartisan group of senators but failed in the House after her GOP opponent, former President Trump, urged Republicans to vote against it earlier this year. Trump criticized Harris for the Biden administrations immigration policies in remarks Thursday and claimed the vice president was visiting the border for political reasons. The former president has a razor-thin lead in the Grand Canyon State, garnering 48.6 percent to Harriss 47.6 percent, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQs aggregate of polls. The Harris campaign event is scheduled to begin at 7:45 p.m. EDT. Watch the live video above. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Friday morning, as tensions in the Middle East continue to flare. His speech comes just a day after Netanyahu rejected a U.S.-led cease-fire proposal between Israel and the Lebanese-militant group Hezbollah and vowed to keep fighting. The agreement, revealed earlier this week, would allow for a temporary 21-day cease-fire. Despite Netanyahus decision, the White House said the agreement had been coordinated with Israel. The Israeli military has escalated its attacks against Hezbollah this month, allegedly exploding pagers and handheld radios that targeted the group last week and conducting massive strikes over several days. Israel also announced Thursday that it had reached an agreement with the U.S. for an $8.7 billion aid package to support ongoing military efforts. UNGA speeches will begin Friday morning at 9 a.m. EDT. Watch the live video above. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The Crew Dragon capsule that will fly SpaceX's Crew-9 astronaut mission for NASA stands on the pad ahead of its planned Sept. 28, 2024 launch. | Credit: SpaceX SpaceX plans to launch the Crew-9 astronaut mission for NASA on Saturday (Sept. 28), and you can watch the action live online. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Crew Dragon spacecraft and its crew is scheduled to lift off from Space Launch Complex-40 at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Saturday at 1:17 p.m. EDT (1717 GMT). You can watch the liftoff the first crewed launch ever from SLC-40 live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA. Crew-9 , the ninth crew rotation mission for NASAs Commercial Crew Program, includes NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov, a cosmonaut with the Russian space agency Roscosmos . The duo are headed to the International Space Station (ISS) for a roughly five-month stay; their mission will conclude in February, when they return to Earth along with NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. SpaceXs Crew Dragon spacecraft generally carries four astronauts for NASA crew rotation missions. While NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson were originally included in the Crew-9 roster, they were removed to leave room to bring home Williams and Wilmore , who launched to the space station in June on Boeing's Starliner capsule for an expected eight-day stay. Related: Astronauts, capsule for SpaceX's Crew-9 mission arrive at Florida launch site (photos) But Starliner experienced thruster issues, and NASA extended the capsule's time at the ISS to study the problem. The agency eventually decided to bring the capsule down uncrewed, which occurred on Sept. 7 ; Williams and Wilmore remained aboard the ISS. Crew-9 was originally scheduled to launch on Sept. 26, but that target was pushed back as a precaution due to Hurricane Helene , which ended up striking Florida's Gulf Coast as a Category 3 storm that evening. You can follow the launch activities online here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency. Here's a rundown of the schedule, which could end up changing; check back with Space.com for updates. Sept. 27: Prelaunch news conference On Friday (Sept. 27) at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT), NASA will host a prelaunch press conference at Kennedy Space Center , which is next door to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The participants will be: NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free Ken Bowersox , associate administrator, NASAs Space Operations Mission Directorate Steve Stich , manager, NASAs Commercial Crew Program Dina Contella , deputy manager, NASAs International Space Station Program Jennifer Buchli , chief scientist, NASAs International Space Station Program William Gerstenmaier , vice president, Build & Flight Reliability, SpaceX Brian Cizek, launch weather officer, 45th Weather Squadron, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Sept. 28: Launch day! Launch-day coverage will begin at 9:10 a.m. EDT (1310 GMT) on Saturday, leading up to liftoff at 1:17 p.m. EDT (1717 GMT). NASA will also stream a postlaunch press conference at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT), with the following participants: NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy Ken Bowersox , associate administrator, NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate Dana Hutcherson , deputy program manager, NASAs Commercial Crew ProgramJoel Montalbano, deputy associate administrator, NASAs Space Operations Mission Directorate Dina Contella , deputy manager, NASAs International Space Station Program Sarah Walker, director, Dragon Mission Management, SpaceX Sept. 29: ISS arrival RELATED STORIES: SpaceX Crew-9 dropped 2 NASA astronauts from ISS mission, but they were prepared (video) Tropical Storm Helene delays SpaceX's Crew-9 astronaut launch to Sept. 28 Meet the SpaceX Crew-9 astronauts launching to the International Space Station Crew-9's Dragon capsule, named Freedom, is expected to dock with the space station at 5:30 p.m. EDT (2130 GMT) on Sunday (Sept. 29). Coverage of the spacecrafts arrival will begin at 3:30 p.m. (1530 GMT) and run through hatch opening and welcoming of the new crew members at 7:40 p.m. EDT (2340 GMT). COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) Four juveniles are in custody and Columbus Police say they are looking for two more suspects in connection to an armed carjacking Sunday. On Wednesday, police released body camera footage of the chase for the suspects. The teens crashed that car near the Ohio Statehouse around 7:30 p.m. I walked out of the corner store and a group of boys walked up to me with like four or five guns, the victim said in a 911 call. They took my car, my wallet, everything. Columbus police said the incident happened around 6:30 p.m. at East Main Street and Lilley Avenue. Police were able to locate the car 30 minutes later near East 5th Avenue and Peter Avenue. Watch: Teens charged in armed carjacking In the body camera footage, the suspects can be seen driving when police pull up behind them. They go on to lead police on a chase across the city for about 30 minutes, with the stolen car blowing through red lights, stop signs, and over speed bumps. Police attempted to catch and stop the car several times. Police say the suspect car crashed into a parked car on East Broad Street. Officers then chased after the suspects on foot. Two 14-year-old and two 15-year-old boys were taken into custody. On Thursday, police said they are searching for two more suspects in the incident. New data from Columbus Police shows there have been more than 5,000 stolen vehicles in the city this year from January to August. Police were not able to say how many of these incidents involved juveniles. Data also shows that as of Monday, there are 162 suspects under the age of 17 in felonious assault cases so far this year. Data shows in all of 2023, there were 155 juvenile suspects in felony assault cases. Columbus Police ask anyone with information about the two suspects to call 614-645-4545. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Former President Trump met with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky in New York City on Friday morning, just two days after attacking him at a campaign rally. Republicans have ramped up criticism of Zelensky this week after he toured a Pennsylvania weapons factory with Democrats and criticized Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), in a magazine interview. However, Trump announced on Thursday that he would meet with the Ukrainian president, and in remarks ahead of their meeting on Friday the GOP nominee praised Zelensky, and said they had a great relationship. Watch the video above. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The United States experienced dramatic surges in crime by the early 1990s. The violent crime rate was up 470% from 1961, and the murder rate had increase 92% from that year. Life in American cities was more dangerous, and punishment was not fitting the crimes. While the median sentence for murder was 15 years, the median time served was only 5.5 years, according to the University of Dayton Law Review. The median sentence for rape was five years, but the median time served was a paltry three. Overall, violent criminals served, on average, 37% (2 years, 11 months) of their sentence. And 44% of Americans said they lived near and area where they would be afraid to walk alone at night, according to Gallup. In response to widespread pressure from law enforcement and residents, President Bill Clinton on Sept. 13, 1994, signed the bipartisan Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. The bill injected billions into hiring police, created a grant program to encourage state adoption of "truth in sentencing" laws, added prison capacity and criminalized gang membership. Support for the bill was considerably higher among Black Americans (58%) than among white Americans (49%) likely because Black Americans bore the brunt of violent crime victimization and homicide then and now. After passage, violent crime and homicide rates ticked downward for the next two decades. The results were particularly acute for Black violent crime victims. From 1993 to 2005, the rate of Black non-fatal violent victimization dropped by more than 50%. While it would be foolish to attribute all of this to the 1994 Crime Bill alone, the legislation's policies were influential. Economist Steven Levitt completed the most comprehensive analysis of the crime decline that began in the mid-1990s and found four significant factors of impact. Two of them the increased number of police on the streets and larger prison populations can be directly tied to the 1994 Crime Bill. Evaluations of the bills hiring program found that it increased the number of officers and reduced crime. These results align with public safety research that has demonstrated more police means less crime. Analyses of police staffing levels and crime in Florida and New York City found increasing police levels reduced overall crime. Another study found each additional police officer prevents 0.1 homicides an effect thats twice as large for Black victims compared to white victims. Harsher punishments and more incarceration likely contributed to the decline because incarceration has a significant incapacitation benefit. While in prison, criminal offenders cannot victimize the public. A review by the Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation found that any claims of prison causing criminal behavior cannot outweigh that incapacitation benefit. One analysis found that incapacitating one high-rate offender prevents, on average, 9.4 serious felonies. Two studies from the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that longer sentences reduced recidivism among released federal inmates. The main criticism of these provisions is that they exacerbated mass incarceration a genuinely meaningless term that sounds scary but conveys no information. While it is true that U.S. incarceration rates are higher than Western Europes, we are not substantially more punitive. What we do have is a much higher rate of gun crime, which necessitates longer prison sentences and more incarceration. This isnt to say the bill was perfect, and in the 30 years since it became law, we have found ways to be more targeted in policing and sentencing. Overall, though, the 1994 Crime Bill marked a significant policy accomplishment and helped usher in a 20-year decline in violent crime that yielded fewer victims in neighborhoods previously held captive by violence. The remains of the car in which three people were fatally injured after it was struck by a fleeing suspect during a 2020 pursuit by the Shively Police Department. When a high-speed Shively Police Department chase on the Dixie Highway in 2020 ended with the suspect's vehicle striking another car and killing three inside including a 9-month-old infant The Courier Journal sought records from the investigation. Now, almost four years after The Courier Journal sued SPD over its denial to provide the records, the Kentucky Supreme Court has ruled the department's action was in violation of Kentuckys open records law. This is a really important decision, said Michael Abate, one of the attorneys representing The Courier Journal in the case. It makes clear that agencies cant just say you dont get information because were still investigating it or theres some court case that is pending. They have to do what the open records act says. The public has the right to know basic facts about ongoing cases before years have elapsed, he added, calling the decision a "watershed." Courier Journal Executive Editor and Gannett Midwest Region Editor Mary Irby-Jones also welcomed Thursday's decision. "This ruling is a victory for transparency and reinforces the importance of the public's right to clear insight into actions and decisions that our local police departments are making that significantly impact our communities," she said. "And while we celebrate this victory, there are still many past and current battles that we will continue to fight to gain access to public records." Just hours before the 2020 chase, which saw the suspect's pickup truck race to 116 mph in a 35 mph zone, Shively officers were given an order granting them permission to chase stolen vehicles, but were told they still had to evaluate "risk versus reward" when it came to pursuits. The Courier Journal wanted to examine whether the officers had complied with their department's pursuit policy. But within 36 minutes of the newspapers open records request for 911 calls, video footage, accident reports and other documents related to the crash, the Shively Police Department said it would not provide any records. As there is an active criminal case regarding this incident, all of the above request are denied under the following exclusion rule: KRS 61.878 subsection (1)(h), they wrote, citing a statute that exempts records compiled during an investigation that could harm prospective law enforcement action. The statute cited by Shively Police allows law enforcement agencies to exempt records compiled in the process of detecting and investigating potential statutory violations and crimes if the disclosure of the information would harm the agency by revealing the identity of informants not otherwise known or by premature release of information to be used in a prospective law enforcement action or administrative adjudication. However, Supreme Court Justice Michelle Keller wrote in the courts opinion: SPDs initial denial letter made no attempt to explain how public inspection of the requested records would harm the agencys investigative or prosecutorial efforts. Later, after the case went to circuit court, SPD Chief Kevin Higdon filed an affidavit saying the records posed a concrete risk of harm that could hinder investigation or prosecution. Those, however, were only speculative concerns, Keller wrote, and failed to show how the release of the records to The Courier Journal would cause harm. Kentucky agencies, including Louisville Metro Police, regularly refuse to provide records by using the same statutory exemption in the Shively case while failing to describe what harm would be caused. Responding to an inquiry from The Courier Journal, Sgt. Jordan Brown, a spokesperson for SPD, said the department did not have a comment at this time. As the case made its way through the court system, SPD tried to argue that the records were exempt due to a personal privacy exemption in the open records law, as portions of the video footage depicted deceased victims of the crash. However, the Supreme Court found The Courier Journal made it abundantly clear the newspaper was not interested in footage of the people killed in the crash, but rather footage of the police chase. Similarly, SPD later argued that another statute KRS 17.150(2) also allowed them to deny The Courier Journals request. That statute states that intelligence and investigative reports are subject to public inspection if prosecution has been completed or if a decision not to prosecute has been made. It exempts records that would disclose the identity of a confidential informant, violate personal privacy, endanger the lives of law enforcement or if the information could be used in a prospective law enforcement action. Despite the many years worth of Attorney General opinions interpreting KRS 17.150(2) to allow the categorical nondisclosure of certain law enforcement records before a related prosecution has concluded, this Court interprets the statute to have no bearing on whether public records can be disclosed before a criminal prosecution is completed or a determination not to prosecute has been made, Keller wrote. Reach reporter Josh Wood at jwood@courier-journal.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @JWoodJourno. This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky Supreme Court says Shively Police violated open records act AUSTIN (KXAN) Mondays water main break on Spicewood Springs Road that had an impact on residents and the nearby watershed is now repaired, Austin Water told KXAN Friday. Five days after the break happened, a city spokesperson said repairs are complete, but they are continuing analysis into what caused it. Austin Water appreciates the incredible teamwork of the dedicated contractors, partner departments, and department staff who have been working around the clock to complete this repair. Their committed efforts are essential in helping our customers receive reliable water service, the agency said to KXAN Friday. Previous: Water line repairs expected to complete Thursday Austin Water crews had to shut off water in the area after a contractor struck a 48-inch water main pipeline near Spicewood Springs Road and Loop 360 earlier this week. They also asked residents to shut off automatic irrigation systems and try to conserve indoor water use, but water remained safe to drink. Roads were also closed nearby as crew worked on repairs. An Austin Water spokesperson also told KXAN that the citys Watershed Protection Department (WPD) team, who they had been collaborating with since the break happened, found around 100 dead fish in the vicinity. That area is also home to the Jollyville Plateau Salamander, a federally protected, threatened species. The spokesperson said that WPD biologists had not seen any impact on the amphibian residents. An adult Jollyville Plateau salamander (Courtesy Nathan Bendik, Austin Watershed Protection) Austin Water and WPD said they notified the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department about the water main break and its environmental impact. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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. Hundreds of French people attend the funeral of a 19-year-old university student who was murdered last weekend (ALAIN JOCARD) (ALAIN JOCARD/AFP/AFP) Nearly 3,000 people on Friday attended the funeral of a Paris student who was raped and murdered in a case that has inflamed a French debate on immigration after a Moroccan was named as the suspected attacker. The body of the 19-year-old, named only as Philippine, was found half-buried in a park in western Paris last weekend. The 22-year-old Moroccan suspect was arrested in Geneva. Following a June-July election in which the far right performed strongly, politicians seized on the killing, demanding a crackdown on illegal immigration. Rights groups and left-wingers said the focus should not be on immigration but rather on femicide. Some 2,800 people attended the funeral inside and outside the Saint-Louis cathedral in Versailles on the outskirts of Paris, according to a police source. "We are here to weep, to pray," said Pierre-Herve Grosjean, the priest presiding over the ceremony. "Justice will do its job, this is really necessary but it is not enough," he said according to a statement released to the media. He called on the mourners to "come out of this funeral a little better." Philippine was to be buried in a private ceremony in the neighbouring Paris suburb of Montigny-le-Bretonneux. "I thought it was important to come here to reflect and pay my respects," one 15-year-old girl said at the funeral ceremony, clutching a bouquet of white and purple flowers. Her mother, Anouck B., said many people were affected by the tragedy. "It was important to come and support the whole family," she said. The Moroccan suspect is expected to be extradited to France. French authorities say he had been previously convicted of rape and been the subject of an expulsion order. On Thursday, President Emmanuel Macron, speaking on a visit to Montreal, called Philippine's murder "a heinous and atrocious crime" and added that "we need to protect the public better". The conservative interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, has vowed to change immigration rules after the murder. The student's body was found last Saturday in the Bois de Boulogne park not far from Paris-Dauphine University in the city's affluent 16th district. - Weekend rallies - According to prosecutors, the suspect was convicted in 2021 of a rape committed in 2019, when he was a minor. He was released in June, having served his sentence, and then placed in an administrative detention centre. In early September, a judge freed him on condition he report regularly to the authorities. Since the murder, politicians across the political spectrum have urged tough measures, saying deportation orders are not enforced properly. "How many tragedies will France have to endure before our leaders react?" Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-right National Rally, said on the X social media platform. A far-right group said it would stage a protest in Paris on Sunday. Weekend rallies were also set to take place in other cities including Lyon in the east and Nice in the south. But some said the country should focus not on immigration but on protecting women from violent men in general. "Misogyny kills. Let's not have the wrong debate", said the women's rights group CIDFF. In another case that has shocked France, a 71-year-old Frenchman is on trial for drugging and raping his wife for years along with dozens of other local suspects. mlf-dho-tll-as/jh/rlp Weight Loss Is Only The Beginning For Ozempic: The Latest Discovery Could Save Countless Lives Ozempic has been called a "wonder drug," with a growing body of research showing that it may help treat a huge range of health conditions. Now, a new study shows it might have yet another use: lowering the risk of overdose in people with opioid use disorder. The findings are preliminary, but the U.S. has been battling an opioid epidemic for decades. As a result, any promising treatment option feels like a big step forward. So, whats the connection between Ozempic and opioid use disorder? Experts break it down. Meet the experts: Pat Aussem, VP of Consumer Clinical Content Development at Partnership to End Addiction. Medhat Mikhael, MD, pain management specialist and medical director of the non-operative program at the Spine Health Center at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California. Tyler J. Varisco, PharmD, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Health Outcomes of Policy and assistant director for Research Development in the Prescription Drug Misuse Education and Research Center at the University of Houston College of Pharmacy. Gitanjali Srivastava, MD, chief of obesity medicine at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. What did the study find? The study, which was published in JAMA Network Open on September 25, analyzed six years of health records of nearly 33,000 people with opioid use disorder who also had type 2 diabetes. The researchers discovered that people who were prescribed semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy) had a significantly lower risk for opioid overdose compared to people who took one of eight other diabetes medications. The findings suggest that semaglutide has potential therapeutic value for preventing overdoses, the researchers wrote in the study. Does Ozempic lower the risk of opioid overdoses? Possibly. Its important to note that this is one study, and even the researchers noted in the paper that the link needs to be explored more. Pat Aussem, the vice president of Consumer Clinical Content Development at Partnership to End Addiction, agrees. These results are preliminary and primarily based on observational data, she says. We need more rigorous clinical trials to fully understand how semaglutide can be part of treatment plans for opioid use disorder. In the study, semaglutide was compared to a wide array of anti-diabetic medications, including other GLP-1 agonists (a class of medications that can help manage blood sugar), points out Tyler J. Varisco, PharmD, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Health Outcomes of Policy and assistant director for Research Development in the Prescription Drug Misuse Education and Research Center at the University of Houston College of Pharmacy. "Additional research, including clinical trials, is needed before we can make any practice decisions from this work," he adds. Aussem stresses that people with opioid use disorder have other proven treatment options. While the prospect of a new medication is exciting, we have medications for opioid use disorder that work but are vastly underutilized, she says. Rather than waiting for the controlled clinical trials needed to understand which addiction profiles can benefit from semaglutides, we need to advocate for the widespread use of the ones we already have. A bevy of "effective, safe, and affordable medications" are out there that "reduce the risk of mortality for people with opioid use disorder," like buprenorphine, a drug that "has been reliably demonstrated to reduce the risk of overdose in clinical trials," Varisco says. "I think we need to pay more attention to improving access to drugs that work by reforming policy and the process of care to better support patients with opioid use disorder." Why is there a link between Ozempic and opioid overdoses? The medication likely impacts the cravings for pain medication that people with opioid use disorder experience, says Medhat Mikhael, MD, a pain management specialist and medical director of the non-operative program at the Spine Health Center at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California. This is a sentiment shared by Nora D. Volkow, MD, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the National Institutes of Health, who wrote an essay for Women's Health about the bright future of GLP-1 medications (like Ozempic) in treating substance use disorders in March. There's a "lot of overlap" in the mechanisms that drive us to eat and the ones that drive us to take drugsboth involve the brain's motivation and reward systems. Addiction, essentially hijacks those pathways, activating the system more intensely than everyday rewards (like eating food or having social interactions)," she writes. But studies have suggested that GLP-1 may also modify motivational pathways. "It stands to reason, then, that if there are similar mechanisms that drive us to overeat and take drugs, and a GLP-1 agonist works on the one for overeating, then a GLP-1 agonist could also potentially help interrupt the urge to misuse drugs," Volkow writes. When someone takes an addictive medication like an opioid, they get a surge of dopamine, Mikhael says, which can then lead to future cravings. But semaglutide works on the same receptors that activate the reward system, he says. Its likely that the cravings change. Experts are excited at the possibility of using semaglutide to treat opioid use disorder in the future, with Gitanjali Srivastava, MD, chief of obesity medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, calling the study's conclusions "quite promising." If future studies confirm the findings, Aussem adds that semaglutide could become "a valuable tool in a holistic approach to addiction treatment"but stresses that it won't be a standalone solution. Addressing substance use disorder often requires a combination of medications, therapy, and community support, she says. You Might Also Like Mexican police and members of the National Guard help residents of Acapulco after Hurricane John caused major flooding (Francisco Robles) (Francisco Robles/AFP/AFP) Residents of Mexico's beachside city of Acapulco were reeling Friday after a hurricane left at least five people dead and neighborhoods underwater in a region still recovering from a devastating storm last October. Clutching belongings, families waded down streets turned into muddy rivers, nearly a year after Hurricane Otis left a trail of destruction and claimed several dozen lives. Local media showed images of cars being swept away and people clinging to ropes being plucked to safety. "We're desperate," said Barbara Encinas, who was queuing up outside a supermarket. "We haven't recovered from Hurricane Otis yet, and now we're in a situation that seems to be worse," she told AFP. Rocio Parras, who was also in the queue, said Acapulco was enduring "terrible days" yet again. "I feel that it is the greatest tragedy we have ever experienced," she said. "Water, floods, people are drowning. Acapulco is totally destroyed. We need help." At least five people were killed, one in Acapulco and four in the surrounding mountains, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said, although local media have reported a higher number. According to the Milenio television channel, 13 people were feared dead, including several children. Acapulco has been drenched by several days of rain "like we haven't seen in a long time," said President Lopez Obrador, adding that 19 neighborhoods were flooded. People were using inflatable boats and even a jet ski to navigate the Pacific coastal city. - Military deployed - John slammed into Mexico earlier this week as a major Category 3 hurricane, causing flooding and landslides. The slow-moving storm has churned along the coast for several days, at times losing strength and intensifying again. Around 25,000 members of the military and the National Guard were in the area helping victims, Lopez Obrador said. Around 1,200 people were in emergency shelters, he said, adding that floodwaters were up to a meter and a half (five feet) deep in some areas. "Food supplies are being delivered and kitchens are being set up," Lopez Obrador said. Acapulco airport was also flooded and closed after a nearby lagoon overflowed, authorities said. John first made landfall on Monday in Guerrero state, packing maximum sustained winds of around 120 miles (195 kilometers) per hour, according to the US-based National Hurricane Center. It was later downgraded to a tropical storm, only to regain hurricane strength temporarily. On Friday, John made landfall again as a tropical storm with sustained winds of up to 45 miles (70 kilometers) per hour, threatening to bring "catastrophic flash flooding and mudslides," the NHC said. "On the forecast track, the center of John is forecast to move along the coast of southwestern Mexico today and tonight," it said. "Gradual weakening is expected today, with a faster rate of weakening forecast by tonight as the center continues to interact with the higher terrain of southwestern Mexico," it added. dr/st/bjt TOPEKA (KSNT) First responders are heading to a crash on I-470 Friday afternoon in Topeka. Shawnee County Emergency Dispatch told 27 News that crews are working the scene of a crash in southwest Topeka. According to county officials, crews were called just before 1:30 p.m. to Southeast Gage Boulevard and I-470 for reports of a crash. This embedded content is not available in your region. Kandrive.gov is showing that the westbound lane of I-470 is experiencing significantly reduced traffic speeds in the area of the crash. Traffic cameras in the area show vehicles backed up, a firetruck on scene, multiple Topeka Police Department vehicles and at least one ambulance. Topeka runs busiest fire engine in Kansas More information will be provided as it becomes available. 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. BOSTON (WWLP) Governor Healey joined dozens of lawmakers and advocates to celebrate the signing of a long-term care industry reform bill at the State House in Boston on Thursday. This bill includes estate recovery, which will prevent some healthcare companies from seizing all of a disabled persons assets to pay back medical costs after they die, leaving some assets to be passed down to their families. Joe Tringali, who was a quadriplegic and an advocate for estate recovery, worked at the Stavros Center for Independent Living in Amherst for over 30 years. Although Tringali died last December, his partner of 22 years came to this bill signing to honor his legacy and lifetime of pushing for the rights of people with disabilities. This meant a great deal to us on a personal level as well as on a social justice level in terms of representing people who are often underrepresented., said Kathy Edgell, Tringalis partner and a fellow advocate. And it means the world to me. The founder of the Stavros Center, Chris Palames, met Joe Tringali when they were in Massachusetts General Hospital together in the summer of 1968. Palames also advocated for the long-term care bill, and he says long term care reform has always come from Western Massachusetts. I think one of the things, just for a long, long time, Western Mass has always been the center for major disability reform, said Palames. Western Mass all the way! Governor Healey told onlookers at the ceremony that advocates personal stories and hard work are what got this crucial bill across the finish line. Local News Headlines WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.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 WWLP. WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) With the two new high schools now in the rearview, the WFISD is ready to start working to elevate other areas of need in the school district. In the first of many upcoming meetings, the Community Advisory Council was brought together to provide ideas for how the WFISD should improve the middle schools. Superintendent Dr. Donny Lee said nothing is off the table. We want to do something thats pretty radical. We want to completely rethink how we do middle school, Dr. Lee said. We know we need to rethink everything in order to get the best possible outcomes from our students. Some of the data the council pored over during the meeting included previous STAAR test results and the socioeconomic breakdowns of the three current middle schools in the district: Kirby Middle School, which is now Hirschi Middle School, and Barwise and McNiel Middle Schools. United Regional introduces new high-tech solution for ER collaboration After looking at the data, several council members, including David Cook, saw that one of the middle schools desperately needed changes to level the playing field. What can we do to raise the levels of success both academically, socially and just from a positive standpoint? Cook said. What can we do in the community to help all three of our middle schools, but with a focus on the Hirschi Middle School situations that were dealing with now. Another conclusion drawn from the STAAR test scores was a noticeable dip in scores for students transitioning from fifth to sixth grade. Many council members perceived the dip to be caused by the heavy transition between the elementary school and middle school routines. Cook and others see a dedicated center for the sixth-graders as a potential solution to the problem. Physically, there is such a difference from a sixth grader to an eighth grader, and its just, we have to find some ways to support that transition from elementary into the middle school because we feel that not only will it help test scores, but also just the mental health of our students right now, Cook said. City accepting bids for Hotel by the Falls to replace with city park All of the ideas presented to Dr. Lee during the meeting will be compiled and presented at later meetings in the hope that a new path can be found to bring the middle schools in Wichita Falls back up to par. More meetings will be conducted before ideas are brought to the WFISD Board of Trustees, but the next meeting time has not yet been announced. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily 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 Texomashomepage.com. The AccuWeather RealVue Satellite on Saturday afternoon shows Hurricane Isaac (top right), Tropical Storm Joyce (bottom right) and the mass of clouds associated with what is left of Helene after it combined with a non-tropical weather feature over the eastern United States (top left). The breeding grounds of Helene may spawn a new named tropical storm during the first days of October, AccuWeather hurricane experts warn. "The Central American gyre is very active at the moment, and there is the potential for one or more systems to develop from this broad circulation through the first days of October," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Bob Smerbeck said. Within this tropical gyre, the air is not only rotating counterclockwise, but it is also rising. Rising air generates clouds, showers and thunderstorms, which can then organize into a tropical depression or storm under the right conditions. AccuWeather hurricane experts say there is a medium chance for tropical development in the Bay of Campeche during the first days of October. Should any tropical feature attempt to organize in these waters, a general westward path is expected toward Mexico around the middle of next week. Meanwhile, a high risk for tropical development is being highlighted to the east of there this week. Helene's beginning was in a similar zone of the southwestern Caribbean, in the water south of Cuba and west of Jamaica. According to AccuWeather Senior Director of Forecasting Operations Dan DePodwin, an area of high pressure is forecast to be centered over the eastern United States during the second half of the week, which may push any brewing tropical storm farther west in the Gulf of Mexico when compared to Helene's path. "At this early stage, however, it is too early to rule out any possibilities regarding the future track of a potential tropical storm," DePodwin stated. All interests from Mexico to the Gulf Coast of the United States are urged to remain vigilant to the latest developments in the tropical Atlantic given the potential for one or more storms to form in the coming days. GET THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP An uptick in tropical downpours and rough seas is expected across the Yucatan Peninsula and eastern coast of Mexico later this week regardless of tropical development. Heavy rain, gusty winds and dangerous seas would extend toward part of the Gulf Coast should a brewing storm jog to the north. The same Central American gyre may also spawn tropical development in the eastern Pacific Ocean in early October. Any additional development in the East Pacific may be near where John pestered southwestern Mexico and flooded the region for days after becoming a "zombie" storm. Elsewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, Hurricane Isaac and Tropical Storm Joyce will roam through open waters into next week, posing a risk to shipping interests only. The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season has produced 10 named storms and six hurricanes thus far, with two months left to go before its official end. Want next-level safety, ad-free? Unlock advanced, hyperlocal severe weather alerts when you subscribe to Premium+ on the AccuWeather app. AccuWeather Alerts are prompted by our expert meteorologists who monitor and analyze dangerous weather risks 24/7 to keep you and your family safer. Where Is Na'Ziyah? Police Claim Man Raped Missing 13-Year-Old, Then Killed Her After She Got Pregnant Jarvis Butts, 41, "targeted and befriended women to have sexual relationships with their young daughters," Wayne County, Mich., Prosecutor Kym Worthy alleges Michigan Department of Corrections, Detroit Police Department Jarvis Butts, Na'Ziyah Harris A 13-year-old Michigan girl vanished after getting off the bus in January. Now, authorities arrested a man they allege raped her and killed her after she became pregnant. On Thursday, Sept. 26, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced that Jarvis Butts, 41, of Highland Park, was arrested in connection with the death and disappearance of NaZiyah Harris, the Associated Press, WMYD and Fox2Detroit report. Today we are charging Jarvis Butts with one count of first-degree premeditated murder, one count of criminal sexual conduct in the second-degree and one count of child sexually abusive material, Worthy said at a press conference aired by Fox2 Detroit and viewed by PEOPLE. We are also charging Mr. Butts with more counts of criminal sex conduct on two more girls yes girls in two other separate cases, she said. The alleged victims are now 20 and 13 years old, respectively, but both were under 13 when the alleged crimes took place, Worthy said. "Mr. Butts targeted and befriended women to have sexual relationships with their young daughters," Worthy said. "He would have relationships with their mothers, but his true desire was to have sex with their young daughters. Thats what the evidence will show. Related: 13-Year-Old Girl Missing for Over a Month Since January School Bus Ride: I Want My Baby Home He was a classic and expert groomer and pedophile, she continued. "Its incredibly sad and incredibly unspeakable, and we want to bring justice to her and her family." NaZiyah was last seen on Jan. 9 about a quarter mile from her home, according to a bulletin from the Detroit Police Department. Her grandmother reported her missing that day when she failed to return home from school, Worthy said. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. The young girls remains have not yet been found, but Worthy said, "The evidence shows overwhelmingly in this case that she is deceased." Text messages show that NaZiyah met up with Butts on the day she disappeared, Worthy claimed. People he knew well also saw the two together in several different locations, Worthy alleged. We have evidence that at 9:30 p.m. on that day that Mr. Butts checked into a motel and NaZiyah was never seen or heard from again," she said. Speaking about a selfie NaZiyah took shortly before she vanished, Worthy said, She is smiling and waving and saying hello, but little did she know that she was really saying goodbye." Worthy later added, You look at that face and you do not see the horrors that she had gone through in her short life: the exploitation, the molestations, the sexual abuse and the pregnancy that she was concealing. Butts has children with Na'Ziyah's aunt, according to a release from the prosecutor's office, He allegedly began sending sexually explicit text messages to Na'Ziyah starting in September 2022, it says. She sent sexually explicit photographs of herself in return. "In November 2023, the evidence shows that Butts knows that she is pregnant," the release alleged. "His phone records show that he searches online about abortions, abortion pills and drinking red anti-freeze." Butts is being held in the Wayne County Jail on a $250,000 bond, where he has been held since April on other charges, online jail records show. It is unclear whether he has retained an attorney who can speak on his behalf. If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org. If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. The United Nations is set to vote on a treaty later this year intended to create norms for fighting cybercrime and the Biden administration is fretting over whether to sign on. The uncertainty over the treaty stems from fears that countries including Russia, Iran and China could use the text as a guise for U.N. approval of their widespread surveillance measures and suppression of the digital rights of their citizens. If the United States chooses not to vote in favor of the treaty, it could become easier for these adversarial nations named by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency as the biggest state sponsors of cybercrime to take the lead on cyber issues in the future. And if the U.S. walks away from the negotiating table now, it could upset other nations that spent several years trying to nail down the global treaty with competing interests in mind. While the treaty is not set for a vote during the U.N. General Assembly this week, its a key topic of debate on the sidelines, following meetings in New York City last week, and committee meetings set for next month once the worlds leaders depart. We want to affirmatively, definitely do things to drive international partnership on cybercrime, said Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology. On the other hand, if there are these elements raising concerns, we have to really put both sides on the scale and say, what's the right approach here? The treaty was troubled from its inception. A cybercrime convention was originally proposed by Russia, and the U.N. voted in late 2019 to start the process to draft it overruling objections by the U.S. and other Western nations. Those countries were worried Russia would use the agreement as an alternative to the Budapest Convention an existing accord on cybercrime administered by the Council of Europe, which Russia, China and Iran have not joined. The new U.N. effort comes as global ransomware attacks are on the rise, and it could give Russia, China and Iran a platform to rewrite a cybercrime convention on their own terms something the U.S. and other Western countries are determined to prevent. Its not a Trojan Horse, its a Russian horse, and it always was, Nick Ashton-Hart said of the U.N. treaty. He is head of the U.N. cybercrime convention delegation from the Cybersecurity Tech Accord, which comprises more than 100 cyber and tech groups including Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce and Oracle. As a result, the U.S. has gotten more involved in negotiating the treaty over a series of sessions in New York City and Vienna over the last three years reluctantly dragged in to prevent Russia, China and others from dominating the process. Its not whether its needed or not, it exists as a thing that was negotiated and countries are going to join it, John Lynch, chief of the Justice Departments Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and a key U.S. negotiator, said at a forum this week at American Universitys Washington College of Law. The U.S. joined a consensus vote approving a draft of the treaty finalized in August, with Neuberger noting this was due to the U.S. working to ensure civil liberties clauses made it in. However, few in the private sector and civil society space are happy about the text as it stands. Among a litany of concerns is that a clause in the agreement could be misused or misinterpreted allowing nations that sign on to request data on potential serious crimes in other nations; label work by journalists and security researchers as crimes; or make it easier to surveil peoples online activities. Katitza Rodriguez, policy director for global privacy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said weak human rights safeguards in the proposed treaty create a patchwork of protections that are not enough. EFF was among almost two dozen groups that published an open letter in July raising serious concerns about the cybercrime convention prior to the committees passage, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the International Chamber of Commerce have both described the current deal as flawed. This approach risks enabling abuses, as countries with weaker legal frameworks could misuse shared data for purposes beyond cybercrime, such as political repression, while undermining trust and slowing international cooperation, Rodriguez said. But those involved in crafting the treaty dispute these concerns. U.N. Ad Hoc Committee Vice Chair Claudio Peguero Castillo, cyber ambassador for the Dominican Republic, argued that the country would need a court order to spy on civilians, saying that there is no single provision in the convention that would explicitly allow for surveillance by member states. The aim of this cybercrime treaty is reducing the enemy. Our enemy is not the other state, our enemy is the criminal, Peguero Castillo said. We need to join forces in order to fight this crime. Now, the U.S. faces a decision on how to vote when the treaty is brought up later in the year, likely between Thanksgiving and Christmas, according to those negotiating the treaty. Should the U.S. vote no or abstain, some argue that it could severely harm U.S. credibility and give hostile nations free reign to bend the text in their favor. If we walk away we decide to just give up this process, the Russians, the Chinese will use this to amend the convention, the protocol, said Lynch, who argues the U.S. should sign on. Christopher Painter, the former cybersecurity coordinator at the State Department under both the Obama and Trump administrations, was present during the negotiations. He argued that while there are problems with the treaty, the Russians failed to add in language that would have made the text worse though they could easily try again in updates to the treaty. If only non-democratic countries who don't have to go to their Congress and immediately ratify this thing like Russia, like Cuba, like Syria, like Iran if they're the core group in the beginning, they get to shape what might be the second protocol, or the first protocol, Painter said. That means they get everything they couldn't get in [the first time] or may try to go through the back door. Not all agree with calls to push through a treaty while serious concerns still exist. Raman Jit Singh Chima, director of Asia Pacific policy at digital rights group Access Now, was also involved in negotiations, and warned that this is not a win by preventing an even worse treaty. It will actually provide an excuse for many states to justify current repression and constitute a flawed global standard, poisoning the design of national cybercrime laws for decades to come, he said. The Russian Embassy in Washington and the Iranian Mission to the U.N. did not respond to requests for comment on the cybercrime convention. Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said that China is committed to "working closely with all parties to promote the early adoption of an authoritative and universal convention that provides practical and effective solutions." Its an issue the White House has been wrestling with in recent weeks. Neuberger last week traveled to New York to discuss the convention, which included holding a call with around 20 groups that oppose the current treaty. We've been engaging key global tech companies as well to hear their concerns, Neuberger said of the meeting. We were really in listening mode, to hear them and to ask for specifics we want to really look at this with an open mind. Ashton-Hart was on the call Neuberger hosted, and while he praised the administration for the outreach toward key tech players, he said this was missing during the negotiation process. He noted that non-governmental groups and multiple defense ministries for foreign nations have gotten involved to express strong concerns in recent weeks. The impression Im getting is, they had no idea, and now are like, what is this? Ashton-Hart said. The White House is being tight-lipped about the administrations final decision on how it plans to vote, and Neuberger declined to give details beyond noting the administration is weighing its options. Top cyber officials at the State Department declined to comment, though the agency said last month it welcomes the adoption by the committee of the treaty. Lynch stressed that while he believes the U.S. should vote yes, it is strictly his personal opinion. A vote in favor would be only the first step for the U.S. in ratifying the treaty, as at least two thirds of the Senate would be required to approve it, a number increasingly difficult to achieve among polarized members. Some lawmakers are already against it. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committees subcommittee with oversight of cyber issues, said this week that he is weighing support for the treaty but has concerns about the current draft language being abused by Russia, China and Iran. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said he is working with colleagues to make clear that America must change course and begin listening to human rights activists who have been sounding the alarm about this convention for years, describing the treaty as helping China or Russia justify abusing surveillance to prop up their authoritarian states. The Biden administration has the next few weeks left to wrestle over the issue, but conversations are being had by diplomats on the sidelines of this weeks General Assembly in New York City and at the annual Counter Ransomware Initiative meeting in Washington next week. Regardless of how the U.S. and its allies vote, when the treaty comes up for consideration, the U.N. is almost certain to vote yes, given that the majority of nations already approved the treatys creation in 2019. It's going to get passed in the U.N., so how do you mitigate the potential harms you see there, Painter said. The U.S. government can play a real role here in working to mitigate the potential harms by helping countries implement this. But, he acknowledged, there is a lot of heat around this right now. White House declines to say if Iran killing Trump would be an 'act of war' President Biden is resisting Republican demands to warn Iran in no uncertain terms that killing former President Trump would be an act of war. The White House declined to comment on the specific demands but referred to a statement on the recent Iranian threats to Trumps life. "We consider this a national and homeland security matter of the highest priority, and we strongly condemn Iran for these brazen threats," National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savitt said. Savitt said Iran has long sought revenge against Trump and his officials for the killing of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in January 2020. "We have ensured that appropriate agencies are continuously and promptly providing the former presidents security detail with evolving threat information. Additionally, President Biden has reiterated his directive that the United States Secret Service should receive every resource, capability and protective measure required to address those evolving threats to the former president." Trump Briefed On Real And Specific' Threats To Assassinate Him Read On The Fox News App President Biden is resisting Republican demands to warn Iran in no uncertain terms that killing President Trump would be an act of war. On Tuesday, top U.S. intelligence officials briefed Trump about threats from Iran to assassinate him, his campaign said. On Wednesday, Trump prodded Biden to warn Iran it was risking hot war with the U.S. with such threats. "As you know, there have been two assassination attempts on my life that we know of, and they may or may not involve but possibly do Iran," Trump said at a campaign event in North Carolina. "If I were the president, I would inform the threatening country, in this case Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens," he added. Trump said he and the nation had been "threatened very directly by Iran" and the regime needed to know the consequences of harming a U.S. political candidate. "The best way to do it is through the office of the president, that [if] you do any attacks on former presidents or candidates for president, your country gets blown to smithereens, as we say." The White House said Iran has long been seeking revenge on Trump and his officials for the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, center. House Intelligence Chair Mike Turner also demanded Biden warn Iran. "President Biden and Vice President Harris must make it clear to Iran that any attempt on President Trumps life would be an act of war," the Ohio Republican said in a statement Thursday. But it comes as Middle East watchers believe Iran could be weeks to months away from the capacity to build a nuclear weapon fast approaching the capability to enrich uranium to the 90% threshold and with renewed activity at two nuclear weapons test sites. Trump also called it "strange" to see that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was in New York this week and was offered substantial protection as he attended the United Nations General Assembly. Does Iran Want Kamala Harris To Win? Experts Weigh In "We have large security forces guarding him, and yet theyre threatening our former president and the leading candidate to become the next president of the United States," Trump said, referring to himself. The U.S. is obligated to offer security to foreign heads of state at the General Assembly under its treaty with the U.N. Iran recently hacked the Trump campaign and obtained information that it then peddled to the Biden campaign and the media, U.S. intelligence officials revealed last week. Pezeshkian, who took office in July, ran on a platform suggesting that he would moderate the regime to get sanctions lifted from the West. Original article source: White House declines to say if Iran killing Trump would be an 'act of war' Gov. Josh Shapiro welcomes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sept. 22, 2024. (Photo by Commonwealth Media Services) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyys trip to a Scranton ammunition plant on Sunday has led to outrage, calls for a Ukrainian ambassador to be fired, and an investigation into whether the visit amounted to misuse of government resources by House Republicans. Now, the White House and the Pentagon have weighed in as well. We would encourage the House Republicans to drop this, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a press briefing Thursday. This is a political stunt. They need to drop this. It all started Sunday when Zelenskyy visited the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, accompanied by Gov. Josh Shapiro, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, whose district includes Scranton. The plant makes equipment that is critical to Ukraines defensive war against Russia. No elected Republicans were present for the event, and its not clear whether any were invited. That apparently outraged GOP House Leader Mike Johnson, (R-La) who wrote a letter to Zelenskyy calling for Ukraines ambassador to the U.S. to be fired. The facility was in a politically contested battleground state, was led by a top political surrogate for Kamala Harris, and failed to include a single Republican because on purpose no Republicans were invited, Johnson wrote in the letter. The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference. But Jean-Pierre said that the Sunday visit to the ammo plant was requested by Ukraine, and not the Harris campaign or White House. And the Pentagon called the trip official business. Regarding Sundays trip to Pennsylvania, the flight was a U.S. Department of Defense-funded mission, James Adams, a Pentagon spokesperson, said. These officials were conducting official business related to U.S. security assistance to Ukraine. Jean-Pierre added that Sunday was also not the first time that Zelenskyy had met with a partisan group of elected officials since the war began. In July, Zelenskyy traveled to Utah to speak to a bipartisan group of governors with the National Governors Association. While there, Zelenskyy met with Utahs governor, a Republican, and the states congressional delegation, all Republicans. Other House Republicans have echoed Johnsons call, with nine signing on to a letter requesting a Department of Justice investigation. Neither Harris nor the election were mentioned in video and press materials released by Shapiro after the Scranton visit, which was conducted under tight security. In a separate letter, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky) announced an investigation into whether the Biden-Harris administration attempted to use a foreign leader to benefit Vice President Harriss presidential campaign and, if so, necessarily committed an abuse of power. Other Democrats are pushing back as well. The Scranton Army Ammunition Plant is playing a critical role bolstering Ukraines forces, and I was honored to join President Zelenskyy to thank Pennsylvania workers for helping defend democracy, Casey said in a social media post. Attempts to smear his visit to our Commonwealth are an insult and a disgrace. Support for Ukraines defensive war against Russia has become a key issue in the U.S. presidential campaign, with the two candidates espousing sharply opposing views. Harris has called for the United States to continue supporting Ukraine with military aid. She delivered remarks on Thursday. Former President Donald Trump, on the other hand, has criticized American support for Ukraine and frequently praised Russian President Vladimir Putin. During a debate with Harris earlier this month, he declined to answer questions about whether he wants Ukraine to win the war. Yesterday in North Carolina, Trump said that Ukraine has been absolutely obliterated in the war, and accused Zelenskyy of making little, nasty aspersions about him. On Thursday, Trump said he would meet with Zelenskyy at Trump Tower in New York. His running mate, J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) has previously criticized U.S. support for Ukraine. Critics say a proposed peace plan he unveiled was effectively a concession to Russia Polling has repeatedly shown a majority of Americans favor providing support for Ukraine, with many saying that the United States should do more to help. Pennsylvania has the second highest number of Ukrainians of any state as a percentage of total population. Update: This article has been updated to add Speaker Mike Johnsons first name and correct the state Comer is from and add the full name of the and House Oversight and Accountability Committee. White House National Security spokesman John Kirby on Thursday discussed the latest cease-fire negotiations between Lebanon and Israel as tensions escalate in the region. He also acknowledged that there hasn't been much progress towards achieving a cease-fire in Gaza in recent days and weeks. VIDEO: John Kirby on US decision to send more troops to Middle East (ABCNews.com) ABC News' Linsey Davis sat down with Kirby to discuss more about potential cease-fires. ABC NEWS: We spoke with White House National Security spokesman John Kirby for more on the latest negotiations for a cease-fire between Lebanon and Israel and the situation in Gaza. White House National Security spokesman John Kirby, thank you so much for speaking with us. Just today in New York, [Israeli] Prime Minister Netanyahu said the policy is clear. We continue to hit Hezbollah with all our might. We will not stop until we achieve our goals. The US is pushing a temporary cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon. Israel says right now that's not an option. What's the disconnect here? KIRBY: Well, we're talking to them about exactly how to see if we can't move this forward. As you saw in multiple nations last night called for a 21-day cease-fire. And I want to stress a couple of things. It's 21 days. It's temporary. Nobody's suggesting that Israel doesn't have a right to defend itself against Hezbollah terrorists. Of course they do. I mean, the, Hezbollah just launched a ballistic missile at Tel Aviv just yesterday. But we believe that if the goal was to get families back home up near that border, to restore their lives and livelihoods, the way to do that is through diplomacy, not through an all out war. And so we're calling for a 21-day cease-fire. We wouldn't have issued that statement last night if it didn't come on the heels of what we believe were productive discussions with Israeli leaders at very high levels and those conversations with those Israeli leaders, this is my second point, are continuing today in New York City. ABC NEWS: A senior U.S. official told ABC News, "Israel acts like they are the superpower, not the U.S. The pressure has done no good. They do whatever they want." What's your response to that? KIRBY: I think comments like that are unhelpful and, quite frankly, not reflective of the deep and contextual relationship that we have with Israel. President Biden has been a staunch supporter of Israel in his entire public life, certainly as president of the United States, putting F-16s in with American pilots in the air to shoot Iranian missiles and drones down. I think we've proven to a fare-thee-well that that we mean it when we say we take our obligations to Israel and to their self-defense very, very seriously. Now, look, they don't agree on everything. Prime Minister Netanyahu and the president have known each other for going on 40 years. And but, you know, when it comes to a two-state solution, for instance, clearly, you know, we have a different view. But on the big thing, the thing that matters the most, that's the safety and security of the Israeli people -- both leaders believe strongly in that. And so that's why it's important to have these conversations and these discussions. And again, those are ongoing today. ABC NEWS: With regard to the ongoing war in Gaza, what's the latest on a cease-fire to get the hostages home, including Americans, and to stop the bloodshed of innocent civilians? KIRBY: Man, Linsey, I wish I could tell you that, you know, we're on the brink of a breakthrough here. We're not. There hasn't been a whole lot of progress in recent days and weeks on getting a cease-fire in Gaza forward that would allow for those hostages to get home. And the principal obstacle to this progress is [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar himself. He's sitting down there in a tunnel surrounded by hostages and unwilling to have any kind of meaningful negotiation and and move towards a cease-fire that would get those hostages home and get much needed, desperate need to, desperate humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza. So we're going to keep at it. The president directed the team to continue to work to see if there's anything we can do to move this forward. And so we're, we're still trying to, to achieve that outcome. ABC NEWS: Should Netanyahu be doing anything specifically to try to move this forward? KIRBY: We are, as you might expect, very much having active conversations with the Israelis about, about trying to come up with a fresh approach here, a way to move it forward. It was an Israeli proposal that started this whole thing back in May that, that really formed the architecture of the, of the agreement. And the vast majority of that architecture was approved by both sides. It's when you get down to the, the last 10% or so, when you're really talking about implementing details, it, that it got very, very hard. ABC NEWS: We spoke with the queen of Jordan [Rania Al Abdullah] earlier this week. And I just want to play you a little clip about what she had to say about America's role in this conflict. RANIA: Today, we are much closer to a regional war than we have been in the past year. And I think it is time for the global community to act. You know, specifically the U.S., I think the, you know, expressions of concern or even calls for a cease-fire really are meaningless when, when you continue to provide arms that kill civilians. You know, the answer is never more arms. That only needs more violence and more escalation. And America's support, the blanket support that's provided for Israel, has exceeded any reasonable political calculus. ABC NEWS: Your response on that? If Israel continues to press ahead on two fronts of this conflict, is there a point at which the U.S. needs to consider adding conditions to supporting Israel? KIRBY: Well, I think, as I think we've shown, we have not been shy about expressing concerns to the Israelis about the manner in which some of their operations have been conducted back down when they were operating in Rafah. We did withhold a shipment of 2,000 pound bombs because the president was concerned that those kinds of bombs could not and should not be used in densely populated areas. So we have been very firm with the Israelis, again, about the prosecution of these operations. We also know it's important that Israel has the means to defend itself. And they're up against, they're in a tough neighborhood, and they're up against enemies that are fully resource and funded by Iran. And so we're also doing everything we can to try to make sure we're holding Iran accountable for these destabilizing activities. ABC NEWS: White House National Security spokesman John Kirby, we thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it. KIRBY: My pleasure, yeah. White House's John Kirby acknowledges challenge of potential Middle East cease-fires originally appeared on abcnews.go.com The Prof is pivotal, Matt Hancock observed, as he mused over how to frighten the nation into following Covid rules. Writing about Chief Medical Officer Sir Chris Whitty in his Pandemic Diaries, the former Health Secretary noted that the public seemed to like his calm, reassuring manner. The Government needed to make the most of that respect, he concluded and asked Whitty to use his most authoritative voice to make a bossy social media clip about new social distancing rules. The date was March 25, 2020: two days after Boris Johnson gave his historic address to the nation, instructing everyone to stay at home. Prince Charles had Covid and (though he didnt yet know it) so did Hancock. Terrified by Doomsday predictions of bodies piling high, and apocalyptic scenes from hospitals in Italy, the British did what they were told. No government in history had ever attempted anything remotely like it and trust was critical. As Hancock told the House of Commons at the time, the draconian measures the government was taking to stop the spread would change the lives of everyone. The scale of public sacrifice required meant there was no room for doubt about what was at stake. Who better to convey the severity of the situation than a mild mannered distinguished medic like Whitty? Very early in the crisis, Hancock clocked that the man he affectionately called the the Prof was a very powerful asset. For all his legendary arrogance, the then health secretary was sufficiently self-aware to recognise that doctors always get a better hearing than politicians. In the league table of most and least trusted professions, medics consistently rank in the top five (alongside nurses, pilots, and librarians and engineers); while politicians always (quite rightly) languish at the bottom. With his gentle demeanour and unimpeachable professional credentials, the Chief Medical Officer was the perfect person to deliver difficult messages. Hancock had lucked out and exploited it. Privately, the modest Whitty was far from comfortable with his new very public facing role. Recalling how he ordered the CMO to make social media clips repeating key mantras like the hated two metre rule, Hancock writes in his diaries that the Prof found recording these sorts of things terribly embarrassing. Nonetheless, Whitty did it, which means he cannot escape accountability for the terrible mistakes that were made. As the old Whitehall saying goes, advisers advise and ministers decide. But in these unique circumstances, it is no exaggeration to say that the Chief Medical Officer drove the pandemic response. Had he not personally recommended and promoted the lockdown policies we now know were so flawed, they would simply never have happened. Accordingly, he must take full responsibility for the dreadful consequences. Far, far too late in the Public Inquiry that took years to get underway, and still has no end date, Whitty this week acknowledged what so many of us could quite clearly see at the time: that the government went way over the top in its initial pandemic response. Of course, he didnt put it quite like that. What he actually said, giving evidence this week, is that in retrospect, he still worries about whether the government got the level of concern right. Some people would say... if anything we over did it, he conceded. In a further remarkable concession, he went on to declare that in hindsight, ordering 2.3million people to cut themselves off from the world entirely for 12 weeks may have done more damage than it prevented. He now says he is unsure he would go down that route again, because it caused significant harms. Say what? This is extraordinary! If Whitty is no longer sure that the elderly and most vulnerable (around whom the entire response to the pandemic revolved) needed to self-isolate, what on earth is left of the case for anyone else locking down? In his characteristically understated way, Whitty appears to have shattered the case for lockdowns. If even he wouldnt repeat the policy, who would? Sadly, it has taken so long to extract this confession that the significance is in danger of being lost. For just as the criminally wasteful public inquiry is finally starting to get interesting, most ordinary people have lost the will to live, and are no longer affording it any attention. Who can blame them? We have had months and months of irrelevant minutiae from civil servants and other dreary figures nobody has ever heard of. That a government which spends so much time wailing about the state of the public finances nonetheless sees fit to spend 137,000 every single working day simply responding to this charade beggars belief. Shamefully, that official figure 9.285 million in the first quarter of this year on civil servants and lawyers alone - is literally only the half of it. Every day, the Covid Inquiry itself spends almost the same amount again. The whole ruinously expensive exercise may not be of Labours making, but as they wail about great black holes in the public finances, they most certainly have the power to stop it. As many of us have argued ad nauseum, all it need do is answer the single most important question: were national lockdowns ever necessary or justified, and should they ever be repeated? As weary as we may all be of the Baroness Hallett boreathon, the answer to this question could hardly be more consequential. Therefore what Whitty has to say deserves very close attention, especially since he considers another pandemic is inevitable. Bit by bit, the edifice he and Hancock constructed to imprison us is now falling down. From the absurdity of the medically meritless pieces of cloth we were forced to wear over our faces, to the unforgivable sacrifice of a generation of children who were needlessly deprived of going to school, so much of what we were told has now been exposed as a monstrous lie. While youngsters are resilient, and most bounced back, a small but significant number are still suffering and will never achieve their full potential. As Whitty now admits, theres a whole additional group of lockdown victims: those who were condemned to an early death or long term suffering because ministers put protecting the NHS ahead of caring for those who use it. The CMO now concedes that in their desperation to prevent the health service from becoming overwhelmed, those in charge of the pandemic response failed to convey that it was still open for business. The trouble is, it wasnt. The gatekeepers to the system GPs literally shut up shop, posting hostile messages on surgery doors. No wonder people failed to get lumps and bumps checked out. What really rankles is that the architects of this historic disaster are all still sitting pretty. So far from the downfall they deserve, they have prospered. Knighted for his public service, Whitty is still in an almighty position of power, as Chief Medical Officer. Meanwhile his pandemic sidekick, former Chief Scientific Officer Patrick Vallance, is literally lording it, having recently been given a peerage to join Keir Starmers front bench. As for Hancock? Mercifully, since stepping down as an MP, he has temporarily disappeared. Rumour has it that he has landed a plum job in the Middle East. If so, those still suffering as a result of his blunders wont be shedding any tears. 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. Why does Utah have Dark Sky rules and where are these Dark Sky areas? SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) Many places throughout Utah have Dark Sky initiatives, many counties and cities have Dark Sky ordinances, and many Utah state and national parks have both. But what is a Dark Sky Initiative or Dark Sky Ordinance? What is a Dark Sky Initiative? A Dark Sky Initiative is a movement to reduce light pollution to protect the natural night sky. Numerous cities in Utah either have initiatives or ordinances though Heber City and the Heber Valley region have been in the spotlight lately. A new temple for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Heber has received a lot of pushback from citizens of the Wasatch after the Wasatch County Council approved the temple last year. Why is Utah so obsessed with dirty sodas? It may be traced back to LDS health guidelines Dark sky initiatives and ordinances have become more and more popular over the years. The NIH noted that light pollution can suppress melatonin and disrupt a persons circadian rhythm. DarkSky International states that it can lead to sleep disorders as well as depression. Who compiles and keeps track of these areas? Dark Sky Places are compiled by the International Dark Sky Places (IDSP) program. This program certifies communities, parks, and protected areas around the world that preserve and protect dark sites through responsible lighting policies and public education, the IDSP website says. Utah is home to the most areas certified as Dark Sky Places in the country. Several more Utah cities outside of Heber also have dark-sky ordinances or initiatives going. Some cities and towns in Utah have been recognized by the IDSP as dark sky communities. The Mighty Five Utahs five major National Parks all are certified as Dark Sky Places. Utah alone as a state has almost 30 designated Dark Sky Places. Where in the Salt Lake and Utah Valley region can you experience Dark Skies? If youre in the Salt Lake or Utah Valley area, there are two places you can go to experience the sight of the night sky for yourself and a few more on the Wasatch back. In the Salt Lake area, you can go to Antelope Island State Park. Antelope Island is one of the state parks certified as a dark sky park. If you want to head up into the Wasatch Range and toward the Wasatch back, East Canyon State Park and Jordanelle State Park are your places to be. For those in the Utah Valley, you can visit Timpanogos Cave National Monument the park routinely offers night sky programs during the summer, and the cave system can also be toured by visitors. This partnership is aided by the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest and local astronomy groups. Other places to go throughout Utah As previously mentioned, the Mighty Five National Parks are certified as Dark Sky Places. According to the IDSP, other Utah state parks recognized as Dark Sky Places, aside from the three previously mentioned, are: Dead Horse Point State Park Fremont Indian State Park Goblin Valley State Park Goosenecks State Park Rockport State Park Steinaker State Park A handful of towns, cities, and counties have Dark Sky Initiatives set up. These five cities are certified by the IDSP as Dark Sky Communities: Helper Springdale Torrey Moab Castle Valley Lastly, a few national monuments, other than Timpanogos Cave, are also dedicated as Dark Sky Places. Cedar Breaks National Monument Natural Bridges National Monument Rainbow Bridge National Monument Hovenweep National Monument Dinosaur National Monument If youve never seen the night sky in all of its majesty, this is your sign to go and do just that. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. When Vice President Kamala Harris visits the border city of Douglas on Friday, she will tour a port of entry being revitalized by $400 million that was signed into law by President Joe Biden. She also will visit a city that sits within the busiest portion of the U.S.-Mexico border when it comes to illegal immigration. The Democratic vice president will make her first trip to the southern border as a presidential candidate on Friday, taking a swing through battleground Arizona to share her vision for border security. Polls show a tight race between Harris and former President Donald Trump in the state, with Trump slightly ahead in the latest surveys. Voters here name immigration as one of the most important issues as they weigh who to vote for on Nov. 5, and more voters say they trust Trump to do a better job addressing the issue than Harris. Douglas Mayor Donald Huish and others who spoke Thursday to The Arizona Republic said they couldnt be sure why Harris chose Douglas as the site of her first stop on the southern border as a presidential candidate but noted the Biden administrations impact on the local port of entry project. Kamala Harris in Arizona: Updates from vice president's trip to US-Mexico border One of the most positive things that is happening in Douglas is the investment from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It will be the most state-of-the-art, climate-controlled, net-zero emission port in the United States," Huish said. That's critical not only to commerce, free flow of commerce, but it's also going to enhance the security of the border. The project, known as The Two-Port Solution, entails revamping the existing Raul H. Castro Port of Entry and building a second commercial port to ease traffic and help U.S. Customs and Border Protection better accomplish its mission. Douglas is a city of 15,500 people in Cochise County. It sits on the U.S.-Mexico border, some 123 miles southeast of Tucson. The city shares a border with Agua Prieta, Mexico, which has a population of about 91,000. We're excited to have the vice president come visit our community, and the significance of it is enormous as far as I'm concerned. It will give the vice president an opportunity to not only just visit for a picture, but my understanding is, from her campaign, that she wants to listen, said Huisch, who was invited to join Harris during the visit. I applaud her for wanting to do that, and I think it'll be very productive to be able to see that. To see the positives and the concerns, which will allow her to develop her immigration policy as she goes forward. The city is part of what U.S. Customs and Border Protection calls the Tucson Sector, a 262-mile stretch of the southern border that covers most of the state of Arizona. Its the busiest section of the border in the country for illegal immigration apprehensions and marijuana seizures, according to CBP. Crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border reached record highs during the Biden administration, but have dropped significantly since Biden signed an executive order to restrict asylum at the southern border.The Tucson sector, which is part of Cochise County, will come up as the highest encounters on the southwest border this fiscal year, said GOP Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels, who was invited to join Harris at the border on Friday. Dannels said hes proud of the innovations that law enforcement has made in his county to combat crime and is happy that Harris will see them Friday. But Dannels noted he has mixed emotions because the visit is happening three-and-a-half years into her term as vice president. Harris will receive official briefings on operations and progress on disrupting the flow of fentanyl through the southern border when she tours the Raul H. Castro Port of Entry. She also will discuss her support for reviving a bipartisan border bill that stalled in Congress earlier this year. Cesar Fierros, communications director for advocacy group Living United for Change in Arizona, said he hopes Harris goes beyond border security and talks about comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship during her time in the state. Many of the residents that work in Douglas also live on the other side of the border, so they come and go across the border through the port of entry every day. Many communities in Douglas, Arizona, also have families that live across the border as well, Fierros said. So I think Douglas, Arizona, is a good place to have that conversation. Aid to communities: 2 Arizona border towns receive millions of dollars to modernize their ports of entry This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kamala Harris in Arizona: Here's why she picked border city of Douglas Michael Smith, a 52-year-old from Cornelius, North Carolina, could be the most successful musician you have never heard of. It is thought that, in a little over five years, songs Smith uploaded to Spotify and other streaming services have been played more than four billion times, netting him $12 million (9 million) in royalties. Only a tiny number of the worlds biggest performers your Taylor Swifts or Ed Sheerans are listened to as much, or make millions from streaming each year. Smith, however, does not belong in such exalted company. Instead, he has been charged by the American authorities with orchestrating a scheme to steal millions of dollars of music royalties from the likes of Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and Amazon Music. By using artificial intelligence (AI) to create hundreds of thousands of songs, and making an audience of fake accounts to stream them, Smith was able to illicitly steal money to which he was not entitled, according to an indictment brought in New York this month. In an email breaking down his scheme that he sent to himself in 2017, Smith reckoned that he could use more than 1,000 bot accounts on music platforms to generate about 661,440 daily streams. At first, he wrote these songs himself. The royalty rates paid at the time meant that equated to $3,307.20 (2,500) every day, or $1.2 million (900,000) annually. Less than two years later, after he started using AI to create hundreds of thousands of songs, he was earning $110,000 (80,000) per month. Real deal: Taylor Swift is one of Spotifys most successful artists - ANGELA WEISS / AFP His supposed artists had names like Calorie Screams, Calvinistic Dust and Camel Edible, with songs given the catchy titles of Zygophyceae, Zygophyllaceae and Zygophyllum. The claim alleges that Smith set up thousands of fake accounts to stream the tracks, which sounded clunky, rudimentary and computer-generated. Smith faces three charges, including wire fraud and money laundering, each of which could land him in prison for 20 years. He pleaded not guilty in an initial hearing last week, and a judge set his bail at $500,000 (375,000). It is the first such criminal case brought by the American authorities and sheds light on an issue that is one of the biggest affecting the music industry but often flies under the radar. Streaming fraud costs the music industry about 10 per cent of streaming revenues, or $2 billion (1.5 billion) annually, according to Andrew Batey and Morgan Hayduk, co-founders of Vancouver start-up Beatdapp, which helps the streamers combat swindlers. The large streaming services tend to pay artists royalties based on the proportion of total listening that their songs comprise of all users consumption. This so-called pro-rata approach means that each stream of a song (for at least 30 seconds) tends to be worth a fraction of a penny. But it also ensures that every stream has value. If you get enough streams, the windfall can be great especially if you do not have to make real music listened to by real people. Michael Smith has been indicted for fraud Online fraud is almost as old as the internet itself and recent technological advances, such as generative AI and the ability for people to mask their locations, has provided grifters with the opportunity to steal a huge chunk of cash that should be paid to legitimate artists. The scale of the potential problem is mind-boggling, as roughly 100,000 tracks are uploaded to music streaming services, including Spotify, each and every day. That is more than the number of new songs released in the entirety of 1989. Such volume gives canny fraudsters cover for their unlawful activities as it can be difficult for music distribution services and streamers to tell the difference between the real and fake. The fraud we catch is often way more sophisticated than [Smiths alleged behaviour]; that kind of fraud is super easy to spot, says Beatdapps Batey. We see tons of it. Its definitely not unique. He adds that the more complex frauds include criminals buying the login data of real users on the dark web and hijacking their accounts to stream bogus songs, as well as running bot farms that boost the listening numbers on illicit tracks. Privately, music industry executives complain about the proliferation of fraudsters but tend not to make a big deal about it in public out of concern that doing so may strain relations with the streaming services, which provide the bulk of revenues to record labels now. Fraud is a serious issue for many streaming services - Rodrigo Oropeza / AFP [Streaming fraud] doesnt sound particularly serious: it doesnt sound like theft or particularly damaging to the artist, but it is both of those things, says Victoria Oakley, chief executive of the IFPI, which represents the recording industry globally. This is real money being taken away from creators [as fraudulent streams reduce the royalties paid to legitimate artists on the pro-rata model]. If you are deviating sums away from artists and rights holders, it is a serious issue and the labels really care. Artists will care, for two reasons. One is definitely about losing out on money that should rightfully be theirs; the other is about fairness and respect for creativity. Pressure is, slowly, being brought to bear on the fraudsters. A Danish man was sentenced to 18 months in prison for copyright infringement and fraudulently making royalties on several hundred tracks that made him Denmarks 46th highest-earning streaming composer for three years. More than 200,000 of his profits were also confiscated, while streaming manipulation sites have been taken offline in Canada and Brazil. The case against Smith is likely to be the most significant to date, especially as it has been brought by federal prosecutors in the US and could clarify what is a murky area, legally. I think its an easy case for them to potentially win and set a precedent, says Batey. This could be a landmark case, because once you have that precedent you can start going after all the other types of fraud we see. 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. Why are the flags flying at half-staff in Wisconsin on Friday? You might notice flags around Wisconsin flying at half-staff Friday. The gesture, ordered by Gov. Tony Evers, is in remembrance of a World War II veteran whose remains were recently returned home. Here's what to know about the flags at half-staff and the Wisconsinite they're honoring. The American Flag flies at half staff at Milwaukee City Hall in Milwaukee on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022. Why are flags at half-staff in Wisconsin on Friday? Wisconsin flags have been lowered Friday, Sept. 27 in honor of U.S. Army Air Force Staff Sgt. Ralph H. Bode, a Racine native who died in World War II. During his time in the war, Bode served on a combat bomb squadron. In September 1944, his aircraft was shot down while on a bombing mission over Germany. His remains would not be recovered until 1951, after which they were transported to various American burial sites abroad. In December 2023, Department of Defense officials finally identified Bode's remains and began the process of sending them home to Wisconsin. Bode will be buried Friday in Racine. Staff Sergeant Bode selflessly gave his life fighting for the freedoms of his fellow Americans and our allies abroad, Evers said in an news release. It is an honor to be able to help welcome him back to Wisconsin after 80 years, where he can finally be laid to rest in his hometown of Racine. How long will flags be at half-staff? Flags will fly at half-staff from sunrise to sunset Friday. Where will flags be at half-staff? According to Evers' order, the American flag and the Wisconsin state flag will fly at half-staff at all buildings, grounds and military installations belonging to the state of Wisconsin. Why do flags fly at half-staff? U.S. flags typically fly at half-staff in the wake of national tragedies or after deaths of government officials, military members or first responders. They also fly at half-staff on Memorial Day and other national days of remembrance, including 9/11. "The United States flag flies at half-staff or at half-mast when the nation or a state is in mourning," USA.gov says. "The president, a state governor, or the mayor of the District of Columbia can order flags to fly at half-staff." This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Why are the flags at half-staff in Wisconsin today? (Bloomberg) -- In a world coming apart at the seams, theres arguably nothing more alluring than the golden visa, a Plan B for the wealthy that allows them to effectively buy a second passportor even full citizenshipwith a large cash investment. The European golden visa became popular during the European debt crisis more than a decade ago, when countries like Spain, Greece, Portugal and Italy were in dire need of cash. Most Read from Bloomberg Those programs raised more than $25 billion in 12 years, a third of which went to Portugal, well known for its massive influx of tourists, digital nomads and elderly visa seekers. But as these arrangements became popular, blowback over corruption and real estate prices increased, leading many countries to tighten rules. In this Bloomberg Originals mini-documentary, The Golden Migration May Be on Borrowed Time, we explore how the golden visa is being transformed as a result, and why its days may nevertheless be numbered. As golden visas came under scrutiny, governments sought to channel the money into underfunded economic sectors. Several golden visa eligible funds cropped up, offering investments in everything from solar and farmland to wine, self storage and everything in between. Julian Johnson, co-founder of Tejo Ventures, saw an opportunity to offer investment in Portugals solar infrastructure. We are using the Portugal golden visa almost as a Trojan horse for us to invest in climate, Johnson said. Theres a massive amount of pipeline that we are essentially stepping in to finance. To align their efforts with local aspirations of sustainable development, Tejo Ventures teamed up with the Portuguese firm CleanWatts, which aims to distribute excess power to nearby communities. When we heard about Tejo, it was like a match made in heaven. For us as a country, this kind of fund is bringing a lot of value, said CleanWatts Vice President Maria Benquerenca. Despite the shift though, the European Union continues to pressure members to tighten regulations on their golden visas. Spain recently announced a plan to end its program for foreign property buyers, while Greece has increased the minimum investment to 800,000 Euros ($894,000) in some cases. Watch The Golden Migration May Be on Borrowed Time to learn more about the threats to the golden visa. To see more Bloomberg Originals video documentaries, click here.See the latest videos from Bloomberg Originals here. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla. Hurricane Helene roared ashore as a powerful Category 4 storm in a sparsely populated region of Florida, peeling the siding from buildings, trapping residents in rising floodwaters and knocking out power to millions of customers. At least five people were reported dead. The storm made landfall late Thursday with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph in the rural Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Floridas Panhandle and peninsula meet. Video on social media sites showed sheets of rain coming down and siding coming off buildings in Perry, Florida, near where the storm arrived. One local news station showed a home that was overturned. First responders were out in boats early Friday to rescue people trapped by flooding in Citrus County, some 120 miles (193 kilometers) south of Perry. If you are trapped and need help please call for rescuers DO NOT TRY TO TREAD FLOODWATERS YOURSELF, the sheriffs office warned in a Facebook post. Authorities said the water could contain live wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris. Nearly 4 million homes and businesses were without power Friday morning in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports. One person was killed in Florida when a sign fell on their car, and two people were reported killed in a possible tornado in south Georgia as the storm approached. Trees that toppled onto homes were blamed for deaths in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Anderson County, South Carolina. The hurricane came ashore near the mouth of the Aucilla River on Floridas Gulf Coast. That location was only about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of where Hurricane Idalia hit last year at nearly the same ferocity and caused widespread damage. As the hurricanes eye passed near Valdosta, Georgia, a city of 55,000 near the Florida line, dozens of people huddled early Friday in a darkened hotel lobby. The wind whistled and howled outside. Electricity was out, with hallway emergency lights, flashlights and cellphones providing the only illumination. Water dripped from light fixtures in the lobby dining area, and roof debris fell to the ground outside. Fermin Herrera, 20, his wife and their 2-month-old daughter left their room on the top floor of the hotel, where they took shelter because they were concerned about trees falling on their Valdosta home. We heard some rumbling, said Herrera, cradling the sleeping baby in a downstairs hallway. We didnt see anything at first. After a while the intensity picked up. It looked like a gutter that was banging against our window. So we made a decision to leave. In Thomas County, Georgia, where residents had been under a curfew, the sheriffs office said it was extended until noon Friday. This curfew helps protect first responders and citizens of our community as conditions are still very hazardous. Please shelter in place, the office posted online. Helene is the third storm to strike the city in just over a year. Tropical Storm Debby blacked out power to thousands in August, while Hurricane Idalia damaged an estimated 1,000 homes in Valdosta and surrounding Lowndes County a year ago. I feel like a lot of us know what to do now, Herrera said. Weve seen some storms and grown some thicker skins. Soon after it crossed over land, Helene weakened to a tropical storm, with its maximum sustained winds falling to 70 mph. At 5 a.m., the storm was about 40 miles east of Macon, Georgia, and about 100 miles southeast of Atlanta, moving north at 30 mph, the National Hurricane Center in Miami reported. Forecasters expected the system to continue weakening as it moves into Tennessee and Kentucky and drops heavy rain over the Appalachian Mountains, with the risk of mudslides and flash flooding. Even before landfall, the storm's wrath was felt widely, with sustained tropical storm-force winds and hurricane-force gusts along Florida's west coast. Water lapped over a road in Siesta Key near Sarasota and covered some intersections in St. Pete Beach. Lumber and other debris from a fire in Cedar Key a week ago crashed ashore in the rising water. Beyond Florida, up to 10 inches of rain had fallen in the North Carolina mountains, with up to 14 inches (36 centimeters) more possible before the deluge ends, setting the stage for flooding that forecasters warned could be worse than anything seen in the past century. Please write your name, birthday, and important information on your arm or leg in a PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified, the sheriff's office in mostly rural Taylor County warned those who chose not to evacuate in a Facebook post, the dire advice similar to what other officials have dolled out during past hurricanes. School districts and multiple universities canceled classes. Airports in Tampa, Tallahassee and Clearwater were closed Thursday, while cancellations were widespread elsewhere in Florida and beyond. A day before hitting the U.S., Helene swamped parts of Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula, flooding streets and toppling trees as it brushed the resort city of Cancun and passed offshore. In western Cuba, Helene knocked out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses as it brushed past the island. At one point, forecasters feared that hurricane conditions could extend as far as 100 miles north of the Georgia-Florida line. Overnight curfews were imposed in many cities and counties in south Georgia. This is one of the biggest storms weve ever had, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said. For Atlanta, Helene could be the worst strike on a major Southern inland city in 35 years, said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd. Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures. Payne reported from Tallahassee, Florida, and Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri. Associated Press journalists Seth Borenstein in New York; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Russ Bynum in Valdosta, Georgia; Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Andrea Rodriguez in Havana; Mark Stevenson and Maria Verza in Mexico City; and Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, contributed to this report. Photos: Hurricane Helene The entire nation will vote on the next president of the United States this fall, but the election will likely come down to seven key swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. With the outsized importance of these states, it's worth taking a closer look at the data we have in each of them not just where the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump stands today, but also each candidate's path to victory and what issues could tip the election. Second up: the Silver State, Nevada, which is part of an increasingly purple swath in the Southwest. The history With one exception 1976 Nevada voted for the winner in every presidential contest from 1912 until 2016, when it broke its winning streak by voting for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by just over 2 points. While it has only six electoral votes, those votes have proven decisive in the tight contests of the recent era. Nevada helped elect President Joe Biden in 2020, who carried the state by a nearly identical margin to Clinton's, and in 2022, the purple state helped determine control of the Senate in a close race that took days to call. PHOTO: The results of the last six presidential elections in Nevada compared with the national popular vote. (Katie Marriner and Amina Brown for 538) Presidential margins in the state have been narrow over the last two decades (with the exception of former President Barack Obama's relatively big wins in 2008 and 2012) and in many cases have closely approximated the national popular vote. Despite having consistently tight races, the state has been steadily blue in presidential races since 2008, while also trending right compared to the country as a whole. In 2008, Obama won Nevada by 12 percentage points, compared to his 7-point win nationally, putting the state 5 points to the left of the country. But in each election since then, Nevada has inched right. In 2020, Biden won nationally by 4 points, but only won the Silver State by 2, placing it to the right of the national popular vote for the first time since the 2004 presidential election. The 2024 polls Polls show an even closer race this year. Harris leads by about 1 point in 538's polling average of the state.* That's a little worse than her performance nationally, where she leads Trump by nearly 3 points, but it's an improvement over Biden, who was trailing Trump in the state. PHOTO: 538's 2024 presidential polling average in Nevada showing Vice President Kamala Harris above former President Donald Trump by 1 point. (538 Photo Illustration) The demographics Nearly three-fourths of Nevada's population of 3.1 million lives in the Las Vegas metropolitan area in the state's southern tip, giving the city a dominant place in the electoral politics of the Silver State. Beyond that, the Reno metropolitan area on the state's western bend clocks in with nearly half a million people, while most of the rest of the state is an extremely rural desert. A little over 28 percent of the state's total population is Hispanic or Latino, making it the largest minority group in the state. Indeed, the state is home to the first Latina senator, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, and targeting Latinos in the Las Vegas area has been an important strategy for both parties. A report from the University of Southern California's Center for Inclusive Democracy found that while only about half of Latino voters across the country turned out in 2020 compared to about two-thirds of the general population, they still made up 15 percent of all voters in Nevada that year. And, as we see in polls across the country, Republicans seem to be making gains with these voters; in an average of polls conducted over the last month, Nevada Latino voters said they would vote for Harris over Trump by a 21-point margin (58 percent to 37 percent)**, a slight drop from the 26-point margin Biden had over Trump among the demographic in 2020, but about on par with national polling among Latino voters. The state is also growing and diversifying rapidly. Its population increased 15 percent between 2010 and 2020, driven by growth among minority groups as the white population shrank, according to the Center for Inclusive Democracy report. That included around 40 percent growth in both Asian and Black populations in the state. Overall, one-third of Nevada voters in 2020 were nonwhite a number that could increase this year if those demographic trends have continued. The state also has a slightly lower percentage of adults with at least a bachelor's degree 29 percent compared to 36 percent nationwide. The divide between voters with or without college degrees has been one of the most important political divides of the past few elections, and voters without college degrees have become another battleground demographic group of sorts. Since his first presidential run, Trump has dominated among white voters without college degrees, while college graduates have migrated solidly into the Democratic Party. And while Black and Latino voters still overwhelmingly cast their ballots for Democrats in recent elections, those without college degrees have been trending toward the Republican Party like their white counterparts have been. All of that means that the state abounds with key demographic groups for each party, which helps explain why the elections there have been so close. The issues To a unique degree, Nevada's economy depends on the hospitality industry. It was among the states most impacted by the recession during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the pandemic's economic impacts were particularly lasting there. Unsurprisingly, the top issue for Nevada voters going into the election is the economy, which 39 percent of likely voters named as the most important issue facing their state in an Emerson College/The Hill poll of swing states from September. But that's actually a bit less than the share of voters nationally (43 percent) who said the same in a similar poll from Emerson College in September. In fact, with the exception of Arizona, Nevada voters were the least likely of all swing-state voters to name the economy as their top issue. Instead, many appear to be focused on a related issue that has been particularly troubling in the state: housing. Housing affordability was the second most important issue to Nevada voters, with 16 percent naming it as their top issue, the highest of any state in the Emerson swing-state surveys. Nevada's surge of new residents, concentrated in the Las Vegas area, has put pressure on a housing market struggling to keep up with demand. Many new residents are moving in from California, which has a much higher cost of living, making Nevada a bargain for them but helping push prices out of reach for existing residents. According to Zillow, the Home Value Index in Nevada has grown 34 percent since the start of the Biden presidency, slightly faster than the rate of increase nationwide. The median rental price in Nevada is $2,075, which is $25 less than the national median but represents a $75 increase since September 2023. And Harris may have an advantage on the issue: According to a September Bloomberg/Morning Consult survey, Nevadans trust Harris over Trump on the issue of housing by a 10-point margin (49 percent to 39 percent of registered voters). On the other hand, Trump appears to have an advantage on the economy in the state (as he does nationally). Fifty-three percent of registered voters in Nevada trust him more than Harris on the issue, according to an August CNN/SSRS poll. According to an earlier Emerson College/The Hill poll of the state, 71 percent of likely voters also support Trump's proposal (that's also been adopted by Harris) to eliminate taxes on tips, perhaps because so many Nevadans work in industries where they receive tips in addition to wages. Both candidates announced their support for the policy at rallies in Las Vegas. Beyond the economy, immigration is also a big issue for Nevadans, with 8 percent naming it as the most important issue facing their state in the Emerson College/The Hill September poll. A look at the demographic breakdown also shows that the issue is more complicated than topline numbers might indicate. Latinos care more about the economy (44 percent) and housing affordability (16 percent) than immigration (5 percent). White Nevadans were more likely to say immigration was their top issue (9 percent), but it still came in behind the economy (38 percent), housing affordability (15 percent) and threats to democracy (11 percent). The downballot races Nevada is also electing a U.S. senator this year. But while Cortez Masto's reelection was close in 2022, her fellow Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen is polling well ahead of her Republican challenger this year, Afghanistan war veteran Sam Brown. State voters will also be deciding whether to adopt a new voting system that would allow top-five, all-party primaries and ranked-choice voting in general elections, similar to a system currently in place in Alaska. PHOTO: 538's 2024 U.S. Senate polling average in Nevada showing Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen with a 9.9 point lead over Republican Sam Brown. (538 Photo Illustration) Another ballot measure will give Nevada voters the chance to decide whether to codify the right to abortion before fetal viability in the state constitution. (Abortion is currently protected in Nevada by state law.) While abortion is not the most important topic for voters in Nevada, the state is among the most liberal in the nation when it comes to wanting to ensure access. A full 80 percent of Nevada adults oppose criminalizing abortion before fetal viability, according to a survey from the University of Maryland Program for Public Consultation earlier this summer. And 64 percent would favor a federal law ensuring abortion access. Nevada is also the most supportive swing state when it comes to access to birth control: 90 percent of Nevada voters support the federal government continuing to require health insurance plans to cover long-term birth control, like IUDs. That's more than any other swing state polled and the U.S. as a whole. Some activists have been hoping that ballot measures like this might help Democrats at the top of the ticket, either by encouraging turnout among sympathetic demographic groups or keeping the issue of abortion (on which Democrats have a big lead) in the news. But the evidence for abortion-related ballot measures juicing turnout is fairly mixed. Footnotes *All numbers in this article are as of Sept. 27 at 1:30 p.m. Eastern. **Based on polls of likely and registered voters only (if a poll included results among both populations, we used likely voters). If a poll included both a head-to-head matchup between Harris and Trump and a version including third parties, we used the head-to-head version. Crosstabs among groups defined by pollsters as "Latino" and "Hispanic" are both included. Finally, if a polling organization (defined as a partnership between a pollster and sponsor, or a pollster alone if their work was not sponsored by an outside group) had more than one survey in the relevant time frame, only the most recent version was included. All polls conducted and released between Aug. 27 and Sept. 27 at 1:30 p.m. Eastern are included. Why Nevada is so close in 2024 originally appeared on abcnews.go.com A helicopter sprays water over a bushfire on a hill in Quito on September 25, 2024 (Galo Paguay) (Galo Paguay/AFP/AFP) A record wave of wildfires, fueled by severe drought linked to climate change and deforestation, is causing havoc across South America. The blazes have killed at least 30 people, left cities shrouded in toxic smoke and caused millions of dollars in economic losses. This fire season is "completely different" from the one that ravaged forests in Brazil, Peru and Bolivia in 2019, according to Brazilian environmentalist Erika Berenguer, a researcher at Oxford University. At the time, rain helped douse the fires, which in Brazil were chiefly started by farmers taking advantage of lax legislation under then far-right president Jair Bolsonaro to clear land for crops and ranching. This year, the continent is in the throes of a severe drought. The Amazon basin, usually one of the wettest places on Earth, is experiencing the worst fires in nearly two decades, according to the EU's Copernicus observatory. Berenguer blamed climate change for making the Amazon "highly flammable." - How bad are the fires? - Between January 1 and September 26, more than 400,000 fires were recorded across South America, according to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE). "In nine months we have already surpassed the number of outbreaks recorded in all of 2023," Berenguer noted. In Brazil, the flames have consumed 40.2 million hectares (99 million acres) of vegetation this year, far above the average of 31 million hectares in each of the last 10 years, according to Copernicus. A dozen firefighters have died on duty, according to local media. In Ecuador, the mayor of the capital Quito declared this week the Andean city was "under attack" from 27 fires which forced the evacuation of over 100 families before being brought under control. Ecuador had declared an emergency in several provinces, as has Peru, where 21 people have been killed by fires since July. Most were small-scale farmers. Several fires are also blazing in Argentina and in Colombia, at opposite ends of the continent. - What's causing the fires? - Experts and national authorities point to a combination of combustible factors, chiefly droughts aggravated by climate change and slash-and-burn agriculture. "It's a clear example of climate change. If anyone thought it didn't exist, well look, here it is," said Ecuadoran Environment Minister Ines Manzano. In Peru and Bolivia, some of the fires are believed to have been started by farmers burning land to make it more fertile for planting, a traditional practice in the Andean countries that is tolerated by the authorities. In the Brazilian Amazon, fires lit by both subsistence farmers and the agribusiness industry to clear forest for cattle or crops were fanned by the worst drought in the country's recent history. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has pledged to put a stop to illegal Amazon deforestation by 2030, considers most of the fires to be "criminal" in origin. In some places, the fires are started by arsonists. One person has been arrested in Quito and dozens in Argentina and Brazil on suspicion of maliciously starting fires. - How are people affected? - The fires have dramatically reduced air quality in several cities. Sao Paulo, the largest city in Latin America, was ranked the most polluted city in the world in early September, according to Swiss company IQAir. A large part of Brazil remains shrouded in acrid smoke that wafted as far south as Montevideo and Buenos Aires earlier this month, causing a phenomenon known as "black rain." Inhabitants of many of Brazilian cities are experiencing respiratory problems and other symptoms such as stinging eyes. In Bolivia, health authorities have recommended people wear face masks because of the poor air quality. The region's economies are also feeling the burn. Losses in the Brazilian agricultural sector amounted to $2.7 billion between June and August, principally sugarcane harvests. In Ecuador, nearly 45,000 farm animals have died after more than two months without rain. - What are governments doing? - Thousands of firefighters and soldiers have been deployed across the continent to tackle the blazes. "Everyone wants to hire thousands of firefighters, buy aircraft, etc, etc. That's fine but it's too little, too late," Berenguer said. "We need to prevent fires, because once they become big they are very difficult to fight," she said, advocating for tougher measures against deforestation and planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. burs-jss/cb/mlr/acb Discover the wonders of Thailand in its low season away from the crowds and at a cheaper price (Getty) Despite the occasional downpour, there are plenty of reasons to visit Thailand from May to October so pack your mac and sense of adventure, and get ready to see this spectacular country in a whole new light. From rejuvenated landscapes to rich cultural experiences, the rainy season reveals a side of Thailand that is often overlooked. And who knows? The off-season might just become your favourite time to visit. Why you should visit Thailand in the low season 1. Go for the weather This might have high-season purists spitting out their cha yen (iced tea) in horror, itching to inculcate would-be visitors with the well-worn wisdom that summer is the hot, humid, rainy season. And it is, but lets face it, Thailand is hot all year around, with temperatures remaining in the early-to-mid thirties from January to December, fluctuating only by a few degrees. Yes, its humid we prefer sultry from May to October, but you really wont notice if youre spending your days on the beach being fanned by a gentle sea breeze (or a palm frond, if you have the means). When youre anywhere indoors, the air-conditioning is usually set to Arctic blast anyway. For those who love natures drama, however, Thailands monsoon season is an experience in itself. The occasional rains, while heavy, are usually brief and refreshing, sweeping in to cool the air in the late afternoon, and washing the land with a shimmering sheen. The sight of nimbus clouds rolling over the Andaman Sea, the rumble of distant thunder, warm rain showering down upon you as you swim in bathwater seas English drizzle, this aint. 2. Its lush Haew Narok waterfall in Khao Yai National Park in Thailand (Getty/iStock) You call it the off-season, we call it the green season. Well, we dont actually call it that, but we could, and we wouldnt be wrong. One of the most compelling reasons to visit Thailand in the low season is the stunning transformation of its landscapes. The rains breathe life into the countryside, painting fields and forests with chartreuse and absinthe greens, before giddily bedding down on rice paddies that stretch out like Gaias quilts. Waterfalls reduced to trickles in dry months roar back to life, cascading past mossy rocks with renewed vigour, while mountains are cloaked in diaphanous mists. Sure, you might be up to your ankles in mud at times, but Thailands parks feel almost mystical in the rainy season. Read more: Chiang Mai city guide: Where to stay, eat drink and shop in Thailands northern creative hub 3. Spectacular seasonal festivals Bun Bang Fai, or the Rocket Festival, is a folk tradition started by the Lao people in the Isan region of Thailand, in which huge rockets are shot from towering wooden frames high into the sky to mark the beginning of the rainy season. Clearly unwilling to wait around for Halloween, the people of northern Thailands Loei province hold the Phi Ta Khon (or Ghost Festival) each June or July. Locals dress up in elaborate ghost costumes (or simply cake themselves in mud) and parade through the streets wearing painted masks made from rice steamers while making enough noise to wake the dead. Dancers at the Rocket Festival in Thailand (Getty) Thailands off-season is dotted with tons of unique festivals, each worth planning a whole trip around. For example, in July, Asanha Bucha celebrates the anniversary of Buddhas first sermon, followed by Khao Phansa, the first day of Buddhist Lent. During this time, temples across the country hold mesmerising candlelight processions. In recent years, several cities in Thailand have begun hosting candle festivals and, in many cases, those plain old wax cylinders have been upgraded to gargantuan sculpted candles. Starting on the eve of the ninth lunar month, which normally falls in September or October, the annual Vegetarian Festival in Phuket is a jaw-dropping, cheek-skewering spectacle of devotion and endurance. The streets fill with the smoke of firecrackers while participants perform acts of self-mutilation (although they cant take all the credit: they have plenty of help) such as piercing their faces with well, the limits are only your imagination/nightmares. 4. Youre supporting the local economy Visiting during the off-season helps support local businesses that rely on tourism year round. Your visit can make a big difference to local communities, ensuring they thrive even when tourist numbers are low. 5. Authentic cultural connections Fewer tourists means more opportunities to make connections with local people (Getty) The low season is a time when you can engage more meaningfully with local communities. Fewer tourists mean more opportunities to have genuine interactions with locals, who often have more time and inclination to share their stories and traditions with curious travellers. 6. Its cheaper While its always great value for money, visiting in the low season means that you can enjoy Thailands renowned hospitality at a fraction of the usual cost. Luxury resorts, boutique hotels and beach-front properties offer significant discounts and off-season packages that include extras like spa treatments, making it possible to stay in the kind of comfort that might be out of reach during the high season. Flights can also be significantly cheaper, so youll have more cash to splurge on agonising massages, umbrellas, hand fans and elephant pants. Read more: The Thailand island you must visit now before The White Lotus effect hits 7. The surfs up Thailand isnt known as a big surfing destination and youre not going to find the kind of breakers you get in Indonesia here but the Andaman coast is good for beginners to practise on smaller waves. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the monsoon season is the best time to surf, when the swells are bigger, and the beaches are less crowded, giving you more room to ride the waves and more space on those white-sand beaches to take your obligatory surfboard selfies. It's harder to reach, but the island of Ko Phayam is affordable, idyllic, has fewer visitors and has some of Thailands best surf. 8. Amazing wildlife encounters The resplendent great hornbill can be found in Khao Sok National Park (Getty/iStock) With fewer tourists around, wildlife tends to be more active and visible. Visit national parks like Khao Sok, and you might spot leopards, gibbons, elephants, spectacled langurs and exotic birds, undisturbed by chattering backpackers. Read more: Why you should explore congested Bangkok by bike and boat 9. Its less crowded Have you ever tried to strike a pose at the Grand Palace without being photo-bombed by hundreds of irritating tourists trying to enjoy their own holidays? In the off-season, youll have the space you deserve to become the next viral TikTok model without oblivious bystanders blocking your shots. In the low season, you can explore the ancient ruins of Ayutthaya in a tranquil solitude that evokes the grandeur of its past. Coastal areas like Krabi and Phang Nga Bay which are usually teeming with tourists become places of serene beauty. On the island of Ko Lanta, you can explore hidden caves undisturbed, and youll find deserted beaches, where you can walk for miles with nothing but the sound of the waves for company. Even the capital slows down, with locals retreating indoors by day, while the bustling night markets come alive in the cooler evenings. Find out more about ethical and sustainable travel options, and other ways to support local communities and protect the environment during your stay at Responsible Thailand. The nightmare of a widening war in the Middle East is coming true. The question is how widely and violently it will spread before fatigue, fear, or the scrambling efforts of outside diplomats grind the fighting to a halt. For now, Israel is facing the prospect of its first three-front war since 1973 (this time, Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon)and it is taking on the task not hesitantly, but with gusto. The recently reignited frontagainst the Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters in Lebanonposes the greatest threat to Israel. But escalating this long-simmering conflict into a full-scale waras Israel is now doingalso poses the greatest risks, for not just Israel and Lebanon but the entire region. President Joe Biden and some European leaders have proposed a 21-day cease-fire for starters. But theres little reason to believe theyll be any more successful than they have been at stopping the war in Gaza over the past 11 months. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded to Bidens proposal with his usual Janus facenodding to Washington that hes thinking about it seriously while assuring the far-right members in his ruling coalition that he wont stop pounding Hezbollah sites for a moment. Meanwhile, Israeli troops have been mobilized for a possible invasion, which has been in the planning stages for quite a while. Israel has reasons to mount its latest strikes in Lebanonwhich began last week with the remote-control detonation of booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies held by thousands of Hezbollah fighters, then continued with massive airstrikes on Hezbollah positions. Hezbollah also has reasons to strike back, firing some of its rockets at Israeli cities as far south as Tel Aviv, which theyve rarely fired at before. Hezbollah, a Shiite organization, has been officially designated a terrorist group by many countries. It has come to dominate Lebanese politics (it is often called a state within a state). Its military wing has about 50,000 armed fighters and an arsenal that includes more than 100,000 rockets. The Israeli military says many of them are hidden in peoples houses and in an elaborate network of tunnels. There have been sporadic exchanges of rocket fire for many years. In 2006, the U.N. Security Council ordered Hezbollah to disarm south of the Litani River, which flows 10 miles north of the LebanonIsrael border, but the group ignored the resolution and kept up the occasional rocket attacks. Their volume and frequency have intensified since the war in Gaza started a year ago, to the point where 65,000 Israelis in the northern part of the country have been compelled to evacuate their homes. At some point, not just Netanyahu but many Israelis decided it was time to turn up their own volume of attacks and end Hezbollahs threat altogether. An especially vocal advocate has been Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who has been sharply at odds with the prime minister on some of his policies in Gaza, to the point where he may soon be fired. From Hezbollahs vantage, Israels attacks of the past week have been devastating, wiping out the Islamist groups communications network, killing dozens and injuring hundreds or maybe thousands of its senior fighters, and utterly embarrassing its leadershipexposing the entire organizations inability to thwart Israels dominance or protect Lebanons population. The question is what Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah, will do about this quandary. In 2006, Israel pummeled south Lebanon with airstrikes for 34 days after Hezbollah militants kidnapped three Israeli soldiers who had crossed the border. At the time, Nasrallah publicly said that if hed known Israel would have responded so forcefully, he would never have approved the operation. In other words, Nasrallah is, relatively, a pragmatist. However, he is also the leader of a vast movement that cannot afford to be viewed as weak. There is a wider matter: Hezbollah is, in some ways, the strongest spoke in Irans network of proxies in the regionthe self-described axis of resistance, which also includes Hamas, the Houthis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other militias. And while the Iranian leaders clearly do not want a wider war with Israel, and certainly not with the United States (which would probably be drawn into a direct war with Israel), they also cant afford to be viewed as unreliable protectors, either by their allies or their foes. These assorted dilemmas are clear to all the players involved, not least the United States. Hence Bidens rushed effort to put a cease-fire proposal on the table and get some negotiations going. One problem among many is that Netanyahu and other Israelis think they have an opportunity here not just to discombobulate Hezbollahs command structure and kill or injure many of its military leaders, but also to destroy the organization as a threat. He has referred to the campaigns strategy as a victory doctrinejust as he has declared total victory as his goal in Gaza. From a tactical perspective, he has some reason to believe this. A story this week in the Financial Times reports that on the eve of the 2006 war, Israeli intelligence had produced a vetted list of only several dozen Hezbollah targets, mainly the soldiers and support gear engaged in the fighting. Now, after years of deep intelligence and careful research, Israel knows the precise location and functioning of thousands of targets, including a vast military infrastructure that Hezbollah has been building for the past 20 years. During 2006, the Israeli air force hit about 200 targets a day, many of them redundantly. Just on Monday of this week, it hit 1,600 targets. There are many more not yet hit. Many of these targetsincluding those already bombedare scattered all across Lebanon, not just in Hezbollahs southern stronghold. Even if all the targets are military in nature, and even if Israels airstrikes are precisely aimed, many civilians are certain to be killed and injured. How many is impossible to say. As in Gaza, Lebanons health ministry does not distinguish between civilian and military casualties. The pager bombs last week reportedly injured 2,800 people. It is unknown how many were Hezbollah fightersprobably most of them, as the devices were packed with one-tenth of an ounce of explosives. The bombs dropped by Israeli jets in the subsequent days, even small bombs, explode with much greater force. Israel hopes to finish the operation quickly, before the civilian damage arouses much opposition. But many outside leaders and diplomats, very much including Biden and his team, hope to bring about a cease-fire before the damagecivilian and otherwisecompels Hezbollah or, worse still, Iran to retaliate with enormous firepower. According to the Financial Times, Hezbollah could fire 3,000 rockets and missiles a day, if its commanders wanted (and if Iran unleashed them to do so). Their relatively limited counterstrikes this week, which hit targets (mostly military) in Haifa and Tel Aviv, showed they have the ability to inflict devastating damage on Israel. At what point will someone in Hezbollahs upper ranks see Israels airstrikes as a final straw and retaliate in kind? If someone does, Israel could respond by flattening much of Lebanon. Theoretically, that prospect should deter Hezbollahs extravagancebut, in real life, will it? Nation-states have sleepwalked into war against their better judgments, and the same could be true of states within states. There may have been moments when the war on the northern front might have been settled diplomatically. Not long ago, Hezbollah said they would stop pounding Israel with rockets if Israel signed a cease-fire deal with Hamas. Yet both Israel and Hamas were obstructing such a deal, so the offer wasnt taken seriously. Meanwhile, even if Netanyahu were inclined to call a cease-fire on the northern border, his thirst for power might dissuade him. Itamar Ben-Gvir, his minister of national security and the leader of one of the far-right-wing parties that comprise Netanyahus ruling coalition, has announced that he would resign if the prime minister agreed to a cease-fire. Netanyahus coalition rules Parliament by a very slender majority. If Ben-Gvir pulled out his party, the majority would collapse; new elections would be held, and Netanyahu could well lose. (In a speech several months ago, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, who is ardently pro-Israel, wished for new elections precisely because Netanyahu was too beholden to far-right-wingers, making any kind of peace impossible.) One other fact is troubling many outside diplomats, who wish that it would trouble Netanyahu more: If Israeli troops actually invade Lebanon, their troubles wont necessarily be over. In 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered troops into southern Lebanon to expel Yasir Arafats Palestinian Liberation Organization, which was wreaking havoc at the time. The operation tactically succeeded, but the Israelis wound up staying there, in a turbulent occupation, for 18 years. More troubling still, Hezbollah rose to power in the vacuum left by Arafat. A plethora of pressures keep the Middle Easts war machines grinding onin Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, and elsewhere. Peace requires diplomats to halt the machines many moving parts all at once. It is very difficult. COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) The Ohio Division of Wildlife is asking residents to report sightings of deer behaving abnormally, including appearing disoriented or showing little to no fear of humans, to track an outbreak of a disease. Wildlife experts are tracking the spread of Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease, one of the most common diseases among white-tailed deer in the country, which is capable of killing the animal in large numbers. The division typically sees deer with the disease every year; Deer Biologist Clint McCoy said the number of reports so far this year are more significant than average (exceeding 500), but not expected to be as severe as some previous years, such as 2017 (1,397) and 2022 (1,520). Most places that are experiencing deer mortality right now likely havent seen this level of mortality in several years, McCoy said. Along with disorientation and a lack of fear, symptoms include appearing feverish, exhibiting respiratory issues and swelling of the head, neck, tongue and eyelids, according to the agency. Carcasses of infected deer are often found near water. The disease does not affect humans or domestic pets (such as dogs and cats), nor does it impact the safety of deer meat, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. However, the agency advises residents to never kill or eat a sick deer out of caution, since without testing one cannot be certain what a deer is suffering from. It also does not pose a serious threat to livestock, the Ohio Department of Agriculture claims. In central Ohio, Franklin County has seemingly reported the most sick or dead deer suspected to have been suffering from the disease, according to a map shared by the Ohio Division of Wildlife. Multiple reports have also been made in Delaware, Licking, Pickaway and Fairfield counties. Reports shown on the map above are from July 1 through Sept. 24. (Photo courtesy/Ohio Division of Wildlife). Not every report on the map is confirmed; the dark-grey shaded counties on the map have had a confirmed case. Confirmations are made possible when the Division of Wildlife can get to a deer soon enough to get a valid sample sent to the lab, according McCoy. Our approach is to try and get at least one confirmed EHD with laboratory testing in every county where it is present, McCoy said. Once we get a positive, we no longer look for samples to submit to the lab and just monitor disease severity using reports from the public. The reports are unconfirmed, however given the patterns that develop in the data we can see where disease outbreaks are most severe. The disease is caused by the bite of an infected midge, a type of fly, and outbreaks are often associated with droughts, which the state has experienced this month. Outbreaks of the disease most commonly occur in late summer and early fall. Symptoms usually appear about seven days after exposure and deer are likely to die within three days following onset symptoms, according to the ODNR. Midwestern deer populations have developed little resistance to the disease which can cause high deer mortality however, populations usually bounce back within a few years. There isnt much humans can do to combat EHD outbreaks, McCoy said. We have to combat the issue with education. We have to assure those that are concerned about the disease that it is seasonal and disease transmission will halt with the onset of cold weather, which inactivates the disease vector. Because of the temporary nature of the disease event, it is not a long term threat to deer populations and they will rebound to pre-disease numbers relatively quickly. The Ohio Division of Wildlife asks those who observe a deer behaving oddly to contact them by phone at 800-945-3543, while carcasses can be reported 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 NBC4 WCMH-TV. FILE - Then-Wisconsin state Sen. Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, speaks at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis. on May 29, 2015. (Michael P. King/Wisconsin State Journal via AP, File) MADISON, Wis. (AP) When the elections clerk in Wisconsin's heavily Democratic capital city of Madison announced on Monday that duplicate absentee ballots had mistakenly been sent to around 2,000 voters, it ignited concerns about election integrity from a Republican congressman and others on the right. Every vote is crucial in Wisconsin, a swing state that President Joe Biden won by just under 21,000 votes in 2020 and that former President Donald Trump won by just under 23,000 votes in 2016. The contest between Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris is close this year as well, creating a hyperintense focus on how elections are run. Madison is in the heart of liberal Dane County, where more than 75% of voters more than 260,000 people voted for Biden in 2020. Because of Madison's heavy Democratic tilt, any question about election integrity draws intense scrutiny from Republicans. Here are some things to know about what happened with the duplicate ballots and the reaction to the error. How did the public find out about the error? Madison's city clerk who runs elections, Maribeth Witzel-Behl, posted a statement online on Monday night explaining that up to 2,000 duplicate absentee ballots had been sent in error. The statement blamed a data processing error and initially said that only voters in one ward were affected. The statement also said that barcodes on the ballots used to track them would ensure that only one ballot is counted. Are there barcodes on ballots in Wisconsin? No. There are barcodes on the envelopes that absentee ballots are returned in. Those barcodes make it possible for voters to track the progress of their ballots online. It also allows for election officials to mark off when a voter has cast an absentee ballot, ensuring that they don't vote again at the polls on Election Day. Republican raises questions about barcodes on ballots Tiffany seized on the citys initial statement that did not differentiate between the ballot and the envelope. In a letter to the city, he asked, Are unique ballot bar codes linked to individual, identifiable voter profiles? The city responded by explaining that barcodes are printed on the ballot envelope, not the ballot. These types of barcodes are used across the state and the country, the clerk wrote. Tiffany on Friday defended asking that question, saying he was seeking clarity after the clerk's initial statement did not clearly say the barcodes were on the envelopes, not the ballots. City spokesperson Dylan Brogan said that he altered the wording of the original statement to specify that the barcode is on ballot envelopes after Tiffany asked the barcode question. Kevin Kennedy, who was Wisconsins top elections official for 33 years and is currently a member of three nonpartisan boards that work in elections, said using the term ballot when actually referring to the envelope is commonly done both by election workers and the public. If thats the strength of your argument, focusing on someone misspeaking, thats not the issue, Kennedy said. It probably says more about the motives of the speaker if thats what theyre going to focus on. The city posted its response to Tiffany, which included the barcode explanation, at 6:24 p.m. on Wednesday. Eighteen minutes later, Tiffany posted a photo of an absentee ballot and quoted from the city's initial statement that did not differentiate between the ballot and envelope. Tiffany said, Although the Madison Clerks Office claims, The voting system does not allow a ballot with the same barcode to be submitted, my office has proof that there is no barcode on the actual ballots. Here is a picture of the absentee ballots NO BARCODE. That post generated more than 2.4 million views on X as of Friday. Tiffany said Friday that he was not falsely suggesting that the clerk was lying about barcodes on ballots. Tiffany said he was trying to point out that it was the clerk, not him, who first said the barcodes were on ballots and not the envelopes. Also on Thursday, X owner Elon Musk, who like Tiffany is a Trump supporter, reposted a message to his nearly 200 million followers that suggested Republicans had discovered that duplicate ballots had been sent. Who discovered the error and what is being done to fix it? The error occurred when two data sets were merged, creating a file that listed absentee voters twice, the city spokesperson Brogan said. It was done late last week and discovered on Monday when the city was contacted by a voter who received two ballots, he said. None of the duplicate ballots had been returned before the mistake was caught, Brogan said. The Madison city attorney spoke with the state Republican Party about the incident on Monday before the city made it public and before Tiffany raised questions about it, Brogan said. Tiffany's first public comment about the issue came the day after the city made the public aware of what had happened. Tiffany calls for an independent investigation Tiffany, after the city responded to his initial set of questions, on Thursday called for an independent investigation citing many inconsistencies including the barcode issue. He also pointed to the city increasing the number of wards affected from one to 10 and the number of duplicate ballots from up to 2,000 to 2,215. Democrats accuse Tiffany of trying to mislead, sow distrust Democrats were quick to accuse Tiffany of trying to sow distrust in elections. I cant tell if this is just profound lack of knowledge or the intentional farming of outrage, Ann Jacobs, the Democratic chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, posted on X. Both, by the way, are bad. Democratic U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore also responded to Tiffanys post about the barcode calling it misinformation and telling him to knock it off. Witzel-Behl, the city clerk, told Tiffany in her response letter that elections are conducted by humans and occasionally human error occurs." When errors occur, we own up to them, correct them as soon as possible, and are transparent about them precisely as we have done here," she said. RACINE, Wis. (WFRV) A 29-year-old Wisconsin man has been arrested in connection with multiple bomb threats targeting government buildings. According to a release, on Sept. 23, 2024, deputies with the Racine County Sheriffs Office received a call from an automated voice making a bomb threat to various governmental buildings in Racine County. Wisconsin Herd assistant coach Joe Wolf dies unexpectedly at 59 Out of an abundance of caution, county officials evacuated and searched the targeted buildings, but nothing significant was found. Immediately after receiving the threat, the Racine County Sheriffs Office started their attempts to identify the perpetrator. Using open-source intelligence-gathering tools, investigators determined that the telephone number came back to High River in Alberta, Canada. Investigators got in touch with the High River Police Department, which had no in-house records of the phone call. Utilizing additional resources, authorities determined the telephone number was associated with an internet provider that sells telephone numbers to third-party companies worldwide. Eventually, investigators identified that the number most recently originated from a specific company, which provides an app that sells telephone numbers that are supposed to be difficult to trace. Despite the difficulty, subscriber information was obtained for the location where the telephone number was purchased, which was Racine. The investigators examined the residences history, developed a suspect, considered a motive, and obtained a search warrant. The Racine County Sheriffs Office identified 29-year-old Devone Kessler from Racine as the suspect. Kessler is a registered sex offender on extended supervision for a felony. On Thursday, Sept. 26, the search warrant was executed in the 2800 block of Douglas Ave. while a separate team contacted Kessler at his place of employment and apprehended him. Teenager narrowly escapes Fond du Lac house fire deemed to be act of arson, suspect in custody Deputies say that Kessler gave a full confession, and he was transported to the Racine County Jail for terrorist threats and a bomb scare. The release says he is being held on a $10,000 cash bail. Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling issued a statement regarding the incident. While there has been a rash of false threats to government buildings recently, the Sheriffs Office took every precaution necessary to ensure public safety when dispatch received a bomb threat. At the same time, our investigators used all their training, experience, and equipment to work with our partners in law enforcement both in the United States and Canada to hunt down anyone responsible for these crimes. The investigators also worked with private international companies to put the pieces together to identify the suspect. Ultimately, the investigators obtained a confession which strengthened an already strong case. I commend all members of the Sheriffs Office for their professional response to this terroristic act. I could not be prouder job well done! Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling Teenager narrowly escapes Fond du Lac house fire deemed to be act of arson, suspect in custody Charges have been forwarded to the Racine County District Attorneys Office for criminal prosecution. No additional details have been provided. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFRV Local 5 - Green Bay, Appleton. MADISON, Wis. (WFRV) A 22-year-old Wisconsin man has been formally charged in federal court, accused of possessing a firearm as a felon and possessing a firearm with a machine gun conversion device. According to a release, Jontrae Larsen, 22, of Madison, allegedly possessed a Glock 17 handgun with a machine gun conversion device from Nov. 22, 2023, through on or about Jan. 6, 2024. One dead, another hospitalized from two-vehicle crash on State Highway 153 A machine gun conversion device converts a handgun from semi-automatic to fully automatic. Machine gun conversion devices are illegal, as are any firearms with the devices. Larsen faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted on both 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 WFRV Local 5 - Green Bay, Appleton. Books by Atlantide Phototravel | Getty Images Creative A Wisconsin nonprofit announced the state Department of Corrections (DOC) had barred them from sending books to incarcerated people, sparking an outcry. The departments spokesperson says the group isnt barred. Beth Hardtke, director of communications for the Wisconsin DOC, told the Examiner that the nonprofit can send books to prisonersthough they have to be new copies, not used books. The department has expressed concern about those who would impersonate the nonprofit Wisconsin Books to Prisoners (WBTP) in order to send drugs into prison. DOC did not specify whether anyone has tried to send drugs into prisons by impersonating WBTP, but a department administrator said bad actors have tried to send in drugs and have also used prison mail to impersonate the IRS and others. In an email to the DOC, WBTP co-founder Camy Matthay said that reading contributes to the safety of residents and staff of prisons and reduces recidivism. Matthay said a large proportion of the books incarcerated people request from WBTP underscore that they are trying their best to prepare to be productive members of society. This includes books on various trades and on how to start a business or nonprofit, she said. Matthays email was part of an email chain between WBTP and the DOC, which the DOC sent to the Examiner. We feel reading is a human right. Access to books is a human right, Matthay told the Examiner. WBTP said that the group was barred by the DOC from sending books to incarcerated people in a statement dated Sept. 16. The group said it has sent close to 70,000 books to prisoners across Wisconsin since its founding in 2006. Its a bad, very, very unfair situation, Matthay said. Especially when a [very] few bad actors if we can assume this really is going on cause thousands of prisoners not to be able to get literature. Media outlets and social media accounts have publicized the claim that the DOC barred the group from sending any books to incarcerated people. The DOC has received backlash, including a petition with 324 supporters criticizing the alleged decision by the department. WBTP said in a statement that the group is pursuing all legal options. Did the DOC bar the group from sending new books? The DOC had already told the nonprofit that it couldnt send used books to prisoners. Security Chief Robert Miller of the DOCs division of adult institutions (DAI) told the nonprofit in mid-January that the department would not accept used publications at that time, according to a timeline provided by WBTP. In May, WBTP proposed that the DOC give the group special permission to send clean copies of used books. The group said Idaho is an example of a state that has a list of approved vendors that can send both new and used books. In a follow-up email in August, Matthay said well over 200 prisoners were waiting to receive books they requested and hoping the DOC would restore the arrangement allowing WBTP to send used books. To us, it simply doesnt feel defensible to withdraw opportunities for the men and women in your care to read and occupy their time in ways that are meaningful to them, Matthay wrote in the email, which was part of an email chain the DOC sent to the Examiner. In mid-August, DAI Administrator Sarah Cooper responded to WBTP and referenced a past decision. We have not made exceptions for any other organizations or entities, and we cannot do so for Wisconsin Books to Prisoners, Cooper said. In fact, since the decision was made to no longer allow books in from your organization, weve had to implement a whole new process for handling mail from the entities listed in the above paragraph. A month later, on Sept. 16, WBTP published its statement condemning the alleged ban on the organization sending any books to incarcerated people in Wisconsin. After speaking to Hardtke, the Examiner spoke with Matthay about the possibility that Cooper had meant the nonprofit couldnt send used books to prisons not that the group couldnt send in any books. The way that message has been interpreted by everybody thats read it our project was barred, Matthay said. According to the timeline provided by WBTP, the group asked the DOC if it could resolve the problem by providing a USPS tracking number for every package of books it ships. Hardtke also said friends and family can purchase books directly from bookstores, which send the books to prisons, along with a receipt, for incarcerated people. Is the concern about drugs a good reason to limit books? In January, Miller said the department, as well as jails and prisons across the country, were experiencing a large amount of sprayed-on narcotics and foreign substances on paper, according to the WBTP timeline. This created a significant risk to the health and safety of staff and incarcerated people, he said. In August, Cooper said there have been many instances of people trying to send drugs into the prisons while pretending the mail is coming from legitimate sources, such as the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice. So our concern is not with your organization, but with those who would impersonate your organization for nefarious means, Cooper told WBTP on Aug. 16. In its appeal to the DOC in May, WBTP referenced an article by the Marshall Project, which quoted a former science-to-action coordinator for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Foundations Overdose Response Strategy program. The former coordinator, Jennifer Carroll, said there is little evidence that limiting access to books will help save lives. Hardtke said bad actors in Wisconsin and other states have exploited otherwise positive programs that rely on donations to support incarcerated people. She said donated books have recently been among materials that have tested positive for drugs. Neither the Examiner nor Tone Madison have heard back from Hardtke about the frequency of incidents of books testing positive for drugs. Whats next for Wisconsin Books to Prisoners? Matthay said WBTPs project has been stalled. If the DOC does allow her organization to send in new or used books, she said she needs to see their policy in writing. She said she wants the DOC to tell wardens, staff, mailroom clerks and property sergeants what the new policy is so WBTP doesnt have to ship the same box of books more than once. Even if WBTP can start sending new books again, Matthay said a ban on used books hobbles the project. The group doesnt have the money to buy the amount of books that they send. The ban on used books prevents WBTP from sending used books donated by the general public. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the name of Tone Madison. MADISON, Wisconsin Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will be listed on Wisconsin voters' ballots following a state Supreme Court decision Friday addressing his request to remove his name. In its ruling, the court said Kennedy's briefing was "inadequate." "We emphasize that we are not making any legal determinations on our own regarding the claims made by Kennedy and we are not agreeing with the circuit courts legal conclusions on those claims," justices wrote in the order, which was released late Friday afternoon. "We simply are unable to make such determinations, given the inadequate briefing presented to us." The liberal-majority court on Sept. 20 accepted a petition from the Wisconsin Elections Commission to bypass an appeals court and take the case directly. The court, with some justices dissenting, said it would not hear oral arguments on the case but gave Kennedy's legal team until noon Sept. 21 to file a brief no longer than 20 pages on the matter. Former President Donald Trump introduces independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a campaign rally in Glendale, Ariz., on Aug. 23, 2024, after Kennedy quit his presidential race and endorsed Trump. Chief Justice Annette Kingsland Ziegler joined Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley in voting not to take the case. The two are both conservatives. "Process matters. The members of the majority sometimes enforce a rule against 'premature petitions' but sometimes they dont, without disclosing any standards by which they will choose whether to apply it. Such arbitrariness by courts is antithetical to the original understanding of the judicial role," Bradley wrote. "The majority's arbitrariness in following its professed procedure in one case while discarding it in another sends a message to litigants that judicial process will be invoked or ignored based on the majoritys desired outcome in a politically-charged case." Kennedy filed the lawsuit against the Wisconsin Elections Commission earlier this month in Dane County, arguing independent candidates are treated unfairly because they operate under different deadlines from party-aligned candidates when it comes to ballot access. His request to be removed from Wisconsin's ballot, however, came as he asked the U.S. Supreme Court to put him on the presidential ballot in New York. Party-affiliated candidates had until 5 p.m. on Sept. 3 to certify their candidacy, according to guidance from the Elections Commission, while independent candidates had until 5 p.m. on Aug. 6. Kennedy ended his campaign Aug. 23. Election clerks faced a deadline last week to send absentee ballots to voters with requests on file, and hundreds of thousands of ballots listing Kennedy's name have been mailed out by clerks. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. addresses the Libertarian National Convention in Washington, D.C., on May 24, 2024. The Kennedy lawsuit came just a week after the state's election board denied a request from his campaign to be removed from the ballot after he dropped out of the presidential race last month and endorsed former President Donald Trump. Attorneys for Kennedy, and several Republican members of the elections commission at the time argued Kennedy should be able to withdraw his name before the commission officially set the ballot. But Wisconsin law holds that anyone who files nomination papers and qualifies to appear on the ballot which Kennedy did cannot decline nomination. The only exception to that provision is "in case of death of the person," according to the law. "The only way he gets to not be on the ballot is to up and die, which I'm assuming he has no plans on doing," WEC chair Ann Jacobs, a Democrat, said at the time. "The statute is absolutely clear on this." On behalf of the elections commission, state Department of Justice attorneys argued Kennedy's name has been appropriately left on the ballot. "Kennedy filed nomination papers and a declaration of candidacy to run for U.S. President. Today, he prefers (at least in Wisconsin) to support a major party candidate. Kennedys request to remove his name from the ballot was barred by (state law) and so the Commission correctly denied it," state attorneys argued. Republicans have pushed to have Kennedy's name removed from ballots in battleground states out of concerns his presence could draw votes away from Trump. Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he makes a campaign stop at manufacturer FALK Production in Walker, Michigan, U.S. September 27, 2024. Kennedy's attorneys centered their argument around the differing dates for party-affiliated and independent candidates to certify their declaration of candidacy. President Joe Biden, they noted, dropped out of the race on July 21 before the party Sept. 3 deadline in Wisconsin. The state Supreme Court essentially said on Friday that Kennedy failed to make his case and failed to prove the circuit court had ruled in error. "While Kennedys appellate briefs do mention his constitutional arguments (equal protection, free speech, and freedom of association) in cursory terms, they fail to develop those arguments to even a minimal standard sufficient for us to consider their merits," the ruling read. In Wisconsin, more Republicans than Democrats supported Kennedy, according to data from the Marquette University Law School Poll. Without any changes, there will be eight presidential candidates on Wisconsin's ballot in November, including Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidate Cornel West. Ziegler and Bradley concurred with the ruling but criticized the circumstances. "The ramifications in this case are immense," they wrote. "Voters may cast their ballots in favor of a candidate who withdrew his candidacy, thereby losing their right to cast a meaningful vote. Ballots listing a non-candidate mislead voters and may skew a presidential election. In this case, the damage to voter participation in electoral democracy is real." (This story was updated to add new information.) Jessie Opoien can be reached at jessie.opoien@jrn.com. Mary Spicuzza can be reached at mary.spicuzza@jrn.com This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Supreme Court keeps RFK Jr. on the presidential ballot Wisconsinites Can Order Free COVID Tests Again. How To Get Yours. WISCONSIN Americans can now order another round of free COVID-19 nasal swab tests that will be delivered to homes. Each household can get four tests through COVIDtests.gov. Already have some at home? Check here to see if your tests' expiration dates have been extended. Shipping forms just opened on Thursday and are free to all residents; access this link to order yours. Updated rapid tests are expected to be able to detect newer variants just as a new COVID variant, XEC, arrives in Wisconsin. It is a member of the Omicron family. The availability of free at-home tests comes just after the Food and Drug Administration approved two updates COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging everyone 6 months or older to get a new shot this fall since last year's shots were geared toward a strain that is no longer around. As flu and RSV season approaches, health officials recommend residents stock up on tests and update all vaccinations. Wisconsinites Can Order Free COVID Tests Again. How To Get Yours. originally appeared on the Across Wisconsin Patch Without state law to help, advocates aim to provide legal help for Oklahomans facing eviction Oklahomans facing legal proceedings for a criminal complaint are guaranteed access to an attorney and offered free assistance if they cannot afford to pay for a lawyer. In eviction court, no such guarantee is offered. Oklahoma tenants facing eviction most often arrive at their hearings without legal counsel, leaving them unarmed against landlords who bring attorneys up to 80% of the time. With legal representation, tenants are far more likely to see a favorable result in eviction hearings. Research shows that in Oklahoma, tenants are 75% more likely to remain in their homes after an eviction filing when they are represented by an attorney. Tenant advocates nationwide are pushing for tenant right-to-counsel laws. There are 17 cities and five states where free legal representation is mandated in eviction cases. Advocate groups are aiming to help pass right-to-counsel laws Oklahoma does not have right-to-counsel laws in place, but tenant-rights advocate groups such as Legal Aid Services Oklahoma work to advance the potential for Oklahoma tenants to secure laws to guarantee free counsel in eviction cases. An innovative Oklahoma investing collaborative designed to provide access to funding for social service nonprofits in the state announced recently it will provide financial backing to Legal Aid Services Oklahomas Tenant Right-to-Counsel program, potentially saving millions in taxpayer dollars while helping to keep Oklahomans in their homes. Oklahoma Impact Investing Collaborative will provide a low-interest loan to Legal Aid Services Oklahoma to underwrite LASOs statewide efforts to provide free legal representation and counsel to tenants facing eviction hearings, or before eviction cases are filed in court. The $2 million loan will pay for legal aid services for an estimated 1,800 Oklahomans, said LASO Executive Drector Michael Figgins. More: Human Rights Commission meets on tenants rights, solutions to high OKC eviction rate Figgins said LASO is running out of money to pay for legal services for Oklahomans facing eviction. The money that weve relied on is pretty much gone, Figgins said. LASO has received most of its funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. When HUD grants funds for eviction prevention in Oklahoma, the money is generally split among LASO, the Oklahoma City University School of Law Housing Eviction Legal Assistance Program and Shelterwell, a nonprofit group that gathers and analyzes eviction data and provides mediators in eviction court, Figgins said. OIIC is a social impact investment collaborative that combines money from philanthropies to provide loans such as the one LASO will receive. OIIC is a subsidiary of MetaFund, a 501(c)3 community development financial institution, one of about 1,000 such institutions nationwide that combine money from private and public sector entities to invest in local communities to create economic opportunities. MetaFund works with nine philanthropies to create funding streams for OIIC projects. OIIC also works with other nonprofits including Pivot and Remerge, which align with its focus areas, said OIIC president and co-founder, Ed Long. Since its inception in February, 2020 OIIC has worked with 18 nonprofit agencies to provide more than $10 million in funding. Oklahoma evictions a growing problem In Oklahoma, 48,278 eviction cases were filed by landlords in 2023. Of those, about half resulted in tenants being displaced from their homes. Many more tenants were likely evicted informally. Informal eviction occurs when tenants move out of their homes after receiving warnings or threats from their landlord without a claim ever being filed in court. Evictions arent just a landlord and tenant problem, said Amy Coldren, executive director of Shelterwell. Ripple effects from eviction threats affect all Oklahomans. Minors represent 40% of people affected by eviction and are at risk for long-lasting physical and emotional fallout as a consequence. More: Women, especially Black women with children, face highest rates of evictions in Oklahoma Coldren said evictions increase the likelihood that a tenant will lose their job by 22%. Evictions cause school absenteeism. They increase a tenants mortality rate, placing an increased burden on our healthcare system. Evictions weaken neighborhoods and communities, increase family separation, and place an enormous burden on taxpayers. Research from LASOs Stout Report shows the number of evictions filed in Oklahoma each year is on the rise but with legal help, about 95% of people who received free legal help achieved their goals, whether that amounted to staying in their homes or a different outcome. The report was released after LASO performed a right-to-counsel pilot program from June, 2023 to June, 2004 in several Oklahoma City and Tulsa zip codes with the high eviction filings. Stout estimated that Oklahoma County and Tulsa County realized economic benefits of $6.3 million from the right-to-counsel program between August 1, 2022 and June 5, 2024. Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state. The positive results of the right-to-counsel pilot and an urgency for relief for Oklahomans facing evictions convinced the team at OIIC to take a deeper interest in funding Right-to-Counsel efforts, Long said. Figgins said that many evictions can be prevented with early intervention from a qualified attorney. Landlord errors are overlooked by county courts that handle as many as 387 cases in a day, especially when tenants face evictions alone. LASO attorneys often find mistakes, Figgins said. For example, certain laws apply to people who receive housing vouchers, known as Section 8, that dont apply to people renting from private landlords who do not receive Section 8 subsidies. One of the first things a housing attorney like those at LASO does when examining a case is to determine what type of rental contract is at hand, Figgins said. If a landlord fails to serve eviction notices properly or evicts for illegal reasons or discrimination, attorneys are likely to catch those case-breaking flaws and help tenants keep their homes if that is their goal, Figgins said. Ultimately, Long said, he hopes that the OIIC financing will encourage Oklahoma City and Tulsa to fund right-to-counsel programs. Long said OIIC used recent media reports on evictions to illustrate to investors the need in Oklahoma for tenants to have access to legal assistance in court. We were able to use a lot of it when we went to our investors and said, Hey, this is, this is a no-brainer, Long said. Reporting on evictions is driving money, its driving interest. Heather Warlick is a reporter covering evictions, housing and homelessness. Contact her at (405) 226-1915 or hwarlick@oklahomawatch.org. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahomans facing eviction could get legal help from these advocates Margarita Clark was previously jailed more than 10 years ago for conning her friends [Hertfordshire Police] A pensioner who was jailed a decade ago for conning friends out of 2.5m, has been sent back to prison after defrauding a neighbour out of more than 100,000. Margarita Clark, 72, of Fourways in Bayford, Hertfordshire, was sentenced to three years and seven months in prison after pleading guilty to fraud by false representation. St Albans Crown Court heard Clark befriended a woman in her 70s who had moved to the area after her husband passed away and managed to take 118,000 from her over a two year period. The victim's family became suspicious and after a google search discovered Clark had previously been jailed for three years and four months for taking 2.5m from friends in 2014. Margarita Clark has previously been imprisoned in 2014 for another scam [South Beds News Agency] In 2018, Clark had fabricated a story about purchasing property in Spain and offered the victim a chance to invest, in exchange for a cut of the interest. Over the next two years she made up stories about the property to acquire more funds from the woman. She used the money to buy high end clothing items, a new car and even persuaded the victim to pay for a trip to Dubai. Hertfordshire Police were contacted by the woman's family in October 2020 as they were concerned that the victim had been scammed. Det Con Emma Cozens said: Clark is a cold and calculating individual. She took advantage of her victim, who was grieving the loss of her husband and had only recently moved to the area. "The victim genuinely believed she had made a close friend and was left shocked and heartbroken when the truth was discovered. Im pleased that Clark is now behind bars." Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X. Related internet links Three bodies retrieved from under rubble of police headquarters in Kryvyi Rih photos The death toll from a Russian missile strike on Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, has risen to three, with two more bodies - a man and a woman - being pulled from under the rubble of the National Police headquarters. Source: Serhii Lysak, Head of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration; State Emergency Service of Ukraine Quote from Lysak: "The body of a woman was found under the rubble of an administrative building in Kryvyi Rih. Thus, according to the information available, this morning the enemy killed one person in the city. Five people were injured." Photo: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration Details: The search and rescue operation is ongoing. Besides an administrative building, the Russians also damaged 23 houses and three nine-storey buildings, as well as an educational institution. Over 80 cars, including eight official vehicles, were damaged as well. Later, the rescue workers reported that six people had been injured as a result of a Russian attack on Kryvyi Rih. Photo: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration Updated: At 16:20, the head of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration reported that two more bodies, of a man and a woman, had been retrieved from under the rubble. Therefore, the number of people killed in the morning attack rose to three. Background: Russian troops launched a missile attack on Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, on the morning of 27 September, hitting the National Police headquarters. Support UP or become our patron! Women in Belgium travel to the Netherlands for later term abortions More than 300 women in Belgium, including those facing financial hardship, travel to the Netherlands to terminate their pregnancies each year. The Netherlands, which allows abortion up to 22 weeks after conception, provides women with the ability to terminate pregnancies later than in Belgium where the limit is 12 weeks. Over twenty pro-abortion associations in Belgium have drawn attention to complications in the country's legal framework on abortion. In addition to women having only 12 weeks to terminate their pregnancies, a reflection period of 6 days is mandatory between the first consultation and the start of procedure. Women who don't observe this reflection period face significant penalties. Family planning centres say that these legal conditions are incompatible with the lived experience of many women, and call for an extension on the time limit within which a woman can terminate her pregnancy. Frederic Brichau, co-ordinator of the Family Planning Centre in Namur, says that each situation should be understood with "flexibility", and that a reflection period of six days is unproductive as "perhaps the woman has already thought for a fortnight before contacting us or has taken a pregnancy test the same morning before contacting us." Legal limit varies across Europe Belgian women are not the only ones put into the complicated position of having to travel across European borders in order to safely terminate a pregnancy. The legal time limits vary between European countries, ranging from 10 weeks in Portugal to 24 weeks in the Netherlands. The majority of countries have set the limit at 12 weeks. Spain and Austria allow abortion up until 14 weeks and have eschewed a mandatory reflection period. In Bulgaria, the limit is 20 weeks. In Poland, a country with a strong Catholic tradition, abortion is illegal apart from in cases where the pregnancy is the result of a criminal act or the woman's life is in danger. People protest Poland's restrictive abortion law in Warsaw, Poland, on Wednesday June 14, 2023. - Czarek Sokolowski/Copyright 2023 The AP. All rights reserved Lina Galvez, chair of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, told Euronews that, "those who have enough money can go to another country, but for those who don't have the resources this is not always an option. This prevents abortion being a universal right for all women throughout the world". Non-binding efforts The European Parliament has put forward legislative initiatives to try to ensure free and safe abortion for all women, regardless of their country of origin. Among these efforts is the 2021 Matic Report, which urges member states to "decriminalise abortion" and ensure that it is safe by considering it "a fundamental right" so that its denial can be considered "an act of gender-based violence." Most recently, in April 2024, the European Parliament approved the inclusion of abortion in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. However, none of these collective initiatives are binding with abortion laws remaining at the discretion of individual member states. University of Michigan Law School professor Karina Bennoune speaks at the second annual Bridging Religious Divides Symposium at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley City on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News Last year on Oct. 4, Rachel Miner had a flight planned to Israel. She was going to see her two friends Yael Admi and Reem Hajajreh. Admi and Hajajreh had jointly planned a march for peace Admi is a leader in an Israeli womens peace organization and Hajajareh is a leader in a Palestinian womens peace organization. Miner felt uneasy about making the trip. As the founder and CEO of Bellwether International, a group that responds to genocides with humanitarian aid, she said, Ive traveled to a lot of scary places. I work in genocide communities, but for whatever reason, my spiritual intuition was to not go. Three days later, Hamas attacked Israel, killing more than a thousand Israelis, including women and children. Miner was supposed to stay at her friend Vivian Silvers home. Silver was abducted by Hamas and later confirmed dead. I was beside myself, not really sure how they were going to build peace, said Miner. Miner told this story at a symposium held Thursday in West Valley City, called Bridging Religious Divides: Womens Role in Building Bridges. Sponsored by Utah Global Diplomacy and Bellwether International, the event brought together women of different faiths to discuss what women can do to cross religious divides and build peace. Admi and Hajajreh continued to link arms in their calls for peace, said Miner. Theyre still standing in complete solidarity across religious divides, across political divides, across geographical divides. The two women were planning on being at the conference, she said, but they could not attend. Instead, they had a video message to share. Hajajreh and Admi sat side by side and shared their hopes for peace, that no more mothers have to bury their children amid a war. They clasped hands as Admi recalled their joint pact for peace known as The Mothers Call. It is a call for a resolution to the conflict, asking people from both Israel and Gaza to support the end to violence. We join hands in determination and partnership to bring hope back to our peoples, said the pact. Rachel Miner, Bellwether International founder and CEO, hugs Dr. Debbie Almontaser, Bridging Cultures Group CEO and president, at the second annual Bridging Religious Divides Symposium at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley City on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News Rachel Miner, Bellwether International founder and CEO, speaks at the second annual Bridging Religious Divides Symposium at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley City on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News Felicia Maxfield-Barrett, Utah Global Diplomacy president and CEO, gives welcoming remarks at the second annual Bridging Religious Divides Symposium at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley City on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News Sage Showers, U.S. Department of State foreign affairs officer, takes notes at the second annual Bridging Religious Divides Symposium at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley City on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News Jill Angerbauer, Global Nonprofit Consulting founder and CEO and Harvard Global Healthcare Leaders Program executive, and Sage Showers, U.S. Department of State foreign affairs officer, talk during a break at the second annual Bridging Religious Divides Symposium at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley City on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News Tish Rodriguez talks with Rachel Miner, Bellwether International founder and CEO, at the second annual Bridging Religious Divides Symposium at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley City on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News Applause and some whispered amens filled the room. The symposium was mostly attended by women from different walks of life and different faiths. Speakers included Karima Bennoune, from the University of Michigan, Valerie Hudson, from Texas A&M School of International Affairs, Debbie Almontaser, from Bridging Cultures Group Inc., and Mariah Mercer, from the U.S. State Department. Why does this matter right now? asked Miner at the beginning of the symposium. She said women across the world are engaged in building peace in conflict. There are a couple divides the slew of speakers would try to address how people of faith can build bridges with people of different faiths? And also, how do we bridge divides on a more local and personal level? Hours after the murder of multiple young girls in the U.K., Miner said the man accused of murder was mislabeled as a refugee. The next day, mosques windows were smashed in. Mosques were vandalized. Jewish and Muslim shops both were ransacked. There was a huge spike in crime, said Miner. And for a moment, it looked pretty dark. But local members of the community formed a circle around a mosque, so other community members could pick up the broken glass. Local residents showed up with signs saying refugees are welcome. Thats what it means to bridge the religious divide and thats what it requires, said Miner. It requires that you show up, that you stand up, that you speak out, especially for people who look, sound and worship differently than you. Women waging peace Were living in an era characterized by a resurgence of dangerous international armed conflicts, all of which have a terrible impact on women in many regions, said Bennoune. She is a professor of international law at University of Michigan Law School. She also has served as the United Nations special rapporteur in the field of cultural rights from 2015 to 2021. More countries are involved in conflicts than they have been since the end of World War II, she said. Describing it as a moment to reflect carefully on how people can respond, Bennoune said we are witnessing an extreme repression of womens rights while being told those countries are at peace. As the international community fails to address these problems, said Bennoune, this is the most important time for women to wage peace. The right to peace is primordial, she said. And it is vital to secure all other human rights. But it has to be imbued with more than platitudes to be meaningful in womens lives. It has to be aright that actually offers a remedy in situations that pose grave threats to womens lives and womens equality. Bennoune focused on her work with women in Afghanistan, saying she has learned any meaningful sense of peace needs to be accompanied by a robust protection of womens rights otherwise, it is not peace. Peace does not involve just not being engaged in a war. She said there also needs to be a sense of social peace where people are free from fear their government will come to their homes and accuse them of something at any moment. Ive thought about this again and again since 2021 when the Taliban returned to power, said Bennoune. In the early 2010s, when the U.S. resumed its negotiations with the Taliban, Bennoune said the two sides focused less on gender issues. The result of gender issues not being at the forefront is the situation in Afghanistan today, she said. It is against the law, actually decreed by the Taliban, for womens voices to be heard speaking or singing in public, said Bennoune. But some women in Afghanistan responded by posting videos online of them singing or reading from their religious text. Theres even been a small but courageous campaign of particularly young women going out and clandestinely singing in public and videotaping themselves doing this, she said. In plain view of the whole world, Bennoune said women in Afghanistan have lost their rights to education, to freedom of movement, to have a job and to participate in public life. There have been statements condemning this, she said, but she was critical of the way the United Nations has handled the situation. Most recently, the U.N. bureaucracy was willing to hold a meeting in Doha (Qatar) with the Taliban with no Afghan women present and without Afghan womens rights even being on the agenda because that is what the Taliban insisted on, said Bennoune. The United States Institute of Peace also said there was a significant amount of criticism levied toward the U.N. for these same reasons. A meeting with the Taliban did include discussion of womens rights, but it was kept off the public agenda and no Afghan women were present. Bennoune asked the audience a question what does all of this mean in the context of waging peace? It must be comprehensive, she said, explaining peace has to include dignity, equality and security for women. It also must include the end to gender-based violence. She concluded with the words an Afghan woman told her in 2011 when women were also faced with security issues. She said, optimism is key to survival. It was Labor Day in 2022 when Amy Dishion received the phone call that would change her life: Her husband had died of heat stroke. My entire life just fell apart, Dishion said. I lost my best friend and the father of my child. They had moved to Phoenix for her husband Evans medical residency in neurology. Just a few months before, Dishion had given birth to their daughter, Chloe. Their life as a young family was falling into place until that fateful morning in September, when Evan, who was 32 at the time, set out to hike with a few of his friends. They started early in the morning, but they were unprepared for just how quickly it would heat up. Her husband eventually began to show signs of heat stroke before passing out. His friends left him under a tree while they went in search of cell service to call for help. In many ways, Dishion said, the tragedy was preventable. The friend group was hiking in extreme heat without enough water and didnt turn around when they should have. But high temperatures are also a risk that is growing every summer due to the climate crisis, she noted. More and more people are unaware of the dangers of extreme weather even as it becomes more deadly with each passing year. This year Phoenix broke records for experiencing 113 days in a row over 100 degrees, surpassing the previous city record set in 1993 of 76 days. The heat didnt just take Dishions husband. As a young mother, it also left her in a tough financial spot. She had planned to be a stay-at-home mom and had moved to support Evan. Suddenly she didnt have an income and had to move back to her hometown of Salem, Oregon, to live with Evans family. It feels like being displaced, right on top of losing somebody in a very preventable way, she said. Now shes speaking out through an organization called Extreme Weather Survivors, which aims to raise awareness over the toll of climate change. Shes not the only person sharing her story. Theres Shaunta Floyd, from Houston, whose power went out for a week when Hurricane Beryl hit this July. Beryl was originally forecast as a tropical storm, but ended up making landfall in Texas as a Category 1 hurricane. Floyd spent a night in her sweltering home without any air conditioning before evacuating to a cousins house. Millions of people lost power in the storm. Theres also Rhiannan Ortiz, who is in the third trimester of her pregnancy and lives in Phoenix without air conditioning. She worries about her own health and the health of her baby; pregnant people are considered a vulnerable population for extreme heat, and studies have shown extreme heat has been correlated to a higher risk of preterm birth and low birth weight. Recently, Extreme Weather Survivors teamed up with two other organizations Science Moms, a nonpartisan advocacy organization, and All Hands and Hearts, a disaster relief organization for a new campaign called Act of Man. Ortiz is among five other climate survivors in the campaign calling attention to what they refer to as unnatural disasters. Their aim is to make clear the connection between climate change and the escalation in disasters arent an act of God or something outside of human control, but are increasingly being attributed to human-caused global warming due to the burning of fossil fuels. We want to just flat out say it, that unnatural disasters and extreme weather are an act of man, an act of us. And that the unnatural disasters are growing in severity and in devastation as a result of fossil fuel burning and pollution, and are impacting everyone we know, said Science Moms cofounder Joellen Russell, an oceanographer and professor at the University of Arizona. The campaign is airing advertisements featuring people impacted by climate disasters across social media, as well as on broadcast television, streaming services and other digital platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Its all part of a messaging strategy that has been spearheaded by Potential Energy Coalition, a marketing company that is focused on getting more people to care about climate change. Suburban women are a large focus area. Science Moms was created as one way to reach them. The company conducts its own focus groups and collaborates with Yale Program on Climate Change Communication to gain insight on campaign strategies. It found that moms with politically moderate views were a key group that could take action on the climate crisis if they understood the urgency. The research says that women are more persuadable than our fabulous husbands and brothers and friends [who] once theyve made up their minds that theyre on team anti-climate, its really hard to get them to change their minds, Russell said. On the other hand, women do tend to change their minds when they need to. Potential Energy found that they could accomplish this goal by focusing the messaging on unnatural disasters. According to a report they released in June, they found the term increased support for climate action by suburban women by 8.8 percentage points overall. For Democratic women, that number is even higher at 10 percentage points. For Republican women, it increased support by 7 percentage points. Potential Energy has also found that focusing on individual experiences also helps increase support for climate action. Its why women like Floyd, with Extreme Weather Survivors, share their stories. The narrative in Texas is that climate change doesnt exist, Floyd said. She aims to raise awareness about the connections between climate and carbon emissions, particularly in a fossil-fuel loving state. Its a global issue, and it needs to be highlighted so that we can reduce our carbon footprint and make changes to balance out what has already occurred. Dishion, who spoke at New York Climate Week on Wednesday along with Floyd, said apart from being able to educate others on how to prevent deaths like her husbands, shes also motivated by the prospect of protecting her childs future. I want a safe world for my baby and all of our babies and all of our kids that have, through no fault of their own, inherited a giant problem, she said. I want the world to be habitable for the people growing up on this planet. Its stories like Dishions that can potentially cross the political divide on the topic of climate change. And a strategy that other groups like Moms Clean Air Force or Moms Demand Action have also honed in on motherhood as an organizing force that can deliver a more nonpartisan message by focusing on the health and safety of children. Moms are the sort of way where we thought we could link arms with the rest of our sisters in the trenches raising kids and working at those kitchen tables on homework problem sets and paying our bills, to also think about what we can do to make our families safer now and safer in the future, Russell said. I think, really, the goal is that this conversation should be as American as apple pie, she continued. Its not political. Its about all of us. The post These women are trying to humanize the climate crisis appeared first on The 19th. News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday. Subscribe to our free, daily newsletter. Since its inception in 1967, World Dairy Expo has been held the Alliant Energy Center in Madison and has become North America's premier cattle show drawing over 3,000 head of dairy cattle, it is also home to the world's biggest dairy-focused trade show with over 500 vendors. Former President Donald Trump is headed to southwest Wisconsin this weekend, but he won't be stopping at the World Dairy Expo in Madison next week. According to Lisa Behnke, communications manager for World Dairy Expo, Trump's team reached out to expo officials to inquire about scheduling a time for a campaign stop sometime between Oct. 1-4 during the premier dairy event that draws over 50,000 attendees from across North America and visitors from overseas. "We host an event for cows and people who care for cows and not for candidates," said Behnke. "We're staying in our lane." Behnke says declining such a high-profile visit is not a mean-spirited or partisan thing but rather a matter of logistics and keeping the expo apolitical. "Had any candidate asked, the answer would have been no. We simply can't accommodate it. We are stretched across seven days and still can't get everything in. To add one more thing at the eleventh hour would not have been fair to the exhibitors and attendees," Behnke said. "Can you imagine the attendees stuck in traffic on the Beltline or international (guests) trying to arrive at the airport and the airport is shut down for security purposes? Why would you disrupt something so special to the people who attend it?" World Dairy Expo organizers say passing on a campaign stop for any political party is a commitment to the show's neutrality. Since its inception in 1967, the expo has been held in Madison and has become not only the world's biggest dairy-focused trade show with over 500 vendors, but the event attracts tens of thousands of visitors and over 3,000 head of North America's best cattle. Behnke says the organization respects the government's impact on the health and welfare of agriculture, and that the industry wants candidates and elected officials to be well-informed and supportive of the issues facing dairymen. "The people here would love to share that information, but the dance cards are so full here and meetings and the agenda has already been determined nine months ago, and to rearrange everything was logistically impossible," Behnke said. "There's a lot of preparation that goes into making this a special event." Dane County GOP Chair Brandon Maly told Madison media outlet Isthmus that the former president was exploring a visit to the expo, held annually in the Democratic stronghold Dane County. According to election data, Republicans historically have not done well in Dane or Milwaukee counties. Maly and former Gov. Tommy Thompson believe a visit to Dane County might boost support for Trump, and up the GOP's chances of winning. Wisconsin is considered an important battleground state with Wisconsin's electoral outcomes being decided by razor-thin margins. Trump won the state in 2016 by 0.77% over Hillary Clinton, while Biden eeked out a win by a narrow 0.63% margin in 2020. Attempts to reach Trumps campaign were unsuccessful. Dairy animals get ready to enter the show ring inside the Coliseum for international competition at World Dairy Expo. Organizers have take all precautions to avoid the spread of the H5N1 among dairy cattle. Taking all precautions against H5N1 As one of the premier dairy cow shows in the country, expo organizers are taking special precautions to ensure Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N1), also known as bird flu, doesnt affect the valuable purebred cattle that come to Madison. General Manager Laura Herschleb told Wisconsin State Farmer that she and her staff are in contact with veterinary experts from USDA and the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection so everyone understands what requirements must be met to haul cattle into the Alliant Energy Center show grounds in Madison. Since late March, dairy herds in 14 states have confirmed the presence of the virus. California is the most recent state to report bird flu in dairy cattle. To date, 34 herds are currently quarantined, according to the CDC. Behnke said show cattle have already begun filling stalls in the New Holland Pavillion on the grounds. Around 3,000 dairy cattle are expected to compete in the international shows. "We've been working with federal and state animal health officials so that an event of this size and scale could take place safely and minimize risk," Behnke said. "We've employed the people that create the regulations and understand virus transmission and can give the best guidance possible, and we're adhering to all that. "We're just grateful that we can continue to have such a great event and invite people from across the U.S. and Canada to be a part of that for the 57th edition of the show." This article originally appeared on Wisconsin State Farmer: World Dairy Expo officials: Show is for cows, not political candidates A unique stained glass blue plaque has been unveiled in York to commemorate an acclaimed author with close connections to the area. The plaque honours 18th Century writer and clergyman Laurence Sterne in the location where the first copies of his novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, were sold. Funded by York Civic Trust to replace the original plaque, which was damaged during building works in 2022, the commemorative glass is the only one of its kind in the world. It was installed on 26 September at the Oliver Bonas store on Stonegate, where the book was first published in 1759. The building, number 35, was a bookshop in Sterne's day. The nine Tristram Shandy volumes have remained in print ever since. The great-grandson of the Archbishop of York, Sterne had close connections to North Yorkshire. He became vicar of Sutton-on-the-Forest in 1738, a position he held for 20 years. After a period of time in London, he returned to live in Shandy Hall in Coxwold from 1760 until his death in 1768. The house is now a museum. As well as playing a part in the citys literary history, the building was occupied by renowned stained glass manufacturers J W Knowles & Sons for over a century. Dr Duncan Marks, planning and heritage manager at York Civic Trust, said: There are around a million plaques in the world and none of them has made the connection of making a blue plaque in stained glass. We have around 150 blue plaques around the city celebrating people and places, but the ones that are slightly different are the ones people are particularly drawn to. The plaque was designed and manufactured by local stained glass artists Barley Studio, celebrating the legacy of Sternes most radical work. Dr Marks said: Tristram Shandy is highly regarded and seen as the first modern novel because its very playful and idiosyncratic in ways that novels in the mid-18th Century really werent. To have that cornerstone of English literature here in York is something worth commemorating. Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here. More on this story Related internet links The world's first 3D-printed hotel is being built in a West Texas desert The world's first 3D-printed hotel is being built in Texas. In the desert on the outskirts of Marfa, El Cosmico is building 43 new hotel units and 18 residentials homes using a 3D printer, Reuters reports. A massive 3D printer is expanding the existing hotel and campground in a West Texas desert, adding 40 acres to its current 21 acres. Company behind world's largest 3D-printed community to build hotel El Cosmico owner Liz Lambert is working with Austin-based ICON, the same printing company currently finishing the world's largest 3D-printed community in the Georgetown neighborhood of Wolf Ranch. The project's architects come from Bjarke Ingels Group. The expansion of El Cosmico is on track for completion by 2026. Unit prices are expected to range from $200 to $450 per night. Read more: World's largest 3D-printed community nears completion in this fast-growing Texas city Icon, an Austin startup focused on 3D-printing technology, is using 3D printers to build 100 houses in Wolf Ranch by Hillwood, a master-planned community in Georgetown. Icon partnered with home-building company Lennar, and the homes are co-designed by the architectural firm BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. Icon's 3D printers frame houses layer by layer. 'A crazy way to build' The printer, ICON's Vulcan, is 46.5 feet wide, 15.5 feet high, and weighs nearly five tonsthe size of a crane. According to Reuters, it has already begun building two units, single-story structures 12 feet high with curved beige-colored walls. One is a three-bedroom residential space, while the other is a single hotel unit. "Most hotels are contained within four walls and a lot of times you are building the same unit over and over and over again," Lambert told Reuters. "I've never been able to build with such little constraint and such fluidity...just the curves, and the domes, and the parabolas. It's a crazy way to build." How does ICON's 3D printer work? ICON uses a unique concrete-based material called Lavacrete, engineered for strength, affordability, and printability. The blend of ingredients is specialized according to the local weather, ICON CEO and co-founder Jason Ballard explains. "The magic happens in the admixtures that allow us to continue printing," Ballard said. Humidity, temperature and irradiance also influence the material's properties and final color, Ballard added. According to Reuters, ICON's Vulcan has a robotic arm and nozzle that operate over the work site on a gantry, a bridge-like structure designed to support equipment during construction. A print technician oversees the Vulcan. ICON's Vulcan printing technology is being used to create the world's first 3D-printed hotel in West Texas. Despite its involvement in El Cosmico's expansion, the Vulcan has limitations. This year, ICON is unveiling a new printer called the Phoenix. The new printer will have the capacity to build the foundation and roof of homes rather than just the walls. According to Ballard, the Phoenix will remove the barriers the Vulcan faces while still lowering costs and expanding design potential. Like the Vulcan, the Phoenix will also be cranelike. However, whereas the Vulcan's robotic arm is capable of constructing single-story homes, the Phoenix is being designed for larger, building-scale construction. Its extensive range of motion allows it to print in a steady line, regardless of weather or design. The Phoenix 3-D printer and a sculpture it printed are displayed at the Long Center by 3-D printing start-up Icon in Austin as part of South by Southwest, Tuesday, March 12, 2024. Is 3D printing better than traditional construction? Some argue that 3D-printing homes are faster, more cost-effective, require fewer workers, and reduce construction material waste compared with traditional construction. In an interview with Forbes, 3D printing company Mighty Buildings Chief Technology Officer Dmitry Starodubtsev said building homes this way could reduce the time needed to produce a single-family home by six months. Were trying to automate the construction process, increase quality and increase factory throughput in order basically to unlock productivity in the regions with high housing demand, Starodubtsev said. The entire system works to eliminate as much labor hours on site as possible in order to reduce pricing and make it more affordable for different generations of people, not only millennials. According to Reuters, the single-story, three- to four-bedroom 3D-printed homes in Georgetown take about three weeks to finish printing. Read more: Austin's Icon unveils new 3D printer, AI tool, building material at SXSW Icon, an Austin startup focused on 3D-printing technology, is using 3D printers to build 100 houses in Wolf Ranch by Hillwood, a master-planned community in Georgetown. Icon partnered with home-building company Lennar, and the homes are co-designed by the architectural firm BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. How much does a 3D-printed home cost? According to Business Insider, ICON said it could create a 600- to 800-square-foot building for as low as $4,000 in 24 hours. More substantial homes with additional features and higher-quality materials might cost between $50,000 and $150,000. Highly customized or larger homes could cost anywhere from $150,000 to more than $500,000, depending on the design and the level of finishing. How does a 3D printer work? Three-dimensional printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is a process of creating objects from a digital file by layering material. Heres how it works: CAD software : The process begins with creating a digital 3D model using Computer-Aided Design software. The model can also be created by scanning an existing object or downloading a design from a repository. Slicing : The 3D model is then divided into thin horizontal layers using slicing software. This software converts the model into a file format (such as .STL or .OBJ) that the 3D printer can read, defining how each layer should be printed. Printer configuration : The printer needs to be configured based on the material used, the desired resolution, and other parameters such as temperature, speed and layer thickness. Finishing: Depending on the material and the quality of the print, further finishing processes such as sanding, painting or curing might be needed. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: World's first 3D-printed hotel constructed being built in Marfa, Texas NEW YORK (PIX11) One New York City landlord found himself on the public advocates worst list not once, but twice. Landlord Daniel Ohebshalom is heading to jail for the second time, after repeatedly failing to improve living conditions for his tenants, according to the citys Department of Housing Preservation and Development. More Local News Ohebshalom has accumulated almost 3,300 HPD violations among his 15 buildings in Queens and Manhattan, according to the public advocates website. One building in Flushing had nearly 500 violations alone. Housing officials say the violations included hazardous conditions such as peeling lead paint, inadequate electricity, and mold and as well as rodent and roach infestations. More Queens News Ohebshalom previously spent 60 days on Rikers Island after being charged with using hazardous living conditions to force out tenants from rent-stabilized apartments, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg. He was also accused of filing false documents with city agencies to conceal the buildings he owned. we are living in like no heat or hot water for almost two weeks in the coldest winters, said tenant Bianca L. during a rally in August. One time the boiler was burning in the middle of the night, spewing black fumes everywhere and making the building smell like burnt gasoline. More Manhattan News Tenants say Ohebshalom has refused to make court ordered repairs to their homes despite his 60-day jail sentence. The public advocates list shows that violations against the landlord were up from 2,980 the previous year. The public advocates office advises New York City residents to report bad building conditions to 311, the HPD website, or even the office of the public advocate Dominique Jack is a digital content producer from Brooklyn with more than five years of experience covering news. She joined PIX11 in 2024. More of her work can be found 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. ELKINS, W.Va. (WBOY) West Virginias white-tailed deer bow season starts on Saturday, and the Division of Natural Resources (DNR) predicts that some north central West Virginia counties will have a better harvest than last year. Even with the drought, some deer food sources are up from last year, according to the 2024 West Virginia Hunting Outlook and Mast Survey, which is available in full here. For bow season, which starts on Sept. 28, the DNR recommends focusing on areas with white and chestnut oaks, which overproduced this year. However, hunters should try to scout hot spots with a lot of oak trees before their hunts for the best results. Region 1, which includes the Northern Panhandle as well as most of north central West Virginia, including Monongalia, Marion, Taylor, Preston, Harrison, Barbour and Tucker counties, is expected to have a higher deer harvest than last year. West Virginia leads the country in deer collisions, again Statewide, the report predicts that West Virginia will have a similar deer harvest from 2023 for both antlerless deer and buckswhich was slightly above the five-year averagealthough this year, the bag limit for bucks has been reduced. Although deer populations remain strong, the report said that some localized population declines may be possible from epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD), which was confirmed in Monongalia, Marion and Barbour counties. Most other animals will have a similar harvest as 2023, with the exception of wild boar, cottontail rabbits and ruffed grouse, which will likely have a lower harvest this year. Rabbits harvests specifically are expected to be extremely poor, if not the worst in recent history, according to the report. You can see a breakdown of the changes for this years hunting regulations in West Virginia here, and a full cope of the 2024 West Virginia Hunting Outlook and Mast Survey 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 WBOY.com. The platform X, formerly known as Twitter, has been suspended since August 31 in Latin America's largest country, where it had 22 million users (EVARISTO SA) (EVARISTO SA/AFP/AFP) Elon Musk's X social media platform has complied with orders from Brazil's Supreme Court and is asking for its suspension in the country to be lifted, a source close to the case told AFP on Thursday. The platform formerly known as Twitter has been suspended since August 31 in Latin America's largest country, where it had 22 million users. Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes suspended X in Brazil after its billionaire owner Musk refused to remove dozens of right-wing accounts accused of spreading fake news, and then failed to name a new legal representative in the country as ordered. The high-profile judge has been engaged in a long feud with Musk as part of his drive to crack down on disinformation in Brazil. The company has now, however, presented new documents requested by Moraes and considers that it has satisfied all the court's demands and should have its suspension lifted, the source close to the case said. The company said it was "committed to protecting free speech within the boundaries of the law and we recognize and respect the sovereignty of the countries in which we operate," in a post on X. "We believe that the people of Brazil having access to X is essential for a thriving democracy, and we will continue to defend freedom of expression and due process of law through legal processes." The site had ultimately appointed a legal representative in Brazil. But last Saturday, Judge Moraes ruled that X had still not "duly fulfilled" all the conditions required to have his ban lifted, giving the company five days to provide further documents. The judge had also ordered X to pay a fine of more than $900,000 a day for breaching its suspension on 18 September, when the platform became accessible again after an automatic update to the phone application. X said the return of its service was "inadvertent and temporary," but the government slammed it as a deliberate violation of the suspension. The platform was blocked again the next day. The Pinheiro Neto law firm, which represents X in Brazil, declined to comment when contacted by AFP. The Supreme Court would also not provide further details, citing judicial confidentiality. The suspension has infuriated Musk and the far-right, and fueled a fierce debate on freedom of expression and the limits of social networks, both inside and outside the country. rsr/tmo/lg/lgo/cco/sw/ssy (Reuters) -Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi militants said on Friday they had targeted the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon along with three U.S. destroyers in the Red Sea with missiles and drones in support of Gaza and Lebanon. The Israeli army said it had intercepted a missile fired from Yemen which had triggered sirens to sound in central Israel. The Houthis' military spokesperson said operations would not halt until Israel's offensives in Gaza and Lebanon stop. The group attacked Tel Aviv with a ballistic missile and launched a drone towards Ashkelon in southern Israel, Yahya Sarea said. "We will carry out more military operations against the Israeli enemy to triumph for the sake of our brothers' blood in Palestine and Lebanon," he added in a televised speech. Sarea also said, in a separate televised speech, that the group had simultaneously targeted three U.S. destroyers in the Red Sea with 23 ballistic and winged missiles and a drone while the vessels were on their way to support Israel. U.S. Navy warships going through the Bab al-Mandab Strait intercepted a number of projectiles, including missiles and drones, fired by the Houthis, a U.S. official said. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity and citing initial information which can change, said there was no damage to any of the three warships in the area. Israeli strikes have killed more than 600 people in Lebanon since Monday, with the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah at its most intense in more than 18 years. Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel for almost a year in support of allied Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is fighting Israel in Gaza. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli assault on Gaza, according to health officials there. The war was triggered by an attack on Israel by Hamas militants who killed 1,200 people and abducted more than 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies. (Reporting by Dubai Newsroom, Mohammed Ghobari in Aden, and Philip Stewart in Washington, Editing by Toby Chopra and Hugh Lawson) Armed rebels of the Iran-backed Houthi militia take part in a demonstration. Osamah Yahya/dpa Yemen's Iranian-aligned Houthi militia on Friday claimed two attacks including one by a ballistic missile aimed at Israel in support of their Palestinian and Lebanese allies. Houthi military spokesman Yehya Saree said the group had targeted a military target in the area of Jaffa with a ballistic missile and a "vital target" in the Ashkelon area with a drone. "The two operations have successfully achieved their objectives," he added in a televised statement without giving details. Saree vowed further attacks by the group in the days ahead until what he called the "Israeli aggression" on the Gaza Strip and Lebanon stops. Earlier this month, the Houthis claimed they had launched a hypersonic ballistic missile against an Israeli military target in Jaffa. Earlier Friday, warning sirens rang out across Tel Aviv as air defence intercepted a missile fired from Yemen, the Israeli military said. A post by the military on social media platform X said that millions of Israelis were seeking shelter in the centre of the country after the rocket alert. There were no reports of damage or casualties. Explosions heard in the early hours were due to the missile being intercepted, the military said. On Wednesday, warning sirens rang out across Tel Aviv for the first time since May as Israel's air defence intercepted a missile fired from Lebanon. It was the first time the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militia targeted Tel Aviv, in central Israel, since the war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip began on October 7 last year. Following a fatal drone attack on Tel Aviv by the Houthis, the Israeli Air Force attacked the port city of Hodeidah in July, leading to a massive fire and six deaths. Houthi leaders subsequently announced a new phase in the fight against Israel. The Houthi militants have also been attacking ships in the Red Sea, saying the attacks are intended to support Hamas and force an end to the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. An American flag flies above the construction site of a multifamily housing development last year in Los Angeles. In many places, homeowners are opposing state and local efforts to strip away exclusive single-family-home zoning to allow the construction of more multifamily housing. Mario Tama/Getty Images When Minneapolis, then Oregon, then other local and state governments began stripping away exclusive single-family-home zoning over the past five years to allow the construction of multifamily housing, many development advocates predicted the start of a pro-YIMBY revolution. But the yes-in-my-backyard movement has stumbled even before its really gotten started. In court challenges around the country, opponents have cited spikes in traffic, strains to infrastructure, displacement of low-income residents, hits on property values and changes to neighborhood character. Multifamily zoning advocates, however, counter that opponents are resisting changes that will yield broader societal benefits. The debates are challenging elected leaders, planning specialists, homebuilders and advocates, pitting long-established homeowners against a system desperate to get a handle on the nations growing crisis of housing affordability and homelessness. People want to maintain their neighborhood character, but it should be about ensuring quality of life for everyone, said Natali Fani-Gonzalez, a Democratic member of the Montgomery County Council in Maryland who has endorsed changes to zoning laws. Youre part of a community you dont own it. We need to evolve with society. I dread the possibility The most recent ruling arrived this month, when the Montana Supreme Court issued a decision paving the way for a pair of state laws to take effect over the objections of homeowners. In 2023, Montana lawmakers were lauded for a bipartisan effort dubbed the Montana Miracle, a collection of measures that overrode local zoning ordinances to encourage more multifamily homes and accessory dwelling units, or ADUs smaller secondary cottages or in-law apartments within or on a lot of a single-family home. The laws, championed by Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte, were supposed to go into effect Jan. 1, 2024. But in December, a consortium of single-family homeowners from across the state called Montanans Against Irresponsible Densification, or MAID, filed a complaint. The group argued that the state had unconstitutionally taken away homeowners property rights and would wrest local control from cities and counties. The lawsuit warned, in part, that the laws meant new construction could begin down the block without notice. I dread the possibility of waking up one morning and finding that one of my neighbors has sold her property to a developer who is then erecting a multi-unit building or a duplex, or an accessory dwelling unit right next to our nice and carefully maintained single-family dwelling, wrote Glenn Monahan, a Bozeman resident and managing partner of MAID, in an affidavit filed with the initial lawsuit and quoted in the courts ruling. If such development aimed at increasing density in my neighborhood happens, I believe it will seriously and adversely affect the economic value of my property, Monahan wrote. More important than economic value is the moral, aesthetic neighborhood values that my wife and I share with the neighbors Representatives for MAID did not return calls for comment. Wealthier and whiter Berkeley, California, first established a residential zone exclusively for single-family homes in 1916 just as racist covenants banning home sales to non-whites were gaining steam nationally and other workarounds to preserve neighborhood segregation were being tested. Today, around 75% of residential land in the United States is zoned exclusively for single-family homes. These neighborhoods are typically wealthier and whiter, according to a 2023 research report by the Urban Institute. Minneapolis is credited as the first major U.S. city to enact substantial changes to increase density when it abolished single-family-only zoning citywide in 2019, allowing up to three dwelling units on any residential lot. People want to maintain their neighborhood character, but it should be about ensuring quality of life for everyone. Natali Fani-Gonzalez, a Democratic member of the Montgomery County Council in Maryland That same year, the Oregon legislature passed a law with two so-called upzoning provisions: allowing duplexes in single-family zoning areas of cities with at least 10,000 residents, and allowing townhouses, triplexes and fourplexes in cities of at least 25,000 residents. Upzoning encompasses a range of policy tools such as building more missing middle housing in the range between single-family homes and apartment buildings, focusing on transit-oriented development, lifting parking requirements, and increasing floor-to-area ratios. But researchers and planners told Stateline that it can take years for these policy changes to address current housing needs or undo the harms of restrictive zoning. The largest challenge is that zoning reform takes a really long time to implement. From the start of reform to actually seeing effects, it takes about 10 years, said Stephen Menendian, assistant director and director of research at the University of California, Berkeleys Othering & Belonging Institute. Even the Minneapolis reforms, which happened at warp speed, will take another four years to fully assess the effects, Menendian said. Its been less a revolution and more of a slow shift. UC Berkeleys Zoning Reform Tracker, last updated in November, provides an overview of municipal zoning reform efforts across the U.S., documenting 148 initiatives in 101 municipalities over a span of 17 years. Other local governments have passed ordinances taking aim at single-family-only zoning in various ways, including Austin, Texas; the city of Alexandria and Arlington County in Virginia; Sacramento, California; and Portland, Oregon. Many have been challenged in court. In Minneapolis, the 2040 plan, as the citys long-term planning blueprint is known, was held up after its passage in 2019 by years of environmental lawsuits and back-and-forth rulings, delaying implementation. Finally, state lawmakers in May passed a bill exempting comprehensive housing plans from environmental review, a measure aimed squarely at preserving the 2040 plan. Even then, a county judge issued an injunction, forcing the city to halt parts of the plan and revise it. Talking it out Diana Drogaris, outreach coordinator for the National Zoning Atlas, a research organization that works to demystify zoning laws across the U.S., thinks city leaders are improving their communication with residents during public hearings and input sessions. However, she notes that leaders must balance transparency with managing valid fears of zoning changes. A zoning change is going to have an effect on the public. It will affect the store they go to, their commutes, what type of resources are available, Drogaris said. And I think community leaders are getting better at having these conversations. The public doesnt need to know every nook and cranny of these outdated codes, she said, but enough to understand how that one zoning change is going to change how that land is being used in their community. Menendian argues that misconceptions on both sides among housing advocates and concerned community members fuel much of the anger. Theres a lot of misnomers about zoning reform, he said. Homeowner groups also are expected to challenge a recent series of upzoning changes in Austin, approved at the end of 2023 and this spring. In 2022, a group of citizens successfully sued the city over a handful of ordinances designed to streamline housing development. When a lawsuit is filed, work toward new housing developments may stop. California enacted a law in 2021 allowing property owners to split their lots and build two new homes in certain cities. In April, a Los Angeles judge ruled the law unconstitutional. In June, the state filed its notice of appeal. Meanwhile, in Northern Virginia just outside the District of Columbia, the city of Alexandria and Arlington County, which also passed zoning changes last year, are facing their own legal challenges. The full impact of Alexandrias zoning overhaul even if it clears its legal challenges may not do much to affect housing outcomes. According to the city managers estimates, allowing up to four units in zones that are currently limited to single-family dwellings would only create a net new 178 units over 10 years. Absolutely some sort of backlash This fall, both Montgomery County, Maryland, and Berkeley, California, will be considering upzoning proposals, following a summer filled with contentious public hearings. Fani-Gonzalez, the Montgomery County councilmember, said that modernizing the countys zoning, in conjunction with other policies such as rent stabilization, will help keep residents in their homes while creating new housing to accommodate the growth associated with being just outside Washington, D.C. We need more housing, but we cannot get stuck with building cookie-cutter houses that only certain folks can actually afford, said Fani-Gonzalez. In California, the city of Berkeleys proposal to end exclusionary zoning in its neighborhoods is part of a broader effort to undo its racist legacy. The Berkeley City Council took its first steps in examining that legacy by denouncing the racist history of single-family zoning in 2021, a largely ceremonial move that gained steam when the city council asked the city for a report on missing-middle housing. The citys latest upzoning plan was scaled back this summer after a five-hour public hearing. Lori Droste, a Berkeley councilmember from 2014 to 2022, told Stateline that she had been advocating for major upzoning changes since 2016 but struggled to get the votes. What changed, she said, was linking the need for zoning changes to the national consciousness raised by 2020 protests around systemic racism and racial injustice. Zoning reform is going to take time. Its probably going to take 20 years before anyone notices real changes. But if we dont start now, the housing crisis will only get worse, she said. When asked by Stateline if she expects any legal action if the upzoning proposal is successful, Droste responded, I imagine there will be. Im not in the city attorneys office, but absolutely theres going to be some sort of backlash. 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 News Mitch McConnell often dodges direct questions about Donald Trump. Not when it comes to tariffs. McConnell turned heads this week when he bluntly declared that hes not a fan of tariffs in response to a question about Trumps proposals to slap huge levies on imported goods. Perhaps it was a sign of whats to come. The Republican leader is soon ending his reign of 18 years atop the Senate GOP, but he will still represent his state of Kentucky for at least two more years. And he has not forgotten that in retaliation against Trumps first-term tariffs, Europe slapped fees on his home states most famous export. Take the bourbon industry, for example. In Kentucky, its really been adversely impacted by European tariffs, McConnell said in a Thursday interview with Semafor. I represent Kentucky, in addition to having this job. Weve had a very bad experience in our signature industry with tariffs. McConnell didnt vow to stop the former president from making good on a flirtation with tariffs that could extend to all US imports; but he did emphasize that I just differ with President Trump on the issue. At a time when unity is paramount for his party its notable hes at all comfortable clearly expressing himself on an idea that many free-traders dance around. And as McConnells career winds down, hes sending a signal that his exit from leadership might even lead to more candid views on hot topics. Hell still be one of the most closely watched Republicans in Washington. McConnell, age 82, has nearly three more months to go as Senate GOP leader, though, and plenty left to do. Foremost on his mind is leaving his successor as party leader with a majority, which would give Republican senators power over the agenda and as he sees it, at least help preserve the legislative filibuster. Know More Most Republicans are confident that they will flip the Senate given their ample pick-up opportunities in red states, even if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the White House and Democrats flip the House. Of course, many Republicans thought the same thing two years ago and Democrats picked up a Senate seat. So you wont find the buttoned-up McConnell making grand predictions that its over for Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, even as polls show the Montanan in the most precarious position of his career: I wouldnt go that far. And McConnells seen his party blow too many races over the years to predict a big win just yet. Hed only hazard that his party has a good chance at taking back the Senate, which would require a minimum of flipping Montana in addition to the sure-fire pick-up of West Virginia. Hes more definitive about Democrats move this week to pour millions of dollars into Senate battles in Texas and Florida, calling it a waste of money. I dont think they have a chance in either Texas or Florida, McConnell said of races in which two of his biggest conservative detractors, Rick Scott and Ted Cruz, are running for reelection. Democrats havent forgotten about the drama between McConnell and the two senators hes predicting will prevail; Scott ran against him in the 2022 leadership race, and Cruz voted against him. Since then, McConnell and Scott continued scuffling; before then, Cruz used McConnell as a foil in his 2016 presidential campaign. (Mitch McConnells well-documented disdain for Cruz and Scott is shared by the voters of Texas and Florida, said David Bergstein, a spokesperson for Democrats campaign arm.) McConnell isnt predicting victory yet for Trump, either, calling the presidential race really competitive. He called the former president practically and morally responsible for the violent Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021. And after a long period of arms-length relations with Trump after the 2020 election and McConnell voting to acquit in the second impeachment trial he has since endorsed Trump and engaged in a handshake at a party meeting. A Trump presidency would mean a possible threat to another of his top priorities, beyond tariffs. He spent much of this Congress advocating for aid to Ukraine, money that vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance opposed and that Trump has shown little interest in. Here, too, McConnell made clear hes not going to shrink away. Im confident that Im going to be arguing that its in Americas interest, our interest, for Ukraine to beat the Russians, he said. No matter which administration. The filibuster makes a third front for intra party friction. As president, Trump repeatedly leaned on the GOP leader to end the filibuster in order to get his agenda to pass through the Senate with a simple majority vote. I had a one-word answer: No, McConnell said on Thursday. If Trump tried again to quash the filibuster, he insisted, I think every single Republican member of the Senate would say no. Burgesss view There are plenty of signs that a post-leadership McConnell would be less restrained and more willing to emphasize his personal perspective, as he follows Nancy Pelosi from party leadership into free agency. That might lead to his old-school Reagan Republicanism clearly contradicting some of his colleagues, or Trump. He told me earlier this year that being Republican leader requires you to keep your mouth shut a lot. So after spending the better part of his 18 years carefully weighing every comment (and non-comment), perhaps McConnell will show a more freewheeling side. Still, its hard for me to believe that McConnell would begin a true YOLO era, particularly if Trump is in the White House. He appears to have at least three issues on which hes willing to break from the former president the filibuster, tariffs and Ukraine. Even that is something few senior Capitol Hill Republicans are willing to do. New York City Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan federal court Friday to federal charges related to an alleged conspiracy with Turkish nationals that landed him lavish gifts in exchange for beneficial treatment. "I am not guilty your honor," Adams told the judge. The one-time police captain listened as Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker informed Adams of his rights. Asked if he understood those rights, Adams replied, "Yes, I do, your honor." PHOTO: New York City Mayor Eric Adams leaves federal court, on the day of his arraignment after he was charged with bribery and illegally soliciting a campaign contribution from a foreign national, in New York City, Sept. 27, 2024. (David Dee Delgado/Reuters) Federal prosecutors accused Adams of accepting more than $100,000 in improper benefits over nearly a decade, many of which came in the form of flight upgrades and stays in luxury hotels, none of which were publicly divulged as required. The indictment also alleged Adams and a staffer knowingly worked with Turkish nationals to send foreign money to straw donors for his mayoral campaign, and used that money to rake in over $10 million from New York City's matching funds program. MORE: New York City Mayor Eric Adams charged with fraud, accepting $10 million in improper campaign contributions Adams, 64, who is the first sitting New York City mayor to be criminally charged, has denied the allegations and vowed to fight the charges, despite rising calls for him to step down. Longtime Rep. Jerry Nadler, whose district covers central Manhattan, was the latest New York official to call for Adams to step down Friday. Adams was released on his own recognizance and ordered to have no contact with witnesses or anyone named in the indictment. He is allowed to have contact with staff members or relatives who may have knowledge of the fact pattern as long as they do not discuss the case. PHOTO: New York City Mayor Eric Adams arrives at federal court for his arraignment after he was charged with bribery and illegally soliciting a campaign contribution from a foreign national, in New York City, Sept. 27, 2024. (Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters) The mayor did not make any statements after the arraignment, but gave a thumbs up to the media. His attorney, Alex Spiro, told reporters after the hearing that it was "not a real case." He claimed prosecutors did not have any evidence against his client, and laid blame on an unidentified staff member mentioned in the indictment who allegedly dealt with the Turkish nationals. Spiro claimed the staffer lied to prosecutors. MORE: New York City Mayor Eric Adams' federal probe: A timeline of corruption investigation "There are no emails or text messages or corroboration that the mayor had anything to do with these allegations," Spiro said. Adams will return to court next week for an initial conference before the district judge who will oversee the case. "We will be filing a motion to dismiss on Wednesday," Spiro said. PHOTO: New York City Mayor Eric Adams arrives at federal court for his arraignment after he was charged with bribery and illegally soliciting a campaign contribution from a foreign national, in New York City, Sept. 27, 2024. (Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters) Prior to his arraignment, Adams was fingerprinted and photographed and basic pedigree information was taken during processing. The 57-page indictment had several details about Adams' alleged corruption that dated back to his time as Brooklyn borough president. The indictment included several text messages from an unidentified Adams staff member and several unidentified Turkish business persons and an unidentified Turkish government official, who provided gifts such as first-class flights and stays at luxurious hotels in Turkey and other locations. PHOTO: Who's who in the Eric Adams federal investigation (ABC News) The indictment also claimed a Turkish government official tried to open a new high-rise building in Manhattan in 2021 that would house Turkey's consulate and pushed Adams to speed up the construction permits. Despite warnings from New York City fire safety professionals, Adams pressured the fire department to open the building and solicited more travel gifts, according to prosecutors. The indictment followed a nearly yearlong investigation that included probes into Adams' closest allies. Federal agents have searched and seized electronics from several officials, including former NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban, who resigned shortly after the search, and deputy mayors Phil Banks and Sheena Wright. No other New York City official has been charged in connection with Adams' allegations. The investigation is ongoing. Later in the day, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, chief adviser to the mayor, had her phone seized upon return to the United States from a vacation in Japan, her attorney said. Investigators also searched her Brooklyn home, sources told ABC News. "She will cooperate fully with any and all investigations and Ms. Lewis is not the target of any case of which we are aware," attorney, Arthur Aidala said in a statement. New York City Mayor Eric Adams pleads not guilty to federal bribery, fraud charges originally appeared on abcnews.go.com New York City Mayor Eric Adams arrives to appear in court after being indicted on federal charges of accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions (TIMOTHY A. CLARY) (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/AFP) New York's scandal-plagued Mayor Eric Adams arrived in court Friday where he was due to answer multiple fraud and bribery charges that have shocked the city. Adams was charged following a sweeping probe, with prosecutors accusing him of wire fraud, soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations and bribery conspiracy. The allegations prompted calls for his resignation, but Adams has remained defiant, saying he was looking "forward to defending myself." Accompanied by aides, the 64-year-old mayor walked into the federal courthouse in Manhattan on Friday morning. He made no comments to waiting reporters but gave a thumbs-up. Presenting the charges on Thursday, US District Attorney Damian Williams said the mayor was "secretly being showered" with gifts for years. "The conduct alleged in the indictment -- the foreign money, the corporate money, the years of concealment -- is a grave breach of the public's trust," Williams told journalists. The 57-page document accuses the mayor of the most populous US city of crimes going back a decade, when Adams took office as Brooklyn's borough president. According to the charges, he accepted luxury international flights, hotel suites and free high-end restaurant meals including from at least one Turkish government official in return for favors. In one example, prosecutors say Adams pressured the city's fire department to approve Turkey's new high-rise consulate in Manhattan despite safety concerns. Scandal has swirled around Adams for months with several high-ranking allies resigning as others were indicted or raided by federal agents. Adams, the second Black mayor in the city's history, won the 2021 Democratic primary vowing to reduce crime, which did fall after rising during the Covid pandemic. But the city of 8.5 million people faces a housing crisis that has seen rents skyrocket. Adams is up for reelection next year. md/bgs New York City Mayor Eric Adams arrives to appear in court after being indicted on federal charges of accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions (TIMOTHY A. CLARY) (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/AFP) New York Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty Friday to charges of fraud and bribery in a case that marks a stunning downfall for a man once touted as a future Democratic Party star. Adams, who appeared before a judge in a Manhattan federal court, is the first sitting New York mayor to be criminally indicted. He is accused of wire fraud, soliciting illegal campaign donations and a bribery conspiracy involving Turkish citizens and at least one Turkish official. Judge Katherine Parker set the next hearing for Wednesday. The allegations prompted calls for his resignation, but Adams has remained defiant, saying on Thursday that he is looking "forward to defending myself" and urging New Yorkers to "wait to hear our side of the story." Accompanied by aides, the 64-year-old mayor made no comments to waiting reporters Friday but gave a thumbs-up as he entered the courthouse. He wore a dark blue suit and a purple tie. "I am not guilty, your honor," he said in court. Presenting the charges on Thursday, US District Attorney Damian Williams said the mayor was "secretly being showered" with gifts for years. "The conduct alleged in the indictment -- the foreign money, the corporate money, the years of concealment -- is a grave breach of the public's trust," Williams told journalists. - Luxury travel - The 57-page document accuses the mayor of America's biggest city of crimes going back a decade, when Adams, a Democrat, took office as Brooklyn's borough president. According to the charges, he accepted luxury international flights, hotel suites and free high-end restaurant meals including from Turkish associates in return for favors. In one example, prosecutors say Adams pressured the city's fire department to approve Turkey's new high-rise consulate in Manhattan despite safety concerns. "The Turkish official got what he wanted, and as we explained in the indictment, just four days after Adams held up his end of the bargain, he went right back to soliciting more travel benefits," Williams said. Scandal has swirled around Adams for months with several high-ranking allies resigning as others were indicted or raided by federal agents. The drama escalated with a pre-dawn raid of his official residence early Thursday. Some city and state officials have demanded he resign, including influential New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who said Adams must step down "for the good of the city." The indictment risks embarrassing Democrats weeks before the presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, who are polling neck and neck. Adams, the second Black mayor in the city's history, won the 2021 Democratic primary vowing to reduce crime, which did fall after rising during the Covid pandemic. But the city of 8.5 million people faces a housing crisis that has seen rents skyrocket. Adams is up for reelection next year. md/sms/md By Luc Cohen NEW YORK (Reuters) -New York City Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty on Friday to federal charges of accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions from Turkish nationals, as the Democrat resists mounting calls from within his own party to resign. Adams, 64, entered the plea before U.S. Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker at his first appearance in the case in Manhattan federal court. He wore a dark blue suit with a purple dotted tie, and stared straight ahead as Parker explained the five felony counts he faces, including bribery and wire fraud. "I am not guilty, your honor," Adams said when Parker asked for his plea. His lawyer, Alex Spiro, said he would file a motion to dismiss the charges next week. Adams is next due in court on Oct. 2. The mayor was released without having to post any bail on the condition that he not have contact with witnesses or people named in the indictment. Parker said there would be exceptions for staff and family members, so long as he does not discuss the details of the indictment with them. In the indictment unsealed on Thursday, federal prosecutors said Turkish diplomats and businesspeople illegally funneled money to Adams' campaign and showered him with luxury travel perks, including business-class airplane tickets, opulent hotel stays and meals at high-end restaurants. In exchange, Adams in 2021 pressured city officials to allow Turkey's new 36-story consulate to open despite safety concerns, according to prosecutors. A Turkish foreign ministry spokesperson said on Friday that Ankara was following the proceedings in Adams' case closely, and that its diplomats adhered to protocol. "Our diplomatic missions carry out their duties in conformity with the Vienna Conventions and diplomatic traditions," the spokesperson said. "It is out of the question for us to interfere in the internal affairs of any country." After the hearing, Spiro told reporters the accusations rested on the assertions of an Adams staffer who falsely implicated Adams. He minimized the severity of the charges, and said he expected them to be dismissed. "This isn't even a real case. This is the airline upgrade corruption case," Spiro said. POLITICAL UPHEAVAL Adams, a former police officer who rose to the rank of captain, is the first of the city's 110 mayors to be charged with a federal crime while in office. The largest U.S. city has been in a state of political upheaval for the past month as federal probes swirled around senior officials. The police commissioner resigned on Sept. 12 after FBI agents seized his phone. Days later, Adams' top legal adviser stepped down. Jerry Nadler, a U.S. Representative from Manhattan and the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, on Friday called on Adams to resign, joining a growing chorus of prominent city officials and lawmakers. But two powerful Democratic lawmakers from Brooklyn, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, stopped short of doing so. Adams could be removed from office by Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul, but the process is complicated, said Pace University Law School professor Bennett Gershman. Hochul on Thursday said she would "review my options and obligations as the governor of New York." 'FIRST STOP IS ALWAYS ISTANBUL' The alleged scheme dates back to 2014, when Adams became Brooklyn borough president, prosecutors said. According to the indictment, Adams accepted free travel from Turkish Airlines worth tens of thousands of dollars while serving as Brooklyn borough president and paid $600 to stay two nights at a luxury suite in the St. Regis hotel in Istanbul, well below the actual cost of $7,000. Prosecutors said Adams would fly on Turkish Airlines even when it was inconvenient. "You know first stop is always Istanbul," he wrote in a 2017 text message when his partner expressed surprise that they were flying from New York to Paris through Istanbul, according to the indictment. Turkish Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. Adams also allegedly accepted foreign contributions to his 2021 mayoral campaign, which is illegal. Prosecutors say Adams responded to Turkish concerns. Acting on a request by a Turkish diplomat, Adams pressured city safety inspectors to allow the country's new consulate to open in time for a September 2021 visit by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, even though it would have failed a fire inspection, the indictment said. Adams notified the diplomat when the Fire Department approved the building to open later in the day, the indictment said. "You are a true friend of Turkey," the diplomat allegedly responded. (Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Additional reporting by Aleksandra Michalska; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Jonathan Oatis, Daniel Wallis and Bill Berkrot) WARREN, Ohio (WKBN) A Youngstown man was sentenced in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Thursday on drug charges. According to the Trumbull County Prosecutors Office, Chantelle A. Scott Jr., 27, pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of fentanyl-related compounds, third and fourth-degree felonies; two counts of possession of fentanyl-related compounds, fifth-degree felonies; and one count of having weapons while under disability, a third-degree felony. Scot was sentenced to six years in prison and fined $5,000. Judge Ronald J. Rice said that because of Scotts extensive criminal history, consecutive sentences were necessary to protect the public. The case involved an October 2022 investigation by the Mahoning Valley Violent Crimes Task Force when a large amount of fentanyl was found in Scotts Liberty Township residence, according to prosecutors. Cash and weapons were also confiscated. Scott was also facing felony charges in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. He was indicted May 2 on charges of failure to comply, receiving stolen property, obstructing official business and aggravated possession. Those charges were filed in connection to an April arrest in Youngstown when Scott and another man were taken into custody in connection to a December 2023 chase in Youngstown. The case in Mahoning County is listed as closed, but the online docket does not say how it was adjudicated. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com. (Bloomberg) -- Volodymyr Zelenskiy finally got his meeting with Donald Trump. Most Read from Bloomberg But it came at the end of a roller-coaster week that saw the Ukrainian president caught up in the maelstrom of the US presidential campaign. The long-sought session laid bare the risks facing his quest for more American support in Ukraines fight against Russias full-scale invasion. At Trump Tower Friday, Zelenskiy stood impassively as the former president repeated his vows to bring a quick end to the war if hes elected, something Kyiv and its allies fear could mean forced capitulation. Trump cited his good relationship with both Zelenskiy and Russias Vladimir Putin, prompting the Ukrainian leader to interject that he hoped his Trump ties were better. A visit that Zelenskiy had planned as a chance to line up more support from allies to force Russia to bring an end to the war was instead consumed by Trumps bare-knuckle political tactics. The audience Friday was granted only after days of public belittling that culminated in the former president posting Zelenskiys plaintive private request for a meeting on his social media. With no sign of a breakthrough on the battlefield as the war heads into its fourth winter, the election in its most important ally is an existential matter for Ukraine. Even before Zelenskiy arrived at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, his trip got off to a rough start. A visit Sunday to a factory making the kind of artillery shells his troops on the front line fire every day was meant as a gesture of Kyivs gratitute but triggered a political firestorm. The plant was in Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state, and the governor who joined the event was a top surrogate for Trumps rival, Vice President Kamala Harris. Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House, called it election interference and demanded Zelenskiy fire his ambassador to Washington. Senator Ted Cruz called the Ukrainian leader an absolute moron. Then there was Zelenskiys undiplomatic criticism of Trump and his running mate in an interview with the New Yorker. Trump doesnt really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how, Zelenskiy said. His running mate Senator JD Vance who thinks Ukraine needs to give up territory to Russia - was too radical. Trumps response was quick. In campaign speeches, he mocked Zelenskiys accent and accused him of making little nasty aspersions toward your favorite president: me. Aides signaled the hoped-for meeting with Zelenskiy wouldnt happen. Ukrainian officials were taken aback by the ferocity of the response. The plant visit had been arranged with help from the Pentagon. According to people familiar with the planning, Zelenskiy was expected to see only the governor and preside over the signing of a cooperation agreement, just as he had on an uneventful July stop in Utah. What they didnt appreciate was the sensitivity of meeting Pennsylvanias Josh Shapiro, a top Harris supporter, in a contested state so close to the vote. Suddenly, as Zelenskiy was addressing leaders at the UN, his entourage was having to do damage control. For their part, Ukrainian officials remained upbeat even as the controversy swirled. Zelenskiy pronounced the meeting very productive in a social media post Friday. In a conversation the day before, the Ukrainian president was probably a little more optimistic about getting the support hes seeking than hed been earlier this year, Finlands president Alexander Stubb told a conference later. But Stubb conceded, there was bipartisan support but then some pushback from Donald Trump. It was all meant to have gone very differently. After Kyivs daring offensive last month took hundreds of square miles of Russian territory, upending perceptions the war had settled into a stalemate and exposing as empty Putins threats to retaliate, Zelenskiy was riding high. He had come to the US hoping to line up support for his victory plan - a bold appeal for yet more military and diplomatic support that in Kyivs view will finally be enough to convince Putin that Russia cannot win the war. President Joe Biden Thursday announced a surge in US military aid, ensuring another $8 billion would be released before he leaves office. But he had little to say about Zelenskiys plan and gave no indication he was ready to grant Ukraines request to be allowed to use allied weapons for strikes deeper into Russia, something Washington fears could lead to dangerous escalation. On Capitol Hill Thursday, the adulation that had greeted Zelenskiys visits early in the war was nowhere to be seen. With Congress not in session, fewer lawmakers turned out to meet him. With elections looming, there were broad pledges of support but little discussion of the prospects for aid next year. The way Kyiv sees it, a win for Harris in November means predictability and the sense that the US will continue to support its war effort. The United States supports Ukraine not out of charity, but because it is in our strategic interest, she told Zelenskiy Thursday. But if Trump is in the White House, things can either improve or get much worse, according to a person familiar with Ukrainian leaderships thinking. It was the risk of the latter scenario that hung over the meeting Friday. Trump had sidestepped a question on whether he wanted Kyiv to prevail in the conflict in a debate. In speeches, he spoke of Russias past war victories and the destruction Ukraine had suffered, echoing Kremlin talking points. Though Trump later called it great in a social media post, the meeting Friday had no shortage of awkward moments. As Trump bounced between describing Ukraine as a wasteland of destruction but also beautiful, Zelenskiy cut in with a smile and an invitation to come visit. Trump twice conceded the meeting was mostly for show since he was out of power - starting the answer to a question about what he hoped to accomplish with a quick nothing - and when another reporter asked why the meeting was happening, the pair struggled to decide who should answer. Asked after the hour-long meeting Friday whether hed changed his mind about how to end the war, Trump had little reassurance for Zelenskiy. I learned a lot but I think I havent changed from the standpoint that we both want to see this end and we both want to see a fair deal made, Trump told Fox News. I have my own ideas, and Im sure the president definitely has his own ideas. --With assistance from Courtney McBride, Daniel Flatley, Natalia Drozdiak, Billy House and Kati Pohjanpalo. (Updates with Trump post in 25th paragraph (an earlier version of this story was corrected to reflect proper time element in second deck and fifth paragraph) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Zelensky meets Biden at White House as US election looms over war US President Joe Biden meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (L) at the White House. -/Ukrainian Presidency/dpa Outgoing US President Joe Biden released another $2.4 billion in military aid to Ukraine as President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the White House on Thursday. The package includes another Patriot air-defence system, long-range bombs and drones. Biden also said that another $5.5 billion was set to flow to Ukraine before his term ends in January. Additionally, the US will support the training of another 18 Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets. The US-made jets are provided by other countries, but the US government participates in the training programme. Biden said it was "clear we stand with Ukraine now and in the future" as he sat alongside Zelensky in the Oval Office before the two leaders went into their closed-door meeting. Zelensky thanked Biden for his "strong support" and said the latest aid package was "a great help." He also met with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee going up against Republican Donald Trump in November's presidential election. Harris said her support for Ukraine was "unwavering" and that any proposal to end the war that would force Kiev to cede territory "is dangerous and unacceptable." "I've been proud to stand with Ukraine. I will continue to stand with Ukraine, and I will work to ensure Ukraine prevails in this war," Harris said. "To be safe, secure, and prosperous, the United States must continue to fulfill our long-standing role of global leadership." In a clear allusion to her rival Trump, Harris said: "There are some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality and would require Ukraine to forego security relationships with other nations." "These proposals are the same as those of Putin," she said. "They are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable." Zelensky's visit comes as the partisan divide in Washington over Ukraine grows, with Trump and many of his Republican supporters expressing deep reservations about sending more aid to Ukraine as it fights Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion. Trump is planning to meet with Zelensky on Friday, Trump told a press conference. The meeting between the two had appeared out of the question after remarks made by the former president at a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday. "We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal," Trump said, criticizing Zelensky for not making an agreement with Moscow to end the war launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin. "So many dead people, any deal, even the worst deal, would have been better than what we have right now," Trump continued. Ukraine and its allies are anxiously watching the US presidential elections. Trump has expressed deep scepticism of the NATO military alliance that supports Ukraine while his hard-right Republicans are increasingly opposed to continued aid for Kiev. To help buttress support no matter what the coming months bring, the Biden administration announced that a high-level meeting on Ukraine would be held in Germany next month to coordinate the efforts of more than 50 supporting countries. Zelensky is in Washington to urge Kiev's key ally to support what he calls Ukraine's "victory plan," which contains military and diplomatic components, including negotiations with Russia. Concrete details of the plan have yet to be released, but it is also expected to include Zelensky's request that Kiev be allowed to use long-range Western missiles on targets deep inside Russia. As Ukraine's battlefield losses mount in the east of the country, Zelensky hopes taking the fight to Russian territory could deliver severe blows and help shift the momentum. But those authorizations have yet to come from the United States and Britain amid fears those types of attacks could escalate the two-and-a-half-year-old war. Germany is staunchly opposed. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has stumbled into the partisan fray weeks ahead of the U.S. presidential election, with Republicans ramping up attacks over his trip to Pennsylvania. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) called for Zelensky to fire his ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, for organizing the visit with Democrats to a Keystone State weapons factory, while Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, opened a formal investigation into the tour. Johnson refused to meet Zelensky during the Ukrainian leaders visit this week. Former President Trump said he will meet with Zelensky on Friday. Zelensky came under criticism from Republicans for calling Trumps running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), too radical in a New Yorker article, because the senator would give up Ukrainian territory to Russia and stop supporting Ukraine in the war. Zelensky also cast doubt on Trumps plan to end the war before he takes office. Zelensky has yet to respond to the criticism, which is unlikely to help his efforts this week to secure support for his country in the war with Ukraine. Who the hell is Zelensky to be trying to interfere in our election? the arrogance of this guy, said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Wednesday in his Verdict podcast. And the guy, Ive got to say, is an absolute moron for coming to the U.S. six weeks before the election and attacking Trump and Vance. This is just dumb on his part, because if Trump wins, hes got a huge problem that just got bigger, Cruz added. And if Trump loses, you know, good luck trying to get Republicans to listen to what he has to say if he just behaves like a Democrat campaign activist. A number of Republicans, particularly in the Senate, have supported Ukraine in its war with Russia and signaled they would do so going forward, regardless of the political fight. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters Thursday that what happened in Pennsylvania was a mistake, but made it clear he would continue to support Ukraine. Graham was among the lawmakers who met with Zelensky on Thursday as he visited Capitol Hill. At a meeting with about 20 senators, the issues of Zelenskys Vance comments or Pennsylvania visit did not come up, according to several senators. No, it didnt come up, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told The Hill. I think he got some bad advice, and Ukraine needs all the friends it can get. Zelensky also met Thursday with President Biden and Vice President Harris at the White House, where he presented a victory plan. Zelensky has not addressed the Pennsylvania and Vance controversies but said in a press conference after the meeting with Biden and Harris that he was thankful for bipartisan support after his meetings on Capitol Hill. He added that it was crucial for us to be fully understandable and to work in full coordination with the United States. Harris in her remarks took a veiled swipe at Trump and Vance, saying some in my country would force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory. These proposals are the same of those of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, she said. And let us be clear: They are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable. Pressure has been building for days since Zelensky toured the Pennsylvania factory producing critical 155 mm artillery shells for Ukraine in Scranton on Sunday. He appeared only alongside Democrats, including the states governor, Josh Shapiro, and Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey and Rep. Matt Cartwright. Republicans criticized the visit for not including any GOP lawmakers and for using taxpayer funds, because Zelensky flew to the state on a C-17 Air Force transport plane. In a letter to Zelensky, Johnson said the visit was in a politically contested battleground state, was led by a top political surrogate for Kamala Harris, and failed to include a single Republican because on purpose no Republicans were invited. The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference, he wrote, calling it a shortsighted and intentionally political move that should not be repeated and demanding the resignation of Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S. Comer sent letters to the White House, Department of Defense and Justice Department demanding information about the visit, and said his investigation would get to the bottom of whether there was a misuse of government resources that allowed Zelensky to interfere in the 2024 presidential election. A U.S. defense official told The Hill that the flight was a U.S. Department of Defense-funded mission. The DoD requested Military Airlift (MILAIR) support to facilitate travel for senior U.S. government officials from both the Department of State and the Department of Defense, the official said. These officials were conducting official business related to U.S. security assistance to Ukraine. This included a stop at Newark Liberty International Airport, where they linked up with President Zelensky before continuing to Wilkes-Barre International Airport in Pennsylvania. At a Wednesday rally in North Carolina, Trump responded to Zelensky with some of his more pointed comments yet. The president of Ukraine is in our country and hes making little nasty aspersions toward your favorite president, me, Trump said, also hitting Zelensky for what he claimed was the Ukrainian leader refusing to make a deal with Russia. Trump also posted on his social media site, Truth Social, what he claimed was a message from Zelensky to Trump requesting a meeting in New York on Friday. Days ago, we requested a meeting with you, and I really want to hear your thoughts directly, and firsthand. You know I always speak with great respect about everything connected to you, and thats how it should be, Zelensky wrote, according to Trumps shared picture of the message. I believe its important for us to have a personal contact and to understand each other 100%. Let me know if you are in the city at that time I would really like for our meeting to take place, as part of our efforts to help us end this war in a just way. The Hill has reached out to the Ukrainian Embassy to verify the message that Trump shared. The criticism of Zelensky, who has generally avoided getting involved in U.S. politics, has reached its highest point since war broke out between Russia and Ukraine in 2022. Until now, Zelensky has avoided attracting too much scrutiny for his personal actions in U.S. politics, even when he pushed Congress to pass a security aid bill earlier this year after far-right Republicans held it up for months. But some Democrats this week sought to defend Zelensky from the piling GOP criticism. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) told CNN that it was absurd and insulting to Pennsylvania workers to accuse Zelensky of a political stunt when he was thanking munition workers for their work producing artillery shells. I cant say that Im shocked, but its just absolutely pathetic, he said, accusing Johnson of trying to turn this into an issue. Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), the co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, defended Ukraines ambassador in a social media post, writing that support for Ukraine has historically been a bipartisan effort. I encourage our countrys leadership to resist scoring cheap political points and instead help Ukraine defeat Vladimir Putin, he added. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Editor's note: This is a developing story and is being updated. President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump on Sept. 27 at Trump Tower in New York City. Zelensky has been in the U.S. since Sept. 22, engaging in a series of high-level meetings with foreign leaders, visiting the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Pennsylvania, and addressing the U.N. General Assembly. Zelensky met with U.S. President Joe Biden and Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris the day prior to present them with a "victory plan." Prior to their first joint meeting in five years, Zelensky emphasized that Ukraine is currently facing numerous challenges he wishes to discuss with Trump. "I think we have a common view that the war in Ukraine has to be stopped. (Vladimir) Putin can't win, and Ukraine has to prevail. And I want to discuss with you the details of our plan of victory," Zelensky said. He noted that Ukraine would be unable to stop Putin until November, coinciding with the U.S. presidential election. As a result, the Ukrainian president chose to meet with both candidates to present a plan aimed at strengthening Ukraine's position against Russia. Trump acknowledged that Ukraine is going through hell and described the situation as terrible. The former U.S. president also noted that he has good relations with both Zelensky and Putin. "I think if we win (the presidential election), we're going to get it (the war) resolved very quickly," Trump said, without specifying how he plans to end Russia's war against Ukraine. The former president also recalled Zelensky's actions during the impeachment inquiry in 2019, when Trump was accused of pressuring him to investigate political rival Joe Biden and Biden's son, Hunter. Recently, Trump's rhetoric toward Zelensky and U.S. support for Ukraine has become more critical. He has claimed that Zelensky wants Democrats to win the upcoming presidential election, referring to him as the greatest salesman on earth. Republican leaders on Sept. 25 also accused Zelensky of interfering in the election by visiting an ammunition factory in U.S. President Joe Biden's hometown of Scranton, Pennyslvania, a hotly contested battleground state. House Speaker Mike Johnson demanded that Zelensky fire Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Makarovka, for her role in arranging the tour. The Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee also announced he was opening an investigation into the Biden-Harris administration's alleged misuse of government funds. Zelensky criticized Trump's plans for an end to the war in an interview with the New Yorker earlier this week. He called Trump's running mate, Republican Senator J.D. Vance, "too radical" and said the war should not end at Ukraine's expense. Read also: Biden-Zelensky talks: Ukrainian soldiers want firepower to win but question if US wants Russia defeated Introducing official merch from the Kyiv Independent Shop now Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a meeting with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday presented him with Ukraines Plan for Victory, spoke about the frontline situation in Ukraine and the state of affairs in Russias Kursk Oblast. Source: Ukraines Presidents Office, as reported by European Pravda Details: Reportedly, Zelenskyy briefed Trump on the state of affairs in the combat zone, the activities and advancements of the operation in Russias Kursk Oblast, Ukrainian innovations in the war against Russian terror, and the disproportionately large losses of the Russian army. They went into great detail about the war's effects on Ukrainians and the economy, as well as the country's overall state of affairs. They also discussed the ongoing Russian bombardments of civilian infrastructure and cities, as well as the role American Patriot systems play in preserving human lifes. Zelenskyy also stressed the need to block any opportunities for the Russians to fund the war with oil and gas exports, as well as cut off all supply channels of Western components for Russian missiles. Trump stated that he supports a "fair" peace for Ukraine, but did not say which solution to end the war between Russia and Ukraine would be regarded as such. Right before the meeting, Donald Trump praised the way Volodymyr Zelenskyy acted during the attempt to impeach Trump in 2019 and said they had a "great relationship". He immediately noted the same about his relationship with Russian ruler Vladimir Putin and reiterated his confidence that he could quickly stop the war if elected president. Support UP or become our patron! Zelenskyy downplays comment that Trump doesn't know how to end Russia's war with Ukraine Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is downplaying past disagreements with former President Donald Trump following a meeting in New York City. Zelenskyy visited Trump Tower on Friday to meet with the Republican presidential nominee, then sat down with Fox News' Griff Jenkins to discuss what seems to have been a good-spirited conversation. "We understand that even in any kind of future negotiations, Ukraine has to be strong. That's what it's about," Zelenskyy told Jenkins when asked why he met with Trump. "We spoke with Biden, Kamala Harris, Donald Trump and the Congress of the United States." Trump Meets Ukraine's Zelenskyy At Trump Tower, Says Russia's War Must End With 'Fair Deal' Jenkins pressed Zelenskyy about his comments that appeared in a New Yorker article earlier this week in which he was quoted saying that he believes Trump "doesnt really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how" and whether Trump had said anything to change Zelenskyy's mind. "No, I said that I think that we understand much more better than everybody, really, including Donald Trump, what's going on in Ukraine and how to stop him. It's difficult to understand," Zelenskyy responded. Read On The Fox News App The Ukrainian president said his country is now a completely different nation from the one that was first invaded in 2022. Zelesnkyy Says 'Trump Doesn't Know Putin,' Russian Dictator Will 'Never Stop' Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visits the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S. "Ukraine, during the war in Ukraine before the full-scale invasion two different countries. So without this experience, you can't really understand how to stop [Russian President Vladimir Putin]," Zelenskyy continued. "And that's what I wanted to share to president . . . and the price of this tragedy of bloody invasion of Putin." At one point during their meeting, Trump told the press that he had a "good relationship" with both Zelenskyy and Putin. Zelenskyy then interjected to say he hopes the U.S. has a better relationship with Ukraine than Russia. Jenkins asked the Ukrainian president whether Trump's comment about maintaining a good relationship with Putin concerned him. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, takes part in a joint briefing on the 33rd anniversary of the independence of Ukraine in Kyiv, Ukraine. Zelenskyy said he was not necessarily concerned, acknowledging that "Trump has relations and had relations when he was the president, during his term" and maintains "relations with a lot of countries and a lot of UN leaders." During the exclusive interview, Zelenskyy lamented the lack of response Putin received from the rest of the world when Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in 2014 with the taking of Crimea. "Nobody kicked him, and that meant he understood that he can occupy it and go further. He can occupy new territories of Ukraine," Zelenskyy said. "He began to prepare to do this his plan and he did it." Original article source: Zelenskyy downplays comment that Trump doesn't know how to end Russia's war with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has explained that he deemed it essential to meet with both US presidential candidates, as either could emerge victorious. He emphasised that Ukraine anticipates continued support post-election and believes planning for this cooperation in advance is important. Source: Zelenskyy in a brief conversation with the media next to Trump before their meeting, as reported by European Pravda Details: "It's very important to share all our steps on how we can strengthen Ukraine. And, of course, we have to decide on it now because after November, we don't know who, only Americans decide who will be president. But we understand that we can't stop Putin before November," Zelenskyy explained. "We hope that the strength of the United States will be very strong, and we count on it. That's why I decided to meet with both candidates," he added. Donald Trump commended Zelenskyy's actions during the 2019 Trump impeachment attempt and remarked on their "great relationship". He also expressed a similar sentiment regarding his relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Trump said once again that he could swiftly bring an end to the war. Background: The meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump at Trump Tower in New York follows a day of heightened tensions, during which Trump supporters accused the Ukrainian president of "interfering in the election" by criticising Trump's peace plan to support Biden. Additionally, House Speaker Mike Johnson declined to meet with Zelenskyy. Initially, the meeting was believed to be unlikely to take place, but at the last minute, Trump agreed to it. Support UP or become our patron! Zelenskyy invited Trump to come to Ukraine, he did not refuse Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has extended an invitation to US presidential candidate Donald Trump to visit Ukraine. Source: Zelenskyy during his conversation with Donald Trump, as reported by European Pravda Details: When Trump mentioned that many people had been killed in Ukraine and that "many beautiful cities" are in ruins, making it incredibly difficult to repair, Zelenskyy responded with a remark: "By the way, you should come and look at our cities." Trump responded "I will" with uncertainty, and immediately reiterated his belief that "its a beautiful country" and that the war should have never happened. The Republican presidential candidate was also asked if he expected another meeting with Zelenskyy. He had not ruled it out. "It's entirely possible, but I think the president said best: this is a war that should never have happened," Trump stated. Trump also stated that he supports a "fair" peace for Ukraine, but did not say which solution to end the war between Russia and Ukraine would be regarded as such. Right before the meeting, Donald Trump praised the way Volodymyr Zelenskyy acted during the attempt to impeach Trump in 2019 and said they had a "great relationship". However, he immediately noted the same about his relationship with Russian ruler Vladimir Putin and reiterated his confidence that he could quickly stop the war if elected president. The meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump at Trump Tower in New York follows a day of heightened tensions, during which Trump supporters accused the Ukrainian president of "interfering in the election" by criticising Trump's peace plan to support Biden. Additionally, House Speaker Mike Johnson declined to meet with Zelenskyy. Initially, the meeting was believed to be unlikely to take place, but at the last minute, Trump agreed to it. Support UP or become our patron! Zelenskyy after meeting with Trump: US can be the leader of peace talks After meeting with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that he was counting on the United States' help in the peace process. Source: Zelenskyy during his conversation with Donald Trump, as reported by European Pravda Details: Zelenskyy noted that the United States is Ukraine's strongest backer and the world's most powerful country. According to him, Ukraine is grateful for the United States' and the American people's support. He is also confident in the United States' ability to lead any negotiations. He stressed that Ukraine had hosted a Peace Summit and will have another shortly, and that it counts on US support. He also stated that the war should not have been started, but the most essential thing is to recognise that Russian troops are on Ukrainian land. "I think that the problem is that Putin killed so many people and, of course, we need to do everything to pressure him to stop this war. He is in our territory. Thats the most important. He is in our territory and how we stop the war is to pressure him as [much as] we can. We have to do it," Zelenskyy said. US presidential candidate Donald Trump stated that he supports a "fair" peace for Ukraine, but did not say which solution to end the war between Russia and Ukraine would be regarded as such. Right before the meeting, Donald Trump praised the way Volodymyr Zelenskyy acted during the attempt to impeach Trump in 2019 and said they had a "great relationship". However, he immediately noted the same about his relationship with Russian ruler Vladimir Putin and reiterated his confidence that he could quickly stop the war if elected president. Support UP or become our patron! WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and members of Congress in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. Biden announced a new $7.9 billion support package for Ukraine. Russia will not prevail, Biden said. Ukraine will prevail. Zelenskyy asked President Joe Biden and members of Congress to release the restrictions on western long-range missiles. Currently, U.S. policy doesnt allow Ukraine to use those on targets in Russia. Russian President Vladamir Putin warned that move would put Russia at war with the U.S. and NATO. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who met with Zelenskyy on Capitol Hill, supported Zelenskyys proposal. The only way youre going to get Russia to the table is hit them harder than youre hitting them today, Graham said. Zelenskyy thanked Biden for American support after Russias invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine and America have stood side-by-side from the very first moments of this terrible Russian invasion, Zelenskyy said in the Oval Office. His visit to Washington came amid criticism from Republicans that Zelenskyy is getting involved in the U.S. elections. Zelenskyy toured a munitions factory in Pennsylvania with Democrats. He said, to thank the manufacturers for saving Ukrainian lives. Whether it was intended, or not, it has a political perception and thats a mistake, said Graham. Zelenskyy also told the New Yorker Republican Vice-Presidential Candidate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio.) is too radical. He said Vance supports Ukraine giving up territories. On the campaign trail on Wednesday, former president Donald Trump criticized Zelenskyys comments. The President of Ukraine is in our country and hes making, little, nasty aspersions toward your favorite President, me, Trump said. Ukraine is gone. Its not Ukraine anymore. Late Thursday, Trump posted a message on his Truth Social platform suggesting Zelenskyy had asked for a meeting with Trump on Friday. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump met at Trump Tower in New York on Friday, 27 September. Source: European Pravda; Sky News Details: Zelenskyy thanked Trump for the meeting, recalling that five years had passed since they last met in person. "I think we have a common view that the war in Ukraine has to be stopped, and Putin cant win. Ukraine has to prevail. And I want to discuss with you the details of our Plan of Victory," the Ukrainian president said. Zelenskyy stressed that only Americans decide who will become the next US president, but it is important to discuss joint steps after the November elections. "That's why I decided to meet with both candidates," he said. Trump noted that he would try to work with "both sides" to resolve the conflict. "His country [Ukraine] is going through hell... Nobodys ever seen anything like it; its a terrible situation," he said. Background: Before his meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump responded to his rival Kamala Harris's indirect criticism of his proposals regarding Ukraine. Earlier, at a briefing with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington, Kamala Harris described Donald Trump's campaign policy for ending the Russo-Ukrainian war as "proposals for surrender." Trump rejected Harris's criticism and insisted that he only wanted to stop the "horror show that is going on". Support UP or become our patron! Zelenskyy to return from US without authorisation to launch missiles deep into Russia The Times President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy will end his visit to the United States without authorisation to use Western long-range missiles to strike deep into Russia. Source: The Times Details: The Times notes that during his visit to the US, Zelenskyy asked US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to lift restrictions on the use of Storm Shadow and ATACMS missiles to strike Russian military targets deep inside Russia. Quote: "However, no shift in Washingtons stance on the use of the long-range missiles was announced, which came less than 24 hours after President Putin warned that a large conventional air attack on Russia by western-backed Ukraine could trigger a nuclear response." Details: Despite this, Biden reaffirmed his continued support for Ukraine, announcing a military aid package worth around U$8 billion, including the first deliveries of JSOW high-precision glided bombs to hit Russian forces up to 70 miles [approx. 112 kilometres - ed.] away. During his visit to Capitol Hill, Zelenskyy also discussed the need for Ukraine to be authorised to use long-range missiles with US senators, including Lindsey Graham, who supported the request. Background: On Thursday, 26 September, US President Joe Biden announced a sharp increase in security assistance for Ukraine, pledging nearly US$8 billion in weapons in the coming months. On Wednesday, 25 September, the US announced a new military aid package worth US$375 million to Ukraine. On 25 September, Russian leader Vladimir Putin said that Russia would expand the conditions under which it is ready to use nuclear weapons. Support UP or become our patron! The News Former US President Donald Trump is expected to have a potentially fraught meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday. Trump recently called Zelenskyy a salesman and criticized him for not making a deal to end the war, while Zelenskyys visit to a Pennsylvania armaments factory accompanied by Democratic politicians angered Republicans, who considered it a partisan campaign event in a crucial swing state. The Ukrainian leader has also previously said Trumps running mate JD Vance is too radical. Ties to Democrats are less fractious: Vice President Kamala Harris, Trumps opponent, promised unwavering support for Kyiv after meeting Zelenskyy, and President Joe Biden had already announced another $8 billion in military aid against Russias invasion. This Fridays meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in New York lasted an hour. Source: Ukrainska Pravda sources in the Ukrainian delegation; European Pravda Details: In particular, a representative of the Ukrainian delegation to the United States said the meeting had already ended and lasted one hour in total. Background: The meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump at Trump Tower in New York follows a day of heightened tensions, during which Trump supporters accused the Ukrainian president of "interfering in the election" by criticising Trump's peace plan to support Biden. Additionally, House Speaker Mike Johnson declined to meet with Zelenskyy. Right before the meeting, Donald Trump praised the way Volodymyr Zelenskyy acted during the attempt to impeach Trump in 2019 and said they had a "great relationship". He immediately noted the same about his relationship with Russian ruler Vladimir Putin and reiterated his confidence that he could quickly stop the war if elected president. Before speaking with Trump, Zelenskyy explained that he deemed it essential to meet with both US presidential candidates, as either could emerge victorious. Support UP or become our patron! Zelenskyy works to shore up support in Washington WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is here in the U.S., making the rounds to meet with top leaders. From the White House to Capitol Hill, to the presidential candidates, hes making an appeal for continued support for Ukraine. Former president Donald Trump and President Zelenskyy are scheduled to meet Friday at Trump tower in New York. The two disagree about the way forward for the U.S. and Ukraine causing a tension thats contrasted with the current administrations stance. Russia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail and well continue to stand by you every step of the way, said President Joe Biden. In a White House meeting, President Biden sat side by side with President Zelenskyy as he announced a new $ 2.4 billion security package for the country. Right now, we have to strengthen Ukraines position on the battlefield, said Biden. Plus, he promised he would disburse all of the remaining approved U.S. aid by the end of his term in January, and if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the White House, she says that will continue. My support for the people of Ukraine is unwavering, said Harris. Former president Donald Trump has a different approach. I believe I will be able to make a deal between President Putin and President Zelenskyy quite quickly, said Trump. Trump and Zelenskyy are set to meet in person on Friday morning. The sit down is likely to be complicated by Trumps refusal to back Ukraine in its war with Russia. Harris slammed the proposal for Ukraine to give up parts of its territory. They are not proposals for peace. Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable, said Harris. Her opponent insists the priority should be ending the war. Its not a surrender. What my strategy is, to save lives, said Trump. President Zelenskyy was also on Capitol Hill, where he met with both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the United States in December 2022, he was met with large crowds, standing ovations and a nearly $50 billion aid package. However, Zelenskyy is facing a much quieter reception in Washington as the war drags on and he now faces tough questions from some Republicans, according to The New York Times. Source: The New York Times Quote: "Mr. Zelenskyy is widely regarded as Ukraines most persuasive advocate, gifted in his ability to cut through partisan congressional gridlock with appeals to speed weapons and other supplies to Kyiv. But as the war against Russia drags on, his star power in Washington has noticeably faded, with potentially dire consequences for the future of US military assistance to Ukraine." Details: This was evident during Zelenskyy's reception in the US on Thursday, 26 September, which was far more subdued. Zelenskyy met behind closed doors with several dozen lawmakers, while the Speaker of the House ignored his presence. Ukraine is currently receiving military aid from the US under a nearly US$61 billion package approved by Congress in the spring. President Joe Biden announced on 26 September that the US would send Ukraine US$8 billion worth of weapons, including glide bombs, missiles for air defence and an additional Patriot battery. "But when that military assistance runs out, Ukraines fate will once again depend in large part on Congresss willingness to keep replenishing Mr. Zelenskyys war chest," the article emphasised. The New York Times reiterated that Zelenskyy held two meetings at the Capitol on Thursday: firstly answering questions from a bipartisan group of around 20 senators, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, and then meeting with a bipartisan group of around a dozen members of the House of Representatives, including Hakeem Jeffries. The newspaper highlighted that Zelenskyy, who delivered a speech to the UN General Assembly on 25 September, was unfortunate in that he had arrived on Capitol Hill after both houses of Congress had gone into recess for the campaign season. This resulted in low attendance at events involving the Ukrainian president. "Congressional leaders did little to raise the profile of his visit: neither Mr. Schumer nor Mr. McConnell addressed the news media, in person or via an emailed statement, as has happened after Mr. Zelenskyys earlier visits, nor did Mr. Jeffries," The New York Times wrote. The newspaper noted that almost every lawmaker who attended the meetings had previously voted multiple times in favour of military aid to Ukraine. While some senators still express admiration for Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian peoples will to fight and defend their country, others responded to his visit with anger, particularly Republicans who accused Zelenskyy of showing favouritism toward Democrats and the Biden administration during the election season. On 25 September, Speaker Mike Johnson demanded Zelenskyy recall Ukraines ambassador to the US over his visit to a munitions factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a state expected to be a battleground in the presidential elections. That same day, Kentucky Republican and Chairman of the House Oversight Committee James Comer launched an investigation into whether the Biden administration misused public funds by having Zelenskyy flown on a military plane to visit the factory. Republicans also criticised Zelenskyy for some of his remarks. Johnson specifically referenced a comment Zelenskyy made to The New Yorker, where he called Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance "too radical". "The episodes frustrated some of Mr. Zelenskyys Republican supporters, who expressed concern that the Ukrainian president had weighed in on American politics," The New York Times concluded. The newspaper added that this controversy serves as a reminder of the challenges Zelenskyy may face in the coming months if Republicans take full control of Congress and if former President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly voiced opposition to supplying Ukraine with weapons, wins the upcoming election. Support UP or become our patron! The Zurich International Film Festival has cancelled all screenings of the film Russians at War. Viewers have begun to receive letters announcing ticket cancellations, and the festival's website has cancelled all screenings. Source: Zurich Film Festival website Details: In letters to festival visitors, the organisers stated that public screenings would not be held "for security reasons". However, the film remains in the documentary competition programme, so it is still eligible for awards. All screenings of Russians at War are cancelled Screenshot: website of the festival The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has already responded to the cancellation. After international festivals began announcing screenings of the Russian propaganda film, the press service launched a hashtag, #NoStageForRussia. "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine is grateful for the decision of the Zurich Film Festival to cancel public screenings of the film Russians at War. Russia should not be present in the international cultural scene. There should also be no chance for its voices to whitewash war criminals in front of the public," the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also called on the festival organisers to remove the film from the competition entirely. "The only threat to the safety of its viewers, guests, partners and staff is the influence of Russian propaganda that justifies aggression and atrocities," the Foreign Ministry concluded. About the film Russians at War Russians at War is a documentary by Russian-Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova. Trofimova was born in Moscow. For over 10 years, she has worked in the media and participated in various documentary projects in Canada, the Balkans, the Middle East, and Russia. She has created several documentaries for Russia Today, a Kremlin-aligned Russian news outlet that was recently banned by the US. The film Russians at War tells the story of Trofimova spending seven months with the Russian military in the occupied part of Ukraine. The film does not show the destruction and deaths inflicted by the Russians on Ukrainians but portrays the Russian soldiers as ordinary people. One of the soldiers in the film denies the accusations that Russians are committing war crimes in Ukraine. Trofimova herself says that while she was making the film, she had not seen any such crimes. Background: Trofimova's film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. Before the film's screening at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the Ukrainian community in Canada organised a series of protests. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Oleh Nikolenko, Consul General of Ukraine in Canada, and others joined the calls not to screen Russians at War. In the end, TIFFs organisers said they would not screen Trofimova's film, supposedly for security reasons. However, after the film festival officially closed, they announced two separate screenings of the film on Tuesday, 17 September. Recently, director Anastasia Trofimova was added to the list of persons who threaten the national security of Ukraine. Support UP or become our patron! When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit: Zhaoxin The Zhaoxin KX-7000, one of Chinas latest desktop CPUs, has finally received its first comprehensive review from PC Watch. The review shows that old budget chips from Intel and AMD are still firmly in the lead. Made by Shanghai Zhaoxin, the KX-7000 originally debuted in December. It boasts eight cores, a boost clock of up to 3.7 GHz, support for both DDR4 and DDR5 memory, PCIe 4.0, and the companys latest C-1190 integrated GPU. The older KX-U6880A, the fastest member of the KX-6000 desktop family, also had eight cores but only a maximum clock speed of 3 GHz and lacked support for PCIe 4.0 and DDR5 memory. Like AMDs Ryzen CPUs since the 3000 series, the KX-7000 uses a chiplet design: one chip for CPU cores and another for I/O functions. Zhaoxin hasnt disclosed what company fabs the KX-7000 chiplets, nor what node theyre fabbed on. Although the KX-7000 slots into Intels LGA1700 socket, its almost sure that the Chinese CPU wont work in 600- or 700-series motherboards since Zhaoxin has likely wired its chips differently than Intel. Instead, using the LGA1700 socket seems to be a move to ensure broader cooler compatibility, an important consideration for a socketed processor. Perhaps the most notable characteristic of the KX-7000 and other Zhaoxin chips is that theyre based on the x86 architecture, just like CPUs made by Intel and AMD. Zhaoxin inherited its x86 license from VIA Technologies when it partnered with the local Shanghai government to form the KX-7000 CPU designer. PC Watch tested its KX-7000 on a generic, unlabeled motherboard that supports DDR4 instead of the newer DDR5 made by ASUS. Strangely enough, only DDR4 clocked strictly at 3,200 MHz by default could get the CPU to boot for the first time. According to PC Watch, this limitation can be changed in the BIOS. The publication raised concerns over the firmware and software support, particularly access to drivers, which the reviewer only got access to thanks to determination. As for performance, the KX-7000 made gains over its predecessor but couldnt quite catch up to old, low-end CPUs like the Core i3-8100 and Ryzen 5 5600G. In Cinebench R23, the KX-7000 could only tie the 8100 in the multi-threaded test and was only 60% as fast as the Intel chip in the single-threaded test. The 5600G, meanwhile, was about three times faster in both single- and multi-threaded performance. The C-1190 iGPU, which PC Watch claims, is based on the Arise GT10C0 graphics card made by Chinese graphics company Glenfly. Given that Glenflys latest Arise 1020 didnt impress , its unsurprising that the review found the KX-7000s iGPU to be pretty slow, scoring a paltry 42 points in 3D Mark Time Spy to the 8100s 469 and 5600 Gs 1440. The C-1190 was similarly behind in other 3DMark tests. When equipped with an RX 6400, AMDs cheapest and slowest graphics card, the KX-7000 could finally match the 8100 in 3DMark and Final Fantasy XIV. However, it wasnt nearly as good in Dragon Quest X, an older game that relies more heavily on single-threaded performance. The KX-7000 cannot battle modern Intel and AMD CPUs, and its unlikely Zhaoxin chips will be able to go head-to-head with Western x86 CPUs soon. However, performance is beside the point for Chinas semiconductor industry, and self-sufficiency is the more important goal as the US government gradually places more trade restrictions on China. Earlier this year, the US government blocked Intel from selling Meteor Lake CPUs to Huawei , making domestically produced chips more appealing concerning supply chain stability. Major energy company uses drones to monitor one of the most potent air pollutants here's how it works French multinational energy company TotalEnergies is one of the world's six or so supermajor oil companies, which are often colloquially referred to as Big Oil. Now, the company says it has come up with a way to reduce the amount of methane that is released into our atmosphere by using drones, TotalEnergies itself reported. Methane is a gas that has heat-trapping capabilities up to 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in the short term. It is produced in large quantities by animal husbandry, particularly by cows. It is also used as an energy source, usually being referred to in that context as "natural gas." TotalEnergies, the company says, halved its own methane pollution between 2010 and 2020. Its goal is to achieve net-zero methane pollution by 2030. In order to accomplish that goal, it worked with the French National Centre for Scientific Research and the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne to develop "a drone-mounted ultralight CO2 and CH4 sensor for ensuring access to hard-to-reach emission points while delivering readings with the highest precision." The company wants to "develop an unmanned drone navigation system with data automatically streamed to the servers, as well as instantaneous data processing and reporting capabilities." By doing this, the company will be able to deliver immediate results to operators. But, as TotalEnergies is the fourth-biggest oil company in the world (according to 2023 net income reported by the Natural Resources Defense Council), this initiative could be viewed as an act of greenwashing the practice in which polluting companies attempt to win over the public by pretending to care about the environment (or perhaps making efforts that pale in comparison to their impact). In 2022 alone, TotalEnergies generated more planet-overheating gases than the entire country of France, accounting for almost 1% of global pollution, according to company data cited by LeMonde. The actual figures could be even worse than that. According to calculations by Greenpeace France, TotalEnergies' carbon pollution could be almost four times higher than what the company self-reports. Dirty energy particularly, the mining, refining, and burning of petroleum is the single sector most responsible for the ongoing overheating of our planet, which has led to increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events, the melting of glaciers, rising sea levels, and a host of other environmental problems. Of course, TotalEnergies has known this since the 1970s and has been accused of pushing misinformation in order to secure its shareholders' profits ever since, as the BBC detailed in 2021. "Total personnel received warnings of the potential for catastrophic global warming from its products by 1971, became more fully informed of the issue in the 1980s, began promoting doubt regarding the scientific basis for global warming by the late 1980s, and ultimately settled on a position in the late 1990s of publicly accepting climate science while promoting policy delay or policies peripheral to fossil fuel control," according to a study published in the journal Global Environmental Change. There is certainly still room for optimism that this development is a step in the right direction and that people (and legislators) will hold TotalEnergies to account and prevent it from causing even more harm. Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet. The federal government is making a $389 million investment in New England's power grid, with an emphasis on better storing and transmitting renewable energy throughout the region. It will use the largest battery system developed so far in the world in terms of energy capacity, according to a press release on the allocation. The effort hopes to maximize energy distribution from offshore wind farms that are in development. A unique iron-air battery from Massachusetts-based Form Energy is getting $147 million of the funding. The large battery, with unique chemistry, will store the abundant wind energy at a location in Maine, as Canary Media reports. It's all part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Grid Innovation Program, a competitive funding opportunity. Through two rounds, the project has funded 65 projects worth $5.7 billion in the eastern and western parts of the country, according to a DOE chart. "We look forward to working with the New England States as we support projects that will harden systems, improve energy reliability, and affordability all while generating union jobs for highly skilled workers," DOE Grid Deployment Office Director Maria Robinson said in the press release. The overall project is called Power Up New England and involves the collection of states in that region, per Canary. The original description stated a goal to "unlock" as much as 4,800 megawatts of offshore wind, with the battery capacity to store it. A New York-to-New England transmission line called the Clean Resilience Link is also part of the overall effort in the Northeast, per a Massachusetts government press release. The iron-air battery from Form Energy has been making headlines as a cheaper, scalable, and efficient storage unit. The power pack can amazingly store and distribute electricity as rust inside of it turns to iron and rusts again. It leverages chemistry that uses simple ingredients like iron, air, and water, according to Form. The company said it can also more cleanly prepare iron for steel-making sans fossil fuels and hot furnaces, a bonus secondary use for the process. Continuing the metal connection, Canary reports that Form has completed construction on a factory in Weirton, West Virginia, a traditional steel town. In New England, iron-air batteries will distribute up to 100 hours of energy to communities, providing crucial grid support if all goes according to the plans. "Power Up is a big win for electric customers and continues the momentum of federal partnership and regional collaboration here in New England," Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll said in the press release. It's all a part of the transition to renewable energy sources. Reducing heat-trapping air pollution is critical to avoiding what the Massachusetts Institute of Technology calls worst-case environmental scenarios if planet-warming proceeds unchecked, a bane to human and planet health alike, as medical experts and scientists noted. "Extreme weather events fueled by climate change will continue to strain the nation's aging transmission systems, but [these projects will] ensure America's power grid can provide reliable, affordable power," Robinson said. There are ways to contribute, even if you don't live in a community that is part of a grant-funded program. Washing your clothes on the cold cycle is a great way to save money and reduce energy use. Astoundingly, about 90% of a washer's power is used to heat water. At Form, reusing defunct sites as part of its battery infrastructure is another layer of its efficient planning. The New England battery system will be located at a former paper mill, for example. "This iron-air battery system will have the most energy capacity of any battery system announced yet in the world," Form CEO Mateo Jaramillo said in the press release. Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet. The US Department of Justice charged three Iranian nationals as part of an effort to hack into the emails and computers used by President Donald Trumps campaign staff and other political connections. The Washington Post reported that DOJ officials filed charges against Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar Balaghi in an indictment filed Thursday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. The indictment alleges the three men prepared for and engaged in a wide-ranging hacking campaign against current and former US officials, political campaigns and the media. According to the indictment Jalili, Aghamiri and Balaghis "activity is part of Irans continuing efforts to [...] erode confidence in the US electoral process." They also face possible charges such as providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. The suspects are accused of running a targeted hacking campaign committed in Iran over a four-year period. Their victims include current and former officials with the US State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the US Ambassador to Israel and an Iranian human rights organization. Then last May, the three hackers successfully gained access to accounts belonging to Trump campaign officials. (Attempts to breach Biden campaign staff were, apparently, unsuccessful.) President Joe Bidens campaign staffers as well as news outlets like The Washington Post and Politico received unsolicited emails from an AOL account owned by Robert that contained materials stolen from the Trump campaign. They included some internal poll results and the vetting dossier for Trumps running mate Senator J.D. Vance. Because of extradition laws, it's unlikely these hackers will be brought to justice on US soil. United Atlantic Ventures (UAV) has divested over 7.5 million shares of Trump Medias stock, according to a 13G regulatory filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday. The filing reveals that UAV a firm created by Trump Media co-founders Andrew Litinsky and Wes Moss now owns less than 5% of the companys common stock. At the time of merger between Trump Media and Technology Group and special-purpose acquisition firm Digital World Acquisition Corp. in late March, which allowed Trump Media to go public, UAV held 7,525,000 shares, representing 5.5% of the companys stock. As of the filing date, UAVs holdings have significantly decreased to just 100 shares. Litinsky, the managing member of UAV, is considered to share beneficial ownership of these shares, per the filing. In February 2021, Litinsky and Moss proposed the idea of the company to former President Donald Trump while they were contestants on his show, The Apprentice. The duo suggested the concept after he was banned from Twitter (now known as X), and Facebook (META), in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Over the last several months, Litinsky and Moss have been embroiled in legal battles over claims that Trump Media has diluted their share value in the multi-billion dollar company. The pair were also subject to the same six-month share lockup agreement as Trump, which ended last week. Following the 180-day lockup period, major investors in the company were allowed to begin selling off shares. The former president and Republican presidential nominee said earlier this month, however, that he has absolutely no plans to sell his stake of company shares, which comes out to roughly 56%. Shares of Trump Media closed up 4% Thursday, ending the trading day at $14.13 apiece. Since debuting on the Nasdaq in late March, the companys stock has plunged nearly 76%. Rocio Fabbro contributed to this article. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Public Prosecutor Peter Polt has turned to the President of the European Parliament, requesting lifting the immunity of MEP Peter Magyar, the leader of the opposition Tisza party, based on evidence that has surfaced against him in an investigation on suspicion of theft, the Public Prosecutor's Office said in a statement. According to the details uncovered, Magyar accosted the alleged victim of the crime on June 21, when he noticed the victim was filming him with his mobile phone at a club. Magyar took the phone, refused to hand it back and denied having it, then dropped it in the Danube before multiple witnesses, including the phone's owner, the prosecutor's office said. The phone was later recovered by the police and given back to the owner in good working condition, the office said. According to the statement, Magyar's conduct had been in line with the legal definition of theft. Further clarification of the case and criminal proceedings would only be possible once the EP has lifted Magyar's immunity, the statement said. Magyar will not take up seat in Budapest Assembly Magyar told public broadcaster Kossuth Radio that he could not fulfil the mandate next to his other positions, as he is already working as an MEP, party leader and the organiser of the party's "Tisza islands" movements. In an interview with news channel M1, Magyar said he had invited every top candidate in the local elections for talks because "I feel the responsibility of the fact that Budapest citizens have elected ten party members into the assembly". Apart from former Fidesz mayoral candidate Alexandra Szentkiralyi, "who rejected the talks with a ridiculous, puerile excuse," Magyar said he had talked to all of them. Regarding his talks with Gergely Karacsony, Magyar said he had warned the Budapest mayor of "a cozying up, a mating dance" with the government, insisting that "there is a coming closer, despite all propaganda to the contrary" between Budapest and the ruling parties. "Karacsony sometimes calls for Olympic Games [to be held in Budapest] louder than the prime minister and they were openly praising each other during the flood," Magyar said. Asked about statements that Tisza party members would stay away from nominating a deputy mayor and from sitting on the board of city-owned companies, Magyar said the party wanted to keep out of the "the corruption in the capital, conducted so far between the old left and Fidesz." Budapest's current internal rules bestow all powers on the mayor, Magyar said, adding that it was not just Tisza that wanted to change this. He said they wanted councillors to also be able to submit amendment proposals and nominate or comment on the appointment of the heads of city-owned companies. "People have had enough of the twenty-year-old back door deals between Orban and [Democratic Coalition leader Ferenc] Gyurcsany," Magyar said. Magyar said people also wanted to know "why the capital is on the brink of bankruptcy, why the government is stealing or taking away 75 billion forints from it, and why the state budget has collapsed". "How is it possible that when Viktor Orban took over the government in 2010, Hungary's state debt was 19,000 billion forints, and that has grown to 55,000 billion forints? Meanwhile, Hungary received 40,000 billion forints from the EU, but even so, public services are falling apart and our hospitals are mouldy..." Magyar said. Asked whether he would attend a debate with a government official on October 3, Magy said he had "an axe to grind" with the prime minister, not a government official. He said he wanted to ask him "how he managed to turn Hungary into the poorest and officially most corrupt country in Europe in 14 years". Magyar willing to waive immunity 'if Hungary joins the European Public Prosecutor's Office Leader of the opposition Tisza Party Peter Magyar has said he would be willing to waive his immunity if Hungary were to sign up to join the European Public Prosecutor's Office. In a post on Facebook on Sunday, Magyar addressed the prime minister, insisting that "half of the state apparatus" was filing legal action against him every day, "while you are systematically tearing our country apart". He also suggested that the PM and the public prosecutor were working in cahoots with one another. He vowed that if government were to vote for Hungary to join the European Prosecutor's Office, he would waive his right to immunity. "Do we have a deal, prime minister? Let's see if you or I end up in the cold ... the sun never shines through a prison window..." Source: MTI - The Hungarian News Agency, founded in 1881. ********************************* You're very welcome to comment, discuss and enjoy more stories via our Facebook page: Facebook.com/XpatLoopNews + via XpatLoops groups: Budapest Expats / Expats Hungary You can subscribe to our newsletter here: XpatLoop.com/Newsletters Do you want your business to reach tens of thousands of potential high-value expat customers? Then just contact us here! Hungary is celebrating World Tourism Day after a record summer, Visit Hungary said. Close to 7 million visitors stayed at tourism accommodations in Hungary over the summer, 8.6pc more than last year's record, the subsidiary of the Hungarian Tourism Agency said. In January-August, guest turnover rose close to 11pc nationwide and climbed over 22pc in the capital, it added. Tourism accounts for over 12pc of Hungary's GDP and provides the livelihoods for around 400,000 families. The sector generates more than 10pc of central budget revenue and accounted for around one-third of the EUR 2.9bn surplus in the balance of trade of services in the second quarter. Source: MTI - The Hungarian News Agency, founded in 1881. Hungary Today reports: This week, Tourinform offices of various towns across the country are inviting both locals and tourists to exciting guided tours with unique themes. In response to a campaign of Visit Hungary, the national tourism marketing communications agency, 62 of the networks offices have joined the initiative to mark World Tourism Day. In more than 60 Hungarian towns and villages, almost 100 programs, most of them free of charge, will tempt locals and visitors to discover or rediscover the local attractions on offer, Turizmus.com reports. Since 1980, the tourism industry has been celebrating World Tourism Day on September 27 each year at the initiative of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). To join in the celebrations, Visit Hungary has involved Tourinform offices in order to promote the countrys tourism offer and its architectural and natural heritage to the public. This year, Tourinform offices are inviting people to thematic guided tours and a number of interesting events from September 23 to October 6, organized under the slogan (Re)discover Hungary! throughout the country. The 120-year-old Kaposvar (south-eastern Hungary) Town Hall opened its doors on September 23, and the guided tour of the building included old stories, historical events and interesting facts about famous people. The program included a visit to the mayors meeting room and a view of the Main Square from the balcony. In Kecskemet (central Hungary), between September 26-28, visitors will have the opportunity to try themselves at a game of space travel with the help of a solar system model set up in the town. The most clever will be able to win prizes by answering questions related to the town and the World Tourism Day at the bronze model of the Sun and its 9 planets. The Miskolc Tourinform office is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, with a mini-exhibition of Tourinform relics from the past quarter of a century. The exhibits are on display until September 28 and can be viewed even after opening hours. In Tata (northwestern Hungary), visitors can join an unusual guided walk on September 27. The tour will take in some of the towns most famous film locations. The program will be led by Istvan Cserteg, the towns youth officer and author of the book Legendary films, legendary locations Komarom-Esztergom County. The richest offer will be available on World Tourism Day, September 27, when a small train tour will be organized in Balatonfoldvar (northern shore of Lake Balaton) and Komarom (northern Hungary). In Szarvas (south-east) you can take a night bus ride, in Nagykanizsa (south-west) you can visit the synagogue and discover the forgotten treasures of the town. The Tourinform offices offer of guided thematic programs is available here. Most of the programs are free of charge but require registration. ********************************* You're very welcome to comment, discuss and enjoy more stories via our Facebook page: Facebook.com/XpatLoopNews + via XpatLoops groups: Budapest Expats / Expats Hungary You can subscribe to our newsletter here: XpatLoop.com/Newsletters Do you want your business to reach tens of thousands of potential high-value expat customers? Then just contact us here! Maruti Dzire Facelift Details: The Maruti Suzuki Dzire, a favorite compact sedan among fleet operators, is set to receive a facelift featuring design changes and feature upgrades. It is expected to hit showrooms this Diwali; however, the carmaker hasnt revealed its official launch date yet. Media reports suggest that the 2024 Maruti Dzire Facelift will go on sale on 4th November 2024, right after Diwali. The latest spy shots of the compact sedan indicate that it will receive significant cosmetic upgrades, enhancing its road presence. According to the spy images, the model will get a new front grille, revised headlamp clusters with horizontally integrated DRLs, and a tweaked bumper, giving the front fascia a fresh look. The side profile remains largely unchanged, except for a new set of alloy wheels. The model is expected to feature the brands new Z-Series petrol engine, along with several first-in-segment features. Maruti Suzuki's 1.2-liter, three-cylinder Z12E petrol engine debuted in India with the Maruti Swift. Now, the Dzire will be the second model to derive power from this new engine. On the Swift, the engine produces 82bhp and 112Nm of torque and is available with both manual and AMT gearboxes. For the first time, the Dzire compact sedan will come with a single-pane electric sunroof, expected to be available in the higher trims, making it the first in its segment to offer this feature. Other highlights might include a 360-degree camera, wireless phone charging, a 9-inch touchscreen infotainment system with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and an ARKAMYS sound system. It is also expected to get a head-up display (HUD), an analog instrument cluster with a 4.2-inch digital MID, rear AC vents, new HVAC controls, and automatic climate control. New Delhi: Dell technologies has announced that starting September 30, its global teams employees who can work from the office will be required to do so five days a week. This change aims to foster a collaborative environment and grow skills, as outlined in a memo shared with news agency Reuters. The memo stated, Working remotely should be the exception rather than the norm. As part of this new approach, field representatives from the sales team are expected to spend five days a week either meeting with customers and partners or working from the office. Previously, the team was only required to be in the office three days a week. Dell said, Remote sales team members who can't go into a Dell office should continue to work remotely. The company also noted that it will share more information about remote workers in the upcoming weeks. During companies, many companies allowed employees to work from home but now tech firms are seeking to have their employees return to the office for two to three days each week. This news follows Amazon.coms announcement that it will require employees to return to the office five days a week, starting next year, as it strengthens its previous three-day work requirement. New Delhi: The government is considering increasing ethanol prices, raising minimum selling price (MSP) of sugar, and reviewing sugar exports for the 2024-25 season, Food Minister Pralhad Joshi said on Thursday. "The petroleum ministry is seized of the matter. We are in touch with petroleum ministry. It is well under consideration to hike the ethanol price," Joshi told reporters on the sidelines of an industry conference here. Regarding sugar exports, Joshi stated, "We will take a decision after looking into next year's production and availability of sugar." The minister also said a committee of secretaries is deliberating on a proposal to increase the minimum selling price of sugar, which has remained unchanged at Rs 31 per kg since February 2019. Joshi was optimistic about sugar production for the 2024-25 season starting October, citing favourable monsoon conditions. Ethanol prices, set by the government, have not been raised since the 2022-23 ethanol supply year (November-October). Current rates of ethanol produced from cane juice, B-Heavy molasses, and C-Heavy molasses are Rs 65.61, Rs 60.73 and Rs 56.28 per litre, respectively. The food minister highlighted that the introduction of sugar MSP in 2018 has significantly reduced cane dues to farmers, with about 99 per cent of Rs 1.14 lakh crore paid. India's sugarcane cultivation area has increased by 18 per cent to 6 million hectares in the last decade, with production up 40 per cent to 491 million tonne, Joshi added. Speaking on the occasion, Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said the sugarcane crop outlook for 2024-25 is "very good" due to favourable monsoon conditions. In his welcome address, industry body ISMA President M Prabhakar Rao requested the government to increase the sugar MSP to at least Rs 39 per kg and allow exports of 2 million tonne. ISMA has projected gross sugar output at 33.9 million tonne in the 2024-25 season (October-September) with upward revision looking into good monsoon. With diversion of 4-4.5 million tonne for ethanol production and a closing stock of 8.3 million tonne, there will be 2 million tonne available for exports in the 2024-25 season. "Exports should be allowed immediately as the global prices have firmed in the last two weeks on reports of likely drop in Brazil crop. We can regain the lost market," ISMA Vice President Gautam Goel added. New Delhi: Zomato's co-founder and Chief People Officer, Akriti Chopra, has stepped down from her position effective immediately, concluding her 13-year journey with the food delivery giant. The company announced this news to the stock exchange on September 27. "Pursuant to Regulation 30 of SEBI Listing Regulations, we would like to inform that Ms. Akriti Chopra, CoFounder & Chief People Officer designated as Senior Management Personnel (SMP), has tendered her resignation w.e.f. September 27, 2024,"the company stated. Chopra joined the company in 2011 as a senior manager of finance and operations. She eventually served as the chief financial officer until 2020, when Akshant Goyal took over that position. Most recently, she held the title of chief people officer at Zomato. In her resignation email, Chopra wrote, Deepi, As discussed, formally sending in my resignation effective today, September 27, 2024. It's been an incredibly enriching journey over the past 13 years. Thank you for everything. I'm always a call away. Wishing you and Eternal, the very best. This message was shared on the stock exchange. Sometimes your business reaches the pinnacle of success, but suddenly something happens that turns everything upside down. This is often seen in Bollywood movies, but there are many stories in the world of business that can shock you. One such story is that of GP Globala company that was established by a group of traders and was at the forefront of the oil trade, but then something happened that changed everything. An Indian court auction for an arrested GP Global bunker tanker failed to attract an acceptable bid, while another ship of the marine fuel company was also arrested. Six bids for the 6,200-dwt bunker tanker GP B3 (built in 2010) were rejected in the court auction, and the High Court of Gujarat has ordered a new auction. On September 9, the High Court of Gujarat approved a request by Singapore-based Celestial Ship Management to arrest the GP B3 bunker tanker due to non-payment of dues. A day earlier, the same court had granted a request from the National Bank of Fujairah (NBF) to arrest the same tanker after GP Global defaulted on a loan payment. According to court documents, Celestial claimed it was owed over $600,000, including interest and fees. Celestial's directors, Prachi Goel and Swati Goel, are spouses of GP Global directors Prerit Goel and Manan Goel, and both companies share the same Singapore address. GP Global, a global supplier of marine fuels, declined to comment as the matter is still subjudice. Celestial informed the court that it had repeatedly requested payment, with the last payment received in April 2019. Despite an agreement with the ship's owner not to cover vendor expenses, Celestial paid the vendors under pressure, according to court documents. In July, GP Global began financial restructuring after losing support from some financial institutions and later revealed internal fraud, filing criminal complaints against certain employees. The Catastrophic Fall of Prerit Goel: From Corporate Titan to Legal Pariah Once celebrated as a key figure in the international oil and energy trade, Prerit Goel, Managing Director of GP Global, has now become synonymous with financial mismanagement, fraud, and deception. His spectacular rise to success in the global energy sector was ultimately overshadowed by an equally dramatic and devastating collapse. Once a hotshot across London, Dubai, and Singapore, Goel was a prominent member of the YPO (Young Presidents Organization) and had what was once a thriving empire, which has now disintegrated into legal battles, asset seizures, arrest warrants, and a tarnished reputation. The Illusion of Success at GP Global Under Goel's leadership, GP Global rapidly expanded its reach from its base in the UAE to markets across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. With operations in oil refining, bunkering, shipping, and trading, the company appeared to be an unstoppable force in the industry. Goel was seen as a visionary, driving innovation and expansion, enjoying the benefits of seemingly endless financial success. However, the company's foundation was shaky, propped up by questionable financial practices that would soon unravel. Financial Mismanagement and Criminal Investigations In 2020, the facade began to crumble. GP Global found itself unable to meet its financial obligations, defaulting on loans, and spiraling into insolvency. This led to a cascade of legal challenges as creditors, including major banks like Credit Suisse, moved swiftly to recover their losses. Multiple lawsuits were filed across jurisdictions, exposing Goel's intricate web of financial manipulations. Internal investigations confirmed widespread fraud within GP Global. Criminal complaints were filed against employees, but it was clear that the issues extended far beyond just a few bad actors. Prerit Goel was not just an innocent bystander but an orchestrator of a carefully constructed house of cards. Arrest Warrants in India In India, arrest warrants were issued against Goel and other key figures, including his wife, Prachi Goel, who held directorial roles in related companies. Their assets were seized, and GP Global's ships were detained, sinking the family deeper into legal and financial chaos. A Global Legal Tangle In the UAE, Goels troubles multiplied. The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) court issued asset freezes and prohibited Goel from disposing of any assets unless they exceeded $95 million in value. These actions were taken to ensure that creditors, who lost millions due to GP Globals fraud, could recover some of their claims. The proceedings were a sharp blow to Goels standing in the international financial community, further isolating him from potential allies. In conclusion, Prerit Goels story serves as a stark reminder of how quickly ambition can turn into corruption, leading to the collapse of an empire built on lies and financial trickery. Srinagar: Sajjad Gani Lone, President of the People's Conference, expressed his willingness to align with a secular alliance, provided there is a shift in Kashmir's policy. During a roadshow in Maqam ShahWali, Kupwara, Lone remarked, I will shake hands with a secular alliance, but there should be a different Kashmir policy. Lone reiterated his stance on the abrogation of Article 370, highlighting that the issue would remain a focal point of his political agenda. We will keep alive the issue of abrogation 370 as it was done illegally, he asserted. Addressing the complexities surrounding Jammu and Kashmir's current status, Lone was candid about the limitations of the union territory's assembly. This assembly will not give back the status of Jammu and Kashmir, but a time will come when there will be a federal solution, which might be different but on similar lines. We are in favor of its return, but we will not lie to people that a UT assembly can bring back 370, he said. Lone added, We will keep the memory of its removal alive, as it was illegal and not done within the ambit of legality. On his political positioning, Lone clarified his neutrality while signaling his preference for secular politics. As of now, I am equidistant from everyone, but hand on my heart, I will prefer a secular alliance. However, we must also address human rights violations and ensure that the secular alliance presents a distinct Kashmir policy, he said. Lone also took a swipe at National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, accusing him of hypocrisy. He has grown up sitting in the lap of the BJP, and today they are calling the BJP wrong, Lone remarked, adding, I called Modi brother in 2014, but Omar was the External Affairs Minister when killings were happening in Kashmir, and he was justifying them across the globe. Now, they claim the BJP is wrong. Lones comments signal his continued focus on Article 370 while also indicating potential political alliances ahead of the next elections. Bihar has shot into the limelight for the past few months with its multiple bridge collapse incident. Parts of the state are also reeling under severe flooding. Purnia MP Pappu Yadav, who has been visiting and inspecting the flood-affected area, reprimanded a Junior Engineer for not providing power supply to people affected by floods. The video has since gone viral on social media. Pappu Yadav was visiting flood-affected areas in his parliamentary constituency on September 26 when he came to know about problems being faced by the people. During his visit, Yadav learnt that some villages in the Rupouli block had been without electricity for several days. The independent MP immediately called an official from the electricity department. "Why don't you answer their calls? Why has there been no electricity for four days? Were you sleeping with your wife for four days? Now that I'm speaking, you're saying the issue is resolved. What is your responsibility?" After assessing the situation, Pappu Yadav described the condition of the flood victims as dire, with people struggling for food and livestock left without fodder. He also criticized Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, stating that before visiting Katihar, the CM should have toured flood-affected areas such as Bhagalpur, Munger, Lakhisarai, Manihari, Kursela, Barari, Baisi, and Rupouli. On Thursday, Pappu Yadav visited the flood-hit border areas of the Purnia-Katihar Lok Sabha constituency. He toured the region by boat, reaching locations like Kursela in Katihar, Baghmara Maheshpur, Kursela, and Balthi Maheshpur, where he met with flood victims and listened to their concerns. Elections for the final vacant seat on the Municipal Corporation of Delhis (MCD) Standing Committee will take place today, September 27, at 1 p.m., following a tense standoff between the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Delhi's Lieutenant Governor (LG) VK Saxena. The conflict intensified after the LG instructed the MCD commissioner to hold the election by 10 p.m. on Thursday, despite an earlier adjournment of the House meeting. AAP leader Manish Sisodia sharply criticized this decision, accusing the BJP of attempting to undermine democracy by pushing for a late-night vote. In an unexpected move, Saxena overturned the adjournment and directed MCD Commissioner Ashwani Kumar to ensure that the election was conducted by nightfall. He further instructed that if the Mayor chose not to preside, the Deputy Mayor or the senior-most member of the House should oversee the proceedings. AAP's Response and Allegations In a late-night press conference, Manish Sisodia called for Saxena to revoke the order, claiming that the Lt Governors instructions were aimed at holding the election in the absence of AAP councillors. He drew comparisons to a similar situation during the recent mayoral election in Chandigarh and hinted at possible legal action against the directive. Amid this back-and-forth, the MCD commissioner announced that the election would now be held at 1 p.m. on Friday, September 27. The political landscape in the MCD has become increasingly volatile, with three AAP councillors defecting to the BJP earlier this week. This development has reduced AAPs tally in the 250-member House to 125, while the BJP now stands at 113 councillors. This marks the second wave of defections for AAP, following the loss of five councillors to the BJP on August 25. The defections have raised concerns within AAP about the possibility of cross-voting, which could jeopardize their efforts to secure control over the crucial Standing Committee. Importance of the Standing Committee The Standing Committee holds significant power within the MCD, controlling its financial decisions and approving projects valued at over Rs 5 crore. It currently comprises three AAP members and two BJP members. The election today will fill the vacancy left by BJP councillor Kamaljeet Sehrawat, who was elected to the Lok Sabha. High Drama Thursdays meeting witnessed high drama when the municipal secretariat issued an order disallowing mobile phones inside the chamber during the vote. Delhi Police even set up frisking points at entryways, adding to the tension. While BJP councillors adhered to the rule, AAP councillors protested, staging a sit-in demonstration in the lobby. Mayor Shelly Oberoi and other AAP members argued that the restriction on phones and frisking procedures infringed upon their dignity and violated democratic norms. Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy cancelled his visit to Tirupati temple on Friday amid the ongoing prasadam adulteration row. Reddys visit was initially scheduled to visit the Tirupati shrine as part of YSRCPs statewide temple ritual aimed at rectifying the sins committed by Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu. Earlier, in a press conference, Reddy had denied claims of beef tallow, lard and fish oil in the Tirupati laddoo. Sources close to Jagan Reddy have confirmed the cancellation of his visit to the hill shrine, though the reason for the last-minute decision, made just hours before his planned departure, was not immediately disclosed. The YSRCP chief criticized Naidu for spreading falsehoods, labeling his administration as a 'monster's regime.' The cancellation comes as NDA allies in Andhra Pradesh demanded that Reddy publicly declare his faith prior to entering the temple. On Thursday, Reddys party had urged devotees across the state to participate in temple pooja on Saturday, being organised to restore and purify the sacredness of Tirumala temple, which the party claims has been tarnished by the false claims of CM Naidu about animal fat in laddoo. Reddy claimed that the allegations misled devotees and tarnished the revered image of Lord Venkateswara. BJP, TDP Demand Reddy To Declare His Faith The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) demanded that former CM Reddy must declare his faith before entering the temple on September 28. "As per Andhra Pradesh Revenue Endowments, Rule 16, and TTD General Regulations Rule 136, non-Hindus must submit a declaration at Vaikuntam queue complex before darshan," ANI cited State president Andhra Pradesh BJP, Daggubati Purandeswari. TDP spokesperson Kommareddy Pattabhi Ram stated that Jagan Reddy must publicly declare his faith before planning a temple visit, warning that he would otherwise be barred from entering the temple premises. J&K Polls: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday asked Lok Sabha LoP and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, whether he supports the National Conference's demand to bring back Article 370 and Article 35 A and separate flag for Jammu and Kashmir. While addressing a gathering in the Ramgarh Assembly Constituency of Jammu and Kashmir, CM Yogi said, "I want to ask Congress leader Rahul Gandhi whether he supports the National Conference's decision to have a separate flag for Jammu and Kashmir? Does Rahul Gandhi support the National Conference's demand to bring back Article 370 and 35A and push Jammu and Kashmir into an era of unrest and terrorism?" "Does the Congress support promoting separatism again by talking to Pakistan at the cost of the youth of Kashmir?," CM Yogi further stated. Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Amit Shah slammed Rahul Gandhi and reminded him that the grand old party imposed the president's rule the most number of times in Jammu and Kashmir. Meanwhile, in a public rally in Kathua, the Union Home Minister said, "Rahul Gandhi just gave a statement that outsiders will rule in Jammu and Kashmir. He was referring to our LG Sahab (Manoj Sinha). Rahul Baba, those who write your speeches do not tell you the truth. If there is a party that has imposed presidential rule the most number of times in Jammu and Kashmir, it is the Congress." Citing voter turnout, the former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief said that it was the end of terrorism in the region that had led to the increased turnout. "Due to the end of terrorism, Jammu and Kashmir has witnessed a record 55 percent voting. Farooq Sahib, those days are over when one could go to the Lok Sabha by getting 8 thousand votes. Now democracy has become strong in Jammu and Kashmir," Amit Shah said. Shah also said that it was PM Modi's effort that had put the decision making power in the hands of the people. "You have Panch-Sarpanch in your villages now. Over 40,000 people now celebrate democracy in Jammu and Kashmir. For decades, the 3 dynasties of NC, Congress, and PDP promoted nepotism. Now, due to Modi ji's efforts, the youth of J&K take part in the decision-making for improving conditions in the state," he said. "If BJP candidates Jeevan Lal and Dilip Singh win, then there will be celebrations across the country. But if Congress and NC (National Conference) candidates win, then celebrations will be held in Pakistan. Do you wish Pakistan to celebrate?," Shah further stated. He vowed that they will not allow Rahul Gandhi to end reservations (in case Congress is voted to power). "Rahul Baba has said that they will end reservations when they come to power. Rahul Baba, no matter what your intention is, we will not let you end your reservation," Amit Shah added. The second phase of J-K assembly polls was held on September 25. The third and final phase of voting will be held on October 1, while the counting of votes will take place on October 8. Assembly elections are being held in the Union Territory nearly after a gap of ten years and are the first once since the abrogation of Article 370. New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested a key accused in a United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (ULFA-I) case related to the planting of IEDs across multiple places in Assam. In a press release, the NIA said that Girish Barua, alias Gautam Baruah, was nabbed from the outskirts of Bengaluru, where he was hiding out. The case was registered by the probe agency in September in connection with the planting of explosive devices across Assam by the banned terrorist organization ULFA (I) as part of an armed protest against Independence Day celebrations in India. "The accused was part of the group of ULFA (I) operatives that had placed IEDs at locations in North Lakhimpur district in Assam at the behest of the top leadership of the outfit," said NIA. The suspect was arrested and produced before the Special NIA Court, Bengaluru, on September 25, and the court passed an order for transit remand and production before NIA Special Court Assam Guwahati. Investigations in the case are continuing. Meanwhile, in another incident, the NIA last week conducted searches at four locations across Punjab in a case related to the promotion of terror-related activities and violence by Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) leader and pro-Khalistani terrorist Gurupatwant Singh Pannun. NIA teams swooped down at one location in Moga, two locations in Bathinda, and one location in Mohali at premises connected with suspects in the case RC-30/2023/NIA/DLI, the probe agency stated. The searches led to the seizure of various incriminating materials, including digital devices, which are under examination. The case relates to the conspiracy by Pannun with other members of Sikhs for Justice (SFJ). The NIA had registered the case against Pannun on 17th November 2023, under sections 120B, 153A, and 506 of the IPC and sections 10, 13, 16, 17, 18, 18B, 8 20 of the UA(P) Act, 1967. (With agencies Inputs) Police in Jammu and Kashmir's Awantipora have arrested six terrorist associates and recovered IEDs, arms, ammunition, and other incriminating materials from their possession. The Awantipora police received specific intelligence that a Pakistan-based Kashmiri terrorist from the JeM outfit was in the process of identifying youths who could be motivated to join terrorist ranks. Once these youths were identified, arms, ammunition, and explosives were being delivered to them to carry out terrorist activities before their formal induction into the ranks. Based on this information, a case was registered at Police Station Tral. During the investigation, the individuals involved in this module were identified. It was revealed that the Pakistan-based terrorist, with the help of an OGW (Over Ground Worker) in jail, had identified several youths in the Tral area of Awantipora and Kulgam district who were motivated to join the terrorist ranks. These youths were provided with pistols, grenades, IEDs, and other explosive materials to facilitate their recruitment, said police. Before officially joining the terrorist ranks, they were instructed to carry out terrorist activities, including targeted killings, throwing grenades at security forces or public places, attacking non-local laborers, and planting and detonating IEDs. Further investigation revealed that the Pakistan-based terrorist handler had selected specific locations for planting IEDs with the assistance of these youths. The handler also sent funds to carry out these tasks and to procure materials for fabricating additional IEDs. So far, six terrorist associates have been arrested, and based on their disclosures, a large cache of arms, ammunition, and explosives has been recovered. The recoveries include five IEDs with remotes, 30 detonators, 17 batteries for IEDs, two pistols, three pistol magazines, 25 live rounds of pistol ammunition, four hand grenades, and Rs 20,000 in cash. The investigation is ongoing, and more arrests and recoveries are expected in the case. New Delhi: AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal on Friday alleged that the BJP "stole" 10 elected state governments by misusing the central investigating agencies, the ED and CBI. Speaking in the Delhi assembly during a short duration discussion on the "misuse" of investigative agencies, the former Delhi chief minister targeted the BJP. "From March 2016 to March 2024, Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi tried to topple 13 state governments 15 times. Out of that, he succeeded in toppling 10 governments. These governments were not toppled, rather these governments were stolen," he charged. Kejriwal alleged that Maharashtra politicians like Ajit Pawar, Pratap Sarnaik and Hasan Muhrif faced corruption cases but which were dropped when they either joined the BJP or supported its government by breaking away from their parent party. The former Delhi chief minister also attacked the BJP over its relations with the RSS. He said "Sangh pracharaks" give their whole lives to the RSS ideology and asked what they get in return. "I pity the RSS people. They have given their whole lives to the RSS but they do not get tickets. Now the RSS people only spread the mats, sometimes for the BJP and sometimes for the leaders from the NCP and the Shiv Sena," Kejriwal said. The AAP supremo said four-five days ago, he wrote a letter to RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and asked that the leaders who were earlier called corrupt by Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and the BJP are now being included in their party. "Does the RSS chief agree with this? Do the BJP people feel even a little ashamed?" he said. Hitting out at Modi, Kejriwal said the prime minister has collected 25 "nagine" (precious stones) from all the parties and who include Ajit Pawar, Hemant Biswa Sarma, Praful Patel, Pratap Sarnaik, Hasan Mushrif, Bhagwna Gavali, Shubhendu Adhikari and Navin Jindal. Delhi's former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said he is addressing the house after being in jail for 19 months. "I am here because there is rule of law in the country. I would have perished in the jail if there were rule of the BJP in the country," Sisodia said. "Am I a terrorist or a drug mafia? Is Arvind Kejriwal a terrorist or a drug mafia?" he asked. Sisodia alleged that the BJP misused agencies to file 50 cases against Kejriwal and 12 against him and other leaders. But all these cases will be rejected, he claimed. The BJP should apologise for betraying the country by misusing the ED and CBI, he said. While speaking for the first time after becoming the chief minister of Delhi, Atishi said AAP's leader Arvind Kejriwal is holy and non-corruptible. "Kejriwal gave free electricity and water to the people of Delhi, gave them excellent schools and hospitals, gave free bus travel to women, and gave free pilgrimage facilities to the elderly, yet Delhi's budget is in profit," Atishi said. This happened because Kejriwal is extremely honest and knows how to work, she added. The Delhi chief minister attacked the BJP and said they have governments in 22 states but they neither provided free electricity and water nor schools and hospitals in a single state and yet their governments run in losses. The BJP could not build schools and hospitals like the AAP in any other state and, therefore, they filed fake cases through the ED and CBI to defame Kejriwal, she added. Kerala Lottery Results Friday 27-09-2024 LIVE: The Kerala Lottery Department, on behalf of the Keralan government, announces the "Nirmal NR-399" Lucky Draw Result today Nirmal NR-399, September 27, 2024. The draw will be held at Gorky Bhavan near Bakery Junction in Thiruvananthapuram. The Kerala Lottery Result 2024 for "Nirmal NR-399" will feature 12 series, with changes in series possible each week. A total of 108 lakh tickets are available for purchase weekly. The ticket prices may vary. Check the Nirmal NR-399 results right here to see if youre the first-place winner of 70 Lakhs. Stay tuned to this website for the live update of Kerala Lottery Nirmal NR-399 results today. Kerala Lottery Result 27-09-2024 September: FULL LIST OF WINNING NUMBERS FOR NIRMAL NR-399 Draw LUCKY TICKET NUMBER FOR 1ST PRIZE OF RS 70 LAKHS IS: NU 948447 LUCKY TICKET NUMBER FOR 2ND PRIZE OF RS 10 LAKHS IS: NN 157820 LUCKY TICKET NUMBERS FOR 3RD PRIZE OF RS 1 Lakh ARE: NN 379439 NO 323231 NP 804573 NR 922841 NS 804446 NT 764448 NU 350911 NV 794420 NW 900775 NX 375225 NY 629723 NZ 412728 LUCKY TICKET NUMBERS FOR CONSOLATION PRIZE OF RS 8,000 ARE:NN 948447 NO 948447 NP 948447 NR 948447 NS 948447 NT 948447 NV 948447 NW 948447 NX 948447 NY 948447 NZ 948447 (For The Tickets Ending with The Following Numbers below) LUCKY TICKET NUMBERS FOR 4TH PRIZE OF RS 5,000 ARE: 0525 0619 1766 2400 2510 4291 4296 4316 4393 5272 5383 6120 6262 6340 7550 7827 8052 9880 LUCKY TICKET NUMBERS FOR 5TH PRIZE OF RS 1,000 ARE: 0487 0931 0962 1599 2012 2825 2877 3148 3222 3289 3393 3530 4135 4360 4753 5079 5584 5781 5813 5825 5852 5966 5987 6755 7297 7490 7915 8502 8686 8794 8801 8902 9022 9460 9544 9832 LUCKY TICKET NUMBERS FOR 6TH PRIZE OF RS 500 ARE: 0159 0340 0642 0664 0693 0772 0857 1000 1300 1592 1762 1865 1910 2340 2347 2370 2543 2745 2928 3047 3205 3478 3722 3736 3818 3961 4060 4132 4638 4818 4878 4978 5119 5142 5220 5332 5360 5377 5428 5531 5592 5621 5780 5969 6027 6290 6412 6435 6715 6770 7195 7262 7647 7703 7737 7773 7849 7908 7987 8007 8009 8015 8190 8191 8300 8450 8611 8680 8767 8805 8955 9069 9337 9424 9503 9541 9576 9726 9957 LUCKY TICKET NUMBERS FOR 7TH PRIZE OF RS 100 ARE: 0017 0161 0215 0294 0463 0497 0625 0630 0740 0769 0777 0808 1058 1305 1474 1521 1615 1811 1915 1943 1959 1966 2256 2615 2670 2763 2783 2876 2894 2918 3054 3087 3149 3262 3314 3329 3433 3469 3733 3948 4000 4035 4044 4340 4515 4569 4587 4591 4707 4739 4781 4906 5110 5150 5161 5203 5283 5407 5434 5514 5578 5652 5769 5821 5913 5951 5996 6000 6020 6128 6161 6168 6191 6203 6258 6287 6288 6369 6608 6610 6662 6841 7020 7036 7055 7079 7152 7235 7290 7379 7484 7556 7706 7940 8100 8106 8156 8239 8256 8337 8370 8535 8610 8615 8623 8756 8935 9351 9450 9467 9469 9511 9520 9521 9737 9768 9887 9889 9924 9933 9946 9990 KERALA LOTTERY RESULT TODAY 27-09-2024 September: NIRMAL NR-399 LOTTERY PRIZE DETAILS 1st Prize: Rs 70 Lakhs 2nd Prize: Rs. 10 lakhs 3rd Prize: Rs. 5,000 4th Prize: Rs. 2,000 5th Prize: Rs. 1,000 6th Prize: Rs. 500 7th Prize: Rs. 200 8th Prize: Rs. 100 Consolation Prize: Rs. 8,000 (NOTE: Lottery can be addictive and should be played responsibly. The data provided on this page is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as advice or encouragement. Zee News does not promote lottery in anyway.) The famous reality show hosted by Amitabh Bachchan, Kaun Banega Crorepatis (KBC) season 16 got its first millionaire, in a thrilling game that aired on Wednesday. The first episode of KBC 16 aired in August this year and Jammu and Kashmirs Akhnoor districts Chander Prakash, a UPSC aspirant, is the first contestant to bag the crorepati title. The show is a popular quiz competition where contestants tackle progressively challenging questions to earn significant cash prizes. According to a local news website, Daily Excelsior, From the moment of Prakashs birth he has battled a series of relentless health challenges, the most daunting being a severe intestinal blockage. Despite enduring seven major surgeries, his journey is far from over, as doctors now recommended an eighth operation. His story is not just one of survival, but of the power of hope and determination. What Was The 10 Million Rupee Question As the episode began the hosted, shot the first question for prize money of Rs 3,20,000, Chander answered in quick and calm conduct. Bachchan posed the question, "In which contact sport is 'Yokozuna' the highest rank attainable?" Confident in his answer, Chander chose Option B) Sumo Wrestling and effortlessly secured the prize. In the KBCs Super Sandook segment, Chander answered seven consecutive questions correctly. After answering half of the questions independently, Chander relied on his lifelines for assistance with some of the higher-level questions in the quiz. Chander successfully answered the Rs 1 crore question on Kaun Banega Crorepati season 16, becoming the first contestant to win the amount this season. The question asked which countrys largest city is a port with an Arabic name meaning abode of peace. Chander used the Double Dip lifeline and correctly chose Tanzania. Along with the cash prize, he also won a Hyundai Venue SUV. Chander then faced the Rs 7 crore jackpot question. Without any lifelines left and unsure of the answer, he opted to quit, securing his Rs 1 crore winnings. During the episode the host praised the determination and tenacity of Prakash after revisiting his ups and downs in life on screen. Kolkata: A minor girl was allegedly raped by her tutor in West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district and the accused has been arrested on Friday, police said. Acting on a complaint filed by the victim's parents, District Police officials arrested the accused, a Railways employee, from the government quarter allotted to him. Preliminary investigations revealed that besides working as a railway staff, the accused used to teach local students on weekends. As per the complaint, the victim was in a state of shock for quite some time, following which she was taken to a counsellor. After some counselling sessions, the victim revealed about the ordeal. As per the complaint, the accused had been molesting the victim for quite some time and one evening raped her when no one was his quarter. The accused even threatened the victim with dire consequences if she revealed the incident to anyone. After she revealed the entire incident, her parents lodged a formal complaint with the local police station following which the accused was arrested. The accused has been booked under different sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012. The incident has left people in a state of shock. The state has been witnessing protests over the rape and murder of a junior doctor of R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in Kolkata within the hospital premises and allegations of tampering with evidence in the matter. The CBI sleuths, probing the R.G. Kar case, identified procedural lapses in the drafting of the post-mortem report and the process of conducting the autopsy. The CBI said the post-mortem report lacks mentions and descriptions in technical and proper medical terms. The post-mortem was conducted after sunset which is against the general protocol, autopsy process was completed within 70 minutes, which was an unusually short period considering the seriousness of the matter, the CBI said. Weather Update: As heavy rain lashed several parts of Mumbai on Friday, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued an orange alert predicting heavy downpours in parts of Maharashtra. Besides Maharashtra, an 'orange' alert has also been issued in Gujarat, Goa, Uttarakhand, east Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal, predicting very heavy rainfall. According to the weather department, Delhi is also likely to witness light rainfall in the next two days. In its bulletin on Friday, the IMD said that Maharashtra is likely to receive heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places for the next 24 hours. #WATCH | Mumbai, Maharashtra: Heavy rain lashes several parts of the city. (Visuals from Wadala) pic.twitter.com/Fpry3D8E5T ANI (@ANI) September 27, 2024 Heavy to very heavy rainfall with extremely heavy rainfall at isolated places very likely over Madhya Maharashtra on September 27, and isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall on September 28, it said. Several parts of Maharashtra have been witnessing heavy showers and waterlogging in the last few days, which caused widespread disruptions, including delays in local train and flight services on Wednesday. As far as Mumbai is concerned, areas including Kurla East, Nehru Nagar, and Chembur were heavily waterlogged. Following heavy showers, major traffic jams were seen on the Kurla bridge due to the rainfall. A landslide at the Mumbra bypass also hit traffic movement. On Thursday, vehicular and rail traffic in Mumbai resumed a day after heavy rains battered the city, inundating low-lying areas, halting local trains in their tracks, and forcing the diversion of at least 14 incoming flights. A 45-year-old woman drowned in a drain overflowing due to heavy rains in suburban Andheri on Wednesday, police said. The police helped a woman who was in her ninth month of pregnancy reach a hospital in Ghatkopar after she was unable to find a vehicle to go there due to heavy rains at night, an official said. Rains stopped in most parts of the city on Thursday morning, though skies were overcast. Local trains, considered the lifeline of Mumbai, were running normally, though some services were slightly delayed, as per officials. (With agencies inputs) Himachal Pradesh Minister Vikramaditya Singh sparked controversy over his remarks that coincided with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanaths directives mandating the street vendors to display their names. Following his statement, the Congress leadership on Friday reprimanded him, saying that no individual is permitted to act against the party's policies and ideologies, reported PTI citing party sources. Congress general secretary, in-charge organisation, KC Venugopal held a meeting with Singh in New Delhi. During the meeting the party conveyed that they believe in former Congress chief Rahul Gandhis ideology of fighting hatred with love. Singh was instructed to follow the party's ideology and policies, but he responded by informing the leadership that his remarks had been misquoted by the media. Amid backlash over Singh's statement on mandatory name displays for street vendors, the Himachal Pradesh government clarified on Thursday that no such decision had been made. What Congress Vikramaditya Said Vikramaditya Singh, who is the public works and urban development minister on Wednesday told reporters that it would be mandatory to display the names of the proprietor on the street eateries. The decesion he added was inspired by the UP CM Yogis orders. The state government quickly distanced itself from Singhs remark and clarified that no such order is in function. Sources in Delhi indicated that the Congress central leadership intervened, prompting the Himachal Pradesh government's clarification. How The Himachal Government Responded Sources in Delhi indicated that the Congress central leadership intervened, prompting the Himachal Pradesh government's clarification. AICC Himachal Pradesh in-charge Rajiv Shukla said he discussed the issue with Vikramaditya Singh and CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, noting it stemmed from the assembly speaker's committee to designate areas for street vendors. The AICC's Himachal Pradesh in-charge Rajiv Shukla said on Thursday that he had discussed the issue with Singh and Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu. He had said the matter sprang from the assembly speaker forming a committee to designate specific areas for street vendors, including those selling food and other items. "They will be given licences and regulated so that police do not harass them. The designated places will require identification such as Aadhaar cards and licences but there is no requirement for them to display a sign stating their name as the owner," Shukla told reporters in Jammu on Thursday. "The aim is to ensure that street vendors have proper locations to operate without disrupting traffic, especially since it is a hilly area and has narrow roads." he had said. (With PTI inputs) PUNE: Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday said he favoured bringing petrol and diesel under the Goods and Services Tax, but the decision needs unanimous support of the states. Puri was delivering a lecture on `strategy and measures for enhancing India's energy security in the coming decades', organised by the Pune International Centre here. "... There is a suggestion to bring petrol and diesel under GST, which I was advocating for a long period of time. Now my senior colleague, the finance minister also has spoken about bringing fuel under GST on several occasions," he said. The Kerala High Court had suggested that the GST council take this up on its agenda, Puri further said. "My recollection is that at a meeting in Allahabad, it came up....But as you know that GST council works on the principle of consensus and unanimity and the state chief ministers have to agree," the minister said. "We are currently in the situation that BJP-ruled states have reduced their VAT, and non-BJP states are not even willing to forego the additional VAT, so I do not see that is happening," he said. Pune Police made startling new revelations in Pune Porsche crash case on Friday, alleging that several family members of the underage accused were reportedly intoxicated at the time of the incident. The minor, who was also under the influence of alcohol, allegedly lost control of the high-end electric vehicle, resulting in the deaths of two IT professionals. Eyewitnesses reported that the teen was so buzzed he could barely stand after the crash. As per the police, the accuseds father, mother and brother were all drunk when they attempted to bribe the state-run Sassoon Hospital staff to swap the blood sample of the teen. This was done reportedly to lie about the alcohol level in the blood to save the teen. Police revealed that the initial plan was to obtain blood samples from the accused teen's father or brother. However, both were found to be intoxicated at the time, prompting authorities to collect a sample from the mother instead, who has since been arrested. Soon after the incident on May 19, the mother appeared in a video message claiming the viral video that reportedly features her son is fake. She cried on camera and appealed the cops to protect him. Blood Swapping At Sassoon Hospital Two doctors from Sassoon Hospital, Dr Ajay Taware, the former head of the Forensic Medicine Department, and Dr Shrihari Halnor, have been arrested for their involvement in tampering with blood samples. A hospital staffer, Atul Ghatkamble, is also in custody. Ashpak Makandar and Amar Gaikwad, who served as intermediaries between the teens father and the doctors to arrange bribes for the sample swap, were arrested earlier. Cops Add Charges Of Evidence Destruction Pune police submitted a supplementary final report on Tursday containing fresh charges before the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB), reported PTI. The final report has fresh charges of destruction of evidence, forgery, and offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act against the 17-year-old juvenile. Earlier in June, the police filed a report that contained charges of Culpable homicide not amounting to murder under IPC section 304. The teenager, reportedly under the influence of alcohol, was driving a Porsche in the early hours of May 19 when it collided with a motorbike in the Kalyani Nagar area of Pune. The crash resulted in the deaths of two young IT professionals, a man and a woman. JAIPUR: Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Prem Chand Bairwa had to contend with an online backlash after his son appeared in a social media reel driving a modified jeep with a state government vehicle tailing him. Bairwa, who also serves as the transport minister, defended his son on Friday stating that there was no wrongdoing as he was with his friends from school. The Rajasthan government Bolero vehicle with multicoloured beacon on it and registered in the name of transport department, was seen tailing and escorting the jeep, raising questions about the inappropriate use of state resources. The jeep was driven by Bairwa's son on Amber road in Jaipur. The reel showed him with three friends, including the son of a Congress leader. In another reel, the deputy CM's son accompanies the Congress leader's son to a luxury car showroom, where the latter is purchasing a vehicle. Following backlash on social media, Bairwa said that since becoming the deputy CM, his son has had opportunities to associate with affluent individuals and see luxury cars and there is nothing with it. "I want to thank the Prime Minister for making someone like me the deputy chief minister of Rajasthan. After this, if wealthy individuals allow my son to sit with them and give him a chance to see luxury cars then I am thankful," he said. Bairwa said that his son has not yet attained the age of 18 years and that the vehicle accompanying him was for security purposes. "Where were the rules violated? The car was following for my child's safety. If people interpret it differently, that's their perspective but I do not blame my child or his friends. They were just together," he said. Bairwa is a second time BJP MLA from Dudu constituency. The Bolero vehicle seen in the reel is registered in the name of the transport department. Secretary of the transport department Shuchi Tyagi could not be contacted for comments on the matter. A senior police officer familiar with the development said, "We are examining whether the police escort is being misused or not." UP News: In a shocking turn of events, a student of class 2 was killed in an alleged "sacrificial ritual" performed by the owners of his school in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras to make it more "prosperous." Besides the owner and director of the school, the principal and two teachers were also arrested for their alleged involvement in the killing on Monday, police said on Friday. The body of the student was recovered from school director Dinesh Baghel's car, the police said. The family of the child has alleged that he was killed as part of 'black magic' rituals. According to police, the postmortem report of the class two student revealed that he was strangled. DL Public School owner Jasodhan Singh is said to believe in 'tantrik rituals'. He asked his son Dinesh Baghel, the director of the school, to sacrifice a child for the "prosperity" of the school and his family. Principal Laxman Singh and two teachers -- Ramprakash Solanki and Veerpal Singh -- have also been held by police. An FIR has been lodged under Section 103(1) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 against five of them, and they have been sent to jail. VIDEO | A class 2 student at a private school died under mysterious circumstances in Hathras. The body of the student was recovered from school director Dinesh Baghel's car, the police said. The family of the child has alleged that he was killed as part of 'black magic' rituals. pic.twitter.com/MqbnbgIoiw September 27, 2024 Speaking to PTI about the incident, Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP), Hathras, Ashok Kumar Singh, said, "The student has been identified as Kritarth studying in class 2 of DL Public School." "On September 23, the student was abducted from the school's hostel by teacher Ramprakash Solanki, Dinesh Baghel, and school owner Jasodhan Singh. Jasodhan Singh believes in 'tantra' practice and asked his son to sacrifice a child for the prosperity of school and his family," he said. The victim student was taken to a secluded place for the sacrifice, but the student woke up and began crying, the officer said. "After that, he was strangulated. Another teacher, Veerpal Singh, and school principal, Laxman Singh, were also present at the spot and were guarding the place," he said. Police further stated that the accused told the child's parents that Kritarth was not well and was being taken to a hospital in Baghel's car. Family members of the child, however, stopped the car and informed police about Kritarth's death, police said. Later, the postmortem report revealed that he died due to strangulation. In the police investigation, the accused informed police that the student was killed for 'sacrifice' for the prosperity of the school and the owner's family, the ASP said. (With PTI Inputs) The Uttar Pradesh International Trade Show, which commenced on Wednesday at the India Expo Center and Mart, is proving to be a game-changer for new entrepreneurs. They are thrilled to showcase their products on a global platform and are also appreciative of the Yogi government's support in expanding their businesses. These entrepreneurs believe that presenting their products on such a prestigious stage is a significant opportunity, as it has attracted an excellent response from both Indian and international buyers, marking a milestone in their business growth. The excitement among young entrepreneurs is evident, with approximately 277 of the nearly 400 exporters at the export pavilion being new to the field. Most of these exporters launched their businesses just 2-3 years ago, and their products have garnered strong interest from buyers at the exhibition, setting the stage for future growth. *Left the job as a CA and started a startup* Dilip Chauhan, a young entrepreneur from Siddharthnagar and founder of Divyam Aahar, left a promising career as a Chartered Accountant to launch his startup. His product, "Kala Namak" rice, has received an overwhelming response. According to Chauhan, the government's efforts to promote startups have supported young business owners like him. His product, which is part of the One District, One Product initiative, has gained traction in India and international buyers. Chauhan credits this success to the government's consistent support and encouragement. Gargi Gaur, a resident of Mathura and founder of Chini Mitti India, is equally excited about having the opportunity to showcase her products at the International Trade Fair. She shared that this is the second time her brand has participated in the event and that the previous experience also provided tremendous exposure. "We received visits from many buying agencies last time, and this year, were even more enthusiastic because, along with Indian buyers, international visitors are also attending. The positive response weve received so far makes this trade fair an excellent opportunity for us." Saharsh, a young entrepreneur from Gorakhpur specializing in terracotta products, echoed the excitement, stating that the B2B sessions at the trade show have been incredibly valuable. "Ive had the chance to connect with numerous exporters, and our products have received great feedback. Recently, we began exporting to countries such as Germany, Nepal, and Australia. These exhibitions give us much-needed visibility, which is a massive opportunity for growth." Kirti, a Vrindavan-based entrepreneur from Mathura who handcrafts clothes for deities, expressed her gratitude for the platform the Uttar Pradesh International Trade Show provided. "Being part of this event is a significant achievement for me. I had a stall last year, and the response was overwhelmingly positive, and this year is no different," she shared. "This is my second time at the trade fair, and the response continues to be fantastic, whether from international buyers, B2B clients, or wholesale customers within India and abroad. Were seeing visitors from Delhi-NCR, Haryana, Punjab, and nearby areas, all of whom are showing great interest in our 'Bhagwan ji' stall. Im deeply grateful to the state government for offering us such a valuable platform to showcase our products on a large scale." Riya Barde, who also goes by the name Arohi Barde and Banna Sheikh was arrested by the Hill line police in Ulhasnagar, for living in India with fake documents. However, the story is more twisted than it looks. This Bangladeshi origin woman is allegedly linked to Raj Kundras production company and has worked in various pornographic films. 22-year-old, Riya overstayed her visit in India by allegedly obtaining an Indian passport using fake documents and was staying with her mother along with brother and sister. According to media reports, her mother married Arvind Barde, a resident of Amravati to facilitate their stay in India. Currently, the police are on the lookout for the remaining family members as Riya remains in Police custody. As per a police report cited by The Times of India, both of Riya's parents are residing in Qatar, while her brother and sister remain at large. Who Is Riya Barde Riya Bardes mother, Ruby Shaikh, a Bangladeshi national, married Arvind Barde, a native of Amravati, and later claimed to be a resident of West Bengal. She subsequently changed her name to Anjali, and the family settled illegally in India. All her family members changed their names: her mother, Anjali Barde (aka Ruby Sheikh), her father, Arvind Barde, her brother, Ravindra (aka Riyaz Sheikh), and her sister, Ritu (aka Moni Sheikh). Reports indicate that Riya Barde worked for Raj Kundras production company and appeared in several films, including projects with performer Gehana Vasisth. She was previously arrested by Mumbai Police in a prostitution case under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act. The situation came to light when a friend of Riya found about her Bangladeshi origin and reported her to the police, after which the probe was initiated into her residency documents. New Delhi: Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde attended the premiere of the Marathi film 'Dharmaveer 2'. Earlier, actor and producer Bobby Deol unveiled the poster of the film 'Dharmaveer 2' alongside Chief Minister of Maharashtra Eknath Shinde and the film's cast and crew in Mumbai. The sequel, following the success of its predecessor, aims to delve deeper into the life and legacy of the late Shiv Sena leader Anand Dighe. The event saw the presence of key figures such as Prasad Oak, reprising his role as Anand Dighe, and director Pravin Tarde, who received acclaim for their work in the first instalment of the biographical drama. Among the producers present were Mangesh Desai from Saahil Motion Arts and Umesh Bansal, Chief Business Officer of Zee. Actor Bobby Deol expressed his gratitude and excitement, remarking, "It's an honour to be part of this celebration. The performance in the first part was commendable, and I congratulate CM Eknath Shinde on his two successful years in government." The original film, directed by Pravin Tarde, was a commercial hit and received positive reviews for its authentic portrayal of Anand Dighe's life. The sequel promises to explore new facets of Anand Dighe's life and political journey, aiming to capture the essence of his impactful legacy. With preparations in full swing, the team is gearing up for a theatrical release on August 9, continuing their cinematic tribute to the late Shiv Sena leader Anand Dighe. Mumbai: Actor Hrithik Roshan, who never fails to shower love on his girlfriend and actor Saba Azad, recently reacted to pictures of her. On Thursday, Saba posted a bunch of pictures on Instagram where she wore a red bodycon dress with a deep neckline. Along with the post, she dropped emojis of Apple in the caption. As soon as she shared the post with her Insta Fam, Hrithik reacted to the post and wrote, "Woah" with heart and fire emojis in the comment section. Dia Mirza and Shibani Dandekar also reacted to the post. Dia wrote, "Hello Gorgeous Human" with heart emojis while Shibani commented, "OH.MY. LORD!!" with fire and heart emojis. Talking about Saba's look, she styled her hair in an open look and completed her appearance with subtle makeup. Hrithik confirmed his relationship with Saba at Karan Johar's 50th birthday celebration, entering the party hand-in-hand with her. Earlier, the actor was married to Sussanne Khan, and they have two sons, Hrehaan and Hridhaan. They divorced in 2014. Meanwhile, on the work front, Saba has started shooting for the second season of the medical comedy-drama 'Who's Your Gynac?'. Created and produced by The Viral Fever (TVF), the second season brings back Saba Azad, Karishma Singh, Aaron Arjun Koul, Kunal Thakur, and Vibha Chibber. 'Who's Your Gynac? 2' will premiere soon on Amazon miniTV. On the other hand, Hrithik is currently filming in Italy for his upcoming movie 'War 2'. 'War 2' is being directed by Ayan Mukerji, who is best known for his films 'Wake Up Sid', 'Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani' and 'Brahmastra'. The film also stars Jr NTR. It is a sequel to the 2019 action thriller film 'War' which starred Hrithik Roshan, Tiger Shroff and Vani Kapoor in the lead roles. Directed by Siddarth Anand, this high-octane action drama minted Rs 200 crores within seven days of its release in 2019. It's touted to be one of the highest-grossing Hindi films of that year. (ANI) Dubai-based influencer Soudi Al Nadak recently took to Instagram to reveal a luxurious gesture from her millionaire husband, Jamal Al Nadak. In a viral video, the 26-year-old housewife showcased their newly acquired private island with the caption: POV: You wanted to wear a bikini so your millionaire husband bought you an island. The post has since garnered over 2.4 million views, sparking widespread attention online. A Lavish Life on Social Media Soudi, originally from the UK, has been married to Dubai businessman Jamal Al Nadak for over three years. The couple met while studying in Dubai, and since then, their relationship has been a fixture in the social media world. Soudi regularly shares her opulent lifestyle on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where her audience is treated to glimpses of extravagant purchases and high-end experiences. In one notable post, the couple splurged $1 million on a diamond solitaire ring and another $2 million on art all within a single day. Private Island According to a report by Hindustan Times, Soudi explained the reasoning behind their latest acquisition. The couple had been considering buying an island as an investment for some time, but the decision was also driven by Jamal's desire to provide a safe, secluded space for his wife to enjoy. It was something we were looking to do for a while for investment, and my husband wants me to feel safe on a beach, which is why he purchased one, Soudi shared. While the island purchase serves as a financial investment, the personal motivation behind it highlights the lengths the couple goes to ensure privacy and comfort in their lives. The private island now offers Soudi a luxurious and secure setting to relax, away from the public eye. Microsoft co-founder and renowned philanthropist Bill Gates recently surprised the internet when he was spotted buying a hot dog from a street vendor in New York City's iconic Times Square. Gates was captured on video enjoying one of New York's most popular street foods, appearing to relish the simple moment while being filmed by onlookers. The video, posted on Instagram by photojournalist Elder Ordonez, swiftly gained widespread attention online. According to Forbes, Gates holds the title of the seventh richest person in the world, with an impressive net worth of $138.9 billion. Bill gate viral moment in new york Videos of Gates savoring a hot dog have sparked a wave of reactions on social media, with users amused by the billionaire enjoying such a simple treat. Many shared their surprise and admiration in the comments, highlighting their delight at seeing this down-to-earth moment. "Wow, even billionaires enjoy a hot dog!" one user commented, while another added, "Imagine bumping into Bill Gates at a hot dog stand!" Someone else chimed in, "Hes just like us! Who knew Gates was a fan of hot dogs?" Another joked, "Looks like billionaires get street food cravings too." One netizen humorously asked, "Does Bill prefer mustard or ketchup?" The casual moment with the hot dog struck a chord with many, who enjoyed seeing Gates in such an ordinary setting. It highlighted that even one of the worlds richest individuals appreciates the simple joys of street food. Bill Gatess India visit Interestingly, this isnt the first time Bill Gates has charmed people with his love for street food. During a visit to India, Bill Gates appeared in a video sipping chai from a street stall run by Dolly Chaiwala, a social media influencer. The clip showcased Gates fully embracing Indian street culture while enjoying a hot cup of tea. Sharing a picture on Instagram, Gates expressed his admiration for everyday innovation in India, stating, "Innovation is everywhere in India, even in how to make a simple cup of tea!" The video begins with Dolly Chaiwala asking Gates, "One chai, please," to which he responds by requesting her to make the tea in her signature artistic style. While sipping steaming chai from a glass, Gates shared his excitement about returning to India, emphasizing the country's role as a hub for innovators working to enhance lives. He praised how even the simple act of making tea is elevated to an art form. Gates concluded the video by looking forward to more "chai pe charcha" (tea-time discussions) alongside Dolly Chaiwala. Whether it's enjoying a hot dog in New York or sipping chai in India, Bill Gates continues to captivate his fans with his down-to-earth and charming moments. At the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer joined French President Emmanuel Macron in voicing support for Indias bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Both leaders emphasized the need for a more inclusive and representative Security Council, reflecting the evolving global landscape. Starmers Call for a More Representative UNSC During his address to the UN General Assembly, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged for a transformation of the UNSC, advocating for a more diverse and effective body. "The Security Council has to change to become a more representative body, willing to act not paralysed by politics," Starmer stated. He went on to call for permanent seats for India, Brazil, Japan, Germany, and African representation, along with an increase in the number of elected members. Macrons Support for India French President Emmanuel Macron championed reforms in the UNSC, advocating for the expansion of its permanent membership. Speaking at the UN General Assembly in New York, Macron stressed the importance of making the Security Council more efficient and reflective of contemporary geopolitical realities. "We have a Security Council that is blocked... Lets make the UN more efficient. We have to make it more representative," Macron remarked. He further emphasized that India, along with Germany, Japan, Brazil, and two African countries, should be included as permanent members. Modi's Call for Institutional Reforms The support from Macron and Starmer comes on the heels of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modis address at the 'Summit of the Future'. Modi highlighted the critical need for reforms in global institutions, including the UNSC, to maintain their relevance and effectiveness in fostering global peace and development. The Current Composition of the UN Security Council The UNSC is currently composed of 15 members: five permanent members with veto power (the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom) and ten non-permanent members, elected for two-year terms. The Council's core responsibilities include investigating conflicts, launching peacekeeping missions, and imposing sanctions when necessary. Its decisions shape international responses to global crises, underscoring the importance of reforming the body to better address modern challenges. As the Hindu festival of Durga Puja approaches, Bangladesh's Hindu minority faces growing pressure from radical Islamic groups demanding a halt to public celebrations, idol worship, and immersions. Protest Against Durga Puja Celebrations A radical Islamic organization, Insaf Keemkari Chhatra-Janta, recently led a demonstration in Dhakas Sector 13, opposing the use of a local playground for Durga Puja celebrations. The playground has traditionally been used by the Hindu community for many years. However, with tensions escalating between religious groups, several Islamic organizations have voiced opposition to the public celebration of the festival. Environmental and Religious Concerns Cited The protesters, carrying placards written in Bangla, listed a series of demands aimed at curbing Durga Puja festivities. Among their complaints were concerns over environmental damage caused by idol immersion and road closures for public worship. They argued that such disruptions were unwarranted, especially given that Hindus make up only two percent of Bangladeshs population. One of the group's key demands was the removal of Durga Puja as a national holiday. They claimed the festival, despite its significance to the Hindu community, caused unnecessary inconvenience to the Muslim majority. According to a report by India Today, the group called for the demolition of temples allegedly built on "occupied land," further inflaming tensions between religious communities. Calls for Anti-India Sentiment The protesters went a step further, demanding that temples in Bangladesh display anti-India banners to demonstrate loyalty to the country. They argued that Hindu citizens should distance themselves from any perceived association with India, reflecting the broader geopolitical tensions between Bangladesh and its neighbour. Increased Incidents of Vandalism and Harassment Reports of temple vandalism and the destruction of idols have surged, leaving the Hindu community anxious about their safety and religious freedom. In Khulna, some Hindu citizens reported being asked to pay 5 lakh Bangladeshi taka to hold Durga Puja celebrations. These incidents have sparked fears of a deteriorating situation for Bangladesh's Hindu minority. Government Assurances Amid Rising Concerns Despite assurances from Muhammad Yunus, the chief advisor of the interim government, the Hindu community continues to face mounting challenges. Since the ouster of Sheikh Hasinas government, attacks on Hindu citizens and their properties have increased, further straining communal harmony in Bangladesh. New York: Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Thursday (local time) that he would be meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday at Trump Tower in New York around 9:45 am (local time), The Hill reported. This meeting comes on the heels of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's meetings with US President Joe Biden and US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in Washington at the White House, where they discussed strengthening Ukraine's position in the ongoing war with Russia. "As you know, President Zelenskyy has asked to meet with me, and I will be meeting with him tomorrow morning at around 9:45 in Trump Tower," Trump said during a press conference in New York. "And it's a shame what's happening in Ukraine--so many deaths, so much destruction. It's a horrible thing." NBC News reported Wednesday that Trump had decided not to meet with Zelensky. The former president criticised the Ukrainian president, saying while in North Carolina on Wednesday, "He's making little nasty aspersions towards your favourite president, me," The Hill reported, according to the news outlet. Trump's announcement was made the same day that Zelensky visited the White House. Notably, Trump's stance on Ukraine has been somewhat controversial, having previously criticised US assistance to Ukraine and praised Russian President Vladimir Putin. In contrast, Biden has reaffirmed US support for Ukraine, pledging to provide the necessary assistance to help Ukraine win the war. Recently, the US announced a new package of weapons and nearly USD 8 billion in aid for Ukraine. During the meeting, Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude for the support of the United States, highlighting that the two nations have stood together since the beginning of the Russian invasion. Sharing a post on X, Zelenskyy wrote, "During the meeting with President Joe Biden, I presented the Victory Plan to him. We discussed details to strengthen the plan, coordinated our positions, views, and approaches, and tasked our teams with holding consultations on the next steps." Meanwhile, President Biden took to his X handle to express solidarity with Ukraine. He also stated that Ukraine will emerge victorious in the war against Russia. Sharing a post on X, he wrote, "Today, President Zelenskyy and I sat down again to discuss strengthening Ukraine's position on the battlefield and helping Ukraine rebuild stronger than before. Two things are clear: Ukraine will win this war. And the US will continue to stand by them every step of the way." Zelenskyy also shared a post about sharing the details of the victory plan with Harris and said, "I shared the details of the victory plan with Vice President Kamala Harris. It is very important for us to be fully understandable and work in full coordination with the United States." "We must end this war and achieve just peace. We must protect our people - Ukrainian families, Ukrainian children--and everyone from Putin's evil. We are grateful to America for supporting Ukraine throughout this time," the post added. The Department of Defence (DoD) announced a significant new security assistance package to ensure Ukraine has the tools it needs to prevail in its fight against Russian aggression, the Pentagon said in a press release. This security assistance package commits an additional USD 2.4 billion in support through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) that will provide Ukraine with additional air defence, Unmanned Aerial systems (UAS), and air-to-ground munitions, as well as strengthen Ukraine's defence industrial base and support its maintenance and sustainment requirements. Pakistan and its one-sided love story for Kashmir is unending. During his address at the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif once again raked up the Kashmir bogey while calling upon India to resolve the dispute through talks. However, when Sharif was talking about India's threat to take control of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, his voice appeared to have betrayed him. It may be notable that BJP leaders including Yogi Adityanath and Rajnath Singh have repeatedly said that PoK was and remains an integral part of India. During his address, Sharif said, "It (India) has engaged in massive expansion of its military capabilities, which are essentially deployed against Pakistan. Its war doctrines envisage a surprise attack and a limited war under the nuclear overhang. Thoughtlessly, India spurned Pakistan's proposals for a mutual strategic restraint to the regime. Its leadership has often threatened to cross the line of control and take over Azad Kashmir," Shehbaz Sharif said. Sharif also went on to say that Pakistan will respond decisively to Indian aggression. "Let me state in no uncertain terms, Pakistan will respond most decisively to any Indian aggression, therefore, to secure durable peace, India must reverse the unilateral and illegal measures it has taken since 5th of August 2019 and enter into a dialogue for a peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN Security resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people," he claimed. Pakistan PM Shehbaz trying to speak against India. Caption it pic.twitter.com/CIJmybnKf0 Times Algebra (@TimesAlgebraIND) September 27, 2024 Sharif also said that instead of moving towards peace, India has resiled from its commitments to implement the Security Council resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir. "These resolutions mandate the people of Jammu and Kashmir to exercise their fundamental right to self-determination. Since 5th August 2019, India has initiated unilateral illegal steps to impose what its leaders honestly call a final solution for Jammu and Kashmir," Shehbaz Sharif claimed. Following the 2019 Pulwama attack, India made it clear that it seeks normal bilateral relations with Pakistan, but emphasized that it is Pakistan's responsibility to foster a conducive environment free from terrorism and hostility. India has consistently voiced its concerns over Pakistan's support for cross-border terrorism, reiterating that dialogue and terrorism cannot coexist. India will now exercise its right to respond to Pakistan's address at the UNGA. The Israeli military said Friday it struck the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut, where a series of massive explosions leveled multiple buildings, sending clouds of orange and black smoke billowing in the skies. The strikes in the suburbs south of Lebanons capital came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the U.N., vowing that Israels campaign against Hezbollah would continue. His comments further dimmed hopes for an internationally backed cease-fire aimed at preventing a spiral into all-out war. Three major Israeli TV channels said Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target of the strikes. But the unsourced reports could not immediately be confirmed by The Associated Press, and the army declined comment. But given the size and timing of the blasts, there were strong indications that a high-value target may have been inside the buildings struck. Moments ago, the Israel Defense Forces carried out a precise strike on the Central Headquarters of the Hezbollah terror organizationtaking the necessary action to protect our people so that Israeli families can live in their homes, safely and securely. Listen to IDF pic.twitter.com/I4hbN7KkO8 Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) September 27, 2024 To a degree unseen in past conflicts, Israel this past week has aimed to eliminate Hezbollahs senior leadership. In another sign of the strikes importance, Defense Minister Yoav Gallants office said he was huddled with the head of Israels air force and other top commanders at military headquarters, following updates. Fridays bombings were the most powerful yet seen in the Lebanese capital the past year. Israeli army spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the strikes targeted the main Hezbollah headquarters, located beneath residential buildings. Four buildings in the Haret Hreik neighborhood of Dahiyeh were reduced to rubble, Hezbollahs Al-Manar TV reported. The blast rattled windows and shook houses some 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of Beirut. Ambulances were seen headed to the scene, sirens wailing. Officials at a nearby hospital said they received at least 10 wounded, three critically including a Syrian child. Israel dramatically intensified its airstrikes in Lebanon this week, saying it is determined to put an end to more than 11 months of Hezbollah fire into its territory. The scope of Israels operation remains unclear, but officials have said a ground invasion to push the militant group away from the border is a possibility. Israel has moved thousands of troops toward the border in preparation. At least 25 people were killed in Israeli strikes early Friday, Health Minister Firass Abiad said, bringing the death toll in Lebanon this week to more than 720. He said the dead included dozens of women and children. A predawn strike Friday in the mainly Sunni border town of Chebaa hit a home, killing nine members of the same family, the state news agency said. A resident identified the dead as Hussein Zahra, his wife Ratiba, their five children and two of their grandchildren. At the U.N., Netanyahu vowed to continue degrading Hezbollah until Israel achieves its goals. Netanyahus comments have damped hopes for a U.S.-backed call for a 21-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah to allow time for a diplomatic solution. Hezbollah has not responded to the proposal. Iranian-backed Hezbollah, the strongest armed force in Lebanon, began firing rockets into Israel almost immediately after Hamas Oct. 7 attack, saying it was a show of support for the Palestinians. Since then, it and the Israeli military have traded fire almost daily, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes on both sides of the border. An Israeli security official said he expects a possible war against Hezbollah would not last for as long as the current war in Gaza, because the Israeli militarys goals are much narrower. In Gaza, Israel has vowed to dismantle Hamas military and political regime, but the goal in Lebanon is just to push Hezbollah away from the border with Israel -- not a high bar like Gaza in terms of operational objectives, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to military briefing guidelines. The Israeli military said it carried out dozens of strikes over the course of two hours around the south on Friday, including in the cities of Sidon and Nabatiyeh. It said it was targeting Hezbollah rocket launchers and infrastructure. It said Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets toward the northern Israeli city of Tiberias. In the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, civil defense workers pulled the bodies of two women 35-year-old Hiba Ataya and her mother Sabah Olyan from the rubble of a building brought down by a strike. Thats Sabah, these are her clothes, my love, one man cried out as her body emerged. Israel says its accelerated strikes this week have already inflicted heavy damage on Hezbollahs weapons capabilities and a string of its top commanders have been assassinated in strikes. Officials have suggested its limited fire of missile and rockets the past week show it has been set back. But the group boasted a large arsenal of rockets and missiles and its remaining capacities remain unknown. Hezbollah officials and their supporters remain defiant. Not long before the explosions Friday evening, thousands were massed in another part of Beiruts suburbs for the funeral of three Hezbollah members killed in earlier strikes, including the head of the groups drone unit, Mohammed Surour. Men and women in the giant crowd waved their fists in the air and chanted, We will never accept humiliation as they marched marched behind the three coffins, wrapped in the groups yellow flag. Hussein Fadlallah, head of Hezbollah in Beirut, said in a speech that no matter how many commanders Israel kills, the group has endless numbers of experience fighters who are deployed all over the front lines. Fadlallah vowed that Hezbollah will keep fighting until Israel stops its offensive in Gaza. We will not abandon the support of Palestine, Jerusalem and oppressed Gaza, Fadlallah said. There is no place for neutrality in this battle. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has firmly rejected a ceasefire proposal backed by the United States, which called for a 21-day pause in hostilities with Lebanon. The refusal came as Israel continues its military operations against Hezbollah, with no signs of de-escalation in sight. Netanyahu, who was in New York to address the United Nations General Assembly, made it clear that Israel's airstrikes against Hezbollah targets would persist until the country achieves its objectives. The Israeli leader stressed that the military's campaign would continue without interruption, despite international pressure to halt the fighting. "We are continuing to strike Hezbollah with full force, and we will not stop until we reach all our goals," Netanyahu said. His key objective, he added, is ensuring the safety of Israel's northern residents, many of whom have been displaced due to ongoing conflict. Israeli Airstrike Kills Hezbollah Drone Commander Netanyahus remarks came shortly after the Israeli military confirmed the killing of Mohammad Hussein Srour, Hezbollah's drone unit commander, in an airstrike on the southern suburbs of Beirut. Srours death was later confirmed by Hezbollah, further escalating tensions between the two sides. Growing Civilian Toll in Lebanon As Israeli airstrikes continue, the civilian toll in Lebanon has risen sharply. Lebanons foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, reported that around half a million people have been displaced inside the country due to the bombardment. Lebanons health ministry said on Thursday that 92 people had been killed in the last 24 hours, with 153 others injured. Since the renewed hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah began in October last year, more than 1,500 people have been killed, with over 700 casualties recorded since Monday. The humanitarian crisis in Lebanon is becoming increasingly dire, with both sides suffering significant losses. International Calls for a Ceasefire U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking from London, emphasized that another large-scale war would have devastating consequences for both Israel and Lebanon. He called for a diplomatic solution to the conflict, noting that military actions would only deepen the suffering of displaced civilians on both sides of the border. French President Emmanuel Macron also expressed grave concern, warning against Lebanon becoming a new Gaza. He pointed to the high number of civilian casualties as "absolutely shocking" and called for an immediate pause in fighting to avoid further escalation. Risk of Regional Escalation There are growing fears that the conflict could spiral into a wider regional war. Israels plans for a possible ground invasion of Lebanon have heightened these concerns. A broader conflict would have far-reaching implications for the Middle East, with neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar also urging an end to the violence. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati had earlier expressed hope for a ceasefire, but Israels continued military action has dashed those prospects for now. Shigeru Ishiba, Japan's former Defence Minister, is all set to assume a new role next week when he will be sworn-in as the Prime Minister of the country. Japans governing party - the Liberal Democratic Party- has picked him as its leader, setting the path for him to become Prime Minister next week. The Liberal Democratic Partys governing coalition controls parliament in Japan. Who Is Shigeru Ishiba? An LDP leader, Shigeru Ishiba is considered a defence policy expert and has already served as the country's Defence Minister. Ishiba, first elected to parliament in 1986, has held several key positions, including defence minister, agriculture minister, and LDP secretary general under former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. In a surprising comeback, he defeated Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi, a staunch conservative who had aimed to become Japan's first female prime minister. At 67, the former banker was contesting the party leadership for the fifth time, declaring it his "final battle." A Defence Hawk Ishiba is known for his meticulous defence manoeuvres and policy vision. He had proposed an Asian version of the NATO military alliance in the past for regional peace and stability. On Friday, he said that the idea is to form 'an organic connection' of existing US-led defence networks such as the ANZUS alliance with Australia and New Zealand and its alliances with South Korea and the Philippines. Ishiba has proposed a more balanced Japan-US security alliance, suggesting that establishing Japanese Self-Defense Forces training bases in the United States would help strengthen bilateral ties. A strong supporter of Taiwan's democracy, he also advocates for the creation of a dedicated disaster management agency in Japan, one of the world's most disaster-prone nations. Known for his hardline stance on defence, Ishiba has also stirred controversy among party leaders by advocating for gender equality and supporting the legalization of same-sex marriage. On 26 September families of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa rural teacher training college who were abducted in Guerrero state in 2014 staged protests on the tenth anniversary of their disappearance. End of preview - This article contains approximately 403 words. Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article Not a Subscriber? Choose from one of the following options On 26 September Bolivias Justice Ministerresigned, three days after former president(2006-2019) issued an ultimatum for Presidentto replace corrupt cabinet ministers. End of preview - This article contains approximately 580 words. Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article Not a Subscriber? Choose from one of the following options On 26 September Uruguays Presidentdiscussed Venezuela at some length during his address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), saying the time has come to act. End of preview - This article contains approximately 390 words. Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article Not a Subscriber? Choose from one of the following options Imagine you want to improve your writing skills. Perhaps you would like to take an English test or use English in a business email. Today on Everyday Grammar, we will talk about something that could help you: appositives. We will explain the grammar rules behind appositives and demonstrate how to use them in sentences. Let us begin with a few definitions. Appositive definition An appositive is a word or group of words that renames something else. An appositive is often a noun or noun phrase that helps explain or identify another noun or a pronoun. Take this sentence, for example: My best friend, Ahmed , studies English literature. The subject of the sentence is my best friend. The name Ahmed is an appositive. It adds information to the sentence. What is important is that the sentence is grammatically correct without the appositive. So, our example without the appositive would read: My best friend studies English literature. Another example Now, let us consider a more complex example. Imagine you are reading a crime novel. Perhaps the book has the following lines. Police questioned the next suspect, the victims ex-wife. In this example, the victims ex-wife is the appositive. The words give readers more information about the next suspect. If the sentence did not have an appositive, it would have been written this way: Police questioned the next suspect. Appositives can introduce a sentence Martha Kolln and Robert Funk wrote a famous book on English grammar. In it, they note that if an appositive renames the subject of a sentence, it can introduce the same sentence. Kolln and Funk say the following description, by Michael D. Lemonick and Andrea Dorfman, is a good example of an introductory series of appositives. It is about epithets, or insulting terms, that people used to describe the Vikings of northern Europe. Ravagers, despoilers, pagans, heathens such epithets pretty well summed up the Vikings for those who lived in the British Isles during medieval times. The nouns ravagers, despoilers, pagans and heathens are all epithets, the subject of the sentence. The writers could have left out the list of nouns. Instead, they could have begun the sentence simply with the words epithets such as, or such epithets. Why are appositives important? You might be asking yourself why this discussion is important. The reason is this: using appositives correctly is one of the best ways to improve your writing style. Appositives can help writers change the rhythm or order of a sentence. In other words, appositives help make sentences more interesting. Think back to our first example: My best friend, Ahmed , studies English literature. If you were to write the example as two separate sentences, it might be something like this: My best friend studies English literature. My friends name is Ahmed. These sentences are grammatically correct. But they are repetitive. In other words, they are less interesting to read. What can you do? The next time you are reading, try to find examples of appositives. Ask yourself why the writer might have chosen to use them. When you practice writing in English perhaps for a test or business purposes try to use appositives in certain places. They will help make your writing smooth and clear if you use them correctly! We will leave you with a famous example. In his book A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Winston Churchill wrote the following words about Britains Queen Victoria. High devotion to her royal task, domestic virtues, evident sincerity of nature, a piercing and sometime disconcerting truthfulness all these qualities of the Queens had long impressed themselves upon the mind of her subjects. Can you identify the appositive? Can you identify the subject of the sentence? Write to us in the Comments Section of our website. Im Anne Ball. And Im John Russell. John Russell wrote this lesson for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section. ______________________________________________ Words in This Story grammar n. the study of words and their uses and relations in sentences ex- prefix meaning former introduce v. to lead to or present sum up phrasal verb to describe or show the most important parts or qualities of (someone or something) in a brief or simple way medieval adj. of or relating to Europes Middle Ages practice v. to work at repeatedly so as to become skilled devotion n. a feeling of strong love or loyalty virtue n. morally good behavior sincerity n. having or showing true feelings that are expressed in an honest way disconcerting adj. unnerving or troubling; concerning A new state law will soon require school districts in California to create new rules restricting student smartphone use. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the law recently. The legislation makes California the latest state to try to reduce student phone access. Florida, Louisiana, Indiana, and several other states have also passed laws aimed at restricting student phone use at school. The legislation is aimed at reducing distractions in the classroom. It is also meant to address the mental health effects that social media can have on children. Newsom said in a statement, This new law will help students focus on academics, social development, and the world in front of them, not their screens, when theyre in school." But some critics of such policies worry the rules will make it harder for students to seek help if there is an emergency. Critics also argue that decisions on phone bans should be made by school districts, and not state governments. The law requires districts to pass rules by July 1, 2026. The rules should limit or ban students from using smartphones on school grounds or while students are under the supervision of school employees. The new law comes after Newsom signed an earlier law in 2019 permitting school districts to restrict student phone access. In June, Newsom announced plans to seek more legislation. His announcement came after the U.S. surgeon general called on the United States Congress to require written warning on social media platforms describing their effects on young people. Newsom sent letters to districts in August, urging them to limit student device use in school. Assembly member Josh Hoover represents the city of Folsom. Hoover introduced the bill with a group of lawmakers. Phones are restricted where Hoover's children attend school. He said many of the students do not always like the policy. He said that is in part a sign of how addictive phones can be. Hoover said, "Any time you're talking about interrupting that addiction, it's certainly going to be hard for students sometimes." Some parents have raised concerns that school cellphone bans could cut parents off from their children if there is an emergency, such as a school shooting. The 2019 law permitting districts to restrict student phone access makes exceptions for emergencies. The new law does not change that. Some supporters of school phone restrictions say it may be safer to have phones off in an active shooter situation. ShaKenya Edison is assistant superintendent with the Santa Barbara Unified School District. The district put in place a ban on student phone use in class during the 2023 to 2024 school year. She said teachers have noted that their students are paying closer attention in class since the start of the ban. Tarik McFall is principal of Sutter Middle School in Folsom. He said that before his schools cellphone ban, students recorded fights, filmed TikTok videos and spent lunchtime looking at their phones. The ban has totally changed the culture of the school, he said. Now, students spend more time talking to one another. To have them put away, to have them power offit has been a great thing, McFall said. I'm Ashley Thompson. The Associated Press reported this story. Ashley Thompson adapted it for VOA Learning English. _________________________________________ Words in This Story access v. to get or use something distraction n. something that is unimportant that takes attention away from something else that is more important address v. to deal with in some way focus v. to place ones attention on something academics n. (pl.) things related to school and learning that are not connected to the real world platform n. an online service that provides media material and advertisements and seeks a very large number of users addictive adj. causing a strong, harmful need to regularly use something In South Africa, a former passenger train now serves as a traveling medical center to provide health services to people in need. The train is known as Phelophepa. In the Sesotho language, this means good, clean, health. It travels across South Africa to provide medical care to a mix of patients for whom usual heath care is unavailable or rare. The train has been operating since South Africas government ended its racist system of apartheid in the early 1990s. The train carries medical professionals around the country, even to the most rural villages. Officials say the service helps at least 375,000 South Africans each year. The care patients receive is separate from the governments main public health care system. That system serves an estimated 84 percent of the population. But government insurance plans are too costly for many people to pay for. South Africa is also dealing with an unemployment rate of more than 32 percent. The government has taken some steps to help get more of the nations population covered by public health insurance plans. One of those came in May, when South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a law creating the countrys National Health Insurance Act. The law aims to provide financial assistance to millions of South Africans who do not currently have health insurance. The program gets support from private insurers. However, the National Health Insurance Act has been hotly debated. Critics have said government officials have not yet said how much the program will cost or where that money will come from. Economists have predicted the government will have to raise taxes to finance the law. Critics have urged the government to instead fix the countrys public healthcare system. Thethiwe Mahlangu has used the health train and recently spoke to The Associated Press about her experiences. She said local health clinics in her area in the township of Tembisa, east of Johannesburg cannot effectively serve her needs. There we are not treated well, Mahlangu said. We are made to sit in the sun for long periods. You can sit there from 7 a.m. until around 4 p.m. when the clinic closes. She noted that when people ask about such issues, the medical workers say they simply need bigger hospitals. When the train began in 1994, many Black people in South Africa still lived in rural villages with little availability to health centers. The time was a period of great change in South Africa. Today, the trains assist the growing populations of the capital, Pretoria, as well as Johannesburg, the country's economic center. Shemona Kendiah is the train's manager. She told the AP trains can remain in one place for multiple days to see as many people as possible. Those going to major population centers like Tembisa, for example can end up staying up to two weeks. The major metros are really struggling, Kendiah said. Mahlangus trip resulted in her getting a new pair of glasses. She was among hundreds of people who received health services from the train on its latest stop. Another patient, Jane Mabuza, got a full health examination as well as services for her teeth. She said she hopes the train will be able to reach many more people in other areas. Here on the train you never hear that anything has been finished, Mabuza added. Im Bryan Lynn. The Associated Press reported this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for VOA Learning English. __________________________________________ Words in This Story apartheid n. a political system that existed in South Africas past in which the white minority enjoyed government power over Black people who were made to live separately insurance n. an agreement in which you pay a company to cover necessary costs in case there is an accident that causes damage or injuries Recently, many videos about chocolate processed cheese have appeared on social media. For many people, this product has become a real discovery, while others remember its unforgettable taste from their childhood. ADVERTISIMENT Nowadays, chocolate processed cheese is gaining popularity in Ukraine. It is a product with the addition of cocoa powder and sugar. Therefore, it is very important to check the composition on the package to avoid buying a fake. Olena Sydorenko, a professor and product quality expert, told us how to choose quality chocolate processed cheese, journalist Kostiantyn Hrubych wrote on his Facebook page. According to the expert, due to the fact that chocolate processed cheese contains cocoa powder and sugar, it has a much lower composition of dairy products, which is very beneficial for its producers. When buying this product, she advises paying attention to the percentage of fat. The higher this figure is, the tastier the cheese is. ADVERTISIMENT It is also important to understand that chocolate processed cheese contains a very high amount of calories, so it should be consumed in limited quantities. The expert noted that she has not yet come across processed cheese in which milk fats have been replaced with vegetable fats. However, she still advises paying attention to what is written on the package. If anything is clear about Megalopolis, its that Francis Ford Coppola has a lot on his mind. The legendary filmmaker spent decades on this Roman-style epic, set in the present day, about a civilization on the brink of collapse. A wealthy and powerful few of the old guard are running the gilded city of New Rome into the ground, a new generation is embroiled in a stalemate of a culture war between hedonists and puritans and a visionary architect caught in the middle is dreaming up a different future. But none of that captures the wild experience of actually watching Megalopolis, a sprawling, operatic, clumsy and fascinating film that should inspire discussions for many years to come. Megalopolis is not a disaster, but its far from a success. Its a bacchanalia thats bursting with so many ideas, so many characters, so many great lines and truly terrible ones as well that its nearly impossible to digest in a single, baffling viewing. If there is a center to this story its Adam Drivers Cesar Catilina, an artist who can stop time and who believes that a substance called Megalon, a shimmering people mover that can be used to make a translucent (but not naked) dress or reconstruct a face mangled by a gunshot, is the way to a utopia. Driver is a great actor who is utterly misused here as a grief-stricken, alcoholic, Hamlet-quoting megalomaniac aristocrat who spends his days in an art deco ivory tower (the Chrysler Building) fretting about time and what the corrupt Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) is doing to the city. Were supposed to believe that Cesar is a widely desired catch who would attract the mayors beautiful daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) to his side. But Kylo Ren had more charisma than Cesar. Its hard to stress just how much there is stuffed into two hours and 18 minutes. Shia LaBeouf is Clodio Pulcher, the rich kid son of Crassus, who has Mae West eyebrows and long feral hair. He is in love with Julia, jealous of Cesar and may be having an incestuous relationship with his party girl socialite sister Clodia (Chloe Fineman). He attempts his own political bid, preying on the citys desperate peasant class. Laurence Fishburne is Cesars driver (and the narrator of the film). Dustin Hoffman is a fixer. Jason Schwartzman is around (and delightful, as always). Theres a pop star named Vesta Sweetwater (Grace VanderWaal) who has taken a virginity pledge. Even Romy Mars plays a teen reporter! Megalopolis shines brightest with its crafts, including Milena Canoneros decadent Roman-inspired frocks, Osvaldo Golijovs sweeping, romantic score and Mihai Malaimare Jr.s golden cinematography that makes the feast of the production design glow lovingly. But this is a film that I can only in good conscience recommend fully to cinephiles, who were most certainly going to see it regardless. Its Coppolas first in 13 years, after all. Coppola is an artist whose films sometimes take time to find their place in audiences hearts and minds. No one understands that as pointedly as he does. Whether or not theres a drastic reappraisal somewhere down the line, Megalopolis will forever be a fascination. LINDSEY BAHR, MDT/AP Film Writer Megalopolis, a Lionsgate release in theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for sexual content, nudity, drug use, language and some violence. Running time: 138 minutes. A Hong Kong court sentenced a former editor of a shuttered news publication to 21 months in prison yesterday in a sedition case that is widely seen as an indicator of media freedom in the city, once hailed as a beacon of press freedom in Asia. A second editor was freed after his sentence was reduced because of ill health and time already served in custody. Former Stand News editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen and former acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam are the first journalists convicted under a colonial-era sedition law since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Chung was sentenced to 21 months but is expected to stay in prison for about 10 months given his pre-conviction detention. Lam was also sentenced but allowed to go free. The online news outlet was one of last in Hong Kong that dared to criticize authorities as Beijing imposed a crackdown on dissidents following massive pro-democracy protests in 2019. Its closure in December 2021 came months after the demise of pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, whose jailed founder Jimmy Lai is battling collusion charges under a tough national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020. Last month, the court found Chung and Lam guilty of conspiracy to publish and reproduce seditious materials, along with Best Pencil (Hong Kong) Ltd., Stand News holding company. They faced up to two years in prison and a fine of 5,000 Hong Kong dollars (about $640). The company was fined that amount. Judge Kwok Wai-kin began yesterdays sentencing hearing two hours after the scheduled time. The journalists lawyer, Audrey Eu, requested a sentence mitigation, saying Lam had been diagnosed with a rare disease and she was concerned that he could not be treated by the hospital handling his case if he were sent to jail again. She argued that they should be sentenced to up to time served, saying their case was different because they were journalists whose duties were to report different peoples views. The defendants were detained for nearly a year after their arrests before being released on bail in late 2022. In his sentencing, Kwok dismissed the defenses argument that the journalists had unintentionally fallen afoul of the law, and accused them of siding with the protesters. Since Stand News had a mass following, the seditious articles caused serious harm to the Beijing and Hong Kong governments, he said. The three defendants were not engaged in genuine media work but were instead participating in the so-called resistance movement of that time, he said. Kwok wrote in his verdict in August that Stand News had become a tool for smearing the Beijing and Hong Kong governments during the 2019 protests. He ruled that 11 articles published under the defendants leadership carried seditious intent, including commentaries written by activist Nathan Law and veteran journalists Allan Au and Chan Pui-man. Chan, who is also Chungs wife, earlier pleaded guilty in the Apple Daily case and is in custody awaiting her sentence. Kwok said Lam and Chung were aware of and agreed with the seditious intent, and made Stand News available as a platform to incite hatred against the Beijing and Hong Kong governments and the judiciary. Eu told the court that the articles in question represented only a small portion of what Stand News had published. The defendants also stressed their journalistic mission in their mitigation letters. MDT/AP * Head aches Macau is facing a mental health crisis, with NGOs struggling to meet the growing demand for care * Golden Week |Major resorts sold out; room rates surge amid remaining availability * Taste of Edesia * Total merchandise exports grew 17.2% to MOP1.16B in August, driven by strong growth in demand for non-diamond jewelry and perfumes * Finance: Micro Connect launches market structure for SMEs * China redoubles efforts to provide first-aid for its economy with support for banks, workers DOWNLOAD PDF Friday, September 27, 2024 edition no. 4575 The government announced a temporary ban on all unmanned aircraft activities in the vicinity for the upcoming platform announcement of Chief Executive candidate Sam Hou Fai and the elections. Citing powers granted under the Air Navigation Regulation, the Civil Aviation Authority will prohibit drone use within 500 meters of The Complex of Commerce and Trade Co-operation Platform for China and Portuguese-speaking Countries on September 28 and October 13. Exceptions will only be made for government operations. Violators could face fines ranging from MOP2,000 to MOP20,000, according to the notice published in yesterdays Official Gazette. Related As the first residents prepare to move into Macaus new residences for the elderly, officials outlined their vision for how the state-of-the-art facilities will help ensure locals can age with security, belonging and worthiness. Addressing the crowd, Elsie Ao Ieong, the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, emphasized the importance of this initiative in supporting Macaus aging population. As Macau enters an aging society, the SAR government has been actively implementing various measures under the Ten-Year Action Plan for Elderly Services and has been mobilizing the whole community to help seniors integrate into the community and support them in aging with dignity, she stated. Designed with senior citizens needs in mind, the new government residence incorporates smart home technology and barrier-free facilities to ensure the safety and comfort of residents. Additionally, the buildings are equipped with a clubhouse, health center, emergency support, and social care services to promote community engagement and an enriched quality of life. Ao Ieong expressed gratitude to the community for their support, stating, The timely commissioning of the governments elderly residence is the result of the joint efforts of the SAR government and various sectors of the community. Looking ahead, the government remains committed to the ongoing development of diverse aged care services, with the goal of creating an inclusive society where seniors can have a sense of security, a sense of belonging and a sense of worthiness, according to Ao. Operations to start Oct. 15 As Macau prepares to welcome its first residents into the facility, the General Union of Macau Residents Associations will play a role in ensuring a smooth transition. Leong Weng Lan, a representative from the association, expressed excitement about the upcoming move and shared their plans to support the residents. Weve been involved in promoting policies and managing services for aged care homes, Leong said. Starting October 15, seniors will have a chance to learn more about the care home from the relevant authorities. Weve been supporting seniors in Macau, particularly those living in care homes, including both singles and couples. The association has also arranged for staff to help introduce the facilities and environment, ensuring a seamless adaptation process. Leong also mentioned the associations plan to launch a mobile app that focuses on health management, encouraging seniors to download it and develop healthy habits. The response to the new residences has been overwhelming, with over 4,000 applications received. This time, more than 100 applications have been received, and the first group will include over 700 individuals and couples, said Leong. However, the association is also mindful of those who may not be able to afford the new residences, and are advocating for additional support from the government. High demand for residences Providing an in-depth look at the progress and plans for the new residences, Hon Wai, the president of the Social Welfare Bureau, shared key details. In the first phase, 920 units, or approximately 70% of the total, have been selected so far, with the last batch to be chosen on November 2. Hon also addressed the high demand for these residences, confirming that a significant proportion of applicants currently live in regular residential apartments. Most of our applicants live in residential apartments, which is a significant proportion, he said. One of the key features of the new residences is the on-site health center, which Hon described as focused on prevention and health consultations. Residents can access services through the health centers database. If 2,000 to 3,000 senior residents live here, the health center will track who needs hospitalization. They will also offer remote medical services and door-to-door assistance for older residents who need to visit hospitals for follow-up care. As the government strives to create affordable and accessible senior housing, Hon emphasized the importance of maintaining a sufficient number of residents to cover ongoing costs. We need a sufficient number of residents to afford it. Right now, our expenses include operating costs and property management fees. We believe we can manage these costs based on household income. Victoria Chan Total merchandise exports grew 17.2% year-on-year to MOP1.16 billion in August 2024. Re-exports, which account for the majority of exports, rose 22.1% to MOP1.03 billion, driven by strong growth in demand for non-diamond jewelry and perfumes. However, domestic exports fell 12.0% to MOP124 million, with decreases in pharmaceutical products and bread products, according to data from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC). On the import side, total merchandise imports dropped 7.4% year-on-year to MOP10.41 billion in August. Imports of gold jewelry and beauty products fell, while imports of casino articles and motor vehicles increased. Year-to-date, external merchandise trade totaled MOP93.68 billion from January to August 2024, down 8.1% compared to the same period in 2023. Total exports grew 7.1% to MOP8.94 billion, though domestic exports slipped 3.2%. Imports declined 9.5% to MOP84.74 billion. By destination, exports to Hong Kong, Belt and Road countries, and the EU increased, while shipments to mainland China and the US contracted. Imports from the EU, mainland China, and Belt and Road countries decreased, but imports from Japan increased. LV As MTel Telecom works to achieve full residential coverage, the companys director Xu Zhancong acknowledged some challenges in older buildings. Due to issues like a lack of management committee or consensus, the network has had to enter houses in parts of the old city, which Xu described as a disaster. He hopes the government will look to neighboring regions for regulatory solutions that will allow telecom providers to install additional equipment in buildings. Separately, MTel has also signed cooperation agreements with two mainland digital companies. The firms plan to collaborate on innovation in telecommunications, cloud computing, big data, and AI. Related When Does Digital Technology Adoption Enhance Firms Sustainable Innovation Performance? A Configurational Analysis in China Cong Cheng, Mengxin Zhang, Jian Dai, Ze-Yu Yang IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management (January 2024) This paper investigates how digital technology adoption (DTA) impacts sustainable innovation performance (SIP) in Chinese high-tech firms, with some focus on firms in the Greater Bay Area. The research categorizes DTA into enhancing, adapting, and substituting actions, looking at how these can be combined to optimize SIP. Data from 94 high-tech manufacturing firmsincluding those in the GBAis analyzed using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to reveal patterns that lead to high SIP. Enhancing DTA consistently plays a critical role in these configurations. This study expands on previous research by taking a holistic view of DTA, offering insights on how firms in innovation hubs like the GBA can enhance their sustainability efforts through strategic technology adoption. The findings are particularly relevant to firms in the GBA, a region known for its technological innovation and development. The Time Secret of Chinese A-Share Systematic Risk: Overnight and Intraday Weiqi Liu, Zuojun Wen Emerging Markets Finance and Trade (January 2024) This study delves into the systematic risk in Chinas A-share market, with a focus on overnight and intraday returns. The findings have significant implications for investors operating in key financial hubs within China, including the GBA. By analyzing data from 2006 to 2021, the authors use Fama-Macbeth and panel regressions to explore how market beta interacts with returns. The research shows that overnight risk premiums are negative, while intraday premiums are negligible, affecting the correlation between full-day returns and market risk. The insights provided are crucial for investors in fast-developing regions, where financial markets are rapidly evolving. This paper helps explain the unique risk dynamics in Chinas markets, making it valuable for financial professionals. The Effects of The Multi-Target Policy on Green Productivity: Evidence from Chinas Fossil Fuel Power Plants Yu Zhao, Yunning Ma, Yongrok Choi, Ning Zhang The Energy Journal (January 2024) This paper evaluates the impact of Chinas multi-target policy, focused on energy-saving and SO2 reduction, on the green productivity of fossil fuel power plants. The research includes data from power plants across China, including those in the Greater Bay Area (GBA), which is a significant region for both economic and environmental progress. The study uses a non-radial meta-frontier Luenberger productivity index to break down productivity by technological and factor-based perspectives. Results indicate that a 1% increase in energy-saving targets boosts green productivity by 0.50%, while SO2 reduction targets slightly decrease it. The GBAs industrial plants, known for their contribution to Chinas economic growth, are particularly impacted by these policies. The findings offer insights on how policies can drive environmental sustainability in industrial areas like the GBA, which is at the forefront of Chinas push towards greener energy practices. South Korea announced plans yesterday to compensate famers and others in the countrys dwindling dog meat industry before a formal ban goes into effect in 2027, a move that is drawing opposition from both farmers and some animal rights activists. South Koreas parliament passed a landmark bill in January that will ban slaughtering, breeding or selling dog meat for human consumption after a three-year grace period. It will be punishable by 2-3 years in prison. The Agriculture Ministry said that farmers would receive compensation starting from 225,000 won ($170), and rising up to 600,000 won ($450) per dog if they agree to shut down their businesses early. An association of farmers rejected the offer, saying in a statement that they cannot relinquish their dogs for such low prices. Farmers earlier called for 2 million won ($1,505) per dog. Theyve said the ban infringes on their right to choose their own jobs and will aggravate their economic difficulties. The association said that farmers will keep fighting even if they end up being jailed. Earlier this week, they called for the law to be amended to extend the grace period and add appropriate compensation plans. Sangkyung Lee, a campaign manager at the Korean office of the anti-animal cruelty group Humane Society International, called the South Korean announcement an important milestone in this historic ban that will see the ban through to completion and end our countrys dog meat era for good. But Lee said his office is disappointed at the South Korean plan because it would pay farmers based on the number of dogs they have, potentially increasing dog breeding to get more money from the scheme and more puppies being born into suffering. The Korean Animal Welfare Association, a Seoul-based animal rights group, said that local governments must strictly monitor farms to prevent them from increasing their number of dogs through breeding. It praised the government for trying to take reasonable steps to phase out the industry but criticized farmers for seeking excessive compensation. Dog meat consumption is a centuries-old practice on the Korean Peninsula. Its also eaten in China, Vietnam, Indonesia and some African countries. But South Koreas dog meat industry has drawn more attention because of the countrys reputation as a cultural and economic powerhouse. Its also the only nation with industrial-scale dog farms. South Koreas anti-dog meat campaign received a big boost from the countrys first lady, Kim Keon Hee, who repeatedly expressed her support for a prohibition. She was subjected to withering criticism and crude insults during demonstrations by farmers. Surveys have found that that around one in three South Koreans opposes the ban, though most people now dont eat dog meat. Vice Agriculture Minster Park Beomsu told reporters that government studies found that about 466,000 dogs are currently being raised for food across South Korea. He said officials will try to convince farmers to voluntarily phase out dog breeding ahead of the ban. After the ban comes into force, Park said, the government plans to facilitate adoptions for the remaining dogs or move them to care facilities rather than euthanize them. The agriculture ministry said butchers will also be compensated, while local authorities will be responsible for dismantling dog farms and slaughterhouses. Former farmers and butchers will also get low-interests loans if they pivot to other agricultural businesses. The ministry said authorities will also offer financial assistance to traders and restaurant owners to shut down their businesses and find new jobs. HYUNG-JIN KIM, SEOUL, MDT/AP Brandon Tseng, Co-founder and President of Shield AI, presented a compelling case for reforming the Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition process in his statement to the U.S. House Armed Services Committee. Tseng, a former Navy SEAL and engineer, emphasized shifting from a requirements-based to a problem-based acquisition system to foster innovation and maintain Americas military edge. Tseng highlighted Shield AIs achievements in developing AI-piloted aircraft and drones, including the MQ-35 V-BAT and autonomous F-16 flights. He argued that current DoD acquisition processes often result in incremental improvements (faster horses) rather than transformative solutions. The existing requirements-based system, Tseng contended, is slow, inflexible, and discourages innovation from defense contractors. To address these issues, Tseng proposed establishing a new problem-based acquisition system separate from current processes. This system would focus on solving identified problems without specifying requirements, provide flexible budgeting based on value, and target 25% adoption of major acquisition efforts within three years. Tseng also recommended implementing pre-deployment training under electronic warfare conditions to assess the survivability of U.S. military systems. Tsengs testimony underscores the critical role of software and AI in future military capabilities, emphasizing the need for increased investment and a shift in DoD culture to recognize these technologies strategic importance. (Read the complete statement) Forterra Secures $75 Million in Funding for Autonomous Driving Systems The US-based Forterra company (formerly RRAI) has successfully raised $75 million to advance its autonomous AutoDrive vehicle technology, which facilitates autonomous driving systems for military and commercial vehicles. The AutoDrive systems have become central elements in autonomy systems explored or used by the US Army and US Marine Corps, including autonomous convoys (ACE/GEARS), autonomy retrofits, robotic combat vehicles (RCV), small, multipurpose equipment transports (SMET), and remotely operated ground units for Expeditionary forces (ROGUE). Northrop Grumman and Lithuania Partner to Boost Defense Industrial Capabilities Northrop Grumman Corporation and the Lithuanian government have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate on enhancing Lithuanias defense industrial capabilities. The agreement, signed on September 23, 2024, focuses on supporting Lithuanian industry in producing medium-caliber ammunition for Infantry Fighting Vehicles. This collaboration is expected to contribute to replenishing stockpiles and improving munitions supply chains for allied nations. The project is anticipated to involve the state-owned Giraite Armaments Plant, aligning with Lithuanias broader strategic objective of enhancing its defense industry. Honeywell Finalizes $1.9 Billion Acquisition of CAES Honeywell has acquired CAES Systems Holdings LLC from Advent International for $1.9 billion in cash. This strategic move significantly enhances Honeywells defense and space portfolio, particularly in high-reliability radio frequency technologies. Rolls-Royce Sells Naval Propulsors and Handling Business to FMD Rolls-Royce has agreed to sell its Naval Propulsors and Handling Systems business to Fairbanks Morse Defense (FMD), a leading provider of marine power solutions for naval forces. This divestment is part of Rolls-Royces ongoing efforts to streamline its portfolio and focus on core areas of expertise. Rolls-Royce will retain its Naval Gas Turbines and Generator Sets operations, which provide power-dense solutions for naval propulsion and onboard power needs. Return to: Defense-Update Weekly News Summary 26.9.2024 PRAIRIE DU CHIEN The land where I live is not a level playing field. The Driftless Area of southwestern Wisconsin and adjacent states presents a topographical challenge to all of us who live here. Walk awhile in any direction and you will most likely encounter a hill, valley or river the land offers no easy passage. Yet we thrive, as do the plants and wildlife that make a home in the folds of this undulating landscape. On this day in La Riviere Park, I am walking down into a ravine, a narrow valley formed over centuries by erosion from water. Ravines and valleys form a natural enclosure that provides shelter from the vagaries of the outside world. A landmass the size of a Mississippi River bluff shuts out the menacing threats emanating from the flatlands, whether they are westerly winds or social discord. It is into this refuge I now descend, gravity serving as my guide. Rounding a sharp bend, I find showy goldenrod and bluish New England aster lining the walking trail. Late in the day, the western ridge blocks the sun, providing a backlit sanctuary. The beauty of the valley surrounds and penetrates me. About halfway down the hill, I come upon an interpretive sign announcing that Ive reached Limestone Gulch. The narrative explains that limestone-loving plants have clinging root systems that enable them to grow in the limestone wall of the gulch. Later, I ask Dennis Kirschbaum, a former Wisconsin conservation warden and now a volunteer naturalist for the park, to accompany me to the gulch. Kirschbaum, a walking encyclopedia of wildlife, points down at white heath aster and gestures up at the sound of a wood thrush as we hike. At the gulch, he shows me a wood fern clinging to the rock face, its roots embedded in delicate moss. Nearby, an interrupted fern spreads its intricate fronds above the outcropping while a mayapple makes a home in the sandy soil. Limestone outcroppings, formed from the sedimentation of ancient marine life, are a typical feature of the Driftless Area. While plants like to bury their roots in the crevices, we like to gaze at their creative shapes. Sometimes, with proper imagination, we find the forms of human faces or shadowy creatures. We are a limestone-loving people in these parts. Elsewhere in the park, I find an Oriental bittersweet vine wrapped around a white oak tree in a firm embrace. The vine winds up along the trunk as might a spiral staircase ascending to the top of the tree for a better view. Tree and vine form a symbiotic relationship, though this invasive vine gets the better deal in the bargain. We are witnesses to symbiotic relationships that inspire and sustain us. We search for our own niche in life, a crevice to plant our roots. We flourish when we return to our roots, which are defined not by location but by avocation our purpose in life. My own purpose is inextricably linked to hiking, an exercise in exploration. If you keep walking, you inevitably find something new and, by inference, learn something new. For me, it might be a limestone gulch, a climbing vine, or an overlook on a river winding its way south. All these observations reveal the natural flow of life apart from human interference, but they are very much a part of my own journey. We are intertwined with our environment as closely as the limestone-loving plants clinging to the rocks. A few years ago, my wife and I visited Death Valley, a name that implies the absence of life. Yet at the bottom of the valley, we found Salt Creek, a shallow stream brimming with tiny pupfish. They darted about like pinballs. The idea that life can flourish in one of the hottest, most barren and inhospitable places on earth gives hope to us all. According to an article in the Washington Post, nature gives us more than hope: Countless studies have shown that people who spend less time in nature die younger and suffer higher rates of mental and physical ailments. Theres a really, really strong case for proximity to nature influencing health in a really big way, said Jared Hanley, the co-founder and CEO of NatureQuant. Our proximity to nature begins with feet on earth, carrying us to whatever awaits us around the next bend. February 20, 1947August 22, 2024 John Johnny Reinhart Bertus graduated to Heaven on August 22, 2024. He was born on February 20, 1947 in Tacoma, WA to Gerhard John Bertus and Helen Joan Funk Bertus, their second son. His birth was a difficult one, and left him with cerebral palsy. There were those who thought Johnny would never be able to do much with his life, but he proved them all wrong. Thanks to his parents and some compassionate professionals, Johnny finally could walk with the help of braces at age 6. His mom helped him memorize the Cub Scout oath, and many Bible Scriptures. He went to school for special needs kids and worked hard to learn to write and read. Later as an adult, he went through training at Magic Valley Rehabilitation Center to work at janitorial services, and served his community of Wendell, Idaho in that capacity. Johnny was an honorary member of the Wendell Fire Department, served as president of the local Kiwanis, and was instrumental in raising money for the construction of the local swimming pool and other charitable endeavors. He was an active member of Living Waters Presbyterian Church in Wendell, and an active participant in Walk to Emmaus events. With a great sense of humor and an infectious laugh, he was endeared by all. But most of all, Johnny depended on his relationship with Jesus. His aim was to have everyone know Him, too. He is survived by his brother David (Jenna) Bertus; sisters Christine (Douglas) Schrenk and Ann (Robert) Fraser; nephews Perry (Michele) Bertus, Christopher Bertus and nieces Megan (Chris) Biggs and Elizabeth (Matthew) Olson; a grandnephew and 3 grandnieces and numerous cousins. A celebration of his life will be held on September 28, 2024 at 2 p.m. at Living Waters Presbyterian Church in Wendell, Idaho. Family and friends are invited to sign Johnnys online guest book at www.coffeltfuneral.com. Arrangements are under the care of Coffelt Funeral Service. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) with the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on Thursday successfully completed its new rotation and resupply (RoRe) mission for the personnel aboard the BRP Sierra Madre in Ayungin Shoal. AFP Spokesperson Colonel Margareth Padilla, however, confirmed the presence of Chinese vessels in the vicinity of Ayungin Shoal during their mission. - Advertisement - The presence posed no threat to our mission, and our personnel were able to complete the mission and sustain our presence in the shoal, Padilla told reporters, noting that up to eight different Chinese vessels were monitored in the vicinity. AFP was able to deliver supplies and rotate our personnel without interference, she added. The AFP said it remains vigilant and prepared to respond to any challenges in protecting its personnel and operations. The mission happened with around 251 reported Chinese vessels swarming in the West Philippine Sea. Last June 17, Beijing and Manila clashed over the said area while the latter was conducting the same mission. The University of the Philippines (UP) and the Human Rights Violations Victims Memorial Commission (HRVVMC) on Friday signed the required deed of transfer to construct the planned Martial Law museum. In a program dubbed Freedom Rising held at Quezon Hall in UP Diliman, both parties officials signed the document to relocate the Campus Maintenance Office (CMO) to an adjacent lot. This move will make way for the construction of the HRVVMCs Freedom Memorial Museum on the vacated site. - Advertisement - The museum is intended to house artifacts, feature exhibits related to the Martial Law era under the late President Ferdinand Marcos, and serve as a vital educational resource about our nations history. HRVVMC Executive Director Carmelo Crisanto, CHR Human Rights Policy Centers Office Director Mary Joyce Crisanto, UP President Angelo Jimenez, and UP Diliman Chancellor Edgardo Carlo Vistan II signed the deed. According to the UP Administration, the ceremony signals the start of clearing old CMO structures, paving the way for constructing the Freedom Memorial Museum in the 1.4 hectares of campus land along Carlos P. Garcia Avenue. The handover ceremony was witnessed by human rights victims and survivors of Martial Law, human rights defenders, party-list representatives, and UP officials, faculty, staff, and alumni. London, United KingdomFormer supermodel Naomi Campbell has been barred from running a charity after an inquiry found funds raised by an organization she founded were spent on spa treatment and room service charges. The inquiry into Fashion for Relief, released on Thursday, identified multiple instances of misconduct, including use of charity money to pay for a five-star hotel stay for Campbell in the south of France. - Advertisement - The finding by the UK Charity Commission means Campbell, 54, has now been disqualified from running a charity for five years. Two other trustees also received bans. The watchdog probe found that between April 2016 and July 2022, only 8.5 percent of Fashion for Reliefs overall expenditure went on grants to charities. Campbell, who in 1987 became the first black model to feature on the cover of UK Vogue in 20 years, achieved worldwide fame in the 1990s and remains a highly influential figure in the industry. In June, an exhibition dedicated to her opened at Londons Victoria and Albert Museum. Speaking in Paris on Thursday after receiving an honour from the French government, the British celebrity denied any responsibility for the mishandling of donations. I was not in control of my charity. I put the control in the hands of a lawyer, she told reporters after she was made a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. The model added that she was investigating to find out what and howas everything I do and every penny I ever raised goes towards charities. Star-studded events Campbells charity held a string of glitzy, star-studded events to raise funds for good causes in London and Cannes. These were said to include projects ranging from supporting child refugees, to helping victims of the Ebola crisis and the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami. One event in the French Riviera resort in 2017 was attended by over 1,000 guests including stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Antonio Banderas, Faye Dunaway, Jane Fonda and Uma Thurman. A three-night hotel stay for a similar event in 2018 cost 7,800 ($10,400). The Charity Commission said it saw no evidence the trustees had made sure that such costs were reasonable. The regulator also looked at additional expenses totalling 6,600 for Campbells hotel stay, including spa treatments, room service and the purchase of cigarettes. It said the trustees had argued hotel costs were usually met by a donor but failed to provide any supporting evidence. The commission concluded that there had been serious misconduct and/or mismanagement in the administration of the charity by the trustees since it was established, the report said. Fashion for Relief was dissolved and removed from the register of charities earlier this year. Set up in 2005, it described itself as dedicated to improving the lives of those living in adversity by uniting the fashion industry as a force for good. Manila, PhilippinesIsrael has become the newest non-regional member of the Asian Development Bank, the Philippines-based lender announced Friday, with an analyst cautioning that the move might cause polarization in the institution. The banks board of governors had approved Israels entry in April 2022 pending its completion of the membership requirements, the ADB said in a statement. - Advertisement - Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich will be the countrys representative, a source from ADB told Agence France Presse (AFP). The bank now has 69 members, with Japan and the United States the major contributors to its capital, at more than $22.23 billion apiece. They (Israel) are allied with US, and basically Europe right, but they would want to also have more friends across the globe, not only those that have been traditionally allied with them, said economist Victor Abola, of the Manila-based University of Asia and the Pacific. The greater involvement here means closer strategic ties and trade, Abola told AFP. Security analyst Chester Cabalza, however, said Israel joining the ADB in the midst of its war in the Gaza Strip could lead to other members fleeing the organization in favour of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Or we (may) see polarisation in the ADB as long as Israel will not resolve its security issues in Gaza, Cabalza told AFP. The ADB includes several Muslim-majority Asian member nations that have been critical of Israels handling of the war. Established in 1966, the ADB is owned by its 69 members, 49 of which are in Asia. Israel, which first applied for membership in January 2022, is the 20th non-regional member. TIRANA, ALBANIA Amid the scorching heat at the Albanian port of Durres, 102 containers set sail for Thailand in early July, sparking a high-seas drama that highlighted the perils of the global waste trade. According to official papers reviewed by AFP, the containers were filled with waste material that was set to be processed and destroyed far from Europes shores. - Advertisement - But weeks later, the containers are still adrift in the Mediterranean, following a months-long back-and-forth over what exactly was being shipped and whether it was legal. Enormous amounts of waste are regularly sent to developing countries part of a global industry that sees Western nations outsourcing its treatment to Asia and Africa. The practise has long been denounced by environmental organisations. Despite the criticism, the waste management trade continues to be a multibillion-dollar enterprise. The handling of illicit material alone generates between nine billion and 11 billion euros each year, according to the Financial Action Task Force, a leading watchdog tracking illegal trade. The World Bank estimates that approximately two billion tonnes of waste are produced annually across the globe expected to reach 3.4 billion tonnes by 2050. Within those mountains of waste, regulators have deemed a certain portion hazardous. These include substances that can be harmful to human health or the environment due to their chemical reactivity or toxicity levels. To better regulate the industry, the Basel Convention signed in 1989 by 53 countries prohibits members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) from sending waste to non-member states. But Albania, which is not a member of the Paris-based economic forum, is free to ship waste abroad. The material stowed away in the 102 containers originated from the Turkish-owned Kurum International steel plant in central Albanias Elbasan, according to Albanian media reports. The waste was first purchased by the Albanian company Sokolaj, which then sold the material to its subsidiary in Croatia, GS Minerals, with the cargo set to be offloaded in Thailand for processing. According to documents seen by AFP, Sokolaj labelled the waste as iron oxide a substance that is not prohibited for shipment or considered hazardous. Manolo Fortich, BukidnonVienovo Philippines, a leading player in the countrys feed industry, celebrated the grand opening of its new feed mill plant in Manolo Fortich, Bukidnon. The state-of-the-art facility is expected to significantly contribute not only to the regions agricultural development and economic growth, but in total Philippines. The inauguration ceremony was graced by government officials, industry leaders, and local stakeholders. In his speech, Vienovo Philippines President and CEO Mathieu Guillaume, emphasized the companys commitment in providing high-quality feed products that support the livestock industry and ensure food security. - Advertisement - FOURTH PLANT IN PH. Vienovo Philippines new facility in Manolo Fortich, Bukidnon will allow the company to enhance, their production capacity, streamline supply chain, and ensure consistent supply of high-quality feeds across the Philippines, particularly to their customers in the Mindanao area. Today, I am filled with appreciation and gratitude, that I stand here today as we inaugurate our feed mill plant, here in Bukidnon. This moment, marks a significant milestone, on the journey of Vienovo Philippines, and I am honored to share it with all of you. Vienovo Philippines was founded with a vision; and that is to be the preferred choice in animal nutrition, delivering holistic and reliable products that ensures growth on your farm businesses. And as we open our fourth plant, here, in the beautiful province of Bukidnon, we are one step closer to realizing that vision. This plant is not just a testament of our goals, but also to our unwavering commitment to the Filipino farmers, the agriculture industry and the food security of this beautiful country, the Philippines, said Guillaume. Vienovo Philippines mission has always been clear. And this is to accelerate, livestock production by providing consistent high-quality feeds and excellent service. The company leverages on advance European nutritional know-how, to assure that their product meets the highest standard of quality and sustainability. Guillame also added that the company is not just prioritizing their numbers. BEYOND BUSINESS GOALS. More than their business targets, Vienovo Philippines has committed their economic goals to the local community of Manolo Fortich, Bukidnon. Vienovo Philippines officers and board of directors, (from left): Mathieu Guillaume, Joel Jimenez, Nico Bolzico and Jacques Christophe Branellec, during the opening ceremony of the companys Bukidnon feed mill plant. Beyond our business goals, this plant represents our commitment to the local community. We are proud to contribute to the economic goals of Bukidnon, by generating employment opportunities, and supporting local suppliers by sourcing raw materials and services locally, we aim to boost the local economy, said Guillaume. As we look to the future, we remain committed to our vision of becoming an international player in the feed industry. We will continue to innovate, and to evolve and strive for excellence in everything we do. Our priority will always be to serve the Filipino, encouraging new generation to embrace new methods of farming, and in turn, improving the way we feed our nation shared Guillaume. Today, we celebrate not just the inauguration of a new plant but the beginning of a new chapter in our journey. Together we will continue to build brighter future for the Philippines. said Guillaume. As part of its commitment to sustainable practices, Vienovo Philippines has incorporated environmentally friendly measures into the design and operations of the new feed mill. This includes implementing waste management systems and adopting energy-efficient technologies. The African continent remains at the forefront of the terrorist threat, with nearly 60% of the worlds victims reported in sub-Saharan Africa. This alarming fact was highlighted on Wednesday in New York by Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccans Abroad, Nasser Bourita, who proposed creating a Global African Support Network for Victims of Terrorism to coordinate efforts between African nations, international organizations, and NGOs. Speaking at a ministerial meeting of the Group of Friends of Victims of Terrorism, held on the sidelines of the 79th UN General Assembly, Bourita pointed out that Africa is too often overlooked in international responses, despite the extent of the tragedy suffered by African victims of terrorism. The Moroccan FM stressed that victims are not simply collateral damage but a central lever in the strategies of terrorist groups, which exploit their suffering to spread terror and manipulate socio-political narratives. In response to this critical situation, Bourita called for urgent collective mobilization to alleviate the impact of terrorism on African victims, who are often forgotten on the international stage. Morocco, he recalled, plays a key role in protecting the rights of victims, both internationally and at the African regional level. Bourita also called for greater international cooperation to provide inclusive and effective support for African victims of terrorism and reiterated Rabats commitment to working with its international partners to this end. To strengthen this dynamic, the minister proposed creating a Global African Support Network for Victims of Terrorism to coordinate efforts between African nations, international organizations, and NGOs. This network, he explained, would facilitate the exchange of best practices and resources to ensure comprehensive assistance for victims. He also called for dedicated African legal frameworks to protect victims rights and for global awareness-raising campaigns on their challenges and resilience. Morocco will continue to actively support multilateral efforts on behalf of victims and to play a leading role within the Group of Friends of Victims of Terrorism, Bourita concluded. Cocoa-producing countries are requesting a two-year extension to comply with the EUs upcoming deforestation regulation, which is set to take effect in three months. The regulation, designed to prevent cocoa imports from deforested areas post-January 2021, requires detailed measures like geolocation of plots and a comprehensive traceability system. In a joint declaration signed in Abidjan, the countries argue that the implementation deadlines are unrealistic, noting that the necessary systems are not yet operational, and the European Commission has not provided all required documents or activated the data processing platform. A rushed implementation, they warn, could harm small producers by blocking their access to the European market. To avoid further market disruption, they call for a minimum two-year delay and request technical and financial support from the EU and manufacturers to comply with the regulation without cutting planters incomes. This request follows similar appeals from downstream players, including the European Chocolate Association. The EUs regulation, adopted in 2022, mandates that cocoa placed on the market must be sourced from land not deforested since December 31, 2020. Cocoa operators and traders must implement a deforestation due diligence approach and comply with both national and international production laws. This applies to all cocoa products on the EU market, regardless of operator size or EU membership. Mozambiques timber exports have plunged nearly 75% over the past four years, falling to 2.099 million tons in 2023, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE). The INEs 2023 Basic Environmental Indicators report highlights a consistent decrease in timber quotas, with a sharper 12.7% drop in 2023, reducing the permissible harvest to 49,525 cubic meters. Of this, 5,369 cubic meters are classified as precious species, such as chacate-preto and pau-preto. The decline in quotas corresponds with shrinking export volumes, which peaked at 7.923 million tons in 2019 and fell to 3.132 million tons in 2020, 2.276 million tons in 2021, and 2.649 million tons in 2022. Timber processed into logs also hit its lowest level since 2020, reaching 50,027 cubic metres in 2023. The report, based on administrative data from environmental sectors, also notes Mozambiques annual loss of 267,000 hectares of forest. National forestry director Claudio Afonso expressed concerns over this deforestation rate during a July meeting on the implementation of the Maputo Declaration for Sustainable Management of the Miombo Forest. To address these issues, the Global Fund pledged US$12 million (10.8 million) in July 2023 for the revitalization of forest reserves, restoration efforts, institutional support, and the development of a forest monitoring system. An additional US$5 million (4.5 million) will come from the Italian Cooperation Agency. Kenyan President William Ruto assured the UN on Thursday September 26 that his country would complete the deployment of the multinational police mission to Haiti, which is plagued by gang violence, by January 2025. In October 2023, the UN Security Council approved the Multinational Mission for Security Support (MMAS), led by Kenya, to assist Haitian police overwhelmed by criminal gangs. Kenya has already deployed nearly 400 officers, alongside about 20 from Jamaica and Belize. President Ruto highlighted that while Kenya and other African and Caribbean nations are committed to the mission, they are hindered by shortages in equipment, logistics, and funding. He urged all UN member states to show solidarity with the Haitian people by providing the necessary support. Kenya will deploy additional contingents to reach 2,500 officers by January next year, he told the UN General Assembly. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently criticized the lack of financial contributions to the mission, calling it unacceptable. On Wednesday, he noted that the UNs special fund for the mission had raised $85.3 million, but this amount remains totally insufficient. Despite some progress, such as the reopening of Haitis airport, the security situation remains dire. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Unintentional injuries like falls, drownings and poisonings are the leading cause of death in patients ages 14, and a significant portion of these deaths are linked to unintentional ingestionsuch as swallowing a drug or poison. New research shows racial and socioeconomic disparities exist in the emergency management of unintentional ingestions in children. Black patients younger than age 6 with the diagnosis of unintentional ingestion were more likely than white children to have a social work consult, Children Services Bureau referral, and urine drug screen, according to a research abstract, "Disparities in the Emergency Evaluation and Management of Unintentional Ingestions in Preschool Children," presented during the American Academy of Pediatrics 2024 National Conference & Exhibition at the Orange County Convention Center from Sept. 27Oct. 1. The research also found that children from poorer backgrounds (lower childhood opportunity index), those with higher severity of illness and pharmaceutical ingestions resulted in either a social work consultation, a Children Services Bureau referral, or both. "This study is important in understanding where underlying bias exists in emergency departments and hospital management and where changes can be made to address this problem, thus providing equitable care for all children," said principal investigator Jennifer Allen, DO, FAAP. "These findings could be useful to health care workers in emergency departments to help develop a framework for standardized clinical decision making." Researchers examined the records of 4,411 patients, younger than age 6, who had unintentional ingestions between January 2013 and March 2024 identified by the International Classification of Disease in the electronic health record. They found: Most ingestions were non-pharmaceutical (56%) Patients with pharmaceutical ingestions had higher odds of a social work consult and a Children Services Bureau referral Independent of ingestion type, non-white children were more likely to have a social worker consult or Children Services Bureau referral White children were less likely to be exposed to cannabis Private insurance was associated with reduced odds of social worker or Children Services Bureau referral. "This isn't the only research to find racial disparities in the emergency department," Dr. Allen said. "Disparity has been identified among different races regarding pain management for fractures and appendicitis in the emergency department." More information: Abstract Title: Disparities in the emergency evaluation and management of unintentional ingestions in preschool children Study author Dr. Jennifer Allen is scheduled to present this research from 2:302:40 p.m. Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, during the Section on Emergency Medicine program during the AAP's National Conference and Exhibition. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: CC0 Public Domain About 7% of more than 1,000 teens who disclosed sexual abuse at a California hospital reported that social media was used to facilitate the assault, according to research presented during the American Academy of Pediatrics 2024 National Conference & Exhibition. The retrospective study, "Social Media Facilitated Sexual Assault in Children," found that, when accounting only for victims whose perpetrators were not related to them, an even higher percentage12% reported that social media facilitated sexual assault. The authors will present their preliminary findings during the conference at the Orlando Convention Center Sept. 27Oct. 1. "Adolescents are increasingly living their lives in digital spaces," said Miguel Cano, MD, a child abuse pediatrician and author of the research. "Although there are benefits to the use of social media such as connecting with people and keeping in touch with family and friends across the globe, there are many well documented dangers as well." The researchers evaluated children 10 to 18 years of age who disclosed sexual abuse at Rady Children's Hospital Chadwick Center for Children and Families between 2018 and 2023. They defined "social media facilitated sexual assault" as occurring when social media is used for communication between a victim and perpetrator that leads to sexual assault. Dangers include meeting strangers online or being subjected to various forms of maltreatment including emotional abuse, cyber bullying, harassment, threats, exposure to sexual content, and being victims of online sexual abuse, according to the author. Another emerging risk is "meeting" strangers virtually and then planning to meet face to face, which can often result in dangerous situations, and can at times unfortunately result in sexual abuse, according to the abstract. Instagram and Snapchat were the two most commonly reported social media platforms used, however, multiple platforms were reported. The average age of patients was 13 years old, and 89% were female. The patient was related to the perpetrator 60% of the time. About 80% of perpetrators were adult men. "With few oversights and regulations, parents, pediatricians, and anyone who cares for children need to understand this danger and need better tools and resources to help keep children safe from predators on social media," Dr. Cano said. More information: Abstract Title: Social Media Facilitated Sexual Assaults in Children Study author Dr. Cano, is scheduled to present his research from 1:502pm on 10/27/24. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Exposure to vape and e-cigarette residue on surfaces while pregnant could put unborn babies at risk of immune system damage, new research suggests. Vape liquid contains propylene glycol, glycerol, and often nicotine, flavors, and other additives. When heated it can produce toxic chemicals like formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and acrolein, a hazardous air pollutant. "When vapes are used indoors, or in a vehicle, the vapor condenses on surfaces forming a thick, oily layer, and this residue can be absorbed through the skin," said study co-author Distinguished Professor Brian Oliver, from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research. "Previous research has shown that vaping during pregnancy can cause serious harm to the baby, including increased risk of stillbirth, low birth weight and developmental problems," he said. In a new study, led by Dr. Chantal Donovan and Dr. Richard Kim from the UTS School of Life Sciences, pregnant mice were exposed to e-cigarette vapor residue on towels. Their offspring were then infected with flu, and their immune system response assessed. The researchers found that in the exposed offspring, a specialized type of immune cell, called a CD8+ T cell, became dysregulated. CD8+ T cells are essential for mounting an effective immune response against infections, as well as cancer. The study, "Maternal third hand exposure to e-cigarette vapor alters lung and bone marrow immune cell responses in offspring in the absence or presence of influenza infection," has just been published in the American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology. Dr. Donovan said the study revealed for the first time that maternal third-hand exposure to e-vapor results in significant, long-lasting effects on lung and bone marrow immune cell responses in mice. "The study supports the growing body of evidence of the dangers of e-cigarette exposure and highlights that even third-hand e-vapor exposure during pregnancy could have long lasting effects," she said. In Australia, vaping is prohibited in enclosed public spaces, including workplaces, public transportation, and restaurants, similar to smoking bans. However, there are still many areas where vulnerable people could be exposed. "Visitors to the homes of friends or relatives who vape might not realize they're being exposed to harmful chemicals just by touching benchtops or sitting on the couch. People who vape need to understand that this doesn't just affect them," Dr. Kim said. New vaping regulations were recently introduced in Australia to restrict vape sales to pharmacies, including non-nicotine varieties, and limit flavors, to protect public health, particularly among young people. More information: Chantal Donovan et al, Maternal third hand exposure to e-cigarette vapor alters lung and bone marrow immune cell responses in offspring in the absence or presence of flu infection, American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology (2024). DOI: 10.1152/ajplung.00078.2024 Interior CS Kithure Kindiki insisted that 42 Kenyans died during the anti-government protests between June and August, disputing claims from several human rights groups that the death toll is 61. During his appearance before the National Assembly Security and Administration Committee on Thursday, Kindiki explained that the Committee received a report detailing information about 30 individuals who were killed during the protests and the circumstances surrounding their deaths. He requested that the Committee grant him 24 hours to provide information on the remaining 12 cases, assuring the MPs that the government has nothing to hide. What Im pleading is to be given 24 hours to provide the other 12 in supplementary information as Ive said the government has nothing to hide. We cannot hide the fact that a Kenyan has died. What we need to do is to find the circumstances in which they died and if theres a culpability even by a security officer, we ensure that justice is served, he stated. Kindiki defended the polices actions during the protests, emphasizing that the government does not have a policy on abductions. He stressed that there is no evidence linking the police to the 132 Kenyans who are still missing. Myself, including the President himself, have made it clear that this administration does not condone abductions or extra-judicial killings or enforced disappearances. It is unfair to visit the policy on extra-judicial killings unless were provided with evidence of policy pronouncements that support this unlawful behaviour, Kindiki remarked. He further added, If the police had not used lethal force during the invasion of Parliament, we would not have the Kenya we have today. The fact that a Kenyan was shot in the vicinity of police during the protests is not evidence enough that the police are the ones who shot the Kenyans. The CS at the same time informed the Committee that the Directorate of Criminal Investigations has evidence that politicians allied to Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua facilitated anti-government protests. I am informed by DCI that high-level prosecutions will ensue anytime from now, including political leaders who financed protests; and we have evidence, they financed people to loot shops, to kill Kenyans, expose them to danger. We cannot continence the kind of mayhem we saw in July and June for whatever reason. And thats why Ive said this job is a very unpopular job. We will do it. We are going to prosecute high-level people who assisted criminals to harm other people, to destroy infrastructure and they have even made an attempt to actually bring down such a serious institution like Parliament to the people of Kenya, Kindiki said. The DCI has since preferred charges against 5 Gachagua allies, namely MPs Benjamin Gathiru Mwangi alias Mejja Donk (Embakasi Central), James Mwangi Gakuya (Embakasi North), Martin Deric Ngunjiri Wambugu (former Nyeri MP), George Theuri (former Embakasi West MP), and Pius G. Munene. Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has alleged that a plot exists to implicate his allied Members of Parliament in incitement cases, aiming to facilitate his potential impeachment. His remarks follow a recommendation from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), which urged the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) to charge five politicians associated with Gachagua for their alleged roles in violent anti-government protests that occurred on June 25, 2024. In a statement on Thursday, Gachagua expressed deep concern over the harassment that his staff and supporters have faced in recent months. He revealed that he had learned of a plan to file charges against three of his staff members, along with two MPs: James Gakuya from Embakasi North and Benjamin Gathiru Mejja Donk from Embakasi Central. This evil scheme is to associate them with violent demonstrations that took place in late June, in a futile attempt to soil my name and hopefully create grounds for the mooted impeachment proceedings against me, he claimed. Gachagua further criticized the government for allegedly weaponizing the criminal justice system for political purposes, calling it an outdated tactic. The use of the criminal justice system to manage politics is an outdated political strategy that was used in the past. President William Ruto and I, on assuming office, gave an undertaking to the people of Kenya that never again shall the criminal justice system be called upon to help in the management of politics. I am embarrassed that we are back to where we were, he emphasized. The Deputy President urged the state to act with professionalism, highlighting that Kenyans are well-informed about the underlying reasons for the protests and the countrys true issues. Kenyans are intelligent people. They know what factors made Kenyans take to the streets. Kenyans also know what the real problems in Kenya are. They surely know Rigathi is not among them. Let our agencies remain professional, follow the rule of law, and keep off politics, he stated. Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi has called for the extension of the Kenya Police Mission in Haiti for an additional year. He emphasized that this extension would enable the full deployment necessary to fulfill the missions mandate. While speaking at the Ministerial Meeting on Building on Progress to Restore Security in Haiti, Mudavadi commended the exceptional efforts of the 410 officers currently serving in the MSS Mission. Their actions have exemplified that this is indeed a Mission Possible, conducted with the highest standards of transparency and integrity, he remarked. He highlighted the missions significant achievements in its first 100 days, stating that it has collaborated with the Haitian National Police (HNP) to secure critical infrastructure. In its first 100 days, the Mission, in collaboration with the Haiti National Police (HNP), has made significant strides in securing critical infrastructure, including the international airport, the national hospital, and the main seaport in Port-au-Prince. Mudavadi noted that these efforts have been vital in enhancing public safety and stability in Haiti. He pointed out that joint patrols with the HNP in key areas of Port-au-Prince have bolstered civilian protection. The Mission has also played a crucial role in clearing roadblocks and reopening access routes, ensuring smoother delivery of humanitarian aid to those in need, he added. With only 410 officers deployed, compared to the planned 2,500, Mudavadi stressed the limitations this places on the missions achievements. He urged the Security Council to extend the Mission for another year and explore innovative strategies for the United Nations to provide the necessary resources to sustain the progress made by the MSS. I call on the Security Council to consider extending the Mission for another year, enabling the full deployment necessary to accomplish its mandate, Mudavadi implored. Tana River Senator Danson Mungatana has doubled down on his censure motion against Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, citing the DPs change in character over time. Mungatana believes Gachaguas actions reflect a lack of commitment to the countrys interests in his role as the second-in-command. In an interview on Citizen TVs Daybreak, the senator addressed questions regarding his decision to file a censure motion amid growing discussions of impeachment among Gachaguas critics. Some speculate that the motion could be introduced in Parliament within two weeks. Mungatana clarified that the censure motion does not seek to oust the deputy president from office. Instead, he explained that it serves as a signal for Gachagua to realign his actions with the governments agenda. We were in South Africa for the African parliament session, we go there three times a year, I personally said after watching things unfold, that when I go home on Sunday, Im filing the censure motion, he explained. Theres no correlation really. But we also watched the interview, it wasnt a person whos a principal assistant to the president. I think something has gone off the road. The Gachagua off late is not the Gachagua we started with. So this censure motion is saying let us go back to the line. In his motion, Mungatana accuses Gachagua of making divisive statements along tribal lines. He also claims that the DP has incited citizens to disregard directives from certain county governments, undermining the authority of his office. Mungatana argues that Gachagua violated Article 75 of the Constitution, which requires state officers to act in ways that prioritize the public interest over personal agendas. The Senate, pursuant to Standing Order 101, Section 1, expresses its displeasure and disappointment with the conduct of Hon. Rigathi Gachagua as the Deputy President of Kenya, and therefore we need to censure him, Mungatana stated in the motion. Cardinal Sako Calls on Iraq's Assyrians to Pray for Peace Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, the patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, during a celebratory Holy Mass on the anniversary of Saint Meskenta's martyrdom, at the Saint Hannah Monastery for Chaldean nuns in Karada, Baghdad. The head of Iraq's Chaldean Catholic Church has urged Christians to work towards engaging in interfaith dialogue amidst ideological extremism and ongoing wars. "Today, Christians do not need martyrdom, but what they need is the testimony of [a] life that positively affects society," said Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, the patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church. Sako gave his remarks during a celebratory Holy Mass on the anniversary of Saint Meskenta's martyrdom, at the Saint Hannah Monastery for Chaldean nuns in Karada, Baghdad, the patriarchate said in a Sept. 25 statement. According to tradition, Saint Meskinta was martyred along with her two children by the Persians during the anti-Christian persecution by the Sassanian king Yazdgerd II (438-457). Meskinta is mentioned in a breviary dating back to 1777, written in Aden--a mountainous village in northern Iraq. The Persian king considered Christians as internal enemies amidst the war against the Eastern Roman Empire, which had converted to Christianity. The prelate reminded his audience that the harmony between faith and morality in the face of indifference, and the decline of morals and values, has become more important than ever before. "The spiritual and moral dimensions [of the harmony between faith and morality] have an impact on global peace and security, disarmament, and conflict prevention," Sako said. Bishop Basilios Yaldo and Father Basman George concelebrated the Holy Mass, which was attended by several nuns. Sako pointed out that the conflicts in the region are caused by many factors. The deterioration of morals, the absence of proper religious education, the loss of trust and fear of others, and inciteful comments laced with ideological extremism, among others, have caused conflict in the region, he said. The prelate urged the faithful to pray for peace in Lebanon, the Holy Land, Sudan, and Ukraine. Lebanon has seen an escalated level of conflict with Israel which resulted in the death of some 700 Lebanese civilians and military personnel, Aljazeera reported. Israel has rejected pleas for a truce from the UN, and its greatest ally, the US, saying that the onslaught is aimed at Hezbollah strongholds or military facilities placed in people's homes. More than 10,000 people have been forced from their homes in the most ferocious attacks Lebanon has experienced since its civil war of 1975-1990, Aljazeera reported. Sako urged the faithful to witness something different and endure pain to produce work of human, spiritual, and social value despite being small in numbers. "Christians should be witnesses to values that are not easy to talk about and embody them in their reality," the prelate emphasized. Iraq's Christian population has drastically declined since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled strongman Saddam Hussein, dropping from more than 1.5 million people to around 400,000 today. Many have fled the violence that has plagued the country over the past 20 years. SIU political, debate experts: Expect contrasting styles in vice presidential debate by Pete Rosenbery CARBONDALE, Ill. Vice presidential debates often generate little public interest as an undercard to presidential debates, but political and debate experts at Southern Illinois University Carbondale believe Tuesdays (Oct. 1) meeting between Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz could be noteworthy. Vance, an Ohio senator and Republican running mate of former President Donald Trump, and Walz, the Democratic Minnesota governor selected by Vice President Kamala Harris, square off in New York City just five weeks before the Nov. 5 general election. While its hard to see how vice presidential debates can alter presidential campaigns in any fundamental way, John Shaw, Paul Simon Public Policy Institute director, noted that current polling shows a tight race in several states. In a race that may come down to literally thousands of votes in states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, almost any development can have an outsized impact, he said. John Jackson, a visiting professor with the institute, anticipates there will be a smaller viewing audience than the Sept. 10 presidential debate. How Vance and Walz are viewed, for Trump and Harris, can be a revealing reflection on their decision making since those were their first official moves in putting together a prospective government, Jackson said. Differing personalities and political styles Todd Graham, professor of debate in the School of Communication Studies, believes this matchup, much like the Harris-Trump debate, will show contrasting styles but in different ways. Vance is more informed than Trump on many issues, so he should be able to talk policy where Trump was unable. Maybe he even has more details on the concept of Trumps health care plan, Graham said. And Walz is a terrific speaker, more comfortable with us Midwesterners, who hear people talk like him every day. But hes not as good a debater as Harris his own words to Harris when interviewed were that he was not a very good debater, Graham said. Walz has a more natural and warm speaking style than Vance, but that doesnt always translate into an effective debater. Walz, Graham added, has to avoid looking like hes in over this head, so hes got to be prepped on all the issues well enough to pull this off. Vance is the same but with added personality. He cant continue to be seen as weird, anti-woman, etc. Kenneth Mulligan, an associate professor of political science in the School of Anthropology, Political Science and Sociology, believes this debate will be less raucous and combative than the Trump-Harris showdown. Walz might provide a folksy Middle America contrast to Harris West Coast nasal chattiness, Mulligan said. Vance might lend a cerebral edge to Trumps stream-of-consciousness missives. Vance has the most to gain in this debate by far, having been torn down by Harris allies from being film director Ron Howards Everyman to a bizarre anti-feline caricature. Walz is largely unknown and will have an opportunity to define himself. Vance has an intense, almost smoldering, personality; it seems like he could erupt at any moment. Walz has a friendly and avuncular style, but also a trenchant wit, Shaw said. Political analysts will be watching to see if Walz can rattle Vance and force him to lose his cool. This is going to be a fun debate to watch, largely because of the hugely different political personalities of the two candidates. Defending policies Both candidates will need to advance and defend their running mates agenda. Vance will have to defend numerous Trump controversies, including the most recent imbroglio over the false story of immigrants eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio, a controversy to which he contributed, Jackson said. Walz will need to introduce himself to the nation and fill in some of the remaining blanks on plans for a new Harris-Walz administration. Mulligan adds he expects CBS News moderators to interject themselves less, or at least more even-handedly. If they dont, Republicans wont invite them to participate in future debates, he said. Jackson and Graham each noted that vice presidential candidates must show they are ready to assume responsibility for a nation, if needed. This debate will be important because the vice president is the understudy to the president and can become the president in an instant, as recent events underscore, Jackson said. While vice presidential debates dont usually make much of a difference, Graham said he would make Trumps age an issue with the possibility that Vance has the chance of becoming president very high. If painted that way, this debate could be different, Graham said. Or people could just fall in love with Walz and use him as their excuse to vote for Harris, saving face with their social circle who might not like Harris. Candidate debate roles Graham said there are three roles for vice presidential candidates in debates. Defend the top of the ticket by making them look good and have good evidence that they are an effective leader with strong policies. Attack the top of the other ticket. Demonstrate you would be ready to take over as president, if needed. Former Vice President Mike Pence had difficulty defending Trump in his debates, and Graham said he suspects that will be an issue for Vance. Vance has already been doing clean-up on aisle Springfield, Ohio, but hes making the mess worse, Graham said. So yeah, hes going to have some issues in the debate. Does he tell the truth, or go with Trumps lies? Pence knew the difference and had difficulty defending Trumps lies. But JD Vance needs to make a choice. The key points Vance needs to make are that Im not weird and can be trusted, while Walzs points are Yes, you are, and no, you cannot, Graham said. Its as simple as that. Thats the debate. Media availability Todd Graham is professor of debate in SIUs School of Communication Studies, where his debate teams have won five national titles. He has been analyzing presidential debates for more than 20 years and is a regular contributor and regular debate expert for CNN and CNN Opinion. He can be reached at 314-495-7278 or at tgraham@siu.edu or toddgraham101@gmail.com. John Jackson is a visiting professor at SIU Carbondales Paul Simon Public Policy Institute and has more than four decades of political expertise and research in presidential politics, campaigns and elections. He can be reached at 618-303-1240 or jsjacson@siu.edu. Kenneth Mulligan is an associate professor of political science in SIUs School of Anthropology, Political Science and Sociology. His research and teaching involve American political behavior, media and politics, and public opinion. He can be reached at 618-201-9634 and kmulliga@siu.edu. John Shaw, director, Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, spent 26 years in Washington, D.C., covering Congress and economic issues for Market News International before his arrival at SIU Carbondale in 2018. He has been a guest on the PBS NewsHour and C-SPAN. He can be reached at 618-453-4009 or john.shaw@siu.edu. SIU saluting LGBTQ+ History Month with founder of national celebration and more by Christi Mathis CARBONDALE, Ill. The founder of LGBTQ+ History Month is coming to Southern Illinois University Carbondale as part of universitys monthlong celebration in October. With the theme of Reclaiming Queer History, it is a special year as SIU marks the 20th anniversary of commemorating LGBTQ+ History Month on campus and the 30th national anniversary of the month, according to Juniper Oxford, coordinator of the LGBTQ Resource Center. "We are particularly excited to reveal many of our future goals of the LGBTQ Resource Center, share in discussions about reclaiming queer history both on campus and in the local community, and welcome Rodney Wilson to our campus as our keynote, Oxford said. Wilson is the creator of LGBTQ+ History Month and the first out high school teacher in the state of Missouri. Its not just about being here and being queer but also showing that we have been here and have always been around. Our LGBTQ+ campus community is brimming with excitement about these upcoming events; we have something nearly every day of the month this year. Every ally on campus and in our local community is not only welcome but encouraged to show up and support." All events are free and open to the public, with the exception of the Safe Zone trainings, which are geared toward SIU faculty and staff. Kickoff is Oct. 1 The LGBTQ+ History Month kickoff celebration is set for noon Oct. 1 at the John C. Guyon Auditorium in Morris Library. The event will feature remarks from representatives of various LGBTQ+ organizations including the LGBTQ Resource Center, the LGBTQ+ Faculty and Staff Council, the Saluki Rainbow Network and the Lavender Alumni Network. Afterward, there will be an LGBTQ+ Resource Fair in the library rotunda, and two special exhibits will be unveiled in the Hall of Presidents and Chancellors. The LGBTQ+ exhibits, which will be open for viewing all month from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays, include a photovoice exhibit by Golden Rainbows of Illinois South and a retrospective exhibit created by the LGBTQ Resource Center and the librarys Special Collections Resource Center. Celebrating the Centers History and Future at 2 p.m. Oct. 8 in the librarys Hall of Presidents and Chancellor will focus on the history of LGBTQ+ History Month and its celebration at SIU, including a retrospective. Wilson advocates for LGBTQ+ rights Wilson will speak at 3 p.m. Oct. 18 in the Student Center Auditorium. Refreshments will follow in the International Lounge. In 1994, Wilson came out to his students at Mehlville High School in the metro St. Louis area while teaching a history lesson about the Holocaust. Then just in his 20s, he explained that if he had lived in Germany during World War II, he would have been imprisoned and killed by the Nazis for being gay. He was nearly fired afterward, but the strong and fast outcry received coverage on national media outlets, including Dateline NBC, Newsweek and the Ricki Lake Show. The short documentary Taboo Teaching tells Wilsons story. Discussion will feature diverse voices, cinema highlights queer films An intergenerational panel comprising queer students and adults will focus on the theme Reclaiming Queer History at 1 p.m. Oct. 28 in the Student Services Building, Rooms 150/160. A series of queer cinema events focusing on LGBTQ+ themes will be shown at the Guyon Auditorium except the last one, which will be at the Sharp Museum Auditorium in Faner Hall. Popcorn, candy, giveaways and a wrap-up discussion will be included. The schedule includes: Jose, 4 p.m. Oct. 7. Jose and his mother live a difficult life in the violent, religion-steeped country of Guatemala, but when he meets Luis, he discovers a new passion and pain. The 2018 Li Cheng award-winning movie explores his journey as a queer man. The Archivettes, 4 p.m. Oct. 15. The Lesbian Herstory Archives, founded in a New York City apartment, is now the worlds largest collection of materials by and about lesbians. The 2019 Megan Rossman film is a tribute to second-wave feminism and intergenerational connection and combatting lesbian invisibility. Monica, 4 p.m. Oct. 23. This Trace Lysette story chronicles the life of Monica, a trans youth kicked out of her home who later returns to her Midwest hometown to care for her dying mother, and it explores their journey toward understanding. A panel discussion featuring Carbondale City Council member Clare Killman, author Heather OMalley and Oxford will follow. Were All Going to the Worlds Fair, 5 p.m. Oct. 30. The 2021 Jane Schoenbrun coming-of-age psychological thriller tells of the mental and physical changes Casey Cobb, a gay teen, experiences as she becomes immersed in an online role-playing horror game alone in her attic bedroom. Pizza will be provided. Variety show, coffee, dinner/dialogue and more Numerous other activities are planned as well in October. Highlights include: At the Table Dinner and Dialogue celebrates the 30th anniversary of LGBTQ+ History Month with discussion focusing on the queer history of the region and state and issues facing todays LGBTQ+ community at 6 p.m. Oct. 10 at the Carbondale Civic Center. The City of Carbondale along with SIUs LGBTQ+ Resource Center, the Rainbow Cafe and Golden Rainbows of Illinois South are sponsoring the event. While there is no cost, those planning to attend are asked to sign up online to allow meal planning. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. No Shame Theater: LGBTQ+ Variety Show will give participants the free space to perform without shame. Set for 11 p.m. Oct. 25 at the Moe Theater in the Communications Building, its free, but those attending are encouraged to bring a nonperishable food item for donation to the Saluki Food Pantry. Wear Purple for Spirit Day is Oct. 17. All are encouraged to wear purple in support of LGBTQ+ youth, in honor of LGBTQ+ suicide victims and in opposition to bullying. Find additional information, including the complete schedule of events, on the website for the LGBTQ Resource Center, which is a unit of the Student Multicultural Resource Center. Sponsors include the LGBTQ Resource Center; the Student Multicultural Resource Center; the Office of Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; the LGBTQ+ Faculty and Staff Council; the Saluki Rainbow Network; Special Collections Resource Center/Morris Library; Wellness and Health Promotion Services; Counseling and Psychological Services; Student Health Services; Hispanic Latino Resource Center; Career Development Center; Lavender Alumni Network; No Shame Theater; School of Communication Studies; Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Career Development Center; Saluki Furry Society; Cine Club; the City of Carbondale; the Rainbow Cafe; the League of Women Voters of Jackson County; the Carbondale Park District, and Golden Rainbows of Illinois South. PRNewswire New York [US], September 27: ACEN, the Ayala group's listed energy platform, joined this year's Climate Week NYC, the biggest annual climate event of its kind, with leaders from the world of business, tech, politics, academia and civil society. The company's participation reinforces its pioneering role in the coal-to-clean energy transition through the use of transition credits. ACEN president and CEO Eric Francia joined key figures in a panel discussion entitled "Harnessing Transition Credits to Drive a Coal to Clean Transition in Emerging Markets" that explored how transition credits can catalyze the early retirement of coal plants, particularly in Southeast Asia, replacing them with renewable energy, while ensuring a just transition for affected communities. Co-organized by the The Rockefeller Foundation and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the panel, moderated by Gillian Tan from MAS, also included Scott Morris of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Nat Keohane from the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions and Demetrios Papathanasiou from the World Bank Group. Elizabeth Yee, executive vice president of programs, Rockefeller Foundation and Singapore's Ambassador for Climate Action, Ravi Menon delivered the opening remarks, emphasizing the critical need for a swift transition from coal to clean energy. Elizabeth highlighted the role of transition credits in helping coal plant owners retire their facilities early, replacing them with renewable energy while supporting workers and communities. She discussed partnerships with the Coal to Clean Credits Initiative and the Energy Transition Accelerator to advance pilot projects, as well as The Rockefeller Foundation's commitment to high standards and community engagement. Ambassador Menon built on this by stressing that coal-fired power plants in Asia account for one-seventh of global greenhouse gas emissions and highlighted the challenges of shutting them down. He advocated for investment in the early phase-out of coal, ensuring a just transition that protects communities and maintains energy reliability. Overcoming challenges in the energy transition During the panel, Francia emphasized the significant role transition credits can play in overcoming the challenges of energy transitions in emerging markets, including resource constraints, land and infrastructure issues and the need for costly renewable energy replacements. The panelists not only emphasized the need for blended finance and a just transition but also covered the challenges and opportunities in implementing transition credits in Southeast Asia. "One of the challenges that we need to overcome is the global south mindset that we did not cause this global problem of climate change. It is a challenge to overcome that mindset because that leads to inaction or a passive mindset. But we think different. We rise to the challenge, thanks to transition credits. We believe that this is a huge opportunity to show the world that it can be done. That's why this pilot project is extremely important," Francia said. He also underscored the importance of a just transition that protects vulnerable communities during the shift from coal to clean energy. The panel discussion wrapped up with a strong call for action, urging global stakeholders to work collaboratively in developing and implementing transition credits as a catalyst for a cleaner and more sustainable future. A global call for action On the sidelines of Climate Week NYC, ACEN also joined over 100 international organizations in supporting the Global Renewables Alliance's open letter to world leaders, urging them to set ambitious, specific and actionable targets to meet the world's 1.5 C target. The letter was published at the opening of Climate Week NYC. "This letter sends a clear message to governments: Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are not just a United Nations requirement but a commitment to our children and grandchildren. They signify the global community's roadmap to securing a sustainable future and fostering a prosperous economy for future generations," it said. ACEN's participation in Climate Week NYC highlights the company's leadership in advancing sustainable finance mechanisms and transitioning Southeast Asia towards a low-carbon future. About ACEN ACEN is the listed energy platform of the Ayala Group with a fast-growing presence in the Philippines, Australia, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR and the U.S.A. The company currently accounts for 4.8 GW of attributable renewables capacity in operation and under construction. ACEN aims to provide clean, reliable and affordable energy in the Asia Pacific and grow its renewables capacity to 20 GW by 2030. The company has been pioneering initiatives in early coal retirement and committed to becoming a Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions company by 2050. www.acenrenewables.com DISCLAIMER: This disclosure may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risk factors and opportunities that may affect ACEN's plans to complete the transaction/s subject of this disclosure. Each forward-looking statement is made only as of the date of this disclosure. Outcomes of the subject transaction may differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements included in this disclosure. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PRNewswire. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) India's aviation industry is poised for significant growth, with domestic carriers expected to add over 150 new aircraft in 2024, a 37 per cent increase year-on-year (YoY), according to a research report by Nuvama. However, the report mentioned that despite this notable addition, the current aircraft numbers in the country is still fall short of rapidly rising demand in the sector. As a result, airfares are likely to remain firm in the coming months due to this demand-supply mismatch. "We believe the aviation industry is set to grow as a whole with passenger traffic surpassing the pre-covid peak in FY19 by 11 per cent. Domestic carriers are poised to add 150-plus aircraft in CY24 (up 37 per cent YoY), not enough to meet the demand" said the report. The aviation industry in India is on an upward trajectory, with passenger traffic surpassing pre-COVID levels, increasing by 11 per cent compared to FY19. As per the data by Ministry of Civil Aviation, the passenger movement in India, both domestic and international, averages around 32 million passengers per month. This growing demand for air travel highlights the need for more aircrafts in the market. According to the report, Available Seat Kilometers (ASKM), a key industry metric, that measures an airline's passenger-carrying capacity, rose by 14 per cent YoY and 2 per cent month-on-month (MoM) in August 2024. "Total Indian aviation domestic ASKM up 14 per cent YoY/2 per cent MoM in Aug-24" the report added. The report stated that IndiGo continues to dominate the domestic aviation market, maintaining a 58 per cent share of the domestic ASKM in August 2024. In contrast, the Air India group leads the international segment with a 54 per cent market share among Indian airlines. The report highlighted that Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) prices have seen a sharp decline, down 18 per cent YoY and 5 per cent MoM in September 2024, driven by falling crude oil prices. This price reduction will be a great relief to airlines, potentially offsetting some cost pressures from the ongoing supply-demand imbalance. India also ranks first among the top ten countries with the highest share of low-cost carriers (LCCs) in overall airline capacity. (ANI) Mediawire New Delhi [India], September 27: ET Young Industry Achievers Awards, an initiative by Optimal Media Solutions (a division of Times Internet Limited), is designed to celebrate the success of rising young business achievers and professionals. The awards aim to recognize individuals from various sectors who have made significant advancements in their respective fields early in their careers. The felicitation ceremony was held on September 3, 2024, at Hyatt Regency, New Delhi. The recipients were felicitated by Suniel Shetty, a renowned Indian film actor with a variety of roles to his credit. Shetty is also associated with social causes and is known for his philanthropic acts. The lamp lighting ceremony was graced by Sunil Shetty and Baldev Raj, Director Prius Communication. Shubham Gupta, MD Scandia Volvo, said: "Scandia Volvo Cars is committed to providing its customers with the highest level of customer service to build long lasting relationships. We are happy to participate at the prestigious ET Young Industry Achievers award as the awardees have made a mark in making long lasting relations in their respective industry". Methodology i3RC has developed a comprehensive nominee assessment form and analytical framework to evaluate candidates for the ET Young Industry Leaders & ET Young Achievers Awards 2024 in New Delhi. The evaluation focuses on three main areas: 1. General Profile and Background 2. Work and Innovation 3. Contribution to Industry and Society To ensure objectivity, nominees were evaluated through tools such as social media scans and feedback from colleagues, customers, or the public. Data from these sources was analysed to determine eligibility and suitability for the award. Assessment Framework: * Nomination Form: Nominees provide their basic profile and details about their work or business. * Feedback Assessment: A random survey gathers feedback from a sample of 250 individuals, using a 10-point scale to evaluate the nominees. This multi-step process ensures a fair and thorough evaluation of all candidates. Note: Present survey has been exclusively conducted by an independent Research Agency named i3RC Insights Private Limited using stated methodology for arriving at given results. The publication house and its affiliates/employees/authorized representatives/group companies are not responsible/ liable for the said results. Readers are advised to take an informed decision before acting upon the survey results. List of Awardees: * Abhishek Asthana & Imran Khan of Columbus Integration Services Pvt. Ltd. - Excellence in the Field of Logistics Services * Amit Tyagi of Nuberg Industries Ltd. - Young Entrepreneur of the Year * Ankush Kamboj, Krishan Sharma and Vishal Kaushik of Sun Boilers Pvt. Ltd. - Excellence in Steam Boiler Manufacturing * Dr. Ankit Kalra of Kalra Hospital, Kirti Nagar - Cardiologist of the Year * Deepanshu Gulati of St. Teresa School, Indirapuram - Excellence in the Field of Education * Dr. Geetika Mittal Gupta of ISAAC Luxe - Excellence in the Field of Cosmetology and Skin Clinic * Josan Ranjjith - Excellence in Literary Eminence * Kunal Gupta of Bal Bhavan International School, Dwarka - Excellence in School Education * Manish Jain of Maetrix Consulting - Emerging Young Entrepreneur in the Field of Leasing * Manish Khurana of Innovations Venture Studios - Excellence in Funding Strategy * Manish Motilal Lalwani of Omkara Assets Reconstruction Pvt. Ltd. - Excellence in Financial Services - Asset Reconstruction * Manvendra Singh Raghav of MFine - Technology Innovation in Healthcare * Dr. Mumta Sindhu Thory of Mamta Akashic Readers - Excellence in Akashic Records & Teacher * Nipun Khanna of St. Teresa School, Indirapuram - Excellence in the Field of Education * Dr. Neha Khuraana of House of Aesthetics - Excellence in the Field of Dermatology * Parimal Shah of Cherise India Pvt. Ltd. - Pioneer in the Industry - Beverage Tech Eco-System * Piyush Chitkara of Accacia - Emerging Brand for Net-Zero Excellence * Pulkit Singh of Estatex Landbase Pvt. Ltd. - Emerging Business Leader in Real Estate * Pyush Lohia of Lohia Worldspace - Emerging Residential Developer of the Year * Sampada Atri of Sarvodaya Hospital - Brand and Communication Strategy * Saniya Shahi of Saniya Shahi Designs - Innovative Excellence in Luxury Bespoke Furniture & Design * Saurabh Gupta of Hamilton Sciences Pvt. Ltd. - Young Entrepreneur of the Year * Vrinda Mathur of Channel PR - Dynamic Women Leader in PR (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by Mediawire. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], September 27: Logistics Limited (NSE: KLL), a diversified conglomerate specializing in logistic support to the cement players, has signed a LOI with global quick-service restaurant giant McDonald's to open a restaurant in one of the properties owned by the company. This strategic collaboration marks an important step for Kaushalya Logistics as it continues to diversify its business portfolio, with a growing emphasis to partner with global enterprises. This partnership strengthens its real estate business and diversifies its revenue streams. The entry of McDonald's, a globally recognized brand, signals the attractiveness of KLL's commercial real estate offerings and highlights the company's capability to attract top-tier clients in high-demand locations. The rental income from such high-profile tenants is expected to significantly contribute to the company's financial performance. With this new McDonald's outlet, KLL strengthens its presence in the retail and commercial property segments, setting the stage for additional retail-focused developments. This development complements the company's strong logistics business, further reinforcing its strategy of evolving into an integrated, multi-sector enterprise. Commenting on the performance Mr. Uddhav Poddar, Managing Director, Kaushalya Logistics Limited said, "We are excited to partner with McDonald's, one of the worlds leading quick-service restaurant giants. This agreement highlights the potential of our commercial real estate portfolio and supports our strategy of diversifying into new verticals that drive growth. With McDonald's as a tenant, we expect this to enhance the value of our properties and open up more opportunities in the retail and hospitality sectors. The expected steady rental income from McDonald's will boost our financial performance and strengthen our position as a trusted commercial landlord, aligning with our long-term vision of growth across multiple sectors." (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) The 16th ASOSAI Assembly concluded successfully here in the national capital on Friday, with 200 delegates from 42 countries discussing public audit, governance, and accountability. Hosted by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, Girish Chandra Murmu, the assembly saw the adoption of the New Delhi Declaration, a roadmap that reinforces ASOSAI members' commitment to equality, transparency, and innovation. He commended various initiatives by Supreme Audit Institution of Thailand to effectively implement the Bangkok Declaration 2021, by charting a path for the ASOSAI and its 48 members towards greater resilience, innovation and governance in today's New Normal. CAG of India stated that the New Delhi Declaration would build upon efforts made on the Bangkok Declaration and hoped for its progress, taking it one step further. CAG of India expressed gratitude to the previous chair of ASOSAI, SAI Thailand and Secretary General, SAI China. He congratulated seven newly elected SAI members of the Governing Board of ASOSAI (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines and UAE) and two members of the Audit Committee (Iran and Vietnam). CAG Murmu also praised the collective efforts behind the Declaration, which will guide future efforts to improve audit practices and governance in the region. The Declaration focuses on leveraging digital public infrastructure to provide equitable access to services, aligning with UN Sustainable Development Goals, especially SDG-5 (Gender Equality) and SDG-10 (Reduced Inequality). The New Delhi Declaration is not just a reflection of our common vision but also a guiding light for our future endeavours. The four-day event, inaugurated by President Droupadi Murmu on September 24, 2024, brought together Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) from Asia to enhance public sector auditing. The event saw the leadership of CAG Murmu, who assumed the Chairmanship of ASOSAI for the term 2024-2027, and is expected to steer the association towards new horizons of public audit excellence. "Our discussions aptly recognized the relevance of advanced technologies in driving the socio-economic milieu across the world. SAIs must strengthen their capacities to audit in this transformed world, especially in light of the inequalities accentuated in the post-pandemic era," CAG Murmu was quoted in a statement. The assembly also saw the induction of new members to the ASOSAI Governing Board and ASOSAI Audit Committee, ensuring continuation of strong leadership and innovation in public sector auditing. As the Chair of ASOSAI, Murmu expressed confidence that the assembly's outcomes will have a lasting impact on the global audit community: "Together, united by our shared mission, we will rise to the challenges of our time, whether they relate to digital transformation, climate change, or economic recovery." CAG noted that key matters such as capacity development, knowledge sharing and strengthening of institutional frameworks were addressed and the Assembly was a resounding success due to the active participation, constructive contributions and unwavering support of the members. (ANI) VMPL New Delhi [India], September 27: Marking a decade of creating impact, the DBS Foundation unveiled the new Impact Beyond Award with an aim to support enterprises that provide innovative solutions to the world's most 'wicked' problems. Each year the Award intends to pose a challenge statement and invite businesses to pitch their transformative ideas. This year the focus will be on ageing and the Foundation will be seeking solutions that will enable everyone to grow old with dignity and purpose. According to the 2023 India Ageing Report by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)[1], the percentage of the elderly demographic (60 years and above) in India is projected to double to over 20% of the total country's population by 2050. While an ageing population can be viewed as a societal challenge, the DBS Foundation believes it can also be an opportunity to be harnessed - both to change traditional mindsets, as well as to scale 'longevity businesses'. The Award is part of DBS' SGD 1 billion commitment over ten years to uplift vulnerable segments of society, and complements the longstanding DBS Foundation Grant. Each of the three Impact Beyond awardees will receive prize money of up to SGD 1 million beyond financial support, the winning enterprises will be mentored by the bank's senior management and other business leaders, and gain access to potential investors. It is open to social enterprises and small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) that have at least SGD 5 million in annual revenue in the most recent financial year. Applications from around the world are welcomed, and the application window is open from 20 September to 30 November 2024. Azmat Habibulla, Managing Director and Head of Group Strategic Marketing & Communications, DBS Bank India, said: "The introduction of the Impact Beyond Award marks a significant milestone in DBS Foundation's ten year journey. This year's spotlight on tackling the issues linked with an ageing society are a demonstration of the Foundation's commitment to empowering the most vulnerable segments of the population. The complexities of an ageing demographic in India will only keep increasing and we believe that this award will be a catalyst to scale purpose-driven solutions in healthcare, social support systems and financial inclusion to improve the quality of life of senior citizens. With DBS's holistic approach that goes beyond banking, we are looking forward to championing these businesses and fostering long-term inclusivity through innovative solutions." DBS Bank, which is approaching its 30th year in India, recently launched a priority banking program for senior citizens called 'DBS Golden Circle', which has been designed to offer a comprehensive suite of benefits and services, focused on making banking simpler and more rewarding for resident Indian citizens aged 60 years and above. In 2020, the DBS Foundation awarded a grant to ElderAid Wellness, a Business For Impact that provides a range of home-based health and wellness services to support the elderly and enables them to live their golden years with independence, dignity and security. For more information on the DBS Foundation, please visit: www.dbs.com/dbsfoundation About DBS DBS is a leading financial services group in Asia with a presence in 19 markets. Headquartered and listed in Singapore, DBS is in the three key Asian axes of growth: Greater China, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. The bank's "AA-" and "Aa1" credit ratings are among the highest in the world. In 2024, CRISIL Ratings reaffirmed its 'CRISIL AAA/Stable' rating on the corporate credit facility of DBS Bank India Ltd (DBIL). The rating on the certificate of deposits programme was also reaffirmed at 'CRISIL A1+'. Recognised for its global leadership, DBS has been named "World's Best Bank" by Global Finance, "World's Best Bank" by Euromoney, and "Global Bank of the Year" by The Banker. As a different kind of bank, DBS is at the forefront of leveraging digital technology to shape the future of banking, having been named "World's Best Digital Bank" by Euromoney and the world's "Most Innovative in Digital Banking" by The Banker. In addition, DBS has been accorded the "Safest Bank in Asia" award by Global Finance for 15 consecutive years from 2009 to 2023. In line with its focus on responsible banking, DBS was named the Best Bank for Sustainable Finance - India by Global Finance in 2024. Additionally, DBS Bank was ranked among the top 3 on Forbes' list of the World's Best Banks in India for three consecutive years, from 2020 to 2022. DBS Bank has been present in India for 30 years, opening its first office in Mumbai in 1994. DBS Bank India Limited is the first among the large foreign banks in India to start operating as a wholly owned, locally incorporated subsidiary of a leading global bank. As a trusted partner, DBS provides a range of banking services for large, medium, and small enterprises and individual consumers in India, focusing on a seamless customer experience that helps them 'Live more, Bank less'. In November 2020, Lakshmi Vilas Bank was merged with DBS Bank India Limited. DBS Bank India now has a network of ~500 branches in 19 Indian states. DBS is committed to building lasting relationships with customers as it banks the Asian way and understands the intricacies of doing business in the region's most dynamic markets. Through the DBS Foundation, the bank creates impact beyond banking by supporting businesses for impact: enterprises with a double bottom-line of profit and social and/or environmental impact. DBS Foundation also gives back to society in various ways, including equipping underserved communities with future-ready skills and helping them to build food resilience. With its extensive network of operations in Asia and emphasis on engaging and empowering its staff, DBS presents exciting career opportunities. For more information, please visit www.dbs.com. Media Contacts: DBS Bank IndiaRohini Regorohinirego@dbs.com99305 49207 Adfactors PRChennakeshav ShenoyCk.shenoy@adfactorspr.com9819266998 (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by VMPL. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) OP Jindal University Sonipat (Haryana) [India], September 27: The Jindal India Institute (JII) of O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) hosted 31 foreign diplomats, foreign correspondents and defence attaches from 20 embassies, high commissions, international organisations and new agencies at the third edition of its one-day certificate course on 'Understanding India's Foreign and Security Policy' in New Delhi. The countries and institutions represented in this training event were Australia, Brazil, Canada, European Union, Finland, Kenya, Lithuania, Norway, Russia Today (RT), Rossiyskaya Gazeta, South Africa, Suriname, Sweden, Taiwan, Tanzania, Togo, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Zimbabwe and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The day-long engagement consisted of six modules delivered by expert practitioners and academicians in international and defence matters. They provided a nuanced understanding of India's foreign policy objectives and security strategies in an increasingly complex international landscape. Dr. Sreeram Chaulia, Professor and Director General of JII, kick-started the discussion by providing a comprehensive overview of the essentials of India's foreign policy. He discussed how India's foreign policy strategies are informed by its rich strategic heritage, ranging from Kautilya's realpolitik to the idealism of the Upanishads. He focused on the intent and purpose behind core concepts like strategic autonomy, non-alignment, multi-alignment, net security provider, first responder, Vishwa Mitra and Vishwa Guru and showed how India is extracting maximum benefits from foreign engagements to enable its rise as a 'leading power' in the world. The first half of the day also featured a session explaining the detailed organisational structure, functioning and processes of India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). Ambassador Sanjay Bhattacharya, Professor of Diplomatic Practice at the Jindal School of International Affairs, amalgamated theoretical knowledge with practical insights to address various queries by the participants on the roles, responsibilities and divisions of the MEA. Dr. Hindol Sengupta, Professor and Director of JII, delivered an address on India's changing worldview that has closely shaped its foreign policy since independence. He provided a balanced view of the country's transforming approach to the world under different Prime Ministers from Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi, highlighting the potential and success of major foreign initiatives under each of them. Building upon this foundation, Ambassador Dr. Mohan Kumar, Professor and Senior Fellow of JII, shed light on the unique aspects of India's economic diplomacy, including trade negotiations and investment strategies. He stressed on the country's participation in multilateral forums and the strong regional component in its connectivity projects. The session closed with comments from a participating diplomat stating, "India is the future. Africa sees India as the hope for a better world order." India's security architecture was the main focus of the second half of the course. Dr. Swasti Rao, Associate Fellow of the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, explored the country's defence partnerships with Western powers. She explained key agreements, collaborative technological advancements and joint military exercises with Europe and the USA. Her in-depth analysis of strategic motivations and expertise in weaponry and shifting patterns in India's defence diplomacy enriched the foreign audience's understanding of India's critical strategic partnerships. India's emerging role in the Indo-Pacific was covered by Dr. Pooja Bhatt, Associate Professor of the Jindal School of International Affairs. Using an array of maps, satellite imagery, and flowcharts, she offered a detailed examination of India's strategic priorities such as regional connectivity, maritime security and economic cooperation. The day concluded on a dynamic note with a special address by Air Marshal Anil Chopra (Retd., Indian Air Force), who talked about the Indian military's vital contributions to national security and the main ethos and doctrines which have guided India's armed forces as they remain prepared to tackle India's main external adversaries. In the context of this one-day event, Dr. C. Raj Kumar, the President of JII and Vice Chancellor of JGU, commented that "as India takes on a more prominent role in global affairs, initiatives like this certificate course can foster deeper understanding between India and the international community. The Jindal India Institute aims to deliver comprehensive expert-led training programmes that spread international awareness of and support for India's extraordinary accomplishments and potential. Our mission is to enhance India's leadership role in the world through thought-provoking and educative courses such as these, which can open the eyes of the international community and win more friends for India globally." (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by OP Jindal University. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal and his Bhutanese counterpart Dasho Tashi Wangmo co-chaired the India-Bhutan, Commerce Secretary Level Meeting (CSLM) in Thimphu on Friday, where they decided to expedite development of cross-border and connectivity infrastructure, commerce ministry said in a statement. Commerce Secretary Barthwal paid an official visit to Bhutan from September 27 to 28, 2024. Key discussions held during the meeting include expediting development of cross-border trade and connectivity infrastructure including establishment of an Integrated Check Post in Jaigaon-Phuentsholing and rail-links between Kokrajhar-Gelephu and Banarhat-Samtse. Discussions were held to notify LCS Hatisar and LCS Darranga, as additional routes for import of areca nut in India from Bhutan; to notify LCS Darranga as additional Point of Entry for import of food items in India from Bhutan. India agreed to notifying LCS at Samrang, following upgradation of necessary infrastructure; consideration of notification of LCS Jaigaon for import of scrap in India from Bhutan; establishment of border haats along India-Bhutan border; facilitation of movement of businesspersons; consideration of import of boulders from Bhutan to India; inclusion of three additional species of timber for import from Bhutan to India; In the discussion, the issue of deployment of personnel for Phyto Quarantine Inspection Services (PQIS) at LCS Darranga also came up, besides early operationalisation of Agreement for recognition of official control exercised by Bhutan Food and Drug Authority (BFDA) by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), signed in March 2024; expedite finalization of agreement between National Seed Centre, Bhutan and Brahmaputra Valley Fertilizer Corporation Limited, India for supply of fertilizers to Bhutan; The two sides held wide-ranging discussions on all aspects of the bilateral trade partnership including measures to further strengthen cross-border infrastructure, enhance connectivity and facilitate trade between the two countries. The two sides positively assessed the progress in bilateral trade, commerce, connectivity and investment partnership. They noted recent signing of bilateral MoU on general supply of Petroleum, Oil, Lubricants (POL) and related products from India to Bhutan; Agreement for recognition of official control exercised by Bhutan Food and Drug Authority (BFDA) by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI); finalisation of text of the MoU on establishment of rail-links between India and Bhutan. Both sides expressed satisfaction at bilateral cooperation in ensuring smooth supply of essential commodities to and from Bhutan, including potato, wheat, sugar, non-basmati rice, fertiliser, coal. The two sides reaffirmed commitment to further strengthen trade linkages, boost connectivity and facilitate cross-border movement of goods, services and people. The two sides agreed to hold the next such meeting in India at a mutually convenient date. The visit of the Commerce Secretary to Bhutan is in keeping with the well-established tradition of regular exchanges between Bhutan and India, and to further strengthen the existing close ties of friendship and cooperation between the two countries. (ANI) BusinessWire India New Delhi [India], September 27: Reinforcing its commitment to social welfare and community engagement, Fiinovation, a leading research-based consulting firm specializing in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), successfully hosted its 9th Annual Blood Donation Camp in collaboration with Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital at Okhla Phase III, New Delhi. This initiative aligns with Fiinovation's larger goal of driving impactful social change by addressing critical public health needs. The blood donation drive, themed "Blood Donation: Simple Act, Huge Impact," is part of Fiinovation's ongoing effort to contribute to the increasing demand for blood and blood products in hospitals across the country. By raising awareness around the necessity of safe blood donations, the campaign underscores the company's dedication to creating a healthier, more resilient society. Soumitro Chakraborty, Founder and CEO of Fiinovation, expressed his pride in the initiative, "We are honored to continue our tradition of organizing blood donation camps, especially in light of the growing need for blood supplies. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), India faces a critical shortage, requiring approximately 12 million units of blood annually. This shortage impacts thousands of lives each year, contributing to fatalities in cases ranging from road accidents to major surgeries and pregnancy complications, as well as patients suffering from disorders like sickle cell anemia, thalassemia, and hemophilia. With the current outbreak of Chikungunya adding pressure to blood banks, the importance of such drives cannot be overstated. I extend my heartfelt thanks to the Fiinovation team, volunteers, and the officials from Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital who made this possible." This year's blood donation drive coincided with Fiinovation's Foundation Day and came at a crucial time, as the national capital grapples with a significant Dengue outbreak. In its ninth consecutive year, the initiative continues to build on its legacy of contributing to society by addressing urgent healthcare challenges. Fiinovation remains dedicated to sustaining and expanding its efforts in the future. (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) In a heartfelt tribute to its founder, the Yash Chopra Foundation (YCF) has announced the launch of an initiative--the YCF Scholarship Program--on what would have been Yash Chopra's 92nd birthday. This new program is designed to support the children of Hindi film industry workers from low-income backgrounds, ensuring that the contributions of these unsung heroes are recognized and valued. To be eligible for this scholarship, applicants must be children of registered members of the Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE), according to YRF's team. The program aims to provide comprehensive financial assistance to deserving students, enabling them to pursue undergraduate and postgraduate studies in a range of disciplines, including Mass Communication, Filmmaking, Production and Direction, Visual Arts, Cinematography, and Animation. Each successful candidate will receive a support package of up to Rs 5 lakh, a contribution toward their educational expenses. Akshaye Widhani, CEO of Yash Raj Films said, "The legendary filmmaker and our founder Yash Chopra always believed in giving back to the Hindi film industry in whichever way possible. His philosophy is ingrained in our company's culture." He added, "So, on his 92nd birth anniversary, we are happy to embark on a mission to empower kids of the Hindi film fraternity. We are confident that this initiative will inspire and empower deserving students to follow their dreams and subsequently make a mark in our film industry." The selection process will involve personalised interviews. It was Yash Chopra who redefined Indian cinema by spreading romance and love through his films. From 'DDLJ's Raj-Simran to Veer-Zaara, the late director had given many iconic love stories to Hindi cinema in his career spanning around six decades. Yash Chopra is a name that will forever be etched in the books of Indian cinema. He died on October 21, 2012, just a month before the release of his last film, 'Jab Tak Hai Jaan'. (ANI) From being part of Mani Ratnam's 'Roja', 'Bombay' to Kamal Haasan's 'Thevar Magan', and many others, Nasser has proved himself a pan-Indian actor. The veteran actor is currently in Abu Dhabi for the IIFA Awards 2024, where he talked about the reach of Indian movies and how people across the world are watching these films. In a conversation with ANI, he said, "It's not even pan-Indian films, it's global films. So it has gone beyond the pan-Indian film. It's a global film because I see people abroad, they watch even if it be Malaysian or Indonesian or Britisher they are watching Indian films with great eagerness and so it's a global film." Nasser has worked with acclaimed filmmakers like Mani Ratnam. Recently, he completed a project with him titled 'Thug Life' also starring Kamal Haasan. He shared his working experience with him and said, "I have just wrapped up a film with Mani Ratnam sir. It is called 'Thug Life' with Mr Kamal Haasan." While praising the vision of Mani Ratnam, he added, "He is a great. He has gone beyond the ages. He has been there for very long and he is so mature. It was wonderful to work with him after a very long time. He will be there like his films forever." Nasser made his acting debut in K. Balachander's 'Kalyana Agathigal' in 1985. His breakthrough performance was in Mani Ratnam's 'Nayakan'. He worked in Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan's projects including 'Roja' , 'Thevar Magan', 'Bombay' , 'Kuruthipunal', and 'Iruvar'. The new edition of the International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA) will take place in the Arab city from September 27 to September 29. The three-day gala has started today with IIFA Utsavam, an event dedicated to southern film industries- Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. Megastar Chiranjeevi will be honoured at the event. On the second day, stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Vicky Kaushal and Karan Johar will come on stage to entertain the audience with their hosting stint at the IIFA Awards night. Interestingly, the second day will also see Rekha returning to the IIFA stage after a long time. (ANI) Maggie Smith, best known for her role as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films has passed away at the age of 89, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Smith's extraordinary career spanned over six decades, earning her two Oscars, four Emmys, and a reputation as one of the greatest talents in film and television history. Apart from her role as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, the actors was also best known for her role as the sharp-witted Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in the hit series Downton Abbey. Her work in these roles made her a household name to a new generation of fans, but her career started long before, and her early accomplishments were equally remarkable. Smith earned her first Academy Award for Best Actress in 1970 for her portrayal of an eccentric and strong-willed schoolmistress in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969). Nearly a decade later, she won a second Oscar, this time for Best Supporting Actress, for her role in California Suite (1978). In this film, she played an Oscar-nominated actress attending the awards ceremony, a role that brought her both critical praise and her second Academy Award. Over her career, Smith was nominated for four other Oscars, including for her work in Travels With My Aunt (1972), Othello (1965), A Room With a View (1985), and Gosford Park (2001). Her performances ranged from tragedy to comedy, showcasing her incredible versatility as an actor. Smith could easily move between dramatic roles that delved into deep emotions and comedies that brought out her characters' quirks and wit. Despite her incredible talent, Maggie Smith was famously press-shy, often avoiding media appearances and promotion tours. This became a running joke at the 2016 Emmys when host Jimmy Kimmel made fun of her absence, saying no one would win unless they accepted the award in person. Smith wasn't there to collect her Emmy that night, but she still won and responded to the joke with good humor. Her career extended far beyond the screen, with notable performances in theater as well. In 1990, Smith won a Tony Award for Best Actress for her role in Lettice and Lovage, further establishing her as a force on the stage. Her ability to perform a wide range of characters, from serious to comedic, made her one of the most admired British actors of her time. In recognition of her contribution to drama, Queen Elizabeth II honored Smith with the title of "Dame" in 1989. In 2014, she received another prestigious title, becoming a member of the Order of Companions of Honor, an honor shared with other notable British figures like Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judi Dench. Throughout her career, Smith played a variety of memorable roles in films. She was part of the ensemble cast in Murder by Death (1976), starred as the strict yet humorous Mother Superior in Sister Act (1992), and appeared in Hook (1991) alongside Robin Williams as Granny Wendy. Later in her career, she played a cantankerous retiree in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), delighting audiences with her wit and charm. Her television work was also impressive. In addition to her Emmy-winning role in Downton Abbey, Smith starred in My House in Umbria, which also earned her an Emmy Award. She was nominated for other television roles, including as Mrs. Venable in Suddenly Last Summer and as Betsey Trotwood in the BBC miniseries David Copperfield, where she worked alongside a young Daniel Radcliffe before he was cast as Harry Potter. Maggie Smith's personal life was marked by her long-lasting marriage to playwright Beverley Cross, whom she married in 1975 and stayed with until his death in 1998. Before that, she was married to actor Robert Stephens, with whom she had two sons, both of whom followed in her footsteps and became actors themselves. Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens have enjoyed successful careers in film and television, carrying on their mother's legacy in the acting world. (ANI) Actor Vicky Kaushal is all set to host the IIFA Awards 2024 alongside Shah Rukh Khan and Karan Johar. While speaking to the media during the press conference, the 'Zara Hatke Zara Bachke' actor expressed his excitement about hosting the cinematic extravaganza along with none other than the superstar of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan. He said, " IIFA has always been very special for me. The first ever award I received as an actor was with IIFA for my debut film and my first-ever Best Actor award was with IIFA. I hosted IIFA last time and I am hosting this time..but this time it is more special because I am hosting with the most special human being and that's Shah Rukh Khan." The recent press conference held in Abu Dhabi was full of glitz and glam with several stars gracing the event. The attendees included Ananya Panday, Vicky Kaushal, Shahid Kapoor, Kriti Sanon, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Raashii Khanna, and many more. Kriti Sanon also looked excited as she mentioned, "I am very excited and my speech is somewhat going to be similar to Vicky because this is my third time in Abu Dhabi and...I am excited about performing as well but I am also excited about two other people, ....of course, Mr Shah Rukh Khan hosting...I've seen him performing and hosting multiple award shows from my childhood when I used to watch him on TV and he's doing it after very, very long time and I'm really, really excited to see him. There's no one better than him and another performance that I'm very excited about is Rekha ma'am. I have seen her performing once at IIFA in Bangkok. Abu Dhabi you are going to witness the most magical performance of your life because she is too good like there is no one like her and I'm gonna be there watching her perform from the front seat." Another thing that grabbed the attention of the audience was looking at Vicky and Shahid performing on the stage. Vicky made Shahid dance to the hit song Saree Ke Fall Sa, while Shahid had Vicky sing and perform his peppy track 'Tauba Tauba' from 'Bad Newz'. The video was shared on the official Instagram handle of IIFA. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAaqKgDs5nc/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== The new edition of the International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA) will take place in the Arab city from September 27 to September 29. The three-day gala is starting with IIFA Utsavam, an event dedicated to southern film industries- Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. Megastar Chiranjeevi will be honoured at the event. On the second day, stars including Shah Rukh Khan, Vicky Kaushal and Karan Johar will come on stage to entertain the audience with their hosting stint at the IIFA Awards night. Interestingly, the second day will see Rekha returning to the IIFA stage after a long time. Shahid Kapoor, Kriti Sanon, Ananya Panday, Janhvi Kapoor and Vicky will also be adding charm to the gala night with their performances. IIFA 2024 will be concluded on September 29 with the exclusive, invitation-only IIFA Rocks. Artists such as Honey Singh, Shilpa Rao and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy will perform live for the audience. (ANI) A peculiar child custody case has unfolded in the Delhi High Court, where a man claimed that his sister-in-law is the mother of his minor son. The court ordered the production of the child before it today. The petitioner, married and living with his wife in Calcutta, has two children with his sister-in-law. He seeks custody of his younger son, who was allegedly taken from his care in Bihar by his sister-in-law. The child has expressed his desire to live with the petitioner. The Delhi High Court on Thursday directed the authorities to produce a minor child before it on Friday. The order has been passed in plea of habeas corpus seeking production of his minor son. It is stated that the minor child is son of the petitioner and his sister-in-law. Division bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Amit Sharma directed the authorities to produce the child, who is at Children Home for Boys at Alipur, Delhi. The bench also directed the sister-in-law to appear before the court. The petitioner has moved a petition through advocate Umesh Chandra Sharma and Dinesh Kumar. A writ of habeas corpus can be used in child custody matters if it is proven that the detention of a minor by a parent or others was illegal and without authority of law. However, there is no hard and fast rule on the maintainability of a habeas corpus petition in child custody matters. He is seeking issuance of direction for production of his minor son, who is currently residing in Children Home for Boys (CHB), in terms of order dated August 8, 2024, by the Child Welfare Committee-VI (CWC), North-West Delhi. The bench noted in the order that the facts of this case are peculiar. The petitioner is stated to be married and living with his wife in Calcutta, along with their two children. It is stated by the Petitioner that Respondent No. 2 is his sister-in-law. Further, it is also submitted that the petitioner has two sons from Respondent No. 2, and thepresent petition has been filed seeking production of the younger son. The petitioner said that his minor son lived in Kolkata along with him for the past 12 years, and that during summer vacations he along with his minor son were in Bihar, from where the said minor child was removed from his custody by Respondent No. 2 (sister-in-law). Advocate Umesh Chandra Sharma submitted that a complaint was lodged by him on June 1, 2024 and June 4, 2024 at Police Station (PS) Roshara, Samastipur, Bihar. It was also stated that the escort order dated July 29, 2024 was passed by the CWC, Hooglyin West Bengal, and finally, by way of order of August 16, 2024, the CWC, Delhi has directed the concerned minor child to be placed in CHB, Alipur, Delhi. It was argued by the petitioner that the said minor child has always lived with him and wishes to continue living with him. The minor child has, in fact, given a statement to this effect. Standing counsel Sanjay Lao, handed over a status report dated September 25, 2024 authored by SHO, PS Shalimar Bagh, and the same is taken on record. As per the said status report, the statement of the child has been recorded before CWC, Kolkata, stating that he was forcibly taken to Delhi. He doesn't wish to live with respondent 2. After considering the facts, the bench directed that the petitioner and his legally wedded wife shall also appear before the court on the next date of hearing. It permitted the petitioner to meet the concerned minor child at CHB, Alipur. (ANI) Punjab State Women Commission Raj Lali Gill on Thursday wrote to President Droupadi Murmu recommending the immediate removal of the Vice-Chancellor of Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Prof Jai Shankar Singh, following the allegations that he violated the privacy of female students at their hostel during his visit. "The Punjab State Women's Commission, exercising its powers under 'Section 10 of the Punjab State Women Commission Act, 2001, is mandated to take 'suo moto' cognizance of matters concerning violations of women's rights, dignity, and safety. In line with this mandate, the Commission has taken suo moto notice of a recent incident involving the Vice-Chancellor of the Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Patiala, following media reports and student complaints," stated the letter to the President. The protest was sparked by the VC's unannounced entry into the girls' hostel, prompting students to voice concerns about his behavior, including derogatory comments and discouragement of extracurricular activities. "...The students are demanding that they will not stop the protest till the time when the VC is in -charge. The students want the powers of the VC should be taken and he should be asked to resign. Since the dialogue has failed and VC has not done anything after our intervention, I recommend that he should resign. I have written to President Droupadi Murmu and the copy has been given to the Chief Minister as well..." said Gill. "On 25th September 2024, the Commission visited the university and met with the university authorities, the district administration, and the affected students. This visit was in response to an incident that occurred on 22nd September 2024, where the Vice-Chancellor conducted an unannounced inspection of the girls' hostel without prior intimation to the hostel warden and the students. During this inspection, he not only entered the rooms of the female students but also made inappropriate and derogatory remarks regarding their attire, suggesting they should not wear certain types of clothes," the letter," the letter added. Gill, Chairperson of the Punjab State Commission for Women, visited the campus of RGNUL to hear students' grievances about the VC's unsolicited entry into the girls' hostel building and allegations of misogynistic and sexist remarks uttered by him. "This conduct has caused significant distress among the students and is viewed as a violation of their privacy and modesty. The Commission finds the Vice-Chancellor's actions highly inappropriate and a clear overstep of his administrative role. His behaviour has led to serious concerns regarding the safety, dignity, and rights of the female students, and it has eroded their trust in the university's leadership," said the letter. The state's Human Rights Commission has also filed a complaint against Singh, demanding action and protection of the privacy rights of female students. "From the circumstances, it appears to be a violation of fundamental rights of the female students and this Commission takes cognisance of the same and the inquiry of the same be marked to the Deputy Commissioner Patiala, who may look into the same and submit his report before the next date of hearing," read the order from the Commission. Student protest at Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law in Patiala continued for the fifth day on Thursday. Students have been demanding the resignation of Vice-Chancellor Jai Shankar Singh, alleging that he violated the privacy of female students at their hostel during his visit. Meanwhile, the university has announced that it will open today, September 27. "All the faculty and staff members are hereby informed that the university will reopen with effect from September 27 and classes shall be held as per time table," RGNUL said in an official notice. (ANI) Delhi's Patiala House Court on Thursday called for a medical report from Rohini Jail on an application moved for Ranchi doctor Ishteyaque Ahmed. He has alleged that his eardrum was damaged due to the physical torture during police custody. He is an accused in AQIS Training Module case and in judicial custody alongwith ten other accused. Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Dr Hardeep Kaur called for a medical report from jail authorities and listed the matter on Friday for hearing. Advocate Abu Baker Sabaq moved an application for Dr Ishteyaque Ahmed. It was stated that due to the lack of proper medication and medical care, the applicant continues to face severe health issues, including high blood pressure. The health condition requires urgent and appropriate medical support, the plea stated. He sought direction to ensure that the applicant receives the required medical treatment to address the ongoing health issues, including high blood pressure, spinal pain, and the eardrum of the left side, which was damaged due to physical abuse/blatant hit during police remand. It is also prayed to the court to allow the advocate/family member of the applicant to provide medicines to the applicant in Rohini jail as per the two medical prescriptions of the doctors. Meanwhile, the court extended the judicial remand of 11 accused till October 9. Accused were produced before the court after expiry of judicial custody. The accused are alleged to be members of a training module allegedly headed by Dr Ishtiyaque of Ranchi, Jharkhand. Accused sent in judicial custody are Anamul Ansari, Shanaz Ansari, Altaf Ansari, Hasan Ansari, Arshad Khan, Umar Farooq, Ishteyaque Ahmed, Mohd. Rizwan, Motiur Rehaman, Rehmatullahi and Faizan Ahmed. They were arrested in August. Delhi police sought the extension of judicial custody of all accused persons. Advocate Abu Baker Sabaq appeared for Dr Ishteyaque Ahmed and seven other accused. Accused Hasan Ansari, Anamul Ansari, Altaf Ansari, Arshad Khan, Umar Farooq and Shahbaz Ansari are natives of Jharkhand. In a coordinated, intelligence based operation conducted by the Special Cell of Delhi Police in association with State Police forces of Jharkhand, Rajasthan, and UP, an AQ-inspired module was busted, Delhi police said. The module allegedly was being led by one Dr Ishtiyaque of Ranchi and was aspiring to declare Khilafat and execute serious terrorist activities within the country, the police said. The members of the module have received indoctrination and weapons training at various locations. Six individuals were detained from Bhiwadi, Rajasthan, while actually undergoing weapon-handling training. Eight suspects were detained from Jharkhand and UP for questioning. Police have also recovered arms, ammunition, literature, etc. from several locations, including one AK-47 rifle. (ANI) Following the arrest of Abhijit Mondal, the former Officer-in-Charge (O/C) of Tala Police Station, in connection with the RG Kar Medical College rape and murder case, Malay Kumar Dutta has been appointed as the new Officer-in-Charge. His appointment came through an official order issued by the Commissioner of Kolkata Police on Thursday.. The order read: "Malay Kumar Dutta, Inspector of Police (I-Cadre), Addl. O/C, Shyampukur PS, North Division, Kolkata Police, presently looking after the work of the office of the O/C, Tala PS, North Division, Kolkata Police, in addition to his own duties, is posted as Officer-in-Charge, Tala PS, North Division, Kolkata Police, with immediate effect in the interest of public service." Meanwhile, on Wednesday, both Sandip Ghosh, the former Principal of RG Kar Medical College, and the arrested Officer-in-Charge, Abhijit Mondal, were transferred to the Presidency Jail from the Sealdah Court. Mondal and Ghosh were arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the rape and murder of a woman doctor at RG Kar Medical College. Earlier this week, the West Bengal Medical Council cancelled Sandip Ghosh's medical practitioner registration. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) also initiated a search operation at Ghosh's residence in Chinar Park, Kolkata. This operation was linked to a separate investigation into financial irregularities at RG Kar Medical College. The ED had registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to investigate alleged money laundering involving Ghosh. On September 10, a CBI court remanded Sandip Ghosh and three others to judicial custody in connection with financial irregularities at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. The CBI's investigation into these matters followed a directive from a single bench of the Calcutta High Court, which ordered a probe into allegations of corruption and financial mismanagement at the institution. Abhijit Mondal, was suspended by the Kolkata Police on September 18 after his arrest by the CBI on September 14. He was produced before the Sealdah Court on Sunday along with Ghosh. (ANI) The Union Health Ministry has released an advisory for all states and union territories on the Mpox disease after India became the third non-African country to report a case of clade 1b Mpox infection recently. The Department of Health and Family Welfare on September 26 in its advisory has directed that all suspected Mpox cases be isolated and strict infection prevention and control measures be put in place. It has provided a list of laboratories operationalized for testing. The advisory includes clinical management protocols, infection prevention and control practices, as well as a risk communication strategy. The Health Ministry stated that the World Health Organisation had on August 14, 2024 announced that the current outbreak of Mpox disease was a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). This is the second time such Mpox disease associated with PHEIC has been declared by the WHO under the International Health Regulations, 2005, to which India is a signatory. The ministry has instructed the states to assess public health preparedness at health facilities, with reviews to be conducted by senior officials at both the state and district levels. The ministry has also directed the identification of isolation facilities in hospitals for managing both suspected and confirmed cases, ensuring the availability of required logistics and trained human resources in such facilities and developing an augmentation plan. The Ministry, in its letter, said that as per available information, clinical presentation of Mpox clade I in adults remains similar to clade II. However, the rate of complications may be higher in clade I than with clade II infections. This is the second time such a Mpox disease-associated PHEIC has been declared by WHO under the International Health Regulations, 2005 to which India is a signatory. The previous Mpox outbreak that started in 2002 was caused by Mpox virus clade II. The 2024 PHEIC is related to MPox virus clade I which is more virulent and more transmissible than Mpox clade II, the release further added. The clade has been found Democratic Republic Of Congo (DRC) only during the current outbreak, and outside Africa, one case each of Mpox clade 1 B has been recently reported from Sweden and Thailand. India is the third non-African country to report a case of 1b Mpox infection recently. As per available information, clinical representation of Mpox clade I in adults remains similar to clade II, however, the rate of complications may be higher in I than with clade II infections, as per the release. The Ministry has listed out key public health actions are required to be undertaken to prevent and minimise the risk of further spread of Mpox in the country. These include reviewing the public health preparedness, particularly at health facility levels at state and district levels by senior officials, identification of isolation facilities in hospitals for taking care of the suspects and confirmed cases, availability of required logistics and trained human resources in facilities and augmentation plan. All suspected Mpox cases should be isolated and strict infection prevention and control measures should be put in place; treatment is symptomatic and available treatment guidelines should be followed, as per the advisory. Samples from skin lesions of any patient with the suspected symptoms of Mpox should be sent to the designated labs immediately, and for those that test positive a sample should be sent to designated labs immediately, and the positive sample should be sent to ICMR-NIV for genome sequencing to determine the clade. Robust diagnostic testing capability is already available; 36 labs supported by ICMR across the country and three commercial PCR kits validated by ICMR that are now approved by CDSCO, as per the Union Ministry's advisory to states and union territories. The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said it will continue to monitor the situation closely and we will extend all requisite support in this regard to states and UTs. (ANI) The membership drive of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) here on Friday witnessed an unprecedented response of 5,18,994 people. Taking to X to make the announcement, CM Manik Saha wrote in a post "Our BJP family is on the cusp of a monumental achievement--5,18,944 members strong & growing! I extend heartfelt gratitude to our Karyakartas & members for their relentless efforts. Your hard work & commitment are shaping India's future. Keep shining!" On September 24, 4,00,000 people here had joined the party. From Dharmanagar to Sabroom, the campaign has sparked enthusiastic participation among the people of the state. Chief Minister Manik Saha is himself engaging with the public to bolster the initiative. This initiative by the Chief Minister, aimed at strengthening the party's organisational base while managing governance, has greatly inspired party workers at all levels. Speaking to ANI, CM Saha said that they are aiming to enrol around 1.2 million members in Tripura, with 500 new members at each booth. He also exuded confidence in meeting the target. "On September 2, Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself launched the membership drive, and the following day I began the membership campaign in Tripura. Previously, approximately 650,000 people accepted membership in the BJP, and this time the target has been increased in Tripura and at the central level," CM Saha said. "This year, we aim to enrol about 1.2 million members in Tripura. We are working at various levels in different mandals, and our target is to ensure a minimum of 500 new members at each booth. I am personally visiting various locations to facilitate the membership process, which is also available online until September 25. Given the enthusiasm for membership, I firmly believe we will meet our target," he added. The Chief Minister further urged the people of the state to join the membership drive. (ANI) The Assam government has accepted 1951 as the cut-off year for implementation of the recommendations of the Justice (Retd) Biplab Sharma committee for Clause 6 of the Assam Accord. A crucial meeting between the Assam government and the leadership of All Assam Students' Union (AASU) was held on Wednesday at Lok Sewa Bhawan in Guwahati for implementation of the recommendations of the Justice (Retd) Biplab Sharma committee for Clause 6 of the Assam Accord. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that, "The State Government has already implemented some of the recommendations of the Justice (Retd) Biplab Sarma Committee such as having 1951 as the cutoff year for several of schemes. For instance, this has been incorporated in Mission Basundhara." "As per the recommendations of the Justice (Retd) Biplab Sharma Committee, the state government has accepted 1951 as a cut-off year and it is already in Mission Basundhara and we are doing that for last 3 years itself. We have formally discussed, but on spirit we are already implementing the recommendation. So, we have accepted the cut-off year of 1951 in the context of specific recommendation. It is not that when you go to apply for a licence you have to show 1951, when you have to go to a restaurant you have to show 1951, it is not that, only in regard to the specific recommendation of 1951. But we have not accepted 1951 as a general cut-off date for day to day life of Assam, which we can't do," Himanta Biswa Sarma said. He further said that, in last assembly, the state government has passed three land bills where the government has made 1951 as a cut-off year. "We have not mentioned 1951, but we said three generations, three generations mean one generation is 25 years, so it is 1951. But going to voting, apply for job nobody will ask 1951. There is nothing to be created a panic that you have accepted 1951. Because Justice (Retd) Biplab Sharma Committee report has not said that you adopt 1951 as a general day to day life, he has only said that, so far as these recommendations are concerned and these recommendations are very few, you take 1951 as a cut-off year," Dr Sarma said. The Assam Chief Minister also said that - "Assam has decided to implement the recommendations of the Justice (Retd) Biplab Sharma Committee with regards to Clause 6 of the Assam Accord. Of the recommendations to be adopted - 1. 40 are exclusively in the domain of the State Government. For the implementation of these we have chalked out a roadmap; 2. 12 will require the concurrence of the Government India; 3. 15 are exclusively in the domain of the Government of India. We will take up these matters with the Centre at the right forum." The Justice (Retd) Biplab Sharma committee report stated that - "Considering the claims, objections and suggestions of different stakeholders, the Committee formed the opinion that the term 'Assamese People' as it appears in the Accord needs no explanation in the sense it is understood. Assamese People are those (i) who are generally referred to as Assamese; (ii) those who are indigenous tribal/ ethnic groups of Assam and (iii) those who are other indigenous people of Assam having their roots to pre-1951 period. While the first two groups have no problem of identification and need no identification parameters, but the third group will have to be identified in reference to their roots to pre-1951 origin. At this stage, it will be pertinent to refer to the definition of the term 'Indigenous person of Assam' which finds mention in the census report pertaining to Assam, Manipur and Tripura presented by the then Indian Civil Service Officer, R. B. Vaghaiwalla, Director of Census of the Census Report, 1951, which reads as - 'Indigenous person of Assam means a person belonging to the State of Assam and speaking the Assamese Language or any tribal dialect of Assam or in the case of Cachar the language of the region'." "It is on the basis of this aforesaid census report, the National Register of Citizens, 1951 was prepared. This found mention in the address of the then Chief Minister of Assam, Bishnuram Medhi, made to the enumerators (Gananakari) in which he categorically stated that the National Register of Census would be prepared on the basis of the said census report," said in the Committee report. On July 15, 2019, the Union Home Ministry had constituted the High Level Committee under Chairmanship of Justice (Retd) Biplab Sharma in respect of Clause 6 of Assam Accord and on February 20, 2020, the committee had submitted its report to the then Assam Chief on implementation of Clause 6 of the Assam Accord. "As per the recommendations of Justice (Retd) Biplab Sharma Committee, protection of land, culture and language rights are with the State Govt and we have already undertaken efforts in this direction over and beyond the recommendations," Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said. (ANI) Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami participated in the "Parivartan Sabha" organised in Kundhit here for the Nala Assembly Constituency on Thursday. Addressing a huge crow of hundreds of people, the Uttarakhand Chief Minister said that he had come among everyone from the holy land of Baba Kedar in Uttarakhand. He said that seeing the people of the Kundhit region and their love, there is a flow of energy. "The campaign launched by the BJP of Jharkhand should not stop," he said. Further, he added that Devbhoomi Uttarakhand and Jharkhand state came into existence together. "Both the states are famous for their ancient culture. Jharkhand has a glorious history of immense forest wealth, natural resources, and the courage of tribal society. Our tribal people were the first to raise their voice against the British," Dhami said. The Chief Minister said that after the independence of the country, the tribal society was not taken care of. "Former Prime Minister Late Atal Bihari Vajpayee has worked to advance the development of the state and tribal society by creating the state of Jharkhand. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has worked continuously to increase the respect and self-respect of the tribal society. We are proud that the daughter of the tribal society, respected Draupadi Murmu, is the President of the country. All this has been possible under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi," he said. Further, he added that the Prime Minister Modi had declared the birth anniversary of Lord Birsa Munda as Janjati Gaurav Diwas. "Many museums have been built for tribal freedom fighters for 200 crores. The work of bringing the people of the tribal society into the mainstream is going on under the leadership of the Prime Minister," Dhami said. The Chief Minister also said that under the leadership of the Prime Minister Modi, many schemes are being run by the Central Government, keeping the tribal society at the centre. "Work is being done to take people forward through many schemes like Jan Dhan Yojana, Ujjwala Yojana, Ayushman Yojana, and PM Awas Yojana. Today's schemes are not just on paper but are a guarantee of Prime Minister Modi. Work is being done to take Jharkhand forward under the leadership of the Prime Minister. Work has been done around in Jharkhand for infrastructure development, highways, elevated roads, renovation and reconstruction of 57 new railway stations, connectivity of Vande Bharat train in the state, foundation stone of 20 Eklavya residential schools, construction of AIIMS in Deoghar," Pushkar Dhami said. The Chief Minister said that under the Ayushman Bharat scheme, cards of one crore two lakh people have been made in Jharkhand state, and houses have been constructed for 55 lakh people under the housing scheme. Further, he said "More than 38 lakh families have been given gas cylinders for free. Pure water is being supplied to 32 lakh families. More than 30 lakh farmers are getting Samman Nidhi. More than 33000 kilometres of road have been constructed under the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana. About 340 km of road has been constructed in the Jamtara area. About 88 thousand farmers in Jamtara district have been given Samman Nidhi of Rs 154 crore. Along with the schemes, the Prime Minister has also taken many tough and big decisions in the interest of the country." The Uttarakhand Chief Minister said that on one side there is the BJP under the leadership of respected Prime Minister Modi, who gives priority to the public welfare by doing development, and on the other side there is appeasement, nepotism, JMM, RJD, and the Congress gang, which are immersed in corruption. "The Jharkhand government and the opposition are conspiring to play with the demography of Jharkhand. Infiltrators are being given shelter under the protection of the Jharkhand government. The opposition people are conspiring to hand over the land, resources and culture of the tribals to the infiltrators. These infiltrators are also playing with the lives of our daughters," Dhami said. The Uttarakhand Chief Minister said that in many areas of this region slogans of "Hindus and tribals leave Jharkhand" are raised. "The Jharkhand government and its opposition allies are protecting such people. Infiltration in Jharkhand will fill up with a large number of infiltrators in the coming times. Earlier, the number of tribals in this area had come down from 44 to 28 percent. This is a big question...? We all have to find the answer to this question together. The Jharkhand government has always cheated the tribals. More than two lakh government posts are vacant in Jharkhand. All these posts will be filled when the BJP government comes. He said that the corrupt government of Jharkhand distributes papers by taking money. The Chief Minister of Jharkhand has been to jail in many scams and has come out on bail," he said. Further, the Uttarakakhand Chief Minister said that there is a conspiracy to stop Durga Puja in Ranchi. "The Congress and JMM government conspire to not set up Durga Puja pandals," he said. Dhami urged the people to form a BJP government in Jharkhand. (ANI) The newly-appointed president of the Indian Youth Congress, Uday Bhanu Chib, has said that the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly election is being fought by the people against the dictatorial BJP government at the Centre. "The Congress-NC alliance is going to form government (in Jammu and Kashmir) on 8th October. I hope that we will form government with a good majority. These elections are not being fought by the Congress or NC but by the people of Jammu and Kashmir against this dictatorial government," Chib told ANI. Before being appointed as president of the Indian Youth Congress, Chib was its Jammu and Kashmir chief. He thanked Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi for appointing him as the IYC chief. "First of all, I would like to thank Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge for giving this opportunity to a man from an ordinary family in Jammu," he said. He said that the IYC will take up the issues of paper leaks and unemployment and make the BJP-led Union Government accountable. Chib said the Congress-NC government will restore the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir. "Our manifesto says that as soon as we form our government, Congress will restore the statehood." Jammu and Kashmir is voting for its 90-member assembly in three phases. The first and the second phases of voting took place on September 18 and 25, respectively. Jammu and Kashmir is witnessing an interesting contest with several political parties and independents in the fray. NCP and Congress have forged a pre-poll alliance in the UT. These elections, the first since the abrogation of Article 370, are being held after nearly a decade in the Union Territory. Meanwhile, reacting to Union Home Minister Amit Shah's remarks that the National Conference (NC) and Congress alliance would "follow the agenda of Pakistan," NC Vice President Omar Abdullah on Thursday countered that the party would have pursued such an agenda 35 years ago if that were the case. "We don't expect anything more from the BJP. The National Conference is an organization that has made thousands of sacrifices over the last 35 years. If we had to follow Pakistan's agenda, we would have done so 35 years ago. Perhaps then, my more than 4,500 companions would not have been sacrificed," Abdullah said while speaking to reporters in Kupwara. "If Union Home Minister Amit Shah wants to ignore the sacrifices made by the National Conference, what can I do about it?" he added. The third and final phase of voting will take place on October 1, while the counting of votes will be held on October 8. Assembly elections are being held in the Union Territory nearly a decade after the last polls and are the first since the abrogation of Article 370. (ANI) . The Bagdogra police under Siliguri Police Commemorate on Thursday arrested two people for allegedly threatening and harassing two young men who came to Siliguri from Bihar to attend an exam.The accused have been identified as Rajat Bhattacharya and Giridhari Roy- residents of West Bengal's Siliguri are known to be linked to Bangla Pokkho, a pro-Bengali advocacy organization. The incident came to light after video of the youth went viral on social media, gaining widespread condemnation.In the video that has gone viral, the youth can be seen sleeping in a room when a group of miscreants enter and asked them whether they could understand Bengali. When one student replied that they couldn't, the miscreants began questioning them aggressively, claiming they shouldn't be taking exams in other states.One of the students attempted to explain that they had been assigned to the Siliguri exam center but was repeatedly asked to show his documents. The group claimed to be from the IB and harassed the youth. Biswachand Thakur, DCP of Siliguri Police, announced that two accused were arrested by Bagdogra police on Thursday evening following a complaint."On the basis of a complaint two persons were arrested by Bagdogra police on Thursday evening on the charge of threatening and harassing two youths claiming to IB, police officers. Further investigation is underway," Biswachand Thakur said.Meanwhile, the attack on the students has drawn widespread criticism from the BJP, which has expressed concern about the law and order situation in the Mamata Banerjee ruled state. Attacking the West Bengal Government, Union Minister Giriraj Singh said, "Red carpet for Rohingya Muslims in Bengal and Bihar kid beaten up for taking exam? Are these children not part of India? Has Mamata government taken the contract of only saving rapists?"Questioning the silence of the opposition over the incident, Union Minister Chirag Paswan, in a post on X wrote, "The news of brutal assault on Bihari students in West Bengal is very unfortunate and condemnable. The Chief Minister of that state has once again insulted the Biharis, which cannot be tolerated at all. I want to ask Mamata Banerjee ji, is it a crime to take an exam in West Bengal? Will the opposition party leaders still remain silent?"The LJP supremo asked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to get the case investigated an demanded "legal action" against the culprits "I want to ask the Leader of Opposition of Bihar, on what basis will you support the Trinamool Congress now. I request the Honorable Chief Minister Shri @NitishKumar ji to get the matter thoroughly investigated and take legal action against the culprits," Paswan wrote on X. (ANI) The Manipur Police is continuing its search and seizure operation in the firing and vulnerable areas of the state, in an effort to ensure peace. Search operations and area domination were conducted by security forces. The operations have led to the recovery of a substantial cache of arms and ammunitions. According to a post on X by Manipur Police, in one operation in Tekcham Maning Ching, Thoubal District; the following items were recovered: one 7.62mm SLR along with empty magazine, two SMG carbine along with two magazines, one .32 Pistol along with empty magazine, one 9mm Pistol along with empty magazine, one 51mm Para Bomb, four HE-36 hand grenades without detonator, two Tube Launchers, two electronic detonators, five STARDYNE-90 explosive weighing 125 gm each, twelve live ammunition rounds, one Stun grenade, one Stinger grenade, two 38 mm rubber bullets, three tear smoke shells, one Dummy shell, one Stun shell, two soft nose tear smoke shells, one tear smoke shell and one Baofeng set. The operation was conducted by Assam Rifles and Manipur Police. In an operation in Nalon, Churachandpur District, two Large heavy calibre country made Mortar, two No. 80 Grenade were seized in an operation by the Army, BSF and Manipur Police. In Haraothel and Lambung Hill Top, Kangpokpi District, one local made improvise projectile launcher of approx length 2.5 Mtrs along with tripod, eleven unused Bombs and ten empty cases were seized by Manipur Police and CRPF. In Suangdai (Tuikui Muallum) village Churachandpur District, one 9mm Pistol (Country made), one Single barrel Gun, Myanmar currency 6200-kyat, one BP Jacket, one Caumoflage pant, one Camouflage shirt were recovered by Manipur Police and Assam Rifles. In Salam Patong village under Nongpok Sekmai Police Station, Thoubal District; one IED was recovered by Assam Rifles. Meanwhile security forces also conducted search operations and Naka Checking in the fringe and vulnerable areas of hill and valley districts. According to a post by Manipur Police, movement of 95 and 303 vehicles along NH-37 and NH-2 respectively with essential items were ensured. Strict security measures are taken up in all vulnerable locations and security convoy is provided in sensitive stretches in order to ensure free and safe movement of the vehicles. A total of 109 Nakas/Checkpoints were installed in different Districts of Manipur, both in the hill and the valley. (ANI) Elections for Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) got underway on Friday following the Delhi High Court's decision to allow the university to conduct elections. Voting will be held from 8.30 am to 1 pm for morning shift students, while for the evening shift, it will be held from 3 pm to 7.30 pm. On Thursday, Delhi High Court allowed Delhi University (DU) to continue with the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) elections but has imposed a crucial condition--barring the university from counting votes until it satisfies the court that all posters, hoardings, graffiti, and other campaign-related materials have been removed and public property has been restored. Counting was scheduled to be held on Saturday. The court has also directed that EVMs and ballot boxes must be safely stored until further orders are issued. Appealing students to participate in elections, NSUI national president Varun Choudhary expressed confidence in winning four central panel seats in the DUSU. "Voting for DUSU elections is being held today. We can see that students are worried about paper leaks and fee hikes. NSUI is going to win all four seats today. DU students are going to vote for the NSUI panel...I appeal to all students to participate in elections in large numbers... I think that counting should be held tomorrow after polling today. Earlier too, we raised questions on DU administration. Who would keep the strong secure? Where would ballot papers be secured? "The court should ensure this too." NSUI national president Varun Choudhary said. Meanwhile, ABVP National General Secretary Yagywalkya Shukla accused the NSUI cadre of indulging hooliganism in few campuses of Delhi University. "Good news in the favour of ABVP is coming in from all campuses. Hooliganism by NSUI is going on at a few campuses and booth capture attempts are being made. NSUI is dejected, so they are indulging in hooliganism," ABVP General Secretary Shukla said. In the 2023 election, the ABVP had won three out of the four central panel seats, including the presidential post. Tushar Dedha of the ABVP was elected president, while NSUI's Abhi Dahiya, the only NSUI winner, was chosen vice president of the Students' Union. (ANI) Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Pramod Tiwari on Friday, welcomed the gesture of the Karnataka government for withdrawing the general consent for CBI to probe the matter of the alleged MUDA scam. "This is not the first time that a consent has been withdrawn. The Opposition and all the states have been saying that the central agencies are being misused... Whatever we have done is according to the law," he said. The Karnataka government on Thursday withdrew open consent to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct a probe in the state. Karnataka Law Minister HK Patil termed the Central Bureau of Investigation "biased" and said that the government has taken the decision to prevent CBI from taking the wrong path. "We are withdrawing open consent for CBI investigation in the state. We are expressing our concerns about the misuse of the CBI. In all the cases we have referred to the CBI, they have not filed charge sheets, leaving many cases pending. They have also refused to investigate several cases we have sent. There are numerous such instances. They are biased. That's why we are taking the decision. It's not because of the MUDA case. We have taken this decision to control them (CBI) from taking the wrong path," Patil said, addressing a press conference. Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar on Thursday said that they don't want the Central Bureau of Investigation to misuse its power. "It is not just Karnataka, the entire opposition parties across the country have taken this decision, given that, the Karnataka government has also taken this decision. We don't want the CBI to misuse its power," Shivakumar told ANI. Meanwhile, The Karnataka CM Siddaramiah has claimed that the BJP and JD(S) are targeting him because he stands for the poor and fights for social justice. On his X handle, Siddaramaiah posted, "They have launched political retribution against me because they can't bear to see the pro-people schemes we have introduced. But I have unwavering faith in the law and our Constitution. Ultimately, the truth will prevail in this fight. I want the people of Karnataka to recognise the truth behind these fabricated allegations regarding the MUDA case. The BJP and JD(S) are attempting to stop the pro-poor schemes of our government. The same leaders now calling for my resignation are the ones who opposed every initiative I introduced for the poor and marginalised.". Earlier, the Special Court in Bengaluru passed an order directing Karnataka Lokyukta to conduct an investigation against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on the allegation of illegalities in the allotment of 14 sites worth Rs 56 crore to his wife Parvathi by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA). (ANI) Ahead of fourth edition of Regional Industry Conclave to be held in Sagar on Friday, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav has expressed pleasure over getting significant response from conclaves saying that the state government has signed MoUs of over Rs 2 Lakh crores investment so far. The fourth Regional Industries Conclave of the state is being organised at Jawaharlal Nehru Police Academy Ground in Sagar on Friday. Industrialists and investors across India and abroad will participate in the conclave. Speaking to ANI, CM Yadav said, "Our focus is on the four categories specified by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Especially about looking for new job opportunities for youth in Madhya Pradesh and for welfare of the poor, women and farmers and all types of industries to be set up here and people get employment; the state generates revenue, GST increases and all parameters of development go forward." "We have organised regional industry conclaves from time to time so that its impact is seen in all the divisions and regions in the state. The kind of response that we have been getting on a large scale, I can say that we have signed MoUs of over Rs 2 Lakh Crores investment so far. This will continue. I am going to Sagar today. It is a part of Bundelkhand region and it is full of possibilities. We are encouraging all kinds of industries and all sectors," the CM said. "Besides this, the government is focussing on ensuring that students well versed in IT, AI, engineering services and high tech remain in the state itself and their capabilities be utilised. I am satisfied that many industrialists are arriving here who have been in these businesses for a long time. We have received a major proposal for a data centre in Sagar. We hope that with the results, after Sagar will go ahead with Rewa, Narmadapuram, Hoshangabad, Shahdol," he further said. The MP CM said that the focus is on the district level and responsibilities have been allocated to district collectors. "We will further focus on the district level. We have given the responsibility to district collectors to solve the problems in the district so that industries can be set up at earliest. Every person can get work according to their ability and ample opportunities to be created for business. I am quite hopeful that we will double our economy within three years and we are moving forward with the same target," he said. Notably, the Regional Industry Conclaves are being held in the state as a pre-event of the "Invest Madhya Pradesh-Global Investor Summit-2025". GIS-2025 is proposed to be organised in Bhopal on February 7 and 8 next year. The main objective of the GIS-2025 Summit is to establish Madhya Pradesh as a favourable investment destination and to include it among the leading states of the country by highlighting the capabilities, abundant resources and favourable industrial environment of the state. The first edition of Regional Industry Conclave was organised in Ujjain on March 1 and 2 this year. Later, the conclave was held in Jabalpur on July 20 and then in Gwalior last month on August 28. (ANI) Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Friday lashed out at the Bhartiya Janata party government for targeting the Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in the MUDA scam, and asked the party to first probe corruption charges against former Karanataka CM Yediyurappa.Shiv Sena (UBT), an INDIA alliance partner of the Congress, came out in support of Siddaramaiah alleging that the Governor is being "pressurized" by the BJP in relation to the MUDA scam case.Targeting the BJP, Raut said, "The party in which the corrupt from all over the country get royal shelter wants to prosecute the CM of Karnataka because it has a Congress government, it is pressuring the Governor for the same. You jailed the CMs of Delhi and Jharkhand. The people snatched your majority, and you are still not learning. What kind of mischief is this?" Raut further pointed out at the pending corruption cases against Former Chief Minister of Karnataka, Yediyurappa, must be first looked upon by the BJP. "Why was Yediyurappa released? He has all kinds of corruption cases against him. First, they should act against Yediyurappa and then speak of justice or injustice with Siddaramaiah," Raut said.Meanwhile, the Karnataka government on Thursday withdrew open consent to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct a probe in the state pertaining to the MUDA scam, involving Siddaramaiah.Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar said that they don't want the Central Bureau of Investigation to misuse its power."It is not just Karnataka, the entire opposition parties across the country have taken this decision, in view of that, the Karnataka government has also taken this decision. We don't want the CBI to misuse its power," Shivakumar told ANI.Karnataka Law Minister HK Patil termed the Central Bureau of Investigation "biased" and said that the government has taken the decision to prevent the CBI from taking the wrong path."We are withdrawing open consent for CBI investigation in the state. We are expressing our concerns about the misuse of the CBI. In all the cases we have referred to the CBI, they have not filed charge sheets, leaving many cases pending. They have also refused to investigate several cases we have sent. There are numerous such instances. They are biased. That's why we are taking the decision. It's not because of the MUDA case. We have taken this decision to control them (CBI) from taking the wrong path," Patil said, addressing a press conference.On Wednesday, the Special Court in Bengaluru passed an order directing Karnataka Lokyukta to conduct an investigation against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on the allegation of illegalities in the allotment of 14 sites worth Rs 56 crore to his wife Parvathi by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA). (ANI) Superintendent of police (SP City), Pramod Kumar on Friday assured of strict action against those involved in the stone pelting incident at Dehradun Railway station last night. "Yesterday night tensions erupted between two communities, in which stone pelting was also done, some vehicles have also been vandalised. According to this incident, a case under relevant sections of the IPC and BNS have been registered at the Kotwali Police station Bazar. Whoever is involved in this incident will be arrested and presented in the court soon," Superintendent of Police Pramod Kumar said. The Police official further said that the situation has been brought under control and the security forces have been deployed at various to avoid any untoward incidents. "The situation is under control as of now. In addition to that, the police conducted a flag march in all areas of mix population. Also, as today is Friday, our security forces have been deployed at the areas of the mixed population," the Superintendent of police said. A tense situation unfolded at Dehradun Railway Station on Thursday night as members of two communities clashed, leading to stone pelting and vandalism of vehicles.According to the information received from Dehradun police, the incident involved a minor girl hailing from Badaun in Uttar Pradesh who had arrived at the railway station and a local man from a different faith.A spat escalated after a crowd gathered and led to arguments resulting in stone pelting and vandalism of vehicles."An incident took place at Dehradun Railway Station where a minor girl and a man were seen in "hot talks". The ground police team of RPF and GRP got suspicious and brought them for questioning. it was found that the minor girl had come from Badaun, Uttar Pradesh and she had called her friend to meet her. The police also found that a missing report had been filed in Badaun for the girl and the police team was reaching based on the location," Dehradun SSP Ajay Singh said.Police arrived at the scene and dispersed the crowd. They have also registered a case against unidentified individuals involved in the unrest."Upon interrogation, it was found that it was a matter related to Hindu-Muslim or different communities. Following this some people gathered and got into an argument. Police reached the spot. There were also attempts at stone pelting and some vehicles were also vandalised," Dehradun SSP said."The police took the situation under control and a case has been registered against unknown persons a the Kotwali Nagar police station," the Dehradun SSP said. (ANI) The Delhi High Court on Friday directed the Ministry of Civil Aviation, to address a representation within four weeks concerning the inefficiencies of the AirSewa portal. The portal, designed to serve as a grievance redressal mechanism for air travellers, has reportedly become largely unresponsive, leaving numerous complaints unresolved. The Delhi High Court bench, led by acting Chief Justice Manmohan and also comprising Justice Tushar Rao Gedela, issued a directive to the Ministry of Civil Aviation to address concerns regarding the non-functioning of the AirSewa portal. The directive came while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that sought action from the Ministry on this matter. The PIL filed by a NGO Pravasi Legal Cell, highlighted the portal's failure to adequately address grievances, particularly affecting Indian citizens abroad, who depend on the platform for redressal of travel-related issues. This issue particularly impacts Indian citizens abroad, who rely on the platform to address travel-related grievances. The petition filed through advocate Manas P Hameed draws attention to the fact that the AirSewa portal, which initially functioned well, has significantly deteriorated over the past year. This decline in performance has led to a growing backlog of unresolved complaints, resulting in severe inconvenience for air travellers. The inefficiencies of the portal have compelled many individuals to turn to consumer courts in India for redressal, a solution that is especially impractical for Indian citizens living abroad. The petition stresses the urgent need for the Ministry of Civil Aviation to take corrective measures, as the current state of the portal is leaving numerous grievances unaddressed, complicating the process of seeking justice for air travellers. The plea asserted that despite multiple representations to the concerned authorities, including the Ministry of Civil Aviation, no substantial improvements have been made to the AirSewa portal's functionality. As a result, the petitioner has sought immediate judicial intervention to address these pressing issues in the public interest. The plea highlights that the current inefficiency of the AirSewa portal forces affected individuals to seek redressal through consumer courts in India. However, for those residing abroad, this process is neither feasible nor practical due to logistical challenges, such as geographical distance, time zone differences, and the complexity of navigating legal proceedings from overseas. The petitioner stated that this situation places an undue burden on Indian citizens living abroad, who should be able to rely on the AirSewa portal for swift resolution of their grievances, the plea read. (ANI) Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday reiterated that he will not resign over the alleged MUDA land allotment scam. He said that the opposition is making the demand for his resignation in order to destabilise his government. "I will not resign. HD Kumaraswamy is a minister; he is on bail after an FIR was lodged against him. He is a minister in the Narendra Modi government. It's a politics by them to destabilise our government; that is why they are doing it," Siddaramaiah told reporters here. "They tried Operation Lotus, but they failed because we are 136 legislators. They formed government without a mandate twice; did Yediyurappa win? We will fight it legally," he added. Senior Minister in the Siddarmaiah government Priyank Kharge challenged the BJP to provide evidence or proof if they have any of any alleged corruption in the MUDA case. "The CM is very clear that he's open to investigation. And we have also set up an SIT with one retired judge at the helm of affairs. BJP is more than free to give any documents of any nature to them. And now that the Lokayukta is also in the loop, they are free to do that too. Instead of talking to the media, let them give all the documents that they have to the investigative agencies," he said. However, BJP spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari said on Friday that the chief minister of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah, has accepted his guilt of widespread corruption in the MUDA scam. "The CM of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah, has admitted that there is prima facie corruption in the MUDA scam. He has admitted that he is guilty. This is the precise reason that he has revoked the general consent given to CBI... The Karnataka HC concluded that the CM was involved in giving an undue benefit of Rs. 55 crores to his family in the MUDA scam... The CM of Karnataka is a corrupt man. To save his corruption, he wants to ensure that no independent agency investigates the matter. The root of the problem is Rahul Gandhi because he promotes the individuals in Congress who are involved in corruption... Rahul Gandhi's Congress is the king of corruption," he said. On Wednesday, the Special Court in Bengaluru passed an order directing Karnataka Lokyukta to conduct an investigation against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on the allegation of illegalities in the allotment of 14 sites worth Rs 56 crore to his wife Parvathi by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA). The order came after Karnataka High Court upheld the Governor's sanction to investigate Siddaramaiah in the alleged MUDA scam. (ANI) Former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday during an interaction with the media raised strong objections to Delhi's LG V.K Saxena's order on conducting the election for the lone vacancy in the MCD Standing Committee. Kejriwal argued that the MCD laws clearly state that the authority to convene a session lies solely with the Mayor, and neither the Lieutenant Governor (LG) nor the Commissioner can do so. "I am surprised that the MCD has clearly stated in the law that only the Mayor has the right to call the corporation's sitting and the Southern's sitting. No one else has the right. LG Sir cannot call it. The Commissioner cannot call it. Only the Mayor can call it." he said. He further pointed out that the law mandates a 72-hour notice period before any session, allowing councillors adequate time to prepare. He blamed those involved for attempting to rush the election process had ulterior motives. "Their intentions seem questionable. There appears to be a conspiracy to manipulate the situation," he added. He further, said that the Mayor had written a letter to the Commissioner, calling today's election illegal and unconstitutional, urging for its cancellation. The order of the MCD said that the election for the lone vacancy in the Standing Committee by the Corporation was scheduled for September 26 at 2:00 pm; whereas, the said election was not conducted and the meeting was adjourned to October 5 by Mayor Shelly Oberoi on the special ground that the councillors be allowed to carry mobile phones inside the voting hall/polling booth. Meanwhile, Addressing the issue of broken roads in the capital, Kejriwal said that all legislators and ministers would participate in the inspection, and repairs of roads within the next 2-3 days as he called for city-wide assessment of roads. Delhi CM Atishi along with former Delhi CM and AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday had inspected road conditions. The former CM assured residents that the halted work would resume, referencing the delay that occurred during his recent jail term (ANI) Uttar Pradesh police have arrested five people in connection with the alleged murder of a student at his school under Sahpau Police Station in Hathras, said an official. The accused have been identified as Ramprakash Solanki, Dinesh Baghel, Jashodhan Singh alias Bhagat ji, Laxman Singh, and Virpal Singh alias Viru. The five accused have been booked under section 103(1) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and sent to judicial custody, said police. The FIR was registered on the basis of the statement of a man, who stated that Dinesh Baghel and other accused told him that they strangled his son and killed him on September 23. As per the FIR, the child lived in the hostel of the school. According to the police, the boy was allegedly murdered on September 23 at the hostel of a private school in Hathras. Hathras Additional Superintendent of Police, Ashok Kumar Singh, said, "On 23rd September, a student was murdered at the hostel of D.L. Public School under Sahpau PS. A case was registered under relevant sections on the basis of the statement of the complainant. Five accused, including the owner of the school, have been arrested. They have been sent to judicial custody. Police will take action by investigating all angles..." Reacting to the incident, Member of the Uttar Pradesh State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR), Anita Agarwal, said that she would recommend to the State Administration to de-recognise this school. "This is a heinous incident. We will take action in this matter. I will recommend to the State Administration to de-recognise this school," Member of the Uttar Pradesh State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR), Anita Agarwal, said. (ANI) The first consignment of Bangladesh's 'Padma Hilsa,' weighing around 45-50 tonnes, arrived in West Bengal on Friday morning. Following its arrival, officials hailed it as a much-anticipated import ahead of Durga Puja. The Bangladeshi interim government is set to export a total of 2,420 tonnes of Hilsa to India, with all shipments expected to arrive by October 12. The wholesale rate for Hilsa fish at the Howrah wholesale fish market is currently priced at Rs 1,400 to Rs 1,600 per kilogram. This fish, known for its superior taste, crossed the Petrapole-Benapole border and reached the Howrah market, where it will be distributed to various retail markets in and around Kolkata. Since July 2012, Bangladesh had banned the export of Hilsa but has granted special permissions for exports to India during Durga Puja since 2019. Syed Anwar Maqsood, Secretary of the Howrah Wholesale Fish Market Association, said, "Like every year, we wrote a letter to the Bangladesh Interim Government asking them to provide us with Hilsa for the occasion of Puja. However, due to some internal issues, there was a delay. But it is better late than never; yesterday, the consignment landed in Petrapole. The first consignment of 45 to 50 metric tonnes of Hilsa has entered India and West Bengal from the border station. This consignment is being sold in the Howrah, Patipukur, Sealdah, and Siliguri fish markets since this morning and has already been distributed to different markets from here." "People here have a different enthusiasm for the Padma Hilsa of Bangladesh. They hope that the price of Hilsa will come down, but the price is a little high because there is less fish available in Bangladesh, which is driving prices up. The small Hilsa of 700 to 800 grams is being sold for Rs 900 to Rs 1,000, while the one-kilo size is being sold for Rs 1,400 to Rs 1,500," he added. Maqsood also explained the urgency of receiving the fish before Bangladesh's fishing ban. "The last deadline is October 12. We must bring it in by then because from October 13, there is a fishing ban that lasts for 22 days. There is always a demand for Hilsa, and we have our local share in Bengal too. But the share of Padma Hilsa from Bangladesh is different. People are crazy about it," he said. He elaborated on the logistics involved in the export, and said, "We handle wholesale shipments. We have different suppliers here who buy the fish and send Hilsa to states where there is a demand, such as Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Delhi." Maqsood expressed gratitude of the Bangladesh interim government. "I would tell everyone to please enjoy Hilsa, especially during Durga Puja. The festive season is here, and we hope to request the Bangladesh government to relax the ban so that we can continue supplying Hilsa to consumers throughout the year," he said. (ANI) Lashing out at Congress government in Karnataka, BJP spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari on Friday said that chief minister of Karnataka Siddaramaiah has accepted his guilt of widespread corruption in the MUDA scam. Speaking to ANI, on the Karnataka Government withdrawing the general consent required for the CBI to probe cases in a state, he said, "The CM of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah has admitted that there is Prima facie corruption in the MUDA scam. He has admitted that he is guilty. This is the precise reason that he has revoked the general consent given to CBI... The Karnataka HC concluded that the CM was involved in giving an undue benefit of Rs. 55 crores to his family in the MUDA scam... The CM of Karnataka is a corrupt man. To save his corruption, he wants to ensure that no independent agency investigates the matter. The root of the problem is Rahul Gandhi because he promotes the individuals in Congress who are involved in corruption... Rahul Gandhi's Congress is the king of corruption." The BJP spokesperson claimed that the Karnataka CM wanted to ensure that no independent agency investigates the alleged scam. "The CM Siddaramaiah has accepted in his heart of hearts that there was huge corruption in the MUDA scam. Deep inside, he has admitted that he believes he is guilty. The essence of the matter is that the Karnataka high court concluded that Siddaramaiah was involved in giving undue benefits to his family in the MUDA scam. Ideal and honest man, if he felt that that conclusion of Karnataka CM was not correct he would have resigned from the post and was waited for the higher court to give an opinion. However, the CM is a corrupt man and to hide his corruption, he wants to ensure that no independent agency investigates the matter," Bhandari said. Meanwhile, senior Minister in the Siddarmaiah government Priyank Kharge challenged the BJP to provide evidence or proof if they have any of any alleged corruption in the MUDA case. "The CM is very clear that he's open to investigation. And we have also set up an SIT with one retired judge at the helm of affairs. BJP is more than free to give any documents of any nature to them. And now that the Lokayukta is also in the loop, they are free to do that too. Instead of talking to the media, let them give all the documents that they have to the investigative agencies," he said. Despite opposition calls for his resignation, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah has refused to step down. On Wednesday, a Special Court ordered a Lokayukta police probe against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in the case, setting the stage for filing of an FIR against him. (ANI) You are here: Arts Tourists visit the Jinshanling section of the Great Wall in Luanping County, north China's Hebei Province, Sept. 21, 2024. (Xinhua/Chen Yehua) China has launched a program to raise public funds for the conservation of the Great Wall, which is the country's largest existing cultural heritage site. At an event to launch the program on Thursday, Li Qun, China's deputy minister of culture and tourism, said that vigorous efforts should be made to promote voluntary action to protect the Great Wall, strengthen related public awareness and education, and effectively ensure that the results of Great Wall preservation work benefit the people. Li, also head of the National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA), noted the importance of encouraging more people to learn about, contribute to and share the results of the Great Wall's protection. The program was initiated by the China Foundation For Cultural Heritage Conservation under the guidance of the NCHA. Jagtar Singh Hawara, a convict in the former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh assassination case, on Friday urged the top court to transfer him from Delhi's Tihar Jail to any other prison in Punjab. A bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan sought a response from the Centre, Delhi Government, and Punjab Government on Jagtar Singh Hawara's plea. Jagtar Singh Hawara's plea, filed through advocate Satya Mitra, also sought to direct the respondents to produce in court the entire records of the petitioner regarding his conduct in prison during his incarceration till today. Hawara is a life convict in the former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh assassination case and is serving a life term in Tihar Jail. The petition stated that he is a convict prisoner lodged in Tihar Jail and that there is no case pending against him registered in the territory of Delhi. The petitioner is currently serving his life imprisonment for the rest of his life in a case registered in the State of Punjab. He is a native of the State of Punjab, Fatehgarh Sahib District, and ought to be confined in a prison in Punjab, the petition added. Hawara was arrested on September 21, 1995, tried, and convicted for the murder of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh and has remained in jail from the date of his arrest to this day; he has been incarcerated for over 28 years. The trial court, by order dated March 27, 2007, convicted Hawara and gave him the death sentence. The Punjab and Haryana High Court, by order dated October 12, 2010, modified the sentence to life imprisonment for the rest of his life. Appeals have been filed by the prosecution and Hawara in the Supreme Court, which are pending. "His conduct in jail has been clear except for an alleged jailbreak that took place on January 22, 2004, when he escaped. He was caught approximately after one year and returned to prison in 2005. Since then, his performance in jail has been without any blemish. He is 54 years old today. The petitioner was incarcerated in jails in Punjab. After he was arrested in 2005, the petitioner was incarcerated in Tihar Jail, Delhi, where he remains to this day," the petition said. "From the re-arrest of the petitioner after the jailbreak until today, 19 years have passed, and the performance of the petitioner in jail has been without blemish. The petitioner has sought a report of his conduct in prison in Delhi from the jail authorities, which is yet to be provided to him," the petition said. "The question that arises in this case is whether a person who has been accused of committing murder in the context of serious social upheaval, where tens of thousands of young Sikhs were extrajudicially executed by the State Police on the instructions of the deceased Chief Minister Beant Singh--an offence characterised as exacerbated by his unsuccessful jailbreak attempt--but who has, for the last 19 years, led a life in prison that is without blemish, can seek an order from this court for transfer to a jail in Punjab. Also, what is important to note is that there is not a single case pending against the accused in Delhi," the petition said. (ANI) Uttar Pradesh Education department has sent a show cause notice to the management of a private school in Aligharh district for allegedly intimidating children with threats of "electric chair" and also failure to renew its permit to conduct classes. Basic Education Officer Rakesh Kumar Singh said that he had received a complaint from the parent of student who alleged that his ward was tortured and "made to sit on an electric chair" as part of punishment. "A parent of a child complained that their child was made to sit on a chair and was threatened. ... This incident was found to be false. We saw the CCTV, the child was sitting and nothing like that was done to him," the Basic Education official told ANI. The official said, however, CCTV footage had shown another student being beaten up. He also said that during an investigation it was discovered that the school had failed to renew its premit to conduct classes from 8. "But in front of that child, another child from class 4 was being beaten up by the coordinator of the school named Dipti. The school does not have the permission to run classes from 1 to 8. They had permission but it expired in 2021. A showcause notice has been issued for the same. I have written to the school administration to terminate the services of the school coordinator," the official said. Singh said that in his investigation, he did not find any electric chairs in the school. But he said that staff at the school used to intimidate children about using using electric chairs as punishment for errant children "Such threats to scare children is punishable offence under the Right to Education," he said. (ANI) The Akhila Bharatha Gau Seva Foundation on Friday launched a Yatra (march) from Kashmir to Kanyakumari to raise awareness about environmental conservation and the protection of the sacred Cow. The Padyatra, which started from the Ghanta Ghar in Lal Chowk, Srinagar, as per ABGSF will cover 14 states, travelling approximately 6,000 kilometres in six months. This foot march , as per the organisation is for the deep connection between preserving the Earth and the sacred cow in Indian culture. The yatra will pass through Jammu, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka before reaching Kanyakumari. This journey is being conducted to highlight the importance of saving cows and promoting sustainable environmental practices. Bala Krishna Guruswamy, Founder President of the Akhila Bharatha Gau Seva Foundation, explained the purpose of the yatra. He said, "I am a citizen of this country, and it is my duty to protect the country, its soil, and the future generations. In 15-20 years, nothing will grow in this soil if we don't act now. The farming we do, the land we cultivate, all need protection. Together, we must prevent our land from becoming barren. Cow dung and urine are valuable resources. We must stop foreign organisations from spreading poison in our land, like the Green Revolution did." "Forty percent of our earnings go to hospitals because of the health problems caused by this poison. There is a huge medical mafia we need to stop. We want to save the Earth, our environment, and the health of future generations. Foreign countries have launched rockets using cow dung, and even Pakistan is now trying to save indigenous cows. Countries like Israel and Brazil have taken Indian cows for their benefits. We cannot let our cows and environment be neglected. Our 6,000-kilometre padyatra is a call to protect the Earth." he added The President of ABGSF also stressed on the importance of raising awareness among citizens, urging them to question political leaders about the future of the environment. He said, "This is not about any political party or time. It is about our country, India, and the strength of its people. We are taking this padyatra seriously, sleeping on roads, risking our lives to protect this land. It is our duty as Indians to save the Earth." Jimesh Joshi, a team member of the yatra, said, "Bharat Mata ki Jai! Today, we are going on a padyatra from Kashmir to Kanyakumari to save the Earth. As our leader Amit Shah said, we want the cow to be declared the Mother of the Nation." he added," Until this happens, our movement will continue. Every person should rear a cow in their home for the health benefits it provides." Sheraz Zaman, another team member from Kashmir, also spoke about the importance of protecting all animals. "This padyatra has one purpose: to raise awareness about the animals getting extinct from our land, which directly affects our health. Chemical fertilisers are harming us, and we want to promote organic methods. We also want to send a message that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are peaceful and want harmony with the rest of India," Zaman said. (ANI) The Election Commission of India (ECI) expressed dissatisfaction over the inconvenience faced by voters at polling stations in Mumbai during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, sources told ANI. According to the sources, in a review meeting with the Chief Secretary, Director General of Police (DGP), and other senior government officials, the ECI emphasised the need to ensure all minimum assured facilities at polling stations, such as benches, fans, drinking water, and shelters. Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar stated that the Commission will take strict action on any complaints of voter inconvenience on election day. An ECI delegation led by CEC Rajiv Kumar, along with Election Commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and SS Sandhu, is in Mumbai to review preparations for the upcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra over the next two days. Sources told ANI that CEC Rajiv Kumar also stressed the importance of proper queue management at polling stations. Additionally, the CEC expressed displeasure over the low volume of seizures during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and emphasised a zero-tolerance approach towards the distribution of inducements during the upcoming state elections. The Chief Secretary was directed to ensure the appointment of vacant assistant returning officers, which are currently pending. Earlier, during a review meeting for the Jharkhand Assembly elections, the CEC reiterated the importance of free, fair, and inducement-free elections. He emphasised that all political parties should be given a level playing field and that borders would be sealed to prevent any disturbances from neighbouring states. The term of the Maharashtra Assembly is set to end in the last week of November. (ANI) Union Minister JP Nadda on Friday hit back at National Conference Vice President Omar Abdullah over his statement blaming the central government for 'lower voter turnout' in the second phase of the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections. Nadda, denying Omar Abdullah's claim, said "he is bad in mathematics". Speaking at a press conference, JP Nadda said, "If one wants to see the poll percentage, it used to be 6 to 8 per cent but today it is 58 to 60 per cent. If he was bad in mathematics, what could I do? There was 60 per cent voting in the first phase and 58 per cent in the second phase." On Thursday, Omar Abdullah said that the central government is 'partially responsible' for the 'lower voter turnout'. "I was hoping for a little more turnout. Because there was no call for the boycott. There were no attacks. There was no attempt to suppress and threaten the voters. But I think the central government is also partially responsible for this situation. They have tried to present high turnout as a sign of normalcy at different places," Omar Abdullah said. The second phase of J-K assembly polls recorded a turnout 57.31 per cent was in phase-2, the Election Commission of India (ECI) said in a press release. The ECI said that Budgam recorded 62.98 percent voter turnout till 11.45 pm, Ganderbal recorded 62.51 percent voter turnout, Poonch recorded 73.80 percent voter turnout, Rajouri recorded 70.95 percent voter turnout, Reasi recorded 74.70 percent voter turnout and Srinagar recorded 29.81 voter turnout. Polling was conducted across six districts of Budgam, Ganderbal, Poonch and Jammu regions of Rajouri, Reasi and Srinagar, with 25.78 lakh electors eligible to cast votes to decide fate of 239 candidates in the second phase. The first phase of assembly polls was held on September 18. The third and final phase of voting will take place on October 1, while the counting of votes will be held on October 8. Assembly elections are being held in the Union Territory nearly a decade after the last polls and are the first since the abrogation of Article 370. (ANI) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla on Friday criticized the Karnataka Congress for withdrawing its support for a CBI investigation into the alleged MUDA "scam", accusing the party of turning into "Bhrashtachar Ke Bhaijaan" instead of running a "Mohabbat Ki Dukaan." Addressing a press conference, Poonawalla questioned the moral basis for Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to remain in office, alleging that the Congress party's governance revolves around benefiting their family members through corrupt practices. "Congress is a 'zameen se judi hui' party. Wherever they come into power, they register land in the names of their relatives--be it National Herald, 'Damad' in Haryana, or the wife in Karnataka. They make their family members the beneficiaries and, hence, it is called a 'zameen se judi hui' party," he said. Poonawalla went on to allege that the Congress party's modus operandi is to loot the public after coming into power. "After the MUDA scam worth crores of rupees was disclosed in Karnataka, Congress has acted like a certified 'lootera'. To save themselves from the hands of the law, they withdrew the general consent of the CBI. They are behaving like professional thieves. The Congress party's approach has shifted to stealing first and then acting with impunity. This attitude toward corruption evident not just in Karnataka but has become pervasive throughout the entire country," Poonawalla said. Poonawalla remarked that the Congress party's primary objective had become committing corruption first and then playing the victim card after a court order. "They would oppose the agencies by any means necessary to prevent them from entering, as they believed that looting was their birthright. Congress party being the party of thieves was fleeing like a professional criminal and had withdrawn their general consent for a CBI investigation to keep the agency from entering the state altogether," he added. Poonawalla also alleged that Congress leaders insulted and verbally abused the Karnataka governor. "Recently, the Chief Minister of Karnataka has faced three strikes. First, the Governor characterized the MUDA scam as a significant scandal and agreed to its investigation. The second strike came from an order issued by the Karnataka High Court, while the third strike was from a Special Court that ordered the filing of an FIR against the Chief Minister. Despite these three strikes, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and the Congress party exhibited three notable reactions. They initially questioned the judgment of the discerning and diligent Governor Shri Thawar Chand Gehlot, who belongs to the SC community. A Congress leader went so far as to insult the Governor, verbally abuse him, and issue threats against him," he said. Poonawalla pointed out that despite the High Court's order, the Congress party continues to question the Governor's judgment. "The Congress party, which claims to run a 'Mohabbat Ki Dukaan' and speaks grandly about freedom of the press and speech, when confronted, arrogantly pushed a reporter's microphone away and questioned who the reporter was to ask such questions. This shows that Congress isn't running a 'Mohabbat Ki Dukaan,' but rather is a 'Bhrashtachar Ke Bhaijaan,' a 'Media Ko Dhamki Ki Dukaan,' and a 'SC Samaj Ke Governor Ka Apmaan Karne Ki Dukaan'," he said. Poonawalla further mentioned that the third response, which came yesterday, was that the Congress party, acting like professional looters, directly withdrew the general consent for the CBI. "This move by the Karnataka Congress government reveals a guilty mindset--it's a clear attempt to block the CBI to avoid investigation. The Congress government was formed in Karnataka in May 2023, but now, in September 2024, they suddenly claim the CBI is acting vindictively?" he added. Earlier on Thursday, the Karnataka government withdrew open consent to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct a probe in the state. (ANI) Indore Municipal Corporation decided to install an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system in AICTSL (Atal Indore City Transport Services Limited) city buses to monitor drivers' activity like being in an inebriated state, sleeping, feeling unwell or talking on mobile. It will convey a message to the city bus control room. The AI system will be installed in five buses as a pilot project and later on it will be installed in other buses based on the results of the initial pilot project. Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) Mayor Pushyamitra Bhargava told ANI, "Safety is the first priority in the vision of Digital Indore and that is why Indore has become the first city in the country to make a CCTV surveillance policy. In the series, CCTV cameras have been installed in the city buses running under AICTSL and now we are going to start using Artificial Intelligence for monitoring the drivers in these buses very soon." "We will take this project forward based on the idea of a Delhi-based company. Under which, breath analysers (Liquor detectors) will be installed and the bus will start only after the test. There will be surveillance on the driver and the conductor, a dash camera will be installed which will read the driver. If it seems that the driver is unwell or he is feeling sleepy or talking on the phone, it will monitor and convey a message to the city bus control room," he said. Apart from this, the camera will also record many other things. So, it is a major step being carried out from the point of view of safety, the Mayor added. Meanwhile, Municipal Corporation Commissioner Shivam Verma told ANI, "We constantly try to provide better and safer travel to the passengers in the city buses. Keeping this in mind, we are going to use AI technology in city buses. If the driver feels sleepy, talks on mobile while driving the bus or driving in an inebriated state, then an alert message will be conveyed in the AICTSL bus control room." The initiative will be started on a pilot basis and an AI system will be installed in five buses initially. After the results, it will be installed in other buses as well, he added. (ANI) Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition (LoP), Rahul Gandhi, on Friday, hit out at the Bharatiya Janata party-led Centre over what he called a "monopoly model," claiming it has led to job losses, devastated micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and deprived many individuals of opportunities. "Modi ji's monopoly model has taken away jobs, devastated MSMEs and deprived people of opportunity. India deserves better," Rahul Gandhi said. The Congress leader was holding a discussion with business owners and professionals in Jammu wherein he cited the reasons for unemployment in the country. He further said that India has a huge skill set, but the severe attack on smaller businesses from big monopolies is exacerbating the unemployment situation in the country. He added that demonetisation, import duties, and GST were all designed to "hurt" people economically. Rahul Gandhi called on the government for simplifying GST and opening up the banking system to small businesses to promote opportunities and job creation. Addressing the gathering, Rahul Gandhi said, "India has a huge set of skills, India is not the government of India, India is 'you.' The simple biggest reason in my view as to why we are having unemployment is because the basic structure of employment, which is smaller and bigger businesses, is under severe attack from 5-10 really big monopolies." "They are not production monopolies. For example, a country like Japan has large monopolists as well, but their monopolists produce things, they are not simple traders. Our biggest monopolists do not produce things, they simply trade things. These large monopolists have control of the political system and they are organising a systematic attack on you people. GST was designed to hurt you people, demonetisation was designed to hurt you, people, and import duties were designed to hurt you people," he added. The LoP took to his social media handle and shared a clip of the interaction he had at the event in Jammu. "The frustration in the eyes of a young startup owner from J&K reflects the struggles of most entrepreneurs and small-business owners in India. 'Modi ji's monopoly model' has taken away jobs, devastated MSMEs and deprived people of opportunity," Rahul Gandhi posted on X. "The systematic attack on small and medium industries through incompetent policies like a bad GST and demonetisation has turned India from a producing economy to a consuming one. At this rate, we can neither compete with China nor ensure prosperity for all Indians," he added. Adding further, he said, "India deserves better. We must simplify GST and open up the banking system to small businesses to promote widespread opportunity and job creation." https://x.com/RahulGandhi/status/1839549219784311278 Earlier on Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, slammed the BJP-led Haryana government in a public rally for the lack of employment opportunities, leading to youth migration. During his address, the Congress leader used examples from the struggles of children whose parents migrated to America and got stuck there with no prospects of returning. The Lok Sabha's Leader of Opposition shared the story of a boy named Dev, who cried out for his father. He said, "Dev's trembling cry - 'Papa, come back!' - was heart-wrenching. "Gandhi noted that while Dev's cry might not reach Prime Minister Modi's heart, it has impacted him deeply. "It is the duty of the Congress party to stop these cries, wipe these tears, and ensure a happy life with their families by giving proper opportunities to the youth of Haryana within the state itself - and we will do it!", the Congress leader said. Ahead of the assembly elections in the state, Rahul Gandhi laid out several promises, including financial support for women and jobs for the youth. He said, "The first step is Mahila Shakti, Rs 2000 per month to women, and a gas cylinder worth Rs 500. The second step is that we will fill the two lakh vacancies that are lying vacant in the government for the youth and give them to you." He also promised a Minimum Support Prices (MSP) guarantee for farmers and provide immediate insurance money for losses. "Housing for the poor will include a 100-yard plot and Rs 1.5 lakh, three lakh rupees for two houses, two rooms, two bedrooms, and 300 units of free electricity," he added. Haryana will go to polls on October 5 to elect a 90-member state legislative assembly to form its next government, with the counting set to take place on October 8. (ANI) India's DRDO was in the process of developing hypersonic missiles for the defence forces of the country, who are now looking to induct long-range cruise and ballistic missiles like the 2,000 km range Nirbhay and 400 km range Pralay missiles. Director General of Indian Army's Regiment of Artillery, Lt Gen A Kumar, said the force was also looking at long-range rockets and looking to extend the range of the indigenous Pinaka rockets up to 300 kms in coming times. The officer said that the Indian Army has got clearance from the Defence Acquisition Council for getting Pralay ballistic missiles and Nirbhay missiles. Giving details of the missile programme at a press gathering, he said, "Development work is also in progress by DRDO for Hypersonic Missiles...Our missile programme is progressing well at the desired pace, wherein research and development is being carried out by DRDO to enhance range, accuracy and lethality of both ballistic and cruise missiles." Lt Gen Kumar further said that the "Pinaka has been the success story of Atmanirbharta drive. The equipment has been extensively exploited and has added more punch and lethality to Artillery's arsenal. More Regiments of Pinaka are being inducted." Speaking on the ammunition, he said a lot of improvements are being undertaken to enhance the accuracy and lethality. "We are continuously engaged with private and public sector industries and academia for the development of Sensor Fuzed Munition (SFM), Extended Range Ammunition using Ramjet and Course Correctable Fuze (CCF)," he said. Lt Gen. Kumar said to give teeth to our precision capability, "We are procuring Loiter Munitions, Swarm Drones, Runway Independent RPAS and the like. He said that due emphasis is also being laid on strengthening our intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance architecture to enhance battlefield transparency, so as to have effective sensor to shooter linkages, also called 'Kill Chains'. On the training of Agniveers, we have taken a number of steps to modernise our training and administrative infrastructure. State-of-the-art physical training facilities have been established, and classrooms have been equipped with audio-visual training aids. The ongoing operational situation along our Northern borders warrants reorientation of training, and accordingly, primacy has been accorded to incorporating operational realities in training curriculum, he said. Due emphasis is being given on training on Niche Technology Equipment to include Runway Independent RPAS, Loiter Munitions and Swarm Drones. Kumar said that a total of 19 women officers have been commissioned in the Regiment of Artillery till date. "All these women officers have been posted to units with different equipment profiles and terrain conditions. We have full faith in their abilities and are sure that they will excel in their service career," he said. On the lessons from the Russia and Ukraine war that has entered its third year with no signs of abating, Kumar said that "a number of lessons have emerged, and these are being given due attention." "Our focus will continue to remain on enhancing our operational preparedness to effectively integrate to operate in a combined arms environment and continual innovations in our technical, tactical and employment philosophies so as to stay ahead of challenges and threat," (ANI) Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday postponed his planned visit to Tirumala for the darshan of Lord Venkateswara, after which the Telugu Desam Party attacked the YSRCP chief and called him "anti-Hindu." This comes after the BJP and TDP demanded Jagan Reddy declare his faith before visiting the temple. Addressing the press conference, the YSRCP chief said that "I am postponing the Tirumala visit. Many questions have been raised about my caste. I read the Bible at home, and I respect and follow Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism. I belong to the community of humanity. What does the Constitution say? If a person equivalent to the Chief Minister is not allowed into the temple, I question how Dalits will be treated." On being asked if this (Tirupati Laddu Prasadam issue) is a serious blasphemy, he said, "That is exactly what I have been telling. It is worse than that." Reddy also accused CM Naidu of "blatantly lying" about the Tirupati Laddu Prasadam, adding that the ghee procurement e-tender is a routine process that has been happening for decades. "The demon rule is continuing in the state. The government is trying to obstruct my upcoming visit to the Tirumala temple. Police have issued notices to YSRCP leaders across the state regarding the temple visit. The notice states that the visit to the Tirumala temple is not permitted, and the program organised by YSRCP does not have the necessary approval. Consequently, leaders are not allowed to participate in that programme," Reddy said. Pattabhi Ram Kommareddy, TDP National Spokesperson, attacked the former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister for cancelling his trip to Tirumala. "By cancelling his trip to Tirumala, Jagan Reddy has once again proved that he is anti-Hindu. The only thing that he had to do to have a darshan of Lord Balaji was to sign a declaration, which has been a rule in TTD for more than three decades. Any person belonging to a religion other than Hindu is supposed to sign a small declaration and he has to take permission from the concerned authority to have a darshan of Lord Balaji. So what problem does Jagan Reddy have in signing this declaration? Even people like Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, who visited Tirmala as President of this country had signed this declaration because he is a Muslim. Many other eminent leaders in our country have done this... Without having faith and reverence towards Lord Balaji, What will you do by having a darshan of the deity? What kind of drama are you trying to play, Mr Jagan Reddy? On one hand, you say that you'll have the darshan of Lord Balaji and pray for forgiveness for what had happened. It is an unforgivable sin. Lord Balaji will never forgive you," Pattabhi Ram Kommareddy said. TDP National Spokesperson Prem Kumar Jain said that Jagan Mohan Reddy presented a drama of lies or comedy circus through a press conference today. "Jagan Mohan Reddy presented a drama of lies or comedy circus through a press conference today and the public knows about it. He said that today demonic rule prevails in the state, the public can tell what demonic rule is by looking at his 5 years of rule. The way he has done drama by deciding to visit Tirupati temple after hurting the faith and belief of Hinduism and then later deciding to cancel it, it shows his mentality that all this is dramabaazi. He should get the harshest punishment for the sin he has committed," Jain said. The row over the Tirupati Prasadam began after Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu claimed that substandard ingredients, including animal fat, were used in the preparation of Tirupati laddus, the Prasdam offered at the Sri Venkateswara temple in Tirupati, during the previous YSRCP government. (ANI) DEFTECH LLC, a cutting-edge defense technology company from Azerbaijan, unveiled a new family of reconnaissance and attack platforms featuring a unique tandem-wing design at the ADEX 2024 arms exhibition in Baku. Originally introduced as conceptual models at ADEX 2022, these platforms have matured through flight testing and are now designed for long-endurance surveillance missions and attack roles. In collaboration with Azerbaijans Ministry of National Defense Production and UAV solutions providers, DEFTECH has made significant advancements with the DT-101 and DT-001 drone designs and their associated loitering munitions. The tandem-wing configuration, a hallmark of DEFTECHs design, enhances the UAVs aerodynamics by providing improved longitudinal stability and lift efficiency, making them highly effective across various flight regimes. The DT-101 is a Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) UAV built for long-endurance surveillance and targeting missions. It boasts a maximum takeoff weight of 55-75 kg and a wingspan of 3.6 meters. It is powered by a hybrid propulsion system combining a 180 CC internal combustion engine with four electric VTOL motors. Capable of reaching cruising altitudes between 3,000 and 5,000 meters, the DT-101 can remain airborne for up to 10 hours, depending on mission requirements. The heavier DT-001 UAV is runway-launched, with a 75-120 kg takeoff weight, powered by a 360 CC internal combustion engine. It is designed to carry heavier payloads and supports up to two F-1500 loitering munitions under its fuselage. The DT-101 and DT-001 can carry a range of mission payloads, including EO/IR cameras, multispectral sensors, LIDAR, SIGINT/ELINT pods, and jamming equipment. The F-1500 loitering munition, specifically designed for the DT-001, is a compact tube or air-launched system weighing 7 kg. It can loiter for 20-40 minutes and strike targets up to 40 km away. The tube-launched version carries a 1.5 kg warhead with options for high explosive fragmenting, armor-piercing, or thermobaric warheads, while the air-launched version can carry a larger 3 kg warhead. The F-1500 features AI-based target identification, anti-jamming technologies, and an autopilot system for autonomous targeting. The larger F-5000E loitering munition, launched via catapult, weighs 16 kg and carries a 5 kg warhead. Offering greater strike power, it has a range of 250 km and an airborne endurance of up to five hours, providing increased tactical flexibility compared to the F-1500. Azerbaijan has been an early adopter of drone and loitering munitions technologies, widely using these systems in combat. The progress made in domestically developed systems like those from DEFTECH will significantly bolster the countrys defense industry, enhancing resilience amid regional instability. China will keep working to bring home more of its cultural artifacts lost overseas, according to the National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA). Deputy director Guan Qiang has said that experts will further research the origins of these cultural relics to gather more evidence to support their return. Deeper, more flexible international cooperation is needed and the use of various platforms and mechanisms will be encouraged to facilitate this process, said the official at a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday. Guan also highlighted China's commitment to its international obligations in this field. The country will encourage dialogue between countries of origin and those currently holding displaced artifacts, said the official. Since the Opium War in the 1840s, more than 10 million Chinese cultural relics have been displaced due to war and illicit trade, according to the Chinese Society of Cultural Relics, a domestic non-profit organization. The Chinese government set out to recover these artifacts since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The country now has government-to-government agreements with 27 countries, including Peru, Italy, Greece, Turkiye, the United States and Australia, to combat the theft, looting, and illegal export of cultural relics. Thanks to these frameworks, China has successfully recovered more than 1,900 cultural relics in 43 batches, Guan noted. This year alone, the country has reclaimed the stolen "Feng Xingshu Gui," a bronze ritual vessel from the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046-771 BC), along with 38 ancient artworks from the United States and 14 artifacts from Argentina. Itanagar (Arunachal Pradesh) [India] September 27: Arunachal Pradesh Lt. General KT Parnaik (Retd.) interacted with the students from Tawang and West Districts, who participated in the National Integration Tour to Delhi and Mussoorie at Raj Bhavan, Itanagar on Friday. The governor encouraged the students to take to heart the experience of the tour and let it inspire them to become more informed, more respectful, and more responsible individuals. He said that India's strength lies in its people, and the students of the day are the future. With knowledge and a deep understanding of our country, they can contribute to Viksit Bharat@2047 making India even greater, he said. The Governor said that India is truly unique in its ability to harmonize a variety of traditions, languages, landscapes, and lifestyles on the principle of unity in diversity. He advised the students and teachers to take pride in the fact that they belong to a country with a vibrant and timeless culture. Share this pride with others and let it inspire them to contribute positively to our community and country, he said. The Governor commended Gajraj Corps (4 Corps) for organising the tour for students in their area of responsibility. Major Ashish Singh, the officer in charge of the tour briefed the Governor that the twenty selected boys and girls from Government Higher Secondary School, Jang, Tawang District and Government Higher Secondary School, Dirang, West Kameng District along with the teachers participated in the National Integration Tour, named as 'Vigyan Siksha Bhraman', which started on September 18. The students and the teachers visited prestigious institutions and landmarks in the national capital, Rashtrapati Bhawan, the new Sansad Bhavan and IIT Delhi. They also visited the Indian Military Academy and Rashtriya Indian Military College in Dehradun, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) and Mindrolling Monastery in Mussoorie. the Arunachal Pradesh Governor visited the Mother's Vision Rehabilitation Centre at Aalo during his recent tour to West Siang District (September 25, 2024). The Governor interacted with the mothers, officials, volunteers and recovered inmates on the occasion. The Governor commended the effort of the Mother's Vision, a non-governmental organisation working for a free society. He said that the NGO is playing a vital role in a process that brings hope, dignity, and second chances to individuals who find themselves in challenging circumstances. Your work goes beyond mere tasks as it touches lives, reshapes futures, and strengthens our communities, he said. The Governor, who has been championing a drug-free society, said that rehabilitation is not just addressing the symptoms, but healing the root causes, understanding the human stories behind the challenges, and building pathways for reintegration into society. Whether it's addiction, mental health, physical disability, or reintegration after incarceration, dedication and benevolent services of the mothers and volunteers have created a bridge to a better life, he said. The Governor appealed to the people to collaborate, understand, and participate in whatever way to create systems that uplift addicted individuals, help them regain their independence, and contribute positively to society. As a token of appreciation and towards the cause of the Mother's vision, the Governor announced a sum of Rs 5 lakh for the rehabilitation centre. The Mother's Vision was established in the year 2013, registered as 'Institute of Rural Development' with 10 light-minded Mothers to work against drug addiction and alcoholism, led by its chairperson Jumde Yomgam Gamlin. Later it was renamed as Mother's Vision. The Mother's Vision started to carry out its awareness campaigns, orientation sessions, workshops, anonymous counseling etc, starting from Aalo town then it extended to nearby Villages and Schools of West Siang district and other Districts. (ANI) A BJP membership campaign program, titled 'National Membership Campaign - 2024' was organised by head priest, Shahid Abbasi in the premises of Dargah Hazrat Matka Shah Baba in Delhi. BJP National President of Minority Front, Jamal Siddiqui, was present as the chief guest in the programme. Under his leadership, hundreds of minorities joined the BJP and got party membership. On this occasion, Siddiqui told the media that the National Membership Campaign 2024 is being run by the Minority Front across the country. The Minority Front has set the target of inducting 50 lakh members. The team of the front is continuously going among the people of the minority community across the country and making them members of the BJP. Through the membership campaign, lakhs of minorities across the country are joining the BJP and getting membership. There is a lot of enthusiasm among the minorities to become members of the BJP. Today in this programme too, a large number of people from Muslim community took membership in the BJP and expressed their faith in the Modi government and its work. He said that today people of the Muslim community are joining the BJP in large numbers and are ready to walk hand in hand with Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the creation of a developed India. Delhi State Minority Front's State President, Anish Abbasi, said on the occasion, that the membership campaign in Delhi by the Front is progressing towards success in a spectacular manner, and even today a large number of people from the Muslim community have taken membership in the BJP, which shows that only BJP does the real politics of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas. Delhi State President of the Front Anish Abbasi, National Vice President of the Front SM Akram, Sajjada-Nasheen Dargah Matka Shah Baba Shahid Abbasi, National Co-Incharge of Sufi Samvad Kamal Babar, General Secretary of Delhi Minority Front Faisal Mansoori, Naeem Saifi, Shabana Rehman, Membership Campaign Incharge Irfan Salmani and workers of the Front were also present on the occasion. (ANI) Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Chirag Paswan on Friday expressed dismay over the brutal assault on the students of Bihar in West Bengal and called it a "shameful incident." "The topic of our meeting was the schemes running in Bihar, but the most important topic was how Bihar students are being cruelly treated in West Bengal... I always raise the issue of how Biharis are treated in other states... This is a very shameful incident, its video has been viral for 2 days... The Constitution of India allows any Indian to go to any corner of the country and get education, employment, or business, despite this, if there is such a mentality in any state then it is a matter of concern. I raised this matter before the Chief Minister," Chirag Paswan told reporters. He also trained guns at former deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav, alleging him to be silent on the issue. "The Leader of Opposition (Tejashwi Yadav) is silent on this...I discussed this with the Chief Minister. I am happy that the local administration has taken it promptly and contacted the administration there. Chief Minister himself is personally monitoring this matter. I hope that justice will be done to those children," he added. On the incident of alleged beating of a Bihari student in West Bengal, RJD MP Misa Bharti said that RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav took cognizance of it. "We all saw it on social media... RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav took cognizance of it and he spoke to the people there. We got to know that action has also been taken on it. Such incidents should not happen anywhere," Misa Bharti said. Earlier, the Bagdogra police under Siliguri Police Commemorate arrested two people for allegedly threatening and harassing two young men who came to Siliguri from Bihar to attend an exam. The accused have been identified as Rajat Bhattacharya and Giridhari Roy- residents of West Bengal's Siliguri are known to be linked to Bangla Pokkho, a pro-Bengali advocacy organization. The incident came to light after a video of the youth went viral on social media, gaining widespread condemnation. In the video that has gone viral, the youth can be seen sleeping in a room when a group of miscreants entered and asked them whether they could understand Bengali. When one student replied that they couldn't, the miscreants began questioning them aggressively, claiming they shouldn't be taking exams in other states. One of the students attempted to explain that they had been assigned to the Siliguri exam center but was repeatedly asked to show his documents. The group claimed to be from the IB and harassed the youth. Biswachand Thakur, DCP of Siliguri Police, announced that two accused were arrested by Bagdogra police on Thursday evening following a complaint. "On the basis of a complaint, two persons were arrested by Bagdogra police on Thursday evening on the charge of threatening and harassing two youths claiming to IB, police officers. Further investigation is underway," Biswachand Thakur said. (ANI) Karnataka Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ramesh NR has lodged a complaint with the Karnataka Lokayukta against Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and several others, accusing them of land grabbing involving the Siddhartha Vihar Trust, which is reportedly linked to Kharge's family. BJP IT Cell Head Amit Malviya took to X on Friday and posted, "Ramesh NR of BJP has filed a complaint with Karnataka Lokayukta against Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and others, alleging land grab by the Siddhartha Vihar Trust owned by Kharge's family." "The trust reportedly received free land from the Congress government, raising questions about nepotism and criminal breach of trust," Malviya wrote in his post. Meanwhile, the Lokayukta Police filed an FIR on Friday against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and others in connection with the alleged Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) land allotment 'scam'. The FIR has been filed by the Mysuru Lokayukta under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including 351, 420, 340, 09, and 120B among others, officials said. The FIR mentions CM Siddaramaiah, his wife, brother-in-law and others as accused in the case, they added. Earlier in the day, Snehamayi Krishna, one of the complainants in the MUDA scam, filed a petition in the Karnataka High Court, seeking the transfer of the case from the Lokayukta to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The matter is expected to be heard on September 30. This comes after the Special Court in Bengaluru passed an order directing Karnataka Lokyukta to conduct an investigation against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on the allegation of illegalities in the allotment of 14 sites worth Rs 56 crore to his wife Parvathi by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA).Karnataka Lokayukta's Mysuru district police will have to conduct the investigation and will submit its report in three months. The Special Court's order came after the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday vacated its interim stay order granted on August 19, directing the court to defer the decision on the complaints against Siddaramaiah. Earlier today, Karnataka CM's Financial Advisor Basvaraj Rayareddi said that there is no need for the resignation of CM Siddaramaiah. "There is no need for the resignation of CM Siddaramaiah... What wrong has he committed? The High Court has ordered an inquiry. There is a difference between inquiry and prosecution. Anyone can inquire under 17A of the PCA... It is a political game, it is not a corruption case at all. It might be a procedure lapse. But what is the CM's role in this? If anyone has committed a procedure lapse, it is MUDA only... There is no need to demand the resignation of the Chief Minister," Rayareddi said. CM Siddaramaiah earlier reiterated that he will not resign over the alleged MUDA land allotment scam. He said that the opposition is making the demand for his resignation in order to destabilise his government. "I will not resign. HD Kumaraswamy is a minister; he is on bail after an FIR was lodged against him. He is a minister in the Narendra Modi government. It's a politics by them to destabilise our government; that is why they are doing it," Siddaramaiah told reporters here. On Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah's statement, BJP leader CT Ravi said that the whole Congress is scared because they have done corruption. "They should not be afraid of the investigation if they are honest... They revoked (the general consent for the CBI to investigate a state) because they are corrupt... They are scared because corruption charges have come upon them... There is a difference between 'use' and 'misuse'... Did we ask them to do corruption?... The truth comes out when there is an investigation and they are afraid of that," he added. It is alleged that MUDA illegally allotted 14 sites to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's wife in the prime location of Mysuru city.Earlier on Thursday, the Karnataka government withdrew open consent to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct a probe in the state. (ANI) Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Friday expressed happiness after four villages of the state were honoured with the Best Tourism Village Award on World Tourism Day, saying "it is a matter of great pride for 'Devbhoomi' Uttarakhand." Four villages of the state--Jakhol, Soopi, Harshil and Gunji--received the Best Tourism Village Award on the occasion of World Tourism Day. The Chief Minister reaffirmed the state government's strong commitment to promoting tourism in Uttarakhand and said that the Home Stay Scheme is proving to be very beneficial in this regard. "CM Dhami said it is a matter of great pride for Uttarakhand that four villages of the state, Jakhol, Soopi, Harshil and Gunji, received the Best Tourism Village Award on the occasion of World Tourism Day. The state government is fully committed to promoting tourism in the state. The state government's Home Stay Scheme is proving to be very important in this regard," according to an official release. The Chief Minister further said that the state government is also promoting adventure tourism activities in the state along with developing new tourist destinations, which is helping generate employment in the state. "The state government is doing the best work in every field by following the path shown by him. With the cooperation of the public, positive results are coming in every field in the state. He said that unemployment has come down by 4.4 per cent in the state," said CM Dhami. "Uttarakhand has come first in the ranking of Sustainable Development Goals released by NITI Aayog. The Chief Minister said that the state government has set an example by implementing strict anti-cheating laws to prevent cheating in examinations. As a result of this, the state government has succeeded in recruiting more than seventeen thousand posts with complete transparency in the recent past," it added. Further, Chief Minister Dhami said that works are underway at a fast pace to implement the Uniform Civil Code. Earlier on World Tourism Day on Thursday, CM Dhami said that Uttarakhand has a special place on the tourism map of the country and the world due to its rich culture and heritage. The diversity of the multifaceted folk culture, handicrafts, natural beauty, folk music, and dances of the state in the festivals, fairs, and celebrations here has always been a centre of attraction for tourists, he added. The Chief Minister said, "The Char Dhams have been the centre of faith for crores of people in the country and the world for centuries. Tourism has an important contribution to strengthening the economy of the state. He mentioned that the expansion of road connectivity and air connectivity will definitely boost the tourism of the state and will be beneficial for the economy of the state." He further said that with the cooperation of the Central Government, air connectivity is also being strengthened in the state. "The dream of rail in the hills is going to be fulfilled. Due to the natural beauty of the state, there are immense possibilities for tourism, industry, and trade here. Homestay is being further promoted in the state. This will also strengthen rural tourism and the economy," he said. The Chief Minister said that tourism is the basis of both development and employment in the state. Tourist places are the symbols of our historical and cultural civilisations and our identity. In Uttarakhand, the centre of divinity and spiritual experience, a plan is being implemented to develop new tourist places to link tourism with employment. He said that Uttarakhand has always been ready to welcome guests along with spreading the message of "Atithi Devo Bhava" in the country and the world. The Chief Minister also appealed to the people of the state to participate in spreading the importance of World Tourism Day to the people while maintaining our glorious tradition of welcoming and hospitality to the tourists coming to the state and preserving historical monuments. (ANI) Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee leader Gurbachan Singh Chhaba on Friday suggested the government should come up with a permanent solution on the stubble-burning issue and said that no farmer wants to burn stubble but they are helpless. "No farmer wants to burn stubble but they are helpless. Preparing one's field (for the next crop) is very expensive...The government invents new machines every year and the machines from the previous year become metal waste. Farmers have to procure machines every year, there is no solution to this. The government should come up with a permanent solution to this stubble-burning issue," Chhaba told ANI. Earlier today, an incident of stubble burning was seen in the field in Chabba village of Amritsar. Earlier on Wednesday, Chairman of the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB), Dr Adarsh Pal Vig said that from September 15 till September 25, 93 incidents of stubble burning have been reported in the state, adding that in the last two years, there has been a drastic reduction in stubble burning incidents. "From September 15 till today, 93 incidents of burning have been reported in Punjab. Amritsar, Guradpur, and Tarn Taran have early harvesting. In the last two years, there has been a drastic reduction in incidents, with around 36,000 incidents reported last year as compared to over 70,000 incidents in the year before it. In the last two years, a 46 per cent-50 per cent reduction in cases has been reported. We have to bring this number to zero," Vig said. The Chairman of the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) said that with the collective effort of farmers, industry, the energy department, the agriculture department, and the public are working together towards it. "Out of the 6 million tonne stubble, 4 million tonne stubble is being burnt in industrial boilers in different industries today. The Punjab government has earmarked Rs 25 crore in benefits to those who install paddy-based industrial boilers. 4 units for compressed biogas have been set up and 7-8 plants are planned. For storage of stubble, government and panchayat land is also given. Today, farm stubble pellets are being used as fuel in thermal power plants in Punjab and also brick kilns. 18 farm stubble pelletisation plants have been set up and 19 are in the pipeline," Vig added. Punjab Minister Balbir Singh said that the state government has enough equipment to fight against the stubble burning and urged the farmers to come and meet them if they have any issues. "Stubble burning first affects the person burning it, his family members, and people of his village because all of these people are inhaling it directly... It can cause problems like coughing, chronic bronchitis, and eyes burning. It also affects pregnant women and children. Ecology is also affected, and birds and animals die. Invisible and friendly bacteria are killed...This is a collective responsibility. We have enough equipment, and a lot of NGOs are collaborating with us... I request the farmers to come and meet us if they have any issues," Singh said. (ANI) Himachal Pradesh minister Vikramaditya Singh on Friday met with Congress general secretary KC Venugopal in the national capital amid the row over the mandatory display of the identity of street vendors i n the state. After the meeting, Vikramaditya Singh told ANI that during the meeting they held discussions about the party and organisation activities. "Most of the discussions were about the party, how we should further increase the organisational activities, and how we should strengthen the organisation and move forward in that way," Vikramaditya told ANI. "As far as whatever has been reported in the media, I have said very clearly that the interests of the party and the people of the state are best for us, and whatever action is going on in it, whether it is a hearing of the Supreme Court or an order of the High Court, it is our duty to implement it from time to time, within the ambit of the law, so for this (eateries displaying the names of owners), a committee has been formed." The Minister emphasised that it is their duty to protect the interests of the Himachal. "It is very clear that protecting the interests of Himachal and taking it forward is our duty and our responsibility, and we will never step back from this...," he said. On Himachal Pradesh Assembly Leader of Opposition Jairam Thakur's statement, he said, "We have definitely formed a committee on this issue. In the all-party meeting, there will be people from the opposition and people from our party, and everyone will discuss and brainstorm..." Minister Vikramaditya Singh on Wednesday announced that it will be mandatory for all shopkeepers and street vendors in Himachal Pradesh to display their identity cards. However, the Himachal Pradesh government clarified on Friday that no decision has been taken so far to make it mandatory for street vendors to display their identity cards. Following the statement of Vikramaditya Singh, the government emphasised that the assembly-formed committee responsible for draughting the policy has not yet convened. Naresh Chauhan, Principal Media Advisor to the Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister, while speaking to ANI, stated, "The Speaker has constituted a committee that includes ministers from both Congress and BJP, alongside other MLAs. Only after the committee's report is considered will the cabinet take a final decision. So far, the government has not decided that vendors need to display their identity or photos." He further addressed comparisons to policies in other states, particularly Uttar Pradesh, and dismissed the idea of following the "UP and Yogi model." "There is no need for a UP-style model in Himachal Pradesh," Chauhan asserted. He also reiterated that the government is working independently to shape its policies, stating, "We will take a decision on this based on our discussions, the committee's report, and the feedback from the people." Vikramaditya Singh, in his capacity as the Urban Development Minister, discussed the issue with officials. The committee in question includes key members, such as the Health Minister, who will deliberate on the matter before the cabinet makes any decisions. Chauhan further clarified, "The people who work here have licenses. There has been no decision so far to mandate vendors to display their name, photo identity, or registration number outside their shops." He also highlighted the government's welcoming attitude towards workers from other states, emphasizing, "Anyone from any part of the country is welcome to work in Himachal Pradesh. We will maintain records, but under constitutional rights, people are free to work in any state. Our priority is to keep proper records, but we don't see a need to emulate policies from other states," Chauhan said. (ANI) Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav participated in the fourth edition of Regional Industry Conclave held in Sagar district on Friday and said that investment proposals of around Rs 23000 crore received and around 27,875 job opportunities would be generated. The fourth Regional Industries Conclave of the state was organised at Jawaharlal Nehru Police Academy Ground in Sagar on Friday. Industrialists and investors across India and abroad participated in the conclave. CM Yadav also held discussions with the industrialists on the occasion. "Today is a historic day for Sagar. Since, we started the Regional Industry Conclave, we are organising the conclaves in various divisions in the state. When we organise the conclave in any division, it covers all the districts focusing on all the job-oriented sectors across the state. I am happy to say that with the development of industries not only economic growth happens but also it generates local job opportunities. Today, it was the fourth edition of the Regional Industry Conclave held in Sagar," CM Yadav told reporters. Over 3500 industrialists and representatives of six countries which include Magnolia, Algeria, Kenya, Canada, Iran, and Thailand participated in the conclave. Besides, investors from 10 states came to the conclave. Along with this, top industrialists of various sectors which include petrochemical, textile, garments, renewable energy, agriculture, food and tourism also participated in the conclave, he added. "Discussions were held with industrialists. Due to Madhya Pradesh's favourable industry policy and industry-friendly atmosphere, investment proposals are getting passed continuously. I am happy to say that investors came to set up one unit here, but after seeing the atmosphere, the investor wished to take one more proposal," CM said. "In order to increase investment in the state and facilities, we have started our office in Coimbatore today which will work as a mediator between investors of that region and the MP government. Along with this, I have announced plans to open two more offices in Kolkata and Maharashtra as well. Investment of around Rs 23 000 crore has been received from Sagar Regional Industry Conclave and 27,875 job opportunities will be generated from it," CM said. He further briefed about the major industries investment details and job opportunities generated from it. The Regional Industry Conclaves are being held in the state as a pre-event of the "Invest Madhya Pradesh-Global Investor Summit-2025". GIS-2025 is proposed to be organised in Bhopal on February 7 and 8 next year. The main objective of the GIS-2025 Summit is to establish Madhya Pradesh as a favourable investment destination and to include it among the leading states of the country by highlighting the capabilities, abundant resources and favourable industrial environment of the state. The first edition of Regional Industry Conclave was organised in Ujjain on March 1 and 2 this year. Later, the conclave was held in Jabalpur on July 20 and then in Gwalior last month on August 28. (ANI) Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, who is also Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) India Regional Chairperson, inaugurated the archive cell of the Mizoram Legislative Assembly Library on Friday, a press release said. The inaugurated arhive cell of Mizoram Legislative Assembly Library is the outcome of the initiatives taken by Mizoram Legislative Assembly Speaker Lalbiakzama with a limited fund gathered from the office expenses of the State Assembly. The archive room will maintain important old documents and record proceedings from the times of Mizoram being a District Council and UT dating since 1972, it added. According to the release, the room is equipped with several amenities, which will provide easy access to the documents for the member visitors. The arhive cell was inaugurated in the presence of state CM Lalduhoma, Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh Narayan Singh, Speaker Lalbiakzama, Nagaland Assembly Speaker Sharingain Longkumer, and Chairman of CPA Indian Region, Zone III, and Speakers and Deputy Speakers of CPA India Region Zone III Member States and other dignitaries. OM Birla arrived on Thursday to attend the 21st Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) India Region, Zone III Annual Conference, which has a theme: 'Fostering Legislative Sanctity'. He was also accompanied by the Secretary General of Lok Sabha, Utpal Kumar Singh, and Secretary General of Rajya Sabha, P. C. Mody. It is notable that the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) is an international community of Commonwealth Parliaments and Legislatures working together to strengthen the Commonwealth's commitment to high standards of democratic governance and the parliamentary system. The CPA is one of the oldest organizations in the Commonwealth. Established in 1911, the federation is made up of more than 180 legislatures divided between nine geographical regions of the 54 Commonwealth countries. It provides an opportunity for MPs and parliamentary staff to collaborate on issues of mutual interest and share good practices. CPA India Region was established in 2004 as one of nine regions from the erstwhile CPA Asia Region. It has 31 Member Branches. 30 State/Union Territory Legislatures including the Parliament of India. 10 CPA India Region Conferences have been organized, so far. It is also pertinent to note that 20 Regional Conferences have been organized in the North Eastern States including the programmess organized by the North Eastern Region Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (NERCPA) and CPA Zone-III. CPA North East Region has been organizing this regional Conference regularly since 1997. Conferences have been organized regularly aimed at strengthening democracy in the North-Eastern region. This reflects the commitment and faith of the common people in the democratic institutions and processes of the nation. Every possible effort is now being made towards a prosperous and progressive North-East. The North Eastern Council was formed by an Act of Parliament in 1971 for the socio-economic development of the region, with the Chief Ministers of all eight states of the region as members. Keeping in mind the development of the North Eastern States, the Government of India established the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DONER) in 2001. (ANI) National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) Chairperson Priyank Kanungo on Friday responded to the death of a school boy in Hathras and labelled the crime as 'unforgivable' and a result of 'carelessness'. "The heinous crime that took place is unforgivable and a result of carelessness. The commission has taken cognisance of the incident. A team of NCPCR from Delhi will go to investigate this. Under the leadership of the state commission chairperson, this incident will be probed and a report will be submitted to us. Prima facie, it appears that rules were broken, guidelines of government of India were not followed." Earlier in the day, Uttar Pradesh police arrested five people in connection with the alleged murder of a student at his school under Sahpau Police Station in Hathras. The accused were identified as Ramprakash Solanki, Dinesh Baghel, Jashodhan Singh alias Bhagat ji, Laxman Singh, and Virpal Singh alias Viru. The five accused have been booked under section 103(1) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and sent to judicial custody, said police. The FIR was registered on the basis of the statement of a man, who stated that Dinesh Baghel and other accused told him that they strangled his son and killed him on September 23. As per the FIR, the child lived in the hostel of the school. According to the police, the boy was allegedly murdered on September 23 at the hostel of a private school in Hathras. Hathras Additional Superintendent of Police, Ashok Kumar Singh, said, "On 23rd September, a student was murdered at the hostel of DL Public School under Sahpau PS. A case was registered under relevant sections on the basis of the statement of the complainant. Five accused, including the owner of the school, have been arrested. They have been sent to judicial custody. Police will take action by investigating all angles." Reacting to the incident, a Member of the Uttar Pradesh State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR), Anita Agarwal, said that she would recommend to the State Administration to de-recognise this school. "This is a heinous incident. We will take action in this matter. I will recommend to the State Administration to de-recognise this school," Member of the Uttar Pradesh State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR), Anita Agarwal, said. (ANI) A visitor looks at the exhibits during the preview of "West Meets East: Retrospective Exhibition of Marc Riboud's Photography" at the Hunan Museum in Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan Province, Sept. 25, 2024. (Xinhua/Lin Jianjie) From a wedding held in a textile factory in the 1950s to a man in a suit speaking on a brick phone in the 1990s, a new exhibition featuring the works of French photographer Marc Riboud offers precious glimpses of a fast-changing China over a period of half a century. The exhibition named, "West Meets East: Retrospective Exhibition of Marc Riboud's Photography," opened on Thursday at the Hunan Museum in Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan Province, and features 148 photos taken by Riboud -- 67 of which he shot in China between 1957 and 2010. About 10 works are being exhibited in China for the first time, including a color photo showing a couple carrying a television on a street in Beijing in 1980, shortly after the country launched its reform and opening-up drive. The late photographer was best known for his extensive reports on China and Asia. "Marc Riboud had a keen eye for Chinese society. His works, which have a unique visual rhythm and are deeply humanistic, show different sides of the changing life in China," said Huang Lei, curator of the exhibition, noting that Riboud held a special place in cultural exchanges between China and France. Co-organized by the Hunan Museum and France's Guimet National Museum of Asian Arts, the exhibition is part of this year's Croisements Festival, which marks 60 years of diplomatic ties between China and France. The exhibition will last until Dec. 10. The Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, Harivansh Narayan Singh, participated in the inaugural session of the 21st Annual Conference of CPA India Region Zone, consisting of north-eastern states, in Aizawl, Mizoram, on Friday. In his address, the Deputy Chairperson emphasised on the focus of Union Government in implementing more infrastructure projects and incentivising economic activity in the region. He also commended the Presiding Officers of the North East for being proactive in discussing various regional issues and meeting regularly. While underlining that the North Eastern region contributes about 2.83% of the country's GDP, he added that in coming years it will contribute a lot more to the nation's economy as more infrastructure projects become operational. "About Rs. 5 lakh crores have been spent by 54 different Union Ministries since 2014. The North Eastern region is a land of immense economic potential. It has a wide array of opportunities that can contribute substantially towards the Prime Minister's goal of a Vikasit Bharat by 2047," he said. "Eight new airports have come up in the region since 2014 and the total number of airports has increased to 17 in this region. This has also led to significant increase in aviation traffic. As envisioned a few years ago, Guwahati is already emerging as a major hub for aviation. And better connectivity has also increased the tourism in the region," he said. "On the Railways front, apart from major projects that are underway, there have been several landmark achievements. In 2022, after a gap of 100 years, Nagaland got its second railway station connecting Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland. Last year, the first Vande Bharat train was flagged off from Guwahati. In a few months, Aizawl will be the latest capital to be connected by rail network. Since 2014, a total of 1012 kilometres of National Highway Roads have been constructed in the region and another 1982 kilometres of NH roads are under implementation," he added. Singh highlighted that, apart from the infrastructure push, the frequent visits of the Union Ministers are helping in mapping the aspirations and sentiments of the local population and effective implementation of the projects of the Government. The Prime Minister has visited the region for over 70 times. He further added that the Parliament too has been proactive in examining the opportunities in the north-east. "Last year, the Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce undertook a study on how to promote trade in the northeastern region and held extensive consultations with Ministries, experts from trade bodies, and academics to make key recommendations," he said. One of the topics to be discussed in the conference is about inclusion of North East in the India-ASEAN vision for trade and co-operation. ASEAN is one of India's most important trading partners with a share of 11% in India's global trade. IndiaASEAN trade had crossed $120 billion last year. Emphasising on the balance between promotion of trade and addressing regional security issues, he said, "There is little doubt that there is enormous untapped potential for better trade integration and the promotion of economic partnerships with neighbouring countries in the East. However, as a nation, there needs to be better synergy between the security priorities of our nation and the benefits of free trade. The Union Government is particularly sensitive to this and has taken various steps to ensure that both these goals are met with incremental and effective steps." (ANI) Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge reacted to the FIR filed by Lokayukta Police against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in connection with the alleged Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) land allotment 'scam', and said that the "law will take its own course." Kharge slammed the Bhartiya Janata Party-led Centre for "targeting" Siddaramaiah in the MUDA case and said that the BJP's main aim is to defame the Congress party. "Law will take its own course...It is not necessary that the government should respond to it as it is an autonomous body, they can take action on whatever they have done is right or wrong. That is one thing. If Siddaramaiah has personally committed a crime, he is responsible, but he has not done anything like that," the Congress President told ANI. Kharge also said that there is no need for CM Siddaramaiah to resign from his post. "Their (BJP) main aim is to defame the Congress party, it is not fair, there is no question of him (Siddaramaiah) resigning from the post," he said. The Lokayukta Police filed an FIR on Friday against Siddaramaiah and others in connection with the alleged MUDA land allotment 'scam', officials said. The FIR has been filed by the Mysuru Lokayukta under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including 351, 420, 340, 09, and 120-B, among others, they said. The FIR mentions CM Siddaramaiah, his wife, brother-in-law and others as accused in the case, they added. Earlier in the day, Snehamayi Krishna, one of the complainants in the MUDA scam, filed a petition in the Karnataka High Court, seeking the transfer of the case from the Lokayukta to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The matter is expected to be heard on September 30. This comes after the Special Court in Bengaluru passed an order directing Karnataka Lokyukta to conduct an investigation against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on the allegation of illegalities in the allotment of 14 sites worth Rs 56 crore to his wife Parvathi by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA). Karnataka Lokayukta's Mysuru district police will have to conduct the investigation and will submit its report in three months. The Special Court's order came after the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday vacated its interim stay order granted on August 19, directing the court to defer the decision on the complaints against Siddaramaiah. CM Siddaramaiah earlier reiterated that he will not resign over the alleged MUDA land allotment scam. He said that the opposition is making the demand for his resignation in order to destabilise his government. "I will not resign. HD Kumaraswamy is a minister; he is on bail after an FIR was lodged against him. He is a minister in the Narendra Modi government. It's a politics by them to destabilise our government; that is why they are doing it," Siddaramaiah told reporters here. It is alleged that MUDA illegally allotted 14 sites to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's wife in the prime location of Mysuru city. Earlier on Thursday, the Karnataka government withdrew open consent to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct a probe in the state. (ANI) Karnataka Assembly LoP R Ashok on Friday demanded the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry in connection with the alleged Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) land allotment 'scam' and said that the BJP will start the agitation against the Congress government. "We started this agitation against Congress and the CM because of the corrupt Karnataka government. CM Siddaramaiah must resign immediately...We are demanding the resignation of the CM. We will start the agitation against the Congress government. We want a CBI inquiry, only then the truth will come out. We are demanding a fair inquiry, which means CBI," R Ashok told ANI. Earlier today, the Lokayukta Police filed an FIR against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and others in connection with the alleged Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) land allotment 'scam', officials said. The FIR has been filed by the Mysuru Lokayukta under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including 351, 420, 340, 09, and 120B among others, they said. The FIR mentions CM Siddaramaiah, his wife, brother-in-law and others as accused in the case, they added. Snehamayi Krishna, one of the complainants in the MUDA scam, filed a petition in the Karnataka High Court, seeking the transfer of the case from the Lokayukta to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The matter is expected to be heard on September 30. This comes after the Special Court in Bengaluru passed an order directing Karnataka Lokyukta to conduct an investigation against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on the allegation of illegalities in the allotment of 14 sites worth Rs 56 crore to his wife Parvathi by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA). Karnataka Lokayukta's Mysuru district police will have to conduct the investigation and will submit its report in three months. The Special Court's order came after the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday vacated its interim stay order granted on August 19, directing the court to defer the decision on the complaints against Siddaramaiah. CM Siddaramaiah earlier reiterated that he will not resign over the alleged MUDA land allotment scam. He said that the opposition is making the demand for his resignation in order to destabilise his government. "I will not resign. HD Kumaraswamy is a minister; he is on bail after an FIR was lodged against him. He is a minister in the Narendra Modi government. It's a politics by them to destabilise our government; that is why they are doing it," Siddaramaiah told reporters here. It is alleged that MUDA illegally allotted 14 sites to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's wife in the prime location of Mysuru city. Earlier on Thursday, the Karnataka government withdrew open consent to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct a probe in the state. (ANI) The Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) on Friday submitted a detailed memorandum to Chairman of the 16th Finance Commission, Arvind Panagariya, outlining key recommendations to accelerate industrial and economic growth in Assam and the broader North-East region. The memorandum was presented by Sarat Kumar Jain, Chairman of ICC's Assam and Meghalaya Chapter, and Ishantor Sobhapandit, Regional Director, ICC-North East. The memorandum emphasized the need for targeted financial interventions across several sectors vital for Assam's sustainable growth. The ICC called for special grants to improve industrial infrastructure in the region. This includes enhanced road connectivity, rail networks, ports, and power supply, particularly along the North East Industrial Corridor. The memorandum also advocated for support in developing inland waterways and multimodal logistics hubs to improve transportation efficiency. To ensure a reliable power supply for industrial growth, the ICC urged investment in upgrading the power transmission and distribution network. This would provide a steady power supply to meet industrial demand and reduce power outages. Recognizing Assam's agricultural potential, the ICC recommended the allocation of funds to develop agro-based industries. This includes modernizing technology, upgrading storage facilities, and setting up agroprocessing units. The memorandum stressed the need for incentives for industries that align with circular economy principles and promote sustainability. The ICC urged for incentives targeting renewable energy development, including solar energy parks, small hydropower plants, and biomass energy production. The chamber also requested additional support for research and development in clean technologies to position Assam as a hub for green energy solutions. Addressing the region's vulnerability to climate change, the ICC recommended dedicated funding for climate resilience projects such as flood control, embankment strengthening, and river management. The memorandum also proposed investments in climate-smart agriculture and infrastructure designed to withstand extreme weather conditions. As the North East has abundant resources such as bamboo, oil, coal, limestone, and a favorable climate for agriculture and horticulture, these resources remain underutilized due to a lack of value addition and processing industries; therefore, the ICC recommended promoting value-added industries in agriculture, horticulture, and forestry, particularly in sectors like bamboo processing, rubber, and tea. Encourage public-private partnerships (PPP) for setting up modern processing units for industries such as tea, spices, organic farming products, and natural gas. Also, to provide tax incentives and grants for research and development (R&D) to improve resource utilization and product innovation, particularly in environmentally sustainable industries. The memorandum highlighted the need for specific funds to support Assam's growing startup ecosystem. ICC suggested establishing venture capital funds, incubators, and accelerators to foster innovation in the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector, providing much-needed resources for local entrepreneurs. With Assam's strategic location, the ICC recommended financing cross-border trade infrastructure, including border markets, integrated check posts, and the development of international trade routes. These steps would strengthen Assam's economy while enhancing regional cooperation opportunities with neighboring countries. In conclusion, the ICC urged the 16th Finance Commission to recognize Assam's potential in the agro-processing, renewable energy, and tourism sectors while ensuring adequate financial support to address climate risks and infrastructure gaps. The memorandum emphasized that these recommendations would enable Assam to leverage its unique strengths, propelling the region towards sustainable and inclusive growth. (ANI) As the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) elections concluded on Friday, National General Secretary of ABVP Yagywalkya Shukla exuded confidence that there is strong support among students for all four ABVP candidates and confidently stated that the student body was set to defeat NSUI on all 4 posts. The voting started on Friday morning in various colleges and departments of Delhi University amid tight security. The RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the Congress-backed National Students' Union of India (NSUI), the left-wing student body All India Students' Association (AISA) and the Students' Federation of India (SFI) were the key players this year. Several left-leaning student organisations also fielded their candidates in the DUSU elections. Attributing this momentum to the organisation's commitment to fulfilling last year's promises, the ABVP National General Secretary said that the party has garnered positive feedback from the students. Speaking to ANI, ABVP's Shukla said, "The way the feedback of our workers is coming, in this election, students are extending great support to all 4 candidates of ABVP. ABVP will defeat NSUI on all 4 posts. Last time whatever promises we made, we worked for that throughout the year so voting is taking place in favour of ABVP." The National Students' Union of India officially announced its candidates for the forthcoming Delhi University Students' Union elections last week on September 20. Expressing confidence in the organization's ability to secure a clean sweep, NSUI National President, Varun Choudhary said the elections point towards a significant shift in the political landscape of Delhi University. "We are confident that the DUSU election will be in our favour and result in a 4-0 win for NSUI. We have a clear roadmap of action for Students' Welfare, which we will unveil tomorrow at a presser. This election is about addressing student issues and creating a better future for the varsity," he stated. In the 2023 election, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) won three out of the four central panel seats, including the presidential post. Tushar Dedha of the ABVP was elected president while NSUI's Abhi Dahiya, the only NSUI winner, was chosen vice-president of the Students' Union. As this year's elections draw close, NSUI is confident about its candidates and their commitment to transforming Delhi University for the better. The Plan of Action for Students' Welfare highlights specific steps, it plans to implement for improving the student experience and ensure transparent, inclusive leadership. Rounak Khatri as president, Yash Nandal as vice president, Namrata Jeph Meena as secretary, and Lokesh Choudhary as Joint Secretary will contest the polls from NSUI's side. The ABVP had earlier named the candidates; Rishabh Choudhary for President, Bhanu Pratap Singh for Vice President, Mitravinda Karanwal as secretary and Aman Kapasiya as Joint Secretary. The Students' Federation of India (SFI) and All India Students' Association (AISA), who are contesting the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections jointly for the first time also announced their candidates on Thursday. The last date for nomination papers was September 12, while the final list of the candidates was published on September 13. The polls will were held today, September 27. More than 1.45 lakh students cast their votes in the DUSU elections at the varsity's North and South campuses till 5.45 pm on Friday, an official statement said. According to the office of chief election officer, DUSU, a total of 1,45,893 students from 52 colleges had cast their votes till 5.45 pm to elect a new president, vice president, secretary and joint secretary. In an order passed on Thursday, the Delhi High Court had halted the counting of votes of the DUSU elections till public property defaced by posters, hoardings and graffiti is restored. As per the schedule, DU election results are scheduled to be released on September 28. (ANI) The parents of the 11-year-old schoolboy, who was allegedly murdered at the school in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras, demanded justice for their son and said the accused should be hanged. According to the police, the boy was allegedly murdered on September 23 at the hostel of a private school in Hathras. Father of the deceased, Shrikishan Kushwaha, said that his son was "brutally murdered" and demanded the accused to behanged to death." "My son was strangled, he was brutally murdered, His neck's bone was broken, his lips turned blue, I want them to be at least hanged to death. I want justice." Speaking to ANI, Shrikishan Kuswaha said, "At 5, I received the call of the school manager telling me that your son's health is very poor, come here. The school is 6 km from here. I asked them to bring my son here, but he refused. But when I called him, reaching midway, they told me that they had left the school. I called again, and they told me they are in Shahadabad and then said that they are in Khandoli. They have misled me. After 1.5 hour, Dinesh Bhagel was found with my son's body in a vehicle. He was intoxicated. One more person was involved, Laxman Sing, but he was not in the vehicle." Mother of the deceased, Kamlesh, grieving the death of her son, demanded the school be razed down by bulldozer. "Bulldozer should be run on the school. There should be a CBI inquiry in the case...the culprits should be hanged." Kamlesh said. On the reports of 'sacrifice' of the schoolboy, the deceased's father said, "My son was studying there for 4 years. I don't think there was any ritual performed there. He wasn't sacrificed. He was brutally murdered. I want an SIT team to investigate the matter." National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) Chairperson Priyank Kanungo also responded to the death of a schoolboy in Hathras and labelled the crime as 'unforgivable' and a result of 'carelessness'. "The heinous crime that took place is unforgivable and a result of carelessness. The commission has taken cognisance of the incident. A team of NCPCR from Delhi will go to investigate this. Under the leadership of the state commission chairperson, this incident will be probed and a report will be submitted to us. Prima facie, it appears that rules were broken, guidelines of government of India were not followed," he said. Earlier in the day, UP Police arrested five people in connection with the alleged murder. The accused have been identified as Ramprakash Solanki, Dinesh Baghel, Jashodhan Singh alias Bhagat ji, Laxman Singh, and Virpal Singh alias Viru. The five accused have been booked under section 103(1) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and sent to judicial custody, said police. The FIR was registered on the basis of the statement of a man, who stated that Dinesh Baghel and other accused told him that they strangled his son and killed him on September 23. As per the FIR, the child lived in the hostel of the school. Hathras Additional Superintendent of Police, Ashok Kumar Singh, said, "On 23rd September, a student was murdered at the hostel of D.L. Public School under Sahpau PS. A case was registered under relevant sections on the basis of the statement of the complainant. Five accused, including the owner of the school, have been arrested. They have been sent to judicial custody. Police will take action by investigating all angles." (ANI) Amid the rising dispute surrounding the alleged illegal construction of Sanjauli Mosque in Shimla, which has sparked tensions in the area, various organizations took out a march in a show of solidarity and communal harmony. The march was taken from CTO Chowk to the statue of Mahatma Gandhi on the Ridge via Lower Bazaar. It saw the participation of people from different faiths and communities, with the goal of delivering a strong message of peace and unity. The march, which was widely attended by people from different communities, was an effort to prevent further escalation of tension. Leaders and community representatives called for peace, stressing the long history of communal harmony in the region. During the event, Sanjay Chauhan, the former mayor and a member of CPIM, voiced his concerns about the current situation. Chauhan highlighted the peaceful coexistence of various religious communities in Shimla, "People of all religions have been living together in Shimla for a long time, but now efforts are being made to spoil the atmosphere due to the dispute," Chauhan said. He further emphasized the need for collective action, saying, "Today, a goodwill march is being taken out by various organizations in Shimla in which people from all communities and organizations have participated and people are being appealed for peace." Chauhan also recalled how Shimla maintained peace and unity even during the turbulent times of the 1984 riots, noting, "Shimla is a peaceful state, and even during the 1984 riots, people of all sections of society showed unity and brotherhood." His remarks underscored the importance of preserving this tradition of harmony and urged citizens to not let external influences disturb the peace." In addition to political figures, representatives from the Muslim community also participated in the peace march. Mohammad Piru, the president of the Qutub Mosque, shared his personal experiences, having lived in Shimla for over 25 years. "Such an atmosphere has never been created here till date," Piru said, pointing to the uniqueness of the current unrest. He called on the authorities to take preventative measures, stating, "The government and administration should verify all the people coming from outside so that the atmosphere here does not deteriorate," he said. Piru also reiterated the core message of the march, which was to ensure that peace remains intact in Shimla. "The message of maintaining a peaceful atmosphere is being given through the Peace March," he said, reflecting the sentiments of many who participated in the event. This demonstration comes at a crucial time when fears of communal tensions escalating are on the rise. The march not only served as a call for peace but also as a reminder of Shimla's long-standing tradition of unity amidst diversity, appealing to the citizens to remain calm and safeguard the town's harmonious spirit. (ANI) Sirsa had moved a petition in 2022 seeking a direction to further investigate and ascertain the role of Congress leader Kamal Nath in connection with the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Justice Manoj Kumar Ohri heard the submissions of the Additional Standing Counsel, Nadita Rao, who submitted that the investigation officer (IO) seeks two weeks' time to file the status report. It was also submitted that a special public prosecutor has been appointed by the government to pursue the case. Petitioner Manjinder Singh Sirsa appeared through video conferencing. He submitted that "government has not filed a status in two and a half years. How do we expect justice for riot victims?" Justice Ohri, after hearing the submissions, granted two weeks' time and asked the investigation officer of SIT to positively file the status report. The matter has been listed on December 6 for further hearing. An FIR was lodged in the Parliament Street police station in 1984. Advocate Gurbaksh Singh appeared for the patitioner. He told that the petition was filed in 2022. A status report was called for by the court. Since then government seeking time again and again. He also said that this case pertains to the killing of two Sikhs near the Gurudwara Rakab Ganj complex. We have moved the petition and sought a direction for investigation and to ascertain the role of Congress leader Kamal Nath and take action against him. (ANI) Congress leader Supriya Shrinate has called for strict action against those involved in the alleged murder of an eight-year-old school student in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras. She expressed concern that the country seems to have regressed in recent years. "I can't believe that in the 21st century, 78 years after India's independence, we are witnessing such things...5 people from school are involved in this incident...we sent our children to school so that they can study and become something, so that they can be safe...there should be strict action against this...now it feels like in the past few years, our country has gone backwards," Shrinate said. According to the police, the boy was allegedly murdered on September 23 at the hostel of a private school in Hathras. Hathras Additional Superintendent of Police, Ashok Kumar Singh, said, "On 23rd September, a student was murdered at the hostel of D.L. Public School under Sahpau PS. A case was registered under relevant sections on the basis of the statement of the complainant. Five accused, including the owner of the school, have been arrested. They have been sent to judicial custody. The police will take action by investigating all angles." Based on the complaint, school director Dinesh Baghel, his father, and three others have been arrested for the murder. "On September 23, a student identified as Kirtarth was murdered at the hostel of DL Public School under Sahpau Police Station. A case has been registered based on the statement of the complainant," Additional Superintendent of Police Ashok Kumar Singh told ANI. "Five accused, including the school owner, have been taken into custody. They have been sent to judicial custody. We are looking into all angles," he added. Meanwhile, devastated by the horrific incident, the victim's family has demanded that the culprits be hanged. "Bulldozers should be run on the school. There should be a CBI inquiry in the case... the culprits should be hanged," said Kamlesh, the victim's mother. Kishan Kushwaha, the victim's father, demanded a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to ascertain the real reason behind the murder. "I received a call from the school manager in the morning, stating that my child's health was very poor... They kept misleading me. After one and a half hours, I found my son's body with Dinesh Baghel. My son's bag was also in his car, and Dinesh Baghel was inebriated at that time," he claimed. "Another person involved, Lakshman Singh, was not present in the car. My son was strangled to death, and his neck was broken," he alleged. "I want the culprits to be hanged and for my son to get justice. My son had been studying at that school for around four years, and over 500 students study in the same school. I do not believe that sacrifices or black magic occur in the school. The true reason behind this should be investigated, and I request the Chief Minister to form an SIT," he said. The victim's grandfather, Mann Singh, stated, "He was killed by strangulation. When we reached the incident spot, they (the accused) fled with the child... We caught them in Agra with the child and the school bag." Soon after the incident came to light, the Hathras Basic Education Officer wrote a letter to SP Hathras and other officials to register an FIR against Dinesh Baghel, Manager/Director of DL Public School. In the letter the Hathras Basic Education Officer asked the SP Hathras and other officials to register an FIR against Dinesh Baghel, Manager/Director of DL Public School for "illegally running a residential school from classes 1 to 8 whereas the department had granted recognition only for classes 1 to 5." The Uttar Pradesh Police have arrested five people in connection with the case, and further investigations are underway. Devendra Sharma, President of the UP Commission for Protection of Child Rights, called the incident "sad" and expressed concern for children's rights. "It is a sad incident, as such occurrences due to superstition are still happening in our society. It must be stopped, and the Commission for Protection of Child Rights is concerned about children's rights. Politics should not be played regarding this incident," Sharma said. The victim was a student at DL Public School in Rasgawa, located in the Sahpau police station area of Hathras district, where he lived in the school's hostel. The accused have been identified as Ramprakash Solanki, Dinesh Baghel, Jashodhan Singh alias Bhagat ji, Laxman Singh, and Virpal Singh alias Viru. The five accused have been booked under section 103(1) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and sent to judicial custody, said police. (ANI) The Delhi High Court ordered a DNA examination of a minor on Friday after a man, claiming to be the child's biological father, requested custody. The court directed this examination to determine the child's paternity. The High Court passed the direction after noting that the biological mother refuted the claim of the man who is her brother-in-law. A division bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Amit Sharma directed the DNA examination and to file a report by the next date of hearing. The division bench said, "Considering the overall facts since respondent no 2 (mother) denies the fact that the Petitioner is the biological father of the child, this Court deems appropriate to direct DNA testing to be done to establish the paternity of the child-Master 'X." The bench noted the stand of respondent no 2 (mother) is that the legally wedded wife of the Petitioner is her real elder sister and that she had only permitted the child-Master 'X' to stay with the Petitioner and her elder sister for the child's education. "In view of the above, let the Petitioner visit Babu Jagjivan Ram Memorial Hospital, Jahangir Puri, Delhi at 11:30 AM on September 30, 2024, to provide his DNA samples," the Division bench ordered. It also ordered that the concerned Investigating Officer shall also take the child-Master 'X' to the said Hospital at the aforesaid time for providing the child's DNA samples. Thereafter, the said medical facility shall provide the DNA samples of the Petitioner and the child to the concerned Investigating Officer, who shall deposit the same with FSL Rohini, Delhi for conducting the DNA test, the High Court ordered. "Let a report from FSL Rohini, Delhi be submitted before this Court by the next date of hearing," the bench said. The next date of hearing is October 14. Before passing the direction the bench interacted with the child-Master 'X' and the Petitioner, as also with respondent no 2 (mother) in the chamber. Respondent no 2 (mother) denied the fact that the Petitioner is the biological father of the child-Master 'X'. The child clearly stated that he has always lived with the Petitioner and his legally wedded wife, whom he refers to as 'Bade Papa' and 'Badi Mummy. Master 'X' and the Petitioner are presented before the Court. Further, respondent no 2, who is the biological mother of the child is also was present. The High Court directed that In the meantime, the child Master 'X' shall continue to stay at CHB, Alipur, Delhi. The Petitioner is permitted to meet the child Master 'X' at CHB, Alipur, daily for 1 hour. The order has been passed in plea of Habeas Corpas seeking production of his minor son. It is stated that the minor child is the son of the petitioner and his sister-in-law. The Delhi High Court on Thursday directed the authorities to produce a minor child before it. The petitioner has moved a petition through advocates Umesh Chandra Sharma and Dinesh Kumar. He is seeking issuance of direction for the production of his minor son, who is currently residing in Children Home for Boys (CHB), in terms of an order dated August 8, 2024, by the Child Welfare Committee-VI (CWC), North-West Delhi. The bench noted in the order that the facts of this case are peculiar. The Petitioner is stated to be married and living with his wife in Calcutta, along with their two children. It is stated by the Petitioner that respondent no 2 is his sister-in-law. Further, it is also submitted that the Petitioner has two sons from Respondent No. 2, and the present petition has been filed seeking production of the younger son. It is the case of the Petitioner that the said minor son has lived in Calcutta along with the Petitioner for the past 12 years, and that during summer vacations the Petitioner along with his minor son was in Bihar from where the said minor child was removed from his custody by Respondent No.2 (sister in law). Advocate Umesh Chandra Sharma submitted that a complaint was lodged by him on June 1, 2024, and June 4, 2024, at Police Station (PS) Roshara, Samastipur, Bihar. It was also stated that the escort order dated July 29, 2024, was passed by the CWC, Hoogly in West Bengal, and finally by way of an order of August 16, 2024, the CWC, Delhi has directed the concerned minor child to be placed in CHB, Alipur, Delhi. It was argued by the Petitioner that the said minor child has always lived with him and wishes to continue living with him. The minor child has, in fact, given a statement to this effect. Standing counsel Sanjay Lao, handed over a status report dated September 25, 2024, authored by SHO, PS Shalimar Bagh, and the same is taken on record. As per the said status report the statement of the child has been recorded before CWC, Kolkata stating that he was forcibly taken to Delhi. He doesn't wish to live with respondent 2. (ANI) The 2024 Children's Band Battle was held at the NCPA Taihu Stage Art Centre, a complex in Beijing's Tongzhou district, on Sept 21 and 22. Fifteen bands stood out as they showcased their talents onstage. Co-organized by the China Association of Popular Music and the China Society for the Studies of Children Literature, the event was open to youth bands from around China, gathering top Chinese musicians as judges, such as guitarist Liu Lin, music producer Bi Xiaoshi and jazz pianist-composer Kong Hongwei. The event aims to provide a platform for children to showcase their talents, forge new friendships and foster communication through the universal language of music. The participating bands were categorized into age groups from 3 to 8 years old, 9 to 12 years old and 13 to 17 years old ensuring that the competition was tailored to each group's capabilities. The judges also worked as mentors to the youth bands, offering guidance during rehearsals and conducting master classes to nurture their musical prowess. Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh hit out at the BJP over allegations that the TMC protects the Rohingyas and not people of other states after Bihar students were assaulted in West Bengal and said that the border is under BSF and the responsibility is of Union Home Minister Amit Shah to stop infiltration. TMC leader Kunal Ghosh said, "Regarding the Rohingyas, from where are they coming? How they are crossing the border? The border is under BSF and the responsibility is of Union HM Amit Shah...Before making any allegation about Rohingyas. They should criticise the Central government and Amit Shah's department. Regarding this issue, we are friendly to everybody. From our state, our youths are going to different states and youth from other states are coming to our state. The incident has taken place. Police are looking after it." He said that from the border line till 50 km, all the areas are under the jurisdiction of the central government and Home Ministry. Earlier, the Bagdogra police under Siliguri Police Commemorate arrested two people for allegedly threatening and harassing two young men who came to Siliguri from Bihar to attend an exam. The accused have been identified as Rajat Bhattacharya and Giridhari Roy-residents of West Bengal's Siliguri are known to be linked to Bangla Pokkho, a pro-Bengali advocacy organisation. The incident came to light after a video of the youth went viral on social media, gaining widespread condemnation. In the video that has gone viral, the youth can be seen sleeping in a room when a group of miscreants entered and asked them whether they could understand Bengali. When one student replied that they couldn't, the miscreants began questioning them aggressively, claiming they shouldn't be taking exams in other states. One of the students attempted to explain that they had been assigned to the Siliguri exam center but was repeatedly asked to show his documents. The group claimed to be from the IB and harassed the youth. Biswachand Thakur, DCP of Siliguri Police, announced that two accused were arrested by Bagdogra police on Thursday evening following a complaint. "On the basis of a complaint, two persons were arrested by Bagdogra police on Thursday evening on the charge of threatening and harassing two youths claiming to IB, police officers. Further investigation is underway," Biswachand Thakur said. (ANI) Waqf Amendment Bill JPC Chairman and BJP MP Jagdambika Pal on Friday said that detailed discussions took place with stakeholders as part of its nationwide consultation exercise on the proposed legislation in Ahmedabad. The meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024 with the Gujarat government was held in Ahmedabad. According to Pal, the meeting was attended by the Gujarat Home Minister, Gujarat's Waqf board officers, chairman, minority commission officials and Islamic scholars. "Detailed discussions took place regarding Waqf Amendment Bill, yesterday we were in Mumbai and today we are in Ahmedabad. Today, in Ahmedabad, a meeting of JPC members and state govt took place state Home minister, Gujarat's Waqf board officers, chairman, minority commission officials, Islamic scholars, all were part of the meet...we listened to their views and suggestions...our committee will ponder it," BJP MP Jagdambika Pal said. The Waqf (Amendment) Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Aug 8 and was then referred to a JPC after a heated debate. Gujarat Home Minister Harsh Sanghvi 'briefed' JPC regarding their 'concern' on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill. "A delegation of the Gujarat Government briefed the Joint Parliamentary Committee regarding our concerns towards the amendments in the Waqf Bill... These concerns were presented for the benefit of all the citizens of the state and the country. It was my responsibility to present the concerns of the state in front of the JPC. As far as the benefit of the state is concerned, the Bhupendra Patel government will present its points firmly. This is an appreciable step by the central government. The states and the citizens are welcoming this. It is in everyone's favour. The Gujarat State government has already said that we welcome this step," Harsh Sanghvi said The JPC on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024 is holding a series of informal discussions with various stakeholders till October 1. These consultations aim to refine the proposed amendments to the Waqf Act, which governs the management of over 600,000 registered waqf properties across the country. The Waqf Act, 1995, was created to regulate waqf properties, but it has long faced allegations of mismanagement, corruption and encroachments. The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, seeks to bring sweeping reforms, introducing digitisation, stricter audits, transparency, and legal mechanisms to reclaim illegally occupied properties. (ANI) External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met with Philemon Yang, the new President of the UNGA, and reaffirmed India's commitment to the recently adopted Summit of the Future pact, covering a broad range of themes, including peace and security, sustainable development, climate change, digital cooperation, human rights, gender, youth and future generations, and the transformation of global governance. Sharing a post on X, Jaishankar wrote, "Pleased to meet new UNGA President Philemon Yang today in New York. Assured him of India's full support to his vision of Unity in Diversity, Peace, Human Sustainability and Dignity for everyone everywhere." Yang also shared a post on his X handle and wrote about his meeting with Jaishankar and said that the two discussed key priorities and issues for the upcoming UNGA79. "I had the pleasure to receive India's External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar today. We discussed the priorities and key issues for UNGA79, and building on the outcomes of the Summit of the Future. I also appreciated India's role in advancing the interests of the Global South," Yang wrote on X. Meanwhile, on the sidelines of UNGA, Jaishankar also met with the Foreign Minister of Jordan. In a post on X, Jaishankar shared a picture and wrote, "A warm meeting with FM Ayman Hsafadi of Jordan. Our discussions revolved around the ongoing situation in West Asia." https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1839400654034612448 In another post, Jaishankar wrote, "Bumping into friends at UNGA79. Quick chat with FM Kamina J Smith of Jamaica." https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1839400329039016190 Meanwhile, Jaishankar underscored the significance of BRICS for multipolarity and global diversity. He further said that the meeting emphasised the need to reform multilateralism and strengthen development. Sharing a post on X, Jaishankar wrote, "Just concluded the BRICS Foreign Ministers Meeting on the sidelines of UNGA79. Underlined its significance for multi-polarity and global diversity. Focused on reforming multilateralism and strengthening development." Jaishankar also stressed achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets during the BRICS meeting. The discussions focused on overcoming poverty, addressing debt, and promoting fair trade. "Also discussed achieving SDG targets, addressing debt, promoting fair trade and overcoming poverty. Thank FM Mauro Vieira for convening and chairing the meeting," the post on X added. (ANI) In a significant blow to Hezbollah, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) announced the elimination of Muhammad Hussein Srour, Commander of the organisation's Aerial Command, in a precision airstrike in Beirut. Sharing a post on X, the IDF wrote, "Eliminated: Commander of Hezbollah's Aerial Command, Muhammad Hussein Srour, in a precise IAF strike in Beirut." The IDF further said that Srour was responsible for advancing numerous aerial terrorist attacks targeting Israeli civilians. "Srour advanced and directed numerous aerial terrorist attacks aimed at Israeli civilians. During the "Iron Swords" war, he executed several terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers using UAVs and explosive devices," the post said. "In recent years, Srour led the manufacturing project of UAVs in southern Lebanon and established UAV manufacturing and intelligence gathering sites in Lebanon, located adjacent to civilian infrastructure in Beirut and southern Lebanon," the post added. The IDF also said that Srour's role extended to the commander of the surface-to-air missile unit, as well as the "Aziz" Unit of the Radwan Force. It said, "He was also the commander in the surface-to-air missile unit, commander in the "Aziz" Unit of the Radwan Force and Hezbollah's emissary to Yemen and the Houthi terrorist regime's Aerial Command." Meanwhile, amid the escalating tensions between Israel and Lebanon, the United States has called for a 21 day ceasefire on the Israel-Lebanon border to prevent an escalation of war and give diplomacy a chance there and in Gaza. Voicing their support for this plan are US Secretary of Defence Lloyd J Austin III, British Defence Secretary John Healey, and Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles, who met in London on Thursday at the AUKUS defense ministerial meeting, the Pentagon said in a press release. "The situation in Lebanon and northern Israel is deeply troubling. Lebanese Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group, began firing rockets into Israel in an unprovoked attack the day after the October 7, 2023, terrorist assault by Hamas, Austin said. "Hezbollah has not stopped since. Like any other state, Israel has a right to defend itself. And almost a year later, tens of thousands of Israeli and Lebanese civilians still cannot safely return home, and we now face the risk of an all-out war, another full-scale war, which could be devastating for both Israel and Lebanon, he added. Austin further said that despite the sharp escalation in recent days, a diplomatic solution is still viable. "A diplomatic solution, not a military solution, is the only way to ensure that displaced civilians on both sides of the border can finally go back home," he said. Calling for an immediate ceasefire, Austin said, "An immediate 21-day ceasefire will provide time for the diplomacy needed to achieve a durable arrangement that will allow Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return safely to their homes. This time can also be used to conclude and implement a deal to secure a cease-fire in Gaza and to bring all of the hostages home." (ANI) Tanmaya Lal, Secretary (West), Ministry of External Affairs, asserted that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) urgently needs reform to become more representative, transparent, efficient, effective, democratic, and accountable. The remarks by Lal came during the UNSC Open Debate on Leadership for Peace. He said the world is grappling with devastating armed conflicts and the current multilateral response is inadequate, failing to prevent or resolve these conflicts. "Serious armed conflicts are impacting lives, economies and societies across geographies in our interconnected world. The current multilateral response is falling seriously short in ending and preventing such conflicts, in tackling unrelenting threats from terrorism, and transnational organised crimes, and in ensuring maritime security, ," Lal said. He said that the UN Security Council mandated to secure international peace and security was designed eight decades ago in a different era, when three-quarters of today's UN member states were colonies and now the times have changed, the world has moved on. He added, "The UNSC has to become representative, transparent, efficient, effective, democratic and accountable. Text-based negotiations must begin. Those opposing a meaningful change to global governance structure are damaging UN's legitimacy, overshadowing its contributions in developmental and humanitarian sectors." Lal during his speech, also criticised Pakistan for its alleged support of terrorism, emphasising the need for the international community to condemn such actions. He said, "... Their (Pakistan) support for the elaborate terror ecosystem, training and harbouring global terrorists is well documented. It is high time that Pakistan starts working for its own people. Their cynical export of terror in pursuit of their vicious agenda can never succeed. Such continuing threats to international peace and security must be firmly rejected by the international community." Notably, India has long sought a permanent seat in the Security Council to better represent the interests of the developing world. The nation's quest has gained momentum with support from the international community. The UNSC is composed of 15 member states, including five permanent members with veto power and ten non-permanent members elected for two-year terms. The five permanent members of the UNSC include China, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and the United States. The non-permanent members of the United Nations Security Council are elected for 2-year terms by the UNGA. Meanwhile, Lal also spoke about India's stance on nuclear weapons at the High-level Meeting to Commemorate and Promote the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons at the United Nations. He said, "Nuclear weapons continue to pose a grievous danger to humanity. India remains firmly committed to the goal of universal, non-discriminatory nuclear disarmament in a specified time frame." (ANI) The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) claimed that the advanced "Arrow" Aerial Defense System of the country successfully intercepted a ballistic missile fired from Yemen. Sharing a post on X, the IDF said, "A missile was fired from Yemen towards Israel and successfully intercepted by the "Arrow" Aerial Defense System." "Sirens and explosions were heard following the interception and falling shrapnel," the post added. Meanwhile, Israel has refused to heed calls for a ceasefire with Hezbollah, according to a report by Al Jazeera. Notably, amid the escalating tensions between Israel and Lebanon, the United States has called for a 21 day ceasefire on the Israel-Lebanon border to prevent an escalation of war and give diplomacy a chance there and in Gaza. Voicing their support for this plan are US Secretary of Defence Lloyd J Austin III, British Defence Secretary John Healey, and Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles, who met in London on Thursday at the AUKUS defence ministerial meeting, the Pentagon said in a press release. "The situation in Lebanon and northern Israel is deeply troubling. Lebanese Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group, began firing rockets into Israel in an unprovoked attack the day after the October 7, 2023, terrorist assault by Hamas," Austin said. Calling for an immediate ceasefire, Austin added, "An immediate 21-day ceasefire will provide time for the diplomacy needed to achieve a durable arrangement that will allow Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return safely to their homes. This time can also be used to conclude and implement a deal to secure a cease-fire in Gaza and to bring all of the hostages home." Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has strongly denounced the United States for its ongoing support of Israel's military actions in Gaza, calling on the international community to halt weapons supply to Israel, Al Jazeera reported. Addressing the UNGA, Abbas said, "This madness cannot continue. The entire world is responsible for what is happening to our people." Abbas also accused the US of allowing Israel's assault to continue by repeatedly vetoing UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. "We regret that the United States, the largest democracy in the world, obstructed three times draft resolutions of the Security Council demanding Israel to observe a ceasefire. The US alone stood and said, 'No, the fighting is going to continue,'" he said, according to Al Jazeera. Earlier, in a significant blow to Hezbollah, the IDF announced the elimination of Muhammad Hussein Srour, Commander of the organisation's Aerial Command, in a precision airstrike in Beirut. Sharing a post on X, the IDF wrote, "Eliminated: Commander of Hezbollah's Aerial Command, Muhammad Hussein Srour, in a precise IAF strike in Beirut." (ANI) Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Thursday (local time) that he would be meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday at Trump Tower in New York around 9:45 am (local time), The Hill reported. This meeting comes on the heels of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's meetings with US President Joe Biden and US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in Washington at the White House, where they discussed strengthening Ukraine's position in the ongoing war with Russia. "As you know, President Zelenskyy has asked to meet with me, and I will be meeting with him tomorrow morning at around 9:45 in Trump Tower," Trump said during a press conference in New York. "And it's a shame what's happening in Ukraine--so many deaths, so much destruction. It's a horrible thing." NBC News reported Wednesday that Trump had decided not to meet with Zelensky. The former president criticised the Ukrainian president, saying while in North Carolina on Wednesday, "He's making little nasty aspersions towards your favourite president, me," The Hill reported, according to the news outlet. Trump's announcement was made the same day that Zelensky visited the White House. Notably, Trump's stance on Ukraine has been somewhat controversial, having previously criticised US assistance to Ukraine and praised Russian President Vladimir Putin. In contrast, Biden has reaffirmed US support for Ukraine, pledging to provide the necessary assistance to help Ukraine win the war. Recently, the US announced a new package of weapons and nearly USD 8 billion in aid for Ukraine. During the meeting, Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude for the support of the United States, highlighting that the two nations have stood together since the beginning of the Russian invasion. https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1839408344198787165 Sharing a post on X, Zelenskyy wrote, "During the meeting with President Joe Biden, I presented the Victory Plan to him. We discussed details to strengthen the plan, coordinated our positions, views, and approaches, and tasked our teams with holding consultations on the next steps." Meanwhile, President Biden took to his X handle to express solidarity with Ukraine. He also stated that Ukraine will emerge victorious in the war against Russia. Sharing a post on X, he wrote, "Today, President Zelenskyy and I sat down again to discuss strengthening Ukraine's position on the battlefield and helping Ukraine rebuild stronger than before. Two things are clear: Ukraine will win this war. And the US will continue to stand by them every step of the way." https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1839417002856784021 Zelenskyy also shared a post about sharing the details of the victory plan with Harris and said, "I shared the details of the victory plan with Vice President Kamala Harris. It is very important for us to be fully understandable and work in full coordination with the United States." "We must end this war and achieve just peace. We must protect our people - Ukrainian families, Ukrainian children--and everyone from Putin's evil. We are grateful to America for supporting Ukraine throughout this time," the post added. The Department of Defence (DoD) announced a significant new security assistance package to ensure Ukraine has the tools it needs to prevail in its fight against Russian aggression, the Pentagon said in a press release. This security assistance package commits an additional USD 2.4 billion in support through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) that will provide Ukraine with additional air defence, Unmanned Aerial systems (UAS), and air-to-ground munitions, as well as strengthen Ukraine's defence industrial base and support its maintenance and sustainment requirements. (ANI) The 5th edition of the India-Oman Joint Military Exercise Al Najah concluded on September 26 with a grand closing ceremony held at the Rabkoot Training Area in Oman. The event was attended by notable dignitaries, including Amit Narang, the Indian Ambassador to Oman, and Captain Harish Srinivasan, the Indian Defence Attache to Oman. From the Omani side, Brigadier General Abdulkadhim Bin Ibrahim Al-Ajmi, Commander of the 11th Infantry Brigade, and Lieutenant Colonel Masood Mubarak Al-Ghafri, Commanding Officer of the Frontier Force, were present to mark the occasion, the Ministry of Defence stated in an official press release. The ceremony followed an impressive joint live-fire demonstration that showcased the interoperability and joint capabilities of the Indian Army and the Royal Army of Oman. This demonstration was crucial for illustrating how both forces could work together in peacekeeping operations under a United Nations mandate. Approximately 60 soldiers from both armies participated in this significant display of military cooperation. The demonstration featured a series of tactical exercises, including the simulated isolation and clearance of a village in a desert environment, where joint forces comprising Indian and Omani Armoured Personnel Carrier troops conducted house clearance drills and hostage rescue operations. Snipers from both sides also demonstrated their marksmanship, effectively engaging targets throughout the exercise. A highlight of the event was the deployment of advanced Indian-made equipment, such as drones for real-time surveillance and ballistic shields for room interventions and hostage protection. These technologies underscored the commitment of both nations to enhancing their military capabilities and preparedness. The exercise culminated in a flag ceremony, an equipment display, and the exchange of pleasantries between the contingents. The successful completion of the joint exercise reflects the dedication of both countries to maintaining global peace and security. It not only enhanced the tactical skills of the participating forces but also strengthened the bilateral military relations between India and Oman. (ANI) North Korea is likely to conduct a nuclear test, its seventh such test, after the US presidential elections in November, according to an official of South Korea's intelligence agency, Seoul's state media reported. As per a Yonhap news outlet report, Lee Seong Kweun, a member of the intelligence committee of South Korean parliament, the National Assembly, told reporters following a briefing by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) on Thursday that though the possibility of a nuclear test to be held ahead of the election cannot be ruled out, it is more likely to be afterward. The NIS told the parliament intelligence committee that a nuclear test could be accompanied by other provocative acts such as a satellite launch and the test-firing of missiles, according to Lee and Park Sun-won of the main opposition Democratic Party. The South Korea's intelligence agency NIS also told lawmakers that Pyongyang possesses around 70 kilograms of plutonium and a significant amount of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which is sufficient to build a two-digit number of nuclear weapons, Yonhap said. The South Korean media outlet cited Lee as stating that "externally, it can be interpreted as a move conscious of the US ahead of its presidential election, while internally it appears to be an attempt to boost confidence among the population amid the extremely dire economic situation." Earlier this month, North Korean media released photographs of leader Kim Jong Un inspecting a uranium enrichment facility as well as photographs of centrifuges that produce fuel for its nuclear bombs. North Korea's nuclear programme is banned under multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions. The country, which conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, has never publicly disclosed details of its uranium enrichment facility. According to NIS, as per the Yonhap report, the facility is likely to be the Kangson nuclear complex near Pyongyang. On September 18, North Korea fired unidentified ballistic missile eastward while earlier on September 12, Pyongyang test-fired a new 600mm multiple rocket launcher. (ANI) In an address to the Canadian Parliament, MP Chandra Arya reflected on the tragic legacy of Air India Flight 182, which was bombed mid-air by Khalistan extremists 39 years ago. Arya has criticised demands for a new enquiry into the bombing which he alleges prmotes Khalistani extremists theories. The devastating attack, which resulted in the deaths of 329 people, remains the largest mass killing in Canadian history and is a solemn reminder of the devastating impact of terrorism. https://x.com/AryaCanada/status/1839379716089819590 "39 years back Air India Flight 182 was blown-up mid-air from a bomb planted by Canadian Khalistan extremists. It killed 329 people and is the largest mass killing in Canadian history. Even today, the ideology responsible for this terrorist attack is still alive among few people in Canada. Two Canadian public inquiries found Khalistan extremists responsible for the bombing of Air India flight. Now there is a petition on parliament portal asking for a new enquiry promoting conspiracy theories promoted by Khalistan extremists. Mr. Bal Gupta, whose wife Rama was killed in this attack told the Globe and Mail "It's deeply frustrating. It opens up old wounds all over again. It's all garbage. It's an attempt to gain publicity and support for terrorist activities" Arya said in his speech to Parliament. Recently in June, on the 39th anniversary of the Air India Kanishka bombing, a Canadian journalist Daniel Bordman's tribute to the victims at Queens Park in Toronto was allegedly disrupted by Pro Khalistan elements. Speaking to ANI Bordman had said, "When the Khalistanis came to disturb and interrupt that service, I felt it was important to stand up against them," the journalist remarked, highlighting the need to support victims of terrorism while unequivocally opposing those who seek to perpetrate such acts. We have to support the victims of terrorism but also oppose those who want to commit terrorism. Standing up to evil is, is I think, an important part of what we do today. They came with their Khalistani flags and aimed to disrupt the memorial site." The Indian High Commission in Canada had also criticised any attempts to glorify the act of terrorism. "Any act of glorifying terrorism, including the bombing of AI-182 in 1985, is deplorable and should be condemned by all peace-loving countries and people. It is unfortunate that such actions are allowed to be routine on many occasions in Canada," the Indian High Commission said in a statement on June 24. (ANI) A series of intangible cultural heritage events will be hosted around the upcoming National Day holiday, to enrich tourism experience and meet the cultural demands of residents and tourists, according to the third quarter media conference by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Hu Yan, deputy director of the ministry's intangible cultural heritage department, said that during the National Day holiday, nearly 1,000 events centered on preserving intangible cultural heritage will be hosted across China, including exhibitions and hands-on experiential activities. Among these will be an exhibition and performing arts shows in Guangdong province, featuring intangible cultural heritage exchanges between the province and Shandong province. In Fujian province, an exhibition themed on landscape beauty will showcase intangible cultural heritage works created by 75 national and provincial-level representative inheritors. Intangible cultural heritage will also be highlighted in a series of events aimed at boosting tourism. The Xiaoxitian Temple in Xixian county, Shanxi province, a recently popular tourism attraction featured in video game Black Myth: Wukong, will organize inheritors to showcase their crafts at the site. Baloch rights activist Mahrang Baloch has voiced serious concerns regarding the alarming rise in enforced disappearances and violence against Baloch students in both Balochistan and Punjab, Pakistan. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Baloch stated, "The rapid increase of enforced disappearances of Baloch students in different areas of Balochistan and educational institutions of Punjab is alarming." She continued, "Yesterday, Hamid Baloch S/O Khan Muhammad, resident of Buleda Kech and a student in the 7th semester at the Department of Sociology, University of Sargodha, was forcibly made to disappear (an enforced disappearance) by state secret agencies from Bahadur Shah Zafar Road in front of Ibrahim Hospital, Sargodha, Punjab. Till now, he has neither been presented in any court or police station nor has his family been informed about his location." https://x.com/MahrangBaloch_/status/1839336399859790081 Hamid, a 7th-semester sociology student at the University of Sargodha, was taken from Bahadur Shah Zafar Road in front of Ibrahim Hospital in Sargodha, Punjab. Baloch noted that, "Till now, he has neither been presented in any court or police station, nor has his family been informed about his location." The Balochistan Post reported that Hamid's family and classmates are calling for his immediate release, but his whereabouts remain unknown. On Monday, tensions escalated at Punjab University when Baloch students were allegedly attacked by members of Jamaat-e-Islami's student wing. Reports indicate that at least five Baloch students were injured in the incident, with some accounts suggesting that firearms were involved. Two students sustained severe injuries, leading the Baloch Students Council Lahore to report that police arrested over 20 Baloch students following the altercation. Baloch students have expressed concerns over regular discrimination and violence they face in educational institutions across Punjab, claiming they are often racially profiled and targeted. Mahrang Baloch further emphasized the significant increase in violence against Baloch students in Punjab's educational institutions. She recounted the attack on Baloch students at the University of Punjab and criticized the university administration and police for failing to protect them, stating that instead of providing safety, authorities harassed the students, resulting in the detention of approximately ten students who remain in police custody. Baloch concluded by urging immediate action to halt the forced disappearances of Baloch students and the violence perpetrated against them. (ANI) Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov held a meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the sidelines of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York and discussed the latest developments and issues on the Security Council's agenda. Their conversation centered around the ongoing war in Ukraine and its regional and global implications. They also discussed UN-Russia cooperation, as well as the implementation of the Pact for the Future. https://x.com/mfa_russia/status/1839446383465754941 The Russia Foreign Affairs Ministry shared the picture of the meeting and wrote, "Russian Foreign Minister Sergey #Lavrov and UN Secretary-General @antonioguterres hold a meeting on the sidelines of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly." According to the UN's readout released on Thursday, "The Secretary-General and the Foreign Minister discussed latest developments on issues on the agenda of the Security Council. They exchanged views on the war in Ukraine and its regional and global implications. They also discussed UN-Russia cooperation, as well as the implementation of the Pact for the Future." Meanwhile, Lavrov also met with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to discuss key matters on the bilateral cooperation agenda and urgent international issues. The urgent international issues discussed included preparations for the BRICS Summit and "Ukraine settlement," a Russian Foreign Ministry statement said. Jaishankar and Lavrov agreed to continue coordinating interactions between Russia and India within the key multilateral formats. "The two ministers discussed key matters on the bilateral cooperation agenda, as well as urgent international issues, including preparations for the upcoming #BRICS Summit in Kazan, the Ukraine settlement, as well as the situation in the Asia-Pacific Region in connection with the Western attempts to bring NATO elements into this region," the statement said. Jaishankar said he and Lavrov discussed bilateral cooperation and regional issues. "Met FM Sergey Lavrov this afternoon at #UNGA79. Discussed our bilateral cooperation and regional issues," he posted on X. It was the second meeting between two leaders within a month. Jaishankar and Lavrov held a meeting on the sidelines of the India-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Saudi Arabia on September 9. Lavrov, who is currently in US, met several delegates and diplomats on the sidelines of UNGA. which includes Jordan, Sudan , Uzbekistan, Mali and many others https://x.com/mfa_russia/status/1839538458093645921 "On September 25, FM #Lavrov & #UNRWA Commissioner-General @UNLazzarini met on the #UNGA79 sidelines, discussed the current extreme surge of tensions in the Arab-Israeli conflict zone with a focus on humanitarian response priorities in the #GazaStrip," the Russian Foreign Minister said on X after the meet with UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini on the sidelines. https://x.com/mfa_russia/status/1839436205890383899 Following this, he also shared a post of his meeting with Jordan Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and stated, "Russian Foreign Minister Sergey #Lavrov and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Jordan @AymanHsafadi hold talks on the sidelines of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly." On September 23, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a "Pact for the Future" designed to address 21st century challenges including climate change, conflict, and human rights. World leaders at the UN headquarters in New York adopted the Pact for the Future by consensus, with a small group of seven countries led by Russia holding out, having failed to pass a last-minute amendment. "The Pact for the Future has been adopted by member countries by consensus at UN Headquarters in New York. The adoption will help pave the way for greater international cooperation for our common future," the UN official account posted on social media platform X. The Pact covers a broad range of themes, including peace and security, sustainable development, climate change, digital cooperation, human rights, gender, youth and future generations, and the transformation of global governance. (ANI) The Consulate General of India, San Francisco, has urged local authorities to take action against the perpetrators of the act of vandalism that took place on the night of September 24 at BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Sacramento, California. In a post on X, the Consulate stated, "@cgisfo has taken up the matter with local authorities to take immediate action against those responsible." This incident marks a troubling escalation in attacks against Hindu temples in the United States, with this being the second vandalism incident within just ten days. https://x.com/CGISFO/status/1839325037301841976 The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in the Sacramento area of California was desecrated with anti-Hindu messages on the night of September 25, less than 10 days after a similar act of vandalism took place at the BAPS Mandir in New York. The messages included phrases such as "Hindus go back," prompting concerns among the local Hindu community and in response, the community had expressed their commitment to standing united against hate. "Less than 10 days after the desecration of the BAPS Mandir in New York, our Mandir in the Sacramento, CA area was desecrated last night with anti-Hindu hate: "Hindus go back!" We stand united against hate with prayers for peace," the BAPS Public Affairs said in a post in X. According to the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office, sheriff deputies responded to the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Mather, near Rancho Cordova, where the graffiti was discovered. Deputies also said that vandals had also cut water lines at the property. Responding to the vandalism, Ami Bera, representing CA06 and Sacramento County in the US House of Representatives posted on X, "There is no place for religious bigotry and hatred in #SacramentoCounty. I strongly condemn this apparent act of vandalism in our community. All of us must stand against intolerance and ensure that everyone in our community, regardless of faith, feels safe and respected." Hindu American Foundation, promoting human dignity, mutual respect, and pluralism thanked Beri for raising the issue of hate crime targeting a Hindu temple. "Thank you @RepBera. This vandalism is an anti-Hindu hate crime targeting a Hindu temple with messages conflating Hindus with the Govt of India and telling Hindus to 'go home'," posted Hindu American Foundation on X. Prior to this, a similar incident of vandalism took place at the BAPS Swaminarayan Temple in New York on September 17, 2024. (ANI) On Friday, five individuals lost their lives, and 15 others were injured as ongoing clashes - first reported last week - between rival tribes in various regions of Kurram district entered their eighth day. This escalation has raised the total casualties to 46 deceased and 96 injured, according to a hospital official. According to police and hospital sources last week, the conflict began when the Boshehra tribes in upper Kurram started constructing bunkers on the land belonging to Ahmadzai tribes, rapidly expanding the dispute to other areas, Dawn reported. On Wednesday, sources indicated that at least ten more people were killed or injured in Balishkhel, Sadda, Khar Kallay, Peewar, Maqbal, and other locations, noting that the main Parachinar Highway and other routes were closed due to traffic disruptions. Qaiser Abbas Banghash, Medical Superintendent at Kurram District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ), confirmed the updated death toll on September 27. Former federal minister Sajid Toori acknowledged that armed clashes had severely impacted daily life but expressed hope for a return to normalcy soon, urging people to resolve their issues peacefully. In a separate event, Majlis Wahdat Muslimeen (MWM) parliamentary leader Engineer Hameed Hussain staged a protest outside the Parachinar Press Club, citing the failure of responsible institutions to establish peace, reported Dawn. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur stated a day earlier that significant efforts were underway to uphold law and order in the province, particularly in the southern districts. "After the improvement of the law and order situation in southern districts, more checkposts will be handed over to the police. However, before that happens, there is a need for enhancing the capabilities of police," CM Gandapur said in a statement issued from the chief minister's secretariat on Thursday. The chief minister remarked that the ongoing conflict in Kurram tribal district involved specific groups and that the provincial government was taking measures to peacefully resolve the situation. He noted that the provincial government was striving for a permanent resolution to the issue. Gandapur mentioned that negotiations were also in progress to address the conflict in Khyber tribal district and that a resolution was expected by Friday, Dawn reported. He added that residents in the Mir Ali area would receive compensation and that the cattle market would be returned to the locals following reconstruction, stating that the relief department had issued necessary directives in this regard. (ANI) Taiwan has strongly condemned China's recent intercontinental ballistic missile test in the Pacific Ocean, terming it "an attempt to undermine regional peace and stability," Taipei Times reported, citing CNA. The test, which was successfully launched by the People's Liberation Army at 8:44 am on Wednesday (local time), has raised concerns about China's military capabilities and intentions. Further, the Chinese Ministry of National Defence said in a statement posted to social media that the "missile carried a simulated warhead and landed in international waters." The launch was part of the PLA Rocket Force's routine annual training, the ministry said, adding that it complied with international law and was not directed against any country or target, as per Taipei Times. However, government agencies in Taipei on Thursday condemned the missile test. The Presidential Office said in a statement that the launch was a Chinese attempt to undermine regional peace and stability. It called on Beijing to exercise self-restraint and be a responsible regional actor. Further, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that many countries in the Indo-Pacific region had expressed concerns about China's "irresponsible actions, " adding that Taiwan would continue to work with like-minded countries to curb the expansion of authoritarianism, and jointly safeguard peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region. The range of the missile covers most countries in the South Pacific, but Beijing did not announce in advance its projected path or landing point, the Mainland Affairs Council said, calling it "bad behaviour that seriously endangers regional security." This deliberate display of military force has raised regional tensions, and drawn concern from Japan, Australia, New Zealand and other countries, it said. The Ministry of National Defence accused Beijing of "sabre rattling" over the test and live-fire drills by the PLA's Eastern Theatre Command. It accused China of creating the "illusion of peaceful dialogue" by having the head of the PLA's Southern Theatre Command conduct overseas exchanges while the drills were ongoing. (ANI) Activists and human rights defenders continue to express deep concern over the escalating severity of human rights atrocities in Balochistan, where Pakistan continues to ruthlessly inflict suffering on the Baloch community without accountability. Human rights activist Arif Ajakia on Thursday condemned Pakistan for its brutal human rights violations in the Balochistan province. Ajakia raised these concerns through a virtual message during the ongoing 57th Regular Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva. In his intervention at the UNHRC session, Ajakia stated, "The military establishment appoints its favourite people to the Balochistan Parliament, especially in government, to violate the fundamental human rights of Baloch people. In the name of security, the Pakistan military carries out a massive military operation in the Balochistan region. Pakistan ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights but has miserably failed to fulfil its obligations. In fact, in Balochistan, Pakistan does the opposite of what it promises to the international community." He further emphasised that despite being a member state of the UNHRC, Pakistan is failing to ensure basic human rights for the Baloch community living in Balochistan province. "Pakistan is a member state of the Human Rights Council, but it leaves no stone unturned to violate the rules and morals for which this August Council stands for. Pakistani security forces muzzle voices who speak about Baloch grievances and injustices committed by the state. Pakistan labels Baloch political parties and civil rights organisations as banned outfits; it doesn't even spare student organisations, whereas religious extremists who openly operate in Balochistan are given a license to kill and are used for the elimination of any voices who speak for human rights," he stated. In another intervention during the session, Baloch rights activist Sammi Deen Baloch also voiced similar concerns, stating, "It has been 15 years since my father, D Mohamed Baloch, was forcibly disappeared by Pakistani forces. I was just a child when he disappeared. Initially, I fought for my father's return, hoping to bring him home. But as time passed, I realised that this is not just only about my father. This is the story of thousands of Baloch people who have been taken away." She further expressed, "Today, I speak not only as a daughter but for all Baloch families who are suffering. Thousands of our loved ones have been abducted, tortured, and silenced. Fathers, sons, and even children have disappeared, leaving their families broken and living in fear. These enforced disappearances are not accidents. They are part of a deliberate plan to silence our voices. This is a crime against humanity, and yet it continues with no punishment." Sammi Deen Baloch also noted that demanding rights and justice in Pakistan is considered a crime, with severe repercussions for those who dare to raise their voices. She claimed, "Raising a voice for rights and justice has been considered a crime in Pakistan, and the person who dares to speak for justice will have to face severe challenges and state atrocities. This time, I could have been there to meet you in person, but I was stopped at the airport by state officials of Pakistan, and I was told that my name is on the exit control list, and I was prohibited from travelling. I am here today to ask for justice for all Baloch people who are forcefully disappeared. We need the international community to pay attention, to hold Pakistan accountable, and to help bring back our loved ones. We cannot do this alone." (ANI) Abu Dhabi [UAE], September 27 (ANI/WAM): Khaled Mohamed Balama, Governor of the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE), hosted a high-level roundtable with the Chairman and representatives of the Foreign Exchange and Remittance Group, to discuss updates and developments in the exchange business in the UAE, in the presence of the CBUAE Assistant Governors. The strategic dialogue focuses on key developments in the exchange business sector in the UAE. The participants highlighted the critical contribution of exchange houses to the national financial services landscape with more than 1000 exchange house branches operating across the UAE. CBUAE discussed its main priorities in prudential supervision, market conduct, AML/CFT, and regulatory developments pertaining to exchange businesses. The participants also recognised the progress of exchange business in Emiratisation efforts and digitalisation of financial services in the UAE. Balama said, "We at the Central Bank are keen to enhance the regulatory framework and develop the services provided by exchange houses to support the progress of the financial sector in the UAE." He added, "Our meeting emphasises the importance of regular open dialogue with various licensed financial institutions, to address initiatives aimed at developing the financial sector and infrastructure, and to follow up on the Emiratisation efforts to increase the participation of national cadres in the financial sector, including exchange houses." (ANI/WAM) Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) withdrew its plea requesting permission to hold a public rally in Rawalpindi on Saturday, ARY News reported. In today's hearing at Lahore High Court's Rawalpindi bench headed by Justice Chaudhry Abdul Aziz, the PTI lawyer said they are withdrawing the plea seeking permission to hold a rally on Saturday. Justice Chaudhry asked, "You are withdrawing the plea after filing it?" and added, "Tomorrow is your rally in Rawalpindi, right? In response to the judge's question, the PTI lawyer said that the party had moved the plea for holding a public rally in Rawalpindi three days back. However, it is being heard today. The PTI lawyer further said that the deputy commissioner is also 'delaying' the issue. So, the PTI, on its leadership's instruction, has decided to withdraw its plea, according to Geo News report. Earlier, PTI had approached the deputy commissioner's office to seek permission to hold a public rally in Rawalpindi on September 28. According to details, PTI leaders Ghulam Husnain, Owais Younis, and Nabeel Satti filed an application seeking permission to hold a public rally at Liaquat Bagh or Bhatta Chowk in Rawalpindi. Imran Khan-founded party urged Rawalpindi DC to release NoC for a public rally in Rawalpindi on September 28, citing Pakistan's constitution allows parties to conduct their political activities. Rawalpindi DC has received PTI's request. Earlier, in a video message released on September 22, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa CM Ali Amin Gandapur said PTI will hold a public gathering in Punjab's Mianwali on September 29, ARY News reported. Gandapur said, "I will come and hold a gathering in Mianwali, followed by another show of power in Pindi and other cities." "What should I apologise for? I have done nothing that warrants an apology, if you want to file cases, file them," he added. Ali Amin Gandapur criticised ruling parties over their involvement in "unconstitutional activities." He said that the people of Pakistan stand with democracy, the constitution, and PTI founder, Imran Khan, who has been in prison for 414 days, according to ARY News report. On September 21, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) held a rally in Lahore. PTI's rally in Lahore suddenly stopped before many top leaders could speak, as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur did not arrive at the venue ahead of the 6 pm deadline set by the city officials in the no-objection certificate (NOC), which included conditions, Geo News reported. After the deadline expired, Lahore police took control of the stage and turned off the microphone and lights, forcing PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan and other party leaders to leave, according to Geo News report. Except for Gohar and Salman Akram Raja, PTI's first-tier leadership did not address the rally participants, the report said. (ANI) An Anti-terrorism court has acquitted all 18 accused, including the workers of Imran Khan-founded Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), in the May 9 riots case over lack of evidence, ARY News reported on Friday. According to details, the defendants were charged with obstructing the Torkham Road, causing property damage, and damaging an Anti-Narcotics Force vehicle during a protest in Landi Kotal on May 9. All 18 defendants have been ruled not guilty by the court, which found "no evidence" against them. Judge Muhammad Iqbal of the Special Anti-Terrorism Court delivered the decision. According to ARY News, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) administration had earlier written to Chief Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) to propose the creation of a judicial panel to look into the May 9 riots. The letter stated that the commission should be headed by a sitting or retired judge of the Peshawar HC. The arrest of former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, on May 9 resulted in violent clashes across the nation. As a result, the protests were held in remote and major cities as the party workers were agitated due to their chairman's arrest, with Balochistan, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Islamabad summoning the armed forces to ensure law and order, ARY News reported. Army posts, including the Corps Commander's residence in Lahore, came under attack during the rallies held by PTI workers. Meanwhile, earlier this week, a Pakistan investigative agency submitted a supplementary challan in the Toshakhana case against former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi, reported ARY News. A list of the 24 witnesses in the case is included in the challan that was filed with Special Judge Central. According to the FIA challan, there is hard evidence in the Toshakhana case against the founder of the PTI and his spouse. The challenger said that the evidence demonstrated that the husband and wife had allegedly used corruption and criminal ways to obtain financial benefits, and that the "former premier acquired Bulgarian necklace at lower rate from Toshakhana by using his position." (ANI) Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) as well as Pakistan-occupied Gilgit Baltistan (PoGB) continue to remain on the receiving end of atrocities inflicted by Pakistan to continue its control over the area. During the ongoing 57th Regular Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) activists Mehmood Kashmiri and Sajid Hussain raised their concerns over Paksitan-inflicted human rights atrocities in PoGB and PoJK. Hussain in his intervention at the session demanded that the UNHRC must prioritise finding the follow-up on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights' reports from 2018 and 2019. He said that the reports by the UN High Commissioner addressed the grave human rights violations in forcibly divided PoGB and PoJK. According to Hussain, "These reports brought to light critical issues such as excessive use of force, arbitrary detention, and severe restrictions on freedoms of expression and association. There is a deteriorating situation in Rawalakot, PoJK, where Islamic radical forces are exerting pressure and issuing fatwas (religious decrees) against activists involved in rights movements. These decrees can result in various forms of harassment, physical violence, or even threats to life, particularly when directed at activists challenging the status quo. This development can lead to significant intimidation, fear, and the suppression of voices advocating for human rights in the region." While referring to the case of human rights defender, Asma Batool from Hajira, PoJK, Hussain mentioned that her poem which caught the attention of extremist groups caused her severe problems. "She was arrested by the government under blasphemy charges, putting her life in grave danger. Similarly, Arsalan from Arja, Bagh, was arrested and detained, and their families are facing harassment and receiving life threats. Freedom of expression is severely compromised in our region under Pakistan's administration, where religion is weaponized against human rights defenders." He claimed that, "Those who raise their voices for the voiceless are targeted by pro-government clerics, who issue fatwas declaring their activities as anti-Islamic. Asma and Arsalan endured more than 10 days of persecution and solitary confinement. In addition, many terrorist groups operate under government supervision, posing a serious threat to secular, democratic, and progressive individuals like Asma Batool. The Council should take urgent note of this situation and call on Pakistan to protect the lives of its people and put an end to extremism and terrorism in our region." Another activist Mehmood Kashmiri also raised serious concerns regarding grave human rights violations occurring in PoJK which he claimed needed the urgent attention of the UN. "The native population of this troubled region is suffering immensely between extremist forces that exploit religion as a tool for proxy war and political gains. Recently, a fatwa issued by religious clerics, including Mawlana Quddus and others in Rabla court, Poonch Azad Kashmir, inciting violence and the murder of the secular nationalist leaders and rights activists have raised serious concern," Kashmiri said. He claimed that some extremists also openly operate in cities. "Masked armed extremists openly operate in cities, indicating a deliberate state attempt to suppress nationalist movement under the guise of religious extremism. These so-called clerics travel to Western countries to raise funds while issuing fatwa calling for the murder of the peaceful people back home. We urge the Western countries to ban such extremist clerics from entering their country," he said. (ANI) China will take a raft of measures to promote the market entry of medium and long-term capital, in a move to invigorate its capital markets, according to a new guideline made public Thursday. The guideline, issued by the office of the Central Financial Work Commission and the China Securities Regulatory Commission, is designed to streamline the entry of capital from social security funds, insurance and wealth management into the market. Key measures outlined include the development of a market environment that encourages long-term investments and the improvement of the quality of publicly listed companies. The guideline advocates the expansion of public equity funds and supports the stable development of private equity investment funds. Additionally, the guideline seeks to refine policies and institutions that facilitate the entry of diverse medium and long-term capital. It aims, among other things, to significantly increase the scale and proportion of medium and long-term capital investments, create a more balanced structure of capital market investors, strengthen the long-term nature of investment behaviors, and enhance the inherent stability of the market, while steadily improving investor returns. The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee held a meeting on Thursday to analyze and study the current economic situation and make further arrangements for economic work. The meeting called for efforts to boost the capital market, vigorously guide medium and long-term funds to enter the capital market, clear the obstacles for social security, insurance, and wealth management funds to invest in the capital market. China's newest nuclear-powered submarine sank pierside in the spring, and the Chinese navy tried to conceal details regarding the loss, CNN reported, citing two US defence officials. The official said that the attack submarine was the first of its new Zhou-class line of vessels, under construction at a shipyard near Wuhan. The Zhou-class submarines have a distinctive X-shaped stern, made to improve manoeuvrability underwater. A satellite image from March 10, captured by Maxar Technologies, shows the Zhou-class sub, with its signature x-shape tail, docked at the port. Furthermore, Maxar imagery reviewed in June shows that the sub did not return to the pier, according to CNN. The senior US defence official said, "It's not surprising that the PLA Navy would try to conceal the fact that their new first-in-class nuclear-powered attack submarine sank pierside." Tom Shugart, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security who routinely studies satellite imagery of Chinese shipyards, was the first one who observed the unusual activity at the shipyard. "I've never seen a bunch of cranes clustered around (one spot)," Shugart said. "If you go back and look at historical imagery, you can see one crane, but not a bunch clustered there." Looking at older satellite images of the same shipyard, Shugart noticed the submarine's larger size and its distinctive tail, reflecting a new class of submarine. "Usually, those submarines, after they get launched, they're there at the shipyard for several months in outfitting. And it wasn't there anymore," he stated Notably, China has made modernisation of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy and its submarine force one of its top priorities as it tries to build a world-class military on par with the US. The PLA Navy operates six nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, six nuclear-powered attack submarines, and 48 diesel-powered attack submarines, as per the China military report from 2023. The US Navy has 14 ballistic missile submarines, four guided-missile submarines, 53 fast attack submarines, and the entire US submarine fleet is nuclear-powered. The Wall Street Journal first reported about the Chinese submarine's sinking. The senior defence official said it is not clear whether nuclear fuel had already been loaded onto the submarine or if the vessel was unfueled when it sank. A spokesperson from the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, said: "We are not familiar with the situation you mentioned and currently have no information to provide," according to CNN report. China is working on bolstering its ability to make new submarines. Even after the older submarines retire from the PLA Navy, China is expected to have 65 submarines in 2025 and 80 in 2035 due to the growth in its submarine construction capacity, CNN reported, citing the Congressional Research Service (CRS). In terms of the number of ships, China has the world's largest navy. The PLA Navy has 370 platforms, which comprise 234 warships, according to CRS. Meanwhile, the US has 219 warships. Speaking about the Chinese industrial base, the defence official stressed that the incident raises "deeper questions about PLA's internal accountability and oversight of China's defence industry--which has long been plagued by corruption." (ANI) Pakistan has requested the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to provide an additional USD 1.5 billion loan to tackle the effects of climate change in the country, ARY News reported. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on the sidelines of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York. During the meeting, Shehbaz Sharif spoke about the need for urgent action to control climate change in Pakistan. The loan will support Pakistan's Climate Resilience and Sustainability Facility, which has the goal to promote economic stability and sustainable development in the country Sharif praised the IMF's technical assistance and capacity-building programs, which have helped to strengthen the institutions of Pakistan and improve its economic management, according to ARY News report. Georgieva stressed the importance of maintaining macroeconomic stability and promoting inclusive and sustainable growth. During the meeting, the two sides spoke about the urgent need to mobilise adaptation financing for climate change. PM Sharif agreed to have the Finance Minister take up the critical issue with senior management at the IMF during the Annual Meetings in October. Shehbaz Sharif and Kristalina Georgieva agreed to boost cooperation between the government and the IMF to promote economic stability and growth, as reported by ARY News. Notably, the IMF released the first tranche of USD 1 billion to Pakistan, which approved a USD 7 billion loan for Islamabad under the Extended Fund Facility, according to ARY News reported. Earlier this year, the Shahbaz Sharif government faced a weak start by securing just USD 436.4 million in foreign assistance and grants in July, nearly 85 per cent less than the amount received in the same month last year, Dawn reported. The USD 426 million in foreign loans and USD 10.5 million in grants during the first month of the current fiscal year seem insignificant against the ambitious USD 19.4 billion target for foreign assistance set for FY25. In July last year, Pakistan received over USD 2.89 billion, largely due to the signing of the 9-month USD 3 billion Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) with the IMF, which enabled Pakistan to secure a significant USD 2 billion time deposit from Saudi Arabia. Total inflows in July 2023 reached USD 5.1 billion, including USD 1.2 billion from the IMF and another USD 1 billion from the UAE. Earlier in August, Pakistan's Ministry of Economic Affairs said that Pakistan received USD 436.39 million in total foreign inflows, compared to USD 2.89 billion in the same month last year. The Economic Affairs Division (EAD) highlighted that the majority--USD 307 million--came from project financing, a 52 per cent decline from the USD 640 million received in July last year, Dawn reported. (ANI) The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has scheduled the hearing of the case regarding discrepancies in the intra-party elections of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on October 2, ARY News reported. According to the Election Act of Pakistan, political parties must hold elections within a stipulated time frame in accordance with the party's constitution, failing which they stand to lose their electoral symbol. PTI was scheduled to go for intra-party elections on or before June 13, 2021, but it cited the COVID pandemic as the reason for the delay in elections. This, however, has not been accepted by the ECP due to the lack of provisioning of a formal certificate regarding the same. In its order passed on November 23, 2023, the ECP gave PTI a time period of 20 days to go for fresh elections. Anxious so as to retain its iconic symbol, 'bat', the Imran Khan-founded party went to elections on December 2, 2023, and took less than 10 days to implement the ECP decision, as reported by Ary News. However, the December elections were challenged by Pakistani political leader Akbar S Babar before the ECP, citing 'discrepancies' in the process. The Election Commission held that the elections did not adhere to the constitution of the party, and decided against PTI retaining the symbol. The ruling drew criticism, with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan calling it an attempt to "destabilise democracy". PTI said that the ECP's order was "deeply flawed and illegal" and called it "an assault on the integrity of the electoral process." While the PTI has challenged the decision in both the Lahore High Court and the Peshawar High Court, the ECI continues to act on its decision to go forward with the hearing on October 2. (ANI) Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu has said that he is planning to visit India as soon as possible. He also praised the "very strong" bilateral relationship between the two countries. "I am planning to visit (India) as soon as possible...We have a very strong bilateral relationship," Muizzu told ANI on sidelines of 79th United Nations General Assembly. Notably, if happens, it will be Muizzu's second visit to India, after first making the visit in June during the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is pertinent to note that earlier almost every Maldivian President used to make his first foreign visit to India, but Muizzu changed the trend by first visiting Turkiye and then China, after coming to office earlier this year. The Mohamed Muizzu government in the Maldives took a reconciliatory tone after ties between the two nations soured, leading to a diplomatic row. Since coming to power, Muizzu has taken several steps that have been unconventional from the point of view of India-Maldives ties. He ran his whole presidential campaign on the lines of 'India Out'. The removal of Indian troops from the country was the main election campaign of Muizzu's party. Last December, the Maldives said it would not renew the Hydrographic Survey agreement made with India. After Muizzu government officially requested India to withdraw troops, the Indian government set up a High-Level Core Group to discuss the matter. The withdrawal of Indian troops was completed in May this year. But the row between New Delhi and Male erupted after three Maldivian deputy ministers made derogatory comments against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, over his pictures from the visit to Lakshadweep. The matter snowballed into a major diplomatic row, with New Delhi summoning the Maldivian envoy and registering a strong protest against the viral posts. The three deputy ministers were suspended and they remain under suspension with pay. Maldives Tourism Ministry data showed, earlier this year, that the number of Indian tourists visiting the Maldives dropped by 33 per cent as compared to last year. In August, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar visited Maldives. He, along with his Maldivian counterpart, Moosa Zameer inaugurated High Impact Community Development Projects and exchanged MoUs in Male. Earlier this year, President Muizzu thanked India for its support of the island nation in easing its debt repayment and affirmed hope that New Delhi and Male would forge stronger ties and sign a free trade agreement. (ANI) Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday once again raked up the Kashmir bogey in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly. He called on New Delhi to enter a dialogue with Islamabad for a peaceful resolution of the dispute. "Let me state in no uncertain terms, Pakistan will respond most decisively to any Indian aggression, therefore, to secure durable peace, India must reverse the unilateral and illegal measures it has taken since 5th of August 2019 and enter into a dialogue for a peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN Security resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people," he claimed. Shehbaz Sharif claimed that India was "engaged in massive expansion of its military capabilities," which are essentially deployed against Pakistan. "It (India) has engaged in massive expansion of its military capabilities, which are essentially deployed against Pakistan. Its war doctrines envisage a surprise attack and a limited war under the nuclear overhang. Thoughtlessly, India spurned Pakistan's proposals for a mutual strategic restraint to regime. Its leadership has often threatened to cross the line of control and take over Azad Kashmir," Shehbaz Sharif said. Making a reference to the abrogation of Article 370, Shehbaz Sharif alleged that India has initiated unilateral illegal steps since August 5, 2019. "Instead of moving towards peace, India has resiled from its commitments to implement the Security Council resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir. These resolutions mandate the people of Jammu and Kashmir to exercise their fundamental right to self-determination. Since 5th August 2019, India has initiated unilateral illegal steps to impose what its leaders honestly call a final solution for Jammu and Kashmir," Shehbaz Sharif claimed. India has already made it clear after the Pulwama attack in 2019 that it wants normal bilateral ties with Pakistan, adding that it is incumbent upon them to create a conducive environment free from terrorism and hostilities. Moreover, India has repeatedly raised its concern over Pakistan's support of cross-border terrorism and has asserted that terror and talks cannot go together. India has also provided evidence at various international forums of Pakistan's support for Terrorist groups. India will now have the right to reply to Pakistan's address at the UNGA. (ANI) The international community continues to raise concerns over the human rights situation in Tibet as it continues to worsen, despite attracting severe condemnation from other countries and human rights bodies. In a recent statement, the representative of the European Union during the ongoing 57th general session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) reiterated its concerns about the continuous dire human rights situation in Tibet, highlighting the obligatory boarding schooling, mass DNA sampling and closure of Tibetan schools, The Central Tibetan Administration reported. In the statement, the EU representative highlighted that harassment, intimidation and surveillance are faced by human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, media workers, writers and intellectuals, including even at the transnational level. The statement delivered by the EU representative at UNHRC said, "The EU remains concerned about political re-education camps, mass arbitrary detentions, widespread surveillance, tracking and control measures, systemic and severe restrictions on the exercise of fundamental freedoms, including freedom of religion or belief, as well as the non-transparent use of the death penalty, the use of forced labour and labour transfer schemes, torture, forced abortion and sterilization, birth control and family separation policies, and sexual and gender-based violence, especially in Xinjiang." During the statement, the EU representative also mentioned that the human rights situation continues to grow dire as China has been conducting obligatory boarding schooling and DNA sampling, as reported by civil society organisations. The EU envoy also stated that it will monitor the preservation of the fundamental freedoms, cultural heritage and identity of Tibetans and call upon China to ensure education in Tibetan language at all levels. The union considered the closure of Tibetan schools a worrying situation. The EU envoy stated that China must cooperate effectively with the OHCHR and implement the recommendations of its assessment report on Xinjiang and of the Universal Periodic Review. It condemned all reprisals by China against entities that seek to cooperate with the United Nations to promote and protect human rights. Additionally, the EU urged China to abide by its obligations under national law, including its own Constitution, and international law, to respect, protect and fulfil the rule of law and human rights for all, including Uyghurs, Tibetans and other persons belonging to national or ethnic, linguistic, religious or other groups and minorities across China. (ANI) Tel Aviv [Israel], September 27 (ANI/TPS): Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday night in New York, met with Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, thanked him for the Netherlands' support of Israel and noted the good relations between the two countries. The Prime Minister also emphasized that Israel's war against Iran's axis of evil is vital not only in ensuring its future but also the future of the West as a whole. The two are in New York for the opening of the new UN session. Netanyahu also reviewed the threats facing Israel, the fighting in the various sectors and its efforts and success in minimizing harm to non-combatants. The Prime Minister referred to the proceeding against Israel in the International Court in The Hague and emphasized that this is a political proceeding based on false libels that endanger every democracy defending itself against terrorism. (ANI/TPS) The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has expressed anger over the performance of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances and summoned the officials of spy agencies for an in-camera hearing, Dawn reported. An IHC larger bench--Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, and Justice Arbab Mohammad Tahir were hearing cases of missing persons, including Baloch students. Additional Attorney General Barrister Munawar Iqbal Duggal submitted an application requesting the exemption of officials of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Military Intelligence, and Intelligence Bureau from public appearance in court. He said the officials of spy agencies might be targeted after their identity and movement are disclosed. He urged the bench to get the in-camera briefing from these officials who were included in the committee on the missing persons. Missing persons lawyers, Imaan Mazari, told the court that 187 persons, have gone missing since August this year and an explanation over the cases of enforced disappearances might be sought from the government, according to Dawn report. When the court asked how the lawyer got the list of missing persons, Mazari said that the Baloch Yakjehti Council had compiled the list. Justice Kayani has said that the government is under obligation to share details regarding missing persons even if they are detained in Afghanistan. The judges summoned the inspector general of Balochistan police to appear at the next hearing and decided to hold an in-camera briefing by the officials of ISI, MI and IB at the next hearing, according to Dawn report. Earlier this month, Sammi Deen Baloch, General Secretary of Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, joined the conference virtually and raised the issue of the humanitarian crisis arising in Balochistan due to the actions of Pakistan's armed forces. She made the remarks during the 57th session of the regular session of the United Nations Human Rights Council held in Geneva, Sammi Deen wrote in a post on X, "During the 57th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council, I briefed the Council on the human rights abuses and enforced disappearances in Balochistan. Despite the unannounced travel restrictions imposed on me, aimed at barring me from attending the event and silencing my voice, I am grateful to Front Line Defenders for ensuring my voice was heard and enabling me to fulfil the purpose of my advocacy." In her video statement, Sammi Deen said, "My name is Sammi Deen Baloch. I am the daughter of fifteen-year-enforcedly disappeared Dr. Dean Mohammed Baloch. I am a human rights advocate against imposed disappearances. I am from Balochistan, and we have been witnessing severe human rights violations and a humanitarian crisis in Balochistan caused by Pakistan's forces and security intelligence agencies. For many years, the people of Balochistan have suffered intense and constant human rights violations, including enforced disappearances on a large scale." She further stated, "This situation has profoundly affected our community.", "This has deeply affected our community. We have reached out to the justice system, but it has failed to deliver justice. We are seeking assistance from the international community to locate and bring back our enforced disappeared loved ones. We urge you to take action against human rights abuses in Balochistan and help the oppressed community receive the justice they deserve." (ANI) The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal has cancelled all the domestic flights till Saturday morning due to adverse weather conditions across the nation. "It has been decided that all the domestic flights will be cancelled until Saturday morning. Further decision about the flights will depend on the weather condition. On Friday, many of the flights were diverted and halted due to extreme weather conditions all across the airports and air routes which prompted this decision. High rate of turbulence was also recorded today," Gyanendra Bhul, deputy spokesperson at the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal confirmed ANI over phone. An estimated 75 percent of the domestic flights were cancelled on Friday alone due to the incessant rainfall that has continued for over 24 hours in Kathmandu alone. On an average, Nepal has 300 two-way domestic flights on daily basis. Nepal currently is witnessing monsoon winds affecting the entire country, influenced by water vapor from the Bay of Bengal and a low-pressure system in the region. The Met Office has anticipated heavy isolated rainfall in some parts of Bagmati, Gandaki, and Lumbini provinces on Friday night. Light to moderate rainfall is likely in most parts of Bagmati, Gandaki, Lumbini, and Sudurpaschim provinces, and a few places in the rest of provinces could witness light to moderate rainfall, punctuated with thundershowers. The monsoon season in Nepal generally begins on June 13. The exit, which was usually on September 23, has been extended to October 2. This year, the clouds from the south entered Nepal from the western region on June 10, three days ahead of the usual onset date. Last year, the weather phenomenon started on June 14, a day after the normal onset day. The monsoon period, which delivers around 80 per cent of the country's total annual rainfall, generally lasts 105 days. But, in recent years, it has been taking more time to withdraw. This year, too, monsoon rainfall will be prolonged by at least five days, met officials had predicted earlier. Nepal has already recorded above-average rainfall this season. (ANI) Chief Advisor to the interim Bangladesh government, Muhammad Yunus, hailed his countrymen for the massive anti-government protests that led to the ouster of Sheikh Hasina, and said that the generation Z made the country revisit the values it was born out of in 1971. Addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, Yunus affirmed hope that the collective resolve should define the "Bangladesh of the future." "I stand in this parliament of nations, thanks to a transformation that Bangladesh witnessed this July and August. The power of the ordinary people, particularly our youth, presented to our nation an opportunity to overhaul many of our systems and institutions," Yunus said at the 79th session of the UNGA. "The uprising led by the students was initially aimed at ending discrimination. Progressively, the movement evolved into a people's movement. The world eventually saw how people stood against autocracy, oppression, discrimination, injustice and corruption, both on the streets and online," he added. Lauding the Bangladeshi youth for the student-led protests, Yunus referred the Sheikh Hasina regime as "autocratic" and "undemocratic" regime. "Our people, particularly youth gained us independence from an autocratic, undemocratic regime with an exceptional resolve. The collective resolve should define the Bangladesh of the future and place our nation as a responsible state in the committee of the nations...This was indeed a movement that brought people who were long left in politics and development," the chief advisor said. "We were moved by the wisdom, courage, conviction our youth showed. Young girls were fiercely vocal against illegitimate state power. School-going children laid down their lives, people lost their eyes forever," he added. Recalling the independence of Bangladesh, the head of the interim government hoped that the evolution inspires many across the globe to stand for "freedom" and "justice." "Bangladesh was born because of her people's profound belief in liberalism, pluralism and secularism. Decades later, our generation Z is making us revisit and reimagine the very values that our people stood back for back in 1971 as our people also did in 1952 to defend our mother language Bangla," Yunus said. He added, "We believe this evolution that the world witnessed in the span of few weeks may inspire many across communities, and countries to stand for freedom and justice." Appreciating the 'Pact of the Future' adopted at UNGA, he said, "The Pact of the Future and the declaration of the future could help setting pathways beyond Agenda 2030. Bangladesh believes the summit's outcome will serve as a guiding framework and materialising our shared aspirations and rethinking collaborations for prosperity." Notably, Bangladesh witnessed Sheikh Hasina's ouster amid students' protests turned into a massive anti-government movement, followed by the establishment of an interim government. During this turbulent period, several incidents of violence and chaos, particularly targeting minorities, including Hindus, have been reported from Bangladesh. Yunus was sworn in on August 8 as the head of an interim government after Sheikh Hasina fled the country and the parliament was dissolved. (ANI) You are here: Business A drone photo taken on May 25, 2024 shows freight trains waiting for departure at the Alataw Pass in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. [Photo/Xinhua] Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region saw a yearly rise of 30.9 percent in foreign trade in the first eight months of this year, the local customs authorities said Thursday. The region's total import and export volume in the January-August period reached 285.32 billion yuan (about 40.55 billion U.S. dollars), according to Urumqi Customs. Li Qinghua, deputy head of Urumqi Customs, highlighted that the remarkable foreign trade growth in Xinjiang can be partly attributed to the establishment of comprehensive bonded zones, which enhance logistics efficiency, as well as the successful expansion of international markets. Xinjiang's trade with countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) rose by 28 percent year on year, accounting for 92.5 percent of the region's total foreign trade value in the first eight months. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were the region's major trading partners over this period. Private enterprises in Xinjiang showed a strong performance in foreign trade during the same period, with their trade value soaring 29.6 percent year on year, accounting for 92.5 percent of the region's total. The region has exported more high value-added products, including electric passenger vehicles and lithium-ion batteries. Xinjiang is located at the heart of the Eurasian continent and serves as an important transportation hub in the core region of the Silk Road Economic Belt, an essential component of the BRI, which was proposed by China in 2013. Tel Aviv [Israel], September 27 (ANI/TPS): The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) mobilized two reserve infantry brigades in recent days for operational missions in the northern sector as preparations continue for a possible ground assault against Hezbollah terrorists based in southern Lebanon. The IDF said the Etzioni 6th Brigade and the Northern Nahal 228th Brigade, together with a number of other reserve battalions, were called up with the aim of "enabling the continuation of the fighting effort and damaging the military capabilities of the terrorist organization Hezbollah and creating the conditions for the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes." With the mobilization of the reserve brigades, the emergency supply warehouses were opened and logistical equipment and means of combat were distributed to the reserve fighters. (ANI/TPS) The blast took place on Thursday night in the police station's warehouse room, where a large quantity of explosive material recovered from terrorists was stored. Citing the District Police Officer Haroon Rasheed, ARY News reported that the explosion was apparently triggered by a short circuit, causing multiple detonations. Meanwhile, after the blast took place, the Rescue and firefighting teams rushed to the scene, escorting the wounded to the nearby medical facility. However, despite the treatment, the second victim of the blast succumbed to injuries at the hospital earlier today. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur took notice of the incident and ordered the inspector general and chief secretary to immediately reach the Swabi police station. (ANI) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with former US President and Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, and described their discussion as productive. Zelenskyy also emphasised that both of them hold a "common view that the war in Ukraine has to be stopped." Sharing a post on X, Zelenskyy wrote, "I had a very productive meeting with Donald Trump. I presented him our Victory Plan, and we thoroughly reviewed the situation in Ukraine and the consequences of the war for our people. Many details were discussed. I am grateful for this meeting. A just peace is needed." He added, "We share the common view that the war in Ukraine must be stopped. Putin cannot win. Ukrainians must prevail." Notably, Trump's stance on Ukraine has been somewhat controversial, having previously criticised US assistance to Ukraine and praised Russian President Vladimir Putin. In contrast, US President Joe Biden has reaffirmed US support for Ukraine, pledging to provide the necessary assistance to help Ukraine win the war. Recently, the US announced a new package of weapons and nearly USD 8 billion in aid for Ukraine. Trump assured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky he could "very quickly" end the Russia-Ukraine war if he wins the 2024 election. "We have a very good relationship (with Zelenskyy), and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin," Trump said. "And I think if we win, I think we're going to get it resolved very quickly," he added. Meanwhile, Zelenskyy has concluded his rounds of talks and is now heading back to Ukraine. In a post on X, he wrote, "As planned, today we are heading home after completing all the necessary talks. Every discussion went exactly as needed. The Victory Plan has been presented to America, and we explained each point in detail. Now, our teams will work to implement every step and decision. Strong positions for Ukraine mean a quicker path to peace." He added, "Everything crucial for Ukraine is on the table with our partners and under consideration--long-range capabilities, defence packages, sanctions against Russia, and measures regarding Russian assets. We have covered all these topics. We are now preparing for the meeting in Germany within the framework of Ramstein, where we will move forward with our partners on the Victory Plan's key points. I am grateful to President Biden for the invitation." A day before, Zelenskyy met with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss the details of Ukraine's Victory Plan amid the ongoing war with Russia. Sharing a post on X, Zelenskyy wrote, "During the meeting with President Joe Biden, I presented the Victory Plan to him. We discussed details to strengthen the plan, coordinated our positions, views, and approaches, and tasked our teams with holding consultations on the next steps." (ANI) Chief Advisor to the interim Bangladesh government, Muhammad Yunus, emphasised the need for Rohingyas to return to their homeland, Rakhine in Myanmar, with security and rights. He also reaffirmed the country's commitment to collaborating with the international community to facilitate the safe return of Rohingyas. Yunus' remarks came while he addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Friday. He said, "There is a need to pave the way for the Rohingyas to return to their homeland - Rakhine - with adequate security and rights. Keeping in mind the ever-changing situation in Myanmar, Bangladesh is ready to work with the international community to create an environment for dignified and sustainable repatriation of the Rohingyas to their country." He added, "We have been entrusted with the task of rebuilding the country and returning to the state system that the people have longed for. Our main goal right now is to correct the mistakes of the past and build a competitive and strong economy and a just society." Yunus reaffirmed Bangladesh's commitment to safeguarding fundamental human rights, stressing the administration's determination to protect the rights of all citizens. "We are determined to uphold and protect the fundamental rights of people. It is our mission that the people of our country will speak freely, assemble without fear, vote and elect the people of their choice," he said. He further said, "We are also committed to preserving the independence of the judiciary and consolidating the freedom of the media, including in the cyber domain." Reaffirming the country's commitment to global cooperation, Yunus said that the government will continue active participation and contribution to multilateral structures, including the United Nations. "Our government is determined to uphold all the international, regional and bilateral agreements that Bangladesh is a party to. Bangladesh will continue its active participation and contribution in multilateral global structures, including the United Nations. Bangladesh is interested in maintaining friendly relations with all countries of the world based on mutual respect, dignity and preservation of interests," he said. The Rohingyas, a mostly Muslim minority in Myanmar, have long been the focus of prejudice and interethnic conflict, according to Al Jazeera. The military crackdown in Myanmar in 2017, had notably forced the Rohingyas to flee. After the crackdown by the Myanmar military, at least 7,50,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh. This crackdown is also the focus of a 'genocide' case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. According to recent reports, thousands more Rohingyas had fled to Bangladesh in August from the Rakhine state in western Myanmar as combat between the military dictatorship and the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group that recruits among the majority Buddhist population, has escalated, as reported by Al Jazeera. Notably, Bangladesh witnessed Sheikh Hasina's ouster amid students' protests, which turned into a massive anti-government movement, followed by the establishment of an interim government. During this turbulent period, several incidents of violence and chaos, particularly targeting minorities, including Hindus, have been reported from Bangladesh. Yunus was sworn in on August 8 as the head of an interim government after Sheikh Hasina fled the country and the parliament was dissolved. (ANI) Israel on Friday carried out a precision strike against Hezbollah's central headquarters, located beneath residential buildings in Beirut's Dahieh. Sharing a post on X, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said, "The IDF conducted a precise strike on the Central Headquarters of the Hezbollah terrorist organisation, embedded under residential buildings in the heart of the Dahieh in Beirut." Also, IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari spoke regarding the precision strike on Hezbollah's central headquarters. He said, "Moments ago, the Israel Defense Forces carried out a precise strike on the Central Headquarters of the Hezbollah terror organization that served as an epicentre of Hezbollah's terror. Hezbollah's central headquarters was intentionally built under residential buildings in the heart of the Dahieh in Beirut." Hagari also reaffirmed Israel's determination to protect its citizens from Hezbollah's terrorism. "As part of Hezbollah's strategy of using Lebanese people as human shields, on October 8, Hezbollah started attacking Israel. After almost a year of Hezbollah firing rockets and missiles at Israeli civilians; after almost a year of Israel warning the world and telling them that Hezbollah must be stopped, Israel is doing what every sovereign state in the world would do... taking the necessary action to protect our people so that Israeli families can live in their homes, safely and securely." Meanwhile, an Israeli official said that Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, was the target in Friday's explosions that shook Beirut, according to a report by CNN. A senior Israeli official said it is "too early to say" whether Friday's strike targeting Nasrallah was successful. The official added, "it's a question of time...," drawing parallels with the operation that eliminated Hamas leader Mohammed Deif in Gaza. The official further said the decision to target Nasrallah was a "very tough call," and said confirmation could come at any moment, noting it "depends on the intelligence, they usually try to hide it," CNN reported. When asked whether Nasrallah is alive or dead, a Lebanese security official told CNN, "We wait." Also, Lebanon's Health Ministry reported that the Israeli strikes on Beirut's Dahieh resulted in two casualties and dozens injured. Notably, Israel has continued striking Hezbollah in Lebanon to counter the 'threats', the Iran-backed group poses to Israel with repeated strikes in northern Israel. As the conflict heads towards escalation, all major countries have called for a ceasefire and hostage deal, while also stressing for a two-state solution as a means to achieve durable and sustainable peace in the region. (ANI) He said that this commitment aligns with India's Neighbourhood First Policy, Vision SAGAR, and Act East Policy. Sharing a post on X, Jaishankar wrote, "Chaired the BIMSTEC informal Foreign Ministers' meeting in New York, in preparation for the BIMSTEC Leaders' Summit." The EAM further said that the meeting focused on improving maritime and digital connectivity. He said, "Took stock of our close cooperation in health, food security, trade, investment, economy and energy. Focused on improving physical, maritime and digital connectivity across the region. Explored opportunities for capacity building, skill development and improving people-to-people ties. Development of BIMSTEC Centres of Excellence is a collective resolve. Reaffirmed India's commitment for wider engagement with BIMSTEC in line with Neighbourhood First, Vision SAGAR and Act East Policy." Also, Jaishankar attended the India-CARICOM (Caribbean Community and Common Market) Foreign Ministers meeting on Friday. Taking to X, he wrote, "A great meeting of the India-CARICOM Foreign Ministers today. Co-chaired with FM Dr. Vince Henderson of Dominica. Discussions around upgrading our partnership and deepening cooperation in health, IT, FinTech, capacity building, renewables and food security. Our bonds with CARICOM draw from past experiences, address current needs and aspire towards a brighter future." https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1839710457663234064 Jaishankar also co-chaired the India-CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) Foreign Ministers' Meeting on the sidelines of the 79th UNGA. The key issues of the meeting included Digital Public Infrastructure, health, clean energy and capacity building. Sharing pictures on X, Jaishankar wrote, "Co-chaired India-CELAC Foreign Ministers' Meeting alongside FM Enrique Reina today in New York. Our political cooperation and deepening economic linkages advance South-South cooperation. Agenda included Digital Public Infrastructure, health, clean energy and capacity building. Highlighted possibilities for greater engagement in AI, e-mobility, space, smart agriculture and drones. India and CELAC have a shared commitment to reformed multilateralism." https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1839709022645010539 Meanwhile, on the sidelines of UNGA79, Jaishankar met his counterparts from several nations. He took to social media to share photos and updates from these meetings. "Delighted to meet FM Caspar Veldkamp of the Netherlands. A very open and positive discussion on strategic issues of the day," Jaishankar posted. https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1839754808829358273 In another post, he wrote, "A warm conversation with FM Timco Mucunski of North Macedonia at UNGA79." https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1839710885893312978 The post added, "We discussed investment, connectivity, and cooperation with the region." (ANI) Demonstrations erupted outside the United Nations Headquarters in New York as Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh's Chief Advisor, addressed the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Protesters gathered outside the United Nations Headquarters in New York, chanting slogans and expressing strong opposition to Bangladesh's Chief Advisor. Slogans of "terrorist, minority killer, Hindu killer Yunus, go back, step down" were raised outside UN headquarters in New York. During the demonstration, a protestor said that Yunus has no right to speak on behalf of Bangladesh. He said, "We have gathered here. A person who is not elected is unlawfully presenting a constitutionally run country, Bangladesh. He (Yunus) has no right to speak on behalf of the 170 million people of Bangladesh." The protestor added, "Dr Yunus is representing Bangladesh at the United Nations. 50 years ago at the same location, the father of the nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, addressed the world in Bengali and today, Dr Yunus delivered his lecture in English..." Notably, atrocities on Bangladeshi minorities, including Hindus, came to light after ex-PM Sheikh Hasina's ouster. Sloganeers also chanted, "Go back, step down, step down, step down" and held up posters that said, "Shiekh Hasina Our Prime Minister." Notably, while addressing the UNGA on Friday, Yunus hailed his countrymen for the massive anti-government protests that led to the ouster of Sheikh Hasina, and said that the generation Z made the country revisit the values it was born out of in 1971. Yunus affirmed hope that the collective resolve should define the "Bangladesh of the future." "I stand in this parliament of nations, thanks to a transformation that Bangladesh witnessed this July and August. The power of the ordinary people, particularly our youth, presented to our nation an opportunity to overhaul many of our systems and institutions," Yunus said at the 79th session of the UNGA. "The uprising led by the students was initially aimed at ending discrimination. Progressively, the movement evolved into a people's movement. The world eventually saw how people stood against autocracy, oppression, discrimination, injustice and corruption, both on the streets and online," he added. Notably, Bangladesh witnessed Sheikh Hasina's ouster amid students' protests turned into a massive anti-government movement, followed by the establishment of an interim government. During this turbulent period, several incidents of violence and chaos, particularly targeting minorities, including Hindus, have been reported from Bangladesh. Yunus was sworn in on August 8 as the head of an interim government after Sheikh Hasina fled the country and the parliament was dissolved. (ANI) Receding tidal water is seen along Kristanna Drive in Panama City on Friday. PANAMA CITY It was a sunny day in Bay County on Friday, hours after Hurricane Helene pummeled the Big Bend area Thursday evening. The Category 4 storm landed east of the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 10 miles west-southwest of Perry. Bay narrowly escaped its destruction, with only heavy rainfall, tropical storm-forced winds and minor flooding reported throughout the area. "The areas east of Tallahassee ... got really, really high winds and lots of damage," Mark Wool, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Tallahassee, said. "As far as Bay County, you guys got off a little easy this time." A resident drives along Kristanna Drive in Panama City on Friday, one day after Hurricane Helene passed through the region. According to Wool, more than 5 inches of rain from Helene was recorded in Lynn Haven, Parker and Panama City. More than 3 inches of rain was recorded in Panama City Beach. Wool did not have rainfall information on Friday morning for Callaway or Mexico Beach. A flooded street in Callaway on Friday. The night before, Hurricane Helene made landfall in the Big Bend area. He said Bay County experienced storm surges of just a few feet, as well as wind gusts between 30 mph and 50 mph.. County officials said no instances of local wind damage had been reported as of Friday afternoon. Past reports note Helene had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph. Areas with widespread power outages on Friday included Taylor, Wakulla, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Suwanee, Lafayette, Dixie, Levy, Gilchrist, and Union counties. Storm surges peaked at about 15 to 20 feet between Carrabelle and the Suwanee River. More on Helene: Live updates on Friday: Bay County, Panama City recover from Hurricane Helene Students of Bay District Schools were scheduled to return to the classroom on Monday, Sept. 30. School was canceled Sept. 26-27 because of the storm. To help with recovery efforts, the Panama City Police Department deployed crews on Friday morning. They traveled to Havana, where they were slated to receive specific location-based orders. Panama City officials said Friday that its fire department also is prepared to send a crew east upon request. Visit newsherald.com for more coverage, photos and videos from the storm. Reporters Dylan Gentile and DeonTay Smith contributed to this story This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Bay County narrowly escapes destruction of Category 4 Hurricane Helene Editors note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Modlins first name. HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) A Chesterfield County man who last week wounded a McBee police officer before engaging authorities in a roadside standoff died by suicide. Lee County Coroner Larry Logan told News13 Wednesday night that Alston Modlin, 27, shot himself in the head. The incident started as a traffic stop around 11 a.m. Thursday morning near McBee High School. Modlin then took off before his vehicle was located on Una Road near the Lee and Darlington county lines. Authorities asked the Horry County Police Department to participate in their investigation, and the agency had the scene cleared by Saturday morning, spokeswoman Mikalya Moskov said. A Lee County sheriffs deputy was shot and K9 officer Mikka was killed during the standoff. I want to thank Horry County for taking the lead in investigating this incident, and all of our partners for their support and assistance. Theres been so much community support from near and far, and each person and agency that has reached out to check on us and offered their prayers is appreciated, Lee County Sheriff Daniel Simon said in a statement. * * * Adam Benson joined the News13 digital team in January 2024. He is a veteran South Carolina reporter with previous stops at the Greenwood Index-Journal, Post & Courier and The Sun News in Myrtle Beach. Adam is a Boston native and University of Utah graduate. Follow Adam on X, formerly Twitter, at @AdamNewshound12. See more of his work here. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBTW. The general election will be held Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024 and some statewide offices are up for grabs, including Delaware's insurance commissioner. Incumbent Trinidad Navarro is up for reelection after securing the Democratic nomination, receiving 74% of the votes in Delaware's primary election held Sept. 10, 2024. He will be facing off with one other Republican challenger in the November election. Here's what to know about who's running for Delaware's insurance commissioner. Meet the candidates The insurance commissioner in Delaware regulates the states insurance industry, tracking the financial well-being of insurance companies and investigating insurance fraud complaints from residents. Here are the nominees for insurance commissioner for the general election in November. Trinidad Navarro (D) Trinidad Navarro was elected as Delawares insurance commissioner in 2016 and was reelected in 2020. Prior to his time as insurance commissioner, Navarro worked with the New Castle County Police Department for 20 years and was elected as the New Castle County sheriff in 2010. As insurance commissioner, Navarro is a member of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and was elected by his peers to chair the Northeast Zone. He also co-chairs the associations National Antifraud Taskforce and the Improper Marketing of Health Plans Working Group. He also serves on the Delaware Health Care Commission, the State Employee Benefits Committee and the Plans Management Board. Navarro has stated that his first priority as Commissioner is to protect Delawares insurance consumers. During his time in office, Navarro helped pass legislation that protected Affordable Care Act coverage for Delawareans with pre-existing conditions, and he has aimed to address rising costs of prescription drugs. Ralph Taylor (R) Ralph Taylor is a former Dover city councilman and was unopposed on the Republican ticket for insurance commissioner during Septembers primary election. Prior to his time in public office, Taylor was a police officer for the city of Dover from 1990 until 2010. He was elected as councilman of the second district in Dover in 2019 and resigned in 2023. During his time as city councilman, he served on six committees including the Economic Development Committee, the Downtown Dover Partnership Board of Directors and was the chairman of the Safety Advisory and Transportation Committee. He also is president of the Delaware Pest Control Association and is co-owner of small pest control business The Bug Guy. Taylors campaign promises to invest in education, support entrepreneurs and small businesses, embrace new technologies and green energy solutions, and to create an accessible, affordable and high-quality health care system statewide. Voter information A voter casts a ballot in a voting booth at the Middletown Town Council Chambers on Monday afternoon. The general election will take place nationwide on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. Unlike Delawares primary election, which took place Sept. 10, 2024, all registered voters will be able to cast their vote, regardless of party affiliation. How to register The deadline to register to vote in the general election is Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024. Voters can register themselves through an online application at the State of Delaware Voter Portal, in person at any Department of Elections office, can have an application mailed to ones home address by calling the Department of Elections and more. There are three ways to vote in the general election: during early voting periods, submitting an absentee ballot or voting on Election Day. Early voting information A list of early voting sites and schedules is available on the Delaware Department of Elections website, and a portal is available to find the closest polling place to home. There will be two early voting periods taking place prior to the general election: Between Oct. 25, 2024 and Oct. 29, 2024 from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. Between Oct. 30, 2024 and Nov. 3, 2024 from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. Absentee voting information To submit an absentee ballot, an absentee ballot application must be completed and submitted on the states voter portal or manually submitted to a Department of Elections office in your county of residence. The last day to submit a request for a General Election absentee ballot to be mailed is Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. Absentee ballots must be received by the Department of Elections by 8 p.m. on election day: Nov. 5, 2024. Absentee ballots cannot be returned to polling places or early voting sites, they must be mailed to the Department of Elections. Election Day voting information Voters will be assigned a polling place based on their registered address. Voters can check the voter portal for information on their polling place. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. on Nov. 5, 2024. Molly McVety covers community and environmental issues around Delaware. Contact her at mmcvety@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @mollymcvety. This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Who's running for insurance commissioner in Delaware's 2024 general election? You are here: China A low-altitude air route connecting Guangzhou, the capital city of south China's Guangdong Province, to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), was launched on Thursday. On Thursday morning, a helicopter departed from Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport and arrived at Hong Kong International Airport in just 40 minutes, marking a significant advance in the low-altitude economy of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Operated by China Southern Airlines General Aviation Co., Ltd., the route's inaugural flight utilized a Sikorsky S-92 helicopter, which can accommodate 19 passengers and two crew members. Li Erbao, chairman of China Southern Airlines General Aviation, said the route will offer charter flights during its trial phase, allowing customers to book custom travel. Li added that the company plans to introduce regular short-haul flights with two departure and arrival points in Hong Kong, enhancing travel options further for passengers. DNC will send Oregon $125,000 to get out the vote in congressional races The Democratic National Committee is sending Oregon $125,000 for get-out-the-vote efforts. (Getty Images) The Democratic National Committee announced Friday that it will send Oregons Democratic Party $125,000 to turn out voters in congressional races. Its the first time the DNC has invested in late get-out-the-vote efforts in Oregon, a Democratic stronghold, and it represents both the states growing importance on the congressional field and skyrocketing Democratic fundraising. The Democratic National Committee and Kamala Harris presidential campaign raised $257 million in August, more than triple the $85 million raised by Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee, the committees latest federal campaign finance filings show. Oregon, meanwhile, is home to three of the countrys most competitive congressional districts. The 5th Congressional District, where Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer eked out a 2-point win in 2022, is one of just 24 tossup districts in the country. And the 4th and 6th districts, represented by first-term Democrats Val Hoyle and Andrea Salinas, are also close. The Oregon Democratic Party will use the money for its neighborhood leader program, which trains volunteers to convince their neighbors to vote. Each volunteer gets a list of 35 households, or about 50 voters, who are already registered Democrats and live nearby, and then they knock on their neighbors doors with campaign literature and reminders to vote. Oregon Democratic Party Chair Rosa Colquitt said the more than 3,000 neighborhood leaders have contributed to Democratic victories in legislative, statewide and U.S. Senate races. This cycle, the path to a Democratic majority in the U.S. House undoubtedly runs through Oregon, she said. With this investment, our neighborhood leaders will be able to have an even greater impact on electing our Democratic congressional candidates. The Oregon award is part of a $2.5 million national investment the DNC announced Friday. DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said the committees spending in Oregon and in every other state and territory show its commitment to electing Harris and ensuring Democrats have the resources to run competitive races in both red and blue states. Oregon Democrats will ensure working families can get ahead, while standing up to Trump and Republicans extreme agenda to rip away Americans most fundamental rights, Harrison said. With Vice President Harris at the helm and record-breaking investments in coordinated campaigns, the DNC and Democratic state parties across the country have the momentum to strengthen coordinated operations in the critical final stretch to November to deliver wins for Democrats and all Oregonians. While national GOP groups including the National Republican Congressional Committee and Congressional Leadership Fund are pouring millions into Oregon races, the RNC and Trump have largely stayed out of the state. Trump doesnt have a campaign office here, and he didnt pay $3,500 to appear in the state-issued voters pamphlet. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Fears for US citizen held by Taliban amid reports he has been handed over to al-Qaeda Mahmood Shah Habibi, a senior official in the previous Nato-backed Afghan regime, was reportedly arrested by the Taliban in 2022 (Photos sourced/The Independent) The family of one of three Americans held prisoner by the Taliban in Afghanistan is urging Washington to confirm his whereabouts amid online rumours of his impending execution. Afghan-born US citizen Mahmood Shah Habibi, 37, was working with an American telecommunications company when he was arrested by the Taliban in August 2022 after a drone strike killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Taliban likely assumed Mr Habibis employer was involved in the strike, but did not charge him. Sarah Adams, a former American spy employed by the CIA, recently claimed without providing evidence that Mr Habibi had been transferred by the Taliban to al-Qaeda and would likely be executed soon. His family say they have received no such information from Kabul or the US State Department. I dont agree with reports that the Taliban have handed over my brother to al-Qaeda. As per my information, the Taliban have him. They took him in August 2022 and they still have him. The US government should verify such reports and confirm if the Taliban has handed over my brother to al-Qaeda, Mr Habibis brother Ahmad Shah Habibi told The Independent. In the history of the Talibans rule, we have not seen any case where they have handed over a detainee to any other group. We have not received any official information from the US government or from the Taliban. I am hoping it is just a rumour. The FBI last month issued a notice seeking information about Mr Habibis disappearance in Afghanistan. It is believed that Mr Habibi was taken by Taliban military or security forces and has not been heard from since his disappearance, it said. Taliban Hands Over Captured American to Al-Qaeda: Imminent Execution Awaits Im here today to update you on one of the three Americans I discussed during my last visit to the @shawnryanshow. This American, Mahmood Shah Habibi, was captured by the Taliban some time ago. Despite Sarah Adams (@TPASarah) September 20, 2024 Mr Habibi urged the US government to redouble efforts to free his brother, noting that the Taliban had indicated a willingness to exchange the American prisoners. The Taliban claim they only hold two Americans, Ryan Corbett and George Glezmann, allegedly for violating the countrys laws. They are keeping them, Taliban spokesperson Zabiuhllah Mujahid indicated earlier this year, to exchange for Afghans imprisoned by the US in Guantanamo Bay. The Taliban denies having Mr Habibi in custody. I think the Taliban want three people. One is in Guantanamo Bay and two in the US. I dont know who they are asking for in the US, but the American government has to put in more effort in getting my brother released, Mr Habibi said. He said the family has had no communication with Mr Habibi since he vanished in Afghanistan. I dont know the reason why they are not acknowledging my brother when they actually detained him on 10 August 2022. Mahmood Habibi with his young daughter a few weeks before he disappeared in Afghanistan in August 2022 (Sourced/ The Independent) Mr Habibi served as director of civil aviation and deputy minister of civil aviation in the Nato-backed Afghan government that was overthrown by the Taliban in 2021. There is a possibility that he was arrested because he worked for the previous regime and also with the US embassy in Afghanistan between 2011 to 2013. We think his work for the US government and his American citizenship put him in trouble, his brother told The Independent. Mr Habibis detention was flagged in March by the US Congress in a resolution seeking his release. Mahmood Habibis family believes his work with the US government led to his alleged arrest by the Taliban (Sourced/ The Independent) His brother denied that Mr Habibi was in any way involved in the American strike that killed Mr Zawahiri. My brother had nothing to do with that, he said. When the strike happened, my brother was not even on Afghan soil. Mr Habibi said some workers of his brothers company told them they had been interrogated by the Taliban about two towers near the location of the drone strike. My brother worked with a telecommunication company with towers all over Afghanistan, around 600 in total. There were cameras installed on the towers for their security and not for civilians. My brother didnt decide where to install the towers or the cameras. He was just one of the 1,200 employees, working as an adviser. Editors note: This is the second in a series of stories highlighting Latino Idahoans as part of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. State Rep. Sonia Galaviz knew education was her key. Her dad, a migrant worker, would tell her, Youll learn to work with your head or youll work with your back. Galaviz shouldered her fathers hopes on her back, carrying the pressure so many children of immigrants face, and earned both a bachelors and two advanced degrees in college. Now she works in Title 1 schools (which receive federal funding) in the Boise School District to show her students the path they can take. We have a growing Latino population in Idaho and representation is important, Galaviz said, standing in front of the Idaho Capitol. As a schoolteacher, I want my students to see that they can become and do anything that they want. Galavizs fathers family came to the United States from Jalisco, Mexico, and her mother is white. Her family maintained strong cultural ties for her. For example, uncles and aunts (tios y tias) often came by her home in North Idaho growing up. And Galaviz remembers fresh tamales for Christmas, with a chain of family members spreading the masa and passing it to others to finish the dish. She did not, however, have a quinceanera because no one would have known what that was where she grew up, Galaviz explained. It would have been a fish out of water situation, she said, so instead Galaviz simply had a big birthday party. A quinceanera is a rite of passage celebrated at a girls 15th birthday. I think its important to honor Hispanic Heritage Month and what we see in our community around Idaho, said Rep. Sonia R. Galaviz. The Latino population is growing throughout the state and particularly in Southwest Idaho. They are a meaningful part of our communities here. Before she went to her university, the first on either side of her family to do so, her father took her on a three-week pilgrimage to Mexico to anchor in her roots. Galaviz is not the first Hispanic legislator in Idaho but she is the only one now, something she keeps in mind when she sees legislation that targets some in the Latino and immigrant communities. For example, lawmakers in 2024 tried to remove non-emergency health care benefits from undocumented immigrants. I am keenly aware of where the roots of my family come from, Galaviz said. I take it personally, because it is personal. Instead of getting upset about it, though, you work hard to help people understand who folks are and what they do, and how they contribute to the state of Idaho. Galaviz also provides Latino representation in school. She has held a big Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration in her classroom, for instance. Galaviz said shed like to work on getting more Latino Idahoans into education jobs, to better represent the portion of Idahos growing Hispanic population. Latino Idahoans make up 13% of the states population but around 17% of all births in 2021 were Latino, according to a report from the Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs. Were going to celebrate each other and where we come from, Galaviz said. And recognize differences as strengths. Republicans on Wednesday approved legislation condemning a number of Biden administration officials for the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, casting it as an accountability measure for the failed exit. The bill censures both President Biden and Vice President Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for their role in the withdrawal, along with 11 other current and former officials. Ten Democrats joined Republicans to pass the bill with a 219-194 vote. Rather than admit their failure, this administration continues to this day to celebrate their deadly evacuation, House Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said in kicking off debate on the House floor. You cannot fix a problem without first admitting that there is a problem. Thats what accountability is all about. The legislation is the first major GOP bill involving Afghanistan to secure approval, and it does not include what advocates for Afghans say is among the most pressing issues related to the withdrawal: enhancing efforts to aide Afghan allies left behind during the exit or provide a pathway to citizenship for those brought to the U.S. on temporary immigration statuses. The legislation comes after McCauls panel released a more than 300-page report reviewing the decision making and planning involved with the evacuation. While highly critical of Biden, the report spends little time analyzing the role of former President Trump, who previously negotiated the U.S. exit with the Taliban, committing to an earlier timeline. Also under Trump, immigration processing slowed to a crawl, including for those eligible for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs), the multi-step pathway for those who assisted the U.S. military or contractors to come to the U.S. The trickle of processing on the lengthy progress hindered the Biden administrations ability to swiftly relocate allies. And while the report condemns the Biden-Harris administrations decision, it struggles to identify specific actions the vice president took in planning the exit. Nonetheless, the chaotic departure resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. servicemembers and more than 170 Afghans, while leaving allies and others vulnerable under Taliban rule behind. Democrats were quick to blast the legislation as an election-year hit on the president while highlighting the report contained little information on Harris. While the situation in Kabul was chaotic, the administrations response was not. Our military and diplomats adapted quickly to facilitate the largest airlift in U.S. history to relocate over 120,000 people and thats why President Biden said it was a success and pulling out of Afghanistan was the right thing to do, said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the foreign affairs panel. He also blasted Republicans for the timing of their report and its focus on Harris. They wanted to make a spectacle before the November elections, Meeks said, while noting Harris is referenced only three times in the more than 3,000 pages of interview transcripts. McCaul has denied that politics played a role in the timing of the report and has often complained that Biden administration officials slow-walked their responses. He is also moving ahead with plans to hold Blinken in contempt of Congress for failing to testify on the withdrawal. The timing of our investigation and of this report was not of my making. It was not my timing. It was deliberately delayed by this administration, I think in a plan to take it well beyond this election, well beyond this Congress, McCaul said. Meeks on Wednesday closed with a plea to colleagues to back legislation that would support Afghan allies both in the U.S. and still abroad. There is legislation that Congress can pass now to move forward. Something impartial. Something that will have real credibility, he said. The Afghan Adjustment Act and the Afghan Allies Protection Act, which are long-standing, bipartisan proposals, would keep the faith with the Afghans who fought and worked alongside us. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Editors Note: This article has been modified to add a statement from the Nevada Department of Education. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) A class action lawsuit against the Clark County School District (CCSD) and Nevada Department of Education (NDE) alleges a violation of federal law concerning special needs students. In the 58-page complaint, nine families allege a systemic failure of Nevadas education system, pointing specifically to CCSD. Twelve children are identified in the suit, listed only by their initials. For years, the Nevada Department of Education and the Clark County School District have failed to comply with federal laws designed to protect the rights of students with disabilities, said Hillary Freeman, an attorney representing the plaintiffs. Because of that, its a constant battle for these families to access the free and appropriate public education children are entitled to under these federal laws. The lawsuit alleges that CCSD and NDE violated laws, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by not supporting students with disabilities like dyslexia and autism, saying that the cause is due to staffing shortages and lack of training. Lead attorney Lori Rogich and her husband Sig were involved in a previous suit against the school district involving her daughter, who had been diagnosed with dyslexia. We were asking for a methodology to be included in their daughters individualized education program, and the school district refused to do it, Freeman said. The Rogich family sued CCSD and said nothing has changed since. The new lawsuit seeks to restructure the Districts special education system with federal oversight, new procedures, and increased staffing and training. In addition, the lawsuit seeks reasonable costs, attorneys fees, and experts fees, along with monetary or other damages as the Court deems just, necessary, and proper. Theyre not utilizing up-to-date approaches or research-based approaches, and as a result of that, the students are not learning, theyre acting out, theyre not learning to communicate, and theyre being excluded from school because the teachers and the school cannot meet their needs, Freeman said. The lawsuit alleges that CCSD pretends dyslexia does not exist despite estimates that 80-90% of students with learning disabilities have it. The attorney said teachers are not to blame, adding that the educators and families appear to be on the same side. Teachers are begging for support, theyre begging the administration for support, and they are being denied that support, Freeman said. The Nevada Department of Education generally refrains from commenting on active litigation, said officials from the NDE. CCSD officials also declined to comment on the lawsuit per district policy. Attorneys for the plaintiffs have scheduled a news conference for Monday. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. (This story was updated to accurately reflect the most current information.) PANAMA CITY It's a sunny day in Panama City today after Hurricane Helene made landfall last night. The storm landed just east of the mouth of the Aucilla River about 10 miles west-southwest of Perry. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph. 99% of Taylor County is without power, and neighboring Wakulla, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Suwanee, Lafayette, Dixie, Levy, Gilchrist, and Union counties have similar numbers. The storm surge peaked around 15 to 20 feet between Carrabelle and the Suwanee River. Stay tuned here for updates throughout the day. Panama City, PCB fire departments deploy recovery teams According to an email from Kristen Kennedy, spokesperson for Panama City, the Panama City Fire Department will deploy a team to Lafayette County at about 5 p.m. on Friday to help with Hurricane Helene recovery efforts. The team's role will be to "support 911 operations in the town of Mayo," which is located east of Perry. "Panama City Beach Fire Rescue (is) also tagging along on this deployment, sending four personnel and one engine," Kennedy wrote. "The PCB team is in route to Panama City's Station 1 ... to meet with the PCFD before all heading out together." Nathan Cobb Panama City extends deadlines for business licenses in light of Helene The city says licenses are normally due by Sept. 30, but they will waive late penalties until the end of day Friday, Oct. 18. The city aims to provide flexibility and support to local businesses as the region recovers from Hurricane Helene. People can contact the Business Services Office at 850-691-4603 or email BusinessServices@panamacity.gov with any questions. Hurricane Helene caused some flooding in Callaway Check out Dylan Gentile's photos: Hurricane Helene caused some flooding in Panama City Check out Tyler Orsburn's photos: Did you have any property damage as a result of Hurricane Helene? AAA shares advice for Florida residents "Once conditions are safe to do so, begin assessing your property, take pictures of any damage, and contact your insurance provider immediately to begin the claims process. Also, make sure your insurance is up to date before filing claims. DeonTay Smith Bay District Schools back in session Monday Bay District Schools students will return to the classroom on Monday, Sept. 30. School was canceled on Sept. 26 and 27 because of Hurricane Helene. DeonTay Smith Hurricane Helene was big. How does it compare with other hurricanes? This story from USA TODAY provides some context. Double red flags on Panama City Beach Double red flags are raised on Bay County beaches as the Gulf of Mexico remains affected by Hurricane Helene. Two red flags means that the water is closed to swimming, as conditions are too dangerous for even the strongest swimmers. Dylan Gentile Local police deploy crews to affected counties The Panama City Police Department deployed a crew of eight personnel about 3 a.m. Friday to assist with recovery efforts. They are headed to Havana, Florida, where they will receive specific location-based orders. Panama City says the fire department is also prepared to head east upon request. Shari Cooper, Panama City Beach communications manager, said that the city police department was also deploying staff and equipment. They are headed straight to Perry, the town closest to Helene's landfall. Dylan Gentile Panama City resumes normal operations A release from the city says that Panama City saw minimal impacts from Hurricane Helene, with only minor flooding observed in limited areas. Fire crews responded Friday morning to the localized flooding in Kristanna Drive. They say there were no reports of flooding in gridded areas, and Florida Power & Light confirmed no power outages across the City. Dylan Gentile Tyndall Air Force Base declares 'all clear' Operations were back to normal today after a delayed 10 a.m. reporting time. They say the base has no significant damage. "I want to extend my sincere thanks to all Team Tyndall personnel for their outstanding work in preparing for Hurricane Helene," said Col. Christian Bergtholdt, 325th Fighter Wing commander. "We were fortunate to avoid significant impacts, but your readiness was key. Our strong partnerships with the Bay County EOC and other agencies were critical in our effort to ensure the safety and well-being of our community." Dylan Gentile How much rain did Bay County get from Hurricane Helene? Panama City received a little less than 4 inches of rain on Thursday. Overall water levels in the ocean and bay peaked around 3 feet above expected levels. Dylan Gentile How high were the wind speeds during Hurricane Helene? The roughest sustained winds were around 32 mph and the barometric pressure at its lowest dipped to 991.2 mb. Dylan Gentile Did Bay County experience any flooding from Hurricane Helene? Two roads in the county, Azalea Street and CR 2321 at CR 2311, were flooded Thursday night. Several residential streets in Lynn Haven were also underwater. Panama City proper also saw some flooded streets. Videos online also show areas of Callaway with some standing water. Dylan Gentile Were there any power outages in Bay County? Bay County is mostly unscathed compared to its eastern neighbors, with only 10 are without power this morning. The Bay County Sheriff's Office is sending teams out to Wakulla County to assist in their recovery effort. Dylan Gentile Friday's focus in Bay County: Helping others The Bay County Emergency Operations Center is returning to normal operations this morning after receiving no reports of infrastructure damage in the county. They say their new focus is on mobilizing teams to our neighbors most impacted by Hurricane Helene. There's currently a coastal flooding and high-surf advisory in effect for the area. Schools should be back in session on Monday and businesses should start opening back up today. The National Weather Service forecasts sunny and clear conditions through Thursday of next week. Hurricane Helene was downgraded to a tropical storm and is heading north through Georgia this morning. Dylan Gentile (This story was updated to change or add a photo or video) (This story was updated to add new information) This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Hurricane Helene in Bay County and Panama City, Florida. Friday updates JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) Capitol police arrested a 23-year-old man in connection to the mass shooting at the Daiquiri Bar in Jackson. Police said Cleon Walker has been charged with one count of murder and five counts of aggravated assault. Two charged with gun theft from fatal Mississippi wreck scene Capitol Police Chief Bo Luckey said some people walked into the Daiquiri Bar in the early morning hours of Saturday, August 17 and started shooting. One person was killed and five others were injured. Hinds County Coroner Sharon Grisham-Stewart identified the victim as Niger Devon McGee, 25. The coroner said McGee was shot in the face. Anyone with additional information about the shooting can contact Capitol police at 601-359-3125. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily 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 WJTV. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Joseph Amrine, who was exonerated after spending years on death row, speaks at a rally to support Missouri death row inmate Marcellus Williams in Clayton, Mo. | Credit: Jim Salter / AP Photo What happened Missouri executed Marcellus Williams by lethal injection last night after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene, with dissent from the court's three liberal justices. Williams, 55, was convicted of the 1998 stabbing death of Felicia Gayle in suburban St. Louis. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) and the Missouri Supreme Court rejected pleas for clemency Monday night from Williams, the prosecutor's office that secured his 2001 conviction and advocates who said he was likely innocent. Gayle's family also opposed the execution. Who said what Williams, who maintained his innocence, got reprieves in 2015 and 2017, but Parson revoked his predecessor's stay of execution and disbanded a board set up to study DNA evidence from the case. St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion in January to vacate the conviction, saying none of the forensic evidence recovered from the crime scene hair, bloody fingerprints and shoeprints, and DNA on the murder weapon matched Williams, and the two main witnesses were compromised. Williams' lawyers, Bell and Gayle's family agreed in August to commute the sentence to life in prison, but Attorney General Andrew Bailey challenged the deal and set an execution date. Parson said after the execution he hoped it gave "finality to a case that's languished for decades." NAACP President Derrick Johnson said "Missouri lynched another innocent Black man." What next? Williams was one of four death row inmates scheduled to be executed this week "an unusually high number" after years of death penalty decline, The Associated Press said. "Putting an innocent person to death" is "an inherent risk of capital punishment," CNN said, citing Death Penalty Information Center data showing at least 200 people sentenced to death since 1973 were later exonerated. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) Administrator Youngbin Yoon, left, and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, right, sign a Joint Statement following a bilateral meeting Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington. | Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber NASA and South Korea's space agency have agreed to deeper cooperation in space exploration, science and aeronautics, including collaboration on a pioneering mission. NASA and the Republic of Korea's newly created Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) signed a joint statement on advance cooperation on Sept. 19. Areas of potential cooperation include NASA's Moon to Mars Architecture, space life sciences and medical operations, lunar surface science, utilization of Korea's deep-space antenna and future commercial activities in low Earth orbit , according to a NASA statement . "Building on years of work together both on Earth and in space, we are proud to significantly grow our partnership with the Republic of Korea and its new space agency," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson during a signing ceremony. Related: South Korea creates new KASA space agency, sets sights on the moon and Mars "The signing of the joint statement marks a pivotal moment in opening a new chapter for the Republic of Korea-U.S. aerospace alliance," said KASA Administrator Youngbin Yoon. "It presents a vital opportunity for Korea to emerge as a responsible space-faring nation, and also for humanity to pursue scientific discoveries and pioneer the future." One area of new collaboration will be a mission to the sun-Earth Lagrange Point 4, a hitherto unexplored gravitationally stable point in space where the influences of the sun and Earth balance out. Spacecraft such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have been sent to L2, on the far side of Earth with regard to the sun, while DSCOVR and others operate at L1, around 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) inside the orbit of Earth. But L4, a location 60 degrees in front of Earth in its orbit, has not been visited. Related Stories: South Korea's moon mission snaps stunning Earth pics after successful lunar arrival What are Lagrange points? NASA's Artemis program: Everything you need to know KASA wants to set up a solar wind observation station at L4, aiming to boost understanding of space radiation, South Korean outlet The Chosun reported . NASA and KASA will conduct joint research on data transmission, optical communications and the use of relays at L4, according to the report. There was no indication of a potential launch date for the prospective mission. Further agreements on NASA-KASA cooperation could follow regarding NASA's Artemis program , the report states. The pair have already collaborated on South Korea's Danuri lunar orbiter, while KASA is currently targeting its first robotic lunar landing by 2032. Chinese scientists have developed a carbon footprint assessment system which spatializes a carbon footprint by integrating a geographic information system (GIS) into a full life cycle assessment (LCA). This comes as the country has advanced efforts to establish a carbon footprint management program that is both tailored to national conditions and aligned with international standards. Software for the GIS-LCA system was released at a seminar focusing on the construction of a carbon footprint management system. The seminar was held in Beijing on Sept. 26, 2024. [Photo courtesy of the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences] Software for this GIS-LCA system was released Thursday at a seminar in Beijing that gathered representatives from relevant government departments, academia, companies and industrial associations. During his speech at the seminar, Xie Kechang, academician and former vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, expressed how current international standards do not account for variations in carbon footprints of products that are the same but produced in different locations. He went on to add that this limitation does not suit China's national conditions well. Xie offered guidance to the team who developed this new carbon footprint assessment system. Tian Yajun, chief scientist of the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and leader of the team who developed this new system, also emphasized the significance of accuracy in carbon footprint calculation, stating that "an accurate and reliable carbon footprint is one of the important foundations for promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of the economy and society." Tian Yajun, chief scientist of the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and leader of the team developing the GIS-LCA system, spoke during the seminar held in Beijing on Sept. 26, 2024. [Photo courtesy of the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology at the CAS] Both academics highlighted that the integration of GIS with LCA addresses this limitation and enhances assessment accuracy. According to Tian, also head of the Extended Energy Big Data and Strategy Research Center at the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology at the CAS, this carbon footprint assessment system, built on a decade's worth of accumulated big data, can model real-world scenarios, planning the actual paths of carbon footprints while supporting visualization in the form of flow charts. He added that this system can be applied in a wide variety of contexts and by a diverse array of institutions, including products, services, supply chains, companies, industrial parks, industries and governments. With this GIS-LCA system, Yueqing city in Zhejiang province has developed China's first carbon footprint calculation model for local industrial clusters. It has also created a carbon footprint roadmap for electrical product supply chains. On this basis, the model has identified key points and provided plans for carbon reduction. In addition, the city has developed the country's first spatialized, high-resolution background dataset for the electrical industry, as well as has established a public carbon footprint service platform that integrates products, supply chains, industries, businesses, certification bodies and the government. According to an action plan released in June by the MEE in collaboration with 14 other government departments, China aims to preliminarily establish a carbon footprint management program with national guidelines for calculating product carbon footprints as well as calculation rules and standards for approximately 100 key products by 2027, with the intent to expand this system to include calculation rules and standards for approximately 200 key products by 2030. The national guidelines GB/T24067-2024, titled Greenhouse gasesCarbon footprint of productsRequirements and guidelines for qualifications, are scheduled to take effect on Oct. 1. Looking ahead, Tian said that he and his team look forward to developing their GIS-LCA system into an important component of China's carbon footprint management program, and even part of international rules. The free exercise of religion is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. However, a growing concern about so-called Christian nationalism is the topic of a talk set for noon Tuesday, Oct. 1, during the Lunch with the League meeting of the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge. The speaker will be Patricia K. Freeland, professor of political science and associate head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. She has taught classes on religion and politics and has written numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals on this subject. She has also authored many book chapters on her other academic interests. Patricia Freeland The public is invited to attend the Lunch with the League from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church, 809 Oak Ridge Turnpike. All are welcome to bring their lunch or purchase a boxed lunch for a nominal fee. Coffee and tea will be served. The presentation will begin at noon. In her summary of her talk on religion and politics, Freeland wrote: In todays political environment there is a seemingly mounting effort to merge state and religion, particularly a version of the Christian religion. In a pluralistic and diverse society, as is the United States, this is a major concern. Our founding fathers, many of whom who came from a society that mandated a specific religion, were adamant that this would not be a cornerstone of this new nation. Freeland is currently the reviewer for 10 peer-reviewed journals. She has served on numerous departmental and university boards and committees. She received her Ph.D. in political science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, her M.A. degree in political science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and her B.A. degree in political science and sociology at Central Michigan University. Lunch with the League welcomes League members and nonmembers alike to this informative presentation. The League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge is a nonpartisan political organization for women and men. It encourages informed and active participation in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues and influences public policy through education and advocacy. This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Oak Ridge League talk to focus on Christian nationalism concerns New York City hosted its annual Climate Week in late September, and Prince Harry attended multiple events in Manhattan. The Duke of Sussex participated in several events across Manhattan, two of which were dedicated to honoring his late mother, Princess Diana.To learn more about these events and the kind words Harry said in regards to his mother, keep scrolling! The Diana Award event at NYC climate change Harrys first event was The Diana Award recipients' banquet. The award, established in 1999 by former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, honors young people for their humanitarian work. In 2024, the award still stands and was given out during NYC Climate Week on Monday, September 24, to Chiara Riyanti Hutapea Zhang from Indonesia and Christina Williams from Jamaica. The courage that you have gives me hope because every single one of us needs courage in order to move the dial and create positive change in today's world, Harry told the recipients. Thank you to you guys for giving meand probably a lot of other people in this roomhope. Now we need to listen, constantly, listen and then act on the advice and the vision that you have because otherwise its your future that's been stolen, and that is unacceptable. Harry also shared with Zhang and Williams: I know my mom would be incredibly proud of you. Not just you, but all of the award winners. Your activism and your compassion are two things that are so true of how my mum led her life and what she believed in, and the way you do it is incredible. So thank you. Prince Harry in 2024 John Nacion / Contributor/Getty The HALO Trust event The second event honoring the late princess was hosted by none other than The HALO Trust, a charity that Diana actively supported before her passing. As you know, the HALO Trust work in Angola [Africa] mattered a great deal to my mother, Harry acknowledged on stage. Carrying on her legacy is something I take incredibly seriously. The HALO Trust event was held to try to clear out the land mines on the Okavango River in Botswana, Africa, to which Harry said, This essential cross-border corporation recognizes that this priceless natural asset belongs to all people. Clearing these mines is about more than just physical safety. It's about community, and that sense of peace improves well-being. The work being done in Angola will undoubtedly have a profoundly positive effect on the lives of its people and all those who visit its natural beauty. The rest of Prince Harrys time at NYC Climate Week After he paid tribute to his late mother, Prince Harry still continued to campaign for a more protected Earth at different events across the city. His brother, Prince William, was also in attendance virtually, but the two paths never crossed despite them being at The United Nations (UN) just hours apart. It is unclear what Harry said in his in-person time there, but during his virtual speech, Willaim told people If we are to keep this planet liveable for our children and grandchildren, we must act urgently. We must act to save our rivers, oceans, savannas, mangroves and forests, as well as the communities that protect and live alongside them. For more Royals content, keep scrolling! Royal Family Crops Meghan Markle From Birthday Photo: See the Full Image Kate Middleton Wrote a Rare Public Letter as She Continues Her Cancer Recovery: What She Wrote Kate Middleton and Princess Diana: 12 Kate Quotes That Are Just Like What the Late Princess Wouldve Said Microvote staff and Tippecanoe County Board of Elections staff test voting machines during Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, Election Board meeting. The machines flawlessly and accurately recorded the test votes. LAFAYETTE, Ind. Approving six hours of early voting at an on-campus site eased criticism of the Tippecanoe County Election Board, but a room full of Purdue voting site supporters didn't let them off the hook. The board added the France Cordova Recreation Center at the northwest corner of Third Street and Martin Jischke Drive will be an on-campus early voting site from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 24, the board approved. The First United Methodist Church at 1700 Mitch Daniels Blvd. two blocks west of campus also will be an early-voting site between noon and 5 p.m. Oct. 22. Sarah Huber, an associate professor at Purdue and former poll worker, spoke to the board during Friday's meeting. Ive always bragged about what a great team we have, our equipment, how much work goes into ensuring our people are able to vote, she said. Admittedly, I was very upset when I saw there wasnt a location on campus," Huber said. I work with these students. I talk with them every day. They dont walk over to Lafayette. They need something right by them. We are modeling civic duty. We talk about civic duty, Huber said as she challenged the board to add on-campus vote centers. Although some people spoke to the board with unsubstantiated cries of voter disenfranchisement or voter suppression, not everyone was displeased with board members. They weren't necessarily happy with them, either. I know when I was here in the middle of August, we didnt have any voting at all at Purdue," Tippecanoe County councilwoman Lisa Dullum, D-West Lafayette, said to the board. "So this is a good improvement. "However, Im very disappointed we dont have Election Day voting," Dullum said. "Im still very, very concerned about the lines on Election Day. Its not just the students who vote at Purdue. The staff vote at Purdue. The faculty vote at Purdue. I vote at Purdue. The board also added an early voting site at McAllister Recreation Center in Lafayette for 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Oct. 19. Last month, the board approved early voting sites, as well as Election Day vote centers. But they did not have any Purdue sites because they could not secure WiFi that matched the state statute. "We had a lot of things to work out," election board staff Mike Smith said of the lack of WiFi provided by Purdue on campus. "When we first came to you in August, we werent able to have that resolved. What we do need is to be able to transmit voter registration data to the sites in real time and have it come back in real time so we dont have people voting multiple times, Smith said of the initial shortcomings of Purdue sites. Indiana law says ... (the WiFi) has to be distinct, separate, secure, private and not available to any other traffic. Tippecanoe County Election Board member Kent Moore said he's appointed by the county's Democratic Party to represent it. He noted that Party Chairwoman Jacqueline Chosnek asked him to propose extending the early voting on campus by two hours. She also asked Moore to propose moving the Election Day vote center from Margerum City Hall to the France Cordova Recreation Center. Moore's motion failed for a lack of a second by the board, which is composed of two Republicans and two Democrats. Smith explained part of the selection for early voting sites and vote center sites include where registered voters are. In 2008,10,660 registered voters were living on or near campus. Today, 3,058 registered voters were living there. Vote centers, by statute, are supposed to be assigned by registration not just population, but registration," Smith explained. "So an area may have a high population but not necessarily a high registration. Pressed about the distance between the campus and city hall, Smith said, Students walk past there all the time to go to Neon Cactus or Panda Express." There also are problems with singling out student voters. Federal case law prohibits you from identifying a particular demographic and prioritizing them over other demographics," Smith said. "Youve got to be cautious about saying youre doing this for so-and-so. Amy Paget also spoke her mind to the board during the meeting. I have no connection to Purdue at all. None," Paget said. "What I do know is there are faculty, staff and students on that campus who need to be able to vote. It just seems unconscionable to me that there is no vote center on Purdue on Election Day, she said. Please consider that. In other matters Friday, the election board tested a random sampling of the voting machine that will be used. Each machine has a serial number, and 5% of the serials numbers were drawn Friday morning by Ball State voting oversight. Those machines were pulled and tested. The machines accurately recorded the sample votes, reassuring the public that the election will be secure. Reach Ron Wilkins at rwilkins@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2. This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Purdue voting site OK'd; critics demand more locations for students Sometimes you see or hear something, and you immediately know its a story that needs to be told. Back in the fall of 2022, thats what happened when I came across a post on the University of Delawares Instagram account about a group of women from Afghanistan who fled the Taliban to pursue higher education. As a Blue Hen alumna, it feels a bit magical that a series of seemingly random choices opening Instagram while on my lunch break, clicking on enough posts to bring me to my alma maters social media account led me to what would become one of my favorite experiences as a reporter and one of the most challenging and gratifying stories I have written. I took note of the story of these women, called the Womens Initiative in Service and Education scholars, knowing it was something I wanted to explore further once I finished up a few assignments. As journalism goes, deadlines came, urgent matters arose, and this idea slipped to the back burner. Until an unrelated email with UDs communication department led to one of the colleges media team members pushing the story back on my radar, as they were attending an event where the Afghan women were sharing their stories. Khadija (left) and Shukria (right) work in one of the computer labs at the University of Delaware on March 25, 2024. They felt so inspired that they wanted to share the situation with me immediately in the hopes of a potential story with DelawareOnline/The News Journal, not knowing that same awe is what initially piqued my interest a couple months prior. A few more emails about the women were exchanged, and my reporting on the WISE program took off. From there, UDs media team helped me connect with key people behind the universitys effort to help the Afghan students professors, faculty in the English Language Institute and other UD staff overseeing the WISE program along with experts from Jewish Family Services of Delaware, who helped settle the women in the state. Between my initial outreach about the WISE scholars and the publication of their stories, I spent nearly two years researching Afghanistans culture and social climate, reading dozens of pages of Department of Defense and White House press briefings about the U.S. military withdrawal in 2021, interviewing UD staff involved with the WISE program, speaking with JFS and ultimately meeting two of the Afghan women to hear about their experiences thus far. Navigating their final exams and holiday breaks during the academic semester, my own newsroom workload and the hesitancy of the Afghan women to share their stories so publicly was no easy feat, but in the end, it all worked out. There were many meetings with my Delaware Online/The News Journal team about how we could best tell this story and share it visually, and many hours spent listening to recorded interviews and revising. A two-part package details the cohorts flight from Afghanistan and arrival to the U.S. and UD, along with their lives two years into the program and why they wanted to share their stories. It encompasses not just the harrowing experience of leaving their families at home, but their new identities as college-educated women looking toward bright futures. Just over three years since U.S. troops withdrew, my two-part story about the sacrifices these brave women made, their journey to a foreign land and the dreams they hold onto debuted in early September. Krys'tal Griffin of Delaware Online/The News Journal, March 7, 2023. Hearing the stories of the Afghan women their struggles and triumphs over the last three years has been an impactful experience, and I hope each person who reads their stories is left with a similar feeling. Ive only known the women for a short time, but I already am eager to see how they continue creating the lives they want. I cant wait to see what is yet to come from them. Whether it leaves you feeling inspired, filled with more gratitude or with a renewed sense of hope, I believe their stories are a true portrait of the strength of the human spirit. We could all use a little reminder about just how strong our own power is and how resilient we are. Read the Afghan women series: Part one: The Taliban came, like, overnight: Afghan women flee Taliban to attend college at UD Part two: 'It was hard but we did it: Afghan students who fled Taliban hope to inspire other women Krystal Griffin covers national and local issues across diverse communities, what Delawareans are talking about and various aspects of living in Delaware. She recently began the Random Acts of Kindness column, which highlights Good Samaritan stories and random kind encounters around the state submitted by readers. You can reach her at kgriffin@delawareonline.com. This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: How we reported on the UD women who fled the Taliban in Afghanistan Saint Anselm College to offer free tuition to some New Hampshire residents. How it works Some New Hampshire residents will now be able to attend Saint Anselm College tuition-free. The college announced a new program earlier this week that will allow New Hampshire residents with a family income of $100,000 or less to attend the school tuition-free. The program, called the Anselmian Community Commitment, will be available for first-year students enrolling in fall 2025. "With this Anselmian Community Commitment, Saint Anselm is pledging to support New Hampshires students with access to a high-quality, private education tuition-free," the college said in a release. Here's how the new program works. Saint Anselm College is seen on December 18, 2015 in Manchester, New Hampshire. Who is eligible for free tuition at Saint Anselm College? As part of Saint Anselm College's new Anselmian Community Commitment program, some New Hampshire residents can attended the college tuition-free for all four years, depending on their family income and GPA. Eligible candidates must live in New Hampshire, have a family income of no more than $100,000 and a GPA of 3.25 or higher. Applicants must be planning to be a residential student at the college, and have lived in New Hampshire for at least a year. Transfer students are not eligible. College Rankings: U.S. News & World Report's annual college ranking is out. Where UNH, other NH schools rank How to apply for free tuition at Saint Anselm College Saint Anselm College's Anselmian Community Commitment program is launching for first-year students at the college who will begin in fall 2025. To apply, students must file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid no later than April 15, 2025, as well as their application for the college. Aside from tuition, students will have to pay for other costs, like food, housing and books. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Saint Anselm College to offer free tuition to some NH residents Lucas Ayaba Cho is described as Commander-in-Chief of the Ambazonian Defence Forces separatist group [Ambazonian Defence Forces] A Cameroonian separatist leader has been arrested in Norway for his alleged role in the ongoing armed conflict in the Central African country. Lucas Ayaba Cho was arrested on Tuesday on "charges based on his various expressions on social media", his lawyer told the BBC. Cho is an influential figure in the Anglophone movement pushing for independence from Cameroon, where over 6,000 people have been killed and nearly a million others displaced since fighting began in 2016. Some in the country's two English-speaking regions say they are discriminated against by the French-speaking majority. Human rights group Amnesty International has accused both government troops and the armed separatists of killings, rapes and torture of civilians. A Cameroonian official told the BBC that Norway and Cameroon had a security agreement, which could see Cho being extradited in the coming days. His lawyer said he wasn't aware of any extradition request. Who is Lucas Ayaba Cho? Cho, who describes himself as a liberation leader, is one of the most prominent separatist leaders shaping the conflict in Cameroons restive Anglophone regions. On its website, the 52-year-old is described as Commander-in-Chief of the Ambazonian Defence Forces (ADF), one of several armed groups seeking independence from Cameroon. He commands his movement from his base in Norway, where he is believed to have ordered a recent two-week lockdown as part of the separatists' campaign to boycott schools. Known for his tough-talking and hard-line approach, he came under criticism after ADF fighters recently targeted taxi drivers in the North-West region, ordering them to change the colour of their vehicles from yellow to white and blue the colours of the flag of the planned break-away state of Ambazonia. Some of those who refused saw their vehicles burnt. The ADF's political wing, the Ambazonia Governing Council, has imposed a liberation tax which compels people living in the restive Anglophone regions to pay a certain amount of money to fund the conflict against the government. In January 2017, he said he survived an assassination attempt after holding talks with other separatist leaders in Belgium. His anti-institutional radicalism did not emerge with the outbreak of the Anglophone crisis in 2016. Its a trait that dates as far back as the 1990s when he was reportedly expelled from the University of Buea for taking part in demonstrations over an increase in tuition fees. Norways National Criminal Investigation Service (KRIPOS) said Cho had a central role in an ongoing armed conflict in Cameroon. On Wednesday, the Norwegian investigators sought his custody from the Oslo District Court. We are in an early phase of the investigation, and there are several investigative steps that remain, Norwegian prosecutor Anette Berger said. Emmanuel Nsahlai, a US-based lawyer representing some victims of the Anglophone crisis in Cameroon, hailed Cho's arrest as a "significant victory" against separatist violence in Cameroon. "This arrest marks a critical step in holding him accountable for his actions and bringing justice to the victims of his violence," Mr Nsahlai told the BBC. Cho is not the first separatist leader to be arrested abroad in connection with the violence in Cameroon. Since the outbreak of the conflict, the Cameroonian government has been urging foreign countries hosting separatist leaders to facilitate their repatriation back home for trial over their role in the ongoing violence. In 2018, Julius Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, the leader of the Anglophone separatist movement, and 46 others were arrested in Nigeria and later extradited to Cameroon. More about the crisis in Cameroon: [Getty Images/BBC] Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica BBC Africa podcasts A Miami retirees real estate transaction transferring oceanfront land to a TV ministry has triggered regret and a dispute over generational property in The Bahamas. Here is a timeline of how it happened. July 2011 Miami resident David Lawrence Adderely, then 74, made an unsolicited call to Three Angels Broadcasting Network (3ABN), saying he owned land on Long Island in The Bahamas, which he wanted to donate to 3ABN in a way that would allow him to achieve both tax benefits and income, according to 3ABN attorney M. Gregory Simpson. August 2011 According to court records, Roy Hunt, 3ABNs director of planned giving and trust services, visited Adderley in Miami to execute an irrevocable Charitable Remainder Unitrust, known as a CRUT. Adderley, a legally blind retired US Army colonel, signed the document as both grantor and trustee. It reads: If for any reason David Lawrence Adderley is unable or unwilling to serve as Trustee, then Three Angels Broadcasting Network, Inc., of West Frankfort, Illinois, shall serve as successor trustee. December 2011 According to Simpson, 3ABN engaged the Lewis & Longley law firm in The Bahamas to commission a boundary survey and prepare the property for sale. The network was expected to sell the land to fund the trust and provide Adderley with retirement income, but Simpson said 3ABNs efforts to sell were unsuccessful. January 2012 Hunt came back to Miami and took Adderley to the Bahamian Consulate in Miami, where a notary witnessed Adderleys execution of the three indentures of conveyance, transferring his land to the irrevocable trust. Records show that on that same day, Adderley signed a Notice of Resignation of Trustee. Under the terms of the trust, Adderleys resignation meant 3ABN became the trustee. August 2012 The Investment Board in The Bahamas issued permits, under the International Persons Landholding Act of 1993, which was passed to help foreigners purchase property in The Bahamas. This allowed 3ABN to take possession of the property after Adderleys death. May 2013 3ABNs auditing firm sent a letter to Adderley asking him to confirm his donation of the property to the network, according to Simpson. At his home in Florida, with nobody from 3ABN present, Mr. Adderley signed his name to the letter, affirming that he agreed with the following statement: According to our records you have placed real estate with an appraised value of $[redacted] into a Charitable Remainder Unitrust Agreement. According to this Unitrust agreement, any amount distributed for charitable purposes will be as follows: 100% to Three Angels Broadcasting Network, Inc. of West Frankfort, Illinois for unrestricted purposes. July 2013 Hunt sent Adderley a letter encouraging him to put his Miami residence into a separate revocable trust, but Adderley refused. The letter stated, I also need for you to send a copy of your deed on the house you own and are placing in this Trust. This is the house you are living in at the present time, Hunt wrote. Our attorney will prepare this to be placed into your trust. You will have access to this deed at any and all times and the trust is totally yours, not 3ABN holding anything. August 2018 Adderley filed a lawsuit at the US District Court in Miami, alleging 3ABN and its representatives misled a vulnerable, legally blind veteran who trusted them because of their affiliation with Seventh-day Adventism. In the suit, amended in April 2019, Adderley sought to undo the irrevocable trust involving the 419.5 acres valued at $32 million, saying he intended to donate only a portion of the land and leave the rest to his daughters. The suits defendants were 3ABN; Roy G. Hunt, Jr., 3ABNs then-director of Planned Giving and Trust Services; James W. Gilley, the networks then-president; Danny Shelton, founder and former president; and attorney Richard Barry Benton. December 2019 3ABN asked US District Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. to dismiss the suit. Scola dismissed most of the claims on grounds that Adderley failed to do his due diligence in understanding the terms of the agreement he signed, but declined to dismiss several key claims against 3ABN among them civil theft and exploitation of an elderly person. April 2020 Adderley and 3ABN settled the lawsuit, with 3ABN agreeing to pay Adderley $3 million in exchange for full possession of the property. The settlement required Adderley to recant his allegations of fraud against the network, and he signed a letter stating: I no longer believe that the individuals and entities identified in the Adderley affidavit, including without limitation representatives of Three Angels Broadcasting Network, Inc. (Network) and specifically Roy Hunt, Jr., engaged in improper or dishonest conduct of any kind in their dealings with me. March 2023 3ABN filed a quieting title petition with the Supreme Court of The Bahamas, giving individuals with legal rights to the property 30 days to file their claims. Adderleys cousin, Ambrose Adderley, responded with an adverse claim in an effort to retain what the family considers generational property. Relatives said Ambrose, a subsistence farmer, had been living on the property all of his life with his goats and crops. September 2023 Spectrum magazine, an independent nonprofit that focuses on the Seventh-day Adventist Church, published a story about the controversy that quoted Adderley restating his claim that he only intended to donate one to two acres and that 3ABN representatives misled him into signing the papers. November 2023 Ambrose filed a complaint with the Supreme Court of The Bahamas against the Attorney General of the Bahamas, the current Long Island police superintendent, 3ABN, Shelton and Rodgers, alleging breach of duty causing loss and damage. He asked the court to issue an injunction restraining the defendants, their servants, and agents from entering or remaining on the property. November 2023 According to Adderleys daughter, Krystal Adderley, 3ABN reached out to Adderley through his former Miami attorney, Ross Kulberg, seeking his assistance with the quieting title case. Krystal said her father refused to sign the affidavit, which would have pitted him against his cousin Ambrose. When reached by a reporter, Kulberg denied contacting the family on behalf of 3ABN, but the reporter obtained text messages and emails he allegedly sent to the family along with a copy of a proposed affidavit that 3ABN wanted Adderley to sign. August 2024 The Bahamas Supreme Court issued an order on Ambroses behalf, allowing a surveyor to access the land to assess his claim to the property. Both sides await a final decision in the case Sources: Miami federal court records, Bahamas Supreme Court records, letters and interviews. Alva James Johnson is a freelance journalist in Collegedale, Tennessee, where she also works as an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Southern Adventist University. This article was published in partnership with Spectrum, an independent magazine published by Adventists. China is poised to experience an estimated 1.94 billion cross-regional trips during the upcoming week-long National Day holiday, starting Tuesday, Li Yang, vice-minister for transport, said in Beijing on Friday. This translates to an average of 277 million daily trips, reflecting a 0.7 percent increase from last year and a significant 19.4 percent rise compared to 2019. Notably, around 80 percent of these journeys will be made via self-driving vehicles, amounting to about 1.53 billion road trips. The remaining 20 percent will utilize commercial public transportation options, including trains, planes, and ferries. Family travel is expected to dominate domestic tourism, with inter-provincial trips becoming increasingly common. Anticipated popular destinations include major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, as well as Chongqing and the provinces of Shanxi, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Sichuan. In terms of international travel, neighboring Southeast Asian countries are forecast to attract a significant number of travelers. As the holiday approaches, Li emphasized that the transportation sector is prepared to meet the anticipated challenges, aiming to fulfill traveler expectations and government mandates. Preparations are already underway to implement effective travel support plans designed to enhance safety and convenience for all holiday travelers. Sep 27 (NHK) - The president of Nippon Steel says he cannot be optimistic about its takeover of US Steel due to opposition from the United Steelworkers union, or USW. The major Japanese and US steelmakers agreed on the deal in December last year. The US Committee on Foreign Investment, which examines acquisition plans, has extended a period for reviewing the Nippon Steel's plan to acquire US Steel. Media reports say the committee may postpone its decision on the takeover until after the US presidential election in November. On Thursday, Nippon Steel president Imai Tadashi, who also heads the Japan Iron and Steel Federation, told reporters that he does not think it an optimistic development that the deal is now being reviewed for an extended period. Imai said that he is still determined to complete the acquisition by the end of the year. He also said that the deal has been drawing a lot of attention in the run-up to the US presidential election because it involves the USW, which represents 850,000 steelworkers. Imai added that his company will place a focus on dialogue with the USW and do all it can. He urged the union to respond to Nippon Steel's call for negotiations. Wahab reiterated that the Lagos State Government has zero tolerance for environmental pollution and degradation. By Channels Television Updated September 27, 2024 The Lagos State Wastewater Management Office (LSWMO) today, sealed off Orchid Shopping Centers premises located along Orchid Road, Eti-Osa, for discharging wastewater onto the road and public drains, thereby creating environmental nuisance and endangering public health. This was disclosed in a statement shared on X.com by the state Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, on Friday. Wahab advised all persons or organisations in the habit of discharging untreated wastewater and sewage into the environment to desist or face sanctions. He said the necessary sanctions will be served to the property, the owner(s) and occupiers in line with the provisions of the Lagos State Environmental Management and Protection Law, 2017. Wahab reiterated that the Lagos State Government has zero tolerance for environmental pollution and degradation. Cake Pop is as sweet as her name. She is a female mixed breed large dog that is about 1 year old. Cute, young Cake Pop has colors of brown and black. She is slender and long-legged with an adorable face and super-cute ears. Cake Pops ears stand out straight but off to the side. The ears giv A regional court in East Africa, based in Arusha in Tanzania, started examining accusations according to which Rwanda backed rebels against DRC forces. The case was filed by the DRC, alleging Rwanda has violated its territorial sovereignty and sent troops to back rebels in the east known as the M23. The DRC also accuses Rwanda of contributing to war crimes in the resource-rich east where various groups have been challenging the central government militarily, stoking instability and displacement. In July, U.N. experts estimated that between 3,000 and 4,000 Rwanda government forces are deployed in eastern Congo alongside the M23 rebel group, which has been making major advances. Rwanda has often denied any involvement in the ongoing infighting between DRC forces and the M23 rebels. The court was set up under a 1999 treaty among a group of east African nations and is meant to hear cases from Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania. The court has been ratified by the United Nations. The Netherlands reiterated, Thursday in New York, its support for the Moroccan autonomy plan, deeming it a very serious and credible contribution to the political process led by the United Nations. The Netherlands considers the autonomy plan, presented by Morocco in 2007, as a very serious and credible contribution to the political process led by the United Nations, to resolve the conflict over the Sahara, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp told the press. The minister, who stressed the importance of regional stability, reiterated his countrys support for the efforts of the Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for the Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, to pursue a political process aimed at achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution in accordance with the resolutions of the UN Security Council and the principles set out in the Charter of the United Nations. The Dutch official also welcomed the very strong and very broad relations with Morocco, which cover a large number of issues, including trade, security, the fight against terrorism, and migration. Moroccos role as a very stable partner in the region is crucial in this regard, said the Dutch top diplomat, adding that his country appreciates the strategic partnership with Morocco, and is looking forward to seeing this cooperation deepen and broaden even more in the future. Mr. Veldkamp underlined that relations between the two countries are part of a broader context between Morocco and the European Union, saying that Morocco is a very important neighbor of Europe. The Moroccan government has launched a $258,69 million rehabilitation program for areas in the southeast of the Kingdom severely impacted by recent floods. The initiative, launched in implementation of the instructions of King Mohammed VI, is meant to address the impact of the unprecedented rainfall that has resulted in significant human losses and extensive damage across several provinces, including Errachidia, Midelt, Ouarzazate, Tinghir, Zagora, Figuig, Jerada, Taroudant, Tata, Tiznit, Guelmim, and Assa Zag. The government has mobilized extensive human and logistical resources to address the immediate needs of affected communities swiftly and effectively, according to a press release from the Prime Ministers office. The various ministerial departments have been called upon to ensure the successful implementation of this ambitious program. Key components of the program include support for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of damaged buildings and homes, as well as the restoration of essential infrastructure, including roads, telecommunications networks, electricity, drinking water distribution, and sanitation systems. Additionally, the program aims to bolster agricultural activities in the affected areas by repairing small and medium-sized water structures and providing support to livestock breeders who lost their herds during the floods. This assistance is critical for rebuilding agricultural livelihoods in the region. The launch of this rehabilitation program underscores the governments commitment to addressing the needs of the population and exemplifies a spirit of responsibility and responsiveness in its actions. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday called for consolidating and developing the unity of the Chinese nation. Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the call at a grand meeting in Beijing to honor role models for ethnic unity and progress. He urged efforts to advance the building of the community for the Chinese nation. Premier Li Qiang presided over the meeting. Top political advisor Wang Huning announced the central authorities' decision to award the models. Senior leaders Zhao Leji, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang and Li Xi attended the event. A total of 352 groups and 368 individuals were honored. Xi and other senior leaders presented the awards to representatives of the models. Addressing the meeting, Xi said the CPC has always attached great importance to ethnic affairs. Over the past more than a century, it has blazed a correct path of handling ethnic affairs with a distinctively Chinese approach. Along this path, Xi said, the CPC has made new advances in developing ethnic relations of equality, solidarity, mutual assistance and harmony, and promoted economic and social development of ethnic areas and the lives of ethnic minority groups to register unprecedented progress. Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, the Party has taken fostering a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation as the focus of its work related to ethnic affairs, and achieved new historic success, he said. The Center for Research, Studies, Documentation, and Information on Women (CREDIF) launched on Thursday its first digital publication, Tunisian Women in Figures 2024, a comprehensive scientific document that compiles statistical data from a variety of public institutions and national professional bodies. This report offers a detailed examination of womens roles and experiences across several sectors, serving as a vital resource for researchers, policymakers, and civil society. The report reveals significant insights into the health sector, noting that women make up 51% of the total number of medical doctors in Tunisia. As of February 15, 2024, there are 13,197 female doctors in the country, with 6,895 of them practicing in the field of general medicine. This statistic underscores the substantial presence of women in the medical profession, highlighting their contributions to the countrys healthcare system. Tunisian Women in Figures 2024 also provides a wide array of data, addressing topics from demographics to the lived experiences of women in Tunisia. It explores issues such as violence, health challenges, unemployment, and womens achievements in areas like medical assistance, education, and leadership roles in teaching. The report shines a light on both the difficulties and the successes women encounter in various professional and personal spheres. This booklet aims to foster greater awareness and drive effective solutions for gender-related challenges in Tunisia. In addition to its utility for academic and institutional research, Tunisian Women in Figures 2024 plays a critical role in informing policy-makers on how to improve the lives of women across the country. As Tunisia continues to navigate social and economic reforms, such reports offer a crucial basis for addressing gender inequality and ensuring womens active participation in all areas of public and professional life. The Central Bank of Libya (CBL) has announced an extension for the circulation and acceptance of the first and second editions of its 50-dinar banknotes, providing relief to both Libyan citizens and financial institutions amid ongoing economic challenges. This move aims to mitigate concerns over the potential disruption caused by the withdrawal of the banknotes. According to the CBLs Issuance Department, banks are now required to extend the period for accepting the 50-dinar notes from customers until December 31, 2024. Initially, the deadline for the withdrawal of these banknotes was set for the end of August 2024, before being pushed to October 31. With this latest extension, the banknotes will remain in circulation and continue to be accepted by banks until the end of the year. Additionally, the Central Bank has stipulated that the 50-dinar banknotes will continue to be accepted by the CBL, its branches, and the affiliated departments of commercial banks until the close of business on Wednesday, January 15, 2025. This extended deadline provides banks with additional time to withdraw the older currency from circulation and ensures that citizens have sufficient time to exchange the notes without financial disruptions. The extension reflects the CBLs efforts to stabilize the Libyan economy, which has faced significant challenges due to political instability and financial uncertainty. By allowing the prolonged use of the 50-dinar banknotes, the central bank seeks to ensure a smoother transition for both businesses and individuals, while maintaining liquidity in the economy. The decision is expected to ease public concerns and avoid potential cash shortages, which could have compounded the difficulties faced by Libyas already struggling financial sector. This proactive measure demonstrates the Central Banks commitment to supporting the countrys economic stability during a critical period. Morocco is developing its defense industry to reduce its dependence on foreign weapons purchases and strengthen its military capabilities to counter threats to its national security. After it adopted the legal frameworks governing military industry clusters and established military industry zones, the North African Kingdom attracted India s TATA Advanced Systems, which has become one of the first international investors in the sector that is gaining momentum in the country. Under a strategic partnership agreement sealed between Moroccos National Defense Administration and the subsidiary of the giant TATA group, a plant will be set up in Morocco to produce armored combat vehicle WhAP 88 for the Moroccan army. Tata Advanced Systems flagship product, WhAP 88 (Wheeled Armoured Platform) is Indias first infantry combat vehicle, designed for optimized survivability, all-terrain performance and increased lethality. This project, to create several job opportunities, will make Morocco an emerging regional player in the defense industry. Moroccan Parliament had passed laws allowing the setting up of joint ventures in the defense industry as the country aspires to reduce arms imports. In April, Israeli company Bluebird announced plans to open a production site of its unmanned aerial systems in Morocco. Several companies from the U.S. Europe, Latin America and Asia showed interests in the huge investment opportunities offered by the Moroccan defense industry offering. In 2019, the North African Kingdom signed with Brazil an investment cooperation and facilitation in military industry. Under this agreement, Brazil pledges to share military science and technology, help in defense product acquisition and train Moroccan officers in advanced military technologies. Several media outlets have published lately a photo of the first Morocco-made armed vehicle, a multi-mission track destined for armed forces. According to Frost & Sullivan group, a research and consulting firm, Morocco is set to become a weapons producing country in the few coming years as the country is set to host foreign factories specialized in arms manufacturing by 2025. Palestinian Prime minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mohammad Mustafa, expressed, Thursday in New York, his thanks and gratitude to King Mohammed VI, Chairman of the Al-Quds Committee, for his sustained efforts in favor of the Palestinian people. I would like to renew my thanks to His Majesty King Mohammed VI for his sustained efforts in favor of the Palestinian people, Mohammad Mustafa told the press, following a meeting with minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Bourita, on the sidelines of the 79th UN General Assembly. The Palestinian Prime Minister welcomed the tireless efforts that Morocco is making in favor of the Holy City, through the Bayt Mal Al-Quds Agency. Mr. Mustafa stressed that his meeting with Mr. Bourita was an opportunity to discuss developments in the Middle East, and the urgency of a ceasefire to put an end to the cycle of violence in the region. Adams with Black clergy at a Thursday press conference. Photo: Yuki Iwamura/AP Photo Eric Adams isnt going anywhere. For now, at least. On Wednesday, as it became more apparent that the mayor would be indicted, political aides and supporters began talking and texting to map out a strategy: Get through the first 48 hours without major political and civic leaders calling for him to step aside and then live to fight out what is now a daunting reelection campaign. They were at least partially successful. By Thursday afternoon, even as a number of New York lawmakers were calling for Adams to resign and Al Sharpton gave less than full-throated support it became increasingly clear that he would not. They are going to take this thing from his cold, dead hands, said one political strategist close to the Adams operation. On the bright side for Adams, Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives who has long sparred with the mayor, has not joined fellow members of the New York City delegation like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and (almost) Nydia Velazquez in calling for him to step down. Like every other New Yorker and American, Eric Adams is entitled to the presumption of innocence. Jeffries said. A jury of the mayors peers will now evaluate the charges in the indictment and ultimately render a determination. A midmorning press conference with Black clergy supportive of the mayor was held not inside Gracie Mansion, the mayors residence, but outside in the rain and was marred by a loud protester who yelled through a bullhorn, This is not a Black thing! This is a you thing! This is a you thing, Eric Adams! By aligning himself with members of the Black clergy, Adams has been trying to rally support among members of communities of color who have felt victimized by overzealous prosecutors. The Adams approach has been to suggest that the charges are politically motivated and have come from a federal Justice Department angry at Adamss outspoken criticism of the Biden administrations handling of the migrant crisis. Jewish leaders supportive of Adams, meanwhile, discussed circulating a letter that blames the prosecution as payback for Adamss fervent support of Israel. Meanwhile, in New York City political circles, the feeling was that as bad as the 57-page indictment from federal prosecutors is detailing how the mayor solicited illegal campaign contributions and lavish overseas trips and paid back those favors by pushing projects his benefactors supported it isnt as bad as many were predicting, and it follows many of the same lines that were previously reported. People who know Adams say that no matter how many left-leaning members of Congress or City Council members or state lawmakers call for him to step aside, no amount of pressure is likely to make him do so. For one thing, resigning would deprive the mayor of a meaningful chit he could use to bargain with prosecutors. Plus, as a candidate for office, Adams can raise money for his campaign, which he can then transfer to his legal defense. And the Supreme Court has so narrowly tailored the definition of political bribery that what once seemed like cut-and-dried corruption cases have recently been overturned on appeal. And while some progressives have hoped that Governor Kathy Hochul would utilize her authority to remove Adams from office, the chances of that happening are close to zero, particularly if senior members of the House delegation support the mayor. Still, the primary election in New York City is almost exactly nine months away, and all indications are that the Southern District of New York is looking to move quickly, in part so that U.S. Attorney Damian Williams does not face the prospect of putting a mayor running for reelection on trial. Should Adams trade in his office in a deal, it would trigger a nonpartisan special election to replace him while public advocate Jumaane Williams serves as acting mayor but only if Adams resigns before March 27, 2025. If Adams does so after that, the late-June primary would go on as planned and the new mayor would be sworn in after the general election in November. For the candidates and operatives plotting to run in 2025, here is where things get tricky. As of now, the declared candidates are city comptroller Brad Lander, former city comptroller Scott Stringer, and State Senators Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos. Should Adams resign, Williams would serve as a quasi-incumbent in the race, but he has indicated to allies that he is not certain he would run for mayor. Strategists affiliated with the announced campaigns say they hope Adams remains in the race. If not, he would be weakened and it would turn the race into a referendum against him. The labor unions, major donors, and Black and religious Jewish leaders who supported him in 2021 have not yet given an indication of rethinking their support. If that remains true, Adams would have a decent base to build on. And none of those groups is likely to look fondly at the prospect of a mayor who is well to Adamss left, as all of the declared candidates are. Looming over all these machinations, meanwhile, is Andrew Cuomo. Should Adams resign before March 27, the special election to replace him would be a sprint, and even the mayors current rivals admit that Cuomo would have a decided advantage based on name recognition alone. Cuomo has signaled he would be unlikely to challenge Adams in 2025 and would get into the race only if Adams does not. People close to him, however, say that calculation is no longer true, if it ever was. Although Cuomo is said to prefer to run for his old job as governor, people close to him say he is anxious to get back into the political game and is almost certain to declare his candidacy once the presidential election is over. Asked about the likelihood of the former governor jumping into the race, one person close to him was succinct: 100 percent chance. Donald Trump held a photo opportunity with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an effort to bolster his case that he is a respected leader on the world stage who can end the war between Russia and Ukraine. Zelenskyy, who faces a 50 percent chance that Trump will be in a position to starve his government of the weapons it needs to defend its territory, has little choice but to cooperate with Trumps set piece (especially after having met publicly with Kamala Harris earlier this week). But Zelenskyys humiliation this time included having to stand silent while Trump claimed Vladimir Putin wants to end the war. He wants it to end, and he wants it to end as quickly as possible. He wants a fair transaction to take place. Looking at Zelenskyy, Trump said he wants it to stop, and Im sure President Putin wants it to stop. And thats a good combination because we want to have a fair deal for everybody. Invoking some undefined fair deal that everybody will love is Trumps preferred method for bullshitting his way through intractable problems, especially ones on which his own position is politically unpopular. Trump has spent years promising a terrific health-care plan everybody will love. He has likewise pitched an abortion compromise that all sides will adore. Hawks sometimes overrate the force of moral clarity as a diplomatic strategy. The world can be complicated, and sometimes leaders have to gloss over ugly details or compromise their ethics. But even where moral clarity isnt always useful, factual clarity is. And the facts of this war are perfectly plain: Russia started the war; the war continues because Russia refuses to leave the territory it illegally seized; unprovoked cross-border invasions are a red-letter violation of international law, and preventing them is the most important basis for maintaining global peace. Trump has never blamed Putin for the war, though. He continues to describe it like a natural disaster, something that never should have happened and whose only identifiable cause was Joe Biden being president. Trumps talk of a fair transaction is not a realistic appraisal of the terms necessary to secure a peace but merely his belief that Putin is naturally entitled to payment as an equal victim of the war. FGIA Panel Addressed Fenestration Safety Products Experts at the 2024 Fenestration and Glazing Industry Alliance (FGIA) Fall Conference discussed trends in ballistic glass, school security and blast-resistant windows. A recent panel at the Fenestration and Glazing Industry Alliances (FGIA) 2024 Fall Conference explored the latest trends in safety-focused fenestration and glazing products, such as ballistic glass, school security measures and blast-resistant windows. According to a recent release, the panelmoderated by Mike Troutman of MI Windows and Doorsincluded Lothar Erkens of Winco Window, Matt Manning from Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope and Vaughn Schauss of Kuraray. Manning discussed the importance of installing ballistic glass to prevent weak points in a buildings security. With Sandy Hook, when [the shooter] first got there, he stopped because the door was reinforced, Manning said in a statement. But all he had to do was step about 2-1/2 feet to the left and he could get in. Similar to framing, the entire entrance needs to be hardened against that attacker. Meanwhile, Vaughn Schauss focused on the role of laminated glass in mitigating school shootings. He noted that ASTM F3561, a new standard, simulates active shooter scenarios to evaluate a window's forced entry resistance. And Lothar Erkens highlighted blast-resistant fenestration, explaining standoff distances and the effect of blast loads. Blast resistance is a very complex topic, Erkens said in a statement. Blast resistance boils down to standoff distances and the range of positive pressure in the air following a blast. The panel underscored the increasing importance of safety-oriented glazing in vulnerable environments like schools, public buildings, and high-risk facilities. Two weeks ago, we reported that a long exploration effort has led to the reportedly massive discovery of oil and gas reserves in Pakistans territorial waters, a cache so large that it is said it could change the economic trajectory of the beleaguered country. Although Pakistan's hydrocarbon resources are yet to be quantified, some estimates suggest that this discovery constitutes the fourth-largest oil and gas reserves in the world. However, the oil majors appear unimpressed: in July, the countrys Petroleum Minister, Musadik Malik, told a parliamentary committee that no international companies were interested in offshore oil and gas exploration in Pakistan,and those in the country largely had the exit door in view. It comes down to security, and risk versus reward with Malik explaining to the committee that the cost of security is a major deal-breaker because in areas where companies search for oil and gas, they have to spend a significant amount to maintain security for their employees and assets. Thankfully for Pakistans neighbor, India has no such baggage. Indias oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has called for oil majors to step up oil and gas exploration in the country to help cut India's reliance on imports and make affordable fuel sustainable. "E&P offers investment opportunities worth USD 100 billion by 2030," he told a conference at Urja Varta. Currently, only 10% of India's 3.36 million sq km wide sedimentary basin is under exploration. However, the country is richly endowed with fossil fuels: back in July, S&P Global Commodity Insights revealed that four largely unexplored sedimentary basins in India could hold up to 22 billion barrels of oil. In effect, lesser-known Category II and III basins, namely Mahanadi, Andaman Sea, Bengal, and Kerala-Konkan contain more oil than the Permian Basin, which has already produced 14 billion barrels of its 34 billion recoverable oil reserves. Related: OPEC+ Confirms it Has No Specific Price Target For Crude Oil Rahul Chauhan, an upstream analyst at Commodity Insights, has emphasized the potential of India's unexplored Oil & Gas sector, "ONGC and Oil India hold acreages in the Andaman waters under the Open Acreage Licensing Program (OALP) and have planned a few significant projects. However, India still awaits the entry of an international oil company with deepwater and ultra-deepwater exploration expertise to participate in current and upcoming OALP bidding rounds and explore these frontier regions," he has declared. Big Oil Kicks Off India Exploration India boasts significant discoveries in the Krishna-Godavari, Barmer, and Assam basins, but exploration in other areas has been slower to develop. Of India's 3.14 million square kilometers of sedimentary basins, 1.3 million sq km are in deep waters. India had its first foray into deepwater exploration in the Bay of Bengal earlier this year in the Krishna-Godavari Basin, courtesy of India's state run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). ONGC said it was planning to spend over $10 billion developing multiple deepwater projects in its KG-DWN-98/2 block in that basin. Meanwhile, state-owned upstream company Oil India Ltd is looking to start exploration activities in Nagaland We have a total of 30 blocks under the OALP. We have already drilled all wells under the awarded OALP blocks, except in Nagaland. We are pursuing the ministry and they have set up a high power committee involving OIL, ONGC, government officials, to discuss the issue with the Government of Nagaland and resume exploration, the official said. Unlike Pakistan, India is likely to have little trouble attracting the oil and gas majors. Indeed, British energy giant BP Plc (NYSE:BP) is holding a board meeting in India this week, as it hunts for more opportunities in the country. BP has forged a joint venture with Indian multinational conglomerate Reliance Industries to operate 1,900 fuel retail stations across India and produces oil and gas from a deepwater block in the Krishna-Godavari basin. The JV has teamed up with ONGC to bid for exploration rights for an offshore block in India. National oil companies (NOCs) account for 58% of global reserves and 56% of production. However, International Oil Companies (IOCs) also play a major role in the energy sector by contributing to the general economic and social development of the host country. Indeed, IOCs are obliged through Production Sharing Agreement to pay royalty fees to the host country. Analysts have predicted that India is set to become the key driver of global oil demand growth, overtaking China. Chinas role as a global oil demand growth engine is fading fast, Emma Richards, senior analyst at London-based Fitch Solutions Ltd, told The Times of India. According to the analyst, over the next decade, Chinas share of emerging market oil demand growth will decline from nearly 50% to just 15% while Indias share will double to 24%. A rapidly growing population, which has likely surpassed Chinas, is expected to be the main driver of consumption trends in India. Meanwhile, the countrys transition from traditional gasoline and diesel-fueled transport is expected to lag other regions, in sharp contrast to Chinas skyrocketing adoption of electric vehicles and clean energy in general. India was always going to exceed China in a matter of time in terms of being the global demand growth driver, mainly due to demographic factors like population growth, Parsley Ong, the head of Asia energy and chemicals research at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Hong Kong, has told Bloomberg. By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com The UAE, of course, is leagues ahead of Iran and Russia with this Red Sea agenda. The Emirati has been very busy in recent years building military installations along the Red Sea and In Sudan, external forces are meddling, with the UAE supporting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). At the same time, Russia and Iran are supporting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). The UAE, which already has access to the Red Sea, is supporting the RSF to protect its assets in Sudan, while Russia and Iran are supporting the SAF because they want to build naval bases in Sudan on the Red Sea. Civil wars are much more than civil wars when domestic rivals are being armed by external players. Researchers at Critical Threats recently mapped out various interests in the Red Sea, and how a series of domestic, cross-border, and regional conflicts are all about staking access claims here. Everyone is looking for an advantage, and right now, the entire region is eyeing the Red Sea, which brings the Houthi bombardment into clearer view. If the Houthi bombardment is not catastrophic in and of itself, the plans of external forces beyond the Houthi activities are. Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Gaza, and the relentless targeting of Red Sea shipping by Yemens Houthis are not micro conflicts unfolding in a vacuum, and the Horn of Africa is where attention should be shifting as the Russia-Iran axis looks for weak spots to manipulate for ultimate control over the Red Sea. Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Gaza, and the relentless targeting of Red Sea shipping by Yemens Houthis are not micro conflicts unfolding in a vacuum, and the Horn of Africa is where attention should be shifting as the Russia-Iran axis looks for weak spots to manipulate for ultimate control over the Red Sea. If the Houthi bombardment is not catastrophic in and of itself, the plans of external forces beyond the Houthi activities are. Everyone is looking for an advantage, and right now, the entire region is eyeing the Red Sea, which brings the Houthi bombardment into clearer view. Researchers at Critical Threats recently mapped out various interests in the Red Sea, and how a series of domestic, cross-border, and regional conflicts are all about staking access claims here. In Sudan, external forces are meddling, with the UAE supporting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). At the same time, Russia and Iran are supporting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). The UAE, which already has access to the Red Sea, is supporting the RSF to protect its assets in Sudan, while Russia and Iran are supporting the SAF because they want to build naval bases in Sudan on the Red Sea. Civil wars are much more than civil wars when domestic rivals are being armed by external players. The UAE, of course, is leagues ahead of Iran and Russia with this Red Sea agenda. The Emirati has been very busy in recent years building military installations along the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, particularly around Yemen, where it wields much control in the south. Ethiopia and Somalia are two more players scrambling over the Red Sea, with Ethiopia desperate for access and trying to get it through the fragile breakaway region of Somaliland. The key external player here is Turkey, which Somalia is using as a bulwark against Ethiopia, which also benefits Egypt and the UAE because it is all about controlling the Red Sea. The next conflict to erupt in the region could easily be Ethiopia vs Somalia, bringing another gaggle of foreign players into the melee. Such a scenario would then embolden the radical Islamist group Al-Shabaab. Simultaneously, US intel indicates the Houthis and Al-Shabaab are collaborating. They know whats coming, and they are preparing to step into the vacuum (Think: Hamas/Hezbollah). Still, the UAE has chosen not to intervene with regard to the Houthi attacks. Its silence is sparing it from being targetedas is its influence in Yemen. Its not a bear the Houthis would do well to poke. For UAE, home of giant DP World shipping, the fact that maritime traffic is being rerouted away from Yemens Bab el-Mandeb strait to avoid being hit by missiles, much of the rerouted traffic is still benefiting UAE. In fact, Clarksons Research told clients on Thursday that the Red Sea conflict was adding some 3% to overall global shipping demand. Those who control the Red Sea and its ports find business is actually booming. There is little motivation to stop the Houthis. (The lead on any move against the Houthis, however, would have to come from the Saudis). Then, there is Russia, which was recently said to be in secret talks with the Houthis to supply them with drones, with Tehran also reportedly helping the Houthis secure Russian anti-tank missiles. Moscow is more or less scrambling for the crumbs of the other players in the Horn of Africa, but it's also pretty good at scavenging. Equinor and DNO have confirmed their Heisenberg oil and gas discovery in the North Sea, estimating reserves between 24-56 million barrels of oil equivalent. The Deepsea Atlantic rig drilled a second well, which proved additional oil and confirmed the discovery's size. While another target, the Angel prospect, yielded a smaller, less profitable find, On the Israel-Gaza front this week, as of late on Thursday, Israel had refused the US-backed ceasefire deal. The deal proposed a 21-day truce on the border with Lebanon. While Washington continues along a path of inaction with regard to Maduros refusal to step down in Venezuela, diplomatic warfare is intensifying in the region, with Venezuela and Argentina issuing arrest warrants for each others respective presidents. This additional spat stems from Argentine President Milieus move to transfer Maduros private plane, which it had seized in 2022, to the United States. Libya remains gridlocked this week, with a UN-mediated agreement between the rival sides on the appointing of a yet-to-be-determined head of the Central Bank that both would support. We have little confidence in a successful outcome for a compromise candidate. There can be no compromise candidate because there is no desire to compromise. The issue of control over the countrys oil revenues remains unresolved, and that makes whoever controls the CB the kingmaker here. Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict Libya remains gridlocked this week, with a UN-mediated agreement between the rival sides on the appointing of a yet-to-be-determined head of the Central Bank that both would support. We have little confidence in a successful outcome for a compromise candidate. There can be no compromise candidate because there is no desire to compromise. The issue of control over the countrys oil revenues remains unresolved, and that makes whoever controls the CB the kingmaker here. While Washington continues along a path of inaction with regard to Maduros refusal to step down in Venezuela, diplomatic warfare is intensifying in the region, with Venezuela and Argentina issuing arrest warrants for each others respective presidents. This additional spat stems from Argentine President Milieus move to transfer Maduros private plane, which it had seized in 2022, to the United States. On the Israel-Gaza front this week, as of late on Thursday, Israel had refused the US-backed ceasefire deal. The deal proposed a 21-day truce on the border with Lebanon. Discovery & Development Equinor and DNO have confirmed their Heisenberg oil and gas discovery in the North Sea, estimating reserves between 24-56 million barrels of oil equivalent. The Deepsea Atlantic rig drilled a second well, which proved additional oil and confirmed the discovery's size. While another target, the Angel prospect, yielded a smaller, less profitable find, the Heisenberg discovery is under consideration for a tieback to existing infrastructure. This discovery could be coordinated with other nearby developments around key production hubs like Troll and Gja. Oil India is set to resume exploration activities in Nagaland after talks with state and central governments, alongside ONGC. The company controls 30 blocks under the OALP, but drilling has been delayed in Nagaland due to border disputes with Assam. While these challenges remain unresolved, a high-level committee has been formed to negotiate and facilitate exploration. Internationally, Oil India is planning to start oil production in Gabon next year, after a successful oil discovery in its jointly held Shakthi-II block with Indian Oil Corp. Wyoming's latest oil and gas lease sale held Wednesday netted just over $27,000, marking a sharp decline from historical norms as developers show reduced interest. Changes implemented by the Biden administrationincluding increased fees, regulatory requirements, and the nomination process for leasingare major factors in this declineas are the logistical challenges of accessing markets due to its remote location. The oil and gas lease sale offered just 159 acres, a record low under the Biden administration. Expect this to severely impact the state's future oil and gas revenue. TotalEnergies is ramping up preparations for a historic $9 billion oil development off the coast of Suriname, signaling a significant expansion in the Atlantic oil boom. Although formal approval is pending, the company is securing rig leases and reserving shipyard capacity for a floating production vessel. The project, in partnership with APA Corp., aims to tap offshore oil discoveries dating back to 2020, with production expected by 2028. This investment marks a revival of deepwater exploration in regions like Suriname, Brazil, and Namibia as oil majors pivot back to offshore drilling amid a maturing shale sector. Deals, Mergers & Acquisitions Azerbaijan and a BP-led consortium have signed an agreement to develop a new natural gas reserve under the ACG oil field, bolstering Baku's commitment to doubling gas exports to the EU by 2027. The reserve, estimated at 113 bcm, is expected to start production in 2025, with Socar purchasing all the output. This deal strengthens Azerbaijans position as a key energy supplier to Europe and aids in expanding the Southern Gas Corridor pipeline capacity. The project is crucial for reaching the 20 bcm annual export target within the next three years. Repsol has acquired a 16.67% stake in Mexico's Block 29 from PTTEP, boosting its ownership to 46.67%. This block, located off the southern Gulf of Mexico, is in the exploration phase and spans 3,254 km2. The consortium has made notable oil discoveries in the area and plans to continue its development efforts. Repsol is also focusing on enhancing its upstream operations in key markets like Mexico, the U.S., and Brazil. The FTC will bar Hess CEO John Hess from joining Chevron's board as a condition for approving Chevrons $53 billion acquisition of Hess. This restriction is part of a broader antitrust crackdown on megamergers, similar to the FTCs decision to block Pioneer CEO Scott Sheffield from joining Exxons board. Chevrons deal still faces a challenge from Exxon and CNOOC, which allege it is a move to secure Hesss valuable Guyana assets. Hess holds a 30% stake in the Guyana Stabroek block, with Exxon and CNOOC owning 45% and 25%, respectively. Raytheon, an RTX business, is developing an innovative Multi-Mission Launcher to launch a wide range of weapons and drones. This launcher will be integrated into the Lynx XM30 prototype RTX is working on as part of Team Lynx, led by American Rheinmetall Vehicles. The Lynx XM30 prototype is a proposed design to replace the U.S. Armys Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Raytheon plans to have a turret-mounted version ready for testing by 2025, with potential applications extending beyond the Lynx XM30 prototype. The Multi-Mission Launcher boasts three key advantages: compatibility with multiple missile designs, the ability to target adversaries beyond the line of sight, and software that can process data collected by missiles in flight. This gives soldiers a more comprehensive battlefield view and enhanced tactical options. The launcher is designed to fire various effectors, including Raytheons Coyote Block 3 unmanned aircraft systems and Javelin missiles, with future integration planned for the TOW missile family. Diehl Defence and Elbit Systems Partner on Rocket Artillery Systems Diehl Defence of Germany and Elbit Systems Land of Israel have announced a strategic partnership to develop and produce rocket artillery ammunition for the PULS and EuroPULS launcher systems. This collaboration addresses the growing European demand for advanced rocket artillery and deep strike capabilities. Under the agreement, the two companies will jointly deliver rockets and advanced training rockets specifically designed to meet European rocket artillery requirements, focusing on the needs of the German armed forces. The partnership complements the EuroPULS launcher initiative, a joint project between Elbit and KNDS Deutschland to meet the technical and operational standards of NATO. This collaboration is expected to enhance local production capabilities, support, and sustainment for European countries utilizing the PULS and EuroPULS systems. Finland Expands Patria 66 Armoured Vehicle Fleet The Finnish Defence Forces has exercised an option to buy 29 Patria 66 armored vehicles, bringing the total fleet to 70. This purchase is part of the Common Armoured Vehicle System (CAVS) program and follows an earlier procurement of 41 vehicles under the same agreement. The Patria 66, or XA-300, is a versatile armored personnel carrier designed to meet modern military requirements. Enduring Shield System Successfully Intercepts Targets in Flight Test Leidos has announced the successful testing of its Enduring Shield air defense system. The system intercepted multiple targets during a flight test, demonstrating its advanced capability to counter aerial threats. The Enduring Shield system is designed to defend against various aerial threats, including cruise missiles (CM), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAS). Its open architecture makes it adaptable for integration with existing defense networks and allows upgrades as new threats emerge. Enduring Shield comprises the US Armys Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2 (IFPC Inc 2) system, which is designed to protect military forces and strategic sites by providing low-altitude, short-range air defense, and bridge the gap between tactical short-range air defense and strategic systems, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and Patriot forces. The demonstration highlighted the systems ability to detect, track, engage, and intercept UAS and CM targets in a missile flight test with a surface-launched AIM-9X. The test also involved integrating the Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS), Sentinel A3, and Missile Datalink, showcasing the capability to neutralize UAS and CM targets through a live fire. Leidos was recently awarded a contract by the U.S. Army Contracting CommandRedstone Arsenal for additional hardware assets in support of the Armys Enduring Indirect Fires Protection Capability (IFPC) Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E). The hardware includes upgrades to the missile remote communications link and software, which supports the Armys Integrated Air and Missile Defense architecture. With its successful test, the Enduring Shield air defense system is expected to play a critical role in the U.S. Armys Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2 program, designed to protect forward-deployed forces from increasingly sophisticated airborne threats. Epirus to Deliver Leonidas Expeditionary to the US Navy Epirus will deliver its compact RF weapon variant Leonidas Expeditionary, developed as part of a USD5.5 million contract award from the US Navys Office of Naval Research (ONR). The high-powered microwave (HPM) system delivers upon the Expeditionary Directed Energy Counter-Swarm program, or ExDECS, developed by ONR, Marine Corps Warfighting Lab (MCWL), and the Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office. Leonidas Expeditionary is a derivative of Epirus flagship Leonidas system, a modular and scalable system designed to fit on a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) trailer and assist Low Altitude Ground Based Air Defense (GBAD) in expeditionary operations in counter-drone and counter-swarm defense. Epirus expects to deliver a completed ExDECS HPM system to the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab by the end of 2024. Diehl Defence Develops Missile for Anti-Drone Operations Diehl Defence is working on the Missile (Micro Missile), a versatile anti-drone system for peacetime and combat. The missile can be equipped with a net for non-lethal drone capture or a fragmentation warhead for destroying drones in wartime. It has a range of five kilometers, reaches speeds of 200 km/h, and can be launched vertically from various platforms, including ships and ground-based systems. Series production is expected within two years. Source: Lars Hoffmann reported this first on Hartpunkt. UK Looks for New Mobile Air Defenses As the UK is seeking a replacement for the Stormer HVM performing its best against Russian missile and drone attacks in Ukraine, DVD provided the scene for new weapon systems addressing the need for short-range air defenses. NP Aerospace has displayed a Moog RIwP remotely controlled weapon mounted on a Ridgeback 44 vehicle configured for UK SHORAD / C-SAT. Another system aimed at this opportunity was the Rapid Ranger turret from Thales, which mounted four missile launchers with lasers and optics for target acquisition and guidance. Designed for light vehicles, this turret weighs less than 500 kg and can hold Starstreak or LMM missiles for surface-to-air or direct-fire engagement. Northrop Grumman to Develop First Hypersonic Glide Phase Interceptor The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has selected Northrop Grumman Corporation to proceed with the development of the Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI) program, a groundbreaking defensive countermeasure against hypersonic missile threats. This decision follows a three-year developmental effort that produced an innovative, purpose-built design capable of countering existing and emerging hypersonic threats. MDA favored this choice over a competing proposal from Raytheon. In the next development phase, Northrop Grumman will refine the preliminary design of the GPI, which is intended to be launched from U.S. Navy Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense destroyers and Aegis Ashore facilities using standard Vertical Launch Systems. The company plans to demonstrate system performance in hypersonic environments and complete flight experiments ahead of schedule, leveraging its flight-proven systems. Northrop Grumman will employ digital engineering practices to accelerate design processes and develop interceptor capabilities more efficiently. The GPI design incorporates advanced technologies, including a seeker for threat tracking and hit-to-kill accuracy, a re-ignitable upper-stage engine for threat containment, and a dual engagement mode to engage threats across a wide range of altitudes. Wendy Williams, vice president and general manager of launch and missile defense systems at Northrop Grumman, emphasized that the GPI adds critical standoff capability to warfighters in scenarios where distance creates an advantage. Northrop Grumman will also collaborate with the United States to support its role in the GPI Cooperative Development program with the Japan Ministry of Defense. TPY-4 Radar Achieves Milestone in U.S. Air Forces 3DELRR Program Lockheed Martin has achieved advanced milestones in developing the TPY-4 radar system for the U.S. Air Forces Three-Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range-Radar (3DELRR) program. The radar completed risk reduction tests, demonstrating its performance under various conditions and marking an important step toward system deployment. Raytheon Awarded Contract to Streamline SPY-6 Radar Production Raytheon, an RTX business, has been selected for an Office of Naval Research (ONR) Navy ManTech project to improve the manufacturing process of SPY-6 Transmit/Receive (TR) modules. The project, awarded by Penn State University Applied Research Laboratorys Electronics Manufacturing Center of Excellence, aims to streamline production and reduce costs for the U.S. Navys SPY-6 radar system. The new SPY-6 radio frequency TR modules are expected to be delivered in 2026-2027. The initiative will focus on implementing manufacturing advancements such as automation, new material sources, and process yield improvements. These enhancements are expected to result in significant cost savings for the U.S. Navy throughout the lifecycle of the SPY-6 radar. SPY-6 is a family of radars the U.S. Navy uses for air and missile defense across multiple ship classes. The system provides 360-degree integrated air and missile defense, allowing ships to simultaneously detect, track, and discriminate air, surface, and ballistic missile targets. The modular construction and common hardware and software across four variants make the SPY-6 more reliable and cost-effective. Anduril Integrates Lattice into Microsofts IVAS Anduril Industries and Microsoft have announced a strategic partnership to enhance the U.S. Armys Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) program, enabling soldiers to see real-time threats across the battlespace. Together, they will work on integrating Andurils Lattice operating system with Microsofts HoloLens-based IVAS headsets. Soldiers wearing Lattice-enabled IVAS headsets are rapidly warned of incoming autonomously-detected airborne threats, enhancing survivability in complex, contested environments. IVAS is a platform designed to ingest data from various sensors, including those integrated into the headset, attached to weapon systems, and via third-party devices and software, giving Soldiers unprecedented visibility on the battlefield. With the integration of Andurils Lattice system, Soldiers will have a significantly enhanced capacity to detect, track and respond to threats in real-time while rapidly expanding the mission capabilities available to Soldiers. Bulgaria Approved to Buy Javelin Missiles US approves sale of hundreds of Javelins to BulgariaThe US State Department has approved the potential sale to Bulgaria of Javelin missiles and related equipment, with an estimated total cost of $114 million. Babcock Introduces Project Raven a European ATV Babcock has displayed a locally built all-terrain vehicle (ATV) at the recent DVD event to compete with Polaris Defenses MRZR, offering ITAR-free production at a lower cost, based on the European supply chain. The vehicle was developed under Project Raven and aimed to source a European alternative to the Polaris MRZR. It is designed for two or three passengers. It holds a NATO pallet-sized flatbed for loading up to 500kg payload in the back. The chassis is built in Spain, and the diesel engine is a Japanese unit. Both are far more available in Europe and the UK. It is measured to load internally into the Merlin transport helicopter. Source: @TotherChris reported this first on X. Return to: Defense-Update Weekly News Summary 26.9.2024 Fear of an oversupply of oil on the back of reports that Saudi Arabia is considering returning to its strategy of pursuing market share rather than supporting prices has sent both WTI and Brent falling this week. Friday, September 27th, 2024 Chinas economic stimulus measures and US hurricanes have provided firm fundamental support for oil prices; but the big story of this week has come from Saudi Arabia, with media outlets alleging Riyadh is considering a strategy revamp of retaking market share in the oil markets. Fearing oversupply, market participants witnessed a $3 per barrel drop from a week ago, with WTI dipping below $70 per barrel again. Saudi Arabia Mulls Pros of Higher Production. According to the FT, Saudi Arabia is preparing to raise its crude oil production to win back market share, abandoning its unofficial $100 per barrel oil price target even if that means lower prices, raising hopes that OPEC+ would go ahead with its December hikes. Libya Gets Closer to a Negotiated Settlement. The UN-brokered negotiations between Libyas rival governments have made substantial headway this week, reportedly agreeing on the procedures of Central Bank staffing and decision-making, seeking to defuse the ongoing oil blockade. Eastern US Ports Ready for Strike. Port authorities in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, New Orleans, Louisiana and Texas have started to inform customers that some operations will stop effective September 30 as a regionwide strike of port workers risks debilitating container cargo traffic. UKs Key New Upstream Projects Derailed by Litigation. The two largest upcoming oil and gas projects in the UKs continental shelf, Shells Jackdaw, and Equinors Rosebank, might be stalled after environmental campaign group Greenpeace initiated a legal review of the two fields in Scottish courts. FTC to Bar John Hess from Chevron Board. The US Federal Trade Commission is expected to prohibit Hess CEO John Hess from taking a board seat at US major Chevron (NYSE:CVX) as a condition of the latters $53 billion purchase of Hess, just as Pioneer CEO Scott Sheffield was barred from Exxons board. US Natural Gas Cuts to See Gradual Phaseout. The chief executive of EQT (NYSE:EQT) confirmed that the United States largest gas producer would be reversing some output curtailments implemented earlier in 2024 on the back of lower gas prices, preparing for a surge in LNG feedgas demand. Kazakhstan Wants Billions from Oil Majors. Kazakhstans Energy Ministry said it expects preliminary results of multi-billion arbitration proceedings by the end of this year, launching claims against stakeholders of the Kashagan and Karachaganak fields, worth $13 and $3.5 billion, respectively. Brazilian Major Seeks More Domestic Exposure. Brazilian upstream firm Prio (BVMF:PRIO3) reached an agreement with Chinese state-controlled major Sinochem (SHA:600500) to buy its 40% stake in the offshore Peregrino oil field for $1.92 billion, boosting its proprietary output with the 110,000 b/d field. BP Wants to Lure Investors by Shedding US Wind. British oil major BP (NYSE:BP) has reportedly put its US onshore wind business up for sale in a bid to attract investor interest as it rethinks its vast portfolio of low-carbon assets, selling 1.7 GW of gross generating capacity across seven US states. Copper Surges Past 10,000 on China Stimulus. Copper futures for December delivery surged past the $10,000 per metric tonne threshold as China unveiled wide-ranging stimulus measures to breathe life into its ailing real estate market, settling above $10,200/mt and sending mining stocks up by 6-7% this week. Belgium Calls for EU-Wide Ban on Russian LNG. Belgium, the fourth largest recipient of Russian LNG in 2023, has called for a coordinated EU approach to end the imports of Russian LNG into the European Union, over and above the expected ban on transshipment, set to take effect from the end of March 2025. US Gulf Recovers from Hurricane Helene Impact. At the peak of Hurricane Helene, some 30% of US offshore oil output was offline as 27 producing platforms were evacuated, equivalent to an outright impact of 510,000 b/d, but shut-ins had dropped by Friday as oil companies resumed operations. Sinking Barge Disrupts Venezuelan Production. At least two people died and four were declared missing after an oil barge operated by a PDVSA contractor sunk in Lake Maracaibo, the largest crude production hub in the country, reportedly capsizing whilst carrying out well maintenance services. By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Colombia wants to fuel its transition away from oil and gas with an investment plan worth $40 billion that should replace revenues from hydrocarbon exports. These are expected to decline after the Colombian government stopped issuing new drilling permits two years ago, Bloomberg reported, citing the countrys environment minister as saying the money would be spent on what the publication called nature-based climate solutions, along with low-carbon energy, transport electrification, agricultural practices improvement projects, and projects for biodiversity protection. All of this is a huge economic transformation, the official, Susana Muhamad said. The portfolio of investments is around developing sectors that we think could start replacing oil revenues. She added that there were hopes at least $10 billion for the investment pot would come from international institutions and developed countries. Back in 2022, when he came to power, Colombias president Gustavo Petro pledged to shift Colombias economy away from oil, coal, and gas, in favour of lower-carbon energy alternatives. At last years COP28, Petro became the first leader of a large energy producer to vow phasing out hydrocarbons endorsing a call for something called a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. Also at COP28, Petro announced Colombias transition policy, which at the time had a price tag of $32 billion. Based on the latest announcement by his environment minister the price of the transition has gone up, which reflects cost troubles in the low-carbon industries. Despite the bold climate plans, Colombia remains highly reliant on hydrocarbon energy. Earlier this year, a decline in gas production threatened electricity supply shortages, forcing the government to consider LNG imports. Colombia is also a large exporter of coal and oil, and it would take quite an effort to change that and replace lost revenues with new sources of state income. Meanwhile, the energy ministry plans to boost oil production in the country to 1 million barrels daily, from about 800,000 bpd this year. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com ConocoPhillips has taken a significant step forward in its long-standing battle to recover payments from Venezuela's state oil company, PDVSA. On September 27, 2024, a Trinidadian court approved ConocoPhillips' request to seize payments that PDVSA would have received for its role in the Dragon Gas offshore project. This ruling follows years of legal wrangling over compensation for assets nationalized by the Venezuelan government. The court appointed an accounting firm as a receiver to facilitate the process. Judge Frank Seepersad cited concerns that PDVSA might attempt to move assets out of Trinidad to avoid payment obligations, as seen in its past relocation of its European headquarters to Moscow. This latest legal victory for ConocoPhillips builds on previous efforts to enforce a $1.33 billion arbitration claim against Venezuela. Despite partial payments in the past, PDVSA stopped making required payments in 2019, prompting ConocoPhillips to pursue legal action across several jurisdictions. The case is part of a broader trend in the oil and gas industry, where companies like ConocoPhillips are increasingly seeking to enforce arbitration rulings against Venezuela following its nationalization of foreign assets. These moves aim to recover lost revenue through asset seizures or the diversion of payments tied to energy projects. This development is not just a legal win. These court rulings could complicate financial arrangements for partnerships attempting to access Trinidad and Venezuela's offshore gas fields. While this battle is far from over, ConocoPhillips has gained significant leverage in its pursuit of compensation. In 2018, ConocoPhillips embargoed cargoes of crude oil and fuel at a storage terminal in Aruba that was operated by PDVSA's US subsidiary, Citgo, in Conoco's quest to claim a $2 billion court award over PDVSA's forced nationalization of two oil projects by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com The Federal Trade Commission has said Hess Corps CEO must not join the board of Chevron if it is to give the green light to the merger of the two. Reuters reported that the regulator did not give reasons for its demand. Earlier in the week, media reported, citing unnamed sources, that the FTC was set to approve the deal, although its finalization depends on the outcome of an arbitration case brought against Chevron and Hess by the latters partner in Guyana, Exxon. Chevron announced its plan to acquire Hess Corp. for $53 billion last year. Exxon, however, said it had the right of first refusal to Hess Corp.s 30% stake in the Stabroek Block in Guyana, where the companies have made a string of major discoveries that could turn the tiny South American nation into a major oil producer. Chevron and Hess have claimed that the first-refusal clause has no relevance to the deal because the supermajor is acquiring the whole Hess Corp. and not just its Guyanese assets. The third partner of the U.S. duo in Guyana, CNOOC, has sided with Exxon. The FTC move against John Hess echoes an identical demand placed on Exxon earlier this year with regard to the former chief executive of Pioneer Natural Resources, Scott Sheffield, who was barred from joining the board of the new, larger company after Exxon completes the $60-billion deal. For that decision, the FTC gave as reason allegations that Sheffield had colluded with OPEC to restrict oil supply in order to push international prices higher. Through public statements and private communications, Pioneer founder and former CEO Scott D. Sheffield has campaigned to organize anticompetitive coordinated output reductions between and among U.S. crude oil producers, and others, including the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and a related cartel of other oil-producing countries known as OPEC+, the Commission said in a formal complaint back in May. The allegations prompted a Congress investigation into several large oil companies. The allegations shook the shale oil world, where several large consolidation deals are awaiting the trade watchdogs approval. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com India will not buy liquefied natural gas from the sanctioned Russian project Arctic LNG 2, Indias Oil Secretary Pankaj Jain said on Friday. We will not buy (supply from) Arctic LNG 2. We are not buying any sanctioned commodity. Something which has broad-based sanctions, we are not touching it, the official told reporters today, as carried by Reuters. The U.S. and the EU have imposed sanctions on the Arctic LNG 2 project, aiming to stifle Russias revenues from oil and gas. Located in the Gydan Peninsula in the Arctic, the Arctic LNG 2 project, operated by Russian gas developer Novatek, was considered key to Russias efforts to boost its global LNG market share from 8% to 20% by 2030-2035. But Arctic LNG 2 has been basically on ice since the U.S. imposed in November 2023 sanctions on the Russian project. As a result, foreign shareholders suspended participation in Arctic LNG 2, effectively withdrawing from the financing of the project and for offtake contracts for the new plant. Last month, the U.S. State Department intensified efforts to derail Arctic LNG 2 exports by targeting companies involved in the development of the project and vessels found to have loaded LNG from the facility. The project has already seen months of delays after the U.S. sanctions upended the companys plans for production start-up and export timelines. Russia, however, has started to amass a dark fleet of tankers to ship its LNG in vessel ownership transfers similar to the moves that Moscow began after the invasion of Ukraine to create a shadow fleet to export oil and products in the face of Western sanctions. While India is steering clear of sanctioned Russian LNG, it continues to seek cheap oil and gas supply, including from Russia. India will not change its energy policy to buy oil and gas at the lowest possible price and will continue to purchase cheaper Russian crude supply, Indian Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri told Reuters last week. If an entity is not under sanctions, there is no question I will buy from the cheapest supplier, the minister said. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Mitsubishi Corporation is boosting its equity stakes in one of the worlds single largest LNG-producing facilities in Malaysia after signing agreements with Malaysian state-owned oil and gas giant Petronas. On Friday, Mitsubishi and Petronas announced the signing of agreements under which Mitsubishi Corporation will invest in the Malaysia LNG units Dua and Tiga over the next decade. The Japanese firm announced an extension of its 10% equity shareholding in MLNG Dua, and the reinvestment of a 10% equity shareholding in MLNG Tiga in ten-year deals beginning in 2024 and 2025, respectively. Mitsubishi has been a key trading partner of Petronass LNG deliveries to Japan, the worlds second-largest LNG importer after China. The Petronas LNG complex through partnerships and alongside Mitsubishi Corporation began LNG supply to long-term Japanese contract buyers in 1983. Petronas LNG comprises four joint ventures of MLNG, MLNG Dua, MLNG Tiga, and PETRONAS LNG 9 with a production capacity of 29.3 million tons per annum (mtpa), making it one of the worlds largest LNG producers in a single location. The LNG complex has been a main LNG supplier to public and private sector customers in Japan. Elsewhere in Malaysia, Mitsubishi Corporation has also participated in total of 10 gas upstream blocks in Sarawak and expanded its areas of investment in the country to the automotive, food, petrochemicals, metal, and steel sectors. Mitsubishi Corporation looks forward to providing continuous support in growing and nurturing access to global LNG market for PETRONAS future volumes with LNG being the fuel of choice in the age of energy transition, the Japanese corporations president and CEO Katsuya Nakanishi said. Earlier this month, Petronas reported a decline in its first-half profit amid continued market volatility, lower natural gas prices, and higher taxes paid. Petronas is also faced with the prospect of lower earnings from natural gas as Sarawak, the biggest state in Malaysia, is set to take control of its natural gas assets as the state on the Borneo island is now looking for more autonomy from the federal government. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Crude oil prices were trending down earlier today, extending a two-day losing streak as bearish news crowded out any bullish signals. Earlier in the week, news emerged that the rival governments in Libya had struck an agreement about the appointment of a new central bank governor, signaling oil production and exports would soon return to normal, alleviating supply squeeze concerns. The latest blow to prices came from Saudi Arabia. On Thursday, the FT reported citing unnamed sources that the kingdom considered dropping its oil price target of $100 per barrel and instead focusing on regaining lost market share by boosting supply. The price target is not official but it is the level that the IMF earlier this year said Saudi Arabia needs oil prices to be in order to balance its budget. This balance is based on all the high-ticket projects that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is spearheading as a way of diversifying the local economy away from oil. The FT report suggests the Saudi leadership has rearranged its priorities and is now resigned to lower prices for longer. The effect of the Saudi news was amplified later on Thursday when Russias Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Russia planned to stay on course with OPEC+ plans, meaning it would start bringing some supply back in December, like Saudi Arabia. The OPEC+ alliance is not discussing any proposals for changes to its current oil production plan, which envisages the group starting to add supply to the market in December, Novak told media, suggesting other members of the group were also resigned to lower prices and were about to prioritize market share now. The big-ticket items on the market's radar this week have been Libya and OPEC+, FGE Energy said, as quoted by Reuters, as Brent crude looked set to end the week close to 5% lower than where it started it, and West Texas Intermediate was on course to book a loss of over 6%. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Mexicos oil firm Pemex saw its oil production decline by 6% in August compared to August 2023 as outgoing Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has failed to turn around the fortunes of the heavily indebted state-owned company. Pemex produced a total of 1.77 million barrels per day (bpd) of liquids, which include crude oil and condensate, last month, down by 6% compared to August of last year, according to company data cited by Reuters. Crude oil production only averaged below 1.5 million bpd in August, as Pemexs crude output has been falling in recent years and has hit the lowest level in more than 40 years. The Mexican state oil firm has also failed in Lopez Obradors pledge to significantly reduce fuel imports with the start of his flagship petroleum project, the Olmeca refinery, also known as Dos Bocas. The project was designed to reduce Mexicos dependence on fuel imports from the United States and was billed by Lopez Obrador as a key step toward energy independence. The Olmeca refinery, which began commercial operations in early August, has a crude processing capacity of 340,000 barrels per day (bpd). Pemex said at the start of the refinery operations that the facility would produce 175,000 bpd of gasoline and 130,000 bpd of ultra-low sulfur diesel in August. But the refinery produced only 28,400 bpd of gasoline and 1,100 bpd of diesel last month, according to figures reported by Reuters. In June, sources familiar with the Olmeca refinerys operations told Reuters that the facility is unlikely to be ready to produce commercial quantities of fuels by the end of this year. While the refinery struggles with the ramp-up, Mexicos imports of fuels remain at high levels, much higher than Pemexs leadership and the outgoing president have promised. Lopez Obrador leaves office next week and will be succeeded by his ally, President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum. Sheinbaum has vowed to continue the policy of government support to the state oil firm. Continued support for Pemex remains a key challenge for Mexicos new administration, Fitch Ratings said after the election in June. Pemexs debt, equivalent to almost 6% of GDP, remains a material contingent liability for the sovereign, the credit rating agency noted. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com TotalEnergies on Friday announced a deal to buy a 45% stake in dry gas-producing assets owned and operated by Lewis Energy Group in the Eagle Ford basin in Texas, growing its gas production business and boosting its LNG portfolio. The assets that TotalEnergies is buying are located in Southwest Texas and have the potential to be developed to reach a sustainable gross production of around 400 Mcf/d by 2028. TotalEnergies, which is the leading exporter of U.S. LNG, is further increasing the integration across its gas value chain in the United States, the French supermajor said. The deal is the second such transaction announced this year after TotalEnergies in April agreed to buy the 20% interest held by Lewis Energy Group in the Dorado leases operated by EOG Resources in the Eagle Ford. In the U.S. natural gas sector, TotalEnergies also operates a technical production of around 500 Mcf/d in the Barnett. This acquisition further strengthens our upstream gas position in the United States and contributes to our integrated LNG position with a low cost upstream gas supply, said Nicolas Terraz, President, Exploration & Production at TotalEnergies. The French group exported more than 10 million tons (Mt) of LNG from the U.S. in 2023, which makes it the largest exporter of American LNG. This is thanks to TotalEnergiess 16.6% stake in the Cameron LNG plant in Louisiana and several long-term purchasing agreements. The company aims to have its U.S. LNG export capacity reach 15 Mt per year by 2030, after the start-up of the Rio Grande LNG plant in South Texas. However, the Rio Grande LNG has recently suffered a regulatory setback. Last month, a U.S. appeals court vacated the authorization of NextDecade Corporations Rio Grande LNG export project issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on the ground that the FERC should have issued a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) during its remand process. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com The benchmark crude prices at Houston have seen increased trading volumes as the rise in U.S. crude oil exports out of the Gulf Coast is making regional prices more important for physical and futures traders, analysts and industry officials have told Reuters. Surging U.S. crude exports, particularly WTI Midland, have dominated global markets in recent months, with record export volumes and a significant portion being sent to Europe. Before the U.S. allowed in 2015 crude oil exports to international markets other than Canada, soaring American production during the first shale revolution in the early 2010s was capping the price of WTI oil, which traded at a $15-$20 per barrel discount to Brent, the benchmark price of the oil pumped in the North Sea. Significant midstream bottlenecks and the fact that U.S. crude was being exported only to Canada meant that Brent Crude commanded a wide premium over the price of American oil. But after the U.S. allowed crude oil exports in 2015 and after midstream operators seized the opportunity to build pipelines in Texas and Louisiana leading to the U.S. Gulf Coast export terminals, American exports soared and made WTI a more influential benchmark in the oil markets. So influential has the U.S. oil become that WTI Midland, produced in Texas, was included last year in the Dated Brent part of the Brent benchmark as one of several grades underpinning the contract. Earlier this year, CME Group announced that trading in its U.S. Crude Grade futures, which are Argus-settled and trade as a differential to the global benchmark WTI Crude Oil futures, reached several records in April 2024. So far in September, average daily volumes on the WTI Houston contract on CME more than doubled from September 2023, to a record high, CME representatives told Reuters. The physical market for U.S. production has already moved to the U.S. Gulf Coast, and now the futures market is following suit, Jeff Barbuto, global head of oil markets at the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), told Reuters. The growing importance of WTI Houston contracts has spared oil prices from spikes because crude stocks at the Cushing hub, the delivery and pricing point for the WTI crude futures on NYMEX, fell to the operational minimum earlier this month. By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Flash Israeli warplanes continued their deadly airstrikes across Lebanon for the fourth consecutive day on Thursday, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a clear rejection of a ceasefire proposal advanced by the United States and France. The Israeli military stated that its drones targeted rocket launchers in southern Lebanon responsible for attacks on Israeli targets. Fighter jets struck "dozens" of Hezbollah targets, including militant cells, launchers, and weapons storage facilities in various areas of southern Lebanon. Lebanese soldiers are seen at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahieh, southern Beirut, Lebanon, on Sept. 26, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua] The Lebanese Health Ministry reported that at least 60 people were killed and 81 others injured in Israeli airstrikes on Thursday across various regions in Lebanon. Israel conducted 115 attacks on Thursday, the ministry noted, adding that the large-scale airstrikes, which began on Monday and have previously focused on the south and east of Lebanon, have now spread to include regions in the Mount Lebanon Governorate. According to the Israeli military, Hezbollah forces launched approximately 150 rockets toward northern Israel. Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service stated that no casualties resulted from the rocket attacks. Some rockets were intercepted, but others struck communities in northern Israel, where most residents have been displaced due to ongoing cross-border fire. In Rosh Pina, located in the Upper Galilee, a rocket hit a residential home, causing extensive damage. Fires broke out in Rosh Pina, Safed, and Birya as a result of the strikes. Hezbollah confirmed the rocket attacks, stating that the bombings and raids were "in defense of Lebanon and its people, and in response to the barbaric Israeli invasion of cities, villages, and civilians." During a situational assessment, Israel's military chief, Hertzi Halevi, rejected the U.S.-led ceasefire call at a UN Security Council emergency meeting. "We must continue to attack Hezbollah," Halevi said. "We have waited for this opportunity for years." Netanyahu echoed this sentiment, stating that Israel "will continue to strike Hezbollah with full force" until all objectives are achieved, including the safe return of northern residents to their homes. Also on Thursday, Israel's Defense Ministry announced an 8.7-billion-U.S.-dollar aid package from the United States to support Israel's military efforts. The package includes 3.5 billion dollars for "urgent wartime procurement," which has already been transferred to Israel, and an additional 5.2 billion dollars earmarked for air defense systems, including the Iron Dome, David's Sling, and an advanced laser defense system. "This substantial investment will significantly strengthen critical systems like Iron Dome and David's Sling while supporting the continued development of an advanced high-powered laser defense system, currently in its later stages of development," the ministry stated. The United States has been supporting Israel since the beginning of the conflict with Hamas on Oct. 7 last year, sending at least 700 cargo planes with weapons, bombs, and ammunition, according to official Israeli sources. Israel and Hezbollah, a Lebanese armed group and political party, have been trading fire across the border since Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah launched rockets in solidarity with Hamas' deadly attack on communities in southern Israel the previous day. As of Thursday, the total death toll from the Israel-Hezbollah clashes since last October has reached 1,540, with injuries totaling 5,410, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Since Monday, Israel has conducted extensive airstrikes across Lebanon, resulting in over 650 deaths and more than 2,000 injuries. The Israeli military reported that it has targeted over 2,000 locations during this period. Lebanese Environment Minister Nasser Yassin noted on Wednesday that the bombardment has displaced more than 150,000 residents this week. This sharp escalation has raised concerns about a potential full-scale conflict between Israel and Lebanon, with fears that other regional powers could also become involved. Ten years after becoming the first Ebola patient to be treated at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Dr. Richard Sacra returned to Omaha Thursday to reunite with the team who made his recovery possible. Sacra spoke at an event commemorating the anniversary of his release from UNMCs Nebraska Biocontainment Unit as one of the first patients with Ebola to be treated in the United States. Sacra, who lives in Massachusetts, last visited Omaha in March of 2015 to mark the 10th anniversary of the opening of the biocontainment unit. Sacra, a longtime medical missionary, was working in Liberia during the Ebola crisis a decade ago. During that outbreak, there were nearly 30,000 cases of the virus in West Africa and more than 11,000 people died with the virus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While working to provide care to patients when thousands were infected and hospitals and clinics were closing, Sacra noticed he had a fever. After waiting the required 72 hours to be tested for Ebola, Sacra tested positive on Sept. 1, 2014. Four days later, Sacra arrived in Omaha and was admitted to the biocontainment unit, where he spent nearly three weeks. On Sept. 25, 2014, Sacra was released and got to meet the medical team who cared for him without all of the personal protective equipment between them. That was a real wonderful blessing of a day, he said. I consider these people, even though I dont see them all the time, I consider them lifelong friends. They did an amazing job, and they gave me my life back. In a video message shared during the event, University of Nebraska President Jeffrey Gold remembered the moment when Sacra was released. At the time, Gold was the chancellor at UNMC. No one will ever forget the moment we knew that he made it, he said. His radiant smile spoke to all of us about this success. Shelly Schwedhelm, who now works at UNMCs Global Center for Health Security, reflected on her and other members of the biocontainment units decision to accept Ebola patients as she spoke at Thursdays event. While the unit was established in 2005, Sacra was its first patient. These are our fellow Americans, and weve trained for nine years to do this mission, she said she remembered thinking at the time. Tim Uyeki, chief medical officer of the CDCs influenza division, said the work done at UNMC to treat Sacra and the two other Ebola patients who were brought there was essential to understanding how to treat the virus. This really contributed to optimizing supportive care of patients with Ebola viruses everywhere, he said. Uyeki said the CDC continues to see UNMC as a leader in handling highly contagious infectious diseases through its continued development in the last decade, including work to treat COVID-19 patients. Its really good to know that UNMC, Nebraska Med, has this capability and training and will always be a resource for the U.S., he said. Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of September 2024 The Omaha Police Department is investigating a fiery crash that killed three people and injured three others near 10th and Douglas Streets early Friday. Police officers responded to the two-vehicle crash shortly before 1:30 a.m., according to a press release from the Omaha Police Department. Investigators determined that the driver of a Jeep Grand Cherokee was headed east on Douglas Street when she hit a Subaru Outback from behind, according to the release. The driver of the Subaru had just turned left onto Douglas Street from southbound 10th Street. The crash caused both vehicles to be pushed to the east. The Subaru hit a light pole, and the Jeep hit a tree and then rolled, the release said. Both cars caught on fire and were engulfed in flames. The driver and lone occupant of the Subaru was found dead at the scene. Two passengers in the Jeep, both children, were also declared dead at the scene. The driver of the Grand Cherokee, another child passenger and the front-seat passenger, were taken to the Nebraska Medical Center for initial treatment. They were later transferred to a specialized burn unit at a hospital out of state, the release said. The names of the deceased have not been released, pending positive identifications of the individuals and next-of-kin notifications, police said. Police are consulting with the Douglas County Attorneys Office on pending charges for the Grand Cherokee driver. Speed and alcohol are being investigated as contributing factors, according to the release. Photos: Police investigate an accident in downtown Omaha The battle line is drawn as the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and the APC leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu fire at each other. First in a statement titled Tinubu Focusing On The Issues Of Today: Tomorrow Is The Master Of Itself the APC leader accused Saraki and Yakubu Dogara of hijacking the budget process for the last four years. Tinubu said they continually padded, distorted and delayed all for their personal benefits. He also accused them of diverting funds meant to alleviate the masses sufferings. In a swift response, the Saraki team has fired back. Bellow is a statement released and signed by Yusuph Olaniyonu the Special Adviser (Media and Publicity to Senate President) : Here is Sarakis reply: Saraki to Tinubu: Despite Your Smear Campaign and Hatred for Me, You Should, At Least, Dwell on Facts Yesterday, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, released another of his now well expected quarterly vicious attack on the person of Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, the President of the Senate. In the statement, one could see the master of media spins getting ensnared in his own game as he struggled to extricate himself from the narratives about the contest for leadership positions in the Ninth National Assembly. 2. Since we have taken it for granted that Tinubus attack on Saraki every three months (Quarterly) will come as expected, we would just have ignored his statement but for the fact that it was filled with untruth, fallacies and misrepresentations. The statement was another effort to sell a concocted narrative about the Eighth National Assembly and its leadership. 3. First, he alleged that national budgets were delayed, distorted, padded, new projects introduced, funds for projects reduced, to halt progress of government. It is unfortunate that a man like Tinubu who had been in the Senate (though for 22 months and under a military regime) should have a better understanding of how the legislature works. The passage of budgets is definitely not the exclusive responsibility of the leadership of the Senate. Most of the work is done in the various committees. These committees are headed by Senators representing different parties. It is the level of co-operation between the committees and the MDAs in the timely defence of the budget proposals and the ability of the two chambers of the National Assembly to reconcile their figures that usually determine how soon the budget is passed. To put the blame of budget delay on the Senate President or Speaker can only be mischief, or at best, playing to the gallery. 4. It is also a known fact that any so-called delay in the passage of budgets under the Eighth National Assembly is traceable to the refusal of heads of MDAs to defend the budget proposals for their agencies on time. Last year, the President himself had to direct the Secretary to Federal Government to compel heads of MDAs to appear before the National Assembly committees following the report made to him by Dr. Saraki and Speaker Yakubu Dogara. So, if a man like Tinubu is spreading this falsehood about budget passage and delay being deliberately orchestrated by the National Assembly leadership, one wonders whether he tries to even understand what happens in the federal legislature at all or is that the only thing that is of interest to him is. jockeying and manoeuvring for influence, as he puts it. 5. To further make the points here clear, we invite. Tinubu to look at the records of the time of submission of budgets and their passage since 2010 and he will see that with the exception of the 2013 budget which was passed on December 20, 2012, all the budgets have been passed between March and May of the same fiscal year. This should give him a better understanding of the fact that the date the Appropriations Bill is submitted to parliament and the readiness of the MDAs to defend the proposals submitted as well as timely agreement on the figures by both chambers of the National Assembly are the main determining factors in when the budget is eventually passed. So, Tinubu should see that the facts cannot support his spins and fake narrative. 6. In all the three budgets already passed by the National Assembly, we challenge Tinubu to make specific reference to where Dr. Saraki and the leadership of the National Assembly sought to pad with pet projects as. he alleged. Tinubu should be graceful enough to substantiate this allegation. We consider that allegation careless, irresponsible and callous. We therefore demand that he should withdraw it. 7. However, there is need to let him know that it is the constitutional responsibility of the National Assembly to review the proposals sent by the executive and where it deems necessary, it is within the power of the legislature to make changes. A good example, is the decision by the National Assembly to include in the 2018 budget the one percent of the total budget, amounting to N33 billion, as allocation for Universal Health Coverage as provided by an extant law, which had been hitherto observed in the breach. Is this what Tinubu considers as budget padding? And this was a decision which was praised across the world as a real benefit to ordinary people across the country. 8. Tinubu also claimed that the Senate leadership stymied APC legislative initiatives while attempting to hoist noxious reactionary and self interested legislation on the nation. We wonder what these legislative initiatives are because in the four years of the Buhari administration, it has only forwarded 11 bills to the Senate, apart form the routine annual appropriations and supplementary budget proposals. Two of these bills, the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Bill and the National Minimum Wage Bill, have been passed. One of the bills, the Money Laundering Prevention and Prohibition Act (amendment) Bill was withdrawn by the executive following the disagreement between the Attorney General and the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Also, another one, the National Water Resources Bill was rejected because it infringed on the rights of states to develop their water resources. The remaining seven which are the National Centre for Disease Control and Prevention Establishment Bill, Federal Institute of Industrial Research for the Development of Micro, Small and Large Industries Bills, the Suppression of Piracy Bill, Communications Service Tax Bill, 2015; Federal Institute of Industrial Research Bill, 2017; Raw Materials Research and Development Council (Repeal and Re-enactment Bill 2018; Nigeria Natural Medicine Development Agency (Establishment etc) Bill, 2018 are at various stages of passage. 9. As a leader of the Eighth National Assembly, Dr. Saraki is proud that under his watch, the Senate has surpassed the records of all previous Senates in the number of bills passed, the significance of these bills to the revival of the economy, the fight against insecurity and corruption, improvement in the provision of health service and the education sector, as well as better social service delivery. to the generality of the people. The bills passed, motions moved, interventions made and frequent engagement with the people were all directed towards addressing the day to day issues that affect the lives of the ordinary Nigerians. This Senate has passed 282 bills (the highest any Senate had passed is 129 bills recorded by the 5th Senate), among which is the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, Public Procurement Act (amendment) Bill, Petroleum Industry Governance Bill, Electoral Act (amendment) Bill, Police Reform Bill, Police Trust Fund Bill, Nigeria Railways Authority Bill, Company and Allied Matters Act (amendment) Bill, Secured Credit Transactions Act, Whistleblowers Protection Bill, constitution amendment bills, Discrimination Against Persons With Disability Bill, Electronic Transaction Bill, Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, North East Development Commission (NEDC) Act, Witness Protection Programme Bill, Credit Bureau Reporting Bill, Sexual Harassment in Tertiary Educational Institution Bill and Compulsory Treatment and Care of Victims of Gunshots Bill, National Financial Intelligence Agency Act, Federal Audit Services Commission Bill, among others. It will be good to know which of these Bills Tinubu believes is self interested and not in the interest of Nigerians. 10. We will like to point the attention of Mr. Tinubu to the fact that most of the bills listed above got international and national endorsement from stakeholders who lauded the Senate for the move. For example, the Financial Intelligence Database Agency (Ultrascan) commended the Senate for passing the NFIU Act which enabled the country to be re-admitted into the Egmont Group. Also, the Nigerian Police leadership have praised the Senate for passing the Police Reforms Bill and the Police Trust Fund Bill. Again, when the National Assembly in the 2018 budget gave effect to the law allowing one percent of the budget to be devoted to Primary Health Care Delivery, it got kudos from Bill Gates, Bono, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of WHO, and various national groups who believe the move would bring health care delivery to the poor people across the country. The passage of the UBEC Act (amendment) Bill was praised by Pakistani child education campaigner and youngest Nobel Laureate, Yousafzai Malala. When the PIGB was passed, APC led by Tinubu, National Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE), among others, hailed the Senate for a good job. Even, the World Bank commended the National Assembly for the passage of the Company and Allied Matters Act and Secured Transactions in Movable Assets and Credit Bureau Reporting Act. Of course, all these initiatives will be ignored by a man who is still sulking because his vow in 2015 that Saraki and Dogara will never lead the National Assembly did not materialize. 11. Tinubu and his mob have been sponsoring the narratives in the media that the emergence of the present leadership of the National Assembly was a mistake. We hereby submit that Dr. Saraki and other leaders of the National Assembly were democratically elected by their colleagues. And it is because they are the choice of their colleagues that they have remained in office for the past 46 months, despite all the plots hatched by anti-democratic, reactionary and fascist elements pretending to be progressives. In fact, Tinubu should know that if there was any mistake made on June 9, 2015, it was the miscalculation by himself and his small cabal in the APC who felt they could decide for the Senators-elect and House of Representatives Members-elect. When they failed after their grand-standing that they could always get whatever they desired, they resorted to undermining the institution of the legislature by waging a campaign of calumny against the law making body. It is now clear that those who took Senators away from the chambers contrary to the directive contained in the proclamation signed by President Muhammadu Buhari on June 9, 2015 are mistake personified. It is obvious that if they repeat that arrogance during the inauguration of the Ninth National Assembly, they will fail again because Nigeria is greater than them. The institution of the legislature is bigger than the over-bloated egos of these power mongers and dirty schemers. 12. Let us repeat again that we know that a Machiavellian politician like Tinubu will forever agonize over his erroneous belief that Dr. Saraki frustrated his ambition from becoming running mate to President Muhammadu Buhari through a Muslim-Muslim ticket in 2015. In his usual cavalier manner, he will stop at nothing to punish Saraki for that. We know that this attack is not about the interest of the nation or that of President Muhammadu Buhari. It is about his 2023 ambition and it is obvious in the statement as he struggled to explain this away. 13. However, Tinubu should leave Dr. Saraki out of his schemes and manipulations towards 2023. It is obvious his arbitrary and tactless interference in the process for the emergence of the leadership of the Ninth Assembly is already falling through. The frustration from this experience might have been responsible for this needless and baseless outbursts. Our only advice for him is that if he is interested in the stability of the National Assembly, he should allow the members to elect their leadership in consultations with the party leadership. He should stop treating the legislators like hapless pupils receiving orders from a cane-wielding headmaster. A situation where he, Tinubu, is dictating to elected legislators and ordering them to either comply with his directives or get out of the party will not augur well for the legislature in the next dispensation. History should have thought him that only a leadership that truly enjoys the support of members can help the President and his administration to achieve their objectives. It is a good development that the candidates for the various positions are already reaching out to their colleagues and forging alliances. We can see that after he realized that he has misfired, he is trying to retrace his steps and in his usual devious manner, he is looking for scapegoats. We advise him to leave Dr. Saraki out of his manipulations and jockeying and maneuvering for influence and power, as he termed it. 14. The Eighth Senate has done very well and will leave a good legacy. Despite all the underhanded tactics to undermine the legislature by outsiders and the public posturing, members have always worked as a team on critical issues that benefit our nation. That is why hitherto unachievable legislations like the PIGB, Police Reform Act and other bills or amendments to existing laws were passed with ease because the members and the leadership know that they are elected as Senators of the Federal Republic not as party representives. 15. Tinubu should know that while we await his attack for the next quarter, we can only advise him to stay on facts. The Nigerian Supreme Court has expressed displeasure over what it termed Unwarranted attacks by the coalition of United Political Parties(CUPP) led by Ikenga Ugochinyere. The court, in a statement signed by its spokesman, Festus Akande, attacked the CUPP for attempting to blackmail the court in its handling of the appeal filed by PDP and its Candidate, Atiku Abubakar. The statement read; In the light of the blatant falsehood, misinformation and malicious rumour being generously peddled by the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) through its spokesman, Imo Ugochinyere, we wish to state clearly that the association is not and can never constitute itself into an agency of the Nigerian Judiciary or assume the role of an alternate Supreme Court of Nigeria. We have been watching rather cautiously the drama of the absurd being exhibited on daily basis by this association which sadly debases our collective morality and sense of decency as people from a civilized and well-cultured society like Nigeria. Sensitive issues like the presidential election appeal should not, in all honesty, be taken to the altar of frivolous drama and misguided oration that is displayed on the screen of our national television with reckless abandon by people who ought to be some sort of role model to the younger generation. It will be recalled that even weeks before the presidential election appeal was filed at the Supreme Court, the CUPP had already, in its characteristic manner, constituted its own panel for the Supreme Court and aggressively brandished the list on television and newspapers. Shortly afterwards, when the appeal was eventually filed at the court, the coalition came out once again with another imaginary list of panel members and followed it with yet another malicious allegation against the Chief Justice of Nigeria of handpicking them in contrast to the tradition of selecting the most senior justices of the court. Let it be known that the Supreme Court is not an assemblage of individuals with no defined purpose, vision and modus operandi. Our operations are strictly guided by the Constitution and extant laws. We are not an appendage of any individual or group of people, and we dont pander to the dictates of anybody or association. The Supreme Court, and by extension, the Judiciary, is an independent arm of government that can never be intimidated or dictated to by anybody. The CUPPs action only amounts to naming a baby before it is born. We should be mindful of our utterances to avoid inflicting devastating harm on the nation. This exhibition of unbridled utterances and prevarication will only endanger the progress and cohesiveness of our country. The Supreme Court has been entertaining presidential election appeals over the decades, but the unnecessary hysteria and superlative drama being woven around this particular one calls for caution and moderation. The constitution of any panel to sit on a matter in the court is the sole prerogative of the Supreme Court and it is never an issue for the court to debate on the television or pages of newspapers. We are not a political party or social club and should never be dragged into any form of baseless pedestrian discussions that will drive valid reasoning aground. Enough of this orchestrated falsehood and campaign of calumny. We are here to serve the interest of the generality of the Nigerian masses and not a select individuals or groups with inordinate ambition. As soon as the presidential appeal panel is constituted, the public will be duly informed as Supreme Court is not a secret society. Let us always observe caution when disseminating information to the public. The Christian Association of Nigeria in the 19 northern states and Abuja has congratulated President Muhammadu Buhari on his victory in the February 23 governorship election. Mr Buhari was declared the winner in the early hours of Wednesday, beating his closest rival, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Mr Abubakar has since declared his intention to challenge the election in court The northern CAN chapter in a letter to the president dated March 1, 2019, said the re-election of the president was a testimony of Mr Buharis uprightness and transparency in governance. The letter, signed by Yakubu Pam, the associations chairman, urged the president to unite the country and fight security and corruption challenges. Aware of this victory at a time the people of Nigeria are looking up to you for quality leadership, we urge you double your effort in the fight against insurgency, internal security and corruption in the country. The association called on the president to run an inclusive government as you promised under the new dispensation to unite the diverse of people of Nigeria now, more than ever before. Mr President sir, the Bible says to whom much is given, much is expected. We wish to appeal that you continue to be father to all in Nigeria as we look forward to seeing prosperous nation in the next 4 years of your second term in office, the letter partly reads. BLOOMINGTON A Chicago man is detained in McLean County on seven drug and firearm charges. Burundi A Martin, 34, was seen for an initial appearance in custody before Judge William Yoder on Thursday afternoon. Martin is charged with: armed violence, Class X felony; two counts of unlawful use of weapons by a felon, Class 2 felonies; aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, Class 2 felony; unlawful possession of a firearm without a valid Firearm Owner's Identification Card, Class 3 felony; unlawful possession of between 1-15 grams of cocaine with intent to deliver, Class 1 felony; unlawful possession of a controlled substance, Class 4 felony. The prosecution, represented by Assistant State's Attorney David Fitt, filed a petition to detain Martin on these charges. In filing his petition, Fitt noted the defendant is eligible for an enhanced penalty on the Class X if he is convicted. Typically, an armed violence conviction earns 15-30 years in prison, but with the enhancement, Martin is eligible to serve 30-45 years if he is found guilty. According to the probable cause statement which was read by Fitt, these charges stem from a Sept. 24 incident in Bloomington in which a driver was pulled over for committing a stop sign violation and two failures to signal. A Bloomington police officer conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle, which was operated by an Uber driver, and a K-9 unit indicated positive for presence of drugs. Three defendants were identified in the vehicle, two in the rear seats and one as the front passenger. Fitt said police found all three passengers were found to be in possession of cocaine. Each defendant was found carrying clear plastic baggies containing a substance that field tested positive for cocaine, individually packaged for sale, Fitt said. Officers located a plastic baggie with 10 units of cocaine on Martin's person, weighing a total of 3.1 grams, and Martin, who was riding on the passenger side of the backseat, gave a fake first name to officers, Fitt said. Additionally, police recovered a backpack in the rear seat. Inside, police found a 9 mm pistol with an extended magazine and ammunition, as well as three digital scales and a glass dish, all of which tested positive for the presence of cocaine. Fitt said police believe the backpack belonged to Martin. In arguing for his release, First Assistant Public Defender Matthew Koetters said the backpack could have belonged to any passenger in the vehicle. He noted the other defendant who was in the rear seat had not been cooperative with police and suggested the backpack may have belonged to that individual instead of his client. "There was nothing other than the backpack (was) in the backseat with my client that identifies it belonged to my client, and he denies the backpack was his," Koetters said. Fitt disagreed and said the backpack was located resting under Martin's arm, leading police and the state to believe it belonged to him. He also clarified that there was cocaine found on Martin's person, located in his pocket. Koetters said his client has family residing in Bloomington who would allow the defendant to stay in the area pending trial if released, arguing this reduces the risk of willful flight. He said Martin would abide by court orders including home confinement or pretrial monitoring if ordered by the court. Fitt argued Martin would not abide by court orders, citing his criminal history which dates back to a 2002 Cook County case in which Martin was adjudicated as a juvenile and tried as an adult. Furthermore, Fitt argued since Martin has previously been convicted of a felony and has a history of Illinois Department of Corrections sentences, he never should have been in possession of a firearm in the first place. Fitt argued this proved the defendant would not abide by court orders. Koetters said Martin had spend seven years in custody pending trial for a murder case in which he was acquitted. Because of this experience, Koetters said Martin is fearful to be held in custody for a crime he didn't commit. Ultimately, Yoder agreed with the state and ordered the defendant be detained. The judge noted the defendant's criminal history in making this decision. Martin is set for an arraignment at 9 a.m. Oct. 4. Flash Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday met with Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York. Estonia is an important cooperation partner for China in the Baltic region. Friendly cooperation is the main theme of bilateral relations, which aligns with the shared expectations of both peoples and represents the direction that both sides should continue to pursue, said Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. While China and Estonia have different histories, cultures, environments, and face different challenges, this does not hinder the two countries from strengthening mutually beneficial cooperation to serve the well-being of their people, Wang said, adding it also does not affect their joint efforts to safeguard international peace and security based on respect for the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. China is willing to continuously enhance mutual trust with Estonia, continue to respect each other's legitimate concerns on core interests, and lay a solid political foundation and inject vitality in improving bilateral relations, said Wang. Estonia, as an important member of the European Union, is expected to promote the EU institutions' adherence to free trade, resolve differences through dialogue and consultation, and promote the healthy and stable development of China-EU relations, he said. Tsahkna said Estonia has a long history of exchanges with China and has maintained pragmatic cooperation, clearly upholding the One-China policy. Estonia appreciates China's emphasis on respecting the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter. For a small country like Estonia, international law and international order are as important as nuclear weapons. Estonia pays close attention to the Ukraine crisis, values China's position, and hopes that China will play a constructive role, said Tsahkna. Wang pointed out that China is not a party to the Ukraine crisis, but has always been committed to peace, actively mediating and promoting negotiations to facilitate a political resolution. China's diplomacy is guided by the principles of upholding justice, maintaining fairness, and pursuing peace. For all hotspot issues, China advocates seeking political solutions through dialogue and consultation. The immediate priority in the Ukraine crisis is to de-escalate the situation and prevent the conflict from further expanding, which aligns with the interests of European countries. China will faithfully fulfill its responsibilities as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and continue to contribute to peace, said Wang. It was always inevitable, and now its official: The new era of relentless political intrusion into personal medical decisions is killing women. A state medical review board in Georgia has concluded that the states extreme abortion ban contributed to the deaths of at least two women there in late 2022, shortly after the ban was imposed. Given the relatively small sample of reviewed cases that revealed the two tragedies, its a mathematical certainty that there are many more today. And not just in Georgia. And how is the political party that has created this deadly threat responding? By doubling down on its efforts to not only deny women their right to decide what happens in their own bodies, but to deny voters at large the right to weigh in on the issue at all. Those voters arent helpless. Nov. 5 is around the corner. As recently reported by ProPublica, the two Georgia cases both involved women who had taken abortion pills, the only viable option in the state for women determined to end unwanted pregnancies due to the new ban. Both encountered a rare event in which the fetal tissue failed to be entirely expelled, requiring what would normally be a routine medical intervention. In one of the cases, the woman hesitated to go to the hospital because, as she told her family, she knew the state prohibited virtually any abortion procedure. She died at home. The other woman went into the hospital but was made to wait some 20 hours before doctors finally operated a crucial delay apparently driven by fear of inadvertently violating the states abortion ban. By then, it was too late for her. Those who try to parse the details for fuel to blame the women themselves They shouldnt have taken the medication! They should have sought emergency care sooner! miss the point by miles: Women and doctors facing personal and complex reproductive medical issues should be able to make their decisions based on medical factors, not based on the extremist fervor of a political minority determined to impose its ideology on others. Polls consistently show strong majorities of Americans favor reasonable abortion rights as they existed under Roe. Of the seven states that have put the question to statewide votes since Roe fell, every single one has come down on the side of those rights, including red states such as Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio. In Missouri, the Republicans who have a stranglehold on the states political system are well aware of that dynamic. Which is why they embarked on one shameless legal stunt after another to try to prevent Missourians from being allowed to vote this fall on Amendment 3, which would restore reproductive rights to their state. Among the more recent attempts was from a group of anti-choice activists that included two state legislators, who launched a last-ditch effort to get the question pulled from the ballot on a technicality. The Missouri Supreme Court this month ruled against them. That means the states voters will be allowed at last to decide whether the lives of Missouri women will continue to be put in jeopardy by an abortion ban even more extreme than the one in Georgia. Meanwhile, other GOP efforts to mislead Missouri voters continue. Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft is fighting in court to post in polling places a blatantly false and inflammatory description of what the amendment would do. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley this month falsely told an audience that the measure would mandate constitutionally transgender treatments for minors. It does nothing of the sort. Such is the state of the post-Roe abortion landscape: Republicans are lying while women are dying. Voters in Missouri and other states considering abortion-rights ballot measures on Nov. 5 have the power to reject the lies and protect the women. The University of Media, Arts and Communication (UniMAC) has indefinitely postponed the start of the 2024/2025 academic year due to the ongoing strike by administrative workers unions across public universities in Ghana. The striking groups include the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU), the Senior Staff Association of Universities of Ghana (SSA-UoG), and the Federation of Senior Staff Association of Ghana (FUSSAG). The strike, which commenced on Monday, September 16, 2024, stems from unresolved issues such as the failure of the Controller and Accountant General's Department (CAGD) to implement approved vehicle maintenance and off-campus allowances, despite receiving approval from the Ministry of Finance in August 2024. In a statement issued on Thursday, September 26 2024, UniMAC confirmed that the academic year, initially scheduled to begin on September 30, 2024, will be delayed until further notice. Management deeply regrets any inconvenience this may cause and assures the UniMAC community that we are closely monitoring the situation, the statement added The university confirmed that admission processes for prospective students, short courses and special programmes will continue as scheduled. Source: Graphiconline 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 government should allow stakeholders in the educational space to support the financing of Free Senior High School (SHS) education instead of insisting on exclusively funding it, panelists at the Mfantsipim Old Boys Association (MOBA) Annual Engagement Series have advocated. They said the government should leverage the goodwill of old students of SHSs, religious organisations and companies to support the Free SHS policy and education in general to ensure a sustainable means of funding education. One of the panelists and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana School of Law, Dr Kweku Ainuson, however, said such support should be institutionalised with incentives for those willing to help. I think the government should put its money where its mouth is. There should be tax incentives for us to contribute to education. There are companies willing to help fund education, but there are no incentives, he said. Dr Ainuson said other countries had diversified funding for education, with many educational institutions having endowment funds that had more money through the support from the government. Such endowment funds, he explained, were mostly supported by old students of such institutions, who were willing to donate because of the existing frameworks for their establishments. Fortunately for Ghana, affinity to schools is more at the SHS level, with old students willing to go all out to support their schools. Unfortunately, organising alumni is done at the school level. There are no rules and no encouragement or support from the government, he added. Source: Graphiconline 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 State attorneys have charged Oliver Barker-Vormawor, one of the accused persons in the Democracy Hub case, with stealing. He is one of 13 people charged with multiple counts of conspiracy, unlawful assembly, causing unlawful damage, offensive conduct conducive to the breach of peace, assault on public officer, and defacement of public property. According to the prosecution, Barker-Vormawor in particular was seen forcefully entering the Police towing van and without authorization, turned off the engine and removed the ignition key to the towing van. This action demobilized the Police to tow away the vehicle that the accused persons had used to block the public roads, the prosecution led by Nana Akosua Kusi told the court. The court presided over by Kwabena Kodua Obiri-Yeboah remanded in police custody, the accused persons who have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Remanding the accused person, the court ordered the police to ensure that the accused persons were fed twice daily with adequate medical facilities. Food In their submission for bail, defence counsel argued that their clients were not flight risk, had fixed places of abode, were gainfully employed and had people of substance to stand sureties for them. They further alleged that the police were starving their clients. Opposing the bail application, a state attorney, Nana Akosua Kusi told the court that the police go to the extent of buying the accused person meals from Papaye. The accused persons are being fed, the police go to the extent of buying them Papaye, the state attorney told the court. This was corroborated by Superintendent of Police Sylvester Asare, Head of Legal at the Ghana Police Service who told the court that he supervised the investigative team. When it comes to feeding, budget has been made for feeding. And I personally supervised the distribution of the food, he added. But the defence counsel maintained that their clients were being starved by the police. The state attorney told the court that none of the accused persons had demonstrated to the satisfaction of the court they meet the grounds to be granted bail. Prosecutions facts Narrating the facts of the case, Ms Kusi told the court that on July 9 2024 the Police service received a notice from a group known as "Democracy Hub" informing them of their intention to hold a protest dubbed *#Wetaya #ReoccupyJulorbihouse Demonstration." She added that by that letter, the group requested the police to provide them with security and protection for the intended demonstration. The group, she said indicated that they intended to protest at the Revolutionary Square, opposite the Jubilee House. She added that after several meetings with the Police, the group was advised by the Police to propose an alternative venue as the chosen venue was considered a security zone and likely to affect public order and lead to violence or endanger public defence. By an order of the High Court dated 18" September, 2024, the group was prohibited from embarking on the intended demonstration at the Revolutionary square. The Police thus communicated to the convener of the group and suggested seven different locations to be used for the protest in the interest of public order. The group however rejected the proposed venues and elected to protest at the 37 roundabout which was rejected by the Police, she said. On September 21, 2024 the state attorney said the group embarked on their protest and gathered around the 37-roundabout insisting to proceed to the revolutionary square. She said the Police mounted barricades around the 37 roundabouts in a bid to maintain security and order. The barricades, she disclosed restrained the demonstrators from proceeding to the Revolutionary square. The demonstration suddenly turned chaotic as the accused persons resorted to blocking the major roads with stones and vehicles delaying access at the roundabout. This caused serious traffic within the Liberation Road, the El walk stadium, the Kawukudi road and its environs. This caused significant traffic, delay, inconvenience and annoyance for commuters, she said. The accused persons, Ms Kusi said also pulled down billboards and burnt electoral posters and flags of political parties adding, Again, the suspects forcefully pushed down the police barricade that was used to secure the area obstructing the effort of the police to maintain peace and security. On September 22, she told the court that the accused persons again brought in vehicles to block the major roads. The police quickly moved in to remove the said vehicles for easy flow of traffic for commuters. The accused persons however fiercely resisted the attempt by the Police to tow away the vehicles. 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 A claim that the police have been failing to provide food to members of the Democracy Hub pressure group, that participated in a a street protest at the weekend and were arrested and detained by the police has been rejected in court. In court on Thursday, the prosecution in the trial of 13 members of the Democracy Hub pressure group rejected the claim of not feeding the suspects. Opposing arguments for bail in court on Thursday [Sept 26, 2024] the prosecution, led by Nana Akosua Kusi told the court that the police go to the extent of buying the accused person meals from Papaye. The accused persons are being fed, the police go to the extent of buying them Papaye, the state attorney told the court presided over by Kwabena Kodua Obiri-Yeboah. This was corroborated by Superintendent of Police, Mr Sylvester Asare, who is the Head of Legal at the Ghana Police Service who told the court that he supervised the investigative team. When it comes to feeding, budget has been made for feeding. And I supervised the distribution of the food, he added. But the defence counsel maintained that their clients were being starved by the police. Meanwhile, the court has remanded the 13 accused persons who have pleaded not guilty to six counts of Conspiracy; unlawful assembly; causing unlawful damage; offensive conduct conducive to the breach of peace, assault on public officer, and defacement of public property. The leader of the Democracy Hub, Oliver Barker-Vormawor, is facing an additional charge of stealing and has since pleaded not guilty. The case has been adjourned to October 8 this year. Remanding the accused person, the court ordered the police to ensure that the accused persons were fed twice daily with adequate medical facilities. Source: Graphiconline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The U.S. Ambassador Virginia E. Palmer to Ghana along with the Chief of Naval Staff, Issah Yakubu, and senior officers from the Ghana Navy and the Ghana Armed Forces has visited the Ghana Navy Training Command (NAVTRAC) in the Volta Region to deliver security assistance announced last year. This new equipment and facility, with a value of over 24 million Ghc ($1.5 million), will enhance Ghanas maritime security capabilities. The two 38-foot DEFENDER Class Safe Boats are in addition to the two boats that were delivered last summer to the Ghana Navy Special Boat Squadron. During the ceremony, Ambassador Palmer remarked, The United States takes immense pride in our long-standing partnership with Ghana, a partnership rooted in shared commitments to security, democracy, and prosperity. This ceremony is more than just a handover; it symbolizes our joint efforts to ensure the Ghana Navy is well-equipped to safeguard its waters and sustain these critical assets. The boat storage facility was constructed by Seabees from the United States 22nd Naval Construction Regiment and their 1st, 11th and 133rd battalions working alongside Marines from the Hershel Woody Williams Marine Detachment Engineer Platoon. Source: Isaac Kwame Owusu/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected] Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Flash Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delivers a speech during the General Debate of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN headquarters in New York, on Sept. 26, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua] Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas received a long round of applause as he addressed the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Thursday, insisting that "we will not leave, Palestine is our homeland," and "if anyone were to leave it would be the occupier." He proceeded to accuse Israel of perpetrating a "full-scale war of genocide," dismissing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that Israel didn't kill civilians in Gaza. "I ask you, who is it then that killed more than 15,000 children?" he said. "Stop this crime. Stop it now. Stop killing children and women. Stop the genocide. Stop sending weapons to Israel. This madness cannot continue. The entire world is responsible for what is happening to our people," Abbas said. Sanction and exclusion During his speech, Abbas called on the international community to impose sanctions on Israel and also its exclusion from the United Nations following the "genocide in Gaza." "We call for sanctions against Israel. Israel does not deserve to be part of this organization. I don't know how the United States can insist on depriving us of our rights," Abbas said, adding that Israel must be stripped of United Nations membership for failing to accept a two-state resolution to the conflict and allowing the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes. "We are going to submit an application to the UNGA on this matter," he said. "We regret that the U.S. administration -- the largest democracy in the world -- on three occasions obstructed draft resolutions at the Security Council demanding Israel to observe a ceasefire," Abbas said, accusing the United States of encouraging Israel's military actions by repeatedly using its veto power and supplying Israel with weapons used in the conflict. "This is the United States -- the same country that was the only member in the Security Council that voted against granting the state of Palestine full membership in the UN," Abbas said, expressing disbelief over what he sees as the U.S. consistent opposition to Palestinian statehood and rights. He also touched upon the situation with settlers in the West Bank, specifying that 600,000 settlers currently live there. "We want ICJ (the International Court of Justice) ruling on Israel to be implemented," he noted. Crime and genocide Highlighting that Palestinians have endured nearly a year of what he described as one of the most heinous crimes of the time, the leader said that "it is the crime of a full-scale war of genocide that Israel is perpetrating. A crime that has killed more than 40,000 martyrs in Gaza alone, and thousands remain under the rubble. A crime that has injured more than 100,000 to this day." He pointed out that whole Palestinian families have been annihilated, their family names completely erased, stressing that amid the onslaught, diseases are spreading, clean water and vital medicines are in scarce supply, and over two million Palestinians have been displaced, many forced to flee multiple times in search of safety. The deaths and injuries continue unabated, not only in Gaza but in the West Bank and in Jerusalem. Abbas underscored that he was not speaking today "to respond to the lies" of the Israeli prime minister, who claimed before the U.S. Congress in July that Israeli forces did not kill innocent civilians in Gaza. "I ask you, who is it then that killed more than 15,000 children of the 40,000 and an equal number of women and elderly persons. And who is it then that is continuing to kill them, I ask you?" he said. "Palestine will be free, despite anyone who objects. Our people will live in the land of their fathers and grandfathers ... The occupation will end," concluded Abbas. Strike and ceasefire Right after Abbas, Gambian President Adama Barrow addressed the UNGA that "the Israeli occupation, expansion of settlements, blockade of Gaza, and restrictions in the West Bank, together with the threat of intensifying the war to a regional conflict, continue to worsen the ongoing tensions in the Middle East." "Accordingly, I call on the United Nations, the international community, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Member States to join forces and urgently bring about permanent peace in Palestine," he said, adding that "we call on the international community to prioritize support for the post-conflict reconstruction of Gaza and the improvement of economic conditions in the West Bank. Even though the situation in that region is extremely serious, the intense destruction of lives and property continues." In the meantime, Netanyahu instructed his military to keep fighting "with full force" on Thursday, as high-stakes international diplomatic efforts were underway to pause the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. Netanyahu is heading to New York for the UNGA, as members of his government dismissed a ceasefire proposal that the United States, European allies and several Arab nations put forward. Israel's military carried out new strikes in Lebanon, including one in Beirut, the capital, that targeted the commander of Hezbollah's drone unit. The UNGA adopted a resolution on May 10 supporting the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member and recommending that the Security Council "reconsider the matter favorably." The resolution was adopted with 143 votes in favor and nine against, including the United States and Israel, while 25 countries abstained. China voted for the resolution. The resolution states, "The State of Palestine ... should therefore be admitted to membership" and "recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favorably." The Mo Traditional Council has reacted to alleged tensions with the Nkoranza Traditional Council, following an earlier address by Nana Kwame Baffoe IV, Omanhene of the Nkoranza Traditional Area, and Nana Awiti Kuffour, Chief of Nnwoase in Kintampo. Nana Kwame Baffoe IV had warned guests not to attend the Mo Kingdom's upcoming Pedia/Yam festival, citing an alleged court injunction against Mo leaders. However, the Mo Kingdom, under the leadership of Nana Kwaku Dankwah III, has denied any such injunction exists. Nana Dankwah III at a press conference on Thursday, September 26, 2024, reassured the public that the festival, slated for October 4-6, 2024, will proceed as planned. The event he stressed, is expected to foster unity among the Mo people and support the development of the Mo region, which has long been affected by chieftaincy disputes. The Mo Traditional Council insisted that the festival will take place on Mo territory, specifically at the Presbyterian school park in Kintampo, and not on Nkoranza lands, as claimed by Nana Kwame Baffoe IV. They urged guests to disregard the misleading statements from Nkoranza officials and confirmed that preparations for the festival are well underway. Furthermore, the Mo Kingdom acknowledged a pending legal case related to a chieftaincy dispute but clarified that the filing of an injunction does not prevent a chief from performing their official duties unless they are formally destooled. Nana Dankwah III expressed confidence in the legal process and emphasized the Mo leaderships commitment to moving forward with the festival as planned. This Pedia/Yam festival is seen as a key cultural event for the Mo people, showcasing their rich heritage while promoting peace, unity, and progress within the Mo region. Read details of their press conference below; IN RESPONSE TO A PURPORTED FRIVOLOUS INJUNCTION APPLICATION BY NKORANZA MANHENE * Per the Laws of Ghana, no Chief in Ghana can be stopped or Injuncted whilst performing his legitimate Customary and Traditional rites * His Injunction Application has only been filed but not granted by the court * His Purported Frivolous Injunction Application seeks an Injunction on the celebration of any festival in Kintampo in the Nkoranza Traditional Area. Meanwhile Kintampo is never and can never be under Nkoranza Traditional Area but rather under Mo Traditional Area * Nkoranzahene is estopped by his conduct when he conceded to allocate an entirely different venue for Nana Fanyinama when the latter was prevented by Mo Manhene last year from celebrating his annual Benkadi Festival on Mo Lands * The purported claim by Nana Awiti Kuffour (a sub under Nkoranzahene) that he has a gazette as Kintampohene as far back as 18/05/1979 was rendered impotent, null and void soon after the 1979 constitution which came into effect sometimes in September 1979 and remains impotent under the fourth Republican Constitution as a government recognition is not a precondition for becoming a chief. The authority to appoint is vested in kingmakers in accordance with the customs and practices of the people. We are by this notice making it emphatically clear that, our impending Pedia Yam Festival slated for October 4 to 6 is taking place in Kintampo by the grace of God whether rain or shine. Thanks so much and God bless Mo Traditional Council. Signed ...................... Nana Kwaku Busi GbereYaw II For Mo Manhene Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman/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 Cenpower Generation Ltd (Cenpower), owner of the Kpone Independent Power Plant (KIPP), has successfully held the second edition of its KIPP Clean Project at the SegaBeach on 21st September 2024. This event reaffirms the companys commitment to environmental sustainability through the protection of marine ecosystems. The clean-up event, held at Sega Beach in Kpone, brought together over 200 volunteers, including employees from Cenpower Generation Ltd, Cenpower Operations and Services Ltd.(Cenops), Ecostar Limited and members of the Kpone Katamanso Municipal Assembly (KKMA), as well as local community members. To maximize the collection of waste from the Sega shoreline, the services of Ecozoil, a company with expertise in mechanized beach cleaning and waste management services was also engaged in this years event. The initiative is focused on addressing the persistent issue of plastic and waste pollution along the shoreline of the Sega Beach. During the exercise, a total of over 200 tons of waste, including plastic debris, bottles, and other non-biodegradable materials was collected from the Sega Beach. The KIPP Clean Project is aimed at fostering environmental and social well-being in the Kpone community where Cenpowers operational activities is situated. Speaking at the event, Mr. Samuel Nana Brew-Butler, the Board Chairman of Cenpower, highlighted the companys commitment to sustainability and community engagement. He stated that Our mission goes beyond powering Ghanas future. We are committed to making a lasting, positive impact in our host community, Kpone. For nearly a decade, Cenpower has been a key player in the energy sector, and through initiatives like this, we reaffirm our dedication to environmental sustainability and the well-being of the communities we serve. This project reflects our long-term commitment to being a responsible corporate citizen and a true partner in community development. Mr. Theophilus Sackey, the Chief Executive of Cenpower reiterated the significance of the exercise, saying, This initiative is part of Cenpowers corporate and social responsibility to our community. This project is not only about cleaning a beach; our goal is to build a legacy of care for our environment and engaging with our community in meaningful ways. He added, We are grateful to our stakeholders, including employees and partners, whose invaluable contributions demonstrate the power of collaboration in driving positive change. We hope to inspire others to join us in protecting our natural resources for future generations. Mr. Kwaku Asiedu Larbi, Acting Plant Manager of Cenpower Operations (Cenops), spoke on Cenops' support for the exercise. Supporting the KIPP Clean initiative aligns with Cenops commitment to operational excellence and corporate responsibility. As the operational arm of Cenpower, our responsibility goes beyond energy provision. Itencompasses the well-being of the communities in which we operate. Environmental sustainability is central to our mission, and initiatives like the Sega Beach Clean-Up allows us to actively demonstrate this commitment. Representing the Kpone Katamanso Municipal Assembly (KKMA), Mr. William NuerteyJosiah, Presiding Member, commended Cenpower for its leadership in driving environmental sustainability. We are grateful for Cenpowers initiative and proud to partner with them on this important project. The environmental challenges we face require collective action, and Cenpower is setting a strong example. There is a growing need for more partnerships and greater public awareness to tackle these issues, and this initiative is a step in the right direction. In his closing remarks, Dr. Jimmy Heymann, a Non-Executive Director of Cenpower, thanked all participants for their dedication to making the 2024 edition of the KIPP Clean Project a success. Todays success shows what we can achieve when we come together as a community. We look forward to building on this momentum and continuing to make a meaningful impact for future generations. In addition to the beach clean-up exercise, key executive and management members from Cenpower together with representatives from Cenops and the KKMA took part in a coconut tree planting ceremony along the shoreline. This effort symbolizes Cenpowers commitment to long-term environmental restoration and the enhancement of coastal resilience. The coconut trees will help combat soil erosion, foster biodiversity, and create a sustainable, green coastline for future generations. Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman/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 Electoral Commission of Ghana has officially responded to the petition of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), over their request for a forensic audit of the voter's register. The EC acknowledged that there were errors in the provisional register, but quickly added that errors being found in a provisional register are not alien to the electoral process. The crux of the NDCs petition to the EC is that the discrepancies discovered during the exhibition of the voter register in August 2024, do not make the voter fit for purpose, hence the need for a forensic audit. This was contained in a letter submitted to the EC by the NDC and a follow-up nationwide demonstration on September 17, 2024, to re-echo the call for a forensic audit. The Electoral Commission, however, explains that, as required of them by Regulations 23 and 24 of the Public Elections (Registration of Voters) Regulations, 2016, Constitutional Instrument (C.I.) 91 as amended by C.I. 126, enjoins the Commission to display the PVR at all Polling stations (Exhibition Centres) nationwide to allow for an inspection and revision and correction where necessary, something the Commission did without fail. Excerpts of the ECs response read, Indeed, cognisant of the fact that a PVR is bound to contain discrepancies, C.I. 91, Instituted the of the credible and robust for an election. The register is, thus, displayed in all polling stations (exhibition centres) and via electronic media to allow for inspection and correction where necessary. A response form the EC signed by the Chairperson, Mrs. Jean Mensa revealed that all the concerns raised by the NDC had already been resolved by the Commission. The EC further explained that, there was a call on the NDC to present data on the discrepancies detected during the exhibition exercise, but the NDC failed to produce the data. It is for these reasons that we assured you during our meeting on the 6th of September, 2024 that the category of issues you presented had largely been resolved. We indicated that the issues you had detected were the usual issues that arise from every Registration Exercise which find expression in the PVR, the commission explained. The Commission pointed out that, should the NDC had followed through by providing the EC with the data on the discrepancies detected, the NDC would have realised that there was not need to request for a forensic audit. "As you will recall, there was an agreement that you would provide us with data to allow us to investigate and report back within a week. We believe that had you followed through with this process, you would today, attest to the credibility and integrity of the Register and rescind your call for a forensic audit," Jean Mensa said. Source: Kobina Darlington/peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The National Coordinator of the Ghana School Feeding Program, Hajia Safia Mohammed, has urged all school feeding caterers to actively campaign for Dr. Bawumia to become the next President of Ghana. She emphasized that only an NPP government can ensure a smooth and progressive administration of the school feeding program. Hajia Safia Mohammed highlighted the significant increase in the feeding grant from GH 0.70 per child to GH 1.50 per child since the NPP assumed office, attributing this positive change to President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo. These remarks were made during a courtesy call by the Caterers Association of the School Feeding Program at her office in Accra. She assured the caterers that a Bawumia Presidency would lead to a substantial improvement in the school feeding program and promised that plans were well underway to secure funds to pay them their 3rd term arrears. The leadership of the caterers association commended the National Coordinator for her effective and progressive leadership since taking office. They acknowledged that in the past, caterers associations were seen as pressure groups formed to revolt against the secretariat but expressed their unity behind the secretariat and the government to collaboratively build a better school feeding program. Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman/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 accused the largest opposition National Democratic Congress(NDC) of being the mastermind behind the Democracy Hub protest. Some group of persons hit the streets of 37 Military Hospital days ago to register their displeasure with the government regarding galamsey. The protesters, during their demonstration, blocked major roads leading to the 37 Military Hospital and other areas causing huge gridlock, destroyed party billboards and posters and engaged in other acts of destruction. Their provocation was extended to the Police as their leader, Oliver Baker-Vormawor, stole the keys of a Police vehicle and threw it away. The behavior of the protesters compelled the Police to arrest some of them who are currently facing prosecution. Analyzing the protest during Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" show, the Spokesperson for Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Dr. Gideon Boako stated that the demonstrators were politically influenced by the National Democratic Congress but hid behind galamsey to make Ghanaians think they were demonstrating in their interest. He stressed, in reality, it was all aimed at making the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government unpopular so the NDC wins the election. "If you are doing demonstration against galamsey, why do you burn NPP properties?", he queried and answered; "It means you have a special target against the NPP. So, it is political. So, let no Ghanaian sit down and be deceived by NDC's latent attempt to cause a bad image for the government." He added, "All these people who led the demonstration, we know them. Oliver Baker-Vormawor, typical NDC boy; who doesn't know him?...All these people hold positions in the NDC. If you like, let us go into the election and, perish the thought, NDC wins the election, Oliver Baker-Vormawor and all these people leading the demonstration will be given positions in NDC government." Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/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 Vice President and flagbearer of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has sent strong signal of his determination to win the presidential election as his campaign continues to gain momentum. An essential feature of the Bawumia campaign is he personally interacting with people at their homes, markets and on the streets. Since he was elected NPP presidential candidate, the Vice President hasnt for once backed down on engaging the grassroots. He ensures that he goes down to the people to seek their mandate to become Ghanas next President. In his latest round of campaign, Dr. Bawumia has been focused on a "meet and greet" campaign where he makes surprised appearances at shops, offices, markets, lorry parks and on the streets to interact with people. Dr. Bawumia started his Western Regional campaign tour on Thursday, September 26. He stepped up his street-to-street campaign with a renewed energy beginning at Daboase Junction in the Region. To the amazement of commuters and residents, Dr. Bawumia, as usual, exhibited humbleness towards them and exchanged pleasantries with every person he encountered at the vicinity. He did same in Daboase and Shama townships, walking into the markets, shops and lorry parks to have one on one sessions with drivers, traders and commuters. He continued his tour to Ahanta West engaging in rigorous street campaign at Apowa and Agona Nkwanta lorry parks. Remarkably, Dr. Bawumia shows no signs of tiredness as he, at all occasions, walks for over 30 minutes even defying the rains to meet the people which tells of his readiness, seriousness and commitment to move Ghana forward. 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 Ghanaian highlife and Afrobeats artiste, Kelvynboy, has spoken about the attempts he has made to patch up his differences with Stonebwoy. Speaking to Andy Dosty on Daybreak Hitz, he said "I've been trying for years. It is not the first thing I think about when I wake up from bed but when it comes to my issue with Stonebwoy, I wish we thrashed it out." Any time, we've tried I don't think he's ready. But me, I dey, he noted. In 2019, Stonebwoy severed his work relationship with Kelvynboy after the latter had been signed to the Burniton Music Group. A press release from Stonebwoy's Burniton Music Group that announced the separation stated that "Mr Kelvin Brown (Kelvyn Boy) and the Company entered into an agreement dated January 22, 2018, which, to a large extent, governed the relationship between both parties (the Agreement). The Agreement had an initial term of one (1) year, and provided the Company with an option to extend the tenure for a further period of four (4) years (the Option)." It further indicated that the contract extension period under the Agreement did not take effect after the Agreement expired on January 21, 2019. "The above notwithstanding, the Company has continued to work with Kelvyn Boy until now under the terms of the Agreement. Following the audit, the Company has considered the expired status of the Agreement as well as the conduct of Kelvyn Boy during its tenure and has decided not to trigger the Option. Consequently, the Company has decided to release Kelvyn Boy from the Agreement and he has been duly notified of this decision. Accordingly, Kelvyn Boy ceases to be an artiste under the Company and will no longer be associated with the Company and/or the BHIM Nation brand. We wish him success in his future endeavours," the record label noted. Before that, Kelvynboy had apologized to Stonebwoy after the latter had complained that the 'Sugarcane' hitmaker had disrespected him. After the separation, Kelvynboy released hit songs and albums, invading foreign music industries and chalking huge successes. At the moment, he is out with a new song titled 'Man Down' which features Lasmid. Source: Graphiconline Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: CC0 Public Domain Earth will capture a miniature, "second moon" this week, according to NASA scientists. The new moon is actually a tiny asteroid dubbed 2024 PT5. It will start orbiting the planet in a horseshoe path and stick around for a little less than two months before escaping Earth's gravitational pull and going back to its regular orbit around the sun. "According to the latest data available from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Horizons System, the temporary capture will start at 15:54 EDT (on Sunday) and will end at 11:43 EDT on November 25," mini-moon event expert and Universidad Complutense de Madrid professor Carlos de la Fuente Marcos told Space.com. 2024 PT5 is part of "the Arjuna asteroid belt, a secondary asteroid belt made of space rocks that follow orbits very similar to that of Earth at an average distance to the sun of about 93 million miles," Marcos said. He added that the asteroid, which poses no threat to the planet, will travel about 2,200 miles per hour while maintaining a distance of around 2.8 million miles from Earth. By comparison, the average distance between the Earth and the moon is 238,855 miles. The moon is also considerably larger, about 2,159 miles in diameter compared to the asteroid's slim 37-foot width. Unlike the moon, 2024 PT5 won't be observable to the casual stargazer because of its size. "The object is too small and dim for typical amateur telescopes and binoculars. However, the object is well within the brightness range of typical telescopes used by professional astronomers," Marcos said. NASA's Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System first spotted the asteroid Aug. 7. Mini-moons have occurred in the past. The 2022 NX1 asteroid joined Earth's orbit in 1981 and 2022, according to BBC News. "This story highlights just how busy our solar system is and how much there is out there that we haven't discovered, because this asteroid was only discovered this year," astronomer and podcaster Dr. Jennifer Millard told BBC News. 2024 New York Daily News. 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: Sensitivity of AGR to tropical MAT over 25-year moving windows (see Materials and Methods) between 1959 and 2020 (T). Credit: Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adl6155 A recent study challenges previous assumptions about the connection between CO in the atmosphere and temperatures in the tropics. Between 1959 and 2011, the CO content in the atmosphere responded twice as strongly to temperatures in the tropics than before. This has often been attributed to increasing droughts in the tropics and to changes in carbon cycle responses caused by climate change. However, the new study conducted by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and Leipzig University suggests that a small number of particularly strong El Nino events could be responsible for this. Their findings are published in the journal Science Advances. Both tropical and non-tropical ecosystems absorb large amounts of carbon that were previously released into the atmosphere through human CO emissions. Globally, land surface ecosystems act as a carbon sink and absorb on average around a third of human CO emissions. These ecosystems are therefore a natural buffer for climate change. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, researchers observed an increased fluctuation in global carbon storage on land, and it appeared that the CO growth rate was particularly sensitive to temperatures in the tropics. Researchers from Jena and Leipzig found that this "doubling" of sensitivity was caused by the increased occurrence of El Nino events in the 1980s and 1990s compared to 19601979. This also includes the extreme El Nino events of 1982/83 and 1997/98. El Nino events cause severe droughts and heat waves in the tropics, which affect plant growth and thus reduce carbon uptake. In times of El Nino, vegetation even releases large amounts of carbon that would otherwise be sequestered in the soil or forests. This causes the CO content in the atmosphere to increase. Schematic process to define the doubling sensitivity event. Credit: Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adl6155 Internal climate variability as the main factor for changes in the carbon cycle The authors of the study emphasize that this CO increase is due to internal climate variability rather than a systematic change in the carbon cycle caused by climate change. "Our results show that this doubling of sensitivity is not necessarily a sign of a fundamental change in the response of the carbon cycle to climate change," says Na Li from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, first author of the study. Instead, it is caused by the combination of extreme El Nino events and their global impact. "Through our work, we were also able to show that this phenomenon is related to the 'slow-in, fast-out' dynamics of the carbon cycle. This means that carbon is only slowly absorbed by ecosystems, but can be suddenly and quickly released again during extreme weather events such as strong El Ninos," explains Professor Ana Bastos from Leipzig University, senior author of the study. The results of this study are important because they highlight uncertainties in future climate projections. To date, it was assumed that a heightened sensitivity of the CO increase to temperatures in the tropics is caused by long-term climate-related changes in the carbon cycle, and thus in the global climate system. However, the study shows that extreme events can cause short-term fluctuations that do not necessarily indicate permanent changes in the carbon cycle. "These new findings could help to develop more precise climate models and reduce the uncertainties in predicting future climate scenarios," says junior professor Dr. Sebastian Sippel from Leipzig University. He also stated that we need to better understand how extreme climate phenomena such as El Nino affect carbon dynamics in order to make more reliable forecasts for the future. More information: Na Li et al, Enhanced global carbon cycle sensitivity to tropical temperature linked to internal climate variability, Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adl6155 Journal information: Science Advances Flash Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib condemned on Thursday Israel's recent military actions along the Lebanese-Israeli border and called for urgent international intervention to prevent the situation from escalating. "We are facing a crisis that threatens Lebanon's very existence. The future of our people and our prosperity is imperiled," said Bou Habib when addressing the 79th United Nations General Assembly. "This is a situation that requires international intervention on an urgent basis before the situation spirals out of control... which will transform into a black hole that will engulf regional, international peace and security," he said. Bou Habib condemned Israel's recent military actions, accusing it of escalating the conflict. "One of the gravest challenges Lebanon currently faces is this increase in aggression. The war has expanded and spilled over into Lebanese regions. We reiterate our warning against this aggression, which will continuously intensify." The foreign minister identified the unresolved issue of occupation, particularly regarding border disputes with Israel, as the root cause of Lebanon's ongoing instability. "So long as the occupation persists, there will be instability and there will be war... we have striven to resolve border disputes with Israel. However, Israel has continuously eluded the issue or disregarded the matter," he said. While underscoring Lebanon's right to defend itself under international law, Bou Habib stressed that the solution to the crisis lies in diplomacy, not war. Bou Habib welcomed a recent declaration of the United States and France which offers a potential path to restoring calm and ensuring stability along Lebanon's borders. He urged all parties involved to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for an end to hostilities between Israel and Lebanon. 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: Floodwaters in Atlanta in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Hurricane Helene knocked out power for millions of customers across the southeast United States on Friday and left at least four dead after it slammed into the Florida coast. As it weakened into a tropical storm, Helene moved inland across Georgia and South Carolina, flooding roads and homes, and officials warned of flash floods and landslides from up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) of rain. "This rainfall will likely result in catastrophic and potentially life-threatening flash and urban flooding, along with significant and record river flooding," the National Hurricane Center said. "Numerous significant landslides are expected in steep terrain across the southern Appalachians." Four people had died from conditions caused by Helene as of early Fridayone in Florida, one in North Carolina and two in Georgia. One person was killed when a sign fell on a highway in coastal Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis said. Two people were killed in Georgia, according to Governor Brian Kemp, with local media reporting the man and woman were killed when their trailer was picked up by a tornado. One person also died in Charlotte, North Carolina when a tree fell on a home, the fire department said. Images on US media showed ripped billboard signs whipping in high winds and sparks flying from power lines. More than 3.4 million homes and businesses were without power across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas on Friday, according to tracking site PowerOutage.us. Homes submerged The storm lost strength rapidly after making landfall on the coast about 30 miles (20 kilometers) south of the Florida state capital Tallahassee as a powerful Category 4 hurricane packing winds of 140 miles per hour. Youtuber Mark Peyton holds a US flag as he poses for his brother Matt Peyton on the shoreline ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Helene in Alligator Point, Florida. In the impact zone, residents had been warned of "unsurvivable" storm surge. Tampa Bay resident Matt Heller told CNN his home had been submerged in four feet (1.2 meters) of water within a half hour of the storm hitting, as he took refuge in a kayak in his flooded living room. "This is definitely the biggest flood we've ever had," he said. President Joe Biden and state authorities had urged people to heed official evacuation warnings before Helene hit, though some chose stay in their homes to wait out the storm. "I am going to hunker down" and ride out the hurricane, said Patrick Riickert, as he did in 2018 when deadly Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 mega storm, blew through the Florida panhandle. He had refused to budge from his small wooden house in Crawfordville, a town of 5,000 people a few miles inland. Most residents had bolted, but Riickert, his wife and five grandchildren were "not going anywhere," the 58-year-old told AFP. Rescue workers were deployed in Lee County on Florida's coast, the sheriff said on X, sharing videos of men in high-vis gear battling against high winds to launch a rescue boat. DeSantis had mobilized the National Guard and ordered thousands of personnel to ready for search and rescue operations, urging residents to take precautions. "We can't control the track of the hurricane, but what you can control is what you can do to put yourself in the best chance to be able to ride this out in a way that's going to be safe," DeSantis said. Georgia's Kemp, in a message of condolences for the two killed by the tornado, urged "all Georgians to brace for further impact from Helene, remain vigilant, and pray for all those affected" in a post on X. Scientists say climate change likely plays a role in the rapid intensification of hurricanes, because there is more energy in warmer oceans for them to feed on. 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: Loops forming when one of the branches reaches the boundary of the systema phenomenon that researchers describe in the recent publication they first noticed in the canal network of the Aurelia jellyfish gastrovascular system. Credit: Stanisaw Zukowski, Laboratoire Matiere et Systemes Complexes, Universite Paris Cite & Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw An international team of researchers described how loops, crucial for the stability of such networks, occur in transport networks found in nature. The researchers observed that when one branch of the network reaches the system's boundary, the interactions between the branches change drastically. Previously repelling branches begin to attract each other, leading to the sudden formation of loops. The findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The process described appears in a surprisingly large number of systemsfrom electrical discharge networks to instabilities in fluid mechanics, to biological transport networks like the canal system in the jellyfish Aurelia aurita. Nature offers us a wide spectrum of spatial, transport networks, from networks of blood vessels in our bodies to electrical discharges in a storm. "Such networks take various shapes," explains Stanislaw Zukowski, a Ph.D. student from the University of Warsaw and Universite Paris Cite and lead author of the publication. "They can have a tree-like geometry, where branches of the network only split and repel each other during growth. In other cases, when branches attract and reconnect during growth, we deal with looping structures." Networks with many loops are widespread in living organisms, where they actively transport oxygen or nutrients and remove metabolic waste products. An important advantage of looping networks is their reduced vulnerability to damage; in networks without loops, the destruction of one branch can cut off all connected branches, whereas, in networks with loops, there is always another connection to the rest of the system. Recently, researchers from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw described the mechanism responsible for the stability of already existing loops. However, the dynamic process leading to their formation remained unclear. How are loops formed? Many transport networks grow in response to a diffusive field, such as the concentration of a substance, the pressure in the system, or the electric potential. The fluxes of such a field are much more easily transported through the branches of the network than through the surrounding medium. This affects the distribution of the field in spacelightning conductors attract electrical discharges precisely because they have lower resistance than the surrounding air. The large difference in resistance between the network and the medium around it leads to competition and repulsion between the branches. However, the attraction of branches in growing networks, leading to loop formation, remained undescribed for a long time. The first attempt to understand the formation of loops in such systems was made a few years ago by the group of Prof. Piotr Szymczak from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw. "We showed that a small difference in resistance between the network and the medium can lead to attraction between growing branches and the formation of loops," says Szymczak. The work led to a joint project, in the form of Zukowski's joint doctorate, carried out in Szymczak's group and that of Annemiek Cornelissen, a researcher at the Laboratoire Matiere et Systemes Complexes. "In our laboratory, we study the morphogenesis of the gastrovascular network in jellyfish. It's a beautiful example of a transport network with many loops," says Cornelissen. "When I saw Annemiek's presentation at a conference in Cambridge a few years ago, I immediately thought that our models might apply to the growth of canals in jellyfish," adds Piotr. Breakthrough in loop formation "The formation of loops when one of the branches reaches the boundary of the systema phenomenon we describe in our latest publicationwas first noticed in the network of canals of the jellyfish gastrovascular system," says Zukowski. "Analyzing the development of these canals over time, I noticed that when one of them connects to the jellyfish's stomach (the boundary of the system) then the shorter canals are immediately attracted to it and form loops." The same phenomenon was observed by scientists in gypsum fracture dissolution experiments conducted at the University of Warsaw by Florian Osselin; in the so-called Saffman-Taylor experiment, in which the boundary between two fluids is unstable and transforms into finger-like patterns; and also encountered in the literature on electrical discharge. "The wealth of systems in which we discovered very similar dynamics convinced us that there must be a simple, physical explanation for this phenomenon" says Cornelissen. In their publication, the researchers presented a model describing interactions between branches. They focused on how these interactions change when one of the branches approaches the boundary of the system and a breakthrough occurs. "The competition and repulsion between branches then disappears and attraction appears," explains Stephane Douady. "This inevitably leads to the formation of loops." "Our model predicts that the attraction between neighboring branches after a breakthrough occurs regardless of the geometry of the network or the difference in resistance between the network and the surrounding medium," says Szymczak. "In particular, we showed that near breakthrough loops can form in systems with a very large difference in resistance, which was previously thought to be impossible. This explains why this phenomenon is so prevalent in physical and biological systems." "In cases where the growth mechanisms are still not clear this will be a strong indication that the system dynamics are controlled by diffusive fluxes," adds Zukowski. "We are extremely curious to see in which other systems we will observe loop formation near breakthrough. The team includes researchers from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw, the Laboratoire Matiere et Systemes Complexes, and the Institut des Sciences de la Terre d'Orleans. 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: Papahanaumokuakea Marine Debris Project teams. Credit: Andrew Sullivan-Haskins, PMDP Endangered Hawaiian monk seals and other marine life have benefitted from 25 years of large-scale marine debris removal in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI), according to the cover story in the current issue of Science. Scientists from NOAA Fisheries Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) have been studying the devastating impacts of plastic pollution on marine mammals, sea turtles, fish and coral reefs for more than 40 years. To reduce harm to Hawaiian monk seals, as well as the broader marine ecosystem, large-scale, multi-agency, and multi-partner marine debris removal efforts were initiated to decrease impacts of plastic marine debris, primarily abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear. A team of researchers from PIFSC, the Papahanaumokuakea Marine Debris Project, and the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program (Hawaii Sea Grant) examined Hawaiian monk seal entanglement records spanning more than 40 years, both before and after large-scale removal efforts were initiated, and found a substantial reduction in the rate of entanglement where the debris removal effort was most concentrated. Jason Baker, marine biologist with the NOAA PIFSC Protected Species Division and lead author on the study, said "Now we know that all the hard work and dedication of so many people and organizations that contributed to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands marine debris cleanup did achieve its aim of reducing monk seal entanglement, saving seal lives and improving nearshore habitats." Mary J. Donohue, affiliate faculty with Hawaii Sea Grant and co-author on the study, has spent her career researching the devastating impacts of plastic pollution on marine mammals and coral reefs. In Hawaii she served as chief scientist on the first systematic at-sea expeditions to document, study, and remove marine debris from the NWHI. "We've shown that you can, in fact, clean up at least parts of the ocean, and it can be consequential, particularly for species of conservation or cultural concern," said Donohue. "For lasting solutions we also need to reduce the input of fishing gear that becomes derelict, both from legal and illegal fisheries." The team's work, "Four decades of Hawaiian monk seal entanglement data reveal the benefits of plastic debris removal," is published online in Science. Plastic waste poses a triple threat to living organisms and the environment: the physical material itself, the chemicals associated with it, and disease-causing microorganisms that hitchhike on it. The longevity of plastic waste and its fragmentation results in impacts on multiple scales, from marine mammal entanglement in derelict fishing gear to tissue and cellular interactions with the tiniest nanoplastics. As stated in the paper, "Large-scale and sustained removal of abandoned, lost, or otherwise discarded fishing gear meaningfully benefits marine ecosystems and has the potential to be transformational in restoration efforts." More information: Jason D. Baker et al, Four decades of Hawaiian monk seal entanglement data reveal the benefits of plastic debris removal, Science (2024). DOI: 10.1126/science.ado2834 Journal information: Science This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: New research by Darren Williams, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State Behrend, pictured here, and Michael Zugger, a senior research engineer at the Applied Research Lab at Penn State, offers a new possibility for how the moon formed: a binary-exchange capture as two objects passed near a much-younger Earth. Credit: Penn State Behrend / Penn State. Creative Commons Over six missions to the moon, from 1969 to 1972, Apollo astronauts collected more than 800 pounds of lunar rock and soil. Chemical and isotopic analysis of that material showed that it was similar to the rock and soil on Earth: calcium-rich, basaltic and dating to about 60 million years after the solar system formed. Using that data, the planetary scientists who gathered at the Kona Conference in Hawaii in 1984 came to the consensus that the moon formed from debris after a collision on the young Earth. But that might not be the moon's true origin story, according to two Penn State researchers. New research published in The Planetary Science Journal by Darren Williams, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State Behrend, and Michael Zugger, a senior research engineer at the Applied Research Lab at Penn State, offers another possibility: That the moon was captured during a close encounter between a young Earth and a terrestrial binarythe moon and another rocky object. "The Kona Conference set the narrative for 40 years," Williams said. But questions still lingered. For example, a moon that forms from a planetary collision, taking shape as debris clumps together in a ring, should orbit above the planet's equator. Earth's moon orbits in a different plane. "The moon is more in line with the sun than it is with the Earth's equator," Williams said. In the alternative binary-exchange capture theory, the researchers said, Earth's gravity separated the binary, snagging one of the objectsthe moonand making it a satellite that orbits in its current plane. There is evidence of this happening elsewhere in the solar system, Williams said, pointing to Triton, the largest of Neptune's moons. The reigning hypothesis in the field is that Triton was pulled into orbit from the Kuiper Belt, where 1 of every 10 objects is thought to be a binary. Triton orbits Neptune in a retrograde orbit, moving in the opposite direction of the planet's rotation. Its orbit is also significantly tilted, angled 67 degrees from Neptune's equator. Williams and Zugger determined that Earth could have captured a satellite even larger than the moonan object the size of Mercury or even Marsbut the resulting orbit might not have been stable. The problem is that the "capture" orbitthe one the moon followsbegan as an elongated ellipse, rather than a circle. Over time, influenced by extreme tides, the shape of the orbit changed. "Today, the Earth tide is ahead of the moon," Williams said. "High tide accelerates the orbit. It gives it a pulse, a little bit of boost. Over time, the moon drifts a bit farther away." The effect is reversed if the moon is closer to Earth, as it would have been immediately after capture. By calculating tidal changes and the orbit's size and shape, the researchers determined that the moon's initial elliptical orbit contracted over a timescale of thousands of years. The orbit also became more circular, rounding its path until the lunar spin locked into its orbit around the Earth, as it is today. At that point, Williams said, the tidal evolution likely reversed, and the moon began to gradually drift away. Every year, he said, the moon moves 3 centimeters farther from Earth. At its current distance from Earth239,000 milesthe moon now feels a significant tug from the sun's gravity. "The moon is now so far away that both the sun and Earth are competing for its attention," Williams said. "Both are pulling on it." His calculations show that, mathematically, a binary-exchange captured satellite could behave as Earth's moon does. But he's not certain that's how the moon came to be. "No one knows how the moon was formed," he said. "For the last four decades, we have had one possibility for how it got there. Now, we have two. This opens a treasure trove of new questions and opportunities for further study." More information: Darren M. Williams et al, Forming Massive Terrestrial Satellites through Binary-exchange Capture, The Planetary Science Journal (2024). DOI: 10.3847/PSJ/ad5a9a Journal information: The Planetary Science Journal 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: Percentage of respondents who scored above the middle of the scale on the ESS items concerning populist, nativist, authoritarian, liberal- and social-democracy attitudes, in descending order. Credit: West European Politics (2024). DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2024.2359841 A novel study from the Center for Britain and Europe (CBE) highlights a significant shift in the political landscape of Europe, revealing that populist radical right (PRR) politics is moving from the fringes to the heart of mainstream political discourse. This collaborative research, co-authored by Professor Daniele Albertazzi and visiting postgraduate researcher Mirko Crulli, has been published in the open-access West European Politics journal. Professor Albertazzi, Co-Director of CBE, asserts that the findings challenge the prevailing belief that PRR parties can be overlooked as peripheral entities in European politics. "The radical right is no longer the outsider; it's shaping the core of political debate and is already increasingly taking part in government coalitions across the continent," he stated. The study emphasizes that while nativist and authoritarian values may not have become mainstream yet, the rise of populism has undeniably altered our understanding of what mainstream politics entails. "Populism has become a defining feature of contemporary politics, influencing party strategies and ideologies across Europe," Professor Albertazzi explained. This research not only underscores the evolving nature of political norms in Europe but also showcases the CBE's commitment to fostering opportunities for junior scholars. Mirko Crulli's contribution and collaboration as a visiting postgraduate researcher in 2022 exemplifies the CBE's role in supporting emerging voices in political research. As PRR ideologies continue to integrate into mainstream parties, the implications for democracy in Europe are profound. The study calls for a reassessment of how political entities engage with the public and each other in this rapidly changing environment. More information: Mirko Crulli et al, The 'mainstream' in contemporary Europe: a bi-dimensional and operationalisable conceptualisation, West European Politics (2024). DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2024.2359841 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: About two million years after the formation of the Solar System, the first carbonaceous chondrites made of dust, chondrules, early condensates and iron-nickel grains agglomerated outside the orbit of the still young Jupiter. About two million years later, the CI chondrites were formed by photoevaporation. They incorporated a particularly large number of iron-nickel grains. Credit: MPS (Fridolin Spitzer) Asteroid Ryugu possibly did not travel as far from its place of origin to its current near-Earth orbit as previously assumed. New research published in the journal Science Advances suggests that Ryugu was formed near Jupiter. Earlier studies had pointed to an origin beyond the orbit of Saturn. Four years ago, the Japanese space probe Hayabusa 2 brought samples of Ryugu back to Earth. Researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for solar system Research (MPS) in Germany have now compared which types of nickel are found in these samples as well as in typical carbon-rich meteorites. The results show an alternative to previous ideas about the birthplaces of these bodies: different carbon-rich asteroids may have formed in the same region close to Jupiteralbeit partly through different processes and around two million years apart. Since December 2020, when the samples of the asteroid Ryugu were brought back to Earth, the few grams of material have been through quite a lot. After initial examinations in Japan, some of the tiny, jet-black grains traveled to research facilities around the world. There they were measured, weighed, chemically analyzed and exposed to infrared, X-ray and synchroton radiation, among other things. At the MPS, researchers examine the ratios of certain metal isotopes in the samples, as in the current study. Scientists refer to isotopes as variants of the same element that differ only in the number of neutrons in the nucleus. Investigations of this kind can help to understand where in the solar system Ryugu was formed. Ryugu's journey through the solar system Ryugu is a near-Earth asteroid. Its orbit around the sun crosses that of Earth (without risk of collision). However, researchers assume that, like other near-Earth asteroids, Ryugu is not native to the inner solar system, but traveled there from the asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The actual birthplaces of the asteroid belt population are probably even further away from the sun, outside the orbit of Jupiter. Ryugu's "family relations" can help shed light on its origin and further evolution. To what degree does Ryugu resemble the representatives of well-known classes of meteorites? These are fragments of asteroids that have made their way from space to Earth. Investigations in recent years have yielded a surprise: Ryugu fits into the large crowd of carbon-rich meteorites, the carbonaceous chondrites, as expected. However, detailed studies of its composition assign it to a rare group: the so-called CI chondrites. These are also known as Ivuna-type chondrites, named after the Tanzanian location where their best-known representative was found. In addition to the Ivuna chondrite itself, only eight others of these exotic specimens have been discovered to date. As their chemical composition is similar to that of the sun, they are considered to be particularly pristine material that was formed at the outermost edge of the solar system. "So far, we had assumed that Ryugu's place of origin is also outside Saturn's orbit," explains MPS scientist Dr. Timo Hopp, co-author of the current study, who has already led earlier investigations into Ryugu's isotopic composition. The latest analyses by the Gottingen scientists now paint a different picture. For the first time, the team has investigated the ratios of nickel isotopes in four samples of the asteroid Ryugu and six samples of carbonaceous chondrites. The results confirm the close relationship between Ryugu and the CI chondrites. However, the idea of a common birthplace at the edge of the solar system is no longer compelling. A missing ingredient What had happened? Until now, researchers had understood carbonaceous chondrites as mixtures of three "ingredients" that can even be seen with the naked eye in cross-sections. Embedded in fine-grained rock, round, millimeter-sized inclusions as well as smaller, irregularly shaped inclusions are densely packed together. The irregular inclusions are the first material to have condensed into solid clumps in the hot gas disk that once orbited the sun. The round silicate-rich chondrules formed later. Until now, researchers have attributed differences in the isotopic composition between CI chondrites and other groups of carbonaceous chondrites to different mixing ratios of these three ingredients. CI chondrites, for example, consist predominantly of fine-grained rock, while their siblings are significantly richer in inclusions. However, as the team describes in the current publication, the results of the nickel measurements do not fit into this scheme. The researchers' calculations now show that their measurements can only be explained by a fourth ingredient: tiny iron-nickel grains, which must also have accumulated during the formation of the asteroids. In the case of Ryugu and the CI chondrites, this process must have been particularly efficient. "Completely different processes must have been at work in the formation of Ryugu and the CI chondrites on the one hand and the other groups of carbonaceous chondrites on the other," says Fridolin Spitzer from the MPS, first author of the new study, summarizing the basic idea. According to the researchers, the first carbonaceous chondrites began to form around two million years after the formation of the solar system. Attracted by the gravitational force of the still young sun, dust and the first solid clumps made their way from the outer edge of the gas and dust disk into the inner solar system, but encountered an obstacle along the way: the newly forming Jupiter. Outside its orbit, the heavier and larger clumps in particular accumulatedand thus grew into carbonaceous chondrites with their many inclusions. Towards the end of this development, after around two million years, another process gained the upper hand: under the influence of the sun, the original gas gradually evaporated outside Jupiter's orbit, leading to the accumulation of primarily dust and iron-nickel grains. This led to the birth of the CI chondrites. "The results surprised us very much. We had to completely rethinknot only with regard to Ryugu, but also with regard to the entire group of CI chondrites," says Dr. Christoph Burkhard from the MPS. The CI chondrites no longer appear as distant, somewhat exotic relatives of the other carbonaceous chondrites from the outermost edge of the solar system, but rather as younger siblings that may have formed in the same region, but through a different process and later. "The current study shows how crucial laboratory investigations can be in deciphering the formation history of our solar system," says Prof. Dr. Thorsten Kleine, Director of the Department of Planetary Sciences at the MPS and co-author of the study. More information: Fridolin Spitzer et al, The Ni isotopic composition of Ryugu reveals a common accretion region for carbonaceous chondrites, Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adp2426. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adp2426 Journal information: Science Advances This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The proportion of annotated compound classes detected in agricultural field soil between 2019 and 2021. Credit: Scientific Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-70873-x Maintaining soil health is crucial for sustainable agriculture. Recently, soil volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have emerged as promising indicators for assessing soil health. A new study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of soil VOC profiles as indicators of soil health in soybean fields. Over the past three years, a research team led by University of Tsukuba conducted a comprehensive analysis of soil volatile organic compound (VOC) profiles in soybean fields in Fukushima Prefecture to assess their potential as indicators of soil health. These samples, which exhibited diverse soil conditions, were analyzed for VOC content in conjunction with data on soil physical properties, soil metabolome, soil ionome, and soil microbiome as well as rhizosphere chemicals and root microbiome to provide a comprehensive soil health assessment. The results are published in the journal Scientific Reports. For the first time globally, the analysis revealed that soil VOC levels increased during the soybean flowering period. Furthermore, the soil VOC profiles exhibited a strong correlation with soil-related omics datasets (soil ionome, soil microbiome, soil metabolome, and soil physical properties) but not with the rhizosphere chemicals and root microbiome datasets obtained from soybean-growing fields. The findings of this study indicate that soil VOC profiles can function as reliable indicators for evaluating soil health in agricultural environments. More information: Hikari Kuchikata et al, Soil volatilomics uncovers tight linkage between soybean presence and soil omics profiles in agricultural fields, Scientific Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-70873-x Journal information: Scientific Reports This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Scientific Development Squadron ONE (VXS) 1 takes to the skies to deploy observational buoys in front of Hurricane Helene's projected path on Tuesday, Sept. 24 providing real-time forecasts to the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP) Hurricane Coastal Impacts (NHCI) team for timely prediction and operational readiness. Planned deployment sites depicted above are where the team dropped 29 buoys in the Gulf of Mexico along the Florida and Alabama coastline this week ahead of Hurricane Helene. Credit: U.S. Navy photo by AWF1 Gapinski U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Scientific Development Squadron ONE (VXS) 1 takes to the skies to deploy observational buoys in front of Hurricane Helene's projected path on Tuesday, Sept. 24 providing real-time forecasts to the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP) Hurricane Coastal Impacts (NHCI) team for timely prediction and operational readiness. "This is the second gulf hurricane the Warlocks have flown on in two weeks and the most buoys we have ever dropped on a NHCI mission," said Scientific Development Squadron ONE (VXS) 1 Commanding Officer Cmdr. Aaron Roberts. "We just finished showcasing the mission at the Oceana Airshow before flying on Helene. I am impressed by my team's ability to adapt to the unpredictable and rapidly developing hurricanes this year." During the 7.8 hour flight, the team dropped 29 buoys in the Gulf of Mexico along the Florida and Alabama coastline. Four different variations of buoys were used for data collection, including four submersibles, six spotters, three Directional Wave Spectra Drifters, and three Surface Wave Instrument Floats with Tracking. "The array of air-deployed drifting buoys and submersible instruments was designed by the NHCI team, including scientists from the Marine Meteorology Division who provided real-time forecasts from NRL's Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System for Tropical Cyclones, or COAMPS-TC, and insight into the observing strategy for Hurricane Helene," said James Doyle, Ph.D., Senior Scientist for Mesoscale Meteorology from the Marine Meteorology Division. COAMPS-TC is a specialized version of the Navy's mesoscale numerical weather prediction model, designed to predict tropical cyclone track, intensity and structure. COAMPS-TC was named the world's most accurate in predicting hurricane strengths during the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season by Jeff Masters, Ph.D., in Yale's August 2020 Climate Connections. The drifting buoys will record the height of the waves and direction the waves are headed, and how these wave characteristics change as Hurricane Helene moves through the array. The submersible instruments will sense water depth to measure the height of the storm surge produced by Helene. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Scientific Development Squadron ONE (VXS) 1 "Warlocks" are on call to deploy environmental observation buoys in advance of hurricanes along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico during throughout June to November hurricane season. From left to right: Commanding Officer Cmdr. Aaron Roberts, Mr. Jacob Davis, Mr. Eric Stackpole, Maintenance Officer Lt. John Leyba, Quality Assurance Officer Lt. Sean Carpenter, First Class Petty Officer (AWF1) Gapinski, First Class Petty Officer (AWF1) Gavin Naughton, Operations Officer Lt. Ben Cumberland and Senior Enlisted Leader Chief Petty Officer (AWFC) Fred Lewis at the top of the stairs. Credit: U.S. Navy photo by AWF1 Gapinski U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Scientific Development Squadron ONE (VXS) 1 takes to the skies to deploy observational buoys in front of Hurricane Helene's projected path on Tuesday, Sept. 24 providing real-time forecasts to the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP) Hurricane Coastal Impacts (NHCI) team for timely prediction and operational readiness. The view from the cockpit of the NP-3C Orion, an all-weather, medium-altitude, long-endurance aircraft as the teams heads towards the Gulf of Mexico to deploy information buoys. From left to right Operations Officer Lt. Ben Cumberland, Senior Enlisted Leader Chief Petty Officer (AWFC) Fred Lewis, and Maintenance Officer Lt. John Leyba. Credit: U.S. Navy photo by AWF1 Gapinski From left to right, First Class Petty Officer (AWF1) Gavin Naughton, Commanding Officer Cmdr. Aaron Roberts, and Quality Assurance Officer Lt. Sean Carpenter from U.S. Naval Research Laboratory's Scientific Development Squadron ONE (VXS) 1. The squadron deployed 29 buoys ahead of Hurricane Helene's landfall including four different variations of buoys used for data collection to include four submersibles, six spotters, three Directional Wave Spectra Drifters, and three Surface Wave Instrument Floats with Tracking. Credit: U.S. Navy photo by AWF1 Gapinski "Understanding how a hurricane interacts with the ocean to generate waves and surge is key to understanding and predicting coastal impacts of land falling hurricanes" said Mesoscale Modeling Section Head (Acting) Jonathan Moskaitis, Ph.D. "The ocean surface waves generated by the hurricane also provide drag on the storm's low-level winds, which is an important feedback to simulate in specialized hurricane prediction models like the Navy's COAMPS model. Observations of waves in the extreme environment of the hurricane inner core will provide unique insight into how account for surface drag in COAMPS-TC." The "Warlocks" of VXS-1 are on call to deploy environmental observation buoys in advance of hurricanes along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico during the June through November hurricane season. The squadron quickly responded Tuesday morning to the rapidly evolving storm conditions of Helene. The aircrew are comprised of Commanding Officer Cmdr. Aaron Roberts, Maintenance Officer Lt. John Leyba, Senior Enlisted Leader Chief Petty Officer (AWFC) Fred Lewis, First Class Petty Officer (AWF1) Cassandra Gapinski, First Class Petty Officer (AWF1) Gavin Naughton, Operations Officer Lt Ben Cumberland, Quality Assurance Officer Lt Sean Carpenter, Project Specialist, Mr. Jacob Davis, and Project Specialist, Mr. Eric Stackpole. 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 male and a female wall lizard lie in physical contact during the experiment, sun-basking on the log associated to a high-quality site. Further, another female lies close to a brick. Lizards were painted numbers for individual identification during behavioural observations. Credit: Javier Abalos A study appearing in Behavioral Ecology shows that in male wall lizards, certain behaviors have a greater influence on the way they resolve territorial disputes than their size and coloration. While darker male wall lizards are more aggressive and often win, their color does not seem to affect how rivals react to them. More than their color and size, the lizards' behavior influences territorial disputes: males use behaviors like hunching up and extending their throat to show they are ready to fight, while foot shakes are used to signal submission and avoid aggression. The international research group that carried out the study included researchers from the University of Valencia in Spain, the Theoretical and Experimental Ecology Station (SETE) in Moulis, France, and the University of Turku in Finland. They observed the social behavior of 180 common wall lizards (Podarcis muralis) kept in artificial enclosures designed for such experiments. "Natural scientists have long been puzzled by the fact that males rarely fight to the death. You might expect competition for limited resources to be fierce, however, animal battle is often more theater than brawl. Aggression is risky, with potential for both opponents to get hurt. Therefore, rivals benefit from resolving their disputes without resorting to harmful fights. This is where signals become crucial," explains researcher Javier Abalos from the University of Valencia. One poorly understood aspect is that, in many species, aggression levels are more strongly associated with the size and signals of the losing party than with the mismatch between both opponents. "One could imagine that weaker individuals would retreat earlier when facing increasingly stronger rivals, while opponents with matching signals would fight longer and escalate aggression. However, time and again we find with different species that the losing party persists until they reach a fixed, self-imposed threshold regardless of their mismatch with the opponent," notes researcher Guillem Perez i de Lanuza from the University of Valencia. The reason for this may lie in the way animals transmit different types of information through different signals during contests. Color patches that become fixed when the animal reaches adulthood, such as the orange chest of a European robin, are good signals if they are linked to stable traits such as body size, strength, and hormone levels. In contrast, behaviors that can be used selectively during interactions seem better suited to communicate more changeable traits, like how motivated an individual is to fight. "Our research compared the impact of these fixed traits and flexible behaviors on the outcome and intensity of lizard contests. We also explored why there often seems to be a mismatch between signals and contest intensity," says researcher Oceane Liehrmann from the University of Turku. Territorial disputes are crucial for the reproductive success of male lizards Springtime in the Pyrenees marks the start of territorial battles among male wall lizards, as they compete fiercely for the best sunbathing spots, crevices for shelter, and bug-rich vegetation. "During these contests, male wall lizards use a fascinating suite of signals, like revealing hidden color patches and performing behavioral displays. Adult malesand some females have UV-blue spots on their belly sides often surrounded by black," says researcher Enrique Font from the University of Valencia. The researchers released nine males and nine females into each of ten experimental enclosures at the Terrestrial Metatron research facility (SETE-Moulis, Caumont, France). Within each enclosure, they created three high-quality sites and three low-quality sites to encourage the male lizards to compete for the best territories. Credit: : Javier Abalos "When males approach each other, they often adopt a raised-body posture, extend their throat, arch their back, and flatten their body. Additionally, they often perform rapid forelimb movements in the air. Interestingly, this is just one of the several distinct types of foot shakes shown by the species, with some being broadcast, some being directed at other lizards, and some at potential predators." In the study, the sites in the artificial enclosures were set up to encourage territorial behavior in male lizards. The researchers placed six wooden pallets in each enclosure and created three high-quality and three low-quality sites by varying the number of rocks, bricks and logs stacked on top of them. During the experiment, there were clear differences in the male and female behavior: 80% of females settled in the high-quality sites, while only 20% of males did the same. The males that occupied these prime spots won more fights, interacted with more females, and fathered more offspring than those in the lower-quality sites. Behavioral displays, such as raised-body postures and foot shakes, were far more decisive than the fixed color patches in determining the contest outcome of male lizards. Interestingly, the researchers found that while male lizards who exhibited more black coloration tended to be more aggressive and prevail in contests, their coloration did not seem to affect how their rivals behaved towards them. "Black coloration was the only fixed trait associated with winning, but its impact was much smaller compared to the effect of behavioral displays. Black coloration seems to be associated with aggression but not with signaling; dark male lizards were always aggressive, even when encountering even darker males," says Abalos. "Interestingly, we found little evidence that the UV-blue patches influenced the contest outcome, despite being associated with bite force and tuned to lizard vision. This raises questions about their roleperhaps they provide categorical information, such as the sex or maturity of the lizard. Such information could help lizards assess the threat posed by potential rivals before any contest even begins." Social interaction of lizards is complex The study found that the behavioral displays affect the outcome of contests by triggering different reactions in opponents. Lizards that used raised-body posture were much more likely to win a contest, chase their rival away, and provoke bites from their opponent. In contrast, foot shakes were linked to a much higher chance of losing, but they also reduced the likelihood of being bitten or chased after retreating. This suggests that raised-body displays and foot shakes serve as threat and appeasement signals that help lizards assess each other's intention to escalate and avoid unnecessary physical conflict," says researcher Alicia Bartolome from the University of Valencia. "The findings of the study have broad implications for our understanding of animal behavior and signaling. They challenge the idea that animal contests are settled based on fixed traits, like color or size. Instead, animals use specific behaviors to assess each other's aggressive intent in real time and retreat when they recognize their opponent is more determined to continue the fight," says Fabien Aubret from SETE. The research group hopes that their study will help change misconceptions about the social lives of lizards, often seen as simple and ruthless creatures. "In nature, lizards often alternate between the roles of resident and intruder as they go about their daily lives. Evolution has given them a sophisticated set of social signals to communicate aggression in context and navigate a complex social environment. This nuanced understanding reveals that lizards are far more sophisticated than we often think, and we are only beginning to uncover the depth of their social communication," concludes Abalos. More information: Javier Abalos et al, Behavioral threat and appeasement signals take precedence over static colors in lizard contests, Behavioral Ecology (2024). DOI: 10.1093/beheco/arae045 Journal information: Behavioral Ecology John Jay Hoffman, a former state attorney general who most recently was Rutgers Universitys chief counsel, is expected to be confirmed Monday as the newest associate justice on the New Jersey Supreme Court after the Senates judiciary committee unanimously approved his nomination Thursday. Hoffman, 59, is slated to replace former Justice Lee Solomon, a Republican who served a decade on the bench and retired last month when he turned 70, the mandatory retirement age for judges in New Jersey. I could never have imagined in my life that I would have the opportunity to serve my state in one of its most respected and challenging jobs, Hoffman told committee members during a 10-minute speech Thursday at the Statehouse in Trenton. Hoffman discussed his long career in public service, which started in Washington, D.C., where he was a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice. He joined the U.S. Attorneys Office in Trenton in 2004, and he called that job in which he prosecuted violent and white-collar crime his most formative. There, he said, he learned that justice was not measured by a statistic, and justice was not measured by a conviction. Rather, it was measured by doing what was right and what was fair. It was here that I gained a healthy appreciation for a principle that must be a guiding light for any judge, especially one who sits on this most esteemed court, he added. Our system not only survives, but thrives, if we respect the separation of powers in government that we rely upon to check and to balance the power and the authority in our democracy. In 2010, Hoffman joined the state comptrollers office to serve as its director of investigations. He moved in 2012 to the state attorney generals office as executive assistant attorney general, and a year later, then-Gov. Chris Christie named him acting attorney general, a post he held until 2016. Since then, he has worked at Rutgers. Galloway Township to restart its foreclosure program for non-taxpayers Galloway Township will soon restart its foreclosure program for people who own property in the municipality who failed to pay their taxes. Murphy announced Hoffman as his nominee in June, calling him a pillar of New Jerseys legal community. Hes the fifth person Murphy has nominated to the states top court since he became governor in 2018. As acting attorney general, Murphy said, Hoffman fought the opioid crisis, reformed procedures for investigating police-involved shootings, and mandated the use of body-worn cameras by state police. Thursday, Hoffman sailed through his confirmation hearing with none of the confrontational questions or pushback endured by some other state Supreme Court nominees. Justice Rachel Wainer Apter, a Democrat, faced two hours of testy questioning in 2022 before the panel approved her in a vote split largely along party lines. Committee members gushed about Hoffmans accomplishments and applauded his nomination. They noted his humanity, impeccable credentials, and charity work. After his son, Johnny, was diagnosed with leukemia at age 11 in 2021, the boy started a foundation bringing blankets to sick kids in hospitals. Johnny who Hoffman called my idol, my hero accompanied his father to Thursdays hearing and sat smiling behind him, along with Hoffmans wife, Mary Jude, daughter, Maggie, and father, John A. Hoffman, senior partner at Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer. Were very fortunate to have you to be nominated to be an associate justice on the Supreme Court, somebody with your experience, somebody with your character, said Sen. Brian Stack (D-Hudson), the committees chair. Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Union) called Hoffman an excellent pick who has a deep concern for mankind. John Hoffman is a sensitive human being, a person who, and you can see he is, has that emotion, Bramnick said. We have a candidate with the intellect, the experience, the sensitivity, and the ethics needed to be a Supreme Court justice. NJ high court will hear reporters challenge to law meant to protect public workers New Jersey's high court will weigh whether a law shielding addresses of judges and others tramples First Amendment protections. The full Senate is expected to confirm Hoffman at a voting session scheduled for noon Monday. This story first appeared on the New Jersey Monitor. Moline was awarded $11.5 million from the Defense Community Infrastructure Program to make needed repairs on the 16th Street bridge to the Rock Island Arsenal. According to a city press release, the project will replace the current bridge deck and parapets with modern updates. Beams, beam bearings and seats will all be rehabilitated, and new street lighting will also be installed. The project will ensure that large vehicles, such as emergency vehicles, can access the military installation, assisting critical readiness at the Arsenal. City staff and elected officials, Rock Island Arsenal leaders, and federal elected representatives all expressed their appreciation and support of the award. This grant will provide all the funding necessary to replace the critical 16th Street Viaduct bridge to 14th Street at no cost to Moline; something we did not dream of three years ago while planning the capital improvement plan. The city has built a close relationship with the US military on the Rock Island Arsenal and this project will continue to support this most significant employer in Moline and the greater Quad-Cities, Moline City Administrator Bob Vitas said in the release. Defense Community Infrastructure Program grants are competitive awards, that, among other things, are designed to address community infrastructure that deficiencies in community infrastructure, supportive of a military installation, to enhance military value, installation resilience and military family quality of life. The grant provides full funding for the needed repairs. Work is expected to begin in August 2025, with an anticipated completion date of December 2026. The viaduct will be closed to traffic during the construction. Two Trapper Creek Job Corps students are facing charges related to an alleged sexual assault that apparently took place at the Darby Job Corps facility last week. Kodiak Mashkiki Selt Hoskins, 18, of Washington, was charged with felony sexual intercourse without consent in Ravalli County Justice Court on Tuesday, Sept. 24. Kaden Anthony Canono, 19, from Colorado, was charged with a lesser count of misdemeanor sexual assault in Ravalli County Justice Court on Tuesday, Sept. 24. According to court documents, a deputy from the Ravalli County Sherriff's Office responded to Trapper Creek Job Corps near Darby on Sept. 20. after a student at the facility reported that they had been sexually assaulted in their bunkroom by two other students. The student first reported the incident to a staff member the night the alleged assault occurred. The student who reported the assault told law enforcement that they had been rough-housing in the bunkroom with Hoskins and Canono prior to the incident. The student also reported being called gay and a pedophile by Hoskins and Canono. Hoskins bail was set at $7,500. Canonos bond was set at $585. Built in 1939, this stately and charming duplex, located in one of the city's most desirable Northside neighborhoods, is an investor's dream home. The current owners are generating income by using both two-bedroom units as Air BnB destinations, and have currently made it available for a 1 month short-term rental, and the unit that was made availalbe rented immediatey. Located just a mile from the exciting new Diamond District, as well as the popular Scott's Addition, this property offers the prospects of even greater income potential in the near future. Combined, this versatile duplex offers 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and 2092 square feet. As you approach the home, you'll be greeted by a charming brick walkway leading from the sidewalk to the welcoming front stoop. Inside, the first floor features a cozy family room (leading to a side deck), with a fireplace and ceiling fan, a dining room, perfect for gatherings, and a kitchen with gas cooking, a refrigerator, and access to the rear deck. The upstairs unit virtually mirrors that of the first floor. An HVAC system downstairs and two mini-split heating/cooling systems plus a window air conditioner in the upper unit ensure comfort and convenience on each level. This lovely property is situated on a large lot and offers a beautiful backyard offering an oasis-like area in which to enjoy an early morning cup of coffee or the gentle breezes in the late afternoon. The backyard also offers a privacy fence. There is also an unfinished basement, which is accessible through the foyer as well as a separate entrance in the backyard. The basement has a rough-in for a bathroom, a mini kitchen, and potentially one bedroom to provide additional income. Parking is easy with both off-street and on-street options available. Don't miss out on this unique opportunityschedule a showing today to experience all that 2938 Northumberland Ave has to offer! View More The remnants of the powerful system that caused extensive flooding and damage across the southeast U.S. churned northward Friday, triggering widespread power outages across western and central Virginia. Weakened from hurricane strength overnight, Tropical Storm Helene also touched off multiple flood and tornado warnings across the state. Gov. Glenn Youngkin said Friday the storm had caused at least one death in the state, from a tree fall in Craig County, northwest of Roanoke. Youngkin also said there had been 50 swift water rescues so far, mostly in Southwest Virginia. High winds slowed helicopter rescue operations earlier in the day, but as the winds eased, helicopters were able to retrieved people from danger, especially around the town of Damascus. Meanwhile, just across the state line in Tennessee, Virginia State Police helicopters helped evacuate approximately 54 patients from the roof of Unicoi County Hospital. Dramatic video posted to Facebook by VSP showed helicopters hovering above the hospital surrounded by water with patients on the roof. #VirginiaStatePolice aviation units out of Abingdon are currently assisting with rescues at the Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, TN. 58 patients and staff have been trapped on the roof by flooding. pic.twitter.com/zYwqJMwki7 VA State Police (@VSPPIO) September 27, 2024 The National Weather Service in Blacksburg issued about a half-dozen tornado warnings on Friday. An apparent tornado hit the Dry Fork area of Pittsylvania County on Friday afternoon. Fire and rescue crews reported multiple roads blocked by downed trees. The governor said flooding has been severe in the New River Valley, and there have been five voluntary evacuation orders in the city of Salem and the counties of Augusta, Giles, Pulaski and Wythe. Earlier, Youngkin told The Times-Dispatch that new technology provided real-time monitoring of flood gauges, which allowed state and local officials to position themselves in flood-prone areas and help people before rising waters started closing roads. Youngkin said the storm and flooding remain a risk. He urged Virginians who live in flood-prone areas to seek higher ground, and he also asked residents to keep off the roads if they do not need to travel. Quieter weather near Richmond At the State Fair of Virginia in Doswell, light showers fell on tents and displays Friday morning, the first day of the annual event. The soggy conditions didnt stop crowds from turning out. Were not concerned about the weather, said Paul Carey, from Montpelier, while enjoying some ribbon fries. 1204pm: Current radar shows steady rain moving into areas west of I-95. We will continue to monitor the cells moving north out of NC for any tornadic potential over the next few hours. #vawx pic.twitter.com/6gIPcqoB6C NWS Wakefield (@NWSWakefieldVA) September 27, 2024 It always rains at the fair, his wife, Alesia, added. Karen Ray and her mother, Janice Keaton, both from Bumpass, braved the calls for rain on Friday with Karens kids, age 5 and 3. My 5-year-old loves the fair. He counts down to it every year, Ray said. Weve sat through the rain all day once at the rodeo, Keaton added. This isnt our first time dealing with a little bad weather. The grey skies at the fairgrounds were in contrast to the dangerous conditions in other parts of the state as Helene moved through. Gusts of up to 50 mph downed trees in Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee overnight Friday, with more than 5 inches of rain falling in about 48 hours, according to the National Weather Service office in Morristown, Tennessee. Ballad Health postponed all elective surgeries, including those in Southwest Virginia, northwest North Carolina and southeast Kentucky. Some of its clinics and urgent care offices also were closed. Stormwater and travel delays In Charlottesville, a makeshift pump station was being used to remove massive amounts of stormwater. A Jan. 9 storm damaged the Rivanna Pump Station near Moores Creek south of the city. The system was designed to pump up to 50 million gallons of wastewater a day, and it has been doing that, said Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority spokeswoman Betsy Nemeth. Richmond International Airport also reported multiple delays, as airlines canceled flights in the wake of the storm. The biggest delays involved the airports in Charlotte, North Carolina; Atlanta; and Tampa, Florida. Youngkin declared a state of emergency in advance of the storm, which crashed onto the Florida Panhandle late Thursday with sustained winds of up to 140 mph, before barreling through Georgia and the Carolinas. Multiple deaths have been reported. Thousands without power in wake of Tropical Storm Helene Widespread power outages, flash flooding and downed trees marked the path of Tropical Storm Helene, which passed through this region Friday morning. Abi Youngk and Jessica Gillis visited the State Fair with their young kids in tow on Friday and said they were keeping an eye on the forecast. My sisters in South Carolina, and they got hit really hard. Lots of trees down. They had to stay at a hotel, Youngk said. Im not worried about it here. I think well just get rain. Im more worried about travel. We were supposed to go to Georgia tomorrow, but now were not because of the hurricane, Gillis said. Concerning rain volume AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter said the volume of rain is especially concerning in certain areas. Extreme rainfall rates of 2-4 inches an hour can quickly cause life-threatening flash flooding in the mountainous terrain in parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina, he said. Some locations in the highest terrain could see as much as 36 inches of rainfall. This is an extremely dangerous situation. Helene is expected to dissipate over Kentucky and southern Indiana through the weekend. The forecast for the Richmond area calls for mostly sunny skies and a high of 84 degrees for Saturday, according to the weather service. No schedule changes have been announced for the Richmond Folk Festival or the State Fair of Virginia. Sunday has a 30% chance of showers and a high of 82 degrees expected. Thousands across Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee were in the dark Friday in the wake of widespread power outages while travel was impacted by downed trees and flood waters caused by Tropical Storm Helene. Packing wind gusts over 50 mph in some areas and driving rain showers, Helene roared through this region early Friday bringing down trees, closing roads and knocking down power lines. The greater Tri-Cities region received more than five inches of rain over the past 48 hours, according to the National Weather Service office in Morristown, Tennessee. Appalachian Power reported over 250,000 customer outages at midday Friday stretching from Duffield and Hurley in the west to east of Lynchburg, plus its Tennessee service area in Kingsport and Sullivan County. In far Southwest, outages were greatest in Russell, Scott, Smyth and Washington counties in Virginia plus Sullivan and Hawkins counties in Tennessee. BVU Authority reported about 1,500 customers were without power Friday morning at the storms peak, according to Chris Hall, customer operations and IT director. About 70% were in four large outages. We are currently addressing outages ranging from a few hundred customers to individual service locations. Due to the number of outages, no estimated restoration times will be provided at this time. We are prioritizing outages based on safety and community impact with the safest and fastest possible response times, Hall said in an email. We are focusing first on identifying and securing any downed power lines. Please assume all downed lines are energized and dangerous and consider any objects in contact with them as hazardous. We encourage the public to report any downed lines immediately to BVU Authority or local emergency authorities, Hall said. We appreciate patience and understanding as we work diligently to maintain and restore services. Bristol Tennessee Essential Services reported about 2,700 customers without power at midday Friday. Our crews are working to restore services as quickly as possible. We appreciate your patience as our employees fight strong winds and heavy rains to make repairs, according to a BTES social media post. Some customers may not have power restored until Saturday, according to the provider. Downed trees and flooding also impacted travel across Southwest Virginia, according to Michelle Earl of the Virginia Department of Transportation. Since Thursday, we've had over 200 call outs for downed trees. Crews are working to move those items to the shoulder and will return in the coming days to take care of the debris located on the shoulder, Earl said. At midday Friday, U.S. Route 11 in Smyth County was closed due to high water near Atkins Elementary School; Route 16 in Smyth County near the Grayson County line had one lane open due to flooding; and Route 21 near the Wythe/Grayson County line was closed due to a slide. VDOTs interstate maintenance team was working to help clear multiple crashes on Interstate 81 on Friday morning. Crews will be out this weekend working on any needed repairs and removing debris. Motorists should pay close attention to signs warning of highway workers as well as any high-water signs turn around don't drown, Earl said. Washington County Virginia declared a local emergency Friday morning, citing widespread flooding and downed trees. It closed all its solid waste stations and the government center, which also halted early voting for the day and urged residents to stay home. Ballad Health temporarily closed Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin due to power outages and rising flood waters and transferred its 11 patients to other facilities. Elective surgeries scheduled Friday were postponed and several area clinics and urgent care offices closed due to the weather. As a former state legislator, former member of the George Mason University Board of Visitors and current professor of practice at the Schar School of Government and Policy at George Mason, I bring a unique perspective to the ongoing debate over the role of Virginias public university governing boards. Recent exchanges at Inside Higher Ed, an online publication, have underscored the complexity of these discussions. Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares recently argued that boards have a paramount duty to serve the interests of the commonwealth and he is correct. However, the increasing politicization of these roles raises significant concerns, as explored in an earlier Inside Higher Ed article, The Politicized Governing Board." Such politicization threatens the independence and integrity of higher education, a challenge that requires thoughtful navigation to preserve the mission of our public institutions. Governing, not rubber-stamping Historically, many members of Virginias boards of visitors have approached their roles more as visitors than as active governors. Too often, they simply attended quarterly meetings, enjoyed campus events and rubber-stamped the university presidents agenda, failing to engage fully in their governance responsibilities. The reality is that these boards are meant to be more than ceremonial bodies; they are charged with steering the university in alignment with both the institutions mission and the broader interests of the state. However, this governance must not devolve into political puppetry. Board members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the General Assembly, but their duty is not to act as political agents or to advance the governors agenda or ideology. They are trustees of the university, and their foremost obligation is to the public it serves. Virginias public universities are not partisan tools; they are pillars of education and research that must remain impartial to fulfill their missions effectively. Genuine oversight and reform To ensure boards fulfill their intended roles, the General Assembly must be more active in vetting and confirming board appointees. The current process often falls short, allowing political considerations to outweigh qualifications and genuine interest in higher education. Appointments should be based on a demonstrated commitment to the university and an understanding of the complex challenges facing higher education today. Furthermore, changing how we reference members from boards of visitors to boards of governors could reinforce the shift from passive participation to active governance. Training is another critical area in need of reform. Currently, board members undergo a basic one-day orientation, which is grossly insufficient. Intensive, ongoing education should be mandated, covering not only the nuances of higher education but also the fiduciary and ethical responsibilities that come with board service. Understanding the complexities of academic governance, financial stewardship and institutional autonomy is essential for board members to make informed, balanced decisions. Strengthen accountability, independence Requiring board members to commit a defined amount of time to their duties, beyond attending a handful of meetings, is crucial. Active participation should include regular campus visits, engagement with students and faculty, and deeper involvement in university affairs. This would foster a sense of accountability and ensure that board members have a genuine connection to the institution they govern. Additionally, boards need independent staff who work directly for them, not the university president. Currently, boards often rely on the presidents staff for administrative support, which can lead to conflicts of interest and undermine independent oversight. Establishing dedicated board staff and a board ombudsman would ensure that the board has the resources it needs to operate independently and hold university leadership accountable. These reforms aim to create a governance system where board members are committed, knowledgeable and independent qualities that are essential for protecting the integrity of our public universities. By enhancing oversight, training and accountability, Virginia can foster boards that truly serve the interests of the commonwealth and the universities they govern rather than acting as mere political proxies. As someone with deep ties to George Mason University and a history of public service in Virginia, I believe that these changes are not only necessary but urgent. Its time to ensure that those appointed to govern our public universities have a genuine stake in their success and a clear understanding of their roles. Only then can we safeguard the future of higher education in Virginia against the creeping influence of partisan politics. From the Archives: RPI and the early days of VCU Mexico displays cultural pieces at the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum Mexico City, Mexico In an unprecedented cultural exchange, the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum in the United Arab Emirates is exhibiting Mexican pieces. Five exceptional archaeological pieces, loaned by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), will remain on display until April 2025. The objective is to showcase Mexicos cultural heritage in the Middle East through archaeological objects from different Mesoamerican civilizations, said the National Coordination of Museums and Exhibitions (CNMyE) of the INAH. The selected works were temporarily integrated into the museums rooms dedicated to displaying the cultures of America and Mexico. To highlight this historic loan, an opening ceremony was held led by the Mexican Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, Teresa Mercado Perez, and the Director of the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum, Manuel Rabate. The objects on display include a ceremonial mask from the ancient Mayan city of Calakmul in Campeche (600 BC-1521 AD), which was part of the elites burial practices as offerings. A colossal head, called No. 5, of Olmec origin (1200-500 BC), from the Anthropology Museum of Xalapa, Veracruz. This sculpture weighs around 4,200 kilos and is carved from a large block of basalt. A theater type censer, belonging to the Teotihuacan culture (100 BC-800 AD), which included charcoal and copal, abundant materials in Mesoamerica. An anthropomorphic mask, also of Teotihuacan affiliation and from the same period as the censer, which represents a conventionalized humanoid face, associated with agriculture and fertility. And an atlantes from Chichen Itza, in Yucatan, (600 BC-1521 AD), from the National Museum of World Cultures. Atlantes are anthropomorphic sculptures with their arms raised above their heads, commonly used on altars or other places of worship. We are honored to host these precious objects to showcase significant chapters of Mesoamerican history to the region, said Louvre Abu Dhabi Director Manuel Rabate, stressing that this collaboration highlights Mexicos rich cultural heritage while extending its reach to the Middle East. The loan, he said, is part of the Ambassadorial Objects Program, which is a central pillar of the museums strategy, with which it has managed to enrich its collection, made up of nearly 700 pieces and sets of representative works from all periods (from prehistory to the present) and from all civilizations. The partnership has also strengthened cultural dialogue and mutual understanding between the UAE and Mexico, as well as the role of the Louvre Abu Dhabi as a centre of intercultural exchange and a forum for the diversity of creativity and human history, he said. Louvre Abu Dhabi Chairman Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak said One of the most essential functions of culture is to enhance mutual understanding and respect among societies around the world. Since its opening, our museums ongoing cross-cultural outreach and collaboration with prestigious regional and international institutions has introduced the emirates community and visitors to a variety of global treasures and a wealth of knowledge, he continued. Various specialists from the CNMyE of the INAH and from this Arab world center worked on this project for a year and a half, selecting pieces and meeting shipping requirements, in a long-term collaboration that is materialized with this historic exhibition. NOAA monitors new disturbance near the same area where Helene developed the week before Riviera Maya, Q.R. A new disturbance is being monitored by the National Hurricane Center (NOAA) that developed Thursday. The system is currently in the western Caribbean Sea and is expected to continue developing into next week. The area of low pressure has shown signs of further development in the 24 hours of NOAA monitoring. The new disturbance has appeared near the same area where Disturbance 3, which became Helene, formed the week before. Initially, Disturbance 3 was forecast to cross over the Yucatan Peninsula on September 22 and enter the western Gulf of Mexico. A wet weather advisory was issued by local authorities September 21 regarding the heavy rain that was to accompany the system as it passed over Quintana Roo, however, that never happened. Within 24 hours of the weather warning, Disturbance 3 took on a new northern trajectory, becoming quickly organized in the tropical Caribbean Sea and eventually passing the coast of Quintana Roo instead. Disturbance 3 became Helene, passing the northern tip of Quintana Roo on September 25 within 70 kilometers (43 miles), soaking the region and felling trees as it passed through the Yucatan Channel. According to the NOAA, this new system in the Caribbean Sea, which is still an area of low pressure, is expected to further form and develop into the middle of next week. Image: NOAA An area of low pressure could form over the western Caribbean Sea by the middle of next week. Environmental conditions are expected to be conducive for slow development thereafter, while the system moves generally northwestward, potentially entering the Gulf of Mexico by the end of next week. Woman busted at airport with more than $150,000 USD Guadalajara, Jalisco A woman heading to California on a flight out of Guadalajara has been detained. The woman was arrested by National Guard after they located the equivalent of nearly 3 million pesos in cash. An inspection of her baggage revealed over $150,000 USD, equivalent to approximately 2.9 million pesos, without declaring them to the corresponding authority, National Guard said in a statement. The inspection and subsequent arrested took place at Guadalajara International Airport where members of the National Guard were conducting random inspections of passengers who were about to board their flights. In the baggage screening area, National Guard made contact with a passenger who intended to travel to the state of California, United States. Upon searching her backpack, they found bundles of foreign currency bills in the amount of $152,823 dollars in cash, equivalent to approximately 2 million 960 thousand pesos. When asked if she had the declaration in the official form approved by the Tax Administration Service (SAT), she stated that she had not processed the document, thereby violating Article 9 of the Customs Law, for which reason she was detained. Dear Mr President 2.0: the discovery of the Greenhouse Effect - in Tweets Posted on 3 April 2017 by John Mason Here's another in our occasional series where we explain aspects of climate and planetary science in tweets. For this one, we've picked the history of the discovery of Earth's greenhouse effect, a topic we covered in detail a few years ago in The History of Climate Science. If there's a single take-home point, it's simply that we have known about Earth's greenhouse effect and the important role of carbon dioxide for a long time. A very long time. An awful lot longer than some people seem to realise. Some climate change contrarians, when presented with facts, simply dismiss them as an "appeal to authority". Brexit enthusiast Michael Gove is so famous for stating, people in this country have had enough of experts, that if you type his name into Google the second thing that appears in the dropdown below is "experts". But you can bet your bottom dollar that the moment he needs specialist advice in his private life, he goes and finds a specialist. We all do. Talking of specialists, many have come and gone in the decades before the present generations of scientists and long before the first automobiles appeared in numbers on our roads, some remarkable things had already been accomplished. This post is something of a celebration of such accomplishments and the people who made them possible. So, without further ado: @RealDonaldTrump 1/49 This time we want to tell you all about the Greenhouse Effect. It's such a wonderful thing, it really is. @RealDonaldTrump 2/49 It's all about energy transfer between the Sun, Earth and space. How did we find out? It's such a cool story! @RealDonaldTrump 3/49 The Sun's a stable kind of star. That's good, but you don't want to be too close to it. Or too far away. @RealDonaldTrump 4/49 The ancient Greeks tried figuring the Earth-Sun distance. They had some great ideas but got it wrong. Such losers! @RealDonaldTrump 5/49 By the 17th & 18th Centuries, they had better telescopes. They had better clocks. Better accuracy. @RealDonaldTrump 6/49 Does the name Cassini mean anything to you? No? Halley? Kepler? Hirst? Lalande? Well they were smart guys. Real smart. @RealDonaldTrump 7/49 They timed Venus as it crossed in front of the Sun, from different places around the world. @RealDonaldTrump 8/49 The different line-of-sight measurements allowed them to get calculating. They got 95 million miles. Not bad! @RealDonaldTrump 9/49 Today we can measure the distance with radar and stuff. It's 93 million miles. So they got real close. Clever! @RealDonaldTrump 10/49 In the 1800s, more smart people realised there was a problem. Earth was too far from the Sun to be as warm as it is. @RealDonaldTrump 11/49 Know what the average temperature of Earth should be, 93 million miles from the Sun? Minus eighteen degrees Celsius. @RealDonaldTrump 12/49 In the 1800s, these smart people figured that energy flows into Earth from the Sun. That's one part of the deal. @RealDonaldTrump 13/49 They also figured that energy must flow back out. If it didn't, the heat would build up until the planet boiled. @RealDonaldTrump 14/49 So they knew there was an energy balance. But they also knew that Earth was still warmer than it should be. Tricky! @RealDonaldTrump 15/49 They figured sunshine (luminous heat) is one type of radiation & heat from hot things (non-luminous heat) is another. @RealDonaldTrump 16/49 Luminous heat could get through the air just fine. It warmed the ground which gave off non-luminous heat. @RealDonaldTrump 17/49 But some of the non-luminous heat got trapped. Couldn't make it back out to Space. Something was messing with it. @RealDonaldTrump 18/49 They figured that since non-luminous heat left the ground OK, something up above was doing the messing. @RealDonaldTrump 19/49 Not much up there apart from gases, clouds, a few birds & flying critters. Last three vary all the time. Unreliable! @RealDonaldTrump 20/49 Gases, they figured, are always there. Oxygen, nitrogen, argon, CO2 & so on. But which ones did the messing? @RealDonaldTrump 21/49 They found water vapour could mess, but it jumps about like a bronco. Needed a gas that didn't jump about. @RealDonaldTrump 22/49 Turned out CO2 did a perfect job. It was just awesome at that job. Oxygen & nitrogen & Argon were just crap! @RealDonaldTrump 23/49 It was still the 1800s when these smart guys nailed it. They did some math. If you doubled CO2 what would happen? @RealDonaldTrump 24/49 5-6C of global warming. Earth-Sun distance, the Greenhouse Effect - they were pretty darned right about the lot! @RealDonaldTrump 25/49 More smart guys worked on this through the 20th Century. Ended up with pretty much the same results. @RealDonaldTrump 26/49 We got to dig infra-red in the Cold War. Heat-seeking missiles chase after it. Shoot down bombers. Job done! @RealDonaldTrump 27/49 So we got to figure it out even better. And we had the first computers. We could do even more math. @RealDonaldTrump 28/49 By 1956, a real smart guy did something awesome with all this history, science and math. Called Gilbert Plass. @RealDonaldTrump 29/49 He put it all into a landmark science paper. Called it, The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change. @RealDonaldTrump 30/49 Hell, that's more than half a century ago. Amazing how time flies. You, Sir, were ten years old at the time. @RealDonaldTrump 31/49 Funny how some folk like to make out climate change was made up in around 2005, to replace global warming. @RealDonaldTrump 32/49 Are they dumb or what? And what about the IPCC? Founded 1988? What do they think CC stands for? Chip cookies? @RealDonaldTrump 33/49 People were still smart in the 1950s. They started monitoring CO2. They found it was steadily going up, right then. @RealDonaldTrump 34/49 They knew pollution was a BAD, BAD KILLER. Britain passed the Clean Air Act the same year as the Plass paper. 1956. @RealDonaldTrump 35/49 That was smart but there was still lots of smoke to deal with in the air. Such a mess. @RealDonaldTrump 36/49 Some folk worried that the smoke was enough to block out sunshine. That could cool down the planet. @RealDonaldTrump 37/49 It was only a few folk but the MEDIA ran with it. Tried to make out the next ice-age was round the corner. FAKE NEWS! @RealDonaldTrump 38/49 Fake News is nothing new, Mr President. They've been at it as long as there's been newspapers. @RealDonaldTrump 39/49 Science is different. Fake science gets called out. Quickly. It just doesn't survive. Except among a few cranks. @RealDonaldTrump 40/49 In 1988 the IPCC was founded. Worth sayin' again. 164 darned years after the first ideas about the greenhouse effect. @RealDonaldTrump 41/49 164 darned years. Worth sayin' again. We knew. We knew all along that something was messing with that heat. @RealDonaldTrump 42/49 Today, satellites confirm what those smart guys figured out in the 1800s. They have measured the Greenhouse Effect. @RealDonaldTrump 43/49 1997 world leaders wake up. Sign Kyoto Accord. Aim to stabilise CO2 levels. Make planet safe. Smart move. @RealDonaldTrump 44/49 1998 American Petroleum Institute brings out Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan. Anti-Kyoto thing. @RealDonaldTrump 45/49 Basic idea: if we say enough bullshit then 174 years of scientific research can be ignored. Nice guys, huh? @RealDonaldTrump 46/49 And so climate science denial began. It's still all around us. All around me. All around you. Especially you. @RealDonaldTrump 47/49 Betting with your kids' and grandkids' future. Making out decades of science don't exist. Sons of bitches. @RealDonaldTrump 48/49 Science goes back a long way. It's got pedigree. These guys should be honoured by all of us. We should be PROUD. @RealDonaldTrump 49/49 So when an oilman tells you how climate science is only 20 years old, tell him to go take a history class. above: American Petroleum Institute's Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan, 1998. Nice guys, huh? Further watching: The greenhouse effect: https://youtu.be/PTfnuX-HVk8 Measuring from space: https://youtu.be/wEuSfMRB7pU Increasing the greenhouse effect: https://youtu.be/we8VXwa83FQ Reinforcing feedback: https://youtu.be/dHozjOYHQdE From the experts - Greenhouse effect: https://youtu.be/H4YSwajvFAY Structure of our atmosphere: https://youtu.be/LM_sKZCv26A Dear Mr President-elect: a message from across the Pond Posted on 29 November 2016 by John Mason, BaerbelW Dear Mr President-elect, On 6 Nov 2012, at 11:15 am, you tweeted: The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. We'd like to take you on a quick tour back through the ages, because the early understanding of Earth's climate - and the role that carbon has to play in it - came from the West, not the East. Let's run through it quickly. In 1800, British astronomer William Herschel first measured the heat that occurs in the warm now known as infra-red (IR) part of the spectrum. In 1824, French engineer Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier calculated that Earth should be colder than it is, at its orbital distance from the Sun. Today, it is common knowledge that outgoing IR radiation is emitted by the Earth's surface in response to heating by the Sun. But Fourier was the first to figure out that the IR was being slowed down during its journey back out to space. The air, he said, must act as a form of insulating blanket, keeping the planet warm. Smart guy. This was just two years before Samuel Morey patented the first internal combustion engine. In 1861, Anglo-Irish physicist John Tyndall observed that some atmospheric gases were transparent to IR radiation. But he found that others, like water vapor and carbon dioxide, were powerful IR absorbers. He was the first to propose that changes in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could influence the Earth's climate. In 1896, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius took it further. He made the first detailed calculations to see what a doubling of carbon dioxide levels might do to temperatures. His answer was a 5-6C increase in the average global temperature. His hot-house theory was set out for the first time in 1908 in his popular book Worlds in the Making. In 1909, American astronomer Andrew Douglass developed the techniques of studying tree-rings and was the first to find the connection between tree ring widths and climate. In 1931, American physicist E.O Hulburt ran calculations to determine the effect of doubling carbon dioxide with the added burden of water vapor. His figure? 4C of warming. In 1938, English engineer Guy Callendar discovered evidence of a warming temperature trend in the early twentieth century. He also found that CO 2 levels were increasing and he warned that over the coming centuries there could be a climate shift to a permanently warmer state. Mr President-elect, you were born in June 1946, in the early years of the Cold War. It was a time that saw a surge in atmospheric research. The properties and behaviour of IR radiation came under even more scrutiny in the quest to develop heat-seeking missiles. By the 1950s, the advantage of computer-power, something we take for granted today, made it possible to dissect the atmosphere in ever-greater detail. 1956 - when you were just ten years of age - saw the publication of the landmark paper, 'The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change', by Canadian-American physicist Gilbert Plass. The paper confirmed that more carbon dioxide would have a warming effect and that doubling levels of that gas would result in a warming of 3-4C. The very title of the paper tells you that "climate change" is not a term made up in recent years for political reasons, as some try to claim. Mr President-elect, we've known about this stuff for decades. None of the above is "politicized science". Even the youngest milestones along the climate science timeline above are now more than half a century old. Most of them are older than you. They were all attained through the hard work and dedication of our best American and European scientists. These guys and others laid the solid and vital foundations for the modern understanding of how Earth's climate works. They got all the basics right: it is organisations like NASA that are still filling in the important details. The more we end up knowing about how this planet works the better, especially if the USA plans to continue its exploration missions to other planetary bodies. Atmospheric CO 2 levels have now gone past 400 parts per million. That's up 40% from the pre-industrial level of 280ppm - thanks in great part to the burning of the fossil fuels. Now, as a businessman, you can understand numbers. Some folk like to downplay the importance of gases occurring at, they say, small concentrations. But we think that if we knocked on your office door with details of a whole mountain containing an average of 400ppm gold, you'd sit down and listen. We cannot look anywhere within the geologically recent series of alternating ice-ages and interglacials to see an Earth with more than 400ppm carbon dioxide in its atmosphere. We have to go back a lot further. To see a 400ppm-plus planet, we need to time-travel to the mid-Pliocene, 3.5 million years ago. Back then, Arctic Siberia, today a barren tundra, was shrouded in boreal forest. That might sound OK, but such warmth has its price. Due to less ice at the poles, it was also a time when sea-levels were around twenty metres higher than those of today. That's not good if you have beach-front real estate. Such changes can take many years to bring about, but Earth's physical systems always move towards balance. Earth systems obey the laws of physics, not economics. They take no notice at all of electoral cycles or partisan politics. They don't care which guy you voted for. Mr President-elect, we have to work with the Earth, not against it. For a full account of the history of climate science, please follow the link below. The History of Climate Science Understanding the long-term carbon-cycle: weathering of rocks - a vitally important carbon-sink Posted on 2 July 2013 by John Mason above: the processes of the long-term carbon-cycle that this post explores. Graphic: jg. This post delves into the long-term carbon cycle that involves the interactions of the atmosphere with rocks and oceans over many millions of years. Because of its length, I've broken it up into bookmarked sections for easy reference: to come back here click on 'back to contents' in each instance. Contents Introduction: what is weathering? Carbon dioxide and rock weathering: the chemistry Limitations to the precipitation of calcium carbonate: the Carbonate Compensation Depth The significance of weathering as a carbon-sink Deep weathering of rocks: an illustrated example from Mid-Wales, UK How breaking up minerals affects their weathering-rate: mountain-building as an accelerant Picking up signals of major weathering episodes in the geological record Introduction: what is weathering? Weathering is a familiar process to us all. It involves the chemical reactions between chemical compounds in the atmosphere and chemical compounds on the planet's surface. When your car's exhaust pipe falls apart noisily, it is because the steel from which it was constructed has, over several years, reacted with oxygen and rainwater to form rust. It has weathered. But that's a relatively fast example involving a relatively unstable compound. The compounds making up the vast majority of Earth's land surface - the minerals that make up rocks - are, by and large, very slow to react. As a consequence, large-scale weathering is a process that takes place on a timescale of millions of years, over which periods it constitutes a critically important carbon-sink. Why a carbon-sink? Because, via weathering of rocks and reprecipitation of weathering products as carbonate sediments (e.g. limestones), huge quantities of atmospheric carbon dioxide end up locked away for a very, very long time. The process begins when CO 2 dissolves in droplets of water, up there in the clouds. The resulting solution, which reaches the surface as rainwater, is weakly acidic: CO 2 + H 2 O = H 2 CO 3 (or carbonic acid - the old name for carbon dioxide was carbonic acid gas) Rainwater containing carbonic acid is able to react with most minerals at varying rates according to their chemical stability. Now, some naturally-occurring minerals are extremely stable. Think about gold, eroded mechanically from ore deposits and then recovered by prospectors, maybe hundreds of thousands of years later, from river-gravels by panning. Or quartz (silicon dioxide), found as hard, white pebbles on beaches. They're both pretty bomb-proof. At the other end of the scale are the very unstable minerals, such as sulphides, compounds of various metals with sulphur. Sulphides readily weather in the surface or near-surface environment, so that most ore-deposits have near-surface zones in which the products of primary sulphide weathering - the secondary minerals - are to be found. The copper carbonates, azurite and malachite, are examples of secondary minerals that will be familiar to most readers. Such minerals can occur in large quantities where the weathering has been prolonged - over a few million years - but the relative rapidity of the process is demonstrated by the fact that thin films of often colourful secondary minerals are a common sight along the walls of mine-tunnels only a century or two old. above: primary (left) and secondary (right) copper minerals. The common primary ore, chalcopyrite, is a sulphide of copper and iron that reacts readily with air and moisture at the surface. Prolonged weathering forms colourful secondary minerals in large quantities, like the blue and green copper carbonates, azurite and malachite (the illustrated specimen is about 6 inches long). These copper carbonates constitute a localised, and therefore relatively minor, long-term carbon-sink, compared to the very widespread occurrence of limestones. Photos: author In between these extremes, from the bomb-proof to the downright unstable, there exists a whole spectrum of mineral stabilities, but an important point is that most of the numerous mineral species that make up rocks lie towards the stable end of that spectrum: whilst they do react with carbonic acid, they do so at a very slow rate, on geological rather than human timescales. So let's now take a look at what happens. Carbon dioxide and rock weathering: the chemistry back to contents When carbon dioxide dissolves in droplets of water to form carbonic acid, it dissociates (splits into reactive charged particles or ions): H 2 CO 3 ? HCO 3 + H+ The two ions that occur as a result of this process are the bicarbonate ion, HCO 3 and the hydrogen ion, H+. Put simply, hydrogen ion activity within a solution is a measure of its acidity: the more active hydrogen ions in a solution, the more acidic it is and the better at dissolving other compounds. The 'H' in pH - the scale by which acidity is measured - is hydrogen. The pH value of 7 (pure water) is neutral, values of 7 up to 14 are increasingly alkaline and values of 7 down to 0 are increasingly acidic. Carbonic acid is a weak acid: ordinary rain thus has a pH of around 5 to 5.5, but there is lots of it available in the environment, so that over prolonged timescales it does a lot of weathering. Other acids may also be present: for example, sulphur dioxide, outgassed during volcanic eruptions or released by industry, likewise dissolves in droplets of water in the atmosphere to produce sulphuric acid, hence the term 'acid rain', with a pH of around 4 to 4.5. However, over geological timescales things like major eruptions and human industry are mere punctuation marks in a long sentence. Rocks that contain carbonates - limestone and dolomite being common examples - react rather more quickly too because the minerals they are largely made from, such as calcite (calcium carbonate) are more reactive than silicates. Carbonate dissolution leads to the formation of karstic landscapes complete with cave-systems lined with deposits of reprecipitated calcium carbonate forming stalactites and other features. The dissolution reaction goes as follows: H 2 CO 3 + CaCO 3 = Ca(HCO 3 ) 2 carbonic acid + calcium carbonate = calcium bicarbonate (in solution) Silicate minerals occur widely in nature. Some globally-abundant rocks - such as basalts - are mostly composed of silicates. There exists a great variety of different silicate minerals - for example the feldspars, micas, olivines, pyroxenes and amphiboles to name but a few groups - that combine silicon and oxygen with potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, aluminium, iron and many other elements. Silicates weather via rather more complex reactions, but let's simplify things with a generalised equation for the process using the calcium silicate CaSiO 3 , which occurs naturally as the mineral wollastonite: 2CO 2 + 3H 2 O + CaSiO 3 = Ca2++ 2HCO 3 + H 4 SiO 4 carbon dioxide + water + calcium silicate = calcium ions + bicarbonate ions + silicic acid (in solution) The dissolved calcium and bicarbonate ions travel in groundwater to the rivers and thereby find their way to the sea, where they are reprecipitated as calcium carbonate. The reprecipitation is mainly biogenic - it involves various creatures making their shells or skeletons from calcium carbonate: Ca2++ 2HCO 3 = CaCO 3 + CO 2 + H 2 O calcium ions + bicarbonate ions = calcium carbonate + carbon dioxide + water above: a hand-sized cut slab of limestone, dating from early Carboniferous times (~340 million years ago), with fossil exoskeletons of ancient corals, consisting of calcium carbonate obtained by the organisms from the seawater back at that time. A classic example of an ancient and long-term carbon-sink. Photo: author. The silica from the silicic acid is used similarly by organisms such as the abundant planktonic diatoms: H 4 SiO 4 = SiO 2 + 2H 2 O silicic acid = silicon dioxide + water Significantly, via the calcium carbonate-generating part of the chemical process, there is a net loss of readily-mobile carbon: we start with twice as much as we end up with. That's why weathering of silicates is so important. The missing carbon is locked up in the calcium carbonate in the following way: as shelled creatures die and their remains accumulate, we get a carbonate-rich sediment. As the sediments continue to accumulate, our carbonate-rich layer will be progressively buried under new layers of sediment and in time it will turn into solid rock - limestone. Globally, limestones are very common and often occur in great thicknesses (think of the White Cliffs of Dover, for example). That carbon is thereby locked away and immobilised for a very long time. The overall process may be expressed as follows: 2CO 2 + 2H 2 O + CaSiO 3 = CaCO 3 + CO2 + 2H 2 O + SiO 2 carbon dioxide + water + calcium silicate = calcium carbonate + carbon dioxide + silica + water The basis of the equation written above has been understood since the middle of the 19th Century. A more complex version could be written involving magnesium too: that element can be coprecipitated with calcium to form dolomite, calcium magnesium carbonate with the formula CaMg(CO 3 ) 2 . Because of their natural abundance and their chemical properties, calcium and magnesium are the two vital elements in this long-term carbon sink. It is important here to point out that weathering of silicates containing e.g. only potassium or sodium does not trap carbon in the same way, because the carbonates of these elements are water-soluble so they do not precipitate to form sediments. Calcium and magnesium are the key. above: limestones of upper Cretaceous age forming the famous White Cliffs of Dover on the south coast of the UK. Think just how much carbon is locked up in these cliffs! Photo: Remi Jouan. Limitations to the precipitation of calcium carbonate: the Carbonate Compensation Depth back to contents An important factor regarding the precipitation (or otherwise) of calcium carbonate in the oceans is the Carbonate Compensation Depth (CCD). The reaction: Ca2++ 2HCO 3 = CaCO 3 + CO 2 + H 2 O is reversible: if the physical conditions favour precipitation over dissolution then you will get carbonate precipitates accumulating. But if calcium carbonate dissolution is happening at a faster rate than calcium carbonate precipitation, there is no net gain in solid calcium carbonate: instead calcium carbonate that is already present in solid form starts to dissolve. What are favourable physical conditions for precipitation or dissolution? Calcium carbonate is more soluble in water at a) lower temperatures, b) at higher pressures and c) in the presence of increased dissolved CO 2 . These conditions are all satisfied in the world's deeper oceans, at depths below ca. 5000m, which in broad terms is the Carbonate Compensation Depth. Sediments on ocean floors below this depth contain no calcium carbonate. As the image below shows, such depths are not uncommon. above: ocean depths worldwide. Many of the major ocean basins are deeper than the Carbonate Compensation Depth at ~5000m. Graphic - NOAA. There is a slight complication to this because, like many substances, calcium carbonate occurs in nature as two minerals - polymorphs - that have different crystal structures. These are calcite (trigonal) and aragonite (orthorhombic). Aragonite is also precipitated in the oceans - molluscs use it to build their shells and corals their endoskeletons - but it has a much shallower compensation depth which varies from less than 1000m in some low latitudes to over 3000m in the North Atlantic. One effect of increasing dissolved CO2 in oceanic water (ocean acidification) is to lessen the compensation depths of both calcite and aragonite. Whilst such a shift places a further limit to marine carbon sequestration, it also impacts severely on the marine ecosystem. Organisms that need to precipitate aragonite in order to build their skeletons or shells will clearly find themselves in dire straits if the aragonite compensation depth shifts upwards, so that their habitat now lies beneath it. Such a point applies particularly to fixed or benthic faunas that dwell on the sea-bed because such communities cannot simply up sticks and move: hence they are particularly vulnerable to rapid changes in the chemistry of our oceanic waters. The significance of weathering as a carbon-sink back to contents The weathering of rocks is estimated to involve the drawdown of about a gigaton of atmospheric carbon dioxide a year. That sounds a bit hopeless when compared to the ~30 gigatons emitted by humans burning fossil fuels every year. Over geological timespans, however, the amount of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere via weathering is huge, at around a million gigatons per million years. Globally, limestones and other carbonate-based sedimentary rocks are a phenomenally important carbon sink that is relatively stable in nature: they are estimated to hold over 60 million gigatons of carbon - compared e.g. to the estimated total of 720 gigatons carbon dioxide that is present in the atmosphere and the 38,400 gigatons present in all of the oceans. Limestones do not give up their carbon again readily. The key processes by which they may yield it up include metamorphism (recrystallisation under heat and pressure during mountain-building episodes), subduction (being forced down into the Mantle at a tectonic plate boundary, where the carbon is liberated during melting, leading to CO2 making its way towards the surface in magmas and being outgassed by volcanoes) or industry (people heating limestone to high temperatures in order to make cement). However, compared to human industry, the processes of metamorphism, subduction and volcanism operate over geological timescales, so whilst there is a flux of carbon dioxide going into weathering and thence to limestones, there is also an outward flux going back into the atmosphere. Just as well: it is thought that with no geological resupply, and even with ocean outgassing, the weathering process would remove all atmospheric carbon dioxide in less than half a million years. Just as a rapidly-forming excess of the gas is very bad news, losing it all like that would be disastrous. The long-term carbon cycle makes sure that this isn't going to happen! Deep weathering of rocks: an illustrated example from Mid-Wales, UK back to contents On a year-to-year basis, the process of rock-weathering is a slow one. How slow? Well here in Mid-Wales, where I am based, we have a useful example of weathered and unweathered rocks outcropping at surface that demonstrate the time factor as well as anything. A short crash-course into the geology of Mid-Wales is needed to get this story into context. The rocks of the district consist of slate-grey mudstones, siltstones and sandstones, which were originally deposited as muds, silts and sands on an ancient seabed in late Ordovician and early Silurian times, some 445-435 million years ago. They were then uplifted and folded during a phase of mountain-building and the area has probably remained land ever since. There - done and dusted. above: slate-grey, relatively unweathered late Ordovician mudstone, typical of the rocks of Mid-Wales. Photo: author Now we come to the weathering. We know that these mudstones, siltstones and sandstones underwent massive-scale weathering. Why? Because, at scattered localities here and there in the Mid-Wales hills, we find remnants of the weathered rocks. Instead of the normal, slate-grey colour, rocks at such localities are instead various pale pinkish or buff shades. It's not just a surface thing either: if you whack a piece open with a hammer, you will see that it pervades right through. above: a broken boulder of pervasively weathered Silurian mudstone from Mid-Wales. The slate-grey colour has been changed to pale pinkish and buff shades. Photo: author Why are there only remnants of such rocks left behind? The answer is almost certainly glaciation. Glacial ice is a remarkably efficient agent of mechanical erosion. The series of glaciations that took place between 2.5 million and 12,000 years ago fashioned the modern Welsh landscape. Ice-caps over a kilometre thick and valley-glaciers carving their way down to the lowlands are estimated to have eroded away tens to hundreds of metres of strata. As a consequence, in most places in Mid-Wales, the rocks outcropping at surface are the normal, unweathered slate-grey colour, the glaciers having eroded away the deep-weathered stuff. In the 12,000 years since the end of the last glaciation, these rocks have remained visibly unweathered - there hasn't been enough time for the slow chemical reactions to have had anything more than superficial effects. How breaking up minerals affects their weathering-rate: mountain-building as an accelerant back to contents In the same area of Wales, the rocks contain numerous mineral-lodes that in the 17th-19th Centuries supported a respectably-sized metal mining industry, with lead, silver, copper and zinc being produced. As with the rocks of the area, the deep-weathered zones of these ore-deposits have (barring a few notable exceptions) been eroded away during glaciation and metal sulphides can often be found quite close to the surface. The old mines neatly demonstrate another critical principle concerning weathering which is that the greater the surface area available to weathering agents, the greater the amount of weathering that can take place in a given time. Let's visualise this first with a simple example: imagine a cube of something nice and reactive - iron, for example, 10 centimetres on edge. To calculate its surface area, we first obtain the area of one face: 10cm x 10cm = 100cm2. As a cube has six identical sides, we multiply the area of one face by six, thus getting 600cm2 of iron waiting to react with moist air and go rusty. Now let's saw the cube up into 1cm cubes (OK, before anyone says, there'll be some wastage from the saw-cuts but let's forget about that). The cube's volume is 10 x 10 x 10 = 1000cm3, so once the saw has done its work, we have a thousand 1cm cubes. Each will have a surface area of 1 x 1 x 6 = 6cm2. The total surface area of all the cubes will be 6 x 1000 = 6000cm2. By dividing the original cube up into all these little ones, we have increased the surface area available to react by a whole order of magnitude. Cut those centimetre cubes into millimetre cubes and we now have 60,000cm2 of surface available to react, and so on. Now let's see the process demonstrated in those mines. When they were being worked, mostly between 100 and 200 years ago, tunnels were driven into the ore deposit and the ore was blasted into small fragments for removal. Invariably, quantities of debris, rich in freshly broken sulphides, were left behind when the mines were abandoned. Both air and moisture then had access to a much larger surface area of reactive sulphides to get to work on. The result was that in just a century or two, the debris became coated or even cemented together by secondary minerals. It's a good example of a major uptick in the weathering-rate caused by surface area changes. The wide range of secondary minerals present in such coatings and cements (mostly complex sulphates) is indicative of an unstable and immature chemical system that is constantly evolving. above: small amounts of recently-formed secondary minerals, the result of a few centuries of weathering of freshly-broken sulphides in the metal mines of Mid-Wales. (L): sky-blue rosettes (~2mm across) of the copper zinc carbonate-sulphate schulenbergite with deep blue crystals of the lead copper sulphate linarite. (R): bottle-green crystals of the copper zinc sulphate, ramsbeckite. Photos: D.I. Green Now, let's apply the same principles to rocks in general. What processes in nature break up rocks to create a massively increased surface area? Many, but let's think about the really obvious ones: volcanic eruptions and mountain-building episodes. Both build elevated piles of rock that are prone to collapse by the actions of gravity, earthquakes, rainstorms, explosions in the case of volcanoes and frost action in the case of mountain ranges. In each case, there is a big increase in the surface area of rock available to weathering agents. Weathering may not, however, take place to any great extent in a high mountain-range like the Himalayas. Temperature is a critical factor: when a landmass is uplifted into a mountain range it will enter a colder climatic zone due to the increase in altitude. Although frost can force rock faces apart and cause rockfalls making a greater surface area of rock available to weather, if it is so cold that there is little or no liquid water available, weathering is inhibited. The most intense chemical weathering of silicate-bearing rocks instead occurs where temperatures are well above freezing for prolonged periods and rainfall is high, conditions that are especially satisfied in the Tropics - where deeply weathered profiles can extend down from the ground surface to well over a hundred metres depth. Higher temperatures speed up the rates of the chemical reactions and higher rainfall delivers more weathering agents per annum. Combine such parameters and the answer to the riddle of why mountain-building may lead to enhanced carbon dioxide drawdown becomes clear. Mountain-building episodes facilitate the creation of a vast supply of fresh-broken rock. That rock is constantly being transported away from their cold heights, firstly via gravity (rockfalls), then by glaciers and finally by rivers to a warmer, lowland climate, where the weathering takes place. The Himalayan foothills and the Ganges basin are a good example of such areas where enhanced weathering of rock debris, transported from the mountains and deposited as fine-grained sediment, occurs. Picking up signals of major weathering episodes in the geological record back to contents Mountain-building episodes occur due to continental collisions that are driven by the slow process of plate tectonics and they typically take place on timescales of millions or tens of millions of years - far more slowly than, for example, the Milankovitch cycles that swing Earth in and out of warm or cool periods on scales of tens to hundreds of thousands of years. For this reason, perturbations to the rate of weathering - and thereby the flux of carbon dioxide being consumed by weathering - typically occur slowly, although they may be quite profound, to the extent that significant past changes to climate may have, at least in part, been due to them. Basaltic weathering is a particularly strong candidate in this respect - basalts are rich in calcium-bearing silicates like plagioclase feldspar and magnesium-bearing silicates like olivine. A major period of basaltic eruption (with much attendant carbon dioxide outgassing) followed by prolonged intense weathering could potentially create a corresponding peak and dip in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels as outgassing falls and weathering-related carbon dioxide drawdown rises. Can such weathering episodes be detected in the geological past? The answer is quite possibly yes, by studying the ratios of isotopes of the alkaline earth metal, strontium, part of the same group of elements as calcium and able to substitute for calcium in minerals such as calcite (in limestones) and feldspars (in basalts, for example). Strontium has four stable, naturally occurring isotopes as follows (abundances in brackets): 84Sr (0.56%), 86Sr (9.86%), 87Sr (7.0%) and 88Sr (82.58%). Of these, 87Sr is radiogenic, which means that it has been formed by radioactive decay of an unstable isotope of another element, in this case rubidium 87. The ratio of 87Sr and 86Sr is the one used in the context of weathering: in igneous rocks like basalt it is typically around 0.704 but in other rock-types it is a little higher. Therefore, a period of intense weathering of basalts ought to show up in the isotope record: weathering feldspars release Sr2+ ions in solution which, like the calcium ions, are reprecipitated in limestones, which should then show lower-than-usual 87Sr/86Sr ratios. This is work-in-progress, but results are promising, taking into account parameters including signals of major erosion, which manifest themselves as upticks in the rates of sediment deposition, and the different weathering-rates of different rock-types. The modelling of fluctuations in the carbon and sulphur cycles for the whole of the Phanerozoic, taking weathering episodes into account, gives plots like the following: above: ratio of mass of atmospheric CO 2 (RCO 2 ) at a past time to that at the pre-human present, calculated via the GEOCARBSULF model, with (volc) and without (no volc) volcanic rock weathering. From Berner (2006). Several things stand out in this plot, of which the most drastic is the precipitous fall in CO 2 levels beginning around 375 million years ago during the Devonian, this marking the wide colonisation of the land by photosynthetic plants. It marks an important divide in atmospheric chemistry between a land-plant poor (or plantless, before the Ordovician) world and the richly vegetated world that has existed ever since. The decline in carbon dioxide levels from the Hothouse of the late Mesozoic and early Cenozoic to the cooler world of the past 15 million years is apparent at the RHS of the plot. Older glaciations - the Karoo at 360-260 million years ago and the Andean-Saharan at 460-430 million years ago, are both marked by sharp declines in CO 2 . That atmospheric carbon dioxide acts as a key driver with respect to global temperatures is without doubt: it is the detailed reconstruction of atmospheric chemistry that becomes more difficult the further back in geological time one goes. By getting a sound grasp on major, unusually intense episodes of past silicate weathering, another piece of the jigsaw will go into place and those reconstructions will continue to improve. "The climate has always changed" has been a favourite arm-wave of the contrarian brigade for many years. What they don't tell you is why, by how much and what were the consequences. In some cases, the consequences were dire, including some of the greatest mass-extinctions this planet has experienced. Causation and magnitude of these events is a major field of research, but perturbations to the long-term carbon cycle, including major outgassing and weathering episodes, are an integral part of the overall picture and may be, in some instances, a prime cause. That we are causing one such major perturbation right now is an indication of the footprint we ourselves are going to leave in the geological record - and given our current track-record, it is not going to be something to be proud of. Indeed, I wonder what the rocks might tell, say 200 million years from now? Perhaps readers might make that the focus of the discussion! We'll return to some of these disastrous climatic changes of the past in future posts. Further reading: For a good in-depth discussion of weathering, the following book is well worth finding: Berner, R. A., 2004, The Phanerozoic Carbon Cycle: CO 2 and O 2 : Oxford, Oxford University Press, 150 p. The figure above was taken from: Berner, R.A. 2006: Inclusion of the Weathering of Volcanic Rocks in the GEOCARBSULF Model. American Journal of Science, May 2006 vol. 306 no. 5 295-302. Acknowledgement: My thanks to Bob Berner of Yale for helpful discussions and additional reading material. From Robert Goulet to Ron Burgundy, Will Ferrell has thrived on embodying a particularly oafish brand of American masculinity, sending up and serenading loveable dopes who dont realize that their time has passed. And at times, he did it with the help of Harper Steele, a former head writer for Saturday Night Live who came out as a trans woman during the pandemic. Ferrell, who started at SNL the same week as Steele in 1995, has long considered her one of his closest friends. But neither was sure how Steeles announcement would affect their relationship. So in Josh Greenbaums documentary Will & Harper, the two set off on a cross-country road trip, using their hours behind the wheel to forge a new understanding of who they are to each other, and testing it out at stops along the way. Harper, who, as she now puts it, previously performed as a character named Andrew, has a lifelong love of crisscrossing the country, stopping at dive bars and diners and sleeping in cheap motels. But shes not sure the places where she once felt most at home will welcome her newly visible self. Where she wouldnt have thought twice about walking down a dark alley while presenting as a man, shes learning to be a little more afraid of that stuff. The course she plots with Ferrell takes them from New York City to Los Angeles, with a stop in her hometown of Iowa City, and it leans heavily toward stereotypically American settings: a dive bar in rural Oklahoma, a Texas steakhouse where the 72-ounce cut is free if you can eat it in less than an hour. Steele wants to know if she still fits in these places, which have given hera person whose core personality Ferrell describes as Iowa born and raised, 501 jeans, shitty beerso much joy, and whether shell even still feel safe. Do American institutions have a place for her? And in how many of those institutions have trans people already found their place, whether or not the people around them know it? After all, Saturday Night Live had a trans writer on staff in the mid-90s. She just hadnt come out yet. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ferrells celebrity forms a penumbra around them wherever they go, attracting goodwilland attention, not all of it good. Hes used to being recognized, so much so that he cracks a joke for the camera on the rare occasion when his name draws a blank look, but he realizes that hes never felt the kind of scrutiny that falls on a visibly trans woman in a deep-red crowd. As much as Ive been in a fishbowl at various times in my life, he says to Steele, this trumps all of it. When Steele takes her first tentative steps into a roadside bar in Meeker, Oklahoma, she leaves Ferrell in the parking lot to see what it feels like to go it alone. But she keeps her phone handy, ready to call him the moment she needs backup. Advertisement Related From Slate Netflixs Star-Studded New Movie Is Transcendent Read More As it turns out, the patrons of the Full Moon Saloon are perfectly hospitable to Steeleor at least as hospitable as theyd be to any New Yorker with a camera crewdespite the ominous cutaway to a Fuck Biden flag the instant she walks in the door. (Left unremarked-upon is the fact that, even when Ferrell waits outside, shes never really alone.) At an auto-racing track nearby, a man with a young daughter makes the invitation explicit: Dont be afraid. If you enjoy it, come out. Although it finds more islands of open-mindedness than some might expect, Will & Harper doesnt idealize the heartland, and it points out how some of the people who appear to at least tolerate Steele in person behave quite differently when they dont have to look a trans person in the eye. At a Pacers game, she and Ferrell shake the hand of Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, only to find out in the car afterwards that he supported a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors and other anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. They make it out of that Texas steakhouse unscathed, but when the video of Ferrells heroic meat-eating goes viral, the internet floods with transphobic responses. Perhaps theres no conscious hostility in the Dennys waitress who addresses the pair as gentlemen, but you can see Ferrell learning as the trip progresses, jumping in to correct misgenderings and seizing opportunities to head them off in advance. Advertisement Advertisement No road trip in the company of Will Ferrell can pass for mundane, but he works to present himself as an avatar of cis male ordinariness, a loyal and big-hearted friend who nonetheless has a lot of questions: When did you know? Do you still want to have sex? And how do you like your new boobs? At times, watching Will & Harper feels a little like being led by the hand, even if you feel like youre ready to walk on your own. But the movies intentions are pure-hearted, and you get the sense that a lot of the people Ferrell and Steele encounter on their journey could benefit from an entry-level course. Ferrell might be one of the bigger stars in the country, but hes also a guy sitting in a Walmart parking lot with an old friend, chomping down Pringles and sipping on a Natty Light. (At times, the movies fondness for showing off brand logos evokes the product-placement gags in Talladega Nights, but if Dunkin Donuts wants to lend its name to the story of a middle-aged trans woman, so much the better.) Its as wholesome, and as American, as it gets. Ryan Murphys done it again (derogatory). Fresh off the popular success of Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, the man behind American Horror Story, Glee, and Nip/Tuck is back with another deeply questionable true-crime series. This time, its about the 1996 murder of Kitty and Jose Menendez by their sons Erik and Lyle in Beverly Hills. The case was a media sensation at the time, with the prosecution arguing that the brothers committed their crime in order to secure a massive inheritance and the defense arguing that they killed their parents in self-defense after years of grotesque sexual abuse at the hands of their father. Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is true crime made for a mass audience, so it is inevitably sensationalist. Just as inevitably, Ryan Murphy and his co-creator Ian Brennan have been doing the rounds justifying the shows existence, assuring people that they had the best intentions, making copious noises about handling things sensitively. This season is about abuse, Murphy said at the shows New York premiere, who is believed, whos not believed. In Brennans words: We finally have a vernacular to think about and discuss sex abuse and mental health that did not exist at the time. Related From Slate How Netflixs Dahmer Is Landing With the Communities He Hurt Most Read More And inevitably, too, the show has received significant backlash. When Dahmer came out, the families of the victims came forward to say that Murphy and co. never contacted them during the making of the program and that they found the series retraumatizing. The Menendez family has condemned this new show in the strongest possible terms for being both salacious and slanderous, and critics have widely panned it, with specific focus on a scene of the brothers incestuously enjoying a shower together. This does strike me as particularly eyebrow-raising, given that there is no evidence to suggest any of that happened, and one thing about true crime is that it is at least supposed to be true. But laxity about facts isnt really the core problem with The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. The problem with this season of Monster is that it has no idea what portrait of the people at the center of the story it wants to paint. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I think Ryan Murphy knows that the right way to tackle a story where it is unclear whether or not certain things happened is to leave it ambiguous. Surely that was the reasoning here: that in a court case, a jury is given two wildly different perspectives on the same events and must navigate holding the two possibilities in their head at the same time. It doesnt work here for several reasons, the first of which is that Murphy is not a good enough storyteller to pull it off. The series is a mess in general. There are bafflingly long dinner party scenes that seem to exist purely so that Nathan Lane as the journalist Dominick Dunne can dish out some vague expositional background on the sociopolitical goings-on of 1990s L.A. Its a shame that they put O.J. Simpson in this, partly because they decided not to show his face and so all scenes featuring him bizarrely show us his legs or back instead, but also because it meant I was thinking of the excellent O.J.: Made in America documentary series whenever he came up. Murphys exploration of this period was very much the inferior one when he produced 2016s The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, and its even worse here. Advertisement Advertisement The second reason The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story doesnt work is that the specific nature of the two possibilities youre being invited to hold in your headwhether two boys brutally murdered their parents in cold blood for money or whether they did it because of a lifetime of horrifying sexual abusemeans that, in a show where the brothers are the protagonists, and in which we are mostly following their perspectives, characterization is a nightmare. Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez), in particular, is a cartoonish devil wholesale inventing the brothers abuse at some moments and a pitiable little boy at others, with little to no framing to help the audience understand whose viewpoint of him we are seeing at these different moments. Advertisement Advertisement It is headache-inducing watching this show and trying to understand what tone it thinks its striking. One episode is 29 minutes of sincerely harrowing testimony by one of the brothers about how his father raped him, shot in one take. Elsewhere, Milli Vanillis Girl Im Gonna Miss You plays as the two brothers are driven off to separate prisons for the rest of their natural-born lives, or we get Dont Dream Its Over as the boys walk toward their house to murder their mother and father. The show tries to lean into the Tarantino-esque, aestheticized-violence appeal of a pair of young, rich, conventionally good-looking boys wearing 80s prep gear and wielding shotguns, while at the same time sensitively portraying the devastating effects of generational sexual trauma. It is a doomed enterprise. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But the third, and the most important and obvious, reason it does not work is that the Menendez brothers are real people. This is about as big a true-crime minefield as one could imagine. The accused are alive, still in prison serving life sentences, and still maintain their innocence and allege that they were subject to some of the most stomach-turning abuse Ive ever heard of. But rather than go gingerly as a result, Murphy has decided to merrily stomp straight through that minefield and take it in stride if the mines go off and he gets slaughtered by, say, the real people involved in these cases, or by critics, or by viewers. Already, Erik Menendez has slammed Murphy, accusing him of disheartening slander and vile and appalling character portrayals. Advertisement Related From Slate What HBOs Sleeper Hit Does Better Than Anything Else on TV Right Now Read More Cynically, though, Murphys approach makes sense. Why not do things this way, when experience tells him that hell come out the other side miraculously unscathed and able to get the backing to make another show just the same? It seems that the lesson Netflix and Murphy learned from Dahmer wasnt seems like the real people involved in these cases were pretty traumatized by the tastelessness of what we did, perhaps we oughtnt to have made it, but rather, loads of people watched, lets go again. Not surprising, I guess, but gross nonetheless. If that was the calculation, well, theyve been proven right. Loads of people have indeed watched Monsters. Not as many as Dahmer, but it was still the No. 1 show on Netflix the week it was released. So, tastelessness and moral questionableness be damned, I guess well do this all again in two years time. During the first week of September, when the bubble of humidity finally cracked over New York City, my autumn booked up in the blink of an eye. I received birthday invites for three dates in late October, one after another, on a single afternoon. Later, another friend, clearly pressured by the rapidly gridlocking itinerary, scouted out the 26th for what she described as a party for my dog. Others quickly claimed a few listless Tuesdays and Thursdays for more low-key affairsa bar crawl; a trivia night. Oh, and weve had a loose Halloween itinerary penciled in since late August. October has historically been one of the busiest months in the social calendar, but this was a feeding frenzy like never before. Saturdays are precious cargo, but they went flying off the calendar like Polo Bar reservations. Apparently, you now need to be hatching plans with eight weeks to spare, or risk being left in the dust. For most of my life, this was not the case. I used to exist in a social scene where party invites were dispensed, on average, a fortnight before the event itself. Two weeks was ample time to clear out a night in service of someone elses celebrationits an interval thats simultaneously at the top of your mind and comfortably far off in the distance. But since the pandemic, and particularly in the past year, something has shifted: Party invites have begun to function like Save the Dates or travel bookingstheyre arriving months ahead of time, locking up remote weekends that have yet to even materialize in my consciousness. The dynamic has given way to a certain butterfly effect within my community: a brinkmanship in the art of scheduling. Once one invite drops, the rest topple onto each other like dominoes until the unreachable Arctics of my docket are accounted for. I may not know what Ill be having for dinner tomorrow, but I do know that I have a house party on Nov. 15. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its not just me whos noticed this trend. One friend of mine recently received five party invites in the span of three hoursso many that he felt strong-armed into planning his own autumn birthday party long before the leaves began to turn. (He is unlucky enough to possess a birthday in the eye of the maelstromOct. 20, to be exact.) I needed to crowd out my opponents, he told me, half-jokingly. I had to throw something up in 30 minutes. Sure enough, right after, another invite came through. I have dubbed this new organizational norm invite creep, and Im well aware that my experience is not universal. I am 33, I dont have any kids, and I live in a highly concentrated urban area, which means invite creep is likely an accessory of that precious sliver of adulthood where people are still throwing parties. Still, I wanted to see if there was any objective evidence to my observation. Thats why I reached out to Partiful, an event-planning app launched in 2019 that has become the de facto method to quickly plan a birthday. (Partifuls best attribute is its ease of use: Click on a date, set a time, and the RSVPs are immediately beamed out to everyones phone.) To my relief, Shreya Murthy, the companys co-founder, told me Im not making things up. People are sending invites earlier. The numbers speak for themselves. Advertisement Advertisement Weve seen a 14 percent increase in the median time between when someone creates an event and when an event actually happens. And if you look at this on an overall average, that number jumps to 20 percent, said Murthy. Its first come, first served when it comes to dates. If you can lock in a date, and get people to commit, that gives you more time to plan. You gotta do what you gotta do to make it happen. This seems to be especially true for busier times of year. Its October, its Libra birthday season, she added. Were type A about our birthdays. Advertisement Murthys data actually clashes with the default assumptions of our post-COVID norms. By and large, Americans are less social now than they were before the pandemic, with almost half of those surveyed in a 2023 Newsweek study claiming that they simply do not go out as much as they used to. There are a lot of theories about our nationwide cloistering, from lingering anxieties about getting sick to the pernicious emotional dulling of cellphone use, but I think both of those points miss the forest for the trees. For the past decade, it was oddly cumbersome to quickly invite a lot of your friends to a single event. Social media veterans might remember the utility of Facebook Events, but after that platforms fall into dysfunction, we were all forced to circulate invites via unwieldy group texts and bulbous email lists. Technology had untangled so many snags in the civil strata, but for whatever reason, occasions were still vexing software developers. Mercifully, Partiful has streamlined the processmaybe thats why were seeing more events hitting our calendars. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There are always concerts and other events coming up, so I think part of the motivation is to block out the dates so I can remember them myself, said Tabitha Nichols, a 29-year-old in D.C. who has taken invite creep to the next level. The Partiful RSVPs for her mid-September birthday went out on July 19, while her Thanksgiving feast was officially scheduled in late summer. (Nichols isnt even the worst offender in her group: One pal made sure that her Indigenous Peoples Day hangon Oct. 14was solidified in the group calendar in June.) She tells me she has witnessed the indignity of someone waiting too long before dispatching a Partiful, condemning the unfortunate soul to the ultimate indignity of a sub-50-percent RSVP ratio. Shed never let that happen to herself. Advertisement Advertisement Consider Pride month this year, she continued. If you were going to throw a Pride party, you better schedule a date quickly, because theres a chance more interesting things are coming down the pipeline and youll have a lackluster turnout. For what its worth, Murthy agrees with Nichols observation. Partiful, by design, is extremely lo-fi, with almost zero barrier to entry. The platform keeps stock of the roster of people who have been wreathed with invitations in the pastremoving the need to listlessly scroll through your contacts to properly CC everyone. It is not an exaggeration to say you can schedule an event in under a minute. Jasmine McAlister, a 31-year-old data scientist, told me that she threw her birthday on the itinerary a month beforehand with basically no info, not even a location. According to Murthy, McAlisters flippancy is all connected to Partifuls intuitiveness. When the app is functioning as intended, she continued, hanging out with people in the real world is easier, more fun, and stress-free. Advertisement Advertisement Nadira Goffe, my Slate colleague, agrees. The likelihood of me attending anything with less than two to three weeks notice is less than 15 percent, but the likelihood of me attending something with four to eight weeks notice is 85 percent or higher, she told me, explaining that these long-tailed invites make it easier to anticipate the shape of her social duties. (Goffe did concede that, by admitting this, it might make it easier for people to slyly disinvite her from various functions by giving her an extremely late heads-up.) Of course, not everyone jibes with that vision. Katie Way, a fellow journalist, has carved out a stringent anti-Partiful position specifically because of the way it has wrecked her personal agenda. I think its rude when people plan out their shit way too far in advance, she told me. In a sense, she believes that Partiful has made planning events a bit too easy, and that shes been reflexively added to the dockets of occasions that do not deserve such formal, regimented treatment. The problem is exacerbated by another function built into Partifuls apparatus. After RSVPing to a party, the app will send text messages in the weeks, days, and hours beforehand unless it is muted, reminding the patrons that they are due at whatever obligation they have made. Its a problem that has obviously intensified in our invite-creep era, and it makes Way feel surveilled in a way she does not care forespecially for social duties she was already lukewarm on in the first place. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its like, OK, you invited me to the last three picnics in the park, so now Im automatically on the list for the next one, explained Way. It bogs you down. Why am I here? What is this? Release me. Im not down to get booked out like that. Way wants to go back to the methods of old, where party invites were disseminated through decentralized, scattershot channels. Maybe a screenshotted Close Friends story posted to Instagram, orget thisa text message sent out of the blue. It gives a lot more weight to the invitation, said Way. I take it a lot more seriously. She isnt alone here, either. Rachel Connolly took to the Irish Times to articulate her own policy of refusing to respond to any invite that doesnt reach her within a sensible, tangible time frame. I find the whole idea of it claustrophobic and dreary. I dont make plans more than about a week in advance unless its a birthday or a wedding, she wrote. There is almost no social occasion you truly do have to appear at. Nobody will die. Probably everyone will forget you arent there after an hour or so. Perhaps theyre both right, and eventually we will further refine these new norms of scheduling. The A-listers might enjoy prestige treatment, while everyone else is shuttled off into the rank-and-file Partiful queuephones flickering with scheduling minutia every couple of days. The good news is that people do seem to be hanging out with each other again. As long as you give us three months notice. New York City Mayor Eric Adamswho truly believes that God put him in that jobwas indicted this week on five federal charges related to bribery, wire fraud, and accepting straw donations from foreign officials. The acts detailed in the nearly 60-page indictment from the Southern District of New York span a full decade of Adams political career, dating back to his tenure as Brooklyn borough president and extending up through his current mayoral reelection campaign. (He pleaded not guilty to the counts on Friday.) Despite being the only mayor in NYC history to be charged during his tenure, Adams is still doing what he does best: refusing to budge an inch and clumsily making his case before a city thats long tired of his shenanigans. From here, my attorneys will take care of the case so I can take care of the city, he declared during a rainy Thursday morning press conference, sheltering under a pavilion with members of the citys Black clergy. My day-to-day will not change. I will continue to do the job for 8.3 million New Yorkers that I was elected to do. Eric Adams' press conference this morning ends with incredibly loud chants from the crowd of "RESIGN! RESIGN! RESIGN!!" pic.twitter.com/cDzMH7hll2 Read Abolish Rent (@JoshuaPHilll) September 26, 2024 Advertisement It was another wild moment from a mayor who is perhaps best recognized outside the city for having a long history of wild moments. You know, like claiming his favorite concert experience was the 1990 Brooklyn live show where Curtis Mayfield was paralyzed, or downing two beers at a Midtown Irish pub before noon on St. Patricks Day and deeming himself Eric OAdams, or wearing a lettered bracelet sporting the word HUSTLE while visiting holy sites in Israel. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Since he entered Gracie Mansion in 2022, Hizzoner has invited mass vitriol for slashing municipal public services while coddling the brutal, corrupt police department and demonizing the citys immigrants. But now, with the feds pursuing several probes into his inner circle and spurring some of his highest-ranking lieutenants to step down well, lets just say its difficult to imagine how even a mayor as defiant as this one manages to last in the political realm. Advertisement Well probably learn a lot over the coming months about just how closely intertwined Adams was with Turkeys government, which will surely provide us with much more fodder in evaluating the mans legacy. But in the interim, lets enjoy a trek down memory lane with a highlight reel of his most ridiculous moments. The Early Years Before Eric Adams entered politics, he served with the New York Police Department throughout the 1980s and 90s. Some highlights of his time on the beat: Adams put a poster with his headshot on a traffic-light pole that made an appearance in the video for Juicy, the rap classic from fellow Brooklynite the Notorious B.I.G. Has anyone noticed that an Eric Adams poster makes a cameo in the video for Biggie Smalls Juicy? (h/t: my son.) pic.twitter.com/xjDPU1LIIy Jesse Drucker (@JesseDrucker) October 22, 2021 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement He hung out with the Nation of Islam and its virulently antisemitic leader, Louis Farrakhan, while encouraging then-Mayor David Dinkins to place some of the controversial sects members on the citys payroll. He claimed that comptroller candidate Herman Badillo, a Puerto Rican, was not actually concerned about New Yorks Latino community because Badillo was married to a Jewish woman and not a Latina. Adams traveled to Indiana with other NYPD members to act as a police escort for Mike Tyson, who was serving time after being convicted on rape charges. He registered as a Republican and hobnobbed with his onetime ideological enemies before switching back to the Democratic Party on the advice of his political advisers. Advertisement All very normal stuff, already. But Adams would not relent on the outrageous behavior even after getting elected to the New York state Senate in 2006. His four terms in Albany, throughout which he wore a thin mustache and enhanced his statewide profile, saw him take on some, well, extremely interesting campaigns. Even if you werent in New York at the time, you may recall the national coverage of his 2010 Stop the Sag campaign, a $2,000-dollar effort that saw Adams upload videos and put up billboards across Brooklyn encouraging the citys Black youth to forgo the often-tut-tutted practice of wearing jeans that sank below their waistline and revealed their underwear. The slogan: Raise Your Pants, Raise Your Image! Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That wouldnt be state Sen. Adams only foray into online virality. In 2011, he filmed a five-minute PSA ostensibly aimed at preventing gun violencebut really, he was offering local parents thorough instruction on how to profile their children at home. Over a soundtrack of drab violins, Adams taught concerned guardians how to IN-spect what you EX-pect, explaining that a gun could be hidden in a jewelry box or a pillow, a used crack pipe in a popular knapsack, bullets behind a picture frame, weed inside a baby doll, and cocaine on a bookshelf. The First Amendment does not apply to the right of parents to go through their homes, to remove contraband or any other unsafe item, he concluded. Advertisement Advertisement His time in the state Senate also included his first bout of legal trouble while in public office: He was named in a 2010 governmental probe into local lawmakers who accepted money from a company that wanted to build New Yorks first casino. Adams was, however, not formally charged. Advertisement The Borough Presidency, and the Mayoral Campaign In 2013, Adams departed the New York Legislature and became Brooklyns first Black borough president, serving two terms. According to the new federal indictment, it was around this time that Adams allegedly began glad-handing with government officials from Turkey (a country to which he traveled a lot) and accepting funds in exchange for personal favors. During that time, Adams also fell under city investigation regarding allegations that he was funneling money earned renting out space at Brooklyn Borough Hall toward his nonprofit. (He denied the allegations and was not ultimately charged with a crime.) He also earned notoriety for granting unofficial parking spaces outside the hall to city employees whod racked up extensive records of traffic violations, and for telling city transplants to go back to Iowa and go back to Ohio. Advertisement Advertisement As borough president, he made a big show of sleeping at the Borough Hall in a makeshift bed and constructing a small gym to go along with it, and encouraged off-duty cops to carry their guns while attending church. Perhaps most notoriously, he presented the public with a rat bucket trap that could drown more than 100 rodentsand showed off the corpses to a crowd of shocked reporters and animal-rights activists. Advertisement Advertisement Nobody: Mayor Eric Adams: The rats may be listeninghttps://t.co/8KTT1egyCw pic.twitter.com/NFLOFjksJk Gothamist (@Gothamist) December 15, 2022 Advertisement But the chaos really ramped up when his campaign for mayor kicked off in earnest. Where even to begin? The time he claimed that the Golan Heights are part of Israel, instead of Syria, and that he wished to retire there? The video where he stated that his favorite New York movie is Taxi Driver but only referred to it as Taxi? The victory lap he took at Claires after winning the Democratic primary, getting his ear pierced to fulfill a promise hed made to young New Yorkers on the campaign trail? Advertisement Well, there was the point when people began to question whether he even lived in New York City, considering that he kept sleeping at Brooklyn Borough Hall while campaigning for a different position. None of the residents who lived near the Brooklyn properties registered in his name had ever seen him around, and he also owned a place in New Jersey with his partner, Tracey Collins. To clear things up, Adams granted a tour of his Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment to local reporters, although it appeared that his son resided there more often than he didthere was only one bed (??) and Adams never seemed to pick up any of his mail. Advertisement Advertisement There was also only one bed in the apartment so the implication was that yes Eric Adams and his 25 year old son slept in the same bed pic.twitter.com/RFzKd0FKTU Gina Raimondos Wins (@RaimondosWins) September 26, 2024 Advertisement Advertisement Live From Gracie Mansion Eric Adams may not be a well-liked mayor, but hes certainly never been an uninteresting one. From Week One, he promised to bring back swagger to the citythen garnered controversy by dissing low-skilled workers, my cooks, my dishwashers, my messengers, my shoe-shine people and appointing a controversial deputy mayor who resigned just this week after being investigated by the feds. Advertisement Adams kicked off his time as mayor with frequent stops to a Manhattan restaurant run by two convicted felons, dining with such upstanding characters as the now-imprisoned Sam Bankman-Fried. (One wonders whether that was the location of the table of success, where he claimed that all my haters become my waiters.) He partied at a club with Cara Delevingne and ASAP Rocky, suggested that Kansas doesnt have a brand, waxed poetic on the magical properties of crystals, received his first three mayoral paychecks in cryptocurrencies (losing a lot of actual monetary value in the process), and proclaimed himself the hip-hop mayor while demonizing the citys drill rappers (whose ranks include Adams own son). Cara Delevingne dances to ASAP Rocky next to New York City Mayor Eric Adams is a lot for a Monday night. pic.twitter.com/YVGhi2RiRG Jacob Rubashkin (@JacobRubashkin) March 29, 2022 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And that was all just in 2022! The following year, he utilized city funds to launch an infrequently updated podcast titled the Get Stuff Done-Cast, awarded a key to the city to one Sean Diddy Combs (yikes!), and got exposed for mocking up a photo of a fake cop that he carried around in his wallet and presented to the public as a former NYPD colleague. He began rolling out robot cops in Times Square (an initiative that, thankfully, didnt last too long), got his phone snatched by the feds, and capped off 2023 with a real humdinger of an interview: When a PIX11 anchor asked Adams to sum up the year in one word, Adams responded, New York, and described it as a city where you could experience everything from a plane crashing into our Trade Center to a person whos celebrating a new business thats open. Advertisement Mr. Mayor, describe 2023 in one word. "Ugh, New York. This is a place where everyday you wake up, you could experience everything from a plane crashing into our Trade Center to a person celebrating a new business that's open...And that's why it's the greatest city on the globe." pic.twitter.com/0jjv9DMzJ6 Just one person (@Newyorkist) December 18, 2023 Advertisement Advertisement That finally brings us up to 2024and you better believe Adams had a lot of weird shit to say even before he got indicted. This was the year when he told a schoolkid that betrayal motivated him to run for mayor; tossed a trash bag into a wheelie bin while Empire State of Mind blasted in the background; addressed the influx of immigrants into NYC by referring to the newcomers as excellent swimmers who should be lifeguards, and engaged in a heated, viral debate with criminal justice attorney Olayemi Olurin on The Breakfast Club, where he referred to himself by the third person pretty much nonstop. Advertisement Advertisement Adams also defended a city-funded A.I. chatbot that frequently told its users to break the law in myriad ways, touted faulty A.I.-powered gun-detection systems that police began rolling out in certain subway stations, and got baptized by Al Sharpton on Rikers Island. And Hizzoner kept on, for whatever reason, referring to New York as the Lima/Islamabad/Mexico City/Istanbul of America. Mayor Adams: New York City is the ___ of America pic.twitter.com/sXv3X4Gad5 Gothamist (@Gothamist) March 22, 2024 Advertisement To take the cake: Earlier this month, as the FBI kept poking into members of his administration, Adams played a game of catch outside City Hall with a representative from 30 Catches in 30 Days, an initiative to raise awareness around prostate cancer. As part of the public campaign, he asked his catching partner if women get prostate cancer as often as men do. the tail end of the exchange here pic.twitter.com/uYFEwi9NbL katie honan (@katie_honan) September 18, 2024 Greatest city in the world, baby. The city and the principal have distanced themselves from the event. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Share On September 17, a Russian propaganda event reportedly took place at a primary school in Nitra. It was highlighted by the platform Nie v nasom meste (Not in Our Town), which focuses on supporting democracy and countering radicalisation in society. On September 26, the Education Ministry also responded to it. Milos Zverina from the Slavica association brought panels on the 1944 Slovak National Uprising (SNP) to an event involving a military veteran at Skultetyho 1 Primary School in Nitra. They reportedly described the Soviet army's contribution to the SNP in adulatory and misleading terms. Slavica is a "Slavic" group that interprets history from a pro-Russian persepective. Ministry reacted After an article titled "Russian Propaganda Directly at a Primary School" appeared on the news website tyzden.sk, the Education Ministry responded. "The ministry strongly condemns the exhibition on the Slovak National Uprising (SNP) and World War II, which included elements of political propaganda, that took place at the Nitra primary school, and it emphatically advises schools against hosting similar exhibitions," stated the ministry. It described the exhibition as including political propaganda, and advised schools against hosting such events. The ministry praised the quick response of Nitra town hall, which highlighted the importance of communication with the school and parents to prevent similar incidents. The ministry also announced it would investigate Slavicas involvement. City apologises to students and their parents Henrich Varga, communication advisor to the mayor, stated: "We consider such events in public spaces to be absolutely unacceptable. We need to check the facts and determine if the organisers misled the school under the guise of a discussion." The City of Nitra apologised to the affected children and parents. Varga added that the school was a victim of a hybrid threat, and further assessments and systematic measures are being taken to prevent future incidents. The event was likely organised by "Women in Skirts," a nationalist group that purports to promote traditional values. They boasted on social media about a "successful meeting of a military veteran with students," with Peter Andreansky, the veteran, discussing "peace". Panels brought by Milos Zverina commemorated the 80th anniversary of the SNP. An image from the school event; in the background are panels praising the Soviet army and its "huge" contributiion to the SNP in 1944. (Source: FB Zeny v sukni (Women in Skirts)) School distances itself from propaganda The principal of the school, Henrieta Martincova, clarified in a statement: "We became victims of unwanted propaganda and online disinformation." She distanced the school from Slavica's ideologies, asserting that the talk was about the veterans missions, not the SNP or pro-Russian propaganda. Martincova also acknowledged that the responsible teacher, described as young and inexperienced, had failed to inform her about the event in advance, leading to the propaganda material being displayed. The school has now implemented measures to prevent a recurrence. The unnamed teacher added that with conspiracy theorists in high places, its difficult to manage such situations. He rhetorically asked, "Imagine inviting someone like [MP and conspiracy theorist Peter] Kotlar to speak about his Covid theories. Would that be educational or spreading conspiracy?" Slovakia ranked 17th in the theft of email addresses in 2023, credit bureau reports. What passwords were most commonly stolen from Slovaks last year? (Source: Pixabay) Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Share In 2023, there was a significant global increase in the number of leaked login credentials for email accounts, combined with the theft and resale of passwords, usernames, telephone numbers and other data. In the case of stolen email addresses along with passwords, Slovakia ranked 17th worldwide. This is based on an analysis by the CRIF (Slovak Credit Bureau), which operates credit registries and systems in Slovakia, state broadcaster STVR reported. Beatrice Rubini, executive director of the CRIF's cybersecurity domain section, explained that cybercriminals use malware and various fake applications to steal personal data. These can be difficult to distinguish from genuine ones. When targeting consumers, they also exploit artificial intelligence tools. Fraudulent emails, often phrased in a trustworthy manner, are very common. Many internet users are careless. They repeatedly use the same password for different accounts and services, and store their login information directly in their browsers. This increases their vulnerability, she warned. In terms of email address thefts along with passwords, neighbouring Czechia performed even worse than Slovakia, ranking 11th due to the theft of .cz domains. The unwanted top spot goes to the USA and global email accounts with .com and .net endings. Russia follows in second place with .ru, then Germany with .de, and Italy with the .it domain. The most commonly stolen Slovak passwords in 2023 included simple number combinations like 123456, 123456789, and first names such as martin, monika, and dominika. Other terms included onedirection, wattpad, mamina (mother), and password. In 2023, approximately 7.5 billion exploitable pieces of information circulated in online spaces and communication platforms, nearly 45 per cent more than in 2022. In 2023, attackers most frequently targeted passwords, email addresses, usernames, names and surnames, and telephone numbers. Compared to 2022, passwords overtook email addresses to secure the most-stolen position. Washington Nationals' CJ Abrams steals third base during the first inning of a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley) WASHINGTON (AP) Washington Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo said Friday his long-term view of CJ Abrams has not changed after the teams decision to demote the All-Star shortstop last week. Abrams was optioned to Triple-A Rochester on Saturday for the final nine days of the regular season for what the team described as an internal matter. The 23-year-old reported to Washingtons training complex in West Palm Beach, Florida, this week. Hes still our guy, Rizzo said during an end-of-season conversation with reporters. We love him and hes going to be a great player for us. Optioning him out wasnt the end of the world. We have a standard here and we have to keep people accountable. He still has a great upside and still in our minds is going to be a great major league shortstop. Abrams hit .246 with 20 homers, 65 RBIs and 31 steals in 138 games this season, earning his first All-Star selection in July. Rizzo said the demotion was family matters while declining to address a tweet that claimed Abrams was at a Chicago casino until 8 a.m. on Sept. 20, hours before an afternoon game against the Cubs. Rizzo then referenced the tweet when asked about the alternatives he weighed before making the decision to send Abrams to the minors. It became public because of the tweet that came out, Rizzo said. It was an internal decision that I made for the betterment of the organization. Abrams is one of the cornerstones of Washingtons rebuilding project. The Nationals acquired him as part of an August 2022 deal that sent Juan Soto to San Diego, and Abrams quickly became a fixture in the lineup. The Nationals (69-90) have three games left in their fifth consecutive losing season since winning the 2019 World Series. Washington will finish fourth in the NL East after four straight years in last place. Rizzo said the franchise needs to be active in the trade and free-agent markets during the offseason while also continuing to develop players. I think its time to spend, at a point, Rizzo said. Were going to see whos available and what fits what we have out there. I think its time for us to add to the roster because we have a good, young core group of guys, and some veteran leadership, I think, is warranted. ___ AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB https://sputnikglobe.com/20240926/denmark-fears-nord-stream-facts-that-compromise-support-for-kiev--russian-ambassador-1120306608.html Denmark Dreads 'Inconvenient' Nord Stream Facts Bound to Damage Ukraine Support Russian Envoy Denmark Dreads 'Inconvenient' Nord Stream Facts Bound to Damage Ukraine Support Russian Envoy Sputnik International Danish authorities are not interested in completing an investigation into the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines because they fear the facts will compromise aid to Kiev, Russian Ambassador to Denmark Vladimir Barbin said. 2024-09-26T22:49+0000 2024-09-26T22:49+0000 2024-09-27T07:04+0000 world germany denmark russia nord stream europe vladimir barbin dmitry peskov https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/08/09/1119695249_0:280:3072:2008_1920x0_80_0_0_0c7edc7a11792bc3620a3394f8818676.jpg "Only Germany and Russia are continuing the investigation. German investigators have found the Ukrainian trail in this criminal case. Suspects in carrying out this terrorist attack have emerged. Nothing is known about the reaction from Copenhagen. The Danish investigation has not been resumed. The Danish authorities are apparently seriously concerned that inconvenient facts and evidence could emerge during the investigation that would compromise both Euro-Atlantic solidarity and calls for further arms supplies to the Kiev regime," Barbin wrote in an article for the Politiken newspaper. The text was published on the diplomatic mission's website. He said Denmark is apparently satisfied with the lack of results in the probe into the sabotage on the pipelines and apparently wants to forget about the undermining of the European energy infrastructure. Russia will seek an explanation from Denmark regarding its failure to fulfill its obligations to combat terrorism under international conventions, Barbin added.The head of the Russian diplomatic mission recalled that the Danish authorities had not classified the Nord Stream bombing as a terrorist attack, which would have been in line with the provisions of the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, to which Russia and Denmark are parties."This legally binding agreement also stipulates that its participants provide each other with maximum assistance in the investigation. However, the involvement of Russia, the most affected party, was not part of Copenhagen's plans," Barbin said.The Nord Stream pipelines, built to deliver gas under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, were hit by explosions on September 26, 2022. Denmark, Germany and Norway have left Russia out of their investigations into the attack, prompting Moscow to launch its own probe on charges of international terrorism.Russia has repeatedly requested data on the explosions from the European countries, but has never received it, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240926/nord-stream-pipelines-must-be-restored---german-lawmaker-1120302757.html germany denmark 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 nord stream bombings, who bombed the nord stream pipeline, nord stream investigation, denmark nord stream https://sputnikglobe.com/20240926/trump-publishes-alleged-zelensky-letter-asking-for-meeting-in-new-york-on-friday-1120306344.html Trump Publishes Alleged Zelensky Letter Asking for Meeting in New York on Friday Trump Publishes Alleged Zelensky Letter Asking for Meeting in New York on Friday Sputnik International Republican nominee for president Donald Trump published a letter on Truth Social allegedly from Volodymyr Zelensky, requesting a meeting with the one-time and possible future president. 2024-09-26T22:29+0000 2024-09-26T22:29+0000 2024-09-26T22:29+0000 americas donald trump us volodymyr zelensky ukraine new york city truth social republican 2024 us presidential election new york https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/09/10/1120164729_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_551dd0924cb69ae3bbacef6c3543800e.jpg "Days ago, we requested a meeting with you, and I really want to hear your thoughts directly, and firsthand. You [Trump] know I always speak with great respect about everything connected to you, and that's how it should be. I can be in New York on Friday, which would be a good time to meet," Trumps post quoted the apparent Zelensky letter as saying on Thursday. "Let me know if you are in the city at that time - I would really like for our meeting to take place." According to the letter, which was allegedly passed to Trump by Deputy Ambassador of Ukraine Denys Sienik, Zelensky believes that it is impossible to achieve a "just peace" without the help of the United States. In the letter, Zelensky also notes that he always speaks with great respect about everything connected to Trump. Relations between Zelensky and Trump have worsened amid statements made by the former during his visit to the United States, which has been going on for almost a week now. Over the weekend, Zelensky visited a munitions factory in Scranton with Pennsylvanias Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro and Democratic Senator Bob Casey, leading Trumps allies to accuse him of election interference. In an interview with The New Yorker, Zelensky also criticized Trumps running mate J.D. Vance as "too radical" and Trump himself as unable to stop the war in Ukraine despite his claims to do so if elected president. Trump slammed Zelensky on Monday and Tuesday as wanting Democrats to win "so badly." US media reported later in the day that Trump planned to meet with Zelensnky on Friday. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240924/donald-trump-jr-slams-zelensky-for-disgraceful-move-to-attack-gop-presidential-ticket-1120268407.html americas ukraine new york city new york 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 zelensky letter to trump, trump meets with zelensky https://sputnikglobe.com/20240927/african-energy-chamber-calls-western-funding-withdrawal-from-key-projects-immoral-1120313482.html African Energy Chamber Calls Western Funding Withdrawal From Key Projects 'Immoral' African Energy Chamber Calls Western Funding Withdrawal From Key Projects 'Immoral' Sputnik International The withdrawal of Western funding for key projects in Africa is outrageous and constitutes "financial apartheid," NJ Ayuk, the executive chairman of the African Energy Chamber, told Sputnik. 2024-09-27T11:43+0000 2024-09-27T11:43+0000 2024-09-27T11:43+0000 economy africa insight russian energy week natural gas europe joint projects https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/09/1b/1120313670_0:0:3169:1784_1920x0_80_0_0_b731f0d64e996e2d9f627efc7599b65a.jpg "One of the key things you have to see is that the exclusionary rule, which we call financial apartheid, that you've seen from Western countries when it comes to financing Africa and really providing funds, it is wrong. It is immoral. It is outrageous what they're doing," Ayuk said on the sidelines of the Russian Energy Week International Forum. The official pointed to energy projects, saying that natural gas powering Europe was described as green, which was not the case for Africa. Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International russian energy week international forum, russian energy week, african energy projects, joint african western projects, western funding in africa, western funding withdrawal from africa https://sputnikglobe.com/20240927/algeria-accuses-morocco-of-sending-israeli-intelligence-agents-to-country---reports-1120308933.html Algeria Accuses Morocco of Sending Israeli Intelligence Agents to Country - Reports Algeria Accuses Morocco of Sending Israeli Intelligence Agents to Country - Reports Sputnik International The Algerian Foreign Ministry accused Morocco of sending Israeli intelligence agencies into the country and introduced mandatory entry visas for all foreign citizens with a Moroccan passport. 2024-09-27T04:03+0000 2024-09-27T04:03+0000 2024-09-27T04:04+0000 africa morocco algeria sputnik foreign ministry polisario front western sahara israel mossad https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/0a/0d/1089904783_0:0:2048:1153_1920x0_80_0_0_a86546ee0c110e1c1d3e9df4ba706212.jpg In addition, the Algerian Foreign Ministry accused the neighboring state of organizing numerous crime networks, drug and human trafficking, smuggling, illegal migration and espionage, the report said on Thursday. Thus, the Algerian government has decided to introduce mandatory entry visas for all foreign citizens with a Moroccan passport, the report added. The two countries have been at odds over Moroccos claim to Western Sahara, where Algeria supports the Polisario Front, a group that has been fighting for Western Saharas independence for decades. Algeria cut diplomatic ties with Morocco in 2021 after accusing it of spying on Algerian officials and supporting separatist groups. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230507/entry-into-brics-to-help-algeria-more-than-other-organizations---president-1110157468.html africa morocco algeria western sahara 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 mossad agents in algeria, morocco uses israeli agents, morocco algeria relations https://sputnikglobe.com/20240927/china-suggests-creating-friends-of-peace-platform-to-resolve-ukrainian-crisis-1120309464.html China Suggests Creating 'Friends of Peace' Platform to Resolve Ukrainian Crisis China Suggests Creating 'Friends of Peace' Platform to Resolve Ukrainian Crisis Sputnik International China, Brazil and other countries of the Global South intend to create an open platform "Friends of Peace" to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has said. 2024-09-27T06:25+0000 2024-09-27T06:25+0000 2024-09-27T06:25+0000 world china wang yi brazil ukraine un general assembly https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/06/0a/1118894030_0:0:3070:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_13831a56390cab32d53138cbe291aa30.jpg "China, Brazil and other like-minded countries of the Global South are planning to create [an open platform] 'Friends of Peace' on the Ukrainian crisis in the near future. This is an attempt by China, Brazil and the countries of the Global South to achieve peace," Wang Yi said at a meeting with Brazilian Presidential Adviser Celso Amorim on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session.In May this year, China and Brazil published a joint six-point plan for a political settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, which received positive feedback from more than 100 countries. china brazil ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International ukraine crisis, china's plan for ukrainian settlement, china and brazil on ukraine crisis, friends of peace platform https://sputnikglobe.com/20240927/finland-proposes-to-host-nato-ground-forces-hq-near-russian-border-1120311444.html Finland Proposes to Host NATO Ground Forces HQ Near Russian Border Finland Proposes to Host NATO Ground Forces HQ Near Russian Border Sputnik International The Finnish Defense Ministry proposed on Friday to place the headquarters of the NATO ground forces in city of Mikkeli near the border with Russia. 2024-09-27T09:58+0000 2024-09-27T09:58+0000 2024-09-27T09:58+0000 military russia finland sweden nato nato expansion https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/09/1b/1120311284_0:160:3076:1890_1920x0_80_0_0_ca370db1ca23c578603e984f6dce19f5.jpg The Finnish Defense Ministry proposed on Friday to place the headquarters of the NATO ground forces in city of Mikkeli near the border with Russia. "Finland's defence administration proposes Mikkeli, the town where the Finnish Army Command is based, as the location for NATO's Multi Corps Land Component Command (MCLCC)," the statement read.Finland joined NATO on April 4, 2023, along with Sweden. In an interview with Dmitry Kiselev, Vladimir Putin stated that the accession of these countries to the alliance was a pointless step in terms of their national interests, as Russian troops and strike systems would now appear near their borders.Russia has repeatedly pointed out NATO's unprecedented activity near its western borders in recent years. The alliance claims it is expanding initiatives as part of "deterring Russian aggression." Moscow has frequently expressed concern over the buildup of NATO forces in Europe. The Kremlin has noted that Russia does not pose a threat to anyone but will not ignore actions that could potentially endanger its interests. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240214/ball-and-bastion-how-russia-protects-border-with-finland-after-helsinkis-nato-entry--1116779761.html russia finland sweden 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 finland, nato, nato hq in finland, russia, us, nato expansion https://sputnikglobe.com/20240927/food-prices-in-somalia-impacted-by-ukraine-conflict---foreign-minister-to-sputnik-1120308757.html Food Prices in Somalia Impacted by Ukraine Conflict, Calls for Negotiation - Foreign Minister Food Prices in Somalia Impacted by Ukraine Conflict, Calls for Negotiation - Foreign Minister Sputnik International Somalian Foreign Minister Ahmed Fiqi told Sputnik that food prices in the country have been impacted by the conflict in Ukraine. 2024-09-27T03:40+0000 2024-09-27T03:40+0000 2024-09-27T03:44+0000 africa africa insight somalia sputnik ukraine https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/0a/1b/1102765817_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_9e5c9c32d0f568970245a3eec5b231c8.jpg Yes," Fiqi said when asked whether the Ukrainian conflict has impacted the prices of food in Somalia. "[Food prices have been] very, very impacted. In addition, many other areas have also been impacted by the Ukrainian conflict, Fiqi added.The resolution of the Ukrainian conflict lies in negotiations and dialogue, Fiqi continued. Fiqi further added that no one can force others to do anything.Russian President Vladimir Putin said in June that Russia would cease fire and start talks with Ukraine as soon as Kiev withdrew troops from Russia-controlled regions and abandoned plans to join NATO. Zelensky rejected the proposal, calling it an ultimatum.Somalia faced its worst drought in decades from 2021 to 2023, resulting in a food crisis for about half of its population.Somalia collapsed in 1991 with the fall of the dictatorial regime of Mohamed Siad Barre. The federal government, which controls the capital city of Mogadishu and several other areas, is recognized by the international community as the only legitimate authority in the country. The remaining parts of Somalia are under the control of unrecognized state entities or are self-governing territories. The northern part is the unrecognized Republic of Somaliland and in the eastern part is the Puntland region, which declared autonomy in 1998. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231203/whats-behind-russias-drive-to-provide-africa-with-grain-1115358187.html africa somalia ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International affects of ukraine war on africa, somalia food prices, somalia famine@sarkodie you're quite oooo man the nation is full of surprises no nyinaa? pic.twitter.com/ZDMCi8WejS
MAYEBI (@Mayebi688707) September 26, 2024